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, a valley some 30 miles/50 km northnorth-east of Mawṣil in ʿIrāḳ, in the ḳaḍāʾ of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲an and in a largely Kurdish mountain area, famed as the principal pilgrimage centre of the Yazīdī sect [see yazīdīs ]. The d̲j̲amāʿiyya of the Yazīdīs is held from the 23th to the 30th September O.S. (6th to the 13th October N.S.) each year, and revolves round the shrine of the founder, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAdī b. Musāfir [ q.v.] and the tombs of other early saints of the sect. The first European to attend and ¶ describe the festival seems to have been Sir Henry Layard in 1846 and 1849; a valuable des…

(“deifiers of ʿAlī”), a vague and popular designation of sects connected with, and issued from, S̲h̲īʿa extremism ( g̲h̲ulāt , [ q.v.]). In Persia and Kurdistān it covers chiefly the Ahl-i Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.] and Ḳi̊zi̊l-bas̲h̲ [ q.v.], but may occasionally refer to such smaller communities as Ṣarli, S̲h̲abbak [ qq.v] etc. (Ed.)

, a basalt desert, “a district covered with black broken stones, which looks as if it had been burned by fire”. Such ḥarras , which owe their origin to subterranean volcanoes which have repeatedly covered the undulating desert with a bed of lava, are found particularly in the east of Ḥawrān and stretch from there to Medina. Al-Samhūdī, K̲h̲ulāṣat al-wafāʾ bi-ak̲h̲bār dār al-Muṣṭafā , Mecca ed., 1316, 38 gives a detailed description of a great earthquake at Medina which began on 1 D̲j̲umādā II 654/26 June 1256 and lasted several days (see also Wüstenfeld, Geschichte von Madyna …

, conventionally Tindouf , a small town in the southwestern part of modern Algeria, in the governorate ( wilāya ) of Saoura and at the southwestern end of the Hamada of the Dra near where the modern borders of Algeria, Morocco, the former Spanish Sahara and Mauritania meet (lat. 27° 42’ N., long. 80° 10’ W.). It is now on the road connecting western Algeria with Mauritania, with an airstrip, and has recently acquired economic and political importance because of the proximity of iron ore depos…

Pas̲h̲a (1272-1343/1855-1924), late Ottoman statesman and close counselor of Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II [ q.v.]. Born in Damascus (hence his nickname “ʿArab”) as the son of a wealthy local notable, Hōlō Pas̲h̲ā, he was educated in his hometown and in Beirut and became proficient in Turkish and French. Counted among the reformers, he edited a weekly in Arabic and Turkish, named Dimas̲h̲ḳ . Moving to Istanbul, he eventually joined the ranks of the chamberlains ( ḳurenā ) of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd and then became a Second Secretary ( ikind̲j̲i kātib ) of the Mābeyn [ q.v.]. He gained great influence ¶ at co…

, the name of various places in the Middle East. These include: 1. A settlement of Diyār Muḍar in al-Ḏj̲azīra, placed by Yāḳūt in the district of al-Ruhā [ q.v.] or Edessa and said to have been laid out by the ʿAbbāsid governor of Syria ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ṣāliḥ. He also quotes a (now lost) history of Mawṣil by the Ḵh̲ālidiyyāni [ q.v.] that the caliph al-Mahdī began the work of fortification there. Bibliography Yāḳūt, Buldān, ed. Beirut, iii, 389-90. 2. A settlement to the north of the old city of Damascus, on the slopes of Mount Ḳāsiyūn [ q.v.]. Yāḳūt describes it as a large village with markets and ¶ a …

(a., pl. wulāt ), from the root w-l-y “to be near something”, hence “to be in charge of something”, comes to mean “person in authority, governor, prefect, administrator manager”, with the maṣdar of wilāya for his office and/or sphere of competence. The word occurs once in the Ḳurʾān, XIII, 12/11, applied to God in the sense of “patron, protector”. See on aspects of the function of the governor in mediaeval Islamic times, amīr . A near-synonym is ḥākim “one who exercises power, jurisdiction, etc.” Under the Ottomans, the wālī , also termed pas̲h̲a [ q.v.], was the governor of a province, eyālet …

