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, a large Berber tribe of the Barānis family. Its exact origin does not seem to have been known to the Arab and Berber genealogists, who simply make them brethren of the Ṣanhād̲j̲a, Haskūra and Gazūla; others give them a Ḥimyarite origin like the Hawwāra and the Lawāta [ q.vv.]. The Lamṭa were one of the nomadic tribes who wore a veil ( mulat̲h̲t̲h̲amūn ). One section lived on the south of the Mzāb, between the Massūfa on the west and the Tārga (Tuareg) on the east; they even seem to have extended as far as the Niger. In the south of Mo…

Tea appears to be mentioned for the first time in an Arabic text by the author of the Ak̲h̲bār al-Ṣīn wa’l-Hind (ed. and transl. by J. Sauvaget, 18), under the form sāk̲h̲ , whereas al-Bīrūnī, Nubad̲h̲ fī Ak̲h̲bār al-Ṣīn , ed. Krenkow, in MMIA, xiii (1955), 388, calls it more correctly d̲j̲aʾ . It was introduced into Europe towards the middle of the 16th century by the Dutch East Indies company; but it is only in the middle of 17th century that its use spread, particularly in England. In Morocco the first mention of tea dates back to 1700. It was a French merchant, with business co…

, henna (known to botanists as the Lawsonia alba of Lamarck, a name preferable to the L. inarmis of Linnaeus, which corresponds only to the young form of the plant, the adult form being spinosa ), shrub whose leaves possess medical properties and are used as a dye. In Arabic, the word most commonly used is ḥinnāʾ , but in the earlier language there were used other words which, however, were applied also to other dye-producing plants: saffron ( zaʿfarān ), safflower ( ḳurṭum , ʿuṣfur ) and curcuma ( kurkum ); these are yarannā and raḳūn , riḳān , irḳān ; the three last are perhaps connected with yaraḳān…

(the broken plural Maṣāmida is also found), one of the principal Berber ethnic groups forming a branch of the Barānis. If we set aside the Maṣmūda elements mentioned by al-Bakrī in the neighbourhood of Bône, the post-Islamic Maṣmūda seem to have lived exclusively in the western extremity of the Mag̲h̲rib: and as far back as one goes in the history of the interior of Morocco, we find them forming with the Ṣanhād̲j̲a [ q.v.], another group of Barānis Berbers, the main stock of the Berber population of this country. Indeed, from the first Arab conquest in the 1st/7th ce…

, blessing. In the Ḳurʾān, the word is used only in the plural: barakāt , like raḥma and salām , are sent to man by God. It can be translated by “beneficent force, of divine origin, which causes superabundance in the physical sphere and prosperity and happiness in the psychic order”. Naturally, the text of the Ḳurʾān ( kalāmu-llāh ) is charged with baraka . God can implant an emanation of baraka in the person of his prophets and saints: Muḥammad and his descendants are especially endowed therewith. These sacred personages, in their turn, may communicate the effluvi…

Arabic name of a small ancient Berber tribe in south-western Morocco, doubtless related to the Ṣanhād̲j̲a group [ q.v.]. In association with the Lamṭa [ q.v.], their kinsmen, they led a nomadic life south of the Anti-Atlas. But, at quite ¶ an early date, some of them began to settle in the western part of This mountain (D̲j̲abal Hankīsa); their chief settlement was at Tāg̲h̲d̲j̲īzat, now known as Tāg̲h̲d̲j̲īd̲j̲t, 80 km. south-south-east of Tīznīt. It was among them that ʿAbd Allāh b. Yāsīn was born, the originator of the religious and political movement of the Murābiṭūn [ q.v.]. The Ḏj̲azū…

, 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…

, an encampment of Arab Bedouins in which the tents (sing, k̲h̲ayma ) are arranged in a circle or an ellipse, forming a sort of enceinte around the open space in the middle ( murāḥ ) where the cattle pass the night; this very ancient way of laying out an encampment is still to be found among the Bedouins of the east (northern Syria, Mesopotamia) and among all the nomads or semi-nomads of North Africa. The name of dawār which is given to it appears already in the writings of certain travellers ¶ and geographers of the middle ages. In the East, the exact form of the word is dawār or dwār …

