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(a.), literally “chain”, a term used in the terminology of Ṣūfism and the Ṣūfī orders ( ṭuruḳ ) for a continuous chain of spiritual descent, a kind of mystical isnād [ q.v.]. This connected the head of an order, the s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ or pīr , with a person regarded as the order’s founder and back to the Prophet. These ¶ persons might stem from early Islam, such as the Yemeni contemporary of the Prophet, Uways al-Ḳaranī (actually, not initiated directiy but after the Prophet’s death, in a dream), and the Patriarchal Caliphs, especially Abū Bakr, ʿUmar and ʿAlī…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Mahdī al-Iṣfahānī al-Ṭabarī , rāwī of the 3rd/9th century who was also a poet and man of letters. He was the teacher of Hārūn, the son of ʿAlī b. ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā al-Munad̲j̲d̲j̲im, and transmitted historical and literary traditions, and especially on the authority of al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ. He was in contact with Badr al-Muʿtaḍidī [ q.v. in Suppl.] and exchanged verses with Ibn al-Muʿtazz. His knowledge of adab led him to compose several works, amongst which are cited a Kitāb al-K̲h̲iṣāl , a collection of literary traditions, maxims, proverbs and poetry, a K. al-Aʿyād wa ’l-nawāriz …

, (1856-1919), Ottoman scholar, journalist, and public official. After the revolution of 1908 he became a member of the Financial Reform Committee and was for one week Minister of Finance. He published many articles in journals and periodicals, under the names of Mefk̲h̲ari and ʿAtāʾ, and also produced a literary anthology called Iḳtiṭāf , which was extensively used as a school text-book. His most important undertaking was the Turkish translation of Hammer’s History of the Ottoman Empire. This version, based on the French tra…

or Tilang , a region of the mediaeval Deccan, i.e. South India. The name comes from telingā , trilingā , referring to the three lingams of Śīva, the region being noted in ancient India for three famous temples there dedicated to the godhead. It lay in the northeastern part of what later became Ḥaydarābād State and the adjacent part of Madras, extending to the shores of the Bay of Bengal and bounded on the northeast by the Godivari river, beyond which lay the other Hindu kingdoms of Kalinga and Orissa. Telingāna figures frequently in accounts of the K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī and then Tug̲h̲luḳī Dih…

(a.) or Farwa (pl. firāʾ ), ‘a fur; a garment made of, or trimmed with, fur.’ Although farwa can mean also a cloak of camel-hair, it is likely that when this term is encountered in ancient poetry it refers to sheepskins with the wool left on (what in Morocco are called haydūra ), used as carpets, to cover seats, or for protection against the cold; the farwa which Abū Bakr had with him and which he spread on the ground in the cave for the Prophet to rest on (al-Buk̲h̲ārī, v, 82) was presumably a sheepskin. The wearing of costly furs was introduced only after th…

(t., from Persian pand̲j̲a “palm of the hand”), a term of Ottoman Turkish diplomatic. It was a mark, somewhat resembling an open hand and extended fingers, affixed (on either of the left- or right-hand margins or at the foot of the scroll) to documents, such as fermāns [see farmān ] and buyuruldus [ q.v.], issued from the Ottoman chancery by higher officials such as viziers, beglerbegs and sand̲j̲aḳ begs . (Ed.) Bibliography F. Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, Studien zur osmanische Urkundenlehre. 1. Die Handfeste ( Penče) der osmanischen Wesire, in MOG, ii (1923-6), 257 ff. İ.H. Uzunçarşili, Tuğr…

, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz , the preferred disciple of Ahmad b. Ḥanbal [ q.v.], who, it is said, appreciated al-Marwazī’s piety and virtues. His mother was originally from Marw al-Rūd̲h̲. whence his nisba , whilst his father was a K̲h̲wārazmian. Hardly any of the events of his life are known, in as much as he seems to have lived within his master’s shadow, although he is depicted as once setting out on an expedition in the midst of a crowd of admirers. The biographical notices devoted to him stress Abū Bakr al-Marwazī’s role in the transmission of ḥadīt̲h̲s…

, al-Ṭāhir, écrivain tunisien nainaliste et réformiste, qui est considéré comme le ¶ pionnier du mouvement de libération de la femme dans son pays. Né à Tunis vers 1899, dans une modeste famille originaire de la Ḥāma de Gabès, il fit ses études à la Zaytūna [ q.v.] de 1911 à 1920 et obtint le taṭwīʿ (correspondant au diplôme de fin d’études secondaires). Il participa ensuite à l’activité syndicale et fut chargé de la propagande dans une organisation fondée en 1924, la Ḏj̲āmiʿat ʿumūm al-ʿamala al-tūnisiyya, dont les principaux promoteurs furent poursuivis et bannis en 1925. Ses …

, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, poète et lettré du IVe/Xe siècle dont l’origine est inconnue. Il semble s’être beaucoup déplacé puisqu’on le trouve au service de Sayf al-dawla, d’al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād et du maître du Ḵh̲urāsān, qu’il rencontra Abū l-Farad̲j̲ al-Iṣfahānī et séjourna aussi en Égypte, au Ḏj̲abal, en Transoxiane, au S̲h̲ās̲h̲. Les poèmes que l’on possède de ce grand voyageur sont des pièces de circonstance ¶ sans grande originalité, mais il serait l’auteur de plusieurs épîtres et livres, notamment d’une Tuḥfat al-kuttāb fī l-rasāʾil et d’une Tad̲h̲kirat/Mud̲h̲ākarat al-…

(a.), together with its synonyms muḳāraʿa , munāhada and musāhama , conveys the idea of the division of various objects done in various ways amongst two or more persons; but the word muk̲h̲ārad̲j̲a by itself and the other terms followed by the expression bi ’l-aṣābiʿ “with the fingers” all denote the game of mora, morra, or mication (Latin micatio , Ital. mora ). This game is played all around the shores of the Mediterranean, and also in Arabia and ʿIrāḳ, and consists of two players, facing each other, and, at a signal given by one of…

(a.), “replacement”, “mutation”, technical term in Arabic grammar indicating on the one hand morphological features involving a mutation of a phonetic character, the grammatical ( naḥwī ) ibdāl as in ittaṣala <* iwtaṣala [see hamza , naḥw , taṣrīf , etc.] and, on the other hand, in its lexicographical sense, the doublets ( badal , muḍāraʿa , muʿāḳaba , naẓīr , etc.) which are very common in Arabic and which differ from each other only by a single consonant: madaḥa / madaha “to praise”, ḳaṭaʿa / ḳaṭama “to cut”, etc. This lexicographical ( lug̲h̲awī ) ibdāl has intrigued the philologists, …

, sigla and conventional signs are nowadays called in Arabic muk̲h̲taṣarāt “abridgements” or rumūz “symbols”, but there does not seem to have been any specific term for them in the classical period, even though from the very beginnings of Islam copyists, scribes and specialists in all sorts of disciplines were led to use them. This is why it has been thought suitable to bring together here a list of the main abbreviations found in the mediaeval texts, together with some examples of those taken up by our contemporaries. One should first of all recall that a certain number of the sur…

b. al-Ḥasan al-Mut̲h̲annā, Umm al-Ḥusayn, the mother of the Ḥasanid ʿAlid martyr al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, Ṣāḥib Fak̲h̲k̲h̲ [ q.v.], who led a revolt in Medina in 169/786 during the caliphate of Mūsā al-Hādī. According to Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ al-Iṣfahānī, Maḳātil al-ṭālibiyyīn , Nad̲j̲af 1385/1965, 285-6, she and her husband were so famed for their religious devotion that they were known as “the pious couple”, al-zawd̲j̲ al-ṣāliḥ . (Ed.) Bibliography See also Muḥsin al-Amīn al-ʿĀmilī, Aʿyān al-S̲h̲īʿa, Damascus-Beirut 1356-74/1938-55, xxxiii, 169 no. 6825 and for her paternal ancestors,…

(a., pl. azimma ), lit.“ rein, halter”, refers to a department of the central administration in the mediaeval caliphate and then comes to refer in Fāṭimid times to a person in control, one holding the reins of power. The dīwān al-azimma , an office of control and audit, is traditionally said to have been founded by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mahdī in 162/778-9 (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 522), when it seems that the task of overseeing and controlling all the dīwāns of the administration was too much for a single hand. H.F. Amedroz suggested that every dīwān came to have a zimām attach…

, philosopher and historian who wrote in Arabic, born in Rayy around 320/932. His full name was Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Yaʿḳūb, which seems to refute Yāḳūt, who describes him as “Mazdaean converted to Islam”, whereas it was probably one of his ancestors who was converted. Miskawayh (Miskōye/Mus̲h̲kōye), and not Ibn Miskawayh as he is commonly designated, performed the tasks of secretary and librarian under the viziers al-Muhallabī (340-52/950-63) [ q.v.], Abu ’l-Faḍl (353-60/951-70) and Abu ’l-Fatḥ (360-6/970-6) [see ibn al-ʿamīd ] and finally under the Būyid …

Bibliographic entry in Chapter 15: The U…

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[English Version] Vriezen, Theodorus Christiaan (29.7.1899 Dinxperlo – 29.1.1981 Amersfoort), 1941–1956 o. Prof. für AT und Sem. Sprachen in Groningen, 1956–1969 in Utrecht (1965–1966 in Beirut). V. war jahrzehntelang der bedeutendste Alttestamentler der Niederlande (Dr. h.c. Bern 1964). Als Pfarrer nahm er 1924, zus. mit O. Eißfeldt, Aage Bentzen, W. Eichrodt u.a., am Lehrkurs des Deutschen Evangelischen Instituts für Altertumswissenschaft des Heiligen Landes in Jerusalem unter der Leitung von A. A…

