, name of several secretaries or viziers of the ʿAbbāsid period, who did not however all belong to the same family. al-Ḥasan b. Mak̲h̲lad b. al-D̲j̲arrāḥ was a secretary of Christian origin and recently converted to Islam, who served the caliph al-Mutawakkil and became vizier under al-Muʿtamid, for the first time in 263/877, then in 264-5/878-9, and was dismissed from the government on the insistence of the regent al-Muwaffaḳ. He seems to have been exiled to Egypt, where he was at first welcomed by…

, Banū , a family of famous Cordovan jurists who, from father to son, during ten generations, distinguished themselves in the study of fiḳh . The eponymous ancestor of the family was Mak̲h̲lad b. Yazīd, who was ḳāḍī of the province of Reyyoh (the kūra in the south-west of Spain, the capital of which was Malaga), in the reign of the amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II, in the first half of the 3rd/9th century. His son, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Baḳī b. Mak̲h̲lad [ q.v.], was by far the most famous member of the family, and his direct descendants devoted their intellectual activity mainly to comme…

[see ibn mak̲h̲lad ].

, abū ʿabd al-raḥmān , celebrated traditionist and exegete of Cordova, probably of Christian origin, born in 201/817, died In 276/889. Like many Spanish Muslims, he visited the principal cities of the Orient, where he frequented the society of representatives of various mad̲h̲āhib , in particular Ibn Ḥanbal; on his return to Cordova, he displayed such independence in doctrinal matters ¶ (some count him however as a S̲h̲āfiʿī and he is Tegarded as having introduced the Ẓāhirī doctrines into Spain) and opposition to taḳlīd , that he soon found himself regarded with hostility by the Mālikī fu…

, Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ite leader (belonging to the Ibāḍi al-Nukkār [ q.v.]), who by his revolt shook the Fāṭimid realm in North Africa to its foundations. His father, a Zanāta Berber merchant from Taḳyūs (or Tūzar) in the district of Ḳastīliya, bought in Tadmakat a slave girl called Sabīka, who bore him Abū Yazīd about 270/883 (apparently in the Sūdān). Abū Yazīd studied the Ibāḍī mad̲h̲hab and became a schoolmaster in Tāhart. At the time of the victory of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-S̲h̲īʿī he moved to Taḳyūs and started, in 316/928, his anti-government …

, i.e., Abū Yaʿḳūb Isḥāḳ b. Ibrāhīm b. Mak̲h̲lad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥanẓalī al-Marwazī , a prominent traditionist. His father was called Rāhwayh because he had been born on a road. Ibn Rāhwayh himself was born in Marw in 161/778 or 166/782-3, travelled in ʿIrāḳ, Ḥid̲j̲āz, Yemen and Syria, visited Bag̲h̲dād more than once and finally settled in Nīsābūr where he died in 238/853; his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. He heard traditions from ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak (Brockelmann, S I, 256), Sufyān b. ʿUyayna [ q.v.], Wakīʿ b. al-D̲j̲arrāḥ, an authority of al-Buk̲h̲ārī, and Ḏj̲arīr b. ʿA…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad (but Muḥammad in S̲h̲īrawayh’s History of Hamad̲h̲ān, see Ḳifṭī, Inbāh , i, 325, 12) b. Ḥamdān al-Hamad̲h̲ānī , famous Arabic grammarian and adīb . He was born in Hamad̲h̲ān [ q.v.]. The exact year of his birth is not known but it must have been in the ninth decade of the 3rd century A.H., since he went in 314/926, while still young, to study in Bag̲h̲dād, where he found eminent teachers. Among his teachers of the Ḳurʾān was the head of the Ḳurʾān readers of Bag̲h̲dād, Ibn Mud̲j̲āhid (d. 324/936)…

