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[English edition] حياة النبيّ ومسيرته وفقا للشّهادة [انظره] التي هي جوهر العقيدة الإسلاميّة، فإنّ الاعتقاد في أنّ محمَّدا رسولُ الله لا يسبقه إلاّ الاعتقاد أن لا إله إلاّ الله. ولمحمّد دور جليل للغاية صُلْبَ تلك العقيدة. وقد أكّد القرآن والسنة الإسلاميّة في الآن نفسه أنّ محمّدًا هو إنسان خالص الإنسانيّة ليست له أيّة قوّة خارقة. وأنْ يكون محمّدٌ واحداً من أعظم الأشخاص في تاريخ العالم من جهة ما كان للحركة التي أسّسها من تأثير عالميّ، فذلك أمرٌ لا يمكن التّشكيك فيه جدّيّا. فكيف حدث نجاحه غير العادي؟ هناك إجابة لاهوتيّة هي: أنّ الله اختار محمّدا رسولا ل…

, the Prophet of Islam. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. 2. The Prophet in popular Muslim piety. 3. The Prophet’s image in Europe and the West. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. Belief that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God ( Muḥammadun rasūlu ’llāh ) is second only to belief in the Oneness of God ( lā ilāha illā ’llāh ) according to the s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.], the quintessential Islamic creed. Muḥammad has a highly exalted role at the heart of Muslim faith. At the same time the Ḳurʾān and Islamic orthodoxy insist that he was fully human with no supernatural powers. That Muḥammad was one of the greate…

, Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad of the Ḳurays̲h̲ clan of ʿAbd al-Dār. The son of rich parents, this handsome young man had already attracted attention by his elegant appearance when Muḥammad’s preaching made so deep an impression upon him that he abandoned the advantages of his social position to join the dispersed adherents of the Prophet. Tradition dilates on the contrast between his former luxurious life and later poverty but these, like such stories in general, are somewhat suspicious. When his parents endeavoured to prevent him taking part in the worship of the bel…

, lit. “pebble”, (pl. d̲j̲mār ). The name is given to three halts in the Vale of Minā, where pilgrims returning from ʿArafāt during their annual pilgrimage ( ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ ) stop to partake in the ritual throwing of stones. The Lisān al-ʿArab explains that the place acquired its name either through the act of throwing, or through the stones themselves, which accumulate as more pilgrims perform the rite. Travelling from ʿArafāt, one comes first to al-d̲j̲amra al-ūlā (or al-dunyā ), then, 150 metres further on, to al-d̲j̲amra al-wusṭā . They are in the middle of th…

, Yāfa , conventionally Jaffa, older Joppa, a port on the Palestinian seaboard, in pre-modern times the port of entry for Jerusalem, since 1950 part of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo in the State of Israel (lat. 32° 05′ N., long. 34° 46′ E.). Situated on a 30 m/100 feet-high promontory on the otherwise straight coastline of central Palestine, Jaffa is a very ancient town. Thutmosis III’s forces seized the Canaanite town of ϒ-pw in the 15th century B.C. and it became a provincial capital during the Egyptian New Kingdom; since the 1950s, archaeological excavations h…

, a place roughly halfway between Minā and ʿArafat where the pilgrims returning from ʿArafat spend the night between 9 and 10 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a, after performing the two evening ṣalāts . On the next morning they set off before sunrise and climb up through the valley of Muhassir to Minā. Other names for this place are al-Mas̲h̲ʿar al-ḥarām , from sūra II, 194, and D̲j̲amʿ (cf. Laylat D̲j̲amʿ : Ibn Saʿd, ii/1, 129, 1. 6); but D̲j̲amʿ, according to another statement, comprises the whole stretch between ʿArafat and Minā, both included, so that Yawm D̲j̲amʿ ( Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī …

, a town of northwestern Arabia, lying inland from the eastern shore of the Gulf of ʿAḳaba; it is mentioned in the mediaeval Islamic geographers as lying on the pilgrimage route between the Ḥid̲j̲āz and Syria, which there went inland to avoid the mountainous coast of the Gulf. The name is connected with that of the tribe of Midianites known from the Old Testament (LXX Μαδιαμ, Μαδιαν; in Josephus Μαδιηνἵται, ἡ Μαδιηνὴ χῶρα) but it can hardly be used without further consideration to identify the original home of this tribe, as the town might be…

