, currently Tortosa , a town situated on the Ebro in Spain, close to the estuary of this river on the Mediterranean, in the province of Tarragona in Catalonia (Spain), with today approximately 30,000 inhabitants, on the ancient Iberian site of Dertosa, where the Romans established their colony of Julia Augusta. Arab geographers refer occasionally to this “town” ( madīna ), noting its location in the eastern sector of the “Upper March” of al-Andalus ( al-t̲h̲ag̲h̲r al-aʿlā ), of which the regional centre ( ḥāḍira ) Saraḳusṭa (Saragossa) was “120 miles” from …

, Abu ’l-Fawāris S̲h̲īrd̲h̲īl, Būyid ruler (350-79/961-89), the eldest son of ʿAḍud al-Dawla ¶ [ q.v.]. His mother was, like his paternal grandmother, a Turkish slave woman. In 357/967-8, at the age of six or seven, he was given Kirmān as an appanage by his father, then ruling in Fārs. He accompanied his father on his campaign to conquer Bag̲h̲dād in 366/977, but was sent back to Kirmān to remove him from the court not long before ʿAḍud al-Dawla’s death in 372/983. Since the latter had failed to make final arra…

, the term used by Arabic historians and geographers writing about the Mag̲h̲rib and Muslim Spain with the sense of Northmen, Vikings, denoting the participants in the great Viking raids on Spain. These raids were manned from Scandinavia, sc. from Norway, Denmark and to a certain extent ¶ also from Sweden, the raiders leaving Denmark, Norway and Ireland, where Norwegian Vikings from the end of the 830s had gained a firm footing and had founded some minor tributary states towards the beginning of the second millennium A.D. In western Latin and Spanish sources they are called, inter alia, Norm…

, the Prophet of Islam. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. 2. The Prophet in popular Muslim piety. 3. The Prophet’s image in Europe and the West. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. Belief that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God ( Muḥammadun rasūlu ’llāh ) is second only to belief in the Oneness of God ( lā ilāha illā ’llāh ) according to the s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.], the quintessential Islamic creed. Muḥammad has a highly exalted role at the heart of Muslim faith. At the same time the Ḳurʾān and Islamic orthodoxy insist that he was fully human with no supernatural powers. That Muḥammad was one of the greate…

, term which may be translated approximately as chamberlain, used in Muslim countries for the person responsible for guarding the door of access to the ruler, so that only approved visitors may approach him. The term quickly became a title corresponding to a position in the court and to an office the exact nature of which varied considerably in different regions and in different periods. Basically the Master of Ceremonies, the ḥād̲j̲ib often appears as being in fact a superintendent of the Palace, a chief of the guard or a righter of wrongs, s…

( Tas̲h̲lḥiyt ), a dialect of Berber. 1. Linguistic region. Tas̲h̲elḥīt or Tas̲h̲lḥiyt is the most important Berber dialect of Morocco, both by the number of its speakers and by the extent of its area. The space within which it is used as a first language comprises an area within a line in the north connecting Essaouira (Mogador) and Tanant in the High Atlas, a line following the eastern slopes of the High Atlas towards the region of Ouarzazate, a southern line following the course of the Wadi Dra and western one represented by the Atlantic coast from the mouth of the Wadi Noun to Essaouira. From th…

, Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn Ḥasan b. ʿAlā al-Sid̲j̲zī al-Dihlawī (b. 655/1275, d. 737/1336), eminent poet and hagiographer of Islamic India, is principally known for his Dīwān and for the Fawāʾid al-fuʾād , a compilation, made between 707/1307 and 721/1321, of the dicta of his preceptor Niẓām al-Dīn al-Awliyā [ q.v.]. The authoritativeness of the later work is acknowledged by his contemporaries, including the historian Ḍiyā al-Dīn Baranī [ q.v.], as well as in all subsequent hagiographies compiled in India. He was a close friend of Amīr K̲h̲usraw and, like him, attached a…

