, abū ʿamra , a mawlā [ v.q.] of ʿUrayna, who belonged to the Bad̲j̲īla, was one of the prominent Mawālī in Kūfa during the revolt of al-Muk̲h̲tār b. Abī ʿUbayd al-T̲h̲aḳafī [ q.v.]. Little is known about his early life; the first important information is that prior to the revolt of al-Muk̲h̲tār he was known to be a S̲h̲īʿī sympathiser. Kaysān also was among the notables of the S̲h̲īʿa and the influential men of al-Muk̲h̲tār’s followers who were sent to Ibrāhīm b. al-As̲h̲tar to win his support for al-Muk̲h̲tār. When al-Muk̲h̲tār seized Kūfa, he appointed Kaysān as leader of his personal guard ( ʿ…

, Abu ’l-Hasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm , Bag̲h̲dādī philologist who according to all the known sources, died in 299/311-12; this date is nevertheless challenged by Yāḳūt who, believing that al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī is in error, opts for 320/932. He was the pupil of al-Mubarrad and T̲h̲aʿlab [ q.vv.], and is said to have brought together the doctrines of the grammatical schools of both Baṣra and Kūfa, though his own preference was for the former; he was moreover the author of a work, no longer surviving, a K. al-Masāʾil ʿalā mad̲h̲hab al-naḥwiyyīn mimmā k̲h̲talafa fīhi al-Kūfi…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Kaysān al-Naḥwī , Arab grammarian, the date and place of whose birth are unknown. He was a pupil of Bundār Ibn Lizza and, in particular, of al-Mubarrad (d. 285/998) and T̲h̲aʿlab (d. 291/904); under these teachers he acquired a knowledge of the two grammatical traditions of Baṣra and Kūfa. He lived in Bag̲h̲dād and died there in 299/911, according to the generally accepted date, in 320/932 according to Yāḳūt ( Udabāʾ , xvii, 141). His teaching used to attract a great number of listeners, men of wealth or high rank;…

, by-name usually given (al-Suyūṭī, Bug̲h̲ya , 208) to Abū ʿAmr Bundār b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Kark̲h̲ī al-Iṣbahānī , Arabic philologist. There is much uncertainty over this name: according to the Fihrist (83) it is Abū ʿUmar Mindād b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Kark̲h̲ī Ibn Lazza (a laḳab ) ; it is read as Ibn Lazza by Flügel, who reproduced the name in Die Gr . Schulen der Araber , Leipzig 1862, 223. A manuscript of the Fihrist, Codex P, has r instead of z in this laḳab. This r is found also in the Inbāh al-ruwāt , i, 257, of al-Ḳifṭī (Cairo 1369/1950); in the Talk̲h̲īṣ of Ibn Maktūm (according to the editor of Inbāh…

(more rarely Muk̲h̲tāriyya) is the name applied by the heresiographers to those supporters of al-Muk̲h̲tār [ q.v.] recognising Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya [ q.v.] as their imām and as the Mahdī [ q.v.]. The name is derived from Abū ʿAmra Kaysān [ q.v.], chief of the guard and leader of the mawālī under al-Muk̲h̲tār. Its choice, made probably by the opponents of the movement, may reflect the importance they attributed to the mawlā element in it. Actually, many supporters of the movement, among them some of the most radical, were Arabs, especially from Yamanī tribes, an…

, abū bakr ʿabd al-raḥmān b. kaysān , died 200/816 or 201/817, early theologian and mufassir , commonly counted among the Muʿtazilīs, although always treated as an outsider by the Muʿtazilī ṭabaḳāt . In his youth he served, together with other mutakallimūn like Muʿammar, Ḥafṣ al-Fard and Abū S̲h̲amir al-Ḥanafī, as adlatus ( g̲h̲ulām ) to Maʿmar Abu ’l-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲, a Baṣran physician with certain “philosophical” leanings (cf. Fihrist, ed. Flügel, 100, 11. 28 ff). In the later days of Ḍirār b. ʿAmr [ q.v.], i.e. in the last quarter of the 2nd century A.H., he created in Baṣra a …

