(864/1459-921/1515), Ottoman statesman and man of letters, was born at Amasya (for the date see E. Blochet, Cat. des mss. turcs , ii, 1-2), where his father Tād̲j̲ī Beg was adviser to Prince (later Sultan) Bāyezīd. After rising in the theological career to müderris , he was appointed nis̲h̲ānd̲j̲i̊ by Bāyezīd II (in 903/1497-8, see Tâci-zâde Sa’dî Çelebi Münşeâtı , ed. N. Lugal & A. Erzi, Istanbul 1956, 85). Suspected of favouring Prince Aḥmad in the struggle for the succession, Ḏj̲aʿfar, with other of Aḥmad’s partisans, was dismis…

b. ʿAlī s̲h̲arīf al-Ḳurays̲h̲ī al-Nāgōrī , whose dates of birth and death are unknown, wrote his Ḳānūn-i Islām at the instigation of Dr. Herklots some time before 1832. He is said to have been “a man of low origin and of no account in ¶ his own country”, born at Uppuēlūru (Ellore) in Kistna District, Madras, and was employed as a muns̲h̲ī in the service of the Madras government. He was an orthodox Sunnī, yet tolerant towards the S̲h̲īʿas, who had considerable influence in south India in his time, learned yet objective in his approach…

, Abū D̲j̲ābir Muḥammad b D̲j̲aʿfar al-Azkawī , Ibāḍī scholar of ʿUmān, d. 281/894. He was the author of an important work of fiḳh entitled Kitāb al-D̲j̲āmiʿ and usually known as D̲j̲āmiʿ Ibn D̲j̲aʿfar to distinguish it from the other Ibāḍī works with the same title. This work is still unpublished; there are several manuscripts of it in the Mzāb, the earliest of them dated 914/1508. Ibn D̲j̲aʿfar also took part in the political events of his time as supporter of the imām al-Ṣalt b. Mālik. (T. Lewicki) Bibliography A. de C. Motylinski, Bibliographie du Mzab, in Bulletin de Correspondance Afr…

( ?-926/1520)—the “Zafir agà, eunuco” listed in the index to Marino Sanuto, Diarii , xxv, col. 832—was Sand̲j̲aḳ Beg of Gallipoli, i.e., Ḳapudān or High Admiral of the Ottoman naval forces. He was appointed to this office, not (as Ḳāmūs al-aʿlām and Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿOt̲h̲mānī assert) in 917/1511 but in 922/1516. His tenure of the office coincided with the Ottoman conquest of Syria and Egypt (922-3/1516-7) and with the extensive naval preparations that Sultan Selīm I (918-26/1512-20) urged forward during the last of his …

[see d̲j̲aʿfar , mīr ].

or Mir Muḥammad D̲j̲aʿfar K̲h̲ān ( Siyar al-mutaʾak̲h̲k̲h̲irīn , vol. ii in both the text and rubrics, and not D̲j̲aʿfar ʿAlī K̲h̲ān), son of Sayyid Aḥmad al-Nad̲j̲afī, of obscure origin, rose to be the Nawwāb of Bengal during the days of the East India Company. A penniless adventurer, like his patron Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿAlī entitled ʿAlīwirdī K̲h̲ān Mahābat D̲j̲ang (see the article ʿalī werdi k̲h̲ān ), he married a step-sister, S̲h̲āh K̲h̲ānim, of ʿAlīwirdī and served his master and brother-in-law as a commandant, before the latter ascended the masnad of Bengal i…

[see d̲j̲aʿfar b. abī ṭālib ; d̲j̲aʿfar al-ṣādiḳ ; al-kattānī ; al-ḳazzāz ; al-k̲h̲arāʾiṭī ; al-muntaṣir bi’llāh ; al-rāḍī ].

b. Abī D̲j̲aʿfar al-Manṣūr [ q.v.], Umm D̲j̲aʿfar (d. 216/831-2), wife of the caliph Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd [ q.v.], mother of his successor Muḥammad al-Amīn [ q.v.]. Her name was Amat al-ʿAzīz (“handmaid of the Almighty”), but she is known by her pet name Zubayda (“little butter ball”), given to her by her grandfather al-Manṣūr on account of her plumpness and radiant looks. Her beauty, intelligence, extravagance and generosity made her one of the most admired women in her time. She set the fashion at the caliphal court and …

b. Abī Ṭālib , nephew of the caliph ʿAlī. ʿAbd Allāh’s father had gone over to Islam very early, and took part in the emigration of the first believers to Abyssinia, where, according to the common belief, ʿAbd Allāh was born. On his mother’s side he was a brother of Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr; the mother’s name was Asmāʾ bint ʿUmays al-Ḵh̲at̲h̲ʿamiyya. After some years the father returned to Medīna taking his son with him. ʿAbd Allāh became known chiefly on account of his great generosity, and received the honorific surname of Baḥr al-Ḏj̲ūd , "the Ocean of Generosity". He…

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…

[see abū maʿs̲h̲ar ].

[see al-ruʾāsī ].

[see al-barāmika ].

[see al-ruʿaynī ].

[see al-ṭūsī ],

Aḥmad b. Yahyā b. Aḥmad b. ʿAmīra , an Andalusian scholar of the 6th/12th century. According to the information that he gives us in his works concerning himself and his family, he was born at Vélez, to the west of Lorca, and he began his studies in Lorca. He travelled in North Africa (Ceuta, Marrākus̲h̲, Bougie) and even reached Alexandria, but he appears to have spent the greater part of his life at Murcia. He died at the end of Rabī II 599/beginning of 1203. Of his writings only…

(“the trustworthy”), Abū ʿAbd Allāh, son of Muḥammad al-Bāḳir, was transmitter of ḥadīt̲h̲s and the last imām recognized by both Twelver and Ismāʿīlī S̲h̲īʿīs. He was born ¶ in 80/699-700 or 83/702-3 in Medina, his mother, Umm Farwa, being a great-granddaughter of Abū Bakr. He inherited al-Bāḳir’s following in 119/737 (or 114/733); hence during the crucial years of the transition from Umayyad to ʿAbbāsid power he was at the head of those S̲h̲īʿīs who accepted a nonmilitant Fāṭimī imāmate. He lived quietly in Madīna as an authority in ḥadīt̲h̲ and probably in fiḳh ;…

[see ibn al-furāt ].

Abu ’l-Faḍl D̲j̲aʿfar b. Ḥarb al-Hamad̲h̲ānī (d. 236/850), a Muʿtazilī of the Bag̲h̲dād branch, was first a disciple of Abu ’l-Hud̲h̲ayl al-ʿAllāf at Baṣra, and then of al-Murdār at Bag̲h̲dād, whose asceticism he tried to imitate; this is what inspired him to give to the poor the large fortune which he had inherited from his father. In agreement with the Muʿtazila, he defended the doctrine that God knows through Himself from all eternity, that His knowledge is His very being, and that the object of His knowledge can exist from all eternity. He said t…

, cousin of the Prophet and brother of ʿAlī, whose elder he was by ten years. When his father was reduced to poverty, his uncle al-ʿAbbās took D̲j̲aʿfar into his house to solace him, while Muḥammad took care of ʿAlī. Soon being converted to Islam (D̲j̲aʿfar occupies the 24th, or 31st, or 32nd place in the list of the first Muslims), he was among those who emigrated to Abyssinia (his name heads the second list given by Ibn His̲h̲ām, 209); his wife Asmāʾ b. ʿUmays followed him. When the Ḳurays̲h̲ …