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Āl Aʿyan were a Shiʿi family famous for their transmission of traditions, who were prominent from the end of the 1st/7th century until the 4th/10th century. Their ancestry is traced back to Aʿyan b. Sunsun. Through various Shiʿi dynasties they provided long service to the scientific community of their age. The family originally came from Kūfa and were mostly settled there, although in later times some of them moved elsewhere. In Kūfa they lived in an exclusive district where there was a mosque vi…

ʿAmr b. Ḥamiq al-Khuzāʿī (d. 50/670 or 51/671) was a Companion of the Prophet and a partisan ( shiʿa) of Imam ʿAlī. Little is known about his life before he met the Prophet. Apparently his ancestor Kāhin b. Ḥabīb al-Khuzāʿī lived in the ʿUsfān region to the north of Mecca (Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil, 2/17). The sources differ as to how and when ʿAmr became a Muslim. According to some, he did so at the time of the treaty of Ḥudaybiyya (Muʿammar, 54; Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, 2/863), others suggest that it was during the Prophet’s farewell pilgrimage ( ḥijjat al-wadāʿ ) (Ibn Qutayba, 291; Ibn ʿAsākir, 45/4…

Balʿamī, the name ( nisba) of a number of Khurāsānī scholars and courtiers, two of whom served as viziers to the Sāmānid dynasty. Their lineage can be traced back to an Arab tribesman of the Banū Tamīm: Ibn Mākūlā (7/278) takes the kinship of Abū al-Faḍl Balʿamī back to Zayd Manāt, son of Tamīm, hence the Tamīmī nisba (see al-Dhahabī, Siyar, 15/292). However, since the figures appearing in this genealogy are not recognised by any extant Arab biographical works, the linkage is problematic. According to Ibn Mākūlā, one of the family’s ancestors called Rajā…

Anjudān (Injidān or Anjidān), an old village in central Iran, which was the headquarters and centre of the cultural and religious revival of the Nizārī Ismaili activities after the fall of Alamūt. Anjudān is the Arabicised form of the word ‘Angudān’. In early sources, the name Anjudān appears as ‘Ankuwān’ and ¶ ‘Ankudān’ (Sharaf al-Dīn, 500; Mīrkhwānd, 4/594; Yazdī, 31). It became commonly known as Anjudān after the Nizārī Ismaili imams moved there from the middle of the 9th/15th century, or possibly earlier. Anjudān is in the district ( dihistān) of Mushkābād, which is in the midst…

Badr, is a region in the Ḥijāz and the site of the first important battle between the Muslims and the Meccans in Ramaḍān 2/March 624. Situated between Medina and Mecca, Badr’s importance stemmed from its fresh-water wells. There are a number of reports regarding the origin of its name, one stating that ‘Badr’ was the name of either the owner or the digger of a well in this area (Abū ʿUbayd, 1/231; Ibn Qutayba, 152; al-Yamānī, 33; Yāqūt, 1/524). Owing to the availability of water and hence its lush vegetation, Badr was popular among the Arabs. It was also the site of an annual fair known as the mawsim …

al-Baqīʿ, also known as ‘Baqīʿ al-Gharqad’ is the oldest and most famous cemetery of the Islamic era in Medina. In more recent times it is popularly known as ‘Jannat al-Baqīʿ. According to lexicographers, the name of the cemetery indicates that prior to the advent of Islam, the field in which the burial-ground lay was originally covered with prickly shrubs, called al-gharqad—possibly ¶ the boxthorn or the nitre bush ( Nitraria retusa), and that the word baqīʿ indicates ‘a place in which are roots of various kinds of trees’ (Abū ʿUbayd, 1/265; Yāqūt, 1/703; about this n…

Bāb, a high rank in the daʿwa organisation and religious hierarchy ( ḥudūd al-dīn) of the Ismailis. The hierarchical organisation of the Ismaili daʿwa and the functions of its different ranks were always important but secret and obscure aspects of the Ismaili movement. Ismaili works generally maintain silence on the subject because of the esoteric and often secretive nature of the Ismaili daʿwa. The enmity of many Sunni emirs, rulers and religious scholars generally obliged the Ismailis to conduct their daʿwa activities in utmost secrecy (except within the dominions of the …

Bāqir Khān (d. 1335/1917), known as Sālār-i Millī, was an influential popular leader in Tabrīz during the Constitutional Revolution of 1906 (q.v.), and a close associate of Sattār Khān (1866–1914), known as Sardār-i Millī (see Fig. 15). He was born in the Khiyābān district of Tabrīz in 1240 Sh./1861. There is little information about his life prior to his involvement in the Constitutional Revolution, apart from the fact that in his early years he apparently worked in the construction trade. In his locality, he was known as a courag…

Al-Barqī, the nisba of a Shiʿi family living in Qumm during the 2nd/8th and 3rd/9th centuries. Their famous forebear was Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, a partisan of Zayd b. ʿAlī: after Zayd’s execution, he was arrested by Yūsuf b. ʿUmar al-Thaqafī and was later put to death. Following these incidents the family, including his son and grandson, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Khālid, took refuge in the east in a district ( rustāq) by the name of the Barq-rūd and settled there (al-Najāshī, 1/204–205; al-Ṭūsī, al-Fihrist, 37; Yāqūt, Udabāʾ, 3/132). There is no consensus on the exact locality of Barq-Rūd, a…

