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[English edition] الرّبا، لغة، يعني الزيادة، وفي الاصطلاح، المرابحة والفائدة. وبصفة عامة يعني كلّ زيادة في رأس المال غير مشروطة وخالية من التعويض. وتستعمل اللغات السامية مشتقّات من نفس الجذر للتدليل على الفائدة. 1. في الفقه الإسلامي التقليدي 1. مثّلت المعاملات المقيّدة بآجال محدّدة وبتسديد للفائدة، وكذلك مثّلت المضاربات بمختلف أصنافها ركيزة النظام التجاري المتطوّر في مكة(انظر Lammens, La Mecque à la veille de l‘hégire, 139 ff., 155 ff., 213–14). ومن بين المعلومات التي وفّرتها لنا المصادر الإسلامية توجد واحدة على الأقل يمكننا اعتبارها جديرة بالتأييد، مفادها أنّ ال…

(a.), synonymous with ḳawad , retaliation (“settlement”, not “cutting off” or “prosecution”), according to Muslim law is applied in cases of killing, and of wounding which do not prove fatal, called in the former case ḳiṣāṣ fi ’l-nafs (blood-vengeance) and in the latter ḳiṣāṣ fī-mā dūn al-nafs . For ḳiṣāṣ among the pagan Arabs see Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums2 , 186 ff.; Procksch, Über die Blutrache bei den vorislamischen Arabern und Mohammeds Stellung zu ihr; the collection of essays Zum ältesten Strafrecht der Kulturvo…

(a.), difference, also inconsistency; as a technical term, the differences of opinion amongst the authorities of religious law, both between the several schools and within each of them; opp. id̲j̲māʾ , ittifāḳ . The ancient schools of law, on the one hand, accepted geographical differences of doctrines as natural; on the other hand, they voiced strong objections to disagreement within each school, an opinion which was mitigated by their acceptance as legitimate of different opinions if based on id̲j̲tihād . The rising tide of traditions from the Prop…

, abū ʿamr ʿabd al-raḥmān b. ʿamr , the main representative of the ancient Syrian school of religious law. His nisba is derived from al-Awzāʿ, a suburb of Damascus, so called after a South Arabian tribe, or an agglomeration ( awzāʿ ) of clans, who lived there (Ibn ʿAsākir, Taʾrīk̲h̲ . Dimas̲h̲ḳ , ed. al-Munad̲j̲d̲j̲id, ii, 1954, 144; Yāḳūt, ¶ i, 403 f.). An ancestor of his had been made a prisoner in Yaman (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , vi, 214). He seems to have been born in Damascus, and he did part of his studies at least in al-Yamāma, where he went in…

, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd Allāh Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-Hās̲h̲imī , born 694/1294 (or 698 or 700), died 769/1367, an important S̲h̲āfiʿī jurisconsult and grammarian. A native of Bālis [ q.v.] in Syria, he arrived destitute in Cairo, where his ability was recognized by his teacher in grammar, Abū Ḥayyān al-G̲h̲arnāṭī [ q.v.]. His main teachers in fiḳh were, among others, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Ḳōnawī (Brockelmann. II, 105; S II, 101) and the Chief Ḳāḍī D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn al-Ḳazwīnī (Subkī, Ṭabaḳāt , v, 238); having held various posts as substitute ḳāḍī ¶ ( nāʾib ), he bec…

(a.), an article found (more precisely: “picked up”). The leading principle in the Muslim law regarding articles lost and found may be said to be the protection of the owner from the finder, sometimes mingled with social considerations. The picking up of articles found is generally permitted, although it is sometimes also said to be more meritorious to leave them. The finder is bound to advertise the article which he has found (or taken) for a whole year unless it is of quite insignificant value…

, ʿāmir b. abī mūsā according to the accepted opinion one of the first ḳāḍīs of Kūfa. Apart from the fact that he was a son of Abū Mūsā al-As̲h̲ʿarī [ q.v.], little that can be considered authentic is known of his life and work. As a member of the Islamic aristocracy, it was only natural for him to be appointed as an official of the treasury (Ibn Saʿd); he also appears as one of the notables of Kūfa in 51/671, when he gave evidence against the followers of Ḥud̲j̲r b. ʿAdī [ q.v.] (Ṭabarī, II, 131 f.; Ag̲h̲ānī , xvi, 7), and again in 76/695-6, when he did homage to the Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ī insurgent S̲h̲abīb b. Yazīd [ q…

