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Iblīs

(1,881 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Gardet, L.
, proper name of the devil, probably a contraction of διάβολος. A different etymology has been suggested by D. Künstlinger, in RO, vi, 76 ff.; ¶ the Arab philologists consider that Iblīs derives from the root bls , “because Iblīs has nothing to expect ( ublisa ) from the mercy of God”. He is also known as ʿAduww Allāh (the enemy of God) and al-ʿAduww (the Enemy). Finally he is given the common name of al-s̲h̲ayṭān [ q.v.]. In the Ḳurʾān he appears at two points in the story of the beginning of the world. (1) When God had created Adam [ q.v.] from clay and had breathed into him the spirit of life…

Muṣallā

(1,957 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Hillenbrand, R.
(a.), the noun of place from ṣallā “to perform the Muslim worship, ṣalāt [ q.v.]”, hence the place where the ṣalāt is performed on certain occasions. 1. Historical and legal aspects. ¶ When Muḥammad had fixed his abode in Medina, he performed the ordinary ṣalāts in his dār , which was also his masd̲j̲id (not in the sense of temple). The extraordinary ṣalāts, however, were performed on a place situated southwest of the city in the territory of the Banū Salima, outside the wall, northeast of the bridge on the wādī , where at present the street from the suburb of al…

Ḥawḍ

(477 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
, the basin at which on the day of the resurrection Muḥammad will meet his community. This idea is not found in the Ḳurʾān, but in Tradition, which supplies a great variety of details of which the following are the more important. Muḥammad is called the precursor ( faraṭ ) of his community On the day of the resurrection the latter, in the first place the poor who have not known the pleasures of life, will join him near the basin. So far as one can judge, the question is one of admittance: Muḥammad pleads with Allāh for hi…

al-Nasāʾī

(356 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. S̲h̲uʿayb b. Baḥr b. Sinān , author of one of the six canonical collections of traditions [see Ḥadīt̲h̲ ], b. 215/830, d. 303/915. Very little is known about him. He is said to have made extensive travels in order to hear traditions, to have settled in Egypt, afterwards in Damascus, and to have died in consequence of ill-treatment to which he was exposed at Damascus or, according to others, at Ramla, in consequence of his feelings in favour of ʿAlī and against t…

Maryam

(3,993 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Johnstone, Penelope C.
, Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Arabic form of the name is identical with po and μαριάμ. which are used in the Syriac and the Greek Bible, in the New as well as in the Old Testament. In the latter it corresponds to the Hebrew . Al-Bayḍāwī considers the name to be Hebrew; but the vowelling would seem to indicate a Christian source, according to A. Jeffery, Foreign vocabulary of the Quʾān , Baroda 1938, s.v. The name Maryam, like others with the same suffix, such as ʿAmram, Bilʿam, points to the region between Palestine and Northwestern Arabia as…

K̲h̲abar

(270 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
(a.), plural ak̲h̲bār , ak̲h̲ābir , report, piece of information. The word is not used in any special context in the Ḳurʾān. In the ḥadīt̲h̲ it occurs among other passages in the tradition which describes how the d̲j̲inn by eavesdropping obtain information from heaven ( k̲h̲abar min al-samaʾ ) and how they are pelted with fiery meteors to prevent them from doing so (al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ad̲h̲ān , bāb 105; Muslim, Ṣalāt , tr. 149); al-Tirmid̲h̲ī, Tafsīr , Sūra Ixxii, trad. 1). In his collection al-Buk̲h̲āri has a chapter entitled Ak̲h̲bār al-āḥād , which, as the tard̲j̲ama

Ḥawārī

(459 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
, apostle. The word is borrowed from Ethiopie, in which language ḥawāryā has the same meaning (see Nöldeke, Beiträge z . sem . Sprachwissenschaft , 48). The suggested derivations from Arabic, attributing to it the meaning “one who wears white clothing” etc., are incorrect. Tradition delights to endow the earliest Islamic pioneers with foreign bynames which were familiar to the “people of the Book”. Abū Bakr is called al-Ṣiddīḳ , ʿUmar al-Fārūḳ , al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām al-Ḥawārī Moreover, the collective term al-Ḥawāriyyūn occurs, denoting twelve persons …

