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ʿId̲j̲l

(380 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, ancient Arabian tribe, reckoned part of Bakr b. Wāʾil [ q.v.]. Their common ancestor ʿId̲j̲l b. Lud̲j̲aym was proverbially noted for his stupidity (Goldziher, Muh . St., i, 48n; Eng. tr. i, 52n.). The tribe as a whole had a reputation for niggardliness (Masʿūdī, vi, 138f.; Yāḳūt, i, 183). They originally lived in al-Yamāma and in the region about the roads from Kūfa and Baṣra to Mecca. Among the settled localities belonging to them were Arāka, D̲j̲awk̲h̲āʾ and al-K̲h̲aḍārim; while their waters included Buḳayʿ, Tuḳayyid,…

al-Abwāʾ

(155 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, a place on the road from Mecca to Medina, 23 miles from al-Ḏj̲uḥfa in the territory of Banū Ḍamra of Kināna. According to some authorities the name really belonged to a mountain situated there. Muḥammad’s mother, Āmina, is commonly said to have died there while returning from Medina to Mecca, and to be buried there; but she is sometimes said to be buried in Mecca (Ṭabarī, i, 980). The first expedition from Medina in which Muḥammad himself took part was to al-Abwāʾ and Waddān nearby. It is said…

Makka

(45,581 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery | Wensinck, A.J. | Bosworth, C.E. | Winder, R.B. | King, D.A.
(in English normally “Mecca”, in French “La Mecque”), the most sacred city of Islam, where the Prophet Muḥammad was born and lived for about 50 years, and where the Kaʿba [ q.v.] is situated. 1. The pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods Geographical description. Mecca is located in the Ḥid̲j̲āz about 72 km. inland from the Red Sea port of Jedda (D̲j̲udda [ q.v.]), in lat. 21° 27′ N. and long. 39° 49′ E. It is now the capital of the province ( manātiḳ idāriyya ) of Makka in Suʿūdī Arabia, and has a normal population of between 200,000 and 300,000, which …

Musaylima

(1,053 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
b. Ḥabīb, Abū T̲h̲umāma , a man of Banū Ḥanīfa who lived in al-Yamāma and led a large section of his tribe in revolt during the wars of the ridda [ q.v.]. The suggestion of some European scholars (as in the article in EI 1) that Musaylima is a contemptuous diminutive of Maslama appears to be mistaken. Because he claimed to be a prophet he is often called al-Kad̲h̲d̲h̲āb, the liar or false prophet. He is also said to have been called al-Raḥmān (al-Balād̲h̲urī, 105; al-Wāḳidī, 82); but this seems unlikely since al-Raḥmān was a name of God. …

Ḏj̲ahm b. Ṣafwān

(202 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, Abu muḥriz , early theologian, sometimes called al-Tirmid̲h̲ī or al-Samarḳandī. He was a client of Rāsib (a baṭn of Azd) and appears as secretary to al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Surayd̲j̲, “The man with the black banner” who revolted against the Umayyads and from 116/734 to 128/746 controlled tracts of eastern K̲h̲urāsān, sometimes in alliance with Turks. D̲j̲ahm was captured and executed in 128/746, shortly before al-Ḥārit̲h̲ himself. The basis of this movement of revolt, of which D̲j̲ahm was intellect…

ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḏj̲aḥs̲h̲

(131 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, of Banū Asad b. Ḵh̲uzayma, a confederate ( ḥalīf ) of Banū Umayya of Ḳurays̲h̲. His mother was Umayma bint ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Muḥammad’s aunt. An early Muslim along with his brothers, ʿUbayd Allāh and Abū Aḥmad, he took part with the former in the migration to Abyssinia. ʿUbayd Allāh became a Christian and died there, but ʿAbd Allāh returned to Mecca and was the most prominent of a group of confederates, including his sister Zaynab [ q.v.], who all migrated to Medina. He led the much-criticized raid to Nak̲h̲la where Muslims first shed Meccan blood, and fought at Badr. …

Ruḳayya

(236 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, daughter of Muḥammad and his wife K̲h̲adīd̲j̲a. She is sometimes said to have been the eldest of his four daughters, but this is unlikely. She and her sister Umm Kult̲h̲ūm were betrothed and married to two sons of Abū Lahab [ q.v.], but the latter told his sons to divorce their wives when Muḥammad began his career as a prophet. The divorces could not have been, as sometimes stated, after the revelation of ¶ sūra CXI, in which Abū Lahab is attacked, unless that was an early Meccan revelation. The statement in some sources that the divorces took …

