, the Prophet of Islam. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. 2. The Prophet in popular Muslim piety. 3. The Prophet’s image in Europe and the West. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. Belief that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God ( Muḥammadun rasūlu ’llāh ) is second only to belief in the Oneness of God ( lā ilāha illā ’llāh ) according to the s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.], the quintessential Islamic creed. Muḥammad has a highly exalted role at the heart of Muslim faith. At the same time the Ḳurʾān and Islamic orthodoxy insist that he was fully human with no supernatural powers. That Muḥammad was one of the greate…

b. ʿamr b. tamīm al-farāhidī ( al-furhūdī ; see W. Caskel, Ǧamharat an-nasab , ii, 343 f.) al-azdī al-yaḥmadī al-baṣrī abū ʿabd al-raḥmān , important Arab philologist. Born in ʿUmān, he grew up in Baṣra where he died, at over seventy, in 175/791, or 170/786, or 160/776 (Zubaydī, Ṭabaḳāt , 47; Marzubānī, Muḳtabas , 56; Fihrist , 42). As a young man he adhered to the Ṣufriyya [ q.v.], but he embraced Sunnī orthodoxy under the influence of his teacher Ayyūb al-Sak̲h̲tivānī (d. 131/748,) a well-known traditionist and faḳīh (Ziriklī, Aʿlām , i, 382). His studies in Ar…

al-īyādī , abū ʿabd allāh , Muʿtazilite ḳāḍī born at Baṣra about 160/776. Through his own merit and also, it is said, through the good offices of Yaḥyā b. Akt̲h̲am [ q.v.], who introduced him to the Court at Bag̲h̲dād, he reached a position of great honour under the Caliph al-Maʾmūn, soon becoming one of the Caliph’s closest friends. Shortly before his death, the Caliph recommended his brother and successor al-Muʿtaṣim to admit Aḥmad, a fervent follower of the Muʿtazilite doctrine, to the circle of his advisers, and as a resu…

b. Abī Umayya , kātib and poet in Arabie who is the best-known member (Sezgin is in error on this point) of a family of kuttāb or secretaries quoted for their share in literary activities. He had several brothers, all poets like their father and grandfather: ʿAlī, ʿAbd Allāh and Aḥmad, and also an uncle, also called Muḥammad, all of which has inevitably caused confusion in the attribution of the verses drawn by biographers and anthologists from a collection which is said to have amounted to, for the whole family, almost 200 sheets. Born ca. 200/815, Muḥammad b. Umayya frequented the circ…

al-T̲h̲aḳafī , a military commander of the Umayyad dynasty and conqueror of Sind. A highly respected member of the tribe of T̲h̲aḳīf ( as̲h̲raf T̲h̲aḳafī fī zamānihi ), he was a favourite of al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ who even considered him a suitable match for his sister Zaynab ( Ag̲h̲ānī 1, vi, 28-9). His fame is due chiefly to his military exploits in the western Indian province of Sind. Al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ appointed him to lead an expedition to Sind between 89/708 and 92/711 (for various dates, see F. Gabrieli, in East and West, xv [1965], 282, n. 1 ter , and Ibn al-At̲h…

, the fifth Imām of the Twelver S̲h̲īʿa. The epithet al-Bāḳir, short for bāḳir al-ʿilm , is explained as meaning either “the one who splits knowledge open” (i.e. brings it to light), or “the one who possesses great knowledge”. The Prophet Muḥammad is quoted as declaring that al-Bāḳir was already referred to by this epithet in the Torah (Ibn Bābawayh, ʿIlal al-s̲h̲arāʾiʿ , Nad̲j̲af 1385/1966, 233; idem, Amālī , Nad̲j̲af 1389/1970, 315). Al-Bāḳir was born in Medina on 3 Ṣafar or 1 Rad̲j̲ab 57/16 December 676 or 10 May 677 (or on the same days…

, Abu ’l-Walīd Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, al-D̲j̲add (“the grandfather” of the celebrated philosopher Averroes or Ibn Rus̲h̲d [ q.v.]), the most prominent Mālikī jurist of his day in the Muslim West, whose very real merits as an exponent of Mālik have been eclipsed by his grandson’s fame as an exponent of Aristotle. Born in 450/1058-9, he died on 21 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 520/8 December 1126 and was buried in the cemetery of (Ibn) ʿAbbās in east Cordova, his native city. From 511/1117 until 515/1121 Ibn Rus̲h̲d was, as ḳāḍī ’l-d̲j̲amāʿa in Cordova, holder of the highest offic…

