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, Abu ’l-Walīd ʿĪsā b. Yazīd b. Bakr b. Daʾb al-Layt̲h̲ī al-Madanī , traditionist, genealogist, rāwī and poet of Medina who, after having been a schoolmaster, lived for a time at the court of al-Mahdī and longer at that of al-Hādī, from whom he received unusual favour, and died in 171/787. He owes his fame mainly to the elegance and delicacy of his speech and his manners, to the extent of his knowledge of genealogies and of early poetry, to his readiness in repartee and to his skill in fi…

, aḥmad b. ibrāhīm al-s̲h̲aybānī , rāwī , philologist and poet, originally from Yamāma, who settled at Baṣra and was famous at the beginning of the 4th/10th century for his exceptional knowledge of the Arabic language, genealogies and ancient poetry. He was a former soldier who had become a civil servant, and had the job of levying dues on the ships coming to ʿAbbādān. He was totally lacking in education and in tidiness, but his knowledge led to his faults being excused and overlooked. He had a powerful voice, and he spoke in the Bedouin fashion, expressing the iʿrāb , a…

, the usual name for al-hayt̲h̲am b. al-rabīʿ b. zurāra , a minor poet of Baṣra of the 2nd/8th century. The date of his death is given variously in the biographical sources, with dates ranging from 143/760 to 210/825, and the only point of reference which we have is the fact that he was considered as the rāwiya of al-Farazdaḳ (d. 110/728). Of Bedouin origin, Abū Ḥayyā must have lived for quite a long time in the desert, to judge by the verses which al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ cites in his K. al-Ḥayawān , and which other, subsequent authors cite, apparently considering him as an…

, Abū ʿAlī D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-Anṣārī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī , Egyptian scholar who was born and died in Cairo (b. 791/1389, d. 1 Muḥarram 864/28 October 1459). He is known above all as co-author of the famous Ḳurʾān commentary called the Tafsīr al-Ḏj̲alālayn because it was completed by another D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn, the famous al-Suyūṭī (849-911/1445-1505 [ q.v.]), who had been his pupil for some time. According to the latter, al-Maḥallī had commented on the sūras from XVIII ( al-Kahf ) to CXIV ( al-Nās ), as well as I ( al-Fātiḥa ) and a few verses of II ( al-Baḳara ). …

, aḥmad b. muḥammad b. s̲h̲urāʿa al-ḳaysī al-bakrī , minor poet of Baṣra who, during the course of the 3rd/9th century, took part in the social and intellectual life of his native town, and hardly left it, it seems, except to make the Pilgrimage or to visit places very close at hand. For the rest, his life is poorly documented. It seems unlikely that he was able, as Ibn al-Muʿtazz asserts ( Ṭabaḳāt , 177-8), to praise al-Mahdī (158-69/775-85) during the latter’s lifetime, to have reached an advanced age in al-Maʾmūn’s time and to die in the cali…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Maḥammad b. Aḥmad , Moroccan scholar and teacher, born 15 Ramaḍān 999/7 July 1591 at Fās, where he studied and taught law and ḥadīt̲h̲ until his death in the same town on 3 Ḏj̲umādā II 1071/24 January 1662. He was the author of several commentaries, ¶ notably on the Tuḥfa of Ibn ʿĀṣim [ q.v.], of which a manuscript exists in the Bibl. Générale, Rabat (D 873), and on the theological poem called al-Murs̲h̲id al-muʿīn of his master Ibn ʿĀs̲h̲ir (d. 1040/1631) completed in 1044/1634-5 and called al-Durr al-t̲h̲amīn wa ’l-mawrid al-maʿīn fī s̲h̲arḥ al-Murs̲h̲id al-muʿīn ʿa…

