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, ṣūfī saint and the apostle of Kas̲h̲mīr, born in Hamadān of a notable family of sayyids (claiming descent from ʿAlī b. Ḥusayn, grandson of the imām Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn), on 12 Rad̲j̲ab 714/22 Oct. 1314. His chain of initiation went back through two links to ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla al-Simnānī, and through him to Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn al-Kubrā. He led the itinerant life of a darwīs̲h̲ and is said to have visited all parts of the Muslim world. He arrived for the first time in the valley of Kas̲h̲mīr in 774/1372, during the reign of S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn, accompanied by 700 sayyids; he remained for four months and the…

, Muwaffaḳ al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad b. Yūsuf , also called Ibn al-Labbād , a versatile scholar and scientist, born at Bag̲h̲dād in 557/1162-3, died there in 629/1231-2. In Bag̲h̲dād he studied grammar, law, tradition etc. (giving in his autobiography a vivid ¶ picture of contemporary methods of study) and was persuaded by a Mag̲h̲ribī wandering scholar to devote himself to philosophy, mainly according to the system of Ibn Sīnā, and to natural science and alchemy. In 585/1189-90 he went to Mosul (where he studied the works of al-Suhrawardī a…

group of ruins 30 kms. west of Bag̲h̲dād; its identification by H. Rawlinson with the town of Dur Kurigalzu, founded by the Kassites in the 14th century B. C, has been confirmed by the excavations of 1942-5 (see T. Baqir, in Iraq , Suppl. 1944, 1945; 1946, 73 ff.). The high tower (the ruins of the ancient zikkurat ) drew the attention of the Arabs, and is referred to in connection with the Arab conquest as al-manẓara (al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 250; cf. also al-Ṭabarī, ii, 917, iii, 943). It was said to be the tomb of the “Kaynānī” dynasty (Ibn al-Faḳīh,…

, according to the account of Ibn Rizām (see Fihrist , 187) and Ak̲h̲ū Muḥsin (quoted in al-Nuwayrī’s chapter on the Ḳarmaṭians and in an abbreviated form in al-Maḳrīzī, Ittiʿāẓ al-Ḥunafāʾ (Bunz), 103 ff.), also going back, no doubt, to Ibn Rizām, was brother-in-law and lieutenant of Ḥamdān Ḳarmaṭ [ q.v.], leader of the Ḳarmaṭians [ q.v.] of southern ʿIrāḳ. When the Ismāʿīlī headquarters in Salamiya changed their policy, ʿAbdān fell away ¶ from their allegiance, but was killed, in 286/899, at the instigation of Zikrawayh, the leader of the loyalists. The account of …

bi-aḥkām allāh abū ʿalī al-manṣūr , the tenth Fāṭimid caliph, b. 13 Muḥarram 490/31 Dec. 1096. He was proclaimed caliph as a mere child of five by the vizier al-Afḍal on the death of his father al-Mustaʿlī (14 Ṣafar 495/8 Dec. 1101). For the next twenty years the government was in the hands of al-Afḍal [ q.v.]. In 515/1121 al-Afḍal was assassinated by Nizārī emissaries, but the caliph was accused of complicity. Al-Maʾmūn b. al-Baṭāʾiḥī [ q.v.] was made vizier, but was in his turn imprisoned on 4 Ramaḍān 519/1125 (and executed three years later). No new vizier was appoin…

, Ḵh̲ārid̲j̲ite leader (belonging to the Ibāḍi al-Nukkār [ q.v.]), who by his revolt shook the Fāṭimid realm in North Africa to its foundations. His father, a Zanāta Berber merchant from Taḳyūs (or Tūzar) in the district of Ḳastīliya, bought in Tadmakat a slave girl called Sabīka, who bore him Abū Yazīd about 270/883 (apparently in the Sūdān). Abū Yazīd studied the Ibāḍī mad̲h̲hab and became a schoolmaster in Tāhart. At the time of the victory of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-S̲h̲īʿī he moved to Taḳyūs and started, in 316/928, his anti-government …

b. ʿAbd al-Ḏj̲abbār al-Hamad̲h̲ānī al-Asadābādī , Abu ’l-Ḥasan, Muʿtazilite theologian, in law a follower of the S̲h̲āfiʿī school. Born about 325, he lived in Baghdad, until called to Rayy, in 367/978, by the ṣāḥib Ibn ʿAbbād, a staunch supporter of the Muʿtazila. He was subsequently appointed chief ḳāḍī of the province; hence he is usually referred to in later Muʿtazilī literature as Ḳāḍī al-ḳuḍāt . (For some anecdotes on his relations with Ibn ʿAbbād see Yāḳūt, Irs̲h̲ād , ii, 312, 314). On the death of Ibn ʿAbbād, he was deposed and arrested by th…

