, abu ’l-futūḥ , a slave who was for a while ruler of Egypt during the reign of al-Ḥākim. He was brought up at the court of al-ʿAzīz, where he held the post of intendant ( Ḵh̲iṭaṭ ii, 3; Ibn Tag̲h̲ribirdī, Cairo, iv, 48; Ibn Ḵh̲allikān. ii, 201). He was a eunuch, and was known by the title Ustād̲h̲ [ q.v.]. His ethnie origin is uncertain—Ibn Ḵh̲allikān calls him a negro, Ibn al-Ḳalānisī simply a white ( abyaḍ al-lawn ), al-Maḳrīzī either a Slav or a Sicilian, the readings Saḳlabī and Siḳillī both occurring in the MSS. of the Ḵh̲iṭaṭ (cf. S. de Sacy, Chrestomothie , i, 130). Bard̲j̲awān was appointed g…

(pl. of libd , labad ), felt. The production and craftsmanship of wool [see ṣūf ] was very prosperous in the mediaeval Muslim world, and supplied a variety of articles not only for refined and wealthy customers but also for the popular market in the form of relatively inexpensive clothing. In more recent times, local woollens have not managed to compete with European products (E. Ashtor, Les lainages dans l’Orient médiéval , in Atti Inst. F. Dattini , Florence 1976, 657-86). Felt was one of the less expensive products among the woollen articles manu…

, al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad b. Muḥ. b. Zakariyyāʾ , sometimes also called al-Muḥtasib (he had allegedly been a muḥtasib , market overseer, in ʿIrāḳ), the founder of Fāṭimid rule in North Africa. A native of Ṣanʿāʾ, he joined the Ismāʿīlī movement in ʿIrāḳ and was sent to Yaman, where he spent his apprenticeship with Manṣūr al-Yaman (Ibn Ḥaws̲h̲ab), head of the ¶ Ismāʿīlī mission in that country. On the pilgrimage of 279/892 he met in Mecca some Kutāma pilgrims and accompanied them back to their native country, which they reached on 14 Rabīʿ…

, the river Nile. The Nile is one of the large rivers (length ca. 6,648 km./4,132 miles) which from the beginning have belonged to the territory of Islam, and the valleys and deltas of which have favoured the development of an autonomous cultural centre in Islamic civilisation. In the case of the Nile, this centre has influenced at different times the cultural and political events in the Islamic world. Thus the Nile has, during the Islamic period, continued to play the same part as it did during the centuries that preceded the coming of Islam. The name al-Nīl or, very often, Nīl Miṣr, goe…

, Fāṭimid historian (366-420/977-1030). Al-Amīr al-Muk̲h̲tār ʿIzz al-Mulk Abū ʿAbd Allāh or Abū ʿUbayd Allāh Muḥammad b. Abi ’l-Ḳāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Ḥarrānī al-Musabbiḥī al-Kātib, of a family originally from Ḥarrān in the D̲j̲azīra, was born at Fusṭāṭ Miṣr on Sunday, 10 Rad̲j̲ab 366/4 March 977 and died in the same town in Rabīʿ II 420/April-May 1030. Contrary to the conventions of the Fāṭimid period, a time when professional soldiers were B…

(p.), New (Year’s) Day. 1. In the Islamic heartlands. The word is frequently represented in Arabic works in the form Nayrūz , which appears in Arabic literature as early as the verse of al-Ak̲h̲ṭal [ q.v.] (see al-D̲j̲awālīḳī, Muʿarrab , ed. A.M. S̲h̲ākir, Tehran 1966; al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ al-aʿs̲h̲ā , ii, 408). It was the first day of the Persian solar year and is not represented in the Muslim lunar year (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , iii, 416-17 = §§ 1301-2). In Achaemenid times, the official year began with Nawrūz, when the sun entered the Zodiac…

, town in Egypt, the name of which derives from that of ʿAbbāsa, daughter of Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn. The princess had pitched her camp on its place and it was there that she said good-bye to Ḳatr al-Nadā, daughter of Ḵh̲umārawayh. Who was going to marry the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid. Around this casual encampment buildings were raised and Ḳaṣr ʿAbbāsa, the "palace of ʿAbbāsa", became the township of ʿAbbāsa. It was at that time the last town on the road to Syria, situated as it was at the entrance of the Wādī …

