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, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Hibat Allāh b. Abī ʿAbd Allāh al-Faḍl b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Bag̲h̲dādī , traditionist, oculist, and especially poet, of Bag̲h̲dād, born in 478 or 479/1086, died 28 Ramadān 558/30 August 1163. Although he was the author of medical works which have not survived, and also transmitted ḥadīt̲h̲s without incurring the reproof of critics, Ibn al-Ḳaṭṭān is known chiefly for his vigorous satires which, as Goldziher says ( Muh . St., ii, 60), “spared neither the caliph nor anyone else”, for his mud̲j̲ūn and for his wit, as we…

(a.), pl. ḳuṣṣāṣ , “popular story-teller or preacher, deliverer of sermons” whose activity considerably varied over the centuries, from preaching in the mosques with a form of ḳurʾānic exegesis to downright charlatanism. This term does not appear in the Ḳurʾān, although the verb ḳaṣṣa is quite often used (see Flügel, Concordantiae ) always, except in VI, 57, with the meaning “to recount, to relate, to report” a generally edifying narration [see ḳiṣṣa ] and frequently in the first person, when the narrator is God Himself. The LA (root ḳṣṣ ) reproduces ḥadīt̲h̲s in which appear the word ḳāṣṣ …

, mule (pl. big̲h̲āl , fem. bag̲h̲la ; but some think that bag̲h̲l denotes the hybrid without distinction of sex, and that bag̲h̲la is a singulative form which applies both to the male and female); the same word denotes both the hinny, the offspring of a stallion and a she-ass (cf. however kawdar in al-Masʿūdī, ii, 408; contra : al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Big̲h̲āl 120; al-Danīrī, s.v.; cf. al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Tarbīʿ , ed. Pellat, index, s.v.), and the mule, the offspring of a he-ass and a mare, the morphological characteristics of the two varieties being midwa…

al-Sabtī , Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. His̲h̲ām b. Ibrāhīm b. Ḵh̲alaf , lexicographer, grammarian, adīb and versifier. He was probably born at Seville, and certainly died in that city in 577/1182, after having lived for a long time at Ceuta. We know very little of his life, but his biographers list his masters and his pupils and indicate the titles of his works, amongst which one notes several commentaries; one may merely remark that these included a s̲h̲arḥ on the Maḳṣūra of Ibn Durayd, which was especially appreciated by al-Ṣafadī ( Wāfī , ii, 1301) and al-Bag̲h̲dādī ( Ḵh̲izāna …

, Isḥāḳ b. Ḥassān b. Ḳūhī , Arab poet, died probably under the caliphate of al-Maʾmūn, about 206/821. The scion of a noble family of Sogdiana, which he sometimes mentions with pride (Yākūt, v, 363), al-Ḵh̲uraymī (the form al-Ḵh̲uzaymī is erroneous) derived his nisba from his being a mawlā , not directly of Ḵh̲uraym al-Nāʿim, as most of his biographers ¶ have it, but of his descendants, viz. Ḵh̲uraym b. ʿĀmir and his son ʿUt̲h̲mān (see Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrīk̲h̲ , ii, 434-7; v, 126-8). He seems to have lived in Mesopotamia, Syria, al-Baṣra, where he frequented dissolute poets su…

“the wall of the Old Woman” (the form Ḥāʾiṭ al-Ḥad̲j̲ūz is sometimes found, ¶ notably in al-Harawī) the name given by Arabic writers to a wall said to have been built by the mythical queen of Egypt, Dalūka [= al-ʿAd̲j̲ūz], who is said to have mounted the throne after the army of al-Walīd b. Muṣʿab [ sic = the Pharaoh of Moses], in pursuit of the Israelites, had been engulfed by the Red Sea. In order to protect the surviving women, children and slaves from the attacks of the peoples of the East and of the West, Dalūka is said to have surrounded the Ni…

