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, surname of viziers of the Sāmānids [ q.v.], of whom one at least wrote a famous Kitāb al-Masālik wa ’l-mamālik which has never been found in spite of the hopes raised by S. Janicsek ( al-Djaihani’s lost Kitab al-masalik valmamalik: is it to be found at Mashhad ? in BSOS, v/1 (1926), 14-25; see also V. Minorsky, A false Jayhānī , in BSOAS, xiii (1949), 89-96). The identity of the author of this work poses a problem difficult to solve. Ibn Faḍlān ( Risāla , ed. A.Z.V. Togan, Ibn Faḍlāns Reisebericht , Leipzig 1939, text § 4, tr. 6, tr. M. Canard, in AIEO Alger , xvi (1958), 54)…

(the son of the little lame man), Abu ’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar al-Baṣrī , minor poet of Baṣra who died ca. 360/970. Very little is known of his life except that he went to Bag̲h̲dād, where he was the transmitter of a poem by Diʿbil [ q.v.] and lived for some time in the circle of al-Muhallabī [ q.v.]; it was probably at the vizier’s suggestion that he addressed a number of epigrams to al-Mutanabbī at the time of the latter’s visit in 351/962. His poems were collected in a Dīwān , and al-Ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād was still able to appreciate them, but there…

, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAmr (or ʿĀmir) b. al-Ḥaḍramī , an agent of Muʿāwiya who is remembered for an incident in 38/658, during the period which followed the battle of Ṣiffīn [ q.v.] and the arbitration. After the occupation of Egypt by ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀs [ q.v.], Muʿāwiya, turning his attention towards ʿIrāḳ, realised that he had to begin with Baṣra, where he could count on more adherents than in Kūfa. After consulting ʿAmr, he then decided to send Ibn al-Ḥaḍramī to Baṣra and gave him precise instructions: his agent was to base his propaganda on the …

b. Rās̲h̲id al-Nād̲j̲ī , partisan of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib who fought in his ranks at Ṣiffīn [ q.v.], but who rebelled against him when the first results of the arbitration were known after having accepted, it appears, the principle of arbitration. He was chief of the Banū ʿAbd al-Bayt b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Sama b. Luʾayy (most usually called the B. Nād̲j̲iya, after the name of ʿAbd al-Bayt’s mother), who had only recently been converted to Islam, where they had not kept their original Christianity. He informed ʿAlī of h…

, a fortress situated on that part of the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf called the Sīf ʿUmāra, not far from the island of Ḳays [ q.v.], and famous in the 4th/10th century. It was known under three designations, Ḳalʿat al-Dīkdān, Ḥiṣn Dikbāya and Ḥiṣn Ibn ʿUmāra, as well as the Persian one Diz-i Pisar-i ʿUmāra ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 126). It stood guard over a village of fishermen and a port which could shelter some 20 ships, and according to Ibn Ḥawḳal (tr. Kramers and Wiet, 268-9), following Iṣṭak̲h̲rī (140), no-one could get u…

b. Ḳurra al-Muzanī , Abū Wāt̲h̲ila, was appointed ḳāḍī of Baṣra during the caliphate of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz in 99/718 (the date 95/714 given by Wakīʿ is incorrect, for ʿUmar did not succeed to the caliphate until 99, and also it was ʿAdī b. Arṭāt, governor of the town from 99-101, who chose Iyās for the post on the caliph’s orders); he did not accept this post very enthusiastically (see especially an anecdote related by Ibn Ḳutayba, ʿ Uyūn , i, 62, which shows incidentally that parallel jurisdictions were still in existence), and in fact gave it up …

, name of the members of a family of Cordova, the Banū D̲h̲akwān, which produced several ḳāḍīs . (1) The first was ʿAbd Allāh b. Hart̲h̲ama b. D̲h̲akwān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbdūs b. D̲h̲akwān al-Umawī who, in 370/981, was appointed ṣāḥib al-radd (that is, his duty was to pronounce judgements on matters on which the ordinary ḳāḍīs were in doubt); see Ibn al-Faraḍī, no. 722; E. Lévi-Provençal, Hist. Esp. Mus ., iii, 145. (2) The most famous member of the family was the son of the above, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh, who, after having been ḳāḍī of Faḥṣ al-Ballūṭ, succeeded his father as ṣāḥib al-rad…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Sulaymān al-Ruʿaynī al-Ḳurṭubī al-Kafīf , Andalusian poet and kātib , considered one of the greatest scholars of the early 5th/11th century in the field of Arabic language and literature. Son of a grain merchant (hence the name by which he was commonly known, often wrongly written Ibn al-K̲h̲ayyāṭ), he owed his chance to study to a family of ḳuḍāt at Cordova, the Banū D̲h̲akwān [see ibn d̲h̲akwān ], who had taken him under their care. He was afflicted from birth by a malformation of the eyes and lost his sight at an …

, patronymic of an Andalusian family, several members of which played an important rôle during the Umayyad caliphate. The most famous of them is without doubt Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī Ibn Ḥazm [see the following article], but some brief details on the Banū Ḥazm are given here, since confusions often arise. (1) ʿAlī’s father was Abū ʿUmar Aḥmād b. Saʿīd b. Ḥazm b. G̲h̲ālib b. Ṣāliḥ b. K̲h̲alaf . A dignitary at the court of the ḥād̲j̲ib al-Manṣūr Ibn Abī ʿĀmir and that of his son al-Muẓaffar, he was greatly affected by the serious events which occurred in 399/1009 [see al-andalus …

, Abū Bakr al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār b. Ziyād Ibn al-ʿAllāf (so called because his father was a seller of ḳatt ) al-Nahrawānī , poet and traditionist who lived to be a hundred (218-318/833-930), becoming blind in his old age. He frequented the court at Bag̲h̲dād and was an intimate particularly of al-Muʿtaḍid and Ibn al-Muʿtazz. He knew much poetry and composed a great deal himself, so much indeed that his works, collected by a member of his family and accompanied by accounts of his relations with the persons on whom he had written panegyrics, occupied four hundred waraḳa …

