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, al-Ṭāhir, écrivain tunisien nainaliste et réformiste, qui est considéré comme le ¶ pionnier du mouvement de libération de la femme dans son pays. Né à Tunis vers 1899, dans une modeste famille originaire de la Ḥāma de Gabès, il fit ses études à la Zaytūna [ q.v.] de 1911 à 1920 et obtint le taṭwīʿ (correspondant au diplôme de fin d’études secondaires). Il participa ensuite à l’activité syndicale et fut chargé de la propagande dans une organisation fondée en 1924, la Ḏj̲āmiʿat ʿumūm al-ʿamala al-tūnisiyya, dont les principaux promoteurs furent poursuivis et bannis en 1925. Ses …

, écrit en lettres arabes Tūbū, peuple du Sahara oriental. Il se trouve dispersé sur un immense territoire, entre, à l’est le désert Libyen, sur les franges de l’Égypte et de la Libye; à l’ouest, le massif du Hoggar/Ahaggar [ q.v.], en Algérie mériodionale; au nord, le Fezzan [voir Fazzān], région de Libye méridionale; et au sud, la moitié septentrionale du Tchad [voir Čad, dans Suppl.] et les franges du Soudan. Au Fezzan, ils forment la majeure part de la population dans le district de Gatrūn, et un petit nombre d’entre eux se trouvent dans l’oasis de Kufra [ q.v.]. Le plateau de Djado [voir Ḏj̲ād…

(a.), nom verbal de la deuxième forme du verbe kaffara «déclarer quelqu’un kāfir ou incroyant». Depuis les débuts de l’époque islamique, ce fut une accusation lancée violemment aux opposants par des sectaires et des zélotes, tels les Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ites [ q.v.]. Pourtant, un théologien comme al-G̲h̲azālī [ q.v.] affirmait que, puisque l’adoption du kufr était équivalente à l’apostasie, encourant la peine de mort [voir Murtad], on ne pouvait porter cette accusation à la légère ( Fayṣal al-tafriḳa bayn al-Islām wa l-zandaḳa, cité dans B. Lewis, The political language of Islam, Chicago-Lon…

, Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, poète et lettré du IVe/Xe siècle dont l’origine est inconnue. Il semble s’être beaucoup déplacé puisqu’on le trouve au service de Sayf al-dawla, d’al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād et du maître du Ḵh̲urāsān, qu’il rencontra Abū l-Farad̲j̲ al-Iṣfahānī et séjourna aussi en Égypte, au Ḏj̲abal, en Transoxiane, au S̲h̲ās̲h̲. Les poèmes que l’on possède de ce grand voyageur sont des pièces de circonstance ¶ sans grande originalité, mais il serait l’auteur de plusieurs épîtres et livres, notamment d’une Tuḥfat al-kuttāb fī l-rasāʾil et d’une Tad̲h̲kirat/Mud̲h̲ākarat al-…

[German Version] The ancient port of Dor ( Dw/'r; Dū'ru; Δῶρος/ Dṓros; Δῶρα/ Dṓra) is identical with Ḥel-Burğ (1425/2247). Dor is attested from Ramses II on and is mentioned as the dwelling place of the Tkr, a group of sea-peoples, in the travel report of Wenamun (1075). From Solomon on, it was claimed to be within Israelite territory (1 Kgs 4:11). The book of Joshua has another opinion (Josh 11:2, etc.). A seal (8th cent.) mentions a …

[German Version] I. Old Testament Philistines (Heb. פְּלִשְׁתִים/ pelištîm; LXX ϕυλιστιείμ/ phylistieím [12 occurrences] and ἀλλόϕυλος/ allóphylos [269 occurrences]; Egyp. pl/rst) are represented in the Bible as living in the “Land of the Philistines” (Gen 21:32; Exod 13:17; 1 Sam 30:16 etc.); for Jewish narrators most specifically the area extending from Ashdod through Gath and Ekron to the boundary of Judea itself (1 Sam 5:1–12; 6:1). Their leaders are a group of five cooperating “princes” (Josh 13:3; Judg 3:3; …

[German Version] (Jul 29, 1899, Dinxperlo – Jan 29, 1981, Amersfoort), professor of Old Testament and Semitic languages at Groningen from 1941 to 1956 and at Utrecht for 1956 to 1969 (1965–1966 in Beirut). For decades Vriezen was the preeminent Old Testament scholar of the Netherlands; he received an honorary doctorate from Bern in 1964. As a pastor, along with O. Eißfeldt, Aage Betzen, W. Eichrodt, and others he took part in the 1924 training course of the Deutsches Evangelis…

, ʿalī b. mūsā b. ʿalī b. arfaʿ (Rāfiʿ) rāsuh al-andalusī al-ḏj̲ayyānī (515-93/1121-97), a preacher of Fez, and member of a family of whom one person (Ibn Arfaʿ Rāsuh) is mentioned in the 5th/11th century at Toledo as a composer of muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥāt (Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb has preserved ten examples in his D̲j̲ays̲h̲ al-taws̲h̲īḥ , Nos. 49-58; cf. S.M. Stern, Les chansons mozarabes, Palermo 1953, 43-4; E. García Gómez, Métrica de la moaxaja y métrica española , in al-And ., xxxix (1974), 25). ʿAlī b. Mūsā’s fame rests on a poem in 1,414 verses (rhyme -ṭā , metre ṭawīl ) on the…

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(t.), the Ottoman Turkish form of Ar. mufattis̲h̲ , lit. “one who searches out, enquires into something”. In the Ottoman legal system of the 12th/18th century, below the Great Mollās [see mollā ] there was a layer of five judges called müfettis̲h̲ , whose duties were to oversee and enquire into the conducting of the Imperial ewkāf or pious foundations [see waḳf ], three of them being resident in Istanbul and one each in Edirne and Bursa (see Gibb and Bowen, ii, 92). In the 19th century, and with the coming of the Tanẓīmāt [ q.v.] reforms, müfettis̲h̲ was the designation for the overseers an…

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Ottoman Ṣūfī poet of Edirne in the early 12th/18th century. His birth date is unknown, but he was a Mewlewī murīd at that order’s Murādiyya convent in Edirne, where he received his instruction from the famous s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ …

, Abu ’l-K̲h̲aṭṭāb muslim (or Salm, or ʿAbd Allāh) b. Muḥriz , famous musician and singer of Mecca, who lived in the 1st-2nd/7th-8th centuries. A mawlā of Persian origin of the ʿAbd al-Dār b. Kusayy and the son of a sādin of the Kaʿba, he was first the pupil of Ibn Misd̲j̲aḥ [ q.v.], and then of ʿAzzat al-Maylāʾ [ q.v.], going to Medina to receive lessons from her; he then completed his musical education in Persia and Syria, where he studied Greek music. He is said to have later chosen what seemed best to him from these different musical traditions and i…

(a. pl. ruʾūs / arʾus ), “head”, in geography the common word for “cape” (cf. Latin caput → cape), but it is also used with the meaning of “headland, promontory”. The Musandam Peninsula in ʿUmān is some…

