, “Commander of the Believers” (the translation “Prince of the Believers” is neither philologically nor historically correct), title adopted by ʿUmar b. al-Ḵh̲aṭṭāb on his election as caliph. Amīr , as a term designating a person invested with command ( amr ), and more especially military command, is in this general sense compounded with al-muʾminīn to designate the leaders of various Muslim expeditions both in the lifetime of the Prophet and after, e.g. Saʿd b. Abī Waḳḳāṣ [ q.v.], the commander of the Muslim army against the Persians at Ḳādisiyya. Its adoption as a title…

, i.e. lord of the Muslims, a title which the Almoravids first assumed, in contra-distinction to Amīr al-Muʾminīn [ q.v.]. The latter title was born by the independent dynasties; the Almoravids, however, recognized the supremacy of the ʿAbbāsids and did not wish to arrogate to themselves this title of the Caliphs. So they established a kind of sub-caliphate with a title of their own. Afterwards the African and Spanish princes bore either the one or the other of these titles, according as they sought after the independent caliphate or recognized any supremacy. (A.J. Wensinck) Bibliography…

(the cup-bearer), also called al-ṣag̲h̲īr (the younger) a Turkish military leader who bore the title mawlā amīr al-muʾminīn , and who is not to be confused with his contemporary of the same name, Bug̲h̲ā al-Kabīr. After having fought, under al-Mutawakkil, against the rebels of Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān, he led the plot against this caliph, whom he suspected of wishing to reduce the influence of the Turkish officers, and had him assassinated. With his ally Waṣīf, he subsequently held power under al-Mu…

, originally known by the short name of Fak̲h̲rā and posted at Sonārgāwn in East Bengal as a Silāḥdār of Bahrām K̲h̲ān, the local governor in the time of the Dihlī Sultan Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ. After the governor’s death Fak̲h̲rā revolted, assumed sovereignty at Sonārgāwn and maintained his position by defeating the imperial forces led by the eastern governors of the Tug̲h̲luḳ Sulṭān. He established the first independent dynasty in Bengal in 739/1338, conquered up to Čāt́gāwn in the south an…

, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad , Abū Isḥāḳ, S̲h̲īʿī writer and scholar, b. at an unknown date around the beginning of the 3rd century A.H., d. 283/896. His ancestors, from the T̲h̲aḳīf, had always been faithful partisans of the ʿAlids, and his great-grandfather, the Companion Saʿd b. Masʿūd, had been governor of al-Madāʾin for ʿAlī, with his loyal qualities displayed at the battle of Ṣiffīn [ q.v.] in 37/658 (al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, iii, 144). Regrettably little is known of Ibrāhīm’s life and intellectual development, but he was brought up…

, secretary and prolific author in Arabic and Persian. A reputed descendant of the caliph ʿUmar, he was born either in Balk̲h̲ or Buk̲h̲ārā, but spent most of his life in Gurgānd̲j̲, the capital of K̲h̲ w ārazm. He died, according to Dawlats̲h̲āh, in 578/1182-3, in his 97th year, which would put his birth in 481/1088-9; Yāḳūt (at least in the published text) has him die 5 years earlier. Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn was chief secretary ( ṣāḥib dīwān al-ins̲h̲āʾ ) under the K̲h̲wārazms̲h̲āh Atsi̊z (521-51/1127-56) and his successor Īl-Arslān (d. 568/1172). His loyalty to Atsi̊z earned him …

(a.), literally, an iron ploughshare, and an iron stamp or die used for stamping coins ¶ (see Lane, Lexicon , 1937). From the latter meaning, it came to denote the result of the stamping, i.e. the legends on the coins, and then, the whole operation of minting coins. 1. Legal and constitutional aspects. As in the Byzantine and Sāsānid empires to which the Arab caliphate was heir, the right of issuing gold and silver coinage was a royal prerogative. Hence in the caliphate, the operation of sikka , the right of the ruler to place his name on the coinage, eventua…

