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THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ISLAM 



THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ISLAM 

NEW EDITION 

PREPARED BY A NUMBER OF 
LEADING ORIENTALISTS 

EDITED BY 

B. LEWIS, Ch. PELLAT and J. SCHACHT 

ASSISTED BY J. BURTON-PAGE, C. DUMONT AND V. L. MENAGE AS 
EDITORIAL SECRETARIES 



UNDER THE PATRONAGE OF 
THE INTERNATIONAL UNION OF ACADEMIES 



VOLUME II 
C— G 

FOURTH IMPRESSION 



LEIDEN 

E.J. BRILL 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 

Former and present members: A. Abel, C. C. Berg, F. Gabrieli, E. Garcia Gomez, H. A. R. Gibb, 

the late]. H. Kramers, the late E. Levi-Provencal, [G. Levi Della Vida], T. Lewicki, B. Lewin, 

B. Lewis, [the late E. Littmann], H. Masse, G. C. Miles, H. S. Nyberg, R. Paret, J. Pedersen, 

Ch. Pellat, the late N. W. Posthumus, J. Schacht, F. C. Wieder 

Former and present associated members: H. H. Abdul Wahab, the late A. Adnan Adivar, A. S. Bazmee 

Ansari, the late Husain Djajadinincrat, A. A. A. Fyzee, M. Fuad Koprulu, Ibrahim Madkour, 

the late Khalil Mardam Bey, Naji al-Asil, the late Muhammad Shafi, Mustafa al-Shihabi, 

Hasan Taghizade, E. Tyan 

Former and present honorary members: G. Levi Della Vida; the late E. Littmann 



The articles in volumes one and two were published in fascicules from 1954 onwards, the dates of 
publication of the individual fascicules being: 



1954 


fascs 


1 


3, vol 


1955 


fascs 


4, vol 


1956 


fascs 


5-7, vol 


1957 


fascs 


8 


10, vol 


1958 


fascs 


11 


14, vol 


1959 


fascs 


15 


19, vol 


1960 


fascs 


20 


23, vol 


1961 


fascs 


24 


26, vol 


1962 


fascs 


27 


29, vol 


1963 


fascs 


30 


34, vol 


1964 


fascs 


35 


37, vol 


1965 


fascs 


38 


40, vol 



First impression 1965 
Second impression 1970 
Third impression 1983 



ISBN 90 04 07026 5 

© Copyright 1965, 1991 by E. J. Brill, Leiden, Netherlands 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or translated 

in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm or any other means without 

written permission from the Editors 



PRINTED IN THE NETHERLAND! 



AUTHORS OF ARTICLES IN VOLUMES ONE AND TWO 

For the benefit of readers who may wish to follow up an individual contributor's articles, the Editors have 
decided to place after each contributor's name the numbers of the pages on which his signature appears. 
Academic but not other addresses are given (for a retired scholar, the place of his last known academic 
appointment). The following is a consolidated list and index of authors for the first two volumes of the 
Encyclopaedia. 

In this list, names in square brackets are those of authors of articles reprinted or revised from the first edition 
of this Encyclopaedia or from the Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam. An asterisk after the name of the author 
in the text denotes an article reprinted from the first edition which has been brought up to date by the 
Editorial Committee; where an article has been revised by a second author his name appears in the text 
within square brackets after the name of the original author. 



M. Abdul Hai, University of Dacca, i, 1167. 
H. H. Abdul Wahab, Tunis, i, 24, 207, 309, 863. 
Mrs Fevziye Abdullah-Tansel, University of 

Istanbul, ii, 683. 
A. Abel, Universite Libre, Brussels, i, 923, 1055, 

1277; «, 59. 7i, 77, 126, 128, 131, 199. 
A. Adam, University of Aix-Marseilles. i, 506, 978; ii, 

117, 727- 
the late A. Adnan Adivar, Istanbul, i, 393. 
Aziz Ahmad, University of Toronto, ii, 297, 421, 437, 



1077. 
M. Muni 



pe, University of Istanbul, ii, 7 



ii, 10, 63. 

F. R. Allchin, University of Cambridge, i, 857, 1010. 
Miss Gunay Alpay, University of Istanbul, ii, 997, 

1043, 1 138. 
H. W. Alter, Dhahran. ii, 109, 569. 

G. C. Anawati, Cairo, ii, 755, 837. 

R. Anhegoer, Istanbul, i, 175, 184, 481. 

A. S. Bazmee Ansari, Central Institute of Islamic 
Research, Karachi, i, 431, 433, 702, 808, 809, 813, 
822, 828, 856, 859, 952, 954, 957, 958, 970, 1005, 
1012, 1018, 1020, 1022, 1023, 1043, 1053, 1137, 
1161, 1166, 1192, 1193, 1194, 1196, 1197, 1202, 
1203, 1210, 1219, 1254, 1300, 1330, 1331, 1348; ii, 
29> 3i, 47, 104, 132, 138, 140, 187, 189, 255, 276, 
317, 337, 372, 379, 381, 392. 489, 491. 494, SOI, 
504, 523, 558, 598, 602, 609, 736, 797, 809, 814, 
837, 869, 870, 872, 974, 1004, 1046, 1092, 1093, 
1123, 1131, 1135. 

it, University of London, i, 1078, 1215, 



1313;! 



592- 



the late R. R. Arat, University of Istanbul, i, 1038; 

ii, 69. 
A. J. Arberry, University of Cambridge, i, 1089; ii, 

[C. van Arendonk, Leiden], i, 258. 

R. Arnaldez, University of Lyons, ii, 767, 775. 

E. Asktor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 1128. 
M. R. al-Assouad, Paris, ii, 245. 

J. Aubin, Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris. 

i, 148. 
G. Aw ad, Baghdad, i, 423, 846, 866, 990, 1038. 
D. Ayalon, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 442, 

444, 445, 446, 732, 765, 945, 947, 1061, 1325; ii, 24, 

172, 357, 421, 955- 
A. M. A. Azeez, Zahira College, Colombo, ii, 28. 
Fr. Babincer, University of Munich, i, 97, 295, 309, 

707, 739, 768, 790, 826, 993; ii, 203, 292. 

F. Bajraktarevic, University of Belgrade, i, 131. 
J. M. S. Baljon Jr., University of Grooingen. i, 288. 
0. L. Barkan, University of Istanbul, ii, 83. 



[W. Barthold, Leningrad], i, 47, 71, 91, 102, 135, 
241, 278, 312, 320, 354, 419, 421, 423, 425, 453, 508, 
735, 750, 767, 839, 855, 857, 987, 993, 1002, 1010, 
ion, 1028, 1033, 1106, 1130, 1134, 1135, 1139, 
1188, 1296, 1311, 1312, 1338, 1343; ii, 3, 4, 19, 61, 
89, 607, 622, 778, 793, 976, 978, 1043, 1 1 18. 

[H. Basset, Rabat], i, 689. 

[R. Basset, Algiers], i, 50, 1179, 1187, 1315. 

A. Bausani, Istituto Universitario Orientale, Naples, 
i, 304, 835, 847, 912, 918 ; ii, 397, 758, 784, 866, 971, 

M. Cavid Baysun, University of Istanbul, i, 63, 291; 

ii, 210, 420, 490, 713- 
L. Bazin, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris, i, 1159. 
S. de Beaurecueil, University of Kabul, i, 516. 
[C. H. Becker, Berlin], i, 9, 42, 52, 126, 729, 736, 788, 

845, 870, 933, 938, 945, 972, 1016, 1043; ii, 103. 
C. F. Beckinoham, University of London, i, 95, 106, 

719, 929, 933, 1038, 1043, 1280, 1283; ii, 57, 522, 

788, 1121. 
A. F.L.Beeston, University of Oxford, i, 103; ii, 895. 
[A. Bel, Tlemcen). i, 122, 123, 155. 
N. Beldiceanu, Centre national de la Recherche 

scientifique, Paris, i, 1299; ii, 689. 
[M. Ben Cheneb, Algiers], i, 96, 795 ; ii, 216, 528, 838. 

A. Bennigsen, Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, 
Paris, i, 422, 460, 756, 855, 958, 967, 1000, 1002, 
1005, 1028, 1084, 1189, 1190, 1297; ii, 19, 89, 697. 

B. Ben Yahia, Univers : ty of Tunis, ii, 60. 

C. C. Berg, University of Leiden, i, 1012, 1014, 1015, 
1100, 1221, 1259; ii, 19, 390, 497. 

M. Berger, Princeton University, ii, 1048. 

S. van den Bergh, London, i, 2, 179,514, 785 ;ii, 102, 

249, 494, 550. 
Niyazi Berkes, McGill University, Montreal, ii, 

1118. 
J. Berque, College de France, Paris, i, 428, 661; ii, 

413. 
A. D. H. Bivar, University of London, ii. 978, 1096, 

1 1 39. 
W. Bjorkhan, Uppsala, i, 294; ii, 307. 
R. Blachere, University of Paris, i, 10, 105, 106, 149, 

316, 331, 345, 452, 522, 686, 751, 822, 845, 846, 870, 

1082; ii, 246, 789, 808, 1033. 
[J. F. Blumhardt, London], i, 242. 
[Tj. de Boer, Amsterdam.], i, 341, 350,427,736; ii, 

555, 837. 

D. J. Boilot, Cairo, i, 1238. 

S. A. Bonebakker, Columbia University, New York. 

i, 145, 772; ii, 1011. 
P. N. Boratav, Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, 

Paris, ii, 549, 708. 
C. E. Bosworth, University of St. Andrews, i, 938, 

1232, 1241, 1283, 1358; ii, 365, 573, 894, 1050, 1084, 



G.-H. I 



JUSQUET, Ull 



if Bordeai 



1 104. 



, 170,172, 



the late H. Bowen, University of London, i, 132, 207, 
212, 246, 247, 271, 286, 292, 318, 358, 388, 394, 398, 
399, 658, 761, 778, 807, 855, 953, 1004, 1077, 1080, 
"35, "59- 

J. A. Boyle, University of Manchester, i, 987, 1106. 
1130, 1188, 1311, 1312; ii 3, 4, 44, 393, 571, 607, 
976, 1043, 1 141. 

H. W. Brands, Fulda. i, 332; ii, 217. 

W. Braune, Free University, Berlin, i, 70. 

W. C. Brice, University of Manchester, ii, 991. 

[C. Brockelmann, Halle], i, 99, 100, 108, 167, 321, 
388, 393, 431, 485, 486, 516, 821, 822, 965, 966, 
1132, 1296, 1333; ii, 167, 606, 886, 1106. 

R. Brunschvig, University of Paris, i, 40, 340, 969, 

[F. Buhl, Copenhagen], i, 169, 194, 341, 344, 418, 630; 
», 354, 438. 743, 1025. 

J. Burton-Page, University of London, i, 926, 1024, 
1048, 1193, 1201, 1204, 1210, 1324; ii, 11, 13, 101, 
113, 121, 158, 162, 180, 183, 218, 219, 266, 274, 375, 
391, 405, 438, 499, 503, 545, 628, 678, 695, 976, 
981, 1130, 1131, "35- 

H. Busse, University of Hamburg, ii, 313, 804. 

A. Caferoglu, University of Istanbul, i, 194. 

Cl. Cahen, University of Paris, i, 239, 256, 314, 421, 
434. 437. 627, 630, 640, 659, 662, 667, 730, 732, 751, 
807, 823, 844, 910, 940, 955, 983, 1053, 1 147, ii6i, 
1191, 1292, 1309, 1337, 1357, 1358; ii, 5, 15, 66, 131, 
145, 188, 231, 299, 345, 348, 349, 385, 456, 490, 509 
562, 707, 749. 827, 965, 1045, mo. 

J. A. M. Caldwell, University of London, ii, 667. 

the late K. Callard, McGill University, Montreal, 
ii, 546. 

M. Canard, University of Algiers, i, 11, 449, 516,638, 
650, 688, 762, 790, 792, 825, 867, 940, 1075, 1103, 
1229; ii, 39, 170, 239, 319, 345, 347, 348, 44i, 454, 
458, 485, 488, 491, 503, 524, 681, 862. 

R. Capot-Rey, University of Algiers, i, 21 1, 307, 910, 



553- 
M me H. Carrere d'Encausse, Paris, i, 422, 504, 624, 

756, 855, 1190; ii, 206 397, 933- 
W. Caskel, Un ; versity of Cologne, i, 74, 203, 210, 

341, 436, 442, 529, 684, 690, 921, 964; ii, 72. 
[P. de Cenival, Rabat], ii, 368. 
E. Cerulli, Rome, i, 561. 
M. Chailley, Bamako, i, 1009. 
E. Chedeville, Paris, ii, 536. 
Chafik Chehata, University of Cairo, i, 320; ii, 231, 

390, 836. 
J Chelhod, Centre national de la Recherche 

scientifique, Paris, ii, 248, 884. 
G. L. M. Clauson, London, i, 557. 
G. S. Colin, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris, i, 98, 

245, 503, 860, 961, 1016, 1032, 1037, 1057, 1058, 

1225, 1315, 1350; ii, 18, 103, 131, 175, 308, 332, 368, 

527,874,902,979, "22. 
M. Colombe, Kcolc des Langues Orientales, Paris, i, 

13, 46, 369- 
C. S. Coon, University of Pennsylvania, i, 874. 
R. Cornevin, Academie des Sciences d'Outre-mer, 

Paris, ii, 568, 943, 961, 97o, 978, 1003, 1133. 
the late Ph. de Cosse-Brissac, Paris, i, 68, 85. 
N. J. Coulson, University of London, i, 1143. 
[A. Cour, Constantine]. i, 167, 168; ii, 173, 511, 1139. 
K. A. C. Creswell, American University, Cairo, i, 

M.Cruz HernAndez, University of Salamanca, i, 772. 



133,4! 



M m<! B. Cvetkova, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, 

A. H. Dani, University of Peshawar, i, 720, 1015; ii, 

32, 217,297,486,751,798. 
Besim Darkot, University of Ankara, ii, 210, 689, 

707. 
J. David-Weill, Ecole du Louvre, Paris, i, 349. 
C. Collin Davies, University of Oxford, i, 88, 153, 

239, 297, 317, 444, 628, 758, 768, 796, 864, 962, 970, 

979,1024, 1026, 1170,1193, 1206, 1357;", 220, 567, 

602, 610. 
R. H. Davison, George Washington University, 

Washington D.C. ii, 936. 
A. Decei University of Istanbul, i, 175, 311, 340; ii, 

705. 
A. Demeerseman, Tunis, ii, 437. 
the late J. Deny, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris. 

i, C>5, 75, 298, 641, 836. 
J. Despois, University of Paris, i, 366, 374, 460, 749, 

763, 789, 809, 1050, 1169, 1197, 1232, 1247; ii, 378, 

461, 464, 575, 603, 782, 877, 885, 993, 1010, 1023. 
G. Deverdun, Saint-Gcrmain-en-Laye. ii, 623, 11 10, 



^. Dietrich, University of Gottini 
93,1 



', 90, 



B. Djurdjev, University of Sarajevo, i, 1018, 1165, 
1275; », 682. 

G. Douillet, Paris, ii, 954. 

J. Dresch, University of Paris, i, 98. 

C. E. Dubler, University of Zurich, i, 204, 243 ; ii, 350. 
H. W. Duda, University of Vienna, i, 1197, 1221 ; ii, 

D. M. Dunlop, University of Columbia, New York. 
i, 738, 836, 837, 862, 864, 865, 921, 927, 931, 934, 
936, 938, 967, 985, 1003, 1040, 1041, 1079, 1092, 
1132, 1134, 1224, 1339; ». 243, 291, 482, 522, 800, 

A. A. Duri, University of Baghdad, i, 436, 439, 485, 

908; ii, 166, 196, 197, 327. 
A. S. Ehrenkreutz, University of Michigan, ii, 118, 

214,883. 
Saleh A. El-Ali, University of Baghdad, i, 630, 760, 

789, 1097; ii, 196, 197, 198. 
J. Elfenbein, London, i, 1007. 
C. Elgood, El-Obeid, Sudan, i, 381. 
N. Elisseeff, Institut Francais, Damascus, i, 194, 

1030, 1102, 1138, 1281; ii, 291, 353, 541, 1106. 
M. Emerit, University of Algiers, i, 282, 370. 
M. Enamul Haq, Bengali Academy, Dacca, i, "69. 
M me M. L. van Ess-Bremer, University of Frankfurt 

a. M. ii, 879. 
R. Ettinghausen, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington. 

T. Fahd, University of Strasbourg, ii, 242, 301, 377, 

760, 917. 
H. G. Farmer, Glasgow, i, 67, 1292; ii, 136,621, ion, 

1028, 1075- 
J. Faublee, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris, i, 



W. J. Fischel, University of California, Berkeley, ii, 

383. 
H. Fleisch, University St. Joseph, Beirut, i, 578; ii, 

75, 101, 217, 233, 4", 490, 545, 725, 790, 835, 898, 

927, 1027. 
G. S. P. Freeman-Grenvii.le, University of Ghana. 



1287, 1296; ii, 5, "3. "6, 142, 388, 553. 782, 806, 

817, 818, 928, 975, 997, iooi, ion, 1077, i"4- 

J. W. Ft)CK, University of Halle, i, 107, 453, 57i, 7", 

738, 827, 1082, 1089, 1241, 1348, 1358; ii, 884, 1005, 

A. A. A. Fyzee, University of Jammu and Kashmir. 

i, 1255, 1257. 
F. Gabrieli, University of Rome, i, 13, 99, 176, 196, 

206, 307, 438, 68i, 949, 987, "66; ii, 428, 553- 
L. Galand, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris, i, 

1185. 
M me P. Galand-Pernet, Centre national de la 

Recherche scientifique, Paris, i, 793. 
E. GarcIa G6mez, University of Madrid, i, 130. 
L. Gardet, Paris, i, 343, 352, 417, 427, 717, 1085, 

1235, 1327; ii, 220, 227, 296, 382. 412, 452, 570, 

606, 608, 618, 834. 892, 899, 931, 1026, 1078. 
H. Gatje, University of Tubingen, ii, 480. 
C. L. Geddes, University of Colorado, i, 1215 ; ii, 441. 
R. Ghirshman, Institut Francais, Teheran, i, 226. 
M. A. Ghul, University of St. Andrews, i, 1133; ii, 

730, 737, 756, 757. 
H. A. R. Gibb, Harvard University, i, 43, 48, 54 55, 

66, 77, 85, 86, 119, 120, 140, 145, 150, 158, 159, I 9 8 > 

209, 215, 233, 237, 241, 246, 279, 314, 327, 386, 445, 

517, 599, 604, 662, 685, 7i4, 755, 782, 1309. 
[F. Giese, Breslau]. i, 287, 1161. 
S. Glazer, Washington, i, 126. 
A. Gledhill, University of London, ii, 672. 
H. W. Glidden, Washington, i, 315, 784, 788. 
N. Glueck, Cincinnati, i, 558. 
M Ue A. M. Goichon, University of Paris, ii, 97. 
S. D. Goitein, University of Pennsylvania, i, 1022; 

ii, 594, 970, 989- 
M. TavvIb GoKBiLGiN, University of Istanbul, i, 433, 

1 191; ii, 184, 200, 443, 637, 686, 705. 
[I. Goldziher, Budapest], i, 95, 204, 257, 258, 346, 

688, 736, 772, 823, 851; ii, 97, 167, 419, 872, 887, 



[E. Graefe, Hamburg], ii, 370. 

E. Graf, University of Cologne, i, 483. 

A. Grohmann, Academy of Sciences, Vienna, i, 527; 

G. E. von Grunebaum, University of California, Los 
Angeles, i, 12, 115, 150, 405, 690, 983, 1116; ii, 827. 

the late A. Guillaume, University of London, i, 108. 

Vedad Gunyol, Istanbul, ii, 476. 

Irfan Habib, Muslim University, Aligarh. ii, 910. 

Mohammad Habib. Muslim University, Aligarh. i. 
769. 

[A. Haffner, Vienna], i, 345. 

G. Lankester Harding, Amman, i, 448. 

P. Hardy, University of London, i, 199. 393, 426, 
445, 507, 680, 686, 710, 733, 780, 848, 857, 915, 940, 
1037, 1 155; ", 274, 379, 382, 567, 806, 



1085. 
J. B. Harrison, University of London, i, 606, 625, 

848; ii, 219, 322. 
[R. Hartmann, Berlin], i, 706, 711, 737, 931, 933; 

ii, 251, 357, 573, 605, 609, 712, 947, 1141. 
W. Hartner, University of Frankfurt a.M. i, 133, 

728; ii, 362, 502, 763. 
L. P. Harvey, University of London, i, 405. 
Hadi Hasan, Muslim University, Aligarh. ii, 764. 
R. L. Headley, Dhahran. i, 710, 759, 1098, 1141, 

1313;", 177, 354, 569. 
[J. Hell, Erlangen]. i, 3, 192, 336, 344, 921, 997. 
[B. Heller, Budapest], i, 521. 
[E. Herzfeld, Chicago], i, 1110. 1236, 1248. 



R. Herzog, University of Freiburg i. Br. ii, 1010. 
U. Heyd, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. 1,837, 1357; 

ii, 519, 604, 805. 
R. L. Hill, University of Durham, i, 976. 
the late S. Hillelson, London, i, 2, 50, 165, 735. 
Hilmy Ahmad, University of Cairo, i, 150. 
W. Hinz, University of Gottingen. ii, 232, 813. 
P. K. Hitti, Princeton University, ii, 404, 472. 
M. G. S. Hodgson, University of Chicago, i, 51, 354, 

962, 1100, 1117, 1359; ", 98, 137, 218, 362, 375, 441, 

452, 485, 634, 882, 1022, 1026, 1095. 
W. Hoenerbach, University of Bonn, i, 96. 
P. M. Holt, University of London, i, 765, 930, 962, 

1029, 1157, 1158, 1172, 1240; ii, 109, 125, 137, 233, 

292, 352, 467, 615, 697, 768, 828, 873, 875, 945, 

[E. Honigmann, Brussels], i, 1233. 

J. F. P. Hopkins, University of Cambridge, ii, 146, 

1077. 
[P. Horn, Strasbourg], i, 1342. 
[J. Horovitz, Frankfurt a.M.]. i, 14,52, 113, 116, 133, 

140, 955; ii, 74, 602. 
A. H. Hourani, University of Oxford, ii, 429. 

F. Hours, Universite St. Joseph, Beirut, i, 1349. 
[M. Th. Houtsma, Utrecht], i, 84, 88, m, 113, 120, 

I. Hrbek, Oriental Institute, Prague, i, 1308. 

[Cl. Huart Paris], i, 4, 60, 94, 109, 199, 241, 247, 313, 
434, 939, i°i2, 1013, 1073, "39; ii- 26, 100, 179, 
323, 422, 439, 542, 624, 809, 810, 882, 920, 

A. Huici Miranda, Valencia, i, 162, 166, 606, 634, 
658, 864, 988, 991, 997, 1012, 1055, 1083, 1089, 
1092, 1129, 1150, 1249, 1288, 1310, 1326, 1337, 
1343; ii, 112, 353, 389, 486, 516, 525, 526, 542, 744, 
915, 924, 998, 1009, 1014, 1038. 

A. J. W. Huisman, Leiden, i, 131. 

G. W. B. Huntingford, University of London, i, 
992; ii, 175, 545- 

H. R. Idris, University of Bordeaux, i, 860, 1309, 

Halil Inalcik, University of Ankara, i, 292, 293, 

658, 808, 1000, 1119, 1167, 1170, 1253, 1287, 1304, 

1336; ii, 25, 32, 33, "6, 119. 148, 179, 420, 529, 

531, 566, 613, 615, 712, 715, 724, 909, 9i5, 987, 

1046, 1047, 1091. 1098, 1114, 1121. 
Sh. Inayatullah, University of the Panjab, Lahore. 

i, 59, 66, 69, 242, 260, 283, 298, 317, 400, 430, 43i, 

509, 808, 919, 1011, 1026. 
[W. Irvine], i, 769. 
Fahir lz, University of Istanbul, i, 299, 699, 956, 

1165; ii, 99, 159, 200, 201, 206, 221, 223, 397. 440. 

693, 7o8, 738, 758, 833, 865, 878, 885, 921, 931, 

990, 1000. 
[G. Jacob, Kiel], ii, 755- 
K. Jahn, University of Utrecht, ii, 14. 
the late A. Jeffery, Columbia University, New York. 

i, 114, 136, 680, 707, 774, 796, 810; ii, 293. 
T. M. Johnstone, University of London, ii, 1056. 
J. Jomier, Cairo, i, 444, 821, 1299; ii, 132, 276, 419, 

438, 764, 892, 934, 959. 

D. H. Jones, University of London, ii, 10, 975. 

J. M. B. Jones, American University, Cairo, i, 1019. 
[Th. W. Juynboll, Utrecht], i, 186, 188, 320, 337, 

743, 867; ii, 44i, 783, 790. 
Abd al-Hafez Kamal, Dhahran. ii, 937. 
ABDt)LKADiR Karahan, University of Istanbul, ii, 75, 

702, 869, 939. 

E. Z. Karal, University of Ankara, i, 57. 

A. G. Karam, American University, Beirut, ii, 365, 

796, 802. 
Irfan Kawar [see Shahid], 



VIII AU1 

Mrs N. R. Keddie, University of California, Los 
Angeles, ii, 883. 

E. Kedourie, University of London, ii, 515. 

W. E. N. Kensdale, London, ii, 1146. 

the late R. A. Kern, University of Leiden, i, 267 
(Ahl-i Wdris). 

M. Khadduri, Johns Hopkins University, Wash- 
ington D.C. ii, 649, 660, 662, 668. 

M. Khalafallah, University of Alexandria, i, 569, 
858. 

W. A. S. Khalidi, American University, Beirut, i, 6o, 
352, mo, ii52;ii, 167. 

H. Kindermann, University of G %-ne. i, 683, 684. 

J. S. Kirkman, Mombasa, ii, 983. 

H. J. Kissling, University of Munich, i, 95, 313, 869, 

M. J. Kister, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 343, 

345, 1248; ii, 481, 990. 
M mc E. Kocher, Berlin, ii, 428. 
the late L. Kopf, Jerusalem, i, 215, 239, 795, 951, 96] 

1010; ii, 71, 76, 108, 223, 248, 275, 455, 497- 
M. Fuad Koprulu, University of Istanbul, i, 241 

850, 862. 
[T. Kowalski, Cracow], i, 1222; ii, 203. 
the late J. Kraemer, University of Erlangen. i, 123c 
[I. Kratschkowsky, Leningrad], ii, 796. 
[P. Kraus, Cairo], ii ; 359. 
R. F. Kreutel, Vienna, i, 1157. 
Kasim Kufrevi, Ankara, i, 1235. 
E. Kuhnel, Free University, Berlin, i, 561. 

E. Kuran, Middle East Technical University, 
Ankara, i, 843; ii, 534, 694, 728, 878, 997. 

F. Kussmaul, Stuttgart, i, 880. 

Miss A. K. S. Lambton, University of London, i, 523, 
978, 1130; ii, 153, 163, 174, 254, 336, 436, 657, 839, 

C. J. Lamm, Oregrund, Sweden, i, 1221. 

[H. Lammens, Beirut], i, 108, 194, 436, 920, 1283, 

1344; ii, 275, 360. 
J. M. Landau, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 142; 



, 1093. 



7, 949. 1 



J. D. Latham, University of Manchester, i, 497. 

J. Lecerf, Ecole des Langues Orientates, Paris, i 306, 

700, 1 102, 1 139; ii> 100, 189, 559, 835- 
M me M. Ch. LeCceur, Paris, i, 1258; ii, 368. 
G. Lecomte, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris, ii, 

764. 
R. Le Tourneau, University of Aix-Marseilles. i, 47. 

56, 58, 91, 245, 679, 687, 1045, 1149, 1191, 1238, 

1281, 1332; ", 57, 134, 160, 173, 189, 373, 52i, 821. 

836, 945, 1009. 
the late E. Levi-Provencal, University of Paris, i, 7, 



4, 49, 58, 70, 76, 80, 84, 85, 86, 9 



109,1 



39, 141, 157, 159, 242, 251, 280, 289, 291, 
315, 321, 348, 352, 39°, 405, 419, 422, 496, 497, 986, 
1012, 1092, 1300. 

R. Levy, University of Cambridge, i, 524. 

T. Lewicki, University of Cr; 



B. Li 



139, 141, 167, 1 



[, 369, 44i, 5i5. 



University of Gothenburg, i, 125, 214, 345, 
7i9, 737; ii, 300. 
!. Lewis, University of London, i, 23, 102, 134, 290, 
389, 400, 403, 505, 679, 693, 697, 711, 712, 713, 787, 
795. 796, 825, 832, 838, 843, 850, 915, 921, 975, 
1032, 1042, 1082, 1091, 1148, 1156, 1157, 1171, 
1214, 1229, 1236, 1280; ii, 6, 15, 26, 74, 81, 83, 165, 
208, 210, 277, 3°i, 322, 339, 447, 466, 532, 595, 647, 
678, 687. 694. 696. 



G. L. Lewis, University of Oxford, i, 287, 300, 625, 

792, 1 137, 1207; ii, 41, 533, 840. 
I. M. Lewis, University of London, i, 1173. 
Y. Linant de Bellefonds, Centre national de la 

Recherche scientifique, Paris, ii, 164, 833. 
the late E. Littmann, University of Tubingen, i, 145, 

176, 281, 364, 780, 786. 
L. Lockhart, University of Cambridge, i, 5, 14, 95, 

247, 305, 353, 358, 393, 459, 7", 1008, 1010, 1013, 

1043, 1070, 1233, 1342; ii, 181, 300, 351, 452, 486, 

534, 812, 824, 926, 1136. 
R. Loewenthal, Washington D.C. ii, 479. 
O. Lofgren, University of Uppsala, i, 169, 182, 195, 

256, 278, 355, 446, 524, 738, 763, 767, 782, 828, 830, 

938, 1023, 1128, 1133, 1134; ii, 168, 218, 223, 996, 

Sh. T. Lokhandwalla, University of Edinburgh, i, 

173- 
F, L0KKEGAAKD, University of Copenhagen, i, 966; 

ii, 870, 1006, 1012. 
J. Lombard, Institut francais d'Afrique noire, Dakar. 

ii, 94. 
S. H. Longrigg, Tunbridge Wells, i, 406, 424, 431, 

461, 845, 871, 952, 962, 968, 1030, 1050, 1087, 1 163, 

1211; ii, 77, 91, 101, 103, 113, 184, 251, 253, 340, 

343, 37i, 402, 571, 624, 872, 1045. 
[M. Longworth Dames, Guildford], i, 223, 230, 231, 

H. Louis, University of Munich, i, 465. 

R. J. McCarthy, Al-Hikma University, Baghdad, i, 

959- 
[D. B. Macdonald, Hartford, Conn.], i, 90; ii, 131, 

165, 182, 370, 548, 756, 932, 1026, 1079. 
D. N. Mackenzie, University of London, i, 863, 920, 

1072; ii, 1140. 
J. Mandaville, Dhahran. ii, 248, 492, 1024. 
A. J. Mango, London, i, 721; ii, 476. 
S. E. Mann. University of London, i, 651. 
R. Mantran, University of Aix-Marseilles. i, 268,381, 

39i, 394, 395, 396, 398, 630, 658, 733, 735, 790; ii, 

16, 461. 
S. Maqbul Ahmad, Muslim University, Aligarh. i, 

99i I", 352, 587. 
the late G. Marcais, University of Algiers, i, 94. 124, 

130, 138, 249, 367, 459, 512, 533, 661, 680, 685, 700, 

950, 1024, 1206, 1229, 1300, 1347; ii, 115, 557, 748, 

864, 957, 1008. 
Ph. Marcais, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris, i, 

379, 515, 583, 705, 786. 
the late W. Marcais, College de France, Paris, i, 791 ; 

ii, 175, 405, 545- 
[D. S. Margououth, Oxford], i, 952. 
Mrs E. Marin, New York, i, 53; ii, 623. 
Miss P. A. Marr, Washington D. C. ii, 160, 573, 619. 
H. Masse, Ecole des Langues Orientales Paris, i, 60, 

94, 120, 137, 152, 505, 522, 626, 686, 720, 827, 939, 

955, ion, 1012, 1013, 1073, 1342, 1359; ii, 17, 74, 

100. 133, 179, 323, 406, 422, 439, 473, 548, 756, 761, 

794, 798,810,920, 1 143. 
the late L. Massignon, College de France, Paris, i, 

153, 277- 
C. D. Matthews, University of Texas, i, 1091; ii, 93, 

631. 



G. Meillon, Ecole des Langues Orientales, Paris. 

ii, 9. 
M me I. Melikoff, Centre national de la Recherche 

scientifique, Paris, i, 783, 1104; ii, m, 205, 420, 

600, 720, 721, 990, 1045. 



V. Melkonian, Basra, i, 956. 

V. L. Menage, University of London, i, 698, 1078, 

1160, 1202, 1208, 1210; ii, 57, 62, 213, 240, 374, 400, 

445, 615, 617, 687, 691. 693. 698, 709, 7ii, 882, 921. 
G. Meredith-Owens, British Museum, London, i, 

677, 764; ii, 895- 
[M. Meyerhof, Cairo], i, 704, 1014; ii, 482. 
G. C. Miles, American Numismatic Society, New 

York, i, 482 ; ii, 28, 299, 320. 
J. M. MillAs, University of Barcelona, i, 140, 149. 
P. Minganti, Rome, ii, 914. 
V. Minorsky, University of London, i, 2, 3, 4, 15, 98, 

100, 102, 116, 191, 263, 3°i, 3i2> 325, 329, 354, 404, 

427, 482, 504, 508, 513, 679, 842, 919; ii, 194- 
[E. Mittwoch, London], i, 388, 449, 794! "1 233- 
H. Mones, Institute of Islamic Studies, Madrid, ii, 

414, 495, 526, 559, 575- 
[J. H. Mordtmann, Berlin], i, 109, 244; ii, 14, 103, 

208, 240, 534; 687, 692, 697, 705, 715, 720, 728, 

G. Morgenstierne, University of Oslo, i, 221, 225; 

ii, 31, 139- 
S. Moscati, University of Rome, i, 43, 59, '03, I2 5, 

141, 149, 158. 
[A. de Motylinski, Constantine]. i, 57, 121, 125, 134, 

167. 
H. C. Mueller, Dhahran. i, 98. 
W. E. Mulligan, Dhahran. i, 100, 234, 603, 710, 762, 

94i, 944, 1239, 1314; ii, 558, 803. 
the late S. F. Nadel, Australian National University, 

Canberra, i, 440. 
A. N. Nader, Beirut, i, 1003, 1242, 1244; ", 373- 
Said Naficy, University of Teheran, i, 1019, 1131, 

1209, 1239, 1345; ", 884, 952, 995, 1007, 1078. 
[C. A. Nallino, Rome], i, 1105. 
M" e M. Nallino, University of Venice, i, 118. 
[M. Nazim]. ii, 730. 
the late B. Nikitine, Paris, i, 237, 871, 872, 919, 923, 



1031 



1157, 1 



m, Muslim University, Aligarh. i, 869, 912 ; 
ii, 50, 56, 181, 205, 549, 758, 797, 1048, 1116, 1144. 

M. Nizamuddin, Osmania University, Hyderabad, 
India, i, 764. 

J. Noorduyn, Oegstgeest, Netherlands, i, 433. 

S. Nurul Hasan, Muslim University, Aligarh. i, 81, 
104, 118, 208, 254, 418, 454. 

H. S. Nyberg, University of Uppsala, i, 129. 

R. A. Oliver, University of London, ii, 59. 

[C. A. van Ophuyzen, Leiden], i, 42. 

S. d'Otton Loyewski, Paris, i, 734. 

TAHSiN Oz, Istanbul, ii, 49. 

P. B. Pandit, Gujarat University, ii, 11 30. 

R. Paret, University of Tubingen, i, 604, 691, 692, 
1127, 13" ; ", !28, 182, 841, 950. 

V. J. Parry, University of London, i, 780, 988, 994, 
1003, 1014, 1066, 1117, 1121, 1128, 1134, 1187, 
1189, 1192, 1209, 1218, 1234, 1235, 1251, 1252, 
1280, 1325; ii, 12, 34, 49, 184, 208, 209, 277, 374, 
533, 691, 698, 881. 

J. D. Pearson, School of Oriental and African 
Studies, London, i, 1199. 

J. Pedersen, University of Copenhagen, i, 143, 178, 
337, 436; ii, 364- 

Ch. Pellat, University of Paris, i, 43, 45, 46, 50, 100, 
106, in, 113, 116, 117, 136, 140, 142, 150, 160, 196, 
208, 243, 247, 255, 271, 272, 304, 308, 321, 330, 431, 
433, 434, 441, 450, 451, 452, 453, 509, 524, 608, 627, 
628, 697, 728, 739, 784, 792, 795, 828, 909, 951, 957, 
997, 1086, 1174, "78, 1179, "So, 1187, 1290, 
1297; ii, 109, 275, 276, 387, 389, 428, 437, 466, 537, 
553, 592, 623, 624, 673, 674, 675, 744, 767, 813, 838, 
865, 893, 951, 994, 1020, 1026, 1079, 1093, 1097. 



ORS IX 

H. Peres, University of Algiers, i, 136, 425, 989, 1070. 
M. Perlmann, University of California, Los Angeles. 

ii, 616, 783, 1076. 
K. Petracek, University of Prague, i, 305; ii, 627. 
A. J. Piekaar, The Hague, i, 747. 
R. Pinder-Wilson, British Museum, London, i, 203. 
S. Pines, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 113, 450. 
M» e O. Pinto, Rome, ii, 838. 
X. de Planhol, University of Nancy, ii, 982, 11 14, 

1118,1121, 1139. 
M. Plessner, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 247, 

419, 484 486, 733, 995, 1102, 1149, 1156; ii, 359, 

370, 928. 
the late W. Popper, University of California, Berkeley. 

i, 138. 
J. Prins, University of Utrecht, i, 174, 981. 

0. Pritsak, Harvard University, i, 419, 420. 

M"e Ch. Quelquejay, Paris, i, 1109, 1338; ii, 21, 23, 

39, 4i, 69, 70, 142, 251, 477. 
M. Quint, Dhahran. ii, 492, 493. 

1. H. Qureshi, University of Karachi, ii, 155. 

C. Rabin, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 567; ii, 
803. 

F. Rahman, Central Institute of Islamic Research, 
Karachi, i, 342, 506, 603, 926, 951, 1031, 1084; ii, 

Sukumar Ray, University of Calcutta, ii, 7. 
[H. Reckendorf, Freiburg i. Br.], i, 448, 697. 
H. A. Reed, Moorestown, N.J., U.S.A. i, 1256, 1257, 
1326; ii, 16. 

G. Rentz, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, 
California, i, 136, 166, 234, 257, 337, 556, 629, 710, 
748, 837, 944, 1033, 1045, 1231, 1233, 1314; ii, 173, 
177, 322, 440, 518. 

J. Reychmann, University of Warsaw, ii, 203, 316. 

[N. Rhodokanakis, Graz]. i, 140. 

Riazul Islam, University of Karachi, ii, 925. 

R. Ricard, University of Paris, i, 605, 689, 706, 810. 

J. Rikabi, University of Damascus, i, 913. 

H. Ritter, University of Istanbul, i, 71, 147, 155, 

163,731, 755; «, 396, 1042. 
Miss H. Rivlin, University of Maryland, ii, 150. 
J. Robson, University of Manchester, i, 114, 115, 129, 

482, 893, 1048, 1129, 1130, 1199, 1297; ii, 136, 159, 

M. Rodinson, Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, i, 206, 

3°3, 404, 558; ii, 1072. 
P. Rondot, Centre des Hautes Etudes sur l'Afrique 

et l'Asie Modernes, Paris, ii, 444. 

F. Rosenthal, Yale University, i, 70, 106, 140, 143, 
691, 759, 813, 949, 965, 972, 1239; ii, 178, 349, 452, 
501, 757, 793, 829, 930, 1096. 

the late E. Rossi, University of Rome, i, 56. 

R. Rubinacci, Istituto Universitario Orientale, 

Naples, i, 207, 811, 1028, 1053; ii, 360. 
[J. Ruska, Heidelberg], i, 419, 484, 509, 1156, 1221; 

ii, 628, 893, 928. 

D. A. Rustow, Columbia University, New York, ii, 
26, 105, 392, 433, 498, 532, 630, 702. 

the late A. J. Rustum, Lebanese University, Beirut, 
i, 1079- 

G. Ryckmans, University of Louvain. ii, 247. 

J. Rypka, University of Prague. 1,839, 1328; ii, 1133. 
K. S. Salibi, American University, Beirut, ii, 185, 

733, 75i. 
Ch. Samaran, University of Rabat, i, 977, mi. 
G. N. Sanderson, University of London, ii, 828. 
P. Saran, University of Delhi, ii, 158. 
T. Sarnelli, Rome, i, 786; ii, 482, 995. 
Satish Chandra, University of Jaipur, ii, 135, 811. 
R. M. Savory, University of Toronto, i, 8, 406, 685, 



7oi, 707, 9°9> 1068, 1088; ii, 68, 420, 446, 598, 783, 

Aydin Sayili, University of Ankara, ii, 11 20. 

[A. Schaade, Hamburg], i, 51, 107, 150, 195, 983; ii, 
276, 428, 480. 

J. Schacht, Columbia University, New York, i, 5, 
124, 137, 151, 152, 155, 165, 209, 250, 255, 257, 259, 
267, 310, 321, 423, 430, 692, 694, 73°, 736, 773, 
1020, 1 1 13, 1242 ;ii, 91,183, 373, 603, 605,727,887, 
891. 

[J. Schleifer]. i, 345; ii, 218, 223. 

[M. Schmitz]. i, 991. 

M.Schramm, University of Frankfurt a.M. ii, 362 (co- 
author of al-djabr wa 'l-mukabala, see Addenda 

Bedi N. Sehsuvaroglu, University of Istanbul, i, 

TM. Seligsohn]. i, 404. 

R. Sellheim, University of Frankfurt a.M. ii, 729. 
fC. F. Seybold, Tubingen], i, 446, 1055, 1083, 1092, 
1343; ii, 72, 112, 353. 

F. SEZGiN, University of Frankfurt a.M. ii, 126. 

the late M. Shafi, University of the Panjab, Lahore. 

i, 61, 68, 72, 91, 937, 1124, 1284, 1329, 1330; ii, 49, 

73, 85, 222. 
Irfan Shahid, Georgetown University, Washington, 

D.C. i, 1250; ii, 354, 365, 1021. 
S. J. Shaw, Harvard University, i, 965; ii, 128, 948. 

G. E. Shayyal, University of Alexandria, i, 990. 

H. K. Sherwani, Hyderabad, India, i, 925, 1015, 

Mustafa al-Shihabi, Arab Academy, Damascus, ii, 
901. 



443- 

J. M. Smith, Jr., University of California, Berkeley, 
ii, 402. 

Miss Margaret Smith, London, i, 1248; ii, 242, 936. 

[M. Sobernheim, Berlin], ii, 6. 

J. de Somogyi, Harvard University, ii, 216. 

H. T. Sorley, Salisbury, S. Rhodesia, i, 1195. 

D. Sourdel, University of Bordeaux, i, 208, 272, 279, 
434, 447, 453, 844, 987, 1033, 1036, 1046, 1047 
1093, 1141, 1209, 1287, 1293, 1298, 1312; ii, 72, 127, 
195, 197, 198, 199, 354, 389, 458, 461, 462, 498, 568, 
602, 624, 626, 730, 73i, 732, 743, 913, 1025, 1057, 
108 1. 

M me J. Sourdel-Thomine, Ecole pratique des 
Hautes Etudes, Paris, i, 461, 787, 953, 971, 989, 
996, 998, 1017, 1025, 1073, "39, "40, 1141, "49, 
1214,1292, 1293, 1318,1345, 1358; ii, 163, 340, 347, 
360, 535, 555, 556, 778, 99i, 1055. 

T. G. P. Spear, University of Cambridge, i, 914. 

O. Spies, University of Bonn, ii, 486, 1020. 

B. Spuler, University of Hamburg, i, 121, 313, 314, 
320, 330, 419, 423, 457, 505, 530, 531, 608, 701 
750, 767, 784, 839, 894, 950, 952, 953, 984, 996, 
1002, 1008, ion, 1108, 1135, 1240, 1343; ", 
19, 47, 61, 67, 75, 201, 253, 366, 446, 607, 622, 737, 
778, 793, 916, 928, 943, 982, 1053, 1112,1117, " 
"43- 

S. M. Stern, University of Oxford, i, 2, 9, 48, 60, 
87, 96, 104, 125, 127, 130, 149, 152, 160, 164, 2 
236, 315, 345, 348, 392, 425, 426, 435, 440, 484- 

[M. Streck, Jena], i, 3, 133, 184, 252, 426, 427, 459, 
485, 517, 603, 608, 659, 685, 7", 863 864, 871, 952, 
968, 1030, 1050, 1097, 1211, 1233, 1234; ii, 107, 357, 
406, 574- 

G. Strenziok, University of Cologne, i, 813. 

Faruk Sumer, University of Ankara, i, 1117, 1133, 



1159; ' 






[K. SOssheim, Munich], i, 287, 309, 310, 381, 777. 
[H. Suter, Zurich], i, 159, 380, 858; ii, 357, 378, 793- 
Fr. Taeschner, University of Munster. i, 184, 200, 

244, 251, 252, 312, 313, 323, 324, 325, 330, 355, 424, 
432, 462, 480, 481, 511, 518, 603, 626, 667, 698, 699, 
777, 778, 779, 783, 792, 794, 838, 969, 970; ii, 14, 
26, 57, 62, 200, 208, 446, 590, 692, 693, 694, 695, 
697, 705, 7io, 712, 715, 969, 983, 987, "38. 

the late A. H. Tanpinar, University of Istanbul, i, 62. 
S. H. Taqizadeh, Teheran, ii, 400. 
A. N. Tarlan, University of Istanbul, i, 1083, 1302. 
M. C. SiHABEDDiN Tekindag, University of Istanbul. 

ii, 636. 
H. Terrasse, Casa de Velazquez, Madrid, i, 358, 

A. Tietze, University of California, Los Angeles, i, 

245, 293, 391, 826; ii, 443. 

H. R. Tinker, University of London, i, 1333. 

Z. V. Togan, University of Istanbul, i, 1077; ii, 981, 

995- 
the late L. Torres Balbas, University of Madrid, i, 

501. 
J. S. Trimingham, American University, Beirut, i, 

287, 297, 764; ii, 974- 
A. S. Tritton, University of London, i, 187, 196, 258, 

264, 325, 403, 660, 851, 909, 1093, 1326; ii, 442, 518, 

603, 626. 

the late R. Tschudi, University of Basle, i, 1163. 
T. Tyan, Universite St Joseph, Beirut, i, 210, "14; 

ii, 172, 343, 540, 866, 996. 
A. L. Udovitch, Yale University, ii, 769. 
E. Ullendorff, University of London, i, 1220; ii, 

317, 355, 7io. 
the late Fair Resit Unat, Ankara, ii, 630. 
t. H. Uzuncarsili, University of Istanbul, i, 704, 949, 

1256, 1278, 1279; ", 62, 202. 
G. Vajda, Ecole pratique des Hautes Etudes, Paris. 

i, 266, 404, 429, 481, 811, 984, 1230, 1298; ii, 113, 

242, 293, 406, 918. 

E. de Vaumas, Paris, ii, 948. 

M me L. Veccia Vaglieri, Istituto Universitario 
Orientale, Naples, i, 41, 54, 194, 337, 386, 696, 704, 
1071, 1243, 1244; ii, 90, 162, 241, 366, 372, 416, 601, 
626, 727, 745, 850, 870, 994. 

J. Vernet, University of Barcelona, i, 516, 1250; ii, 
378, 793, 1022. 

F. S. Vidal, Dhahran. i, 1299; ii, 868, 1001. 

F. Vire, Centre national de la Recherche scientifique, 
Paris, i, 1155; ii, 743, 775, 787, 1038. 

[K. Vollers, Jena], i, 281, 396. 

P. Voorhoeve, Leiden, i, 42, 88, 92, 743; ii, 183, 550. 

E. Wagner, Gottingen. i, 144. 

the late J. Walker, British Museum, London, i, 3. 

J. Walsh, University of Edinburgh, i, 733; ii, 8, 20, 

401, 630, 867, 879, 1 141. 
R. Walzer, University of Oxford, i, 236, 327, 329, 

633, 1340;", 403, 78i, 949- 
J. Wansbrough, University of London, ii, 782. 
W. Montgomery Watt, University of Edinburgh, i, 

5, 9, 42, 44, 53, 80, 84, in, 115, 137, 151, 153, 169, 

204, 267, 308, 314, 336, 438, 454, 515, 633, 695, 696, 

713, 728, 772, 865, 868, 892; ii, 95, 365, 388, 604, 

873, 1041. 
H. Wehr, University of Munster. i, 573. 
W. F. Weiker, Rutgers University, N.J. ii, 597- 
the late G. Weil, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, i, 98, 

186, 436, 677, 735- 
[T. H. Weir, Glasgow], ii, 128. 
[A. J. Wensinck, Leiden], i, 187, 445, 451, 452, 482, 

604, 686, 690, 692, 693, 705, 710, 922, 958, 1230; 
ii, 918. 

G. E. Wheeler, London, i, 418; ii, 1118. 



C. E. J. Whitting, London, i, 180, 1261. 
[E. Wiedemann, Erlangen]. i, 486. 

G. Wiet, College de France, Paris, i, 14, 168, 186, 197, 
198, 216, 330, 392, 418, 448, 532, 926, 1016, 1039, 
1051, 1054, 1126, 1218, 1288, 1341, 1343; ii, 73. 97, 

D. N. Wilber, Princeton, N.J. i, 426, 506, 659, 1014; 

I. Wilks, University of Ghana, ii, 1004. 

H.von Wissmann, University of Tubingen, i, 880,889. 

M. E. Yapp, University of London, ii, 629, 638. 

Yar Muhammad Khan, University of Sind, Hyde- 
rabad, Pakistan, i, 1069. 

TahsIn Yazici, University of Istanbul, ii, 1137. 

the late MOkrimin H. Yinanc, University of Istanbul. 
ii, 346. 



din, University of J> 



HttSEYiN G. Yuf 



[G. Yver, Algiers], i, 282, 307, 460, 605, 762, 771, 
", 538, 1096. 






ki, University of Warsaw. 



03, 316, 



W. Zajaczkowski, University of Cracow, ii, 972. 
M. A. Zaki Badawi, University of Malaya, i, 980. 
the late Zaky M. Hassan, Cairo, i, 279. 
A. H. Zarrinkub, University of Teheran, ii, 883. 
[K. V. Zettersteen, Uppsala], i, 3, 5, 12, 13, 43, 44, 

45, 49, 5o, 53, 57, 58, 78, 102, 108, 271, 381, 446, 

454, 1025, 1313;", 391- 
L. Zolondek, University of Kentucky, ii, 249. 
C. K. Zurayk, American University, Beirut, ii, 



ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA 



4», ABAZA, 1. 26, read 1036/1627. 
7", C ABBAS I, 1. 2, for second son read third son. 
6o», C ABD al-HAJ&S b. SAYF al-DIN, 1. 13, for studying read staying. 
I37», ABU 'l-LAYIH al-SAMAR&ANDI, add to Bibliography: A. Zajaczkowski, U traitt arabe 

Mukaddima d' Abou-l-Lait as-Samarkandi en version mamelouk-kiptchak, Warsaw 1962. 
173 , 1. 30, for Memons read Moplahs. 
207", ADjIDABIYA, 1. 22, for Zanana read Zanata. 
313". AS SHEHR (i), last line, read 386/996. 
. 320», AKHAL TEKKE, 1. 6, after Durun delete [q.v.]. 
392», c ALl BEY, 1. 6, read Abu '1-Dhahab. 

430", AMAN, add to Bibliography: E. Nys, Le droit des gens dans les rapports des Arabes et des Byzantins, 
in Revue de droit international et de Ugislation comparie, 1894, 461-87. 
», AMIR KHUSRAW, 1. 35, for Sighdr read sighar; 1. 40, for Bahiyya read Bahiyya; 1. 70, read 718/1318. 
•, 'AMMAN, 1. 4, insert comma after Palestine. 
447 b , 1. 4 of Bibliography, for Princetown read Princeton. 
i», after ANGARA add: ANMAR [see ghatafan]. 
. 6o7», ARAL, 1. 38, read 861/1456-7. 

6o8 b , ARBCNA, signature: for Ed., read Ch. Pellat. 

630", ARISTCTALIS, 1. 7, after Nicolaus of Damascus (saec. I B.C. add: Nicolaus Damascenus, On the 
philosophy of Aristotle, ed. H. J. Drossaart Lulofs, 1965. 
P. 631", 1. 25, for will be published by Muhsin Mahdi read has been published by Muhsin Mahdi (Beirut 1961). 
11. 54 f., for Not one .... library, read Al-Farabi's commentary on the De Interpretations (to be com- 
pared with Ammonius and Boethius) has been edited by W. Kutsch and S. Marrow, Beirut i960, 
from an Istanbul manuscript [see al-farabi, iii a]. 
P. 632", 1. 52 and 1. 60, for 'Middle Commentary' read 'Short Commentary'. 

1. 9 (De Interpretation), add: and, together with the commentary of al-Farabi, by W. Kutsch and 
S. Marrow (see above). 

1. 36 (Rhetoric), add: Arabic text now edited from the Paris manuscript by A. Badawi, 1959. 
1. 47 (Poetics), add: Good use of the Arabic version has been made in the new Oxford edition of the 
Greek text by R. Kassel, 1965. 

1- 53 (Physics), add: Edition of the first book, with commentary by Abu C A1I b. al-Samh, by W. 
Kutsch and Kh. Georr, in MFOB, xxxix (1963), 268 ff.; edition of books i-iv by A. Badawi, 1964. 
1. 55 (De Caelo), after al-Bitriq), add unreliable edition by A. Badawi, in Islamica, xxviii (1961), 
123-387. 

1. 65 (Meteorology), add: Unreliable edition by A. Badawi in Islamica, xxviii (1961), 1-121. 
1. 71 (De Naturis Animalium), add: De generatione animalium, edition of the Arabic version by 
H. J. Drossaart Lulofs, to appear in 1965. 
P. 632», 1. 16 (De Anima), after (Typescript), add: now published in the Proceedings of the Arab Academy of 
Damascus. 
1. 27 (De Sensu, Uc), add: Critical edition by H. Gatje, Die Epitome der Parva Naturalia des 

1. 48 (Nicomachean Ethics), add: Books 1-4 have been discovered by D. M. Dunlop in the library of 

the Karawiyyin, Fez, see Oriens, xv (1962), 18-34. 

1. 52 (De Mundo), add: S. M. Stern, The Arabic translations of the Ps.-Aristotelian treatise De mundo, 

in Le Museon, lxxvii (1964), 187 ff. 

1. 63 (Protrepticus), add: I. During, Aristotle in the ancient biographical tradition, 1957, 203. 
P. 633", 1. 3 (De Porno), add: Edition of the Latin translation by M. Plezia, i960. 
P. 657 b , ARNAWUTLUS, 1. 18, read 29 July 1913- 
P. 662', ARSLAN b. SALDjOS, 1. 34, read 427/1035-6. 
P. 68o b , ARZC KHAN. 11. 12-15, read: He produced an enlarged and corrected edition of Hansawi's GharaHb 

al-lughdt and called it Nawadir al-alfdz (ed. Saiyid Abdullah, Karachi 1951). 
P. 686", for A§AF-DJAH read A§AF-DjAH. 
P. 697 , after al-ASHDAK add: ASHDJA' [see ghatafan]. 
P. 822», C AZIM ALLAH KHAN, add to Bibliography: Pratul Chandra Gupta, Nana Sahib and the rising at 

Cawnpore, Oxford 1963, 25-7, 63-4, 70-1, 75, 82, 84, 102-3, 115-7, 171, 177, 179, I9°- 
P. 825 b , c AZlZ MI$R, 11. 25-6, read According to Memduh Pasha, later Ottoman Minister of Internal Affairs, 

this . . . 
P. 856', BADA'CN, add to Bibliography: On the name Bada'un: A. S. Beveridge, in JRAS, 1925, 5 ! 7; 

T. W. Haig, ibid., 715-6; C. A. Storey, ibid., 1926, 103-4; E. D. Ross, ibid., 105. 
P. 895», BAGHDAD. 11. 59-60, for S.W. read S.E. and for S.E. read S.W. 
P. 973 b , BALADIYYA, 11. 50 and 54, for Commission read Council. 

P. 989», BALAT al-SHUHADA 5 , 1. 22, for Ta'rikh al-Umam wa 'l-Muluk read Ta'rikh al-Rusul wa 'l-Muluk. 
P. 1161", before BEIRUT insert BEING AND NON-BEING [see wudjud and c adam respectively]. 



ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA XIX 

P. 1195", BHITA'I.arfd: Bibliography: Annemarie Schimmel, in Kairos (Salzburg), iii-iv (1961), 207-16 (where 

additional references are given). 
P. 1203", BfPJAPUR. add to Bibliography: A. Slater, The ancient city of Bijapur, in Qly Journ. Mythic Soc, 

iii (1912), 45-52. 
P. 121 1", BIHZAD, 1. 16, for printers read painters. 
P. 1242*, BISHR B. GHIYATH AL-MARiSi, last line of col., for S I, 340; Ritter, in Isl., 16, 1927, 252 f.; 

read S I, 340 (on the spurious K . al-ffayda, allegedly the account of a disputation with Bishr by the 

ShSfi'I c Abd al- c Az!z b. Yahya al-Kinani, d. 235/849; also Cairo (Matba'at al-Sa c ada) n.d) ; Ritter, in 

7s/., xvii (1928), 252 f. ; Massignon, in REI, 1938, 410 (on Bishr's name in the isndds of the al-Djami'- 

al-sahih, attributed to the Ibadi authority al-Rabi c b. Habib); 
P. 1255", BOHORAS, 1. 13 of Bibl., read St. Isl., iii (i 9 55). 
P. 1259", BORNU, 1. 7, for were read where. 
P. 1280", before BRUSA insert BROKER [see dallal, simsar], 
P. 1348", BUSTAN — ii, add to Bibliography: T. O. D. Dunn, Kashmir and its Mughal gardens, in Calcutta 

Review, cclxxx/8 (April 1917). 

VOLUME II 

P. I9 a , CELEBI, 1. 26, for 'barbarian' read 'barber'. 
P. 29", before CHINA insert CHILD [see saghIr and walad]. 
P. 6o", before CONSUL insert CONSTITUTION [see dustOr]. 
P. 71", PABBA, 1. 1, for tabikha read tabikha. 

1. 14, for 7th/i3th century read 7th century A.D. 
1. 18, for 6th/i2th century read 6th century A.D. 
P. 72", 1. 41, read the last Amir to lead in prayer. 
P. 78», DAFTAR, 1. 10, for n. 1 read n. 3. 
P. 79», 1. 27, for Adab al-Kdtib read Adab al-Kuttdb. 
P. 105*, pAMAN, add to Bibliography : O. Spies, Die Lehre von der Haftung fur Gefahr im islamischen Recht, 

in Zeitschr. vergl. Rechtswiss., 1955, 79"95- 
P. I07 a , DAMAWAND, add to Bibliography: M. B. Smith, Material for a corpus of early Iranian Islamic 
architecture. I. Masdjid-i djum'a, Demdwend, in Ars Islamica, ii (1935), 153-73, and iv (1937), 7-41; 
W. Eilers, Der Name Demawend, in ArO, xxii (1954), 267-374. 
P. 116", DAR al- c AHD, add to Bibliography: Muhammad c Abd al-Hadi Sha'Ira (Cheira), al-Mamdlik al- 
halifa, in Bull. Fac. Arts, Farouk I Univ., iv (1948), Arabic section 39-81 ; idem, Lc statut des pays de 
" c Ahd" au VII' et VIII' siecles, in Actes XXI' Congres intern. Oriental., Paris 1949, 275-7. 
a , DAR FUR, 11. 39-40, for [see dankalI] read [see dongola]. 
0, 1. 28, for 1894 read 1874- 
", 1. 21, for Abu '1-Kasim read Abu '1-Kasim. 
», DARD, 1. 36, delete Bahadur Shah I. 
», DAWCD PASHA. 1. 18, for 1021/1612 read 1025/1616. 

Bibliography: s.v. Hadjdji Khalifa, Fedhleke, read: i, 252, 256, 268-70, 374; ii, 19 ff ; s.v. 

Na c ima, Ta'rikh, read: i, 408, 412-3, 432, 434, 436; ii, 96, 141, 224 ff., . . .; s.v. E. de Hurmuzaki, 
read: 180-1, 183, 197 ff., 200 ff. ; s.v. Hammer-Purgstall, iv, read: 331, 356, 381-2, 407, 453, 462, 476, 
549, . . . Add to Bibliography : M. Sertoglu, Tugi tarihi, in Belleten, xi (1947), 489-514, passim. 
P. 209", DERWlSH MEHMED PASHA (V. J. Parry), add to Bibliography: CI. Huart, Histoire de Bagdad 

dans les temps modernes, Paris 1901, 74-6. 
Pp. 243-5 DHC NUWAS, passim, for YQsuf Ash c ar read Yusuf As'ar. 

~ 280", DIMA5HK, 1. 48, after Marwan, add and nephew of the famous Hadjdjadj b. YQsuf. 
288', 1. 27, for in 959/1552 read before 926/1520. 
288", 1. 21, for Bab al-Hadid read Bab al-Nasr. 
289", 1. 23, for Bab al-Hadid read Bab al-Nasr. 
290*, 1. 27 of Bibliography, to Arabic texts add: Muhammad Adlb Taki al-DIn al-Husnl, Muntakhabdt al- 

tawdrlkh li-Dimashk, 3 vols., Damascus 1928-34. 
337", DlWAN-I HUMAyCN, 1. 13, for Bayazid II read Bayazid I. 
338 s , 1. 16, for every day read four days a week. 

). 25, for Four times a week a meeting was held read Meetings were held. 
339', 1. 23, for 1054/1654 read 1064/1654. 

362*, al-EJABR wa 'l-MUKABALA, signature : for W. Hartner read W. Hartner and M. Schramm. 
372", mIr P_JA C FAR, add to Bibliography: M. Edwardes, The battle of Plassey and the conquest of Bengal, 
London 1963, index. 

P. 392". PJALAL al-DIN HUSAYN al-BUKHARI, add at end of Bibliography: A collection of 42 of his 
letters addressed to one Mawlana c Izz al-DIn and compiled by Tadj al-Hakk wa '1-DIn Ahmad b. 
Mu c in Siyah-push is preserved in the Subhan Allah collection of the Muslim University, Aligarh. 
P. 404", DJALIYA, 1. 1, for (al-Andalus) read (al- c Usba). 

at end of article add: See further, for Muslim communities throughout the world, Muslim. 
P. 410", DJAMS DJAMA C A. add to first paragraph of Bibliography: A. Murtonen, Broken plurals. Origin 

and development of the system, Leiden 1964. 
P. 433", DJAM'IYYA (iii), 1. 27, for Djlraz read Shlraz. 
P. 434 a , penultimate line, for the read they. 

P. 435*, 1. 28, for op. cit. (in Bibl.) read Ta^rikh-i mashruta-i Iran'. 

P. 438", DJAMNA, at end of article add : Djamna is used as a name of other rivers in India, especially for part 
of the Brahmaputra in Bengal, called Djun by Ibn BattQta. See also ganga. 



XX ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA 

P. 47o», DJARlDA (i) B, 1. 33, for (1955) read (1956). 

P. 470 6 , add to Bibliography: A. Merad, La formation de la presse musulmane en Algirie (1919-1939), in IBLA, 
1964/1, 9-29. 

P. 47i b , (i) C, 11. 29-30, delete magazine ; for 1928 read 1933; delete organ of. 

P. 472", (ii), 11. 10-12, for In 1875 .... Constantinople; read Newspapers in Persian appeared in India as 
early as 1822 and 1835 (see S. C. Sanial, The first Persian newspapers of India: a peep into their 
contents, in IC, vii (1934), 105-14), and in Constantinople in 1875; 

P. 473", last line, for Isfahan 1 327/1949, 2 vols, read Isfahan 1327-32/1949-54, 4 vols. 

P. 479", DJARiMA. 1. 2, after djereme, add and currently in Iran, 

P. 50i», al-DJAWNPURI, add to Bibliography: A. S. Bazmee Ansari, Sayyid Muhammad Jawnpuri and his 
movement, in Islamic Studies, ii/2 (March 1963), 41-74. 

P. 501", AL-PJAWWANl, 1. 40, for Ahmet III, 2759, read Ahmet III, 2799 and 2800, neither of which, 
however, indicates al-Djawwanl as the author, and add Yale, L-672 [Nemoy 1245]. 
at end of paragraph add: There have now appeared his Mukhtasar min al-kaldm fi 'l-fark bayn man 
ism abihi Salldm wa-Saldm (ed. al-Munadjdjid, Damascus 
Zubayr b. Bakkar, Diamharat nasab Kuraysh (Kopriilii 114 
1163, see the edition by M. M. Shakir, Cairo 1381/1962, intr. 32 ff.). 

P. 504", PJAYPUR, 1. 3, for craftsman read craftsmen. 
1. 7, for Ydd-i Ayydn read Ydd-i Ayydm. 

P. 5i8 b , DJAZA' (ii), 1. 2, for lidnun-i djazdH (cezai) read (idnun-i djazd* (ceza). 

P- 535 b . DJIBUTl, after the third paragraph, ending of the majority., insert the following paragraph, omitted 
in error in the English edition : 

Djibutiisthe administrative centre of a region misleadingly called "C6te Francaise des Somalis", 
"French Somaliland": in fact more than three-quarters of its area (ca. 23,000 sq. km.) and of its 
coast belong to the c Afar, while less than a quarter belongs to the Somalis. It is a desert region, with 
practically no agriculture. Outside the capital, the population is almost entirely nomadic; all the 
inhabitants are Muslim. Besides the c Afar (numbering some 25,000), it contains the subjects of four 
"sultanates": the whole of Tadjoura (Tadjurra, in c Afar Tagorri) and Goba'ad, the majority of 
Rahayto, and a small part of Awsa. The 'Afar (called by the Arabs Danakil [q.v.]) form a relatively 
organized population, with a firmly hierarchical social structure, divided into regional 'commands' 
ruled by hereditary chiefs and based on a family and tribal organization. Among the Somalis, the 
only autochthonous tribe is that of the c Ise, nine-tenths of whom in any case belong to Somalia or to 
Ethiopia. This tribe is unusually anarchical, having no true chiefs: the "gas, who lives in Ethiopia, 
has no effective power; a minimum of authority is exercised by councils of elders, who dispense 
justice. The c Ise groups which normally wander throughout the country during part of the year 
total about 6000 individuals. They belong mainly to the sub-tribes Rer Muse, Orweyne, Furlabe, 
Horrone and Mammasan. 

P. 576", D.IUGHRAFIYA. 11. 50, 57 and 71, for Aryabhat'a read Aryabhata. 

P. 587", 1. 24, for Siyaghl read Siyakl. 

P. 587", 1. 18, after Journal insert of. 

P- 595°. DJUMHCRIYYA, 1. 44, for Siyasat read Siyasal. 

P- 597", DJCNAGARH, 1. 15, before thriving insert a. 
1. 19, for enshines read enshrines. 

P- 597", 1- 3, for Ridja 5 read Radja 5 . 

1. 65, for Manawadar read Manawadar; for taHukas read taHultas. 
1. 67, for zorfalbi read zdrtalbi. 

P. 598", 1. 11, read college. 

I. 25, read taHulfas. 

II. 41-5, for It has .... employ of the ruler, read It has two large-size cannon, originally from the 
armament brought by Khadim Siileyman Pasha, Ottoman governor of Cairo under Suleyman I and 
commander of the fleet sent from Suez against the Portuguese settlement of Diu in India; they were 
brought to Djunagafh by Mudjahid Khan of Pallt'ana (see Cam. Hist. India, iii, 334, 340). 

P. 598", 1. 15, for Zarfln read zarrln. 

P. 6oo», al-DJUNAYD b. C ABD ALLAH, 1. 7, for Djushabab. Dhabir read Djaysinh b. Dahir; 1. 12, for Ibn 
Dhabir's read Ibn Dahii's [These readings, kindly communicated by Mr. A. S. Bazmee Ansari, make 
it possible to correct the texts of Ibn al-Athir, iv, 465, 466, v, 40, 101, and al-Baladhuri, 441-2, which 
have respectively _/»li ,> «ui;>- and <ui- (cf. Cac-nama, ed. U. M. Daudpota, Delhi 1959, 
index; Islamic Studies, ii/2 (Karachi, March 1963), 139-40, n. 25). — Author's note]. 

P. 602", HIUR'AT, 1. 11, for Muhabbat read Mahabbat. 

I. 33, for Yakta read Yakta. 

P. 602", 1. 1, for Mohahi read MohanI; for Kanpur read Kanpur. 

add to Bibliography: Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de la littirature hindoue . . . a , Paris 1870, ii, 112-8. 
P. 605", AL-DJUWAYNl. Abu 'l-Ma c alI c Abd al-Malik, 1. 17, after century, add It was printed repeatedly, 

and was translated by L. Bercher in Revue Tunisienne, 1930. 

II. 33-4, for Unfortunately, published, read Only the first section of his great work, the Shdmil, 

has been published (ed. H. Klopfer, Cairo i960). 

1. 49, after edition, add There is, finally, his 'akida, which he dedicated to Nizam al-Mulk (al-'Akida 
al-Nizdmiyya); it was edited by Muhammad Zahid al-Kawtharl (Cairo 1367/1948) and translated by 
H. Klopfer (Das Dogma des Imdm al-Haramain, Cairo and Wiesbaden 1958). 
P. 6o6», 1. 11, for Brockelmann, I, 388 read Brockelmann, I, 486, S I, 671 and add to the Bibliography : A. S. 



ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA XXI 

Tritton, Muslim theology, London 1947, 184-90; L. Gardet and M.-M. Anawati, Introduction a la 
thiologie musulmane, Paris 1948, index s.v. Juwayni. 

P. 609*, al-PJUZDjIAnI, Abu c Amr, 1. 21, read harim. 

P. 609", 1. 7, for the read his. 
1. io, read Rayhan. 
1. 47, read Nasiri. 
I. 59, read Zakariyya. 
1. 63, read Amir Ilasan. 

P. 640», DUSTCR (ii), 1. 4, for 1807 read 1808. 
1. 7, for and of read and four of. 

P. 694", ELCI, add to Bibliography : Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III. tin hat-h humayunlan, Ankara 1946, 163-86. 

P. 694", ELlCPUR, for [see gawilgarh] read [see ilicpur, also berar, gawilgarh, c imad shahi]. 

P. 725", FADAK, 1. 3, after from Medina, add: C. J. Gadd has shown that the name reflects the ancient 
Padakku, which was occupied in 550 B.C. by the Babylonian king Nabonidus (see Anatolian Studies, 
viii (1958), 81). 

P. 729 b , FAPlLA, add to Bibliography: E. Wagner, Die arabische Rangstreitdichtung und ihre Einordnung in 
die allgemeine Literaturgeschichte, Wiesbaden 1963 (Abh. d. Ak. d. Wiss. u. Lit. in Mainz, Geistes- und 
Sozialwissenschaftliche Kl., Jg. 1962, Nr. 8). 

P- 735 b , FAPL ALLAH IJURCFl, Bibliography: H. Ritter, Studien zur Geschichte der islamischen Frommig- 
keit, II. Die Anfange der Hurufisekte, in Oriens, vii (1954), 1-54; Abdiilbaki Golpinarh, Bektasilik- 
Hur&filik ve Fadl Alldh'm dldurulmesine diisiirulen iic tarih, in Sarkiyat Mecmuasi, v (1964), 15-22. 

P. 74i b , FAHD, 1. 51, for (kas'a) read {kas'a). 

P. 75 1", FAKHR al-DIN, 1. 13, for westwards read eastwards. 

P. 852", FATIMIDS, 1. 52, after bribery add (see also H. Mbnes, Le maUkisme et Vichec des Fatimides en 
Ifriqiya, in Et. or. . . . LM- Provencal, i, 197-220). 

P. 853°, 1. 11, after in the Zab add (on which see L. Massiera, M'sila du X» au XI' s., in Bull. Soc. hist, et 
ge'ogr. de la region de Sitif, ii (1941), 183 ff.; M. Canard, Une famille de partisans puis adversaires des 
Fatimides en Af. du N., in Mil. d'hist. et d'archiol. de I'Occ. mus., Algiers 1957, ii, 35 ff.). 

P. 862", add to Bibliography : A. R. Lewis, Naval power and trade in the Mediterranean, A .D. 500-1100, Princeton 
195 1 , especially 2 59-62 (The disruptive role of the Fatimids) ; G. Wiet, Grandeur de I' Islam, Paris 1961 , 
152-71 ; S. D. Goitein, Jews andAtabs, New York 1955,82-4 ; H. Mones, Le maUkisme et Vechec des Fati- 
mides en Ifriqiya, in Etudes d'orientalisme didites a la mimoire de Leoi-Provencal, Paris 1962, i, 197 ff . 

P. 864", FATIMID ART, 1. 52, after traditions which they continued, add: On the representation of living 
creatures in Fatimid art, see al-MakrizI, Khitat, i, 416, 472, 477: figurines (tamathil) representing 
elephants, gazelles, lions, giraffes, or birds, peacocks, cocks, etc., elephants sometimes bearing warlike 
accoutrements. More particularly, the tents of the caliphs and the viziers were decorated with 
suwar adamiyya wa-wahshiyya: op cit., i, 474; some tents bore a special name according to whether 
they were decorated with elephants, lions, horses, peacocks or birds : op cit., i, 418. On the activity of 
Fatimid painters (muzawwikun) , see al-Makrizi, op. cit., ii, 318. 

P. 88o», FENER, add to Bibliography: J. Gottwald, Pkanariotische Studien, in Vierteljahrschrift fiir Sud- 
osteuropa, v/1-2 (1941), 1-58. 

P. 919", FIRDAWSl, 1. 63, for ii, 477 read i, 493. 

P. 965', FUTUWWA, 1. 36, for Bast madad al-tawfik read Kiiab al-Futuwu 
title not of the K. al-Futuwwa but of a short treatise composed ir 
of H. Thorning, Beitrage zur Kenntnis des isl. Vereinswesen, 1913, 9 f.). 

P. 967°, 1. 1, after documents, add: e.g. Ibn Battuta, selections tr. H. A. R. Gibb, London 1929, 123-41; tr. 
H. A. R. Gibb (Hakluyt ser.), ii, 1959, 413-68. 

1. 13 of Bibliography, add: Irene Melikoff, Abu Muslim, le " Porte-hache" du Khorasan, Paris 1962; 
and at end of Bibliography, add: M. Mole, Kubrawiyat II, AU b. Sihabaddin-i Hamaddni'nin Risdla-i 
futuwwatiya'si, in Sarkiyat Mecmuasi, iv (1961), 33-72. 

P. 969", 11. 9-10 of Bibliography, for A complete copy .... Basle, read A complete copy, formerly in the 
possession of Prof. Tschudi, is now in the University Library of Basle (M. VI. 35); 

P. 969", 1. 15, after (Rieu, 44) <^dd see now the communication by R. M. Savory, in Isl., xxxviii (1963), 161-5. 

P. 970", GABAN, at end of article add: In 11 37 Gaban was taken by the Byzantines, but was occupied soon 
afterwards (1138-9) by Malik Ahmad Danishmand. In 613/1216 the district was attacked by Kay 
Ka'us I [q.v.]. In 666/1268 king Haytham was obliged to cede the fortress to Baybars. and add to 
Bibl.: Alishan, Sissouan, 48-9, 210; CI. Cahen, LaSyrie . . ., 360, 623; R. Grousset, Hist, des Croisades , 
ii, 87, 266; K. M. Setton (ed.), History of the Crusades, ii, 637, iii, 635; Makrizi, Suluk, 1/2, 528-9; Ibn 
Iyas, Ta'rikh, i, 229-30; Ramsay, Asia Minor, 382. 

P. 9966, GHALAFIKA. 1. 13, for L. O. Schuman read L. S. Schuman. 

P. 1021", SHASSAN, 1. 6, after c Ayn Ubagh delete [q.v.]. 

[Shortly before this article by Dr Shahid was published, the editors interpolated a note communicated 
to them by another scholar, which introduced a newly-discovered inscription from a Ghassanid 
building. Dr Shahid has now pointed out to them that this note on buildings deals with an aspect of 
the subject which he had discussed in articles listed in his Bibliography and which he had therefore 
decided not to treat in detail in the body of the article; the insertion of the note might give the 
impression that the editors had thought that the part allotted to Ghassanid buildings was insuffi- 
cient. The editors readily express their regret if any such misunderstanding has occurred and take this 
opportunity of mentioning that Dr Shahid is at present engaged on a book on Arab-Byzantine relat- 
ions before the rise of Islam which will include a comprehensive chapter on Ghassanid structures.] 

P. 1074 s , SHINA', 11. 8-g, for Ibn Bana [q.v.] or Banata (d. 278/891) read c Amr b. Bana or Banata (d. 278/891) 
[see IBN bana]. 



CABRA [see ijabrAj 
CADIZ [see ?adis] 
CAESAREA [see jcaysariyya, kayseri, shar- 

SHAL] 

CAGHANIYAN (Arabic rendering: Saghaniyan). 
In the early Middle Ages this was the name given to 
the district of the Caghan-Rud [q.v.] valley. This 
river is the northernmost tributary of the river 
Amii-Darya [q.v.]. The district lies to the north of 
the town of Tirmidh [q.v.], the area of which, 
however, (including Camangan) did not form part of 
Caghaniyan either politically or administratively 
(Ibn Khurradadhbih, 39). We/aishagirt ( = Faydabad) 
was regarded as the boundary with the district of 
Khuttalan {[q.v.]; between the rivers Pandj and 
Wakhsh). Incidentally, the area around Kabadiyan 
(Kuwadiyan; [q.v.]) to the south-east, has frequently 
been regarded as an independent district. 

The region had a pleasant climate, good water 
supplies, good soil, and corresponding agriculture. 
Its peasants, however, were considered lazy, thus a 
considerable number of poor (darwishdn) were to be 
found in Caghaniyan, and the area was sparsely 
populated. The capital was also called Caghaniyan 
(the derivation by Markwart, Wehrot 93, from the 
Mongol Caghan 'white' is surely wrong). It was 
situated on the side of a hill where there was running 
water. The population of the town was also regarded 
as poor and ill-educated, and despite its greater size, 
it was soon overshadowed by Tirmidh (Istakhri, 298; 
Ifudiid al- c Alam, 114, no. 25 and no. 27, also ibid., 
63, 119, 198; Sam'ani 352 v). Round the year 985, 
the taxes were 48,529 dirhams (MukaddasI, 283, 
290). Other known places in the district were 
BarangJ and Darzangi. Maps of the area: Ifudiid 
al- l Alam, 339, and Le Strange, map ix. 

History: In the 5th and 6th centuries, Cagha- 
niyan was one of main Hephthalite (see haytal) 
areas and was under Buddhist influence. Even in the 
4th/ioth century it was considered a border region 
against the 'KumedjI', who are regarded as remnants 
of the Hephthalites (Bayhaki, ed. Morley, 499, 576, 
611, 696; and also Markwart, Wehrot 93 f., with 
further data), though they may also have belonged 
to the Saks (Ifudiid al-'Alam, 363). In Sasanid times, 
it was ruled by its own dynasty with the title 
Caghan-Khudat (Tabari, ii, 1596). In 31/651, its troops 
took part in Vazdagird Ill's fight against the 
attacking Arabs. Some of them (prisoners ?) could 
be found in Basra around 59/678 (Baladhuri, ed. De 
Goeje, 419 f. = ed. Cairo 1901, 413 ; Spuler, Iran, 19). 
In 86/705 the Caghan-Khudat submitted to Kutayba 
b. Muslim [q.v.], who had conquered Transoxania for 
the Muslims. Thus Caghaniyan became part of an 
Islamic region, and accepted its culture from Balkh 
rather than from Bukhara and Samarkand (Tabari, 
ii, 1 180; DInawari, Akhbdr, 330; Spuler, Iran, 29 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



and note 6; H. A. R. Gibb, Arab Conquests in 
Central Asia, 1923, 32 (Turkish ed., 28); Gh. H. 
Sadighi, Les mouvements relig. iraniens, 1938, 24 f.). 
In 119-121/737-9, the inhabitants fought on the side 
of the Arabs against the western Turks, their allies, 
and Sughd refugees (Tabari, ii, 1596 ; Ind., p. 735 ; Bar- 
thold, Turkestan, 191 ; B. G. Gafurov, 1st. Tadiikskogo 
Naroda, i, 1949, 147). They took part in the civil war 
between the Umayyads and c Abbasids (Tabari. ii, 
1423, 1767); in 191-195/806-10, in the rising of Rafi c 
b. Layth against the 'Abbasids (Va'kubi, Hist. Isl., 
1883, ii, 528), and in 323/934, followed for a short 
time a certain 'False Prophet' Mahdl (name ? title ?) 
(Gardlzi, 37 f.). Abu 'All (see Ilyasids). who ruled 
over this district as well as over Tirmidh and Shuman 
and Kharun further east, had come here for purposes 
of defence in 337/948, after he had been deposed as 
governor of Khurasan. He is described as a member 
of the Muhtadj dynasty. It is not evident whether 
there was a link between this house and the Caghan- 
Khudat. When he became governor of Khurasan once 
more in 341/952, he passed the rule of Caghaniyan 
on to his son. Deposed again in 343/954. he was 
buried in Caghaniyan (Radab-Sha c ban 344/Nov. 955) 
(Ibn Hawkal 401; MukaddasI 337; Gardizi 36 f.; 
Yakut, Learned Men (Gibb Mem. Ser. VI), i, 
143; Barthold, Turkestan, 233, 247/49; Spuler, 
Iran, 97). 

Towards the end of the 4th/ioth century, a lengthy 
war broke out between the amir of Caghaniyan (who 
ranked as one of the Muluk al-afrdl), the rulers of 
Gozgan (Djuzdjan; [q.v.]), and other candidates 
(Narshakhl, 157; further information in Barthold, 
Turkestan, 254; Minorsky in Hudud al-'-Alam, 178, 
with further data). It ended in 390/999. when Cagha- 
niyan came under Karakhanid rule. In 416/1025, 
the district joined Mahmud of Ghazna, and in 426/ 
1035, it repelled Karakhanid attempts to recover 
it with the assistance of the Ghaznawids (Bayhaki, 
ed. Morley, 82, 98, 255, 575 f-, 611, 616 [see *arA- 
khanids]). Finally, Caghaniyan came under Saldjuk 
rule in 451/1059. They suppressed a rising in 457/ 
1064 (Ibn al-Athir, ed. Tornberg, x, 22). By ca. 561/ 
1165, the Karakhanids (who were subject to the 
Kara Khitay) had once again achieved a position of 
great influence (al-Katib al-Samarkandl, in Barthold, 
Turk, russ., i, 71 f.). Around the years 570-571/ 
H74-75. the country came under the rule of the 
Ghurids (Pjuzdjanl, Tabakdt, 423-6). 

The district is not mentioned during the time of the 
Mongol conquests; and subsequently it is hardly 
found in Mongol sources. In the 7th/i3th century, 
Caghaniyan belonged to the Caghatay empire, and the 
Transoxanian Khan Barak (generally called Burak 
[q.v.] by the Muslims) had the centre of his empire 
here in 663-670/1264-71. In Timur's time, the place- 
name Dih-i nam (now: Dittaw) is mentioned (Sharaf 



CAGHANIYAN — Caghatay khAn 



al-DIn Yazdl, ed. Ilahdad, 1885, i, 124), and this 
appears to be on the site of the ancient town of 
Caghaniyan (thus Barthold, Turkestan, 72; Mar- 
kwart, Wehrot, 93). There is mention of Caghaniyan 
on only one further occasion, in the Bdbur-ndma 
(ed. Beveridge, 1905, index), where it is probably a 
historical reminiscence. Apparently no mediaeval 
ruins have survived in Caghaniyan, and the old settle- 
ments have vanished. Today the district belongs 
to the Ozbek SSR, and the Ozbek language has 
supplanted the old Iranian. The regions to the east 
of the Kafirnahan river, however, together with 
Kabadiyan, belong to the Tadjik language area and 
to the Tadjik SSR. 

Bibliography: W. Barthold, Turkestan, 
index; Le Strange, 435-40; J. Markwart, Wehrot 
und Arang, 1938, index; Hudud al-'Alam, index; 
B. Spuler, Iran, index. (B. Spuler) 

GAGMAN-ROD (Caghan-Rodh), the seventh 
and last tributary on the right of the river Amu- 
Darya [q.v.]. It comes from the Buttam mountains, 
to the north of Caghaniyan [q.v.], flows past that 
town and several smaller places, and finally into the 
Amu-Darya above Tirmidh. The river is called by 
this name only in the ffudud al-'Alam, (71, no. 11, 
p. 363), and in Sharaf al-DIn c Ali Yazdi, Zafar-nama 
(ed. Ilahdad), 1885, i, 196 (= translation by F. Petis 
de la Croix, i, 183). MukaddasI, 22, calls it "river of 
Caghaniyan", and distinguishes it from the Kafir- 
nihan, the 6th tributary (further to the east) of the 
Amu-Darya. Ibn Rusta, (BGA vii, 93), on the other 
hand, gets the two rivers, their sources, and their 
tributaries mixed up; he calls the Caghan-Rud: 
Zami/Zamul. Today, the upper part of the river is 
known as Kara Tagh Darya, and from Dih-i naw 
(Denaw = Caghaniyan) onwards: Surkhan. 

Bibliography: Le Strange, 436, 440; W. 
Barthold, Turkestan, 72 ; J. Markwart, Wehrot und 
Arang, 1938, 89-94 (he attempts a classification of 
the pre- Islamic Iranian sources) ; B. Spuler, Der 
Amu-Darja, 234 (in Jean Deny Armagam, Ankara 
1958, 231-48); Brockhaus-Efron, Enciklop. Slovaf 
xxxii/i (= 63), St. Petersburg 1901, 109; Bol'shaya 
Sovetshaya £ntsiklop'. 41, (1956) 315. 

(B. Spuler) 
CAGHATAY KHAN, founder of the Caghatay 
Khanate [q.v.], the second son of Cingiz-Khan and 
his chief wife Borte Fudjin. Already in his father's 
lifetime he was regarded as the greatest authority 
on the Yasa (the tribal laws of the Mongols as 
codified by Cingiz-Khan). Like his brothers he took 
part in his father's campaigns against China (1211- 
12 16) and against the kingdom of the Kh w arizm- 
Shah (1219-1224). Urgandj, the latter's capital, was 
besieged by the three princes Djoci, Caghatay and 
Ogedey and taken in Safar 618/27H1 March-24th 
April 1221. In the same year Caghatay's eldest son 
Mo'etiiken was slain before Bamiyan. After the 
battle on the Indus (according to Nasawi, transl. 
Houdas, 83, on Wednesday 7 Shawwal 618, probably 
24 November 1221) Caghatay was entrusted with 
operations against Sultan Ojalal al-Din Kh"arizm- 
Shah and spent the winter of 1221-1222 in India. 
During Cingiz-Khan's final campaign against the 
Tangut (1225-1227) he remained in Mongolia in 
command of the forces left behind there. 

After his father's death Caghatay no longer took 
an active part in any of the campaigns. As the 
eldest surviving son of Cingiz-Khan (his brother 
Djoci had predeceased his father) he enjoyed enorm- 
ous prestige. In the year 1229 he presided with his 



uncle Otcigin over the kuriltay at which Ogedey was 
elected Great Khan: owing to his position as the 
recognized authority on the yasa, he exercised an 
influence to which even the Great Khan Ogedey 
had to bow. He seems to have spent this period 
partly in Mongolia at his brother's court, partly in 
the territory allotted to him by Cingiz-Khan, where 
he held his own court-camp. Like all the Mongol 
princes Caghatay had separate camps (ordu) for 
winter and summer. His summer residence according 
to Djuwayni was at some place on the Hi whilst his 
winter quarters were at Kuyas, probably to be 
identified with the Equius of William of Rubruck, 
near Almaligh, i.e., in the region of the present-day 
Kulja. The residence of Caghatay's successors is 
called Ulugh Ef (in Turkish „Great House") by 
Djuwayni and others. 

Caghatay had received from his father all the 
lands from the Uyghur territory in the east to 
Bukhara and Samarkand in the west: we must not 
however regard these lands as a single kingdom 
governed from the Hi valley and only indirectly 
subject to the Great Khan. Everywhere, even in 
the Hi valley itself, the local dynasties who were 
there before the Mongols remained. On the relation- 
ship of these dynasties to the Mongol rulers we have 
no accurate information; we know equally little 
about what sovereign rights the court on the Hi 
could claim from the Great Khan and his deputies. 
The settled lands of Central Asia were certainly not 
governed in the name of Caghatay but in that of 
the Great Khan. In the account of the suppression 
of the rebellion in Bukhara in 636/1238-1239 
Caghatay is not mentioned ; the governor of Ma wara 1 
al-Nahr at this period was Mahmud Yalavac, a 
Kh"arizml by birth, who had been appointed by 
the Great Khan. Even the generals of the Mongol 
forces in Ma wara 5 al-Nahr were appointed by the 
Great Khan. When, soon afterwards, Mahmud 
Yalavac was arbitrarily dismissed from his office by 
Caghatay the latter was called to account by his 
brother and had to admit the illegality of his action. 
Ogedey was satisfied with this apology and granted 
the land to his brother as a fief (indiii); but the 
legal position of this territory was not thereby 
altered. During the last years of Ogedey's reign, as 
well as under Mongke, all settled areas from the 
Chinese frontier to Bukhara were governed by 
Mas'Od Beg, the son of Mahmud Yalavac, in the 
name of the Great Khan, 

It cannot be ascertained how far Caghatay's 
Muslim minister Kutb al-DIn Habash 'Amid had 
a share in the administration of the country along 
with the representatives of the Great Khan. According 
to Rashld al-Din this minister came from Otrar, 
according to Djamal Karshi from Karmlna, and like 
many other Muslim dignitaries at this time had 
made his fortune among the Mongols as a merchant. 
He was on terms of such intimacy with the Khan 
that each of Caghatay's sons had one of Habash 
'Amld's sons as a companion. 

In general Caghatay was not favourably inclined 
towards Islam. Among the infringements of Mongol 
law which he rigidly punished was the observance 
of certain prescriptions of Islam. Among the Mongols 
it was forbidden to slaughter an animal by cutting 
its throat, which is the method prescribed by the 
sharV-a; another law frequently broken by the 
Muslims at their ablutions was that which prohibited 
washing in running water. The cruel punishment 
which Caghatay visited upon any such trans- 
gressions made his name hated among the Muslims. 



Caghatay KHAN — CAGHATAY KHANATE 



According to Diuwavni. Caghatay survived his 
brother Ogedey, who died on 5 Djumada II 639/ 
nth December 1241 though only for a short period. 
On the other hand Rashid al-DIn states that he 
died seven months before Ogedey, i.e., apparently 
in the beginning of May, 1241. 

Bibliography: Djuwayni-Boyle ; Rashid al- 
DIn, Dxdmi c al-Tawdrlkh, ed. E. Blochet, Leiden 
1911; V. V. Barthold, Four Studies on the History 
of Central Asia, Vol. i, transl. V. and T. Minorsky, 
Leiden 1956. (W. Barthold-[J. A. Boyle]) 

CASHATAY KHANATE. The Central Asian 
Khanate to which Caghatay gave his name was 
really not founded till some decades after the 
Mongol prince's death. Caghatay was succeeded by 
his grandson Kara-Hiilegii, the son of Mo'etiiken 
who fell at Bamiyan. Kara-Hiilegii had been desig- 
nated as Caghatay's heir both by Cingiz-Khan 
himself and by Ogedey; he was however deposed 
by the Great Khan Giiyiik (1241-1248) in favour 
of Yesii-Mongke, the fifth son of Caghatay, with 
whom Giiyiik was on terms of personal friend- 
ship. In 1251 Yesii-Mongke was involved in the 
conspiracy against the Great Khan Mongke, who 
reinstated Kara-Hiilegii and handed Yesii-Mongke 
over to him for execution. Kara-Hiilegii however 
did not survive the homeward journey and the 
execution was carried out by his widow, Princess 
Orkina, who now ruled in her husband's stead, 
though her authority does not seem to have extended 
beyond the Hi valley. As appears from the narrative 
of William of Rubruck, the whole Empire was at 
this period divided between Mongke and Batu: 
Batu's portion was the whole area west of a line 
between the rivers Talas and Cu, east of which all 
territories were directly subject to the Great Khan. 
Mas c ud Beg [see the previous article], who enjoyed 
the confidence of both Khans, was governor of all 
the settled areas between Besh-Baligh and Kh w arizm. 
With the death of the Great Khan Mongke in 1259 
a different condition of things arose. During the 
struggle for supremacy between Kubilay and Arigh 
Boke, the brothers of the late Khan, Alughu, a 
grandson of Caghatay, agreed to take possession 
of Central Asia for Arlgh Boke and support him 
from that quarter against his enemies. He actually 
succeeded in bringing the whole of Central Asia 
under his sway, including areas such as Kh'arizm 
and the present-day Afghanistan which had never 
previously been numbered amongst the possessions 
of the House of Caghatay. He had of course won 
these victories for himself and not for Arlgh Boke. 
He everywhere proclaimed himself as an independent 
ruler; and Arigh Boke, who had tried to assert his 
rights, was finally forced to vacate this territory 
after some initial successes. Mas'ud Beg still remained 
the governor of the settled areas, now no longer in 
the name of the Great Khan but as the representative 
of Alughu. 

Alughu may be regarded as the founder of an 
independent Mongol state in Central Asia: he 
enjoyed his success only for a brief period, as he died 
in 664/1265-1266. Mubarak-Shah, the son of Kara- 
Hiilegii and Orkina, the first Caghatay convert to 
Islam, was proclaimed Khan in March 1266. Already 
in the same year he was dethroned by his cousin 
Burak (or rather Barak) Khan [q.v.], the nominee 
of the Great Khan, who was soon however to become 
little more than a satellite of Kaydu [q.v.], now the 
real master of Central Asia. After Burak's death in 
1 271 Kaydu appointed NIkpay, a grandson of 
Caghatay, to succeed him; NIkpay was followed by 



Buka-Temiir, another grandson of Caghatay; and 
in 1282, Kaydu's choice fell upon Du'a, the son of 
Burak. The faithful ally of Kaydu in all his wars 
against the Great Khan, Du'a defeated and deposed 
his son Capar shortly before his own death in 1306 
or 1307. The Caghatay Khanate was from now on 
to remain in Du'a's family almost to the moment 
of its extinction, the throne being occupied, for 
longer or shorter periods, by six of his sons, of 
whom we need mention here only Esen-Buka 
(1309-1318), Kebek (1318-1326) and Tarmashirin 
(1326-1334). 

It was some time before the Caghatay Khanate 
received an independent organisation of its own. 
Diamal Karshi's work, written in the reign of 
Capar shows that affairs in Central Asia were in 
much the same condition even at this period, when 
there had long been a strong Mongol central govern- 
ment in China and Persia, as they had been in the 
early years of the Mongol conquest. The Mongols 
were apparently less under the influence of Islam 
and Muslim culture than in Persia and were able to 
preserve their own peculiar ways of life for a much 
longer period of time. Except in the Uyghur country 
Islam was everywhere the state religion by the time 
of the Mongol conquest, even in the Hi valley, 
although these areas had been little influenced by 
Arabo-Persian culture. The Mongol conquest, as 
Rubruck pointed out, was followed in these regions 
by an extension of the pasture lands at the expense 
of the towns and cultivated areas; at a later period 
urban life altogether disappeared under the influence 
of Mongol rule, except in Ma wara 3 al-Nahr and the 
present-day Sinkiang. The Muslim civilisation of 
Ma wara 3 al-Nahr naturally exercised some influence 
on the Mongols, particularly the rulers; but this 
influence was not strong enough to induce the mass 
of the people to change their mode of life. When the 
ruling family decided to settle in M5 wara 5 al-Nahr 
and break with the customs of the people, their 
action resulted in the complete separation of the 
eastern provinces. 

Even the brief reign of Yesii-Mongke (1246-1251) 
appears to have been favourable to those who 
professed Islam. The chief minister then was a friend 
of the Khan's youth and a foster-son of Habash 
'Amid, Baha 3 al-DIn MarghlnanI, a descendant of 
the Shuyukh al-Isldm of Farghana. As a patron of 
poets and scholars he is praised by his contemporary 
Djuwaynl, who was personally acquainted with him. 
Habash c Amid, who was hated by the Khan as an 
adherent of Kara-Hiilegii, owed his life to the inter- 
cession of Baha 3 al-DIn. Nevertheless, when Baha 3 
al-DIn was involved in his master's downfall, he was 
handed over to his foster-father, who ordered his 
execution in the cruellest fashion. 

Under Orkina, Habash c AmId again occupied the 
position he had held under Caghatay; this princess 
however was favourably inclined to the Muslims; 
she is described by Wassaf as a protectress of Islam 
and by Djamal Karshi was even said to be a Muslim. 
Her son Mubarak-Shah, raised to the throne in 
Ma wara 3 al-Nahr, certainly adopted Islam, as did 
his rival Burak Khan some years later. The rule of 
Alughu seems to have been less favourable to the 
Muslims, and the events of the following years 
postponed for several decades the final victory of 
Muslim culture. Kaydu and Capar, as well as Du'a 
and other princes, remained pagans and resided in 
the eastern provinces. In the reign of Esen-Buka 
the armies of the Great Khan penetrated deep into 
Central Asia and ravaged the winter and summer 



Caghatay KHANATE — CaghrI-beg 



residences of the Khan; the continuator of Rashid 
al-DIn in his account of these happenings says that 
the winter residence was in the region of the Issik- 
Kul, while the summer residence was on the Talas. 

Esen-Buka's successor Kebek was the first to 
return to the settled lands of Ma wara' al-Nahr. 
Though he did not adopt Islam he is praised by 
Muslims as a just prince; he is said to have built or 
restored several towns; he also had built for himself 
a palace in the neighbourhood of Nakhshab, from 
which the town takes its modern name of Karshl 
(from the Mongol word for "palace"). He introduced 
the silver coins afterwards called Kebehi, which may 
be considered the first independent coinage of the 
Caghatay Khanate. 

After two brief interregnums Kebek's brother 
Tarmashirin was raised to the throne. This Khan 
adopted Islam and took the name of c Ala> al-DIn; 
the eastern provinces were entirely neglected by 
him and the nomads of those provinces rose against 
him as a violator of the Yasa. This rebellion appears 
to have taken place about 734/1333-1334; it was 
headed by Buzan, a nephew of the Khan, and 
resulted in Tarmashirin's flight and death. Buzan 
can have reigned only for a few months since he was 
succeeded in 1334 by Cangshi, another nephew of 
Tarmashirin. Statements of contemporary Christian 
missionaries show that the centre of the Khanate 
was now again transferred for a brief period 
to the Ili valley and Christians were allowed 
to propagate their religion unhindered and to build 
churches; it is even said that a 7-year old son of 
Cangshi was baptised with his father's consent and 
received the name of Johannes. 

Some years later Nakhshab is mentioned again 
as the residence of the Caghatay Khan. This was 
Kazan, who was descended, not like Du'a and his 
sons from Yesiin-To'a, but from Biiri, another son 
of Mo'etviken. Kazan fell in battle in 747/1346-1347 
in the course of a struggle against the Turkish 
aristocracy, and with his death the rule of his house 
in M5 wara 5 al-Nahr came to an end. Till 1370, 
descendants of Caghatay were placed on the throne 
by the Turkish amirs as nominal rulers; in the time 
of Timur these rulers were chosen from the family 
of Ogedey. Nevertheless under Timur and his 
successors the nomad population of M5 wara' al- 
Nahr, who as a warrior caste enjoyed many privi- 
leges, were still as before called Caghatay. 

Bibliography: As in the article on Caghatay. 

For genealogical tables of the House of Caghatay, 

based on both the Chinese and the Persian 

sources, see Louis Hambis, he chapitre cvii du 

Yuan eke, Leiden 1945. 

(W. Barthold-[J. A. Boyle]) 

Caghatay literature [see turks] 

CAGHATAY TURKISH [see turks] 
CAGHRJ-BEG DawOd b. MIkha'Il b. SaldjOk 
was the brother of Tughril-Beg [?.».], and the co- 
founder with him of the Saldjukid dynasty. The 
careers of both brothers were, for the most part, in- 
extricably bound together. It is difficult to ascertain 
which was the elder brother. They seem to have 
been born about 380-385/990-995, and there is no 
evidence whether their family was already, or only 
later became, Muslim. Little is known about their 
life before the year 416/1025. They were orphaned 
at an early age, and must have been brought up, 
until they were about fifteen years old, by their 
grandfather Saldjuk, in the Djand region, during 
which time their uncle Arslan-Isra'il was fighting 
in the service of the last Samanids. After the 



death of the grandfather, ill-defined political reasons 
caused them to remove, with a section of their 
tribe, to the territory owned by a Karakhanid 
who was, for a time, known under the title-name of 
Bughra-Khan. Subsequently they quarrelled with 
him, and joined, without, however, combining their 
forces with his, their uncle, who was then in the 
service of a rival Karakhanid, 'Ali-Tegln of Bukhara. 
Tradition gives here an account of a highly im- 
probable escapade of Caghrl-Beg in Armenia. In 
416/1025, the Saldjukids were involved in the defeat 
of C A1I-Tegin by the combined forces of Mahmud of 
Ghazna and the supreme Karakhanid, Kadir-Khan, 
whereupon Arslan-Israll, with his tribal group, 
had to settle in Ghazna territory. Tughrll and Caghri, 
on the other hand, remained with C AU-Tegin, and 
then, after being involved in disagreements with him, 
possibly over the leadership of the tribe, transferred 
themselves to Khwarizm (between 421/1030 and 
425/1034 ?). The threats of the Oghuz prince Shah- 
Malik, the old enemy of their family, who had by 
then become master of Djand, forced upon them 
another displacement, and, as the Turcomans of the 
Ghazna territory had abandoned their Khurasanian 
encampments as a result of disorders following the 
death of Mahmud, Tughrll and Caghri demanded, 
and then seized forcibly, from his successor, Mas'ud, 
the right to take their place. Although they had 
become the quasi-official concessionaries of the 
border plains to the north of western Khurasan, 
they certainly did not show themselves to be well- 
behaved guests. Ma'sud was at first unaware of 
the potential seriousness of what he believed to be 
mere local unrests, but even the town populations 
grew weary of paying taxes to the Ghaznawid 
without being safeguarded against the pillage of 
their countryside. The Saldjukids had, on the other 
hand, represented themselves to the Muslim aristo- 
cracy as faithful adherents of the orthodox religion, 
and a growing party, in Khurasan, felt that it 
was advisable, by submitting to them, to divert 
elsewhere the depredations of their men. In 423/ 
1036 Marw opened its gates to Caghrl-Beg, who 
had the Khutba recited there in his name as auto- 
nomous prince. Soon Nishapur did the same for 
Tughrll, and then, later, Caghri penetrated into 
Harat and sent his kinsmen towards the Sistan region. 
Ma'siid reacted too late. His heavy armies wore 
themselves out physically and morally chasing an 
elusive enemy across the desert, and, in 431/1040, 
at Dandankan the Saldjukids defeated him beyond 
all hope of recovery. 

The conquerors divided up their conquered terri- 
tories, and, while Tughrll went off to try his luck at 
fresh conquests in Iran, Caghri kept, in Khurasan, 
the base of the young Saldjukid power. His career 
there has nothing to compare with the remarkable 
developments that followed that of his brother. 
During the first four years, he made complete his 
possession of Khurasan by annexing, on the one 
hand, Balkh and then Tirmidh, and, on the other, 
Khwarizm. whose prince had been driven out by 
Shah-Malik. In addition, a son of Caghri, Kavurt, 
acting in a more or less autonomous capacity, 
occupied Kirman. But from then onwards, the chief 
military activity of Caghrl's forces consisted in a 
difficult struggle against the Ghaznawids, who, in 
their mountain stronghold, and fortified with the 
resources found in their Indus provinces, resumed 
the war, sometimes with success. The intrigues 
of the Ghaznawids compromised, but for a very 
short time only, the relations of the Saldjukids with 



CAGHRl-BEG — CAIN 



the neighbouring Karakhanids. On their side, the 
Saldjukids interfered in the internal quarrels of 
Ghazna, where Mas'ud's successor, Mawdud, had 
married a daughter of Caghri, but where, against a 
successor of Mawdud, the Saldjukids encouraged 
the usurper Farrukhzad, only to find themselves 
soon afterwards at war with him also. Hostilities 
went on intermittently in the Balkh and the Sistan 
districts, and in Sistan the danger was for ja 
while so grave that it became necessary to recall 
the Turcomans temporarily from Kirman. Caghri 
was, by that time, old, and the conduct of 
operations fell in fact upon his son Alp-Arslan 
[g.v.]. Saldjukids and Ghaznawids were forced to 
recognize that their power was about equal, and 
in 451/1060, Caghri and Ibrahim of Ghazna concluded 
a peace that remained virtually undisturbed by their 
successors. Some months later, Caghri died (at the 
beginning of 452/ end of 1060). 

Practically nothing is known of Caghrl-Beg's 
government. The chief of the plundering nomads 
became prince of a territory in which the traditional 
administration was continued or resumed. He gave 
himself the title of Malik al-Muluk. A brother of 
the famous Isma'ili writer Nasir-i Khusraw for a 
long time held a prominent position in the service 
of his vizir, but it would be impossible to conclude 
from this a heterodox orientation on the part of 
the sovereign. Nevertheless, the fact that neither 
Nizam al-Mulk nor the authors of moral tales, nor 
the diwans of the poets, have preserved any note- 
worthy information about Caghri from the time 
that he was separated from his brother, gives the 
impression of a weaker personality and a rather 
passive political attitude, from a religious and all 
other points of view. 

It is difficult even to obtain a clear assessment of 
Caghrl's relations with his kinsfolk. After Dandakan, 
Sistan appears to have been handed over to Musa 
Payghu (Yabghu ?), the uncle of Caghri and Tughrll, 
but the power of the chiefs of this family seems to 
have been unstable, and in 446-448/1055-1057, 
hostilities arose between them and Yakuti, one of 
Caghrl's sons, who came, it is true, from Kirman. It 
appears that from then onwards Caghri was consi- 
dered in Sistan as the suzerain over his young 
cousins. A more important question is that of the 
relations between Caghri and Tughrll, holding in 
mind the successes that made the latter the protector 
of the Caliphate and the legally recognized master of 
the entire Muslim East. The only certainty is that 
the good relations between them were never belied. 
It seems that in Sistan Caghri accepted Tughril's 
decisions. In any case, when in 450/1058-9, the revolt 
of Ibrahim Inal constituted a grave threat to 
Tughril's sultanate, Tughrll in part owed his preser- 
vation to the help brought to him by Alp-Arslan and 
Yakuti. Relations between Caghri and Tughril must 
have been made easier by the fact that the latter was 
childless. Therefore when the Caliph wanted to 
form a marriage alliance with him, it was a daughter 
of Caghri that became the wife of al-Ka'im. Caghri 
had married a Khwarizmian princess, who had 
already a son, SulaymSn. When his brother died, 
Tughril married her. It is not certain whether Alp- 
Arslan, who was to unite the two inheritances, had 
been selected for that fortune by the two ruling 
brothers, or whether, as Tughril's vizir declared, 
Sulayman had been intended — at all events, the latter 
had played no role under either Caghri or Tughrll. 
Bibliography: A. Sources. On the origins 

there is little information available except through 



the Malik-ndma, which is lost but utilized by Ibn 
al-Athir, c Ali b. Nasir {Akhbdr al-dawla al-SaldiH- 
kiyya, ed. Muh. Ikbal, Lahore 1933), Bar-Hebraeus 
(Chronography, ed. trans. Budge), and especially 
MIrkhwand. From the time of the entry into 
Khurasan onwards, this source can be supple- 
mented by the Ghazna historians, Bayhaki and 
GardizI (see also the analysis of the former by 
Kazimirski in his introduction to the Diwdn of 
Manucihri), and also by ?ahlr al-Din Nishapurl 
(now published by Djalal-i Khavar. Tehran 1953, 
making unnecessary the Rabat al-Sudur of his 
embellisher Rawandi). Sources are scanty for 
Caghrl's autonomous period, the chief ones being 
Ibn al-Athir and the Akhbdr, supplemented 
locally by the Ta'rikh-i Bayhak of Ibn Funduk, ed. 
Bahmanyar, 1938, and the anonymous Ta'rikh-i 
Sistan, ed. Bahar 1937 (there exists, on the other 
hand, nothing on Caghri specifically in the 
histories of Kirman). His relations with Tughrll are 
treated in Ibn al-Athir, and also in the other 
largely Mesopotamian chronicles, especially the 
Mir'dt al-Zamdn of Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi. Also to 
be consulted are the beginning and end of Nasir-i 
Khusraw, Safar-ndma. 

B. Modern Studies. Barthold, Turkestan; 
Muh. Nazim, The Life and Times of Sultan 
Mahmud of Ghazna, 1931; CI. Cahen, Malik- 
nameh et Vhistoire des origines saldjukides, in 
Oriens, 1949; art. Cagkri-Beg, in I A, by Mukr. 
Halil Yinanc. On the legendary escapade ( ?) of 
Caghri in Armenia, the article of Ibrahim Kafesoglu, 
Dogu Anadoluya ilk selcuklu akmt, in Fuad Kbprulii 
Armagam, 1953, and my discussion with him 
in JA 1954, 275 ff. and 1956, 129 ff. 

(Cl. Cahen) 
CAHAR AYMA?, four semi-nomadic tribes in 
western Afghanistan [see aymak]. There is little 
information and much confusion about these tribes, 
consequently various sources have different names, 
locations and even languages ascribed to them. At 
the present they speak Persian and are Sunnis, 
unlike the Shi'i Hazaras with whom the Cahar 
Aymak are closely linked. Some sources erroneously 
identify the two. The origin of the name Cahar 
Aymak is unknown but is at least as early as the 
18th century A.D. at the time of the early Durrani 
empire. It may have been originally a name of a 
tribal confederation formed between local Persian- 
speakers and Mongol Hazaras against the Turko- 
mans. The admixture of Turkic elements is also 
probable. The Djamshidis live north of Harat with 
their centre at Kushk. The Taymuri or Sunni 
Hazaras are scattered with one centre at Kal'a-i 
Naw; the Taymani are located in Ghur, and the 
Firuzkuhi on the upper reaches of the Murghab 
River. The origins and history of the various tribes 
are unknown. Their number has been estimated 
from 400,000 to a million. 

Bibliography : G. Jarring, On the Distribution 
of Turk Tribes in Afghanistan, Lunds Universitets 
Arsskrift, 35 (1939), 79-81, where older biblio- 
graphy is given. Add. B. Dorn, History of the 
Afghans, London 1829, ii, 69; A. C Yate, Travels 
with the Afghan Boundary Commission, London 
1887, 228-234; D. Wilber, Afghanistan (Human 
Relations Area Files, New Haven 1956), 55; 
N. A. Kislyakov and A. Pershits, Narodi Predney 
Aziy, Moscow 1957, 23. 107, 124. (R. N. Frye) 
CAHAR MASALA [see nizamI c arudI SAMAR- 
KAND!] 

CAIN [see habil wa kabil] 



CAIRO — CALATRAVA 



CAIRO [see al-ijahira]. 

CAKJRDjf-BASHt. chief falconer, a high official 
of the Ottoman court. In the Fidnunndme of Mehem- 
med II (TOEM Supp. 1330 A.H., 12) he is mentioned 
among the aghas of the stirrup, immediately before 
the fashnaglr-bashl [q.v.]. During the 16th century 
the numbers and sub-divisions of the aghas of the 
hunt (shikar aghalarl) increased greatly, and the 
Cakirdit-bashl is joined by separate officers in charge 
of the peregrines, lanners, and sparrow-hawks 
(Shahindii-bashl, Doghandjl-bashl, and Atmad[adil- 
bashl). Until the time of Mehemmed IV (1058/1648- 
1 099/1687) the Doghandfi-bashi and his staff belonged 
to the Inner service (Enderun); the others to the 
outer service (Birun). During the 17th and 18th 
centuries the falconers dwindled in numbers and 
importance. 

Bibliography: Gibb and Bowen i/i, 347-8; 

Ismail Hakki Uzuncarsili, Osmanh Devletinin 

Saray Teshildh, Ankara 1945, 420 ff. 

(B. Lewis) 

CAKMAK, al-Malik al-ZAhir Sayf al-Din, 
Sultan of Egypt, was in his youth enrolled 
among the Mamluks of Sultan Barkuk. He gradually 
rose, till under Sultan Barsbay he became Chief 
hddiib [q.v.]. Chief Master of the Horse, and finally 
Atabeg (Commander-in-Chief). On his deathbed 
in 842/1438, Barsbay appointed him regent to 
his infant son al-Malik al- c Aziz YOsuf. The various 
divisions of the Mamluks, originating in the body- 
guards of the Sultans Barkuk, NSsir Farad], Mu- 
'ayyad Shaykh and Barsbay, were at enmity with 
one another and their sole aim was to obtain all the 
wealth and influence they could. In the confusion 
that arose the only course open to Cakmak was to 
seize the reins of government for himself. Sultan 
Yflsuf was deposed, placed in confinement in the 
citadel, retaken after an attempt to escape and finally 
taken to Alexandria and kept under a mild form 
of custody. Soon afterwards the resistance of the 
governors of Damascus and Aleppo also collapsed; 
they had been defending Sultan YOsuf's claims to 
further their own interests. The Syrian rebels 
were defeated, the leaders executed and Cakmak's 
supremacy was assured in 843/1439. Like his 
predecessor Barsbay [q.v.] Cakmak wished to 
make war on the Christians under pretence 
of checking piracy on the north coast and there- 
fore sent ships via Cyprus to Rhodes but the 
Egyptians had to return as the resistance offered 
by the Knights of St. John, who were well prepared, 
was too strong for them. In the years 846/1442 
and 848/1444 the Egyptians again made unsuccess- 
ful attempts to conquer Rhodes, and had finally 
to make peace with the Knights. Cakmak's foreign 
policy was a successful one; he was on good 
terms with all Muslim rulers and did not, like 
Barsbay, fall into the error of causing irritation 
by petty trickeries. Against the advice of his 
amirs, he allowed Timur's son Shah Rukh to 
send a covering for the sacred Ka'ba, although 
this was a privilege of the Sultans of Egypt (see 
the article baibars in EI 1 ). The populace was still 
so strongly incensed against the Mongols that 
they actually attacked an embassy which included 
one of Timur's widows. He was also on good terms 
with the Ottoman Sultan and the princes of Asia 
Minor. In his domestic policy, in Egypt itself, he 
was not quite able to put a stop to the mis- 
management of the state monopolies [see barsbay]. 
Jews and Christians were tormented with strictly 
enforced petty regulations. He could not restrain 



the arrogance and outrages of the Mamluks so that 
the only way he could protect women from them on 
the occasion of festivals was to forbid them to go 
out. He himself was an exceedingly frugal and pious 
man, liberal only to the learned, and thought no 
price too high for a beautiful book; he left but little 
property behind him on his death. Through his 
example the morals of the court improved. When, in 
the year 854/1453, he felt the approach of death — 
he was now over 80 years old — he had homage paid 
to his son 'Uthman whom the Caliph chose to be 
Sultan. The amirs and officials of the court and a 
large multitude of the people attended his funeral, 
contrary to the usual custom sincerely grieving at 

Bibliography: Weil, Chalijen, v, 215-248; 
Muir, Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt, 149- 
155; al-Sakhawi, al-Daw' al-Lami', iii, 71-74; Ibn 
Taghribirdi, al-Nudium, ed. Popper, vol. vii, 30 ff . ; 
al-Manhal al-Sdji, ed. Wiet, no. 838; Ibn Iyas 
(Bulak), passim. (M. Sobernheim) 

CAKMAK, Mustafa Fevzi, also called Kavakh, 
marshal in the Turkish army. Born in Istanbul in 
1876, he was the son of an artillery colonel. He 
entered the war academy (Harbiye, [q.v.]) where he 
became a lieutenant in 1895, joined the staff course, 
and was gazetted as a staff captain in 1898. After 
spending some time on the general staff, he was 
posted to Rumelia where he became successively a 
Colonel, divisional commander, and Army Corps 
Chief of Staff. He served on the staff of the army of 
the Vardar during the Balkan War, and during the 
World War saw service at the Dardanelles, in the 
Caucasus, and in Syria. He became a general in 1914. 
In December 1918 he became, for a while, Chief 
of the General Staff in Istanbul, and in Feb. 1920 
Minister of War. He used his position to send arms 
and give other help to the nationalists in Anatolia, 
and in April 1920 left with Ismet [Inonii] to join them. 
In May he became minister of defence and on 21 
January 192 1 was elected president of the council 
of ministers of the Ankara government, and was 
sentenced to death in absentia in Istanbul. On 
2 April 1921, after the second battle of Inonii, he 
was promoted full general by the Grand National 
Assembly, and became acting Chief of the General 
Staff as well as premier and defence minister. He was 
formally elected as Chief of Staff by the Assembly on 
12 July 1922, while Ra'uf Bey became premier. In 
October 1922, after the victory of the Turkish forces 
on the Sakarya, the Assembly passed a motion of 
thanks to him (together with Ismet and Kazim 
Karabekir Pashas), and promoted him marshal 
(Mushlr). He remained chief of the General Staff 
until his retirement, ostensibly under the age limit, 
in January 1944. In 1946 he was elected as an 
independent candidate on the Democrat Party list, 
and in August was nominated as opposition candi- 
date for the Presidency, receiving 59 votes in the 
Assembly, as against 388 for Ismet Inonii. In 1948 
he appeared as honorary president of the newly 
formed Party of the Nation (Millet Partisi). He 
died on 10th April 1950. 

Bibliography: Ibrahim Alaettin Govsa, Turk 
Meshurlan Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul, n.d., 90; 
Siileyman Kiilce, Maresal Fevzi Qakmak*, Istanbul 
1953; Elaine D. Smith, Turkey: Origins of the 
Kemalist Movement . . ., Washington 1959, 168-9. 

(Ed.) 
CALA [see BuraARA] 
CALATAYUD [see ual'at ayyOb] 
CALATRAVA ]see ijai/at rabAh] 



CALCUTTA - 



CALCUTTA (Kalikata), the capital of West 
Bengal and the largest city in India, situated about 
80 miles from the sea on the left or east bank of the 
Hugli, a branch of the Ganga (Ganges), which is 
navigable for the largest ocean vessels. A centre of 
rail, river and ocean traffic, and lying midway 
between Europe and the Far East, it is one of the 
busiest ports of the world. About five-sevenths of 
India's overseas trade is shared by Calcutta and 
Bombay, with Calcutta having the major share; 
about one-third of the country's organized factory 
industry is in its vicinity. It has a large international 
airport. Area, 32.32 sq.m.; pop. (March 1, 1951) 
2,548,677, a density of 139 persons per acre. In- 
cluding Howrah (pop. 433, 630) which is really a 
part of Calcutta, and the suburbs which are within 
half an hour's bus journey to the city, Calcutta has 
three and a half million people. 

The crowded metropolis of today grew out of a 
cluster of three mud villages at the end of the 17th 
century. Calcutta is first mentioned in a Bengali 
poem, Manasd-vijaya by Vipradasa (ASB text, 144) 
written in 1495, but the portion in which Calcutta is 
referred to is possibly a later elaboration. The first 
definitive mention of Calcutta then occurs in the 
AHn-i Akbari (Lucknow text, ii, 62), compiled about 
1596, as a rent-paying village in the sarkdr of Satgaon 
under the Mughal emperor Akbar. The foundation 
of the city occurred about a century later in 1690. 
The English merchants, who had been in Bengal 
for about fifty years, felt the necessity of a fortified 
place, and under the direction of Job Charnock and 
after two futile attempts after 1686 they finally 
settled at Sutanuti, the northern portion of present 
Calcutta, on 24 August, 1690. In 1696 the English 
were allowed to build a fort and two years later they 
secured permission from Prince c Azim, grandson of 
the emperor Awrangzlb, to rent the three villages of 
Sutanuti (north), Kalikata (centre) and Govindapur 
(south), which formed the nucleus of modern 
Calcutta. In 1707 Calcutta was made the seat of a 
separate Presidency. In 1717 the English were 
permitted by the emperor Farrukhsiyar to purchase 
38 villages in the vicinity of their settlement. The 
names of some of these 38 villages still survive in 
the street-names of the city today. In June, 1756 
Siradj al-Dawla, Nawwab of Bengal, captured it and 
during his temporary occupation he named it 
'Allnagar. Modern Calcutta dates from 1757 when, 
after the battle of Plassey (June), the English 
became virtual masters of Bengal; the old fort was 
abandoned and the present Fort William begun by 
Clive on the site of Govindapur. In 1772 the treasury 
of the province was transferred from Murshidabad 
to Calcutta, which in 1773 became the official 
capital of British India. It remained India's capital 
until 191 1 and that of Bengal as well until 1947. 

Though Calcutta is a creation of English rule, it is 
an important centre of Muslim life. On 1 March 1951 
Calcutta city had a Muslim population of 305,932 and 
including two of its immediate suburbs, Howrah and 
Garden Reach, Calcutta had a Muslim population 
almost equal to the entire population of Dhaka 
(Dacca), the capital of East Pakistan and the historic 
centre of Muslim activity. About 131,000 Muslims had 
left Calcutta on the eve of the census of 195 1 in view 
of the unsettled conditions of the time, and the census 
of 1961 is likely to show a considerable increase of 
Muslim population. Calcutta is an important centre 
of Muslim culture. The Calcutta Madrasa was 
founded in 1781 by Warren Hastings for the encour- 



agement of Islamic learning. It had among its 
Principals Islamic scholars of repute like H. Bloch- 
mann and Sir E. Denison Ross. The Asiatic Society, 
founded in 1784, possesses over 6,000 Arabic and 
Persian MSS. and has to its credit a large number 
of valued publications bearing on Muslim history and 
culture. The National Library has in its Buhar 
collection a good number of Arabic and Persian MSS. 
and has recently acquired the rich collection of the 
distinguished historian of Muslim India, Sir Jadunath 
Sarkar. The Indian Museum and the Victoria 
Memorial exhibit some rare and beautiful examples 
of Indo-Islamic paintings. The University of Calcutta 
has two Post-Graduate Islamic departments : 
(i) Arabic & Persian and (ii) Islamic History & 
Culture. In Calcutta lived the sons of TIpu Sultan, 
and the last king of Awadh (Oudh), Wadjid 'All Shah, 
who died in 1887. Of the Muslim monuments, the 
only one with any architectural pretensions is the 
mosque in Dharamtala St., built in 1842 by Prince 
Ghulam Muhammad, son of Tipu Sultan; the oldest 
are the Nimtala mosque (built some time after 1784), 
the mosque and tomb of Bhonsri Shah at Chitpur 
(1804) and Djumma Shah's tomb in Netadji Subhas 
(Clive) St. (1808). 

Bibliography: Ghulam Husayn Salim, Riydd 

al-Saldtin, Calcutta 1890-98; C. R. Wilson, Early 

Annals of the English in Bengal, vol. i, Calcutta 

1895; idem, Old Fort William in Bengal, 2 vols., 

London 1906; List of Ancient Monuments in 

Bengal, Calcutta, Bengal Secretariat Press, 1896; 

A. K. Ray, A short history of Calcutta, Calcutta 

1902; H. E. A. Cotton, Calcutta old and new, 

Calcutta 1907. (Sukumar Ray) 

CALDIRAN, the plain in north-western Persian 

Adharbaydjan, the western boundary forming part 

of the present-day frontier with Turkey (cf. Farhang-i 

DiughrdfiydH-yi Iran, iv (Tehran, 1330 shamsi), 154), 

which on the 2 Radjab 920/23 August 1514 was the 

scene of a decisive Ottoman victory over the 

Safawids. 

The campaign was launched by Selim I, despite 
the reluctance of his troops and military advisers, 
on the 23 Muharram 920/20 March 1514 as the first 
enterprise of his reign after he had secured his 
throne by the elimination of his brothers, and is 
properly to be regarded as the final response to 
those separatist tendencies which for over half a 
century had been manifesting themselves among the 
Turkish tribal elements of Anatolia in darwish 
revolts or in active support for pretenders of the 
Ottoman line, and which now threatened to draw 
the entire province into the Safawid orbit. The 
profound disquiet of the region may be judged from 
the mass executions and arrests of suspected dissi- 
dents which preceded the actual military operations, 
and the gravity with which this situation was 
regarded is to be inferred from the risks which Selim 
felt compelled to take in order to achieve a final 
settlement. Whether the Safawids had inspired this 
dissatisfaction by their subversive missionary 
activities or merely benefited from the prevailing 
anti-Ottoman sentiments by appearing as an alter- 
native hegemony is difficult to determine; but it is 
clear that the counterheretical allure which the 
Ottomans gave to their attack upon the ShiT 
Muslims of the east was but the facade to a starkly 
political purpose. 

The campaign, which seems to have been modelled 
on that of Mehmed II against Uzun Hasan in 1473, 
is described in detail in the journal preserved in 
Ferldun Beg, although the fundamental logistical 



problems of moving an army of the size attributed 
to the Ottomans across home territories where they 
could not live off the land are scarcely touched upon. 
But that these could be solved and that the fractious 
troops could be held under discipline throughout 
all the unfamiliar hardships of campaigning in these 
regions was certainly the most impressive display of 
Ottoman might that Anatolia had ever witnessed 
and far more overawing to Shah Isma'il and his 
supporters than the firearms and artillery which 
usually figure so prominently in the narratives as the 
reason for the Ottoman victory (cf. Lutfi Pasha's 
highly romantic account of Isnia'il's astonishment as 
contingent after contingent of Ottoman troops took 
the field). 

The campaign may be regarded as having succeeded 
in its primary object in that it neutralized for over 
a generation the attraction exerted on Anatolia from 
the east. The "scorched earth" tactics of the retreat- 
ing Safawids prevented any long occupation of their 
invaded territories, and although Tabriz was entered 
by the Sultan on the 17th Radjab/7th Sept., within 
a week preparations were made for returning to 
winter quarters at Amasya. From here the following 
year operations were begun in south-eastern Anatolia 
which were to bring an end to the semi-independent 
principality of the Dhu '1-Kadr-oghH around 
Elbistan and add definitively to Ottoman territory 
Diyarbekr and northern Kurdistan. 

Bibliography : Among the general histories of 
the Ottoman Empire, Hammer-Purgstall's is still 
the most circumstantial account of this campaign 
(ii, 392 ff.), Zinkeisen (ii, 566 ff.) and Jorga (ii, 
327 ff.) affording it but casual mention; 1. H. 
Uzuncarsili, Osmanh Tarihi, ii, Ankara 1949, 
246 ff. adds a diagram of the battle. The Ottoman 
historians: Kamal Pasha- zade, Tawdrikh-i Al-i 
'Othmdn, ix, Millet, Ali Emiri, no. 29, f. 35b, ff. ; 
'All, Kunh al-akhbdr, Suleymaniye, Es'ad Ef., 
no. 2162, f. 238a, ff. ; Sa c d al-DIn, Tddi al-Tawdrikh, 
ii, Istanbul 1279, 239 ff.; Lutfi Pasha, Tawarikh-i 
Al-i 'Othmdn, ed. 'All, Istanbul 1341, 206 ff.; 
$olak-zade, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1287, 359 ff-, give 
very much the same picture as presented by 
Hammer-Purgstall (who, however, did not use 
Kamal Pasha-zade and Lu{fl Pasha) which can be 
usefully supplemented in certain aspects by the 
various Selim-ndmes (a fairly complete repertoire 
of which is to be found in A. S. Levend, Cazavdt- 
ndmeler, etc., Ankara 1956, 22 ff.), the most 
important being those of Shukri, British Museum, 
Or. 1039, f. 62b ff. (repeated in Djawri, Millet, 
Ali Emiri, no. 1310, f. 54a ff., and Yusuf Efendi, 
Suleymaniye, Es'ad Ef., no. 2146, f. naff.,) 
Kashfl, Suleymaniye, Es'ad Ef., no. 2147, f. 31a if.; 
Sa'di b. c Abd al-Muta c al, Topkapi, Revan, no. 
1277, f- 64a ff.; Abu '1-Fadl b. Idris BitlisI, 
British Museum, Add. 24,960, f. 63b ff . ; Sudjudi, 
Topkapi, Revan, no. 1 284/1, f. 5b ff.; Djalal-zade 
Mustafa Celebi, British Museum, Add. 7848, 
f. i2obff. The documents in Ferldun Beg, 
Munsha'dt al-saldfin, i, Istanbul 1274, 396 ff. 
(correspondence, journal of the campaign, fath- 
ndmes) are of exceptional importance. The 
Persian sources (a full discussion of which is to 
be found in Ghulam Sarwar, History of Shah 
IsmdHl Safawi, Aligarh 1939, 3-16) seek to 
palliate the magnitude of the defeat and their 
accounts are coloured by this purpose; the most 
important is that of Khwandamir, Habib al-siyar, 
iv, Tehran 1333, 543 ff., whose version underlies 
those of Hasan Riimlu, Afisan al-Tawdrikh, ed. 



C. N. Seddon, Baroda 1931, 143 ff. (with various 
expansions) and Iskandar Beg MunshI, l Alam- 
drd-yi 'Abbdsi, Tehran 1341, 31 ff. (who, in 
addition to the above two, uses also Ghaffarl's 
Djahdn-drd). The dominant early European 
account is that of Paolo Giovio, Historiae Sui 
Temporis, Paris 1558, i, 133-163 ff. (an Italian 
translation of this section is given in F. Sansovino, 
Historia Universale dell' Origine, Guerre et Imperio 
tie Tiirchi, Venice 1654, ff. 323-360); also in 
Sansovino are the Vita di Sack Ismael, etc. by 
Teodoro Spandugino (ff. 132-140) and the Vita et 
Lcgge Turchesca by G. A. Menavino (ff. 17-75), 
who, although claiming to have accompanied the 
Turks on this campaign, gives a highly distorted 
account of its outcome (a Latin translation in 
P. Lonicerus, Chronica Turcorum, Frankfurt 1578, 
i. »■ 95-97)- The narrative in R. Knolles, The 
Generall Historic of the Turks, London 1621, 
505-515, while noticing Menavino, follows Jovius 
throughout, as does also that of T. Artus in his 
continuation of De Vigenere's translation of 
Chalcocondylas, L'Histoire de la Decadence de 
I'Empire Grec, Paris 1650, i, 358-374, though this 
does include, too, the accounts in J. Leunclavius, 
Historiae Musulmanae Turcorum, Frankfurt 1591, 
cols. 691-704, 742-745. P. Bizaro, Rerum Persi- 
carum Historia, Frankfurt 1601, is important only 
in that it contains the letter of H. Penia from 
Constantinople, dated 6 Nov. 1514, 275-278. The 
article by M. Tayyib Gbkbilgin in I A, fasc. 24, 
329-331, presents the familiar Ottoman version. 

(J. R. Walsh) 
CALENDAR [see anwa', ta'rIkh] 
CALICUT [see kalikat] 
CALIPH [see joialIfa] 
CALLIGRAPHY [see khatt] 
CAM (or Cham), A people of Malayo- Polynesian 
origin which settled before the Christian era on the 
southern coasts of the Indo-Chinese peninsula. The 
Cham appear in history at the end of the 2nd 
century A.D. with their foundation, in 192, of the 
kingdom of Champa [see sanf], which occupied the 
coastal provinces of present-day Viet-nam, from 
Quang-binh in the North to Binh-thuan in the South. 
Up to the 10th century Champa experienced a 
period of magnificence during which the Cham 
dynasties were able to extend their territories 
slightly and to develop their civilization. But during 
the following centuries the country came into open 
conflict with its Vietnamese and Khmer neighbours, 
and then suffered the Mongol invasions. These 
struggles, aggravated by internal revolts, quickly 
led Champa towards disintegration. In spite of a 
short period of victorious fighting during the reign 
of the famous Che Bong Nga (1360- 1390), and 
Chinese intervention on his side, the kingdom was 
nearing its end. In 147 1 the Vietnamese emperor 
Le Thanh Ton conclusively subjected Champa and 
it became a dependency of Viet-nam; a part of the 
inhabitants took refuge on Cambodian soil, and 
gradually it disappears from the history of the 
Far East. 

The Cham people, deeply affected by the culture 
of India, adopted its religion and writing in the 
second century. They practised Hinduism and 
Brahmanism up to the 15th century. 

Although the Muslims were already established 
in Champa from the middle of the 4th/ioth century 
(there is proof of the existence, from the 5th/ nth 
century onwards, of Arab trading < 
living in contact with the Cham), Islam v 



Cam — CAMEROONS 



seriously practised by the Cham until after the fall 
of their kingdom. 

To-day two-thirds of the Cham living in Viet-nam 
still practise Brahmanism ; the other third, together 
with the Cham who emigrated to Cambodia, are 
Muslims. In the absence of precise and up-to-date 
statistics, there are an estimated 15,000 Cham living 
in the south of central Viet-nam (the provinces of 
Phan-rang and Phan-thiet) and 20,000 living in 
Cambodia (on the banks of the Mekong). 

Cham society, originally matriarchal and organised 
in clans, adopted, under influence from India, the 
caste system and Hindu customs. The Cham, skilful 
craftsmen and experienced farmers, with a reputation 
as courageous soldiers, lived as pirates, raiding the 
neigbouring provinces and trading in slaves. Nowa- 
days they constitute racial minorities in process of 
assimilation. Apart from work on silk and metals 
and the cutting of precious stones, the Cham were 
outstanding builders. Cham architecture has left us 
numerous sites and monuments, of which most are 
unfortunately in extremely bad condition. Cham 
monuments are all identical in silhouette, a tower 
with diminishing stories, built in pink sandstone, 
terra cotta, and above all in brick. However their 
style is not uniform. Hindu motifs can be recognised 
in their decoration. These towers were religious 
buildings (the cult of Shiva) all of whose interior 
furnishings have disappeared. The scenes on the 
bas-reliefs again give concrete expression to the 
Cham's pronounced love of music, which has had 
a very deep influence on the music of Viet-nam. 
Bibliography: Jeanne Leuba, Les Cham 
d'autrefois et d'aujourd'hui, Hanoi 1915 (re-edited 
with the title Un royaume disparu, les Cham et 
leur art, Paris 1923) ; Georges Maspero, Le royaume 
du Champa, Paris 1928; Jean-Yves Claeys, In- 
troduction a I'itude de VAnnam et du Champa, in 
Bulletin des amis du Vieux Hue", Hanoi 1934. 

(G. Meillon) 
CAMALAL [see andi] 
CAMBAY [see kanbaya] 
CAMEL [see djamal] 

CAMEROONS, a former German colony on the 
west coast of Africa, now consisting of (a) an 
independent state, formerly under French trustee- 
ship, and (b) a territory at present (i960) under 
British trusteeship. It lies at the eastern end of the 
Gulf of Guinea, between Nigeria, Spanish Guinea, 
and former French Equatorial Africa. Area 503,600 
sq. km., 4,000,000 inhabitants, of whom 20,000 are 

Created as a result of German penetration from 
the Bight of Biafra towards Chad (1884-1910) and 
conquered by the Allied Forces between 1914 and 
1916, the Cameroons was divided in 1919 into a zone 
under British mandate (80,000 sq. km.) and a zone 
under French mandate (423,000 sq. km.). The first 
has in practice been integrated administratively 
with Nigeria, while the second has developed along 
distinctive autonomous lines. 

(a) Thanks to its geographical situation the former 
French Cameroons presents a remarkable assort- 
ment of climates and peoples, which make it as it 
were an intermediary zone between West Africa, 
Central Africa and Equatorial Africa. The relief 
map shows a narrow coastal plain separated from 
the forest plateau of the south by a range of fairly 
high mountains. North of the valley of the Sanaga 
the uplands and savannah country of Adamawa 
fall in a rugged escarpment to the Chad plain and 



the valley of the Benue. Along the Nigerian frontier 
a series of mountain ranges, including the Manen- 
gumba, Bamileke, Bamun, Alantika and Mandara 
massifs, culminates on the seacoast in the volcanic 
Mount Cameroon (4,070 m.). 

The population of the forest-covered south in- 
cludes pygmy hunters, Bantu and Bantu-type 
farmers and fishermen; in the central savannah and 
the Bamileke mountains, semi-Bantu farming 
peoples; in the uplands and the northern plains, 
'Sudanese' and 'Ubangians' of various origins; in the 
mountains, long-established palaeonigritic peoples; 
in all, 3,100,000 Africans and 15,000 immigrants. 

After the 1914-18 war, Cameroons was placed under 
a B Mandate by the League of Nations. In 1940, 
under Col. Leclerc, it rallied to Free France. In 1946 
the system of the mandate was replaced by 
that of the trusteeship of the United Nations, 
Cameroons becoming an Associated Territory of the 
French Union. In 1957 it was established as a State 
under trusteeship, possessing some degree of internal 
autonomy: the Prime Minister and his government 
were responsible to the Legislative Assembly sitting 
at Yaunde. A High Commissioner dealt with the 
spheres reserved to France — currency, defence, and 
public order. The administrative structure includes 
21 departments and some 60 arrondissements. 
Municipal administration is inspired by that of 
metropolitan France. The French government 
announced at the end of 1958 its intention of 
renouncing trusteeship and of recognising the in- 
dependence of the Cameroons on 1 Jan. i960; this 
decision, after arousing lively opposition in the 
United Nations Assembly from the Soviet block 
and certain Afro-Asian states, was carried through 
and made effective on the appointed date. 

The economy is predominantly agricultural 
(coffee, cocoa, vegetable oils, timber, cotton, 
bananas) with cattle husbandry important in the 
north. Current industrial development: electro- 
metallurgy at Edea, gold and diamonds in the east, 
tin in the west, petroleum in the south. Chief towns: 
the port of Duala (100,000 inhabitants), Yaunde, the 
capital (30,000), Garua capital of the north (15,000), 
Marua, Ngaundere, Edea, Nkongsamba, Fumban, 
Tchang, Kribi, Mbalmayo, and Ebolowa. 

The south is almost entirely Christianized: 
600,000 Catholics and 300,000 Protestants, with 
animist survivals, and a tendency toward the 
formation of syncretistic sects. 

Islam has some 600,000 followers in the northern 
plain, Adamawa and the Bamun massif. It seems 
to have penetrated the area about the 12th century, 
coming from the east (Wadai, Bagirmi) and the 
north-west (Kanem, Bornu), but experienced its 
period of great expansion only at the beginning of 
the 19th century, under the influence of the conquer- 
ing Fulani, successors of Uthman dan Fodio: his 
son Mohamman Bello and particularly his lieutenant 
Modibbo Adama (died 1847) who conquered Fumbina 
and gave it its present name of Adamawa. Adama 
took the title of Amiru {Amir) and made his 
capital at Yola (Nigeria) where the lamibe (Fulani 
chiefs) went to receive the investiture until the 
Franco-British conquest. His work was continued 
up to the beginning of the 20th century by the 
A mirs Mohammed Lawal, Sanda and Zubeiru; they 
were however not able to subdue the Kirdi (heathens) 
who took refuge in the mountains of the north. 

Since the European conquest, some groups of 
Muslim immigrants have arisen in the towns of the 
south, where they are butchers, peddlers, and shoe- 



CAMEROONS — CAMPANER 



makers. They are thought to number some 25,000. 
They do a little proselytising by marriage. 

Fulani influence prevails in the Islam of the 
Cameroons, with its tendency towards Mahdism. 
But, in addition to the 300,000 Fulani, there are in 
the north some Hausa, some Kotoko, and some 
Shua (or black Arab) Muslims of long standing, and 
Islam tends to spread among the pagan farmers of 
the plains and the Kirdi who have come down from 
the mountains. The Bamun of Fumban, long at war 
with the Fulani, saw their aristocracy converted by 
agreement or by force in 1917 by the Fon Njoya the 
Great who at this time took the title of Sultan and 
the name of Ibrahim. 

Higher Muslim education is little developed, and 
the modibbe (or malams) who wish to continue their 
studies have to go to Nigeria, Chad, or the Sudan. 

The Kadiriyya sect is the oldest, but not the most 
numerous; its principal centre is Garua. The 
Tidjaniyya sect has predominated since the convers- 
ion of Mohamman Bello, who received the wird of 
El Had] Omar about 1840; its adherents probably 
amount to some 300,000. Mahdism comes next in 
importance. Local mahdis appear every four or five 
years, but their influence is generally short-lived 
and localized. On the other hand, since the settlement 
of several thousand Fulani in the Sudan at the time 
of the British conquest of Nigeria, the Sudanese 
Mahdiyya has had numerous adherents in the 
Cameroons. 

Wahhabi influence is slight, exercised chiefly 
through the medium of former soldiers of the 
negro guard of King Ibn SaSid, nearly all Hausas. 
The Muslims have long remained aloof from local 
political trends. Precolonial institutions and hier- 
archies are better preserved among them than among 
the peoples of the south. Nevertheless, in contrast to 
the confessional and political divisions of the South, 
the westernized elite of the north have been called 
on to play an increasingly important role as arbi- 
trators, until, in 1958, a Fulani Muslim of modernist 
tendencies was appointed Premier of the newly 
formed State. 

Bibliography : Lembezat, Le Cameroun, Paris 

1952; Froelich, Cameroun-Togo, Paris 1956; 

Cardaire, Contribution a I'ttude de VI slam noir: 

I' I slam au Cameroun, Douala (Cameroons) 1949; 

Annual reports to SDN and UNO. 

(P. Alexandre) 

British Cameroons. This territory on the 
West Coast of Africa, between the Cameroon 
Republic on the east and Nigeria on the west, is 
that part of the old German colony of Kamerun 
which passed in 1919 into British control, first 
under a League of Nations mandate and subse- 
quently as a United Nations Trust territory. 
Following administrative practice, which is to some 
extent justified by real ethnic and cultural differen- 
ces, it is convenient to consider it as two distinct 

The Southern Cameroons [administrative capital 
Buea] has a total area of 16,581 square miles and a 
population of some 800,000. Until 1954 this territory 
was administered as an integral part of the Eastern 
region of Nigeria but a series of changes since that 
date have raised it to the status of a self-governing 
region within the Nigerian federation with its own 
regional government and a legislative assembly 
with a majority elected by universal adult suffrage. 
The political future of the region, which has not 
hitherto proved economically self-sufficient, is at 
present uncertain. The United Kingdom has under- 



taken to separate the administration of the region 
from that of the Federation of Nigeria by October 
i960, the date when the Federation assumes com- 
plete independence. A plebiscite is to be held not 
later than March 1961 to decide between incor- 
poration in Nigeria and reunion with the Cameroons 
Republic, the latter course being favoured by the 
present regional government. 

The tribal pattern of the territory exhibits a 
marked degree of political fragmentation. The bulk 
of its population, speaking a large number of Bantu 
and semi-Bantu languages, have their nearest 
affinities with neighbouring peoples in the Cameroons 
republic. The Tikor and Bali peoples who are 
dominant in the central grasslands have migrated 
into this area from the north-east in the last few 
centuries and their traditional culture is of the pagan 
Sudanic type. The Christian missions have a con- 
tinuous history in the area since the establishment of 
the Baptists at Victoria in 1858. The most reliable 
figures of missionary adherents show 58,000 Catholics 
and 65,000 Protestants but the number of those who 
have been strongly influenced by the missions is 
much greater. Islam is not numerically important. 

There are no known mineral resources of commer- 
cial value within the territory and no industry 
beyond the processing of palm oil and rubber. The 
country is overwhelmingly rural in character and 
even the largest towns, Mamfe and Kumba, have 
fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. Most of the exported 
cash crops of bananas, palm-oil, palm kernels and 
rubber are produced from the plantations admi- 
nistered by a government subsidised agency, the 
Cameroons Development Corporation. The growth 
of cash crops, especially cocoa, by individual small 
farmers is increasing with official encouragement, 
but the mass of the people in the interior are still 
engaged in subsistence agriculture as are those of 
the Northern Cameroons. 

The Northern Cameroons, an area of 17,000 
square miles with a population probably slightly 
smaller than the Southern Cameroons, is a narrow 
strip of territory more than 500 miles long but 
nowhere more than 80 miles wide which is divided 
into two by a "corridor" of Nigerian territory, 
some 45 miles wide, on either bank of the Benue. 
Administratively the territory has been completely 
integrated with the Northern Region of Nigeria. 
The greater part falls within the Adamawa Province, 
but the Dikwa emirate in the north, formerly a part 
of the old "empire" of Bornu is appropriately 
incorporated, as a division, in Bornu province and 
three districts in the south belong to the Benue 
province. By a plebiscite held under United Nations 
auspices in November 1959 the people of the territory 
have postponed the final decision as to whether or 
not it is to remain with Nigeria after independence. 
The ruling tribes, Kanuri and Shoa Arabs in Dikwa 
and Fulani in Adamawa, are strongly Muslim but 
much of the hill country has never fallen effectively 
under their influence and remains entirely pagan. 
There are Catholic and Protestant missions in 
Adamawa and a few thousand converts to Christianity 
have been made. [For an account of the religious 
history see the preceding section on the French 
Cameroons]. (D. H. Jones) 

CAMIENIEC [see kaminca] 

CAMPA.NER, a ruined city of Gudjarat in 
Western India, Lat. 22 29' N., long. 73° 32' E., 
about 78 miles south-east of Ahmadabad, taken by 
the Gudjarat sultan Mahmud Shah I 'Begada' on 
his conquest (889/1484) of the adjoining stronghold 



CAMPANER — CANAK-KAL'E BOGHAZl 



of Pawagarh, which had successfully resisted Ahmad 
Shah I in 821/1418. The Begada occupied Campaner 
forthwith, building a city wall with bastions and 
gates (called Djahanpanah; inscription EIM 1929-30, 
4-5), and a citadel (bhddar). He renamed the city 
Mahmudabad, and it was his favourite residence 
until his death in 917/1511; it remained the political 
capital of Gudjarat until the death of Bahadur 
Shah in 942/1536. When Gudjarat came under the 
Mughals after 980/1572 Campaner was the head of a 
sarkdr of 9 mahals (Jarrett, A'in-i Akbari, ii, 256; 
of 13 divisions, according to the Mir 7 dt-i Sihandari); 
it fell to the Marathas at the end of the 18th century, 
and came into British hands in 1853 ; almost deserted, 
it was not recolonized. 

Monuments. Of Mahmfld's seven-storeyed palace 
(Sat manzil) built in steps on the cliff edge opposite 
Pawagarh only the lowest storey remains; the other 
monuments other than the walls (cf. Bombay 
Gazetteer, iii, 307-8) are all mosques and tombs, 
which in their similarity exhibit a local style. The 
Diami' Masdjid, c. 929/1523, is inspired in plan by 
that of AhmadSbad [q.v.], 100 years older; but here 
there is a double clerestory in the liwan in the space 
of one dome only; the arcuate mahsura screen and 
the trabeate hypostyle liwan are well integrated; 
the side wings of the liwan are proportioned as a 
double square (8.5 by 17.0 metres); a zandna en- 
closure is formed by screening off the northernmost 
mihrdb; and the external surfaces, as in all the 
Campaner buildings, are the subject of rich plastic 
decoration — particularly the buttresses supporting 
each of the 7 sumptuous mihrabs. The other buildings 
— 10 mosques, many nameless tombs — are of similar 
style, characterized by refinement of decoration; 
the niches in the mindrs of the NaginS masdjid are 
of an exquisite marble tracery excelled only by 
that of Sidi Sayyid's mosque in Ahmadabad [q.v.]. 
The tombs use the arch more freely than the mosques, 
and their carved decoration is of consummate 
delicacy, skill and craftsmanship. 

Bibliography: J. Burgess, On the Muham- 
madan architecture of Bharoch. . . Champanir . . ., 
ASWI vi (= ASI, NIS xxiii), 1896 (text, measured 
drawings, plates); ASI Annual Reports, specially 
1925-6, 24-5, and 1929-30, 34-5; Bombay Gazetteer, 
iii; E. B. Eastwick, Champanir and Pawagadh in 
Indian Antiquary, ix (1880), 221-4; J. Fergusson, 
History of Indian and Eastern Architecture, ii, 242 ; 
E. B. Havell, Indian Architecture, 134-43; P. 
Brown, Indian Architecture {Islamic Period), 58-9. 

(J. Burton-Page) 
CAMPINA [see kanbaniya] 
CANAK-SAI/E BOfiHAzI (Canak-kale Bogazj) 
is the name now given in Turkish to the Darda- 
nelles. This narrow channel, which unites the 
Marmara and the Aegean Seas, has a length of about 
62 km. (Gelibolu-Cardak to Seddulbahir-Kumkale) 
and a width ranging from 8 km. down to 1250 m. 
(Canak-kale to Kilitbahir). The strait was known to 
the ancient Greeks as the Hellespont (6 'EXXtjcttov- 
tos, in Doric 6 'EXXaoTTOVTO?), a name that remained 
in usage amongst the Byzantines. It is called in some 
of the mediaeval Western sources and sea-charts 
Bucca Romaniae, Brachium S. Georgii (a term which 
denoted the entire channel separating Asia and 
Europe, i.e., embraced the Bosphorus as well as the 
Dardanelles), Bocca d'Aveo (Avido, Aveo, the 
ancient Abydos: "AfJuSo?) and also Dardanelo (cf. 
Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Hellespontos, and Tomaschek, 
17). To the Ottomans it was the Ak Deniz Boghazl, 



Kal c e-i Sultaniyye Boghazi and later Qanak-kal'e 
Boghazl. 

The more notable localities on or near the European 
shore of the Dardanelles are Bolayir, Gelibolu (i.e., 
Gallipoli, the ancient Kallipolis), Kilya (not far 
from the old Sestos), Eceabad (Edjeabad, formerly 
Maydos, i.e., the ancient Madytos), Kilitbahir 
(Kilid al-Bahr) and Seddulbahir (Sedd al-Baljr). 
Along the Asiatic shore are situated Qardak, Lapseki 
(the ancient Lampsakos-Lampsico, Lapsico, Lapsaco 
in the mediaeval Western sources), Canak-kale (near 
the old Abydos), Erenkoy and Kumkale (Kum 
Kal'e). 

Sultan Mehemmed II (855-886/1451-1481), in 
order to establish a more effective control over the 
Dardanelles, built new defences on either shore of 
the strait, amongst them a fortress close to the 
ancient Abydos. This fortress received the name of 
Kal c e-i Sultaniyye (according to Piri Re'is (Kitdb-i 
Bahriyye, 86), because a son of Mehemmed II, 
Sultan Mustafa, was associated with its construction. 
Cf. also Ibn Kemal, 100 = Transkripsiyon, 101, 
where it is called Sultaniyye). The town of Kal c e-i 
Sultaniyye counted amongst its inhabitants, during 
the 17th and 18th centuries, a considerable number 
of Armenians, Jews and Greeks. As a result of the 
establishment there (perhaps ca. 1740) of potteries, 
and of its subsequent reputation as a noted centre 
for the manufacture of earthenware, the town came 
to be known as Qanak Kal'esi (ianak = an earthen 
bowl), the older name falling out of current usage. 
Qanak Kal'esi belonged, in 1876, to the Ottoman 
wildyet of Djeza'ir-i Bahr-i Sefid and thereafter to 
the sandja& of Bigha. It is now the centre of the 
present province of Canak-kale. The town suffered 
much from fire in i860 and 1865, from the earthquake 
of August 1912, and from naval bombardment in 
1915 during the course of World War I. Qanak-kale, 
in recent years, has largely regained its former 
prosperity and was estimated, in 1940, to have 
24,600 inhabitants. 

