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, Abū YaʿḲūb yūsuf b. Abī Bakr b. Muḥammad al-K̲h̲wārazmī Sirād̲j̲ al-Dīn, influential rhetorician writing in Arabic. He was born in K̲h̲wārazm on 3 D̲j̲umādā I, 555/11 May 1160 according to most sources, or in the year 554, according to his contemporary Yāḳūt ( Irs̲h̲ād , ed. Rifāʿī, xx, 59). He died toward the end of Rad̲j̲ab 626/mid-June 1229 in Ḳaryat al-Kindī near Almālig̲h̲ in Farg̲h̲āna. In spite of his fame already during his lifetime, the circumstances of his life are shrouded in obscurity—a fact most likely …

b. Ḥumayd b. Salāma al-Ḳurashī , Abū ʿAmr (d. 564/1169), Hanbalī jurist and mystic, known as Ibn marzūḳ . He studied with Ibn al-Ḥanbalī (d. 536/1141, not “Ibn al-D̲j̲īlī”, as in Ibn Rad̲j̲ab, i, 306) at Damascus, though whether he was born there is not clear; he is also said to have met ʿAbd al-Ḳādir al-D̲j̲īlānī [ q.v.] and to have held him in high esteem. He lived mainly in Egypt and died there, aged over seventy years old. Only one work of his seems to be mentioned, an abridgement of Abū Nuʿaym’s Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ , which bears the same title as Ibn al-D̲j̲awzī’s abridgement of the same work, Ṣafwa…

, Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn Abu ’l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Ḳawī b. ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Ṣarṣarī al-Bag̲h̲dādī (b. 675/1276-77 [?], d. Rad̲j̲ab 716/Sept. Oct. 1316), Ḥanbalī legal scholar, especially in uṣūl , known in modern times particularly for his maṣlaḥa (public interest) theory. The vocalisation “al-Ṭawfī”, used in Brockelmann and a number of other Western sources, is incorrect (see Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Durar , ii, 249). He was born in an otherwise unattested town Ṭūfā, near Ṣarṣar, which in turn is not far from Bag̲h̲dād. He had his first education in grammar and Ḥanbalī fiḳh …

b. Saʿīd al-Kātib , Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān, ʿAbbāsid scribe, epistolographer and poet. His exact dates are unknown, but he was probably born in the last years of the 3rd century A.H. and died after 257/871 (or 260/874), the year of Faḍl al-S̲h̲āʿira’s death [ q.v. in Suppl.]. His family came from the lower Persian nobility—he himself is sometimes called al-dihḳān —and he claimed royal Persian descent. He seems to have held various lower provincial offices, before stepping into the limelight as the kātib of Aḥmad b. al-K̲h̲aṣīb, vizier to al-Muntaṣir (r. 247-8/861-2 [ q.v.]), for whom he drew up the ba…

(a.) means the use of the phrase aʿūd̲h̲u bi ’llāhi min ... “I take refuge with God against...”, followed by the mention of the thing that the utterer of the phrase fears or abhors. The term istiʿād̲h̲a “seeking refuge”, is often used as a synonym. The phrase, with variants, is well attested in the Ḳurʾān, in particular in the last two sūras which each consist of one extended taʿawwud̲h̲ [see al-muʿawwid̲h̲atān 1 ]. The litany-like enumeration of evil things in the first of the two foreshadows similar strains in a number of Prophetic invocations recorded in the Ḥadīth …

al-Ṭāʾī al-Sinbisī, Abu ’l-Maḥāsin (b. 5 Rabīʿ II 677/26 August 1278 [according to al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī , xviii, 482, 6-7, and most other sources] ¶ or D̲j̲umādā II, 678/Oct.-Nov. 1279 [according to al-Birzālī (d. 739/1339; q.v.) who claims to have received this information from al-Ḥillī himself, see Ḥuwwar, 20], d. probably 749/1348), the most famous Arab poet of the 8th century A.H. In spite of his fame, information about his life is rather scarce; even the year of his death is variously given (see Bosworth, Underworld , i, 138, n. 26). Born in al-Ḥilla [ q.v.], a centre of S̲h̲īʿī learning…

