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Khaybar is a settlement in the Ḥijāz, approximately 150 kilometres north of Medina. According to al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956)—followed by Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī (d. 487/1094) and Yāqūt (d. 626/1229)—the distance from Medina equated to eight postal stations (al-Masʿūdī, 256; al-Bakrī, 2:521; Yāqūt, 2:503). Islamic-era sources place it within the administrative dependencies (aʿrāḍ) of Medina (Ibn Khurradādhbih, 129, 248; Ibn Rusta, 177; al-Muqaddasī, 53). Al-Hamdānī (writing in the early fourth/tenth century) adds, perhaps somewhat tentatively, that it w…

¶ [1171c] Since the great mass of ghazis and their willingness to engage in fierce fighting had made life very difficult for the English, facing severe pressure and constantly being thrown back, they sought escape from their predicament through trickery and deceit and took steps through their policies [1172] to mislead. During this time, on Saturday, the fourth of Safar/8 March 1908, Aman Allah Khan, Muhammad Sharif Khan, and Muhammad Yusuf Khan set off for Kabul from Jalalabad. They were exiles who had been living under difficult conditions in …

¶ [76] During these events, Field Marshal Ghulam Haydar Khan Urakza⁠ʾi’s pneumonia and shortness of breath worsened. His Majesty learned of the change in his constitution, his fever, and the severity of his illness in a letter from him. Because of his faithful service and loyalty, His Majesty offered up prayers for the restoration of health and wrote in response, May God grant you good health. Our royal person has always prayed for your welfare, that you be sound and in good health. Make every effort to avoid eating harmful foods so that, if God wills, H…

Abū Mūsā ʿAbdallāh b. Qays al-Ashʿarī (d. c.48/668; the dates given in the sources range from 42/662 to 53/673) was a Companion of the prophet Muḥammad and a leading statesman and general who played a major role in the Islamic conquests and served, at various periods, as governor of Basra and Kufa, the two garrison cities of Iraq. His affiliation to the Ashʿar tribe is uncertain: according to some, he belonged to a group from the Juʿfī tribe that separated from the Juʿfī following a dispute (kharajū mughāḍibīn li-qawmihim) and attached itself to the Ashʿar. His sons Abū Burda and A…

Dāghistān, Caucasus, 502 Dākī, Yūsufzāʾī District, 428 Dāman, Dīrah Ismāʿīl Khān, 355, 356, 372, 378, 379, 479 Dand District, see Banūn District Darāban, 373, 382 Darakī, 391 Dār al-Amān, Kabul, 224, 264 Dār al-Ḥabīb (formerly Dār a…

Fadak was an agricultural village in the northern Ḥijāz somewhere near Khaybar, which is about one hundred fifty kilometres from Medina. Fadak was the centre of a long-running dispute between the reigning caliphs and the family of the prophet Muḥammad, which continued through the first three Islamic centuries. After this period, Fadak recedes from view and by the ninth/fifteenth century it was possible for two experts on Ḥijāzī geography—al-Fīrūzābādī (d. 817/1415) and al-Samhūdī (d. 911/1506)—t…

Kabul, 65, 100, 101 ṣūbah of, 347, 351 Balūchīs in, 411 Ethiopians in, 410 Kashmīrīs in, 408 Qalmāqs in, 411 state of mind of people of, 117, 161, 282 Kābulistān, 347 Kabul River, 362, 364, 386, 401, 429, 458, 480-81 Kāfiristān (Nūristān), …

Fadak, the name of a village in the vicinity of Medina, at a distance of two days travel. Half of the agricultural land of Fadak was the personal property of the Prophet Muḥammad. It draws its later significance and fame from a dispute that erupted between two major groups of Muslims regarding its status after the Prophet’s demise. The crux of this disagreement was whether, when the Prophet passed away, the land of Fadak became the property of his daughter Fāṭima (q.v.), or the collective property of the Muslims to be administered by the caliph.The raids and military campaigns directed b…

¶ [16cc] During the events reported, officials of the English government learned of the petition of Sayyid Mahmud Kunari asking permission to go to Afghanistan and the return of his son from Kabul to Hasan Abdal, and in view of the high regard in which he was held among the tribes of the Mohmand and others, they did not agree to his going to Afghanistan and so they sent him and his son, Sayyid Ahmad, to Shalkut, Baluchistan, and placed them ¶ under surveillance. As was mentioned, His Majesty asked the viceroy by letter to permit him to come. Again, on the seventh of Jumadi al…

¶ [1166c] When the Afridi leaders arrived in Peshawar on the eighth of Muharram/11 February 1908, planning to deceive the English into withdrawing their army, they went to see the commander-in-chief, spoke with him, and he agreed to delay his army’s campaign to warn and punish the people living in the mountains of the frontier on the English government’s side for one month so that they could go and hold an assembly (kangāsh) with the Zakha or Zakhah Khayl, conciliate them, and make them obedient /3:291/ and submissive. If (the Zakha Khayl) did not put the collar of obedience aro…