, the pen-name of Mīrzā Naṣr Allāh, a prominent Persian poet of the Ḳād̲j̲ār period, flor . in the 19th century. According to a reference in Gand̲j̲-i s̲h̲āygān by Mīrzā Ṭāhir Iṣfahānī S̲h̲iʿrī, it may be assumed that S̲h̲ihāb ¶ was born during the twenties of the 19th century. His birthplace was Simīrum, a small town in the Iṣfahān district. His family had a long history of supplying military judges to the government from among its members. S̲h̲ihāb, however, devoted himself from the beginning to the study of Arabic and had an incli…

(a.), intact, sound, i.e. free of damage or blemish, thus "well" as opposed to "ill," and therefore a synonym of ṣaḥīḥ . The word is used as a technical term in various fields: 1. Applied to money, sālim means unclipped coins of full weight, or a sum of money free from charges and deductions. 2. In grammar, it denotes two things: in ṣarf (morphology) a "sound" root, i.e., one in which none of the radicals is a "weak" letter ( ḥarfʿilla , see ḥurūf al-hid̲j̲āʾ ), nor a hamza , nor a geminate; in naḥw (syntax) a word with a "sound" ending, no matter whether the preced…

, name denoting, in Arabic texts, the former Ilerda, an episcopal see, currently Lérida, provincial capital in Spain, to the west of Barcelona, on the Segre. It was a district ( ʿamal ) centre of the Upper March ( al-T̲h̲ag̲h̲r al-alʿā ) to which other towns and a large number of fortified strongholds were subordinate. Situated on a fertile plain, it is surrounded by numerous gardens and orchards. One of its main sources of wealth was constituted by the plantations of fine quality flax which were farmed commercial…

Origins: The Fund̲j̲ appear in the early 10th/16th century as a nomadic cattle-herding people, gradually extending their range down the Blue Nile from Lūl (or Lūlū), an unidentified district, to Sinnār. The foundation of Sinnār, subsequently the dynastic capital, is ascribed to ʿAmāra Dūnḳas in 910/1504-5. Hypotheses of remoter Fund̲j̲ origins among the Shilluk, in Abyssinia, or among the Bulala, are unsubstantiated, while the Sudanese tradition of their Umayyad descent is a typical device for the legitimation of a parvenu Muslim dynasty. Fund̲j̲ kings to the establishment of…

, Abū Unays (or Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ), son of a blood-letter ( ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ām , Ibn Rusta, BGA vii, 215), head of the house of Ḳays. He is reported to have been of a vacillating character ( d̲j̲aʿala yuḳadd̲j̲mu rid̲j̲l an wa-yuʾak̲h̲k̲h̲iru uk̲h̲rā , Ag̲h̲ānī xvii, 111) and this is ¶ borne out by his changing attitude towards the ruling Umayyad house, in which he proved easy to influence. He was a keen follower of Muʿāwiya, first as head of the police ( ṣāḥib al-s̲h̲urṭa ), and then as governor of the d̲j̲und of Damascus. In the year 36/656, al-Ḍaḥḥāk defeated the ʿ…

, formerly also başbakanlik arşivi , the Archives of the Prime Minister’s office, the name now given to the central state archives of Turkey and of the Ottoman Empire. The formation of the Ottoman archives begins with the rise of the Ottoman state, but the present collection, though containing a number of individual documents and registers from earlier times, dates substantially from after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. The archives became really full from about the middle of the 16th century, and continue to the end of the Empire. The organisation of the Ottoman reco…

b. al-Ward, Abū Bisṭām al-ʿAtakī, a mawlā from Baṣra with the honorific s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-islām , was an eminent scholar and collector of ḥadīt̲h̲ [ q.v.]. Born during the years 82-6/702-7, his death from the plague is generally taken to have occurred in 160/776. Originally from Wāsiṭ, he came to live in Baṣra, where he sought out al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī [ q.v.]. S̲h̲uʿba is recorded to have studied masāʾil (= juridical problems) with him, so if that is historical he may be assumed to have arrived there in or before 110/728, the year in which Ḥasan…