(a laḳab , his father’s name being Yaḥyā), Abū ʿĀmir al-Kinānī al-Layt̲h̲ī, Arab poet from Medina (fl. later 1st/7th century into the early 2nd/8th century) famous for his love poetry ( g̲h̲azal), but also billed as a traditionist and legal scholar; Mālik [ q.v.] is said to have transmitted from him (Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-Ḏj̲arḥ wa ’l-taʿdīl , Ḥaydarābād 1360, iii/1, 396; al-Buk̲h̲ārī, al-Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-kabīr , Ḥaydarābād 1941-64, iv, 33; al-D̲h̲ahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl , ed. ʿA.M. al-Bid̲j̲āwī, Cairo n.d., iii, 63 [ ṣadūḳ ], cf. also Ibn Ḳutayba, S̲h̲iʿr , 580 [ t̲h̲iḳa …

, Abu Muḥammad al-Ḳāsim b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Anṣārī, Arab literary theorist, known for his highly original work al-Manzaʿ al-badīʿ fī tad̲j̲nīs asālīb al-badīʿ (ed. ʿAllāl al-G̲h̲āzī, Rabat 1401/1980). In the colophon of the Tetuan ms., the author states that he finished his work on 21 Ṣafar 704/23 November 1304. No other bio-bibliographical details are known. His nisba and the provenance of the two extant mss. of his work show him to be a Mag̲h̲ribī scholar. More particularly, as the approach of his book clearly shows,…

al-tamīmī , Abu ’l-Ḏj̲aḥḥāf (Abū Muḥammad also occurs), an Arab poet of the Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid era (d. 145/762), the greatest exponent of the rad̲j̲az [ q.v.] ḳaṣīda . The name Ruʾba, by which he was called after his grandfather, is attested seven times, and its diminutive Ruʾayba eight times, in Ibn al-Kalbī’s genealogy (see Caskel-Strenziok ii, 489b). There is no clear cluster of attestations in Eastern Arabia, which makes Krenkow’s contention (see EI 1, s.n.) that the name is the Persian rōbāh “fox” less likely. Arabic phi…

, Muḥammad b. ʿUmar, author of the first Persian treatise on rhetoric, the Kitāb Tard̲j̲umān al-balāg̲h̲a . The little that can be inferred about the author’s life is known from the Tard̲j̲umān itself; no other source mentions him. According to the researches of A. Ateş, he seems to have lived in Transoxania, and his book was written between 481/1088, the beginning of the Karak̲h̲ānid Aḥmad K̲h̲ān’s incarceration at the hand of Malik S̲h̲āh, as mentioned in one of the poems quoted, and 507/1114, the date of the unique ms. of the Tard̲j̲umān, the mad̲j̲mūʿa …

In literary criticism, “plagiarism”. Although the term sariḳa is used, no “theft” in the legal sense of the word is implied, as Islamic law does not recognise intellectual property. A modern booklet on intellectual theft stresses the moral turpitude involved, but does not invoke any S̲h̲arīʿa norms or punishments (ʿAbd al-Mannān, al-Sariḳāt al-ʿilmiyya ). The victim of plagiarism could only have recourse to public opinion or approach a man of power ( istiʿdāʾ ) to redress the situation. Literary theft occurred and was discussed predominantly, though not exclusively, in th…

(a.), lit. “creating an image, or an illusion ( k̲h̲ayāl )” a technical term with various meanings but all broadly in the field of hermeneutics. It occurs in (a) theory of imagery, (b) philosophical poetics, (c) Ḳurʾānic exegesis, and (d) among rhetorical figures. Whether any or all of these usages have a common root remains to be seen. It should be noted that, like any maṣdar , tak̲h̲yīl can also act as a verbal noun of the passive. Since in everyday language the verb was predominantly used in the passive ( k̲h̲uyyila ilayhi “an illusion was…

(a.), “chest, breast, bosom” (pl. ṣudūr ), a peculiarly Arabic word, not attested in other Semitic languages, except as a borrowing from Arabic. Its semantic connection with other derivatives of the root ṣ-d-r within Arabic is unclear; it may be derived from the basic notion of the verb ṣadara , i.e. “to come up, move upward and outward, from the waterhole” (opposite: warada ). Most concretely, it refers to the chest as part of the body, and as such is dealt with in the ¶ lexicographical monographs on the human body called Ḵh̲alḳ al-insān (al-Aṣmaʿī, 214-18; T̲h̲āb…

