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, a mausoleum outside Cairo, south of the Mosque of Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn in the direction of the sepulchral mosque of al-S̲h̲āfiʿī. Among the female saints [cf. walī] in Cairo next to Saiyida Zainab bint Muḥammad [q. v.] and “Sitt Sekina” (Sukaina) “Sitt Nefisa” takes a very prominent place. In the official recitations of the Ḳurʾān, al-Saiyida Nafīsa, where the reading is held on Sundays, takes third place among them all, immediately after Imām al-S̲h̲āfiʿī and Imām al-Ḥusainī (see Bergsträsser, in Isl., xxi. [1933], 110 sq.). The sanctuary is visited by both men and women, especiall…

Zain al-ʿĀbidīn [q. v.] gave his name to the Zaidīya [q. v.] who revere him as a political and religious martyr; he was the first ʿAlid after the catastrophe which overwhelmed his grandfather al-Ḥusain b. ʿAlī ¶ [q. v.] at Kerbelāʾ to endeavour to deprive the Umaiyads of the caliphate by armed rebellion when he placed himself at the disposal of the Kūfans as Imām. Except for an interval of two months when he was secretly seeking adherents in Baṣra, he spent a year in preparation in Kūfa, hidden in constantly changing hiding-places…

the seventh Imām of the Twelfer S̲h̲īʿa, son of Ḏj̲aʿfar b. Muḥammad al-Ṣādiḳ [q. v.], was born about 128 (745) at al-Abwāʾ [q. v.], the traditional burial-place of Āmina, mother of the Prophet. He grew to manhood in his father’s house in Medīna and remained there as Imām after the latter’s death in 148 (765) without playing any part in politics. In particular he took no share in the great rising of the Ḥasanid ʿAlids which collapsed at Fak̲h̲k̲h̲ in 169 (786). Nevertheless the caliph was suspi…

b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (also al-Raḥīm) b. Kuraib al-Ḥiwālī (on the disputed vocalisation cf. the poem in van Arendonk [see Bibl.], p. 232, note 3), founder of the dynasty of Yaʿfurids or Ḥiwālids who claimed to be descended from the Tubbaʿs, the ancient Ḥimyarite kings. Their ancestral home S̲h̲ibām, called S̲h̲ibām Aḳyān or S̲h̲ibām Kawkabān to distinguish it from other places of the same name, is described by geographers as a well cultivated hilly country. In the caliphate of al-Muʿtaṣim, i. e. before 227 (842), Yaʿf…

Dualism, means the doctrine that light and darkness are the two equal eternal creative principles. There is not a regular T̲h̲anawīya sect or school in Islām. The term, as the characteristic name of a school of thought, is limited to three non-Muslims and their adherents: Ibn Daiṣān, Mānī and Mazdak [see these three articles]. A danger arose to Islām through the tendency to dualism within its ranks from the mass conversions of Persians, as was seen for example at the beginning of the ʿAbbāsid period in the disturbing figure of Ibn al-Muḳaffaʿ. He w…

a dynasty of Abyssinian Mamlūks at Zabīd [q. v.] from 412 to 553 (1022—1158). When the last Ziyadī [q. v.] had been put to death in the vizierate of the Abyssinian Mard̲j̲ān by one of his Mamlūk governors Nafīs, the other Nad̲j̲āḥ came forward to avenge him. After desperate fighting, Nafīs was slain and Nad̲j̲āḥ in Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 412 (Feb. 1022) entered Zabīd where he had the vizier built alive into a wall in exact revenge for the Ziyādī. As his rival Nafīs had already done, Nad̲j̲āḥ assumed the insignia of royalty, struck his own coins and inserted his own name in the k̲h̲uṭba after that of the ʿ…

, the general name for a large group of very different Muslim sects, the starting point of all of which is the recognition of ʿAlī as the legitimate caliph after the death of the Prophet. The Motives of the S̲h̲īʿa and the Earlier Period Islām is a religious and a political phenomenon as its founder was a prophet and statesman. The development of the community of Islām into separate sectional groups was therefore a natural result of the different possible relations which the political constitution and religious belief might bear to one an…