The Ottoman Turks absorbed (c. 735-c 745/c 1335- 
c. 1345) into their own territories the emirate of 
KarasI [q.v.] and then, after the town had been 
ruined in the earthquake of 755/1354, established 
themselves at Gallipoli [see gelibolu], which served 
them as a point of departure for their subsequent 
conquest of Thrace. It was now, for the first time, 
that a Muslim state held control over the lands on 
either side of the strait. The Ottoman Sultan 
Bayazid I (791-805/1389-1403) strengthened the 
defences of Gallipoli (792/1390), further improve- 
ments being carried out there in the reigns of 
Mehemmed I (816-824/1413-1421) and Murad II 
(824-855/1421-1451). Ottoman control of the Darda- 
nelles was destined, however, to remain insecure, as 
long as the Sultan had no large and efficient fleet at 
his command: Christian naval forces sailed into the 
strait in 767/1366 (the "crusade" of Amedeo of 
Savoy, which brought about a brief restoration of 
Gallipoli to Byzantine rule), in 801/1399 (expedition 
of the Marechal Boucicaut to Constantinople), in 
819/1416 (the Venetian defeat of the Ottoman naval 
forces before Gallipoli) and again in 848/1444 (Papal 
and Venetian squadrons sent to the Dardanelles at 
the time of the Varna campaign). Sultan Mehemmed 
II (855-886/1451-1481), anxious to secure a more 
effective control of the Dardanelles, caused new 
defences to be built where the waters of the strait 
are at their narrowest, i.e., the fortresses of Kal c e-i 
Sultaniyye on the Asiatic, and of Kilid al-Bahr on 
the European shore. The manufacture and use of 



CANAK-KAL'E BOGHAZl — CANDERl 



fire-arms had now advanced to such a degree that 
the Sultan was able to furnish these new defences 
with large guns capable of firing across the channel. 
A restoration of the two fortresses was carried out 
in 958/1551 during the reign of Sultan Sulayman 
Kanuni (926-974/1520-1566). At this time the region 
of the Dardanelles was included in the eydlet of 
Pjeza'ir-i Bahr-i Sefid, i.e., it formed, together with 
some of the islands and coastal areas of the Aegean 
Sea, the province of the Kapudan Pasha or High 
Admiral of the Ottoman fleet. 

The fortifications along the shores of the Darda- 
nelles fell gradually into disrepair during the late 
16th and early 17th centuries. It was not until the 
Cretan War (1055-1080/1645-1669) that the Porte, 
under the threat of a Venetian irruption into the 
strait, initiated new measures of defence. Kal c e-i 
Sultaniyye and Kilid al-Bahr now underwent 
(1069-1070/1658-1660) a thorough restoration. More- 
over, new forts were built at the Aegean mouth of 
the Dardanelles-Sedd al-Bahr on the European, and 
Kum Kal'e on the Asiatic side of the channel. The 
danger arising from the presence of a Russian fleet 
before the Dardanelles during the Ottoman-Russian 
war of 1182-1188/1768-1754 led to the creation of 
new forts along the shores of the strait, this task 
being carried out under the guidance of the Baron 
de Tott. A further effort was made to establish a 
more modern system of fortification in the Darda- 
nelles towards the end of the reign of Sellm III 
(1203-1222/1789-1807). The fact that in 1221/1807 
an English fleet under the command of Sir John 
Duckworth forced a passage into the strait under- 
lined once more the urgent need for a complete 
modernization of the defences on the Dardanelles. 
Control of the strait was to become thereafter a 
matter of more than local concern, the status of the 
Dardanelles (and also of the Bosphorus) being 
regulated in a series of international agreements 
negotiated during the 19th and 20th centuries. Of 
more recent events associated with the Dardanelles 
it will be sufficient to mention here the Gallipoli 
campaign of 1915-1916 fought in the course of 
World War I. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khurradadhbih, 103 ff.; 
Yakut, i, 374; al-ldrisl, Nuzhat al-Mushtdk, trans. 
Jaubert: Giographie d'Edrisi, ii, 135, 301 ff.; 
Dusturname-i Enveri, ed. Miikrimin Halil, Istanbul 
1928, 25 ff.; Ibn Kemal {i.e., Kemalpashazade), 
Tevdrih-i Al-i Osman, VII Defter, ed. Serafettin 
Turan (Tiirk Tarih Kurumu Yaytnlarmdan, I. 
Seri, no. 5), Ankara 1954, 100 (= Transkripsiyon, 
ed. Serafettin Turan, Ankara 1957, 101); Piri 
Re'is, Kitdb-i Bahriyye, Istanbul 1935, 86 ff.; 
Sa c d al-Din, Tad± al-Tawdrikh, i, Istanbul A.H. 
1279, 54 ff.; Hadjdji Khalifa, Tuhfat al-Kibdr, 
Istanbul A.H. 1229, 130 ff.; Ewliya Celebi, 
Seydhatndme, v, Istanbul A.H. 1315, 301-322; 
Ducas, Bonn 1834, 19; Chalkokondyles, Bonn 
1843, 529 ff.; Critobulus, ed. C. Miiller, Fragmenta 
Historicorum Graecorum, v, Paris 1870, 146-147, 
151; N. de Nicolay, Navigations et Peregrinations, 
Lyon 1568, 52; M. de Thevenot, Relation d'un 
Voyage fait au Levant, Paris 1664, 32 ff. and 
141 ff.; P. du Fresne-Canaye, Voyage du Levant, 
ed. H. Hauser, Paris 1897, 159 ff.; G. J. Grelot, 
Relation Nouvelle d'un Voyage de Constantinople, 
Paris 1681, 3 ff., passim; J. Spon and G. Wheler, 
Voyage d'ltalie, de Dalmatie, de Grece, et du 
Levant, Lyon 1678, i, 203 ff.; Pitton de Tournefort, 
Relation d'un Voyage du Levant, Paris 1717, 
453 ff.; R. Pococke, A Description of the East, 



ii/2, London 1745, 102 ff., in, 143; Baron de 
Tott, Mlmoires sur Us Turcs et les Tartares, 
Amsterdam 1784, Pt. 3, 43 ft.; J. Dallaway, 
Constantinople, London 1797, 332 ft.; W. Eaton, 
A Survey of the Turkish Empire, London 1798, 
88 ff. ; A. Morellet, Constantinople ancienne et 
moderne et Description des Cdtes et Isles de I'Archipel 
et de la Troade, Paris An VII, ii/8, 146 ff. ; J. B. 
Lechevalier, Voyage de la Troade, i, Paris 1802, 
267 ff.; A. de Juchereau de St. Denys, Revolution 
de Constantinople en 1807 et 1808, Paris 1819, ii, 
53 ff.; F. de Beaujour, Voyage militaire dans 
VEmpire Othoman, Paris 1829, ii, 483 ff.; M. 
Michaud and M. Poujoulat, Correspondance 
d'Orient (1830-1831), Paris 1833-1834, i, 449 ff., 
ii, 1 ff. ; H. von Moltke, Brief e iiber Zustande und 
Begebenheiten in der Turkei aus den Jahren 1835 bis 
1839, Berlin 1877, 51 ff-, 68 ff.; W. Ramsay, The 
Historical Geography of Asia Minor, London 1890, 
152 ff.; Tomaschek, 3, 15 ff.; H. Hogg, Turken- 
burgen an Bosporus und Hellespont, Dresden 1932; 
F. Babinger, Beitrdge zur Fruhgeschichte der 
Tilrkenherrschaft in Rumelien (14.-15. Jahrhundert), 
Munich 1944, 39 ff. ; H. J. Kissling, Beitrdge zur 
Kenntnis Thrakiens im 17. Jahrhundert (Abh. K. M., 
xxxii/3, Wiesbaden 1956, 47 ff.; V. Cuinet, La 
Turquie d'Asie, iii, Paris 1894, 743 ff., 758 ff., 
765; Pauly-Wissowa, viii, Stuttgart 1912, cols. 
182-193, s.v. Hellesspontos; lA, s.v. Canakkale 
(Besim Darkot and M. C. Sihabeddin Tekindag). 
Bibliographical indications will be found in lA, 
s.v. Canakkale on (i) the geological, geographical 
and hydrographical characteristics of the Dar- 
danelles and (ii) the campaign of Gallipoli in 
1915-1916. Cf. also BocgAZ-ici, and Pearson, 
576-577 (nos. 18440-18474), passim, for references 
relating to the international Problem of the Straits 
during the i8th-20th centuries. (V. J. Parry) 
CANARY ISLANDS [see AL-aiAzA'm al- 
khalidat] 

CAND£Rl, town and old fort in north-central 
India, 24° 42' N., 78 9' E., on a tableland over- 
looking the Betwa valley on the east. Early references 
by al-BIruni (421/1030) and Ibn Battuta do not 
mention the fort and probably relate to a site some 
15 km. north-north-west known now as Bufhi 
[Urdu, 'old'] Canderl; here there are ruined Islamic 
fortifications among Hindu and Djayn remains, 
probably of the early 8th/i4th century, for although 
the city fell in 649/1251 to Ghiyath al-Din Balban, 
then na'ib of Nasir al-Din, whose aim was the seizure 
of booty and captives, it did not come into Muslim 
hands until c Ayn al-Mulk's defeat of the Radja 
Haranand in 705/1305. Four years later it formed 
the rendezvous for Malik Kafur's force before his 
march on Warangal in Telingana. The new Canderi 
seems to have been built by the Ghuri kings of 
Malwa in the early gth/isth century (inscriptions of 
Dilawar Khan and Hushang, in AR, ASl, 1928-9, 
128, and EIM 1943, 47), from whom it was wrested 
in the Malwa interramal struggles by c Ala' al-Din 
Shah Khaldji I in 842/1438 (Bayley's History of 
Gujarat [Ta'rikh-i Alfi], 123), and remained under 
the Khaldji's governors until the vacillating governor 
Bahdjat Khan revolted, supporting against Mahmud 
II his brother Sahib Khan, the puppet Muhammad II, 
and appealing to Sikandar Lodi of Dihll for support 
in 919/1513. Hereafter Canderi's position on the 
borders of Bundelkhand and Malwa led to its 
changing hands frequently: Sikandar's forces 
remained in occupation until 921/1515, but after 
their withdrawal it was seized by the Rana of 



CANDERI — CANKtRt 



Citawr who set up Medini Ray, Mahmud II's 
dismissed minister who had escaped the massacre 
at MandQ [q.v.], as governor; from him it was taken 
by Babur in 934/1528, who restored it to Ahmad 
Khan, son of Sahib Khan. Later it fell to the Purblya 
Radjput PQran Mai, who lost it to Shir Shah c. 947/ 
1540 but later retook it and massacred and degraded 
the Canderi Muslims, an act which brought retri- 
bution from Shir Shah in 950/1543 (Briggs's Ferishta, 
ii, 160). After Akbar had gained the suba of Malwa, 
Canderi became the headquarters of a sarkdr 
(AHn-i Akbari, i, 122), when it was said to have 
been a large city with 14,000 stone houses and over 
1200 mosques. Thereafter it passed frequently into 
Bundel hands, and after the early I2th/i8th century 
remained in Hindu possession. 

Monuments. The city is walled, with 5 gates, 
one of which is the KatlghatI hewn through the 
rock outcrop; the fort, which stands some 70 metres 
higher, is dependent for its water supply on a large 
tank at the foot of the hill, access to which is by a 
covered way. (Map in Cunningham, AS I, ii, Plate 
XCIII). The Diami c Masdjid is similar to that 
of MandQ with its tall domes over the liwan stilted 
between springing and haunch, but with the cornice 
supported by a row of serpentine brackets, a con- 
tribution of Gudjarat workmen; two tombs known 
as the madrasa and the Shahzadi ka rawda 
are of excellent workmanship in a similar style; 
probably somewhat earlier is the Kushk M ah a 11, 
a large square building with intersecting passages 
on each of the remaining four storeys which divide 
the interior into four quadrants, in the suburb of 
FatehabSd, 3 km. west, identified with the seven- 
storeyed palace (Sat manzil) whose building was 
ordered by Mahmud Shah I in 849/1445. At the 
western foot of the fort is an unattached gateway, 
the Badal Mahall darwaza, a triumphal arch 
between two tapering buttresses, somewhat over- 
ornamented. 

Bibliography: Cunningham, ASI, ii, gives 
historical sketch with references to original 
sources in 404-12 (mainly Ferishta). Also C. E. 
Luard, Gwalior State Gazetteer, i, 1908, 209-12. 
Earliest inscr., 711/1312, in Ramsingh Saksena, 
Persian Inscriptions in the Gwalior State in IHQ, 
i, 1925, 653, there assumed to be from New 
Canderi though this is not certain. On the monu- 
ments, Cunningham, op. cit.; M. B. Grade, Guide 
to Chanderi, Arch. Dept. Gwalior 1928; ASI 
Annual Reports, specially 1924-5, 163-4; Sir John 
Marshall, The monuments of Muslim India, in 
Cambridge History of India III, 1928, 622 ff. 
(J. Burton-Page) 
CANKIRI (earlier also known as Kianghri, 
Kankri, and popularly as Canglrl or Cengiri), the 
ancient Gangra (in Arabic sources Khandiara or 
Djandiara), a town in the north of Central Anatolia, 
40 35' north, 33 35' east, at the confluence of the 
Tatllcay and the Aclcay, a tributary of the Kizll 
Irmak, at an altitude of 2395 ft. (730 m.) ; since 1933, 
on the Ankara-Zonguldak railway (105 m. (174 km.) 
from Ankara). The town was once the capital of a 
sandiak (liwd 3 ) of the eydlet of Anadolu; after the 
Tanzimdt, it became the capital of a sandiak of the 
wildyet of Kastamonu; under the Turkish Republic, 
it is the capital of a wildyet (il) with 3 kazas 
(Cankin, Cerkes, and Ilgaz/Kochisar). 

It was known even in antiquity as a fortified place, 
and was occasionally used by the Byzantines as a place 
of exile. Later it again gained importance because of 



its impenetrable fortress in the battles with the Arabs 
and the Turks. The Umayyads repeatedly advanced as 
far as Khandjara in their raids against the Byzantines. 
They did this in 93/711-12 (al-Tabari, ed. de Goeje, 
ii, 1236; Ibn al-Athir, ed. Tornberg, iii, 457; al- 
Ya'kubl, ii, 350 who calls the town Hisnal-Hadld), in 
109/727-28 (al-Ya c kubi, ii, 395). and in 114/731-32 
(Bar Hebraeus, Ketdbd de Maktebdnut Zabne, ed. 
Bruns and Kirsch, ii, 125; compare also al-Tabari, 
ii, 1561, and Theophanes under the year 6224). 
When the Byzantines sacrificed the eastern border 
provinces as a result of their defeat near Malazgird 
(Manzikert) in 1071, the Saldjuks and the Danish- 
mendids divided the loot. The former settled after 
a short intermission in Nicea (Iznik) and Konya, the 
latter spread over the northern half of Asia Minor 
from Amasya to Kastamonu. Canklrl is mentioned 
as being among the conquests of the first Danish- 
mendids in 468/1075-76 (Hasan b. c Ali Tokadl (?), 
Ta^rikh-i Al-i Ddnishmand, in Husayn Husam al-DIn, 
Amasya tarikhi, Istanbul 1322, II, 286 ff.; Hezarfenn, 
Tankih al-tawdrikh, in ZDMG, 30, 470). In 1101, an 
army of crusaders left Constantinople for the region 
of the Danishmend-oghlu, in order to rescue 
Bohemund of Antioch whom these had captured at 
Malatya and imprisoned in NIksar. The army con- 
quered Ankara and advanced towards Cankirl 
(praesidium Gangara), but the attack failed, and 
shortly afterwards the army was completely routed 
near Amasya by the united Saldjuks and Danish- 
mendids (Albert of Aix, 1. VIII, c. 8; Ibn al-Athir, 
ed. Tornberg, x, 203; cf. ZDMG 30, 476; Chalandon, 
Les Comnenes, i, 224 ff.). The Comnene emperor John 
conquered Canklrl in 11 34, with the aid of heavy 
siege-weapons, after he had attacked it without 
success in the previous year (Chronicle oj Niketas, i, c. 
6, and particularly John Prodromos ; see Chalandon, 
op. cit., ii, 84 ff.); but shortly after the emperor's 
departure, the fortress was recaptured by the 
Danishmendids, never to return to Byzantine rule. 

Subsequently we find Canklrl in the hands of the 
Saldjuks of Konya (cf. Chalandon, passim). After 
the collapse of the Rum Saldjuk empire, (Anatolia), 
Canklrl became part of the region of the Candar- 
oghlu of Kastamonu. For a short time the town 
formed part of the empire of the Ottoman Murad I 
(this according to c Aziz Astarabadl, Bezm u rezm), 
later it was taken from the Candar-oghlu by 
Bayazld I in 795/^392-93 (according to Neshri) or 
in 797/1394-95 (according to 'Ashikpashazade, and 
the anonymous chronicles; Sa c d al-dln, i, 150), 
together with the greater part of their possessions. 
In 1401, Timur returned them and finally, in 822/ 
1439, they were annexed by Meliemmed I ( c Ashik- 
pashazade, Istanbul edition, 88 f., ed. Giese, 79; 
Leunclavius, Historiae Musulmanae Turcorum, 
Frankfurt 1591, col. 475; von Hammer's statements, 
GOR, i, 70, are based on a misunderstanding). During 
the subsequent peaceful period under Ottoman rule, 
Canklrl is very much in the background. Historians 
hardly mention it, though Ewliya Celebi (Seydhat- 
name, iii, 250 f.) and Katib Celebi (Djihan-numd, 
645), have left detailed descriptions of the town. 
The first mention by an European visitor dates 
from the years 1553-55, and is by Dernschwam (in 
his Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und 
Kleinasien, ed. Babinger, Munich 1923, 196). There 
is an eye-witness description by Ainsworth, almost 
300 years later. The town has also been visited and 
occasionally described by Russian and German 
travellers in Asia Minor. 

The fortress, which had been attacked by Arabs, 



CankIrI — Capar 



Danishmendids, Byzantines and Crusaders, is now 
in ruins. The only surviving monument is the grave 
of Karatekin, who conquered the town for the first 
Danishmendid prince, and is now revered as a saint. 
The prehistoric cisterns on the castle hill, which are 
described in detail by both Ewliya Celebi and 
Katib Celebi, have not yet been closely investigated, 
nor has the "Medjld Tash" (Tash Mesdjid), 
monastery of the Mewlewl Dervishes. This has 
inscriptions, which, according to what Ainsworth 
was told, date from the time of the Arab Caliphs. 
Some of the mosques are said to date back to 
Byzantine times (cf. Cuinet). The main mosque was 
built by Suleyman I in 996/1558-59. 

The extensive salt-mines near Maghara, 2 hours 
south-east of Canklrl (Cuinet, iv, 427, and Marcker), 
were already famous in Byzantine times. Their 
product was known as raYYprjviv 6cXa? (Nikolaos 
Myrepsos, at the end of the 13th century, in Du 
Cange, Glossar. ad scriptores med. et inf. Graec). 
Even today this salt is still being mined in the same 
way (at a rate of 3000 to 5000 tons a year.) The 
great earthquakes which have repeatedly shaken 
the town (the most recent in February 1944), were 
already mentioned in mediaeval times. Al-Kazwini, 
Athdr al-Bildd, ed. Wiistenfeld, 368, mentions one 
such catastrophe which destroyed the town in 
August 1050. 

According to Texier, the number of inhabitants in 
Canktrl in the middle of the 19th century was 16,000, 
predominantly Muslim. Amongst the inhabitants 
there were not more than 40 Greek families. In 1839, 
Tshihatsheff estimates about 1800 houses, 40 oi 
them Christian. For the end of the 19th century, 
Cuinet gives the following figures: 15,632 inhabitants, 
amongst these 780 Greek and 472 Armenian. The 
Sdlndme of Kastamonu gives the number of 
inhabitants as 11,200, Leonhard (1903) as 25,000 in 
5000 houses, J. H. Mordtmann about 30,000 in 
5000 houses, amongst these 150 Greek and 50 
Armenian families, who probably left after the 
First World War. The 1950 census gave the 
following figures: the town of Canklrl 14,161, the 
kaza 73,402, and the vilayet 218,289 inhabitants 
Bibliography: (apart from that already 
mentioned in the article) : Ritter, Erdkunde, 
xviii, 353 ff.; Le Strange, 158; W. Ramsay, The 
Historical Geography of Asia Minor, London 1890, 
258; Pauly-Wissowa, vii, 707 and 1258; W. F. 
Ainsworth, Travels and Researches in Asia Minor 
. . ., London 1842, i, 109 ft.; Ch. Texier, Asie 
Mineure, 617; v. Flottwell, Aus dem Stromgebiet 
des Qyzyl-Yrmaq (Halys), in Petermanns Mittei- 
lungen, Suppl. no. 114 (1895), 38 f. and 50 (with a 
plan of the ruins of the fortress); G. Marcker in 
Zeitschrift der Ges. f. Erdkunde, 34 (1899), 368 f. 
and 373; R. Leonhard, Paphlagonia, Berlin 1915, 
66 and 120 (with illustrations); V. Cuinet, La 
Turquie d' Asie, Paris 1894, iv, 551 ff. ; the year- 
books (Sdlndmes) of the wildyet of Kastamonu 
since 1286/1869-70; I A, iii, 357-359 (Besim 
Darkot). (J. H. Mordtmann-[Fr. Taeschner]) 
CANNANORE [see kannanur] 
CAO {(dm Persian transcription of Chinese ts'au), 
name given to the paper currency that was in circu- 
lation in Iran for about two months in the autumn of 
the year 693/1294. The Cao was introduced at the 
instigation of the Chief and Finance Minister of the 
Ilkhan Gaykhatu (1291-95), Sadr al-DIn Ahmad b. 
c Abd al-Razzak Khalidi or Zindjanl, following the 
example of China, and was issued for the first time, 
according to Rashld al-DIn, on the 19th Shawwal 



693/i3th September 1294, according to Wassaf and 
others somewhat later, namely in Dhu '1-Ka c da/ 
23rd September— 22nd October, at Tabriz and other 
provincial capitals where it was manufactured and 
distributed by the so-called Cao-Khdnas, specially 
constructed for the purpose at considerable expense. 
This new currency however met with very great 
opposition and the result was that trade and 
industry came to a standstill, the towns became 
depopulated and the country headed towards 
complete ruin, so that after two months the paper 
money had to be withdrawn from circulation in 
favour of the old coins. 

The Cao, made of the bark of the mulberry- tree, 
was oblong in shape and, in addition to some Chinese 
signs, bore the shahdda. Underneath this was the 
name "Irlndjln turci" (transcription of "Rin-6 c en 
rdorje" meaning "very costly pearl") which had 
been given to Gaykhatu by the Tibetan Bakhshls, 
and, inside a circle, the designation of the value: 
one (or one half) up to ten dinars. Besides this, these 
"bank-notes" — according to the continuator of the 
work of Bar Hebraeus — bore the red impression of 
the state seal in jade (the Altamga), granted by the 
Great Khan to the Ilkhans. As regards the method of 
printing, it may be assumed that this was done by 
means of wooden blocks. 

Bibliography : K. Jahn, Das iranische Papier- 
geld, ArO, x (1938), 308-340; B. Spuler, Die 
Mongolen in Iran', 1955, 88-89, 301-302, and 
the sources and publications listed in these two 
works. (K. Jahn) 

CAPANOfiHULLARf [see Supplement and 
derebey]. 

CAPAR (Capar), the eldest son of Kaidu [q.v.] and 
great grandson of the Mongol Great Khan Ogedey 
(Uk/gatay: regn. 1229-41), after his father's death 
in 700/1301 and his own succession to the throne 
on the Imil in the spring of 702/1303 (Djamal Karshl 
in W. Barthold, Turkestan. Russian ed. i, 1900, 138), 
he fought in the beginning continually against the 
claims of Kubilay's successors upon the Great 
Khanate, considering it his own prerogative as one 
of Ogedey's descendants, who were the central 
"protectors of the genuine Mongol tradition". In 
August 1303, together with Duwa, the Khan of 
Caghatay's Ulus, he submitted to the Great Khan (the 
emperor of China) by means of an embassy to 
Khanbaligh (Peking). Thereby a plan for a Mongol 
federation with full freedom of movement for trade 
was to be realised. In September 1304 negotiations 
were made from China concerning it with the 
Ilkhan Oldjaytii [q.v.]. In fact, the federation did not 
last: with the aid of Chinese troops Duwa forced 
Capar out of his Ulus in West and East Turkestan, 
and succeeded him there. After Duwa's death 
(1306-7) Capar attempted to regain these provinces, 
but could not hold his own against Duwa's son Kebek 
(Turkish Kepek = "bran", cf. IbnBattiita, ii, 392) and 
was forced in 1309 to flee to China and the court 
of the Great Khan. Thereupon a Kuriltay in the 
summer of 1309 confirmed the almost complete 
disintegration of Ogedey's Ulus, whose inheritance 
was for the most part taken over by the Caghatay 
line (cf. the article Cingizids, II, beginning, and III). 
According to Rashld al-DIn (ed. Blochet, Djdmi* 
al-tawdrlkh, ii, 9), Capar looked "like a Russian 
or a Circassian", apparently no longer of pure 
Mongol stock. 

Bibliography: Wassaf, lith. Bombay 1269/ 
1852-53, 449/56, 509/21; KashanI, Ta'rikh-i 
Sultan Uldjaytu, (MS. Paris, Suppl. Persan 1419) 



Capar — CATALDJA 



fo 21V-27V. — W. Barthold, 12 VorUsungen . . 
Berlin 1935, 186 ff., 199/202; Barthold, Fot 
Studies in Central Asian Hist., Leiden 1956, 
128/32; R. Grousset, V Empire des steppes, Paris 
1939. 362 ff.; B. Spuler, Die Mongolen in Ire 
Berlin 1955, 107, 232, 451 (with further bibl.). 
Concerning the Mongol Federation, cf. W. Kotwicz, 
Les Mongols, promoteurs de Vidie de la paix univer- 
selle au dibut du XIII' siecle, in Rocznik Orien- 
talistyczny, xvi (1950), 428/34. (B. Spuler) 

CAPAROGHULLARI [see capanoghullarI, 
Supplement] 

CAPITULATIONS [see imtiyaz]. 
CARACUEL [see karakay] 
CARAVAN [see azalay and kafila] 
CARAVANSERAI [see fundus] 
CAREJOY [see amul] 
CARLOWICZ [see karlofca] 
CARMONA [see 
CARNATIC [see 
CARPETS [see kali] 
CARTHAGENA [see kartadjanna] 
CASABLANCA [see al-dar al-bayda 5 ] 
CASHNA-GlR, in Persian, 'taster', title of an 
official, generally an amir, at the court of the Muslim 
sovereigns (including the Mamluks) from the time 
of the Saldjukids. It is not always clear in what way 
he is connected with the overseer of the food, 
kh w dnsaldr ; perhaps the two are often confused. 
The title does not appear to be found, even in Iran, 
under previous dynasties, although caliphs and 
princes did undoubtedly have overseers for their 
food, and even had it tasted before they eat, as the 
dishes were always suspected of being poisoned. The 
term Cdshna-gir is also found as the name of a kind 
of crystal decanter (al-Tanukhi, Nishwdr, viii, ed. 
Margoliouth, Damascus 1930, 150). 

Bibliography: I. H. Uzuncarsih, ^Osmanh 
Devleti Teskildhna Medhal, Istanbul 1941, index. 

(Cl. Cahen) 
CASHNAGlR-BASHi chief taster, a high official 
of the Ottoman court. Already under the Saldjukids 
and other Anatolian dynasties the (ashnagir, amir 
iashnagir or amir-i dhawwdk appears among the 
most important officers of the Sultan. Ibn Bibl 
(Al-Awdmir al-'-AldHyya, edd. Necati Lugal and 
Adnan Sadik Erzi, Ankara 1957, 164) mentions the 
Iashnagir together with the mir dkhur and the amir 
madjlis. In the Kdnunname of Mehemmed II {TOEM 
Supplement 1330 A.H. n-12) the lashnagir-baM 
appears as one of the agha% of the stirrup, in the group 
headed by the agha of the janissaries. He follows 
after the Mir-i c Alam, Kapld^i-bashi, Mir dkhur and 
Cakirdjt-bashi, and precedes the other aghas of 
boluks [q.v.]. A document of 883/1478-9 lists 12 
dhawwdkin (tasters) as subordinate to their chief 
Sinan Bey (Ahmad Refik, Fdtih dewrine e a'id wethi- 
kalar, TOEM, no. 49/62, 1335-7, 15)- Later the 
numbers of tasters employed rose considerably, 
reaching as high as 117 ( c Ayn-i 'All, Kawdnin-i 
Al-i 'Othmdn, 97). In the 18th century, D'Ohsson 
mentions only 50, and gives the cashnagir-bashi a 
much lower rank, in the 5th class of the outside 
service (biriin), under the Commissioners of Kitchens. 
By this time he has clearly fallen in status, and has 
responsibilities more strictly related to the prepa- 
ration of food. 

Bibliography: Ismail Hakki Uzuncarsih, 
Osmanh Devleti Teskildhna Medhal, Instabul 1941, 
88; idem, Osmanh Devletinin Saray Teskildti, 
Ankara 1945, 426-7; Gibb-Bowen i/i, 348; 
D'Ohsson, Tableau, vii, 22-3. (B. Lewis) 



CASTILLE [see kashtala] 
CASTRO GIOVANNI [see kasr yani] 
CATALEJA (Catalca, ancient Metra). 1. 41 08' N, 
28 25' E. Thracian capital of the most rural of 
the 17 kadd's in the wildyet of Istanbul, 56 km. by 
asphalt road and 71.41 km. by rail (the station lies 
2.3 km. NE of town) WNW of Istanbul. Catalca 
borders the Kara su (ancient Athyras) stream at an 
altitude of 255 feet near the centre of a range of 
hills forming the backbone of the fortified "Catalca 
Lines" extending from the Black Sea at Karaburun 
to the Marmara at Buyiikcekmece. Catalca was 
taken from the Byzantines by Murad I in 775/1373. 
The fortifications were built during the Russo- 
Turkish war of 1294-5/1877-8, but were passed 
without fighting by the Russians in their advance to 
San Stefano. The Catalca Lines were a rallying 
point for Mahmud Shewket Pasha's forces which 
put down the abortive counter-revolution at Istan- 
bul in April 1909. In November 1912 retreating 
Turkish troops repulsed the Bulgarians at Catalca. 
The fortifications were reconditioned but saw no 
action in the 1914-18 and 1939-45 World Wars. 
Since 1950, Turkish forces have been substantially 
withdrawn with adverse economic consequences for 
the district. Some promise of producing oil wells 
and a proposed atomic reactor may counteract 
this trend. In 1955 the population was growing fast 
with 5,534 in town and 58,988 in the kazas 3 other 
nahiye's of Buyiikcekmece, Hadimkoy (Boyalik) and 
Karacakoy, and in its 67 villages. Population 
pressure on the land area of 1684 sq. km. is causing 
litigation. The district produces beets, sunflowers, 
grapes, vegetables and cattle. In 1953 there were 
only four small industries, some 30 shops, 2 
elementary and 1 middle schools in Catalca. 

2. Catalca is also the Ottoman name of Pharsala, 
a town and kadd> in Thessaly 60 km. SE of Trikala, 
captured in 799/1397 by Bayazld I (Hammer- 
Purgstall, i, 250). According to Shams al-DIn SamI 
(Kdmus al-AHdm, iii, 1867) it had a population of 
5,000 under Ottoman administration and boasted 
6 mosques, a medrese, many tekke's, notably that 
of Durbali Baba, the Bektashi and 91 villages in a 
fertile plain. 

3. Catalca is also the name of a village in the 
kada? of Nizip (Nisib) in the wildyet of Gazi Antep 
(GhazI 'Ayntab). The word Catal, or fork (cf. 
Tamklariyye Tarama Sdzliigii, i, Istanbul 1943, ii, 
1945, 213) figures in 82 names of inhabited places 
in Turkey (Tiirkiye'de Meskun Yerleri Kilavuzu, i, 
Ankara 1946, 240-1). 

Bibliography: Cuinet, Turquie d'Asie, iv, 
map between 594-5, coordinates inaccurate; I. H. 
Danismend, . . . Kronoloji, i, 54-5, ii, 343, i v , 302, 
passim; F. S. Duran, Buyuk Atlas, Istanbul/ 
Vienna, n.d. (1957 ed. ?), 28; Encyclopaedia 
Britannica, 1956 ed., v, 314 ; Great Britain, 
Admiralty, I.D. 1129, A Handbook of Turkey in 
Europe, London, n.d. (1919 ?), Map 1 : 800,000, 
passim; idem, B.R. 507. Turkey, i, London 1942, 
passim; F. F. Greene, Report on the Russian Army 
and its campaigns in Turkey 1877-1878, New 
York 1908, 362-3; 427-8; Iktisat ve Ticaret Ansi- 
klopedisi, v, 340; Istanbul Sehri Istatistik Yilhgi 
1948, 6; de la Jonquiere, Histoire de V empire 
Ottoman, Paris 19 14, ii, 79, 408; E. Z. Karal, 
Osmanh Tarihi vi, 127; Mehmet Ali, Catalca 
Wildyeti, Istanbul 1341/1925; Mustafa Reshid 
Pasha, Bir wethika-i ta'-rikhiyye Catdldja miitareke 
mudhdkerdti, Istanbul, 1335/1917; E. Pears, Forty 
Years in Constantinople, New York 1916, 322, 



CATALDJA — CAWGAN 



328, 342; Tiirkiye Ytlhgt 1948, 94; Vatan Memleket 
Ildveleri, Istanbul 1953, sv., Istanbul I, 3, 9; 
T. C. Basvekalet Istatistik Umum Miidiirlugii, 
1955 Genel Niifus Saytmt, Telgrafla Ahnan 
Neticeler, Ankara 1955, 6. (H. A. Reed) 

CATANIA [see sikilliya] 
CATEGORIES [see maijOlat] 
CATR [see mizalla] 
CAUCASUS [see sabs] 
CAUSE [see c illa] 

CA'CSH (modern Turkish: favus). A term used 
by the Turks to indicate (a) officials staffing the 
various Palace departments, (b) low-ranking military 
personnel. The word is met in Uygur, where it refers 
to a Tou-kiu ambassador; Mahmud Kashghari 
defines it as 'a man who controls promotion in army 
ranks, and supervises the maintenance of discipline'. 
The word cdHsh passed from the Pecenegs and 
Saldjukids to the Turks (cf. the [liyai; T^aouoio?, 
chief of the imperial messengers of the Lascari and 
Paleologi). The Persians used it as a synonym for 
sarhang and durbdsh, and under the Arabs it became 
variously did'ush, shdHsh, shdwish, and shd'ush. It is 
still seen in the latter form in N. Africa, where it 
means a court usher or mace-bearer. 

Under the ancient Turks, the Saldjukids, the 
AyyQbids, and the Mamluks, the idtush formed a 
privileged body under the direct command of the 
ruler, and often appointed to a special r61e. Under 
the Ottoman Turks, the id'ushes of the Dlwan were 
part of the official ceremonial escort when the Sultan 
left the palace, or when he was receiving viziers, 
foreign ambassadors etc. The Sultan or Grand 
Vizier also used them as ambassadors and envoys 
to convey or carry out their orders. The cd'ush 
bashl, chief of the id'ushes of the Dlwan, acted as 
deputy to the Grand Vizier, particularly in the 
administration of justice; being a court official, he 
was a member of the "aghas of the stirrup". The 
id'ushes of the Dlwan were either paid out of 
treasury funds or allotted ze'dmets or arpalibs. 
Furthermore, in the odiafr of the Janissaries, the 
5th Orta consisted of 330 cd'ushes, men already of 
long service, under the command of a bdsh-id'ush. 
The ranks of (d'ush and id'ush wekili were used 
in the cavalry and navy at the beginning of the 
19th century. When the army was reorganized in 
1241/1826, a id'Ush held the equivalent rank of a 
sergeant, and the system remains the same to 
this day. 

In certain religious sects and orders {e.g., Yazldi 
and Rifa c i), the title id'ush corresponded to a 
grade in the hierarchy of the sect. There were 
also id'ushes in the guilds, where they were re- 
sponsible for seeing that the rulings of the Guild 
Council were enforced. 

Bibliography: Important bibliography con- 
tained in the article 'favus' by M. F. Kopriilii, in 
lA, iii, fasc. 25, 362-369. Additional works: 
Gibb-Bowen, I/i, 1950, index; L. Brehier, Les 
Institutions de I'Empire byzantin, Paris 1949, 148. 

(R. Mantran) 
CAWDORS (or Djavuldur), a Turcoman 
tribe, the first settlers of which came to Khwarizm 
in the 16th and 17th centuries, the bulk following in 
the 1 8th century. After the wars against the Khanate 
of Khiwa, a proportion of them was driven off to the 
Manglshlak peninsula, whence some clans emigrated 
to the steppes of Stavropol'. Part of the tribe sub- 
mitted to Khiwa and settled permanently in 
Khwarizm. 
It is now a sedentary tribe with a population of 



some 25,000, in the Nukhus area (Autonomous 
Soviet Socialist Republic of Kara-Kalpakistan). 
[See: tOrkmen]. (Ed.) 

CAWGAN (Pahlawl: iubikdn; other forms: 
iuygdn (attested in Ibn Yamin); iulgdn (cf. Ml, in 
Vullers, Lexicon persico-latinum; compare Arabic 
sawladian); Greek: T^uxavlov, French: chicane), stick 
used in polo (boh: Tibetan for 'ball', introduced into 
England around 1871); used in a wider sense for 
the game itself, (guy-u) iawgdn bdzi, "game of (ball 
and) Iawgdn"; also used for any stick with the end 
bent back, particularly those for beating drums. The 
iawgdn is not the same as the mall (malleum), which 
is a hardwood sledge-hammer. According to Quatre- 
mere (Mamluks, i, 123), the sawladian, a bent stick, 
was used for mall (polo), and the diukan (iawgdn), 
with a hollow scooped out of the end, for rackets; but 
Van Berchem (C.I. A. Jerusalem-ville, publ. IFAO, 
1923, 269, n. I) raises the objection that al-Kal- 
kashandl does not make this distinction. The game 
originated in Persia, and was generally played on 
horseback, though sometimes on foot (iawgdn 
piydda bdzi, testified by the Akbar-ndma, quoted by 
Quatremere, 130). The earliest reference to it is in 
the short historical romance, Kdrndmagh-i Ardasher-i 
Pdbhaghdn ("Deeds and exploits of Ardashir") 
written in Pahlawl in the early 7th century: Ardashir 
(Noldeke, 39) and his grandson Ohrmizd (id., 68) 
excelled at the game; the latter passage is reproduced 
almost word for word in al-Tabari (quoted by 
Quatremere, 123), and put into the form of a poem 
by Firdawsl (Shdhndma, tr. Mohl, v, 274), but 
in both texts Ohrmizd is replaced by his father 
Shapur. Quatremere's detailed and learned note 
provides many quotations: from Cinnamus, on the 
popularity of T^uxdviov in Byzantium (122); from 
the Aghdni and al-Mas c udI, on the sawladian (124); 
from the Kdbus-ndma, on the dangers of the game 
(125) and the notable accidents it had caused (ibid., 
and 127, 129); from Abu Shama, on its suitability 
for keeping soldiers and horses in good physical 
condition; from various other writers (its popularity 
with the Mongols, Kurds, and rulers of Egypt) 
(126-28); on the metaphorical use of guy, iawgdn and 
sawladian in prose and poetry (130-132). To these 
literary texts many more could be added, but it 
suffices to mention the references to Firdawsl (tr. 
Mohl, especially vii, 224; and F. Wolff, Glossar zu 
Firdosis Schahname, under goy and iSgdn), Nizami 
(Khusraw u Shirin: description of a game between 
two teams of female players, led respectively by 
the king and his favourite), Sa c dl (cf. Masse, Essai 
sur Saadi, 228), a poem of Hafiz (Diwdn, ed. 
Kazwini-Ghani, no. 271, and ed. Khalkhali, no. 268, 
v. 6), and above all the short mystical poem of 
c ArifI (15th century), Guy u Cawgdn (see Bibl.). The 
game began by one of the players throwing the ball 
as high into the air as possible; another caught it 
and did the same thing, and thus the ball passed from 
team to team (there were originally four players in 
each team; see Firdawsl, op. cit., ii, 250 ff. and 288). 
The Kdbusndma (cf. R. Levy, A Mirror for Princes, 
London 1951, 86) kept the same number of players, 
"in order to avoid a dangerous scramble". Anthony 
Sherley gave a brief description of the game at the 
end of the 16th century, when he was at the court 
of the Shah 'Abbas (quoted by Sykes, 341); 12 
players divided into two teams, and each carried 
a long-handled iawgdn no thicker than the finger. 
Chardin (approx. 1675) described the game as 
follows: "the object is to get the ball through the 
opposing side's posts, which are at the end of the 



CawgAn — Cay 



pitch and through which one can pass (Voyages, iii, 
181); ... as the stick (lawgan) is short, the riders 
must bend below the level of the pommel .... and 
strike the ball on the gallop; the game is played 
between teams of 15 or 20 players" (440). A similar 
account is given in the early 19th century by 
Malcolm (History of Persia, i, 299 n.) ; both he 
and Chardin remark on the shortness of the 
lawgan, and here they are at variance with Sherley. 
But the information given by Sherley on the position- 
ing of players and posts and the size and shape of 
the mallets agrees with the pictures on two 16th 
century miniatures, one in the British Museum 
(MS. Add. 27257, fol. 107), the other in the Imperial 
Persian Library (reproduced in "Iran", publ. by 
New York Soc. in conjunction with UNESCO). They 
illustrate the text from Nizami's Khusraw and, 
Shirin (mentioned above); one can clearly see the 
lawgdn's long thin handle and convex end (lawgdns 
of the same shape can be seen in the Victoria and 
Albert Museum, Salting Bequest miniature, no. 1228, 
1 6th cent., and another miniature reproduced in 
Rene Grousset, Civilisations de VOrient, i, 243, 16th 
century). In the British Museum miniature (Add. 
27257) the mallets have circumflex-shaped heads; 
another 16th century miniature (H. d'Allemagne, 
Du Kurdistan au pays des Bachktiaris, i, 160) reveals 
both the above head and also the hammer type, 
with tapering handles. Others were shaped rather 
like a golf club; see A. Sakisian, La miniature 
persane, fig. 48 (dated 1410, Shlraz school). An 
even earlier shape is mentioned by Cinnamus (quoted 
by Quatremere, 122: "stick with a large round end, 
inside which small cords are intertwined" — it was 
thus a sort of racket) and by the Inshd? (quoted by 
Quatremere, ibid., "a stick with a bulging conical 
head made out of wood", i.e., "convex"; mahdudba 
should be corrected to mahduba) ; this short spoon- 
shaped lawgan figures on a modern miniature of 
Indo-Persian style, signed and dated (Sykes, 336); 
another Indo-Persian miniature, more realistic, of 
the 18th cent., is contained Kuhnel, Miniatur- 
malerei in Islam. Orient, pi. 112. The text of the 
InsM? (and of two others, Nuwayri and Khalil 
Dhahiri, quoted by Quatremere) concerns the 
djukanddr, an official responsible for the care of 
the lawgdns and for the conduct of the game. The 
coat of arms (two curved lawgdns placed back to 
back) of this officer is known from the inscriptions 
and coats of arms, on the one hand, of a madrasa in 
Jerusalem (built by Il-malak, djukanddr to the 
Mamluk sultan of Egypt, al-Malik al-Nasir, 1340), 
and of a lantern inscribed with the name of the 
same person, preserved in the Istanbul Museum 
(studied by M. van Berchem, C.I. A. Jerusalem-mile, 
266-270, publ. IFAO, Cairo 1923), and on the other 
hand, of the tomb of a djukanddr (d. at Maragha, 
1328) of the Egyptian sultan KalS'un (A. Godard, 
Athdr-e Iran, i, 1936, 144-149, fig- 101 & 103). 
According to Sykes, the political chaos following 
the fall of the Safawids resulted in the disappearance 
of the game, and now it is played only in certain 
parts of India; Sykes claims to have reintroduced 
it into Tehran ca. 1897. 

Bibliography : Makrlzl; Histoire des sultans 
mamlouks de VEgypte, trans. M. Quatremere, i, 
121, n. 4; Geschichte des ArtachSir i Pdpakdn, 
tr. from the Pahlawi by Noldeke, (Beitrdge z. 
Kunde der Indogerman. Sprachen, Festschrift 
Benfey, Gottingen 1879, iv, 22 ff.); A. Chris- 
tensen, VIran sous les Sassanides, 416, n. 4 
(ref. to Inostrantzev) ; Pseudo-Djahiz, Livre de 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



la Couronne (trans, by Ch. Pellat), 101-102; 
Ibn Kutayba, 'Uyun al-Akhbdr, Cairo ed., i, 
133-134; ed. Brockelmann, 166-167, unreliable 
and difficult text: advice to the players); J. J. 
Modi, The Game of Ball-Bat-chowgangui — among 
the ancient Persians, as described in the Epic of 
Firdowsi, in J[R]ASB, 1891, vol. xviii, 39 ff . ; 
'Arifi, The Ball and the Polo Stick (Guy tchilgdn) 
or Book of Ecstasy (Hdlndme), R. S. Greenshields 
ed., London 1931 (reviewed by H. Mass6, with 
trans, of certain extracts, in J A, vol. ccxxiii 
('933)> 137-141; P. M. Sykes, Ten Thousand 
Miles in Persia or eight years in Iran, London 
1902, chap, xxix; Syria, vol. xiii, 208, n. 3. On 
the djukanddr and his coat of arms: Yakoub 
Artin Pacha, Contribution d I'etude du blason en 
Orient, London 1902, 131 ff. and reproductions of 
10 lawgdns; L. A. Mayer, Saracenic Heraldry, 
Oxford 1933, index (s.vv. jukdnddr and polo- 
sticks (jukdn). On the present rules of the game: 
Encyclopaedia Britannica (s.v. Polo). (H. Masse) 
CAY. Tea appears to be mentioned for the first 
time in an Arabic text by the author of the Akhbdr 
al-Sin wa'l-Hind (ed. and transl. by J. Sauvaget, 18), 
under the form sdkh, whereas al-Biruni, Nubadh fi 
Akhbdr al-Sin, ed. Krenkow, in MMIA, xiii (1955), 
388, calls it more correctly dja'. It was introduced 
into Europe towards the middle of the 16th century 
by the Dutch East Indies company; but it is only 
in the middle of 17th century that its use spread, 
particularly in England. 

In Morocco the first mention of tea dates back to 
1700. It was a French merchant, with business 
contacts in the Far East, who introduced it to the 
sultan Mawlay Isma'il. For a long time this com- 
modity remained rare and expensive. At first the use 
of tea was known only to the bourgeoisie, but it 
afterwards spread to all classes of society. In Morocco 
mint tea has become the national drink. Its proper- 
ties, and the ceremonies of its preparation and 
consumption have been the subject of several poems 
in Arabic and Berber ; at the court of the sultans of 
Morocco a special corps of officials, called mwdlin 
dtdy, was formed to prepare it. 

In Morocco, in Mauretania, and in the departments 
of Oran and Algers, the name of tea is dtdy. Tunisia 
and the department of Constantine use tdy. In Libya 
shdhi is found; this perhaps represents the Eastern 
Arabic shay, contaminated, by popular etymology, 
with the root sh-h-w. 

The radical tdy certainly seems to come from the 
English 'tea', but with the pronunciation (tei) which 
this word had until about 1720, when it rhymed 
in fact with 'obey' and 'pay' (cf. Yule, Hobson- 
Jobson, 1903, 905). It is known that it was English 
merchants who introduced the use of tea in Morocco, 
and that for a long time they kept a virtual monopoly 
on its importation. 

As for the prefix a-, which figures in western 
Maghrib! names, it must represent the Berber 
definite article in the masculine singular. Indeed, in 
Morocco and Tlemcen, its presence dispenses with 
the use of the Arabic definite article. Therefore the 
word dtdy was probably borrowed through Berber; 
it is established that in the 17th century the prin- 
cipal centres for importation were Agadir and then 
Mogador, which are situated in Berber-speaking 
country. [For Cay and Caykhdna in Persia and 
Central Asia, see supplement]. 

Bibliography : J. L. Miege, Origine et deve- 
loppement de la consommation du thi au Maroc, in 
Bulletin iconomique et social du Maroc, xx (1957), 



Cay — CeCens 



377 (includes a bibliography on the subject); 

W. Marcais, Textes arabes de Tanger, 215; L. 

Brunot, Textes arabes de Rabat, Glossary, i; P. 

Odinot, Le Monde Marocain, 158; E. Levi- 

Provencal, Les manuscrits arabes de Rabat, 115, 

n° 339; Justinard, Les Ait Ba 'Amrdn, in Villes 

et Tribus du Maroc, viii (1936), 57). 

(G. S. Colin) 

CECENS, name given by the Russians to a 
Muslim people living in the valleys of the southern 
tributaries of the Sunja and Terek Rivers in the 
Central Caucasus (native name = Nakhcio or 
Veynakh). 

The Cecens belong to the linguistic family of the 
Ibero-Caucasian peoples; their language forms with 
Ingush, Batzbi and Kistin a special group rather 
close to that of the Daghistani languages. 

The Cecens are the descendants of autochthonous 
Ibero-Caucasian tribes which were driven back and 
kept in the high mountains, between the pass of 
Daryal and the valley of Sharo-Argun, by the Alains. 
Nearly all their history until the 18th century is 
unknown; we know only that it is in the 16th 
century that their tribes of shepherds began to 
emigrate into the piedmont which today forms the 
northern part of the Cecens country (in Russian 
"Cecnya"). At first subject to the Kabard princes 
[q.v.], they made themselves independent in the 
18th century, a little before the arrival of the 
Russians. 

Sunni Islam of the Hanafi school penetrated into 
their country only from the 17th century, both 
through Daghistan and Crimea, but until the middle 
of the 18th century it remained rather superficial; 
it was firmly implanted only at the end of the century 
thanks to the influence of the Nakshbandls. Among 
their western neighbours, the Ingush [q.v.], it was 
implanted still later, in the first half of the 19th 
century. At the beginning of the 20th century some 
traces of animism still persisted (cult of the patron 
spirit of the clan). 

At the time when the first Russian detachments 
appeared, the Cecens were divided into clans, of which 
some were grouped together in tribes: Micik, Ickeri, 
Aukh, Kist, Nazran, Karabulakh, Ghalghay (this 
latter gave birth later to the Ingush nation). The 
term "Cecen" was applied by the Russians to the 
whole of these tribes in the middle of the 18th 
century from the name of the "Cecen" aul on the 
river Argun where, in 1732, there occurred the first 
combat between a Russian detachment and the 
natives. The Russian advance toward the south 
began in the middle of the 18th century and was 
accelerated after the annexation of Eastern Georgia 
in 1801 ; it was slow and methodical, marked by 
the construction of fortresses, the establishment of 
Cossack colonies and the destruction of the villages 
of the natives, who were driven always back toward 
the high mountains. The Cecens offered fierce 
resistance to the Russian advance. A popular 
movement, directed by the Shaykh Mansur Ushurma, 
burst out in 1785 and was crushed only in 1791. In 
the first half of the 19th century the Cecen country 
became the principal bastion of the imamate of 
Shamil (cf. Daghistan and Shamil), and the 
Russian domination was imposed only in 1859; 
it was moreover marked by frequent revolts, of which 
the most important, that of 'Alibek Aldamov of 
Simsiri in 1877, lasted a year and spread to all the 
Cecen country. In 1865, an important group of 
Cecens, nearly 40,000, emigrated to Turkey. On the 
eve of the revolution of 1917, the Cecen country was 



pacified and partially colonized by Russian colonists 
(especially Cossacks) in the plains of the north. 
Moreover, the discovery of the petroliferous strata 
at Groznty attracted a growing number of Russian 
workers (10,000 in 1905, more than 20,000 in 1917). 

Until the Revolution, Cecen society preserved a 
very archaic proto-feudal social structure, less 
developed than that of their Daghistan and Kabard 
neighbours. The great patriarchal family of 40 to 
50 people maintained its position almost everywhere 
as also the rigorously exogamous clans, taipa, 
gathering together the descendants of a common 
ancestor. Finally, Cecen society did not recognize 
any division into social classes, all the Cecens con- 
sidering themselves as uzdens, "nobles". 

Soviet Cecnya. — After the October Revo- 
lution, the Cecen country was the last bastion of 
native resistance against the Soviet regime (Imamate 
of Uziin HadjdjI, cf. Daghistan); on 20 January 
1921, it was included in the Mountain Republic 
(Gorskaya Respublika), and on 30 November 1922 
upper Cecnya was set up as the Cecen Autonomous 
Region. On 7 July 1924 the Ingush country situated 
to the west of Cecnya was, in its turn, transformed 
into the Ingush Autonomous Region (cf. Ingush). 
On 4 November 1929 the lower country with Grozniy 
was included in the Cecen Autonomous Region. In 
January 1934, the two autonomous regions were 
joined into one, the Cecen-Ingush Autonomous 
Region, which was transformed on 5 December 1936 
into the Cecen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist 
Republic. Ou 25 June 1946 a decree of the Supreme 
Soviet of the U.S.S.R. abolished the Republic, and 
Cecen and Ingush people were deported to Central 
Asia (the same decree affected other Caucasian 
peoples: Balkars, Karacays [qq.v.]). On 9 January 
1957 a new Supreme Soviet decree rehabilitated the 
deportees and re-established the Cecen-Ingush 
Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, authorizing 
the survivors to return to their country between 
1957 and i960. 

At present, the Cecen-Ingush A.S.S.R. (area 
19,300 sq. km.) has a total population of 700,000 
inhabitants (1958), the Cecens representing as yet 
only a minority. 

The census of 1939 counted 407,724 Cecens, of 
whom roughly 30,000 were in the A.S.S.R. of 
Daghistan and the rest were in their own Republic; 
the Ingush numbered 92,074 in the western part of 
the Republic (the high valleys of Asa, Sunja, and 
Kambileyka). The capital Grozniy, a big industrial 
centre (226,000 inhabitants in 1926), is an almost 
entirely Russian city. 

The Cecen-Ingush now form a "nation", divided 
into two "nationalities" very closely related to one 
another. In fact, nothing distinguishes these two 
peoples except the fact that the Ingush have taken 
only a negligible part in the Shamil movement. They 
speak very similar languages, Ingush being simply a 
dialect of Cecen. The Cecen language properly 
speaking is divided into two dialects — Upper Cecen 
(or Caberloy), spoken in the nountains, and the 
Lower Cecen of the plains; this latter, the basis of 
the written language, is endowed with a Latin 
alphabet (after a fruitless attempt to transcribe 
Cecen into Arabic characters). For its part, Ingush 
was established as a written language in 1923 (based 
on the Lower Ingush dialect of the plains) and also 
transcribed into Latin characters. In 1934, after the 
fusion of the two Autonomous Regions, Cecen and 
and Ingush, the two written languages were unified 
into a single language — "Cecen-Ingush", written 



CeCens — Celebi-zAde 



from 1938 in a Cyrillic alphabet. At present, they 
are once more officially separated. The new Cecen- 
Ingush literature has developed only during the 



t per 






Bibliography: N. E. Yakovlev, Voprosl 
izuieniya Celenyt zev i ingushey, Groznly 1927; 
A. R. Berge, Cetn ya i (eientzi, Tiflis 1859; and 
Shamil i Cetnya, in Voennly Sbornik, St. Peters- 
burg 1859, ix; D. D. Mal'sagov, Celeno-Ingush- 
skaya dialektologiya i puti razvitiya Ceteno- 
Ingushskogo literaturnogo (pis' mennogo) yazlka, 
Grozniy 1941; and Kul'turnaya rabota v Celine i 
Ingushii v svyazi s unifikatziey alfavitov, Vladi- 
kavkaz 1928; A. Dirr, Einfuhrung in das Studium 
der Kaukasischen Sprachen, Leipzig 1928. 



peninsula, which was one 


of the areas of early 


Christianization, and the 


south-western peninsula, 


where Islam also started it 


penetration in the 16th 


century, the island rema 


ned inaccessible to the 


influence of foreign religio 


ns until the second half 


of the 19th century. A n 


w Christian community 



then came into existence in Central Celebes, inhabited 
by the Jo-Radja. It is said that this community 
suffered a great deal from the military activity of 
the Dar al-Islam movement after Indonesia became 
a republic in 1949; reliable information is lacking, 
however. The Muslim community of the south- 
western peninsula is not very different from those 
elsewhere in Indonesia; some details on its history 
are given under Makasar. For a general discussion 
of Indonesian Islam cf. djawa. (C. C. Berg) 

CELEBl (Turkish), "writer, poet, reader, sage, 
of keen common sense" (thus Mohammad Khol in 
Khuldsa-i c Abbasi, in P. Melioranskiy, Zapiski 
VostoCnago OtdUeniya, xv, 1904, 042; similarly 
Ahmed Wefik Pasha in Lehdie-i 'Uthmdni, i, 1876, 
482). It is a term applied to men of the upper classes 
in Turkey between the end of the 13th and the 
beginning of the 18th century, as a title primarily 
given to poets and men of letters, but also to princes 
(thus all the sons of Bayazid I (d. 805/1403) were 
given it). An Adharbaydjanl poet of the gth/i5th 
century, Kasim-i Anwar (died 835/1431-2) uses 
Celebi also in the sense of the mystical term 'Beloved', 
i.e., God (C. Salemann in Zapiski Vost. Old. xvij, 
1907, XXXIV). Heads of an order were also called 
Celebi; it was applied to the head of the Maw- 
lawi [q.v.] order from the time of Djalal al-DIn 
Ruml's successor, Celebi Husam al-DIn (died 1284/ 
683 [q.v.]) right into the 20th century. According 
to its usage, the word would thus correspond 
roughly to the Persian Mirza [q.v.] from amir-zdda. 
In its secular meaning the word has been replaced by 
Efendi [q.v.] in the Ottoman empire since ca. 1700. 
Occasionally, Celebi also appears as a proper name. 
In Syrian and Egyptian Arabic, shalabi/dialabi today 
has the meaning of 'barbarian'. 

There has been no satisfactory explanation of the 
origin of the word. The following have been sug- 
gested: 1) as late as the 7th/i3th (!) century, borrowed 
by the Nestorian Mission from the Syrian selibha 
'cross', which was subsequently taken to mean 
a worshipper of the crucifix (Ahmed Wefik Pasha, 
Lehdje, loc. cit.); the same, though taken over con- 
siderably earlier: Viktor, Baron Rosen in Zapiski 
Vost. Old. v, 305 if.; xi, 310 ff.; with additional 
source references also found in P. Melioranskiy, 
Zapiski Vost. Old. xv, 1904, 036 ft. ; cf. also Menges, 
as in the bibliography; the same, but taken over 



in Anatolia, perhaps through Kurdish intermedia- 
tion (cf. below, no. 4): Nikolay N. Martinovitch, 
JOAS 54 (1934), 194-9 (although the Nestorians never 
played a role in Anatolia) ; 2) from the Arabic djalab, 
pi. djulbdn, "imported slave", a separate body in the 
Mamluk period in Egypt, which was specially 
trained in administrative work, Woldemar, Frh. 
von Tiessenhausen in the Zapiski, xi, 1898, 307 ff. ; 
3) from the Greek xaXklenr,!; "beautifully speaking, 
singing, writing", hence, as early as Byzantine 
times, "of high rank": thus Celebi would appear to 
have developed in Anatolia: V. Smirnov in Zapiski 
xviii, 1908, 1 ff. (according to a private communica- 
tion from F. Dolger, 3/I/1959, the meaning "of 
distinguished rank" is, however, not verifiable in 
Greek): 4) taken from the Kurdish theleb "God", 
thelebi "noble lord, wandering minstrel" which, 
in turn, had come into that language "from a 
non-Indo-Europian language" : this is the explanation 
given by Nik. Jak. Marr in Zapiski xx, 1910, 99/151, 
and it is based on his Japhetic theory; 5) from the 
Anatolian Turkish talabjldldb "God" (there are 
examples in the 13th- 15 th centuries in Mansuroglu, 
and in later centuries current particularly among 
the Yiiriiks [q.v.], a word which, according to 
Muhammad Kho'I, Khuldsa-i ' Abbasi [excerpt from 
Mirza Mahdl Khan, Sengldkh] comes from the Greek. 
K. Foy, in MSOS, Westasial. Studien, ii, 124; 
P. Melioranskiy in the Zapiski, xv, 1904, 042; W. 
Barthold also favours this view (in which case the 
development would be opposite to that of the Iranian 
word khvadhai "lord" > khuda "god"); 6) Man- 
suroglu (see bibliography) is undecided, but he does 
not believe in the foreign origin of the word. — 
Several of these attempts at a derivation (1, 2, and 4 
in particular), seem impossible and far fetched. 
Though the word is apparently of Anatolian origin, 
there is no evidence of its Greek descent [as — on the 
contrary— Efendi]. It seems doubtful whether Ibn 
Battuta (ed. Defremery and Sanguinetti, ii, 270), 
means "Greek" in his mention of the meaning of 
the word Celebi "in the language of Rum" (thus W. 
Barthold), or whether this is merely a reference to 
its use in Anatolia. To the Greeks (such as G. 
Phrantzes, Chron. 70), the word Celebi appears 
Turkish. 

Bibliography: The most recent survey of 
the etymology is by M. Mansuroglu, in the 
Ural-Altaische Jahrbiicher, xxvii, 1955, 97/99; 
E. Rossi in Turk Dili Arashrmalari Yilhgi: 
Belletcn 1954, 11/14; K. H. Menges in Supplement 
to Word VII, Dec. 1951, 67/70. Concerning the 
Greek sources of the word, G. Moravcsik, Byzan- 
tino-Turcica', Berlin 1958, ii, 311. 

(W. Barthold-[B. Spuler]) 
CELEBI EFENDI [see djalal al-din, mawlana] 
CELEBI-ZADE (or KuCuk celebi-Zade) Isma'il 
c Asim Efendi, 18th century Ottoman historian, poet 
and shaykh al-isldm. His familiar name (lakab) derives 
from his father Kucuk Celebi Mehmed Efeudi 
(Sidiill-i '■Othmani, iv, 205) who was "foreign secre- 
tary" (re'is iil-kuttdb) for about ten months in 1108- 
09/1699 (Rashid, TaMkh, ed. 1282, ii, 387, 421). He 
was born in Istanbul, and, from the statement of 
Miistaklm-zade Siileyman Efendi (Tuh/e-i Khattdftn, 
Istanbul 1928, 650) that he was 77 years of age at 
the time of his death, his birth should be fixed about 
1096/1685 about 1096/1685. His contemporary, 
Salim Efendi (Tedhkire-i Shu'-ard, Istanbul, 1315, 
452) says that he was given the grade of mulazim 
by Faydullah Efendi in 1 108/1696-97, but, as M. 
C. Baysun suggests (lA, fasc. xxv, 371b), this was 



CELEBI-ZADE — Ceremiss 



probably an honorary degree conferred on the boy 
of twelve out of respect for his father's position 
— an action quite in character for this notoriously 
simonistic shaykh al-islam. (cf. Na'ima, Ta'rikh, 
ed. 1280, vi, Supp., 6-7. It is probable that the 
mustakillan of Selim's text should be corrected to 
mustakbilan, "in anticipation"). His teaching career, 
all of which was passed in Istanbul, began in 
1120/1708 at the madrasa of Ken'an Pasha, from 
where he advanced to the Dizdariyye (1125/1713), 
the Ahmed Pasha in Demir Rapt (1130/1718), the 
c Arifiyye (1131/1719) and finally (1135/1723) the 
madrasa founded by his father-in-law, the kadi 
'■asker c Omer Efendi, in Molla GuranI (Salim, op. cit. 
and Isma'il c Astm, Ta'rikh, ed. 1282, no). On 
28 Ramadan 1 135/5 April 1723, he was appointed 
official historiographer [wakd'i'-niiwis) in succession 
to Rashid Efendi, which post he filled until about 
II43/I730 when his patron, the Grand Vizier 
Ibrahim Pasha, was sacrificed to the rebels and his 
favourites driven from office (cf. Ahmad III). In 
1145-46/1732-33, he was kadi of Yefli Shehr (Larissa 
in Thessaly); in 1152-53/1738-39. ° f Bursa; in 
1 157-58/1744-45, of Medine; and in 1161-62/1748-49, 
of Istanbul. His next appointment did not come 
until 1170/1757, when he was made kddi c asker of 
Anatolia for one year; and on the 5 Dhu '1-Ka c da 
1172/30 June 1759, he attained the ultimate dignity 
of shaykh al-islam, in which office he died after 
eight months (28 Djumada II 1173/16 Feb. 1760). 
He was buried next to his father-in-law, c 6mer 
Efendi, in the courtyard of Molla GuranI (Hafiz 
Huseyn Efendi Ayvansarayi, Ifadikat al-Diewdmi 1 , 
Istanbul 1291, i, 208). 

His history (twice printed as a supplement to that 
of Rashid: Istanbul 1153 and 1282) covers the 
period 1135-41/1722-29, and although, even by the 
standards of the official histories, notably super- 
ficial and frequently little more than a court chronicle, 
it has some of the virtue of its defects in being a 
wholly characteristic expression of the frivolity and 
complacency of the so-called Tulip Period of Ottoman 
history. In his verse he uses the poetic signature 
(makhlas) 'Asim; and while his stature as a poet is 
overshadowed by such great contemporaries as 
Nedim, Seyyid Wehbl and Neyll, nevertheless, his 
diwdn (lithographed, Istanbul 1268), with its 
graceful language and delicate sententiousness, has 
always been regarded as one of the masterpieces of 
this period in which Ottoman diwdn poetry finally 
develops its own recognizably authentic voice. His 
abilities and range as a prose writer can be better 
appreciated from his collected letters (Milnshe'dt: 
Istanbul 1268) than from his history, where he 
deliberately models his style on that of Rashid 
Efendi. His only other surviving work is a trans- 
lation from the Persian commissioned by Damad 
Ibrahim Pasha of the Sefdret-ndme-i Cin of Ghiyath 
al-DIn al-Nakkash (Browne, iii, 397; M. F. Koprulu, 
MTM, ii (1331), 351-68) under the title '■AdidHb al- 
LatdHf (ed. C A1I Eralri, Istanbul 1331)- A Mawlid 
risdlesi attributed to him by Miistaklm-zade (op. 
cit. 651) is otherwise unknown. 

Bibliography: The only reliable biographical 
information is in the notice by M. C. Baysun 
already referred to (but on 372a, 1. 3, for cemdziyel- 
evvel read, after Salim, Djumada II). Babinger, 
293, is a not entirely exact translation of the 
Sidiill-i '■Othmani, i, 366, which itself contains 
errors. Both Djemal al-DIn, Ayine-i Zurafd', 
Istanbul 13 14, 45 and Rif c at Efendi, Dawhat 
al-MeshdHkh, Istanbul n.d., 101 derive from 



Wasif, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1219, i, 179. In addition 
to Salim, op. cit., Safal (Tedhkire, Millet, C A1I 
Emlrl, 771), 279 and Ramiz (Addb-t Zurafd', 
Millet, C A1I Emirl, 762), 173 are contemporary 
opinions of his poetry. Apart from the short 
article of c Ali Djanib, Ifaydt, i, no. 20 (1927), 
3-5, no study has been made of his diwdn, which, 
moreover, requires re-editing from the Bayezld MS., 
no. 5644, with marginal corrections in his own 
hand. Sadeddin Niizhet Ergun, Turk $airleri, i, 
108-m, contains extracts from some of the 
sources mentioned above; references to Fatln, von 
Hammer, Gibb, etc. may be found in Babinger. 

(J. R. Walsh) 
CELEBI ZADE EFENDI [see sa c Id efendi] 
CENDERELI [see djandarlI] 
CEPNI, an Oghuz tribe, which holds an 
important place in the political and religious history 
of Turkey, and in the history of its occupation by 
the Turks. The most intimate milrids of HadidjI 
Bektash belonged to this tribe, an important branch 
of which must therefore have been living in the 
Kirshehir region in the 13th century. In the second 
half of this century there was another important 
group of the Cepni in the Samsun region, who in 
676/1277 successfully defended Samsun against the 
forces of the Emperor of Trebizond, and in the 14th 
century played the chief part in the conquest of the 
Djanik (Ordu-Giresun) district; the HadidjI Emirli 
principality which controlled the Ordu-Giresun 
region in the 14th century was probably founded by 
this tribe. At the beginning of the 16th century the 
region round Trabzon, especially to the west and 
south-west, was in their hands and was hence called 
wildyet-i Cepni after them. From the 16th century 
onwards they began to penetrate the region east of 
Trabzon too, where even in the 18th century the 
Cepni were waging fierce struggles with the local 
people. Thus the Cepni played a very important 
r61e in the conquest and turcicization of the Samsun- 
Rize area. 

Important groups connected with this tribe are 
found in other parts of Turkey too in the 15th and 
1 6th centuries. The largest lived in the Sivas region 
and practised agriculture. There was another im- 
portant group among the Tiirkmens of Aleppo, one 
branch of which began to settle in the c Ayntab area 
in the 16th century; another, generally called the 
Bashtm Klzdllu, migrated to western Anatolia and 
settled in the districts of Izmir, Aydln, Manisa 
and Balikesir. 

There was another important branch of the 
Cepni in the Ak-koyunlu confederation; they were 
led, in the time of Uzun Hasan and his first succes- 
sors, by Il-aldt Beg, and were later in the service of 
the Safawids. In the 16th century there were Cepni 
also in the Erzurum district, and some clans around 
Konya and Adana too. 

In the 15th and 16th centuries there were many 
villages named, after the tribe, Cepni; in some cases 
the name survives to the present day. Bektashi and 
Ktzllbash doctrines were from of old widespread 
among the Cepni. 

Bibliography : Faruk Stimer, Osmanh dev- 
rinde Anadolu'da yasayan bazi Vcoklu Og»z 
boylarma mensup tesekkiiller, in Iktisat Fakiiltesi 
Mecmuasi, x, 441-453, Istanbul 1952. 

(Faruk SCmer) 
CERAMICS [see Fakhkhar] 
CEREMISS (native name Mari), people of the 
eastern Finnish group, living principally in the basin 
of the Middle Volga to the north-east of Kazan in 



CEREM1SS — CERKES 



the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the 
Maris as well as in the neighbouring territories: 
A.S.S.R. of Tatars tan and of Bashkiria, regions 
(oblasf) of Gorki, of Kirov and of Sverdlovsk of the 
R.S.F.S.R. The total number of Ceremiss reached 
481,300 in 1939; they are divided into three distinct 
groups by their dialects and their material culture. 
The Ceremiss of the plains (lugovle) live on the left 
bank of the Volga, those of the highlands (gornle) 
on the right bank, and the eastern Ceremiss emi- 
grated in the 18th century into the valley of the 
river Belaya in Bashkir country. 

The Ceremiss descend from the Finnish-Ugrian 
tribes of the Volga, subjugated in the 8th century 
by the Khazars, then, between the 9th and the 13th 
century, by the Bulghars. It is through the medium 
of these latter that the Arabs became acquainted 
with the Ceremiss (under the name of Sarmis). After 
the destruction of the Kingdom of Greater Bulgaria, 
the Ceremiss fell under the domination of the 
Golden Horde, then of the Khanate of Kazan. The 
ancestors of the present Ceremiss were never con- 
verted to Islam, but they submitted, nevertheless, 
as early as the high Middle Ages, to the indirect 
influence which we recognise in our own day in 
certain ritual terms: payrdm (the feast of spring), 
fiaram (sacred grove), keremet designating the spirit 
of the forests (from kardma = miracle). 

Conquered by Russia in the 16th century, the 
Ceremiss were from that period very strongly marked 
by Russian culture and, in the 19th century, the 
majority were officially converted to orthodox 
Christianity. At the end of the 19th century, only 
the Ceremiss of the eastern group remained Animists 
(the Ci-maris). 

From the outset of 1905 to the October Revo- 
lution and even beyond, one notes among the 
Ceremiss living in contact with the Tatars and the 
Muslim Bashkirs numerous conversions to Islam. It 
is unfortunately impossible to judge the new in- 
fluence of Islam on the Ceremiss because the converts 
generally adopt the language and customs of the 
Tatars and "Tatarize" themselves. 

Bibliography: I. N. Smirnov, Ceremisl, 
Istori6eskiy-£tnografi6eskiy oierk, Kazan 1889; and 
Ocerki drevney istoriy narodov Srednego Povolz'ya 
i Prikam'ya, in Materiall i Issledovaniya po Arkhc- 
ologiy SSSR, no. 28, Moscow 1952; Ya. Yalkaev, 
Materiall dlya bibliografi£eskogo ukazatelya po 
marivedeniyu, 1762-1931, Joshkar-Ola 1934. 

(Ch. Quelquejay) 
CERIGO [see coka adasII 

CERKES, The name of Cerkes (in Turkish cerkas, 
perhaps from the earlier "kerkete", indigenous name : 
Adighe) is a general designation applied to a group of 
peoples who form, with the Abkhaz [q.v.], the Abaza 
(cf. Beskesek Abaza) and the Ubakh, the north- 
west or Abasgo- Adighe branch of the Ibero-Caucasian 

The ancestors of the Cerkes peoples were known 
among the ancients under the names of EtvSot, 
KepxeTat, Zixfoi, Zuyo(, etc., and lived on the 
shores of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and in 
the plains of the Kuban to the south and the north 
of this river, extending perhaps to the Don. 

In the 10th century, the Russians settled in the 
peninsula of Tainan (the principality of Tmutarakan) 
and entered into contact with the Cerkes, whom 
their chronicles designate under the name of Kasog 
(Georgian name = Kashak, Kasagi in Ossete). From 
the 13th to the 15th century, the north-west Cau- 
casus was subjected to the Golden Horde and it is 



after the collapse of the latter that the eastern 
Cerkes tribes (the present Kabard) began to play a 
r61e in the history of the Caucasus. 

The Kabard princes maintained in the 16th 
century friendly relations with the rulers of Moscow 
(the second wife of Ivan IV was a Cerkes princess). 
In the 17th century the Kabard tribes led the 
coalition of Caucasian peoples which halted and 
repulsed the advance of the Kalmiks and from that 
era, the Cerkes held supremacy which they lost 
only after the Russian conquest. 

Distribution of the Cerkes Tribes. — Before 
the Russian conquest in the middle of the 19th 
century, the Cerkes peoples, numbering more than 
a million, inhabited the north-west Caucasus (country 
of the Kuban) and a part of the eastern coast of the 
Black Sea and the peninsula of Taman up to the 
neighbourhood of the Abkhazi. 

The principal tribes were: 

— The Natukhay (Natkuadj) in the peninsula of 
Taman and near the estuary of the Kuban. 

— The Shapsug, divided into the "Great Shapsug", 
on the left bank of the lower Kuban and along the 
river Afips, and the "Little Shapsug" on the shores 
of the Black Sea. These two tribes spoke the same 
dialect; more to the East, in the basins of the 
tributaries of the Kuban Belaya, Pshish and Psekups 
lived the largest of the Adighe tribes: the Abadzekh. 
Before 1864, these three tribes formed 9/10 of the 
total of the entire population of Western Adighe 
tribes. Among the other Western tribes, the most 
important were the Mokhosh on the river Farsu, the 
Temirgoy (Kemgui, Cengui) between the Laba and 
the Kuban; the Bjedukh at the confluence of the 
rivers Pshish and Psekush with the Kuban; the 
Khatukay between the lower Belaya and the 
Pshish, and finally the most eastern of the western 
tribes: the Besleney to the south-east of the Mokhosh. 

The eastern tribes or Kabards (Kaberdey) [cf. 
Kabarda] lived from the 18th century in the 
basin of the upper Terek and some of its tributaries. 
They were divided into two groups: the tribes of 
the Great Kabarda, between the rivers Malka and 
Terek (to the west of the Terek) and those of the 
Little Kabarda (between the Sunja and the Terek, 
to the east of the latter river. 

To these tribes must be added two others who 
were of non-Adighe origin but who were in point 
of fact assimilated by the Cerkes and whose history 
is indissolubly bound to that of the latter: the 
Ubakh [q.v.] and the Abaza (cf. Besekesek- 

After the conquest of the country by the Russians, 
the greater part of the western Cerkes emigrated in 
1864-65 to Turkey and there remained in Russia 
only a small fraction of them. The last Soviet census 
(1939) counted only 164,000 Kabards and 88,000 
western Adighe thus distributed: 

1. — Kabard : The 152,000 in the Kabard-Balkar 
A.S.S.R. and 7,000 to 8,000 in the two Autonomous 
Regions of Adighe and Karacay-Cerkes (atils 
Katzkhabl', Bleceps and Khodz'). In addition, the 
census of 1939 counted as Kabards the 2000 Kabard- 
speaking Armenians of Armavir (territory of Kras- 
nodar) of the Armenian-Gregorian religion, the 2100 
"Cerkes of Mozdok" of the A.S.S.R. of North Ossetia 
who are Kabards converted to orthodox Christianity, 
and finally a little group (500 to 600) of Kabard- 
speaking Jews of the district of Mozdok. 

2.- — The Besleney: about 30,000, of whom 
20,000 are in the Autonomous Region of Karacay- 
Cerkes (this group adopted the literary language of 



the Kabards and is assimilated by the Kabard 
nation), and 10,000, in the Autonomous Region of 
Adlghe and near Armavir, who adopted the literary 
language of the Adlghe. 

3. — The Lower Adlghe: in number about 
55,000, principally in the Autonomous Region of 
Adlghe. After the migration of 1864-65, the tribal 
differences shaded off rapidly, and the scattered 
elements of the tribes remaining in Russia con- 
solidated in an "Adlghe Nation" commune; only the 
following tribes still conserve some peculiarities of 
dialect and custom: the Abadzekh, about 5,000 
around the aul Khakurinov (their dialect is on its 
way to disappearance) ; the Bjedukh, about 12,000 
who populate 38 auls to the south of the Kuban 
and an aul near Armavir; finally, the Shapsug to 
the number of 10,000 on the shores of the Black 
Sea (14 auls to the north and south of Tuapse) with 
a little islet in the peninsula of Taman. 

Language: With Abkhaz, Ubakh and, according 
to some, Abaza (which others consider a simple 
Adighe dialect), the Cerkes languages form the 
north-west branch of the Ibero-Caucasian languages. 
The Cerkes group is divided into several dialects of 
which two are now literary languages: 

1. — Eastern Adlghe ("high Adlghe") or Kabard, 
including diverse speech characteristics a little 
different from one another. The speech of the Great 
Kabarda serves as the basis of the Kabard literary 
language used in the Kabardo-Balkar A.S.S.R. and 
in the Autonomous Republic of the Karacay- 
Cerkes, transcribed in the Latin alphabet since 1925 
(after a trial of the Arabic alphabet in 1924). In 1938, 
the Latin alphabet was replaced by the Cyrillic. 

2. — Lower Adlghe (or K'akh), including dialects 
closely related to one another: Bjedukh, Shapsug, 
K'emirgoy (or Temirgcy), as well as the rest of the 
Abadzekh and Khakuci dialects. The Bjedukh and 
K'emirgoy dialects serve as the basis of the Adlghe 
written language used in the Autonomous Republic 
of the Adlghe. The first attempts to give the Adlghe 
a written language trace back to 1855 (handbook 
of the Adlghe language of c Umar Besney). In 1865, 
Atakujin and in 1890 Loparinski aimed toward an 
Adlghe Cyrillic alphabet. 

Between 1917 and 1920 there were again attempts 
to give Adlghe a script: Domatov worked out an 
Arabic alphabet and Saltokov modified Lopatinski's 
Cyrillic alphabet. Finally, in 1925, Adlghe received 
a Latin alphabet, replaced in 1935 by Cyrillic. From 
1925, the linguistic unity of the Cerkes people was 
broken and the two written languages, Adighe and 
Kabard, thereafter developed alone different lines, 
in spite of the vain attempt to reunite them in 1930, 
at the time of the conference of the Committee on 
the new Latin alphabet at Moscow. 

Halfway between Kabard and Lower Adlghe is 
found the Besleney dialect, which belongs to Lower 
Adlghe but is full of Kabard elements. 

The written Kabard and Adlghe literatures appear- 
ed after the establishment of the Soviet regime. The 
Cerkes had until then only an oral literature, 
principally of folk-lore, which included two types in 
particular: the legends of Nartes (mythological- 
heroic legends) which the Cerkes share in common 
with some other Caucasian people such as the 
Ossetes, and the heroic-historical songs which 
Shora-Bekmurzin Nogmov gathered and published 
(see bibliography). 

Religion. — The Cerkes are Sunni Muslims of the 
Hanafi school. Islam was brought in the 16th century 
by the Nogais [q.v.] and the Tatars of the Crimea, 



first to the Kabards, then, in the 17th century, to 
the western Adlghe. Penetration was slow and at 
first reached only the feudal nobility. It is only at 
the beginning of the 18th century, thanks to the 
zeal of the Khans of the Crimea and the Turkish 
pashas of Anapa, that Islam was imposed on all 
of the people, replacing Christianity (introduced 
as early as the 6th century by Byzantium and, 
between the 10th and the 12th centuries, by 
Georgia) and the ancient pagan religion of which 
one still finds traces among the western Adlghes. 

Before their conversion to Islam, the Cerkes 
worshipped agrarian divinities: Shible, god of storm 
and thunder, Sozeresh, protector of the sowings, 
Yemish, protector of the flocks, Khategnash, god 
of the gardens, etc. The cult of the god of thunder 
was linked to the worship of trees and sacred groves 
where, even recently, were offered sacrifices and 
prayers. A particular cult was dedicated to Tlepsh, 
god of the blacksmiths and doctors. The Cerkes had 
neither temples nor clergy; sacrifices were entrusted 
to the care of an old man elected for life. 

Justice was rendered according to the Adlghe- 
Khabza 'ddat, a veritable unwritten code of law which 
governed all Cerkes life and which was adopted by 
neighbouring peoples more or less subject to the 
influence of Kabard and Adlghe princes: Ossetes 
[q.v.], Karacays [q.v.], Balkars [q.v.] and Nogays [q.v.]. 

Social Structure and Customs. — Until the 
second half of the 19th century, the Cerkes people 
maintained a very archaic social structure different 
according to the tribes. The Kabards had a highly 
developed feudal system; their society, comprising 
up to thirteen classes, formed several groups clearly 
differentiated and not easily penetrated: 1. — at the 
summit of the social hierarchy, the princes {pshs) 
among whom the wall was the chief of the Kabard 
people; 2. — under them, the nobles (uork, uorkkh, 
or uzden) subdivided into four classes according to 
the rights and obligations which bound them to the 
princes; 3. — the free peasants {tfokhotl) who, in 
certain circumstances, were kept to attend the psk? 
and the uork ; 4. — the serfs (og or pshsth) and finally, 
at the bottom of the ladder, the slaves (unaut). 

The same feudal system, less rigorous however, 
existed also among the Adlghes and the lower eastern 
Cerkes tribes (Besleney, Bjedukh, Khatukay). On 
the other hand, the western Adlghe tribes (Natukhay, 
Shapsug, Abadzekh) did not have princes. Among 
them the uork class was weak, while that of the 
tfokhotl was the most numerous and the strongest. 
They are sometimes called the "democratic Adlghe 
tribes", as opposed to the Kabard "aristocratic 

The reasons for this difference are not known. 
Some think that the western tribes passed the feudal 
stage in the 18th century after the long struggle 
which set the Abadzekh, Shapsug and Natukhay 
tfokhotl against the princes of Bjedukh (battle of Bziiik 
in 1796), thanks also to the action of Hasan Pasha, 
ser'asker of Anapa, who abolished in 1826 the privi- 
leges which the nobles of these three tribes enjoyed. 

For others, on the contrary, the social evolution 
toward feudalism had been retarded by several 
factors, notably the economic influence of the Greek 
colonies, then the Italian and Turkish. This last 
opinion seems nearer the truth, because at the 
beginning of the 20th century one finds among the 
western tribes strong survivals of the patriarchal 
clan system which had disappeared among the 
eastern Adlghe. The clan (tleukh) was divided into 
several groups of great patriarchal families (alikh) 



which formed in their turn rural communities 
(psukho), autonomously united and independently 
administered by the councils of the elders. 

All the Cerkes tribes maintained some customs 
characteristic of the patriarchal and feudal stages: 
I. — blood vengeance in cases of murder, which was 
a right and an absolute duty for the whole of the 
clan; 2.— atalikat, which consisted of having 
children raised from birth in the families of strangers, 
often vassals (boys till 17-18 years). Atalikat created 
a sort of foster brotherhood which served to tighten 
the feudal bonds and unite the Cerkes tribes; 

3. — diverse traditions concerning hospitality, con- 
sidered sacred. The guest became, by right of 
protection, a veritable member of the clan of his 
host, who put his life and his property at the service 
of his guest. Hospitality was extended even to the 
exile (abrek or khadjret). If this latter succeeded in 
touching with his lips the bosom of the mistress of 
a strange house, he became a member of the family, 
and the master of the house had to provide for his 
safety. Among other customs of the clan stage 
figured the swearing of brotherhood (kunak) by 
which a man became a member of another clan; 

4. — customs concerning marriage. Exogamy inside 
the clan or the great patriarchal family was strictly 
observed especially by the Kabards. The kalym 
(purchase of the fiancee) was universally practised, 
and could only be avoided by resorting to abduction, 
a frequent occurrence, in case of refusal by the 
parents. The pretence of forcible abduction remains 

n essential rite in the marriage ceremony. 



eCerkes 



theSovi 



tUni 



at the end of the civil war that the Soviet regime was 
established in the regions inhabited by the Cerkes — in 
the spring of 1920, first in the country of the Adtghe, 
then in that of the Kabard. Administratively, th« 
Cerkes were divided into three territorial 



-The 



of th 



Adigl: 



in the basin of the Kuban and its tributaries be- 
longing to the territory (kray) of Krasnodar, formed 
27 July 1922 under the name of the Autonomous 
Region of Adighe-Cerkes, then, on 13 August 1928, 
under that of the A.R. of Adlghe. This territory has 
an area of 4400 sq. km. and a population of 270,000 
people (in 1956), of whom the Adtghe represent only 
a minority. The capital Maikop is a Russi 



e Autoi 



n of t 



s Kai 



6 ay- Cerkes in the high valleys of the Great and 
Little Zelencuk belonging to the territory (kray) of 
Stavropol', which the Cerkes share with a Turkish 
people (the Karacay [q.v.]). This territory, formed 
12 January 1922, was divided, 26 April 1926, into 
two administrative unities : the Autonomous Region 
of the Karacay and the national civil district of the 
Cerkes, elevaled 30 March 1928 to the status of 
Autonomous Region. In 1944 the Karacay were 
deported and their Autonomous Region abolished, 
but after their rehabilitation, the Autonomous 
Region of the Karacay-Cerkes was re-established 
9 January 1957. Its area is 14,200 sq. km., and the 
population, in 1956, was 214,000 people, in majority 
Russian and Ukrainian. 

— The Kabard-BalkarAutonomousSo viet 
Socialist Republic, in the mountainous part of 
the Central Caucasus. It was formed 1 September 
192 1 as the Autonomous Region of the Kabard to 
which was added 16 January 1922 the national civil 
district of the Balkar, thus constituting the Kabard- 
Balkar Autonomous Region, which became on 5 
December 1936 an Autonomous Republic. In 1944, 
following the deportation of the Balkar, the Republic, 



with the loss of a part of Balkar territory, was renamed 
the Kabard A.S.S.R. Finally, on 9 February 1957, the 
Balkar having been rehabilitated and authorized to 
return to their territory, the Republic became once 
more the Kabard-Balkar A.S.S.R. Its territory 
comprises 12,400 sq. km., and its population, in 
1956, was 359,000 inhabitants. In 1939, the Kabard, 
Balkar and other Muslims represented 60% of the 
population, living mainly in the mountainous areas ; 
Russians and Ukrainians (40% of the population) 
constitute the majority of the population of the 
capital Nal'&k (72,000 inhabitants in 1956) and 
predominate in the plain of Terek. 

Bibliography : A very complete bibliography 
appears in the article by Ramazan Traho, Litera- 
ture on Circassia and the Circassians, in Caucasian 
Review, no. 1, 1955, Munnich, 145-162. It included 
more than 250 titles of works and articles in 
Russian, in western languages (French, English, 
German, Turkish, Hungarian, and Polish) and 
in Cerkes languages dealing directly or indirectly 
with the Cerkes people. It is sufficient therefore 
to note here a few recent works: 

In French: A. Namitok, Origines des Circas- 
siens, Paris 1939; G. Dumezil, Introduction a la 
grammaire comparie des Ungues caucasiennes du 
Nord, Paris 1933 ; and Etudes comparatives sur Us 
langues caucasiennes du Nord-Ouest, Paris 1932. 
In German: A. Dirr, Einfiihrung in das 
Stadium der Kaukasischen Sprachen, Leipzig 1928 ; 
F. Hancar, Urgeschichte Kaukasiens, Vienna- 
Leipzig 1937. 

In English: J. B. Baddeley, The Russian 
Conquest of the Caucasus, London 1908; W. S. Allen, 
Structure and system in the hbaza Verbal complex in 
Transactions of the Philological Society, 1956, 127- 
76, with extensive linguistic bibliography. 

In Russian: Adigeiskaya Avtonomnaya Oblast', 
Maikop 1947; Kabardinskaya ASSR, Nal'cik 1946 
Sh. B. Nogmov, Istoriya Adtgeyskogo Naroda sosta- 
xlennaya po predaniyam Kabardintzev, NaPcik 
1947; K. Stal, Etnografiteskiy oierk Cerkesskogo 
naroda, in Kavkazskiy Sbornik, xxi, Tiflis 1900; 
S. A. Toharev, Etnografiya narodov SSSR, Moscow 
1958, 246-258; D. A. Ashkhamaf, Grammatika Adi- 
geiskogo yaztka, Krasnodar 1934; T. M. Borukaev, 
Grammatika Kabardino-Cerkesskogo Yaztka, Nal'dik 
1932 ; idem, Yazlki severnogo Kavkaza i Dagestana, 
i, Moscow-Leningrad 1935; N. F. Yakovlev and 
D. A Ashkhamaf, Grammatika Adtgeyskogo 
literaturnogo yaztka, Moscow-Leningrad 1941. 

(Ch. Quelquejay) 
ii. Mamluk period. The Circassians are 
designated in Mamluk sources as Diarkas or 
Diardkisa (sing. Diarkasi). There are also alter- 
native spellings: Carkas or Cardkisa (sing. Carkasi); 
Sharkas or Shardkisa (sing. Sharkasl) and less fre- 
quently Diihdraks. Circassia is variously known as 
bildd al-Diarkas, or simply Diarkas and occasionally 
as Diabal al-Djarkas. According to al-Kalkashandl 
the Circassians live in poverty and most of them 
are Christians (Subh al-A'-shd, v, 462, 1. 5). 

The Circassians, who, since the closing decades of 
the 8th/i4th century and up to the end of the 
Mamluk sultanate (922/1517), constituted the 
predominant element of Mamluk military society, 
were quite important in that sultanate from its very 
inception in the middle of the 7th/i3th century. 
They occupied a most prominent place in the 
Burdiiyya [q.v.] regiment founded by Sultan Kala'un 
(678-689/1279-1290). Whether the decline of that 
regiment weakened their power or not, is an open 



question. The Kipdak Turks, the ruling race during 
the first hundred and thirty years or so of the 
sultanate's existence, feared them very much 
because of their ambitious character, haughtiness 
and inclination to trouble and discord. As a matter 
of fact the Kipdaks succeeded in nipping in the bud 
a dangerous military coup of the Circassians during 
Ramadan-Shawwal 748/December 1347-January 1348 
(Sultan Hasan's reign). These Circassians were 
the favourites of Hasan's immediate predecessor, 
Sultan HadjdjI (747-8/1 346-7), who "brought them 
from all quarters and wanted to give them prece- 
dence over the Atrdk" {Nudium, v, 56, 11. 14-20). 
Sultan Hadidji's reign was apparently too short for 
his plan to be carried out, and thus the Circassians' 
rise to power had been postponed for another 35 
to 45 years. 

It was Sultan Barkuk, himself a Circassian and a 
member of the Burdjiyya regiment, who brought 
about the final victory of his own race, by the syste- 
matic purchase of increasing numbers of Circassian 
Mamluks and by drastically cutting at the same time 
the purchase of Mamluks of other races. He is 
justly called "the founder of Circassian rule" 
{al-RdHm bi-dawlat al-Qiardkisa) {Nudium v, 362). 
Though he regretted his action towards the end of 
his life, as a result of a Circassian attempt to assassi- 
nate him (Nudium, v, 585, 598), it was too late for 
him to change the situation which he himself had 
created. His son and successor, Sultan Faradj (809- 
815/1406-1412), paid with his life for his attempt to 
break the Circassians' growing power by means of 
large-scale massacres. As early a writer as al- 
Kalkashandi, who completed his book in 815/1412, 
states: "In our time most of the amirs and army 
have become Circassians . . . The Turk Mamluks 
of Egypt have become so few in number that all 
that is left of them are a few survivors and their 
children" Subh al-A c shd, iv, 458, 11. 16-19). Sultan 
al-Mu 5 ayyad Shaykh (815-824/1412-1421), who is 
described by Ibn Taghrlbirdi as resembling the 
former Mamluk sultans (muliik al-salaf) in that his 
criterion for the choice of soldiers was not race, 
but efficiency and courage (al-Manhal al-Sdfi, iii, 
fol. 168a, 1. 2i-i68b, 1. 4), had some success in 
curbing the power of the Circassians by strengthening 
the Kipcak-Turk element in Mamluk military 
society. But after his death the Circassians regained 
their supremacy, which they maintained without 
any serious challenge till the end of Mamluk rule. 

Mamluk sources ascribe the rise of the Circassians 
at the expense of the Kipcak-Turks mainly to 
factors existing within the Mamluk sultanate. 
Equally important, however, were factors prevailing 
in the Mamluks' countries of origin. The decline of 
the Golden Horde during the latter half of the 
8th/i4th century and the internal wars that broke 
out there must have greatly influenced the decision 
of Egypt's rulers to transfer the Mamluks' purchasing 
centre to the Caucasus. 

The writers of the Circassian period held, generally 
speaking, a very high opinion of the Kipcak-Turks 
and harshly criticized the Circassians, to whom they 
ascribed the sultanate's decline and misery. Typical 
in this respect are Ibn Taghrlbirdl's following words : 
Referring to Tashtamur al- c A15l, formerly dawdddr 
and later atdbak al-'asdkir (commander-in-chief), who 
was removed by amirs Berke and (later Sultan) Bar 
kuk, he says: "The time of Tashtamur was a flour- 
ishing and plentiful time for the Mamluk sultanate 
under his wise direction, and that condition prevailed 
until he was removed from office and thrown into 



prison. In his place came Barkuk and Berke, who 
did things in the sultanate from which the population 
suffers till this day. Then Barkuk became sole ruler, 
and turned the affairs of the realm upside-down, and 
his successors have maintained his policy down to 
the present. For he gave precedence to the members 
of his own race over the others, and gave those of 
his own Mamluks (adildb) who were related to him 
large fiefs and high offices while they were still in 
their minority. This is the main cause of the decline 
of the realm. Indeed, is there anything more grave 
than to set the minor over the senior? This is at 
variance with the practice of the former sultans; for 
they did not recognise the superiority of any one 
race. Whenever they found a man who displayed 
wisdom and courage, they showed him preference 
and favour. No-one was given office or rank who 
was not worthy of it" (Manhal, iii, f. 185b, 11. 14-23). 

Though this and other statements of the same 
kind contain a very substantial element of truth, 
they certainly should not be taken at their face 
value. The Circassians might have accelerated the 
process of the realm's decline, but many of the 
factors that brought about that decline had already 
been quite visible in the closing decades of Kipcak- 
Turk rule. 

The predominance of the Circassian race in the 
later Mamluk period was much stronger and much 
more comprehensive than that of the Kipcak Turks 
in the early period. Unlike the Kipdak Turks the 
Circassians were very hostile to the other Mamluk 
races, whom they relegated to a state of political 
insignificance. No other Mamluk race was so much 
imbued with the feeling of racial solidarity and of 
racial superiority as they were. Under their rule, 
al-djins, meaning the Race, denoted the Circassian 
race. Similarly al-kawm, the People, was applied 
only to the Circassians. 

Of all Mamluk races the Circassians were the only 
ones who claimed to trace their origin to an Arab 
tribe, namely, the Banu Ghassan, who entered Bilad 
al-Rum with Djabala b. al-Ayham at the time of 
Heraclius' retreat from Syria (Ibn Khaldun, Kitdb 
al- c Ibar, v, 472, 11. 4-18. Ibn Iyab, v, 193, 1. 3). This 
legend was still alive in Egyptian Mamluk society 
under the Ottomans (see bibliography). 

Bibliography: D. Ayalon, The Circassians in 

the Mamluk Kingdom, in JAOS, 1949, 135-147; 

idem, Studies of the Structure of the Mamluk Army, 

in BSOAS, 1953, 203-228, 448-476, '954, 57"9o; 

idem, Vesclavage du Mamelouk, Jerusalem 1951. 

P. M. Holt, The exalted lineage of Ridwdn Bey: 

some observations on a seventeenth-century Mamluk 

genealogy, in BSOAS, 1959, 221-230. 

(D. Ayalon) 

iii. (Ottoman period) Replacing the Genoese 
on the Black-sea coasts the Ottomans took A nab a 
(Anapa) and Koba (Copa, cf. Heyd, ii, 190) 
in 884/1479 (cf. Hasht Behisht), but the Circassian 
tribes in the hinterland continued to be dependent 
on the Crimean Khans (see kIrIm) who as under the 
Golden Horde sent their sons to be brought up 
among the Circassians (see at auk). Along with the 
marriages of the Crimean princes with the Circassian 
noblewomen this secured the attachment of the 
Cerkes; they gave the Khans a yearly tribute con- 
sisting of slaves as well as auxiliary forces. The 
Crimean Khans styled themselves rulers of Tagh-ara 
Cerkes or Cergdl. Circassia served also as a refuge for 
the Tatar-Noghay tribes from the Dasht who came 
often to mingle with them especially in the Kuban 
basin and the Taman peninsula. Later on the 



Cerkes — Cerkes edhem 



Crimean Khans built there fortresses such as 
Coban-kal<a, Nawruz-Kirman. Shad-Kirman 
and settled in them Noghays to defend the country 
against the Cossacks (Kazak) and the Kalmuks. 
Not infrequently the Cerkes co-operated with the 
Cossacks, too. In his major efforts to subdue the 
rebellious Cerkes tribes Saljib Giray Khan made five 
expeditions in Circassia, the first against Kansawuk, 
beg of Zhana in 946/1539, the second and the third 
against Kabartay (Kaberda). He forcibly settled 
on the upper Urup the tribes who had taken refuge 
in the high Baksan valley. Later in 956/1549 he made 
his last expedition against the Khatukay (Sdhib 
Giray TaMhhi, Blochet, Cat. Man. Turc. supp., 164). 
But after his death the Cerkes, especially those of 
Zhana and Psheduh (Pzhedukh) sacked the Taman 
peninsula, threatened Azak [q.v.] and sought the 
protection of Ivan IV (see Belleten, no. 46, 1948, 364). 
At the same period the Cossacks, stationed on the 
Terek, also became a threat to Crimean-Ottoman 
influence in Kabartay. 

The strengthening of Tatar-Circassian relations 
resulted in the spread of Islam among the Cerkes. 
But in 1076/1664-65 Ewliya Celebi (vii, 708-758) 
found that many tribes were still pagans and those 
professing Islam preserved their old religious beliefs 
and practices. Mehmed Giray IV induced the islamiz- 
ed tribes of Kabartay to give up pig-raising. 

The Ottoman Sultans recognized Crimean sover- 
eignty over the Cerkes, but this did not prevent 
their sending orders and granting titles to the 
Circassian chieftains as vassal begs (see Belleten, 
no. 46, 399). In 978/1570 Selim II wrote to the Czar 
not to interfere with the Cerkes, his subjects 
(Belleten, 400). 

In 1076/1665, on his way from Taman to Albrus, 
Ewliya Celebi (vii, 698-768) found first the Noghays 
in Coban-eli then Shkageh tribe (cf. J. Klaproth, 
Voyage, i, 238) on the Black Sea coast, Great and 
Small Zhana tribes at the foot of the Hayko moun- 
tains, and further east Khatukay, Ademi, Takaku ( ?), 
Bolatkay, Bozoduk (Pzhedukh), Mamshugh (?), 
Besney (Besleney), and Kabartay tribes. He also 
reported that in this period the Kalmuk raids caused 
the Cerkes tribes in the Kuban and Kabartay 
regions to retreat to the inaccessible parts of the 
mountains, while in the west the Cossacks were 
pressing hard the Cerkes in the lower Kuban and 
the Tamam peninsula. 

When from the early 18th century onwards Cir- 
cassia was seriously threatened by Russian expansion 
they became more and more co-operative with the 
Ottomans. In 1 148/1735 they repulsed the Russian 
forces on the other side of the Kuban. But with the 
treaty of Kuciik-Kaynardja in 1188/1774 the Otto- 
mans recognized the independence of the Crimean 
Khanate with its dependencies north to the Kuban 
which in 1 197-1783 were annexed by Russia. The 
Kabartays were already in Russian control in 
1 188/1774. 

In order to form a defence line against the Russians 
on the Kuban the Ottomans were now much in- 
terested in Circassia and built or rebuilt the for- 
tresses of Soghudjuk (Sudjuk), Gelendjik, Noghay, 
and Anapa in 1 196/1782 and tried to reorganize the 
Cerkes as well as the newly arrived Tatar immigrants 
from the Crimea and the Noghays from Dobrudja. 
Ferah c Ali Pasha (1196/1782-1 199/1785), an admi- 
nistrator of unusual ability, encouraged his Ottoman 
soldiers to establish family ties with the Cerkes 
which strengthened Ottoman influence and furthered 
the spread of Islam among the Cerkes. Anapa 



rapidly developed as the chief commercial centre of 
the area. Meantime Shavkh Mansur, a forerunner of 
Shaykh Shamil [q.v.] in the Cecen area found a 
response among the Cerkes for his preaching of the 
Holy War against the Russians (for this period see 
the important account of Mehmed Hashim, the 
Diwdn Kdtib of Ferah 'All Pasha, MS. in Topkapt, 
Revan, no. 1564, cf. Djewdet, Ta'rikh, iii, 168-272). 
During the Ottoman-Russian war of 1201-1206/ 
1787-1792 a Khanate of Kuban was created with the 
Tatars under Shahbaz Giray while the Cerkes co- 
operated with the Ottoman army under Battal 
Huseyin Pasha and won some successes. But in the 
end Anapa, the main Ottoman base, fell (1205/1791). 
With the peace treaty the Kuban river was fixed as 
the border line between the Russian and Ottoman 
empires. After the peace, while the Ottomans 
neglected the area, the Russians formed a line of 
fortresses along the border and settled large groups 
of Cossacks there. At the same time they annexed 
Georgia and, taking control of the Daryal Pass, 
encircled Circassia. By the treaty of Adrianople 
1 245/1829 the Ottomans had to give up their rights 
on Circassia in favour of Russia. The Circassians, 
however, sustained a long and fierce struggle against 
the invaders until 1281/1864 and, according to an 
Ottoman report, 595,000 Circassians left their 
country for Turkey between 1272/1856 and 1281/ 
1864. These were settled in Anatolia as well as in 
Rumeli (see Bulgaria). According to the census of 
1945 there were in Turkey 66,691 Circassians still 
speaking their mother-tongue. Under the Ottomans, 
especially from the 17th century onwards, Circassian 
slaves occupied an important place in the Ottoman 
ttul [q.v.] system and many of them reached high 
positions in the state (see Ta?rikh-i 'Atd, 5 vols. 
Istanbul 1291-1293). 

Bibliography: Idris Bidlisi, Hasht Behisht 
(Babinger, 48), Kemal Pashazade, Tawdrikh-i 
Al-i '■Othman, facsimile ed., TTK Ankara 1954, 
520; 'All, Kunh al-Akhbdr, (Babinger, 129); 
Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, vii, Istanbul 1928, 
698-767; Katib Celebi, Djihdn-numd, Istanbul 
1 145, 403; Mehmed Hashim, Ahwdl-i Abdzd ve 
Cerdkise, Topkapl Sarayl, Revan kit. no. 1564; 
Risdla fi ahwdl-i Klrim wa Kuban, Atlf Ef. Kiitii- 
phanesi, no. 1886; A. Djewdet, Ta'rikh, 12 vols. 
Istanbul 1271-1301; idem, Kirim we Kafkas 
Ta'rikhCesi, Istanbul 1307; Nuh al-Matrukl, Niir 
al-Makdbis fi Tawdrikh al-Cerdkis, Kazan 1912; 
L. Widerszal, British Policy in the Western 
Caucasus, 1833-1842, Warsaw 1933; N. A. 
Smirnov, Rossiya i Turtsiya v XVI-XVII vv. 
2 vols. Moscow 1948; E. N. Kusheva, Politika 
Russkogo gosudarstva na sevemom Kavkaze v 
I 552-53 gg-, in Istoriceskiye Zapiski, xxxiv (1950), 
236-87; H. Inalcik, Osmanh-Rus Rekabetinin 
Mensei ve Don-Volga Kanali Tesebbusu, in 
Belleten 46 (1948), 349-402; W. E. D. Allen and 
P. Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields, Cambridge 
1953; Mirza Bala, art. Cerkesler, in IA. 

(Halil Inalcik) 
CERKES EDHEM, Cerkes Reshid, and Cerkes 
Mehmed Tewfik, Turkish guerrilla leaders, sons of a 
Circassian farmer in Emre near Karacabey (wildyet 
of Bursa). Reshid, the oldest, was born in 1869 (or 
1877 ?— see T.B.M.M. 25a yildoniimunu ams 
[1945], 63), Edhem, the youngest, in 1883-4. Reshid 
fought with the Ottoman forces in Libya and the 
Balkans, where he was "Deputy Commander in 
Chief" for the provisional government of Western 
Thrace (September 1913), and sat for Saruhan in 



26 



Cerkes edhem - 



the last Ottoman Chamber and the Ankara National 
Assembly. All three brothers took leading parts in 
the nationalist guerrilla movement, Edhem dis- 
tinguishing himself against the Greeks at Salihli 
and Anzavur's Kuwwa-yl Mehmediyye (summer 
1919) and in suppressing the anti-Kemalist revolts 
at Diizce and Yozgad (spring 1920). As Commander 
of Mobile Forces (Kuwwa-yi Seyydre, with his 
brother Tewfik as deputy) he came into increasingly 
sharp conflict with the regular army command, 
especially after Edhem's defeat by the Greeks at 
Gediz (24 October 1920) and the appointment of 
Ismet [tnonii] as commander-in-chief of the Western 
front. An ad-hoc commission of the National Assem- 
bly failed to resolve the dispute. After a decisive 
clash with the Turkish regulars (Kutahya, 29 
December), Edhem, his brothers, and several 
hundred Circassian guerrillas fled behind the Greek 
lines (5 January 1921). The Ankara Assembly 
denounced the brothers as traitors and expelled 
Reshid; later the brothers were among the 150 
persons (yuzellilikler) excepted from the amnesty 
provisions of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. Edhem 
and Reshid went to Greece, Germany, various Arab 
countries, and eventually to 'Amman. In 1935 they 
were briefly detained there under suspicion of 
plotting against Ataturk, and in 1941 Edhem was 
again detained in 'Amman because of his support of 
the movement of Rashld 'Ali in 'Iraq. He died of 
throat cancer in 'Amman on 7 October 1949. Reshid 
returned to Turkey after the Democrat Party 
victory of 1950 and died in Ankara in 1951. Tewfik 
spent his exile years in Haifa as an oil refinery 
n and died soon after his return to Turkey 



Bibliography: Tevfik Biyikhoglu, Trakyd>da 
mittt miicadele, Ankara 1955-56, i, 77 f., 87; ii, 
30 f. ; [Cerkes Edhem], Qerkes Ethem hadisesi, ed. 
Cemal Kutay, i-iii, Istanbul 1956; Yunus Nadi, 
Qerkes Ethem kuvvetlerinin ihaneti (Ataturk 
Kiituphanesi 16), Istanbul 1955; Ali Fuad Cebesoy, 
Milli miicadele hahralari, Istanbul 1953, 403-09, 
452, 466-70, 497-505; Kemal [Ataturk], Nutuk, 
1934 edn., ii, 9, 27-85; OM, xv, 572; D. A. Rustow 
in World Politics, xi, 513-552 (1959); private 
communication from Reshid's son Arslan in 
Manshiyya, Jordan, April i960, courtesy of 
Messrs. Waleed and Abdel-Kader Tash. 

(D. A. Rustow) 
CERKES [see muhammad pasha cerkes] 
CESHME. a Persian word meaning "source, 
fountain" which has passed into Turkish with the 
same sense. It is the name of a market-town in Asia 
Minor with a wide and safe natural harbour on the 
Mediterranean coast, at the entrance to the Gulf 
of the same name, at the north-western extremity 
of the peninsula of Urla opposite the island of Chios, 
26 20' W., 38 23' N. It is the chief town of a kaza 
in the vilayet of Izmir. The town has (1950) 3,706 
inhabitants; the kaza, 12,337. Originally part of the 
principality (later sandjak) of Aydln, it was Ottoman 
from the time of Bayazid II. There is a citadel with 
a mosque of Bayazid II, of 914/1508. The present 
town, which is quite modern, occupies the site of 
the ancient harbour of Erythrae. There are hot 
springs at Ilidja. 

A Russian fleet of nine ships of the line and a few 
frigates, divided into three squadrons commanded 
by Spiridov, Alexis Orlov and Elphinston, which 
sailed from Kronstad to aid the rebel Mainots, 
attacked the Turkish fleet at Ceshme. The Turkish 
fleet consisted of sixteen ships of the line besides 



frigates and small craft and was commanded by the 
JCapudan-Pasha Husam al-Din with Djeza'irli 
Hasan Pasha and Dja'far Bey. The Russian and 
Turkish flagships both caught fire at the same 
moment and those of the crew who could saved 
themselves by swimming (n Rabi' I 1183/5 July 
1770). The remainder of the Turkish fleet was set 
on fire the following night. This defeat of the Turks 
at Ceshme was the fore-runner of the Peace of 
Kiiciik Kaynardja. 

Bibliography: Ewliya Celebi, Seydhat-ndme 

ix, 107 f. ; 'Ali Djewad, Dioehrdfivd lughdti, 308; 

von Hammer, Histoire de I'Empire Ottoman, vol. 

xvi, 252 = vol. viii, 358 of German edition; Baron 

de Tott, Mimoires, iii, 35 ff. ; v. Cuinet, Turquie 

d'As e, vol. iii, 488 ff.; I A, iii, 386-88 (by M. C. 

Sehabeddin Tekindag) where further references 

are given; for a detailed discussion of the naval 

battle see R. C. Anderson, Naval Wars in the 

Levant, Princeton 1952, 286 ff. 

(Cl. Huart-[Fr. Taeschner]) 

CESHMlZADE, Mustafa Rashid, Ottoman histo- 
rian and poet, one of a family of '■ulama' founded by 
the Kddi'asker of Rumelia, Ceshmi Mehmed Efendi 
(d. 1044/1634) A grandson of the Shaykh al-Isldm 
Mehmed Salih Efendi, and the son of a kadi in the 
Hidjaz, he entered the 'Ilmiyye profession, and 
held various legal and teaching posts. After the 
resignation of the Imperial historiographer Mehmed 
Hakim Efendi [q.v.], he was appointed to this office, 
which he held for a year and a half. He then returned 
to his teaching career, which culminated in his 
appointment as miiderris at the Dar al-Hadith of the 
Sulaymaniyye. His history, which covers the period 
1180-82/1766-68, was used by Wasif [q.v.]. The 
Turkish text was first published by Bekir Kiitukoglu 
in 1959; but a Swedish translation of his account of 
the war in Georgia in 1180-2/1766-8, with a brief 
account of some events in Cyprus, Egypt and 
Medina, was included by M. Norberg in his Turkiska 
Rikets Annaler, v, Hernosand 1822, 1416-1424. He 
died in Sha'bSn 1184/Nov. 1770, and was buried at 
Rumeli Hisari. 

Bibliographie : B. Kiitukoglu (ed.), Qesmiz&de 

Tarihi, Istanbul 1959; Sidjill-i '■Othmani, ii, 389; 

'■Othmanli Muellifleri, iii, 45; Babinger 302. 

(B. Lewis) 

CEUTA [see sabta] 

CEYLON. The Muslims constitute only 6.63% 
of Ceylon's population — roughly 550,000 out of a 
total of 8,000,000. Of this community, which is 
multi-racial in its composition, the Ceylon Moors 
form the most significant element and count 463,963. 
The Malays are the next in importance. They 
number 25,464. Nearly all of the remaining groups 
are of Indian origin; their ancestors first came to 
Ceylon after the British occupation of its Maritime 
Provinces during the 18th century. 

As a result of the insufficiency of available evidence 
and the lack of sustained effort and encouragement 
in respect of the investigations involved, which 
require a good knowledge of several languages, each 
of them with a different background and most of 
them with distinctive characters, the ethnology of 
the Ceylon Moors has yet remained an inadequately 
explored field of research. A scientific and com- 
prehensive treatment of the subject would indeed 
illumine some of the obscure aspects of Ceylon's 
history — e.g., the nature and extent of the contacts 
the Muslims of Ceylon (Moors) had for several 
with their brethren in faith in lands far 
; the political relations which Ceylon 



through these Muslims maintained with the Muslim 
World particularly during its period of glory; and 
the volume of Ceylon's external and internal trade 
and its geographical distribution during the early 

The Muslims of Ceylon were given the appellation 
of 'Moors' by the Portuguese who first came to 
Ceylon in 1505 and encountered these Muslims as 
their immediate rivals to trade and influence. This 
name, however, has persisted, having gained cur- 
rency in Ceylon through its wide use by the Colonial 
Powers concerned, even though this term 'Moors' had 
been previously unknown among the Muslims them- 
selves. 'Sonahar' was the name familiar to them, 
deriving its origin from 'Yavanar', an Indian word 
connoting foreigners especially Greeks or Arabs. 

These Moors were the descendants of Arab settlers 
whose numbers were later augmented by local 
converts and immigrant Muslims from South India. 
With regard to the date of the arrival of the first 
Arab settlers, Sir Alexander Johnstone holds that 
it was during the early part of the 2nd/8th century. 
"The first Mohammedans who settled in Ceylon were, 
according to the tradition which prevails amongst 
their descendants, a portion of those Arabs of the 
house of Hashim who were driven from Arabia in 
the early part of the eighth century by the tyranny 
of the Caliph c Abd al-Melek b. Merwan, and who, 
preceeding from the Euphrates southward, made 
settlements in the Concan, in the southern parts of 
the peninsula of India, on the island of Ceylon and 
at Malacca. The division of them which came to 
Ceylon formed eight considerable settlements along 
the north-east, north, and western coasts of that 
island; viz: one at Trincomalee, one at Jaffna, one 
at Mautotte and Mannar, one at Coodramalle, one 
at Putlam, one at Colombo, one at Barbareen and 
onr at Point-de-Galle." 

The presence of these settlers is strikingly corro- 
borated by the accounts found in Muslim sources 
with regard to the proximate cause of the Arab 
conquest of Sind, during the time of Caliph al- 
Walid. His governor, al-Hadjdjadj of 'Irak, initiated 
this conquest, under the leadership of c Imad al-Din 
Muhammad b. Kasim, as a punishment for the 
plunder of the ships that carried the families of the 
Arabs who had died in Ceylon, together with presents 
from the King of Ceylon to the Caliph. 

It is reasonable to suppose that during the 2nd/ 
8th century and subsequent centuries these Arabs 
came in increasing numbers and settled down in 
Ceylon without entirely losing touch with the areas 
of their origin. Ceylon exercized a special fascination 
on these seafaring Arabs as a commercial junction 
of importance which afforded possibilities of profi- 
table trade in pearls, gems, spices and other valued 
articles. Settlement was encouraged by the tolerant 
and friendly attitude of the rulers and people of the 

After the sack of Baghdad in 1258 A.D., Arab 
activities in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean 
diminished considerably. Muslim influence, however, 
did not thereby cease entirely. It began to emanate 
from India where by the 7th/i3th century the 
Muslims had firmly established themselves along 
the western coast and possessed a virtual monopoly 
of external trade. 

It may therefore be concluded that the Muslims 
of Ceylon began, as a result, to rely on India for 
their cultural leadership as well as for their commer- 
cial contacts. An Indian element was thus added 
into the composition of the local Muslim (Moor) 



community. Despite the racial admixture that took 
place in consequence and the new manners and 
customs that were acquired, the individuality of 
the community was preserved on account of the 
cherished memory of its Arab origin and the emphasis 
that was placed on Islam as the base of its communal 
structure. 

These Muslims were not treated as aliens, but 
were favoured for the commercial and political 
contacts with other countries they gained for Ceylon, 
for the revenue they brought to the country and the 
foreign skills they secured, e.g., medicine and 
weaving. Besides they encouraged local trade by 
the introduction of new crafts, e.g., gem-cutting and 
of improved methods of transport, e.g., thavalam- 
carriage-bullocks. They were therefore allowed to 
establish their local settlements, e.g., Colombo, 
Barberyn, with a measure of autonomy and with 
special privileges. The important seaports of Ceylon 
were virtually controlled by these Muslims (Moors). 

With the advent of the Portuguese in 1505 the 
Muslims (Moors) suffered a change in their status 
from which they never again recovered. The Portu- 
guese regarded them as their rivals in trade and 
enemies in faith. The Dutch who superseded the 
former as rulers of the sea-board were not prepared 
to give the Muslims even a small share of their 
commercial gains and therefore promulgated harsh 
regulations to keep them down. Deprived of their 
traditional occupation, many of them were forced 
to take to agriculture. To this could be mainly 
attributed the concentrations of Muslim peasantry 
in areas like Batticaloa. 

It was during the Dutch period the Malays — who 
form an important element of the Muslim community 
of Ceylon — came to Ceylon, many of them brought 
by the Dutch as soldiers to fight for them and some 
as exiles for political reasons. When the Dutch 
capitulated to the British, the Malay soldiers joined 
the British regiments specially formed. On their 
disbandment the Malays settled down in Ceylon. 
Their separate identity has been preserved by the 
Malay language which they still speak in their homes. 

The British did not follow the undiluted policy 
of proselytization pursued by the Portuguese. Nor 
were the British so harsh as the Dutch in their 
economic exploitation of Ceylon. To that extent, 
under the new rulers, the Muslims fared better. Yet 
they could not gain any special favour, on account 
of their irreconcilable attitude towards the ways 
and culture of the West which they identified with 
Christianity. This, no doubt, handicapped the 
Muslims severely in the political, economic and 
educational spheres but ensured the preservation 
of their communal individuality despite the 
smallness of their numbers and the loss of cul- 
tural contacts with the Muslim World. As a result 
till about the beginning of the current century 
the Muslims of Ceylon remained culturally isolated, 
educationally backward and politically insignificant. 

The Muslims, however, could not continue to 
ignore the trend of events taking place in Ceylon 
and India. Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, who founded 
in 1875 the Mohamedan Anglo-Oriental College, was 
the leader of the Aligarh Movement in India with 
its emphasis on educational reforms. Arumuga 
Navalar, who countered the efforts of the Christian 
Missionaries in North Ceylon, established in 1872 an 
English school under Hindu management. The 
Buddhist Theosophical Society established an 
English school in 1886 which finally developed into 
the present Ananda College, Colombo. In this 



ceylon — Chat 



year the Anagarika Dharmapala who was actively 
associated with the inauguration of this Society 
resigned his Government post to devote his entire 
time to Buddhist activities. During this period the 
Muslims of Ceylon had in M. C. Siddi Lebbe a leader 
of vision who understood the significance of these 
changes. He had for several years canvassed the 
opinion of his co-religionists for a new educational 
approach but he had not been heeded. It was at this 
time, in 1883, that c Ur5bi Pasha [q.v.] came as an 
exile to Ceylon. He provided a powerful stimulus 
for a reappraisal on the part of the Muslims of 
Ceylon in regard to their attitude towards modern 
education and Western culture. All these together 
culminated in the establishment in 1892 of Al- 
Madrasa al-Zahira under the patronage of 'UrabI 
Pasha which has since blossomed into Zahira 
College, Colombo. 

The Ceylon Muslims — apart from isolated in- 
stances — belong to the Shafi'i school of Sunnis. In 
the realm of Law the following special enactments 
pertaining to them may be cited — the Mohammedan 
Code of 1806 relating to matters of succession, 
inheritance etc., Mohammedan Marriage Registration 
Ordinance no. 8 of 1886 repealed by Ordinance 
no. 27 of 1929 and now superseded by the Muslim 
Marriage and Divorce Act no. 13 of 195 1 which 
confers upon the Kadis appointed by the Govern- 
ment exclusive jurisdiction in respect of marriages 
and divorces, the status and mutual rights and 
obligations of the parties; the Muslim Intestate 
Succession Ordinance no. 10 of 1931 and the Muslim 
Mosques and Charitable Trusts or Wakfs Act no. 51 
ol 1956 which provides a separate Government 
Department with a purely Muslim Executive Board. 
Of these the Mohammedan Code of 1806 is of special 
value to students of Islamic Civilization, for it 
contains many provisions which are in conflict with 
the principles of Muslim law stated in standard text 
books on that subject. Wherever such conflict 
occurs the view has been taken that it is the duty 
of the courts in Ceylon to give effect to the provisions 
of the Code, which formed the statute law of this 
country, although they may clash with well-esta- 
blished principles of Muslim law." 

Tamil is the home-language of the great majority 
of the Muslims of Ceylon. In the Tamil language 
as spoken and written by the Muslims of Ceylon 
and of South India, a number of Arabic words are 
used, which in many cases have displaced their pure 
Tamil equivalents. The term Arabic-Tamil has 
therefore gained currency to indicate the Tamil of 
the Muslims. At one time Arabic-Tamil was written 
in the Arabic script, j ^ ; J being improvised 
to denote four Tamil sounds unknown to Arabic, 
and being represented by 6_, 5 by }6_, e by 6 and 
a by ,j=6. Today Arabic Tamil is being generally 
written in the Tamil alphabet with or without 
diacritical marks. The literature of the Muslims of 
Ceylon has to be treated as part of the Arabic-Tamil 
literature of South India. Although Ceylon has 
produced its quota of poets and writers in Arabic- 
Tamil none has reached the stature of their well- 
known South Indian counterparts. 

The Muslims of Ceylon received their first political 
recognition when in 1889 a nominated seat was 
assigned to them in the Legislative Council. This 
representation was increased to 3 elected members 
in 1924. The Donoughmore Constitution of 1931 
abolished communal representation but the Soulbury 
Constitution of 1947 envisaged a certain measure 



of communal representation through territorial 
electorates specially delimitated. In the present 
House of Representatives, elected in 1956, there are 
7 Muslim M.P.s among 95 territorially elected 
members. 

Bibliography: Tennent, Ceylon. An Account 
of the I stand- Physical, Historical and Topogra- 
phical, London 1859; Fr. S. G. Perera, City of 
Colombo 1505-1656, Ceylon Historical Association 
1926 ; Inductions from Governor-General and Council 
of India to the Governor of Ceylon, 1656-1665, 
Colombo 1908 ; Queyroz, The Temporal and Spiritual 
Conquest of Ceylon, Colombo 1930; I. L. M. Abdul 
Azeez, A Criticism of Mr. Ramanathan's Ethnology 
of the Moors of Ceylon, Colombo 1907; M. M. 
Uwise, Muslim Contribution to Tamil Literature, 
Ceylon 1953; M. C. Siddi Lebbe, Muslim Neisan. 
An Arabic Tamil Weekly. (1882-1889), Ceylon; 
Ceylon Census Reports 1901, 1911, 1946; Report 
of the Special Commission on the Ceylon Constitution 
1928, His Majesty's Stationery Office; Report of 
the Commission on Constitutional Reform, Cmd 6677, 
J 945; Jennings & Tambiah, The Dominion of 
Ceylon, London 1952 ; Tamil Lexicon, University 
of Madras 1928; Massignon, Annnaire du Monde 
Musulmon, 155. (A. M. A. Azeez) 

CEYREK, a corruption of Persian laharyak (1/4), 
has in Turkish the special meaning of a quarter of 
an hour, or a coin, also known as the beshlik, or five 
piastre piece, originally the quarter of a medjidiyye, 
introduced in 1260/1844 during the reign of c Abd 
al-MadjId and issued by the succeeding rulers until 
the end of the Ottoman Empire. The silver leyrek 
had a fineness of 830, weighed 6.13 grams and 
measured 24 mm. in diameter. (G. C. Miles) 

CHAM [see cam] 

CHAT, an ancient town, situated on the bank 
of the Ghaggar and 14 miles from Ambala (India), 
is now practically desolate, with the exception of 
a few huts of Gudjdjars (milk-sellers) and other 
low-caste people atop a prehistoric mound, still 
unexcavated. It was a mahdll in the sarkdr of 
Sirhind, suba of Dihli, during the reign of Akbar, 
with a cultivable area of 158,749 bighas yielding a 
revenue of 750,994 dams annually. Its name suggests 
that in pre-Muslim days it was a settlement of 
Chattas, i.e., Chatlaris (more accurately Kshattriyas), 
a martial Hindu tribe. Apart from being a flourishing 
town peopled mainly by the Afghans and the Radjputs 
it was, during the early Mughal period, a military 
station garrisoned by 650 cavalry and 1,100 infantry. 
Its history is closely connected with that of Banur 
[q.v.] only 4 miles away. During the Sayyid and 
LodI periods, as the vast ruins, the dilapidated 
but very spacious Djami' Masdjid of the pre-Mughal 
period and the extensive grave-yard indicate, 
it was a town of considerable importance, and 
became the seat of one of the four branches of the 
Sayyids of Barha, called the Chat-Banurl or Chat- 
rawdi Sayyids, of whom Sayyid Abu '1-Fadl WasitI 
was the first to settle in this town (see AHn-i Akbari, 
vol. i, transl. Blochmann, 430-1). In 1121/1709 it 
was over-run and laid almost completely waste by 
the Sikhs under general Banda Bayragl. Shaykh 
Muhammad Da'im, the commandant of Ambala, 
who encountered the Sikh army was defeated and 
fled in dismay to Lahore. The most wanton 
cruelties were perpetrated on the inhabitants of 
Chat and Banur and very few escaped the sword 
or forced apostasy. Since then Chat has remained 
a dependency of Patiala and has never regained 
its lost prosperity. Al-Bada'uni (Eng. transl. iii 47) 



Chat — chitral 



mentions one Shaykh Da'ud of ChatI, but appa- 
rently Chati has been misread for Djuhni, more 
accurately Djuhniwal, once a small town in the 
pargana of Multan, and the translator has ob- 
viously confounded Chat. 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Fadl, AHn-i Akbari 
(Eng., transl. Blochmann and Jarrett), i 428, 
430-1, ii, 70, iii, 296; al-Bada'uni, Muntahhab al- 
Tawdrlkh (Eng. transl.) iii, 47 n 4 ; History of the 
Freedom Movement, Karachi 1957, i, 145 (where 
other references are given) ; Gokul Chand Narang, 
Transformation of Sikhism, Lahore 1912, 174-6; 
James Brown, India Tracts (London), 9-10; 
S. 'Alamdar Husayn WasitI, Hadika-i Wdsitiyya 
(Ms. Rida Library, Rampur); Settlement Report 
(Banur Tehsil), Patiala 1904; Patiala State 
Gazetteer, s.v.; Hari Ram Gupta, Later Mughal 
History of the Panjab, Lahore 1944, 46; Kh w 5fi 
Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubdb (Bibliotheca Indica), 
ii, 652-3 ; Bdbur-nama (Eng. transl. A. S. Beveridge), 
ii, 645 (there it is written as Chitr). 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
CHATR, CHATTAR [see mizalla] 
CHECHAOUEN [see shafshawanI 
CHERCHELL [see sharshal] 
CHESS [see shatrandj] 
CHINA [see al-sIn] 
CHIOS [see saijIz] 

CHITRAL (Citral), a princely state and a feder- 
ated unit of the Republic of Pakistan, situated between 
35° 15' and 37° 8' N. and 71° 22' and 74° 6' E. with 
an area of about 4,500 sq. miles, and a population 
of 105,000 in 1951, contiguous to Soviet Russia, 
Afghanistan and the Peoples' Republic of China. 
The state takes its name from the capital city, 
Citral, also known as Kashkar or Citrar, two ancient 
names still in favour with the people who call 
themselves Kashkaris. The origin of Kashkar is not 
known; the theory that it is composed of Kdsh — a 
demon and ghdr — a cave must be dismissed as 
absurd. The Chinese, after their conquest sometime 
in the first century B.C., called the area Citar, said 
to mean a green garden. Babur, in his memoirs, 
uses the same word for Chat [q.v.], apparently struck 
by the large number of flower-gardens in and around 
the town (Bdbur-ndma, transl. A. S. Beveridge, i, 
383). The state, with an estimated annual income 
of 13,000,000 rupees, is now commonly known as 
Citral; although the natives still prefer the older 
form Citrar. 

A mountainous country, its ice-caps and glaciers 
are a permanent source of water-supply for the lush 
green valleys of the Hindu-Kush whose off-shoots 
divide Citral into several orographic regions. 
Bounded by the unnamed kiihistdns of Dir and Swat 
(qq.v), the Himalayas and the Karakoram Range 
there are many famous passes and peaks in Citral. 
The Durah Pass (14,500 ft.) leads to Badakhshan 
[q.v.] and is open for only three months in the year. 
From ancient times it has served as an important 
caravan route between Citral and the Central Asia. 
The Baroghil pass (12,500 ft.) across the Yarkhun 
valley connects China and Soviet Russia with 
Citral and caravans from Kashghar and Khotan 
[qq.v.] were a common sight till recently. The other 
important passes are Shandur (12,500 ft.) and 
Lowara'I (10,230 ft.) which lead to Gilgit and Dlr 
respectively. The Lowara'I pass, the only link 
between Citral and the rest of West Pakistan, 
remains snow-bound for at least seven months in 
the year, and when open it can only be negotiated by 
jeep traffic. During the snow-bound period travellers 



cross into Citral on foot and merchandise is carried 

The main occupation of the people is agriculture 
or cattle-grazing, though the state is rich in mineral 
and forest wealth, which awaits large-scale exploi- 
tation. There are believed to be considerable deposits 
of antimony, iron-ore, lead, sulphur, mica, crystal and 
orpiment. The Ta'rikh-i Citral mentions gold, silver, 
lapis-lazuli, topaz and also turquoise among the 
rare minerals found. 

Communications are a great problem] -no roads 
worthy of the name exist. However, a good motor 
road, mainly for strategic purposes, is under con- 
>s the Lowara'I Pass and is expected 
be completed by the end of 1959. A proposal to 
all-weather road, through a tunnel 
under the Lowara'I Pass, connecting Peshawar with 
Citral, was also mooted but, in view of the huge 
cost involved, has been abandoned. 

Since her accession to Pakistan in 1947, Citral 
has made rapid progress in almost all spheres of life. 
There are now 85 regular schools including two high 
schools and two ddr al-'uliims for religious instruc- 
tion, as compared to two middle schools and a few 
maktabs before accession. Education up to matri- 
culation standard is free, and facilities are also 
provided for higher education outside the state. 
Two well-equipped hospitals and a number of 
dispensaries have been opened to provide free 
medical aid to the people. Small-scale and cottage 
industries have been set up and a fruit-crushing 
factory has been established at Dolomus, near 
Citral. Other measures for raising the standard of 
living of the people have also been taken. 

Very little is known about the early history of 
Citral. The aborigines have been called Pishacas and 
described as cannibals. They are said to have been 
subdued by the Chinese in the first century B. C. 
Nothing reliable is known thereafter till the 3rd/ 
10th century when we have archaeological evidence 
to prove that Citral was under the sway of king 
Djaypal of Kabul in 287/900 and that the people 
were Buddhists. Cinglz Khan is also said to have 
made inroads into Citral, but this lacks historical 
confirmation. 

The founder of the present ruling dynasty was one 
Baba Ayyub, an alleged grandson of Babur, who 
after the departure of his father, Mirza Kamran, 
to Mecca, wandered into Citral and took up service 
with the ruling monarch, a prince of the Ra'islyya 
dynasty. His grandson Sangln 'All I is said to have 
found favour with the ruler, who appointed him his 
first subject. Gradually he assumed great power, 
and on his death in 978/1570 his two sons Muhammad 
Rida 5 and Muhammad Beg succeeded to the offices 
he had held. On the death of the Ra'Isiyya prince, 
Muhammad Rida' became the virtual ruler, but soon 
after he was murdered by his nephews for the 
excesses which he had perpetrated against them 
and their father, Muhammad Beg. In 993/1585 
Muhtaram Shah I, one of the sons of Muhammad 
Beg, peacefully dethroned the last Ra'Isiyya ruler 
of Citral, whose descendants he deported to Badakh- 
shan, and himself assumed the reins of government. 
In 1024/1615 Mahmud b. Nasir Ra'isiyya attacked 
Citral with a large force of BadakhshSnl troops, 
defeated Muhtaram Shah I, granted him pardon but 
expelled him from Citral. In 1030/1620 Muhtaram 
Shah I returned to Citral after murdering Mahmud 
Ralsiyya, only to be attacked for the second time 
in 1044/1634. Subsequently Muhtaram Shah I had to 
leave the country because of the defection of his 



troops. He was driven from pillar to post and was 
ultimately killed in an encounter with the people 
of Gilgit [q.v.], who were, however, very severely 
punished in 1124/1712 by his son and successor 
Sangin c Ali II, for the murder of his father. Sangln 
'AH II, having despaired of regaining his lost 
principality went to Afghanistan, then a province 
of the Indian Mughal empire. 

On the accession of Shah 'Alain Bahadur Shah I 
[see bahadur shah I] to the throne of Delhi, Sangln 
'AH II came down to India and entered in 1120/1708 
the service of Shah 'Alam, who appointed him 
custodian of the shrine of Ahmad Sirhindl [q.v.]. 
With the monetary assistance rendered by the 
Mughal emperor Sangln 'All II was able to enrol 
Swat levies who helped him reconquer the lost 
territory. Sangln 'AH II was murdered in 1 158/1745 
by some members of the Ralsiyya dynasty and 
was followed by a number of weak and effete rulers. 
In 1189/1775 Framarz Shah, a nephew of Muhtaram 
Shah I, came to the throne. He was a military 
adventurer and led a number of campaigns against 
the neighbouring territories of Gilgit, Nagar and 
Kafiristan. He also attacked Caght Serai in Afgha- 
nistan and occupied it after a fierce battle. He was 
murdered in 1205/1790 by one of his uncles, Shah 
Afdal, who occupied the throne. On his death in 
12 10/1795 his brother Shah Fadil succeeded him. 
Then follows a series of internecine battles, and the 
picture becomes so confused that it is difficult to 
follow the events with historical precision. 

Shah Fadil was succeeded in 1213/1798 by Shah 
Nawaz Khan, his nephew, who repulsed with heavy 
losses an attack on Citral in 1223/1808 by Khayr 
Allah Khan b. 'Ismat Allah Khan, one of his cousins. 
He was, however, forced to quit the throne but was 
proclaimed ruler for the third time in 1234/1818. 
In the meantime Muhtaram Shah II, one of the 
brothers of Shah Nawaz, had become a prominent 
figure in state affairs. Citral was then divided into 
small units each under a local chieftain, the most 
powerful of whom was Mulk Aman, the ruler of 
Citral proper. On his death in 1249/1833 Muhtaram 
Shah II, entitled Shah Kator, assumed power, 
brushing aside the minor sons of Mulk Aman. After 
a hectic and picturesque political career of 28 years 
Muhtaram Shah II, burdened with age, died in 
1 253/1837 and was succeeded by his son Shah Afdal 
II. In 1257/1841 Gawhar Aman, a son of Mulk Aman 
and ruler of Warshi^um (Yasin and Mastudj) 
unsuccessfully invaded Gilgit whose ruler appealed 
for help to his overlord, the Dogra RSdja of Kashmir. 
In 1265/1848 Gawhar Aman again attacked Gilgit 
but was forced to retire. by the Kashmir troops who 
occupied Gilgit. In 1269/1852 the inhabitants of 
Gilgit, sick of the Dogra excesses, secretly invited 
Gawhar Aman who, after a pitched battle, defeated 
the Sikhs and occupied Gilgit. 

The Maharadja of Kashmir, smarting under the 
blow, again invaded Gilgit in 1273/1856 but the very 
next year Gawhar Aman, taking advantage of the 
Kashmir ruler's preoccupation with the tumult in 
India, drove out the Sikh garrison. A series of 
skirmishes then followed, neither side gaining the 
upper hand. Meanwhile Gawhar Aman died and the 
fort of Gilgit was recaptured by the Kashmir troops 
in 1277/1860. Earlier in 1271/1854 Gulab Singh, the 
ruler of Kashmir was said to have entered into an 
alliance with Shah Afdal, the Mehtar of Citral, 
against Gawhar Aman, but this statement is without 
foundation as Shah Afdal had already passed away 
in 1270/1853 and succeeded by his son Muhtaram 



Shah III, nick-named Adam-Kh'ur (man-eater). In 
spite of his valour, generosity and prowess he was 
disliked by the people who deposed him and placed 
Aman al-Mulk on the throne. In 1285/1868 Citral 
was attacked by Mahmud Shah, the ruler of 
Badakhshan, who suffered an ignominious defeat. 
In 1296/1878 the Mehtar of Citral made an engage- 
ment with the Maharadja of Kashmir by which the 
latter acknowledged the supremacy of the former, 
accepting in return a subsidy of 12,000 rupees 
(Srinagar coinage) annually. 

In 1297/1880, after the defeat of Pahlwan Bahadur, 
ruler of Upper Citral, the entire territory became 
united for the first time under one chief, Mehtar 
Aman al-Mulk, who also became the master of 
Mastudj, Yasin and Ghizr. In 1303/ 1885-6 Citral was 
visited by the Lockhart Mission followed in 1306/ 
1888 by another under Captain Durand which was 
instrumental in getting the annual subsidy, paid by 
the Kashmir Darbar, raised to 12,000 rupees in 
1309/1891. In 1310/1892 Afdal al-Mulk succeeded 
his father, Aman al-Mulk, who had died suddenly, 
but was soon afterwards murdered by his uncle, 
Shir Afdal, who was, in turn attacked and expelled 
by Nizam al-Mulk, governor of Yasin and an elder 
brother of Afdal al-Mulk, then a refugee in Gilgit. 
In 1312/1895 Nizam al-Mulk was shot dead by his 
half-brother, Amir al-Mulk, who seized the fort. 
Citral was soon invaded by 'Umra Khan, the wall 
of Djandol and master at that time of Dir [q.v.]. He 
was joined by Shir Afdal, an exile in Afghanistan. 
Both 'Umra Khan and Shir Afdal made common 
cause against the small British Indian force which, 
according to the treaty of 1307/1889, had been 
stationed at Citral. When it was learnt that Amir 
al-Mulk had made secret overtures to 'Umra Khan 
and his ally, the British Agent placed him under 
detention and provisionally recognized Shudja' al- 
Mulk, a boy of 14 years, and a son of Aman al-Mulk 
as the Mehtar. 

The British Political Agent, with a mixed force 
of 400 native and British troops, had occupied the 
fort before placing Shudja' al-Mulk on the throne. 
The garrison attacked the forces of 'Umra Khan 
and Shir Afdal but met with little success. Then 
began the historic seige of Citral by 'Umra Khan 
and his confederates which lasted from 3 March 
1895 to 19 April 1895, and was finally raised by the 
entry into Citral of the advanced guard of the main 
relief force on 26 April 1895 which had been despat- 
ched via Malakand and Dir. Shir Afdal fell a prisoner 
into the hands of the British while 'Umra Khan 
escaped to Afghanistan. Amir al-Mulk and his 
leading men were deported to India as a punishment 
for their complicity in the trouble which necessitated 
large-scale military operations. Shudja' al-Mulk was 
confirmed as the Mehtar and since then Citral has 
enjoyed an unbroken period of peace and progress. 
During the Afghan War of 1338/1919 the Citral 
Scouts fully co-operated with the British. The 
Mehtar was allowed a sum of 100,000 rupees as his 
contribution to the expenses of the war, and the 
same year the title of His Highness, with a personal 
salute of 11 guns, was conferred on him. In 1345/1926 
the Mehtar entered into an agreement with the 
Government of India for the prevention of smuggling 
of narcotics through Dir and Swat, into British India. 

An enlightened ruler, Shudja' al-Mulk introduced 
modern amenities like electricity, tele-communica- 
tions and automobiles into the state and constructed 
roads, forts, grain godowns, irrigation channels and 
schools. He also built a Djami' Masdjid, said to be 



the most beautiful and the largest building between 
Gilgit and Peshawar. He is known as the 'Architect' 
of modern Citral. 

On his death in 1355/1936 he was succeeded by 
his son Nasir al-Mulk. A ruler endowed with literary 
taste, his Persian poetic work, the Sahlfat al-Takwin, 
a study of the theory of evolution in the light 
of the Kur'anic teachings, has won him praise and 
admiration from indigenous scholars. In 1362/1943 
his younger brother Muzaffar al-Mulk succeeded him. 
It was he who offered the accession of Citral to 
Pakistan in 1367/1947. He was succeeded by Sayf 
al-Rahman in 1369/1949 who, on his death in an 
air-crash in 1374/1954, was succeeded by his infant 
son, Sayf al-Mulk Nasir, a boy of 3 years of age. The 
state is now ruled by a Council of Regency presided 
over by the Political Agent, Malakand Agency 
through the Wazlr-i AHam, an officer appointed by 
the Government of Pakistan. 

Bibliography : Muhammad 'Aziz al-DIn, 
TdMkk-i Citral (in Urdu), Agra 1897; Imp. 
Gazetteer of India, Oxford 1908, 300-4; H. C. 
Thomson, The Chitral Campaign, London 1895; 
H. L. Nevill, Campaigns on the North-West 
Frontier, London 1912, index; G. W. Leitner, 
Dardistan in 1866, 1886 and 1893, London n.d., 
104-6 and appendix II; C. U. Aitchison, A Collect- 
ion of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads relating 
to India, Delhi 1933, xi, 414-17; Memoranda on 
the Indian States (an official publication of the late 
Government of India), Delhi 1940, 206-10; G. 
Robertson, Chitral, London 1898 ; W. R. Robertson, 
The Chitral Expedition, Calcutta 1898; Biddulph, 
Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh, Calcutta 1880; T. H. 
Holdich, The Indian Borderland, (chaps, xi, xiii), 
London 1901 ; EI', s.v. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

II. Name, languages and tribes. 

Khowar Chetrar, together with corresponding 
forms in neighbouring languages, goes back to 
*Ksetrat(i ?). Sanglecl Sam-Catrad, etc. contains 
an ancient name of N. Chitral (cf. BSOS, vi, 44 if.). 

Of the 105,529 (1951) inhabitants of Chitral the 
great majority (90,000) speak Khowar, the language 
of the Kho tribe and of the state. It extends east of 
the Shandur pass as far as Ghizr in Yasln. Khowar 
is an Indo-Aryan language of archaic type, cf., e.g., 
iron hip, aSru tear, hardi heart, iSpaSur father-in-law, 



tc. But it contains, apart from more 


recent borrow- 


lgs from'Pers., Ar. and Hind., also 1 




he Pamir dialects, as well as a num 


er of words of 


iddle Iranian origin. Some words 


are borrowed 


om, or shared with Burushaski 


ind Sina, and 



ords ai 



•oi u 



Other Indo-Aryan languages are: Kalasa (3,000) 
spoken, mainly by pagans, in two dialects in the 
side-valleys of S. Chitral. Kalasa is closely related 
to Khowar. The Kalas are said to have occupied 
Chitral right up to Resun, and to have been pushed 
back within the last few hundred years by the Khos, 
whose original home was in Torikho and Mulikho in 
N. Chitral. — Phalura (Dangarik) (3,000) is spoken in 
some side valleys of S. E. Chitral by original immi- 
grants from Cilas. It is an archaic form of Sina. — 
Gawar-Bati is spoken at Arandu, close to the Afghan 
border, and also across it. In the same neighbourhood 
we find Darnell in one village.— Gudjuri (2,000) is 
spoken by Gudjur herdsmen who have filtered 
through from Swat and Dir. 

Kati, a Kafir language, has been introduced into 
S. Chitral within the last few generations by settlers 



- CHITTAGONG 31 

from Kamdesh and the upper Bashgal valley in 
Nuristan. 

Iranian languages: Persian (Badakhshi) (1,000) at 
Madaglasht in the Shishi Kuh valley.— Pashto (at 
least 4,000) in the Arandu district. — Wakhi, spoken 
by a few settlers in upper Yarkhun. Yidgha, an 
offshoot of MundjI in Mundjan, is spoken by the 
Yidgh (Idagh, etc.) tribe, settled since long in the 
upper Lotkuh valley, below the Dorah pass. 

At a not too remote date we must suppose that 
Chitral was divided between Khos and Kalases, and 
the ancestors of these languages must have been 
introduced from N.W. India at a very early stage 
of development. A couple of short Sanskrit inscrip- 
tions have been found. Khowar has no written 
literature, [except a translation of the Gandj-i 
Pashto (Calc, 1902, romanized), and a short 
prayer book in Urdu script (Nimei, 1958)-] But the 
language is rich in songs and popular tales (silogh < 
sloka). 

With the exception of most Kalases the inhabitants 
are Muslim, mainly Maulais. The last pagan Katis 
were converted in the 1930s. But many traces of 
pre- Islamic customs and festivals remain. Note also 
Khowar dasman priest, probably < Skt. 'daksamant. 

The Khos are divided into three social classes: 
Adamzadas, nobles, or at any rate free-holders; 
Arbabzadas, comparatively well off, being paid for 
their services to the Mehtar, and on that account 
with a higher status than the very poor Fakir Miskin. 

Each class contains a number of clans, some of 
which carry patronymical names, other such indicat- 
ing foreign origin, while others are difficult to analyse. 
Also the Kalas and Yidgh tribes are divided into 

The Khos are dolicho- to mesocephalic, of middle 
height, and often with eyes and hair of medium 
colour, a few are fair-haired and blue-eyed. Kalases 
and Katis are more decidedly dolichocephalic, and 
the Katis also of greater height. 

Bibliography: Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo 
Koosh, Calcutta 1880; D. J. T. O'Brien, Grammar 
and vocabulary of the Khowar dialect, Lahore 1895 ; 
Linguistic Survey of India, viii, II. G. Morgen- 
stierne, Report on a linguistic mission to Afghani- 
stan, Oslo 1926; idem, Report on a lingu. miss, to 
N.W. India, Oslo 1932; idem, The name Munjan 
and some other names of places and peoples in the 
Hindu-Kush, BSOS, vi; idem, Iranian elements 
in Khowar, in BSOS, viii; idem, Some features of 
Khowar morphology, Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprog- 
idenskap, xiv; idem, Sanscritic words in Khowar, 



S. K. Belva 



■ Felici 



Volum. 



Benar 



1957; A. Stein, Serindia, i, 26 ff., 

Anthropology : T. A. Joyce, Serindia, iii, 135 1, 
ff.; B. S. Guha, Census of India 1931, 1/3, x, ff., 
Delhi 1935; A. Herrlich, in Deutsche im Hindu- 
kusch (with bibliography), 170 ft., Berlin 1937. 
Kalas and Kati: R. C. F. Schomberg, Kafirs 
and Glaciers, London 1938; H. Siiger, Ethnological 
field-research in Chitral, Sikkim and Assam (Kgl. 
Danske Videnskabers Selskab, hist. fil. Med- 
deleher, 36, 2), Copenhagen. 

(G. Morgenstierne) 
CHITTAGONG, Tset-ta-gong, Catigrama, or 
Catgam is the main sea-port in East Pakistan 
and the head-quarter of the district bordering on 
Arakan. The town, which has a population of 
294,046 (1951 census) inhabitants, stands on the 
right bank of the Karnaphuli river, ten miles from 
the sea, and has a good natural harbour away from 
the flooded plains of Bengal and the silt-depositing 



CHITTAGONG — CIFTLIK 



mouths of the Ganges. Its origin is obscure. The 

early Arab geographers speak of only Samandar on 

the bank of probably the Brahmaputra as a sea-port 

in this region. Chittagong comes in to prominence 

from the 8th/i4th century onward, and is referred 

to as the Porto Grando by the Portuguese. It was 

first conquered by the Muslims in 738/1338 possibly 

from the Arakanese who often disturbed the peace 

of the city. In 918/1512 the Bengal Sultan c Ala 3 al- 

Din Husayn Shah ousted the Arakanese and named 

it Fathabad. For about a hundred years when the 

Mughals were consolidating their position in Bengal, 

Chittagong again reverted to the Arakanese, and 

only in 1076/1666 it was finally conquered by the 

Mughal governor Shayista Khan, who renamed it 

Islamabad and had a Djami 1 mosque built there. 

The district of Chittagong has a large mixture of 

foreign populace, the men of Arab descent being 

in good proportion. The Arab influence is also 

observable in the Chittagonian dialect. Several stories 

about the Mdhi Sawdr (riding on fish, i.e., coming 

by sea) saints are current here. About four miles 

from the town stands the locally famous dargdh 

dedicated to the memory of Bayazld Bistaml. 

Within the city can be seen the tomb of Shaykh 

Badr al- c Alam, a saint of the 14th century, and the 

dargdh of Pdnl Pir [q.v.], a group of five saints not 

definitely specified but very popular in this region. 

Another object of great local reverence is the Kadm-i 

Rasul [q.v.] (a stone replica of the foot-print of 

the Prophet), preserved in a 17th century mosque. 

Bibliography: J. N. Sarkar, The conquest of 

Chatgaon, in JASB 1907; idem, The Feringi 

pirates of Chatgaon, in JASB 1907; A. H. Dani: 

Early Muslim Contact with Bengal, in Proceedings 

of the First Pakistan History Conference, Karachi 

195 1 ; Hamidullah: Ta'rikh-i Cdtgdm (a Persian 

history of the 19th century). (A. H. Dani) 

CHIVALRY [see furOsivva] 

CHOCIM [see khotin] 

CHRISTIANITY, CHRISTIANS [see nasara] 
CHRONOLOGY [see ta'riioj] 
CID [see al-sid] 

CIFT-RESMI also called Hft-haW or kulluk- 
aklasi, in the Ottoman empire the basic raSyyet 
(see re c aya) tax paid in principle by every Muslim 
peasant, raHyyet, possessing one lift. The term lift 
(original meaning = "pair") was used to denote the 
amount of agricultural land which could be ploughed 
by two oxen. It was fixed as from 60 to 150 doniims 
according to the fertility of the soil (one dbnum was 
about 1000 sq. m. = no6sq. yds.). We find a lift- 
aklasl in Anatolia under the Saldjukids at the rate 
of one dinar [q.v.]. On the other hand the Ottoman 
lift-resmi had striking similarities with the Byzantine 
taxes paid by the paroihoi to the ^ronoi'a-holders. 
It is to be noted that, as an 'urfi tax, it appeared in 
its original form in the lands conquered from the 
Byzantines in Western Anatolia and Thrace, and 
was applied there both to the Muslim and Christian 
re'dyd alike, whereas in other parts of the empire 
the Christians were subjected to a different raHyyet 
tax, namely the ispendje or ispenle. 

In the K dnunndme of Mehemmed II it is stated that 
lift-resmi was the money equivalent of seven services 
such as the provision of hay, straw, wood etc., for 
the ttmar-holder. For these services, khidmets or 
kulluks, twenty-two akla [q.v.] were to be paid as 
iifi-resmi. Those possessing half a (iff, nim-lijt, were 
to pay half. Regardless of his personal condition, 
every raHyyet possessing a lift or half a lift had to 
pay this tax, and this gave it the character of a 



land-tax. In the ioth/i6th century Abu '1-Su c ud and 
others attempted to include it among the sharH 
taxes as kharddj-i muwazzaf. 

Married peasants with land amounting to less 
than half a lift, or possessing no land of their own, 
were called benndk [q.v.], and were subject to lower 
rates, for example 6 or 9 aklas, which were later 
increased to 9, 12 and 18. In the Kdnun-ndme of 
Mehemmed II the benndk were supposed to be 
subject only to three services, the money equivalent 
of which was 6 or 9 aklas. Lastly the re'-dyd classified 
as kara or mudjerred, the very poor or bachelors, 
who possessed no land of their own, paid this tax 
at the lowest rate of 6 aklas. 

Thus lift-resmi can be regarded as the basic unit 
of a graduated tax system, and even tutun-resmi and 
donum-resmi can be included in the same system. 

Originally the rate of lift-resmi was 22 aklas, but 
in 862/1458 it was raised to 33 aklas in the sandjaks 
of the eydlet of Anadolu. It was further raised in 
some parts of Anatolia with additions made in favour 
of subashls [q.v.] and sandjak-begs [q.v.], but under 
Suleyman I this innovation was abolished as causing 
confusion. Applied to Syria after its conquest with 
a higher rate of 40, and in Eastern Anatolia of 50 
aklas it remained however, 22 aklas in Rumeli (see 
the list in my Osmanhlarda Raiyyet Rusumu, in 
Belleten, no. 92, 1959). Partial or total exemptions 
from lift-resmi were granted by imperial berdts in 
return for some public services required from the 
re'-dyd. But in the ioth/i6th century many such 
exemptions were abolished. 

