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, Kamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Razzāḳ b. Aḥmad , historian and librarian, born in Bag̲h̲dād on 17 Muḥarram 642/25 June 1244. At the age of fourteen, he was imprisoned by the conquering Mongols and remained in this situation for, it seems, less than two years. In 660/1261-62, he joined the great scholar and wazīr , Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī [ q.v.], in Marāg̲h̲a where he became the librarian of the Observatory Library. In 679/1280-81, he returned to his native Bag̲h̲dād and was soon appointed director of the Mustanṣiriyya Library. Apart from occasional trips within …

, Taḳī al-Dīn Abū ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Ḳādir (766-845/1364-1442), Egyptian historian. His father (d. 779/1378 at the age of fifty), married a daughter of the wealthy philologist and jurist Ibn al-Ṣāʾig̲h̲ (d. 776/1375). He was born in Cairo, apparently in 765/1363-4. The nisba Maḳrīzī refers to a quarter in Baʿlabakk where his paternal family came from. His paternal grandfather, ʿAbd al-Ḳādir b. Muḥammad ( ca. 677-733/1278-1332, see Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Durar , ii, 391 f.) was a Ḥanbalī, his maternal grandfather, who influenced his early …

, al-Ḥusayn b. Abī Maʿs̲h̲ar Muḥammad b. Mawdūd al-Sulamī al-Ḥarrānī , ḥadīth scholar of Ḥarrān (b. ca. 222/837, d. 318/930-1). Practically nothing is known about his life, except the names of his authorities and his students, some of them very famous personalities. He is said to have been judge or muftī of Ḥarrān. One source (Ibn ʿAsākir apud al-Ḏh̲ahabī) states that he was a partisan of the Umayyads. According to the Fihrist , 230, Abū ʿArūba wrote only one work, a collection of traditions which were transmitted by his authorities. This work seems to be identical with the Ṭabaḳāt …

, an important Meccan family whose activities during a period of two hundred years in the 8th-10th/14th-16th centuries are known in quite considerable detail. The family claimed ʿAlid descent through Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya. Its members were all well trained in the traditional subjects and learned mainly in S̲h̲āfiʿī but also in Ḥanafī law. Through four successive generations, they boasted of productive historians whose chief interest lay in local history and biography. Through marriage, the Ba…

, Ṣafī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī , ʿIrāḳī historian. A descendant of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī through Ibrāhīm al-Ṭabāṭabā, he was born, it seems, shortly after the conquest of Bag̲h̲dād by the Mongols, which he does not mention as having witnessed personally. His father, Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. Ramaḍān, chief naḳīb of the ʿAlids, had gained great wealth and influence, but in a game of political intrigue against the brothers ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn and S̲h̲ams al-Dīn al-D̲j̲uwaynī [ qq.v.], he lost his life and property (Ibn ʿInaba, ʿUmdat al-ṭālib , al-Nad̲j̲af 1381/1961, 180 f.). His son too, was a naḳ…

(also s̲h̲ahdānaḳ , s̲h̲āhdānad̲j̲ s̲h̲ādānaḳ , s̲h̲arānaḳ ) hempseed. In Greek pharmacology and throughout its Arabic counterpart, it was known as a rather minor simple, useful for drying out fluid in the ear by dripping its oil into it, harmful in that it caused headache and sexual dysfunction when eaten in large quantities, and the like. The word was commonly accepted as the Persian equivalent of Greek cannabis , Ar. ḳinnab , and hence served as another ¶ term for ḥas̲h̲īs̲h̲ [ q.v.]; this may explain why so many different forms were in use. (F. Rosenthal) Bibliography A. Dietrich, Dioscur…

, Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad b. Asʿad , Arab genealogist and historian, b. 525/1131, d. 588/1192. The Ḏj̲awwānī family claimed ʿAlid descent through a son of ʿUbayd Allāh b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. This pedigree was well established at least as early as the first half of the 4th/10th century when Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ al-Iṣfahānī ( Maḳātil al-Ṭālibiyyīn , Cairo 1368/1949, 193, 435, 438) reported historical information received by him personally from ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-D̲j̲awwānī, himself a genealogist and the eighth line…

, Fatḥ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Yaʿmurī al-Is̲h̲bīlī , biographer of the Prophet. The home of the distinguished scholarly family of the Ibn Sayyid al-Nās was in Seville, which they were forced to leave because of the unsettled political situation leading to the city’s conquest by the Christians in 646/1248. The grandfather, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, who was born in 597/1200-1, settled in Tūnis, where he died in Rad̲j̲ab 659/June 1261 (cf. al-D̲h̲ahabi, ʿIbar , v, 255). His son, Muḥammad, was born in D̲j̲umādā II 645/October 1247. He studie…