, a Muʿtazilite at first, became one of the archheretics in Islām; his friend and pupil, Ibn al-Rāwandī [ q.v.], went through the same metamorphosis. The date of Abū ʿĪsā’s death is given by al-Masʿūdī (vii, 236) as 247/861; if it is true, however, that Ibn al-Rāwandī died about the end of the 3rd/9th century (see Kraus, 379), this date would seem to be too early. The issue would be decided if one could be sure that the paragraph in al-S̲h̲ahrastānī, 198, where the date 271 occurs, still continues the quotation from Abū ʿĪsā. Abū ʿĪsā was accused of Manichean sympathies. Al-Murtaḍā’s defence, al-…

, son of ʿOt̲h̲mān, the founder of the Ottoman state. His figure remains enigmatic, owing to the absence of reliable documents and the tendentious, and rather legendary, character of the early Ottoman chronicles—the same circumstances which are the cause of so many uncertainties in early Ottoman history. In some sources he is called Erden ʿAlī (Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī and Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar), or ʿAlī, According to the historians he and Ork̲h̲an were born of the same mother, Māl Ḵh̲ātūn. daughter of the ak̲h̲ī Edebali; according to a document …

, Ismāʿīlī dāʿī and one of the sect’s most important authors. According to Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn ( Ḏj̲āmiʿ al-Tawārīk̲h̲ , MS Brit. Mus., Add. 7628, fol. 277r), "after that time"—viz. the execution of al-Nasafī in Buk̲h̲ārā, 331/942—"Isḥāḳ-i Sid̲j̲zī, nicknamed Ḵh̲ays̲h̲afūd̲j̲, fell into the hands of the amīr Ḵh̲alaf b. Isḥāḳ (sic MS, read Aḥmad) Sid̲j̲zī". (Ḵh̲alaf b. Aḥmad, of the "second" Ṣaffārid dynasty, ruled 349-99.) This probably implies that Abū Yaʿḳūb was killed by the amīr Ḵh̲alaf. (According to W. Ivanow, Studies in Early Persian Ismailism , 119, note 1, his book al-Iftik̲h̲ār …

, al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad b. Muḥ. b. Zakariyyāʾ , sometimes also called al-Muḥtasib (he had allegedly been a muḥtasib , market overseer, in ʿIrāḳ), the founder of Fāṭimid rule in North Africa. A native of Ṣanʿāʾ, he joined the Ismāʿīlī movement in ʿIrāḳ and was sent to Yaman, where he spent his apprenticeship with Manṣūr al-Yaman (Ibn Ḥaws̲h̲ab), head of the ¶ Ismāʿīlī mission in that country. On the pilgrimage of 279/892 he met in Mecca some Kutāma pilgrims and accompanied them back to their native country, which they reached on 14 Rabīʿ…

, name of a Nubian people and kingdom. The kingdom was adjacent to that of Maḳurra [ q.v.] a little below the confluence of the White Nile and the Atbara and stretched southward well beyond the confluence of the White and Blue Nile; its capital was Sōba, near the modern Ḵh̲arṭūm. The Christian kingdom preserved its independence even after the fall of the kingdom of the Maḳurra and only disappeared in the beginning of the 10th/16th century under the pressure of Arab tribes allied to the Fund̲j̲. [See also nūba , and al-nīl .] (S.M. Stern) Bibliography Ibn al-Faḳīh, 78 Yaʿḳūbī, 335 Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j…

, client of the family of al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Abī Rabīʿa al-Mak̲h̲zūmī (Ibn al-Zubayr’s governor in Baṣra, cf. al-Ṭabarī, index), known in the Twelver S̲h̲īʿite literature as a transmitter of traditions from Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ (al-Kulīnī, Ibn Bābūya, al-Ṭūsī, passim, cf. Ivanow, Alleged Founder , 11-60; see also the S̲h̲īʿite books of rid̲j̲āl : al-Kas̲h̲s̲h̲ī, Maʿrifat Ak̲h̲bār al-Rid̲j̲āl , 160; al-Nad̲j̲ās̲h̲ī, al-Rid̲j̲āl , 148; al-Ṭūsī, Fihrist , 197; he appears also in Sunnī books of rid̲j̲āl: al-Ḏh̲ahabī, Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl , ii, 81, who q…

