(a.), “the religions and the sects”, one of the stock phrases employed, in the literature known as “heresiographical” (which would be more accurately described as “doxographical”), to denote an enumeration of religious and occasionally philosophical doctrines, as well as the various groups or schools which profess them. The origin of the expression is obscure, and its meaning is imprecise and variable. On the general sense of the first term, see milla. Al-S̲h̲ahrastānī claims, in one passage, to establish a distinction between milla and dīn , the latter si…

[see Ḥizb (on political parties), al-milal wa’l-niḥal , ṭarīḳa ].

, ʿabd al-ḳāhir b. ṭāhir , abū manṣūr al-S̲h̲āfiʿī , d. 429/1037. His father took him to Nīs̲h̲āpūr for his education and there he made his home. Most of the scholars of Ḵh̲urāsān were his pupils and he could teach 17 subjects, especially law, principles, arithmetic, law of inheritance and theology. He left Nīs̲h̲āpūr because of rioting by Turkmens and went to Isfarāʾīn where he soon after died. He was learned in literature as well as in law, was rich, helped other scholars and his …

name given by later Sunnīs to the Murd̲j̲iʾī position associated with Abū Ḥanīfa. In As̲h̲ʿarī ( Maḳālāt al-Islāmiyyīn , ed. Ritter, i, 138 f.), Abū Ḥanīfa appears as head of a section of the Murd̲j̲iʾa asserting that īmān is the affirmation of God and the Prophet, however poorly these are understood; some of his followers, including G̲h̲assān, differ from him in including reverence within ī mān and allowing that it may increase. Al-Bag̲h̲dādī ( Al-farḳ bayn al-firaḳ , ed. Muḥammad Badr, 191) cites this latter difference as proof that G̲h̲assān did …

, more frequently referred to as K̲h̲wād̲j̲a Afḍal-i Ṣadr, was a famous theologian in the reign of the Tīmūrid S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲ Mīrzā [ q.v.], and a member of an originally turco-phone family of Iṣfahān, whence the appelation Turka. In 845/1441, when S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲ appointed his own grandson, Muḥammad b. Bāysonḳor as governor of a part of Irāḳ-i ʿAd̲j̲amī (al-D̲j̲ibāl), Afḍal al-Dīn Turka was among the learned courtiers of this young prince. But later when, in consequence of Muḥammad’s revolt, S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲ came to Iṣfahān,…

(a.), two terms of Arabic theological and philosophical discourse, the first, ẓāhir , meaning “outward, external, exoteric sense”, hence “apparent, manifest sense”, and the second, bāṭin , its antonym, meaning “hidden, inner, esoteric sense”. This pair of words occurs together four times in the Ḳurʾān: in VI, 120, to describe the outwardness and the inwardness of a sin; in XXXI, 20, as adjectives to describe God’s blessings, both manifest and hidden; in LVII, 3, as names of God to mean that He is th…

(a.), “questions and answers”, a technique of argumentation in mediaeval Islam. The pattern of question ( suʾāl , pl. suʾālāt , asʾila ) and answer ( d̲j̲awāb , pl. d̲j̲awābāt , ad̲j̲wiba ) has strongly influenced, both in form and content, numerous Arabic writings in virtually all fields of knowledge. Unsolved problems, or questions and objections propounded by a third person, are followed by answers or explanations and refutations. Sometimes the author, at the request of a third person, composed a monog…

or Sumayṭiyya (also S̲h̲umaṭiyya or Sumaṭiyya), a S̲h̲īʿī sect whose name is derived from that of one of its heads, a certain Yaḥyā b. Abi ’l-S̲h̲umayṭ. The sect recognised as imām and successor of D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ [ q.v.] his youngest son Muḥammad, who not only bore the name of the Prophet but also is said to have resembled him physically. After the failure in 200/815 of the S̲h̲īʿī rebellion of Abu ’l-Sarāyā [ q.v.] in Kūfa against the caliph al-Maʾmūn (al-Ṭabarī, hi, 976 ff.), Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar, who then lived in Mecca as an old man, was urged by his followe…

take their name from Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā the secretary, who was called Burg̲h̲ūt̲h̲ (Ar. = flea). They hived off from the Nad̲j̲d̲j̲āriyya [ q.v.], holding with them that God has a nature ( māhiyya ), that His attributes only tell what He is not (generous says that He is not stingy) and He always knew what would happen. Peculiar to the Burg̲h̲ūt̲h̲iyya is the doctrine that God always ¶ speaks from His self or essence, i.e., that speech is an attribute of His essence, though a report says that according to them His speech is action ( lahu kalām faiʿlī ) whence it was conclude…