(a.), pls. aymān , aymun , literally, “the right hand”, but often used in Arabic with the transferred sense of “oath”. In human life and activity, the right hand often symbolises power and the ability to initiate actions. The Arabic word yamīn has such connotations as fortune and prosperity, whilst the wider term yad “hand in general” covers a vast semantic range: power, help’, strength, sufficiency, ability to act, etc. The right hand can have a cultic significance, as with the bronze hand, probably from the vicinity of Ṣanʿāʾ and now in the British Museum, with a South Arabian ex voto inscri…

, a village in the oasis of Marw in K̲h̲urāsān, according to al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 94-5 (who names various ʿulamāʾ from it; cf. also Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 49), two farsak̲h̲s from the chef-lieu Marw al-S̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān [ q.v.]. Its chief fame is that, at the time of the ʿAbbāsid Revolution, in 130/747-8, the Umayyad governor of K̲h̲urāsān, Naṣr b. Sayyār [ q.v.], threatened by the rising under Abū Muslim, appointed his commander Abu ’l-D̲h̲ayyāl over Tūsān; but the latter’s oppressive behaviour prompted Abū Muslim to send a force which…

, a nisba borne by members of the famed Egyptian family of s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ s of the Bakriyya Ṣūfī order [see al-bakrī b. abi ’l-surbūr and bakriyya ]; it related to their claimed descent from the first caliph Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīḳ [ q.v.]. (Ed.)

, a town of Kirmān province, central Persia (lat. 30° 25ʹ N., long. 56° 00ʹ E., altitude 1,572 m/5,156 ft.), situated on the Yazd road 120 km/74 miles to the west of Kirmān city. It is the cheflieu of a s̲h̲ahrastān or district of the same name. Known also as Bahrāmābād, in 1991 it had an estimated population of 87,798 ( Preliminary results of September 1991 census, Statistical Centre of Iran, Population Division). Its chief claim to fame is as the home of the present (1993) head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran “President and Prime Minister” ʿAlī Akbar Hās̲h̲imī Rafsand̲j̲ānī. (Ed.) Bibli…

, name given to the eastern Hazāra inhabiting the mountainous region of central Afg̲h̲ānistān between Kābul and Harāt; in Irān, the region of Mas̲h̲had, Balūčistān (near Quetta), and in the S.S.R. of Turkmenistān, the oasis of Kus̲h̲ka (district of Maki) [see hazāra ]. (Ed.)

(A.), son. The Arab grammarians and lexicographers, who tend to trace all words to three root elements, generally attribute ibn to a root *b.n.w. ¶ and consider that it derives from a hypothetical *banaw un by loss of the 3rd sonant radical. Others state that the root is b.n.y. and that the word ibn comes from the verb banā / yabnī ʿalā “set up [a tent] on”, and, by extension, “marry”. In reality, we have an ancient Semitic biliteral, which is nevertheless triliteralized in the relative adjective banawī and in the abstract noun bunuwwa . The fern, bint , formed with the fem. indicator -t, has a ri…

, a slave singing-girl ( ḳayna [ q.v.]) in the earliest days of Islam. She is mentioned as being in the poetry and music-making circles of Medina in ʿUt̲h̲mān’s caliphate, i.e. the middle years of the 7th century A.D., and as being the teacher ( ustād̲h̲a ) of the celebrated singer ʿAzza al-Maylāʾ [ q.v.]. (Ed.) Bibliography Ag̲h̲ānī 1, xvi, 13=3xvi, 162 H. G. Farmer, A history of Arabian music, London 1929, 46, 54, 147.