, muḥammad b. isḥāḳ b. ibrāhīm b. abi ’l-mug̲h̲īra b. māhān (213-75/828-88), a famous humorist of the ʿAbbāsid court, who was also a faḳīh , astrologer, oneiromancer, poet and man of letters, and who wrote some forty works, both serious and jesting, even burlesque and obscene. Of Kūfan origin, he was first of all ḳāḍī in the district from which he derived his nisba , Ṣaymara, near Baṣra, at the mouth of the Nahr Maʿḳil, but his vivid penchant for coarse humour very early earned him a reputation as a buffoon sufficient for him to be admi…

, pre-Islamic Arab poet. The name Laḳīt does not necessarily mean that the person bearing it was a foundling; but in the present instance, whilst the genealogists know all the poet’s ancestors (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 174 and Register, ii, 377), the ductus of his father’s name has given rise to divergent readings; maʿbad (Ibn al-Kalbī, loc. cit.; al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Bayān , i, 42, 43, 52; Ibn Durayd, Is̲h̲tiḳāḳ , 104; al-Āmidī, Muʾtalif , 175); maʿmar (Ibn Ḳutayba, S̲h̲iʿr , 152-4; LA, s.v. l-ḳ-ṭ ); and yaʿmar/yaʿmur (al-S̲h̲ammāk̲h̲, apud al-Mubarrad, Kāmil …

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar, also known as Ibn Abi ’l-ʿAzāḳir , a heretic of the ʿAbbāsid period (d. 322/934), who went so far as to claim that the deity was incarnated in himself. Initially an Imāmī committed to the study of alchemy, he devoted to this discipline several works such as Kitāb al-K̲h̲amāʾir , K. al-Ḥad̲j̲ar , S̲h̲arḥ K. al-Raḥma of D̲j̲ābir [ q.v.]. He subsequently formulated the doctrines of the ʿAzāḳiriyya, borrowing elements from various philosophical and religious groups: antinomians ( ibāḥiyya [see ibāḥa ]), upholders of ḥulūl [ q.v.], Mazdaeans, Manichaeans, etc. He had som…

(a.) generic term (nomen unitatis: k̲h̲ubza ) meaning bread, whatever the cereal employed, e.g. corn [see ḳamḥ ], barley [see s̲h̲aʿīr ], rice [see ruzz ] etc., and whatever the quality, the shape and the method of preparation. There exists nevertheless, in literary Arabic and, to a greater degree in the various dialects, a certain number of metaphors and of specific terms which cannot all be mentioned in this brief article, and the ellipsis of the word k̲h̲ubz , in expressions denoting a particular type, causes the semantic range of the fundamental notion to be appreciably enlarged: thus k̲…

, asʿad b. ʿiṣma , one of the most famous informants of the Baṣran philologists in the 2nd/8th century, notably, of al-Aṣmaʿī [ q.v.]. This Bedouin teacher, settled in southern ʿIrāḳ, may have received his curious kunya ( baydāʾ = “desert”) from the admirers forming a circle around him. He also wrote poetry, transmitted by another teacher, a certain Abū ʿAdnān, who is allegedly the author of several works (in particular, of a K. al-Naḥwiyyīn and a K. G̲h̲arīb al-ḥadīt̲h̲ , ¶ Fihrist , 68), and whom al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ praised greatly for his erudition and his fine language ( Bayān …

, surname given to an Arab poet who lived in the 6th century A.D., belonged to ¶ the tribe of Dubayʿa and was called D̲j̲arīr b. ʿAbd al-Masīh; another name, ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā, given to his father in some sources, appears to signify that this polytheist had been the first of his family to convert to Christianity. Al-Mutalammis was the maternal uncle of Ṭarafa [ q.v.], and both figure in a narrative which may contain only an essence of truth but that the philologists and anthologists of the Middle Ages considered to be a trustworthy account of a series of perfect…

, Abu ’l-Ḥakam (229-76/844-88), sixth Umayyad amīr of Cordova and the son of a slave belonging to Muḥammad I b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān II (d. 273/876). During his father’s lifetime, he filled military functions on various occasions, somewhat honorific to begin with, since it is mentioned that, as early as 242/856, he had gone to blockade—without great success—Toledo [see ṭulayṭula ] which had rebelled. Over the next years, he had occasion to command some summer expeditions ( ṣāʾifa ) against the Christians, notably in 251/865. In 263/877 he marched against Merida (see mārida …

, Abū Miḥd̲j̲an, a negro poet of the Arabic language who is said to have belonged, originally, to a Kinānī of Waddān, a small village close to Medina (see al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , Arabic index, s.v.); it could, however, be supposed that the locality in question is rather the main settlement of the oasis of D̲j̲ufra [ q.v.] which bears the same name, since the available information regarding the biography of Nuṣayb indicates that he was a native of Africa. In any case, attempting to establish his origin would be futile, since this has been the object of…

(pl. ʿatāʾir ) denoted, among the Arabs of the d̲j̲āhiliyya , a ewe (and by extensions its sacrifice) offered as a sacrifice to a pagan divìnity, either as a thanksgiving following the fulfilment of a prayer (concerning in particular the increase of flocks), or when a flock reached the total of a hundred head (cf. the word faraʿa ) ; the head of the idols before which the sacrifice was performed was smeared with the blood of the victims. If one bears in mind on the one hand that these sacrifices (which were also called rad̲j̲abiyya ; hence the phrase rad̲j̲d̲j̲aba ʿatīrat an) took place in the m…

b. Abi K̲h̲alīfa Muḥammad b. S̲h̲uʿayd b. Ṣak̲h̲r al-D̲j̲umaḥī , (d. 305/917-18), littérateur, poet, traditionist and ḳaḍī of Baṣra. He was a mawlā of D̲j̲umaḥ of Ḳurays̲h̲ and the nephew, on his mother’s side, of Ibn Sallām [ q.v.]. He was born in and died at Baṣra, where he made himself the transmitter of a fairly extensive number of religious, historical, literary and genealogical traditions. He also received a legal training sufficient for him to act as the ḳāḍī of Baṣra towards 294/907 with functions delegated by the Mālikī ḳāḍī Abū Muḥammad Yūsuf b. Yaʿḳū…

