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(a.), a name given to a poem whose rhyme is constituted by an alif maḳṣūra (). According to al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ , viii, 307 = § 3462), the first author of a piece of this type was the S̲h̲īʿī Naṣr b. Nuṣayr al-Ḥulwānī [ q.v.], who preceded the most famous versifier in this field, Ibn Durayd (died 321/933 [ q.v.]. The author of the Murūd̲j̲ also cites someone called Ibn Warḳāʾ (unidentified) who had composed a maḳṣūra on that of Ibn Durayd, and declares that the latter had often been imitated ¶ ( ʿāraḍahā … d̲j̲amāʿa min al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ ; viii, 305 3461), but he only nam…

, one of the two terms used by the Arabs to denote the Persians, the other being al-ʿAd̲j̲am [ q.v.]. In the following lines we shall attempt to show in precisely what way the Arabs were acquainted with the Persians and their civilization; for other aspects, see īrān . From remotest antiquity, the Arabian peninsula had maintained relations with Persia; shortly before Islam, these connexions were established, in the north-east, through the Lak̲h̲mids [ q.v.] of al-Ḥīra, and, in the south, through the medium of the Yemen, a vassal of Persia, and the Abnāʾ [ q.v.] who were settled in the cou…

, Abū Yaḥyā Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh (= Kunāsa ) b. ʿAbd al-Aʿlā al-Māzinī al-Asadī , poet, philologist and rāwī of the ʿAbbāsid period. Born at Kūfa in 123/741, he studied in his native town poetry, ḥadīt̲h̲ and the other traditional sciences under the most distinguished members of the Banū Asad and became the transmitter of the works of several poets, among whom the most famous was al-Kumayt [ q.v.]. He also transmitted a certain number of ḥadīt̲h̲s to such important traditionists as al-Aʿmas̲h̲ [ q.v.] and Sufyān al-T̲h̲awrī [ q.v.]. Although he lived at Bag̲h̲dād he does not seem t…

b. d̲h̲irrīḥ ( d̲h̲arīḥ ) b. saʿd al-ḍubaʿī , pre-Islamic Arab poet of the Bakrite tribe of Ḳays b. T̲h̲aʿlaba. The only biographical details we possess concern bis disputes with his uncle Mart̲h̲ad b. Saʿd, whose wife had tried to seduce him, and his journey to Byzantium with Imru ’l-Ḳays [ q.v.]. According to Ibn Ḳutayba ( S̲h̲iʿr , 45), he lived in the entourage of Ḥud̲j̲r, father of Imru ’l-Ḳays, but according to the Ag̲h̲ānī (xvi, 165-6), the two poets met when ʿAmr had already reached an advanced age, and ʿAmr died in Byzantine territory (be…

(a.; pl. k̲h̲uyūs̲h̲ , ak̲h̲yās̲h̲ , n. of unity, k̲h̲ays̲h̲a ), a coarse, loose linen made with flax of poor quality and used in the manufacture of sacks, wrappings and rudimentary tents. The Arabic dictionaries only mention, in its literal sense, this meaning; Dozy ( Suppl., s.v.) renders it by “canevas; linon; serpillière; treillis”, and de Goeje ( BGA, iv, 355) remarks that this linen is manufactured in Ṭabaristān. Sometimes, the expression ʿArab al-k̲h̲ays̲h̲ is used to designate the Bedouins (Quatremère, Mém. géogr. ethi st. sur l’Égypte , Paris 1811, i…

, Arabic name of the ancient Hatra (Atra, “Aτραι, situated in the desert to the west of the T̲h̲art̲h̲ār, three short days’ march to the southwest of al-Mawṣil. The Arab geographers, who no longer knew the exact site of this former caravan and commercial centre, provide certain legendary details regarding its ancient greatness. According to Yāḳūt (ii, 282), it was built entirely of hewn stone and possessed 60 large towers, each of which was separated from the next by nine smaller towers and link…

, Arab poet belonging to the tribe of the Muzayna (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara ). Tab. 88), which was established in a fertile region between Medina and Wādī ’l-Ḳurā. He was considered to have been a muk̲h̲aḍram poet, but was probably born shortly before the mission of Muḥammad and lived most of his life under Islam. He lost his sight towards the end of his life, which came about no earlier than 64/684, at least if the verses in which he complains about the hospitality offered by ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr [ q.v.] in Mecca are ¶ authentic. Although probably converted along with his tr…

b. Abī ʿĀmir al-Anṣārī , one of the leaders of the revolution that broke out in Medīna against the caliph Yazīd I. Posthumous son of a Companion killed at Uḥud and surnamed G̲h̲asīl al-Malāʾika, ʿAbd Allāh is also known as Ibn al-G̲h̲asīl. In 62/682 he took part in the deputation sent to Damascus by the governor of Medina, ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Muḥammad, to bring about a reconciliation between the malcontents of Medina and the Umayyads. Yazīd showed special consideration for the envoys, but they, nevertheles…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAmr b. Ḥammād b. ʿAṭāʾ b. Yāsir , a satirical poet and humorist who lived in Baṣra in the 2nd-3rd/8th-9th centuries. Nephew of Salm al-K̲h̲āsir [ q.v.], pupil of Abū ʿUbayda, and friend of Abū Nuwās, of whom he has left an exceptionally accurate portrait (see al-Ḥuṣrī, Zahr al-ādāb , 163; idem, D̲j̲amʿ al-d̲j̲awāhir , 115). Unlike many of his contemporaries, he does not seem to have gained entrance to the court of Bag̲h̲dād, despite his attempt during the reign of the caliph al-Ras̲h̲īd. He therefore re…

(Ar.; from Persian pīl ), elephant. The word appears in the title and first verse of Sūra CV, which alludes to the expedition of Abraha [ q.v.], but the Arabs were barely acquainted with this animal which is a native of India and Africa; consequently when, towards the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 8th century, a troop of elephants arrived in Baṣra, it was a matter of curiosity for the population (see al-Nawawī, Tahd̲h̲īb , 738). The subject had already come up in the Kalīla wa-Dimna (trans. A. Miquel, Paris 1957, 53), but the first Arab author truly to con…

, Abū S̲h̲arāḥīl (or S̲h̲uraḥbīl ) al-Rammāḥ b. Abrad (Yazīd in Ibn Ḳutayba) b. T̲h̲awbān al-Murrī , of the Banū Murra b. ʿAwf, Bedouin poet who lived in the Ḥid̲j̲āz and in Nad̲j̲d from the reign of His̲h̲ām b. ʿAbd al-Malik (105-25/724-43) to the period of the early ʿAbbāsids; he died during the caliphate of al-Manṣūr, about 136/754 according to al-Bag̲h̲dādī, in 149/766 according to Yāḳūt. His mother Mayyāda (= one who swings) was a slave, said to have been of Berber or Slav origin, who…

(often followed by mug̲h̲rib as an epithet or in iḍāfa ) a fabulous bird approximating to the phoenix, which was also located by the Greeks in the deserts of Arabia. The belief in this creature is of long-standing among the Arabs, who connect it with the Aṣḥāb al-Rass [ q.v.], but it received its confirmation in a ḥadīt̲h̲ reported by Ibn ʿAbbās (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , iv, 19 ff.), which states that, created by God, the ʿanḳāʾ , in the beginning endowed with all perfections, had become a plague; one of the prophets of the "Interval" ( fatra ), either Ḵh̲ālid b. Sinān o…

