b. D̲j̲aʿfar al-Kātib al-Bag̲h̲dādī , Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ , philologist, historian, and one of the first scholars to introduce the systematic study of the figures of speech in Arabic literature. The date of his birth is nowhere mentioned and may have been as early as around the year 260/873-4. He died at an uncertain date which is variously given as “during the reign of al-Muḳtadir” (i.e. not later than 320/932), 328/939-40, and 337/948. The dates “shortly after 300” and 310 cannot be correct (see below). Almost every aspect of Ḳudāma’s biography, his work, and his personality as a…

b. Zuhayr (or: b. Mālik b. Zuhayr) b. al-Ḥuṣayn b. Rizāḥ b. Asʿad b. Bud̲j̲ayr (or: S̲h̲ud̲j̲ayr) b. Rabīʿa, Abū Ayyūb (or: Abū Ḳudāma, or: Abū Yazīd) al-Tamīmī , al-Saʿdī , nicknamed “al-Muḥarriḳ”, the “Burner”—was a Companion of the Prophet (about the identity of D̲j̲āriya b. Ḳudāma with D̲j̲uwayriya b. Ḳudāma see Tahd̲h̲īb , ii, 54, 125, and Iṣāba , i, 227, 276). D̲j̲āriya gained his fame as a staunch supporter of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib. According to a tradition quoted by Ibn Saʿd ( Ṭabaḳāt , vii/1, 38) D̲j̲āriya witnessed the attempt at the assassination of ʿ…

, Muwaffaḳ al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad , Ḥanbalī ascetic, jurisconsult and traditionalist theologian. He was born in Ḏj̲ammāʿīl, near Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maḳdis, whence his ethnic name) in S̲h̲aʿbān 541/Jan.-Feb. 1147, and died in Damascus on 5 or 6 D̲j̲umāda II 620/6 or 7 July 1223. In 551/1156, the Banū Ḳudāma moved from Ḏj̲ammāʿil to take up residence in Damascus. The chroniclers explain this exodus as caused by the bad treatment the Muslims were receiving at the hands of the Franks. From the sources available to us at the present time it is possible to…

, Arab poet of the 1st/7-8th century (d. after 105/724). Although he composed several ḳaṣīda s, he owes his celebrity to his verses in rad̲j̲az in which he treats of beduin subjects (descriptions of camels, horses, ounces, etc.), and eulogizes the Umayyads ʿAbd al-Malik, His̲h̲ām, ʿAbd al-Malik b. Bis̲h̲r, and the governor al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲. The critics, who include him among the four best rud̲j̲d̲j̲āz (with his fellow-tribesman al-Ag̲h̲lab and the two Tamīmites of al-Baṣra, al-ʿAd̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ and his son Ruʾba), rank him highest for…

(a.), a figure of speech in Arabic (later also Persian, Turkish, etc.) rhetoric. General notion Non-technically tarṣīʿ means “the act of setting, fixing, or putting together (jewels, precious stones, etc.); the act of making (a thing) according to a measure; the act of forming (it) by the inserting of one part within another” (cf. Lane, s.v. r-ṣ-ʿ ). Tarṣīʿ al-ʿiḳd , according to the rhetoricians, means “that the same pearls are on one side of the necklace as are on the other” (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, al-Mat̲h̲al , i, 361). Description , definition , and examples Tarṣīʿ is …

, name of an Egyptian province in the eastern region of the Delta. It owes its name, which is an Arabicized form of the Coptic Tkehli, to the town called Daḳahla which was situated between Damīra and Damietta, a little closer to the latter than the former. At one time famous for its paper mills, it is now but an insignificant village. The province was created at the end of the 5th/11th century and it has survived till today with some changes in its boundaries. At present it extends along the eastern bank of the Damietta branch of the Nile, which marks its …

verbal noun of the fourth form of the root w.g̲h̲.r . (?), meaning here an exemption or a privilege with respect to taxes. The classical ʿAbbāsid administration used This term both for the privilege, and for the land which was covered by This privilege, of having to pay only one single tax payment, directly to the Treasury and not through tax-collectors. The districts of Mard̲j̲ and Karad̲j̲ in western Iran are regularly referred to as al-Ig̲h̲ārayn even after they had lost the official status which earned them This name. In the following centuries the term īg̲h̲ār d…

