Maʿmar b. al-Mut̲h̲annā , Arabic philologist, born 110/728 in Baṣra, d. 209/824-5 (other dates also in Taʾrīk̲h̲ Bag̲h̲dād and later works). He was born a mawlā of the Ḳurays̲h̲ite clan of Taym, in the family of ʿUbayd Allāh Maʿmar (cf. Ibn Ḥazm, Ḏj̲amharat Ansāb al-ʿArab , Cairo 1948, 130); his father or grandfather came originally from Bād̲j̲arwān (near al-Raḳḳa in Mesopotamia, less probably the village of the same name in S̲h̲irwān) and was said, on dubious authority, to have been Jewish. He studied under the leadi…

( 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…

, of the family of Balḥārit̲h̲, of the Ḳuras̲h̲ite tribe of Fihr, one of the early Meccan converts to Islām, and one of the ten Believers to whom Paradise was promised (see al-ʿAs̲h̲ara al-Mubas̲h̲s̲h̲ara ). He took part in the emigration to Abyssinia, and is said to have been distinguished for courage and unselfishness and to have been given the title of amīn by Muḥammad for that reason. He was 41 years of age at the battle of Badr, and took part in the later campaigns, distinguishing himself at Uḥud, and as the commander of severai …

al-Ḥasan b. Hāniʾ al-Ḥakamī , the most famous Arabic poet of the ʿAbbāsid period. He was born in al-Ahwāz between 130/747 and 145/762 and died in Bag̲h̲dād between 198/813 and 200/815 (so also Ḥamza al-Iṣbahānī, MS Fātiḥ 3773, fol. 6r). As his dīwān contains a mart̲h̲iya on al-Amīn (d. 198/873), earlier dates are improbable. His father belonged to the army of the last Umayyad, Marwān II, and was a mawlā of al-Ḏj̲arrāḥ b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥakamī, who came from the South Arabian tribe of Saʿd b. ʿAs̲h̲īra; hence the nisba of Abū Nuwās and his dislike of the Northern…

, eminent Ibāḍī lawyer of the end of the 2nd/8th and the beginning of the 3rd/9th century, a native of Ḵh̲urāsān. On his way to the Rustamid imām ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (168-208/784-823) at Tāhart, to offer him his book al-Mudawwana , he stayed with the Ibāḍī s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ , Abū Ḥafṣ ʿAmrūs b. Fatḥ, of Ḏj̲abal Nafūsa, who rendered a service to Ibāḍī literature by conserving in the Mag̲h̲rib a copy of the work. The Mudawwana of Abū G̲h̲ānim is the oldest Ibāḍī treatise on general jurisprudence, according to the teaching of Abū ʿUbayda Muslim al-Tamīmī (d. under al-Manṣūr, 136-58/754-75; cf. ibāḍiyya …

, a celebrated ‘reader’ of the Ḳurʾān, regarded as the founder of the grammatical school of Baṣra, died c. 154/770. This scholar seems to have claimed a genealogy connecting him with the Arab tribe of Māzin of the confederation of Tamīm; see Ibn Ḵh̲allikān and the other biographers, including Ibn al-Ḏj̲azarī, who, however, in one isolated statement, links him with Ḥanīfa. His name, Zabbān, has never been fully confirmed, and is only given in preference to a score of others. He is believed to have been born c. 70/68…

, Saʿīd b. Aws , Arab grammarian and lexicographer of the school of Baṣra. He belonged to the Medina tribe of Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲. A pupil of Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ [ q.v.], he was one of the few Baṣrians who went to Kūfa, where he collected, from al-Mufaḍḍal al-Ḍabbī [ q.v.] the greater part of the poetic material which he used in his K. al-Nawādir . He was invited by al-Mahdī to come to Bag̲h̲dād and died in 214 or 215/830-1. A contemporary of Abū ʿUbayda and al-Aṣmaʿī, he was considered superior to them in grammar, but of his numerous treatises only two have survived: K. al-Maṭar , a …