, the fourth letter in the Arabic alphabet. In the abd̲j̲ad order [ q.v.] it has a numerical value of 500. The phoneme represented by this letter may be defined as the voiceless member of the apico-interdental triad of fricatives, as opposed to the voiced /d̲h̲/ [see d̲h̲āl ] and the “emphatic”, i.e. velarised, /ẓ/ [see ẓāʾ ]. Sībawayh (ed. Hārūn, Cairo 1395/1975, iv, 433) describes the point of articulation for the triad as “between the tip of the tongue and the tips of the incisors” and he is followed herein by— inter alios—Ibn D̲j̲innī ( Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb , ed. Ḥ.…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad (d. 416/1025), Arab poet. His nisba points to the Tihāma [ q.v.], the coastal plain on the Red Sea coast of Arabia, or to Mecca, which is sometimes synecdochically called “Tihāma”. Ibn K̲h̲allikān (iii, 381) admits his ignorance as to which of these two locations is intended. He is said to have come from the lower classes ( min al-sūḳa , al-Bāk̲h̲arzī, i, 188-9). The poet spent most of his life in Syria, where he attached himself in particular to the D̲j̲arrāḥids [ q.v.], who tried, with limited success, to consolidate their little principality in Pal…

(a.), “companion”, a term with various senses in Islamic usage. Formally it is an active participle of the transitive verb ṣaḥiba yaṣḥabu “to associate with”, but semantically a pure noun; it thus cannot govern an object in the accusative. The most common plural is aṣḥāb , of which the double plural ( d̲j̲amʿ al-d̲j̲amʿ ) aṣāḥīb is given in the dictionaries, while its “diminutive of the plural” ( taṣg̲h̲īr al-d̲j̲amʿ ) usayḥāb is attested (Wensinck, Concordance , s.v.). Other plurals include ṣaḥb (a collective noun), ṣiḥāb and ṣuḥbān , the verbal nouns ṣuḥba and ṣaḥāba …

In Arabic literature. The rose is easily the most sung flower in Arabic poetry. Its natural place is in flower, garden and spring poetry ( zahriyyāt , rawḍiyyāt and rabīʿiyyāt ), but the rose also figures prominently in the setting of wine poetry ( k̲h̲amriyyāt ), which is actually the place of origin for flower poems. Abū Nuwās (d. ca. 198/813 [ q.v.]) still keeps the bacchic framework of his flower descriptions, and it may have been ʿAlī b. al-Ḏj̲ahm (d. 249/863 [ q.v.]) who first wrote pure floral pieces, all of them devoted to the rose (see Schoeler 71-2, 128). Poetic desc…

, Arab poet of the 2nd-3rd centuries A.H. known for his ideological poetry in support of the Muʿtazila [ q.v.]. Al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ [ q.v.] is the only source for the few bits of information on his life and the sparse samples from his poetry that we have. The biographical snippets show him in Multān at the court of the governor of Sind, Dāwūd b. Yazīd al-Muhallabī, who held this office from 184/800-205/820 [see muhallabids , toward the end]. In all of them he is al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ’s authority on elephants, quoting poetry by the elephant expert Hārūn b. Mūsā al-Azdī mawlāhum ; describi…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar al-ʿAdawī, Arab philologist, minor poet and anthologist. As poetic occurrences of his nisba and the town to which it refers show (Yāḳūt, Buldān, Beirut 1376/1957, iii, 363a, 1. 4; and Irs̲h̲ād , Cairo n.d., xvii, 241, 1. 5), the name-form “al-Sumaysāṭī, given in Flügel’s ed. of the Fihrist and, as an option, by Brockelmann, GAL S I, 251, should be discarded. Sumaysāṭ and S̲h̲ims̲h̲āṭ refer to two different places (Yāḳūt, Buldān, s.w., and cf. Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate , 116-17 (S̲h̲ims̲h̲āṭ), 108 (…

