, town in Egypt on the western bank of the Suez Canal and on the northern shore of Lake Timsāḥ. The town originated from huts of workers and engineers engaged in excavating the Suez Canal. Its foundations were laid by the Inspector General of the Suez Canal Company on 27 April 1862. After the succession of the Khedive Ismāʿīl to the throne on 18 January 1863 it was called Ismāʿīliyya. In 1864 a network of streets and quarters, a central square ( maydān ), a government building ( sarāy ) and a pump for water-supply were established, and in 1868 the town was conn…

, a major branch of the S̲h̲īʿa with numerous subdivisions. It branched off from the Imāmiyya [see it̲h̲nā ʿas̲h̲ariyya ] by tracing the imāmate through Imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ’s son Ismāʿīl, after whom it is named. History: Pre-Fāṭimid and Fāṭimid times. After the death of D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ in 148/765 a group of his followers held fast to the imāmate of his son Ismāʿīl, who had been named by him as his successor but had predeceased him. Some of them maintained that Ismāʿīl had not died and would reappear a…

[see ismāʿīliyya ].

[see ismāʿīliyya ].

[see ismāʿīliyya ].

, Lake, one of the series of swamps and lagoons in the Eastern Nile Delta region of Egypt (now administratively in the muḥāfaẓa of Ismāʿīliyya) through which the Suez Canal passes on its way from Port Saʿīd south to Suez. The Canal enters the Lake at the 80th kilometre. On the northern shore lies the town of Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.]. The Lake is about 6 sq. miles in area, although before the construction of the Canal it was brackish and reedy. Now it is very picturesque, with its bright blue waters and the background of desert hills. The name means “Crocodil…

, Tell el-Kebir, a fairly recent village agglomeration of some 5 settlements in the Egyptian Nile Delta, 50 km/30 miles west of Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.] at the eastern end of al-S̲h̲arḳiyya province. Located in Wādī Ṭumaylāt, ancient fortifications ¶ and mounds of buried cities mostly of Ptolemaic times underline the former strategic importance of the settlement. During the late Middle Ages, the Wādī Ṭumaylāt had ceased to be a place of permanent settlement, and it was only in the middle of the 19th century that the Wādī was recultivated…

, "Seveners", a designation for those S̲h̲īʿīsects which recognise a series of seven Imāms. Unlike the name It̲h̲nā ʿas̲h̲ariyya or "Twelvers" the term Sabʿiyya does not occur in mediaeval Arabic texts; it seems to have been coined by modern scholars by analogy with the first term. The name is often used to designate the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.], but this is not correct, because neither the Bohora nor the Ḵh̲ōd̲j̲a Ismāʿīlīs count seven Imāms. The term can be applied only to the earliest stage of the development of the Ismāʿīlī sect, during which the Ismā…

, ḥasan , founder and Director-General of al-Ik̲h̲wān al-Muslimūn, was born in the year 1906, the son of Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad al-Bannāʾ al-Sāʿātī. In addition to carrying on his trade of watch-maker, his father was a keen student of the traditional Islamic sciences and the editor of the Musnad of Ibn Ḥanbal. Paternal influence was of the greatest significance in shaping the formative years of Ḥasan al-Bannāʾ and his early education followed the ancient pattern of that of the sons of the ʿulamāʾ —the memorising of the Ḳurʾān and the study of ḥadīt̲h̲ , fiḳh and lug̲h̲a . In addit…

b. ibrāhīm b. al-walīd al-anf al-ḳuras̲h̲ī , the mentor of ʿAlī b. Ḥātim al-Ḥāmidī [ q.v.], whom he succeeded as the fifth dāʿī muṭlaḳ of the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs in Yaman in 605/1209, came from a prominent al-Walīd family of Ḳurays̲h̲. His great-grandfather Ibrāhīm b. Abī Salama was a leading chieftain of the founder of the Ṣulayḥid dynasty ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Ṣulayḥī, and he was sent by the latter on an official mission to Cairo. He studied first under his uncle ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn and then under Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir al-Ḥārit̲h̲ī. After al-Ḥārit̲h̲ī’s death, Ḥātim b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāmidī [ q…

, a major branch of the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.], whose beginnings can be traced to the succession dispute following the death of the Fāṭimid [ q.v.] Imām and caliph al-Mustanṣir bi’llāh (d. 487/1094). Those who gave their allegiance to Nizār, al-Mustanṣir’s eldest son, as the designated successor and imām , and subsequently to those claiming descent from him, were called Nizāriyya. One of the most important figures in consolidating Nizārī identity in its early phase, particularly in Persia, was the well-known figure and dā ʿī Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ [ q.v.], under whose leadership the Nizārīs w…