( = ʿAfīf al-Dīn?) b. Ḥātim b. Muslim al-Maḳdisī al-S̲h̲āfīʿī. the author of a work in Arabic on ancient Egypt of which the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris once possessed a ms. of the 10th/16th century, now lost, but of which there exists a French translation by the translator of al-Makīn [ q.v.], Pierre Vattier (d. 1667), and published at Paris in 1666 under the title L’Égypte de Murtadifils du Gaphiphe , où il est traité des Pyramides , du débordement du Nil et des autres merveilles de cette Province , selon les opinions et tradi…

, a place in the northeastern part of the mediaeval Indian province of Gud̲j̲arāt [ q.v.], lying to the east of modern Pat́an. It is mentioned in the history of the Muslim sultans of Gud̲j̲arāt as a pilgrimage centre much revered by the local Hindus but sacked in ca. 816/1414 by Sultan ¶ …

, son of the famous Mālik b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ al-Nak̲h̲aʿī [see al-as̲h̲tar ] and himself a soldier attached to the ʿAlid party. It is said that he had already fought at Ṣiffīn [ q.v.] in the ranks of ʿAlī, but his historical importance is based on his action in support of al-Muk̲h̲tār b. Abī ʿUbayd [ q.v.]. In fact he seems to have hesitated before joining the agitator, and the chroniclers themselves consider that it was necessary for the latter to forge a letter which purported to be written by Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafiyya to Ibrāhīm before the latter agr…

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ras̲h̲īd al-Sid̲j̲ilmāssī , Moroccan scholar who owned his nisba to Ibrāhīm b. Hilāl (d. 903/1497; see Brockelmann, S II, 348), the ancestor of a family of intellectuals in Sid̲j̲ilmāssa. He was born in that town in 1113/1701, and began his studies there, going on to Fās for them, and then returning to the Tāfilālt, where he gathered round himself numerous pupils. He also obtained id̲j̲…

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was in the middle ages the name of the village now called La-Garde-Freinet, lying in a gap in the Mt. des Maures (département of Var, France). This locality only finds a place in this Encyclopaedia because it was occupied for 80 years by Muslim pirates who had come from Spain between 278-81/891-4. Having gained a footing in the gulf of Saint-Tropez, they occupied a natural fortress (Fraxinet, Freinet) near the modern village of La-Garde-Freinet; “soon reinforced by new groups from the Iberian peninsula, the invaders visited the county of Fréjus with fire and the sword, ¶ and sacked the ch…

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, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh , a Muʿtazilī of the Bag̲h̲dād branch and a native of Samarḳand. The date of his birth is unknown, but he is known to have reached a great age and to have died in 240/854. He began life as a tailor, and his parents prevented him from continuing his studies, but Ḏj̲aʿfar b. Ḥarb [ q.v.] took him under his care and initiated him in the Iʿtizāl . Possessing a lively intelligence, knowledge of many subjects, and a lofty moral sense, he enjoyed the esteem and respect of al-Muʿtaṣim, who seems to have used him as …

b. Muḥammad b. (al-) Ḥasan b. K̲h̲alaf b. Ḥāzim al-Anṣārī al-Ḳarṭād̲j̲annī abu ’l-Ḥasan , poet, grammarian and theorist of rhetoric, born in 608/1211 in Cartagena, in a family of Awsī ancestry. From his father, who was ḳāḍī of the town, he received an education oriented towards grammar, the Arabic language, tradition and Mālikī fiḳh ; he continued his studies in Murcia, ¶ and then in Seville and Granada and came under the influence of al-S̲h̲alawbīn [ q.v.], who inspired him to study Greek philosophy through the medium of the works of the philosophers writing in Arabic, above all Ibn Sīnā. After his father’s death (632/1234), he went to Marrākus̲h̲ where he shared in the literary activity in the entourage of the Almohad caliph al-Ras̲h̲īd (630-40/1032-42); he then crossed the Mag̲h̲rib to take up the position of secretary in the chancellery of the Ḥafṣid Abū Zakariyyāʾ I (625-47/1228-49). His immense learning in the fields of grammar and rhetoric…

, Ḥamdūn b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī al-Mirdāsī al-Fāsī (1174-1232/1760-1817), “one of the most outstanding scholars of the reign of Mawlay Sulaymān” (1206-38/1792-1823), according to E. Lévi-Provençal, Les historiens des Chorfa , Paris 1922, 342, n. 5). As the faḳīḥ appointed to the Moroccan sultan, he filled the office of muḥtasib of Fās, then of ḳāʾid of the G̲h̲arb, before devoting a great part of his activites to literature. He is the author of several commentaries and glosses, of epistles of a religious character and of an account of the pilg…

, ‘the Sea of the Greeks’, or al-baḥr al-rūmī , ‘the Greek Sea’, i.e. the Mediterranean, both names being in use from an early date to denote especially the E. Mediterranean, where Byzantine fleets were liable to be encountered. As ¶ the Muslim conquests extended, these names were applied to the whole Mediterranean, for which Baḥr al-Rūm is still in use. The Mediterranean was also called al-Baḥr al-S̲h̲āmī, or Baḥr al-S̲h̲ām, ‘the Sea of Syria’, and Baḥr al-Mag̲h̲rib, ‘the Sea of the West’. The sea thus variously named began, according to Arabic geographers, considerably to th…

(a., from the form IV verb aḥalla ), literally, “those who make lawful [what is unlawful]”, an expression used in early Islamic historical texts to denote those who had shed the blood of al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī [ q.v.]; it was accordingly especially used by those seeking vengeance against the Umayyads for the clash at Karbalāʾ [ q.v.] and by the partisans of the Ahl al-Bayt , the proto-S̲h̲īʿa. Above all, it was used by al-Muk̲h̲tār b. Abī ʿUbayd [ q.v.] at the time of his revolt in Kūfa (66-7/685-7), including by al-Muk̲h̲tār himself when he extracted allegiance ( bayʿa ) fro…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Manṣūr , known as Ibn al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ , ¶ grammarian, a native of Samarḳand who lived in Baṣra and Bag̲h̲dād. In Bag̲h̲dād he is said to have quarrelled over grammatical matters with al-Zad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (d. 316/928 [ q.v.]). Among his pupils are mentioned Abu ’l-Ḳāsim al-Zad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ī and Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī. The latter, in a reply to Sayf al-Dawla, denied having tried to denigrate Ibn al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ (see Yāḳūt); and from this we learn also that at a certain period of his life the grammarian became afflicted …

(a.), also irtid̲j̲āʿ , the term coined in modern Arabic for reaction in the political sense (from r-d̲j̲-ʿ “to return”). Towards the same end of the political spectrum appear also the terms muḥāfiẓ “conservative” and muḥāfaẓa “conservatism”; cf. A. Ayalon, Language and change in the Arab Middle East , New York-Oxford 1987, 125. (Ed.)