(or Abad̲j̲ad or Abū Ḏj̲ad ), the first of the eight mnemotechnical terms into which the twenty-eight consonants of the Arabic alphabet were divided. In the East, the whole series of these voces memoriales is ordered and, in general, vocalized as follows: ʾabd̲j̲ad hawwaz ḥuṭṭiy kalaman saʿfaṣ ḳaras̲h̲at t̲h̲ak̲h̲ad̲h̲ ḍaẓag̲h̲ . In the West (North Africa and the Iberian peninsula) groups no. 5, 6 and 8 were differently arranged; the complete list was as follows: ʾabad̲j̲id hawazin ḥuṭiyin kalamnin ṣaʿfaḍin ḳurisat t̲h̲ak̲h̲ud̲h̲ ẓag̲h̲s̲h̲in . ¶ The first six groups of the Ori…

(also, but more rarely: Dār al-ṣanʿa ). Etymologically, this compound can be translated “industrial establishment, workshop”. In fact it is always applied to a State workshop: for example, under the Umayyads in Spain to establishments for gold and silver work intended for the sovereign, and for the manufacture and stock-piling of arms. But the sense most widely used is that of “establishment for the construction and equipment of warships”: dār ṣināʿa li-ins̲h̲āʾ al-sufun ; or simply dār al-ins̲h̲āʾ , which also occurs. This does not include the arsen…

(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…

(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…

, al-Mamlaka al-Mag̲h̲ribiyya . a kingdom of North Africa whose name in European languages (Fr. Maroc; Eng. Morocco; Span. Marruecos) is a deformation of the name of the southern metropolis of the kingdom, Marrākus̲h̲ [ q.v.]. 1. Geography . Morocco occupies the western part of Barbary; it corresponds to the Mag̲h̲rib al-Aḳṣā of the Arab geographers [see al-mag̲h̲rib ]. Lying between 5° and 15° W. longitude (Greenwich) on the one hand and between 36° and 28° N. latitude on the other, it covers approximately an area of between 500,000 and 550,000 km2. On the north it is bounded by the …

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…

, 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…

, often contracted to māristān , from Persian bīmār ‘sick’ + the suffix -istān denoting place, a hospital. In modern usage bīmāristān is applied especially to a lunatic asylum. ¶ i. Early period and Muslim East . According to the Arabs themselves (cf. Maḳrīzī, Ḵh̲iṭaṭ , ii, 405), the first hospital was founded either by Manāḳyūs, a mythical king of Egypt, or by Hippocrates, the latter of whom is said to have made for the sick in a garden near his house a xenodokeion , literally ‘lodging for strangers’. The authority for this statement is given by Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa ( ʿUyūn , …

and isṭabl (a.; pl. iṣṭablāt and rarely aṣābil , according to LA, s.v.), etymologically stable , that is to say the building in which mounts and baggage animals (equidae and camelidae) are kept tethered and, by metonomy, the actual stock of such animais belonging to one single owner. Iṣṭabl is the arabization of the low-Greek στάβλον/σταβλíον/σταυλíον(see Du Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis , Lyons 1688, s.v.), which ¶ in turn derives from the Latin stabulum . This is one of the so-called terms “of civilization” which hav…

, agriculture. Falḥ , the act of cleaving and cutting, when applied to the soil has the meaning of “to break up in order to cultivate”, or “to plough”. Fallāḥ “ploughman”, filāḥa “ploughing”. But from pre-Islamic times the word filāḥa has assumed a wider meaning to denote the occupation of husbandry, agriculture. In this sense it is synonymous with zirāʿa , to which the ancients preferred filāḥa (all the earlier writers called their works on agriculture Kitāb al-Filāḥa ). At the present time this latter word is very widely used in North Africa, both …

i. — general In Arabic, the word nafṭ (Persian nafṭ) is applied to the purest form ( ṣafwa ) of Mesopotamian bitumen ( ḳīr —or ḳār — bābilī ). Its natural colour is white. It occasionally occurs in a black form, but this can be rendered white by sublimation. Nafṭ is efficacious against cataract and leucoma; it has the property of attracting fire from a distance, without direct contact. Mixed with other products (fats, oil, sulphur etc.) which make it more combustible and more adhesive, it constituted the basic ingredient of “Greek fire”, a liquid incendiary compo…

, 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…