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[English edition] حياة النبيّ ومسيرته وفقا للشّهادة [انظره] التي هي جوهر العقيدة الإسلاميّة، فإنّ الاعتقاد في أنّ محمَّدا رسولُ الله لا يسبقه إلاّ الاعتقاد أن لا إله إلاّ الله. ولمحمّد دور جليل للغاية صُلْبَ تلك العقيدة. وقد أكّد القرآن والسنة الإسلاميّة في الآن نفسه أنّ محمّدًا هو إنسان خالص الإنسانيّة ليست له أيّة قوّة خارقة. وأنْ يكون محمّدٌ واحداً من أعظم الأشخاص في تاريخ العالم من جهة ما كان للحركة التي أسّسها من تأثير عالميّ، فذلك أمرٌ لا يمكن التّشكيك فيه جدّيّا. فكيف حدث نجاحه غير العادي؟ هناك إجابة لاهوتيّة هي: أنّ الله اختار محمّدا رسولا ل…

, the Prophet of Islam. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. 2. The Prophet in popular Muslim piety. 3. The Prophet’s image in Europe and the West. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. Belief that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God ( Muḥammadun rasūlu ’llāh ) is second only to belief in the Oneness of God ( lā ilāha illā ’llāh ) according to the s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.], the quintessential Islamic creed. Muḥammad has a highly exalted role at the heart of Muslim faith. At the same time the Ḳurʾān and Islamic orthodoxy insist that he was fully human with no supernatural powers. That Muḥammad was one of the greate…

, Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad of the Ḳurays̲h̲ clan of ʿAbd al-Dār. The son of rich parents, this handsome young man had already attracted attention by his elegant appearance when Muḥammad’s preaching made so deep an impression upon him that he abandoned the advantages of his social position to join the dispersed adherents of the Prophet. Tradition dilates on the contrast between his former luxurious life and later poverty but these, like such stories in general, are somewhat suspicious. When his parents endeavoured to prevent him taking part in the worship of the bel…

, lit. “pebble”, (pl. d̲j̲mār ). The name is given to three halts in the Vale of Minā, where pilgrims returning from ʿArafāt during their annual pilgrimage ( ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ ) stop to partake in the ritual throwing of stones. The Lisān al-ʿArab explains that the place acquired its name either through the act of throwing, or through the stones themselves, which accumulate as more pilgrims perform the rite. Travelling from ʿArafāt, one comes first to al-d̲j̲amra al-ūlā (or al-dunyā ), then, 150 metres further on, to al-d̲j̲amra al-wusṭā . They are in the middle of th…

, Yāfa , conventionally Jaffa, older Joppa, a port on the Palestinian seaboard, in pre-modern times the port of entry for Jerusalem, since 1950 part of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo in the State of Israel (lat. 32° 05′ N., long. 34° 46′ E.). Situated on a 30 m/100 feet-high promontory on the otherwise straight coastline of central Palestine, Jaffa is a very ancient town. Thutmosis III’s forces seized the Canaanite town of ϒ-pw in the 15th century B.C. and it became a provincial capital during the Egyptian New Kingdom; since the 1950s, archaeological excavations h…

, a place roughly halfway between Minā and ʿArafat where the pilgrims returning from ʿArafat spend the night between 9 and 10 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a, after performing the two evening ṣalāts . On the next morning they set off before sunrise and climb up through the valley of Muhassir to Minā. Other names for this place are al-Mas̲h̲ʿar al-ḥarām , from sūra II, 194, and D̲j̲amʿ (cf. Laylat D̲j̲amʿ : Ibn Saʿd, ii/1, 129, 1. 6); but D̲j̲amʿ, according to another statement, comprises the whole stretch between ʿArafat and Minā, both included, so that Yawm D̲j̲amʿ ( Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī …

, a town of northwestern Arabia, lying inland from the eastern shore of the Gulf of ʿAḳaba; it is mentioned in the mediaeval Islamic geographers as lying on the pilgrimage route between the Ḥid̲j̲āz and Syria, which there went inland to avoid the mountainous coast of the Gulf. The name is connected with that of the tribe of Midianites known from the Old Testament (LXX Μαδιαμ, Μαδιαν; in Josephus Μαδιηνἵται, ἡ Μαδιηνὴ χῶρα) but it can hardly be used without further consideration to identify the original home of this tribe, as the town might be…

, “depression”, “plain encircled by higher ground”, a geographical term denoting various regions in the Muslim countries. 1. The best known is the G̲h̲awr in Palestine, which corresponds with the deep hollow, called Aulôn in the Septuagint, through which the Jordan flows, between Lake Tiberias and the Dead Sea, and which is merely a section of the central Syro-Palestinian rift-valley. At first, the G̲h̲awr consists of a plain, overshadowed by the mountains of Samaria on the one side and Mount ʿAd̲j̲lūn on …

, the Arabic name for the Jordan River, used also from early Islamic times onwards to designate the regions adjacent to the river’s course. 1. The river This appears in Arabic as the nahr al-Urdunn , in Old Testament and later Hebrew as ha-ϒardēn , and in the Septuagint and the classical geographers as ô ’Ιορδάνης. After the Crusading period, local Arabic usage often referred to it as al-S̲h̲arīʿa [ al-kabīra ] “the [Great] watering-place”. It was, and still is, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims, by Christians in particular on account of…

