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KOBRAWIYA, the most influential Sufi order of the Mongol period in Central Asia and Persia, with branches that survived elsewhere for several centuries.i. The Eponym Abu’l-Jannāb Aḥmad b. ʿOmar Najm-al-Din Kobrā, eponym of the Kobrawiya, was born in Ḵᵛārazm (see CHORASMIA) in 1145 (or possibly a decade later; he is said to have been approximately eighty years of age when the Mongols overran Ḵᵛārazm in 1221). “Kobrā,” the element in his name that gave rise to the designation of the Kobrawiya, is said to be the abbreviation of al-ṭāmmat al-kobrā (the overwhelming event), a description …

(or ʿAMMĀMA, Arabic ʿEMĀMA), the turban. Imbued with symbolic significance, the turban was once the almost universal headgear of adult male Muslims.A version of this article is available in printVolume I, Fascicle 9, pp. 919-921 ʿAMĀMA (or ʿAMMĀMA, Arabic ʿEMĀMA), the turban. Imbued with symbolic significance, the turban was once the almost universal headgear of adult male Muslims. Although of pre-Islamic origin and widely disseminated in the ancient Near East, it came in Islamic times to distinguish first the Arab from the non-A…

principal source for the life and teachings of the well-known mystic of Khorasan, Abū Saʿid b. Abi’l-Ḵayr (b. 357/967, d. 440/1049).A version of this article is available in printVolume II, Fascicle 8, pp. 800-801 ASRĀR AL- TAWḤĪD FĪ MAQĀMĀT AL-ŠAYḴ ABĪ SAʿĪD, principal source for the life and teachings of the well-known mystic of Khorasan, Abū Saʿid b. Abi’l-Ḵayr (b. 357/967, d. 440/1049; q.v.). The book was composed by his great-great-grandson, commonly known as Ebn Monawwar; his full name is given, in slightly differing forms, …

a poor, indigent, ascetic, and abstemious person or recluse.A version of this article is available in printVolume VII, Fascicle 1, pp. 72-76 DARVĪŠ, a poor, indigent, ascetic, and abstemious person or recluse (Av. drəgu-, driγu- “the needy one, dependent”; Lommel, pp. 127-28; pace AirWb. 777: “poor, needy; Mid. Pers. driyōš “worthy poor, needy; one who lives in holy indigence”; Pāzand daryōš; NPers. darγōš > daryōš > darvīš). Paul Horn ( Etymologie, s.v. dervēš) connected it with New Persian derīḡ “regret, sorrow,” a connection that Heinrich Hübschmann ( Persische Studien, p. 62) r…

term referring to any forty-day period. i. In Persian folklore. ii. In Sufism.A version of this article is available in printVolume V, Fascicle 2, pp. 123-125i. In Persian FolkloreIn terms of the traditional calendar there are three čellas in a year. One in the summer, čella-ye tābestān, and two in the winter. The summer čella, also called qalb al-asad begins on 1 Tīr/21 June and ends on 5 Mordād/26 July. It lasts 35 days. As the summer čella is not as important as the ones in winter and as it does not even last forty days, I suspect that it is a secondary development cr…

The following sub-entries will provide an overview of the unifying factors which constitute Iran through time and across space, while also showing the complexity and heterogeneity of the components of Iranian culture.A version of this article is available in printVolume XIII, Fascicle 2, 3, 4, 5 pp. 204-480 IRAN, New Persian Irān (Mid. Pers. Ērān, from OIr. *Aryānām “of the Aryans” [see ARYANS]), name of the modern political state, also used, as noun or adjective (e.g., “Iranian plateau”), as a geographical term. The adjective is applied, ind…

