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[English edition] البربر هو الاسم الّذي تُلقّب به عادة المجموعات السّكّانيّة التي تمتدّ من الحدود المصريّة (سيوة) [انظره] حتّى سواحل المحيط الأطلسيّ ومنعطف نهر النّيجر، والّتي تتكلّم – أو كانت تتكلّم قبل أن تصبح عربيّة – لهجات أو بالأحرى أشكالا لغويّة محلّيّة للغة واحدة هي الأمازيغيّة. وربّما كانت عبارة «بربر» كُنية فيها شيء من الإهانة والازدراء، وهي مستعملة في اللّغة اليونانيّة ( Barbaroi)واللاّتينيّة ( Barbari) وكذلك العربيّة (المفرد بربريّ، والجمع برابر أو برابرة). وهذه العبارة لا تُحيل على اسم لوطن ما (راجع P. H. Antichan, La Tunisie, 1884, 3) كما يذهب إلى ذلك بعضهم (راجع تسم…

[English edition] العراق دولة ذات سيادة، دينها الإسلام. يتكلّم أغلب سكّانها العربيّة، وتقع في أقصى الشّرق من الهلال الخصيب. 1. الجغرافيا من المفارقة أن يستمدّ العراق تميّزه في تركيبته الجغرافيّة من كونه يشكّل جزءًا من كتلة جغرافيّة واسعة. فهو يستمدّ، من ناحية أولى، خصائصه الجغرافيّة العامّة ومناخه من هضبة بادية الشّام (الصّحراء العربيّة السّوريّة) التي يقع على طول سفحها الجنوبيّ الغربيّ، ومن جهة أخرى يشترك في الاتّجاه والتّضاريس مع سلاسل الجبال المنفرجة في آسيا الغربية التي تتقاسم، على طول تخومها الشّماليّة الشّرقيّ…

[English edition] اسم في صيغة الجمع (مفرده منقبة)، يظهر في عناوين عدد هام من التراجم ذات الطابع المدحيّ والتي يبدو أنّها أصبحت تمثّل جزءًا من أدب السيرة في اللغة العربيّة والفارسيّة والتركيّة. وأصحاب المعاجم في تعريفهم لهذا اللفظ يجعلون منه مرادفا للأخلاق بمعنى «استعدادات طبيعيّة وخصال فطريّة ومزاج» ويجمعون بينه وبين لفظ نقيبة بمعنى نفس وخليقة أو طبيعة وكذلك بمعنى «سمة وطبع واستعداد فطري» ولكنهم يجمعون أيضاً بينه وبين نفاذ الرأي بطريقة تصبح معها العلاقة بالجذر نـ.قَـ.ب الذي يعبّر بشكل خاص عن المعنى الحسّي لثَقب (الجدارَ، مثلاً) وكذلك …

, ismāʿīl b. isḥāḳ b. ismāʿīl b. ḥammād b. zayd , abū isḥāḳ al-ḳāḍī (199-282/814-95), Mālikī faḳīh , originally from Baṣra, who in 246/860 succeeded Sawwār b. ʿAbd Allāh as ḳāḍī of Bag̲h̲dād East. After having been removed from office in 255-6/869-70, he was restored to office, transferred to Bag̲h̲dād West in 258/871-2 and then given charge of both halves of the city from 262/876 till his death; he was then supreme ḳāḍī without having the official title, although currently described as ḳāḍī ’ l-ḳuḍāt . He was also sent as an envoy to the Ṣaffārid who had i…

(a.) is a technical term denoting common and repartitional ownership by the entire village community of all agricultural lands of the village. 1. In the Near East. In villages in the Middle East where mus̲h̲āʿ prevailed, the peasant community would convene once every year or two to divide the available land by lot to individual peasants. The history of the institution is extremely obscure. In the technical sense mentioned above, the word mus̲h̲āʿ does not appear in classical Arabic dictionaries, which may suggest that the institution did not exist in classical Islam…

