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b. ʿAtiyya b. al-Ḵh̲aṭafā (Ḥud̲h̲ayfa) b. Badr est l’un des trois plus importants poètes de hid̲j̲āʾ de la période umayyade (les deux autres étant ses rivaux al-Ak̲h̲ṭal [ q.v.] et al-Farazdaḳ [ q.v.]) et peut être considéré comme l’un des plus grands poètes arabo-islamiques de tous les temps. Il appartenait au clan des Banū Kulayb b. Yarbūʿ, branche de la tribu muḍarite des Tamīm qui étaient répandus dans la partie orientale de l’Arabie centrale et septentrionale. Né au milieu du Ier/VIIes., il commença à prendre part à des luttes verbales avec des poètes de second rang, d…

, k̲h̲azrad̲j̲ite, appartenait à la célèbre branche des Banū l-Ḥārit̲h̲. En mars 622, il fut, à la 2e assemblée de ʿAḳaba, l’un des douze hommes de confiance que, selon le désir du Prophète, les croyants de Médine avaient élus. Lorsque Muḥammad eut émigré à Médine, ʿAbd Allāh se montra l’un des plus énergiques et des plus braves champions de sa cause. Muḥammad semble avoir fait grand cas de ʿAbd Allāh; il lui confia des missions de grande importance. Après la victoire des Musulmans à Badr, en 623, ʿAbd Allāh cou…

(a.) nom abstrait, de balīg̲h̲ «efficace, éloquent» (du verbe balag̲h̲a «atteindre quelque chose»), qui, en conséquence, a le sens d’éloquence. Elle présuppose la faṣāḥa, pureté et euphonie de la langue, mais, selon des définitions anciennes, va plus loin dans ses exigences, et requiert la connaissance des liaisons et des séparations correctes de la phrase, la clarté et la propriété des termes. Ces définitions sont souvent attribuées à des peuples étrangers, aux Persans, aux Grecs ou aux Indiens, mais il est bien évident que ce concept de balāg̲h̲a est né chez les Arabes, car, da…

(a.), à l’origine, «qui se tient debout», ensuite avec bi-, ʿalā, li- ou simplement le génitif, «qui se charge, qui prend soin de quelque chose ou de quelqu’un» et, de là, «qui a droit de commandement sur». Ainsi le poète préislamique al-Ḳuṭāmī ( Dīwān, éd. Barth, Leyde 1902, n° 26) parle d’un « ḳayyim de l’eau», c’est-à-dire évidemment du préposé, de l’administrateur, et le poète Bāʿit̲h̲ b. Ṣuraym ( Ḥamāsa d’Abū Tammām, éd. Freytag, 269, vers 2) du ḳayyim d’une femme, c’est-à-dire de celui qui prend soin d’elle, son époux. Le premier sens (administrateur, etc.) se renco…

, célèbre chanteuse de Médine, qui vivait à l’époque des premiers Umayyades. D’après la tradition, elle aurait appris spontanément le chant et la musique en écoutant Sāʾib Ḵh̲āt̲h̲ir [ q.v.] (m. 63/682-3), qui était son voisin. Ses dons innés lui permirent d’acquérir une supériorité unanimement reconnue et de fonder une école où furent formés Maʿbad [ q.v.], Ibn ʿĀʾis̲h̲a [ q.v.], Ḥabāba et Sallāma, ainsi qu’une foule de chanteurs et de ḳiyān moins célèbres. Des artistes de la classe d’Ibn Surayd̲j̲ [ q.v.] ne dédaignaient pas de venir l’entendre et de la prendre pour arbitre…

