b. unayf b. wald̲j̲a b. ḳunāfa belonged to the clan of the Banū Ḥarit̲h̲a b. Ḏj̲anāb, which was also called al-Bayt or the aristocracy of Kalb. A Christian like the great majority of his tribe, his chief claim to fame is that he was the father of ¶ Maysūn, mother of Yazīd I. His nomad clan lived to the south of the ancient Palmyra, whither Maysūn afterwards brought the young Yazīd, and where the Umayyads reunited after the congress of D̲j̲ābiya and the battle of Mard̲j̲ Rāhiṭ. Baḥdal was thus the founder of the great pr…

b. Dald̲j̲ab. Ḳunāfa al-Kalbī (full genealogy in al-Tabarī, ii, 204, 428, and see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, i, Table 286, ii, 572), tribal chief of the Kalb in Syria [see kalb b. wabara ], fl. in the early part of the 7th century. His son Baḥdal was the father of Maysūn [ q.v.], wife of the Umayyad caliph Muʿāwiya I and mother of Yazīd I, and a strenuous supporter of the Sufyānid cause. (Ed.) Bibliography See also H. Lammens, Etudes sur le règne du calife Moʿâwia Ier , in MFOB, iii (1908), 150.

, grandson of the Kalbī chief Baḥdal b. Unayf [ q.v.] and cousin of the caliph Yazīd I, his father being the brother of Maysūn, the famous wife of Muʿāwiya (it has been thought, erroneously, that he was the uncle of Yazīd I, because he is often referred to simply as Ibn Baḥdal). This relationship, the nobility of his clan (the Banū Ḥārit̲h̲a b. D̲j̲anāb) and the power of the Kalb tribe earned for him under Muʿāwiya and Yazīd the governorships of Palestine and of Jordan. Before this, he had fought at Ṣiffīn in the ranks of the Syrian army, in command of the Ḳuḍāʿa of Damascus (Naṣr b. Muzāḥim, Waḳʿat Ṣif…

, daughter of the Kalbī chief Baḥdal b. Unayf [ q.v.], mother of the caliph Yazīd I. We do not know if after her marriage with Muʿāwiya she retained the Christian religion which had been that of her family and of her tribe. A few verses are attributed to her in which she sighs for the desert and shows very slight attachment for her husband (see Nöldeke, Delectus , 25). But the attribution to Maysūn of this fragment of poetry, which is in any case old, has been rightly disputed. She took a great interest in the education of her son Yazīd and…

, Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ite leader, opponent of Marwān b. Muḥammad ( — Marwān II). During the disturbances which followed the murder of the Caliph al-Walīd II, the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ites resumed their campaign in Ḏj̲azīra and pushed forward into ʿIrāḳ, their leader at first being the Ḥarūrite Saʿīd b. Bahdal, and, after his death of the plague, al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Ḳays al-S̲h̲aybānī, an adherent of the above-mentioned Ibn Bahdal. Several thousand fighters assembled under the standard of al-Ḍaḥḥāk; there were even among them Ṣufrites from S̲h̲ahrazūr. who, at that time, according to al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ …

, the principal residence of the amīrs of G̲h̲assān, and for that reason known as “D̲j̲ābiya of kings”, situated in D̲j̲awlān [ q.v.], about 80 km. south of Damascus, not far from the site of the modern Nawā. It extended over several hills, hence perhaps the poetic form of plural D̲j̲awābī, with an allusion to the etymological sense of “reservoir”, the symbol of generosity (cf. Ag̲h̲ānī , xviii, 72). It was the perfect type of ancient bedouin ḥirt̲h̲ā/ḥīra , a huge encampment where nomads settled down, a jumble of tents and buildings; there is even a…

al-D̲j̲ud̲h̲āmī , an Arab tribal leader, especially prominent in upholding the Umayyad cause against the Zubayrids in the second civil war (64-72/683-92). Son of a notable from the Banū D̲j̲ud̲h̲ām [ q.v.], which had been settled in Palestine from before the Arab conquest of the region, Rawḥ is said to have incurred Muʿāwiya’s suspicion in circumstances which are obscure. Later, we find him named as one of a group of Syrian as̲h̲rāf whom Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya [ q.v.] sent to ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr [ q.v.] in an attempt to obtain the latter’s bayʿa , and, shortly afterw…

, Abū Unays (or Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ), son of a blood-letter ( ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ām , Ibn Rusta, BGA vii, 215), head of the house of Ḳays. He is reported to have been of a vacillating character ( d̲j̲aʿala yuḳadd̲j̲mu rid̲j̲l an wa-yuʾak̲h̲k̲h̲iru uk̲h̲rā , Ag̲h̲ānī xvii, 111) and this is ¶ borne out by his changing attitude towards the ruling Umayyad house, in which he proved easy to influence. He was a keen follower of Muʿāwiya, first as head of the police ( ṣāḥib al-s̲h̲urṭa ), and then as governor of the d̲j̲und of Damascus. In the year 36/656, al-Ḍaḥḥāk defeated the ʿ…

, abū hās̲h̲im , was one of the sons of the caliph Yazīd I ¶ and Fāk̲h̲ita bint Abī Hās̲h̲im b. ʿUtba b. Rabīʿa. The year of his birth is not recorded, but he was probably born ca. 48/668. When his brother Muʿāwiya II died in 64/683 without having designated his successor, a struggle broke out. Ḥassān b. Mālik b. Baḥdal [ q.v.] favoured K̲h̲ālid, who was however not elected because he was too young. In his place the elderly Marwān b. al-Ḥakam [ q.v.] was chosen, on the condition that he would be succeeded first by K̲h̲ālid b. Yazīd and then by ʿAmr b. Saʿīd b. al-ʿĀs al-As̲h̲daḳ [ q.v.]. Marwān furtherm…

