, Maʿadd, fourth and last caliph of the Fāṭimid dynasty of Ifrīḳiya. He acceded to the throne of his ancestors at an early age on 29 S̲h̲awwāl 341/19 March 953; having been born on 11 Ramaḍān 319/26 September 931, he had barely come of age. According to his biographer, the famous ḳāḍī al-Nuʿmān [ q.v.], the designation of the young Maʿadd to the imāmate does not seem to have ¶ been surrounded by the traditional secrecy of the period of satr [ q.v.], his father al-Manṣūr bi ’llāh [ q.v.] having for long hesitated as to the choice of his successor from among his five sons. It was only…

, Abū Alī , poet and Fāṭimid prince, born in al-Mahdiyya (present-day Tunisia) in 337/949, died in 374/985 in Egypt (but Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī and Ibn Kat̲h̲īr mention his death sub anno 368/978-9). Though Tamīm was al-Muʿizz’s eldest son, he was passed over as walī al-ʿahd , successor to the Fāṭimid throne in the newly-founded capital al-Ḳāhira. The official reason given by al-Maḳrīzī ( al-Muḳaffa , ii, 588), was the fact that Tamīm did not have any male offspring necessary to avoid problems for the dynasty in future, the throne being inhe…

b. manād , first Zīrid of Ifrīḳiya (4th/10th century). As a reward for distinction in the service of the Fāṭimids as amīr of the Ṣanhād̲j̲a against the Zanāta he was nominated governor of Ifrīḳiya by al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh. As he was almost always on campaigns in the central Mag̲h̲rib, he entrusted the administration of al-Ḳayrawān and eastern Ifrīḳiya to a vice- amīr whose power continuously increased. The principal events of his life are as follows: Buluḳḳīn founded Algiers, Miliana, and Médéa (349/960), fought against Abū Ḵh̲azar (358/968-9), and beat …

, al-ḥusayn b. ʿalī b. ibrāhīm al-kāg̲h̲adī , called (al)-d̲j̲uʿal, “Dungbeetle”, influential Muʿtazilī theologian and Ḥanafī jurist, died 2 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 369/19 June 980 in Bag̲h̲dād. He was born in Baṣra, at an uncertain date (293/905-6 according to Taʾrīk̲h̲ Bag̲h̲dād , viii, 73, ll. 20 ff, following ʿAlī b. al-Muḥassin al-Tanūk̲h̲ī and Hilāl al-Ṣābiʾ; 308/920-1 according to the Fihrist , ed. Flügel, 174, pu.; 289/902 according to Safadī, cf. Kaḥḥāla, Muʿd̲j̲am al-muʾallifīn , iv, 27, n. 1). The nickname D̲j̲uʿal is not used in Muʿtazilī or Ḥanafī sources. He left Baṣra a…

, famous Ḳarmaṭī leader of Baḥrayn, born at al-Aḥsā in 278/891, died at Ramla in 366/977. His father Aḥmad b. Abī Saʿīd al-Ḥasan al-D̲j̲annābī was the brother of Abū Ṭāhir Sulaymān [see al-d̲j̲annābī ]; he died by poisoning in 359/970. Al-Ḥasan al-Aʿṣam probably never held power alone, it being, after the death of Abū Ṭāhir, held collectively by the latter’s brothers; but he was on several occasions in command of the Ḳarmaṭī armies. In 357/968, he took Damascus and defeated the Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īdid governor. He fell into disgrace for …

, the nisba of a number of Wahbī (pro-Rustamid) Ibāḍī scholars and leaders of the Banū Wisyān (Wāsīn) branch of Zanāta Berbers. Several of them originated from the town of al-Ḥāmma (El Hamma) near Tawzar (Tozeur) in the S̲h̲aṭṭ al-D̲j̲arīd [ q.v.] region of western Tunisia. 1. Abū K̲h̲azar Yag̲h̲lā b. Zaltaf , Ibāḍī mutakallim and military leader, d. 380/990. Of a modest background, Abū K̲h̲azar studied with Sulaymān b. Zarḳūn al-Nafūsī at Tābidyūt, together with Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Yazīd b. Mak̲h̲lad al-Wisyānī. Both students became well known for their schola…

