, old town of Ifrīḳiya (Tunisia), three miles to the S.E. of al-Ḳayrawān. It was also known by the name of Ḳaṣr al-Ag̲h̲āliba and al-Ḳaṣr al-Ḳadīm. It was built by Ibrāhīm b. al-Ag̲h̲lab, the founder of the Ag̲h̲labid dynasty, in 184/800, the same year in which he was appointed amīr of Ifrīḳiya, after the revolt of some leaders of the Arab d̲j̲und . He gave his foundation the name al-ʿAbbāsiyya in honour of the ʿAbbāsids, his masters. The town contained baths, inns, sūḳs and a Friday-mosque with a minaret of cylindrical form, built of bricks and adorned …

b. D̲j̲uff b. Baltakīn (or Yaltakīn) (b. Furān) b. Fūrī b. K̲h̲aḳān, military commander of Farg̲h̲ānan origin, d. at Bag̲h̲dād in 310/922-3. His father had left Farg̲h̲āna to serve as an officer in the caliph al-Muʿtaṣim’s army, also serving his successors al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ and al-Mutawakkil. D̲j̲uff, said to have received ḳaṭāʿi at Sāmarrā, died in 247/861 on the same night that al-Mutawakkil was assassinated. Ṭug̲h̲d̲j̲ left ʿIrāḳ at the g̲h̲ulām Luʾluʾ’s invitation to enter the service of Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn [ q.v.], the governor of Fusṭāṭ-Miṣr, in 254/868. He is said to have acted…

b. Mulayk b. Ḍamra b. Bakr b. ʿAbd Manāt b. Kināna , a small Arab tribe, being a subdivision of the Banū Ḍamra b. Bakr, who in their turn formed a branch of the Kināna. The G̲h̲ifār lived in the Ḥid̲j̲āz between Mecca and Medina; some of their abodes are mentioned by the geographers. Very little is known of their history in pre-Islamic times: one of their members is mentioned ( Ag̲h̲ānī 1, xix, 74, 5) in the brawls preceding the Fid̲j̲ār-war [ q.v.]. A quarrel between the G̲h̲ifār and the Banū T̲h̲aʿlaba b. Saʿd b. Ḏh̲ubyān is referred to in a poem quoted by Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , i…

, the mediaeval astronomer Alfraganus . His full name is Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Kat̲h̲īr al-Farg̲h̲ānī, that is to say, a native of Farg̲h̲āna in Transoxania; not everyone, however, is agreed upon his name: the Fihrist only speaks of Muḥammad b. Kat̲h̲īr, and Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ of Aḥmad b. Kat̲h̲īr, while Ibn al-Ḳifṭī distinguishes between two persons, Muḥammad and Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, in other words father and son; however it is very probable that all the references are to the same personage, an astron…

(a.), pl. ṣāg̲h̲a and ṣawwāg̲h̲ūn , goldsmith, denotes a group of skilled craftsmen in Islamic society. In the early centuries of Islam, according to al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ and al-K̲h̲uzāʿī, the goldsmiths were mainly artisans of Jewish and Christian faith, but some Arab writers also recognised the existence of Muslim goldsmiths. The earliest recorded goldsmiths known to Islamic history, according to Kattānī, belonged to the Jewish tribe of Banū Ḳaynuḳāʿ [ q.v.] of Medina during the Prophet’s time. Their skill was highly rated in society, yet the mediaeval Arabs thought th…

, eldest son of Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn [ q.v.]. When the latter set off for the conquest of Syria, he entrusted the government of Egypt to al-ʿAbbās, his designated heir, but al-ʿAbbās was very soon persuaded to take advantage of his father’s absence to supplant him. Warned by the vizier al-Wāsiṭī, Ibn Ṭūlūn got ready to return to Egypt, and his son, after having emptied the treasury and got together considerable sums of money, went off with his partisans to Alexandria, and then to Barḳa. As soon as he got back…

