Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Bāqir (d. 114/732 or 117/735), commonly referred to as Abū Jaʿfar, was the fifth Imām of the Twelver branch of Shīʿī Islam (the Ithnā ʿashariyya). His epithet, “al-Bāqir,” an abbreviation of bāqir al-ʿilm (“the one who opens knowledge”), reflects his status as a distinguished religious scholar. He is credited with laying the doctrinal and legal foundations of Twelver Shīʿism, which were further systematically elaborated by his son and successor to the Imāmate, Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq (d. 148/765). Al-Bāqir was born in Medina in 57/677 and resided there all his …

Islamic tradition and literature give various versions of the name of Jeremiah (Ar., Irmiyā/Irmiyāʾ, Armiyā, Urmiyā) and tell his story in various episodes. In some of these, his story overlaps with accounts of such figures as Ezra, Daniel, and Nebuchadnezzar. The name Jeremiah, as Irmiyā, is explained as the foreign, subsequently Arabicised, name of a prophet who lived in the times of Nebuchadnezzar (r. in Babylon c. 605 B.C.E. to c. 562 B.C.E.), Alexander II (r. in Macedon, c. 370–368 B.C.E), or other potentates (Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī, 543). He was from the tribe of Aaron (al-Ṭabarī, Jāmiʿ, …

Abū Ṭālib (d. c. 619 C.E.) was the son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib b. Hāshim and Fāṭima bt. ʿAmr of the Makhzūm of Quraysh, and a full brother of ʿAbdallāh, the father of the prophet Muḥammad. He was reportedly born thirty-five years before Muḥammad. His proper name was ʿAbd Manāf. His sons Ṭālib, ʿAqīl, Jaʿfar, and ʿAlī, were born to him by his wife Fāṭima bt. Asad of the Banū Hāshim. After the death of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Abū Ṭālib inherited from him the offices of siqāya and rifāda (providing water and food for the pilgrims). His eldest son, Ṭālib, reportedly participated in the battle …

Abū Muḥammad ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ (25 or 27–115 or 114/646 or 648–733 or 732) was a Meccan scholar known for his knowledge of legal and ritual matters and his transmission of ḥadīths. He was born in Yemen to black parents and died in Mecca. As a mawlā (client) of the Qurashī family of Abū Khuthaym al-Fihrī, ʿAṭāʾ grew up in Mecca and began work as a teacher of the Qurʾān. Over time he gained renown in the field of jurisprudence (fiqh) and was considered the leading Meccan scholar of his time. For some years he held the position of official muftī of Mecca, on behalf of the Umayyads. His transmission of ḥadīt…

Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Busr b. Abī Arṭāt b. ʿUwaymir b. ʿImrān (c. 3–70/625–89)—from the clan of ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy of the Quraysh al-Ẓawāhir, who lived in the mountainous part of Mecca (al-Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī, 439; Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, 27; Ibn Manẓūr, 4:524, s.v. ẓ-h-r)—was a military commander in the service of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān. (In some sources Busr is called “b. Arṭāt” or “b. Arṭaʿa,” but Ibn Ḥazm (170) calls him “b. Arṭāt b. Abī Arṭāt, whose name is ʿUmayr.”) There is no consensus on whether Busr was a Companion of the Prophet (ṣaḥābī): Syrian sources (ahl al-shām) and certain experts on t…

Abū Ṭarīf (or Abū Wahb) ʿAdī b. Ḥātim b. ʿAbdallāh b. Saʿd al-Ṭāʾī (d. c.66/686) a Companion of the Prophet, was a son of the celebrated poet Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī, from whom he inherited the leadership of the Ṭayyiʾ. Following an incident involving the idol al-Fuls/al-Fals (Ibn al-Kalbī, 59–61), ʿAdī forsook idol worship and adopted Christianity (or al-rakūsiyya, said to be a mixture of Christianity and the Sabaean religion). In 9/630, the Prophet sent ʿAdī to the territory of the Ṭayyiʾ at the head of a military expedition; ʿAdī escaped with some members o…

Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Sufyān b. Jawwān (Jawān, Juwān?) al-Fasawī (c.190-277?/806-90?) was a Persian traditionist, appearing in two of the Six Books (the best-regarded Sunnī collections of ḥadīth). His nisba refers to Fasā, a city in the province of Fars (al-Samʿānī, al-Ansāb, s.v. Fasawī). He was born in about 190/806. Some of his Kufan and Basran shaykhs (authorities) died as early as 213/828, so he must have begun to travel in quest of ḥadīth at least by then. He also collected ḥadīth in Mecca, Egypt, Syria, Baghdad, and Mesopotamia. He was back in Fars by 237/851–2 and rea…

Maʿbad b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUkaym al-Juhanī (executed c.80/699) was a Basran religious thinker who was associated with the Qadarī doctrine of human free will (qadar). While he was ultimately condemned as a heretic, for a time he enjoyed a good reputation in Basra and was trusted by the Umayyad authorities. Al-Ḥajjāj b. Yūsuf (d. 95/714), governor of the East, recommended him to the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik (r. 65–86/685–705) as an emissary to the Byzantine emperor. Maʿbad also tutored one of the caliph’s sons. He may also have…

Dīk al-Jinn was the sobriquet of Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām b. Raghbān al-Ḥimṣī (b. 161/778, d. 235–6/849–51), an Arab poet who was born in Ḥimṣ and spent his whole life there, never leaving Syria. The reason for his nickname— dīk al-jinn is the name of a small creeping insect—remains obscure (see his Dīwān, ed. al-Ḥajjī, 6f., for four traditional and rather far-fetched explanations). His personality and his life are likewise little known, because the sources are ambiguous: On the one hand we have Dīk al-Jinn the libertine and debauchee, who enjo…

Mālik b. al-Ḥārith b. ʿAbd Yaghūth b. Maslama b. Rabīʿa b. al-Ḥārith b. Jadhīma b. Saʿd b. Mālik b. al-Nakhaʿī, known generally as al-Ashtar (d. 37/657–8 or the following year), of the “southern” tribe of Madhḥij, was one of the principal Kufan agitators against the caliphate of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23–35/644–56) and a close supporter of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (r. 35–40/656–61) during the first fitna. He appears as a minor figure in Arabic narratives of the conquest of Syria. It was apparently as a result of a blow sustained at the Battle of al-Yarmūk (ca. 15/636) …

Mediaeval Arabic sources speak about a number of individuals bearing the nisba al-Nahīkī. Most (or all) of them were active in Iraq and lived roughly in the same period (between the mid-third/ninth and mid-fourth/tenth centuries). Still, because for most no other names other than the nisba are listed, it is uncertain whether some of these al-Nahīkīs may be identified as the same person. Some of these individuals have been explored by Kohlberg (al-Nahīkī). Thus, Kohlberg writes about a certain al-Nahīkī, a member of the Muḥammadiyya ghulāt group and director of taxes for the Bādū…

Monasticism was a central feature of Christian religious life in the pre-modern Middle East and made an enduring impact on the Islamic world. 1. Before Islam Ancient monasticism took many forms. The solitary, anchoritic variety is most closely associated with Anthony the Great (d. c.356 C.E.), whom the Christian tradition regards as the first monk. Cenobitic, communal monasticism first developed under Anthony’s fellow Egyptian and contemporary Pachomius (d. 346 C.E.). In Palestine, there emerged a middle way known as the lavra system (from Greek laura, originally, a narrow alle…

Budayl b. Warqāʾ al-Khuzāʿī, an early convert to Islam, belonged to the clan of ʿAdī b. ʿAmr of the Khuzāʿa. He lived in Mecca, and his dār was situated in the quarters of the confederates of the Qurashī clan of Sahm (al-Azraqī, 475). In one report he is identified as a mawlā (client) of al-ʿĀṣ b. Wāʾil al-Sahmī (al-Samarqandī, 1:465, on Q 5:106). Budayl is referred to in the sources as one of the chiefs of his tribe and as the shrewdest among the Arabs and one of the noblest among those who converted to Islam in the year of the conquest of Mecca (8/630) ( min kibār muslimat al-fatḥ). In the same year,…