As a rule lift-resmi was included in the timdr [q.v.] 
revenue of the sipdhi. But it lost its importance when 
after 990/1582 the akla decreased in value and the 
'awdrid [q.v.] became a form of regular taxation 
imposed on the re'dyd. (Haul Inalcik) 

CIFTLIK is the ordinary word for farm in 
Turkish, but in the Ottoman times it designated, at 
first, a certain unit of agricultural land in the land- 
holding system, and then, later on, a large estate. 
It was formed from lift (pair, especially a pair of 
oxen) from the Persian djuft with the Turkish 
suffix, lik. Originally, a liftlik was thought of 
as the amount of land that could be ploughed by 
two oxen. Cift and liftlik were used synony- 
mously. In the Slav areas of the Ottoman empire 
the term bashtina was often substituted for liftlik. 
In the Ottoman land-holding system during the 
period in which the timdr [q.v.] organization prevailed, 
liftlik was a term applied to a holding of agricultural 
land comprising 60 or 80 to 15- doniims (one donum 
equals approximately 1000 sq.m.), the size varying 
with the fertility of the soil. The liftlik was the 
basic land unit used in all forms of land-holding, 
miri, wakf, and miilh or mdlikdne. From the legal 
point of view, however, the kind of liftlik varied 
with the type of tenure. 

The raHyyet liftliks which the re'dyd, Christian 
and Muslim peasants, possessed by tapu [q.v.] and 
for which they paid the 'ushr [q.v.] and lift-resmi 
[q.v.] taxes to the land-holder, made up by far the 
greater part of the agricultural lands. As a rule, 
liftliks were not to be subdivided because such a 
situation would, in the judgement of Abu '1-Su c ud, 
make it impossible to collect the taxes imposed on a 
liftlik as a whole. In reality, however, during the 
land surveys, tahrir [q.v.], it was found that many 
liftliks had lost their original form as a result of 
sub-division, and the lift-resmi were no longer 
being collected. In order to preserve the liftlik, 
which was essential to the land-holding system of 



ClFTLlK — CIGHALA-ZADE SINAN PASHA 



the time, and which had been the basis for land and 
hearth taxes in the area even before the Ottomans, 
it was decreed that if land recorded in the defters 
[see daftar] as liftlik was found divided among 
several persons it was to be restored to its original 
form, and if a raHyyet in possession of a liftlik died 
leaving several sons, they were to possess it col- 
lectively, meshd'an. 

In addition to the raHyyet Iiftliks we also find 
what we can call the military Iiftliks which, unlike 
the former, were in the direct possession of the 
military. In this category we find the khdssa Iiftliks 
of the Hmar-holders and the Iiftliks in the military 
organizations of the yaya, musellem and doghcmdji 
etc. Their common feature was that they were not 
subject to the raHyyet taxes. But, while the khdssa 
Iiftliks, also known as kilil-yeri, were exploited by 
the Hmar-holders under a sharecropping system, 
ortakdjilik or mukdta'a [q.v.], the yaya and musellem 
Iiftliks were cultivated, as a rule, by the yayas and 
musellems themselves. These Iiftliks were never to 
change their original character and usually were 
named by their original possessors as Mehmed-yeri, 
'Ali-yeri, etc. There were attempts by the military 
to add raHyyet lands illegally to their khdssa Iiftliks. 
But, in the ioth/i6th century, most of the military 
Iiftliks were transformed by the government into 
raHyyet iiftliks and assigned as timdrs. In the case 
of the khdssa Iiftliks in Bosnia [see Bosna], the 
reason given for their transformation in 936/1530 
was that they lay uncultivated. 

The Iiftliks in the wakf and miilk or mdlikdne 
lands were the same in size as other iiftliks and were 
usually cultivated by the raHyyet. During the reigns 
of Bayazid I, Mehemmed II, and under the 10th/ 
1 6th century Sultans, a great part of these iiftliks 
too was converted into timdrs. For example, in 
Erzindjan in 947/1540, each zawiye [q.v.] under a 
shaykh was assigned a liftlik while the rest of the 
land was distributed among the timdrs. 

As early as the 8th/i4th and gth/i5th 
the Ottoman Sultans granted influential m 
villages or large timdrs as Iiftliks. In these instances 
we are no longer dealing with the liftlik as a land 
measure, but as a personal estate, granted by the 
Sultan. For example, in the defter of Pasha-sandjaghi 
dated 859/1455 (Belediye Kiit. Istanbul, Cevdet 
kit. no. 0.89) we find a number of people, among 
them the Court physician Mehmed ShirwanI and the 
Sultan's tutor Seydl Ahmed, in possession of timdrs 
as liftlik (ber wed±h-i liftlik). Such large lands were 
sometimes given as miilk {ber wedjh-i miilkiyyet). The 
revenues of these Iiftliks were farmed out by their 
possessors, who usually lived in the towns, for a sum 
of money which was called mukdta c a. The possessor 
of the liftlik was usually required to equip one 
soldier (.eshkiindji) for the Sultan's army. 

Even in this early period we find some newly 
opened lands or mazra'-as [q.v.] held directly as 
iiftliks by members of the military class who, as a 
rule, paid the government a sum of money which 
was also called mukdfa'a. Therefore, these Iiftliks 
were also known as mukd(a<ali Iiftliks. In central 
and northern Anatolia the Iiftliks which were 
possessed by the pre-Ottoman aristocratic families 
under the names of mdlikdne or yurd were given the 
same status with the obligation of supplying an 
eshkundii. The Iiftliks which were opened in the 
uncultivated lands by the military were subject only 
to the Htshr tax. By the end of the ioth/i6th century 
the number of such Iiftliks in the hands of the 
Janissaries increased rapidly. But, in general, the 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 






tendency in the ioth/i6th century was to convert 
all types of military Iiftliks into raHyyet Iiftliks so 
that the raHyyet taxes might be included in the 

With the disruption of the timdr system, this 
course of development was reversed. During and 
after the period of confusion between 1003/1595- 
1018/1609, a great part of the raHyyet Iiftliks found 
their way into the hands of the kapt-kulu and 
palace favourites, and the old practices such as 
possession of timdrs as Iiftliks, miilk or mukdta'alt 
Iiftliks were now widespread. In the same period, 
moreover, when the peasantry abandoned their 
lands en masse and scattered throughout Anatolia, 
which is known in Ottoman history as the Great 
Flight, the Janissaries and others took possession of 
the re'dyd Iiftliks by tapu. The accumulation of 
Iiftliks in the hands of a'-ydn [q.v.], rich and in- 
fluential men in the provinces, however, was mainly 
due to the mukdta'a system. This again was an old 
practice but now, with the disorganization of the 
timdr system, the timdr lands were increasingly 
rented as mukdta c a to private persons bidding the 
highest price. In reality however, through admini- 
strative abuses, the influential men managed to 
obtain them. Aghas and a'-ydn with large mukdta c a 
holdings, Iiftliks, emerged everywhere in the empire, 
especially during the 12/18 century. Nedjatl (Siiley- 
maniye Kiit. Esad ef. no. 2278, v. 43), writing in that 
century, complained that many timdrs had been 
seized by the a'-ydn and ahl-i Htrf, officials, in the 
provinces. It was on the mukdta'a lands that the 
power of the great a'ydn rested in that century, and 
from this period on the word liftlik was used to 
designate large personal estates. The attempts to 
break up these Iiftliks made by the Tanzimat [q.v.] 
reformers did not meet with any great success and 
this became the underlying factor in the peasant 
uprisings in the Balkans in the I3th/igth century. 
Under the Turkish Republic a law passed in 1945 
(modified in 1950) provided that the large estates 
were to be broken up and distributed to the peasants 
in need of land. 

Bibliography : 0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar; 

idem, Turk Toprak Hukuku Tarihinde Tanzimat, 

in Tanzimat, Istanbul 1940, 321-421; H. Inalcik, 

Tanzimat ve Bulgar Meselesi, Ankara 1943 ; idem, 

Osmanhlarda Raiyyet Rusumu, in Belleten 92 

(i959)» 575-6o8; idem, Land Problems in Turkish 

History, in The Muslim World, xlv (1955), 221-228; 

1A, 25. cuz (1945), 392-397- (Haul Inalcik) 

ClGHALA-ZADE ( djighala-zade ) Yusuf 

SINAN PASHA (c. 1545-1605), also known as 

Caghal (Djaghal)-oghlu, belonged to the Genoese 

house of Cicala. He was born at Messina in Sicily and 

received the Christian name Scipione Cicala. His 

father, the Visconte di Cicala, was, according to 

Gerlach, a "corsair" in the service of Spain, while his 

mother is said (cf. L'Ottomanno, of L. Soranzo) 

to have been "Turca da Castelnuovo". The Visconte 

and his son, captured at sea by Muslim corsairs 

in 968/1561 (some of the sources give the year 

as 967/1560), were taken first to Tripoli in North 

Africa and then to Istanbul. The father was in due 

course redeemed from captivity and, after living for 

some time at Beyoglu, returned to Messina, where 

he died in 1564. His son, Scipione, became, however, 

a Muslim and was trained in the Imperial Palace, 

rising to the rank of silahddr and later of Kapldjl 

Bashl. Cighala-zade, through his marriage first to 

one (980-981/1573) and afterwards (983-984/1576) to 

another great-grand-daughter of Sultan Sulayman 



ClGHALA-ZADE SINAN PASHA — CILICIA 



KanunI, found himself assured of wealth, high 
office and protection at the Porte. 

He became Agha of the Janissaries in 982/1575 
and retained this appointment until 986/1578. 
During the next phase of his career he saw much 
active service in the long Ottoman-Persian war of 
986/1578-998/1590. He was Beglerbeg of Van in 
991/1583, assumed command, in the same year, of 
the great fortress of Erivan — he was now raised to 
the rank of Vizier — and also had a prominent rdle. 
once more as Beglerbeg of Van, in the campaign of 
993/1585 against Tabriz. As Beglerbeg of Baghdad, 
an appointment which he received in 994/1586, 
Cighala-zade fought with success in western Persia 
during the last years of the war, reducing Nihawand 
and Hamadan to Ottoman control. 

After the peace of 998/1590 he was made Beglerbeg 
of Erzurum and in 999/1591 became Kapudan Pasha, 
i.e., High Admiral of the Ottoman fleet— an office 
that he held until 1003/1595. During the third Grand 
Vizierate (1001-1003/1593-1595) of Khodja Sinan 
Pasha he was advanced to the rank of fourth Vizier. 
The Ottomans, since 1001/1593, had been at war 
with Austria. Cighala-zade, having been appointed 
third Vizier, accompanied Sultan Mehemmed III 
on the Hungarian campaign of 1004-1005/1596. He 
tried, but in vain, to relieve the fortress of Khatwan 
(Hatvan), which fell to the Christians in Muharram 
1005/September 1596, was present at the successful 
Ottoman siege of Egri (Erlau) (Muharrem-Safer 
1005/September-October 1596) and, at the battle 
of Mezo-Keresztes (Hac OvasI) in Rabi c I 1005/ 
October 1596, shared in the final assault that turned 
an imminent defeat into a notable triumph for the 
Ottomans. Cighala-zade, in reward for his service 
at Mezo-Keresztes, was now made Grand Vizier, 
but the discontent arising from the measures which 
he used in a effort to restore discipline amongst the 
Ottoman forces, the troubles which followed his 
intervention in the affairs of the Crimean Tatars, and 
the existence at court of powerful influences eager 
to restore Damad Ibrahim Pasha [q.v.] to the Grand 
Vizierate, brought about his deposition from this 
office, after he had been in control of the government 
for little more than a month (Rabi c I-Rabi £ II 1005/ 
October-December 1596). 

Cighala-zade became Beglerbeg of Sham (Syria) in 

Djumada I 1006/December 1597-January 1598 and 

then, in Shawwal 1007/May 1599, was made Kapudan 

Pasha for the second time. He assumed command, 

in 1013/1604, of the eastern front, where a new war 

between the Ottomans and the Persians had broken 

out in the preceding year. His campaign of 1014/ 

1605 was unsuccessful, the forces that he led towards 

Tabriz suffering defeat near the shore of Lake 

Urmiya. Cighala-zade now withdrew to the fortress 

of Van and thence in the direction of Diyarbekir. 

He died, in the course of this retreat, during the 

month of Radjab 1014/November-December 1605. 

Bibliography: SelanikI, Ta'rlkh, Istanbul 

1281 A.H., 198 ff., 292, 299, 334, 342-343; PecevI, 

Ta'rikh, ii, Istanbul 1283 A.H., 25, 87, 97 if., 107, 

111-112, 191, 192, 197, 198, 204 ff., 261 ff., 284; 

Ewliya Celebi, Seydhat-ndme, vii, Istanbul 1928, 

157, 179, 180; Na'ima, Ta'rlkh, Istanbul 1281-1283 

A.H., i, 146 ff., 167 ff., 172 «-, 368, 379, 387-388 

(Djighala-zade Sinan Pasha oghlu Mahmud 

Pasha), 393 ff., 425 ff.; Iskandar Beg MunshI, 

Ta'rikh-i 'Alam Ard-i 'Abbdsi, Tehran 1955-1956, 

i, 311 ff., 403 ff., 470 and ii, 635, 656, 660-672 

passim, 678-685 passim, 695, 702-705 passim, 

768, 769; S. Gerlach, Tagebuch, Frankfurt-am- 



Main 1674, 27, 217, 244-245, 265-266, 269; G. T. 
Minadoi, Historia delta Guerra fra Turchi et 
Persiani, Venice 1588, 221-222, 307, 315-317 
passim, 324, 326, 330, 344, 345; L. Soranzo, 
L'Ottomanno, Ferrara 1599, 10-12; The Travels of 
John Sanderson in the Levant 1584-1602, ed. Sir 
W. Foster (Hakluyt Society), London 1931, 319 
(index); C. Hughes, Shakespeare's Europe {Un- 
published Chapters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary), 
London 1903, 26 and 46; Purchas His Pilgrimes, 
viii, Glasgow 1905, 311, 313, 316, 320; Ambassade 
en Turquie de Jean de Gontaut Biron, Baron de 
Salignac, 1605-1610 (Correspondance diplomatique 
et documents inidits), in Archives Historiques de la 
Gascogne, fasc. 19, Paris 1889, 12, 19, 20, 21, 30 
and also 393-397 passim; G. Sagredo, Memorie 
Istoriche de' Monarchi Ottomani, Venice 1673, 
665, 671, 684, 749-750, 751-752, 759-761, 767-769, 
773 and 830-838 passim; E. Alberi, Relazioni degli 
Ambasciatori Veneti al Senato, ser. 3, Florence 
1840-1855, i, 380, ii, 143, 180, 249, 288-292 passim, 
355-356 and iii, 292, 374, 424-432 passim; N. 
Barozzi and G. Berchet, Lc Relazioni degli Stati 
Europei lette al Senato dagli A mbasciatori Veneziani 
nel secolo decimosettimo, ser. 5: Turchia, Pt. I, 
Venice 1866, 34, 38, 39; E. de Hurmuzaki, Docu- 
mente privMre la Istoria Romdnilor, iii/2 (1576- 
1600), Bucharest 1888, 215, 225; Calendar of 
State Papers, Venetian: 1581-1591, London 1894, 
583 (index), 1592-1603, London 1897, 582-583 
(index) and 1603-1607, London 1900, 551 (index); 
I. Rinieri, Clemente VIII e Sinan Bassd Cicala. 
Studio storico secondo documenti inediti, Rome 
1898 (also to be found in La Civilta Cattolica, 
ser. 16, vols. 9 (Rome 1897), 693-707 and 10 
(Rome 1897), 151-161, 272-285, 671-686, and ser. 
17, vol. I (Rome 1898), 165-176); G. Oliva, Sinan- 
Bassd (Scipione Cicala) celebre rinnegato del secolo 
XVI: Memorie storico-critiche, in Archivio Storico 
Messinese, Anni VIII-IX, Messina 1907-1908; 
Hammur-Purgstall, iii, 423 and iv, 17, 44-45, 86, 
171-180 passim, 229-230, 245, 248, 261, 264, 
268-272 passim, 287, 301, 321, 330, 332, 358-359, 
376-379. 620, 633, 669-670; N. Jorga, Geschichte 
des osmanischen Reiches, iii, Gotha 1910, 183-185 ; 
H. Laoust, Les Gouverneurs de Damas .... (658- 
1156/1260-1744): Traduction des Annates d'Ibn 
Tulun et d'Ibn Gum'a, Damascus 1952, 196 
(Sinan Pacha b. al-Gaffal); c Othman-zade Ta'ib, 
Hadikat al-Wuzara', Istanbul 1271 A.H., 47 ff.; 
Sami, Ramus al-AHdm, iii, Istanbul 1308 A.H., 
1822; Sidfill-i '■Othmdni, iii, in and iv, 319 
(Djighala-zade Mahmud Pasha); I. H. Uzun- 
carsili, Osmanh Tarihi, iii/2, Ankara 1954, 235, 
354-357, 39i; 1A, s.v. Cigala-zade (M. Tayyib 
Gokbilgin). (V. J. Parry) 

CILICIA. The name. In Assyrian writings the 
name Khilakku refers primarily to the western part 
of the region, Cilicia Trachea, but also includes a 
part of Cappadocia, whilst the Cilician plain is called 
the Kue. In classical times the name Cilicia covered 
both western and eastern parts, Cilicia Trachea and 
the plain of Cilicia. The name does not occur among 
the Arab geographers, who call Cilicia simply the 
region of the thughur [q.v.], or frontier towns. The 
form Kilikiya (or Kilikiya) is not met until modern 
times (see Ibn al-Shihna, al-Durr al-muntakhab, 180), 
but it is a direct derivation of the ancient name 
if, as is thought, the Turkish name for Cilicia 
Trachea, 16-11 or Icel [q.v.] (lit. 'the interior region') 
in fact comes from Kilikia. 

Geographical outline. Cilicia is wedged 



between the Anatolian plateau to the north-west 
and the Syrian frontier to the south-east. Its 
southern edge is fringed by the Mediterranean, 
which here reaches its most easterly extremity, and 
it is guarded to the north by the Taurus range, 
over which the Cilician Gates assure communication 
with the plateau. To the east are the Amanian 
Gates (al-Lukam), and to the west, a short distance 
beyond Selindi (ancient Selinonte), begins the 
province of Pamphylia (region of Adalia). Cilicia 
has at all times possessed a great strategic importance 
on account of the Cilician and Amanian Gates. 
Although the mountains and sea which isolate 
Cilicia have given it a marked individuality, it has 
rarely been able to maintain its own independance 
for long, even when it was the kingdom of Lesser 
Armenia or the Turcoman principality of the 
Ramadan-oghlus. Most of the time, from the Hittites 
to the Ottomans, it has been incorporated by con- 
quest into the great empires of the eastern Mediter- 

Cilicia falls naturally into three geographical 
regions, Cilicia Trachea, the Cilician Taurus, and 
the Plain of Cilicia. Cilicia Trachea (lit.: 'rough, 
rugged') is a mountainous region to the west, its 
coast dotted with ports where pirates took refuge 
when chased by Pompey's ships. It is virtually 
without means of communication to the Turkish 
interior, and has patches of cultivable land only in 
a few valleys, such as Gok Su (ancient Calycadnus) 
whose waters flow into the sea near Silifke. It is 
consequently a very poor region, and contains only 
a few small towns (Silifke, ancient Seleucia, Mut, 
on the road from Silifke to Karaman and Konya, 
and in the west Anamur on the coast and Ermenek 
inland). 

The frontier between Cilicia Trachea and the 
coastal plain on the one hand and the Taurus on the 
other is the small river Lamos which has its spring 
in the Taurus. The Cilician Taurus is a strip 300 km. 
long by only 50 km. wide stretching in a south-west- 
north-east direction, and including the massifs of 
Dumbelek, Bulghar Dagh (corruption of Bugha, the 
Turkish translation of Taurus) and the Ala Dagh, one 
peak of which rises to 3600 m. The Ala Dagh con- 
tinues northwards to the Hadjln Dagh. The Anti- 
Taurus begins to the east, on the left bank of the 
Zamanti Su, formerly Karmalas, a tributary of the 
Sayhan (Saros). Its mountains can easily be crossed, 
however, as the high waters have cut many valleys 
through them in forcing their way from the Cap- 
padocian plateau down to the Mediterranean. The 
Tarsus Cay, ancient Cydnus, in Arabic Baradan, 
rises in the Bulghar Dagh massif and brings Tarsus 
its water. Between the Bulghar Dagh and the Ala 
Dagh are the valleys of the Cakit Su and Korkiin Su, 
the Cakit being a tributary of the Korkiin which 
in turn is a tributary of the Sayhan. The road called 
the Cilician Gates climbs over passes and runs 
through these valleys. On the northern side it 
connects Tarsus with Uluklshla via Bozantl (ancient 
Podandos-Budandun) where the narrowest defile, 
the Cilician Gates properly so called, is at Giilek 
Boghaz, 1 160 m. high on the upper reaches of the 
Tarsus Cay. 

The most important part of Cilicia is the plain 
(Greek Pedias, Turkish Cukurova), a product of the 
alluvial deposits of its two large rivers, the Sayhan 
(ancient Saros) and the Djayhan (ancient Pyramus). 
Along the left bank of the Djayhan's lower reaches 
is a less elevated outcrop of the Taurus range, the 
Djabal al-Niir or Djabal Missis. Sheltered from the 



35 



north by the great mountain barrier, the Cilician 
plain is open to the southern winds, enjoys the 
climate and flora of Mediterranean regions, and is 
extremely fertile. Crops peculiar to hot countries 
can be grown there, and apart from sugar-cane 
plantations there is also intensive cultivation of 
cotton. The main towns of Cilicia were always 
situated in this area. To the north, at the foot of 
the Taurus but still Mediterranean in climate, lie 
Sis (at the present day Kozan) and c Ayn Zarba 
(ancient Anazarba), to the south Missisa (Mop- 
suestia) on the Djayhan, Adana on the Sayhan, 
Tarsus, Ayas (ancient Aigai) on the western coast 
of the gulf of Alexandretta, and Alexandretta on 
its eastern side. Mersln, to the west of Tarsus, is 
a relatively recent town, today named Icel. 

In the Islamic epoch Cilicia Trachea and Seleucia 
belonged to the Greeks, the frontier between the 
two empires being formed by the Lamos (in Arabic 

Under the Ottomans Cilicia constituted the 
wildyet of Adana, and was divided between the 
sandjaks of 16-11, Adana and Kozan in the north, 
and of Djebel Bereket around the gulf of Alexan- 
dretta. 

The main towns of Cilicia are connected by the 
Aleppo-Fevzipasha-Adana-Ulukishla railway, with a 
branch line running via Tarsus to Marsina. 

Cilicia has often been stricken by earthquakes; 
Michael the Syrian (iii, 17) and Tabarl (iii, 688) 
record the one which occurred on 23 June 803; it 
blocked the river Djayhan and partly destroyed the 
walls of Missisa. Another one occurred in 11 14 (see 
EI 1 s.v. missis). The most recent occurred in 1952. 
Bibliography: K. Ritter; Die Erdkunde von 
Asien. Allgemeine Erdkunde, xviii & xix, Klein- 
asien, Berlin 1858-59; V. Cuinet, La Turquie 
d'Asie, Paris 1890-95, ii, 3-108; W. M. Ramsay, 
The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, London 
1890, 349 ff., 361-387; Le Strange, chap, ix; 
Pauly-Wissowa, xi, 385 ff. ; E. Banse, Die Tiirhei, 
1919, 165-185; R. Blanchard, L'Asie Occidental, 
vol. viii of the Geographic Universelle by Vidal de 
la Blache & Gallois, 69 ff. ; Gaudefroy-Demom- 
bynes, La Syrie a I'ipoque des Mamelouks, 98-100; 
CI. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord a I'ipoque des Croisades, 
1938, 134-155; M. Canard, Hist, de la dynastie des 
H'amddnides, i, 278-285 ; see also the special 
monographs by Favre & Mandrot, Voyage en 
Cilicie, 1874, in Bull, de la Soc. de Giogr., 1878; 
and V. Langlois, Voyage dans la Cilicie et les 
montagnes du Taurus, Paris 1861. 
Historical outline. When the Arabs had con- 
quered Syria, Heraclius ordered the g 
towns between Alexandretta and Tarsus t( 
their positions (see missis). It is probable that part 
of the civilian population had to do likewise. The 
Arabs did not immediately take over these towns, 
but restricted themselves to raids into the region or 
across it into Anatolia, leaving small garrisons 
behind them as a security measure. On his return 
from an expedition in 31/651-652, Mu'awiya is said 
to have destroyed all the fortresses as far as Antioch. 
However, records exist of the Arabs' capture of 
Tarsus in 53/672-673, which seems to indicate that 
it had been reoccupied by the Greeks or defended 
by its inhabitants. In 65/685, furthermore, the army 
of Constantine Pogonatus advanced as far as Mop- 
suestia (Missisa). From 84/703 onwards the Arabs 
began to settle in Missisa, stationing a garrison 
there during part of the year. They realized the 
advantage which would accrue in permanently 



holding the Cilician positions, and c Umar b. c Abd 
al- c Aziz abandoned his plan to destroy all the 
fortresses between Missisa and Antioch. Sis, at the 
foot of the Taurus, was captured in 103/751-732. 
In the first decades of the second century of the 
hidira it became apparent that the Arabs intended 
to settle in the area; Missisa was colonized by the 
Zott [q.v.] with their buffaloes, and a bridge was 
built over the Sayhan to the east of Adana, in order 
to secure communications across the country. 
Although the Arab armies had no difficulty in 
traversing the country by way of the Cilician Gates, 
its occupation was still precarious. There was as 
yet no systematic organization of the frontier 
strongpoints, or thughiir, still dependant on the 
found of Kinnasrin, which Mu'awiya or Yazid b. 
Mu'awiya had detached from Hims (cf. Ibn al- 
Shihna, 9). But already the positions had been 
transformed into ribdt, that is to say posts manned 
by voluntary defenders of the faith, noted for both 
their religious and military zeal. Al-Dinawari, 345, 
points out that after his dismissal from office 
Khalid al-Kasri [g.v.] obtained from the caliph 
Hisham permission to go to Tarsus, where he 
remained for some time murdbit an . 

After the 'Abbasid revolution the Byzantines did 
not take advantage of the disturbed situation to 
reconquer Cilicia, but instead concentrated their 
attention on the regions of Malatya and Kalikala. 
After the dynasty had become firmly established, 
and particularly in al-Mahdi's reign, the c Abb5sids 
undertook to fortify and populate the Cilician 
positions, above all at Missisa and Tarsus. HSrun 
al-Rashid was the most vigorous exponent of the 
frontier policy. In 170/786-787 he detached the 
frontier strongholds from the Djazira and djund of 
Kinnasrin and put them under a separate govern- 
ment called al- c Awasim [q.v.] (al-Tabari, iii, 604; Ibn 
al-Shihna, 9); Cilicia now became part of the c Awasim 
found. Its reorganization served both defensive and 
offensive purposes; it helped protect Muslim territory 
against Byzantine incursions (cf. a poem of Marwan 
b. Abi Hafsa in Tabari, iii, 742), provided a secure 
operational base for the Muslim armies which, by 
tradition, carried out one or two raids each year into 
Greek territory, and served as a permanent base 
for volunteer troops and murdbitun. The fortification 
of the positions went in hand with the launching 
of expeditions across the Cilician Gates during the 
reign of Harun al-Rashid and his successors. A vital 
step in the successful execution of these operations 
was the Muslim capture of Lulon (al-Lu'lu'a) in 
217-832. Its fortress guarded the northern side of a 
pass which led over the Cilician Gates from Podandos 
(Budandun, present-day Bozanti) to Tyana. 

A considerable Christian population lived in the 
strongholds or the countryside around them. The 
Muslims recruited some of them as guides for their 
expeditions (see A1EO Alger, xv, 48), but they also 
sometimes acted as informers for the Byzantines, 
and it was perhaps as an act of reprisal that al- 
Rashid had all the thughiir churches destroyed in 
191/807 (Tabari, iii, 712-713; Michael the Syrian, 
iii, 19 if.). 

The small river Lamos, demarcation line between 
Cilicia Trachea and Arab Cilicia, was periodically 
the scene of the exchange of prisoners or their 
resale to the enemy; historians have left their records 
of these dealings, in particular al-Mas c udi in Tanbih, 

After MuHasim's famous campaign against 
Amorium in 223/838, which marks the end of the 



spectacular expeditions into Anatolia, it gradually 
became the custom to appoint special amirs to 
Cilicia, mostly resident in Tarsus. Although nomi- 
nally dependant on the c Aw5sim governor or the 

r of Syria, they enjoyed a certain degree of 
autonomy and were responsible for the defence of 
the country and the organization of annual land and 

sxpeditions. Some of the amirs of Tarsus became 
quite famous, e.g., c Ali al-Armani, the eunuch 
Yazman (Greek Esman), Ghulam Zurafa (alias Leo 
of Tripoli and Rashik al-Wardaml) Damyana, 
Thamal, Nasr al-Thamali. For some time Cilicia, 
with its c Awdfim and thughiir, passed from the 
control of the central government and became 
dependency of Tulunid Egypt (260/873-286/891). 
This was a troubled chapter of its history, due to 
the dispute between the Tulunids and the central 
power, the intractability of the amirs, and the 
avages incurred through Byzantine raids. The 
eturn of Lu'lu'a (Lulon) to Byzantium in 263/876- 
877 constituted a serious threat to Cilicia. Never- 
theless the ribat of Tarsus developed during that 
period, and assumed greater proportions, as is 
shown by the sources used by Kamal al-DIn in the 
geographical introduction to his Bughyat al-Jalab 
(see A1EO Alger, xv, 46 ff.) and the descriptions of 
al-Istakhri and Ibn Hawkal (see tarsus). In parti- 
cular, the caliph al-Mu c tazz and his mother spent 
great sums on maintaining special units of murdbitun 
under military and religious leaders. At a time when 
the spirit of holy war gave a particular character 
to Cilicia, there flocked to the country a great number 
of scholars, traditionists, ascetics and fervent religious 
men, intent on fulfilling the personal obligation of 
foihdd, teaching the old traditions and spreading a 
spirit of purest orthodoxy among the soldiers and 
the civilian population. The more well-known of 
them were Ibrahim b. Adham b. Mansur [g.v.], who 
died some time between 160 and 166 (776-783), and 
Ibrahim b. Muhammad al-Fazari (d. 188/804) (Ibn 
'Asakir, ii, 254). Several of these persons are 
mentioned in the obituaries of al-Dhahabi and Abu 
'1-Mahasin, often carrying the nisba of Thagri or 
Tarsusi (see under 181, 196, 273, 297 etc.). Yakut 
(iii, 526) also noted their arrival in great numbers 
(cf. i, 529). It is known that Ahmad b. Tulun was 
educated at Tarsus. Muslim festivals were celebrated 
in great brilliance there. Abu '1-Mahasin (iii, 60) 
considered the feast of breaking the fast in Tarsus 
to be one of the four wonders of Islam. 

In the first part of the 4th/ioth century Cilicia came 
under the rule of the Ikhshid, the governor of Egypt, 
who received his investiture from the caliph. After the 
clash between the Ikhshid and the Hamdanid amir 
Sayf al-Dawla, who won control of northern Syria 
and Aleppo, the governor of the frontier province 
submitted to the amir of Aleppo, and the amirs of 
Tarsus henceforth participated in Sayf al-Dawla's 
expeditions. But the Tarsus fleet, weakened by the 
policy of the caliph al-Mu c tadid, who had had it 
destroyed, was only a minor factor in the struggles 
of the 4th/ioth century. In the second half of the 
century the threat of Byzantium from the north 
caused constant disturbances and rebellions, and the 
operations of 352/963-354/965 resulted in the com- 
plete reconquest of Cilicia by the Greeks (or Byzan- 
tines). It remained Byzantine for more than a cen- 
tury, during which time the outflow of Muslims was 
accompanied by a considerable inflow of Armenians, 
stimulated by the Byzantine practice of using Arme- 
nian officers to administer the country. After the 
Saldjukid raids had driven back those Armenians 



who had settled in Cappadocia after the Turkish 
conquest of Armenia, their number now increased 
once more, and, after the battle of Manzikert in 
1071, a virtual Armenian principality was created, 
stretching from Melitene to Cilicia. Its head was the 
Armenian Philaretus, a former general of Romanus 
Diogenes, and he established his capital at Mar'ash 
(see Chalandon, Alexis Comnine, 95 ff.; J. Laurent, 
Byzance et les Turcs Seldjoucides, 81 ff. ; idem, 
Byzance et Antioche sous le curopalate Philarete, in 
Rev. des Et. arm., ix (1929), 61 ff.; Grousset, Histoire 
des Croisades, I, xl, ff.). The Armenian chiefs Oshin 
of Lampron (present-day Namrun Yayla, north- 
west of Tarsus) and Ruben of Partzepert (north 
of Sis) were perhaps his vassals. They retained their 
fiefs when Philaretus departed from the scene, 
defeated by the Turks. The Turks had ravaged 
Cilicia even before Manzikert, and shortly before 
the arrival of the Crusaders (Michael the Syrian, 
iii, 179) they seized the main towns, though failing 
to subjugate the Armenian princes in the Taurus. 
The latter joined forces with the Crusaders in 1097 
and helped Baldwin of Boulogne and Tancred 
to reconquer the Cilician towns. There followed a 
period in which the towns continually changed 
hands in the struggle between Byzantium and the 
Frankish principality of Antioch. Alexis Comnenus 
recaptured them from Bohemond of Antioch, only 
to lose them once more to the latter's nephew 
Tancred, who in 1103 handed them over to his 
uncle upon his release from the imprisonment 
inposed by the Danishmandid of Malatya. In 1104 
they were retaken by the Byzantine general Mona- 
stras (Anna Comnena, XI, xi, 6; ed. Leib iii, 49). 
They remained the scene of dispute until 1108, 
when Bohemond was forced to sign a treaty acknow- 
ledging the authority of Alexius Comnenus over 
the whole of Cilicia (Anne Comnena, XIII, xii, 21; 
ed. Leib iii, 134-135). His nephew Tancred however 
did not abide by the treaty. 

The descendants of Ruben continued to consolidate 
the development of an Armenian state, and sought 
to bring all of Cilicia under their control. Thoros I, 
who had driven off the Saldjukids in 1107-1108 
(Tournebize, Histoire. politique et religieuse de 
VArminie, 171; Cahen, La Syrie du Nord a I'epoque 
des Croisades, 253; Matthew of Edessa, in Hist. arm. 
des Croisades, i, 84-85), captured Sis and Anazarba 
from the Greeks. During the reign of his successor 
Leo I (1129-1137), Bohemond of Antioch attempted 
to re-establish his authority in Cilicia, but this 
brought him unto a fatal conflict with another 
aspirant to Cilicia, the Danishmendid of Cappadocia 
(Michael, iii, 227). Around 1132 Leo captured Tarsus, 
Adana and Missisa from the Greeks (Chalandon, i, 
235, ii, 108-109) (or from the Franks, according to 
Cahen, 354). He followed this up with the seizure 
of Sarvantikar, on the western flank of the Amanus. 
This led to a rupture with Raymond of Poitiers, 
count of Antioch, but the quarrel was patched up 
shortly afterwards when Leo was faced with a new 
Byzantine threat from the north, and as a token of 
reconciliation he ceded the plain of Cilicia to 
Raymond. John Comnenus invaded Cilicia in n 37, 
and regained all the towns except Anazarba, and 
in the following year took Leo and his son prisoner. 
Leo was carried off to Constantinople, where he died 
in 1 142. Once more Cilicia was Byzantina, and 
remained so until Leo's son, Thoros, who had 
escaped from Constantinople after accession of 
Manuel Comnenus in 1143, regained a foothold in 
upper Cilicia; Thoros II (1145-1169) retook <Ayn 



Zarba and the other towns in Cilicia in 1151-52, and 
defended them successfully against Mas'ud, the 
Saldjukid of Konya, who fought at the instigation of 
Manuel Comnenus. Thoros also aided Reynald of 
Chatillon, count of Antioch, in his attack on Byzan- 
tine Cyprus. Manuel Comnenus, however, was not 
willing to allow the situation to deteriorate any 
further. In 1158 he invaded Cilicia, reoccupied all 
the towns, and reduced the country once more to 
a Byzantine province. The emperor's camp was 
established at Mardj al-DIbadj (Baltolibadi, north 
of Missisa; see Honigmann, Ostgrenze, 121, and 
Cahen, 152), and Reynald of Chatillon went there to 
tender his submission. Thoros, who had taken 
refuge at Vahka, north of Sis on the upper Sayhan, 
subsequently did likewise, and in return the emperor 
made him governor of Missisa, c Ayn Zarba and 
Vahka, bestowing on him the title of Sebastos. But 
in 1 162, when his brother Sdefane perished in an 
ambush laid by the Byzantine governor Andronicus 
Comnenus, Thoros once more raised the standard of 
revolt, and seized c Ayn Zarba together with other 
Cilician towns. Amalric, king of Jerusalem, intervened 
to re-establish peace. In 1164 Thoros sided with the 
Franks in their conflict with Nur al-Din. He died 
in 1169. His brother Mleh, whom he (Thoros) had 
exiled, rallied to the side of Nur al-Din, and with 
the aid of the latter's troops regained possession of 
Cilicia and obtained official recognition by Manuel 
Comnenus. He was assassinated in 1175, and his 
nephew Ruben III succeeded him. The latter was 
driven by betrayal into the hands of Bohemond III 
of Antioch, and the price of his release, negotiated 
by his brother Leo with Hethoum (Het'um, Haythum) 
of Lampron, was the cession of Missisa, Adana and 
Tell Hamdun to Antioch. However, he recaptured 
them later. In 1187 he abdicated in favour of his 
brother Leo (1187-1198), who in 1198 became the 
first king of Armenia-Cilicia when crowned in Tarsus 
by the Catholicos and the papal delegate. It was in 
Leo's reign that Frederick Barbarossa's Crusade 
arrived in Cilicia. Frederick was drowned in the Caly- 
cadnus (Gok Su), and part of his forces returned to 
Germany. The remainder were greeted by Leo upon 
their arrival in Tarsus. His reign was marked by a 
long conflict with the Saldjukid of Konya, Kayka'us 
(1210-1219); the king's troops succeeded in taking 
the stronghold of Laranda (present-day Karaman) 
in 12 1 1, but as a consequence of their defeat in 
1216 he had to cede Laranda, Lu'lu'a (in the Bozanti 
region, north of the Cilician Gates) and a part of 
Cilicia Trachea to the Saldjukid (Grousset, iii, 266; 
Documents armeniens, i, 644). Another feature of 
Leo's reign was his constant attempt, after Bohe- 
mond's death in 1201, to secure the succession to 
Antioch for Raymond Ruben. Although Raymond 
was Bohemond's grandson, he was also the son of 
Leo's niece Alice, and moreover had been brought 
up in Armenia. But Raymond had a strong compe- 
titor in Bohemond IV, count of Tripoli, who had 
the support of al-Malik al-Zahir of Aleppo, and 
Bohemond IV in the end triumphed. 

After Leo's death in 12 19, Raymond Ruben 
tried in vain to win possession of Cilicia. He was 
taken prisoner at a battle near Tarsus by the bailiff 
of Constantine, of the Lampron family, and died 
in captivity (1222). Philip, son of Bohemond IV 
and his wife Isabelle (Leo's daughter), was crowned 
his successor. But as he was considered too 'Frankish' 
and not sufficiently Armenian, he was arrested by 
Constantine and put to death by poison. This act 
was one of the reasons which provoked an inter- 



vention by 'Ala' al-din Kaykubad (1219-37). On the 
instigation of Bohemond IV, he laid waste the 
region of Upper Cilicia in 1225 and reduced Constan- 
tine to subjection. The latter persuaded the Hospi- 
tallers to give him their stronghold at Seleucia, which 
they had occupied ever since Leo had handed it over 
to them in 1210. In 1226 Constantine obtained the 
succession for his son Hethoum, who married 
Philip's widow Isabella. 

Hethoum reigned until 1270, and from the bilingual 
coins minted under his and Kaykubad's name we 
know that in the early years of his reign he acknow- 
ledged Saldjukid suzerainty (de Morgan, Histoire du 
peuple arminien, 202-3). With other Muslim and 
Christian princes he took part in the struggle against 
Cingiz Khan, but when the Mongol general Baydju 
crushed the Saldjukid Kaykhusraw in 1243, he 
transferred his obedience to the Mongols and sur- 
rendered them Kaykhusraw's mother, wife, and 
daughter. In consequence the Saldjukids reacted 
sharply against Cilicia in 1245, and Hethoum was 
able to avert defeat only by summoning Mongol 
assistance. His position as a vassal of the Mongols 
was formalized on several occasions; in 1247 he 
dispatched the High Constable Sempad to Mongolia; 
in 1254 he paid a personal visit to the Mongolian 
court; he supplied Armenian contingents for the 
Mongolian expedition to Syria, and co-operated in 
the economic blockade of Egypt by withholding 
exports of Cilician timber (see Mas-Latrie, Histoire 
de Chypre, i, 412; Grousset, iii, 632). From that time 
onwards the Armeno-Cilician kingdom, or the land 
of Sis as Arab historians call it, increasingly became 
the object of Mamluk attacks, as the following 
examples bear witness: (i) 664/1266, a retaliatory 
expedition under Baybars captured, pillaged, and 
burnt down Sis, Misslsa, Adana, Ayas and Tarsus; 
(ii) 673/1275, another expedition by Baybars seized 
Misslsa, Sis, Tarsus and Ayas, and carried out raids 
into the Taurus; (iii) 682/1283, a campaign under 
Kala'un against Alexandretta, Ayas and Tell 
Hamdun; (iv) 697/1297, an expedition led by 
Ladjln against Alexandretta, Tell Hamdun, Sis, 
Adana, Misslsa, Nudjayma, etc., during which the 
strongholds were occupied and a tribute of 500,000 
dirhams was imposed; (v) in 703/1303, as the pay- 
ments had not been made regularly, and as the 
strongholds were firmly held, a new expedition 
forced the Armenians to pay the tribute in advance 
and conformed the surrender of the strongholds; 
(vi) 705/1305, as a result of further defaults in 
payment, a new expedition was launched, in which 
the Mongols rendered assistance to the Armenians 
and defeated the Mamluks; but when Egyptian 
reinforcements arrived, the king had to pay; (vii) 
715/1315, the tribute was raised to one million 
dirhams; (viii) 720/1320; (ix) 722/1322, Ayas was 
captured, and to the tribute were added 50% of the 
revenues from the Ayas customs authority and the 
sale of salt; (x) 735/1335, a further expedition 
following a reprisal raid by the populace of Ayas on 
the merchants of Baghdad; (xi) 737/1337, a new 
expedition launched by Malik Nasir Muhammad 
because payments of the tribute had stopped. It 
captured Sis (destroying its citadel in the process) 
and secured surrender of the forts under the name 
al-Futflhat al-Djahaniyya (from the Armenian 
corruption of Djayljan). They included Misslsa, 
Kawarra, Haruniyya, Sarvantikar, Bayas, Ayas, 
Nudjayma, and Humaysa. Further raids were 
carried out in 756/1355 and 760/1359. The frequency 
of Mamluk incursions indicates that they did not 



consolidate their occupation of the country after 
each expedition. Then, in 776/1375, a final expedition 
brought the end of Sis as an independent kingdom. 
Sis itself fell to the Mamluks, and Leo V was captured 
and was not released until 1382. The Armeno- 
Cilician kingdom became incorporated into the 
Mamluk empire (on the above events see the following 
under relevant dates : al-Makrizi, Suluk, ed. Mustafa 
Ziyada, and Quatremere's translation, Hist, des suit, 
maml.; Mufaddal b. Abi '1-Fada 5 il, trans, and ed. 
Blochet, Patr. Or. xii & xiv; Abu '1-Fida' and his 
continuator Ibn al-Wardl, Ibn Iyas, Ibn Kathir, 
Biddya, Abu '1-Mah5sin. See also note on the ex- 
peditions in AIEO Alger, 1939-41, 53-54, with other 
references, and G. Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, vol. iv of 
the Histoire de la Nation igyptienne, 417, 425, 449, 
466, 475. 483-484- See also Zettersteen, Beitrage zur 
Geschichte der Mamluken Sultane, index; the articles 
on Missis, adana, ayas, sis. For the relations 
between the Armenians and the Karaman-oghlus, 
see the article karaman and F. Taeschner, Al- 
Umari's Bericht iiber Anatolien, index). 

A Mamluk governor, the Turcoman Yiiregiroghlu 
Ramadan, who established himself at Adana in 
1378, inaugurated the small Ramadan-oghullari 
[?.«.] dynasty, nominally vassals of the Mamluks. 
In 1467 Cilicia was invaded by Shahsuwar, of the 
Dh u '1-Kadr [?.«.] dynasty. Between 1485 and 1489 
the Ottomans attempted to win control of Cilicia, 
but it was not until 1516 that they succeeded in doing 
so, Sultan Selim I capturing it during his expedition 
to Egypt. The Ramadan-oghullari were not removed 
from power however, and they remained vassals of 
the Ottomans until the end of the 16th century. 
Cilicia was then fully integrated into the Ottoman 
Empire. In 1833 Ibrahim Pasha, the son of Mehmet 
'All who had revolted against the Porte, carried 
out a victorious campaign in Cilicia, and the province 
was ceded to his father by the treaty of Kiitahya. 
To this day traces of the campaign can be seen in 
the Cilician Gates. Cilicia was returned to Turkey in 
1840 and became part of the vilayet of Aleppo. In 
1866 a military force was sent from Istanbul to assert 
the authority of the central government over the 
local derebeys [q.v.] and tribal chiefs. This prepared 
the way for extensive agricultural settlement, which 
was accomplished in part with the help of Muslim 
migrants and repatriates from the Crimea and from 
the lost Ottoman territories in Europe and North 
Africa. (Djewdet Pasha, Ma'rildat, TTEM, no. 14/91, 
(1926), 117 ff.; W. Eberhard, Nomads and Farmers 
in south eastern Turkey ; problems of settlement, Oriens, 
vi (1953), 32-49). It was occupied by French troops 
from 1918 to 1922, and handed back to Turkey by 
the Franco-Turkish treaty of Ankara. The plain of 
Cukurova is now one of the most flourishing agri- 
cultural areas in Turkey. 

Bibliography : Apart from the works mention- 
ed in the text, see, for the classical period, Well- 
hausen, Die Kampfe der Araber mit den Romdern 
in der Zeit der Umaijiden, in NKGW Gottingen, 
Phil.-Hist. Kl., 1901, 414 ff. The texts of Tabari, 
Ya'kubl, Baladhuri, Kitdb aW-Uyun, etc., are 
translated by Brooks, The Arabs in Asia Minor, 
641-750, JHS, xviii (1898), 162-206, xix (1899), 
19-33. Byzantine and Arabs in the time 0/ the early 
Abbassids, 750-813, EHR, xv (1900), 728-747, xvi 
(1901), 84-92. For the following period, until 959, 
see Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes, i, French ed., ii 
(in Russian), ii, pt. 2 (texts translated into French). 
For the Hamdanid period, M. Canard, Sayt al- 
Daula, Recueil de textes, Algiers 1934; idem, 



- CINEMA 



39 



Hisloire de la dynastie des Hamddnides, i, Algiers 
195 1. For the Crusades and the period immediately 
preceding them, see Grousset's Histoire des 
Croisades, 3 vols., 1934-36; Runciman's History 
0/ the Crusades, 3 vols., 195 1-4; works mentioned 
in the text above, by Chalandon, N. Iorga. Brive 
histoire de la Petite Armenie-d' Armenie Cilicienne; 
L. Laurent, de Morgan, CI. Cahen (index) ; Michael 
the Syrian, Chronique, translated and edited by 
Chabot, Bar Hebraeus, Chronography, translated 
and edited by W. Budge, and the Recueil des 
Historiens des Croisades (western, Armenian and 
oriental historians). See the article armIniya, 
with its map, which includes Cilicia (note that 
Cydnus and Tarsus have been wrongly located) ; 
and K. J. Barmadjian. map of Cilicia, 1 ; 800.000.; 
also see the articles adana, ayas, c ayn zarba, 
missis, sis, Tarsus, and their respective biblio- 
graphies. (M. Canard) 
ClLLA [see khalwa] 

CIMKENT, chief town of the region of South 
Kazakhstan of the Soviet Socialist Republic of 
Kazakhstan, situated on the river Badam, which 
flows into the river Arls, tributary of the Sir-Darya. 
The town is mentioned in the £afar-ndma of 
Sharaf al-DIn Yazdl as a "village" near the city of 
Sayram. After its capture by the Kalmiiks in 1864, 
Sayram declined to the advantage of Cimkent; but 
at the time of the Russian conquest (1281/1864) 
Cimkent was still only a fortified market-town, 
surrounded by a clay wall and dominated by a 
small citadel. According to the Russian census 
carried out a little after the conquest, the town 
comprised 756 houses. 

On the eve of the October Revolution, Cimkent 
was mainly known as a summer resort frequented 
by the residents of Tashkent on account of the 
mildness of its climate and the excellence of its 
water. It had in 1897 12,500 inhabitants, of whom 
800 were Russians and 150 Jews. The environs of 
Cimkent included at the end of the 19th century 
numerous prosperous Russian villages and several 
native villages, of which the most important were 
Sayram, and the Asbldjab or Asfidjab of the Arab 
geographers. 

The very rapid development of the city dates 
from the Soviet period. In 1926 it comprised 21,000 
inhabitants, in 1939 74,200 and in 1956 130,000. 
Cimkent is an important road centre at the junction 
of the roads which wend their way from Russia (by 
way of Aktiibinsk and Kzyl-Orda) and from Siberia 
(by way of Alma-Ata) towards Tashkent, and is an 
important railway junction where the Diambul-Aris. 
Kzyl-Orda and Cimkent-Lenger railways intersect. 
Before the Revolution Cimkent was an agri- 
cultural centre which subsisted principally from the 
plantations of cotton (introduced in 1897) and from 
the harvesting of the medicinal plant artemisia cinae 
from which santonin is prepared. 

Since the discovery in 1932 of veins of lead at 
Acisay and Karamazor, and of coal at Lenger, 
Cimkent has become an important industrial city 
(factories of chemical and pharmaceutical products, 
combined with non-ferrous metals). The city in- 
cluded in 1956 35 primary and secondary schools, 
19 secondary technical schools and two colleges (the 
Teachers' Institute and the Technological Institute 
of Building Materials). 

The population of the city is very mixed, the 
Russians now constituting the majority of the in- 
habitants; the Muslim community includes Kazakhs 
and some Ozbeks. (Ch. Quelquejay) 



ClN [see al-sin] 

CINEMA [sinimd). History. Cinema is a newly 
imported art into the Muslim world; as such, it is a 
facet of the Western impact on the inhabitants and 
expresses their interest in Western technical achieve- 
ments and forms of entertainment. Silent films were 
apparently first imported into Egypt by Italians 
(1897), attracting considerable interest. Film shows 
for Allied troops, during World War I, familiarized 
many Near Easterners with the cinema. The influx of 
foreign films, the construction of entertainment halls, 
and the intellectual curiosity of the local intelligentsia 
made Egypt the centre of film shows and afterwards 
of local production. Most films shown then in the 
Near East were comedies or Westerns; in Egypt, 
mainly the former were emulated. Local production 
by foreign technicians, with Egyptians starring, 
started on silent films (1917); despite their medio- 
crity, they were warmly received. Simultaneously, 
cinema clubs sprang up, which eagerly discussed 
film-techniques and published in Arabic short-lived 
cinematic periodicals. Full-length Egyptian silent 
films were first produced (1927) by, respectively, 
the directors Widad 'Urfi and Lama Brothers, at 
a minimum cost. All rather resembled photographed 
sequences of a play, but were nonetheless welcomed 
by the public. This success encouraged Yusuf Wahbi 
to experiment with a sound film: he took to Paris, 
for synchronization, an Arab silent film, A wlad al- 
dhawdt (apparently patterned after Fr. Coppee's 
Le coupable), in which he himself had starred. Its 
enthusiastic reception in Egypt assured the future 
of the Arabic-speaking film. Arabic film pro- 
duction has been speeded up in the last generation. 
In 1934, the large Studio Misr was founded near 
Cairo; others followed. Halls were built, chiefly in 
the towns. Production was encouraged, during World 
War II, by the lack of Italian and German 
competition. Commercial success led to quantity 
predominating over quality; the resulting lower 
standards were due also to inexperience in direction 
and photography, and to shortage of technical 
equipment. 

Acting and actors. Most Arab filmstars are 
in Egypt. Some former theatre actors or singers are 
idolized, e.g., leadingmen: the late comedians 'All 
al-Kassar and Nadjlb al-RIhani, the living Yusuf 
Wahbi, protagonist of the "social" film on local 
themes. Some leading ladies can act in character 
roles; most others sing well. 

Characteristics and Themes. The Arabic- 
speaking film has been, until recently, rather 
imitative of its European or American counterpart, 
but artistic and technical standards are generally 
lower. While in recent years the overriding impor- 
tance of music has somewhat declined, it is still 
customary to introduce a sub-plot that includes 
vocal and instrumental Arabic music and dancing. 
Another drawback to the plot is the somewhat 
faulty script-writing, due to the limited experience 
of local actors-authors. While scripts adapted from 
foreign films, plays or novels {e.g., al-Bu^asd? — Les 
misirables, with 'Abbas Faris) were usually success- 
ful, those frequently composed at the bid of a 
producer-actor have often resulted in an unimagi- 
native plot. The main types of films are: a. the 
historical (generally on themes chosen from Arab or 
Islamic history; in Egypt — also from Pharaonic 
times), b. the social drama or melodrama (once 
popular for its tear-jerking appeal, later for its 
social aims), c. the musical, d. the comedy or slap- 
stick farce (usually on local background), e. adventure 



CINEMA - 



and detective films. The first two are the best, 
artistically. Colloquial Arabic (Egyptian dialect) is 
employed in most. 

Attitudes. While encouraging the cinema fin- 
ancially, to a degree, Arab governments have 
supervised and censored it. Censorship has been 
on socio-political lines, often also on moral and 
religious grounds. Pressure of Muslim religious 
circles prevented filming a script on Muhammad and 
the Four Caliphs (Egypt) ; on other occasions, it has 
opposed love films (Egypt), attendance of adolescents 
(Jordan) and women (Syria, Jordan). Conservative 
circles still regard acting as lewd. Features, documen- 
taries and educational films have been initiated by 
the United Arab Republic for propaganda amongst 
civilians and soldiers. 

The Arab countries. Outside Egypt, there is 
little film production. Morocco and Tunisia produce 
short films and occasional newsreels. Similar ex- 
periments in Syria and, more recently, in 'Irak, 
were short-lived. With few exceptions, most rural 
and lower urban audiences, in Arabic-speaking 
communities, prefer Egyptian films. Yemen imports 
very few films, while Saudi Arabia has banned their 
public showing on ethical grounds. 

Other countries. The above applies, in varying 
degrees, to other Muslim countries too. In most, a 
part of the film production and distribution is in 
governmental hands, particularly documentaries 
and educational films. Legislation in most provides 
for censorship on national and political grounds 
(internal tranquillity, avoiding offence to friendly 
States), as well as religious succeptibilities and 
public morals. Turkey appears to have the most 
active film industry, although most films shown are 
American. Educational films are provided gratis 
to cinema owners (who must exhibit them). Good 
feature-films on local themes have been produced, 
with marked American influence {e.g., Ebediyete 
kadar). Belly-dancing (of the Arabic-film type) and 
music continue, however, as an integral part of many 
films. Iran has started its own film production in 
Tehran only since 1945, on a modest scale. Most 
feature-films are comedies or have simple plots, 
often describing the rich city heir who falls in love 
with the peasant girl; kissing on the screen is 
discouraged. Sub-titling of foreign films or post- 
synchronizing them in Persian (the latter very 
efficiently done) is compulsory. In addition to other 
cinema halls, in Teheran a cinema club holds regular 
showings of good foreign films for its members and 
friends. In Afghanistan, the Government has 
established, by decree, a State monopoly of the 
cinema. There is no film production. Cinema halls 
are in Kabul and Kandahar. Women hardly ever go 
to the cinema, unless it is for rare private showings, 
specially arranged for them. Pakistan. Before 
partition, Indians controlled production and ex- 
hibition, as well as all technical work ; their departure 
left Pakistan with hardly any film industry. Even- 
tually this rallied and Pakistani companies now 
produce full-length and short films ; their main studios 
are in Lahore. Urdu films are also made in India. In 
Indonesia, a Government-controlled company pro- 
duces a few feature-films annually, as well as a weekly 
newsreel and some documentaries and short educa- 
tional films. Private companies produce only few 
feature-films. Indonesia-produced films are exported 
to Singapore, Malaya and North Borneo. 

Bibliography: Y. Farigh, Nigahi bi-sinimd-yi 

Irani, in Sadat, Aban 1336S./1957, 118-126; 

M. Ha'irabedian, Les films igyptiens el ceux de 



Hollywood, Paris 1950; J. M. Landau, The Arab 
cinema, in Middle Eastern Affairs, iv, Nov. 1953, 
349-358; idem, Studies in the Arab theater and 
cinema, Philadelphia 1958; Badr Nash 'at & 
Fathl Zaki, Muhakamat al-film al-misri <ard 
wa-nakd al-sinimd 'l-misriyya mundh nasVa- 
tihd, n. p., 1957; J. Swanson, Mudhakkardt 
mu'assis sind'at al-sinimd fi Misr (serial in 
Dunyd 'l-kawdkib, 1953-1954); Tournie officielle 
de la nouvelle troupe igyptienne sous la direction 
de Youssef Wahbi, n. p., n.d., [1955?]; Zaki 
Tulaymat, Khayf min al-fann al-sinimdH fi Misr, 
in al-Kitdb, i, Jan. 1946, 415-422; UNESCO, 
Reports of the commission on technical needs. Press 
film radio, ii-v & Suppl. ii, Paris 1948-1952 ; Sinema 
Tiyatro, Ankara (monthly). (J. M. Landau) 
CiNGANE, one of the names applied to the 
gipsies in the east, which has passed into various 
European languages (e.g., Hungarian Czigdny, 
French Tsigane, Italian Zingari, German Zigeuner) 
and appears in Turkish as Cingene. The origin of the 
name is still uncertain; one suggestion is that it 
comes from Cangar or Zingar, said to be the name 
of a people formerly dwelling on the banks of the 
Indus. It is supposed that the Sasanid Bahram V 
Gur (420-438 A.D.) first brought the gipsies from 
India to Persia, and that they spread thence over 
the world. In the relevant passages in Firdawsi and 
Hamza IspahanI these Indians are called Lull or 
Zott [qq.v.]. Other names commonly used are Nawar 
in Syria, Ghurbat or Kurbat in Syria, Persia, Egypt 
and elsewhere. In Egypt the name Ghadjar is also in 
use, while the gipsies of Egypt are fond of calling them- 
selves Baramika (descendants of the Barmakids). 
Although the Indian origin of the gipsies is now 
generally accepted, various groups of them have 
long claimed Egypt as their earliest home; hence 
their English name, and hence too the Spanish 
Gitano, French Gilane, Turkish Kipti and Hungarian 
Faraonipe. The term Bohimien, by which they are 
also known in France, is due to their having first 
come to that country via Bohemia. Other names 
may be found in the works of Anastase, De Goeje 
and Gokbilgin cited below. Their name for themselves 
in their own language is Romany, the adjective of 



As in other countries, the gipsies of the east are 
smiths, tinkers, pedlars, jugglers, musicians and 
bear- trainers; some are sedentary while others lead 
a wandering life. The sedentaries are generally 
despised by those who adhere to the old ways. 

No reliable statistics about them exist, but they 
are certainly quite numerous in Persia and Turkey. 
It has been fairly conclusively shown (by G. L. 
Lewis; see Bibliography) that one tribe of 'Yuruks' 
in western Anatolia is in fact gipsy, and it seems 
likely that other Turkish gipsies are similarly hiding 
behind this blanket-term. 

Some gipsies are nominally Christian, others 
nominally Muslim (thus the Geygellis are said to 
be c AlewI but not to intermarry with other c Alewis) ; 
in reality they have their own religion and political 
organization, which need not be discussed here; a 
useful short account will be found in Funk and 
Wagnall's Standard Dictionary of Folklore, s.v. 
Romany Folklore. 

Bibliography: A. G. Paspati, Etudes sur les 
Tchingianis ou Bohimiens de I'Empire Ottoman, 
Constantinople 1870; P. Bataillard, Sur les 
Origines des Bohimiens ou Tsiganes, Paris 1876; 
Miklosich, Vber die Mundarten und die Wander- 
ungen der Zigeuner Europa's, Vienna 1872-80; 



ClNGANE — ClNGIZ-KHAN 



P. Anastase in Mashrik 1902; De Goeje, Mimoires 

d'histoire et de giographie orientates, no. 3 ; 

R. A. Stewart Macalister, Language of the Nawar 
or Zutt, the Nomad Smiths of Palestine, London 
1914; W. R. Halliday, The Gypsies of Turkey 
(Chapter I in his Folklore Studies Ancient and 
Modern), London 1924; R. L. Turner, The position 
of Romani in Indo Aryan, Gypsy Lore Socy. Mono- 
graph iv, London 1927; Koprulii-zade Mehmet 
Fuad, Turk halk edebiyah ansiklopedisi, article 
Abdal, Istanbul 1935; G. L. Lewis, The Secret 
Language of the Geygelli Yiiruks, in Zeki Velidi 
Togan'a Armagan, Istanbul 1955; lA, s.v. Cinge- 
neler (by M. Tayyib Gokbilgin) ; articles in Journal 
of the Gypsy Lore Socy., passim. (G. L. Lewis) 
In the Soviet Union Clnganes are found in the 
Crimea, in Adharbaydjan and in Central Asia. The 
census of 1926 gave a number of 4,000 Muslims out 
of the 61,294 gipsies included in the census, but it is 
probable that the real figure is higher. S. A. Tokarev 
(&tnografiya Narodov SSSR, Moscow 1958) esti- 
mates the number of Muslim gipsies in Central Asia 
at 5,000, and- that of Adharbaydjan as "some 
thousands". According to the statistics of 1926, 
there were at that time 3,710 Muslim gipsies still in 
Ozbekistan, 300 in Turkmenistan, and an indeter- 
minate number, probably quite high, in the region 
of Kuliab and in the Soviet Socialist Republic of 
Tadjikistan. 

The Cinganes of the Soviet Union comprise several 
groups, which are fairly distinct from each other by 
their language and customs. They are known either 
by local names: "KaracT", "Lull", "Mazang", 
"Djugr", "Kavol", or by names of trades: Zargaran, 
Kasagaran, Mardjan-furush. They call themselves 
"lorn" or "dom". The Lull and the Djugi live in 
Ozbekistan and speak mainly Persian (Tadjikl) ; a 
Turkish-speaking minority speak Ozbek. The gipsies 
of Adharbaydjan (Karaci) and Kuliab (Kavol) speak 
only Persian. A group from the region of Kuliab 
still usts a distinctive language of its own which has 
not yet been studied, and which I. M. Oranskiy 
(Indoyazitnaya etnografiteskaya gruppa "AFGON" 
v Sredney Aziy, in Sov. Etn., no. 2, 1956, 117-124) 
considers to be an Indian dialect. Their Tadjik 
neighbours call them 'Afghans', and wrongly confuse 
them with the latter, who are quite numerous in the 
southern part of the Kuliab region. According to 
Oranskiy and Tokarev the Djugi, the Lull, and the 
Mazang still use a 'secret language'. The gipsies of 
Central Asia and of the Crimea are theoretically 
Sunnis and those of Adharbaydjan Shi'is. 

(Ch. Quelquejay) 
ClNGIZ-KHAN, the founder of the Mongol 
world-empire, was born in 1167 A.D. on the right 
bank of the Onon in the district of Deli'un-Boldok 
in the present-day Chita Region in eastern Siberia. 
The ultimate sources for the details of his early 
life are two Mongolian works, the Secret History 
of the Mongols, composed in 1240 (or perhaps as late 
as 1252), and the Allan Debter or "Golden Book", 
the official history of the Imperial family. This 
latter work has not survived in the original, but the 
greater part of it is reproduced in the Dx&mi'- al- 
Tawdrikh of Rashid al-Din and there is likewise an 
abridged Chinese translation, the Shing-wu chHn- 
cheng lu or "Account of the Campaigns of Cingiz- 
Khan", composed some time before 1285. There is 
naturally in both sources a great deal of purely 
legendary material. The Secret History begins with 
a long genealogy in which Cingiz-Khan's line of 
descent is traced back through many generations 



to the union of a grey wolf and a white doe; and in 
both authorities the new-born child is represented 
as clutching in his hand, in token as it were of his 
future career as a world-conqueror, a clot of blood 
of the size of a knuckle-bone. 

Cingiz-Khan's father, Yesugei, was the nephew 
of Kutula, the last khan or ruler of the Mongols 
proper, who were afterwards to give their name to 
all the Mongolian-speaking peoples. The Mongols 
had been the dominant tribe in Eastern Mongolia 
during the first half of the 12th century but had 
been forced to yield place to the Tatar, a tribe in 
the region of the Buir Nor, who in 1161, in alliance 
with the Chin rulers of Northern China, had inflicted 
a crushing defeat upon them. Though now leaderless 
and disorganized the Mongols still continued the 
struggle against the Tatar, for we find that at the 
time of Cingiz-Khan's birth his father had brought 
in two Tatar chieftains as prisoners of war. One of 
these was called Temudjin-Uke and it was after him 
that Cingiz-Khan received his original name of 
Temiidjin. The word means "blacksmith" and this 
gave rise to the legend, already current at the time 
of William of Rubruck, that the world-conqueror 
had begun his career at the forge. 

When Temiidjin was nine years old his father, 
following the exogamous practice of the Mongols, 
took the boy with him upon a journey into the 
extreme east of Mongolia to find him a bride amongst 
his mother's people, the Konklrat. According to the 
custom Yesugei left his son to be brought up in the 
tent of his future father-in-law, whose daughter, the 
10-year old Borte, was destined to be the mother 
and grandmother of Emperors. Upon the homeward 
journey Yesugei fell in with a party of carousing 
Tatar. Unable to refuse the invitation to share in 
their feast he was recognized by his former enemies, 
who poisoned his food; and he lived only long 
enough to reach his own encampment and dispatch 
a messenger to fetch back Temiidjin from the 
Konklrat. 

With Yestigei's death his family was deserted by 
his followers under the instigation of the Taici'ut, a 
clan with aspirations to the leadership of the tribe. 
His widow, a woman of spirit, attempted, at first 
with some success, to rally the people to her; but 
in the end she and her young children were left to 
their own resources in the expectation that they 
would die of starvation. They survived however 
upon a diet of roots and berries eked out with such 
fish as Temiidjin and his brothers were able to catch 
in the Onon and such small prairie birds and animals 
as they were able to shoot with their bows and 
arrows. It was in a quarrel over game of this sort 
that Temiidjin is said to have been involved in the 
murder of one of his half-brothers. 

He had grown almost into manhood when the 
Taici'ut, learning of the family's survival, made a 
raid upon the little encampment with the object of 
seizing Temiidjin and preventing any possibility of 
his succeeding to his father's position. He escaped 
into the forests and for some days eluded his pursuers. 
When finally captured he was not put to death but 
was kept as a perpetual prisoner, the Taici'ut taking 
him with them from encampment to encampment 
with a cangue or wooden collar about his neck. One 
evening, when they were feasting along the bank 
of the Onon, he made off in the dark and, to avoid 
detection, submerged himself in the river with only 
his face above water. When the pursuit started his 
hiding-place was discovered by a member of a 
kindred tribe, who however befriended the young 



CINGIZ-KHAN 



man and saved him from immediate danger by 
persuading the Taifi'ut to postpone their search till 
the morning. In the meanwhile Temiidjin found his 
way to the tent of his benefactor, who concealed 
him once again from his enemies and then provided 
him with the means of escape. 

It was soon after this adventure that Temiidjin 
bethought himself of the bride awaiting him in 
Eastern Mongolia and he paid a visit to the Konklrat 
to lay claim to her. Borte brought him as her entire 
dowry a black sable skin, a circumstance worthy 
of mention, since with this sable skin Temiidjin was 
to lay the foundations of his future fortune. He 
offered it as a present to Toghrtl, the ruler of the 
Kereyt, a Nestorian Christian tribe, whose territory 
lay along the banks of the Tula in the region of the 
present-day Ulan Bator. Toghrtl, better known to 
history as Ong-Khan (he is the Prester John of 
Marco Polo), had been the anda or blood-brother of 
Temudjin's father. He expressed his pleasure at the 
gift and took the young man under his protection. 
Not long passed before Temiidjin had need of his 
patron's assistance. The Merkit, a forest tribe on the 
southern shores of Lake Baikal in what is to-day the 
Buryat A.S.S.R., raided Temudjin's encampment 
and carried off his newly married bride. With the 
aid of Toghril and Djamuka, a young Mongol 
chieftain, who was his own anda, Temiidjin was able 
to defeat the Merkit in battle and to recover his wife. 
For a time, after this campaign, Temiidjin and 
Djamuka remained firm friends, pitching their 
tents and herding their animals side by side; but 
then an estrangement arose between them and they 
parted company. The reason for this estrangement 
is not clear but Barthold's theory, according to 
which Temiidjin represented the Mongol aristocracy 
whilst Djamuka was the champion of the common 
people, no longer finds acceptance. 

It was immediately following the break with 
Djamuka that the Mongol princes acclaimed Temiidjin 
as their khan and conferred upon him the title by 
which he is known to history: Cingiz-Khan or, in 
its Anglicized form, Genghis Khan. The meaning of 
this title is not clear. The most likely interpretation 
is that offered by Pelliot, who sees in Cingiz a 
palatalised form of the Turkish tengiz "sea" and 
translates the title accordingly as "Oceanic Khan". 
i.e., "Universal Ruler". It is not without significance 
in this connexion that when shortly afterwards 
Djamuka set himself at the head of a rival confede- 
ration of tribes he received the title of Gur-Khan,. 
which also means something like "Universal Ruler". 

With his elevation to the Khanate of his tribe 
Cingiz- Khan was now a power to be reckoned with 
in the domestic wars of the Mongol peoples. In 1196 
his patron Toghril was expelled from his throne and 
was for a time an exile at the court of the Kara- 
Khitay. He owed his restoration, in 1198, to the 
intervention of Cingiz-Khan. In the same year both 
rulers were the allies of the Chin in an expedition 
against the Tatar. For their contribution to the 
Chinese victory Toghril received the title of wang 
or "prince", whence his name of Ong-Khan, and 
Cingiz-Khan a much lesser title. In 1199 Cingiz- 
Khan and Ong-Khan launched a joint attack on 
the Nayman, a largely Christian tribe, apparently of 
Turkish origin, in Western Mongolia. The success 
of this campaign was nullified by the pusillanimous 
conduct of Ong-Khan, who first of all deserted 
Cingiz-Khan on the eve of a battle and then had to 
appeal for aid from his protege when himself attacked 
by the Nayman. Despite this experience the two 



princes remained allies and on several o 
1201 and 1202 defeated the confederation of tribes 
headed by Cingiz-Khan's former friend Djamuka. 
In 1202 Cingiz-Khan took his final revenge upon 
his old enemies the Tatar in a campaign which 
resulted in their total extermination as a people. 
Meanwhile his relations with Ong-Khan had been 
steadily worsening and it now came to open war. 
The first battle was indecisive and seems in effect 
to have been a defeat for Cingiz-Khan, who with- 
drew for a while into the extreme N.E. of Mongolia 
to a lake or river called Baldjuna, the identity of 
which has not been satisfactorily established. He 
soon rallied however and in a second battle (1203) 
gained an overwhelming victory over his opponent. 
Ong-Khan fled westwards to meet his death at the 
hands of a Nayman frontier guard, and the Kereyt 
ceased to exist as a people, being forcibly absorbed 
into the Mongols. 

Cingiz-Khan was now in complete control of 
eastern and central Mongolia. Only in the west, 
where the Nayman had been joined by Djamuka 
and the Merkit chieftain Tokto'a, was his supremacy 
still challenged. Forestalling an attack by his 
enemies Cingiz-Khan defeated them in a battle in 
which the Nayman ruler lost his life (1204). His son, 
Kucliig, fled westwards, along with the Merkit 
Tokto'a, to make a last desperate stand on the 
upper reaches of the Irtish: Tokto'a was killed by 
a stray arrow and Kiifliig, continuing his flight 
westwards, was granted asylum in the territory of 
the Kara-Khitay. Djamuka, meanwhile, deserted 
by his followers, had been betrayed into the hands 
of Cingiz-Khan, who, with the execution of his 
one-time anda, at last found himself the absolute 
master of Mongolia. At a kuriltay or assembly of the 
Mongol princes held near the sources of the Onon 
in the spring of 1206 he caused himself to be pro- 
claimed supreme ruler of all the Mongol peoples. 
Having also at this kuriltay reorganized his military 
forces he was now in a position to embark upon 
foreign conquests. 

Already in 1205 he had attacked the kingdom of 
the Tangut or Hsi Hsia, a people of Tibetan origin 
who inhabited the region of the great bend in the 
Yellow River, i.e., what is now the province of 
Kansu and the Ordos Region. Two further campaigns 
(in 1207 and 1209) reduced the Tangut to the status 
of tributaries and the way lay open for an assault 
upon North China proper. In 121 1 the Mongols 
invaded and overran the whole area north of the 
Great Wall, but the Wall itself presented a barrier 
to further advance. In the following year their cause 
was promoted by the rising of a Khitan prince in 
southern Manchuria; and in the summer of 1213 they 
finally forced their way through the Wall and spread 
out over the North China plain. By the spring of 
121 5 they controlled the whole area north of the 
Yellow River and were converging from three 
directions upon Pekin. The Chin Emperor was now 
offered and accepted terms of peace and secured 
the withdrawal of the Mongol forces by the payment 
of tribute which consisted, in effect, in the immense 
dowry of a Chin princess bestowed in marriage upon 
Cingiz-Khan. Circumstances however led to the 
Mongols' almost immediate return. Pekin was 
captured and sacked (summer of 1215), and the 
Emperor fled to K c ai-feng on the southern banks 
of the Yellow River. Though the war still continued 
— and, in fact, the subjugation of North China was 
not finally completed until 1234, seven years after 
Cingiz-Khan's death — Cingiz-Khan now left the 



CINGIZ-KHAN 



command of operations in the hands of one of his 
generals, Mukali of the Djalayir tribe, and, in the 
summer of 1216 returned to his headquarters in 
Mongolia, there to turn his attention to events in 
Central and Western Asia. 

Kiiclug the Nayman, who had sought refuge with 
the Kara-Khitay, had dethroned the last of their 
rulers and made himself master of their territories. 
In 1218 a Mongol army under the famous general 
Djebe invaded Semirechye and Sinkiang and 
pursued Kucltig from Kashghar over the Pamirs into 
Badakhshan, where with the co operation of the 
local population he was captured and put to death. 

The accession of Semirechye and Sinkiang to his 
Empire gave Cingiz-Khan a common frontier with 
Sultan Muhammad Kh w arizm-Shah [q.v.]. Relations 
between the two rulers had been established already 
in 1215, when Cingiz-Khan had received an embassy 
from the Sultan before Pekin. In 1216, or more 
probably in 1219, a battle took place to the N.E. 
of the Aral Sea between a force commanded by 
Sultan Muhammad and a Mongol army led by 
Cingiz-Khan's eldest son Djoci which was returning 
from a successful campaign against the remnants 
of the Merkit. The encounter was indecisive and does 
not in any case seem to have contributed to the 
ultimate outbreak of hostilities. This was the result 
of the execution, ordered by the governor of Otrar, 
of an ambassador of Cingiz-Khan and a caravan of 
Muslim merchants accompanying him, a massacre 
apparently sanctioned by the Sultan himself. A 
second ambassador sent by Cingiz-Khan to demand 
satisfaction was likewise executed; and war became 
inevitable. Massing his forces on the Irtish in the 
spring of 1219, Cingiz-Khan had by the autumn of 
that year arrived before the walls of Otrar. He left a 
detachment under the command of his sons Caghatay 
and Ogedey to lay siege to the town, at the same 
time sending Djoci upon an expedition down the 
Sir-Darya, whilst he himself with the main army 
advanced upon Bukhara. Abandoned by its defen- 
ders, the town surrendered after a siege of only 
three days (first half of February, 1220). Samarkand, 
the next objective, offered as little resistance: it fell 
on 10 Muharram/19 March. Otrar had already 
capitulated and the besiegers of that town took part 
in the capture of Samarkand. 

From Samarkand Cingiz-Khan dispatched his two 
best generals, Djebe and Subetey, in pursuit of 
Sultan Muhammad, who upon receiving news of the 
Mongols' rapid advance had fled panic-stricken to 
the West. Doubling backwards and forwards across 
Persia the Sultan finally found refuge in an island 
off the eastern shores of the Caspian, where he died, 
it was said, of a broken heart. The generals continued 
their westward drive and passing through Adhar- 
baydjan and over the Caucasus descended into the 
steppes of what is now Southern Russia to defeat 
an army of Russians and Kipcak on the River 
Kalka in the Crimea. They then returned along the 
northern shores of the Caspian to rejoin Cingiz- 
Khan in Central Asia. 

Cingiz-Khan meanwhile had passed the summer of 
1220 resting his men and animals in the pastures of 
the Nakhshab area. In the autumn he captured 
Tirmidh and then proceeded up the Oxus to spend 
the winter of 1220-1 in the conduct of operations in 
the region of the present-day Stalinabad, as also in 
Badakhshan. Early in 1221 he crossed the Oxus and 
captured Balkh. Already after the capture of 
Samarkand he had dispatched Caghatay and Ogedey 
northwards to lay siege to Sultan Muhammad's 



capital at Gurgandj. He now sent Toluy, his youngest 
son, to complete the conquest of Khurasan, a task 
he accomplished with a thoroughness from which 
that province has never recovered. At Marw there 
were massacred according to Ibn al-Athir a total of 
700,000 men, women and children, whilst Diuwayni 
gives the incredible figure of 1,300,000. As for 
NIshapur, "it was commanded", says Diuwayni, 
"that the town should be laid waste in such a manner 
that the site could be ploughed upon; and that in 
the exaction of vengeance [for the death of a Mongol 
prince] not even cats and dogs should be left alive". 
After the capture of Harat Toluy rejoined his father, 
who was laying siege to the town of Talakan between 
Balkh and Marw ar-Rudh (not to be confused with 
another town of similar name, the present-day 
Talikhan in the Afghan province of Badakhshan) . 
The summer of 1221 Cingiz-Khan passed in the 
mountains to the south of Balkh. In the meantime 
Djalal al-Din, the son of Sultan Muhammad, had 
made his way to Ghazna and at Parwan to the N.E. 
of Carikar had inflicted a crushing defeat upon the 
Mongol force dispatched against him, the only 
reverse suffered by the Mongols during the whole 
campaign. Cingiz-Khan, upon receiving news of this 
battle, advanced southwards at great speed in 
pursuit of Sultan Djalal al-DIn, whom he finally 
overtook on the banks of the Indus. Hemmed in on 
three sides by the Mongol armies and with the river 
behind him Djalal al-Din, after offering desperate 
resistance, plunged into the water and swam to the 
farther side, surviving to conduct sporadic warfare 
against the Mongols for three years after Cingiz- 
Khan's death. 

The Battle of the Indus, which took place according 
to Nasawi on the Shawwal 618/24U1 November 1221, 
marks the end of Cingiz-Khan's campaign in the 
West. He began to prepare for the homeward 
journey and having explored the possibility of 
returning though India via Assam and Tibet finally 
turned back along the route he had been following. 
He travelled by easy stages, spending the summer of 
1222 in mountain pastures on the Hindu-Kush and 
the following winter in the neighbourhood of Samar- 
kand. The spring and summer of 1223 he passed in 
the region of the present-day Tashkent; in the 
summer of the following year he was on the upper 
reaches of the Irtish; and it was only in the spring 
of 1225 that he finally reached his headquarters in 
Mongolia. 

In the autumn of the following year he was again 
at war with the Tangut, but did not live to see the 
victorious outcome of this final campaign. He died 
on 25 August 1227 whilst resting in his summer 
quarters in the district of Ch'ing-shui on the Hsi 
River in Kansu. The authorities give no clear 
indication as to the cause of his death but a fall 
from his horse which he sustained whilst hunting 
during the previous winter may well have been a 
contributory factor. 

Of his personal appearance there appears to have 

survived only one contemporary record, that of 

Djuzdjani, who describes him as being at the time 

of his invasion of Khurasan "a man of tall stature 

and vigorous build, robust in body, the hair on his 

face scanty and turned white, with cat's eyes". 

Bibliography: Of the Secret History of the 

Mongols there is a Russian translation by S. A. 

Kozin (Leningrad 1941), a German translation by 

Erich Haenisch (2nd ed., Leipzig 1948), a Turkish 

translation by Ahmet Temir (Ankara 1948), an 

incomplete French translation by Paul Pelliot 



CINGIZ-KHAN — CINGIZIDS 



(Paris 1949), and an English translation by 
F. W. Cleaves (Cambridge, Mass. i960). Of a 
French translation of the Shlng-wu chHn-chlng lu 
by Paul Pelliot and Louis Hambis (Histoire des 
Campagnes de Genghis Khan) only the first volume 
has so far appeared (Leiden 1951). See also 
Haenisch, Die letzten Feldziige Cinggis Han's und 
sein Tod nach der ostasiatischen Oberlieferung, in 
Asia Major, ix (1933). Djuwayni's history is now 
available in the translation of J. A. Boyle {The 
History of the World-Conqueror, 2 vols., Manchester 
1958) and the relevant portions of Rashld al-Dln 
in the translations of A. A. Khetagurov and 
O. I. Smirnova {Sbornik letopisei, i, 1, and i, 2, 
Moscow 1952). See also Ren6 Grousset, Le Con- 
quirant du Monde (Paris 1944). 

(J. A. Boyle) 
CINGIZIDS, the four sons of Cingiz Khan [q.v.] 
by his marriage with his favourite wife Borte, and 
their descendants. In contrast to them Cingiz 
Khan's brothers and their sons, as well as the descend- 
ents of Cingiz Khan by other marriages, were of 
importance only in the first decades of the Mongol 
Empire, after which they fell into the background. 
In accordance with the will of Cingiz Khan, the 
empire conquered by him (including the parts 
whose acquisition had not yet been accomplished 
and which did not in fact take place until 1236/42 
or 1255/59) was divided among his four sons: 
I) Djoii (£i°£i), who may not have been a real 
descendent of Cingiz Khan (see further Cingiz 
Khan); II) Caghatay (Djaghatay); III) Ogedey 
(Ogoday, Ogotay, Pers. Ok/gaday); IV) Toluy 
(Tuluy, cf. these articles). 

I) Djoii died before his father, in about February 
1227. His legacy (Ulus), the Kipiak Plain and West 
Siberia (including Khwarizm) passed to his descend- 
ants. These were in part as early as the 13th century 
(Berke [q.v.]), and certainly by the first half of the 
14th century, Muslims (SunnI), and played an 
extraordinary role in the spread of Islam. 

A) His second son Batu (d. 1255) took over the 
Kipcak Plain and founded the empire of the Golden 
Horde. His descendants ruled there until 1360 (for 
details cf. BatO'ids, with a genealogical table). 

B) After 16 years' confusion the rule of the Golden 
Horde 1376. passed to the descendants of Batu's older 
brother Orda, who had taken control of the so-called 
"White Horde" in Western Siberia. Little is known 
about him, his immediate descendants and the 
situation in that region. After the two year rule of 
his seventh generation descendants Urus Khan and 
two of his sons, Toktamlsh [q.v.] finally appears in 
the full light of history. Expelled by Tlmiir [q.v.] 
in 798/1395, four of his sons were later (815-822/ 
1412-1419) able to assert themselves as nominal 
rulers of the Golden Horde (apart from the major 
domus Edigii, Russ. Yedigey, d. 1419, who exercised 
actual power). Since that time (and already from 1395 
of 1412) the progeny of Urus Khan ruled as Khans. 

After 842/1438 the territory of the Golden Horde 
dissolved into several separate states in which 
descendants of Cingiz Khan likewise ruled: 

a) The "Great Horde" in which a great-great 
grandson of Urus Khan, Kiiciik Mehmed (Muham- 
mad), assumed power about 1438, and whose 
descendents were able to retain it until 908/1502. 

b) The Khanate of Astrakhan [q.v.] where suc- 
cessors of Kiiciik Mehmed ruled until 965/1557. 

C) Parallel to that the descendants of a hitherto 
insignificant third line, that of Batu's and Orda's 
brother Togha Temur (Tuka Timur), managed to 



share in the dismemberment of the Kipcak. Of 
these, the following succeeded: 

c) Ulugh Mehmed (murdered in 850/1446), after his 
expulsion from the "Great Horde", to the Khanate 
of Kazan (Russ. Kazan [q.v.]) which his successors 
(among whom were the princes of Kasimov, see "e") 
lost in 960/1552 to the Russians. 

d) Ulugh Mehmed's nephew, HadjdjI Giray ([q.v.]; 
A. 870/1466), held fast (definitively in 1449) to the 
Crimea (see kIrIm) where his successors, under the 
dynastic name Giray, ruled as the last descendants 
of Cingiz Khan in Europe, until the annexation of 
the Crimea by the Russians in 1783. 

e) In the small Tatar principality of Kasimov 
([q.v.], region of Ryazan), various princes (finally 
a princess) of the line of Ulugh Mehmed (see 
,'c"), of Kiiciik Mehmed (see "a"), of Giray (see 
"d"), and of the Siberian Shaybanids (cf. "E d") 
ruled between 856-861/1452-56 and about 1092/ 
1 68 1. Some of them (including the last ruler) became 
converted to Orthodox Christianity and became the 
forefathers of Russian noble families. 

f) Descendants of the branch ruling in Astrakhan 
(see 'b") had fled after the Russian conquest to the 
Shaybanids in Bukhara (see "E a"). One of them, 
Prince Djan b. Yar Muhammad, married the daughter 
of the Shaybanid Khan Iskandar (968-991/1560-83). 
After the extinction of the male line of the Bukhara 
dynasty in 1006/1598, their son Baki Muhammad 
assumed the rule of the land. The new dynasty was 
called "AstrakhSnid", "Ashtarkhanid" or "Djanid" 
[q.v.], and ruled in Bukhara [q.v.] until their dis- 
placement in 1200/1785 by the House of Mangit [q.v.]. 

D) Among the descendants of a further son of 
Pjoci, Moghol (or Tewal?; P. Pelliot, Notes 52/54 
considers "Boal" better), his grandson Xoghay 
([q.v.]; Mongol "Nokhay" 'dog') played a significant 
role as major domus for several rulers of the Golden 
Horde, until he was killed in a civil war in 699/1299. 
His descendants are known for a further two genera- 
tions before they disappear. — Apparently the 
Nokhay people [q.v.] is called after him. 

E) Finally, the descendants of DjocTs youngest 
son Shiban (Arabicized "Shayban") lived originally 
in the region southeast of the Urals (somewhere 
between the source of the Tobol in the west and the 
Upper Irtish in the east, modern Kazakhstan) where 
they preserved their nomadic life. When the inhabit- 
ants of Orda's "White Horde" under Toktamish 
migrated far into the Kipcak Plain, the Shaybanids 
[q.v.] occupied their territoiy, and the peoples under 
their rule came to be called Ozbek (q.v.]; Russ. 
Uzbek). Of Shiban's descendents, the Shaybanids. 
Abu'l-Khayr([j.t>.], i, 135) expelled in 851/1447 the 
Timurids [q.v.] from Khwarizm [q.v.] and in the region 
north of the Sir Darya [q.v.]. He ruled the area from 
there to the neighbourhood of Tobol'sk, but was 
weakened by the devastating attacks of the Oirats 
([q.v.] ; Kalmuks) into his territory as well as by the 
struggles with the Kazakhs [q.v.] and died in 873/1468. 
His grandson Muhammad ShaybanI [q.v.] conquered 
Transoxania in 906/1500, where he broke the rule of 
the Timurids, penetrating finally into modern Afgha- 
nistan [q.v.] as well as Khurasan [q.v.]. The founder 
of the Safawid dynasty [q.v.], Isma'il I [q.v.] managed 
to expel him from there and to defeat him near 
Marw in 916/1510, where Muhammad ShaybanI was 
killed. With that move, the power of the Cingizids was 
restricted to the area north of the Amu Darya, and 
of this to a frontier zone between Persian Shi'I and 
Turkish Sunni influence (not without isolated shifts 
in both directions in the course of time). 



The reign of the Shaybanids endured in Trans- 
oxania, where they ruled: 

a) until 1007/1598 in Bukhara, where the ruling 
family died out with <Abd Allah II ([g.v.], i, 46 ff.; 
991-1007/1583-98). The Dianids succeeded (see "C f"). 

b) in Khwarizm [g.v.], later called for the most 
part Khiwa. which had fallen in 911-912/1505-6 to 
Muhammed Shaybani, the tributary line of the 
c Arabsh5hids succeeded in 911/1512 in the person of 
Ilbars I (1512-25). To this line belongs the famous 
historian Abu '1-Ghazi Bahadur Khan {[g.v.], i, 120 ff. ; 
1053-1076/1643-65), the author of the "Shadiarat 
al-Atrak". The line ruled until 1 106- 7/1694-95, when 
the power passed to the erstwhile "Condottieri" 
(Inak) of the Kungrat family [q.v.] who after 1219/ 
1804 called themselves "Khan". 

c) A further branch of the Shaybanids under 
Shah Rukh I, a descendent of Abu '1-Khayr, esta- 
blished himself in Farghana [q.v.] in 1122/1710. He 
founded the Khanate of Khpkand [q.v.] which was 
annexed in 1S76 by the Russians. 

d) Finally in 886/1481 the Shaybanid prince Ibak 
(d. 899/1493) was able to wrest the neighbourhood of 
the town of Tiimen (Russ. Tyumen) from the hands 
of the Khan of Sibir (who was not a Cingizid). In 
973/1565 his grandson Kucum expelled the last 
Khan of Sibir [q.v.] and put down his successors, 
though after 1579 found himself oppressed by Russian 
attacks and gradually pushed out of his territory, 
until he had to flee to the Noghays after a defeat 
on the Ob' in 1007/1598, dying there in 1009/1600. 
His son Ishim Khan managed to hold out on the 
Upper Tobol' until about 1035/1625. 

e) Kasimov (cf. "C e"). 

II) The descendants of the second son Caghatay 
([q.v.], d. 640/1242) persisted for almost as long, 
managing to hold their ground against the de- 
scendents of Ogedey (see III) in the 7th/i3th cen- 
tury, and to win out against them in 700/1309 [See 
Capar]. After that date inner Asia belonged to 
their area of rule (Ulus). From then on there were 
various struggles with the Ilkhans {[g.v.]; see also 
under "IV B") in Persia, and invasions into India, 
particularly between 697/1297 and 706/1306. 

Caghatay's great grandson Barak {[g.v.]; usually 
called by Muslims "Burak") and the latter's son 
Duwa (about 691/1291 to 706/1306) had with Chinese 
aid asserted themselves against Kaidu (see III). 
Duwa's son Kebek (Kopek) was able in 709/1309 to 
take possession of the latter's inheritance, (d. 726/ 
1326) His brother Termashirin (727-735/1326-34) 
was converted to Islam, taking with him the dynasty 
and gradually (though not without setbacks) the 
territory it ruled into the sphere of Islam. His 
death was followed by a temporary cleavage in the 
Ulus of Caghatay: 

a) The branch of the house ruling in Transoxania 
was converted to Islam. 

b) In the eastern part of the Ulus, since called 
Mogholistan (the land of seven rivers/Dieti suw/ 
Semirecye; the area round Issik Kul as well as the 
western Tarim Basin with KSshgar) ruled a line 
under whom Islam only spread slowly. 

A renewed unity of the two parts by Tughluk 
Temiir [q.v.] was finally broken by Tlmur's victory 
in 765/1363 by which Transoxania came to develop a 
separate character, where Turkish now definitely 
attained to leadership. Beside Tlmur Caghatayids 
continued to rule as nominal Khans until 805/1402. 
The Khans in Mogholistan could not be eliminated, 
despite Timur's persistent efforts. 

Rather after TImur's death in 808/1405, they were 



able gradually to regain influence in Transoxania. In 
particular, Esen Bogha II (833-867/1429-62) proved 
himself a dangerous opponent of the Timurids. 
Between him, the Kara Koyunlu [g.v.], the Ak 
Koyunlu and finally, the rising Safawids [g.v.], the 
Timurids (with the exception of the Great Moghuls) 
were gradually worn down. Their territory fell finally 
to the Shaybanids {[g.v.]; see also above "I E") and 
to the (eastern) Caghatayids from Mogholistan, among 
whom Yunus (874-891/1469-86), raised as a hostage 
in Shiraz, took possession in 889/1484 of Tashkent 
[q.v.] and Sayram [g.v.]. His successors maintained 
themselves there, reaching out at the same time — in 
opposition to China — towards Ha-mi and Turfan 
[g.v.], to whose islamization they decisively con- 
tributed. In Transoxania the Caghatayids were 
definitively eliminated in 914-15/1508-09 by the 
Shaybanids. Only Mogholistan east of T c ien-shan 
remained in the hands of this dynasty, who were 
forced to share their power with the clan of Dughlat 
[g.v.], centred at Kashghar. Living for the most 
part in harmony, both families took part in the 
struggle for Ha-mi and Turfan against China, a 
struggle which lasted still in the 16th century. 
Apparently at the end of that century a particular 
branch of the Caghatayids established itself in Turfan, 
and in 1057/1647 and 1068/1657 sent embassies to 
China. By the end of the 16th century Caghatayid 
power had split in several parts. It was fully ended 
in 1089/1678 when Khan Isma'Il of Kashghar [g.v.] 
attempted to get rid of the control of the Khodia 
[g.v.] which, divided in two parts, since the end 
of the ioth/i6th century had been the real leaders 
in that region, which was organised in separate 
city states in the form of theocracies. 

III) Cingiz Khan's third son Ogedey [g.v.], in 
accordance with his father's will and with the 
approval of his agnates, succeeded his father as the 
Great Khan from 627/1229 until 639/1241. His son 
Goyiik (Pers. Guyuk) too had his honour from 
644/1246 to 646/1248. The widows of both, Toregene 
(Pers. Turaklna) and Oghul Kaymish, conducted the 
regency in 639-644/1241-46 and 646-649/1248-51. 
Under Batu's influence however this line was un- 
able to maintain itself in the Great Khanate, 
which passed to the line of Tolui (see IV). None 
the less, Kaydu, a nephew of Goyiik, held his own 
in Ogedey's Ulus on the Imil, in the Tarbagatay 
Mountains and in modern Afghanistan. He conducted 
long wars with the princes of the House of Caghatay 
(II), especially Barak, as well as with the Great 
Khan Kubilay, whose "nomadic" rival he was. He 
adhered to the old Mongolian religious traditions, 
and died in 1301 on the return march from an 
assault on Karakorum [g.v.]. His son and successor 
Capar (Capar; [g.v.]) resumed the struggle against 
the descendents of Caghatay and Kubilay, but had 
to flee from Kebek (see II) in 1309 to the court of 
the Mongol Emperor of China. Thereupon the Ulus 
of Caghatay ceased to exist. 

IV) Cingiz Khan's youngest son Toluy had a 
such received as Ulus the territory of the actuals 
Mongolia. Since his sons Mongke (Pers. Mangu; 
[g.v.]) 1251-1259, and Kubilay [g.v.] 1259-94, were 
Great Khans into whose hands until 1280 all of 
China had fallen, there was a dynastic connexion 
between Mongolia with its capital Karakorum and 
the Middle Kingdom, where the Mongol dynasty 
was called Yuan. A third brother Arik (Erik) B6ge, 
who attempted to establish himself in Mongolia, was 
forced to surrender in 1264 and died in 1266 in 
Kubilay's custody. His great-grandson Arpa ruled 



CINGIZIDS 



Cingiz Khan t 1227 



. Djocit 1 



6 generations Golden Horde 



(Golden Temur 

Horde 
1256-67) 7 generations 



D. Moghol 
1 generation 



Shaybanids 
in Kazakhstan 



Urus Khan T015 Khodja 
(Golden Horde) I 

(1374-6) Toktamlsh 

t 1406-7 



c) Ulugh Ghiyath al-DIn 

Mehmed 1 1447 I 

I d) Crimea 

Kazan (House of Giray) 



Golden Horde 



4 sons a ) Bukhara 

(Golden Horde) 1500-1598 
(1412-1419) 



Barak (Bui 
t 1271-: 

I L " 



I 

Goyuk 

Great Khan 

(1246-8) 



~ 



\ 



~ 



~i 



a) Great 
Horde 
(until 1502) f ) Eianids of Bukhara 



Astrakhan (until 1557) 

inids of Bukh 
(1598-1785) 



) Khwarizm c) Khokand d) Siberia e) Kasimov 

512-1694-5 1710-1876 1565-c. 1625 (also princes 

of other 

branches, 

until 1681) 



a) Khans of b) Khans 

Transoxania of 

until 1402 Mogholistan 

[supremacy I 
ofTimuri363] 

I 7 

Khans of Khans of 

Transoxania Mogholistan 

(junior and 

branch) Kashghar 

in til 1509 until 1678 



(fled 1309) 



Mongke A. Kubilay 

Great Khan Great Khan 

(1251-9) (1259-94) 



Khans of 
(Buddhists) 



B. Hulegii 
t 1265 
, I. 



Several Tribes 



The numbers and letters of this geneological table correspond with the numbers and letters of the article "cincizids". 



CINGIZIDS — CIRAGH-I DIHLl 



for a few months in 1335/36 as Ilkhan (see "IV B"). 

A) Kubilay inclined more and more towards 
Buddhism, and his successors as emperors of China 
were completely absorbed in the indigenous culture 
and in the Chinese religion. The essential cau; 
this was that alter Kubilay's death in 1294 the ei 
Mongol network collapsed, as the other branches of 
the house had sooner or later converted to Islam, . 
the Ilkhans of Iran in 695/1295, who had hitherto 
particularly cultivated their relations with Khan- 
baligh ("Khan-city" ; Peking). The Yuan dynasty, 
driven out of China in 1368, maintained the rule in 
Mongolia, where the various branches of the h 
drifted apart, though having nothing to do with 
Islam. At the end of the 16th century among the 
Mongols (as a linguistic community) Buddhism 1 
established in its Tibetan form of "Lamaism" of 
the "Yellow Church". The Kalmuks [q.v.] too 
brought this religion to the Volga where 
preserved it. After 1649 the Mongols in the Ordos 
region were again subject to Chinese authority. 

B) A fourth brother of Kubilay, Hiilegii (Pel 
Hulagu; [q.v.] d. 1265) conquered in 653-658/1255-59 
Persia, 'Irak and Mesopotamia and, temporarily, 
Syria. He destroyed the c Abbasid caliphate and 
founded the empire of the Ilkhans [q.v.']. He and 

inclined to Buddhism, but with Ghazan [q.v.] in 695/ 
1295 were converted to Islam, in which they vai 
Mated openly between Sunni and Shi'I (Oldjeytu, 
d. 716/1316). The Ilkhan empire collapsed after 736/ 
1335 in civil wars, and the last offspring of 
line, (A)Nushirwan disappeared from history 
754-5/I353-4. The heritage of the Ilkhans was finally 
taken over by Timur. 

Bibliography: A. C. Mouradgea d'Ohsson, 
Histoire des Mongols 1 , 4 vols., Amsterdam 1852; 
H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, 4 vols, 
and suppl., London 1876/88, 1927; R. Grousset, 
U Empire des steppes, Paris 1939; W. Barthold, 
12 Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der Tiirken 
Mittelasiens, Berlin 1935 ; B. Spuler, Die Mongolen- 
zeit 2 , Leiden 1953 (English version, i960). 

Genealogical Tables: E. de Zambaur: 
Manuel de ginialogie . . . s , Hanover 1955, Tables 
241-76 (and lists of rulers); N. I. Veselovskiy, in 
Izv. otd. russk. yazlka i slovesnosti Imp. Akad. 
Nauk XXI/i (1916-17), 8-9. 

Maps : A. Herrmann, Atlas of China, Cambridge 
Mass. 1935, 49-55; B. Spuler, a) Mongolenzeit, as 
above ;-b) in Westermanns Atlas zur Weltgeschichte, 
Braunschweig 1957, 72 ft., 99; Hist. Atlas of the 
Muslim Peoples, Amsterdam 1957, 26 ff., 31, 37; 
Zambaur, Map 4. 

In addition, see the bibliography for the indi- 
vidual branches of the Cingizids, for the individual 
members of the family, and for the above- 
mentioned geographical and town names. 

(B. Spuler) 
ClNlOT (Cinyot), An ancient town in the 
district of Djhang (West Pakistan), situated in 
31° 43' N. and 73° o' E., on the left bank of the 
Clnab with a population of 39,042 in 1951. It was, 
in all probability, once a settlement of Chinese who 
not only gave their name to the town but also to 
the river that flows past at a distance of 2 miles only. 
Attempts have been made to identify it with 
Sakala, the capital of the White Huns, visited by the 
Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsiang. In 800/1398 it was 
captured by Timur, during his Indian campaign, 
and remained thereafter in the possession of his 
dependents. In 876/1471 Sultan Husayn b. Kutb al- 



Din Lingah, the wall of Multan, dispossessed Malik 
Mandjhi Khokhar, agent of Sayyid c Ali Khan, the 
governor of Cinlot under Buhlul Lodl. In the mean- 
time Buhlul Lodl appointed his son Barbak Shah 
as the governor of the Pandjab. His appointment 
was, however, resented by Sultan Husayn who met 
him in a fierce combat near Multan; defeated his 
troops and pursued them right upto Cinlot. The 
troops of Barbak Shah, however, succeeded in 
occupying the town and killed the local commandant. 
In 925/1519 Babur occupied it in pursuance of a 
resolve to regain the territory which once was held 
by his ancester, Timur. He ordered his troops not 
to indulge in plundering or over-running because 
he considered it to be a part of his patrimony. 
Prior to Babur's occupation the town was in the 
possession of c Ali Khan b. Dawlat Khan Yusuf- 
Khayl, governor of the Pandjab. 

Thereafter it remained under the Mughals and in 
the days of Akbar it had a brick-fort garrisoned by 
5,000 infantry. During the second half of the 12th/ 
18th century it suffered heavily from Durrani 
inroads and Sikh depredations; the town was badly 
disturbed and the residents knew neither peace nor 
security. In 1264/1848 it again suffered under 
Narayan Singh, the Sikh commandant. The very 
next year it became a British possession with the 
annexation of the Pandjab in 1 265/1 849. 

Cinlot now consists of the main town and two 
suburbs, one of which has grown up round the tomb 
of Shaykh Isma'il. It is a well-built town and many 
of the houses, owned by the Khodjas, are lofty and 
commodious. The Khodjas are well-known for their 
great wealth and extensive business relations. 
They came to this town after its occupation by 
Randjit Singh, the Sikh Maharadja. 

Sa c d Allah Khan 'Allami al-Tamimi the cele- 
brated chief Minister of Shahdjahan and the 
physician c Ilm al-Din al-Ansari, better known to 
history as Wazir Khan, the Mughal governor of 
Lahore during the reign of Shahdjahan, were 
both natives of Cinlot. Sa c d Allah Khan made a 
gift to his townsmen of the exceedingly handsome 
Djami c Masdjid built of stone obtained from the 
neighbouring hills; Wazir Khan built the famous 
mosque of Lahore still known after him and founded 
the town of Wazirabad. Some of the masons 
employed on the Tadj Mahall (Agra) are said to 
have been drawn from Cinlot, most probably at the 
instance of Sa'd Allah Khan, who knew all about 
their skill in masonry, and one of those who built 
the (Sikh) Golden Temple at Amritsar was also a 
resident of Cinlot. This town was also famous for 
■ing and some very fine specimens of 






old t. 



Bibliography: Bdbumdma (Eng. transl. A. 
S. Beveridge), 380-2; Sudjan Ray, Khuldsat al- 
Tawdrlkh (ed. M. Zafar Hasan), Delhi 1918, 78, 
293-4; Punjab District Gazetteers (Jhang), Lahore 
1910, 163-5; D. G. Barkley in JRAS (1899), 
132-3; <Abd al-Hayy Nadawi, Nuzhat al-Khawdtir , 
Haydarabad (Deccan) i375/i955, 154, 279-80; 
Elliot and Dowson, iv , 232.; c Abd al-Hamid Khan, 
Pawns of Pakistan, Karachi n.d. 129-35. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
CINTRA [see shintara] 

ClRAGH-I DIHLl ("Light of Dihli"), the 
lakab of Shaykh NasIr al-DIn MahmOd b. 
Yahya YazdI, Awadhi, said to be based on a 
remark of his contemporary Shaykh c Abd Allah b. 
As'ad al-Yafi'I (d. 768/1367) (Firishta, ii, 781', 747 3 , 
Djamail, 141b). He was one of the most eminent 



ClRAGH-I DIHLI 



disciples of Shaykh Nizam al-DIn Awliya 3 . His 
father Yahya was born in Lahore. Later the family 
settled at Awadh (Ayodhya), where his father 
traded in woollen cloth or cotton (pashmina in 
Khayr al-Madidlis, var. panbe in Akhbdr 80). It was 
in Awadh that Mahmud was born, but he was not 
yet nine, when his father died. His widowed mother 
arranged for his education with a distinguished 
scholar of those days Mawlana c Abd al-Karim 
Sharwanl (Nuzhat al-Khawdtir, ii, 70), with whom 
he studied up to al-Marghlnanl, Hiddyat al-Fikh, 
and Pazdawl, Usui, (Brockelmann, I 373, S I 637). 
When Sharwanl died the young Mahmud completed 
his education in the usual sciences with Mawlana 
Iftikhar al-Din Muhammad al-Gilani {Nuzha, ii, 15). 
When he was about twenty-five, he renounced the 
world and for seven years went through a rigorous 
course of self-discipline and self-mortification, and 
fought against the passions with prayer and fasting. 
At forty-three he moved to Dihli and became a 
disciple of Shaykh Nizam al-DIn Awliya 5 , i.e., 
Muhammad Bada'uni. After this he visited Awadh 
only occasionally and was mostly attending on his 
murshid at the Diamd'at Khdna at KHokhafi, on 
the bank of the Diamna. 

He resided in Dihli in the house of his old friend 
and fellow-disciple Shaykh Burhan al-DIn Gharib 
{?.».]. Towards the end of 724/1324, or a few months 
later, his Shaykh, who was then about 94, appointed 
him his successor in Dihli, to carry on his life-work 
and passed on to him the souvenirs (khirka, rosary 
«tc.) of his own Shaykh (Farid al-Din) (Mandwi, 115, 
cf. Kirmani, 220-2). He followed his Shaykh punct- 
iliously in the path of poverty and patience, resig- 
nation (in the will of God) and acceptance {taslim 
wa ridd) and remained celibate like him. After the 
death of his Shaykh he guided the people for thirty- 
two years. Kirmani (242 ff.) gives several instances 
of his remarkable power of thought-reading. 

He and most of his khalifas lived in strict obedience 
to the shari'a, and engaged themselves in teaching 
religious sciences and the spreading of knowledge 
(cf. Ghulam 'All Azad, Subhat al-Mardfdn, 30). 
A contemporary faklh, Kamal al-DIn, the author of 
Turfat al-FukaW (in verse), who visited his 
khdnakdh, confirms it thus: 

"On every side Jurisprudence and (its) 
Principles were being taught, 
On every side God, and the Apostle were 
being mentioned". 



Har (araf dars-hd zi fikh u 
Har (araf dhikr az Khuddm 
(Panjab University MS. f. 1 



When Sultan Muhammad Tughluk 725-52/1324-51) 
adopted a hostile policy against the '■ulama? etc. 
(for reasons discussed by Mahdl Husayn), he created 
difficulties for the Shaykh too in various ways. The 
sultan would take him along with him on his travels 
and on one occasion he put him in charge of his 
wardrobe. The Shaykh bore all these troubles and 
annoyances patiently, keeping in view the injunc- 
tions of his master (Kirmani 245 f.; Djamali 138b; 
Mandwi 115; Akhbdr 81, 91; Firishta, ii, 747; 
Bada'unl, i, 242). However his relations with the 
sultan's successor, Firuz Shah, were much better, 
and the Shaykh supported the sultan's ascent to 
the throne (Barani (Bib. Ind.), 535; 'Afif (Bib. Ind.) 
29; Mubarak Shdhi (Bib. Ind.) 121; Bada'unl, i, 
24if. ; Tabakdt-i Akbari, i, 225). True to the tradition 
of the great Cishtl Saints, he compiled no book 



(Akhbdr, 81) but his obiter dicta, and anecdotes about 
him, were collected by Hamld Kalandar (Akhbdr, 
109, 86). The work called Khayr al-Madidlis, begun 
in 755/1354 and completed in 756/1355, is divided 
into 100 Madidlis (Assemblies). The Shaykh himself 
revised this work. A takmila (supplement) was 
added to it by the author, after the death of the 
Shaykh. The narrative is given in simple Persian 
and the account is full and detailed. For quotations 
from it see Ahhbar, 109-112, 82-5. An Urdu trans- 
lation of it exists (Ta'rikh Mashayikh Cisht i62n, 
i83n). A number of his sayings reveal a learned and 
illumined personality. For an Arabic verse of his 
see Akhbdr, 97. 

The enormous influence which he wielded in 
Dihli and outside it (northern India and Deccan) 
in his own and the following generations, becomes 
clear from the lengthy list of his notable disciples 
and khalifas, who are noticed in detail in the Akhbdr, 
129-148, 141, 142-146, 147-149 and 85, (see also 
Nuzhat al-Khawdtir. ii, 159), including as it does, 
among others such names as those of Kadi c Abd al- 
Muktadir (d. 791/1389; see also Subha, 29, Nuzhat 
al-Khawdtir. (ii, 70), Sayyid Muhammad b. Yusuf, 
usually known as Gesudaraz (died in Gulbarga in 
825/1422, see Firishta, ii, 748, Rieu, 347), Sayyid 
Djalal Bukharl Makhdum-i Djahaniyan (d. 785/1384 
in Sindh), Ahmad Thanesarl (died in Kalpi; who 
won consideration from Amir Timur (Akhbdr, 142), 
Mutahhar of Kara (for whom see the Oriental 
College Magazine, Lahore, May 1935, 107-160, Aug. 
1935, 48-216, Akhbdr, 85 f.), and Mawlana Khwadjagl 
(Akhbdr 141). To this list may be added the names of 
(Akhi Siradj Parwana, the Shaykh's khalifa in 
Bengal, Husam al-Din of Nahrawala (Gudjarat) 
(Firishta, ii, 748, 747), and Muhammad Mudjlr 
Wadjlh al-DIn Adib, author of the Miftdh al- 
Diindn (Rieu, 40 f.). 

The Shaykh died after a short illness on the 18th 
Ramadan 757/15 September 1356, and was buried 
in his own house (Kirmani, 247), appointing no 
successor, and the relics he had received from his 
Shaykh were buried with him. This symbolised the 
end of the first series of the great Cishtl Saints in India. 
A mausoleum was built on his tomb by Sultan Firuz 
Shah. A tomb close to the Shaykh's is popularly sup- 
posed to be that of Sultan Bahlol Lodl. For a descrip- 
tion of it see List of Muhammadan and Hindu Monu- 
ments, Delhi Province, iii, Mahrauli Zail, Calcutta 1922, 
Bibliography: Apart from the authorities 
quoted above, the following are important: 

Muhammad Mubarak al-Kirmanl, Siyar al- 
Awliyd 1 , Delhi 1302, 236-247; Djamali, Siyar al- 
'■Arifln no. n, my MS., ff. 136-140, 141b; Abu 
'1-Fadl, AHn-i Akbari (Bib. Ind.) ii, 218; Amin-i 
Ahmad-I RazI, Haft Iklim no. 402; <Abd al-Hakk, 
Akhbdr al-Akhydr, Delhi 1309, 80-6, 129 f., 
134 f., 139, 141 f., 147-149, 151 ; Mandwi, Adhkdr-i 
Abrdr (Urdu version of Gulzdr-i Abrdr), Agra 
1326, 115; Dara Shukoh, Safinat al-Awliyd', 
Lucknow 1872, 100 f. ; Hakim <Abd al-Hayy 
Lakhnawi, Nuzhat al-Khawdtir. Haydarabad- 
Deccan, 1350, ii, 158 f.; Rahman C A1I Tadhkira 
c Ulamd-i Hind, Lucknow 1914, 238; Beale, 
Oriental Biographical Dictionary, Calcutta 1881, 
205 ; idem, Miftdh al-Tawdrikh, 89 ; Ghulan Sarwar, 
Khazinat al-Asfiyd', Lahore 1283, 340-5; Agha 
Mahdl Husayn, The Rise and fall of Muhammad 
bin Tughluq, London 1938, 209 ff., Muhammad 
Hablb, Shaikh Nasiruddin Mahmud, Chirdgh-i 
Dehli as a great historical personality, in IC, xx/2 
(1946), 129 ff. ; Storey, i, 942 n. i; Khalik Ahmad 



ClRAGH-I DIHLl - 



Nizam!, Ta'rikh-i Mashayikh-i Cisht (Urdu) 
Delhi n.d., 181-6. (Mohammad ShafI) 

CIRAGHAN (plur. of (irdgh, means of illumina 
tion such as candle, torch or lamp), the name o 
a palace on the European side of the Bosphoru 
between Beshiktash and Ortakoy. First built by 
Sultan Murad IV for his daughter Kaya Sultan, it 
was rebuilt by Damad Ibrahim Pasha, the Grand 
Vizier of Sultan Ahmad ,for his wife Fatima Sultan. 
During the sultan's frequent visits, the famous 
tiraghdn festivities (the illumination of tulip gardens 
with candles and lamps, tortoises with candles 
on them also wandered about in the gardens) 
were celebrated here. It was rebuilt of wood by 
Sultan Mustafa III for this daughter Beyhan Sultan, 
with a magnificient hall 180 tr. in length, various 
ceremony halls, valuable floors and interior deco- 
rations. Demolished in 1859 by Sultan c Abd al- 
Medjid, the reconstruction began in the time of 
Sultan c Abd al- c Az!z in 1863 and was completed in 
1869. Made of stone, its architectural style was a 
mixture of classical styles to suit eastern taste. 
The building on the beach consisted of three parts, 
the facade with its mosaics, marble columns and 
stone work, the interior with its interior decorations, 
ceilings, wooden wall linings and doors inlaid with 
mother of pearl were separate works of art. After 
his deposition in 1876, Sultan c Abd al-'Aziz stayed 
there until his suicide. The deposed Sultan Murad V 
was forced to live there for 27 years. With small 
alterations, it was used as a Parliament house for 
Senate and the Chamber of Deputies and 
destroyed by fire three months later on 7 Muharram 
1328/19 January 1910. The walls and the imperial 

Bibliography: C. E. Arseven, Turk Sanati 

Tarihi, Fasc. 8 ; M. Z. Pakalin, Qiragan Sarayi in 

Ayhk Ansiklopedi, Istanbul 1940; T. Oz, Qiragan 

Sarayi, in Panorama, no. 1, Istanbul 1945; M. T. 

Gokbilgin, Qtragan Sarayi in lA, Vol. 19, Istanbul 

1943); M. Z. Pakalin, Osmanh Tarih Deyimleri, 

Istanbul 1948. (Tahsin Oz) 

CIRCASSIANS [see cerkes] 

CIRCUMCISION [see khitan] 

CIRMEN, located at the site of Burdipta, a 

fortress of the ancient Thracians (cf. Tomaschek, 

325), is called T£spvO(juavov in the chronicle of 

the Byzantine historian Kantakuzenos (cf. also 

Chalkokondyles, who mentions a Kep(juavov x&pov 

and Crunomecl in the Serbian sources. It lies on 

the south side of the river Maritsa, not far above 

Adrianople (Edirne) and was, at the time of the 

earlier Ottoman conquests in the Balkans, a point 

of some strategic importance, since it commanded 

a ford across the river. At Cirmen, in September 

I37i/Rabi c I 773), the Ottomans inflicted a crushing 

defeat on the southern Serbs led by the princes 

Vukasin and Ugljesa. As the tide of Ottoman 

conquest in the Balkans advanced further towards 

the north and west, so the significance of Cirmen 

as a fortress began to decline. Ewliya Celebi describes 

it as it il kal'esi, i.e., a fortress of the interior, 

without garrison and equipment and with its walls 

in a state of disrepair. Cirmen was during the 14th- 

19th centuries the centre of a saniiak in the eydlet 

of Rumeli, but sank thereafter to the status of a 

ndhiye in the kada> of Mustafa Pasha Kopriisii 

belonging to the wildyet and sandiak of Edirne. 

Bibliography : Sa c d al-Din, Tddi al-Tawarikh, 

i, Istanbul A.H. 1279, S3, 518, 54i; Ewliya 

Celebi, Seydhatndme, iii, Istanbul A.H. 1314, 423; 

Kantakuzenos, i, (Bonn 1828), 191, ii (Bonn 1831), 



526, iii (Bonn 1832), 243; Chalkokondyles, Bonn 
1843, 31; J. von Hammer-Purgstall, Rumeli und 
Bosna, Vienna 1812, 49; P. A. von Tischendorf, 
Das Lehnswesen in den moslemischen Staaten, 
Leipzig 1872, 62, 64; C. Jirecek, Die Heerstrasse 
von Belgrad nach Constantinopel und die Balkan- 
passe, Prague 1877, 99. 108; W. Tomaschek, Zur 
Kunde der Hamus-Halbinsel, SBAk. Wien, Phil.- 
Hist. CI., Bd. 113, Vienna 1886, 325; N. Jorga, 
Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, i, Gotha 1908, 
240-241; St. N. Kyriakides, [Ju^avTivat MsXerai 
11-V, Thessalonike 1937, 189; F. Babinger, 
Beitrdge zur Fruhgeschichte der l'urkenherrschaft in 
Rumclien (14.-15- Jahrhundcrt), Briinn, Munich, 
Vienna 1944, 29 (note 113), 50; H. J. Kissling, 
Beitrdge zur Kenntnis Thrakiens im 17. Jahr- 
hundcrt (Abh. K.M., XXXII/3), Wiesbaden, 38, 
38 and 116 (index); O. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, 
Istanbul 1943, 257-259; M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, 
XV -XV I. asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa Livdsi, 
Istanbul 1952, 12 ff., 261 ff., 515 ft'., and 561 
(index) (cf. also, ibid., Vakfiyeler, 235 ft.); Sami, 
Kdmus al-AHam, iii, Istanbul 1891, 1873 and vi, 
Istanbul 1898, 4309 (s.vv. Cirmen, and Mustafa 
Pasha Kopriisii). (V. J. Parry) 

CISHTI, Khwadja Mu c iN al-DIn Hasan, one of 
the most outstanding figures in the annals of Islamic 
mysticism and founder of the Cishtiyya order [see 
the following article] in India, was born in or about 
536/1 141 in Sidjistan. He was in his teens when his 
father, Sayyid Ghiyath al-Din, died leaving as 
legacy a grinding mill and an orchard. The sack of 
Sidjistan at the hands of the Ghuzz Turks turned his 
mind inwards and he developed strong mystic 
tendencies. He distributed all his assets and took to 
itineracy. He visited the seminaries of Samarkand 
and Bukhara and acquired religious learning at the 
feet of eminent scholars of his age. While on his 
way to 'Irak, he passed through Harvan, a kasaba 
in the district of Nishapur. Here he met Khwadja 
'Uthman and joined the circle of his disciples. For 
twenty years he accompanied his mystic teacher on 
his Wanderjahre. Later on he undertook independent 
journeys and came into contact with eminent saints 
and scholars like Shaykh <Abd al-Kadir Gilani, 
Shaykh Nadjm al-Din Rubra, Shayl<h Nadjib al-Din 
c Abd al-Kahir Suhrawardi, Shaykh Abu Sa c id 
Tabriz!, Shaykh c Abd al-Wahid Ghaznawi— all of 
whom were destined to exercise great influence on 
contemporary religious thought. He visited nearly 
all the great centres of Muslim culture in those 
days — Samarkand, Bukhara, Baghdad, Nishapur, 
Tabriz, Awsh, Isfahan, Sabzawar, Mihna, Khirkan, 
Astarabad, Balkh and Ghaznin — and acquainted 
himself with almost every important trend in Muslim 
religious life in the middle ages. He then turned 
towards India and, after a brief stay at Lahore, 
where he spent some time in meditation at the tomb 
of Shaykh c Ali al-Hudjwiri, reached Adjmer before 
its conquest by the Ghurids. It was here that he 
married at an advanced age. According to c Abd al- 
Hakk Dihlawi (d. 1642) he took two wives, one of 
them being the daughter of a Hindu radja. He had 
three sons— Shaykh Abu Sa'id, Shaykh Fakhr al-Din 
and Shaykh Husam al-Din — and one daughter, 
Bibi Djamal, from these wives. Bibi Djamal had 
strong mystic leanings but his sons were not inclined 
towards mysticism. Nothing is known about Abu 
Sa'id; Fakhr al-Din took to farming at Mandal, near 
Adjmer; while Husam al-Din disappeared mysteri- 
ously. Mu c in al-Din died at Adjmer in 633/1236. His 
tomb is venerated by Hindus and Muslims alike 



Encyclopaedia 



f Islar 



5o 



CISHTI — CISHTIYYA 



and hundreds of thousands of people from all over 
the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent assemble there on 
the occasion of his c urs (death anniversary). 

The dargdh area contains many buildings — gates, 
mosques, hospices, langars etc. — constructed by the 
rulers of Malwa, the Mughal emperors, nobles, 
merchants and mystics during the past several cen- 
turies. Muhammad b. Tughluk (626-752/1325-1351) 
was the first Sultan of Dihli who visited his grave 
(Futuh al-Saldtin, Madras, 466). The KhaldjI Sultans 
of Malwa constructed the tomb of the saint. It was 
during the reign of Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605) that 
Adjmer became one of the most important centres 
of pilgrimage in the country. The Mughal emperors 
displayed great reverence for the mausoleum of the 
saint. Akbar undertook a journey on foot to Adjmer, 
and Shah Djahan's daughter, Djahan-Ara, cleansed 
and swept the tomb with her eyelids. 

Khwadja Mu'in al-DIn laid the foundations of 
the Cishtl order in India and worked out its principles 
at Adjmer, the seat of Cawhan power. No authentic 
details are available about the way he worked in the 
midst of a population which looked askance at every 
foreigner. It appears that his stay was disliked 
by Prithvi Radj and the caste Hindus but the 
common people flocked to him in large numbers. 
He visited Delhi twice during the reign of Iletmish 
(1210-1235), but kept himself away from the centre 
of political power and quietly worked for a cultural 
revolution in the country. His firm faith in wahdat 
al-wudjud (Unity of Being) provided the necessary 
ideological support to his mystic mission to bring 
about emotional integration of the people amongst 
whom he lived. Some of his sayings, as preserved in 
Siyar al-Awliyd', reveal him as a man of wide 
sympathies, catholic views and deep humanism. He 
interpreted religion in terms of human service and 
exhorted his disciples "to develop river-like gene- 
rosity, sun-like affection and earth-like hospitality". 
The highest form of devotion (td'at), according to 
him, was "to redress the misery of those in distress; 
to fulfil the needs of the helpless and to feed the 
hungry". The Cishtl order owes to him the ideology 
which is expounded in the conversations of Shavkh 
Nizam al-Din Awliya' (FawdHd al-Fu'dd) and other 
Cishtl mystic works of the 7th/i3th and the 
8th/i 4 th centuries. 

Bibliography : No contemporary record of the 
saint's life or teachings is available. The works 
attributed to him — Gandj al-Asrdr, Anis al- 
Arwdh, Dalil al- < Arijin and Diwdn-i MuHn — are 
apocryphal. (See Prof. M. Habib, Chishti Mystic 
Records of the Sultanate Period, in Medieval India 
Quarterly, Vol. i, no. 2, 15-22; K. A. Nizami, 
Studies in Medieval Indian History, Aligarh 1956, 
40-42). The earliest notices are found in Surur 
al-Sudur (conversations of Shaykh Hamld al-Din 
al-Siifl, a disciple of the saint, compiled by his 
grandson — MSS Hablbgandj and personal col- 
lection) and Siyar al-Awliya' (Delhi 1301, 45-48), 
but they contain very few details about his life. 
The first detailed account of his life is given by a 
sixteenth century mystic, Shaykh Djamali (Siyar 
al-'Arifin, Delhi 1311, 4-17) who collected whatever 
material he could in foreign lands. All later hagio- 
logical works, with a few exceptions, have con- 
fused fact with fiction and incorporated all kinds 
of legends. This literature may be of value in 
tracing the growth of legends round the Khwadia's 
person; its historical value is, nevertheless, very 
meagre. For later authorities, Abu '1-Fadl, AHn-i 
Akbari, Sir Sayyid ed., 207; Ghawthi. Gulzdr-i 



Abrdr, As. Soc. of Bengal Ms. D. 262, f. 8v-io; 
Ta'rikh-i Firishta, Nawal Kishore, 1281, ii, 375- 
378; 'All Asghar Cishtl, Djawdhir-i Faridi, Lahore 
1301, 146-163; c Abd al-Hakk Dihlawl, Akhbdr al- 
Akhydr, Delhi 1309, 22-24; <Abd al-Rahman, 
Mir'dt al-Asrdr, MS personal collection, 408-426; 
Siyar al-Aktdb, Nawal Kishore, Lucknow 1331 
100-141; Ghulam Mu'in al-DIn, Ma c dridi al- 
Waldyat, MS personal collection, i, 3-27; Tadj 
al-DIn Ruh Allah, Risdla Hal Khanwdda-i Cisht, 
MS. personal collection, f. 2a-5b; Baha alias 
Radja, Risdla Ahwdl Pirdn-i Cisht, MS personal 
collection, 77-8o; Dara Shukoh, Safinat al-Awliyd?, 
Agra 1269, no. no; Djahan-Ara, Munis al-Arwdh, 
(MSS Storey, 1000); Ikram Baraswl, Iktibds al- 
Anwdr, Lahore 132-147; Rahlm Bakhsh Fakhri, 
Shadjarat al- Anwar, MS personal collection, 
I4ib-i62b; Nadjm al-DIn, Mandkib al-Habib, 
Delhi 1332; Muhammad Husayn, Tahkikdt-i 
Awldd-i Khwadja Sdhib, Delhi; Imam al-DIn 
Khan, MuHn al-Awliyd', Adjmer 1213; Babu L51, 
Wakd'-i Shah MuHn al-Din, Nawal Kishore; 
K. A. Nizami, Ta'rikh-i MashdHkh-i Cisht, Nadwat 
Khadim Hasan, MuHn al-Arwdh, Agra 1953; 
al-Musannifln, Delhi 1953, 142-147; Storey, 943. 

(K. A. Nizami) 
CISHTIYYA, one of the most popular and 
influential mystic orders of India. It derives 
its name from Cisht, a village near Harat (marked 
as Khwadja Cisht on some maps), where the real 
founder of the order, Khwadja Abu Ishak of Syria 
(Mir Khurd, Siyar al-Awliyd 1 , Delhi 1302, 39-40; 
Djaml, Najahdt al-Uns, Nawal Kishore 1915, 296) 
settled at the instance of his spiritual mentor, 
Khwadja Mamshad c Ulw of Dinawar (a place in 
Kuhistan, between Hamadan and Baghdad). The 
silsila is traced back to the Prophet as follows : Abu 
Ishak, Mamshad c Ulw Dinawari, Amln al-DIn Abu 
Hubayrat al-Basri, Sadld al-DIn Huzayfat al- 
Mar'ashl, Ibrahim Adham al-Balkhi, Abu '1-Fayd 
Fudayl b. c Iyad, Abu '1-Fadl c Abd al-Wahid b. 
Zayd, Hasan al-Basri, c Ali b. Abl Talib, the Prophet 
Muhammad. Shah Wall Allah (d. 1763) has doubted 
the validity of the tradition which makes Hasan al- 
Basri a spiritual successor of C A1I (Al-Intibdh fi 
Saldsil-i Awliya* Allah, Delhi 1311, 18), but his 
views have been criticised by Shah Fakhr al-DIn 
Dihlawl (d. 1784) in his Fakhr al-Hasan (commentary 
on this, by Mawlana Ahsan al-Zaman, Al-Kawl al- 
Mustahsin fi Fakhr al-Hasan, Haydarabad 1312). 
The pre-Indian history of the Cishtl order cannot 
be reconstructed on the basis of any authentic 
historical data. Khwadja Mu'In al-Din Sidjzl Cishtl 
[see preceding article] brought the silsila to India 
in the 12th century and established a Cishtl mystic 
centre at Adjmer, whence the order spread far and 
wide in India and became a force in the spiritual life 
of the Indian Muslims. Khwadja Mu'In al-DIn was 
connected with the founder of the silsila by the 
following chain of spiritual ancestors: Mu'in al-DIn 
Hasan, 'Uthman Harvani, Hadji Sharif ZindanI, 
Mawdud Cishtl, Abl Yusuf, Abl Muhammad b. 
Ahmad, Abl Ahmad b. Farasnafa, Abu Ishak, 
(The earliest lists of the great Cishtl saints in the order 
of their spiritual succession are given in Futuh al- 
Saldtin, Madras, 7-8; Khayr al-Madxdlis, Aligarh, 
7-8; Siyar al-Awliyd', Delhi, 32-45; Alisan al-Akwal, 
MS personal collection). 

A: History of the Order 



Shaykhs (circa 597/izoo to 757/1356), («) Era of 
the Provincial Khanakahs (8th/i4th & 9th/ 
15th centuries), (iii) Rise of the Sabiriyya 
Branch (gth/i5th century onwards), and (iv) 
Revival of the Nizamiyya Branch I2th/(i8th 
century onwards). 

The saints of the first cycle established their 
khanalfahs mainly in Radjputana, U.P. and the 
Pandjab. Some of them, like Hamid al-Din Sufi, 
worked out the Cishti mystic principles in the 
rural areas; others lived in frasabas and towns 
but scrupulously avoided identification with the 
centre of political power. They refused to accept 
dfdgirs and government services; did not per- 
petuate spiritual succession in their own families 
and looked upon 'learning' as an essential qualifi- 
cation for spiritual work. Under Shaykh Farid 
Gandj-i Shakar and Shaykh Nizam al-Din Awliya 3 , 
the influence of the order was extended to the whole 
of India, and people flocked to their hospices from 
distant parts of the country. The silsila possessed 
during this period a highly integrated central 



in the various provinces of India. Some of them had 
taken up their residence in provincial towns at the 
instance of their master; others were forced by 
Muhammad b. Tughluk to settle there. It is significant 
that the arrival of these saints in provincial towns 
coincided with the rise of provincial kingdoms. In 
these circumstances many of these saints could not 
keep themselves away from the provincial courts. 
The traditions of the saints of the first cycle were 
consequently discarded and the comfortable theory 
was expounded that mystics should consort with 
kings and high officers in order to influence them 
for the good. State endowments were accepted and, 
in return, spiritual blessings and moral support was 
given to the founders of the new provincial dynasties. 
The principle of hereditary succession was also 
introduced in the silsila. 

Shaykh Siradj al-Din, popularly known as Akhi 
Siradj, introduced the silsila in Bengal. His disciple 
Shaykh 'Ala 3 al-Din b. As'ad was fortunate in 
having two eminent disciples — Sayyid Nur Kutb-i 
'Alam and Sayyid Ashraf Djahangir Simnani — who 



) ERA OF THE GREAT SHAYKHS: 



Kutb al-Din Bakhtiyar (d. 634/1236) 
(Dihli) 
_J 



Farid al-DIn Gandj-i Shakar (d. 644/1265) 



Nizam al-Din Awliya 3 Djamal al-Din Nadjib 

(d. 726/1325) (Dihli) (d. before 644/1265) al-Din Mutawakkil 

I (Hansi) (d. 670/1271) (Dihli) 



Ala 3 al-DIn 
). Ahmad Sabir 
(Kalyar) 



1 1 

iwlana Muwayyid Shams al-Din 
al-Din Yahya 



Nasir al-Din 
Ciragh 

(d. 757/1356) 
(Dihli) 



Kadi Muhyl 
al-Din 
Kashani 



structure which controlled and guided the activities 
of those associated with it. Muhammad b. Tughluk's 
policy (1325-1351) of forcing the saints to settle in 
different parts of the country paralysed the central 
organization of the Cishtls. Shaykh Nasir al-Din 
Ciragh and a few other elder saints refused, at the 
risk of their lives, to co-operate with the Tughluk 
Sultan, but many of the younger mystics entered 
government service. Shaykh Nasir al-Din was also 
called upon to protect the mystic ideology and 
institutions against the attacks levelled by Ibn 
Taymiyya [q.v.]. After him the central organization 
of the Cishti order broke down and provincial 
khdnattdhs, which did not owe allegiance to any 
central authority, came into existence. 

It was mainly through the disciples of Shaykh 
Nizam al-Din Awliya 3 that the Cishti order spread 



played a very important role in popularising the 
Cishti silsila in Bengal, Bihar and eastern U.P. 
When Radja Kans established his power in Bengal, 
Sayyid Nur Kutb-i 'Alam organized public opinion 
against him and persuaded Sultan Ibrahim Sharkl 
of Djawnpur (1402-1440) to invade Bengal. Nur 
Kutb-i 'Alam and his descendants had a share in 
creating that religious stir which ultimately led to 
the rise of the Bhakti movement in Bengal and 
Bihar. 

The Cishtiyya order was introduced in the Deccan 
by Shaykh Burhan al-DIn Gharib who settled at 
Dawlatabad and propagated the Cishti mystic 
principles. The city of Burhanpur was named after 
him. His disciple, Shaykh Zayn al-DIn, was the 
spiritual master of 'Ala 3 al-Din Hasan Shah (1347- 
1359), the founder of the BahmanI kingdom. Later 



(ii) ERA OF THE PROVINCIAL KHANAKAHS: 



Siradi al-Din Kutb al-DIn Naslr al-DIn 

Akhl Siradi Munawwar Ciragh 

<d. 759/1357) (d. circa 760/ (d. 757/1356) 

(Gawf, 1358) (Hansi) (Dihli) 

Bengal) I 

C A15 3 al-Din b. | 

As c ad Lahurl 

Bengali . 

(d. 8oi/hq8) r I 

(Pandwal Niir al " D " m T5d J al - Din S^""" 

v 1 ' Suwar (d. circa 784/1382) 
(Narnawl) 

I I 

Nur Kutb-i Sayyid Ashraf 

c Alam pjahangir 

(d. 313/1410) Simnani (d. 808/1405) 

(Pandwa) (Kacoca) 



Burhan al-Din 


Sayyid 


Husam al-Din 


Shah Barak 


Wadjih al-DIn 


Kamal al-DIn 


Mughith al-DIn 


Gharib (d. circa 


Husayn 


MultanI 


Allah 


Yusuf 


(Malwa) 


(Udidjayn) 


741/1340) 


(Nahrwala) 


(d. circa 


(Gudjarat) 


(d. circa 






(Dawlatabad) 
1 




755/1354) 
(Nahrwala) 




729/1328) 
(Canderi) 






Zayn al-DIn 















Husam al-DIn 
(d.822/ I4 77) i 

(Manikpur) 

I ( 

Radii Hamid 

Shah (d. 901/1495) 

(Manikpur) 

I 

Hasan Tahir 

of Diawnpur 

(d. 901/1503) 

(Dihli) 



(Gulbarga) 

Mir Sayyid 
Yad Allah 
(d. 8 4 9/ I4 45) 
I 
Shaykh Piyara 
(d. 865/! 460) 
I 



Shaykh 

Muhammad 

(d. 900/1494). (Malawa 

near Kanawdj) 

Shaykh Sa c d Allah 

(grandfather of 

Shaykh c Abd 

al-Hakk Muhaddith 

Dihlawi) 



Kadi c Abd 

ai-Muktadir 

(DihU) 

I 

Shaykh 

c Abd al-Fath 

(J>iawnpur) 



Siradi al-Din 
(d. 814/14") 
(Ahmadabad) 



Mahmud known 
as Shaykh Radjan 

Hasan Muhammad 



Shah Kalim Allah 

DiahanabadI 

(Dihli) 



(iii) RISE OF THE SABIRIYYA BRANCH: 



I 

Shams al-DIn Turk (Panipat) 

Djalal al-Din Mahmfld (Panipat) 

Ahmad <Abd al-Hakk (d. 838/1434) (Radawll) 

Shaykh c Arif (Radawli) 



<Abd al-Ahad 
(father of Shaykh 
Ahmad Sirhindi) 



(d. 



I 

Djalal al-DIn 

Faruki 
(Thanesar) 
(d. 990/1582) 

I 
Nizam al-Din 
Faruki (Balkh) 
a 1036/1626) 
I 



Kutb al-DIn 

Shaykh Hamid 

(d. 1033/1623) 

I 

c Abd al-Rahman 

(author of 
Mir'dt al-Asrdr) 



Muhammad Sadik 



Muhammad Sa'Id 

Sayyid Muhammad Salim 
(d. 1175/1761) 



Muhammad Ikram 

(author of 
Iktibds al- Anwar) 



Shah c Abd al-Bari 



Sayyid Amanat 'Ali 
(d. 1280/1863) 

Hafiz Muhammad Husayn 
(author of Anwar al-'Arifin) 

I 

Hadji Imdad Allah of 

Thana Bhawan (d. 1317/1899) 

(Mecca) 

I L_ 



Muhammad Kasim Ashraf 'Ali 

Nanawtawl (d. 1295/1878) (Thana Bhawan) 
(founder of the I 

madrasa of Deoband) Sayyid Sulayman 
Nadawl (d. 1953) 
(Karachi) 



I 

Mahmud Hasan, 

Shaykh al-Hind 

(d. 1920) (Di oband) 



Husayn Ahmad 

MadanI (d. 1957) 

(Deoband) 



Khalil Ahmad 'Abd al-Rahman 

Anbethawi Muhaddith (Amroha) 

(d. 1927) (Medina) 



54 



on, a disciple of Shaykh Naslr al-DIn Ciragh, Sayyid 
Muhammad Gisu Daraz, set up a Cishti centre at 
Gulbarga. He was a prolific writer and a scholar of 
several languages. Through him the silsila spread in 
the Deccan and Gudjarat. 

In Gudjarat, the silsila was introduced by two 
less known disciples of Khwadja Kutb al-DIn— 
Shaykh Mahmud and Shaykh Hamid al-Din. Later 
on, three disciples of Shaykh Nizam al-Din Awliya' — 
Sayyid Hasan, Shaykh Husara al-DIn MultanI and 
Shaykh Barak Allah reached there. But the work 
of organizing it on effective lines was undertaken by 
c AUama Kamal al-Din, a nephew of Shaykh Naslr 
al-Din Ciragh. His son, Siradj al-Din, refused to 
accede to the request of FIruz Shah BahmanI (1397- 
1422), to settle in the Deccan and applied himself to 
the task of expanding the silsila in Gudjarat. 
Besides, some other saints of the Cishti silsila 
settled in Gudjarat. Shaykh Ya c kub, a khalifa of 
Shaykh Zayn al-Din Dawlatabadl, set up a Cishti 
khanakdh at Nahrwala; Sayyid Kamal al-Din 
Kazwlnl, who belonged to the line of Gisu Daraz, 
settled at Bharoi. Shaykh Rukn al-Din Mawdud, 
another saint of the silsila, became a very popular 
figure in Gudjarat. His disciple, Shaykh c AzIz Allah 
al-Muta wakkil-ila'llah, was the father of Shaykh 
Rahmat Allah, the spiritual mentor of Sultan 
Mahmud Begafa (862-917/1458-1511). 

The Cishtiyya order was organized in Malwa by 
the following three disciples of Shaykh Nizam al-DIn 
Awliya': Shaykh Wadjlh al-DIn Yusuf, Shaykh 
Kamal al-DIn and Mawlana Mughlth al-DIn. Wadjlh 
al-Din settled at Canderl, Shaykh Kamal-al-DIn and 
Mawlana Mughith settled in Mandii. 

Very little is known about the founder the Sabi- 
riyya branch, which came into prominence in the 
9th/i5th century when Shaykh Ahmad c Abd al-Hakk 



set up a great mystic centre at Rudawli. The main 
centres of this branch of the Cishti silsila were 
Kalyar (near Roorkee in the Saharanpur district 
of U.P.), Panlpat, Rudawli (38 miles from Bara 
Bank! in Awadh), Gangu (23 miles u.c. of Saha- 
ranpur, in U.P.), Thanesar (near Panlpat), Djhan- 
djhana (in Muzaffarnagar district, U.P.) Allahabad, 
Amroha (in the Muradabad district of U.P.) 
Deoband (in Saharanpur district, U.P.); Thana 
Bhawan (in Muzaffarnagar district, U.P.) and Na- 
nawta (in Saharanpur district). Shaykh c Abd al- 
Kuddus was the greatest figure of the Sabiriyya 
branch. He left Rudawli in 1491, at the suggestion of 
the famous Afghan noble, c Umar Khan, and settled 
at Shahabad, near Dihll. In 1526, when Babur 
sacked Shahabad, he went to Gangu and settled 
there. His epistolary collection, Maktubdt-i Kuddusi, 
contains letters addressed to Sikandar Lodi (1488- 
1517), Babur (1526-1530) Humayun (1530-1556) 
and a number of Afghan and Mughal nobles. The 
relations of the Sabiriyya saints with the Mughal 
emperors were not always very cordial. Akbar 
(1556-1605) no doubt paid a visit to Shaykh 
Pjalal al-DIn Faruki at Thanesar, but Djahangir 
(1605-1627) became hostile towards his disciple, 
Shaykh Nizam al-DIn Faruki, because he had 
met the rebel prince, Khusraw, when he was 
passing through Thanesar. Djahangir forced him to 
leave India. Dara Shukoh had great respect for and 
carried on correspondence with Shaykh Muhibb 
Allah, but Awrangzlb was very critical of his 
religious views. Shah c Abd al-Rahlm joined the 
movement of Sayyid Ahmad Shahld and died fighting 
at Balakot in 1830. Hadji Imdad Allah migrated from 
India in 1857 and settled at Mecca. He attracted a 
very large number of externalist scholars to his 
mystic fold. Many of the outstanding Indo-Muslim 



(iv) REVIVAL OF THE NI?AMIYYA BRANCH: 



Shah Fakhr ai-Din (d. 1 199/1784) 

(Dihll) 

I 



Nflr Muhammad (d. 1205/1790) 
(Maharan, in Bahawalpur) 

J 



1 1 

Muhammad c Akil Hafiz Djamal Shah Muhammad 

(d. 1229/1813) (d. 1226/1811) Sulayman(d. 1267/1850) 
(Cacran, Pandjab) (Multan) (Taunsa, near Dera 

I I Ghazi Khan) 

Gul Muhammad Khuda Bakhsh 
hmadpuri (d. 1243/1827) (Multan) 
(author of Takmilah-i I 

Siyar al-A wliyd') I 



Shah Muhyl al-DIn 



~r 



Muhammad C A1I Hadji Nadjm al-Din 

(d. 1266/1849) (d. 1287/1870) (Fathpur, near 
(Khayrabad, U.P.) Djhundjhunu, Radjputana) 



Ghulam Haydar c Ali 

Shah (d. 1908) 
(Djalalpur, Pandjab) 



Hakim Muhammad 

Hasan (d. 1904) 

(Amroha) 



'ulamd' of the post-1857 period, like Mawlana 
Rashld Ahmad Muhaddith of Gangu, Mawlana 
Muhammad Kasim Nanawtawl, Mawlana Ashraf 
c Ali Thanawl, Mawlana Mahmud al-Hasan Deobandl, 
Sayyid Sulayman Nadawi, Mawlana Husayn Ahmad 
MadanI, Mawlana Khalll Ahmad, Mawlana Muham- 
mad Ilyas Kandhlawi, Mawlana Ahmad Hasan 
Muhaddith Amrohwl, may be counted amongst 
his spiritual descendants. Almost all the great 
l ulama' of Deoband [q.v.'] are spiritually associated 
with the Cishtiyya silsila through him. 

The Nizamiyya branch of the Cishtiyya silsila was 
revitalised by Shah Kallm Allah Djahanabadl. He 
belonged to that famous family of architects which 
had built the Tadj Mahall of Agra and the Djami< 
Masdjid of Dihli, but he dedicated himself to 
spiritual work and infused new life into the almost 
defunct Cishti organization. After Shaykh Naslr al- 
Din Ciragh, he was the greatest Cishti saint who 
revived the old traditions and strove to build up a 
central organization of the silsila. His disciples 
spread in the distant south also. His chief khalifa, 
Shaykh Nizam al-DIn, worked in Awrangabad. The 
latter's son, Shah Fakhr al-DIn, came to Dihli and 
set up a mystic centre there. It was through his two 
khalifas, Shah Nur Muhammad of Maharan and 
Shah Niyaz Ahmad of Bareilly, that the silsila 
spread in the Pandjab, N.W. Frontier, and U.P. 
Shah Nur Muhammad's disciples set up khdnakdhs 
at the following places in the Pandjab: Taunsa, 
Cacran, Kot Mithan, Ahmadpur, Multan, Siyal, 
Gulra, and Djalalpur. Shah Niyaz Ahmad worked 
mainly in Dihli and U.P. 

B: Ideology 
The early Cishti mystics of India had adopted 
the 'Awdrif al-Ma'drif of Shaykh Shihab al-DIn 
SuhrawardI as their chief guide book. On it was 
based the organisation of their khdnakdhs, and the 
elder saints taught it to their disciples. The Kashf 
al-MahH&b of Hudjwlri was also a very popular 
work and Shaykh Nizam al-DIn Awliya 5 used to 
say: "For one who has no spiritual guide, the 
Kashf al-Mahdjub is enough". Apart from these 
two works, the malfuzdt (conversations) of Shaykh 
Nizam al-DIn Awliya 5 , Shaykh Naslr al-DIn Ciragh, 
Shaykh Burhan al-DIn Gharib and Sayyid Mu- 
hammad GIsu-Daraz give a fairly accurate idea 
of the Cishti mystic ideology, (i) The cornerstone of 
Cishti ideology was the concept of wahdat al-wudjud 
(Unity of Being). It supplied the motive force to 
their mystic mission and determined their social 
outlook. The early Cishti saints, however, did not 
write anything about wahdat al-wudjiid. Mas'ud 
Bakk's Mir'dt al-'Arijin and his diwdn, Nur al- c Ayn, 
gave currency to these ideas and his works became 
a popular study in the Cishti khdnakdhs. Later on, 
Shaykh c Abd al-Kuddus wrote a commentary on 
Ibn al- c ArabI's books and he was followed by 
Shaykh Nizam al-DIn Thanesari, who wrote two 
commentaries on 'Iraki's Lama'dt. One of his 
khalifas, Shaykh c Abd al-Karim Lahuri, wrote a 
Persian commentary on the Fusus al-Hikam. 
Shaykh Muhibb Allah of Allahabad was a very 
powerful exponent of the ideology of wahdat al- 
wudiud. Awrangzlb, who was more influenced by 
the school of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindl, ordered his 
books to be burnt, (ii) The Cishtis looked down 
upon possession of private property as a negation 
of faith in God. They rejected all worldly goods and 
material attractions (tark-i dunyd) and lived on 
jutuh, which were not demanded as charity, (iii) They 



believed in pacifism and non-violence and con- 
sidered retaliation and revenge as laws of the animal 
world. They lived and worked for a healthy social 
order — free from all dissensions and discriminations. 



(iv) Ir 



with tl 






'There are two abuses among the mystics", 
early Cishti mystic, "djirrat and mukallid. Mukallid 
is one who has no master; djirrat is one who visits 
kings and their courts and asks people for money", 
(v) The summum bonum of a mystic's life, according 
to Cishtis, is to live for the Lord alone. He should 
neither hope for Heaven nor fear Hell. Man's Love 
towards God may be of three kinds: (a) mahabbat-i 
Isldmi, i.e., love which a new convert to Islam 
develops with God on account of his conversion to 
the new faith; (b) mahabbat-i muwahhibi, i.e., love 
which a man develops as a result of his 'effort' in 
the way of following the Prophet; and (c) mahabbat-i 
khdss, i.e., love which is the result of cosmic emotion. 
A mystic should develop the last one. (vi) The 
Cishti mystics did not demand formal conversion 
to Islam as a pre-requisite to initiation in mystic 
discipline. Formal conversion, they said, should not 
precede but follow a change in emotional life. The 
Cishti attitude contrasted sharply with the Suhraw- 
ardi principles in this respect. 

C: Practices 
The following practices were adopted by the 
Cishtis in order to harness all feelings and emotions 
in establishing communion with Allah: (i) Dhikr-i 
Diahr, reciting the names of Allah loudly, sitting in 
the prescribed posture at prescribed times; (ii) 
Dhikr-i Khafi, reciting the names of Allah silently, 
(iii) Pds-i Anfds, regulating the breath; (iv) Murd- 
kdba, absorption in mystic contemplation; (v) Cilia, 
forty days of spiritual confinement in a lonely 
corner or cell for prayer and contemplation. The 
efficacy of audition parties {samd c ) in attuning 
a mystic's heart to the Infinite and the Eternal 
was also emphasised. Some Cishti mystics believed 
in Cilla-i ma'kiis ("inverted Cilia") also. One who 
practised it tied a rope to his feet and had his 
body lowered into a well, and offered prayers in 
this posture for forty nights. 

D. Literature 

The literature of the silsila may be considered 
under five heads: (a) malfuzdt (conversations) of the 
saints, (b) maktubdt (letters) of the saints (c) works 
on mystic ideology and practices, (d) biographical 
accounts of saints and (e) poetical works. Only 
major and representative works have been in- 
dicated here. 

(a) Malfuzat: The malfuz literature of the 
Cishti saints throws valuable light on their thought 
and activities. The art of maJ/uz-writing was intro- 
duced in India by Amir Hasan Sidjzl, who compiled 
the conversations of Shaykh Nizam al-DIn Awliya' 
in his FawdHd al-Fu'dd, Nawal Kishore 1302. 
Other important collections of malfuzdt are the 
following: Khayr al-Madidlis, conversations of 
Shaykh Naslr al-DIn Ciragh, compiled by Hamld 
Kalandar (ed. K. A. NizamI, Aligarh); Surur al- 
Sudur, conversations of Shaykh Hamld al-DIn Sufi, 
compiled by his grandson (MSS Hablbgandj and 
personal collection; see Proceedings of the Indian 
History Congress, Nagpur Session, 1950, 167-169); 
Ahsan al-Akwdl, conversations of Shaykh Burhan 
al-DIn Gharib, compiled by Mawlana Hammad 
Kashani (MS personal collection, see J.Pak.H.S., 
vol. iii Part I, 40-41). Djawdmi' al-Kaldm, con- 



56 



ClSHTIYYA — ClWI-ZADE 



versations of GIsu-Daraz, compiled by Sayyid 
Muhammad Akbar Husaynl (Uthmangandj) ; Anwar 
aW-Uyun, conversations of Shaykh Ahmad 'Abd 
al-Hakk (compiled by Shaykh 'Abd al-Kuddus), 
Aligarh 1905. LatdHf-i Kuddusi, conversations of 
Shaykh 'Abd al-Kuddus by Rukn al-Din, Delhi 
1311; Fakhr al-Tdlibin (conversations of Shah 
Fakhr al-DIn, compiled by Rukn al-Din Fakhri), 
Delhi 1315; Ndfa<- al-Sdlikin, conversations of 
Shah Sulayman of Taunsa, by Imam al-Din, Lahore 
1285. The following collections of the conversations 
of the Cishti saints, Anis al-Arwdh, Dalil al-'Arifin, 
FawdHd al-Salikin, Asrdr al-Awliya 3 , Rabat al- 
Kulub, Rabat al-Muhibbin, Miftdh al-<-Ashikin, 
Afdal al-FawdHd, are apocryphal, but are useful in 
so far as they represent the popular interpretation ol 
Cishti ideology. 

(b) Maktubat : SahdHf al-Suluk, letters of 
Ahmad Fakir, Djhadjdiar; Bahr al-Ma'-dni, letters of 
Sayyid Dja'far Makki, Muradabad 1889; Maktubdt-i 
Ashrafi, letters of Sayyid Ashraf Djahanglr Simnani 
(MS Aligarh); Maktubat of Sayyid Nur Kutb-i 
'Alam (MS Aligarh) ; Maktubdt-i Kuddusi of Shaykh 
'Abd al-Kuddus (Delhi); Maktubdt-i Kalimi of 
Shah Kallm Allah Djahanabadi, Delhi 1301. Copies 
of some letters said to have been addressed by 
Khwadja Mu'In al-Din to Khwadja Kutb al-Din are 
also available, but their authenticity has not been 
established. 