, Aflaḥ (ou Marzūḳ) b. Yasār, poète arabe. II doit son surnom d’al-Sindī au fait que son père venait du Sind. Il naquit luimême à Kūfa et y vécut comme client des Banū Asad. Il lutta pour la dynastie umayyade à son déclin par la plume et l’épée, la couvrant de louanges et tournant en ridicule ses adversaires. Il est vrai, cependant, que lorsque les ʿAbbāsides arrivèrent au ¶ pouvoir, il essaya d’obtenir la faveur des nouveaux gouverneurs en chantant leur louange. Mais le caractère inflexible d’al-Saffāḥ n’était que peu sensible à de telles flatteries, et, sous l…

b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿd al-Ṭāʾī, Abū Ṭarīf, Compagnon du Prophète, puis partisan de ʿAlī. Fils du célèbre poète Hātim al-Ṭāʾī [ q.v.] et chrétien comme lui, il avait hérité de son père le commandement de sa tribu, mais, menacé de le perdre, il se convertit à l’Islam en 9 ou 10/630-1, et fit rentrer les impôts des Ṭayyites et des Asadites. Après la mort du Prophète, il resta fidèle à l’Islam et empêcha sa tribu d’apostasier pendant la ridda; il participa ensuite à la conquête du ʿIrāk et reçut de ʿUt̲h̲mān une dotation, al-Rawḥāʾ, sur le Nahr ʿIsā (cf. Le Strange, Lands, index), non loin de la futu…

, surnom du poète arabe de Syrie ʿAbd al-Salām b. Rag̲h̲bān b. ʿAbd al-Salām b. Ḥabīb b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Rag̲h̲bān b. Yazīd b. Tamīm. Ce dernier avait embrassé l’Islam à Muʾta [ q.v.] sous les auspices de Ḥabīb b. Maslama al-Fihrī [ q.v.] dont il devint le mawlā. L’arrièregrand-père du poète, Ḥabīb, qui était chef du dīwān de la solde sous al-Manṣūr, a attaché son nom à une mosquée de Bag̲h̲dād, masd̲j̲id Ibn Rag̲h̲bān (al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ, Buk̲h̲alāʾ, éd. Ḥād̲j̲irī, 327, trad. Pellat, index; al-Ḏj̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, 102; Le Strange, Bagdad, 95). Dīk al-Ḏj̲inn, né à Ḥimṣ en 161/777-8, mourut sous …

, 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…

Muḥammad (b. ʿAbd Allāh) b. Razīn al-Ḵh̲uzāʿī, poète arabe mort vers 200/915. Comme son parent Diʿbil [ q.v.], il vécut à la cour de Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd à qui il consacra des panégyriques, puis des oraisons funèbres. Il se rendit ensuite à al-Raḳḳa et y obtint la faveur de l’émir ʿUḳba b. al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲, dont il demeura le commensal et le poète attitré jusqu’à sa mort, en 196/811. — À en juger par les rares fragments de son œuvre qui ont été conservés, Abū l-S̲h̲īṣ n’apparaît guère original dans ses panégyriques, ses poèmes cynégétiques et ses ¶ chansons bachiques, pourtant goûtées de ses …

(a.), Abstract noun, from balīg̲h̲ effective, eloquent (from balag̲h̲a “to attain something”), meaning therefore eloquence. It presupposes faṣāḥa , purity and euphony of language, but goes beyond it in requiring, according to some of the early definitions, the knowledge of the proper connexion and separation of the phrase, clarity, and appropriateness to the occasion. Even though those definitions are not infrequently attributed to foreign nations such as the Persians, Greeks or Indians, the demand for skill in improvisation and the recurring references to the Ḵh̲aṭīb …

, surname of the Syrian Arabic poet ʿAbd al-Salām b. Rag̲h̲bān b. ¶ ʿAbd al-Salām b. Ḥabīb b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Rag̲h̲bān b. Yazīd b. Tamīm. This latter had embraced Islam at Muʾta [ q.v.] under the auspices of Ḥabīb b. Maslama al-Fihrī [ q.v.], whose mawlā he became. The great-grandfather of the poet, Ḥabīb, who I was head of the dīwān of salaries under al-Manṣūr, gave his name to a mosque at Bag̲h̲dād, masd̲j̲id Ibn Rag̲h̲bān (al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Buk̲h̲alāʾ , ed. Ḥād̲j̲irī 327, trans. Pellat, index; al-Ḏj̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, 102; Le Strange, Baghdad , 95). Dīk al-Ḏj̲inn, born at…