, bahāʾ al-dīn b. ʿabd allāh ( i.e. son of an unknown father) al-asadī ( mamlūk of Asad al-Dīn S̲h̲īrkūh) al-rūmī al-malikī al-nāṣirī , officer of Malik al-Nāṣir Yūsuf ( i.e. Saladin), a eunuch, received his liberty from S̲h̲īrkūh and was appointed an amīr . By the time of S̲h̲īrkūh’s death (564/1169) he was already playing an influential part; it is said that it was due to him and the ḳāḍī ʿIsā al-Ḥakkārī that the caliph al-ʿĀḍid appointed Saladin vizier. After the suppression of the rebellion fomented after al-ʿĀḍid’s …

b. al-Furāt al-Fārisī al-Fasawī (in addition, in the heading of his book, al-Azhar al-G̲h̲anī), Muslim historian and trader in silk, of Persian origin and a resident of Fusṭāṭ. The date of his birth is unknown, but he hailed from a Persian town renowned for the commerce of silk (on Fasā, see Yāḳūt, Buldān , Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, iv, 260-1). To this natal milieu, Wat̲h̲īma owed his profession, which adhered to his own name in the form of a nickname: al-Was̲h̲s̲h̲āʾ or trader in embroideries. He left the town of his birth for B…

, Taḳī al-Dīn Abū ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-Ḳādir (766-845/1364-1442), Egyptian historian. His father (d. 779/1378 at the age of fifty), married a daughter of the wealthy philologist and jurist Ibn al-Ṣāʾig̲h̲ (d. 776/1375). He was born in Cairo, apparently in 765/1363-4. The nisba Maḳrīzī refers to a quarter in Baʿlabakk where his paternal family came from. His paternal grandfather, ʿAbd al-Ḳādir b. Muḥammad ( ca. 677-733/1278-1332, see Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Durar , ii, 391 f.) was a Ḥanbalī, his maternal grandfather, who influenced his early …

, 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 …

, ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd al-Salām b. Abi ’l-Ḳāsim b. al-Ḥasan al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, Sulṭān al-ʿUlamāʾ, Abū Muḥammad, S̲h̲āfiʿī jurist who was born in Damascus in 577/1181-2 (or 578) and died in Cairo 10 D̲j̲umādā I 660/1 April 1262. The scion of a modest family originally from North Africa (al-Isnawī, Ṭabaḳāt al-s̲h̲āfiʿiyya , Beirut 1987, ii, 84), ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Sulamī “the Damascene” was the leading S̲h̲āfiʿī authority of his generation, the majority of biographers attributing to him the status of mud̲j̲tahid , a distinction not often awarded at t…

(a.), lamp (synonyms miṣbāḥ , ḳindīl , etc., from Pers. čirāg̲h̲ via Syriac s̲h̲rāgā or s̲h̲rāg̲h̲ā ). In the Ḳurʾān, the word sirād̲j̲ occurs four times, and miṣbāḥ three times, in the sense of lamp or beacon. In LXXI, 15/16, the sun is characterised as a sirād̲j̲, and XXXIII, 45/46, the Prophet is called a “shining lamp”, sirād̲j̲ munīr . The most famous reference is, however, in the “light verse”, XXIV, 35, where God’s light is compared with a niche in which is a lamp [see nūr . 2.]. Later in Islam, Ibn ʿArabī [ q.v.] interpreted the allegory of the Ḳurʾānic “fourfold light”, expressed by mis̲h̲k…