, a Yaman dynasty of 204 to 371 (819—981) or 409 (1018) with capital in Zabīd [q.v.]. They were regarded as descendants of Ziyād b. Abīhi [q. v.]. But as the latter’s genealogy is uncertain, so not even the name of the father of the founder of the dynasty, Muḥammad, has been handed down with certainty. The caliph Maʾmūn was harassed by his uncle Ibrāhīm b. al-Mahdī; at the same time tribes in the Yaman became rebellious. The fact that there were ʿAlid schemes afoot there and indeed shortly before Ibrāhīm al-Ḏj̲azzār, a brother of ʿAlī al-Riḍā [q. v.], had been plundering in Ṣanʿāʾ, may ¶ have decid…

Naṣīr al-Dīn, Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan, astronomer, polychronicler and S̲h̲īʿa politician of the period of the Mongol invasion, born at Ṭūs on the 11th Ḏj̲umādā I 597 (Feb. 18, 1201), died at Bag̲h̲dād on the 18th Ḏh̲u’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 672 (June 26, 1274). Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī began his career as astrologer to the Ismāʿīlī governor Naṣīr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Abī Manṣūr at Sertak̲h̲t. After his attempt to transfer to the caliph’s court had been betrayed, he was kept under supervision in Sertak̲h̲t and later in Alamūt […

(Banu ’l-), a dynasty of ʿAden, from 476—533 (1083—1138) conducted an Ismāʿīlī condominium — at first as viceroys of the Ṣulaiḥids of Ṣanʿāʾ — in two branches, the Banū Masʿūd and the Banū ʿAbbās Abi ’l-Zuraiʿ; from 533—569 (1138—1173) the latter alone — the Zuraiʿids, also called Banu ’l-Ḏh̲iʾb (sons of the wolf) — held the now independent sultanate, only recognising the Caliphate of the Fāṭimids. The Banu ’l-Karam belonged to the Ḏj̲us̲h̲am clan of the tribe of Yām in the Ḥamdān group and were closely related to the Ṣulaiḥids [q. v.]. They were therefore the principal supporters of ¶ the fo…

“Sevener”, the name of various S̲h̲īʿa groups who restrict the number of visible Imāms to seven. Confusion came upon the legitimist S̲h̲īʿa, who believe that the character of Imām is transmitted by divine providence from father to son, when about 145 (762) Ismāʿīl, the (eldest?) son of the sixth Imām Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ [q. v.] died before his father. While the majority replaced Ismāʿīl by another son of Ḏj̲aʿfar, Mūsā al-Kāẓim, the seventh in the series of the twelve visible Imāms of the It̲h̲nā…

, ninth imam of the Twelver S̲h̲īʿa, was born in Ramaḍān 195 (June 811) in Medīna. As, according to Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ al-Iṣfahānī, Maḳātil al-Ṭālibīyīn (Teheran 1307), p. 195, 18, he was of negroid appearance, it may be true that his mother, a slavewoman, variously called Sabīka, Durra and Ḵh̲aizurān, was a Nubian; to give her an honourable pedigree it was added “of the family of Maria the Copt”. When al-Maʾmūn attached ʿAlī al-Riḍā to his court, he married the boy to one of his daughters, Umm al-Faḍl, who was taken to …

, a dynasty of Zabīd in the Yaman. When the founder of the dynasty, ʿAlī b. Mahdī [q. v.], died in the middle of 554 (1159) soon after the taking of Zabīd, the power of .the dynasty which had been concentrated in his personality, was seriously threatened, especially as his sons Mahdī, ʿAbd al-Nabiʾ and ʿAbd Allāh quarrelled. It is not quite clear whether Mahdī at first obtained the throne (so ʿOmāra in Kay [see Bibl.], p. 129) or whether he ruled jointly with ʿAbd al-Nabiʾ, the latter taking charge of civil and the former of military affairs (so Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲ī in Kay, p.…

