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, patronymic deriving from the locality of D̲j̲ard̲j̲arāyā in ʿIrāḳ (on the Tigris, south of Bag̲h̲dād), borne by several viziers of the ʿAbbāsid and Fāṭimid caliphs. 1.—Muḥammad b. al-Faḍl, former secretary of al-Faḍl b. Marwān [ q.v.], was vizier to al-Mutawakkil at the beginning of the reign, after Ibn al-Zayyāt’s disgrace, but was soon discarded by reason of his negligence. Recalled to the vizierate by al-Mustaʿīn in S̲h̲aʿbān 249/September-October 863, he died soon afterwards in the year 250/864-5, aged about eighty (see Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī , iv, 4, ed. Dedering, no. 1878). 2.—Aḥmad …

, vizier to the ʿAbbāsid al-Muʿtaṣim, and an ʿIrāḳi of Christian origin. He began his career modestly as a retainer of Hart̲h̲ama, the commander of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd’s guard. Later, as a result of his particular talents, he became a secretary in the Land Tax office under the same caliph and subsequently he retired to ʿIrāḳ to the estates he had acquired during the civil war. It was there, in the region of al-Baradān, that he had an opportunity, during the reign of al-Maʾmūn, to gain the attentio…

, ʿalī b. abī ʿalī b. muḥ. al-tag̲h̲labī sayf al-dīn ), Arab theologian, born at Āmid in 551/1156-7; at first a Ḥanbalite, he later, at Bag̲h̲dād, entered the ranks of the S̲h̲āfiʿites; he embarked on a study of philosophy which he continued in Syria, became a teacher at the madrasa of al-Ḳarāfa al-Ṣughrā adjoining the mausoleum of al-S̲h̲āfiʿī in Cairo, and in 592/1195-6 became professor at the Ḏj̲āmiʿ al-Ẓāfirī. His intellectual powers and his knowledge of the "rational sciences" ( ʿaḳliyya ) gave him a brilliant reputation, but caused him to be accus…

, a village in the Biḳāʿ of Lebanon, situated at the foot of Mount Lebanon not far from Zahlé on the road to Baʿlabakk. Authors of the Ayyūbid period call it al-Karak, but then in the Mamlūk period it was called Karak Nūḥ. It was actually considered as the locality of the prophet Nūḥ’s tomb, which is still shown and which was apparently already mentioned in the 4th/10th century by the geographer al-Muḳaddasī. The structure which is considered to contain the stone cenotaph of Nūḥ and which is unu…

, Abū Isḥāḳ Muḥammed b. Aḥmad al-Karāriṭī secretary and vizier during the ʿAbbāsid era. Born in Iskāf on the Nahrawān, in ʿIrāḳ, he appears for the first time in 320/932 as the secretary of the police chief of Bag̲h̲dād, Ibn Yāḳūt; he was arrested at the sa me time as his master, in Ḏj̲umādā I 323/April 935, and had to pay a large fine. He was appointed vizier by the Caliph al-Muttaḳī in S̲h̲awwāl 329/July 941, but was dismissed by the great amīr Kūrankīd̲j̲ as early as D̲h̲u’l-Ḳaʿda 329/July-August 941. Having regained his post under Ibn Rāʾiḳ after the flight of the amīr, he was arrested soon …

, “house of wisdom”, used by Arab authors to denote in a general sense the academies which, before Islamic times, spread knowledge of the Greek sciences, and in a particular sense the institute founded in Cairo in 395/1005 by the Fāṭimid caliph al-Ḥākim. Since the short-lived appearance of the Bayt al-Ḥikma [ q.v.] of al-Maʾmūn, several libraries had been founded in ʿIrāḳ and Persia providing not only information on traditional learning, but also an introduction to classical sciences ( ʿulūm al-awāʾil ) (see Dār al-ʿilm ). Such establishments were very successful in Egypt under t…

