, secretary and writer of the Buwayhid period, belonging to a family of Sabean scholars and secretaries which had come from its native Ḥarrān to settle in Bag̲h̲dād and which included among its members the historian T̲h̲ābit b. Sinān. Hilāl’s grandfather, Abu Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm [see al-ṣābiʾ ], was director of the Chancery at Bag̲h̲dād and it was in his service that Hilāl (b. at Bag̲h̲dād in 359/969) began his ¶ career in the time of the amīr Ṣamṣām al-Dawla ( K. al-Wuzarāʾ , 151). Little is known however of the details of his career, except that he became in…

[see al-ṣābiʾ ].

[see al-Ṣābiʾ and al-s̲h̲īrāzī ].

, prince, son; heir apparet (344/955) and successor (356/967) of Muʾizz al-Dawla in ʿIrāḳ, with the laḳab of ʿIzz al-Dawla. He appears to have had little talent for government, which, unlike his father, he entrusted to wazīrs (chosen without any great discernment) so as to be free to amuse himself, though he still impeded the conduct of affaire by his impetuous verbal or active intervention. At the beginning of his reign he continued his father’s policy of hostility to the Ḥamdānid Abū Tag̲h̲lib of Mawṣil and to the autonomous chieftain ¶ of the Baṭīḥa, ʿImrān b. S̲h̲āhīn. Furthermor…

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…

(Abu ’l-Ḳāsim al-Ḥakkār?), the private secretary and trusted adviser of the Būyid amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla [ q.v.] from the very beginning to the end of his reign, and then three times alternatively the vizier and in disgrace in regard to his sons Ṣamṣām al-Dawla and Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. below]. He is the author of a collection of official correspondence ( ins̲h̲āʾ ), largely preserved in ms. Petermann 406 (Ahlwardt 8625), which is however limited to the period of ʿAḍud al-Dawla’s reign (some fragments lacking here are cited in al-T̲h̲aʿālibī, Yatīma , ii, 89-90) and…

, the name of two viziers of the early Būyids, the first of them known also as a man of letters: (1) Abu ’l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad was the son of a pedlar or wheat merchant in the S̲h̲īʿī town of Ḳumm in central Iran who later became a kātib in K̲h̲urāsān, where he received the title of ʿamīd [ q.v.] which was in this region usually given to high officials. He appears at Buk̲h̲ārā ( Mat̲h̲ālib , 232-6) at an unknown date, perhaps later than his appearance in 321/933 as vizier of Was̲h̲mgīr [ q.v.] in Rayy, and in 323 as one of the chief dignitaries of Mardāwid̲j̲ just before…

(a.), pl. akara (abstract ikāra ), literally “tiller, cultivator of the ground”, a word of Aramaic origin (see Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen , 128-9), borrowed into Arabic, apparently in the post-Islamic period (it does not appear in the Ḳurʾān), and applied to the peasantry of Aramaean stock in Syria and ʿIrāḳ; accordingly, the term had in Arabic eyes, like the name Nabaṭ , a pejorative sense (see LA 1 v, 85-6). Some of these peasants were sharecroppers who cultivated lands of wealthy landlords for one-sixth or one-seventh share of the produce and on muḳāsama [ q.v.] …

(a.), sing, marfiḳ , “bribes, douceurs”, literally, “benefits, favours”. In mediaeval Islamic society, various terms in addition to this are found, such as ras̲h̲wa / ris̲h̲wa , manāla , d̲j̲aʿāla , hadiyya , etc., with varying degrees of euphemism, for the inducements given either directly to a potential bestower of benefits or as an inducement for a person’s intercession or mediation ( s̲h̲afāʿa , wasāṭa ). In the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, this form of bribery became institutionalised in the caliphate of al-Muḳtadir (295-320/908-32 [ q.v.]), when the vizier Ibn al-Furāt [ q.v.] institute…

, Arabised form of M. Pers. rōstāg , meaning “rural district, countryside”, and given the broken pl. rasātīḳ . (1) In the mediaeval Islamic usage of the Arabic and Persian geographers and of the Arabic writers on finance and taxation, rustāḳ is used both as a specific administrative term and in a more general sense. Thus, reflecting the more exact usage, in Sāsānid and early Islamic ʿIrāḳ, each kūra [ q.v.] or province was divided into ṭassūd̲j̲ s or sub-provinces, and these last were in turn divided into rustāḳs, districts or cantons, centred on a madīna or town. According to Hilāl al-Ṣābiʾ, K.…

Abū Naṣr Bahāʾ al-Dīn (330-416/942-1025), official and vizier of the Buy ids in Fārs. Beginning his career in high office as deputy to S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s vizier Abū Manṣūr b. Ṣāliḥān, he subsequently became briefly vizier himself for the first time in 380/990 and for S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s successor in S̲h̲īrāz. Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.]. He was vizier again in S̲h̲īrāz in Ḏj̲umādā I 386/May-June 996, this time for over three years, and in 390/1000 in Baghdād as deputy there for the vizier Abū ʿAlī al-Muwaffaḳ. Sābūr, although a native of S̲…