(Nukūr) was the name of a town in northern Morocco (Rīf) situated approximately 140 km./90 miles (by road) to the west of Melilla [ q.v.], in a plain which extends between two small coastal rivers, joining at a place called Agdal [on this term, see āgdāl ], then separating before flowing into the Mediterranean, the Nakūr and the G̲h̲ays/G̲h̲īs: a riḅāt [ q.v.] had been constructed on an elevation. The town itself was built some 10 km/7 miles from the Mediterranean coast among inlets which sheltered a number of small harbours. The best known, al-Mazimma, wa…

b. Ḏj̲abala al-Asadī , satirical Arab poet of the 1st/7th century. Physically deformed, for he was hunch-backed and lame, he possessed some spitefulness, which shows in his diatribes, but he had a lively wit, prompt repartee, humour, and the subtlety of the G̲h̲āḍira clan to which he belonged [cf. al-g̲h̲āḍirī ]. He was born ¶ at Kūfa and lived there till ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr drove out the Umayyad authorities (64/684) whom he followed to Damascus where he was admitted to the intimacy of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān. He then went back to Kūfa and was closely connected with Bis̲h̲r b. Marwān [ q.v.] …

, an Arabic word used particularly in the Beduin dialect form fəllāg , pl. fəllāga (in the western press principally in the pl., with the spelling: fellagar fellagah, fellagha ), and denoting in the first place the brigands and subsequently the rebels who appeared in Tunisia and Algeria. A connexion with falaḳa [ q.v.] “instrument of torture”, of which the etymology is, in any case, obscure (see Arabica , 1954/3, 325-36), is certainly tobe ruled out. On the other hand, the Arabic root FLḲ (comp. FLD̲J̲, FLḤ, etc.) seems worthy of retention; Tunisian rural and nomadic dialects make use of fləg …

, Arabic name of a Mozarab Christian [see mozarabs ] whose true name was Recemundo (Recemundus in Latin = Raymond) and who owes his place in the EI to the role which he ¶ played in the service of the Umayyad caliphs of Spain ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III al-Nāṣir (who reigned from 300 to 350/912-61 [ q.v.]) and al-Ḥakam II al-Mustanṣir (350-68/961-76 [ q.v.]), and to his involvement in the presentation of the well-known Calendar of Cordova . Recemundo was a Cordovan who, with his command of Latin and of Arabic, was able to render considerable services to the caliphal chancellery wh…

(a.) is one of those words whose richness discourages any attempt at exact translation. In its weakest sense, it approximates to hazl “jest” as opposed to d̲j̲idd “seriousness” [see al-d̲j̲idd wa ’l hazl ] and corresponds in an appreciable degree to frivolity. But its semantic field extends widely to the point that it can mean the most shameless debauchery, including vulgarity, coarseness, impudence, libertinage, obscenity and everything that may provoke coarse laughter, such as scatological humour. This word embarrassed the Arab lexicographers, who connected it with the root m-d̲j…

, Arab tribe, probably of Yemeni origin, who, having come from Arabia at the same time as the Banū Hilāl [ q.v.], crossed Egypt and Libya, entered the Mag̲h̲rib towards the middle of the 5th/11th century, led a nomadic life for a short time to the west of Gabès (Ibn K̲h̲aldūn. Berbères , i, 36), but left only a small number of their members in the south of Ifrīḳiya ( Berbères, i, 116; cf. R. Brunschvig, Ḥafṣides , ii, 170); in fact, they proceeded towards the west ( tag̲h̲riba ), following the northern border of the Sahara (cf. al-Zayyānī, Turd̲j̲umāna , Fr. tr. Confourier, in AM, vi [1906], 448, w…

al-Kinānī , a minor poet of Kūfa who lived in the last years of the Umayyads and the first ones of the ʿAbbāsids, making him a muk̲h̲aḍram [ q.v.] al-dawlatayn. G.E. von Grunebaum ( Three Arabic poets of the early ¶ Abbasid age, in Orientalia , Rome) brought together, in the first part of his study (xvii/2 [1948], 167-204) 77 poetical fragments attributed to al-Muṭīʿ and also provided an exemplary critical study of the materials given by the biographers, anthologists and other authors of adab works, concerning this poet, whose personality is difficult to e…

