Search

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲ubayr al-Kinānī , Andalusian traveller and writer, born at Valencia 540/1145, into a family which had settled in Spain in 123/740. He studied at Játiva, where his father was a civil servant, and received the traditional instruction of young men of his class, that is to say he learnt the rudiments of the religious sciences and of belles-lettres at the same time, but not without learning how to exercise his poetic skill. His talents won for him …

(a.), collective noun indicating the two main species of the camelidae , the camelus dromedarius, or dromedary, with a single hump, and the camelus bactrianus, or camel proper, with two humps. The latter species, common in Central Asia, in western China and in northern Persia, was known to the Arabs under the name of fālid̲j̲ (pl. fawālid̲j̲ ); the crossing of two-humped stallions with Arab female camels ( ʿirāb ) produced the species called buk̲h̲t (sing, buk̲h̲tī , pl. bak̲h̲ātī ) which did not breed and which was used mainly as a beast of burden (see al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Ḥayawān …

, Maḥmūd b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Sindī b. S̲h̲āhak , Abu ’l-Fatḥ , poet of the 4th/10th century whose death is variously given in the sources between 330/941 and 360/971, but which must have taken place ca. 350/961. Originally from a family of Sind [see ibrāhīm b. al-sindī ], he was born at al-Ramla and lived at al-Mawṣil at the court of Abu ’l-Hayd̲j̲āʾ ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamdān [see ḥamdānids ], and then at Aleppo, in the entourage of Sayf al-Dawla [ q.v.]; he also made several journeys to Egypt, Bag̲h̲dād, Damascus and Jerusalem. His verses are described by R. Blachère, Motanabbî …

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan aḥmad b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Mūsā b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī al-Nadīm (and also al-Ṭunbūrī , because he played the tunbūr , lute (Fr.: “pandore”)). A philologist and transmitter of traditions, singer and musician, poet and wit and a descendant of the Barmakids. He was reputedly born in 224/839, and died at the age of a hundred, at Wāsiṭ in S̲h̲aʿbān 324/June-July 936. A man of very varied culture, but little religion, of doubtful morals and repulsive appearance (he was dirty and ugly, and owed…

, ʿabd al-g̲h̲affār b. ʿabd al-wāḥid b. wahb , Arab poet of ʿIrāḳ, born at al-Mawṣil ¶ about 1220/1805, died at al-Baṣra 1290/1874. After settling in Bag̲h̲dād, he established a connection with the wālī Dāwūd Pās̲h̲ā. The latter, at his request, sent him to India for treatment to correct the defective power of speech which had gained him his sobriquet of al-Ak̲h̲ras ("the mute"), but he refused to undergo the operation. The panegyrics which he addressed to Dāwūd Pās̲h̲ā and ʿAbd al-Bā…

, Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṭarābulusī, philologist, native of Ad̲j̲dābiya (between Barḳa and Tripoli), who lived in the 6th/12th century and died in about 650/1251. He is the author of a number of works, of which reference is made particularly to his Kitāb al-Anwāʾ (ed. Damascus 1964, by ʿIzzat Ḥasan, as al-Azmina wa’l-anwāʾ ) and to a short treatise on lexicography entitled Kifāyat al-mutaḥaffiẓ wa-nihāyat al-mutalaffiẓ , printed in Egypt in 1285/1868 and in Beirut in 1305/1887. (Ch. Pellat) Bibliography Yāḳūt, Udabāʾ, i, 130 Suyūṭī, Bug̲h̲ya, 178 Ḥād̲j̲d̲…