(a.), a term frequently applied to mediaeval Islamic textiles, from silks to woollen materials, and denoting a pattern of lines in the cloth forming quadrangular compartments, i.e. checks (Dozy, Supplément, i, 352). Such cloths seem to have been woven almost everywhere in the Islamic lands; see R.B. Serjeant, Islamic textiles, material for a history up to the Mongol conquest, Beirut 1972, index s.v. (Ed.)

, literally “leaf”, which has become the usual term in modern Arabic for a newspaper, its adoption being attributed to Fāris al-S̲h̲idyāḳ [ q.v.]. Its synonym ṣaḥīfa is less used in the sing., but the plural ṣuḥuf is more common than d̲j̲arāʾid . Some interest in the European press was shown by the Ottomans as early as the 18th century and, it would seem, excerpts from European newspapers were translated for the information of the dīwān (Prussian despatch from Constantinople, of 1780, cited by J. W. Zinkeisen, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches , vi, Gotha 1859, …

, the nisba of several persons originally from Majorca (Mayurḳa [ q.v.]) or residents of the island. In his Muʿd̲j̲am al-buldān , iv, 720-3, s.v. Mayurḳa, Yāḳūt mentions a certain number. In addition to al-Ḥumaydī [ q.v.], the best-known person with this last nisba, one should mention the name of Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ṭunayz, who seems to have led quite a lively existence. According to Yāḳūt, iv, 722-3, he was a good grammarian (cf. al-Suyūṭī, Bug̲h̲ya , 327) who was also concerned with the Ḳurʾān readings; he naturally collected ḥadīt̲h̲ s at…

, the ancestor of the Banū Kalb, the strongest group of the Ḳuḍāʿa [ q.v.]. His mother, Umm al-Asbuʿ, was so called because all her sons were named after wild animals (T. Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge , 75 ff.). The Kalb were, according to the genealogical system (Ibn al-Kalbī, Ḏj̲amharat al-nasab etc.), of Yemenite descent, but sometimes they claimed for political reasons to belong to the Northern Arabs or even to Ḳurays̲h̲. I.—Pre-Islamic period Their greatest chieftain was Zuhayr b. Ḏj̲anāb. who had great authority among the northern tribes; so he was sent by Abraha [ q.v.] to control the Bak…

, the capital of Mauritania [see mūrītāniyā ]. It was created ex nihilo near a site occupied by a small village and a ksar [see Ḳaṣr ]. The choice of its situation was made the object of serious studies, since it was necessary that it should be accessible, easily supplied with drinking water and distant ¶ enough from the Senegal River to escape inundations like that of 1950. Several plans of urban design were put forward even before independence was conceded to Mauritania (1960), and construction work, begun in 1958, has not ceased since that date i…

, a muzāwad̲j̲a [ q.v.] in the Arabic manner used of two aspects of the single idea of nobility. The second term denotes kinship, the relationship, particularly ancestral, i.e. the genealogy of an individual or a tribe, the record of which, in the time of the D̲j̲āhiliyya, was carefully maintained by the nassāba and which, under Islam, formed a branch of history [see nasab ]. The nasab , which was an element of honour, was based not only on consanguinity but also on maternal descent, although the relationship on the paternal side, which wa…

, ilyās (usual orthography, Elias Abou Chabakeh), Maronite poet, journalist and translator (1903-47). He was born in Providence, R.I., whilst his parents were travelling in the United States, but he spent all his life in Lebanon, dividing his time between his home in the village of Zūḳ Mīk̲h̲āʾīl (in Kisrawān), from which his family came, and the cafés and editorial offices of Beirut, to which he went each day. His father held some estates in the region of Khartoum, but in 1914, when he went there, was murdered by bandits. Hence the young orphan had soon to inter…

, a station on the Kūfa to Mecca Pilgrimage route, the so-called Darb ¶ Zubayda [ q.v. in Suppl.]. It lay in Nad̲j̲d in what is now the northeastern corner of Saudi Arabia, towards the ʿIrāḳī border, in approx. lat. 28° 50′ N., long. 43° 20′ E. some 180 km/112 miles north-north-east of Fayd [ q.v. in Suppl.]. It is mentioned by such geographers as Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, Ibn Rusta, Ḳudāma and al-Muḳaddasī, and such pilgrims as Ibn D̲j̲ubayr and Ibn Baṭṭūṭa passed through it. It was the birthplace of the 2nd/8th century poet Ibn Mutayr [ q.v.]. Today, the site of al-T̲h̲aʿlabiyya is in the s…

, Muḥammad al-Rūmī , early Ottoman Ḥanafī scholar and father of Ḳuṭb al-Dīn-zāde Muḥammad [ q.v.]. He was born at Iznīḳ [ q.v.] and died there on 8 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 821/7 December 1418. Popular story puts him in contact with the conqueror Tīmūr when the latter occupied Anatolia, and he was the author of commentaries on the work of the great Spanish mystic Ibn al-Arabī [ q.v.]. (Ed.) Bibliography Ṭās̲h̲köprüzāde, al-S̲h̲aḳāʾiḳ al-nuʿmāniyya, Beirut 1395/1975, 24, German tr. O. Rescher, Constantinople-Galata 1927, 18-19.

(Berb.), argan-tree ( argania spinosa or argania sideroxylon), a tree of the family Sapotaceae which grows on the southern coast of Morocco. A shrub with hard, tough wood, it produces a stone whose kernel, when ground, yields a much-valued oil; the oil-cakes are given to cattle. The word is also known to some of the Arabic-speakers of Morocco, but they look upon it as a loan-word. (Ed.) Bibliography Ibn al-Bayṭār, no. 1248 L. Brunot, Textes arabes de Rabat, ii, Glossary, Paris 1952, 6-7 V. Monteil, Contribution ŕ l’étude de la flore du Sahara occidental, ii, Paris 1953, no. 409 (with a bibl.) A.…

(a.), pl. ḳanawāt , ḳanā , ḳunī , aḳniya , “canal, irrigation system, water-pipe”. Used also for a baton, a lance, etc., the term originally meant “reed” [see ḳaṣab ] and it is with this meaning and that of “rush” that the word ḳanū is known in Akkadian (cf. Zimmern, Akkad. Fremdwörter , Leipzig 1915, 56); becoming ḳanä in Hebrew and ḳanyā in Aramaic, it passed into Arabic and was also borrowed in Greek and Latin in the forms χάννα χάννη (χάνη), canna ; by an evolution parallel to that of ḳanāt , the Latin word canalis “in the shape of a reed”, acquired the meaning of “pipe, canal”. In Persian ḳanāt is u…

, conventionally Dhafarah, the interior region of the shaykhdom of Abū Ẓaby [ q.v.], now a constituent of the United Arab Emirates [see al-imārāt al-ʿarabiyya al-muttaḥida , in Suppl.], the undefined southern frontier of which marches with the easternmost part of Saudi Arabia. Al-Ẓafra forms the traditional territory of the Banū Yās [ q.v.] and the Banu ’l-Manāṣīr [ q.v.]. (Ed.) Bibliography J.G. Lorimer, Gazeteer of the Persian Gulf, ʾ Oman and Central Arabia, Calcutta 1908-15, ii.A, 412-26.