(c) Works on mystic ideology and prac- 
tices: The two earliest Cishti works on mystic 
ideology are in the form of aphorisms — the Mulhamdt 
of Shaykh Pjamal al-DIn Hanswi, Alwar 1306, and 
Mukh al-Ma'-ani of Amir Hasan Sidjzi (MS Muslim 
University Library, Aligarh). The Usui al-Samd' of 
Fakhr al-Din Zarradi, Djhadjdjar 1311, contains 
an exposition of Cishti attitude towards music 
parties. Amongst other Cishti works, the following 
may be particularly noted: Rukn al-DIn 'Imad, 
ShamdHl-i Ankiyya (MS As. Soc. of Bengal); 'Abd 
al-Kuddus, GhardHb al-Fu'dd (Muslim Press, Djhadj- 
djar) ; Nizam al-Din Balkhi, Riydd al-Kuds, Bidjnor 
1887; Shah Kallm Allah, Murakka-i Kalimi, Delhi 
1308; Siwa al-Sabil (MS Rampur); Nizam al-Din 
AwrangabadI, Nizam al-Kulub (Delhi 1309); Fakhr 
al-DIn Dihlawl, Nizam al-Akd'id (Urdu trans., 
Delhi 1312); Risdla <-Ayn al-Yakin, Delhi. 

(d) Biographical works: The earliest bio- 
graphical account of the Cishti saints of the first 
cycle is found in Mir Khurd's Siyar al-Awliyd* 
compiled in the 8th/i4th century. Late in the 19th 
century, Khwadja Gul Muhammad Ahmadpurl 
wrote a Takmila to the Siyar al-Awliyd', Delhi 1312. 
Other important biographical works include, Djamall, 
Siyar al-'Arifin, Delhi 131 1; Nizam al-Din Yamani, 
LatdHf-i Ashrafi, Delhi 1395; Tadj al-Din, Risdla 
Hal Khdnawdda-i CisM (MS personal collection); 
Baha alias Radja, Risala Ahwdl Pirdn-i CisM (MS 
personal collection) ; 'All Asghar Cishti, Djawdhir-i 
Faridi, Lahore 1301; 'Abd al- Rahman, Mir'dt al- 
Asrdr (MSS, Storey 1005); Allah Diya', Siyar al- 
Aktdb, Lucknow 1881; Mu'In al-DIn, MaHridi al- 
Wildyat (MS personal collection); 'Ala 3 al-DIn 
Barnawi, Cishtiyya-i Bihishtiyya (MSS., Storey 1008) ; 
Akram Baraswi, Iktibds al- Anwar, Lahore 1895; 
Muhammad Bulak, Matlub al-Tdlibin (MSS, Storey 
1014), Rawda al-Aktdb, Delhi 1304; Mir Shihab al- 
DIn Nizam, Mandkib-i Fakhriyya, Delhi 1315; 
Rahlm Bakhsh, Shadiarat al- Anwar MS, personal 
collection); Muhammad Husayn, Anwar al-'Arifin, 
Lucknow 1876; Nadjm al-Din, Mandkib al-Mahbu- 
bayn, Lucknow 1876; Ghulam Muhammad Khan. 



Mandkib-i Sulaymdnl, Delhi 1871; Ahmad Akhtar 
MIrza, Mandkib-i Faridi, Delhi 1314; HadI 'All 
Khan, Mandkib-i Ifdfiziyya, Kanpur 1305; NithSr 
'All, Khawdrik-i Hddwiyya, Delhi 1927. 

(e) Poetical works: The diwdns attributed to 
Khwadja Mu'In al-DIn and Khwadja Kutb al-DIn 
Bakhtiyar are apocryphal. The Surur al-Sudur says 
that Shaykh Hamid al-DIn had left poetic composit- 
ions in Arabic, Persian and HindwI. Only a few 
couplets are now available. The earliest poetical 
work of an Indian Cishti mystic is the Diwdn-i 
Diamdl al-Din Hanswi, Delhi 1889. Amir Khusraw. 
though associated with the Cishti order, did not 
produce any work exclusively on mysticism, but 
some of his poems contain verses which throw light 
on mystic tendencies of the period. Mas'ud Bakk's 
Diwdn, Yusuf Gada's Tuhjat al-NasdHh, Lahore 
1283, and Shah Niyaz Ahmad's Diwdn-i Bay Niydz, 
Agra 1348, are steeped in Cishti ideology. 

Bibliography: Besides works cited in the 
article, see: 'Abd al-Hakk Muhaddith, Akhbdr al- 
Akhydr, Delhi 1309; Ghulam Sarwar, Khazinat 
al-Asfiyd y , Lucknow 1873; Mushtak Ahmad, 
Anwar al- c Askikin, rlaydarabad 1332. 'Ashik 
Ilahi, Tadhkirat al-Khalil (Meerut); Sayyid 
'Abd al-rlayy, Nuzhat al-Khawdtir. Haydarabad; 
Ashraf 'All Thanawl, Al-Sunnat al-Qiilliya fi 
'l-Cishtiyya al- c Uliyya, Delhi 1351; Muh. Habib: 
Shaykh Nasir al-Din Cirdgh as a Great Historical 
Personality, in Islamic Culture, April 1946; idem, 
Cishti Mystic Records of the Sultanate Period, in 
Medieval India Quarterly, Vol. I, no. 2; K. A. 
Nizami; Ta'rikh-i M ashdHkh-i CisM, Delhi 1953; 
idem, The Life and Times of Shaykh Farid al-Din 
Gand[-i Shakar, Aligarh 1955; idem, Early Indo- 
Muslim Mystics and Their Attitude towards the 
State, in Islamic Culture, October 1948-January 



1950. 



(K.f 



Niz, 



ClTR [see ghashiya] 

ClWI-ZADE, Ottoman family of scholars, 
two of whom held the office of Shaykh al- Islam in 
the ioth/i6th century; they take their name from 
the mudarris Ciwi Ilyas of Menteshe (d. 900/1494-5). 

1. Muhyi al-DIn Shaykh Muhammad ('Kodja 
Ciwizade'), the son of Ciwi Ilyas, b. 896/1490-1, was 
appointed Kd$i of Cairo in 934/1527-8, Kadi 'asker 
of Anadolu in 944, and Shaykh al-Isldm (on the death 
of Sa'dl Ef.) in Shawwal 945/Feb. 1539. He was 
dismissed (the first Shaykh al-Isldm not to hold 
office for life) in Radjab 948 ( ?or 949), on the pretext 
that he had given an unsound fatwd (Lutfl Pasha, 
Ta'rikh, 390): the real reason was probably his 
hostility to tasawwuf (ShukdHk [Medjdl], 446, and 
cf. H. Kh. [Fliigel], iv, 429). In 952/1545 he replaced 
Abu '1-Su'ud, now Shaykh al-Isldm, as Kddi'-asker 
of Rumeli, in which office he died (Sha'ban 954/ 
Sept. 1547). 

His brother 'Abdi Celebi, who trained the young 
Feridun [?.«.], was Bash-Defterddr from 954/1547 (cf. 
L. Forrer, Rustem Pascha, 145) until his death in 
960, and his son-in-law Hamid Ef. was Shaykh al- 
Isldm from 982/1574 to 985. 

2. Muhammad, son of the above, b. 937/1531, was 
successively Kadi of Damascus (977/1569), Cairo, 
Bursa, Edirne and Istanbul, then Kadi 'asker of 
Anadolu (983/1575) and of Rumeli (985), in which 
posts he won a great reputation for uprightness. 
Having incurred the enmity of Sokollu Mehemmed 
Pasha, he was dismissed, but in 989/1581 he was 
re-appointed to Rumeli; he became Shaykh al-Isldm 
in the same year, and died in office (28 pjum. I 
995/6 May 1587). 



His son Muljammad Ef. (d. 1061/1651) and his 
grandson 'Ata'ullah Ef. (d. 1138/1725) both rose to 
be Kddl'-asker. 

Works: Besides the recorded works of Muhyi 
al-DIn (H. Kh. [Flugel] nos. 5990, 8721 \fetwas, = 
GAL II', 569, to which add MS. Esad Ef. 958] and 
11585; GAL S II 642, S III 1304) and Muhammad 
(H. Kh. nos. 774 [MS. Nur-i c Osm. 2061, which is 
now lost] and 8805 [MSS. Nur-i c Osm. 1959, 1st. Un. 
Lib. AY 610/3]; GAL II» 573 [where the Nur-i c Osm. 
reference should read 2060]), there are in the various 
collections in the Suleymaniye Library of Istanbul 
several risdlas, attributed simply to 'Civizade'. 
Bibliography: The main sources are, for 
Muhyi al-DIn, Shaka'ik [Medjdl], 446; for Muham- 
mad, 'Atal's dhayl to the ShakdHk, 292; and for 
both, Taki al-DIn al-Tamimi, al-Tabakdt al-saniyya 
fi taradiim al-Ifanafiyya (in MS.). Further 
references in I A , s.v. Civizade [M. Cavid Baysun] ; 
detailed biographies of these and other members 
of the family in the unpublished thesis Civizade 
ailesi by Serafettin Tuncay (Istanbul Univ. Lib., 
Tez 1872). (V. L. Menage) 

CLAN [see al] 
COFFEE [see kahwa] 
COIMBRA [see kulumriya] 
COKA [see kumAshI 

COKA ADASI, the Turkish name for Kythera 
(Cerigo), one of the Ionian islands. In early Ottoman 
times possession was disputed or shared between the 
Venetian state and the Venieri. Coka Adas! was an 
important post for watching shipping, especially 
after the loss of the Morea, and was often attacked. 
In 943-4/1537 the Turks carried off 7000 captives; 
many survivors fled to the Morea. Coka Adas! was 
again raided in 1571 and 1572, when an indecisive 
naval battle took place there. It was taken by the 
Turks in n 27/171 5 but restored at the Peace of 
Passarovitz. It now became the easternmost Vene- 
tian colony and lost all importance, though it was 
again raided in the war of 1787-92. 

Bibliography: V. Lamansky, Secrets d'itat de 

Venise, St. Petersbourg 1884, 641-2, 660-70; C. 

Sathas, MvrjjieTa, vi, 1885, 286-311; allusions in 

many travellers and chroniclers, especially HadJdjI 

Khalifa, Tuhfat al-Kibdr. (C. F. Beckingham) 

COLEMERIK (old form, Djulamerg or Djula- 

merik), a small town in eastern Anatolia, in the 

extreme south-east of the present-day region of 

Turkey,. 37 45' N, 43 48' E, altitude 5,413 ft. 

(1650 m.), surrounded by mountains of over 9,840 ft. 

(3000 m.), about 3 km. from the Great Zab, a 

tributary of the Tigris. It is the capital of the 

wildyet of Hakkari; in the 19th century it was the 

capital of a sandjak of the same name, in the 

wildyet of Van, formerly belonging to the hukumet 

of Hakkari (Katib Celebi, Djihdnnumd, 419). The 

place was destroyed in the First World War, but 

rebuilt again in 1935. At the census of 1950 it 

numbered 2,664 inhabitants (the kadd* had 14,473 

inhabitants). There are hot sulphur springs nearby. 

Andreas assumes (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, i, 1699; see 

also M. Hartmann, Bohtdn, in Mitteilungen der Vorder- 

asiatischen Gesellschaft 1896, 143) that Colemerik is 

identical with the to x^wjiaptov of antiquity. This 

view is opposed by Marquart {Erdnshahr, 158 f.). 

The place Colemerik has lent its name to a branch 

of the Kurds, the Djulamerkiye; concerning these 

cf. Ibn Fadlallah al- c Umari (Notices et Extraits 

xiii, 317 if.)- 

Bibliography: in addition to works already 
mentioned in the article: Ritter, Erdkunde, xi, 



- CONAKRY 57 

625 f f . ; E. Reclus, Nouvelle giographie universelle, 
ix, 429 ft.; G. Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syrischen 
Akten persischer Mariyrer, 230; W. F. Ainsworth, 
Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, ii, 283; 
S. Martin, Mimoires sur VArminie, i, 177ft.; 
H. Binder, Aus Kurdistan, 165; Lehmann-Haupt, 
Armenien einst und jetzt, passim; V. Cuinet, La 
Turquie d'Asie, ii, 716 ff. ; Geographical Journal, 
xviii, 132; IA, hi, 441 f. (Besim Darkot). 

(Fr. Taeschner) 
COLOMB-BECHAR, chief town of the 
department of the Saoura (Organisation Commune 
des Regions Sahariennes), created by a decree of 
7 August 1957. 

This town is quite recent; before the French 
occupation, which dates from 13 November 1903, 
a few villages, with no historical importance, had 
been built unevenly along the banks of the Oued 
Bechar (WadI Bashshar), which sustained a scanty 
group of palms. From 1857 the region had been 
explored by Captain de Colomb, whose name has 
been used for the new town ; to this has been joined 
the name Bechar which, according to local tradition, 
derives from the fact that a Muslim sent to explore 
the region by a Turkish sultan (?) of the 15th 
century, brought back a flask of clear water; hence 
the epithet, taken from the root b . sh . r (to bring 
good news), which would be given to him and to the 
region from which he came. 

The French occupation, following on Franco- 
Moroccan talks, was designed to protect southern 
Oran against incursions of Berber tribes from 
Tafilalt and neighbouring regions. At first a military 
post, Colomb-Bechar became in 1905 the terminal 
of a railway line from Oran Tell, and an important 
caravan centre, then in 1919 the main town of a 
mixed commune and in 1930 the main town of the 
territory of Ain Sefra ( c Ayn Safra 3 ) (territories of 
southern Algeria). At the time of the Second World 
War, the coal mines which had been discovered in 
19 1 7 in the neighbourhood of the town were fully 
exploited, from 1941 ; at the same time the decision 
was made to build the railway from the Mediterranean 
to the Niger, which gave a new stimulus to the town. 
Since the war the output from the surrounding coal 
basin has remained at roughly 300,000 tons a year; 
in 1956 plans were made to build a thermo-electric 
power station, and important mineral deposits were 
discovered in the region. Finally the French govern- 
ment has installed at Colomb-Bechar and in the 
surrounding district an important practice centre 
for guided missiles. The result of this is that the 
population has risen from 750 inhabitants in 1906, 
to more than 16,500 in 1954, 3,350 of whom are 
Europeans (according to the census of 1954). 

Bibliography: Dr L. Ceard, L'oasis de 
Colomb-Bichar, in Arch, de I' Inst. Pasteur d'Algerie, 
1933, and Bull. Comiti Afrique Francaise, 1931, 
(nos. 4 to 7) ; A. G. P. Martin, Les oasis sahariennes, 
Algiers 1908 ; Lyautey, Vers le Maroc. Lettres du 
Sud-Oranais (1903-06), Paris 1937; I. Eberhardt, 
Dans V ombre chaude de I' Islam, Paris 1926; 
J. P. Cambo, Le "combinat" de Colomb-Bichar, 
in Encycl. mens. d'O.-M., suppl. to no. 47 (July 
1954), doc. no. 30. (R. Le Tourneau) 

COLUMN [see c Amud] 
COMMERCE [see tidjara] 
COMMUNICATIONS [see barId, TARIk, 

COMORS [see kumr] 
COMPANIONS [see sahaba] 
CONAKRY [see konakry]. 



58 



CONGO, River and Country in Africa. The river 
forms the sole outlet of the great Central African 
basin, which is limited on the east by the western 
flanks of the Great Rift, on the north by the Monga 
mountains, on the west by the Cristal range, and 
on the south by the Lunda plateau. Since its tribu- 
taries drain areas both to the north and to the south 
of the Equator, the Congo maintains a relatively 
constant flow. Its waterways are broken here and 
there by cataracts, especially between Stanley Pool 
and the sea, but they nevertheless provide long 
navigable stretches which have permitted a certain 
amount of movement, both of people and of trade, 
through an otherwise impenetrable forest region. 
In the recesses of the great forests Africa's most 
primitive people, the pygmies, have maintained to 
this day a distinctive way of life based mainly on 
hunting and gathering. Along or near the rivers, 
and nowadays increasingly along the roads which 
are beginning to traverse the forest region, live 
negroid tribes, most of whom speak languages of 
the Bantu family, and all of whom use iron tools 
and are to some degree cultivators as well as hunters 
and fishermen. Doubtless on account of their 
relative inaccessibility, the forest tribes have in 
general remained the most backward of the Bantu 

It is only the central part of the Congo basin, 
however, which is densely forested. The higher 
country all round its periphery is mostly covered 
with the light forest known as "orchard bush", in 
which grain crops can be grown by the simple, 
"slash and burn" system of shifting cultivation. 
In the east and in the west there are even conside- 
rable stretches of open savannah grasslands suitable 
for cattle-raising. Above all, these peripheral regions 
have been relatively open to the influences of migrat- 
ion and conquest, and it is consequently in these 
regions that the indigenous peoples have achieved 
their most significant political groupings. To the 
north of the forest on the Nile-Congo watershed the 
multiple states of the Zande are the result of seven- 
teenth and eighteenth century colonization and 
conquest from the southern fringes of the Sudan. 
To the east of the forest, in the highlands of the 
Western Rift, the Kingdoms of Ruanda and Urundi 
and their related states are the creation of con- 
quering immigrants from the Nilotic Sudan or 
South-West Ethiopia, who appear to have been in 
the area since the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. 
To the west of the forest, in the highlands of light 
bush and open savannah separating the Congo 
basin from the Atlantic seaboard, the important 
kingdom of the Bakongo, with which the Portuguese 
entered into relations towards the end of the fifteenth 
century, and which then extended its influence in 
some sense from the Gaboon to Angola, had been 
built by another immigrant minority, stemming 
perhaps from the direction of Lake Chad. The 
Congo kingdom had many southward offshoots, 
among them certainly the kingdom of the Bakuba 
on the upper Kasai. The Luba-Lunda states of the 
Congo-Zambezi watershed, were equally founded by 
immigrants, but whether these came from the west 
or the east of the forest is not yet established. 

The ideas diffused into western Bantu Africa by 
these movements were essentially remnants from 
the ancient world of the Nile Valley. They came 
from the still unislamized southern fringes of the 
Sudan. Meanwhile, for nearly four hundred years, 
from the late fifteenth century to the mid-nineteenth, 
European influences played remotely on a Congo 



basin whose inhabitants were still solidly pagan and 
animist. The dominant European interest in the 
region was the slave-trade, which soon undermined 
and killed off the early attempts at Christian 
evangelization. Portuguese mulatto traders, called 
pombeiros, operating from Loanda and other ports 
in Angola during the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries, penetrated deeply into the southern 
periphery of the Congo basin, and it is likely that 
in the copper-bearing region of the Katanga they 
occasionally encountered traders from the Swahili 
ports on the East African coast, who were probably 
no more seriously Muslims than the pombeiros were 
Christian. The indications are, indeed, that such 
early long-distance trade as there was in eastern 
Bantu Africa before the nineteenth century was 
conducted more by Africans from such interior 
tribes as the Nyamwezi and the Bisa than by coast- 
men whether Arab or Swahili. 

It was not, therefore, until the nineteenth century, 
with the penetration of the southern Sudan by slave 
and ivory traders from Egypt, and still more with 
the penetration of East Africa by subjects of the 
Busa'idi dynasty of Zanzibar, that Muslims began 
in any numbers to reach the borders of the Congo 
basin. The Arab settlement at Ujiji, from which 
dhows crossed to the Congolese shore of the Tanga- 
nyika Lake, was founded within a few years of 1840. 
It was from then until the partition and occupation 
of tropical Africa by the European powers in the 
late 'eighties and early' nineties of the century that 
the serious commercial exploitation of the eastern 
and central parts of the Congo Basin by Muslim 
Arabs and Swahili mainly took place. The foundation 
by King Leopold II of the Belgians of the Congo 
Independent State resulted in the suppression of 
the slave-trade and in the elimination of the Arab 
and Swahili war-lords whose activities had been so 
vividly described by Livingstone, Stanley and other 
explorers. But many of the Arabs and their East 
African followers settled permanently in the Congo 
under its new colonial administration, and, as in 
so many other parts of Africa, the transition from 
freebooting exploitation to a more settled form of 
petty commerce marked an intensification of religious 
proselytism. 

The great majority of the Congo Muslims, who 
number to-day about 200,000, are Shafi'is and 
belong to the Kadirl tarlka. There are a few hundred 
Khodjas [?.».], mainly in Ruanda-Urundi and in the 
eastern part of the Kivu Province, also in Stanley- 
ville and Kasongo; they are active in trade, and 
are well-organized and well instructed. The Ahmad- 
iyya [q.v.] number only a few dozens, but are active 
in propaganda by distributing books and literature. 

In the Eastern Province, the Kivu Province and 
Ruanda-Urundi there are at least 175 recognized 
mosques. There are Kur'anic schools at Rumungwe, 
Lake Nyanza, Stanleyville, Ponthierville, Kirundu 
and Kindu. The great centre of attraction, however, 
is Ujiji, where there is an important madrasa, 
attended by young people who desire a little in- 
struction in Arabic. 

Islamized villages have a mosque, a brotherhood 
banner (drapeau de confrerie), a mu'-allimu and an 
imam. Unlike the Zanzibaris, the Muslims of the 
eastern Congo are not well instructed. There are 
some who read al-Damiri or al-Suyuti. But in general 
their reading matter is limited to popular devotional 
books of the Kadiriyya. The initiation to the 
Tartya, in the form known as muridi, which is 
widespread in Senegal too, is also highly esteemed 



- CONSTANTINUS AFRICANUS 



by the negro, who finds membership both dignified 
and authoritative. The mosques which are specially 
designed are of the Zanzibar type, but the majority 
are nothing more than large huts. Only a few 
educated people know any Arabic. The lingua 
franca is Kiswahili, the Bantu language showing 
some Arabic influence, which is spoken as a mother 
tongue by the people of the Zanzibar coast. The 
negro Muslims who have started to enter the western 
Congo from the North, from the Middle Congo 
Republic and Chad, sometimes have a much higher 
cultural standard. Many of them are merchants, 
who sell books of devotion and talismans inscribed 
in Arabic. The Muslim customary courts are be- 
coming increasingly subject to a Shafi'i version of 
the sharPa. 

The limited cultural level to which black Muslims 
attain, leaves them with too little Arabic and even 
with too little Swahili to understand the Islamic 
propaganda broadcast by radio. Among the books 
currently in favour one finds, besides the Kur'an, 
the Mi'rddi of al-Dardir, a work by a Zanzibar 
Shaykh called Hasan b. Amir al-Shirazi; aW-Ihd al- 
ikyan 'aid Mawlid al-Diildni; the Kitdb Dala'il al- 
Khayrat, enriched with numerous accessory texts 
such as the Hizb al-Barr, the Hizb al-Bafir, the 
Hizb al-Nasr of al-Shadhill, etc. To this should 
be added the full or partial Swahili translation 
of the Kur'an, published by the Ahmadiyya Society 
of Lahore, the surat Yasin in Swahili, a treatise on 
Mirathi (inheritance) by Shayikh al-Shirazi, and 
a very popular treatise on prayer called "Sula na 
Manrisho Yake". 

Bibliography : J. B. Labat, Relation historique 
de I'Ethiopie occidentale, contenant la description 
des royaumes du Congo, Angolla et Matamba, Paris 
1753; Abbe Proyart, Histoire du Loango, Kakongo 
et autres royaumes d'Afrique, Paris 1778; R. 
Avelot, Les grands mouvements de peuples en 
Afrique, Jaga et Zimba, Paris 1912; Delafosse et 
Poutrin, Enquete coloniale . . ., Paris 1930; P. 
Marty, Etudes sur I'Islam au Sinigal, au Soudan, 
en Guinie sur la CSte d'lvoire, au Dahoney, Paris 
1917-1926; A. Gouilly, I'Islam en A.O.F., Paris 
1926; Notes et Etudes Documentaires, no. 1152 
(1947), no. 1642 (1952); Lieut. L. Nekkech, Le 
Mouridisme depuis 1912, St. Louis du Senegal 
1952; J. Maes and Boone, Les peuplades du Congo 
Beige, Brussels 1931; idem, Bibliographic du 
Music du Congo Beige sous le litre: Bibliographic 
ithnographique du Congo Beige, Brussels 1932; 
Foureau, D' Alger au Congo par le Tchad, Paris 
1902; Casati, Died anni in Equatoria, Milan 1891; 
R. P. Sacleux, Dictionnaire Swahili-Francais (with 
Arabic etymologies), Paris 1939-41; R. P. Vanden 
Eynde, Grammaire Swahili, Brussels n.d.; Cornet, 
Le Congo physique, Brussels 1938; G. Hardy, 
Vue generate de I' Histoire d'Afrique*, Paris 1942; 
Deschamps, Les religions de I'Afrique, Paris n.d.; 
H. Baumann and Westermann, Les peuples et les 
civilisations de I'Afrique, trans. Hamburger, Paris 
1951; V. L. Grottanelli, /. Bantu (Le Razze e i 
Popoli delta Terra di R. Biasutti), iii, 445-643, 
Turin n.d. 1955; Revue de I'Universiti de Bruxelles, 
1954, 5-16, and 1957, 2-3, devoted to Congo 
questions; P. Ceulemans, La Question Arabe et 
le Congo 1883-1892, Brussels 1959; H. M. Stanley, 
Through the dark continent, 2 vols., London 1878; 
idem, Twenty-five years' progress in Equatorial 
Africa, London 1897; idem, In darkest Africa, 
London 1904; R. P. Henri Neyrand, L' Evolution 
religieuse de I'A.E.F., in Etuda 



L'A.E.F., Paris n.d., 17; G. Eichtal, De Vital 
actuel et de I'avenir de I'Islamisme dans I'Afrique 
centrale, Paris 1841; D. Westermann, Geschichte 
Ajrikas, Wiemar 1952; A. Abel, Documents con- 
cernant le Bahr al Ghazal (1893-1894), in Bulletin 
de V Academic Royale des Sciences coloniales, 1954, 
1385-1409; idem, Les musulmans noirs du Maniima 
et de la province Orientate, Coll. de l'lnstitut de 
Sociologie Solvay, Brussels 1959; A nnuaire du 
Monde Musulman. 

(Ed., article based on information supplied by 
A. Abel and R. A. Oliver). 
CONSTANTINE [see ijustantIna] 
CONSTANTINOPLE [see Istanbul] 
CONSTANTINUS AFRICANUS (Constantine 
the African), who first introduced Arab medicine 
into Europe, was born in Tunis in the early 5th/nth 
century (1010 or 1015 A.D.), and died at Monte 
Cassino in 1087. 

His arrival in Salerno marked the beginning of 
what historians have labelled the 'golden age' of 
its famous medical school. But about the life of the 
man himself singularly little is known, and the 
details can only be sketched in conjecturally. 

Various facts relating to him are to be found in 
the works of Petrus Diaconus who entered Monte 
Cassino in 509/1115, less than 30 years after Con- 
stantine's death. But they were adapted to suit 
the purposes of a story rather than set down ob- 
jectively for their own sake. Like most other science 
historians, Petrus Diaconus traces Constantine's 
place of birth to Carthage (he probably means 
Tunis). By the age of 39 or 40, after many adventures, 
he had found his way to Italy. Petrus asserts that 
beforehand he had travelled to Egypt, Baghdad, 
India and Ethiopia, learning on the way Hebrew, 
Syriac, Chaldean, Greek, Ethiopian and even 'Indian'. 
His great talents roused such jealousy upon his 
return to Tunisia that, in order to avoid any harmful 
consequences, he left the country for Sicily. Karl 
Sudhoff is at variance with Petrus, and maintains 
that he journeyed to Italy as a merchant. It is there 
that he is said to have become acquainted with the 
reigning prince's brother, who was a doctor. His 
experiences made him realise the poverty of medical 
literature in Latin, and he returned to study medicine 
for three years in Tunisia; then, having collected 
together several treatises on Arab medicine, he 
departed, with his precious treasure, for southern 
Italy. The ship ran into a storm off the coast of 
Lucania, outside the gulf of Policastro, and the 
manuscripts were badly damaged. Constantine 
managed to salvage some of them, and when he 
arrived in Salerno he became a Christian convert. 
It is not yet possible to establish the exact date 
of these events. But it is certain that he translated 
into Latin the best works on Arab medicine which 
had appeared up to the 5th/nth century, albeit 
omitting to acknowledge the names of their authors 
and thus earning the reputation of a plagiarist. He 
adapted the writings to the conditions of his new 
homeland, Italy. Many passages which he considered 
prolix were condensed, and other parts where the 
meaning remained obscure were simply translated 
literally. Nevertheless, Constantine's work infused 
new life into the medical school of Salerno, and 
indeed into the teaching of medicine in Europe for 
centuries to come. The most important translations 
are: (i) works of Greek origin which had been 
translated into Arabic, especially by Hunayn b. 
Ishak and his followers: maxims, prognoses and diet 
in the severe illnesses of Hippocrates, together with 



CONSTANTINUS AFRICANUS - 



notes by Galen, the Great Therapeutics of Galen 
(megatechne) and the Small Therapeutics to Glaucon 
(microtechne), and pseudo-Galenian works; Hunayn 
b. Ishak's edition of Galen's introduction to 
therapeutics, with notes by 'All b. Ridwan (an 
Egyptian doctor of the 5th/nth century) (ii) works 
by Arab authors: the Oculistics (aW-ashr makdldt 
fi 'l-'ayn of Hunayn b. Ishak (Constantini liber de 
oculis); the works of Ishak b. Sulayman al-Isra'ili 
(about 286/900) on the elements, urine, fever and 
diet; the Zdd al-Musdfir of Ibn al-Djazzar, translated 
under the title Viaticum; the medical encyclopaedia 
Kdmil al-Sind'a al-Tibbiyya of 'All b. al- c Abbas al- 
Madjusi (Persian, 4th,'ioth century) translated under 
the title Pantechne; Constantine's book De Melan- 
cholia was originally the Kitdb al-Malikhuliyd of 
Ishak b. 'Imran (late 9th-early 10th century). 
Finally, Constantine translated and claimed the 
authorship of several less important works by al- 
RazI and others unknown by name. 

The works were poorly translated into Latin 
and full of technical Arab expressions which had 
simply been transcribed. Constantine was never- 
theless responsible for extending the knowledge of 
classical medicine as it existed in Europe at the 
beginning of the Middle Ages, and bringing into 
circulation many important Greek and Arab works. 
Bibliography: Becavin, Vicole de Salerne et 
la medecine salernitaine (Ph. D. thesis in medicine), 
Paris 1888; B. Ben Yahia, Les origines arabes de 
"De melancholia" de Constantine, in Revue d'His- 
toire des sciences et de leurs applications, vii/2 (1954), 
156-162; idem, Constantin I'Africain et Vicole de 
Salerne, in CT, iii/3, (1955), 49-59; Choulant, 
Handbuch d. Bilcherkunde f. d. dltere Medezin, 
Leipzig 1841, 253-56; R. Creuz, Der Arzt 
Constantinus Africanus von Monte Cassino, in 
Stud, und Mitt. z. Gesch. d. Benediktinerordens 
New Series, xvi, 1929,1-44; Daremberg, Histoire 
des sciences midicales, i, 1870; idem, Notices et 
extraits des manuscrits midicaux, Paris 1853, 86; 
Petrus Diaconus, Chronica Mon. Casinensis, Lib. 
Ill; idem, De viribus illustribus Casinensibus, 
cap. 25, in Fabricius, Bibl. Grec. xiii, 123; 
Modestino del Gaizo, La scuola medica di 
salerno Studiata nella storia e nelle legende, Naples 
1896; F. H. Garrison, An Introduction to the history 
of medicine, Philadelphia 1829 ; E. Gurlitt, Geschichte 
der Chirurgie, i, 1898, 670-72; F. Hartmann, Die 
Literatur von Friih- und Hochsalerno, thesis Leipzig 
1919, 9-14; J. Hirschberg, Ober das dlteste ara- 
bische Lehrbuch d. Augenheilkunde, in S. B. Ak. 
Wien, xxix (1903); H. Lehmann, Die Arbeitsweise 
des Const. Afri. und d. Joh. Africius, in Archiv 
f. Gesch. d. Mathematik. xii (1930), 272-81; E. H. 
Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, iii, (1856), 471, 484; 
A. Mieli, La science arabe et son rile dans Involution 
scientifique mondiale, Leiden 1939; A. Mosolff, 
Zahnheilkundliche Randbemerkungen zu einem Via- 
ticum-Text, thesis Leipzig 1924, in Isis vii, 1925, 
536; M. Neuburger, Geschichte der Medizin, Stutt- 
gart 1911, ii, 287 ff., K. Nord, Zahnheilkundliches 
aus den Schriften Konstantins von Africa, thesis etc., 
Leipzig 1922; S. di Renzi, Storia documentata 
delta scuola medica di Salerno, ii, Naples 1857, 
802; Ch. Singer, A Legend of Salerno, in John 
Hopkins Hospital Bui., xxviii, 64-69; idem, The 
original of the medical school of Salerno, in Essays 
presented to Sudhoff, 38, Zurich 1923, in Isis, vii, 

535; idem, Introd. to the History of Science, , 

M. Steinschneider, Die europ&ischen Obersetzungen 
zu dem Arabischen, in S. B. Ak. Wien, cxil-cli; 



idem, Virchow's Archiv, xxxvii, 351-410; K. 

Sudhoff, Konstantin der Afrikaner und Medizi- 

nisches von Salerno, in Sudhoff s Arch. d. Gesch. d. 

Medizin, xxiii, 293-98; L. Thorndike, A History 

of magic and experimental science, New York 1922, 

chap, xxxii. (B. Ben Yahia) 

CONSTANZA [see kSstendje] 

CONSUL (Arab. Kunsul; Pers. Kunsul; Turk. 
Konsolos), consuls as representatives of the 
interests of foreign states in Islamic countries (and 
similarly in Byzantium). The institution of the 
consul was formed in the 12th and 13th centuries in 
the Italian merchant republics. The Genoese put their 
possessions in the Crimea (see KIrim]; since 1266), 
nominally subject to the Khan of the Golden Horde, 
in the charge of a consul (B. Spuler: Die Goldene 
Horde, Leipzig 1943, 392-8, with further bibl.; 
E. S. Zevakin and N. A. Pen£ko: Olerki po istorii 
genuezskikh koloniy . . ., ('Sketches on the History of 
the Genoese Colonies') in Istorileskiye Zapiski 3, 
1938, 72-129). For the most part called Bailo [see 
balyos] until the 15th century, these representatives 
of foreign states in Islamic countries (for the first 
time in 1238, when Venice had a representative in 
Egypt) were occupied above all with the protection 
of the merchants of their nations, the adjustment 
of difficulties among them, and the regulation of all 
questions having to do with trade. 

It was only when Ottoman hegemony extended 
over the entire east and south coasts of the Mediter- 
ranean as well as the Balkan peninsula, that it 
became necessary to grant to the ambassadors of the 
individual powers at Constantinople consuls in other 
places. For the first time in 1528, France obtained 
the right to provide its own consul in Alexandria, 
recently become Ottoman. He was able in all circum- 
stances to negotiate directly on behalf of his coun- 
trymen with the local authorities, to adjust internal 
difficulties and to regulate financial conditions (in- 
cluding questions of inheritance). He might import 
his personal needs free of customs, and ships des- 
patched by him were not subject to distraint or 
injury. The right to maintain a consul was extended 
to other cities in the treaty between the Porte and 
France in 1535, thus granting the latter a considerable 
extension of its influence, especially along the Syrian- 
Lebanese coast as well as in Asia Minor (a consulate 
in Aleppo since 1557; cf. the maps of the French 
Consulates in 1715 in P. Masson, Histoire du Commerce 
Francais . . ., Paris 1896, p. xxxviii of the appendix). 
In 1580 England received corresponding rights. 
Between 1606-15 the German Emperor followed and 
later in the 17th century Venice, the Netherlands and 
Sweden. Only after the Peace of Kucuk Kaynardja 
[q.v.] in 1774, could Russia establish consulates (in 
particular in the Balkans and the Holy Land). 
Persia followed in 1839. All consuls, as well as 
ambassadors, were regarded as hostages to guarantee 
the behaviour of their home powers, and were 
repeatedly arrested and otherwise impeded. 

Out of the consular rights the "Capitulations" 
developed, confirmed for the first time specifically 
in a treaty with France in 1740 (though in fact 
existing already in the 16th century). They conceded 
to the consuls extensive juridical and civil rights, 
and released foreign subjects more and more from 
local jurisdiction (for details cf. Torkiye, History). 
Beside these, local Honorary Consuls appeared in 
increasing number in the 19th century, who held 
certain diplomatic rights, so that this position was 
much sought after. From 1862 Turkey fought with 
growing intensity against the distortion of this 



CONSUL — CORBADjI 



privilege, and a considerable limitation of the 
abuses was attained. After the gradual abrogation 
of the Capitulations combined with the renunciation 
of them by foreign states, the consuls in the Islamic 
world assumed the same position which they occupy 
internationally today. 

In her own behalf Turkey first appointed consuls 
in foreign lands in 1802 (Turk. Skekbender; or, 
rarely at first, Konsolos), frequently from among 
Greeks and Levantines in the first decades. 

Bibliography: General: A. M. Candioti, 
Historia de la institution consular, Buenos Aires 
1925. Near East: F. Martens, Das Konsularwesen 
und die Konsularjurisdiktion in Orient, Berlin 1874 1 
M. Tayyib Gokbilgin in I A, vi, 836-40 (with 
further bibl.) ; B. Spuler, Die europ. Diplomatic in 
Konstantinopel . . ., in Jahrbiicher fur Kultur u. 
Geschichte der Slaven, New Series, xi (1935), 208-10 
(Consuls, with literature and catalogue of the Con- 
sulates); Frasherli Mehdi, Imtiydzdt-i edjnebiyye- 
nin tatbikdt-i Hddirasl, Samsun 1325/1907; Sdl- 
ndme-i Nezdret-i khdridjiye, Constantinople 1885 
and often. 

Individual States: E. Watbled in RA, xvi/ 
1872, 20 ff.; F. Rey: La protection diplomatique et 
consulaire dans les Echelles du Levant et de Barbaric, 
Paris 1899; N. G. Svoronos: Inventaire des 
correspondances des Consuls de France au Levant, 
i: Salonique et Cavalle (1686-1792), Paris 1951; 
Ahmed Refik, Turkler ve kralice Elizabeth, Con- 
stantinople 1932; M. Epstein, The early history 
of the Levant company (to 1640), London 1908; 
A. N. Kurat, Turk-ingiliz miinasebetlerinin bas- 
langici ve gelismesi, Ankara 1953- 

Capitulations: F. A. Belin, Des capitulations 
et des traitis de la France en Orient, Paris 1870; 
N. Sousa, The capitulatory rigime of Turkey. Its 
history, origin and nature, Baltimore 1933", O. 
Nebioglu, Die Auswirkungen der Kapitulationen 
auf die tiirk. Wirtschaft, Jena 1941; Habib Abi 
Chahla, L'extinction des capitulations en Turquie 
et dans les regions arabes, Paris 1924. 

Juridical: G. Aristarchi Bey, Legislation 
Ottomane, 7 vols, Constantinople 1873-88 (esp. ii, 
403-9)- 

See further: Gibb and Bowen: Islamic 
Society and the West, i/i and 2, London 1950-7 ; and 
the articles Balyos, BeratlI, Imtiyaz, Musta'- 
min, and Wenedik (Venezia); TOrkiye, His- 
tory; Misr, History (including the collections of 
documents mentioned there). (B. Spuler) 

COPAN-ATA (Turkish "Father-Shepherd"), the 
name of a row of hills V* mile long on the southern 
bank of the Zarafshan [q.v.], close by the city walls 
of Samarkand [q.v.]. There is no written evidence for 
this name before the 19th century; up to the 18th 
century, it was referred to in written sources 
(Persian) as Kflhak ('little mountain'), and the 
Zarafshan (only known as such in the written 
language since the 18th century) also sometimes 
carried this name. Under the name of Kuhak, the 
range is mentioned in Istakhri (BGA I, 318), and it 
contained quarries and clay pits for Samarkand. 

There is an aetiological legend which gives the 
following explanation: "well over a thousand years 
before Muhammad" there was an enemy besieging 
Samarkand. The inhabitants of the town prayed 
fervently for deliverance, and in answer a mountain 
came and buried the attackers, having been trans- 
planted from Syria, complete with a shepherd on it. 
Copan-Ata is also regarded as a Muslim saint, and 
the shrine to him, which is on the summit of the hill, 



is attributed to TImur (thus in al-Kandiyya, 
partly edited by W. Barthold, Turkestan, MSS. 
I, St. Petersburg 1900, 48/51). 

Upon the Copan-Ata the troops of the Khan 
of Bukhara made a vain attempt to oppose the 
advancing Russians under general Konstatin Petrovic 
von Kauffmann on May 13th (new style) 1868. The 
latter succeeded in occupying Samarkand the 
following day, and since then it has belonged to 

Bibliography: W. Barthold, Turkestan, 86; 
Le Strange, 464. — On individual aspects: 
V. Vyatkin, in the Spravocnie kniiki Samarkand- 
skoy oblasti vi-viii, Samarkand 1893/1901 ; Abu 
Tahir Khodja, Samariyya, Persian ed. by N. 
Veselovskiy, St. Petersburg 1904. — Illustra- 
tions: G. Pankrat'ye, Al'bbom istoriteskikh 
pamyatnikov goroda Samarkanda, no. 31 and 38 
(Shrine and remains of a mediaeval bridge). 

(W. Barthold-[B. Spuler]) 
COPTS [see ijibt] 
CORAN [see ijur'an] 

CORBADjI (literally: soup-provider). (1) The 
title applied among the Janissaries to commanders 
of the ortas and the agha bblukleri, though in 
official Ottoman terminology the commanders of 
the diemd'at ortalari were known as Serpiyddegdn 
or (the Turkish equivalent of this Persian term) 
Yayabashi, while commanders of the agha bblukleri 
were called Odabashi. 

As the 101 diemd'-at ortalari were prior in foun- 
dation to the 61 agha bblukleri, the Corbadils of the 
former had certain privileges over those of the 
latter: on frontier duty they kept the keys of the 
fortresses; they could ride on horseback in the 
presence of their superiors; they wore yellow gaiters 
and shoes. In the agha bblukleri, on the other hand, 
yellow gaiters and shoes were the prerogative of 
the Odjak Ketkhudusl and the Muhdir Agha, the 
other Corbadils wearing red. 

The crested headdress generally worn on cere- 
monial occasions by the Corbadils was called kalafat 
or corbadii helesi. The crest of the Yayabashis' 
kalafat was of cranes' feathers, whereas that of 
Corbadils of the agha boliikleri was of herons' feathers. 
The ordinary headdress of all Corbadils was a red 
kalafat narrow at the bottom and broad at the top. 
The Corbadii applied the bastinado to minor offenders 
among his men. His aide was known as the Corbadii 
Yamaghi. 

Sometimes the Corbadils were entrusted with 
police duties, thus performing the function of the 
Subashi. At the Cardak, the customs station by the 
Yemish quay in Istanbul, there was a Cardak 
Corbadiisl, who commanded the 56th Janissary orta, 
assisted the kddi of Istanbul who supervised the 
city's food-supply, and was responsible for main- 
taining public order in this locality. 

Yayabashis were appointed to collect the devshirme 
boys who were recruited into the 'Adiemi Odiaghl 
from the provinces. The Corbadils of the 'Adiemi 
Odiaghl were under the orders of its commander, 
the Istanbul Aghasl. 

(2) The title of Corbadii was also given to the 
village notables called Mukhtar and Ak-sakal, who 
entertained travellers. Later, until a half-century 
ago, it became an appellation of merchants and rich 
Christians. In colloquial Turkish it is still used for 
'boss', 'skipper'. 

Bibliography : Kawdnin-i Yeniteriydn; I. H. 
Uzuncarsili, Kapikulu ocaklart, Ankara 1943; 
idem, Tarihi Lugat; Djewad Pasha, Ta'rikh-i 



CORBADjl — COTli D'lVOIRE 



'■Asheri-i 'Othmdni, Istanbul 1297; Mahmud 
Shewket Pasha, ( Othmdnli teshkildt we hiydfet-i 
'askeriyyesi, Istanbul 1325; Ahmed Wefik Pasha, 
Lehdje-i 'Othmdni; Marsigli, Vetat militnire de 
V empire Ottoman, Paris 1732 = Nazmi Bey, Os- 
manh imparatorlugunun zuhur ve terakkisinden 
inhitdti zamantna kadar askeri vaziyeti, Ankara 
1934; M. d'Ohsson, Tableau giniral . . ., Paris 
1788-1824; The Military Costume of Turkey, 
London 1818; M. Z. Pakahn, Tarih deyimleri ve 
terimleri, Istanbul 1946-56. 

(I. H. Uzuncarsili) 
CORDOVA [see kurtuba] 
COREA [see al-sIla] 
CORINTH [see kordos] 

CORLU, town in E. Thrace, the Byzantine 
T^oupouXo? (for the various forms of the ancient 
name see Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Tzurulon (E. Over- 
hummer]); it lies on the main road and railway 
between Istanbul and Edirne, 155 kms. by rail from 
Istanbul, facing N. over the Corlu Su, a tributary 
of the Ergene. The town was taken by the Ottomans 
early in the reign of Muras I. In Djum. I 917/Aug. 
1 51 1 Bayezid II defeated Prince Selim near Corlu, 
at a place called Slrt-koyii by Lutfl Pasha (Ta'rikh, 
1st. 1341, 202). 

There were extensive wakfs at Corlu for Mehemmed 
II's kulliyye at Istanbul (cf. M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, 
Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 1st. 1952, 300 ff.). When 
Ewliya Celebi visited it in 1061/1651 (Seyahat-ndme, 
III, 295 ff.) it had 3000 houses, in 15 Moslem and 
15 Christian mahalles, and was thriving centre of 
trade with 18 khans. It was in a rich sheep-rearing 
region and was renowned for its cheese. At this time 
it was the centre of one of the five kaddH of the 
sandjak of Vize (Hadjdji Khalfa, Djihdn-numd = 
Hammer, Rumeli und Bosna, Vienna 1812, 19). It 
was the third stage on the main road from Istanbul: 
in 1 71 7 Lady Mary Wortley Montague visited a 
konak built here as a rest-house for the Sultan 
(Letter xxxv). 

Corlu is now the centre of a kaza of the vilayet of 
Tekirdag, population of the town (1955) 17,025. 
(V. L. Manage) 
CORLULU [see <alI pasha] 
COROMANDEL [see ma'bar] 
CORUH (Corukh). I. River in the extreme 
north-east of Anatolia, flowing mainly through 
Turkey, but emptying into the Soviet Russian area 
of the Black Sea. 

II. Wildyet on the Black Sea, called after 
the river of the same name (cf. I) in the extreme 
north-east of Turkey. The modern vilayet of Coruh 
covers roughly the same area as the former sandjak 
of Lazistan which belonged to the wildyet of Trabzon 
(Trebizond). Until the war between Russia and 
Turkey in 1878 (Treaty of San Stefano), Batum was 
the capital of the sandjak of Lazistan. Subsequently, 
the capital of the sandjak, or of the wildyet, Lazistan 
became Rize. In 1935, Rize became a vilayet of 
its own, and Artvin became the capital of the 
remainder of the vilayet of Coruh. According to the 
last census (1950) the vilayet of Coruh had 174,511 
inhabitants, and its capital Artvin had 4,547 
inhabitants. Its Kada's are: Artvin, Ardanuc, 
Borcka, FIndlkll, Hopa, Savsat and Yusufeli. 

Bibliography: G. Jaschke, Die grosseren 
V erwaltungsbezirke der Tiirkei seit 1918, in MSOS, 
38th Annual number, (1935), ii, 81-104. 

(Fr. Taeschner) 
CORUM, town in the north of Central Anatolia, 
40 34' north, 34° 55' east, some 7 km. east of the 



Corum Cay, a tributary of the Mecitozii, which in 
turn flows into the Cekerek Irmak, a tributary of 
the Yesil Irmak. It lies in a large fertile valley and 
is the capital of the wildyet of the same name. The 
wildyet has the following kadd's: Corum, Alaca, 
Iskilip, Mecitozii, Osmancik and Sungurlu. Before 
the Republic, the kadd' of Corum formed part of the 
sandjak of Yozgat belonging to the wildyet of 
Ankara, formerly a sandjak (liwa') in the Eydlet of 
Siwas (or Rum). According to the last census (in 
1950), the town had 22,835 inhabitants, the kadd' 
had 87,965, and the wildyet 342,290. 

Corum has erroneously been taken to be the 
Tavium of antiquity. The latter has been proved 
to have been situated near Nefezkoy, south of 
Sungurlu, in the wildyet of Yozgat (concerning this, 
cf. the article on Tavium by W. Ruge in Pauly- 
Wissowa, iv, cols. 2524-26). 

The modern Corum shows few traces of historical 
interest. Its main Mosque, Ulu Pjam c , is a modern 
building (1909), but probably erected on the foun- 
dations of an older building of the 18th or 19th 
century. It contains a beautiful large Minbar of late 
Saldjuk times, which is said to have come from 
Karahisar. 

The village of Elvancelebi, some 20 km. east of 
Corum, belongs to the Kaza Mecitozii in the 
wildyet of Corum. There are the Tekye (mentioned 
by Katib Celebi, Djihannuma, 625, 1. 20, as Sheykh 
'Ulwan Tekyesi, and also by Ewliya Celebi, Seydhat- 
ndme, ii, 410, 1. 8), turbe and mosque of Elvan 
Celebi, the son of the famous poet 'Ashlk Pasha 
(died in 733/1333, [q-v.]), and descendant of Baba 
Ilyas, the founder of the Dervish Order of the 
Baba'iyya [see baba'I]. The shrine of Elvan Celebi 
used to be a much frequented place of pilgrimage. 
Dernschwam visited it as a member of the retinue 
of the Imperial Envoy Busbecq in 1555 on his way 
to Amasya (cf. Hans Dernschwam's Tagebuch einer 
Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553/55), 
ed. Franz Babinger, Munich and Leipzig 1923, 
201-203, with a not particularly clear plan in Dern- 
schwam's hand) ; concerning Elvan Celebi in general, 
cf. Neset Koseoglu, Elvan Celebi, in the periodical 
Corumlu, of 1944, no. 46, I373-79 - , no. 47, 1405-08; 
no. 48, 1437-41; in no. n of 1939 there are pictures 
of the shrine of Elvan Celebi). 

In some kadd's of the wildyet of Corum there are 
famous Hittite excavations, particularly Bogazkoy 
(Hattusas) in the kadd' of Sungurlu, and also Alaca 
Hiiyiik in the kadd' of Alaca. 

Bibliography: S. Sami, Kamus al-AHdm, iii, 

1886 f.; Katib Celebi, Djihannuma, 625; Ewliya 

Celebi, Seyahat-ndme, ii, 407-410. 

(Fr. Taeschner) 

COS [see istankoy] 

COSTUME [see libas] 

COTE D'l VOIRE, the usual name of the Ivory 
Coast, a Republic, and member of the French 
Community. It is situated on the coast of the Gulf 
of Guinea, adjoins Ghana to the east, Liberia and 



519,0 



Republi 
French Sudai 
It extends o- 
a population 
Africans. 

Although the fir- 
founded 



the west, and the 
: Upper Volta to the North, 
o square kilometres and has 
000, including 12,000 non- 



French settlements on the 
the end of the seventeenth 
century, colonization dates only from the end of the 
nineteenth century. The Ivory Coast became a 
self-governing colony in 1893, then, in 1900, it 
became part of the Government-General of French 



C6TE D'lVOIRE — CRUSADES 



63 



West Africa. In 1957 it enjoyed a semi-autonomous 
domestic regime within the group of territories, 
with its Territorial Assembly and Government 
Council at Abidjan. Its administrative organization 
is that of the rest of French West Africa: circles, 
subdivisions and communes. After the referendum 
of 1958 the Ivory Coast, with its new status of 
autonomous Republic, refused to federate with the 
new state of Mali (formed by the union of Senegal 
with the French Soudan), and formed with the 
former territories of Upper-Volta, Dahomey and 
Niger the Benin-Sahil Alliance. 

From south to north, it covers a narrow belt of 
lagoons, a densely forested belt about 300 kilometres 
wide, and, finally, a belt of Sudan type savanna. In 
the south, the population belongs to the Guinean and 
Apollonian groups, and, in the North, to the Sudanese 
and Voltaic groups. 

The economy is based on agriculture (coffee, timber, 
bananas, cocoa, oil, cotton) with a little livestock- 
rearing and fishing. Industrialization has hardly been 
tackled, although some prospecting has been under - 






;. The cl 



Abidjan, the capital and port (130,000), Bouake 
(25,000), Grand-Bassam, Bondoukou. 

The influence of Christianity is widespread in the 
south, with 160,000 Catholics, 65,000 Protestants, 

The number of Muslims is about 450,000, found 
mainly in the north, especially among the Malinke 
or Mande tribes. But at the same time Islam seems 
to be making rapid inroads among the animist tribes 
of the Savannas and among the town immigrants. 

The first Islamic settlement on the Ivory Coast 
must go back to the thirteenth century, at the height 
of the Mali ascendancy throughout the north of the 
country. The chief centres were Touba, Kong, 
Bondoukou, Odienne and Seguela. Muslim influence 
seems to have receded after the collapse of the 
Malinke power (15th century). It had a reflux of 
strength during the first half of the nineteenth 
century, when the influence of El Hadj Omar Tall 
made itself felt throughout the whole of western 
Sudan. At the end of the century, Samory Toure 
lent his authority to proselytizing, and forcibly — 
albeit temporarily — converted a section of the 
Senoufo animists of the North. But, at the same time, 
he massacred the Malinke Muslims that resisted his 
conquest, and, above all, annihilated, in 1897, the 
kingdom of Kong which had remained the main seat 
of Islamic culture in the region. After the defeat 
of Samory, Islam fell into another temporary 
decline, from which it recovered fairly quickly, 
thanks to the sociological conjuncture that arose 

It was spread by the influence of the Dioula, 
Malinke, or sometimes Hausa, traders, who had 
settled along the great trade routes and dealt 
chiefly in cola with the farmers from the forest 
region. Every year it made further progress towards 
the South, and eventually counted converts even 
among the coastal population. In addition to the 
traditional centres are found to-day important 
centres at Man, Bouake, Gagnoa, Bouna, Daloa, 
Samateguela and Boundiala, as well as Abidjan. 

The chief brotherhood is the Tidjaniyya, which 
forms the majority everywhere except at Man. Its 
adherents are divided more or less equally between 
the "twelve grains" who owe obedience to El Hadj 
Omar, and the "eleven grains" or Hamallists, 
followers of Shaykh Hama Allah. Hamallism has, 
in addition, given rise to a new way, known as 



Ya'kubite after its founder, Yakouba Sylla, whose 
teaching is reminiscent of that of the Senegalese 
Mourids of Ahmadou Bamba (work of the talibi on 
behalf of the Shaykh, importance of economic 
activity). 

The Kadiriyya brotherhood exists in all regions, 
but is as important as the Tidjaniyya only in the 
Man district. It is considered favourable to the 
interests of the Wahhabis, whose importance has 
developed considerably since 1946 under the in- 
fluence of rich Mecca pilgrims and of Karomoko 
(scholars) educated in Egypt or Arabia. The chief 
Wahhabite centre is Bouake. 

Occasional Mahdists are to be found — these seem 
to be under Wahhabite influence. And, on the 
coast, is a small Ahmadiyya community, formed 
around natives of Ghana and Nigeria. Certain 
dissident sects of the coastal region show Christian, 
Muslim and animist influences. 

The level of Islamic teaching has never recovered 
from the massacres of Samory Toure, in spite of the 
recent endeavours of the young Wahhabis and of 
certain Hamallists. 

Bibliography: Marty, Etudes sur I'Islam en 
C6te d'lvoire, Paris 1922; Gouilly, L'Islam dans 
I'AOF, Paris 1952; Le Grip, Aspects actuels de 
I'Islam en AOF, in L'Ajrique et VAsie, Paris 1953 
and 1954; Cardaire, L'Islam et le terroir a/ricain, 
Koulouba (Soudan) 1954; Trimingham, Islam in 
West Africa, Oxford 1958. (P. Alexandre) 

COWDORS [see Cawdors] 
CRAC [see kerak] 

CRAC DES CHEVALIERS [see hisn al-akrad] 
CREATION [see huduth, ibda c , ioialij] 
CREED [see <a ¥ Ida] 
CRETE [see iijrItish] 
CRIMEA [see kIrImJ 
CROJA [see kroyo] 

CRUSADES. Originally applied to military 
and religious expeditions organized in Western 
Europe and intended to take back from and defend 
against Islam the Holy Places of Palestine and 
nearby Syria, the term was later extended to all 
wars waged against "infidels" and even to any 
undertaking carried out in the name of a worthy 
or supposedly worthy cause; naturally these 
extensions of meaning are not part of our present 

The first Crusade (1096-99), following on from 
expeditions against the Muslims in the West, led 
to the establishment around Jerusalem, Tripoli, 
Antioch and Edessa of four States constituting 
(and later including Cyprus, then the Latin Empire 
of Constantinople) the Latin East, which from then 
on until the recapture of its last citadel Acre by the 
Muslims in 1291 was an essential factor in the 
history of the Middle East. The second Crusade 
started by the fall of Edessa bore no concrete 
results; the third, started by the fall of Jerusalem, 
ensured the maintenance of "Frankish" possessions 
on the Syro- Palestinian coast; the fourth was only 
concerned with Constantinople, the fifth failed at 
Damietta in Egypt, the sixth was more of a diplo- 
matic journey by Frederick II and brought about 
the temporary restitution of Jerusalem to the 
Franks, the seventh led by St. Louis after the loss 
once more of the Holy City ended in another 
disaster at Damietta and the eighth, which brought 
the same king to Tunis, ended with his death. One 
might add to this traditional number of Crusades 
other less important ones and later Crusades against 
the Ottomans (Nicopolis, Varna, etc.). The Crusades 



64 CRl" 

in Syria-Palestine alone had a lasting effect on the 
history of Muslim countries, in view of the Frankish 
dominance in the East, uninterrupted for nearly 
two centuries, which was initiated by the first 
Crusade and maintained by those that followed. 

In an encyclopaedia of Islam there can of course 
be no question of giving the history even of only 
these Crusades in its entirety; it would even be 
somewhat odd to speak of them at all, were it not 
that the Crusades when considered in terms of Islam 
give rise to certain problems which alone will be 
discussed here. 

The specific character of the Crusades was not 
and could not be understood by Muslims. The very 
term, frurub al-salibiyya, used to designate them in 
modern Arab literature, was unknown to ancient 
authors, who referred to Crusaders by the plain 
ethnical term "Franks", and seems to have made 
its appearance during the Ottoman period in 
Christian circles of the East influenced by French 
culture. The theory of the Crusade, a war for the 
defence or liberation of oppressed co-religionists, 
differs from the theory of the djihdd, a war for the 
expansion of Islam; but in practice almost the very 
reverse appears to have obtained at the time of the 
first Crusade, djihdd in the majority of Muslim 
countries being no more than a memory and Christen- 
dom from the time of Charlemagne onwards having 
elaborated campaigns for the expansion of Christi- 
anity by force of arms. No doubt, in one sense the 
Crusades appear as a reaction, which had gradually 
been desired and made possible, against the humiliat- 
ion of four centuries caused by the Muslim conquest 
of half the Mediterranean basin; but the example of 
Spain and Sicily proves that the Christian West did 
not need any deterioration in the generally reasonable 
treatment of Christians in Muslim countries as a spur 
to move onto the offensive or counter-offensive. In 
the East it is true that the Turkoman invasion of 
Asia Minor revived amongst a particular social 
group the tradition of Muslim Holy War in the form 
of ghazwa, bringing disaster to Byzantine Christen- 
dom; but in the old Muslim countries and particularly 
in Palestine the forming of the Saldjukid Empire 
brought no fundamental change to the lot of autoch- 
thonous Christians or to the treatment of foreign 
pilgrims; the precise motivation of crusading, 
however sincere it was, could riot therefore occur to 
the Muslim mind. Muslims obviously saw that they 
were dealing with Christian warriors who as such 
were attacking Islam, but apart from the distance 
from which they came they saw in them roughly the 
equivalent of the Byzantines whose Christian- 
inspired attacks and counter-attacks they had been 
sustaining for two centuries. 

The Crusaders' conquests only affected territory 
which was incompletely Islamized, relatively small 
and quickly reduced by gradual Muslim reconquest, 
and even in Syria-Palestine did not reach any of 
the large Muslim centres. Nevertheless, the constant 
menace to vital sea and land routes between Muslim 
countries in the Middle East, the knowledge of 
Muslim abasement under Frankish rule, above all 
the repetition of Crusades, the non-assimilation of 
Franks into the native milieu and the permanence 
of a state of at least "cold" war finally conferred 
indisputable importance on the Crusades and the 
existence of the so-called "Latin" East in the 
history of Middle Eastern Islam. It would be interest- 
ing to examine more thoroughly than has hitherto 
been the case how Muslims, according to time and 
place, reacted to this pher 



The Crusades found the Muslim Middle East in 
a state of division and dissension which alone made 
their initial success possible. Preceding generations 
had seen many examples of Islamo-Christian 
co-operation in Syria even against other Christians 
or Muslims. Although the Frankish invasion brought 
death or exile to many Muslims in Syria-Palestine, 
minor chieftains and certain isolated populations 
apparently at first assumed that it would be possible 
to adapt themselves to a state of small-scale war 
alternating with periods of peace, such as the former 
lord of Shayzar, Usama b. Munkidh, by drawing on 
his early memories, was able to depict for us in his 
Memoirs. Soon, however, more directly threatened 
or more intensely Muslim communities, angered 
by the disgraceful indifference to the Frankish 
danger of Muslims beyond Syria- Palestine, attempted 
to rouse them from it by for example demonstrating 
in Baghdad. Although individual volunteers, sub- 
sidies (particularly for prisoners' ransoms) and 
exhortations were sometimes forthcoming from the 
rest of the Muslim world, the backbone of resistance 
came really from the immediate neighbours of the 
Franks. A necessary condition for that, and this 
was bound to be one consequence of the Crusades, 
was some degree of rapprochement between various 
Muslim elements which only recently had been 
suspicious of each other: Arabs from the plains and 
the towns, Turks from the official armies that had 
come into being under the Saldjukid regime, 
Turkomans lacking discipline but ready for ghazwa, 
warlike Kurds joining up with the Turkish armies 
that shortly before they had been fighting and so on. 
Djazlra constituted the hinterland, a source of 
manpower, such as Syria with its meagre resources 
could never be, and there followed a process of 
political unification between the two regions 
(remaining however somewhat incomplete in Dia- 
zira). From a religious point of view, the Frankish 
menace certainly contributed without being its sole 
cause to the progress of Sunnism, which was already 
developed in the Saldjukid domains of Irano- 
Mesopotamia, but until then scarcely of any import- 
ance in Syria. For one thing, intransigent elements 
denounced the heterodox as accomplices of the 
Franks and responsible for the misfortunes of Islam; 
more important, however, moderate Shl'is and even 
sometimes the Fatimids, no longer sustained by 
unanimous Isma'ilism, in the face of common 
enemies rallied to the SunnI Turkish princes; the 
only group to remain outside this alliance were the 
Assassins, violent and irreconcilable enemies of 
SunnI orthodoxy, who were massacred by the 
Muslim majority and who sometimes collaborated 
with the Franks from their frontier strongholds. 
Naturally, the anti-Crusade movement never 
affected the whole of the Muslim population even 
amongst the neighbours of the Franks; devout 
Muslims lamented the fact that some of their 
brethren, who were subjects or neighbours of the 
Franks, found it less dangerous to come to terms 
with them than to fight them and minor princes 
were hesitant about involving themselves in coalit- 
ions which could only serve to increase the authority 
of the more important. The ability of ZengI, Nur 
al-DIn and Saladin lay in realizing, each in his own 
manner, that the struggle against the Franks, by 
necessitating and favouring the unification of Mus- 
lims, played into the hands of anyone able to lead 
such a movement, although it is not possible for us 
of course, any more no doubt than it was for them, 
to say how far they were prompted by ardent con- 



viction and how far by self-interest. This policy 
appeared to reach its final objective when after 
Jerusalem Saladin conquered almost the whole of 
the Latin East. 

It would be interesting to know whether in the 
Muslim States concerned the war against the 
Franks or their neighbours brought about any 
deeper or broader changes than this partial "moral 
rearmament". The period of the Crusades certainly 
coincides with a remarkable rise of inland Syria, 
starting with Damascus, then of Egypt which 
replaced Baghdad, linked too closely with the 
Iranian States, as the liveliest area of Arab Islam; 
but it is difficult to indicate the exact role of the 
various factors in this development, as it is to say 
whether the militarization of the politico-social order 
common to the whole of the Muslim world was 
more extensive here than elsewhere. In the art of 
warfare it is probable that some progress in siege 
armament and artillery is due to contact with the 
Franks; the mutual borrowings which appear to 
have taken place between the two sides in the tech- 
nique of fortification have still never been properly 
studied. Peaceful trading relations between Frankish 
and Muslim territories co-existed with war; but 
Alexandria, not Acre, was the great international 
trading centre of the Mediterranean and the fall of 
the Latin East was to have little effect on commerce. 

It would be normal to expect the anti-Frankish 
reaction to have brought about some original 
movement of ideas. But Islam was no longer in a 
progressive phase and the conflict was after all 
limited. Subject to future research, therefore, the 
impression is that there was not really any ideological 
fermentation. The ancient themes of djihad were 
rediscovered, the old accounts (pseudo-Wakidl) of 
the Conquests and anti-Byzantine ghazwa were taken 
out and developed, emphasis was laid on devo- 
tion to the holy places of Jerusalem: but there 
was nothing really new and it must be admitted 
that the struggle against the Crusaders did not give 
rise to any doctrinal study of holy war or any 
popular works comparable with the epics about the 
Conquests or anti-Byzantine wars. 

Furthermore, diplomatically, whereas Saladin in 
particular tried to play off Westerners and Byzan- 
tines against each other, no unity comparable with 
the unity, however slight, of Western Christendom 
against Islam was ever achieved between the East 
and West of the Muslim world, for each part was 
involved in its own struggles with neighbouring 
Christians. Even in the East, leaving aside the 
Iranians who were far away and shaken by successive 
crises, the Turks of Asia Minor, after involuntarily 
setting the Crusades in motion by their invasion, 
practically restricted their efforts to attacks against 
Byzantium and, showing little interest in Syria, 
only took some part in the struggle against the 
Crusaders in the first century of the Latin East, 
when the latter crossed their territory. The Caliphate 
itself does not appear to have taken a very deep 
interest in the anti-Frankish struggle. 

Furthermore, at the end of Saladin's reign, the 
very seriousness of the Frankish defeat stirred the 
West, so that before his death in spite of all efforts 
he had to resign himself to certain losses and to the 
maintenance of a Frankish seaboard, emphasizing 
the extent of material sacrifices made practically in 
vain. Whence arose under the Ayyubids the desire 
for a new policy which, recognizing both the presence 
of Franks in the trade ports of Syria-Palestine and 
the lessening of the Frankish menace, now that, left 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



.DES 65 

to their own devices, the Eastern Franks could 
hardly contemplate further aggrandisement, sought 
to set up a modus vivendi economically favourable 
to both sides. This policy, compromised by the 
Crusading activities of the West, nevertheless con- 
tinued a fairly successful existence for half a century, 
finding its most spectacular and in the eyes of the 
devout its most scandalous expression when, with 
certain reservations, al-Kamil restored Jerusalem 
to Frederick II. Could such a policy have been kept 
up for a long time? The unleashing of the Mongol 
conquest made it in any case impracticable. That 
invasion, much more dangerous for the time being 
than the Crusades could ever be, produced in the 
Mamluk State, established in Egypt and Syria as 
the final redoubt of Muslim resistance, an uncom- 
promising tension of all forces and the unquestionable 
predominance of an intransigent army. Some of 
the Franks had come to terms with the barbarians: 
their extermination or expulsion became a matter of 
supreme urgency and this time Europe did not 
prevent it. 

With the exception of the Armenians in the 
North, native Christians had remained practically 
outside the Crusades; Muslims therefore did not at 
first change their attitude to local Christians and 
even occasionally supported members of the Greek 
Church who had serious grounds for complaint 
against Latin dominance, as well as the Jews. Toler- 
ance of this kind contrasted with the treatment of 
Muslims under Frankish rule who, except in some 
special localities, had neither mosque nor kadi and 
were frequently considered as virtual enemies or 
spies. The over-quoted passage of Ibn Djubayr, 
shaming his co-religionists for Muslim satisfaction 
with good Frankish administration in the rich 
district of Tyre, cannot outweigh many cases where 
the opposite applied nor can it the legal status 
of Muslims; because of its warlike spirit, the 
Latin East was backward compared with the under- 
standing which the Norman sovereigns of Sicily and 
the Spaniards were showing at the same time. In 
the long run the presence of Franks eventually 
jeopardized the native Christians of Muslim countries 
as well. For the lack of any future possibility of 
triumphing by the force of arms prompted the 
Franks to try to establish relations with Christians 
of Muslim states. It was inevitable that such a move 
should give rise to at least some suspicion amongst 
the Muslims. The most unfortunate individual case 
was that of the Maronites. This purely Lebanese 
minority living entirely within Frankish territory 
had rallied to the discipline of the Church of Rome 
and to a certain extent, in the coastal towns at least, 
had become intermingled with the Franks. Muslim 
reconquest did not wipe out the danger of Frankish 
attacks on the Syrian coast and, to prevent any 
Maronite complicity, the Mamluks had many of the 
Maronite districts along the coasts evacuated. The 
fortunes of the Armenians, who had been the 
Mongols' quartermasters and were linked politically 
with the Christian West, were even less happy; in 
the fourteenth century their Cilician kingdom was 
destroyed and its population decimated. Generally 
speaking, the hardening of the Muslim attitude was 
bound to undermine the position of Christians and 
it is necessary to realise that the Crusades alone 
must bear, if not the sole responsibility, at least the 
greater part of it, for a development completely 
opposite to their avowed object. 

Did they at least help to increase the interpene- 
tration of peoples, the knowledge of Islam in the 



CRUSADES — CU 



West, or of the West in Muslim countries ? It would 
of course be paradoxical to contend that among 
the members of the two geographically close popu- 
lations there was no exchange of knowledge. But 
examination of institutions in the Latin East shows 
fewer borrowings from the Muslim past and less 
social intermingling than in the Christian States of 
Sicily and Spain. Similarly, from a cultural point 
of view, objective comparison leads to the categorical 
conclusion that where the West has acquired 
knowledge of Muslim civilization, it has done so 
mainly through Spain or Sicily and not through 
Western settlements in the East or Crusaders from 
the West; moreover, Islam as such nearly always 
remained misunderstood and the few accurate ideas 
about it that the West finally acquired are due to 
the efforts of missionaries, in other words to work 
undertaken in an entirely different spirit from the 
spirit of the Crusades. As for the Muslims, although 
some showed a certain curiosity about the Franks 
in the East or about a Western leader as exceptional 
as Frederick II, it must be acknowledged that their 
historians, geographers and anti-Christian polemists 
still had after the Crusades the same few notions 
about the European West, gleaned from their co- 
religionists in the West, that they had had before. 
Therefore, and contrary I regret to current opinion, 
it seems to me an anachronism to repeat with those 
who have worked on the cultural or political in- 
fluence, indeed a very real one, of modern France 
in the East, or written within that context, that 
the Crusades laid their foundations; if in their own 
way they bore witness to the beginning of a process 
of interpenetration, the atmosphere they created 
proved subsequently more of a hindrance than a 
help. 

Bibliography: The Arabic sources of the 
history of the Crusades are catalogued in C. Cahen, 
La Syrie du Nord a Vipoque des Croisades, 1940, 
33-94, without however certain elucidations 
which may be found particularly in (besides a 
forthcoming work by N. Elisseeff on Nur al-Din) 
H. A. R. Gibb, The Arabic sources for the life of 
Saladin, in Speculum, xxv (1950); B. Lewis, The 
sources for the history of the Syrian Assassins, 
ibid., xxvii (1952); H. Gottschalk, al-Malik al- 
Kamil, 1958, Introduction. The five volumes of 
Historiens Arabes in the Recueil des Historiens 
des Croisades published by the Academie des 
Inscriptions suffer from lack of method in the 
choice of extracts and insufficient care in the 
establishment and translation of texts (not to 
mention their inconvenient format) ; they have still 
not yet however been replaced by editions or above 
all, for those who need them, by better translations. 
Since 1940 have appeared — and we quote only 
the essential — a French translation by R. Le 
Tourneau of Ibn al-Kalanisi's Damascus chronicle 
(Damas de 1075 d 1154, French Institute in 
Damascus, 1952), vol. i of a new and this time 
good edition of Abu Shama's K. al-Rawdatayn by 
M. A. Hilml (Cairo 1957). as well as an edition of his 
Dhayl (Cairo 1947); the first two volumes, less 
important than those to follow, of a good edition 
of Ibn Wasil's Mufarridi al-Kurub by al-Shayyal 
(Cairo 1953 and 1957); an edition of the Ayyubid 
part of al-Makln b. al- c Amid's chronicle by C. 
Cahen (in BEO, Damascus, xv, 1955-57); the 
edition of part of Ibn <Abd al-?ahir's life of 
Baybars, under the title Baybars the First, by 
S. F. Sadeque, Oxford and Dacca 1956; the 
first two volumes out of the three of the excellent 



edition of (Kamal al-DIn) Ibn al- c AdIm's Zubda 
by Sami Dahan (Fr. Inst. Damascus, 1951 and 54) 
and, by the same editor, the part on Damascus 
of Ibn Shaddad's AHali. (Fr. Inst. Damascus, 1956), 
with the part on Aleppo edited by D. Sourdel (ibid., 
1958); of the extant half of the Life of Baybars 
by the same author (in the absence of any edition) 
there is a Turkish translation by Serefuddin Yalt- 
kaya, Istanbul 1941 ; an edition by C. Zurayk and 
S. Izzedin, 1939-42, of the two volumes by Ibn 
al-Furat on the years 672-696; an edition at 
Haydarabad, 2 vol. 1954-55. of the part of YuninI 
covering the years 664-670; and finally for the 
years 689-698 an analysis of Djazari by J. 
Sauvaget, 1949. None of these authors of course 
deals specifically with the Crusades. A good 
number of selected and translated texts, together 
with useful introductions, has been given by Fr. 
Gabrieli, Storici Arabi delle Crociate, 1957. 

For the general history of the Crusades in their 
Eastern setting reference should be made to the 
general works of Grousset, Runciman, my Syrie 
du Nord and the collective History of the Crusades 
by the University of Philadelphia under the 
supervision of K. M. Setton, vol. i (twelfth 
century) 1955, vol. ii (thirteenth century) in the 
press, and three further volumes on the later 
Crusades, institutions and civilization. A broadly 
conceived general bibliography of the Crusades 
will be found in H. E. Mayer, Bibliographic zur 
Geschichte der Kreuzziige, Hanover i960. It seems 
useful here only to indicate the few studies 
devoted particularly to aspects of the problems 
treated above: C. Cahen has given the outlines 
of a forthcoming Autour des Croisades, Points 
de vue d'Orient et d'Occident, in En quoi la 
ConquHe turque appelait-elle la Croisade (Bulletin 
de la Facultt des Lettres, Strasbourg, Nov. 1950), 
An Introduction to the First Crusade (Past and 
Present, 1954) and Les Institutions de I'Orient 
Latin, in Oriente e Occidente, XII Convegno Volta, 
1956. The only other studies which need be 
quoted here are: H. A. R. Gibb, The achievement 
of Saladin in Bull, of the John Rylands Library, 
1952; A. S. 'Atiya, The Crusades, Old ideas and 
new conceptions, in Cahiers d'Histoire Mondialef 
Journal of World History, ii/2, 1954; and, on a 
much broader theme, U. Monneret de Villard, 
Lo studio dell' Islam nel XII e XIII secolo, in 
Studi e Testi, ex (1948), and A. Malvezzi, L'isla- 
mismo e la cultura europea, n.d. [1957] (the 
history of the knowledge of Islam). 

(C. Cahen) 
CRYSTAL [see billawr] 

CU, a river in Central Asia, 1090 km. long, 
but not navigable because of its strong current. It 
is now known as Shu (Barthold, Vorl. 80) by the 
Kirgiz who live there (and it probably had this name 
when the Turks lived there in the Middle Ages) ; 
Chinese: Su-yeh or Sui-she. modern Chinese: C'uci 
(for the problem of the indication of Cu = Chinese 
'pearl' with the 'Pearl River' [Yincu Ogiiz] in the 
Orkhon Inscriptions, cf. the article SIR Darya). The 
river Cu has its source in Terskei Alaltau, and then 
flows to the north-east until 6 km. from the western 
end of the Issik Kul [q.v.], known as Kockar in its 
upper regions (for the first time in Sharaf al-DIn 
c Ali Yazdi, ed. Ilahdad, i, Calcutta 1885, 274). 
It send a branch (called the Kutemaldi) to the 
lake, whose outlet it earlier was. Subsequently the 
Cu turns northwards through the Bugham (Russian: 
Buam) ravine (this is mentioned first in Sharaf al- 



Cu — CObAnids 



67 



Din, loc. cit.; in GardizI, 102: Djil, supposedly 
'narrow'), which lies to the north-west of the western 
end of the Issik Kul, and then flows in a north- 
westerly direction. In this region it receives the 
waters of the Great and the Little Kebin from its 
right, and the Aksu and Kuragati from the left. The 
river then flows through dreary waste-land in its 
middle and lower course, no km. east of the Amu 
Darya [q.v.], it ends in the small desert lake Saumal- 
Kul. 

The regions adjoining the upper Cu, which were 
good grazing land and could be easily irrigated, were 
already inhabited in the times of the Middle Siberian 
Andronovo culture (1700-1200 B.C.) (Bernstamm, 20). 
Later on, Sacae and Wusun (pseudo Tokharians?) 
lived on its banks. In the 6th and 7th centuries, these 
were joined by the Soghdians (see sughd) (Altl Cub 
Soghdak, in the Orkhon inscriptions: Bernstamm, 
269). Archaeological traces of these peoples have been 
found and described by the Soviet expert Aleksandr 
NatanoviC Bernstamm (1910-1956). From his research, 
it has become evident that Syrian and some Byzan- 
tine influences had reached as far as this, and that 
the traffic from Further Asia to the Land of the 
Seven Rivers (Yeti Suw; Russ. Semirec'e; cf. also 
Hi) passed through this region along two ancient 
trade-routes (through the Kastek pass to the Hi 
valley, and through the Bugham pass to the south 
side of the Issik Kul). Thus two cultures met on the 
banks of the Cu (down to the Land of the Seven 
Rivers and the Farghana Basin [Bernstamm, 147, 
262]). 

In 776, the Karluk [q.v.] occupied the valley of 
the Cu and that of the Taraz (Talas), and the area 
along both sides of the Alexander Mountains. The 
Tukhs(i) also settled there (Ifudud al-'-Alam, 300; 
Barthold, Vorl., 75). Suyab [q.v.] was the capital of 
the Cu valley (Kashghari, iii, 305; Hsiian-Cuang, ed. 
St. Julien, Paris 1857-8) ; the residence of the ruler 
of this area was usually in Kuz Ordu (Balasaghun; 
[q.v.]). Judging from the traces of settlements found, 
the valley was well populated at that time. The 
inhabitants developed a particular multi-coloured 
style in ceramics, and later also a distinct special 
form of ornamental Kufic writing. There was a 
marked distinction between them and the other 
Transoxanians (Bernstamm, 157, 161/66). 

Islamic armies reached the western part of the 
Cu valley only once, in 195/810 (battle against 
Kulan, cf. Ibn al-Athir, vi, 164), and the name of the 
river is not mentioned in Muslim sources of pre- 
Mongol times, although there is mention of some of 
the places in the region (Ibn Khurradadhbih (BGA 
VI, 29); Kudama, K. al-Kharadi [BGA], 206). Islam 
reached the population only in the 4th/ioth century, 
and even around the year 372/982, only a part of the 
inhabitants of Taraz and Nawekath had become 
Muslims (JfudUd al-'-Alam, 119, no. 93; 358, with 
mention of individual places) ; Nestorian Christianity 
was widespread for a considerably longer time. The 
rule of the Kara Khitay [q.v.] followed that of the 
Karluks in 535/1141. Thus there was a renewed influ- 
ence of Chinese cultural elements (Nephrit, Sung por- 
celain) in the area, and these mixed again with those of 
Transoxania (Bernstamm, 168, 171 f.). Meanwhile, the 
numerous wars of the 6th/i 2th and 7th/i3th centuries 
resulted in a decrease of the population of the Cu 
valley. Where the Chinese traveller C c ang C c un still 
met several towns and villages in 616/1219, and cros- 
sed the Cu by a wooden bridge (E. Bretschneider, Med. 
Researches, i, London 1888, 71 f., 129 f. ; A. Waley, 
The Travels of an Alchemist, London 1931), many 



ruins are reported already in 658/1259. At that time 
(651/1253), the region formed the border line between 
the areas of influence of the two Mongol Khans 
Batu [q.v.] and Mongke (MangO [q.v.]). Shiban 
(Shayban), the founder of the "Blue" (White) Horde 
(see batO'ids) had his winter quarters here. But 
the main cause of virtual de-population of the area, 
was war amongst the Mongols in the 8th/i4th century 
(see caghatay), plague (acccording to epitaphs of 
739/i338), and the campaigns of Timur [q.v.]. Our 
sources for these last already fail to mention any 
place-names in the Cu valley. The Nestorian settle- 
ments near Pishpek and Tokmak [q.v.], of which we 
have epitaphs of the 7th/i3th and 8th/i4th centuries, 
also seem to have perished at this time. Muhammad 
Haydar Dughlat, Ta'rikh-i Rashidi, ed. N. Elias and 
E. D. Ross, London 1895-98, 364 f., ca. 1546, 
mentions only ruins with a minaret rising above 
them. The modern name Burana for a tower in the 
ancient Tokmak also derives from Manara (according 
to Perovskiy in the Zap. Vost. Old., viii, 352). 

Later the Cu valley occasionally came under the 
Kalmuks and the (Kara-) Kirghiz. Then it came 
under the rule of the Khans of Khokand, who 
founded the fortresses of Pishpek (in the Khokand 
historians' writings: Pishkek) and Tokmak on the 
Cu. These came into Russian hands in i860. Since 
then the Cu valley has belonged to Russia, and has 
become a target of eastern Slav settlement (cf. 
Herrmann, Atlas, 66-67). The upper course is in the 
Kirgiz S.S.R., the middle and lower reaches in the 
Kazak S.S.R. Since 1932, a great agricultural combine 
(hemp and other fibre plants) has developed in 
the area of the middle Cu. Two arms of the "Great Cu 
Canal" have been under construction since 194 1; 
these should irrigate a further area. The Turksib 
railway crosses the river near the station of Cu, 
thus opening it up to traffic. 

Historical Maps of the region of the Cu: 

A. Herrmann, Atlas of China, 1925, several maps, 

37 and 60 in particular; Jfudud al-'Alam, 279, 299; 

Bernstamm, maps ii and iii (at the end). Islamic 

Maps : C. Miller, Mappae Arabicae, iv 78/82, 86*-9i*. 

Bibliography: E. Chavannes, Documents sur 

les Tou-kiue (Turcs) Occidentaux, St. Petersburg 

1903, 79, 85 ; IJudud al-'-Alam, index; W. Barthold, 

Zwdlf Vorlesungen, Berlin 1935, index; idem, 

Four Studies, Leiden 1956, index s.v. Archaeology; 

A. N. Bernstamm (Bernshtam), Istoriko-arkheolo- 
gileskie olerki Tsentral'nogo Tyan'-Shanya i Pamiro- 
Alaya, Moscow-Leningrad 1952 (passim; compare 
above and index under Cu and Cuyskaya dolina) 
[Materiall i issledovaniya po arkheologii SSSR 26). 
Christianity near Tokmak: D. Chwolson, 
Syrisch-nestorianische Grabinschriften aus Semir- 
jetschie, St. Petersburg 1890; Neue Folge, St. 
Petersburg 1897; P. K. Kokovtsov, K siro- 
turetskoy epigrafikl Semirll'ya [Izv. Imp. Ak. Nauk 
1909, 773 f.); J. Dauvillier, Les provinces Choi- 
diennes „de I'extirieur" au Moyen-Age, in the 
Melanges Cavallera, Toulouse 1948, 261-316; 

B. Spuler, Die nestorianische Kirche, in the 
Handbuch der Orientalistih viii, 1959 (the two last 
include further bibliography). Geography: 
W. Leimbach, Die Sowjetunion, Stuttgart 1950, 
253; Brockhaus-Efron: SntsiklopedHeskiy slovar' 
38 B (76), p. 932; 39 A (77), p. 27; BSfilxii, 
695, 745; 2. ed., xlvii, 444, 464 (only geogra- 
phical information). (B. Spuler) 
CCbANIDS (Cobanids), a family of Mongol 

amirs claiming descent from a certain Surghan 



CObAnids — Culim 



Shira of the Sulduz tribe who had once saved the | 
life of Cingiz Khan. The most notable members of 
this family were: 

(i) AmIr Cuban. An able and experienced military 
commander, Amir Cuban, according to Hamd Allah 
Mustawfi, fought his first battle in Rabi c II 688/ 
April-May 1289 (Td'rikh-i Guzida (GMS), 588); 
thereafter he served with distinction under the 
Ilkhans Arghun, Gaykhatu, Ghazan and Uldjaytu 
[qq.v.~\. He was appointed amir al-umard* by Abu 
Sa'id in 717/1317, and married the latter's sister 
Dulandi. During the reign of Abu Sa'id, who 
succeeded Uldjaytu at the age of twelve, Amir 
Cuban acquired great power in the affairs of state; 
in addition, all the important provinces of the 
Ilkhanid empire were governed by his sons. In 
Radjab 7ig/Aug.-Sept. 1319 a group of amirs plotted 
to assassinate Amir Cuban, but the latter, supported 
by Abu Sa c id, crushed the revolt with great severity. 
After the death of Dulandi, Amir Cuban married 
Abu Sard's other sister, Sati Beg (719/1319). In 
725/1325 Amir Cuban prevented Abu Sa c id from 
marrying his daughter Baghdad Khatun [$.».], who 
was at that time the wife of Shaykh Hasan Buzurg 
the Djala'irid. Abu Sa c Id determined to break 
the power of the Cubanids and, two years later, when 
Amir Cuban was absent in Khurasan, he put to 
death Amir Cuban's son Dimashk Khwadia and 
issued orders for the execution of Amir Cuban at 
Harat and of his family throughout the Ilkhanid 
dominions. Amir Cuban, forewarned, advanced as 
far as Rayy and attempted to negotiate with Abu 
Sa c id, but without success. Deserted by most of 
his troops, he fled back to Harat and took refuge 
with Malik Ghiyath al-DIn the Kurt. A few months 
later (Oct.-Nov. 1327, or perhaps in Muharram 728, 
which began on 17 Nov. 1327), the rewards offered 
jby Abu Sa'id induced Malik Ghiyath al-Din to put 
to death Amir Cuban and his son Djilaw Khan. 
Their bodies were taken to Medina for burial. 

(2) Dimashk Khwadja. The third son of Amir 
Cuban, Dimashk Khwadja remained at court in 
726/1326 when his father left to defend Khurasan 
against the Mongols of the house of Caghatay, and 
became the virtual ruler of the Ilkhanid empire. 
His dissolute nature provided Abu Sa c Id with the 
excuse for destroying the Cubanids which he had 
been seeking. Dimashk Khwadja was convicted of 
a liaison with a member of the royal harem, and was 
put to death on 5 Shawwal 727/24 August 1327. One 
of his daughters, Dilshad Khatun, was later married 
first to Abu Sa'id (734/i333"4)> and then to Shaykh 
Hasan Buzurg the Djala'irid. 

(3) Timurtash, the second son of Amir Cuban. He 
had acted as wazir to Uldjaytu. In 716/1316 he was 
appointed by Abu Sa'id governor of Rum, and for 
the first time carried Mongol arms to the shores of 
the Mediterranean. In 721/1321-2 he rebelled; he 
minted coinage in his own name, had his name 
included in the khutba, and styled himself the Mahdi. 
His father Amir Cuban took him a prisoner to Abu 
Sa'id, but the latter pardoned him for the sake of 
Amir Cuban. After the execution of his brother 
Dimashk Kh'adja, he fled to Egypt. At first the 
Mamluk sultan al-NSsir Muhammad treated him 
with great honour, but the intrigues of enemies of 
the Cubanid family, and Abu Sa'Id's repeated 
demands for the extradition of TImurtash, were a 
source of embarrassment to the Mamluk sultan, who 
eventually decided to put him to death on 13 
Shawwal 728/21 August 1328. 

(4) Hasan b. TImurtash, known as Hasan Kiiciik 



to distinguish him from his rival Shaykh Hasan 
Buzurg the Djala'irid. After the death of Abu 
Sa'id in 736/1335, he gained the support of his 
father's followers in Rum by a ruse, and in Dh u 
'1-Hidjdja 738/July 1338 he defeated Hasan Buzurg 
near Nakhciwan. He then gave his allegiance to the 
princess Sati Beg, the widow of Amir Cuban and 
Arpa Khan, at Tabriz (739/1338-9). and came to 
terms with Hasan Buzurg. The following year he 
transferred his allegiance to a descendant of Hiilegii, 
Sulayman Khan, to whom he married Sati Beg. For 
some years he continued to wage war on his rival 
Hasan Buzurg and the various puppet khans 
nominated by the latter, but on 27 Radjab 744/15 
December 1343, he was murdered at Tabriz by his 
wife 'Izzat Malik. See further the article ilkhanids. 
Bibliography: Ibn Battuta, 116 ff.; H. H. 
Howorth, History of the Mongols, iii, London 
1888, index s.v. Choban; 'Abbas 'Azzawl, Ta'rikh 
aW-Irak bayn Ihtildlayn, 3 vols., Baghdad 1353-7/ 
I 935 _ 9> index ; HSfiz Abru, Dhavl-i Diami c 
al-Tawdrikh-i Rashidi (ed. K. Bayani), Tehran 
1317 solar/1938, passim; Ta'rikh-i Shaykh Uways 
(ed. J. B. Van Loon), The Hague 1954, passim ; 
B. Spuler, J)ie Mongolen in Iran 1 , Berlin 1955, 
passim; Mu'In al-Din Natanzl, Muntakhab al- 
Tawdrikh-i MuHni, ed. J. Aubin, Tehran 1336 
S./1957, index; EI 1 , s.v. sulduz. 

(R. M. Savory) 
CUENCA [see kOnka] 
CUKA [see kumash] 
CUKUROVA [see cilicia] 

CULfM. The term 'Tatars of Culim' (in Russian 
'Culimtzl', a word invented by Radloff, Aus Sibirien, 
i, 211) includes several small Turkish-speaking groups 
of Central Siberia whose ancestors would have been 
Selkups of the Ob' and Ketes of the Yenissei brought 
under Turkish influence by the Altaic tribes ori- 
ginating in the south and by the Tatars of Baraba 
[?.».] and of Tobol' [q.v.] originating in the west. 
The Tatars of Culim form three principal blocks: 
1. On the river Kiya, tributary of the Culim, in the 
oblast' of Kemerovo who were formerly called 
"Ketzik" (to the south of the town of Mariinsk) 
and "Kiierik" (to the north of that town). 2. On the 
central Culim, in the district of A6insk of the Krrai 
of Krasnoyarsk, whom ancient ethnographers called 
"Tatars of Meletzk". 3. On the lower Culim and 
the Ob', in the districts of Asino and Ziryansk of the 
oblast' of Tomsk, formerly known as "Tatars of 

The present number of the Tatars of Culim is 
unknown. The Russian census of 1897 counted 
11,123. The censuses of 1926 and 1939 included them 
with the "Tatars of the Volga". S. A. Tokarev, 
£tnografiya narodov SSSR, Moscow 1958, 428-429, 
estimates their number at 11,000. They speak a 
Turkish dialect akin to the KIzll speech of the 
Hakas, but strongly Russianized. 

Previously Shamanists, the Tatars of Culim 
officially adopted orthodox Christianity in the 18th 
century. SunnI Islam of the Hanafi school was 
brought to them in the second half of the 19th 
century by the Tatars of Kazan, but it has made 
no appreciable progress. 

Nowadays the Tatars of Culim are dispersed 
among the Russian villages and are exposed to 
Russian cultural influence; they adopt Russian as 
their chief language, and merge fairly quickly into 
the Russian masses. 

Bibliography: Ivanov, Tatari Cullmskie, in 

Trudl Tomskogo oblastono Muzeya, ii, Tomsk 1929; 



CULlM — CUWASH 



69 



A. M. Dul'zon, Cullmskie Tatarl i ikh yazik, in 

UCenie Zapiski Tomskogo Gosud. Pedagogic. In-ta, 

ix, Tomsk 1925. (Ch. Quelquejay) 

CCpAN, 'herdsman, shepherd'. This word of 

Iranian origin was adopted by Turkish peoples in 

close contact with the Iranian language-area, 

namely speakers of the dialects of the S.W. group 

of Turkish languages (Anatolia and neighbouring 

areas) and the S.E. group (Caghatay etc.). This 

derivation is supported by the fact that the word 

is not found in Turkish languages outside these two 

groups. 

Shubdn or shabdn, the form in general use in 
modern Persian (= herdsman, < Phi. $pdna< Late 
Av. *fSupdna;ci.fSumd 'owner of herds'), must have 
passed into Turkish via the C- dialects (cf. Shdh- 
ndma, Coban, Copdn; Kas Cepun, Cupun, Capo; Kurd. 
Cuvdn, 'herdsman'; Cipan 'butcher' [Grundr. d. iran. 
Philologie, i, 13, 148 etc.; ii, 71, 79, 89, 188, 195]). In 
modern dictionaries of Persian there are attested 
besides shubdn (popular pronunciation shabdn) and 
shubdn (cf. also shubdngdh 'mansio pastoris' [Vullers]), 
the forms Coban 'a shepherd, a horsekeeper' (Cobdni 
'a pastoral office'), Copdn (Steingass), Cuban, vulg. 
coban (Redhouse, '1. a shepherd, 2. a man who has 
charge of any kinds of beasts out at pasture, 3. a 
rustic, a boor'), Cuban (Zenker), Cupdn, Cuban 
(Shaksp. gawpdn). 

The fact that there is no general word for 'shepherd' 
in Turkish can be explained in the light of the 
historical development of Turkish society: in the 
economic life of the nomadic Turks stock-raising 
was the main activity of the whole tribe, and thus 
the idea of the herding of beasts as a distinct occu- 
pation had not developed. When later, with the 
increasing complexity of society, the occupation 
came into existence this task must have been 
delegated by the Turks, who formed the governing 
class, to non-Turks, as the Iranian origin of the word 
indicates. 

Though the verbs ku-, kiidez-, kiizet- etc. were in 
general use in Old Turkish with the meaning of 
'protect' 'guard', it is clear that they had not yet 
acquired the meaning of 'tend animals' ; cf ., e.g., koyug 
ked kudezgil 'guard the sheep well' (Kutadgu Bilig, 
5164), koyug ked kiidezip yort (KB 1413) ; kiizet 'guard' 
(Index), kudezli (yongh binigli kudezCisi ol, KB 1741). 
For a use with a meaning approaching that of 
'shepherd' cf. KB 1412 (budun koy sant ol begi koyCist: 
bagirsak kerek koyka koy kulCisi 'the people are like 
sheep and the beg is their shepherd : the shepherd 
must be kind to the sheep'), 5590 (tartgCt tartgka trig 
bolsunt: yime ytlktCt igdiS bklilsiini 'let the farmers 
work hard at their farming, and those that tend the 
animals see that they increase'). 

Among the Kazan Turks the word kuttici (< kiit-, 
Ott. gilt-; kiitii = Ott. surii, but Ott. suriicu has 
developed with a different meaning) is used; from 
which no doubt comes the Cuvash hltuCe or kCtii 
pdxaka. Among the Kazak and the Kirghiz, for 
whom stock-raising still constitutes the main 
activity, the words math (< mal-Ci) and baktaSt are 
generally used instead of toban, or, if greater precision 
is required, the expressions koySu, gilkis'i, siynh, 
ttiyeH etc. are employed. The examples given by 
W. Barthold in EI 1 for the use of the word Coban for 
the inferior classes and for the ruling members of 
society are not of general application: the first 
belongs to a very late period, while the name of the 
Amir Coban, who was viceroy in Iran in the reign 
of Abu Sa'id (1316-1327), is more probably 



with the word Cupan, defined by Mahmud Kashghari 
as 'village headman's assistant'. 

In Turkish languages in which the word Coban is 
used, it is found not only in the derivatives Cobanga, 
Cobanhk, but in a number of compounds, chiefly for 
plant-names (many of them no doubt caiques from 
Persian), e.g., Coban degnegi (tayagt, taragt) 'knot- 
grass', C. piiskulii 'ilex aquiflium, holly', C. dudiigii 
'hazel', C. dagarg\gi 'a creeper', C. kaldtran 'lychnis 
calcedonia', C. kalktdan 'caltrop', C. ignesi 'cranes- 
bill'; C. kepegi, 'sheepdog', C. kuHu 'a bird like a 
sparrow', and especially Coban aldatan (C. aldaiguCi, 
C. aldathtCi, cf. TTS IV). 

The expression of particular interest for cultural 
history is Coban ytldui 'the planet Venus', in which 
one sees the mutual influence of T. Colpan and P. 
Cuban. Colpan (Cagh. Ott. Tar. O.T.), Colpon (Kir.), 
Culpan (Kazan), iolpan, iulpan (Kaz.), Colmon (Tel.), 
Culmon (Alt.), Colban (Shor), Colbon (Tob. Leb.) and 
tsolman (Colman, Colmun, Colbun) (Mong.). Colpan 
(C. yulduz [or yulduzt], Ian Colmonu inir Colmonu 
['morning- and evening-star']) has in this case 
presumably been identified with Coban. 

With Coban-Ata, the name of a line of hills on 
the S. bank of the Zarafshan near Samarkand (which 
derives, according to W. Barthold in EI 1 , from a 
legend of a shepherd seen on the hills, or from the 
name of a Muslim saint) cf. Kirghiz Colpan-Ala 'the 
guardian of the sheep' and hence 'sheep', Kamber- 
Ata 'guardian of the horses', CtCan-Ata 'guardian of 
the goats', Oysul-Ata 'guardian of the camels' (and 
hence 'horses', 'goats', 'camels' respectively). 

(R. Rahmeti Arat) 

CCPAN-ATA [see copan-ata] 

CUWASH (Cuvash), (native name Cavash), a 
Turkish-speaking people of the Middle Volga, 
numbering (in 1939), 1,369,000, who form the Soviet 
Socialist republic of the Cuvash (18,300 square 
kilometres, 1,095,000 inhabitants in 1956), situated 
on the southern bank of the Volga, to the west of 
the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the 
Tatars. The Cuvash also inhabit the neighbouring 
regions: the Autonomous Republics of Tataristan 
and Bashkiria, the oblasl's of Ulianovsk, Kuybishev, 
Saratov, and in Western Siberia. 

The name Cuvash only appears in its present form 
in Russian chronicles of later than the 15th century, 
and is not found in such Arabic writers as Ibn 
Fadlan, al-MukaddasI, Yakut, etc., yet the Cuvash 
are according to general opinion, one of the oldest 
established peoples in the Volga region. Their origin 
is still the subject of controversy. According to a 
theory which has now been abandoned, the Cuvash 
were descendants of the Khazars (Hunfalvy, Die 
Ungern Magyaren, 1881 ; Fuks, Zapiski Cuvashakh i 
Ceremisakh Kazanskoy Gubernii, Kazan 1840). Other 
writers trace their descent to the Burtas [q.v.] or the 
Huns (for example W. Barthold, Sovremennoe 
sostoyanie i blisayskie zadaCi izuCeniya istorii turets- 
kikh narodov, Moscow 1926, 5). More popular and 
more likely is the theory that they are of Bulghar 
origin, which is based, among other things, on the 
analogy between the present-day Cuvash language 
and the funeral inscriptions found in the ruins of the 
town of Bulghar and on the Danube. Several 
historians and linguists have defended this theory 
and it still has many supporters: Husein Feizkhanov, 
Il'minskiy, fonetiCeskikh otnosheniyakh meidu 
Cuvaskskim i tiirkskimi yazlkami, in Izv. Arkh. 
Obshc. v, (1965) 80-84. N. I. Ashmarin, Bolgari i 
Cuvaski, St. Petersburg 1902, Howorth, etc.; A. P. 
Kovalevskiy, Cuvashi i Bulgarl po dannim Akhmeda 



CUWASH — PABB 



ibn Fadlana, Ceboksart 1954, and P. N. Tretyakov, 
Vopros proizkhoidenii Cuvashskogo naroda v 
svete arkheologiteskikh dannikh, in SE, iii, 1950, 
44-53. trace the descent of the Cuvash from the 
Bulghar tribe of the Savak (or Savaz) who, contrary 
to the Bulghars properly so-called, refused to adopt 
Islam and remained animists. 

Finally, according to a new theory, based on the 
existence of a pre-Turkish Finno-Ugrian substratum 
in the Cuvash language which has been recognized 
for some time by the majority of Soviet ethnologists, 
the ancestors of the Cuvash were Finno-Ugrian 
tribes who were influenced by Turkish culture 
through various Turkish tribes originating in the 
south or the south-east, before the arrival of the 
Bulghars on the Middle Volga in the 7th century. 

The infiltration of Turkish culture among the 
Finno-Ugrians continued during the Bulghar era 
until the 13th century or even later, under the 
Golden Horde and the Khanate of Kazan. Whatever 
their racial origins may be, the Cuvash, a Turkish - 
speaking people, but animists (they were converted 
to Christianity in the 18th and 19th centuries) were 
exposed to the influence of Islam by contact with 
the Muslims, the Bulghars, and then the Tatars; 
this influence is be found particularly in certain 
terms such as "psemelle", the word by which 
prayers begin, "pikhampar" (payghambar),' wolf-god', 
"kiremet", 'spirit'. Other Cuvash, placed in immediate 
contact with the Tatars of Kazan, were converted 
to Islam. This phenomenon, which began at the time 
of the Khanate of Kazan, continued almost to the 
present day. It is impossible to appreciate its extent, 
for the Cuvash who were converted to Islam adopted 
the language of the Tatars, at the same time as 
their religion, and were "Tatarized". Tokarev, 
£tnografiya narodov SSSR. Moscow 1958, considers 



that at the beginning of th< 19th century the Cuvash 
were three times as numerous as the Tatars in the 
"government" of Kazan, while in the census of 1897, 
their number was twice as small as that of the 
Tatars. According to him this decrease is due to 
the fact of "Tatarization" alone. Finally among 
the Cuvash who are animists or Christians, and the 
Muslim Cuvash there were still to be found at the 
beginning of the 20th century several semi-Muslim 
groups, such as, for example, the Nekreshlenle 
Kryasheni of the district of Kaybitzk of the Auto- 
nomous Soviet Socialist Republic of Tataristan, 
who are semi-islamized animists, or again the 
Cuvash group of the region of Ulianovsk, who were 
considered before 19 17 as Christians of the Orthodox 
church, while still observing the Muslim festivals 
and the fast of Ramadan. 

Bibliography: V. G. Egorov, Sovremmenly 
C-uvashskiy Yazik, Ceboksarl 1954; P. N. Tref- 
yakov, Vopros proizkholdenii Cuvashkogo naroda 
v svete arkheologiCeskikh dannikh, in SE, iii 1950; 
V. Sboev, Cuvashi v bttovom, istoriCeskom i religioz- 
nom otnosheniyakh, Moscow 1865 ; N. I. Ashmarin, 
Bolgarl i Cuvashi, in Izv. Obshd. Arkh. 1st. i Etn. pri 
Imp. Kaz. Univ-te., xviii, Kazan 1908 ; V. K. Mag- 
nitskiy, Material! k ob'yasneniyu staroy (uvashskoy 
veri, Kazan 1881; A~Ivanovl UkazateV knig, 
broshyur, Surnal'nlkh i gazetnikh statey na russkom 
yazike Cuvashakh v svyazi s drugimi inorodtzami 
Srednego PovoWya, 1756-1906, Kazan 1907; idem, 
Izvestiya Obsh. Arkh. 1st. i Etn., xxiii, fasc. 2, 4; 
Koblov, tatarizatzii inorodtzev privollskogo kraya , 
Kazan 1910. (Ch. QuelueqIay) 

CYPRUS [see kubrus] 
CYRENAICA [see barija] 



D 



al-DABARAN [see nudjum]. 

PABB, the thorn- tail lizard {Uromastix 
spinipes). Cognate synonyms exist in other Semitic 
languages. 

The animal, found in abundance in the homeland 
of the Arabs, is often mentioned and described 
in ancient poetry and proverbs. Much of the in- 
formation on the animal derives from just these 
sources which are freely quoted in later zoological 
works. The dabb was eaten by the ancient Arabs who 
relished it as tasty food; still it is reported that 
the tribe of Tamlm, who were especially fond of 
eating it, were ridiculed on that account by other 
Arabs. In Islamic times, the lawfulness of its use as 
human food was expressly pointed out by some 
hadiths. Bedouin eat it to the present day. 

The dabb is described as clever but forgetful; it 
may even not find its way back to its hole, wherefore 
it chooses a conspicuous place for its habitation. It 
digs its hole in solid ground — whereby its claws 
become blunt — lest it collapse under the tread of 
hoofed animals. It does not brood over the eggs 
but lays them in a small cavity of the soil and then 
covers them with earth. The young hatch after 
forty days and are able to take care of themselves 
(autophagous). The dabb lays seventy eggs and more, 



which resemble the eggs of the pigeon. Its tail is 
jointed. It has such great strength in its tail that 
it can split a snake with it. If it is killed and left 
for one night and then is brought near a fire, it 
will move again. It devours its young when hungry 
and eats its vomit again; yet it is highly capable of 
enduring hunger, being second, in this respect, only 
to the snake. It likes eating dates. Its teeth are all 
of one piece. It is afraid of man but lives on friendly 
terms with the scorpion, which it takes into its hole 
as a protection from the human foe. It does not 
leave its hole in winter. When exposed to the sun, 
it assumes various colours like the chameleon. It 
lives seven hundred years and more. When old it 
foregoes food and is satisfied with air. The male has 
two penes and the female two vulvae. A certain 
kind has two tongues. The dabb drinks little or does 
not drink at all and voids one drop of urine in every 
forty days. 

Some of the fabulous accounts have their origin 
in ancient popular tradition, mainly laid down in 
poetry and proverbs, as pointed out in the zoological 
works themselves. 

Various medicinal properties were ascribed to the 
heart, spleen, skin, blood, fat and dung of the dabb. 
Its significance when seen in dreams has been 



PABB — PABBA 



treated by Damlrl and in special works on that 
subject. 

Bibliography: c Abd al-Ghanl al-Nabulusi, 
TaHir al-Andm, Cairo 1354, ii, 58; Damlri, s.v. 
(transl. Jayakar, ii, 195 ff.) ; Dawud al-Antakl, 
Tadhkira, Cairo 1324, 1, 207; Goldziher, Z.dhiriten, 
81; J. Euting, Tagebuch, i, 107; Ibn Kutayba, 
l Vyun al-Akhbdr, Cairo 1925-30, ii, 72, 73, 79, 
96, 98 (transl. Kopf, 46, 47, 54, 72, 74); Ibshihi, 
Mustatraf, bab 62, s.v.; G. Jacob, Beduinenleben 2 , 
6, 24, 95; Kazwlnl (Wiistenfeld), i, 4371. (transl. 
Wiedemann, Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Naturw., liii, 259 f.; 
I. Low, ZA xxvi, 145 ff.; G. W. Murray, Sons of 
Ishmael, 1935, 90 f.; al-Mustawfl al-Kazwini 
(Stephenson), 19; Nuwayri, Nihdyat al-Arab, x, 
155 ff- (L. Kopf) 

DABBA, (plur. dawdbb), any living creature 
which keeps its body horizontal as it moves, generally 
quadruped. In particular, beast of burden or pack- 
animal: horse, donkey, mule, camel (cf. Lane, s.v.). 
Burak, the legendary steed ridden by the Prophet 
at his ascension {mi'rddj}, is given the name ddbba 
by al-Ghitl and in the commentaries. The word 
acquires a particular significance from its use in the 
Kur'an, XXVII, 82 in the sense of the archetypal 
"Beast", equivalent to the term O^piov in the 
Apocalypse of St. John. The text is laconic and gives 
no explanation: "And when the final word has been 
spoken against them (cf. XXVII, 85), we shall call 
forth before them the Beast sprung from the earth, 
that shall tell them that mankind had no faith in 
our signs". The formula is no doubt based purely on 
recollections of the Apocalypse: xal elSov fiXXov 
0r]piov ava(3atvov Sx T>js fa? . . . (Rev., xiii, n). 
Exegesis carried out in the course of time has 
derived from the text, which has been reconsidered 
in respect of certain images relating to the Day of 
Judgment. Commentaries by al-Tabari, al-Zamakh- 
shari, al-Razi, and al-Baydawi repeat each other. 
The key point is, apparently, a hadith which has been 
traced back to the Prophet (al-Tabari): "I said: Oh 
Prophet of God, where will it (the Beast) appear? He 
answered: from the greatest of mosques, a thing 
sanctified by God.While Jesus shall perform the Jawdf 
in the House of God, and with him the Muslims, the 
Earth shall tremble beneath their feet at the move- 
ments of the vast Beast. And Safa shall be torn apart 
at the place where it will appear". The Beast will 
emerge at Safa. The forefront of its head will have a 
hairy mark, and its ears will be entirely covered with 
hair. Those who try to capture it will not succeed, nor 
will those who take to flight escape from it. It will 
speak Arabic. It will name people as either "be- 
lievers" or "ungodly". The believers it will leave, 
their faces gleaming like stars, and between their 
eyes it will inscribe the word "believer"; as for 
the ungodly, it will set between their eyes the 
black mark of the ungodly. 

Other traditions have extended this last part: it 
is with Moses' rod that the Beast will mark the 
believer with a white spot, which will expand until 
it makes the whole face gleam, whilst Solomon's 
seal, affixed to the nose of the ungodly man, will 
spread until all his features become black. 

Around this nucleus later traditions have given 
rise to a mass of detail, some concerned with the 
Beast's essential actions: the Imam of the Mosque 
of Mecca, on its third appearance will recognize it 
as the sign of Universal Death (al-Tabari). It will 
make men ashamed of their ungodliness or hypocrisy 
(id.). It will emphasize that it is now too late to 
begin to pray, and will castigate this belated way of 



returning to God. For al-Zamakhshari, it is the 
"watchful" [diassds). The involuntary element of 
caricature in its appearance seems to derive from 
the desire to combine all the figurative features of 
the animal kingdom. One tradition insists upon its 
gigantic size: "only its head will appear, which will 
reach the clouds in the sky" (al-Zamakhshari; 
Fakhr al-din al-Razi), a conception which seems to 
be influenced by the description of the appearance 
of Gehenna recorded in the Ps. Ghazzali, al-Durra 
al-jdkhira (Brockelmann, I, 538, no. 6; SI, 746, 
no. 6; cf. comm. on Kur'an, XVIII, 100). Abu 
Hurayra [apud Razi] says that the horns on its bull-like 
head are a parasang apart. It will appear three times. 
Al-Zamakhshari makes it travel in turn through the 
Maghrib, the East, Syria and the Yemen, proclaiming 
the vanity of all religions foreign to Islam. Al-Razi 
speaks of a long period of hiding in the mosque 
at Mecca between its second and third appearances. 

All these descriptions which, one after another, 
betray the influence of vague notions deriving from 
the Scriptures, popular and apocalyptic accounts, 
are of late date. Al-Razi stresses that "out of all 
this there is nothing authentic in the Book, unless 
the words attributed to the Prophet are genuine". 

In any case, it is not the Beast of the Apocalypse 
since it arrives after judgement has been pronounced 
(al-Razi states that the warrdks interpret the words 
"and when the final word has been spoken against 
them" in this sense). This is confirmed by traditions 
which depict it denouncing the futility of sinners 
seeking too late to be converted, after the time 
when, according to the Kur'an, repentance will no 
longer avail. This explains the confusion with the 
idea of Gehenna in the Ps. Ghazzali. (A. Abel) 

PABBA B. UDD B. TABiig!AB. al-Yas (Khindif) 
b. Mudar B. Nizar b. Ma'add was the eponymous 
hero of the well known Arab tribe of that name. 
With their "nephews" <Ukl b. c Awf, Taym, c Adi, 
and Thawr b. c Abd Manat b. Udd, Dabba formed 
a confederacy called al-Ribab. The Ribab were in 
alliance with Sa c d b. Zayd Manat, the greatest clan 
of Tamlm. This alliance has never been broken by 
the other confederates. These, indeed, were forma- 
tions of rather moderate size, whereas the Pabba 
by means of their power sometimes were able to 
follow their own policy. 

Of the three clans of Dabba, Suraym had in the 
course of the 7th/i3th century shrunk to a small 
number of families. But the second, Bakr, had 
vastly increased, thus leaving the once powerful 
Banu Tha'laba far behind. 

From the second half of the 6th/i2th century on- 
wards, the domiciles of al-Ribab were in the region 
al-Shurayf between the right bank of Wadi Tasrir 
and the depression al-Sirr. In the spring they used 
to migrate to (Batn) Faldj and to the sands of the 
DahnS' by way of Ti c sh5r (= Kay'iyya?) or Wadi 
al- c Atk farther south. But as their spring pastures 
lay as late as the eighties far in the N.W., in regions 
held in other seasons by Asad [q.v.] and Dhubvan. 
we may conclude that their domiciles before this 
time were farther in the west than they were later on. 

We find al-Ribab mentioned for the first time in 
the Diwdn of c Abid b. al-Abras (no. 17, 12) as 
fighting against Asad (not later than 540). In the 
eighties Pabba and Tamlm stood their ground in a 
long battle against the Kilab (b. Rabi'a b. c Amir b. 
Sa c sa c a [?.».]) and c Abs (yawm al-Kurnatayn = al- 
Su'ban, Aws b. Hadjar, no. 1, 9; 16; 17, 3-15; 
Labid, no. 16, 41-42; c Antara in St* Poets, ed. 
Ahlwardt, no. 7, 19). Some years later al-Aswad, 



PABBA — DABIK 



brother to al-Nu c man III of al-Hira, began to 
restore by several campaigns in Arabia the lost 
prestige of the dynasty. The Ribab hesitated to 
surrender until al-Aswad set on them Asad and 
Dhubyan. Next year al-Ribab, together with 
mercenaries of al-Hira, led by al-Aswad, defeated 
the Kilab at Arik. One year later Asad and Pabba 
again defeated the Kilab and other 'Amir b. Sa'sa'a 
(al-A c sha, ed. R. Geyer, no. i, 62-74; The NakaHd 
of Djarir and al-Farazdak, ed. Bevan, 240, 18-19; 
Yakut, 1, 229; The Mufaddaliyydt, ed. Lyall, 
no. 96, 8-19; 99, 9). Their last feat in the Djahiliyya 
was the murder of Bistam b. Kays, the hero of the 
Shayban (of Bakr b. Wa'il [?.».]), who were driving 
away their herds (E. Braunlich, Bistam Ibn Qais, 
Leipzig 1923). 

There is hardly any information on their con- 
version to Islam. In the first division of the popu- 
lation of al-Kufa Dabba seem to be missing. Men- 
tioned are only "the remaining Ribab". That is to 
say, Pabba together with Bakr and TayyP formed 
the quarter missing in the enumeration Tabari 1, 
2495. The bulk of the tribe emigrated to Basra. In 
the Battle of the Camel they fought against C A1I. 
Later on they belonged to the quarter, khums, of 
Tamim. The same applies to Khurasan, where the 
Tamim numbered (in 96/715) 10,000 warriors led 
by pirar b. Husayn, scion of the old leading family 
of Pabba. 

The part of the tribe remaining in Arabia used to 
camp in the region S.W. of modern Kuwayt. In 
287/900 308 Dabba joined the Basrian army against 
the East Arabian Carmathians, but suspecting 
coming defeat, deserted at a distance of a two 
days' march from Katlf. 

There is no outstanding poet amongst the Pabba, 
but a number of soldiers, judges and administrators 
in Umayyad and 'Abbasid times, e.g., Abu Hatim 
'Anbasa b. Ishaq, 238-242 AH governor of Egypt, 
a righteous man, the last Arabian ruling Egypt, 
and the last Amir had in prayer and hold Friday 

Bibliography: Ibn al-Kalbi, Diamhara, MS. 

London, ina-ii5b; Tabari, index; Ibn Sa c d, 

index; Mas c Qdi, Tanbih, 394; IbnHazm, Djamharat 

ansdb al- c Arab, ed. E. LeVi- Provencal, 194; 

Kindi, Governors and Judges of Egypt, ed. Guest, 

200-202; U. Thilo, Die Ortsnamen in der alt- 

arabischen Poesie, Schriften der M. Frh. v. Oppen- 

heim-Stiftung, 3, Wiesbaden 1958. (W. Caskel) 

al-PABBI, ABC BJA'FAR Ahmad b. Yahya b. 

Ahmad b. 'AmIra, an Andalusian scholar of the 

6th/i2th century. According to the information that 

he gives us in his works concerning himself and his 

family, he was born at Velez, to the west of Lorca, 

and he began his studies in Lorca. He travelled in 

North Africa (Ceuta, Marrakush, Bougie) and even 

reached Alexandria, but he appears to have spent 

the greater part of his life at Murcia. He died at the 

end of Rabi II 599/beginning of 1203. Of his 

writings only a biographical dictionary of Andalusian 

scholars is preserved, preceded by a short survey of 

the history of Muslim Spain which continues and 

completes the introduction of c Abd al-Wahid al- 

Marrakushl (Histoire des Almohades, ed. Dozy). In 

addition al-Dabbl was closely connected with the 

Diadhwat al-muktabis of al-Humaydl, which goes as 

far as 450/1058, and which he completed with the 

help of later biographical works. His collection of 

biographies, entitled Bughyat al-multamis fi Ta'rikh 

Ridjdl AM al-Andalus, was edited in 1885 by Codera 

and Ribera (vol. iii of the Bibl. Arabico-Hispana). 



Bibliography: Makkari, Analectes, ii, 714; 

Amari, Bibl. ar. sic, i, 437; Wustenfeld, Geschicht- 

schreiber, no. 282; Pons Boygues, Ensayo, no. 212; 

Brockelmann, S I, 580. (C. F. Seybold*) 

al-PABBI, ABC 'IKRIMA [see al-mufadpal] . 

DABIK, a locality in the 'Azaz region of 

northern Syria. It lies on the road from Manbidj to 

Antakiya (Tabari, iii, 1103) upstream from Aleppo 

on the river Nahr Kuwayk. In Assyrian times its 

name was Dabigu, to become DabekSn in Greek. It 

lies on the edge of the vast plain of Mardj Dabik 

where, under the Umayyads and 'Abbasids, troops 

were stationed prior to being sent on operations 

against Byzantine territory. The Umayyad caliph 

Sulayman b. c Abd al-Malik lived in Dabik for some 

time, and after his death and burial there in Safar 

99/Sept. 717 his successor c Umar b. c Abd al- c Az!z 

was appointed caliph. According to al-Mas'iidi, his 

tomb was desecrated by the 'Abbasids, but the 

version told by al-Shabushti conflicts with this 

(K. al-Diydrdt, Baghdad 195 1, 149). 

In the Ayyubid era pilgrims visited a monument 
called makdm Ddwud on Mt. Barsaya near Dabik. 
The spot today has the name NabI Dawud. 

"Dabik is known above all for the decisive battle 
which was fought there on 15 Radjab 922/24 August 
1516 between the armies of the sultan Kansuh al- 
Ghuri and the Ottoman sultan Selim I. The Ottoman 
artillery proved superior, the bravest elements of the 
Mamliik cavalry were decimated, and Kansuh 
himself was killed. The Ottoman victory paved the 
way for their occupation of Syria and Egypt. 

Bibliography: Baladhuri, Futuh, 171, 189; 
Tabari, index; Mas c udi, Murudj, v, 397 and 471; 
Harawi, K. al-Ziydrdt, ed. J. Sourdel-Thomine, 
Damascus 1953, 6 (trans, n); Ibn al- c Adim, 
Zubda, ed. S. Dahan, i, Damascus 1951, 41, 56, 
57, 63, 67; Ibn Shaddad, La Description d'Alep, 
ed. D. Sourdel, Damascus 1953, 29, 138-39; 
Yakut, ii, 513; G. Le Strange, Palestine under 
the Moslems, London 1890, 61, 426, 503; R. 
Dussaud, Topographie historique de la Syrie, Paris 
1927, 468, 474; M. Canard, Histoire des H'am- 
ddnides, I, Algiers 1951, 225; Wellhausen, Das 
arabische Reich, Berlin 1902, 165 ff. ; N. Jorga, 
Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, ii, Gotha, 1909, 
336; D. Ayalon, Gunpowder and firearms in the 
Mamluk Kingdom, London 1956, index. 

(D. Sourdel) 
DABlK (variant forms Dabka and Dabku) was 
a locality in the outer suburbs of Damietta, noted 
for the manufacture of high quality woven material, 
which it exported to the whole of the Muslim 
empire. The location of Dabik cannot be fixed more 
exactly. It is found mentioned along with other 
cities that have disappeared, such as Shata, Tinnis, 
or Tuna, which were probably on the islands of Lake 
Menzaleh. 

Fine cloths embossed with gold were made there, 
and, during the Fatimid period, turbans of multi- 
coloured linen. These textiles were so sumptious 
that dabiki soon became known, and its fame grew 
to such an extent that the word came to designate 
a type of material. Dabiki came to be manufactured 
more or less everywhere, at Tinnis and at Damietta, 
in the Delta, at Asyut, in Upper Egypt, and even 
in Persia, at Kazirun. The quality of the cloth made 
at Dabik must have dropped, because, according 
to al-Idrisi, although these materials were very fine, 
they could not be compared with those of Tinnis and 
Damietta, and this fact can already be deduced from 
the customs tariff of Djedda, given by al-Mukaddasi. 



DABlK — DABIR, SALAMAT 'ALl 



At the present moment, three fragments of 
material are known — one 'Abbasid and two 
Fatimid — that include in their inscriptions the name 
of Dablk. 

The place name is not mentioned by Ibn Mammati, 
who, however, mentions the dabiki. 

Ibn Dukmak (v, 89) and Ibn Dji'an (76; 'Abd 
al-Latif, Relation de I'Egypte, 638) mention a place 
calied Dablk in the province of Gharbiyya, but this 
cannot be the town in the Damietta neighbourhood, 
which these two writers treat separately (Ibn 
Dukmak, v, 78; Ibn Dji'an, 62 and 'Abd al-Latif, 
630). 

For the same reason of distance, one could not 
possibly identify the old Dablk with the modern 
Dabidj, twelve kilometres south of Sinballawayn, 
which could, on the other hand, well be the Dablk 
of Ibn Dukmak and Ibn Dji'an. 

Bibliography: Ya'kubi-Wiet, 194-195; Ibn 
Khurradadhbih g 3; Idrisi, Maghrib 186-187; 
Nasir-i Khusraw, 141; Mukaddasi, 54, 104, 193, 
443; Ibn Mamma ti, 81; Makrlzi, ed. Wiet, ii, 84; 
iii, 200, 215; iv, 82 (with a long bibliography), 
247; Le Strange, 294; Salmon, Introduction a 
I'histoire de Bagdadh, 136, 138, 140; J. Maspero and 
Wiet, Matiriaux pour servir a la glographie de 
I'Egypte, 178; R. B.Serjeant, Islamic Textiles, 
in Ars islamica, xiii, 89, 94, 97, 98, 100; xv, 76; 
Wiet, Tissus et Tapisseries, in Syria, xvi, 282- 
283; Kuhnel, Dated Tiraz Fabrics, 107; RCEA iii, 
902; vi, 2033, 2175. (G. Wiet) 

DABlL [see dwIn] 

DABlR, SALAMAT 'ALl, Mirza, LakhnawI, 
an Urdu poet, who devoted himself to writing 
and reciting highly devotional elegies on the death 
of the martyrs of Karbala. He was a son of Mirza 
Ghulam Husayn, who is claimed to be a grandson 
of Mulla Hashim Shirazi (a brother of the famous 
Ahli of Shlraz, d. 934/1536-7)- Salamat 'All was 
born in Ballimaran, Dihli on n Djumada I 1218/ 
29 August 1803; he accompanied his father as 
a child to Lucknow and there received a good 
education. He studied all the usual Persian and 
Arabic texts on religious and foreign sciences 
(manful wa ma'-kul) from well-known '■ulama' of the 
city. He had finished his studies by the time he was 18. 
He began to write poetry at an early age (c. 1230 or 
1232) and continued doing so along with his studies, 
under the guidance of Mir Muzaffar Husayn Pamir 
of Gurgaon. He soon acquired fame and won the 
appreciation of the rulers of Awadh, members of their 
family and the noblemen of the Court. For about 
60 years of his life he wrote marthiyas (elegaic poems). 
Towards the end of his life he became almost blind. 
He, therefore, gladly accepted the suggestion of 
Wadjid 'All Shah, then living in Calcutta in exile, 
that he should go there for treatment; he reached 
there about Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1290/c. Jan. 1874. A suc- 
cessful operation by a German eye-specialist, who 
was staying with Wadjid 'AH Shah in Calcutta, 
restored his sight. He returned to Lucknow, where 
he had spent the major part of his life, and which 
he had only left for short periods in the disturbances 
of 1857 he had moved to SItapur for a while; about 
1858 he went to Kanpur and in 1859 to 'Azimabad; 
he visited 'Azimabad again in 1292/1875 and died 
there on 30 Muharram 1292/8 March 1875, he was 
buried in his own house in a lane which is now known 
as Kuta-i Dabir, after him. In his old age he suffered 
much tribulation on account of his loss of sight, and 
he was grieved by the death of a grown-up son and 
of a brother. 



Dabir is described as a pious, ascetic, generous, 
hospitable and serious-minded person. As a poet he 
was extremely prolific, and had the gift of composing 
good verses quickly. His compositions consisted 
mostly of marthiyas, Saldms (for them see al-Mizan, 
485) and rubdHs (Haydt-i Dabir, i, 272). His rival 
in this genre of poetry was his contemporary Mir 
Anis, who appeared in Lucknow long after Dabir 
had established his fame as a poet. Their rivalry 
divided their admirers into two rival groups called 
Dabiris and Anisis and a considerable literature was 
produced on their comparative merits and failings 
(see, for example, Shibll Nu'mSnl, Muwdzana Anis 
wa Dabir, Agra 1907; Sayyid Nazir al-Hasan Fawk 
Radawi, al-Mizan, 'Aligafh n.d.; 'Abd al-Ghafur 
Khan Nassakh, Intikhdb-i Naks 1879; Mirza Muham- 
mad Rida Mu'djiz, Tathir al-Awsdkh; Mir Afdal c Ali 
Daw, Radd al-Muwdzana, etc. etc.). 

While Anis is usually praised for the simplicity 
of his style, easy flow of his verse, and his relatively 
eloquent (fasih) descriptions, Dabir is eulogized for 
his brevity, freshness of his poetical ideas (maddmin) 
and frequent and full use of rhetorical figures, and 
his touching laments and wailings (Urdu: bayn). As 
an Arabic and Persian scholar he drew freely on the 
literatures of these languages, incorporating in his 
poems materials taken from the Kur'an, hadith and 
the works on Makdtil, etc. (cf. a comparative view 
quoted in Hay. Dab., i, 290: The Mir is eloquent and 
sweet (fasih wa namakin)). The fact remains that 
it was due to the efforts of these two poets that 
marthiya attained such an important position in 
Urdu Poetry. 

Works: Most of Dabir's poems have been litho- 
graphed, though some are still unpublished. These 
editions are marred by interpolations, e.g., (1) an 
edition of marthiyas, in 2 vols. {Hay. Dab. i, 624); 

(2) Dajtar-i Mdtam, 20 vols. Lucknow 1897. For an 
analysis of the contents see Hay. Dab., i, 276 ff. 
These marthiyas etc. were lost in the disturbances of 
1957 and after, and were collected again later; 

(3) Mardthi-i Dabir, 2 vols. (ibid, i, 490, 493); 

(4) Marthiya-i Mirza Dabir, 2 vols., Lucknow 
1875-76 (several editions in the following years), 
Kanpur 1890-99 (several editions in the following 
years); (5) Marthiyahd-yi Mirza Dabir, Lucknow 
1882 (several editions in the following years)); 

(6) Abwdb al-Masd'ib, a prose work, relating to the 
story of Joseph, compared to the story of the 
martyr of Karbala, Dihli {Hay. Dab., i, 280); 

(7) RubdHyydt Mirza Dabir, Lucknow n.d., con- 
taining 197 rubdHs. A smaller collection of these was 
also published along with those of Anis in Agra. 

In his younger days the Mirza also composed 
three diwdns of ghazals, but later destroyed, lost or 
withdrew them. 

Bibliography: In addition to the references 
given in the text: Mir Muhsin 'Ali, Sardpd- 
Sukhun, Lucknow 1292/1875, 108; Mir Safdar 
Husayn, Shams al-Duhd, Lucknow 1298/1880-81; 
Sayyid Afdal Husayn, Thabit Radawi Lakhnawi, 
Haydt-i Dabir, Lahore, vol. i, 1913, vol. ii, 1915; 
Muhammad Husayn Azad, Ab-i Haydt, Lahore 
1883, 550-562; Ram Babu Saksena, A History 
of Urdu Literature, Allahabad 1940, 131 f. (Urdu 
version by Mirza Muhammad 'Askari, Lucknow 
1952, 248 f.) ; Abu '1-Layth, Lakhna'u kd Dabistdni- 
ShdHri, Lahore c. 1955, 690 f.; J. F. Blumhardt, 
Cat. of Hind. Printed Books in the Br. Mus., 
London 1889, col. 7, 6, 308, Suppl., London 1909, 
col. 421. (Mohammad Shafi) 



DABISTAN al-MADHAHIB — DABOYA 



DABISTAN al-MADHAHIB, "The school of reli- 
gions", a work in Persian describing the different 
religions of and in particular the religious situation in 
Hindustanin the nth/i7th century; it is the most 
complete account in the Persian language, later than 
the Baydn al-adydn (6th/i2th century), which is accu- 
rate but concise, and than the Tabsirat al-'-awdmm 
(7th/i3th century), written from the ShI'ite point of 
view. The sources of the Dabistan derive partly from 
the sacred books of the different religious persuasions, 
partly from verbal information given to the author, 
and partly from the latter's personal observations. In 
many chapters he also makes use of the earlier 
Arabic literature concerning these matters. First of 
all the religion of the Parsis is examined extensively ; 
then that of the Hindus; after some very short 
chapters concerned with the Tibetans, the Jews and 
the Christians, the author passes to the study of 
Islam and its sects; finally there are some chapters 
on the philosophers (the Peripatetics and the Neo- 
platonists) and on the Sufis. For a long time Muhsin 
Fan! was thought (mistakenly) to be the author of 
this work; in some manuscripts he is mentioned 
solely in his capacity as the author of a rubdH which 
is quoted (see trans, by Shea-Troyer, i, 3); it was 
certainly an enlightened believer in the Pars! 
religion who wrote the Dabistan, and we must 
probably accept those manuscripts which, in 
agreement with Siradj al-Din Muhammad Arzii (in 
a passage from his Tadhkira), attribute its com- 
position to Mubad Shah or Mulla Mubad (cf. also 
Ouseley, Notices, 182). It is apparent from the book 
itself that the author was born in India shortly 
before 1028/1619, went to Agra as a youth, spent 
several years in Kashmir and at Lahore, visited 
Persia (Mashhad) and acquired some knowledge of 
the west and south of India. The Dabistan was 
finished no doubt between 1064 and 1067/1654-57. 
Bibliography : Dabistan al-madhdhib (Calcutta 
1224/1809; other editions from Tehran, Bombay, 
Lucknow; The Dabistan or school of manners, 
trans. David Shea and Anthony Troyer, Paris 
1843, 3 vols, (not always accurate); J A, vi, (1845) 
406-11; Rieu, Cat. Persian Mss. of the British 
Museum, i, 141 & iii, 1081. (Useful references to 
other catalogues of manuscripts and to old 
translations of isolated chapters): Ethe, Cat. of 
the Persian Mss. of the India Office Library, i, 
no. 1369 (useful references to other catalogues of 
manuscripts). (J. Horovitz-[H. Masse]) 

pABIT. in Turkish zabit, an Ottoman term for 
certain functionaries and officers, later specialized 
to describe officers in the armed forces. In earlier 
Ottoman usage Ddbif seems to indicate a person in 
charge or in control of a matter or of ( ? the revenues 
of) a place (e.g. Ewkdf ddbiti, Wildyet ddbiti etc.; 
examples, some with place-names, in Halit Ongan, 
Ankara'ntn I Numarah $er'iye Sicili, Ankara 1958, 
index, and L. Fekete, Die Siydqat-Schrift, i, Budapest 
1955. 493 ff-! c f- th e Persian usage in the sense of 
collector — Minorsky, Tadhkirat al-Muluk, index). 
The term seems to have remained in occasional use in 
this sense until quite a late date (see for example 
Gibb and Bowen, i, 259, and Dozy, Suppl. s.v.). By 
the nth/i7th century, however, it was already 
acquiring the technical meaning of army officer. In 
a fa'ide inserted under the year 1058/1648-9 Na'Ima 
remarks that in the janissary corps the seniors of each 
oda are as ddbifs (ddbif gibidir) to the other soldiers 
(nefer), and proceeds to name the ranks of the 
janissary officers (Na'ima 4 , iv, 351). By the I2th/i8th 
century the term was already in common use in this 



sense {e.g. ResmI, Khuldsat al-IHibdr, 5, 'rididl we 
ddbifdn') and documents cited by Djewdet (i, 360; 
vi, 367 etc.). From the time of the westernizing 
reforms onwards it becomes the standard Ottoman 
equivalent of the European term 'officer'. In the 
Turkish republic it has been replaced by subay, but 
it remains current in the Arab successor states of the 
Ottoman Empire. (B. Lewis) 

PABT, assessment of taxable land by measure- 
ment, applied under the later Dihli sultanate and the 
Mughals; land so measured is called dabtl. See 
DarIba, 6. 

PABTIYYA, in Turkish zabtiyye, a late Ottoman 
term for the police and gendarmerie. Police duties, 
formerly under the control of various janissary 
officers, were placed under the jurisdiction of the 
Ser'asker {[q.v.] see also bab-i ser'asker!) in 1241/ 
1826, and in 1262/1846 became a separate admini- 
stration, the Dabtiyye Mushiriyyeti (Lutfl viii 27-8). 
At about the same time a council of police {medilis-i 
dabtiyye) was established, which was later abolished 
and replaced by two quasi-judicial bodies, the 
diwdn-i dabtiyye and medilis-i tahltik. After several 
further changes the mushiriyyet became a ministry 
{nezdret) of police in 1286/1870. On 17 July 1909 the 
name ministry of Dabtiyye was abolished and 
replaced by a department of public security (Emniy- 
yet-i 'Umiimiyye) under the Ministry of the Interior. 
Bibliography: 'Othman Nuri, Medielle-i 
Umiir-i Belediyye, i, Istanbul 1338/1922, 934 ff. 
Laws and regulations on police matters will be 
found in the Destiir, (French translations in G. 
Young, Corps de Droit Ottoman, Oxford 1905-6, 
and G. Aristarchi, Legislation ottomane, Constan- 
tinople 1873-88. See further Karakol, Shurta. 

(B. Lewis) 
DAB©YA (Dab6E), the founder of the 
Dabuyid dynasty in Gilan [q.v.]. The tribe 
claimed to be of Sasanid extraction through Dabuya's 
father, Gil Gawbara. Their residence was the town 
of Fuman [q.v.]. The dynasty clung to Zoroastrianism 
for a long time, and repeatedly defended the land 
against the Arabs, until the last ruler, Khurshidh II 
(758/60, 141 or 142 A.H.) had to flee before the 
superior force of the 'Abbasids, and put an end to 
his own life in Daylam (Tabari, iii, 139 f.). One of 
his daughters, whose name is unknown, became the 
wife of the Caliph al-Mansur. 

The names of the members of the dynasty are 
as follows: Daboe, 40 to 56/660-1 to 676.— His 
brother Khurshidh I, 56 to 90/676 to 709. — His son 
Farrukhan. 709 to 721-22, 90 to 103 A.H., who took 
the title Ispahbadh [q.v.] ("leader of the army"), and 
warded off an Arab assault in 717. — His son 
Dadhburzmihr (Dadhmihr), 103 to 116/721-22 to 
734. — His brother Saruya (Saroe), for a few months 
in 116/721-22.— Khurshidh II, the son of Dadh- 
burzmihr, 116 to 141 or 142/721-22 to 758-60 (see 
above). 

A dynasty descended from Dabuya's brother 
Padhuspan (title), ruled until 1567 and 1576 
respectively (from 1453 in two branches) in Ruyan 
[q.v.] and some neighbouring districts. 

Bibliography: Ibn Isfandiyar, TaMkh-i 
Tabaristan, Tehran 1942 (to which I had access 
only in E. G. Browne, An abridged translation of 
the history of Tabaristan .... by .... Ibn-i 

Isfandiyar Leiden and London 1905, index 

[GMS II]); Sehir-eddin's [= gahtr al-Din al- 

Mar'ashi's] Geschichte von Tabaristan ed. 

Bernhard Dorn (Mohammedanische Quellen ..... 
vol. i), St. Petersburg 1850, 319 ff.; idem, in Mim. 



- DADALOGHLU 



Ac. Imp. St. Pitersbourg, xxiii, 1877, 103; G. 
Melgunof, Das siidliche Ufer des Kaspischen 

Metres trans, by J. Th. Zenker, Leipzig 

1868, 48 if— Family trees: F. Justi, Iranisches 
Namenbuch (1895), 433/35; E. de Zambaur 
Manuel de ginialogie ....', Pyrmont 1955, 186- 
190. — Coins: A. D. Mordtmann in ZDMG xix 
(1865), 485; xxxiii (i879d), no. (B. Spuler) 
DACCA [see dhaka]. 

PAD, 15th letter of the Arabic alphabet, con- 
ventional transcription d; numerical value, according 
to the oriental order, 800 [see abdjad]. 

The definition of the phoneme presents difficulty. 
The most probable is: voiced lateralized velarized 
interdental fricative (see J. Cantineau, Consonantisme, 
in Setnitica, iv, 84-5). According to the Arab gram- 
matical tradition: rikhwa mad^hHra mufbaka. For 
the makhradi, the shadjriyya of al-Khalll (al- 
Zamakhshari, Mufassal, 2 M ed. J. P. Broch, 190, line 
20) is difficult to define exactly (see De Sacy, Gr.Ar.', 
i, 26, n. 1; M. Bravmann, Materialien, 48 and 51). 
The most plausible meaning for shadjr is 'commissure 
of the lips' according to al-Khaffl's own explanation 
(Le Monde Oriental, 1920, 45, line 8) : mafradj al-jam 
(repeated in Mufassal, ibid.; RadI al-DIn al-Astara- 
badhi, Shark al-Shdfiya, iii, 254, line 6) ; d is thus in 
the lateral position. 

SIbawayh represents d as a lateral simply, and thus 
describes the makhradi; 'between the beginning of 
the edge of the tongue and the neighbouring molars' 
(SIbawayh, Paris edition, ii, 453, lines 8-9): a 
retracted lateral, for this beginning is to be taken 
as starting from the root of the tongue, and lam 
follows d {ibid., lines 9-1 1; Mufassal, 188, line 
19). This does not indicate, for the peculiarity of 
istitdla of d, a great extent for the place of articu- 
lation but rather a dwelling on it, a special prolon- 
gation of it. In modern Arabic dialects the passage 
from d to / is known (Landberg, Hadramout, 637), 
but the almost universal treatment of d is its 
confusion with z (voiced emphatic interdental frica- 
tive), whose evolution it shares [see za 5 ]. One is 
thus led to include in the articulation of d an acti- 
vity of the tip of the tongue in the region of the 
teeth similar to the corresponding lateralized arti- 
culation of modern South Arabian (Mehri, Shkh awri. 
but not the lateralized occlusive of Sokotri), whence 
the definition proposed above. 

A lateral character is to be claimed for d, as N. 
Youshmanov, G. S. Colin, J. Cantineau, and others 
have done (J. Cantineau, Consonantisme, 84). The d 
phoneme of Classical Arabic continues an autono- 
mous phoneme of common Semitic which is even 
more difficult to define precisely. M. Cohen sees 
in it a consonant 'of the dental region of which 
the articulation was doubtless lateral: d [conven- 
tional transcription]. As an emphatic, this consonant 
may anciently have formed one of a lateral series 
(triad ?)' (Essai comparatif, 149). In Classical Arabic 
d is isolated. 

In ancient Semitic, the South Arabian inscriptions 
assign a special character (of unknown pronunciation) 
to the phoneme corresponding with the d of Classical 
Arabic. Geez does the same, but in the traditional 
nunciation it is a s; ( in South Ethiopic. It is repre- 
sented in Akkadian, Hebrew, and Ugaritic, by 
s, but in Aramaic by k in the oldest texts (preserved 
in Mandean), then by c ,a special evolution which 
represents a thorny problem. See the Table of 
correspondences in W. Leslau, Manual of Phonetics, 
328. 
For the phonological oppositions of the d phoneme 



in Classical Arabic see J. Cantineau, Esquisse, in 
BSL (No. 126), 96, 7th; for the incompatibles, ibid., 
134. In view of the latter, J. Cantineau would see 
in d a lateralized rather than a lateral consonant 
{ibid., no. 1). 

P undergoes few assimilations in Classical Arabic 
(see J. Cantineau, Cours, 69). 

The Arabs saw in d one of the khasdHs 'special 
features' of their language (Ibn Djinnl, Sirr sind c a, 
i, 222; al-Suyutl, Muzhir', i, 329) and boasted of it 
(see the line of al-Mutanabbi quoted by Ibn Diinni. 
ibid.). But SIbawayh (ii, 452, lines 14-5, 17 f.) already 
registers a corrupt pronunciation: al-ddd al-daHfa 
(M. Bravmann, Materialien, 53). In fact the arti- 
culation of dad has disappeared in the modern 
dialects and Kur'anic recitation and either z (voiced 
velarized interdental fricative) or d (voiced velarized 
dental plosive) is used, according to the treatment of 
the phoneme in dialect. 

In Persian and in Urdu, dad is a voiced alveolar 
fricative, and no differentation is made in pronun- 
cation between dh, z, d and z. 
Bibliography: in the text and s.v. HurOf 
al-Hidja 3 . (H. Fleisch) 

DADALOGHLU. ashik musa-oghlu weli, 19th 
century Turkish folk poet (i7go?-i87o?), was 
a member of the Afshar tribe which lived in 
the Taurus Mountains in S. Anatolia. His father was 
also a poet and took his makhlas from the same family 
name. It is said that for a time Dadaloghlu acted as 
imam in the villages and as secretary to the tribal 
chiefs. As a result of government action against his 
tribe, which rebelled because it was unwilling to 
undergo conscription or taxation, he was transported 
with the rest of the Afshars to the village of Sindel 
near 'Aziziyye in the province of Siwas (1866-8). It 
is difficult to establish how well founded are reports 
that at the end of his life he returned to the Cukurova 
region and recited his poems in the bazaars of 
Adana. His poems were not collected during his 
lifetime. Among them are to be found the chief 
forms of folk poetry such as tiirkii, koshma, semai, 
varsaght, and destdn. He embellished and enriched the 
story of Gene c Othman in a number of poems with 
a local setting. His poetry is harsh and emotional in 
manner and shows the pure and sincere feelings of 
a bold, daring, upright, and sensitive tribesman. 
From passages in his poems one can understand the 
warlike psychology and nomadism of the society in 
which he lived. He was one of the last powerful 
representatives of epic, lyric, and pastoral Turkish 
folk poetry and story-telling which had continued 
ever since the composition of Dedc Korhud and of 
which KSroghlu and Karadia oghlan are the leading 
examples. 

Bibliography: Djewdet Pasha, Tedhdkir, 
(Tadhkira 26-30), Istanbul Inkilap Kutiiphanesi, 
autograph; idem, Mahudat, in TOEM, 87-93, 1925 ; 
Ahmed Sukru, Dadaloglu, Halk Bilgisi Mecmuasi, 
i, 1928; Kopruluzade Mehmet Fuat XVllnci 
asir sazsairlerinden Kayikct Kul Mustafa ve 
Gene Osman hikdyesi, Istanbul 1930; Halid Bayri, 
Halk Bilgisi Haberleri, 1933; Ali Riza, Cenupta 
Turkmen Oymaklan, Ankara 1933; Sadettin 
Niizhet Ergun, Turk Halk Edebiyati Antolojisi; 
Taha Toros, Dadaloglu, Adana 1940; Cahit 
Oztelli, Koroglu ve Dadaloglu, Varlik Yayinlan, 
Istanbul 1953. Halide Hosgor, Halk edebiyatmda 
Kahramanltk Turkiileri, Istanbul University Li- 
brary, thesis 1 128 (unpublished); Semiha Kara- 
cabey, Dadaloglu, Istanbul University Library, 
thesis 1752 (unpublished). (A. Karahan) 



DADJADJA — al-DADJDJAL 



DAEJAEJA, the domestic fowl. The word 
is a noun of unity which, according to Arab 
lexicographers, may be applied to both the male 
and the female. Alternative pronunciations are 
dididdia and dudiddia. In more recent local usage 
(cf. Jayakar, Malouf), dididdjat al-bahr and dididdfat 
al-kubba denote certain kinds of fish, just as the 
corresponding Hebrew Jft. 

The animal, which is not mentioned in the Hebrew 
Bible, was known to the Arabs from pre-Islamic 
times. Djahiz reports (ii, 277 f.) that it was given to 
poets as a reward for their literary achievements. 
Although it eats dung, it is permitted as human 
food by Islamic law because the Prophet was seen 
partaking of it. 

The ample information on the fowl and its eggs, 
which is given in Arabic zoological writings, can 
partly be traced back to Aristotle's Historia Anima- 
lium. The fowl has no fear of beasts of prey except 
the jackal, an inherent enmity existing between the 
two. It is fearful at night and therefore seeks an 
elevated sleeping place. It shares the characteristics 
of both birds of prey and seed-feeding birds, since it 
eats flesh as well as grains. The hen lays, mostly one 
egg a day, throughout the year, except in the two 
winter months (in Egypt, according to Nuwayrl, 
all the year round without interruption) ; if she lays 
twice a day it is a portent of her approaching death. 
The chicken is produced from the white of the egg, 
while the yolk provides the nourishment for the 
embryo. From elongated eggs female chickens are 
born and males from round ones. Two chickens 
are produced from double-yolked eggs. If the hen 
while sitting hears thunder, the eggs are spoiled; 
if she is old and weak, the eggs have no yolk and 
produce no chickens. She also lays eggs without 
being covered by the cock (wind-eggs), but such 
eggs produce no chickens. When hens become fat 
they no longer lay, just as fat women do not become 
pregnant. 

The sources mention and describe several kinds of 
dadiddi, some of them reaching the size of a goose. 
Numerous medicinal uses of eggs, fat, bile, gizzard, 
dung, etc. are mentioned by Arab zoologists and 
pharmacologists, partly from classical sources. The 
meat was considered a wholesome food, although 
its continual eating was said to cause gout and piles. 
Half-cooked eggs were credited with special efficacy 
as an aphrodisiac. The significance of fowl when 
seen in dreams has been treated in pertinent works. 
The Arab astronomers give the name al-Dad[ddxa 
to the constellation of the Swan, which is also 
called al-JdHr. 

Bibliography: <Abd al-Ghani al-NabulusI, 
Ta'tir al-Andm, Cairo 1354, i, 220 f.; Damiri, s.v. 
(transl. Jayakar, i, 766 ff.) ; Dawfld al-Antaki, 
Tadhkira, Cairo 1324, i, 139; Djahiz, Hayawdn*, 
index; Ibn al-'Awwam, Fildha (transl. Clement- 
Mullet), ii/b, 242 ff.; Ibn Kutayba, <Uyun al- 
Akhbdr, Cairo 1925-30, ii, 71, 92 (transl. Kopf, 
44, 68); Ibshihi, Musta\raf, bab 62, s.v.; Kazwini 
(Wiistenfeld), i, 32, 413 f.; al-Mustawfl al- Kazwini 
(Stephenson), 70 f.; Nuwayrl, Nihdyat al-Arab, x, 
217 ff.; A. Malouf, Arabic Zool. Diet., Cairo 1932. 
index. (L. Kopf) 

al-DAEJEJAL, the "deceiver", adjective of 
Syriac origin, daggdld, joined to the word m'shiha or 
n'biyd (Peshitto, Matth., xxiv, 24). In Arabic, used 
as a substantive to denote the personage endowed 
with miraculous powers who will arrive before the 
end of time and, for a limited period of either 40 days 
or 40 years, will let impurity and tyranny rule the 



world which, thereafter, is destined to witness 
universal conversion to Islam. His appearance is one 
of the proofs of the end of time. The characteristics 
attributed to him in Muslim eschatological legends 
combine features from Christ's sermon to his disciples 
(Matth. xxiv, Mark xiii) with some elements taken 
from the Apocalypse of St. John of Patmos (xi 7, 
xii, xiii, xx 5-18, 8-10). 

These elements reappear in the pseudo-apocalyptic 
literature of later periods. After the invasions of 
the Huns, St. Ephraem makes him appear from 
Chorase (Chorasene, Khurasan), in his sermon on the 
end of time (Scti. Ephremi Syri, Sermo II de line 
extremo, trans. T. J. Lamy, iii, 187-214, §§ 9-13)- 
His essential activity is to lead the crowds astray, to 
accomplish miracles (short of restoring the dead to 
life), to kill Elias and Enoch, the two witnesses put 
forward by God against him — they will immediately 
come to life again — and finally to be conquered and 
dismembered at the coming of the Son. The Ps. 
Methodius (Monnmenta SS. Patr. Orthodoxographa 
graeca, Bale 1569, 99) speaks of a "son of the 
destruction" coming from Chorase, and finally 
perishing at the hands of the king of the Romans, 
before the Second Coming. In a similar passage, the 
relationship < being unconcealed, the Apocalypse of 
Bahira speaks in the same terms of one Ibn al-Halak 
who will perish at the hands of the angel of Thunder 
(MS. Arab. Paris, 215, f 171). 

Unknown in the Kur'an, the same figure appear? 
in Muslim traditions. Ibn Hanbal repeats the legends 
about the ass on which he rides, the sinners and 
hypocrites who attend him, his end before Jesus 
(iii, 867, iii, 238, ii, 397-98, 407-408). Similarly, in 
the Kitdb al-Fitan of the two Sahihs, there is a 
chapter Bab dhikr al-Dadffial, which describes him 
as a corpulent, red-faced man with one eye and 
frizzy hair, who brings with him fire and water, the 
water being of fire and the fire of cold water. The 
Prophet will have announced his coming and will 
have prayed to God for help against his fitna. Con- 
quering the world, he will be unable, at Medina (and 
Mecca), to cross the barrier formed by angels standing 
at the gates of the town (al-Bukhari, ed. Munlriyya, 
ix, 107-110). These traditions derive their details 
from St. Ephraem: he will bring with him a mountain 
of bread and a river of water, and also the episode, 
though condensed and distorted, of his meeting with 
Elias and Enoch (an upright man among upright 
men who will denounce him, and whom he will kill 
and bring to life again, but will be powerless to put 
to death once more). On his brow he will bear the 
mark Kafir (for detailed references see art. by 
Weusinck in Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, 67, and 
s.v., Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition). 

Later apocalyptic writings: the revelations of 
Ka'b al-Ahbar (Ms. Arab. Paris, 2602, f° 128 sqq., 
cf. f° 134 v°), Sayhat al-Bum fi hawddith al-Riim 
(ibid. f° 119, 120 v°), Shams al-Qhuyub fi handdis al- 
Kulub (Ms. Arab. Paris, 2669, f° 55n-56v°), and 
also the Christian pamphlet on the capture of 
Constantinople in 1204, repeating the old Revelations 
of Sibylla, daughter of Herael (Ms. Arab. Paris, 70, 
74, f 126 v° ff., 178, f° 175 H-), reproduce the 
description of Dadjdjal's coming, his false miracles, 
his conquests and his end. But clearly in the Muslim 
apocalypses it is at the hands of the Mahdi that the 
false claimant who had usurped his title is to perish, 
whilst the Revelation of Sibylla makes him die at 
the hands of Jesus, at the very moment of the end 
of time. These accounts insist upon Dadjdjal's 
beauty and powers of seduction, and repeat the 



L-DADJDJAL — DAFTAR 



episode of the righteous men denouncing him. The 
apocalypse of Sibylla believes that the decisive 
proof of his imposture is his inability to raise up the 
dead. 

