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, ancêtre de tous les peuples de l’Arabie du Sud [voir Yaman], selon l’opinion générale des généalogistes, historiens et géographes musulmans, ainsi que dans la tradition populaire; aussi est-il parfois qualifié de «père de tout le Yémen», et les Yéménites eux-mêmes sont appelés Banū Ḳaḥṭān, ḳabāʾil Ḳaḥṭān ou simplement «Ḳaḥṭān». Il forme ainsi le pendant de ʿAdnān [ q.v.], ¶ ancêtre commun des Arabes du Nord, bien que certaines autorités préfèrent le placer en face de l’un ou de l’autre des descendants de ʿAdnān, par exemple de son fils Maʿadd (al-Dīna…

, désignation usuelle, en arabe, de l’empereur de Rome et de Byzance. Ce terme, qui représente le latin Caesar (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲, II, 296 = § 717, en indique l’étymologie) et le grec καῖσαρ, est entré en arabe par l’intermédiaire de l’araméen (voir Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im arabischen, Leyde 1886, 278 sq.); l’emprunt a dû se produire à une date très ancienne, car ce mot apparaît presque toujours, par la suite, sous la forme Ḳēṣar en syriaque (voir Payne Smith, Thesaurus syriacus, s.v.). I. — Avant l’Islam. Plusieurs siècles avant l’Islam, les Arabes entretenaien…

is regarded by the Arabs of the Muhammadan epoch as the “father of (all) Yemen” (Ibn His̲h̲ām, Sīra, i. 4; al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ al-Ḏh̲ahab, Paris 1861—77, i. 79; Die auf Südarabien bezüglichen Angaben Našwān’s im Šams al-ʿUlūm, ed. by ʿAẓīmuddīn Aḥmad, p. 83 et passim) i. e. as the ancestor of all South Arabians, who therefore are usually described comprehensively as “Banū Ḳaḥṭān”, “Ḳabāʾil Ḳaḥṭān” or briefly “Ḳaḥṭān”, when not called simply “Yemenīs”. Ḳaḥṭān is thus contrasted with ʿAdnān, the symbol of ethnological unity of all the ¶ North Arabians. In this we find agreement no…

(a., plur. kuhhān or kahana; fem, kāhina, plur. kawāhin, abstract of profession kihāna) is the name of the seer or soothsayer (μάντιΣ, vates) among the pagan Arabs. It corresponds to the Hebrew kōhen, Aramaic, kāhen, kāhnā (priest); it is not an arabicised form of this however, but belongs to the original stock of the old Arabic ¶ language (otherwise Nöldeke, Neue Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, p. 36, note 6), for the Jewish kōhen, kāhen is entirely different in character from the Arab kāhin: the former, although in all probability at onetime a…

(b. Ḏj̲asr), usually Banu ’l-Ḳain or, with ellipsis of the syllable nu, Balḳain, nisba Ḳainī, an Arab tribe. The official Arabic genealogy gives as its true name al-Noʿmān b. Ḏj̲asr (see Wüstenfeld, Geneal. Tabellen, Ṭab. 2, 20; Ibn Duraid, al-Is̲h̲tiḳāḳ, ed. Wüstenfeld, p. 317; Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs, s. v. ḳyn; lbn Ḵh̲allikān, Wafayāt al-Aʿyān, éd. de Slane, Article Wat̲h̲īma b. Mūsā, about the middle; etc.); it therefore interpreted as originally a nickname — and probably rightly — al-Ḳain, which means, as a name, “smith”, “metal worker”, “swordmaker” etc. (cf. Aram. ḳēnāʾā, ḳaināyā, “sm…

, apparently an ancient Arab idol. He must have early disappeared as a deity, for His̲h̲ām b. al-Kalbī does not mention him in his Kitāb al-Aṣnām and he is not given in the various passages in Arabic literature that give lists of the gods of the Ḏj̲āhilīya. But that he was at one time worshipped as a gcd may be deduced with considerable certainty from the tribal name ʿAbd al-Ḳais [q. v.] and from the well-known personal and tribal name Imruʾ al-Ḳais [q. v.]; cf. the Arabic names Imruʾ Manāt, ΑμρισαμσοΣ and ΜυρουλλαΣ in Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums 2, p. 5 sq. and (= Imraʾallāhi) and (== Im…

( Ḳaisu ʿAilāna), one of the largest and most powerful tribal groups of northern Arabia in ancient times. Name. For Ḳais ʿAilān we often find also Ḳais b. ʿAilān, most frequently Ḳais alone (in the poetry occasionally also simply ʿAilān, see Naḳāʾiḍ Ḏj̲arīr w ’l-Farazdaḳ, ed. Bevan, iii. Index iii. s. v.; the “Kaisites” are naturally called al-Ḳaisīyūn, but as an ethno-political group more usually al-Ḳaisīya, see al-Ṭabarī, Taʿrīk̲h̲, éd. de Goeje, ii. 66, 180, 777, 1614, 1663, etc.; the nisba to Ḳais-ʿAilān or Ḳais b. ʿAilān is, however, ʿAilānī, see al-Samʿānī al-Ansāb, p. 404b and Ibn…

1. In early Islam. The usual name in Arabic for the Roman and Byzantine emperor. The word represents the Greek Καῖσαρ and came to the Arabic through the intermediary of the Aramaic (see Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen , Leiden 1886, 278 f.). The borrowing must have taken place at quite an early period, as the word in Syriac later appears almost in the form Ḳesar (see Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus , s.v.). The Arabs, centuries before Muḥammad, had relations with Roman and to a greater extent with Byzantine emperors. As earl…

, according to the consensus of opinion among Muslim genealogists, historians, and geographers, ¶ and in popular tradition, the ancestor of all the South-Arabian peoples [see yaman ], whence he is sometimes known as “father of all Yaman”, the Yamanīs themselves being called banū Ḳaḥṭān , ḳabāʾil Ḳaḥṭān , or simply Ḳaḥṭān . He thus corresponds to ʿAdnān [ q.v.], the common ancestor of the northern Arabs, though some authorities prefer to contrast him with one or other of ʿAdnān’s descendants, e.g., his son, Maʿadd (al-Dīnawarī, 281; al-Ṭabarī, ii, 1056, 1084; al-Masʿūdī, al-Tanbih …