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is one of the abstract words that were coined in order to express in Arabic the nuances of Greek philosophy. It has been translated in a number of ways, in mediaeval Latin as well as in modern European languages. “Ipseity” would seem to be the term with which it most precisely corresponds. In modern Arabic it is retained with the meaning “identity”. Huwiyya is formed from the pronoun huwa and the normal abstract termination -iyya, according to the explanation given by Ibn Rus̲h̲d. He attributes this formation to a desire to avoid the ambiguity of the word mawd̲j̲ūd , tr…

, the name of the principal character of two philosophical allegories, one by Ibn Sīnā, Ḳiṣṣat Ḥayy b. Yaḳẓān , and the other by Ibn Ṭufayl, Risālat Ḥayy b. Yaḳẓān fī asrār al-ḥikma al-mus̲h̲riḳiyya (L. Gauthier’s vocalization; Hourani gives it as mas̲h̲riḳiyya ). Until the end of the 19th century the Risāla of Ibn Ṭufayl was much better known than Ibn Sīnā’s short work, the contents of which if not the title were unknown. The similarity in titles led to the belief that there was a ¶ close kinship of thought, and at times that the one was a translation of the other. Mehren, Traités mystiques …

, Abū Manṣūr al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Zaylā (according to Brockelmann, I, 458, and b. Ṭāhir b. Zaylā al-Iṣfahānī in S I, 829), died, while still young, in 440/1048. A pupil of Ibn Sīnā and a member of his immediate circle, he wrote a commentary on the Story of Ḥayy b. Yaḳẓān [ q.v.], which Mehren used (MS BM Or. 978(3)) and the greater part of which he translated to accompany his edition of this brief work ( Traités mystiques, fasc. i, 1889). Mehren mentions also a Hebrew translation of this commentary published by D. Kaufmann, Berlin 1886. Ibn Zaylā is quoted also by H. Corbin in Avicenne et …

, Abu ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Sīnā , known in the West as Avicenna . He followed the encyclopaedic conception of the sciences that had been traditional since the time of the Greek Sages in uniting philosophy with the study of nature and in seeing the perfection of man as lying in both knowledge and action. He was also as illustrious a physician as he was a philosopher [see Ḥikma ]. Life. His life is known to us from authoritative sources. An autobiography covers his first thirty years, and the rest are documented by his disciple al-D̲j̲uzad̲j̲ānī, who was also his secretary and his friend. He…

, wisdom, but also science and philosophy. The ancient usage of the word lent itself to this evolution, which was favoured by the meaning of the Greek σοφία. On the purely Arabic side al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲anī, who gives the word ḥukm the primary meaning of “to set the thing in its place” ( Taʿrīfāt ), seems thereby to suggest the sense of equilibrium and stability that Léon Gauthier found and that is well fitted to express the force and maturity of wisdom. The Ḳurʾān calls it al-ḥikma albālig̲h̲a (LIV, 5), wisdom which has attained its maturity. It uses ḥikma many times in the current sense of “wi…

, holders of materialistic opinions of various kinds, often only vaguely defined. This collective noun denotes them as a whole, as a firḳa , sect, according to the Dictionary of the Technical Terms , and stands beside the plural dahriyyūn formed from the same singular dahrī , the relative noun of dahr, a Ḳurʾānic word meaning a long period of time. In certain editions of the Ḳurʾān it gives its name to sūra LXXVI, generally called the sūra of Man; but its use in XLV, 24 where it occurs in connexion with the infidels, or rather the ungodly, erring and blinded, appears to …

(a., pl. aḥkām ), verbal noun of ḥakama , which originally means “to withhold, restrain, prevent”, is used in a number of technical meanings in the field of religious law [see aḥkām ], philosophy (see below, I), and grammar (see below, II). On the different meanings of the term ḥukm , see Dict , of technical terms, i, 372 ff.; L. Gauthier, La racine arabe et ses dérivés , in Homenaje a Don Fr. Codera , Saragossa 1904, 435-54. I. Ḥukm means in philosophy, the judgement or act by which the mind affirms or denies one thing with regard to another, and thus…

(a.), plural ḥudūd , hindrance, impediment, ¶ limit, boundary, frontier [see ʿawāṣim , g̲h̲āzī , t̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr ], hence numerous technical meanings, first and foremost the restrictive ordinances or statutes of Allāh (always in the plural), often referred to in the Ḳurʾān (sūra ii, 187, 229, 230; iv, 13, 14; ix, 97, 112; lviii, 4; lxv, 1). In a narrower meaning, ḥadd has become the technical term for the punishments of certain acts which have been forbidden or sanctioned by punishments in the Ḳurʾān and have thereby become crimes against religion. These are: unlawful intercourse ( zinā [ q.v.]…