philosopher, b. about 300/912, d. about 375/985. He was a pupil of Mattā b. Yūnus (d. 328/939) and Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (d. 364/974), and lived in Bag̲h̲dād (he was patronized by ʿAḍud al-Dawla, to whom he dedicated some of his treatises), occupying an eminent place among the philosophers of the capital. His system, like that of most of the other members of his environment, had a strong Neo-platonic colouring. For the content of his teaching we are mainly indebted to Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī [ q.v.], whose works, especially al-Muḳābasāt and al-Imtāʿ wa ’l-Muʾānasa , are fill…

(a.), religion, sect. Although the Arab philologists claim this term as a native Arabic word (cf. Nöldeke, in ZDMG, lvii ‘903], 413), their explanations are so farfetched as to render it almost certain that the term stems from Hebrew and Jewish and Christian Aramaic milla , Syriac melltā “utterance, word”, translating the Greek logos . It does not seem to have any pre-Islamic attestations, hence may have been a borrowing by Muḥammad himself. In the Ḳurʾān, it always means “religion”. It occurs fifteen times, including three ti…

al-Ḳaṣabī (also al-T̲h̲aḳafī), a prominent Muʿtazilī theologian and ascetic of the school of Bag̲h̲dād, d. 234/848-9. He was a disciple of Abū Mūsā al-Murdār, and to some slight degree also influenced by al-Naẓẓām [ q.v.] of Baṣra. Little is known of his life except some anecdotes about his abnegation of the world, and the information that he introduced the Muʿtazilī doctrine to ʿĀna [ q.v.], and held disputations with Bis̲h̲r b. G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Marīsī [ q.v.]. He is the author of numerous works on fiḳh and kalām (al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ 81; Fihrist 37) and he had numerou…

, Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā b. Ṣubayḥ , a Muʿtazilī theologian from Bag̲h̲dād who died in 226/840-1. He was a pupil of Bis̲h̲r b. al-Muʿtamīr [ q.v.], the founder of the Muʿtazilī school of Bag̲h̲dād. and had discussions with fellow-Muʿtazilīs, among them Abu ’l-Hud̲h̲ayl al-ʿAllāf [ q.v.]. According to the Fihrist , he wrote 35 treatises, mostly on Muʿtazilī themes: on the oneness of God ( tawḥid ), on justice, knowledge, the createdness of the Ḳurʾān and theodicy; they include criticisms of his fellow-Muʿtazilīs al-Nad̲j̲d̲j̲ār, T̲h̲umāma b. As̲h̲r…

or, more commonly, Karibiyya is the name of a subsect of the Kaysāniyya [ q.v.] derived from its otherwise unknown leader Abū, more rarely Ibn Karib (or Kurayb, Karnab) al-Ḍarīr. The heresiographical sources are agreed that Abū Karib denied the death of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya, the Imām and Mahdī of the Kaysāniyya. It is thus evident that he was active immediately after the death of Ibn al-Ḥanafiyya in 81/700 and probably played a major rôle in promoting Messianic ideas about him among the Kaysāniyya. The sources disagr…

, the twelfth imām according to the It̲h̲nā ʿAs̲h̲ariyya [ q.v.] or Twelver S̲h̲īʿa. When the eleventh imām, al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-ʿAskarī [ q.v.], died in 260/874, the question who was to be recognised as his successor split the [proto-] S̲h̲īʿī community into numerous factions. Al-S̲h̲ahrastānī ( K. al-Milal wa ’l-niḥal ) counts eleven, al-Nawbak̲h̲tī ( Firaḳ al-s̲h̲īʿa ) fourteen, Saʿd al-Ḳummī ( K. al-Maḳālāt wa ’l-firaḳ ) fifteen and al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ al-d̲h̲ahab ) as many as twenty different factions. The opinions put forward by these fac…

, a term which occurs in many verses of the Ḳurʾān in the sense of command, viz. of God. (A paper by J. M. S. Baljon, The amr of god in the Koran , is to appear in Acta Orientatia .) These Ḳurʾānic passages formed the point of departure for speculations of theologians and philosophers, in which the Muslim element is often so contaminated, with doctrines of Hellenistic origin, that it loses all distinctive character. Nevertheless, the term itself does not seem to have an exact parallel in the relevant Greek termin…