Miswāk

(764 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
(a.), a term denoting the toothbrush as well as the tooth-pick. The more usual word is siwāk (plural suwuk ) which denotes also the act of cleansing the teeth. Neither of the two terms occurs in the Ḳurʾān. In Ḥadīt̲h̲ , miswāk is not used, siwāk, on the other hand, frequently. In order to understand its use, it is necessary to know that the instrument consists of a piece of smooth wood, the end of which is incised so as to make it similar to a brush to some extent. The piece of wood used as a tooth-pick must have been smaller and thinner,…

ʿIzrāʾīl

(1,086 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
(in European literature one also finds ʿAzrāʾīl), the name of the an gel of death, one of the four archangels (next to D̲j̲ibrīl, Mīk̲h̲āʾīl, Isrāfīl). Like Isrāfīl, whose office of trumpet-blower at the last judgment is sometimes given to him, he is of cosmic magnitude; if the water of all the seas and rivers were poured on his head, not a drop would reach the earth. He has a seat ( sarīr ) of light in the fourth or seventh heaven, on which one of his feet rests; the other stands on the bridge between paradise and hell. He is however also said to have 70,000 feet. The description of his appearance a…

al-Masd̲j̲id al-Ḥarām

(1,213 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
, the name of the Mosque of Mecca. The name is already found in the pre-Islamic period (Horovitz, Koranische Studien , 140-1) in Ḳays b. al-K̲h̲aṭīm, ed. Kowalski, v. 14: “By Allāh, the Lord of the Holy Masd̲j̲id and of that which is covered with Yemen stuffs, which are embroidered with hempen thread” (?). It would be very improbable if a Medinan poet meant by these references anything other than the Meccan sanctuary. The expression is also fairly frequent in the Ḳurʾān after the second Meccan period (Horovitz, op. cit.) and in various connections; it is a grave sin on the part ¶ of the polythei…

Ḳawm

(470 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
(a.), plural aḳwām , aḳāwim , aḳāyim , people. The word occurs also in Nabataean, Palmyrene and Ṣafaitic inscriptions in the name of the deity S̲h̲ayʿ al-Ḳawm “support of the people”, see Lidzbarski, Ephemeris für semitische Epigraphik , i, Index s.v. According to some lexicographers, the word applies in the first place to men; evidence for this opinion is afforded by passages from literature where Ḳawm is used in opposition to nisāʾ (women). The term does not primarily suggest the meaning of nation. A man’s Ḳawm are his s̲h̲ī ʿa and his ʿas̲h̲īra . In this limited…

Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲

(8,598 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Wensinck,A.J. | Jomier,J. | Lewis,B.
(a.), pilgrimage to Mecca, ʿArafāt and Minā, the fifth of the five “pillars” ( arkān ) of Islam. It is also called the Great Pilgrimage in contrast to the ʿumra [ q.v.] or Little Pilgrimage. Its annual observance has had, and continues to have, a profound influence on the Muslim world. Those not taking part follow the pilgrims in thought; the religious teachers, and nowadays the press, radio and television help them in this by providing doctrine and news bulletins. For the Muslim community itself this event is the occasion fo…

Ṣafar

(210 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
, name of the second month of the Islamic year, also called Ṣ al-k̲h̲ayr or Ṣ al-muẓaffar because of its being considered to be unlucky (C. Snouck Hurgronje, The Atchehnese , i, 206; idem, Mekka , ii, 56). The Muslim Tigrē tribes pronounce the name S̲h̲afar, the Achehnese Thapa. According to Wellhausen, in the old Arabian year, Ṣafar comprised a period of two months in which al-Muḥarram (which name, according to this scholar is a Muslim innovation) was included. As a matter of fact, tradition reports that the early Arabians called al-Muḥarram Ṣafar and considered an ʿumra

