(A.), a term in rhetoric, means "trope" and, more generally, the use of a word ¶ deviating from its original meaning and use, its opposite being ḥaḳīḳa ("veritative expression"). In Arabic literature. The different modes of expression labelled as mad̲j̲āz by the Arabic theorists were divided into twelve categories by Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) without, however, following a consistent system of criteria (cf. al-Suyūṭī, Muzhir , ed. Cairo 1282, i, 171). A more refined and detailed version of this classifying system was put forward by al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) ( Itḳān …

(A.), “bravery”, “valour” (used nowadays together with ḥamās , to translate “enthusiasm”), is the title of a certain number of poetic anthologies which generally include brief extracts chosen for their literary value in the eyes of the anthologists and classified according to the genre to which they belong or the idea which they express; these works are related to a more general category, that of “poetic themes”, maʿānī ’l-s̲h̲iʿr [ q.v.], but differ from it in the apparent effacement of the author who abstains from any comparison or judgement and imposes his tast…

, “song, elegy of love”, often also “the erotico-elegiac genre ”. The term is Arabic, but passed into Persian, Turkish and Urdu and acquired a special sense in these languages. The semantic development of the word from the root g̲h̲ z l , “to spin”, “spinning”, is not in doubt, but presupposes intermediary meanings for which we have no evidence; the g̲h̲azal was not in fact a song of women spinning, like that of which Tibullus speaks (ed. Rat, Paris 1931, Book II, no. 1, line 60), but a man’s song addressed to a girl; contamination by the noun g̲h̲azāl …

(a.), verbal noun of ḥakā , originally meaning “to imitate”, but which, in consequence of a readily explained semantic evolution, came to acquire the meaning of “to tell, to narrate”; similarly the noun ḥikāya , starting from the meaning of “imitation”, has come to mean more specifically “mimicry”, and finally “tale, narrative, story, legend”. In classical Arabic the intensive form ḥākiya meant a “mimic” and modern Arabic has adopted the active participle ḥāk in to translate “gramophone”. The radical ḥ . k. y./ w. is not represented in the Ḳuʾrān but it is found in ḥadīt̲h̲ …

(a.), pl. ḳiṣaṣ , the term which, after a long evolution, is now generally employed in Arabic for the novel, whilst its diminutive uḳṣūṣa , pl. aḳāṣīṣ , has sometimes been adopted, notably by Maḥmūd Taymūr [ q.v.] as the equivalent of “novella, short story”, before being ineptly replaced by a calque from the English “short story”, ḳiṣṣa ḳaṣīra . The sections of the following article are largely devoted to these literary genres as they are cultivated in the various Islamic literatures, even if the word ḳiṣṣa is not itself used by them. Although some Berber tongues use the Arabic term ( Iḳiṣṣt …

, New-Persian written in Hebrew characters. i.—literature If we define as Judaeo-Persian literature strictly “literary” works composed by Jews in the Persian language but in Hebrew characters, then the first fruits of such literary endeavours could have emerged only when the Persian language had penetrated deeply enough into the life of Persian Jews to become a vehicle for their literary expression. This condition for the birth and growth of a genuine Judaeo-Persian literature seemed to have been fulfi…

, a Turkish dialect. (i) Language, (ii) literature. (i) language The word Ād̲h̲arī, which means "pertaining to Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān", has been used to denote various ethnic groups from the 10th century onward. It was applied to the Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān Republic founded in the Caucasus in 1918, and is extended in the present day to cover not only the Soviet Republic of Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān and Persian Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān but also the Turkish populations of Ḵh̲urāsān, Astarābād, Hamadān and other parts of Persia, Dāg̲h̲estān and Georgia. Ād̲h̲arī Turkish has long maint…

, Arabic term often translated by “satire”, but more precisely denoting a curse, an invective diatribe or insult in verse, an insulting poem, then an epigram, and finally a satire in prose or verse. The etymological sense of the Arabic root h.d̲j̲.w may perhaps be deduced from the Hebrew root the basic sense of which is “to utter a sound in a low voice, to murmur” and hence “to meditate” (so too in Syriac), but also “to pronounce incantations in a low voice” (see L. Koehler, Lexicon in Vet . Test . libros , 1949, 224; König, Hebräisches Wörterbuch , 75; Genesius, Lexicon, Leipzig 1833, 266; Jast…

(a.), dictionary. 1. Arabic Lexicography The word ḳāmūs/ḳawmas , from the Greek Ωχεανός appeared in Arabic, at the latest at the time of the Prophet, with the meaning of “the bottom, the very deepest part of the sea”. Nevertheless, following Ptolemy, the Arab geographers borrowed the Greek word again, in the form Uḳiyānūs , and applied it to “the mass of water surrounding the earth”, more particularly the Atlantic Ocean, which was called Uḳiyānūs al-muḥīṭ , then more simply al-Ḳāmūs al-muḥīṭ . As this latter term was employed in a metaphorical sense by al-Fīrūzābādī [ q.v.] as the title o…

(a.), the Moon. I.—Astronomy. Al-Ḳamar is the one celestial body that in fact orbits the earth as mediaeval Muslim astronomers, following their predecessors, assumed all seven “planets” to do. The actual motion of the moon in its orbit is extremely complicated, as it is effected by a combination of the gravitational pulls of the sun and of the earth. It was a major aim of Muslim astronomers to devise a cinematic model that would enable them to predict This motion accurately, as several lunar phenomena, and in particular the first visibility of the lunar crescent after conjunction ( ruʾyat al…