, Wahb b. Zamʿa , Ḳurays̲h̲ite poet of Mecca, who started to compose poetry before 40/660 and died after 96/715. He is included among the erotic poets of the Ḥid̲j̲āz by his poems devoted to three women: ʿAmra, of a noble Meccan family, a Syrian woman who led him into a breach with his family, and especially ʿAtīka, daughter of Muʿāwiya, whom he first saw during a pilgrimage. His verses, soon becoming famous, attracted the attention of the princess, whom he followed to Damascus…

, 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, …

(whence the name ibn al-ahtam sometimes given to him) al-tamīmī al-minḳarī , abū ṣafwān , of Baṣra (d. 135/752), the companion of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, His̲h̲ām b. ʿAbd al-Malik, K̲h̲ālid b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī and probably also of Abu ’l-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ, was a transmitter of historical traditions, poetry and memorable orations, but was especially famed for his eloquence, since he fulfilled a rôle parallel to that of the poets, in that he was able to improvise a homily or description …

al-Ḥimyarī al-Kūfī , a magician of Kūfa, contemporary of al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲, with whom he was in relations after the building of the palace in Wāsiṭ (Yāḳūt, iv, 885; cf. also an adventure with a concubine of the caliph, Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Lisān al-Mīzān , iii, 372-3). Ag̲h̲ānī 1, i, 167 quotes verses by ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa that bear witness to a connection between the poet and the magician. He abtained his powers from a magic ring given to him by Satan to thank him for having defended him from children who were insulting him. He was also though…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd al-Ṣamad b. al-Muʿad̲h̲d̲h̲al b. G̲h̲aylān b. al-Ḥakam al-ʿAbdī , an Arab satirical poet of Baṣra (d. 240/854-5) who belonged to a family of the ʿAbd al-Ḳays, many members of which wrote poetry. His grandfather G̲h̲aylān is mentioned in the sources as a poet, and his father al-Muʿad̲h̲d̲h̲al exchanged epigrams with Abān al-Lāḥiḳī [ q.v.] in particular, one of which was considered sufficiently original to be included in the Dīwān of Abū Nuwās (1277 ed.; 79; 1332 ed., 151; the Cairo ed. 1953 omits it; metre ramal , rhyme ānā ). Ibn al-Nadīm ( Fihrist, Cairo, 234) attribute…

b. ʿAmr b. ʿIlād̲j̲ al-T̲h̲aḳafī (d. 13/634-5), traditionally considered as the oldest known Arab physician. It is nevertheless difficult to pin down his personality. He came originally from al-Ṭāʾif, where he was probably born a few years after the middle of the 6th century A.D., and is said to have been a lute-player (trained in Persia?) before studying medicine at Gondēs̲h̲āpūr [ q.v.] and, adds Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī ( Ṭabaḳāt al-umam , ed. Cheikho, Beirut 1912, 47, tr. Blachère, Paris 1935, 99) with small probability, in the Yemen. He became …

, the name given to a pre-Islamic poet whose personality is hard to define, in so far as his historical existence is ¶ not actually in doubt. His father is called al-Ḥārit̲h̲, Masʿūd, ʿUbayd and even ʿAmr, and he does not appear in the genealogical table (no. 141) of Ibn al-Kalbī’s D̲j̲amhara concerning the Yas̲h̲kur; two men with the name of al-Munak̲h̲k̲h̲al are cited in this work (see Register , ii, 428), but neither of them seems to correspond to the poet treated in this present article. Furthermore, one wonders whether the carefulness t…

(K̲h̲adīd̲j̲ in the D̲j̲amhara of Ibn al-Kalbī, Tab. 240) b. D̲j̲afna al-Sakūnī al-Tud̲j̲ībī , Abū Nuʿaym or Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Companion of the Prophet who took part in the conquest of Egypt and remained in the country with the Muslim occupying forces. He was an ʿUt̲h̲mānī, much attached to the memory of ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān and hostile to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib; also, when Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr [ q.v.], who had been involved in the murder of ʿUt̲h̲mān, arrived at Fusṭāṭ in mid-Ramaḍān 37/24 February 658, in order to govern Egypt in the name of ʿAlī, Ibn Ḥudayd̲j̲ sho…

, tābiʿī and ascetic of Baṣra. His way of life attracted the attention of the agent of ʿUt̲h̲mān, Ḥumrān b. Abān, who denounced him to the Caliph; ʿĀmir was interrogated by ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĀmir and exiled to Damascus where he died, probably during the caliphate of Muʿāwiya. His way of life seems to have consisted of various kinds of abstinence (he despised wealth and women) and pious works, and it is possible that the measures taken against him were dictated by the desire to prevent the advocacy of celibacy at a time when Islam needed fighting men; Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif , 19…

, usual by-name of a Bedouin of the 1st/7th century, who became proverbial for his knowledge of the genealogies of the Arabs. His name was Abū Kilāb ʿUbayd Allāh b. al-Ḥuṣayn (ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥiṣn) or Warḳāʾ b. al-As̲h̲ʿar, and he belonged to the Banū Taym al-Lāt b. T̲h̲aʿlaba. Ḥummara means a red-headed sparrow, the ammomanes or “Isabelline lark” ( Ammomanes deserti), of the family of the alaudidae , but the origin of his father’s by-name (and of his own, for he is sometimes called simply Lisān al-Ḥummara) is unknown. Practically nothing is …

( ca, 115-80/ ca. 733-96), famous rāwiya of Baṣra. His parents came originally from Farg̲h̲āna and had been brought as captives to ʿIrāḳ, and then freed by Bilāl b. Abī Burda [see al-As̲h̲ʿarī ], whose mawlā K̲h̲alaf remained. He had a prodigious memory, and knew perfectly Bedouin life, their language, traditions and legends, and he gathered together all the poetic works set before him in order to transmit them to his successors. He is said to have been the pupil of ʿĪsā b. ʿUmar and Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ [ q.vv.], but did not pride himself on his knowledge of philology and was conten…

( məlḥūn ) designates the state of the language which served for the expression of certain forms of dialectal poetry in the Mag̲h̲rib, as well as this poetry itself. Although the verse composed may be generally intended to be intoned and chanted by amateurs or professionals with a momentary musical accompaniment, this term does not come from laḥn “melody”, as Muḥammad al-Fāsī ¶ would have it ( Adab s̲h̲aʿbī , 43-4), but from laḥana (cf. D̲j̲irārī. Ḳaṣīda , 55-7) understood in the sense of “to stray from the linguistic norm” i.e. from literary Arabic [see laḥn al-ʿāmma …

b. S̲h̲āhak , mawlā of the ʿAbbāsids, who seems to have defended their cause with talent and perseverence, but of whose life very few precise details are known. His father, al-Sindi b. S̲h̲āhak, whose origins are obscure, was probably a former slave from Sind who had risen to hold important offices; he is said to have been ḳāḍī (Ibn Ḳutayba, ʿUyūn , i, 70) and governor ( wālī ) in Syria (al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Ḥayawān , v, 393), but his main role seems to have been that of a police officer giving especial allegiance to Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd, who entrusted him…

al-Bāhilī , Abū ʿAlī , with the nicknames As̲h̲ḳar and, more particularly, al-K̲h̲alīʿ “the Debauched”, a Baṣra poet who spent almost the whole of his life in the entourage of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and who can be regarded as the perfect type of court poet, at least at a court dominated by the taste for pleasure, indeed for debauchery. His family, which originated in K̲h̲urāsān, had for a long time been connected with the ¶ mawālī of the Bāhila when Ḥusayn was born, probably in the 150’s, since he could remember an incident that occurred in 160/775. With his childhood friend Abū Nuwās [ q.v.] he stu…