, name of the members of an important family, of Christian origin, among whom were several high officials of the ʿAbbāsid administration. An anecdote related by Ibn al-Nadim ( Fihrist , 130) and repeated by Yāḳūt ( Udabāʾ , iv, 144-5) suggests that the family’s ancestor, T̲h̲awāba, lived in Baḥrayn where he was a barber. His son Muḥammad entered the administration at an unknown date. The best-known members of the family are: Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad , who was, under al-Muhtadī (ruled 255/869-256/870), one of the chief assistants of the vizier…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muslim al-Dīnawarī (some add al-Kūfī , which refers to his place of birth, and al-Marwazī , which is probably the ethnic name of his father), one of the great Sunnī polygraphs of the 3rd/9th century, being both a theologian and a writer of adab . He seems to have been descended, in the second or third generation, from an Arabicized Iranian family from K̲h̲urāsān which was connected on the female side with the Bāhilīs of Baṣra and may have come to ʿIrāḳ in the wake of the ʿAbbāsid armies during the second half of the 2nd/8th century. He was born at Kūfa in 213/828, but…

, Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm (= Abū S̲h̲ayba) b. ʿUt̲h̲mān al-ʿAbsī al-Kūfī , ʿIrāḳī traditionist and historian (159-235/775-849) who came of a family of religious scholars; his grandfather Abū S̲h̲ayba was already ḳāḍī of Wāsiṭ, but he is described as ḍaʿīf (Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Lisān al-Mīzān , vi, 395). Abū Bakr studied ¶ at al-Ruṣāfa, travelled “in search of learning” and died at Kūfa after having resided at Bag̲h̲dād. He had many pupils, among them Ibn Mād̲j̲a [ q.v.], and wrote several works, which are listed in the Fihrist : K. al-Taʾrīk̲h̲ , K. al-Fitan , K. Ṣiffīn , K. al-Ḏj̲am…

, K̲h̲alīfa , d. 240/854, generally known as S̲h̲abāb, was a prominent chronicler and genealogist who specialized in the study of tradition ( muḥaddit̲h̲ ). Little is known about his life. He seems to have lived for about 80 years. He was born in Baṣra, and it would appear that he was educated and also taught exclusively in his native city, not travelling to other cities as was then customary. This is indicated by the fact that al-K̲h̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī does not mention him in his History of Bag̲h…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-ʿAbbās b. D̲j̲urayd̲j̲ (or Ḏj̲urd̲j̲is or Ḏj̲urd̲j̲īs). poet of the 3rd/9th century, was born at Bag̲h̲dād on 2 Rad̲j̲ab 221/21 June 836 and died there in 283/896 (some sources give the date of his death as 276/889 or 284/897). His father, al-ʿAbbās, a Byzantine freedman and a client of ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿĪsā b. D̲j̲aʿfar, was probably the first member of the family to embrace Islam. His mother Ḥasana, the daughter of ʿAbd Allāh al-Sid̲j̲zī, was of Persian origin. Little is known of his studies. It is known, however, that he went to a school attended by …

, Banū , a family of officials in caliphal service, especially noted as secretaries and viziers to the ʿAbbāsids during the 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The majority of sources state that the family came from Wāsiṭ and were of Nestorian Christian origin before converting to Islam, nevertheless claiming a pure Arabic origin going back to the Yemeni tribe of Balḥārit̲h̲ of Nad̲j̲rān. The Wahbīs thus belong to the tradition of servants of the caliphs with Nestorian backgrounds who were prominent in the administrations of the 3rd/9th century (cf. L. Massignon, La politique islamo-c…