, or ‘the ʿArīs̲h̲ of Egypt’, the Rhinokorura of the ancients, town on the Mediterranean coast situated in a fertile oasis surrounded by sand, on the frontier between Palestine and Egypt. The name is found as early as the first centuries of our era in the form of Laris. According to the ordinary view, which is presupposed also in the well-known anecdote about ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ’s expedition to Egypt, the town belonged to Egypt. The inhabitants, according to al-Yaʿḳūbī, belonged to the Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ām. Ib…

, Modern Hebrew Nāṣerat, Nazareth, the home of Jesus, a town of northern Palestine, since 1948 in Israel, situated in lat. 32° 42’ N. and long. 35° 17’E. at a height of 505 m/1,600 ft. It lies in a depression sloping to the south surrounded by hills in a fertile district. While the hills to the north and northeast are not very high, in the northwest the D̲j̲ebel al-Sīk̲h̲ rises to 1,600 feet above sealevel. The name of the town, which does not occur in the Old Testament, is found in the New and in the Greek fathers of the Church …

is the name of two localities: 1. A place on the frontier of Yamāma, famous for the bloody battle in which Musaylima and the Banū Ḥanïfa were defeated by Ḵh̲ālid. In its neighbourhood was a grove ( ḥadīḳa ), surrounded by a wall and, before this battle, known by the name of "Raḥmān’s garden"; later on it was called "garden of death". (F. Buhl) Bibliography Ṭabarī, i, 1937-1940 Balād̲h̲urī (de Goeje), 88 Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am ii, 226 iii, 694. 2. A place of residence of the G̲h̲assānid princes in Ḏj̲awlān; it is probably identical with the present ʿAḳrabāʾ in the province of Ḏj̲ēdūr. Bibliography Yāḳūt…

, an ancient tribe frequently mentioned in the Ḳorʾān. Its history may be learned only from sporadic indications; it was a mighty nation that lived immediately after the time of Noah, and which became haughty on account of its great prosperity (Ḳorʾān, vii. 67; xli. 14). The large edifices of the ʿĀdites are spoken of in Ḳorʾān, xxvi. 128 et seq.; comp. lxxxix. 5-6 the expression „ʿĀd, Iram of the pillars“, where Iram may designate either a tribe or a place. According to Korʾān, xlvi. 20, the ʿĀdites inhabited al-Aḥḳāf (the sand downs). The prophet sent to them, their „brother“ Hūd,…

(or Abū Ḥanẓala) Ṣak̲h̲r b. Ḥarb b. Umaiya, of the Ḳorais̲h̲ite family of ʿAbd Manāf, a leader of the aristocratic party in Mecca hostile to Muḥammed. According to the usual statement regarding his death (see below), he was a few years older than Muḥammed, according to others, however, he was ten years older. Abū Sufyān was a rich and respected merchant, who repeatedly led the great Meccan caravan. Like most of the great merchants he took up a hostile attitude to the movement brought about by Muḥammed,…

or Fāmiya, the ancient Apamea, situated near great swamps in the Orontes valley. The city, important in the time of the Seleucides, was conquered and devastated in 540 by the Persian king Ḵh̲osraw. After the capture of Ḥimṣ (Emesa) Afāmiya surrendered to Abū ʿUbaida and since then played no special part. A terrible earthquake in 1152 changed it in a heap of ruins, which show still now the site of the former city and above which towers only the old Ḳalʿat al-Muḍīḳ. (F. Buhl) Bibliography Belād̲h̲orī (ed. de Goeje), p. 131 Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, i. 322-323 iii. 846-847 E. Sachau, Reise in Syrien und…

(or Ad̲j̲nādīn), a town in Palestine between Ramla and Bait Ḏj̲ibrīn (comp. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, i. 137, according to Abū Ḥud̲h̲aifa: „in the region of Ramla, in the territory of Bait Ḏj̲ibrīn“; al-Bakrī, ed. Wüstenf., i. 72: „in the province of Urdunn, but according to others in that of Filasṭīn, between Ramla and Ḏj̲ibrīn“; Ṭabarī, i. 2125: „a balad between Ramla and Bait Ḏj̲ibrīn“; Nawawī, ed. Wüstenf., p. 430). From Ṭabarī’s mode of expression (i. 2408) Ad̲j̲nādain seems to have been a fortress. In Ḏj̲umādā I 13 (July 634) according to others, in Ḏj̲…

, the Biblical Edrei, now Derāʿā in the East-Jordanic country. The town, mentioned by Imruʾ al-Ḳais (lii. 19), was in 613 or 614 so thoroughly destroyed by the Persians — who vanquished the Byzantines in the vicinity — that it was never afterwards perfectly reëstablished. The Jewish tribe Naḍīr, driven by Muḥammed from Medina, moved to this town. The statement (Belād̲h̲orī, p. 68) that the inhabitants of Ad̲h̲riʿāt submitted to Muḥammed when he stayed in Tabūk, is apparently based upon a mistake…