, 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…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Hibat Allāh b. Abī ʿAbd Allāh al-Faḍl b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī al-Bag̲h̲dādī , traditionist, oculist, and especially poet, of Bag̲h̲dād, born in 478 or 479/1086, died 28 Ramadān 558/30 August 1163. Although he was the author of medical works which have not survived, and also transmitted ḥadīt̲h̲s without incurring the reproof of critics, Ibn al-Ḳaṭṭān is known chiefly for his vigorous satires which, as Goldziher says ( Muh . St., ii, 60), “spared neither the caliph nor anyone else”, for his mud̲j̲ūn and for his wit, as we…

(a.), pl. ḳuṣṣāṣ , “popular story-teller or preacher, deliverer of sermons” whose activity considerably varied over the centuries, from preaching in the mosques with a form of ḳurʾānic exegesis to downright charlatanism. This term does not appear in the Ḳurʾān, although the verb ḳaṣṣa is quite often used (see Flügel, Concordantiae ) always, except in VI, 57, with the meaning “to recount, to relate, to report” a generally edifying narration [see ḳiṣṣa ] and frequently in the first person, when the narrator is God Himself. The LA (root ḳṣṣ ) reproduces ḥadīt̲h̲s in which appear the word ḳāṣṣ …

, mule (pl. big̲h̲āl , fem. bag̲h̲la ; but some think that bag̲h̲l denotes the hybrid without distinction of sex, and that bag̲h̲la is a singulative form which applies both to the male and female); the same word denotes both the hinny, the offspring of a stallion and a she-ass (cf. however kawdar in al-Masʿūdī, ii, 408; contra : al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Big̲h̲āl 120; al-Danīrī, s.v.; cf. al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Tarbīʿ , ed. Pellat, index, s.v.), and the mule, the offspring of a he-ass and a mare, the morphological characteristics of the two varieties being midwa…

al-Sabtī , Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. His̲h̲ām b. Ibrāhīm b. Ḵh̲alaf , lexicographer, grammarian, adīb and versifier. He was probably born at Seville, and certainly died in that city in 577/1182, after having lived for a long time at Ceuta. We know very little of his life, but his biographers list his masters and his pupils and indicate the titles of his works, amongst which one notes several commentaries; one may merely remark that these included a s̲h̲arḥ on the Maḳṣūra of Ibn Durayd, which was especially appreciated by al-Ṣafadī ( Wāfī , ii, 1301) and al-Bag̲h̲dādī ( Ḵh̲izāna …

, Isḥāḳ b. Ḥassān b. Ḳūhī , Arab poet, died probably under the caliphate of al-Maʾmūn, about 206/821. The scion of a noble family of Sogdiana, which he sometimes mentions with pride (Yākūt, v, 363), al-Ḵh̲uraymī (the form al-Ḵh̲uzaymī is erroneous) derived his nisba from his being a mawlā , not directly of Ḵh̲uraym al-Nāʿim, as most of his biographers ¶ have it, but of his descendants, viz. Ḵh̲uraym b. ʿĀmir and his son ʿUt̲h̲mān (see Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrīk̲h̲ , ii, 434-7; v, 126-8). He seems to have lived in Mesopotamia, Syria, al-Baṣra, where he frequented dissolute poets su…

“the wall of the Old Woman” (the form Ḥāʾiṭ al-Ḥad̲j̲ūz is sometimes found, ¶ notably in al-Harawī) the name given by Arabic writers to a wall said to have been built by the mythical queen of Egypt, Dalūka [= al-ʿAd̲j̲ūz], who is said to have mounted the throne after the army of al-Walīd b. Muṣʿab [ sic = the Pharaoh of Moses], in pursuit of the Israelites, had been engulfed by the Red Sea. In order to protect the surviving women, children and slaves from the attacks of the peoples of the East and of the West, Dalūka is said to have surrounded the Ni…

(Nukūr) was the name of a town in northern Morocco (Rīf) situated approximately 140 km./90 miles (by road) to the west of Melilla [ q.v.], in a plain which extends between two small coastal rivers, joining at a place called Agdal [on this term, see āgdāl ], then separating before flowing into the Mediterranean, the Nakūr and the G̲h̲ays/G̲h̲īs: a riḅāt [ q.v.] had been constructed on an elevation. The town itself was built some 10 km/7 miles from the Mediterranean coast among inlets which sheltered a number of small harbours. The best known, al-Mazimma, wa…

b. Ḏj̲abala al-Asadī , satirical Arab poet of the 1st/7th century. Physically deformed, for he was hunch-backed and lame, he possessed some spitefulness, which shows in his diatribes, but he had a lively wit, prompt repartee, humour, and the subtlety of the G̲h̲āḍira clan to which he belonged [cf. al-g̲h̲āḍirī ]. He was born ¶ at Kūfa and lived there till ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr drove out the Umayyad authorities (64/684) whom he followed to Damascus where he was admitted to the intimacy of ʿAbd al-Malik b. Marwān. He then went back to Kūfa and was closely connected with Bis̲h̲r b. Marwān [ q.v.] …

, an Arabic word used particularly in the Beduin dialect form fəllāg , pl. fəllāga (in the western press principally in the pl., with the spelling: fellagar fellagah, fellagha ), and denoting in the first place the brigands and subsequently the rebels who appeared in Tunisia and Algeria. A connexion with falaḳa [ q.v.] “instrument of torture”, of which the etymology is, in any case, obscure (see Arabica , 1954/3, 325-36), is certainly tobe ruled out. On the other hand, the Arabic root FLḲ (comp. FLD̲J̲, FLḤ, etc.) seems worthy of retention; Tunisian rural and nomadic dialects make use of fləg …