(a., pl. asāṭīl ), also spelled uṣṭūl (for this type of variation, see W. Heinrichs, in Studies in honor of Georg Krotkoff , Winona Lake, Ind. 1997, 175-8), the most common term for a “naval fleet”, and, secondarily, also for an individual “galley” or “man-of-war”. The word is a loan from Greek στόλος, which means inter alia “(naval) expedition” and “fleet”. Al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956 [ q.v.]) is apparently the first to recognise the Greek origin of the word; he also gives a clear definition: al-usṭūl kalima rūmiyya sima li ’l-marākib al-ḥarbiyya al-mud̲j̲tamiʿa ( Tanbīh …

(a.), “[literary] criticism”, in modern Arabic, al-naḳd al-adabī , in mediaeval times most commonly used in the construct naḳd al-s̲h̲iʿr “criticism of poetry”. The critic is nāḳid (pl. nuḳḳād or naḳada ) or, more rarely, naḳḳād ; the form VIII verbal noun intiḳād is a synonym of naḳd . The term originated in the figurative use ( mad̲j̲āz ) of naḳd in the sense of “assaying (coins) and separating the good from the bad” (for the mad̲j̲āz character, see al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī. Asās al-balāg̲h̲a , Beirut n.d., col. 469c, and for an extended analogy between assayer and critic, see al-Tawḥīdī, al-Muḳ…

(a.), verbal noun of the form III verb bālag̲h̲a ( fī ), with the two related meanings of “to do the utmost [in s.th.]” and “to overdo [s.th.]”), technical term in (a) grammar (“intensiveness”) and (b) literary theory (“emphasis” and, more particularly, “hyperbole”). (a) In grammar. Already in Sībawayh, the term mubālag̲h̲a is used to denote the intensive meaning of a number of morphemes and syntagmas (see G. Troupeau, Lexique-index du Kitāb de Sībawayhi , Paris 1976, 41). Most consistently it is henceforth applied to the intensive participles of the forms faʿūl , faʿʿāl …

(a.), a rhetorical figure mostly translated “antithesis” and consisting in the inclusion, in a verse or colon, of words of opposite meaning, as in ḥulamāʾu fi ’l-nādī id̲h̲ā mā d̲j̲iʾtahum — d̲j̲uhalāʾu yawma ʿad̲j̲ād̲j̲at in wa-liḳāʾi “restrained in the tribal council, when you come to them,—unrestrained on the day of a dust-cloud and battle” (Zuhayr). Synonymous terms are muṭābaḳa and, especially in earlier theorists, muṭābaḳ (from ṭābaḳtu bayna ’l-s̲h̲ayʾayn “I made the two things congruent” [see Ibn al-Muʿtazz, Badīʿ, 36]). From the same root one also finds taṭbīḳ …

al-Kindī al-Mawṣilī, Abu ’l-Ḥasan (d. 362/972-3 according to Yāḳūt, Irs̲h̲ād, iv, 185, and Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bug̲h̲ya , ix, 435; other dates are also given), Arab poet and anthologist, particularly famous for his descriptive poetry ( awṣāf ). He was born in Mawṣil, where his father apprenticed him to the clothes-menders/jobbing tailors ( raffāʾūn ), hence his nickname, which is, however, not yet used by the contemporary source Ibn al-Nadīm ( Fihrist , 169). In spite of his lowly occupation he tried his hand at poetry, and al-Bāk̲h̲arzī lists him a…

, the seventeenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, numerical value: 900 The transliteration /ẓ/ reflects an urban/sedentary pronunciation as “emphatic” (pharyngealised) /z/. Sībawayh (d. 177/793 [ q.v.]), however, describes the sound as an “emphatic” voiced interdental, thus /ḏ̣/ (iv, 436), and this is the way it is pronounced in those dialects, mainly Bedouin, that have preserved the interdentals. There is, however, an additional complication: with ¶ very few exceptions (in Northern Yemen, see Behnstedt, 5), all modern dialects of Arabic have coalesced the sou…

1. In older Arab society. Tattooing was a custom among women in pre-Islamic times. The parts of the body mentioned as recipients are the hand ([ ẓāhir al-] yad ), the wrist ( miʿṣam ), the arm ( d̲h̲irāʿ ), the posterior ( ist ) and the gums ( lit̲h̲a ). The motifs used are not mentioned; going by modern-day tattooing in Islamic countries they were probably abstract designs. The tattoo was created by pricking ( g̲h̲araza ) the skin with a needle ( ibra , misalla ) or—more specifically—with a tattooing needle ( mīs̲h̲am , pl. mawās̲h̲im , see Lewin, Vocabulay , 471), so that a trace ( at̲h̲ar …

