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Dīn, a term that appears in the Qurʾān with a variety of meanings, including ‘religion’, ‘creed’, and ‘recompense’. For the most part, however, the usage of the word dīn by the Arabs reflects, to a greater or lesser degree, the concept of ‘religion’ as generally understood by non-Muslims. Some Muslim scholars contend that Islam is an all-encompassing  religion, owing to the fact that the teachings and laws of Islam have a bearing on all aspects of life, so that there is not a ‘secular sphere’ existing beyond the purview of…

, Imāmī S̲h̲ʿī scholar, born in 504/1110-11 and died, apparently, in 575/1179-80, whose complete name is al-ʿaūāma al-ḥāfiẓ al-s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUbayd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAli b. al-Ḥusayn b. Mūsā b. Bābawayh al-Ḳummī al-Rāzī, known by the abbreviated name Ibn Bābawayh and the honorific Muntad̲j̲ab al-Dīn. From this onomastic formula, it may be deduced that he was descended from the family of Bābawayh, originally of Ḳumm, well-known in circles of S̲h̲īʿi traditionists (it will suffice to mention …

(d. ca. 1213-14) poet and author of philosophical works in Persian. His works suggest a disdain for officials, and his tomb in Maraq is still a place of pilgrimage. A version of this article is available in print Volume III, Fascicle 3, pp. 285-291 BĀBĀ AFŻAL-AL- DĪN MOḤAMMAD B. ḤASAN MARAQĪ KĀŠĀNĪ, known as Bābā Afżal, poet and author of philosophical works in Persian. Several dates have been suggested for his death, the most likely being 610/1213-14 (M.-T. Modarres Rażawī, Aḥwāl wa āṯār-e … Naṣīr-al-Dīn [Ṭūsī], Tehran, 1354 Š./1975, p. 207; cf. J. Rypka, “Bābā Afḍal,” in EI2 I, pp. 838-39…

b. Bahāʾ al-Dīn Sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ Walad b. Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad K̲h̲aṭībī , known by the sobriquet Mawlānā (Mevlânâ), Persian poet and founder of the Mawlawiyya order of dervishes, which was named after him, was born on Rabīʿ I 604/30 September 1207 in Balk̲h̲, and died on 5 D̲j̲umāda II 672/1273 in Ḳonya. The reasons put forward against the above-mentioned date of birth (Abdülbaki Gölpinarli, Mevlânâ Celâleddîn 3, 44; idem, Mevlânâ Şams-i Tabrîzî ile altmiṣ iki yaşinda buluştu , in Şarkiyat Mecmuasi , iii, 153-61; and Bir yazi üzerine , in Tarih Coǧrafya Dünyasi , ii/1…

founder of the Moʿezzī or Slave Dynasty and the first Muslim king of India, also called Ībak (moon chieftain) and Aybak Šel. A version of this article is available in print Volume III, Fascicle 2, pp. 135-136 AYBAK, QOṬB-AL-DĪN, founder of the Moʿezzī or Slave Dynasty and the first Muslim king of India, also called Ībak (moon chieftain) and Aybak Šel (lit., of the damaged little finger; this interpretation of the name is preferred by Thomas, Pathān Kings of Delhi, p. 32). In the second half of the 6th/12th century, while still a boy, he was brought from Turkestan to Nīšāpū…

master painter, proverbial for his skill, active in Herat during the reign of the Timurid Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (1470-1506). A version of this article is available in print Volume IV, Fascicle 2, pp. 114-116 BEHZĀD, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN, master painter, proverbial for his skill, active in Herat during the reign of the Timurid Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (875-912/1470-1506). Behzād’s name has become synonymous with the high level of artistic skill displayed by the painters of this period, although the precise nature of his personal contribution is a matter…

Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad Humāyūn (d. 963/1556) was the second Mughal emperor, who ruled intermittently in India and Afghanistan from 937/1531 to 947/1540 and 952/1545 to 963/1556. He was born in 913/1508 in Kabul to Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur (r. 932–7/1526–30), the founder of the Mughal state, and he died in Delhi. Humāyūn spent the early years of his life in Afghanistan, serving as the governor of Badakhshan for most of his youth. He moved to India in December 932/1526, after the battle of Panipat,…