, Arabic name of a Mozarab Christian [see mozarabs ] whose true name was Recemundo (Recemundus in Latin = Raymond) and who owes his place in the EI to the role which he ¶ played in the service of the Umayyad caliphs of Spain ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III al-Nāṣir (who reigned from 300 to 350/912-61 [ q.v.]) and al-Ḥakam II al-Mustanṣir (350-68/961-76 [ q.v.]), and to his involvement in the presentation of the well-known Calendar of Cordova . Recemundo was a Cordovan who, with his command of Latin and of Arabic, was able to render considerable services to the caliphal chancellery wh…

(a.) is one of those words whose richness discourages any attempt at exact translation. In its weakest sense, it approximates to hazl “jest” as opposed to d̲j̲idd “seriousness” [see al-d̲j̲idd wa ’l hazl ] and corresponds in an appreciable degree to frivolity. But its semantic field extends widely to the point that it can mean the most shameless debauchery, including vulgarity, coarseness, impudence, libertinage, obscenity and everything that may provoke coarse laughter, such as scatological humour. This word embarrassed the Arab lexicographers, who connected it with the root m-d̲j…

, Arab tribe, probably of Yemeni origin, who, having come from Arabia at the same time as the Banū Hilāl [ q.v.], crossed Egypt and Libya, entered the Mag̲h̲rib towards the middle of the 5th/11th century, led a nomadic life for a short time to the west of Gabès (Ibn K̲h̲aldūn. Berbères , i, 36), but left only a small number of their members in the south of Ifrīḳiya ( Berbères, i, 116; cf. R. Brunschvig, Ḥafṣides , ii, 170); in fact, they proceeded towards the west ( tag̲h̲riba ), following the northern border of the Sahara (cf. al-Zayyānī, Turd̲j̲umāna , Fr. tr. Confourier, in AM, vi [1906], 448, w…

al-Kinānī , a minor poet of Kūfa who lived in the last years of the Umayyads and the first ones of the ʿAbbāsids, making him a muk̲h̲aḍram [ q.v.] al-dawlatayn. G.E. von Grunebaum ( Three Arabic poets of the early ¶ Abbasid age, in Orientalia , Rome) brought together, in the first part of his study (xvii/2 [1948], 167-204) 77 poetical fragments attributed to al-Muṭīʿ and also provided an exemplary critical study of the materials given by the biographers, anthologists and other authors of adab works, concerning this poet, whose personality is difficult to e…

, Abu ’l-Hasan Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm , Bag̲h̲dādī philologist who according to all the known sources, died in 299/311-12; this date is nevertheless challenged by Yāḳūt who, believing that al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī is in error, opts for 320/932. He was the pupil of al-Mubarrad and T̲h̲aʿlab [ q.vv.], and is said to have brought together the doctrines of the grammatical schools of both Baṣra and Kūfa, though his own preference was for the former; he was moreover the author of a work, no longer surviving, a K. al-Masāʾil ʿalā mad̲h̲hab al-naḥwiyyīn mimmā k̲h̲talafa fīhi al-Kūfi…

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar , a minor poet who was born and lived in Baṣra. He was born at some time in the middle of the 2nd/8th century and died at a similarly uncertain date, probably during the caliphate of al-Maʾmūn (198-218/813-33) or during that of al-Muʿtaṣim (218-27/833-42). ¶ His existence, of which barely nothing is known, has attracted scant attention on the part of biographers in that he seems to have followed an unremarkable and leisurely career, in an atmosphere untroubled by events of any magnitude. On the other hand, it has only been po…

, the name given in Muslim Spain to kinds of catalogues in which scholars enumerated, in one form or another, their masters and the subjects or works studied under their direction. The word fahrasa is an Arabicization of the Persian fihrist by means of a double vocalization -a- and the closing of the final tāʾ , a fairly frequent modification. In al-Andalus, it is completely synonymous with barnāmad̲j̲ , which is also Persian, while in the east it corresponds with t̲h̲abat , mas̲h̲īk̲h̲a ( mas̲h̲yak̲h̲a ) or muʿd̲j̲am (this last word is also used in the west)…

(Banū) or Midrārids , minor Berber dynasty which was established in Sid̲j̲ilmās(s)a [ q.v.] and which enjoyed relative independence until its final collapse in 366/976-7. The history of this dynasty can be briefly outlined, thanks to al-Bakrī [ q.v.], who lived in the 5th/11th century and thus possessed quite recent information in order to write the chapter that he devotes to it ( Mug̲h̲rib , 148 ff., Fr. tr. 282 ff.), before Ibn ʿId̲h̲ārī (7th-8th/13th-14th century [ q.v.]), Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn (8th/14th century [ q.v.]) and several historians of the Mag̲h̲rib and Mas̲h̲riḳ were abl…

, muḥammad b. abi ’l-k̲h̲aṭṭāb , adīb of the end of the 3rd/9th or of the beginning of the 4th/10th century, and known only as the author of the Ḏj̲amharat ashʿār al-ʿArab (ed. Būlāḳ 1308/1890). No personal details about the author can be derived from this collection, and the only relevant data are two isnād s, one (p. 13) going back to al-Hayt̲h̲am b. ʿAdī (d. ca. 206/821 [ q.v.]) through two intermediaries, and the other (p. 14) going back to Ibn al-Aʿrābī (d. 231/846 [ q.v.]) through one intermediary; these isnāds would thus allow us to date the Ḏj̲amhara approximatel…

, Ḏj̲uwayra , Ḏj̲uwayriyya or Ḥārit̲h̲a b. al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (or again Ḥanẓala b. al-S̲h̲arḳī , which was more probably, however, the name of Abu ’l-Ṭamaḥān al-Ḳayni, see S̲h̲iʿr , 229), pre-Islamic poet of al-Ḥīra, contemporary of al-Mund̲h̲ir b. Māʾ al-Samāʾ (about 506-554 A.D.), who put him in the charge of his horses. The expression d̲j̲ārun ka-d̲j̲ārl Abī Duʾād , which appears in a line of Ḳays b. Zuhayr and has become proverbial, gave rise to several traditions showing Abū Duʾād as the “protégé” of a noble and generous d̲j̲ār, who is either al-Mund̲h̲ir, al-Ḥarit̲h̲ b. Ḥamm…

