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, Egypt A. The eponym of Egypt B. The early Islamic settlements developing out of the armed camps and the metropolises of the conquered provinces C. The land of Egypt: the name in early Islamic times 1. Miṣr as the capital of Egypt: the name in early Islamic times 2. The historical development of the capital of Egypt i. The first three centuries, [see al-fusṭāṭ ] ii. The Nile banks, the island of Rawḍa and the adjacent settlement of D̲j̲īza (Gīza) iii. The Fāṭimid city, Miṣr al-Ḳāhira, and the development of Cairo till the end of the 18t…

(a.), verbal noun of form II from the root k-b-r in the denominative sense, to pronounce the formula Allāhu akbar . It is already used in this sense in the Ḳurʾān (e.g. LXXIV, 3; XVII, 111 with God as the object). On the different explanations of the elative akbar in this formula, see LʿA , s.v., and the Ḳurʾānic elative akram also applied to God (XCVI, 3) and aʿlā (XCII, 20; LXXXVII, 1). The formula, as the briefest expression of the absolute superiority of the One God, is used in Muslim life in different circumstances, in which the idea of God, His greatness and go…

1. In early Islam. The usual name in Arabic for the Roman and Byzantine emperor. The word represents the Greek Καῖσαρ and came to the Arabic through the intermediary of the Aramaic (see Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen , Leiden 1886, 278 f.). The borrowing must have taken place at quite an early period, as the word in Syriac later appears almost in the form Ḳesar (see Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus , s.v.). The Arabs, centuries before Muḥammad, had relations with Roman and to a greater extent with Byzantine emperors. As earl…

b. ʿAbd s̲h̲ams b. ʿAbd manāf , Abu ’l-Walīd , one of the chiefs of the Meccan tribe of Ḳurays̲h̲, who refused to follow Muḥammad. He met his death in the battle of Badr. His daughter Hind [ q.v.] was the wife of Abū Sufyān [ q.v.], and she avenged herself at Uhud on her father’s killer Ḥamza b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib. S̲h̲ocked by the number of adherents of Muḥammad, ʿUtba, having consulted the other chiefs of the Ḳurays̲h̲, went to the Prophet to offer him anything he would care to ask if he would only abandon his propaganda. According to the traditional stor…

(a.), pl. nawāfil , from n-f-l “to give something freely”, a term of law and theology meaning’ supererogatory work. 1. The word occurs in the Ḳurʾān in two places. Sūra XXI, 72, runs: “And we bestowed on him [viz. Ibrāhīm] Isaac and Jacob as an additional gift” ( nāfilatan ). In XVII, 81, it is used in combination with the vigils, thus: “And perform vigils during a part of the night, reciting the Ḳurʾān, as a nāfila for thee”. In ḥadīt̲h̲ it is frequently used in this sense. “Forgiveness of sins past and future was granted to him [Muḥammad] and his wor…

(the forms with the article are also found), the names of the two angels who examine and if necessary punish the dead in their tombs. To the examination in the tomb the infidels and the faithful—the righteous as well as the sinners—are liable. They are set upright in their tombs and must state their opinion regarding Muḥammad. The righteous faithful will answer that he is the Apostle of Allāh; thereupon they will be left alone till the Day of Resurrection. The sinners and the infidels, on the ot…

(a.). According to some Arabic lexicographers, the meaning of this term is time of birth in contradistinction to mawlid , which may denote also “place of birth”. The latter is the usual term for birthday, especially in connection with the birthday of the Prophet Muḥammad and Muslim saints [see mawlid ]; mīlād denotes also Christmas. For other special meanings, cf. Dozy, Supplément, s.v. (A.J. Wensinck) Bibliography See the Arabic lexicons.

, the Benjamin of the Bible. In its nairation of the history of Joseph (Yūsuf, [ q.v.]), the Ḳurʾān gives a place to the latter’s uterine brother (xii, 8, 59-79), without ever mentioning him by name. Tradition embellishes without any great variation the biblical story concerning him (it is aware notably that his birth cost his mother her life) and receives also Aggadic additions (summarised notably in the Encyclopaedia Judaica , iv, 112-14), such as the etymological connexion of the names of his sons with the lost elder brother. In Muslim mys…

(a.), board, plank; tablet, table. Both ranges of meaning are found in other Semitic languages such as Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac and Ethiopie, and Jeffery thought that, whilst the sense “board, plank” might be an original Arabism, the second sense was almost certainly from the Judaeo-Christian cultural and religious milieu (see The foreign vocabulary of the Qur’ān , Baroda 1938, 253-4). The word occurs five times in the Ḳurʾān. The first meaning is found in sūra LIV, 13, where Noah’s ark is called d̲h̲āt alwāḥ . The second meaning is that of lawḥ as writing material, e.g. the tablets of the lawḥ…

(a.), a technical term of Islamic religion, with various meanings, regarding the fundamental signification of which there is no unanimity among the lexicographers. “Refraining from speaking”, “prayer during the ṣalāt ”, “humility and recognition that one’s relation to Allāh is that of a creature to his creator”, “standing” — these are the usual dictionary definitions which are also found in the commentaries on different verses of the Ḳurʾān where ḳunūt or derivatives from the root ḳ-n-t occur. There is hardly one of these for which the context pro…

(a.), wine. The word, although very common in early Arabic poetry, is probably a loanword from Aramaic. The Hebrew yayn has in Arabic ( wayn ) the meaning of black grapes. The question has been fully treated by I. Guidi in his Della sede primitiva dei popoli semitici , in Memorie della R. Acad. dei Lincei , series iii, vol. iii, 603 ff. 1. Juridical aspects Arabia and the Syriac desert are, in contradistinction to Palestine and Mesopotamia, not a soil fit for the vine; there are, however, exceptions, among which may be mentioned al-Ṭāʾif (see H. Lammens, Ṭāif , 35 ff. = MFOB, viii, 146 ff.), S̲h̲…