, general and adminisstrator, one of the founders of the Fāṭimid Empire in North Africa and Egypt. His name was D̲j̲awhar b. ʿAbd Allāh, also D̲j̲ōhar together with the epithets of al-Ṣaḳlabī (the Slav), al-Ṣiḳillī (the Sicilian) or al-Rūmī (the Greek) and al-Kātib (the State Chancellor) or al-Ḳāʾid (the General). The first two epithets cast some light on his obscure origin, the other two denote the two highest posts he occupied. His birth date is unknown, but judging by the date of his death (20 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda …

, Muḥammad b. Hāniʾ b. Saʿdūn al-Andalusī , famous court poet of the Banū Ḥamdūn, rulers of Masīla, and of the fourth Fāṭimid caliph, al-Muʿizz li-dīn Allāh; he belonged to the Yemenī tribe of Azd, who, ever since the conflict between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya, many times supported the S̲h̲īʿī cause. His Ifrīḳiyan descent was in a direct line from one of the most illustrious amīr s of the famous family of the Muhallabids, Yazīd b. Ḥātim, who governed Ifrīḳiya for the ʿAbbāsids from 155 to 171/772-87, distinguishing himself by an energetic policy of pacification and administrative reorganization. Ne…

b. Abī ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Manṣūr b. Ḥayyūn, famous ḳāḍī of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Muʿizz li-dīn Allāh [ q.v.], of whose origins and early life little is known. This small amount of information is insufficient to explain the exceptional rise and fortune of this obscure jurist of ¶ Ifrīḳiya after he had entered the service of the new masters of this province, the Fāṭimids. As a connection of the Banū Tamīm, to which the line of Ag̲h̲labid amīr s were attached, al-Nuʿmān rose rapidly in the hierarchy of the S̲h̲īʿī state to the high position of judge-in-chief ( ḳāḍī ’l-ḳuḍāt ) of the community. Hen…

, Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ YaʿḲūb b. Yūsuf , famous Fāṭimid vizier of the caliph al-ʿAzīz [ q.v.]. He was by origin a Jew, born in Bag̲h̲dād in 318/930. He went with his father to Syria and settled at Ramla, becoming an agent for various merchants; but, according to one tradition, having appropriated their money and being unable to repay it, he fled to Egypt, where he entered the service of Kāfūr [ q.v.], who thought highly of him and whose complete confidence he gained by enabling him to appropriate various inheritances whose existence he brought to his notice and in addit…

(current orthography M’sila), a town in Algeria founded by the Fāṭimids in 315/927 on the northern edge of the depression of Ḥoḍna as an outpost of their rule in the Zāb. This remote province of their domain was in fact to play, from the foundation of their caliphate, the role of a military frontier to the west of Ifrīḳiya. As with his predecessors, the Ag̲h̲labid amīr s, the primary task of the first Fāṭimid sovereign, al-Mahdī ʿUbayd Allāh [ q.v.], in ensuring the defence of the western side of the realm consisted in raising a powerful barrier on the desert route leading…

, pl. daʿawāt , from the root daʿā , to call, invite, has the primary meaning call or invitation. In the Ḳurʾān , XXX, 24, it is applied to the call to the dead to rise from the tomb on the day of Judgement. It also has the sense of invitation to a meal and, as a result, of a meal with guests, walīma : al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Nikāḥ , 71, 74; LA, xviii, 285. It also means an appeal to God, prayer, vow: al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Daʿawāt , beginning and 26, Wuḍūʾ , 69, Anbiyāʾ , 9 (Abraham’s prayer, cf. Ḳurʾān, II, 123), 40 (Solomon’s prayer, cf. Ḳurʾān, XXXVIII, 34; see also Ḳurʾān, II, 182; X, 89; XIIII; XV; XL, 46 (to which…

(Banū) or Midrārids , minor Berber dynasty which was established in Sid̲j̲ilmās(s)a [ q.v.] and which enjoyed relative independence until its final collapse in 366/976-7. The history of this dynasty can be briefly outlined, thanks to al-Bakrī [ q.v.], who lived in the 5th/11th century and thus possessed quite recent information in order to write the chapter that he devotes to it ( Mug̲h̲rib , 148 ff., Fr. tr. 282 ff.), before Ibn ʿId̲h̲ārī (7th-8th/13th-14th century [ q.v.]), Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn (8th/14th century [ q.v.]) and several historians of the Mag̲h̲rib and Mas̲h̲riḳ were abl…