(also called Yuʿfur and Yaʿfir) b. ʿAbd al-Aswad al-Tamīmī, Abu ’l-Ḏj̲arrāḥ, pre-Islamic Arab poet who lived probably at the end of the 6th century A.D. He is said to have travelled about among the tribes, composing eulogies or satires in verse, and was for some time the companion of al-Nuʿmān b. al-Mund̲h̲ir. He is sometimes called al-Aʿs̲h̲ā of the Banū Nahs̲h̲al, because he was night-blind, but he lost his sight at the end of his life, which is thought to have been extremely long. Of the poems which have come down to us, the most celebrated are a ḳaṣīda in dāl dating p…

is the usual appellative of the great-grandson of the Caliph Abū Bakr, ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad (= Abū ʿAtīk) b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Abī Bakr . All that is known of him is that, after al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥusayn, he married, among others, Umm Isḥāḳ, the daughter of Ṭalḥa b. ʿUbayd Allāh. He led an idle existence in Medina, dividing his time between meetings with poets such as ʿUmar b. Abī Rabīʿa [ q.v.] or Kut̲h̲ayyir ʿAzza [ q.v.] and seeking the company of wits such as As̲h̲ʿab [ q.v.] or musicians and singers like Ibn ʿĀʾis̲h̲a [ q.v.]. Being a member of the Ḳurays̲h̲ī aristocracy, he was able in…

(a.) “routes and kingdoms”, name given by R. Blachère ( Extraits des principaux géographes arabes du Moyen Age , Beirut-Algiers 1934, 110-200; 2nd corrected printing by H. Darmaun, Paris 1957) to what he considered as a particular genre of Arabic geographical literature, because several works, which bear the title of Kitāb al-Masālik wa “ l-mamālik , present common characteristics. Nevertheless, not all those which, in his eyes, constitute this genre were given the title which has been retained, and furthermore, the K. al-Masālik wa ’l-mamālik which is per…

b. ʿAbd al-Malik , Umayyad prince. As the eldest son of His̲h̲ām [ q. v.], caliph from 105 to 125/724-43, he was designated heir presumptive by his father, but died prematurely, at a date variously located between 117 and 119/735-7, at about thirty years of age. Although he did not himself accede to the throne, he was the father of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ q.v.], known as al-Dāk̲h̲il. who fled to Spain where he restored the dynasty founded in Damascus by Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān [ q.v.]. Muʿāwiya b. His̲h̲ām, who had thirteen sons, was thus the ancestor of the amīrs and caliphs wh…

al-Salūlī , Arab poet of the 1st/7th century (he is said to have died after 96/715), who played a political role under the Umayyads. He was attached from 60/680 to Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya, condoled with him upon the death of his father and congratulated him at his accession. He persuaded Yazīd to proclaim his son Muʿāwiya as heir presumptive and later he was the first to greet al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik with the name of caliph (86/705). During the reign of ʿAbd al-Malik (65-86/685-…

b. Marzawayh (Marzōye) al-Daylamī , Abu ’l-Ḥusayn (Ibn K̲h̲allikān) or Abu ’l-Ḥasan (other sources), poet who used the Arabic language, originally a Zoroastrian but becoming a convert to Islam in 394/1004 at the hands of al-S̲h̲arīf al-Raḍī (359-406/970-1016 [ q.v.]), dying in 428/1037. The famous S̲h̲īʿī poet and naḳīb of the descendants of the Prophet took charge of the education of his protégé, into whom he inculcated not only the basic principles of S̲h̲īʿism but also the necessary skills for him to act as a secretar…

, Abū Marwān al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī al-Ḳibṭī , is chiefly known as one of the first advocates of free will [see Ḳadariyya ], at the same time as Maʿbad al-Ḏj̲uhanī [ q.v.]. The son of a freed slave of ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, he appears, like Maʿbad, to have been the disciple of a Christian from ʿIrāḳ, but he lived in Damascus where he held the position of secretary in the chancellery. Al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ ( Bayān , iii, 29) mentions him on the same footing as Ibn al-Muḳaffaʿ, Sahl b. Hārūn and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, and even one so strictly orthodox as al-ʿAsḳalānī acknowledged his professional ability ( Lisān al-Mizān …

b. ʿīsā b. Manṣūr b. Muḥammad , Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn , grammarian, poet and adīb , originally from the town of Balad on the Tigris, which also had the name of Balaṭ (see Yāḳūt, i, 721), whence his nisba of al-Balaṭī, sometimes given in the diminutive form of al-Bulayṭī. Abu ’l-Fatḥ went first of all to teach in Syria, and then, when Saladin assumed power in Egypt (567/1171), he migrated to Cairo where the new sultan allotted to him a fixed stipend and appointed him to teach grammar and the Ḳurʾān in one of the mosque…

, (a.) “crow”. In view of the diversity of their meanings the Arabic words formed from the three consonants g̲h̲ , r and b cannot be traced to a single root, and it is probable that in the course of the history of the language there came about a convergence of terms with different origins; thus, g̲h̲urāb is too reminiscent of the Latin corvus for us to consider it a mere coincidence; moreover, early Arab philologists considered g̲h̲urāb to be independent, ¶ since they made to derive from it such words as g̲h̲urba , ig̲h̲tirāb , etc. which imply an idea of estrangemen…

, ʿumayla b. al-aʿzal b. k̲h̲ālīd al-ʿadawanī , a personage of the end of the D̲j̲āhiliyya, said have been the first to fix the diya or pecuniary composition for murder at 100 camels and the last to lead the pilgrims, either at the departure for ʿArafāt ( ifāḍa ) or from al-Muzdalifa to Minā ( id̲j̲āza ), since the sources disagree on this point, and the more careful authors merely use the expression dafaʿa bi ’l-nās . This man, who probably owed his kunya to this function of his, a privilege of the Ḳaysī tribe of ʿAdwān (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 92 …

, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. Zuhayr (= Abū K̲h̲aythama) b. Ḥarb b. S̲h̲addād al-Nasāʾī al-Bag̲h̲dādī , traditionist, genealogist, historian and poet, born at Nasāʾ in 185/801, died at Bag̲h̲dād in 279/892 (the dates 205/820 and 299/911-2 are probably too late). The son of Abū K̲h̲ayt̲h̲ama (d. 243/857), who was the author of a K. al-Musnad and a K. al-ʿIlm ( Fihrist , Cairo ed., 321), he was the pupil of Ibn Ḥanbal in ḥadīt̲h̲ and fiḳh , of Muṣʿab al-Zubayrī in genealogy, of al-Madāʾinī in history and of Muḥammad b. Sallām in literature. The Fihrist mentions among his works K. al-Muntamīn (?), K. al-Aʿrā…

, a minor Arab poet of the 1st/7th century whom Ibn Sallām ( Ṭabaḳāt , 485-9) places in the 3rd rank of Islamic poets. His genealogy varies with the different authors (Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 165, no doubt provides the most accurate one), and very little is known of his life. Probably born during the earliest years of the Hid̲j̲ra , he made his appearance at the time of the battle of Ṣiffīn (37/657) as an intimate of Muʿāwiya, of whom, like most of the Tag̲h̲lib [ q.v.], he was a passionate supporter. The conflict with ʿAlī inspired him to write a number of poems, in particular…

, Ḳurays̲h̲ite notable of the clan of Taym b. Murra, at the end of the 6th c. A.D. He acquired such wealth from the caravan and slave trade that he possessed one of the largest fortunes in Mecca (Ps.-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, Maḥāsin (van Vloten), 165; Ibn Rusta, 215; Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , vi, 153 ff.; Lammens, La Mecque à la veille de l’Hégire , index). He surrounded himself with unusual luxury (being nick-named ḥāsī ‘l-d̲h̲ahab , because he used to drink from a golden cup), and was the owner of the two singing-girls called "Locusts of ʿĀd" ( Ḏj̲arādatā ʿĀd ) whom he offered to Umayya b…

al-Yas̲h̲kurī , a pre-Islamic Arab poet to whom is attributed principally a ḳaṣīda which mediaeval critics regarded as the seventh of the muʿallaḳāt [ q.v.]. The information that we possess in respect of his life deserves no credence, and the poem that is the cause of his renown is in itself so suspect that Ṭāhā Ḥusayn considers it to be totally apocryphal (cf. also al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, Ḥayawān , iii, 449, on the questions of other verses). This ḳaṣīda, in k̲h̲afīf metre and with -āʾū rhyme (with an iḳwāʾ in one verse in -āʾī ), is said by legendary tradition to have been …

(many possible vocalisations), Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Naṣr b. Aḥmad b. al-Maʾmūn , ¶ popular poet of Baṣra, who probably died in 327/938. He made rice bread ( k̲h̲ubz aruzz ) in a shop at the Mirbad [ q.v.], where his biographers show him as surrounded by a circle of admirers who were especially attracted by his g̲h̲azal verses on boys, these being his speciality. It does not seem that he should be included in the list of those poets whose belligerence involved them in contests and controversies, nor does he seem to have been inclined, l…

b. fātik b. al-ak̲h̲ram al-asadī , Arab poet of the Umayyad period, son of the Companion of the Prophet Ḵh̲uraym al-Nāʿim, whose ḥadīt̲h̲s he has handed down. After settling at Kūfa, he composed, like many of the poets of that town g̲h̲azal poems, but also panegyrics on the Umayyad princes ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and Bis̲h̲r, son of Marwān; although he contracted tubercular leprosy ( abraṣ ), his poetry allowed him to enjoy their intimate friendship, and this favour won him the surname of k̲h̲alīl al-k̲h̲ulafāʾ (the friend of caliphs). In some of his poems he touch…

, mūsā b. ʿīsā b. abī ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲/ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ (?), Mālikī faḳīh , probably born between 365/975 and 368/978 at Fās into a Berber family whose nisba is impossible to reconstruct. No doubt to complete his studies, but perhaps also because of other reasons hard to discern, he went to settle in al-Ḳayrawān, where his master was in particular al-Ḳābisī (d. 403/1012 [ q.v.]). He is known to have stayed in Cordova with Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr [ q.v.] and to have profited by the chance to follow the lectures of various scholars there, which his biographers list, without however gi…

, a general and governor of the ʿAbbāsid period, a native of K̲h̲urāsān. As a supporter of ʿĪsā b. Mūsā [ q.v.] in the reign of al-Manṣūr, he was brought to Bag̲h̲dād in chains and remained in obscurity throughout the reign of al-Mahdī. He then became the confidential adviser of al-Hādī who is even said to have ordered him to kill Hārūn, and was stopped from doing so only by al-K̲h̲ayzurān’s intervention. However, on the death of al-Hādī, it was he who brought Hārūn out of prison and took part in his enthronement. T…

(a), from ṭamara , which signifies in particular “to hide”, denotes a natural or man-made cavity used for the concealment of victuals ( ṭaʿām ) or of riches ( māl ); such is the definition adopted by the ¶ LA (s.v.), which specifies that it is the plural maṭāmīr which should be applied to underground silos where grain is stored. In fact, the singular currently denotes a silo, and the plural, a group of silos garded by a ṭammār and called mərs in Morocco ( rətba in Takrūna, where the guardian is known as rattāb ; W. Marçais, Glossaire de Takroûna , v, 2408-9, with discussio…