, a former slave of Yemenī origin (on the D̲j̲uras̲h̲, see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 278), who was freed, and then was married to al-Mahdī, to whom she bore three children, Mūsā (al-Hādī), Hārūn (al-Ras̲h̲īd) and a daughter called al-Bānūḳa (Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif , 380). According to a tradition given in particular by al-D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī ( Wuzarāʾ , 136), she suckled al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲ālid al-Barmakī, whilst al-Faḍl’s mother provided milk for Hārūn; this kind of alliance through co-lactation would accordingly explain the de…

(Ar.), a term applied to a wild animal or bird which passes from right to left before a traveller or hunter; although opinions differ on this point, this is generally interpreted as a bad omen, because, it is said, it presents its left side to the hunter who does not have time to take aim at it; an animal which passes from left to right ( sāniḥ ) is on the contrary of good omen. The nāṭiḥ approaches from the front, and the ḳaʿīd from the rear. (Ed.) Bibliography Freytag, Einleitung, 163 Wellhausen, Reste 2, 202 Doutté, Magic at religion, 359 Ḏj̲āḥiẓ. Tarbīʿ, ed. Pellat, index L.A. s.v. Maydānī, under ma…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan, poet, man of letters and S̲h̲āfiʿī faḳīh of the 5th/11th century, known as Ibn Abi ’l-Ṣaḳr al-Wāsiṭī. Born in D̲h̲u’l-Ḳaʿda 409/March-April 1019, he died on 14 D̲j̲umādā I 498/1 February 1105. A disciple, at the Niẓāmiyya [ q.v.] in Bag̲h̲dād, of al-S̲h̲īrāzī (393-476/1003-83 [ q.v.]) whose funeral elegy he wrote, he is noted for his ardent attachment to S̲h̲āfiʿī doctrine, and he composed on this topic some poems called s̲h̲āfiʿiyya . He himself collected his verses in a Dīwān in one volume which may have allowed him to exercise his gif…

the Isagoge of Porphyry [see furfūriyūs ]. According to Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī ( Ṭabaḳāt al-umam , ed. Cheikho, Beirut 1912, 49, tr. Blachère, Paris, 1935, 101), it seems that Ibn al-Muḳaffaʿ [ q.v.] was the first person to translate this introduction to logic into Arabic. The Fihrist (i, 244), on the other hand, maintains that it was Ayyūb b. al-Raḳḳī, whc based himself on a Syriac translation. Among the Arabic adaptations of the Isagoge we possess that of Abu ’l-Ḥasan Ibrāhīm b. ʿUmar al-Biḳāʿī al-S̲h̲afiʿī (see Brockelmann, S II, 177). with a commentary by al-Sanūsī (…

(a.). 1. As a term applied to the ancient South Arabian script. In the first couple of centuries AD, Sabaean and ¶ Ḳatabanian inscriptions used the term ms 3 nd for an inscribed bronze plaque affixed ( musnad ) to the wall of a temple; by the 5th-6th centuries AD it came to be applied to inscriptions engraved directly on a rock face. In early Islamic times, musnad designated any inscription in the pre-Islamic South Arabian alphabet, the earliest examples of which date back to the first half of the first millenium BC. This has close affinities both with the scri…

(p.), literally “the person who draws the curtain”, a term used among the dynasties of the eastern Islamic world from the Sald̲j̲ūḳ period onwards as the equivalent of Arabic ḥād̲j̲ib , i.e. for the court official, the chamberlain, who controlled access to the ruler, the latter being normally veiled from public gaze.. For this function, see Ḥād̲j̲ib . (Ed.)

, a valley some 30 miles/50 km northnorth-east of Mawṣil in ʿIrāḳ, in the ḳaḍāʾ of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲an and in a largely Kurdish mountain area, famed as the principal pilgrimage centre of the Yazīdī sect [see yazīdīs ]. The d̲j̲amāʿiyya of the Yazīdīs is held from the 23th to the 30th September O.S. (6th to the 13th October N.S.) each year, and revolves round the shrine of the founder, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAdī b. Musāfir [ q.v.] and the tombs of other early saints of the sect. The first European to attend and ¶ describe the festival seems to have been Sir Henry Layard in 1846 and 1849; a valuable des…

(“deifiers of ʿAlī”), a vague and popular designation of sects connected with, and issued from, S̲h̲īʿa extremism ( g̲h̲ulāt , [ q.v.]). In Persia and Kurdistān it covers chiefly the Ahl-i Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.] and Ḳi̊zi̊l-bas̲h̲ [ q.v.], but may occasionally refer to such smaller communities as Ṣarli, S̲h̲abbak [ qq.v] etc. (Ed.)

, a basalt desert, “a district covered with black broken stones, which looks as if it had been burned by fire”. Such ḥarras , which owe their origin to subterranean volcanoes which have repeatedly covered the undulating desert with a bed of lava, are found particularly in the east of Ḥawrān and stretch from there to Medina. Al-Samhūdī, K̲h̲ulāṣat al-wafāʾ bi-ak̲h̲bār dār al-Muṣṭafā , Mecca ed., 1316, 38 gives a detailed description of a great earthquake at Medina which began on 1 D̲j̲umādā II 654/26 June 1256 and lasted several days (see also Wüstenfeld, Geschichte von Madyna …

, conventionally Tindouf , a small town in the southwestern part of modern Algeria, in the governorate ( wilāya ) of Saoura and at the southwestern end of the Hamada of the Dra near where the modern borders of Algeria, Morocco, the former Spanish Sahara and Mauritania meet (lat. 27° 42’ N., long. 80° 10’ W.). It is now on the road connecting western Algeria with Mauritania, with an airstrip, and has recently acquired economic and political importance because of the proximity of iron ore depos…

Pas̲h̲a (1272-1343/1855-1924), late Ottoman statesman and close counselor of Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II [ q.v.]. Born in Damascus (hence his nickname “ʿArab”) as the son of a wealthy local notable, Hōlō Pas̲h̲ā, he was educated in his hometown and in Beirut and became proficient in Turkish and French. Counted among the reformers, he edited a weekly in Arabic and Turkish, named Dimas̲h̲ḳ . Moving to Istanbul, he eventually joined the ranks of the chamberlains ( ḳurenā ) of ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd and then became a Second Secretary ( ikind̲j̲i kātib ) of the Mābeyn [ q.v.]. He gained great influence ¶ at co…

, the name of various places in the Middle East. These include: 1. A settlement of Diyār Muḍar in al-Ḏj̲azīra, placed by Yāḳūt in the district of al-Ruhā [ q.v.] or Edessa and said to have been laid out by the ʿAbbāsid governor of Syria ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ṣāliḥ. He also quotes a (now lost) history of Mawṣil by the Ḵh̲ālidiyyāni [ q.v.] that the caliph al-Mahdī began the work of fortification there. Bibliography Yāḳūt, Buldān, ed. Beirut, iii, 389-90. 2. A settlement to the north of the old city of Damascus, on the slopes of Mount Ḳāsiyūn [ q.v.]. Yāḳūt describes it as a large village with markets and ¶ a …

