Search

, Abū Saʿīd Ḥasan b. Bahrām , was the founder of Ḳarmaṭian power in East Arabia. Born at D̲j̲annāba on the Fārs coast, he is said to have become a flour merchant at Baṣra. He was crippled on the left side. His first mission as a Ḳarmaṭian is said to have been as a dāʿī in southern Īrān, where he had to go into hiding from the authorities. He was then sent to (mainland) Baḥrayn, where he married into a prominent family and won followers rapidly, perhaps among a group formerly attached to the line of Ibn-al-Ḥanafiyya. We find that in 286/899 he had subjected a large part of Baḥrayn and taken…

(a.), plural ḥudūd , hindrance, impediment, ¶ limit, boundary, frontier [see ʿawāṣim , g̲h̲āzī , t̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr ], hence numerous technical meanings, first and foremost the restrictive ordinances or statutes of Allāh (always in the plural), often referred to in the Ḳurʾān (sūra ii, 187, 229, 230; iv, 13, 14; ix, 97, 112; lviii, 4; lxv, 1). In a narrower meaning, ḥadd has become the technical term for the punishments of certain acts which have been forbidden or sanctioned by punishments in the Ḳurʾān and have thereby become crimes against religion. These are: unlawful intercourse ( zinā [ q.v.]…

, Persian forms (adopted by Arab writers) of the name of the Achaemenian king familiarly known under the hellenized form Dareios (Darius). Dārāb, and its abbreviation Dārā, are directly derived from the ancient Persian Darayahvahav-(Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch , 738; the different grammatical cases attested by Persian inscriptions, in Tolman, Ancient Persian Lexicon and Texts , 1908, s.v. darayavau ; for the ancient historians of these kings, Gr. I. Ph., ii, index, s.v. Dareios). The sources of information about these princes collected by Arab and Persian w…

(pl. bidada ; Pers. but ) is used in Arabic in three different senses; it denotes either a temple, a pagoda, or Buddha, or an idol (not necessarily the Buddha). The principal instance of the use of the word in the sense of pagoda occurs in a passage in the Merveilles de l’Inde (ed. trans. M. Devic, 5; Mémorial J. Sauvaget , i, 192); this sense appears ¶ to be the rarest, although given as the primary sense in the LA. Budd denotes the Buddha in authors such as al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ ( Tarbīʿ , ed. Pellat, 76), al-Masʿūdī, al-Bīrūnī, al-S̲h̲ahrastānī; al-Masʿūdī, speaking of t…

, St. George. Islam honours this Christian martyr as a symbol of resurrection and renovation; his festival marks the return of spring. The legend of St. George had become syncretic long before the days of Islam, for we can recognize in St. George overthrowing the dragon a continuation of Bellerophon slaying the Chimaera. Bellerophon himself was symbolic of the Sun scattering the darkness, or of spring driving away the mists and fogs of winter. ¶ According to Muslim legend, D̲j̲ird̲j̲īs lived in Palestine in the time of the disciples, and was martyred at Mosul under the…

1. S̲h̲iḳḳ is the name of two diviners or kāhins who allegedly lived shortly before the rise of Islam. According to the Abrégé des merveilles , S̲h̲iḳḳ the Elder was the first diviner among the ʿArab al-ʿĀriba. He is a completely fabulous personage. Like the Cyclops, he had only one eye in the middle of his forehead or a fire which split his forehead into two ( s̲h̲aḳḳa “to split”). He is also confused with al-Dad̲j̲d̲j̲āl [ q.v.], Antichrist, or at least Dad̲j̲d̲j̲āl is of his family. He is said to have lived chained to a rock on an island where volcanic phenomena occur…

a Persian and Arabic word meaning “obstacle” “hindrance” “separation” (perhaps identical with Persian farsak̲h̲ [ q.v.], a measure of distance). It is found three times in the Ḳurʾān (xxiii, 102; xxv, 55 and lv, 20) and is interpreted sometimes in a moral and sometimes in a concrete sense. In verse 100 of Sūra xxiii the godless beg to be allowed to return to earth to accomplish the good they have left undone during their lives; but there is a barzak̲h̲ in front of them barring the way. Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī here explains the word by ḥāʾil , an obstacle, and interprets it …

, Arabic transcription of the word εὐ-αϒϒέλιον, gospel, through the Ethiopian wāngel (Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge , 47; Grimme, in Festsch . Goldziher , 164; Jeffery, Foreign Vocabulary of the Qurʾān , 71-2). The variant and̲j̲īl may arise from a Mesopotamian Persian influence. The word ind̲j̲īl occurs twelve times in the Ḳurʾān (III, 2, 43, 58; V, 50, 51, 70, 72, 110; VII, 156; IX, 112; XLVIII, 29; LVII, 27) and refers to the Revelation transmitted by Jesus. The word also means the scripture possessed and read by the Christian contemporaries of Muḥammad (V, 51; VII, 156), i.e., the four Gospel…

, a prominent theologian belonging to the Murd̲j̲iʾa [ q.v.]. His father, a fuller and dyer in Kūfa, is said to have been a Jew, and Bis̲h̲r, on his conversion to Islam, to have become a mawlā of Zayd b. al-Ḵh̲aṭṭāb. He lived ¶ in the western quarter of Bagdad, in the Darb al-Marīs (or al-Marīsī ), from which he took his nisba . He died in Bag̲h̲dād in 218/833. Bis̲h̲r was an assiduous disciple of Abū Yūsuf in fiḳh , and although he held some opinions of his own, he is counted among the followers of the Ḥanafī school; he also heard traditions from Ḥamm…

, also tilsim , tilism , tilasm , etc. from the Greek τέλεσμα, a talisman, i.e. an inscription with ¶ astrological and other magic signs or an object covered with such inscriptions, especially also with figures from the zodiacal circle or the constellations and animals which were used as magic charms to protect and avert the evil eye. The Greek name is evidence of its origin in the late Hellenistic period and gnostic ideas are obviously reflected in the widespread use of such charms. The sage Balīnās or Balīnūs [ q.v.], i.e. Apollonius of Tyana ( fl. 1st century A.D.), is said to have been…

is the formula biʾsmi llāhi l-raḥmāni l-raḥīmi , also called tasmiya (to pronounce the [divine] Name). Common translation: “In the name of God, the Clement, the Merciful”; R. Blachère’s translation: “In the name of God, the Merciful Benefactor”, etc. The formula occurs twice in the text of the Ḳurʾān: in its complete form in Sūra xxvii, 30, where it opens Solomon’s letter to the queen of Sheba: “It is from Solomon and reads: In the name of God, the Merciful Benefactor”; on a second o…

, celebrated philosopher, whose full name was Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Ṭufayl al-Ḳaysī . He belonged to the prominent Arab tribe of Ḳays; he was also called al-Andalusī, al-Ḳurṭubī or al-Is̲h̲bīlī. Christian scholastics call him Abubacer, a corruption of Abū Bakr. Ibn Ṭufayl was probably born in the first decade of the 6th/12th century in Wādī Ās̲h̲, the modern Guadix, 40 miles N.E. of Granada. Nothing is known of his family or his education. That he was a pupil of Ibn Bād̲j̲d̲j̲a [ q.v.], as is frequently stated, is incorrect, for in the introduc…