Hid̲j̲ra

(1,111 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, latinized as Hegira, the emigration of Muḥammad from Mecca to Medina in September 622. The first stem of the verb, had̲j̲ara , means “to cut someone off from friendly association” (cf Ḳurʾān IV, 34/38) or “to avoid association with” (LXXIII, 10); there is often an explicit or implicit reference to a sexual relationship, as in the first Ḳurʾānic verse. The third stem hād̲j̲ara refers to a mutual ending of friendly relationships. Thus hid̲j̲ra properly does not mean “flight” as it has been traditionally translated but connotes primarily the brea…

Iram

(559 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, name of a tribe or place: (1) A tribe called Iram is mentioned several times in ancient poems (over a dozen references are given by J. Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen , Berlin 1926, 89 f.). It is mostly coupled with ʿĀd, but sometimes also with T̲h̲amūd. Ḥimyar, etc., and is said to have been destroyed by a man called Ḳudār al-Aḥmar (Uḥaymir). In this meaning Iram is an ajicient Arabian tribe. In his Muʿallaḳa , 68, al-Ḥārīth b. Ḥilliza uses the adjective iramī in the sense of ‘a man of ancient race’ (cf. al-Tibrīzī, ad loc). When Muslim scholars came to link up traditional Arab gen…

al-G̲h̲azālī

(3,499 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī (450/1058-505/1111), outstanding theologian, jurist, original thinker, mystic and religious reformer. There has been much discussion since ancient times whether his nisba should be G̲h̲azālī or G̲h̲azzālī; cf. Brockelmann, S I, 744; the former is to be preferred in accordance with the principle of difficilior lectio potius. 1. Life He was born at Ṭūs in Ḵh̲urāsān, near the modern Mes̲h̲hed, in 450/1058. He and his brother Aḥmad were left orphans at an early age. Their education was begun in Ṭūs. Then al-G̲h̲a…

Saʿd b. Bakr

(191 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, Banū , a small Arab tribe, usually reckoned as part of the tribe or tribal group of Hawāzin [ q.v.]. To a section of this tribe belonged Ḥalīma bint Abī Ḏh̲uʾayb, Muḥammad’s wet-nurse. After the battle of Ḥunayn [ q.v.] her daughter S̲h̲aymāʾ, who had been taken prisoner, obtained her release by proving to Muḥammad that she was his milk-sister [see also raḍāʿ. 2]; and some of the men of the tribe, because they were Muḥammad’s milk-brothers, were able to facilitate various negotiations. The tribe was apparently divided into several small sections. The grou…

Banū Ḥanẓala b. Mālik

(403 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, a branch of the tribe of Tamīm [ q.v.], of the group of Maʿādd, descended from Zayd Manāt b. Tamīm. The chief subdivisions were Dārim (from which came the poet al-Farazdaḳ), Yarbūʿ (to which D̲j̲arīr belonged) and the Barād̲j̲im (five families descended from Mālik b. Ḥanẓala). They inhabited the Yamāma between the hills D̲j̲urād and Marrūt, near ḥimā Ḍariyya [ q.v.]. Among their villages were al-Ṣammān (with wells, cisterns and irrigation) and al-Raḳmatān; but they were mainly nomadic. In history they appear at the first “day of Kulāb” (probably before 550 A.D.) as suppo…

Bad̲j̲īla

(452 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, an Arab tribe, reckoned along with Ḵh̲at̲h̲ʿam as a subdivision of Anmār; the nisba is Bad̲j̲alī. Bad̲j̲īla is sometimes said to be a woman, but her place in the genealogy is vague (cf. F. Wüstenfeld, Register zu den genealogischen Tabellen , 101-3; also Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka , Leipzig 1858, ii, 134). Some genealogists held that Bad̲j̲īla was a Yemenite tribe; others made Anmār the son of Nīzār b. Maʿadd b. ʿAdnān (Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Usd al-G̲h̲āba , i, 279, art. ‘Ḏj̲arīr b. ʿAbd Allāh’; Ibn Durayd, ed. Wüstenfeld, 101 f.). The tribe was sometim…

al-Aws

(902 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, one of the two main Arab tribes in Medina. The other was al-Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲, and the two, which in pre-Islamic times were known as Banū Ḳayla from their reputed mother, constituted after the Hid̲j̲ra the ‘helpers’ of Muḥammad or Anṣār [ q.v.]. The genealogy as given by Ibn Saʿd (iii/2,1) is: al-Aws b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿAmr (Muzayḳiyāʾ) b. ʿĀmir (Māʾ al-Samāʾ) b. Ḥārit̲h̲a b. Imriʾ al-Ḳays b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. Māzin b. al-Azd b. al-G̲h̲awt̲h̲ b. Nabt b. Mālik b. Zayd b. Kahlān b. Sabaʾ b. Yas̲h̲d̲j̲ub b. Yaʿrub b. Ḳaḥṭān. The following table giv…