Ajnādayn is the traditional name of the site in Palestine of a battle (Maʿrakat Ajnādayn) in 13/634 between the Byzantine army and the Muslim-Arab invaders attacking the Byzantine territories in Bilād al-Shām (greater Syria), during the early Muslim caliphate. Although Islamic literary sources report precisely that Ajnādayn lay between Ramla and Bayt Djibrin, no site by that name is attested by classical or modern geographers. On topographical grounds, Meidnik located the site of the battle on the Wādī al-Samṭ. There are two small vi…

Hishām b. ʿAbd al-Malik (b. 72/691, r. 105–25/724–43), was the tenth Umayyad caliph. His twenty-year reign marked the apogee of Umayyad territorial expansion and was characterised by sustained stability, in sharp contrast to the years that followed his death. Hishām was born in 72/691, his mother was ʿĀʾisha bt. Hishām b. Ismāʿīl al-Makhzūmī. Nothing has been preserved regarding his childhood and education. He reportedly led raids into Byzantine territory in 87/706, but did not otherwise make any a…

Ḥujr b. ʿAdī b. Jabala b. ʿAdī b. Rabīʿa Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kindī was a Companion of the Prophet, a military leader in the early Muslim conquests, and a close supporter of the caliph ʿAlī (r. 35–40/656–61). He was executed in 52/672 by the caliph Muʿāwiya (r. 41–60/661–80). He belonged to the tribal nobility of the Banū ʿAdī b. Rabīʿa b. Muʿāwiya al-Akramūn of Kinda. With his brother Hāniʾ, he visited the Prophet in Medina—probably in the delegation of Kinda led by al-Ashʿath b. Qays in 10/631—and accept…

Al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib (d. c. 32/653) was an uncle of the prophet Muḥammad and the eponym of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty. al-ʿAbbās was a half-brother of the Prophet's father ʿAbdallāh. His mother was Nutayla bt. Janāb from al-Namir, a tribe of the Rabīʿa confederation. al-ʿAbbās was the youngest son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib and was born two or three years prior to his nephew Muḥammad, i.e., around 567 C.E. He died during the caliphate of ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān (r. 23–35/644–56), aged about 88 (lunar) years. The ʿAbbāsids were descendants of al-ʿAbbās through his son ʿAbdallāh. It is particularly …

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAwf b. ʿAbd ʿAwf b. ʿAbd (al-Ḥārith) b. al-Ḥārith b. Zuhra (d. 32/652–3) was a prominent early Companion of Muḥammad and one of the ten for whom he prophesied Paradise. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān was born in about 579 C.E. and became a Muslim at the age of thirty-one, at which time he was a successful caravan trader with close ties to the Meccan nobility of Umayya and ʿAbd Shams (ancestors of clans of the Meccan nobility). His father, ʿAwf, had been associated in the caravan trade…

The Būrids were a dynasty of Turkish origin that ruled Damascus and southern Syria from 497/1104 to 549/1154, struggling to maintain its autonomy from the Franks, the Zangids, and the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs (Assassins). The founder of the dynasty, Ẓāhir al-Dīn Ṭughtakīn (Tughtigīn, r. 497–522/1104–28), who was atābeg (guardian-tutor) of Shams al-Mulūk Duqāq, the son of the Saljūq sultan Tutush I (r. 471–88/1078–95), became full master of Damascus after the deaths of Duqāq and his son Tutush II. He captured Tyre, at the request of its inhabitants, in 506/1112—retaining the khuṭba, the Frid…

ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (d. 73/693) was a Companion and brother-in-law of the Prophet Muḥammad and one of the most important transmitters of his sayings. He is often referred to simply as Ibn ʿUmar. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿUmar was born c. 610 C.E., the first son of the caliph-to-be ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb and Zaynab bt. Maẓʿūn. He converted to Islam at an early age, together with his parents, and was about eleven when his family moved to Medina. He was too young to fight at Badr and Uḥud but took part in the Battle of the Trench (al-…