, the ancestor of the Banū Kalb, the strongest group of the Ḳuḍāʿa [ q.v.]. His mother, Umm al-Asbuʿ, was so called because all her sons were named after wild animals (T. Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge , 75 ff.). The Kalb were, according to the genealogical system (Ibn al-Kalbī, Ḏj̲amharat al-nasab etc.), of Yemenite descent, but sometimes they claimed for political reasons to belong to the Northern Arabs or even to Ḳurays̲h̲. I.—Pre-Islamic period Their greatest chieftain was Zuhayr b. Ḏj̲anāb. who had great authority among the northern tribes; so he was sent by Abraha [ q.v.] to control the Bak…

, the second Umayyad caliph ( r. 60-4/680-3). He was named as his successor by his father [see muʿāwiya i ]. His mother was Maysūn, a sister of the Kalbī leader Ibn Baḥdal [see Ḥassān b. mālik ]. The Banū Kalb [see kalb b. wabara ] were strong in the southern regions of Syria, and Muʿāwiya appointed Yazīd as his successor in preference to an older half-brother, ʿAbd Allāh, born of a Ḳuras̲h̲ī mother. Yazīd’s kunya , Abū K̲h̲ālid, refers to one of his own younger sons [see k̲h̲ālid b. yazīd ]. During his father’s caliphate, Yazīd commanded expeditions ( ṣawāʾif see Ṣāʾifa . 1…

b. Abī Sufyān , the founder of the Umayyad dynasty of caliphs based in Syria (although not, as is often asserted, the first Umayyad caliph: that was ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān [ q.v.], his second ¶ cousin), ruled as generally acknowledged caliph from 41/661 to 60/680. His father was Abū Sufyān (Ṣak̲h̲r) b. Ḥarb b. Umayya al-Akbar b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams [ q.v.] and his mother was Hint bint ʿUtba b. Rabīʿa [ q.v.], on account of whom Muʿāwiya is sometimes referred to as Ibn Hind and Ibn ākilat al-akbād , “the son of the liver-eater” (cf. below). The sources provide conflicting reports of the date of Muʿāw…

b. Abi ’l-ʿAṣ , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim and then Abū ʿAbd al-Malik, first caliph of the Marwānid branch of the Umayyad dynasty [ q.v.], reigned for several months in 64-5/684-5. Marwān, born of al-Ḥakam’s wife Āmina bt. ʿAlḳama al-Kināniyya, stemmed from the same branch of the Umayyad clan of Ḳurays̲h̲, se. Abu ’l-ʿĀṣ, as the Rightly-guided caliph ʿUt̲h̲mān, and was in fact ʿUt̲h̲mān’s cousin. The sources generally place his birth in A.H. 2 or 4 ( ca. 623-6), but it may well have occurred before the Hid̲j̲ra in any case, he must have known the Prophet and was accounte…

, the name of a plain near Damascus famous in Islamic history on account of the battles which took place there. According to Ibn Ḥawḳal, “a mard̲j̲ is a wide expanse of land with numerous estates where large ¶ and small cattle and beasts are raised”. For M. Canard ( H’amdânides , 204), a mard̲j̲ is “the place where agriculture and gardens cease to be found”. Beyond the mard̲j̲ lies the ḥamād , the sterile terrain. Mard̲j̲ is a term which, in reference to Damascus, denotes a semicircular zone situated between the G̲h̲ūṭa [ q.v.] and the marches of ʿUṭayba and Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲āna, and the desert…

, an early Islamic religious group defined by the heresiographers as the name of a K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ite sect arising out of the breakup of the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ite community in Baṣra in the year 64/683-4. The heresiographers commonly derive the name from a founder variously called ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Aṣfar, ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ṣaffar al-Saʿdī al-Tamīmī, or Ziyād b. al-Aṣfar, who was active at the time of the breakup. This founder is almost certainly fictitious. The scholars of the Ṣufriyya themselves, according to al-Mubarrad, narrated that the…

, Ḍabʿ (A. ḍubʿ , ḍubuʿ , ḍibāʿ , aḍbuʿ , maḍbaʿa ), grammatically feminine singular nouns designating the hyena (Persian: kaftār , Turkish: ṣi̊rtlan , Berber: ifis , pl. ifisen ) irrespective of sex or species (see Ch. Pellat, Sur quelques noms d’animaux en arabe classique , in GLECS, viii, 95-9). From this vague generic term, additional forms have been derived to differentiate the sexes: ḍibʿān , pl. ḍabāʿīn for the male (alongside d̲h̲īk̲h̲ , pl. d̲h̲uyūk̲h̲ ) and ḍibʿāna , pl. - āt , for the female. The word ḍabuʿ (preferable to ḍabʿ ) is of Sumero-Akkadian origi…

(a.), lit. “description”. I. In poetry 1. Description This literary genre, through its dimensions, its significative function and its evolution, has played a role of the greatest importance in the long process of the development of Arabic poetry. By its etymology, the term signifies embellishment (al-D̲j̲awharī, al-Ṣiḥāḥ , Beirut 1404/1984, iv, 1438-9; Tahd̲h̲īb al-lug̲h̲a , xii, 248a; al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Asās al-balāg̲h̲a , 1024a-1025a; LA, s.v. w-ṣ-f , waṣafa al-s̲h̲ayʾa ḥallāhu “he described a thing, meaning that he…