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, the usual name of a philologist of Baṣra called ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan/al-Mubārak, who was taught by al-Kisāʾī [ q.v.], whose eager pupil he was; after his master, he became tutor to the future caliphs al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn. The biographical sources record that al-Aḥmar was originally a member of al-Ras̲h̲īd’s guard, so that, being very attracted to the study of philology, he was unable to attend al-Kisāʾī’s teaching sessions except when he was not on duty in the palace. When the master came to give lessons to the you…

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn al-Ḥasan b. Ahmad , Arab geographer, about whom it is only known that he died in 380/990 after having dedicated to the Fāṭimid caliph al-ʿAzīz bi’llāh (365-86/975-96) [ q.v.] a work which came within the category of those called al-Masālik wa ’l-mamālik [ q.v.] and which actually bore this title but which is generally cited under that of al-ʿAzīzī . Although this work has not yet been rediscovered, it was already possible to get an idea of its contents thanks to several later authors who utilised it and took from it items of information, usu…

al-Nisāʾī , Medinan poet, who died at a very advanced age some years before the end of the Umayyad dynasty (132/750). The descendant of an Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ānī prisoner, he was a mawlā of the Taym b. Murra of Ḳurays̲h̲ and it is said that he owed his nisba to the fact that his father prepared meals—or sold carpets—for weddings, but this interpretation should be treated with caution. At Medina, where he lived, he had become a supporter of the Zubayrids, but his friendly relations with ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr [ q.v.] (in whose company he went to the court of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān after the…

, Abū Rabīʿa, a muk̲h̲aḍram [ q.v.] Arabie poet, who probably died before 23/644 at an extremely advanced age (al-Sid̲j̲istānī, Muʿammarīn , 70, makes him live 200 years, and cites six verses in which he speaks of his great age; other authors refer equally to his senility). The generosity of which he seems to have given proof on various occasions makes one think that he was rich and powerful within his tribe, which he represented in heading a delegation to the Prophet at Medina. The oldest sources (Ibn Sallām, Ṭabaḳāt , 137, in the first place) reproduce a lette…

, “errors of language made by the common people”, is an expression which characterises a branch of lexicography designed to correct deviations by reference to the contemporary linguistic norm, as determined by the purists. The treatises which could be classed under this heading, correspond, broadly speaking, to our “do not say... but say...”, the incorrect form generally being introduced by “you say” or “they say = one says” ( taḳūl , yaḳūlūn ) and the correct form by wa ’l-ṣawāb ... “whereas the norm is...”; they are most often intitled Kitāb Laḥn al-ʿāmma or Kitāb mā talḥan/yalḥan fīhi…

(a.), a complex and delicate notion which includes a certain number of qualities of character or moral attitudes, ranging from serene justice and moderation to forbearance and leniency, with self-mastery and dignity of bearing standing between these extremes. The term, which is sometimes linked with ʿilm , more however from stylistic considerations and a taste for paronomasia than from any conceptual association, is basically contrasted with d̲j̲ahl [see d̲j̲āhiliyya ] and safah or safāha ; a derivative from the latter root appears in the expression saffaha ’ l-aḥlām …

, Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl al-Ṭarābulusī , Arab philologist from a family originally stemming from Ad̲j̲dābiya (Libya); he himself lived at Tripoli, where he died at an uncertain date, probably in the first half of the 7th/13th century. Hardly anything further is known about his life, and the biographers limit themselves to emphasising the breadth of his knowledge and his contribution to the technical literature of scholars of his time. They attribute to him some eight works, whose titles show that he was interested in lexicography, metrics, the anwāʾ [ q.v.] and genealogies (he i…