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf

(199 words)

Author(s): Houtsma, M.Th. | Watt, W. Montgomery
, originally called ʿAbd ʿAmr or ʿAbd al-Kaʿba, the most prominent early Muslim convert from B. Zuhra of Ḳurays̲h̲. He took part in the Hid̲j̲ra to Abyssinia and in that to Medina, and fought at Badr and the other main battles. He commanded a force of 700 men sent by Muḥammad in S̲h̲aʿbān 6/December 627 to Dūmat al-Ḏj̲andal; the Christian chief, al-Aṣbag̲h̲ (or al-Aṣyaʿ) al-Kalbī, became a Muslim and made a ‘treaty, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān married his daughter Tumāḍir (but cf. Caetani, Annali , i, 700). By his shrewdness and skill as a merchant he made an enor…

al-Arḳam

(308 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, an early companion of Muḥammad’s, commonly known as al-Arḳam b. Abi ’l-Arḳam, and having the kunya Abū ʿAbd Allāh. His father’s name was ʿAbd Manāf, and he belonged to the influential clan of Mak̲h̲zūm at Mecca. His mother’s name is variously given, but she is usually said to be of the tribe of Ḵh̲uzāʿa. As al-Arḳam’s death is placed in 53/673 or 55/675 at the age of over eighty, he must have been born about 594; and he must have become a Muslim when very young, sin…

Ad̲j̲al

(803 words)

Author(s): Goldziher, I. | Watt, W. Montgomery
, the appointed term of a man’s life or the date of his death; a topic regularly discussed in the earlier kalām along with that of rizḳ or sustenance. The idea that the date of a man’s death is fixed presumably belongs to pre-Islamic thought. The word ad̲j̲al is used in the Ḳurʾān in a variety of ways, e.g. for the date when the embryo emerges from the womb (xxii, 5), for the period Moses had to serve for his wife (xxviii, 28 f.), for the date when a debt is due (ii, 282), etc. In creating the heavens and earth, the sun and moon, God fixed an ad̲j̲al for them (xlvi, 3; xxxix, 5 etc.); with this is con…

Kināna

(520 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
b. K̲h̲uzayma , an Arab tribe, genealogically related to Asad (b. K̲h̲uzayma) [ q.v.]. The territories of Kināna were around Mecca from the Tihāma on the south-west, where they were next to Hud̲h̲ayl, to the north-east where they bordered on Asad. There were six main subdivisions of the tribe, though more are sometimes mentioned: al-Naḍr (or Ḳays), the ancestor of Ḳurays̲h̲ [ q.v.], which is reckoned a separate tribe; Mālik; Milkān (or Malkān); ʿĀmir; ʿAmr; ʿAbd Manāt. The latter was further subdivided. Bakr b. ʿAbd Manāt was a strong group, ¶ and included as parts Mudlid̲j̲, al-Duʾi…

As̲h̲ʿariyya

(862 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, a theological school, the followers of Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-As̲h̲ʿarī [ q.v.], sometimes also called As̲h̲āʿira. (The history of the school has been little studied, and some of the statements in this article must be regarded as provisional). External history. During the last two decades of his life al-As̲h̲ʿarī attracted a number of disciples, and thus a school was founded. The doctrinal position of the new school was open to attack from several quarters. Apart from members of the Muʿtazila, certain groups of orthodox theologians attacked them. To the Ḥanbalīs [ q.v.] their use of ration…

Ḳurays̲h̲

(1,525 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery
, the tribe inhabiting Mecca in the time of Muḥammad and to which he belonged; the name, which may be a nickname, is mostly (e.g. Ibn His̲h̲ām, 61) said to come from taḳarrus̲h̲ , “a coming together, association”; but it is also possible (cf. Ṭabarī, i, 1104) that it is the diminutive of ḳirs̲h̲ , “shark”, and it could then be a totemic name like Kalb, etc. (A man called Ḳurays̲h̲, other than Fihr, is mentioned in Nasab Ḳurays̲h̲ , 12.7-9.) The tribe is taken to consist of the descendants of Fihr, and he himself is sometimes spoken of as Ḳurays̲h̲; bu…
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