, surname of the Syrian Arabic poet ʿAbd al-Salām b. Rag̲h̲bān b. ¶ ʿAbd al-Salām b. Ḥabīb b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Rag̲h̲bān b. Yazīd b. Tamīm. This latter had embraced Islam at Muʾta [ q.v.] under the auspices of Ḥabīb b. Maslama al-Fihrī [ q.v.], whose mawlā he became. The great-grandfather of the poet, Ḥabīb, who I was head of the dīwān of salaries under al-Manṣūr, gave his name to a mosque at Bag̲h̲dād, masd̲j̲id Ibn Rag̲h̲bān (al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Buk̲h̲alāʾ , ed. Ḥād̲j̲irī 327, trans. Pellat, index; al-Ḏj̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, 102; Le Strange, Baghdad , 95). Dīk al-Ḏj̲inn, born at…

(a.) pl. nawādir , literally “rare thing, rarity”, denotes a pleasing anecdote containing wit, humour, jocularity and lively repartee, ( nukta , pl. nukat ; mulḥa , pl. mulaḥ ; fukāha , etc.) of the type which has never ceased to be an integral feature of all social gatherings, whether intimate or official. A taste for this variety of entertainment seems to have developed in the lst/7th century in the Holy Cities of Islam, especially at Medina, where instruction in the art of composing and delivering anecdotes [see al-d̲j̲idd wa ’l-hazl ] began at a very early st…

, the usual name of a philologist of Baṣra called ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan/al-Mubārak, who was taught by al-Kisāʾī [ q.v.], whose eager pupil he was; after his master, he became tutor to the future caliphs al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn. The biographical sources record that al-Aḥmar was originally a member of al-Ras̲h̲īd’s guard, so that, being very attracted to the study of philology, he was unable to attend al-Kisāʾī’s teaching sessions except when he was not on duty in the palace. When the master came to give lessons to the you…

(a.), verbal noun of ḥakā , originally meaning “to imitate”, but which, in consequence of a readily explained semantic evolution, came to acquire the meaning of “to tell, to narrate”; similarly the noun ḥikāya , starting from the meaning of “imitation”, has come to mean more specifically “mimicry”, and finally “tale, narrative, story, legend”. In classical Arabic the intensive form ḥākiya meant a “mimic” and modern Arabic has adopted the active participle ḥāk in to translate “gramophone”. The radical ḥ . k. y./ w. is not represented in the Ḳuʾrān but it is found in ḥadīt̲h̲ …

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAmmār b. Ḥusayn b. ʿAmmār , poet and vizier of al-Andalus. Born in 422/1031 in a village near Silves, he belonged to a poor and obscure family and his claim to be of Yemenī origin is doubtful. After beginning his studies at Silves, he received at Cordova an advanced literary education and then tried to make his literary talent pay, travelling throughout Spain in search of patrons. Nothing appears to have survived of his first panegyrics, addressed, it seems wi…

, or simply Bint al-K̲h̲uss , name by which is known a woman of the pre-Islamic era, whose eloquence, quickness of repartee and perspicacity became legendary. According to al-S̲h̲iblī ( Ākām al-murd̲j̲ān , Cairo 1326, 71), the word k̲h̲uss denotes the son of a man and of a d̲j̲inniyya (while ʿamlūḳ is applied to the offspring of a d̲j̲inn and a woman), and thus we perceive the origin of the legend which arose probably from the belief of the intervention of d̲j̲inns in the generation of human beings endowed with exceptional gifts. In spite of affirmations such as that of LA (s.v.) in respect of…

(a.), paronomasia, a play on words consisting in the “coupling” (root z-w-d̲j̲ ) of two terms which are similar in external form or in meaning and linked by the conjunction wa-. For example: ( bayna-hum) hard̲j̲ wa-mard̲j̲ “between them there are disagreements”, where the two elements have an independent existence; the same applies, in particular, to the formulas used to express totality: al-kabīr wa ’l-sag̲h̲īr , al-kat̲h̲īr wa ’l-ḳalīl , al-sahl wa ’l-waʿr etc., or additionally, expressions such as al-g̲h̲anīma wa ’l-iyāb “booty and return (safe and sound)”. Every writer concerne…

(— al-ʿuḳad , — al-ʿuḳūd , — al-Ḳabḍa bi ’l-yad , — al-yad), dactylonomy, digital computation, the art of expressing numbers by the position of the fingers. Some indications prove that the ancient Arabs not only at times used to show their outstretched hands, bending down one or more fingers when necessary, to indicate some small numbers (see I. Goldziher, in Arabica , viii/3, 272), but also had the ability to express larger numbers by holding their fingers in a given position (see G. Levi Della Vida, in Isl ., x (1920), 243), and ¶ it is not impossible that certain gestures used by the …