(a.), the usual name in Arabic for the Byzantine Emperor. The word, of course, represents the Greek Καĩσαρ and came to the Arabs through the intermediary of the Aramaic (cf. Fraenkel, Die Aramäischcn Fremdwörter im Arabischen, Leiden 1886, p. 278 sq.). The borrowing must have taken place at quite an early period as the word in Syriac later appears almost always in the form Ḳesar (cf. Payne Smith, Thesaurus Syriacus, s. v.). The Arabs, centuries before Muḥammad, had relations with the Byzantines (cf. A. Müller, Der Islam im Morgen-u. Abendland, i. 10 and the article g̲h̲assānids). Among th…

(a.), Lucidity, explanation. ʿIlm al-Bayān is often used synonymously with ʿIlm al-Balāg̲h̲a [see balāg̲h̲a] although strictly it only denotes a subsection of it. (A. Schaade)

(a.). A technical term in Arabic grammar. Ḏj̲āmid, literally “congealed” thence “inorganic” is applied to nouns as well as verbs. By an ism d̲j̲āmid we understand a noun, which “is neither derived ( mus̲h̲taḳḳ) from an abstract verbal noun ( maṣdar) nor is actually one”, i. e. “a concrete verbal substantive” (Fleischer, Kleinere Schriften, i. 167, iii. 540 et seq.). Examples: rad̲j̲ul, a man, baṭṭa, a duck (Wright, Arabic Grammar, 3rd ed., i. 106). Arab grammarians are not all agreed as to the position of the infinitive ( maṣdar) in this respect; cf. Fleischer, op. cit., i. 167 and Muḥamm…

, the fourteenth letter of the usual Arabic alphabet (numerical value: 90; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). How the now usual form of Ṣād developed out of the Nabataean (still closely resembling the primitive Semitic form) form of the letter may be seen from plate I of the article arabia., arabic writing). As to its pronunciation, Ṣād was even in ancient times and still is an unvoiced, velarised (and according to Meinhof “stopped”) alveolar spirant, in which a groove is formed on the front part of the tongue. All these elements (except perhaps the la…

, the 22nd letter of the usual Arabic alphabet (numeral value 20; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). The pronunciation of kāf as an unvoiced palatal explosive, found as early as Sībawaihi, has survived in modern academic speech. In the present day popular speech we find some variants (in addition to k) notably the affricate č (< c′ < k′). Cf. the article arabia, arabic dialects, i. 396b; and Schaade, Sībawaihi’s Lautlehre, Index. (A. Schaade)

, an Arab poet of the tribe of Banū ʿAdī. His proper name was G̲h̲ailān b. Uḳba b. Masʿūd (or Buhais̲h̲). His mother was called Ẓabya and belonged to the Banū Asad. He was a contemporary of Ḏj̲arīr and Farazdaḳ and in the feud between these two poets took the side of al-Farazdaḳ but without in any way distinguishing himself. He also wrote satires on the tribe of Imruʾ al-Ḳais, who found a champion in the poet His̲h̲ām. As the latter could only write rad̲j̲az verses, with which he could not hold his own against the more elaborate metres of Ḏh̲u ’l-Rumma, al-Farazdaḳ had to come …

Aflaḥ (or Marzūḳ) b. Yasār al-Sindī, an Arabian poet. He owes his surname al-Sindī to the fact that his father came from Sind; he himself was born in Kūfa and lived there as a client of the Banū Asad. He fought for the decaying Umaiyad dynasty with pen and sword, praising them and casting scorn on their adversaries. It is true, however, that when the ʿAbbāsides obtained the power, he lowered himself so far as to endeavor by singing the praise of the new rulers to wheedle himself into their favor. But…

, the eighth letter of the usual Arabic Alphabet, and fourth of the Abd̲j̲ad (whence its numerical value = 4). It is pronounced at the present day as in Old Arabic as a voiced dental explosive. Cf. A. Schaade, Sībawaihi’s Lautlehre, Index. (A. Schaade) ¶

, Aflaḥ (or Marzūḳ ) b. Yasār , Arabic poet. He owes his surname of al-Sindī to the fact that his father came from Sind; he himself was born in Kūfa and lived there as a client of the Banū Asad. He fought for the declining Umayyad dynasty with pen and sword, praising them and casting scorn on their adversaries. It is true, however, that when the ʿAbbāsids obtained power, he tried to insinuate himself into the favour of the new rulers by singing their praises. But the ¶ iron character of al-Saffāḥ was but little sensible to such fawning, and under the reign of his successor, al-Manṣ…