(a.), lit. “abode”. This is a Ḳurʾānic legal term referring to a women’s right upon her husband to provide shelter for her (XL, 6). It also refers to her right to stay in the matrimonial house during her waiting period following divorce or death (XL, 1). A famous statement of Fāṭima bt. Ḳays is recorded by al-Buk̲h̲ārī and Muslim in their collections of ḥadīt̲h̲ , that suknā and nafaḳa were not granted to her by the Prophet when she was irrevocably ¶ divorced. Her statement lead to a disagreement among scholars. Ḥanafīs follow the view of ʿUmar and ʿĀʾis̲h̲a who rejected Fāṭ…

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn Isḥāḳ b. Ibrāhīm b. Sulaymān b. Wahb al-Kātib , scion of an old and distinguished secretarial family and author of a remarkable S̲h̲īʿī work on Arabic rhetoric, style and the secretary’s art, the K. al-Burhān fī wud̲j̲ūh al-bayān . His grandfather Sulaymān was vizier to al-Muhtadī and al-Muʿtamid, fell in disgrace under al-Muwaffaḳ and died in his prison in 292/905. About his father and himself we know almost nothing. His floruit belongs to the first half of the 4th/10th century. His book must have been composed in or after 335/946-7, since it mentions the vizier ʿAlī b. ʿIsā [ q…

, a station on the Kūfa to Mecca Pilgrimage route, the so-called Darb ¶ Zubayda [ q.v. in Suppl.]. It lay in Nad̲j̲d in what is now the northeastern corner of Saudi Arabia, towards the ʿIrāḳī border, in approx. lat. 28° 50′ N., long. 43° 20′ E. some 180 km/112 miles north-north-east of Fayd [ q.v. in Suppl.]. It is mentioned by such geographers as Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, Ibn Rusta, Ḳudāma and al-Muḳaddasī, and such pilgrims as Ibn D̲j̲ubayr and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa passed through it. It was the birthplace of the 2nd/8th century poet Ibn Mutayr [ q.v.]. Today, the site of al-T̲h̲aʿlabiyya is in the s…

is, on the authority of the geographers Ḳudāma and al-Masʿūdī, the name used in the 3rd-4th/3th-10th centuries for the western branch of the Euphrates, between its bifurcation at or near the modern Hindiyya Barrage (44° 16’ E, 36° 40’ N) and its loss in the medieval Great Swamp. The proportion of Euphrates water using this or the eastern (al-Sūrāʾ, or modern Ḥilla) channel, has ¶ varied from period to period thoroughout medieval and modern times: the western branch has finally been dominant, and the eastern merely a controlled canal, since the early 20th cen…

, one of the sub-districts ( ṭassūd̲j̲ ) of ʿIrāḳ, according to the Sāsānid division adopted by the Arabs, belonging to the district (P. astān , A. kūra ) Ḵh̲usra S̲h̲ād̲h̲ Bahmān (the district of the Tigris) and comprising a tract of land along the western frontier of Ḵh̲uzistān, between Wāsiṭ and Baṣra. The name is derived from the Sāsānid king Kawād̲h̲ (Ḳubād̲h̲) I. The first part of the name is probably Abar (P. abar or abr "cloud" is often seen at the beginning of place-names) and not Abaz or Abād̲h̲ as the Arab geographers have it. Some Arab authors give A…

1. The name of a land and a city in China mentioned in the mediaeval Arabic geographer Ḳudāma b. D̲j̲aʿfar [ q.v.], 264, here borrowing material from the lost part of his predecessor Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih [ q.v.]. According to Ḳudāma, Alexander the Great, in company with the Emperor of China, went northwards from China and conquered the land of S̲h̲ūl, founding there two cities, K̲h̲.mdān and S̲h̲ūl and ordering the Chinese ruler to place a garrison ( rābita ) of his troops in the latter place. K̲h̲umdān is well-attested in other Islamic sources (e.g. Gardīzī; Marwazī, tr. Minors…

, also called birs nimrūd , in the older literature burs , a ruined site 9 miles S.W. of the town of Ḥilla on the Euphrates, about 12 miles S.S.W. of Babylon on the eastern shore of the Lake of Hindiyya. The place is the ancient Borsippa, the sister town of Babylon. Its immense ruins, the largest that have survived from the Babylonian period, were thought by the Arabs to be the palace of Nimrūd b. Kanʿān ( ṣarḥ Nimrūd , Yāḳūt, i, 136) or of Buk̲h̲tnaṣṣar (Yāḳūt, i, 165). Even in modern times they were thought to be the ruins of the Tower of Babel and t…

