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mosaic. The fact that the Arabic word for the mosaic itself is ultimately derived from the Greek ψῆφος, perhaps through Aramaic , and the word faṣṣ , used for the little coloured cubes which are arranged according to a pre-designed cartoon, derives from the Greek πεσσóς, leads us to consider this form of architectural decoration as a borrowing by Muslim art from Byzantine art. This borrowing is undeniable and we shall examine it ¶ later. All the same, apart from this importation from abroad, Muslim art of the early centuries seems to have included a form of mosaic wh…

, a town of northeastern Morocco (lat. 34° 16′ N., long. 4° 01′ W.) about 100 km/60 miles east-north-east of Fās [ q.v.] (Fez). It lies in a trough between the Rīf [ q.v.] massif and the northern spurs of the Middle Atlas which is drained by the Wadi Inaouene (Innāwen), an affluent of the Wadi Sebou. This trough carries the historic highway from Fez and Meknès to Oujda, Tlemcen and northwestern Algeria, and is also the route of the railway likewise connecting these points. Tāzā, situated at a gap between the mountains some 3 km…

, an old fortified town in North Africa situated 100 km. SSW of Algiers in the Tiṭerī mountains, makes its appearance in history during the first half of the 4th/10th century. It belonged to the country occupied by the Ṣanhād̲j̲a on the western borders of their territory. The founding of the town by Zīrī b. Manād, chief of the main tribe of the Ṣanhād̲j̲a, is an episode in the struggle which brought these Berber highlanders, the supporters ¶ of the Fāṭimids of Ifrīḳiya, into conflict with the Zanāta of the plains of Oran, adherents of the party of the Umayyads of Cordova. As a reward for service…

(Mostaganem), a coastal town in Algeria, 8 miles E. of the mouth of the S̲h̲elif (5′ E. long. Greenwich). It does not occupy the site of any known ancient town. There is no natural harbour here; two capes, not particularly well marked (K̲h̲arūba and Salamander), leave vessels without protection against winds from the north and west. It is therefore not as a port that al-Bakrī (5th/11th century) mentions Mostaganem for the first time. He describes it as a town situated “not far from the sea” (it …

, earthenware vase, pottery, ceramics. Pottery is one of the glories of Islamic art and is produced by practically every country in the Islamic world. Ceramic wares have a place in architecture as inlays or as faience tiles, and they hold an important place in the field of the applied arts. In order to make a necessarily brief study of this vast subject clear, it would seem appropriate to give some idea of the different techniques employed, ¶ before proceeding to the naming of the principal centres of manufacture and the periods of their activity. The basic material for ceramic wares is b…

ʿAlī , tenth ruler of the dynasty of the Marīnids of Fez, was 34 years old when, in 731/1331, he succeeded his father, Abū Saʿīd ʿUt̲h̲mān. Of a strong constitution, he seems also to have possessed the energy and the wide outlook of a great prince. Numerous public buildings show his piety and his magnificence. His reign saw not only the zenith of the dynasty and its greatest territorial expansion, but also the beginning of its decline. In Spain, he took Gibraltar from the Ch…

, (Bizerta), a town on the Northern coast of Tunisia. It stands on the site of the ancient town of Hippo Diarrytus, the memory of which is perpetuated in the modern name. Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman and Byzantine in succession, it was taken by Muʿāwiya b. Hudayd̲j̲ in 41/661 and again occupied, simultaneously with Carthage, by Ḥasan b. Nuʿmān. In the 4th/10th century, it is mentioned by Ibn Ḥawkal as the capital of the province of Saṭfūra (north of Tunis), although at the time it was practic…

, building, the art of the builder or mason. Building techniques depend partly on the materials used. In the Islande countries we find very widely differing materials employed, from rammed earth to ashlar, with unbaked and baked brick, rubble and rough-hewn stone as intermediary stages. The choice of one of these materials depends of course on the resources of a given country, or the lack of them, but as well as this on local traditions or traditions brought in by foreign builders, which may for…

(A.), plaster.—Muslim builders have generally shown themselves unanxious to use carefully chosen and worked materials in their constructions. Frequently walls, apparently hurriedly built, are composed of rubble (undressed stones) or even of pisé (compacted earth and lime) or mud-brick. This mediocre skeleton, however, is clad by facings which disguise its poverty and give it the illusion of richness. Just as the Byzantine builders decorated church sanctuaries and rooms in princely dwellings with…

Banū , family of Ṣanhād̲j̲a Berbers who, in the Almohad epoch (6th/12th century), attempted to restore the Almoravids in North Africa. The feminine name G̲h̲āniya which designates them is that of an Almoravid princess who was given in marriage by the Almoravid sultan Yūsuf b. Tās̲h̲fīn to ʿAlī b. Yūsuf, head of the family. He had two sons by her, Yaḥyā and Muḥammad. Yaḥyā fought victoriously against Alfonso the Battler, king of Aragon (528/1133), and was governor of Murcia and Valencia. Thirteen years he successfull…

b. ʿAlennās (the last name is also written ʿAlnās, ʿAnnas and even G̲h̲ilnās by Ibn ʿId̲h̲ārī), fifth ruler of the Ḥammādid dynasty, succeeded his cousin Buluggin b. Muḥammad in 454/1062. His reign marks the apogee of the little Berber kingdom founded by Ḥammād [ q.v.]. The ephemeral rise of the Ḥammādids was the immediate result of the downfall of their relations and neighbours, the Zīrids of Ifrīḳiya, the first victims of the Hilālī invasion [see hilāl , banū ]. On his accession, al-Nāṣir, who lived in the Ḳalʿat Banī Ḥammād [ q.v.], was already ruler of a little kingdom, the chief …

