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(a., pl. of s̲h̲āwī ) “sheep-breeder or herder”, a term applied to groups in various parts of the Arab world. 1. The Mag̲h̲rib. Here the term, originally applied in contempt, has become the general designation of several groups, of which the most important are, in Morocco, the S̲h̲āwiya of Tāmasnā and in Algeria, the S̲h̲āwiya of the Awrās. E. Doutté ( Marrâkech , 4-5) mentions several other groups of less importance. An endeavour has also been made to connect Shoa, the name of a district in Abyssinia, with S̲h̲āwiya. Wherever it is found, the term is applied to Berbers of the Zanāt…

(A.), an imprecise term, but one always used to designate a military leader whose rank might vary from captain to general. Semantically, it is the equivalent of the Latin dux . The plural most frequently employed by historians is ḳuwwād . For the army in Muslim Spain, this title corresponded to general or even commander-in-chief. In the navy, ḳāʾid al-usṭūl (= ḳāʾid ʿala ’l-usṭūl ) or ḳāʾid al-baḥr (= ḳāʾid ʿala ’l-baḥr , ḳāʾid fi ’l-baḥr ) was equivalent to “admiral”. But Ibn K̲h̲aldūn intimates that the term current among sailors of his day was al-miland (pronounced with a back lām …

, name of a Cordovan family, of which five members are, for various reasons, worthy of mention. The genealogy of the family is given in Ibn al-Abbār, no. 1517. I. Abu ’l-Aṣbag̲h̲ ʿĪsā b. ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḳuzmān , poet and man of letters of the 4th/10th century. The chamberlain al-Manṣūr Ibn Abī ʿĀmir chose him as one of the tutors of the young caliph His̲h̲ām II al-Muʾayyad, who succeeded to the throne at the age of eleven in 366/976. Thus, in spite of the opinion of E. Lévi-Provençal ( Du nouveau . . . 13), it is impossible that he should have been the father of the famous writer of zad̲j̲als …

i.— Classical arabic 1) Diplomatic has reached the status of a special science in the West, and the results of such research are accessible in good manuals (like Harry Bresslau’s Handbuch der Urkundenlehre für Deutschland und Italien , 2nd. ed. 1931). Much less work has been done on Arabic documents: the material is very scattered, and not yet sufficiently collated to permit detailed research. Yet Arabic documents have aroused interest for some considerable time: a number have been published, and the editing o…

, cumin ( Cuminum Cyminum ), an umbelliferous plant which seems to be a native of eastern Iran. At an early date it was found in the ¶ Near East (Syria, Palestine, the upper valley of the Nile), then spread throughout the Mediterranean basin. The Hebrew is kammōn , Greek kúminon , Latin cuminum . Wild or cultivated, its aromatic seeds were much sought after. Physicians recognized its many virtues: carminative, emmenagogic, sudorific, etc. in potions and in electuaries ( maʿād̲j̲īn ). Dieticians knew it as an aid to digestion. Many varieties were known and these were variously apprais…

, ethnie adjective referring to the town of Bādis [ q.v.], and borne by three notable Moroccan personalities: 1. Abū Yaʿḳūb Yūsuf al-Zuhaylī al-Bādisī, saint and savant of the 8th/14th century, who is buried outside the town. The author of the Maḳṣad (cf. infra , 2) devoted a notice to him (cf. trans,, 146 and 218). Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn regarded him as the last of the great Moroccan saints (cf. Prolegomena , trans., ii, 199; Histoire des Berbères , i, 230). Leo Africanus (ed. Schefer, ii, 273; ed. Épaulard, Paris 1956, 274) speaks of his shrine which is still venerated: Sīdi Bū Yaʿḳūb. 2. ʿAbd al-Ḥaḳḳ a…