(or simply al-Iflīlī ), Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Zakariyyāʾ al-Zuhrī , philologian, teacher and man of ¶ letters, born in Cordova in 352/963 of a family from al-Iflīl, in Syria(?). After receiving a classical education, he acquired the reputation of a great connoisseur of Arabic poetry, grammar and g̲h̲arīb [ q.v.]; though he was ignorant, it is said, of prosody, he prided himself on his poetry, but al-Ḥid̲j̲ārī ( apud Ibn Saʿīd, Mug̲h̲rib , 73) criticizes his verse and prose compositions as too lifeless, and will not allow more than two verses of his to be acceptable. To judge by …

, al-Ḥusayn b. Muṭayr b. Mukammil al-Asadī , Arabic poet of the 2nd/8th century. A mawlā of the Banū Asad (following the manumission or the mukātaba [ q.v.] of his grandfather Mukammil), he was a native of al-T̲h̲aʿlabiyya [ q.v.]; from there he seems to have travelled around in the Arabian peninsula and to have gone in particular to Medina, where he appears on one occasion with the governor of the town; he may even have had the opportunity of reciting poems before al-Walīd b. Yazīd; but his fortune dates from his stay in the Yemen, where he entered the entourage of Maʿn b. Zāʾida [ q.v.], governor …

(a.), plural substantive (sing manḳaba ) featuring in the titles of a quite considerable number of biographical works of a laudatory nature, which have eventually become a part of hagiographical literature in Arabic, in Persian and in Turkish. To define this term, the lexicographers make it a synonym of ak̲h̲lāḳ , taken in the sense of “natural dispositions (good or bad), innate qualities, character”, and associate it with naḳība , explained by nafs “soul”, k̲h̲alīḳa or ṭabiʿa , likewise signifying “trait of character, disposition”, but also with nafād̲h̲ al-raʾy …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥ. b. Sallām , traditionist and philologist of the Baṣra school. He was a mawlā of Ḳudāma b. Maẓʿūn al-D̲j̲umaḥī and was born at Baṣra in 139/756. It was in his native town that he began the traditional studies—religious sciences and adab in general— particularly with his father, who was very well versed in poetry and lexicography. He was in contact, at Baṣra and also at Bag̲h̲dād, with a considerable number of the scholars of the period, among them the great names of Arabic literature, al-Aṣmaʿī Ab…

, the name of the grey mule of the Prophet, which had been given to him by the Muḳawḳis [ q.v.], at the same time as the ass called Yaʿfūr/ʿUfayr. After serving as his mount during his campaigns, she survived him and died at Yanbuʿ so old and toothless that in order to feed her the barley had to be put into her mouth. According to the S̲h̲īʿī tradition, ʿAlī rode upon her at the battle of the Camel [see al-d̲j̲amal ] and at Ṣiffīn. As Duldul in Arabic means a porcupine, it is possible that she derived her name from her gait, but This is far from certain. For…

(a.), “shame, opprobrium, dishonour”, has undergone in North Africa a semantic evolution ¶ analogous to that of the root d̲h̲.m.m . of classical Arabic, arriving at a sense close to that of d̲h̲imma [ q.v.], that is to say, of “protection”, with nuances which should be taken into account. A formula such as ʿārī ʿalayk/ʿalīk , “my shame upon you”, contains visibly a threat against the person to whom it is addressed and means in effect “the shame shall be yours if you do not grant my request” (cf. W. Marçais, Textes arabes de Takroûna , Paris 1925, 200, 215-6, where th…

, Abu ’l-Walīd, Arab poet of the end of the 2nd/8th century. An orphan, he settled at an early age at Baṣra with his mother, and, when he showed signs of talent, the Ḳaysites of the town who, since the death of Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār b. Burd (a mawlā of the Banū ʿUḳayl) had not possessed any poet of eminence, adopted him and fabricated for him a Ḳaysite genealogy. His formative period at an end, he went to al-Raḳḳa to Ḏj̲aʿfar b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, who presented him to al-Ras̲h̲īd, and, from then on, he became the panegyrist of t…

or Libn (coll.; singular labina , libna ) designates in Arabic the unfired brick whose use in building dates back to the earliest antiquity; to speak only of the present domain of Islam, some traces have survived above-ground on the Iranian plateau, in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt, where this material was used in the Pharaonic period to build palaces and royal tombs as well as poor hovels; it is certain that it was also in use in the Arabian peninsula and North Africa. The hog-backed bricks of Mesopotamia appear to be no longer used, and the labina generally has a geometric, fairly reg…

, ʿAbd al-Masīḥ b. ʿAmr b. Ḳays b. Ḥayyān b. Buḳayla al-G̲h̲assānī , legendary character who is supposed to have lived for 350 years (only 320 according to al-Ibs̲h̲īhī, Mustaṭraf , ii, 44) and thus takes his place among the muʿammarūn [ q.v.]. The name of his ancestor, who is credited with the construction of al-Ḳaṣr al-abyaḍ at al-Ḥīra, is often corrupted to Nufayla, but the correct reading is furnished by the tradition according to which this Buḳayla owed his surname to a green silk garment, which was the reason for his nickname of “little cabbage”. It is possible that Ibn Buḳayla was a…

al-Aṣg̲h̲ar, Abu ’l-Ḥad̲j̲nāʾ (not to be confused with Nuṣayb b. Rabāḥ [ q.v.], who is sometimes given the kunya of Abu ’l-Had̲j̲nāʾ), a negro poet of the Arabic language originally from Yamāma. He is described as mawlā ’l-Mahdī to distinguish him from his homonym, because the future ʿAbbāsid caliph had bought him and freed him during the reign of al-Manṣūr (136-58/754-75). It was he who gave him his kunya and married him to a female slave named D̲j̲aʿfara. Once established on the throne (158/775), al-Mahdī, whose companion he had become, offered him property in…

(a.), a noun of place from the verb ḥalla , which means notably “to untie (a knot, luggage, etc.)”, and by extension, “to make a halt”, whence the meaning of “a place where one makes a halt, where one settles (for a longer or shorter time)”. This term constitutes the first element of names of towns or villages in Egypt, where a hundred places were designated by an expression formed from Mahalla followed by an adjective or a proper noun; ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a Mubārak cites more than thirty of them in al-K̲h̲iṭaṭ al-d̲j̲adīda (xv, 21 ff.), apart from the city of al-Maḥalla al-Kubrā [ q.v.]. Maḥalla …

, the name by which are commonly designated the populations, who, from the Egyptian frontier (Sīwa [ q.v.]) to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the great bend of the Niger, speak—or used to speak before their arabicisation—dialects (or rather local forms) of a single language, Berber. This term is probably an abusive or contemptuous epithet, used in Greek ( Barbaroi ) and in Latin ( Barbari ) as well as in Arabic ( Barbar , singular Barbarī , pl. Barābir , Barābira ), and does not constitute a national name, as some people (cf. P. H. Antichan, La Tunisie , 1884, 3) mai…

, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz , Indo-Muslim Arabic scholar, known by the name Memon . His family probably came originally from Maymana [ q.v.], but he was born at Rād̲j̲(a)kūt (Kāt́hiyāwāŕ) in 1888 and died at Karachi on 27 October 1978. The major part of his teaching career was undertaken at the Muslim University of ʿAlīgaŕh, where he was Reader from 1924 to 1942, then Professor until his retirement in 1950; previously, having graduated in Arabic and Persian in 1909, he was Lecturer in Arabic, from 1913 onward, at the Edward College of Pes̲h̲āwar…