In considering these eschatological documents it 
appears that, from the nth century at least until the 
16th century, Judeo-Christian traditions regarding 
Dadjdjal remained alive and formed an indispensable 
element in descriptions of the period preceding the 
Judgment. Conflating two traditions, c Abd al-Kahir 
al-Baghdadi, K. al-Fark bayn al-Firak (Cairo 1910, 
266 and 332-333) regards him as the ultimate term 
of comparison to describe false doctrine and going 
astray — though his sedition is only to last 40 days — 
and recalls that Christians believed that he would 
perish at the hands of Jesus who, in that way, would 
be converted to Islam after killing pigs, scattering 
wine and taking his place for prayer at the Ka'ba. 

The body of legend about Dadjdjal is completed 
by statements about his origin. Apocalyptic texts 
make him come from the most remote regions. In 
St. Ephraem and the apocalypse Shams al-Ghuyub 
(Ms. Paris, 2559), he comes from Khurasan (cf. Ibn 
al-Wardi, al-BIruni). According to Ps. Ka'b al- 
Ahbar and the Sayhat al-Bum (Ms. ar. Paris, 2502), 
he must come from the West. Geographers and 
travellers of the classical period state that he dwelt 
in the countries which the 'Adjd'ib al-Hind habitually 
peopled with extraordinary beings, following the 
traditions of the Alexander Romance. Generally it 
was the East Indies which were the chosen place, 
from the time of Ibn Khurradadhbih and al-Mas'udl 
to Ibn Iyas. A giant, false prophet, king of the Jews, 
representations of him vary according to the degree 
of literary information available or the predominating 
prejudices. It is interesting to note the allusion to 
the legend of Prometheus which makes him live 
chained to a mountain on an island in the sea 
(Mukhtasar al- l AdidHb, 130; al-Mas'udl, Murudi, iv, 
28) where demons bring him his food. (A. Abel) 

DAFlR, an important, purely nomadic camel- 
breeding Sunni (MalikI) tribe of south-western 'Irak, 
whose dira has been for the last 150 years in the 
steppe south of the Euphrates and Shatt al-'Arab 
from the neighbourhood of Zubayr to that of 
Samawa. Their immigration into 'Irak, dating from 
about 1220/1805, was caused by bad relations with 
the then powerful and fanatical rule of Ibn Sa'ud, 
who forcibly demanded their obedience. Their 
earlier history traces legendary origins in Nadjd 
and even in the Hidjaz; but in fact the modern 
tribe represents evidently a conglomeration of 
various badw elements from many parts of Arabia, 
more or less unified by the ruling family of Ibn 
Suwayt. Tribal traditions record many wars and 
raids of the usual Arab type, with the Mutayr, Ban! 
Khalid, Shammar and others. They were, while 
still in Nadjd, occasionally tributary to the Shammar, 
the Shavkh of Kuwayt, and the family of Ibn Sa'ud. 

Administratively, the Dafir are now grouped 
under the Uwd headquarters of Basra, but move 
seasonally into Kuwayt territory or that of Sa'udl 
Arabia. Their relations with the Turkish and 'Irak 
Goverments since the early I3th/i9th century have 
been fairly good, with lapses especially when they 
habitually looted caravans on the Nadjf— Ha'il 
road; and they have now lost much of their wild 
and inaccessible, though not their nomadic, character. 
Varying, but on the whole amicable, relations have 
been maintained with the Muntafik, their eastern 
and riverain neighbours; bad, with the Mutayr and 
Shammar and 'Aniza. The tribe was heavily 



involved in the serious raiding into 'Irak by Sa'udl 
(chiefly Mutayr) forces in the period 1340/1344 
(1921/25). 

Bibliography: 'Abbis al-'Azzawi, 'Ashd'ir al- 

c Irdk, Baghdad 1365/1937, vol. i; S. H. Longrigg, 

'Iraq 1900 to 1950, Oxford 1953. 

(S. H. Longrigg) 

DAFN al-DHUNCB [see Dhunub, dafn al-]. 

DAFTAR, a stitched or bound booklet, or register, 
more especially an account or letter-book used in 
administrative offices. The word derives ultimately 
from the Greek 8lcp6£pa "hide", and hence prepared 
hide for writing. It was already used in ancient Greek 
in the sense of parchment or, more generally, writing 
materials. In the 5th century B.C. Herodotus (v, 58) 
remarks that the Ionians, like certain Barbarians of 
his own day, had formerly written on skins, and still 
applied the term diphthera to papyrus rolls; in the 
4th Ctesias (in Diodorus Siculus ii, 32; cf. A. 
Christensen, Heltedigtning og Fortcellingslitteratur hos 
Iranerne i Oldtiden, Copenhagen 1935, 69 ff.) claimed, 
somewhat unconvincingly, to have based his stories 
on the (JaaiXixal 8icp06pai — presumably the royal 
archives — of Persia. The word also occurs in pre-Is- 
lamic and even pre-Christian Jewish Aramaic texts 
(V. Gardthausen, Griechische Paldographie', i, Leipzig 
1911, 91 f.; M. Jastrow,yl Dictionary of the Targumim 
etc. 1 , New York 1926, 304. Attempts to derive it from 
an Iranian root meaning to write (also found in dabir, 
diwdn) are unconvincing; on the other hand, in 
view of the testimony of the Arab authors, it is 
probable that the word reached Arabic via Persian. 

I. The Classical Period 

In early Islamic times daftar seems to have been 
used to denote the codex form of book or booklet, as 
opposed to rolls and loose sheets. It was at first 
applied to quires and notebooks, especially those 
said to have been kept by some collectors of tradi- 
tions as an aid to their memories ; later, when sizable 
manuscript books come into existence, it was applied 
to them also (N. Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary 
Papyri, i, Chicago 1957, 21-24; cf. Goldziher, Muh.St., 
ii, 50-52 and 180-1. Stories of personal libraries and 
record collections in the first century A.H. must be 
treated with caution, cf. the comments of J. Schacht 
on the spurious tradition of the archives of Kurayb, 
On Musi b. 'Uqba's Kitab al-Maghdzi, AO, 1953, 
xxi, 296-7. On the earliest Arabic papyrus quires 
see A. Grohmann, The Value of Arabic Papyri, Proc. 
of the Royal Soc. of Hist. Studies, i, Cairo 1951, 43 ff.). 

The creation of the first Islamic record office is 
usually ascribed to the Caliph 'Umar, who instituted 
the muster-rolls and pay-rolls of the fighting-men 
(see diwan). The initial form of these is not known, 
but before long they were probably kept on papyrus, 
which after the conquest of Egypt became the usual 
writing material in the administrative offices of the 
Caliphate. The papyri show that records of land, 
population, and taxes were kept in Egypt ; surviving 
documents include quires as well as rolls and loose 
sheets, though the latter seem to have been the 
usual form, and no quire in Arabic appears until a 
comparatively late date (see A. Grohmann, New 
Discoveries in Arabic Papyri. An Arabic Tax- 
Account Book, B IE, xxxii, 1951, 159-170. In general, 
the Umayyad Caliphs seem to have followed 
Byzantine bureaucratic practices, and kept their 
records on papyrus. This did not lend itself to the 
codex form. There was, however, also another bureau- 
cratic tradition. The Sasanids clearly could not have 
relied on supplies of imported Egyptian papyrus for 



78 DA] 

their administration, and made use of a variety of 
prepared skins as writing materials (cf. Ibn al-Nadim, 
Fihrist, 21). According to Hasan al-Kummi, quoting 
Hamadani on the authority of al-Mada'ini (Ta'rikh-i 
Kumm 180), the Sasanid Emperor Kobad kept a 
land-tax office at Hulwan; this is indirectly confirmed 
by Ya'kubi's story (Ta'rikh, ii, 258) of the procuring, 
in Mu'awiya's time, of lists of Sasanid domain lands 
from Hulwan (A. K. S. Lambton, Landlord and 
Peasant in Persia, London 1953, 15 n. 1). It is 
possible that some of the army lists of the earlier 
period, at least in the ex-Persian provinces, were 
already in codex form. Baladhuri (Futuh 450; ed. 
Cairo 1901, 455) has 'Umar say to the Banu c Adi 
"if the daftar is closed {yufbak) on you', and explains 
it as meaning "if you are registered last". Abu 
Muslim is said to have prepared a pay-roll called 
daftar instead of the usual diwdn of his followers in 
Khurasan in 129/766-7 (Tabari, ii, 1957, 1969; see 
further N. Fries, Das Heerwesen der Araber zur Zeit 
der Omaijaden, 1921, 9; W. Hoenerbach, Zur 
Heeresverwaltung der Abbasiden, 1st., xxix, 1949-50, 
263). These may, of course, be no more than a 
projection backwards, by later historians, of a term 
common in their own time, though it is significant 
that the first example comes from the East. 

According to the bureaucratic tradition, it was 
Khalid b. Barmak who, during the reign of al- 
Saffah, introduced the codex or register into the 
central administration. Until that time, says Diah- 
shiyari (fol. 45 b ; ed. Cairo 89) the records of the 
diwdns were kept on suhuf; Khalid was the first to 
keep them in daftars. Makrizi {Khi(a(, i, 91) goes 
further and says that the suhuf mudradja ( ? papyrus 
rolls, cf. Kalkashandi, Subh, i, 423 — adrddi min 
kaghid warak) which had hitherto been used were 
replaced by dafdtir min al-djulud — parchment 
codices. In the time of Harfln al-Rashid, Khalid's 
grandson, Dja'far b. Yahya al-Barmakl, was 
responsible, it is said, for the introduction of paper. 
In this story there is some element of exaggeration. 
An incident told by Diahshiyari (fol. 79 b; ed. 
Cairo 138) shows that under Mansur papyrus was 
still much used in government offices, and the 
supply from Egypt a matter of concern: it was still 
used under Harfln al-Rashid, and even as late as the 
time of Mu'tasim, an abortive attempt was made to 
set up a papyrus factory, with Egyptian workmen, 
in Samarra (W. Bjorkman, Beitrdge zur Geschichte 
der Staatskanzlei im islamischen Agypten, Hamburg 
1928, 7; A. Grohmann, From the World of Arabic 
Papyri, Cairo 1952, 23 ff., 45 ff-> 52; Corpus Papy- 
rorum Raineri Archiducis Austriae, iii, Series Arabica, 
ed. A. Grohmann, i/I, Allgemeine Einfuhrung in die 
arabischen Papyri, Vienna 1924, 32 ff., 54 ff., etc.). 
It is, however, broadly true that from the accession 
of the 'Abbasids the register in codex form came 
to be the normal method of keeping records and 

firmed and extended with the general adoption of 
paper from the 9th century onwards, and from this 
time the term daftar is in the main confined to 
administrative registers and record-books. The 
system of daftars seems to have been first elaborated 
in Iran and 'Irak. In Egypt papyrus remained in 
use until the 4th/ioth century, but the eastern 
form of daftar seems to have been introduced even 
before the general adoption of paper. Surviving spe- 
cimens of papyrus account-books in quire form 
(described by A. Grohmann, New Discoveries . . , and 
idem, N ew Discoveries . . II, BIE, xxxv, 1952-3, 159- 
169) tally fairly closely with literary descriptions of 



the daftar in eastern sources (see below). From Egypt 
the daftar spread to the western Islamic world. In 
373/985. al-Mukaddasi (239) found it worthy of note 
that the people of Andalusia had their account-books 
as well as their Kur'ans on parchment. (On writing 
materials see further ajiLD, kaghid, kirtas, rikk, 

WARAK). 

Types of Daftar. 

With the development of elaborate bureaucratic 
organizations, the keeping of daftars became a task 
calling for special skills and knowledge, and daftars 
of many different types emerge. The first sys- 
tematic account that we possess of the records 
and registers of a Muslim administrative office is 
that given by Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Kh w arizmI 
in the late 4th/ioth century. He enumerates the 
following : 

(1) Kdnun al-Kharddi — the basic survey in ac- 
cordance with which the Kharddi is collected. 

(2) Al-Awdradi — Arabicized form of Awdra, trans- 
ferred; shows the debts owed by individual persons, 
according to the Kdnun, and the instalments paid 
until they are settled. (On Awdrad± see V. Minorsky 
in his edition of Tadhkirat al-Muluk, London 1943, 
144; to be modified in the light of W. Hinz, Rech- 
nungswesen, 120 ff.). 

(3) Al-Ruzndmadi — day-book; the daily record of 
payments and receipts. 

(4) Al-Khatma — the statement of income and 
expenditure presented monthly by the Djahbadh. 

(5) Al-Khatma al-Didmi c a — the annual statement. 

(6) Al-Ta'ridi — an addition register, showing 
those categories {abwdb) which need to be seen 
globally, arranged for easy addition, with totals. 
Receipts for payments made are also registered here. 

(7) Al- c Arida — a subtraction register, for those 
categories where the difference between two figures 
needs to be shown. It is arranged in three columns, 
with the result in the third. Such is the 'Arida, 
showing the difference between the original and the 
revised figures, the latter being usually smaller, 
(that is, presumably, the estimates and the amounts 
actually received. This seems to be the meaning of 
asl and istikhrddi, rather than income and expen- 
diture, as assumed by Cevdet and Uzuncarsih. On 
istikhrddi in the sense of revision cf. Uzuncarsih, 
Medhal, 278 and Hinz, Rechnungswesen 18, On Asl 
cf. MawardI, al-Ahkam al-Sulfdniyya, ed. Enger 373, 
ed. Cairo 209. The expression dafdtir-i asl wa 
istikhrddi occurs in a text from Saldjuk Anatolia — 
O. Turan, Tiirkiye Selcuklart hakktnda Resmi Vesi- 
kalar, Ankara 1958, text xxvi). These are itemized 
in the first and second columns, with the differences 
between them in the third column. Grand totals 
are shown at the foot of each of the three columns. 

(8) Al-Bara'a — a receipt given by the Djahbadh 
or Khdzin [qq.v.] to taxpayers. (It is not clear whether 
Kh w arizml means a register of copies and receipts, 
or is merely naming the bara'a as a kind of document). 

(9) Al-Muwdfaka wa 'l-djamd'a — a comprehensive 
accounting {Jfisdb djami 1 ) presented by an c dmil on 
relinquishing his appointment. If it is approved by 
the authority to whom he presents it, it is called 
muwdfaka, if they differ, it is called muhdsaba. 

Passing to the registers of the army office {diwdn 
al-djaysh), Kh w arizmi lists: 

(10) Al-Djarida al-^awda? — prepared annually for 
each command, showing the names of the soldiers, 
with their pedigree (nasab), ethnic origin (djins), 
physical descriptions {hilya), rations, pay etc. This 
is the basic central register of this diwdn. 



(n) Radi'-a — a requisition (hisdb) issued by the 
paymaster (mu c (i) for certain troops stationed in 
outlying areas, for one issue of pay ((»«') on 
reference to the diwdn. 

(12) Al-Radi'a al-Dj.dmi l a — a global requisition 
issued by the head of the army office for each 
general issue (tama<) of army pay, rations, etc. 

(13) Al-Sakk — an inventory C-amal — cf. Dozy, 
Suppl. ii, 175) required for every (ama c showing the 
names of the payees, with numbers and amounts, and 
bearing the signed authority to pay of the sultan. 
The Sakk is also required for the hire of muleteers and 
camel-drivers. 

(14) A l-M u'dmara — an inventory of orders issued 
during the period of the (ama*, bearing at its end a 
signed authorization (idjdza) by the sultan. A similar 
mu'dmara is prepared by every diwdn. 

(15) Al-Istikrdr — an inventory of the supplies 
remaining in hand after issues and payments have 
been made. 

(16) Al-Muwasafa — a list C-amal) showing the 
circumstances and causes of any changes occurring 
(i.e.. transfers, dismissals, deaths, promotions, etc.). 

(17) A l-Diarida al-Musadidiala — the sealed re- 
gister. The Sidjill (seal) is the letter given to an 
envoy or messenger, authorizing him, on arrival, to 
recover the expenses of his journey from any '■Amil. 
The Sidjill is also the judicial verdict (mahdar) 
prepared by a Ifddi. 

(18) Al-Fihrist — a repertory of the inventories and 
registers in the diwdn. 

(19) Al-Dastur — a copy of the djamd'a made from 
the draft. 

Finally, Kh w arizml gives the names of three 
registers (da/tar) used by the scribes of 'Irak. They 
are (as given in the edition) (1) r-W^' 



(2) 



,vi 



(3) OjjjOJI 
The third is explained as a register of the land 
measurement survey (misdha). (Khwarizml, Mafdtih 
al- c Ulum, ed. Van Vloten, 54-8, cf. Mez, Renaissance, 
103, Eng. tr. 109, where however Mez's meaning 
is not very clearly rendered. An abridged Turkish 
paraphrase of Kh w arizml's text was made, in the 
light of Ottoman bureaucratic experience, by 
M. Cevdet, Defter, 88-91; there is also a rather more 
rapid Turkish summary by I. H. Uzuncarsili, 
Osmanh Devleti Teskil&hna Medhal, Istanbul 1941, 
479-480. This last has been translated into German 
by B. Spuler, Iran in fruh-islamischer Zeit, Wies- 
baden 1952, 338 n. 1). 

It is probable that Kh'arizmi's account refers to 
Samanid rather than 'Abbasid offices in this first 
instance. It is, however, almost certainly applicable 
in great part to 'Abbasid administration, and much 
of what he says is attested by passing references in 
the historians of 'Irak and Persia. 

Kh'arizmi's registers fall into two main groups, 
the fiscal and the military, which may now be con- 
sidered separately. 

Fiscal Registers. 

The most important register of the tax-office is 
the Kanun, the survey of land and taxable crops, 
(this would seem to be the meaning of the term 
kanun in MawardI, Al-Ahkdm al-Sultaniyya, ed. 
Enger 370, ed. Cairo 207). 

This served as the basis for the assessment and 
collection of the land-tax and was thus the main 
and authority for the department's 



79 



e term Kanun, already recognized 
by Kh'arizmi as arabicized Greek (yundniyya 
mu'arraba), was employed chiefly in 'Irak and the 
East, and was still in use in the 13th and 14th 
centuries, when it designated a kind of cadastral and 
fiscal survey (M. Minovi and V. Minorsky, Nasir al- 
Din Tusi on Finance, BSOAS, x, 1940, 761, 773, 781 ; 
Hinz, Rechnungswesen, 134 ff.). In later times the 
term hdnun in this sense seems to have fallen out 
of use, and was replaced by others. In Egypt the 
term mukallafa was used to designate the land survey 
registers, which were prepared by a mdsih, and 
arranged by villages (Grohmann, New Discoveries . . , 
163). According to Makrizi, Khi\at, i, 82, a new 
survey was made in Egypt every thirty years. (For 
specimens of [land-tax registers from Egypt, on 
papyrus rolls, see A. Dietrich, Arabische Papyri, 
Leipzig 1937, 81 ff. (see further daftar-i khakanI, 
misaha, rawk, tahrir and tapu). 

The Riizndmadi or RuznamCe is mentioned in an 
anecdote attributed to the time of Yahya b. Khalid 
al-Barmaki. A Persian taunts an Arab with the 
dependence of Arabic on Persian for terms and 
nomenclature, "even in your cookery, your drinks, 
and your diwdns", and cites the word Riizndmadi, 
as an example in the last-named group. (Muhammad 
b. Yahya al-$ull, Adah al-Kdtib, Cairo 1341, 193). 
A passage in Miskawayh throws some light on how 
the Riizndmadi was kept, in the treasury, in early 
4th/ioth century Baghdad. In 315/927, he tells us, 
the wazir 'All b. 'Isa 'relied on Ibrahim b. Ayyub 
(a Christian treasury official, appointed head of the 
Diwdn al-Djahbadha in the following year — 'Arlb, 
Tab. Cont. 135; on him see also SOU, Ahhbar al-Rddi 
199; Hilal al-Sabl, Wuzard'', 136, 279, 296) to report 
to him on financial matters, to instruct the Treasurer 
(Sahib bayt al-mdl) concerning his daily disburse- 
ments, and to require of him the weekly presentation 
of the Ritzndmadidt, so that he might quickly know 
what had been paid out, what received, and what the 
deficit was (ma halla wa-md kabada wa-md bahiya). 
The previous practice in making up the account 
(khatma) had been to present a monthly statement 
to the diwdn in the middle of the following month'. 
(Tadidrib al-Umam, ed. Amedroz, i, 151-2). 

Two other passages in the same work indicate that 
the functionary in the treasury whose task it was to 
prepare the khatma was the Diahbadh [q.v.] (ibid., 
155 and 164. The rendering of these passages in the 
English translation of Miskawayh by D. S. Margo- 
liouth does not bring out their technical significance). 
Two documents of the time of al-Muktadir, quoted 
in the Td'rikh-i Kumm, shows how the Riizndmadi 
functioned in Kumm and Fars. Here the writer 
(Kdtib) of the Ruznamddi is distinct from the 
diahbadh, and is a government official. His task is 
to register the sums received in taxes and issue 
receipts, called Bard'a [q.v.], and to act as a kind of 
auditor on the operations of the Diahbadh (Ta'rikh-i 
Kumm, 149 ff.; cf. Ann K. S. Lambton, An Account 
of the Tarikhi Qumm, BSOAS, xii, 1948, 595; C. 
Cahen, Quelques problemes iconomiques et fiscaux de 
I'Iraq Buyide ... AIEO, x, 1952, 355. On the 
Riizndmadi see further F. Lokkegaard, Islamic 
Taxation in the Classic Period, Copenhagen 1950, 
149 and 159). In Ayyubid Egypt Ibn Mammati 
still includes the preparation of the Riizndmadi and 
the Khatma among the duties of the Diahbadh 
(Kitdb Kawdnin al-Dawdwin, ed. A. S. Atiya, Cairo 
1943, 304), For examples of Riizndmadi from Egypt 
see Grohmann, New Discoveries . . ; for a discussion 
of the systems of accountancy they reveal, C. Leyerer, 



Die Verrechnung und VerwaUung . . See further hisab 
and MUHASABA. 

Many scattered references to the daftars kept in 
'Abbasid offices will be found in the writings of 
Miskawayh, Hilal, and others especially interested 
in administrative affairs. Some idea of the scale and 
presentation of the accounts of the state may be 
gathered from a few individual balance sheets of 
imperial revenue and expenditure that have been 
preserved by the historians. The earliest, dating 
from the time of Harun al-Rashid, is preserved by 
Djahshiyari (fol. I79a-i82b; ed. 281-8) and, in a 
variant version, by Ibn Khaldun (Muk. i, 321-4= 
Rosenthal, i, 361-5. See further R. Levy, The Social 
Structure of Islam, Cambridge 1957, 317-320. 
A budget for 306/908 is given by Hilal, Wuzard', 
11-22, and was analysed, together with other sources, 
by A. von Kremer, Vber das Einnahmebudget des 
Abbasiden-Reiches, Denkschrift d. Phil. hist. Kl. d. 
Wiener Ak., xxxvi, 1888, 283-362. A statement of 
the revenues of the privy purse (Bayt mil al-Khassa) 
in the 4th/ioth century is given by Miskawayh 
(Mez 1 15-6. See further bayt al-mal). 

Military Registers. 

The muster-rolls of fighting-men date back to the 
beginnings of the Islamic state. These tribal rolls 
were, however, of quite a different character from 
the regular army lists described by Kh'arizmi. It 
may be that Abu Muslim was the first to introduce 
the daftar of soldiers; certainly the practice became 
general under the 'Abbasids. Besides Kh'arizmi's 
notes, we have a fuller description of the army 
lists kept in the diwan al-dfaysh in Kudama's 
treatise on the land-tax, and in a late anonymous 
treatise on tactics (Tr. Wustenfeld, in Das Heerwesen 
der Muhammedaner , Gottingen 1880, 1-7. Both are 
examined, with other evidence, by W. Hoenerbach, 
Zur Heeresverwaltung . . . 269 ff. See further <ata 5 ). 
Similar lists were kept in the diwan al-djaysh and 
diwan al-rawatib (army office and pay office) of the 
Fatimids in Egypt (Kalkashandl, Subh, vi, 492-3 = 
Wustenfeld, Die Geographie und VerwaUung von 
Agypten, Gottingen 1879, 190-1). The common term 
for the army lists was Djarida. 

Diplomatic Registers. 

Kh'arizmi's description is confined to financial 
and statistical registers — to accounts, inventories 
and the like in the tax and pay offices. Besides 
these there were also letter-books and other dip- 
lomatic registers, used in the chancery offices. 
A description of those kept in the Fa timid 
chancery {diwan al-rasdHl) is given by the Egyptian 
scribe Ibn al-Sayrafi (463-542/1070-1147). In the 
12th chapter of his Kanun Diwan al-RasaHl (ed. 
'All Bahdjat, Cairo 1905, 137-141, Fr. trans, by 
H. Masse in BIFAO, xi, 1914, 104-8; cf. kalka- 
shandl, Subh., i, 133-5, where they are given in a 
slightly different order, and Bjorkman, Beitrdge, 24-5), 
he considers the registers (daftar) and memoranda 
(tadhkira; Masse translates 'bulletin') which should 
be kept in this office, and the qualities of their 
keeper. This, he says is one of the most important 
tasks in the diwan. The registrar must be reliable, 
long-suffering, painstaking, and work-loving, and 
should keep the following memoranda and registers. 

(1) Memoranda (tadhdkir) of important matters 
(muhimmdt al-umiir) which have been dealt with in 
correspondence, and to which it may be necessary 
to refer. These memoranda ((tadhdkir) are much 
easier for reference than papers in bundles (adabir; 



Masse translates 'dossier'). All letters received must 
therefore, after being answered, be passed to the 
registrar, who will consider them and record what is 
needed in his memoranda, together with any reply 
sent. He will assign a number of sheets (awrdh) in 
his memoranda to each transaction (safka), with an 
appropriate heading. He will then register incoming 
letters, noting their provenance, date of arrival and 
contents, together with a note of the reply sent or, 
if such be the case, of the fact that no reply was sent. 
He will continue this to the end of the year, when he 
will start a new tadhkira. 

(2) Memoranda of important orders (awdmir) in 
outgoing letters, in which are noted also the contents 
and dates of arrival of replies received to them. This 
is to ensure that orders are not disregarded and left 
unanswered. 

(3) A register (daftar) showing the correct forms 
of inscriptio (alkdb), salutatio (du c d'), etc. to be used 
for various officials and dignitaries, as well as foreign 
rulers and other correspondents abroad, in different 
types of letters and diplomas. For each office or post 
(khidma) there should be a separate sheet (waraka 
mufrada) showing the name of its occupant, his 
lakab, and his du c d'. Changes and transfers must be 
carefully noted. 

(4) A register of major events (al-hawddith al- 
'azima). 

(5) A specification (tibydn) of ceremonial (tashrifdt) 
and robes of honour (khil'a), to serve as a model 
when required. This should show grants made, with 
sartorial details, and prices. 

(6) A repertory (fihrist), by year, month, and day, 
of incoming letters, showing provenance, date of 
arrival with a summary or, if needed, a transcript of 
the text. 

(7) The same for outgoing letters. 

(8) A repertory of diplomas, brevets, investitures, 
safe-conducts, etc. This is to be prepared monthly, 
accumulated yearly, and restarted each new year. 

Finally, Ibn al-Savrafi refers to the need to record 
Arabic translations of letters received in foreign 
scripts (khatO such as Armenian, Greek or Frankish. 

According to Kalkashandl (Subh, i, 139, cf. 
Bjorkman, Beitrdge, 39), these Fatimid registers were 
in general maintained in the Cairo chancery until the 
end of the 8th/i4th century. It is clear that this 
system of chancery registration and records originat- 
ed in the eastern lands of the Caliphate, and continued 
there in one form or another, through the Middle 
Ages. Its later development can be seen in the 
Ottoman Muhimme Defteri, Ahkdm Defteri, Tew- 
djihdt Defteri, TeshrifatdH KaUmi Defteri, etc. 

II. The Turkish and Mongol Period. 

In bureaucratic practice, as is in most other 
aspects of government and administration, the 
period of domination by the Steppe peoples, Turks 
and Mongols, brought noteworthy changes. Some of 
these may be due to Chinese influences, penetrating 
through the Uygurs, the Karakhitay, and above all 
through the Asian Empire of the Mongols. It seems 
likely that the system of registration owes something 
to East Asian examples (see for example Djuwayni, i, 
24-5 = Boyle, i, 33-4, and Rashid al-DIn, D[dmi c 
al-Tawdrihh, ed. Blochet, 39-40, 56-7; cf. ibid. 483 on 
the daftars of Pekin), but this whole question is still 
in need of further investigation. 

Despite some evidence of reorganization under the 
Great Saldjuks, the registrars and book-keepers of 
the Sultanate, as well as of Saldjukid Anatolia and 
Ayyubid Egypt, seem to have continued many of 



DAFTAR — DAFTAR-I KHAKANl 



the practices of the preceding period. What develop- 
ment there is seems to be in technical matters, 
especially in the collection and presentation of 
statistical data. Some idea of bureaucratic practice 
in the Sultanate of Rum can be obtained from 
Ibn BIbi, Al-Awdmir al-'AlaHyya, facsimile ed. 
Ankara 1956 (ed. N. Lugal and A. S. Erzi, part 1; 
Ankara 1937; abridgment, Houtsma, Recueil, ii; 
German trans. H. W. Duda, Copenhagen 1959; 
Turkish adaptation by Yazidjioghlu 'Ali, Houtsma, 
Recueil, iii). Registers were kept at the Diwdn-i 
A c ld, and dealt with land and tax matters. As new 
territories were acquired or recovered, new surveys 
were conducted (Ibn Bibi, 146, Antalya; 153-4, 
Sinop; 428, Akhlat). An addition by Yazldjioghlu 
(Recueil, iii 105 — not in Ibn Bibi) tells that during 
the reign of c Izz al-Din Kaykawus the office of 
Sdhib-i Diwdn and the care of the finance registers 
(emwdl defdtiri) were entrusted to Kh w adja Badr al- 
Din KhurasanI, 'who was unequalled in the lands of 
Rum in his knowledge of khatt, baldgha, insha', 
siydkat, and fiisdb' [qq.v.]. At the same time Kh w adja 
Fakhr al-Din c Ali Tabrizi was put in charge of 
insha' and maktubdt, and each of the 12 dajtars in 
the diwdn-i wizdrat entrusted to a competent master 
(ustdd). On another occasion the office of amir-i 
< drid was entrusted to Shams al-Din, also a specialist 
in insha' and siydkat (Ibn Bibi 127), Yazidjioghlu 
adds the explanation that this office involved the 
control of the military registers (teri defteri, Recueil, 
iii, 109. For similar appointments to the diwdn al- 
'■ard by Sandjar see K. 'Atabat al-Kataba, edd. Muh. 
Kazwini and 'Abbas Ikbal, Tehran 1329, 39-40, 72-3). 
Another passage in the same work {Recueil, iii, 210) 
speaks of 24 registrars, 12 in the diwdn-i wizdrat 
dealing with land and taxes, and 12 in the diwdn-i 
'arid dealing with the lists of soldiers, pay and fiefs. 
A poem cited by Yazidjioghlu (254-5), repeats these 
figures, but awakens doubt of their authenticity 
by linking them with the recurring figure 12 in 
the Oghuz legend. The same poem claims com- 
plete coverage in the registration of lands (Cevdet 
9i-3). 

From the II- Khanid period we have, for the first 
time, detailed treatises on public accounting. Two 
important works, the Sa'ddat-ndma of Falak c Ala-i 
Tabrizi (compiled 707/1307) and the Risdla-i 
Falakiyya of c Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Kiya 
al-Mazandarani (ca. 767/1363) were discovered and 
analysed by Zeki Velidi [Togan] (Mogollar devrinde 
Anadolu'nun Iktisadl Vaziyeti, THITM, i, 1931, 
1-42). A TImurid manual, written in Herat ca. 845/ 
1441, was discovered by Adnan Erzi (W. Hinz, Ein 
orientalisches Handelsunternehmen im 15 Jahr- 
hundert, Welt des Orients, 1949, 313-40) and a 
complete budget (Djdmi'- al-Hisdb) of 738/1337-8 
found by Z. V. Togan. The first two were studied in 
great detail by W. Hinz (Das Rechnungswesen), to 
whom we also owe a critical edition of the second 
of them (Die Resala-ye Falakiyya, Wiesbaden 1952). 

These works reveal a system of book-keeping based 
on seven main registers, as follows: 

(1) Ruzndma — 'Daybook', Arabicized form Riiz- 
ndmadi, also called Dajtar-i TaHik. 

(2) Dajtar-i Awdradja — cash-book, showing the 
balance of moneys in hand. 

(3) Dajtar-i Tawdjihdt — register of disbursements. 

(4) Dajtar-i Tahwildt — an off-shoot of the pre- 
ceding, dealing with disbursements for stocks and 
running expenses in state establishments and enter- 

(5) Dajtar-i Mufraddt — budget register showing 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



the income and expenditure by ci 









(6) Didmi'- al-Hisdb— the master-ledger, from 
which the annual financial reports were prepared. 

(7) Kdnun — the survey and assessment book, or 
Domesday Book of the Empire. 

(For a full discussion of these registers, and of the 
' ' ' ire, see Hinz, 



Rechnungswesen, 113-137). 



III. The Post-Mongol States. 

As in so many other respects, the Muslim states 
of the post-Mongol period seem to have followed, to 
a very large extent, the bureaucratic practices of the 
Il-Khans, some of which can be recognized as far 
afield as Mamluk Cairo, Ottoman Istanbul and 
Mughal Delhi. Of these states only one, the Ottoman 
Empire, has left a collection of registers that has 
survived to the present day, though individual 
dajtars have come to light in other parts. The 
Ottoman dajtars have been discussed elsewhere (see 

BASVEKALET ARSIVI, DAFTAR-I KHAKANl, DIPLOMATIC, 

muhimme defteri, sidjill, etc.), and need not, 
therefore, be described here. Numbers of Ottoman 
registers have also come to light in the ex-Ottoman 
territories in Europe, Asia and Africa. For a des- 
cription of their material form see L. Fekete, 
Die Siyaqat-Schrijt, i, 70 ff. 

Bibliography : For a general discussion see 
the unfortunately incomplete article of M. Cevdet, 
published in Osman Ergin's Muallim M. Cevdet'in 
Hayah, Eserleri ve Kiituphanesi, Istanbul 1937, 
appendix, 69-96; on finance registers C. Leyerer, 
Studien zum Rechnungswesen der arabischen Sleuer- 
amter, ArO, xii, 1941, 85-112; idem, Die Verrech- 
nung und Verwaltung von Steuern im islamischen 
Agypten, ZDMG, N.F. 28, 1953, 40-69; W. Hinz, 
Das Rechnungwesen orientalischer Reichsjinanz- 
amterim Mittelalter, Isl., xxix, 1950, 1-29, 113-141; 
on military registers W. Hoenerbach, Zur Heeres- 
verwaltung der Abbasiden, ibid,, 257-290. On 
Ottoman finance registers, L. Fekete, Die Siyaqat- 
Schrijt in der tiirkischen Finanzverwaltung, i, 
Budapest 1955, 67-110; on the Kadi's registers 
Halit Ongan, Ankara'mn I Numarah Ser'iye 
Sicili, Ankara 1958, and J. Kabrda, Les anciens 
registres turcs des Cadis de Sojia et de Vidin, ArO, 
xix, 1951, 329-392; on Safavid Persia V. Minorsky, 
Tadhkirat al-Muluk, London, 1943; on Central 
Asia, M. Yuldashev, The State Archives oj XIX 
century jeudal Khiva, in Papers by the Soviet 
Delegation at the xxiii. International Congress oj 
Orientalists, Iranian, Armenian and Central Asian 
Studies, Moscow 1954, 221-30. Some dajtars have 
been published in full. The earliest Ottoman 
survey register was edited by H. Inalcik, Hicri 
835 Tarihli Suret-i Dejter-i Sancak-i Arvanid, 
Ankara 1954; an Ottoman survey register of 
Georgia was edited by S. Jikia, Gurjistanis 
vilaiethis didi davthari. Dejteri mujassali vildyeti 
Gurcustan. Great register of the vilayet of Gurdji- 
stan. Vol. 1, Turkish text. Vol. 2, Georgian 
translation. Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk Gru- 
zinskoy SSR: Tiflis, 1941-1947. (B. Lewis) 
DAFTAR-I KHAKANl, the collection of 
registers in which were entered, during the Ottoman 
period, the results of the surveys made every 30 or 
40 years until the beginning of the nth/i7th century, 
in accordance with an old administrative and 
fiscal practice. 

The imperial registers or Dajtar-i Khdkdni con- 
sisted primarily of a list of the adult males in the 



DAFTAR-I KHAKANl 



villages and towns of the Empire, giving, by the side 
of their names and the names of their fathers, their 
legal status, their obligations and privileges according 
to the economic and social class to which they be- 
longed, and the extent of the lands which they 



These registers also contain a great deal of in- 
formation on the way in which the land was used 
(fields, orchards, vineyards, rice-fields, etc.), on the 
number of mills, on sheep and bee-hives, with an 
indication of their approximate fiscal value in 

Nevertheless the fiscal information contained in 
the registers is not confined to this agricultural 
inventory. They also refer to fisheries and mines as 
well as to the proceeds from customs, fairs, markets 
and weighhouses, with their locations, their regu- 
lations and the volume of the transactions carried out. 

We can also, by referring to the daftar-i khdkdni, 
obtain an exact idea of the distribution of the 
revenues of the country as between the imperial 
domain, the military fiefs, wakfs and private 
properties (mulk). These registers in fact constitute 
a survey showing the form of ownership of each 
estate with a summary of the successive changes 
which it underwent. 

The compilation of the registers arose from the 
administrative organization of the Empire. The 
great majority of Ottoman officials, both civil and 
military, did not draw salaries from the budget of 
the central government but were allowed, in return 
for their services, to levy taxes on a given region on 
their own account. Thus at the beginning of the 
ioth/i6th century the possessors of Hmars alone, 
whose numbers had risen to about 35,000, appro- 
priated more than half of the taxes levied on the 
territory of the Empire. This proportion moreover 
was to rise throughout the 17th century together 
with the number of timariots. 

In order for this system to operate successfully it 
was essential to know every detail of the different 
sources of the Empire's revenues, and to follow 
their modifications step by step through a given 
period. In this way it was possible to examine whether 
the emoluments, whose amounts were entered in the 
registers, and the deeds of grant (berdt [g.v.]) issued 
to the beneficiaries, tallied with the taxes they 
actually levied. During the period of expansion, 
when the population and the resources of the 
Empire were constantly increasing, the frequent 
surveys always disclosed new surpluses in the State 

But from the nth/i7th century onwards the 
central power, as a result of the anarchic mismanage- 
ment of State affairs, did not possess the authority 
necessary to carry out these surveys. The disorgani- 
zation of the institution of Hmars moreover rendered 
the value of these measures illusory. 

In addition to these "detailed registers" (daftar-i 
mufassal) in which were listed the results of the 
surveys, auxiliary registers were also required, in 
which were noted, as they occurred, changes in the 
distribution of the Hmars, thus avoiding the additions 
and corrections which would otherwise have had 
to be made in the "detailed registers". For the 
system in force at the beginning of the ioth/i6th 
century two or even three kinds of auxiliary books 

1. Daftar-i idimdl or "synoptic inventory". 
This register was a summary based on the detailed 
register, omitting the names of the inhabitants and 
giving the revenues only as lump sums for each unit. 



The idimdl can cover all classes of ownership in a 
sandfak, but is normally limited to one or two; there 
are thus idpndls of Hmars — i.e., nominal rolls of 
timariots, with brief statements of their holdings and 
revenues; idfmdls of domain, wakf, and mulk. 

2. Daftar-i derdest or "book of changes". This 
register was a list of the villages or towns consti- 
tuting the nucleus of the military fiefs. It showed 
the successive changes which each fief had under- 
gone and the authorities could, on consulting it, 
easily determine the fiefs escheated or without 



3. Daftar-i ruzndmle or "daybook", into which 
were copied as they occurred the deeds of grant 
(berdt) issued to new fief-holders. 

Each time a new survey was made, the old 
registers were replaced by new and consigned to the 
archives of the register-office (daftarkhdne). The 
greater part of the old registers were lost or destroyed 
during their removal from one repository to another. 
There remain nevertheless over a thousand in the 
Basvekalet Arsivi [q.v.] at Istanbul as well as a few 
in certain Turkish and foreign archives and libraries. 
Among these registers are some which date from the 
time of Murad II (824-55/1421-51) and of Mehem- 
med II the Conqueror (855-86/1451-81), and which 
allude to still earlier surveys. 

The archives section of the survey and land 
register office, at Ankara, includes a complete 
collection of the registers relating to the last surveys 
made during the reigns of the sultans Selim II 
(974-82/1566-74) and Murad III (982-1003/1574-95). 
To these registers have been added the results of the 
surveys made in such provinces as Crete, conquered 
after this date, or the Morea, recaptured from the 
Venetians. Even today this collection is, on rare 
occasions, consulted in lawsuits. 

In this collection the "detailed registers" number 
254, the "synoptic inventories" (idimdl) 116, the 
"books of changes" (derdest) 169, and the "daybooks" 
(ruzndmie) 1363 volumes. The "detailed registers'* 
contain about 300 pages, 15 cms. across and 42 cms. 

During the period of more than three centuries 
which has elapsed since the last survey, these 
records have been brought up to date each time it 
has been necessary to register the modifications 
which have occurred in the legal status of certain 
lands upon the creation of new wakfs. The fact that 
certain judgments made in favour of privileged 
individuals and relating to law-suits concerning the 
boundaries of villages and pastures have been 
entered in these registers only increases their value. 
Nevertheless it would be wrong to believe that all 
the transactions carried out by the registry office 
have found a place in these documents. 

Certain writers have suggested that the daftar-i 
khdkdni constitute a land-register. But in the 
system of domain-lands (arddi-i miriyye), the peasant 
has never been the owner of the land which happens 
to be in his possession, and he could not therefore 
dispose of the title-deed. He could indeed transfer 
the possession of the land which he occupied, but 
this act, which took place under the control and with 
the approval of the local lord (sipdhi), was not made 
the subject of an entry in the imperial registers. 
Only from the second half of the 19th century 
onwards was a land register, in the modern sense of 
the word, established in Turkey. 

Bibliography: 0. L. Barkan, Les grands 

recensements de la population et du territoire de 

I'Empire Ottoman, in Revue de la FaculU des 



DAFTAR-I KHAKANI — DAGH 



83 



Sciences Economiques de I' University d' Istanbul, 
ii, 1940, 21-34, 168-79; idem, Essai sur les donnies 
statistiques des registres de recensements dans 
I'Empire Ottoman aux XVeme et XVIeme siecles, 
JESHO, i, 1, 1957; B. Lewis, The Ottoman 
Archives as a Source for the History of the Arab 
lands, JRAS, 1951, 139-155; idem, Studies in 
the Ottoman Archives I, BSOAS, xvi, 3, 1954, 
469-501; H. Inalcik, Hicri 835 tarihli Suret-i 
dejter-i Sancak-i Arvanid, Ankara 1954; I- H. 
Uzuncarsih, Osmanh devletinin merkez ve bahriye 
teskilah, Ankara 1948, 95-110; L. Fekete, Die 
Siydqat-Schrijt in der tiirkischen Finanzverwaltung, 
Budapest 1955. See further basvekalet arsivi, 

DAFTAR, TAHRIR, TAPU. (0. L. BaRKAn) 

DAFTARDAR, in Turkish dejterddr, keeper of 
the dajtar [q.v.], an Ottoman term for the chief 
finance officer, corresponding to the Mustawji [q.v.] 
in the eastern Islamic world. According to Kalka- 
shandl [Subh, iii, 485, 494, 525, 526), the title Sahib 
al-Daftar already existed in the Fatimid admini- 
stration, for the official in charge of the Dajtar al- 
Madjlis, that is, of accounts and audits. The title 
Dajtarkh"dn — .Da/tar-reader — appears in the time of 
Saladin (B. Lewis, Three Biographies from Kamdl ad- 
Din, in Fuad KSpriilii Armagani, Istanbul 1953, 343), 
and reappears in the Muslim West (Makkari, 
Analectes, i, 660). The title Daftarddr seems to 
originate with the Il-khans, who appointed a daj- 
tarddr-i diwdn-i mdmalik or dajtarddr-i mamdlik to 
make and keep the registers (Uzuncarsih, Medhal, 
229-30; Koprulu, Bizans 204-5 ; Hammer, Geschichte 
der Goldenen Horde, Pest 1840, 497-501). 

The Ottoman kdnunndmes, from thegth/ijth cen- 
tury onwards, show the development of the office of 
dejterddr in the Ottoman Empire. In the Kdnunndme 
of Mehemmed II, the chief Dejterddr is already a high 
ranking official who, under the general supervision 
of the Grand Vezir, is the officer responsible (wekil) 
for the Sultan's finances (Kdnunndme-i Al-i '■Othmdn, 
TOEM suppl. Istanbul 1330, 10). He is named 
immediately after the Grand Vezir, and is comparable 
with him in status. At the Diwdn he sits immediately 
after the Grand Vezir and the two Kddi'askers, and 
shares with them the right to issue fermans on 
matters within his jurisdiction. He has the right of 
personal access to the Sultan, who rises to greet him 
{ibid., io-n, 16-17, 23-5). His duties include the 
presentation of an annual report or balance sheet 
of income and expenditure, for which he is rewarded 
with a robe of honour. His emoluments may be an 
appanage {Khdss [q.v.]) worth 600,000 aspers, or a 
Treasury stipend (sdlydne) of from 150,000 to 
240,000 aspers a year. In addition, the Dejterdars 
are entitled to a registration fee (hakk-i imdd) of 
1,000 aspers per load (yiik = 100,000 aspers) on all 
grants of Khdss. whether by farm or by commission 
(iltizdm or emdnet [qq.v.]; to a collection fee (Kesr-i 
mizdn) of 22 aspers per thousand on moneys paid 
into the Treasury, and to an issue in kind from the 
produce collected in tithes from the Imperial 
domains. On retirement they received a pension of 
80,000 aspers. (ibid. 28-9). The chief dejterddr 
(bashdejterdar) presided over a hierarchy of lesser 
finance officers; first the ordinary finance officers 
(Mdl dejterddri), then, under them, their adjutants 
{Dejterddr ketkhuddsl), and under them the registrars 
of timdrs (Timdr Dejterddri), all with a recognized 
and established ladder of promotion. From the time 
of Bayazid II the Bashdejterdar was concerned 
chiefly with Rumelia, and was also known as 
Rumeli Dejterddri. A second Dejterddr, the Anadolu 



Dejterddri, was appointed to deal with the revenues 
of Anatolia. In the early ioth/i6th century a further 
dejterddr's office was set up in Aleppo, to look after 
the remoter Asian provinces. Its head was called 
Dejterdar-i l Arab wa c Adiam. This office was later 
subdivided, with separate offices in Diyarbakr, 
Damascus, Erzurum, Aleppo, Tripoli, and elsewhere. 
In the mid-i6th century a separate office for 
Istanbul was established, and at the end of the 
century yet another for the Danubian provinces. 
This last was of short duration. The three main 
offices came to be known as the first, second, and 
third divisions (shifrk-i ewwel, thdni, thdlith) cor- 
responding to Rumelia, Anatolia, and the remoter 
provinces. A fourth division was set up by Selim III 
to deal with the budget of the new style army (see 
nizam-i djedId); it was abolished with the latter. 
In 1253/1838 the office of the Dejterddr was renamed 
Ministry of Finance (Mdliyye [q.v.]), but the term 
Dejterddr remained in use for provincial directors of 

Bibliography: Mehmed Zeki, Teshkildt-i '■Atikada 
Dejterdar, TTEM, 15th year, 1926, 96-102, 234-244; 
Kopriiluzade M. Fuat, Bizans Muesscselerin Os- 
manh Muesseselerine tesiri hakkmda bdzi Miild- 
hazalar, THITM, i, 1931, 201-5 (= M. Fuad 
Koprulu, Alcune Osservazioni intorno all' influenza 
delle Istituzioni bizantine sidle Istituzioni ottomane, 
Rome 1953, 44-8); Pakahn, s.v.; Gibb-Bowen, 
index ; Hammer- Purgstall, index; I A s.v. (by 1. 
H. Uzuncarsih). (B. Lewis) 

D AGH . the takhallus of Nawwab MIrza Khan 
(originally called Ibrahim, AHna-i Ddgh), one of 
the most distinguished Urdu poets of modern times. 
He was a son of Nawwab Shams al-Din Khan, 
ruler of FIruzpur Djhirka, and Wazir Begam 
(usually called Chou Begam). Nawwab MIrza was 
born in Candnl Cawk, Dihli on 12 Dhu 'l-Hidjdja 
1246/25 May 1831 (cf. his horoscope in Dialwa-i 
Ddgh, 9). When Shams al-DIn Khan was hanged 
(Oct. 1835) for his part in the murder of Mr. W. 
Fraser, Resident of Dihli, Nawwab Mirza Khan's 
mother remarried, and he went and lived in Rampur 
in 1844, because of the influence of his aunt, c Umda 
Khanam, a member of the harim of Nawwab 
Yusuf C A1I Khan. There he studied Persian with 
Mawlawl Ghiyath al-DIn. His mother, in the 
meanwhile (1844), entered the harim of MIrza 
Muhammad Sultan Fath al-Mulk (= MIrza Fakhra), 
a son and the heir-apparent of Abu Zafar Bahadur 
Shah. Nawwab Mirza (then 13 or 14 years old) 
also came to the Dihli Fort and received his 
regular education there. He studied the usual 
Persian texts, learned calligraphy from Sayyid 
Muhammad Amir Pandja Kash (d. 1857, Ghulam 
Muhammad, Tadhkira-i Khwushnawisdn, Calcutta 
1910, 71 t.) and MIrza c Ibad Allah Beg {ibid., p. 73); 
he also learned horsemanship and the use of various 
arms. But above all his sojourn in the Fort brought 
him into contact with the famous poets of the day, 
who assembled in the Fort for the mushd'-aras 
(poetical contests). This environment developed his 
latent aptitude for writing poetry. He began to 
write ghazals in Urdu at an early age and when 
Shaykh Muhammad Ibrahim Dhawk adopted him 
as his pupil, his genius blossomed fully. The tutorship 
of Dhawk lasted from 1844 to 1854 and in this 
period Dagh took part in the mushd'-aras. both of the 
Fort and the City. But Fath al-Mulk's death (10 July 
1856) forced him to leave the Fort. About ten months 
later followed the upheaval of 1857, after which 
Dagh once again went to his aunt in Rampur but 



tially visited Dihll and sometimes stayed there. 
When Kalb C A1I Khan succeeded Nawwab Yflsuf 
C A1I Khan (d. 21 April 1865) as Nawwab of Rampur, 
Dagh had the honour of becoming his companion 
(14 April 1866). He was also appointed Super- 
intendent (ddrugha) of the stables and carpet stores 
(farrdsh-khdna) at Rs. 70 p.m. Towards the end of the 
same year he had the privilege of accompanying the 
Nawwab to Calcutta and a few years later (1289/ 
1872-3) of performing the hadjdj in the retinue of 
the Nawwab. Rampflr in this period was a rendezvous 
of distinguished poets, such as Amir, Djalal, etc. 
(see Nigdr, 46) and Dagh had ample opportuni- 
ties of shining in their company. From here he 
visited Calcutta (and several other cities) in 
connexion with his love-affair described by him in 
the Farydd-i Ddgh (a mathnawi). The death of the 
Nawwab (23 March 1887) scattered many of the 
poets; Dagh resigned his post (July 1887), and a few 
months later left Rampflr (Dec. 1887), after serving 
the State for about 22 years. He visited Haydarabad- 
Deccan, and after some years, was appointed (26 
Djumada II 1308/6 Feb. 1891) the Ustdd or in- 
structor (in poetry) of the Nizam (Mahbub C A1I 
Khan), and in 1 309/1891 was paid Rs. 450/- p.m. 
(local currency) retrospectively from the date of 
his arrival in Haydarabad; this sum was raised to 
Rs. 1000 in 1312/1894 and he received many 
other favours. 

In 1 312/1894 he received from the Nizam the titles 
of "Bulbul-i Hindustan, Djahan Ustad, Nazim Yar 
Djang, Dablr al-Dawla, Fasih al-Mulk, Nawwab Mirza 
Khan Bahadur". He appears to have been signing his 
name only as Fasih al-Mulk Dagh Dihlawi (see Nuri 
opp. 12). His only son died at Rampur; he adopted 
a daughter. He had an attack of paralysis and died on 
9 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1322/14 Feb. 1905, and was buried 
on the 'Id day, in Haydarabad. "Nawab Mirza 
Dagh" is the chronogram of his death. Dagh was a 
tall person, with a somewhat pock-marked face and 
dark complexion, and he wore a beard. He had a 
pleasant personality, with a fine sense of humour, 
courtly manners, and an intense love of music. 

His works : Dagh composed four or five diwdns. 
The earliest, comprising his poems of the Dihli 
period up to 1857, is said to have been lost in that 
year, but was, later, partly rewritten by him from 
memory (Nflri, 89) ; others say that he had it in Ms. 
form with marginal amendments by Dhawk. The 
other diwdns were: Gulzdr-i Ddgh, Rampur 1296/ 
1878-9; Aftdb-i DagA, Lucknow 1 302/1884; Mahtdb-i 
Ddgh, Haydarabad-Deccan 1310/1893; Yddgdr-i Ddgh 
comprising his poems from 1310 till his death in 1322. 
The last one is said to have been lost, and was not 
published {Wdki'dt-i Dihli, ii, 451 f-)- Dagh's pupil 
Ahsan Marahrawi published in 1323/1905 what he 
could collect of the Yddgdr-i Ddgh (Kazimi, 208) to 
which an appendix was published at Dihli by Lala 
Sri Ram. The above five diwdns contain about 14,800 
verses mainly in ghazal form, but there are also 
kasidas, rubdHs etc. (Kazimi, 210). Dagh also published 
in 1300/1882 the mathnawi called Farydd-i Ddgh. He 
composed a diwdn-i muhdwardt also (more than a 
thousand verses) which was surrendered by his 
relatives to Asaf Djah VI. 

Dagh's prose: (i) Inshd-i Ddgh, his letters, 
collected and published by Ahsan Marahrawi, 
Dihli 1941; (ii) Zabdn-i Ddgh, his private letters 
collected and published by Rafik b. Ahsan Marah- 
rawi, Lucknow 1956. We may also mention Bazm-i 
Ddgh, (a diary compiled by Ahsan & Iftikhar-i 
<Alam, both of Marahra, who had stayed with Dagh 



for nearly 4 years from 15 August 1898 onwards) 
Lucknow 1956. The authenticity of these documents 
has been challenged (see Tamkin Kazimi, Ddgh, 
163 ff.). 

Several selections from Dagh have also appeared, 
viz. Muntakhab-i Ddgh (Allahabad 1939), Bahdr-i 
Ddgh, Lahore 1940, Kamal-i Ddgh (Agra), and 
Diwdn-i Ddgh or Intikhdb-i Ddgh (Lucknow). 

The art of Dagh: Dagh is famous for the 
purity and the charm of his diction, the easy and 
unaffected flow of his verse, and the simplicity and 
elegance of his style, all of which are especially 
suited to the ghazal. The artistic and realistic 
expression he gave to his amatory and other ex- 
periences made his appeal direct and vehement. His 
command of language is remarkable. He uses idio- 
matic phrases frequently and with masterly aptness 
(cf. Wali Ahmad Khan, Muhdwardt-i Ddgh, Dihli 
1944; the author collects 4464 such phrases, arranges 
them alphabetically with brief explanations and 
citations from Dagh; an earlier attempt by Ahsan 
in his Fasih al-Lughdt, on similar lines, remained 
incomplete and only a few were published in some 
issues of the Fasih al-Mulk magazine). Dagh made a 
powerful impression on Urdfl poetry, especially on the 
ghazal, which he made once again primarily a vehicle 
of emotional expression couched in easy and simple 
language, free from unfamiliar, harsh-sounding 
Arabic and Persian words, as used, e.g., by the 
school of Nasikh and Atish (cf. Nigdr, 19). In fact, 
he defined Urdu as the language which is free from 
Persianisms (Nflri, 65, 170; cf. Djalwa-i Ddgh, 142, 
for Dagh's conception of what good Urdfl poetry 
should be in form). Out of the three periods of his 
literary work, the earliest ends with his stay in 
Rampur. In this he had already acquired the main 
characteristics of his poetry, viz., a graceful and 
clear expression, — simple, fresh and forceful, and the 
boldness of his ideas. These were developed still 
further in the second or the Rampflr period, which 
is his best. His expressions become extremely sweet 
and elegant, almost unparalleled in Urdfl literature, 
and the novel, dramatic and bold ways in which he 
clothes his ideas with words is to be rarely met with 
in other poets (Kamdl-i Ddgh, 50 f.). These out- 
standing features are embodied in the Gulzdr-i Ddgh 
and the Ajtdb-i Ddgh. The last of the three periods, 
that of Haydarabad-Deccan, is the period of decay. 
The language is as correct, as perspicuous and 
smooth as ever, the composition is ingenious but 
there is nothing more. Towards the end, he became 
too fond of introducing in his verses idiomatic 
expressions. The characteristics of the period are 
to be seen in Yddgdr-i Ddgh. Dagh has been severely 
criticized for the low and degrading ideals which he 
consistently kept before himself when writing love 
poetry (cf. Cakbast, Maddmin-i Cakbast, Allahabad, 
1936, 69 f.), but his poetry to a considerable extent 
reflected the general trends of the effete society of 
his time (see Nigdr, 18, 49). 

He had numerous pupils in all parts of India 

(Djalwa-i Ddgh, 125; Nigdr, 28, 131), a fact which 

shows the great popularity which his style had gained 

in the country (but see Mir'dt al-Shu'ard*, ii, 36). 

Bibliography: Mirza Kadir Bakhsh. Sabir, of 

Dihli (wrote in 1270-71 A.H.), Gulistdn-i Sukhun, 

Dihli 1271, 220; c Abd al-Ghafur Khan, Nassakh, 

of Calcutta, Sukhun-i Shu'ard 1 (compiled 1269-81/ 

1852-64, Nawalkishor Press 1291/1874, 157; Amir 

Ahmad Minal, Intikhdb-i Yddgdr (comp. 1289-90/ 

1872-3), lithogr. 1297/1880, Part ii, 128; Nawwab 

S. Nflr al-Hasan Khan Bahadur, Tur-i Kalim 



DAGH — DAGHISTAN 



(comp. 1 297/1 880) Agra 1298/1881, Part i, 31; 
Nawwab S. 'All Hasan Khan Bahadur, Bazm-i 
Sukhun (comp. 1297 A.H.), Agra 1298 A.H., 46; 
'All Nadjaf of Rampur, Ghunla-i Iram (comp. 1299/ 
1881-2), Calcutta 1301/1883-4), 88; §aflr Bilgrami, 
Tadhkira Dialwa-i Khidr, Ara 1302/1884, i, 266; 
'AH Ahsan Marahrawi, Dialwa-i Ddgh (comp. 1319/ 
1901), Haydarabad 1320/1902; Nithar c Ali, 
Shuhrat, of Dihll, A'ina-i Ddgh, Lahore 1905; 
<Abd al-Djabbar Khan Sufi Malkapur, Mahbub 
al-Zaman (a tadhkira of the Deccan poets) comp. 
1326/1908, Haydarabad-Deccan 1329/1911, Vol. i, 
417; Sri Ram of Dihll, Khumkhdna-i Djdwid 
(comp. 1915-6), Dihll 1917, ii, 104-136; Ross 
Mas'ud, Intikhdb-i Zarrin (comp. 1912, Bada'un 
1922, 175 ; Talib of Allahabad, in Urdu (Quarterly), 
Awrangabad, April and July, 193 1; Djamil 
Ahmad, Urdu Shd'iri, Nawalkishor Press, 1931, 
161-65; Hakim c Abd al-Hayy, Gul-i Ra'nd* 
(comp. 1340/1921-2), A'zamgafh 1370, 417; c Abd 
al-SalSm Nadawi, Shi'r al-Hind, 'Azamgafh, i, 
301-23; R. B. Saksena, A History of Urdu Lite- 
rature, Allahabad 1940 (Urdu tr. MIrza Muhammad 
'Askari, Ta?rxkh-i Adab-i Urdu, Lucknow n. d., 
426-40); Djalal al-Din Ahmad Dja'fari, Ta'rikh-i 
Mathnawiyydt-i Urdu, Allahabad, 218-220; Hamid 
Hasan Kadiri, Kamdl-i Ddgh, Agra 1935; c Abd 
al-Shakur Shayda, of Haydarabad, Baydd-i 
Sukhun (comp. 1355/1936), Haydarabad 1936, 
162; Nur Allah Muhammad Nurl, Ddgh, Haydar- 
abad 1355 A.H.; Simab AkbarabadI, Haydt-i 
Ddgh; 'Abd al-Kadir Sarwari, Urdu Mathnawi kd 
Irtika' (comp. 1358/1940), Haydarabad, 123; 
Sh. c Abd al-Kadir, Famous Urdu Poets and 
Writers, Lahore 1947, 88-106; Bashir al-Din 
Ahmad of Dihll, WdkiHt-i Ddr al-Hukumat, 
Dihli 1337/1919. ». 447-459; Muhammad Yahya 
Tanha, Mir'dt al-Shu'-ard'', Lahore 1950, ii, 33-45; 
the Nigdr (magazine) ed. Niy8z Fathpuri, Ddgh 
Number, etc., Lucknow 1953; Rafik Marahrawi, 
Bazm-i Ddgh, Lucknow 1956; Aftab Ahmad Siddiki, 
Gulhd-yi Ddgh, Dacca 1958; Mawlana 'Arsh: Ram- 
purl, Kuih Ddgh ke muta'allak (1958; an article in 
Ms.); Wahid Kurayshi, Ddgh (i960; art. in Ms.); 
Tamkln KazimI, Ddgh, Lahore i960. 

(Muhammad ShafI) 
DAGHISTAN "land of the mountains"; this 
name is an unusual linguistic phenomenon, since it 
consists of the Turkish word ddgh, mountain, and of 
the suffix which, in the Persian language, distin- 
guishes the names of countries; this name seems to 
have appeared for the first time in the ioth/i6th 
century). An autonomous Republic of the R.S.F.S.R. 
with an area of 19,500 sq. miles and a population of 
958,000 inhabitants (1956), it is made up of two 
quite distinct parts: the Caucasian Range and the 
cis-Caspian Steppes, bordered in the north by the 
Terek and the Kuma, in the south by the Samur on 
one side and the Alazan, a tributary of the Kura, on 
the other. 

Before the Russian conquest, the mountainous 
part of Daghistan and the plain which lay beside the 
sea were never for very long united under the 
domination of one people or one dynasty. The 
coastal plain itself divided into two parts by the pass 
of Derbend, only 2 kms. wide. The southern section 
belonged principally to the civilized states of Asia 
Minor, while the northern section lay in the power 
of the nomadic kingdoms of southern Russia. Since 
history began, neither the people of the south nor 
those of the north have exerted any important 
influence on the ethnography of the mountain 



region. Before the establishment of Russian power, 
no foreign conqueror had succeeded in permanently 
subduing the inhabitants of this region. From time 
to time these people seized different parts of the 
coastal plain but each time these conquerors soon 
broke all political connexion with their brothers who 
remained in the mountains. 

The southern part of the coastal plain as far as 
Derbend belonged in ancient times to Albania. 
North of this region, probably in the mountains, 
dwelt some small tribes whom Strabo (ch. 503) called 
At)Y<*i or rrjXai. Both the Romans and the Persians 
who succeeded them in the 4th century had to defend 
the pass of Derbend against the nomadic peoples. 
The condition in which the Arab conquerors found 
these regions suggests that the culture of the Sasanid 
Empire and perhaps Mazdaism had some influence 
on the inhabitants of the neighbouring mountains. 
Some princes of these countries possessed Persian 
titles, e.g., the Tabarsaran-Shah, who governed a 
district west of Derbend. There also dwelt in Tabar- 
saran the Zirihgaran (from the Persian zirih, breast- 
plate), famous armourers whose funeral customs, 
described by Abu Hamid al-Andalusi {Tuhfat al- 
Albdb, ed. Ferrand, J A 207 (1925), 82-3; also text in 
Barthold, Zapiski VosM. Otdel. Arkheol. Obshcestva, 
xiii, 0104) and others, seem to owe their origin to 
Persian religious influence. It appears that Christian- 
ity began to spread in Albania in the 4th and 5th 
centuries and thence to the tribes in the steppes and 
mountains of Daghistan. 

In spite of the success of Arab arms in the north 
of Daghistan, notably under the Caliph Hisham 
(105-125/724-743), when Maslama b. c Abd al-Malik 
first established with some degree of permanence the 
Arab power at Derbend, this town nonetheless 
retained its importance as a frontier fort under the 
Arabs as under the Sasanids. There, as everywhere, 
close relations with the neighbouring peoples seem 
to have deepened in the wake of the Arab conquest. 
It was nevertheless the Christians and the Jews who 
first profited from this resurgence of activity, and 
only afterwards the Muslims. The Khazars are 
supposed to have adopted Christianity under the 
Armenian patriarch Sahak III (677 to 703 A.D.). 
In the time of Hariin al-Rashld (170-193/786-809), 
the Jews succeeded in winning to their faith the 
sovereign and the nobility of this people. 

The geographers of the 4th/ioth century furnish 
us with exact information on the ethnographic 
distribution of Daghistan and the spread of the three 
religions through this country. At that time the 
Arabs held, in addition to Derbend, the neigh- 
bouring castles which were only one farsakh or 
three miles away from the town, according to al- 
Mas'udi, ii, 40). A Muslim, son of the sister of c Abd 
al-Malik, amir of Derbend, ruled over Tabarsaran. 
Ibn Rusta (De Goeje ed., 147 ff.) relates that the 
sovereign of the neighbouring kingdom of Khaidan 
(a true account according to Marquart, Osteuropdische 
und Ostasiatische Streifziige, 492) professed the three 
religions simultaneously and observed Friday with 
the Muslims, Saturday with the Jews and Sunday 
with the Christians. In al-Mas'Odl (Murudj, ii, 39) 
the same prince appears as a Muslim and was even 
said to have had drawn up a genealogical tree 
showing his connexion with the Arab race. He was, 
however, the only Muslim initiate in his country. 
Further north reigned another Muslim, Barzb3n, 
prince of the Gurdj. North of his principality lived 
the Christian Ghumik; still further north lay the 
impenetrable mountains of the Zirihgaran, where 



the three religions each had their adherents, and 
finally the country of the Christian prince of Sarlr 
(which corresponds to present-day Avaristan), who 
bore the title of Filanshah or Kilanshah. According 
to Ibn Rusta, only the inhabitants of the royal 
castle, built on a high mountain, were Christian; the 
prince's other subjects were pagan. According to al- 
Istakhri, Sarir's frontier was only two farsakh away 
from the seaboard town of Samandar. Governed by 
a Jewish prince related to the king of the Khazars, 
Samandar lay four days' march from Derbend 
according to al-Istakhri, eight days' march according 
to al-Mas c udi. It was probably situated in the 
northern part of the coastal region where the town 
of TarkI or Tarkhu was later built. It is described 
as a flourishing city where there were, some say, 
4000, others, 40,000 vineyards; there the Muslims 
had their mosques, the Christians their churches, and 
the Jews their synagogues. On the west the country 
of Samandar bordered the land of the Alans. 

The Arabs seem to have given the name of Lakz 
(Lezgians) to the people of southern Daghistan, 
whose geographical position they do not elsewhere 
indicate with any precision. According to al- 
Baladhuri (De Goeje ed., 208), the land of the Lakz 
lay in the plain which stretched from Samur to the 
town of Shaberan, south of present-day Daghistan. 
According to al-Mas c udI (Murudj., ii, 5), on the other 
hand, the Lakz people dwelt in the highest mountains 
of the region. Among these were the "infidels" who 
were not subject to the prince of Shirwan. "Strange 
stories" went round about their family life and 
customs. The mention of Shirwan shows that al- 
Mas c udi imagined the country of the Lakz to lie in 
the mountainous region of upper Semur. At first 
the Russians only used the name of "Lezgians" for 
the tribes of southern Daghistan, as opposed to the 
"highlanders" of the northern territories or "Tawli", 
from the Turkish taw — mountain. 

During the succeeding centuries, Islam seems to 
have made but slow progress in Daghistan. In 354/ 
965, the power of the Khazars was shattered by 
the Russians. Then the southern part of this state 
itself suffered the ravages of war. It was the Christian 
Alans who, it seems, profited from this upheaval, 
for their territory, at the time of the Mongol conquest, 
stretched much further to the east than in the 
4th/ioth century. At the time of their first incursion 
into these countries, according to Ibn al-Athlr (xii, 
252), the Mongols encountered north of Derbend 
first the people of the Lakz who then included 
"Muslims and infidels", further north some other 
half-Muslim tribes — ancestors of the Avars — and 
lastly the Alans. According to William of Rubruk 
who visited these countries in November 1254, the 
mountains were inhabited by Christian Alans; 
"between the mountains and the sea" lived the 
Saracen Lezgians (Lesgi), that is to say Muslims; 
however Rubruk himself gave the name of "castellum 
Alanorum" to a fortress situated only one day's 
march north of Derbend. The Mongols at that time 
had still not succeeded in subjugating these tribes. 
It was necessary to assign to special detachments the 
defence of the passes leading from the mountains to 
the plain, in order to defend the herds grazing on the 
steppe against the raids of the highlanders (cf. Fr. 
M. Schmidt, Rubruk' s Reise, Berlin 1885, 84 if.). 

In the 13th and 14th centuries, the region which 
stretched to the pass of Derbend, and partially the 
territories situated to the south of this town also, 
formed part of the empire of the Golden Horde. It is 
in the history of the campaigns of Timur (797-798/ 



1395-1396) that the names of the two chief peoples 
of Daghistan, the Kaytak (or Kaytagh) and the 
Kazl-Kumuk (now Laks) appear for the first time 
in their modern forms. The territory of the Kaytak, 
next to the pass of Derbend, belonged to the empire 
of Tokhtamlsh. Sharaf al-DIn Yazdi {Zafar-ndma, 
India ed. i, 742 sqq.) describes the Kaytak as people 
"without religion" (bi-dtn) or of "bad faith" (bad 
kish) which shows that they were still not subject to 
Islam. According to Barbaro (Ramusio, Viaggi, ii, 
109-a), there were among the Kaytak even in the 
15 th century many Greek, Armenian or Roman 
Catholic Christians. On the other hand, the prince of 
the Kaytak (Khalfl Beg), mentioned by Afanasid 
Nikitin in his account of the voyage (1466), bore a 
Muslim name. 

The Kazi-Kumuk were Muslim and were regarded 
as the champions of Islam against the pagan peoples 
around them. Their prince was called Shawkal. 
North of the Kazi-Kumuk lived the Ashkudja 
(modern Darghins), who had not yet become Muslim. 
The account of Timur's campaigns also mentions the 
town of Tarki. Between the Kazi-Kumuk and the 
Kaytaks, and therefore in the land of the present-day 
Kobeii, dwelt the Zirihgaran who had retained their 
ancient fame as smiths and who offered to the con- 
queror coats-of-mail of their own making. 

The Timurid conquest and the Ottoman occu- 
pation (from 865-1015/1461-1606) marked the 
further advance of Islam into Daghistan. From the 
beginning of the ioth/i6th century, the Muslim 
faith won over the infidel populations in Daghistan, 
often by recourse to force. From this period dates the 
somewhat superficial conversion to Islam of the 
Darghine (Ashkudja) people and the permanent 
conversion of the Kaytak. The Avars as well were 
gradually brought over to Islam, but Christianity 
survived amongst them throughout the 15th century, 
whilst the Andis and the Didos peoples remained 
firmly pagan. The Zirihgaran (Kubacis), converted 
to Islam in the 15th century, preserved traces of 
Christianity until the end of the 18th century. The 
Lezgians were also superficially converted after the 
Timurid period. 

The Islamic conversion is not the only aspect of the 
historical evolution of Daghistan at this time, in 
which we must include the formation of the feudal 
principalities which provided Daghistan with the 
political structure which remained until the 19th 
century. 

The feudal principalities which appeared or deve- 
loped at that time claimed ancestry from the Arab 
conquest, but these fanciful allegations are today 
strongly disputed. 

The account of Timur's campaigns shows decisively 
that the situation in which the Ottomans found 
Daghistan during their short domination dates from 
the 9th-i5th to ioth/i6th centuries only. Nevertheless 
this situation has been carried back to the first 
centuries of the hidjra by a historical tradition only 
invented during this era. Just as the Jews, perhaps 
before the Arab conquest, had located in Daghistan 
certain events in their legends and history (cf. 
Marquart, Streifziige, 20), just as today those 
called Dagh-Cufut or "mountain Jews" still claim 
that their ancestors were formerly led into these 
regions by the conquering Assyrians or Babylonians, 
so also did the Muslim peoples all claim to have 
been converted to Islam by Abu Muslim and the 
princes all claim to be descended from the Arab 
governors whom he left in Daghistan. The title of 
Ma'sum, borne by the prince of Tabarsaran, was 



identified with the Arabic word ma'sum. Likewise 
Arabic etymologies were invented for the Kaytak 
title of usmi ("renowned", from ism = "name") 
and for the Kazi-Kumfik's shamkhdl. The word 
shamkhdl was alleged to derive from Sham = Syria. 
Another root was also found for this word, namely 
shdh-baH. It is not impossible that such etymologies 
also had some influence on the pronunciation of the 
titles in question. It is obviously not by chance that 
the title of the prince of the Kazi-Kumuk appeared 
in the oldest Russian documents in the same form 
(shewkal or shawkal) as in Sharaf al-DIn Yazdi. 
Clearly the Persians and the Russians could not have 
corrupted skdmkhdl into shawkal independently of 
each other; it is more likely if we assume that the 
present form of the title only took shape under the 
influence of the etymology described above. The 
subjects of the shamkhdl, the Kazi-Kumuk, claimed 
to have been distinguished under Abu Muslim as 
defenders of the faith and to have won at that time 
from the Arabs the title of "Ghdzi" or victors. 

Three great feudal principalities dominated 
Daghistan in the 9th-ioth/i5th-i6th centuries: the 
the Shamkhalat Kazi-Kumuk, the Osmiyat of 
Kaytak and the Ma'sumat of Tabarsaran. 

The first historical Kaytak prince who bore the 
title of usmi seems to have been Ahmad Khan, who 
died in 996/1587-88. He is credited with having foun- 
ded the village of Madjalis, where the representatives 
of the people assembled to discuss their affairs. He is 
supposed to have ordered the bringing together of 
the statutes of the popular law in a code to which 
the judges or kadis had to conform, a measure which 
was considered a "great audacity" (d±asdrat-i '■azima) 
by Mirza Hasan Efendi, the author of Athdr-i 
Ddghistdn, 65). 

Towards the middle of the eleventh century 
(1050/1640), a number of the Kaytak separated from 
their compatriots and proceeded to the regions south 
of Daghistan. Husayn Khan, leader of these emi- 
grants, succeeded in setting up a new principality 
at Saliyan and Kuba. The Ottoman traveller Ewliya 
Celebi {Siydhat-ndma, ii, 291 ff.) met these Kaytak 
emigrants in 1057/1647 between Shaki (today Nukha) 
and Shamakhi. The glossary compiled by Ewliya 
Celebi proves that the Kaytak did not then, as 
today, speak Lezgian but Mongol. 

The shdmkhdk of the Kazi-Kumuk (today the 
Laks) extended their domination little by little 
beyond their mountains north-east as far as the 
coast, into Turkish country (Kumlk). In the 10th/ 
16th century, these princes used to spend the winter 
at Buynak, a village on the coastal plain, and the 
summer at Kumukh in the mountains. In 986/1578 
at Buynak died the shamkhdl Cuban, whose posses- 
sions were then divided among his sons. These divi- 
sions naturally weakened the power of the dynasty. 
The Kazi-Kumuk who stayed in the mountains 
slowly proceeded to make themselves entirely 
independent of their ruling house. After the death of 
the shamkhdl Surkhay-Mirza, in 1049/1639-40, the 
shdmkhdk only ruled the coastal region, at Buinak or 
Tarkhu (Tarki). None of the later shdmkhdk ever 
returned to Kumukh, where the tombs of the first 
princes are still to be seen. 

It was at this time that the Russians revived their 
efforts to seize, after Astrakhan, the countries of the 
northern Caucasus, among them Daghistan. In 1594 
a Russian detachment commanded by Prince 
Khvorostinin succeeded in taking Tarkhu and in 
constructing a fortress on the Koi-Su or Sulak. It was 
not long, however, before the Russians suffered defeat 



by the sons of the shamkhdl and were compelled to 
withdraw over the Sulak. A fresh attack in 1604, 
directed by Buturlin and Pleshceev against Tarkhu. 
was still less successful. 

The period between the Ottoman occupation and 
the Russian conquest is distinguished in Daghistan 
by the flowering of the Arab culture which attained its 
zenith in the period of Shamil. During the 17th 
century a galaxy of Daghistan scholars gathered 
round Shaykh Salih al-Yamani (born in 1637— died 
at Mecca in 1696): his most famous disciple was 
Muhammad Musa of Kudatli, who disseminated his 
teachings in Daghistan and died in Aleppo in 1708. 
In the 1 8th century parties of Daghistan scholars 
went to Damascus and Aleppo to learn there the 
Arab language and the shari c a. This period of 
cultural renascence was also a period of juridical 
organization — a codification illustrated by the Code 
of Umma Khan, the Avar, and the laws of Rustum 
Khan, usmi of Kaytak. 

With this flowering of Islamic culture in the 
Arabic language there coincided on the political 
level an anarchic dispersion when Daghistan, divided 
into manifold clans and rival kingdoms, wavered 
between Turkish and Persian influence, passing 
alternately from one to the other. This political 
dispersion confirmed the weakness of Daghistan and 
inevitably provoked a foreign conqueror. 

From the 16th century onwards three powers, 
Persia, Turkey and Russia, claimed possession of 
Daghistan. The native princes allied themselves now 
with one, now with another, of these three powers. 
Not until the 19th century was the contest finally 
terminated, to Russia's advantage. After 986/1578 
the prince of Tabarsaran, following the example of 
the shamkhdl and of the usmi, made his submission 
to the Sultan. When, in 1015/1606, Shah c AbbSs 
restored Persian power in these regions, the usmi 
joined with him, whilst the shamkhdl remained loyal 
to the Turks. One of the clauses of the peace treaty 
concluded in 1021/1612 stipulated that the shamkhdl 
and the other princes loyal to the Porte would not 
suffer any reprisals on the part of Persia. The usmi 
Rustam-Khan having crossed over to the Turks in 
1048/1638, his rival the shamkhdl won the favour of 
the Shah, who confirmed him in his honours. He had 
moreover already received a similar investiture from 
the Tsar Michael {Athdr-i Ddghistdn, 81). 

When, under the feeble government of the Shah 
Husayn, the Safawid empire fell into decline, 
Daghistan itself became the stage for a movement 
directed against Persian domination. At the head of 
this movement there was Culak-Surkhay-Khan who 
had just founded a new principality in the land of the 
Kazi-Kumuk. Allied with the usmi and the mudarris 
HadjdjI Dawud, the leader of a pupolar movement, 
he succeeded in taking Shamakhi in 1124/1712. Then 
the allies sent to Constantinople an embassy which 
obtained for them robes of honour from the Sultan, 
titles and diplomas and the favour of being received 
into the number of the subjects of the Porte. It was 
then that the intervention of Russia altered the 
course of events. Three hundred Russian merchants 
had been killed at Shamakhi, and Peter the Great 
seized this as a pretext for intervention. He directed 
an expedition against Persia and occupied Derbend 
in 1722. Soon afterwards the other provinces on the 
west coast of the Caspian sea had themselves to 
submit to Russia. By the treaty of partition of 1724, 
Russia's rights over this coast were likewise recog- 
nized by the Porte. 

The Russian occupation was not at that time of 



very long duration. Nadir Shah succeeded in restoring 
the unity of the Persian empire, and Russia gave 
back to him, by the treaty of 1732, all the countries 
south of the Kura and also, by the treaty of 1735, 
the territory contained between the Kura and the 
Sulak. When the Russians had contrived to defeat 
an expedition of Tatars from the Crimea into 
Daghistan, the Porte likewise gave up its claims. 
As for the native population, it opposed the new 
Shah with unyielding resistance, especially in the 
mountains. It was only on the coast that Nadir 
Shah succeeded in establishing his power in any 
lasting fashion. In 1718 the shdmkhdl c Adil Giray 
had taken an oath of loyalty to Peter the Great and 
had aided him in his campaign of 1722 ", as, however, 
he later revolted against the Russians, he had been 
deported to Lapland in 1725 and the dignity of 
shdmkhdl had been abolished. Nadir Shah restored 
this dignity and conferred it on Khas Pulad-Khan, 
the son of c Adil Giray, The people of the mountains 
remained independent, owing to persistent attacks, 
particularly those of 1742 and 1744- 

After the murder of Nadir Shah in 1160/1747, 
Persia was for half a century without a government 
strong enough to maintain its power in this frontier 
region. The provinces of the empire themselves 
could not be defended against the incursions of the 
princes of Daghistan. In this way the town of 
Ardabil was sacked by the iismi Amir Hamza. In 
turn the Russians, in spite of the treaty of 1735, 
began to wield influence in Daghistan once more. 
The traveller Gmelin was captured in the country 
of the iismi and put to death in 1774, and in 1775 a 
Russian detachment commanded by Madem came 
and devastated the region. In 1784 the shdmkhdl 
Murtada 'All once more joined Russia. In 1785 the 
establishment of the post of governor of the Caucasus 
consolidated Russian domination over these countries. 
A religious movement instigated by Turkey and 
directed by Shaykh MansQr affected Daghistan only 
superficially; most of the princes refused to support 
the movement. 

The Kadjars, when they had succeeded in re- 
uniting all the Persian provinces in one empire, 
strove once more to annex the lands of the Caucasus. 
But this time Russia was not disposed to give up 
her claims without a struggle, as she had with Nadir 
Shah. The war began in the last year of the reign of 
Catherine II, in 1796. Derbend was occupied by the 
Russians but soon after evacuated by command of 
the Emperor Paul. In 1806 the town was recaptured, 
and this put an end to Persian domination in 
Daghistan. It was, however, only by the peace 
treaty of Gulistan, in 1813, that Persia finally 
renounced her claims over the country. 

The resistance offered to the Russians by the 
native princes and by their peoples in particular 
continued longer. In 1818 nearly all the princes of 
Daghistan, with the exception of the shdmkhdl, 
formed an alliance against the Russians. This 
rebellion was not put down by the Governor 
Yermolov without difficulty. The title of iismi of 
the Kaytak was abolished in 1819, that of ma'sum 
of Tabarsaran in 1828. After 1830 the princes who 
were allowed to remain accepted Russian officer 
advisers at their sides. The masses, excited by their 
preachers to a holy war against the infidels, resisted 
more tenaciously than their rulers. Since the end 
of the 18th century the adherents of the order of 
the Nakshbandiyya had penetrated into Daghistan 
and there disseminated their doctrines successfully. 
About 1830 the leaders of the order had stirred up 



among the Avars a popular movement directed both 
against the ruling house, against the intrusion of the 
infidels and in favour of the restoration of the 
shari'a in place of the l dddt. The chief leader of the 
rebels was Ghazi Muhammad [q.v.], called Kazi 
Mulla by the Russians and praised by his pupils as 
a great expert in Arab sciences ('uliim 'arabiyya). 

On 17th (29th) of October 1832, Ghazi Muhammad 
was surrounded and killed by a Russian detachment 
in the village of Gimri. His successor, Hamza Beg 
[q.v.] also died in 1834 near Khunzak. The third 
leader of the rebellion, Shamil [q.v.] was more for- 
tunate. The inferior of his predecessors in learning, 
he excelled them in his qualities of administrator and 
leader. For twenty-five years he maintained in the 
mountains the struggle against the Russians. He 
gained his greatest successes in the years 1843 and 
1844 when the Russians occupied only the coast and 
the southern regions. In the mountains many 
Russian strongholds had been taken by the high- 
landers. After 1849, Shamil was once more confined 
to the western part of the mountain region, but he 
continued the struggle for another ten years. 

After the fall of Shamil who, on 25th August 
(6th September) 1859, yielded to Prince Baryatinsky, 
the Russians restored for a while the authority of the 
Avar princes, deeming it opportune to consolidate the 
power of the princes and the nobility in order to 
destroy with their support the influence of the 
priesthood. But the Russian authorities soon 
abandoned this policy. The royal house of the Avars 
was dispossessed in 1862, and soon afterwards the 
other princes in their turn had to abdicate the 
semblance of sovereignty which still remained to 
them. The deposition of the shdmkhdl took place in 
1865. Daghistan was then given the organization 
which it retained until the Revolution of 19 17. In 
1877, during the Russo-Turkish war, the popula- 
tion took up arms again. On 8th (20th) September 
the rebels succeeded in taking the fortress of 
Kumukh. In Kaytak and Tabarsaran the descendants 
of the old ruling houses re-assumed the titles of iismi 
and of ma'siim. But meanwhile the war changed to 
the advantage of the Russians who soon put down 
the insurrection. 

After the extremely savage civil war in Daghistan 
(1917-20), the Soviet regime was set up in the autumn 
of 1920. On the 13th of November there was pro- 
claimed the Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic 
of Daghistan with Makhac-Kala for the capital. 

The population of this republic consists now of a 
majority of Muslims and a minority of non-Muslim 
immigrants : Russians, Ukrainians, Jews both 
autochthonous (Dagh-Cufut) and immigrant (Ash- 
kenazim). 

The Muslim population contains three great 
linguistic groups: 

I. The Ibero-Caucasians which divide into 
three sub-groups speaking languages distinct from 
each other: 

(a) The Avaro-Ando-Dido group (cf. avar, 
andi, dido and arCi), in 1959 268.000 strong in the 
northern part of mountainous Daghistan. It contains 
the Avar (or Khunzak) people, eight small Andi 
nationalities (Andis proper, Akhwakhs, Bagulals, 
Botlikhs, Godoberis, Camalals, Karatas and Tindis) 
inhabiting the high bowl of the Koysu of Andi, five 
small Dido nationalities (Didos proper or Tzezes, 
Bezeta, Khwarshis, Ginukhs and Khunzals) and 
the ArCis. 



DAGHISTAN — al-DAHHAK b. KAYS AL-FIHRl 



languages are not set down in writing, and form 
with them one sole Avar "nation". 

(b) The Darghino-Lak group (cf. darghin, 
lak, ^aytA?, kubaci) which numbered 222,000 in 
1959 in the west-central part of mountainous 
Daghistan, and which contain the Darghins (formerly 
Ashkudja), the Laks (formerly Kazl-Kumukh) and 
two small peoples, Kaytak and Kubaci (formerly 
Zirihgaran). 

The Darghin and the Lak possess literary langu- 
ages; the Kaytak and the Kubaii are without these 
and have merged into the Darghin nation. 

(c) The Samurian group in southern Daghistan 

(cf. LEZG, TZAKHUR, RUTUL, TABARSARAN and SHAH- 

dagh peoples), 279,000 strong in 1959, contain 
two nations with a literary language, the Lezgians 
(223,000) and the Tabarsaran (35,000), and three 
small peoples destined to merge into the Lezg 
nation: Agul (8,000), Rutul (7,000) and Tzakhur 
(6,000). To this group are connected the five peoples 
of Shah-Dagh (numbering about 15,000) in northern 
Adharbaydjan (Djek, Kriz, Khaputz, Budukh and 
Khinalug), who have been greatly influenced by 
Turkey and who are merging into the Adhari nation. 

II. The Turks are represented in Daghistan by 
the Adharls in the plain round Derbend and in the 
low valley of the Samur; by the Kumiks [q.v.] who 
numbered 135,000 in 1959 in the cis-Caspian plains 
north of Derbend to the Terek; and by the Nogays 
[q.v.] (41,000 in 1959) in the steppes between the 
Terek and the Kuma. The Kumiks and the Nogays, 
like the Adharls, possess literary languages. 

III. The Iranophone peoples are represented 
by the Tats [q.v.] who numbered several thousands 
around Derbend, and the mountain Jews or Dagh- 
Cufut (about 12,000) in the villages of the plain, 
Jewish in religion but speaking Tati. 

Daghistan is a multi-national republic, the only 
one in the Soviet Union which was not founded on 
one nation or one dominant nationality (narodnosV). 
In the terms of the Constitution (art. 78), she 
possesses ten official literary languages: Avar, 
Darghin, Lak, Lezg, Tabarsaran, Kumlk, Nogay, 
Adhari, Tati (in its Jewish form used by the Dagh- 
Cufut) and Russian. These languages are used as 
teaching languages in the primary schools, but of 
the autochthonous languages only Avar, Darghin, 
Lak and Kumlk have newspapers. It thus appears 
that these four nations are destined to become poles 
of attraction and that in the end they will absorb 
the other groups. 

Bibliography: As well as general works on 
the Caucasus, there is a rich literature on Daghistan 
in Russian. A bibliography (134 titles of works 
and articles) will be found in A. Bennigsen and 
H. Carrere d'Encausse, Une Ripublique sovietique 
musulmane: U Daghistan, aperfu dimographique, 
in REI 1955, 7-56, and another more complete 
version appended to the work Narodl Dagestana, 
Moscow, Acad. Sc, 1955 (137 titles of which 79 
are of pre-revolutionary works and titles and 58 
later than 1918); Turkish sources in I A s.v. (by 
Mirza Bala). For further details see the biblio- 
graphies of the articles on the peoples mentioned 
in the text. (W. Barthold-[A. Bennigsen]) 
AL-PAIJtlAS [see ZUHAK]. 

al-PA*HIAK B . SAYS al-FIHRI, Abu Unays 
(or Abu c Abd al-Rahman), son of a blood-letter 
(hadididm, Ibn Rusta, BGA vii, 215), head of the 
house of Kays. He is reported to have been of a 
vacillating character (dia'ala yukaddimu ridil'" wa- 
yu'akhkhiru ukhrd, Aghdni xvii, m) and this is 



borne out by his changing attitude towards the 
ruling Umayyad house, in which he proved easy to 
influence. He was a keen follower of Mu'awiya, first 
as head of the police (sahib al-shurta), and then as 
governor of the djund of Damascus. In the year 
36/656, al-Dahhak defeated the c Alid al-Ashtar 
near al-Mardj (between Harran and al-Rakka), and 
the latter had to retreat to Mosul. At Siffin, he 
commanded the Syrian infantry. In 39/659-60, 
Mu'awiya sent him against the 'Alids with 3,000 men. 
He went to the Hidjaz via al-Tha c labiyya, al- 
Kutkutana etc., and temporarily stopped the 
pilgrim traffic, until, at 'All's order, Hudjr b. c AdI 
al-Kindi, at the head of 4,000 men, forced him to 
retreat to Syria. In 55/674-5, or perhaps even in 
54, Mu'awiya nominated him as governor of Kufa, 
in succession to <Abd Allah b. Khalid b. Asid, but 
deposed him again in 58. In 60/680, Mu'awiya was 
dying, and made al-Dahhak and Muslim b. c Ukba 
joint regents; he dictated his last will to them, 
charging them to give it into the hands of his 
successor Yazld, who was away from Damascus at 
the time. Al-Pahhak led the prayer for the dead, 
and worked for the succession of Yazid, being 
recognized by him as governor. During his illness, 
Mu'awiya II had chosen him to lead the prayers in 
Damascus until such time as a new Caliph should be 

During the time of general strife and intrigue 
after the death of Mu'awiya II in 64/684, al- 
Dahhak— together with the governors of Hims and 
Kinnasrin — went over to the side of the rival caliph 
<Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr. At first he did this secretly, 
but later openly. Ibn al-Zubayr then made him 
governor of Syria, putting under him the other 
governors with pro-Zubayr leanings. Marwan b. al- 
Hakam, who had attended Mu'awiya IPs funeral, 
and was at that time the oldest and most respected 
of the Umayyads, considered the position so hopeless 
that he left for Mecca, to pay homage to Ibn al- 
Zubayr, and to intercede for an amnesty for the 
Umayyads. On the way, however, he met 'Ubayd 
Allah b. Ziyad in Adhri'at. The latter was on his 
way from 'Irak to Damascus, and reproached him 
severely, finally deciding him to turn back, which 
he did, going first of all to Palmyra. In Damascus, 
the crafty 'Ubayd Allah suggested to al-Dahhak 
that he should break with Ibn al-Zubayr, and 
become the head of the Kuraysh himself and be 
recognized as their ruler. Al-Dahhak succumbed to 
this temptation, but within three days he had to 
yield to the revolt of his followers, who could find 
no blame in Ibn al-Zubayr, so he veered over to his 
side again. These vacillations lost him the confi- 
dence of his people, and at the same time he naturally 
became an object of suspicion to the Zubayrids. At 
this point, <Ubayd Allah gave him the fateful advice 
to leave the town, to collect an army, and to fight for 
Ibn al-Zubayr. So he left — apparently at 'Ubayd 
Allah's instigation— and went to Mardj Rahit, whilst 
'Ubayd Allah himself remained in Damascus. Also 
at 'Ubayd Allah's instigation, Marwan accepted 
the homage of the people at Palmyra, married the 
mother of the two sons of Yazid, and asked Hassan 
b. Malik b. Bahdal al-Kalbi, Yazid's very powerful 
uncle, to come to Palmyra. When he refused, 
Marwan lost heart again, went to al-Djabiya where 
— after Hassan eventually gave up his position 
under pressure of the majority — he was elected 
caliph. After that, 'Ubayd Allah had him recognized 
in Damascus as well. 

In this way, it was possible for Marwan to lead 



90 



l-DAHHAK b. KAYS al-FIHRI — DAHLAK 



the warriors assembled in al-Djabiya, and all his 
followers from Damascus, against al-Dahhak. In 64/ 
684, a momentous battle took place near Mardj 
Rahit, lasting for 20 days and ending with a victory 
of the Kalb over the Kays. Al-Dahhak himself was 
killed in battle and his followers fled. His son c Abd 
al-Rahman b. al-Dahhak, however, became governor 
of Medina under Yazid b. <Abd al-Malik. Ibn 
c As5kir still knew the house and the beautiful bath 
of al-Dahhak near the city wall of Damascus 
(Ta'rikh Madlnat Dimashfr, ed. S. Munadjdjid, ii/i, 
Damascus 1954, 140), and even al-'Almaw! (died 
981/1573) tells of a mosque, supposedly that of al- 
Dahhak b. Kays, on the southern side of the citadel 
(H. Sauvaire, in J A, 9 e serie, tome vi, 1895, 442, and 
vii, 1896, 386). 

The course of events following the death of 
Mu'awiya II is by no means as clear cut as might 
appear from the above: accounts vary considerably, 
but Ibn Sa'd's report is, for factual reasons, the 
most acceptable on the whole. 

Bibliography: Ibn Sa c d, v, 27-30, vi, 13, 35; 
Tabari, i, 3283, 3447, ii, 170, 172, 181, 188, 197, 
202, 433, 468-74, 477-9, 482; Ibn al-Athlr, hi, 
317, 416, 426, iv, 5, 120-5; idem, Usd al-ghdba, 
Bulak 1286, 37 f.; Ya'kubi, ii, 229 f., 283 f., 304 f.; 
DInawarl, al-Akhbdr al-Tiwal (ed. Guirgass), 164, 
183 f., 192, 239 f.; Ibn Kutayba, Ma'drif (ed. 
Wiistenfeld) 33, 179, 210; idem, al-Imdma wa 
'l-Siydsa, Cairo 1356, i, 174, 177 f.; Mas'udI, 
Murudf, v, 198, 201; idem, Tanbih, 307-9; Ibn 
Abi Hatim al-RazI, al-Djarh wa 'l-Ta'dil, ii/i, 
(Haydarabad 1952, 457, no. 2019; Ibn Hibban, 
Mashdhir '■vlama' al-amsdr (Bibliotheca Islamica 
22), no. 368; Ibn Hadjar, Isdba (Cairo 1358) ii, 
199; Ibn c Abd al-Barr, Isti'db (printed together 
with the Isdba) ii, 197 f.; Diahiz. al-Baydn wa 
'l-tabyin II (ed. Harun), 131 f.; Ibn c Abd Rabbih, 
l IH, Cairo 1367-82, iii, 308, iv, 87 f., 362, 369, 
372-4, 391-7; Aghdni, xv, 44, 46, xvi, 34, xvii, 
in; Ibn Rusta, 209, 215; Wellhausen, Das ara- 
bische Reich, 107-112; Buhl, ZA, 27 (1912), 50-64; 
Caetani, Chronographia, 394 f., 442 f., 586, 598, 
608, 636, 654, 735, 737; Lammens, MFOB. iv 
(1910), 237, v (1911), 107, no; idem, Etudes sur 
le silcle des Omayyades, 203 f ., 207 ; idem, L'avlne- 
ment des Marwdnides et le califat de Marwdn I" 
(MFOB. xii, 1927, fasc. 2 passim, see index). 

(A. Dietrich) 
al-DAHHAK b. &AYS al-SHAYBAnI, Khari- 
djite leader, opponent of Marwan b. Muhammad 
(= Marwan II). During the disturbances which fol- 
lowed the murder of the Caliph al-Walld II, the 
Kharidiites resumed their campaign in Djazlra and 
pushed forward into c Irak, their leader at first 
being the Harurite Sa'id b. Bahdal, and, after his 
death of the plague, al-Dahhak b. Kays al-Shaybani, 
an adherent of the above-mentioned Ibn Bahdal. 
Several thousand fighters assembled under the 
standard of al-Dahhak; there were even among 
them Sufrites from Shahrazur, who, at that time, 
according to al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 209, were con- 
testing, with Marwan, the possession of Armenia 
and Adharbavdian. and there were also old women 
who, dressed in male armour, fought bravely in his 
ranks. For some months in 'Irak, two governors 
had been at war with each other; one of them, 
c Abd Allah, son of c Umar II [q.v.], represented the 
Caliph Yazid b. al-Walid (= Yazid II) and was 
supported by the Yemenites, and the other, al- 
Nadr b. Sa c Id al-Harashi, was the nominee of 
Marwan b. Muhammad, and had the support of the 



Mudarites. When the Kharidiites advanced, these 
two governors joined forces against the threat. In 
spite of their joint efforts, they were beaten in the 
month of Radjab 127/April-May 745, and al-Kufa 
was evacuated. Ibn al-Harashi returned to the 
domain of Marwan, and Ibn 'Umar withdrew into 
the fortress of Wasit, but in the month of Sha'ban 
of the same year, he was besieged there by al- 
Dahhak. After a few combats he ceased all resistance 
(Shawwal 127/August 745), and, although a Kuray- 
shite and a member of the ruling family, paid 
homage to the rebel. Ibn Kathlr, obviously struck 
by the enormity of this, diminishes its seriousness; 
he says that Ibn c Umar pressed the Kharidiite to 
oppose Marwan, promising to follow him if he 
killed the latter. Al-Dahhak, now master of al- 
Kufa, did not delay there; invited by the inhabitants 
of al-Mawsil, he entered that town and expelled the 
government officials (according to Ibn Kathlr, he 
marched against Marwan, and, on the way, he 
seized al-Mawsil, at the invitation of the inhabitants). 
It is certain that he was popular. The sources imply 
that people flocked to his banner because he 
paid extremely well, but the real reason must have 
been that the ideas of the Kharidiites filled the 
masses with enthusiasm; the movement had 
acquired towards the end of the Umayyad dynasty 
a scope and an intensity that it had never known. 
Al-Dahhak's army is said to have numbered 120,000 
men. Even the Umayyad Sulayman, son of the 
Caliph Hisham, took his place alongside the Khari- 
djites, with his mawdli and his soldiers, although 
they had proclaimed him Caliph. Marwan, then 
busy besieging Hims, asked his son c Abd Allah, 
whom he had left at Harran, to march against al- 
Dahhak, but c Abd Allah, beaten, retreated into 
Nislbin and was besieged there by the Kharidiite. 
Finally Marwan, who had meanwhile seized Hims, 
himself marched against al-Dahhak. The battle 
took place at al-Ghazz on the territory of Kafartutha 
(al-Mas c udi, Murudi, vi, 62: between Kafartutha 
and Ra 5 s al- c Ayn) towards the end of 128/Aug.- 
Sept. 746- Al-Dahhak fell in a fray, and his body 
was not discovered by Marwan's men until the 
following night. His successor, Khaybari, was also 
killed when he attempted to renew the attack. 

Bibliography: Tabari, ii, 1898-1908/1913- 
1917, 1938-1940 and index, Ibn al-Athir, v, 251, 
253-256, 265 ff., Ibn Kathlr, Biddya, Cairo 1348 ff.; 
x, 25 ff., 28; Theophanes, Chronographia, A. M., 
6236 ft.; M. J. de Goeje and P. de Jong, Frag- 
menta historicorum arabicorum, 1, 140, 158-160, 
163 ff. (from the Kitdb al-'Uy&n wa-l-hada>i% 
ft akhbdr al-hakd'ik) ; Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi, Mir'dt, 
MS British Mus. Add. 23,277, f- 229V ; J. Well- 
hausen, Die religios-politischen Oppositionsparteien 
im alten Islam, Berlin 1901, 49 ff.; ibid., Das ar. 
Reich, 242-244. (L. Veccia Vaglieri) 

DAHISTAN, erroneous spelling of Dihistan [q.v.]. 
DAHLAK Islands, a group of islands off the 
west coast of the Red Sea, opposite Musawwa c 
(Eritrea), with their centre about 40 10' E., 15° 45' N. 
Of about 125 islands, including tiny islets, rocks and 
reefs, the two largest are Dahlak al-Kabir and Nura. 
Others are Nokra, Dohol, Harat Kubari, Daraka and 
Dinifarikh. All are flat and low, with deeply in- 
dented coasts and scanty rain and vegetation; some 
are normally or seasonally inhabited, to a total in 
all of 1500 to 2500 persons, Tigre-speaking Muslims 
who closely resemble the Samhar coastal tribesmen. 
They represent an Ethiopian base with an admixture 
of Arabs, Danakil, Somalis and Sudanis. The islands 



afford miserable grazing for goats and camels, with 
some humble sea-trading, fishing, recovery of 
mother-of-pearl (and, in former times, pearls), and 
quarrying. The Italians, who used Nokra Island as 
a penal station for undesired politicians as well as 
prisoners, drilled unsuccessfully for petroleum in 
1357-59/1938-40. 

The derivation of the name is unknown; the 
islands are referred to to as *EXaia in Artemidorus 
and the Periplus, and as Aliaeu by Pliny. Occupied 
by the Muslims in the ist/7th century, Dahlak al- 
Kabir was used as a place of exile or prison by the 
Umayyad Caliphs (whose detenus included the poet 
al-Ahwas and the lawyer Arrak) and later by the 
'Abbasids. About the 3rd/9th century the islands 
passed under the Yamani coastal dynasty of Zabld, 
and in probably the 6th/i2th achieved independence 
as an amirate both wealthy (thanks to trade and 
ruthless piracy) and highly civilized, as many 
recovered documents and elegant Kufic inscriptions 
testify. Allied at times with (or menaced by) the 
Mamluks of Egypt, and with claims to rule part 
of the neighbouring mainland including Musawwa 1 , 
the Dahlak amirs (called "kings" by MakrizI) still 
fell intermittently under Ethiopian or Yamani 
suzerainty. The Amir ruling when the Portuguese 
appeared in 919/1513 was Ahmad b. Isma'Il, whose 
opposition to the newcomers was punished by a 
devastation of his islands; but he was later restored 
as a Portuguese vassal. Adhesion to the cause of the 
Muslim conqueror and liberator Ahmad Graft 
against the Portuguese led, after temporary success 
and the appointment of Ahmad Isma'U's successor 
as Governor of Harkiko, to a second devastation and 
a mass evacuation of the islanders. Reoccupied, the 
islands fell easily to the Turkish fleets later in the 
century, and their fortunes were thereafter those of 
rarely-asserted Turkish suzerainty, actual or 
nominal dependence on Musawwa c , and temporary 
Egyptian Government in the second half of the 
I3th/i9th century. When the Italians colonized 
Eritrea in 1885, the Dahlak Islands had long since 
ceased to offer any claims to interest. They became 
a Vice-Residenza, with headquarters at Nokra, in 
the Commissariato of Bassopiano Orientale. This was 
abolished as a separate administrative unit under 
the British occupation of Eritrea (1360-72/1941-52) 
and that of Ethiopia from 1372/1952 onwards. 
Bibliography: C. Conti Rossini, Storia 
d'Etiopia, Milan 1928, Vol. i; Issel, Viaggio nel 
Mar Rosso, Milan 1889; R. Basset, Les In- 
scriptions de Vile de Dahlak, in JA, Paris 1893; 
A. Pollera, Le Popolazioni indigene dell' Eritrea, 
Bologna 1935; G. Wiet, Roitelets de Dahlak, in 
BIE, 1952, 89-95. (S. H. Longrigg) 

DAflLAN, Sayyid Ahmad b. ZaynI, born in 
Mecca towards the beginning of the 19th century, 
was from 1288/1871 Mufti of the Shafi'Is and Shaykh 
al-'Ulamd' (head of the corporation of scholars and 
therefore of the body of teachers in the tjaram) in 
his native city. When the Grand Sharif 'Awn al- 
Raflk, because of a dispute with the Ottoman 
Governor 'Uthman Pasha, removed himself to 
Madlna, Dahlan followed him there but died soon 
afterwards from the fatigue of the journey in 1304/ 
1886. Particularly in his later years, Dahlan was very 
active as an author. He not only covered the tradi- 
tional Islamic sciences which were studied in Mecca 
in his time, but produced a number of treatises on 
controversial topical questions, and became the 
solitary representative of historical writing in Mecca 
in the 19th century. The most successful of his 



writings on traditional subjects were a commentary 
on the Adiurrumiyya (see ibn adjurrum) and an 
edifying biography of the Prophet, known as al-Sira 
al-Zayniyya, both of which were often printed. His 
al-Durar al-Saniyya fi 'l-Radd c ala 'l-Wahhdbiyya 
provoked a chain of pro-Wahhabl and anti-Wahhabl 
replies and counter-replies. His polemics against 
Sulayman Effendi, one of two rival Turkish shaykhs 
of the Nakshibandi tarika in Mecca, who competed 
for the leadership of the Nakshibandls in Indonesia, 
and against the learned shaykh Muhammad Hasab 
Allah of Mecca, whose scholarly reputation equalled 
his own were not free of personal interest. Of his 
works on history, al-Futuhdt al-lslamiyya, a history 
of the Islamic conquests until the time of the author, 
is remarkable for the light it throws on his attitude 
to the contemporary Mahdist rising in the Sudan, 
and his history of Mecca, Khuldsat al-Kaldm fi 
Baydn Umard* al-Balad al-Ifardm, until the year 
1095/1684 a short extract from the chronicle of al- 
Sindjari (Brockelmann, II, 502), is a most valuable 
source for the events in Mecca during the following 
two centuries, including the rise of the Wahhabls, 
their first rule over the Hidjaz, the fight of the 
Sharifs against them, the restitution of Ottoman 
rule by Muhammad C A1I, and the disorders in Djidda 
of 1274/1858. Being a friend of the family of the 
ruling Sharifs, Dahlan had access to the best written 
and oral information. The giving of fatwds formed, 
of course, an important part of his activities, and 
some of his decisions were incorporated in the 
current handbooks of Shafi'I doctrine; in his last 
years, however, he handed over this routine work 
to his assistant or amin al-fatwd, Sayyid Muhammad 
Sa c Id Babasel (Brockelmann, II, 650, S II, 811). 
Snouck Hurgronje has drawn a detailed picture, 
based on close acquaintance, of his person and 
background. 

Bibliography : Snouck Hurgronje, Verspr. 

Geschr., iii, 65-122 (with two extracts from the 

Khuldsat al-Kaldm) ; Brockelmann, II, 649 f., S II, 

810 f.; c Abd al-Hayy al-Kattani, Fihris al- 

Fahdris, i, 290-2; Sarkis, Mu'djam al-Matbii'dt, 

990-2. (J. Schacht) 

al-DAHNA 5 — in Sa'udi Arabia— a long, narrow 

arch of na/ud or dune desert, varying in width from 

10 to 75 km., extending around an eastward curve 

for a total length of over 1,000 km., connecting the 

Great Nafud of the northwest with the Empty 

Quarter (al-Rub c al-Khall [q.v.]) of the south, 

lacking in natural water sources except along the 

fringes, but furnishing a favourite area of pasturing. 

In the past separating the interior area of al- 

Yamama from the coastal region of al-Bahrayn, al- 

Dahna* today serves as an informal boundary 

between the Province of Nadjd and the Eastern 

Province (until 1953 the Province of al-Hasa or al- 

Ahsa 5 ). Its western edge formed a major sector of 

the westerly boundary of the petroleum concession 

granted in 1933 to American interests, although 

an area of potential priority extended still farther 

west. Beginning with the first well in 1957, an oil 

field has been discovered in the sand belt itself and 

adjacent easterly thereto — the Khurays field, some 

120 km. west of the immense Ghawar field and 

ca. 150 km. west of al-Hufuf (in the oasis of 

al-Hasa). 

Al-Dahna J is the easterly and much more conti- 
nuous of two parallel strips of sand desert extending 
from al-Nafud generally south-eastward (see Pja- 
zIrat al- c Arab, esp. p. 536 1 ). According to tribal 



toponymy it begins in the north-easterly Nafud 
projection some 50 km. west of Darb Zubayda, 
which crosses it roughly along the line of longitude 
43° 32' E., and ends far southward with the brownish 
Hrfcs of al-Duhm, which lie in the latitude of the 
district of al-Afladj (to the west) and the well 
Mukaynima (to the east), or just above 22° N. The 
final link with the southern sands is formed by the 
continuing band of c Uruk al-Rumayla, which joins 
the Empty Quarter slightly below the line of 20° N. 

The upper portion of al-Dahna' runs between the 
desert of al-Hadjara on the north and the upland of 
al-Taysiyya on the south, to the ancient channel of 
Batn al-Rumma (modern WadI al-Rumah— WadI al- 
Batin). Here, just south of the small WadI al-Adjradi, 
the Dahna' sands spread south-westward so as to be 
connected, through the nafud of al-Sayyariyyat, with 
those of Nafud al-Ma?hur and Nafud al-Thuwavrat 
in the westerly sand chain. Thereafter, al-Dahna' 
continues between and roughly parallels the two 
arcs formed by the low, stony plateau of al-Summan 
(classical al-Samman), a part of which is called al- 
Sulb, on the east, and the lofty escarpment of 
Djabal Tuwayk on the west, but is longer than 
either. Closer on the west is the escarpment of al- 
'Arama (not al- c Arma), which is much shorter, ending 
southward at the discontinuous channel of WadI 
Hanlfa— WadI al-Sahba', through which the sand 
belt is crossed by the Sa'Odi Government Railway, 
completed in 1951. Beyond this second great channel, 
al-Dahna 5 continues between the southerly Summan 
(Summan Yabrin, etc.) on the east, and the eastward- 
sloping, gravelly limestone region of al-Biyad on the 
west. Running on under the name of c Uruk al- 
Rumayla to join the sands of the Empty Quarter, 
the southernmost portion of the sand strip has to the 
east the gravel plains of Abu Bahr and Rayda', and 
to the west the lower part of al-Biyad and the ter- 
minal stretch of WadI al-Dawasir (here called WadI 
al-Atwa'). 

Narrower in its northern and southern terminal 
reaches, al-Dahna' attains its greatest width in the 
portion lying between the two ancient but now 
sand-choked wail channels, and exhibits here its 
most striking features. In the area of Hawmat al- 
Nikyan, which lies athwart the crossing of Darb al- 
Mubayhls above the line of 26 30' N., over 100 tall 
pyramidal dunes tower above the huge, long sand 
ridges and reach heights up to 175 m. These massive 
formations, which are also called "star dunes", 
seemingly ride upon the c tV£s, but they actually 
rest upon their own bedrock and are separated from 
the surrounding sand massifs by peripheral hollows. 

In normal seasons a choice pasture land to 
shepherds, al-Dahna' has been described by travel- 
lers as a difficult barrier, because of its long, high 
Hrks and its lack of water. The dread which it 
inspired in those who were strangers to it is reflected 
in the account of how in 12 A.H., during the Wars 
of the Ridda an expedition to al-Katif and Darin 
temporarily lost its camel transport during the night 
of crossing and was saved from death only by the 
miraculous appearance of a lake of sweet water. 
(Caetani, Annali, ii-2, 722, with refs. to al-Tabari, 
Ibn al-Athir, Yakut, and the Kitdb al-Aghdni). 

In addition to descriptions of Darb Zubayda 
with its chain of cisterns, we have, from Arabic 
sources, information regarding other and even 
earlier routes crossing al-Dahna'. However, the 
details of toponymy from a long-past era are often 
difficult to reconcile with those of the present, in 
which there are many changes. A motorable crossing 



(with connexions to Medina, Mecca, and al- 
Riyad) more or less follows Darb Zubayda between 
Birkat al-Djumayma, on the Sa c udI- c IrakI border, 
and the fialib of Zarud, in Shamat Zarfid south-west 
of al-TaysIya. Two motor crossings, which connect 
with this route and offer better travel to Zariid via 
the kalib of Turaba, branch from LIna (on the outer 
edge of al-Dahna', with old wells cut through stone; 
the junction of several motor and caravan tracks to 
al- c Irak). One leads first westward by Darb Una to 
Buraykat al- c Ashshar (beside Darb Zubayda, in al- 
Dahna'), and thence south-westward by Darb 
Kab'a. The other runs south-westward over barb 
Umm Udhn to Birkat al- c Ara'ish in al-TaysIya, and 
continues in the same direction via Darb Umm 
Tulayha to join Darb Kab'a and to cross c Irk al- 
Ma?hur north-west of Turaba. 

It is the presence of lasting wells which 
fringe al-Dahna', or lie sufficiently near, that 
has made it possible for the Badw to take advantage 
of the normally abundant pasturage of the sand 
belt. However, it is common for tribal groups, 
going forth with their camels, goats, and sheep 
■from summering places (mafrdyiz) at more distant 
wells or villages, to spend in al-Dahna' (as also in 
other sand deserts) all or most of the cooler 
portion of the year, keeping in their tents little 
or no water, and depending for sustenance on 
the milk from their animals. When rainfall has 
made the herbage plentiful and succulent, the 
animals, described as djawdzi or madjziya (classical 
verb: djaza'a, yadjza'u), often remain at pasture 
without watering for as long as four or even six 
months. 

The excellence and amplitude of the pastureland 
of al-Dahna' are described by Yakut, who says that 
it has been mentioned by many poets, especially 
Dh u '1-Rumma. 

Groups now pasturing regularly in al-Dahna' are 
of the following tribes: in the north, from al-Nafud 
to the wells of al-Bushuk, Shammar, and from al- 
Bushuk to WadI al-Adjradi and the zabaHr of al- 
Sayyariyyat, Harb; therefrom to Darb al-Mubayhls, 
Mutayr; thence to the crossings of the main north- 
south motor track and Darb al- c Ar c ari, Subay' (with 
also some of Suhul) ; thence through all the remaining 
portion of al-Dahna' and through c Uruk al-Rumayla, 
al-Dawasir. Groups of al-'Udjman and of Kahtan 
also range in the southern part of the pasture area of 
Subay' and the northern part of that of al-Dawasir— 
i.e., east of the wells of Hafar al- c Atk, Rumah and 
al-Rumhiyya, and Ramlan, al-Djafiyya, and Si'd. In 
addition, some of al-Sulaba range in the northerly 
area of al-Dahna'. 

There is little use in attempting to identify the 
"mountains" or "swords" of sand in al-Dahna' as 
mentioned by various sources, especially Yakut. 
The names have changed too much. Likewise, there 
is no profit in belabouring the question of the origin 
and meaning of the name al-Dahna' itself. The name 
has often been explained as meaning "red". For the 
root DHN, there persists the sense of paucity of 
moisture (as in dahan al-matar al-ard), from which 
may have been derived the senses connected with oint- 
ment and oil, including cooking-fat and, in modern 
times, oil-base paints. The people use c abl (or arid) — 
which grows widely in al-Dahna' — for tanning, but 
the resulting colour is expressed by If MR, not by 
DHN, which is reserved to the application of fat to 
make the leather pliable and soft. One association 
of redness in the language of the people concerning 
this desert may be found in the occasionally heard 



expression ard madhuna, which is explained as 
distinguishing the sands of al-Dahna', as of a 
brownish or a duller red, from those of al-Nafud, 
which are said to be of a lighter shade of red. At 
the same time, the people also equate ard madhuna 
with ard mundahina, land only lightly or superficially 
moistened by rain. 

Yakut, in both the Mu'djam and the Mushtarik, 
lists several other places and topographical features 
under the name al-Dahnd' or al-Dahnd. 

Bibliography (in addition to the geographers 
and historians mentioned above): Admiralty, A 
Handbook of Arabia, London 1916-17; anon., 
Hudud al-'-Alam (ed. Minorsky), London 1937; 
Ibn Bulayhid, Sahlh al-Akhbdr, Cairo 1370 A.H.; 
R. E. Cheesman, In Unknown Arabia, London 
1926; H. R. P. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 
London 1949; idem, Kuwait and Her Neighbours, 
London 1956; Ibn Djubayr, Rihla (ed. Wright), 
Leiden 1907; D. G. Hogarth, The Penetration of 
Arabia, London and New York 1904; G. E. 
Leachman, A Journey in Northeastern Arabia, in 
GJ, xxxvii, 191 1 ; idem, A Journey Through 
Central Arabia, in GJ, xliii, 1914; Roy Lebkicher, 
George Rentz, and Max Steineke, The Arabia of 
Ibn Saud, New York 1952; J. G. Lorimer, 
Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central 
Arabia, Calcutta 1908-15; Alois Musil, Northern 
Negd, New York 1928; W. G. Palgrave, Central and 
Eastern Arabia, London 1865; Lewis Pelly, A 
Visit to the Wahabee Capital, Central Arabia, in 
JRGS, xxxv, 1865; H. St. J. B. Philby, Across 
Arabia: from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, in 
GJ, lvi, 1920; idem, The Heart of Arabia, London 
1922; idem, The Empty Quarter, New York 1933; 
Barclay Raunkiaer, Gennem Wahhabiternes Land 
paa Kamelryg, Copenhagen 1913 (English trans, 
without maps and ills., Through Wahabiland on 
Camel-Bach, Arab Bureau, Cairo 1916; German 
trans, by W. Schmidt, Auf dem Kamelrucken 
durch das Land der Wahibiten, 1917); Ameen 
Rihani, Ibn Sa'-oud of Arabia, London 1928; 
G. F. Sadlier [Sadleir], "Account of a Journey 
from Katif ... to Yamboo . . ., Transactions . . . 
Lit. Soc. of Bombay, iii, London 1823; idem, 
Diary of a Journey Across Arabia . . . (comp. by 
P. Ryan), Bombay 1866; 'Umar Rida Kahhala, 
Djughrafiyat Shibh Djazirat al- c Arab, Damascus 
1 364/1945; Ferdinand Wiistenfeld, Die Strasse 
von Bacra nach Mekka . . ., in Abh. K. G. W. Gott., 
xvi, 1871; idem, Bahrein und Jemdma, nach 
Arabischen Quellen . . ., ibid., xix, 1874. 

Maps: Series by the U. S. Geological Survey 

and Arabian American Oil Company under joint 

sponsorship of the Ministry of Finance and 

National Economy (Kingdom of Sa'udi Arabia) 

and the Department of State (U.S.A.). Scale 

1 : 2,000,000: The Arabian Peninsula, Map 1-270 

B-i (1950). Scale 1 : 500,000 (geographic) : Southern 

Tuwayk, Map I- 212 B (1956); Northern Juwayk, 

Map I-207 B (1957); Western Persian Gulf, Map 

I-208 B (1958) ; Darb Zubaydah, Map I-202 (in press 

i960). The Times Atlas of the World, Mid-Century 

Edition (Bartholomew), map of Arabia in Vol. II, 

London i960. (C. D. Matthews) 

al-DAHNADJ. Persian dahna, dahana, marmar-i 

sabz ('green marble'), Turkish dehne-i frengi, 

malachite, the well known green copper-ore. The 

description of the mineral in the RasdHl Ikhwdn 

al-Safd goes back to the pseudo-Aristotelian lapidary. 

According to that, the malachite is formed in copper 

mines from the sulphur fumes which combine with 



DAHOMEY 93 

copper to form layers. Its colour is compared to 
that of the chrysolith (zabarajad), although it does 
appear in different shades: dark green, veined, the 
shade of peacock's feathers, and pale green, with all 
intermediate shades. Frequently all the shades 
appear in one piece, as it developed in the earth, 
layer by layer. The stone is a soft one, and therefore 
looses its gloss with the years. Tifashi, following 
Balinas (Apollonius of Tyana), explains how the very 
best copper is gained from it. There is new malachite 
and old, from Egypt, Kirman, and Khurasan. The 
very best kind is the old Kirmanian. The stone has 
been found in ancient Egyptian graves, usually in 
the form of amulets (scarabs), statuettes, and cut 
stones. Our detailed description of malachite comes 
from al-R&zi, who also treats of the following: 
1) its calcination (i.e., its decomposition and the 
burning up of sulphur and oils which it contains), 
which can take place in 4 different ways; 2) its 
ceration, due to salts and borax, each again in 
4 different ways; 3) its sublimation. 

Taken in powder form and with vinegar, it is 

regarded as a powerful antidote to poison; on the 

other hand, it will harm a person who has not been 

poisoned, and then causes serious inflammations. If 

rubbed on the sting of a scorpion or a bee, it will 

reduce pain; it has also been used against leprosy 

and to cure diseases of the eye. Evidence in poetry 

can be found in al-Shammakh (LA, s.v. dahnadj). 

Bibliography: RasdHl Ikhwdn al-Safd (ed. 

Bombay), ii, 81; Tifashi, Azhdr al-Afkdr (new 

edition of the translation by C. Raineri Biscia, 

Bologna 1906, 94); Kazwini, 'AajdHb (Cosmography 

ed. Wiistenfeld), i, 224; Ibn al-Baytar (ed. Bulak 

1291) ii, 117 f. (= Leclerc, Traiti des Simples, ii, 

132); Clement-Mullet, in J A, 6* serie, tome xi 

(1868), 185 f.; Steinschneider, WZKM, xii (1898), 

83; Ruska, Das Steinbuch aus der Kosmographie 

des Al-Qazwini (Beilage zum J ahresbericht 1895/06 

der prov. Oberrealschule zn Heidelberg), 22; idem, 

Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles 103 f., 145-147; 

idem, Al-Rdzi's Buck Geheimnis der Geheimnisse, 

44, 86, 149 f., 177 f., 197 f.; Barhebraeus, Munta- 

khab Kitdb Djdmi* al-mufraddt li- Ahmad al- 

Ghdfiki (ed. Meyerhof and Sobhy) i/3, Cairo 1938, 

117 (Arab.), 530 (Engl.) ; Wiedemann, Beitrage xxx, 

227 (SBPMS Erlg., xliv, 1912) after Ibn al-Akfani, 

Nakhb al-DhakhdHr. (A. Dietrich) 

DAHOMEY, a corridor 418 miles long by 

125 miles wide, between Togoland and Nigeria, is 

one of the earliest known countries on the Gulf of 

Guinea. 

The coast is low-lying, fringed with lagoons, while 
the central zone is formed of table-land and isolated 
mountains; the northern part is higher, slanted 
across by the mountains of Atacora, which rise to 
about 800 metres. In the south especially, the 
humidity is high and the temperature fairly constant 
although there are two rainy and two dry seasons. 
The population of Dahomey, nearly two million 
inhabitants, is chiefly composed of Fon (central 
region), Goun and Yoruba (south-east region), Adja 
(south-west), Bariba, Somba, and Fulani (northern 
region) . 

The principal town is Cotonou (87,000 inhabitants), 
although Porto-Novo has always been the admini- 

In contact with Europeans since the seventeenth 
century, Dahomey was particularly affected by the 
slave trade, which helped also to increase the wealth 
of certain of its kingdoms, notably that of Abomey. 



It was this last which put up the longest and fiercest 
resistance to French penetration (1892). 

Dahomey, which entered the federation of French 
West Africa in 1899, played a great part in its 
development, through the agency of its elites who 
had emigrated to the various other territories. 
Together with Senegal, it was one of the first to 
form political movements, which demonstrated their 
strength well before the second world war. 

Dahomey, like most of its neighbours on the Gulf 
of Guinea who have been influenced by the Benin 
cultures, has retained the strong animistic foun- 
dation upon which rests the life of its civilization. 

The social and religious organization of the country, 
where animism was the state religion, forbade the 
introduction of any foreign doctrine and it was not 
until the fall of the kingdom of Abomey that Christi- 
anity could begin to spread. 

Islam could nowhere take root very deeply nor 
bring about large conversions as the chiefs and the 
local princelings were before the end of the nineteenth 
century never willing to renounce their beliefs, 
neither among the archaic clan societies of north- 
west Dahomey called Somba, nor in the feudal 
Bariba societies of the north-east region which was 
still crossed by the caravan routes marked out by 
the Islamic caravanserais, nor in the kingdoms of 
the south, absolute monarchies where the king was 
the all-powerful repository of the ancestral traditions 
which he revived each year in honour of his prede- 

The Muslim penetration probably began from the 
north-east; a little commercial colony of the Mali 
Empire was set up in the thirteenth century in the 
region which is today Sokoto: the travellers of the 
time called it Guangara. It was from there that the 
waves of caravans departed for present-day Ghana, 
land of the kola. Salt, slaves and other products from 
the north, sometimes even from Libya, came down 
to the south-west while kola nuts passed up to the 
Nigerian and the Hausa lands, crossing North 
Dahomey. Thus there were quickly established little 
Muslim colonies called Wangara or Maro( in Dahomey) 
which soon blossomed into important centres like 
Parakou, Djougou or Kandi. 

These foreign settlements remained near the local 
chiefs, whose domains were crossed by the caravan 
routes; they founded families and so introduced 
Islam, which slowly developed, by the simple 
device of local marriages. 

Later on, the conquest of the Songhai empire by 
the Moroccans, at the beginning of the 17th century, 
brought about the withdrawal towards the Niger 
of a group of Muslim Songhai called Dendi. These 
established themselves probably in the extreme 
north of modern Dahomey and formed the second 
wave of the Islamic influence. The third wave 
corresponded to the immigration of the Fulani 
shepherds, who spread out during the 18th century 
over the whole of the northern half of Dahomey. 
Although their religion was still tinged with traces 
of animism, it formed none the less an Islamic centre 
which converted a great many of the former slaves 
or Gando, with whom they maintained permanent 

At length, in the last years of the eighteenth 
century, Islam also entered by the south-east and 
Porto-Novo, the present capital of Dahomey, soon 
contained some Muslim Yoruba merchants, who had 
come from Ilorin and from the west of modern 
Nigeria. They quickly increased, converted certain 
Yoruba families of Dahomey and also some des- 



cendents of the slaves who had returned from 
Brazil bearing Portuguese names. 

Although it is difficult to draw up statistics, we 
can reckon that, of a total Dahomey population of 
1,800,000 inhabitants, between 230 and 240 thousand 
are Muslim, of whom only 100,000 are practising 
devotees. 

The greater part of them are Tidjani; some, 
particularly among the older people, belong to the 
Kadiriyya order. There are a few Hamallists in the 
north. In spite of this near-unity of sect, a difference 
of belief set some Muslims, Yoruba in origin, against 
the natives of the northern regions (Hausa-Zerma- 
Fulani-Dendi), who claimed to practise their religion 
with greater orthodoxy. These two aspects of 
Islamic Dahomey are to be met chiefly at Porto- 
Novo (Islamic Yoruba) and at Parakou (the Islamic 
north), which were soon called upon to become the 
two great Muslim capitals, Djougou having slowly 
to give place to its neighbour Parakou, where some 
conversion movements had already been born and 
where there were established some of the masters 
of the Kur J 5n who possessed a new and more dynamic 
conception of their religion. 

It is probable that, in the years to come, the 
religious leaders and the imams will be chosen more 
and more from among the most educated notables 
and no longer, according to heredity, from the 
families connected with the animist chiefs. This 
explains the rise today of the schools of the liur'an 
in North Dahomey in particular, where religious 
learning is always an object of prestige. 

Bibliography: Akindele and Aguessy, Le 
Dahomey, Paris 1955; Akindele and Aguessy, 
Contribution a Vitude de Vhistoire de Vancien 
royaume de Porto-Novo, in Memoires IF AN, xxv; 
d'Albeca, Les Itablissements franfais du golfe du 
Benin, Paris 1889; S. Berbain, Le comptoir franfais 
de Juda au XVIII' siecle, in Mlmoires IFAN, iii; 
G. Brasseur and Brasseur Marion, Porto Novo et 
sa palmeraie, in Mlmoires IFAN, xxxii; Brunet 
and Giethlen, Dahomey et dipendances, Paris 
1900; A. Burton, A mission to Gelele, King of 
Dahomey, London 1864; Desanti, Du Dahomey au 
Benin Niger, Paris 1945; Ed. Dunglas, Contribution 
a VHistoire du Moyen-Dahomey, 3 vols. (£tudes 
Dahomiennes, xix, xx, xxi), Porto-Novo; Ed. Foa, 
Le Dahomey, Paris 1895; R. Grivot, Reactions 
dahomiennes, Paris 1945; P. Hazoume, Le pacte 
de sang au Dahomey, Paris 1937; idem, Doguicimi, 
Paris 1938; M. J. Herskovits, Dahom'e — an 
ancient West African Kingdom, New York 1938; 
M. Hubert, Mission Scientifique au Dahomey, 
Paris 1908; H. Le Heiisse, Vancien royaume du 
Dahomey, Paris 191 1; J. Lombard, Cotonou, vilU 
africaine (£tudes Dahomiennes, x) ; B. Maupoil, La 
giomancie a I'ancienne C6te des Esclaves, Paris 1943 ; 
P. Merrier, Carte ethno-dimo%raphique de I'Afrique 
Occidentale, v, IFAN Dakar; M. Quenum, Au pays 
des Fons, Paris 1938; Skertchly, Dahome as it is, 
London 1874; CI. Tardits, Porto-Novo, London 
1958; P. Verger, Dieux d'Afrique, Paris; idem, 
Notes sur le culte des Oricha et Vodoun, in Mimoires 
IFAN, v; R. Cornevin, Histoire des peuples de 
I'Afrique noire, Paris i960, index. 

(J. Lombard) 
DAHR, time, especially infinitely extended time 
(cf. Lane; al-Baydawi on K. 76.1). The pre-Islamic 
Arabs, as is shown by many passages in their poetry, 
regarded time (also zaman, and al-ayyam, the days) 
as the source of what happened to a man, both good 
and bad; they thus give it something of the connota- 



DAHR — D 

tion of Fate, though without worshipping it (W. L. 
Schrameier, Ober den Fatalismus der vorislamischen 
Araber, Bonn 1881; Th. Noldeke, Encyclopedia of 
Religion and Ethics, i, 661 b; for possible parallels 
cf. A. Christensen, Iran, 149 f., 157 — Zurvan as 
both time and fate; Kronos, Chronos, as father of 
Zeus; cf. also R. C. Zaehner, Zurvan, Oxford 1955, 
esp. 254-61. This view is ascribed to pagans in the 
Kur'an, 45. 24/23, "They say ... we die and we 
live and only dahr destroys us". Pre-Islamic con- 
ceptions probably influenced the Islamic doctrine 
of predestination (W. Montgomery Watt, Free Will 
and Predestination in Early Islam, London 1949, 
20 ff., 31). Tradition supplies evidence of an attempt 
to identify God with dahr; Muhammad is reported 
to have said that God commanded men not to blame 
dahr "for I am dahr" {e.g., al-Bukhari, Tafsir on 
45. 24/23; Adab, 101; Tawhid, 35; al-Tabari, Tafsir 
on 45. 24/23; further references in Wensinck, Con- 
cordance, s.v. ddhd, khayb; a possible connexion 
with funeral rites is noted by Goldziher, Muham- 
medanische Studien, i, 254) ; the Zahiriyya [?.».] are 
said to have reckoned dahr as a name of God (but 
cf. I. Goldziher, Die Zdhiriten, Leipzig 1884, 153 ff.). 
Many traditionists tried to interpret the tradition 
so as to avoid the identification (cf. Goldziher, op. 
cit. 155; Ibn Kutayba, Ta>wil Mukhtalif al-Ifadith, 
Cairo 1326, 281-4). The mutakallimun show no 
interest in the point, and al-Ghazzali is able to use 
dahr for the views of the Dahriyya [?.».], which 
are independent of pre-Islamic Arab sources (Tahdfut 
al-Faldsifa, ed. M. Bouyges, Beirut, 1927, 208.1). 
By poets and prose writers the word continued to 
be used in the pre-Islamic way (cf. al-Mutanabbi, ed. 
F. Dieterici, Berlin, 1861, 473, 576); a biographer 
says that al-zamdn, time, and al-ayyam, the days, 
took away al-Ghazzali (al-Subkl, Tabakdt al- 
ShdfiHyya, Cairo 1324, iv, 109). 

(W. Montgomery Watt) 
DAHRIYYA, holders of materialistic opinions of 
various kinds, often only vaguely defined. This 
collective noun denotes them as a whole, as a firka, 
sect, according to the Dictionary of the Technical 
Terms, and stands beside the plural dahriyyun formed 
from the same singular dahri, the relative noun of 
dahr, a IJur'anic word meaning a long period of time. 
In certain editions of the Kur'an it gives its name 
to sura LXXVI, generally called the sura of Man; but 
its use in XLV, 24 where it occurs in connexion with 
the infidels, or rather the ungodly, erring and blinded, 
appears to have had a decisive influence on its 
semantic evolution which has given it a philosophical 
meaning far removed from its original sense. These 
ungodly men said: "There is nothing save our life in 
this world; we die and we live, and only a period of 
time (or: the course of time, dahr) makes us perish". 
The word has as yet no philosophical specification; 
according to the commentaries of al-Baydawi and 
the Djalalayn, it signifies"the passage of time" (murur 
al-zamdn), according to al-Zamakhshari "a period of 
time which passes" {dahr yamurru) in XLV, 24, and 
an interval of time of considerable length in LXXVI, 
1. The idea of a long period of time became increas- 
ingly dominant, and finally reached the point of 
signifying a period without limit or end, to such an 
extent that certain authors used al-dahr as a divine 
name, a practice of which others strongly disapproved 
(Lane, s.v. dahr; see also Dictionary of the Technical 
Terms, i, 480). The vocalization given in the new 
edition of the Rasd'il Ikhwan al-safd', Beirut 
1376/1957, i", fasc. 9, 455, is duhriyya; this had 
already been attested by linguists who considered 



HRIYYA 95 

it to be in conformity with the transformation which 
vowels often undergo in the nisbas (Sibawayhi, ed. 
Derenbourg, ii, 64, 19-21). Al-Djurdjani, Ta'rifdt, 
s.v., emphasizes the perenniality and defines al-dahr 
as "the permanent moment which is the extension 
of the divine majesty and is the innermost part 
(bdtin) of time, in which eternity in the past and 
eternity in the future are united". 

According to the explanation given by al-Baydawi, 
a semantic link with the material world must be 
understood, for dahr, he says, basically denotes the 
space of time in which this world is living, overcoming 
the course of time. The doctrine of the dahriyya 
was subsequently denoted by the same term, and 
in this way al-Ghazall. among others, speaks of 
"professing the dahr", al-kawl bi 'l-dahr (Tahdfut, ed. 
Bouyges, 19). The translation "fatalists", sometimes 
used, cannot be justified. The relative dahri will 
therefore have two philosophical connotations. It 
denotes, firstly, the man who believes in the eternity 
of the world whether in the past or in the future, 
denying, as a result of this opinion, resurrection 
and a future life in another world; secondly, the 
mulhid, the man who deviates from the true faith 
(Lane, s.v. dahri; cf. for the first meaning given, 
Pococke, Notae miscellanae, Leipzig 1705, 239-240, 
under the transcription Dahriani). To place the 
whole of human life in this world is to lead swiftly 
to a hedonistic morality, and it is in this sense 
that the first literary use of the word has been 
noted, in the Kitdb al-Ifayawdn by al-Djahiz 
(Cairo 1325-6/1906-7) in which, in an over-wide 
generalization no doubt made under the influence of 
sura XLV, 24, dahri denotes the man who "denies 
the Lord", creation, reward and punishment, all 
religion and all law, listens only to his own desires 
and sees evil only in what conflicts with them; he 
recognizes no difference between man, the domestic 
animal and the wild beast. For him it is a question 
only of pleasure or pain; good is merely what serves 
his interests, even though it may cost the lives of a 
thousand men (vii, 5-6). It follows from the principles 
accepted by the dahriyyun that they reject popular 
superstitions, the existence of angels and demons, 
the significance of dreams and the powers of sorcerers 
(al-Djahiz, ibid., ii, 50). Some of them, however, on 
the basis of rationalist analogies, apparently admitted 
the metamorphosis of men into animals {maskh, 
ibid., iv, 24). 

The dahriyya are defined in the Mafdtih al-'-ulum 
(ed. Van Vloten, Leyden 1895, 35) as "those who 
believe in the eternity of the course of time"; the 
Ikhwan al-safd' call them the azaliyya, those who 
believe in the eternity of the cosmos, as opposed to 
those who attribute to it a creator and a cause (ed. 
Bombay 1306, iv, 39; ed. Beirut 1376/1957, "i, 455)- 
In this respect the Mutakallimun are opposed to 
them, affirming the beginning in time of bodies and 
of the world created by God, and to this adding an 
affirmation of the divine attributes, God being alone 
eternal and alone powerful {ibid. Bombay 39-40 and 
Beirut 456). Like the Mutakallimun in general, the 
Judaeo-Arab theologian Sa c adya (d. 942) refutes then- 
doctrine, first in his commentary on Seter Yesirah 
(ed. Lambert, Paris 1891), and later in the first book 
of his Kitdb al-Amdndt wa H-lHikdddt (ed. Landauer, 
Leyden 1880), in three pages (63-5) on the doctrine 
known by the name al-dahr, which regards not 
only matter as eternal but the beings of the world 
which we see as invariable; this sect limits know- 
ledge to the perceptible: "no knowledge save of 
what is accessible to the senses" (64, 1. 13). His trans- 



96 DAHI 

lation of Job also alludes to it, for he renders draft 
'61dm by madhdhib al-dahriyyin; cf. also several 
passages in his commentary on Proverbs (B. Heller, 
in RE], xxxvii (1898), 229). 

Abu Mansflr c Abd al-Kahir b. Tahir al-Baghdadi 
does not mention them among the sects, in the 
Kitdb al-farl} bayn al-firal}, but he refers to them 
several times among the unbelievers, particularly 
the philosophers who looked on the heavens and 
stars as a fifth element escaping corruption and 
destruction, and who even believed in the eternity 
of the world (ed. Badr, Cairo 1328/1910, 102, 106 
with typogr. error, 206, 346). He also compares them 
with the Christians, without any explanation, 157. 

Al-Ghazall for his part also looked on the dahriyya 
rather as an order of philosophers who throughout 
the centuries expressed a certain current of thought 
which was never without some representative. He 
does not always regard them in the same way. In 
the Munlfidh mitt al-Daldl (ch. Ill, Cairo 1955, 96-97), 
he speaks of them as forming the first category 
(sinf) in chronological order. They were then a "sect 
(IdHfa) of the ancients", denying a Creator who 
governs the world and the existence of a future 
world, professing that the world has always been 
what it is, of itself, and that it will be so eternally. 
He likens them to the zanddifra, who also included 
another, and more numerous, branch, the tabiHyyun, 
naturalists. The dahriyya seem to make the peren- 
niality of the world the centre of their doctrine, 
whilst the tabiHyyun insist upon the properties of 
temperaments and deny, not creation but paradise, 
hell, resurrection and judgement. Against these two 
categories there stands a third, the deists, ilahiyyun, 
who came later and included Socrates, Plato 
and Aristotle. They refuted the errors of the first 
two groups, but they were not always followed by the 
Muslim philosophers, such as Ibn SIna and al- 
Farabl. Both were particularly singled out in the 
Tahdjut al-Faldsija by al-Ghazali (ed. Bouyges, 
Beirut 1927, 9) who with reference to them demon- 
strates the "Incoherence of the philosophers" (ac- 
cording to the translation preferred by M. Bouyges 
to "Destruction" of the philosophers), at the same 
time proving the incapacity (ta'djiz) of the adver- 
saries. For the two Muslims strove against those 
who denied the Divinity, though not without avoiding 
theories which led them to be classed by al-Ghazali 
among the dahriyya. To the latter, who are also 
given the name dahriyyun, are attributed the follow- 
ing theses: they deny a Cause which might be 
"causative of causes" (65, 1. 3-4); the world is 
eternal and has neither cause nor creator; new things 
alone have a cause (133, 1. 6 and 206, 1. 5). Here there 
are only two groups of philosophers and not three, 
that of the "followers of truth" (ahl al-haty) and 
one other, that of the dahriyya (133, 1. 6). Now 
there are philosophers who believe that the world 
is eternal and, nevertheless, demonstrate that it is 
the work of a Creator [sdni c ), a reasoning which al- 
Ghazali declares to be contradictory (133, 1. 6 ff.). 
In fact, Ibn SIna returns to this subject on many 
occasions, and he was clearly persuaded of the force 
of his reasoning. Al-Ghazali, apparently not con- 
vinced, compares the faldsifa with the dahriyya 
(95, 1. 6) on account of the ambiguity in a reasoning 
which allows that the work may be God's, provided 
that he had not planned to carry it out but had 
acted from necessity. This was very much what Ibn 
SIna maintained, believing that if God made some 
plan, his action would be determined by some 
external factor, which is inadmissible. Al-Ghazali 



also finds fault with the theses which hold that 
from One only One can emerge (95-132), that matter 
is eternal, with the four elements on one hand, on 
the other the fifth, incorruptible element which 
forms the celestial bodies ; all of these are reasons for 
classing those who hold these theories with the 
dahriyya (206, 1. 5 ff.). In the Tahdjut al-Tahdfut (ed. 
Bouyges 1930), Ibn Rushd does not make the 
same strictures as al-Ghazall; he does not name the 
dahriyya (see Index, 654) who only appear under 
this denomination in the summary of al-Ghazali's 
theses (414, 1. 5), but he uses dahr not only in the 
original sense of "period of time" (95, 1. 1 and 120, 
1. 3) but also in the sense of the well-known philo- 
sophic doctrine wrongly attributed to the faldsifa 
(415). 

The dahriyya appear as a sect, properly speaking, 
in the definitions of Ibn Hazm and al-Shahrastani. 
The former ascribes to the dahriyya the doctrine of 
the eternity of the world, and the corollary that 
nothing rules it, whilst all the other groups think that 
there was a beginning and that it was created, 
muhdath (Kitdb al-Fisal, Cairo 1317, i, 9). He starts 
by giving the five arguments of the dahriyya who 
are called (n, 1. 9) "those who profess the dahr", al- 
ttd'ilun bi 'l-dahr. These may be summed up as 
follows: 1. "We have seen nothing which was newly 
produced [hadatha) unless it arose from a thing or in 
a thing". — 2. What produces (muhdith) bodies is, 
incontestably, substances and accidents, that is to 
say, everything that exists in the world. — 3. If 
there exists a muhdith of bodies, it is either totally 
similar to them or totally different, or similar in 
certain respects and different in others. Now a total 
difference is inconceivable, since nothing can 
produce something contrary or opposite to itself, 
thus fire does not produce cold. — 4. If the world 
had a Creator (fd'il), he would act with a view to 
obtaining some benefit, of redressing some wrong, 
which is to act like the beings of this world, or else 
by nature, which would render his act eternal. — 
5. If bodies were created, it would be necessary that 
their muhdith, before producing them, should act 
in order to negate them, negation which itself would 
be either a body or an accident, which implies 
that bodies and accidents are eternal (10-11). After 
refuting these arguments in turn, Ibn Hazm gives 
five counter-arguments of his own, continuing the 
discussion (11-23) into the following chapter which 
is devoted to "those who say that the world is 
eternal and that, nevertheless, it has an eternal 
Creator". 

Al-Shahrastani begins the second part of his 
Kitdb al-Milal wa 'l-Nikal in which the philosophical 
sects are enumerated, with those who "are not 
of the opinion" that there is "a world beyond 
the perceptible world", al-tabiHyyun al-dahriyyun, 
"the naturalists who believe in dahr, who do not 
expound an intelligible [world]", Id yuthbitiin 
ma^ul", this last word being in the singular (ed. 
Cureton, 201, 1. 7). A second passage, "some- 
times, on the other hand, . . . they also admit 
the intelligible, (ed. Cureton, 202, 1. 15)" seems 
to apply not to the naturalists who believe 
in dahr but to the faldsifa dahriyya, that is to say, 
very probably to Ibn SIna and al-Farabi, contrasting 
them with the naturalists; this fits well with the 
position of the two philosophers who, for their part, 
strenuously affirm that an intelligible world exists. 
Thus the dahriyya, while having features in common, 
on the one hand with the naturalists, and on the other 
with the philosophers, could not be identified with 



DAHRIYYA — DA'I 



97 



either. The passage, however, remains obscure. In 
the Kitdb Nihdyat al-iyUim (ed. Guillaume, Oxford 
1931, with partial translation) al-Shahrastani records 
several discussions between the dahriyya (trans, 
materialists) and their adversaries (29, 1. 1 ; 30, 1. 15,' 
123, 1. 10, 126, 1. 9), on the origin of the world, 
including the theory of atoms moving about in 
primal disorder. The mode of reasoning of the dahriyya 
appears sophistical, but the refuters who rely on the 
movements of Saturn adduce no proof. The origin 
of the world through the fortuitous encounter of 
atoms wandering in space is an opinion also attri- 
buted to the dahriyya by Djamal al-DIn al-Kazwini, 
Mufid al-'ulUm wa-mubid al-humum, Cairo 1310, 37. 

The 19th century brought definition to a word that 
for so long had been somewhat loosely used. European 
natural sciences, penetrating the East, gave rise to a 
stream of very simplified but materialistic ideas 
which were the source of unexpected problems in 
Islam. (For an Ottoman ferman of 1798, refuting the 
Dahri doctrines of the French Revolution, see Amir 
Haydar Ahmad Shihab, Ta'rikh Ahmad Basha al- 
Djazzdr, edd. A. Chibli and I. A. Khalite, Beirut 1956, 
125 ff.; cf. B. Lewis in Journ. World Hist., i, 1953, 
121-2). The question of materialism was raised in an 
extremely acute^ form in India. After the Mutiny of 
1857-8, Sayyid Ahmad Khan realised that the 
Muslims could not challenge the British supremacy 
until they had assimilated western science and 
methods. In 1875 he founded the college of 'Aligafh 
[q.v.], later to be a University, combining English 
culture with the study of Muslim theology. Deeply 
impressed by the concepts of conscience and nature, 
he took the laws of nature as criteria of religious 
values. This new conception spread, giving, with the 
Arabic termination, the qualifying word naturi, 
which became nayiari, plural nayiariyyun, from 
transcription of the English pronunciation; in 
Persian nayteriyyt. It was presented as a sort of new 
religion, appearing in the Census of India, where its 
followers were called neiari. These events exercised 
considerable influence on the whole of India, and 
made it necessary for orthodox Islam to take 
position. 

Diamal al-Din al-Afghani [q.v.] wrote a violent 
reply in Persian, as early as 1298/1878, with his 
Refutation of the Materialists, the translation of 
which into Urdu was lithographed in Calcutta in 
1883; it was translated into Arabic by Muhammad 
'Abduh and first published (1st. ed. Beirut 1303/1885) 
under the title Risdla ft ibtal madhhab al-dahriyyin 
wa-baydn mafdsidihim wa-ithbdt anna 'l-din asas al- 
madaniyya wa 'l-kufr fasdd al-'umrdn, then (2nd. 
ed., Cairo 1312, 3rd ed., Cairo 1320/1902) under the 
title al-Radd 'aid 'l-dahriyyin (French translation 
A.-M. Goichon, Paris 1942), while the original title 
included al-nayshuriyyin, clearly denoting the 
meaning given to dahri which is therefore the trans- 
lation of naturalistic-materialistic. In this short 
work Djamal al-DIn traces back this doctrine to the 
Greek philosophers in terms recalling those of al- 
Ghazali ; he traces its history, such as he represents it, 
in the first chapter; it finishes with Darwin. His 
refutation is, throughout, superficial. 

While materialism was spreading, particularly 
through Arabic translations of European works like 
Buchner's Kraft und Stoff, translated by Shibll 
Shumayyil (Alexandria 1884), a contrary movement 
was taking shape. The history of this struggle 
between two irreconcilable conceptions is far from 
finished; it would require considerable research, but 
has no place here. In the various works mentioned 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



above, the terms mdddiyya and mdddiyyun have, 
in fact, always been used as synonyms of dahriyya 
and dahriyyun; these latter finally disappeared, 
replaced by the more exact term. They no longer 
occur in the contemporary vocabulary in Egypt 
(information supplied by R. P. Jomier) and, without 
being in a position to make the same observation 
in respect of other countries, we can nevertheless 
remark that they are no longer found in certain 
publications in Muslim India. 

Bibliography . in the text; see also W. L. 
Schrameier, Vber den Fatalismus der vorislamischen 
Araber, Bonn 1881, 12-22; M. Horten, Die philo- 
sophischen Systeme der spekulativen Theologen im 
Islam, Bonn 1912, index s.v. Dahriten. 

(I. Goldziher-[A. M. Goichon]) 
DAHSHOR. a place in the province of Djiza, 
some 40 kms. south of Cairo, to the west of the Nile 
on the edge of the desert. A necropolis and pyramids 
dating from the first dynasties of the Old Kingdom 
are situated there. These relics of the age of the 
Pharaohs are mentioned by al-Harawi and al- 
Makrizi without a precise description being given. 
Abu Salih speaks of a great church and an important 
monastery there. 

The present-day hamlet is insignificant and the 
name continues to be well known solely on account 
of the pyramids. 

Bibliography : Ibn Mammati, 138; al-Harawi, 
Ziydrdt, 39; Abu Salih, fol. 53; Yakut, ii, 633; 
Makrizi, ed. Wiet, ii, 120, iii, 39, iv, 122; <Ali 
Pasha, xi, 67; Maspero and Wiet, Matiriaux pour 
servir d la geographie de I'Egypte, 94. 

(G. Wiet) 
DA c 1 (rarely, da'iya), "he who summons" to the 
true faith, was a title used among several dissenting 
Muslim groups for their chief propagandists. It 
was evidently used by the early MuHazilites [q.v. in 
EI 1 ] ; but became typical of the more rebellious among 
the Shi'is. It appears in the 'Abbasid mission in 
Khurasan : and in some Zaydl usage. It was ascribed 
to followers of Abu '1-Khattab. It was especially 
important in the Isma'ili and associated movements 
(which were called da'wa, "summons"), where it 
designated generically the chief authorized repre- 
sentatives of the imam. 

Among the Isma'ilis, at the height of the move- 
ment, the ddHs were organized hierarchically. (They 
have been compared to Christian bishops). The terms 
applied to the several ranks varied according to 
context (and probably the manner of ranking was 
not rigidly fixed). The chief of the ddHs, mouthpiece 
of the imam, was called bdb [q.v.] or ddH al-du'dt. 
The greater da'Is (nominally, at least, the top 
twelve of them) were called hudidja, "proof" of the 
truth, or, perhaps earlier, nafrib; they seem each to 
have been in charge of a district (djazira, island) 
where the da'-wa was preached. In some works, the 
kudjdia was called Idhifr and the ddH was called 
djandh (cf. W. Ivanow, Studies in Early Persian 
Ismailism, Leiden 1948, 2nd ed. Bombay 1955, 
ch. ii). Each ddH was apparently assigned to a 
particular territory, within which he evidently had 
extensive authority over the faithful, initiating new 
converts and admitting them by steps into the 
esoteric doctrine, the bu\in [q.v.]. He was assisted by 
subordinates, entitled nuCdhun (licensed to preach), 
mukdsir (persuader), etc. 