, Abu ʿAlī Muḥammad al-Baṣrī , a Muʿtazilī theologian. After a slow start, he became the most distinguished disciple of Abū Hās̲h̲im (d. 321/933; see al-d̲j̲ubbāʾī ), first in al-ʿAskar and then in Bag̲h̲dād. He is the author of a Kitāb al-Uṣūl and a Kitāb al-S̲h̲arḥ ; he was also a man of letters and of general culture ( adab wa-maʿrifa ). He did not live to an old age, and therefore seems to have died before the middle of the 4th/10th century. Two of his disciples, who also studied under Abū Hās̲h̲im and in their turn were teachers of the ḳāḍī ʿAbd al-D̲j̲abbār b. Aḥmad [ q.v.], were Abū ʿAbd Allāh…

(a.), lit. increase, as a technical term, usury and interest, and in general any unjustified increase of capital for which no compensation is given. Derivatives from the same root are used in other Semitic languages to describe interest. A. In classical Islamic law. 1. Transactions with a fixed time limit and payment of interest, as well as speculations of all kinds, formed an essential element in the highly developed trading system of Mecca (cf. Lammens, La Mecque à la veille de l’hégire , 139 ff., 155 ff., 213-14). Among the details given by the Muslim…

, i.e., Abū Yaʿḳūb Isḥāḳ b. Ibrāhīm b. Mak̲h̲lad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥanẓalī al-Marwazī , a prominent traditionist. His father was called Rāhwayh because he had been born on a road. Ibn Rāhwayh himself was born in Marw in 161/778 or 166/782-3, travelled in ʿIrāḳ, Ḥid̲j̲āz, Yemen and Syria, visited Bag̲h̲dād more than once and finally settled in Nīsābūr where he died in 238/853; his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. He heard traditions from ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Mubārak (Brockelmann, S I, 256), Sufyān b. ʿUyayna [ q.v.], Wakīʿ b. al-D̲j̲arrāḥ, an authority of al-Buk̲h̲ārī, and Ḏj̲arīr b. ʿA…

, Abu ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḳāsim b. K̲h̲ālid b. D̲j̲unāda al-ʿUtaḳi , the most prominent disciple of Mālik b. Anas [ q.v.], and considered the most reliable transmitter of Mālik’s opinions. He was a mawlā affiliated to the descendants of the ʿUtaḳāʾ, a band of robbers who had been captured and subsequently manumitted by Muḥammad. He was born in 128/746 or, more probably, in 132/749 in Ramla, and died in Cairo in 191/806. He is reported to have studied with Mālik for twenty years, and he was the mai…

(a.), denotes in classical Islamic law a slave-girl who has borne her master a child. 1. The pre-Islamic period The master’s right to take his slave-girls as concubines was recognised by Muhammad in continuation of a general practice of Arab paganism. In regard to the position of the children of such unions, a change of view had been perceptible among the Arabs in the period just before the coming of Islam. In place of the previous unrestrictedness in marriage and concubinage, a certain decree of regulation had gr…

, Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-S̲h̲āfiʿī , a writer on Islamic dogmatics and teacher of al-Bād̲j̲ūrī [ q.v.], d. 1236/1821. Both of his works, Kifāyat al-ʿAwāmm fīmā yad̲j̲ib ʿalayhim min ʿilm al-kalām , and a commentary on the profession of monotheism, Risāla ʿalā lā ilāha illa ’llāh , have been commented upon by al-Bād̲j̲ūrī and have been often printed together with the commentaries. (J. Schacht) Bibliography Brockelmann, II, 641 S II, 744 D. B. Macdonald, in EI 1, s.v. translations of his Kifāya by Macdonald, Development of Muslim theology, etc., 1903, 315 ff., and by M. Horten, Muhammedanis…

, injunction, command; thence: obligation, engagement; thence: agreement, covenant, treaty. The term (as well as the 1st and the 3rd forms of the corresponding verb) occurs frequently in the Ḳurʾān. It is used there over the whole range of its meanings, of Allāh’s covenant with men and His commands, of the religious engagement into which the believers have entered, of political agreements and undertakings of believers and unbelievers towards the Prophet and amongst each other, and of ordinary ci…