, a town in central Palestine, the name of which is derived from that of Flavia Neapolis built in honour of Vespasian. Its Old Testament predecessor was Shechem, which however lay more to the east on the site of the present village of Balāṭa (the name is explained by S. Klein, in ZDPV, xxxv, 38-9; cf. R. Hartmann, in ibid., xxxiii, 175-6, as “platanus”, from the evidence of the pilgrim of Bordeaux and the Midras̲h̲ Gen. rb ., c. 81, § 3). According to Eusebius, the place where the old town stood was pointed out in a suburb of Neapolis. The correctne…

, the Greek Tripolis, called “of Syria” in the Arabic sources to distinguish it from Ṭarābulus al-G̲h̲arb [ q.v.] “of the West”, Tripoli in Libya, an historic town of the Mediterranean coast of the Levant, to the north of D̲j̲ubayl and Batrūn [ q.vv.]. It lies partly on and partly beside a hill at the exit of a deep ravine through which flows a river, the Nahr Ḳadīs̲h̲a (Arabic, Abū ʿAlī). West of it stretches a very fertile plain covered with woods, which terminate in a peninsula on which lies the port of al-Mīnā. The harbour is protect…

b. Abī Ṭālib was a brother of ʿAlī; for a long time he refused to believe in the message of Muḥammed. In the battle of Bedr he fought on the Mecca side (according to accounts of later date he did so in spite of himself, cp. Nawawī, ed. Wüstenf., p. 427); he was taken prisoner, but was soon ransomed by al-ʿAbbās (cp. the account in Ṭabarī i. 1344 et seq., which was omitted by Ibn His̲h̲ām, Yaʿḳūbī, ed. Houtsma p. 46). Later on, after the conquest of Mecca, — according to others already after the agreement of al-Ḥudaibiya (cp. Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Iṣāba ii. 1175) — he embraced Islām and went to Medīna. …

b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, Muḥammed’s father. Tradition has handed down but little concerning him, and this little consists of worthless legends. Al-Kalbī gives the 24th year of Anūshirwān’s reign as the year of his birth. That he was the finest of Ḳorais̲h̲ites is self evident. The well-known story of his father’s vow to sacrifice one son if he had ten, and of the rescue of ʿAbd Allāh on whon the lot had fallen, makes ʿAbd Allāh the youngest son notwithstanding the fact that his brother ʿ Abbās was but little older than Mu…

is the present name of the ancient ʿAkko, called Ptolemais by the Greeks, a port on the west coast of Palestine. ʿAkkā was captured by the Arabs under S̲h̲uraḥbīl b. Ḥasana. Muʿāwiya had the town rebuilt, as it had suffered a great deal in the wars with the Byzantines. He also caused dockyards to be built in ʿAkkā, which afterwards were removed to Tyre by Caliph His̲h̲ām. At a later period Ibn Ṭūlūn had the harbour surrounded by large stone embankments; Muḳaddasī, whose grandfather was the arch…

(a.), religion, rite. However obvious it may be to connect this word with the Hebrew and Jewish-and Christian-Aramaic milla, mella, “utterance, word”, it has not been satisfactorily proved how and where it received the meaning which is taken for granted in the Ḳurʾān: religion or rite. Nor is it known whether it is a purely Arabic word or a loanword adopted by Muḥammad or others before him (Nöldeke, Z. D. M. G., lvii. 413 seems to hold that it is Arabic for he refers to the 4th form amalla or amlā “to dictate”). In the Ḳurʾān it always means (even in ¶ the somewhat obscure passage, Sūra xxxviii…

ʿAbd Allāh, with the surname of ʿAtīḳ, variously interpreted by tradition, the first caliph. It is not related why he was given the surname of Abū Bekr (i. e. „father of the camel’s foal“), which his enemies mockingly twisted into Abū Faṣīl („father of the weaned young of a camel“). His father ʿOt̲h̲mān, also called Abū Ḳuḥāfa, and his mother Umm al-Ḵh̲air Salmā bint Ṣak̲h̲r both belonged to the Meccan family of Kaʿb b. Saʿd b. Taim b. Murra. According to the current account, Abū Bekr was three years …

, a town in Palestine, S.E. of Yāfā, is mentioned in the Old Testament (only in the later books: Chr. ii. 33; Neh. vii. 37, xi. 35; I Chr. viii. 12) under the name of Lod, in the Greek period as Lydda; the Greek name of Diospolis given in the Roman period did not drive out the old name, the preservation of which was helped by Acts, ix. 32 for example. It was an important place in the early centuries of the Christian era; the capital of a toparchy; it had a rabbinical school and was the see of a …

(or ʿamawās), the ancient Emmaus mentioned several times in the time of the Maccabees and in Josephus; situated in the plain of Judaea, right at the foot of the mountains, and called Nikopolis since the iii. century A.D. The town was taken by ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣī; formerly the chief place of a toparchy it remained a provincial capital under the Arab dominion, until the seat of administration was transferred to al-Ramla [q.v.]. The modern ʿAmwās is a miserable village with few old remains. The Castellu…