(a.), Abstract noun, from balīg̲h̲ effective, eloquent (from balag̲h̲a “to attain something”), meaning therefore eloquence. It presupposes faṣāḥa , purity and euphony of language, but goes beyond it in requiring, according to some of the early definitions, the knowledge of the proper connexion and separation of the phrase, clarity, and appropriateness to the occasion. Even though those definitions are not infrequently attributed to foreign nations such as the Persians, Greeks or Indians, the demand for skill in improvisation and the recurring references to the Ḵh̲aṭīb …

, an agreement which cancels, wholly or in part, a previous agreement between the same parties. The question is treated by the fuḳahaʾ in the chapter on sale; the authors devote to it long expositions, because of the favour with which fiḳh regards all methods of mitigating the obligatory nature of a contract. As is said in a ḥadīt̲h̲: “For him who annuls ( aḳāla ) a sale which the other party regrets [having concluded], God will annul his sins on the day of the Resurrection”. When Muslim jurists consider the subject of sale, they ask the…

(a.), lit. “pre-emption”, the right of the co-owner to buy out his partner’s share which is for sale. Should the property be sold without his approval to a third party, the partner has the privilege to purchase the property, even against the will of the new owner, who should be reimbursed with the price paid. Both Ḳurʾān and Ḥadīt̲h̲ are cited by books of fiḳh in support of the concept, though the former seems to provide only indirect reference. The Ḥanafīs grant this privilege to the owners of adjacent properties and make it valid not …

, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr (or ʿĀmir) b. al-Ḥaḍramī , an agent of Muʿāwiya who is remembered for an incident in 38/658, during the period which followed the battle of Ṣiffīn [ q.v.] and the arbitration. After the occupation of Egypt by ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀs [ q.v.], Muʿāwiya, turning his attention towards ʿIrāḳ, realised that he had to begin with Baṣra, where he could count on more adherents than in Kūfa. After consulting ʿAmr, he then decided to send Ibn al-Ḥaḍramī to Baṣra and gave him precise instructions: his agent was to base his propaganda on the …

(a.), verbal noun from the form II verb saʿʿara which means, according to Lane, “to assign a known and fixed price”; hence siʿr is “that upon which the value ( t̲h̲aman ) is established”. The particle “that” gives siʿr a wider breadth than the concept of monetary value. In fact, a similar usage of “that” was included in the UAE Civil Code defining “price”, which is presumably t̲h̲aman and not siʿr, as follows: “that which the parties have agreed in consideration of the sale, whether it is greater or less than the [true] value” (art. 503). In Islamic law, the distinction between siʿr and t̲h̲aman a…

, the name of several places in Egypt, which is not unnatural since it refers to places in which the god Osiris was the object of special veneration. The name Abūṣīr is found in the large suburban area west of Alexandria, a memory of the site of Taposiris Magna . Būṣīr, on the west bank of the Damietta branch of the Nile, in the province of al-G̲h̲arbiyya. In the middle ages this small town was connected to a neighbouring seulement, Banā, so that one spoke of Būṣīr-Banā. Famous in antiquity, Būṣīr was an episcopal seat and the administrative centre of the pagarchy ( kūra ). Būṣīr al-Sidr, in the pr…

(a.), pl. ṣikāk , a technical term of early Islamic financial, commercial and legal usage, appearing in Persian, through a standard sound change, as čak , meaning “document, contract of sale, etc.”, which has been suggested—for want of any other etymology—as the origin of Eng. “cheque”, Fr. “chèque,” Ger. “Scheck,” see E. Littmann, Morgenländische Wörter im Deutschen , 2 Tübingen 1924. The term’s range of applications is wide, see Lane, Lexicon , 1709. In legal contexts, it has a similar meaning to sid̲j̲ill [see sid̲j̲ill. 1.], sc. a signed and sealed record of a judge’s decis…

