b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams , ancestor of the Umayyads, the principal clan of the Ḳuraysh of Mecca. His genealogy (Umayya b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams b. ʿAbd Manāf b. Ḳuṣayy) and his descendants are given in Wüstenfeld, Geneal . Tabellen , U, V, and Ibn al-Kabbī, in Caskel-Strenziok, i, nos. 8 ff. Like all other eponyms of Arab tribes and clans, his actual existence and the details of his life have to be accepted with caution, but too great scepticism with regard to tradition would be as ill-advised as absolute faith in its statement…

, the father of Abū Sufyān and father-in-law of Abū Lahb [ qq.v.], one of the leading figures of Mecca in his day. He is said to have been the first to use Arabic writing, and one of the first to renounce wine. A companion of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, he succeeded him ¶ as war-leader, and led the clan of ʿAbd S̲h̲ams and, according to some traditions, all Ḳurays̲h̲ in the so-called sacrilegious war [see fid̲j̲ār ]. After his death the leadership is said to have passed to the Banū Hās̲h̲im. The story of his contest of merits and subsequent quarrel with ʿAb…

, of Banū Asad b. Ḵh̲uzayma, a confederate ( ḥalīf ) of Banū Umayya of Ḳurays̲h̲. His mother was Umayma bint ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Muḥammad’s aunt. An early Muslim along with his brothers, ʿUbayd Allāh and Abū Aḥmad, he took part with the former in the migration to Abyssinia. ʿUbayd Allāh became a Christian and died there, but ʿAbd Allāh returned to Mecca and was the most prominent of a group of confederates, including his sister Zaynab [ q.v.], who all migrated to Medina. He led the much-criticized raid to Nak̲h̲la where Muslims first shed Meccan blood, and fought at Badr. …

Abū Muḥammad Marwān b. Muḥ. Arabic poet of the early ʿAbbāsid period, was born in Baṣra in the quarter of the ¶ Banū Saʿd as a mawlā of the Banū Umayya. No date is given for his birth. His laḳab would seem to allude to his big nose and big mouth. He must have migrated to Bag̲h̲dād some considerable time before the accession of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd (170/786). Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Ṭabaḳat al-S̲h̲uʿarā al-Muḥdat̲h̲īn (A. Eghbal), 55, puts his death in or about 180/796. Like other poets of his time Abu ’l-S̲h̲amaḳmaḳ is credited with undertaking an occasi…

, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh (ʿUbayd Allāh) b. ʿAmr (as given by Ibn K̲h̲allikān, Wafayāt , ed. ʿAbbās, iv, 397), early ʿAbbāsid poet. He was born in Baṣra, a descendant of ʿUtba b. Abī Sufyān, and moved to Bag̲h̲dād, dying in 228/842-3. Al-ʿUtbī was a poet (“one of the modern [ muḥdat̲h̲ ] stallion poets, whose verse was plentiful and excellent”: Ibn K̲h̲allikān, 399-400), tribal historian (i.e. of the ak̲h̲bār of his own clan, the Banū Umayya—did this assume the form of anti-ʿAbbāsid polemics?), and writer of epistles: Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , 121, l…

, Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān Yaḥyā b. Marzūḳ, an honoured court musician in early ʿAbbāsid times and head of a family of court singers. He was born in Mecca as a mawlā of the Banū Umayya, but went to Bag̲h̲dād at the beginning of the reign of al-Mahdī (158/775), and still performed under al-Maʾmūn (198-218/813-33). It is said that he died at the age of 120. He was considered an excellent composer and an expert in the Ḥid̲j̲āzī style of music. Ibn D̲j̲āmiʿ [ q.v.], and both Ibrāhīm and Isḥāḳ al-Mawṣilī [ q.v.] were among his disciples. He also composed a “book of songs” ( Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī …

(p.), literally “cool water”, often found in the Arabised form sirdāb , an underground chamber used for keeping cool during the extreme heat of e.g. the ʿIrāḳī or Persian summers. Such building constructions are an ancient feature of Middle Eastern life, being found amongst the Egyptians of Pharaonic times and in Babylonia. Examples of them have been found in the remains of the early ʿAbbāsid palace at al-Uk̲h̲ayḍir [ q.v.] and at al-Muʿtaṣim’s palace, the D̲j̲awsaḳ al-K̲h̲āḳānī, at Sāmarrā. At Bag̲h̲dād until recent times, traditional-type houses had a semi-base…

, Saḳīfat Banī Sāʿida . The word saḳīfa ( LʿA , s.v.), an approximate synonym of ṣuffa ( LʿA, s.v.: bahw , mawḍiʿ muẓallat ), denotes in Arabic a covered communal place appropriate for conversation and discussion. While the word ṣuffa seems rather to be applied to the space covered with palm foliage which constituted the primitive mosque (see masd̲j̲id . I, 2), saḳīfa appears to denote any type of forum or public courtyard, covered in accordance with the same traditional procedures. In historical texts, the term is applied virtually exclusively to the prolonged and acerbic ne…

, Ibn S̲h̲ihāb , i.e. Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Muslim b. ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿAbd Allāh b. S̲h̲ihāb, d. 124/742, one of the founders of Islamic tradition in the widest sense of the word. The source ¶ material about him includes both biographical data and instructive anecdotes; the latter reflect both admiration for his achievement and criticism of his links with the Umayyads and of some laxity on his part regarding the transmission of ḥadīt̲h̲ . Al-Zuhrīʾ s first tutor ( muʾaddib ) was probably the mawlā [ q.v.] Ṣāliḥ b. Kaysān al-Madanī. From ʿAbd Allāh b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. Ṣuʿayr al-ʿUd̲h̲rī [see ʿud̲h̲ra…

, Muʿān , a town of the south of Jordan, lying in lat. 30° 12′ N. and long. 35° 44′ E. at an altitude of 3,523 ft./1,074 m., and the chef-lieu of the governorate which is to the south of the Karak [ q.v.] one and to the east of the Wādī ʿAraba. The name is said to come from Maʿān, son of Lot. The town is surrounded by gardens which form an oasis of the western fringe of the desert plain; to its east are the slopes of the al-S̲h̲arāt mountain chain of granite and porphyry, which rise to 5,665 ft./1,727 m. In Maʿan itself and the neighbourhood are many springs…

, an ancestor of Muḥammad in the fifth generation and restorer of the pre-Islamic cult of the Kaʿba in Mecca. His genealogy is unanimously given in all sources as Ḳusayy b. Kilāb b. Murra b. Kaʿb b. Luʾayy b. Fihr or Ḳurays̲h̲ b. G̲h̲ālib (Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Ǧamhara , Tab. 4), and his life and exploits are recorded by our sources in three recensions which only differ from each other in trifling details; these go back to Muḥammad al-Kalbī (d. 146/763-4), Ibn Iṣhāḳ (d. 150/767) and ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ḏj̲u…

, a town in Arabia to the south-east of Mecca which in the early days of Islam belonged to the T̲h̲aḳīf [ q.v.] tribe. Today it is the fourth largest town in Saudi Arabia, located at a road junction on the way from Mecca to al-Riyāḍ [ q.v.]. In former times it took two or three days to go from Mecca to al-Ṭāʾif, depending on the route. Al-Ṭāʾif is in the Sarāt [ q.v.] mountains, 1,680 m/5,500 feet above sea level. Some locate it in Nad̲j̲d [ q.v.], while others argue that it is in Ḥid̲j̲āz [ q.v.]. Its pleasant climate during the summer has made it the summer capital of western Arabia. Al-Ṭāʾif is surround…