, 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…

, poetic nickname ("father of craziness") of Abū Isḥāḳ Ismāʿīl b. al-Ḳāsim b. Suwayd b. Kaysān , Arabic poet, born in Kūfa (or ʿAyn al-Tamr) 130/748 and died 210/825 or 211/826. His family had been mawālī of the ʿAnaza tribe for two or three generations, and were engaged in menial occupations; his father was a cupper, and the poet himself as a youth sold earthenware in the streets. His outlook on life was embittered by a sense of social inferiority; in his later verse he gave vent to his hatred of the govern…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Isḥāḳ, famed Arabic grammarian. He was born in Nihāwand in western Persia in the second half of the 3rd century A.H. (i.e. around 860-70), received his training as a grammarian in Bag̲h̲dād, and was active in Damascus and Aleppo. He probably died in Ṭabariyya (Tiberias), either in 337/948 or 339-40/949-50. Almost nothing is known about his life except for a few anecdotes. It is clear from his grammatical writings that he was a Muʿtazilī (he mentions with approval such typically Muʿtazilī tenets as al-kalām fi ’l al-mutakallim and the non-identity of ism and mu…

(a.), plur. ḳawāfin , term in prosody, meaning “rhyme”. Goldziher ( Abh . zur Arabischen Philologie , Leiden 1896, i, 83-105; cf. R. Blachère, Deuxième contribution, in Arabica vi (1959), 141) has shown that the word meant originally “lampoon”, then “line of poetry”, “poem” and, that these earlier senses survived in Islamic times after the word had also come to be used in the technical sense of “rhyme”. He derives ḳāfiya from ḳafan , “nape of the neck” (and the corresponding verb ḳafā , “to hit the nape of the neck”) and draws attention to passages in whi…

Abu ’l-Sābig̲h̲a, often portrayed as one of the killers of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī [ q.v.]. S̲h̲amir’s father, S̲h̲uraḥbīl (or Aws) b. Ḳurṭ (various forms of the name are given), was a Companion of the Prophet who settled in al-Kūfa. S̲h̲amir fought at Ṣiffīn [ q.v.] on ʿAlī’s side, receiving a sword wound to his face (al-Minḳarī, Waḳʿat ¶ Ṣiffīn, ed. ʿA. Hārūn, Cairo 1401/1981, 268; al-Ṭabarī, i, 3305). Subsequently he changed sides and became a supporter of the Umayyads. In 51/671 he testified against Ḥud̲j̲r b. ʿAdī [ q.v.] ( ibid., ii, 133); nine years later, ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād [ q.v.] recruit…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿArafa b. Sulaymān b. al-Mug̲h̲īra b. al-Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra al-ʿAtakī al-Azdī, grammarian, lexicographer, ak̲h̲bārī , leading expert in poetry, Ḳurʾānic readings and well-authenticated muḥaddit̲h̲ , who owed his nickname, derived from the term ni/afṭ (naphtha) to his dark complexion; this name is formed according to the same pattern as that of Sībawayh, whom he admired, whose grammatical methods he followed and on whose Kitāb he composed a commentary. Born at Wāsiṭ in 244/858, he lived and studied in B…

(a.), lit. increase, as a technical term, usury and interest, and in general any unjustified increase of capital for which no compensation is given. Derivatives from the same root are used in other Semitic languages to describe interest. A. In classical Islamic law. 1. Transactions with a fixed time limit and payment of interest, as well as speculations of all kinds, formed an essential element in the highly developed trading system of Mecca (cf. Lammens, La Mecque à la veille de l’hégire , 139 ff., 155 ff., 213-14). Among the details given by the Muslim…