, nisba of a S̲h̲īʿī family of which one member, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar aḥmad b. muḥammad b. Ḵh̲ālid b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, enjoys a considerable renown in Imāmī circles. When the ancestor of the family, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, was imprisoned and put to death by Yūsuf b. ʿUmar al-T̲h̲aḳafī (governor of ʿIrāḳ from 120/738 to 126/744 [ q.v.]) following the suppression of the revolt of Zayd b. ʿAlī (122/740 [ q.v.]), his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān escaped and established himself at Barḳa, in the region of Ḳumm, whence the ethnic name al-Barḳī, to which there is sometimes adde…

al-Ḥulwānī , Abu ’l-Muḳātil, a blind S̲h̲īʿi poet of the 3rd/9th century who owes the fact of his not having fallen into total obscurity to a maḳṣūra [ q.v.] (of which there are two verses given in al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , § 3462) and a nūniyya , both composed in praise of the dāʿī Muḥammad b. Zayd (d. 287/900 [ q.v.]). Thirty-six verses of this last ḳaṣīda (metre ramal , rhyme -ānī ) have been preserved, solely by al-Masʿūdī, it appears ( Murūd̲j̲, § 3518), whilst the maṭlaʿ ( lā taḳul bus̲h̲rā ... al-mihrad̲j̲ānī ): Do not say “One piece of good news”, but “two pieces of good news”: the face of someone …

b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḳurṭubī , Abu ’l-Ḥakam, Andalusian theologian and jurist, born in 273/886 into a family of Berber origin settled in the region of Cordova, at Faḥṣ al-Ballūṭ [ q.v., Los Pedroches], whence his nisba of al-Ballūṭī . He studied in the capital of al-Andalus and set out ¶ to broaden his knowledge in the East on the occasion of a pilgrimage which he made in 308/921. He stayed in various cities, studied under several teachers and achieved renown in Egypt when he publicly corrected the reading of a verse of Mad̲j̲nūn Laylā [ q.v.] by Abū D̲j̲aʿfar al-Naḥḥās, who su…

the name generally given to two poets of Sayf al-Dawla’s [ q.v.] entourage, the two inseparable brothers abū ʿut̲h̲mān saʿd / saʿīd (d. 350/961) and abū bakr muḥammad (d. 380/990), sons of Hās̲h̲im b. Saʿīd b. Waʿla. They came originally from a village of the region of al-Mawṣil called al-K̲h̲ālidivva (Yāḳūt, ii, 390), and possibly lived for some time in Baṣra (Yāḳūt, Udabāʾ , xi, 208 affirms this and attributes to Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān the ethnic designation of al-Baṣrī), but became celebrated above all as the librarians of Sayf al-Dawla, to …

, the name of two poets who were confused by Ibn Ḳutayba ( S̲h̲iʿr , S̲h̲ākir ed. 592-95) and the authors who copied or utilized him: Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, ʿIḳd , 1346/1928 ed., 202-3; Ag̲h̲ānī , viii, 155—Beirut ed., ix, 252-3; C. A. Nallino, Litt ., (with a note of correction by M. Nallino). 1.—Dukayn b. Rad̲j̲āʾ al-Fuḳaymī (d. 105/723-24); a panegyric in rad̲j̲az composed by him on Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr; and an urd̲j̲ūza upon his horse who won a race organized by al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik (see Yāḳūt, xi, 113-17; Ibn ʿAsākir, v, 274-9), have been preserved. 2.—Dukayn b. Saʿīd al-Dārimī (d. 109/72…

, the name of a celebrated public place in al-Baṣra [ q.v.] which, although situated outside the metropolis of southern ʿIrāḳ, played an outstanding role in the economic life of that town as well as in the shaping of the specifically Arabic culture. Etymologically, the term could be a noun of place anomalously formed from the root r-b-d which implies, amongst other things, the meaning of “to halt, make a stop” and could thus designate a spot where nomads encamp, and then, by extension, where camels and sheep are penned up. The various denotations of t…

“seriousness and joking”, a common combination of antithetical terms which have a certain resonance in Muslim ethics and the Arabic literary genre known as adab . Although only the second of these words occurs in the Ḳurʾān, without implication of any kind, while its antonym d̲j̲idd and its synonym muzāḥ do not appear there at all, and although the Ḳurʾān does not explicitly prescribe either serious behaviour or the avoidance of jocularity, Islam without necessarily inspiring sadness and tears in spite of its pessimistic …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ , Mālikī faḳīh and biographer, originally from K̲h̲us̲h̲an near Ḳayrawān. After studying fiḳh at the latter place and at Tunis, he left his homeland ca. 311/923, passing through Ceuta, where he was held back some time by teaching (he is said also to have corrected the orientation of the mosque there), and travelling to Spain. He resided in the Marches, and completed his legal training, especially from Ḳāsim b. Aṣbag̲h̲ [ q.v.], and ended up by enjoying the favour of the heir to the throne, prince ¶ al-Ḥakam, who procured for him the job of ḳāḍī …