, Abu ’l-Barakāt, S̲h̲ams al-Riʾāsa al-Naṣrānī , Copt from Egypt (d. between 720 and 727/1320-7) who was secretary to Baybars al-Manṣūrī [ q.v.], author of the Zubdat al-fikra . Certain historians, e.g. al-Ṣafadī, followed by Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar and al-Maḳrīzī, allege that Ibn Kabar helped him compile his book. It is difficult, impossible even, to evaluate the importance of this help, for Baybars undeniably had a talent as historian and a most lively taste for books and chronicles, as attests clearly al-Mufaḍḍal b. Abī Faḍāʾil, Ibn Kabar’s contemporary ¶ and co-religionist, and this view…

(a.) means literally “spread out” (as in Ḳurʾān, XVII, 14, and LII,3: opposite, maṭwī “folded”), or “not sealed” (opposite, mak̲h̲tūm ) hence it comes to mean a certificate, an edict, a diploma of appointment, and particularly, a patent granting an appanage (pl. manās̲h̲īr ). In Egypt in the early Arab period, mans̲h̲ūr seems to be a name for the passes which the government compelled the fellāḥīn to have in order to check the flight of colonists from the land, which threatened to become overwhelming ( d̲j̲āliya ). In any case, in the ¶ Führer durch die Ausstellung ( Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer …

, al-Amīr Abu ’l-Fatḥ Nāṣir (or Amīr, Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī, Nud̲j̲ūm , v, Cairo 1913-17, 240) al-D̲j̲uyūs̲h̲ Sayf al-Islām S̲h̲araf al-Islām, al-Rūmī al-Armanī al-Ḥāfiẓī (d. 16 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 526/1132), the fourth of six Muslim Armenian viziers of the Fāṭimids (over the period 1074-1163). A former mamlūk of al-Afḍal, in 516/1122-3, Yānis was appointed chief of the ṣibyān and head of the treasury by al-Āmir’s vizier Maʾmūn al-Baṭāʾiḥī (al-Maḳrīzī, K̲h̲iṭaṭ , ed. al-Malīgī, iv, 268). Rising to the posts of chamberlain and commander-in-chie…

, Ṣārim al-Dīn Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Aydamur al-ʿAlāʾī al-Miṣrī (the name is derived from the Turkish toḳmaḳ “hammer”, cf. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, ed. Flügel, ii, 102), b. about 750/1349, was a zealous Ḥanafī and wrote a work on the ṭabaḳāt of the Ḥanafīs, Naẓm al-d̲j̲umān , in three volumes, the first of which deals with Abū Ḥanīfa (Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, iv, 136; vi, 317); on account of his depreciatory references to al-S̲h̲āfiʿī he was flogged and thrown into prison. His history of Egypt, Nuzhat al-anām , in about 12 vols, to the year 779, was of great …

, Abu’l-Misk , a black eunuch (the name al-Lābī, given to him by al-Mutanabbī, suggests his origin from Lāb in Nubia) became the dominant personality of the Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īdid [ q.v.] dynasty in Egypt. Sold to its founder, Muḥammad ibn Ṭug̲h̲d̲j̲ al-Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd [ q.v.], Kāfūr so impressed his new master that the latter sponsored his rise to positions of political and military influence. As a field commander Kāfūr participated in the Egyptian expedition of 333/945 to Syria; he was also involved in the diplomatic exchanges between al-Ik̲h̲s̲h̲…

, a family of Mamlūk state officials who traced their descent from the Caliph ʿUmar I, hence their nisba al-ʿUmarī, al-ʿAdawī al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī. The family received its name from its founder Faḍl Allāh b. Mud̲j̲allī b. Daʿd̲j̲ān, who was living in al-Karak (Transjordan) in 645/1247. S̲h̲araf al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, a son of Faḍl Allāh, held office as kātib al-sirr (head of the chancery) in Damascus, and was transferred to the same office in Cairo by the Sultan al-As̲h̲raf K̲h̲alīl in 692/1293. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb continued to head the central chancery of the Mamlūk state until 711/1311, when he …