(Old Persian: Ahuramazda, “wise lord”; Pahlavi: Auharmazd; Persian: Hurmazd, Hurmuzd, Hurmuz), supreme god of the ancient Iranians, whose name was later given to the planet Jupiter and to the first day of each month of the ¶ Zoroastrian year. In the works of Muslim writers (especially the Iranians and particularly the poets) are found allusions which display a very imprecise knowledge of Mazdaism; although there occurs the name of Zoroaster (Zardus̲h̲t), one searches in vain for the name of Hurmuzd (cf. M. Moīn, Mazdayasna , parts 7 & 8 and the introd. by …

, i.e., Proclus (A.D. 410-485), head of the pagan philosophical school at Athens (the ʿPlatonic Academy’), outstandihg scnolastic ¶ systematiser of Neoplatonic thought and one of the chief links between ancient and medieval philosophy. Although it would be premature to attempt a monograph about the influence he exercised upon medieval Arabic thought, the information at present at our diaposal is not so scanty that its complete neglect in R. Beutler’s comprehensive article on Proclus ( Pauly-Wissowa-Kroll 45, 1957, col. 186 ff.) appears justified. …

, the Arabic name for the Marcionites, an important non-monotheistic tendency in early Christianity. Marcion (Μαρκιων; Ar. Marḳiyūn) was a native of Sinope [see sīnūb ] on the Black Sea who arrived in Rome in A.D. 138 (or somewhat later) and taught among the Christian community in the imperial capital. Marcion’s doctrine was that the god described in the Old Testament (the creator, or just god) is different from the god described in the New Testament (the stranger, or good god), the father of Chris…

, Abu ’l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Aḥmad, Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn, thinker and historian of religious and philosophical doctrines, who lived in Persia in the first half of the 6th/12th century. He received other honorific titles such as al-Afḍal or al-Imām. Besides a few landmarks, little is known of his life. Al-S̲h̲ahrastānī (the customary Arabic vocalisation is retained here) was born in the small town of S̲h̲ahristān, on the northern frontier of K̲h̲urāsān, not far from Nasā, at the edge of the desert of Ḳara Ḳum (currently in the Republic of Turkmenistan) [see s̲h̲ahristān (6)]. His …

, Abū saʿīd b. Abi ’l-Ḥasan yasār al-Baṣrī (21/642-110/728), famous preacher of the Umayyad period in Baṣra, belonging to the class of the “successors” ( tābiʿūn ). His father, whose name was originally Pērōz, was made prisoner at the taking of Maysān in Irak, and is said to have been brought to Medina, where he was manumitted by his owner, a woman whose identity cannot be definitely established, and married Ḥasan’s mother, K̲h̲ayra. According to tradition, Ḥasan was born in Medina in 21/642 (for a critique of this tradition see Schaeder, op. cit. in bibl., 42-8). He grew up in Wādī ’l…

or al-Rawāfiḍ , a term that refers to (i) the proto-Imāmiyya (and, subsequently, the Twelver S̲h̲īʿa); (ii) any of a number of S̲h̲īʿī sects. In this article it is used in the former sense unless otherwise indicated. The origin of the term is a matter of dispute. 1. Early Imāmī heresiographers maintain that the name was first applied to the adherents of D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ by al-Mug̲h̲īra b. Saʿīd (executed in 119/737), immediately after they had dissociated themselves from him [see mug̲h̲īriyya ]. 2. Other reports, in contrast, relate it to the abortive uprising of Zayd b. ʿ…

, i.e., Пορφúριος, Porphyry (A.D 234-about 305) of Tyre, amanuensis, biographer and editor of Plotinus, and outstanding as the founder of Neoplatonism as a scholastic tradition. The philosophical syllabus common in Arabic philosophy is ultimately due to him: since his days it became customary to use the lecture courses of Aristotle as set-books in the Neoplatonic schools of late antiquity and to start with the Categories . He himself wrote commentaries on Aristotle and Plotinus, which seem to have reached the Arabs either in their origina…

