Search

, a traditionist originally from Nābulus [ q.v.] who was the raʾīs of Ramla and who used often to make retreat with his disciples in the Akuwāk̲h̲ Bāniyās (“the huts of Bāniyās”) at the foot of Mt. Hermon in the Syrian D̲j̲awlān. He publicly opposed the Fāṭimid occupation of Syria. Taken from Damascus and sent in a cage to Egypt, on the orders of the caliph al-Muʿizz [ q.v.] he was flayed alive in 363/973 at the Manẓar, the belvedere on the road connecting Fusṭāṭ with Cairo (the relevant Arabic texts and details of his biography and of the numerous famous muḥaddit̲h̲ s and …

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Abi ’l-Hayd̲j̲āʾ ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamdān b. Ḥamdūn b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ Sayf al-Dawla al-Tag̲h̲libī (17 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 303-24 Ṣafar 356/22 June 916-9 February 967), amīr of Aleppo and of northern Syria, also of Mayyāfāriḳīn and of western D̲j̲azīra (Diyār Bakr and Diyār Muḍar), from 333/945 until his death. From his time until the present day, he has personified the Arab chivalrous ideal in its most tragic aspect. A peerless warrior, magnanimous vanquisher of rebellious Syrian tribes, he led with audacity, and for a long time with success, the d̲j̲ihād …

, head of the section of the Banū Numayr [ q.v.] dominating part of Diyār Muḍar and the town of Ḥarrān, d. 410/1019 (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ix, 312, 413, 443, x, 443). The texts give few details on his origins and most do not even give his father’s name; nevertheless, his descendants can clearly be pinpointed in northern Syria and Diyār Muḍar and played an important role. It is this line which is mainly dealt with here. Some of the Numayr are already mentioned in central Syria around Damascus at the time of the great revolt of Abu ’l-Hayt̲h̲am in the time of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd (Ibn ʿAsākir, T. Dimas̲h̲ḳ , ʿĀṣi…

, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ al-Malik al-ʿĀdil al-Nāṣir, Mad̲j̲d al-Islām, vizier of the Fāṭimid caliph al-ʿĀḍid li-Dīn Allāh, d. 558/1163. He succeeded his father, Abu ’l-G̲h̲ārāt Ṭalāʾiʿ b. Ruzzīk, al-Sayyid al-Ad̲j̲all al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Fāris al-Islām, fatally wounded in Ramaḍān 556/September 1161. In order to avoid his father’s fate, Ruzzīk, attacked in the doorway to his ministry, had a subterranean passage dug connecting the Dār Saʿīd al-Suʿadaʾ where he lived and the Dār al-Wizāra opposite to it. More relaxed than hi…

b. D̲j̲uff b. Baltakīn (or Yaltakīn) (b. Furān) b. Fūrī b. K̲h̲aḳān, military commander of Farg̲h̲ānan origin, d. at Bag̲h̲dād in 310/922-3. His father had left Farg̲h̲āna to serve as an officer in the caliph al-Muʿtaṣim’s army, also serving his successors al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ and al-Mutawakkil. D̲j̲uff, said to have received ḳaṭāʿi at Sāmarrā, died in 247/861 on the same night that al-Mutawakkil was assassinated. Ṭug̲h̲d̲j̲ left ʿIrāḳ at the g̲h̲ulām Luʾluʾ’s invitation to enter the service of Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn [ q.v.], the governor of Fusṭāṭ-Miṣr, in 254/868. He is said to have acted…

, Fāṭimid historian (366-420/977-1030). Al-Amīr al-Muk̲h̲tār ʿIzz al-Mulk Abū ʿAbd Allāh or Abū ʿUbayd Allāh Muḥammad b. Abi ’l-Ḳāsim ʿUbayd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl b. ʿAbd al-Azīz al-Ḥarrānī al-Musabbiḥī al-Kātib, of a family originally from Ḥarrān in the D̲j̲azīra, was born at Fusṭāṭ Miṣr on Sunday, 10 Rad̲j̲ab 366/4 March 977 and died in the same town in Rabīʿ II 420/April-May 1030. Contrary to the conventions of the Fāṭimid period, a time when professional soldiers were B…

, an Arab dynasty of Kilābī origin, founded by Ṣāliḥ b. Mirdās. The latter and some of his descendants were, on several occasions between 415/1024 and 473/1080, either tolerated or recognised as princes of Aleppo. In succession to the Ḥamdānids, they maintained a tradition of autonomy in northern Syria, thanks to the tacit protection of the Byzantine Empire, which they accepted in order to ward off pressure from the Būyids of Bag̲h̲dād and the Fāṭimids of Egypt. However, they did not hesitate on…