, Abū Naṣr Manṣūr b. ʿAlī , an astronomer and mathematician who flourished ca. 1000 A.D. (the date of his death is uncertain), best known as the teacher of al-Birūnī [ q.v.], was the student of Abu ’l-Wafā al-Buzd̲j̲ānī [ q.v.]. He was related to the Ibn ʿIrāḳ family that ruled K̲h̲wārazm before its conquest by Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.], and this accounts for his titles: al-amīr and mawlā amīr al-muʾminīn . He is also known for his revision, completed in 398/1007-8, of the Arabic version of Menelaus’s Spherics (ed. and trans, by Krause, 1936), of which the ori…

al-Ḵh̲aṭṭābī ( ca. 1880-1963), Moroccan activist and leader in the Rīf War. ¶ Ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm was born in the 1880s into the large Berber tribe ( ḳabīla ) Banū Waryāg̲h̲al in the Moroccan Rīf [ q.v.], son of a ḳāḍī who had close relations with the Spanish in Melilla [ q.v.] and Alhucemas Island. He studied at the Ḳarawiyyīn in Fās [ q.vv.], and was influenced by the Salafiyya [ q.v.] movement. From 1907 he worked in Melilla as a teacher, military interpreter, journalist and ḳāḍī. After the Moroccan Protectorate was established in 1912, he opposed French colonialism and during t…

(or Bus̲h̲ayr) b. al-Māḥūz, leader of the Azāriḳa [ q.v.] sect of the Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ites. (Al-)Māḥūz was the nickname of Yazīd b. Musāḥiḳ of the Banū Salīṭ b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Yarbūʿ of Tamīm. Several of the Banu ’l-Māḥūz, among them ʿUbayd Allāh, were among the Baṣran Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ites who went to Mecca to support ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr [ q.v.] in 64/683 but deserted him when he would not denounce the caliph ʿUt̲h̲mān. They returned to Baṣra together with Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraḳ [ q.v.] and then joined his revolt. After Nāfiʿ was killed during fighting at Dūlāb (Ḏj̲umādā II 65/Dec.-Jan. …

, eleventh sovereign of the Marīnid [ q.v.] dynasty of Fez, born in 729/1329, had himself proclaimed at Tlemcen in 749/1349, when his father, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAIī, after being defeated at Ḳayrawān, was returning as a fugitive to Morocco. Ibn al-Aḥmar describes him as very tall, with a fair skin (his mother was a Christian slave), and says that he had a long beard. A fearless horseman, he was also widely versed in literature and the law. Like his father, he was a prince with a passion for building, and com…

(known locally as amadu sēku ) Tokolor (Takrūrī) ruler, son of al-Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ ʿUmar Tal [ q.v.] the Tokolor conqueror of Western Sudan. Before he proceeded to the conquest of Māsina which cost him his life, ʿUmar left Aḥmad in charge of the Bambara kingdom of Segu, and appointed him k̲h̲alīfa of the Tid̲j̲āniyya ṭarīḳa for the Sudan. ʿUmar died (1864) before he was able to consolidate his conquests and left Aḥmad to face, not only a heritage of dynastic troubles and revolts of subjected peoples, but also the steady advance of …

(Sakkwato in Hausa; Ṣakata in Arabic), a city in north-western Nigeria. It was established first as a camp in 1223/1808, then the following autumn as a ribāṭ , by Muḥammad Bello [ q.v.], the son of the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Fūdī [ q.v.], in the fourth and final year of their d̲j̲ihād against Gobir. In 1230/1815, the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲, now ill, moved to Sokoto from Sifawa. On his death in 1232/1817 and with the election of Muḥammad Bello as Amīr al-Muʾminīn , the city became the headquarters of the “Sokoto Caliphate”. The S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ was buried in the garden …