(a), cutting off. The Arabie verb ḳaṭaʿa has been very widely used in a variety of literal and metaphorical senses; this diversity is often of interest for both religious and cultural history. The infinitive ḳaṭʿ does not occur in the Ḳurʾān, but the finite verb occurs both in the literal and in a rather metaphorical sense: Sūra V, 42 (38): “Cut off the hands of the thief and the female thief”—the well-known prescription which has passed into fiḳh and is sometimes briefly designated as ḳaṭʿ al-liṣṣ ; Sūra VIII, 7: “and [Allah] may cut off the root of the Infidels”, i.e., extirpate them. Sūra I…

, al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad Abū ʿAbd Allāh , Murd̲j̲iʾī D̲j̲abrī theologian of the period of al-Maʾmūn. Born in the city of Bamm, he apparently grew up there as well, and worked as a weaver at the embroidery house ( dār al-ṭirāz ); according to another version, he worked at a factory which ¶ produced metal weights. The sources are silent with regard to the dates of his birth and death; however, if we accept as true the report that he died of sorrow over his argument with al-Naẓẓām, the Muʿtazilī theologian, it is reasonable to assume that al-Nad̲j̲d̲…

(a.), also tuḳa n , tuḳāt , taḳwā and ittiḳāʾ , “prudence, fear” (see LʿA , s.v. w-ḳ-y , Beirut 1956, xv, 401-4; TʿA , x, 396-8), and also, from the root k-t-m, kitmān “action of covering, dissimulation”, as opposed to id̲h̲āʿa “revealing, spreading information”, denotes dispensing with the ordinances of religion in cases of constraint and when there is a possibility of harm. The Ḳurʾān itself avoids the question of suffering in the cause of religion in dogmatics by adopting a Docetist solution (sūra IV, 156) and in everyday life by the hid̲j̲ra and by allowing in …

(a.), a term of Islamic religious polemics, derived from form V of the verb bariʾa . The term tabarruʾ or tabarrī , which can also be found in the apparently incorrect but not uncommon Arabo-Persian form tabarrā (see below), primarily denotes the general idea of exemption or of disengagement, in particular exemption from responsibility. Among the Arabs barāʾa , which is also called k̲h̲alʿ or tabarruʾ, is a pre-Islamic social and legal phenomenon, which has persisted in Bedouin society (Kohlberg, 1986, 139 ff.). In the text of the Ḳurʾān it seems that barāʾa appears very late in the ca…

(a.) (or karra ), lit. “return”, a term that has several distinct meanings in the doctrines of S̲h̲īʿī groups: (1) The passing of the soul into another body either human or animal (i.e. metempsychosis), or (2) the transmigration of the spirit of holiness from one Imam to the next. Both are more usually referred to as tanāsuk̲h̲ . It was mainly members of various g̲h̲ulāt sects [ q.v.] that believed in them. (3) Return of power to the S̲h̲īʿa (see further under no. 5). (4) Return from concealment, usually of a particular Imām at the end of his occultation ( g̲h̲ayba [ q.v.]). Already ʿUmar is sai…

, a term referring to an extremist S̲h̲īʿī group which originated within the ʿAbbāsid movement in K̲h̲urāsān. The term was subsequently expanded to include at times the entire ʿAbbāsid s̲h̲īʿa , but unless otherwise stated it will be used in this article in its original sense. It is said in some sources to derive from al-Ḳāsim b. Rāwand or from Abu ’l-ʿAbbās al-Rāwandī, both of whom are otherwise unknown; other sources more plausibly derive it from ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāwandī, who appears in a list of propagandists ( duʿāt ) of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.] (see Ak̲h̲bār al-dawl…

, a term denoting four distinct ʿAlid groups: (1) The descendants of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya. In the 4th/10th century they are reported to have been few in number, but to have none the less held positions of leadership in Fārs, ¶ Ḳazwīn, Ḳumm and Rayy. By the 6th/12th century their numbers appear to have grown. (2) Believers in the Mahdīship of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (d. 145/762 [ q.v.]). This Ḥasanid pretender enjoyed widespread support among a variety of S̲h̲īʿīs long before his uprising against the ʿAbbāsids. The term Muḥammadiyya denotes tw…

, a technical term taken from the Greek ὕλη, “matter” as opposed to “form”, ṣūra (εἶδος), or more precisely “primary matter” in the philosophical sense. The corresponding Arabic word is mādda ; the sense that is sometimes very close to that of ʿunṣur , “element”, should also be noted. In the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries, the term hayūlā ¶ is current in translations from the Greek, and in the researches and systems that draw their inspiration from these. According to the taste of the various schools and authors, hayūlā is sometimes substituted for mādda, and sometimes distinguished fro…

