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, 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…