(literally “circle”, “gathering of people seated in a circle”, and also “gathering of students around a teacher”), among the Ibāḍī-Wahbīs of the Mzāb [ q.v.] a religious council made up of twelve ʿazzāba (“recluses”, “clerks”; on the exact meaning of this word, see R. Rubinacci, Un antico documento di vita cenobitica musulmana, 47-8), and presided over by a s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ . On the mystical sense of ḥalḳa , the Ḳawāʿid al-Islām of al-Ḏj̲ayṭālī [ q.v.], which is the most complete code of the Ibāḍī sect (written probably in the first half of the 8th/14th century), says: “On…

, Arabic name of Crete, with the variants Aḳrīṭīs̲h̲ (Yāḳūt), Iḳrīṭiya (Ibn Rusta), Iḳrītaṣ ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam ) (Aḳrīṭa (Yāḳūt, ii, 865) refers to a locality in Asia Minor and has only a fortuitous resemblance with the name of the island of Crete). Geography . The Arabic geographers describe it as one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean (Baḥr al-Rūm [ q.v.]), whose situation they sometimes confuse with that of Cyprus. They give widely varying figures for its area; a circumference of 300 miles (Ibn Rusta) or taking 15 days on foot (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bīh; al-Ḥimyarī), 100 farsak̲h̲ …

( al-ḏj̲āmiʿ al-azhar ). This great mosque, the ‘brilliant one’ (a possible allusion to Fāṭima al-Zahrāʾ, although no ancient document ¶ confirms this) is one of the principal mosques of present-day Cairo. This seat of learning, obviously Ismāʿīlī from the time of its Fāṭimid foundation (4th/9th century), whose light was dimmed by the reaction under the Sunnī Ayyūbids, regained all its activity—Sunnī from now on—during the reign of Sultan Baybars. Its influence is due on the one hand to the geographical and politic…

(a.), literally, an iron ploughshare, and an iron stamp or die used for stamping coins ¶ (see Lane, Lexicon , 1937). From the latter meaning, it came to denote the result of the stamping, i.e. the legends on the coins, and then, the whole operation of minting coins. 1. Legal and constitutional aspects. As in the Byzantine and Sāsānid empires to which the Arab caliphate was heir, the right of issuing gold and silver coinage was a royal prerogative. Hence in the caliphate, the operation of sikka , the right of the ruler to place his name on the coinage, eventua…

, Egypt A. The eponym of Egypt B. The early Islamic settlements developing out of the armed camps and the metropolises of the conquered provinces C. The land of Egypt: the name in early Islamic times 1. Miṣr as the capital of Egypt: the name in early Islamic times 2. The historical development of the capital of Egypt i. The first three centuries, [see al-fusṭāṭ ] ii. The Nile banks, the island of Rawḍa and the adjacent settlement of D̲j̲īza (Gīza) iii. The Fāṭimid city, Miṣr al-Ḳāhira, and the development of Cairo till the end of the 18t…

ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza b. Sulaymān b. Ḥamza , Zaydī Imām of the Yemen. Born in Rabīʿ I 561/January 1166, he became Imām in 583/1187-8 (some sources have 593/1196-7). He was not a direct descendant of al-Hādī ilā ’l-Haḳḳ Yaḥyā [see zaydids ], but of the latter’s grandfather al-Ḳāsim al-Rassī b. Ṭabāṭabā (Kay, Yaman , 184-5, 314; Van Arendonk, Débuts , 366). Between 532/1137-8 and 566/1170-1, the Imām al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh Aḥmad b. Sulaymān had tried to assure Zaydī power over al-D̲j̲awf, Nad̲j̲rān, Ṣaʿda, al-Ẓāhir and Zabīd (Kay, Yaman, 317; EI 1 s.v. al-mahdī li-dīn allāh aḥmad …

, Abū ʿAmr (not ʿUmar as stated by Storey, i, 68) Minhād̲j̲ al-Dīn ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Sirād̲j̲ al-Dīn Muḥammad al-D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ānī , commonly known as Minhād̲j̲-i Sirād̲j̲, the premier historian of the Slave dynasty of India, was born at Fīrūzkūh [ q.v.] in the royal palace in 589/1193, as, on his own showing, he was 18 years of age in 607/ 1210-1 when Malik Rukn al-Dīn Maḥmūd was slain at Fīrūzkūh. His father, Sirād̲j̲ al-Dīn, a leading scholar and jurist of his day, and a courtier of Sultan G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn, ruler of Fīrūzkūh, was appointed ḳāḍī of the army stationed in…