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, 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 Muḥammad Muṣṭafā b. Ḥasan b. Sinan al-Ḥusaynī al-Hās̲h̲imi , 10th/16th-century author of an Arabic historical work dealing with eighty-two Muslim dynasties in as many chapters, entitled al-ʿAylam al-zāk̲h̲ir fī aḥwāl al-awāʾil wa’l-awāk̲h̲ir , usually called Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-D̲j̲annābī . A Turkish translation and abridgment were prepared by the author himself. Whether the accepted form of the mak̲h̲laṣ is correct or should be rather D̲j̲anābī cannot be decided in the absence of information as to whence it was derived. Al-D̲j̲an…

, a famous Iṣfahānī family of ḥadīt̲h̲ scholars and historians which was active for nearly three centuries. Descended from a Sassanian official, D̲j̲ahārbuk̲h̲t, said to have become a Muslim at the time of the Conquest, the man after whom the family was named was Ibrāhīm (Manda) b. al-Walīd b. Sanda b. Buṭṭa b. ustandār al-Fērōzān b. D̲j̲ahārbuk̲h̲t. His death is placed during the caliphate of al-Muʿtaṣim (Abū Nuʿaym, History of ¶ Iṣfahan , ed. S. Dedering, i, 178; al-D̲h̲ahabī, Tad̲h̲kirat al-ḥuffāẓ , Ḥaydarābād 1333-4, iii, 221). His son, Abū Zakariyy…

, “suicide”, expressed more technically in Arabic by ḳatl nafs - with pronominal suffix (as against ḳatl nafs or al-nafs “homicide”). Intiḥār designated originally, and does so in its occurrence in the ḥadīt̲h̲ , suicide by piercing or cutting one’s throat. At an undetermined but possibly quite early date, the word was singled out to mean suicide in general. It is thus used in modern Arabic and in Turkish, also in Persian. The Ḳurʾān contains several passages (II, 54/51, IV, 66/69, XVIII, 6/5) that might possibly be interpreted (but, in fact, are not) as indicating …

(a.), a technical term in a number of different disciplines. 1. In astronomy. Here it corresponds to Gr. διάμετρος, in the Almagest άχρόνυκτος, Lat. oppositio, the term for the opposition of a planet and the sun or of two planets with one another. In opposition, the difference in longitude between the two heavenly bodies is 180°; while the modern use is to take no note of the deviations of latitude from the ecliptic, al-Battānī expressly emphasises ( Opus astronomicum, ed. Nallino, iii, 196) that we can only have the true muḳābala when both bodies are either in …

(p.), a word of Persian origin designating the game of backgammon (trictrac). The form attested in Pehlevi treatises, nēv-artak̲h̲s̲h̲ēr “brave Ardas̲h̲īr’’, was contracted to nardas̲h̲īr (widely attested in Arabic) and the latter abridged to nard . This development is quite probable (cf., for instance, the place name Nēw Hormizd Ardas̲h̲īr > Narmas(h)īn, see R.N. Frye, in JSAI, xiii [1990], 40); nevertheless the doubts raised by T. Nöldeke ( Persische Studien . II, in SBWAW, Philos.-hist. CI. cxxvi [1892], 25-6) remain valid, especially in view of the fact that the …

, 1) an Arabic word signifying the period of an individual’s rule or power but also often employed in the meaning of “dynasty”. The root d-w-l may occur in Akkadian dālu “to wander around aimlessly” ( The Assyrian Dictionary , iii, 59) and Syriac dāl “to move, to stir” (Brockelmann, Lex . Syr .2, 144 b). However, the basic meaning of Arabic d-w-l is clearly “to turn, to alternate” (relating it to d-w-r?). The Ḳurʾān has nudāwiluhā “We cause (days) to alternate” (III, 140/134) and dūlatan “something whose ownership is passed around” (LIX, 7/7). In addition, the ḥadīt̲h̲ uses adāla …