(a.), an adjective meaning “wild, desolate, uninhabited” ( al-dār al-waḥs̲h̲ ( a) “the desolate abode”, both with and without gender agreement), but more frequently a collective noun meaning “wild animals”. The relative adjective (and the singulative) is waḥs̲h̲ī the “wild ass” ( recte “onager”) is thus either ḥimār al-waḥs̲h̲ or al-ḥimār al-waḥs̲h̲ī . The most common plural is wuḥūs̲h̲ “kinds of wild animals”, as one typically finds it in the title of the kutub al-wuḥūs̲h̲ , lexicographical studies dealing with wild animals (name of the male and …

(d. ca. 150/767, according to Sezgin, GAS, viii, 115; ca. 155/772, according to al-Ziriklī, Aʿlām 3, ix, 139), transmitter of ancient Arabic poetry and ak̲h̲bār , quoted also for lexicographical, genealogical, geographical, and historical data. There is some fluctuation in the sources between al-S̲h̲arḳī and S̲h̲arḳī as well as between al-Ḳuṭāmī ¶ and Ḳuṭāmī; in addition, there is some discussion whether Ḳaṭāmī is the correct reading. The form given here has the best authority. Both names are laḳabs , his real name being al-Walīd b. al-Ḥusayn, with the kunya …

(a.), synonymous terms in literary criticism denoting words that are uncouth and jarring to the ear due to their being archaic and/or Bedouinic (often including the criterium of cacophony). It is thus mostly used in the context of “modern” poetry [see muḥdat̲h̲ūn , in Suppl.]; and it mostly refers to single words rather than to any contextual obscurity (ʿAbd al-Ḳāhir al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲ānī says this explicitly: Dalāʾil , ed. M.M. S̲h̲ākir, Cairo 1404/1984, 44, 1. 4). It is not, however, an exclusively poetic phenomenon. Al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ speaks of s…

(a.), legal principles, legal maxims, general legal rules (sing. ḳāʿida fiḳhiyya ). These are mad̲h̲hab internal legal guidelines that are applicable to a number of particular cases in various fields of the law, whereby the legal determinations ( aḥkām ) of these cases can be derived from these principles. They reflect the logic of a school’s legal reasoning and thus impart a “scaffolding” to the “case-law” ( furūʿ ). Historically, general rules can be found already strewn throughout early furūʿ works. They were first collected by Ḥanafīs like Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Kark̲h̲ī (d. …

, the eleventh letter of the Arabic alphabet, numerical value 8. The former variant of the letter name retains the /y/ of the original letter name (as in Hebrew zayin ), while the latter has the innovative ending –āʾ , which occurred legitimately with fāʾ (Hebr. pē ) and hāʾ (Hebr. hē ) and then spread to bāʾ (Hebr. bēt̲ ), tāʾ / t̲h̲āʾ (Hebr. tāw ), ḥāʾ / k̲h̲āʾ (Hebr. ḥēt̲ ), rāʾ (Hebr. rēs̲h̲ ), ṭā / ẓāʾ (Hebr. ṭēt̲ ), ¶ and yāʾ (Hebr. yō٤̲ ), with loss of the final consonant of the original letter name. The letter is transliterated /z/ and represents a voiced sibilant ( ḥarf al-ṣafīr …

(a.), a technical term for a rhetorical figure (alternative names, all from the same root, are d̲j̲inās [very common], mud̲j̲ānasa , mud̲j̲ānas , and tad̲j̲ānus ), variously translated as paronomasia, pun, homonymy, and alliteration. The last two terms, however, do not cover all the types that have traditionally been subsumed under this heading, while “pun” has also been used to render tawriya [ q.v.], the difference being that tawriya is a one-term pun ( double entendre). A general definition of tad̲j̲nīs would be: a pair of utterances (mostly, but no…