, a town and district in southern Kurdistān, since the Ottoman reconquest of ʿIrāḳ from the Ṣafawids in the 11th/17th ¶ century under nominal Ottoman suzerainty, and since the aftermath of the First World War in the kingdom and then republic of ʿIrāḳ. The town lies in lat. 35° 32′ E. and long. 45° 27′ N. at an altitude of 838 m/2,750 feet, and is 90 km/54 miles east of Kirkūk [ q.v.], to which it is connected by road. The historical region of Sulaymāniyya lies between what is now the ʿIrāḳ-Persia frontier, the Diyāla [ q.v.] and its upper affluents the Tand̲j̲aru and Sīrwān, the region of …

(a.), name. In Arabic-Islamic usage the full name of a person is usually made up of the following elements: 1) kunya; 2) ism; 3) nasab ) ; 4) nisba . A certain number of persons are also known by a nickname ( laḳab ) or a pejorative sobriquet ( nabaz ) which, when the name is stated in full, cornes after the nisba. From the end of the 3rd/9th century, the use of an honorific before or after the kunya became more and more frequent with persons of some importance. 1) The kunya [ q.v.], usually a name compound with Abū (“father of”) or Umm (“mother of”): Abu ’l-Faḍl, Umm al-Ḥasan. ¶ 2) The ism , also cailed ʿalam …

(a., pl. awsima ), in modern Arabic usage a decoration, order, medal or badge of honour. The roots w-s-m and w-s̲h̲-m mean basically “to mark, brand [an animal]”, an important feature of nomadic life when ownership of beasts like horses and camels had to be determinable. For this idea of branding, marking, in Arabic desert life, see wasm. In the old Turkish nomadic society, tamg̲h̲a had a similar sense of “tribal mark or emblem”. In the modern Turkish pronunciation damga it is used for government revenue stamps, ministerial seals for validating govern…

(a.), writing. i.—In the Arab world. The Arabic writing used, according to tradition, as early as the lifetime of Muḥammad, for setting down the sacred text of the Ḳurʾān, subsequently underwent a diffusion corresponding to the expansion of the Islamic faith and to the development of the Islamic civilisation in which it came to full fruition. A script of alphabetic and phonological type, belonging to the vast family of Semitic scripts, it shows in this capacity the characteristics of a consonantal script, with vocalisation signs added in the form of …

, purification incumbent upon the Believer after the fulfilment of his natural needs. This practice, which is described in detail, is obligatory (recommended only according to Abū Ḥanīfa) and must be carried out either immediately, or before performing the ṣalāt or any other act which requires a state of ritual purity. (Ed.) Bibliography All the works of fiḳh, ik̲h̲tilāf, etc. deal with this subject in the chapter on ṭahāra similarly G̲h̲azālī, Iḥyāʾ, in the same chapter (iii = 22 of Bousquet’s analysis).

, in northern Persia, the name for the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, comprising both the narrow coastal plain region and the steeply-rising mountainous interior of the Elburz chain. It was bounded in mediaeval Islamic times by Gīlān and Daylam on the west and by Gurgān on the east. The name Ṭabaristān enshrines a memory of the ancient people of the Τάπυροι, but received a popular etymology as “land of the axe ( ṭabar )” because woodcutting was an activity in this heavily-wooded region. Ṭabaristān ( nisba , al-Ṭabarī) was the designation for the region up …

, modern Turkish Ulu Dağ, a small but imposing mountain range in northwestern Anatolia, to the south-east of Bursa [ q.v.] and now in the il or province of Bursa. It is some 32 km/20 miles by 13 km/8 miles in extent, and its forest-clad slopes rise to a peak of 2,493 m/8,170 feet (lat. 40° 05′ N., long. 28° 58′ E.), the highest point of western Anatolia. It is the classical Mysian Olympus, but its more modern fame is as a winter ski resort. (Ed.) Bibliography Sir Wm. Ramsay, The historical geography of Asia Minor, London 1890, 146 Naval Intelligence Division, Admiralty Handbooks, Turkey, London 19…

(or Ḏj̲āvuldur ), a Turcoman tribe, the first settlers of which came to Ḵh̲wārizm in the 16th and 17th centuries, the bulk following in the 18th century. After the wars against the Ḵh̲ānate of Ḵh̲īwa, a proportion of them was driven off to the Mangi̊s̲h̲laḳ peninsula, whence some clans emigrated to the steppes of Stavropol’. Part of the tribe submitted to Ḵh̲īwa and settled permanently in Ḵh̲wārizm. It is now a sedentary tribe with a population of ¶ some 25,000, in the Nuk̲h̲us area (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Ḳara-Ḳalpaḳistān). [See: Türkmen ]. (Ed.)

