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(a.), mistake in writing, synonymous, in spite of sporadic artificial attempts to make a distinction, with taḥrīf (without, however, the specialised use of the latter, [ q.v.]). While its meaning is unambiguous, the derivation of the word is less so. Its connection with ṣ-ḥ-f in the (originally South Semitic) meaning of “to write” [see muṣḥaf ] can be considered certain; the negative connotation may reflect a negative attitude toward all writing as against orality, rather than a privative use of the second form of the verb. It is not excluded that taḥrīf may have influenced the format…

, ʿAlī b. And̲j̲ab , Abū Ṭālib Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn , ʿIrāḳi historian (14 S̲h̲aʿbān 593/2 July 1197-20 Ramaḍān 674/8 March 1276). Born in Bag̲h̲dād, he appears to have spent all of his life there. He was a librarian, in succession, it seems, of both the Niẓāmiyya and the Mustanṣiriyya libraries. Being inclined to Ṣūfism, he was inducted into it by (ʿUmar b. Muḥammad) al-Suhrawardī in 608/1211-12. He had a son, ʿUbayd Allāh, who was born on 7 S̲h̲aʿbān 632/27 April 1235. These are about al…

, “freedom,” an abstract formation derived from ḥurr “free” corresponding to Hebrew ḥōr , Aram. ḥēr ( ḥerūt̲ā ), widely used also in Muslim languages other than Arabic. Already in pre-Islamic times, “free” was known not only as a legal term denoting the opposite of “unfree, slave” ( ʿabd [ q.v.]) but also as an Ethical term denoting those “noble” of character and behavior. The legal concept of “freedom” continued to be used as a matter of course by Muslim jurists, who were inclined to give preference to the presumption of a free status for individuals in doubtful cases [see ʿabd …

, the disguise of one of the participants in the transmission of authoritative Neoplatonic thought to Islam based upon a translation of large portions of books IV-VT of the Enneads of Plotinus. Fragments with this designation have been recovered without, however, allowing a reconstruction of the form and extent of his work. It is also debatable whether al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Yūnānī was substituting for the name of a given philosopher and even might have belonged to the entire lost Arabic Plotinus source. The wide range of meaning of s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ [ q.v.] permits a choice between “Greek Teac…

, Abu ’l-Maʿālī Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan , the author of a vast and highly informative collection dealing with a great variety of adab subjects and entitled al-Tad̲h̲kira , which enjoyed much popularity during the Mamlūk period. Born in Rad̲j̲ab 495/April-May 1102 as one of the sons of an official well versed in financial and administrative matters, of a family which claimed to be related to the Ḥamdānids’ ancestor Ḥamdūn, he entered government service, attaining the offices of ʿāriḍ al-ʿaskar (Inspector of the Army) under al-Muḳtafī and ṣāḥib dīwān al-zimām (Dire…

, Abu ’l-Faḍl Aḥmad , Bag̲h̲dādī littérateur and historian. Born in 204/819-20 into a family of Persian origin, he started out as a teacher and eventually took up residence in the bookmen’s bazaar in the Eastern quarter of Bag̲h̲dād, embarking upon a literary career which brought him into contact with many of the outstanding littérateurs and high government officials of his time and resulted in the composition of about fifty works. He was also a poet whose verses provoked criticism—deserved or undeserved—in some quarters. Among other things, he wrote works in the fürstenspiegel …

, 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…

“stories of the ancients,” a phrase occurring nine times in the Ḳurʾān (VI, 25/25, VIII, 31/31, XVI, 24/26, XXIII, 83/85, XXV, 5/6, XXVII, 68/70, XLVI, 17/16, LXVIII, 15/15, and LXXXIII, 13/13; see also EI 2, ¶ IV, 980b, s.v. k̲h̲alḳ ) and there “put exclusively in the mouth of unbelievers ... expressing themselves against the Ḳurʾānic revelation or, more specifically, against the doctrine of the Resurrection, by referring to the asāṭīr of the former (generations) when similar, and in their opinion silly, things could already be found without being accepted” (R. Paret, Der Koran , Komment…

, the author of a work on the Raids ( mag̲h̲āzī [ q.v.]), used by such later authors as Ibn Sayyid al-Nās and al-D̲h̲ahabī. His given name was Muḥammad. His kunya is variously given as Abū ʿAbd Allāh or Abū Aḥmad, and his grandfather’s name as Saʿīd or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Born in Damascus in 150/767, he died there on Thursday, 25 Rabīʿ II 233/8 December 847 (or in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 232/July-August 847, or in 234/848), having been the tax collector for the G̲h̲ūṭa under al-Maʾmūn. As a historian, he stand…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Abu ’l-Faḍl Aḥmad b. Nūr al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Muḥammad , Egyptian ḥadīt̲h̲ scholar, judge, and historian (773-852/1372-1449), whose life work constitutes the final summation of the science of ḥadīt̲h̲ and makes him one of the greatest and, at the same time, most typical representatives of Muslim religious scholarship. He himself did not know the origin of his family name Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar. The nisba ʿAsḳalānī was considered by family tradition to go back to 587/1191, when Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ordered ʿAsḳalān [ q.v.] to be destroyed and its Muslim inhabitants resettled elsewher…