Except where the imam himself was in power as 
Caliph, the da'-wa was usually a secret, conspiratorial 
movement. Accordingly, while a ddH in Isma c ili-held 
lands had a high position in the state (the ddH 



al-du'-dt, at the head of all official religious matters, 
seems to have been on a level with the wazir, if not 
united with him in one person), the ddHs in other 
lands often had adventurous lives and sometimes 
ended bloodily. Many served as military leaders, 
particularly before the Fatimid state was established 
(for instance, the Karmatian leaders; and Abu 
c Abd Allah al-Shi'I, who led Berber tribesmen in the 
revolt which established al-Mahdi in the Maghrib). 
Later, they still had to have a gift for political 
intrigue (some tried to convert the leading figures 
at the local court, or even the amir himself; thus 
al-Mu'ayyid fi '1-DIn al-Shirazi at the Bflyid court), 
for they were not only preachers but agents of the 
Fatimid state. Nevertheless, the ddHs were often 
independent scholars; vigorous theological and 
philosophical controversies were carried on among 
them, and the chief Isma'Ili books seem to have 
been written by ddHs, many of the most important 
by those labouring in hostile Iran. 

In the parallelism drawn between the Isma'Ili 
hudud, religious ranks, and the principles of cosmic 
emanation from the One, the ddH was sometimes 
associated with "time" or with the khaydl, "fantasy". 
For such purposes, the hud±d±a formed a separate 
rank between the ddH and the imam, as did the 
bdb [q.v.]. 

The title ddH came to mean something different 
in each of the sects which issued from the classical 
Fatimid Isma'Ilism. Among the first Druzes, the 
ddHs performed similar functions, but formed a 
rank directly dependent on the fifth of the great 
liudud, the tali (Baha 5 al-Din); cosmically, they 
embodied the djidd ("effort"). Subsequently they 
became superfluous. The Nizaris ("Assassins") 
inherited the Isma'UI organization in the Saldjuk 
domains, which seems to have been headed by the 
ddH of Isfahan; ddH became the ordinary title for 
the chief of the sect, resident from the time of 
Hasan-i Sabbah at Alamflt (in the name of an 
unknown imam), until in 559/1164 the then ddH 
proclaimed himself the actual imam, (Hasan-i 
Sabbah was evidently also regarded as hudjdja in a 
special sense). The TayyibI da'wa of the Yaman 
separated from the official Fatimid organization 
under a ddH muflak, an "absolute" or sovereign ddH, 
who claimed to be the representative of the true line 
of imams, themselves in satr, occultation. The ddH 
had full authority over the community, and the 
Tayyibls split more than once over his person; in 
the mid-twentieth century there are two main rival 
ddHs, one seated traditionally in the Yaman (Sulay- 
man!) and one seated in Bombay (Da'udI). 

For bibliography, see isma'ilIs. 

(M. G. S. Hodgson) 

DA'I, ahmad B. ibrahIm, Turkish poet of the 
end of the 8th/i4th and the beginning of the gth/isth 
century. The scanty information about his life is 
scattered in his works and in tedhkires. A kadi by 
profession, he began to gain prominence as a poet 
at the court of the Germiyan in Kiitahya under 
princes Sulayman and Ya'kub II. He seems to have 
travelled a great deal in Anatolia and in the Balkans. 
During the chaotic years of struggle between the sons 
of Bayezid I after the battle of Ankara (804/1402), 
he entered the service of one of them, amir Sulayman 
in Edirne, whose court had become a gathering 
place for many famous men of letters of the period 
such as Ahmedi, his brother Hamzawi and Sulayman 
Celebi. He continued to flourish at court under 
Mehemmed I (816/1413-824/1421) and became tutor 
to his son, the future Murad II. The sources do not 



agree on the date of Da'i's death; Hadjdji Khalifa 
gives the year 820/1427, but there is evidence that 
he might still have been living during the first years 
of Murad II (824/1421-848/1444) (I. H. Uzuncarsih, 
Kiitahya $ehri. Istanbul 1932, 213). With the excep- 
tion of Sehi (Tedhkire, 56) who has a short but appre- 
ciative note on him, until recently both Ottoman and 
modern scholars have considered Da'I a minor poet 
as but a few of his works were known. Since many 
of his works, specially an incomplete copy of his 
diwdn and his remarkable mathnawi Ceng-ndme, 
have come to light (Ahmed Ates, Turk Dili ve 
Edebiyati Dergisi, 3-4, 172-4) Da'I has proved to 
be an outstanding poet of his period, without doubt 
superior in richness of inspiration, originality, 
mastery of technique and fluency of style to many 
of his contemporaries. 

Apart from various religious treatises (I. H. 
Ertaylan, Ahmed-i DdH, Istanbul 1952) Da'I is the 
author of: (i) Diwdn; the only known copy is in 
Burdur Wakf Library no. 735; it is incomplete and 
not arranged alphabetically, containing his later 
poems: six kasidas two of which are dedicated to 
Mehemmed I and 199 ghazals. (ii) Ceng-ndme, called 
wrongly Dienk-ndme by some sources (Gibb, Ottoman 
Poetry, i, 2^6) and confused with Shaykhoghlu's 
Farah-ndme (Khurshid-ndme) by others ('All, Kunh 
al-Akhbdr and Bursall Mehmed Tahir, '■Othmanll 
Mu'ellifleri, s.v.) is a mathnawi of over 1400 couplets, 
dedicated to Amir Sulayman in 808/1405. In this 
allegory, the human soul is symbolized by the harp, 
whose heavenly music is a sign of its divine origin 
and which seeks the mystic paths of return to 
oneness with God. In a cheerful party on a flower- 
strewn lawn in spring, the poet asks the harp why 
it is so sad yet plays joyful melodies. Thereupon the 
four parts of the instrument tell him their stories: 
the silk of the strings came from worms which fed 
on the flesh of Job before eating the leaves of mul- 
berry trees; the wood of the frame was a beautiful 
Cyprus; the parchment covering the wood a gentle 
gazelle which was cruelly killed by hunters, and the 
hairs of the key were from the tail of a magnificent 
horse killed by the Tatars. This mathnawi full of 
vivid description and rich imagery, told in a moving 
and colourful style of unusual fluency compares 
favourably with the best contemporary narratives 
and even with those of the classical period, (iii) 
Tarassul, a letter-writer which became a classic and 
long remained a popular hand-book (Sehi, Tedhkire, 
56); (iv) Mutdyabdt, a small book of 12 light poems; 
(v) Wafiyyat-i Nushirwdn-i 'Adil, a short didactic 
mathnawi, probably translated from the Persian; 
(vi) l Ukiid al-Djawdhir, a short Persian rhyming 
vocabulary, written for the use of his princely pupil, 
the future Murad II ; (vii) Persian Diwdn, autograph 
copy written in 816/1413 is in Bursa, Orhan Library 
no. 66; it is dedicated to Khayr al-Din Hadjdji 
Khalil Bey; (viii) Tafsir, translation of Abu '1-Layth 
al-Samarkandi c s Kur'an commentary, with an in- 
troduction in verse, both in simple language and 
unadorned style, dedicated to Umur Bey b. Timur- 
tash (Universite Library T. Y. 8248); (ix) also 
attributed to Da'I, a translation of the Tadhkirat 
al-Awliyd', 'Attar's well known biographies and 
sayings of Muslim mystics. 

Bibliography: The Tedhkires of Sehi, Latifi, 
Klnall-zade Hasan Celebi, and the biographical 
section in 'All's Kunh al-Akhbdr, s.v.; Hammer- 
Purgstall, Gesch. d. Osm. Dichtkunst, i, 72; Gibb, 
Ottoman Poetry, i, 256 ff.; I. H. Ertaylan, Ahmed-i 
DdH, Istanbul 1952, a voluminous collection where 



- DAKHAN 



99 



facsimile editions of the Turkish Diwdn and the 
Ceng-name and extracts from other works have been 
put together with all available data from sources; 
A. Bombaci, Storia della lettetatuta turca, Milan 
1956, 297-9- (Fahir Iz) 

PA'IF [see al-djaru wa'l ta'dIl]. 
DAKAHLIYYA, name of an Egyptian pro- 
vince in the eastern region of the Delta. It owes its 
name, which is an Arabicized form of the Coptic 
Tkehli, to the town called Dakahla which was 
situated between Damlra and Damietta, a little 
closer to the latter than the former. At one time 
famous for its paper mills, it is now but an insig- 
nificant village. 

The province was created at the end of the 5th/ 
nth century and it has survived till today with 
some changes in its boundaries. At present it extends 
along the eastern bank of the Damietta branch of 
the Nile, which marks its western boundary, and 
ends on the south-east at the province of Sharkivva. 
Its chief town is now Mansura. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khurradadhbih, 82; Ku- 
dama, 48; c Ali Pasha, xi, 17; Maspero and 
Wiet, Matiriaux pour servir a la giographie de 
VEgypte, 90, 186-91. (G. Wiet) 

DAKAR [see Supplement]. 

DAKHAN (deccan). This word is derived from 
the Sanskrit word dakshina 'right (hand)', hence 
'south', since the compass points were deter- 






the 



The 



Dnventional line dividing north India 
south is formed by the south-western spurs of the 
Vindhyas along with their continuation called the 
Satpufas; peninsular India to the south of this 
line is usually further divided into (i) Deccan proper, 
extending up to the Tungabhadra, and (ii) south 
India extending right up to the southernmost tip 
of the peninsula. Physically also these two parts 
form two distinct units. For, while the Deccan 
plateau is formed by the great lavaic upland slowly 
rising from a point a few miles west of the deltas of 
the Godavari and the Krishna ending abruptly in 
the Western Ghats, the country lying to the south 
of the Tungabhadra and touching the port of Goa 
has a distinct crystalline character. The Deccan 
proper, therefore, may be said to consist of five 
sections, viz., (i) the western section enclosed by 
the sea and the Western Ghats, called the desk, the 
original home of the Marathas; this has extended 
beyond the Ghats to include the whole territory 
with Ahmadnagar and Poona as its principal towns; 
(ii) the area known as Berar during the Middle 
Ages and which is now known according to the 
ancient appellation of Vidarbha, with Nagpur as 
its principal town; (iii) Marafhwada, the Marathi- 
speaking part of the old Haydarabad State with 
its centre at Awrangabad; (iv) Tilangana where 
Telugu is the mother-tongue of a large part of the 
population, with Haydarabad as its historical and 
cultural capital; (v) the south-western portion 
populated mainly by the Kannadigas, with Bidjapur 
as its chief town. 

Even if we disregard the legendary war between 
Rama and Ravana, the Aryanization of the 
Deccan up to the far south must have been complete 
by the end of the Mawrya rule. There is little to 
relate between the fall of the Mawryas and rise of 
the Andhras who ruled practically the whole of the 
Deccan plateau for five hundred years. We also 
read of the Ikshvakus of Nagardjunakonda, the 
Vakafakas of Berar, the Western Calukyas of BadamI 
and Kalyani, the Rashtrakutas of Malkhed, the 



Eastern Calukyas of VengI, the Yadava; 
Deogiri and the Kakatiyas of Warangal, who r 
in different parts of the Deccan during the c< 
preceding the Muslim conquest. 

The first contact of the Deccan with the Muslims 
of the north was in 693/1294 when c Ala> al-DIn, 
nephew of Sultan Djalal al-DIn Firuz Khaldji of Dihli, 
marched to Deogiri [see dawlatabad] and forced the 
Yadava Radja Ramaiandra to pay tribute. It was, 
however, not till 718/1318 that this kingdom, which 
extended to most of the Mara tha country, was annexed 
to the Dihli Empire. Sultan Muhammad b. Tughluk 
not merely added the dominions of the Kakatiyas of 
Warangal to his Empire but annexed a large portion 
of south India as well, making Deogiri his second 
capital and renaming it Dawlatabad [q.v.]. But he 
could not control his far-flung empire effectively, 
and in 746/1345 his Deccan nobles, the amirdn-i 
sadah, revolted and chose Isma'il Mukh as the 
first independent Muslim ruler of the Deccan. 
He was replaced by Zafar Khan as king, with 
the title of c Ala> al-DIn Hasan Bahman Shah 
in 748/1347, who thus became the founder of the Bah- 
mani kingdom [see bahmanids]. The Bahmanids 
spread their Empire over the whole of the Deccan from 
sea to sea and ruled it first from Ahsanabad-Gulbarga 
[see gulbarga] and then from Muhammadabad-BIdar 
[see bIdar]. Towards the end of the 15th and the 
beginning of the 16th centuries the governors of 
the Bahmanid provinces became first autonomous 
and then independent, and the Deccan was finally 
divided into the five kingdoms of Ahmadnagar, 
Bidjapur, Berar, BIdar and Golkonda under the 
Nizamshahl, 'Adilshahi, 'Imadshahi, Baridshahi and 
Kutbshahi dynasties respectively. Berar and BIdar 
were soon absorbed into Ahmadnagar which was 
itself annexed to the Mughal Empire during the 
reign of Shah Djahan in 1042/1633. The turn of the 
extinction of Bidjapur and Golkonda did not come 
till 1097/1686 and 1098/1687 when the Emperor 
Awrangzib c Alamgir annexed these two kingdoms 
to his vast Empire. But the Mughal authority in the 
Deccan was undermined by the continuous raids 
of the Marathas who established a separate kingdom 
under Shivadji in 1085/1674 and which forced the 
Emperor to direct his strategy from Awrangabad 
where he died in 1119/1707. The next important date 
in the history of the Deccan is 1136/1724 when 
Nizam al-Mulk Asaf Djah [q.v.] defeated Mubariz 
Khan at Shakarkhefa and established his hegemony 
over the whole of the Deccan. The dynasty of the 
Asafdjahis ruled the Deccan first from Awrangabad 
and then from Haydarabad [q.v.] effectively till 1948 
when the Haydarabad State was integrated into the 
Indian Union. The Nizam, Sir Mir 'Uthman 'All 
Khan, Asaf Djah VII, was appointed Rddjpramukh or 
constitutional head of the state by the President of 
the Indian Union and acted as such till 1956 when 
the Haydarabad State was partitioned between 
Andhra Pradesh, Bombay State and Mysore State 
more or less according to linguistic affinities. 

Bibliography: R. G. Bhandarkar, Early 
History of the Dekkan down to the Mahomedan 
Conquest, 2nd. ed. Bombay 1895 ; S. K. Aiyangar, 
South India and her Muhammadan Invaders, 
London 1921; J. S. King. History of the Bahmani 
Dynasty, London 1900; Sherwani, The Bahmanis 
of the Deccan, an Objective Study, Haydarabad, n. d, ; 
J. D. B. Gribble, History of the Deccan, Vol. I, 
London 1936; Yusuf Husavn Khan. Nizamu 'l-Mulk 
Asaf Jdh I., Mangalore 1936. 

(H. K. Sherwani) 



DAKHANI — al-DAKKAS 



DAKHANl [see URDU], 

al-DAKHIL [see <abd al-rahman]. 

DAKHlL. The dictionaries (LA, TA, etc.) give 
a general meaning, "interior, inward, intimate", 
and two particular derived meanings, (i) guest, to 
whom protection should be assured, and (2) stranger, 
passing traveller, person of another race. The first 
of the particular meanings relates to an institution 
of nomadic common law which guarantees protection, 
in traditional ways, to whoever requests it. Although 
the concept has at all times existed, it has never been 
incorporated into Islamic law, which has no 
technical term corresponding to it. In its practical 
application, the institution combines elements of 
the complex system of ties of hospitality to 
which general opinion seems to assimilate the 
rights of the dakhil and of a very old law of 
refuge in private households which is attested all 
over the Semitic world (cf. djiwar). See in par- 
ticular the detailed analysis by A. Jaussen, Coutumes 
des Arabes au pays de Moab, Paris 1948, 202-20, and 
Burckhardt's notes on the same subject in Notes on 
the Bedouins, London 1831, i, 329-38; see also 
Layard, Narrative of a second expedition to Assyria, 
London 1867, ch. VI, 139-62, and Caskel, apud 
Oppenheim, Die Beduinen, Leipzig 1939, i, 29. 

From this last meaning, several meanings of the 
word as a technical term in philology, regarded as 
"late" by the lexicographers, have been derived, 
notably (1) "a foreign word borrowed by the Arabic 
language", like dirham, and (2) metrical term 
denoting the consonant preceding the rhyming 
consonant, the dakhil itself being preceded by an 
alif (cf. c arud). (J. Lecerf) 

DAKHLA WA KHARDJA [see al-wAhat]. 

DAKHNl [see urdu]. 

DA$1&I, Abo Mansur Mohammad b. Ahmad (or 
Muhammad b. Muhammad b. Ahmad), the poet 
to whom we owe the oldest known text of the 
national epic in the Persian language. His place of 
birth is uncertain (Tus, Bukhara, Balkh or Samar- 
kand); he was born between 318 and 329/930 and 
940, for he was at least twenty years old when he 
became panegyrist to the amirs of Caghaniyan, 
then of the Samanid amir Mansur b. Nuh (350-366/ 
961-976); further, Firdawsl, who continued after him 
the composition of The Book o) the Kings (Shah- 
ndma), assures us that DakikI was a young man 
when he began this work, at the behest of the amlr 
Nuh. b. Mansur, 366-387/976-997; DakikI therefore 
did not die before the time of this prince; and 
Firdawsl resumed the composition of the Shdh- 
ndma about 370/980, after the murder of his pre- 
cursor by a slave (a murder provoked by his bad 
character (khuy-i bad) according to Firdawsi). 

In the anthologies (Lubdb al-Albdb, Madjma'- al- 
Fusahd', Tardiumdn al-Baldgha etc.) there are lyrical 
pieces and fragments which bear witness to Daklki's 
precocious skill, his subtle and delicate mind, his 
easy style. But the work by which he is immortalized 
is the part of the Shdh-ndma (about a thousand lines) 
incorporated in the poem by his successor, Firdawsi: 
the reign of the king Goshtasp, the appearance and 
the deeds of Zardosht (Zoroaster), and the war 
against their Chionite enemies. 

The Zoroastrian faith of Daklki seems to assert 
itself in one of his rubdHs and in other of his poems, 
in spite of his Muslim names. Did he remain Zoro- 
astrian at heart ? If he had been sincerely attached 
to Islam, would he, in undertaking the composition 
of the Shdh-ndma on the order of the Samanid amir 



(a strictly orthodox Muslim), have straightway 
extolled the rise of Zoroastrianism and the war which 
it provoked? Howbeit, it is very probable, if not 
certain, that he chose this episode because he had 
at his disposal a copy of the Memorial of Zarir 
(Ayatkdr-i Zarirdn), a text from the Sasanid 
period in Pahlawi verse (as E. Benveniste has shown) 
from which he drew direct inspiration. It may be 
that he had also put into verse other episodes from 
the Shdh-ndma, if we take into consideration some 
of his poems, epic in style and metre, scattered 
through the anthologies (tadhkira). 

What remains of Daklki's lyrical poems shows 
his remarkable ability to vary his inspiration 
according to the descriptive, bacchic or amorous 
styles; quotations from his verse, numerous in the 
Persian anthologies and dictionaries, give proof of 
the lasting fame he enjoyed after his too-short 
career. Indeed his collaboration in the Shdh-ndma is 
as important for its own value as for the light it 
throws on the sources of the great national poem of 
Iran. 

Bibliography: Firdawsi, Booh of the Kings 
(Shdh-ndma), ed. and trans. J. Mohl, 4to edition, 
iv, 358-730; i2mo edition, iv, 287 ff.; ed. Vullers- 
Landauer hi, 495-1747; Tehran ed. 1934-35 (pub. 
Beroukhim), vi; E. Benveniste, Le Memorial de 
Zarir, in J A, ccxx, (1932), no. 2, 245 ft. Lyrical 
poems: G. Lazard, Les premiers poemes persans, 
critical edition, annotated, translation and bio- 
bibliography (in the press). 

(Cl. Huart-[H. Masse]) 
al-DA£$A$, AbC c Abd Allah, Moroccan 
saint born at Sidjilmasa. He and a certain Abu c Abd 
Allah Muhammad b. c Umar al-Asamm who was 
assassinated in 542/1 147-8 belonged to one of the 
small circles of Sufis generally disapproved of by 
authority. This Abu <Abd Allah had already been 
imprisoned at Fez at the same time as some of his 
companions, among whom one was al-Dakkak, who 
on the orders of Tashufln b. C AU the Almoravid 
was afterwards released. 

No one knows the date of birth of this saint, nor 
that of his death. All the same, one can be sure that 
towards the middle of the 6th/i2th century he had 
become known as a disciple of Sufism at Fez, where 
his alfwal had aroused the kindly sympathy of Ibn 
al-'Arif and Ibn Barradjan, both of whom died in 
536/1141. 

If we may believe al-Tadili, al-Dakkak went to 
and fro between Sidjilmasa and Fez. It was in Fez 
that he met Abu Madyan at a time when the latter, 
seeking instruction, was studying the Ri'-dya of 
al-Muhasibi under the direction of Abu '1-Hasan b. 
Hirzihim and the Sunan of al-Tirmidhl with Ibn 
Ghalib. Al-Dakkak and a person of the name of Abu 
'1-SalawI initiated him into Sufism (Tashawwuf, 319). 
It is because he was one of the masters of Abu 
Madyan that al-Dakkak has not sunk into obscurity. 
He led a life of renunciation, and was, it seems, 
before all else, a disciple of Sufism rather than a 
scholar. His manner of claiming sanctity and the 
satisfaction which he felt when it was acknowledged 
has something displeasing about it. He died at Fez, 
most probably, according to A. Bel, at the latest 
in the last quarter of the 6th/i2th century. He is 
buried in the cemetery of Bab al-GIsa. 

Bibliography: A. Bel, Sidi Bou Medyan et 
son mattre Ed-Daqqdq a Fes, in Milanges Rent 
Basset, Paris 1923, i, 31 ff.; al-Tadili, Al-Tashawwuf 
ild Rididl al-tasawtim) , ed. A. Faure, Rabat 1958, 
135-7- (A. Faure) 



DAKOTA 5 — DALlL 



DA$C?A 5 (or DaicOic), a small town in the 
J2iazlra province of the 'Abbasid empire, some 25 
miles S.E. of Kirkuk on the Mosul-Baghdad trunk- 
road, was known to the later Arab geographers and 
perhaps emerged into urban status, though never 
eminence, in the 5th/nth century. Some medieval 
brickwork and a minaret survive. The later and 
present name (from gth/isth century, or earlier) 
was Tawflk or TS'uk. The town, on flat ground 
immediately west of the foothills, stands healthy 
and well-watered beside the broad Ta'uk Chay, a 
trickle in summer but a formidable flood after 
winter rains: this now flows into the £ A?aim river, 
and thence to the Tigris, but passed into the great 
Nahrawan canal when that existed. In modern 
'Irak Ta'uk, with some 2,000 Kurdish and Turkish- 
speaking inhabitants, is today a ndhiya head- 
quarters, partially modernized, and an agricultural 
and market centre for the surrounding Kurdish 
tribesmen (Da'udiyya and Kakal) and Turkoman 
villagers. The 'Irak Railways line, and the main 
road, cross the Ta'uk Chay by modern bridges. 
A well-known shrine of Zayn al- c Abidin b. Husayn 
is 1.5 miles distant. 

Bibliography: Le Strange, 92, and the Arab 

authorities there noted. c Abd al-Razzak al- 

Hasanl, al-'Irdk gadim?" wa Hadith'"; Sidon 

1367/1948, 197. Undersigned's own observations. 
(S. H. Longrigg) 

DAJL, 8th letter of the Arabic alphabet, tran- 
scribed d ; numerical value 4, in accordance with the 
order of the letters in the Syriac (and Canaanite) 
alphabet, where d is the fourth letter [see abdjad]. It 
continues a d of common Semitic. 

Definition: voiced dental occlusive; according to 
the Arab grammatical tradition: shadida, madjhura. 
For the makhradi: nifiyya according to al-KhalU 
(al-Zamakhshari, Mufassal, 2nded. J. P. Broch, 191, 
line 1), who places the point of articulation at the 
nif (or ni(a c ), the anterior part of the hard palate, 
'its striped part' (Ibn Ya'Ish, 1460, line 19) and so: 
prepalatal. This articulation has left traces in modern 
dialects (Lebanon, Syria : M. Bravmann, Materialien, 
69; H. Fleisch, Zahlt, in MUSJ, xxvii, 78). Another 
tradition, based on the Kitab of Sibawayh (Paris 
edition, ii, 453, line 13), which has been much more 
generally followed, indicates 'the bases of the central 
incisors', and so: alveolar. For the phonological 
oppositions of the d phoneme, see J. Cantineau, 
Esquisse, in BSL (No. 126), 99, 12th; for the in- 
compatibles ibid., 134. 

Variants: in the mountain dialects of N. 
Morocco d may become dh after a vowel; d in 
Classical Arabic and in the modern dialects has 
numerous conditioned variants (assimilations), see 
J. Cantineau, Cours, 37-8, 41-2. 

Bibliography: in the text, and s.v. HurOf 

al-Hidja'. (H. Fleisch) 

(ii) — Various modifications of ddl in languages 
other than Arabic in which an adaptation of the 
Arabic script is used may be mentioned here. 

In the Indo-Aryan languages there are two series 
of "d-like" sounds, the dental and the retroflex 
(also called cerebral, cacuminal, or even, 
perversely, lingual), the latter produced by the 
under side of the tongue tip being curled back to 
strike the hard palate in the post-alveolar position, 
the concave upper surface of the tongue forming a 
secondary resonating chamber within the oral 
cavity. Both sounds may in addition be accompanied 
by aspiration. In Pashto and Urdu the dental is 
represented by the unmodified ddl, the retroflex 



(transcribed in the Encyclopaedia by d) by ddl 
modified in Pashto by a small subscript circle (,j), 
in Urdu by a small superscript fd {y, this was 
originally ! j ). The aspirated varieties of both are now 
always written with the "butterfly" (dutashmi) ha, 
the "hook" variety of ha being reserved for inter- 
vocalic h, hence the contrast A dahi 'curds', but 
^i dhi 'daughter'. 

In Sindhi the retroflex ddl is represented by ir 
aspirated ddl (dha) by •> , and aspirated ddl (dha) by 
^. Sindhi, in common with other languages of 
Western India, has in addition a series of implosive 
consonants (implosive b, dj_, d and g) ; the im- 
plosive d (da) is represented by • J . 

Bibliography : Linguistic Survey of India, 

Vols, x (Pashto), viii/i (Sindhi), ix/i (Urdu); 

D. N. MacKenzie, A standard Pashto in BSOAS, 

xxii/2 (1959), 231-5; R. L. Turner, Cerebralization 

in Sindhi in JRAS, 1924, 555-84; idem, The 

Sindhi recursives . . ., BSOS, iii/2, (1924), 301-15; 

Mohiuddin Qadri, Hindustani Phonetics, Paris n.d. 

(1931?); also the articles pashto, sindhi, urdO. 
(J. Burton-Page) 

DALlL (Gr. oi](ietov) is an ambiguous term; it 
can mean sign or indication, every proof through the 
inference of a cause from its effect or the inference of 
the universal from the particular in opposition to the 
proof from a strictly deductive syllogism in which 
the particular is deduced from the universal; and 
finally it is used as synonymous with proof, 
dc7r6Set^t<;, burhdn generally, 

Aristotle treats the "proof from a sign" in the last 
chapter of his Analytica Priora. According to him 
"proof from a sign" is an enthymeme, i.e., a syllogism 
in which one premiss is suppressed (£v6u|A7]|A<x, 
ftiyds idmdri or kiyds id^dzi) in which from a fact 
another fact, anterior or posterior in time, is inferred 
(although Aristotle says "anterior or posterior", the 
example he gives infers an anterior fact and for the 
Arab philosophers the inference is always the 
inference of a cause from its effect). He gives as an 
example that from a woman having milk it is 
inferred that she has conceived. He states that this 
enthymeme can be fully expressed in the following 
way: all women who have milk have conceived, this 
woman has conceived, therefore she has milk. This 
would seem to imply that for this type of reasoning 
the enthymeme is not a necessary condition and that 
the conclusion provides absolute evidence, although 
a "sign", according to Aristotle, is always an accident 
and there is no necessary proof for the accidental. We 
find in Avicenna the same definition and the same 
example (Nadj.dt, p. 92) and he adds that dalil can 
mean both the middle term of the syllogism (in 
this case "having milk") and the enthymeme itself. 

This type of reasoning is the only one for which 
Aristotle reserves the name of "proof from a sign". 
The Arab philosophers, however, give the term a 
wider meaning, based on the distinction made by 
Aristotle in his Analytica Posteriora between the 
proof that a thing is, to 8ti, burhdn anna and the 
proof why a thing is, the proof of its cause or reason, 
to 810TI, burhdn lima. The proof why a thing is 
is preceded by the proof that a thing is, for one can 
ask only why a thing is, when one knows that it is. 
The proof that a thing is starts from the particular, 
the fact, the effect perceived, and infers the cause 
from its effect, and it is for this reason that the Arab 
philosophers call it a dalil; on the other hand the 



DALIL — DALLAL 



proof why a thing is starts from the universal, the 
cause, and deduces the particular effect from its 
cause. The distinction is confused through the 
ambiguity of the term "cause" which in Aristotelian 
philosophy can mean both the logical reason of a 
thing's being such and such, its formal cause, e.g., 
the reason that Socrates is mortal is that he is a man, 
and the ontological cause of a thing's becoming, 
e.g., this fire is the cause of the burning of this wood. 
I cannot discuss this here in extenso, but will give 
only Avicenna's examples from his Nadjdt (103, 105) 
which show clearly the confusion between the logical 
and the ontological, so usual in Aristotle. As an 
example of the burhdn lima he gives: a great heat 
has changed this wood, everything a great heat has 
changed is burnt, therefore this wood is burnt; and 
as an example of the burhdn anna: this wood is 
burnt, therefore a great heat has burned it. According 
to Avicenna the difference between the two syllogisms 
is that in the former the middle term (i.e., a great 
heat) is both the cause {i.e., the logical reason) of our 
conviction of the truth of the conclusion and the 
cause (i.e., the ontological cause) of the major term 
(i.e., the being burnt) in reality, whereas the latter 
gives us only the subjective conviction of the truth 
of the conclusion. That is to say in the burhdn anna 
we can, purely logically, infer from the particular 
effect its formal cause, for being burnt implies the 
act of burning, and since being burnt is but the 
actualisation of the potentiality of heat, heat and the 
fact of being burnt are practically identical; in the 
burhdn lima the ontological cause and the logical 
reason are identified. 

The Arab philosophers hold also with Aristotle 
(Anal. Prior., ii, 23) that through a syllogism based 
on a perfect induction of particular facts, that is the 
enumeration of all the particular cases, we can 
arrive at a universal proposition (cf. e.g., Avicenna, 
De demonstrations [from his Shifd'], 31-2). 

There is still another type of reasoning mentioned 
by Aristotle (Anal. Prior., ii, 24) in which from a 
particular case a general principle may be inferred, 
reasoning by example, TrapaSeiy^a, mathal. Avicenna 
gives in his Nadjdt, 90-91, as an example an argu- 
ment of the theologians: the world is produced in 
time, because it is composed of parts, therefore it is 
like a building; now the building is produced in time, 
therefore the world is produced in time. 

Aristotle had neglected in his logic the hypothetical 
and disjunctive syllogisms which were studied in his 
school by Theophrastus and Eudemus, but the Stoics 
for whom all argument is based on the inference of 
an event from another event, on the inference of 
the posterior from the anterior (or the reverse in 
prognostics), on the inference of a particular cause 
from a particular effect, that is on the inference 
from signs or symptoms, ar^Eia, a concept which 
becomes one of the most important elements of their 
logic, are chiefly concerned with the study of the 
hypothetical and disjunctive syllogisms and, indeed, 
inferences from actual events which imply a time- 
element, find an easier expression in a hypothetical 
than in a categorical syllogism. The example of 
OT]|iEiov given by Aristotle, becomes in Stoic logic 
a stock example in their syllogism: if this woman 
has milk, she has conceived, now she has milk, 
therefore she has conceived, and Avicenna in his 
Ishdrdt, 84-5, gives an example of the difference 
between burhdn lima and the burhdn anna in a 
hypothetical form. Reasoning by example, regarded 
by Aristotle as a categorical syllogism, or as the 
Stoics call it reasoning by analogy (fryds), takes in 



their logic a hypothetical form and becomes one of 
their principal arguments, since according to them 
all knowledge transcending the evidence of the 
senses proceeds by way of analogical inference. The 
analogical syllogism was the first one the Arabs 
became acquainted with (it may well be that 
because of this the term ftiyds becomes later the 
general name for syllogism, just as the term dalil 
becomes the general term for proof), the Mu'tazila, 
the rationalistic theologians in Islam, called by 
their adversaries ahl al-kiyds, used analogical 
reasoning for their interpretation of the Kur'an and 
as a basis for criticizing traditions, and Shafi'i was 
aware that Ikiyds is based on signs, dald'il and 
examples, mithdl (cf. J. Schacht, The Origins of 
Muhammadan Jurisprudence, London 1950, 124 
and 128). GhazzSlI in his logical works emphasizes 
the importance of the hypothetical syllogism in all 
juridical matters and the Ash c aris, nominalists like 
the Stoics and who with them deny the existence of 
Aristotle's forms and formal causes, base their 
arguments on analogical reasoning or as Averroes 
says (Tahdfut al-Tahdfut, Bouyges, p. 522) on what 
they call "sign". 

Bibliography: in the text. 

(S. VAN DEN BERGH) 

DALLAL (ar.) "broker", "agent". Dalldl, 
literally "guide"; is the popular Arabic word for 
simsdr, sensal. In the Tddj al-'-Arus we find, on the 
word simsdr: "This is the man known as a dalldl; 
he shows the purchaser where to find the goods he 
requires, and the seller how to exact his price". 
Very little is known from the Arabic sources about 
the origins of these brokers, who have been of such 
great importance in economic affairs. The dalldl 
corresponded to the Byzantine f*e8iT7]<;. In the 
absence of any systematic earlier studies, only 
certain items of information collected at random 
can be given here. Law-books warn the dalldls of the 
need to be on their guard against the dishonest 
tricks customary in commerce (Ibn al-Hadjdj, 
Kitdb al-Madhhal, iii, 75). In fact the dalldls frequ- 
ently recommended to purchasers goods which they 
knew to be inferior and always took sides with the 
seller against his customer. Their profession which, 
at times, was invested with an official character, 
was known as dildla. The word al-dallal occurs in 
early times as a surname (Tddj. al- c Arils). Under 
the Fatimids, certain articles could only be sold 
through the intermediary of dalldls (al-Mukaddasi, 
213,). In the time of the Mamluks, the 2% 
commission which from the earliest days had 
been paid to these brokers was made subject to 
a charge, as a result of which the dalldl had to give 
up half his profits in taxes: the loss, naturally 
enough, he speedily passed on to his clients. This 
operation was known as nisf al-samsara (Makrizi, 
Khifat, i, 8g s ). A somewhat similar custom was to 
be found in northern Syria (cf. Sobernheim in 
the Corpus Inscriptionum Arabicarum, ii, no 55 
and the account given by C. H. Becker in Isl. i, 
100). The principal transactions were concluded 
in the maritime customs offices. There the dalldls 
acted at the same time as interpreters when any 
dealings with the Franks were required. Commercial 
treaties fixed precisely what fees were due to these 
agents and interpreters (Amari, Diplomi Arabi, 106, 
203). Heyd, Levantehandel, i, gives a wide range of 
details about this kind of transaction. For the 
Western Mediterranean one should consult de Mas 
Latrie, Traitis de paix et de commerce, Paris 1866, 
189. Later it was the West which monopolized 



DALLAL — al-DAMAD 



questions of brokerage (cf. Schaube, Handelsgeschichte 
der romanischen VOlker des Mittelmeergebietes, 761). 

It was, however, not only for their transactions 
with foreigners, but also for business matters amongst 
themselves, that the Eastern peoples made use of 
the dalldls (see, for example, the notes on Ottoman 
brokerage dues in B. Lewis, Studies in the Ottoman 
Archives, I,BSOAS, xvi, 1954, 495 ff.). Furthermore, 
the latter also acted as independent traders, selling, 
for example, old clothes on their own account (Des- 
cription de VEgypte, Etat moderne, xviii/II, 321). The 
name dalldl was also applied to the hawker auctioning 
goods in the secondhand clothing market and, still 
more frequently, to the small intermediary and 
agent. The way of life of these agents has been well 
described by Lane, Manners and Customs of the 
modern Egyptians i , ii, 13. Women are also found 
taking the part of agents. Known as dallala, they 
act as intermediaries for harems of a superior sort 
(Lane, op. cit. I, 200, 239, 242). For other meanings 
of the word dalldl cf. Dozy, Supplement, s.v. 

(C. H. Becker*) 

II. — In the Muslim West, the dalldl is exclusively 
an intermediary who, in return for remuneration, 
sells by public auction objects entrusted to him by 
third parties. In the large towns the dalldls are 
grouped in specialized guilds, supervised by a syndic 
(amin) who compels them to give a guarantee of good 
faith (damin). They chiefly concerned themselves 
with manufactured goods sold by artisans to the 
shopkeepers: slippers, locally woven fabrics, carpets, 
jewellery etc. ; industrial raw materials such as hides 
(green or tanned), wool (untreated or yarn); com- 
modities sold in bulk, such as oil, butter, honey, 
local soap, henna, eggs, fruit and vegetables; live- 
stock, animals for both riding and baggage; furni- 
ture, books and old clothes. Before the French 
Protectorate was established in Morocco they were 
also engaged in the sale of slaves of both sexes. 

The word has passed into Persian and Turkish 
(telldl) and, from the latter, into various Balkan 
languages (modern Greek telldles). Besides dalldl 
(dellil in Granada), Spanish Arabic used sawwdk. 

In the Muslim West today dalldl is quite distinct 
from barrdh "town crier" and from simsdr [q.v.] 
"broker, business agent". 

In the large towns the feminine dallala denotes 
a "dealer in women's clothes" who frequents the 
houses of the rich, offering the women fabrics, 
clothes and jewellery. 

Bibliography: Le Tourneau, Fis avant le 

protectorat, 1949, 306-14; Kampffmeyer, Texte aus 

Fes, 13; idem, Weitere Texte aus Fes und 

Tanger, 71. (G. S. Colin) 

DALTAWA, the headquarter town of the Kada 
of Khalis in the liwa of Diyala, central 'Irak 
(44 30' E, 33° 50' N). The population of the town 
—all settled 'Iraki Arabs, with ShI'i predominance 
over Sunni — was some 10,000 in 1367/1947, and 
that of the kadd 70,000; the two dependent ndhiyas 
are those of Khan Ban! Sa c d and Mansuriyya 
(formerly Dali 'Abbas). The name Daltawa is said by 
'Iraki scholars to be a corruption of an original 
Dawlatabad. 

Surrounded by date-gardens, the town is watered 
from the Khalis canal, an important offtake from 
the Diyala, right bank. Though still largely old 
fashioned, and never very healthy, the town now 
contains a number of new streets and buildings, 
especially Government offices and institutions; 
modern services and communications have been 
greatly developed during the last 30 years. Though 



nowhere mentioned in mediaeval writers, because 
then of little importance, the town is certainly of 
some antiquity, and was watered from the Nahrawan- 
Diyala canal system. 

Bibliography: 'Abd al-Razzak al-Hasanl, 

aUHrdk Kadim an wa Ifadith'", Sidon 1367/1947. 
(S. H. Longrigg) 

al-DALW [see Nudjum]. 

DAM [see sikka]. 

DAMAD, a Persian word meaning son-in-law, 
used as a title by sons-in-law of the Ottoman 
Sultans. Under the early Sultans, princesses (sultan) 
of the reigning house were occasionally given in 
marriage to the vassal princes of Asia Minor, for 
example, to the Karamanoghlu, and even to the 
vezirs and generals of the sovereign ; the case of the 
saint Amir Sultan of Bursa, who married a daughter 
of Bayazid I is, however, unique not only for that 
but also for later periods. We afterwards find Grand 
Vezirs, Kapudan Pashas, Aghas of Janissaries, 
Bostandjlbashis and other high officials as sons-in- 
law of the Sultan; the best known are Ibrahim Pasha, 
the favourite of Sulayman I, Rustem Pasha (husband 
of Mihrimah), Sokollu Mehemmed Pasha (husband 
of Asmakhan), Ibrahim Pasha (son-in-law of 
Mehemmed III), Ibrahim Pasha under Ahmed 
III etc. (cf. Hammer, GOR, index, s.v. Sultdmn)- The 
title ddmdd was applied to some of them both by 
their contemporaries and in historical writings and re- 
mained current to the end of the empire (e.g., Damad 
Mahmud Pasha, Damad Ferid Pasha [q.v.] etc.). 

The marriage ceremonies were celebrated with great 
splendour and are minutely described in the Otto- 
man chronicles as well as by western travellers (cf. 
Hammer, GOR, index s.v. Hochzeit und Vermdhlung) ; 
the dowry had been fixed by Sulayman I at 100,000 
ducats and the appanage (Khass) brought in 1000- 
1500 aspers daily. (Venetian Relazione of 1608, in 
Barozzi-Berchet, 72; Hammer, viii, 211); in addition 
a large palace was usually bestowed on the princesses. 
Till the time of Sulayman I the Damads were 
usually sent into the provinces as governors to 
prevent them having any personal influence on the 
affairs of the Sublime Porte, (Kocibey, ed. of 1303, 
94, 97). Etiquette compelled the Damad to put away 
the wives he already had and to take no further wives 
(cf. the Venetian Relazione already quoted, 103 ff. 
and Hammer, iv, 103); he became the slave of his 
wife and this relationship finds expression in the 
form of address used between the spouses (cf. the 
above reports, 72, 104; de la Mottraye, Voyages, 
338 ff . ; Hammer, Staatsverfassung, i, 476-84 = GOR, 
viii, 211-13; C. White, Three Years in Constantinople, 
iii, 180 ff.). The statement that sons born of such 
marriages were done away with at birth (Eton, 
Survey of the Turkish Empire', 101 ; Hammer, GOR, 
> v > 463), may be disproved (cf. Djewdet, vi, 196 ff., 
Relazioni loc. cit., 181, 372) ; only in earlier times they 
were debarred from all public offices (Relazioni 181). 

Bibl. in addition to that given in the article: 
Ismail Hakki Uzuncarsih, Osmanli Devletinin Saray 
Teskil&h, Ankara [945; A. D. Alderson, The Structure 
of the Ottoman Dynasty, Oxford 1956, 97-8. On the 
use of the title Kiiregen by the sons-in-law of 
Mongol rulers see Djuwayni- Boyle, 174 n. n; 
Mostaert and Cleaves, Trois Documents Mongols, 
HJAS, 1852, 474; and article GOrkhan. 

(J. H. MORDTMANN*) 

al-DAMAD, "son-in-law", an honorific title 
given to MiR muhammad bakir b. shams al-din 

MUHAMMAD AL-HUSAYNl AL-ASTARABADi, Called also 

al-Mu'-allim al-Thdlith, the "third teacher" in philo- 



l-DAMAD — DAMAD ferId pasha 



sophy after al-Farabl. This title properly belongs to 
his father who was the son-in-law of the famous 
Shl'I theologian 'All b. al-Husayn b. 'Abd al-'AH 
al-Karaki, called al-MuhaWk al-Thdni (Brockel- 
mann, S II, 574), but it was extended to the son, 
who is more correctly called Damadi or Ibn al-Damad. 
Born at Astarabad, MIr-i Damad spent his childhood 
at Tfls from where he went to Ispahan, most probably 
for preliminary studies. Educated at Mashhad, 
among his teachers are counted his maternal uncle, 
al-Shaykh 'Abd al- c Ali b. 'AH (the muditahid), and 
al-S_haykh 'Izz al-Din Husayn b. 'Abd al-Samad 

A noted divine, he is, however, chiefly esteemed 
for his attainments as a scholastic theologian 
{mutakallim), and two of his numerous works, ah 
Ufufr al-Mubin (also called by the author, at four 
places in the text, ahSirdt al-Mustaftim) and al-Sab c 
alrShidad. are still prescribed, in spite of their being 
the writings of a Shl'I muditahid, in the religious 
institutions of India and Pakistan, run and managed 
exclusively by the Sunnls, as courses of logical 
studies. For a long period of 36 years, from 984 to 1025 
(1576-1616), he remained actively engaged in philo- 
sophical and scholastic discussions and religious 
polemics. 

Mir-i Damad was also a poet of no mean order 
and composed verses under the pen-name of Ishrdk. 
Specimens of his poetry are given in the Madjma* 
at-Fusahd', the Riydd al-'Arifin and the Atash-Kada 
(see Bibliography). Muhammad Hasan "Zulali" al- 
Khwansari (d. 1024/1615), the well-known author of 
the imaginative mathnawi "Mahmud u-Ayaz", was 
a great admirer of Mir-i Damad. 

The Ta'rikh-i "-Alam Ard-yi l Abbdsi, written in 
1025/1616, fifteen years before the death of Mir-i 
Damad in 1040/1630, describes him as skilled in 
most of the sciences, especially philosophy, philology, 
mathematics, medicine, jurisprudence, exegesis and 
tradition. It further mentions about a dozen of the 
works of MIr-i Damad which shows that long before 
1025/1616, his fame as a writer and author of distinc- 
tion had been established. 

Held in great esteem, rather awe, by Shah 'Abbas 
Safawi I (996-1039/1587-1629), at whose Court he 
wielded great influence, and his successor Shah Safi I, 
Mir Bakir rose morally also above most of his 
contemporaries who were engaged in the ignoble 
pursuits of "petty jealousy and mutual disparage- 
ment" (cf. John Malcolm, History of Persia, London 
1815, i, 258-9). Among the notable pupils of MIr-i 
Damad was Mulla Sadra-i ShlrazI [q.v.], the cele- 
brated philosopher, accounted as the greatest in 
modern times in Iran. 

Mir Bakir died between al-Nadjaf and Karbala 5 , 
during a visit to the holy places in 'Irak, in 1040/1630 
and was buried in al-Nadjaf. 

He was a prolific writer; a full list of his Arabic 
works is given by Brockelmann (S II, 579)- Chief 
of these are: al-Uful? al-Mubin which has been the 
subject of numerous commentaries. Mawlawl Fadl-i 
Haijk of Khayrabad. a famous theologian and 
mutakallim of India, was very fond of teaching this 
book. Bahr al-'Ulum [q.v.] has written taHikdt 
(glosses) on it. Al-§irdt al-Mustakim and al-Habl al- 
Matin, are also on logic. Concerning the former a 
Persian poet says: "May the Muslim never hear nor 
the kdfir ever see the Sirdt al-Musta&m of MIr-i 
Damad". 

His other notable works are: al-Kabasdt (composed 
in 1034/1624) on the huduth (Creation) of the Uni- 
verse and the Eternity of God, etc.; Shdri c al- 



Nadidt (in Persian), on the principles of religion and 

jurisprudence, comprising an introduction, five 

books and a conclusion; Sidrat al-Muntahd, a 

commentary of the Kur 5 an; aUDjidhawdt, (in 

Persian), a treatise on the mystic meanings of the 

detached letters (huruf mukatfa'dt) in the Kur'an 

and also containing a discussion as to why the body 

of Moses, composed of organic matter, survived the 

divine tadjalli while Mount Sinai was (according to 

tradition) reduced to ashes. This work, specially 

composed for Shah 'Abbas Safawi, is divided into 

12 preliminary chapters and a large number of 

sections, each termed diidhwa; Tafrwim cd-Imdn or 

al-Takwim fi 'l-Kaldm, on the philosophy of imdn; 

and al-Taftdisat, on the divine dispensation. He has 

also left two separate diwdns, in Arabic and Persian. 

Bibliography: Ibn Ma'sum, Suldfat al-'Asr, 

Cairo 1334/1915, 485-7; Iskandar Beg MunshI, 

Ta'rtkh-i 'Alam Ard-yi 'Abbdsi, Tehran 1313-14/ 

1896-7, 109, 658; Muhammad Bakir al-Khwansarl, 

Rawddt al-Dianndt flAhwdl al-'Ulamd' wa 'l-Sdddt, 

Tehran 1347-1928, i, 114-6; Fadl Allah al-Muhibbl, 

Khuldsat al-Athar, Cairo 1281/1864, iv, 301-2; 

Muhammad b. Sadik, Nudium al-Samd', Lucknow 

1303/1885-6, 46; I'djaz Husayn al-Kanturl, Kashf 

al-Hudptb wa 'l-Astdr 'an Asmd' al-Kutub wa 

'l-Asfdr, Calcutta 1330/1912, index (under Muh. 

Bakir b. Muh. al-Husaynl al-Damad); Sarkls, 

Mu'djam al-Mafbu'dt, col. 860; C. Brockelmann, 

S II, 579-8o; Fihrist Kitab Khdna-i Ddnishgdh-i 

Iran, (compiled by Muhammad TakI Danish- 

Puzhuh), Tehran, 1332/1953, iii, 152 (where 

several other references are found); Muhammad 

b. Hasan al-Hurr al-'Amill, Amal al-Amil 

fi 'Ulamd' Qiabal al-'Amil, 498; Muljammad b. 
Sulayman TunakabunI, Kisas al-'Ulamd', Tehran 
1304/1886, 145, 238-40 (also Urdu translation by 
Mir Nadir 'AH Ra'd, Haydarabad 1340-1/1921-3); 
'Abd al-'Aziz "Djawahir al-Kalam", Risdla dar 
Fadilat al-Hlm wa 'l-Ulamd' (MS.); Rida 5 Kull 
Khan Hidayat, Mad[ma c al-Fusahd', Tehran 
1295/1878, vii, 2; Lutf 'All Khan Adhar, Atash- 
Kada, 1299/1882, 159; Rida 5 Kuli Khan Hidayat, 
Riydd al-'Arifin, Tehran 1305/1888, 166-7; 
Browne, iv, 256-7, 406-7, 426-9 and index; 'Abbas 
al-Kummi, al-Kund wa '1-AlHb, al-Nadjaf 1376/ 
1956, ii, 206-7; Bakhtawar Khan, Mir'dt al- l Alam 
(MS.); Muhammad Rida 5 "Bandah", Zinat al- 
Tawdrikh, fol. 553; "Agha" Ahmad 'All, Haft 
Asmdn, Calcutta 1873; Rieu, Catalogue of Persian 
MSS. in the British Museum, ii, 835 ; Muhammad 
Muhsin Agha Buzurg al-Tihranl, Al-Dhari'a, ii, 
Nadjaf 1355, 261 (and elsewhere, under the entries 
referring to his works). (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
DAMAD FERlD PASHA, one of the last 
Grand Vezirs of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed 
FerId, son of Hasan 'Izzet, a member of the Council 
of State (Shura-yi Dewlet), was born in Istanbul in 
1853, served in minor diplomatic posts, and, upon 
his marriage (1886) to 'Abd al-Hamid II's sister 
Medlha, was made member of the Council of State 
and senator, and given the rank of Pasha. In 191 1 
he became co-founder and chairman of the Hurriyet 
we I 5 tilaf FlrkasI [q.v.]. After the Ottoman defeat he 
served his brother-in-law Mehmed VI as Grand 
Vezir (4 March to 2 October 1919 and 5 April to 
21 October 1920). His policy of accommodation to 
the victor powers in hopes of winning lenient peace 
terms proved as futile as his attempts to suppress 
the national resistance movement in Anatolia under 
Kemal [Ataturk]. Nationalist pressure forced his 
resignation in October 1919. Restored to office after 



DAMAD FERID PASHA — DAMANHOR 



the reinforced Allied occupation of Istanbul, his 
government was responsible for issuing the well- 
known anti-nationalist fetwds (signed by the shaykh 
al-Isldm Diirrizade c Abd Allah [?.».]) and dispatched 
troops against the nationalists in Anatolia. On 
io August 1920 his cabinet signed the peace treaty 
of Sevres, but the growing strength of the national- 
ists soon caused his final dismissal. In September 
1922 he left Istanbul for Nice, where he died on 
6 October 1923. 

Bibliography: Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanh 
devrinde son sadriazamlar, Istanbul 1940-53, 
2029-2094; Milli newsdl 1340 (1924), 352; Tank 
Z. Tunaya, Turkiyede siyasi partiler, 1952, 315, 
451-55; Ali Fuat Turkgeldi, Gdrup isittiklerim', 
1951; WI, 1928-9, 1-154; Kemal [Ataturk], Nutuk 
(see 1934 edn., index); Ibrahim Alaettin Govsa, 
Turk meshurlan ansiklopedisi, 1946, 136. 

(D. A. Rustow) 
PAMAN (a.), in Islamic law, the civil liability 
in the widest meaning of the term, whether it arises 
from the non-performance of a contract or from 
tort or negligence (ta'addi, literally "transgression"). 
Prominent particular cases are the liability for the 
loss of an object sold before the buyer has taken 
possession (daman al-mabi c ), for eviction {daman 
al-darak), for the loss of a pledge in the possession of 
the pledgee (daman al-rahn), for the loss of an object 
that has been taken by usurpation (daman al-ghasb), 
and for loss or damage caused by artisans (daman 
al-adjir, d. al-sunnd c ). The depositary and other 
persons in a position of trust (amin, [q.v.]) are not 
liable for accidental loss but they lose this privileged 
position through unlawful acts, e.g., using the 
deposit, whether the loss is caused by the unlawful 
act or not. Questions of daman are treated sporadi- 
cally in numerous sections of the works on fikh, and 
it forms the subject of a number of special treatises. 
Daman in the sense of suretyship, guarantee, is a 
liability specially created by contract; it is synony- 
mous with kafdla [q.v.]. In a wider sense, daman is 
used of the risk or responsibility that one bears with 
regard to property of which one enjoys the profit, 
as in the old legal maxim, which was put into the 
form of a hadith attributed to the Prophet, al- 
kharddi bi 'l-4aman ("profit follows responsibility"). 
Bibliography : al-Djurdjani, Kitdb al-Ta c rifdt, 
s.v.; Tahanawl, Dictionary of the Technical Terms, 
s.v.; (the entry in Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, 
contains several mistakes); E. Fagnan, Additions 
aux Dictionnaires Arabes, s.v.; Fudayl b. 'All al- 
Djamali, K. al-Damdndt )i 'l-Furu'- (Brockelmann, 
II, 573, S II, 645; J. Schacht, in Abh. Pr. Ak. W., 
Phil.-hist. Kl., 1928, no. 8, § 43; 1929, no. 6, § 22; 
1931, no. 1, § 33); Ghanim b. Muhammad al- 
Baghdadl, Madjma' al-Damdndt, Cairo 1308 
(Brockelmann, II, 492, S II, 502; J. Schacht, 
in Abh. Pr. Ak. W., Phil.-hist. KL, 1928, no. 8, 
§ 45; 1929, no. 6, § 23; 1931, no. 1, § 34); Mahmud 
Efendi b. Hamza al-HamzawI, al-Tahrir fi Daman 
al-Ma'mur wa 'I- Amir wa 'l-Adjir, Damascus 1303 
(Brockelmann, S II, 775); al-Hasan b. Rahhal al- 
MaManl (Brockelmann, S II, 696), K. Tadmin al- 
sunnd*-, introduction, text, transl. and notes by 
J. Berque, Algiers 1949 (Bibliotheque Arabe- 
Francaise, XIII); J. Schacht, G. Bergstrdsser's 
GrundzUge des Islamischen Rechts, 64 f. ; D. Santil- 
lana, Istituzioni di Diritto Musulmano Malichita, 
II, index s.vv. daman, responsibilitd, rischio; 
J. Schacht, The Origins of Muhammadan Jurispru- 
dence, 123, 181, 270; Wensinck, Concordance et 
Indices de la Tradition Musulmane, s.v. ; E. Tyan, 



La responsabiliti dilictuelle en droit musulman, 
Paris 1926; F. M. Goadby, in Journal of Compara- 
tive Legislation, 1939, 62-74; E. Schram-Nielsen, 
Studier over Erstatningslaeren i Islamisk Ret, 
Copenhagen 1945 (with resume in French); J. 
Lapanne-Joinville, in Revue Algirienne, 1955/I, 
1-24, 51-75- (Ed.) 

PAMAN, in the financial sense, 'farming' (of 
taxes). See bayt al-mal. 

DAMANHOR, a name derived from the ancient 
Egyptian Timinhur, the city of Horus. It is not 
surprising that a number of cities of this name are 
to be found, almost all in the Nile Delta. 

I. Damanhur al-Shahid, Damanhur "of the 
Martyr", one of the northern suburbs of Cairo. This 
was the name still used by Yakut, but the village 
was later known as Damanhur Shubra, a name 
which was however already known to al-MukaddasI. 
Ibn Mammati calls it simply Damanhur. The two 
names are sometimes inverted and certain authors 
speak of Shubra Damanhur or even Shubra 'l-Shahld. 
This kind of phenomenon is frequent enough in 
Egypt, especially when it is necessary to distinguish 
one place from others of the same name. Shubra is 
also called Shubra '1-Khayma or Shubra '1-Khivam. 
Shubra "of the tents". 

There was once a Christian reliquary in this place 
containing the bones of a martyr. On 8th Bashans 
(3rd May) each year, the town celebrated a holiday 
while the people accompanied this casket in pro- 
cession to the Nile, into which it was plunged in the 
hope of promoting the success of the river's annual 
flood. There was no doubt excessive drinking on 
this day and the feast was forbidden in 702/1302. It 
was re-established in 738/1338 but was definitely 
suppressed in 755/'354 and the relic burnt. 

Bibliography: Abu Salih, fol. 45; Ibn 
Mammati, 371; Mukaddasi, 54, 194, 206; Yakut, 
ii, 601; Ibn Dukmak, v, 46; Makrizi, ed. Wiet, i, 
292-6; the same, Suluk, i, 941 (trans. Quatre- 
mere, ii, b, 213); Ibn Taghribirdi, ed. Cairo, vlii, 
202-3; Ibn Dji'an, 7; Quatremere, Mimoires sur 
I'Egypte, i, 360; Amelineau, Giographie de I'Egypte, 
113-5 (to be consulted with caution); J. Maspero 
and G. Wiet, Mathiaux, 108-110, 217. 

II. Damanhur, capital of the province of Buhayra, 
the ancient Hermopolis Parva of the Byzantine era. 
Since the name is ancient it can hardly be called an 
Islamic creation, but nothing is heard of it in the 
chronicles until the time of the Arab conquest. The 
important locality is Kartasa, the only name known 
to the ancient authors, who mention it as the capital 
of a pagarchy (kura). 

The oldest reference is to be found in Ibn Mammati, 
who calls it Damanhur al-Wahsh. Ibn Djubayr and 
Yakut passed through it. To them it was an urban 
centre of medium size surrounded by a wall. Ibn 
Mammati mentions a canal named after the city, 
the Bahr Damanhur. The sultan Barkuk restored 
its fortifications, in order better to resist the in- 
cursions of the Bedouin; furthermore the town had 
suffered greatly in the earthquake of 702/1302. 
Damanhur increased in importance and according 
to Ibn Dukmak, it possessed a Friday mosque, 
schools, caravanserais and covered markets. It was, 
then, not only the capital of the province of Buhayra, 
but also the residence of a senior Mamhjk officer 
commanding the whole of the Delta. The post road, 
skirting the desert from Cairo to Alexandria, had 
a stage post there and there was also a carrier 
pigeoncote. 

According to Sonnini the town was "large but 



DAMANHOR — DAMAWAND 



badly built, almost all the houses being made 
either of mud or of bad quality brick. It is the 
centre of the trade in cotton, which is gathered in 
the vast and beautiful plains surrounding it". 

On 30th April, 1799, a French company was 
massacred there by the troops of Mahdl Ahmad; 
the reprisals were terrible. 

Damanhur is now a heavily populated town. The 
railway between Cairo and Alexandria has a station 
there, and it is the centre of a network of secondary 
railway routes. 

Bibliography: Ibn <Abd al-tfakam, 83; 
Synaxaire, Patrologia Orientalis, xvij, 565, 1107; 
Idrisi, Maghrib, 160; Ibn Mammati, 169, 226-7; 
Ibn Djubayr, 44 (trans. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 
45); Yakut, ii, 601; Ibn Furat, ix, 86; Ibn 
Dukmak, v, 101; ICalkashandl, iii, 406, xiv, 376 
(trans. Wustenfeld, in); Makrizi, Suluk, i, 944 
(trans. Quatremere, ii, b, 216); Zahiri, 35, 117, 
119 (trans. Venture de Paradis, 55, 197, 201); 
Ibn Taghribirdi, ed. Cairo, xi, 291, xii, 113-4; 
Ibn Dji'an, 116; Quatremere, Mimoires sur 
I'Egypte, i, 361-3; Deherain, Histoire de la Nation 
Egyptietme, v, 436; J. Maspero and Wiet, MaU- 
riaux, 146-7, 175-8, 180-1, 183, 185, 194. 
Other places of the same name are mentioned in 
geographical lists but not described. 

Bibliography : Mukaddasi, 55; Ibn Mammati, 
134, 135; Ibn Dukmak, v, 89; Ibn Dji'an, 78; 
Amelineau, Giographie de I'Egypte, 116. 

(G. Wiet) 
DAMASCUS [see dimashk]. 
DAMAWAND, the highest point in the 
mountains on the borders of Northern 
Persia (cf. Alburz), somewhat below 36° N. Lat. 
and about 50 miles north-east of Tehran. According 
to de Morgan it rises out of the plateau of Rehne 
to a height of 13,000 feet above it. The various 
estimates of its height differ: Thomson estimates it 
at 21,000 feet (certainly too high), de Morgan at 
20,260 feet, Houtum Schindler at 19,646, Sven 
Hedin.at 18,187, and in the last edition of Stieler's 
Handatlas (1910) it is given as 18,830 feet. Its 
summit, perpetually snow-clad and almost always 
enveloped in clouds, is visible several days' journey 
away, as Yakut tells us from his own experience. In 
fine weather and favourable light it may be seen, 
according to Melgunof, from the Caspian sea, a 
distance of over 260 versts (162 miles). {Cazwmi's 
statements on this point are exaggerated, but it is 
certain that the Damawand massif commands the 
whole coastlands of Mazandaran (the mediaeval 
TabaristSn). 

Geologically Damawand is of recent origin, as is 
clear from its volcanic nature which is apparent in 
several features. There are as many as 70 craters on 
this mountain mass; from one of them, which is 
covered with thick deposits of sulphur, rises the 
conical peak. There are also many sulphur springs 
on it; ICazwini mentions "the springs of Damawand 
from which smoke arises by day and fire by night". 
Damawand is the centre of the earthquake zone 
which stretches throughout Mazandaran. It is clear 
from the earlier accounts of Arab travellers that the 
internal activity of the central volcano had not then 
quite ceased as it has now. 

Damawand is rich in minerals, particularly 
anthracite. Sulphur is found in immense quantities; 
the finest quality, the best in Persia according to 
Polak, Persien, Leipzig 1865, ii, 178, is found 
just below the summit of the mountain, where it is 



collected in the summer months by the people of 
Ask and Damawand and sold by them. Around the 
foot of Damawand rise numerous mineral springs, 
of which two in particular — one in the little town of 
Ask, the other somewhat further north on the 
Heraz (Herhaz) — enjoy a great reputation as baths. 
The majority deposit considerable sediment; for 
example Ask is built on such alluvium (Polak, 
op. cit., ii, 229). The apricots grown in the valleys 
of Damawand are highly esteemed in Persia. (Polak, 
op. cit., ii, 146). 

Like the other giants of Eastern Asia, such as 
Ararat, Damawand was long regarded as inaccessible; 
this opinion, which was widely held, is found 
repeatedly in the Arab geographers, although one 
successful ascent is mentioned (see c Ali b. Razin's 
statement in I<azwinl, 159). Oliver (1798) was the 
first European traveller to visit the mountain, 
without however being able to reach the summit. 
The first complete climb was by W. Taylor Thomson 
in 1837; he was followed in 1843 by the botanist 
Th. Kotschy and in 1852 by the Austrian engineer 
Czarnotta. H. Brugsch and Baron Minutoli seem 
also to have reached the summit in 1860; (see 
Petermann's Geographische Mitteilungen, 1861, 437). 
In more recent years a number of further successful 
ascents have been undertaken by Napier and others, 
usually from Ask; cf. particularly Sven Hedin, Der 
Demawend in Verh. der Gesellsch. j. Erdkunde, 
Berlin, xix, 304-22. 

In the ancient history of Persia Damawand is the 
scene of the legendary history of the Peshdad and 
Kayan rulers. Even at the present day the people of 
Mazandaran point out the different places which 
were the scenes of the wonderful deeds of Diamshid. 
Faridun, Sam, Z51, Rustam and other heroes 
immortalized in the Shahndma. Damawand is also 
the abode of the fabulous bird Simurgh. From 
ancient times the prison of the cruel king Dahhak 
(O. Iran. Dahaka, also Bewarasp) has been located 
here. Faridun (O. Iran, ©raetaona) is traditionally 
said to have shut him up in a cavern on the summit 
of this mountain, and here, in the belief of the local 
populace, the imprisoned tyrant lives to this day; 
the dull sounds which are periodically heard inside 
the mountain are thought to be his groans, and the 
vapour and smoke which escape from fissures and 
springs on the mountain-face are his breath. Obvious- 
ly the volcanic properties of Damawand have been 
responsible for these legends. According to another 
story the demon Sakhr, imprisoned by Solomon, is 
also locked in Damawand. As the highest mountain 
in Persia, Damawand is thought by the Persians to 
be that on which Noah's Ark rested. On the wealth 
of Damawand legends cf. Yakut, ii, 606, 610; 
Kazwini; Melgunof, 22 ff.; Griinbaum in ZDMG, 
xxxi, 238-9. 

Formerly on the slopes and in the valleys of 
Damawand there were many fortified places. 
Nowadays the most important place is the small 
town called Damawand after the mountain and 
situated on its south-western spurs (according to de 
Morgan, 6425 feet above sea level). It is said to be 
very ancient, and according to Mustawfi was 
formerly called Pishyan. The beautiful valley of 
Damawand, watered by two rivers and including ten 
villages as well as the town of Damawand, no 
longer belongs to Mazandaran but to 'Irak 
'Adjami. Because of its elevated situation the 
climate is very pleasant; for this reason the Shahs 
of Persia used to delight in spending the summer in 
its valleys. The ultra-Shi'i sect of the <Ali Ilahi 



l-DAMIRI 



L?.i».J has a large number of adherents among the 
inhabitants of this region. 

The name of Damawand appears in Persian and 
Arabic sources in a number of different forms: 
Persian Danbawand (Vullers, Lex. Persico-Lat., i, 
907b), Damawand (ibid., 902b), Demawand (ibid., 
955b) and Demawand (ibid., 956b); Ar. Dunbawand, 
Dubawand, Dumawand. The oldest form of the 
name appears to be Dunbawand, while the usual 
modern one is Damawand (Demawend). On the 
different ways of writing the name, see Quatremere, 
Hist, des Mongols, 200 ff.; Fleischer's ed. of Abu 
'1-Fida>, Histor. Anteislamica, Lips. 1831, 213 ff., 
232; H. Hiibschmann, Armenische Grammatik, 
Leipzig 1897, 17. 

Bibliography: BGA, passim; Yakut, ii, 544, 
585, 606 ff.; Kazwlni, Kosmographie (ed. Wiisten- 
feld), i, 82, 158 ff., 198; Mardsid al-Ittild'- (ed. 
Juynboll), i, 388, 408 ; v, 429, 432, 483 ; Quatremere, 
Hist, des Mongols, 200 ff.; Le Strange, 371; 
K. Ritter, Erdkunde, viii, 10, 502-5, 550-70; 
Fr. Spiegel, Eranische Altertumskunde, Leipzig 
1871, i, 70; W. Ouseley, Travels in var. countries 
of the East, London 1819 ff., iii, 326-34; W. 
Taylor Thomson in JRGeog.S, viii (1838), 109 ff.; 
Hommaire de Hell, Voy. en Turquie et en Perse, 
Paris 1854 ff., with accompanying Historical 
Atlas, PI. 74, 76a; Th. Kotschy in Petermann's 
Geogr. Mitteil., 1859, 49 ft.; J. E. Polak, Persien, 
Leipzig 1865, i, 313, 315, 349; ii, 146, 178, 229; 
G. Melgunof, Das sudl. Ufer des Kasp. Meeres, 
Leipzig 1868, 21-7, 52, 149, 183; F. v. Call- 
Rosenberg, Das Larthal bei Teheran u. der Dema- 
wend in Mitteil. der Geog. Ges. in Wien, N.F. ix 
(1876), 113-42; G. Napier's account in Alpine 
Journal, 1877, 262-5, and in Petermann's Geogr. 
Mitteil., 1877, 434; Tietze, Der Vulkan Demawend 
in Persien, in Jahrb. der k. k. geolog. Reichsanst., 
Vienna 1877, vol. xxvii; de Morgan, Mission 
scientif. en Perse. £tud. giograph., i, Paris 1894, 

115, 120-33, with good views; Sven Hedin, Der 
Demawend in Verh. der Ges. f. Erdkunde (Berlin), 
xix, 304-22; Sarre in ZGErdk.Birl. 1902, 100 ff.; 
Mas'ud Mayhan, Djughrajiyd-yi mufassal-i Iran, 
Tehran 1310/1932, index s.v.; Firdawsi. Shdh-ndma. 
ed. and tr. J. Mohl, 1878, vii, Index s.v. Demavend, 
Zohak; H. Masse, Croyances et coutumes persans, 
index ii, s.v. Demavend. (M. Streck*) 
DAMGHAN a town on the main highway 

between Tehran and Mashhad, some 344 km. east 
o-f Tehran; also, a station on the railway between 
Tehran and Mashhad. At an altitude of 1115 
metres, it has a population of 9,900 (1950). One 
km. to the south of the town is the mound called 
Tappa HisSr where excavations conducted by the 
University of Pennsylvania in 1931 uncovered 
prehistoric burials and the plaster-decorated remains 
of a building of the Sasanid period. The oldest 
Islamic structure — possibly the earliest surviving 
mosque in Iran— is the Tarl Khana, believed to 
date from the 3rd/gth century. Attached to this 
mosque is a minaret of the 5th/nth century. Several 
tomb towers of the Saldjuk period survive: the PIr 
'Alamdar dated 417/1026, the Cihil Dukhtaran dated 
446/1054, and the Imam-zada Dja'far. The minaret 
of the Masdjid-i Djami' is dated 500/1106. 

Bibliography: Ikbal YaghmanI, Djughrajiyd- 
yi Ta'rikhi-yi Ddmghdn, Tehran 1326/1947, 36 ff.; 
Rdhndmd-yi Iran, Tehran 1330/1951, 92 ; Farhang-i 
Djughratiya-yi Iran, Tehran 1 330/1951, vol. 3, 

116. (D. N. Wilber) 
DAMIETTA [see dim vat]. 



PAMlR [see nahw]. 

AL-DAMlRl, Muhammad b. Musa b. <Isa Kamal 
al-dIn, was born in Cairo about the beginning of 
the year 742/1341 (according to a note in his own 
handwriting quoted by al-SakhawI,, 59) and died 
there in 808/1405. Later dates of his birth, as given 
in some sources (745/1344 or 750/1349), would 
hardly be consistent with certain details of his 
biography. His nisba is derived from the northern- 
most of the two townlets both called Damira near 
Samannfid in the Delta. 

After first gaining his livelihood as a tailor in his 
native town he decided to become a professional 
theologian, choosing as his main teacher the famous 
Shafi'i scholar Baha' al-Din al-Subki [q.v.], with 
whom he became closely associated for years. He 
also studied under Djamal al-Din al-Asnawi (Brockel- 
mann I, no, S II, 107), Ibn al-'Akil, the renowned 
commentator of Ibn Malik's Alfiyya (Brockelmann II, 
108, S II, 104), Burhan al-Din al-Kirati (Brockel- 
mann II, 15, S II, 7) and others. His biographers 
point out his great competence in Muslim juris- 
prudence, fradith science, Kur'anic exegesis, Arabic 
philology and belles lettres. His younger contemporary, 
al-Makrizi [q.v.], in his c Ukud, speaks of him with 
love and admiration. 

Having been authorized to teach the usual 
branches of Muslim education and to give fatwds, 
al-Damlri took up suitable posts in several places of 
learning and devotion (al-Azhar, the Djami c of 
al-Zahir, the madrasa of Ibn al-Bakari, the Kubba 
of Baybars II, etc.), where he held lectures and 
delivered sermons and exhortations, apportioning 
his time in turn to the different institutions. A 
member of the Sufi community established in the 
Khankah Salahiyya (previously known as Dar Sa'id 
al-Su'ada'; cf. c Ali Mubarak, iv, 102, Makrlzl, 
Khitaf, Bulak 1270, ii, 415), he was celebrated for his 
ascetic life and credited with performing miracles. 
Although as a youth inclined to gluttony, he later 
made it a habit to fast almost continually, indulged 
in prayers and vigils and performed the pilgrimage 
six times between the years 762-799/1361-97. During 
his stay in Mecca and Medina he completed his 
education with several local scholars, held lectures 
and gave fatwds and married twice. After his last 
pilgrimage he stayed in Cairo until his death. He 
was buried in the Sufi graveyard beside the Diami 1 
of Sa c id al-Su c ada 3 (cf. c Ali Mubarak, iv, 102 ff.). 

Al-Damirl's fame as an author rests on his Haydt 
al-Hayawdn, a para-zoological encyclopaedia, through 
which he became known both in the east and the 
west. He wrote it, as stated in the preface, not 
because of a natural disposition for such an under- 
taking, but in order to correct false notions about 
animals which were entertained even by the learned 
of his time. The work, completed in draft in 773/ 
1371-2, is not only a compendium of Arabic zoology 
but also a store house of Muslim folklore, described 
in part in the researches of J. de Somogyi. The 
author did not restrict himself to the purely zoolo- 
gical aspect of his subject matter but also treated, 
often at great length, all that pertains to the animals 
mentioned in any way whatsoever. In addition, he 
made frequent digressions into other fields, the most 
remarkable of which is a survey of the history of the 
Caliphs (s.v. iwazz), which occupies about the thir- 
teenth part of the whole work. 

The articles, arranged alphabetically according 
to the first letters — not the radicals — of the anima 
names, generally contain discussions of the following 
items: 1) philological aspects of the animal's name; 



2) description of the animal and its habits ; 3) mention 
of the animal in the hadith-hteiature ; 4) its lawfulness 
as human food according to the different tnadhdhib; 
5) proverbs bearing upon it; 6) medicinal and other 
properties (khawass) of its different parts; 7) its 
meaning when occurring in dreams. The work 
contains 1069 articles but treats of a much smaller 
number of animals, real and imaginary (among them 
the Burdk [q.v.]), since one and the same animal is 
frequently entered under different names. Being no 
professional naturalist, the author often entertained 
superstitious and fabulous notions without any 
attempt at criticism. He merely transmitted and 
rearranged traditional knowledge basing himself on 
hundreds of sources which have been analysed, 
though not quite satisfactorily, by J. de Somogyi. 
There are three recensions of the work — a long, a 
short and an intermediate one — of which the long 
one is available in at least 13 Oriental impressions 
(in addition to those mentioned by Brockelmann 
also Cairo 1315-16, 1321-22, 1353), while a critical 
edition is still awaited. There exist also several 
abridgements and adaptations, a Persian translation 
from the 17th century and a more recent Turkish 
translation. The English translation of Jayakar 
extends only to the article Abu Firds (about three 
quarters of the whole) and is not quite satisfactory 
from the philological point of view. 

Of al-Damiri's other writings only three are 
extant (see Brockelmann). His last work was a five 
volume commentary on the Sunan of Ibn Madja 
[q.v.], entitled al-Dibddia, of which, however, he 
was not able to finish a clean copy before he died. 
Bibliography: 'All Mubarak, al-Khitat al- 
Djadida, xi, 59; Brockelmann, II, 172 f.; S II, 
170 f.; S III, 1260; Ad-Damiri's Haydt al- 
Hayawdn, transl. from the Arabic by A. S. G. 
Jayakar, London & Bombay, 1906-08, Intro- 
duction; HadjdjI Khalifa, i, 696 f.; idem, ed. 
Fliigel, index, 11 27, no. 4759; Ibn al-'Imad, 
Shadhardt. year 808 ; al-Sakhawi, al-Daw* al-Ldmi c , 
x, 59 f f. ; Sarton, Introduction to the History of 
Science, iii/b, n68f., 1214, 1326, 1639; al- 
Shawkanl, al-Badr al-Tdli 1 , ii, 272; J. de Somogyi, 
Index des sources de la Haydt al-Hayawdn de ad- 
Damirt, in J A, July-September 1928, 5 ff. (based 
merely on the Cairo edition 1284); idem, Biblical 
Figures in ad-Damiri's Haydt al-Hayawdn, 
Dissert, in honorem E. Mahler, 1937, 263 ff.; idem, 
ad-Damiri's Haydt al-Hayawdn, Osiris, ix (1950), 
33 f. ; idem, ad-Damiri Haydt al-Hayawanja (in 
Hungarian), Sem. St. in Memory of I. L6w, 1947, 
123 ft.; idem, Chess and Backgammon in ad- 
Damiri's Haydt al-Hayawdn, Et. or. a la mim. 
de P. Hirschler, 1950, ioiff.; idem, Medicine 
in ad-Damiri's Hayat al-Hayawan, in JSS, 
ii (1957), 62 ff.; idem, The Interpretation of Dreams 
in ad-Damiri's Haydt al-Hayawdn, in JRAS, 
1940, iff.; Die Chalifengeschichte in Damiri's 
"Haydt al-Hayawdn", in Isl., xviii (1929), 
154 ff. ; idem, A History of the Caliphate in the 
Haydt al-hayawdn of ad-Damiri, in BSOS viii 
(1935-37), 143 ff.; E. Wiedemann, Beitr. z. Gesch. 
d. Naturw., liii, 233 f.; H. A. Winkler, Eine Zu- 
sammenstellung christlicher Geschichten im Artikel 
Uber das Schwein in Damiri's Tierbuch, in Isl., 
xviii (1929), 285 ff. (L. Kopf) 

PAMMA [see haraka]. 

al-DAMMAM, a port on the Persian Gulf and 
capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The 
name formerly designated a tower fort, located at 
26 27' 56" N., 50 06' 06" E., on a reef near the 



shore north of the present town. The origin of the 
fort is not known, although the structure razed in 
1957 to make way for a small-craft pier appeared to 
date from the time of the redoubtable Djalahima sea 
captain Rahma b. Djabir [q.v.]. Ibn Djabir built a 
fort at al-Dammam after allying himself with Al 
Sa'fld about 1809, but the Sa c udls destroyed it in 
1231/1816 when he deserted their cause to attack 
al-Bahrayn. Two years later he assisted the Turco- 
Egyptian forces of Ibrahim Pasha to capture al- 
Katlf and re-established himself in al-Dammam. He 
immediately rebuilt the fort, which with its depen- 
dent fortifications and village settlement on the 
adjoining shore became the base for his naval 
activities against Al Khalifa of al-Bahrayn. In 1242/ 
1826 Al Khalifa and Ban! Khalid captured al- 
Dammam, following the death of Rahma b. Djabir 
in a naval engagement with the blockading Bahrayni 
fleet. For the next seventeen years al-Dammam 
remained a possession of al-Bahrayn. During this 
period Al Khalifa permitted the c Ama'ir section of 
Ban! Khalid and members of Ban! Hadjir to settle 
there. In 1259/1843 c Abd Allah Al Khalifa, having 
been dispossessed by his grand-nephew Muljammad, 
which was soon invested by a Sa'udi force on land 
and a Bahrayni fleet. Faysal b. TurkI Al Sa c ud 
occupied the fort in 1260/1844, to the disillusionment 
of Bishr b. Rahma b. Djabir. who had participated 
in the campaign in the expectation of recovering his 
paternal estate. In 1260/1852 Al Sa'Qd, having fallen 
out with Muhammad Al Khalifa, re-established the 
sons of <Abd Allah at al-Dammam. An attempt by 
these exiles to recover al-Bahrayn led Britain to 
demand that Al Sa'ud evict them; when this was not 
done, they were driven out by a brief British naval 
bombardment in 1278/1861. In 1282/1866 the 
garrison of al-Dammam repulsed a British naval 
force which sought to destroy the fort in retaliation 
for an incident at Sur in Oman. A Turkish expedition 
captured al-Dammam in 1288/1871 in the course of 
occupying a large part of eastern Arabia. Under 
Turkish administration the fort fell into disrepair, 
and al-Dammam declined to a minor settlement of 
fishermen, which figured occasionally in the piratical 
exploits of the Ban! Hadjir. In 1 326/1908 Lorimer 
described it as an abandoned ruin. The site reverted 
to Sa c udi rule as a result of the conquest of al-Hasa 
by c Abd al-'Aziz Al Sa c ud in 1331/1913. The present 
town was founded by members of the tribe of al- 
Dawasir [q.v.], who moved from al-Bahrayn to the 
mainland in 1341/1923 to escape British reprisals 
following clashes with Shi'I elements on the island. 
For twenty years al-Dammam remained an insigni- 
ficant fishing village. In 1357/1938 the California 
Arabian Standard Oil Company (now the Arabian 
American Oil Company) discovered oil at nearby 
al-Zahran [q.v.] (Dhahran) on a geological structure 
which was named the "Dammam Dome". Al-Dam- 
mam experienced little growth until its selection in 
1365/1946 as the site of a modern deep-water port 
and the starting point for a railroad leading to the 
national capital of al-Riyad. The port, which consists 
of a pierhead connected to the mainland by a trestle 
and causeway 10.7 km. in length, was opened in 
1369/1950 and has since been expanded. In 1372/ 
1953 the capital of the Eastern Province was trans- 
ferred from al-Hufflf in the oasis of al-Hasa to al- 
Dammam. Al-Dammam has grown rapidly since 
then and has developed various municipal ser- 
vices, and a limited amount of trade and industry. 
The town's population was estimated in i960 at 
35,ooo. 



Bibliography: Muhammad al-Nabhanl, Al- 
Tuhfa al-Nabhdniyya, Cairo 1342; 'Uthman ibn 
Bishr, c Unwdn al-Madid, Cairo I373 - , J- G. 
Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, Calcutta 
1908-15; H. St. J. B. Philby, Sa'udi Arabia, 
London 1954. (H. W. Alter) 

DAMNAT (Demnate, Demnat), a small Berber 
town situated on the edge of the Great Atlas in 
Morocco, 120 km. east of Marrakush, at an altitude 
of 960 m., on a small hill overlooking the fertile 
valley (barley, beans) of the Oued Tassawt, the 
slopes of which are covered with olive-trees and vines. 
The town is surrounded by a rectangular wall and 
includes a milldh (Jewish quarter); in fact almost 
half the population, which stands at about 4,000, 
consists of Jews, whose numbers however are 
diminishing regularly. Local trade on a large scale 
in oil, leather and livestock is carried on at the 
market which is held on Sundays; in addition, 
tribes from the Atlas and Sahara used to bring their 
products (hides, wool, dates), bartering them for 
such manufactured goods as they needed. Demnat 
thus appears to have owed part of its prosperity to 
its situation on the route leading from Marrakush to 
Meknes and Fez in one direction, and to the Draa 
(Dar'a) and the Tafilalt in the other; but, without 
exception, the Arab geographers made no mention 
of it although its foundation certainly dates from 
ancient times. Leo Africanus appears to be the first 
to mention it, though he does not give the name of 
the town (according to a suggestion put forward by 
G. S. Colin, Adimmei which appears in Epaulard's 
trans, on p. 115 may be a mistake for Adimnat) and 
only mentions a place named El Madina (trans. 
Epaulard, 130-1), the description of which does in 
fact correspond closely with that of Demnat. Leo 
stressed the importance of the Jewish community 
and of the local leather- work ; he also noted the lack 
of security on the roads, every merchant finding it 
necessary to maintain "an arquebusier or a cross- 
bowman". For the rest, the history of the town is 
little more than a series of disturbances caused either 
by jealousy of the Jewish population's wealth, or 
by dynastic rivalries in which the town was the stake. 
During the 19th century Demnat began to be of 
concern to the Western Powers who were obliged 
to intervene to protect the Jews from persecution 
by the authorities; as a result, on 17 Sha'ban 1304/ 
n May 1887, sultan Mawlay Hasan resolved to give 
them a separate mslldh, which they still occupy and 
which formed the subject of a monograph by 
P. Flamand, Un Mellah en pays berbire: Demnate 
(IHEM, Notes et Documents, x), Paris 1952 (see 
further, idem, Les communautis Israelites au Sud- 
Morocain, Casablanca 1959). Some years earlier, 
however, Ch. de Foucauld who stayed at Demnat 
on the 6th and 7th October 1883 was able to 
note {Reconnaissance du Maroc, Paris 1888, 77-8) 
that the Jews were treated with exceptional genero- 
sity by the Muslims with whom they lived "pell- 
mell". The two elements of the local population in 
fact lived together on good terms with each other; 
their long-standing association had given rise to 
affinities in practical matters, particularly in regard 
to the veneration of saints, even though one could 
not always tell if they were Muslim or Jewish or in 
fact if they had ever existed (see L. Voinot, Pelerin- 
ages jucUo-musulmans au Maroc (IHEM, Notes et 
Documents, iv), Paris 1948, 25 sqq., 60-1); 4 km. 
south-east of Demnat there still exists a grotto 
known by the name of Imi n-ifri (opening of the 
grotto) where Jews and Muslims celebrate a pagan 



l — AL-DAN1 109 

ritual at a miraculous spring (L. Voinot, op. cit., 
27-8; E. Doutte, Missions au Maroc: En tribu, 
Paris 1914, 216-17). 

Seven years before the capture of Demnat by 
Col. Mangin (1912), Said Boulifa stayed there and 
made a study of the Berber dialect of the Ahl Demnat 
(Textes Berb. en dial, de V Atlas marocain (Pub. Ecole 
des Lettres d'Alger, [xxxvi), Paris 1908-9); as a 
result the local dialects, which are important by 
reason of their situation at the edge of the two large 
groups in the South (tashnlhit) and Centre (tamazikht), 
have been the subject of research carried out by 
E. Laoust (E'tude sur le dialecte berbire des Ntifa, 
Paris 1918, and Mots et Choses Berberes — an ethno- 
graphical work— Paris 1920). 

Leo Africanus noted that Demnat possessed a 
number of legal experts, but the true Damnati 
rarely figure in Arabic literature; however, we may 
note c Ali b. Sulayman al-Damnatl, author of a 
commentary on the Sunan of Abu Dawud entitled 
Daradiat mirkdt al-su'-ud ild Sunan Abi Dawud, 
published in Cairo in 1928. 

Bibliography : given in the article. 

(Ch. Pellat) 
al-DAMURDASHI, Ahmad, Egyptian historian 
of the I2th/i8th century. Nothing is known of his life 
beyond the fact that he held the post of katkhudd of 
the c Azaban regiment in Cairo, but he may have been 
a relative of the ruzndmed[i Hasan Efendi al- 
Damurdashi, who flourished in the early nth/i7th 
century, and about whose doings he is well informed). 
His chronicle, al-Durra al-musdna fi akhbdr al-kindna, 
covers the period 1099-1169/1688-1755. It reveals 
unfamiliarity with Arabic, and the sense is some- 
times garbled or obscure. Nevertheless it is valuable, 
both as a detailed record of events in Cairo, and as 
perhaps the sole extant chronicle of Ottoman Egypt 
composed by a member of the military elite. There 
are considerable differences in phraseology, and even 
in data, between the British Museum and Bodleian 
manuscripts: the former is unique among known 
copies in giving the name of the author. One recension 
of al-Durra seems to have been used as a source by 
al-Djabarti for his 'AdjdHb al-dthdr; for example, 
Djabartl's second legend of the origins of the Dh u 
'1-Fakariyya and Kasimiyya factions, and his list 
of the sandiak beys at the beginning of the nth 
century H. are closely paralleled in al-Durra: 
(Djabarti, i, 23-4; BM. Or. 1073, 5a-6b; Bodl. MS. 
Bruce 43, 2a-( 3 a). (P. M. Holt) 

DANA$ [see sikka], 
DANAlf.IL, DANA&LA [see dankai.I]. 
DANCE [see raks]. 

al-DAnI, Abu c Amr 'Uthman b. Sa c Id b. 'Umar 
al-Umawi, Malik i lawyer and above all, 
"reader" of the Kur'an, born at Cordova in 371/ 
981/2. After having made his pilgrimage to Mecca 
and spent some time in Cairo between 397/1006 and 
399/1008, he returned to his birthplace but was soon 
forced to flee, first to Almeria and finally to Denia 
(Daniya, whence his nisba), where he settled down 
and died in 444/1053. 

Among more than 120 works which he wrote and 
enumerated himself in an urdjuza, only about ten 
are known (see Brockelmann, I, 407, S I, 719); two 
of them deal with questions of grammar, and the 
others with matters connected with the "readings", 
a science in which Abu 'Amr al-Dani had become 
famous. His most celebrated works are the K. al- 
Mukni'- fi Ma c rifat Rasm Masdhif al-Amsdr (see 
S. de Sacy, Notices et Extraits, viii, 290) and al- 
Taysir fi 'l-Kird'dt al-Sab c (ed. O. Pretzl, Istanbul 



l-DANI — DANISHMENDIDS 



1930), which was the one most studied according 
to the evidence of Ibn Khaldun (ProUgomines, ii, 
456) ; al-Muhkam fi Nakf al-Masdhif has recently 
been edited in Damascus (1 379/1960) by 'Izzat 

Bibliography: EI\ s.v. al-DAnI, by Moh. 
Ben Cheneb; Dabbi, no. 1185; Ibn Bashkuwal, 
no. 873; Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa, index; Makkari, 
Analectes, i, 550; Yakut, ii, 540; Ibn FarhOn, 
Dibadf, Fez 1316, 191; DhahabI, Huffdz, iii, 316; 
Suyuti, Tabakdt al-ffuffdz, xiv, 5; Freytag, Ein- 
leitung, 386; Wiistenfeld, Geschichtsschreiber , 197; 
Amari, Bibl. At. Sic. ii, 579; Pons Boygues, 
Ensayo, no. 91; Noldeke, etc., Gesch. des Qordns, 
iii, 214 ff. (Ed.) 

DANISHGAH [see djami'a]. 
DANISHMENDIDS, a Turcoman dynasty which 
reigned in northern Cappadocia from the last quarter 
of the 5th/nth century until 573/1178. The origins 
and first conquests of its founder, Amir Danishmend, 
are obscure. Appearing in Cappadocia during the 
years of anarchy which followed the death, in 781/ 
1085, of the Saldjukid Sulayman b. Kutlumlsh, he 
became involved in the events of the First Crusade. 
When historians became interested in him they 
resorted to legends or imagination to fill the gaps in 
their knowledge. But it was above all the epic 
romance of which he was made the hero that gave 
rise to an imbroglio of historical facts which is 
difficult to unravel. The oral epic tradition about 
Danishmend was put into writing for the first time 
in 643/1245 by Mawlana Ibn 'Ala 3 ; this first ro- 
mance, now lost, was rewritten in 761/1360 by 'Arif 
'All. This romance which attributes to Danishmend 
a legendary relationship with the famous epic 
heroes Abu Muslim and Sayyid Battal and which 
is conceived as a sequel to the Romance of Sayyid 
Battal, very soon gave rise to error through the 
fault of certain Ottoman historiographers who 
could not distinguish between historical truth and 
legend. The chief culprits were the historians of 
the ioth/i6th century, 'All and Djenabi who, by 
treating the romance as a historical document, 
mingled legendary elements with history in their 
works. These errors which were to be repeated 
by historians in succeeding centuries, Karamani, 
Katib Celebl, Miinedjdjim-bashi and Hezarfenn, 
have been reproduced in the works of orien- 
talists who made use of these sources. Those 
scholars who attempted to determine which parts of 
the story were, in their view, in disagreement with 
historical data often succeeded only in further con- 
fusing the facts. When Danishmend appears in the 
historians' account of the First Crusade he is already 
master of Sebastea, the Iris Valley with Eudoxias 
(Tokat), Comana, Amasya, Neocaesarea where he 
resided, and Gangra; he controlled the route from 
Ankara to Caesarea, the towns of the Pontic coast 
paid him tribute, and his foraging parties laid waste 
the shores of the Black Sea, making incursions into 
Georgia and Armenia. Later he was to make a 
further conquest, Melitene, and it is in connexion 
with Kilidj Arslan b. Sulayman's expedition against 
this town in 490/1096-1097 that Danishmend is first 
mentioned in history. The sultan having laid siege 
to Melitene which was defended by the Armenian 
governor Gabriel, Danishmend appeared on the 
scene and made peace between the opposing leaders. 
These events were interrupted by the capture of 
Nicaea by the Crusaders in 490/1097. In the summer 
of the same year Danishmend, together with the 
other Turkish amirs, took part in the harassing 



attacks to which the Crusaders were to be subjected 
throughout their march across Anatolia. But soon 
afterwards an important occurence was to bring him 
into prominence: in Ramadan 493/July 1100 one of 
the most eminent of the Crusaders' leaders, Bohe- 
mund of Antioch, when going to the help of Melitene 
which was besieged by Danishmend, fell into the 
hands of the amir who imprisoned him in the fortress 
of Neocaesarea. The following year the Franco- 
Lombard Crusade coming to the rescue of Bohemund 
took the Cappadocia route and was defeated by 
Danishmend. In September of that year the amir 
took part in the massacre of the Crusade's last army, 
made up of contingents from Aquitaine and Bavaria, 
which was wiped out near Heraclea in Cappadocia. 
A year later, Danishmend entered Melitene after a 
siege lasting for three years and, by his generosity, 
won the praise of a population made up of different 
races and creeds. In Sha'bSn 496/May 1103 the 
amir freed Bohemund with whom he had concluded 
an alliance against their common enemies, Byzantine 
and Saldjukid. But the death of Danishmend which 
took place in the year 497/1104 prevented Bohemund 
from reaping the benefits of this alliance and allowed 
KUidj Arslan to take part of his rival's territory, as 
well as the town of Melitene. Danishmend's eldest 
son, Amir Ghazi, succeeded his father. Intervening 
in the dynastic struggles which divided the sons of 
Kilidj Arslan who had died in 500/1107, he helped 
his son-in-law Mas'ud in 510/1116 to take Konya. 
Then, in alliance with Tughrul Arslan, prince of 
Melitene, and his atabek Balak, in 514/1120 he 
defeated the amir of Erzindjan, Ibn Mengudjek, and 
his ally the duke of Trebizond; but he set free his 
prisoner Ibn Mengudjek who was also his son-in-law, 
an act which was a source of dissension between the 
allies. In 518/1124, on the death of Balak, Amir 
Ghazi recaptured Melitene. Intervening in the war 
then being waged between Mas'ud and his brother 
Malik 'Arab, prince of Ankara and Kastamonu, he 
defeated the latter and in 521/1127 captured Caesarea 
and Ankara from him. 'Arab appealed for help to 
Byzantium, but Amir Ghazi also took Gangra and 
Kastamonu and imposed his authority over Cap- 
padocia. In 523/1129, on the death of the Armenian 
prince Thoros, Amir Ghazi intervened in Cilicia, in 
the following year defeated Bohemund II of Antioch, 
brought the Armenian prince Leon into subjection 
and ravaged the Count of Edessa's lands. He then 
had to turn against John Comnenus who in 527/1132 
took Kastamonu from him. Amir Ghazi who had 
given refuge to Isaac Comnenus, then revolted against 
his brother, and recaptured the town in the following 
year. In reward for his victories over the Christians 
the caliph al-Mustarshid and the sultan Sandjar 
granted him the title of Malik, but when the envoys 
reached Melitene they found the amir on his deathbed 
and it was his son Muhammad who was invested in 
his place, in 528/1134. John Comnenus at once 
resumed hostilities and, in 529/1135, recaptured 
Kastamonu and Gangra, but these two towns fell 
once more into the hands of the Turks as soon as 
the Emperor had withdrawn. The reign of Malik 
Muhammad is marked by a series of unsuccessful 
attempts by John Comnenus, in both Cilicia and 
the pontic region at different times, to recapture the 
strongholds which had been taken by the Danish- 
mendids, as well as by the amir's inroads into the 
territories of the count of Mar'ash. In 536/1142, 
Malik Muhammad died at Caesarea which he had 
rebuilt and where he had resided. It was his brother 
Yaghibasan, governor of Sebastea, who proclaimed 



DANISHMENDIDS — DAN1YA 



himself amir at the expense of his nephew Dh u 
'1-Nun, and who married the dead man's widow. 
By thus usurping power, the new amir caused the 
break up of the amirate which was to lead to the 
fall of the dynasty; while Dh u '1-Niin seized Caesarea, 
Yaghibasan's brother c Ayn al-Dawla made himself 
master of Elbistan and then of Melitene. Henceforth 
there were three rival branches whose interests were 
sometimes upheld, sometimes opposed by the Saldju- 
kids. However the dynasty survived while Yaghi- 
basan lived, in spite of his continual wars with his 
father-in-law Mas'ud and subsequently, with his 
brother-in-law Kilidj Arslan II. The emperor Manuel 
who had at first allied himself with the Saldjukids 
as a means of preventing the Danishmendids' in- 
cursions into Byzantine territory, in 553/H58 
took Yaghibasan's side against Kilidj Arslan II 
and imposed his authority over Dhu '1-Nun. 
The following year marks the opening of hostil- 
ities between KUldj Arslan and Manuel, while 
at the same time war flared up between the 
rival dynasties as a result of Yaghibasan's abduction 
of Kilidj Arslan's fiancee, the daughter of the 
Saltukid amir of Erzurum, who was married to Dh u 
'1-Nun. But the death of Yaghlbasan in 559/1164 
gave rise to dynastic quarrels which provided 
Kilidj Arslan with his opportunity to destroy the 
amirate. Yaghibasan's widow married Dh u '1-Nun's 
nephew — Isma'Il b. Ibrahim, aged sixteen, and 
proclaimed him amir. In order to protect the interests 
of Dhu '1-N0n, against whom he was afterwards to 
turn, Kilidj Arslan invaded the Danishmendids' 
territories. In 567/1172, as a result of a palace 
revolution during which Isma'il and his wife perished, 
Dh u '1-Nun was called to Sebastea and proclaimed 
amir. He was at once attacked by Kilidj Arslan, and 
appealed for help to his father-in-law Nur al-DIn, 
atabek of Damascus, whose intervention compelled 
Kilidj Arslan to hand back the territories he had 
taken from Dhu '1-Nun. Nur al-DIn withdrew, 
leaving a relief garrison in Sebastea. But Nur al-DIn 
died in 569/1174 and Kilidj Arslan at once seized 
Sebastea, the Iris valley with Tokat and Comana, 
then Amasya, and proceeded to lay siege to Neo- 
caesarea. Dhu l'-Nun appealed for help to Manuel. 
In spite of the emperor's efforts the Byzantines 
were defeated, the Saldjukids took possession 
of Neocaesarea, and Dhu '1-Nun was put to 
death by poison on Kilidj Arslan's orders in 
570/1175. In the surviving Melitene branch discord 
reigned among the three sons of Dhu '1-Karnayn b. 
c Ayn al-Dawla, who had died in 557/1162. The 
eldest, Nasr al-DIn Muhammad, was dethroned in 
565/1170 in favour of his brother Fakhr al-DIn 
Kasim; but the latter, who was barely fifteen years 
old, was killed in a riding accident on his wedding 
day; and it was from the third brother, Afridun, 
that Nasr al-DIn Muhammad took back the town in 
570/1175 and reigned for three years under Kilidj 
Arslan's suzerainty. But in 573/"78 the Saldjukid 
occupied Melitene, and so came the end of the 
Danishmendids. According to Ibn BibI, Yaghi- 
basan's three sons Muzaffar al-DIn Mahmud, Zahir 
al-DIn Hi and Badr al-DIn Yusuf entered the 
Saldjukids' service and helped Ghiyath al-DIn 
Kavkhusraw I to regain his throne; in gratitude 
the monarch rewarded them by giving them im- 
portant positions and restoring some of their 
possessions (cf. al-Awdmir al- c AldHyye, Ankara 
1956, 76 ff.). 

Bibliography: Matthew of Edessa, Chronicle, 
trans. E. Dulaurier, Paris 1858; Michael the 



Syrian, Chronicle, trans. J. B. Chabot, iii; Anna 
Comnena, ed. B. Leib, iii, 18, 76, 200, 201, 210; 
Niketas Choniates, ed. Bonn, 27, 29, 46, 152, 159; 
Kinnamos, ed. Bonn, 14, 15, 16; William of Tyre, 
Receuil Hist. Crois. Hist. Occ. I., ix, 396-397; 
Albert of Aix, Rec. Hist. Crois., Hist. occ. IV, 524, 
525, 526, 567, 573, 576, 581, 611-4; Ibn al- 
Athir (ed. Tornberg), x, 203, 204, 237; xi, 9, 52, 
203-4, 207, 209, 237, 257-8, J. Laurent, Sur les 
Emir Danichmendites jusqu'en 1104, in Melanges 
lorga, Paris 1933, 449-506; Miikr. Halil Yinanc, 
art. Danismendliler, in I A; also, Tiirkiye Tarihi : 
Selcuklular Devri, Istanbul 1944, 89-103; I. 
Melikoff, La Geste de Melik Ddnismend, i, Paris 
i960 (see bibliography). (I. Melikoff) 

DANIYA, Span. Denia, capital of the north- 
eastern district of the province of Alicante, the most 
southerly of the three present-day provinces which 
used to make up the ancient kingdom of Valencia 
(Castellon de la Plana, Valencia, Alicante). This 
town of 50,000 inhabitants is situated at the south- 
east tip of the Gulf of Valencia (Sinus Sucronensis), 
north of the mountain Mong6 (in Arabic Diabal 
Ka'un) which is 2,190 feet high. Because of its good 
harbour, north-west of the ancient Promontorium 
Artemesium, Ferrarium or Tenebrium (to-day Cabo 
de S. Antonio, S. Martin or de la Nao), Denia was 
an ancient foundation of the Phocians (of Massilia/ 
Marseilles or of Emporium Ampurias) in the sixth 
century A.D., and was first called t6 'Hjxepoaxo7reTov 
(Strabo), Hemeroscopium, "the watch of the day"; 
then, because of the famous temple of Artemis of 
Ephesus erected on the castle hill, Artemisium; in 
Roman times this became Dianium (the city of 
Diana) which later gave the Arabic Daniya (with 
the imdla Daniya) and finally became Denia in 
Spanish. Although allied to the Romans, it was 
nevertheless spared by the Carthaginians since it 
was a Greek colony. Cato achieved a victory over 
the Spanish in the neighbourhood of this town 
before 195. The liberator of Spain, Sertorius, found 
his last point of support there, as well as a powerful 
naval base; according to the most likely evidence it 
was there that he was assassinated in 73. Caesar 
punished the town because it sided with Pompey 
(Dianium Stipendiarium) ; under the Roman Empire 
it became nevertheless an extremely flourishing 
municipality, as can be seen from the excavations 
that have been made there. It soon became Christian, 
and in the 7th century a bishopric was created there, 
four of whose prelates took part in the councils of 
Toledo. It possesses a fragment of the Paleo- 
Christian tomb of Severina in mosaic and other much 
more primitive remains which testify to its new 
faith. But it was under Arab domination, after the 
country had been conquered by Tarik in 94/713, that 
it reached its highest stage of development (50,000 
inhabitants, as it has to-day). On the other hand, 
we know almost nothing about the period of the 
migration of the peoples and the Goths. Denia 
began to play a certain part in the rebellions 
against c Abd al-Rahman I, but this part became 
considerably greater after the fall of the Caliphate in 
403/1013, when the c Amirid Abu '1-Diavsh Mudjahid, 
[q.v.] a manumitted slave of c Abd al-Rahman b. 
al-Mansur (called in western sources Musett or 
Mugeto), at first with the assistance of the learned 
co-regent (khalifa), al-Mu c ayti (405-21/1015-30), took 
possession of Denia and the Balearic Islands [see 
mayurka] (405-36/1014-1045) and succeeded in 
surpassing the other Reyes de Taifas in learning and 
wealth. He surrounded himself with scholars and 



DANIYA — DANIYAL 



was a distinguished commentator on the Kur'an. 
Denia was at that time one of the most important 
cities of the Levante and the country round it, 
where the fields were cultivated almost without 
interruption throughout the year, was very rich. 
The semi-insular kingdom of Denia played a very 
important part also as a naval base and in its 
dockyard was constructed the greater part of the 
fleet which Mudjahid used for piracy and with 
which, after he had seized the Balearic Islands, he 
undertook his celebrated expedition to Sardinia 
(406/1015). His son c Ali, called Ikbal al-DawIa, was 
taken prisoner by the Germans at the same time that 
his father was put to flight and pursued by the 
Christian coalition which retook the island. Ransomed 
after several years of captivity, he succeeded his 
father in 436/1044, and reigned for 32 years until 
468/1076. Born of a Christian mother and brought 
up in captivity, he became a Muslim, but possessed 
none of his father's qualities. Dissolute, miserly and 
a coward, he confined himself to wringing all he 
could out of his subjects, and his only undertaking 
consisted of sending a large ship full of food in 446 
or 447 (1054-55) to Egypt, where famine was raging; 
it came back full of money and jewels. When his 
brother-in-law, al-Muktadir, wanted to enlarge his 
frontiers on the Denia side, c Ali was incapable of 
resisting him, and his subjects abandoned him, 
delivering the town up to al-Muktadir who sent 'All 
to Saragossa where he died in 474/1081-2. Al- 
Mundhir succeeded his father, al-Muktadir, in the 
kingdom of Denia, and his son, Sulayman, continued 
to rule under the suzerainty of the Banu Batir until 
484/1091. In the same year the Almoravids had just 
taken Almeria, which they seized along with Murcia, 
Jativa and Denia, all of which fell later into power 
of the Almohads. In the spring of 599/1203, these 
last concentrated in the harbour of Denia a powerful 
squadron and landing party, who, on their way to 
attack the Banu Ghaniya [q.v.] at Majorca, put in 
at Ibiza and seized Palma in September of the same 
year. Denia was at that time governed by Muham- 
med b. Ishak, who had succeeded his father Ishak b. 
Ghaniya on the throne of Majorca but had been 
deposed by his brothers because of his adhesion to 
the Almohads; the Almohad sultan al-Mansur had 
recommended him strongly in his will. In 641/1244, 
Denia was finally taken from the Muslims by 
James I of Aragon (Don Jaime el Conquistador), 
and one of his captains, the German Carroz, under- 
took the redivision of its lands. In 725/1325, it was 
given to the Infante, Don Pedro, whose descendants, 
the royal dukes of Gandia, ruled the County from 
1356 up to the time that the Catholic Kings made 
it a Marquisate. In 1610, it lost most of its population 
through the expulsion of the industrious Moors by 
Philip III, and from that time on was of no importan- 
ce. However, in the War of the Spanish Succession, 
Denia, whose harbour was fortified, fought stub- 
bornly on the side of the Archduke, was besieged 
three times by Philip V, and taken in 1708. In 
1812-3 it was occupied by the French. 

The most famous Arab scholar of Denia is the 
great commentator on the Kur'an, al-Dani [q.v.] 
Abu 'Amr 'Uthman b. Sa'Id. 

Bibliography: Roque Chabas, Historia de la 
Ciudad de Denia, 2 vols., Denia 1874-76; Madoz, 
Dice, geogr.-estadistico-histdr., vii, 37-78; IdrisI, 
Desc. de I'Afrique et de VEspagne, 192; Yakut, ii, 
540 (the harbour of Denia is called here al-Sum- 
man); B. al-Bustanl, Dd'irat al-Ma ( drif, vii, 572; 
Mardsid al-Ittild 1 , v, 426; Ibn al-Khatlb, A'mdl 



al-AHam, 250-4; Les "Mimoires" du Roi Ziride 
l Abd Allah, in al-And., iv/i, 42-4; c Afif Turk, 
El-Reino de Zaragoza en el siglo XI (V de la hlgira), 
thesis, 149-59; al-ffulal al-Mawshiyya, 62. — 
Numismatics: F. Codera, Tratado de Numismdtica 
ardbigo-espaiiola, Madrid 1879, 174-81; F. Cabal- 
lero-Infante, Estudio sobre las Monedas Arabcs de 
Denia, in El Archivo, iv, Denia 1889; A. Vives y 
Escudero, Monedas de las dinastias ardbigo- 
espaAolas, Madrid 1893, 212-21. See also art. 

MUDJAHID. 

C. F. Seybold-[A. Huici Miranda]) 

DANIYAL. Muslim tradition has retained only 
a weak and rather confused record of the two 
biblical characters bearing the name Daniel, the 
sage of ancient times mentioned by Ezekiel (xiv, 14, 
20 and xxviii, 3) and the visionary who lived at the 
time of the captivity in Babylon, who himself 
sometimes appears as two different people. Further- 
more, the faint trace of a figure from the antiquity 
of fable combining with the apocalyptic tone of the 
book handed down in the Bible under the name 
Daniel, makes Daniyal of Muslim legend a revealer 
of the future and eschatological mysteries, and even 
lends his authority to astrological almanacs (Mal- 
hamat Daniyal) of extremely mediocre quality. 

Apocalyptical revelations are attributed to Daniel 
the Elder, it being suggested that a book recording 
such predictions was found in the coffin supposed 
to contain the remains of Daniyal (whoever he 
might be) which was brought to light at the time 
of the Muslim conquest of Tustar, and buried again 
with the body at the command of Caliph 'Umar; 
according to a legend told by al-BIruni, Daniyal 
acquired his knowledge in the Treasure Cave; 
Muslim sources moreover hand down, besides a 
garbled version of chapter xi, some authentic 
quotations from the Book of Daniel. Perhaps it is 
this Daniel whom the K. al-Tididn (70) places on 
the same footing as Lukman [q.v.] and Dhu '1-Kar- 
nayn [q.v.]: three characters considered by some as 
prophets not apostles or simply as just but not 
inspired men. 

Other traditions treat as two characters the 
Daniel of the destruction of the first Temple in 
Jerusalem and the captivity in Babylon: an elder 
Daniel and a son of the same name ; the former, son 
of the Judaean king Jehoiakim, the latter becoming 
an uncle to Cyrus by marriage (a garbled reference 
to the marriage of Ahasuerus and the Jewess Esther; 
moreover, another tradition has Ahasuerus con- 
verted to Judaism by Mordecai and taught by 
Daniel and his three companions). 

Muslim tradition has retained, somewhat distorted, 
episodes related in the Book of Daniel: the presence 
of Daniel and his companions in the court of Bukht- 
Nassar [q.v.] — Nebuchadnezzar; Nebuchadnezzar's 
dreams; the friction between Daniel and his detrac- 
tors (here presented as Magi) and his miraculous 
delivery from the lions' den ; Belshazzar's feast and 
the deciphering of the mysterious writing. Nebuchad- 
nezzar's being driven temporarily to dwell with the 
beasts of the field is also to be found here and al- 
Tha'labl is even able to narrate the king's death in 
a version forming one of the numerous variants of 
the folk theme used by Schiller in his ballad Der 
Gang nach dem Eisenhammer (see Stith-Thompson, 
Motif-Index, K. 1612, iv, 414). The character of 
Daniel is also introduced in the framework of 
stories which in the Bible centre round Ezra and 
Nehemiah: Ahasuerus did not allow Daniel and his 
three companions to return to the Holy Land, but 



DANIYAL — DAR 



he permitted Daniel, a great judge and a viceroy 
throughout his reign, to take from the royal treasure 
all that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from Jerusalem 
and restore it to the Jews. 

Bibliography: Ya'kubi, 70 (Dutch version, 
G. Smit, Bijbel en Legende bij den arabischen 
Schrijver Ja'qubi, 82); Tabari, i> 647, 652-4, 
665-8, 717; Mas'fldi, Murudj, i, 117, 120, ii, 115, 
128; Ps.— Balkhi, al-Bad 3 wa 'l-Ta'rikh, ii, 156 f./ 
144; 165/150 sq.; iii, H4f./n8f. and cf. index; 
Tha'labi, c Ard'is al-Madfdlis, 198-202; Biriini, 
Athdr {Chronology), 15-17/18-20, 302/300. On the 
tomb and coffin of Daniyal, see also MukaddasI, 
417 (cf. C. Cahen, in Arabica, 1959, 28);Harawi, 
K . al-Ziydrdt, ed. J. Sourdel-Thomine, 69, transl., 
Guide des lieux de Pelerinage, 154, n. 4 (cf. M. 
Schreiner, ZDMG, liii, 58 f.) and EI 1 , article 
Susan. Malhamat Daniyal, cf. G. Levi Delia 
Vida, Elenco, 98. See also R. Basset, Mille et «» 
Contes . . ., iii, 125-8 (observations by B. Heller 
in REJ, lxxxv, 134 f.) and B. Heller, Encyclo- 
paedia Judaica, 5, 773 f. (G. Vajda) 
DANIYAL, called Sultan Daniyal in the histories, 
the youngest and favourite son of the Mughal 
emperor Akbar, born Adjmer 2 Djumada I 979/22 
September 1571. In 1008/1599 he was appointed 
military governor of the Deccan, and after his 
conquest of the city of Ahmadnagar (1009/1601) he 
was honoured by Akbar and given the province 
of Khandesh, fancifully named Dandesh after him. 
He is described as well-built, good-looking, fond of 
horses, and skilful in the composition of Hindustani 
poems. He figures in Abu '1-Fadl's lists of the grandees 
of the empire (AHn-i Akbari, i, 30) as a commander 
of 7000. He died of delirium tremens at Burhanpur 
on 9 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1013/28 April 1605. 
Bibliography : see Akbar. 

(J. Burton-Page) 
DANtfALl, (plural Danakil), a tribe occupying 
the western Red Sea coast from the neighbourhood 
of Zula (39 15' E, 15 10' N) to French Somaliland, 
and spreading inland over territory of extreme heat 
and desolation to the foot of the main escarpment of 
Ethiopia and astride the Dessie — c Assab road. 
Mainly but no longer exclusively nomadic, with 
some cattle-owning sections, they have formed many 
semi-permanent hamlets and a few larger villages on 
the coast and inland, where a few practise agriculture. 
Fishing and salt-mining are other occupations. The 
larger permanent villages today contain markets 
and police posts, and are gradually losing the com- 
plete isolation of centuries. The prevailing standard 
of life is extremely low, thanks to conditions of 
abnormal severity and (in the past) to pitiless and 
ever-repeated raiding from the Ethiopian highlands. 
The Dankali character is reckoned as suspicious, 
unstable and savage; early attempts at European 
exploration based on c Assab was met by murderous 
resistance, and no European survivor returned from 
the expeditions of Muntzinger (1875), Giuletti (1881), 
or Bianchi (1884). 

The Danakil appear to represent a Hamitic base 
with much absorption in the past of Arab, Somali, 
and other stock. Their own origin-legends, all 
mythical but faintly reflecting actual invasions and 
upheavals, seek to explain the presence of a pheno- 
menon familiar elsewhere in Eritrea and northern 
Ethiopia — that of a relatively small ruling caste 
superior in status, freedom and economic privilege 
to a larger serf-caste: a distinction which cuts 
across the division into the subtribes and commu- 
nities of which the Dankali nation is composed. 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



Divided between 1303/1885 and 1372/1952 between 
Eritrean (that is, Italian and British) and Ethiopian 
rule, the people had at no time — or have now no 
remaining trace of — political unity or any more 
cohesion than can be based on common language, 
religion, and living-conditions; the only potentate 
commanding more than sub-tribal or group prestige 
has been the Sultan of Aussa, resident at Sardo. 
The Danakil in 1954 numbered probably about 
50,000 to 80,000 souls. 

The Dankali language, also called c Afar, can be 
placed as a dialect of the lower- Kushite branch of 
the Southern Hamitic group. It is close to the Saho 
language (of the plateau-dwelling tribes west and 
south of Zula), and has links with the Somali 
dialects. 

Bibliography : M. Nesbitt, La Dankalia 
esplorata, Florence 1930; 0. Dante, La Dankalia 
Settentrionale, Asmara 1909; A. Pollera, Le 
Popolazioni indigene dell' Eritrea, Bologna 1935; 
British Military Administration of Eritrea (per 
S. F. Nadel), Races and Tribes of Eritrea, Asmara 
1943; D. Buxton, Travels in Ethiopia, London 
1949. (S. H. Longrigg) 

DAR, a Persian word meaning "door" or 
"gate", found in many Iranian and Turkic lan- 
guages. It is synonymous with Arabic bob and is used 
similarly, e.g., dar-i c aliyya, dar-i dawlat, and in 
India dar-bdr (durbar). In a special sense it refers to 
the ruler's court, or in extension, to a government 
bureau, already in pre-Islamic Iran. In Pahlavi it 
was usually written with the heterogram BB'. 

(R. N. Frye) 
DAR, (dwelling place), house. The two 
words most commonly used to designate a dwelling 
place, bayt and ddr, have, etymologically, quite 
different meanings. Bayt is, properly speaking, the 
covered shelter where one may spend the night; 
ddr (from ddra, to surround) is a space surrounded by 
walls, buildings, or nomadic tents, placed more or less 
in a circle. Ddrat un is the tribal encampment known 
in North Africa as the duwwar. From the earliest 
times there has been in Muslim dwellings a tendency 
to arrange around a central space: the park, where 
the shepherd's flock will be sheltered from the blows 
of enemies; the courtyard, where the non-nomadic 
family will live cut off from inquisitive strangers. 
The first house which Islam, in its infancy, offers for 
our consideration, is that built by Muhammad, on 
his arrival in Medina, as a dwelling place for himself 
and his family, and as a meeting place for believers. 
The courtyard surrounded by walls is its essential 
feature. A shelter from the sun, intended to protect 
the faithful at prayer, runs alongside the wall on 
one side. Rooms built along another side were 
occupied by the Prophet's wives and were added 
to as a result of his subsequent unions. 

Tradition brings us an interesting detail on the 
subject of these rooms. Their entrance on to the 
courtyard was fronted by a porch of palm branches 
which could be shut off, if required, by curtains of 
camel-hair. This front annexe of the room, which 
recalls the riwdk, the movable screen of the nomadic 
tent, which keeps the dwelling in touch with the 
outside world, and plays the part of a vestibule, was 
to be perpetuated in the Muslim house. 

This arrangement, of a central open space, sur- 
rounded by habitable rooms, certainly does not 
belong exclusively to the Arab world. This disposition 
is also characteristic of the primitive Roman house, 
with its atrium, and the Hellenic house with its 
peristyle; it must have been adopted very early by 



the Mediterranean countries. But this type of 
domestic architecture seems to offer an ideal frame- 
work for Muslim life. It is well adapted to the patriar- 
chal view of the family and creates for it an enclosed 
sphere; it conforms easily with the element of 
secrecy dear to the private life of the Muslim, and 
this idea is reflected in the architectural arrange- 
ment both in elevation and in plan. Houses in 
European towns look out widely upon the street, 
the elegance and luxury of the facade are for the 
architect an object of very considerable attention, 
and for the owner of the house, a sign of wealth; 
on the other hand the Muslim dwelling, however 
rich, presents a most sober external appearence — 
bare walls pierced by a massive and ever closed door, 
and by few and narrow windows. The main concern 
of this domestic architecture is with the central 
open space. The courtyard seems almost the principal 
room of the dwelling, and the facades which surround 
it offer the builder a rich and varied aesthetic theme, 
— but one whose charm is only accessible to the 
occupants. 

If the customs moulded by Islam contribute to 
the relative unity of the dwellings, this unity derives 
even more clearly from the climatic conditions which 
affect the majority of Muslim countries. The latter, 
as is well known, almost all occupy a long east-west 
region in which rain is rare, the sun fierce, and the 
heat of summer intense. The scarcity of rain and the 
steppe-like arid character of these countries make 
water, be it pool or fountain, a much appreciated 
element ot comfort and adornment — one which 
plays its part in the decoration of palaces as well as 
in more modest dwellings. The fierce sun and hot 
summer motivate the arrangement of underground 
recesses such as the sarddib (sing, sarddb) of c Irak 
and Persia, or the building of rooms which are well 
ventilated but lit only by a subdued light, such as 
the twin. The twin is a room enclosed by three walls, 
opening out in the whole width of the fourth side, 
like an enormous gaping flat-based ledge, and is 
generally roofed by a cradle-vault (semi-cylindrical). 
Open to the space of the courtyard, it recalls the 
riwdk of the Arab tent; it can act as a reception 
room and is not without similarity to the prostas 
of the Greek house; yet it does seem to be a genuinely 
Iranian creation. In the Parthian palace of Hatra 
(2nd. century A.D.) it is revealed in all its majesty. 
It was to become a characteristic theme of the 
architecture of the Sasanids. The most famous 
example is the Tak-i Kisra, the palace of Ctesiphon, 
built by Khusraw Anushirwan (551-579 A.D.). The 
Mesopotamian architects working for the 'Abbasids 
were to make the iwdn one of the essential elements 
of their monumental compositions. The palace of 
Ctesiphon clearly inspired the builder who created, in 
221/836, the great iwdn of the palace of al-Mu c tasim 
at Samarra [?.».]. It is to be found on a smaller scale 
in 147/764 in the palace of Ukhaydir; this princely 
dwelling exhibits courtyards surrounded by buildings. 
In two of the courts, two iwdns open out face to face, 
each preceded by a gallery, along the whole width of 
the courtyard. This symmetrical arrangement, with 
two wide galleries facing each other and the iwdns 
opening out in the far wall, used according to the 
season — summer and winter — has been perpetuated 
in the houses of modern c Irak. The gallery, or wide 
room, giving on to the courtyard through three bays, 
is called a tarma; the iwdn is flanked by two small 
rooms (called oda) which re-establish the rectangular 
scheme. However, by the 3rd/gth century this 
architectural idea (wide ante-room, deep iwdn with 



lateral rooms whose doors open on the ante-room) 
moved towards the West and began to reach the 
Mediterranean world. In some houses of al-Fustat 
(old Cairo) generally attributed to the TQlOnids, the 
iwdn plays an important role. The courtyard, which 
one reaches by one of the corners, is framed by 
walls, and the four sides contain iwdns, some deep, 
others shallow and rather like wide, flat-based 
ledges. On one of the sides there is an ante-room with 
three bays, and at its far end we find a central iwdn 
and the two flanking rooms. The arrangement of the 
wide ante-room and the deep iwdn forms a character- 
istic T shape. These Tulunid dwellings, built in 
brick like the monuments of the period, comprise 
several storeys. They were provided with a system 
of conduits which brought fresh water and carried 
away dirty water. Their courtyards were decorated 
with pools and plants. In two houses, a fountain is 
built into one of the rooms and the water is channelled 
into the courtyard pool. In the rooms of rectangular 
shape, the short sides of the rectangle and the long 
wall facing the entrance are often cut into by level 
ledges, a sort of atrophied iwdns, where seats <.ould 
be placed. 

Before following up the westward migration of 
these elements of domestic architecture shown by 
the Tulunid houses, it seems worthwhile to indicate 
how they have changed on the spot, and what can 
be found of them, modified by Turkish influence, in 
the modern dwellings of Egypt. The courtyard is 
still an important element in these dwellings, but it 
is no longer in the centre of the building. It stands 
in front of them, accessible by a curved corridor. 
The visitor can be received here, in a low room 
(takhtabosh), opening out widely on the ground 
floor, or in a loggia (mak'ad) which stands above it 
and dominates the courtyard. If the visitor is 
entering the interior of the house, he will be received 
in the seldmllk. Its principal element is a large room 
(mandara) whose central part, a substitute for the 
courtyard, is paved, adorned with a fountain and 
surrounded by two or three iwdns — or rather, 
liwdns, as the word has come to be used in local 
parlance. These liwdns, raised above floor level, are 
furnished with carpets and divans. The barim is 
completely separate from the seldmllk and is acces- 
sible by a door opening onto the courtyard and by 
a staircase. The kd c a, its principal room, is not 
dissimilar to the mandara, for here, too, one finds a 
central space and lateral extensions. But it is diffe- 
rent, and derives more evidently from the ancient 
courtyard, for the walls surrounding the central 
space rise to the level of the terraces, and carry a 
lantern which lights the interior. 

The dwelling with the central courtyard, with 
the characteristics inherited from the Iranian 
tradition being adapted to the domestic theme of 
the Roman world, spread early across the Mediter- 
ranean countries of Islam. Evidences of this expan- 
sion have been found in archaeological researches in 
recent years. Excavations lately undertaken at 
$abra-Mansuriyya, the town founded in 335/947 by 
the Fatimid al-Mansur at the gates of al-Kayrawan, 
have revealed a palace with walls of clay once 
decorated with ceramic marquetry. Here we find 
the arrangement of the wide ante-room and the 
deep iwdn with two rooms alongside. From the same 
period, or possibly a little earlier, the castle of the 
§anhadjl Amir Ziri at Ashir, dated about 324/935, is 
interesting for the use of courtyards and for the 
rigorous symmetry of the rooms which surround 
them. Five rooms exhibit flat-based ledges cut into 



DAR — DAR-I AHANIN 



the wall facing the entrance; these inner recesses are 
fronted on the outside by rectangular fore-parts. 

About a hundred years later, at Sanhadja in the 
Berber territory, the palaces of the I£al c a of the Banu 
Hammad were being constructed. Three of these 
royal dwellings have been excavated. Dar al-bahr, 
the largest, owes its traditional name to the sheet 
of water which entirely occupied a large courtyard. 
Above the huge pool were the state rooms. A second 
courtyard was surrounded by buildings presumably 
for domestic use: storerooms for provisions and a 
bath intended for guests. The flat-based ledges, 
probably derived from the iwan which certainly was 
already well known to Sasanid architects, give 
variety to the interior construction of the rooms. 
In another Hammadid palace, the Kasr al-Mandr, 
castle of the Fanal, the four sides of a central room, 
once no doubt roofed by a cupola, are hollowed out 
in this fashion: a similar cruciform plan is seen in 
Palermo in the pavilion of the Ziza, built by the 
Norman kings (Twelfth Century). One of these ledges 
contains a fountain whose water flows in a canal 
across the room as in Tulunid houses in al-Fustat, 
already mentioned. 

The survival of the Asiatic elements taken over 
by domestic architecture in North Africa can be 
seen in Sedrata, a town in the Sahara founded by the 
Kharidji Berbers south of Ouargla, which was 
inhabited from the tenth to the twelfth centuries. 
Houses recovered from the sand contain rooms 
giving on to multiple courtyards. In addition to 
buildings provided with storerooms for provisions, 
the house includes state-rooms richly decorated with 
plaster sculptures, sometimes roofed by a cradle- 
vault which joins two half-cupolas on shell-shaped 
corbels. Some of the rooms are preceded by galleries 
opening, as at al-Fustat, by three bays onto the 
courtyard. The room follows the T-plan, consisting 
of a wide shallow room, and the iwan in the wall 
facing the entrance. The two ends of the wide room 
each show a raised couch framed by an overhanging 

We do not know when and how this type of house, 
with its combination of Persian and 'Iraki elements, 
reached Muslim Spain and the Maghrib. Many 
fashions derived from Baghdad or from Samarra 
were imported by the Western Caliphs, especially 
in the 3rd/gth century, and made a mark in Anda- 
lusia. Perhaps in this way we can explain certain of 
the architectural elements revealed by the Castillejo 
of Murcia, attributed to Ibn Mardanish (541-66/1147- 
1171). Here we find wide rooms, at the end of which 
there is a narrow room preceded by a fore-part. The 
inner rectangular courtyard is designed in the manner 
of a garden divided by two paths intersecting at the 
centre — a characteristic Persian theme. Two over- 
hanging pavilions on the shorter sides of the rectangle 
mark the position of the paths. This type of dwelling, 
transplanted into Muslim Spain, takes on an in- 
comparable beauty and amplitude in the Alhambra, 
the palace of the Nasrid kings of Granada. It is known 
that the principal buildings of this royal habitation, 
the work of Yusuf I (735-55/1335-1354) and of Mu- 
hammad V (755-93/i354-i39i) are arranged around 
two rectangular patios. One of them (Patio de los 
Leones) is divided by two paths in the shape of a 
cross, dominated by two overhanging pavilions on the 
shorter sides of the rectangle, as at the Castillejo of 
Murcia. Water plays an important part in the decor 
of these courtyards, filling the pool of Alberca and 
playing over the basins of the famous Fountain of 
the Lions. Galleries and wide ante-rooms opening 



on to the court-yards lead to state-rooms, such as the 
splendid Ambassadors' Room which is in the Comares 
tower, the outstanding feature of the enclosure. The 
wide rooms have, at each end, a recess, a lateral 
iwan, bounded by an overhanging arch, as in the 
houses of Sedrata. 

This theme of garden-courts, with fountains, and 
crossing paths, which certainly seems to have come 
from Iran, must have reached Maghrib even in the 
Middle Ages. It survives in the charming riydds, the 
interior gardens found in Fez and Marrakesh. The 
Algerian house, especially in Algiers itself, is quite 
different. The vestibule {skifa), very long, and 
bordered by seats, leads on through a curved 
corridor, or by a staircase, into the courtyard. The 
latter is enclosed by the columns and horseshoe 
arches of four galleries ; a fountain plays in the centre. 
The rooms beneath the galleries, on the ground floor 
or on the upper storeys, are very wide and rather 
shallow, the limited height being necessitated by the 
weak bearing of the ceiling beams. Opposite the door 
is a recess containing a divan. In this we can see 
a degenerate form of the iwan, whose movements 
we have traced from 'Irak. In Algiers, this median 
recess has a fore-part supported by arms set at an 
angle into the facade. This, there can be little doubt, 
is an eastern fashion, imported by the Turkish 
masters of the town. In the villas of the suburbs, 
the less restricted space makes this overhang un- 
necessary; the fore-part rises from ground-level. On 
the upper storey, it develops into a sort of small 
salon, a belvedere with windows on the three sides, 
and frequently surmounts the entrance porch. The 
Tunisian house is a little different, the rectangular 
court-yard having galleries only on the two shorter 
sides. The principal rooms follow the T-plan, with 
the wide room (bayt), the deep iwan {kbit), and the 
two small rooms alongside, (maksiira, plu. mkdser). 
Bibliography: Caetani, Annali dell'Islam, i, 
376 ff., 433 ff. ; Creswell, Early Muslim architecture, 
i, 3-6, ii, 53 ff. ; Lowthian Bell, Palace and mosque 
0) Ukhaidir, Oxford 1914; Herzfeld, Die Aus- 
grabungen von Samarra, Berlin 1923-1927; Viollet, 
Un palais musulman du IX' siecle (Mimoires de 
I'Acadimie des Inscriptions), 1911; Watelin, 
Sasanian building, in Pope, Survey of Persian art, 
i, 585; A. Bahgat and A. Gabriel, Fouilles a Al- 
Foustat, 1921; Pauty, Les palais et les maisons de 
VEgypte musulmane, (Institut francais du Caire) 
1933; Mostafa Sliman Zbiss, Comptes rendus de 
I'Acadimie des Inscriptions, 1952, 512; P. Blan- 
chet, Comptes rendus de I'Acadimie des Inscriptions, 
1898, 520; L. Golvin, Le Maghreb central a I'ipoque 
des Strides, 1957, 180 ff.; Gallotti, Le jardin et la 
tnaison arabe au Maroc, 2 vol., 1926; Gavault, 
Notice sur la bibliothlque-muste d 'Alger, in RA, 
1894; G. Marcais, V architecture musulmane d'Occi- 
dent, 1954 ; idem, Salle, antisalle, in Ali.0 
Alger, 1952. (G. Marcais) 

DAR-I AHANlN. Persian "the iron gate", also 
called Derbend-i Ahanin. The Arabic form is Bab 
al-fladid, old Turkish Tatnir qapiy. A name used 
for various passes in the eastern Islamic world. The 
most famous pass called dar-i ahanin, is the pass in 
Ma wara 5 al-Nahr (Transoxiana), in the Baysuntau 
•Mountain Range near the modern village of Derbent 
located on the old road between Samarkand and 
Tirmidh. 

Perhaps the earliest mention of this "Iron Gate" 
is in the account of the Chinese pilgrim Hsiian 
Tsang who went through the pass about 630 A.D. 
and described it briefly. The first mention of this 



DAR-I AHANlN — (al-)DAR al-BAYDA> 



pass under its Persian name is in al-Ya c kObi, 
Buldan, 290, 5. In later times this pass was considered 
the boundary between Ma wara 5 al-Nahr and the 
lands dependent on Balkh. The pass is frequently 
mentioned in Islamic literature, but the first Euro- 
pean to visit the site was Clavijo who passed here 
in 1404 and mentioned a customs house from which 
Timur received revenue. The pass is mentioned by 
Sharaf al-DIn Yazdi, Zafarndma, ed. M. Ilahdad, 
Calcutta, 1887, I, 49, and the Bdbumdma, ed. 
Beveridge, 124, under the Mongolian name qa?alya (in 
Arabic script kahalghah). The name Buzghala 
KhSna, later applied to the pass, is first mentioned 
by Muh. Wafa Karmlnagi, Tuhfat al-Khdni (un- 
catalogued, in the former Asiatic Museum, Leningrad 
f. 184b) in the description of a campaign by Muh. 
Rahlm Khan in n7i/i757- A road runs through the 
pass today but it is no longer of any importance. 
Bibliography : T. Watters, On Yuan Chwang's 
Travels in India, London 1904, i, 100-2. Ya'kObi- 
Wiet, 105; Nizam al-Din ShamI, Zajarnama, ed. 
F. Tauer, Prague 1956, ii, 252 (s.v. kahalghah); 
Ruy Goncalez de Clavijo, Narrative of the Embassy 
to the Court of Timur, tr. C. R. Markham, London 
1859, 122. (R. N. Frye) 

DAR al- c AHD, "the Land of the Covenant", was 
considered as a temporary and often intermediate ter- 
ritory between the Ddr al-Isldm [q.v.] and the Ddr 
al-Ifarb [q.v.'i by some Muslim jurists (see Al-Shafi% 
Kitdb al-Umm, Cairo 1321, iv, 103-104; Yahya 
b. Adam, Kitdb al-Kharddj, trans. A. ben Shemesh, 
Leiden 1958, 58). Al-Mawardi (Kitdb al-Afikdm 
al-Sultdniyya, trans. E. Fagnan, Algiers 1915, 291) 
states that of the lands which pass into the 
hands of the Muslims by agreement, that called Dar 
al- c Ahd is the one the proprietorship of which is 
left to their previous possessors on condition that they 
pay kharddj, and this kharddj is the equivalent of 
djizya. In case of the breach of the agreement their 
land becomes Ddr al-ffarb. When the Imam accepts 
their request to submit and pay kharddj, war against 
them is prohibited (Yahya, 58). But in theory these 
lands are in the end to be included in the Ddr al- 
Isldm. 

Abu Hanifa, however, holds the opinion that such 
a land can be considered only as part of the Ddr 
al-Isldm, and there can be no other territory than 
the Ddr al-Isldm and the Ddr al-IJarb. If people in 
such a land break the agreement they are to be 
considered as rebels. 

But, there existed, even in early Islam, a type of 
tributary lands which conformed to the theory 
defended by al-Shafi c i. Under Mu'awiya the Armenian 
princes obtained, in return for the payment of 
kharddj, agreements from him guaranteeing their 
land and autonomous rule (see, J. Markwart, Siid- 
armenien und die Tigrisquellen, Vienna 1930, 457, 
and armIniya). 

More precise information on the conditions 
affecting such lands is provided by the examples in 
Ottoman history. In the '■ahdndmes granted by the 
Ottoman sultans to the tributary Christian princes 
(see Fr. Kraelitz, Osmanischen Urkunden in tiirkischer 
Sprache, Vienna 1922, 42-106; Fr. Babinger, Beitrdge 
zur Friihgesch. der Tiirkenherrsohaft in Rumelien, 
Munich 1944, 21; Feridun, Munsha'dt al-Saldfin, 
ii, Istanbul 1265, 351-380) we find that sub- 
mission and the payment of a yearly tribute (kharddj) 
by the Christian prince, with the request of peace 
and security on the one hand and the Sultan's grant 
of <ahd wa amdn [q.v.] on the other, are the essential 
points for the conclusion of an '■ahd. It is absolutely 



an act of grant on the part of the Sultan. In the 
c ahdndmes it is often stipulated that the tributary 
prince is to be 'the enemy of the enemies of the 
Sultan and the friend of his friends'. Besides these, 
further conditions were usually imposed, such as the 
sending of hostages to pay homage in person to the 
Sultan every year, and the provision of troops for 
his expeditions. In his '■ahdndme the Sultan promises 
by oath peace, protection against the internal and 
external enemies of the prince, respect of the reli- 
gion, laws and customs of the country (cf. Feridun, 
"> 355), no colonization of Muslim people there, and 
no interference by Ottoman officials in internal 
affairs. A kapi-ketkhudd of the prince represents 
him at the Porte. His people could freely enter 
and trade in Ottoman territory. Following Hanafi 
opinion, the Ottoman Sultan considered them 
as his own Maradf-paying subjects and the land as 
his own land (cf. Kraelitz, 57, doc. 7); Feridun, ii, 
358). If the circumstances changed, the Sultan could 
increase the amount of the tribute. If the prince 
failed to fulfill any of his obligations toward the 
Sultan, he would declare him a rebel and his land Ddr 
al-harb. If the Sultan saw fit, he could bring the 
land under his direct rule. But the first step in 
expanding the Ddr al-Isldm was usually to impose 
a yearly tribute. Most of the Ottoman conquests were 
achieved through it (cf. inalcik, Ottoman Methods of 
Conquest, in Stud. I si., ii, 103). See also dar al-sulh. 
Bibliography: in addition to the references 
in the text: M. v. Berchem, La propriiU territorial 
et I'impdt foncier, Leipzig 1886; F. Lokkegaard, 
Islamic Taxation in the Classic Period, Copenhagen 
1950; M. Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law 
of Islam, Baltimore 1955; M. Hamidullah, Muslim 
Conduct of State, Lahore 1954. (Halil Inalcik) 
(al-)DAR al-BAYPA 5 , the Arab name for Casa- 
blanca, the principal city in Morocco. In Arab 
dialect Dar 1-B6da, formerly An fa [q.v.]. 

After the Portuguese had destroyed Anfa in the 
15th century, the town remained in ruins, sheltering 
but a few Bedouins and being occasionally used by 
ships as a watering-place. The Portuguese named the 
locality Casabranca, after a white house, overlooking 
the ruins, which served as a landmark for their 
ships. The Spanish transformed the name into 
Casablanca, the present European name of the city. 
The Arab name is its literal translation. 

The 'Alawid Sultan SidI Muhammad b. <Abd 
Allah had the city rebuilt in the 18th century, 
probably subsequent to the Portuguese evacuation 
of Mazagan in 1769. Fearing that the Christians 
would one day return to the attack, he wished to fill 
the gap in the defences which existed between 
Rabat and Mazagan. The bastion, or skdla, provided 
with artillery emplacements, was similar to those at 
Rabat and Larache. It is thought that he repopulated 
the city by setting up two iddlds, one of Shluh of Haha 
(a Berber tribe giving its allegiance to the Makhzen, 
in the Agadir region), the other of Bwakher (ahl al- 
Bukhari) of Meknes. Right to this day one of the 
oldest mosques in the city is named djdmi c al-Muh. 
Travellers to Casablanca in the early 19th century 
described it as a mass of ruins used more for 
camping than for permanent settlement. Like 
Fedala and Manjuriyya, it was a stopping-place on 
the journey between Rabat and Marrakesh. 

In 1782 the trade in corn, Casablanca's main 
export, was granted to a Spanish company in Cadiz, 
and in 1789 to the Compafia de los Cinco Gremios 
Mayores of Madrid. But following the revolt or- 
ganized by the Shawiya governor, who had estab- 



(al-)DAR al-BAYDA> — DAR al-DARB 



lished his residence in Casablanca, Sultan Mawlay 
Sulayman closed the port to commerce in 1794, and 
summoned back to Rabat the Christian traders who 
had set up business there. It was not reopened until 
1830, by Mawlay <Abd al-Rahman b. Hisham. 

European traders began to return from 1840 
onwards, and the influx was particularly great in 
1852. The first ones were representatives of French 
manufacturers in Lodeve. They were sent in quest of 
raw wool, in an attempt to free themselves of 
dependence on the English market. They were 
followed by English traders from Gibraltar, by 
Germans, Portuguese, and Spaniards. The first 
European vice-consul in Casablanca was appointed 
in 1857. Thereafter, despite periods of stagnation 
due to European economic crises or to local causes 
{e.g., droughts and epidemics), the small foreign 
colony grew continually. Steamship companies 
(notably the French line Paquet) called regularly at 
Casablanca. Trade expanded, and in 1906 the 
port's traffic (imports plus exports valued at 14 
million gold-francs) exceeded that of Tangier. 

Following the loan of 1904 and the Conference of 
Algeciras in 1906, French officials took over control 
of the Casablanca customs post, and a French 
company undertook improvements to the port 
facilities. These events constituted a threat to the 
Shawiya tribe which inhabited the surrounding 
countryside, and on 30 July 1907 they attacked and 
killed some European workers in a quarry outside 
the city walls. The intervention of a French warship 
provoked the sacking of the city, during which the 
Jewish quarter suffered particularly severely. The 
French replied by a bombardment on August 5th, 
and two days later 2000 troops under the command of 
General Drude were sent ashore from a French 
squadron. Spain also sent a squadron of assault 
troops. The French expeditionary force gradually 
occupied the whole of the Shawiya territory by 
driving back the warlike tribes, and the train of 
events ended with the establishment of the French 
Protectorate in 1912. 

As a result of the decision of its first Resident 
General, Lyautey, to make it the principal port of 
Morocco, the city underwent an enormous expansion. 
No doubt the decision would have been very dif- 
ferent if Casablanca had not already known consider- 
able economic prosperity. This arose in part from 
the presence of a sizeable European colony, in part 
from the need to supply material to the Expedition- 
ary Force. The modern port is completely man-made. 
It has 4,870 m. of deep-water quays, and is protected 
from the open sea by a breakwater 3,180 m. long. 
In 1956 it registered 8V2 million tons of traffic. 

The census of 1952 showed a population of 680,000 
(to be compared with 20,000 in 1907): 472,920 
Muslims, 74,783 Jews (more than a third of the 
total Jewish population in Morocco), and 132,719 
foreigners (of whom 99,000 were French). 

The old city consisted of 3 districts: Medina 
(middle-class), Tnaker (working-class, not entirely 
built-up), Mellah (Jewish). Today the whole area, 
its walls still in part intact, is called Old Medina, 
and to the W. and S.W. it has extended beyond the 
walls. The whole of the Jewish population lives 
there, mingled with the Muslims. The European 
districts have grown up around Old Medina, parti- 
cularly to the E. and S., and further Muslim districts 
have been built outside these, the principal one 
being an immense area of 200,000 inhabitants, New 
Medina. The shanty-towns on the outskirts of the 
city, to which countryfolk flocked in search of work, 



have now been largely replaced by working-class 
dwellings, constituting quarters such as Muham- 
madiyya to the E. (formerly the 'Central Quarries'), 
Sidi 'UUiman to the S. (formerly Ben Msik), and 
Hasaniyya City, formerly Derb Jdld (al-darb al- 
diadid) to the S.W. The main centre of industry is 
in the N.E. along the road to Rabat. It contains 
the headquarters of most of the country's light in- 
dustries, and is the most important industrial region 
in Morocco. 

Bibliography: Ahmad b. Khalid al-Nasirl al- 
Salawi, Kitdb al-Istifrsd', 4 e partie, Chronique de la 
dynastie alaouite du Maroc (1631-1894), trans. 

E. Fumey, in Archives Marocaines, Paris 1906-7, 
i> 332, 359, ii, 3-5 ; M. Rey, Souvenirs d'un voyage 
au Maroc, Paris 1844, 12-15; Georges Bourdon, 
Ce que j'ai vu au Maroc, Les journies de Casablanca, 
Paris 1908; Villes et tribus du Maroc. Casablanca 
et les Chaouiya, i, Mission scientifique au Maroc, 
Paris 1915; Dr. F. Weisgerber, Casablanca et les 
Chaouiya en 1900, Casablanca 1935; J. Celerier, 
Les Conditions giographiques du diveloppement de 
Casablanca, in Revue de Giogr. Maroc, May 1939; 

F. Joly, Casablanca-£Uments pour une itude de 
giographie urbaine, in Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, April- 
June 1948; J. L. Miege and E. Hugues, Les 
Europeans a Casablanca au XIX imt siecle, (1856- 
1906), Paris 1954. (A. Adam) 
DAR al-PARB, the mint, was an indispensable 

institution in the life of mediaeval Middle Eastern 
society because of the highly developed monetary 
character of its economy, particularly during the 
early centuries of Muslim domination. The primary 
function of the mint was to supply coins for the 
needs of government and of the general public. At 
times of monetary reforms the mints served also as 
a place where obliterated coins could be exchanged 
for the new issues. The large quantities of precious 
metals which were stored in the mints helped to 
make them serve as ancillary treasuries. 

Soon after their conquest of the Middle East, the 
Arabs made use of the mints inherited from the 
former Byzantine and Sasanid regimes. It was only 
during the Umayyad period that the Muslim 
administration began to interfere with the minting 
organization. This was manifested in the setting up 
of new mints (e.g., Kufa, Wasit) by al-Hadjdjadj, 
in the famous coinage reform of c Abd al-Malik [see 
dinar], and in the centralizing measures of Hisham 
who drastically reduced the number of mints. The 
policy of Hisham, obviously influenced by Byzantine 
minting traditions, could not be maintained for 
long by the 'Abbasid caliphate. During the reign of 
Harun al-Rashid the office of ndzir al-sikka (in- 
spector of coinage) was set up. Although by this 
measure the caliphate relinquished its direct autho- 
rity over the mints in favour of a subordinate agency, 
it still defended the principle of a centralized minting 
system. But this office seems to have disappeared 
with the shrinking of the political and administrative 
authority of the c Abbasids. The increased number 
of mints whose operations were necessitated by 
rapidly expanding trade and industrial activities, 
and the rise of many petty rulers asserting their 
control over these mints, led to a complete decen- 
tralization of minting, a situation closely resembling 
that which existed under the Sasanids. 

The assumption of control over the mints was one 
of the elements indicating the assertion of independ- 
ent power by rulers. It was symbolized by the in- 
clusion of their names in the inscriptions on the 
issues of their mints, hitherto an exclusive pre- 



rogative of the caliphs. By this measure, also, they 
declared themselves responsible for the quality of 
their coinage. To safeguard the integrity of the 
coinage, and consequently the interests of the 
general public, the mints were submitted to the legal 
authorities (e.g., kadi al-kuddt in Fatimid Egypt 
and Syria, and a kadi in nth century Baghdad) 
whose agents personally assisted at the minting 
processes. In spite of this system, the confidence of 
the general public was abused by the rulers who 
exploited their mint prerogatives by illegal monetary 
speculations. The usual method was to declare the 
coins in circulation invalid, and order their exchange 
against the new, secretly debased issues, obtainable 
in the official mints. 

The staff of the mint consisted of clerical and 
manual employees. The former were in charge of 
book-keeping and of internal security. The manual 
workers, such as the sabbdkun (melters) and darrdbun 
(minters), carried out the actual coining operations. 
A special position among the craftsmen was occupied 
by the nakkdsh (die-sinker) whose professional 
activities were restricted to engraving only. 

Coins issued by Muslim mints were struck of 
gold, silver and copper [see dinar, dirham, fals]. 
Precious metals for coining consisted of bullion 
which was supplied by the official authorities as 
well as by private customers. The latter delivered 
also obliterated coins and 'foreign' coins which were 
prohibited on local markets. A prescribed percentage 
of such deliveries was retained by the mint as a 
coining levy. The money cashed from the customers 
was spent on the wages of the minters, on the costs 
connected with minting operations, as well as on a 
special government tax. During the period of 
flourishing trade activities which entailed intensive 
minting operations, the proceeds from the mint 
yielded a substantial income to the government. 
But the economic regression of the late Middle Ages 
drastically diminished the demand for coinage, with 
detrimental effects on the position of the mints and 
the profits derived from them. It then became 
practicable to farm out the mints, an expedient 
resorted to, for instance, by Mamluk Egypt. 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Hasan C AH b. Yusuf 
al-Hakim, al-Dawha al-mushtabika ji dawdbit 
ddr al-sikka, ed. IJ. Mu'nis, Madrid 1379/1959! 
Ibn Khaldun, al-Mukaddima, tr. F. Rosenthal, 
New York 1958, i, 464 and passim; Nabulusi, 
Lutna' al-kawanin al-Mudiyya /» Dawawin al- 
Diydr al-misriyya, in C. A. Owen's Scandal 
in the Egyptian Treasury, JNES, 14, ii» 1955. 
75-6; Ibn Ba'ra, Kashf al-Asrdr al-Hlmiyya 
bi Ddr al-Darb al-misriyya, (cf., A. S. Ehrenkreutz, 
Extracts from the Technical Manual on the A yyubid 
Mint in Cairo, in BSOAS, xv, 1953, 432-47); 
A. S. Ehrenkreutz, Contributions to the knowledge 
of the fiscal administration of Egypt in the Middle 
Ages, in BSOAS, xvi, 1954, 502-14, containing 
further bibliographical references on the subject 
of Islamic mints; idem, Studies in the monetary 
history of the Near East in the Middle Ages, in 
JESHO, 2, ii (1959), 128-61. 

(A. S. Ehrenkreutz) 
Ottoman period. — The Ottoman mint 
is generally known as Darbkhdne-i '■Amire but 
also (larrdbkhdne, nukrakhdne and ddr al-darb. The 
first coin from an Ottoman mint was an akle [q.v.] 
struck in Bursa probably in 727/1326-7 (cf. I. H. 
Uzuncarsih, Belleten xxxiv, 207-221). On the akles 
and manghirs, copper coins, of Murad I and 
Bayazid I no place-name is found (H. Edhem, 



Meskukdt-i 'Othmdniyye, Istanbul 1334, no. 1-58), 
but we know that under his sons there were mints in 
Bursa, Amasya, Edirne, Serez and Ayasoluk 
(Ephesus) (see H. Edhem, nos. 59-138). 

The first Ottoman gold coin was struck in Istanbul 
in 882/1477-1478 (I. Artuk, Fatih Sultan Mehmed 
namtna kesilmis bir sikke, in 1st. Arkeoloji MUzesi 
Ytlhgi, no. 7), but already in 828/1425 and even 
before the Ottoman mints must have produced 
Venetian gold ducats, Frengt filori or afluri (Fr. 
Babinger, Zur Frage der osmanischen Goldprdgungen 
im 15. Jahrhundert, in SUdost-Forschungen, vol. xv, 
1956, 552). A regulation (R. Anhegger-H. Inalcik, 
Kdnunname-i Sultdni ber muceb-i c 6rf-i c Osmdni, 
Ankara 1956, nos. 1 and 58) makes it clear that 
Frengi filori was struck in the mints of Istanbul, 
Edirne and Serez (Serres) under Mehemmed II. 

In their expanding empire the Ottomans estab- 
lished new mints in the commercially and admini- 
stratively important cities and in the centres of gold 
and silver mines. Thus, under Bayazid II, new mints 
were established in Ankara, Karatova (Kratovo), 
Kastamoni, Gelibolu (Gallipoli) in addition to those 
in. Istanbul, Bursa, Edirne, Serez, Ayasoluk, Novar 
(Novaberda, Novobrdo), Uskiib (Skoplje), Amasya, 
Tire and Konya, which existed already under 
Mehemmed II. Under Suleyman I, gold coins were 
struck in his name in Aleppo, Damascus, Misr 
(Cairo), Amid, Baghdad and Algiers. In Sha'ban 
953/October 1546 a new mint was established in 
Djandja, a small town to the north of Erzindjan, 
when rich silver and gold mines were found there. The 
mints in Morava (Gilan), Novaberda, Sidrekapsa and 
Serebrenica (Srebrnica) owed their existence to the 
rich silver and gold mines (see R. Anhegger, Beitrdge 
zur Geschichte des Bergbaus im osmanischen Reich, 
Istanbul 1943, 131-212). The Ottoman laws required 
that all bullion produced in the country or imported 
from abroad be brought directly to the darbkhdnes 
to be coined. Also upon the issue of a new akle 
those possessing the old were to bring it to the mint. 
The special agents, yasak-kulus, were authorized to 
inspect any person for bullion or old akle (see 
Belleten, xliv, 697, doc. 2, and Anhegger-Inalcik, 
Kdnunndme, no. 2, 5, 58) and the gold or silver 
imported by foreigners was exempted from the 
customs duties. The state levied a duty of one fifth 
on all silver coined at the darbkhdne which corres- 
ponded to the difference between the real and face 
values of the akle (Belleten, xliv, 679 and Anhegger- 
Inalcik, no. 58). 