, plural of ḥaḳīḳa =truth, as a technical term denotes the gnostic system of the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.] and related groups. In this technical sense the term is used particularly by the Ṭayyibīs. During the eras of the prophets of the law—the time of concealment ( satr )—the ḥaḳāʾiḳ are hidden in the bāṭin [see bāṭiniyya ], the interior truth behind the exterior ( ẓāhir ) of the scriptures and the law. While the law changes with every new prophetic era the truth of the ḥaḳāʾiḳ is eternal. This truth is the exclusive property of the divinely guided Imām and the hierarchy of teachers …

al-maḥfūzī al-wādiʿī al-hamdānī , succeeded ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Walīd [ q.v.] as the sixth dāʿī muṭlaḳ of the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs in Yaman in 612/1215. As the country was passing through a critical period of internal strife after its occupation by the Ayyūbids, the dāʿī pursued a policy of non-interference in politics. He maintained good relations both with the Ayyūbid rulers of Ṣanʿāʾ and the Yāmid sulṭāns of Banū Ḥātim in D̲h̲amarmar which enabled him to carry out his activities without much difficulties. He died on 12 or 22 Rabīʿ I 626/8 or 18 February 1229. Both his compositi…

, "the Silent One", as opposed to al-nāṭiḳ ¶ "the Speaking One", a term used by several extremist S̲h̲īʿī sectarians ( g̲h̲ulāt ) to designate a messenger of God who does not reveal a new Law ( s̲h̲arīʿa ). The pair of terms is found in the notices concerning the doctrines of the Manṣūriyya and Ḵh̲aṭṭābiyya [ q.vv.] sects respectively (Saʿd b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳummī, K. al-Maḳālāt wa ’l-firaḳ , ed. Mas̲h̲kūr, 48, 51). According to the doctrine of the Ḵh̲aṭṭābiyya, Muḥammad was the nāṭiḳ and ʿAlī the ṣāmit ; in the same sense the two terms are used in the earliest treatises of the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.]; e.…

, a castle of the Ismāʿīlīs [see ismāʿīliyya ] in the Alburz Mountains in northwestern Iran, the mediaeval region of Daylam [ q.v.]. ¶ Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn states that it was built in 490/1097 by the Grand Master of the Assassins Ḥasan-i Sabbāḥ or by his successor Kiyā Buzurg-Ummīd in the early 6th/12th century. Ḏj̲uwaynī, tr. Boyle, II, 621-36, cf. M. G. S. Hodgson, The order of the Assassins , The Hague 1955, 265 ff., has a detailed account of the fortress’s reduction by the Il-Ḵh̲ān Hülegü in S̲h̲awwāl 654/November 1256. The Mongols besieged …

, ʿAbd al-Malik , an Ismāʿīlī dāʿī who in the mid-5th/11th century was in charge of the Daʿwa in ʿIrāḳ and western Persia. Information about him is scanty. According to the autobiography of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ [ q.v.], he went to Rayy in Ramaḍān 464/May-June 1072, and enrolled Ḥasan in the Daʿwa. He is also said to have won over the Raʾīs Muẓaffar of Girdkūh, later one of the most active leaders of the Nizārīs. Ẓahīr al-Dīn and Rāwandī also allude to his relations with Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ. According to this version, ʿAbd al-Malik, a resident of Iṣfahān, …

b. Yūsuf b. Muḥammad b. Ādam al-Bharūčī al-Hindī , Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlī savant. According to his own statement he was born and brought up in K̲h̲ambhāt (Cambay) in India, and received his early education there. It is not known when and by whom the surname “Bharūčī”, sc. from Bharūč or Broach, [see Bharoč ], was given to him. Urged on by a thirst for knowledge, he states, he renounced family, left his country, travelled to Yaman, and became a student of Ḥasan b. Idrīs, the twentieth dāʿī muṭlaḳ . The books read by him with his teacher in various branches of the ʿulūm al-daʿwa …

, ¶ from Ḥārit̲h̲, a well-known tribe and a branch of the Hamdān [ q.v.] confederation, was a prominent figure in the Mustaʿlī-Ṭayyibī Ismāʿīlīs of Yaman. After the death of his teacher ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Ibrāhīm al-Walīd in 554/1159, he was appointed by Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāmidī [ q.v.], the second dāʿī muṭlaḳ , along with the latter’s son Ḥātim to assist him in the affairs of the daʿwa . On the dāʿī Ibrahim’s death in 557/1161, when Ḥātim b. Ibrāhīm became the next dāʿī muṭlaḳ, he was promoted to the rank of maʾd̲h̲ūn and was stationed in Ṣanʿāʾ as the dāʿī’s deput…

, Fāṭimid claimant, born on 10 Rabīʿ I 437/26 September 1045. On the death of his father, having been displaced by his youngest brother al-Mustaʿlī [ q.v.], Nizār fled to Alexandria, took the title of al-Muṣṭafā li-Dīn Allāh, and rose in revolt early in 488/1095 with the assistance of the governor, Naṣr al-Dawla Aftakīn, who was jealous of al-Afḍal, and the population of the city. He was at first successful in driving back al-Afḍal and advanced as far as the outskirts of Cairo, supported by Arab auxiliaries. Al-Afḍal aga…

, the seventh imām of the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.]. The eldest son of Ismāʿīl b. Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ, Muḥammad was born around 120/738; and on the death of his grandfather, the imām Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ, in 148/765 he was recognised as imām by a faction of the Imāmī S̲h̲īʿīs, who were later designated as the Mubārakiyya. These S̲h̲īʿīs, comprising one of the earliest Ismāʿīlī groups, affirmed the death of Muḥammad’s father Ismāʿīl in the lifetime of the imām al-Ṣādiḳ. They further held that al-Ṣādiḳ had personally designated his grandson Muḥammad on Ismāʿīl…