(a.), originally: “he who stands upright”, then (with bi, ʿalā , li or the genitive alone), he who takes something upon himself, takes care of something or someone and hence also has authority over them. Thus we find the pre-Islamic poet al-Ḳuṭāmī ( Dīwān , ed. Barth, Leiden 1902, no. 26) already speaking of a “ ḳayyim of water”, i.e. apparently the man in charge of it, the supervisor, and the poet Bāʿit̲h̲ b. Ṣuraym ( Ḥamāsa of Abū Tammām, ed. Freytag, 269, verse 2) speaks of the ḳayyim of a woman, i.e. he who provides for her, her husband. The first mentioned meaning, (supervisor etc…

, an Arabic metre. The name is said by the Arabs (see e.g. L.A., vii. 218 middle and Freytag, Darstellung der arabischen Verskunst, p. 135) to mean “trembling” and to have been given to the metre because it can be shortened to two double feet and thus become like a rad̲j̲zāʾ i. e. a she-camel which trembles with weakness when rising up. Other Arab explanations connect the word with rid̲j̲āza “counterpoise” (al-Suhailī on Ibn His̲h̲ām, ed. Wüstenfeld, i. 171, 10: ibid., ii. 58 below). Nöldeke’s suggestion ( W.Z.K.M., x., 1896, p. 342) that rad̲j̲az means something like rumbling (na…

(a.), one of the “beautiful names” of Allāh (see i. 303), according to some theologians the greatest name of Allāh (see Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs, ix. 36, 7 from below — ult. The word is of Jewish origin and means like its prototype, the Hebrew or the Aramaic (cf. Hirschfeld, New Researches into the Composition and Exegesis of the Qoran, London 1902, p. 69, 12 and note 89; Brünnow-Fischer, Arabische Chrestomathie, Berlin 1913, glossary under ḳwm) “the eternal”. Muḥammad, who uses it three times in the Ḳorʾān (ii. 256; iii. 1 and xx. 110) may have picked it up from the Jews of …

, the second letter of the Arabic alphabet (apart from Ḵh̲alīl’s arrangement of it; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad), as a numeral = 2. Graphically it is known as al-Bāʾ al-muwaḥḥada. Phonetically Sībawaihī defined it sufficiently according to our ideas as a-voiced, bilabial, explosive sound (ed. Derenbourg ii. 453, x6, ,8, 454, 7), our b. al-Bāʾ is also the name of the Arabic preposition bi (to, in, on; through [instrumental!]). For further information see grammars and dictionaries. [Cf. besides the Artt. Arabia: script and dialects], (A. Schaade)

, the nineteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet (numerical value 1000; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad); the character g̲h̲ain is a variant of ʿain. In most modern dialects it is pronounced as a voiced velar aspirate. The old Arab writers on phonetics describe it as a guttural; but it seems very doubtful if it ever really was pronounced as a post-uvular. G̲h̲ain has become ʿain in many modem dialects (for details see the article arabia, arabic dialects, i. p. 396b). Cf. A. Schaade, Sībawaihi’ss Lautlchre, particularly p. 19, N°. 3 and note 48; and the index. (A. Schaade)

, the fortress of Granada, situated on the plateau formed by a rock round which the Darro, just before joining the Genil, describes a curve open on the south-east. Its name (Arab. al-Ḥamrāʾ, i. e. “the red one”) is due to the reddish colour of the castle walls constructed mainly of “tapia”, a kind of concrete made of clay, lime and gravel. Our knowledge of the history of this Moorish acropolis is, unfortunately, extremely scanty. At what time and by whom buildings were first erected on the fortress rock of Granada is a point upon which tradition is silent.…