(Moses’ spring) is situated east of Petra in Edom. Islamic tradition connects it with Sūra 2, 57; cp. Brünnow and Domaszewski, Die Provincia Arabia i. 431; Musil, Arabia Petraea ii. ( Edom, 1907)a 42, and the article wādī mūsā.— Other Moses’ springs are: 1. Those at the foot of the Nebo mountain in Moab (cp. Survey of Eastern Palestine p. 89); 2. the spring near al-Kafr on the western side of the Ḥawrān mountains (see the map of the Ḏj̲ebel Ḥawrān in the Zeitschr. des Deutsch. Pal.-Vereins xii, D 5); 3. those on the east coast of the bay of Suez, south-east of Suez. The socalled …

, the name given to the chapters of the Ḳurʾān. In the Ḳurʾān itself, the word means, in the Meccan as well as the Medinese parts, the separate revelations which were revealed to Muḥammad from time to time. Thus he challenges his opponents to produce a sūra like his own (ii. 21; x. 39) or to bring ten sūras like his of their own devising (xi. 16). As a superscription we have in xxiv. 1: “(this is) a sūra which we have sent down and sanctioned and in it we have revealed clear signs ( āyāt)”. The Munāfiḳūn, we are told (ix. 65), fear that a sūra may be sent down that will tell them what is …

, the usual Arabic name for Jerusalem in later times. The older writers call it commonly Bait al-Maḳdis (according to some: Muḳaddas, cf. Gildemeister, Z. D. M. G., xxxvi. 387 sq,; Fischer, ibid., lx. 404 sqq.) which really meant the Temple (of Solomon), a translation of the Hebrew Bēt-hammiḳdas̲h̲ (e.g. Ibn His̲h̲ām, ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 263, 2) but it became applied to the whole town. They also frequently use the name Īliyāʾ, from Aelia (see below). They likewise knew the old name Jerusalem, which they reproduce as Uris̲h̲alim (o…

b. Hās̲h̲im, the Prophet’s grandfather. The only tradition concerning him, which is perhaps of historical value, is that which relates how he looked after his grandson after the death of his son ʿAbd Allāh [q. v.]. All other stories about him are Meccan or Medinian fictions. His real name is said to have been S̲h̲aiba. It is told of his mother Salma, who belonged to the Banū Nad̲j̲d̲j̲ār in Medina, that she had stipulated with his father Hās̲h̲im, that she should give birth to her child in Medina. Hās̲h̲im died shortly after while…

, or ‘the ʿArīs̲h̲ of Egypt’, the Rhinokorura of the ancients, town on the Mediterranean coast situated in a fertile oasis surrounded by sand, on the frontier between Palestine and Egypt. The name is found as early as the first centuries of our era in the form of Laris. According to the ordinary view which is presupposed e.g. in the well-known anecdote about ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣī’s expedition to Egypt, the town belonged to Egypt. The inhabitants, according to Yaʿḳūbī, ¶ belonged to the Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ām. Ibn Ḥawḳal speaks of two principal mosques in the town and refers to its wealth of…

, the Arabic name for the ancient Antipatris, which is to be sought for in the Wādi ’l-ʿAwd̲j̲āʿ, perhaps in Ḳalʿat Raʾs al-ʿAin. The shorter form ,,Fuṭrus" is also met with for the town. Usually, however, Nahr Abī Fuṭrus (also Nahr Fuṭrus, by Abū Nuwās) is meant, which properly designates the Wādī (Nahr al-ʿAwd̲j̲āʾ) that flows by the town. Here Marwān II rested on his flight to Egypt from Damascus in the year 132 (750), and shortly afterwards the town was the scene of the butchering of 72 or 80 Umaiyads (comp. Theophanes, Chronographia, ed. de Boor, i. 427, who certainly has the same …

b. al-ʿAbbās, surnamed Abu ’l-ʿAbbās, cousin of the Prophet. His birth is said to have taken place when the Has̲h̲imides were blocked in al-S̲h̲iʿb, a couple of years before Muḥammed’s emigration to Medina. According to al-Buk̲h̲ārī, he and his mother had already been converted before his father al-ʿAbbās [see al-ʿabbās b. ʿabd al-muṭṭalir] accepted the Islamic faith. But this is doubtlessly a pleasant fiction invented either by himself or by others. He began to come into prominence under ʿOt̲h̲mān. The caliph, to whom, according to his own state…

, according to a much discussed but very doubtful passage in Herodotus, is the name of an Arabian goddess. As deities of Arabia in iii. ch. 8 he mentions Dionysos, called Opatal by the Arabs, and Urania (i. e. Aphrodite Urania), whom they name “Alilat”. On the other hand he says (i. ch. 131), that Aphrodite Urania is called Mylitta by the Assyrians, and “Alitta” by the Arabs. Hence the question arises, which form is the correct one. Blochet proposes to change Alilat to Alidat; but it is just as …

, the, ( al-Ḳurʾān), the sacred book of the Muḥammadans contains the collected revelations of Muḥammad in a form fixed by committal to writing. 1. Even among Muslims there is no unanimity regarding the pronunciation, derivation and meaning of the word. Some pronounced it Ḳurān without hamza and saw in it a proper noun not occurring elsewhere, like tawrāt and ind̲j̲īl or they derived it from ḳarana, to tie together. Others rightly began with ḳorʾān with hamza and explained it either as an infinitive in the sense of a past participle or as an adjective from ḳaraʾa, to collect. It is really v…