, name of one of the legendary extinct tribes of the Arabs, al-ʿarab al-bāʾida . These tribes are genealogically directly linked up to Biblical genealogies and thus precede the split into Northern and Southern Arabs, symbolised by the eponyms “Adnān ¶ and Ḳaḥṭān. According to one of our earliest sources, Ibn al-Kalbī [ q.v.], Ṭasm’s relationship to the other tribes (in small capitals) is as follows: (see W. Caskel, Ǧamharat an-nasab , Leiden 1966, i, 40, which see also for the vocalisation of “Immīm”; and cf. Ibn Ḥabīb, Muḥabbar , ed. I. Lichtenstädter, Ḥaydarābād 1361/1942, 384; Ibn Ḥazm, Ḏ…

, Abū Yaʿḳūb Yūsuf b. Abī Bakr b. Muḥammad al-Ḵh̲wārazmi, Sirād̲j̲ al-dīn, rhétoricien influent de langue arabe. Il naquit au Ḵh̲wārazm le 3 d̲j̲umādā I 555/11 mai 1160 d’après la plupart des sources, ou en 554 selon son contemporain Yāḳūt ( Irs̲h̲ād, éd. Rifāʿī, XX, 59). Il mourut vers la fin de rad̲j̲ab 626/mi-juin 1229 à Ḳaryat al-Kindī, près d’Almālig̲h̲ au Farg̲h̲āna. Malgré la célébrité dont il bénéficiait de son vivant, les circonstances de sa vie sont obscures — sans doute en raison des troubles dus à la conquête mongole. On tr…

(a.) désigne l’énonciation de l’expression aʿūd̲h̲u bi-llāhi min...«Je me réfugie auprès de Dieu contre. . .», suivie de la mention de la chose redoutée ou détestée. Le mot istiʿād̲h̲a «chercher refuge» est souvent employé comme synonyme. L’expression, avec des variantes, est bien attestée dans le Ḳurʾān, en particulier dans les deux dernières sūras dont chacune n’est autre qu’un taʿawwud̲h̲ développé [voir al-Muʿawwid̲h̲atāni ]. L’énumération en forme de litanie de choses détestées dans la première de ces deux sūras préfigure des traits analogues dans nombre d’invocatio…

Dans la littérature arabe. La rose est de toute évidence la fleur la plus célébrée dans la poésie arabe. On la trouve naturellement dans la poésie des fleurs, des jardins et du printemps ( zahriyyāt, rawḍiyyāt et rabīʿiyyāt), mais elle apparaît également dans le décor de la poésie bachique ( k̲h̲amriyyāt), là où l’on trouve les premiers poèmes traitant de fleurs. Abū Nuwās (m. vers 198/813 [ q.v.]) garde encore le cadre bachique dans ses descriptions de fleurs, et il se pourrait que ce fût ʿAlī b. al-Ḏj̲ahm (m. en 249/863 [ q.v.]) qui ait écrit pour la première fois des morceaux de pur…

(a.), terme technique désignant une figure rhétorique (des termes alternatifs, tous issus de la même racine, sont d̲j̲inās, [très commun], mud̲j̲ānasa, mud̲j̲ānas, et tad̲j̲ānus), traduit d’une manière variable, par paronymie, jeu de mots, homonymie, ou allitération. Les deux derniers termes, cependant, ne couvrent pas toutes les variétés de figures entrant sous ce titre, alors que «jeu de mots» ait aussi été utilisé pour rendre tawriya [ q.v.], la différence étant que tawriya est un jeu de mot jouant sur l’amphibologie, le double sens d’un terme unique. Une définition générale de ta…

1. Dans la société arabe plus ancienne. Le tatouage était de coutume parmi les femmes dans les temps pré-islamiques. Les parties du corps mentionnées comme concernées sont la main ([ ẓāhir al-] yad), le poignet ( miʿṣam), le bras ( d̲h̲irāʿ), la fesse ( ist) et les gencives ( lit̲h̲a). Les motifs utilisés ne sont pas précisés; si on se réfère au tatouage de nos jours dans les pays arabes, c’étaient probablement des desseins abstraits. Le tatouage était effectué en piquant ( g̲h̲araza) la peau avec une aiguille ( ibra, misalla) ou — plus spécifiquement — avec une aiguille à tatouer ( mīs̲h̲am, pl…

