(a.), verbal noun of the form II verb ʿarraba , literally, Arabisation or Arabicisation. It is used primarily as a grammatical term, in reference to the method or process by which foreign words are incorporated into Arabic; more broadly and loosely, it means the translation of foreign scientific, literary and scholarly works into Arabic. 1. In the sense of the rendering of foreign notions or words in Arabic. Like most languages, Arabic was subject, since pre-Islamic times, to the impact of interference by other idioms, spoken by peoples with whom the Arabs had c…

, 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…

( D̲j̲āysī/D̲j̲aysī ) (?900/1493 to?949/1542), Indian Ṣūfīand poet, was born at D̲j̲āyas (D̲j̲ays) in Awadh [ q.v.] and died at nearby Amēthī. Educated locally, he became a disciple of the Čis̲h̲tī S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Muḥyī ’l-Dīn. He had Hindu as well as Muslim teachers, and showed a religious tolerance which some ascribe to the influence of Kabīr. He wrote poetry in Awadhī, a form of Eastern Hindī, including two fairly short religious poems, one of which, Āk̲h̲irī kalām , is on the Day of Judgement. But he is famed chiefly for his Padumāvat , a narrative and descriptive…

, Indo-Muslim poet, was born at Ḳum in about 934/1528. The author of the Mayk̲h̲āna states that his full name was Malik Muḥammad. He went at an early age to Kās̲h̲ān, where he stayed nearly twenty years, and then spent approximately four years in Ḳazwīn, frequenting the company of writers and scholars in both places. Already during his youth he seems to have won distinction for himself in poetical competitions with his contemporaries, and was regarded highly by such literary figures as Muḥtas̲h̲am of Kās̲h̲ān (d. 996/1587-8) and Ḍamīrī of Iṣfahān (d. ca. 1578) for his innovative tenden…

, ṣadr al-dīn ḵh̲ān b. luṭf allāh , Indian writer of Kas̲h̲mīrī extraction, was born in Delhi in 1204/1789. He learnt the traditional sciences from S̲h̲āh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and S̲h̲āh ʿAbd al-Ḳādir [ qq.v.] and the rational sciences from Faḍl-i Imām of Ḵh̲ayrābād, whom he succeeded in 1243/ 1827 as the last grand muftī and ṣadr al-ṣudūr of Imperial Delhi. In addition to his proficiency in various branches of knowledge he was a great authority on the Urdū language, and celebrated poets like G̲h̲ālib and Muʾmin often invited his opini…

, D̲j̲amāl al-Dīn Abu ’l-Durr b. ʿAbd Allāh, famed Arabic calligrapher ¶ ( ca. 618-98/ca. 1221-98), who derived his nisba from his master, the last ʿAbbāsid caliph in Bag̲h̲dād, al-Mustaʿṣim [ q.v.], who brought him up and had him educated. Although Ḳāḍī Aḥmad states that he was a native of Abyssinia, another tradition identifies him as a Greek from Amasia, later an important centre of calligraphers. A eunuch, Yāḳūt had a school at Bag̲h̲dād and his six most outstanding students were permitted to sign his name to their calligraphies, …

, Nūr al-Dīn abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿAfīf al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh, al-S̲h̲āfiʿī, noted Egyptian scholar in history, theology, law, tradition, etc. (844-91/1440-1506). He was born at Samhūd in Upper Egypt in Ṣafar 844/July 1440, the son of a ḳāḍī ; in his genealogy, he claimed to be a Ḥasanid sayyid . His biography is given in detail by al-Sak̲h̲āwī, resumed in Ibn al-ʿImād and other subsequent biographical sources. He studied in Cairo from 853/1449 onwards under its celebrated scholars, and also received the Ṣūfī k̲h̲irḳa or cloak. He made the Pilgrimage in 860/14…

