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, Arabic orthography of the Turkish word il, more correctly él , which has undergone a wide semantic development (see Radloff, Versuch ..., i, 803-5, 1471). (1) It is defined by V. Thomsen as signifying, in its numerous occurrences in the Orkhon inscriptions: “un peuple ou une réunion de peuples considerés comme formant un tout indépendant et organisé et ayant à sa tête un kagan” ( Inscriptions de l ’Orkhon déchiffrées , Helsingfors 1896, 135), and thus approximately “empire”. In this sense it often appears in conjunction with the word budun (? read boδ un), “confederation of tribes”, or…

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh , a Muʿtazilī of the Bag̲h̲dād branch and a native of Samarḳand. The date of his birth is unknown, but he is known to have reached a great age and to have died in 240/854. He began life as a tailor, and his parents prevented him from continuing his studies, but Ḏj̲aʿfar b. Ḥarb [ q.v.] took him under his care and initiated him in the Iʿtizāl . Possessing a lively intelligence, knowledge of many subjects, and a lofty moral sense, he enjoyed the esteem and respect of al-Muʿtaṣim, who seems to have used him as …

b. Muḥammad b. (al-) Ḥasan b. K̲h̲alaf b. Ḥāzim al-Anṣārī al-Ḳarṭād̲j̲annī abu ’l-Ḥasan , poet, grammarian and theorist of rhetoric, born in 608/1211 in Cartagena, in a family of Awsī ancestry. From his father, who was ḳāḍī of the town, he received an education oriented towards grammar, the Arabic language, tradition and Mālikī fiḳh ; he continued his studies in Murcia, ¶ and then in Seville and Granada and came under the influence of al-S̲h̲alawbīn [ q.v.], who inspired him to study Greek philosophy through the medium of the works of the philosophers writing in Arabic,…

, Ḥamdūn b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī al-Mirdāsī al-Fāsī (1174-1232/1760-1817), “one of the most outstanding scholars of the reign of Mawlay Sulaymān” (1206-38/1792-1823), according to E. Lévi-Provençal, Les historiens des Chorfa , Paris 1922, 342, n. 5). As the faḳīḥ appointed to the Moroccan sultan, he filled the office of muḥtasib of Fās, then of ḳāʾid of the G̲h̲arb, before devoting a great part of his activites to literature. He is the author of several commentaries and glosses, of epistles of a religious character and of an account of the pilg…

, ‘the Sea of the Greeks’, or al-baḥr al-rūmī , ‘the Greek Sea’, i.e. the Mediterranean, both names being in use from an early date to denote especially the E. Mediterranean, where Byzantine fleets were liable to be encountered. As ¶ the Muslim conquests extended, these names were applied to the whole Mediterranean, for which Baḥr al-Rūm is still in use. The Mediterranean was also called al-Baḥr al-S̲h̲āmī, or Baḥr al-S̲h̲ām, ‘the Sea of Syria’, and Baḥr al-Mag̲h̲rib, ‘the Sea of the West’. The sea thus variously named began, according to Arabic geographers, considerably to th…

(a., from the form IV verb aḥalla ), literally, “those who make lawful [what is unlawful]”, an expression used in early Islamic historical texts to denote those who had shed the blood of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī [ q.v.]; it was accordingly especially used by those seeking vengeance against the Umayyads for the clash at Karbalāʾ [ q.v.] and by the partisans of the Ahl al-Bayt , the proto-S̲h̲īʿa. Above all, it was used by al-Muk̲h̲tār b. Abī ʿUbayd [ q.v.] at the time of his revolt in Kūfa (66-7/685-7), including by al-Muk̲h̲tār himself when he extracted allegiance ( bayʿa ) fro…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Manṣūr , known as Ibn al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ , ¶ grammarian, a native of Samarḳand who lived in Baṣra and Bag̲h̲dād. In Bag̲h̲dād he is said to have quarrelled over grammatical matters with al-Zad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (d. 316/928 [ q.v.]). Among his pupils are mentioned Abu ’l-Ḳāsim al-Zad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ī and Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī. The latter, in a reply to Sayf al-Dawla, denied having tried to denigrate Ibn al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ (see Yāḳūt); and from this we learn also that at a certain period of his life the grammarian became afflicted …