(a.), pl. aswāḳ , market. 1. In the traditional Arab world. Sūḳ , market, is a loanword from Aramaic s̲h̲ūḳā with the same meaning. Like the French term marché and the English market , the Arabic word sūḳ has acquired a double meaning: it denotes both the commercial exchange of goods or services and the place in which this exchange is normally conducted. Analysis of the sūḳ is thus of interest to the economic and social historian as well as to the archaeologist and the urban topographer. The substantial textual documentation which is available has as yet been …

(a.), vizier or chief minister. I. In the Arab World 1. The ʿAbbāsids. Etymology The term wazīr occurs in the Ḳurʾān (XXV, 35: “We gave Moses the book and made his brother Aaron a wazīr with him”), where it has the sense of “helper”, a meaning well attested in early Islamic poetry (for examples, see Goitein, The origin of the vizierate, 170-1). Though several scholars have proposed Persian origins for the term and for the institution, there is no compelling reason to doubt the Arabic provenance of the term or an Arab-Islamic origin and evolution of the institution of the wazīr (cf. Goitein, op. ci…

, Raḥbat Mālik b. Ṭawḳ or Raḥbat al-S̲h̲aʾm , a town on the right bank of the Euphrates, the modern al-Miyādīn. Hardly anything definite is known about the history of the town before the Muslim era. In the Middle Ages it was usually identified as the Reḥōbōt han-Nāhār of the Bible (Gen. xxxvi, 37) i.e. Reḥōbōt on the river (Euphrates) especially in the Talmud and by the Syriac authors (e.g. Mich. Syr., cf. index, 63*; Barhebraeus, Chron . syr ., ed. Bedjan, 273 and passim), who usually call it Rehabōt, Raḥabat (M. Hartmann, in ZDPV, xxiii, 42, n. 1). A. Musil ( The Middle Euphrates …

, al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ, vizier in Cairo from 549/1154 to 559/1161. He held office during the imāmate of the Fāṭimid caliph al-Fāʾiz, and also at the beginning of the imāmate of al-ʿĀḍid, ¶ with the full names Abu ’l-G̲h̲arāt Fāris al-Muslimīn al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Ṭalāʾiʿ b. Ruzzīk al-G̲h̲assānī al-Armanī (for all the titles borne by him, see RCEI, ix, 3231; Ibn Muyassar, al-Muntaḳā min ak̲h̲bār Miṣr , ed. Ayman F. Sayyid, Cairo 1982, 151; al-Maḳrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ al-ḥunafāʾ , ed. Muḥ. Ḥilmī Muḥ. Aḥmad, Cairo 1393/1973, iii, 218); coming after Badr al-D̲j̲amā…

(a.), “shroud”. In the Islamic world, a dying person was often forewarned of imminent death by a dream, or by a dream that an inhabitant of his town had had during the preceding days, to the effect that the Prophet or some other great figure like Abū Bakr, ʿUmar or ʿAlī, was waiting for him and he should get ready for the meeting. Since death is the natural goal of life, its approach should be managed calmly. When the death agony is imminent, the dying person pronounces the s̲h̲ahāda or profession of faith, whilst raising one finger of the right hand to re-aff…

(a.), rebel or revolutionary, someone practising murūd or tamarrud , resistance to the established order, from the root m-r-d “to be refractory or rebellious”. The word mārid is strongly polysemantic; it includes both the idea of audacity and revolt, and also extreme pride and insolence ( al-ʿāṭl al-s̲h̲adīd , according to LA). Also present in the root is the idea of youth, with amrad meaning “young, beardless youth” (see Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Zubda , ed. S. Dahhān, Damascus 1951, i, 260, concerning beardless g̲h̲ilmān ), concomitant with the idea of a leafless tree ( s̲h̲ad̲j̲ara mardāʾ …

, an Arab tribe, one of the most important butūn of Bakr b. Wāʾil. Ibn K̲h̲allikān, ed. ʿAbbās, v, 244, attributes to it, following Ibn al-Kalbī’s Ḏj̲amharat al-nasab , the following nasab : S̲h̲aybān b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿUḳāba b. Saʿb b. ʿAlī b. Bakr b. Wāʾil b. Kāsit b. Hinb b. Afṣā b. Duʿmī b. D̲j̲adīla (or D̲j̲ud̲h̲ayla) b. Asad b. Rabīʿa b. Nizār b. Maʿadd b. ʿAdnān, as well as an identical nasab for the other ancestor, nephew of the first, S̲h̲aybān b. D̲h̲uhl b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿUkāba or ʿUkūba. But there are several other nasabs corresponding to other branches (detailed in Ibn Ḥazm, Ḏj̲amharat a…