, ʿAbd Allāh b. Salama , Arab poet of the second half of the 1st/7th century. He belonged to the tribe of Sahm, a branch of the Hud̲h̲ayl of the Ḥid̲j̲āz, and embraced the Marwānid cause; imprisoned by the anti-caliph ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr, he regained his liberty when the latter died, and, according to his own account, took part in the capture of Mecca in 72/692. He celebrated in his verse the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, as well as his brother, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz; see Ag̲h̲anī 1, xxi, 144. Above all he praised the amīr Abū Ḵh̲ālid ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz of the Asīd clan, whose brother, Umayya, h…

(a.), lit. “amazement”, a term of rhetoric. Though sometimes given a separate place in lists of badīʿ [ q.v.], as in Rādūyānī’s [ q.v.] Tard̲j̲umān al-balāg̲h̲a or Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Waṭwāṭ’s [ q.v.] Ḥadāʾiḳ al-siḥr , it is far more often mentioned, in more general discussions of poetry, as one of the basic effects or aims of the poetic process, especially of imagery. It is found, together with its active counterpart taʿd̲j̲īb (“causing amazement”) in the Aristotelian tradition (Ibn Sīnā, Ḥāzim al-Ḳarṭād̲j̲annī [ q.vv.]) and, in a somewhat different sense, in the poetics of ʿAbd…

(a), a pickpocket. The word is derived from the action of swifdy cutting an object. The ṭarrār is also called k̲h̲ālis , muk̲h̲talis or nas̲h̲s̲h̲āl , each of which indicates acquisition of other people’s property in a public place. Muk̲h̲talis , however, places greater emphasis on secrecy, while the newer term, nas̲h̲s̲h̲āl, indicates swiftness in picking the object (Ibrāhīm Anīs et alii, al-Muʿd̲j̲am al-wasīṭ , Cairo 1972, i, 249, ii, 554, 923). Although, according to Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, there is a ḥadīt̲h̲ narrated by al-S̲h̲aʿbī stating that a ṭarrār is liable to amputation, Musli…

(a.), literally, “someone who makes a thing legal, legaliser, legitimator”, the figure who, in classical Islamic law acts as something like a dummy or a “man of straw”, in order to authenticate or make permissible some legal process otherwise of doubtful legality or in fact prohibited. It thus forms part of the mechanisms and procedures subsumed under ḥiyal , legal devices, often ¶ used for evading the spirit of the law whilst technically satisfying its letter [see ḥīla ]. Thus the muḥallil is found in gambling, racing for stakes, e.g. with horses or pi…

(a.), a term of Islamic law, denoting the bargaining involving both vendor and purchaser that occurs before a sale. Sawm is a classical term which, although pre-contractual, influences the formation of the contract and has a legal effect upon it. Sale is prohibited if a higher bid is offered, by a third party during the negotiation leading to the sale agreement. Al-Buk̲h̲ārī and Muslim record the prohibition of making an offer while another’s offer is being considered. What is curious is that they also record the prohibition of sale ( bayʿ ). This has lead to som…

, early ( e.g., Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , 113) named also Firab (Farab), in Ḳudāma (BGA vi, 203) as well as Yāḳūt (iii, 867) also called Ḳaryat ʿAlī or Ribāṭ Ṭāhir ibn ʿAlī, is a town opposite Āmul [ q.v., 2]. It lay a parasang north of the Oxus (Āmū Daryā, [ q.v.]) on the road to Buk̲h̲ārā and was the centre of a fertile region with many villages as well as the seat of an inspector for water-control ( Mīr-i rūd̲h̲ : Ḥudūd , see above). The city was protected by a fortress and possessed a Friday-mosque and an open space for public worship ( muṣallā ) with a hostel iur travellers who wer…

(a.), a noun form from the root w-l-y “to be near, adjacent, contiguous to” [someone or something] and a term with a range of meaning in the political, religious and legal spheres. For the legal meaning, see 1. below. In the political and religious spheres, wilāya denotes “the exercise of authority”, whether temporal or spiritual, or a combination of both; hence by extension, it comes to mean the government or administration of a region or province under the supreme overlordship of a caliph, sultan or amīr [see wālī ], or the spiritual authority and charisma of a particularly spiri…

