, "safe", "secure"; in this and the more frequent form āmīn (rarely āmmīn , rejected by grammarians) it is used like āmēn and (Syriac) amīn with Jews and Christians as a confirmation or corroboration of prayers, in the meaning "answer Thou" or "so be it", see examples in al-Mubarrad, al-Kāmil , 577 note 6; Ibn al-Ḏj̲azarī, al-Nas̲h̲r ii, Cairo 1345, 442 f., 447. Its efficacy is enhanced at especially pious prayers, e.g. those said at the Kaʿba or those said for the welfare of other Muslims, when also the angels are said to say amīn. Especially it is said after sūra i, without being part of the sūra. …

, the father of mankind (Abu’l-Bas̲h̲ar). In the Ḳurʾān it is related that when God had ¶ created what is on the earth and in the heavens he said to the angels: "I am about to place a substitute ( k̲h̲alīfa ) on earth", and they said: "Wilt thou place thereon one who will do evil therein and shed blood, whereas we celebrate thy praise and sanctify thee?" Then God taught Adam the names of all things, and as the angels did not know the names Adam taught them these (ii, 28-33 Fl.). Thereafter God ordered the angels t…

(a.), vow. This procedure was taken over into Islam from the pre-Islamic Arabs and underwent modification by the new religion. The idea of dedication is associated with the root n-d̲h̲-r which is also found in South Arabian, Hebrew and Aramaic and to some extent in Assyrian. An animal could be the object of dedication among the Arabs. For example, they dedicated by nad̲h̲r certain of their sheep etc., for the ʿatīra feast in Rad̲j̲ab ( Lisān al-ʿArab and al-D̲j̲awhari. s.v.); the dedication, which was expressed in solemn formulae, signified that th…

(a.), from the verb aḳsama , designates the oath in general. The word has two other synonyms, yamīn , and ḥalf . Ibn Rus̲h̲d ( Bidāyat al-Mud̲j̲tahid , i, 394), wishing to emphasize their equivalence from the point of view of terminology, uses the three words without differentiation in the first paragraph of the kitāb al-aymān of his Bidāya . In fact, when he deals with the judiciary oath, custom has imposed the word yamīn [ q.v.] and the verb ḥalafa almost exclusively. But even in that which concerns the extrajudiciary oath, with which the discussion that follows is concerned, the word yamīn ha…

(a.), the raised structure or pulpit from which solemn announcements to the Muslim community were made and from which sermons were preached. 1. Early historical evolution and place in the Islamic cult. In contrast to the miḥrāb [ q.v.], the minbar was introduced in the time of the Prophet himself. The word, often pronounced mimbar (cf. Brockelmann, Grundriss , i, 161), comes from the root n-b-r “high”; it could be derived from the Arabic quite easily with the meaning “elevation, stand”, but is more probably a loanword from the Ethiopie (Schwally, in ZDMG, lii [1898], 146-8; Nöldeke, Neue Be…

(a.), mosque, the noun of place from sad̲j̲ada “to prostrate oneself, hence “place where one prostrates oneself [in worship]”. The modern Western European words (Eng. mosque , Fr. mosquée , Ger. Moschee , Ital. moschea ) come ultimately from the Arabic via Spanish mezquita . I. In the central Islamic lands A. The origins of the mosque up to the Prophet’s death. The word msgdʾ is found in Aramaic as early as the Jewish Elephantine Papyri (5th century B.C.), and appears likewise in Nabataean inscriptions with the meaning “place of worship…