The Petition of Mr. Fleischer, a German Employee of this Government ¶ [470c] Elsewhere, Mr. Fleischer, whose home was in “Lashwitz” (Lausitz or Auschwitz?) in the land of the German government and who was an employee of this government, had been granted leave and returned home, as was mentioned earlier. After returning home and resting up, he went as a tourist to the city of Sedan and from there he wrote a modest report containing information he had gathered from observations and rumors about the border points separating /1:710/ Jalalabad and Peshawar and other places (from the tim…

¶ [118c] Elsewhere during the events of Rajab, military officers and civilian officials of Gizab district and its subdistricts wrote to the governor of Qandahar about the misconduct of ʿAbd al-Wahid Khan, the governor of Gizab, and described his immoral behavior. He (the governor of Qandahar) brought their letter to the attention of His Majesty and on the second of Shaʿban he ordered the great prince Sardar Habib Allah Khan to summon (the governor of Gizab) to Kabul and appoint someone else to re…

al-Ḥudaybiyya, a village about nine miles outside Mecca which owed its importance to the eponymous peace treaty that was signed there ( ṣulḥ al-Ḥudaybiyya) between the Prophet of Islam and the polytheists of Mecca (Yāqūt, 2/222; Abū ʿUbayd al-Bakrī, 3/811). The treaty has been described as ‘the turning point in Muḥammad’s political career’ (Donner, 230). Some works of history and Prophetic biography ( sīra) also refer to the events surrounding this as ‘the Campaign of al-Ḥudaybiyya’ ( ghazwat al-Ḥudaybiyya) (e.g. see Ibn Saʿd, 2/95; al-Ṭabarī, Taʾrīkh, 2/207; Ibn Kathīr, al-Bidāya, …

previous section /55/ The Sarbanī Tribes1 ¶ The peoples and tribes of the (1) Tarīn, (2) Shayrānī, (3) Barīch, (4) Ūrmur, and (5) Miyānah are of the lineage of Sharaf al-Dīn, better known as Sharkhbūn, son o…

¶ [1181c] During the unfolding of these recounted events, one regular English sepoy stationed in Alwaragay tried to convince an hawalahdar to accept the ¶ responsibility of jihad and give up obedience [1182] to that government, but out of ignorance and lack of religion he refused and he was shot dead by a bullet from the rifle of the sepoy. The murderer then fled to Dakkah and sought asylum with Sarhang Jilani Khan. The English, confused and fearful, abandoning an intergovernmental agreement, stopped providing an armed escort …

In Volume 1: The Poetry of ad-Dindān | Appendix of Place Names previous section: y ¶ The names of places, mountains, wells, desert areas and other geographical features which occur in the poetry and narrative parts are listed according to the Arabic alphabet together with a reference to the narrative section or poem and verse where they occur and any relevant additional information I have been able to gain from available geographical works and other sources. The abbreviations for these sources are: Ḥm Ḥmēr, ʿAbdallah Sāyir ad-Dōsiri, Wāḥat as̲h̲-s̲h̲iʿr as̲h̲-s̲h̲aʿbī, ii, Riyadh 19…

ʿIzz al-Dīn Abū Ḥāmid ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd b. Hibatallāh b. Muḥammad (b. Muḥammad) b. al-Ḥusayn b. Abī l-Ḥadīd al-Madāʾinī al-Baghdādī (d. 655 or 656/1257 or 1258), called Ibn Abī l-Ḥadīd, was a Sunnī-Muʿtazilī theologian with Shīʿī leanings and a poet, historian, and literary theorist, best known for his twenty-volume commentary on Nahj al-balāgha (“Path of eloquence”), a compilation of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib’s (d. 40/661) words. An official in the ʿAbbāsid state, he held various administrative posts in the capital, Baghdad, just before the Mongol sack in Muḥarram 656/January 1258. 1. Career Ibn…

In Islamic law homicide is an offence that must be prosecuted by the victim’s next of kin, who therefore control the proceedings of the trial. For wilful homicide they may demand the culprit’s death as retaliation (qiṣāṣ), although they may also pardon him and, according to some schools, may do so in exchange for payment (blood-money). If the homicide was accidental, the next of kin are entitled to blood money (diya, ʿaql) from the perpetrator. Murder, i.e., premeditated homicide, is not a legal category in the Sharīʿa. The Sharīʿa law of homicide can best be understood as a modif…

¶ [1373c] From Safar to Shaʿban this year (9 December 1915–3 June 1916) whatever events took place or matters came to light via the letters and reports written by governors, collectors, assessors, qazis, and (other) officials and government employees to the central administration about things that were happening, because of His Majesty’s total preoccupation with the council (of notables) and the recommendations of leaders, representatives, and government officials concerning whether to participat…

Ḥafṣa bint ʿUmar (d. 45/665), daughter of the second caliph, ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, who became one of the Prophet Muḥammad’s wives.According to the sources, Ḥafṣa was born in 604 CE, five years before the beginning of the Prophet’s mission (Ibn Saʿd, 8/81; al-Dhahabī, 2/227, 230). Her mother was Zaynab bint Maẓʿūn of the Banū Jumaḥ clan, one of the branches of the Quraysh tribe, and the sister of a prominent Companion of the Prophet, ʿUthmān b. Maẓʿūn. Zaynab was also the mother of Ḥafṣa’s brothers ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar (q.v.) and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿUmar (Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ, Ṭabaqāt, 334; Ibn Ḥ…