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(a.), lit. a “group (of people)”, or a “host”, or a “crowd”, like d̲j̲amāʿa , ḳawm [ q.vv.], nafar , rahṭ , and more generally, “the public”, and hence, fī malaʾ , fi ’l-malaʾ “publicly” (e.g. al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ṣaḥīḥ , 9 vols., Cairo 1958, ix, 148 = kitāb 97, bāb 15). The word also denotes decisions taken as a result of collective consultation, as in the phrase ʿan [ g̲h̲ayri ] malaʾin minnā “[not] as a result of our consultation” (Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Musnad , 6 vols., Cairo 1313/1895, repr. Beirut n.d., i, 463). Since collective decisions are usually taken by the leaders of the group, al-malaʾ very often…

, Naʿl Rasūl Allāh (a.), the sandal of the Prophet Muḥammad. Sandals belong to the pre-Islamic Arabian clothing (see libās . 1), and are considered one of the features distinguishing Arabs from non-Arabs ( ʿad̲j̲am ). The scholar Mālik b. Anas (d. 180/796 [ q.v.]) reportedly declared that only Arabs used to wear turbans and sandals (Ibn Abī Zayd, al-Ḏj̲āmiʿ fi ’l-sunan wa ’l-ādāb wa ’l-mag̲h̲āzī wa ’l-taʾrīk̲h̲ , Tunis 1982, 228). The Prophet himself reportedly advised the believers to wear sandals as well as boots to distinguish themselves…

(a.), the Muḥammadan light. It is one of the most prominent names given to Muḥammad’s pre-existent entity which preceded the creation of Ādam [ q.v.]. The concept has its parallels in Jewish, Gnostic and neo-Platonic ideas (see I. Goldziher, Neuplatonische und Gnostische Elemente im Ḥadīt , in ZA, xxii [1909], 317 ff.; T. Andrae, Die Person Muhammeds , Upsala 1917, passim . See also, L. Massignon, Al-Ḥallāj , Paris 1922, passim; idem, Recueil ..., 1929, passim). Not all Muslim scholars and theologians agreed on the nature of Muḥammad’s pre-existence. Al-G̲h̲azālī (d. 505/1111 [ q.v.]) a…

(a.) "hour", hence "clock". 1. In technology. Monumental water-clocks are described in detail in two Arabic treatises. Al-Ḏj̲azarī [ q.v. in Suppl.] in his book on mechanical contrivances completed in Diyār Bakr in 602/1206 describes two such machines. Riḍwān b. al-Sāʿātī, in a treatise dated 600/1203, describes the water-clock built by his father Muḥammad at the Ḏj̲ayrūn gate in Damascus (see E. Wiedemann and F. Hauser, Über die Uhren in Bereich der Islamischen Kultur , in Nova Acta der Kaiserl . Leop . Deutschen Akad . der Naturforscher , ciii [1918], 167-27…