, nom d’une des tribus arabes légendaires disparues, al-ʿarab al-bāʾida. Ces tribus sont reliées directement à la généalogie des lignées bibliques et précèdent donc la séparation entre Arabes du Nord et du Sud, symbolisée par les éponymes de ʿAdnān et de Kahtān. Selon l’une de nos sources les plus anciennes, Ibn al-Kalbī [ q.v.], la relation des Ṭasm avec les autres tribus (en petites majuscules) serait la suivante: (voir W. Caskel, Ǧamharat an-nasab, Leiden 1966, I, 40, à voir aussi pour la vocalisation de «Immīm»; et cf. Ibn Ḥabīb, Muḥabbar, éd. I. Lichtenstädter, Ḥaydarābād 1361/…

(a.), en droit, principes, maximes, règles générales (sing. ḳāʿida fiḳhiyyd). Ce sont des lignes directrices juridiques à l’usage interne des mad̲h̲habs que l’on peut appliquer dans un certain nombre de cas particuliers, dans plusieurs domaines du droit, et qui permettent de faire dériver, à partir de ces principes, les décisions de justice ( aḥkām) concernant ces cas. Ils reflètent la logique du raisonnement juridique d’une école et permettent ainsi d’échafauder «une revue des cas» ( furūʿ). D’un point de vue historique, on trouve déjà ces ¶ règles générales éparpillées dans le…

(a., plur. asāṭil), orthographié également uṣṭūl (pour ce type de variation, voir W. Heinrichs, dans Studies in honor of Georg Krotkoff, Winona Lake, Ind. 1997, 175-8), le terme le plus courant pour désigner une «flotte navale», et, secondairement, pour désigner une «galère» ou «un navire de combat». Le mot est un emprunt au grec στόλοΣ qui désigne entre autres choses «une expédition (navale)» ou une «flotte». Al-Masʿūdī (m. 345/956 [ q.v.]) semble avoir été le premier à avoir reconnu l’origine grecque du terme; il en donne également une définition claire: al-usṭūl kalima rūmiyya sim…

b. Aḥmad al-Sarī al-Raffāʾ al-Kindī al-Mawṣilī, Abū l-Ḥasan (d’après Yāḳūt, Irs̲h̲ād, IV, 185 et Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Bug̲h̲ya, IX, 435, m. 362/972-3; d’autres dates sont données aussi), poète et anthologiste arabe, renommé surtout pour sa poésie descriptive ( awṣāf). ¶ Il naquit à Mawṣil, où son père le mit en apprentissage chez les raccommodeurs de vêtements travaillant à la journée ( raffāʾūn), d’où son sobriquet, lequel, pourtant, n’est pas encore employé par Ibn al-Nadīm ( Fihrist, 169), une source contemporaine. Malgré son métier modeste, il s’essayait à la poésie, et …

b. Saʿīd al-Kātib, Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān. secrétaire, auteur d’épîtres et poète ʿabbāside. Les dates exactes sont inconnues, mais il naquit probablement dans les dernières années du IIIe-/IXe siècle et mourut après 257/871 (ou 260/874), l’année de la mort de la poétesse Faḍl al-S̲h̲āʿira [ q.v. au Suppl.]. Sa famille provenait de la petite noblesse persaneil est parfois appelé lui-même al-dihḳān — et revendiquait une ascendance royale. Il semble avoir occupé diverses fonctions provinciales mineures, ayant de se révéler comme kātib d’Aḥmad al-Ḵh̲aṣīb, ministre d’al-Muntasir (r. 24…

, dix-septième lettre de l’alphabet arabe, de valeur numérique: 900. La translittération /ẓ/ représente une prononciation urbaine/sédentaire d’un /z/ «emphatique» (pharyngalisée). Cependant, Sībawayh (m. en 177/793 [ q.v.]), décrit le son comme étant une interdentale sonore «emphatique», donc /ḏ̣/ (IV, 436), et c’est bien ainsi qu’on la prononce dans les dialectes, principalement ceux des nomades, qui ont conservé des interdentales. Il existe, néanmoins, une complication supplémentaire: à quelques rares exceptions (au Nor…

