, name of several secretaries or viziers of the ʿAbbāsid period, who did not however all belong to the same family. al-Ḥasan b. Mak̲h̲lad b. al-D̲j̲arrāḥ was a secretary of Christian origin and recently converted to Islam, who served the caliph al-Mutawakkil and became vizier under al-Muʿtamid, for the first time in 263/877, then in 264-5/878-9, and was dismissed from the government on the insistence of the regent al-Muwaffaḳ. He seems to have been exiled to Egypt, where he was at first welcomed by…

, Banū , a family of famous Cordovan jurists who, from father to son, during ten generations, distinguished themselves in the study of fiḳh . The eponymous ancestor of the family was Mak̲h̲lad b. Yazīd, who was ḳāḍī of the province of Reyyoh (the kūra in the south-west of Spain, the capital of which was Malaga), in the reign of the amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II, in the first half of the 3rd/9th century. His son, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Baḳī b. Mak̲h̲lad [ q.v.], was by far the most famous member of the family, and his direct descendants devoted their intellectual activity mainly to comme…

[see ibn mak̲h̲lad ].

, abū ʿabd al-raḥmān , celebrated traditionist and exegete of Cordova, probably of Christian origin, born in 201/817, died In 276/889. Like many Spanish Muslims, he visited the principal cities of the Orient, where he frequented the society of representatives of various mad̲h̲āhib , in particular Ibn Ḥanbal; on his return to Cordova, he displayed such independence in doctrinal matters ¶ (some count him however as a S̲h̲āfiʿī and he is Tegarded as having introduced the Ẓāhirī doctrines into Spain) and opposition to taḳlīd , that he soon found himself regarded with hostility by the Mālikī fu…

, Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ite leader (belonging to the Ibāḍi al-Nukkār [ q.v.]), who by his revolt shook the Fāṭimid realm in North Africa to its foundations. His father, a Zanāta Berber merchant from Taḳyūs (or Tūzar) in the district of Ḳastīliya, bought in Tadmakat a slave girl called Sabīka, who bore him Abū Yazīd about 270/883 (apparently in the Sūdān). Abū Yazīd studied the Ibāḍī mad̲h̲hab and became a schoolmaster in Tāhart. At the time of the victory of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-S̲h̲īʿī he moved to Taḳyūs and started, in 316/928, his anti-government …

, i.e., Abū Yaʿḳūb Isḥāḳ b. Ibrāhīm b. Mak̲h̲lad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥanẓalī al-Marwazī , a prominent traditionist. His father was called Rāhwayh because he had been born on a road. Ibn Rāhwayh himself was born in Marw in 161/778 or 166/782-3, travelled in ʿIrāḳ, Ḥid̲j̲āz, Yemen and Syria, visited Bag̲h̲dād more than once and finally settled in Nīsābūr where he died in 238/853; his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. He heard traditions from ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak (Brockelmann, S I, 256), Sufyān b. ʿUyayna [ q.v.], Wakīʿ b. al-D̲j̲arrāḥ, an authority of al-Buk̲h̲ārī, and Ḏj̲arīr b. ʿA…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad (but Muḥammad in S̲h̲īrawayh’s History of Hamad̲h̲ān, see Ḳifṭī, Inbāh , i, 325, 12) b. Ḥamdān al-Hamad̲h̲ānī , famous Arabic grammarian and adīb . He was born in Hamad̲h̲ān [ q.v.]. The exact year of his birth is not known but it must have been in the ninth decade of the 3rd century A.H., since he went in 314/926, while still young, to study in Bag̲h̲dād, where he found eminent teachers. Among his teachers of the Ḳurʾān was the head of the Ḳurʾān readers of Bag̲h̲dād, Ibn Mud̲j̲āhid (d. 324/936)…