, the nisba of several religious figures and scholars from Nasaf or Nak̲h̲s̲h̲ab [ q.v.] in the environs of Buk̲h̲ārā (see al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, xiii, 92-4). I. Abu ’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Bazdawī or al-Bazdahī (i.e. from the village of Bazda near Nasaf), distinguished philosopher-theologian of the Ismāʿīlīs in Sāmānid K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania, who is generally credited with the introduction of Neo-Platonic philosophy into Ismāʿīlī circles. He succeeded Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Marwazī in the headship of the daʿwa [ q.v.] of Nīs̲h̲āpūr. As a dāʿī …

, son of the Lak̲h̲mid prince al-Mund̲h̲ir and of the Kindite woman Hind; after the death of his father, he became "king"of al-Ḥīra (554-570 A.D.). He was a warlike and cruel prince; the story of how he sent the poets al-Mutalammis and Ṭarafa to the governor of Baḥrayn with letters ¶ containing their own death warrants, is well-known. The severity of his character earned him the surname of Muḍarriṭ al-Ḥid̲j̲āra ("he who makes the stones emit sounds"). He was also called Muḥarriḳ ("burner"); in explanation of this surname, the Arabs recount that…

, banū , one of the three main Jewish tribes of Yat̲h̲rib. The name differs from the usual forms of Arabic proper names but has nothing Hebrew about it. Nothing certain is known regarding their immigration into Yat̲h̲rib. They possessed no land there but lived by trading. That their known personal names are for the most part Arabic says as little regarding their origin as the occurrence of Biblical names among them; but there seem to be no valid reasons for doubting their Jewish origin. In Yat̲h̲rib they lived in the south-west part of the town, near the Muṣallā and clo…

(a.), impure, the opposite of ṭāhir [see Ṭahāra ]. According to the S̲h̲āfiʿī doctrine, as systematised by al-Nawawī ( Minhād̲j̲ , i, 36 ff.; cf. G̲h̲azālī, al-Wad̲j̲īz , i, 6-7), the following are the things impure in themselves ( nad̲j̲āsāt ): wine and other spirituous drinks, dogs, swine, mayta , blood and excrements; and milk of animals whose flesh is not eaten. Regarding these groups, the following may be remarked. On wine and other spirituous drinks cf. the arts, k̲h̲amr and nabīd̲h̲ .—Dogs are not declared impure in the Ḳurʾān; on the contrary, in…

(a.), verbal noun of form V from the root h-d̲j̲-d , which is one of the roots with opposed meanings ( addād [ q.v.]), as it signifies "sleep" and also "to be awake", "to keep a vigil", "to perform the night ṣalāt or the nightly recitation of the Ḳur’ān". The latter two meanings have become the usual ones in Islam. The word occurs only once in the Ḳurʾān, sūra XVII, 81: "And in a part of the night, perform a ṣalāt as a voluntary effort", etc., but the thing itself is often referred to. We are told of the pious (LI, 17) that they sleep little by night and pray to God for for…

, name of the eighth month of the Islamic lunar year. In classical ḥadīt̲h̲ it has already its place after Rad̲j̲ab Muḍar. In Indian Islam it has the name of S̲h̲ab-i barāt (see below), the Atchehnese call it Kandūri bu and among the Tigrē tribes of Eritrea it is called Maddagēn , i.e. who follows upon Rad̲j̲ab. In early Arabia, the month of S̲h̲aʿbān (the name may mean “interval”) seems to have corresponded, as to its significance, to Ramaḍān. According to the ḥadīt̲h̲, Muḥammad practised superogatory fasting by preference in S̲h̲aʿbān (al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ṣawm , bāb 52; Muslim, Ṣiyām …

, the Messiah; in Arabic (where the root m-s-ḥ has the meanings of “to measure” and “to wipe, stroke”) it is a loanword from the Aramaic, where m e s̲h̲īḥā was used as a name of the Redeemer. Horovitz ( Koranische Untersuchungen , 129) considers the possibility that it was taken over from the Ethiopic ( masīḥ ). Muḥammad of course got the word from the Christian Arabs, amongst whom the personal name ʿAbd al-Masīḥ was known in pre-Islamic times, but it is doubtful whether he knew the true meaning of the term (see K. Ahrens, Christliches im Qoran , eine Nachlese , in ZDMG, lxxxiv [1930], 24-5; A. Je…

, the punishment in the tomb, also called punishment in barzak̲h̲ [ q.v.]. The idea is based on the conception that the dead had a continued and conscious existence of a kind in their grave. So arose the doctrine of the two judgements, one which involves punishment or bliss in the grave and a subsequent judgement on the Day of Resurrection [for which see al-Ḳiyāma ]. There are various ideas of what happens between death and resurrection. 1. The grave is a garden of paradise or a pit of hell; angels of mercy come for the souls of believers and angels of punishment for the…

(also called D̲j̲annat al-Baḳīʿ or simply al-Baḳīʿ), is the oldest and the first Islamic cemetery of al-Madīna. The name denotes a field which was originally covered with a kind of bramble called al-g̲h̲arḳad ; there were several such Baḳīʿs in al-Madīna. The place is situated at the south-east end of the town, at a short distance from the Prophet’s tomb, outside the town-wall, now demolished, through which a gateway, Bāb al-Baḳīʿ gave admittance to the cemetery (see the map of Madīna in Caetani, Annali , ii, 173). The first to be buried in al-Baḳīʿ, from among the muhād̲j̲irūn …