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, poetess who was very famous in Bag̲h̲dād in the second half of the 2nd/8th century. The little that is known of her life is of doubtful authenticity. She was a muwallada , and was born, and received a polite education, in the Yamāma, which was to produce a little later another famous poetess, Faḍl. ʿInān was brought to live in the capital by her master, Abū K̲h̲ālid al-Nāṭifī, then probably lived in K̲h̲urāsān, and died in 226/841 in Egypt ( Nisāʾ , 53). She enlivened literary society during the reign of al-Ras̲h̲īd, who expressed great admiration for …

, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, minor poet of the ʿAbbāsid period, d. 250/864. A mawlā of the Banū Layt̲h̲, which attached itself to Kināna, he was born and grew up at Baṣra. Before arriving at Sāmarrā, he had written no poetry. He seems to have received a double education: as a secretary, which enabled him to fill what were probably minor functions, and as a mutakallim , in which discipline he was said to be a disciple of Ḥusayn al-Nad̲j̲d̲j̲ār [ q.v.]. He is said to have been the first poet to speak about kalām in verse. It is not known how he came to find the favour of the great personage who was…

, ʿabd allāh b. aḥmad b. ḥarb al-mihzamī , collector of poetical ak̲h̲bār , rāwī and poet in Arabic, (died between 255/869 and 257/871. Virtually nothing is known of his life, except that he came from a Baṣran family stemming from the B. Mihzam of ʿAbd al-Ḳays, and that he gloried in his Arab origin. He led a fairly poor and constricted life, to the point that he had to sell his clothing to procure food, and he complains of this frequently in his verses. His reputation arises primarily from his role as a transmitter of poetical ak̲h̲bār, and he has a place in the isnād s or cha…

, abu ’l-ʿabbās muḥammad b. aḥmad b. ʿabd allāh al-hās̲h̲imī , burlesque poet and member of the ruling family, who was born in ca. 175/791-2 in the reign of al-Ras̲h̲īd and who died in 252/866, probably assassinated by an ʿAlid partisan. He is known by the name of Abu ’l-ʿIbar, a sobriquet which he made up himself, adding a letter each year, and in the end making it unpronounceable. He was carefully educated, had an acute literary sense and was a fine connoisseur of poetry. The severe al-Maʾmūn did not appreciate him,…

, the most famous members of a family which included several poets; al-T̲h̲aʿālibī characterises it as the most poetic of families in Islam, with six poets amongst its members. The origins of the family’s ancestor Abū Ḥafṣa Yazīd are obscure. He was a mawlā of the Umayyad Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, whom he aided on various historical occasions during the caliphate of ʿUt̲h̲mān and under ʿAlī. It is impossible to decide exactly whether he was of Persian or Jewish origin. Freed by Marwān, he was entrusted with certain posts,…

(a.), designates a Bacchic or wine poem in modern critical terminology, at least since Ṭaha Ḥusayn in 1923 ( Ḥadīt̲h̲ al-Arbiʿāʾ , ii, 71). This name does not seem to be attested in the mediaeval nomenclature of the genres. The usual expressions al-ḳawl fi’l-k̲h̲amr , lahu maʿānī fī’l-k̲h̲amr , waṣṣāf li’l-k̲h̲amr , indicate the existence of themes, but do not include any willingness to organise them into an independent poem. In fact, the problem of appellation conceals the problem of evolution, of which the principal stages will be traced here. i. In early times: the inserted statement. T…

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar, satirical Arabic poet of the early ʿAbbāsid period, flor . end of the 2nd/8th century and opening of the 3rd/9th century. We do not know when first he went to Bag̲h̲dād, where he lived, nor the date of his death. The most important persons with whom he came in contact were Ibrāhīm b. al-Mahdī (d. 224/839 [ q.v.]) and, above all, al-Ḥasan b. Sahl (d. 236/850 [ q.v.]), the caliph al-Maʾmūn’s secretary. The poet was introduced to al-Ḥasan at the time when he resided at Wāsiṭ, probably after the assassination of his brother al-Faḍl b. Sahl. We possess only 398 verses of this poet…

, abu ’l-haytham, a Bag̲h̲dādī of K̲h̲urāsānian origin who was secretary for the army in the vizierate of al-Faḍl b. Marwān (218-21/833-6) [ q.v.], retaining his office under the ministry of Ibn al-Zayyāt [ q.v], until his mind gave way, in circumstances which remain obscure (Yāḳūt, Udabāʾ , xi, 48). He then wandered, almost naked, through the streets of Bag̲h̲dād, pursued and stoned by a mob of urchins ( Ag̲h̲ānī , xx, 244; al-Ṣābiʾ, Wuzarāʾ , 162-3). He died ca. 269/883. K̲h̲ālid was the boon-companion of ʿAlī b. His̲h̲ām and then of al-Faḍl b. Marwān. He had the entrée to…

, type of popular poetry peculiar to Algeria. It consists of short poems of between two and eight verses which are sung by girls or young women while amusing themselves on swings or at country excursions. These songs are all anonymous and sung to the same tune, which consists of two very simple melodic phrases. The origin of the ḥawfī is obscure; its etymology offers no explanation. The genre is more commonly called taḥwīf , which means the act of singing the hawfī . The prejudice of the Arabic anthologists against popular poetry, with the exception of zad̲j̲al , depriv…

b. idrīs , abū dulaf , Arab military commander, poet and musician, d. at Bag̲h̲dād between 225/840 and 228/843. His tribe of the ʿId̲j̲l was part of the great confederation of the Bakr b. Wāʾil and of the Rabīʿa group. The fortunes of the family seem to have been linked to the spread of the ʿAbbāsid propaganda by an accident of birth, in that Abū Muslim [ q.v.], the future dāʿī for the dynasty, first saw the light in the house of ʿĪsā b. Maʿḳil, brother of Idrīs, the grandfather of Abū Dulaf. This family settled at Karad̲j̲ [ q.v.], near to Nihāwand, where it possessed vast estates. Abū Dulaf…

(a.), a term whose sense needs to be defined according to the discipline in which it is used. 1. In grammar. Etymologically, maʿnā is what the speaker intends to say ( ʿibāra ʿan al-s̲h̲ayʾ allad̲h̲ī ʿanāhu ’l-ʿānī , al-Rāzī, Mafātīḥ , i, 24, 16); it is then almost synonymous with terms such as maḳṣūd , niyya and murād . As a technical term, maʿnā indicates the semantic counterpart of lajẓ . Each word has an aṣl , i.e. the radicals that constitute the consonantal structure of the word, which is realised in a pattern ( binya ). For each aṣl there is a correlating maʿnā, as well as for each binya, the lat…

(a.), originally designates “a ladder”, and then “an ascent”, and in particular, the Prophet’s ascension to Heaven. 1. In Islamic exegesis and in the popular and mystical tradition of the Arab world. The Ḳurʾān (LXXXI, 19-25, LIII, 1-21) describes a vision in which a divine messenger appears to Muḥammad, and LIII, 12-18, treats of a second mission of a similar kind. In both cases, the Prophet sees a heavenly figure approach him from the distance, but there is no suggestion that he himself was carried away to Heaven. However, i…