, Sahl b. Muḥ. al-Ḏj̲us̲h̲amī , Arabic philologist of Baṣra, d. Rad̲j̲ab 255/869. His nisba is related to Sid̲j̲istān, a village in the district of Baṣra (Yāḳūt, iii, 44). He was a disciple of Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī, Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar b. al-Mut̲h̲annā, al-Aṣmaʿī, etc. Among his disciples are mentioned Ibn Durayd and al-Mubarrad. As a grammarian he was of no great reputation, his specific field being the works of the ancient poets, their vocabulary and prosody. Of his works the bibliographers mention thirty-seven titles (enumerated by A. Haffner, Drei arabische Quellenwerke über die Aḍdād …

, isḥāḳ b. mirār , one of the most important philologists of the Kūfan school in the 2nd/8th century, and the contemporary of the two great figures of the rival Basran school, Abū ʿUbayda and al-Aṣmaʿī [ q.vv.]. He was born in ca. 100/719 at Ramādat al-Kūfa, and derived his nisba from the Banū S̲h̲aybān because he was their neighbour and client and because he also acted as tutor to the sons of certain members of the tribe. After having studied under the masters of the Kūfan school, such as al-Mufaḍḍal al-Ḍabbī, he went out…

al-Ḥimyarī al-Yamanī , the first imām elected by the Ibāḍīs of the Mag̲h̲rib. He was one of the five missionaries ( ḥamalat al-ʿilm , "carriers of science") sent to the Mag̲h̲rib by Abū ʿUbayda al-Tamīmī of Baṣra, the spiritual head of the sect, in order to preach there the Ibāḍī creed [cf. ibāḍiyya ]. These missionaries received from Abū ʿUbayda the order to establish an imamate amongst the Ibāḍiyya of Tripolitania, with Abu ’l-Ḵh̲aṭṭāb ¶ as imām. The activities of the ḥamalat al-ʿilm were crowned with success. In 140/757-8 the Ibāḍī notables of Tripolitania, in a council he…

A native of Baṣra, he carried out part of his activity in Mecca, where he used to go in order to stir up revolt against the Umayyad caliph Marwān II b. Muḥammad [ q.v.]. At the instance of Abū ʿUbayda Muslim b. Abī Karīma, alias Karzīn, a traditionist who was the leader of the Ibāḍis of Baṣra, he became, from 128/745-6 onwards, a supporter of ʿAbd Allāh b. Yaḥyā, surnamed Ṭālib al-Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.], whom he met in Mecca, followed to Ḥaḍramawt and recognised as Imām . When the latter decided to occupy the Holy Cities, he sent to the north an army of a thousand men…

, Abū Ḥarb, Umayyad commander and governor, the third of the many sons of Abū Sufyān’s bastard son Ziyād b. Abīhi [ q.v.], d. 73/692. The family of Ziyād already had a firm grip on the East in the later years of Muʿāwiya’s caliphate, and when Yazīd I came to the throne, he appointed Salm as governor of Ḵh̲urāsān (61/681), and the latter nominated another of his brothers, Yazid b. Ziyād, as his deputy in Sīstān. Salm proved himself a highly popular governor with the Arab troops in Ḵh̲urāsān. largely on account of his mil…

(or Rāhīyūn, Rāhyūn, Rāmnūy), Persian author, translator, and a poet of great repute who wrote in Arabic in the early ʿAbbāsid period and died in 215/830. He was born in Dast-i Maysān or in Maysān [ q.v.] in southeastern ʿIrāḳ. His family, originally from Nīs̲h̲āpūr, had moved to the Maysān region and then to Baṣra, whence his nisba al-Baṣrī. The period of his youth and early education remains in obscurity. He attracted public attention first as the secretary of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd’s vizier Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲ālid al-Barmakī (170-87/786-803). Under Yaḥyā, he wa…