(a.) pl. nawādir , literally “rare thing, rarity”, denotes a pleasing anecdote containing wit, humour, jocularity and lively repartee, ( nukta , pl. nukat ; mulḥa , pl. mulaḥ ; fukāha , etc.) of the type which has never ceased to be an integral feature of all social gatherings, whether intimate or official. A taste for this variety of entertainment seems to have developed in the lst/7th century in the Holy Cities of Islam, especially at Medina, where instruction in the art of composing and delivering anecdotes [see al-d̲j̲idd wa ’l-hazl ] began at a very early st…

( al-ag̲h̲lab b. ʿamr b. ʿubayda b. ḥārit̲h̲a b. dulaf b. ḏj̲us̲h̲am ), Arab poet, born in the pre-Islamic era and converted to Islam, who later settled at al-Kūfa, and was killed at the battle of Nihāwand (21/642) at the reputed age of 90. He is not regarded as one of the Companions of the Prophet. Al-Ag̲h̲lab is considered to be the first to have employed the rad̲j̲az metre in lengthy poems constructed on the pattern of the ḳaṣīda , but very few traces of his works remain. Critics praise particularly a poem on the prophetess Sad̲j̲āḥ [ q.v.], and quote an anecdote which suggests that Islam…

Muḥammad , satirical poet, a native of ʿAdan, who went to Baṣra for his education, settled there and posed as a mawlā of the Banū Ṣubayr b. Yarbūʿ (Tamīm). He spent a devout and studious youth, following the courses of the best teachers of Baṣra, from whom he learnt grammar, Ḳurʾānic “readings”, lexicography, ḥadīt̲h̲ , etc., but on the death of his friend ʿAbd al-Mad̲j̲īd b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-T̲h̲aḳafī (for whom he wrote a much-admired funeral oration), his attitude changed completely; applying their point of doctrine concerning the tag̲h̲yīr al-munkar , the Muʿtazilīs ¶ were obliged t…

, name of three Moroccan sultans belonging to the dynasty of the Saʿdids [ q.v.]. I. The first, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, who also bore the title of al-Mahdī and is sometimes known as al-Imām, is generally counted second or third in the list of members of the dynasty, but he may to a certain extent be considered its true founder, since it was he who put an end to that of the Marīnids [ q.v.]. Born probably at Tagmaddart (a district of the Darʿa) in 896/1490-1, he was the younger son of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḳāʾim bi-amr Allāh, who was proclaimed sultan in 916/1510 and d…

, the Arabic name of the small port on the Mediterranean coast of al-Andalus, Almunecar, which made its entry into the history of Islam on 1 Rabīʿ I 138/14 August 755, when the Umayyad prince ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ q.v.] b. Muʿāwiya al-Dāk̲h̲il trod there “for the first time the soil of his future kingdom” (Lévi-Provençal, Hist. Esp. Mus. , i, 101) before setting out to defeat the governor Yūsuf b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Fihrī. As it still is today, Almuñecar was part of the province of which the regional capital was Granada [see g̲h̲arnāṭa ], 40 miles away; the fate of the t…

, Abū Sulaymān Ayyūb b. Zayd , of the Zayd Manāt (al-Ḳirriyya was probably the name of his mother or of one of his grandmothers), is presented as an illiterate Bedouin whose eloquence, however, became proverbial to the extent of eclipsing the fame of Saḥbān Wāʾil [ q.v.]. Tradition relates that he lived in the entourage of al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ [ q.v.], and adab books contain discourses, generally rhymed, which he is said to have given on various occasions or in reply to questions from his master. He is reported however to have joined the party of Ibn al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ [ q.v.], drawing up his lett…