, the capital of Yaman, lies on the eastern Sarāt in a mountain valley which is open to the west as far as the chain which belongs to the Ḏj̲abal ʿAibān, while immediately to the east the town is overshadowed by the Ḏj̲abal Nuḳum which rises 1600 feet above it. Its situation is 15° 23′ N. Lat. and 44° 12′ E. Long. As the town is 7200 feet above sea-level the climate is temperate, particularly as in summer regular winds blow through the day. In winter the temperature falls to zero at night which …

, a town in the Tihāma of Yaman, on the road running from north to south from Mecca to ʿAden, halfway between the Yaman highlands and the Red Sea, about 16 miles from the coast. At this distance the country is suitable for agriculture in view of the better water-supply, and the town itself is adjoined by two wādīs, in the north the Wādī Rimaʿ and the south the perennial Wādī Zabīd, from which it has taken the name which has replaced the original al-Ḥusaib. In contrast to the rest of the Tihāma it is famous for its gardens with date-palms, ¶ a little corn, indigo and various medicinal plants; th…

Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. ʿOmar al-As̲h̲raf b. ʿAlī Zain al-ʿĀbidīn [s. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusain], born about 230 (844) at Medīna of a Ḵh̲urāsān slave girl, died in S̲h̲aʿbān 304 (beginning of 917) at Āmul as ruler in Ṭabaristān, is recognised under the official name of al-Nāṣir al-Kabīr as Imām by the Zaidīs, and also by those of Yemen. Al-Uṭrūs̲h̲ came to Ṭabaristān in the reign of the ʿAlid al-Dāʿī al-Kabīr al-Ḥasan b. Zaid [see al-Ḥasan b. Zaid b. Muḥammad]; his brother and successor al-Ḳāʾim bi ’l-Ḥaḳḳ Muḥammad b. Zaid distrusting him, he endeavoured to…

assimilating, comparing (God to man), anthropomorphism, and taʿṭīl, emptying, divesting (God of all attributes), are the names of two opposite views of the doctrine of the nature of God in Islām; both are regarded as heresies and grave sins in dogma. The fierce dispute over these conceptions, by which even the dogma of the Ḳurʾān is influenced, is explained by the central position of the doctrine of the nature of God in Islām. The formal cause is to ¶ be found in the Ḳurʾān, which strongly emphasises the absolute uniqueness nf God and yet at the same time naively describe…

(a.), caution, fear (see Glossarium to Ṭabarī, s.v. t-ḳ-d) or keitmān, “disguise”, is the technical term for dispensation from the requirements of religion under compulsion or threat of injury. Muḥammad himself avoided suffering in the cause of religion in dogmatics by docetism (Sūra iv. 156) and in everyday life by the hid̲j̲ra and by allowing in case of need the denial of the faith (Sūra xvi. 108), friendship with unbelievers (iii. 27) and the eating of forbidden foods (vi. 119; v. 5). This point of view is general in Islām. But, as he at the …

, a title and name of several Zaidī Imāms of the Yaman. About 250 years after al-Hādī Yaḥyā, the founder of the Zaidīya [q. v.] dynasty of the Yaman, his direct descendant, the Imām al-Mutawakkil ʿala ’llāh Aḥmad b. Sulaimān had, between 532 and 566 (1134—1170), restored the kingdom to its extent in al-Hādī’s period, with Ṣaʿda, Nad̲j̲rān and for a time also Zabīd and Ṣanʿāʾ. A generation later (593—614 = 1197—1217) the hill country from Ṣaʿda to Ḏh̲amār was again ruled by one man, al-Manṣūr bi’llāh ʿAbd Al…

(a.), also tuḳa n , tuḳāt , taḳwā and ittiḳāʾ , “prudence, fear” (see LʿA , s.v. w-ḳ-y , Beirut 1956, xv, 401-4; TʿA , x, 396-8), and also, from the root k-t-m, kitmān “action of covering, dissimulation”, as opposed to id̲h̲āʿa “revealing, spreading information”, denotes dispensing with the ordinances of religion in cases of constraint and when there is a possibility of harm. The Ḳurʾān itself avoids the question of suffering in the cause of religion in dogmatics by adopting a Docetist solution (sūra IV, 156) and in everyday life by the hid̲j̲ra and by allowing in …