, nicknamed “the Greedy”, a Medinese comedian who moved in the circles of the grandchildren of the first four caliphs and flourished in his profession in the early years of the 8th century. He is said to have survived until 154/771. The historical information about him is rather plentiful; though contaminated by much legendary material, it permits us to get a glimpse at the life of a professional entertainer in the Umayyad period. The jokes and stories connected with his name concern politics, r…

, ʿAbīd/ʿUbayd al-D̲j̲urhumī , sage and antiquary, frequently cited as a relater of quasi-historical traditions. The form of his name is not certain. The manuscripts appear to vacillate between ʿAbīd and ʿUbayd. ʿUmayr occurs by mistake (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, Usd al-g̲h̲āba , Būlāḳ 1286, iii, 351; Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Iṣāba , Calcutta 1856-73, iii, 201). The form S̲h̲arya is confirmed by the metre (cf. O. Löfgren, Ein Hamdānī-Fund , Uppsala Universitets Årsskrift , vii (1935), 24; al-Hamdānī, Iklīl , ed. O. Löfgren, Uppsala 1954, 6). However, Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar advoc…

, Ḳāsim b. Ḳuṭlūbug̲h̲ā al-Ḥanafī , Egyptian scholar in ḥadīt̲h̲ and religious law. He was born in Muḥarram 802/September 1399. His father, Ḳuṭlūbug̲h̲ā, a freedman of Sūdūn al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ūnī (d. 798/1396), died while he was still young. He supported himself in his youth as an accomplished tailor (needleworker) but embarked early upon his religious studies, which he pursued all his life. An early teacher of his was ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn D̲j̲amāʿa (d. 819/1416). His principal s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ was Ibn al-Humām (d. 861/1457). Like all the aspiring young scholars…

, a humorist of the 2nd/8th century. Ḳāṣṣ [ q.v.] “storyteller” is employed here, as was quite common, in the same sense as other less ambiguous terms for jester; he was also described as the prototypical mug̲h̲affal “irresponsible wit”. No decision is possible as to whether his nickname should be vocalised Sīfawayh or Sayfawayh, and the identification with another ḳāṣṣ called ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, suggested on the basis of one shared remark by the recent editor of Ibn al-D̲j̲awzī, Ḳuṣṣāṣ , is probably unwarranted. Sīfawayh was credited with jokes and social…

, Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḳādir b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Naṣr Allāh b. Sālim b. Abi ’l-Wafāʾ , Egyptian professor of Ḥanafite jurisprudence and biographer, born S̲h̲aʿbān 696/May-June 1297, died 7 Rabīʿ I 1775/27 August 1373. He is best known for his collection of alphabetically arranged brief biographies of Ḥanafites, al-Ḏjawāhir al-Muḍiyya fī Ṭabaḳāt al-Ḥanafiyya (Ḥaydarābād 1332/1913-4), a valuable reference work, generally considered to be the first to deal with its particular subject. Written in a country in which the Ḥana…

(a.) or, apparently preferred by purists, ris̲h̲wa/rus̲h̲wa , pl. rus̲h̲ā , Persian ris̲h̲wat , ris̲h̲we , rus̲h̲wa , Turkish rüşvet , the legal term for “bribe.” Like English “bribe”, its connotation is absolutely negative and whatever is called ras̲h̲wa is strictly forbidden by law. The word itself does not occur in the Ḳurʾān. More general passages like II, 188, and V, 42, 62-3 ( suḥt ) were interpreted to include the prohibition of bribe-taking. The ḥadīt̲h̲ , however, makes the matter perfectly clear. One of the most explicit statements invoke…

, ʿAbd al-Ḥayy b. Aḥmad , a Syrian teacher of the Ḥanbalī school (1032-1089/1623-1679), completed, in 1080/1670, a large biographical history, entitled S̲h̲ad̲h̲arāt al-d̲h̲ahab fī ak̲h̲bār man d̲h̲ahab , which is annalistically arranged and covers the Hid̲j̲ra years one to 1000. Although historical events are occasionally mentioned, the work concentrates on obituary notices, often rather detailed. The author intended it to be a help for impecunious scholars like himself who were unable to acquire a l…

