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, Abū Naṣr al-Ḳaysī al-Is̲h̲bīlī , an Andalusian anthologist whose history is somewhat obscure. We do, however, know that he studied seriously under well-known teachers and that he led an adventurous life, travelling through much of Muslim Spain and enjoying to the full pleasures strictly forbidden by the laws of Islam. Despite this, he obtained a position as secretary to the governor of Granada, Abū Yūsuf Tās̲h̲fīn b. ʿAlī, but did not keep it and went to Marrākus̲h̲ where, at …

Ḵh̲uwaylid b. Murra al-Hud̲h̲alī , muk̲h̲aḍram Arab poet, who was converted to Islam and died under the caliphate of ʿUmar, from the bite of a snake while he was drawing water for Yamanite pilgrims (who were then required by the caliph to pay his diya ). Abu Ḵh̲irās̲h̲ is counted among the pre-Islamic warriors who could run faster then horses, sharing this distinction with his nine brothers Abū Ḏj̲undab, ʿUrwa, al-Abaḥḥ, al-Aswad, Abu ’l-Aswad, ʿAmr, Zuhayr, Ḏj̲annād and Sufyān, who also were poets of rank. (Ch. Pellat) Bibliography The dīwān of Abū Ḵh̲irās̲h̲ was published by J. Hell, Neue …

b. ʿUtba b. Rabīʿa b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim (genealogy in the D̲j̲amhara of Ibn al-Kalbī, Tab. 8), Companion of the Prophet born in Abyssinia, to which his father and his mother (Sahla bint Suhayl b. ʿAmr) had emigrated (Ibn His̲h̲ām, Sīra , ed. Saḳḳā et alii, i, 322, ii, 369). Following the death of his father in 12/633 at the battle of ʿAḳrabāʾ [ q.v.] against Musaylima [ q.v.], the young orphan was brought up by ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, a fact which makes all the more reprehensible the conduct which he was later to engage in. Sent to Egypt, he took part in th…

(Berber) or amẓad , umẓad according to the dialect, “hair, fur”, denotes a musical instrument in use among the Touareg (Ṭawāriḳ [ q.v.]) and generally compared with a violin. The sounding-box consists of a half-calabash of varying diameter (20 to 50 cm.), over which a goatskin, tanned quickly and stripped of hair, is stretched and fixed with cord or acacia thorns; often decorated with motifs painted in bright colours or with inscriptions in tifinagh [see berbers, vi], the goatskin is pierced with one or two sound-holes (in Ahaggar, tiṭṭ “…

, hero of a series of anecdotes collected, probably in the 3rd/9th century, under the title Kitāb al-G̲h̲āḍirī ( Fihrist , 435). He is said to have been a foundling, who became a humourist of Medina and rival of As̲h̲ʿab [ q.v.]; the name of al-Ḥasan b. Zayd [ q.v.], governor of Medina from 150 to 155/767-72, which appears in one anecdote, would seem to give some grounds for thinking him a historical personality. However, as the Banū G̲h̲āḍira have a reputation as wits, it is possible that the anonymous collection referred to by Ibn al-Nadīm i…

, Munṣifāt ( As̲h̲ʿār —) (a.), the name given by the mediaeval Arabic critics and anthologists to those poems in which a description of the fights between tribes is accompanied by a recognition, with equity ( inṣāf), of the opponent’s valour and the sufferings endured by the poet’s own side. This term, whose correct reading has not always been immediately recognised by the Arabic scholars who have come across it, appears in particular in the Ṭabaḳāt al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ of Ibn Sallām (ed. J. Hell, Leiden 1916, 33, 70; ed. M.M. S̲h̲ākir, Cairo n.d., 121, 233), in al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ’s Bayān …

, nickname of an Arab philologist named Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Abī His̲h̲ām (Hās̲h̲im), Abū ʿUmar al-Zāhid al-Muṭarriz ¶ al-Bārūdī. A native of Abīward Ḵh̲urāsān, he was born in 261/875 and died at Bag̲h̲dād on 13 Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 345/16 February 957. He owes his nickname to his relations with T̲h̲aʿlab [ q.v.] whose zealous disciple and successor he was; he himself had many pupils, and famous people did not scorn to attend his lectures. He made his living as an embroiderer ( muṭarriz ), but certainly received also subsidies from several patrons, as app…

Muḥammad b. Tamīm b. Tahmām al-Tamīmī , Malikite faḳīh , traditionist, historian and poet from Ḳayrawān. Offspring of a great Arab family (his great-grandfather was governor of Tūnis, seized Ḳayrawān in 183/799 and ended his life in prison in Bag̲h̲dād), Abu’l-ʿArab, born in Ḳayrawān between 250/864 and 260/873, devoted himself to study under various masters, trained, in his turn, several pupils (notably Ibn Abī Zayd al-Ḳayrawānī), took part in the revolt of Abū Yazīd against the Fatimids, was put in prison and died in 333/945. Of the works on fikh , ḥadīt̲h̲ and…

al-K̲h̲uzāʿī al-Marwazī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, a traditionist originally from Marw al-Rūd̲h̲ [ q.v.] who lived for a while in Egypt but above all in Bag̲h̲dād where, having been invited to recognise the created nature of the Ḳurʾān in the course of the miḥna [ q.v.], he refused to give his opinion and was thrown into one of the prisons at Sāmarrā; he died there on 13 D̲j̲umādā I 228/18 February 843 (but other dates around this are also given). He received from Sufyān b. Muʿāwiya, ʿAlīb. al-Mubârak and other muḥaddit̲h̲s [see Ḥadīt̲h̲ ] traditions which he in turn transm…

