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, a sect which flourished in the central and eastern parts of the Islamic worlds, and especially in the Iranian regions, from the 3rd/9th century until the Mongol invasions. (1). Origins. The founder, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Karrām (thus vocalized by Samʿānī, who says that his father was a vine-tender, karrām , but there is some support for the readings Karām or Kirām), is known from biographies, in e.g. Samʿānī, Ansāb , fols. 476b-477a; D̲h̲ahabī, Mīzān al-iʿtidāl , Cairo 1325/1907, iii, 127; idem, Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-Islām , sub anno 255/869 (abridged version in Leiden Ms. 1721, fols…

Al-Karrāmiyya were an ascetic missionary movement centred on north-eastern Iran and neighbouring regions from the third/ninth to the sixth/twelfth centuries. 1. The founder Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Karrām (d. 20 Ṣafar 255/7 February 869) was born to a family from Sijistān (Sīstān), in what is now south-eastern Iran, around 184/800—according to one Karrāmī tradition—in Mecca while his parents were on pilgrimage there (Zysow, Karrāmiya). He was said by his followers to have been of Arab stock, but this was sometimes ca…

kayfūfiyya (A) : philosophical-theological term used by the Karrāmiyya for ‘the quality of God’. Ano…

ʿaṣaba (A) : male relations in the male line, corresponding to the agnates. ʿAṣā; Ḳarāba; Mirʾāt ʿaṣabiyya …

(a. “wells, springs”), modern Biyārd̲j̲umand, a small town on the northern edges of the Great Desert, the Das̲h̲t-i Kavīr, of Persia. The mediaeval geographers describe it as being three days’ journey from Bisṭām and 25 farsak̲h̲s from Dāmg̲h̲ān, and as falling administratively within the province of Ḳūmis [ q.v.], although in Sāmānid times (4th/10th century) it seems to have been attached to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in Ḵh̲urāsān. It was the terminus of an only-moderately frequented route across the northeastern corner of the desert to Turs̲h̲īz in Ḳūhistān. We have in Muḳaddasī, 356-7, 372, …

(Ḥas̲h̲awiyya, Ḥus̲h̲wiyya, or Ahl al-Ḥas̲h̲w), a contemptuous term derived from ḥas̲h̲w (“farce” and hence “prolix and useless discourse”) and with the general meaning of “scholars” of little worth, particularly traditionists; this term is sometimes associated with g̲h̲ut̲h̲āʾ and g̲h̲ut̲h̲ar , and even with raʿāʿ , “the scum of the populace” (Ibn Ḳutayba, Muk̲h̲talif , 96; tr. Lecomte, 90), and used by some Sunnis of extremist traditionists or those whose researches are of very little value. Fairly close to Nābita [ q.v.] and to Mud̲j̲bira [ q.v.], it is used, in a narrower se…

, “the people of the blame”, is a name given by heresiographers to those who held certain disapproved doctrines. S̲h̲ahrastānī (134) and Maḳrīzī ( K̲h̲iṭaṭ , Būlāḳ 1270 A.H., ii, 353) apply it to S̲h̲īʿīs who claimed that Muḥammad was originally an agent of ʿAlī (the real prophet) but blameably summoned men to himself instead—a position noted (without a name) by As̲h̲ʿarī ( Maḳālāt al-Islāmiyyīn , ed. Md. Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Cairo 1950, 82), and ascribed also to al-S̲h̲almag̲h̲ānī [ q.v.]. Maḳrīzī explains that ʿAlī was silenced by being given Fāṭima. S̲h̲ahrastānī s…

, al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb b. Ayyūb , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim, was a famous littérateur and Ḳurʾānic scholar who died in either D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a or D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda, 406/1015-16. One of the most learned men of Nīs̲h̲āpūr, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim was considered the leader of his time in Ḳurʾānic sciences. He was not only a grammarian but was also knowledgeable in mag̲h̲āzī (the accounts of the expeditions and raids of the Prophet) [ q.v.], stories, and biography-history. Al-Nīsābūrī was a Karrāmī [see karrāmiyya ], who later became a S̲h̲āfiʿī. He transmitted ḥadīt̲h̲ s [ q.v.] on the authority of, am…

al-Ḥākim al-Nīsābūrī (also Nīshāpūrī, Nīshābūrī), Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḍabbī al-Ṭahmānī (Rabīʿ I 321–Ṣafar 405/March 933–August 1014), compiler of the ḥadīth collection al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, who acquired fame for authoring Taʾrīkh Nīsābūr. This is the earliest history of Nīsābūr and was written in Arabic.His laqab (sobriquet) al-Ḥākim refers to his official position as a judge ( qāḍī), while the nisbas al-Ḍabbī and al-Ṭahmānī refer to his kinship through the maternal line to one ʿĪsā b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Sulaymān al-Ḍabbī an…

, a composite word of Persian origin meaning a building usually reserved for Muslim mystics belonging to a dervish order. The terms ribāṭ , tekke and zāwiya [ q.vv.] refer to establishments with similar aims. After an early period of evolution which is still imperfectly known, these all became widespread throughout the Islamic world down to modern times. The usual translation of “monastery” does not, however, convey the complexity of the institution. Etymology. From the outset, k̲h̲ānḳāh appears in two forms, sometimes in the same author: (1) the Persian form k̲h̲ānagāh …