[German Version] The ancient port of Dor ( Dw/'r; Dū'ru; Δῶρος/ Dṓros; Δῶρα/ Dṓra) is identical with Ḥel-Burğ (1425/2247). Dor is attested from Ramses II on and is mentioned as the dwelling place of the Tkr, a group of sea-peoples, in the travel report of Wenamun (1075). From Solomon on, it was claimed to be within Israelite territory (1 Kgs 4:11). The book of Joshua has another opinion (Josh 11:2, etc.). A seal (8th cent.) mentions a …

[German Version] (Jul 29, 1899, Dinxperlo – Jan 29, 1981, Amersfoort), professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Groningen from 1941 to 1956 and at Utrecht for 1956 to 1969 (1965–1966 in Beirut). For decades Vriezen was the preeminent Old Testament scholar of the Netherlands; he received an honorary doctorate from Bern in 1964. As a pastor, along with O. Eißfeldt, Aage Betzen, W. Eichrodt, and others he took part in the 1924 training course of the Deutsches Evangelisches Institut für Alt…

Bibliographic entry in Chapter 15: The U…

, ‘the Sea of the Greeks’, or al-baḥr al-rūmī , ‘the Greek Sea’, i.e. the Mediterranean, both names being in use from an early date to denote especially the E. Mediterranean, where Byzantine fleets were liable to be encountered. As ¶ the Muslim conquests extended, these names were applied to the whole Mediterranean, for which Baḥr al-Rūm is still in use. The Mediterranean was also called al-Baḥr al-S̲h̲āmī, or Baḥr al-S̲h̲ām, ‘the Sea of Syria’, and Baḥr al-Mag̲h̲rib, ‘the Sea of the West’. The sea thus variously named began, according to Arabic geographers, considerably to th…

, a town and district in southern Kurdistān, since the Ottoman reconquest of ʿIrāḳ from the Ṣafawids in the 11th/17th ¶ century under nominal Ottoman suzerainty, and since the aftermath of the First World War in the kingdom and then republic of ʿIrāḳ. The town lies in lat. 35° 32′ E. and long. 45° 27′ N. at an altitude of 838 m/2,750 feet, and is 90 km/54 miles east of Kirkūk [ q.v.], to which it is connected by road. The historical region of Sulaymāniyya lies between what is now the ʿIrāḳ-Persia frontier, the Diyāla [ q.v.] and its upper affluents the Tand̲j̲aru and Sīrwān, the region of …

(a.), pl. arkān , literally “corner (as in al-rukn al-yamānī = the southeastern corner of the Kaʿba), support, pillar”. The singular rukn occurs twice in the Ḳurʾān, in XI, 82/80, when Lot seeks for support in a strong rukn, pillar, or, figuratively, a leader or chief; and in LI, 39, where Pharaoh and his support, rukn, i.e. retinue, reject Moses. 1. In religious and legal usage. Here, it is commonly found in the expression arkān al-dīn or arkān al-ʿibāda , denoting the basic “pillars” of religion and religious observance. These so-called “pillars of …

(a.), “gesture, sign, indication”, has acquired in rhetoric [see badīʿ ] the technical meaning of “allusion” but, in its early connotation, a gesture of the hand, a sign of the head, of the elbow, the eyes, the eyebrows etc., is considered by al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ ( Bayān , i, 80; Ḥayawān , i, 33), together with speech, writing, nuṣba and computation on the fingers [see ḥisāb al-ʿaḳd where other gestures to indicate numbers are also dealt with], as one of the five methods by which a man may express his thoughts [see bayān ]. Whether combined with words or not, a gesture ( is̲h̲āra and also īmaʾ …

Muslims in the modern Mongolian People’s Republic. The sole Muslim communities of the Republic live today within the Turkish-speaking Kazakh [see ḳazaḳ ] (Mo. Hasag ) and Choton (Mo. Hoton ) groups. According to the 1960 census, 36,700 Kazakhs lived in the westernmost aimak or administrative division of the Republic, that is in existence since 1940 as the Bayan Ölgiy aimak; the aimak is also called Hasag aimak, “that of the Kazakhs”. These Kazakhs of Mongolia are linguistically, culturally and historically closely linked with the Kazakhs of the Kazakh SSR or th…

, a form of tax-farm used in the Ottoman Empire. On the Ottoman iltizām in general, see mültezim . The immediately following article deals with the iltizām in 19th century Egypt. (Ed.) The iltizām as an agrarian system was incompatible with Muḥammad ʿAlī’s endeavour to establish a centralized bureaucratic régime in Egypt. During the period preceding his rule, iltizāms had come to be granted no longer for a year or even for a few years but for the lifetime of the holder, or even as heritable and alienable property. Thus the state was …