Plural of awwal "first", technically used to denote various ideas such as the "primary data" of philosophical or physical phenomena; the "ancients" of either pre-Islamic or early Islamic times; and the "first inventors" of things (or the things invented or done first). In the last mentioned connotation, the term characterises a minor branch of Muslim literature with affinities to adab , historical, and theological literature. Among the Muslims themselves, only the 10th/17th-century Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa (Flügel), i, 490; Istanbul 1941-3, col. 1996, defines the awāʾil as a separate "science" relating to history and adab. Curiosity about the origin of things was deeply rooted in the historical consciousness of the ancient Semites and reached the Arabs through such literary media as the Bible. The Hellenistic world possessed a literature on the first inventors ( …

, Abu ’l-Wafāʾ , 5th/11th century Egyptian historian and savant. Said to have been of Syrian origin, he apparently spent all of his long life in Egypt. He possibly lived and worked as a private scholar, and he may have had ties with the ruling circles of the country. In addition to history, his many interests included philosophy and medicine. He supposedly studied with such leaders in their fields as Ibn al-Hayt̲h̲am and Ibn Riḍwān; a certain Jewish physician named Ibn Raḥmūn …

( Liʿb , Laʿb ), the Arabic word for “play” (also used variously in Persian, against Turkish oyun ), in the Muslim world as fundamental a concept of vast sociological and psychological implications as in other civilisations. Only a few of its aspects can be briefly discussed here. The “play” character of many important human activities (dance, theatre, music, etc.) does not come under our purview, nor do ritual games as survivals of pre-Islamic religiously-motivated customs. We find them occasionally mentioned, as, for instance, in references to New Year practices, cf. al-Bīrūnī, Āt̲h̲…

, S̲h̲aʿwad̲h̲a (also with final d for d̲h̲ ) (a.), prestidigitation, sleight of hand, and from it, mus̲h̲aʿb/wid̲h̲ , magician, trickster. The word is paraphrased by the lexicographers, following al-Layt̲h̲ (b. al-Muẓaffar) [ q.v.], by k̲h̲iffat al-yad and uk̲h̲ad̲h̲ (pl. of uk̲h̲d̲h̲d ), see al-Azharī, Tahd̲h̲īb , i, 405. Fihrist , 312, mentions as “the first to perform s̲h̲aʿbad̲h̲a in Islam” a certain ʿAbīd/ʿUbayd al-Kayyis who also wrote a Kitāb al-S̲h̲aʿbad̲h̲a , and another mus̲h̲aʿbid̲h̲ nicknamed “Mill Shaft” (Ḳuṭb al-raḥā), about both o…

, 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…

“stories of the ancients,” a phrase occurring nine times in the Ḳurʾān (VI, 25/25, VIII, 31/31, XVI, 24/26, XXIII, 83/85, XXV, 5/6, XXVII, 68/70, XLVI, 17/16, LXVIII, 15/15, and LXXXIII, 13/13; see also EI 2, ¶ IV, 980b, s.v. k̲h̲alḳ ) and there “put exclusively in the mouth of unbelievers ... expressing themselves against the Ḳurʾānic revelation or, more specifically, against the doctrine of the Resurrection, by referring to the asāṭīr of the former (generations) when similar, and in their opinion silly, things could already be found without being accepted” (R. Paret, Der Koran , Komment…

, the author of a work on the Raids ( mag̲h̲āzī [ q.v.]), used by such later authors as Ibn Sayyid al-Nās and al-D̲h̲ahabī. His given name was Muḥammad. His kunya is variously given as Abū ʿAbd Allāh or Abū Aḥmad, and his grandfather’s name as Saʿīd or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Born in Damascus in 150/767, he died there on Thursday, 25 Rabīʿ II 233/8 December 847 (or in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 232/July-August 847, or in 234/848), having been the tax collector for the G̲h̲ūṭa under al-Maʾmūn. As a historian, he stand…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Abu ’l-Faḍl Aḥmad b. Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Muḥammad , Egyptian ḥadīt̲h̲ scholar, judge, and historian (773-852/1372-1449), whose life work constitutes the final summation of the science of ḥadīt̲h̲ and makes him one of the greatest and, at the same time, most typical representatives of Muslim religious scholarship. He himself did not know the origin of his family name Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar. The nisba ʿAsḳalānī was considered by family tradition to go back to 587/1191, when Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ordered ʿAsḳalān [ q.v.] to be destroyed and its Muslim inhabitants resettled elsewher…