(a.), also irtid̲j̲āʿ , the term coined in modern Arabic for reaction in the political sense (from r-d̲j̲-ʿ “to return”). Towards the same end of the political spectrum appear also the terms muḥāfiẓ “conservative” and muḥāfaẓa “conservatism”; cf. A. Ayalon, Language and change in the Arab Middle East , New York-Oxford 1987, 125. (Ed.)

(a.), a term frequently applied to mediaeval Islamic textiles, from silks to woollen materials, and denoting a pattern of lines in the cloth forming quadrangular compartments, i.e. checks (Dozy, Supplément, i, 352). Such cloths seem to have been woven almost everywhere in the Islamic lands; see R.B. Serjeant, Islamic textiles, material for a history up to the Mongol conquest, Beirut 1972, index s.v. (Ed.)

, literally “leaf”, which has become the usual term in modern Arabic for a newspaper, its adoption being attributed to Fāris al-S̲h̲idyāḳ [ q.v.]. Its synonym ṣaḥīfa is less used in the sing., but the plural ṣuḥuf is more common than d̲j̲arāʾid . Some interest in the European press was shown by the Ottomans as early as the 18th century and, it would seem, excerpts from European newspapers were translated for the information of the dīwān (Prussian despatch from Constantinople, of 1780, cited by J. W. Zinkeisen, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches , vi, Gotha 1859, …

, the nisba of several persons originally from Majorca (Mayurḳa [ q.v.]) or residents of the island. In his Muʿd̲j̲am al-buldān , iv, 720-3, s.v. Mayurḳa, Yāḳūt mentions a certain number. In addition to al-Ḥumaydī [ q.v.], the best-known person with this last nisba, one should mention the name of Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ṭunayz, who seems to have led quite a lively existence. According to Yāḳūt, iv, 722-3, he was a good grammarian (cf. al-Suyūṭī, Bug̲h̲ya , 327) who was also concerned with the Ḳurʾān readings; he naturally collected ḥadīt̲h̲ s at…

, the ancestor of the Banū Kalb, the strongest group of the Ḳuḍāʿa [ q.v.]. His mother, Umm al-Asbuʿ, was so called because all her sons were named after wild animals (T. Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge , 75 ff.). The Kalb were, according to the genealogical system (Ibn al-Kalbī, Ḏj̲amharat al-nasab etc.), of Yemenite descent, but sometimes they claimed for political reasons to belong to the Northern Arabs or even to Ḳurays̲h̲. I.—Pre-Islamic period Their greatest chieftain was Zuhayr b. Ḏj̲anāb. who had great authority among the northern tribes; so he was sent by Abraha [ q.v.] to control the Bak…

, the capital of Mauritania [see mūrītāniyā ]. It was created ex nihilo near a site occupied by a small village and a ksar [see Ḳaṣr ]. The choice of its situation was made the object of serious studies, since it was necessary that it should be accessible, easily supplied with drinking water and distant ¶ enough from the Senegal River to escape inundations like that of 1950. Several plans of urban design were put forward even before independence was conceded to Mauritania (1960), and construction work, begun in 1958, has not ceased since that date i…

, a muzāwad̲j̲a [ q.v.] in the Arabic manner used of two aspects of the single idea of nobility. The second term denotes kinship, the relationship, particularly ancestral, i.e. the genealogy of an individual or a tribe, the record of which, in the time of the D̲j̲āhiliyya, was carefully maintained by the nassāba and which, under Islam, formed a branch of history [see nasab ]. The nasab , which was an element of honour, was based not only on consanguinity but also on maternal descent, although the relationship on the paternal side, which wa…

