, currently Tortosa , a town situated on the Ebro in Spain, close to the estuary of this river on the Mediterranean, in the province of Tarragona in Catalonia (Spain), with today approximately 30,000 inhabitants, on the ancient Iberian site of Dertosa, where the Romans established their colony of Julia Augusta. Arab geographers refer occasionally to this “town” ( madīna ), noting its location in the eastern sector of the “Upper March” of al-Andalus ( al-t̲h̲ag̲h̲r al-aʿlā ), of which the regional centre ( ḥāḍira ) Saraḳusṭa (Saragossa) was “120 miles” from …

, the name used by the mediaeval Muslim writers for the modern river Yarkon which runs into the Mediterranean through Tel Aviv about 5 km. to the north of Jaffa. In the Bible it is called Me Yarkon , probably “the Green Waters” (Joshua, xix. 46). In the later Middle Ages and in modern times, the river assumes a new Arabic name, that of Nahr al-ʿAwd̲j̲āʾ, “the Crooked River”. The Crusaders called it “La Grand Rivière” (G. A. Smith, The historical geography of the Holy Land 4, London 1897, 116 n. 6). The name Abū Fuṭrus is the Arabic corruption of Antipatris, the fortress and town built …

, the Prophet of Islam. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. 2. The Prophet in popular Muslim piety. 3. The Prophet’s image in Europe and the West. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. Belief that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God ( Muḥammadun rasūlu ’llāh ) is second only to belief in the Oneness of God ( lā ilāha illā ’llāh ) according to the s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.], the quintessential Islamic creed. Muḥammad has a highly exalted role at the heart of Muslim faith. At the same time the Ḳurʾān and Islamic orthodoxy insist that he was fully human with no supernatural powers. That Muḥammad was one of the greate…

, term which may be translated approximately as chamberlain, used in Muslim countries for the person responsible for guarding the door of access to the ruler, so that only approved visitors may approach him. The term quickly became a title corresponding to a position in the court and to an office the exact nature of which varied considerably in different regions and in different periods. Basically the Master of Ceremonies, the ḥād̲j̲ib often appears as being in fact a superintendent of the Palace, a chief of the guard or a righter of wrongs, s…

( in Ḳatabanic inscriptions), a district in South Arabia, situated between the lands of the ʿAwd̲h̲illa (see art. ʿawd̲h̲alī ), in the north-west and the ʿAwāliḳ (see art. ʿawlaḳī ), in the east. It belongs to the Western Aden Protectorate and has ca. 8000 inhabitants. The country is called by Hamdānī g̲h̲āʾiṭ , a steppe, a description still applicable to the greater portion of it. The climate is dry and the soil is fertile only in the north-east, where it produces tobacco, wheat and maize. Dat̲h̲īna is inhabited by two larg…

, “the lump of dough”, properly Tammām b. G̲h̲ālib (Abū Firās), famous Arab satirist and panegyrist, died at Baṣra about 110/728 or 112/730. Born in Yamāma (Eastern Arabia) on a date 1 which is uncertain (probably after 20/640), this poet was descended from the sub-tribe of Mud̲j̲ās̲h̲iʿ, of the Dārim group of the Tamīm. His father, G̲h̲ālib [ q.v.], is said to have played some part, in the Baṣra area, in the conflict between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya; to this fact must be attributed the later idea that al-Farazdaḳ entertained pro-ʿAlid sympathies which, howev…

, 26th letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed h; numerical value: 5, as in the Syriac (and Canaanite) alphabet [see abd̲j̲ad ]. It continues h from common Semitic. Definition: unvoiced glottal spirant; according to the Arab grammatical tradition: rik̲h̲wa mahmūsa ; as regards the mak̲h̲rad̲j̲: aḳṣā ’l-ḥalḳ “the farthest part of the throat” (al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal2 , § 732). A voiced h can be found after a voiced phoneme but it is not a distinctive characteristic (see J. Cantineau, Cours , 75). Pause can develop a h to support the short final vowel of a word when it is …