, a family name (borne by a number of apparently unrelated families) which was given great and deserved lustre by three brothers, Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn, ʿIzz al-Dīn, and Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn, who achieved literary fame in the fields of, respectively, philology and religious studies, historiography, and literary criticism. Their father, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm (often but apparently incorrectly: Muḥ. b. Muḥ. b. ʿAbd al-Karīm), whose life spanned the largest part of the 6th/12th century, was a high official of the Zangids of Mosul, stationed in Ḏj̲azīrat Ibn ʿUmar (hence the nisba al-D̲j̲azarī). H…

, pl. ḥawās̲h̲ī , meaning (1) the margin (of pages in[ fī , ʿalā , bi-] which notes could be written), then (2) the marginal note itself (or “note” in general), and, finally, (3) gloss , used in the sing., undoubtedly as a profession of modesty, in titles of independent works, at times of some length, dealing with comments on subjects treated by earlier authors. This last usage is comparatively late; none of the ca. 150 titles listed in Brockelmann, S III, 892-4, antedates the 8th/14th century. Although it was used as a book title all over the Muslim world, ḥās̲h̲iya enjo…

, the name of two tenth-century historians, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲aʿfar (b. 282/895-6, d. 362/972-3) and his son, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh (327/939-398/1007). ʿAbd Allāh’s great-grandfather had been brought to the ʿIrāḳ from Farg̲h̲āna and had become a Muslim under al-Muʿtaṣim. ʿAbd Allāh himself was a student of the great Ṭabarī, whose works he transmitted, and he achieved high rank in the army. ¶ He went to Egypt where his son, it seems, was born, and he and his family remained there. He wrote a continuation of al-Ṭabarī’s historical work, entitled al-Ṣila or al-Mud̲h…

, aḥmad b. yaḥyā b. ḏj̲ābir b. dāwūd , one of the greatest Arabic historians of the 3rd/9th century. Little is known of his life. Neither the year of his birth nor that of his death is directly attested. From the dates of his teachers, it is evident that he cannot have been born later than the beginning of the second decade of the 9th century A.D.; for the date of his death, Muslim authors suggest, as the latest and most likely date, ca. 892 A.D. As he is said to have been a transl…

, D̲j̲amāl al-Dīn abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Saʿīd b. Yaḥyā . an ʿIrāḳī historian, was born in Wāsiṭ on Monday, 26 Rad̲j̲ab 558/Sunday, 30 June 1163, and died in Bag̲h̲dād on Monday, 8 Rabīʿ II 637/7 November 1239. His History of Wāsiṭ is not preserved. His History of Bag̲h̲dād, variously called d̲h̲ayl or mud̲h̲ayyal and extant in individual manuscripts, continues the work of al-Samʿānī, which in turn was a continuation of the Taʾrīk̲h̲ Bag̲h̲dād of the K̲h̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī. It is strictly biographical, containing biographies of those who died…

refers to the son and the four grandsons of ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (said to have died in 171/787-88), a wealthy and influential family of legal scholars and historians in 3rd/9th century Egypt. The Banū ʿAbd al-Ḥakam were among those who introduced Mālikism into Egypt. They were also intimately connected with al-S̲h̲afiʿī [ q.v.], providing the initial financing of his stay in Egypt. Al-S̲h̲āfiʿī is said to have died in their house (Ibn Farḥūn, 134), and he was buried in their family plot. Later, they dissociated themselves from his teaching. Their promi…