ʿUmar b. al-Ḥusayn al-Bag̲h̲dādī (d. 334/946), better known under the name of Abu ’l-Ḳāsim al-K̲h̲irakī, was one of the first and most celebrated of Ḥanbalī jurisconsults. He was first guided into the mad̲h̲hab of the Imām Aḥmad by his father Abū ʿAlī al-K̲h̲iraḳī (d. 299/912), who was himself a pupil of Abū Bakr al-Marwad̲h̲ī (d. 275/899). He also knew Aḥmad’s two sons, Ṣāliḥ (d. 266/880) and the s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAbd Allāh (d. 290/903). On the eve of the arrival of the S̲h̲īʿī Būyids in Bag̲h̲dād, al-K̲h̲iraḳī left the ʿIrāḳī capital as a muhād̲j̲ir seeking refuge in…

(a.), literally “the adducing of a likeness, example; representation”. 1. In grammar. Here, it is used in various senses. As a denominative from mat̲h̲al “example”, it denotes the citing of examples and the technique of definition by exemplification (cf. Versteegh, 59, n. 8), while from mat̲h̲al in the extended meaning of “proverb”, it denotes the creation or use of such expressions; thus the phrase ʿalayhi māl un is called a tamt̲h̲īl by al-Mubarrad [ q.v.] ( al-Muḳtaḍab , i, 51) “because [the debt] has got on top of him”, a usage which clearly overlaps with tamt̲h̲īl in rhetoric. As a deno…

, a small town in ʿIrāḳ in a fertile depression on the borders of the desert between Anbār and Kūfa. It is 80 miles west of Karbalāʾ. The Arabic name means fountain of dates. It was probably called so because of an abundance of palm trees (Yāḳūt, iii, 759). According to Ibn al-Kalbī, it was part of the Ḥīrite kingdom of Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ayma al-Abras̲h̲ (al-Ṭabarī, 750; Yāḳūt, ii, 378). There S̲h̲āpūr is said to have married Naḍira, the daughter of the King of Hatra. (Al-Ṭabarī, i, 829; Yāḳūt, ii, 283; al-Hamdānī, al-Buldān , 130). It was probably also a tassūd̲j̲ of the astān of B…

s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ manṣūr b. yūnus al-bahūtī , frequently referred to by the name of al-bahūtī al-miṣrī , is usually considered as one of the most eminent doctors of Ḥanbalism in the first half of the 11th/17th century, and also as the last major representative of this school in Egypt. A native of the village of Bahūt in the Mudīriyya G̲h̲arbiyya, al-Bahūtī belonged to a family which gave several ¶ other ʿulamāʾ , who enjoyed a certain notoriety, to Ḥanbalism. The following are cited among the best known of his teachers: Muḥammad al-Mardāwī (died 1026/1617) Muk̲h̲taṣar , 96…

, in pre-Islamic times used for chattels taken as booty, like g̲h̲anīma [ q.v.], to be divided between victors, either in fifths ( e.g., Mufaḍḍaliyyāt , ed. Lyall, 599, 1) or in fourths ( Ḥamāsa , ed. Freytag, 458, 18, Cairo 1335, i, 428; G. Jacob, Altarabisches Beduinenleben , Berlin 1897, 215), the leader being entitled to one of the parts. This custom was upheld by the Prophet after the battle of Badr, and Sūra VIII, 42 mentions five employments for the Prophet’s ¶ one fifth ( k̲h̲ums ), to figure in future budgets. The old use of the word fayʾ never became completely …

, a place in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān on the road from Marāg̲h̲a [ q.v.] to Urmiya [ q.v.] south of the Lake of Urmiya. The stages on this route are still obscure. At about 15 farsak̲h̲ s south of Marāg̲h̲a was the station of Barza where the road bifurcated; the main road continued southward to Dīnawar, while the northwestern one went from Barza to Tiflīs (2 farsak̲h̲s), thence to D̲j̲ābarwān (6 farsak̲h̲s), thence to Nirīz (4 farsak̲h̲s), thence to Urmiya (14 farsak̲h̲s); cf. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih. 121 (repeated by Ḳudāma with some variations); al-Muḳaddasī, 383. The distance from Urmiya indi…

, exchange value, compensation, that which is givén in exchange for something. In a very broad and generally accepted sense, the word is used in works of fiḳh to denote the counterpart of the obligation of each of the contracting parties in onerous contracts which are called “commutative” ( muʿāwaḍāt , from the same root as ʿiwaḍ ); that is, contracts which necessarily give rise to obligations incumbent upon both parties. Thus in a sale, the price ( t̲h̲aman ) and the thing sold are each the ʿiwaḍ of the other. Understood in this sense, compensation must be exactly determined and,…