(1145 or 46-1221) Persian poet, Sufi, theoretician of mysticism, and hagiographer, was born and died in Nīšāpūr. A version of this article is available in printVolume III, Fascicle 1, pp. 20-25 ʿAṬṬĀR, SHAIKH FARĪD-AL-DĪN, Persian poet, Sufi, theoretician of mysticism, and hagiographer, born ca. 540/1145-46 at Nīšāpūr, and died there in 618/1221. His name was Abū Ḥāmed Moḥammad b. Abī Bakr Ebrāhīm or, according to Ebn al-Fowatī, b. Saʿd b. Yūsof. ʿAṭṭār and Farīd-al-dīn were his pen-names. (B. Forūzānfar, Šarḥ-e aḥwāl wa naqd o taḥlīl-e āṯār-e Šayḵ Farīd-al-dīn Moḥammad ʿA…

14th-century Češti mystic and author. Though originally from Naḵšab (or Nasaf, in Transoxiana), his family emigrated to India at the time of Mongol incursions. NAḴŠABI, ŻIĀʾ-AL-DIN (d. 751/1350), 14th-century Češti mystic and author. Though originally from Naḵšab (or Nasaf, in Transoxiana), his family emigrated to India at the time of Mongol incursions (Rizvi, I, p. 132). A follower of the Češti Skaikh Farid-al-Din Nāguri (d. 752/1351), Żiāʾ-al-Din Naḵšabi lived a reclusive life in Badāʾun, disregarding whether or not p…

Abū l-Jannāb Aḥmad b. ʿUmar Najm al-Dīn (b. c.540/1145, d. 618/1221), known as Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, founded the Kubraviyya, one of Central Asia’s three major indigenous Ṣūfī orders and the most prominent in the region during the Mongol era. A gifted polemicist and student of the exoteric Islamic sciences, such as ḥadīth and kalām, a maktab (primary school) instructor nicknamed him, in his younger days, al-Ṭāmma al-Kubrā—variously translated as “the major disaster,” “the overwhelming event,” “the greatest affliction,” or “the Day of Judgement,” in refe…

[or Kāšāni], ḠIĀṮ-AL-DIN JAMŠID b. MASʿUD b. MOḤAMMAD (b. ca. 787/1386, d. ca. 832/1429), mathematician, astronomer and scientific instrument-maker of the highest rank. He was also known as a practitioner of medicine, being sometimes referred to as “al-Ṭabib” (the physician), and he mentioned in one of his letters to his father (see below) that he dabbled also in music. A version of this article is available in print Volume XVI, Fascicle 1, pp. 64-67 KĀŠI [or Kāšāni], ḠIĀṮ-AL-DIN JAMŠID b. MASʿUD b. MOḤAMMAD (b. ca. 787/1386, d. ca. 832/1429) , mathematician, astronomer and scientif…

ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad, the twenty-sixth Nizārī Ismaili imam and the seventh lord of Alamūt (r. 618–653/1221–1255). The only son of Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan (r. 607–618/1210–1221), he was born in 609/1212 in Rūdbār. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad’s mother was one of the sisters of Kaykāwūs b. Shāhanshāh, ¶ the hereditary Sunni ruler of Kūtum in Gīlān (Juwaynī, 3/247–248, tr. Boyle, 2/702–703; Rashīd al-Dīn, ed. Dānishpazhūh, 176, ed. Rawshan, 173; Kāshānī, Zubda, 216; idem, Tārīkh, 57–58; Rabino, 288–289). On the death of Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan in Ramaḍān 618/November 1221, his son and he…

ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad, the twenty-sixth Nizārī Ismaili imam and the seventh lord of Alamūt (r. 618–653/1221–1255). The only son of Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan (r. 607–618/1210–1221), he was born in 609/1212 in Rūdbār. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad’s mother was one of the sisters of Kaykāwūs b. Shāhanshāh, the hereditary Sunni ruler of Kūtum in Gīlān (Juwaynī, 3/247–248, tr. Boyle, 2/702–703; Rashīd al-Dīn, ed. Dānishpazhūh, 176, ed. Rawshan, 173; Kāshānī, Zubda, 216; idem, Tārīkh, 57–58; Rabino, 288–289). On the death of Jalāl al-Dīn Ḥasan in Ramaḍān 618/November 1221, his son and hei…