1. In Arabic. Ḳaṣīda collective ḳaṣīd is the name given in Arabic to some poems of a certain length. It is derived from the root ḳaṣada , “to aim at”, for the primitive ḳaṣīda was intended to eulogize the tribe of the poet and denigrate the opposing tribes. Later it was concerned with the eulogy of a personality or a family from whom the poet was soliciting help or subsidies. Although the funerary elegy ( mart̲h̲iya or rit̲h̲āʾ ) does not seem to have been included originally under the same designation, the form of the ḳaṣīda may nevertheless be classified in this poetic genre. On the oth…

¶ I. History. 1. The pre-Islamic period: the first Turks in history and their languages. Towards 540, on the northern fringes of China, the nomadic empire of the Z̲h̲ouan-z̲h̲ouan (proto-Mongols?) dominated the lands of Mongolia and some neighbouring zones. Its Ḳag̲h̲an or ruler had as his vassals notably the chiefs of two important tribal confederations, those of the Türks, in the northern Altai, and the equally Turkish-speaking one of the “High Waggons” (Chinese Kao-kiu) in the Selenga basin (the northern part of central Mongolia). After an abortive revolt by these last, the …

(a., pl. amt̲h̲āl ) proverb, popular saying, derives—similarly to Aram, mat̲h̲lā , Hebr. mās̲h̲āl and Ethiop. mesl , mesālē —from the common Semitic root for “sameness, equality, likeness, equivalent” (cf. Akkad. mas̲h̲ālum “equality”, mis̲h̲lum “half”). In Arabic, to create a proverb is fa-arsala( t) hā , or d̲j̲aʿala ( t) hu mat̲h̲al an, fa-ḍaraba ( t) bihi ’l-mat̲h̲al a; to become proverbial is ḍuriba bihi ’l-mat̲h̲alu , mat̲h̲al un yuḍrabu fa-d̲h̲ahaba ( t), or d̲j̲arā / d̲j̲arat mat̲h̲al an, or, simply, fa-ṣāra mat̲h̲al an. 1. In Arabic i. Definition ii. Arabic proverbs (1) Earlie…

, in modern usage, the name of an institution of learning where the Islamic sciences are taught, i.e. a college for higher studies, as opposed to an elementary school of traditional type ( kuttāb ); in mediaeval usage, essentially a college of law in which the other Islamic sciences, including literary and philosophical ones, were ancillary subjects only. I. The institution in the Arabic, Persian and Turkish lands 1. Children’s schools. The subject of Islamic education in general is treated under tarbiya. Here it should merely be noted that the earliest, informal institution…

(i) the people. Racially, there is a considerable difference between the various Afg̲h̲ān tribes. According to B. S. Guha, Census of India , 1931, i, iii A, p. xi, the Paṭhāns of Bād̲j̲awṛ are closely related to the Kalas̲h̲es of Čitrāl, probably because they are to a large extent afg̲h̲ānized Dards. On the other hand the broad-headed Paṭhāns of Balūčistān resemble their Balūč neighbours. In the plains of Pes̲h̲āwar and the Dērad̲j̲āts there is some admixture of Indian blood, and among some trib…

i.—Geography The geological background: The alignments of Iran’s principal topographie features, represented by the Kūhhā-yi Alburz and the Zagros Chain, are west to east and north-west to south-east, respectively. In broad context, the Alburz is a continuation of the European Alpine structures, while the Zagros chain has been linked through Cyprus with the Dinaric Alps (Fisher, 1956). The structure of the mountain rim of the country has been influenced strongly by tectonic movements which have n…

, term generally used in Persian literature—with rather depreciative implications—to indicate Zoroastrians. Philologists have not yet reached agreement on its etymology. Several suggestions have been made, e.g., (a) from Hebrew ḥab̲h̲er (“companion”) in the sense of Ḳiddūs̲h̲īn 72a; (b) from Aramaeo-Pahlavi gabrā (read mart ), especially in the compounds mōġ-martān (“the Magi”) (written mōġ-gabrā-ān ); (c) from a Persian corruption of Arabic kāfir (“unbeliever”). The first two etymologies are very improbable, so that the derivation from A. kāfir seems the most acceptable…

¶ i.—General Introduction The Kurds, an Iranian people of the Near East, live at the junction of more or less laicised Turkey, S̲h̲īʿi Iran, Arab and Sunnī ʿIrāḳ and North Syria, and Soviet Transcaucasia. The economic and strategic importance of this land, Kurdistān, is undeniable. Since the end of the First World War, the Kurdish people, like all the rest of their neighbours, have undergone considerable transformations as much in the political order as in the economic, social and cultural domain. …

, the name by which are commonly designated the populations, who, from the Egyptian frontier (Sīwa [ q.v.]) to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the great bend of the Niger, speak—or used to speak before their arabicisation—dialects (or rather local forms) of a single language, Berber. This term is probably an abusive or contemptuous epithet, used in Greek ( Barbaroi ) and in Latin ( Barbari ) as well as in Arabic ( Barbar , singular Barbarī , pl. Barābir , Barābira ), and does not constitute a national name, as some people (cf. P. H. Antichan, La Tunisie , 1884, 3) mai…

, the name of a Turkish dynasty, ultimately of Og̲h̲uz origin [see g̲h̲uzz ], whose name appears in European sources as ottomans (Eng.), ottomanes (Fr.), osmanen (Ger.), etc. I. political and dynastic history 1. General survey and chronology of the dynasty The Ottoman empire was the territorially most extensive and most enduring Islamic state since the break-up of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate and the greatest one to be founded by Turkish-speaking peoples. It arose in the Islamic world after the devastations over much of the eastern and central lands of the Dār al-Islām …