The particular veneration which, among the S̲h̲īʿas, the members of the Prophet’s family enjoy, is at the base of the belief that the descendants of Fāṭima have inherited certain privileges inherent in Prophethood; prediction of the future and of the destinies of nations and dynasties is one of these privileges. The S̲h̲īʿī conception of prophecy, closely connected with that of the ancient gnosis (cf. Tor Andrae, Die Person Muhammeds in Lehre und Glauben seiner Gemeinde , Stockholm 1918, ch. vi) made the prophetic afflatus pass from Adam to Muḥamm…

, the third of the Rightly-Guided Caliphs (23-35/644-55). He belonged to the great Meccan family of the Banū Umayya [ q.v.], and more particularly to the branch of Abu ’l-ʿĀṣī who was his grandfather; for his genealogy, see Wüstenfeld, Geneal . Tabellen , U. 23, and the table in umayya. His sudden support for the Prophet’s preaching began his life as a Muslim. ʿUt̲h̲mān was a very rich merchant and an accomplished man of the world. The tradition which represented him as the very esssence of beauty and elegance to the extent of being ov…

(a.) 1. In pre-Islamic Persia. “the kings of the territorial divisions” is the Arabic phrase used by Muslim historians originally for the regional rulers of the Parthian or Arsacid period, and afterwards also for the rulers of principalities which arose on the ruins of the Umayyad empire of al-Andalus. In the 3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries, their information is said to have come from the lost works of Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, Mūsā b. ʿĪsā al-Kisrawī, the mōbad̲h̲ s of S̲h̲īrāz, (Bī)s̲h̲āpūr, and Fārs, the Ak̲h̲bār al-Furs of ʿUmar Kisrā, the S̲h̲āh-nāma of ʿAbd al-Razzāḳ, a Taʾrīk̲h̲ sīnī m…

( Banū Umayya ), the dynasty of caliphs which, from its centre in Syria, ruled the whole of the Arab Islamic territories from 41/661 to 132/750. All of the caliphs during this period are descendants of Umayya b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams [ q.v.], a preIslamic notable of the tribe of Ḳurays̲h̲ of Mecca, but they represent two distinct lines within the clan of Umayya: the first three caliphs, descended from Abū Sufyān b. Ḥarb [ q.v.]., are referred to as Sufyānids; the remaining eleven, descendants of Marwān b. al-Ḥakam b. Abi ’l-ʿĀṣ [ q.v.], as Marwānids. For convenience, a list of the Umayyad calip…

, the Arabic name used throughout the whole Muslim world for a tomb surmounted by a dome. Purpose and significance. The term is applied to the thousands of simple local domed tombs of s̲h̲ayk̲h̲s and saints made by the people as well as to great mausoleums. The term ḳubba became established as a pars pro toto abbreviation for the domes of tombs, for which it is exclusively reserved. All the special names for sepulchral buildings, which vary with country and language as well as with the style of building and person interred, come under the generic name of ḳubba. The classical word turba …

(i) The history of the institution of the caliphate A study of the caliphate, its institution and subsequent developments, has never been attempted in its entirety until the present. The principal reason is that it has not seemed possible to conduct such a survey independently of historical studies relating to different reigns, which are still in most cases insufficient, or even non-existent, whereas studies of doctrine, while more advanced, have not been developed to the same extent with regard to the v…

(a.), inscriptions. 1. Islamic epigraphy in general. The study of Arabic inscriptions today constitutes a science full of promise, an auxiliary science to be sure, but a science indispensable to the scholarly exploitation of a whole category of authentic texts capable of throwing light on the civilisation in the context of which they were written. From a very early period, seeing that the first dated Arabic inscription available to us goes back to the year 31/652 and that we are aware of previous inscr…

, Governor of Ḵh̲urāsān at the beginning of the caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān. A former lieutenant of ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḵh̲āzim [ q.v.], this Tamīmī of the tribe of the Banū Saʿd made himself noticed during the troubled time which was marked by the insurrections of the Tamīm, both when he commanded the troops of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḵh̲āzim at Harāt and when he was the delegate of the governor in Marw after the recapture of the town from the rebels. In 72/691-2 the triumph of the Umayyad caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, w…