(Ethiopic form for Abraham) with the surname al-As̲h̲ram, an Ethiopian governor of Yemen about the middle of the 6th century C. E. According to Procopius, who makes him out to have originally been the slave of a Roman in ¶ Adulis, he put himself at the head of an uprising against the Ethiopian king (Ela Aṣbeḥa) and took prisoner the then governor of Yemen, Esimiphaeus, the Sumaifaʿ of the inscription of Ḥiṣn al-G̲h̲urāb. He repeatedly defeated the army sent out against him; but after the death of the king he submitted to the payment …

is the name of two localities: 1. A place on the frontier of Yamāma, famous for the bloody battle in which Musailima and the Banū Ḥanīfa were defeated by Ḵh̲ālid. In its neighbourhood was a grove ( ḥadīḳa), surrounded by a wall and, before this battle, known by the name of “Raḥmān’s garden”; later on it was called “garden of death”. Bibliography Ṭabarī i. 1937—1940 Belād̲h̲orī (ed. de Goeje) p. 88 Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am ii. 226 iii. 694. 2. A place of residence of the G̲h̲assānide princes in Ḏj̲awlān; it is probably identical with the present ʿAḳrabāʾ in the province of Ḏj̲ēdūr. Bibliography Yāḳūt, Muʿ…

, properly Abu ’l-Ḥakam ʿAmr b. His̲h̲ām b. al-Mug̲h̲īra, also named Ibn al-Ḥanẓalīya after his mother, an influential Meccan of the illustrious ḳorais̲h̲ite family of Mak̲h̲zūm. According to one anecdote he was of about the same age as the Prophet. The traditions concerning him possess but little historical value; in any case it is evident from them that he was one of Muhammed’s most embittered opponents amongst the aristocrats of Mecca. He eagerly took part in all conferences against the Proph…

(a.), pl. masākīn , miskīnūn , “poor, destitute”. The word is an ancient Semitic one. In Akkadian, muškēnu/maškēnu apparently in the first place designated a social class between the full citizens and the slaves, and thence acquired the sense of “poor, destitute” (see E.A. Speiser, The muškēnum , in Orientalia , N.S. xxvii [1958], 19-28; Chicago Akkadian dictionary, Letter M , Part ii, 272-6; Von Soden, Akkadisches Wörterbuch , ii, 8641; idem, Muškenum und die Mawālī des frühen Islam , in ZA, N.F. xxii [1964], 133-41). In the latter sense, it appears in Aramaic as meskīnā and in OT Hebrew as mi…

, the Edrei of the Bible, to-day Derʿa, chief town of Ḥawrān, 106 km. south of Damascus. Situated on the borderline between a basaltic region and the desert, the town, formerly renowned for its wine and oil, was always a great market for cereals and an important centre of trade routes. Before the Assyrian conquest (732 B.C.) the kingdoms of Damascus and Israel contended for it; some scholars have identified it with the Aduri of the Amarna tablets. The capital of Batanea, Adraa was taken by Antio…

, a town in the centre of a fertile plain in the land east of Jordan, east of the southern end of the Dead Sea, about two hours’ journey south of Karak, renowned for the defeat of the Muslims there in D̲j̲umādā I of the year 8. ¶ According to the Arabic account, the reason why Muḥammad sent 3,000 men to this region was that an envoy whom he had sent to the king (presumably the imperial governor of Boṣrā) had been murdered by a G̲h̲assānid, but the real reason seems to have been that he wished to bring the (Christian or pagan) Arabs living the…

, an ancient tribe, frequently mentioned in the Ḳurʾān. Its history is related only in sporadic allusions. It was a mighty nation that lived immediately after the time of Noah, and became haughty on account of its great prosperity (vii, 69; xli, 15). The edifices of the ʿĀdites are spoken of in xxvi, 128 f.; cf. in lxxxix, 6-7 the expression: "ʿĀd, Iram of the pillars" [see iram d̲h̲āt al-ʿimād ]. According to xlvi, 21, the ʿĀdites inhabited al-Aḥḳāf [ q.v.], the sand dunes. The prophet sent to them, their "brother" Hūd [ q.v.], was treated by them just as Muḥammad was later treated by …

, a Copt maiden, according to one statement, daughter of a man named S̲h̲amʿūn, who was sent with her sister Sīrīn by the Muḳawḳis [ q.v.]in the year 6 or 7/627-9 to Muḥammad as a gift of honour (according to another authority there were four of them). The Prophet made her his concubine, while he gave Sīrīn to Ḥassān b. T̲h̲ābit [ q.v.]. He was very devoted to her and gave her a house in the upper town of Medina, where he is said to have visited her by day and night; this house was called after her the mas̲h̲raba of the mother of Ibrāhīm. To the great joy of the Prophet,…

, an ancient oasis settlement of northwestern Arabia, now in Saudi Arabia (lat. 27° 37’ N., long. 38° 30’ E.). According to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, it lay in the region called al-Maḥad̲j̲d̲j̲āt, and was four days’ journey south of Dūmat al-D̲j̲andal [ q.v.]; al-Muḳaddasī, 107, 250, 252, localises it at three stages from al-Ḥid̲j̲r [ q.v.] (in fact, Taymāʾ is some 110 km/70 miles from al-Ḥid̲j̲r/ Madā’in Ṣāliḥ), four stages from Tabūk [ q.v.] and four from the Wādī ’l-Ḳurā [ q.v.]. It lies in a depression, the length of which J.A. Jaussen and R. Sauvignac put at 3.2…