(a.), verbal noun of nat̲h̲ara “to scatter, spread abroad”, in the pre-modern Middle East, the showering of money, jewels and other valuables on occasions of rejoicing, such as a wedding, a circumcision, the accession of a ruler, the victorious return from a military campaign, the reception of a diplomatic envoy, recovery from illness, etc. It was thus in part one aspect of the general practice of largesse and present giving by superiors to inferiors [see hiba , [see inʿām , k̲h̲ilʿa ] but also an aspect of charity to the poor. On occasion, the whole of…

(a.), verbal noun of the form II verb ḳaddara , used variously as a technical term. 1. Grammatical usages. (a) The predominant meaning of taḳdīr is “the imaginary utterance which the speaker intends as if he were saying it, when expressing a given literal utterance”. This definition needs some elucidation. In this meaning, taḳdīr is a grammatical technical term belonging to the terminology of one of the main theories of Arabic grammar, which we may call here “the theory of taḳdīr”. Since Arabic texts on grammar do not include any systematic discussion of this theory, its pr…

(a.), also aṣbaʿ , “finger”, as a measurement of length the breadth of the middle joint of the middle finger, conventionally one twenty-fourth of the cubit, d̲h̲irāʿ . See d̲h̲irāʿ, penultimate paragraph and bibliography. (Ed.) In Arab navigational texts iṣbaʿ is unit of measurement of star altitude ( ʿilm al-ḳiyās ). Latitude on the Ocean was indicated by the altitude of certain stars, usually the Pole Star or one of the Bears, above the horizon at certain times. Complete tables of Pole Star, Little Bear and Great Bear altit…

The word d̲j̲amdār is a contraction of Pers. d̲j̲āma-dār , “clothes-keeper”, cf. Dozy, Suppl . This word is not, as stated by Sobernheim in EI 1, a “title of one of the higher ranks in the army in Hindustān …”, although d̲j̲amʿdār , popularly d̲j̲amādār , Anglo-Indian Jemadar, “leader of a number ( d̲j̲amʿ ) of men”, is applied in the Indian Army to the lowest commissioned rank, platoon commander, but may be applied also to junior officials in the police, customs, etc., or to the foreman of a group of guides, sweepers, etc. (Ed.) In Mamlūk Egypt the d̲j̲amdāriyya (sing. d̲j̲amdār), “keepers of …

(Ar.), lake, is probably the diminmunitive, not of baḥr “sea”, as one would expect, but of baḥra , which is applied to a depression in which water can collect. Thus, in North Africa, bḥẹ̄ra , pl. bḥāyr denotes a low-lying plain, in eastern Algeria, northern Tunisia and part of southern Morocco; its most common meaning, however, is that of “vegetable garden, field for market gardening” or “field for the cultivation of cucurbitaceous plants (melons in particular)” (see W. Marçais, Textes arabes de Tanger , Paris 1911, 227). (Ed.) The word buḥayra (lake) underlies a t…

(a.), Muruwwa , a term used especially in pre-Islamic and early Islamic usage. In the Arabic language there are a number of terms the meaning of which is imprecise (cf. Ibn Fāris, al-Ṣāḥibī , Cairo 1910, 34-8). The word murūʾa is one of these. Indeed, we are assailed on all sides by a host of differing post-Islamic definitions and contradictory pronouncements ( aḳwāl ) regarding it. These definitions and pronouncements will be found in the various dictionaries and in Abū Manṣūr al-T̲h̲aʿālibī, Mirʾāt al-murūʾāt , Cairo 1898, 32 pp.; al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, al-Bayān wa ’l-tabyīn …

(a., pl. afdiya ) “redemption, repurchase, ransoming”. The dictionaries give several meanings for fidāʾ and its derivatives, amongst which fidāʾī offers especial interest [see fidāʾī , fidāʾiyyān-i islām ]. Another word derived from the same root, fidya , appears in the Ḳurʾān to denote the fast which compensates for the days of Ramaḍān in which fasting has not been practised (II, 180/184, 192/196) or the impossibility of purchasing a place in paradise (LVII, 14/15). The verbal forms fadā , tafādā and iftadā are more common there (e.g. fadaynā-hu in regard to…

, the night patrol or watch in Muslim cities. According to Maḳrīzī the first to carry out this duty was ʿAbdallah b. Masʿūd, who was ordered by Abu Bakr to patrol the streets of Medina by night. ʿUmar is said to have gone on patrol in person, accompanied by his mawlā Aslam and by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf. ( Ḵh̲iṭaṭ . ii, 223, cf. Ṭabarī, i, 5, 2742; R. Levy, (ed.) Maʿālim al-Ḳurba , 216; al-G̲h̲azzālī, Naṣīḥat al-Mulūk (ed. Humāʾī, 13, 58). Later the ʿasas was commanded by a police officer, known as the ṣāḥib al-ʿasas (Maḳrīzī, loc. cit.; Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī, ii, 73; Nuw…