, tābiʿī and ascetic of Baṣra. His way of life attracted the attention of the agent of ʿUt̲h̲mān, Ḥumrān b. Abān, who denounced him to the Caliph; ʿĀmir was interrogated by ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĀmir and exiled to Damascus where he died, probably during the caliphate of Muʿāwiya. His way of life seems to have consisted of various kinds of abstinence (he despised wealth and women) and pious works, and it is possible that the measures taken against him were dictated by the desire to prevent the advocacy of celibacy at a time when Islam needed fighting men; Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif , 19…

, Ḏj̲uwayra , Ḏj̲uwayriyya or Ḥārit̲h̲a b. al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (or again Ḥanẓala b. al-S̲h̲arḳī , which was more probably, however, the name of Abu ’l-Ṭamaḥān al-Ḳayni, see S̲h̲iʿr , 229), pre-Islamic poet of al-Ḥīra, contemporary of al-Mund̲h̲ir b. Māʾ al-Samāʾ (about 506-554 A.D.), who put him in the charge of his horses. The expression d̲j̲ārun ka-d̲j̲ārl Abī Duʾād , which appears in a line of Ḳays b. Zuhayr and has become proverbial, gave rise to several traditions showing Abū Duʾād as the “protégé” of a noble and generous d̲j̲ār, who is either al-Mund̲h̲ir, al-Ḥarit̲h̲ b. Ḥamm…

, abū ʿabd al-raḥmān , celebrated traditionist and exegete of Cordova, probably of Christian origin, born in 201/817, died In 276/889. Like many Spanish Muslims, he visited the principal cities of the Orient, where he frequented the society of representatives of various mad̲h̲āhib , in particular Ibn Ḥanbal; on his return to Cordova, he displayed such independence in doctrinal matters ¶ (some count him however as a S̲h̲āfiʿī and he is Tegarded as having introduced the Ẓāhirī doctrines into Spain) and opposition to taḳlīd , that he soon found himself regarded with hostility by the Mālikī fu…

, the patron saint of Tunis, today generally called Sidi Maḥrez ; in the classical texts, his name is sometimes followed by the epithet al-ʿĀbid owing to his legendary piety (e.g. in the Madārik of the ḳāḍī ʿIyāḍ: Sayyidī/Sīdī Muḥriz al-ʿĀbid), but his name is more often preceded by the title Muʾaddib. This famous personality actually dispensed, in his dwelling which was not yet the zāwiya of Sīdī Maḥrez, religious instruction of a kind that was followed by children as well as adults, and which gave to his cousin Ibn Abī Zayd al-Ḳayrawānī [ q.v.] the idea of composing a manual sufficient…

, a Berber word denoting (a) the members (pl. ihaggarən ) of one of the noble tribes constituting the former group of the Northern Tuaregs [ q.v.], and (b) one of these tribes (Kəl Ahaggar or Ihaggarən), inhabiting a region to which it has given the name of Ahaggar (Hoggar). In its widest sense, the Ahaggar is the group of territories under the dominion of the Kəl Ahaggar. It covers an area of about 200,000 sq. miles between lat. 21°-25° N and long. 3°-6° E. Bounded by mountain massifs (the Ahanəf to the E., the Tassili of the Ajjər to the N.-E., the Immidir to the N., the Adrar of the Ifog̲h̲as [ q.v.] an…

(A.), pl. dimāʾ “blood”, also “blood-guilt” [see diya , ḳatl ]. In the present article it will be appropriate to mention the numerous blood sacrifices offered by the Muslims, but we will not concern ourselves with the theory, nor is it our intention to list them [see d̲h̲abīḥa , [see ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ , ʿīd al-aḍḥā ]. We will confine ourselves to a brief survey of the beliefs relative to blood and the uses to which it is put or to which it may be put by Muslims in the various circumstances where the sacrifice of an animal is required, and the role attributed to it in magic and therapy. Arabic texts of the Mi…

