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, 1. al-S̲h̲aik̲h̲ Nāṣīf b. ʿAbd Allāh, an Arab poet and philologist of the xixth century, born March 25, 1800 in Kafr S̲h̲īmā(Lebanon, near Bairūt; see Baedeker, Palästina und Syrien, seventh ed., p. 266 and map at p. 263), d. on 8th (not 5th as G.A.L., ii. 494) February 1871 in Bairūt. Members of his family, mainly of the Greek orthodox confession, are mentioned as early as the xviith century in northern Syria, especially in Ḥimṣ, Ṭarābulus etc. as capable secretaries of Turkish officials and the higher clergy, whence their family name Kātib, Turk. Yāzid̲j̲ī (see ʿI. I. al-Maʿlūf, Dawāni ’l…

ʿAlī b. Zaidān al-Ḥakamī al-Yamanī, an Arab man of letters born in 515 (1121) in Marṭān on the Wādī Wasāʿ in the district of al-Zarāʾib in the Tihāmat al-Yaman, executed on Ramaḍān 2, 569 (April 6, 1174) in Cairo by orders of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn [cf. the article saladin]. In that period the Yaman, broken up into many little principalities, was suffering severely from continual civil wars. Traditional learning was still in a flourishing condition however, especially in the large towns. In 530 (1136) ʿOmāra was sent by his father to Zabīd, where he s…

, Ḏj̲amīl Ṣidḳī, the greatest Arabic poet of modern ʿIrāḳ, born in Bag̲h̲dād on 29th Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 1279 (June 18, 1863), died on Feb. 23, 1936. His father Muḥammad Faiḍī al-Zahāwī, muftī of Bag̲h̲dād, was of Kurdish descent of the house of al-Bābān, members of which had once been emīrs of Sulaimānīya [q.v.]; according to a legend, they trace their family back to the famous Arab general Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd [q.v.]. His grandfather lived for a time in Zahāw in Persia, whence the nisba. His mother was also of Kurdish descent. He was a pupil of his father in the traditional Muslim br…

, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Bakrī al-Kindī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī, Arab historiographer, born on the 21st Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 677 (April 5, 1279) in Upper Egypt (probably in al-Ḳūs), died on the 21st Ramaḍān 732 (June 17, 1332) in Cairo, author of one of the three best known encyclopaedias of the Mamlūk period (the others are by al-ʿUmarī and al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī). His father before him had been an official ( al-Kātib) of note (628—699 = 1231—1300); the son filled several offices at the court of Sulṭān al-Malik al-Nāṣir (Muḥammad b. Ḳalāʾūn), whose favourite he was. He was for a time Nāẓir al-Ḏ…

, “undeniably the greatest love-poet of the Arabs” (Rückert), born, according to tradition, on the 26th Ḏh̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 26 (beginning of Nov. 644), died in 93 (712) or 101 (719). His biography, like those of other poets who are regarded as representatives of a particular form of poetry (e. g. Abū Nuwās with his drinking songs), is much encumbered by legend; he was regarded as the great love-poet and imitations by his contemporaries and the works of later poets were readily ascribed to him. It is only the b…

C. Arabia under Islām. Both internal and external causes have since the last date (1876) worked changes in the peninsula, the geography of which has been markedly advanced by a number of intrepid explorers, especially St. John Philby, R. E. Cheeseman, Bertram Thomas, D. Van der Meulen and H. Von Wissmann. The regions traversed by the last three of these, the “Empty Quarter” and the independent sulṭānates of Ḥaḍramawt, have indeed been little affected; though even in the latter the motor-car is showi…

, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. Alī b. ʿUt̲h̲mān al-Ḳāhirī, an Arab scholar, poet and man of letters, born in Cairo in 788(1386) and died there in 859 (1455), a typical representative of the literature of the decline. Of his many teachers we may mention the tad̲j̲wīd authority al-Ḏj̲azarī (1350—1429; cf. Brockelmann, G.A.L., ii. 201, N°. 6) and al-Damīrī [q. v.]; he mentions the latter in the preface to his stylistics (Paris MS., de Slane, N°. 4453); among his literary friends were Ibn Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a al-Ḥamawī [q. v.] against whom he later directed his polemic al-Ḥud̲j̲d̲j̲a fī Sariḳāt…

, Bahāʾ al-Dīn, a Druse missionary and author, with his teacher Ḥamza (b. ʿAlī; q. v.) founder of the theological system of the Druses [q. v.], the fifth minister of the Druse theogony, with several titles of honour, in addition to the above two: al-Ḏj̲anāḥ, al-Aisar, al-Tālī, al-Ḵh̲ayāl, al-Mukāsir etc. His “secular” name was Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Samūkī. Of his life practically nothing is known. As Arab historians are silent about him (Silvestre de Sacy, Exposé de la religion des Druzes, ii. 320), his own writings are almost the only source. According to Druse tradi…

al-Anṣārī (called Ṣarīʿ al-G̲h̲awānī = “he who is laid low by the fair ones”, as was al-Ḳuṭāmī [q. v.] before him), an Arab poet of the early ʿAbbāsid period, born in Kūfa c. 130—140 (747—757), d. 208 (823) in Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān. His father, a mawlā [q. v.] of the Anṣār [q. v.], was a weaver. Nothing is known of the poet’s education. He probably got his literary training not from particular teachers or from books but in the busy life of the Mesopotamian cities, the intellectual life of which had risen to a still higher level with the advent of …

al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-G̲h̲assānī, an Arab poet of the second rank of the time of the Ḥamdānid Saif al-Dawla [q. v.], who died, probably in Damascus, after the year 370 (980). Of his life we only know that he was a crier in the fruit-market in Damascus (on this Dār al-Biṭṭīk̲h̲ cf. H. Zaiyāt in Mach., xxvii., 1929, p. 762—764); whence probably his epithet (cf. Ibn Āwā, vulg. Syr.-Arab. wāwī, jackal; according to other statements = faʾfāʾ, stutterer, stammerer). Arab scholars usually reckon him in the circle of Saif al-Dawla. As he seems never t…

, Ḏj̲armānūs, Arabic philologist and poet, precursor of the literary renaissance of the xixth century in Arab lands, Maronite archbishop of Aleppo (1725—1732), born there on Nov. 20, 1670 and died on July 10, 1732. This is not the place to discuss his epoch-making work in organising the Maronite church nor the majority of his dogmatic, polemical, educational and historical works; but he must be given a place in the history of Arabic ¶ literature as a lexicographer, grammarian and poet. Aleppo was one of the few Arab cities which retained to some extent their literary traditi…

(in modern pronunciation Zīdān), D̲j̲ird̲j̲i, an Arab scholar, journalist and man of letters, born in Bairūt on Dec. 14, 1861, died in Cairo on Aug. 21, 1914. Born in a poor Christian family, he had no regular education and in almost all branches of learning he was self-taught. He spent some time at the Protestant College and received the diploma in pharmacy. Soon afterwards he went to Egypt where for about a year he was on the staff of the newspaper al-Zamān. In 1884 he served as a dragoman on the expedition to the Sūdān to the relief of Gordon, and then returned to Bairūt.…