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, al-Malik al-Manṣūr Sayf al-Dīn Ḳalāwūn al-Alfī al-Ṣāliḥī al-Nad̲j̲mī al-ʿAlāʾī , the fifth Mamūlk sultan, ruler of Egypt and Syria from 678/1279 to 689/1290. One of the most eminent sultans of the Baḥrī [ q.v.] Mamlūk sultanate, he followed the policies of Sultan Baybars I [ q.v.] especially in his campaigns against the Mongols and the Crusaders. Ḳalāwūn was born in the country of the Kipčak Turks on the northern shores of the Black Sea. The date of his birth is unknown and the sources tell us nothing about his childhood. A sla…

(a.) “water”. The present article covers the religio-magical and the Islamic legal aspects of water, together with irrigation techniques, as follows: 1. Hydromancy A a vehicle for the sacred, water has been employed for various techniques of divination, and in particular, for potamonancy (sc. divination by means of the colour of the waters of a river and their ebbing and flowing; cf. FY. Cumont, Études syriennes , Paris 1917, 250 ff., notably on the purification power of the Euphrates, consulted for divinatory reasons); for pegomancy (sc…