ABU ʿABD-ALLĀH (ca. 702-765), the sixth imam of the Imami Shiʿites. He spent most of his life in Medina, where he built up a circle of followers primarily as a theologian, Ḥadith transmitter, and jurist ( faqih).A version of this article is available in printVolume XIV, Fascicle 4, pp. 349-366 JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ, ABU ʿABD-ALLĀH, the sixth imam of the Imami Shiʿites. He was the eldest son of Imam Moḥammad al-Bāqer (q.v.) and, on the side of his mother, Omm Farwa, a descendent of Abu Bakr by four generations (Ṭabari, III/IV, p. 2509; Yaʿqubi, II, p. …

term denoting reports that convey the normative words and deeds of the Prophet Moḥammad; it is understood to refer generically to the entire corpus of this literature and to the thousands of individual reports that comprise it. A version of this article is available in printVolume XI, Fascicle 4, 5, pp. 442-457HADITH i. A GENERAL INTRODUCTIONHadith literature (often called in Western scholarship “Muslim tradition”) is understood to be the repository of the sonna (normative conduct; pl. sonan) of the Prophet, which is regarded as second in authority only to the Koran as …

Najm al-Dīn Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. Shāhāwar b. Anūshīrwān Dāya Rāzī (573–654/1177–1256) was a prominent member of the Kubrawī Ṣūfī order (originating with Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, d. 618/1221), celebrated above all for his compendious Persian-language handbook of Ṣūfī theory and practice, Mirṣād al-ʿibād min al-mabdaʾ ilā l-maʿād (“The path of God’s bondsmen from origin to return”). His distinctive name “Dāya” (wetnurse) reflects the fancy that the novice on the Ṣūfī path is like a newborn in need of suckling in order to flourish, a simile developed at length in Mirṣād al-ʿibād (2…

(a.) either the act of girding with aninitiatic belt or girdle, as practised by the chivalrous sodalities (the exponents of futuwwa [ q.v.]), the trade guilds ( aṣnāf , see below, 2., and ṣinf ), and certain Ṣūfī orders, or the belt or girdle itself. To the Arabic s̲h̲add in its verbal meaning correspond the Turkish expressions şedd kuşatmak , kuşak kuşatmak , and bel bağlamak , and the Persian kamar bastan. The origin of the custom has been attributed to the kustī , the sacred girdle of the Zoroastrians, for whom, however, girding on the kustī was a rite of passage into manhood, not of in…

, Muḥammad Amīn (d. 1332/1914), one of the leading figures in the recent history of the Naḳs̲h̲bandī order, and author of several influential works. Born in Irbīl, he made early acquaintance with Ṣūfīsm, for his father, Fatḥ Allāh-zāda, was a Ḳādirī s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ . His own initiation was at the hands of a Naḳs̲h̲bandī s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of the city, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿUmar, who was separated by only one link in the initiational chain from the great renewer of the Naḳs̲h̲bandiya in the western Islamic lands, Mawlānā K̲h̲ālid Bag̲h̲dādī (d. 1242/1826). After several …

, ḥaydar b. ibrāhīm , an Imāmī ʿālim of the early 19th century. Born in Kāẓimayn ¶ in 1205/1790, he spent his entire life there, dying in 1265/1849. He was the ancestor of the Ā1 Ḥaydar, a celebrated learned family of Kāẓimayn. Among his works may be mentioned al-Bāriḳa al-Ḥaydariyya , concerning uṣūl (the principles of jurisprudence), and al-Mad̲j̲ālis al-Ḥaydariyya , consisting of scenarios for the taʿziya , the so-called S̲h̲īʿī passion play. (H. Algar) Bibliography Muḥammad Mahdī al-Kāẓimī, Aḥsan al-wadīʿa, Baghdad 1347/1929, ii, 21 Āg̲h̲ā Buzurg al-Ṭihrānī, al-D̲h̲arīʿa ilā ta…

, āyatullāh abu ’l-ḳāsim , an Iranian mud̲j̲tahid who played a role of some importance in the events of the early post World War II period. Born in the late 19th century, Kās̲h̲ānī went at an early age to Nad̲j̲af, where he studied under two of the mud̲j̲tahids prominent in support of the Iranian constitutionalist cause, Muḥammad Kāẓim K̲h̲urāsānī and Mīrzā Ḥusayn K̲h̲alīlī Ṭihrānī. In 1919 he was sentenced to death in absentia by the British for opposing the mandate in ʿIrāḳ, but escaped to Iran. Throughout the reign of Riḍā S̲h̲āh he abstained from political activ…