(a., pl. wulāt ), from the root w-l-y “to be near something”, hence “to be in charge of something”, comes to mean “person in authority, governor, prefect, administrator manager”, with the maṣdar of wilāya for his office and/or sphere of competence. The word occurs once in the Ḳurʾān, XIII, 12/11, applied to God in the sense of “patron, protector”. See on aspects of the function of the governor in mediaeval Islamic times, amīr . A near-synonym is ḥākim “one who exercises power, jurisdiction, etc.” Under the Ottomans, the wālī , also termed pas̲h̲a [ q.v.], was the governor of a province, eyālet …

(a.), pls. aymān , aymun , literally, “the right hand”, but often used in Arabic with the transferred sense of “oath”. In human life and activity, the right hand often symbolises power and the ability to initiate actions. The Arabic word yamīn has such connotations as fortune and prosperity, whilst the wider term yad “hand in general” covers a vast semantic range: power, help’, strength, sufficiency, ability to act, etc. The right hand can have a cultic significance, as with the bronze hand, probably from the vicinity of Ṣanʿāʾ and now in the British Museum, with a South Arabian ex voto inscri…

, a village in the oasis of Marw in K̲h̲urāsān, according to al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 94-5 (who names various ʿulamāʾ from it; cf. also Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 49), two farsak̲h̲s from the chef-lieu Marw al-S̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān [ q.v.]. Its chief fame is that, at the time of the ʿAbbāsid Revolution, in 130/747-8, the Umayyad governor of K̲h̲urāsān, Naṣr b. Sayyār [ q.v.], threatened by the rising under Abū Muslim, appointed his commander Abu ’l-D̲h̲ayyāl over Tūsān; but the latter’s oppressive behaviour prompted Abū Muslim to send a force which…

, a nisba borne by members of the famed Egyptian family of s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ s of the Bakriyya Ṣūfī order [see al-bakrī b. abi ’l-surbūr and bakriyya ]; it related to their claimed descent from the first caliph Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīḳ [ q.v.]. (Ed.)

, a town of Kirmān province, central Persia (lat. 30° 25ʹ N., long. 56° 00ʹ E., altitude 1,572 m/5,156 ft.), situated on the Yazd road 120 km/74 miles to the west of Kirmān city. It is the cheflieu of a s̲h̲ahrastān or district of the same name. Known also as Bahrāmābād, in 1991 it had an estimated population of 87,798 ( Preliminary results of September 1991 census, Statistical Centre of Iran, Population Division). Its chief claim to fame is as the home of the present (1993) head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran “President and Prime Minister” ʿAlī Akbar Hās̲h̲imī Rafsand̲j̲ānī. (Ed.) Bibli…

, name given to the eastern Hazāra inhabiting the mountainous region of central Afg̲h̲ānistān between Kābul and Harāt; in Irān, the region of Mas̲h̲had, Balūčistān (near Quetta), and in the S.S.R. of Turkmenistān, the oasis of Kus̲h̲ka (district of Maki) [see hazāra ]. (Ed.)

(A.), son. The Arab grammarians and lexicographers, who tend to trace all words to three root elements, generally attribute ibn to a root *b.n.w. ¶ and consider that it derives from a hypothetical *banaw un by loss of the 3rd sonant radical. Others state that the root is b.n.y. and that the word ibn comes from the verb banā / yabnī ʿalā “set up [a tent] on”, and, by extension, “marry”. In reality, we have an ancient Semitic biliteral, which is nevertheless triliteralized in the relative adjective banawī and in the abstract noun bunuwwa . The fern, bint , formed with the fem. indicator -t, has a ri…

, a slave singing-girl ( ḳayna [ q.v.]) in the earliest days of Islam. She is mentioned as being in the poetry and music-making circles of Medina in ʿUt̲h̲mān’s caliphate, i.e. the middle years of the 7th century A.D., and as being the teacher ( ustād̲h̲a ) of the celebrated singer ʿAzza al-Maylāʾ [ q.v.]. (Ed.) Bibliography Ag̲h̲ānī 1, xvi, 13=3xvi, 162 H. G. Farmer, A history of Arabian music, London 1929, 46, 54, 147.

, a town and district in southern Kurdistān, since the Ottoman reconquest of ʿIrāḳ from the Ṣafawids in the 11th/17th ¶ century under nominal Ottoman suzerainty, and since the aftermath of the First World War in the kingdom and then republic of ʿIrāḳ. The town lies in lat. 35° 32′ E. and long. 45° 27′ N. at an altitude of 838 m/2,750 feet, and is 90 km/54 miles east of Kirkūk [ q.v.], to which it is connected by road. The historical region of Sulaymāniyya lies between what is now the ʿIrāḳ-Persia frontier, the Diyāla [ q.v.] and its upper affluents the Tand̲j̲aru and Sīrwān, the region of …

(a.), name. In Arabic-Islamic usage the full name of a person is usually made up of the following elements: 1) kunya; 2) ism; 3) nasab ) ; 4) nisba . A certain number of persons are also known by a nickname ( laḳab ) or a pejorative sobriquet ( nabaz ) which, when the name is stated in full, cornes after the nisba. From the end of the 3rd/9th century, the use of an honorific before or after the kunya became more and more frequent with persons of some importance. 1) The kunya [ q.v.], usually a name compound with Abū (“father of”) or Umm (“mother of”): Abu ’l-Faḍl, Umm al-Ḥasan. ¶ 2) The ism , also cailed ʿalam …

(a., pl. awsima ), in modern Arabic usage a decoration, order, medal or badge of honour. The roots w-s-m and w-s̲h̲-m mean basically “to mark, brand [an animal]”, an important feature of nomadic life when ownership of beasts like horses and camels had to be determinable. For this idea of branding, marking, in Arabic desert life, see wasm. In the old Turkish nomadic society, tamg̲h̲a had a similar sense of “tribal mark or emblem”. In the modern Turkish pronunciation damga it is used for government revenue stamps, ministerial seals for validating govern…

(a.), writing. i.—In the Arab world. The Arabic writing used, according to tradition, as early as the lifetime of Muḥammad, for setting down the sacred text of the Ḳurʾān, subsequently underwent a diffusion corresponding to the expansion of the Islamic faith and to the development of the Islamic civilisation in which it came to full fruition. A script of alphabetic and phonological type, belonging to the vast family of Semitic scripts, it shows in this capacity the characteristics of a consonantal script, with vocalisation signs added in the form of …

, purification incumbent upon the Believer after the fulfilment of his natural needs. This practice, which is described in detail, is obligatory (recommended only according to Abū Ḥanīfa) and must be carried out either immediately, or before performing the ṣalāt or any other act which requires a state of ritual purity. (Ed.) Bibliography All the works of fiḳh, ik̲h̲tilāf, etc. deal with this subject in the chapter on ṭahāra similarly G̲h̲azālī, Iḥyāʾ, in the same chapter (iii = 22 of Bousquet’s analysis).

