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(sometimes given in Western sources as ʿAfar ), a small tribe in Oman in eastern Arabia. ¶ The nisba is ʿIfārī. The tribesmen, who are nomads, range through the sayḥ or steppe east of the southeastern corner of al-Rubʿ al-K̲h̲ālī. One of the landmarks in This district is Ḳārat al-Kibrīt (the Sulphur Hill). West of the hill is Wādī al-ʿUmayrī, one of a number of valleys which run down to the quicksands of Umm al-Samīm [ q.v.]. North of al-ʿIfār is the tribe of al-Durūʿ [ q.v.], while to the east are sections of al-D̲j̲anaba [ q.v.] and the tribes of Āl Wahība [ q.v.] and al-Ḥikmān. Other sections o…

, a small town close to the southern boundary of the Yaman Arab Republic (Northern Yaman) in the administrative district of Ibb [ q.v.]. A short distance to the south of the other side of the boundary lies al-Ḍāliʿ, formerly the capital of the ʿĀmirī amīrate [ q.v.] and now a forward base of the People’s Democratic Republic of the Yaman (Southern Yaman). Ḳaʿṭaba is located between the upper reaches of the Wādīs Tuban and Banā. Terraced fields in the surrounding rocky terrain produce cereals, fruit, coffee and ḳāt [ q.v.]. At an altitude of over 1200 m. Ḳaʿṭaba is still much lower tha…

, Bedouin tribe of Eastern Arabia. Its members (sing. Hād̲j̲irī) trace their ancestry to Ḳaḥṭān through Hād̲j̲ir and Manṣūr, eponym of al-Manāṣīr tribe. The two groups, known together as ʿIyāl Manṣūr, have frequently been allies. Banū Hād̲j̲ir, according to their traditions, migrated to Eastern Arabia from the Tat̲h̲līt̲h̲ area in southwestern Arabia. They claim kinship with the Ḏj̲anb and Āl S̲h̲urayf tribes of Eastern ʿAsīr. Their move to the east, said to have been made for economic advantage…

Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī Wad̲j̲īh al-Dīn al-S̲h̲aybānī al-Zabīdī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī , Arab historian and religious scholar, was born in 866/1461 in Zabīd and died there in 944/1537. Older biographers call him Ibn al-Daybaʿ, but al-D̲j̲irāfī refers to him simply as al-Ḳāḍī al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Daybaʿ. Daybaʿ, said to mean “white” in Nubian, was the laḳab of his remote ancestor ʿAlī b. Yūsuf. Ibn al-Daybaʿ, whose father died in India without having seen him, was brought up by his maternal grandfather in Zabīd [ q.v.], the centre of S̲h̲āfiʿite learning in Tihāmat al-Y…

(in modern, also some ancient, dialects pron. bīr plur. biʾār , abʾur , ābār ) is the most comprehensive Arabic word for the well; very often it appears as the genus proximum of its numerous synonyms (like ḳalīb , rakiyya etc.), and the number of its various epithets is considerable. The word is of common Semitic origin (Accad. bēru , Hebr. b e ēr , Aram. bērā ) and, as in the other Semitic languages, of feminine gender (for exceptions in modern Ar. dialects see Fleischer, Kl. Schriften , i, 265; Bräunlich, Well 3212). In general, however, biʾr embraces a much wider co…

(officially written Bahrain) is a British protected state in the Persian Gulf consisting of an archipelago of the same name lying between the peninsula of Ḳaṭar and the mainland of Saudi Arabia, as well as another group of islands, of which Ḥuwār is the largest, just off the west coast of Ḳaṭar. The Ruler of al-Baḥrayn and the Ruler of Ḳaṭar disagree regarding the status of a small area surrounding al-Zubāra in north-western Ḳaṭar. The variety of explanations, none of them convincing, of the name al-Baḥrayn in the Arabic sources indicates that its origin remains unkno…

, an oasis in eastern Arabia, the principal town of which bears the same name and lies in Lat. 24° 14ʹ N, Long. 53° 46ʹ E. The town of Ḥamāsā lies west of al-Buraymī town and on the edge of the same grove of date palms. The only other centre in the oasis which might be considered a town, by virtue of its market, is al-ʿAyn, the south-easternmost of all the settlements. The oasis covers an area of roughly 6 km. by 9 km. and includes also the villages of Ṣaʿrā, Hīlī, al-Ḳaṭṭāra, al-Ḳīmī (pronounce…

( aflād̲j̲ al-dawāsir ), a district in southern Nad̲j̲d athwart the great cuesta of Ṭuwayḳ, roughly bounded by Wādī Birk (N), the plain of al-Bayāḍ (E), Wādī al-Maḳran (S), and the sands of al-Daḥy (W). The most populous oasis and present capital is Laylā (46° 44′ 35″ E, 22° 16′ 45″ N). The district contains a remarkable group of spring-fed pools called ʿUyūn al-Sayḥ and the extensive remains of a system of channels which once irrigated a more prosperous land. The pools, the largest of which is nearly a kilometre long, are the most noteworthy fea…

The Hāshimīs (Hashemites) were a dynasty of Ḥasanī descendants of the prophet Muḥammad (sharīfs) who ruled Mecca as amīrs almost without interruption from the fourth/tenth century until 1924. After the First World War, the dynasty provided kings for Syria and Iraq, which later became republics, and gave its name to the territory that became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The dynasty was named after Hāshim b. ʿAbd Manāf, the paternal great-grandfather of the prophet Muḥammad. The majority of the Shīʿa recognised as their Imāms descendants of ʿAlī’s younger son al-Ḥusa…

, a region in Western Arabia named after a confederation of tribes in al-Sarāt [ q.v.]. The concept of a separate region intervening between al-Ḥid̲j̲āz and the Yaman developed in the 19th century and is now sanctioned by official Saudi Arabian practice, which uses the name ʿAsīr for the highlands southwards from al-Nimās to Nad̲j̲rān, and Tihāmat ʿAsīr for the lowlands bordering the Red Sea between al-Ḳaḥma and the Yaman frontier. From al-Ṭāʾif to the Yaman there is no gap in the bold range of al-Sarāt. The core is crystalline rock, but in certain fault zones volc…