(a.), “countryside”. I. As a geographical and territorial term. One sense of this term early emerged from the Egyptian context, where an arid country is traversed by a river with food-producing fringes: the image is that of the fertile (and cultivated) banks of the Nile [see nīl ]. It includes two ideas, that of “fringe” (bank, littoral and, by extension, flank, limit) and that of “fertile countryside”, “abundance” (as opposed to the desert; and, by extension, “countryside” as opposed to the town) (see the lexicon of Lane and Kazimirski). In Morocco, where the natural environment is…

, the narcissus, in Turkish nergis , in Persian nargis and also ʿabhar (cf. F. Meier, Die schöne Mahsatī , Wiesbaden 1963, i, 251). In classical Arabic, Persian and Turkish poetry the narcissus appears both in descriptions of nature and in erotic poetry. Instances of the narcissus as one of the items of the garden can be found in the exordia of panegyric ḳaṣīdas , in wine and love poetry ( k̲h̲amriyyāt , g̲h̲azaliyyāt ) and, of course, in the specialised genres of garden, flower and spring poetry ( rawḍiyyāt , zahriyyāt , rabīʿiyyāt ). A number of Arab poets, e.g. Ibn al-Muʿtazz and Ibn al-Rūmī [ q.v…

1. In Arabic morphology In general, the formation of these adjectives is a simple matter, the suffixation taking place directly without modification of the vocalisation or consonantal structure of the nouns to which it is applied: s̲h̲ams “sun”, s̲h̲amsī “solar”; ḳamar “moon”, ḳamarī “lunar”; Miṣr “Egypt”, Miṣrī “Egyptian”, etc. It should be noted, however, that in certain cases alterations occur for which the grammarians have been at pains to codify rules. Only the most frequent modifications will be cited here: omission of the tāʾ marbūṭa : Baṣra ; transformation of the final -ā ( or ) …

, the (modern) Arabie name for art. Individual treatment of aspects of the art of Islam will be found in articles under the following headings; ¶ the examples are given as a guide and are not intended to be exhaustive. 1. Techniques, e.g., architecture, bināʾ (building), fak̲h̲k̲h̲ār (the potter’s craft), fusayfisāʾ (mosaic), ḳalī (carpets), k̲h̲aṭṭ (calligraphy), ḳumās̲h̲ (textiles), metalwork, taṣwīr (painting), etc. 2. Materials, e.g., ʿād̲j̲ (ivory), billawr (crystal), d̲j̲iṣṣ (plaster), k̲h̲azaf (pottery and ceramics), ʿirḳ al-luʾluʾ (mother-of-pearl), libās …

, Yalu (t.), in modern Turkish, yali , literally, “bank, shore”, but coming to mean in Ottoman Turkish “residence, villa on the shore”, cf. Redhouse, A Turkish-English dictionary, 2192: “a water-side residence”. 1. Etymology. The Turkish word stems from the Greek: Homeric Grk. αἰγιαλός, Modern Grk. γιαλός. It must have appeared in Ottoman Turkish early, since it is found in ʿĀs̲h̲i̊k-pas̲h̲a-zāde and Nes̲h̲rī (end of the 9th/15th century). It entered into place-names, e.g. Yahkavak, Yaliköy, Küçükyali, etc.), and spread into the Balkans in one direction (Serbo-Croat ìgolo …

( ʿalawiyya ), the reigning dynasty in Morocco. Morocco at the advent of the ʿAlawid dynasty. When the ʿAlawid S̲h̲urafāʾ [see s̲h̲arīf ] succeeded in asserting their sovereignty over Morocco, the country was rent by a serious political, social and religious crisis. The great movement of maraboutism and xenophobia for which the growth of Ṣūfism and S̲h̲arīfism and the development of the religious brotherhoods had for long paved the ¶ way, and which had manifested itself as early as the 15th century, the period of incursions by Portuguese and Spanish Christians on…

, the nisba of three Indo-Muslim scholars connected with the town of T́hānesar [ q.v.] in the eastern Pand̲j̲āb. 1. Mawlānā Aḥmad , one of the many disciples of the Čis̲h̲tī saint Naṣīr al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Yaḥyā, called Čirāg̲h̲-i Dihlī (d. 757/1356 [ q.v.]), achieved a reputation for piety and learning, and wrote a celebrated Ḳaṣīda dāliyya . He is said to have engaged in a dispute with a descendant of the great Ḥanafī legal scholar ʿAlī b. Abī Bakr al-Marg̲h̲īnānī [ q.v.] before Tīmūr when the latter was in Dihlī, but to have subsequently retired to teach at Kālpī [ q.v.], where he died in 820/1412. B…

