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, abū ’l-ḥasan aḥmad b. ʿabd allāh b. muḥammad , appears to be the most acceptable form of the name of the alleged author, or final rāwī , of historical novels dealing with the early years of Islam, who also is credited with a mawlid and a fictional life of Muḥammad. The ¶ earliest biography devoted to him is to be found in al-D̲h̲ahabī, Mīzān , Cairo 1325, i, 53. Al-D̲h̲ahabī indignantly describes al-Bakrī as a liar and inventor of untrue stories, whose books were available at the booksellers (and, presumably, enjoyed good sales). Consi…

, Nūr al-Dīn Ibn Rustum , Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, 7th/13th century ¶ Syrian poet. Born in 619/1222 in Isʿird or Siʿird [ q.v.] in Southeastern Anatolia, which he sentimentally remembers in his Dīwān , he lived in Bag̲h̲dād and visited Egypt, but most of his adult life was, it seems, spent in Damascus (and al-Ṣāliḥiyya). There the ḳaḍī Ṣadr al-Dīn Ibn Sanī al-Dawla (590-658/1194-1260), for whom al-Isʿirdī expressed biting contempt, appointed him one of the official witnesses (attorneys) doing busi…

, Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan , 10th/16th century author of a once popular history of Muḥammad, entitled Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-k̲h̲amīs fī aḥwāl nafs nafīs and preserved in numerous MSS and printed twice (Cairo 1283, 1302). The work is furnished in addition with a brief sketch of subsequent Muslim history. The brief enumeration of Ottoman rulers at the end stops in some MSS with Süleymān Ḳānūnī but usually ends with Murād III (982/1574). The author is also credited with a detailed description of the sa…

Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. al-Ṭayyib b. Marwān, the most prominent disciple of al-Kindī and, like his master, a dedicated advocate of Greek learning at the unsure early stage of its Muslim integration, but with a more pronounced inclination toward adab . He was born around 220/835 and died early in 286/899. A fact attested for his obscure early life is his participation as the delegate of al-Kindī in a multireligious philosophical-theological debate about Christianity and the Trinity (see Moosa and Holmberg). He began his career as an educ…

, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn K̲h̲alīl b. Aybak , Abu ’l-Ṣafāʾ al-Albakī (696-764/1297-1363), philologist, literary critic and littérateur, biographer, and all-round humanist. Ṣafad was his family’s home, and he was born there. His father, al-Amīr ʿIzz al-Dīn Aybak (b. ʿAbd Allāh!) was of Turkic origin; the nisba al-Albakī, after some mamlūk amīr named Albakī, seems to have belonged to him. From the apparent absence of any mention of him by his son, we may conclude that al-Ṣafadī considered him undistinguished. Relations with his father…

, a nickname given, allegedly because of his ruddy cheeks, to an early Persian ḥadīt̲h̲ scholar, Abū Aḥmad ʿĪsā b. Mūsā al-Taymī al-Buk̲h̲ārī , who died at the end of the year 186/802. The Arabo-Persian word does mean “rouged”, but it is, of course, highly doubtful whether this is the origin of the name. The nickname was transferred to a later scholar who spent much effort upon collecting ʿĪsā’s traditions and who is known as the author of a History of Buk̲h̲ārā . His name was Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Buk̲h̲ārī, known as (al-)G̲h̲und̲j̲ār. He flourished in ¶ the…

, ḥadīt̲h̲ scholar and historical informant (b. 130/748, d. 29 S̲h̲aʿbān 219/8 Sept. 834). He was a client of the family of Muḥammad’s Companion Ṭalḥa. He lived in al-Kūfa and made occasional visits to Bag̲h̲dād, where he was once received by al-Maʾmūn. Dukayn’s actual name is said to have been ʿAmr. A son of Abū Nuʿaym, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (perhaps the author of the Ḳurʾān commentary, referred to in Fihrist , 34), and a grandson, Aḥmad b. Mīt̲h̲am, are mentioned. Abū Nuʿaym is considered a very reliable transmitter of traditions. He is also highly praised…

, ( Ḥamza b. al-Ḥasan , [ Ibn ] al-Muʾaddib ), philologist and historian of the 4th/10th century. Born about 280/893, he died after 350/961 (the year in which his Chronology was completed; note also that ʿAḍud al-Dawla, for whom he is supposed to have written one of his works, was so named only in 351) and, it is said, before 360/970-71. Most of his life was spent in his native Iṣfahān. He mentions three visits to Bag̲h̲dād, one dated in 308/920-1, and another, his third, in 323/935. He had contact with…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥamawī , historian and S̲h̲āfiʿī jurist. Born in Ḥamāt on 21 Ḏj̲umādā I 583/29 July 1187, he studied in Bag̲h̲dād, taught in Ḥamāt, Aleppo, and Cairo, and finally was appointed judge in his native city. He went to Bag̲h̲dād in 641 on an embassy for the ruler of Ḥamāt, al-Malik al-Muẓaffar, and, in the following year, when he was again on his way to Bag̲h̲dād to announce there the death of al-Malik al-Muẓaffar, he was stricken with dysenter…

(a.) “connection, pedigree, genealogy” designates the most fundamental organising principle of Arab society. It would seem to be an inheritance from the earliest times. Since no convincing cognate has as yet been determined in other Semitic languages, it is not entirely implausible to suggest a prehistoric relationship between the roots s-b-b and n-s-b, unconsciously reflected in the parallelism of nasab and sabab “rope, connection” in the ḥadīt̲h̲ ( Concordance , ii, 388). Genealogy provides the historical validation of kinship and all that it involves. Kinship alw…