ʿAbd Allāh b. T̲h̲awr , a Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ite agitator, of the Banu Ḳays b. T̲h̲aʿlaba. Originally associated with Nāfiʿ b. al-Azraḳ [ q.v.], he left him to join Nad̲j̲da b. ʿĀmir [ q.v.], whom he did not hesitate to murder, because of certain differences of opinion that arose between them. After this murder he gained control over Baḥrayn (72/691) and succeeded in withstanding the attack of an army from Baṣra sent against him by ʿAbd al-Malik. Shortly afterwards (73/693) a second expedition, consisting of 10,000 men from Basra and …

is the name by which a large section of the tribe of Tamīm is named. The curious cognomen Fizr or (according to al-Aṣmaʿī, Fazr ) has received no satisfactory explanation, and the philologist Abū Manṣūr al-Azharī asserts that he never met any person who could explain it. Some lexicographers explain it as meaning "more than one", others as "goats", but we may assume that Ibn Durayd is correct when he derives it from the verb fazara with the meaning "to split" and that fizr means “a chip or fragment”. The Arab genealogists give the name of the common ancest…

al-ḥusayn b. nāṣir b. al-ḥusayn , al-nāṣir li-dīn allāh , Zaydī Imām. There are some variants in the sources in regard to his own, his father’s and his grandfather’s personal names. He belonged to a Hasanid family which had been prominent in Abhar for some generations. Nothing is known about his life before he came to the Yaman after 429/1038 claiming the Zaydī imāmate. He gained some tribal support in northern Yaman and established himself in the Ẓāhir Hamdān region where he built the fortress and town of Ẓafār [ q.v.] near Dhū Bīn. In 437/1045-6 he entered and pillaged Ṣaʿda, the s…

bi ’llāh , Abū Tamīm Maʿadd b. ʿAlī al-Ẓāhir , eighth Fāṭimid caliph, born on 16 D̲j̲umada II 420/2 July 1029 (according to Idrīs, on 16 Ramaḍān/29 September), succeeded his father al-Ẓāhir [ q.v.] on 15 S̲h̲aʿbān 427/13 June 1036 and died on 18 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 487/10 January 1094, after the longest recorded reign of any Muslim ruler and one which, besides being marked by the most violent fluctuations of fortune, was of critical importance in the history of the Fāṭimid Ismāʿīlī movement. Internal history. During the childhood of al-Mustanṣir, the authority remained at fir…

(current orthography M’sila), a town in Algeria founded by the Fāṭimids in 315/927 on the northern edge of the depression of Ḥoḍna as an outpost of their rule in the Zāb. This remote province of their domain was in fact to play, from the foundation of their caliphate, the role of a military frontier to the west of Ifrīḳiya. As with his predecessors, the Ag̲h̲labid amīr s, the primary task of the first Fāṭimid sovereign, al-Mahdī ʿUbayd Allāh [ q.v.], in ensuring the defence of the western side of the realm consisted in raising a powerful barrier on the desert route leading…

(Ar. Fad̲j̲īd̲j̲ ), a group of seven ḳsūr isolated in the south-east of Morocco and surrounded on three sides by the Algerian frontier. It is situated | to the east of the d̲j̲abal Grūz at the meeting point of the Sahara Atlas and the Sahara plateau, in a broad hollow 850-900 metres in altitude (long. 1° 15′ W., lat. 32° 5′). The seven ḳṣur fall into three groups: al-Ūdāg̲h̲īr, al-ʿAbīd, Awlād Slīmān and al-Maïzz to the north-west, the two Ḥammām (Fūḳānī and Taḥtānī) to the north-east, and Zenāga, the most important, two kilometres to …