(a., pl. mawālīyāt ) or mawālīyyā , also reportedly mawālī and muwālayāt , a non-classical Arabic verse form. Together with the cognate mawwāl , this is best considered in three contexts. 1. In written sources. Among the “seven arts” al-funūn al-sabʿa [see kān wa-kān ])—non-classical verse forms are always made to number seven, although the lists are not identical—the mawāliyā is given pride of place next to the muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ and the zad̲j̲al , on the ground that its metre is classical and its language either classical or colloquial. Two traditions place its beginnings in ʿIrāḳ in…

(p.), Ottoman Turkish form pālāheng , literally “string, rope, halter, cord”, is applied to the belt worn around the waist by dervishes, especially the Bektās̲h̲īs [see bektās̲h̲iyya ], and on which is fixed a disc of stone (of jasper, found near the tomb of Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Bektās̲h̲ at Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Bektās̲h̲ Köy in Anatolia, of crystal or of translucent stone from Nad̲j̲af in ʿIrāḳ) with twelve flutings at the edge; these are said by the Bektās̲h̲īs to symbolise the Twelve ¶ Imāms , the Twelve Disciples of Jesus or even the Twelve Tribes of Israel (see J.K. Birge, The Bektashi order of dervishes, …

Title of the first volume of poems by Itzik Manger (1901–1969) published in Bucharest in 1929, which combines aspects of Yiddish and general European culture in a modernist synthesis, staging of the local. Manger’s work is characterized by an innovative approach to topics from Jewish tradition. He would often de-nationalize their content, transferring them into a universal kind of symbolism. Thus his work corresponded to the vision of a Yiddish modern era characteristic of the secular Yiddish cultural area during the interwar years in Eastern Europe.1. IntroductionManger’s first …

Titel des ersten, 1929 in Bukarest erschienenen Bandes von Gedichten Itzik Mangers (1901–1969), die in einer modernistischen Synthese Aspekte der jiddischen und allgemeinen europäischen Kultur in der Inszenierung des Lokalen verbinden. Mangers Werk ist durch einen innovativen Umgang mit Stoffen der jüdischen Tradition gekennzeichnet, deren Inhalte er oft entnationalisierte und in universelle Symbolik überführte. Es entsprach damit der Vision einer jiddischen Moderne, wie sie für einen jiddisch-s…

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Bibliographic entry in Chapter 3: From t…

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Bibliographic entry in Chapter 3: From t…

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, the capital of Mauritania [see mūrītāniyā ]. It was created ex nihilo near a site occupied by a small village and a ksar [see Ḳaṣr ]. The choice of its situation was made the object of serious studies, since it was necessary that it should be accessible, easily supplied with drinking water and distant ¶ enough from the Senegal River to escape inundations like that of 1950. Several plans of urban design were put forward even before independence was conceded to Mauritania (1960), and construction work, begun in 1958, has not ceased since that date i…

(a.), the verbal noun from the form II verb kaffara “to declare someone a kāfir or unbeliever”. 1. General definition. From earliest Islamic times onwards, this was an accusation hurled at opponents by sectarians and zealots, such as the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ites [ q.v.]; but a theologian like al-G̲h̲azālī [ q.v.] held that, since the adoption of kufr was the equivalent here of apostasy, entailing the death penalty [see murtadd ], it should not be lightly made ( Fayṣal al-tafriḳa bayn al-Islam wa ’l-zandaḳa , quoted in B. Lewis, The political language of Islam, Chicago-London 1988, 85-6). It ha…

This Persian term “master of the house, head of the family”, Pahlavi katak-xvatai, acquired, in addition to the above meanings, those of husband, chief of a tribe, headman of a village and tithe-officer in a town (Chardin, Voyages , ed. 1811, iv, 77, “dixenier de quartier”) responsible to the kalāntar [ q.v.] (cf. M. Muʿīn, Persian dictionary, Tehran 1345, iii, 2921). In Ottoman Turkish, it evolved into the form k y ahya , with the meanings “steward of a household”, “head of an artisans’ gild” (see below). (i) In Ottoman Turkish administrative usage Already in Il-K̲h̲ānid Persia we find the ka…

, the pen name ( mak̲h̲laṣ ) used by a number of Ottoman poets whose poetry is known to date mainly through the samples found in med̲j̲mūʿa s and ted̲h̲kire s. Judging by these, they are all poets of secondary importance at best. Two should be singled out. 1. Maḥmūd Efendi of Gelibolu (Gallipoli), known as Ḳara Maḥmūd (or Ḳara Ḳāḍī-zāde according to Beyānī). A mülāzim of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Islām Abu ’l-Suʿūd Efendi [ q.v.], he first became a müderris . After being dismissed from a position with a daily salary of forty aḳče s, he was appointed in 984/1576 to the S̲h̲āh Ḵh̲ūbān medrese …