, appellation bestowed on the man who, according to tradition, was the first nasīʾ [ q.v.] of the Arabs, Ḥud̲h̲ayfa b. ʿAbd b. Fuḳaym b. ʿAdī, of the Banū Mālik b. Kināna; al-Marzubānī ( Muʿd̲j̲am , 250), however, echoes a tradition according to which al-Ḳalammas al-Akbar was ʿAdī, great-grandfather of Ḥud̲h̲ayfa, and al-Ṭabarī ( Tafsīr , Būlāḳ 1327/1909, x, 2) states that three men were the first to be designated nasīʾ, but he does not mention Ḥud̲h̲ayfa by name. However he does mention him in this respect in Annales , i, 1134. According to al-Masʿūdī (Murūd̲j…

, byname of several poets, including an Iyādī (see Āmidī, Muʾtalif , 38), a Kinānī ( ibid.), a Bad̲j̲alī ( op. cit., 37; al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Ḥayawān , ii, 214) and a Bāhilī, who is the best known. The sources vary considerably with regard to the genealogy of this poet, but he seems to have been called Abu ’l-K̲h̲aṭṭāb ʿAmr b. (al-) Aḥmar b. ¶ al-ʿAmarrad b. Tamīm b. Rabīʿa b. Ḥirām b. Farrāṣ b. Maʿn b. Aʿṣur al-Bāhilī. He is included among the muk̲h̲aḍramūn [ q.v.], embraced Islam, took part in the conquests in South-west Asia (in the course of which he lost an eye), settled in Syria …

“lickers of blood”, the name given to a group of clans of Ḳurays̲h̲. According to tradition, Ḳuṣayy [ q.v.] had allocated to the different subdivisions of Ḳurays̲h̲ the quarters which they were to occupy in Mecca and had entrusted to the Banū ʿAbd al-Dār various local offices: administration of the dār al-nadwa and bearing the standard ( liwāʾ ), the furnishing of provisions ( rifāda ) and drink ( siḳāya ) to the pilgrims, and custodianship of the Kaʿba ( ḥid̲j̲āba [see kaʿba ]). However, the Banū ʿAbd Manāf thought themselves more worthy of these privile…

(a.), chameleon. Triptote with the meaning of “the head of nails joining the links of a coat of mail”, this word, because of its ending, is often treated as diptote and feminine, although it is masculine and for its feminine form has ḥirbāʾa . However, the female chameleon is most often called umm ḥubayn , while the male is referred to by a number of kunya s, of which the most frequent in Muslim Spain, abū barāḳis̲h̲ , often leads translators into error (see E. Lévi-Provencal, En relisant le Collier de la colombe, in al-Andalus , xv/2 (1950), 353). This reptile, which is classified with the aḥnās̲h̲…

b. K̲h̲aras̲h̲a al-Māzinī, Abu ’l-Ḥasan, Arab scholar who, born in Marw al-Rūd̲h̲ in 122/740, was brought up at Baṣra. He led a miserable life there, but was able to derive instruction from the most famous masters of the time (see Pellat, Milieu , passim ), notably al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad [ q.v.], whose K. al-ʿAyn he was to enrich by an introduction. He probably lived for some time (allegedly 40 years, which must be an exaggeration) among the Bedouins, whom he was also able to question at the Mirbad [ q.v.]. He was interested in the various branches of knowledge cultivated in his time …

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-ʿAbbās , Arabic poet and writer (323-83/934-93). Since he alleged that his mother was the sister of the historian al-Ṭabarī, he fabricated for himself the nisba of al-Ṭabark̲h̲azī. He was born in K̲h̲wārazm and spent his youth there, but left it at an early date. It is difficult to trace his peregrinations, but he seems to have sought out, above all, the company of great men in order to live off their munificience. Hence we find him at Aleppo, in the service of Sayf al-Dawla; at Buk̲h̲ārā, with the vizier …

, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan , philologist who acted as a tutor to certain of the Buy ids of Iṣfahān and who died in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 421/December 1030. The vizier the Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād [ q.v.], whom he had antagonised by neglecting to rise on his entry, nevertheless recognised al-Marzūḳī’s value, at the same time dubbing him (in Yāḳūt, Udabāʾ , xviii, 215) a weaver ( ḥāʾik ), probably without any pejorative intention, since it is possible that he worked at this trade in his youth. Apart from this, we have hardly any details about his life, and it is merely known that he studied the Kitā…

cognomen by which two pre-Islamic Arab poets are known, belonging to a family of which several members have made their mark in the history of poetry in the Arabic language. 1. The Elder, al-Akbar , was called either Rabīʿa, or ʿAwf, or even ʿAmr, the uncertainty deriving from the fact that his father, Saʿd b. Malik b. Ḍubayʿa, had eleven sons (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 155) whom the historians and biographers may have confused; ʿAmr b. Saʿd seems however to be the form that should be retained. The Arab …

, the honorific given by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Amīn [ q.v.] to his son Mūsā in 194/809, when he designated him as heir presumptive in place of al-Maʾmūn [ q.v.], whereas their father Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd had specified that the inheritance of the caliphate should pass to al-Maʾmūn and had taken the precaution of sending a circular letter on this subject to all the provinces and of attaching to the kisāʾ of the Kaʿba a copy of this, for the tearing-down of which al-Faḍl b. al-Rabīʾ [ q.v.] sent a ḥād̲j̲ib . It was in effect this vizier of al-Amīn’s who led the calip…

, one of the people of the Interval ( fatra [ q.v.]), regarded as a prophet sent to the Aṣḥāb al-Rass [ q.v.], who maltreated and killed him before being destroyed themselves. The formation of the legend apparently began in the 3rd/9th century (cf. al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Tarbīʿ , ed. Pellat, index) but Ibn Ḳutayba does not mention Ḥanẓala among the prophets of the fatra, and al-Maṣʿūdī, in the Murūd̲j̲ (i, 125, iii, 105), devotes only a few lines to him. Later on, the necessity felt by the exegetists to explain the Ḳurʾānic expression Aṣḥāb al-Rass …

, Abū Kaʿb (Abu ’l-Ḥurra in Ibn Durayd’s Is̲h̲tiḳāḳ , 12) Tamīm b. Ubayy b. Muḳbil b. al-ʿAd̲j̲lān al-ʿĀmirī (i.e. the ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa; see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 101), Bedouin poet of the muk̲h̲aḍram , who is said, like many other people of his age, to have lived 120 years (although al-Sid̲j̲istānī does not cite him in his K. al-Muʿammarīn ). He died after the battle of Ṣiffīn (37/657), to which he alludes in one of his poems ( Dīwān , 345), probably in Muʿāwiya’s reign and in any case, at a time when al-Ak̲h̲ṭal [ q.v.] had already made himself known to him. Ibn Muḳbil …

, one of the most famous of Arab women. Daughter of a Companion of the Prophet, Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh al-Taymī [ q.v.], who had already won great renown, grand-daughter of Abū Bakr through her mother Umm Kult̲h̲ūm, and niece of ʿĀʾis̲h̲a, the Prophet’s favourite wife, she combined nobility of birth with an imperious spirit and a rare beauty, which she was anxious should not go unnoticed. By nature a coquette, she courted the praises of the g̲h̲azal poets (ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa, i, 80; Kut̲h̲ayyir ʿAzza, Ibn Kutayba, S̲h̲iʿr , 322; ʿUrwa b. al-Zubayr, Ag̲h̲ānī , x, 60), …

, a name by which is known a group of Jewish merchants whose origin, identity and activities have been the subject of an endless series of questions, opinions, commentaries and contradictory judgments, none of which have proved finally convincing. These speculations have been inspired by a passage of the Kitāb al-Masālik wa ’l-mamālik of Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih [ q.v.] composed between 232 and 272/846-85. This text , which has been copied and summarised, but never genuinely corroborated by contemporary or later authors, Muslim or non-Musli…