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(a.), “concealment”, a term used in a variety of senses particularly by the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.] The Ismāʿīlīs originally used it in reference to a period in their early history, called dawr al-satr, stretching from soon after the death of imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ in 148/765 to the establishment of the Fāṭimid state in 297/909. The Ismāʿīlī imām, recognised as the ḳāʾim or mahdī by the majority of the early Ismāʿīlīs, was hidden ( mastūr ) during this period of concealment; in his absence, he was represented by ḥud̲j̲d̲j̲a s (see D̲j̲aʿfar b. Manṣūr al-Yaman, Kitāb al-Kas̲h̲f …

, the greatest of the mediaeval Nizārī Ismāʿīlī leaders in Syria, d. 588/1192 or 589/1193. Also referred to as Sinān Rās̲h̲id al-Dīn by the Nizārīs, his full name was Rās̲h̲id al-Dīn Sinān b. Salmān (or Sulaymān) b. Muḥammad Abu’ ’l-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. He was born into an Imāmī S̲h̲īʿī family during the 520s/1126-35, near Baṣra, where he converted to Nizārī Ismāʿīlism in his youth. Subsequently, Rās̲h̲id al-Dīn Sinān went to the central headquarters of the Nizārī daʿwa at Alamūt [ q.v.], in northern Persia, to further his Ismāʿīlī education. There, Sinān became a close compani…

, S̲h̲āh , a Nizārī Ismāʿīlī dignitary and author of the 13th/19th century. S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn, also called K̲h̲alīl Allāh, was born around 1268/1851-2, probably in ʿIrāḳ; he was the eldest son of Āḳā ʿAlī S̲h̲āh, Āg̲h̲ā K̲h̲ān II (d. 1302/1885), the forty-seventh imām of the Nizārī Ismāʿīlīs, and the elder half-brother of Ṣultān Muḥammad S̲h̲āh, Āg̲h̲ā K̲h̲ān III (1294-1376/1877-1957), the forty-eighth Nizārī imām. S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn spent the greater part of his life in Bombay and Poona, where he died in Ṣafar 1302/December 1884, being eventually buried in the…

, a town in central Syria in the district of Orontes (Nahr al-ʿĀṣī), about 25 miles south-east of Ḥamāt and 35 miles north-east of Ḥimṣ (for the town’s exact situation, see Kiepert’s map in M. von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf , Berlin 1899, i. 124 ff., and ii, 401; National Geographic Atlas of the World , 5th ed., Washington D.C. 1981, 178-9). Salamiyya lies in a fertile plain 1,500 feet above sea level, south of the D̲j̲abal al-Aʿlā and on the margin of the Syrian steppe. The older and more correct pronunciation…

, Muḥammad b. Badr , a prominent judge in Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īdid Egypt. Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Badr b. ʿAbd Allāh (or ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz) al-Ṣayrafī was born in Egypt in 264/877-8. His father was a client of Yaḥyā b. Ḥakīm al-Kinānī and was a prosperous money changer ( ṣarrāf ) for whom Abū ʿUmar al-Kindī composed his Kitāb al-Mawālī . A Ḥanafī by mad̲h̲hab and a reporter of traditions, al-Ṣayrafī studied under Abū D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī as a Ḥanafī jurist and heard traditions from ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Bag̲h̲awī in Mecca and from other Meccan and E…

, the seventh imām of the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.]. The eldest son of Ismāʿīl b. Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ, Muḥammad was born around 120/738; and on the death of his grandfather, the imām Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ, in 148/765 he was recognised as imām by a faction of the Imāmī S̲h̲īʿīs, who were later designated as the Mubārakiyya. These S̲h̲īʿīs, comprising one of the earliest Ismāʿīlī groups, affirmed the death of Muḥammad’s father Ismāʿīl in the lifetime of the imām al-Ṣādiḳ. They further held that al-Ṣādiḳ had personally designated his grandson Muḥammad on Ismāʿīl…