, abū ʿabd al-raḥmān , celebrated traditionist and exegete of Cordova, probably of Christian origin, born in 201/817, died In 276/889. Like many Spanish Muslims, he visited the principal cities of the Orient, where he frequented the society of representatives of various mad̲h̲āhib , in particular Ibn Ḥanbal; on his return to Cordova, he displayed such independence in doctrinal matters ¶ (some count him however as a S̲h̲āfiʿī and he is Tegarded as having introduced the Ẓāhirī doctrines into Spain) and opposition to taḳlīd , that he soon found himself regarded with hostility by the Mālikī fu…

, or simply Bint al-K̲h̲uss , name by which is known a woman of the pre-Islamic era, whose eloquence, quickness of repartee and perspicacity became legendary. According to al-S̲h̲iblī ( Ākām al-murd̲j̲ān , Cairo 1326, 71), the word k̲h̲uss denotes the son of a man and of a d̲j̲inniyya (while ʿamlūḳ is applied to the offspring of a d̲j̲inn and a woman), and thus we perceive the origin of the legend which arose probably from the belief of the intervention of d̲j̲inns in the generation of human beings endowed with exceptional gifts. In spite of affirmations such as that of LA (s.v.) in respect of…

(a.) is a technical term denoting common and repartitional ownership by the entire village community of all agricultural lands of the village. 1. In the Near East. In villages in the Middle East where mus̲h̲āʿ prevailed, the peasant community would convene once every year or two to divide the available land by lot to individual peasants. The history of the institution is extremely obscure. In the technical sense mentioned above, the word mus̲h̲āʿ does not appear in classical Arabic dictionaries, which may suggest that the institution did not exist in classical Islam…

b. Rabīʿa b. ʿAmr b. ʿĀmir b. Şaʿṣaʿa al-ʿĀmirī , muk̲h̲aḍram poet who is said to have attacked Ḳurays̲h̲ because his father had been killed in the War of Fid̲j̲ār [ q.v.] ; it is possible that he himself took part in this struggle, and it is precisely in the chapter devoted to this war that the Ag̲h̲ānī (ed. Beirut, xxii, 70 ff., cf. iii, 219) cites him at greatest length, since several pieces of his are given there, one of them considered as a ḳaṣīda munṣifa (see Ch. Pellat, in Mélanges Marcel Cohen , 279-80), but he boasts there of a victory of the Hawāzin over Ḳ…

, Abu ’l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. Mūsā b. Sālim al-Ḥimyarī al-Balansī , often known as Ibn Sālim al-Kalāʿī , a Mālikī scholar, historian, orator and poet from al-Andalus who traced back his genealogy to the Ḥimyarite family of D̲h̲u ’l-Kalāʿ. Born in Ramaḍān 565/May-June 1170, in the neighbourhood of Murcia, he was still a child when his family moved to Valencia, where he began his studies, pursuing them in other Spanish cities, especially Cordoba. A pupil of Ibn Maḍāʿ [ q.v.], Ibn Ḥubays̲h̲, Ibn Zarḳūn and a number of other celebrated teachers, he discharged the office of k̲h̲aṭīb …

, Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm (= Abū S̲h̲ayba) b. ʿUt̲h̲mān al-ʿAbsī al-Kūfī , ʿIrāḳī traditionist and historian (159-235/775-849) who came of a family of religious scholars; his grandfather Abū S̲h̲ayba was already ḳāḍī of Wāsiṭ, but he is described as ḍaʿīf (Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Lisān al-Mīzān , vi, 395). Abū Bakr studied ¶ at al-Ruṣāfa, travelled “in search of learning” and died at Kūfa after having resided at Bag̲h̲dād. He had many pupils, among them Ibn Mād̲j̲a [ q.v.], and wrote several works, which are listed in the Fihrist : K. al-Taʾrīk̲h̲ , K. al-Fitan , K. Ṣiffīn , K. al-Ḏj̲am…

, the name of the earliest of the five “Arab” prophets mentioned in the Ḳurʾān (Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Ibrāhīm, S̲h̲uʿayb and Muḥammad). In his history, which is related three times (on this repetition, see al-Diāḥiẓ, Bayān , ed. Hārūn, i, 105) in slightly different forms (in chronological order: XXVI, 123-40, XI [ Sūra of Hūd ], 52-63/50-60, VII, 63-70/65-72, XLVI, 20/21, merely a restatement), the Ḳurʾān represents him as an ʿĀdī sent to this people [see ʿād ] to exhort them to adore the One God; but, like Muḥammad later in Mecca, he found only incredulity …

(Ar.; also vocalised bak̲h̲l , bak̲h̲al , buk̲h̲ul ) and bak̲h̲īl (pl. buk̲h̲alāʾ less often bāk̲h̲il , pl. buk̲h̲k̲h̲āl ) mean respectively ‘avarice’ and ‘avaricious, miserly’. Just as in the ancient poems the virtue of generosity is constantly sung, so avarice furnishes a theme for satire which is widely exploited by the poets, though it seems that this fault, at least in its most sordid forms, was scarcely widespread among the ancient Arabs. It is however a fact that it is castigated in a …

(a.), verbal noun of ḥakā , originally meaning “to imitate”, but which, in consequence of a readily explained semantic evolution, came to acquire the meaning of “to tell, to narrate”; similarly the noun ḥikāya , starting from the meaning of “imitation”, has come to mean more specifically “mimicry”, and finally “tale, narrative, story, legend”. In classical Arabic the intensive form ḥākiya meant a “mimic” and modern Arabic has adopted the active participle ḥāk in to translate “gramophone”. The radical ḥ . k. y./ w. is not represented in the Ḳuʾrān but it is found in ḥadīt̲h̲ …

(in mediaeval Europe: Balsora; in Tavernier: Balsara; orthodox modern European: Basra, Basrah, Bassora), a town of Lower-Mesopotamia, on the S̲h̲aṭṭ al-ʿArab, 279 m. (420 km.) to the south-east of Bag̲h̲dād. In the course of history the site of the town has changed somewhat, and we may distinguish between Old Baṣra, marked today by the village of Zubayr, and New Baṣra, which was founded in the 11th/18th century in the proximity of the ancient al-Ubulla [ q.v.] and which is the starting point of the modern town of Baṣra, for the rapid growth of which the discovery of oi…

, Arabic term often translated by “satire”, but more precisely denoting a curse, an invective diatribe or insult in verse, an insulting poem, then an epigram, and finally a satire in prose or verse. The etymological sense of the Arabic root h.d̲j̲.w may perhaps be deduced from the Hebrew root the basic sense of which is “to utter a sound in a low voice, to murmur” and hence “to meditate” (so too in Syriac), but also “to pronounce incantations in a low voice” (see L. Koehler, Lexicon in Vet . Test . libros , 1949, 224; König, Hebräisches Wörterbuch , 75; Genesius, Lexicon, Leipzig 1833, 266; Jast…

“the two locusts”, the name given to two slave singing girls who, according to legend, lived in the time of the people of ʿĀd [ q.v.] and belonged to a certain Muʿāwiya b. Bakr al-ʿImlāḳī (see al-Ṭabarī, i, 235-6 and al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ ., index). When the delegates of the people of ʿĀd came to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in order to obtain rain, the two girls so charmed them that Muʿāwiya had to make up some verses to recall them to the object of their mission; but they forgot in the end to make the ṭawāf , and it was This failure of duty which led to the destructio…

