(in mediaeval Europe: Balsora; in Tavernier: Balsara; orthodox modern European: Basra, Basrah, Bassora), a town of Lower-Mesopotamia, on the S̲h̲aṭṭ al-ʿArab, 279 m. (420 km.) to the south-east of Bag̲h̲dād. In the course of history the site of the town has changed somewhat, and we may distinguish between Old Baṣra, marked today by the village of Zubayr, and New Baṣra, which was founded in the 11th/18th century in the proximity of the ancient al-Ubulla [ q.v.] and which is the starting point of the modern town of Baṣra, for the rapid growth of which the discovery of oi…

( Banu ’l-ʿAbbās ), the dynasty of the Caliphs from 132/750 to 656/1258. The dynasty takes its name from its ancestor, al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hās̲h̲im, the uncle of the Prophet. The story of the origins and nature of the movement that overthrew the Umayyad Caliphate and established the ʿAbbāsid dynasty in its place was for long known only in the much-revised version put about when the dynasty had already attained power, and, with it, respectability. A more critical version was proposed by G. van Vloten ( De opkomst der Abbasiden in Chorasan , Leiden 1890, and Recherches …

(in English normally “Mecca”, in French “La Mecque”), the most sacred city of Islam, where the Prophet Muḥammad was born and lived for about 50 years, and where the Kaʿba [ q.v.] is situated. 1. The pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods Geographical description. Mecca is located in the Ḥid̲j̲āz about 72 km. inland from the Red Sea port of Jedda (D̲j̲udda [ q.v.]), in lat. 21° 27′ N. and long. 39° 49′ E. It is now the capital of the province ( manātiḳ idāriyya ) of Makka in Suʿūdī Arabia, and has a normal population of between 200,000 and 300,000, which …

, a collection of poetry or prose [see ʿarabiyya ; persian literature ; turkish literature ; urdū literature and s̲h̲iʿr ], a register, or an office. Sources differ about linguistic roots. Some ascribe to it a Persian origin from dev , ‘mad’ or ‘devil’, to describe secretaries. Others consider it Arabic from dawwana , to collect or to register, thus meaning a collection of records or sheets. (See Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ , i, 90; LA, xvii, 23-4; Ṣūlī, Adab al-kuttāb , 187; Māwardī, al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya , 175; D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, Wuzarāʾ , ¶ 16-17; cf. Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ ,…

(a.), court. The subject-matter of this article is the administration of justice, and the organisation of its administration, in the Muslim countries, the office of the judge being dealt with in the art. ḳāḍī . The following topics are covered: 1. General The judicial functions of the Prophet, which had been expressly attributed to him in the Ḳurʾān (IV, 65, 105; V, 42, 48-9; XXIV, 48, 51), were taken over after his death by the first caliphs, who administered the law in person in Medina. Already under ʿUmar, the expansion of the Islami…

(a.) “date, dating, chronology, era”, then also “annals, history”. ¶ I. Dates and Eras in the Islamic World 1. In the sense of “date, dating”, etc. i. Etymology . The non-Arabic origin of this word was recognised by the mediaeval philologists, but the often-cited derivation of the participle muʾarrak̲h̲ “dated”, from a supposed Persian compound māh-rōz “month-day”, is naturally fanciful. In fact, it clearly belongs to the common Semitic root for “moon” and “month”; cf. Akkadian ( w) arḫu , Sabaic wrḫ , Ethiopic wärḫ , Mehri wark̲h̲ , or, with the usual Northwe…

, in modern usage, the name of an institution of learning where the Islamic sciences are taught, i.e. a college for higher studies, as opposed to an elementary school of traditional type ( kuttāb ); in mediaeval usage, essentially a college of law in which the other Islamic sciences, including literary and philosophical ones, were ancillary subjects only. I. The institution in the Arabic, Persian and Turkish lands 1. Children’s schools. The subject of Islamic education in general is treated under tarbiya. Here it should merely be noted that the earliest, informal institution…

, the name of a Persian province and of its present capital. The name goes back to the form Carmania, which is found in Strabo (xv, 2, 14), and which is said to be derived from the name of an ancient capital, Carmana (Ptolemy, Geography , vi, 8; Ammanianus Marcellinus, xxiii, 6, 48. See further Marquart, Ērānšahr , 30, on the name Carmania, and Browne, Lit. Hist. of Persia , i, 145, for the later popular etymology of the name). The Province. The province of Kirmān is situated to the south-west of the great central desert of Persia, the Das̲h̲t-i Lūt, which narrows to some 100…

, one of the words most generally used to denote a tax, applied in particular to the whole category of taxes which in practice were added to the basic taxes of canonical theory. These latter ( zakāt or ʿus̲h̲r , d̲j̲izya and k̲h̲arād̲j̲ , etc.) and their yield in the “classical” period, have been covered in a general survey in an earlier article, Bayt al-māl , and a detailed description of the methodes of assessment and collection will be given under their respective titles, in particular under k̲h̲arād̲j̲; along with k̲h̲arād̲j̲ and zakāt will be included associated taxes and payments…

(a.), in Islamic law, the act of founding a charitable trust, and, hence the trust itself. A synonym, used mainly by Mālikī jurists, is ḥabs , ḥubus or ḥubs (in French often rendered as habous ). The essential elements are that a person, with the intention of committing a pious deed, declares part of his or her property to be henceforth unalienable ( ḥabs, taḥbīs ) and designates persons or public utilities as beneficiaries of its yields ( al-taṣadduḳ bi ’l-manfaʿa , tasbīl al-manfaʿa ). The Imāmī S̲h̲īʿa distinguish between waḳf and ḥabs, the latter being a precarious type of waḳf in which th…