(rather than Ḥāʾiṭ, if the position in the alphabetical order given to him by al-ʿAsḳalānī is taken into consideration), a theologian ranked among the Muʿtazilites; he was the pupil of al-Naẓẓām [ q.v.], and the teacher, in particular, of al-Faḍl al-Ḥadat̲h̲ī. Nothing is known about his life, and only his "innovations" are partly known to us. His doctrine, evolved before 232/846-7, seems to differ from Muʿtazilite teaching on the following two fundamental dogmas, which are borrowed from systems alien to Islam but which, in the…

, a famous pact concluded between several Ḳurays̲h̲ī clans a few years before the Prophet’s mission, more precisely, according to certain authorities, in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda on the return from the war of Fid̲j̲ār [ q.v.]. The traditions concerning the events which brought it about are divergent, but can be reduced to the following outline: a merchant of Zabīd (or elsewhere, or even the poet al-Ṭamaḥān al-Ḳaysī) sells merchandise to a leading man of the clan of the Banū Sahm who proves to be a bad payer and wants to harm the merchant.…

, Abu ’l-Nad̲j̲m , commander-in-chief of the armies of the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid (279-89/892-902). He was the son of one of al-Mutawakkil’s mawālī , whose name cannot be established with certainty (Ḵh̲urr or Ḵh̲ayr?), and was first in service as an equerry to al-Muwaffaḳ, gaining from that time the favour of the future caliph al-Muʿtaḍid, who, whilst still regent after al-Muwaffaḳ’s death (Ṣafar 278/June 891), made him chief of police in Bag̲h̲dād and then, after his accession, com-mander of all th…

b. ʿUdus b. Zayd b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Dārim , Abu Nahs̲h̲al , poet and sayyid of the second half of the 6th century A.D. His name apparently appears for the first time in a tradition concerning the assassination by his brother-in-law Suwayd b. Rabīʿa b. Zayd (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 60, and Register, ii, 521) of a son (or of a young brother) Mālik, of al-Mund̲h̲ir b. Māʾ al-Samāʾ, who had entrusted him to Zurāra, and the vengeance of ʿAmr b. Hind [ q.v.], in the first place on the seven sons of the murdered man and then on the Banū Ḥanẓala b. Mālik (Ibn al-Kalbī-Ca…

(— al-ʿuḳad , — al-ʿuḳūd , — al-Ḳabḍa bi ’l-yad , — al-yad), dactylonomy, digital computation, the art of expressing numbers by the position of the fingers. Some indications prove that the ancient Arabs not only at times used to show their outstretched hands, bending down one or more fingers when necessary, to indicate some small numbers (see I. Goldziher, in Arabica , viii/3, 272), but also had the ability to express larger numbers by holding their fingers in a given position (see G. Levi Della Vida, in Isl ., x (1920), 243), and ¶ it is not impossible that certain gestures used by the …

al-Rukūniyya (al-Rakūniyya), poetess of Granada born after 530/1135, d. 589/1190-1. Ibn al-K̲h̲aṭīb ( Iḥāṭa , i, 316) and other writers praise the beauty, distinction, literary culture, wit, and poetic gifts of this woman, who was remembered in later ages above all for her love-affair with the poet Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Ibn Saʿīd of the Banū Saʿīd [see ibn saʿīd ] family. Abu D̲j̲aʿfar was the inspiration of most of her poetry which we possess. After the arrival at Granada of Abū Saʿīd ʿUt̲h̲mān, the son of the Almohad ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, sh…

b. ʿayt̲h̲ al-ʿabsī (see his genealogy in Ibn al-Kalbī D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 133), one of the personages of the interval [see fatra ] between Christ and Muḥammad who, in Islamic tradition, was considered as a prophet; he was even regarded as the first prophet to arise amongst the descendants of Ismāʿīl. He is said to have foretold the coming of Muḥammad, and the latter is said to have greeted K̲h̲ālid’s daughter, who had come to him, with these words “Here is the daughter of a prophet whom his people has lost”; popular belief even went as far as to attribute to him knowledge of Sūrat al-Ik̲h̲lāṣ ( T̲h̲im…

, al-ḍaḥḥāk b. mak̲h̲lad b. muslim b. al-ḍaḥḥāk al-s̲h̲aybānī al-baṣri , traditionist, born at Mecca in 122/740 but established subsequently at Baṣra, where he transmitted from a host of scholars (notably al-Aṣmaʿī) a large quantity of ḥadīt̲h̲s gathered by himself, and especially from several tābiʿīs or Successors. He was considered as trustworthy, and some of his ḥadīt̲h̲s were included in the great collections; his biographers assert that he never fabricated a single one, although he is said to have declared that pious men never lie so much as in …

, Abū Muḥammad, a poet of Medina considerably less known than his brother Ismāʿīl b. Yasār [ q.v.], with the result that Yāḳūt, who devotes an article to him, calls him Mūsā b. Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār; he gives him the nisba of al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī, as the person in question was in fact a mawlā of Ḳurays̲h̲, variously associated with the Banū Taym b. Murra, with the Banū Sahm or even with Sulaymān b. Abī K̲h̲ayt̲h̲ama al-ʿAdawī (of the ʿAdī b. Kaʿb b. Luʾayy). Since the reason for his cognomen has been forgotten, numerous explanations have b…

( or ), the nickname of a personage whom popular imagination made the hero of a few hundred jests, anecdotes and amusing stories. The oldest literary instance of this name goes back to the first half of the 3rd/9th century, in al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, who numbers D̲j̲uḥā among others renowned for their follies ( Risāla fi ’l-Ḥakamayn , ed. Pellat, in Machriq , 1958, 431), and attributes to him futile schemes and an extraordinary tendency to make mistakes and blunders; the same author also quotes ( K. al-Big̲h̲āl , ed. Pellat, Cairo 1955, 36) a story borrowed from Abu ’l…

, Muḥammad Farīd , Syrian journalist, scholar and man of letters, was born in Damascus in 1876, of a father of Kurdish origin and a Čerkes mother. From an early age, he showed an interest in nature and in books, and it was reading which, combined with his innate curiosity and gifts of observation, made the greatest contribution to his intellectual development. Already bilingual in Turkish and Arabic, he learnt French from the Lazarist Fathers of Damascus, and this enable him t…