(Syriac Arzōn, Armenian Arzn, Ałzn). The name of several towns in eastern Anatolia. The most important was the chief city of the Roman province of Arzanene, Armenian Ałd̲z̲nik̲h̲, located on the east bank of the Arzanṣū River (modern Garzansu) a tributary of the Tigris, at about 41° 41ʹ E. long. (Greenw.) and 38° N. lat. By Islamic authors Arzan is linked with the larger city to the west, Mayyāfāriḳīn. The origin of the name is uncertain but of undoubted antiquity; see the discussion in H. Hübschmann, Die altarmenischen Ortsnamen , in Indogermanische Forschungen , …

, the period of sexual abstinence imposed on an unmarried female slave whenever she changed hands or her master set her free or gave her in marriage. Literally, istibrāʾ means to make sure of the “freedom”, that is the “emptiness”, of the womb. In fact, this period of abstinence was imposed to avoid confusion over paternity since—as there is hardly need to mention—female slaves, especially young ones, were nearly always the concubines of their masters. Nevertheless, the majority of fuḳahāʾ often lost sight of the point of this institution and imposed istibrāʾ in hypothetical cases whe…

, literally: “strange”, “uncommon”, a technical term in philology and in the science of tradition. As a term in philology it means: “rare, unfamiliar (and consequently obscure) expressions” (in which sense the terms waḥs̲h̲ī and ḥūs̲h̲ī are also used), and frequently occurs in the titles of books, mostly such as deal with unfamiliar expressions in the Ḳurʾān and in the Tradition (books carrying the titles G̲h̲arīb al-Ḳurʿān and G̲h̲arīb al-Ḥadīt̲h̲ seem to have existed as early as the second century). The term also occurs in works on literar…

, a name used in early Islamic times for ʿIrāḳ [ q.v.]. While the name ʿIrāḳ has been proved to be a Pahlavi loanword (from Ērag , “low land, south land”, occurring in the Turfan fragments, with assimilation to the semantically connected root ʿrḳ ; cf. A. Siddiqi, Studien über die persischen Fremdwörter im klass. Arab., Göttingen 1919, 69; H.H. Schaeder, in Isl ., xiv, 8-9; J.J. Hess, in ZS, ii, 219-23) sawād “black land” is the oldest Arabic name for the alluvial land on the Euphrates and Tigris given on account of the co…

(a.), “demand in marriage”, whence “betrothal”, i.e. the mutual promise of marriage which in certain legal systems can form the first stage of marriage proper (cf. the sponsalia of ancient Roman law). But is this promise considered as entailing an obligation in Islamic law? In other words, does betrothal give rise to legal consequences? According to Muslim authorities, the k̲h̲iṭba does not involve a contract. It is true that it involves an offer and an acceptance, but before the acceptance is made, it is merely a demand in marriage and does not form a legal act. The Mālikīs, apparently un…

, word derived from the Latin veredus/ Greek beredos (of uncertain origin, perhaps Assyrian) “post horse”, usually applied to the official service of the Post and Intelligence in the Islamic states, and likewise to the mount, courier and post “stage”. The institution of the state postal service was known to the Byzantine and Sāsānid Empires, from which it would appear the first Caliphs only required to borrow it, its foreign origin being confirmed by a partly Persian terminology. The barīd operated from the Umayyad period and ʿAbd al-Malik is consider…

(a.), two terms of mediaeval Islamic finance and land tenure. The first denotes special items consisting of immoveable property selected from booty by the leader [see fayʾ and g̲h̲anīma ], while the second is the term for land which the Imām selects from the conquered territories for the treasury with the consent of those who had a share in the booty (al-Māwardī, al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya , Cairo 1966, 192). In pre-Islamic Arabia the leader was also entitled to one-fourth ( rubʿ ) or onefifth ( k̲h̲ums ) of the booty in addition to the ṣafī . The custom of k̲h̲ums was upheld by the prophet and …

(Turkish “warm lake”), the most important mountain lake in Turkistan and one of the largest fresh water lakes in the world, situated in between 42° 11′ and 42° 59′ N. Lat. and between 76° 15′ and 78° 30′ warm sea; the lake never freeze E. Long., 1605 m. (5,116 feet) above sea level; the length of the lake is about 115 miles, the breadth up to 37 miles, the depth up …