(A), technical term of the Ḵh̲awārid̲j̲ [ q.v.], used, in a general sense, of religious murder, the putting to death in particular by the Azāriḳa [ q.v.] of Muslims and pagans who objected to their still rudimentary doctrine. However this meaning seems to be the result of a semantic evolution (even an involution), the verb istaʿraḍa (tenth form) meaning “to ask someone to display his possessions” and, thence, “to give an account of his opinions”; the istiʿrāḍ is thus the interrogation to which the enemies of these sectarians were subjected on falli…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAmmār b. Ḥusayn b. ʿAmmār , poet and vizier of al-Andalus. Born in 422/1031 in a village near Silves, he belonged to a poor and obscure family and his claim to be of Yemenī origin is doubtful. After beginning his studies at Silves, he received at Cordova an advanced literary education and then tried to make his literary talent pay, travelling throughout Spain in search of patrons. Nothing appears to have survived of his first panegyrics, addressed, it seems wi…

al-ḥimmānī al-rād̲j̲iz , a poet of Baṣra who owed his name to the fact that his mother gave birth to him by a palm tree ( nak̲h̲la ). He was given the kunya s of Abu ’l-Ḏj̲unayd and Abu ’l-ʿIrmās and the name of Yaʿmar (or Ḥazn, or Ḥabīb b. Ḥazn) b. Zāʾida b. Laḳīṭ, but it is possible that he forged a fictitious genealogy to attach himself to the Saʿd b. Zayd Manāt of Tamīm; in fact, al-Farazdaḳ, angry at being released from jail at his intervention, ¶ calls him a daʿī , and Ibn al-Kalbī does not cite him in his D̲j̲amhara . It is said that he was ejected by his father, on ac…

(Ṣuraymī in Ibn al-Kalbī), (al-)ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 40/660), a Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ī who is said to have been the first to proclaim that “judgement belongs only to God” ( taḥkīm ; cf. al-Mubarrad, Kāmil , Cairo edn., 917), but who is famed in history because of his being one of the three plotters sworn to kill simultaneously ʿAlī b. Abi Ṭālib [see ibn muld̲j̲am ], ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ, [ q.v.] and Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān. Al-Burak accordingly proceeded to Damascus and stabbed Muʿāwiya whilst he was praying, but only managed to wound him in the hip. According to trad…

, pl. ḳaynāt or ḳiyān “female singing slave”. The Arab lexicographers do not completely agree on the primitive meaning of the term (see LA, TA, etc. s.v.), the real origin of which is unknown to them. They tend to apply it in the first place to a female slave ( ama , d̲j̲āriya ), charged in general with various tasks; secondly, and more specifically, to the female singer who had a servile status ( ama or d̲j̲āriya mug̲h̲anniya ). Some lexicographers are inclined to connect ḳayna with a Vth form taḳayyana “to embellish oneself” (al-Was̲h̲s̲h̲āʾ, Muwas̲h̲s̲h̲ā , 164, uses the expression al-imāʾ a…

, the usual cognomen of a Tamīmite noble of Baṣra named abū baḥr ṣak̲h̲r (sometimes, but erroneously, called al-Ḍaḥḥāk) b. ḳays b. muʿāwiya al-tamīmī al-saʿdī , of the family of Murra b. ʿUbayd; through his mother, he was descended from the Bāhilite clan Awd b. Maʿn. He was born before Islam and, probably at an early age, lost his father, killed by the Banū Māzin. His biographers state that he was deformed from birth and that he had undergone an operation. His cognomen ( al-aḥnaf ) derives from the fact that his feet were misshapen, but he also had other ab…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Bassām al-S̲h̲antarīnī , Andalusian poet and anthologist, a native of Santarem. Forced to flee from his native town when it was taken by Alfonso V of Castile (485/1092-3), he went to Cordova for the first time in 493/1100 and, during the following years, undertook at Seville the compiling of his D̲h̲ak̲h̲īra and the collecting of the dīwāns of some great poets of the 5th/11th century: al-Muʿtamid, Ibn Wahbūn, Ibn ʿAmmār; he also collected the correspondence of the prince of Murcia, Ibn Ṭāhir, and collected in o…

al-Namarī (al-Numayrī), appellative of a family of Cordovan scholars, the principal representative of which is Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf b. ʿAbd Allāh , born in 368/978. He studied in his native city under masters of repute, engaged in correspondence with scholars of the East and travelled all over Spain “in search of knowledge”, but never went to the East. Considered the best traditionist of his time, he was equally distinguished in fiḳh and in the science of genealogy. After displaying Ẓāhirī tendencies at first, in which he resembled his friend Ibn …

