b. ʿAbd al-Ḳays al-Ḳurās̲h̲ī al-Fihrī (d. 63/683), one of the most prominent Arab commanders of the Islamic conquests period, above all in North Africa, where he was responsible for the foundation of al-Ḳayrawān [ q.v.]. He was born towards the end of the Prophet’s life, hence was accounted a Companion, and was through his mother a nephew of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ [ q.v.], the conqueror of Egypt, who shortly before his death in 43/663 was to give him command over the lands to the west of Egypt. It seems that ʿUḳba had already ¶ played a role in ʿAmr’s first raid towards North Africa in 21/642, …

, the mawlā of ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. al-K̲h̲aṭṭāb [ q.v.], according to early tradition sources a major transmitter of Prophetic ḥadīt̲h̲ [ q.v.], who is described as having been a resident of Medina. His year of birth does not seem to be recorded and his year of death is variously given as 117/735, 118/736, 119/737 or 120/738 (cf. Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Tahd̲h̲īb , x, 414, K̲h̲alīfa b. K̲h̲ayyāṭ, Ṭabaḳāt , ed. A.Ḍ al-ʿUmarī, 256). The sources contain hardly any information on his person and the little they say is often contradictory. Ibn ʿUmar is alleged to have acquired Nāfi…

al-Balawī (b.?, d. 76/695), Arab commander, stemming from Balī, one of the Ḳuḍāʿa [ q.v.] tribes, of reputed Yemeni descent. Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Iṣāba i, 555-6, includes him among the Prophet’s Companions and mentions his role in the conquest of Egypt, whilst al-Suyūṭī, Ḥusn al-muḥāḍara , i, 200, lists him as a Ṣaḥābī but in i, 258 as a Tābiʿ or Successor, showing that he belonged to the two groups. He took part in the campaigns against the Mag̲h̲rib in the time of ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ [ q.v.], one of them against Surt/Syrte where, after its conquest, Zuhayr was left, together with ʿUmar b. …

b. al-Ṣāmit al-Anṣārī , Abū Maʿn or Saʿīd or ʿUmar ), Companion of the Prophet who took part in the conquest of Egypt and remained in the country with the Muslim occupying forces. Subsequently, loyal to the memory of ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān and hostile to ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib, whose accession to the caliphate he had not recognised (see al-Ṭabarī, i, 3070), he opposed, with Muʿāwiya b. Ḥudayd̲j̲ [ q.v.], the arrival of Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr [ q.v.] who, having had a hand in the murder of the third caliph, had been appointed governor of Egypt, and it is probable that he was involve…

( ca. 72-142/691-759), last governor of al-Andalus before the accession to power of the Umayyad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I. Great grandson of the conqueror of the Mag̲h̲rib, ¶ ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ [ q.v.], he also belonged to one of the most prestigious Arab families to have settled in the Muslim West, renowned on account of its aristocratic Ḳuras̲h̲ī lineage and the participation of several of its members in the conquest of both shores of the Strait. Two brothers, Ḥabīb and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, sons of Abū ʿUbayda ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ, accompanied the troops of Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.] at the time of the first crossi…

b. Zuhayr al-Kalbī , ¶ general and governor of the Umayyads who, in S̲h̲awwāl 102/April 721, was appointed by the caliph Yazīd II governor of Egypt in place of his brother Bis̲h̲r b. Ṣafwān, who had been sent to Ifrīḳiya. During his three years in Egypt (S̲h̲awwāl 102— S̲h̲awwāl 105/April 721—March 724) he had statues destroyed and paintings effaced, on the orders of Yazīd. His̲h̲ām, after removing him from office, was obliged to send him back to Egypt (7 S̲h̲aʿān 118/20 August 736), as the incompet…

, great-grandson of the famous tābiʿ ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ, independent governor of Ifrīḳiya at the end of the Umayyad caliphate. His father, Ḥabīb, had sent expeditions against the Sūs, Morocco and Sicily, in which ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, still a youth, took an active part. He was one of the survivors of the bloody defeat inflicted by the ¶ Berbers upon the regular Arab troops in 123/741, in which his father and the governor, Kult̲h̲ūm b. ʿIyāḍ, lost their lives. He crossed over to Spain, but fearing for his life, returned in 127/745 to Ifrīḳiya, where he revolted…

b. Lamzam, or Kasīla was, in the tradition of the Massinissa and of Jugurtha, one of the most eminent figures in the struggle of the Berbers to preserve their independence. In 55/674, at the time when the mawlā Abu ’l-Muhād̲j̲ir Dīnār came from Egypt to replace ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ as governor of the recently-conquered province of the Mag̲h̲rib, Kusayla was certainly “king” of the Awraba, a broad alliance of tribes of the Barānis group, for the most part sedentary. The territory of the Awraba w…

(Berber Masst), the name of a small Berber tribe of the Sūs of Morocco, from which comes the name of the place where it is settled, some 30 miles south of Agadir at the mouth of the Wādī Māssa; the latter is probably the flumen Masatat mentioned by Pliny the Elder (v. 9) to the north of the flumen Darat , the modern Wādī Darʿa, and the Masata of the geographer would correspond to the modern ahl Māssa . The name Māssa is associated with the first Arab conquest of Morocco: according to legend, it was on the shore there that, after conquering the Sūs, ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ drove his…

, (Ar.) (in Tedaga: Togei or Tzigei), chief centre of the Kawar, a group of oases situated mid-way between Fezzan and Chad, on the main route from the Mediterranean to the Sudan. The palm groves extend for 90 kilometres from north to south, from Anay to Bilma. At no point are they more than 2 kilometres wide. Bilma is situated at the foot of a cliff which faces west; its base is formed by the marine layers of Upper Cretaceous, and its summit by the sandstone of the Continental terminal. Although conquered by the Arabs in the 1st/1th century (expedition of ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ reported by I…

