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et aussi Muṣawwaʿ en arabe; en éthiopien Meṣwāʿ/Meṭwāʿ; en tigré et tigrigna Bāṣeʿ; en bed̲j̲a Bāḍeʿ = ar. Bāṣiʿ/Bāḍiʿ (voir al-Masʿūdī, index, mais aussi S. Tedeschi ( Bibl.) île et port d’Erythrée [ q.v.] sur la mer Rouge (15° 38’ N.,39° 28´ E.), en face de l’archipel de Dahlak [ q.v.]. Les îles de Maṣawwaʿ, site du port en eau profonde, et de Tawlūd sont liées entre elles et avec Arkiko, situé sur la terre ferme (voir Basset, Histoire, 1897, 128-9; Crawford, The Fung Kingdom, 127), par des digues. Du côté Nord, les rades sont protégées par les presqu’îles de Ḏj̲arār et de ʿA…

ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamza b. Sulaymān b. Ḥamza , Zaydī Imām of the Yemen. Born in Rabīʿ I 561/January 1166, he became Imām in 583/1187-8 (some sources have 593/1196-7). He was not a direct descendant of al-Hādī ilā ’l-Haḳḳ Yaḥyā [see zaydids ], but of the latter’s grandfather al-Ḳāsim al-Rassī b. Ṭabāṭabā (Kay, Yaman , 184-5, 314; Van Arendonk, Débuts , 366). Between 532/1137-8 and 566/1170-1, the Imām al-Mutawakkil ʿalā Allāh Aḥmad b. Sulaymān had tried to assure Zaydī power over al-D̲j̲awf, Nad̲j̲rān, Ṣaʿda, al-Ẓāhir and Zabīd (Kay, Yaman, 317; EI 1 s.v. al-mahdī li-dīn allāh aḥmad …

Ar. form, also Muṣawwaʿ; in Ethiopie, Meṣwāʿ, Meṭwāʿ, in Tigre and Tigriñn̄̃a, Bāṣeʿ, in Bed̲j̲a, Bāḍeʿ = Ar. Bāṣiʿ/Bāḍiʿ (see al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , ed. Pellat, vi, 184 s.v., but also S. Tedeschi ( Bibl .), an island and port in Eritrea [ q.v.] on the Red Sea, at 15° 38′ N. and 39° 28′ E., opposite the Dahlak [ q.v.] archipelago. The islands of Maṣawwaʿ, the site of the deep-water harbour, and Tawlūd are linked to each other and to Arkiko on the mainland (for this name, see Basset, Histoire , i, 128-9; Crawford, The Fung kingdom, 127) by causeways. From the north, the roadsteads are prot…

, conventionally Yanbo or Yambo, the name of a port on the Red Sea coast of the Ḥid̲j̲āz, now a flourishing town of Suʿūdī Arabia (lat. 24° 05’ N., long. 38° 03’ E.), also formerly called Yanbuʿ al-baḥr (“Y. of the sea”) or S̲h̲arm Y . (“the inlet of Y.”), and also of an inland town, known as Yanbuʿ al-nak̲h̲l (“Y. of the date-palms”). The name is said to derive from Ar. yanbūʿ “well”, because of the many wells at the foot of the escarpments of the nearby Raḍwā [ q.v.] (Yāḳūt, Buldān , i, 1038). Ibn d̲j̲ubayr indeed writes Yanbūʿ . Yanbuʿ seems to be identical with Ptolemy’s Iambia Kōmē . In pre-Islamic t…

(a.), “encyclopaedia”. 1. In Arabic. In the sense of “a work dealing with all the sciences and arts”, the idea of an encyclopaedia was not expressed in Classical Arabic, and it was not until the 19th century that the expression dāʾirat al-maʿārif “ circle of items of knowledge” was coined, corresponding approximately to the etymological meaning of the word current in Western languages, and not until the 20th that a neologism, mawsūʿa , emerged, which contains an idea of breadth, of wide coverage, etc. Nevertheless, the absence of a perfectly ad…

, D̲j̲azīrat (“the ultimate place of destination of the Banū Yās” [see yās , banū ]), the name of an off-shore island in the western half of the embayment in the Gulf, between the Abū Ẓaby coast and Ḳaṭar [ q.v.], belonging to Abū Ẓaby. The island is mentioned in 1580 as “Sirbeniast” by the Venetian traveller Gasparo Balbi (Slot, The Arabs of the Gulf, 37-9, 50). Some of the islands in this part of the Gulf, including Ṣīr Banī Yās, G̲h̲āg̲h̲a, al-Yāsāt and particularly Dalmā, were inhabited during the winter months by groups of the Banū Yās, while during the…