(a.), lit. «créer une image, ou une illusion ( k̲h̲ayāl)», terme technique ayant diverses significations mais toutes, d’une façon générale, dans le domaine de l’herméneutique. On le trouve (a) dans la théorie de l’imagerie, (b) dans la poétique philosophique, (c) dans l’exégèse ḳurʾānique, et (d) parmi les figures de rhétorique. Il reste à examiner si tous ces emplois, ou certains d’entre eux, ont une racine commune. Il faudrait noter que tak̲h̲yīl, comme n’importe quel maṣdar, peut aussi fonctionner comme un nom verbal du passif. Puisque dans l’usage courant le verbe…

, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḳāsim b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Anṣārī, théoricien arabe de la littérature connu pour son ouvrage fort original al-Manzaʿ al-badīʿ fī tad̲j̲nīs asālīb al-badīʿ (éd. "Allāl al-G̲h̲āzī, Rabat 1401/1980). Dans le colophon du ms. de Tétouan, l’auteur déclare avoir achevé son œuvre le 21 ṣafar 704/23 novembre 1304. On ignore tout des autres données bio-bibliographiques le concernant. Sa nisba et la provenance des deux mss. existants donnent à penser qu’il s’agit d’un savant mag̲h̲ribin. Plus précisément, à en juger par le contenu de son…

al-Tāʾī al-Sinbisī, Abū l-Mahāsin (né le 5 rabīʿ II 677/26 août 1278 [selon al-Ṣafadī, Wāfī, XVIII, 482, 5-7, et la plupart des autres sources] ou d̲j̲umādā II 578/octobre-novembre 1279 [selon al-Birzālī, m. 739/1339 [ q.v.], qui prétend avoir reçu cette information d’al-Ḥillī en personne; voir Ḥuwwar, 20], mort probablement en 749/1348), le poète arabe le plus célèbre du VIIIe/XIVe siècle. ¶ Malgré sa célébrité, les données sur sa vie sont rares. Il y a même désaccord sur l’année de sa mort (voir Bosworth, Underworld, I, 138, n. 26), Né à al-Ḥilla [ q.v.], centre intellectuel du S̲h̲ī…

, (A.), «critique [littéraire]», en arabe moderne, al-naḳd al-adabī, terme couramment utilisé au Moyen Age dans l’expression naḳd al-s̲h̲iʿr «critique poétique». Le critique est un nāḳid (pl. nuḳḳād ou naḳada) ou, plus rarement, un naḳḳād; le nom verbal de la huitième forme intiḳād est synonyme de naḳd. Le terme apparut dans l’usage au figuré ( mad̲j̲āz) de naḳd dans le sens de «contrôler (des pièces de monnaie) pour séparer les bonnes des mauvaises» (pour le caractère mad̲j̲āz, voir al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Asās al-balāg̲h̲a, Beyrouth n.d., col. 469c, et au sujet d’une analogie…

, quatrième lettre de l’alphabet arabe. Dans l’ordre abd̲j̲ad [ q.v.] il a la valeur numérique de 500. Le phonème représenté par cette lettre peut être défini comme étant la sourde du groupe des trois fricatives apico-interdentales, par opposition à la sonore /d̲h̲/ [voir Ḏh̲āl] et à l’«emphatique», ou vélarisée, /ẓ/ [voir Ẓāʾ]. Sībawayh (éd. Hārūn, Caire 1395/1975, IV, 433) place le point d’articulation de ces trois phonèmes «entre le bout de la langue et les extrémités des incisives» et il est suivi en ceci par — entre autres — Ibn Ḏj̲innī ( Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb, éd. Ḥ. Hindāwī, Damas …

b. Ḥumayd b. Salāma al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī, Abū ʿAmr (m. en 564/1169), juriste ḥanbalite et mystique, connu sous le nom d’Ibn Marzūḳ. Il étudia auprès d’Ibn al-Ḥanbalī (m. en 536/1141, et non auprès de «Ibn al-Ḏj̲īlī». comme l’écrit Ibn Rad̲j̲ab, I, 306) à Damas, bien qu’on ne sache pas avec certitude s’il y est né; on a dit également qu’il aurait rencontré ʿAbd al-Ḳādir al-Ḏj̲īlānī [ q.v.] et aurait eu pour lui une grande estime. Il vécut principalement en Égypte et y mourut, à plus de soixante dix ans. Il semble que l’on ne connaisse qu’un seul de ses ouvrages, un résumé du Ḥilyat al-awliyāʾ d’Abū Nuʿay…