, surname of viziers of the Sāmānids [ q.v.], of whom one at least wrote a famous Kitāb al-Masālik wa ’l-mamālik which has never been found in spite of the hopes raised by S. Janicsek ( al-Djaihani’s lost Kitab al-masalik valmamalik: is it to be found at Mashhad ? in BSOS, v/1 (1926), 14-25; see also V. Minorsky, A false Jayhānī , in BSOAS, xiii (1949), 89-96). The identity of the author of this work poses a problem difficult to solve. Ibn Faḍlān ( Risāla , ed. A.Z.V. Togan, Ibn Faḍlāns Reisebericht , Leipzig 1939, text § 4, tr. 6, tr. M. Canard, in AIEO Alger , xvi (1958), 54)…

(the son of the little lame man), Abu ’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar al-Baṣrī , minor poet of Baṣra who died ca. 360/970. Very little is known of his life except that he went to Bag̲h̲dād, where he was the transmitter of a poem by Diʿbil [ q.v.] and lived for some time in the circle of al-Muhallabī [ q.v.]; it was probably at the vizier’s suggestion that he addressed a number of epigrams to al-Mutanabbī at the time of the latter’s visit in 351/962. His poems were collected in a Dīwān , and al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād was still able to appreciate them, but there…

, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr (or ʿĀmir) b. al-Ḥaḍramī , an agent of Muʿāwiya who is remembered for an incident in 38/658, during the period which followed the battle of Ṣiffīn [ q.v.] and the arbitration. After the occupation of Egypt by ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀs [ q.v.], Muʿāwiya, turning his attention towards ʿIrāḳ, realised that he had to begin with Baṣra, where he could count on more adherents than in Kūfa. After consulting ʿAmr, he then decided to send Ibn al-Ḥaḍramī to Baṣra and gave him precise instructions: his agent was to base his propaganda on the …

b. Rās̲h̲id al-Nād̲j̲ī , partisan of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib who fought in his ranks at Ṣiffīn [ q.v.], but who rebelled against him when the first results of the arbitration were known after having accepted, it appears, the principle of arbitration. He was chief of the Banū ʿAbd al-Bayt b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Sama b. Luʾayy (most usually called the B. Nād̲j̲iya, after the name of ʿAbd al-Bayt’s mother), who had only recently been converted to Islam, where they had not kept their original Christianity. He informed ʿAlī of h…

(a.), paronomasia, a play on words consisting in the “coupling” (root z-w-d̲j̲ ) of two terms which are similar in external form or in meaning and linked by the conjunction wa-. For example: ( bayna-hum) hard̲j̲ wa-mard̲j̲ “between them there are disagreements”, where the two elements have an independent existence; the same applies, in particular, to the formulas used to express totality: al-kabīr wa ’l-sag̲h̲īr , al-kat̲h̲īr wa ’l-ḳalīl , al-sahl wa ’l-waʿr etc., or additionally, expressions such as al-g̲h̲anīma wa ’l-iyāb “booty and return (safe and sound)”. Every writer concerne…

, a fortress situated on that part of the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf called the Sīf ʿUmāra, not far from the island of Ḳays [ q.v.], and famous in the 4th/10th century. It was known under three designations, Ḳalʿat al-Dīkdān, Ḥiṣn Dikbāya and Ḥiṣn Ibn ʿUmāra, as well as the Persian one Diz-i Pisar-i ʿUmāra ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 126). It stood guard over a village of fishermen and a port which could shelter some 20 ships, and according to Ibn Ḥawḳal (tr. Kramers and Wiet, 268-9), following Iṣṭak̲h̲rī (140), no-one could get u…

b. Ḳurra al-Muzanī , Abū Wāt̲h̲ila, was appointed ḳāḍī of Baṣra during the caliphate of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in 99/718 (the date 95/714 given by Wakīʿ is incorrect, for ʿUmar did not succeed to the caliphate until 99, and also it was ʿAdī b. Arṭāt, governor of the town from 99-101, who chose Iyās for the post on the caliph’s orders); he did not accept this post very enthusiastically (see especially an anecdote related by Ibn Ḳutayba, ʿ Uyūn , i, 62, which shows incidentally that parallel jurisdictions were still in existence), and in fact gave it up …

, name of the members of a family of Cordova, the Banū D̲h̲akwān, which produced several ḳāḍīs . (1) The first was ʿAbd Allāh b. Hart̲h̲ama b. D̲h̲akwān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbdūs b. D̲h̲akwān al-Umawī who, in 370/981, was appointed ṣāḥib al-radd (that is, his duty was to pronounce judgements on matters on which the ordinary ḳāḍīs were in doubt); see Ibn al-Faraḍī, no. 722; E. Lévi-Provençal, Hist. Esp. Mus ., iii, 145. (2) The most famous member of the family was the son of the above, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, who, after having been ḳāḍī of Faḥṣ al-Ballūṭ, succeeded his father as ṣāḥib al-rad…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbbād b. al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbbād b. Aḥmad b. Idrīs , vizier and man of letters of the Būyid period, known as Kāfī ’l-kufāt or more frequently al-Şāḥib , an honorific title which he may have owed to his relations with Abu ’l-Faḍl Ibn al-ʿAmīd [see ibn al-ʿamīd, i], but more probably to his loyalty to the amīr Muʾayyid al-Dawla [ q.v.]. Born probably at Iṣṭak̲h̲r on 16 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 326/14 September 938 (but the sources disagree on his date and place of birth), of a family of high officials (his father at least, known as al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-amīn, had been a kātib …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Ruʿaynī al-Ḳurṭubī al-Kafīf , Andalusian poet and kātib , considered one of the greatest scholars of the early 5th/11th century in the field of Arabic language and literature. Son of a grain merchant (hence the name by which he was commonly known, often wrongly written Ibn al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ), he owed his chance to study to a family of ḳuḍāt at Cordova, the Banū D̲h̲akwān [see ibn d̲h̲akwān ], who had taken him under their care. He was afflicted from birth by a malformation of the eyes and lost his sight at an …

, Abu ’l-Mustahill , an Arab poet of Kūfa (60-126/680-743) who is not to be confused with two earlier and lesser known Asadīs, al-Kumayt b. Maʿrūf and al-Kumayt b. Thaʿlaba (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Ḏj̲amhara . ii, 373; Ibn Sallām, Ṭabaḳāt ; al-Āmidī, Muʾtalif , no. 571; Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Iṣāba , nos. 7498 and 7499; etc.). Al-Kumayt applied himself in an indirect fashion to the poetry and the language of the Bedouins, and he was acquainted with poets such as al-Farazdak, Ru’ba b. al-ʿAd̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ and the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ī al-Ṭirimmāḥ, whose hostility towar…

, patronymic of an Andalusian family, several members of which played an important rôle during the Umayyad caliphate. The most famous of them is without doubt Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī Ibn Ḥazm [see the following article], but some brief details on the Banū Ḥazm are given here, since confusions often arise. (1) ʿAlī’s father was Abū ʿUmar Aḥmād b. Saʿīd b. Ḥazm b. G̲h̲ālib b. Ṣāliḥ b. K̲h̲alaf . A dignitary at the court of the ḥād̲j̲ib al-Manṣūr Ibn Abī ʿĀmir and that of his son al-Muẓaffar, he was greatly affected by the serious events which occurred in 399/1009 [see al-andalus …