, ʿAlī b. Muḥ. b. al-ʿAbbās (probably called al-Tawḥīdī after the sort of dates called tawhīd ), man of letters and philosopher of the 4th/10th century. The place of his birth is given either as Nīs̲h̲āpūr, S̲h̲īrāz, Wāsiṭ or Bag̲h̲dād; its date must be placed between 310-20/922-32. He studied in Bag̲h̲dād, grammar under al-Sīrāfī and al-Rummānī, S̲h̲āfiʿite law under Abū Ḥāmid al-Marw al-Rūd̲h̲ī and Abū Bakr al-S̲h̲ās̲h̲i: and also frequented ṣūfī masters. He supported himself by acting a…

, "the motley-coloured fortress", the Turkish name of the town of Krushevats, on the south side of the Western Morava. The town was the capital of Serbia under Lazar (who assembled there his army to march against the Turks, and lose his empire, at Kosovo, in 1389) and his son Stephan. It was occupied by the Turks in 1428, after the accession of George Brankovits, who made Semendria his capital. The town played a role in the Serbian wars and Muḥammad II established there a gunfoundry. Alad̲j̲a Ḥiṣār was the capital of a sand̲j̲aḳ in the eyālet of Rūm-eli [ q.v.]. The Austrians occupied the town…

, the Arabic form of the name of Empedocles (often corrupted into Abīduḳlīs, etc.). Some authentic information about his doctrines came down to the Muslims by way of such channels as the works of Aristotle, the doxography of Ps.-Plutarch (e.g. i, 3, cf. ed. Badawī; also quoted in Abū Sulaymān al-Manṭriḳī, Ṣiwān al-Ḥikma , introduction; al-Maḳdisī, al-Badʾ , i, 139, ii, 75), etc. The authentic Empedocles, however, plays no role in Islamic philosophy; on the other hand, his figure was appropriated by late Neoplatonic circles, and t…

, son of the preceding. After the death of the caliph al-Āmir (12 Ḏh̲u’l-Ḳaʿda 524/17 Oct. 1130), the power was assumed by two favourites of the late caliph, Hazārmard and Barg̲h̲as̲h̲, who put forward al-Āmir’s cousin ʿAbd al-Mad̲j̲īd as temporary regent. Four days later the army raised Kutayfāt ¶ (who assumed the title of al-Afḍal) to the vizierate. Shortly afterwards the vizier declared the Fāṭimid dynasty deposed, and the empire was placed under the sovereignty of the Expected Imām of the Twelver-S̲h̲īʿa; ʿAbd al-Mad̲j̲īd was removed from…

, legendary king of the Tūrānians according to Iranian tradition. In the Avesta (especially Yas̲h̲t xix) "Frangrasyan the Turian" was an adversary of Kavi Haosrava (> Kay Ḵh̲usraw), having treacherously murdered Kavi Haosrava’s father Syavars̲h̲an (> Siyāwus̲h̲). He vainly desired to secure the hvarna , "the Glory of the Aryans", and was killed, in revenge, by Kavi Haosrava. He may have been originally a historical figure, chief of the Turian tribes (who were probably themselves of Iranian race [cf. tūrān ]). The Pahlavi form of the name is Frāsiyāb. S…

al-Lāḥiḳī (i.e. son of Lāḥiḳ b. ʿUfayr), also known as al-Raḳās̲h̲ī, because his family (originally from Fasā) were clients of the Banū Raḳās̲h̲, Arabic poet, died about 200/815-6. He was a court poet of the Barmakids and wrote panegyrics in their praise and the praise of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd. He also defended in some verses the ʿAbbāsids against the pretensions of the ʿAlids. In the usual manner of the epoch he engaged in vigorous exchanges of lampoons with his fellow poets (among them Abū Nuwās). His enemies accused him, without justification, it seems, of Manicheism (see G. Vajda, in RSO, 19…

, "the blind man of Tudela", abu ’l-ʿabbās (or abū ḏj̲aʿfar ) aḥmad b. ʿabd allāh b. hurayra al-ʿutbī (or al-ḳaysī ), Hispano-Arabic poet, b. in Tudela, but brought up in Seville; d. 525/1130-1. MSS of his dīwān , containing classical poetry, are to be found in London and Cairo (see Brockelmann, I, 320, S I, 480), but he is mainly famous as one of the great masters of muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ poetry. His muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥs are preserved, apart from occasional quotations in general works, in such special anthologies of the genre as Ibn Sanāʾ al-Mulk’s Dār al-Ṭirāz (ed. Rikaby, nos. 1, 30, 34), Ibn Bus̲h̲rā’s ʿ…