, a term used, in almost all its occurrences, as the opposite of the word islām , and which refers to the state of affairs in Arabia before the mission of the Prophet, to paganism (sometimes even that of non-Arab lands), the pre-Islamic period and the men of that time. From the morphological point of view, d̲j̲āhiliyya seems to be formed by the addition of the suffix -iyya, denoting an abstract, to the active participle djāhil , the exact sense of which is difficult to determine. I. Goldziher ( Muḥ . St., i, 219 ff.; analysis in Arabica , vii/3 (1960), 246-9), remarking that djāhil is opposed to ḥalīm…

(a.), “travelling by camel”, a term applied in Arabic poetry to themes involving a desert journey. In its specific meaning it denotes a section of the polythematic ḳaṣīda [ q.v.], following the nasīb [ q.v.], where the poet describes his camel and his travels. The term is derived from the verb raḥala “to saddle a camel” or “to mount a camel”. In Arabic poetics, the raḥīl is not classified among the “genres” ( ag̲h̲rāḍ ) of poetry, nor is the term used in a technical sense. Mediaeval critics usually paraphrase the theme (cf. Ibn Ḳutayba, S̲h̲iʿr , 14). In the D̲j̲āhiliyya [ q.v.], poets allude to…

(pl. ʿatāʾir ) denoted, among the Arabs of the d̲j̲āhiliyya , a ewe (and by extensions its sacrifice) offered as a sacrifice to a pagan divìnity, either as a thanksgiving following the fulfilment of a prayer (concerning in particular the increase of flocks), or when a flock reached the total of a hundred head (cf. the word faraʿa ) ; the head of the idols before which the sacrifice was performed was smeared with the blood of the victims. If one bears in mind on the one hand that these sacrifices (which were also called rad̲j̲abiyya ; hence the phrase rad̲j̲d̲j̲aba ʿatīrat an) took place in the m…

b. Nad̲j̲iya b. ʿIḳāl b. Muḥammad b. Sufyān b. Mud̲j̲ās̲h̲iʿ b. Dārim , an eminent Tamīmī, famous for his generosity, the father of the poet al-Farazdaḳ. The tradition that G̲h̲ālib was a contemporary of the Prophet ( lahū idrāk ) seems to be valid; the ¶ tradition that he visited the Prophet and asked him about the reward of the deeds of his father in the time of the Ḏj̲āhiliyya ( Ag̲h̲ānī , xix, 4) seems however to be spurious. G̲h̲ālib belonged to the generation after the Prophet; his name is connected with the names of Ṭalba b. Ḳays b. ʿĀṣi…

b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ al-Hilāliyya, from the tribe of ʿĀmīr b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa [ q.v.], one of the Prophet’s wives, already known in the D̲j̲āhiliyya as Umm al-Masākīn “Mother of the destitute” from her charitable activities. Her first husband divorced her, and her second one, ʿUbayda b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲, was killed fighting at Badr [ q.v.]. Muḥammad then married her in either 4/626 or the preceding year when she was about 30 years old, and gave her a dowry of 400 dirhams; but according to al-Balād̲h̲urī, she died eight months later at the end of Rabīʿ II 4/early O…

, abū rabīʿa ṣalāʾat b. ʿamr , pre-Islamic Arab poet, chieftain of the Awd clan of Mad̲h̲ḥid̲j̲, about the middle of the 6th century A.D. Most of his extant poetry celebrates the warlike virtues of his tribe and of its chief, while his gnomic poems caused him to be counted among the sages of the d̲j̲āhiliyya . Al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, however ( al-Ḥayawān 2, vi, 280), doubts the authenticity of the poems attributed to him, and the arguments which he presents are to the point. ¶ (Ch. Pellat) Bibliography The dīwān of al-Afwah al-Awdī was published in al-Ṭarāʾif al-Adabiyya, Cairo 1937 L. Cheikho, Shuʿarāʾ al…

(slave of [the god] Ḳays), by-name of several Arab poets. Al-Āmidī mentions ten of them ( al-Muʾtalif wa-’l-muk̲h̲talif , Cairo 1961, 5-9), while Fīrūzābādī list eleven of them ( al-Ḳāmūs al-muḥīṭ , Cairo 1913, ii, 244) and al-Suyūṭī fifteen ( Muzhir , Cairo 1958, ii, 456). Taking account of all the variants in their genealogies, Ḥ. Sandūbī has drawn up a list in which their number reaches twenty-five ( Ak̲h̲bār al-Marāḳisa wa as̲h̲ʿāruhum fi ’l-d̲j̲āhiliyya wa-ṣadr al-Islām , printed as a continuation of S̲h̲arḥ dīwān Imruʾ al-Ḳays 4Cairo 1959, 223-368). The most famous of all th…