, the name of a Berber tribe belonging to the great family of the Butr [ q.v.]; they were related to the Zanāta and brethren of the Maṭmāṭa, Kūmiya, Lamāya, Ṣaddīna, Madyūna, Mag̲h̲īla, etc., with whom they form the racial group of the Banū Fātin. Like the other tribes belonging to this group, the Maṭg̲h̲ara originally came from Tripolitania; the most eastern members of the Maṭg̲h̲ara, however, known to al-Bakrī and Ibn K̲h̲aldūn were those who lived in the mountainous regions along the Mediterranean from Milyā…

, Arabic and the present-day official name of the ancient Mazagan (former Arabic name: al-Burayd̲j̲a “the little fortress”), a maritime town of Morocco, situated on the Atlantic Ocean 11 km. south-west of the mouth of the wādī Umm Rabiʿ. Its population was 40,318 in 1954, of whom 1704 were French, 120 foreigners, and 3,328 Jews. Some authors have considered that Mazagan arose on the site of Ptolemy’s ʿPоυσιβίς λιμήν, Pliny’s Portus Rutubis . The texts do not, indeed, say that there had ever been a town there, but merely an anchorage frequented by ships, and this ¶ seems to have been the ca…

, siege. The following articles deal with siegecraft and siege warfare. On fortification see burd̲j̲ , ḥiṣn , ḳalʿa and sūr . i.— General Remarks Siege warfare was one of the essential forms of warfare when it was a matter of conquest, and not merely of plundering raids, in countries in which, from ancient times, most of the large towns had been protected by walls and where, during the Middle Ages, the open countryside was to an ever increasing extent held by fortresses [see ḥiṣn and ḳalʿa ]. Although the forces available were rarely sufficient to impose a co…

, method of recording dates by chronogram. It consists of grouping together, in a word (significant and appropriate) or in a short phrase, a group of letters whose numerical equivalents, added together, provide the date of a past or future event. Such a chronogram is known as a ramz , and in Turkish a taʾrīk̲h̲ [ q.v.]. A more complex variety is called mud̲h̲ayyal ; here the principal chronogram is completed by a supplementary chronogram ( d̲h̲ayl ) and it is the sum of the two which provides the date. For the correct interpretation of these chronograms it is of course necessary to t…

, the name given to one of the two groups of tribes who constitute the Berbers [ q.v.], the other being called al-Barānis [ q.v.]. The chief groups of whom al-Butr was composed were the Lawāta, the Nafūsa, the Nafzāwa, the Banū Fātin and the Miknāsa. Their earliest habitat is the region of steppe and plateau which extends from the Nile to southern Tunisia; they were thus originally Libyan Berbers. But, very early, several of these peoples (Miknāsa, Banū Fātin, and a part of Lawāta) moved towards the west—to Algeria (the…

(or Tādilā), the Tedle of Leo Africanus, a district of Morocco comprising the plateaus which stretch to the west of the high valley of ¶ the Wādī Umm al-Rabīʿ, as well as the western slopes of the Central Atlas, from Wādī ’l-ʿAbīd to the sources of the Moluya. The classical ethnic Tādilī is no longer used except for the S̲h̲orfā of the district; the popular ethnic is Tādlāwī. The region of the plateaus is occupied by six semi-nomad tribes of Arab origin: Urdīg̲h̲a, Bnī Ḵh̲īrān. Bnī Zemmūr, Smāʿla, Bnī ʿĀmer, Bnī Mūsā, whose centres are Wād Zem, Bujad (= Bed̲j̲d̲…

, a town (now in ruins) and anchorage on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. It is 68¼ m. (110 km.) south-east of Tetuan, between the territory of the G̲h̲umāra [ q.v.] and the Rīf [ q.v.] properly so-called. It is situated on the territory of the Banū Yaṭṭūfat ( vulgo: Bni Yiṭṭōft) near the mouth of a torrent named Tālā-n-Bādis ( vulgo: Tālembādes). An attempt has been made to identify it with the Parietina of the Itinerary of Antoninus; but this ancient place-name could equally well refer to the more sheltered cove of Yallīs̲h̲ (= Iris on our maps) which is only 7 km. to the south-west. The town of…