, abū mālik al-aʿrābī , mawlā of the Banū Saʿd, had learnt the ʿarabiyya in the desert and had settled at Baṣra. Since his mother had married Abu ’l-Baydāʾ [ q.v.], he acted as rāwiya to this last, but he owed his fame to his incomparable knowledge of the Arabic language, since, according to an oft-mentioned tradition, he knew it in its entirety, whereas al-Aṣmaʿī had only one-third of it, Abū ʿUbayda (or al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad) half of it and Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī (or Muʾarrid̲j̲) two-thirds of it. His speciality was rare words. Abū Mālik was allegedly the author of at least two works, a K. K̲h̲alḳ al-…

b. Ḥarb b. Umayya, Arab commander of the conquests period, son of the Meccan leader Abū Sufyān [ q.v.] by his wife Zaynab bt. Nawfal and half-brother of the subsequent caliph Muʿāwiya I [ q.v.], d. 18/639 without progeny (Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif ed. ʿUkās̲h̲a, 344-5). With his father and brother, he became a Muslim at the conquest of Mecca in 8/630, took part in the ensuing battle of Ḥunayn [ q.v.] and was one of “those whose hearts are won over”, receiving from the Prophet a gift of 100 camels and 40 ounces of silver (Ibn Saʿd, ii/1, 110, vii/2, 127; al-Wāḳidī, iii, 944-5; and see al-muʾallafa ḳulūbuh…

, prominent Baṣran grammarian and philologist ( ca. 90-182/708-98). In the early sources, his important position as a grammarian is indicated by the 230 occurrences of his name in both syntactic and morphological parts of Sībawayhi’s Kitāb . He is mentioned as a direct source of information in Abū ʿUbayda’s Mad̲j̲āz al-Ḳurʾān (transmitting Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ’s teaching), and the books of al-Farrāʾ and al-Ak̲h̲fas̲h̲. In al-D̲j̲umaḥī’s Ṭabaḳāt , Yūnus describes personally the development of grammatical studies from the early days of ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Isḥāḳ (d. 117/728 [ q.v.]). His …

(not Ḥāzim, see ʿAbd al-Ḳādir, Ḵh̲izānat al-adab 1, ii, 262) the most considerable pre-Islamic poet of the Banū Asad b. Ḵh̲uzayma in the second half of the sixth century. al-Farazdaḳ, Dīwān (ed. Ṣāwī) 721, mentions him amongst his predecessors. Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ counts him among the classics ( fuḥūl ). His poems were collected by al-Aṣmaʿī and Ibn al-Sikkīt ( Fihrist 158, 6). Abū ʿUbayda wrote a commentary on his Dīwān which was utilised by ʿAbd al-Ḳādir l.c. ii, 262, 4. The Mufaḍḍaliyyāt , Nrs. 96-99 ed. Lyall, contain four poems of Bis̲h̲r; the last o…

, sometimes described as Ibn Ḥamāma, after his mother, was a companionof the Prophet and is best known as his Muʾad̲h̲d̲h̲in . Of Ethiopian (African?) stock, he was born in slavery in Mecca among the clan of Jumaḥ, or in the Sarāt. His mas ter is sometimes given as Umayya b. Ḵh̲alaf [ q.v.] but also as an unnamed man or woman of the same clan. He was an early convert— some sources credit him with having been the second adult after Abū Bakr to accept Islam. Owing to his status he suffered heavy punishment and torture, especially, it is stated, at t…

, a subdivision of Ḳurays̲h̲ [ q.v.] whose pedigree is Taym b. Murra b. Kaʿb b. Luʾayy b. G̲h̲ālib b. Fihr. All of the important figures among the Taym before Islam and in its early days belonged to the genealogical line of ʿAmr b. Kaʿb b. Saʿd b. Taym. They included Abū Bakr [ q.v.], Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh [ q.v.] and Ṭalḥa’s paternal uncle, Maʿmar b. ʿUt̲h̲mān (cf. M. Lecker, Biographical notes on Abū ʿUbayda Maʿmar b. al-Muthannā , in SI, lxxxi [1995], 71-100, at 77-83, 96-7; Mālik b. Anas [ q.v.] was reportedly a mawlā of the Taym; on p. 263a of the entry about him…

b. K̲h̲aras̲h̲a al-Māzinī, Abu ’l-Ḥasan, Arab scholar who, born in Marw al-Rūd̲h̲ in 122/740, was brought up at Baṣra. He led a miserable life there, but was able to derive instruction from the most famous masters of the time (see Pellat, Milieu , passim ), notably al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad [ q.v.], whose K. al-ʿAyn he was to enrich by an introduction. He probably lived for some time (allegedly 40 years, which must be an exaggeration) among the Bedouins, whom he was also able to question at the Mirbad [ q.v.]. He was interested in the various branches of knowledge cultivated in his time …