, the name of a celebrated public place in al-Baṣra [ q.v.] which, although situated outside the metropolis of southern ʿIrāḳ, played an outstanding role in the economic life of that town as well as in the shaping of the specifically Arabic culture. Etymologically, the term could be a noun of place anomalously formed from the root r-b-d which implies, amongst other things, the meaning of “to halt, make a stop” and could thus designate a spot where nomads encamp, and then, by extension, where camels and sheep are penned up. The various denotations of t…

al-Ḥulwānī , Abu ’l-Muḳātil, a blind S̲h̲īʿi poet of the 3rd/9th century who owes the fact of his not having fallen into total obscurity to a maḳṣūra [ q.v.] (of which there are two verses given in al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , § 3462) and a nūniyya , both composed in praise of the dāʿī Muḥammad b. Zayd (d. 287/900 [ q.v.]). Thirty-six verses of this last ḳaṣīda (metre ramal , rhyme -ānī ) have been preserved, solely by al-Masʿūdī, it appears ( Murūd̲j̲, § 3518), whilst the maṭlaʿ ( lā taḳul bus̲h̲rā ... al-mihrad̲j̲ānī ): Do not say “One piece of good news”, but “two pieces of good news”: the face of someone …

, seldom-used patronym of an eminent family of Mālikī jurists and ḳāḍī s, originally of Baṣra, who bear the ethnic name al-Azdī in some sources; but since the members of this family are most often cited under their personal name or simply by their kunya , and since the line of parentage which connects them is consequently ¶ difficult to determine, it has been judged expedient to assemble them here under this somewhat artificial appellation, following the example of F. al-Bustānī who, in the Dāʾirat al-maʿārif (iii, 61), adopted it for one of them, the tenth of those listed below. These ḳāḍīs, w…

al-Nisāʾī , Medinan poet, who died at a very advanced age some years before the end of the Umayyad dynasty (132/750). The descendant of an Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ānī prisoner, he was a mawlā of the Taym b. Murra of Ḳurays̲h̲ and it is said that he owed his nisba to the fact that his father prepared meals—or sold carpets—for weddings, but this interpretation should be treated with caution. At Medina, where he lived, he had become a supporter of the Zubayrids, but his friendly relations with ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr [ q.v.] (in whose company he went to the court of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān after the…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-dīn Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Tilimsānī al-Fāsī al-Mālikī , man of letters and biographer, born at Tilimsān (Tlemcen) in ca. 986/1577, d. at Cairo in D̲j̲umādā II 1041/Jan. 1632. He belonged to a family of scholars, natives of Maḳḳara (about 12 miles from Msīla [see masīla ]). One of his paternal ancestors, Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Maḳḳarī, had been chief ḳāḍī of Fās and one of the teachers of the famous Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb [ q.v.] of Granada. He himself received a wide education from his early youth; one of his principal teach…

(Ar.; from Persian pīl ), elephant. The word appears in the title and first verse of Sūra CV, which alludes to the expedition of Abraha [ q.v.], but the Arabs were barely acquainted with this animal which is a native of India and Africa; consequently when, towards the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 8th century, a troop of elephants arrived in Baṣra, it was a matter of curiosity for the population (see al-Nawawī, Tahd̲h̲īb , 738). The subject had already come up in the Kalīla wa-Dimna (trans. A. Miquel, Paris 1957, 53), but the first Arab author truly to con…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-D̲j̲alīl b. Wahbūn , Arab poet of Spain, whose career was passed at the court of the master of Seville, al-Muʿtamid Ibn ʿAbbād [ q.v.]. Born at Murcia, probably about 430-40/1039-49, into a family of humble origin, he went to seek his fortune at Seville, where he was the pupil of the philologist al-Aʿlam al-S̲h̲antamarī [ q.v.] and formed a friendship with the vizier and poet Ibn ʿAmmār [ q.v.] before being admitted to the court, in circumstances which are variously reported. He then became one of the official panegyrists of al-Muʿtamid and mad…

(a.), a system of computation among the early Arabs. The singular nawʾ , connected with the root nāʾa “to rise with difficulty, to lean, to support a load with difficulty” (cf. Ḳurʾān, xxviii, 76), denotes the acronychal setting of a star or constellation and heliacal rising of its opposite ( raḳīb ); by extension, it is applied to a period of time and, in the language of the later Middle Ages and the modern era, it has come to mean “cloud, rain, storm, tempest” (see Dozy, Suppl ., s.v.; Beaussier, s.v.; H. Wehr, Arab. Wörterbuch , s.v.), on account of the pluvial ro…