(a.), with Ṣiyām , maṣdar from the root s-w-m; the two terms are used indiscriminately. The original meaning of the word in Arabic is “to be at rest” (Th. Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge zur sem. Sprachw ., Strassburg 1910, 36, n. 3; see previously, S. Fränkel, De vocab. ... in Corano peregrinis, Leiden 1880, 20: “quiescere” ). The meaning “fasting” may have been taken from Judaeo-Aramaic and Syriac usage, when Muḥammad became better acquainted with the institution of fasting in Medina; This is the sense of the word in the Medinan sūras. Origin ofthe rite. That fasting was an unknown practice …

(a.), from k̲h̲azana, “to shut up, to preserve, to hoard”. The word is believed to have been first used in North Africa as an official term in the second century a. h. applied to an iron chest in which Ibrāhīm b. al-Ag̲h̲lab, emīr of Ifrīḳiya, kept the sums of money raised by taxation and intended for the ʿAbbāsid caliph of Bag̲h̲dād. At first this term, which in Morocco is now synonymous with the government, was applied more particularly to the financial department, the Treasury. It may be said that the term mak̲h̲zen meaning the Moroccan government and everything more or less connec…

, colloquially also Falasṭīn, an Arabic adaptation of the classical Palestine (Greek Παλαιστίνη Latin Palaestina), the land of the Philistines. The name was used by Herodotus (i, 105; ii, 106; iii, 91; iv, 39) and other Greek and Latin authors to designate the Philistine coastlands and sometimes also the territory east of it as far as the Arabian desert. After the suppression of the Jewish revolts in 70 and 132-5 A.D. and the consequent reduction in the Jewish population the name Syria Palaestin…

(etymology of this name obscure), a group of Arabs, of nomadic origin, found by early modern times (the 19th century) in the central Sudan belt of Africa, now coming within the countries bordering on Lake Chad, sc. western Chad, northeastern Nigeria, northern Cameroons and the southeastern tip of Niger. 1. History. Their origin was in Dārfūr and Wādāy [ q.vv.], and they migrated westwards at an unknown date, perhaps as early as the 14th century; in the 17th century they were present in Bagirmi [ q.v.] to the southeast of Lake Chad as that nation took shape. The earliest arrivals…

, (or al-Aḥsāʾ , also al-Ḥasāʾ ), oasis, or more properly group of oases, in eastern Saudi Arabia, approximately from 25° 20′ to 25° 40′ N., and 49° 30′ to 49° 50′ E. The name has been also used to designate the entire region of Eastern Arabia. The capital is al-Hufūf [ q.v.], about 65 kms. inland from the Persian Gulf. The name derives from ḥisy , an excavation in sandy soil which, having a stony substratum, holds rain water for a long time, this water being easily reached with little digging. The average elevation of the oasis is 175 m. above sea level. Al-Ḥasā, with some 1…

, the Alexander Romance. i. Arabic. Sura XVIII (59 ff.) shows that the Arabs have known of the Alexander Romance (pseudo-Callisthenes) from early times, since what is said about Mūsā in this Ḳurʾānic passage is in fact derived from this romance. On the earlier history of the Romance, see Nöldeke, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Alexanderromans , in Denkschriften der Kais. Akad. d. Wiss ., Vienna, xxxiii. According to this scholar, the source of the Syriac and Arabic stories is to be found in a primitive Pahlavi version, the author of which, according to Fraenkel ( ZDMG, xlv, 319), may have be…

(a.), lit. “connection”, “what is connected”. 1. In grammar. Here the meaning is lit. “adjunct”. It is a syntactical term which denotes in the grammatical literature following Sībawayhi the clause which complements such word classes termed mawṣūl as the relative pronouns allad̲h̲ī , man , mā , ayy- and the subordinative an, anna . Its early development may be reconstructed as follows. Elements of two different Greek systems of parts of speech were imported synchronously into Arabic by the earliest Arab grammarians: an Aristot…

, écrit en lettres arabes Tūbū, peuple du Sahara oriental. Il se trouve dispersé sur un immense territoire, entre, à l’est le désert Libyen, sur les franges de l’Égypte et de la Libye; à l’ouest, le massif du Hoggar/Ahaggar [ q.v.], en Algérie mériodionale; au nord, le Fezzan [voir Fazzān], région de Libye méridionale; et au sud, la moitié septentrionale du Tchad [voir Čad, dans Suppl.] et les franges du Soudan. Au Fezzan, ils forment la majeure part de la population dans le district de Gatrūn, et un petit nombre d’entre eux se trouvent dans l’oasis de Kufra [ q.v.]. Le plateau de Djado [voir Ḏj̲ād…

(a.), nom verbal de la deuxième forme du verbe kaffara «déclarer quelqu’un kāfir ou incroyant». Depuis les débuts de l’époque islamique, ce fut une accusation lancée violemment aux opposants par des sectaires et des zélotes, tels les Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ites [ q.v.]. Pourtant, un théologien comme al-G̲h̲azālī [ q.v.] affirmait que, puisque l’adoption du kufr était équivalente à l’apostasie, encourant la peine de mort [voir Murtad], on ne pouvait porter cette accusation à la légère ( Fayṣal al-tafriḳa bayn al-Islām wa l-zandaḳa, cité dans B. Lewis, The political language of Islam, Chicago-Lon…