¶ , “the Pure Soul”, ʿAlid rebel, together with his full brother Ibrāhīm [ q.v.] against the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr at Medina in 145/762-3. He and Ibrāhīm had, according to al-Wāḳidī, been brought up as future rulers, and Muḥammad was called al-Mahdī by his father. As early, as the reign of the Umayyad caliph His̲h̲ām, the two sectarians al-Mug̲h̲īra b. Saʿīd al-ʿId̲j̲lī and Bayān b. Samʿān [ q.v.], who did not recognise Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Bāḳir [ q.v.], endeavoured to make propaganda for him. When signs of the imminent collapse of Umayyad rule became apparent after …

, the Acco (ʿAkkō) of the Old Testament, the Ptolemais of the Greeks, the Acre of the French, town on the Palestinian seaboard. ʿAkkā was captured by the Arabs under the command of S̲h̲uraḥbīl b. Ḥasana. As the town had suffered in the wars with the Byzantines, Muʿāwiya rebuilt it, and constructed there naval yards which the Caliph His̲h̲ām later transferred to Tyre. Ibn Ṭūlūn constructed great stone embankments round the port; al-Maḳdisī, whose grandfather executed the work, gives an interestin…

an isolated mountain (known locally as a ḥaḍba ) located in Nad̲j̲d at about 24° 48′ N, 43° 54′ E, some 60 km. north-west of al-Dawādimī, 25 km. south and east of Nafī, and 15 km. west of Wādī al-Ris̲h̲āʾ. The mountain, which consists of reddish stone, rises abruptly from the surrounding gravel plains. About seven km. in length and three km. wide, D̲j̲abala runs from south-west to northeast with three main wādīs descending from its slopes…

(a.) verbal noun of ṭāfa with bi of place, “encircling”; in the language of religious cults the running round or circumambulation of a sacred object, a stone, altar, etc. There are traces of the rite having existed among the Israelites, cf. especially Ps. xxvi. 6, and the ceremony of the feast of booths in the time of the Second Temple, where the altar is circumambulated once in the first six days and seven times on the seventh. The rite, however, was also found among Persians, Indians, Buddhists, Romans and others and is t…

(a.), religion, sect. Although the Arab philologists claim this term as a native Arabic word (cf. Nöldeke, in ZDMG, lvii ‘903], 413), their explanations are so farfetched as to render it almost certain that the term stems from Hebrew and Jewish and Christian Aramaic milla , Syriac melltā “utterance, word”, translating the Greek logos . It does not seem to have any pre-Islamic attestations, hence may have been a borrowing by Muḥammad himself. In the Ḳurʾān, it always means “religion”. It occurs fifteen times, including three ti…

, antique formule d’invocation arabe: «ô Allāh!», remplacée parfois par lā-humma (comp. Nöldeke, Zur Grammatik d. class. Arab., 6). On ne saurait accueillir sans réserves l’explication de Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums (2e éd.), 224, d’après laquelle cette invocation se serait primitivement adressée à Allāh, en tant que dieu supérieur, différent des anciennes divinités arabes, parce que chaque dieu pouvait être également invoqué comme «le Dieu» (et comme «le Maître»). Cette formule était employée dans les prières, sa…

, le Prophète de l’Islam. I. — Sa vie et sa carrière. La croyance au fait que Muḥammad est le Messager de Dieu ( rasūlu llāh) vient seulement après celle qui concerne l’unicité de Dieu ( lā ilāh illā llāh) d’après la s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.], qui est la quintessence de la foi islamique, au cœur de laquelle Muḥammad a un rôle glorieux. En même temps, le Ḳurʾān et l’orthodoxie islamique insistent sur son caractère pleinement humain, sans pouvoirs surnaturels. Que Muḥammad soit une des plus grandes figures dans l’histoire du monde, étant donné l’impact mondial du mouvement qu’il a f…

l’Edréi de la Bible, aujourd’hui Derʿa, chef-lieu du Hauran ( Ḥawrān) à 106 km. au Sud de Damas. Située à la limite d’une région basaltique et du désert, la ville, célèbre jadis pour son vin et son huile, fut de tout temps un grand marché de céréales et un important centre de routes commerciales. Avant la conquête assyrienne (732 av. J. C) elle fut disputée entre le royaume de Damas et celui d’Israel; certains l’ont identifiée à l’Aduri des tablettes d’Amarna. Capitale de la Batanée, Adraa fut prise par A…

«l’Âme pure», rebelle ʿalide qui se révolta en même temps que son frère germain Ibrāhīm [ q.v.] contre le calife ʿabbāside al-Manṣūr, à Médine en 145/762-3. Son frère et lui furent, d’après al-Wāḳid̲j̲, élevés comme de futurs souverains, et Muḥammad reçut de son père le nom d’al-Mahdī. Encore sous le calife umayyade His̲h̲ām, les deux sectaires al-Mug̲h̲īra b. Saʿīd al-ʿId̲j̲lī et Bayān b. Samʿān [ q.vv.], qui ne reconnaissaient pas Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Bāḳir [ q.v.], essayèrent de faire de la propagande en sa faveur. Lorsque l’effondrement de la souveraineté umayyade a…