, ʿabd al-nabī b. ʿalī , an Imāmite faḳīh and traditionist whose life spanned two of the chief areas of S̲h̲īʿī concentration, the ʿatabāt of ʿIrāḳ and the D̲j̲abal ʿĀmil in Syria. He was born in Kāẓimayn in 1198/1784 to a father of Medinan origin, and studied there under a number of prominent ʿulamāʾ , the most important being Sayyid Muḥammad Riḍā and his son Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh al-S̲h̲ibrī. He was appointed treasurer at the shrine of Kāẓimayn, but in 1244/1828 migrated to the Ḏj̲abal ʿĀmil, settling in the village of Ḏj̲ūyā. Initially unknown, he soon became the most influential ʿālim …

, k̲h̲wād̲j̲a ʿubayd allāh b. maḥmud naṣīr al-dīn (806-95/1404-90), a s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of the Naḳs̲h̲bandī order under whose auspices it became firmly rooted in Central Asia and spread also to other regions of the Islamic world; furthermore, the effective ruler of much of Transoxania for four decades. He was born in Ramaḍān 806/March 1404 in the village of Bāg̲h̲istān near Tas̲h̲kent into a family already renowned for its religious and scholarly interests. It was his maternal uncle, Ibrahi…

, K̲h̲wād̲j̲a Bahāʾ al-Dīn , Muḥammad b. Muḥammad (718-91/1318-89), eponym of the Naḳs̲h̲bandiyya [ q.v.], a still active Ṣūfī order that has been second in the extent of its diffusion only to the Ḳādiriyya [ q.v.] (with which it has often been intertwined, especially in India and Kurdistān). The epithet Naḳs̲h̲band is sometimes understood in connection with the craft of embroidering, and Bahāʾ al-Dīn is said, in fact, to have assisted his father in weaving the embroidered Buk̲h̲āran cloaks known as kimk̲h̲ā (Abu ’l-Ḥasan Muḥammad Bākir b. Muḥammad ʿAlī, Maḳāmāt-i S̲h̲āh-i Naḳs̲h̲ba…

, s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ abū isḥāḳ ibrāhīm b. s̲h̲ahriyār , founder of a Ṣūfī order variously known as the Murs̲h̲idiyya, Isḥāḳiyya and Kāzarūniyya. He was born in Kāzarūn, near S̲h̲īrāz in ¶ Fārs, in 352/963, and died there in 426/1033. He left his birthplace only once, in 388/998, to study ḥadīt̲h̲ and to perform the ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ . His initiation into the Ṣūfī path was at the hands either of Ibn K̲h̲afīf of S̲h̲īrāz (d. 371/981), or of one of his disciples, Ḥusayn Akkār. Several features give a distinctive aspect to Kāzarūnī’s life and wo…

, an offshoot of the Ḥurūfiyya sect [ q.v.] that after an incubation lasting a century emerged as a significant movement of politicoreligious opposition in Ṣafawid Persia and, in India, played some role in the origination of Akbar’s Dīn-i Ilāhī [ q.v.]. Given its similarities not only with Ḥurūfism but also with Nizārī Ismāʿīlism, it may be regarded as one more link in the long chain of Persian heresies. The designation Nuḳṭawiyya is said to be taken from the doctrine that earth is the starting point ( nuḳṭa ) of all things, the remaining three elements being …

, the members of an obscure heretical movement in 11th/17th century Istanbul that preached the superiority of Jesus to the Prophet Muḥammad. The term derives from Persian k̲h̲ūb “good, virtuous”, and mesīḥ =Messiah”. Some description of their tenets is to be found in Paul Rycaut’s The present state of the Ottoman Empire , London 1668, 129. Rycaut attributes to the K̲h̲ūbmesīḥīs a belief in Jesus as “God and Redeemer of the World”, and says that it is “principally maintained amongst the gallants of the Seraglio”. Although adh…

, an important mystical ṭariḳa [ q.v.] or order. 1. In Persia It is a paradox of Naḳs̲h̲bandī history that although this Ṣūfī order first arose among Persian-speakers and virtually all its classical texts are written in the Persian language, its impact on Persia has been relatively slight. This statement requires qualification only for the period of the genesis of the Naḳs̲h̲bandiyya when, it might be argued, Transoxania and the eastern reaches of K̲h̲urāsān still counted as parts of the Persian world. The rise of the Naḳs̲h̲bandiyya to supremacy in Transoxiana appears to hav…