Aḥmad b. Mād̲j̲id, an Arab navigator of the xvth century, author of sailing instructions for the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gnlf, the western China Sea and the waters of the Malay Archipelago. When Vasco da Gama had reached Malindi on the east coast of Africa in 1498, he was able to get a pilot there who took him direct to Calicut. The incident is briefly recorded by one of the sailors in the expedition ( Rottiro da viagem de Vasco de Gama em MCCCCXCVII, 2nd. ed., ed. by A. Herculano and Castelle dePaiva, Lisbon 1861, p. 49); and in greater detail by the Portuguese historians of the xvith ce…

Bahāʾ al-Dīn Abū l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Manṣur al-Ibshīhī (or al-Abshīhī) (b. 790/1388, d. after 850/1446) was an Egyptian writer of the late Mamlūk period, whose fame rests almost entirely on his popular encyclopaedia al-Mustaṭraf fī kull fann mustaẓraf (“The exquisite elements in every elegant art”). The work is a collection of sayings, anecdotes, and poems, both religious and secular, including some examples in dialectal Egyptian Arabic. According to the biographer al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497), al-Ibshīhī was born in Abshūya, a village either in the Fayyūm o…

Ḥamīd al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbdallāh al-Kirmānī (d. after 411/1020–1) was one of the most important Ismāʿīlī Shīʿī authors of the Fāṭimid period, although biographical details about him are sketchy. As his nisba al-Kirmānī suggests, he was probably born in the city of Kirmān, in eastern Iran. The title of one of his lost works, al-Majālis al-Baṣriyya wa-l-Baghdādiyya (“The sessions of Basra and Baghdad”), indicates that he worked as an Ismāʿīlī propagandist (dāʿī) in the heart of the ʿAbbāsid Empire, organising teaching sessions (majālis) in Basra and Baghdad. Later Ismāʿīlī autho…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. al-Ḥusayn, one of the most celebrated theologians and exegetists of Islam, born in 543/1149 (or perhaps 544) at Rayy. His father, Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Abu ’l-Ḳāsim, was a preacher ( k̲h̲aṭīb ) in his native town, from whose name comes his son’s appellation, Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb. He was also conversant with kalām and, among other works, wrote the G̲h̲āyat al-marām , in which he showed himself a warm partisan of al-As̲h̲ʿarī. Al-Subkī who gives him a brief review ( Ṭabaḳāt al-S̲h̲āfiʿiyya , iv, 285-6) names among the list of his masters…

Ṣadr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. Yūsuf al-Qūnawī (d. 673/1274) was the stepson and foremost disciple of the celebrated mystic of Andalusian origin Muḥyī l-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī (d. 638/1240). He was also a critical thinker and talented metaphysician in his own right, who had a major impact on Ṣūfī thought. He was born in about 605/1208–9 in Malatya in the Seljuk (Saljūq) sultanate of Rūm (eastern Anatolia, 473–707/1081–1307), where his father, Majd al-Dīn Isḥāq (d. c.615/1218), a companion of Ibn ʿArabī during the latter’s stay in Anatolia, was Shaykh…

abū Naṣr Hibat Allāh b. Abī ʿImrān Mūsā b. Dāwūd al-s̲h̲īrāzī , an eminent Ismāʿīlī dāʿī , who played a leading role as an intermediary between the Fāṭimids and al-basāsīrī [ q.vv.] in the famous campaign against the Sald̲j̲ūḳs. He was born in S̲h̲īrāz during the eighties of the 4th/nineties of the 10th century ( Dīwān al-Muʾayyad , ed. Muḥammad Kāmil Ḥusayn, Cairo 1949, 21-2, 234-5, 253, 282). His father, also an Ismāʿīlī dāʿī was a prominent man in the Būyid court circle, and Abū G̲h̲ālib Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Wāsiṭī, the vizier of Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.] used to visit him frequently ( Sīr…

b. Bozorgmehr Javāleqī Hamadānī (b. Komjān, ca. 1213-14, d. Damascus, 1289), Sufi poet and author. A version of this article is available in print Volume VIII, Fascicle 5, pp. 538-540 ʿERĀQĪ,FAḴR-al-DĪN EBRĀHĪM b. Bozorgmehr Javāleqī Hamadānī (b. Komjān, a village near Hamadān, ca. 610/1213-14, d. Damascus 688/1289), Sufi poet and author. A biography that may be as late as the beginning of the 9th/15th century provides most of what is known about his life (publ. in Kollīyāt, pp. 46-65); many of the anecdotes supply context for his ḡazals and have little historical significance, th…