, Naṣr b. Muḥ. b. Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm , known as Imām al-Hudā , a Ḥanafī theologian and jurisconsult of the 4th/10th century. The date of his death is variously given as between 373/983-4 and 393/1002-3. He must not be confused with his slightly older contemporary al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Samarḳandī, whose name was also Abu ’l-Layt̲h̲ Naṣr. The oldest known biographical source, ʿAbd al-Ḳādir (d. 775/1373), attributes to this latter person some of the main works that generally go under the name of the Imām al-Hudā, but this seems to be a mistake. Abu ’l-Layt̲h̲ was a very success…

(a.), a mistake, which is made in thought, speech or action (a fault which one has is called ʿayb ), the opposite of ṣawāb , what is correct; hence in the field of knowledge, error; in that of action, omission, failure, all this, of course, unintentional. From the last meaning develops that of wrong which one commits, transgression; whether this is to be regarded as unintentional or—as in k̲h̲aṭīʾa and k̲h̲iṭʾ —deliberate (sc. a sin) is a disputed point with the lexicographers. K̲h̲aṭāʾ and k̲h̲aṭʾ (the latter is found only in the Ḳāmūs , so that it is hardly class…

, Sayyid Aḥmad b. Zaynī , born in Mecca towards the beginning of the 19th century, was from 1288/1871 Muftī of the S̲h̲āfiʿīs and S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-ʿUlamāʾ (head of the corporation of scholars and therefore of the body of teachers in the Ḥaram ) in his native city. When the Grand S̲h̲arīf ʿAwn al-Rafīḳ, because of a dispute with the Ottoman Governor ʿUt̲h̲mān Pas̲h̲a, removed himself to Madīna, Daḥlān followed him there but died soon afterwards from the fatigue of the journey in 1304/ 1886. Particularly in his later ye…

, pl. of ḥukm , decision, judgment. [See also ḥakam.] In the Ḳurʾān, the word occurs onl in the singular, and is used (as is the corresponding verb) of Allāh, the Prophets, and other men. Used of Allāh, it denotes both individual ordinances and the whole of His dispensation (iii, 79; xlv, 16; lx, 10). In the ultimate sense, final jurisdiction belongs to Allāh alone [see al-muḥakkima], but He has given authority to make decisions to His Prophets. The jurisdiction of Muḥammad, in particular, is opposed to that of paganism (v, 50). So ḥukm comes to mean the authority, imperium, of the Isla…

, also ahl al-raʾy , the partisans of personal opinion, a term of deprecation applied by the ahl al-ḥadit̲h̲ [ q.v.] to their opponents among the specialists in religious law. Raʾy [ q.v.] originally meant “sound opinion”, and was used of the element of human reasoning, whether strictly systematic [see ḳiyās] or more personal and arbitrary [see istiḥsān], which the early specialists used in order to arrive at decisions on points of religious law. The ahl al-ḥadīth , however, who rose in opposition to the ancient schools of religious law, regarded this as illegitimate; in…

YaʿḲūb b. Ibrāhīm al-Anṣārī al-Kūfī , a prominent religious lawyer, one of the founders of the Ḥanafī [ q.v.] school of law. Abū Yūsuf was of pure Arab extraction; his ancestor, Saʿd b. Ḥabta, was a youth in Medina in the time of the Prophet. (For details of his genealogy, see al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī, xiv, 243.) His date of birth, reckoned backwards from the date of his death, is rather arbitrarily given as 113. According to an anecdote, the several versions of which are mutually contradictory, he was a poor boy, was helped by his teacher Abū Ḥanīfa [ q.v.] who recognized his worth, and ach…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Riḍwān b. ʿAlī b. D̲j̲aʿfar al-Miṣrī , a renowned physician and medical author and polemist of Egypt. We are well informed about his life and personal circumstances because he composed an autobiography, the essence of which has been preserved by Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa, when he was approaching sixty. It is pervaded by a strong feeling of complacency which is, perhaps, explained by his experiences and explains, in its turn, his addiction to polemics. He was born in 388/…