, or Muḥammad b. Rāʾiḳ , first amīr al-umarāʾ [ q.v.] of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. The son of an officer of the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid, and of K̲h̲azar origin, Ibn Rāʾiḳ had been chief of police, and then chamberlain during the reign of al-Muḳtadir. On the accession of al-Ḳāhir, at first in disgrace for having supported the former caliph and having fled from Bag̲h̲dād, he succeeded in being made governor of Baṣra. When, on the accession of al-Rāḍī, he was made governor also of Wāsiṭ, he became one of the most p…

b. al-ḳāsim b. ṣubayḥ , abū ḏj̲aʿfar , secretary to al-Maʾmūn. He belonged to a mawālī family of secretaries and poets originating from the neighbourhood of al-Kūfa. His father, Yūsuf, was secretary to ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī, ¶ then to Yaʿḳūb b. Dāwūd, and finally to Yaḥyā the Barmakid. It appears that Aḥmad held a secretarial post in ʿIrāḳ at the end of the caliphate of al-Maʾmūn. He was presented to al-Maʾmūn by his friend Aḥmad b. Abī Ḵh̲ālid, and soon attracted notice by his eloquence. He became an intimate of al-Maʾmūn, and at a date impossible to determine accurately, was placed in charge of the d…

, a town in southern Palestine which from ancient times had been an agricultural and caravan centre, situated 4 km. from the sea, on the route leading from Palestine to Syria and at the junction of the caravan-routes coming from Arabia. A frontier-town which often changed hands through the course of the centuries, the ancient ʿAzza , which had been one of the capitals of the Philistines, later became, under the Greek name Gaza , a flourishing Hellenistic city, and afterwards a Roman town belonging to Judaea. In the Byzantine period it formed part…

, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik , vizier of the ʿAbbāsid period. Belonging to a family of merchants who held official positions at the court, Ibn al-Zayyāt attracted attention for his qualities as a secretary and a man of letters, was appointed vizier by the caliph al-Muʿtaṣim in about 221/833, and, with the chief ḳāḍī , Ibn Abī Duʾād, contributed to the direction of the general policy of the empire. Remaining vizier during the caliphate of al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ (227-32/842-7), he encouraged the caliph to impose heavy fines on several secretaries, in particular on the assistan…

, a Ḳurʾānic word of Iranian origin denoting an armed troop. In the Umayyad period the term applies especially to military settlements and districts in which were quartered Arab soldiers who could be mobilized for seasonal campaigns or for more protracted expeditions. Quite naturally it also denotes the corresponding army corps. According to the chroniclers, the caliph Abū Bakr is said to have set up four d̲j̲unds in Syria, of Ḥimṣ, Damascus, Jordan (al-Urdunn, around Tiberias) and Palestine (around Jerusalem and ʿAsḳalān and, afterwards, al-Ramla). Later, the d̲j̲und of Ḳinnasrīn ¶ …

or Fiḥl , an ancient town in Transjordania situated 12 km. south-east of Baysān [ q.v.], was known in earliest antiquity, at the time of el-Amarna, under the name Bik̲h̲il , corresponding to a Semitic p ḥ l. Macedonian colonists settled there in about 310 B.C., giving it the name of the Macedonian town of Pella, which resembled the native name. After the Roman conquest, Pella was one of the towns of the Decapolis, and the Christians took refuge there during the disturbances which followed the destruction of Je…

, “house of science”, the name given to several libraries or scientific institutes established in eastern Islam in the 3rd/9th and 4th/10th centuries. After the disappearance of al-Maʾmūn’s Bayt al-Ḥikma [ q.v.], a man of letters called ʿAlī b. Yaḥyā al-Munad̲j̲d̲j̲im (d. 275/888), friend of al-Mutawakkil and, later, al-Muʿtamid, built a library at his own expense in his residence at Karkar, near Bag̲h̲dād. It was called K̲h̲izānat al-Kutub , and was open to scholars of all countries (Yāḳūt, Irs̲h̲ād , v, 459, 467). Another writer and poet, the S̲h̲āfiʿī faḳīh …