(Ar.), which in general means a relaxing, and then an interval of time ( e.g., the modern fatrat al-intiḳāl “period of transition”), is applied more particularly to the period separating two prophets or two successive messengers ( rasūl ); al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ ( Rasāʾil , ed. Sandūbī, Cairo 1352/1933, 133-4), in his exposition of prophetic history, uses the term fatra for the end of the period separating two prophets, making it clear that the “slackening” (of observance of the earlier prophet’s teachings) is not a “break” ( ḳaṭʿa ). Al-Masʿūdī ( Murūd̲j̲ , iii, 85) for e…

, Ibrāhīm b. ʿAlī b. Salama (b. ʿĀmir) b. Harma al-Fihrī , Abū Isḥāḳ , Arab poet of Medina, born in 90/709, who, if his genealogy is authentic, belonged to the tribe of Ḳurays̲h̲. Little is known of his life. A supporter of the ʿAlids, he attended and panegyrised ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan [ q.v.] and al-Ḥasan b. Zayd [ q.v.], but he is said to have refrained from giving his support to Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh [ q.v.] when the latter revolted against the ʿAbbāsids. The Ag̲h̲ānī names several persons for whom he had occasion to exercise his poetic gifts, but it must…

( Demnate , Demnat ), a small Berber town situated on the edge of the Great Atlas in Morocco, 120 km. east of Marrākush, at an altitude of 960 m., on a small hill overlooking the fertile valley (barley, beans) of the Oued Tassawt, the slopes of which are covered with olive-trees and vines. The town is surrounded by a rectangular wall and includes a məllāḥ (Jewish quarter); in fact almost half the population, which stands at about 4,000, consists of Jews, whose numbers however are diminishing regularly. Local trade on a large scale in oil…

(a.), pl. mukaddūn , defined by al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ ¶ ( Buk̲h̲alāʾ , ed. Ḥād̲j̲iri, 46) as a man who practices kidāʾ ( ṣāḥib al-kidāʾ ), a term often replaced at a later date by kudya or takdiya and defined as “begging”, in fact denotes a wandering beggar or vagrant who, with the help of a remarkable talent for plausible lying and a knowledge of certain effective dodges, succeeds in opening up the purses of those simple persons who allow themselves to be taken in by his eloquent but mendacious words. The different w…

, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (b. Sayḥān) b. Arṭāt al-Muḥāribī , a minor poet of Medina who lived in the 1st/7th century, on intimate terms with the governors or members of the Umayyad aristocracy of the town—al-Walīd b. ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, al-Walīd b. ʿUtba b. Abī Sufyān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥakam and al-Walīd b. ʿUḳba b. Abī Muʿayṭ; indeed he belonged to a clan which was a ḥalīf of the Banū Ḥarb b. Umayya, a fact which incidentally won him the friendship and protection of Muʿāwiya. Although we possess a number of his verses, which belong to the c…

, the seven “jurists” of Medina, to whom tradition attributes a significant role in the formation of fiḳh . J. Schacht, who was especially interested in these fuḳahāʾ , wrote ( Esquisse d’une histoire du droit musulman , Paris 1952, 28; cf. idem, An introduction to Islamic law, Oxford 1964, 31): “The Medinans ... traced back the origin of their special brand of legal teaching to a number of ancient authorities, who died in the final years of the first and the early years of the second century of the Hegira. In a later p…

, Abū Yaʿlā al-S̲h̲arīf Niẓām al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAbbāsī al-Hās̲h̲imī , Arab poet of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid period, a descendant of the ʿAbbāsid prince ʿĪsā b. Mūsā [ q.v.], who is named after his maternal grandfather, a certain Habbār. He was born probably in Bag̲h̲dād (though it is also said that he was born in Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān) before the middle of the 5th/11th century and followed the traditional pattern of study so thoroughly as to be included among the transmitters of ḥadīt̲h̲ , but he could not bring himself to take an interest in the…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn , Arab writer whose activity, in the words of Brockelmann (in EI 1, s.v.) “has been undertaken outside the well-trodden paths of professional scholarship”, with the result that he has been rather neglected by biographers and copyists and that a normally well-informed writer like Ibn al-Nadīm, who has obviously not read his works, takes him ( Fihrist , 154) for a Mag̲h̲ribī and devotes to him only a short, moreover probably truncated, article. In fact, the only reliable account which is available concern…

, by-name of several persons, who may be distinguished as follows: I. Muḥammad b. ʿĀʾis̲h̲a , Abū D̲j̲aʿfar , Medinan singer of unknown father. A pupil of Maʿbad and of Malik, he was regarded as the equal if not the superior of his masters, and celebrated for his skill at launching into a performance. He was highly respected at Mecca and at Medina, but, extremely vain, he would become very angry when asked to sing. He was invited to the court of Damascus, probably by al-Walīd b. Yazīd but du…

Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān ʿAmr b. Baḥr al-Fuḳaymī al-Baṣrī , was a famous Arab prose writer, the author of works of adab , Muʿtazilī theology and politico-religious polemics. Born at Baṣra about 160/776 in an obscure family of mawālī from the Banū Kināna and probably of Abyssinian origin, he owes his sobriquet to a malformation of the eyes ( d̲j̲āḥiẓ = with a projecting cornea). Little is known of his childhood in Baṣra, except that from an early age an invincible desire for learning and a remarkably inquisitive mind urged him towards a life of independence and, m…

(a.), a technical term of rhetoric corresponding approximately to “metonymy” and meaning the replacement, under certain conditions, of a word by another word which has a logical connection with it (from cause to effect, from containing to contained, from physical to moral, by apposition etc.). Etymologically, this term implies a sense of dissimulation found also in the word kunya [ q.v.], which is considered by such a grammarian as al-Mubarrad ( Kāmil , 677) to be derived from kināya . Kināya constitutes a particular type of metaphor ( istiʿāra [ q.v.]) and it is distinct from trope ( mad̲j̲…