, a family name (borne by a number of apparently unrelated families) which was given great and deserved lustre by three brothers, Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn, ʿIzz al-Dīn, and Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn, who achieved literary fame in the fields of, respectively, philology and religious studies, historiography, and literary criticism. Their father, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm (often but apparently incorrectly: Muḥ. b. Muḥ. b. ʿAbd al-Karīm), whose life spanned the largest part of the 6th/12th century, was a high official of the Zangids of Mosul, stationed in Ḏj̲azīrat Ibn ʿUmar (hence the nisba al-D̲j̲azarī). H…

, pl. ḥawās̲h̲ī , meaning (1) the margin (of pages in[ fī , ʿalā , bi-] which notes could be written), then (2) the marginal note itself (or “note” in general), and, finally, (3) gloss , used in the sing., undoubtedly as a profession of modesty, in titles of independent works, at times of some length, dealing with comments on subjects treated by earlier authors. This last usage is comparatively late; none of the ca. 150 titles listed in Brockelmann, S III, 892-4, antedates the 8th/14th century. Although it was used as a book title all over the Muslim world, ḥās̲h̲iya enjo…

, the name of two tenth-century historians, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲aʿfar (b. 282/895-6, d. 362/972-3) and his son, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh (327/939-398/1007). ʿAbd Allāh’s great-grandfather had been brought to the ʿIrāḳ from Farg̲h̲āna and had become a Muslim under al-Muʿtaṣim. ʿAbd Allāh himself was a student of the great Ṭabarī, whose works he transmitted, and he achieved high rank in the army. ¶ He went to Egypt where his son, it seems, was born, and he and his family remained there. He wrote a continuation of al-Ṭabarī’s historical work, entitled al-Ṣila or al-Mud̲h…

, aḥmad b. yaḥyā b. ḏj̲ābir b. dāwūd , one of the greatest Arabic historians of the 3rd/9th century. Little is known of his life. Neither the year of his birth nor that of his death is directly attested. From the dates of his teachers, it is evident that he cannot have been born later than the beginning of the second decade of the 9th century A.D.; for the date of his death, Muslim authors suggest, as the latest and most likely date, ca. 892 A.D. As he is said to have been a transl…

, D̲j̲amāl al-Dīn abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Saʿīd b. Yaḥyā . an ʿIrāḳī historian, was born in Wāsiṭ on Monday, 26 Rad̲j̲ab 558/Sunday, 30 June 1163, and died in Bag̲h̲dād on Monday, 8 Rabīʿ II 637/7 November 1239. His History of Wāsiṭ is not preserved. His History of Bag̲h̲dād, variously called d̲h̲ayl or mud̲h̲ayyal and extant in individual manuscripts, continues the work of al-Samʿānī, which in turn was a continuation of the Taʾrīk̲h̲ Bag̲h̲dād of the K̲h̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī. It is strictly biographical, containing biographies of those who died…

refers to the son and the four grandsons of ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (said to have died in 171/787-88), a wealthy and influential family of legal scholars and historians in 3rd/9th century Egypt. The Banū ʿAbd al-Ḥakam were among those who introduced Mālikism into Egypt. They were also intimately connected with al-S̲h̲afiʿī [ q.v.], providing the initial financing of his stay in Egypt. Al-S̲h̲āfiʿī is said to have died in their house (Ibn Farḥūn, 134), and he was buried in their family plot. Later, they dissociated themselves from his teaching. Their promi…

, Taḳī al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī al-Makkī al-Ḥasanī al-Mālikī (775-832/ 1373-1429), historian of Mecca, was, through family connexions and upbringing, eminently qualified for his lifework as the outstanding historian of his native city. His father Aḥmad (754-819/1353-1416) had received an excellent scholarly education and was married to a daughter of the Meccan chief judge Abu ’l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-al-ʿAzīz al-Nuwayrī; a daughter of his, and half-sister of the hist…

, normalised mindīl , from Latin/Greek mantēl ( e, -um, ium ), entered Arabic speech in pre-Islamic times, presumably through Aramaic, and has remained in use to this day. Its principal meanings were those of handkerchief, napkin, and towel. Mandīl was, however, understood generally as “piece of cloth” and used for many other purposes, such as covering or carrying something or serving, attached to the body, as an untailored part of dress. Numerous other words were available in Islamic languages as synonyms of mandīl in both its specific and its generalised meanings. Arabic thus had ¶ mas̲h…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. S̲h̲ākir al-Dārānī al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī (686[?]-764/1287-1363), Syrian historian. The date of his birth is uncertain, since only one ms. of Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar’s Durar fills the blank that was to contain it. It is plausible, however, and neither confirmed nor contradicted by the fact that a highly personal obituary notice in the ʿUyūn (Ms. Cambridge 699, fols. 7b-8a, anno 735) speaks of a young scholar born in 706/1306 as “our friend” ( ṣāḥibunā ). Born apparently in Dārayyā in the G̲h̲ūṭa, he spent all his later life in Damascus. He possibly went there to study with famous ḥadī…

, abū zakariyyāʾ yazīd b. muḥ. b. iyās b. al-ḳāsim , historian of Mosul, who died in 334/945-6. While the work on Mosul by Ibrāhīm b. Muḥ. b. Yazīd al-Mawṣilī, who lived a generation before Al-Azdī, appears to have been concerned only with the biographies of religious scholars, al-Azdī wrote both on the "Classes of Mosul ḥadīt̲h̲ Scholars" and on the political history of Mosul, either in one combined or in two separate works. His treatment of ḥadīt̲h̲ scholars is known only from quotations and seems to have been restricted to the limited information usually found in rid̲j̲āl …