, abū muʿād̲h̲ , a famous ʿIrāḳī Arabic poet of the 2nd/8th century. His family was originally from Ṭuk̲h̲āristān or eastern Iran. His grandfather had been captured and taken to ʿIrāḳ at the time of the expedition of al-Muhallab [ q.v.]; his father, who was finally freed by an ʿUḳaylī Arab lady of Baṣra, was a bricklayer of that town. Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār was born in Baṣra, the date being uncertain but probably about 95 or 96/714-5. For a long time he attached himself to ʿUkayl as a dependent, without forgetting to glorify the memories of anc…

, a Berber chief of the Mag̲h̲rib, who rebelled against Arab authority in 122/739-40. He belonged to the tribe of the Maṭg̲h̲āra/Madg̲h̲āra and the historians give him the surname of al-Ḥaḳīr "the low-born" because he was of humble origin and had been before his rebellion a water-seller in the market of al-Ḳayrawān. After the recall of Mūsā b. Nuṣayr [ q.v.] at the end of the 1st/opening of the 8th century in North Africa, under the influence of Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ite propaganda, incited by the Arabs’ financial exactions, ʿUmar b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Murādī, governor o…

(d. after 418/1027-8), or al-Raḳīḳ Abu Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḳāsim al-Kātib al-Ḳayrawānī , who had been secretary of the Zīrids for about a quarter of a century at the time when Ibn Ras̲h̲īḳ wrote his ʿUmda , was a talented man of letters and chronicler. Ibn Ras̲h̲īḳ acknowledges that he had a certain poetic gift, although his style was rather that of a secretary, and Yāḳūt ( Muʿd̲j̲am , i, 217-26) has preserved some long fragments from his poems. There also survives his Ḳuṭb al-surūr (MS Paris B.N. nos. 4829, 4830 and 4831; for the other MSS, see Brockelman…

, a group of oases in the southern Sahara, in the Republic of Niger, situated between the Tibesti Mountains in the east and the Aïr in the west, halfway between Fezzān in the north and Lake Chad in the south. The administrative centre is Bilma, which lies at 18° 41′ N and 12° 55′ E. Kawār is a chain of oases 75 km. long from north to south, but only one to five km. wide, where water flows in abundant springs on the eastern edge of the Ténéré. It has na…

, the mediaeval Islamic capital of the Fazzān [ q.v.], today south-western Libya (lat. 26° 11’ N., long. 15° 06’ E.). Zawīla (Zuwayla) was established probably in the early 2nd/8th century. It did not yet exist in 46/666-7 when the Arab conqueror ʿUḳba b. Nāfiʿ [ q.v.] passed by the site, but had a century later become the centre of the region. It was then dominated by Hawwāra Berbers, predominantly Ibāḍīs. After he had crushed the first Ibāḍī state in Tripolitania, the ʿAbbāsid general Muḥammad b. al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ al-K̲h̲uzāʿī sent a force to Zawīla. It fell in 145/…

, a depression in the Libyan desert situated on the 29th parallel, between the district of Sirte and the Fezzān. The word denotes the three oases of Waddān, Hōn and Sokna, and also the depression (170-280 m.) in which they are situated between the D̲j̲. Waddān and the gloomy volcanic massif of the D̲j̲. al-Sōdā (803 m.). The historical significance of Ḏj̲ufra is explained by the abundance of the underground water-supply throughout the depression, and also by its position at the meeting-point of …

, Moroccan confederation of Berber tribes ( Iḥāḥan ) belonging to the sedentary Maṣmūda [ q.v.], inhabiting the plateaux of the western High Atlas as far as the sea. In the 1939 census they numbered 84,000, among whom were 20 Jews, despite the traditional prohibition upon any Jew travelling about in this territory. It is a country on the ancient route (prehistoric remains) between North and South, between the plains of Marrākus̲h̲ and Tarūdant, either by the mountain passes or by the coast road. The Ḥāḥā are a…

, with its pl. Zībān , the name of a region of the Algerian Sahara around Biskra [ q.v.], ¶ extending over an area of ca. 150 km/100 miles from west to east and 40 km/25 miles from north to south. 1. Geography. The Zībān form part of the great Saharan piedmont which stretches from Agadir to Gabès. Within this, they have a special dual role, the first role derived from their position at the narrowest part of the Mag̲h̲ribī mountain rim and at the opening of the great southern axis of communication of eastern Algeria (Skikda-Constantine-Ba…

(Aurès; Αύράοɩον ὄρος in Procopius, De bello vand., i, 8, ii, 12-13. 19-20) mountain massif of Algeria, forming part of the Eastern Saharan Atlas. So far it has not been possible to discover the meaning of the word Awrās. The Awrās is a compact massif 8,000 sq. km. in area, which extends from the depression leading from Batna to Biskra as far, Khenchela and the valley of the Wādi ’l-ʿArab, between the high plains of southern Constantino. (Sbāk̲h̲) and the Saharan depression of the Zibān. Its summits (Ḏj̲ibāl Chélia, 2,327 m., and Kef…

, a town in central Tunisia, 156 km. from Tunis and 57 km. from Sousse. It is situated at an altitude of 60 m. and is the chief town of a governorate of 336,000 inhabitants which stretches over an area of 680,000 hectares. Its population of 34,000 inhabitants in 1956 had become ¶ 47,000 during the census of 3rd May 1966, and then 56,000 in 1972. Temperatures vary considerably, ranging from a few degrees below zero in winter to 40° C and over in summer. The sirocco blows there for an average of 21 days per annum. The rainfall varies from an average of 250 mm. or 300 mm. in the town and its …