(a.), in Arabic heresiography, the dualists. The word does not appear in the Ḳurʾān or in Tradition, but a K. ʿalā ’l-t̲h̲anawiyya had been written by Abu ’l-Hud̲h̲ayl (d. 227/841?) and a K. risālatihi fi ’l-radd ʿalā ’l-t̲h̲anawiyya by al-Kindī (d. ca. 256/870), according to the Fihrist (ed. Tad̲j̲addud, 204 1. 27, 318 1. 24). One finds the same word also in e.g. al-Nās̲h̲iʾ al-Akbar, and it became current in the 4th/10th century. However, this abstract, technical term seems to have been preceded by another one, to be found in al-Radd ʿalā aṣḥāb al-it̲h̲nayn , the …

, holders of materialistic opinions of various kinds, often only vaguely defined. This collective noun denotes them as a whole, as a firḳa , sect, according to the Dictionary of the Technical Terms , and stands beside the plural dahriyyūn formed from the same singular dahrī , the relative noun of dahr, a Ḳurʾānic word meaning a long period of time. In certain editions of the Ḳurʾān it gives its name to sūra LXXVI, generally called the sūra of Man; but its use in XLV, 24 where it occurs in connexion with the infidels, or rather the ungodly, erring and blinded, appears to …

, the common collective (sing. ϒahūdī ) in Arabic for “Jews”. A less common plural Hūd is also used (e.g. Ḳurʾān, II, 111, 135, 140). The word is borrowed from Aram. ϒahūd , and ultimately from late bibl. Heb. yehūdīm , “Judaeans”, the latter itself derived from members of the tribe of Judah). The Ḳurʾān also uses a stative verb hāda , “to be Jewish” or “to practice Judaism”. 1. In the D̲j̲āhiliyya. Jews had lived in various parts of the Arabian Peninsula since Antiquity, and the numbers of those living in northwestern Arabia must have been swelled by refugees from J…

Abu'l-Fidāʾ, Taḳwīm “Taḳwīm al-buldān”, ed. J.-T. Reinaud and M. de Slane, Paris 1840 Abu'l-Fidāʾ, Taḳwīm, tr. “Gèographie d'Aboulfèda, traduite de l'arabe en français”, vols. i, ii/1 by M. Reinaud, Paris 1848; vol. ii/2 by St. Guyard, 1883 Ag̲h̲ānī, Brünnow “The XX1st vol. of the Kitāb al-Aghānī”, ed. R.E. Brünnow, Leiden 1883 Ag̲h̲ānī, Tables “Tables alphabètiques du Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī”, rédigées par I. Guidi, Leiden 1900 Ag̲h̲ānī1 or [2] or [3] Abu'l-Farad̲j̲ al-Iṣfahānī, “al-Ag̲h̲ānī”; [1]Būlāḳ 1285; [2]Cairo 1323; [3]Cairo 1345- ALA “Arabic Literature of Africa”, ed. R…

, the fifth Imām of the Twelver S̲h̲īʿa. The epithet al-Bāḳir, short for bāḳir al-ʿilm , is explained as meaning either “the one who splits knowledge open” (i.e. brings it to light), or “the one who possesses great knowledge”. The Prophet Muḥammad is quoted as declaring that al-Bāḳir was already referred to by this epithet in the Torah (Ibn Bābawayh, ʿIlal al-s̲h̲arāʾiʿ , Nad̲j̲af 1385/1966, 233; idem, Amālī , Nad̲j̲af 1389/1970, 315). Al-Bāḳir was born in Medina on 3 Ṣafar or 1 Rad̲j̲ab 57/16 December 676 or 10 May 677 (or on the same days…

(also Mazdaḳ, Maz̲h̲dak), the leader of a revolutionary religious movement in Sāsānid Iran, during the reign of Ḳubād̲h̲, son of Fīrūz (Kavād, son of Pērōz) 488-96, 498-9 to 531). Klima regarded the name of Mazdak as a conflation of an Iranian name, Mazdak, Mizdak, or Muz̲h̲dak ("the justifier"), with a Semitic name, Mazdeḳ, from the root zdḳ (“righteous”). Klima also suggested that mazdak may have been what the leaders of this movement were called rather than a proper name, or even what its members were called (al-Mazdaḳān, al-Mazādiḳa in Arabic sources as well as al-Mazdaḳiyya). Almost …