(1195-25 Rad̲j̲ab 1253/1781-26 October 1837), West African leader, son of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Fūdī [ q.v.], whom he succeeded in 1232/1817 as amīr al-muʾminīn of the so-called Sokoto Caliphate (or “ʿUt̲h̲mānic state”, dawla ʿUt̲h̲māniyya as local Muslim writers generally call it) in north-western Nigeria. He came from a learned family of the Toronkawa Fulani or Fulbe [ q.v.] originally from Futa Toro (on the banks of the Senegal River), but long settled in Hausaland. He studied under his father, some of his uncles and other close relatives and loc…

(a.), a term having various significations. The root s̲h̲-ʿ-r involves, inter alia, the ideas of knowing something; being aware of something; being a poet; being hairy; notifying, making aware of something; marking something; etc. S̲h̲iʿār stems from the latter semantic field. It denotes: 1. The rallying signal for war or for a travel expedition, war cry, standard, mark indicating the place of standing ( wuḳūf ) of ¶ soldiers in battle or pilgrims in the Pilgrimage (ʿArafa: the idea of “recognising” this mark). The warcry of the Prophet’s Companions was “Amit , amit! O victorious ones,…

(a.) nickname, and at a later date under Islam and with a more specific use, honorific title (pl. alḳāb ). For suggestions about its etymology, see L. Caetani and G. Gabrieli, Onomasticon arabicum . i. Fonte-introduzione , Rome 1915, 144-5; and for its place in the general schema of the composition of Islamic names, see ism. The laḳab seems in origin to have been a nickname or sobriquet of any tone, one which could express admiration, be purely descriptive and neutral in tenor or be insulting and derogatory. In the latter case, it was often termed nabaz , pl. anbāz , by-form labaz …

, Abū Rakwa, a pseudo-Umayyad pretender who led a revolt against the Fāṭimid caliph al-Ḥākim [ q.v.]. He was an Arab, probably of Andalusian origin, who for some time had earned his living as a schoolteacher in al-Ḳayrawān and Miṣr (Old Cairo) and then went into service with the Arab Bedouin clan of Banū Ḳurra (of the Hilāl tribe) whose pasture-grounds were the hilly country of Cyrenaica south-east of Barḳa (modern al-Mard̲j̲); there he taught the boys of the clan to read and write. His nickname Abū Rakwa “the …

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUmar b. Aḥmad b. Mahdī b. Masʿūd b. al-Nuʿmān b. Dīnār b. ʿAbdallāh , was born in Dār al-Ḳuṭn, a large quarter of Baghdad, whence he got his nisba , in 306/918. He was a man of wide learning who studied under many scholars. His studies included the various branches of Ḥadīt̲h̲ learning, the recitation of the Ḳurʾān, fiḳh and belles-lettres. He is said to have known by heart the dīwāns of a number of poets, and because of his knowing the dīwān of al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyarī he was accused of being a S̲h̲īʿī. His learning was so wide that many …

( s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ aḥmad , seku aḥmadu ( ḥamadu ) lobbo , s̲h̲eku aḥmadu sise ), Ful religious chieftain, of the Bari clan (or Saugare or Daebe, corresponding to the Mandingo clan of the Sise) a native of Malangal or Mareval in central Māsina, actually called Ḥamadu Ḥamadu Lobbo, that is to say the son of Ḥamadu Lobbo. The latter was a pious Muslim living at Yogunsiru (district of Uro Modi in central Māsina), a native of Fituka (the region to the east of Niafunke), called Lobbo after the name of his mother. Māsina was then occupied by the Ful, who were mostly pagan or superficially Muslim, and were ruled by a…

, a ruined site in Transcaspia (the modern Türkmenistan SSR) north-west of the confluence of the Atrak and its right bank tributary the Sumbar, or more exactly, on the road which runs from Čat at right angles to the road connecting Čikis̲h̲ler with the railway station of Aydi̊n. The ruins are surrounded by a wall of brick and a ditch and have an area of 320 acres. The old town, situated in the steppes which are now peopled by Turkomans, received its water from a canal led from the Atrak about 40 miles above Čat. Near the latter place, the can…