, an Arabic metre. The name, according to the Arab view, which however is based on etymological considerations only, is said to mean either “haste” or “woven” (Freytag, Darstellung der arab. Verskunst, p. 136). The Arabs derived this metre like the rad̲j̲az [q. v.] from the hazad̲j̲ [q. v.] and gave it the eighth place in their series of classical metres. The constituent element in the ramal is the Ionic . We sometimes also have . This variant is however very rare (Freytag, Darstellung, p. 240 sq. and Nöldeke, Delectus, p. 236). Nevertheless its possibility combined with the frequen…

, the fifteenth letter of the ordinary Arabic alphabet (as a numeral = 800; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). Ḍād is in form a variant of Ṣād (see the article arabia, arabic writing, p. 383b). In Sībawaihi’s time, Ḍād seems to have been pronounced as a voiced velar spirant, in which the air found an exit on both sides of the back of the tongue while the tip of the tongue lay close to the gum of the upper incisors. There was also a partial variety the so-called “weak Ḍād”. In modern dialects Ḍād is either a voiced velar alveolar explos…

(a.), properly “building” or “structure”, hence comes in grammar to mean “form” (e. g. Sībawaihi, ed. Derenbourg, i. 2, 2 infra) and particularly the indeclinability of the (vowel or consonantal) termination (the opposite is Iʿrāb). It must however be noted that words like ʿaṣan “stick” according to the Arab view have a virtually declinable ending and are therefore not regarded as mabnī. The Bināʾ moreover appears in all three classes of words (nouns, verbs and particles). (A. Schaade) Bibliography Sībawaihi (ed. Derenbourg), i. 2, 1—2, 18—3, 12 Itm Yaʿīs̲h̲, p. 400—405 and elsewhere Ib…

(properly “the new”), a metre, which was unknown to the Arabs and was first invented by the Persians (whence the name). It had originally the form fāʿilātun fāʿilātun mustafʿilun (twice). An abbreviated form faʿilātun faʿilātun mafāʿilun (twice) is also found. (A. Schaade) Bibliography Muḥammad Aʿlā, Dictionary of Technical Terms (ed. Sprenger etc.), i. 193.

(a.; ep. Hebr. aiyal) is an antlered mammal, described by Damīrī (Cairo 1274-1275 i. 165—167) as follows: Its horns are massive, and begin to grow when it has passed its second year. During the third year they shoot into branches, and this ramification continues until they form a tree-like antler. This is afterwards thrown off every year, but always grows again. The number of the “nodes” (antlers) corresponds with the number of the animal’s years. The aiyil is a good leaper; when chased it precipit…

(a.), properly “clarity, purity”, abstract noun from faṣīḥ, clear, pure. In Arabic rhetoric faṣīḥ means: 1. a single word, when it is not difficult to pronounce, is not a foreign or rare word and its form is not an exception to the usual; 2. a whole sentence, when it does not contain an objectionable construction, a discord, an obscurity (through a confusion in the arrangement of the words) or a metaphor too far fetched and therefore incomprehensible. The first kind of faṣāḥa is called faṣāḥat al-mufrad, the latter faṣāḥat al-kalām. There is also a faṣāḥat al-mutakallim. This is peculiar …

(a.; „young gazelle)”, a common woman’s name, two bearers of which are specially famous, ʿAzzat Kut̲h̲aiyir and ʿAzza al-Mailāʾ. ʿAzzat Kut̲h̲aiyir whose real name was ʿAzza bint Ḥumaid b. Waḳḳās ( Ag̲h̲ānī;Ḵh̲izāna: bint Ḥumail b. Ḥafṣ) and was a Bedouin of the tribe of Ḍamra. She was called ʿAzzat Kut̲h̲aiyir, the ʿAzza of Kut̲h̲aiyir because this poet dedicated all his Ḳaṣīdas to her (which for his part brought him the title of Kut̲h̲aiyir ʿAzza). She must have been quite a child when Kut̲h̲aiyir fell in love with her. Lat…

b. Ubaiy, also called Ibn Salūl after his mother, chief of the Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲ites. Before the coming of Muḥammed to Medina ʿAbd Allāh had dominion over Aws and Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲ — the only case, says Ibn His̲h̲ām explicitly, in which these two tribes united under a common chief. — After the coming of Muḥammed ʿAbd Allāh was obliged to follow the example of the masses and embrace Islām, in order not to be entirely set aside; but in his heart he bore a bitter grudge against his rival, whom he now looked on as a…