(a.), feminine of mayt , dead (used of irrational beings); as a substantive it means an animal that has died in any way other than by slaughter. In later terminology, the word means firstly an animal that has not been slain in the ritually prescribed fashion, the flesh of which therefore cannot be eaten, and secondly all parts of animals whose flesh cannot be eaten, whether because not properly slaughtered or as a result of a general prohibition against eating them. In addition to sūra XXXVI, 33, where mayta appears as an adjective, the word occurs in the foll…

, an appellation of members of a family of religious scholars from Damascus called so after an ancestor who had been ḳāḍī of S̲h̲uhba in Ḥawrān. 1. The most widely known member of this family is Abū Bakr b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿUmar , Taḳī al-Dīn, known as an author of biographical works, although his main reputation during his lifetime rested on fiḳh . He was born in 779/1377, and he died suddenly and painlessly in 851/1448. His most senior teacher was Sirād̲j̲ al-Dīn al-Bulḳīnī [ q.v.]. He taught at a number of madrasas in Damascus, was an inspector of the Nūrī hospital there, became a ḳāḍī and fi…

("the man with six toes"), muḥammad b. muḥammad , Turkish scholar and translator. He was born in Üsküp, where he studied and joined the ṣūfī ṭarīqa of the Bayramiyya [ q.v.], became a preacher ( wāʿiẓ ) and teacher in Istanbul and later in Cairo, where he died in 1033/1623-24. (1) His main work is the Dalāʾil-i Nubuwwat-i Muḥammadī wa-S̲h̲amāʾil-i Futuwwat-i Aḥmadī , a translation of the Persian Maʿārid̲j̲ al-Nubuwwa by Muʿīn al-Dīn b. S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Farāhī, known as Mullā Miskīn (d. 907/1501-02); there are numerous manuscripts in Istanbul,…

(a.), literally prevention, inhibition, is the technical term for the interdiction, the restriction of the capacity to dispose. The term expresses both the act of imposing this restriction and the resulting status; a person who is in this status is called maḥd̲j̲ūr (abbreviated from maḥd̲j̲ūr ʿalayh ). Subject to ḥad̲j̲r are (a) the minor, (b) the insane, (c) the irresponsible, and in particular the spendthrift, (d) the bankrupt, (e) a person during his mortal illness, and (f) the slave. Whether ḥad̲j̲r comes into being automatically or needs to be imposed by the ḳāḍī …

(a.), killing, putting to death, used in the two principal meanings of the word — the crime of murder and the punishment of execution. I. Ḳatl as a crime. 1). In the Ḳurʾān unlawful slaying is forbidden in a series of verses, which date from the second Mekkan period to nearly the end of the Medīna period. The passages may be arranged chronologically as follows (cf. Th. Nöldeke-Fr. Schwally, Geschichte des Qorāns, vol. i., and H. Grimme, Mohammed, vol. ii.; when the exact order in the particular periods cannot be ascertained, the passages are here arranged in the order of…

al-Iṣfahānī Abū Sulaymān , the imām of the school of the Ẓāhiriyya ([ q.v.]; also called Dāwūdiyya) in religious law. An extreme representative of the tendency hostile to human reasoning and relying exlusively on Ḳurʾān and ḥadīt̲h̲, Dāwūd not only rejected personal opinion ( raʾy ) as al-S̲h̲āfiʿī [ q.v.] had done, but, as far as he could, systematic reasoning by analogy ( ḳiyās ) which al-S̲h̲āfiʿī had admitted and tried to regularize, and he made it his principle to follow the outward or literal meaning ( ẓāhir ) of Ḳurʾān and ḥadīt̲h̲ exclusively; he also restricted the concept of …

Ibrāhim b. Ḵh̲ālid b. Abi ’l-Yamān al-Kalbī , prominent jurisconsult and founder of a school of religious law, died in Bag̲h̲dād in Ṣafar 240/July 854. Living in ʿIrāḳ one generation after al-S̲h̲āfiʿī. Abū T̲h̲awr seems to have been influenced by al-S̲h̲āfiʿī’s methodological insistence on the authority of the ḥadīt̲h̲ of the Prophet, without, however, renouncing the use of raʾy [ q.v.], as had been customary in the ancient schools of law. The later biographers represented this as a conversion on the part of Abū T̲h̲awr from the raʾy of the ancient ʿIrāḳians to the school of al-S…