, tribu de l’antiquité, fréquemment citée dans le Ḳurʾān. Son histoire n’y est relatée que par allusions éparses. C’était une nation puissante, qui vivait immédiatement après l’époque de Noé, et que sa grande prospérité rendit orgueilleuse (VII, 69; XLI, 15). Les monuments ʿādites sont mentionnés aux versets XXVI, 128 sqq.; cf. dans LXXXIX, 6-7 l’expression «ʿĀd, Iram aux piliers» (voir Iram Ḏh̲āt al-ʿImād). Selon XLVI, 21, les ʿĀdites habitaient al-Aḥḳāf [ q.v.], les dunes de sable. Le prophète qui leur fut envoyé, leur «frère» Hūd [ q.v.], fut traité par eux tout comme Muḥammad…

, l’Hacco (ʿAkko) de l’Ancien Testament, la Ptolémaïs des Grecs, l’Acre des Français, ville maritime de Palestine. ʿAkkā fut prise par les Arabes sous le commandement de S̲h̲uraḥbīl b. Ḥasana. La ville ayant souffert dans les guerres avec les Byzantins, Muʿāwiya la fit rebâtir et y fit construire des ateliers que, plus tard, le calife His̲h̲ām fit transporter à Tyr. Ibn Ṭūlūn fit entourer le port de grandes digues de pierre; al-Muḳaddasī, dont le grand-père exécuta le travail, donne une descript…

, ville du Nord-ouest de l’Arabie, en retrait par rapport à la côte orientale du golfe de ʿAḳaba. Les géographes musulmans du moyen âge la citent sur la route du pèlerinage de Syrie au Ḥid̲j̲āz qui, à cet endroit, passait à l’intérieur des terres pour éviter le littoral montagneux du golfe. Le nom de cette localité est en rapport avec celui de la tribu des Madianites connue d’après l’Ancien Testament (LXX: Mαδιαμ, Mαδιαυ; chez Josèphe: Mαδιηνίται, ἡ Mαδιηυἢ χωρα), mais il ne peut guère servir directement à identifier le territoire d’origine de c…

, localité située approximativement à mi-chemin entre Minā et ʿArafat, où les pèlerins revenant de la station en ce dernier lieu passent la nuit du 9 au 10 d̲h̲ū l-ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a, après avoir accompli les deux ṣalāts du soir. Le lendemain matin, ils se mettent en route avant le lever du soleil et montent ensuite par la vallée de Muḥassir jusqu’à Minā. Cette localité porte encore d’autres noms: al-Mas̲h̲ʿar al-ḥarām (d’après Ḳurʾān, II, 194) et Ḏj̲amʿ (cf. Laylal Ḏj̲amʿ dans Ibn Saʿd, II/l, 129); cependant, d’après une autre donnée, Ḏj̲amʿ désigne toute la région qui s’étend entre ʿAra…

ou «ʿArīs̲h̲ d’Égypte», l’ancienne ville de Rhinokolura dans une fertile oasis au milieu des sables de la côte méditerranéenne, sur la frontière d’Égypte et de Palestine. Elle apparaît déjà sous le nom de Laris aux premiers siècles du Christianisme. D’après l’opinion ordinaire, que suppose aussi l’anecdote connue de l’expédition de ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ en Égypte, elle appartenait à l’Égypte. Les habitants étaient, selon al-Yaʿḳūbī, des Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ām. Ibn Ḥawḳal parle de deux grandes mosquées dans la ville et de sa richesse en fruits. C’est là que mourut le roi Baudouin Ier en 1118. Il y avai…

, Compagnon du Prophète qui appartenait à la famille ḳurays̲h̲ite des ʿAbd al-Dār. Beau, fils de parents riches, il avait déjà attiré l’attention par son élégance quand la prédication de Muḥammad fit sur lui une si forte impression qu’il renonça aux avantages de sa situation sociale pour se joindre à la troupe méprisée de ses partisans. Les traditions ne se lassent pas de décrire le contraste entre la vie facile qu’il menait d’abord et la médiocrité qui fut ensuite son lot; ces descriptions, com…

, jeune fille copte dont le père, d’après une donnée, se nommait S̲h̲am’ûn; avec sa sœur Sīrīn, elle fut envoyée en 6 ou 7/627-9 par le Muḳawḳis [ q.v.] en présent à Muḥammad (selon une autre version, il y avait quatre jeunes filles). Le Prophète fit d’elle sa concubine et donna Sīrīn à Ḥassān b. T̲h̲ābit [ q.v.]. Il l’aimait beaucoup et l’installa dans une maison de la ville haute de Médine, où l’on dit qu’il allait la voir jour et nuit; cette maison reçut le nom de mas̲h̲raba de la mère d’Ibrāhīm, car, à la grande joie du Prophète, elle lui donna un fils qu’il nomma Ibrāhīm, mais…