b. al-ʿAbbās , Abū Muḥammad, born 223/837, died 311/923, in early life, according to the satirist Ibn Bassām, a waterseller and vendor of pomegranates, was one of the ablest financiers of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs from al-Muwaffaḳ to al-Muḳtadir. He combined the collection of the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ and domains ( ḍiyāʾ ) of Wāṣit (from 273/886) with that of Fars (from 287/900) and Başra. He succeeded Ibn al-Furāt [ q.v.] as vizier on 3 D̲j̲umādā II 306/11 November 918, but showed himself inadequate, so that the caliph al-Muḳtadir appointed as nāʾib , to assist him, ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. al-D̲j̲arrāḥ [ q.v.]. Hi…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad , official and vizier of the Būyids in the second half of the 4th/10th century and patron of scholars, d. 374/984-5. Virtually nothing is known of his origins, but he served the great amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla Fanā-Ḵh̲usraw [ q.v.] as one of his two inspectors of the army ( ʿāriḍ al-d̲j̲ays̲h̲ ) in Bag̲h̲dād, the ʿāriḍ responsible for the Turkish, Arab and Kurdish troops. Then when ʿAḍud al-Dawla died in 372/983 and his son Ṣamṣām al-Dawla Marzubān assumed power in Bag̲h̲dād as supreme amīr, he nominated Ibn Saʿdān as his vizier. He occupied this post fo…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿḤusayn b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Muḥammad , a S̲h̲īʿī Arab poet in the time of the Būyids [ q.v.]. Born in Bag̲h̲dād in about 330/941-2, of a family of government officials and secretaries, he completed the traditional studies and was partly trained by Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm al-Ṣābiʾ (313-84/925-94 [see al-ṣābiʾ ]) who made him take up an administrative career, but he very quickly perceived that his poetic talents could prove more profitable and resigned his post. At first he was connected with the vizier al-Muhallabī [ q.v.] for whom he wrote a panegyric and …

, Abū ʿAlī , one of the leading figures of the Būyid régime at the end of the 4th/10th century. His father, Ustād̲h̲-Hurmuz, one of the ḥud̲j̲d̲j̲āb of ʿAḍud al-Dawla, is said to have been born in about 300/912; on entering the service of the son and successor of the great Būyid in Fārs, S̲h̲araf al-Dawla, he became governor of ʿUmān for him and then, wishing to transfer his allegiance to the other son, Ṣamṣām al-Dawla, master of ʿIrāḳ, he had to return to private life (374/984). The son, Ḥasan, who…

(a., pl. maūnāt , maʿāwin ), “assistance”, an administrative term of early Islamic history with several meanings. In texts relating to the pre-ʿAbbāsid period, it refers to allocations comparable with, but distinct from, stipends ( ʿaṭāʾ [ q.v.]) and rations ( rizḳ [ q.v.]). Maʿūna was sometimes a gratuity paid to those who were not in receipt of stipends (al-Ṭabarī, i, 3410; ii, 1794), sometimes a bonus supplementary to stipends (al-Ṭabarī, ii, 407; al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 187-8; cf. idem, Ansāb , ivb, 33), and sometimes a regular (more precisely annu…

, Abū Yaʿlā Ḥamza b. Asad ... al-Tamīmī ( ca. 465-555/1073-1160), a member of an important family of Damascus, who for a time was raʾīs of that town, and above all was its historian for the period extending from the middle of the 4th/10th century to 555/1160. The History of Ibn al-Ḳalānisī, known simply by the title D̲h̲ayl tāʾrīk̲h̲ Dimas̲h̲ḳ , consists of two parts, the limits being somewhat imprecise. The first part, the opening pages of which are lost, and which goes down approximately to the time of the author’s youth, is based…

, Abu ’l-Faḍl D̲j̲aʿfar b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-S̲h̲āʿir, Zaydī ʿAlid ruler of Hawsam [ q.v.] 319-50/931-61. His mother was a daughter of his paternal grandfather’s ¶ father’s brother, the Zaydī imām al-Nāṣir li ’l-Ḥaḳḳ [see al-ḥasan al-uṭrūs̲h̲ ], who had been active in Hawsam teaching Zaydī Islam among the Gīlīs and the Daylamīs before conquering Āmul and Ṭabaristān. As Zaydī ʿAlid rule collapsed in Ṭabaristān, al-T̲h̲āʾir was able to establish it further west in Hawsam on a durable basis. Following the example of al-Nāṣir li …

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥ. b. Naṣr b. Manṣūr b. Bassām al-ʿAbartāʾī , poet and writer of Bag̲h̲dād. His grandfather, Naṣr, had held high office during the caliphate of al-Muʿtaṣim (see Sourdel, Vizirat , 252), and he himself was at one time employed in the service of the barīd [ q.v.]; he probably carried out other administrative duties, since his biographers attribute to him a collection of letters ( rasāʾil ) which are unlikely to have been of a private nature. However, his fame rests on his epigrams, very brief, for he was short-winded, bu…

(pl. ʿummāl ), active, agent. As the verbal adjective corresponding to ʿamal (see ʿamal , section 1), ʿāmil denotes the Muslim who performs the works demanded by his faith, and is often used in conjunction with the term ʿālim (pl. ʿulamāʾ , [ q.v.]) as an epithet of pious scholars. As a technical term, ʿāmil denotes (1) the active partner in a society of muḍāraba [ q.v.] or ḳirāḍ ; (2) the government agent or official, particularly the collector of taxes. In this last meaning, it occurs already in Ḳurʾān, ix, 60, though not yet as a technical term. The Prophet appointed representatives among …