, name of the members of an important family, of Christian origin, among whom were several high officials of the ʿAbbāsid administration. An anecdote related by Ibn al-Nadim ( Fihrist , 130) and repeated by Yāḳūt ( Udabāʾ , iv, 144-5) suggests that the family’s ancestor, T̲h̲awāba, lived in Baḥrayn where he was a barber. His son Muḥammad entered the administration at an unknown date. The best-known members of the family are: Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad , who was, under al-Muhtadī (ruled 255/869-256/870), one of the chief assistants of the vizier…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muslim al-Dīnawarī (some add al-Kūfī , which refers to his place of birth, and al-Marwazī , which is probably the ethnic name of his father), one of the great Sunnī polygraphs of the 3rd/9th century, being both a theologian and a writer of adab . He seems to have been descended, in the second or third generation, from an Arabicized Iranian family from K̲h̲urāsān which was connected on the female side with the Bāhilīs of Baṣra and may have come to ʿIrāḳ in the wake of the ʿAbbāsid armies during the second half of the 2nd/8th century. He was born at Kūfa in 213/828, but…

, Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm (= Abū S̲h̲ayba) b. ʿUt̲h̲mān al-ʿAbsī al-Kūfī , ʿIrāḳī traditionist and historian (159-235/775-849) who came of a family of religious scholars; his grandfather Abū S̲h̲ayba was already ḳāḍī of Wāsiṭ, but he is described as ḍaʿīf (Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Lisān al-Mīzān , vi, 395). Abū Bakr studied ¶ at al-Ruṣāfa, travelled “in search of learning” and died at Kūfa after having resided at Bag̲h̲dād. He had many pupils, among them Ibn Mād̲j̲a [ q.v.], and wrote several works, which are listed in the Fihrist : K. al-Taʾrīk̲h̲ , K. al-Fitan , K. Ṣiffīn , K. al-Ḏj̲am…

, K̲h̲alīfa , d. 240/854, generally known as S̲h̲abāb, was a prominent chronicler and genealogist who specialized in the study of tradition ( muḥaddit̲h̲ ). Little is known about his life. He seems to have lived for about 80 years. He was born in Baṣra, and it would appear that he was educated and also taught exclusively in his native city, not travelling to other cities as was then customary. This is indicated by the fact that al-K̲h̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī does not mention him in his History of Bag̲h…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-ʿAbbās b. D̲j̲urayd̲j̲ (or Ḏj̲urd̲j̲is or Ḏj̲urd̲j̲īs). poet of the 3rd/9th century, was born at Bag̲h̲dād on 2 Rad̲j̲ab 221/21 June 836 and died there in 283/896 (some sources give the date of his death as 276/889 or 284/897). His father, al-ʿAbbās, a Byzantine freedman and a client of ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿĪsā b. D̲j̲aʿfar, was probably the first member of the family to embrace Islam. His mother Ḥasana, the daughter of ʿAbd Allāh al-Sid̲j̲zī, was of Persian origin. Little is known of his studies. It is known, however, that he went to a school attended by …

, Banū , a family of officials in caliphal service, especially noted as secretaries and viziers to the ʿAbbāsids during the 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The majority of sources state that the family came from Wāsiṭ and were of Nestorian Christian origin before converting to Islam, nevertheless claiming a pure Arabic origin going back to the Yemeni tribe of Balḥārit̲h̲ of Nad̲j̲rān. The Wahbīs thus belong to the tradition of servants of the caliphs with Nestorian backgrounds who were prominent in the administrations of the 3rd/9th century (cf. L. Massignon, La politique islamo-c…

(a.), vizier or chief minister. I. In the Arab World 1. The ʿAbbāsids. Etymology The term wazīr occurs in the Ḳurʾān (XXV, 35: “We gave Moses the book and made his brother Aaron a wazīr with him”), where it has the sense of “helper”, a meaning well attested in early Islamic poetry (for examples, see Goitein, The origin of the vizierate, 170-1). Though several scholars have proposed Persian origins for the term and for the institution, there is no compelling reason to doubt the Arabic provenance of the term or an Arab-Islamic origin and evolution of the institution of the wazīr (cf. Goitein, op. ci…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan aḥmad b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Mūsā b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī al-Nadīm (and also al-Ṭunbūrī , because he played the tunbūr , lute (Fr.: “pandore”)). A philologist and transmitter of traditions, singer and musician, poet and wit and a descendant of the Barmakids. He was reputedly born in 224/839, and died at the age of a hundred, at Wāsiṭ in S̲h̲aʿbān 324/June-July 936. A man of very varied culture, but little religion, of doubtful morals and repulsive appearance (he was dirty and ugly, and owed…