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Ḥasan (incorrect var. Ḥusayn ) b. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan al-K̲h̲aṭīb b. ʿAlī b. Maymūn b. Ḳunfud̲h̲ (var. al-Ḳunfud̲h̲ ), Algerian jurist, traditionist and historian born in 731/1330 or, more probably, in 741/1340, died in 809/1406 or 810/1407, in Constantine, a member of a family of teachers and jurists from that town and its environs. His ancestor, Ḥasan b. ʿAlī al-K̲h̲aṭīb, who taught ḥadīt̲h̲ in Constantine and claimed to belong to the confraternity of the S̲h̲ād̲h̲iliyya, died in 664/1265 (cf. Wafayāt , 51); his grandfather ʿAlī b. Ḥasan, also k̲h̲aṭīb …

(?-1065/1655), Ottoman Grand Vizier, was related to the “rebel” Ābāza Meḥmed Pas̲h̲a (see ābāza , i) (his sister’s son according to Naʿīmā (ed. of 1282), ii, 302, iii, 194, v, 196; his uncle’s son, according to Ḥadīḳat al-d̲j̲awāmiʿ , i, 182); his nickname Ips̲h̲ir is probably due to his belonging to the Apsil tribe of the Abk̲h̲āz [ q.v.] (see Ismail Berkok, Tarihde Kafkasya , Istanbul 1958, 142). He was brought up by Ābāza Meḥmed Pas̲h̲a, who, as governor of Aleppo, procured him the post of sand̲j̲aḳ-begi of Tarsus in 1026/1617 (Naʿīmā, v, 196). He was wit…

, the nisba of two Andalusian traditionists, father and son, both connected with the northern Spanish town of Saraḳusṭa [ q.v.] or Saragossa. These are Abū Muḥammad Ḳāsim b. T̲h̲ābit b. Ḥazm b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muṭarrif b. Sulaymān b. Yaḥyā al-ʿAwfī al-Zuhrī (255-302/869-914) and his father Abu ’l-Ḳāsim T̲h̲ābit (217-313/832-925 or 314/926). The biographical sources mention variants in their nasab that show that their genealogy was manipulated. They were Berbers who had established ties of walāʾ ( walāʾ ʿalāḳa ) with the Banū Zuhra, as all the Berbers…

, a term referring to an extremist S̲h̲īʿī group which originated within the ʿAbbāsid movement in K̲h̲urāsān. The term was subsequently expanded to include at times the entire ʿAbbāsid s̲h̲īʿa , but unless otherwise stated it will be used in this article in its original sense. It is said in some sources to derive from al-Ḳāsim b. Rāwand or from Abu ’l-ʿAbbās al-Rāwandī, both of whom are otherwise unknown; other sources more plausibly derive it from ʿAbd Allāh al-Rāwandī, who appears in a list of propagandists ( duʿāt ) of Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.] (see Ak̲h̲bār al-dawl…

(a.), difference, also inconsistency; as a technical term, the differences of opinion amongst the authorities of religious law, both between the several schools and within each of them; opp. id̲j̲māʾ , ittifāḳ . The ancient schools of law, on the one hand, accepted geographical differences of doctrines as natural; on the other hand, they voiced strong objections to disagreement within each school, an opinion which was mitigated by their acceptance as legitimate of different opinions if based on id̲j̲tihād . The rising tide of traditions from the Prop…

, Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ite leader (belonging to the Ibāḍi al-Nukkār [ q.v.]), who by his revolt shook the Fāṭimid realm in North Africa to its foundations. His father, a Zanāta Berber merchant from Taḳyūs (or Tūzar) in the district of Ḳastīliya, bought in Tadmakat a slave girl called Sabīka, who bore him Abū Yazīd about 270/883 (apparently in the Sūdān). Abū Yazīd studied the Ibāḍī mad̲h̲hab and became a schoolmaster in Tāhart. At the time of the victory of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-S̲h̲īʿī he moved to Taḳyūs and started, in 316/928, his anti-government …