Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

the tenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed as /r/, and with a numerical value of 200, according to the eastern letter order [see abd̲j̲ad ]. Definition . Vibrant, apical, alveolar and voiced. This trilled consonant is produced by a series of movements of the tongue produced a little behind the gums of the incisors. Sībawayh calls the consonant /r/ “hard” ( s̲h̲adīd ) and “repeated” ( mukarrar ), because of the repetition ( takrīr ) of the tongue’s movement during the sound’s production. For al-K̲h̲alīl. the /r/ is a “pointed” ( d̲h̲awlaḳī ) consonant beca…

(a., pl. ribāʿ ) originally means home, domicile, home town or home country; the verb rabaʿa means “to dwell”. In the context of Cairene architecture, it designates a type of urban dwelling which is a rental multi-unit building founded for investment. It can also refer to the living quarters belonging to a religious institution. In his description of Cairo in the 5th/11th century, Nāṣir-i K̲h̲usraw [ q.v.] mentions tenant buildings that sheltered as many as 350 dwellers, and ʿAbd al-Laṭīf al-Bag̲h̲dādī (d. 629/1231-2) writes about rabʿs in Cairo which included 50 living units ( bayt ) ( al-…

(a.), the generic name for the viol, or any stringed instrument played with a bow ( ḳaws ). The origin of the name has been variously explained: a. from the Hebrew lābab ( l and r being interchangeable); b. from the Persian rubāb , which was played with the fingers or plectrum; and c. from the Arabic rabba (to collect, arrange, assemble together). The first derivation is scarcely feasible. The second has a raison d’être , although the mere similarity in name must not be accepted without question. In spite of the oft-repeated statement that the Arabs admit that they borrowed the rabāb …

(a., pl. arbāḍ ), district or quarter of a town situated outside the central part or madīna [ q.v.]. This term, which is very frequently found in mediaeval Islamic historical texts of both the Occident and Orient, lies at the origin of the Spanish word ar-rabal, which has the same meaning. In the strongholds ( ḥiṣn or ṣak̲h̲ra ) of Muslim Spain, the name rabaḍ was given to the civil quarter situated below the strictly ¶ military quarter; it was also applied to the quarters of the lepers and of prostitutes, whilst amongst the Spanish Christians, it designated a parish. These quarters of a town …

, an early Islamic settlement in western Arabia, now essentially an archaeological site marked by the birka or cistern of Abū Salīm. It lies in the eastern foothills of the Ḥid̲j̲āz mountain chain some 200 km/124 miles east of Medina. In early Islamic times it lay on the main pilgrimage route from Kūfa in ʿIrāḳ to Mecca, later known as the Darb Zubayda [ q.v. in Suppl.], with such facilities as food and drinking water for the pilgrims. Today, the area ¶ is green for much of the year and is used by Bedouins for grazing their flocks. Originally an extensive ḥimā [ q.v.] which Abū Bakr confiscated f…

, Yūsuf b. Sulaymān b. Marwān al-Anṣārī, Abū ʿUmar, b. 367/978, d. at Murcia 448/1056, grammarian of Muslim Spain. Best known as such, he is equally credited with competence in fiḳh , poetry, metrics and genealogies. It appears that he played a certain role in the reconciliation of the various grammatical schools in al-Andalus. A Radd ʿalā ’l-Ḳabrī and a Radd ʿalā Abī Muḥammad al-Aṣīlī are attributed to him, but do not seem to have survived. (Ed.) Bibliography Ibn Bas̲h̲kuwāl, Ṣila, Cairo 1374/1955, ii, 640 no. 1499 Kaḥḥāla, Muʾallifīn, Damascus 1376-80/1957-61, xiii, 303.

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā, grammarian of Bag̲h̲dād of the 4th/10th century and contemporary of Ibn D̲j̲innī. He was born at Bag̲h̲dād in 328/940, and studied grammar there under the direction of al-Sīrāfī [ q.v.] before moving to S̲h̲īrāz in order to follow the teaching of al-Fārisī [ q.v.] over a period of almost 20 years. He then returned to Bag̲h̲dād where he died, at an advanced age, in 420/1029. His eccentricities, seen in a fear of dogs, prevented him from having any pupils. Amongst his works, none of which have survived, are mentioned commentaries ( s̲h̲arḥ ), such as one on the K. al-Īḍā…

[see al-ribāṭ ]. ¶

(a.), lord, God, master of a slave. Pre-Islamic Arabia probably applied this term to its gods or to some of them. In this sense the word corresponds to the terms like Baʿal, Adonis, etc. in the Northwestern Semitic languages, where rabb means “much, great” (see A. Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of the Qurʾān , Baroda 1938, 136-7). In one of the oldest sūras (CVI, 3) Allāh is called the “lord of the temple”. Similarly, al-Lāt bore the epithet al-Rabba , especially at Ṭāʾif where she was worshipped in the image of a stone or of a rock. In the Ḳurʾān, rabb (especially with the possessive suffix)…

, Nāṣir al-Dīn b. Burhān al-Dīn , early writer in Central Asian Turkish, was born somewhere in the second half of the 13th century, possibly in the still unidentified encampment of Ribāṭ Og̲h̲uz in Transoxiana (Western Turkestan), then under the hegemony of the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲ānate [ q.v.]. Being himself a Turk and a judge by profession, he also had some rather good relations with the Mongol ruling élite. The date post quem for his death is 710/1310. These scarce facts all stem from his own work and no other source so far has come to light revealing anything more about his identity. Rabg̲h̲ūzī ga…