(t., from Persian pand̲j̲ yak “fifth”), a term of Ottoman Turkish financial and administrative usage. It denoted the fifth which the sultan drew as the ruler’s right (equivalent to the Arabic k̲h̲ums [ q.v.in Suppl.]) from booty captured in the Dār al-Ḥarb . This involved, in particular, the collection of young boys from the Christian Balkans and Greece by the process of the dews̲h̲irme [see devs̲h̲irme ], and these were then trained for either palace or military service as the ḳapi̊ ḳullari̊ ; the official in charge of the process of thus extracting the sultan’s fifth was termed the pend̲j̲i…

, (or zawlāk ), Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm … al-Layt̲h̲ī , born 306/919, died 386/996, Egyptian historian, the author of a number of biographical, historical and topographical works on Egypt in the time of the Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īdids and early Fāṭimids. These works, though almost entirely lost, underlie a good deal of subsequent historiography relating to this period. He is said to have written continuations to the works of al-Kindī [ q.v.] on the governors and judges of Egypt, a book on the Mād̲h̲arāʾī [ q.v.] family of officials, and others on the reigns of the Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd, Kāfū…

, a hill fortress and settlement in the S̲h̲āhābād District in the northeast of the state of Bihar in the Indian Union (lat. 24° 37′ N., long. 83° 55′ E.), some 50 km/30 miles south of the town of Sahsārām [ q.v.]. There must have been a Hindu fort or settlement there previously, but the present fortifications date from its capture by S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh Sūr [ q.v.] in 946/1539. They were added to by Akbar’s general Mān Singh [ q.v.] when he was appointed governor of Bihār and Bengal. It was surrendered to the British army in Bengal soon after the battle of Baksar (Buxar [ q.v.]) in 1764 through the effor…

, abū mālik al-aʿrābī , mawlā of the Banū Saʿd, had learnt the ʿarabiyya in the desert and had settled at Baṣra. Since his mother had married Abu ’l-Baydāʾ [ q.v.], he acted as rāwiya to this last, but he owed his fame to his incomparable knowledge of the Arabic language, since, according to an oft-mentioned tradition, he knew it in its entirety, whereas al-Aṣmaʿī had only one-third of it, Abū ʿUbayda (or al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad) half of it and Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī (or Muʾarrid̲j̲) two-thirds of it. His speciality was rare words. Abū Mālik was allegedly the author of at least two works, a K. K̲h̲alḳ al-…

(t.), the title of one of the three commanders who formed the dīwān or administrative focus of the Janissary corps of the Ottoman army (the other two being the S̲h̲amsund̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊ and the Turnad̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊). Since zag̲h̲ar means “hound” and zag̲h̲ard̲j̲i̊ “keeper of the hounds”, the orta or company of the zag̲h̲ard̲j̲i̊s (no. 64 in the Janissary corps) was probably in origin part of the hunting force of the early Ottoman sultans (cf. also the Segbāns [ q.v. in Suppl.]). (Ed.) Bibliography İ.H. Uzunçarşili, Osmanli devleti teşkilâtindan kapi kulu ocaklar, Ankara 1943-4, i, 19…

(a.), pl. arkān , literally “corner (as in al-rukn al-yamānī = the southeastern corner of the Kaʿba), support, pillar”. The singular rukn occurs twice in the Ḳurʾān, in XI, 82/80, when Lot seeks for support in a strong rukn, pillar, or, figuratively, a leader or chief; and in LI, 39, where Pharaoh and his support, rukn, i.e. retinue, reject Moses. 1. In religious and legal usage. Here, it is commonly found in the expression arkān al-dīn or arkān al-ʿibāda , denoting the basic “pillars” of religion and religious observance. These so-called “pillars of …

(a.), in Islamic law, the civil liability in the widest meaning of the term, whether it arises from the non-performance of a contract or from tort or negligence ( taʿaddī , literally “transgression”). Prominent particular cases are the liability for the loss of an object sold before the buyer has taken possession ( ḍamān al-mabīʿ ), for eviction ( ḍamān al-darak ), for the loss of a pledge in the possession of the pledgee ( ḍamān al-rahn), for the loss of an object that has been taken by usurpation ( ḍamān al-g̲h̲aṣb ), and for loss or damage caused by artisans ( ḍamān al-ad̲j̲īr , ḍ . al-ṣunnāʿ …