, Abu Bakr Muḥammad b. al-Walīd b. Muḥammad b. K̲h̲alaf b. Sulaymān b. Ayyūb al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-Fihrī al-Andalusī al-Mālikī, also known as Ibn Abī Randaḳa (Rundaḳa according to Ibn Farḥūn in al-Dībād̲j̲ ), Arabic writer born ca. 451/1059 at Tortosa [see ṭurṭūs̲h̲a ] on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, died probably in 520/1126 (see below). He studied in Saragossa where he was the disciple of the eminent theologian Abu ’l-Walīd al-Bād̲j̲ī (d. 474/1081 [ q.v.]). Subsequently, in Seville, he attended lectures given by Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm who specialised in the teaching of adab . In 476/1084…

b. Yūsuf al-Tud̲j̲ībī , historian of Egypt, was born on yawm al-naḥr (10 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a) 283/18 January 897 and died on Tuesday, 3 Ramaḍān 350/Wednesday, 16 October 961. He heard al-Nasāʾī, the author of the Sunan , when the latter lectured in Egypt, and appears to have lectured on ḥadīt̲h̲ himself. Among his teachers and historical informants, Ibn Ḳudayd (d. 312/924-5) seems to have been the most important one. His principal transmitters (cf. his Judges ) was Ibn al-Naḥḥās (323-416/935-1025). This is about all that is known of his life. The…

b. t̲h̲aʿlaba al-bahrāʾī , a well-known Companion of the Prophet. He is attested in all the available historical sources, which more or less concur that his father ʿAmr fled to the Kinda [ q.v.] tribe after he had become involved in a blood feud in his own tribe of Bahrāʾ [ q.v.], a group of Ḳuḍāʿa. There, in Kinda, al-Miḳdād was born ca. 585 A. D. Then al-Miḳdād, in his turn, had to flee Kinda after he had wounded a fellow-tribesman in the foot. He made good his escape to Mecca. Having been adopted by al-Aswad b. ʿAbd Yag̲h̲ūt̲h̲ al-Zuhrī, he became a ḥalīf (confederate) of…

, 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…

, conventionally Aswān , a town in Egypt situated on the eastern bank of the Nile (lat. 24° 05ʹ N., long. 32° 56ʹ E.). 1. Up to the 9th/15th century Originally, it was a small town (Swēnet, Syene, Suan) facing the island of Elephantine, which was a much more important settlement in ancient Egypt. When the Muslim Arabs overran Egypt, the conquest of Upper Egypt [see al-Ṣaʿīd ] was entrusted to ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿd [ q.v.]. The Arabs fixed their camp at Suan, facing the Byzantine settlement of Elephantine. An expedition of 31/652 by ʿAbd Allāh penetrated into Nubia [see al-nūba ] but judged it prude…

b. Mart̲h̲ad b. Ḥāzim al-ʿAbsī al-G̲h̲aṭafānī . governor of Egypt 90-6/709-14 for the Umayyad caliph al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik. Ḳurra came from the group of North Arab tribes which had settled extensively in northern Syria and the D̲j̲azīra and which were in the forefront of the warfare along the Taurus Mountains with Byzantium. He himself came from the region of Ḳinnasrīn [ q.v.] to the south of Aleppo, and was thus a member of the experienced and capable cadre of Syrian Arabs whom the Umayyads liked to appoint to high civil and military office; the fact …

1. In the central Islamic lands and North Africa. Add to the articles mentioned there the following article. In the caliphal lands. The emergence of Islam is known to have coincided with the disappearance of wheeled carts or wagons [see ʿad̲j̲ala ] in many parts of the Middle East, although the extinction of such transport cannot be conclusively proved. In fact, wheeled vehicles were in existence in the Middle East for many centuries after the rise of Islam, although they were rarely used. The wheel was replaced by the camel in the Middle East during the era of the caliphates. Camels [see ibil …

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan (or Abū Hās̲h̲im) ʿAlī b. al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh, seventh Fāṭimid caliph and the fourth to reign at Cairo in Egypt. After the death of al-Ḥākim on 27 S̲h̲awwāl 411/14 February 1021, Sitt al-Mulk [ q.v.], the latter’s half-sister, refused to recognise the rights of the heir presumptive, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān) b. Ilyās, al-Ḥākim’s cousin, designated walī al-ʿahd by the latter in 404/1014-5 and at the time governor of Damascus (A.F. Sayyid, al-Dawla al-fāṭimiyya , tafsīr d̲j̲adīd , Cairo 1413/1992, 108-9, 117-18). Recall…