, the eldest son of Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, played an important part during the reign of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd, in the first years of the domination of the Barāmika [ q.v.]. As tutor to the crown prince al-Amīn, on whose behalf he caused the customary oath of loyalty to be sworn by the notables, he was particularly distinguished by the benevolence he showed towards the inhabitants of the eastern provinces and by his policy of conciliation with regard to the ʿAlids, perhaps going so far as to support the establishment of an independe…

(a.) pl. kuttāb , secretary, a term which was used in the Arab-Islamic world for every person whose rôle or function consisted of writing or drafting official letters or administrative documents. In the Middle Ages this term denoted neither a scribe in the literary sense of the word nor a copyist, but it could be applied to private secretaries as well as to the employees of the administrative service. It can denote merely a “book-keeper” as well as the chief clerk or a Secretary of State, directly responsible to the sovereign or to his vizier. The use of kātib is theref…

, a fortress situated to the east of the Dead Sea, in the ancient Moab and at an altitude of ca. 3,000 feet. The name comes from Aramaic kark̲h̲ā “town” and is found in the form χαραχμωβα in Ptolemy (v, 16, 4), on the mosaic map of Mādaba and in Stephen of Byzantium. Its situation on a steep-sided spur, separated from the mountain by a narrow and artificially-deepened moat, makes it an extraordinarily strong site. It is remarkable that we do not hear of it at the time of the Musl…

, district of Transjordania, bounded on the north by. the Yarmūḳ, to the east by the Ḥamād, to the south by the Wādī al-Zarḳāʾ and to the west by the G̲h̲awr, partly corresponding to the old territory of Gilead, and occupied in Roman times by the towns of the Decapolis. The name seems to be of Aramaic origin. A mountanous and wooded district, it was first called Ḏj̲abal Ḏj̲aras̲h̲, later Ḏj̲abal ʿAwf from the name of the turbulent tribe which occupied it in the Fāṭimid period. It was pacified by the amīr ʿIzz al-Dīn Usāma, who, having been g…

Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan , secretary of the ʿAbbāsid period, who was director of the Treasury during the vizierate of ¶ Ḥāmid b. al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.] from 306/918 to 311/923. He wrote a “Book of the Viziers”, which has not survived but which is referred to by various authors, notably al-Masʿūdī. (D. Sourdel) Bibliography D. Sourdel, Vizirat, index.

, large alluvial plain of northern Syria, situated N-E of Antioch and framed in the tectonic depression which separates the Elma Dag̲h̲, or Amanus, from the Kurd Dag̲h̲, and which stretches as far as the lower spurs of the Taurus. With a mean elevation of 260 ft. above sea level, it is largely covered by a lake fringed with marshes, called Buḥayrat Anṭākiyya (“the lake of Antioch”) or Buḥayrat Yag̲h̲rā, and in Turkish Aḳ Deniz; fed from the north by the ʿAfrīn [ q.v.] and the Ḳara Su, streams which are violent when in spate, the lake discharges its waters in the direction of t…

, an ancient fortress in Arabia Petraea situated on the Roman road leading from Buṣrā to the Red Sea, about one mile north ot Ad̲h̲ruḥ [ q.v.]. Like Ad̲h̲ruḥ, it submitted to Muḥammad, in 9/631, on condition of payment of tribute. The distance between Ad̲h̲ruḥ and al-D̲j̲arbāʾ, estimated at “three days’ journey”, has been mentioned frequently in the ḥadīt̲h̲ as an indication of the size of the basin ( ḥawḍ [ q.v.]) where the Prophet will stand on the day of Judgment. The expression “between Ad̲h̲ruḥ and al-D̲j̲arbāʾ“ has thus become proverbial to denote a considerable distance. The place ca…