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, collective designation of seven patron saints venerated in certain Moroccan towns and tribal areas, as well as in some parts of Algeria. Probably the oldest group of this kind are the Seven of the Rad̲j̲rād̲j̲a (Regraga), a Berber maraboutic tribe (later: family) belonging to the Ḥāḥā (Maṣmūda) and composed of the descendants of 13 saints (the original seven plus six affiliates), whose tombs and zāwiyas are located west, east and on top of their holy mountain, Ḏj̲abal al-Ḥadīd, between al-Sawīra (Mogador) and the Tansift in S̲h̲ayāẓima (Chiadma) country. According to local traditi…

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn Isḥāḳ b. Ibrāhīm b. Sulaymān b. Wahb al-Kātib , scion of an old and distinguished secretarial family and author of a remarkable S̲h̲īʿī work on Arabic rhetoric, style and the secretary’s art, the K. al-Burhān fī wud̲j̲ūh al-bayān . His grandfather Sulaymān was vizier to al-Muhtadī and al-Muʿtamid, fell in disgrace under al-Muwaffaḳ and died in his prison in 292/905. About his father and himself we know almost nothing. His floruit belongs to the first half of the 4th/10th century. His book must have been composed in or after 335/946-7, since it mentions the vizier ʿAlī b. ʿIsā [ q…

(common spelling, Sfar), Muḥammad al-Bas̲h̲īr a leading figure in the early Tunisian reformist (“evolutionist”) and Young Tunisian movements, of Turkish parentage (1865-1917). Born at Tūnis as the third son of Brigadier-General ( amīr liwāʾ ) Muṣṭafā Ṣafar, he received a strict education, attended first a Ḳurʾānic school and then the élitist Ṣādiḳī [ q.v.] College from its inception (1875). His excellent record won him the favour of its founder, K̲h̲ayr al-Dīn Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.] and a scholarship to Paris. Having lost it a year later owing to the diversion of the school…

(Ar. Wādī Sūf, nisba Sūfī, pl. Sawāfa, vulgo Suafa), a group of oases in south-eastern Algeria, termed by the French (since 1885) Annexe d’El Oued, after its chef-lieu al-Wād. With its nomadic periphery, it covers an area of ca. 80,000 km2, stretching along the Tunisian border from the D̲j̲arīd to the approaches of G̲h̲adāmes. Most of it is sand dunes forming part of the Great Oriental Erg, the remainder is flat, stony terrain ( ṣaḥn , lit. “plate”) and several salt marshes ( sabk̲h̲a , s̲h̲aṭṭ ). Villages and palm groves occupy only a fraction of the whole.…

(usual French spelling: Ben Ghedahem), ʿAlī b. Muḥammad , leader of the 1864 revolution in Tunisia. Born around 1815 as the son of a Badawī doctor and ḳāḍī of the Mād̲j̲ir tribe in the district of T̲h̲ala, he is said to have studied at the Great Mosque, became secretary to the ḳāʾid of his tribe, al-ʿArbī (Larbi) Bakkūs̲h̲, then ḳāḍī, but was dismissed by the latter. When the Ḵh̲aznadār government decided (December 1863) to double the mad̲j̲bā tax, a revolt, starting in the south of March 1864, soon engulfed most of the country. Ibn G̲h̲id̲h̲āhum w…

( vulgo al-Ṭolba ), a traditional Moroccan spring festival, a combination of a carnival and a picnic, celebrated annually in the second half of April, primarily at Fās. Although all the people joined in, the main participants and ¶ beneficiaries were the foreign students in the madrasa s of the Ḳarawiyyīn [ q.v.]. A central feature of the feast was the election of a mock sultan for a week (whence the name), the office being auctioned; in 1923, the bidding reached 22,500 Fr. This was financed by an interested party, since the mock sultan enjoyed th…

(French spelling: “enzel”, from anzala , to lodge, give hospitality), traditional type of lease peculiar to Tunisia. Presumably a survival of the Roman emphyteusis , it served as a means of circumventing the inalienability of pious foundations. The Mālikis define it as a “lease in perpetuity ( kirāʾ muʾhabbad ) of a property to a person engaging himself to build a house, or any other edifice, or plant trees on it and pay a perpetual rent calculated by the year or month” (D. Santillana, Istituzioni di diritto musulmano malichita , Rome 1925, i, 441). E. Clavel’s…

(a.), pl. ṣufūf , literally “rank, row or line, company of men standing in a rank, row or line” (Lane, 1693 col. 3), a term with various usages. 1. In religious practice. Here, ṣaff is used for the lines of worshippers assembled in the mosque or elsewhere for the prescribed worship; see on This, ṣalāt . 2. In military organisation. In the traditional formation of armies on the march or on the battlefield ( taʿbiya ), there was a classic five-fold division of a centre, its left and right wings, a vanguard and a ¶ rearguard (whence the term k̲h̲amīs for an army). In actual…

, a neo-orthodox brand of Islamic reformism, originating in the late 19th century and centred on Egypt, aiming to regenerate Islam by a return to the tradition represented by the “pious forefathers” ( al-salaf al-ṣāliḥ, hence its name) of the Primitive Faith. For definition, background, origins, doctrines and general aspects see iṣlāḥ ; muḥammad ʿabduh ; ras̲h̲id riḍā . 1. In North Africa. (a) Tunisia. Tunisia was the first Mag̲h̲rib country to receive a reformist (though not purely salafī ) message from the East. Muḥammad ʿAbduh visited Tunis (Decemb…