(a.), “gesture, sign, indication”, has acquired in rhetoric [see badīʿ ] the technical meaning of “allusion” but, in its early connotation, a gesture of the hand, a sign of the head, of the elbow, the eyes, the eyebrows etc., is considered by al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ ( Bayān , i, 80; Ḥayawān , i, 33), together with speech, writing, nuṣba and computation on the fingers [see ḥisāb al-ʿaḳd where other gestures to indicate numbers are also dealt with], as one of the five methods by which a man may express his thoughts [see bayān ]. Whether combined with words or not, a gesture ( is̲h̲āra and also īmaʾ …

(a.), a term used in Ottoman administrative parlance to mean vacant. It is used in the registers of a grant or office which has been vacated by the previous holder, by death, dismissal, or transfer, and not yet re-allocated. The term is also used more generally for land and other assets left without heir (see also muk̲h̲allafāt ). (Ed.)

, Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan, the author of a local history of the town of Ḳum [ q.v.] in northern Persia, fl. in the 4th/10th century. He is said to have compiled his history originally in Arabic at the instigation of his brother, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAlī, governor of Ḳum for the Būyids, aiming to gather together and record all the traditions about the arrival of the Arabs in Ḳum and the town’s subsequent history. He dedicated the book to the famous vizier, the Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād [see ibn ʿabbād ]. The Arabic original has not survived, but a Persian translation was made by one Ḥasan [b. ʿAlī…

(Bandar Rābig̲h̲, Rābug̲h̲), a port in the Ḥid̲j̲āz province of Saudi Arabia, in lat. 22° 48ʹ N., and long. 39° 1ʹ E., half-way between D̲j̲udda [ q.v.] and Yanbuʿ. It may perhaps be identified with Ptolemy’s ’Αργα χώμη (Sprenger, Die alte Geographie , no. 38). North of Rābig̲h̲ lies al-Abwāʾ [ q.v.], now called al-K̲h̲urayba. the reputed burial place of the Prophet’s mother Āmina [ q.v.]. In the past, the port had no proper harbour. Ships anchored at S̲h̲arm Rābig̲h̲, an inlet about 3 km long, which offered excellent anchorage (Hogarth, Hejaz , 29). From there ca…

(a.), in early Arabic “the confused noise of distant thunder” (Lane, 1249b), but widely used in the sources for early Islamic history for the priests of the Magians reciting and intoning the Zoroastrian prayers and scriptures, producing (to the Arabs’ ears) an indistinct, droning sound. Thus in al-Ṭabarī, i, 1042, we have the zamzama of the Herbadhs, in 2874 the muzamzim or adherent of Zoroastrianism, and in 2880 zamzama for the Zoroastrian rites and zamāzima for the Magians in general. The term may have passed into Christian Sogdian texts, probably in the early Islamic period, as zmzmʾ …

, S̲h̲ammāk̲h̲ī, S̲h̲ammāk̲h̲iyya, the mediaeval Islamic names for a town in the former region of S̲h̲īrwān in eastern Caucasia, from ca. the 4th/10th century capital of the local Yazīdī dynasty of S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āhs, by whom it was temporarily re-named Yazīdiyya. For its pre-modern role and then for its post-1917 one, first within the Azerbaijan Republic of the former Soviet Union and now in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan, under its present name of S̲h̲emak̲h̲a, see s̲h̲īrwān and s̲h̲īrwān s̲h̲āhs . (Ed.)

, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Meḥmed Ṭāhir , Ottoman ḳāḍī and author of several theological works, often known as Ḳāḍī Meḥmed. The date of his birth is unknown, but he was born in Istanbul and was presumably connected with the Lālezār quarter near the Fātiḥ Mosque. He became a mollā and a müderris . In 1201/1786-7 he was ḳāḍī at Eyyūb, and then on 30 Muḥarram 1204/20 October 1789 he died at his house in Rumeli Ḥiṣār. None of his extant works has been printed, but these all exist in manuscript in Istanbul libraries. They include a series of theological commentaries, such as the Mīzān al-muḳīm fī maʿrifat al-ḳisṭ…

, the name, nowadays replaced by al-Nāṣirī , of a Moroccan family who founded the branch of the S̲h̲ād̲h̲iliyya order [ q.v.] known as Nāṣiriyya and founded its headquarters at the zāwiya of Tamgrūt [ q.v.] in southern Morocco. The numerous biographical sources, published and unedited, as well as a monograph on the family, the Ṭalʿat al-mus̲h̲tarī (Fās 1309) by Aḥmad al-Nāṣirī al-Salāwī, allow its history to be traced easily and allow a genealogical tree to be constructed; the reader will find information on this in the article al-Nāṣiriyya , and there will mer…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Hibat Allāh b. Abī ’l-Faḍl Ḏj̲aʿfar b. al-Muʿtamid , known as al-Ḳāḍī al-Saʿīd, Arabic poet of the Ayyūbid period famous mainly for the treatise Dār al-ṭirāz which he devoted to the genre of muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ [ q.v.]. He was born in Cairo circa 550/1155, and died there in 608/1211; he was educated by Egyptian teachers and, like his father al-Ḳāḍī al-Ras̲h̲īd, embarked on the career of ḳāḍī ; he worked under the direction of al-Ḳāḍī al-Fāḍil, whom he joined at Damascus and to whom he dedicated some pieces of poetry; he also wrote in praise of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin). …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿut̲h̲mān , a Moroccan diplomat and vizier of the 12th/18th century, who played a prominent role in the forging of ties between his country and Spain. At the start of his career he followed his father as preacher in one of the mosques of Meknès; here he came to the attention of the Sultan, Sīdī Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh (1171-1204/1757-89) who, at a date difficult to determine, took him into his service as a secretary. In 1193/1799, he was …

, Abu ’l-Maḥāsin S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Muḥ. b. Naṣr b. ʿAlī b. Muḥ. b. G̲h̲ālib al-Anṣārī , satirical poet born at Damascus on 9 S̲h̲aʿbān 549/19 October 1154, and died there on 20 Rabīʿ I 630/4 January 1233. After receiving a traditional education from the main teachers of Damascus and spending a period in ʿIrāḳ, Ibn ʿUnayn began early to use his lively satire against many different kinds of people; he did not spare even Salāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin), who had just made himself master of the town (570…

, ʿAbd al-Hakīm b. S̲h̲ams al-Dīn (d. 1067/1657), counsellor of the Mughal emperor S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān ( regn . 1037-68/1628-58 [ q.v.]), versatile scholar and well-known writer of glosses ( ḥawās̲h̲ī , sg. ḥās̲h̲iya ) on a number of popular textbooks. Many of them exist in old prints and lithographs, of which a fair number have recently been reprinted. In non-Indian prints, his name often appears distorted as al-Siyalkūtī or al-Silkūtī (intended vowels unknown). Works on which he wrote ḥawās̲h̲ī include: (1) the Tafsīr of al-Bayḍāwī (d. 685/1286 or later [ q.v.]); (2) the commentary of …

, Sandābūr , a port on the western coast of peninsular India. Al-Idrīsī describes it as a trading town on a large estuary with an anchor-: age. It has been tentatively identified with either Sidd̲h̲āpūr/S̲h̲iddāpūr or the modern S̲h̲adās̲h̲ivagad, some 80 km/50 miles south of Goa, hence in what is now the union territory of Goa, Daman and Diu in the Indian Union. (Ed.) Bibliography S. Maqbul Ahmad, India and the neighbouring territories in the Kitāb Nuzḥat al-Mus̲h̲tāq ... of al-S̲h̲arīf al-Idrīsī, Leiden 1960, 58, 62, 102, 159.