, in northern Persia, the name for the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, comprising both the narrow coastal plain region and the steeply-rising mountainous interior of the Elburz chain. It was bounded in mediaeval Islamic times by Gīlān and Daylam on the west and by Gurgān on the east. The name Ṭabaristān enshrines a memory of the ancient people of the Τάπυροι, but received a popular etymology as “land of the axe ( ṭabar )” because woodcutting was an activity in this heavily-wooded region. Ṭabaristān ( nisba , al-Ṭabarī) was the designation for the region up …

, modern Turkish Ulu Dağ, a small but imposing mountain range in northwestern Anatolia, to the south-east of Bursa [ q.v.] and now in the il or province of Bursa. It is some 32 km/20 miles by 13 km/8 miles in extent, and its forest-clad slopes rise to a peak of 2,493 m/8,170 feet (lat. 40° 05′ N., long. 28° 58′ E.), the highest point of western Anatolia. It is the classical Mysian Olympus, but its more modern fame is as a winter ski resort. (Ed.) Bibliography Sir Wm. Ramsay, The historical geography of Asia Minor, London 1890, 146 Naval Intelligence Division, Admiralty Handbooks, Turkey, London 19…

(or Ḏj̲āvuldur ), a Turcoman tribe, the first settlers of which came to Ḵh̲wārizm in the 16th and 17th centuries, the bulk following in the 18th century. After the wars against the Ḵh̲ānate of Ḵh̲īwa, a proportion of them was driven off to the Mangi̊s̲h̲laḳ peninsula, whence some clans emigrated to the steppes of Stavropol’. Part of the tribe submitted to Ḵh̲īwa and settled permanently in Ḵh̲wārizm. It is now a sedentary tribe with a population of ¶ some 25,000, in the Nuk̲h̲us area (Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Ḳara-Ḳalpaḳistān). [See: Türkmen ]. (Ed.)

(t., from Persian pand̲j̲ yak “fifth”), a term of Ottoman Turkish financial and administrative usage. It denoted the fifth which the sultan drew as the ruler’s right (equivalent to the Arabic k̲h̲ums [ q.v.in Suppl.]) from booty captured in the Dār al-Ḥarb . This involved, in particular, the collection of young boys from the Christian Balkans and Greece by the process of the dews̲h̲irme [see devs̲h̲irme ], and these were then trained for either palace or military service as the ḳapi̊ ḳullari̊ ; the official in charge of the process of thus extracting the sultan’s fifth was termed the pend̲j̲i…

, (or zawlāk ), Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm … al-Layt̲h̲ī , born 306/919, died 386/996, Egyptian historian, the author of a number of biographical, historical and topographical works on Egypt in the time of the Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īdids and early Fāṭimids. These works, though almost entirely lost, underlie a good deal of subsequent historiography relating to this period. He is said to have written continuations to the works of al-Kindī [ q.v.] on the governors and judges of Egypt, a book on the Mād̲h̲arāʾī [ q.v.] family of officials, and others on the reigns of the Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd, Kāfū…

, a hill fortress and settlement in the S̲h̲āhābād District in the northeast of the state of Bihar in the Indian Union (lat. 24° 37′ N., long. 83° 55′ E.), some 50 km/30 miles south of the town of Sahsārām [ q.v.]. There must have been a Hindu fort or settlement there previously, but the present fortifications date from its capture by S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh Sūr [ q.v.] in 946/1539. They were added to by Akbar’s general Mān Singh [ q.v.] when he was appointed governor of Bihār and Bengal. It was surrendered to the British army in Bengal soon after the battle of Baksar (Buxar [ q.v.]) in 1764 through the effor…

, abū mālik al-aʿrābī , mawlā of the Banū Saʿd, had learnt the ʿarabiyya in the desert and had settled at Baṣra. Since his mother had married Abu ’l-Baydāʾ [ q.v.], he acted as rāwiya to this last, but he owed his fame to his incomparable knowledge of the Arabic language, since, according to an oft-mentioned tradition, he knew it in its entirety, whereas al-Aṣmaʿī had only one-third of it, Abū ʿUbayda (or al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad) half of it and Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī (or Muʾarrid̲j̲) two-thirds of it. His speciality was rare words. Abū Mālik was allegedly the author of at least two works, a K. K̲h̲alḳ al-…

(t.), the title of one of the three commanders who formed the dīwān or administrative focus of the Janissary corps of the Ottoman army (the other two being the S̲h̲amsund̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊ and the Turnad̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊). Since zag̲h̲ar means “hound” and zag̲h̲ard̲j̲i̊ “keeper of the hounds”, the orta or company of the zag̲h̲ard̲j̲i̊s (no. 64 in the Janissary corps) was probably in origin part of the hunting force of the early Ottoman sultans (cf. also the Segbāns [ q.v. in Suppl.]). (Ed.) Bibliography İ.H. Uzunçarşili, Osmanli devleti teşkilâtindan kapi kulu ocaklar, Ankara 1943-4, i, 19…

(a.), pl. arkān , literally “corner (as in al-rukn al-yamānī = the southeastern corner of the Kaʿba), support, pillar”. The singular rukn occurs twice in the Ḳurʾān, in XI, 82/80, when Lot seeks for support in a strong rukn, pillar, or, figuratively, a leader or chief; and in LI, 39, where Pharaoh and his support, rukn, i.e. retinue, reject Moses. 1. In religious and legal usage. Here, it is commonly found in the expression arkān al-dīn or arkān al-ʿibāda , denoting the basic “pillars” of religion and religious observance. These so-called “pillars of …

(a.), in Islamic law, the civil liability in the widest meaning of the term, whether it arises from the non-performance of a contract or from tort or negligence ( taʿaddī , literally “transgression”). Prominent particular cases are the liability for the loss of an object sold before the buyer has taken possession ( ḍamān al-mabīʿ ), for eviction ( ḍamān al-darak ), for the loss of a pledge in the possession of the pledgee ( ḍamān al-rahn), for the loss of an object that has been taken by usurpation ( ḍamān al-g̲h̲aṣb ), and for loss or damage caused by artisans ( ḍamān al-ad̲j̲īr , ḍ . al-ṣunnāʿ …

(a.), “gesture, sign, indication”, has acquired in rhetoric [see badīʿ ] the technical meaning of “allusion” but, in its early connotation, a gesture of the hand, a sign of the head, of the elbow, the eyes, the eyebrows etc., is considered by al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ ( Bayān , i, 80; Ḥayawān , i, 33), together with speech, writing, nuṣba and computation on the fingers [see ḥisāb al-ʿaḳd where other gestures to indicate numbers are also dealt with], as one of the five methods by which a man may express his thoughts [see bayān ]. Whether combined with words or not, a gesture ( is̲h̲āra and also īmaʾ …

(a.), a term used in Ottoman administrative parlance to mean vacant. It is used in the registers of a grant or office which has been vacated by the previous holder, by death, dismissal, or transfer, and not yet re-allocated. The term is also used more generally for land and other assets left without heir (see also muk̲h̲allafāt ). (Ed.)

, Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan, the author of a local history of the town of Ḳum [ q.v.] in northern Persia, fl. in the 4th/10th century. He is said to have compiled his history originally in Arabic at the instigation of his brother, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAlī, governor of Ḳum for the Būyids, aiming to gather together and record all the traditions about the arrival of the Arabs in Ḳum and the town’s subsequent history. He dedicated the book to the famous vizier, the Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād [see ibn ʿabbād ]. The Arabic original has not survived, but a Persian translation was made by one Ḥasan [b. ʿAlī…

(Bandar Rābig̲h̲, Rābug̲h̲), a port in the Ḥid̲j̲āz province of Saudi Arabia, in lat. 22° 48ʹ N., and long. 39° 1ʹ E., half-way between D̲j̲udda [ q.v.] and Yanbuʿ. It may perhaps be identified with Ptolemy’s ’Αργα χώμη (Sprenger, Die alte Geographie , no. 38). North of Rābig̲h̲ lies al-Abwāʾ [ q.v.], now called al-K̲h̲urayba. the reputed burial place of the Prophet’s mother Āmina [ q.v.]. In the past, the port had no proper harbour. Ships anchored at S̲h̲arm Rābig̲h̲, an inlet about 3 km long, which offered excellent anchorage (Hogarth, Hejaz , 29). From there ca…

(a.), in early Arabic “the confused noise of distant thunder” (Lane, 1249b), but widely used in the sources for early Islamic history for the priests of the Magians reciting and intoning the Zoroastrian prayers and scriptures, producing (to the Arabs’ ears) an indistinct, droning sound. Thus in al-Ṭabarī, i, 1042, we have the zamzama of the Herbadhs, in 2874 the muzamzim or adherent of Zoroastrianism, and in 2880 zamzama for the Zoroastrian rites and zamāzima for the Magians in general. The term may have passed into Christian Sogdian texts, probably in the early Islamic period, as zmzmʾ …

, S̲h̲ammāk̲h̲ī, S̲h̲ammāk̲h̲iyya, the mediaeval Islamic names for a town in the former region of S̲h̲īrwān in eastern Caucasia, from ca. the 4th/10th century capital of the local Yazīdī dynasty of S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āhs, by whom it was temporarily re-named Yazīdiyya. For its pre-modern role and then for its post-1917 one, first within the Azerbaijan Republic of the former Soviet Union and now in the independent Republic of Azerbaijan, under its present name of S̲h̲emak̲h̲a, see s̲h̲īrwān and s̲h̲īrwān s̲h̲āhs . (Ed.)

, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Meḥmed Ṭāhir , Ottoman ḳāḍī and author of several theological works, often known as Ḳāḍī Meḥmed. The date of his birth is unknown, but he was born in Istanbul and was presumably connected with the Lālezār quarter near the Fātiḥ Mosque. He became a mollā and a müderris . In 1201/1786-7 he was ḳāḍī at Eyyūb, and then on 30 Muḥarram 1204/20 October 1789 he died at his house in Rumeli Ḥiṣār. None of his extant works has been printed, but these all exist in manuscript in Istanbul libraries. They include a series of theological commentaries, such as the Mīzān al-muḳīm fī maʿrifat al-ḳisṭ…

, the name, nowadays replaced by al-Nāṣirī , of a Moroccan family who founded the branch of the S̲h̲ād̲h̲iliyya order [ q.v.] known as Nāṣiriyya and founded its headquarters at the zāwiya of Tamgrūt [ q.v.] in southern Morocco. The numerous biographical sources, published and unedited, as well as a monograph on the family, the Ṭalʿat al-mus̲h̲tarī (Fās 1309) by Aḥmad al-Nāṣirī al-Salāwī, allow its history to be traced easily and allow a genealogical tree to be constructed; the reader will find information on this in the article al-Nāṣiriyya , and there will mer…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Hibat Allāh b. Abī ’l-Faḍl Ḏj̲aʿfar b. al-Muʿtamid , known as al-Ḳāḍī al-Saʿīd, Arabic poet of the Ayyūbid period famous mainly for the treatise Dār al-ṭirāz which he devoted to the genre of muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ [ q.v.]. He was born in Cairo circa 550/1155, and died there in 608/1211; he was educated by Egyptian teachers and, like his father al-Ḳāḍī al-Ras̲h̲īd, embarked on the career of ḳāḍī ; he worked under the direction of al-Ḳāḍī al-Fāḍil, whom he joined at Damascus and to whom he dedicated some pieces of poetry; he also wrote in praise of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin). …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. ʿut̲h̲mān , a Moroccan diplomat and vizier of the 12th/18th century, who played a prominent role in the forging of ties between his country and Spain. At the start of his career he followed his father as preacher in one of the mosques of Meknès; here he came to the attention of the Sultan, Sīdī Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh (1171-1204/1757-89) who, at a date difficult to determine, took him into his service as a secretary. In 1193/1799, he was …

, Abu ’l-Maḥāsin S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Muḥ. b. Naṣr b. ʿAlī b. Muḥ. b. G̲h̲ālib al-Anṣārī , satirical poet born at Damascus on 9 S̲h̲aʿbān 549/19 October 1154, and died there on 20 Rabīʿ I 630/4 January 1233. After receiving a traditional education from the main teachers of Damascus and spending a period in ʿIrāḳ, Ibn ʿUnayn began early to use his lively satire against many different kinds of people; he did not spare even Salāḥ al-Dīn (Saladin), who had just made himself master of the town (570…

, ʿAbd al-Hakīm b. S̲h̲ams al-Dīn (d. 1067/1657), counsellor of the Mughal emperor S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān ( regn . 1037-68/1628-58 [ q.v.]), versatile scholar and well-known writer of glosses ( ḥawās̲h̲ī , sg. ḥās̲h̲iya ) on a number of popular textbooks. Many of them exist in old prints and lithographs, of which a fair number have recently been reprinted. In non-Indian prints, his name often appears distorted as al-Siyalkūtī or al-Silkūtī (intended vowels unknown). Works on which he wrote ḥawās̲h̲ī include: (1) the Tafsīr of al-Bayḍāwī (d. 685/1286 or later [ q.v.]); (2) the commentary of …

, Sandābūr , a port on the western coast of peninsular India. Al-Idrīsī describes it as a trading town on a large estuary with an anchor-: age. It has been tentatively identified with either Sidd̲h̲āpūr/S̲h̲iddāpūr or the modern S̲h̲adās̲h̲ivagad, some 80 km/50 miles south of Goa, hence in what is now the union territory of Goa, Daman and Diu in the Indian Union. (Ed.) Bibliography S. Maqbul Ahmad, India and the neighbouring territories in the Kitāb Nuzḥat al-Mus̲h̲tāq ... of al-S̲h̲arīf al-Idrīsī, Leiden 1960, 58, 62, 102, 159.