(a.), Scala , denoting a bilingual Coptic-Arabic vocabulary, and by extension, a ms. of a Coptic-Arabic philological miscellany. As Arabisation progressed in Egypt, and the usage of Coptic, the latest form of Ancient Egyptian, diminished [see ḳibṭ ], local scholars put together bilingual (and even trilingual, with Greek) vocabularies, composed to respond to the need of social adaptation or the preservation of the ancient patrimony. At the outset, the lexicographical work was a prolongation of the earlier, rich…

(i.e. the greengrocer), the ḳāḍī abū bakr muḥammad b. al-ṭayyib b. muḥammad b. d̲j̲aʿfar b. al-ḳāsim , in most of the sources Ibn al-Bāḳillānī, but in popular usage (and Ibn Ḵh̲allikān) simply al-bāḳillānī , As̲h̲ʿarī theologian and Mālikī jurisprudent, said to have been a major factor in the systematising and popularising of As̲h̲ʿarism. The date of his birth is unknown. He died on 23 D̲h̲uʾl-Ḳaʿda 403/5 June 1013. Born in Baṣra, he seems to have spent most of his adult life in Bag̲h̲dād. Visits to S̲h̲īrāz and the Byzantine court are mentioned, …

al-Ḳaṣabī (also al-T̲h̲aḳafī), a prominent Muʿtazilī theologian and ascetic of the school of Bag̲h̲dād, d. 234/848-9. He was a disciple of Abū Mūsā al-Murdār, and to some slight degree also influenced by al-Naẓẓām [ q.v.] of Baṣra. Little is known of his life except some anecdotes about his abnegation of the world, and the information that he introduced the Muʿtazilī doctrine to ʿĀna [ q.v.], and held disputations with Bis̲h̲r b. G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Marīsī [ q.v.]. He is the author of numerous works on fiḳh and kalām (al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ 81; Fihrist 37) and he had numerou…

, usually known as Abū-ʿUzaiyyiz, the ancestor of the s̲h̲arifs of Mecca from the beginning of the 7th/13th century. He was born in the district of Yanbuʿ, probably soon after 540/1145-6. Yanbuʿ, a fortress, on the Mecca-Medina road, was then dominated by the Ḳatāda family, one of the ʿAlawī families which belonged to the branch of al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī. At the beginning of the 7th/13th century Mukat̲h̲t̲h̲ir b. Ḳāsim, s̲h̲arīf and ruler of Mecca, died. He was succeeded by his son Muḥammad, the last s̲h̲arīf from the ruling family of the Hawās̲h̲im. Ḳatāda b. Idrīs, who had earlier …

in its original usage indicates a separative: “a pearl ( k̲h̲araza ) which effects a separation between two other pearls in the stringing of the latter” when a necklace or piece of jewellery is being made (see Lane s.v.); fāṣila , with this sense of separative, has received two technical usages, one in Arabic prosody, the other in Ḳurʾānic terminology. In Arabic prosody ( ʿarūḍ [ q.v.]), fāṣila denotes a division in the primitive feet, meaning three ḥurūf mutaḥarrika followed by one ḥarf sākin , e.g.: ḳatalat ( al-fāsila al-ṣug̲h̲rā ), or else four ḥurūf mutaḥarrika followed by one ḥarf sākin,…

, improvising, extemporizing a poem or a speech. Ibn Ras̲h̲īḳ ( ʿUmda , i, 131), followed by Azdī ( Badāʾiʿ , p. 5 of the Būlāḳ ed.) connects the term with the meaning “to be easy”, “to flow down” implied in the expression s̲h̲aʿr rad̲j̲il , “lank hair”, or with irtid̲j̲āl al-biʾr , “descending into a well on one’s feet”, i.e., without the help of a rope, and the synonym of irtid̲j̲āl , badīha , with the root badaʾa , “to begin”, substituting hāʾ for hamza . According to these two authors, the difference between irtid̲j̲āl and badīha is that whereas in the case of irtid̲j̲āl the poet does not prepa…

, Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar Amad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad Ibn al-Sayyid , Spanish-Arabic pharmaco-botanist, native of the fortress G̲h̲āfiḳ near Cordova. His dates are not known, but he may have died around the middle of the 6th/12th century. He was considered to be the best expert on drugs of his time; he elaborated thoroughly the material transmitted from Dioscurides and Galen and presented it in a concise, but appropriately complete form in his Kïtāb al-Adwiya al-mufrada . According to Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa ( ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ ii, 133, 14), Ibn al-Bayṭār was accustomed to take…

(a.), a technical term of philology, rhetoric and prosody. It means among philologists the use of two terms in which the form of one is changed to make it resemble that of the other. For example, in this ḥadīt̲h̲ (Ibn Mād̲j̲a, Sunan , Cairo 1313, ii, 246): ird̲j̲iʿna maʾzūrāt g̲h̲ayr maʾd̲j̲ūrāt , “return home laden with sin and not with rewards”, the word mawzūrāt from the root w-z-r has been changed into maʾzūrāt to give it the same form as maʾd̲j̲ūrāt . It is similar in the phrases (cf. LA, xix, 353): g̲h̲adiyyāt wa-ʿas̲h̲iyyāt , g̲h̲udayyānāt waʿus̲h̲ayyānāt , bi ’l-g̲h̲adāyā wa ’l-as̲h̲…

“the demon of the arcade”, the name by which non-S̲h̲īʿī Muslim authors usually referred to the Imāmī S̲h̲īʿī theologian of the 2nd/8th century Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Muḥammad (b. ʿAlī) b. al-Nuʿmān b. Abī Ṭarīfa al-Bad̲j̲alī al-Kūfī (also called al-Aḥwal “the squinter”). No precise dates for him are known; it is only known that he died after 183/799, if it is true (as al-Bag̲h̲dādī and then al-Ṣafadī state) that he was one of those who “categorically affirmed” ( ḳaṭaʿa ) the death of Mūsā al-Kāẓim. At the outset, his by-name of S̲h̲ayṭān does not seem to have been felt as derogatory. …

, a term which is a parallel to furūʿ al-fiḳh , the latter indicating “branches”, while uṣūl al-fiḳh indicates “roots” of the law [see s̲h̲arīʿa ]. Both terms indicate an academic discipline and a literary genre. Works of furūʿ expound the norms of the law, while works of uṣūl are concerned with the sources of the law and the methodology for extrapolating rules from revelation. The literary genre of uṣūl al-fiḳh is continuous from the mid-4th/10th century (represented, notably, by the works of the Ḥanafīs, Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-S̲h̲ās̲h̲ī, d. 344/955, and Aḥmad b. …

, 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 …

, Abu ’l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Aḥmad, Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn, thinker and historian of religious and philosophical doctrines, who lived in Persia in the first half of the 6th/12th century. He received other honorific titles such as al-Afḍal or al-Imām. Besides a few landmarks, little is known of his life. Al-S̲h̲ahrastānī (the customary Arabic vocalisation is retained here) was born in the small town of S̲h̲ahristān, on the northern frontier of K̲h̲urāsān, not far from Nasā, at the edge of the desert of Ḳara Ḳum (currently in the Republic of Turkmenistan) [see s̲h̲ahristān (6)]. His …

, plural aʿlām (a), i. "signpost, flag", used in the latter sense concurrently with the Arabic liwāʾ , rāya ; the Persian band , dirafs̲h̲ ; and the Turkish bayraḳ = liwāʾ, sand̲j̲aḳ : see sand̲j̲aḳ, and compare the Latin signa . It is known that when, before the advent of Islām, the Ḳurays̲h̲ waged war on another tribe, they received from the hands of Ḳuṣayy the liwāʾ, a piece of white cloth which Ḳuṣayy himself had attached to a lance (Caussin de Perceval, Essai , i, 237-8). During Muḥammad’s lifetime, flags were called indifferently liwāʾ or rāya, less commonly ʿalam . …