, abu ’l-s̲h̲aʿt̲h̲āʾ ʿabd allāh b. ruʾba , Arab poet of the Tamīm tribe, who resided mainly in al-Baṣra; it is probable that he was born during the caliphate of ʿUt̲h̲mān (23-35/644-56), and he died in 97/115. Little is known about his life, except that he had to joust with his Kūfan rival Abu ’l-Nad̲j̲m al-ʿId̲j̲lī [ q.v.]. The main characteristic of al-ʿAd̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲’s poetry—like that of his son Ruʾba [ q.v.]—is the constant and exclusive use of the rad̲j̲az metre in poetical compositions marked by a very rich vocabulary and a laborious construc…

, a tribe belonging to the group which the genealogists distinguished under the name of the Butr [ q.v.] and which formed one of the two great Berber peoples, the other being the Barānis [ q.v.]. They seem to have become fixed fairly early in Libya and to have spread over all the Mag̲h̲rib, where the elements which are encountered there sporadically were largely sedentaries or sedentarised. Mediaeval authors mention Nafzāwa as far as Sid̲j̲ilmāsa and even as far as Awdag̲h̲ost [ q.vv.], but this tribe is known above all today for having given its name to a region of Tunisia t…

, Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān Yazīd b. Ziyād b. Rabīʿa b. Mufarrig̲h̲ al-Ḥimyarī , minor poet of Baṣra in the 1st/7th century. There are doubts about his Ḥimyarī origin, and it is possible that his ancestor Mufarrig̲h̲ was a slave. Ibn Mufarrig̲h̲’s ¶ date of birth is not known, and the earliest traditions about him tell of his romantic attachment to a Persian woman of Ahwāz in approximately the years 36-40/657-60. Later he was attached to ʿUbayd Allāh b. Abī Bakra [ q.v.] and Saʿīd b. ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, but his career took a completely different direction from the time when he decided…

, Abu ’l-Walīd/Abū Ḵh̲ālid ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. D̲j̲urayd̲j̲ al-Rūmī al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-makkī (80-150/699-767), Meccan traditionist of Greek slave descent (the ancestor being called Gregorios) and probably a mawlā of the family of Ḵh̲ālid b. Asīd. ¶ After having first of all become interested in gathering together traditions of philological, literary and historical interest, he brought together ḥadīt̲h̲s from the mouths of ʿAṭāʾ b. Abī Rabāḥ, al-Zuhrī, Mudd̲j̲āhid, ʿIkrima and other famous persons, and passed them on, notably to Wakīʿ, Ibn al…

or Mirḳās (a.), a kind of mutton sausage. There would probably be no reason to devote an article to this culinary speciality had it not enjoyed for some time in Europe, and especially in France, an unexpected success, being known as “merguez”, after the arrival of a considerable number of Mag̲h̲ribī immigrants and above all, repatriates from the lands of North Africa, where the word and the thing itself were not widespread, it seems, until a relatively recent period. Thus there is a problem worthy of examination. Sausages are not unknown in the East, where they are called by the Turkish name sud…

, ʿAbd al-Bāḳī , an ʿIrāḳī poet and official, born in Mosul in 1204/1790, who traced back his ancestry to ʿUmar b. al-K̲h̲aṭṭāb, whence his nisba of al-Fārūḳī or al-ʿUmarī. While still very young, he became an assistant of the wālī of Mosul and was later appointed governor of the town by Dāwūd Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]; when the Porte decided to restrict the independence which Dāwūd had until then enjoyed in Bag̲h̲dād, ʿAbd al-Bāḳī at first accompanied his uncle Ḳāsim Pas̲h̲a, who failed in his mission, and then ʿAlī Riḍā Pas̲h̲a who made him his deputy; he r…