(a.), soul. Nafs , in early Arabic poetry meant the self or person, while rūḥ meant breath and wind. Beginning with the Ḳurʾān, nafs also means soul, and rūḥ means a special angel messenger and a special divine quality. Only in post-Ḳurʾānic literature are nafs and rūḥ equated and both applied to the human spirit, angels and d̲j̲inn . Since the two concepts of nafs and rūḥ are so closely connected, both will be considered here. I. The Ḳurʾānic uses. A. Nafs and its plurals anfus and nufūs have five uses: 1. In most cases they mean the human self or person, e.…

(“he who restrains himself or “who keeps silent”), the seventh Imām of the Twelver S̲h̲īʿīs. He is known as Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Awwal (or al-Mādī), Abū Ibrāhīm, Abū ʿAlī, and al-ʿAbd al-Ṣāliḥ. He was born at al-Abwāʾ (between Mecca and Medina) or in Medina on 7 Ṣafar 128/8 Nov. 745. Other dates given are D̲h̲u i-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 127/Sept. 745 and 129/746-7. His mother Ḥamīda (or Ḥumayda) bint Ṣāʿid al-Barbariyya (or al-Andalusiyya) was an umm walad bought from a Berber slave-dealer; she is often referred to as al-Muṣaffat, “the purified”. Little is known of al-Kāẓim’s early life; in a work…

, plural of Naṣrānī, rarely Naṣrān, Naṣrāna in the feminine form, a noun which currently denotes Christians in the Muslim Arab world, is used fifteen times in the Ḳurʾān and is interpreted, by the majority of commentators and Arab geographers and lexicographers, as derived from the name of the locality of Nazareth (al-Nāṣira [ q.v.] ) (A. Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of the Qurʾan , Baroda 1938, 280-1). This designation refers to the name given to Jesus by his contemporaries, who called him Jesus of Nazareth, or the Nazarene, whence his disciples were initial…

, a sect which flourished in the central and eastern parts of the Islamic worlds, and especially in the Iranian regions, from the 3rd/9th century until the Mongol invasions. (1). Origins. The founder, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Karrām (thus vocalized by Samʿānī, who says that his father was a vine-tender, karrām , but there is some support for the readings Karām or Kirām), is known from biographies, in e.g. Samʿānī, Ansāb , fols. 476b-477a; D̲h̲ahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl , Cairo 1325/1907, iii, 127; idem, Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-Islām , sub anno 255/869 (abridged version in Leiden Ms. 1721, fols…

(coll., sing. Mad̲j̲ūsī ), originally an ancient Iranian priestly caste (OP magus̲h̲ , Akk. magus̲h̲u , Syriac mgōs̲h̲ā , Greek μάϒος) but used in Arabic primarily for Zoroastrians. This caste was closely identified with the ruling élite in Sāsānid Iran, where their faith was the official religion of the state and where they were organised in a social and religious hierarchy. The priests, called mōbad , hirbad , dastūr , or rat depending on context and function, had ritual, judicial and educational responsibilities. The priestly hierarchy with the mōbadān mōbad …

, the name of a religious movement founded at Baṣra, in the first half of the 2nd/8th century by Wāṣil b. ʿAṭāʾ (d. 131/748 [ q.v.]), subsequently becoming one of the most important theological schools of Islam. The origin of this term—which has the sense of “those who separate themselves, who stand aside”— remains enigmatic. According to a traditional explanation (sometimes acknowledged by the Muʿtazila themselves), the word would have been applied to Wāṣil—or to his lieutenant, ʿAmr b. ʿUbayd (d. 144/761 [ q.v.])—because on the question relating to the definition applicable …

, one of the “religious sciences” of Islam. The term is usually translated, as an approximate rendering, “theology”. I.—Definition. It is difficult to establish precisely when ʿilm al-kalām came to mean an autonomous religious science (or branch of knowledge). In any case, whereas the term fiḳh meant originally —especially in the Ḥanafī school (cf. fiḳh akbar) —speculative meditation, hence distinguished from ʿilm in the sense of traditional knowledge, the term kalām , literally “word”, quickly acquired the senses of “conversation, discussion, controversy” (cf. A. J. Wensinck, Th…