, Abū Bakr al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār b. Ziyād Ibn al-ʿAllāf (so called because his father was a seller of ḳatt ) al-Nahrawānī , poet and traditionist who lived to be a hundred (218-318/833-930), becoming blind in his old age. He frequented the court at Bag̲h̲dād and was an intimate particularly of al-Muʿtaḍid and Ibn al-Muʿtazz. He knew much poetry and composed a great deal himself, so much indeed that his works, collected by a member of his family and accompanied by accounts of his relations with the persons on whom he had written panegyrics, occupied four hundred waraḳa …

, muḥammad b. isḥāḳ b. ibrāhīm b. abi ’l-mug̲h̲īra b. māhān (213-75/828-88), a famous humorist of the ʿAbbāsid court, who was also a faḳīh , astrologer, oneiromancer, poet and man of letters, and who wrote some forty works, both serious and jesting, even burlesque and obscene. Of Kūfan origin, he was first of all ḳāḍī in the district from which he derived his nisba , Ṣaymara, near Baṣra, at the mouth of the Nahr Maʿḳil, but his vivid penchant for coarse humour very early earned him a reputation as a buffoon sufficient for him to be admi…

, pre-Islamic Arab poet. The name Laḳīt does not necessarily mean that the person bearing it was a foundling; but in the present instance, whilst the genealogists know all the poet’s ancestors (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 174 and Register, ii, 377), the ductus of his father’s name has given rise to divergent readings; maʿbad (Ibn al-Kalbī, loc. cit.; al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Bayān , i, 42, 43, 52; Ibn Durayd, Is̲h̲tiḳāḳ , 104; al-Āmidī, Muʾtalif , 175); maʿmar (Ibn Ḳutayba, S̲h̲iʿr , 152-4; LA, s.v. l-ḳ-ṭ ); and yaʿmar/yaʿmur (al-S̲h̲ammāk̲h̲, apud al-Mubarrad, Kāmil …

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar, also known as Ibn Abi ’l-ʿAzāḳir , a heretic of the ʿAbbāsid period (d. 322/934), who went so far as to claim that the deity was incarnated in himself. Initially an Imāmī committed to the study of alchemy, he devoted to this discipline several works such as Kitāb al-K̲h̲amāʾir , K. al-Ḥad̲j̲ar , S̲h̲arḥ K. al-Raḥma of D̲j̲ābir [ q.v.]. He subsequently formulated the doctrines of the ʿAzāḳiriyya, borrowing elements from various philosophical and religious groups: antinomians ( ibāḥiyya [see ibāḥa ]), upholders of ḥulūl [ q.v.], Mazdaeans, Manichaeans, etc. He had som…

(a.), “encyclopaedia”. 1. In Arabic. In the sense of “a work dealing with all the sciences and arts”, the idea of an encyclopaedia was not expressed in Classical Arabic, and it was not until the 19th century that the expression dāʾirat al-maʿārif “ circle of items of knowledge” was coined, corresponding approximately to the etymological meaning of the word current in Western languages, and not until the 20th that a neologism, mawsūʿa , emerged, which contains an idea of breadth, of wide coverage, etc. Nevertheless, the absence of a perfectly ad…

(a.) generic term (nomen unitatis: k̲h̲ubza ) meaning bread, whatever the cereal employed, e.g. corn [see ḳamḥ ], barley [see s̲h̲aʿīr ], rice [see ruzz ] etc., and whatever the quality, the shape and the method of preparation. There exists nevertheless, in literary Arabic and, to a greater degree in the various dialects, a certain number of metaphors and of specific terms which cannot all be mentioned in this brief article, and the ellipsis of the word k̲h̲ubz , in expressions denoting a particular type, causes the semantic range of the fundamental notion to be appreciably enlarged: thus k̲…

, asʿad b. ʿiṣma , one of the most famous informants of the Baṣran philologists in the 2nd/8th century, notably, of al-Aṣmaʿī [ q.v.]. This Bedouin teacher, settled in southern ʿIrāḳ, may have received his curious kunya ( baydāʾ = “desert”) from the admirers forming a circle around him. He also wrote poetry, transmitted by another teacher, a certain Abū ʿAdnān, who is allegedly the author of several works (in particular, of a K. al-Naḥwiyyīn and a K. G̲h̲arīb al-ḥadīt̲h̲ , ¶ Fihrist , 68), and whom al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ praised greatly for his erudition and his fine language ( Bayān …

, surname given to an Arab poet who lived in the 6th century A.D., belonged to ¶ the tribe of Dubayʿa and was called D̲j̲arīr b. ʿAbd al-Masīh; another name, ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, given to his father in some sources, appears to signify that this polytheist had been the first of his family to convert to Christianity. Al-Mutalammis was the maternal uncle of Ṭarafa [ q.v.], and both figure in a narrative which may contain only an essence of truth but that the philologists and anthologists of the Middle Ages considered to be a trustworthy account of a series of perfect…

, surname of the Syrian Arabic poet ʿAbd al-Salām b. Rag̲h̲bān b. ¶ ʿAbd al-Salām b. Ḥabīb b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Rag̲h̲bān b. Yazīd b. Tamīm. This latter had embraced Islam at Muʾta [ q.v.] under the auspices of Ḥabīb b. Maslama al-Fihrī [ q.v.], whose mawlā he became. The great-grandfather of the poet, Ḥabīb, who I was head of the dīwān of salaries under al-Manṣūr, gave his name to a mosque at Bag̲h̲dād, masd̲j̲id Ibn Rag̲h̲bān (al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Buk̲h̲alāʾ , ed. Ḥād̲j̲irī 327, trans. Pellat, index; al-Ḏj̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, 102; Le Strange, Baghdad , 95). Dīk al-Ḏj̲inn, born at…

, Abu ’l-Ḥakam (229-76/844-88), sixth Umayyad amīr of Cordova and the son of a slave belonging to Muḥammad I b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II (d. 273/876). During his father’s lifetime, he filled military functions on various occasions, somewhat honorific to begin with, since it is mentioned that, as early as 242/856, he had gone to blockade—without great success—Toledo [see ṭulayṭula ] which had rebelled. Over the next years, he had occasion to command some summer expeditions ( ṣāʾifa ) against the Christians, notably in 251/865. In 263/877 he marched against Merida (see mārida …

, Abū Miḥd̲j̲an, a negro poet of the Arabic language who is said to have belonged, originally, to a Kinānī of Waddān, a small village close to Medina (see al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , Arabic index, s.v.); it could, however, be supposed that the locality in question is rather the main settlement of the oasis of D̲j̲ufra [ q.v.] which bears the same name, since the available information regarding the biography of Nuṣayb indicates that he was a native of Africa. In any case, attempting to establish his origin would be futile, since this has been the object of…

(a.), pl. k̲h̲iṣyān “castrated man, eunuch”. I.—In the central Islamic lands. From the 4th/10th century especially, several euphemisms were applied to eunuchs, who were numerous in the palaces and frequently invested with important functions: notably k̲h̲ādim (coll. k̲h̲adam , pl. k̲h̲uddām ), muʿallim , s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ , ustād̲h̲ (see M. Canard, Ak̲h̲bâr ar-Râdî ..., i, 210-1, note), later on ṭawās̲h̲ī (which, according to al-Maḳrīzī, Hist , des Sultans Mamlouks , tr. Quatremère, 1/2 (1849), 132, comes from the Turkish ṭābūs̲h̲ī = Osmanli̊ tapug̲h̲či̊ …