(a.), mosque, the noun of place from sad̲j̲ada “to prostrate oneself, hence “place where one prostrates oneself [in worship]”. The modern Western European words (Eng. mosque , Fr. mosquée , Ger. Moschee , Ital. moschea ) come ultimately from the Arabic via Spanish mezquita . I. In the central Islamic lands A. The origins of the mosque up to the Prophet’s death. The word msgdʾ is found in Aramaic as early as the Jewish Elephantine Papyri (5th century B.C.), and appears likewise in Nabataean inscriptions with the meaning “place of worship…

, a sovereign State, of the Muslim religion, for the most part Arabic-speaking, situated at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent. i.—Geography The structure of ʿIrāḳ paradoxically derives its originality from the fact that it forms part of a large geographical block of territory. From the Arabo-Syrian desert tableland which it faces along its south-western flank, it takes its general aspect and its climate. All along its frontiers on the North-East, on the other hand, it shares the orientation and ¶ relief of the folded mountain-chains of western Asia, which give it its t…

, in modern Arabic “government”. Like many political neologisms in Islamic languages, the word seems to have been first used in its modern sense in 19th century Turkey, and to have passed from Turkish into Arabic and other languages. Ḥukūma comes from the Arabic root ḥ.k.m , with the meaning “to judge, adjudicate” (cf. the related meaning, dominant in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, of wisdom. See ḥikma ). In classical usage the verbal noun ḥukūma means the act or office of adjudication, of dispensing justice, whether by a sovereign, a judge, …

(a.), "mine, ore, mineral, metal". In modern Arabic, the word mand̲j̲am denotes "mine", while muʿaddin means "miner" and d̲j̲amād is a mineral. In the vast Islamic empire, minerals played an important part. There was a great need for gold, silver and copper for the minting of coins and other uses. Iron ore was indispensable for the manufacture ¶ of iron and steel for arms and implements. Other minerals such as mercury, salt and alum, as well as pearls and precious stones, were necessary for everyday life. The empire was richly endowed with the various…

¶ i.—General Introduction The Kurds, an Iranian people of the Near East, live at the junction of more or less laicised Turkey, S̲h̲īʿi Iran, Arab and Sunnī ʿIrāḳ and North Syria, and Soviet Transcaucasia. The economic and strategic importance of this land, Kurdistān, is undeniable. Since the end of the First World War, the Kurdish people, like all the rest of their neighbours, have undergone considerable transformations as much in the political order as in the economic, social and cultural domain. …

, a city in central ʿIrāḳ during the mediaeval period, the existence of which is attested from the later years of the 1st century/closing years of the 7th century or opening years of the 8th century, until the beginning of the 12th century/turn of the 17th-18th centuries (according to M. D̲j̲awād, K̲h̲arāb Wāṣit , in Lug̲h̲at al-ʿArab , x (1931), 617 until ca. 1107/1695-6). From its foundation by the Umayyad governor of ʿIrāḳ, al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ad̲j̲ (75-95/694-713 [ q.v.]), the city was the administrative and political capital of that province under the first Marwānids (65-…

, Nasāṭira (a.), sing. Nasṭūrī, the Nestorian Christians. The term derives from Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, whose Christological doctrine was condemned by the council of Ephesus in 431. But the reasons for the separation of East Syrian Christianity (“Nestorianism”) from the Byzantine Church and the West Syrian patriarchate of Antioch were political (the conflict between the Roman and the Persian empires) rather than doctrinal. The term “Nestorians” is also usually rejected (especially in …

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad (reigned 575-622/1180-1225), 34th ʿAbbāsid caliph, was born in 553/1158. Son and successor of al-Mustaḍīʾ bi-Amr Allāh [ q.v.], he had strained relations with his conservative father, who had kept him in seclusion for a while for fear that he might be influenced by harmful innovations. Yet, after his father’s death, he successfully defended his claim to the throne against the court clique. His relations with his ¶ mother, a Turkish slave called Zumurrud K̲h̲ātūn, were more balanced. During al-Mustaḍīʾ’s and al-Nāṣir’s caliphates, she made a n…

(a.), pl. of Ḥanbalī, denotes the followers of the school of theology, law and morality which grew up from the teaching of Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855 [ q.v.]) whose principal works, the Musnad and the responsa ( masāʾil ), had begun to be codified even during the lifetime of their author. Ḥanbalism, while being hostile to the very principle of speculative theology ( kalām ) and to esoteric Ṣūfism ( ḥulūl , maʿrifa , ibāḥa ) did not develop in complete isolation. A great number of Ḥanbali authors were themselves dogmatic theologians or Ṣūfīs. The o…

, one of the two cities ( miṣr [ q.v.]), along with Baṣra [ q.v.], founded in ʿIrāḳ by early Islam A permanent military establishment of the Arabs in Mesopotamia, Kūfa retained the whole of the ʿIrāḳī Sawād [ q.v.] under its control. It participated actively in the Islamic expansion into Iranian territory, and, throughout the 1st/7th century, was a hotbed of intense political ferment. It was there also, as at Baṣra, that there took place for three centuries the gestation of Arabo-Islamic civilisation and culture. Then Kūfa experience…