, “depression”, “plain encircled by higher ground”, a geographical term denoting various regions in the Muslim countries. 1. The best known is the G̲h̲awr in Palestine, which corresponds with the deep hollow, called Aulôn in the Septuagint, through which the Jordan flows, between Lake Tiberias and the Dead Sea, and which is merely a section of the central Syro-Palestinian rift-valley. At first, the G̲h̲awr consists of a plain, overshadowed by the mountains of Samaria on the one side and Mount ʿAd̲j̲lūn on …

, the Arabic name for the Jordan River, used also from early Islamic times onwards to designate the regions adjacent to the river’s course. 1. The river This appears in Arabic as the nahr al-Urdunn , in Old Testament and later Hebrew as ha-ϒardēn , and in the Septuagint and the classical geographers as ô ’Ιορδάνης. After the Crusading period, local Arabic usage often referred to it as al-S̲h̲arīʿa [ al-kabīra ] “the [Great] watering-place”. It was, and still is, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, by Christians in particular on account of…

, or ‘the ʿArīs̲h̲ of Egypt’, the Rhinokorura of the ancients, town on the Mediterranean coast situated in a fertile oasis surrounded by sand, on the frontier between Palestine and Egypt. The name is found as early as the first centuries of our era in the form of Laris. According to the ordinary view, which is presupposed also in the well-known anecdote about ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ’s expedition to Egypt, the town belonged to Egypt. The inhabitants, according to al-Yaʿḳūbī, belonged to the Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ām. Ib…

, Modern Hebrew Nāṣerat, Nazareth, the home of Jesus, a town of northern Palestine, since 1948 in Israel, situated in lat. 32° 42’ N. and long. 35° 17’E. at a height of 505 m/1,600 ft. It lies in a depression sloping to the south surrounded by hills in a fertile district. While the hills to the north and northeast are not very high, in the northwest the D̲j̲ebel al-Sīk̲h̲ rises to 1,600 feet above sealevel. The name of the town, which does not occur in the Old Testament, is found in the New and in the Greek fathers of the Church …

is the name of two localities: 1. A place on the frontier of Yamāma, famous for the bloody battle in which Musaylima and the Banū Ḥanïfa were defeated by Ḵh̲ālid. In its neighbourhood was a grove ( ḥadīḳa ), surrounded by a wall and, before this battle, known by the name of "Raḥmān’s garden"; later on it was called "garden of death". (F. Buhl) Bibliography Ṭabarī, i, 1937-1940 Balād̲h̲urī (de Goeje), 88 Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am ii, 226 iii, 694. 2. A place of residence of the G̲h̲assānid princes in Ḏj̲awlān; it is probably identical with the present ʿAḳrabāʾ in the province of Ḏj̲ēdūr. Bibliography Yāḳūt…

, an ancient tribe frequently mentioned in the Ḳorʾān. Its history may be learned only from sporadic indications; it was a mighty nation that lived immediately after the time of Noah, and which became haughty on account of its great prosperity (Ḳorʾān, vii. 67; xli. 14). The large edifices of the ʿĀdites are spoken of in Ḳorʾān, xxvi. 128 et seq.; comp. lxxxix. 5-6 the expression „ʿĀd, Iram of the pillars“, where Iram may designate either a tribe or a place. According to Korʾān, xlvi. 20, the ʿĀdites inhabited al-Aḥḳāf (the sand downs). The prophet sent to them, their „brother“ Hūd,…