Witr

(855 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
(a.), also watr , a term found in ḥadīt̲h̲ and fiḳh in connection with performance of the ṣalāt or worship and concerned with the odd number of rakʿa s which are performed at night. Witr does not occur in this sense in the Ḳurʾān, but frequendy in ḥadīt̲h̲, which in this case also discloses to us a part of the history of the institution in three stages, itself probably a continuation of the history of the fixing of the daily ṣalāts, as the traditions on witr presuppose the five daily ṣalāts, Some traditions even go so far as to call witr an additional ṣalāt of an obligatory nature (see also below…

Āṣāf b. Barak̲h̲yā

(156 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
(Hebrew Āsāf b. Bērek̲h̲yā), name of the alleged wazīr of King Solomon. According to the legend he was Solomon’s confidant, and always had access to him. When the royal consort Ḏj̲arāda was worshipping idols Āṣāf delivered a public address in which he praised the apoştles of God, Solomon among them, but only for the excellent qualities he had manifested in his youth. Solomon in anger at this took him to task, but was reproved for the introduction of idol-worship at the court. This was then done away with and the consort punished; the king became repentant. (A.J. Wensinck) Bibliography Ṭabarī,…

Kunya

(1,146 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
(a.), patronymic, an onomastic element composed of Abū (m.) “father” or Umm (f.) “mother” plus a name. We have here a metonymic designation corresponding to a general tendency among primitive peoples to consider an individual’s name as taboo and not to pronounce it unless exceptionally (see J. G. Frazer, The golden bough, ch. xxii). The kunya was therefore accordingly the name which should be used, but in historical times, the original intention here was forgotten, and al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ (see JA [1967], 70, 82), far from seeing here any ¶ connection with sympathetic magic, counts the kunya

Hūd

(740 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Pellat, Ch.
, the name of the earliest of the five “Arab” prophets mentioned in the Ḳurʾān (Hūd, Ṣāliḥ, Ibrāhīm, S̲h̲uʿayb and Muḥammad). In his history, which is related three times (on this repetition, see al-Diāḥiẓ, Bayān , ed. Hārūn, i, 105) in slightly different forms (in chronological order: XXVI, 123-40, XI [ Sūra of Hūd ], 52-63/50-60, VII, 63-70/65-72, XLVI, 20/21, merely a restatement), the Ḳurʾān represents him as an ʿĀdī sent to this people [see ʿād ] to exhort them to adore the One God; but, like Muḥammad later in Mecca, he found only incredulity …

S̲h̲awwāl

(284 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
, the name of the tenth month of the Muslim lunar year. In the Ḳurʾān (sūra X, 2), four months are mentioned during which, in the year 9/630-1, the Arabs could move in their country without exposing themselves to attacks (cf. “the sacred months” in v. 5). These four months were, according to the commentaries, S̲h̲awwāl, D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda, D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a and Muḥarram. In Ḥadīt̲h̲ , S̲h̲awwāl is therefore among “the months of pilgrimage mentioned in Allāh’s Book” (al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ , bāb 33, 37). In pre-Islamic times, S̲h̲awwāl was considered ill-omened for the conclus…

al-Ṣalīb

(1,743 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Thomas, D.
(a.) pls. ṣulub , şulbān , a cross, and, particularly, the object of Christian veneration. The term is used for cross-shaped marks e.g. brands on camels and designs woven into cloth, and in legal contexts for the instrument of execution. The Ḳurʾān refers in six places to the act of crucifying as a punishment. Four of these are set in ancient Egypt: in sūra XII, 41, Yūsuf predicts that one of the men jailed with him will be crucified and birds will eat from his head; in VII, 124, XX, 71, and XXVI, 49, Pharaoh vows to crucify the magic…

Nāfīʿ b. al-Azraḳ

(521 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J.
al-Ḥanafī al-Ḥanẓalī, Abū Rās̲h̲id (said to be the son of a freedman of Greek origin who was a blacksmith; al-Balād̲h̲urī. Futūḥ , 56), K̲h̲arid̲j̲ite who played quite a considerable role in Islamic history as leader of an extremist fraction of that sect known after him as the Azāriḳa [ q.v.] or Azraḳīs, which lived on substantially after his death; he is furthermore said to have laid down their doctrines. The sequence of events in which he was involved is difficult to establish, since there is a certain confusion in the narratives involving him. From them one le…
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