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, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿImrān b. ʿĀmir, the historian of the Song̲h̲al kingdom in the Sūdān, belonged to an old family of scholars in Timbuktu where he was born on 1st Ḏj̲umādā II, 1004 (1596); here he received his education from Aḥmad Bābā [q. v.], On the conclusion of his studies he sought with his brothers a sphere of activity in Ḏj̲enne [q. v.], the old commercial town which at that time rivalled Timbuktu as a commercial and intellectual centre. Here in 1036 (1626) he succeeded in obtaining the post of Imām of the Sankore Mosque, ¶ i. e. of the mosque in the foreign quarter, ha…

Abū Dulaf al-Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲ī al-Yanbūʿī, an Arabic poet who lived at the court of the Sāmānid Naṣr II b. Aḥmad (301—331=913—942) and in 331 was sent by him to conduct a Chinese embassy back to their land and on his return visited India. He later gained the favour of the Būyid vizier al-Ṣāḥib al-Tālḳānī (so al-Samʿānī, Ansāb, fol. 363b) Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbbād (d. 385 = 995). To him he devoted a long ḳaṣīda on the thieves’ dialect of the Banū Sāsān, which his patron so much admired that he himself wrote a commentary upon it (extracts in T̲h̲aʿālibī, Yatīma, iii. 176—194). The dates of his birth and d…

, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, an Arab mystic, born in 833 (1429) and died on the 9th Shaʿbān 919 = 11th Oct. 1513 in Damascus, collected passages used in prayer, which have been preserved in a Berlin Mss. (Ahlwardt, Verzeichnis, N°. 3778) (cf. al-Numʿānī, K. al-Rawḍ al-ʿĀṭir, cod. Wetzst., ii. 289; Ahlw., Verz., N°. 9886, fol. 17b.). (C. Brockelmann)

, Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad, son of ʿAlī al-Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ānī (see above), died 838 = = 1434 in S̲h̲īrāz, translated a treatise on logic written in Persian by his father, wrote a commentary on his Risāla fi ’l-Uṣul, and on Taftāzānī’s grammar Irs̲h̲ād al-Hādī and wrote al-G̲h̲urra fi ’l-Manṭiḳ, on which al-Ṣafawī (died 953 = 1546) wrote a commentary (see de Slane, Catalogue des mss. ar. de la Bibliothèque Nationale, N°. 2397). (C. Brockelmann) Bibliography Ḵh̲wāndamīr, Ḥabīb al-Siyar, iii. 3, 147 Brockelmann, Ar. Lit. ii. 210.

, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad, Arab author, of whose life nothing is known beyond that he belonged to the circle of Ibn al-Muʿtazz and wrote the adab book Kitāb al-Maḥāsin wa ’l-Masāwī, (ed. by F. Schwally, Giessen, 1902; reprinted Cairo, 1906) during the reign of the Caliph al-Muḳtadir (295—320 = 908—932). (C. Brockelmann)

, a family of physicians of Syrian origin, which was originally settled in Ḏj̲undai Sābūr. Ḏj̲ūrd̲j̲īs b. Bak̲h̲tīshūʿ, who was chief of the hospital there and had already made a name for himself as a writer on medical subjects, was summoned thence to Bag̲h̲dād in 148 (765) to attend the Caliph al-Manṣūr who was suffering from a disorder of the stomach. He so won the latter’s confidence by a successful cure that he was prevailed upon to stay in the capital. In 152 (769) however, Ḏj̲ūrd̲j̲īs hims…

, Ismāʿīl b. al-Ḥusain Abu ’l-Faḍāʾil, an Arab, physician, died 530 = 1135, composed in addition to smaller works two textbooks of medicine, one for ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī Arslān entitled al-Tad̲h̲kira al-As̲h̲rafīya fi ’l-Ṣināʿa al-Ṭibbīya (see de Slane, Catalogue des Mss. Arab. de la Bibl. Nat., N°. 29, 29955) and for the Ḵh̲wārizms̲h̲āh the Ḏh̲ak̲h̲īrat Ḵh̲wārizms̲h̲āh (Yeni Ḏj̲āmiʿ Kütübk̲h̲ānesinde maḥfūẓ kütüb mewd̲j̲ūdeñin defteri, N°. 915, 916); see Wüstenfeld, Arab. Arzte, N°. 165; Brockelmann, Gesch. d. arab. Lit., i. 487. (C. Brockelmann)

