general in the service of Muʿāwiya. He belonged to the powerful tribe of Sulaym (hence "al-Sulamī"); his mother was a Christian and his father had fought at Uḥud in the ranks of the Ḳurays̲h̲. The son, who does not seem to have belonged to the closest circle of the Prophet, went, probably with the army commanded by Yazīd b. Abī Sufyān, to Syria. In the battle of the Yarmūk he was in charge of a detachment, and from that time he followed faithfully the fortunes of the Umayyads. He thus exposed hi…

b. unayf b. wald̲j̲a b. ḳunāfa belonged to the clan of the Banū Ḥarit̲h̲a b. Ḏj̲anāb, which was also called al-Bayt or the aristocracy of Kalb. A Christian like the great majority of his tribe, his chief claim to fame is that he was the father of ¶ Maysūn, mother of Yazīd I. His nomad clan lived to the south of the ancient Palmyra, whither Maysūn afterwards brought the young Yazīd, and where the Umayyads reunited after the congress of D̲j̲ābiya and the battle of Mard̲j̲ Rāhiṭ. Baḥdal was thus the founder of the great pr…

b. ʿAdī al-Kindī , a S̲h̲īʿī agitator of the earliest period of Islam. The oldest authorities deny that he was a Companion of the Prophet and reject the legend that he conquered the district of Mard̲j̲ ʿAd̲h̲rāʾ, in Syria. Ḥud̲j̲r threw himself heart and soul into ʿAlī’s cause and fought for him at the ‘battle of the Camel’ [see d̲j̲amal ] and at Ṣiffīn. We later find him in Egypt with Muḥammad, son of the Caliph Abū Bakr, who was governing this province in ʿAlī’s name. After ʿAlī’s son Ḥasan had given up his claim to the Caliphate, Ḥud̲j̲r became the mo…

b. abī arṭāt or b. arṭāt (there is less authority for the latter form), an Arab general of the Ḳurays̲h̲ clan of the Banū ʿĀmir, was born in Mecca in the last decade before the Hid̲j̲ra. Only traditions which have been influenced by S̲h̲īʿī prejudices deny him the title of Ṣaḥābī. He went with the relief column into Syria under Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd, distinguished himself there by his bravery and afterwards took part in the conquest of Africa. His bravery earned him a duʿāʾ and rewards from ʿUmar. During the civil war he vigorously declared himself on the s…

of the Banū Murra [ q.v.], famous commander of the Sufyānid caliphs. We know very little about the early stages of his career. We find him early established in Syria, to which he probably came with the first conquerors. Completely devoted to the Umayyads and of great personal valour, he led a division of Syrian infantry at the battle of Ṣiffīn [ q.v.], but he failed in an attempt to take the oasis of Dūmat al-D̲j̲andal [ q.v.] from ʿAlī. The caliph Muʿāwiya appointed him to take charge of the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ , the finances, of Palestine, a lucrative office in which h…

, of the Kindī tribe of the Sakūn, a general of the Sufyānids. At Ṣiffīn, he fought in the Umayyad ranks. On the accession of Yazīd I, he was governor of the important district of Ḥimṣ. He then had to intervene with Yazīd for Ibn Mufarrig̲h̲ [ q.v.], who had been imprisoned by ʿUbayd Allāh b. Ziyād. When the expedition against the holy cities of the Ḥid̲j̲āz was planned, Ḥuṣayn was appointed lieutenant of the commanderin-chief Muslim b. ʿUḳba al-Murrī [ q.v.] and, in this capacity, distinguished himself at the battle of the Ḥarra [ q.v.]. During the march on Mecca, the dying Muslim, in or…

, an Arab tribe, especially influential in the pre-Islamic period. With the exception of the Lak̲h̲mid family [see lak̲h̲mids ] in ʿIrāḳ, so frequently celebrated in the old Arab poetry, the pre-Islamic history of this family is not well-known and is full of legend. According to the traditional genealogy, Lak̲h̲m was of Yemenī origin and was the brother of D̲j̲ud̲h̲ām and ʿĀmila [ q.vv.]. Yemenīs and Maʿaddīs claimed descent from the powerful Lak̲h̲mid dynasty of ʿIrāḳ. Of the three sister-tribes, Lak̲h̲m was undoubtedly the most illustrious and the oldest also. Legend …

(cf. Αδροα), more rarely uḏh̲ruḥ , a place between Maʿān and Petra, a magnificent Roman camp (the surviving monuments are described by Brünnow and Domaszewski), supplied by a gushing spring. This place, situated in pre-Islamic times in the Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ām country, was visited by the Ḳurays̲h̲ite caravans. It submitted to Muḥammad on payment of tribute during the expedition to Tabūk (9/631); the treaty of capitulation handed down by our authorities is probably authentic. Muʿāwiya is s…

, grandson of the Kalbī chief Baḥdal b. Unayf [ q.v.] and cousin of the caliph Yazīd I, his father being the brother of Maysūn, the famous wife of Muʿāwiya (it has been thought, erroneously, that he was the uncle of Yazīd I, because he is often referred to simply as Ibn Baḥdal). This relationship, the nobility of his clan (the Banū Ḥārit̲h̲a b. D̲j̲anāb) and the power of the Kalb tribe earned for him under Muʿāwiya and Yazīd the governorships of Palestine and of Jordan. Before this, he had fought at Ṣiffīn in the ranks of the Syrian army, in command of the Ḳuḍāʿa of Damascus (Naṣr b. Muzāḥim, Waḳʿat Ṣif…

, Syria, etymologically, “the left-hand region”, because in ancient Arab usage the speaker in western or central Arabia was considered to face the rising sun and to have Syria on his left and the Arabian peninsula, with Yaman (“the rig̲h̲thand region”), on his right (cf. al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ ., iii, 140-1 = § 992; al-Muḳaddasī, partial French tr. A. Miquel, La meilleure répartition pour la connaissance des provinces , Damascus 1963, 155-6, both with other, fanciful explanations). In early Islamic usage, the term bilād al-S̲h̲ām covered what in early 20th-…