, Abu ’l-Hasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm , Bag̲h̲dādī philologist who according to all the known sources, died in 299/311-12; this date is nevertheless challenged by Yāḳūt who, believing that al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī is in error, opts for 320/932. He was the pupil of al-Mubarrad and T̲h̲aʿlab [ q.vv.], and is said to have brought together the doctrines of the grammatical schools of both Baṣra and Kūfa, though his own preference was for the former; he was moreover the author of a work, no longer surviving, a K. al-Masāʾil ʿalā mad̲h̲hab al-naḥwiyyīn mimmā k̲h̲talafa fīhi al-Kūfi…

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar , a minor poet who was born and lived in Baṣra. He was born at some time in the middle of the 2nd/8th century and died at a similarly uncertain date, probably during the caliphate of al-Maʾmūn (198-218/813-33) or during that of al-Muʿtaṣim (218-27/833-42). ¶ His existence, of which barely nothing is known, has attracted scant attention on the part of biographers in that he seems to have followed an unremarkable and leisurely career, in an atmosphere untroubled by events of any magnitude. On the other hand, it has only been po…

, the name given in Muslim Spain to kinds of catalogues in which scholars enumerated, in one form or another, their masters and the subjects or works studied under their direction. The word fahrasa is an Arabicization of the Persian fihrist by means of a double vocalization -a- and the closing of the final tāʾ , a fairly frequent modification. In al-Andalus, it is completely synonymous with barnāmad̲j̲ , which is also Persian, while in the east it corresponds with t̲h̲abat , mas̲h̲īk̲h̲a ( mas̲h̲yak̲h̲a ) or muʿd̲j̲am (this last word is also used in the west)…

(Banū) or Midrārids , minor Berber dynasty which was established in Sid̲j̲ilmās(s)a [ q.v.] and which enjoyed relative independence until its final collapse in 366/976-7. The history of this dynasty can be briefly outlined, thanks to al-Bakrī [ q.v.], who lived in the 5th/11th century and thus possessed quite recent information in order to write the chapter that he devotes to it ( Mug̲h̲rib , 148 ff., Fr. tr. 282 ff.), before Ibn ʿId̲h̲ārī (7th-8th/13th-14th century [ q.v.]), Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn (8th/14th century [ q.v.]) and several historians of the Mag̲h̲rib and Mas̲h̲riḳ were abl…

, muḥammad b. abi ’l-k̲h̲aṭṭāb , adīb of the end of the 3rd/9th or of the beginning of the 4th/10th century, and known only as the author of the Ḏj̲amharat ashʿār al-ʿArab (ed. Būlāḳ 1308/1890). No personal details about the author can be derived from this collection, and the only relevant data are two isnād s, one (p. 13) going back to al-Hayt̲h̲am b. ʿAdī (d. ca. 206/821 [ q.v.]) through two intermediaries, and the other (p. 14) going back to Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 231/846 [ q.v.]) through one intermediary; these isnāds would thus allow us to date the Ḏj̲amhara approximatel…

, Ḏj̲uwayra , Ḏj̲uwayriyya or Ḥārit̲h̲a b. al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (or again Ḥanẓala b. al-S̲h̲arḳī , which was more probably, however, the name of Abu ’l-Ṭamaḥān al-Ḳayni, see S̲h̲iʿr , 229), pre-Islamic poet of al-Ḥīra, contemporary of al-Mund̲h̲ir b. Māʾ al-Samāʾ (about 506-554 A.D.), who put him in the charge of his horses. The expression d̲j̲ārun ka-d̲j̲ārl Abī Duʾād , which appears in a line of Ḳays b. Zuhayr and has become proverbial, gave rise to several traditions showing Abū Duʾād as the “protégé” of a noble and generous d̲j̲ār, who is either al-Mund̲h̲ir, al-Ḥarit̲h̲ b. Ḥamm…

(also called Yuʿfur and Yaʿfir) b. ʿAbd al-Aswad al-Tamīmī, Abu ’l-Ḏj̲arrāḥ, pre-Islamic Arab poet who lived probably at the end of the 6th century A.D. He is said to have travelled about among the tribes, composing eulogies or satires in verse, and was for some time the companion of al-Nuʿmān b. al-Mund̲h̲ir. He is sometimes called al-Aʿs̲h̲ā of the Banū Nahs̲h̲al, because he was night-blind, but he lost his sight at the end of his life, which is thought to have been extremely long. Of the poems which have come down to us, the most celebrated are a ḳaṣīda in dāl dating p…