b. ʿAmr b. ʿIlād̲j̲ al-T̲h̲aḳafī (d. 13/634-5), traditionally considered as the oldest known Arab physician. It is nevertheless difficult to pin down his personality. He came originally from al-Ṭāʾif, where he was probably born a few years after the middle of the 6th century A.D., and is said to have been a lute-player (trained in Persia?) before studying medicine at Gondēs̲h̲āpūr [ q.v.] and, adds Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī ( Ṭabaḳāt al-umam , ed. Cheikho, Beirut 1912, 47, tr. Blachère, Paris 1935, 99) with small probability, in the Yemen. He became …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥ. b. Sallām , traditionist and philologist of the Baṣra school. He was a mawlā of Ḳudāma b. Maẓʿūn al-D̲j̲umaḥī and was born at Baṣra in 139/756. It was in his native town that he began the traditional studies—religious sciences and adab in general— particularly with his father, who was very well versed in poetry and lexicography. He was in contact, at Baṣra and also at Bag̲h̲dād, with a considerable number of the scholars of the period, among them the great names of Arabic literature, al-Aṣmaʿī Ab…

(a.), plural substantive (sing manḳaba ) featuring in the titles of a quite considerable number of biographical works of a laudatory nature, which have eventually become a part of hagiographical literature in Arabic, in Persian and in Turkish. To define this term, the lexicographers make it a synonym of ak̲h̲lāḳ , taken in the sense of “natural dispositions (good or bad), innate qualities, character”, and associate it with naḳība , explained by nafs “soul”, k̲h̲alīḳa or ṭabiʿa , likewise signifying “trait of character, disposition”, but also with nafād̲h̲ al-raʾy …

(rather than Ḥāʾiṭ, if the position in the alphabetical order given to him by al-ʿAsḳalānī is taken into consideration), a theologian ranked among the Muʿtazilites; he was the pupil of al-Naẓẓām [ q.v.], and the teacher, in particular, of al-Faḍl al-Ḥadat̲h̲ī. Nothing is known about his life, and only his "innovations" are partly known to us. His doctrine, evolved before 232/846-7, seems to differ from Muʿtazilite teaching on the following two fundamental dogmas, which are borrowed from systems alien to Islam but which, in the…

al-Ṭāʾī , a pre-Islamic individual who played a certain role in the relations between Arabs and Persians, but whose biography is not absolutely clear. According to Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel ( Ǧamharat an-nasab, Tab. 252, and ii, 361), his genealogy appears to be as follows: Iyās b. Ḳabīṣa b. Abī ʿUfr/ʿAfrā b. al-Nuʿmān b. Ḥayya b. Saʿna b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. al-Ḥuwayrit̲h̲ b. Rabīʿa b. Mālik b. Safr b. Hinʾ b. ʿAmr b. al-G̲h̲awt̲h̲ b. Ṭayyiʾ (thus his nisba is to be amended in the article d̲h̲ū Ḳār ). This Arab chieftain succeeded in gaining the favour of Ḵh̲usraw Aparwīz (Kisrā Abarwīz), …

, aḥmad b. ibrāhīm al-s̲h̲aybānī , rāwī , philologist and poet, originally from Yamāma, who settled at Baṣra and was famous at the beginning of the 4th/10th century for his exceptional knowledge of the Arabic language, genealogies and ancient poetry. He was a former soldier who had become a civil servant, and had the job of levying dues on the ships coming to ʿAbbādān. He was totally lacking in education and in tidiness, but his knowledge led to his faults being excused and overlooked. He had a powerful voice, and he spoke in the Bedouin fashion, expressing the iʿrāb , a…

(Banū) or Midrārids , minor Berber dynasty which was established in Sid̲j̲ilmās(s)a [ q.v.] and which enjoyed relative independence until its final collapse in 366/976-7. The history of this dynasty can be briefly outlined, thanks to al-Bakrī [ q.v.], who lived in the 5th/11th century and thus possessed quite recent information in order to write the chapter that he devotes to it ( Mug̲h̲rib , 148 ff., Fr. tr. 282 ff.), before Ibn ʿId̲h̲ārī (7th-8th/13th-14th century [ q.v.]), Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn (8th/14th century [ q.v.]) and several historians of the Mag̲h̲rib and Mas̲h̲riḳ were abl…