(a.), ritual prayer. Unlike other types of prayer—in particular the prayer of supplication [see duʿāʾ ], the remembrance of the Divine Names [see d̲h̲ikr ] or Ṣūfī confraternities’ litanies [see wird ]—the ṣalāt , principal prayer of Islam, forms part of the ʿibādāt or cultic obligations. The word clearly derives from the Syriac ṣelōt̲ā “prayer” and had adopted its Arabic form before the Islamic period (see Jeffery, 198-9). The structure of this article will be as follows: I. In the Ḳurʾān. A. General insistence on prayer. In the Sacred Book of Islam, ṣalāt stands out prominently in an…

, God the Unique one, the Creator and Lord of the Judgment, polarizes the thought of Islam; He is the sole reason for its existence. ¶ Allāh was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities, possibly the supreme deity and certainly a creator-god (cf. Ḳurʾān, xiii, 16; xxix, 61, 63; xxxi, 25; xxxix, 38; xliii, 87). He was already known, by antonomasia, as the God, al-Ilāh (the most likely etymology; another suggestion is the Aramaic Alāhā ).—For Allāh before Islam, as shown by archaeological sources and the Ḳurʾān, see ilāh . But the vague notion of supreme (not sole) divinity, which Allāh seems to have connoted in Meccan religion, was to become both universal and transcendental; it was to be turned, by the Ḳurʾānic preaching, into the affirmation of the Living God, the Exalted One. i. allāh in the ḳurʾān . A Muslim tradition tells us that sūra xcvi was the first to "come down" to the Prophet Muḥammad; so the mission entrusted to him was from the first the preaching of the Word of Allāh ("Preach!", xcvi, 1 and 3). Allāh, as is said to Muḥammad in this first sūra, is thy Lord ( rabbuka , xcvi, 1), Creator of man, the Very Generous, "Who teaches man that which he knew not" (xcvi, 3). The great Ḳurʾānic leit-motiv, bismillāh al-Raḥmān al-Raḥīm , "in the name of God, the merciful Benefactor" cf. R. Blachère’s translation), opens the announcement of the imparted message and is repeated at the head of each sūra. It may be that it contains a reference to the Raḥmān of pre-Islamic south Arabia, and that Raḥmān should be taken as a divine proper name. The fact remains that…

, a nisba referring to a number of scholars of the Al Nahīk in al-Kūfa. The best known is ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad, a member of the extremist Muḥammadiyya [ q.v.] sect. ʿUbayd Allāh b. Sulaymān b. Wahb, who was al-Muʿtaḍid’s vizier between 279/892 and 288/901, appointed him, in recognition of past services, to the influential post of ʿāmil (director of taxes) of the Bādūrayā [ q.v.] district south-west of Bag̲h̲dād. Two years later he was dismissed after being accused by the Banu ’l-Furā…

, One of the main branches of the Ḵh̲arid̲j̲ites [ q.v.]. The name is derived from that of its leader Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraḳ al-Ḥanafī al-Ḥanẓalī, who, according to al-As̲h̲ʿarī, was the first to cause disputes among the Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ites by supporting the thesis according to which all adversaries should be put to death together with their women and children ( istiʿrāḍ ). As regards the man himself, it is known that he was the son of a manumitted blacksmith of Greek origin and that in 64/683 he came to the aid of ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr, be…

, K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ite sub-sect which was especially widespread in Baḥrayn and Yamāma. The name derives from that of its founder Nad̲j̲da b. ʿĀmir al-Ḥanafī al-Ḥarūrī. It is known of him that he rebelled in Yamāma at the time of al-Ḥusayn’s death in battle (61/680) and that in 64/683 he gave military help to ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr when he was besieged in Mecca by the Syrian army. Once the siege was raised, Nad̲j̲da, in company with other K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ite chiefs, including Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraḳ and ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ,…

(a.), originally “obliterating, covering”, then, “concealingbenefits received” = “ungrateful”; this meaning is found even in the old Arab poetry and in the Ḳurʾān, Sūra XXVI, 18. In the Ḳurʾān the word is used with reference to God: “concealing God’s blessings” = “ungrateful to God”, see Sūra XVI, 57 and XXX, 33: “That they are ungrateful for our gifts”; cf. also Sūra XVI, 85. The next development— probably under the influence of the Syriac and Aramaic where the corresponding development took pl…