(pl. ʿatāʾir ) denoted, among the Arabs of the d̲j̲āhiliyya , a ewe (and by extensions its sacrifice) offered as a sacrifice to a pagan divìnity, either as a thanksgiving following the fulfilment of a prayer (concerning in particular the increase of flocks), or when a flock reached the total of a hundred head (cf. the word faraʿa ) ; the head of the idols before which the sacrifice was performed was smeared with the blood of the victims. If one bears in mind on the one hand that these sacrifices (which were also called rad̲j̲abiyya ; hence the phrase rad̲j̲d̲j̲aba ʿatīrat an) took place in the m…

(A.), “bravery”, “valour” (used nowadays together with ḥamās , to translate “enthusiasm”), is the title of a certain number of poetic anthologies which generally include brief extracts chosen for their literary value in the eyes of the anthologists and classified according to the genre to which they belong or the idea which they express; these works are related to a more general category, that of “poetic themes”, maʿānī ’l-s̲h̲iʿr [ q.v.], but differ from it in the apparent effacement of the author who abstains from any comparison or judgement and imposes his tast…

b. Abi K̲h̲alīfa Muḥammad b. S̲h̲uʿayd b. Ṣak̲h̲r al-D̲j̲umaḥī , (d. 305/917-18), littérateur, poet, traditionist and ḳaḍī of Baṣra. He was a mawlā of D̲j̲umaḥ of Ḳurays̲h̲ and the nephew, on his mother’s side, of Ibn Sallām [ q.v.]. He was born in and died at Baṣra, where he made himself the transmitter of a fairly extensive number of religious, historical, literary and genealogical traditions. He also received a legal training sufficient for him to act as the ḳāḍī of Baṣra towards 294/907 with functions delegated by the Mālikī ḳāḍī Abū Muḥammad Yūsuf b. Yaʿḳū…

, abū muḥammad sulaymān b. mihrān , traditionist and Ḳurʾān "reader". Born in 60/679-680, or 10 Muḥarram 61/10 October 681, of a Persian father, he lived at al-Kūfa and died probably in Rabīʿ I 148/May 765. He received traditions from al-Zuhrī and Anas b. Mālik, and his instructors in ḳirāʾa , were: Mud̲j̲āhid, al-Nak̲h̲aʿī, Yaḥyā b. Wat̲h̲t̲h̲āb, ʿĀṣim; Ḥamza was his disciple. His "reading", which followed the tradition of Ibn Masʿūd and Ubayy, appeared in the list of "the fourteen". A great admirer of ʿAlī, he is supposed to have furnished the poet al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī [ q.v.] with the m…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-dīn Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā al-Tilimsānī al-Fāsī al-Mālikī , man of letters and biographer, born at Tilimsān (Tlemcen) in ca. 986/1577, d. at Cairo in D̲j̲umādā II 1041/Jan. 1632. He belonged to a family of scholars, natives of Maḳḳara (about 12 miles from Msīla [see masīla ]). One of his paternal ancestors, Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Maḳḳarī, had been chief ḳāḍī of Fās and one of the teachers of the famous Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb [ q.v.] of Granada. He himself received a wide education from his early youth; one of his principal teach…

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲ubayr al-Kinānī , Andalusian traveller and writer, born at Valencia 540/1145, into a family which had settled in Spain in 123/740. He studied at Játiva, where his father was a civil servant, and received the traditional instruction of young men of his class, that is to say he learnt the rudiments of the religious sciences and of belles-lettres at the same time, but not without learning how to exercise his poetic skill. His talents won for him …

(a.), collective noun indicating the two main species of the camelidae , the camelus dromedarius, or dromedary, with a single hump, and the camelus bactrianus, or camel proper, with two humps. The latter species, common in Central Asia, in western China and in northern Persia, was known to the Arabs under the name of fālid̲j̲ (pl. fawālid̲j̲ ); the crossing of two-humped stallions with Arab female camels ( ʿirāb ) produced the species called buk̲h̲t (sing, buk̲h̲tī , pl. bak̲h̲ātī ) which did not breed and which was used mainly as a beast of burden (see al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Ḥayawān …

, Maḥmūd b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Sindī b. S̲h̲āhak , Abu ’l-Fatḥ , poet of the 4th/10th century whose death is variously given in the sources between 330/941 and 360/971, but which must have taken place ca. 350/961. Originally from a family of Sind [see ibrāhīm b. al-sindī ], he was born at al-Ramla and lived at al-Mawṣil at the court of Abu ’l-Hayd̲j̲āʾ ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamdān [see ḥamdānids ], and then at Aleppo, in the entourage of Sayf al-Dawla [ q.v.]; he also made several journeys to Egypt, Bag̲h̲dād, Damascus and Jerusalem. His verses are described by R. Blachère, Motanabbî …

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan aḥmad b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Mūsā b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī al-Nadīm (and also al-Ṭunbūrī , because he played the tunbūr , lute (Fr.: “pandore”)). A philologist and transmitter of traditions, singer and musician, poet and wit and a descendant of the Barmakids. He was reputedly born in 224/839, and died at the age of a hundred, at Wāsiṭ in S̲h̲aʿbān 324/June-July 936. A man of very varied culture, but little religion, of doubtful morals and repulsive appearance (he was dirty and ugly, and owed…

, ʿabd al-g̲h̲affār b. ʿabd al-wāḥid b. wahb , Arab poet of ʿIrāḳ, born at al-Mawṣil ¶ about 1220/1805, died at al-Baṣra 1290/1874. After settling in Bag̲h̲dād, he established a connection with the wālī Dāwūd Pās̲h̲ā. The latter, at his request, sent him to India for treatment to correct the defective power of speech which had gained him his sobriquet of al-Ak̲h̲ras ("the mute"), but he refused to undergo the operation. The panegyrics which he addressed to Dāwūd Pās̲h̲ā and ʿAbd al-Bā…

, Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṭarābulusī, philologist, native of Ad̲j̲dābiya (between Barḳa and Tripoli), who lived in the 6th/12th century and died in about 650/1251. He is the author of a number of works, of which reference is made particularly to his Kitāb al-Anwāʾ (ed. Damascus 1964, by ʿIzzat Ḥasan, as al-Azmina wa’l-anwāʾ ) and to a short treatise on lexicography entitled Kifāyat al-mutaḥaffiẓ wa-nihāyat al-mutalaffiẓ , printed in Egypt in 1285/1868 and in Beirut in 1305/1887. (Ch. Pellat) Bibliography Yāḳūt, Udabāʾ, i, 130 Suyūṭī, Bug̲h̲ya, 178 Ḥād̲j̲d̲…

(A), technical term of the Ḵh̲awārid̲j̲ [ q.v.], used, in a general sense, of religious murder, the putting to death in particular by the Azāriḳa [ q.v.] of Muslims and pagans who objected to their still rudimentary doctrine. However this meaning seems to be the result of a semantic evolution (even an involution), the verb istaʿraḍa (tenth form) meaning “to ask someone to display his possessions” and, thence, “to give an account of his opinions”; the istiʿrāḍ is thus the interrogation to which the enemies of these sectarians were subjected on falli…