, al-ḍaḥḥāk b. mak̲h̲lad b. muslim b. al-ḍaḥḥāk al-s̲h̲aybānī al-baṣri , traditionist, born at Mecca in 122/740 but established subsequently at Baṣra, where he transmitted from a host of scholars (notably al-Aṣmaʿī) a large quantity of ḥadīt̲h̲s gathered by himself, and especially from several tābiʿīs or Successors. He was considered as trustworthy, and some of his ḥadīt̲h̲s were included in the great collections; his biographers assert that he never fabricated a single one, although he is said to have declared that pious men never lie so much as in …

, Abū Ayyūb Sulaymān b. Mak̲h̲lad (the nisba stemming from Mūriyān in Ahwāz, see Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , ed. Beirut, v, 221), secretary of the second ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr [ q.v.]. Various stories are given in the sources about how he came to enjoy al-Manṣūr’s confidence: that in the time of the last Umayyad caliph Marwān b. Muḥammad he had saved the ʿAbbāsid Abū D̲j̲aʿfar from a flogging for embezzling state funds (al-Yaʿḳūbī, al-D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī): that he was a freed slave of al-Saffah’s, taken into his successor’s service (…

, Abuʾl-Ṣaḳr , vizier of the ʿAbbāsid Caliph al-Muʿtamid [ q.v.]. Of Persian or Mesopotamian origin, he was born in 230/844-5 and claimed to belong to the Arab tribe of the S̲h̲aybān. Abu ’l-Ṣaḳr, who had been a secretary and had been in charge of the dīwān of the Royal Domains, appeared on the political scene in 265/878, when the regent al-Muwaffaḳ had him appointed vizier, a post which he had to abandon shortly afterwards only to regain it at the end of the year. But Ismāʿīl played a minor role while the regent had Ṣāʿid b. Mak̲h̲lad [ q.v.] as his personal secretary, and it was only from t…

, the name of several Muslim scholars: (1) Muḥammad b. Aṣbag̲h̲ b. Muḥammad b. Yūsuf b. Nāṣiḥ b. ʿAṭāʾ from Cordova (born 4 Rabīʿ I 255/20 February 869, died 306/918-19 during the raid of Badr b. Aḥmad). A ḥadīt̲h̲ scholar who had as teachers Baḳī b. Mak̲h̲lad [ q.v.], Muḥammad b. Waḍḍāḥ, Aṣbag̲h̲ b. K̲h̲alīl, al-K̲h̲us̲h̲anī [ q.v.] and Ibn al-Ḳazzāz. He is said to have been proficient in grammar and uncommon language ( g̲h̲arīb ) and followed individual judgment ( raʾy ). If we may believe his biographer Ibn al-Faraḍī, he was versed in different kinds …

, Sulaymān b. al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ , a traditionist; born in 202/817. He travelled widely in pursuit of his studies and gained a high reputation for his knowledge and piety. Eventually he settled at Baṣra, which is no doubt why some wrongly held that the nisba Sid̲j̲istānī comes from a village near Baṣra called Sid̲j̲istān (or Sid̲j̲istāna), and not from the province of that name. He died in S̲h̲awwāl 275/Febr. 889. Abū Dāʾūd’s principal work is his Kitāb al-Sunan , which is one of the six canonical books of Tradition accepted by Sunnīs. He is said to hav…

, a locality in ʿIrāḳ some 90 km. south of Bag̲h̲dād and a mile from the left bank of the Tigris. The name comes from a large monastery still flourishing in ʿAbbāsid times; it consisted of a church, a hundred cells, and extensive olive and palm plantations, all enclosed by thick walls. On the occasion of the feast of the Holy Cross many people flocked to the monastery. It seems that it was abandoned at the time of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid occupation, and geographers of the 7th/13th century record that only the ruins then remained. Dayr Ḳunnā is famous primarily on account of…

, abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 329-33/940-4, son of al-Muḳtadir [ q.v.] and a slave-girl named K̲h̲alūb. At the age of 26 on 21 Rabīʿ I 329/24 Dec. 940 he succeeded his half-brother al-Rāḍī [ q.v.]; by this time the caliphate had sunk so low that five days passed after the death of al-Rāḍī before steps were taken to choose his successor. Al-Muttaḳī at once confirmed the Amīr al-Umarāʾ Bed̲j̲kem [ q.v. in EI 1] in office; after his death however, in Rad̲j̲ab 324/April 941, the Turks and Daylamīs in the army began to quarrel with one another. Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Barīdī [see al-barīdī …

b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṭāhir D̲h̲i ’l-Yamīnayn , last Ṭāhirid governor of K̲h̲urāsān. After the death of his father, Muḥammad received the governorship of K̲h̲urāsān (Rad̲j̲ab 248/September 862). In 250/864-5 the ʿAlid al-Ḥasan b. Zayd rebelled in Ṭabaristān, which led to a long and serious struggle [see muḥammad b. ʿabd allāh ]. When ʿAbd Allāh al-Sid̲j̲zī rebelled against Yaʿḳūb b. al-Layt̲h̲ al-Ṣaffār of Sīstān, and appealed for help to Muḥammad, who appointed him governor of al-Ṭabasayn and Ḳuhistān, Yaʿḳūb found a welcome pretext to invade K̲h̲ur…

bi ’llāh , Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Hārun al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 255-6/869-70. After al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ’s death, a number of officials wished to pay homage to the young Muḥammad, son of the deceased caliph and a Greek slave; instead, however, al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ’s brother al-Mutawakkil [ q.v.] was proclaimed his successor and only after the deposition and murder of the unfortunate al-Muʿtazz ¶ (1 S̲h̲aʿbān 255/15 July 869) did Muḥammad ascend the throne on 7-8 S̲h̲aʿbān/21-2 July with the name al-Muhtadī. His ideal was the Umayyad ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzī…

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. D̲j̲aʿfar, ʿAbbāsid caliph (256-79/870-92), son of al-Mutawakkil [ q.v.] and a slave-girl from Kūfa called Fityān. He seems to have had no political experience before being chosen as caliph in Rad̲j̲ab 256/June 870 on the ¶ death of his nephew al-Muhtadī [ q.v.] and he was never able to build up an independent power base. For most of his reign he remained a figurehead in Sāmarrāʾ while effective power was exercised by his brother Abū Aḥmad, who took the quasi-caliphal title of al-Muwaffaḳ [ q.v.]. Al-Muʿtamid was able to appoint his own wazīr , …

b. wāfid al-g̲h̲āfiḳī , one of the three major founders of Islamic jurisprudence and theology in Spain, the other two being Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā (d. 234/848) and ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb (d. 238/852). ʿĪsā is considered the most learned and important of the three, and is described as ʿālim al-Andalus . He was born in Toledo, most probably around 155/771, because when he arrived at Medina to study with Mālik b. An as he found he had “recently” died (in 179/795). He went back to Fusṭāṭ and made all his studies under ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b…

b. dāʾūd b. al-ḏj̲arrāḥ , ʿAbbāsid vizier, b. 245/859 into a family of Persian origin settled at Dayr Ḳunnā on the Tigris below Bag̲h̲dād, who had probably turned Christian before their adoption of Islam. Many of his relatives, including his father and grandfather, were officials in the ʿAbbāsid administration, and he himself seems to have received his first secretarial employment at the age of nineteen or twenty. In 278/892, on the formation of the dīwān al-dār by Aḥmad b. al-Furāt, both ʿAlī and his uncle Muḥammad b. Dāʾūd were employed in that …

b. ʿAbīda b. Rayṭa (Rāʾiṭa) al-Numayrī al-Baṣrī, Abū Zayd, expert in ak̲h̲bār on history as well as poets and poetry, very important source for some of the most prominent works of Arabic literature and himself author of ak̲h̲bār collections which mostly survive in the quotations of later authors (173-262/789-878). His father’s name was Zayd, “S̲h̲abba” being a nickname taken from a song that his father’s mother used to sing for him when he was a boy. ʿUmar was born at Baṣra as a mawlā of the Banū Numayr, as mentioned by Yāḳūt ( Irs̲h̲ād , vi, 481-2) and al-Ṣafadī ( Wāfī , …

(or Ifran , Ifrān , Ufrān Ūfrān etc.). the most important branch of the large Berber tribe of the Zenāta (Zanāta [ q.v.]). According to the writings, now lost, of three Berber genealogists used by Ibn K̲h̲aldūn, namely Sābiḳ b. Sulaymān al-Maṭmāṭī, Hanīʾ b. Masdūr al-Kūmī and Kaḥlān b. Abī Luwā, the Banū Īfran are descended from Īṣlitan (also Yaṣlitan), son of Misrā, son of Zākiyā, son of Wardīran (or of Wars̲h̲īk), son of Adīdat. According to the same tradition, Zākiyā was the brother of Dammar (Demmer), the eponymo…