(a., pl. amt̲h̲āl) is originally by etymology, like the Eth. mesl, messālē, Aram. mat̲h̲lā and Hebrew mās̲h̲āl (see O. Eissfeldt, Der Maschal im Alten Testamente, Beihefte zur Z. A. T. W., xxiv., Giessen 1913), simile, comparison; as popular sayings commonly appear in this form, the term was applied to them in general and thus obtained the general sense of proverb and popular saying. The fondness for similes and allusions, ¶ which is common to all primitive cultures, survived among the Semites and especially among the Arabs with great tenacity and therefore plays…

1. ʿAbd Allāh, Abū Bakr, Abū Maʿbad (corrupted to Abū Saʿīd), one of the seven canonical Ḳurʾān readers, born in 45 (665) in Mecca, belonged to a Persian family which had migrated to South Arabia, was a client of ʿAmr b. ʿAlḳama al-Kinānī and from his trade of druggist was called al-Dārī or al-Dārānī; he filled the office of Ḳāḍī ’l-Ḏj̲amāʿa in Mecca and died there in 120 = 738. His manner of reciting the Ḳurʾān was transmitted by the two readers Ḳanbal i. e. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Mak̲h̲zūmī (…

, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Abū Isḥāḳ al-Nīsābūrī, a famous theologian and Ḳurʾān exegist, born in Muḥarram 427 (Dec. 1035). His great work is the commentary on the Ḳurʾān entitled al-Kas̲h̲f wa ’l-Bayān ʿ an Tafsīr al-Ḳurʾān which Ibn al-Ḏj̲awzī (according to Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī, p. 660; ed. Popper, ii. 166) ¶ criticises on the ground that it accepts weak traditions, especially in the early Sūras, but which according to Schwally (in Nöldeke’s Geschichte des Qorāns, ii. 174), must be one of the most useful works on the subject, as he uses about 100 sources in addition…

, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, Arab historian, of whom we only know that he died about 314 = 926 (s. Frähn, Indications bibliographiques, p. 16), whom Wüstenfeld ( Geschichtschr., N°. 541) erroneously places in the year 1003 a. h. He wrote from the S̲h̲īʿī point of view a romantic history of the early caliphs and their conquests, Pertsch, Verzeichnis der arab. Hdss. der Herzogl. Bibl. zu Gotha, N°. 1592, which Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Mustawfī al-Harawī translated into Persian in 596 = 1199, s. Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Mss. in the British Museum, i. 150 (where other Mss. are detailed), from wh…

, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Bustī, Arab author and authority on Tradition, born at Bust in Sid̲j̲istān, after extended travels in pursuit of knowledge, filled a judicial office in Samarḳand, but was driven from it as a heretic, because he had defined the prophethood as a combination of ʿIlm and ʿAmal (cf. Goldziher on Maʿānī al-Nafs, p. 57). After staying in Nasā and in 334 = 465 in Nīsābūr, he settled in Samarḳand as a teacher of Tradition and died there at the age of 80 on the 22nd S̲h̲awwāl 354 = 21st October 965. His chief work is the collection on Tradition famous for its artificial a…

, Abū Bakr b. ʿAlī b. al-Ṭaiyib, Arab author and dogmatist, a pupil of Abu ’l-ʿAbbās b. Mud̲j̲āhid al-Tāʾī al-Baṣrī, who was a pupil of Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-As̲h̲ʿarī, died on the 23 Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 403 = 6 June 1013 at Bag̲h̲dād. He was famous for his polemical writings. He introduced new ideas into the Kalām from Greek philosophy or perhaps from the dogmatics of the Eastern Church, such as the conception of atoms, ¶ of empty space and the view that an accident can not be the bearer of another accident and that an accident cannot last through two units of time. Of his works there has only survived the Kitāb f…

(Bērūni), Abu ’l-Raiḥān Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, Arab author of Persian origin born in Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 362 = (September 973) in a suburb of Ḵh̲wārizm; studied mathematics, astronomy, and medicine, and chronology and history in addition, and entered into correspondence with Ibn Sīnā. As a result of these studies he composed his first great work his Kitāb al-Āt̲h̲ār al-Bāḳiya ʿani ’l-Ḳurūn al-Ḵh̲āliya (Chronologie orientalischer Völker, edited by Eduard Sachau, Leipzig, 1878; Chronology of Ancient Nations; an English Version of the Arabic Text of the At̲h̲ār ul Bāḳiya of Albiruni or “ Ve…

, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Saif Abu ’l-Ḥasan, an Arab historian and writer, a client of the Ḳurais̲h̲ family of the ʿAbd S̲h̲ams b. ʿAbd Manāf, was born in 135 (752) in Baṣra, where he was a pupil of the theologian Muʿammar b. al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲, but he became interested in Adab and history; he lived for a time in al-Madāʾin but moved from there to Bag̲h̲dād, where he was closely associated with Isḥāḳ b. Ibrāhīm al-Mawṣilī in whose house he died in 225 (840), according to the Fihrist in 215 (830), according to others not till 231 (845). His literary activity was very extensi…

Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Abu ’l-Faḍl, Arabic philologist born in Maidān Ziyād, a quarter of NIsabur, pupil of the Ḳurʾān exegist and philologist ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Wāḥidī, teacher of Samʿānī among others, died in his native town on 25th Ramaḍān 518 (Oct. 27, 1124). His principal work, the great collection of proverbs Mad̲j̲maʿ al-Amt̲h̲āl, exists in numerous MSS. (listed by Hidayat Husain in Cat. Buhar, N°. 400, also Paris, N°. 5861, 6511, 6702), pr. Būlāḳ 1284, Cairo 1310, lith. Ṭeherān 1290, with Lat. transl. by G. W. Freytag, Arabum proverbia, Bonn 1838-1843; synopsis al-Durr al-muntak̲h̲ab b…

, abu ’l-Ḳāsim Maḥmūd b. ʿOmar, a Persian born Arabic scholar, theologian and philologist. Born in Ḵh̲wārizm on 27th Rad̲j̲ab 467 (March 8, 1075), in the course of his travels as a student he came to Mecca, where he stayed for some time as a pupil of Ibn Wahhās, hence his epithet Ḏj̲āru ’llāhi. He must however have achieved a literary reputation before this; when he passed through Bag̲h̲dād on the pilgrimage he was welcomed there by the learned ʿAlid Hibat Allāh b. al-S̲h̲ad̲j̲arī. As a theologian he followed the teachings of the Muʿtazila; as a p…

, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad abu ’l-Faḍl Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn al-Iskandarī al-S̲h̲ād̲h̲īlī, an Arab mystic and one of the most vigorous opponents of Ibn Taimīya [q. v.], died on the 16 Ḏj̲umādā II 709 = 21 Nov. 1309 in the Madrasa al-Manṣūrīya in Cairo. Of his works detailed by Brockelmann, Gesch. d. ar. Litt., II, 117-118, there have been printed 1) al-Ḥikam al-ʿAṭāʾīya with the commentary of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhim b. ʿAbbād al-Nafzī al-Rondī, died 796 = 1394, Būlāḳ 1285, Cairo 1303, 1306 (with the commentary of ʿAbd Allāh al-S̲h̲arḳāwī on the margins). On it there is a Turkish commentary al-Muḥkam fī S̲h̲arḥ…

, the name of several Arab authors, of whom the following are the best known. 1. The historian of Damascus, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. Hibat Allāh Abu ’l-Ḳāsim T̲h̲iḳat al-Dīn al-S̲h̲āfīʿī born in Muḥarram 499 = Sept. 1105 in Damascus, studied in Bag̲h̲dād and the principal cities of Persia, became professor at the Madrasa al-Nūriya in his native city and died on the 11th Rad̲j̲ab = 25th January 1176. In his principal work, the Taʾrīk̲h̲ Madīnat Dimas̲h̲ḳ, he collected, after the fashion of the Taʾrīk̲h̲ Bag̲h̲dād of al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī, the biographies of all the men who had ever…

, Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. Abī ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad, compiled in 632 = 1234 a selection from the works of Spanish poets and stylists of the vth and vith century a. h. entitled Kanz al-Kuttāb wa Muntak̲h̲ab al-Ādāb (s. H. Krafft, Die Ar:, Pers. und Türk. Hdss. der k. k. Orient. Akademie zu Wien, Vienna 1842, N°. 147). (C. Brockelmann) ¶