, the present town of Bône, on the Algerian coast, east of Algiers. It is not known when it received the name of al-ʿAnnāba or, according to Leo Africanus, Bilād al-ʿUnnāb , "city of the jujubes", a reference to the fruit grown there. The early Arab geographers call it Būna, derived from its ancient name Hippona and testifying to its long history. It was successively a Phoenician settlement, a Punic city, a possession of the Numidian kings, and a Roman city named Hippo Regius, it played a major role duri…

, (dwelling place), house. The two words most commonly used to designate a dwelling place, bayt and dār , have, etymologically, quite different meanings. Bayt is, properly speaking, the covered shelter where one may spend the night; dār (from dāra , to surround) is a space surrounded by walls, buildings, or nomadic tents, placed more or less in a circle. Dārat un is the tribal encampment known in North Africa as the duwwār . From the earliest times there has been in Muslim dwellings a tendency to arrange around a central space: the park, where t…

(Berb. Arzyu; modern orthography Arzew or Arzeu), town on the Algerian coast situated between Oran and Mostaganem, 7 km. E. of the present small town of Arzeu. The Muslim town of the Middle Ages doubtless occupied "on the littoral of the plain of Sīrāt" the site of the ancient Portus Magnus (modern Saint Leu, still called Vieil Arzeu). In the 5th/11th century, al-Bakrī speaks with admiration of the Roman town and its ruins, but declares that it was completely uninhabited. He notes however, on the nearby mountain (the one which dominates the present Arzeu), three castles which were used as rībā…

, eleventh sovereign of the Marīnid [ q.v.] dynasty of Fez, born in 729/1329, had himself proclaimed at Tlemcen in 749/1349, when his father, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAIī, after being defeated at Ḳayrawān, was returning as a fugitive to Morocco. Ibn al-Aḥmar describes him as very tall, with a fair skin (his mother was a Christian slave), and says that he had a long beard. A fearless horseman, he was also widely versed in literature and the law. Like his father, he was a prince with a passion for building, and com…

The political history of the Fāṭimids forms an indispensable background to an understanding of the development of their art. It allows us to distinguish two successive periods in it: one Ifrīḳiyan period, which extends from 308/908, the date of the installation of the Mahdī in Ḳayrawān and of the foundation of al-Mahdiyya, until 362/973, which saw the departure of al-Muʿizz and the establishment of Cairo as the city of the Caliphs; then an Egyptian period, which lasts from 362/973 up to the coll…

, a town, not now in existence, on the Algerian coast, which was situated between Oran and the Moroccan frontier, at the mouth of the Tafna, facing the island of Rachgoun, which perpetuates its name. The Muslim city, which took the place of Portus Sigensis, the port of Siga, the capital of King Syphax, is first heard of at the beginning of the 4th/10th century as being assigned by Idrīs I to his brother ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān. It is mentioned in the second half of the 4th/10th century by Ibn Hawḳal, who informs us that it h…

b. sinān , Abū ʿAbd Allāh, scholar and jurist of the 2nd-3rd/8th-9th century, born at Ḥarrān (Mesopotamia) in 142/759. At the age of two he went with his father to live in Ifrīḳiya. He completed his early studies there, and in 172/788 went to Medina, where he received an initiation in Mālikism from Mālik b. Anas himself. From there he went to ʿIrāḳ, where he profited by the teaching of several disciples of Abū Ḥanīfa. The lessons he received from Mālik provided him with the material for his great work, the Asadiyya . On his return to Ifrīḳiya, be established himself as a master in the science of ḥadīt…

, a city of the Mag̲h̲rib which was the centre of power of the Ag̲h̲labid amīr s of Ifrīḳiya about 6 miles south of Ḳayrawān, was founded in 263/876 by Ibrāhīm II, seventh prince of the dynasty. Until then the Ag̲h̲labids [ q.v.] had resided in ʿAbbāsiyya [ q.v.] nearer the capital. A chance trip into the country by Ibrāhīm, it is said, determined the site of the new residence. The amīr was suffering from insomnia and on the advice of his physician, Isḥāḳ b. Sulaymān, went out to take the air. Stopping in a certain place, he fell into a deep sleep and decided to bu…

, banū , an Arab tribe, the most powerful of those that, regarding themselves as descended from Hilāl [ q.v.], left Upper Egypt and invaded Barbary in the middle of the 5th/11th century. Their chief at that time was Muʾnis b. Yaḥyā of the family of Mirdās. The Zīrid amīr al-Muʿizz [ q.v.], who did not foresee the disastrous consequences of the entry of the Arabs into Ifrīḳiya, tried to come to an arrangement with him and to win over the Riyāḥ. The latter were the ¶ first to lay his country waste. But thanks to the protection of the chiefs of the Riyāḥ, to whom he had married his …