(a.), a term denoting a person who lived in the Ḏj̲āhiliyya [ q.v.] and in the time of Islam. It has been applied in particular to poets, al-muk̲h̲aḍramūn constituting the class of pagan poets who died after the proclamation of Islam. The meaning has been extended to poets living in the Umayyad and the ʿAbbāsid period, who were referred to as muk̲h̲aḍramū ’l-dawlatayn , “poets of the two dynasties”. It is also a technical term in the science of ḥadīt̲h̲ [ q.v.], where it signified a transmitter who accepted Islam but had not seen the Prophet (cf. W. Marçais, Le Taqrîb de En-Nawawi , in JA, xvii [19…

(a.), in early Arabia, the guardian of a shrine (abstract noun, sidāna ). The root s - d - n contains the sense of "veil, curtain", which puts sādin on a level with ḥād̲j̲ib , the first term denoting the guardian of a shrine, and the second, the "door-keeper" of a palace, hence "chamberlain". The ḥād̲j̲ib acts under the orders of someone else, whereas the sādin acts on his own initiative ( LʿA , xvii, 69, citing Ibn Barrī). However, the two terms may be found juxtaposed, e.g. in Ibn His̲h̲ām, who says, "The Arabs possessed, as well as the Kaʿba, tawāg̲h̲īṭ which were shrines ( buyūt : cf. Fahd, La divin…

(Ar. pl. balāyā ), a name given, in the pre-Islamic era, to the camel (more rarely the mare) which it was the custom to tether at the grave of its master, its head turned to the rear and covered with a saddle-cloth (see al-D̲j̲āḥịz, Tarbīʿ , ed. Pellat, index), and to allow to die of starvation; in some cases, the victim was burnt and, in other cases, stuffed with t̲h̲umām (Ibn Abiʾ l-Ḥadīd, S̲h̲arḥ Nahd̲j̲ alBalāg̲h̲a , iv 436). Muslim tradition sees in this practice proof that the Arabs of the d̲j̲āhiliyya believed in the resurrection, because the animal thus s…

(a.), pl. ruwāt , reciter and transmitter of poetry, as also of narrative traditions ( ak̲h̲bār ) and ḥadīt̲h̲ [ q.v.]. The term is derived from rawā “to bring, carry or convey water”, and has been extended to “carrying” in a figurative sense, i.e. “to bear by memory, to transmit or recite” (cf. Lane, 1194). There is an intensive form rāwiya , explained as “copious transmitter” ( kat̲h̲īr al-riwāya ), used in mediaeval sources as a synonym to rāwī . In modern research it is applied, as a rule, to the learned collectors of Bedouin poetry in the 8th century. The institution of the rāwī is the main b…

b. ʿabd allāh al-zubaydī , abū thawr , famous Arab warrior and muk̲h̲aḍram poet. Born of a noble Yamanite family, he is depicted as a fighter of uncommon strength who, armed with his legendary sword al-Ṣamṣāma, took part in many battles during the d̲j̲āhiliyya . In 10/631, he went to Medina and was converted to Islam, without, however, making any radical change in his way of life; on the death of the Prophet, he apostatised and took part in the rebellion of al-Aswad al-ʿAnsī [ q.v.]; taken prisoner in the course of the suppression of the ridda by Abū Bakr, he was free…

b. riyāḥ b. al-ḥārit̲h̲ b. muk̲h̲ās̲h̲in , abū ḥayda (or Abu ’l-Ḥaffād, Ansāb ; the verse quoted there is, however, attributed in K. al-Muʿammarīn , 92, to Rabīʿa b. ʿUzayy, also of Usayyid) of the clan of Usayyid, a branch of the tribe of Tamīm, was one of the judges of the d̲j̲āhiliyya . The biography of Akt̲h̲am consists mostly of legendary stories. Numerous traditions tell of missions by kings and chiefs to ask advice from him. The utterances of Akt̲h̲am contain wise sayings about life, friendship, behaviour, virtue, wome…