(a.), Strictly Ace. constr. of the substantive Bainun interval, then a preposition meaning “between”. — Baina baina ist an adverbial expression, which means “of middle quality, of middle worth”; al-Harnza ’llatī baina baina is “a sound between Hamza and the semi-vowel (i. e. Alif) which corresponds to the vowel following the Hamza” ( Lisān, xvi. 214). According to our method of expression this means: when Hamza is between two vowels, the glottal stop is omitted in certain dialects — among the Ḳorais̲h̲ and particularly among most of the Ḥid̲j̲āz (…

b. Rawāḥa, a Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲ite, belonging to the most esteemed clan of the Banu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲. At the second ʿAḳaba assembly in March 622, ʿAbd Allāh was one of the 12 trustworthy men, whom the already converted Medinians conformably to the Prophet’s wish had chosen. When Muḥammed had emigrated to ¶ Medina, ʿAbd Allāh proved himself to be one of the most energetic and upright champions of his cause. Muḥammed appears to have thought a great deal of him, and often entrusted him with honorable missions. After the battle of Bedr in the year 623, in wh…

(a.), technical term of Arabic grammar of the Baṣra school = genitive (Kūfic Ḵh̲afḍ). Ḏj̲arr (properly the infinitive of d̲j̲arra, to pull, to draw) is still used by Sībawaihi as a synonym for kasr (a) and denotes the vowel i in the last syllable of a word when it serves to express the genitive. How d̲j̲arr came to have this meaning is not quite obvious (cf. the articles ḥaraka and iʿrāb). It is for example explained that the later grammarians no longer understood the phonetic meaning of the expression and came to use d̲j̲arr as well as its Kufic equivalent k̲h̲afḍ as the regular words for “ge…

(the “lump of dough”: Ag̲h̲ānī, xix. 2), whose real name was Hammām b. G̲h̲ālib b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa, was one of the three greatest Arab satirists of the Arab period [cf. d̲j̲arīr and al-ak̲h̲ṭal]. He belonged to the Tamīmi Mud̲j̲ās̲h̲iʿ b. Dārim. He was probably born about the year 20 (640-641) (cf. Naḳāʾid, ed. Bevan, p. xviii.). We know nothing certain about his early life. It may, however, be true that his father sent him to ʿAlī after the Battle of the Camel” ( Ag̲h̲ānī, xix. 6, 48), although tradition gives this incident an exaggerated importance in the life of the poet (cf. Naḳāʾiḍ, op. cit., in o…

, the westernmost of the three peninsulas of southern Asia. a. Topography, Climate, Products. Arabia, called by the Arabs Ḏj̲azīrat al-ʿArab, “the peninsula (island) of the Arabs”, or abbreviated al-Ḏj̲azīra, “the peninsula”, ʿArabistān by the Persians and Turks, is only joined to continental Asia in the North and is bounded to the West by the Red Sea, to the East by the Persian Gulf and the Sea of ʿOmān, to the South by the Indian Ocean. By the isthmus of Suez it is connected with Africa, from which only the…

(a.; properly ”aggregate, sum, total”), a technical term in Arabic grammar = sentence. The word in this sense is synonymous with kalām. On the latter al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī says ( Mufaṣṣal, p. 4, 15—17): “A kalām is composed of (at least) two words, which stand to one another in the relation of subject and predicate”. A single word as for example the imperative ḳum (stand!) can of course form a complete sentence; but in this case the subject (here: thou) is understood. — On the various kinds of sentences (nominal, verbal, adverbial, categorical, interrogative…

, the ninth letter of the usual Arabic alphabet (numerical value 700; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). The letter is a variant of dāl. In Old Arabic it was pronounced as a voiced interdental or postdental spirant; now as a rule it is a voiced dental explosive (= Dāl). Cf. A. Schaade, Sībawaihi’s Lautlehre, index. (A. Schaade)