Amīr al-Ḥājj, was a title for the leader of the Ḥajj pilgrims. There were other titles for this position: amīr al-rakb (see al-Fāsī, 260, 290), amīr al-mawsim (al-Dārimī, 434) and imām al-ḥājj (Mālik, 1/400, 404). From the Shiʿi point of view, leadership of the Ḥajj pilgrims is a duty exclusive to the Imams: the Prophet was the first leader of the Ḥajj, and he was succeeded in this first by ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and then the other Shiʿi imams (see al-Kulaynī, 4/466). For this reason the person given leadership of the pilgrims eit…

Abū Ṭālib Mudarris Hamadānī, who was alive in 1281/1864, was a craftsman of the Qājār period, specialising in pen-cases, bookbinding, paper-making ( abrīsāz, or marbled paper) and calligraphy. He was the inventor of a special design for marbled paper known as būm-i qiyāmat (a design with large sweeps) (Bayānī, 4/7), and created a pattern called mawjī (wavy) (Muṣawwir al-Mulkī, 28–29), used for application on pen-cases, book covers, vanity boxes and other objets in lacquer. The ‘wave’, or mawjī, design was created by narrow, parallel rows of wavy lines in a check pattern,…

Aḥmad al-Badawī, Abū al-Fityān Aḥmad b. ʿAlī (596–675/1200–1276), was a prominent Sufi in Egypt, and the founder of the Badawiyya Sufi order ( ṭarīqa). Al-Badawī’s other nisbas are ‘al-Maqdisī’ (Ibn Taghrībirdī, 7/252), ‘al-Qudsī’ (al-Suyūṭī, 1/522) and ‘al-Qurashī’ (Ibn Iyās, 1(1)/335). Al-Badawī was probably born and brought up in Fez (al-Shaʿrānī, 1/183; Ibn al-ʿImād, 5/345). His mother, Fāṭima, was a North African Berber (ʿĀshūr, 44; see Ibn Iyās, 1(1)/335). He was referred to as al-Sharīf, denoting that he was a descendant of the…

ʿAlī b. Jaʿfar, Abū al-Ḥasan, the youngest son of Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, transmitter of ḥadīths and author of the famous al-Masāʾil. Various nisbas have been attributed to him: al-Hāshimī, al-ʿAlawī, al-Madanī, and the one by which he is best known, al-ʿUrayḍī (Ibn Shahrāshūb, Manāqib, 3/399; al-Ṭūsī, al-Rijāl, 244; Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Tahdhīb, 7/258). He lived in a village named ʿUrayḍ in the vicinity of Medina, as a result of which his descendants became known as al-ʿUrayḍiyyūn (al-Najāshī, 2/72). The village was the property of Imam al-Bāqir…

al-Aṣbagh b. Nubāta, Abū al-Qāsim, was one of Imam ʿAlī’s most renowned and steadfast companions (Ibn Saʿd, 6/225). A descendant of the Banū Ḥanẓala, and a member of the tribe of al-Mujāshiʿ b. Dārim (Ibn Ḥazm, 231), he came from Kūfa. Accounts suggesting that he was alive during the Prophet’s lifetime (Ibn Ḥajar, 1/108) and that he narrated reports on the authority of ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (al-Mizzī, 3/308) cannot be considered reliable. According to Naṣr b. Muzāḥim (pp. 442–443), al-Aṣbagh was a pious and devout man, a warrior from Iraq and one of Imam ʿAlī’s genera…

Ayyūbids, a dynasty of Kurdish origin that ruled Egypt, Syria, the Jazīra and the Yemen in the 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries. The name of the dynasty is attributed to Ayyūb b. Shādhī, the father of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī. The Ayyūbids played a significant role in the history of the region, notably ending Fāṭimid rule, uniting Syria and Egypt, and defeating the Crusaders. Ayyūbid rule began in Egypt on the death of the last Fāṭimid caliph, al-ʿĀḍid, in 567/1171, with Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī, the founder of the dynasty who had acted as the last Fāṭimid vizi…

Abū Ṭāhir (family), Iran's most renowned family of ceramicists, hailing from Kāshān, and spanning several generations from the 6th/12th to 8th/14th centuries. Little is known about their lives apart from the two members who abandoned the family profession (see below, nos. 6 and 7). Four generations of the Abū Ṭāhir family produced and signed works of art for over one and a half centuries, immortalising their own and their ancestors' names (Pope, 4/1569). Although the family produced a variety of vessels and tiles using many different techniques (Abū al-Qāsim Kāshānī,…

Aḥmad Kātib (alive in 897/1492), known as Fakhr al-Dīn, was a calligrapher skilled in the nastaʿlīq, riqāʿ and thulth scripts. His known works are as follows: 1. A manuscript of Kulliyyāt by Kamāl Khujandī in medium bas-relief nastaʿlīq script, with titles inscribed in fine riqāʿ script, signed ‘ aqall ʿibād Allāh al-Wāhib Fakhr al-Dīn Aḥmad al-Kātib’, and dated 865/1461, which is kept in the Museum of Islamic and Turkish Art in Istanbul (Bayānī, 1/43, 4/18). 2. An inscription ( katība) on lustre tiles ( kāshī-yi muʿarraq) in white thulth script on a navy blue background. This katība is on…