(“the falcon”), the name of several poets (including one from Ḍubayʿa b. Rabīʿa and another from Kalb; see al-Āmidī, Muk̲h̲talif , 166); the best-known of these was ʿumayr b. s̲h̲uyaym b. ʿamr , who probably came from the D̲j̲us̲h̲am b. Bakr of Tag̲h̲lib (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Register , 474). On account of one of his verses, he was also given the name of Ṣarīʿ al-G̲h̲awānī “the one felled by beautiful maidens”. Like his fellow-tribesman and maternal uncle (?) al-Ak̲h̲ṭal [ q.v.], he was involved in the quarrels of the second half of the 1st/7th century between the Tag̲h…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAmmār b. Ḥusayn b. ʿAmmār , poet and vizier of al-Andalus. Born in 422/1031 in a village near Silves, he belonged to a poor and obscure family and his claim to be of Yemenī origin is doubtful. After beginning his studies at Silves, he received at Cordova an advanced literary education and then tried to make his literary talent pay, travelling throughout Spain in search of patrons. Nothing appears to have survived of his first panegyrics, addressed, it seems wi…

al-ḥimmānī al-rād̲j̲iz , a poet of Baṣra who owed his name to the fact that his mother gave birth to him by a palm tree ( nak̲h̲la ). He was given the kunya s of Abu ’l-Ḏj̲unayd and Abu ’l-ʿIrmās and the name of Yaʿmar (or Ḥazn, or Ḥabīb b. Ḥazn) b. Zāʾida b. Laḳīṭ, but it is possible that he forged a fictitious genealogy to attach himself to the Saʿd b. Zayd Manāt of Tamīm; in fact, al-Farazdaḳ, angry at being released from jail at his intervention, ¶ calls him a daʿī , and Ibn al-Kalbī does not cite him in his D̲j̲amhara . It is said that he was ejected by his father, on ac…

(Ṣuraymī in Ibn al-Kalbī), (al-)ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 40/660), a Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ī who is said to have been the first to proclaim that “judgement belongs only to God” ( taḥkīm ; cf. al-Mubarrad, Kāmil , Cairo edn., 917), but who is famed in history because of his being one of the three plotters sworn to kill simultaneously ʿAlī b. Abi Ṭālib [see ibn muld̲j̲am ], ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, [ q.v.] and Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān. Al-Burak accordingly proceeded to Damascus and stabbed Muʿāwiya whilst he was praying, but only managed to wound him in the hip. According to trad…

, pl. ḳaynāt or ḳiyān “female singing slave”. The Arab lexicographers do not completely agree on the primitive meaning of the term (see LA, TA, etc. s.v.), the real origin of which is unknown to them. They tend to apply it in the first place to a female slave ( ama , d̲j̲āriya ), charged in general with various tasks; secondly, and more specifically, to the female singer who had a servile status ( ama or d̲j̲āriya mug̲h̲anniya ). Some lexicographers are inclined to connect ḳayna with a Vth form taḳayyana “to embellish oneself” (al-Was̲h̲s̲h̲āʾ, Muwas̲h̲s̲h̲ā , 164, uses the expression al-imāʾ a…

, the usual cognomen of a Tamīmite noble of Baṣra named abū baḥr ṣak̲h̲r (sometimes, but erroneously, called al-Ḍaḥḥāk) b. ḳays b. muʿāwiya al-tamīmī al-saʿdī , of the family of Murra b. ʿUbayd; through his mother, he was descended from the Bāhilite clan Awd b. Maʿn. He was born before Islam and, probably at an early age, lost his father, killed by the Banū Māzin. His biographers state that he was deformed from birth and that he had undergone an operation. His cognomen ( al-aḥnaf ) derives from the fact that his feet were misshapen, but he also had other ab…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Bassām al-S̲h̲antarīnī , Andalusian poet and anthologist, a native of Santarem. Forced to flee from his native town when it was taken by Alfonso V of Castile (485/1092-3), he went to Cordova for the first time in 493/1100 and, during the following years, undertook at Seville the compiling of his D̲h̲ak̲h̲īra and the collecting of the dīwāns of some great poets of the 5th/11th century: al-Muʿtamid, Ibn Wahbūn, Ibn ʿAmmār; he also collected the correspondence of the prince of Murcia, Ibn Ṭāhir, and collected in o…

(sometimes Ibn al-Ḥarīrī in Yāḳūt), Abū Muḥammad al-Ḳāsim b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿUt̲h̲mān b. al-Ḥarīrī al-Baṣrī , Arabic poet and philologist known principally for his Maḳāmāt . Born in 446/1054, probably to a landed family living at al-Mas̲h̲ān, near Baṣra, where he spent his childhood, he commenced his studies at Baṣra; his biographers agree that he studied under al-Faḍl b. Muḥammad al-Ḳaṣabānī, but the latter is said to have died in 444/1052 (see Yāḳūt, Udabāʾ , xvi, 218; al-Suyūṭī, Bug̲h̲ya , 373; al-Ṣafadī, Nakt , 227), so that there is a discrepancy …

al-Namarī (al-Numayrī), appellative of a family of Cordovan scholars, the principal representative of which is Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh , born in 368/978. He studied in his native city under masters of repute, engaged in correspondence with scholars of the East and travelled all over Spain “in search of knowledge”, but never went to the East. Considered the best traditionist of his time, he was equally distinguished in fiḳh and in the science of genealogy. After displaying Ẓāhirī tendencies at first, in which he resembled his friend Ibn …

, abu ’l-s̲h̲aʿt̲h̲āʾ ʿabd allāh b. ruʾba , Arab poet of the Tamīm tribe, who resided mainly in al-Baṣra; it is probable that he was born during the caliphate of ʿUt̲h̲mān (23-35/644-56), and he died in 97/115. Little is known about his life, except that he had to joust with his Kūfan rival Abu ’l-Nad̲j̲m al-ʿId̲j̲lī [ q.v.]. The main characteristic of al-ʿAd̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲’s poetry—like that of his son Ruʾba [ q.v.]—is the constant and exclusive use of the rad̲j̲az metre in poetical compositions marked by a very rich vocabulary and a laborious construc…

, a tribe belonging to the group which the genealogists distinguished under the name of the Butr [ q.v.] and which formed one of the two great Berber peoples, the other being the Barānis [ q.v.]. They seem to have become fixed fairly early in Libya and to have spread over all the Mag̲h̲rib, where the elements which are encountered there sporadically were largely sedentaries or sedentarised. Mediaeval authors mention Nafzāwa as far as Sid̲j̲ilmāsa and even as far as Awdag̲h̲ost [ q.vv.], but this tribe is known above all today for having given its name to a region of Tunisia t…

, Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān Yazīd b. Ziyād b. Rabīʿa b. Mufarrig̲h̲ al-Ḥimyarī , minor poet of Baṣra in the 1st/7th century. There are doubts about his Ḥimyarī origin, and it is possible that his ancestor Mufarrig̲h̲ was a slave. Ibn Mufarrig̲h̲’s ¶ date of birth is not known, and the earliest traditions about him tell of his romantic attachment to a Persian woman of Ahwāz in approximately the years 36-40/657-60. Later he was attached to ʿUbayd Allāh b. Abī Bakra [ q.v.] and Saʿīd b. ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, but his career took a completely different direction from the time when he decided…

, Abu ’l-Walīd/Abū Ḵh̲ālid ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. D̲j̲urayd̲j̲ al-Rūmī al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-makkī (80-150/699-767), Meccan traditionist of Greek slave descent (the ancestor being called Gregorios) and probably a mawlā of the family of Ḵh̲ālid b. Asīd. ¶ After having first of all become interested in gathering together traditions of philological, literary and historical interest, he brought together ḥadīt̲h̲s from the mouths of ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, al-Zuhrī, Mudd̲j̲āhid, ʿIkrima and other famous persons, and passed them on, notably to Wakīʿ, Ibn al…