, Abu ’l-Walīd Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. G̲h̲ālib al-Mak̲h̲zūmī , famous Andalusian poet born at Cordova of an aristocratic family, in 394/1003. His early years coincided with the especially troubled period at the end of the Umayyad caliphate. He probably took part in the events which led to the establishment of the D̲j̲ahwarid oligarchy in Cordova, since Ibn K̲h̲āḳān refers to him as zaʿīm al-fitna al-ḳurtubiyya . Soon after the governor Abu ’l-Ḥazm ibn D̲j̲ahwar had seized power, he made Ibn Zaydūn his companion, and then his vizier, even conferring on him the title of d̲h̲u ’l-wizār…

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Ḥasan (incorrect var. Ḥusayn ) b. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan al-K̲h̲aṭīb b. ʿAlī b. Maymūn b. Ḳunfud̲h̲ (var. al-Ḳunfud̲h̲ ), Algerian jurist, traditionist and historian born in 731/1330 or, more probably, in 741/1340, died in 809/1406 or 810/1407, in Constantine, a member of a family of teachers and jurists from that town and its environs. His ancestor, Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-K̲h̲aṭīb, who taught ḥadīt̲h̲ in Constantine and claimed to belong to the confraternity of the S̲h̲ād̲h̲iliyya, died in 664/1265 (cf. Wafayāt , 51); his grandfather ʿAlī b. Ḥasan, also k̲h̲aṭīb …

, the author of a work on the Raids ( mag̲h̲āzī [ q.v.]), used by such later authors as Ibn Sayyid al-Nās and al-D̲h̲ahabī. His given name was Muḥammad. His kunya is variously given as Abū ʿAbd Allāh or Abū Aḥmad, and his grandfather’s name as Saʿīd or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Born in Damascus in 150/767, he died there on Thursday, 25 Rabīʿ II 233/8 December 847 (or in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 232/July-August 847, or in 234/848), having been the tax collector for the G̲h̲ūṭa under al-Maʾmūn. As a historian, he stand…

, Muḥammad b. Isḥāḳ b. Yasār b. K̲h̲iyār (according to some sources, b. K̲h̲abbār , or Kūmān , or Kūtān ), one of the main authorities on al-sīra al-nabawiyya , along with Mūsā b. ʿUḳba and al-Wāḳidī. His kunya is variously given as Abū ʿAbd Allāh or Abū Bakr. On the whole, the former is the better substantiated and the confusion may have resulted from the fact that he had a brother called Abū Bakr ( Udabāʾ , vi, 400). He was born in Medina in about 85/704, and, according to the majority of the sources, died in Bag̲h̲dād in 150/767 —alternative dates for his death are 151, 153 and, in one case ( Wafayāt …

, Abu ’l-Wafāʾ ʿAlī b. ʿAḳīl b. Muḥammad b. ʿAḳīl b. Aḥmad al-Bag̲h̲dādī al-Ẓafarī , Ḥanbalī jurist and theologian (431/1040-513/1119), a great Sunnī personality whose life and writings shed light on one of the most important periods in the development of Muslim religious thought, and who stands at the head of a progressive movement within Sunnī traditionalism. Family origins and early youth. Ibn ʿAḳīl was born in Bag̲h̲dād, on the left bank quarter of Bāb al-Ṭāḳ (see his Kitāb al-Funūn , fol. 12b: “… Bāb al-Ṭāḳ, the quarter in which I was born”), in D…

, name of a Cordovan family, of which five members are, for various reasons, worthy of mention. The genealogy of the family is given in Ibn al-Abbār, no. 1517. I. Abu ’l-Aṣbag̲h̲ ʿĪsā b. ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḳuzmān , poet and man of letters of the 4th/10th century. The chamberlain al-Manṣūr Ibn Abī ʿĀmir chose him as one of the tutors of the young caliph His̲h̲ām II al-Muʾayyad, who succeeded to the throne at the age of eleven in 366/976. Thus, in spite of the opinion of E. Lévi-Provençal ( Du nouveau . . . 13), it is impossible that he should have been the father of the famous writer of zad̲j̲als …