As a mukd(a c a [q.v.], this revenue was usually 
farmed out at auction to the highest bidder. The 
contractor, c dmil, was to pay it in regular instal- 
ments to the public treasury (see Anhegger-Inalcik, 
no. 15). Spandugino (ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris 1896, 57) 
tells us that each new issue of akle under Mehemmed 
II brought a revenue of 800 thousand gold ducats. 
The mukata'-a of the Bursa akle mint alone amounted 
to 6000 ducats in 892/1487 (see Belleten, xciii, 56). 
All the mints in the empire could be farmed out as 
one single mukata'-a (Anhegger-Inalcik, no. 15). But 
an '■amil in turn could farm out at his own respon- 
sibility the local darbkhanes to others. The "-amil 
employed emins and wekils to assist him. Though 
he was responsible for the revenue of the mint its 
actual operation and control were in the hands of 
the employees appointed by the state, namely an 
emin or ndzir who had its supervision (Anhegger- 
Inalcik, no. 13), a sdhib-i c aydr who was the director 
and in this capacity responsible for all the technical 
and legal requirements (Anhegger-Inalcik, no. 14, 



DAR al-DARB 



and, Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, x, 135) and an 
ustdd or usta who supervised the actual minting 
processes. Under him the technicians and workers 
were divided into several groups, the kdldjiydn who 
prepared the standard ingots by melting the metal, 
the kehleddns or kehleddrs who made them into 
plates to be minted and the sikke-zens or sikke-kiins 
who, under strict supervision, prepared the steel 
moulds. There were also didebdns, watchers, khazine- 
ddrs treasurers, kdtibs, scribes etc. 

Minting was arranged on the basis of newbet, a 
system of turn; at each turn 13065 dirhams [q.v.] of 
silver were delivered from the capital out of which 
3000 were placed in the khazine, treasury, and 
10,000 were delivered to the ustdd to be minted, 65 
dirhams were accepted as the legal loss. 

The general supervision of the darbkhdne and of 
its accounts was the responsability of the local kadi 
who kept there his own emin (Anhegger-Inalcik, 
no. 13). It was the kadi's duty periodically to see 
the accounts and send the balance sheets, muhdsabdt-i 
darbkhdne, to the central government (a defter of the 
muhdsebdt-i darbkhdne-i Bursa of the first half of the 
io/i6th century is now in Belediye Kutiiphanesi, 
Istanbul, Cevdet yazm. no. 0.59). 

In the berdts given to the c dmils and emins it was 
made clear how much they should pay for the bullion 
purchased and how many coins should be minted 
from each 100 dirhams of it; all this reflected the 
monetary policy of the state. 

Until 865/1460 out of each 100 dirhams of silver 
265 or 278 akle were struck, but it was 355 or 400 
akle under Mehemmed II, 500 under Suleyman I 
and 1000 in 996/1588. The original Ottoman mone- 
tary system based on ahte was disrupted from this 
time on (for the causes, see Belleten, lx, 656-684). 
The spoiled and adulterated (ziiyuf and liiriik) akles 
invaded the market. The renewed attempts to put 
right the quality and value of it, the so called 
tashih-i sikke, failed (see M. Belin, Essais sur I'his. 
Iconomique de la Turquie, Paris 1865, 118 ff.; I. 
Ghalib, Takwim-i Meskukdt-i 'Othmdniyye, Istanbul 
1307, 220-226). In 1010/1601 the use of bad and old 
akle was prohibited once more and the rate of sagh 
("good") akle was fixed at 120 akle to one gold piece 
of 1 dirham and 1 1/2 kirdt [q.v.]. In the following 
period the Ottoman mints showed little activity and 
many of them were closed down. In the nth/i7th 
century only were the mints of Istanbul, Cairo, 
Baghdad, Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers steadily active. 
The main reason for this situation was that Euro- 
peans, realizing the big profit to be made from the 
difference in price of silver, began increasingly to 
import their silver coins in the Levant (in 1614 the 
French alone imported 7 million icu). First riydls, 
Spanish reales, then in the nth/i7th century 
arsldni, esedi or abu kalb gurush, Dutch Loewen 
riksdaler, and the kara-gurush, German thalers, 
invaded the Levantine markets. The import of these 
coins was free of duty, but the mark sahh had to be 
struck on them in the Ottoman darbkhdnes as a 
condition of free circulation, because Europeans were 
increasingly importing counterfeit coins specially 
struck for the Levant. In 1010/1601 one gold coin was 
rated officially at 400, and one gurush (piastre) at 160, 
akle (Basvekalet Arsivi, Fekete tasnifi, no. 3043). 
Eventually the gurush was made the Ottoman mone- 
tary unit, as the akle became too small in value as a 
result of the continual debasements and devalua- 
tions, and the abundance and cheapness of the 
commercial silver. The first Ottoman gurush of 6 
dirhams of silver was struck in imitation of the 



German thaler in 1099/1688 (see I. Ghalib. 237, 254). 
It was rated 4 para (pare), which was struck first 
under Murad IV. Pieces of half a gurush, nisjiyye, 
and a quarter, rubHyye, were also struck. 

The new system opened a new era in the history 
of the Ottoman coinage. The akle ceased to be the 
basic unit, though it was struck until 1234/1819; 
special care was then taken to improve the quality 
of the coins struck (see I. Ghalib, 230). New darbkhdnes 
were opened in Edirne, Izmir (Smyrna) and Erzurum 
for gold and others at Tawshan-tashi in Istanbul 
and in Bosna-Saray for copper coins in 1100/1689. 
New machines and techniques were adopted 
(Rashid, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1282, ii, 383, 394)- On 
13 Djumada I, 1139/6 January 1727, the chief 
imperial darbkhdne was transferred from its old 
location at the Simkeshkhane to its new buildings 
in the first court of the Topkapi-sarayl (Kticiik 
Celebi-zade c Asim, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1282, ii, 443). 
During the same period, for better control, the 
provincial darbkhdnes were again closed down. In 
1132/1720 the silver coins struck were the gurush of 
8 dirhams and 12 kirdt, the zolota of 6 dirhams and 
4 kirdt, the para of 2-3 1/4 kirdt and the akle of 
3/4-1 3/4 kirdt in weight. The gurush and zolota con- 
tained 60% pure silver (I. Ghalib, 280). 

As the Ottoman government always considered 
minting as a source of revenue to meet its financial 
difficulties, the new silver coins, too, became subject 
to adulteration, and all attempts at reforms (tashih-i 
sikke), failed (I. Ghalib, 303, 327, 407; A. Djewdet, 
TaMkh, iv, Istanbul 1275, 122; v, 1st. 1278, 289). 
The situation became most confusing under Mahmud 
II, and, eventually under c Abd al-Medjid, by the 
jerman dated 26 Safar 1256/29 April 1840, Western 
principles of monetary policy were accepted as a 
guide by the government (see the text in S. Sudi, 
Usul-iMeskiikdt-i'Othmdniyye we edjnebiyye, Istanbul 
1311, 76-104). Enlarged by the new buildings, the 
darbkhdne-i '■amire was completely modernized by 
the machines and specialists brought from England 
(see H. Ferid, Nakd ve iHibdr-i mdli, Meskukdt, 
Istanbul 1333, 215-222). In 1259/1843 new gold and 
silver coins known as Medjidi were struck (see I. 
Ghalib. 422-445). 

Bibliography: In addition to the references 
in the text: S. Lane-Poole, The Coins of the Turks 
in the British Museum, Class xxvi, Catalogue of 
Oriental Coins in the British Museum, vol. viii, 
London 1883; E. von Zambaur, Contributions a 
la numismatique orientate, Numismatische Zeit- 
schrift, vol. 36, 43-122; vol. 37, 113-98; M. 
Kazim, Parbkhdnenin ahwdl-i ddkhiliyyesi, in 
TOEM I, 551-7; A. Refik, Onalhnct astrda 
Istanbul hayah, Istanbul 1935, 68-76; Ewliya 
Celebi, Seydhatndme, i, Istanbul 1314, 564-7, 
x, Istanbul 1938, 135; P. Masson, Hist, du com- 
merce jrancais dans le Levant au XVII e siicle, 
Paris 1896, xxxii-iii, 493-5; I. Artuk, Fatih'in 
sikke ve madalyalan, Istanbul 1946; 0. Nuri 
[Ergin], Medielle-i Umur-i Belediyye, i, Istanbul 



(Ha 



l!n; 



ik) 



India. — The earliest coins of Muslim rulers 
to circulate in India — disregarding the insignificant 
issues from the early Arab kingdom of Sind in 
the ist/8th century — were the bilingual iankas 
struck at Lahore by Mahmud of Ghazni in 418/ 
1027 and 419/1028; after Lahore became the resi- 
dence of the Ghaznawid princes small billon coins 
were occasionally struck there, but nothing is known 
of the mints they employed. Mu'izz al-Din Muham- 
mad b. Sam struck coin at Lahore, Dihli and 



'Parashawar' (Peshawar) as well as at Ghazni and, 
after the conquest of Kanawdj [q.v.] in 590/1194, 
there also; these coinages were assimilated in weight 
series as well as in design to the existing coinages of 
north India, and included gold money — a con- 
venient way of using the proceeds of plunder and 
war booty to maintain the local currency and 
simultaneously proclaim the victor's success. Mu- 
hammad b. Sam's lieutenant Yildiz struck coin in 
his own and his master's joint names: small dihli- 
wdlas assimilated to the local billon currency, first 
at Karman, including also some gold and silver, 
and later in billon only at Dihli. The outline of the 
Cawhan horseman was retained in the designs, 
frequently also the Karman bull of Shiva, which 
seems to indicate that Hindu craftsmen were still 
employed in the production of coin. Up to the 
death of Muhammad b. Sam no gold or silver 
money had been struck in India, with the exception 
of the Kanawdj gold pieces. Silver appears to have 
been coined first by Shams al-DIn Iletmish: silver 
'tankas of an original weight of 175 grs. His reign 
clearly brought a time of experimentation for his 
mint, for the weights and designs of his early coins 
are very diverse; by 632/1234-5 a stable design for 
the silver coinage seems to have been reached, which 
was taken as a model for his later gold coinage. 
Billon, however, remained the most frequent cur- 
rency, supplemented by smaller coin in copper. The 
silver struck up to this time was very impure. His 
mints were extended to Multan and Nagawr, and 
the coins of his successors continue his series from 
the same mints: Ghazni is still frequent, and Parwan, 
a town with nearby silver mines, also appears. By 
the time of Sultana Radiyya, 634-7/1236-9, the 
mints had been extended east to Bengal, and 
Lakhnawtl appears as a mint-name on silver 'tankas. 
Assays of the Dihli coinages of about this time show 
from 990 to 996 grains of silver per 1000, while the 
Bengal mintings fall below this, from 989 to as low 
as 962. By the time of Ghiyath al-DIn Balban, 
664-86/1265-87, the Bengal coinage had become 
independent of Dihli, where a period of settled rule 
had allowed the mint procedure to become stabilized ; 
Balban's reign is notable for the appearance of a 
regular gold coinage on the silver models. 

In the reign of c Ala> al-DIn Muhammad Shah, 
695-715/1295-1315, the expense of the army caused 
him to contemplate reducing the silver ianka from 
175 to 140 grs.; but gold iankas remained at the 
nominal 175 grs., often crudely struck, and the 
gold huns of his southern conquests seem to have 
been re-struck as camp currency, with no attempt to 
bring them up to the standard of the northern 
mints: their average fineness is described in the 
AHn-i Akbari, i, 5, as 8.5 parts in 12, whereas 
c Ala> al-DIn's Dihli coinage was 10.5 parts in 12. 
Devagiri now appears as a mint-town, including a 
gold issue in 714/1314-5. c Ala' al-Din's successor 
Kutb al-DIn Mubarak Shah, 716-20/1316-20 struck 
at 'Kutbabad' (= Dihli?) new square gold and silver 
pieces of standard weight, also square copper pieces 
of 66 and 33 grs. 

Ghiyath al-Din Tughluk continued the Dihli series 
almost unchanged, and also struck coin on his 
expedition to Bengal in 724/1324; but his son, 
Muhammad b. Tughluk, has been called a "prince 
of moneyers" : his numismatic types are characterized 
by novelty of form and variety of weight as well as 
by perfection of execution. Gold coin was struck 
at Devagiri, later renamed Dawlatabad [q.v.], and at 
Sultanpur ( = WarangaJ), up to the 200 grs. dinar; 



the Dihli coinage was much subdivided: the ianka 
was reckoned at 64 kdnis, and coins of 1, 2, 6, 8, 12, 
16 and the full 64 kdnis are known. The kdni was 
further divided into 4 copper fals. Besides this 
system is a partially decimal system of 25, 50 and 
100 kdnis: the 50-ftani piece, called c adali, of 140 
grs. silver, replaces the silver ianka as the largest 
silver piece of the coinage; the new dinar exchanged 
at 8 old silver tankas or 10 'adalis, a fictitious rate 
in terms of the relative values of gold and silver. 
The complete scheme of the sub-divisional currency 
was later conflated to mix silver and copper in 
arbitrary proportions to produce coins of similar 
size but different intrinsic values; this brought in 
the 'black ianka', containing only 16.4 grs. silver, 
valued at one-eighth of the old silver ianka. According 
to Abu '1-Fadl (AHn-i Akbari, i, 7, s.v. Darrdb) the 
metal was cast into round ingots and cut by hand ; 
since the black ianka was of the same size as the 
silver ianka, the same dies could be — and were — used 
for both, thus speeding and easing the work of the 
mint workmen. The uniform small size of the dies 
required less labour in the striking and resulted in 
increased efficiency of the mint. 

In 731-2/1330-2 appeared Muhammad b. Tughluk's 
'forced currency', brass tokens nominally valued at 
one '■adali; the experiment failed owing to inade- 
quate precautions against forgery. Tokens were 
turned out in thousands by local artisans, but after 
three years all were called in and redeemed. The 
whole operation thus became virtually a temporary 
loan from the sultan's subjects which was repaid 
at a swingeing rate of interest. The issues reverted to 
normal after this, except for some gold and silver 
coins of 741-3/1340-3, struck in the name of the 
Egyptian caliphs. 

FIruz Shah Tughluk, 752-90/1351-88, continued 
the 175 gr. gold ianka, but not its silver counterpart. 
Gold coin became more plentiful, thus relieving 
silver of its earlier responsibility, and mints con- 
centrated on fractional issues, including small 
pieces in mixed silver and copper; assays of the 
140 gr. pieces show 12, 18 or 24 gr. of pure silver. 
The later Tughlukid sultans, and the Shark! sultans 
of Djawnpur, followed the FIruzian tradition with 
little change. 

After the sack of Dihli by Timur the mints were 
in decline. Gold largely disappeared, thanks to 
Tlmur's depredations, and the Sayyid Khizr Khan 
struck coin in the names of Firuz and other of his 
predecessors, (but not in Tlmur's name, as Ferishta 
asserts), using the original dies. 

In the Deccan, mints were first established under 
the Bahmanis [q.v.]; before these were set up at 
Ahsanabad-Gulbarga and elsewhere, goldsmiths and 
dealers in bullion had been authorized to make 
money without reference to a royal stamp, and the 
currency was protected by the guild of craftsmen. 
Interesting among the later Deccan coinages are 
the silver Idrins, 'fish-hook' money, struck by c Ali II 
of Bldjapur, which became a standard Indian 
Ocean trading currency in the ioth/i6th century (see 
G. P. Taylor, On the Bijapur lari or larin, JASB, NS 
vi, 1910, 687-9). 

The Mughals. Babur's reign, 932-7/1526-30, was 
virtually a military occupation, and Humayun's was 
hardly a period of stability; this is reflected in their 
coinage, which seems to have been struck irregularly 
and to follow Central Asian patterns and a Central 
Asian system, probably depending on imported 
workmen. Both struck silver shdhrukhis at Agra, 



DAR AL-DARB — DAR FUR 



Lahore, Dihll and Kabul, and Babur uses Urdu, 
'camp', as a mint-name; many of Humayiin's gold 
coins are mintless, and his copper is anonymous. 

The interrex Shir Shah, 945-52/1538-45, who had 
an intimate practical knowledge of local conditions, 
commenced the reform of the coinage later fully 
implemented by Akbar: a new 178 gr. standard for 
silver and 324 gr. for copper, the rupee (riipiya) and 
dam respectively, with fractional divisions to 
correspond; the abolition of billon; and a great 
increase in the numbers of mints (over 25). Many 
silver and copper coins are without mint-name; 
sometimes this seems to be a result of the dies being 
too large for the discs. 

Humayun in his brief second regnal period left 
the Siiri system unchanged; Akbar, however, while 
retaining the system in principle, greatly elaborated 
the number of coin-types— Abu '1-Fadl (AHn-i 
Akbari, i, 10) enumerates over 30 without being 
exhaustive, (cf. Hodivala, Studies, iii). The AHn-i 
Akbari mentions the working of the mint in detail, 
in charge is the darughd, assisted by the amin; the 
sayraji is responsible for maintaining the fineness; 
the mushrif keeps a day-book of the expenditure; 
merchants, weighmen, smelters and ingot-makers 
are other non-craftsman officials. After the ingots 
have been refined, melted and recast they are cut 
by the darrdb and stamped by the sikkali from dies 
cut by the engraver who holds the rank of yuzbdshi 
(sic; see yuzbashi). The methods of extracting and 
separating the metals, refining silver and gold, and 
testing for fineness (banwdri) are fully described 
(AHn, i, 4-9). From the statistics of AHn, i, 12, it 
is clear that any individual could bring bullion to 
the mint where it would be converted into coin, 
after refining, on the owner defraying the cost of 
the minting operations and paying a seignorage to 
the state of 5V a per cent. Abu '1-Fadl also specifies 
the depreciation in face value to be allowed for 
wear of the coinage: e.g., for gold, the muhr when 
struck was worth 400 dams, although smaller muhrs 
were current of 360 dams; as long as the loss in 
weight were no more than three rice-grains no 
allowance was made, but when it had lost from four 
to six its value was 355 dams; after losing up to a 
further three rice-grains it was valued at 350 dams; 
after losing further weight it ceased to be current 
and was considered as bullion. As a precaution 
against fraud by reducing full coins to the permitted 
legal deficiency the emperor ordered that official 
weights be made in the mint, and that revenue 
collectors should not demand payment in any 
particular species of coin. Abu '1-Fadl enumerates 
four mints for gold; ten more where silver and 
copper were struck; and 28 more for copper only. 
Over the entire reign gold is known from 21 mints, 
silver from 45, copper from 64. For the complete 

Djahanglr's and Shahdjahan's system was similar, 
except for their gigantic pieces up to 1000 tolas in 
weight (1 tola = 185.5 grs.) which were used as 
presents to distinguished persons or hoarded as 
bullion reserves, and the nithars of about 40 grs. in 
gold or silver. With Awrangzib's imposition of the 
djizya [q.v.] in 1090/1679 he caused the square silver 
dirham sharH to be struck in order to facilitate 
payment at the canonical rates; this was repeated in 
similar circumstances in 1129/1717 by Farrukhsiyar. 
The latter adopted the policy of farming out the 
mints, which led to many independent chiefs and 
states striking their own coin in the Mughal emperor's 
name; this was in fact done by the British East India 



company, and Shah 'Alam's coinage with wreaths of 
roses, shamrocks and thistles, commemorating Lord 
Lake's entry into Dihll in 1803, shows a very 
extraneous influence in the Imperial mint. 

The Mughal coinage in general shows great 
diversity of mints — well over 200 are known — and 
a constant search for variation. The inscriptions 
could vary for each month of the year; for some 
years Djahangir struck round and square rupees 
in alternate months, and later varied the month 
names by zodiacal signs. Emblems appear on the 
coins from the time of Humayun; sometimes these 
appear to have marked a change of mint-masters, 
sometimes they were distinctive mint-marks. That 
the practice of the later Mughal mints was sub- 
stantially the same as that recorded by Abu '1-Fadl 
is shown by the Hidayat al-kawdHd of 1126/1714-5 
which records the current mint rules (quoted by 
W. Irvine, Mint rules in 1126 A.H., in Proc. A.S.B., 
1898, 149-52) and prescribes a differential revenue 
to be exacted from Muslim and Hindu merchants: 
the latter when specially appointed (mahadfandn hi 
mukarrari bdshand) pay less than the Muslim rate of 
2>/ 2 per cent, otherwise V2 P er cent more. 

Bibliography : Evidence for the history of the 
mint under the Dihli sultanate is numismatic 
only; cf. E. Thomas, The chronicles of the Pathdn 
kings of Dehli, London 1871; H. Nevill, Mint 
towns of the Dehli Sultans, JASB, NS xvii, 1921, 
116-30; idem, The currency of the Pathan Sultans, 
ibid. 21-30 (corrects Thomas on many points of 
detail) ; R. Burn, Muhammad Tughluq's forced 
coinage, JASB, N.S. xxix, 1933, N. 5-6; H. N. 
Wright, The Sultans of Delhi: their coinage and 
metrology, Dihll 1936; S. H. Hodivala, Historical 
Studies in Mughal Numismatics, Calcutta 1923; 
C. R. Singhal, Mint-towns of the Mughal emperors 
of India (Memoir iv, NSI), Bombay 1953; idem, 
Bibliography of Indian Numismatics, ii (Muham- 
madan and later Series), Bombay 1952. 

(J. Burton-Page) 
DAR al-FUNON [see djami'aj. 
DAR FOR, "the land of the Fur", a province 
of the Republic of the Sudan, formerly a Muslim 
sultanate. 



Geogi 



Phy a 



Dar Fur was one of the chain of Muslim states 
composing bildd al-Sudan. Its eastern neighbour was 
Kordofan, from which it was separated by a tract 
of sand-hills. To the west lay Waddai. The Libyan 
desert formed a natural boundary on the north, 
while the marshes of the Bahr al-Ghazal [q.v,] 
marked the southern limits. Dar Fur comprises 
three main zones: a northern zone, the steppe fringe 
of the Sahara, providing grazing for camel-owning 
tribes but little cultivation; a central zone (14° 30' N 
to 12 N) with rainfall ranging from 12" to 25" (in 
the mountains), a country of settled cultivators; a 
southern zone of heavy rainfall (25"-35"), inhabited 
by cattle-owing nomads, the Bakkara [q.v.]. In the 
central zone, the massif of DJabal Marra, rising to 
3024 metres, runs from north to south. The northern 
and southern regions of Dar Fur are locally known 
as Dar al-Rih and Dar al-SaHd respectively. 

The central zone is a meeting place of routes. The 
Darb al-arbaHn [q.v.] (Forty Days' route) ran from 
Asyut through Khardja and Salima to Kubayh (Cobbe, 
Browne), where a small mercantile town developed. 
Another route connected Dar Fur with Tripoli and 
Cyrenaica. Kabkabiyya, lying west of Dj. Marra 
was the mercantile centre on the route to Waddai 



and the western bildd al-Suddn. The route to Kor- 
dofan and the east was a pilgrimage road, although 
some pilgrims preferred the long route through 
Egypt. Besides such articles as ivory and ostrich 
feathers, Dar Fur exported slaves, obtained from 
the pagan lands to the south. Many of these went 
by the Darb al-arbaHn to Egypt. The construction, 
completed in 1911, of a railway linking El Obeid (al- 
Ubayyid) in Kordofan with Khartoum and Port 
Sudan, followed by the annexation of Dar Fur in 
1916, ended the importance of the old routes to 
the north. The capital was finally settled in 1206/ 
1791 at its present site of El Fasher (al-Fashir [q.v.]). 
The fdshir, or residence of the sultan, had previously 
varied from reign to reign, the earliest sultans 
ruling from Dj. Marra. 

The inhabitants of Dar Fur are of varied ethnic 
origins. The Fur, (see A. C. Beaton, The Fur, in 
Sudan notes and records, xxix/i, 1948, 1-39), are a 
negroid people, originating in Dj. Marra, who 
succeeded in imposing their hegemony on the 
surrounding tribes. From the Kundjara, one of the 
three tribes of the Fur, sprang the royal Kayra 
clan, and also, traditionally, the Musabba c at, who 
established a sultanate in Kordofan. According to 
tradition, the dominant people in the region before 
the Fur was the Tundjur, and, before them, the 
DadjQ: elements of both still survive in Dar Fur. 
Arab immigration has played an important part in 
the ethnic pattern. Tribal groups connected with 
the great irruption of the Djuhayna into the eastern 
bildd al-Suddn in the 8th/i4th century are now 
represented by the camel-Arabs of the northern 
zone and the Bakkara of the south. The name of 
Fazara, once commonly applied to a group of camel- 
Arabs, is now obsolete. Among the Bakkari tribes, 
the Rizaykat and Ta'aisha may be noted. Individual 
immigrants, coming from the arabized Nubians of 
the Nilotic Sudan, Barabra [q.v.], Danakla [see 
danijali] and Dja c aliyyin [q.v.], have made an im- 
portant contribution to the development in Dar 
Fur of Islamic culture and trade. The present-day 
population of the province amounts to 1,328,559 
(Sudan Almanac, 1959). 



Chrc 



logy. 



The chronology of the dynasty before the eighth 
sultan, c Abd al-Rahman al-Rashld, is uncertain. 
Browne believed that Sulayman Solong reigned 
c. 130-150 years before his time, i.e., c. 1640-60; 
while al-Tunusi, who makes the foundation of Dar 
Fur contemporary with that of Waddai and Kor- 
dofan, asserts that the event occurred not more than 
200 years previously, i.e., c. 1640 (TOnusi, Ouaddy, 
75). Shukayr's chronology, which refers Sulayman 
Solong to the mid-gth/isth century, by incorporating 
a block of inert names, is a late tradition and clearly 
fictitious. Nachtigal gives the commencement of 
Sulayman Solong's reign as 1596, which seems too 

Sultans with dates of accession. 

1. Sulayman Solong c. 1050/1640 

2. Musa b. Sulayman 

3. Ahmad Bakr b. Musa 

4. Muhammad Dawra b. Ahmad Bakr 

5. c Umar b. Muhammad Dawra c. 1156/1743-4 

6. Abu '1-Kasim b. Ahmad Bakr c. 1 163/1749-50 

7. Muhammad Tayrab b. Ahmad Bakr 

c. 1170/1756-7 

8. c Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid b. Ahmad Bakr 

1202/1787 



9. Muhammad Fadl b. c Abd al-Rahman 

1215/1800-1 
10. Muljammad Husayn b. Muhammad Fadl 

1254/1838-9 
n. Ibrahim b. Muhammad Husayn 1290/1873 

(Annexation of Dar Fur to the Egyptian Sudan; 

1291/1874) 

Shadow-sultans of the Khedivial and Mahdist 

12. Hasab Allah b. Muhammad Fadl 

13. Bush b. Muhammad Fadl 

14. Harun b. Sayf al-Din b. Muhammad Fadl 

15. c Abd Allah Dud Bandja b. Bakr b. Muijammad 

Fadl 

16. Yusuf b. Ibrahim 

17. Abu '1-Khayrat b. Ibrahim 
The revived sultanate: 

18. c Ali Dinar b. Zakariyya b. Muhammad Fadl 

1316/1898 
(Annexation of Dar Fur to the Anglo-Egyptian 
Sudan; 1916) 

Traditions of the early sultanate. 

In the absence of any native chronicle, we are 
dependent for information on foreign observers. Of 
these, the most important are the Tunisian Arab, 
Mubamma.d b. c Umar al-Tunusi, whose visit of eight 
years began in 1218/1803; the German, Gustav 
Nachtigal, who was in Dar Fur in 1894; the Austrian, 
Rudolf v. Slatin, governor 188 1-3; and the Lebanese, 
Na'um Shukayr, an intelligence official of the 
Condominium, whose principal informant was 
Shaykh al-Tayyib, (d. 1902), formerly imam to 
sultan Ibrahim. 

The discrepancies in the traditional genealogies 
of the Kayra were noticed by al-Tunusi, Nachtigal 
and Shukayr. These genealogies are more or less 
sophisticated attempts to schematize traditions 
associated with folk-heroes, the chief of whom are 
Ahmad al-Ma c kur, Dali, and Sulayman Solong (i.e., 
"the Arab"). The many variants of tradition cannot 
be detailed here. Ahmad al-Ma c kur, an Arab of 
Tunis, of Hilali or c Abbasid descent, is represented 
as the ancestor of the Tundjur rulers who preceded 
the Kayra, or as the link (by marriage) between 
Tundjur and Kayra. His son (or more remote 
descendant), Dali, was the organizer and legislator 
of the Furawi state. A descendant of Dali, Sulayman 
Solong, usually described as the son of an Arab 
woman, is credited with the introduction of Islam, 
and is the first of the historical rulers. Ahmad al- 
Ma'kur may represent a genuine memory of Arab 
with the Tundjur (or Fur) or may be 
antedate the coming of the Arab 
element. The epithet al-Ma'frur, "the Lame" is 
probably the arabicization of a non-Arab name: it 
is explained in Slatin and Shukayr by an obvious 
legend. Dali (or Dalil Bahr) may have been an 
historical individual, or may embody the traditions 
of the Kayra rulers before the coming of Islam. 
Sulayman Solong, a warrior and administrator, is 
Dali's Muslim counterpart and may have absorbed 
traditions originally connected with him. Sulayman 
was probably not the founder of the Kayra dynasty, 
but simply the first Muslim ruler. The claims that 
the royal clan was descended from the Bard Hilal 
or the 'Abbasids are sophistications, reflecting North 
African and Nilotic Sudanese influences respectively. 
The two claims are, of course, incompatible. There 
is more verisimilitude in a tradition that the Kayra, 
together with the Musabba'at and the ruling house 
of Waddai, were descended from the Fazara. This 



is in harmony with the tradition that Sulayman's 
conquests were achieved in alliance with the nomad 

While Sulayman may have begun the introduction 
of Islam into Dar Fur, the full islamization of the 
region was a slow process. The persistence of non- 
islamic customs into the 19th and 20th centuries is 
noted by all observers. The religious teachers (faki 
for /attih; ful}ara> is invariably used as the plural), 
came mainly from the western bilad al-Suddn, and 
from the Nilotic region, both areas where the Malik! 
school predominates. Little is recorded of the sultans 
who immediately followed Sulayman: his second 
successor, Ahmad Bakr, is remembered as the 
father of many sons, five of whom were sultans 
after him. The traditions of both Dar Fur and 
Waddal preserve the recollection of a series of wars 
between the two sultanates, beginning in the time 
of Ahmad Bakr and continuing until Muhammad 
Tayrab, early in his reign, made peace with sultan 
Djawda of Waddal. Both 'Umar and Abu '1-K5sim 
are said to have been killed in these wars, in which 
the advantage generally lay with Waddal. 

Fuller traditions begin with the reign of Muhammad 
Tayrab, who died only 16 years before the visit of 
al-Tunusi. He is represented as luxury-loving and 
pacific, but his reign ended in war against sultan 
Hashim, the Musabba'awi ruler of Kordofan. The 
pretext for hostilities was found in Hashim's 
aggression against the eastern frontier of Dar Fur, 
but al-Tunusi suggests that Tayrab's real motive 
was to secure the succession for his son, Ishak, at 
the expense of the surviving sons of Ahmad Bakr. 
Ishak, entitled al-khalifa, "the successor", was left 
as regent in the capital, while the sultan's brothers 
and ministers accompanied Tayrab on campaign. 
Hashim was expelled from Kordofan and sought 
refuge with the Fundj sultan of Sinnar, while the 
Furawi army occupied his dominions. The legend 
that Tayrab advanced as far as Omdurman (Umm 
Durmdn) and defeated an c Abdallabi army is not 
mentioned by al-Tunusi or Nachtigal, and is a later 
elaboration, probably of the Mahdist period. Tayrab 
died at Bara in Kordofan, poisoned, it is said, by 
his grandees. 

Tayrab's death was followed by a succession 
struggle between the partisans of Ishak and those 
of the sons of Ahmad Bakr. The latter finally chose 
as their sultan the posthumous sou of Ahmad Bakr, 
<Abd al-Rahman al-Rashid, a pious and scholarly 
youth. His election was brought about by Muhammad 
Kurra, a eunuch of the late ruler, whom c Abd al- 
Rahman appointed as his chief minister. Kurra 
subsequently led another expedition into Kordofan, 
which he governed for some years. c Abd al-Rahman's 
reign witnessed the progress of both trade and 
religion, developments which may be ascribed to 
Nubian immigration into Dar Fur at this time, 
in consequence of the decline of Fundj power in the 
Nilotic Sudan. Increased contact with the outside 
world, through trade with Egypt, is indicated by the 
exchange of presents between c Abd al-Rahman and 
the Ottoman sultan, by the visit of the English 
traveller, W. G. Browne, in 1793-6, and by the 
correspondence with Bonaparte in 1799 (French 
text in Piices diverses et correspondence relatives aux 
optrations de Varmle d'Orient en Egypte, Paris, An 
IX; 187, 216-7). A Mamluk refugee from Bonaparte 
was granted asylum in Dar Fur, but was killed for 
plotting against the sultan. 



c Abd al-Rahman's young son, Muhammad Fadl, 
was installed as sultan by Muhammad Kurra in 
1215/1800-1, but a rift grew between the ruler and 
his minister, and Kurra was killed in Radjab 1219/ 
Oct.-Nov. 1804. Fadl's long reign was a period of 
declining power. An expedition sent by Muhammad 
C A1I Pasha of Egypt, under his son-in-law, the 
daftarddr Muhammad Bey Khusraw, defeated the 
Furawi viceroy of Kordofan, the ma^dum Musallim, 
at Bara in 1821, and annexed the province. Revolt 
in the Nile valley, however, deflected the dajtarddr 
from the conquest of Dar Fur. Muhammad c Abd al- 
Karlm Sabun, the sultan of Waddai, devastated the 
vassal state of Dar Tama and laid it under tribute. 
Fadl assisted a brother of Sabun to obtain the throne 
of Waddal after his death, but failed to establish a 
protectorate. The Bakkara, especially the Rizaykat, 
also gave much trouble. 

Fadl's successor, Muhammad Husayn, was threat- 
ened by a pretender, Muhammad Abu Madyan, a son 
of sultan c Abd al-Rahman. Muhammad 'All Pasha, 
who claimed Dar Fur by virtue of a jarman of sultan 
c Abd al-Madjid (13 February 1841; see J. C. Hure- 
witz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East, New 
York, 1956; i, 120), supported Abu Madyan, and an 
expedition was prepared. The project was abandoned 
on the death of the ambitious hukilmddr of the 
Egyptian Sudan, Ahmad Pasha Abu Widan, in 
Ramadan i259/Sept.-Oct. 1843. Relations between 
Husayn and the viceroys Sa c id and Isma'il were 
friendly. In the later years of Husayn's reign, his 
sight failed, and affairs were directed by his sister, 
the iya basi Zamzam. 

His successor, sultan Ibrahim, soon became invol- 
ved in hostilities over the Rizaykat with al-Zubayr 
Rahma Mansur, the Sudanese merchant-prince who 
controlled the western Bahr al-Ghazal. Al-Zubayr 
invaded Dar Fur from the south, in collusion with 
the kukiimddr Isma'il Pasha Ayyub, who brought a 
force from the east. Ibrahim was defeated by al- 
Zubayr, and killed at the battle of Manawashi on 
24 Oct. 1874. Dar Fur was annexed to the Egyptian 

The Khedivial and Mahdist Periods. 

Fur resistance, based on Dj. Marra. continued 
under a series of shadow-sultans. The first, Hasab 
Allah b. Muhammad Fadl, surrendered to al-Zubayr, 
and was sent, with a large number of Furawi princes 
and notables, to Egypt. His brother and successor, 
Bush, raised an alarming revolt, but was killed by 
al-Zubayr's son, Sulayman. A further revolt, in 1877, 
against newly imposed taxation, found a leader in 
Harun, a grandson of Muhammad Fadl. He besieged 
El Fasher, the provincial capital, but was driven 
back to Dj. Marra, and was killed in 1880 by al-Nur 
Bey Muhammad 'Ankara, subsequently a Mahdist 
officer. Another grandson of Muhammad Fadl, c Abd 
Allah Dud Bandja, next assumed the sultanate in 
Dj. Marra. 

The outbreak of the Mahdist revolution in 1881 
produced a critical situation in Dar Fur, since many 
of the military and administrative officers were 
sympathizers with the Mahdi, like them a riverain 
Sudanese, while both the Fur and the Rizaykat 
wished to throw off khedivial rule. After the Mahdi's 
capture of El Obeid and defeat of the Hicks expedi- 
tion (January and November 1883), Slatin, the 
Austrian governor, was isolated, and he surrendered 
in December to Muhammad Bey Khalid, formerly 
sub-governor of Dara, whom the Mahdi had appointed 
as his agent in Dar Fur. 



In 1884, a Mahdist force captured Dud Bandja, 
who subsequently became a Mahdist officer. After 
the Mahdi's death in 1885, Muhammad Khalid 
concerted a plot with the Ashraf (the Mahdi's 
relatives), to oust the new sovereign, the Khalifa 
'Abd Allah b. Muhammad [q.v.]. He marched on 
Omdurman with considerable forces, but was inter- 
cepted and arrested at Bara (April 1886). He had 
left to govern Dar Fur a son of sultan Ibrahim 
named Yflsuf, who in 1887 revived the sultanate. 
A force under 'Uthman Adam, the governor of 
Kordofan, defeated and killed Yflsuf early in 1888. 
'Uthman now assumed the governorship of Dar 
Fflr also. 

A few months later, Mahdist authority in Dar 
Fur crumbled, in consequence of a revolt, originating 
in Dar Tama under a messianic faki, Abu Djum- 
mayza. He was joined by the shadow-sultan of the 
Fflr, Abu '1-Khayrat (a brother of Yflsuf b. Ibrahim) 
with his supporters. The Mahdist forces were 
heavily defeated in two battles, but Abfl Pjum- 
mayza died of smallpox and his followers were 
routed outside El Fasher (February 1889). Abu 
'1-Khayrat fled to Dj. Marra, where he was killed 
by his slaves in 1891. 'Uthman Adam re-established 
his authority in the province, especially over the 
Bakkara, who had supported the Mahdia against 
the khedivial administration, but were now resentful 
of Mahdist control. The Khalifa's tribal policy, 
executed by 'Uthman Adam, rested on three bases; 
the substitution of new nominees for the hereditary 
chiefs, the enforced migration (hidjra) of tribes to 
Omdurman, and the exploitation of tribal rivalries. 
The great migration of the Ta'aisha, the Khalifa's 
own tribe, was set on foot by 'Uthman Adam in 
1888, and had important consequences for the 
Mahdist state. 

'Uthman Adam died in 1891, and was succeeded 
as governor by Mahmfld Ahmad, like himself a 
relative of the Khalifa. In 1894, a Belgian expedition 
from the Congo reached the southern fringe of the 
province and concluded a treaty with the chief of 
the Farflkl tribe, but withdrew shortly afterwards, 
(see A. Abel, Traduction de documents arabes con- 
cernant le Bahr-el-Ghazal, in Bull, de I'Acadimie 
royale des Sciences coloniales, xxv/5, Brussels 1954, 
1385-1409). In 1896, Mahmfld was recalled to 
Omdurman, to command the forces sent against 
the Anglo-Egyptian invasion. 

The reign of 'All Dinar and subsequent 

When the Mahdist state fell in 1898, 'All Dinar, 
a grandson of Muhammad Fadl, who had had a 
chequered career in the Mahdia (see A fragment from 
Ali Dinar, in Sudan notes and records; xxxiv/i, 1953, 
114-6), seized El Fasher and installed himself as 
sultan. Nominally a vassal of the Condominium 
government in Khartoum, he long imitated with 
success the Khalifa's policy of excluding Europeans 
from his dominions. He was challenged by a survivor 
of the Mahdist regime, Sanln Husayn, who had held 
Kabkabiyya since 'Uthman Adam's time and now 
attempted unsuccessfully to obtain the protection 
of the Condominium government. Sanin was not 
finally defeated until 1908. Like his predecessors, 
'All Dinar had difficulty in asserting his authority, 
on the one hand over the Bakkara, on the other, 
over the buffer states between Dar Fur and Waddal. 
This western frontier problem became more serious 
with the French occupation of Waddal in 1909. The 
French, while accepting Dar Fflr proper as within the 



British sphere of influence, wished to occupy the 
buffer states. Although the British, through the 
Condominium government, vigorously supported 
Fflrawl claims, the sultan, after prolonged hostilities, 
succeeded only in holding Dar al-Masallt. Finding 
himself pressed by the extension of French power, 
and exasperated by a series of local grievances 
against the Condominium government, 'All Dlnar 
was sympathetic to the Ottomans in the First World 
War. On the pretext of forestalling an attack from 
Dar Fflr, the Condominium government sent a force 
against him. The sultan's army was defeated near 
El Fasher on 22 May 1916. and he himself was 
killed on 6 November. 

The removal of 'AH Dinar, was followed by a 
settlement of the western frontier with the French. 
The final compromise in 19 19 allowed Dar Fur to 
retain Dar Kimr and two-thirds of Dar al-Masallt, 
part of which had been ceded by its ruler to the 
French in 1912. The delimitation of the boundary 
was completed in 1924. The pacification of Dar Fflr 
did not prove difficult, although there was a belated 
rising under a messianic faki at Nyala in 1921. As 
a consequence of its late annexation, Dar Fur did 
not share in the early phase of development of the 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: it remained an isolated and 
backward province until the last years of the Con- 
dominium. The opening-up of air communications 
from 1947, the development of schools, and the 
construction of a railway line through southern 
Kordofan to Nyala (completed in April 1959) are 
indicative of the fuller integration of Dar Fur in 
the modern Sudan. 

Administrative history. 

The administrative system under the Kayra 
sultans was described by al-TflnusI and, more 
systematically, by Nachtigal. It had few Islamic 
features. Almost all the titles were Furawi, not 
Arabic; the chief exception being the sultan's 
personal representatives (makdum, pi. mahddim), 
who were usually appointed for a term of years and 
exercised overriding powers in their provinces. The 
royal women (sing., mayram) held a dignified posi- 
tion; the queen-mother was the second person in 
the realm, but more real power was possessed by 
the iya basi, usually the sultan's sister. Slaves and 
eunuchs played an important r61e : the chief minister, 
who was also ex officio governor of the eastern 
province, was a eunuch. The powers of this func- 
tionary were reduced after the death of the king- 
maker, Muhammad Kurra. A tradition that sultan 
Abu '1-Kasim was deserted in battle by his relatives 
because of his inclination to the blacks probably 
marks an increase in the military rdle of the ruler's 
slave-household at the expense of the free clansmen. 
A reorganization of the slave-army was carried out 
by sultan Muhammad Husayn, who equipped his 
troops with firearms. Besides the slave-solidiers, 
the forces included warriors summoned at need by 
the provincial authorities. Islamic influences are 
chiefly seen in the practices of the royal chancery 
and in the reception of the Sharing according to the 
Malikl school. The ancient customary law was not 
however disused: the "Book of Dali", in which it 
was said to be codified, is probably mythical, or 
may be a generic term for attempts to commit 
custom to writing, (cf. A. J. Arkell, The history of 
Darfur: 1200-1700 A.D. Ill, in Sudan notes and 
records, xxxiii/i, 1952, 145-6). 

After the conquest by al-Zubayr, the admini- 
stration was assimilated, as far 



DAR FDR — DAR al-HADITH 



allowed, to that of other parts of the Egyptian 
Sudan. A governor (mudir c umum Ddr Fur) had 
his headquarters at El Fasher, while sub-governors 
(mudirs) were stationed at El Fasher, Shakka (to 
control the Rizaykat territory), Dara (on the route 
from the south to the capital), and Kabkabiyya (on 
the route to Waddai). The governors have been 
listed by R. L. Hill, Rulers of the Sudan, 1820-1885, 
in Sudan notes and records, xxxii/i, 1951, 85-95. 

The Mahdist regime inherited the problems and 
administrative structure of its predecessor. Dar Fur, 
later combined with Kordofan in the Province of 
the West (Hmdlat al-Qharb), was ruled by a military 
governor ( c dmil — originally amir — '■umum Ddr Fur), 
who commanded a force composed of tribal levies 
(awldd al- c Arab) and black troops (diihddiyya). 
Many of the latter, as well as of the military and 
civil officials had previously served the khedivial 
administration. The governor was in frequent 
correspondence with Omdurman, but had his 
provincial treasury (bayt al-mdl). 

The revived sultanate under 'All Dinar repro- 
duced many features of the Khalifa's central ad- 
ministration. Essentially it was a military auto- 
cracy under which the ancient Furawl offices and 
the system of makdums alike became obsolete, 
while special deputies (mandub, plur. manddib) 
gathered the revenue and represented the sultan in 
the provinces. Favourites and slaves had much 
influence at the centre. The influence of the Mahdia 
can be seen in the organization of a hierarchy of 
ltddis, and in the system of taxes, which closely 
resembled that of the Khalifa. 

After the annexation of Dar Fur in 1916, the 
province was administered by a British governor 
and district commissioners, who at first were army 
officers. Experiments in "native administration" 
resulted in some useful devolution, primarily of 
judicial functions, to local notables, but also pro- 
duced an anachronistic attempt to create or revive 
large native authorities. This curious reversal of 
the policy previously followed by successive sultans 
and governors was too artificial to succeed generally. 
In the last decade of the Condominium, Dar Fur 
shared in the rapid constitutional changes. Local 
government councils were formed and representa- 
tives were sent to the various central deliberative 
bodies. The coming of independence on 1 January 
1956 did not affect the administrative structure, in 
which Sudanese officials had already filled the higher 
cadres, previously occupied by British. The military 
coup d'itat of November 1958 did not directly affect 
provincial administration, but the continued exis- 
tence of the local government councils is necessarily 
precarious. For the administration under 'All 
Dinar and the Condominium, see G. D. Lampen, 
History of Darfur, in Sudan notes and records, 
xxxi/2, 1950, 203-8. 

Bibliography: W. G. Browne, Travels in 
Africa, Egypt, and Syria, London 1799, 180-350; 
Muhammad b. c Umar al-Tunusi, Tashhidh al- 
adhhdn bi-sirat bildd aW-Arab wa 'l-Suddn, lith. 
Paris 1850; tr. Perron, Voyage au Darfour par le 
cheykh Mohammed Ebn-Omar El-Tounsy, Paris 
1845; Al-Tunusi, tr. Perron, Voyage au Ouaddy, 
Paris 1851; G. Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, iii, 
Leipzig 1889, 355-446; R. C. [von] Slatin, Fire and 
sword in the Sudan, London 1896, 30-278; Na'um 
Shukayr, Ta'rikh al-Sudan, Cairo 1903, ii, 111-48, 
iii, 68-84, 93-6, 185-92, 451-5, 458-65, 533-4, 
546-9, 672; H. A. MacMichael, A history of the 
Arabs in the Sudan, Cambridge 1922, i, 52-128; 



idem, The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, London 1934, 
125-37; R. [LO Hill, A biographical dictionary of 
the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Oxford 1951, various 
notices; P. M. Holt, The Mahdist state in the 
Sudan, Oxford 1958; 66-8, 127-30, 132-46; 
Numerous articles in Sudan notes and records, 
Khartoum 1918-. Information supplied by A. B. 
Theobald, whose article, Darfur and its neighbours 
under Sultan l Ali Dinar, is to appear in Sudan 
notes and records. The government archives in 
Khartoum contain a very considerable body of 
material relating to the Mahdia, the rule of C AH 
Dinar and the Condominium period. 

(P. M. Holt) 
DAR al-HADITH. I. Architecture [see 



II. His 



NT]. 



:al de\ 



. The n 



e Ddr 



al-hadith was first applied t 
for the teaching of hadlths in the sixth century 
of the Hidjra. The conclusion that until that 
time hadiths were learned through the journeys 
called talab al-Hlm, there being no special schools 
for the science of hadith (cf. Goldziher, Muh. Stud, ii, 
186), is not consonant with the results of the study 
of materials now available. Hence, among other 
matters connected with hadith, the effects of the 
misunderstanding of the nature and object of the 
talab al-Hlm journeys need to be investigated (cf. 
F. Sezgin, BuhaH'nin kaynaklari hakkmda arashr- 
malar, 23-36; idem, Islam Tetkikleri Enst. dergisi 
1957, H/i, 24). 

In his treatise al-Amsdr dhawdt al-dthdr (MS 
Veliyeddin 463/3, gob-g3a), al-Dhahabi (d. 748/ 
1347-8) gives us comprehensive information about 
the centres for hadlth-study and their distribution 
in different centuries throughout the Muslim world. 
Interest in the science of hadith and the study of it 
had continued for centuries without intermission in 
Syria, where the first Dar al-Hadith was founded, one 
of the centres (with an interruption of 90 years) 
being Jerusalem (op. cit., 93b). 

Until special institutions for the study of hadith 
were set up, the teaching of this, as of other branches 
of religious learning, was carried out in the mosques. 
Muhaddiths, unwilling that such instruction should 
be given to a few people only in private residences, 
encouraged the use of public places (cf. e.g., al- 
Khatib, TaMkh Baghdad, ii, 33). Al-Bukhari 
(d. 256/870), who as a young man came to Basra at 
the beginning of the 3rd/gth century, instituted 
AadftA-lectures in the mosque there, which were 
attended by thousands of students (op. cit., ii, 16-17). 
In Cairo in the 3rd century a pupil of al-Shafi'l was 
giving hadith-lessons in the Mosque of Ibn Tulun 
(Husn al-muhddara. Cairo 1299, i, 182). When later 
the institutions known as ddr al-Hlm or madrasa 
were founded, hadith-studies were, to some extent, 
attracted to them from the mosques and the private 
houses of the teachers. Nevertheless schools reserved 
for the teaching of hadith began to be opened from 
the 4th/ioth century onwards; thus the hadith- 
school set up for Abu c Ali al-Husayni (d. 393/1003) 
in NIshapur had about a thousand students, and 
Aa<2f(A-schools were founded for Ibn al-Furak 
(d. 406/1015-6), Abu '1-Kasim al-Kushayri (d. 465/ 
1072-3) and Rukn al-DIn al-Isfahani (d. 418/1027) 
(cf. Wiistenfeld, Imam SchafiH, i, 156, ii, 229, iii, 
284). In the SunnI Dar al- c ilm which al-Hakim bi- 
amrillah founded at Cairo in 400/1009-10, two 
MalikI professors gathered around them the experts 
in fikh and hadith (al-Dhahabi, Duwal al-Isldm, 
Haydarabad, i, 186). 



DAR al-HADITH — DAR al-HIKMA 



The first institution to be called specifically Dar 
al-Hadith was founded by the Atabeg Nur al-DIn 
(d. 569/1 173-4) (al-Nu'aymi, al-Daris ft ta?rihh al- 
maddris, Damascus 1948, i, 99, cf. Muh. Stud, ii, 187). 
Though Nur al-DIn was himself Hanafi, he limited 
this school to Shafi'is (Wiistenfeld, Die Akademien 
der Araber und ihre Lehrer, 69), and set over it the 
historian and muhaddith c Abd Allah b. 'Asakir 
(d. 571/1 175-6) (al-Nu'ayml, op. tit., i, 100). There 
were many wakfs for this institution and the people 
attached to it (Abu Shama, Al-Rawdatayn, Cairo 
1956, i, 23). Ibn 'Asakir was succeeded by his son 
al-Kasim (d. 600/1203-4) (al-Nu'ayml, op. tit., i, 100). 
Al-Nu c ayml gives the names of the rectors of this 
hadith-school down to Ibn Rafi c (d. 718/1318). The 
opening of this first Dar al-Hadith was followed by 
the establishment of numerous similar institutions 
to which leading historians and muhaddiths were 
attached, mostly in Damascus and its neighbourhood 
(for which al-Nu c aymI records the names of 16), 
but spreading immediately all over the Muslim 
world: thus c Abd al-Latlf al-Baghdadl (d. 629/1231-2), 
on going to Mosul in 585/1189, found such a dar al- 
hadlth on the ground floor of the Madrasa of Ibn 
Muhadjir (Ibn AM Usaybi'a, ii, 204); in 622/1225 
al-Malik al-Kamil Nasir al-DIn founded in Cairo a 
dar al-hadlth inspired by the Dar al-Hadith al- 
Nuriyya, setting over it Abu '1-Khattab b. Dihya. 
MakrizI notes that in 806/1403-4 it had so far declined 
as to have as its head an ignorant young man, a mere 
child (Khitat. Cairo 1270, ii, 375). In the time of 
Ibn Dukmak (d. 845/1441-2) two of the 73 madrasas 
in Cairo were dar al-hadlths (Intisdr, Cairo 1299, 99). 

After the establishment of the first dar al-hadiths, 
institutions known as Dar al-Kur'an wa 'l-Hadlth, 
for the teaching of both Kur'Sn and hadith, made 
their appearance: the first institutions of this type 
were set up by Sayf al-DIn al-Malik al-Nasiri 
(d. 741/1340-1) (for this and two other institutions 
cf. al-Nu'ayml, op. tit., i, 123-8). 

The Dar al-hadlth, as an independent institution 
or as one of many departments of a madrasa, survived 
until recent centuries in the Muslim world: thus 
according to Mudjlr al-DIn (d. 927/1521), of the 
madrasas of Jerusalem, over 40 in number, one was 
caUed Dar al-Kur'an and another Dar al-Hadith 
(Sauvaire, Hist, de Jirus. et Hebr., 139). In the 
Ottoman period the teachers of the dar al-hadlth 
opposite the Suleymaniyye Mosque were appointed 
from among the most senior and renowned of all 
the mudarris (Ta'rikh-i Diewdet, 1st. 1309, i, m). In 
the last two or three centuries dar al-hadiths, like 
madrasas in general, have lost their importance as 
centres of learning. (Fuat Sezgin) 

DAR al-^ARB ('the Land of War'). This 
conventional formula derived from the logical 
development of the idea of the djihdd [q.v.] when it 
ceased to be the struggle for survival of a small 
community, becoming instead the basis of the "law 
of nations" in the Muslim State. The Kur'an, in its 
latest texts on the holy war, IX, 38-58, 87, makes 
this "holy war" a major duty, a test of the sincerity 
of believers, to be waged against unbelievers wherever 
they are to be found (IX, 5). This war must be just, 
not oppressive, its aim being peace under the rule of 

The Kur'an does not as yet divide the world into 
territories where peace and the faith of Islam reign, 
(dar al-Islam [q.v.]), territories under perpetual 
threat of a missionary war (dar al-harb), or, of course, 
territories covered by agreements and payment of 
tribute (dar al-'ahd, dar al-sulh [qq.v.]). 



The hadith, it is true, traces back the idea of d&r 
al-harb to the Medina period. In any event, the 
classical practice of so regarding territories immedi- 
ately adjoining the lands of Islam, and inviting their 
princes to adopt this religion under pain of invasion, 
is reputed to date back to the Prophet who invited 
Caesar and Chosroes (and the Jews) to be converted 
(al-Bukharl, Kitdb al-Djihad, §§ 147, 148, 149, 151 
and K. al-Maghazi, § 416; see also al-IJalkashandl, 
Subh, Cairo 1915, 6, 15). Historically, the invitation 
to the people of the Yamama is the prototype (cf. al- 
Baladhuri, Futuh). This traditional concept, which 
ended by committing the Muslim community (or 
State) and its princes to war, either latent or openly 
declared, with all its non-Muslim neighbours (the 
adjective denoting the latter is harbi or, more 
especially, ahl al-harb) is classical and is elaborated 
in the most widely read law books (e.g., the defini- 
tions in the Kitdb al-DJihdd of the Durar al-hukkdm 
fi shark ghurar al-ahkdm of Mulla Khusraw. where 
the ahl al-harb are defined as those who have refused 
to be converted after being duly invited on the best 
terms, and against whom any kind of warfare is 
henceforth permissible in keeping with the rules of 
sura IX). In classical times, the kings of the dar al- 
harb are rebels: the emperor of Byzantium is malik 
al-Tdghiya (a.l-Tabari, Annals, passim). Classically, 
the dar al-harb includes those countries where the 
Muslim law is not in force, in the matter of worship 
and the protection of the faithful and dhimmis. A 
territory of the dar al-Islam, reconquered by non- 
Muslims of any description, thereby becomes a 
territory of the dar al-harb once again, provided 
that (1) the law of the unbelievers replaces that of 
Islam; (2) the country in question directly adjoins 
the dar al-harb; (3) Muslims and their non-Muslim 
dhimmis no longer enjoy any protection there. 
The first of these conditions is the most important. 
Some even believe that a country remains dar al- 
Islam so long as a single provision (hukm) of the 
Muslim law is kept in force there. The definition of 
the dar al-harb, like the idea of djihdd, has in the 
course of time been modified by the progressive loss 
of unity and strength in the Muslim State. The 
conception of hostility to neighbouring countries has 
equally been modified by the evolution of ideas in 
Islamic territories and is tending to be secularized. 
The proclamation of a holy war, at a time of inter- 
national crisis and for psychological reasons, is an 
innovation (cf. Snouck Hurgronje, The Holy war 
"made in Germany", New York 1915, = Verspreide 
Geschriften, iii, 257 ff.). 

Bibliography: Majid Khadduri, War and 

Peace in the law of Islam, Baltimore 1955, 52, 53, 

143, 144, 156-7, 171-4, 224-8 and bibliography; 

L. Gardet, La Cite' musulmane, 95 ff. (A. Abel) 

DAR al-IJIKMA, "house of wisdom", used by 

Arab authors to denote in a general sense the 

academies which, before Islamic times, spread 

knowledge of the Greek sciences, and in a particular 

sense the institute founded in Cairo in 395/1005 by 

the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim. Since the short-lived 

appearance of the Bayt al-Hikma [q.v.] of al-Ma 5 mun, 

several libraries had been founded in 'Irak and 

Persia providing not only information on traditional 

learning, but also an introduction to classical 

sciences C-ulum al-awa'il) (see Dar al- c ilm). 

Such establishments were very successful in 
Egypt under the Fatimids, where ShI'I doctrines 
provided a favourable climate for the development 
of Greek sciences. The Cairo palace soon housed a 
large collection, and one of its librarians was the 



- DAR al-ISLAM 



writer al-Shabushti (d. 388/998). The vizier of al- 
'Aziz, Ya'kQb b. Killis (d. 380/990), organized 
meetings of men of letters, jurists, and theologians 
in his own residence, and granted them financial 
allowances, but this initiative was soon over- 
shadowed by the Ddr al-fiikma (sometimes ddr al- 
Hlm) which al-Hakim housed in the north-western 
part of the western Palace. It contained a library 
and reading-room, and served as a meeting-place for 
traditionists, jurists, grammarians, doctors, astro- 
nomers, logicians and mathematicians. The Cairo 
Ddr al-fiikma was administered by the DdH al-du c dt, 
who invited learned men to meet there twice weekly. 
It was closely associated with the propagation of 
ShI'I doctrine, and charged to give instruction in 
Isma'ill doctrine, which has also been called hikma 
since the time of al-Mu c izz (see al-Kadi al-Nu'man, 
K. al-Madjdlis, after Dachraoui, Arabica, i960). 
In 435/1045 a new catalogue was prepared, and it 
listed at least 6500 volumes on astronomy, archi- 
tecture and falsafa. The institute was closed at the 
end of the 5th/nth century by the vizier al-Afdal, 
but al-Ma'mun reopened it in 517/1123 in another 
building, to the south of the eastern Palace. It 
had already been looted in 461/1068, in the reign 
of al-Muntasir during the civil wars, and when the 
Fatimid dynasty came to an end (567/1171) the 
library was once more closed. Salah al-DIn sold the 
palace treasures, including the books, but fortunately 
some of them were re-purchased by enlightened 
men such as al-K&dl al-Fadil. 

Bibliography: Makrizi, KhiM, Bfilak ed., i, 
408-9, 445, 458-60; ii, 342, 363, 481; Cairo ed., 
ii, 253-5, 313. 334-7; iv, 158, 192, 377; Kindi, 
600, 640; al-Kifti, 440; Ibn Khallikan. Cairo ed., 
1949, vi, 28; O. Pinto, Le biblioteche degli Arabi, 
Florence 1928, 16, 25, 26; Mez, Renaissance, 
169-70; M. Canard, Le ceremonial fatimite . . ., in 
Byzantion, xxi (1951), 364 (D. Sourdel) 

DAR al-'ILM, "house of science", the name 
given to several libraries or scientific insti- 
tutes established in eastern Islam in the 3rd/9th 
and 4th/ioth centuries. After the disappearance oi 
al-Ma'mun's Bayt al-flikma [q.v.], a man of letters 
called 'All b. Yahya al-Munadidjim (d. 275/888), 
friend of al-Mutawakkil and, later, al-Mu c tamid, 
built a library at his own expense in his residence 
at Karkar, near Baghdad. It was called Khizdnat al- 
Kutub, and was open to scholars of all countries 
(Yakut, Irshdd, v, 459, 467). Another writer and 
poet, the Shafi'I falbih Dja'far b. Muhammad b. 
Hamdan al-Mawsili (d. 323/934), founded the institute 
named Ddr al-Hlm at Mosul; it was also equipped 
with a library open to everyone (Yakut, Irshdd, ii, 
420). During the Buwayhid era further libraries 
were opened in other towns, and they did much to 
spread Shi'i doctrines. The one in Shlraz was founded 
by 'Adud al-Dawla, and was frequented by the 
geographer al-Mukaddas! (449). Others in al-Basra 
and Ram Hormuz were founded by a certain 
Ibn Sawwar, and were associated with the Mu'ta- 
zilite school. The al-Rayy library (Mukaddasi, 
391, 413; Yakut, Irshdd, ii, 315; Ibn al-pjawzi, 
Muntazam, ix, 53) was later burnt down as a centre 
of heterodoxy upon the orders of Mahmud of 
Ghazni. 

But the most important establishment was the 
Ddr al-Hlm which the vizier Abu Nasr Sabur b. 
Ardashir founded in Baghdad during the reign of 
Baha 5 al-Dawla. It was housed in a building in the 
al-Karkh quarter, and dated from 381/991 or 383/993. 
It contained more than 10,000 books, some of them 



models of calligraphy, on all scientific subjects. It was 
governed by two sharifs and a bddi, and after 
Sabur's death the Shi'i poet al-gharif al-Murtada is 
thought to have taken over its administration. We 
also have the names of some of those who were 
appointed librarians, such as the grammarian Abu 
Ahmad 'Abd al-Salam, otherwise known as al- 
Wadjika (d. 405/1014) (a friend of Abu 'l- c Ala' al- 
Ma'arri) and the secretary Abu Mansur Muhammad 
b. 'All (d. 418/1027). Sabur's library was used by 
numerous scholars, in particular by Abu 'l-'Ala' 
al-Ma'arri during his short stay in Baghdad (399-400/ 
1009-1010), and it also received the works of con- 
temporary writers such as the Fatimid secretary 
Ahmad b. 'All b. Khavran (d. 431/1039). It was 
finally burnt down when the Saldjuks reached 
Baghdad in 447/1055-56. The vizier 'Amid al-Mulk 
al-Kunduri was able to save only a few books from 
destruction. 

It is thought that a Sunni Ddr al-Hlm was founded 
at Fustat in 400/1010 by the Fatimid caliph al- 
Hakim; it was governed by two Maliki scholars, but 
after three years they were put to death and the 
library was suppressed (Ibn Taghribirdl, ii, 64, 

Bibliography: Ta'rikh Baghdad, iii, 93; Ibn 
al-DjawzI, Muntazam, vii, 172, 273; viii, 205; Ibn 
al-Athlr, ix, 71, 246-7, x, 5; Yakut, i, 799; Yakut, 
Irshdd, i, 242; Ibn Khallikan, Cairo ed. 1949, ii, 
100; Bundari, ed. Houtsma, 18; Ibn al-'Imad, 
Shadhardt, iii, 104 (s.a. 383); Abu 'l-'Ala' al- 
Ma'arri, Risdlat al-Ghufrdn, ed. Yazidji, 73, 184; 
Silkt al-zand, Cairo 1319, 1901, 103, 127; Mez, 
Renaissance, 167-9; O. Pinto, Le biblioteche degli 
Arabi, Florence 1928, 8-9, 14-5, 23; K. 'Awwad, 
KhazdHn kutub al-Irdfr al-'dmma, in Sumer, 1946/2, 
218-23 (in Ar.); H. Laoust, La vie et la philo- 
sophic d'Abou-l-'-Ald', in BEO, x, 1943-4, 127-9; 
idem, La profession de foi d'Ibn Batta, Damascus 
1958, xxii-xxiii; G. Makdisi, The Topography of 
eleventh century Baghdad, in Arabica, vi (1959), 
195-6. (D. Sourdel) 

DAR al-ISLAM, 'the Land of Islam' or, more 
simply, in Muslim authors, ddrund, 'our Country' 
is the whole territory in which the law of Islam 
prevails. Its unity resides in the community of the 
faith, the unity of the law, and the guarantees assured 
to members of the umma [q.v.]. The umma, established 
in consequence of the final revelation, also guarantees 
the faith, the persons, possessions and religious 
organization, albeit on a lower level, of dhimmis, 
the followers of the creeds of Christianity and 
Judaism which sprang from earlier revelations, and of 
the Zoroastrians (Madfus) [cf. dhimma, pjizya]. Until 
the beginnings of contemporary history Islam's oecu- 
menical aspirations were maintained, tfadiths going 
back to the Prophet, e.g., a Ifadith on the capture 
of Rome (al-Bukhari, Djihdd, § 135-139), are the 
source of these aspirations. In the classical doctrine, 
everything outside ddr al-Isldm is ddr al-iiarb [q.v.]. 
However, the historic example of Nadjran (al- 
Baladhuri, Futuh, section fi sulli Nadjran) and, at a 
later date, that of Nubia are proof of the permis- 
sibility of truces (hudna, sulh,) concluded with the 
sovereigns of neighbouring territories, who preserve 
their internal autonomy in exchange for tribute 
which constitutes an external and formal recognition 
of the Muslim sovereign's authority (cf. Dar al- 
'Ahd, Dar al-Sulh). 

Bibliography : Muhammad 'Abduh, Risdlat 
al-Tawftid; L. Gardet, La citi musulmane, 26 and 
note 203 ff.; H. A. R. Gibb, The Evolution of 



DAR al-ISLAM — DAR-ES-SALAAM 



Government in Early Islam, in Stud. Isl., 4; 0. 
Turan, The ideal of World Domination among the 
Mediaeval Turks, ibid. (A. Abel) 

DAR al-MA*IFC?AT al-'UMCMIYYA. The 

Egyptian State Archives, consisting of the 
administrative records of the governments of Egypt 
from the start of the sixteenth century until the 
present time, and stored at the Citadel and in the 
Abdine Palace in Cairo. The extant archives of the 
Ottoman treasury and administration in Egypt from 
the time of its conquest by Sellm I in 922/1517 
until it became autonomous under Muljammad 
'Ali at the start of the nineteenth century are 
located at the Citadel (al-Kal'a) archives, which 
were built by Muhammad 'All in 1242/1827 to store 
the materials remaining after a disasterous fire in 
1235/1820. A very few late-Mamluk documents 
and registers, less important nineteenth-century 
administrative records, and all registers of births 
and deaths in Egypt are also kept at the Citadel, 
but the bulk of the nineteenth and twentieth century 
Egyptian government records are kept at the 
Abdine Palace in Cairo. 

Materials remaining from the Ottoman admini- 
stration fall into two broad classifications — registers 
(dafdtir) and individual documents (awrdk). There 
are two basic types of Ottoman administrative 
registers, those containing copies of orders and 
decrees, written in the Diwdni script, and those 
containing financial data, written in the Siyakai 
script. Most of the registers of Ottoman orders and 
decrees stored in Egypt were destroyed in the fire 
of 1820, and such materials are available only in 
the published collections of Feridun and Hayret 
Efendi (see bibliography) and in the Muhimme-i 
Misr registers kept in the Basvekdlet Arsivi [q.v.] 
in Istanbul. The materials remaining in the Citadel 
archives are principally financial registers and a few 
individual documents. In addition, the archives 
possess numerous private collections seized by the 
State upon the death of their owners. The nineteenth 
and twentieth-century archives kept in the Abdine 
Palace are far more comprehensive and complete 
and include copies made in recent times of materials 
concerning Egypt found in the principal European 
archives. 

Registers of the deliberations of the Diwdn of 
Ottoman Egypt and of judicial archives since late 
Mamluk times are found in the archives of the 
religious courts (al-Mahkama U 'l-Ahwal al-Shakh- 
siyya) in Cairo. 

Bibliography: S. J. Shaw, Cairo's Archives 
and the History of Ottoman Egypt, in Report on 
Current Research, Spring 1956, Middle East 
Institute, Washington, D.C., 1956, 59-72 ; J. Deny, 
Sommaire des Archives Turques du Caire, Cairo 
1930; Muhammad Ahmad Husayn, al-WathdHk 
al-Ta'rikhiyya, Cairo 1945. 93-4; B. Lewis, The 
Ottoman Archives as a source of History for the 
Arab Lands, in JRAS (1951), 139-155", Michaud 
and Poujoulat, Correspondence d'Orient, 1830-1831, 
vi, Paris 1835, 292-3. For some published collect- 
ions of documents from the archives of Ottoman 
Egypt, see : Recueil de Firmans Impiriaux Ottomans 
adressis aux valis et aux Khidives d'Egypte, 1006 
A.H. 1322 A.H., Cairo 1934; Mustafa Hayret 
Efendi el-Siwasi, Insha>-i Hayret Efendi, Bulak 
1241/1825; Ahmed Feridun, Munsha'dt al-Saldfin, 
2 vol., Istanbul 1274/1857-8; G. Talamas Bey, 
Recueil de la correspondence de Mohamed Ali, 
Khddive d'Egypte, Cairo 191 3. On the palaeography 



and diplomatic of these and other Ottoman 
administrative materials, see diplomatic. 

(S. J. Shaw) 
DAR al-MUSANNIFIN [see dar al-'ulum (d.)]. 
DAR al-NADWA, a kind of town hall in 
Mecca in the time of Muhammad. The building 
was to the north of the Ka'ba, on the other side 
of the square in which the (awdf took place. It 
was the gathering place of the nobles (mala?). The 
Dar al-Nadwa is said to have been built by Kusayy 
[q.v.], who is taken to be the ancestor of the Kuraysh 
and founder of the Ka°ba. He bequeathed it to c Abd 
al-Dar and then to c Abd Manaf and his son Hashim 
and Hashim's descendants. "All matters of import 
to the Kuraysh" are said to have taken place there 
up to the coming of Islam: marriages, councils of 
war, advice on public matters, the clothing of 
marriageable girls, circumcision ( c adhr) of boys, 
bestowing of standards of war. It — or rather, the 
square in front of it — is also regarded as the beginning 
and end of all Meccan trade caravans (Ibn Sa c d, I, 
i, 39). Henri Lammens, following a suggestion by 
Martin Hartmann, reasoned from these and other 
indications that the Dar al-Nadwa in the old days 
was not a profane but a sacred building which served 
for the enactment of social-religious rites (Les 
sanctuaires prtislamites, 27-33; cf. G. Levi Delia Vida, 
art. kusaiy, in EI 1 ). His proof lacks, however, 
sufficient basis. 

To begin with, the Dar al-Nadwa remained after 
the rise of Islam. Mu'awiya bought it, and subse- 
quently it served the Umayyads and the first 
'Abbasids as a residence during their pilgrimages. 
Harun al-Rashid had a different building extended 
as a residence (the .so-called Dar al- c Imara). After 
that, the Dar al-Nadwa fell more and more into 
decay. At the end of the 3rd/gth century, under the 
Caliph al-Mu c tadid, it was given columns, arcades 
and galleries, and incorporated as an annexe to the 
Masdjid al-Haram. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hisham, 80, 83, 323 f., 
789; Ibn Sa c d, i/i, 39 f.; Wustenfeld, Die 
Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, i, (1858), 65-7 
(Azraki); iv (1861), passim; Tabari, i, 1098 f.; 
al-Fdsi, Shifd al-ghardm, i (Mecca 1956), 226 f., 
234-6; Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur I'histoire 
des Arabes avant VIslamisme, i, (1847), 237, 
250 f.; Caetani, Annali, i (1905), Introduction 
§ 78; Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, i (1888), 12; 
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le Pilerinage d la 
Mekke (1923), 151 f.; H. Lammens, La Mecque a 
la veille de VHigire (MFOB, ix, 3, Beirut 1924), 
72-4, 226, 301 ; idem, Les sanctuaires priislamites 
dans VArabie occidentale (ibid., xi, 2, 1926), 39-173; 
Article Kusaiy, in EI 1 (G. Levi Delia Vida). 

(R. Paret) 
DAR al-SA c AdA [see saray]. 
DAR al-SALAM, "Abode of Peace", is in the 
first place a name of Paradise in the Kur'an 
(vi, 127; x, 26), because, says Baydawl, it is a 
place of security (saldma) from transitoriness and 
injury, or because God and the angels salute (sal- 
lama) those who enter it. Hence it was given to 
the city of Baghdad by al-Mansur, as well as 
Madinat al-Salam (cf. Baghdad, and also the 
geographical lexicon of Yakut, ad init.). For the 
capital of Tanganyika see dar-es-salaam. 

(T. H. Weir») 
DAR-ES-SALAAM, capital of the British admi- 
nistered United Nations Trusteeship Territory of 
Tanganyika, formerly German East Africa, lies in 
Lat. 6° 49' S. and Long. 39 16' E. The settlement of 



DAR-ES-SALAAM — DAR al-SINA<A 



Mzizima (Swahili: the healthy town) was first made 
in the 17th century A.D. by Wabarawa, of mixed 
Arab-Swahili stock from Barawa, south of Mogadishu. 
The present name, a contraction of Bandar al-Salam 
("haven of welfare") at least dates from 1862, 
when Sayyid Madjid, Sultan of Zanzibar, built a 
palace and other buildings there, of which a few 
survive. So does his main street, "Barra-rasta" 
(Hind, bafa rdstd, lit. 'big road'), now "Acacia 
Avenue". Its modern prosperity dates from 1888, 
when it became a station of the German East 
Africa Company, and, in 1891, the seat of the 
Imperial Government. In 1916, during the First 
World War, it was taken by the British forces, and 
has since been the capital of the British administra- 
tion. In 1957 the population comprised 93,363 
Africans, 2,545 Arabs, 4,479 Europeans, 2,460 
Goans, 23,263 Indians, 1,718 Pakistanis, 11 Somali 
and 903 others. Probably about 85,000 Africans, 
12,500 Indians and Pakistanis, the majority of Arabs 
and all the Somali, are Muslims. 

At first a quiet, if imposing official capital, Dar- 
es-Salaam is now a busy commercial port. A railway 
bifurcating at Tabora connects it with Lakes 
Tanganyika and Victoria, while roads, some 
metalled, reach ^11 parts of the Territory. A complete 
rebuilding of official buildings is in progress. The 
mass of the buildings are modern, and, if the African 
quarter retains its traditional style, as a whole the 
town has an occidental appearance. 

As on the rest of the coast, and in many towns 
inland, Islam is the majority religion. Of a gross 
territorial population of 8V« m., there are probably 
2 m. Muslims and almost as many Christians.' 
Swahili, a Bantu language, has a vocabulary 
approximately 25% Arabic in origin: it is the coastal 
tongue from near Mogadishu to the Rovuma and 
the lingua franca far inland into the Belgian Congo. 
Except for a small number of Ahmadiyya, who 
have published a Swahili translation of the Kur'an, 
East African Muslims are Sunnis of the Shafi c i 
rite. The shari'a is administered for them in 
Dar-es-Salaam by a Liwali, with appeal to the 
civil courts. Since earlier than the 1st century 
A.D. there has been a constant drift of Arab migration 
along the coast, and possibly Islam reached it in the 
7th century. There were already Shafi'is when Ibn 
Battuta visited the coast in 731/1331. Most of the 
present Arabs are from Shihr, but some derive from 
other parts of the Hadramawt and Maskat, the 
latter being Ibadis. There are a few from the 
Comoros. The wealthiest inhabitants of Dar-es- 
Salaam are Indians, of whom probably half are 
Muslims. Khodjas (Isma'ilis of the Nizari branch) 
predominate, and their head, Agha Khan IV, was 
ceremonially enthroned there in 1957. Other Shl c is 
are the Ithna 'Asharis and the Bohoras. There is a 
small group of Mayman, and of Sunnis from Pakistan. 
There are numerous mosques. Some thirty Kur'anic 
schools are conducted by Africans. The followers of 
the Agha Khan conduct their own secular schools, 
one reaching secondary level, and certain charitable 
institutions. Apart from private lectures, there is 
no advanced Islamic religious instruction. 

Bibliography: C. H. Becker in EI 1 ; Materialien 
zur Kenntnis des Islam in Deutsch Ost-Afrika, in 
Isl., ii, 1 ff. ; C. Velten, Prosa und Poesie der Suaheli, 
Berlin 1907; B. Krumm, Words of oriental origin 
in Swahili, 1940; E. C. Baker, Dar-es-Salaam, i860 
to 1940, in Tanganyika Notes and Records no. 20, 
1945; 1957 Census Report, Government Printer, 
Dar-es-Salaam. (G. S. P. Freeman-Grenville) 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



DAR al-SHIFA' Tsee bimaristan in]. 

DAR al-SINA c A (also, but more rarely: Ddr al- 
san c a). Etymologically, this compound can be 
translated "industrial establishment, workshop". 
In fact it is always applied to a State work- 
shop: for example, under the Umayyads in 
Spain to establishments for gold and silver work 
intended for the sovereign, and for the manufacture 
and stock-piling of arms. But the sense most widely 
used is that of "establishment for the construction 
and equipment of warships": ddr sind'-a li-inshd' al- 
sufun; or simply ddr al-inshd', which also occurs. 
This does not include the arsenals which we are to 
consider later, while the construction of private 
merchant ships is not dealt with. See baijriyya, 

MILAHA, SAF1NA, USTUL. 

From the Arabic compounds ddr al-sina'a, ddr 
al-san'-a the words for "arsenal" and "wet-dock" in 
the "mediterranean" languages are derived: Castilian 
ataruzana, arsenal, darsena; Catalan darsanale, dra- 
sena; Italian arsenate, darsena; Maltese tarzna, tarz- 
nar. It is probably from an Italian dialect that 
Ottoman Turkish borrowed its tersdne (sometimes 
"returkicized" as terskhdne, on the analogy of top- 
khdne "arsenal for artillery") ; the word passed into 
several languages from the early Ottoman Empire: 
modern Greek repaava?, Syrian Arabic tarskhdne, 
Egyptian Arabic tarsdne and tarsakhdne. 

Eastern Mediterranean. It was naturally in 
the eastern Mediterranean that the first arsenals in 
the service of the Muslims operated, partly inherited 
from the romano-byzantine Empire. Victorious on 
land, the Arabs remained exposed to reprisals by 
sea, which they tried to prevent by making use of 
the experience of the indigenous populations until, 
before long, they themselves took the offensive. 
Mu'awiya, when still only governor of Syria, was the 
first to organize an arsenal at Acre, in 28/649, f°r 
the Cyprus expedition; the arsenal was later trans- 
ferred to Tyre, where it was combined with a fortified 
dock, closed at night with a chain, in which vessels 
took refuge. Nevertheless, al-Mutawakkil thought it 
expedient to restore the arsenal to Acre, and Ibn 
Tulun, when he was put in charge of it, had it 
fortified (by the grandfather of the geographer al- 
Mukaddasi) on the model of the one at Tyre. It is 
possible that smaller establishments also existed at 
times at Tripoli and Ladhikivva (Latakia); however, 
apart from the sea they were eclipsed, in the extreme 
north, by the riverside works at Tarsus which 
combined the activities of the holy war on land and 
sea until, as the result of a revolt, the Caliph al- 
Muktadi had its fleet burnt in 287/900 and, fifty years 
later, the Byzantines regained possession of it. The 
Crusades gave the final blow to these establishments 
which were probably already weakened by disorders 
and political divisions, and it does not seem that 
the Mamluks subsequently restored them even at 
Beirut, which had become the chief town on the 
littoral. 

Egypt. It was also Mu'awiya, when Caliph, who 
was responsible for the reopening of the Egyptian 
arsenals which the autonomous rulers of Egypt were, 
from the 3rd/9th century onwards, to bring to their 
fullest and most lasting development. The first to 
operate were those which the Byzantines had owned, 
at Kulzum (Clysma) — later to be replaced by Suez — 
which, thanks to the restoration of the canal linking 
it with the Nile, served both the Red Sea and the 
Mediterranean, and at Alexandria. Other naval 
centres were later established at Rosetta, Damietta 
and Tinnis on the mouths of the Nile, and to protect 



them from Byzantine raids the <Abbasids (al- 
Mutawakkil in particular) had them fortified and 
equipped with enclosed harbours like those in Syria. 
Numerous papyri provide evidence of requisitions of 
men and materials, made from the Umayyad period 
onward, to meet the needs of these arsenals. Never- 
theless, the most secure, and consequently most 
highly developed, arsenal was the one established 
on the Nile near Fustat (later Cairo), at first on the 
island of Rawda, in 54/674; probably damaged by 
Marwan II who had the ships burnt to prevent the 
c Abbasids from pursuing him (132/750), it was 
reorganized during the naval struggles of the 3rd/gth 
century with the Byzantines by al-Mutawakkil 
(238/853); the island at that time was called 
J2iazirat al-sina c a. The fortifications which it 
had possessed in the time of the Byzantines (under 
the name of Babylon), and which had fallen into 
disrepair since the conquest, were restored by Ibn 
TulQn, who also carried out the work of rebuilding 
the fleet. The decisive effort was however made by 
the Ikhshldids in the following century, to meet the 
Fatimid threat. As it was at that time impossible to 
defend the arsenal from attack owing to its insular 
position, Ibn Tughdj had the island made into a 
garden, and gave orders for another arsenal to be 
set up on the river bank at Fustat at the place then 
called Dar bint al-Fath. It seems however that under 
the Fatimids the two arsenals operated alternately 
or simultaneously; the wazir al-Ma'miin al-Bata 3 ihi 
in 516/1122 tried to rationalize shipbuilding by 
making the arsenal at Misr (Fustat), now enlarged, 
specialize in shawdni and "State vessels", and the 
Island arsenal in shalandiyydt and tiarbiyydt. A third 
arsenal operated in the quarter known as al-Maks, 
north of the town, at the time of the early Fatimids, 
but we know nothing more about it; a fleet fitted out 
against Byzantium was burnt there in 386/996. The 
events of the Crusades and the troubles at the end 
of the dynasty proved fatal to the fleet and to the 
Cairo arsenals which disappeared in flames. Saladin 
attempted to re-establish shipbuilding at Alexandria, 
and in the Mamluk period we once again hear of a 
fleet fitted out at the time of the Cyprus expedition; 
but these were sporadic efforts occurring at long 
intervals and, roughly speaking, although there had 
been sudden fluctuations in shipbuilding even 
earlier, it is safe to say that the Egyptian arsenals 
disappeared in face of the Italian domination over 
the Mediterranean. 

The Muslims in Crete had an autonomous naval 
base at Khandak in the 3rd-4th/gth-ioth centuries. 

The West. The oldest arsenals in the West were 
necessarily somewhat newer than those in the East, 
but some of them were perhaps to survive longer, 
and the East at times tried to make use of the West 
in this respect as a reserve of materials and equip- 

Ifrikiya. The oldest arsenal in the West was at 
Tunis [q.v.]. It was founded in about 75/694 by the 
governor Hassan b. al-Nu c man on the orders of the 
Umayyad Caliph in the East, c Abd al-Malik b. 
Marwan. A thousand Copts, together with their 
families, were brought from Egypt to undertake the 
work of building and arming a fleet intended to 
guard the coast of Ifrikiya and, in particular, to 
conquer Sicily. 

Other maritime arsenals were recorded at Al- 
Mahdiyya, Sousse (= Susa) and Bougie (= Bidjaya). 

Al-Andalus. It was only in the first quarter of 
the 4th/ioth century that the Umayyads in Spain 
built arsenals. In fact they needed fleets, firstly to 



resist the Norman attacks, and subsequently to 
support their policy of intervention in North Africa 
against the Fatimids. The most important arsenal 
was at Almeria (= al-Mariyya). Others are recorded 
at Tortosa (= TurtQsha), Denia (= Daniya), 
Almuflecar (= al-Munakkab), Malaga (= Malaka), 
Gibraltar, Saltes (= Shaltlsh), Santa Maria de 
Algarve (= Shantamariyya), Silves (= Shilb), Al- 
cacer do Sal. There was, perhaps, one at Cadiz 
(= Kadis), a fief of the Banu Maymfin, whose 
family provided several kd'ids for the Almoravid 
fleets, and also in the Balearics. 

Western Maghrib. The two oldest are those at 
Ceuta and Tangier, on the straits of Gibraltar, 
intended at first for merchant ships. With the advent 
of the three great Berber-Moroccan dynasties, the 
Almoravids, Almohads and Marinids, these arsenals 
became military establishments. They supplied 
warships and transport vessels, making it possible 
to keep command of the straits and to allow the 
passage of armies sent to defend Muslim Spain. 

The other principal arsenals known in the Middle 
Ages were at Algiers (this was to be particularly 
developed later, after the Ottoman occupation), 
Oran, Hunayn, Badis, al-Ma c mflra (now al-Mahdiyya 
at the mouth of the Subu), Sale and Anfa (now 
Casablanca). 

Sicily. We cannot say if the Muslims established 
arsenals in the places they occupied on the island or 
the Italian mainland in the 3rd/9th and 4th/ioth 
centuries. It is probable that there were some in 
Sicily, at Palermo and Messina. 

Indian Ocean and neighbouring seas. In 
general, the Indian Ocean with its Muslim branches 
the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf were peaceful 
areas compared with the Mediterranean; many 
pirates were to be found there, but no hostile naval 
power. Police forces consequently proved sufficient, 
and it is probable that merchant ships, built as we 
know without nails, were often used by them; there 
seems to have been no true arsenal of the Mediter- 
ranean type. However, apart from Kulzum which 
has already been referred to, it is certain that the 
Fatimids maintained a fleet with 'Avdhab as its 
base, to safeguard pilgrims and merchants in the 
Red Sea on their way to the Yemen. There is little 
doubt that shipbuilding was carried out in the large 
eastern commercial ports: Aden, at an earlier period 
Basra (or rather its outer harbour and precursor 
Ubulla), SirSf, later replaced by Kish, Suhar then 
Mascat in c Uman, and perhaps also in Muslim towns 
on the coast of west India and east Africa; apart 
from Ubulla, it is difficult to be certain of their 
status and political character, and even there the 
dockyards were not able to remain in operation 
after the 5th/nth century when the maritime 
activity of Basra and Siraf began to decline con- 
siderably. 

The Timber-Supply. The arsenals were na- 
turally set up either within a short distance of 
districts producing timber for shipbuilding (pine 
and cedar, oak, acacia labahh or sant in Egypt, 
sycamore and to some extent palm and fig) or 
else in a favourable situation for importing it 
from Italian, Indian (teak, coconut palm) and East 
African merchants, not to mention the raiders of the 
Anatolian coasts. Of the various causes of the decline 
in ship-building after the 5th/nth century, one may 
be the increasing shortage of timber. 

Bibliography: A. H. Fahmy, Muslim sea- 
power in theEastern Mediterranean, jth-ioth century, 
1950; Ekk. Eickhoff, SeekriegundSeepolitikzwischen 



DAR al-SINA c A — DAR al- c ULUM 



Islam und Abendland (650-1040), Univ. Saarland 
1954; M. Lombard, A rsenaux et bois de marine 
dans la Mlditerranie musulmane (ye-ue siecles), in 
"Le Navire, etc." (Travaux du 2e Colloque 
d'histoire maritime, 1957), Bibl. Gen. Ec. Htes. fit., 
Vie sect.; W. Hoenerbach, Araber und Mittelmeer, 
Anfdnge und Probleme arabischer Seegeschichte, in 
Zeki Velidi Togan Armaiam, 1955; G. Wiet, 
in CIA Egypte, 2, 165-9 (Memoires publ. Inst. 
Franc, archeol. or. 52); E. Levi-Provencal, L'Es- 
pagne musulmane au Xe s., 152; idem, Hist. Esp. 
Mus. i, 244, 367; idem, ha pininsule ibirique au 
Moyen Age, 271; R. Brunschwig, Deux ricits de 
voyage inldits en Afrique du Nord, 189; idem, La 
Berbirie orientate sous les Haf sides, i, 347, 382; 
H. Terrasse, Les portes de Varsenal de Sali, in 
Hesp., 1922, 357; G. S. Colin, Fes, Port de mer, in 
Bull, de I'Ens. Public du Maroc, no. 183 (1945); 
G. F. Hourani, Arab seafaring in the Indian 
Ocean, 1951. — A diploma of nomination to com- 
mand of a sea-town with arsenal is contained in 
Kudama, K. al- Kharddi, ms. Istanbul 13V ff., 
(ms. Paris I7v° ff.). For the Ottoman Empire, not 
treated here, I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh devletinin 
merkez ve bahriye teskil&h, 1947, and tersane. 
(G. S. Colin and Cl. Cahen) 
DAR al-SUHI 'the House of Truce', territories 
not conquered by Muslim troops but by buying 
peace by the giving of tribute, the payment of 
which guarantees a truce or armistice (hudna, 
sulh). The two historic examples of such a situa- 
tion, which were evidently the starting-point 
for the whole theory, are Nadjran and Nubia. 
Muhammad himself concluded a treaty with the 
Christian population of Nadjran, guaranteeing their 
security and imposing on them certain obligations 
which were later looked on as kharddi [q.v.] by 
some, and as diizya [q.v.] by others (for the whole 
question see Baladhuri, Futiih, 63 ff. ; Sprenger, Leben 
Mohammads, 3, 502 ff.; M. Hamidullah, Documents 
sur la diplomatic musulmane, 78 ff., Corpus, no. 79 ff.). 
In the course of events this protectorate proved to be 
of no use to the inhabitants of Nadjran on account 
of their geographical situation. For Nubia it was 
somewhat different. Thanks to their skill in archery 
the Nubians were able for centuries to defend 
themselves against Muslim attack and to preserve 
their independence. As a result, 'Abd Allah b. Sa c d 
in 31/652 concluded a treaty ('ahd) with them 
imposing not a poll-tax {diizya) but merely a 
certain tribute in slaves (bakt [q.v.]). On the other 
hand, some were not prepared to admit that, besides 
the Ddr al-Isldm and Ddr al-harb, [qq.v.], there 
existed a third category of territories excluded from 
Muslim conquest, and they held that in this in- 
stance it was in reality a question, not of a sulh or 
c ahd, but merely of an armed truce (hudna) and 
the implementation of reciprocal undertakings (see 
Baladhuri, Futiih, 236 ft.; al-MakrizI, Khi(at, ed. 
Wiet, iii, 290 f.; Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, Futiih Misr, ed. 
Torrey, 189). This somewhat vague theory also 
provided a basis upon which it seemed possible to 
establish contractual relations with Christian 
countries; presents sent by the latter were conse- 
quently looked on as a kharddi. The legal theory 
was expounded as follows by al-Mawardl. All the 
territories more or less directly under Muslim control 
can be divided into three categories; (1) those which 
have been conquered by force of arms; (2) those 
which have been occupied without battle after the 
flight of their rulers; (3) those which have been 
acquired by treaty, this third category including two 



hich depend on whether the property 
(a) becomes common property (wakj) of the Muslim 
community, or whether (b) it remains in the hands 
of the former proprietors; in the first instance the 
former proprietors can in fact remain on their land 
and become dhimmis; they pay kharadj and diizya 
and their country becomes Ddr al-Isldm; in the 
second instance, the proprietors of the land keep 
their estates by contract and from their revenues 
pay a kharddi which is considered as a diizya, and 
collected until they are converted to Islam; their 
territory is considered neither as Ddr al-Isldm nor 
Ddr al-harb but as Ddr al-sulh or Ddr al- c ahd [q.v.], 
and their estates can always be alienated or mort- 
gaged without restriction; if the property is trans- 
ferred to a Muslim, the land is no longer liable for 
kharddf; this state of affairs wih continue so long as 
the proprietors observe the clauses of the treaty, 
and the diizya for which they are liable cannot be 
increased since they are not in the Ddr al-Isldm. 
However, according to Abu Hanifa, if their territory 
became Ddr al-Isldm they would then be dhimmis 
and subject to diizya. As regards the situation 
created by a rupture of the treaty, the various 
schools are not in agreement. According to al- 
Shafi c i, the country, if it is then conquered, belongs 
to the first category, that is to say, territories 
acquired by force; and if it is not conquered, it 
becomes Ddr al-harb. According to Abu Hanifa, the 
the land becomes Ddr al-Isldm if there are Muslims 
there or if it is separated from the Ddr al-harb by 
Muslim territory, and its non-Muslim inhabitants are 
themselves considered as rebels (bughdt) ; if neither of 
these conditions applies, the land becomes Ddr al- 
harb. Others, on the contrary, claimed that in both 
cases it becomes Ddr al-harb (see al-Ahkdm al- 
sultdniyya, Cairo 1298, 131 ff.). It is evident that 
the position was irregular and ambiguous. Al- 
Mawardl himself (150 and 164) includes this Ddr 
al-sulh in his enumeration of Muslim territories 
(bildd al-Isldm) and al-Baladhuri does not observe 
this distinction when discussing kharddi. 

In the period immediately following the Crusades 
numerous treaties, the details of which we possess, 
were concluded with Christian princes or princelings 
(treaties with the king of Armenia, the princess of 
Tyre, the Templars of Antartus, etc.; cf. al-Makrizi, 
Histoire des Sultans Mameluks, trans. Quatremere, ii, 
201 ff., 206 ff., 218 ff.). For details and forms, and the 
traditional justifications of truce agreements con- 
cluded between Muslim sovereigns and non-Muslim 
princes, see al-Kalkashandl, Subh, xiii, 321 ff.; 
xiv, 7 ff. 

Bibliography: Yahyab. Adam, K . al-Kh ard M, 
ed. Juynboll, 35 ff. ; al-Tabarl, K. Ikhtildf al-Fu- 
kaha>, ed. Schacht. I4ff ; Juynboll, Handbuch, 240, 
344 ff . ; 348 ; M. Khadduri, War and peace in the law 
of Islam, Baltimore 1955 ; A. Abel, in Revue inter- 
national des droits del' antiquiti, ii, 1949, i-i7;idem, 
in Societe Jean Bodin, Session de 1958 (Bruxelles) 
sur la Paix: La Paix dans I'Islam; H. Kruse, The 
Islamic doctrine of international treaties (in prepara- 
tion; cf. Islamic Quarterly, i, 1954, 152 ff.). 

(D. B. Macdonald-[A. Abel]) 
DAR al-TAIJRIB [see ikhtilaf]. 
DAR al-TIBA'A [see matba'a]. 
DAR al-TIRAZ [see tiraz]. 
DAR al-'ULCM or the"House of Sciences", (a) an 
establishment for higher instruction founded 
in 1872 by C A1I Pasha Mubarak [q.v.]. Its aim was 
to introduce a certain number of students of al- 
Azhar [q.v.] to modern branches of learning by means 



I 3 2 



DAR al-'ULOM — DARA, DARAB 



of a five year course, in order to fit them for teaching 
in the new schools. In fact, as other centres were 
created in Cairo for the teaching of science, its 
curriculum was remodelled a number of times and 
the exact sciences were relegated to the background. 
The length of the course was reduced to four years. 
Attached as a Faculty since 1946 to the University 
of Cairo (formerly Fu'ad), Dar al-'Ulum endeavours 
to be at the same time Arabic and Islamic, and is 
proud to be the great Muslim Teachers' Training 
College of Egypt, influential through the teachers 
and inspectors who have been trained there. The 
students are divided into sections: four for Arabic 
language and three for Islamic studies. The diploma 
given on completion of the course is equivalent to a 
Bachelor's degree, and can be followed by a Master's 
degree or a Doctorate. Since 195 1-2, apart from the 
students of al-Azhar, men who have passed the 
government secondary schools' 'Baccalaureat' (taw- 
djlh) have been admitted, and since 1953-4, a certain 
number of women students. Formerly, as at al- 
Azhar, the teaching was free and a modest sum was 
given to the students monthly, but now teaching 
fees are charged, with special concessions for those 
who undertake to become teachers. In 1957-8, there 
were 1,715 students as well as some scholarship 
holders completing their education in European 



Bibliography: Muhammad 'Abd al-Diawwad. 
Tattwim Dar al-'Ulum, al-'adad al-masi (1872- 
1947), Cairo 1952; the same, Mulhak al-'adad al- 
masi (1946-1959). Cairo [1959]- (J- Jomier) 

(b) the religious institution at Deoband 

(c) FarangI Mahall. In a house known as the 
Farangi Mahall in Lucknow, granted by Awrangzlb 
to his family as compensation for loss of property 
on the murder of his father in 1103/1691, Nizam 
al-DIn started two years later a madrasa which 
came to be known as Dar al-'Ulum FarangI 
Mahall. Mulla Nizam al-DIn's fame rests mainly 
on the introduction of a syllabus of religious in- 
struction called dars-i Nizdmiyya, an improvement 
on the syllabus said to have been originally 
drawn up by Fath Allah al-ShlrazI, a well-known 
scholar of Akbar's court. Much stress is laid in 
this syllabus on the rules of Arabic grammar, logic, 
and philosophy, while practically no attention is 
given to modern disciplines. There has more recently 
been a persistent demand for a change in the 
curriculum, so far unsuccessfully. 

With the establishment of the Dar al-'Ulum at 
Deoband the FarangI Mahall institution lost the 
pre-eminence it had enjoyed since the time of 
Awrangzlb, and has now receded into the background ; 
in recent times it has been politically active: in the 
early 1920s the 'ulamd'' of the Farangi Mahall 
championed the cause of the Ottoman Khilafa, and 
played a prominent rdle during Muslim League 
agitation in the late 1930s for the creation of 
Pakistan. 

Bibliography: Wall Allah FarangI Mahalli, 
al-Aghsdn al-Arba'a li 'l-Shadiardt al-Tayyiba dar 
Ahwdl-i 'Ulamd'-i Farangi Mahall . . ., Lucknow 
1298/1881; Altaf al-Rahman, Ahwdl-i 'Ulamd'-i 
Farangi Mahall, Lucknow (?) 1907; 'Abd al-Bari, 
Athdr al-Uwal (not available to me); S. M. Ikram, 
Rud-i Kawthar, Karachi n.d., 582-92; 'Inayat 
Allah, Tadhkira-i 'Ulamd'-i Farangi Mahall (not 
available to me); Shibll Nu'manl, Ma^dlat-i 
Shibli, iii, A'zamgafh 1351/1932, 102-5; 'Abd al- 
'Ala>, Risdla Kutbiyya (ms.); Wall Allah Farangi 



Mahalli, 'Umdat al-Wasa'il (ms.); RadI al-DIn 
Mahmud Ansari, Aghsdn al-Ansdb (ms.). 
(d) The Nad-wat al-'Ulama 3 , Lucknow, was 
founded in 1312/1894 by a band of progressive 
'■ulamd'' who nominated Mawlawl Sayyid Muhammad 
'AH Kanpuri as the first ndzim, with the declared 
object of reforming the current system of religious 
education and effecting a rapprochement between 
the various factions of the '■ulamd'' by the establish- 
ment of an Islamic dar al-'ulum which would not 
only provide education in both religious and temporal 
sciences but would also offer technical training. In 
1316/1898 the primary classes were started, and a 
year later the great library was founded, round which 
later grew up the Dar al-Mus annifin, also 
known as the Shibll Academy, an institute of 
Islamic research with the monthly Ma'drif as its 
organ. In 1322/1904 Shibll Nu'manl [q.v.] joined the 
Nadwat al-'Ulama 1 as its secretary, and in 1326/1908 
the present buildings were opened. Its periodical 
al-Nadwa appeared first in 1322/1904 under Shibll's 
editorship. Under Shibll's guidance the Nadwa 
became the first institution in India to adopt modern 
methods of critical research; it was, however, a 
synthesis of the Deoband and 'Allgafh ideologies, 
and failed to' imbibe either the spirit of orthodoxy 
characteristic of Deoband or the purely rationalistic 
attitude of 'Allgafh. Its foremost scholar was 
Sayyid Sulayman Nadwl, whose completion of the 
Urdu biography of the Prophet, started by Shibll. 
is a blending of the seemingly divergent views of 
East and West in the field of historical research. 
The Nadwa, however, was not successful in the 
religious sphere; its leaders were not orthodox, and 
could not instil into their students the spirit of 
classical Islam. The result was that the Nadwa came 
to be known merely as an educational institution 
with Arabic as the medium of instruction, and its 
reputation as a seat of learning and Islamic research 
is now on the decline. 

Bibliography: Sayyid Sulayman Nadwl, 
liaydt-i Shibli, A'zamgafh 1362/1943, 301-19, 352, 
396 ff., 412-59, 539; S. M. Ikram, Mawdi-i 
Kawthar, Karachi n.d., 206-18; Ma'drif (Sulayman 
Number), A'zamgafh Ramadan 1374/May 1955, 252- 
83; W. Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India, 
London 1946, 294, 296. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
DARA, DARAB, Persian forms (adopted by 
Arab writers) of the name of the Achaemenian king 
familiarly known under the hellenized form Dareios 
(Darius). Darab, and its abbreviation Dara, are 
directly derived from the ancient Persian Darayah- 
vahav- (Bartholomae, Altiranisches Worterbuch, 738; 
the different grammatical cases attested by Persian 
inscriptions, in Tolman, Ancient Persian Lexicon and 
Texts, 1908, s.v. darayavau; for the ancient histor- 
ians of these kings, Gr. I. Ph., ii, index, s.v. Dareios). 
The sources of information about these princes 
collected by Arab and Persian writers are legendary 
rather than historical (cf. preface by J. Mohl, Livre 
des Rois, I2 m ° ed., v, 1877). The Persian poet 
Firdawsi (op, cit., v), of later date than the Arab 
historians, was inspired by their accounts particularly 
in regard to the reign of Alexander (Iskandar), but he 
combined them with elements from Persian legends. 
His account, even when stripped of poetic elabora- 
tions, is fuller than those of the Arab historians, even 
the earliest in date, al-Tabari. A short summary 
follows (Darab and Dara are Darius II and Darius III 
respectively). 

Goshtasp (Vishtaspa, the Greek Hystaspe), king 
of Persia, named as his successor his grandson Bah- 



DARA, DARAB — DAR'A 



man, son of Isfandyar (Vahman, derived from the 
Avestan Vohu Manah, "Good Thought"), in whom we 
recognize Artaxerxes (Artakhshatra) Longhand. In 
accordance with the khetuk-das (kvaetvadaQa) prac- 
tice, Bahman married his own daughter Homay 
("who appears to represent in popular legend 
Parysatis", historically the wife of Darius II, to 
quote J. Mohl); Bahman got her with child; before 
his death, he declared her to be queen of Persia, 
and named as his successor the child whom she was 
to bear. From the time of its birth, the mother 
entrusted her child to a nurse who reared it secretly; 
when it was eight months old, the queen placed it 
in a box filled with treasure and committed it to the 
waters of the Euphrates; two spies set by the queen 
to keep watch brought her news that a washerman 
had rescued the baby. He and his wife, having lost 
their son, adopted the child and named it Darab 
(Persian : dar db, "in the water", popular etymology) ; 
he grew up and questioned his parentage. A war 
broke out; he took part in it, came to the notice of 
the queen, then won great renown; the Persian 
commander-in-chief spoke to the queen of him and 
led her to recognize a jewel which she had fastened 
on her infant's arm. On Darab's return she had him 
proclaimed king. He founded Darabgird, defeated 
first the Arabs and then king Faylakus (Philip of 
Macedon); he compelled him to pay tribute and 
married his daughter. He was however repelled by 
her foul breath and sent her back, pregnant, to her 
father. She gave birth to a son whom she named 
Iskandar, after the plant iskandar (iskandarus, gr. 
(JxopoSov) which had cured her complaint. Philip 
had Iskandar recognized as his own son. Darab for 
his part had had by another wife a son named Dara. 
Then the two young princes becames kings. Iskandar, 
refusing to give Dara the requisite tribute, conquered 
Egypt and invaded Persia which he hoped to take 
over from his half-brother ; disguised as an ambassa- 
dor he came to Dara's camp and was received with 
great pomp; he was, however, recognized, took to 
flight and succeeded in escaping, subsequently in- 
flicting four defeats on Dara. Dara was assassinated 
by his ministers who informed Iskandar; horrified 
by the news, the latter hurried to his half-brother 
whom he found on his death-bed. Dara spoke with 
nobility of God's almighty power, and asked Iskandar 
to marry his daughter Rushanak (Roxane) and to 
treat the Persians well. Iskandar who became king of 
Persia made further conquests. (The Deeds of 
Alexander, Iskandar-ndma, written by the Persian 
poets NizamI, Amir Khusraw, Djaml, only describe 
Dara's defeat, with further moralizing upon the 
fickleness of fortune. 

Accounts given by the Arab historians differ only 
in certain details from that of Firdawsi. In the 
Chronicle by al-Tabari (Persian version, trans. 
Zotenberg, i, 508 ff.), the infant Darab was saved 
from the water by a miller; Homay, when told of 
this, entrusted her son to him with the words (in 
Persian): dar ("look after him!"), whence the name 
Dara (another popular etymology); "it is also said 
that he was called Darab because he had been found 
in the water" (dar db); Homay voluntarily told her 
son the secret of his birth when he reached his. 
twentieth year; on Iskandar's refusal to give tribute, 
Dara had a symbolical message sent to him (racket, 
ball, sack of sesame) very similar to that sent by the 
Scythians to Darius I (Herodotus, iv, 131-33; and 
cf. E. Doblhofer, Le dechiffrement des icritures, 
French trans. 1959, 24); as a result of Dara's in- 
justice and wickedness, his soldiers deserted and his 



two chamberlains murdered him with the complicity 
of Iskandar who was hypocrite enough to be present 
at Dara's death-bed and then to punish his assassins. 
Hamza of Ispahan is very brief (Annals, ed.-trans. 
Gottwaldt, 28-9), as is al-Mas c udI (Muriidi, ii, 127) 
who gives the same name (Dara) to both Darius II 
and III. In al-Tha'alibi's History of the kings of the 
Persians (ed. and trans. Zotenberg, 393 ff.), there 
is the same fanciful derivation of the name Darab, an 
account practically identical with al-Tabari's, also 
insisting on Dara's wickedness and Iskandar's 
duplicity. The same account appears in al-Makdisi's 
Book of the Creation (ed. and trans. CI. Huart, iii, 
154-9), w ith the exception that Iskandar, after 
refusing to pay tribute, thought better of it and 
sent it with an apology: Dara gave him his daughter's 

Just as the Pseudo-Callisthenes had made Alex- 
ander heir to the kings of Egypt, so the legendary 
history of Persia made Iskandar a half-brother 
of Darius III with whom he disputed the throne 
(possibly a confused allusion to Cyrus the Younger's 
revolt against his brother Artaxerxes II in 401). 
Dara (or Daras-Anastasiopolis) is a fortress 
situated between Mardin and Nasibin, captured from 
the Greeks by Chosroes I during the campaign in 
540 (Noldeke, Gesch, der Perser . . . zur Zeit der 
Sasaniden, 239, and A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les 
Sassanides', 372 and 445). 

Bibliography: In addition to the references 
given in the article: Firdawsi, Shdhndma, ed.- 
trans. J. Mohl, in fo!., v and trans, in 12, v; ed. 
Teheran 1934-35 (pub. Beroukhim), vi; Tabari, 
index. (B. Carra de Vaux-[H. Masse]) 

DAR'A [see adhri'at]. 

DAR C A. This is the name both of a river of 
south Morocco which rises on the southern slope of 
the High Atlas and flows into the Atlantic south of 
the Djebel Bani, and of a Moroccan province 
which stretches along the two cultivated banks of 
this water-course from Agdz as far as the elbow 
of the river Dar'a, for a distance of about 120 miles 
in a generally north-west to south-east direction. 
This province is traditionally divided into eight 
districts corresponding with the wider parts of the 
valley which are separated by mountain barriers 
forming narrows. From north to south these are: 
Mazgita, Ayt Saddrat, Ayt Zarri, Tinzfilln, Tamata, 
Fazwata, Ktawa and Mhammid. 

It is populated by generally Berber-speaking 
tribes and by coloured people who can be divided 
into c abid, slaves imported from the Sahara and 
negro countries, and hardtin, who have a dark skin 
but whose features are not negroid, and who are 
thought to be the most ancient occupants of the 
region. Jews, apparently of Berber origin, complete 
the sedentary population of more than 100,000. At 
least up to the submission of Dar'a to the French 
Protectorate in 1932, the sedentary population lived 
in subjection to the sometimes Arab, but mainly 
Berber, nomad tribes of the surrounding mountains. 
Dar'a has been inhabited from a very early date 
and must certainly have had an eventful history 
since it is a productive region in the midst of areas 
which are almost desert. Traditions lead us to 
believe that the Jews played an important part 
politically up to the 10th century and that Islam 
was brought there by a descendant of the founder 
of Fez in the first half of the 3rd/9th century. Later, 
at the end of the 4th/ioth century, Dar'a came under 
the domination of the Maghrawa (belonging to the 
Zenata) who had settled in Sidjilmasa. 



DAR'A — DARA SHUKOH 



With the Almoravids, Dar'a really enters on to 
the historical scene, for it served as an advance post 
for their penetration into Atlantic Morocco, as is 
witnessed by the ruins of a fortress which dominates 
Zagora. From the second half of the 5th/nth 
century on, Dar'a was part of the Moroccan empire 
created by the Almoravids, then by the Almohads 
and the Marinids. The Ma'kil Arabs infiltrated there 
towards the end of the 7th/i3th century and exer- 
cised a dominating influence. 

In the ioth/i6th century, this province was the 
cradle of the first Sharlfian dynasty of the Sa'dis 
[q.v.] and was the place from which the sultan Ahmad 
al-Mansflr started on his expedition to the Sudan 
(1591). This shows, in a very striking manner, the 
role of Dar c a as a point of contact between Morocco 
and the Sahara. Thanks to the trade with Gao and 
Timbuctoo at the beginning of the nth/i7th century, 
this region enjoyed a brief period of prosperity. 

Held more or less by the 'Alawi sultans, Dar'a 
was the centre of an important religious brotherhood, 
the Nasiriyyln, which spread widely at the beginning of 
the nth/i7th century around the zawiya of Tamgrut. 
It was practically independant when Ch. de Foucauld 
crossed it in April 1884; its history then was 
essentially one of tribal and clan rivalries. The 
region was occupied by French troops between 
1930 and 1932, almost without any fighting. 

To-day, this overpopulated and poor region 
provides Casablanca and various other towns with 
a considerable number of workers, for its almost 
stagnant agriculture is very far from being able to 
support its growing population. This emigration is 
usually a temporary one, linked with the vicissitudes 
of its climate and agriculture (Naissance du prole"- 
tariat marocain, Paris, n.d., 67-9). 

Bibliography : Bakri, Descr. de VAfrique 
sept., tr. de Slane, 338, 343; IdrisI,, 70-1; 
Leo Africanus, tr. Epaulard, i, 30-2, ii, 422-4; 
Marmol, De VAfrique, tr. Perrot d'Ablancourt, 
Paris 1667, iii, ch. ixff.; Rohelfs, Mein erster 
Aujenha.lt in Marokko, Norden, 1885; Ch. de 
Foucauld, Reconnaissance au Maroc, Paris 1888, 
208-n, 285-95; H. de Castries, Notice sur la 
region de I'oued Draa, in Bull. Soc. Giogr., Paris, 
Dec. 1880; de Segonzac, Au coeur de V Atlas, Paris 
1910; Dj. Jacques-Meunte, La nicropole de Foum 
le-Kjam, tumuli du Maroc prisaharien, in Hesp. 
xlv (1958), 95-142; J. Meunie and Ch. Allain, La 
forieresse almoravide de Zagora, in Hesp., xliii 
(i95f>)> 305-23; Villes et tribus de Maroc, ix, 
Tribus berberes, ii, Districts et tribus de la haute 
valUe du Dra*, by G. Spillmann, Paris 1931, 
1-201 ; G. Spillmann, La zaouia de Tamgrout et les 
Nasiriyine, in Ajr. Fr., Aug.-Sept. 1938, and Les 
Ait Atta du Sahara et la pacification du Haut Dra, 
Rabat 1936; F. de la Chapelle, Une citi de I'oued 
Dra sous le protectorat des nomades, in Hesp., ix 
(1929), 29-42; Dj. Jacques-Meunie, Les oasis des 
Laktaoua et des Mehamid, in Hesp. xxxiv (1947). 
397-429, and Hiirarchie sociale au Maroc pri- 
saharien, in Hesp., xlv (1958), 239-69). 

(R. Le Tourneau) 
DARA SHUKOH, eldest son of Shah Djahan and 
Mumtaz Mahall, was born near Adjmer on 19 Safar 
1024/20 March 1615. He received his first mansab 
[q.v.] of 12,000 dhdtl6ooo sawdr in 1042/1633, as also 
the djdgir of Hisar-Firuza, regarded as the appendage 
of the heir-apparent. The same year he was given 
the nominal command of an army despatched to 
defend Kandahar which was threatened by the 
Persians, and again in 1052/1642 when the threat was 



renewed. The attack, however, did not materialize. 
In 1055/1645, he was given the governorship of the 
suba of Ilahabad to which were added the silbas of 
Lahore in 1057/1647, and Gudjarat in 1059/1649. 
Though he took some interest in Lahore and con- 
structed a number of buildings and market-places, 
he left the other subas to be governed by deputies, 
himself remaining at the court. By 1058/1648, he had 
attained the mansab of 30,000/20,000 (which in- 
cidentally was the highest rank attained by Shah 
Djahan before his accession). 

Following the failure 6f two attempts to recover 
Kandahar from the Persians (who had captured it 
in 1059/1649), Dara was deputed to lead a third 
expedition for its recapture in 1062/1652. Although 
the siege was vigorously pressed, and forts in Zamin- 
dawar taken, Kandahar itself defied capture. The 
failure of the campaign, due partly to a division in 
Dara's camp as also his lack of experience, adversely 
effected his prestige as a political and military leader. 

On his return, Shah Djahan associated him more 
closely than ever with the affairs of the state, 
bestowing upon him unprecedented honours, and 
the rank of 60,000/40,000 (1067/1657). It seems that 
Shah Djahan, having clearly marked out Dara as 
his successor, wanted to avoid a struggle for the 
throne on his death, a position which his younger 
sons were not prepared to accept. In 1067/1657, 
when Shah Djahan fell ill, his younger sons, fearing 
that Dara might use the opportunity to seize power, 
advanced towards Agra on a plea of meeting the 
Emperor, thereby precipitating a war of succession 
(see AwrangzIb). Awrangzlb and Murad raised the 
slogan of D3ra being a heretic (mulhid) and the 
orthodox faith being in danger from his constant 
association with Hindu yogis and sanydsis. However, 
the slogan of religion does not seem to have influenced 
significantly the actual alignment of the nobles. 
Dara was defeated, first at the battle of Samugafh 
near Agra (7 Ramadan 1068/8 June 1658), and then 
at Deoral near Adjmer (28 Djumada II 1069/23 
March 1659). Shortly afterwards he was captured 
by an Afghan noble, Malik Djiwan, with whom he 
had taken shelter. He was brought to Dihll and 
executed (22 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1069/10 Sept. 1659), 
a formal charge of heresy being laid against him. 
Dara's elder son, Sulayman Shukoh, soon followed 
him to the grave, a younger son, Sipihr Shukoh, 
being imprisoned at Gwaiiyar. 

Although Dara had an undistinguished political 
and military career, he was one of the most remark- 
able figures of his age. A keen student of sufism and 
of tawhid, he came into close contact with leading 
Muslim and Hindu mystics, notably Miy3n Mir 
(d. 1045/1635) and Mulla Shah (d. 1071/1661) of the 
Kadiri order (becoming a disciple of the latter in 
1050/1640), Shah Muhibb Allah Ilahabadi, Shah 
Dilruba, Sarmad the famous heterodox monist, and 
Baha Lai Das Bayragi, a follower of Kablr. A 
number of contemporary paintings showing Dara in 
the company of sufis and sanydsis have been 
preserved. 

Dara was a prolific writer. His works include: 
Safinat al-awliyd* (1050/1640) and Sakinat aUawliya' 
(1052/1642), dealing with the lives of suji saints, 
the latter with those of the Kadiri order; Risdla-i 
Hakk nurnd (1056/1646) and the rather rare Tarikat-i 
hakikat, both based on well known sufi works; 
his Diwdn, also known as Iksir-i a'zam, recently 
brought to light, containing verses and quatrains in 
a pantheistic strain; Hasandt al-'drifin (1062/1652) 
containing the aphorisms of suji saints belonging to 



DARA SHUKC-H — DARABUKKA 



135 



various orders; Mukalama-i Bdbd Lai wa Ddrd 
ShukSh. a record of his discussions with Baba LSI in 
1063/1653; Majma? al-bahrayn, (1065/1655), perhaps 
his most remarkable work, being a comparative 
study of the technical terms used in Veddnta and 
Sufism; and the Sirr-i akbar (1067/1657), his most 
ambitious work, being a translation of fifty-two 
principal Upanishads which Dara claims to have 
completed in six months with the aid of learned 
pandits and sanydsis. In addition to this, with Dara's 
patronage and support, fresh translations into 
Persian were made of a number of Hindu religious 
works such as YBga-Vashishta, the Gltd and the 
mystic drama Prabodha-CandrBdaya. Dara was 
also a good calligraphist, and patronized the arts: 
an album (Murakka'-) of calligraphic specimens and 
Mughal miniatures was presented by him to his wife 
Nadira Begam (d. of Parwiz) in 1051/1641-42 with 
a preface written by him. 

In some of his later writings, Dara shows consi- 
derable acquaintance with Hindu philosophy and 
mythology. He was attracted by a number of ideas 
which have obvious parallels in Hindu philosophy, 
such as the triune aspect of God, the descent of spirit 
into matter, cycles of creation and destruction, etc. 
However, he was opposed to the practice of physical 
austerities advocated by the exponents of ydga and 
favoured by many s«/»s, arguing that God desired 
not to inflict punishment but that He should be 
approached with love. Like a number of eminent 
Muslim thinkers (cf. Mir <Abd al-Wahid, Hakd'ik-i 
Hindi, 1566) Dara came to the conclusion that there 
were no differences except purely verbal in the way 
in which Vedanta and Islam sought to comprehend 
the Truth. Dara's translation of the Upanishads 
which he regarded as "the fountain-head of the 
ocean of Unity", was a significant contribution in 
the attempt to arrive at a cultural synthesis between 
the followers of the two chief faiths in the country, 
being the first attempt to comprehend and to make 
available to the educated Muslims these fundamental 
scriptures of the Hindus. 

It may be doubted if Dara's interest in gnosticism 
was motivated by political considerations. From an 
early age, Dara felt that he belonged to the circle of 
the select who were marked out for the attainment 
of divine knowledge. Though some sections of 
orthodox opinion had accused him of heresy and 
apostasy as early as 1062/1652, it does not seem that 
Dara ever gave up his belief in the essential tenets 
of Islam, affirming them at more than one place. 
Nor does the undoubted pantheistic strain in his 
writings go beyond what had been considered 
permissible for s a/is. The opposition of these orthodox 
elements to Dara stemmed from a deeper conviction, 
viz., that emphasis on the essential truth of all 
religions would in the long run weaken the position 
of Islam as the state religion, and effect their privi- 
leges. It was thus closely related to Dara's position 
as an aspirant for the throne. 

Dara occupies a pre-eminent place among those 
who stood for the concept of universal toleration 
and who desired that the state should be based on 
the support of both Muslims and Hindus, and remain 
essentially above religion. His defeat in the war of 
succession did not, by any means, imply the defeat 
of the trend he represented. 

Bibliography : J. N. Sarkar, History of 
Aurangzeb 2 , i, ii, Calcutta 1925; K. R. Qanungo, 
Dara Shukoh*, Calcutta 1952; Bikrama Jit Hasrat, 
Ddrd Shikuh: Life and Works, Vishwabharati 1953 
(contains full list of mss. and editions of Dara's 



works); Risdla-i Hakk Numd, Mama' al-Bahrain 
and Mandak Upanishad (ed. by S. M. Rida Djalall 
Nalnl with introduction by T. Chandj, Tehran 
1957; T. Chand, Dara Shikoh and the Upanishads, 
in IC, 1943; S. K. Rahman, Sarmad and his 
Quatrains, in Calcutta Review, 1943; C. B. Tripathi, 
Mirza Raja Jai Singh (unpublished thesis), 
Allahabad University, 1953; I. A. Ghauri, Re- 
sponsibility of the Ulema for the Execution of Dara 
Shikoh, in /. Pak. H. S., 1959; M. Athar Ali, 
Religious Issue in the War of Succession: 1658-59, 
in Ind. Hist. Cong. Proc. 1960; Hakd'ik-i Hindi, 
Hindi tr. by S. A. A. Rizvi, Banaras 1957. 

(Satish Chandra) 
DARABDJIRD (modern Darab), a town in the 
province of Fars in the district of Fasa, situated 
280 kilometres east of Shiraz at an altitude of 11 88 
metres and with a population of 6,400 people (1950). 
In Iranian legend the foundation of this town is 
ascribed to Darab, father of Dara (Darius III 
Codomannus). The Sasanid ruler Ardashir rose to 
power by revolt from his post as military commander 
at Darabdjird. The stone-strewn remains of the 
Sasanid town lie 8 kilometres south-west of the 
modern village. The outline of the fortification walls 
exist as does the debris of a fire temple, located at 
the centre of the site. Six kilometres south-east of the 
modern village is a Sasanid rock-cut relief known as 
the Naksh-i Rustam or as the Naksh-i Shapur. In 
the immediate vicinity is a spacious cruciform hall 
hewn into a rocky hillside, known as the Masdjid-i 
Sangi. Although it bears inscriptions dated 652/1254 
and the title of the Sultan Abu Bakr, the hall is 
probably of the approximate period of the rock-cut 
relief. 

Bibliography: Muhammad Naslr Mirza Aka 
Fursat Husaynl ShirazI, Athdr-i c Adiam, Bombay 
1314/1896, 97-9, pis. 7-9; Le Strange, 288 ff.; 
A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, Copen- 
hagen 1944, 86-7; Farhang-i Djughrdfiyd-yi Iran, 
Tehran 1330/1951, vol. 7, 95. (D. N. Wilber) 
DARABUKKA, a vase-shaped drum, the 
wider aperture being covered by a membrane, with 
the lower aperture open. The body is usually of 
painted or incised earthenware, but carved and 
inlaid wood, as well as engraved metal are also used. 
In performance it is carried under the arm horizon- 
tally and played with the fingers. The name has 
regional variants: dardbukka (or darabukka), dirbakki 
and darbuka. Dozy and Brockelmann derive the 
word from the Syriac ardabkd, but the Persian 
dunbak is the more likely, although the lexicographers 
mistakenly dub the latter a bagpipe. The name 
darabukka, and its variants, is quite modern although 
a SL jj (a copyist's error for SSCjJ is mentioned in 
the A If layla wa layla. The type is to be found in an- 
cient Egypt. The dirridi is mentioned by Al-Mufaddal 
b. Salama (d. 319/930) although he wrongly thought 
that it was a kind of tunbur, as do many Arabic 
lexicographers, but we know that it was a drum 
from Al-Maydani (d. 518/1124). Ibn Mukarram 
(d. 710/1311: says that the correct vocalization is 
durraydj, and that form — with variants — is to be 
found in the Maghrib. The ^ijS~ and ~j jS~ found 
in Al-Makkarl, are doubtless misreadings of £i_p. 
Al-Shakundl (d. 628/1231) uses the Berber name 
agwdl for this drum, and that is still the name used 
in the Maghrib, although Host calls it akwdl, whilst 
it is the galldl of Algeria. In Tripolitania the name 
tabdaba is popularly used, and in Egypt tabla. 

Bibliography: EI 1 , Suppl., s.v. tabl, 215-6; 



136 



DARABUKKA - 



J. Robson, Collection of Oriental writers on music, 
iv, 14, Bearsden 1938; Farmer, Studies in Oriental 
musical instruments, 1st Series, 86-7, London 
1931; G. A. Villoteau, Description de I'Egypte. 
Etat moderne, i, 996, Paris 1813; E. W. Lane, 
Modern Egyptians, 366-7, London i860; A. 
Lavignac, Encyclopidie de la Musique, v, 2794, 
2932, 3076, Paris 1922 ; Delphin et Guin, Notes sur 
la poesie et la musique arabes, 43-4, Paris 1886; Al- 
Makkari, Analectes, i, 143, Leiden 1955-61; Host, 
Nachrichten von Marokos und Fes, 262, tab. 
xxxi, 9, Copenhagen 1787; H. Hickmann, La 
Daraboukkah, in BIE, xxxiii, 229-45, Cairo 1952. 
Specimens are exhibited at New York (Crosby 
Brown, Nos. 335, 345), Brussels (Conservatoire, 
nos. 112, 330-4, 680), and Paris (Conservatoire, 
nos. 954-7, 1457)- (H. G. Farmer) 

al-DARASUTNI, Abu 'l-Hasan <Ali b. <Umar 
b. Ahmad b. MahdI b. Mas'ud b. al-Nu'man b. 
DInar b. 'Abdallah, was born in Dar al-Kutn, a 
large quarter of Baghdad, whence he got his nisba, 
in 306/918. He was a man of wide learning who 
studied under many scholars. His studies included 
the various branches of Hadith learning, the reci- 
tation of the Kur'an, iih,h and belles-lettres. He is 
said to have known by heart the diwdns of a number 
of poets, and because of his knowing the diwdn of 
al-Sayyid al-Himyari he was accused of being a 
Shi'i. His learning was so wide that many people 
felt there was no one like him. His biographers 
speak in fulsome terms of him. For example, al- 
Khatib al-Baghdadl calls him "the imam of his 
time". Abu '1-Tayyib al-Tabari (d. 450/1058) called 
him Amir al-Mu'minfn in Hadith. This was the 
subject for which he was specially famous. He 
had studied it under many masters in Baghdad, 
al-Basra, al-Kufa and Wasit, and when he was of 
mature age he travelled to Egypt and Syria. He 
became so famous as a traditionist that every ftdfiz 
who came to Baghdad visited him and acknowledged 
his pre-eminence. Among the many who studied 
Hadith under him were al-Hakim al-Naysaburi (d. 
405/1014) and Abu Hamid al-Isfara'inl (d. 406/1015). 
He died towards the end of 385/995 and was buried 
in the cemetery of Bab al-Dayr near the grave of 
Ma c ruf al-Karkhi. 

He contributed greatly to the advance of the 
critical study of Muslim traditions. His works, not 
all of which have survived, therefore deal primarily 
with the science of Tradition. His Kitab al-Sunan 
(publ. Dihll, 1306 and 1310) covers the normal 
ground of works of this nature. Al-Khatlb al-Bagh- 
dadi says it could have been produced only by one 
who was versed in /t'/sft and acquainted with the 
conflicting views of the schools. It is said that he 
went to stay with Dja c far b. al-Fadl, Kafur's wazir, 
in Egypt because he heard that Dja c far wished to 
compile a musnad. Al-Darakutni is said to have 
helped him, or to have complied it for him. Whichever 
it was, he was richly paid for his trouble. His Kitab 
al-askhiyd 3 wa 'l-adjwad has been edited by S. 
Wajahat Husain and published in JASB, n.s., xxx, 
1934. It consists of stories of generosity. His Kitab 
Hlal al-fiadith, on weaknesses in traditions, was 
dictated from memory to al-Barkani. His Kitab al- 
afrdd, on traditions from one man or from one 
district only, is noted by Weisweilsr as possibly the 
earliest book on the subject. Am.ng other books on 
hadith he wrote Ilzdmdt 'aid 7 Sahihayn, in which 
he collected sound traditio.. - not given by al- 
Bukhari and Muslim which f Hilled their conditions. 
One other book which ma\ be mentioned here is 



his Kitab al-Kird?dt, on Kur'an readings, in which 
he began by stating the principles of the subject. 
He was the first writer to do so. 

Bibliography: Ta'rikh Baghdad, xii, 34-40; 
Sam'ani, 217a; Dhahabi, Huffdz, iii, 186-90; al- 
Subki, Tabafrdt al-ShdfiHyya al-kubra, ii, 310-12; 
Yakut, ii, 523; Yakut, Udabd', ii, 406; vi, 8; Ibn 
Khallikan, Bulak, i, 470; Yafi% Mir'dt al-Qjandn, 
ii, 424-6; Hadjdji Khalifa, ed. Flugel, 23 times- 
see index ; al-Djazari, Ghdyat al-nihdya fi tabakdt 
al-burra (Bibl. 7s/., viiia), i, 558f., no. 2281; 
Ibn al-Salah, c Ulum al-hadith (Aleppo, 1350/ 
1931), 213, 241; Sarkis, Diet, encyc. de bibl. 
arabe, 856 f.; M. Weisweiler, Istanbuler Hand- 
schriften zur arabischen Traditionsliteratur {Bibl. 
7s/. x), nos. 54, 7m., 92; Brockelmann, I, 173 f., 
S I, 275. (J. Robson) 

DARAN (deren) [see the article atlas]. 
al-DARAZI, Muhammad b. Isma'Il, was one of 
a circle of men who founded the Druze religion 
(see duruz]. He was not an Arab, and is called 
Nashtakin in the Druze scriptures; according to 
Nuwayri (who calls him Anushtakin), he was part 
Turkish and came from Bukhara. He is said to have 
come to Egypt in 407 or 408/1017-18 and to have 
been an Ismafill ddH [see da c i and isma c Iliyya], in 
high favour with the Caliph al-Hakim, allegedly to 
the point that high officials had to seek his good 
graces. He may have held a post in the mint 
(Hamza accuses him of malpractices with coinage). 
He is said to have been the first who proclaimed 
publicly the divinity of al-Hakim; he is also accused, 
as heretics commonly were, of teaching tandsukh 
(reincarnation) and ibdha (antinomianism) regarding 
the rules against wine and incest, though this latter 
is most unlikely. It is possible that his doctrine was a 
popularizing version of Isma'ilism such as the ddHs 
often warned against. His key treatise is said to have 
taught that the (divine) spirit embodied in Adam 
was transmitted to 'All and (through the imams) 
to al-Hakim. This would differ from orthodox 
Isma'ilism presumably in exalting 'All over Muham- 
mad, imamate over prophecy; and then in making 
public the secret ta'wll (inner meaning of scripture) 
and probably denying the continued validity of the 
letter of revelation, tanzil. For the commentator of 
Hamza's letters calls his followers TaVIlis, who are 
accused by the Druzes of altogether rejecting the 
tanzil. Hamza himself deems it necessary to remind 
al-Darazi that the inner truth and its outer form are 
always found together. He also accuses him of 
recognizing only the humanity of al-Hakim, not his 
divinity; which would follow, in Hamza's eyes, 
from his identifying al-Hakim with c Ali, the asds, 
who is a mere imam, leader of men, and far from the 
indefinable One, to Whom as such no functions can 
be assigned. 

Al-Darazi seems to have gained a number of 
followers among al-Hakim's admirers, evidently 
with the approval of al-Hakim himself. Hamza, 
evidently claiming priority with al-Hakim, regarded 
al-Darazi as insubordinate and acting rashly on his 
own initiative; for instance, publicly attacking the 
Sahaba though warned against this. Hamza refused 
to let him see his doctrinal writings; he criticized the 
symbolism of the title al-Darazi first assumed, 
"sword of the faith", only to be worse offended 
when al-Darazi assumed instead a title, sayyid al- 
Hddiyyin, "chief of the guided", which overreached 
Hamza's own title, al-Hddi, "the guide". He claims 
that some of al-Darazi's followers had at one time 
acknowledged Hamza's claims to leadership in the 



L-DARAZl — DARD 



137 



movement, and that al-Darazi himself had done so, 
having been converted by an agent of Hamza, 'Ali b. 
Ahmad al-Habbal — who subsequently supported al- 
Darazi. Sacy thinks Hamza regarded him as the 
Didd, Hamza's Rival as imam, who would as such 
have a major cosmic r61e. But many of al-Darazi's 
followers, most notably a ddH al-Bardha'I, had from 
the first rejected Hamza as unauthorized by al- 
Hakim. 

It seems that al-Darazi, probably in 408/1017-18, 
took the step of making public, with al-Hakim's 
private but not open blessing, a demand for accep- 
tance of the divinity of al-Hakim — according to 
Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi, by reading his treatise in the 
main mosque of Cairo. This occasioned several riots, 
which engulfed Hamza also, and which evidently 
caused the whole movement to lose favour; it was 
probably this which forced Hamza to suspend his 
own preaching during 409. The Druze accounts are 
allusive, and other accounts seem to confuse several 
episodes, leaving the riots and the manner of al- 
Darazi's death unclear. Hamza's letters in 410/ 
1019-20 seem to presuppose his death, which the 
Druze commentator places in 410, and imply that 
it was Hamza himself who — having denounced al- 
DarazI and others to al-Hakim— brought about his 
death on al-Hakim's orders. Hamza then tried to 
win over his followers, promising to intervene with 
al-Hakim for some who were in jail. 

Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi makes al-Darazi withdraw 
secretly, on al-Hakim's orders, to Syria to preach, 
because people there readily accept novelties — which 
sounds like a later explanation of Druze geography. 
His name, in the form Durzl, was applied to the 
Druze community, probably not because it was he 
who first converted those of Syria — local tradition 
assigns this task to others — but because the whole 
movement was first associated with him in the 
public mind; thus al-Antaki applies the name 
"Daraziyya" to Hamza's own followers. The notion 
sometimes found, that either licentious teachings or 
loose moral practices among subsequent Druzes are 
to be traced to al-Darazi, is unsupported. 

For bibliography see the article DurCz. Among 
Hamza's letters are especially relevant : al-Ghdya 
wa 'l-nasiha, al-Ridd wa 'l-taslim, and al-Subha al- 
kdHna. In Silvestre de Sacy's Religion des Druzes, 
the chief references are, in Vol. i, ccclxxxiii-cccxci, 
99-113; in Vol. ii, 157-90 (and errata). See also 
Yahya al-Antaki, continuation of Eutychius, in 
Scriptores Arabici, text, ser. iii, Vol. vii, second part, 
edd. L. Cheikho, B. Carra de Vaux, H. Zayyat, 
Beirut 1909, 220-4. (M. G. S. Hodgson) 

DARB [see madIna]. 

DARB [see dar al-darb and sikka], 

DARB al-ARBA c IN, one of the principal routes 
linking bildd al-Suddn with the north, obtained its 
name from the forty days' travelling-time required 
to traverse it. W. G. Browne, the only European to 
have gone the whole way (in 1793) took 58 days from 
Asyut to "Sweini" (al-Suwayna) near the southern 
terminus. Muhammad 'Umar al-Tunusi in 1803 
covered the same distance in 60 days. Starting from 
Asyut, the route ran to the Khardja oasis, an outpost 
of Ottoman Egypt. Thence it proceded across the 
desert to al-ljhabb, a watering-point where, as the 
name indicates, alum is found. At the next oasis, 
Salima, a branch diverged to the Nubian Nile, which 
it attained a little above the Third Cataract at 
Miishu, the frontier-post of the Fundj dominions. 
This route was followed in 1698 by Ch. J. Poncet 
(see his Voyage to Aethiopia, ed. Sir William Foster, 



in The Red Sea and adjacent countries at the close 
of the seventeenth century, (Halriuyt Society, Second 
Series, no. C), London 1949). From Salima the Darb 
al-arba c in proper continued across the deserts to ai- 
Suwayna, the frontier post of Dar Fur, where the 
caravans were held to await the sultan's pleasure. 
The route ended at Kubayh (Cobbe, Browne), about 
35 miles NW of the sultan's residence at al-Fashir. 
Kubayh, which is now deserted, was in the 18th and 
early 19th centuries an important town, principally 
inhabited by merchants, many of whom were 
immigrants from Nubia. The Darb a'-arba'in was 
the route followed to Egypt by the kdfilat al-Suddn, 
which brought slaves, camels, ivory, ostrich feathers 
and gum, and returned with metal manufactured 
goods and textiles. During the 19th century, in 
consequence of the political changes of the eastern 
bildd al-Suddn, and the decline of the slave-trade, 
the Darb al-arba c in lost its importance, and only 
sectors of it are now occasionally used. 

Bibliography: VV. G. Browne, Travels in 
Africa, Egypt, and Syria, London 1799. Muham- 
mad c Umar al-Tunusi, TasMiidh al-adhhdn bisirat 
bildd aW-Arab ua 'l-Sudan, lith. Paris 1850, 46-51; 
tr. Perron, Voyage au Darfour par le ckeykh 
Mohammed Ebn-Omar El-Tounsi, Paris 1845. 
W. B. K. Shaw, Darb El ArbaHn in Sudan Notes 
and Records, xii/i, 1929, 63-71 (with photographs). 

(P. M. Holt) 
DARB-KHANA [see dar al-darb]. 
DARBAND [see derbend]. 
DARBUKKA [see darabukkaj. 
DARD, one of the four pillars of Urdu literature 
and one of the greatest of Urdu poets, Kh"adia Mir 
(with the takhallus of Dard) b. Kh w adja Muhammad 
Nasir " c Andalib" al-Husayni al-Bukhari al-Dihlawi, 
claimed descent from Kh w 5dia Baha' al-DIn Naksh- 
band and in the 25th step from the Imam Hasan 
al- c Askari [q.v.]. Born in 1133/1720-21 in the decadent 
Imperial Dihll, Dard received his education at home, 
mostly from his father, a very well-read man and the 
author of Ndla-i '■Andalib, a voluminous Persian 
allegory dealing with metaphysical and abstruse 
problems and of another Sufi work, Risdla-i Hush 
Afzd (still in MS.). Casual references in Dard's work 
Him al-Kitdb (vide infra) show that on the com- 
pletion of his studies he had attained proficiency in 
both the traditional and rational sciences. Starting 
life as a soldier he tried hard to secure a d±dgir, but 
soon withdrew from everything worldly and devoted 
himself, when barely 20 years of age, to a life of 
privation, austerity and asceticism. In 1172/1758-9, 
when he was 39 years old, he succeeded his father 
as the spiritual head of the local Cishtis and Naksh- 
bandis, and, despite the disturbed conditions pre- 
vailing in the capital in the wake of Nadir Shah's 
invasion of 1152/1739 and Ahmad Shah Abdali's 
incursions of 1175/1761, he did not leave Dihll, 
being the only Urdu poet of note not to do so. 

A great Sufi, he passionately loved music and 
contrary to those who believed in the maxim "al- 
ghina' ashadd min al-zind"' (music is more heinous 
than adultery), he not only fraternized with the 
leading musicians of the town but also regularly held 
musical concerts (mad±dlis-i samd 1 ) twice a month 
at his home, which were attended, among others, 
occasionally even by the ruling monarch Shah 
c Alam Bahadur Shah I [q.v.]. In one of his works 
Ndla-i Dard (p. 37) he describes devotional music 
{samd'-) "as ordained by God". 

Essentially a Sufi writer, Dard's first work Asrdr 
al-Saldt, was written during iHikdf, while he was 



138 



DARD — DARDIC 



still a lad of 15 years of age. It is a small tract dealing 
with the seven essentials of al-Saldt. In 1166/1752 
was begun Risala-i Wariddt, a collection of quatrains 
depicting the spiritual experiences of the author, and 
completed six years later in 1 172/1758. His magnum 
opus, apart from his select Urdu diwan, is, however, 
the Him al-Kitdb, a voluminous commentary on 
Risala-i Wariddt, comprising 648 very closely- 
written large-size pages. It is entirely on suluk and is 
profusely interspersed with long Arabic quotations. 
Its style is sober and staid but powerful and the argu- 
ments adduced are cogent and sound. This book can 
be safely ranked with some of the outstanding works 
of Shah Wall Allah al-Dihlawi [q.v.], dealing with the 
same subject. It was followed by the supplementary 
works : Ndla-i Dard, Ah-i Sard and Dard-i Dil. 

His other works are : Sham c -i Mahfil (composed 
1 195-99/1780-84) ; a short Persian diwan (Dihll, 
1309/1891-2); an Urdu diwan (first published at 
Dihll in 1272/1855 and later frequently printed); 
Ifurmat-i Ghind?. in defence of devotional music and 
Wdki'dt-i Dard, also on mystic problems. All these 
works have been published. 

For an estimate of his quality and importance 

Dard died at an advanced age on 24 Safar 1199/ 
6 January 1785 and was buried in the old cemetery 
(now abandoned and converted into a public park) 
of Shahdjahanabad, outside the Turkoman Gate. 
His tomb, along with that of his father and the 
attached small mosque, is still preserved and visited 
by the local Muslims. 

Bibliography: All the relevant tadhkiras of 
Urdu poets especially: Mir Taki Mir, Nikdt al- 
shu'ard' 49 ff., Mir Hasan, Tadhkira-i shu'ard'-i 
Urdu 2 , 66 ff., Kudrat Allah Ksisim, Ma&mu'-a-i 
naghz, Lahore 1933, i, 240 ff.; C A1I Ibrahim Khan 
Khali], Gulzdr-i Ibrahim, 'Allgafh 1935, 126-9; 
Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de la literature hindouie 
et hindoustanie*, Paris 1870, s.v.; Preface to his 
diwan 2 (Bada'un 1933) by Sadr-Yar Djang Hablb 
al-Rahman Khan Shirwani; Ram Babu Saksena, 
A history of Urdu literature', Allahabad 1940, 
55-9 (the entire notice is almost a literal trans- 
lation of the Urdu preface by Shirwani); T. 
Grahame Bailey, A history of Urdu literature, 
Calcutta 1932, 50-r and index; Sayyid c Abd 
Allah, Bahth o-Nazar, Lahore 1952, 9-26; Muham- 
mad c Azmat Allah Khan, Maddmin-i Azmat, 
Haydarabad (Deccan) 1942, ii, r-64 (a critical 
study of Dard's tasawwuf); Kiyam al-DIn Kalm, 
Makhzan-i Nikdt, 38 ff.; Shams al- c Ulama J 
Muhammad Husayn Azad, Ab-i IJaydt, s.v.; 
Oriental College Magazine (articles by A. D. Naslm), 
Lahore iv/31, i/32, i/33, ii-iii/34 (Aug., Nov., r955, 
Nov., 1957, Feb.-May, 1958); S. Nasir Nadhlr 
Firak, Maykhdna-i Dard, Dihll n.d.; Ghulam 
Hamadan! MushafI, Hhd-i Thurayyd, s.v. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
DARDANELLES [see canaij ijal'e boghaz!]. 
DARDIC and KAFIR LANGUAGES, the 
description now generally applied to a number of 
what are in many respects very archaic languages 
and dialects, spoken in the mountainous N.W. 
corner of the Indo-Aryan (IA) linguistic area, in 
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir. With the 
exception of Kashmiri, they are numerically insigni- 
ficant, and have no written history. The others are 
known only from vocabularies and grammatical 
sketches, etc., the oldest dating from about 1830. 
There is still a great lack of adequate grammars, 
vocabularies, and collections of texts. 



In the following account there is a departure from 
the normal transcription conventions of the Ency- 
clopaedia: the symbol s is used for a voiceless 
retroflex sibilant ('cerebral s'), not for sad; similarly 
the symbol >» is used for the retroflex nasal. 

The Dardic and Kafir languages may be roughly 
grouped as follows: 

I. Kafir Group, (a) Kati (Bashgall), spoken, 
in two main dialects, in the Ramgel, Kulum, KtiwI 
and Bashgal valleys in north Nuristan (Kafiristan); 
(6) Prasun (Wasi-veri; Veron) in a smaU 
valley wedged in between the Katis in KtiwI and 
Bashgal; (c) Askun (with Wamai), south of Kati, 
between the Alingar and Pec rivers; (d) Waigall 
(Wai-ala), in the Waigal valley, south-east of 
Prasun. There is a not inconsiderable dialect 
variation, and especially Gamblri, spoken in the 
Tregam valley east of Waigal towards the Kunar, 
differs in many respects from ordinary Waigall. The 
Kafir languages have certainly occupied their 
isolated valleys since very ancient times, (c) and (d) 
have been more exposed to outside influences than 
(a) and (ft); the last language has undergone such 
violent sound-changes that it has become incom- 
prehensible to its nearest neighbours. 

Dardic. group. II. (e) Kalasa, spoken in two 
dialects by the Kalas tribe, who are still mainly 
pagan, in S. Chitral (Citral), chiefly in the west side 
valleys. Closely related to Kalasa is (/) Khowar, 
the principal language of Chitral, spoken, with 
little dialect variation, by the Kho tribe (see 
chitral, ii). Khowar has adopted a number of 
words from Wakhl, as well as from some Middle 
Iranian languages (cf. BSOS, viii, 294 ff.). These 
two languages represent the earliest wave of IA 
penetration into the Hindu Kush region. 

III. (g) Darnell, in one viUage in an east side 
valley of Chitral, between Mirkhani and Arandu. It 
has adopted a number of Kafir! words, and has 
little connexion, except the geographical one, with 
(A) Gawar-Batl (Narisatl), spoken in a few 
villages on the Kunar river, on both sides of the 
Chitral-Afghan frontier. There is a tradition that this 
language was brought in from Swat a few hundred 
years ago. (*) Remnants of dialects of a some- 
what similar type are found further south, in 
Ningalam on the Pec (nearly extinct), and in 
Shumasht, in N. E. Pashal territory. 

IV. (;') Pashal, spoken in numerous and widely 
differing dialects, from the lower Kunar in the east, 
through Laghman, and right up to Gulbahar on the 
Pandjshlr. The number of speakers may well run 
into the 100,000 guessed at in the LSI. Pashal is 
descended from the ancient languages of Hindu and 
Buddhist civilization in Nagarahara, Lampaka and 
Kapisha, and there is still a marked difference of 
vocabulary between the east and west dialects. A 
few numerals of Pashal type have been recorded in 
Al-BIrunl's India. 

V. (ft) Bashkarik (Gawrl/Garwl), in the 
upper Pandjkora valley, above DIr, and in three 
villages at the head-waters of the Swat valley; 
(I) Torwall, in the upper Swat valley, below Bashk; 
(m) Maiya, with a number of related dialects 
(Kanyawali, Duberl, Cilis, Gowro, etc.), in 
the Indus valley region between the Sina and the 
Pashto speaking areas. Maiya is also called Kohi- 
stanl, but this term is also used for (ft) and (I); in 
some respects it approaches (p); (n) Wotapurl 
(nearly extinct) and Katarkalai, on and near the 
Pec, just above Cigha Sara 5 ! on the lower Kunar. 
Connected with (ft) and (I), but containing forms of 



- DARDlRIYYA 



139 



a more ordinary Lahnda [q.v.] type, is (0) Tirahi, 
in a few villages S.E. of Djalalabad, driven out of 
Tirah by the Afridis and probably the remnant of 
a dialect group once extending from there, through 
the Peshawar district, into Swat and Dir. 

VI. (p) Sin a, spoken in many dialects in Gilgit, 
CilSs, etc., as far south as Gurez in Kashmir, and 
towards the east isolated in Dras and l5ah Hanu 
in Baltistan, formerly even beyond Leh; (?) Pha- 
lufa, an archaic offshoot of (p), spoken in a few 
villages in S. E. Chitral. A related dialect, Sawi, 
is spoken south of Gawar-Bati; (r) Dumaki, the 
speech of the Domas (musicians and blacksmiths) 
in Hunza, speaking Burushaskl [q.v. in Supplement]. 
It is influenced by (p), but has complex affinities 
with languages further south. 

VII. (s) Kashmiri, in the Kashmir valley, with 
Kashtawari as a true dialect, and other dialects 
strongly influenced by DogrI, etc. 

The nomenclature and classification of these 
languages have been much discussed. E. Kuhn, in an 
important article in the Album Kern (1882) used the 
non-committal geographical term "Hindu Kush 
dialects". Pischel, Grammatik der Prdkrit-Sprachen, 
28, called them "Dardu and Kafir dialects", employ- 
ing the name Dard in the extended sense, accepted 
since. He thought that they were related to the so- 
called Pisaca dialect of Prakrit. This theory was 
further elaborated by Grierson in a series of publica- 
tions, but no cogent linguistic arguments have been 
offered in support of it. According to Grierson the 
Dardic (or "Modern Pisaca") languages are not IA, 
but contain a number of Iranian features, and 
constitute a separate third branch of Indo-Iranian 
(Ilr). Grierson divides the Dardic and Kafir langu- 
ages into (A) Kafir group (= I, III, IV + («) 
and (0); (B) Khowar (= (/)); (C) Dard group 
(= V, VI, VII). His classification has, in the main, 
been accepted in such recent works as Les Ungues 
du monde (2nd. ed. 1952), and Mhd. Shahidullah's 
article in Indian Linguistics, Turner Jubilee Volume, 
ii, 1959, 117. On the other hand, Sten Konow {JRAS, 
1911, 1 ff.), drawing attention to some undoubtedly 
un-Indian features of Bashgall (Kati), came to the 
conclusion that this language was of Iranian origin, 
and agreed with Grierson that the whole group must 
be separated from IA. Finally, Skold (ZDMG, 81, 
LXXIV) went so far as to contend that the real 
Kafir group (I) was not at all Ilr, but a separate 
branch of the IE family. 

In order to avoid confusion, it is important to 
distinguish between I (Kafir group) and the rest 
(Dardic, II-VII). The latter languages, apart from 
some Kafiri admixtures in (g), and in a few isolated 
cases in (e) and (A), contain absolutely no features 
which cannot be derived from Old IA. They have 
simply retained a number of striking archaisms, 
which had already disappeared in most Prakrit 
dialects. Thus for example the distinction between 
three sibilant phonemes (s, i (sh), s), or the retention, 
in the western dialects, of ancient st, s(. The loss of 
aspiration of voiced stops in some Dardic dialects 
is late, and in most of them at least some trace of 
the aspiration has been preserved. There is not a. 
single common feature distinguishing Dardic, as a 
whole, from the rest of the IA languages, and the 
Dardic area itself is intersected by a network of 
isoglosses, often of historical interest as indicating 
ancient lines of communication as well as barriers. 
Dardic is simply a convenient term to denote a 
bundle of aberrant IA hill-languages, which in their 
elative isolation, accentuated in many cases by 



the invasion of Pafhan tribes, have been in a varying 
degree sheltered against the expanding influences of 
IA Midland (Madhyadesha) innovations, being left 
free to develop on their own. 

In the Kafir group (I) the situation is an entirely 
different one. Although very heavily overlaid by IA 
(Dardic) words and forms, these dialects have 
retained several decidedly un-Indian features. The 
complete loss of aspiration of voiceless as well as 
voiced stops {e.g., Kati kur 'ass'; dyum 'smoke': 
S. Kalasa khdr; dhum) must go back to an extremely 
remote period, since we also find, e.g., Kati (d)zim 
'snow'; djat 'to kill': cf. Sanskrit hima-; han. Cf. 
also Kati (d)zaf 'to know'; dji 'bowstring', both with 
unaspirated dj in Sanskrit. In this respect Kafiri 
follows Ir. as against IA in abolishing the distinction 
between aspirated and unaspirated sounds, while 
retaining the one between ancient IE palatal and 
palatalized velar stops. In most other respects, 
however, such as in the preservation of s, it agrees 
with IA: Kafiri c (= ts) corresponding to Skt. s, 
Avestan s {e.g., in Kati due 'ten') is an archaic 
feature, and still more so is the retention of dental 
s after «, as in musd 'mouse'. The vocabulary of 
Kafiri contains a number of words not known from 
IA; some of these appear also in Iranian, e.g., han-, 
etc., 'to laugh', cf. Pers. hhand; washpik, etc., 'wasp', 
cf. Ir. Pamir dialect, Yidgha wofshio; Prasun yase 
'belt', cf. Av. yah-; etc. Other words are found only 
in Kafiri, and, in a few cases, in some of the adjoining 
Dardic dialects. 