, Taḳī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Makkī al-Ḥasanī al-Mālikī (775-832/ 1373-1429), historian of Mecca, was, through family connexions and upbringing, eminently qualified for his lifework as the outstanding historian of his native city. His father Aḥmad (754-819/1353-1416) had received an excellent scholarly education and was married to a daughter of the Meccan chief judge Abu ’l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz al-Nuwayrī; a daughter of his, and half-sister of the hist…

, normalised mindīl , from Latin/Greek mantēl ( e, -um, ium ), entered Arabic speech in pre-Islamic times, presumably through Aramaic, and has remained in use to this day. Its principal meanings were those of handkerchief, napkin, and towel. Mandīl was, however, understood generally as “piece of cloth” and used for many other purposes, such as covering or carrying something or serving, attached to the body, as an untailored part of dress. Numerous other words were available in Islamic languages as synonyms of mandīl in both its specific and its generalised meanings. Arabic thus had ¶ mas̲h…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. S̲h̲ākir al-Dārānī al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī (686[?]-764/1287-1363), Syrian historian. The date of his birth is uncertain, since only one ms. of Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar’s Durar fills the blank that was to contain it. It is plausible, however, and neither confirmed nor contradicted by the fact that a highly personal obituary notice in the ʿUyūn (Ms. Cambridge 699, fols. 7b-8a, anno 735) speaks of a young scholar born in 706/1306 as “our friend” ( ṣāḥibunā ). Born apparently in Dārayyā in the G̲h̲ūṭa, he spent all his later life in Damascus. He possibly went there to study with famous ḥadī…

, abū zakariyyāʾ yazīd b. muḥ. b. iyās b. al-ḳāsim , historian of Mosul, who died in 334/945-6. While the work on Mosul by Ibrāhīm b. Muḥ. b. Yazīd al-Mawṣilī, who lived a generation before Al-Azdī, appears to have been concerned only with the biographies of religious scholars, al-Azdī wrote both on the "Classes of Mosul ḥadīt̲h̲ Scholars" and on the political history of Mosul, either in one combined or in two separate works. His treatment of ḥadīt̲h̲ scholars is known only from quotations and seems to have been restricted to the limited information usually found in rid̲j̲āl …

, 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…

, or Fūt̲h̲āg̲h̲ūras (rarely Būt̲h̲āg̲h̲ūras or other individual transliterations), Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher of the sixth century B.C., as celebrated and as elusive a figure in Islam as in the West. The distinction between the man and the school, or schools, bearing his name was occasionally sensed but, of course, not really understood, and no true distinction was made between the two. The partly historical and mostly legendary circumstances of his life were known in considerable detail through a lengthy summary of his biography from Porphyry’s Philosophos Historia …

, Taʿlīḳa (a., pls. taʿlīḳāt , taʿālīḳ ) in scholarly activity refers to the “appending upon ( ʿala )” a text or the “deriving from ( ʿan )” an author and then to the resulting notes, glosses, comments, excerpts and appendices. Similar in a way to ḥās̲h̲iya [ q.v.], it is, however, much less firmly anchored in manuscripts than ḥās̲h̲iya was originally. ¶ In later centuries, it came to be used quite frequently in titles of essays. Earlier, its supposed use as a title was more descriptive than formal and was often the choice of convenience by someone other than the author. Among titles listed in the Fi…

al-Madanī , a slave from the Yaman, possibly of Indian parentage, who purchased his freedom and lived in Medina. He was considered a rather "weak" ḥadīt̲h̲ scholar, but he is deservedly famous as the author of a Kitāb al-Mag̲h̲āzī. Numerous fragments of it have been preserved by al-Wāḳidī and Ibn Saʿd. Among his authorities he mentions Nāfiʿ, the mawlā of Ibn ʿUmar, Muḥammad b. Kaʿb al-Ḳurazī, and other scholars of Medina. In the year 160/776-7, he left Medina and remained in Bag̲h̲dād until his death in Ramaḍān (?) 170/787. There…