(a.), vizier or chief minister. I. In the Arab World 1. The ʿAbbāsids. Etymology The term wazīr occurs in the Ḳurʾān (XXV, 35: “We gave Moses the book and made his brother Aaron a wazīr with him”), where it has the sense of “helper”, a meaning well attested in early Islamic poetry (for examples, see Goitein, The origin of the vizierate, 170-1). Though several scholars have proposed Persian origins for the term and for the institution, there is no compelling reason to doubt the Arabic provenance of the term or an Arab-Islamic origin and evolution of the institution of the wazīr (cf. Goitein, op. ci…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan aḥmad b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Mūsā b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī al-Nadīm (and also al-Ṭunbūrī , because he played the tunbūr , lute (Fr.: “pandore”)). A philologist and transmitter of traditions, singer and musician, poet and wit and a descendant of the Barmakids. He was reputedly born in 224/839, and died at the age of a hundred, at Wāsiṭ in S̲h̲aʿbān 324/June-July 936. A man of very varied culture, but little religion, of doubtful morals and repulsive appearance (he was dirty and ugly, and owed…

, al-ḍaḥḥāk b. mak̲h̲lad b. muslim b. al-ḍaḥḥāk al-s̲h̲aybānī al-baṣri , traditionist, born at Mecca in 122/740 but established subsequently at Baṣra, where he transmitted from a host of scholars (notably al-Aṣmaʿī) a large quantity of ḥadīt̲h̲s gathered by himself, and especially from several tābiʿīs or Successors. He was considered as trustworthy, and some of his ḥadīt̲h̲s were included in the great collections; his biographers assert that he never fabricated a single one, although he is said to have declared that pious men never lie so much as in …

, Abū Ayyūb Sulaymān b. Mak̲h̲lad (the nisba stemming from Mūriyān in Ahwāz, see Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , ed. Beirut, v, 221), secretary of the second ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr [ q.v.]. Various stories are given in the sources about how he came to enjoy al-Manṣūr’s confidence: that in the time of the last Umayyad caliph Marwān b. Muḥammad he had saved the ʿAbbāsid Abū D̲j̲aʿfar from a flogging for embezzling state funds (al-Yaʿḳūbī, al-D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī): that he was a freed slave of al-Saffah’s, taken into his successor’s service (…

, Abuʾl-Ṣaḳr , vizier of the ʿAbbāsid Caliph al-Muʿtamid [ q.v.]. Of Persian or Mesopotamian origin, he was born in 230/844-5 and claimed to belong to the Arab tribe of the S̲h̲aybān. Abu ’l-Ṣaḳr, who had been a secretary and had been in charge of the dīwān of the Royal Domains, appeared on the political scene in 265/878, when the regent al-Muwaffaḳ had him appointed vizier, a post which he had to abandon shortly afterwards only to regain it at the end of the year. But Ismāʿīl played a minor role while the regent had Ṣāʿid b. Mak̲h̲lad [ q.v.] as his personal secretary, and it was only from t…

, the name of several Muslim scholars: (1) Muḥammad b. Aṣbag̲h̲ b. Muḥammad b. Yūsuf b. Nāṣiḥ b. ʿAṭāʾ from Cordova (born 4 Rabīʿ I 255/20 February 869, died 306/918-19 during the raid of Badr b. Aḥmad). A ḥadīt̲h̲ scholar who had as teachers Baḳī b. Mak̲h̲lad [ q.v.], Muḥammad b. Waḍḍāḥ, Aṣbag̲h̲ b. K̲h̲alīl, al-K̲h̲us̲h̲anī [ q.v.] and Ibn al-Ḳazzāz. He is said to have been proficient in grammar and uncommon language ( g̲h̲arīb ) and followed individual judgment ( raʾy ). If we may believe his biographer Ibn al-Faraḍī, he was versed in different kinds …

, Sulaymān b. al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ , a traditionist; born in 202/817. He travelled widely in pursuit of his studies and gained a high reputation for his knowledge and piety. Eventually he settled at Baṣra, which is no doubt why some wrongly held that the nisba Sid̲j̲istānī comes from a village near Baṣra called Sid̲j̲istān (or Sid̲j̲istāna), and not from the province of that name. He died in S̲h̲awwāl 275/Febr. 889. Abū Dāʾūd’s principal work is his Kitāb al-Sunan , which is one of the six canonical books of Tradition accepted by Sunnīs. He is said to hav…