, pl. afkār , thought, reflection. The Ḳurʾān employs the 2nd and 5th forms of the root fkr , to urge men “to reflect”. In the vocabulary of falsafa and ʿilm al-kalām , the maṣdar fikr denotes the intellectual faculty in the act of thought, reflecting upon an object of intellection. It is distinguished from idrāk , the intellectual faculty of grasping, of perception. The result of the operation of fikr is expressed by the noun of unity fikra . In taṣawwuf , fikr is used habitually in contrast to d̲h̲ikr [ q.v.], recollection. Fikr can thus be translated by reflectio…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. Fūrak al-Anṣārī al-Iṣbahānī , As̲h̲ʿarite theologian and traditionist, was born about 330/941, perhaps in Ispahan. In ʿIrāḳ, both at Basra and at Baghdad, he studied As̲h̲ʿarite kalām under Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Bāhilī along with al-Bāḳillānī [ q.v.] and al-Isfarāʾinī [ q.v.], and also traditions under ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Iṣbahānī. From ʿIrāḳ he went to Rayy, then to Nis̲h̲āpūr, where a madrasa was built for him beside the k̲h̲ānḳāh of the ṣūfī al-Būs̲h̲and̲j̲ī. He was in Nīs̲h̲āpūr before the death of the ṣūfī Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān …

, Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Mihrān al-Mihrd̲j̲ānī , As̲h̲ʿarī theologian and S̲h̲āfiʿī jurist, was along with Ibn Fūrak [ q.v.], the chief propagator of As̲h̲ʿarī theology in Nīs̲h̲āpūr at the turn of the 5th/11th century. Originating from Isfarāyīn, he studied mainly in Bag̲h̲dād, where he must have arrived before 351/962. He attended the lectures of Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Bāhilī in As̲h̲ʿarī theology at the same time as al-Bāḳillānī [ q.v.] and Ibn Furāk. After leaving Bag̲h̲dād, he taught in Isfarāyīn. Later he accepted an invitation to Nīs̲h̲āpūr, where a madrasa …

Abū Saʿīd ʿUthmān b. Saʿīd b. Khālid b. Saʿīd al-Sijistānī al-Dārimī (b. 200/815, d. between 280 and 282/893–5) was a prominent traditionist, jurist, and theologian. His teachers were Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī (d. 234/848), Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh (d. 237/851), and Yaḥyā b. Maʿīn (d. 233/847) in the science of traditions, al-Buwayṭī (d. 231/846) in jurisprudence, and Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 231/846) in adab (belles-lettres). He composed two polemical treatises, al-Radd ʿalā l-Jahmiyya (“Refutation of the Jahmites”) and al-Radd ʿalā Bishr al-Marīsī (“Refutation of Bis…

Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī (d. c.165/781–2) was an ascetic from Kufa, in southern Iraq. As with many early Islamic religious figures, sources on his life and thought are late and contradictory in detail but nonetheless allow a general appraisal of his personality. Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī was part of the Kufan Murjiʾa circle, which is associated with the name of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767), the eponymous founder of the Ḥanafī school of law (the Murjiʾa was an early theological school opposed to the Kharijīs on questions related to sin and definitions of what is …

Abū al-Fatḥ al-Bustī, ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn (d. 400/1010), was a bilingual ( dhū al-lisānayn, referring to Arabic and Persian) secretary, minister and poet of the 4th/10th century. His father's name is recorded as Aḥmad and his grandfather's name as Ḥasan (al-Samʿānī, 2/226; Yāqūt, Buldān, 1/612; al-Subkī, 5/293). Even though his hometown of Bust, an ancient city in the south of present-day Afghanistan, and his poems in Persian testify to his Persian origins (see Sezgin, 2/640; Manūchihrī, 140, verse 5, who included him among the sages of Kh…

Ashʿarīs, the dissemination of Ashʿarī theology. The 2nd–3rd/8th–9th centuries mark a crucial period in the history of the theological thought of Sunni Islam, during which a significant portion of its subject matter came to be formed and elaborated. The Sunni theologians of this period can be divided into two categories as regards their general approach to the discipline. Firstly, the Muʿtazilīs and other related schools of thought, who were responsible for propagating ʿilm al-kalām and, with their predilection for rationalism, for producing a methodical and analytic…

pre-eminent 12th-century monument of the Šansabāni sultans of Ḡur in central Afghanistan. The minaret stands 65 meters high near the confluence of the Harirud and Jāmrud rivers in a remote mountain valley once protected by a series of defensive towers. A version of this article is available in print Volume XIV, Fascicle 4, pp. 432-436 JĀM MINARET, pre-eminent 12th-century monument of the Šansabāni sultans of Ḡur in central Afghanistan. The minaret stands 65 meters high near the confluence of the Harirud and Jāmrud rivers in a remote mountain valley o…

, “upholders of ird̲j̲āʾ ”, is the name of a politico-religious movement in early Islam and, in later times, refers to all those who identified faith ( īmān [ q.v.]) with belief, or confession of belief, to the exclusion of acts. The names Murd̲j̲iʾa and ird̲j̲āʾ are derived from Ḳurʾānic usage of the verb ard̲j̲ā (in non-Ḳurʾānic usage ard̲j̲aʾa ) in the meaning of “to defer judgment”, especially in sūra IX, 106. The related meaning of “to give hope” ( rad̲j̲āʾ ), although often imputed by opponents to the Murd̲j̲iʾa from an early date, was not implied. The early politico-religious movemen…

Jām, in central Afghanistan, is the assumed location of Fīrūzkūh, the summer capital of the Shansabānid maliks (and later sulṭāns) of Ghūr. The Shansabānids, or Ghūrids (r. early fifth to early eleventh / c.612 to c.1215), flourished in the second half of the sixth/twelfth century, when a meteoric rise saw their territories expand from Khurāsān to the Indo-Gangetic Plain (Thomas, The ebb and flow). Located at the conjunction of the Harī Rūd and Jām Rūd rivers in a remote mountain valley, the site preserves the remains of a minaret considered the paragon of …