( al-Nakkāra , al-Nakkāriyya ) “deniers”: one of the main branches of the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ī sect of the Ibāḍiyya [ q.v.]. The existence of this sect has already been proved by E. Masqueray, A. de C. Motylinski and R. Strothmann; cf., however, the opinion of G. Levi della Vida, according to whom al-Nukkār is simply “an insulting epithet applied to K̲h̲ārid̲j̲īs in general” [see Ṣufriyya ]. The name al-Nukkār comes from the fact that the members of this sect refused to recognise the second Ibāḍī imām of Tāhert, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Rustam [see rustamids ]. The…

b. ʿAbd al-Ḳays al-Ḳurās̲h̲ī al-Fihrī (d. 63/683), one of the most prominent Arab commanders of the Islamic conquests period, above all in North Africa, where he was responsible for the foundation of al-Ḳayrawān [ q.v.]. He was born towards the end of the Prophet’s life, hence was accounted a Companion, and was through his mother a nephew of ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ [ q.v.], the conqueror of Egypt, who shortly before his death in 43/663 was to give him command over the lands to the west of Egypt. It seems that ʿUḳba had already ¶ played a role in ʿAmr’s first raid towards North Africa in 21/642, …

(literally “circle”, “gathering of people seated in a circle”, and also “gathering of students around a teacher”), among the Ibāḍī-Wahbīs of the Mzāb [ q.v.] a religious council made up of twelve ʿazzāba (“recluses”, “clerks”; on the exact meaning of this word, see R. Rubinacci, Un antico documento di vita cenobitica musulmana, 47-8), and presided over by a s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ . On the mystical sense of ḥalḳa , the Ḳawāʿid al-Islām of al-Ḏj̲ayṭālī [ q.v.], which is the most complete code of the Ibāḍī sect (written probably in the first half of the 8th/14th century), says: “On…

, Abu ’l-Mustahill , an Arab poet of Kūfa (60-126/680-743) who is not to be confused with two earlier and lesser known Asadīs, al-Kumayt b. Maʿrūf and al-Kumayt b. Thaʿlaba (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Ḏj̲amhara . ii, 373; Ibn Sallām, Ṭabaḳāt ; al-Āmidī, Muʾtalif , no. 571; Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Iṣāba , nos. 7498 and 7499; etc.). Al-Kumayt applied himself in an indirect fashion to the poetry and the language of the Bedouins, and he was acquainted with poets such as al-Farazdak, Ru’ba b. al-ʿAd̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ and the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ī al-Ṭirimmāḥ, whose hostility towar…

(also Huwwāra; now Howwāra or Hewwāra), name of a Berber people. Disregarding the legends which give them a Yemenī origin, we must remember that ancient Arabic authors do not agree about their place in the Berber family. The Muslim geographer al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī (340/951) regards them as members of the Butr branch of the Berbers, whereas most Berber and Arabic genealogists, whose ¶ opinions are given in the History of the Berbers of Ibn K̲h̲aldūn (8th/14th century), regard them as a tribe forming part of the al-Barānis branch, believing them to be…

, the name of several places in the Islamic world, from Cordova in the west to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in the east (see Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 46-50). Amongst the Ruṣāfa settlements of ʿIrāḳ were: 1. Ruṣāfat Abi ’l-ʿAbbās (ʿAbd Allāh al-Saffāḥ), begun by the first ʿAbbāsid caliph in lower ʿIrāḳ on the banks of the Euphrates, near al-Anbār [ q.v.], and probably identical with that town called al-Hās̲h̲imiyya. Bibliography Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān, 237, tr. Wiet, 9 Yāḳūt, Buldān, iii, 46. 2. al-Ruṣāfa, the name of a quarter of the city of Bag̲h̲dād [ q.v.] founded soon after the caliph al-Manṣūr [ q.v.] buil…