, «dépression», «plaine encaissée», terme géographique désignant diverses régions des pays musulmans. 1. La plus connue est le G̲h̲awr de Palestine, qui correspond à la profonde dépression, appelée Aulôn par les Septante, dans laquelle coule le Jourdain ¶ entre le lac de Tibériade et la mer Morte et qui n’est qu’un tronçon du fossé médian syro-palestinien. Le G̲h̲awr comporte d’abord une plaine, que surplombent les monts de Samarie d’un côté et le mont ʿAd̲j̲lūn de l’autre, longue de 105 km. et descendant en pente douce de — 208 m.…

(a.), pl. masākīn, miskīnun «pauvre, indigent». Ce terme appartient au sémitique ancien. En accadien, muškēnu/ maškēnu paraît avoir désigné au premier chef une classe sociale qui se situait entre les citoyens à part entière et les esclaves, et c’est de là qu’il acquit le sens de «pauvre, indigent» (voir E. A. Speiser, The muškēnum, dans Orientalia, n.s. XXVII (1958), 19-28; Chicago Akkadian dictionary, Letter M, 2e partie, 272-6; Von Soden, Akkadisches Wörterbuch, II, 684a; le même, Muškenum und die Mawālī desfrühen Islam, dans ZA, n.s. XXII (1964), 133-41). Dans ce dernier se…

, localité qui, située au milieu d’une plaine fertile dans le pays qui s’étend à l’Est du Jourdain et de la pointe méridionale de la mer Morte, à environ deux lieues au Sud de Karak, est connue pour la défaite qu’y subirent les Musulmans en d̲j̲umādā I de l’an 8. D’après la version arabe, le motif pour lequel Muḥammad avait envoyé 3 000 hommes dans cette région était le meurtre, par un G̲h̲assānide, du messager qu’il avait dépêché auprès du roi (c’est-à-dire vraisemblablement le gouverneur impérial) de Boṣrā; mais la cause véritable qu’on devin…

, ville de la Palestine centrale, qui tire son nom de la Flavia Neapolis bâtie en l’honneur de Vespasien. L’Ancien Testament mentionne à peu près au même endroit la ville de Sichem, un peu plus à l’Est seulement, là où se trouve aujourd’hui le village de Balāṭa (dont S. Klein dans ZDPV, XXXV, 38-9, cf. R. Hartmann, ibid., XXXIII, 175-6, explique ¶ le nom comme venant de platanus, en s’appuyant sur le récit du pèlerin de Bordeaux et le Midras̲h̲ Gen. rb., c. 81, § 3). D’après Eusèbe, on montrait, dans un faubourg de Neapolis, le lieu où s’élevait la ville ancienne. L’exactitu…

, montagne isolée (connue localement sous le nom de ḥaḍba) située dans le Nad̲j̲d (environ 24° 48′ N. et 43° 54′ E.) à une soixantaine de km. au Nord-ouest d’al-Dawādimī, 25 km. au Sud-est de Nafī et 15 km. à l’Ouest de Wādī l-Ris̲h̲āʾ. La montagne, de roche rougeâtre, s’élève d’une façon abrupte au-dessus des plaines graveleuses qui l’entourent. Long d’environ sept km. et large de ¶ trois, le Ḏj̲abala est orienté Sud-ouest-Nord-est; trois principaux wādīs descendent de ses pentes, au Sud-est, au Nord-est et au Nord-ouest, qui tous coulent vers l’Est pour se jeter dans…

(a.), religion, secte. Bien que les philologues arabes prétendent que ce terme est purement arabe (cf. Nôldeke, dans ZDMG, LVII (1903), 413), leurs explications sont tellement tirées par les cheveux qu’elles donnent quasiment la certitude qu’il vient de l’hébreu et de l’araméen judéo-chrétien mella, syriaque melltâlmilltà «expression, mot», traduisant le grec logos. Il ne paraît pas y en avoir des attestations préislamiques, de sorte qu’il peut avoir été emprunté par Muḥammad lui-même. Dans le Ḳurʾān, où il signifie toujours «religion», il figur…

, nom de deux localités: 1. Localité sur la frontière de la Yamāma, célèbre par la bataille sanglante dans laquelle Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd remporta une victoire sur Musaylima et les Banū Ḥanīfa. Dans le voisinage, se trouvait un verger ( ḥadīḳa) entouré d’un mur, appelé auparavant «jardin de Raḥmān» et après cette fameuse bataille, «jardin de la mort ». Bibliography Ṭabarī, I, 1937-1940 Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ, 88 Yāḳūt, II, 226 III, 694. 2. Résidence des princes g̲h̲assānides de Ḏj̲awlān, probablement identique avec la ʿAḳrabāʾ qui existe encore dans la contrée Ḏj̲ēdūr. Bibliography Yāḳūt, I…

, hébreu moderne Nāṣerat, Nazareth, résidence de Jésus, ville de la Palestine du Nord, en Israël depuis 1948 (38° 42ʹ N., 35° 17ʹ E.; ait. 505 m). Elle est située dans une vallée entourée de montagnes qui s’abaisse vers le Sud, au milieu d’une région fertile. Tandis que les montagnes sont plus basses vers le Nord et le Nord-est, le Ḏj̲abal al-Sīk̲h̲ se dresse du côté du Nord-ouest jusqu’à une hauteur de 488 m au-dessus du niveau de la mer. Le nom de la ville, qui ne figure pas dans l’Ancien Test…