, an important group of the tribe of Tamīm [ q.v.] with the genealogy Yarbūʿ b. Ḥanẓala b. Mālik b. Zayd Manāt b. Tamīm (see Caskel-Strenziok, in Bibl.). The same name is borne by other ethnic groups not only Tamīmī (e.g. Yarbūʿ b. Mālik b. Ḥanẓala, cf. Mufaḍḍaliyyāt , ed. Lyall, 122, 1. 18 and parallel passages) and also Yarbūʿ b. Tamīm in Caskel-Strenziok), but also of other tribes, of the south (Kalb, Saʿd Hud̲h̲ayn, D̲j̲uhayna) and of the north (G̲h̲aṭafān, T̲h̲aḳīf, G̲h̲anī, Sulaym, Ḥanīfa, ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa; we also find among the Ḳurays̲h̲ a Yarbūʿ b. ʿAnkat̲h̲a b. ʿĀmir b. Mak̲h̲zūm). Yar…

, ʿumayla b. al-aʿzal b. k̲h̲ālīd al-ʿadawanī , a personage of the end of the D̲j̲āhiliyya, said have been the first to fix the diya or pecuniary composition for murder at 100 camels and the last to lead the pilgrims, either at the departure for ʿArafāt ( ifāḍa ) or from al-Muzdalifa to Minā ( id̲j̲āza ), since the sources disagree on this point, and the more careful authors merely use the expression dafaʿa bi ’l-nās . This man, who probably owed his kunya to this function of his, a privilege of the Ḳaysī tribe of ʿAdwān (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 92 …

, pre-Islamic sayyid and poet; through his mother he was the grandson of the sayyid and poet al-Muhalhil [ q.v.]. While still a youth he became chief of his tribe, the Ḏj̲us̲h̲am branch of the Tag̲h̲lib [ q.v.] of the Middle Euphrates. What we know of his life is confined to a few traditions ( k̲h̲abar ); one describes the circumstances of his assassination of the King of al-Ḥīra, ʿAmr b. Hind, about 568 A.D.; another serves as a commentary on some epigrams against another ruler of that town, al-Nuʿmān b. al-Mund̲h̲ir (580-602 A…

al-Rukūniyya (al-Rakūniyya), poetess of Granada born after 530/1135, d. 589/1190-1. Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb ( Iḥāṭa , i, 316) and other writers praise the beauty, distinction, literary culture, wit, and poetic gifts of this woman, who was remembered in later ages above all for her love-affair with the poet Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Ibn Saʿīd of the Banū Saʿīd [see ibn saʿīd ] family. Abu D̲j̲aʿfar was the inspiration of most of her poetry which we possess. After the arrival at Granada of Abū Saʿīd ʿUt̲h̲mān, the son of the Almohad ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, sh…

(a.), a complex and delicate notion which includes a certain number of qualities of character or moral attitudes, ranging from serene justice and moderation to forbearance and leniency, with self-mastery and dignity of bearing standing between these extremes. The term, which is sometimes linked with ʿilm , more however from stylistic considerations and a taste for paronomasia than from any conceptual association, is basically contrasted with d̲j̲ahl [see d̲j̲āhiliyya ] and safah or safāha ; a derivative from the latter root appears in the expression saffaha ’ l-aḥlām …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Isḥāḳ b. al-ʿAbbās , 3rd/9th-century historian of Mecca. No information on him was available to later Muslim scholars, or is to us, except what can be learned from his History of Mecca , of which the second half is preserved in a single manuscript in Leiden (cod. or. 463). A small portion of the work has been edited by F. Wüstenfeld, Die Chroniken der Stadt Mekka , Leipzig 1857-61, ii, 3-51. Al-Fākihī was alive and, it seems, quite young during the judgeship of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Yazīd b. Muḥammad b. Hanzala b. Muḥam…

, Arab poetess of the 1st/7th century of the tribe of the ʿUḳayl (ʿAmīr b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa group) whose nisba came to her from an ancestor, Ak̲h̲yal, or from several of the Ak̲h̲āʾil. Literary tradition attributes to her an elegy on the murder of ʿUt̲h̲mān and speaks of her as having been familiar, late in life, with the caliphs Muʿāwiya and ʿAbd al-Malik, and the redoutable governor al-Hād̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲: it follows that the pinnacle of her career should be placed at around 650-60 A.D. She is wellknow…