, (plur. banāʾiḳ ), an Arabic word which has been subject to considerable semantic evolution. In early Arabic, its meaning is disputed by the lexicographers (cf. Ibn Sīda, Muk̲h̲aṣṣaṣ , iv, 84-85; ¶ TA, s.v.). The primitive meaning seems to have been “any piece inserted ( ruḳʿa ) to widen a tunic ( ḳamīṣ ) or a leather bucket ( dalw )”. In the case of the ḳamīṣ, according to some authorities, banāʾiḳ were “snippets” of material, in the form of very elongated triangles, inserted vertically below the armholes, along the lateral seams of the garment, to give greater fu…

, one of many Arabic words used to express the concept of “gift”, and the preferred legal term for it, see following article. The giving of gifts, that is, the voluntary transfer of property, serves material and psychological purposes. In the pre-history of man, it probably antedates the contractual payment for goods and services. In Islam, it has retained its inherited functions as an important component of the social fabric and has exercised a considerable influence on political life. Literature (in the narrow sense…

(ar.) “broker”, “agent”. Dallāl , literally “guide”; is the popular Arabic word for simsār , sensal . In the Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs we find, on the word simsār: “This is the man known as a dallāl ; he shows the purchaser where to find the goods he requires, and the seller how to exact his price”. Very little is known from the Arabic sources about the origins of these brokers, who have been of such great importance in economic affairs. The dallāl corresponded to the Byzantine μεδίτης. In the absence of any systematic earlier studies, only certain items of information collected at r…

(in modern Arabic: Mlīlya , Berber Tamlilt , "the white"; in the Arab geographers, Malīla ), a seaport on the east coast of Morocco on a promontory on the peninsula of Gelʿiyya at the end of which is the Cape Tres Forcas or the Three Forks ( Rās Hurk of the Arab geographers, now Rās Werk ). Melilla probably corresponds to the Rusadir of the ancients (cf. Rhyssadir oppidum et portus (Pliny, v. 18), Russadir Colonia of the Antoninian Itinerary). Leo Africanus says that it had belonged for a time to the Goths and that the Arabs took it from them, but…

, a collection of poetry or prose [see ʿarabiyya ; persian literature ; turkish literature ; urdū literature and s̲h̲iʿr ], a register, or an office. Sources differ about linguistic roots. Some ascribe to it a Persian origin from dev , ‘mad’ or ‘devil’, to describe secretaries. Others consider it Arabic from dawwana , to collect or to register, thus meaning a collection of records or sheets. (See Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ , i, 90; LA, xvii, 23-4; Ṣūlī, Adab al-kuttāb , 187; Māwardī, al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya , 175; D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, Wuzarāʾ , ¶ 16-17; cf. Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ ,…

(in the Marīnid period Agarsīf occurs quite as frequently; the occlusive Berber g is some times transcribed in Arabic characters as d̲j̲īm , sometimes as kāf , each distinguished by three diacritical points), the Guercif of French maps, a small place in eastern Morocco 60 km. east of Taza, in the middle of the immense Tāfrāṭa steppe. It is situated on the spit of land between the Mulullū and Moulouya rivers at their confluence; hence its name (Berber ger- “between” and āsīf “river”). Marmol wished to identify Guercif with Ptolemy’s Galapha but this is scarcely l…

(Berber), a term borrowed by the Arabic of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia from Berber, with the same meaning as in that language namely "pasturage reserved for the exclusive use of the landowner". In Morocco, however, the word has acquired the special sense of "a wide expanse of pasture lands, surrounded by high walls and adjoining the Sultan’s palace, reserved for the exclusive use of his cavalry and livestock". Such enclosures exist in each of the royal cities, Fez, Meknes, Rabāṭ and Marrākus̲h̲. (G.S. Colin)