, full name: abū naṣr bis̲h̲r b. al-ḥārīt̲h̲ b. ʿabd al-raḥmān b. ʿaṭāʾ b. hilāl b. māhān b. ʿabd allāh (originally Baʿbūr) al-ḥāfī . He was a Ṣūfī, born in Bakird or in Mābarsām, a village near Marw (al-S̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān) in 150/767 (or 152/769), and died in Bag̲h̲dād (some sources say that he died in Marw, but this seems unlikely) in 226/840 or 227/841-42. Little is known about his early age. He is said to have belonged to some young men’s association, or a gang of robbers, whilst still in Marw. He…

al-T̲h̲aḳafī , leader of a pro-ʿAlid movement which controlled al-Kūfa in 66-7/685-7. He claimed to be acting as the representative of the son of ʿAlī, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya [ q.v.], and his movement is often classified as an early manifestation of extremist S̲h̲īʿism. This article, which draws mainly on the detailed narratives given by al-Ṭabarī, al-Balād̲h̲urī and Ibn Aʿt̲h̲am al-Kūfī, concentrates on his life and involvement in the events of his time. For further discussion of the importance of al-Muk̲h̲tār’s movement in the development of Muslim sectarianism, see kaysāniyya …

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Muḥammad b. Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Akbar al-T̲h̲umālī al-Azdī (his genealogy reaches back to the D̲j̲āhiliyya; cf. Wüstenfeld, Tabellen , no. 10; Caskel, Tafeln , no. 210), celebrated philologist, was born in al-Baṣra on 10 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 210/24 March 826 (or between 2 and 5 years earlier). As tradition tells us, it was in the circles ( ḥalaḳāt ) of Abū ʿUmar al-D̲j̲armī (d. 225/839) and Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān al-Māzinī [ q.v.] that he came into close contact with the Kitāb of Sībawayh; moreover, he took part in the scholarly discussions between …

(a.), pl. s̲h̲urūḥ , denotes in Arabie a commentary on a text of greater or lesser length, but this term by itself does not cover the entire semantic domain of “commentary”. Lexically, it refers to notions of opening, expansion, explanation and finally of commentary. Sixty-seven s̲h̲arḥs appear in the Fihrist : language (29, of which two have a title; two S̲h̲arḥ abyāt Sībawayh ; a S̲h̲arḥ abyāt al-Īḍāḥ ; two S̲h̲arḥ s̲h̲awāhid Sībawayh ; S̲h̲arḥ Maḳṣūrat Ibn Durayd by Abū Saʿīd al-Sīrāfī, ¶ commentary on a didactic poem; two s̲h̲arḥ al-maʿānī ), philosophy and s…

, in the broad sense, refers to the movement upholding a privileged position of the Family of the Prophet ( ahl al-bayt [ q.v.]) in the political and religious leadership of the Muslim Community. The name is derived from s̲h̲īʿat ʿAlī , i.e. the party or partisans of ʿAlī, which was first used in the inter-Muslim war during ʿAlī’s caliphate distinguishing them from the s̲h̲īʿat ʿUt̲h̲mān , the partisans of the murdered caliph ʿUt̲h̲mān opposed to ʿAlī. The present article will deal with the origins and early development of the S̲h̲īʿa unt…

(or maḳbura , maḳbira , miḳbara , maḳbar and maḳbur ) (a.), “cemetery”. The word occurs only in the Ḳurʾān in the plural form maḳābir : “Rivalry distracts you, until you visit the cemeteries” (CII, 2). Its synonyms d̲j̲abbāna , madfan and turba do not figure in the Holy Book. 1. In the central Arab lands The Arab authors supply little information of use in ¶ tracing the history of Muslim cemeteries. Works of fiḳh refer only to prohibitions concerning tombs ( ḳabr , pl. ḳubūr [ q.v.]) and the visiting of burial-places ( ziyāra [ q.v.]). At the most, a few occasional references may be gleane…

(a.), “the rightly guided one” is the name of the restorer of religion and justice who, according to a widely held Muslim belief, will ¶ rule before the end of the world. The present article will trace the history of this belief and will deal with the political history of Mahdist movements only in so far as relevant (for the Sudanese movement, see al-mahdiyya). Origin and early development during the Umayyad age. The term mahdī as such does not occur in the Ḳurʾān; but the name is clearly derived from the Arabic root h-d-y commonly used in it in the meaning of divine guidance. As an hon…