, also aṣḥāb al-ḥadīt̲h̲ , the partisans of traditions [see ḥadīth]. Traditionalism in Islam manifested itself first in the re-emergence of the old Arabian concept of sunna [ q.v.], the normative custom of the community, which was in due course identified with the sunna of the Prophet. This normative custom found its expression in the "living tradition" of the ancient schools of religious law, which came into being at the very beginning of the second century of Islam. In opposition to the ancient schools and their extensive use of human reasoning and personal opinion [see aṣḥāb al-raʾy and r…

, ʿAbd Allāh b. Yūsuf Abu Muḥammad , a S̲h̲āfiʿī scholar, father of ʿAbd al-Malik [see the following art.], lived for most of his life in Nīsābūr, and died there in 438/1047. As an author, he was mainly concerned with the literary form of furūḳ , on which see Schacht, in Islamica , ii/4, 1927, 505 ff. (J. Schacht) Bibliography al-Subkī, Ṭabaḳāt, iii, 208-19 W. Wüstenfeld, Der Imâm el-Schâfiʾi, etc., no. 365 (a), 248 ff. Brockelmann, I, 482 S I, 667.

(a.), in Islamic law, an oath which gives a husband the possibility of accusing his wife of adultery without legal proof and without his becoming liable to the punishment prescribed for this, ¶ and the possibility also of denying the paternity of a child borne by the wife. “In the language of the S̲h̲arīʿa , evidence given by the husband, strengthened by oaths, by which the husband invokes the curse ( laʿna: from this the whole process is a potiori named) and the wife the wrath of Allāh upon themselves, if they should lie; it frees the husband from ḥadd [ q.v.] (the legal punishment) for ḳad̲h̲f [ q.v…

(a.), a mistake, which is made in thought (speech) or action — a fault which one has is called ʿaib —, the opposite of ṣawāb, the correct) hence in the field of knowledge: error; in that of action: omission, failure, all this, of course, unintentional; from the last meaning develops that of wrong which one commits, transgression; whether this is to be regarded as unintentional or — as in k̲h̲aṭīʾa and k̲h̲iṭʾ — deliberate (sin) is a disputed point with the lexicographers. Ḵh̲aṭāʾ and k̲h̲aṭʾ (the latter is found only in the Ḳāmūs so that it is hardly classical) are synonymous (or phone…

(a.), an article found (more precisely: “picked up”). The leading principle in the Muslim law regarding articles lost and found may be said to be the protection of the owner from the finder, sometimes mingled with social considerations. The picking up of articles found is generally permitted, although it is sometimes also said to be more meritorious to leave them. The finder is bound to advertise the article which he has found (or taken) for a whole year unless it is of quite insignificant value…

(a.), “to hang something around the neck or on the shoulders”, used as a technical term in the following three meanings: 1. Taḳlīd is the name of the custom originating in Arab paganism and surviving in the ancient practice of Islām and in Fiḳh, of hanging certain objects around the neck of the animals to be slain ( hady) as a sacrifice in the sacred territory of Mecca ( ḥaram) (as ḳilāda, plur. ḳalāʾid). The ḳalāʾid are mentioned along with the hady in Ḳurʾān v. 2 and 98 among the customs of the pilgrimage instituted by Allāh. The object of this rite was, along with the is̲h̲ʿār (branding by an inc…

(a.), repudiation of a wife by a husband, a form of divorce, effected by his pronouncing the words anti ṭāliḳ. The root idea of the verb ṭalaka is: to be freed from a tether etc. (of a camel), to be repudiated by a man (of a wife; in this sense also ṭaluḳa), hence ṭallaḳa, to release (a camel) from a tether, to repudiate (a wife); ṭāliḳ means a camel untethered or a woman repudiated by a man (cf. Lane, Arab. Eyl. Lexicon s. v.). I. The right to a one-sided dissolution of a marriage belonged to the man exclusively, among the pre-Muḥammadan Arabs. Long before Muḥammad this ṭalāḳ was in general use amon…

(a.), feminine of mait, dead (used of senseless things); as a substantive it means an animal that has died in any way other than by slaughter. In later terminology the word means firstly an animal that has not been slain in the ritually prescribed fashion, the flesh of which therefore cannot be eaten, and secondly all parts of animals whose flesh cannot be eaten, whether because not properly slaughtered or as a result of a general prohibition against eating them. ¶ In addition to Sūra xxxvi. 33 where maita appears as an adjective, the word occurs in the following passages in the Ḳu…