, īliyyā (1889-1957), poet and journalist of Lebanese origin, who spent his childhood in the village of al-Muḥaydit̲h̲a near Bikfayā, his birthplace, but left his native land at the age of 11 to help his maternal uncle with his business in Alexandria. During his stay of some dozen years in Egypt, he was able to find time to acquire an advanced literary education, to learn a lot of classical and modern poetry and to frequent the circles of intellectuals who were in varying de…

(t.) “son of a slave”, in Ottoman usage, more specifically the son of a Janissary, admitted to the pay-roll of the corps; for further information see yeñi čeri . In the period of Turkish domination in Algeria and Tunisia, the word ḳulug̲h̲lī/kulug̲h̲lī and, with dissimilation, ḳurug̲h̲lī/kurug̲h̲lī (pl. ḳulug̲h̲lān/kulug̲h̲lān , ḳurug̲h̲lān/kurug̲h̲lān/krag̲h̲el ; French koulougli and variants) denoted those elements of the population resulting from marriages of Turks with local women. They were fairly numerous at Tunis, Alg…

, from Persian dīdebān , a term applied at different times to certain categories of sentinels, watchmen, inspectors, etc. It already appears as the name of a profession in the Rasāʾil Ik̲h̲wān al-Ṣafā (8th risāla of 1st series, ed. Cairo, i, 210; cf. IC, 1943, 147), together with the Nātūr . In classical Ottoman usage the term, pronounced Dīdebān , was applied to the Customs-house guards, whose chief was the Dīdebān bas̲h̲i̊ . It was also given to the watchmen on the fire-towers in Istanbul, as well as to naval and military look-outs. (Ed.) Bibliography Dozy, Supplément, i, 481 I. H. Uzunçarş…

(a.), the name of the fourteenth metre in Arabic prosody [see ʿarūḍ ]. Theoretically, it comprises Three feet: mustafʿilun / fāʿilātun / fāʿilātun ( ─ ─ ∪ ─ / ─ ∪ ─ ─ / ─ ∪ ─ ─ ) to each hemistich, but in practice, there is just one single fāʿilātun. Mustafʿilun can become mutafʿilun (∪ ─ ∪ ─ ) or even mutafʿilu (∪ ─ ∪∪), whilst fāʿilātun can be replaced in the ʿarūḍ (the first hemistich) by faʿilātun (∪∪ ─ ─ ) or even fāʿilun ( ─ ∪ ─ ) and, in the ḍarb (the second hemistich) by one of the two preceding feet or by mustafʿil ( ─ ─ ─ ). This metre is not used by the ancient poets, and it is not impossible th…

, a plain in eastern Anatolia through which the Murad Su, sc. the more southerly of the two upper arms of the Euphrates, flows in one part of its course between Malazgird and Muş, hence now in the modern Turkish il or province of Muş; see further, al-furāt . (Ed.)

, aḥmad b. ʿalī , poet and littérateur, originally from al-Batt in ʿIrāḳ (Yāḳūt, i, 488), who was a member of the staff of al-Ḳādir’s chancery (reigned 381-422/992-1031). When the future caliph had in 381/991 to flee from al-Ṭāʾiʿ, al-Battī had already been in his service, since it was with him that al-Ḳādir sought refuge. Hence as soon as he succeeded to the caliphate, he appointed al-Battī to his dīwān , where he was in charge of the postal service and of intelligence. A Muʿtazilī in theology and a Ḥanafī in fiḳh , he had previously specialised in study of the Ḳurʾān and ḥadīt̲h̲ …

is one of the Turkish forms of the name Muḥammad which, having been borne by the Prophet of Islam, is by far the commonest used name in the Islamic world. Independent of the modifications which it may undergo from the influence of the speech habits of allophonic groups and the phonetic structure of languages other than Arabic, this name has undergone, in spite of—and perhaps because of—the veneration which it inspires, various deliberate modifications on the part of sincere Muslims who hold fast to what exactly respects the …

, “the rearwards region”, conventionally Dhahirah, the name given to the interior, landwards part of ʿUmān, that lying behind the D̲j̲abal Ak̲h̲ḍar range and merging into the desert fringes of the Empty Quarter [see al-rubʿ al-k̲h̲ālī ]. The term al-Ẓāhira contrasts with that of al-Bāṭina, the coastlands of ʿUmān. The religious and political history of this “inner ʿUmān”, and its social and cultural development, with local Ibāḍī elements mingled with Sunnīs, have frequently diverged from that of the Sultanate…