(a.), chameleon. Triptote with the meaning of “the head of nails joining the links of a coat of mail”, this word, because of its ending, is often treated as diptote and feminine, although it is masculine and for its feminine form has ḥirbāʾa . However, the female chameleon is most often called umm ḥubayn , while the male is referred to by a number of kunya s, of which the most frequent in Muslim Spain, abū barāḳis̲h̲ , often leads translators into error (see E. Lévi-Provencal, En relisant le Collier de la colombe, in al-Andalus , xv/2 (1950), 353). This reptile, which is classified with the aḥnās̲h̲…

, the name given to a pre-Islamic poet whose personality is hard to define, in so far as his historical existence is ¶ not actually in doubt. His father is called al-Ḥārit̲h̲, Masʿūd, ʿUbayd and even ʿAmr, and he does not appear in the genealogical table (no. 141) of Ibn al-Kalbī’s D̲j̲amhara concerning the Yas̲h̲kur; two men with the name of al-Munak̲h̲k̲h̲al are cited in this work (see Register , ii, 428), but neither of them seems to correspond to the poet treated in this present article. Furthermore, one wonders whether the carefulness t…

, a purely and typically Arabic literary genre. The word is generally translated as “assembly” or “session” (Fr. “séance”), but this is an approximation which does not convey exactly the complex nature of the term. ¶ Semantic evolution of the term. The semantic study of this vocable for the period previous to the creation of the genre is complicated by the fact that the plural maḳāmāt , which is frequently used, is common to two nouns, maḳāma and maḳām [ q.v.]. Both are derived from the radical ḳ-w-m , which implies the idea of “to rise, to stand in order to p…

ʿĪsā b. Saʿīd al-Yaḥṣubī , Andalusian vizier of humble extraction but of Arab origin. Although he was the son of a simple schoolmaster, he succeeded in raising himself in the social scale thanks to al-Manṣūr [ q.v.], who gave him important posts and even entrusted to him the command of an army sent to Morocco in 386/997 to bring Zīrī b. ʿAṭiyya (cf. H. R. Idris, Zīrīdes , 81) to reason. Al-Manṣūr’s successor, his son ʿAbd al-Malik al-Muẓaffar [ q.v.], confirmed his appointment as vizier and left the administration of the state to him; he even gave his youngest sister in ma…

, the current spelling of the Berber amənūkal , meaning "any political leader not subordinate to anyone else"; it is applied to foreign rulers, to highranking European leaders, and to the male members of certain noble families; in some regions of the Sahara, the title of amənūkal is given to the chiefs of small tribal groups, but in the Ahaggar [ q.v.], it is only conferred on the overlord of a confederation of noble or subject tribes. The amənūkal must be selected from among the Ihaggarən nobles, and his nomination is submitted for approval to an assembly of the nobles a…

, abū sālim ʿabd allāh b. muḥammad , man of letters, traditionist, lawyer and Sūfī scholar, born in the Berber tribe of the Aït (Ayt) ʿAyyās̲h̲ of the Middle Moroccan Atlas at the end of S̲h̲aʿbān 1037/April-May 1628, died of plague in Morocco on 10 Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 1090/13 December 1679. After having travelled through Morocco “in search of knowledge” and obtained an id̲j̲āza from ʿAbd al-Ḳādir al-Fāsī [ q.v.], in 1059/1649 he made his first pilgrimage to Mecca going via Touat, Ouargla and Tripoli; then, in 1064/1653-4 he made a second pilgrimage, on returning from which he wrote his Riḥla …

, Maḥmūd b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Sindī b. S̲h̲āhak , Abu ’l-Fatḥ , poet of the 4th/10th century whose death is variously given in the sources between 330/941 and 360/971, but which must have taken place ca. 350/961. Originally from a family of Sind [see ibrāhīm b. al-sindī ], he was born at al-Ramla and lived at al-Mawṣil at the court of Abu ’l-Hayd̲j̲āʾ ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamdān [see ḥamdānids ], and then at Aleppo, in the entourage of Sayf al-Dawla [ q.v.]; he also made several journeys to Egypt, Bag̲h̲dād, Damascus and Jerusalem. His verses are described by R. Blachère, Motanabbî …

(a.), pl. of mat̲h̲la/uba , from the root t̲h̲.l.b ., which means “to criticise, to blame, to slander, to point out faults with the intention of being hurtful”. Although it is not a Ḳurʾānic term, it is attested from ancient times and has been used continuously until to-day to mean “faults, vices, defects, disgrace, etc.” (see further, Wehr). In earliest times and in the first centuries of Islam, it had a specialised usage, for it was broadly applied to what were regarded as subjects of shame for the tribes, the ethnic groups or even clans, rather than…