(a.), the name of the third and fourth months of the Muslim calendar. The Syriac equivalent rb̲īʿā is used in the Peshitta as a translation of the Hebrew malḳōs̲h̲ (late rain). This and the fact that the two months following Rabīʿ II are called D̲j̲umādā (month of frost) suggested to Wellhausen that these four months originally fell in winter and that the old Arab year began with the winter half-year [see al-muḥarram ]. Rabīʿ means originally the season in which, as a result of the rains, the earth is covered with green; this later led to the n…

(a double nisba because she was attached to a family, the Āl ʿĀtik, of ʿAdī b. Ḳays (of Ḳurays̲h̲; see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, tab. 35)), famous mystic and saint of Baṣra. One cannot go so far as to throw into doubt her historical existence, but the traditions about her life and teachings include a very large proportion of legend which today can hardly be distinguished from authentic information. With this qualification borne in mind, one may nevertheless be permitted to present a portrait of the saint as it was conceived by her coreligionists over the course of the centuries. She is said to ha…

, the two largest and most powerful combinations of tribes in ancient Northern Arabia. The name Rabīʿa is a very frequent one in the nomenclature of the Arab tribes. More important tribes of this name within the Muḍar group are the Rabīʿa b. ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa, from which came the Kaʿb, Kilāb and Kulayb, then the Rabīʿa b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Kaʿb, Rabīʿa b. Kilāb, Rabīʿa b. al-Aḍbaṭ and Rabīʿa b. Mālik b. D̲j̲aʿfar; also the Rabīʿa b. ʿUḳayl and Rabīʿa b. D̲j̲aʿda; three branches of the ʿAbd S̲h̲ams also bear this n…

Abū Manṣūr b. Abī S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn , vizier of the ʿAbbāsids and Sald̲j̲ūḳs. When the vizier Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ Muḥammad al-Rūd̲h̲rāwarī [ q.v.] made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 481/1089, he appointed his son Rabīb al-Dawla and the naḳīb al-nuḳabāʾ Ṭirād b. Muḥammad al-Zaynabī his deputies, and in 507/1113-14, on the death of Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAlī b. Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla Muḥammad b. D̲j̲ahīr [see d̲j̲ahīr , banū ], Rabīb al-Dawla was appointed vizier of the caliph al-Mustaẓhir [ q.v.]. In D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 511/April 1118 the fourteen-year old Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad [ q.v.] succeed…

b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Farwa (so-called from his entering Medina with a fleece on his back), emancipated slave of al-Ḥārit̲h̲ al-Ḥaffār, himself the emancipated slave of ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān [ q.v.]. He was really a man of obscure origin, born in slavery at Medina about 112/730. He was ¶ bought by Ziyād b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥārit̲h̲ī, who presented him to his master Abu ’l-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ, the first ʿAbbāsid caliph. All his life, he served, with varying fortune, three more ʿAbbāsid caliphs: al-Manṣūr, al-Mahdī and al-Hādī. He reached the zenith of his power under al-Manṣūr (136-58/754-75 [ q.v.])…

, Arabic name of a Mozarab Christian [see mozarabs ] whose true name was Recemundo (Recemundus in Latin = Raymond) and who owes his place in the EI to the role which he ¶ played in the service of the Umayyad caliphs of Spain ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III al-Nāṣir (who reigned from 300 to 350/912-61 [ q.v.]) and al-Ḥakam II al-Mustanṣir (350-68/961-76 [ q.v.]), and to his involvement in the presentation of the well-known Calendar of Cordova . Recemundo was a Cordovan who, with his command of Latin and of Arabic, was able to render considerable services to the caliphal chancellery wh…

(Bandar Rābig̲h̲, Rābug̲h̲), a port in the Ḥid̲j̲āz province of Saudi Arabia, in lat. 22° 48ʹ N., and long. 39° 1ʹ E., half-way between D̲j̲udda [ q.v.] and Yanbuʿ. It may perhaps be identified with Ptolemy’s ’Αργα χώμη (Sprenger, Die alte Geographie , no. 38). North of Rābig̲h̲ lies al-Abwāʾ [ q.v.], now called al-K̲h̲urayba. the reputed burial place of the Prophet’s mother Āmina [ q.v.]. In the past, the port had no proper harbour. Ships anchored at S̲h̲arm Rābig̲h̲, an inlet about 3 km long, which offered excellent anchorage (Hogarth, Hejaz , 29). From there ca…

, an adventurer attached to the ivory and slave trader of the eastern Sudan, Zubayr Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]. After the fall of Zubayr in 1291/1874 and the subsequent death of his son Sulaymān, Rābiḥ assumed leadership of Sulaymān’s followers. By 1305/1887 he had become associated with the Mahdiyya [ q.v.] movement in the eastern Sudan. Between 1309-10/1892 and 1310-11/1893 he attacked and defeated the sultanates of Baghirmi and Wadai. There then followed a period during which Rābiḥ entered into an association with Hayatu dàn Saʾidu, a disaffected grandson of Muhammadu Bello [ q.v.], first cali…

In Arabic [see zahriyyāt ].

In Ottoman literature. There is no special literary genre called rabīʿiyyāt ( bahāriyyāt ) in Ottoman literature (from now on referred to as dīwān literature). Spring, however, has an important place within dīwān literature, as is the case for every other national literature. Spring, with its different functions fitting the structure of almost every kind of literary style and genre, was given its own special place in diverse literary genres coeval with the beginnings of written Ottoman literature in the second half of the 13th century. Since this literature favoured the met̲h̲newī …