, is the name of a wādī in the al-K̲h̲ard̲j̲ [ q.v.] district of Nad̲j̲d [ q.v. and see al-ḥawṭa ], the central province of modern Saudi Arabia. The word itself is the feminine of an adjective of the form afʿalu , but it has no comparative or superlative signification (Wright, Grammar , i, 185A, cf. al-ṣaḥrāʾ ). It is related to sahb , pl. suhub “desert, level country”. The large valley runs eastwards into the Gulf basin across the sand desert of al-Dahnāʾ [ q.v.] and, north of Yabrīn, of al-D̲j̲āfūra (see the map in al-ʿarab , Ḏj̲azīrat ). (E. Van Donzel) Bibliography British Admiralty, A handbook …

(Ar. “small beard”, Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, G̲h̲āyat , ii, 569 n. 3), a small port on the Red Sea coast in the Yemen Arab Republic (lat. 15° 42′ N., long. 42° 41′ E.), ca. 110 km. north of al-Ḥudayda [ q.v.; see the map accompanying ʿasīr ], and situated at the northern end of a narrow and shallow bay formed between the mainland and a coral reef. The bay is continued northwards past the town by a narrow boat-channel, at the entrance of which small craft may moor. Larger vessels lie about 6 km. south-west of the town in an …

(a. “wolf), the name of a wadi in North Arabia, which runs southeastwards from the fortress of al-Azraḳ, at the southern end of Ḥawrān [ q.v.], to the wells of Maybūʿ (see Musil, Arabia Deserta , 167). It has a length of about 140 km/187 miles and a breadth of 5 to 18 km/13 to 11 miles. Musil ( ibid., 120-1) calls it a depression and “a sandy, marshy lowland, above which protrude low hillocks”. Al-Azraḳ is known for its large, permanent pond. Since ancient times, the wadi has been used as an important trade route. Already King Esarhaddon (699-680 B.C.) …

( al-Sadārā ), the name of one of the most prestigious clans of the al-Dawāsir [ q.v.]. They derive their name from Sudayr (or Sadayr), a northernmost district of Nad̲j̲d, in modern Saudi Arabia, north of the valley of al-ʿAtk [ q.v.]. Wādī Sudayr, known as Bāṭin al-Sudayr, runs northwest of al-Riyāḍ. In recent centuries they ruled in the oases of al-ʿAwda, D̲j̲alād̲j̲il. al-Mad̲j̲maʿa, al-G̲h̲āṭ and Sudayra, the latter being the name of one of the sweet water wells of Ḥafar al-ʿAtk. Ever since the 13th/19th century, their name has been intimately associated with the Āl Suʿūd [ q.v.]. (E. van…

, volcanic island of ca. 14 km2 and 400 inhabitants in the Straits of the Bāb al-Mandab [ q.v.], off the coast of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (the former Aden Protectorate). Known in classical times as Διοδαρος; it became known in the West as Perim, probably from the other Arabic term used for the island barīm "rope", possibly connected with the story of the chain at al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Saʿīd [see bāb al-mandab ]. Perhaps visited by the French Crusader Reynaud de Chatillon, whose vessels were destroyed by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, the island was explored by Albuquerque ¶ in 1513, who called it…

, port in the Ḥaḍramawt [ q.v.] on the shores of the Indian Ocean (14°31’ N., 49°08’ E.), some 550 km. (300 miles) east of Aden. The name is probably the noun of place of form II of the Arabic radicals k-l-ʾ with the meaning of “station of ships” (cf. Lane, s.v.). Al-Masʿūdī (d. 345/956) knows of a port which he names Lahsā. He located it in al-Aḥkāf [ q.v.] and identified it with al-S̲h̲iḥr ( Murūd̲j̲ , ed. Pellat § 1343, cf. vii, 618; cf. al-Idrīsī, lasʿā , “a small town on the seacoast”). Locally, the port is called al-S̲h̲iḥr, Bandar al-Aḥkāf or Sūḳ al-Aḥkāf. Von Wissmann-Höfner, Beiträge …

, a Tigre-speaking tribe some 40,000 strong in the upland region on the left bank of the river ʿAnsabā, north-west of Keren in western Eritrea [ q.v.] They claim descent from a Saho warrior of the same name, who is said to have settled in the region with seventeen soldiers during the 14th century. This data seems to be confirmed by the Gadla Ewosṭāṭēwos (Turaiev, Acta S. Eustathii , 37-8), where the Ethiopian saint Ewosṭāṭēwos is said to have visited “the two Māryā” on his way to Jerusalem in ca. 1337 (cf. C. Conti Rossini, in RSO, ix, 452-5; Bermudez, Breve relaçao , 117).…