, ilyās (usual orthography, Elias Abou Chabakeh), Maronite poet, journalist and translator (1903-47). He was born in Providence, R.I., whilst his parents were travelling in the United States, but he spent all his life in Lebanon, dividing his time between his home in the village of Zūḳ Mīk̲h̲āʾīl (in Kisrawān), from which his family came, and the cafés and editorial offices of Beirut, to which he went each day. His father held some estates in the region of Khartoum, but in 1914, when he went there, was murdered by bandits. Hence the young orphan had soon to inter…

, a station on the Kūfa to Mecca Pilgrimage route, the so-called Darb ¶ Zubayda [ q.v. in Suppl.]. It lay in Nad̲j̲d in what is now the northeastern corner of Saudi Arabia, towards the ʿIrāḳī border, in approx. lat. 28° 50′ N., long. 43° 20′ E. some 180 km/112 miles north-north-east of Fayd [ q.v. in Suppl.]. It is mentioned by such geographers as Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, Ibn Rusta, Ḳudāma and al-Muḳaddasī, and such pilgrims as Ibn D̲j̲ubayr and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa passed through it. It was the birthplace of the 2nd/8th century poet Ibn Mutayr [ q.v.]. Today, the site of al-T̲h̲aʿlabiyya is in the s…

, Muḥammad al-Rūmī , early Ottoman Ḥanafī scholar and father of Ḳuṭb al-Dīn-zāde Muḥammad [ q.v.]. He was born at Iznīḳ [ q.v.] and died there on 8 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 821/7 December 1418. Popular story puts him in contact with the conqueror Tīmūr when the latter occupied Anatolia, and he was the author of commentaries on the work of the great Spanish mystic Ibn al-Arabī [ q.v.]. (Ed.) Bibliography Ṭās̲h̲köprüzāde, al-S̲h̲aḳāʾiḳ al-nuʿmāniyya, Beirut 1395/1975, 24, German tr. O. Rescher, Constantinople-Galata 1927, 18-19.

(Berb.), argan-tree ( argania spinosa or argania sideroxylon), a tree of the family Sapotaceae which grows on the southern coast of Morocco. A shrub with hard, tough wood, it produces a stone whose kernel, when ground, yields a much-valued oil; the oil-cakes are given to cattle. The word is also known to some of the Arabic-speakers of Morocco, but they look upon it as a loan-word. (Ed.) Bibliography Ibn al-Bayṭār, no. 1248 L. Brunot, Textes arabes de Rabat, ii, Glossary, Paris 1952, 6-7 V. Monteil, Contribution ŕ l’étude de la flore du Sahara occidental, ii, Paris 1953, no. 409 (with a bibl.) A.…

(a.), pl. ḳanawāt , ḳanā , ḳunī , aḳniya , “canal, irrigation system, water-pipe”. Used also for a baton, a lance, etc., the term originally meant “reed” [see ḳaṣab ] and it is with this meaning and that of “rush” that the word ḳanū is known in Akkadian (cf. Zimmern, Akkad. Fremdwörter , Leipzig 1915, 56); becoming ḳanä in Hebrew and ḳanyā in Aramaic, it passed into Arabic and was also borrowed in Greek and Latin in the forms χάννα χάννη (χάνη), canna ; by an evolution parallel to that of ḳanāt , the Latin word canalis “in the shape of a reed”, acquired the meaning of “pipe, canal”. In Persian ḳanāt is u…

, conventionally Dhafarah, the interior region of the shaykhdom of Abū Ẓaby [ q.v.], now a constituent of the United Arab Emirates [see al-imārāt al-ʿarabiyya al-muttaḥida , in Suppl.], the undefined southern frontier of which marches with the easternmost part of Saudi Arabia. Al-Ẓafra forms the traditional territory of the Banū Yās [ q.v.] and the Banu ’l-Manāṣīr [ q.v.]. (Ed.) Bibliography J.G. Lorimer, Gazeteer of the Persian Gulf, ʾ Oman and Central Arabia, Calcutta 1908-15, ii.A, 412-26.