(a.), Abstract noun, from balīg̲h̲ active, eloquent (from balag̲h̲a “to attain something”), meaning therefore eloquence. The ʿIlm al-Balāg̲h̲a, Rhetoric, comprises three branches: the ʿIlm al-Maʿānī, the ʿIlm al-Bayān and the ʿIlm al-Badīʿ. The first branch (“Notions”), treats of the different kinds of sentence and their use; the second part (“Modes of Representation”) teaches the art of expressing oneself eloquently and without ambiguity i. e. faṣīḥ and treats of similes, metaphors and metonymies; third part (“Tropes”), deals with the embellishment of speec…

(a.; literally, “union, unity”) “the whole body of Muslims, in opposition to the heretics, who are separated from the community as seceders” (Juynboll, Handbuch dss Islāmischen Gesetzes, p. 46, note 1). It is not to be confused ¶ with id̲j̲māʿ, the consensus of Muslim scholars of a particular period. (A. Schaade)

(a.; literally “action”), a technical term in Arabic grammar: the verb. According to al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal, p. 108 (§ 402) it is “that which indicates the association of a ḥadat̲h̲. (event) with a time”. Muḥammad A’lā adds the reference to the agent” in his Dictionary of Technical Terms (ed. Sprenger etc., ii. 1142 et seq.). But this addition is only correct for the active verb. On the other hand the emphasis laid on the notion of time, which is found as early as Sībawathi (chap. 1), shows that the Arabic verb had for long been not so tense…

b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Maʿmar, with the kunya Abū ʿAmr, a famous Arab poet, who lived in the first century of the Hid̲j̲ra. We know very little about his life. This is partly due to the fact that he had no permanent abode but led a wandering life along with his tribe the Banū ʿUd̲h̲ra which had a reputation for depth of feeling. His love affair with Bat̲h̲na or But̲h̲aina, a member of his tribe, who — for a period at least — lived in Wādi ’l-Ḳurā, is famous. He wooed her as a young man but was rejected by he…

(a,; literally “cutting”), a technical term of Arabic grammar: apocope. It is the name given to one of the three moods of the imperfect ( wad̲j̲h min wud̲j̲ūh iʿrāb al-muḍāriʿ), viz., to the one, whose forms without an inflectional ending end in a consonant in a strong verb and in a short vowel in a weak verb ( yafʿal: yafʿalu; yag̲h̲zu: yag̲h̲zū). The d̲j̲azm (in the strong verb at least) corresponds in form to the sukūn (which Sībawaihi also calls waḳf) at the end of indeclinable words; according to the Arab view it also corresponds to the d̲j̲arr [q. v.] of the noun (just as the indicati…

(a.), literally “opening”, a term in Arabic grammar for the pronunciation of a consonant with the vowel a; the sign is therefore called fatha. In Slbawaihi (e. g. ed. Derenbourg, ii. 281,9) fatḥ is still occasionally applied to the pronunciation of the fatḥa without “ L’mlaut”, i. c. the opposite of imāla [q. v.]. — In Arithmetic fatḥ means the square of a number—There are other technical uses of the word for which see Muḥammad Aʿlā, Diet, of Techn. Terms, ed. Sprenger etc., ii. 1104 et seq. s. v. (A. Schaade)

b. Ḥātim, with the kunya of Abū Ṭarīf, a partisan of ʿAlī. He was the son of the celebrated poet Ḥātim al-Ṭāʾī, of whom he inherited the royal power over his tribe, the Ṭaiyites. Being threatened with the loss of the royalty, ʿAdī, who like his father was a Christian, went over to Islām in the year 9 (630). He collected for the Prophet the taxes among the Ṭaiyites and Asadites. He knew how to prevent the threatening apostasy of his tribe after the death of the Prophet. He moved with Ḵh̲ālid to ʿIrāḳ…

, the 21st letter of the usual Arabic alphabet (numerical value 100; cf. the article abd̲j̲ad). The form of the character goes back to the Nabataean ḳāf and later in Arabic was assimilated in form to fāʾ, so that it had to be distinguished from the latter by pointing (cf. the article arabia, arabic writing, i. 383b and plate I). In Sībawaihi’s time ḳāf was pronounced as a velar g. This pronunciation is still frequently found among Beduins and peasants; in the ordinary popular language, however, ḳāf is usually pronounced as hamza; for other modern popular pronunciations of ḳāf see the article ara…