(a.) “renewer [of the century]”. In his Mug̲h̲nī (Brockelmann, II, 65; S I, 749, 19) Zayd al-Dīn al-ʿIrāḳī (d. 806/1404) quotes a tradition according to which the Prophet had said that, at the beginning of each century, God will send a man, a descendant of his family, who will explain the matters of religion. Because of the lethargy in which Islamic science found itself since the 8th/14th century, no such ¶ renewer was expected for the 9th. This view was contested by D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505 [ q.v.]). In his Kas̲h̲f ʿan mud̲j̲āwaza hād̲h̲ihi ’l-umma ’l-alfa …

, a monsoon harbour on the straits of Bāb al-Mandab [ q.v.], lying just north of the so-called Small Strait on a cape whose high cliffs dominate the island of Mayyūn [ q.v.]. This Strait is also called Bāb Iskandar because Alexander the Great is said to have built a town here. The harbour, named after S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Saʿīd whose tomb is found on the northern side of the cape, has been identified by Sprenger and Glaser with ancient Ocelis or Acila, which is mentioned by Pliny, Ptolemy and in the Periplus Maris Erythraei , and conceals perhaps some ¶ name like ʿUḳayl. The harbour is said to have be…

(al-Mak̲h̲ā; in European sources usually Mokha, Mocha, occasionally even Mecca; 13° 19′ N., 43° 15′ E.), seaport on the Red Sea in the Taʿizz province of the Republic of Yemen. According to Landberg, Dat̲înah , ii, 1141, the name means “the place where [the water] is divided [by a dam].” A local tradition says that al-Muk̲h̲ā was founded by S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAlī b. ʿUmar al-S̲h̲ād̲h̲ilī (d. 821/1418), who allegedly offered a beverage (coffee) to an Indian captain as medicine. The renown of the good qualities of t…

, Abū ʿAlawī Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr, biographer and historian from Tarīm [ q.v.]. Born in 1030/1621-2, he died at Mecca in 1093/1682. He studied theology, sciences and, above all, mysticism in his native town, in Ẓufār, in India and in Mecca and Medina. After the death of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Bakr b. al-D̲j̲amāl in 1072/1661-2, he began to lecture at the Great Mosque in Mecca, but had to renounce his teaching activities after four years because of ill health. On the basis of a number of works on Ḥaḍramī sayyids and Ṣūfīs [see bā ʿalawī ], ¶ he brought together more than 280 biographies in his al-…

, in Arabic al-Mār , a rather vague term, used until the 19th century in virtually all Western European languages, to indicate the ancient Muslims of Spain and the inhabitants of the Mediterranean ports of North Africa. The origin of the term is not yet clear. It derives either from Semitic mahourím “the people of the West”, or from Berber (Rinn, in RAfr ., xxix, 244 ff). The Greek word Μαύροίςτιος appears for the first time in ¶ Polybius (iii, 33,15), in earlier times the term Λίβυες having been used to indicate all inhabitants of North Africa [see lībiyā. l.]. After the destruction of Cart…

(or Sabayʿ ), Banū , the name of a Bedouin tribe of al-ʿĀriḍ [ q.v.], the central district of Nad̲j̲d [ q.v.; see also al-k̲h̲ard̲j̲ ] in modern Saudi Arabia. They live in and around the oasis of al-Ḥāʾir, ¶ also called Ḥāʾir Subayʿ or Ḥāʾir al-Aʿizza, a dominant section of the Banū Subayʿ. Al-Ḥāʾir lies south-southeast of al-Riyāḍ [ q.v.], at the junction of Wādr Ḥanīfa [ q.v.] and the valleys Luḥā (sometimes misspelled as al-Ḥā) and Buʾayd̲j̲aʾ (the lower stretch of al-Awsaṭ). The valley of al-ʿAtk [ q.v.] is regarded as lying within the range of the Banū Subayʿ and the Banū al-Su…

(a. “the back”), the collective name, not particularly widespread, of the chains of mountains which run from the Gulf of ʿAḳaba down to the Gulf of Aden [see al-ʿarab , D̲j̲azīrat, ii]. The word sarāt occurs quite often in the construct state, as in sarāt al-azd, sarāt al-hān , etc. In both Saudi Arabia and in Yemen, al-Sarāt separates the lowlands along the Red Sea [see al-g̲h̲awr ; tihāma ] from the high plateau. The commonest view in the Arab sources is that al-Sarāt is identical with al-Ḥid̲j̲āz [ q.v.] “the barrier”. As a whole, the chains of mountains are cut up into large and…