, a famous pact concluded between several Ḳurays̲h̲ī clans a few years before the Prophet’s mission, more precisely, according to certain authorities, in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda on the return from the war of Fid̲j̲ār [ q.v.]. The traditions concerning the events which brought it about are divergent, but can be reduced to the following outline: a merchant of Zabīd (or elsewhere, or even the poet al-Ṭamaḥān al-Ḳaysī) sells merchandise to a leading man of the clan of the Banū Sahm who proves to be a bad payer and wants to harm the merchant.…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-ʿAbbās , Arabic poet and writer (323-83/934-93). Since he alleged that his mother was the sister of the historian al-Ṭabarī, he fabricated for himself the nisba of al-Ṭabark̲h̲azī. He was born in K̲h̲wārazm and spent his youth there, but left it at an early date. It is difficult to trace his peregrinations, but he seems to have sought out, above all, the company of great men in order to live off their munificience. Hence we find him at Aleppo, in the service of Sayf al-Dawla; at Buk̲h̲ārā, with the vizier …

, an Arabic word used particularly in the Beduin dialect form fəllāg , pl. fəllāga (in the western press principally in the pl., with the spelling: fellagar fellagah, fellagha ), and denoting in the first place the brigands and subsequently the rebels who appeared in Tunisia and Algeria. A connexion with falaḳa [ q.v.] “instrument of torture”, of which the etymology is, in any case, obscure (see Arabica , 1954/3, 325-36), is certainly tobe ruled out. On the other hand, the Arabic root FLḲ (comp. FLD̲J̲, FLḤ, etc.) seems worthy of retention; Tunisian rural and nomadic dialects make use of fləg …

, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, author of historical works ( ak̲h̲bārī ) born at Kūfa ca. 120/738 in a family originally from Manbid̲j̲, died at Fam al-Ṣilḥ in 206, 207 or 209/821, 822, or 824. Of his life it is known only that he attended the ʿAbbāsid court more or less regularly from the reign of al-Manṣūr to that of al-Ras̲h̲īd, that he was imprisoned by the latter after a criticism of al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib that his wife’s family had slanderously attributed to him, and that al-Amīn …

al-Namarī (al-Numayrī), appellative of a family of Cordovan scholars, the principal representative of which is Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh , born in 368/978. He studied in his native city under masters of repute, engaged in correspondence with scholars of the East and travelled all over Spain “in search of knowledge”, but never went to the East. Considered the best traditionist of his time, he was equally distinguished in fiḳh and in the science of genealogy. After displaying Ẓāhirī tendencies at first, in which he resembled his friend Ibn …

, Abu ’l-Walīd, Arab poet of the end of the 2nd/8th century. An orphan, he settled at an early age at Baṣra with his mother, and, when he showed signs of talent, the Ḳaysites of the town who, since the death of Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār b. Burd (a mawlā of the Banū ʿUḳayl) had not possessed any poet of eminence, adopted him and fabricated for him a Ḳaysite genealogy. His formative period at an end, he went to al-Raḳḳa to Ḏj̲aʿfar b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, who presented him to al-Ras̲h̲īd, and, from then on, he became the panegyrist of t…

al-Ḥimyarī al-Kūfī , a magician of Kūfa, contemporary of al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲, with whom he was in relations after the building of the palace in Wāsiṭ (Yāḳūt, iv, 885; cf. also an adventure with a concubine of the caliph, Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Lisān al-Mīzān , iii, 372-3). Ag̲h̲ānī 1, i, 167 quotes verses by ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa that bear witness to a connection between the poet and the magician. He abtained his powers from a magic ring given to him by Satan to thank him for having defended him from children who were insulting him. He was also though…

(Ar.; also vocalised bak̲h̲l , bak̲h̲al , buk̲h̲ul ) and bak̲h̲īl (pl. buk̲h̲alāʾ less often bāk̲h̲il , pl. buk̲h̲k̲h̲āl ) mean respectively ‘avarice’ and ‘avaricious, miserly’. Just as in the ancient poems the virtue of generosity is constantly sung, so avarice furnishes a theme for satire which is widely exploited by the poets, though it seems that this fault, at least in its most sordid forms, was scarcely widespread among the ancient Arabs. It is however a fact that it is castigated in a …