, īliyyā (1889-1957), poet and journalist of Lebanese origin, who spent his childhood in the village of al-Muḥaydit̲h̲a near Bikfayā, his birthplace, but left his native land at the age of 11 to help his maternal uncle with his business in Alexandria. During his stay of some dozen years in Egypt, he was able to find time to acquire an advanced literary education, to learn a lot of classical and modern poetry and to frequent the circles of intellectuals who were in varying de…

(t.) “son of a slave”, in Ottoman usage, more specifically the son of a Janissary, admitted to the pay-roll of the corps; for further information see yeñi čeri . In the period of Turkish domination in Algeria and Tunisia, the word ḳulug̲h̲lī/kulug̲h̲lī and, with dissimilation, ḳurug̲h̲lī/kurug̲h̲lī (pl. ḳulug̲h̲lān/kulug̲h̲lān , ḳurug̲h̲lān/kurug̲h̲lān/krag̲h̲el ; French koulougli and variants) denoted those elements of the population resulting from marriages of Turks with local women. They were fairly numerous at Tunis, Alg…

, from Persian dīdebān , a term applied at different times to certain categories of sentinels, watchmen, inspectors, etc. It already appears as the name of a profession in the Rasāʾil Ik̲h̲wān al-Ṣafā (8th risāla of 1st series, ed. Cairo, i, 210; cf. IC, 1943, 147), together with the Nātūr . In classical Ottoman usage the term, pronounced Dīdebān , was applied to the Customs-house guards, whose chief was the Dīdebān bas̲h̲i̊ . It was also given to the watchmen on the fire-towers in Istanbul, as well as to naval and military look-outs. (Ed.) Bibliography Dozy, Supplément, i, 481 I. H. Uzunçarş…

(a.), the name of the fourteenth metre in Arabic prosody [see ʿarūḍ ]. Theoretically, it comprises Three feet: mustafʿilun / fāʿilātun / fāʿilātun ( ─ ─ ∪ ─ / ─ ∪ ─ ─ / ─ ∪ ─ ─ ) to each hemistich, but in practice, there is just one single fāʿilātun. Mustafʿilun can become mutafʿilun (∪ ─ ∪ ─ ) or even mutafʿilu (∪ ─ ∪∪), whilst fāʿilātun can be replaced in the ʿarūḍ (the first hemistich) by faʿilātun (∪∪ ─ ─ ) or even fāʿilun ( ─ ∪ ─ ) and, in the ḍarb (the second hemistich) by one of the two preceding feet or by mustafʿil ( ─ ─ ─ ). This metre is not used by the ancient poets, and it is not impossible th…

, a plain in eastern Anatolia through which the Murad Su, sc. the more southerly of the two upper arms of the Euphrates, flows in one part of its course between Malazgird and Muş, hence now in the modern Turkish il or province of Muş; see further, al-furāt . (Ed.)

, aḥmad b. ʿalī , poet and littérateur, originally from al-Batt in ʿIrāḳ (Yāḳūt, i, 488), who was a member of the staff of al-Ḳādir’s chancery (reigned 381-422/992-1031). When the future caliph had in 381/991 to flee from al-Ṭāʾiʿ, al-Battī had already been in his service, since it was with him that al-Ḳādir sought refuge. Hence as soon as he succeeded to the caliphate, he appointed al-Battī to his dīwān , where he was in charge of the postal service and of intelligence. A Muʿtazilī in theology and a Ḥanafī in fiḳh , he had previously specialised in study of the Ḳurʾān and ḥadīt̲h̲ …

is one of the Turkish forms of the name Muḥammad which, having been borne by the Prophet of Islam, is by far the commonest used name in the Islamic world. Independent of the modifications which it may undergo from the influence of the speech habits of allophonic groups and the phonetic structure of languages other than Arabic, this name has undergone, in spite of—and perhaps because of—the veneration which it inspires, various deliberate modifications on the part of sincere Muslims who hold fast to what exactly respects the …

, “the rearwards region”, conventionally Dhahirah, the name given to the interior, landwards part of ʿUmān, that lying behind the D̲j̲abal Ak̲h̲ḍar range and merging into the desert fringes of the Empty Quarter [see al-rubʿ al-k̲h̲ālī ]. The term al-Ẓāhira contrasts with that of al-Bāṭina, the coastlands of ʿUmān. The religious and political history of this “inner ʿUmān”, and its social and cultural development, with local Ibāḍī elements mingled with Sunnīs, have frequently diverged from that of the Sultanate…

(a.; noun of unity, ḥaysa ), an Arab dish made from dates (of the variety called barnī ) crushed and then kneaded with some preserved butter; to this is added skimmed, dried and crumbly camels’ milk cheese, or some flour, or even some crumbled bread. The invention of this mixture of ingredients is attributed traditionnally (see al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Buk̲h̲alaʾ , ed. Ḥād̲j̲irī, 211; tr. in Arabica , ii/3 [1955], 336) to a prominent member of Mak̲h̲zūm called Suwayd al-Haramī (Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 22), who is also said to have been the first to s…

(a.), a noun of place from the verb d̲j̲alasa “to sit down” and, by extension, “to sit”, ¶ “to hold a session”; starting from the original meaning of “a place where one sits down, where one stays”, thence “a seat” (J. Sadan, Le mobilier au Proche-Orient médiéval , Leiden 1976, index), the semantic field of mad̲j̲lis is of very wide extent (see the dictionaries of Lane, Dozy, Blachère, etc.). Among the principal derivative meanings are “a meeting place”, “meeting, assembly” (cf. Ḳurʾān, LXVIII, 12/11), “a reception hall (of a ca…

Muslims in the modern Mongolian People’s Republic. The sole Muslim communities of the Republic live today within the Turkish-speaking Kazakh [see ḳazaḳ ] (Mo. Hasag ) and Choton (Mo. Hoton ) groups. According to the 1960 census, 36,700 Kazakhs lived in the westernmost aimak or administrative division of the Republic, that is in existence since 1940 as the Bayan Ölgiy aimak; the aimak is also called Hasag aimak, “that of the Kazakhs”. These Kazakhs of Mongolia are linguistically, culturally and historically closely linked with the Kazakhs of the Kazakh SSR or th…

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān , S̲h̲āfīʿī faḳīh and specialist in the Ḳurʾānic readings, born at Malaṭya [ q.v.] and died at ʿAsḳalān in 377/987, whence the nisba of al-ʿAsḳalānī which he also bears. He was the author of a ḳaṣīda of 59 verses on the readings and the readers, in imitation of a poem by Mūsā b. ʿUbayd Allāh al-K̲h̲āḳānī, but he deserves the notice of Islamicists through his having left behind one of the oldest treatises on heresiography, the Kitāb al-Tanbīh wa ’l-radd ʿalā ahl al-ahwāʾ wa ’l-bidaʿ , which has been edited and publi…