(a. “thresholds”), more fully, ʿalabāt-i ʿāliya or ʿatabāt-i muḳaddasa (“the lofty or sacred thresholds”), the S̲h̲īʿī shrine cities of ʿIrāḳ—Nad̲j̲af, Karbalāʾ, Kāẓimayn and Sāmarrā [ q.vv.]—comprising the tombs of six of the Imāms as well as a number of secondary shrines and places of visitation. Nad̲j̲af, 10 km. to the west of Kūfa, is the alleged site of burial of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. 41/661) (another shrine dedicated to ʿAlī is that at Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf in Northern Afghanistan; see K̲h̲wad̲j̲a Sayf al-Din K̲h̲ud̲j̲andī, Karwān-i Balk̲h̲ , Mazār-i S̲h̲ar…

, Āḳā Sayyid Muḥammad Bāḳir , S̲h̲īʿī mud̲j̲tahid and proponent of the Uṣūlī [ q.v.] mad̲h̲hab , often entitled Waḥīd-i Bihbihānī or Muḥaḳḳiḳ-i Bihbihānī, and commonly regarded by his S̲h̲īʿī contemporaries as the “renewer” ( mud̲j̲addid ) of the 12th Hid̲j̲rī century. He was born in Iṣfahān some time between the years 1116/1704-5 and 1118/1706-7. After a brief period spent in Bihbihān, he was taken to Karbalāʾ by his father, Mullā Muḥammad Akmal, whose principal student he became, while studying also under S…