, a Muslim theologian, founder of the Egyptian modernist school. Muḥammad ʿAbduh belonged to an Egyptian peasant family and was born in 1849 in Lower Egypt. He spent his childhood in the little village of Maḥallat Naṣr in the mudīrīya of Buḥaira. When Muḥammad ʿAbduh had learned the Ḳurʾān by heart, he was sent in 1862 to the theological school of Ṭanṭā but he left this after a year and a half discouraged and was only induced to resume his studies through the influence of a grand uncle who aroused in him …

, a Muslim jurist, the imām of the mad̲h̲hab of the Mālikīs, which is named after him, and frequently called briefly the Imām of Medīna. I. The sources for Mālik’s biography The oldest authority of any length for Mālik, Ibn Saʿd’s account (d. 230) based on al-Wāḳidī (d. 207) in the sixth class of the Medīna “successors”, is lost as there is a hiatus in the manuscript of the work, but it is possible to reconstruct the bulk of it from the quotations preserved, mainly in Ṭabarī (iii. 2519 sq.), in the Kitāb al-ʿUyūn (Fragm. hist. arab., i. 297 sq.), in Ibn Ḵh̲allikān and al-Suyūṭī (p. 7, 6 sq., 12 sq., 41,…

(a.), synonymous with ḳawad, retaliation (“settlement”, not “cutting off” or “prosecution”), according to Muslim law is applied in cases of killing, and of wounding which do not prove fatal, called in the former case ḳiṣāṣ fi ’l-nafs (blood-vengeance) and in the latter ḳiṣāṣ fī-mā dūn al-nafs. 1. For ḳiṣāṣ among the pagan Arabs see Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentums 2, p. 186 sqq.; Procksch, Über die Blutrache bei den vorislamischen Arabern und Mohammeds Stellung zu ihr; the collection of essays: Zum ältesten Strafrecht der Kulturvölker. Fragen zur Rechtsvergleichung,…

, a nisba by which several individuals are known; it is usually derived from s̲h̲aʿr “hair” and is applied to any one with a strong growth of hair or with long hair (cf. al-Samʿānī, Kitāb al-Ansāb, G.M.S., fol. 334b, 3; Wright, Arabic Grammar 3, i. 164c ); in the case of the best known bearer of the name, it is a nisba from a place like the form also found, indeed more frequently, al-S̲h̲aʿrāwī (which has however a different origin: Vollers, Z.D.M.G., 1890, p. 390 sq.) but came to be interpreted as above. 1. Abu ’l-Mawāhib (ideal kunya, also Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān from his son; his family still exi…

(a.), literally “making definite, binding, due ( wād̲j̲ib )”, is in Islamic law the technical term for the offer which, together with the acceptance ( ḳabūl [see bayʿ ]), is one of the two essential formal elements which for the juridical analysis constitute a contract, which is construed as a bilateral transaction. Offer and acceptance can be expressed verbally (also in the form of compliance with an order, e.g. by the words “sell me” and “I sell you herewith”), or by the conclusive acts of the parties, e.g. the silent ex…

(I) (a.), a verbal noun meaning originally “making a thing apparent or manifest”, with the implication that the beholder may take it or leave it, and then “making a thing allowable or free to him who desires it”; it has become a technical term with several connected meanings in the religious law of Islam; istibāḥa , taking a thing as allowed, free, or lawful; mubāḥ (the contrary of maḥẓūr ), “indifferent”, i.e., neither obligatory or recommended, nor forbidden or reprehensible; it is to be distinguished from its near synonym d̲j̲āʾiz , “unobjectionable, valid, permitted”; the concept ḥalāl…

, Maḥammad (sic) b. Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā al-Ṣanhād̲j̲ī , Abū ʿAbd Allāh , a Moroccan man of letters (to be distinguished from his homonym, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā al-Mag̲h̲ribī, d. in Damascus in 1016/1607; Brockelmann, ¶ S II, 334). His father, who died in 955/1548-9, was also a renowned man of letters. Ibn ʿĪsā, “no mean poet and a superb prose stylist”, was secretary of the sultans ʿAbd Allāh al-G̲h̲ālib bi ’llāh (964-81/1557-74) and Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Malik (983-6/1576-8), became wazīr al-ḳalam al-aʿlā , “First Secretary of State”, to the sultan Aḥmad al-Manṣūr al-D̲h̲ahabī ([ q…