, the name given in Muslim Spain to kinds of catalogues in which scholars enumerated, in one form or another, their masters and the subjects or works studied under their direction. The word fahrasa is an Arabicization of the Persian fihrist by means of a double vocalization -a- and the closing of the final tāʾ , a fairly frequent modification. In al-Andalus, it is completely synonymous with barnāmad̲j̲ , which is also Persian, while in the east it corresponds with t̲h̲abat , mas̲h̲īk̲h̲a ( mas̲h̲yak̲h̲a ) or muʿd̲j̲am (this last word is also used in the west)…

(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…

, nickname of the Arab poet D̲j̲arwal b. Aws , who traced back his genealogy sometimes to the ʿAbs, sometimes to the D̲h̲uhl, but who, in reality, was probably the natural son of a woman named al-Ḍarrāʾ; his nickname probably derives from his ugliness and appears to signify “deformed”. He belonged to the muk̲h̲aḍramūn [ q.v.], and Ibn Sallām places him in the second class of the poets of the d̲j̲āhiliyya since he is regarded as the rāwī of Zuhayr b. Abī Sulmā [ q.v.], he must have been born about forty years before the hid̲j̲ra , and his earliest poetic activities pro…

, muḥammad b. abi ’l-k̲h̲aṭṭāb , adīb of the end of the 3rd/9th or of the beginning of the 4th/10th century, and known only as the author of the Ḏj̲amharat ashʿār al-ʿArab (ed. Būlāḳ 1308/1890). No personal details about the author can be derived from this collection, and the only relevant data are two isnād s, one (p. 13) going back to al-Hayt̲h̲am b. ʿAdī (d. ca. 206/821 [ q.v.]) through two intermediaries, and the other (p. 14) going back to Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 231/846 [ q.v.]) through one intermediary; these isnāds would thus allow us to date the Ḏj̲amhara approximatel…

, 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…

(also called Yuʿfur and Yaʿfir) b. ʿAbd al-Aswad al-Tamīmī, Abu ’l-Ḏj̲arrāḥ, pre-Islamic Arab poet who lived probably at the end of the 6th century A.D. He is said to have travelled about among the tribes, composing eulogies or satires in verse, and was for some time the companion of al-Nuʿmān b. al-Mund̲h̲ir. He is sometimes called al-Aʿs̲h̲ā of the Banū Nahs̲h̲al, because he was night-blind, but he lost his sight at the end of his life, which is thought to have been extremely long. Of the poems which have come down to us, the most celebrated are a ḳaṣīda in dāl dating p…

is the usual appellative of the great-grandson of the Caliph Abū Bakr, ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad (= Abū ʿAtīk) b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr . All that is known of him is that, after al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, he married, among others, Umm Isḥāḳ, the daughter of Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh. He led an idle existence in Medina, dividing his time between meetings with poets such as ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa [ q.v.] or Kut̲h̲ayyir ʿAzza [ q.v.] and seeking the company of wits such as As̲h̲ʿab [ q.v.] or musicians and singers like Ibn ʿĀʾis̲h̲a [ q.v.]. Being a member of the Ḳurays̲h̲ī aristocracy, he was able in…

(a.) “routes and kingdoms”, name given by R. Blachère ( Extraits des principaux géographes arabes du Moyen Age , Beirut-Algiers 1934, 110-200; 2nd corrected printing by H. Darmaun, Paris 1957) to what he considered as a particular genre of Arabic geographical literature, because several works, which bear the title of Kitāb al-Masālik wa “ l-mamālik , present common characteristics. Nevertheless, not all those which, in his eyes, constitute this genre were given the title which has been retained, and furthermore, the K. al-Masālik wa ’l-mamālik which is per…

b. ʿAbd al-Malik , Umayyad prince. As the eldest son of His̲h̲ām [ q. v.], caliph from 105 to 125/724-43, he was designated heir presumptive by his father, but died prematurely, at a date variously located between 117 and 119/735-7, at about thirty years of age. Although he did not himself accede to the throne, he was the father of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ q.v.], known as al-Dāk̲h̲il. who fled to Spain where he restored the dynasty founded in Damascus by Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān [ q.v.]. Muʿāwiya b. His̲h̲ām, who had thirteen sons, was thus the ancestor of the amīrs and caliphs wh…

, a famous singer of Medina at the time of the first Umayyads. Tradition has it that she taught herself the elements of music and singing by listening to her neighbour Sāʾib K̲h̲āt̲h̲ir [ q.v.] (d. 63/682-3). It became unanimously recognized that her great natural talent put her in a class of her own, and she founded a school where, among numerous lesser-known singers and ḳiyān , Maʿbad [ q.v.], Ibn ʿĀʾis̲h̲a [ q.v.], Ḥabāba and Sallāma received their training. Artists as great as Ibn Surayd̲j̲ [ q.v.] would come to hear her, and would accept her critical judgments, while her salo…

al-Salūlī , Arab poet of the 1st/7th century (he is said to have died after 96/715), who played a political role under the Umayyads. He was attached from 60/680 to Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya, condoled with him upon the death of his father and congratulated him at his accession. He persuaded Yazīd to proclaim his son Muʿāwiya as heir presumptive and later he was the first to greet al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik with the name of caliph (86/705). During the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (65-86/685-…