, name denoting, in Arabic texts, the former Ilerda, an episcopal see, currently Lérida, provincial capital in Spain, to the west of Barcelona, on the Segre. It was a district ( ʿamal ) centre of the Upper March ( al-T̲h̲ag̲h̲r al-alʿā ) to which other towns and a large number of fortified strongholds were subordinate. Situated on a fertile plain, it is surrounded by numerous gardens and orchards. One of its main sources of wealth was constituted by the plantations of fine quality flax which were farmed commercial…

, 21st letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed Ḳ , numerical value 100, according to the eastern order [see abd̲j̲ad ]. Definition: occlusive , uvulovelar , surd . According to the Arab grammatical tradition: s̲h̲adīda , mad̲j̲hūra , in mak̲h̲rad̲j̲ : the rear-most part of the tongue and the highest part of the upper palate (Sībawayhi, ii, 453, 1. 5-6, ed. Paris; al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal , 188, 1. 16-7, 2nd ed. Broch), that is to say: the root of the tongue is in contact with the very lowest part of the soft palate and the uvula …

, a small port in Lebanon situated between Bayrūt and Tripoli on the site of the ancient Byblos (or Gebal in the Old Testament), formerly a centre at once maritime, commercial and religious, closely connected with Egypt since the 4th millennium B.C., and as celebrated for the worship of Adonis, of a syncretistic nature, as for its specialization in woodwork and products from the forests on the mountains nearby. If Byblos remained truly prosperous in the Roman period and later became the seat of a bishopric, it appears to have greatly ¶ declined by the time when it was conquered by the…

, a S̲h̲īʿī Arab dynasty of the town of Ḥawīza [ q.v.] or Ḥuwayza in K̲h̲ūzistān (ʿArabistān). The founder of the dynasty, Sayyid Muḥammad b. Falāḥ, claimed to be a descendant of the Seventh Imām Mūsā al-Kāẓim [ q.v.]. He was born at Wāsiṭ and studied with S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Aḥmad b. Fahd at Ḥilla. The 9th/15th century was an important phase in the history of S̲h̲īʿī g̲h̲ulāt extremism. But it was also characterised by a rising tendency towards folk Islam, propelled by regional forces in an increasingly fragmented power structure. In his environ…

, the nisba of two Andalusian traditionists, father and son, both connected with the northern Spanish town of Saraḳusṭa [ q.v.] or Saragossa. These are Abū Muḥammad Ḳāsim b. T̲h̲ābit b. Ḥazm b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muṭarrif b. Sulaymān b. Yaḥyā al-ʿAwfī al-Zuhrī (255-302/869-914) and his father Abu ’l-Ḳāsim T̲h̲ābit (217-313/832-925 or 314/926). The biographical sources mention variants in their nasab that show that their genealogy was manipulated. They were Berbers who had established ties of walāʾ ( walāʾ ʿalāḳa ) with the Banū Zuhra, as all the Berbers…

, name of two persons, ʿUmar b. Hubayra and his son Yūsuf b. ʿUmar , who were both governors of ʿIrāḳ under the Umayyads; they both belonged to the Ḳaysī party [see Ḳays ], that is to say that of the Arabs of the north in their struggle against those of the south. Involved as they were in the great struggles for the succession on behalf of the caliphs who were the candidates of one or the other party, opposing the Yemenis solidly implanted in Kūfa, representing order in a very troubled period, induced to s…

, conventionally Tobna, the Roman Thubunae, a historic town of the central Mag̲h̲rib, now in northeastern Algeria, situated 4 km/2.4 miles south of modern Barika (between Barika and Bit̲h̲am). Being at the extreme eastern end of the S̲h̲oṭṭ Ḥoḍna and the Belezma mountains, it commanded all the eastern part of the Ḥoḍna basin, just as Zabi/Msīla commanded the western part. The waters of the Bit̲h̲am permitted irrigation there. These advantages were of significance at two epochs, the Roman and the Arab ones. The Romans built the town of Thubunae, which became a municipium …