, meaning in Arabic “tall”, or “proud”, the name of at least four persons from the 1st century of the Hid̲j̲ra. On the basis of al-Āmidī’s (d. 370/980) Muʾtalif Cairo 1381/1961, ʿIzzat Ḥasan’s Introduction to the Dīwān of al-Ṭirimmāḥ b. Ḥakīm (2 Aleppo and Beirut 1414/1994) and, above all, Salīm al-Nuʿaymī’s article al-Ṭirimmāḥ , in Publics . of the Arab Academy , Bag̲h̲dād (1964), 401-22, four persons of this name can be disentangled: 1. al-Ṭirimmāḥ al-Akbar , or Ḳaʿḳaʿ b. Nafr or Ibn Ḳays al-Ṭāʾī, the paternal uncle of al-Ṭirimmāḥ al-Ḥakīm or rat…

, an important Berber ethnic group belonging to the family of Butr and whose eponymous ancestor was Lawā the Young, son of Lawā the Old. They are distant descendants of the Lebu (Lebou) of the Egyptian documents of the 13th century B.C., of the Lubīm or Lehabīm of the Bible, the Libues (Libyans) of the ancient Greeks, of the Laguantan of Corippus and the Leuathae of Procopius (6th century A.D.). It is probable that the Lebu (Lebou) of the Egyptians lived on the Mediterranean coast of Africa, bet…

, one of the main branches of the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲īs [ q.v.], representatives of which are today found in ʿUmān, East Africa, Tripolitania (D̲j̲abal Nafūsa and Zuag̲h̲a) and southern Algeria (Wargla and Mzab). The sect takes it name from that of one of those said to have founded it, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibāḍ al-Murrī al-Tamīmī. The form usually employed is Abāḍiyya; this is true not only of North Africa ( e.g., in the D̲j̲abal Natūsa, cf. A. de C. Motylinski, Le Djebel Nefousa , Paris 1898-9, 41 and passim ), where it is attested in the 9th/15th century by the Ibāḍī writer al-Barrādī ( Kitāb Ḏj̲awāhir al-mun…

, a major confederation of Berber tribes belonging to the Butr group and forming the most powerful branch of the family of the Zanāta. The ascendancy, real or imaginary, of this confederation is traced back to Mag̲h̲rāw, who is said to have been, according to the mediaeval Berber genealogists, the ancestor of the Mag̲h̲rāwa as such. Following the Arab and Berber sources utilised in the 8th/14th century by Ibn K̲h̲aldūn in his History of the Berbers , the “cradle” of the Mag̲h̲rāwa and “the ancient seat of their power” was the territory located on t…

, the common Turkish pronunciation of Persian Dulband , a sash or wrapper for the head, thence turban, the typical form of traditional headdress in the eastern Islamic lands, the Iranian world, and the Muslim and Sikh parts of the Indian subcontinent. The turban of English, French and German, the turbante of Spanish and Italian, etc., come via forms like tulband , tulbant ; in French and Italian the word is attested from the later 15th century, and in English from the mid-16th century. See Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson . A glossary of Anglo-Indian words and phrases 2, London 1903, 943-4. It s…

arabic language and literature. Al-ʿarabiyya , sc. lug̲h̲a , also lisān al-ʿarab , is: The Arabic language in all its forms. This use is pre-Islamic, as is shown by the appearance of lās̲h̲ōn ʿărāb̲h̲ī in third-century Hebrew sources, arabica lingua in St. Jerome’s Praefatio in Danielem this probably is also the sense of lisān ʿarabī ( mubīn ) in Ḳurʾān, xvi, 103 (105); xxvi, 195; xlvi, 12 (11). (2) Technically, the Classical Arabic language (Cl. Ar.) of early poetry, Ḳurʾān, etc., and the Literary Arabic of Islamic literature. This may be distinguished from ʿarabiyya in the wider sense as al…

(a.), literally, an iron ploughshare, and an iron stamp or die used for stamping coins ¶ (see Lane, Lexicon , 1937). From the latter meaning, it came to denote the result of the stamping, i.e. the legends on the coins, and then, the whole operation of minting coins. 1. Legal and constitutional aspects. As in the Byzantine and Sāsānid empires to which the Arab caliphate was heir, the right of issuing gold and silver coinage was a royal prerogative. Hence in the caliphate, the operation of sikka , the right of the ruler to place his name on the coinage, eventua…