The Burd̲j̲iyya regiment was second in importance only to the Baḥriyya [ q.v.] regiment throughout the history of the Mamlūk sultanate. It was created by Sulṭān al-Manṣūr Ḳalāʾūn, who selected for this purpose 3,700 of his own Mamlūks and quartered them in towers ( abrād̲j̲ , sing. burd̲j̲ ) of the Cairo citadel. Hence its name. The sources mention the creation of this unit only when they sum up Ḳalāʾūn’s career at the end of his rule, without specifying any date. It was composed of Mamlūks belonging to Caucasian peoples ( al-Ḏj̲arkas wa ’l-Āṣ = Circassians and Abk̲h̲āzīs). Al-Maḳrīzī ( Ḵh̲iṭa…

b. al-Ṣafī b. Hibat Allāh b. Muhad̲h̲d̲h̲ib al-Dawla al-Abharī, Jewish physician ¶ and wazīr of the Īlk̲h̲ān Arg̲h̲ūn [see īlk̲h̲āns ]. His tenure of office lasted from Ḏj̲umādā II 688/June 1289 until his murder in Rabīʿ I 690/March 1291. His ism and date of birth are unknown. His rise to power must be seen against the background of a radical change of the Mongol political élite in domestic and foreign policies; i.e. from the pro-Islamic policy of the Īlk̲h̲ān Aḥmad (680-3/1282-4) back to the anti-Islamic policy of the Īlk̲h̲āns after the defeat at ʿAyn Ḏj̲ālūt [ q.v.] on 25 Ramaḍān 658/3 …

(a.), a collective formation from wāfid “one who comes, makes his way, in a delegation or group”, in the Mamlūk Sultanate applied to troops of varying ethnic origins who came to Egypt and Syria to join the Sultanate’s military forces. There is no better proof for the superiority of the Mamlūk socio-military system over any other military form during a great part of Islamic history than the attitude of the Mamlūk Sultanate to the Mongol warriors and others, such as Kurds, K̲h̲wārazmians, etc. who, for this or that reason, sought and found refuge within its boundaries as Wāfidiyya . The mainly …

‘the House of Truce’, territories not conquered by Muslim troops but by buying peace by the giving of tribute, the payment of which guarantees a truce or armistice ( hudna , ṣulḥ ). The two historic examples of such a situation, which were evidently the starting-point for the whole theory, are Nad̲j̲rān and Nubia. Muḥammad himself concluded a treaty with the Christian population of Nad̲j̲rān, guaranteeing their security and imposing on them certain obligations which were later looked on as k̲h̲arād̲j̲ [ q.v.] by some, and as d̲j̲izya [ q.v.] by others (for the whole question see Bal…

, an Arab tribe, one of the most important butūn of Bakr b. Wāʾil. Ibn K̲h̲allikān, ed. ʿAbbās, v, 244, attributes to it, following Ibn al-Kalbī’s Ḏj̲amharat al-nasab , the following nasab : S̲h̲aybān b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿUḳāba b. Saʿb b. ʿAlī b. Bakr b. Wāʾil b. Kāsit b. Hinb b. Afṣā b. Duʿmī b. D̲j̲adīla (or D̲j̲ud̲h̲ayla) b. Asad b. Rabīʿa b. Nizār b. Maʿadd b. ʿAdnān, as well as an identical nasab for the other ancestor, nephew of the first, S̲h̲aybān b. D̲h̲uhl b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿUkāba or ʿUkūba. But there are several other nasabs corresponding to other branches (detailed in Ibn Ḥazm, Ḏj̲amharat a…

(thus the usual orthography in Arabic script, Mongolian ǰasaq , ǰasaγ , see Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen , iv, 71-82 no. 1789 s.v. yāsāq ) may be translated variously, according to context, as “law” or, virtually synonymous with yarli̊g̲h̲ [ q.v.], as “decree” or “order”. Hence the sources for the Mongol period speak of what is generally called “the Great Yāsā of Čingiz K̲h̲ān”, in the sense of a comprehensive legal code laid down by the founder of the Mongol empire; but in many if not most instances of …

(a., pl. s̲h̲awāriʿ ), “clearly-defined way, main road, highway”; “situated on a main road, at the side of the road (e.g. a house)”. Compared with other terms having similar urban denotations, such as darb and zuḳāḳ , the uses of s̲h̲āriʿ as a common noun are not the most numerous in the pre-modern texts. Thus there is no chapter in al-Maḳrīzi’s K̲h̲iṭaṭ devoted to this term; the treatise devoted to it at the end of the 9th/15th century, the K. al-Fawāʾid al nafīsa al-bāhira fī bayān hukm s̲h̲awāriʿ al-Ḳāhira (ms. Istanbul, Süleymaniye 1176) is an exception. S̲h̲āriʿ …