(or Abū Ḥanẓala) Ṣak̲h̲r b. Ḥarb b. Umaiya, of the Ḳorais̲h̲ite family of ʿAbd Manāf, a leader of the aristocratic party in Mecca hostile to Muḥammed. According to the usual statement regarding his death (see below), he was a few years older than Muḥammed, according to others, however, he was ten years older. Abū Sufyān was a rich and respected merchant, who repeatedly led the great Meccan caravan. Like most of the great merchants he took up a hostile attitude to the movement brought about by Muḥammed,…

or Fāmiya, the ancient Apamea, situated near great swamps in the Orontes valley. The city, important in the time of the Seleucides, was conquered and devastated in 540 by the Persian king Ḵh̲osraw. After the capture of Ḥimṣ (Emesa) Afāmiya surrendered to Abū ʿUbaida and since then played no special part. A terrible earthquake in 1152 changed it in a heap of ruins, which show still now the site of the former city and above which towers only the old Ḳalʿat al-Muḍīḳ. (F. Buhl) Bibliography Belād̲h̲orī (ed. de Goeje), p. 131 Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, i. 322-323 iii. 846-847 E. Sachau, Reise in Syrien und…

(or Ad̲j̲nādīn), a town in Palestine between Ramla and Bait Ḏj̲ibrīn (comp. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, i. 137, according to Abū Ḥud̲h̲aifa: „in the region of Ramla, in the territory of Bait Ḏj̲ibrīn“; al-Bakrī, ed. Wüstenf., i. 72: „in the province of Urdunn, but according to others in that of Filasṭīn, between Ramla and Ḏj̲ibrīn“; Ṭabarī, i. 2125: „a balad between Ramla and Bait Ḏj̲ibrīn“; Nawawī, ed. Wüstenf., p. 430). From Ṭabarī’s mode of expression (i. 2408) Ad̲j̲nādain seems to have been a fortress. In Ḏj̲umādā I 13 (July 634) according to others, in Ḏj̲…

, the Biblical Edrei, now Derāʿā in the East-Jordanic country. The town, mentioned by Imruʾ al-Ḳais (lii. 19), was in 613 or 614 so thoroughly destroyed by the Persians — who vanquished the Byzantines in the vicinity — that it was never afterwards perfectly reëstablished. The Jewish tribe Naḍīr, driven by Muḥammed from Medina, moved to this town. The statement (Belād̲h̲orī, p. 68) that the inhabitants of Ad̲h̲riʿāt submitted to Muḥammed when he stayed in Tabūk, is apparently based upon a mistake…

, a town in central Palestine, the name of which is derived from that of Flavia Neapolis built in honour of Vespasian. Its Old Testament predecessor was Shechem, which however lay more to the east on the site of the present village of Balāṭa (the name is explained by S. Klein, in ZDPV, xxxv, 38-9; cf. R. Hartmann, in ibid., xxxiii, 175-6, as “platanus”, from the evidence of the pilgrim of Bordeaux and the Midras̲h̲ Gen. rb ., c. 81, § 3). According to Eusebius, the place where the old town stood was pointed out in a suburb of Neapolis. The correctne…

, the Greek Tripolis, called “of Syria” in the Arabic sources to distinguish it from Ṭarābulus al-G̲h̲arb [ q.v.] “of the West”, Tripoli in Libya, an historic town of the Mediterranean coast of the Levant, to the north of D̲j̲ubayl and Batrūn [ q.vv.]. It lies partly on and partly beside a hill at the exit of a deep ravine through which flows a river, the Nahr Ḳadīs̲h̲a (Arabic, Abū ʿAlī). West of it stretches a very fertile plain covered with woods, which terminate in a peninsula on which lies the port of al-Mīnā. The harbour is protect…

b. Abī Ṭālib was a brother of ʿAlī; for a long time he refused to believe in the message of Muḥammed. In the battle of Bedr he fought on the Mecca side (according to accounts of later date he did so in spite of himself, cp. Nawawī, ed. Wüstenf., p. 427); he was taken prisoner, but was soon ransomed by al-ʿAbbās (cp. the account in Ṭabarī i. 1344 et seq., which was omitted by Ibn His̲h̲ām, Yaʿḳūbī, ed. Houtsma p. 46). Later on, after the conquest of Mecca, — according to others already after the agreement of al-Ḥudaibiya (cp. Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Iṣāba ii. 1175) — he embraced Islām and went to Medīna. …