Abu ’l-Walīd Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Rus̲h̲d, al-Ḥafīd (the grandson), the “Commentator of Aristotle”, famous in the Mediaeval West under the name of Averroes, scholar of the Ḳurʾānic sciences and the natural sciences (physics, medicine, biology, astronomy), theologian and philosopher. I. Life . He was born at Cordova in 520/1126 and died at Marrākus̲h̲ in 595/1198. The Arabic biographical sources are: Ibn al-Abbār, Takmila , BAH, vi, no. 853; Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyūn ; al-Anṣāri, supplement to the dictionaries of Ibn Bas̲h̲kuwāl and of Ib…

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-K̲h̲awlānī . an Andalusian poet who lived among the entourage of the early ʿAbbādids [ q.v.] of Seville and died in 433/1041-2. Of his Dīwān only a few poems survive, in particular a panegyric of Ismāʿīl Ibn ʿAbbād, some occasional verse and some descriptions; floral poems seem to have occupied a leading part in his work, which drew its inspiration from the life of the Andalusian aristocracy of the time: wine, pleasures, country-walks, women— these for the most part are his favourite subjects, and an element of sensuality is visible in his poems. His ¶ tech…

, whose full name was S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Faraḥ b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Lak̲h̲mī al-Is̲h̲bīlī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī , born in 625/1228 at Seville (Is̲h̲bīliya [ q.v.]), was taken prisoner in 646/1248 by the Franks (al-Ifrand̲j̲), i.e., the Spaniards under Ferdinand III the Saint, of Castile (1217-52), at the conquest of Seville, but escaped and afterwards went, between 650 and 660/1252-62, to Egypt; after hearing the most celebrated teachers of Cairo, he studied under those of Damascus, where he settled and gave lectures …

, Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Marrākus̲h̲ī , born in Marrākus̲h̲ in 1894, where he died on 30 November 1949. His father held the office of muwaḳḳit in the Ibn Yūsuf mosque at Marrākus̲h̲. Hence the son, at the start of his career as a writer, bore the surname Ibn al-Muwaḳḳit, but when he came to hold the same position he was himself called al-Muwaḳḳit. From 1917, he became known to scholars interested in Morocco through the publication of four biographical works, the principal and most useful of which is entitled al-Saʿāda al-abadiyya fi ’l-taʿrīf bimas̲h̲āhīr al-ḥaḍra al-Mar…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Salmānī , vizier and historian of Granada, who bore the laḳabs of Lisān al-Dīn and D̲h̲u ’l-wizāratayn, apart from those by which he was designated after his death. Of Arab descent through the sub-tribe of the Salmān, a clan of the Murād of the Yemen, he came from a family which was established in Syria and which arrived in the Iberian peninsula in the 2nd/8th century, took up residence in Cordova, and then move…

, muḥammad b. ʿalī b. al-ṭayyib b. al-ḥusayn , Muʿtazili theologian. Little is known about his education and early career. He originated from Baṣra where he heard ḥadīt̲h̲ . As he studied kalām and uṣūl al-fiḳh with Ḳāḍī ʿAbd al-D̲j̲abbār [ q.v.], he must have visited Rayy for some time. With the Christian Abū ʿAlī b. al-Samḥ, a student of Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī, he studied philosophy and sciences, presumably in Bag̲h̲dād. This is attested by a manuscript containing his redaction of the notes of Ibn al-Samḥ on the Physics of Aristotle. He may have also studied and prac…

b. Ḏj̲amra b. S̲h̲addād b. ʿUbayd b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. Yarbūʿ , Abu ’l-Mig̲h̲wār , brother of the poet Mutammim [ q.v.] and a poet in his own right, considered as the chief of the B. Yarbūʿ during Muḥammad’s lifetime. The B. Yarbūʿ was one of the most powerful tribes of the Tamīm confederacy, and was involved in many of the battles ( ayyām al-ʿarab [ q.v.] in the D̲j̲āhiliyya. The office of ridāfa —a kind of viceroyship in the court of al-Ḥīra— was traditionally held by members of Yarbūʿ, among whom was Mālik b. Nuwayra (there is, however, an account according to which he was offered the ridāfa, but reje…