(a.), verbal noun of the form III verb bālag̲h̲a ( fī ), with the two related meanings of “to do the utmost [in s.th.]” and “to overdo [s.th.]”), technical term in (a) grammar (“intensiveness”) and (b) literary theory (“emphasis” and, more particularly, “hyperbole”). (a) In grammar. Already in Sībawayh, the term mubālag̲h̲a is used to denote the intensive meaning of a number of morphemes and syntagmas (see G. Troupeau, Lexique-index du Kitāb de Sībawayhi , Paris 1976, 41). Most consistently it is henceforth applied to the intensive participles of the forms faʿūl , faʿʿāl …

in fiḳh . For Muslims residing in the Dār al-Ḥarb , emigration to the Dār al-Islām ( hid̲j̲rd ) is a recommendable act. If they cannot perform their religious duties in freedom, emigration becomes obligatory. These prescriptions are founded on Ḳurʾān, IV, 97-100 and some traditions, like Muḥammad’s saying: “I have nothing to do with Muslims residing amongst the polytheists” (Abū Dāwūd, d̲j̲ihād, 95; Nasāʾī, ḳasāma , 27). The Mālikīs hold that emigration is always obligatory and that the tradition: “No emigration after the Conquest [of Mecca]” (Buk̲h̲ārī, d̲j̲ihād, 1, 27, īmān , 41, ṣayd …

(a.), a financial term referring to a negotiable instrument in the form of a written bill of credit which is similar to the modern drawing of a cheque. The suftad̲j̲a , like the ḥawāla [ q.v.] and the ṣakk , was used in mediaeval Islam to facilitate the speedy transfer of money over distances or to expedite the exploitation of assignments of taxation, in an age when movements of actual cash were hazardous. For the general use of such financial instruments in mediaeval Islam, see R. Grasshoff, Die Suftaǧa und Ḥawāla der Arabe ), Göttingen 1899, and WJ. Fischel, Jews in the economic and politic…

or Sonḳor , the name of a district and of a present-day small town in western Persia (town: lat. 34° 45′ N., long 47° 39′ E.). It lies in the Zagros Mountains between modern Kangāwar [see kinkiwar ] and Sanandad̲j̲ [ q.v.] or Sinna, within the modern province of Kirmāns̲h̲āh. In mediaeval Islamic times, it lay on the road between Dīnawar [ q.v.] and Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, and must correspond approximately to the first marḥala on the stretch from Dīnawar to Sīsar, the name of which is read al-D̲j̲ārbā (al-Muḳaddasī, 382), K̲h̲arbārd̲j̲ān (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 119; Ḳudāma, 212), etc. which was 7 f…

, derived from ad̲j̲r (remuneration), synonymous terms meaning a contract to hire. There are also used, but less frequently, the terms istiʾd̲j̲ār and kirāʾ . The hirer is called, in the hire of things, muʾd̲j̲ir or ād̲j̲ir or mukārī ; in the hire of services, ad̲j̲īr ; the person hiring is, in all cases, called mustaʾd̲j̲ir ; the thing or service hired, maʾd̲j̲ūr , or, rarely, muʾd̲j̲ar , mustaʾd̲j̲ar . The remuneration is uniformly called ud̲j̲ra or ad̲j̲r; if it is fixed in the contract, it is ad̲j̲r musamma n; if it has to be determined by the judge, ad̲j̲r al-mit̲h̲l . Īd̲j̲ār or id̲j̲āra …

, the name given by the Arab authors to a locality situated, on the borders of Anatolia and Syria, in the upper valley of the Nahr Karzīn, at the foot of the Anti-Taurus (Kurd Dag̲h̲), north-west of ʿAynṭāb. It was the ancient Doliche, famous for the cult of a Semitic divinity who in the Graeco-Roman period received the name of Zeus Dolichenos. Being at the intersection of the routes from Germanicia, Nicopolis and Zeugma, it had been conquered by ʿIyāḍ b. G̲h̲ānim and became one of the fortresse…

(a.), a legal term meaning the option or right of withdrawal, i.e. the right for the parties involved to terminate the legal act unilaterally. This option is always included in the legal act, and in this case, the act does not irrevocably bind its authors. The word k̲h̲iyār implies a choice on the part of the holder of the right of option, who may either confirm the act or render it void; the legal act containing an option is not void in origin, but its validity is nevertheless precarious and subject to confirmation. Th…