(a.), mistake in writing, synonymous, in spite of sporadic artificial attempts to make a distinction, with taḥrīf (without, however, the specialised use of the latter, [ q.v.]). While its meaning is unambiguous, the derivation of the word is less so. Its connection with ṣ-ḥ-f in the (originally South Semitic) meaning of “to write” [see muṣḥaf ] can be considered certain; the negative connotation may reflect a negative attitude toward all writing as against orality, rather than a privative use of the second form of the verb. It is not excluded that taḥrīf may have influenced the format…

, ʿAlī b. And̲j̲ab , Abū Ṭālib Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn , ʿIrāḳi historian (14 S̲h̲aʿbān 593/2 July 1197-20 Ramaḍān 674/8 March 1276). Born in Bag̲h̲dād, he appears to have spent all of his life there. He was a librarian, in succession, it seems, of both the Niẓāmiyya and the Mustanṣiriyya libraries. Being inclined to Ṣūfism, he was inducted into it by (ʿUmar b. Muḥammad) al-Suhrawardī in 608/1211-12. He had a son, ʿUbayd Allāh, who was born on 7 S̲h̲aʿbān 632/27 April 1235. These are about al…

, “freedom,” an abstract formation derived from ḥurr “free” corresponding to Hebrew ḥōr , Aram. ḥēr ( ḥerūt̲ā ), widely used also in Muslim languages other than Arabic. Already in pre-Islamic times, “free” was known not only as a legal term denoting the opposite of “unfree, slave” ( ʿabd [ q.v.]) but also as an Ethical term denoting those “noble” of character and behavior. The legal concept of “freedom” continued to be used as a matter of course by Muslim jurists, who were inclined to give preference to the presumption of a free status for individuals in doubtful cases [see ʿabd …

, the disguise of one of the participants in the transmission of authoritative Neoplatonic thought to Islam based upon a translation of large portions of books IV-VT of the Enneads of Plotinus. Fragments with this designation have been recovered without, however, allowing a reconstruction of the form and extent of his work. It is also debatable whether al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Yūnānī was substituting for the name of a given philosopher and even might have belonged to the entire lost Arabic Plotinus source. The wide range of meaning of s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ [ q.v.] permits a choice between “Greek Teac…

, Abu ’l-Maʿālī Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan , the author of a vast and highly informative collection dealing with a great variety of adab subjects and entitled al-Tad̲h̲kira , which enjoyed much popularity during the Mamlūk period. Born in Rad̲j̲ab 495/April-May 1102 as one of the sons of an official well versed in financial and administrative matters, of a family which claimed to be related to the Ḥamdānids’ ancestor Ḥamdūn, he entered government service, attaining the offices of ʿāriḍ al-ʿaskar (Inspector of the Army) under al-Muḳtafī and ṣāḥib dīwān al-zimām (Dire…

, Abu ’l-Faḍl Aḥmad , Bag̲h̲dādī littérateur and historian. Born in 204/819-20 into a family of Persian origin, he started out as a teacher and eventually took up residence in the bookmen’s bazaar in the Eastern quarter of Bag̲h̲dād, embarking upon a literary career which brought him into contact with many of the outstanding littérateurs and high government officials of his time and resulted in the composition of about fifty works. He was also a poet whose verses provoked criticism—deserved or undeserved—in some quarters. Among other things, he wrote works in the fürstenspiegel …

, one of many Arabic words used to express the concept of “gift”, and the preferred legal term for it, see following article. The giving of gifts, that is, the voluntary transfer of property, serves material and psychological purposes. In the pre-history of man, it probably antedates the contractual payment for goods and services. In Islam, it has retained its inherited functions as an important component of the social fabric and has exercised a considerable influence on political life. Literature (in the narrow sense…

, aslam b. sahl al-wāsi̊ṭi̊ al-razzāz , author of a History of Wāsiṭ. Nothing is known of his life except the names of some of his authorities, among them Wahb b. Baḳiyya (155-239/772-853), supposedly his maternal grandfather (but cf. al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī, Taʾrīk̲h̲ Bag̲h̲dād , xiii, 4883-4), and the approximate date of his death, between 288/901 and 292/904-05. The History of Wāsiṭ has come down to us in an incomplete manuscript in Cairo (Taymūr, taʾrīk̲h̲ no. 1483) which had an interesting history and possesses considerable association val…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yūsuf b. Masʿūd b. Sālim, a well-regarded minor poet of Ayyūbid times, born in Mawṣil on 25 D̲j̲umādā II 593/15 May 1197 and died in Ḥamāt on Wednesday, 10 S̲h̲awwāl 675/17 March 1277. He claimed Arab descent from the Banū S̲h̲aybān [ q.v.]. His father, known as Ibn ʿUrrād̲j̲, who was born in Tallaʿfar (Tallyaʿfar) near Mawṣil in 560/1165 and died in Naṣībīn on Tuesday, 3 Muḥarram 615/(Sunday!) 1 April 1218, was well educated, a poet and expert in ancient Arabian and Persian history, with strong S̲h̲īʿī sympathi…

, 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…