(the nisba refers to Ḳaysāriyya, Caesarea in Palestine; see Samʿānī, Kitāb al-Ansāb , s.v. al-Ḳaysārī). The following persons are known under this name: 1. Abu ’l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. Ṭāhir b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Maḳdisī al-S̲h̲aybānī . a specialist in traditions. He was born in Jerusalem in 448/1058, studied in Bag̲h̲dād from 468/1075 onwards, and travelled widely in the eastern part of the Islamic world in order to collect traditions. Being an indefatigable walker, he made all his journeys in search of traditions…

, al-Muk̲h̲tār (or Yuwānīs = Johannes) B. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbdūn b. Saʿdūn b. Buṭlān , a Christian physician and theologian of Bag̲h̲dād. He was the foremost disciple of the Christian priest, philosopher and physician, Ibn al-Ṭayyib [ q.v.], and Ibn Buṭlān himself was certainly a Nestorian cleric and probably a priest. He used to teach medicine and philosophy in Bag̲h̲dād, but left his native city in Ramaḍān 440/January 1049 for a journey which took him by way of Raḥba, Ruṣāfa, Aleppo, Antioch, Laodicea and Jaffa to Cairo, where he arr…

(so called after a remote ancestor), Zayn al-Dīn (or al-ʿĀbidīn ), or simply Zayn b. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-Miṣrī , a distinguished Ḥanafī scholar. Little is known of the events of his life, except that he was born in Cairo in 926/1520, studied the usual subjects of Islamic and Arabic learning, started to teach and to give fatwās at an early age while his teachers were still alive, performed the had̲j̲d̲j̲ in 953/1547, taught at the madrasa of the amīr Ṣarg̲h̲itmis̲h̲, and died in 970/1563, when he had not yet…

, a distinguished member of the generation of Successors ( tābiʿūn ), and one of the main transmitters of the traditional interpretation of the Ḳurʾān attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās. He was a slave of Ibn ʿAbbās, to whom he was supposed to have been given when he was governor of Baṣra, and manumitted by his son ʿAlī; he is therefore also often called a mawlā of Ibn ʿAbbās. He is sometimes counted among the Successors of Mecca, sometimes among those of Medina. He travelled a good deal, and his presence is attested in Mecca and Medina, Egypt, S…

Muḥammad b. Muḥyi ’l-Dīn Muḥ. b. al-ʿImād Muṣṭafā al-ʿImādī , known as Ḵh̲od̲j̲a Čelebi (Hoca Çelebi), famous commentator of the Ḳurʾān, Ḥanafī scholar and Shayk̲h̲ al-Islām, born 17 Ṣafar 896/30 December 1490, died 5 Ḏj̲umādā I 982/23 August 1574. His father, a native of Iskilīb (Iskilip, west of Amasia) had been a notable scholar and ṣūfī. Abu ’l-Suʿūd began his career as a teacher, being eventually promoted to one of the "Eight Madrasas" of Sulṭān Muḥammad II. In 939/1533 he was appointed ḳāḍī , first in Brūsa (Bursa), then in Istanbul; in 944/1537 he became ḳāḍī ʿasker …

(a.), pledge, security; rāhin , the giver and murtahin , the taker of the pledge. The Ḳurʾān (II, 283), obviously in confirmation of pre-Islamic legal usage, provides for the giving of pledges ( rihānun maḳbūḍa ) in business in which a definite period is concerned, if the preparation of a written document is impossible. The part here played by the security as evidence of the existence of an obligation is in Islamic law much less important than that of securing the fulfilment of a demand. From the latter point of view, the traditions are mainly concerned with two questions: a. whether the secu…

, one of the names of the Prophet Muḥammad and a proper name used by Muslims. Formally, it is the elative of Maḥmūd or Ḥamīd and means “more, or most, worthy of praise”, or, less probably, of Ḥāmid, in which case it would mean "praising [God] to a higher, or the highest, degree”. As a proper name it is, however, distinct from the other, etymologically connected forms, including the name Muḥammad. It occurs occasionally, and less frequently than Muḥammad, among the pre-Islamic Arabs. In the Ṣafāi…