(a.) (P. muhr ), seal, signet, signet-ring, the impression (also k̲h̲atm ) as well as the actual seal-matrix; it is applied not only to seals proper, engraved in incuse characters with retrograde inscriptions, but also in the very common seal-like objects with regular inscriptions of a pious or auspicious character; for the latter, which are amulets and further readily distinguished from seals by the absence of a personal name, see ṭilsam ; indeed anything with an inscription stamped upon it may be called k̲h̲ātam . Here we are only concerned with seals in…

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[English Version] I. Altes TestamentPhilister (hebr. פְּלִשְׁתִּים/pelisˇti^m; LXX ϕυλιστιει´μ/phylistiei´m [12x] und α᾿λλο´ϕυλος/allo´phylos [269x]; äg. pl/rst) bewohnen nach bibl. Darstellung das »Land der Ph.« (Gen 21,32; Ex 13,17; 1Sam 30,16 u. ö.), für judäische Erzähler am konkretesten das Gebiet von Asdod über Gath und Ekron bis an den Rand Kernjudas (1Sam 5,1–12; 6,1), und werden von einer einheitlich handelnden Gruppe von fünf »Fürsten« (Jos 13,3; Ri 3,3; 16,5; 1Sam 5,8 u. ö.) bzw. Königen (Gen 26,1…

[German Version] I. Old Testament Philistines (Heb. פְּלִשְׁתִים/ pelištîm; LXX ϕυλιστιείμ/ phylistieím [12 occurrences] and ἀλλόϕυλος/ allóphylos [269 occurrences]; Egyp. pl/rst) are represented in the Bible as living in the “Land of the Philistines” (Gen 21:32; Exod 13:17; 1 Sam 30:16 etc.); for Jewish narrators most specifically the area extending from Ashdod through Gath and Ekron to the boundary of Judea itself (1 Sam 5:1–12; 6:1). Their leaders are a group of five cooperating “princes” (Josh 13:3; Judg 3:3; …

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(a.), pl. ḳanawāt , ḳanā , ḳunī , aḳniya , “canal, irrigation system, water-pipe”. Used also for a baton, a lance, etc., the term originally meant “reed” [see ḳaṣab ] and it is with this meaning and that of “rush” that the word ḳanū is known in Akkadian (cf. Zimmern, Akkad. Fremdwörter , Leipzig 1915, 56); becoming ḳanä in Hebrew and ḳanyā in Aramaic, it passed into Arabic and was also borrowed in Greek and Latin in the forms χάννα χάννη (χάνη), canna ; by an evolution parallel to that of ḳanāt , the Latin word canalis “in the shape of a reed”, acquired the meaning of “pipe, canal”. In Persian ḳanāt is u…

(a.), pls. busṭ/busuṭ , absiṭa , which implies the general meaning of extensiveness (thus in Ḳurʾān, LXXI, 18), is a generic term for carpet, more specifically, one of fairly large dimensions. Any kind of carpet with a pile is called a ṭinfisa if it is decorated with multicoloured bands, a zarbiyya ( zirbiyya , zurbiyya , pl. zarābī cf. Ḳurʾān, LXXXVIII, 16); if it is decorated with a relief design, a maḥfūra whilst a prayer carpet is called a sad̲j̲d̲j̲āda (modern Turkish seccade ), and the collective sad̲j̲d̲j̲ād is sometimes used as a generic term (on the …

, the 25th letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed / n/, with the numerical value 50, according to the oriental order [see abd̲j̲ad ]. Nūn is also a name of the 68th sūra [see Ḳurʾān , sūra ]. 1. In Arabic ¶ Definition: an occlusive, dental, voiced nasal (Cantineau, Études , 38-40; Fleisch, Traité , i, 58, 84-5). Sībawayh distinguishes two kinds nūn: (a) the one whose point of articulation is the tip of the tongue and the region a little above the incisors; this is a clear ( mad̲j̲hūr ) and hard ( s̲h̲adīd ) “letter”, but it is accompanied by a resonance ( g̲h̲unna ) of the nose ( anf ). (b) the light ( k̲h…

(a.), a word belonging to the vocabulary of stock-breeders and designating the product of a crossing ( tawlīd ) of two different animal breeds, thus a hybrid, of mixed blood. It ¶ is hardly surprising that it was extended to humans from the time when the feeling arose that the purity of the Arab race had been altered following the conquests, the influx of elements of other stocks and mixed marriages. In a more limited sense, muwallad designates a cross-breed, half-caste or even, as Dozy states ( Suppl., s.v.) “one who, without being of Arab origin, has been born among the Arabs an…

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