We are, therefore, entitled to posit the existence 
of a third branch of Ilr, agreeing generally with IA, 
but being situated on the Ir side of some of the 
isoglosses which, taken as a whole, constitute the 
borderline between IA and Ir. This branch had also 
retained archaisms of its own, and must have 
separated from the others at a very early date. The 
present-day Kafir languages represent, so to speak, 
the decayed ruins of this original building, largely 
rebuilt and reconstructed with the help of foreign 



(IA) material, but with 
structure still visible. 
Bibliography: (s 

G. Buddruss, Beitr. 

Dialekte, Wiesbaden 



:s of the original 



also article c 



ii): 



Kenntnis der Paiai- 
1959; idem, Kanyawali, 
Proben eines Maiyd-Dialehtes, Munich 1959; idem, 
Die Sprache von Wotapur und Ka(drqald, Bonn 
i960; T. Grahame Bailey, Grammar of the Shina 
language, London 1924; G. A. Grierson, Linguistic 
Survey of India (cited above as LSI), viii/2, with 
bibliography up to 1919; idem, ibid, i/i (Tirahi); 
idem, A Dictionary of the Kashmiri language, 
Calcutta 1932; D. L. R. Lorimer, Phonetics of the 
Gilgit dialect of Shina in JRAS 1924; idem, The 
forms and nature of the transitive verb in Shina in 
BSOS, iii; idem, The conjugation of the transitive 
verb in the principal dialects of Shina, JRAS 1927; 
idem, The Dumaki language, Nijmegen 1939; 
G. Morgenstierne, in Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprog- 
videnskap: Askun (Vols, ii and vii); Darnell, (ibid., 
xii) ; Shumashti (xiii) ; Khowar (xiv) ; Prasun (xv) ; 
Wamai, Gambiri, Wotapuri (xvi); Waigali (xvii); 
S. E. Dardic (= KohistanI) (with F. Barth), 
(xviii); idem, AO viii (Torwali) ; Tirahi (ibid., 
xii) ; Bashkarik (xviii) ; idem, Det Norske, Videns- 
kaps-Akademi i Oslo, Skrifter, Hist.-Filos. Klasse, 
Phaluaf (1940, v); Gawar-Bati (1950, i); idem, 
Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages : Pashal texts and 
vocabulary, iii, 2 and 3. (G. Morgenstierne) 
DARDlRIYYA, name of the Egyptian branch of 
the Khalwatiyya [q.v.] order. See also tarIija. 



140 



DARDISTAN — al-DARDJINI 



DARDISTAN, the name given to the area, 
lying between the Hindu Kush and Kaghan, between 
lat. 37° N. and long. 73° E., and lat. 35 N. and 
long. 74 30' E., the country of the Dardas of Hindu 
mythology. In the narrowest sense it embraces the 
Shina-speaking territories, i.e., Gilgit, Astor, Gurayz, 
Cilas, Hodur, Darel, Tangir etc., or what is now 
known as Yaghistan. In a wider sense the feudatory 
states of Hunza, Nagar and Chitral [q.v.] (including 
the part known as Yasln), now forming the northern 
regions of Pakistan, comprise Dardistan; in the 
widest sense parts of what was till very recently 
known as Kafiristan. Herodotus (iii, 102-5) is the 
first author who refers to the country of the Dards, 
"placing it on the frontier of Kashmir and in the 
vicinity of modern Afghanistan". He, however, does 
not use the name "Dard" while referring to the 
country; on the other hand Strabo (xv) and Pliny 
(Natural History, xi) call the people inhabiting the 
area as Derdae or Dardae. The Dards are the "Darada" 
of the Sanskrit writers, a region to which Buddha 
sent his missionaries and bhikshus. These areas once 
formed the stronghold of Buddhism and even to this 
day numerous Buddhist remains and relics are found 
there. The Dards are "an independent people which 
plundered Dras in the last year, has its home in the 
mountains three or four days' journey distant and 
talks the Pakhtu or Daradi language. Those whom 
they take prisoners in these raids, they sell as 
slaves" (Voyage par Mir 'Izzetulla in 1812 in Klap- 
roth's Magasin Asiatique, ii, 3-5). 

Strangely enough the Dards have no name in 
common, each tribe inhabiting a different valley 
carrying a different name, derived mostly from the 
areas inhabited by them. 

The history of Dardistan, a name first given to 
the entire country by Dr. G. W. Leitner after his 
visit in 1866, is the history of its component parts, 
namely Hunza, Nagar, Chitral, parts of Baltistan, 
Ladakh, Gilgit etc. [qq.v.]. The main enemy of the 
Dards, otherwise a peace-loving people, was the 
Dogra State of Kashmir under its first ruler, Gulab 
Singh. He led a number of expeditions against the 
Dards. In 1850 a large Sikh army sent against Cilas 
met with an ignominious defeat. Next year, a force 
10,000 strong under Bakhshl Hari Singh and Dlwan 
Hari Cand succeeded in destroying the fort of Cilas 
and scattering the hill tribes who had come to the 
assistance of the Cilasls. 

A little-known fact about the outlying states of 
Hunza and Nagar is that they never owed any 
allegiance to Kashmir except that they occasionally 
sent a handful of gold dust to the Maharadja and 
received substantial presents in return. These two 
states have rather more than once punished Kashmir 
when attempting agression, but they have never 
been hostile to the Dogra Kingdom. 

The prevailing religion in the whole of Dar- 
distan is Islam; a form of Shi'ism is met with in 
Hunza, Nagar and parts of Chitral, although the 
latter is predominantly Sunnl. The Mawlals, as they 
call themselves, profess to be good Muslims with 
strong leanings towards the seventh ShI c I imam. 
They, however, owe allegiance to the Agha Khan. 
The Kaldm-i Pir, a book in Persian, an edition of 
which was published by Ivanow (Bombay 1935). is 
held in high esteem among the Mawlal's. (See further 
isma'Iliyya). 

Camarkand in Yaghistan became the centre of the 
remnants of the Mudiahidin, the followers of Sayyid 
Ahmad Barelwl [q.v.] after their defeat and dispersal 
in 1246/1831 at Balakot in the Kaghan valley, at 



the hands of the Sikh forces led by Prince Shir 
Singh, a son of the Lahore Chieftain, Randjlt Singh. 
Because of the suspected revolutionary and sub- 
versive activities of these Mudjahidin and their 
descendants, entry into Yaghistan from British 
India and subsequently from Pakistan was regulated 
by permits. This system was, however, abolished by 
the Pakistan Government in 1959. 

Bibliography : G. W. Leitner, Dardistan in 
1866-1886 and 1893, Woking n.d.; idem, The 
Hunza and Nagyr Handbook, Calcutta 1889 and 
1893; idem, The languages and races of Dardistan 
(Part II of this work deals exhaustively with the 
flora and fauna, rivers, mountains, the occupations 
etc. of the people of Dardistan); idem, article in 
rterly Review, January 1892. See also 



the ; 



tides ( 









Muhammad C A1I Kasuri, Mushdhaddt-i Kabul wa 

Yaghistan, Karachi n.d. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

al-DARDJInI, Abu 'l-'Abbas Ahmad b. Sa'Id 
b. Sulayman b. c AlI b. Ikhlaf, an IbadI jurist, 
poet and historian of the 7th/ 13th century, 
author of a historical and biographical work 
"on the Ibadls, the Kitab Tabakdt al-Mashdyikh. He 
belonged to_ a pious and learned Berber-IbadI family 
from Tami'djar, a place in the Djabal Nafusa in 
Tripolitania. His ancestor, al-Hadjdj Ikhlaf b. 
Ikhlaf al-Nafusi al-Tamldjari, an eminent fahih, 
lived in the neighbourhood of Nefta in the Djarid 
[q.v.]. Son of Ikhlaf, the pious 'All, who lived in 
the second half of the 6th/i2th century, earned 
his living by trading with the Sudan. In the 
course of one of his trading journeys, in the year 
575/ii79-8o, he is said to have converted the pagan 
king of Mall in the western Sudan to the IbadI 
faith, but this is a legend (cf. J. Schacht, in Travaux 
de I'Institut de Recherches Sahariennes, xi, 1954. 
21 f.). His son, the famous lawyer Sulayman, who 
was the grandfather of Abu 'l- c Abbas, lived at 
Kanuma in the Djarid; he was regarded as a saint. 
The father of Abu 'l- c Abbas, Sa c ld, who was a 
distinguished traditionist, settled at Dardjln al- 
Sufla 'l-Djadlda near Nefta. 

We do not know much about the life of al-DardjInl. 
He must still have been very young when he went 
to Ouargla in 616/1219-20, where he spent two 
years studying with the IbadI shaykhs of this city. 
Afterwards he returned to the Djarid, where we 
find him engaged in historical studies at Tozeur in 
633/1235-6. Later he lived for some time on the 
island of Djarba, where he was highly regarded by 
the "-azzaba (Ibadi scholars). It was at the request 
of these that he conceived the idea of writing the 
Kitab Tabakdt al-Mashdyikh. 

The Kitab al-Djawdhir al-Muntakdt, of Abu 
'1-Kasim b. Ibrahim al-Barradl [q.v.], gives some 
information on the origins of this work. 

"Here", says al-Barradl, "are the circumstances 
in which Abu 'l- c Abb5s came to write his book. Al- 
Hadjdj c Isa b. Zakariyya 5 had just arrived from 

'Oman bringing various works with him His 

brothers in the east had asked him to send them a 
work containing biographies of the earliest Ibadls 
and recounting the virtues of the western forebears. 
Al-Hadjdj c Isa consulted the learned 'azzaba who 
were then to be found in Djerba and told them of 
this desire of their co-religionists in the east. They 
thought first of the book of Abu Zakariyya 1 , but 
they recognized that it was not sufficiently complete, 
and that the style of the author, who was accustomed 
to the Berber language and hence not very accurate 



l-DARDJINI — DARGHIN 



141 



in the rules of Arabic grammar or the propriety of 
its terminology, was often defective. They thought 
then of having a new work compiled on the history 
of the Rustumids and the virtues of the ancient 
doctors. No-one was more suitable than Abu 'l- c Abbas 
to fulfil this task worthily and it was to him that 
it was confided". 

The Kitdb fabakdt al-Mashdyikh exists only in 
some manuscript copies (a few in the Mzab and one 
in the collection of the late Z. Smogorzewski). It 
consists of two distinct parts of which the first is 
merely a reproduction of the Kitdb al-Sira wa- 
A khbdr al-A Hmma of Abu Zakariyya 3 Yahya b. Abi 
Bakr al-Wardjlani, or rather of the first part of this 
chronicle. It contains a history of Ibadi penetration 
into North Africa, of the installation of the Ibadi 
imamate and of the imams of the Banu Rustum 
family, and finally some biographies of Ibadi 
doctors of Maghrib! origin. The second part, the 
original work of al-Dardjini, is a collection of bio- 
graphies of doctors and other celebrated Ibadls, 
divided in the customary way into twelve classes, 
each class covering a period of fifty years. The first 
four classes of the work cover the biographies of 
the eastern Ibadi doctors of the ist/7th and 2nd/ 
8th centuries. The author found it pointless here 
to give biographies of famous personages from 
the Maghrib, having reproduced the corresponding 
part of the work of Abu Zakariyya 5 . The sources 
of the biographies of these eastern scholars are 
sometimes very old. The eight classes which follow, 
on the other hand, are confined to biographies of 
Ibadi shaykhs of Maghribi origin. The last 4 classes, 
indeed, deal only with persons from Ouargla, the 
Oued RIgh, the Oued Souf, the Djarid and the island 
of Djerba, and are therefore of no more than a local 
importance. 

Al-Dardjini used a large number of sources in the 
second part of his book, among others the historical 
and biographical works of Mahbub b. al-Rahll al- 
c Abdi (2nd/8th century) and Abu '1-Rabl c Sulayman 
b. c Abd al-Salam al-Wisyani (6th/i2th century). He 
included in his work some curious passages which 
are of great value for students of Ibadi history, for 
example the rules concerning the constitution of the 
halka laid down by the great Ibadi scholar, Abu 
c Abd Allah Muhammad b. Bakr al-Nafusi (5th/nth 
century), and the kjtufba pronounced at Medina 
by the famous Ibadi chieftain, Abu Hamza al- 
Shari (2nd/8th century). The exquisite language of 
of the Kitdb Tabakdt al-Mashdyikh surpasses by far 
in elegance all other Ibadi works of North African 
origin, and the author has corrected the style of his 
Maghribi sources, as can be seen from a comparison 
with the original text of the chronicle of Abu Zaka- 
riyya'. 

Al-Dardjini is also the author of a diwdn and of 
letters in verse. As a jurist, he decided a number of 
questions on the division of inheritances, which al- 
Djitali [q.v.] put together afterwards. 

The date of his death is unknown, but it was 
undoubtedly in the second half of the 7th/i3th 
century. 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Fadl Abu '1-Kasim b. 
Ibrahim al-Barradi, Kitdb al-Djawdhir al-Mun- 
takdt, lithogr. Cairo, 1302/1884-5, n, 215 f., 
219; Abu 'l- c Abbas Ahmad b. Sa'id al-Shammakhl, 
Kitdb al-Siyar, lithogr. Cairo 1301/1883-4, 164, 
178, 453-61 and passim; A. de C. Motylinski, 
Bibliographic du Mzab. Les livres de la secte 
abadhite, in Bulletin de Correspondence Africaine, 
iii (1885), 29, 38-43; Brockelmann, I, 336, SI, 



575; T. Lewicki, Notice sur la chronique ibddite 

d>ad-Dar*tni, in RO, xiii (1936), 146-72;' J. 

Schacht, Bibliothiques et manuscrits abadites, in 

RA, C (1956), 397- (T. Lewicki) 

DARGAH, Pers., lit. "place of a door" [see dar], 

usually "royal court, palace" in Persia, but in India 

with the additional specialized sense "tomb or shrine 

of a pir". 

DARGHIN. name of a Muslim Ibero-Cauca- 
sian people in Daghistan formerly inhabiting the 
pre-Caspian plains and then, in the 12th century, 
driven back towards the mountains by the Kumlks 
who had come from the North. The Soviet census oj 
1926 gives the number of 126,272 Darghins who, in 
1954, had increased to 158,000. The Darghins are 
grouped in the sub-alpine and mid-alpine zones of 
central Daghistan, and they form the greater part of 
the population in the districts of Sergo-Kal'a, Akusha 
and Dakhadaev. They are intermingled with Avars 
and Laks in the districts of Levashi and Tzudakhar. 
and with Kumiks and Kaytaks in the districts of 
Kaytak (Madjalis). They form isolated communities 
in the districts of Karabudakhkent {awls of Gubden 
and Gurbuki), Buinaksk (awls of Kadar, Karamakhi 
and Djankurbl), Agul (awls of Amukh and Cirakh) 
and Gunib (awls of Miamugi). Finally, in 1944 
several Darghin awls emigrated towards the steppes 
of north Daghistan to the district of Shuragat. 

The earliest information concerning the Darghins 
was given by Arab historians of the 4th/ioth century 
in the Darband-ndma. After the Arab conquest the 
feudal principality of the Usmi of Kaytak was 
established in the south-west part of the Darghin 
territory with its centre at Kal c a Kuraysh, near the 
present awl of Kubaci, whilst other Darghin clans 
were found in the dependency of the Lak Shamkhalat 
of Kazi-Kumuk. After the end of the 8th/i4th century 
when the Shamkhalat became weakened by the pres- 
sure of the Darghin clans allied with the Avars, the 
Darghin territory was divided between the princi- 
pality of the OsmI of Kaytak, which reached its 
apogee in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the free 
clans (djamd'a) which were joined together in 
unions or federations of clans. These were originally 
four in number: Akusha, Usala-Tabun, Makhala- 
Tabun, Khiirkili-Tabun ; to these, six others were 
added by force of arms at the beginning of the 19th 
century: Keba-Dargwa, Kutkula, Sergala-Tabun, 
Usmi-Dargwa, Vakun-Dargwa and Cirakh. The 
administration of these federations reverted to the 
kadi of Akusha. This patriarchal structure was 
maintained until the Russian conquest in the 19th 
century. 

The Darghin language is divided into three 
dialects: Urakhi (or Khiirkili), spoken by the cattle- 
breeders of the high plateaux; Tzudakhar, spoken 
by the artisans and traders in the plains, and 
Akusha which is clearly differentiated from the other 
two and serves as a basis for the literary language 
used also by the Kubacis and Kaytaks. But Turkish 
(kumik, azeri) and Russian linguistic influence is 
considerable and the majority of Darghins are 
bilingual: in primary schools teaching is carried out 
in Darghin, in secondary schools only Russian being 
used. Darghin literature is of recent creation. The 
earliest works do not go back beyond the 19th 
century, and Soviet literature is only represented 
by a few writers, the best-known being the poet 
Rashid Rashidov. 

At the beginning of the 20th century the Darghin 
literary language was transcribed in Arabic charac- 
ters. In 1920 a new modified Arabic alphabet was 



DARGH1N — DARlBA 



introduced (called the new adiem, with 43 letters). 
This gave way in 1928 to the Latin alphabet which 
in turn was replaced in 1938 by the Cyrillic alphabet. 
In 1958 eight Darghin newspapers were published: 
one Republican journal at Makhac-Kal'a, and seven 
district journals. 

The Darghins are SunnI Muslims of the Shafi'i 
sect, with the exception of two awls, Kurush and 
Miskindji, whose inhabitants up to the time of the 
revolution were twelver Shi'is. Their Islamization 
which had begun in the nth century became 
decisive in the 16th century, on the elimination of 
the last Jewish and Christian traces. In the 15th 
century some at least of the Darghins were still 
not Muslims, since the Zafar-ndma (i,777 ff.) cites 
among the "infidel" tribes of Daghistan who resisted 
Timur the "Ashkudja" (who can be indentified with 
the awl Akusha). 

Until the revolution of 1917 the social structure 
of the Darghins was based on the division into 
clans, tukhum, and the great patriarchal family, 
dfins. If in the 19th century the tukhum had already 
lost its economic significance, the customs deriving 
from it decayed more slowly. 

Polygamy was always rare among the Darghins 
and endogamy fell into decline from the 19th 
century : the ritual of marriage remained traditional, 
but though marriage with infidels was for a long 
time impossible, marriages with Russians became 
comparatively frequent after 1917. Abduction was 
often practised in former times, particularly by 
those who could not pay the obligatory kalltn, but 
the halim persists. 

Conquered by the Russians for the first time in 
1819 (capture of Akusha), and then for the first in 
the second time in 1844, the Darghins were threatened 
before the revolution with assimilation by both the 
Avars and the Kumlks at the same time. The 
Soviet authorities, wishing to ensure their protection, 
as a unique "nationality" possessing a literary 
language, favoured their consolidation with two 
small neighbouring peoples, the Kaytaks and the 
Kubacis, both also threatened with extinction. 

The Darghins practise agriculture in the plains 
and horticulture at the foot of the mountains; and 
they take up their flocks and herds of sheep, cattle 
and horses to the summer pastures in the moun- 
tains. Kubaia is celebrated for the local handicrafts 
of jewellery and goldsmiths' work, and Sulevkent 
for pottery. Industry is scarcely developed; there 
are canning factories at Akusha, Levashi and 
Tzudakhar. 

Bibliography: C. N. Abdoullaev, Russko- 
darginskiy slovar*, Makhac-Kal'a 1950; A. Ben- 
nigsen and H. Carrere d'Encausse, Une rtpublique 
soviitique: le Daghestan, in REI, 1955, 6-56; 
A. A. Bokarev, Kratkie svedeniya yaztkakh 
Dagestana, Makha«-Kal c a I949 - , E. I. Kozubskiy, 
Pamyatnaya knilka Dagestanskoy oblasti, Temir 
Khan-Shura, 1895; Meshcaninov and G. P. 
Serducenko, Yaziki Severnogo Kavkasa i Dages- 
tana, Moscow-Leningrad 1949; Z. A. Nikol'skaya, 
Etnografiieskoe opisanie darginskogo kolkhoza 
"Krasnty Partizan", in Sov. Etn., ii (1950); 
L. 2irkov, Grammatika darginskogo yazika, 
Moscow 1926, 103. See also avars, daghistan, 

DERBEND, IJAYTAKS, KUBA«IS, LAKS, LEZGS. 

(Ch. Quelquejay) 

DARl, a Persian word meaning "court (language)" 

from dar [q.v.]. In Arabic authors such as al-Makdisi 

(335), Yakut (iii, 925), and Fihrist (19), we find the 

Dart language (also Fdrsi Dari) described as the 



spoken and written language of the (Sasanian) court. 

It was also the language of government and literature. 

After three centuries of Muslim rule in Persia it was 

written down in the Arabic script, and came to be 

called Fdrsi or New Persian. The fact that New 

Persian literature arose and flourished in Khurasan 

and Transoxiana because of political reasons (Iranian 

dynasties of the Tahirids and Samanids) has caused 

some difficulty. The language was basically a West 

Iranian dialect, hence the name Farsi after the 

province. In Islamic times, if not before, elegant Dari 

diverged more and more from the rather stilted 

language of the Pahlavi books, kept alive primarily 

by Zoroastrian priests. By the time of the Mongol 

conquest of Iran the term Dari had gone out of use. 

Bibliography: E. Bertels, Persidskiy dari- 

tadlikskiy, SE, iv, 1950, 55-66; R. N. Frye, Die 

Wiedergeburt Persiens urn die J ahrtausendwende, 

in Isl. xxxv, ig6o ; 42, for further literature. 

(R. N. Frye) 
PARlBA, one of the words most generally used 
to denote a tax, applied in particular to the whole 
category of taxes which in practice were added to 
the basic taxes of canonical theory. These latter 
izakat or ( ushr, djizya and kharddi, etc.) and their 
yield in the "classical" period, have been covered 
in a general'survey in an earlier article, Bayt al-mal, 
and a detailed description of the methodes of assess- 
ment and collection will be given under their 
respective titles, in particular under kharadj; along 
with kharddi and zakdt will be included associated 
taxes and payments linked with them or levied on 
other categories of agricultural or pastoral wealth; 
finally, iu the article pjizya will be found a discussion 
of the problem of the original distinction between 
diizya and kharddi. Apart from d[izya which, as a 
poll-tax, is not concerned with the nature of the 
wealth, the above-mentioned taxes which form the 
basis of the official fiscal system of Islam are essen- 
tially concerned with agriculture and stock-breeding ; 
only the theoretical definition of zakdt makes it 
possible to include the products of industry and 
commerce, but only with the Muslims and, as we 
shall see, is far from embracing all the effective forms 
of taxes to which they were subject; and no canonical 
tax covers the fiscal dues which the State arrogates 
to itself to recover certain costs of the conduct of its 
administration. It is of this whole group of taxes, 
usually called <tara'»& or rusum, and often stigmatized 
by theorists, on account of their more or less extra- 
canonical character, under the name muktis, that we 
shall attempt to speak here although, precisely 
because they are poorly represented in doctrinal 
treatises as well as in papyri, any research into them 
is made under more difficult documentary conditions 
than is the case with canonical taxation, and they 
have been scarcely noticed by historians. 

In the practice of the last years of the Prophet's 
life, treaties concluded with certain communities of 
dhimmis had allowed them to make payments in 
kind with goods useful to the Muslims, if they 
produced them; after the conquest, and on a larger 
scale, stipulations of the same sort had again been 
expressed for the benefit of the army of occupation; 
and for many centuries the same element occurs in 
the taxes paid by certain provinces with important 
specific products, either natural or manufactured. 
It is however clear that it was always a question of 
the method by which the total contribution from 
the province was compounded, and not of specific 
taxes on industry or the trade of individuals. As 
regards zakdt, this of course includes a levy on 



possessions in the form of precious metals (money 
included) or merchandise, as on other categories of 
wealth, as soon as they exceeded an estimated 200 
dirhams, the figure regarded as marking the limit 
between "rich" and "poor"; but in fact it amounted 
to a preferential tariff granted to Muslims within the 
framework of a more general tax levied on traders of 
all faiths: it was to be confirmed in the rule that 
the Muslim should pay 1/40 — 2.5%, the dhimmi 
1/20 = 5%, and the foreign merchant 1/10 = 10%. 
In the zakdt thus conceived two principles are 
combined : as regards foreigners, it is a matter simply 
(and explicitly in the account of the innovations 
attributed to caliph 'Umar on this question) of 
conformity with international usage, and the rate 
of 10% was instituted in reciprocity with the usual 
rate levied by Byzantium on foreign merchants; for 
the native merchant, the relation between dhimmi 
and Muslim is the same for the levy on commercial 
goods as for the kharddi and the land tithe, and 
the conception of the tax appears to be inspired 
by what it is for livestock, (except that it is paid 
in money and not in kind) in the sense that it is 
an annual levy on the total trading capital, and not 
a tax on the profits from trading operations. Diony- 
sius of Tell-Mahre describes at the beginning of the 
'Abbasid period a procedure of this sort for levying 
the '"ushr tithe" on merchants, which, however, 
he seems to regard as exceptional in its severity or 
in its very nature ; the schedule that such a conception 
implies, with an official fixing of values and a 
distinction between consumer goods and those 
intended for trade, obviously presents great diffi- 
culties particularly to a merchant when travelling, 
for, on introducing himself to officials in a new 
province, he has to prove that he has already made 
the obligatory annual payment, since no admini- 
stration could be satisfied by the Muslim's right, 
however valid in theory, to determine the amount of 
his zakdt himself and even to pay it direct to the 
"poor"; the conception of an annual payment 
became impracticable at the time of the political 
fragmentation of Islam, no State being prepared to 
be deprived of the proceeds of a tax on the ground 
that it had already been paid to another, and Ibn 
Djubayr, for example, complains that the Alexandria 
customs-post taxes pilgrims without enquiring 
whether they have already paid their zakdt, and 
moreover without distinguishing between goods for 
private consumption and goods for trade, and 
between pilgrims and merchants. All this helps us 
to understand that what was taking place was a 
reorganization and development of the kind of taxes 
which had been known to the pre-islamic empires 
and which more or less must have survived the 
conquest in the framework of local institutions, 
particularly for towns enjoying a "treaty" which 
left them free to compound their tributes from 
such of their resources as suited their rulers. 
A first group of taxes belongs to what might be 
called customs, dues and tolls (mardsid, ma'dsir). 
There exist customs such as those on the frontiers 
which are well organized, on the great international 
trade routes, and from the very first naturally at 
the ports (Ubulla, the fore-port of Basra, kept the 
name of al-'ashshdr, the tithe-man. The "tithe" 
levied there can only have been taken in kind on 
certain merchandise, and for the most part it was 
therefore necessary to pay in cash according to an 
official estimate of value; in this way there were 
evolved certain kinds of customs tariffs such as the 
one preserved in the Mulakhkhas (see Bibl.). In 



BA 143 

theory no customs-post should exist except on the 
frontiers of Islam, for the foreign merchant is in 
law indebted only to the Muslim community as a 
whole; in fact, from the start every large region 
seems to have had autonomy in customs, and this 
state of affairs became general everywhere, irre- 
mediably so after the establishment of many separate 
principalities. In addition there were often town- 
dues at the gates of towns, and tolls on the trade 
routes, particularly the water-ways, from which the 
hadidi itself was not exempt. The theoretical justi- 
fication for such dues, insofar as one was looked for, 
is in this case less clear than for customs; it may in 
certain cases, as also for other dues to be discussed 
later, be a question of taxes for the use of a route 
belonging to the State; in general, variations of this 
"protection", himdya or khafdra, became widespread 
and, although the normal taxation implied such 
protection, payments had to be made to the imam, 
to local authorities of all kinds and, in bedouin 
countries, to the tribes, according to immemorial 
custom; payment generally is calculated on a "load" 
of an ass or camel. Finally, although the jurists 
ignore the point, we must add that in addition to 
dues for the import of goods others, for export (to 
obtain authorization), were sometimes imposed or 
substituted, as in other mediaeval societies. The 
result of all this was that, contrary to what one might 
expect, the Muslim world, even at the time of its 
on the whole great political unity, did not allow goods 
to circulate with any real freedom from those 
restrictions which so impeded them in, for example, 
the more divided European communities. 

A second category of dues can be grouped under 
the heading of the renting of lands or buildings 
belonging to the State. The State, rediscovering 
ancient habits or regulations under the 'Abbasids, 
sometimes looked upon itself as the proprietor 
perhaps of the whole territory of a town, but 
invariably of the ramparts and public highways, 
calculated on the basis of a width of forty cubits; 
everything that had in fact been established or 
built on this land had to recognize the ownership of 
the State by paying rent; in practice all the shops in 
the souks and markets in public places were subject 
to this charge. Dionysius of Tell-Mahre again 
provides us with evidence from the reign of al- 
Mahdi, of whom we know in particular from al- 
Ya'kubl that he introduced dues on the suks in 
Baghdad, and from others that he made the same 
innovation in Egypt. This did not however signify 
that the State did not recognize some sort of owner- 
ship by occupants of shops or houses standing on 
rented land, since in fact it left them free to dispose 
of them normally by inheritance, sale, wak) etc. It 
regarded itself as having a more direct ownership 
of the khans and funduks, to enter which it was of 
course necessary to pay; in Egypt, this was true of 
many shops. 

With regard to the khans, there was also himdya, 
protection of goods, to be provided. The same 
justification was given for the dues which the State 
required from individuals wishing to make use of the 
post {barid), weights and measures, as well as certain 
instruments in which it retained a monopoly and, 
of course, the profit made from minting money. 
Ovens, presses, and mills also came into this category 
although private ones also existed, which were 
subject to taxes similar to those applying to trades 

Indeed, it seems clear that, whether or not under 
the pretext of zakdt, the State levied certain dues 



collectively on various organized trades or industrial 
establishments — without prejudice to secondary 
taxes on regulation, packing, etc., in the case of 
goods in which it had a monopoly or whose export it 
regulated (fabrics from Egypt and Fars, among 
others). In addition, dues were charged on certain 
sales (especially of livestock) and on the exercise of 
brokerage which was particularly indispensable in 
commercial dealings with foreigners. We make no 
mention here of manufactures in which the State 
retained a monopoly, or of the fifth on mines, 
treasure trove, etc. 

Dues for kimdya appeared frequently, though it 
is not always possible to distinguish between those 
which do or do not merge with certain of the dues 
noted above. Originally it was, generally speaking, 
a matter of demands from individuals or from local 
police, but subsequently the State replaced these 
beneficiaries, while keeping up their demands. We 
leave aside the question of State duties on legacies. 
The drawing up of any written legal deed also of 
course incurred a tax. 

The wakfs in principle were independent of the 
State, on condition that taxes were paid to it unless 
they had been renounced; but it tended to take 
over control, paying a fixed allocation to the parties 
concerned, while keeping the surplus : a kind of 
manipulation of property in mortmain. 

It should not, however, be imagined that the 
various sorts of taxes and dues that we have just 
noted always coexisted everywhere and to the same 
degree. Of course it was Egypt which was the 
fiscal paradise, following the tradition of Antiquity. 
It is possible that at the start the conqueror, satisfied 
with the payment of poll-tax and other taxes and 
grants of land agreed upon by the terms of surrender, 
failed to pay attention to other sources of revenue 
which had been added by earlier regimes; sub- 
sequently, when equivalent measures were re-esta- 
blished, the Muslims accused the Copts of having 
appropriated them, though one cannot be certain if 
they meant that these revenues had fallen into 
private ownership, or that the local powers had 
embezzled the proceeds. Tradition, simplifying a 
more complex process that had been initiated earlier, 
attributes to Ibn al-Mudabbir, head of Egyptian 
finances on the eve of the Tulunid regime (mid 3rd/ 
9th century), the particular responsibility for in- 
troducing the policy of new extra-canonical taxes. 
Succeeding regimes, according as to whether they 
were impelled by a desire for legality and popularity 
or by financial needs, alternately abolished and 
re-established all or part of these taxes which no 
doubt reached their fullest development during the 
difficult times of the last Fatimids; part of them 
(but not the customs) was later abolished by Saladin, 
with the loss of 100,000 dinars, and the report 
which has been preserved is one of the principal 
■sources of our knowledge; but Saladin's successors 
re-established and perfected them (al-Makrizi, 
Kkitat, i, 103 ff., Ibn MammatI, ed. Atiya, chap. 5). 

In 'Irak, tradition and the strength of custom 
did not allow such a fiscal system to be estab- 
lished, and the fact that the 'Abbasids had 
not the ability or the means to utilize for their 
own advantage the revenues from commerce 
like those from agriculture perhaps forms a part, 
which is difficult to evaluate, of their financial diffi- 
culties. Ibn Ra'ik was said to be the first to set up a 
toll-house at the very gates of Baghdad. It was 
naturally the BOyids who in particular made 
repeated efforts to introduce in 'Irak a system 



similar to that of the Fatimids; 'Adud al-dawla, 
the best organizer of the dynasty, and his immediate 
successors tried to impose dues on the fine textile 
products which were the livelihood of great numbers 
of Baghdad artisans: popular riots compelled them 
finally to abandon the project, and the same was 
true of the attempt to place dues on mills, etc. In 
the time of the Buyids, Basra was notorious for the 
severity of its dardHb, as was Fars; in Iran, on the 
other hand, Isfahan in particular and the whole 
territory of the Samanids had moderate dardHb. 

This very diversity raises a problem. It is indeed 
found in all sections of the fiscal organization, which 
was adapted to economic conditions and inherited 
different traditions, according to the region. But 
here there is another point. In principle, the Muslim 
has the right to pay his zakdt direct to the "poor", 
and if, as happened in fact, he paid it to specialized 
agents, it was understood that the money had to go 
direct to the true beneficiaries, and not pass into 
the coffers of the State, which was taken to imply 
that it was spent on the spot and not centralized in 
the capital; furthermore, we have indicated that 
various taxes had to be regarded as himdya, which 
clearly meant that the beneficiaries were those who 
provided this himdya, the local authorities. It can 
hardly be doubted that the police, either in their 
official form as shurta, or as ahddth militia etc. were 
the recipients in particular of the proceeds of certain 
taxes in particular. From all this it emerges that the 
Bayt al-Mdl was not the recipient of all the taxes 
that we have noted. We must not, however, go too 
far in the opposite direction. In fact, all the nrnkus 
abolished by Saladin had very clearly been profitable 
to his treasury, and it was no less clear that, to 
swell his own fortunes, 'Adud al-dawla in Baghdad 
made the fiscal efforts to which we have referred. 
Customs, which affected Muslims and non-Muslims 
alike, were in fact regarded as being unrelated to 
zakdt and profited the Treasury. The same was true 
of the proceeds from rents. However, it was a 
principle of the Muslim fiscal administration that 
local expenditure was met from the proceeds of local 
taxes, only the surplus being sent to the Treasury; 
the latter did not provide any means of evaluation 
or control for the dardHb, or for the kharddi and 
other basic taxes. In fact, without exception, the 
dardHb do not appear in the 'Abbasid "budgets" 
that still survive. However, the proceeds from 
certain dardHb perhaps formed part of the revenues 
of the caliph's or sovereign's private treasury, with 
which he thus contributed to the obligatory "good 
works". 

Economic and international circumstances have 
sometimes brought about appreciable modifications 
in the system of dardHb and, more particularly, 
customs. Al-Ghazali granted that the tariff could be 
lowered, even for infidels, if it was advantageous to 
the community to encourage the import of certain 
goods. From the 6th/i2th century, this was in fact 
the object of the treaties concluded with the 
"Franks", setting up differential tariffs according 
to the goods, and sometimes even conferring on 
those nations' merchants advantages superior to 
those legally enjoyed by the Muslims. Naturally, 
this was not a practice peculiar to the Muslim States: 
Byzantium concluded similar treaties. It appears 
indeed that certain Muslim groups like the Kdrimis 
with the Indian Ocean trade were allowed to enjoy 
preferential tariffs at the end of the Middle Ages 
(according to the Mulakhkha?, see Bibl.). 

Bibliography : neither fikh works nor papyri 



provide documentation on the aspect of finan- 
cial history considered here (apart from the doc- 
trinal definition of commercial zakdt and taxes 
on the non-Muslims which fifth approximates to 
it). Information is to be found either in geo- 
graphers such as Mukaddasi or, for certain 
countries, in various chroniclers and authors of 
technical treatises on administration, of which 
only a few examples can be quoted here; for 
Mesopotamia, Dionysius of Tell-Mahre, Syriac 
Chronicle, ed. trans. J. B. Chabot (see CI. Cahen, 
Fiscaliie, etc., in Arabica, 1954), Miskawayh, 
Tadidrib, ed. trans. Margouliouth (The eclipse of 
the Abbasid Caliphate), with sequel by Abu 
Shudja' Rudhawari; for Egypt, in addition 
naturally to the materials in MakrizI, Khitat. 
particularly i, 103 ff., Ibn Mammatl, Kawanin 
al-dawawin, ed. Atiya 1943, Nabulusi, Akhbdr al- 
Fayyum ed. B. Moritz (see CI. Cahen, Impots du 
Fayyum, in Arabica, 1956; for Arabia, G. Wiet, 
Un Decret du sultan Malik Ashraf a la Mecque, in 
Melanges Massignon, III, 1957, and in particular 
the Yemeni Mulakhhhas al-fitan, on which see 
the article by CI. Cahen and R. B. Serjeant in 
Arabica, 1957; on Syria, Kamal al-DIn b. al-'Adim, 
Zubda, ed. S. Dahan, i, 163 ff. (on the treaty of 
358/969 with Byzantium), and c Izz al-DTn b. 
Shaddad, al-AHdk, ed. D. Sourdel, 150 (see 
Sauvaget, Alep, 253-4.), and, for the Djazlra, 
the same, provisionally in REI, 1934., 11 1-2. 
The treaties with the Franks are given in Mas 
Latrie, Traites . . . concernant les relations des 
Chretiens avec . . . VAfrique septentrionale, 1866; 
G. Miiller, Documenti suite relazioni dclle citta 
toscane coll'Oriente, 1879; Tafel and Thomas, 
Urkunden zur alteren Handelsgeschichte Venedigs, 
3 vols, of Fontes Rerutn Austriacarum, 2nd. s., 
xii-xiv, 1856-57. For the later Middle Ages, see 
the Italian technical treaties such as the Pratica 
delia Mercatura by Pegolotti, ed. A. Evans, 
Cambridge Mass. 1936. 

As regards the modern literature, besides the 
information given earlier in Aghnides, Moham- 
medan theories of finance, New York 1916; 
A. Mez, Renaissance, viii; R. Heffening, Das 
Islamische Fremdenrecht, 1925, various works by 
Arabic-speaking scholars should now be added: 
*Abd al-'Aziz Durl, Ta'rikh al-Hrak al-iktisddi fi 
'Ham al-rdW- al-hid^ri, Baghdad 1948; c Abbas 
al- c AzzawI, Ta'rlkh al-daraHb al-Hrdkiyya, Bagh- 
dad 1959; M. 'Awwad, al-Ma'dsir fi 'l-Isldm, 
Baghdad 1950; Rashid al-Barawi, ffdlat Misr al- 
iktisddiyya fi c ahd al-Fdtimiyyin, Cairo 1943. 
(Cl. Cahen) 
(2) — West. The history of fiscal systems in the 
Maghrib is still to be written, and perhaps may never 
be written. The texts are few and difficult to inter- 
pret, the terminology vague. The writers show little 
interest in the subject and apart from off-handed and 
scattered references restrict their remarks to con- 
ventional statements such as that "Such-and-such 
a king, on his accession, abolished illegal taxes and 
imposed only those allowed by the ShariV. 
Scholars have fought shy of this unrewarding topic. 
The present writer has made an attempt to handle 
the subject for the period ending with the collapse 
of the Almohade regime {see Bibliography) and 
R. Brunschvig appears to have exhausted it for the 
Hafsids. References apart from these are laconic. In 
any case it appears to be unlikely that more material 
would make the picture clearer, at least for the first 
few centuries of Muslim rule, simply because the 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



subject actually is vague. The turbulent history of 
the country gave no opportunity for the establish- 
ment of a lasting fiscal tradition. Tax-collection, like 
the other functions of government, was generally 
organized ad hoc. The government took what 
revenue it could as opportunity offered without 
overmuch scruple. The Shari'a was generally 
acknowledged to be the only proper regulator of 
fiscal methods, but it was just as generally ignored 
in practice. It may be supposed that the towns- 
people as a rule came under a more or less regular 
taxation system; but the country people, and 
particularly the nomads, were less accessible to 
the central administration, who could often extract 
tribute from them only by sending out what were 
virtually military expeditions often manned by 
outsiders not bound by any feeling of esprit de corps 
with the taxpayers. Some taxes were, according to 
the Shari'a, to be collected in kind, but for N. Africa 
we have little more than hints to show that, at one 
time or another, the government accepted payment 
in this form. There is some evidence that certain 
taxes were occasionally farmed out, but this seems 
in the Maghrib to be a late development first reported 
under the Almoravids and sporadically mentioned 
thereafter. There is no clear distinction between the 
privy purse and the public treasury. 

Governors under the Caliphs.— There are no 
contemporary texts. They collected sadaka and 
c ushur and dfizya but there is no clear indication of 
what these terms implied; later writers tend to 
interpret them in the light of legal doctrines which 
became established later. It seems as though the 
multitude of newly-converted Muslims led to the 
same difficulties in Ifrikiya as it had in c Irak 20 years 
before, and there was an ill-fated attempt by Yazld b. 
Abl Muslim to deal with them as Hadjdjadj had done. 
In the earliest days the khums had some importance 
and there were even attempts to treat the vanquished 
populations themselves as booty. 

Aghlabids. — New tax names (mazalim, kabaldt) 
appear, without definitions, and a distinct reference 
to the conversion of the tithe from a proportion, in 
kind, of produce, to a fixed sum per area. 

Idrisids. — Little information. The Jews of Fez 
were obliged to pay the dpzya. 

Rustamids. — This period affords the only (and 
probably idealized) account of the distribution of 
the agricultural produce accruing from taxation. 

Fatimids.— The taxation system seems to take 
on a better-organized aspect, though this may be 
an illusion due to the nature of the sources. For the 
first time we hear of a cadastral survey and of 
tawzif or tawzi'- ("apportionment" of tax ?), and an 
attempt to establish the fiscal system on a rational 
and regular footing. Customs or octroi dues are first 

Zirids, Hammadids, Berber Principalities 
(Maghrawa, B. Ifren, etc.), Almoravids.— In- 
formation is very sparse, but Ibn Khallikan describes 
the Almoravids' tax-collecting detachments com- 
posed of European mercenaries. 

Almohades.— c Abd al-Mu'min is traditionally 
remembered as the one who introduced hharddi into 
the Maghrib. However this may be understood it 
probably symbolizes some striking innovation on his 
part. These is in fact an obscure account by Ibn 
Abl Zar c of a land-survey which preceded the levying 
of kharddi. 

The sahib al-ashghdl (first mentioned in connexion 
with Mansur) was an important official in charge of 
finance. There seems to have been only one at any 



given time and he is always mentioned among the 
high officers of state. The mushrif, on the other 
hand, was a provincial official whose duties are not 
defined (but see the Hafsid muskrif below). We 
hear of khazdHn and buyut al-amwal "treasuries" 
but can only make guesses as to what these terms 
indicate. 

Hafsids. — A passage in ZarkashI (text 102, tr. 
188) indicates a vast proliferation of taxes but in 
fact there is nothing to indicate that they were not 
in fact just as numerous in former times. The 
Hafsids took over the title of sahib al-ashghdl, and 
presumably his office, from the Almohades. Later 
this official is referred to as munaffidh. His sub- 
ordinates are called 'ummdl. The mushrif is in 
evidence here also but now as head of the maritime 
customs, with his subordinates called mushtaghil. 
There were octroi duties (maks) collected by an 
official (he may have been a tax-farmer) called 
makkns. Tax-farming seems to have played a very 
minor r61e in the Hafsids' fiscal policies. Many 
communities escaped close central control and were 
taxed only intermittently, when forced. One receives 
the impression that the taxes did not bear unduly 
hardly on the taxpayer; the system seems in general 
to have been mild and regular. 

Marinids.— ^Since the Marinids inherited the 
Almohade machinery en bloc presumably their 
taxation system resembled that of the Almohades; 
but information is almost entirely lacking. Under 
Abu Sa'Id, however, tax-farming (if c Umari is to be 
believed) was the rule; his successor Abu '1-Hasan 
"abolished the illegal taxes". (Masdlik al-absdr, tr. 
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 170-1). 

Beylerbeys, Pashas, and Deys of Algiers. 
— Little is known, but the pillaging expeditions 
(mahalla) sent out by the Beys into the countryside 
may perhaps be looked upon as part of a fiscal 
system. The Turkish government exploited the 
country to its utmost with the aid of makhzan 
tribes and military colonies (zmdla) who were 
exempted from taxation; but its power hardly 
extended beyond the chief towns and the main 



Hasani Sharifs (Sa'dis).— During the days of 
the last Marinids and the B. Wattas much of 
Morocco had lost the habit of paying taxes. The 
first Sa'dis seem to have levied only an occasional tax 
in kind called ndHba, but later this became more or 
less permanent and payable in cash. The kharddf was 
re-introduced, not without revival of an old con- 
troversy concerning the legal status of the lands of 
the Maghrib. Certain monopolies were farmed out. 
and the Sultan took a percentage of the proceeds of 
piracy. Taxation was not only crushingly heavy, 
but it had extortion added to it. The Hasani makhzan 
is a prime specimen of a government organized 
solely to exploit the resources of the country for its 

Filali Sharifs ( c Alawis).— Mawlay Muhammad 
(1171/1757-1204/1789) is said to have established 
sundry market and commodity taxes, but it is 
difficult to believe that this was really an innovation. 
At Fez, perhaps elsewhere also, they were sometimes 
farmed out to the governor. Apart from these 
indirect taxes collectively called mustatdd the 
treasury received the "legal" taxes zakdt and 'ushur 
(the distinction between these two terms, originally 
synonymous, is not clear), and the ndHba mentioned 
above. Customs dues and the haddyd (customary 
"gifts" to the Sultan at the feasts) were received 
directly by the Sultan. The authority of the tax- 



collectors was reinforced by contingents of the gish 
(i.e., ajaysh) tribes, who were exempt from tax. 

Beys of Tunis.— The subject is obscure and still 
awaits the investigation for which the sources would 
probably prove quite abundant, but the picture 
seems to be similar in general to that under the Beys 
of Algiers. Though from about 1112/1700 onwards 
the Beys were accepted as a national hereditary 
dynasty they and their administration continued to 
be a parasite on the Tunisian body politic, concerned 
more with exacting the maximum for their private 
profit than with maintaining a sound and equitable 
fiscal system. Their failure in this respect and their 
indebtednsss to foreign creditors was one of the main 
causes of the imposition of the French protectorate 

Bibliography: Few writings are devoted 
exclusively to fiscal matters. The list below in- 
cludes most of those which attempt to deal with the 
topic in any detail. 

R. Brunschvig, La Berbirie orientale sous les 
ffafsides, des origines d la fin du XVme siecle, 
2 vols., Paris 1940-7, ii, 66 f f . ; J. F. P. Hopkins, 
Early Muslim government in Barbary, London 
1958; Michaux-Bellaire, Les impdts marocains, in 
Archives Mjarocaines, i; idem, V organisation des 
finances au Maroc, in Archives Marocaines, xi; 
Lecureuil, Historique des douanes au Maroc, in 
Arch. Mar., xv; Donon, Le rigime douanier du 
Maroc et le developpement du commerce marocain 
jusqu'a nos jours, Paris; J. Ganiage, Les origines 
du proteclorat franfais en Tunisie, Paris 1959. 

(J. F. P. Hopkins) 
(3) — O 1 1 o m a n Empire. In the Ottoman 
system the taxes were divided into two groups, 
hukuk-i sharHyye and rusum-i 'urfiyye. The former 
included 'ushr [q.v.] or ondahk, kharddi, djizya [q.v.], 
khums-i sharH levied on mil „rals mined and ghanima 
[q.v.]. Other Islamic taxes objected to by some 
legists, such as maks [q.v.], were included rather 
among the 'urfi taxes by the Ottomans (for the 
sharH taxes dealt with by the Ottoman legists see 
Molla Khusrew, Durar al-hukkdm ft shark ghurar 
al-ahkdm, Istanbul 1258, 129-43). On the other hand 
they added to the 'ushr an 'urfi tax called saldriyye 
or saldrlik which raised it from one-tenth to one- 
eighth, and collected some additional dues, rusiim or 
'ddat, on hives, fisheries, hay, and vegetables. Also 
d[izya was somewhat modified in its application in 
the Ottoman empire. 

The 'urfi taxes [see c urf] were those assessed by 
the Sultan and, in origin, were mostly pre-Ottoman 
local taxes. They were recorded by the Ottoman 
tahrir [q.v.] emins and proclaimed in the kdnun- 
ndmes (see kanun) of the sandjaks. With the develop- 
ment of 'urf this kind of taxation grew in importance, 
though from the ioth/i6th century there appeared 
a strong tendency to accommodate these taxes, at 
least formally, to the Sharing. 

The '■urfi taxes, generally called rusiim or '■ddat, 
were divided into various categories: 1. Up to the 
late ioth/i6th century the basic '■urfi taxes were 
lift resmi and ispendie [qq.v.]. The latter was paid by 
every adult non-Muslim at the rate of 25 aUe [q.v.] 
per person. Widows paid it at the rate of 6 akte 
under the name of biwe resmi. 2. Of the taxes levied 
on livestock the most important was 'ddet-i aghndm 
or koyun resmi which was usually I akte for two 
sheep, collected directly for the central treasury. 
The pasturage due, called yaylak resmi, otlak resmi 
or resm-i (erdghah was usually one sheep or its 
money equivalent for each flock of sheep of 300 



which passed over to another sandjak, kadd or timdr. 
It was paid to the person holding the land as timar 
or khdss (see tImar). 3. The dues called bad-i hawd 
[q.v.] or layydrdt were principally such dues levied 
on occasional cases as djerdHm or kanluh, fines, 
'arusdne or gerdeh resmi or nihdh aktesi bridegroom 
due, yawa and halhun, dues paid while recovering 
runaway cattle or slaves, lapu resmi, a due paid on 
entering into possession of a liftlik [q.v.]. DjerdHm 
was also called niydbet, because for each case a 
decision of a nd'ib appointed by the local kadi was 
necessary. 4- The principal imposts on trade were 
bddi or tamgha, market dues, paid per load; kapan 
(kabbdn) and mizdn or terdzu rusumu, duties levied 
at the public scales. There were also giimruk, 
customs duties, gelid resmi, tolls levied at mountain 
passes and river fords, kdprii hakkl, bridge-toll. 5. The 
state established monopolies on the trade of such 
commodities as salt, rice, wax-candles, soap, sesame 
and lumber. The monopoly of minting was also a 
large source of revenue [see dar ai.-darb]. 6. The 
'awdrid-i diwdniyye we tekdlif-i 'urfiyye [sec c awarid] 
were in origin certain services which the state 
required from its subjects to fulfil in emergency, 
but bedel, cash substitute for them, could be given 
instead and from the late ioth/i6th century this 
became a regular tax collected directly for the 
central treasury. 7. The fees paid by persons for 
whom a document, berdt, tedhkire, suret-i defter etc., 
was issued at a government office were another 
important source of revenue for the treasury. The 
rates were carefully fixed by law. The tax collectors 
or other officials sent by the Sultan were authorized 
to collect 'dHddt, fees and remunerations, for them- 
selves, and these in the period of the decline of the 
Empire became the source of many abuses. 

In addition to these 'urfi taxes there were some 
dues in contradiction to the Shari'a or to Ottoman 
administrative principles, which, nevertheless, con- 
tinued to be levied either by the state or ^"mar- 
holders as bid'ats. For example the treasury could 
not give up the large revenue obtained from the 
bid'at-i khinzir or domuz bid'atl, pig-tax. There were, 
however, some bid'ats called bid'-at-i merdude 
('rejected innovation') which were absolutely pro- 
hibited as against bid'-at-i ma'rufe ('acknowledged 

After its conquest each sandjak had its own 
kdnun embodying the 'urfi taxes. Most of them 
were taken over from the pre-Ottoman regimes, but 
after a period of adjustment the Ottomans usually 
extended their own kdnun-i 'Othmdni with typically 
Ottoman taxation. It seems to have formed still 
under strong local influences, Saldjukid and Byzan- 
tine in western Anatolia and Thrace in the late 
8th/i4th century. Its main characteristics can be 
seen in the kdnunndmes of western Anatolia which 
were extended to eastern Anatolia toward 947/1540. 
These characteristics were simplicity and the policy 
of abolition of all kinds of feudal services and dues. 
An excessive burden of local and feudal dues was 
replaced by a few taxes such as cift resmi, ispendje 
and 'ddet-i aghndm. It was provided that no tax 
should be levied twice under different names. This 
system did much in consolidating the Ottoman rule 
in Anatolia and Rumeli. But when in the late 10th/ 
16th century a profound economic and financial 
crisis shook the established order, and the rates of 
'awdrid, djizya and the other taxes paid in cash were 
raised in an attempt to adjust them to the depre- 
ciation of the currency (see Belleten, no. 60), and 
and the exactions of the 'askeri class [see c AskarI] 



in the provinces became more and more arbitrary, 
the whole Ottoman tax system underwent a funda- 

In the collection of taxes two basic systems were 
followed, the hawdla and mukdta'a or iltizdm [qq.v.] 
systems. A'shdr [see c ushr] as well as lift resmi, 
ispendje, bad-i hawd and most of the other 'urfi 
taxes were assigned as timdrs to the members of the 
'askeri class who collected them themselves in their 
respective timar lands. In view of the difficulties for 
the central government in collecting taxes in kind, 
such as a'shdr, and of the lack of adequate means 
of communication, this system was maintained as 
the best possible method at that time. In essence 
timar was a form of hawdla. The distribution and 
assignment of timdrs were made by tahrir and all 
this made a vast department of financial admini- 
stration called daftar-i khdkdni [q.v.] under a 
nishdndji [q.v.]. The total sum of the revenues in 
this section was about 200 million akle or about 
3.5 million gold ducats in 933/1527-934/1528. Income 
unrecorded in the defters [see basvekalet arsiviJ 
was to be collected by officers of the Sultan called 
mewkufdiu or mewkuldtdji, under the defterddr, 
directly for the treasury. 

Except for the a'shdr, shar'i taxes, resm-i berdt 
and tedhkire and bayt al-mdl (that is, escheated 
properties), mewkufdt, and the revenues from the 
imperial domains [see Kh ass] were collected for 
the central treasury, khizdne-i 'dmire, either directly 
by kuls, men of slave origin at the Porte, or through 
the iltizdm system. 

The following is an official statement of the 
revenues from these sources for the provinces of 
Rumeli, Anadolu, Karaman, Dhulkadriye and Rum 
in the fiscal year of 933/1527-934/1528 (Istanbul 
Vniv. Iktisat Fakultesi Mecmuasi, xv, 1-4, 269). 

mukdta'dt 71,524,055 akce 

djizya 46,056,305 akc~e 

resm-i berdt and tedhkire 1,897,625 akc~e 

bayt al-mdl, mewkufdt and md-bcyn. 1,928,257 akce 

This was about one fifth of the total amount of 






the state revenues 

important item in it, mukdta'dt, included 1 
revenues of the Imperial domains (Khdss-i Humdyun), 
state monopolies, khums-i shar'i, customs duties and 
imposts on trade. The mukdta'dt were usually 
farmed out to the multezims or mukdta'a 'dmili 
under the system of mukdta'a [q.v.], and their 
accounts were kept in the mukdta'a defterleri in the 
defterkhdne-i 'dmire (one of the oldest and most 
important of these defters covering the reign of 
Mehemmed II is in the Basvekdlet Archives, Istanbul, 
nos. 176, 6222, 7387). 

The iltizdm system was essential for the Ottoman 
finances from the beginnings of the state and was 
also used by the big «ma>-holders. Upon an order, 
hawdla, of the Sultan payments were made for state 
expenses directly by the multezims. From the 10th/ 
1 6th century onwards, the iltizdm system became 
dominant throughout the empire and the mukdta'as 
began to be farmed out for much longer periods; 
by the I2th/i8th century the governors of some 
provinces became multezims at the same time, which 
made them virtually autonomous. As the central 
authority weakened the abuses of the system grew 
until in 1255/1839, by the rescript of GiilUhane, 
iltizdm, termed a 'destructive instrument', was 
abolished. The system of emdnet, a system of 
collection of mukdta'a revenues directly by salaried 
employees called emin, was made general and 



muhassils, financial heads in the sandiaks [q.v.] with 
full responsibilities, were appointed. But the 
decrease in the state revenues under the neWsystem 
compelled the government to restore iltizam which 
lasted to the end of the Empire. 

Bibliography: Kdnunndme-i Al-i '■Othmdn, 
ed. M. Arif, supplements to TOEM, 1330-31; 
Fr.-Greifenhorst Kraelitz, Kdnunndme Sultan 
Mehmeds des Eroberers, in MOG, i, 13-48; '■Othmdnll 
Ifdnunndmeleri, in MTM, i-iii; 0. L. Barkan, XV. 
ve XVI. asir tarda Osmanh imparatorlugunda ziral 
ekonominin hukuki ve mall esaslan, I:Kanunlar, 
Istanbul 1943; 0. N. Ergin, Medjelle-i Umur-i 
Belediyye, i, 1st. 1922; A. Refik Altmay, 16. asirda 
Istanbul Hayah, 1st. 1935 ; L. Fekete, Die Siydqat- 
Schrift in der tiirkischen Finanzverwaltung, 2 vols., 
Budapest 1955; O. L. Barkan, Osmanh imparator- 
lugu "Butce" lerine dair notlar, 1st. Univ. Iktisat 
Fakilltesi Mecmuast, xv, 1-4 (1953-4), 238-329; 
xix, 1-4 (1957-8), 219-332; idem, Bazt biiyiik 
sehirlerde esya ve yiyecek fiatlartntn tesbit ve 
teftisi hususlarmi tanzim eden kanunlar, TV, vii/ 
40, ix, 168-177; J. Kabrda, Les anciens registres 
turcs des cadis de Sofia et de Vidin et leur impor- 
tance pour I'histoire de la Bulgarie, ArO, xix, (1951), 
329-92; R. Anhegger and H. Inalcik, Ifdnun- 
ndme-i Sultdni ber Muceb-i 'Orf-i 'Osmdni, 
Ankara 1956; N. Beldiceanu. Actes de Mehmed II 
et de Bayezid II .., Paris-Hague i960; M. de M. 
D'Ohsson, Tableau giniral de V empire othoman, vii, 
Paris 1824, 233-73; Hammer-Purgstall, Staats- 
verfassung; A. Heidborn, Les Finances ottomanes, 
Vienna-Leipzig, 1912; Gibb-Bowen, 1/2, 1-69; R. 
Mantran, Rdglements fiscaux ottomans. La police 
des marches de Stamboul au dibut du XVI' siecle, 
in CT iv, 1956, 213-41; idem, Un document sur 
l'lhtisab de Stamboul a la tin du XVII' siecle, in 
Melanges Louis Massignon, iii, 127-49; R- Mantran, 
and J. Sauvaget, Reglements fiscaux ottomans; les 
provinces syriennes, Beirut 195 1; B. Lewis, Studies 
in the Ottoman Archives-I, in BSOAS, xvi, 1934, 
469-501 ;B. A. Cvetkova, Impdts extraordtnaires 
et redevances d VEtat dans les territoires bul- 
gares sous la domination tut que (in Bulgarian), 
Sofia 1958; idem, Contribution a Vitude des impdts 
extraordinaires en Bulgarie sous la domination 
turque, R0, xxiii (1959), 57-65; idem, The System 
of Tax-farming (iltizam) w the Ottoman Empire 
during the i6th-i8th centuries with reference to the 
Bulgarian lands, (in Bulgarian) in Izvestiya na 
Instituta za pravni nauki, Bulgarian Academy of 
Sciences, xi/2, i960, 195-223; H. Inalcik, Ostnan- 
hlarda Raiyyet Rtisumu, Belleten xcii (1959), 575- 
610. (Haul Inalcik) 

(4) — Post-Ottoman Egypt. In the years 
immediately preceding the Napoleonic invasion of 
Egypt in 1798, the Egyptian government's principal 
source of revenue was derived from numerous 
taxes levied on the land. These fell into three main 
categories: (1) al-mdl al-hurr; (2) mdl (or khidmat) 
al-hushufiyya; and (3) supplementary taxes, the 
mudaf and barrani. The government farmed out all 
these land taxes to multazims who collected them 
through their agents, most of whom were members 
of the Copt corporation. 

The first of these taxes, al-mdl al-hurr, was com- 
posed of the miri and the fd'iz. The miri was a fixed 
tax, part of which was destined for the Sultan's 
Private Treasury in Istanbul while the remainder 
was kept in Egypt to support the cost of local 
government. The fd'iz went to the concessionaires 
of iltizam?, (tax farms), the amount of this tax being 



fixed by the terms of the concession. To increase 
their profits, the multazims eventually demanded 
the payment of extraordinary taxes (mudaf and 
barrani), collecting them regularly despite their 
illegality. The mdl al-hushufiyya paid for the military 
and administrative expenses within the Egyptian 
provinces. All these taxes were paid either in specie 

The government's other sources of revenue included 
a succession tax (hulwdn) paid by those heirs of 
multazims who desired to inherit tax farms; the 
ajizya [q.v.]; fixed tax on customs duties, which 
the tax farmers of customs were required to remit 
to the government; a tax levied on certain govern- 
ment officials whose functions involved the collection 
of recognized dues; duties on boats navigating 
Egyptian waters; duty on the corporation of gold- 
smiths; various levies on trades, merchants, and 
wikdlas, i.e., buildings designed for the reception of 
merchants and their goods ; the proceeds from grants 
of tax farms on the sale or manufacture of various 
products; and profits from the mint. About a 
quarter of the revenue obtained from these sources 
was sent to Istanbul along with the miri on land 
and some Egyptian produce for use in the saray and 
naval arsenal". 

This fiscal system remained substantially the same 
during the three-year period of the French occupation 
of Egypt. Napoleon announced shortly after his 
arrival in Cairo in July 1798 that he wished to change 
none of the existing institutions or traditional taxes 
but planned only to eliminate arbitrary exactions 
and to introduce a regular system of tax collection. 
Indeed, the only change he made at the outset was 
to join the lands formerly held by Mamluk multazims 
to the state domain for the profit of the French 
Republic (approximately two-thirds of the land of 
Egypt). Napoleon then confirmed the non-MamlQk 
multazims in their iltizdms. Taxes continued to be 
collected by the Copts, under the supervision of 
French inspectors. 

When Muhammad 'All became Pasha of Egypt in 
1805, he altered the fiscal system radically by ex- 
propriating the multazims and the beneficiaries 
(mutasarrif) of al-rizak al-ahbdsiyya, state lands 
which had been illegally endowed with the charac- 
teristics of wakf property. Wakfs on houses and 
gardens, i.e., endowments based on milk property, 
were not affected, however, since they were con- 
sidered sound or legal wakfs. As compensation for 
their loss, the multazims received a pension and the 
right to cultivate their wasiyya lands (the portion 
of the iltizdms which had been assigned to multazims 
for their exclusive enjoyment). Neither was heritable; 
upon the death of the multazims, these pensions 
ceased and the wasiyya lands reverted to the state. 
The beneficiaries of rizka lands also received a life 
pension while the state assumed the responsibility 
of maintaining mosques and charitable ii 
which had depended for their support upon re 
from these lands. 

A cadastre of all cultivated (ma l mur) lands was 
carried out in 1813-14; registers were prepared, 
listing the names of landholders, the quantity of 
land held, and the amount of the miri, now a single 
tax replacing the former complex schedule of taxes 
and rated according to the fertility of the land and 
ease of irrigation. The only lands excluded from the 
cadastral registers were the wasiyya lands of the 
expropriated multazims and the uncultivated or 
uncultivable land (the so-called ab'-ddiyya land). 
The rate of the land tax did not remain fixed at 



the 1813-14 level, but was augmented periodically 
as the Pasha's need for revenue mounted; nor did 
all the land remain under direct government super- 
vision. Instead, Muhammad 'All assigned estates to 
members of his family, to favourites, and to foreigners. 
Some of these estates were known as liftlik [q.v.]; 
others as ab'ddiyya (estates reclaimed from lands 
uncultivated at the time of the 1813-14 cadastre and 
granted on favourable terms); and c uhdas, estates 
consisting of bankrupt villages whose taxes were 
collected by their new landholders (muta'ahhids) 
rather than by members of the government hierarchy. 
The substance of the land (rakaba) of all these estates 
was retained by the state, the landholders possessing 
only usufructuary rights (tasarruf). 

Along with his land reforms, Muhammad 'All also 
monopolized all money crops (cotton in particular), 
creating in consequence of this new policy an im- 
portant source of revenue for the government. 

Other innovations, as well as the retention of 
taxes antedating Muhammad 'All, are reflected in 
the extant budgets of this period. Receipts fell into 
three major categories: (1) direct taxes; (2) customs 
and appaltos, farms for the collection of duties on 
sundry items granted by the government for one or 
more years; and (3) profits from agriculture and 
industry. Direct taxes incorporated taxes on property, 
i.e., miri (land tax), tax on date trees, on successions 
to city properties and gardens, duties on wikdlas, 
bazaars, and houses; taxes on persons, called furdat 
al-ru'us, a personal tax amounting to 3 per cent on 
known or supposed revenue of all the inhabitants of 
Egypt, which was paid by all government employees, 
including even foreigners, by Egyptian employees 
of non-government establishments, by falldhin, and 
by artisans and merchants, the djizya, and a duty 
on dancers, prostitutes, jugglers, and conjurers; 
taxes on things, i.e., duties on boats navigating 
Egyptian waters, fish of the Nile, salt, fruit, butchers' 
shops, hides, tallow, smelting of silver, galloons for 
goldsmiths, animals, irrigation implements (sdkiyas 
and shddufs), exportation of cereals from Egypt, 
tax on textile looms, stamp duty, quarantine and 
lock dues, profits of the mint and the Transit, and 
miscellaneous duties ; octrois, i.e., octroi on eatables 
and duty on grain entering Cairo. 

Revenues from customs and appaltos included 
customs collected at Damietta, Rosetta, Bulak, Old 
Cairo, Deraoui, Asyut, Suez, Djidda, al-Kusayr, and 
for merchandise coming overland from Syria; and 
appaltos on fish of Lake al-Manzala, Lake KarOn, 
and Bahr YOsuf, on wines, spirits, and liqueurs, on 
senna, on oil from linseed and other seeds. Profits 
from agriculture and industry were obtained from 
the sale of cotton, sugar, indigo, opium, henna, 
honey and wax, safflower, flax, linseed, seed (sesame, 
lettuce, and Carthamus), raw silk, rosewater, rice, 
tobacco, wheat, beans, barley, maize, lentils, cotton 
goods, linen goods, silks, calicos and handkerchiefs, 
raw and tanned hides, horns, natron (carbonate of 
soda), nitre, sal-ammoniac, lime, plaster, tiles, and 
mats. In addition, the government obtained revenues 
from freight carried by government boats, gums 
(from Sinnar), coffee (from al-Yaman), and elephant 

In general, Muhammad 'All's fiscal system endured 
until the British occupation of Egypt. Ibrahim 
Pasha introduced nothing new during his short 
reign, while 'Abbas altered the system very little, 
although he economized on those projects begun by 
his grandfather which seemed wasteful. He abolished 
those Hihdas whose proprietors had failed to comply 



with the terms of their concessions, and suppressed 
the octrois. He also relieved the tax burden of the 
peasants by removing a large part of the furdat al- 



Sa'Id Pasha, changed the existing 
fiscal system, somewhat, by ending the monopoly 
system and opening the country to free trade, 
allowing foreign merchants to deal directly with the 
Egyptian peasants. To compensate for the loss of 
revenue from government monopolies, he introduced 
a new policy regarding land taxes. Former tax-free 
lands were now taxed, some with the kharddj, and 
others with the c ushr, the rate of taxes being sub- 
stantially increased as well. In 1853, during 'Abbas's 
reign, the revenues from the land tax had amounted 
to 348,398 purses or £ 1,741,995; by 1858, Sa'id had 
increased them to 501,898 purses or £ 2,509,492, 
almost a 50 per cent increase on land taxes alone 
(Green, May 1, 1858, in F.O. 78/1401). In addition, 
Sa'id reinstated the entire furdat al-ru'us, adding it 
to the land tax. 

Sa'id's Land Law of 1858 introduced an important 
innovation of long-range significance. Under this law, 
the right to inherit, mortgage, and retain land 
permanently was granted to existing landholders, 
provided they paid their taxes. If these taxes were 
not paid within five years, the landholders were 
deprived of their lands permanently. This time 
limit, imposed by the new law, constituted a real 
change from traditional practices. Formerly, a 
peasant who had failed to pay taxes on his athar land 
(land held on usufructuary tenure but passed from 
father to son for generations) was dispossessed until 
such time as he was able to meet his obligations. In 
this way, he could always hope to recover his land, 
no time limit existing which could for ever alienate 
him from it. Indeed, the class most favoured by the 
Land Law of 1858 proved to be that of the rich 
landholders rather than of the poorer peasants. The 
ill effects of this law were particularly felt in the 
next reign. Those peasants who had over-extended 
their credit during the cotton boom of the 1860's 
were greatly in debt when the market collapsed at 
the end of the American Civil War. Consequently, 
many peasants, unable to pay their taxes, lost their 
land. To make matters worse, Isma'il's excessive 
demands deprived still more peasants of their land 
because of their inability to pay the government. 
The Khedive took advantage of the peasants' 
plight to add more and more of their land 
to his private estates, until he eventually possessed 
one-fifth of the agricultural land of Egypt, which 
he exploited for his own profit. 

Khedive Isma'il resorted to numerous expedients 
to increase his revenues. Among these was his 
Mukdbala Law of 1871 which provided that all land- 
holders agreeing to pay six years' taxes in advance 
would be permanently exempted from 50 per cent of 
their land tax, whether kharddi or 'ushr. This fiscal 
device failed to meet Isma'il's expectations because 
many landholders refused to take advantage of it. 
Isma'il was no sooner removed from office when the 
law was abrogated (1880) and taxes reimposed on 
all land. With the British occupation of the country 
in 1882, the fiscal functions of the Egyptian govern- 
ment passed into the hands of the British admini- 
strators. 

Bibliography: Articles by Comte Esteve, 
Memoire sur les finances de VEgypte depuis sa 
conquete par le sultan Selym I", jusqu'd cellc du 
gineral en chef Bonaparte, Michel- Ange Lancret, 
Memoire sur le systeme d'imposition territoriale et 



ISO DAI 

sur l' administration des provinces de l'£gypte, 
dans les dernieres annies du gouvernement des 
Mamlouks, and P. S. Girard, Mimoire sur I'agri- 
culture, I'industrie et le commerce de V&gypte, in 
Description de l'£gypte, £tat Moderne, ist ed., 
Paris, 1809, 1813, 1822; Silvestre de Sacy, Sur la 
nature et les rdvolutions du droit de propriiti ter- 
ritoriale en £gypte, depuis la conqutte de ce pays 
par les musulmans jusqu'd V expidition de Francois, 
published in three parts in Mimoires de I'Institut 
Royal de France, i, Paris 1815, 1-165, v, Paris 
1821, 1-75, and vii, Paris 1824, 55"i 2 4; c Abd al- 
Rahman al-Djabarti, '■Adi&Hb al-dthdr fi 'l-tarddiim 
wa 'l-akhbdr, 4 vols., Cairo 1 322/1904-5; Gibb- 
Bowen, i, Chapters V and VI, ii, 40-2; Georges 
Rigault, Le Gtntral Abdallah Menou et la derniere 
phase de V expidition d'Egypte (1799-1801), Paris 
191 1 ; Helen Anne B. Rivlin, The Agricultural 
Policy of Muhammad 'All in Egypt, Cambridge, 
Massachusetts 1961; Boutros Ghali, Rapport de 
S. E. Boutros Pacha Ghali, membre de la commission 
d'enquete de Vimpot foncier, prisenti d cette com- 
mission k 18 iivrier 1880, in Repertoire de la 
legislation et de V administration igyptiennes, ed. 
Philippe Gelat, Supplement, Alexandria 1890; 
Viscount Milner, England in Egypt, London 1909; 
The Earl of Cromer, Modern Egypt, London 1908; 
G. Douin, Histoire du Regne du Khedive Ismail, 
3 vols., Cairo 1933-41; Pierre Crabites, Ismail 
the Maligned Khedive, London 1933; David S. 
Landes, Bankers and Pashas, Cambridge, Mas- 
sachusetts 1958; diplomatic and consular records 
for Egypt deposited at the Public Record Office 
in London and in the Archives du ministere des 
affaires etrangeres in Paris. (Helen Rivlin) 
(5) — Persia. There is, on the whole, a remarkable 
continuity of practice in the matter of taxation in 
Persia from early Islamic times down to the 20th 
century; but whereas there was in early times 
an attempt to reconcile existing practice with 
Islamic theory and sporadic efforts to abolish non- 
shar'I taxes, after the break with tradition in 
early Mongol (Ilkhanid) times, in spite of the 
Islamization of the administration under Ghazan 
Khan and his successors, the general tendency 
was away from the Islamic theory of taxation 
towards a multiplication of taxes and dues and 
a greater variety of usage. Moreover, since there 
was no longer even an outward attempt to 
make the tax administration conform to the ideal of 
Islamic theory, the tendency towards arbitrary action 
increased; but the general principles of the 
system, the methods of assessment and collection, 
and the main problems to be faced did not vary 
greatly and such changes as took place prior to the 
20th century were of degree rather than of a 
more fundamental kind. New dynasties and new 
rulers did not involve fundamental changes in the tax 
administration. The tax regime of Uzun Hasan, laid 
down between 874/1470 and 882/1477, is alleged still 
to have been operative in Safawid times. Many oft he 
main features of the Kadjar tax administration are 
already to be seen under the Safawids, the period 
of Afshar and Zand rule having brought little that 
was new in the field of taxation. At no time, however, 
did a uniform system prevail throughout the country. 
In general the amount of money in circulation was 
limited; commerce was not highly developed and 
there was difficulty in transporting and remitting 
large sums of money, all of which affected the system 
of administration in general and of taxation in 
particular. Further, the tendency for the silver 



currency to depreciate makes it difficult to evaluate 
accurately the changes which took place in the amount 
of tax levied and its relative incidence. Money going 
into the Royal Treasury is alleged by various foreign 
observers to have been hoarded and seldom to have 
reappeared in circulation; but as against this the 
money thus accumulated would seem not infrequently 
to have been dissipated on military expeditions, 
accession gratuities to secure the throne against rival 
claimants, and other emergencies ; while the frequency 
with which the pay of the army and the official 
classes was in arrears suggests that the treasury was 
not always as full as might be supposed were the 
surplus revenue hoarded. In any case by the latter 
part of the 19th century there was a constant 
struggle to provide revenue to meet the growing 
demands of the administration and an extravagant 
court. No very clear distinction was made between 
the revenue of the state and the ruler's private 
income; any surplus eventually found its way into 
the royal purse. In the Safawid period there was 
a broad distinction between funds belonging to the 
state (mal-i masdlih), administered by the mustawfi 
al-mamdlik under the Grand Wazir, and the funds 
belonging to the royal household (mal-i khdssa), 
administered by the mustawfi of the diwan-i khdssa, 
corresponding roughly to the earlier division between 
the diwdn and the dargdh. How early this distinction 
is found is uncertain. Chardin affirms that it was 
first introduced by Shah Safi (A.D. 1629-42); in any 
case there was considerable overlapping between the 
two divisions. By Kadjar times the distinction 
between them such as it was had disappeared. The 
general tax structure and the broad division into 
"fixed" taxes (mdl wa diihdt and later mdliydt) and 
extraordinary levies and requisitions, and the 
purposes to which the revenue was devoted, namely 
the payment of the army, salaries of officials, 
pensions, and the upkeep of the royal court, were 
largely the same. Whereas, however, under the 
Safawids large areas of the empire were alienated 
from the direct control of the central government 
and little supervision exercised over the tax admini- 
stration of these areas, there was an attempt under 
the Kadjars to centralize the tax administration; 
but the farming of the taxes to governors and others 
made nonsense of this and by the 20th century 
chaos prevailed in the tax administration. Collection 
was profoundly unsatisfactory; such checks and 
controls as had been devised had broken down, and 
the system was oppressive in its operation. 

The most important of the "fixed" taxes were 
those levied on the land or its produce. A great 
variety of practice existed as regards both the 
method and rate of assessment. Moreover the 
extent of the area subject to the payment of land 
tax varied considerably. Much of the land as stated 
above was alienated from the direct control of the 
government in the form of tiyuh and suyurghdh, 
which carried full or partial immunity from taxation. 
The latter were granted mainly on crown lands, 
wakj land, and dead lands. According to Chardin the 
the Safawid empire was divided into "provinces" 
(mamdlik), i.e., indirectly administered areas, and 
directly administered territory (khdssa); the gover- 
nors of the former, he affirms, remitted to the 
central government only a lump sum by way of a 
present (pishkash) at the new year and a proportion 
of the produce and products of the province for the 
use of the royal court and workshops, retaining the 
remainder of the provincial revenue for the expenses 
of the provincial administration. To what extent 



such provincial governors under the Safawids and 
those of the provincial governors who farmed the 
revenues of their provinces under the Kadjars 
exercised freedom of action in the assessment and 
collection of taxes is not entirely clear. In either 
period the mustawfis of the central government 
prepared and sent, usually annually, to the provinces 
detailed assessments of the provincial districts, 
known as dastur al- c amal, according to which, or 
on the basis of which, the mustawfis in the provinces 
allocated the tax demand among the provincial 
population. It is also not clear to what extent wakf 
land was exempt from taxation. It seems in any 
case unlikely that those wakfs of which the ruling 
monarch was the mutawalli paid tax; Curzon states 
that wakf land was exempt from taxation, but it 
may be that exemption was, in fact, not automatic 
but granted by a special decree or farmdn. After the 
grant of the constitution in 1906, wakfs of which 
the reigning Shah was mutawalli were exempted from 
taxation on the grounds that the income of the Shah 
was not taxable; other types of wakfs were subject 

The land tax was assessed in three main ways: 
by measurement, as a proportion of the produce, 
or in a lump sum. The assessments were not made 
at regular intervals and were frequently hopelessly 
out of date; though where the tax due was assessed 
as a definite proportion of the crop, the government 
tax collectors of necessity estimated this annually. 
The most common form of assessment by Kadjar 
times was the computation of the revenue due from a 
town or village in a lump sum; this had the advantage 
of avoiding annual visits by the tax collectors to 
assess the amount of the crop. The tax due, assessed 
partly in cash and partly in kind, was known as the 
bunita of the area ; it included from about the middle 
of the 19th century also the number of soldiers 
which the area was required to provide or a sum 
equivalent to the wages of a given number of 
soldiers. The final allocation of the tax demand 
among the population of the town or village was 
made locally. Special remissions on account of 
natural calamities or in return for some special 
service were granted from time to time and occasional- 
ly became permanent. More often, however, addi- 
tional levies were made on account of arrears or to 
meet some emergency or special need, and the 
general tendency was for these to become part of the 
regular assessment. Further by the manipulation of 
the conversion rates (tasHr) by which taxes assessed 
at an artificial currency rate or in kind were con- 
verted into cash, the rate of taxation was increased. 
The assessments being usually out of date, it fre- 
quently happened that a village which had declined 
in prosperity and whose inhabitants had decreased 
on account of war, famine, emigration or some 
other cause, would be over-assessed and the amount 
of taxation due from the individual taxpayers 
automatically raised. Conversely villages which 
had increased in prosperity or had been newly 
developed were often under-assessed. 

The rate of the land tax varied; it was affected by 
the nature of the crops grown and sometimes by the 
type of irrigation. Under Uzun Hasan's tax regime 
the rate at which tax was levied on the produce of 
the land varied from 14 to 20 per cent of the produce ; 
in addition dues were levied on each plough-land. 
Under the Safawids a somewhat similar situation 
presumably prevailed; Chardin, however, states that 
the tax on silk and cotton was one third of the 
produce. The rate in Kadjar time seems to have been 



in the main some 20% of the crop; though a tradition 
affirms that prior to the reign of Fath 'All Shah the 
rate was one tenth. This rate seems unlikely, however, 
to have been generally current. In any case a wide 
variety of practice existed. On grain crops the tax 
demand was paid in kind, the grain thus obtained 
being stored in government granaries and held 
against emergencies such as military expeditions and 
famine, or in some cases sold at fixed prices to the 
local population. Where the tax demand was made 
in kind as a fixed proportion of the crop it was 
presumably usually levied on the threshing floor 
before the division of the crop between the landlord 
and the peasant. 

The extent of crown lands fluctuated. In cases 
where they were directly administered land tax as 
such was not levied, the whole of the produce after 
the deduction of the peasant's share going to the 
treasury. If leased, the rent paid by the tenant 
presumably included, or was in lieu of, land tax, 
and resembled an ordinary crop-sharing agreement. 
Under the Safawids the land round Isfahan was 
largely crown land and administered by a special 
diwdn under the mustawfi-i khdssa. 

In addition to the tax on the land or its produce 
water dues in the case of large rivers were levied. 
Pasture dues and a herd tax were also collected 
in some areas from both the settled and the semi- 
settled population; but their incidence and method 
of assessment varied. Among the other "fixed" 
taxes was a tax on real estate (other than agri- 
cultural land), such as baths, shops, water-mills, 
and caravanserais etc. (mustaghalldt), computed in 
early Kadjar times at 20 per cent of the estimated 
annual proift. Malcolm alleges that there had been 
large increases in crown property of this nature 
owing to confiscations after the fall of the Safawid 
and later dynasties. Where such property was rented 
by the crown to tenants, the rent presumably in- 
cluded, or took the place of, the tax levied on pri- 
vately owned property of this kind. A poll-tax was 
paid by non-Muslims, Jews, Armenians, and Zoro- 
astrians; and by foreigners unless granted special 
immunity. This derived from the canonical poll-tax 
or diizya. Various other sections of the community, 
including certain tribal groups, also paid what 
amounted to a poll-tax (sardna, sar-shumdri). There 
are references in various documents to some kind 
of house or family tax (khdna-shumdr). Poll-taxes 
were finally abolished by the law of 20 Adhar 
1305 A.H. (solar)/i926. 

Taxes were levied on the craft guilds, except where 
special immunities were granted, by a group assess- 
ment, also known as bunita. In Isfahan in Safawid 
times the kaldntar and nakib of Isfahan would 
assemble the guilds in the first three months of the 
year and the nakib would fix their bunita with the 
kadkhudd of the guild, this being subsequently 
allocated among the individual members of the guild. 
In practice, however, in the same way as the assess- 
ment of the land tax tended to become out of date 
so too was the bunita of the guilds often out of date. 
Craft guilds continued to pay tax in this way until 
1926, when this form of tax was abolished by the 
law of 20 Adhar 1305 A.H. (solar). 

As regards taxes on merchants there appears to 
have been no uniform practice. Certain commodities 
were from time to time subject to special taxes. For 
example the Tadhkirat al-Muluk mentions taxes on 
the tobacco trade. Market taxes were also in some 
cases levied. The main fixed taxes to which merchants 
were subject were road tolls (rdhddri) and customs 



dues. The former were usually levied at so much per 
animal load at each town, the rate at which they 
were levied varying. Customs duties were paid on 
merchandise at the port of entry or exit. In the 
Safawid period a duty of 10 per cent was levied by 
the customs houses in the Persian Gulf; on other 
frontiers the duty was levied per load. Certain 
exemptions and reductions were granted to various 
foreign merchants. By the Treaty of Turkomancay 
(1828) an ad valorem tariff of 5% was imposed on 
imports and exports by Russian merchants; in due 
course equivalent treatment was demanded by and 
granted to other nations. Persian merchants paid 
only 2 per cent but were subject in addition to road 
tolls. The revision of the customs tariff in 1903 
was prejudicial to Persia and partial to Russia. The 
customs and road tolls were usually farmed in each 
district. 

A levy on mines and pearl fisheries was made at 
the rate, in Safawid times, of one third of the produce. 
Similarly a levy of 2 per cent on coins (wddjibi) is 
mentioned. The mints were also a regular source of 
revenue in Kadjar times. In the latter part of the 
19th century the post and telegraphs became an 
additional source of revenue. 

Numerous other dues made up the "fixed" 
revenue. Here again a great variety of practice 
existed and there is little detailed information on 
the rates at which these various dues were levied. 
Many of them were still levied in the 20th century. 
Millspaugh notes that some two hundred mis- 
cellaneous taxes existed in 1922. Included among 
these dues were those paid to afficials, local and 
otherwise, which did not necessarily go through the 
officials of the revenue department and were in many 
cases collected locally and constituted the whole or 
a large part of the salary of the officials in favour of 
whom they were levied. The holders of tiyuls, 
annual grants, and suyurghdls in Safawid times 
paid a certain percentage of their assignments to 
various officials ranging from the wakil of the 
supreme diwdn to the daftarddr and other minor 
officials. More onerous than these, however, because 
more arbitrary in their incidence were the dues 
collected by local officials as their perquisites of 

A further charge on the peasants and some of the 
craft guilds was labour service exacted by the state 
or a money payment taken in lieu of this. The 
incidence of labour service varied from place to 
place and it is difficult to assess it in money terms. 
The exaction of such service however could not fail 
to degrade the station of the peasant and artisan 
and to emphasize his subjection to authority. 

The liability of the taxpayer was not limited to 
the payment of "fixed" taxation; perhaps the most 
onerous forms of taxation to which he was subjected 
were constituted by extraordinary levies, of which 
sddirdt and suyursdt were the most widespread and 
the most burdensome, and "presents" (pishkash), 
casual and otherwise. Sddirdt comprised levies made 
to meet special expenditure such as that occasioned 
by a military expedition, the construction or repair 
of a royal building, or some special festivity, or 
simply to make good a deficit in the revenue. Ac- 
cording to the nature of the occasion the whole 
country or a district or section of the community 
only was subjected to the levy. Its incidence was 
arbitrary in the extreme and its levy gave great 
scope for the show of partiality and the exercise of 
"injustice. Suyursdt consisted of levies made for the 
keep and expenses of military forces, government 



officials, and foreign envoys passing through the 
country and like the sddirdt bore heavily upon the 
peasantry. Presents (pishkash) were of two kinds, 
"casual" and "regular". The latter were remitted 
annually at the New Year and in some cases on 
certain religious festivals, such as the Stf-t mawlud, 
by provincial governors, chiefs of tribes, and high 
officials. The amount of these presents was fixed 
broadly by custom. The occasions for the levy of 
casual presents were various. On the assumption of 
office by governors and high officials a payment, 
virtually equivalent to purchase money, was often 
expected and made; the grant of a khil c a in many 
cases would cost its recipient a sum commensurate 
with his position in society; the progress of the shah 
through a district would involve the presentation 
of presents by all and sundry; similarly the visit 
of the Shah to the house of a favoured minister would 
impose upon the latter and his family and retainers 
heavy expenses in the form of presents; further, 
the heirs of the numerous body of persons . who 
received pensions from the state had frequently to 
purchase the renewal of these grants, as did also 
the holders of tiyuls and their heirs. This system of 
pishkash extended throughout the administration; 
not only did the Shah expect and receive pishkash, 
his governors and ministers also demanded and 
received similar treatment in the areas under their 
jurisdiction and from their subordinates. 

Another irregular source of revenue, the extent of 
which, though difficult to compute, was no doubt 
considerable was confiscation (musddara) from 
officials dismissed from office, fines, and bribes. To 
these were added from the second half of the 19th 
century A.D. onwards considerable sums received 
from monopolies, concessions, and royalties. 

In the latter part of the reign of Nasir al-Din 
various steps were taken to unify the tax admini- 
stration of the country, abolish certain of the 
irregular taxes and requisitions, increase the revenue, 
and improve collection. A decree of 1303/1885-6 laid 
down certain changes in the collection of the revenue 
and attempted to define the financial responsibility 
of the governor. Instructions were issued for a new 
land survey and the levy of land tax at the rate of 
10 per cent of the produce and various dues in 
1307/1889-90. These and other measures were not, 
however, attended by any marked degree of success 
and were not operative throughout the country. 

Full figures cannot be given for the total revenue 
owing to the impossibility of computing the extent 
of the revenue outside the "fixed" taxes. According 
to the Tadhkirat al-Muluk the state revenue (i.e., 
excluding revenue from the kkdssa) in late Safawid 
times amounted to c. 800,000 tilmdns. 61 per cent 
of this came from taxes registered in the awdrija, 
which Prof. Minorsky thinks may have been land 
taxes ; levies including rents from real estate excluding 
agricultural land, etc. accounted for 14.5 per cent, 
mines for 2 per cent, and produce and products 
remitted to the royal workshops for 1.5 per cent. 
According to the same source the total cost of the 
army and administration was 491,986 tumdns 
57,000 dinars, of which 396,792 tilmdns went to 
amirs and governors. The first charge on the pro- 
vincial revenues was the cost of the provincial 
administration. Under the Kadjars in addition to the 
regular tax assessment the provincial governors 
levied a sum known as tafdwut-i '■amal for the 
expenses of the administration. Only after defraying 
local expenses and the payment of special drafts 
made on the local revenue by the central government 



was any surplus remaining remitted to the central 
treasury. According to Malcolm the "fixed" revenue 
in the early 19th century A.D. amounted to about 
three millions sterling. Local estimates put the 
receipts from Naw Ruz presents at two fifths of the 
"fixed" revenue, from fines one fifth of the "fixed" 
revenue, and the sum levied by public requisitions 
two fifths of the "fixed" revenue, the total revenue 
of the Shah being thus estimated at c. 6 millions 
sterling, only a proportion of which was paid in 
cash and large deductions being made for the ex- 
penses of collection before remission to the central 
government. Curzon estimates the "fixed" revenue 
at 55,369,516 tumdns (or £ 1,652,820, converted at 
33V2 k'rdns to the £ sterling, the rate prevailing in 
1888), comprising taxes in cash 36,076,757 tumdns, 
in kind (converted at government rates) 10,100,983 
tumdns, customs 8,000,000 tumdns, and posts, mints, 
telegraphs, etc. 1,191,776 tumdns. Expenditure, 
excluding local charges for the collection of revenue, 
reductions for bad harvests, etc., he estimated at 
42,233,472 tumdns (£ 1,260,700), comprising main- 
tenance of government buildings 2,633,472 tumdns, 
and the army, central administration, pensions, 
allowances, and the Shah's establishment, etc. at 
21,600,000 tumdns, showing a surplus of 13,136,044 
tumdns (£ 392,121). These figures, however, do not 
give a true picture of revenue and expenditure since 
not only is the revenue derived from sources other 
than "fixed" taxes and dues omitted, but also 
expenses for military expeditions and equipment, 
foreign journeys, and unforeseen emergencies. The 
total picture was far less favourable and such 
reserves as may have been accumulated were rapidly 
dissipated in the second half of the 19th century 
A.D. and the early years of the 20th century. Foreign 
loans were contracted to make good budgetary 
deficits, for the servicing of which the customs were 
mortgaged. By 191 1 there was an annual deficit of 
c. 6,000,000 tumdns, which in fact was usually 
increased to some 11,000,000 tumdns because the 
"fixed" taxes were not collected in full. By 1922 there 
had been considerable changes in the proportions 
of the total revenue derived from different sources; 
nearly half the revenue was derived from the 
customs tariff, and oil royalties constituted a not 
inconsiderable part of the national revenue. 

The grant of the Constitution in 1906 marks the 
beginning of a new phase in the tax system of Persia. 
Under the constitution the approval of the National 
Assembly was necessary for the regulation of all 
financial matters, the preparation and execution of 
the budget, the imposition of new taxes, the reduc- 
tion and exemption of existing taxes, the sale and 
transfer of national resources and property, and the 
grant of concessions. One of the first actions of the 
newly convened National Assembly in 1907 was to 
appoint a committee to examine the question of 
financial reform. As a result of their labours the 
number and amount of the pensions and grants 
paid to individuals were reduced, the revenue assess- 
ments of the provinces were revised and the tafdwut-i 
c amal abolished; tiyuls were also abolished, and 
conversion rates (tasHr) abrogated. In the same year 
a Frenchman, M. Bizot, was appointed financial 
adviser for two years; he had no powers and his 
mission proved abortive. In 1911 an American, 
Mr. W. M. Shuster, was appointed Treasurer-General 
of Persia with a view to reorganizing the chaotic and 
archaic state of the financial administration. He was 
forced, however, by Russian diplomatic pressure to 
leave the country after some months. The finances 



[BA 153 

of the country continued in a state of disorder and 
during the first world war the administration broke 
down. In 1922 another American, Dr. A. C. Mill- 
spaugh, was appointed Administrator-General of the 
Finances, and it is from this date that the reform 
in the tax system of the country promised by the 
constitution really began and the foundations of a 
modern system of taxation were laid. 

Bibliography: Josafa Barbaro and Ambrogio 
Contarini, A Narrative of Italian Travels in Persia 
in the 15th and 16th Centuries (Hakluyt Society, 
1st ser., vol. 49); E. G. Browne, The Persian 
Revolution of 1905-6, Cambridge 1910; J. Chardin, 
Voyages du Chevalier Chardin, en Perse, et autres 
lieux de VOrient . . . (ed. L. Langles), 10 vols., 
Paris 181 1 ; G. N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian 
Question, 2 vols., London 1892; G. Demorgny, Les 
Institutions financieres de la Perse, Paris 1915, 
Pjamalzadeh, Gandi-i Shdyagdn, Berlin 1919, 
R. Du Mans, Estat de la Perse en 1660, Paris 1890; 
J. B. Fraser, Narrative of a Journey into Khorasdn 
in the years 1821 and 1822, London 1825; Mochar 
Ghadimy, Les Finances de la Perse, Paris 1920; 
Great Britain, Department of Overseas Trade, 
Report on the Finances and Commerce of Persia, 
1925-7, by E. R. Lingeman, 1928; J. Greenfield, Die 
Verfassung des Persischen Stoats, Berlin 1904; Sir 
Thomas Herbert, Some Yeares Travels (3rd ed., 
1665); W. Hinz, Das Steuerwesen Ostanatoliens 
im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert in ZDMG, c.i. (New 
Series, xxv, 1950); E. Kaempfer, Amoenitatum 
exoticarum etc., Lemgo 171 2; J. Macdonald 
Kinneir, A Geographical Memoir of the Persian 
Empire, London 1813; A. K. S. Lambton, Landlord 
and Peasant in Persia, OUP, 1953; I. de Laet, 
Persica, gen regni Persici status variaque itinera 
et atque par Persiani, Leiden 1633; E. Lorini, La 
Persica economica contemporanea e la sua questione 
monetaria, Rome 1900; Sir J. Malcolm, The 
History 0) Persia from the Most Early Period to the 
Present Time, 2 vols., London 1829; A. C. Mill- 
spaugh, Americans in Persia, Washington, 1946; 
idem, The American Task in Persia, New York 
and London 1928; idem, The Financial and 
Economic Situation of Persia, Washington 1926; 
F. Mochaver, L'Evolution des finances iraniennes, 
Paris 1938; 'Abdullah Mustawfi, Sharh-i zindagi-i 
man, 3 vols., Tehran 1945-6; H. Naficy, L'Impdtet 
la vie iconomique et sociale en Perse, Paris 1924; 
A. Olearius, Voyages tres curieux et tres renommes 
faits en Moscovie, Tartaric, et Perse, 2 vols, in one, 
Amsterdam 1719; The Royal Institute of Inter- 
national Affairs, The Middle East, London 1959; 
P. Sanson, Voyage on relation de VEtat present du 
royaume de Perse, Paris 1695; W. M. Shuster, The 
Strangling of Persia, London and New York 1912; 
E. Stack, Six Months in Persia, 2 vols., London 
1882; Tadhkirat al-Muluk, Persian text in facsimile 
tr. and explained by V. Minorsky (G.M.S., London, 
Leyden 1943); L. Tigranov, Iz obshtestvenno- 
ekonomileskikh otnosheniy v Persii, St. Petersburg 
1909; A. T. Wilson, Persia, London 1932. 

(Ann K. S. Lambton) 
(6) — India (a) The Sultanate of Dihli. 
The fiscal administration of the Sultanate of Dihli 
was modelled to a considerable extent upon the 
pattern evolved under the c Abbasids. One of the 
earliest wazirs was Fakhr al-DIn c Is5mi, who had 
served at Baghdad before he joined the court 
of Iletmish (607-33/1210-35) (Firishta, i, 117). The 
sultans, however, had to take into consideration 
Hindu traditions, especially in their agrarian policies. 



Their fiscal administration, therefore, was based 
upon precedents developed by the Muslim admini- 
strators and jurists of the Eastern Caliphate with an 
admixture of Hindu traditions. The reconciliation 
of Islamic law and patterns with native tradition did 
not prove too difficult because of certain similarities 
between the two. 

A group of taxes payable only by the Muslims 
came under the category of zakdt. The State does 
not seem to have levied the zakdt on personal 
property, but left it to the discretion of the indivi- 
dual to fulfil his duty in this respect. The State 
demand on the produce of the '■ushri lands, the 
prescribed c ushr being 5% or 10% of the gross 
produce, was levied by the State like other revenue. 
The c ushri lands formed an insignificant proportion 
of the total area under cultivation. All imports paid 
a zakdt of 2 1 l s %. In the case of non-Muslim mer- 
chants the rate was doubled. This was the only tax 
paid by non-Muslims which was classified as zakdt. 

Property left by Muslims dying without heirs 
belonged to the State and was earmarked for 
charitable purposes. The property of a dhimmi 
dying in similar circumstances was handed over 
to his community. 

Diizya was levied in accordance with the rulings 
of the Hanafi jurists. Buddhists and Hindus were 
recognized as dhimmis along with 'the peoples of 
the Book'. Muhammad b. Kasim, the conqueror of 
Sind, first extended the status of dhimmis to 
Buddhists and Hindus and no subsequent ruler 
withdrew it. The sultans of Dihli assessed diizya in 
their own money; they charged ten, twenty, and 
forty iankas per annum, in accordance with the 
income of the assessee (Shams-i Siradj c Afif, Ta'rikh-i 
Firuzshdhi, Calcutta 1890, 383). Imbecile old men, 
cripples, the blind, and those who had not enough 
to pay the tax after defraying the cost of their 
living, were excused. Women and children also were 
exempt. Non-Muslim servants of the State also were 
not required to pay the diizya. The Brahmans 
remained exempt most of the time. Only Firuz Shah 
{752-90/1351-88) demanded diizya from the Brah- 
mans, who protested and made a demonstration in 
front of the palace (ibid, 382-4). The sultan did not 
forego the tax in its entirety, but he relented to 
the extent of assessing all Brahmans according to 
the lowest rate. Even this assessment was paid by 
charitably inclined rich Hindus who wanted to 
relieve the Brahmans of the burden. This is the only 
instance on record of a public protest against diizya. 
The Hindus perhaps did not find the idea of a poll- 
tax difficult to accept because it was also embedded 
in their own tradition. The Gaharwars of Kanawdj 
had levied Turushkadanaa, either from the Muslims 
resident in their dominions or from all their subjects, 
as a contribution to defence against the encroach- 
ments of the Turks. Even during the British period 
a poll-tax was levied by some Rajput states. 

The most important source of revenue and the 
mainstay of the financial stability of the Sultanate 
was kharddi. The bulk of the cultivated area in the 
Sultanate consisted of kharddii lands. Some grants 
to Muslims were classified as 'ushri lands; any other 
land in the possession of a Muslim or a dhimmi was 
considered to be kharddii. There was no ard al-mam- 
laka. The territories of tributary chiefs, so long as 
they remained true to their agreements, were treated 
as sulhi. From these areas the State received only a 
fixed sum of money stipulated at the time of the 
treaty. The State did not concern itself with the 
internal administration of such areas or with the 



relations between the peasants and tributary chiefs. 
The principle of the kharddi al-mukdsama was 
applied to the kharddii lands. This was found con- 
venient because the Hindus were used to various 
forms of sharing the produce of their lands with 
the State, as they recognised that the State was 
entitled to a share of the agricultural produce. As 
the share of the State was traditionally considered 
to be a defined percentage of the actual produce, 
the basic principle of kharddi al-mukdsama was 
acceptable to the Hindus. Thus the requirements 
of the shar 1 and Hindu tradition could be easily 
reconciled and there was no need to create confusion 
by any radical change in the principles of assessing 
the State demand on agricultural produce. The 
Hindus had developed various methods of sharing 
the produce with the State before the establishment 
of Muslim rule. These included actual sharing 
through grain heaps of equal size, appraisement and 
the division of the field. Through long experience 
appraisement gained considerable accuracy and, 
because of its convenience, was widely adopted. 
Gradually the average yield in a unit of homogeneous 
area came to be so well established in popular 
knowledge that it was sufficient to measure the 
area under cultivation to calculate the yield. All 
these developments were intended to spread the 
time of assessment so that the harvest would not lie 
in the open field awaiting the arrival of the assess- 
ment team. The village accountant, the paiwdri, 
kept a record of the area cultivated and the crops 
raised in every season. He also kept a record of the 
average yield. These traditional methods, called 
Sharing, Appraisement and Measurement, 
were left almost intact by the sultans of Dihli. The 
sultans encouraged Measurement, because they 
found this device a more convenient method of 
accounting and collection. Its great weakness was 
that it worked satisfactorily only in normal seasons. 
If the rains failed or the area suffered from some 
other disaster, the normal yields could not be 
expected. It was then necessary to revert to 
Appraisement or Sharing. If the peasant felt 
that the Appraisement was not fair, he could 
always elect Sharing. This was an insurance against 



The proportion of the State demand to the gross 
produce varied in accordance with local tradition. 
In the areas conquered and brought under effective 
administration up to the reign of 'Ala' al-DIn Khaldii 
(695-715/1296-1316) the prevailing proportion was a 
fifth of the yield; because of the increased expendi- 
ture upon the army on account of Mongol pressure, 
c Ala' al-Din raised it to the maximum allowed under 
the shar'-: a half (I. H. Qureshi, The Administration of 
the Sultanate of DehU, Karachi 1958, 103 ff.). Ghiyath 
al-Din Tughluk again reduced it to a fifth. When his 
son Muhammad b. Tughluk (725-52/1325-51) tried 
once more to increase the level in the Do'ab by ten to 
twenty per cent, there was rebellion. A fourth of 
the gross yield seems to have been stabilized as the 
recognized demand before Shir Shah (945-52/1538-45) 
came to the throne (ibid., 11 1-9). However, in 
certain desert areas, the demand was as low as a 
seventh; there also seem to have been certain 
outlying provinces, such as Gudjarat, where it was 
a half. 

The spoils of war, technically called ghanima, 
were shared between the State and the soldiers. 
Legally the State was entitled to a fifth, but because 
the soldiers were paid salaries out of the Public 
Exchequer, the sultans considered it fair to give a 



fifth to the soldiers and to deposit four fifths in the 
public treasury. Under FIruz Shah the legal ratio 
was restored ('Ayn al-Mulk Mahru, Inshd'-i Mahru, 
Letter xv. [MS. in Bankipore Public Library, Patna, 
India]). The State was also entitled to a fifth of all 
minerals, provided they were capable of being 
melted and bearing an imprint. The same applied 
to treasure trove, if it consisted of unstamped bullion 
or of money minted before the Muslim conquest. 
In addition to the above taxes, local imposts were 
continually imposed in spite of repeated abolitions 
by the State. These went mostly into the pockets of 
the local authorities and did not contribute to the 
income of the State. They had come down from very 
early times and were so deep-rooted in the habits 
of the people that their effective abolition was 
difficult. They were not excessive and were generally 
petty levies on certain professions and the sale of a 
few commodities (Qureshi, op. cit., Appendix H, 
244 if.). 

The fiscal administration of the Sultanate was 
vested in the diwdn-i wizarat, which was presided 
over by the wazir. He was assisted by a deputy. 
The mushrif-i mamalih was the accountant-general, 
and the mustawfi-i mamalih the auditor-general 
( c Afif, op. cit., 419-20). Every provincial capital 
had its own diwdn-i wizarat which was a replica of 
the central diwdn-i wizarat and functioned under 
its control (Qureshi, op. cit., 200-1). Every pargana, 
the smallest unit of revenue administration, con- 
sisting of a number of villages, had its c dmil under 
whom there was an accountant, a treasurer and a 
field survey and assessment staff. The village 
accountant and registrar, called patwdri, kept all 
records concerning cultivation, assessment and 
yields (ibid., 208, 209). 

The zakdt on imports was assessed and collected 
at the local sard-i c adl. Ghanima was administered 
by the diwdn-i 'ard; the property of Muslims dying 
heirless went to the office of the local kadi. 

Bibliography: MSS. sources: Shams-i 
Siradj c Aflf, TdMkh-i Firuzshdhi, Calcutta 1890; 
Diya al-DIn BaranI, Td'rikh-i Firuzshdhi, Calcutta 
1862; FIruz Shah, Futuhdt-i Firuzshdhi, British 
Museum MS. Or. 2039; idem, Sirat-i Firuzshdhi, 
MS. in Bankipore Public Library, Patna, India; 
c Abd al-Hamld Muharrir Ghaznawl, Dastur al- 
Albdb fi c Ilm-i 'l-hisdb, MS. in Rampur State 
Library, Rampur, India; Ya'kub Muzaffar 
Kirmanl, Fikh-i Firuzshdhi, India Office Library 
MS. IOL 2987; Muhammad c Ali Kufi, Caindma, 
Dihli 1939; <Ayn al-Mulk Mahru, Inshd-i Mdhru, 
MS. in Bankipore Public Library, Patna, India. 
Modern Works: Agha Mahdi Husain, Le 
Gouvernement du Sultanat de Delhi, Paris 1936; 
W. H. Moreland, The Agrarian System of Moslem 
India, Cambridge 1929; I. H. Qureshi, The 
Administration of the Sultanate of Dehli, Karachi 
1958; R. P. Tripathi, Some Aspects of Muslim 
Administration, Allahabad 1936. 

(I. H. Qureshi) 
(b) The early Mu glials. No conspicuous modi- 
fication of the system described above was attempted 
until the time of Shir Shah. Babur and HumSyun 
made no changes in the existing system, largely the 
result of Sikandar Lodl's improvements, which they 
adopted in its entirety; the statistical returns of 
BSbur's times were based on the rent-rolls of Sikandar 
Lodi, and all calculations were made in accordance 
with Sikandar's prescriptions on standards and com- 
putation. Both Babur and HumSyun granted new 



djdgirs. The account of the reconstruction of the 
central administration in Humayun's reign (Kh w and 
Amir, Humdyun-ndma, see Bibliography) suggests 
that there was no change in the work of the 
revenue ministry, now called diwdni. 

The interrex Shir Shah was the first ruler to 
rationalize taxation, especially in respect of the chief 
source, the land. He tried to counteract the recurring 
tendencies to impose extra-legal taxes on the culti- 
vators, but there is no evidence that he conscien- 
tiously applied the Islamic principles of taxation: 
diizya and zakdt are not mentioned in contemporary 
records, although the later Ta'rikh-i Ddwudi gives 
an extensive list of the sources of state income under 
heads other than land-revenue : sales tax, conveyance 
duty, ground rent from market vendors, tax on 
sugar refinery, ferry tax, grazing tax, cattle tax, 
profession tax from various artisans, gambling tax, 
and diizya and pilgrim tax on Hindus. Shir Shah is 
said to have forbidden the realization of transit dues 
and octroi, but how far this prohibition was effective 
is doubtful ; it is probable that a distinction was made 
between didgir and khdlisa territories. Property of 
intestates most probably escheated to the state. 
Presents to the Emperor do not seem to have been 
exploited by Shir Shah. The changes he introduced in 
respect of kharddi lands seem to have been the 
result of the practical experience he acquired in 
administering the didgir his father had been assigned 
under the Lodls. Sharing of the ripened crop 
(ghalldbakhshi) and appraisement [(hankut, mu%- 
(aH) or visual estimation of the standing crop, the 
hitherto prevailing systems of assessment, were found 
difficult to operate effectively owing to the large 
numbers of personnel needed to apply them and 
because of the temptations for collusion between 
ri c dya and official; in their place measurement 
(dabt) was reintroduced wherever practicable; 
Bengal and Multan remained under appraisement 
until within Akbar's time, and in the latter province 
when taken for Shir Shah in 950/1543 the governor 
was ordered to observe the customs of the Langahs 
and take no more than one-fourth of the produce as 
revenue {Ta'rikh-i Shir Shdhi, tr. Elliot, iv, 399); 
elsewhere one-third was taken, reckoned by an 
averaging system: for all the principal staples the 
good, medium, and bad yields per bighd were added 
and then divided by three to give the 'average 
produce' (mahsul) per bighd; of this one-third was 
taken as the state's share {AHn-i Akbari, i, 297 ff.; 
tr. Jarrett, ii, 62 ff.) ; the obvious effect of this was 
to over-assess the bad lands and under-assess the 
good. This was presumably only applied in the 
ftfcdHsa-lands ; no information is available on revenue 
collection in the didgir lands, which were still being 
granted by Shir Shah. 

The ten years following Shir Shah's death in 952/ 
1545 were a period of confusion; it is reasonable to 
assume that his methods persisted, since they were 
adopted in Akbar's reign. It is recorded (Ta'rikh-i 
Ddwudi, tr. Elliot, iv, 479-81) that Islam Shah 
replaced didgirs by cash salaries, but this seems to 
have been a temporary measure. 

Under Akbar most of the general sources of 
revenue (sdHr) described above continued unchanged, 
except that the djizya and the tax on Hindu pilgrims 
were early abolished. Customs duty, only 2*1, to 3 per 
cent ad valorem, was exacted at the ports (classified 
as major (bandargdh) and minor (bdra); 27 
bandargdhs and 45 bdras are mentioned in the 
Mir'dt-i A hmadi, Khdtima, 239) by a mutasaddi with 
a large staff, and at the land frontiers. Certain internal 



transit duties were also levied, including terry taxes. 
Other regular taxes included those on salt — in some 
districts accruing to the provincial revenue, in others 
to the central administration — ; fisheries, particu- 
larly the Bengal fish-tanks; rdhddri, a road tax 
for merchants in exchange for protection; and 
panddri, a sales tax. Regular revenue from non- 
tax sources included that from copper, zinc, and 
silver mines (AHn, index); mints (6,174,500 dam 
is mentioned as mint income in the Mir'dt-i A hmadi, 
I. O. Ethe 3599, f. 728b), which were established in 
the principal towns of the empire (R. B. Whitehead 
in JASB, N.S. viii, 1912, 425-531; N.S. xi, 1915, 
231-7; G. P. Taylor in JASB,N.S. x, 1914, 178-9; see 
also dar al-darb, c.) ; and tribute from vassal chiefs 
(e.g., the revenue of the suba of Adjmer amounted 
to over 7,200,000 rupees, three-quarters of which 
comprised tribute from Radjput chiefs; other 
tributary domains were in Gudjarat, Ufisa and 
Central India). Irregular revenue included presents 
on appointment (salami), escheat through intestacy 
or forfeiture, treasure trove, and khums (one-fifth of 
war booty reserved for the imperial exchequer). 

The greatest single source of recurrent revenue was 
from the land, demanded under several different 
systems during Akbar's long reign, and documented 
in great detail in the AHn-i Akbari and other con- 
temporary texts (see Bibliography). The old methods 
of ghaUdbakhshi (which prevailed in Sindh when the 
AHn was compiled, for where there are no records 
of any survey or measurement) and kankut remained 
in force for some areas, but the most favoured system, 
dabt, was subject to a number of experiments in the 
first twenty-four years of the reign. First Shir 
Shah's schedule of assessment rates was adopted for 
general use by the regent, Bayram Khan, on the 
basis of a demand of a prevailing rate of one-third 
of the average produce, stated in grain. "From the 
beginning of this eternal reign, every year unavari- 
cious and high-minded experts used to ascertain 
prices and lay them before the royal court; and 
taking the schedule of crop yield and the prices 
theroof, used to fix the schedule of demand rates 
(dastur); and this caused great vexation" (AHn, i, 
347, trans. I. H. Qureshi in JPakHS, i/3, 1953, 208); 
but by the tenth year the uniform schedules gave 
place to differential schedules based on local price 
rates, the measuring instruments had been standar- 
dized, and land had been classified in accordance 
with the time it had been cultivated (bandiar, 
uncultivated for five or more years; puladi, cultivated 
for more than five years; puladi land lying fallow for 
a short time was pafawti, but for three of four years 
was called (alar; when bandiar land was brought 
under cultivation the demand was one-fifth of the 
norm for the first year, increasing yearly until the 
full puladi ra 'e wa s attained; there was a similar 
differential rate for (alar; pafawti was untaxed but 
paid the full puladi rate on being taken into culti- 
vation again). The dabt system was abolished in the 
khdlisa lands in the thirteenth year (976/1569) under 
the specially appointed Shihab al-Din Ahmad Khan, 
who discontinued the annual assessment and estab- 
lished a nasak ((Akbar-ndma, ii, 333), not precisely 
defined but assumed to be a form of assessment 
analogous to kankut administered through the 
mukaddams (according to Moreland, Appx.D, 
"group-assessment", where the term is discussed). 

A new system was introduced in the fifteenth year 
(978/1571) when Muzaffar Khan and Radja Todar 
Mai were appointed to the wizara, having been set 
in motion in the eleventh year (on the dating 



question, see Moreland, Appx.E), described in 
AHn, i, 347: kdnungos ("interpreters of customs", 
accountants and registrars of the pargana [q.v.]) 
prepared new schedules of produce separately for 
each pargana, and on the basis of returns for the 
whole empire (taksimdt al-mulk) a new mahsul was 
determined by estimate, and hence a new valuation 
(Ham*) made by applying the new schedules to 
actual or estimated crop areas (actual areas being 
on hand for the khdlisa lands). 

In the nineteenth year (982/1575) Akbar, requiring 
to pay salaries by cash rather than by assignment, 
decided that the areas of the parganas of the Empire 
should be re-examined, and the extent of all land, 
including that bandiar or (alar, which on cultivation 
could be expected to yield one crore (karor, 10 
million) tankds should be separated and entrusted 
to an official called karofi, who was to be responsible 
for effecting the cultivation of the bandiar land and 
realizing the correct demand (Tabakdt-i Akbari, 
B.M.Or. 2274, f. 203), so that in the course of three 
years all the waste land should be brought under 
cultivation, improving the condition of the ri'dya 
and benefitting the treasury (Bada'unI, ii, 189). But 
after a successful start the system broke down 
under the rapacity of the karoris and the corruption 
of their collectors and clerks. The period of this 
breakdown coincides with Shah Mansur's de facto 
tenure of the diwani in the absence of Todar Mai on 
military duty. On Todar Mai's return in the twenty- 
sixth year (985/1577) he resorted to ferocious 
measures to bring the collectors to account, and the 
following year an Imperial commissioner (amin al- 
mulk) was appointed in Fath Allah ShirazI, invited 
from the court of Bidjapur, to both of whom the 
final system is due. 

Previously, in the twenty-fourth year(987/i579-8o), 
the practice of assignment of didgirs having been 
re-established, a new valuation was made, calculated 
on the data of the previous ten years' operation of 
Todar Mai's assessment rates, described in a 
notoriously difficult passage of the AHn (i, 347), 
known as AHn-i dahsdla (tr. Qureshi, loc. cit.\ see 
Bibliography for earlier translations and inter- 
pretations) : the ministry held the correct figures for 
the preceding five years, and those for five years 
before were taken from reliable sources. One-tenth 
of the total was declared to be the average produce 
(harsdla) and would be taken as the basis of valuation 
for the ensuing year; deductions were made for 
partial or complete failure of crops in any area. This 
decennial average was re-computed each year; 
demand rates were now fixed in cash, not grain, 
thus obviating the necessity for yearly revision of the 
commutation rates. In the provisions the parganas 
are grouped into assessment circles, each with its 
own schedule (dastur). This system is attributed to 
Akbar himself. 

The final system maintains this ideal of valuation 
but improves its administration (AHn, i, 285-8). 
Todar Mai's proposals of the twenty-seventh year are 
incorporated in a code of practice which was period- 
ically amended. Village records are kept by the 
patwdri, but were available to the State officials. The 
collector was required to familiarize himself with 
local agriculture and to extend cultivation wherever 
possible; to this end the headman was to be allowed 
up to 2 x / 2 per cent share in the results, and was 
authorized to reduce the sanctioned rates on high- 
grade crops, and to depart from the system of dabf 
if the ri'dya elected ghaUdbakhshi, kankut, or 



nasal?; the ri c dya was to know in advance the extent 
of his liability to the State. These regulations were 
applied, successfully, in the khalisa lands; there is 
insufficient information on their operation in 
Hdgirs. 

Bibliography: Kh'and Amir, Humdyun- 
ndma, Eng. tr. in H. M. Elliot and J. Dowson, The 
history of India as told by its own historians, v, 
116-26; c Abbas SarwSnl, Ta'rikh-i Shir Shdhi, 
Eng. tr. in Elliot and Dowson, op. cit., iv, 305-433; 
c Abd Allah, Ta'rikh-i Ddwudi, partial Eng. tr. in 
Elliot and Dowson, op. cit., iv, 434-513; Abu 
'1-Fadl, A'in-i Akbari, 3 vols., Bibl. Ind. Cal- 
cutta; Eng. tr. by H. Blochmann vol. i) and 
H. S. Jarret (vols, ii and iii), Bibl. Ind. Cal- 
cutta. Blochmann's tr. contains many errors of 
interpretation of fiscal questions, especially i, 347; 
improved trs. of this in Moreland, op. cit. below, 
and Qureshi, JPakHS, 1/3, 1953, 208; idem, 
Akbar-ndma, 3 vols, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta; Eng. 
tr. H. Beveridge, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta; c Abd 
al-Kadir Bada'uni, Muntakhab al-Tawdrikh, 3 
vols, and Eng. tr., Bibl. Ind. Calcutta; Kh'adia 
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, Tabakdt-i Akbari, Lucknow 
lith. 1292/1875, also B.M.Or. 2274; c Ali Mu- 
hammad Khan. Mir'dt-i Ahmadi, 3 vols., GOS 
Baroda; W. H. Moreland, The agrarian system 
of Moslem India, Cambridge 1929 (cited above 
as Moreland); idem, The agricultural statistics of 
Akbar's empire in JUPHS, ii/i, 1919, 1-39; idem, 
A Dutch account of Mogul administrative methods 
in JIH, iii/3-iv/i, 1923, 69-83; idem, Akbar's land 
revenue arrangements in Bengal in JRAS 1926, 
43-56; Sri Ram Sharma, Assessment and collection 
of the land revenue under Akbar in IHQ, xiv, 1938, 
705-34; idem, The administrative system of Sher 
Shah, in IHQ, xii, 1936, 381-605; P. Saran, Sher 
Shah's revenue systemin JBORS, xvii, 1931, 136-48; 
I. H. Qureshi, The administration of the sultanate 
of Dehli, Karachi 1958; idem, The parganah offi- 
cials under Akbar in IC, xvi, 1942, 87-93; idem, 
Akbar's revenue reforms'm JPakHS, i, 1953, 205-17 
(includes improved translation of AHn, i, 347) ; 
other references in Pearson, pp. 632-3, 638-47. 
(c) The later Mughals. The schedules of cash- 
rates adapted to the varying productivity of 
different regions were discarded at some time during 
the reign of Djahanglr in favour of the earlier 
principle of nasak; the seasonal dab(, effective 
enough under such a strong administration as 
Akbar's, would have been less so under a weak or 
unsupported ministry. Djahangir's memoirs reveal 
his own lack of interest in fiscal questions, and it is 
assumed that he neglected the administration; 
there is indeed a dearth of contemporary information 
on the fiscal history of his reign, although the 
summary financial history collected in the later 
Mahathir al-Umard' ([?.».]; ii, 813 ft.) confirms this 
assumption in the statement that the annual ex- 
penditure rose to treble the annual income from the 
khdlisa-iands. This instability is reflected in the 
frequency with which djdgirs changed hands (cf. the 
accounts of W. Hawkins and E. Terry, in Early 
Travels, 83, 91-3, 114, 326, and of Pelsaert, Remon- 
stranlie, Eng. trans, in W. H. Moreland and P. Geyi, 
Jahdngir's India, Cambridge 1925, 64 ff.; for the 
contemporary situation in Gudjarat cf. De Remon- 
stranlie van W. Geleynssen de Jongh, The Hague 1929) ; 
some djdgir-holders of high provincial office appear 
to have been appointed to their posts on farming- 
terms (Roe, 210; Terpstra, Appx. vi). An innovation 
of Djahangir's time is the introduction of the 



[BA 157 

dltamgha, a grant of land given under the emperor's 
seal which required his direct personal authority to 
vary, and thus constituted the nearest approach to 
land-ownership, as now understood, in the Mughal 
period (Tuzuk, 10; cf. Bddshdh-ndma, ii, 409). 

For Shahdjahan's reign there is even less contem- 
porary description of practices than for Djahangir's. 
although the account in the Ma'dthir al-Umard' 
indicates that on his accession he designated as 
khalisa sufficient land to yield a revenue of 150 
lakhs of rupees, and fixed the expenditure ceiling at 
100 lakhs; the expenditure later greatly exceeded 
this figure, but the khalisa income was correspond- 
ingly increased. A later writer (Bindraban, Lubb al- 
Tawdrikh-i Hind., tr. in Elliot and Dowson, vii, 
170 ff.) refers to agrarian orders having been issued 
by the emperor, but these have not been discovered, 
and the nature of his systems can best be inferred 
from Awrangzib's early orders, referred to below. 
There is, however, a record of the practice in this 
reign in one area: the Deccan provinces had been 
brought almost to economic ruin as a result of the 
wars of conquest, and during Awrangzib's second 
viceregal period their revenue systems were reor- 
ganized, from about 1062/1652, by Murshid Kuli 
Khan [q.v.] who retained plough rents where the 
state of agriculture was primitive, and elsewhere 
introduced ghalldbakhshi and dabt, the former being 
introduced on differential scales for the first time 
in India, verying with the nature of the crop and 
with the nature of the source of water on which the 
crop depended; assessment rates were fixed at a 
low figure and were accompanied by positive 
measures to restore prosperity by repopulating and 
reorganizing the ruined villages and by capital 
advances. His achievements in the Deccan had 
apparently no reaction on the administration in 
the north. 

The state of the revenue system when Awrangzib 
came to the throne, and his measures towards a 
reform, can be gauged from two early farmdns of 
the 8th and nth regnal years (1076/1665-6 and 
1079/1668-9), with preambles containing descriptions 
of the systems of assessment then in force, with 
their defects, and the procedures to be adopted in 
future (texts with Eng. tr. in Jadunath Sarkar, The 
revenue regulations of Aurangzib . . ., in J A SB, 
n.s. ii, 1906, 223-55) ; the former constitutes a manual 
of practice addressed to the provincial diwdn and 
his staffs, but intended to be applicable also for the 
staffs employed by dfagtr-holders, while the latter 
was issued with the object of ensuring an assessment 
and collection of revenue, throughout the whole 
empire, in accordance with the principles of Islamic 
Law. This latter farmdn is based on the Fatdwd-i 
'Alamgiriyya [q.v.] of contemporary jurists, whose 
authorities were the law-books and commentaries 
of the central Islamic lands rather than the practical 
conditions of agriculture in India, with consequent 
distortions of interpretation of the situation: e.g., 
reference to peasants as though they held proprietary 
rights over the land; to a distinction between <ushr 
and kharddi land, not applicable in India; and 
detailed rules for land under dates and almonds, 
irrelevant in India. 

The first farmdn is the more practical: revenue 
from the khalisa lands was expended by the emperor, 
not the viceroy, and was assessed and collected by 
the central diwdni through the provincial diwdns. 
There is to be increased control over the local staffs, 
and the central authority must be kept informed of 
actual agricultural conditions by more detailed 



DARlBA — DARIM 



annual returns from each village; there is set out a 
development policy through extension of cultivation, 
increase of the area under high-grade crops, and 
the erection and maintenance of irrigation works; 
the old standard demand of one-third became the 
new minimum demand, with the maximum raised 
to one-half — in practice presumably generally 
demanded, since the officials' primary duty was to 

nasak, usually of a whole village but on occasion of 
an entire pargana; the nasak could be refused, in 
which case revenue could be obtained by dabt or 
ghalldbakhshi at the discretion of local officials; 
cash-payments of revenue were usual, although 
Sarkar has shown (Studies, 217) that in parts of 
Ufisa revenue was paid in kind. The demand was 
assessed as a lump sum at the beginning of the year, 
distributed over the peasants by the headmen; 
these were paid as the crops matured, and passed 
their collections to the officials after having set 
aside their own portions as "village expenses" — a 
further exaction on an already oppressed peasantry. 
Provision was made for the occurrence of such 
calamities as drought, frost, or low prices (the second 
farmdn makes a distinction between calamities 
occurring before and those falling after the crops 
were cut). That these regulations were intended to 
set a standard of procedure in the df<zgtr-lands is 
shown by a provision requiring the provincial 
diwdn to report on the loyalty and efficiency of the 
assessors and collectors employed in the djdgirs. 

A distinction is drawn in the second farmdn 
between two forms of tenure, mukdsama. and 
muwazzaf; under the former, revenue was paid only 
when the land was cultivated, while under the 
latter revenue was paid whether the land was 
cultivated or not. The latter was thus a form of 
contract-holding, where a fixed sum was paid for the 
occupation of land irrespective of its produce. There 
seems to be no prior record of this tenure in Muslim 
India, although the frequency of such holdings at 
the beginning of the British period, and the fact 
that they had been long known in Udaypur, never 
under Muslim administration, would indicate that 
they were no new institution. Here the administration 
recognizes the existence of certain rights to retain or 
dispose of a holding; a muwazzaf-holdei was ordi- 
narily succeeded by his heir, and he could lease, 
mortgage or sell his rights. 

Although the necessity for full and punctual 
collection of revenues is stressed, there is no explicit 
provision for action to be taken in case of default; 
but it is recorded in other sources that a cultivator's 
wives and family could be sold into slavery in such 
cases (cf. Bernier, 205; Manrique, i, 53). 

Stress is laid in these farmdns on the need for 
keeping peasants on the land, for absconding had 
by this time become a serious problem; that the 
scarcity of cultivators was due to flight and not to 
death through warfare or epidemics is shown by 
several contemporary reports [e.g., Bernier's letter 
to Colbert, Travels, 200 ff., esp. 205; also 226, 232): 
the severity of the administration drove large 

under Hindu rule. 

After Awrangzlb's reign the djdglr seems to have 
become unremunerative and consequently unpopular 
(cf. Kh'afi Khan, Muntakhab al-Lubdb, Bibl. Ind., i, 
622 ff.), on account of the lack of cultivators and the 
general uncertainty of tenure; also an assignee 
could no longer rely on the authority of the emperor 
and had frequently to repel other claimants to the 



revenue by force of arms: de facto possession had 
more force than title. The place of the djdgir is 
taken more and more by a stipend in cash, and 
territorially the most important unit of revenue is 
the ta'alluk [q.v.]; the khdlisa areas were frequently 
farmed out in the later years of Awrangzlb and 
under his successors, and the large tax-farms in 
Bengal became the forerunners of the system of 
zamlnddri [q.v.]. The revenues thus passed out of 
the control of the imperial authority as such, and the 
later fiscal history more properly belongs to the 
period of British India. 

Bibliography: Tiizuk-i Djahdngiri, lith. C A1I- 
gafh 1864, Eng. tr. Rogers and Beveridge, London 
1909-14; Muhammad Hashim Kh'afi Khan. 
Muntakhab al-Lubdb, Bibl. Ind., 1869; partial 
Eng. tr. in Elliot and Dowson, vii, 207 ff. ; c Abd 
al-Hamid Lahawrl, Bddshdhndma, Bibl. Ind., 1867; 
Mahathir al-Umard>, Bibl. Ind., 1887-95; ed. W. 
Foster, Early travels in India, London 192 1; ed. 
Foster, The embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 
1615-ig, 2nd ed. London 1926; Fray Sebastian 
Manrique, Itinerario de las Missiones orientales, 
Eng. tr. as The travels of Fray Sebastian Manrique, 
1629-43, London 1926-7; Francois Bernier, 
Travels in the Mogul Empire, ed. and tr. A. Con- 
stable, London 1891; J. van Twist, Generals 
Beschrijvinge van Indien, Amsterdam 1648; 
W. H. Moreland, The agrarian system of Moslem 
India, Cambridge 1929; H. Terpstra, De Opkomst 
der W ester-Kwartieren van de Oost-Indische Com- 
pagnie, The Hague 1918; Jadunath Sarkar, 
Studies in Mughal India, 1919; idem, Mughal 
Administration', 1924; idem, The revenue regula- 
tions of Aurangzib in JASB, n.s. ii, 1906, 223-55; 
H. Beveridge, Aurangzeb's revenues in JRAS, 
1906, 349-53; Y. K. Deshpande, Revenue admini- 
stration of Berar in the reign of Aurangzeb, i6yg A.D.. 
in Proc. Ind. Hist. Rec. Comm., xii, 1929, 81-7; 
Sh. Abdur Rashid, A valuable document relating to 






zngzib's 



in JPakHS, ii, 1954, 26-34. 

(d) Other Indian dynasties. Materials for the 
fiscal systems of the outlying regions are very 
scanty. For the fragmentary records of Gudjarat and 
Malwa see those articles ; for post-Mughal Bengal see 
zamindari. For the Bahmanis there is no information 
beyond Firishta's remarks that diagir-holdings were 
common and that there were reserved khdlisa-aieas 
(Muntakhab al-Tawdrikh, Kanpur lith., 320, 356). 

For Ahmadnagar there is no contemporary account 
of the reforms of Malik 'Anbar [q.v.], although an 
account has been given bv Grant Duff, History of 
the Mahraitas, Bombay 1826, from Marafhi sources, 
according to which Malik c Anbar abolished farming 
and substituted a collection of a percentage of the 
actual produce in kind; after some seasons this was 
commuted for a cash payment, fixed annually on the 
basis of cultivation, the State claiming one-third or 
two-fifths of the total value. 

In Golkonda in the nth/i7th century the kingdom 
appears to have been entirely under the farming 
system, the amount payable having been settled 
annually by auction (cf. Methwold, Relations of the- 
Kingdom of Golckonda, in Purchas his Pilgrimes, 
London 1625); farming is said to have persisted in 
this region until abolished by Sir Salar Jang in 1853. 
(Imperial Gazetteer of India, xiii, 280). 
Bibliography: In the text. 

(P. Saran and J. Burton-Page) 

7. Indonesia [See supplement]. 

DARIM [see tamImJ. 



al-DARIMI - 



al-DARIMI, 'Abdallah b. c Abd al-Rahman 
b. al-Fadl b. Bahram b. c Abd al-Samad Abu 
Muhammad al-Samarijand! belonged to the B. 
Darim b. Malik, a branch of Tamlm. He travelled 
in search of traditions and learned them from a 
number of authorities in al-'Irak, Syria and Egypt. 
Among those who transmitted traditions on his 
authority were Muslim b. al-Hadjdjaj and Abu 
c Isa al-Tirmidhl. Al-DarimI lived a simple, pious life 
devoted to study, and acquired a reputation for 
knowledge of Hadith, reliability, truthfulness and 
sound judgement. He was asked to accept office as 
kadi in Samarkand but refused. The sultan insisted, 
so he accepted the office, but after acting once he 
asked to be excused and this was granted. He was 
born in 181/797 and died in 255/869. His writings 
were mainly concerned with Hadith, but he is also 
credited with a Kur'an commentary. Al-Khatib 
al-Baghdadl says he compiled al-Musnad and al- 
Didmi c . but one wonders whether these may not be 
alternative titles for the same work. His collection 
of traditions is commonly called al-Musnad (publ. 
Kanpur 1293, Haydarabad 1309, Dihli 1337, Damas- 
cus 1349), but this word is appropriate only if under- 
stood in the wider sense common in earlier times. It 
should be called al-Sunan, as the material is arranged 
according to the subject-matter. This work has not 
been treated on an equality with the six canonical 
books, but Ibn Hadjar al-'Askalanl considered it 
superior to Ibn Madja's Sunan. It is much shorter 
than any of the six books. Hadjdji Khalifa mentions 
three other works, two of them excerpts from his 
Musnad, but they have not survived. 

Bibliography: Ibn AM Hatim, Kitdb al- 
diarh wa 'l-ta l dil, Haydarabad 1372/1953, ii, 2, 
99; Ta'rikh Baghdad, x, 29-32; al-Sam'ani, 2i8ab; 
Dhahabi, Huff a;, ii, 105 f.; Ibn Hadjar al- 
'Askalani, Tahdhib al-tahdhib, v, 294-6; Ibn al- 
Salah, l Ulum al-hadith, Aleppo 1350/1931, 42; 
Ibn al-'Imad, Shadhardt, ii, 130; Hadjdji Khalifa, 
ed. Fltigel, ii, 492; iii, 628; v, 109 f., 530, 539 f.; 
Sarkis, Diet. Encyc. de bibl. arabe, Cairo 1928-30, 
857 i.; Goldziher, Muh. St., ii, 258-60; M. Weis- 
weiler, Istanbuler Handschriften zur arabischen 
Traditionsliteratur {Bibl. Islam., x, 1937), no. 50; 
Brockelmann, I, 171 f., S I, 270. 

(J. Robson) 

DARlR, Mustafa, Turkish author of the 

7th/i4th century. Very little is known of his life. He 

was born blind (darir) in Erzurum where he studied; 

later he travelled in Egypt, Syria and Karaman. 

djumat al-Darir, an enlarged free translation, inter- 
spersed with many original verse passages, of Abu 
'1-Hasan al-Bakri al-Basri's (6th/i 3 th century) 
version of the sira of Ibn Ishak, filled with stories 
and legends borrowed from various sources. It 
consists of five volumes and was written by the 
order of the Mamluk sultan of Egypt Al-Mansur 'Ala 5 
al-Din 'All; it was completed in 790/1388 and 
presented to the sultan al-Salih Salah al-Din Hadjdji. 
The chapter on the birth of the Prophet seems to 
have inspired the corresponding chapter in Sulayman 
Celebi's Mewlid (Ahmed Ates, Vesiletii'n-Necdt, 
Mevlid, Ankara 1954, 55-7); 2. a free translation of 
Wakidi's Futuh al-Shdm, which relate the conquest 
of Syria under the caliphs Abu Bakr and 'Umar, 
completed in Aleppo in 795/1392; 3. a translation of 
the Hundred Hadith?.; 4. Yusuf we Zulaykha, a 
recently discovered mathnawi (Istanbul Univ. 
Library no. 311, 862). None of these works has yet 
been edited. Darir shows remarkable mastery of 



'■arud; his verse is fluent and he often reaches the 
heights of lyric poetry. His pleasant and simple 
prose is one of the best specimens of early Turkish 
narrative style. 

Bibliography : Istanbul Kiituphaneleri Tarih- 
Cografya Yazmalan Kataloglan, Seri I, fasc. 
1-9, Istanbul, 1943-9, 305-7, 404-10; Alessio 
Bombaci, Storia delta letteratura turca, Milan, 
1956, 227-8. (FAHiR Iz) 

PARIYYA, a village and a watering place in 
Nadjd located at 42 56' N., 24 46' E., on the 
Darb al-Sultani pilgrim route from al-Basra to Mecca 
{Handbook, ii, 189). The village was a much fre- 
quented halting place for pilgrims, for the junction 
with the route from al-Bahrayn was here. The 
district of Dariyya, according to Ibn Bulayhid, was 
a wide territory in Nadjd celebrated by the poets in 
pre-Islamic times for its sweet water and pasturage. 
The famous Hima Dariyya is said to have been 
named after the village and was part of the district 
(Yakut, iii, 457). There is some doubt as to when the 
hima was first reserved. Yakut states that Dariyya 
was set aside by Kulayb [q.v.], the legendary hero 
of the War of Basus, whose burial ground, according 
to traditions handed down by the Tayyi 3 , lies within 
the confines of the hima in the mountains of al-Nir. 
The site of this grave was well known among the 
Arabs as late as the 15th century, for al-Samhudi, 
who completed his work in 886/1481, reports that 
Adjwad b. Zamil al-Djabri, the lord of al-Hasa and 
al-Katif (called by the author, Ra'is Ahl Naghd), 
had heard of the shrine from the local Arabs and 
visited it (al-Samhudi, ii, 227). Al-Bakri, however, 
claims that Hima Dariyya was first reserved for the 
state by 'Umar b. al-Khattab for the camels given as 
sadaka or taken in battle. The statement by al- 
Hamdani (172, 24) that Hima Dariyya and Hima 
Kulayb are not the same but are separated by the 
mountains of al-Nir, which Yakut himself recognizes 
as an independent hima, supports al-Bakri. It is 
likely that Dariyya was one of the many Jimas of 
the djdhiliyya epoch which later changed their 
names (Ibn Bulayhid, iii, 244). The Hemmey on 
Doughty's map is probably an approximation of the 
older Hima Kulayb. According to al-Tabari (i, 1107) 
and Yakut (ii, 290), Dariyya derives its name from 
Dariyya, the mother of Hulwan, the son of 'Umran 
and grandson of Kuda'a. Al-Hamdani says that 
Dariyya was the daughter of Rabi'a b. Nizar. 

The hima reserved by 'Umar originally extended 
6 miles in each direction from the village of Dariyya. 
Owing to the continuous increase in livestock, which 
reached a total of about 40,000 in the time of 'Uthman 
the hima was enlarged about 10 miles in at least one 
direction (al-Bakri, iii, 860). The land, which was 
under the control of the Amirs of Medina, was released 
by the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi and is said to have 
yielded, as private property, an annual tribute of 
8,000 dirhams in the early 'Abbasid period. At that 
time the territory was chiefly inhabited by the Kilab, 
against whom Muhammad had sent troops in A.H. 6 
and 7. Dariyya was not without strife, for al-AhwazI 
mentions that al-Rabtha, a neighbouring pilgrim 
station and hima, was destroyed in the year 319/931 
through continuous warfare between its people and 
those of Dariyya. 

Today, by-passed by modern roads, Dariyya is a 
poor settlement with about 20 wells and only a few 
scattered palms, lying in desolate steppe terrain at 
the edge of one of the dikes in the granite shield un- 
derlying the western plateau. Western writers have 
frequently confused it with al-Dir'iyya [q.v.], the 



former Wahhabi capital (cf. Wiistenfeld). Among 
European travellers in the area, Philby is the first to 
have visited and described Pariyya and its compa- 
nion village Miska, about 6 kilometers to the north 
(The Land of Midian, 9, 52). He mentions Kufic in- 
scriptions found on rocks in pariyya, attesting to its 
former prominence as a pilgram station. Dariyya is 
in territory now occupied by 'Utayba and Harb, 
tribes which figured as makeweights in the struggles 
of the late 18th and early 19th centuries among the 
Sharifs of Mecca and the ruling families of Rashid and 
Sa c ud for domination of Nadjd. 

Bibliography: Cf. El', ii, 924. In addition: 
al-Samhudl, Wafd? al-Wafd>, ii, 228 ; Ibn Bulayhid, 
Sahih al-Akhbdr, iii, 11, 244; J. J. Hess, Isl. (1917) 
106; Moritz, Arabien, 50: Doughty, Travels in 
Arabia Deserta, ii, 492 ; Philby, The land of Midian, 
9, 52; Admiralty, Western Arabia and the Red Sea, 
1946, 189. (Phebe Marr) 

al-DAR'IYYA [see al-dir c iyya] 
DARSAWA, plural of the nisba Darkawl, a 
religious brotherhood founded in north Morocco 
at the end of the 18th century by an Idrisi sharif, 
Mawlay al- c Arbi al-Darkawi. His name is supposed 
to come from the appelation of one of his ancestors 
who used to be called Abu Darka, the man with 
the leather shield. He was the pupil at Fas of another 
Idrisi sharif, 'All b. <Abd al-Rahman al-Djamal, an 
adept of the mystical doctrine of al-Shadhill [q.v.], 
and after the latter's death, he organized a brother- 
hood inspired by this doctrine. The seat of this 
group was at first the zdwiya of BO Brih in the tribe 
of the Banu Zarwal (on the right bank of the Oued 
Wargha), then, after 1863, the zdwiya of Amadjdjut 
(Amjot) not far from there, where it is still located 
and where each year at the end of September the 
annual festival (mawsim) of the brotherhood is 
celebrated. Many pilgrims go there on this occasion. 
The Darkawa brotherhood has spread above all 
in the north and east of Morocco and in the west of 
Algeria. In Morocco especially it has brought 
together adepts from every kind of social class, 
including the Sharifian court: the sultans, Mawlay 
'Abd al-Rahman (1822-1859) and Mawlay Yusuf 
(1912-1927) belonged to it. At the end of the 19th 
century, the number of Darkawa in Algeria was 
estimated at about 14,500, and in 1939, at almost 
34,000 in Morocco. 

The doctrine of the Darkawa appears perfectly 
orthodox; it insists essentially on the necessity of 
man's consecrating himself as far as possible to the 
contemplation of divinity and to the mystic union 
with God. To attain this the Darkawl must pray 
as often as he can, and particularly during the 
sessions of prayer (dhikr) which are held regularly 
in the customary meeting-places of the brotherhood. 
These sessions aim at provoking ecstasy by means of 
the recitation of pious formulas, mystical poems, 
song and dance. An excellent description of them 
is to be found in the Essai sur la mystique musulmane 
of E. Dermenghem, the preface to his translation 
of the Khamriyya of Ibn al-Farid (Paris 1931, 64, 
n. 1). In order better to detach themselves from the 
world, certain adepts go so far as to live as wanderers, 
a staff in their hands, clothed miserably, and with 
a rosary of a hundred beads round their necks. The 
majority content themselves with paying as little 
attention as possible to wordly matters, and with 
taking no part in any form of public life. 

Nevertheless, on several occasions the Darkawa 
have played a part in politics: one of them, Ibn 
■al-Sharif, provoked serious agitation in the Turkish 



province of Oran which lasted for several years 
(1803-9); but for the moderation of the sultan 
Mawlay Sulayman (1792-1822), this agitation might 
have ended in the annexation of western Algeria by 
Morocco. Soon afterwards, various groups of Dar- 
kawa took an active part on the Berber revolt of 
the last years of Mawlay Sulayman's reign, and the 
head of the brotherhood was even imprisoned for a 
time. After the death of Mawlay Sulayman, the 
Darkawa took hardly any further part in the 
political life of Morocco, even in the troubled years 
at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other 
hand, they played a certain part during the first 
years of the French conquest of Algeria by opposing 
the Amir c Abd al-Kadir, who was accused of making 
common cause with the French after the Desmichels 
(1834) and Tafna (1837) treaties. 

Bibliography: Mawlay al- c Arbi al-Darkawi, 
RasdHl, lith. Fas, 1318/1900-01; Muhammad b. 
PJa'far al-Kattanl, Salwat al-Anfds, lith. Fas 1316/ 
1898-9, passim, and especially i, 176, 267, 358; 
Nasiri, K. al-Istilfsd', Cairo 1312/1894-5, iv, 140; 
ZayyanI, Turdjumdn al-mu'-rib, ed. Houdas, Paris 
1886, 100-2; L. Rinn, Marabouts et Khouan. 
Algiers 1884, 231-64; O. Depont and X.Coppolani, 
Les Contraries Musulmanes, Algiers 1897, 503; 
A. Joly, Etude sur les Chadeilias, Algiers 1907; 
G. Drague, Esquisse d'Histoire Religieuse du 
Maroc, Paris n.d., 251-73. (R. Le Tourneau) 
DARNA, in modern pronunciation Derna, a town 
on the northern coast of Cyrenaica which is to-day 
the second most important in the region after 
Benghazi. It is situated in a little plain along the 
banks of a wddi of the same name, bounded by the 
plateau of the al-Djabal al-Akhdar, which forms a 
steep slope to the south and touches the sea to the 
east and west, but thanks to its never-failing springs 
it is rich in palms (8,000) and in orange and other 
fruit trees. Darna owes its origin to the Greeks who 
founded one of their colonies in the neighbourhood. 
Darnis, as their trading post was called, did not 
become a polis and was not one of the five cities 
combined into a federation in the time of Alexander 
the Great, which gave the country its name, 
Pentapolis. It is probable that it developed only in 
the time of the Ptolemies. Darna shared the fate of 
the Pentapolis and with it became a Roman pos- 
session in 96 B.C., in accordance with the will of 
Ptolemy Apion, who renewed a decision already 
made in 155" B.C. by Ptolemy Physcon (= Ptolemy 
VII, Euergetes II Neoteros); concerning these facts, 
an important inscription discovered at Cyrene, and 
the bibliography, see Ronianelli, Cirenaica, 1-24. 
Under the Byzantines, Darna was the seat of a bishop- 
ric which already existed at the time of the Council 
of Nicea in 325. On the conquest of Pentapolis by 
the Muslims, see barka. According to Yakut, it 
was at Darna that the governor of the country, Abu 
Shaddad Zuhayr b. Rays al-BalawI, was killed in 
76/695 (or in 74/693?), as he was hastening to meet 
the Greeks who had disembarked there in an attempt 
to recapture the region. Yakut says that his tomb, 
and those of others killed in the battle, were well- 
known. Under the Arabs Darna fell into decay; if 
this were not proved by the complete silence of 
the Arab geographers with regard to it, it would be 
possible to deduce it from the fact that its prosperity 
was always linked to the exploitation of its soil and 
that the conquering Arabs were never farmers. Its 
harbour was not as good as others in Cyrenaica, and 
its site was at some distance from the route followed 
generally by the Arab armies and the c 



merchants and pilgrims, which passed about 90 kms. 
to the south (by c Ayn al-Ghazala. al-Tamiml and 
al-Makhill). It was from the end of the 15th century 
on, or even later, that Darna revived thanks to the 
immigration of Andalusians, coming less from 
Andalusia than from other places in North Africa 
where they had already found refuge. Accurate 
information on the arrival of these farmers of 
Spanish origin goes back to the 17th century: 
a Turkish Pasha called Kasim, returning from 
Tripoli to Constantinople, had noticed the fertility 
of the Darna region and, after having obtained 
a concession from the Sublime Porte, established 
himself there with the Andalusians; later on his 
lieutenant requested the help of the Bey of Tunis 
in transferring there other Andalusians who had 
been living in Tunis. Eight hundred colonists were 
then brought to Darna in four ships (1637). These 
facts are confirmed by the authors of two well- 
known rihlas, al-'Ayyashl (d. 1091/1679) and Ibn 
Nasir al-Dar'I (d. 1129/1717), who tell us that Darna 
was colonized by Andalusians in about 1040/ 1631-2. 
Before this date, according to these travellers, the 
town had been in ruins for a long time. It had 
therefore begun to prosper again when the Dey of 
Tripoli, Muhammad (1041-59/1632-49), who wanted to 
keep all the threads of trans-Saharian trade in his 
own hands, and did not like foreign expansion in 
the cities of Cyrenaica, made an expedition against 
Benghazi (1638) and Awdjila (1640), for part of the 
caravans from Fezzan and from Bornu used to 
reach the Mediterranean coast by way of this oasis. 
Darna must also have fallen into the power of this 
Pasha, because we learn that its population was 
unwilling to bear the yoke of Tripoli and that 
Muhammad's successor, the Dey c Uthman, marched 
against the town in 1656. As a consequence of this 
attack, Darna was left almost deserted, so great was 
the number of the dead and the exiled. However, it 
soon revived again; even to-day it venerates the 
memory of Muhammed Bey (presumably, Muham- 
mad b. Mahmiid, governor for the Pasha of Tripoli : 
see Ibn Ghalbiin, Cronaca, or a rich private 
person of Anatolia), because he, towards the 
end of the 17th century, gave attention to the 
irrigation system and achieved various other public 
works, notably the construction of the Great 
Mosque, which has 42 cupolas and the only minaret 
in the town. The daring and hardihood of the people 
of Darna continued to cause trouble even to the 
government of the Karamanll; Ahmad I tried in 
1715 to subdue Benghazi and Darna once and for 
all. In the time of Warthllani, who, too, described in 
a rihla his journey of 1179/1765-1181/1767, there 
was continual struggle between the inhabitants of 
the town and the people of Misrata; in the time of 
Ibn Nasir, these last formed the garrison, and 
perhaps later (see Ibn Ghalbfln), after they had 
become established there, became part of the 
population. In short, just as the Bedouins of Cyre- 
naica, who were at all times the true masters of the 
region, were turbulent, so were the foreign immigrants 
in the principal towns. Only famines and epidemics, 
frequent enough in this country, weakened the 
tendency to rebellion. Warthllani tells us about a 
famine which caused a temporary cessation of 
hostilities, and Delia Cella of an epidemic of plague 
which in 1816 reduced the population from 7,000 to 
500. In 1805, Darna was the scene of a surprise 
attack; it was bombarded and occupied by irregular 
troops (400 men) with the support of three ships of 
the United States, because that country's naval 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



representative for Barbary, William Eaton, intended 
to march from Egypt against Tripoli via Cyrenaica, 
in order to punish the Pasha of this town, Yusuf 
Karamanll, for his corsairs' attacks against United 
States ships, since the direct attempts of the American 
fleet against Tripoli had met with failure; he had 
persuaded the elder brother of the Pasha, Ahmad, 
(Ahmet, Hamet, in the western sources), who was 
considered the legitimate ruler, to join the expedition. 
Nevertheless, these troops did not advance much 
farther than Darna, for a treaty between Yusuf and 
the United States put an end to this strange adven- 
ture. In 1835, after the long interval of Karamanll 
[q.v.~\ rule, Cyrenaica came back under the direct 
government of Constantinople, and Darna, one of 
the three kadds of the sandjak of Benghazi, was 
useful to it in exercising a precarious control, which 
grew gradually stronger, over the interior and 
Marmarica. The government did its utmost to 
develop the land between Marsa Susa and Darna. 
When Italy decided to take possession of Libya and 
declared war on Turkey (29th September 1911), 
one of the first actions was the bombardment of 
Darna (30th September) and its occupation (16th 
October). The population of the town was then 
about 9,500. Under the Italians, Darna became a 
very beautiful and well cared for city which even 
tried to attract tourists. During the first world war 
it remained in Italian hands, and one of the places 
from which later the reconquest of Cyrenaica began. 
During the second world war, it passed several times 
from the hands of the Italians and Germans into 
that of the allies before its final occupation by the 
English in January 1943. It suffered much damage 
in the course of these operations. 

Darna now forms part of the United Kingdom of 
Libya, following on Italy's renunciation of her 
colonies in the Peace Treaty (10th February 1947) 
and the proclamation of the kingdom (24th Decem- 
ber, 1951). Notwithstanding the importance that the 
Sanusiyya has in Cyrenaica, this tarilta has only one 
zdwiya in Darna, whereas 14 other tarikas are 
represented there, some of them for as long as 150 
years. One of the 70 warriors killed at the side of 
the above mentioned Zuhayr al-Balawi, Sldi Bu 
Mansur al-Farisi, whose tomb stands in the ceme- 
tery, has given his name to that part of the town 
which stretches along the right bank of the wail. 
Bibliography: For Darna in ancient times: 
J. P. Thrige, Res Cyrenensium, Copenhagen 1828, 
reprinted Verbania 1940 (Ital. trans., Verbania 
1940) P. Romanelli, La Cirenaica romana, Ver- 
bania 1943 (these volumes have appeared in 
the collection Storia della Libia); among the 
Arab geographers, Yakut, Mu'djam, s.v. Darna, 
mentions the place but is confused in his infor- 
mation. For the events of the Berber period: 
C. Bergna, Tripoli dal 1510 al 1850, Tripoli 1925, 
123 f., 149; Ch. L. Feraud, AnnalesTripolitaines, 
Tunis 1927, 100-4, 109-n, 149, 319 f.; E. 
Rossi, La cronaca araba tripolina di Ibn Ctalbun 
(sec. XVIII) tradotta e annotata, Bologna 1926, 
101, 116 f., 150; c Ayyashi, al-Rihla al-'-Ayya- 
shiyya, Fez 1316, i, 108 f. (passage copied by 
Warthllani, 232); Ibn Nasir al-Dar% al-Rihla al- 
Nasiriyya, Fez 1320 (passage copied by Warthllani, 
609 f .) ; Warthllani, Nuzhat al-anzdr fi fadl Him 
al-ta'rikh wa 'l-akhbdr = al-Rihla al-Warthildn- 
iyya, Algiers 1 326/1908, 608 f. For the occupation 
of Darna by the Americans in 1805: E. Dupuy, 
Americains et Barbaresques (1776-1S24), Paris 1910, 
231-272; Encyclopaedia Britannica, s.v. Eaton, 






DARNA — DAROGHA 



William; V. H. Serrano, Libya, the new Arab 
kingdom, Ithaca 1956, 127-31. On 18th century 
European travellers: Enciclopedia Italiana, s.vv. 
Cirenaica, Esplorazioni; A. Cervelli, extract from 
his travel diary, in Recueil de Voyages et Mimoires 
de la Societe" de Giographie de Paris, ii, 1825, 
P. Delia Cella, Viaggio da Tripoli di Barberia alle 
frontiere occidentali dell'Egitto fatlo nel 1817, Milan 
1826 (1st ed. Genoa 1817), 165-70. On the last 
period of Turkish domination: Fr. Coro, Settan- 
tasei anni di dominazione turca in Libia, 1937, 102. 
For the period of the Italian occupation, see the 
bibliography in the Enciclopedia Italiana, s.v. 
Cirenaica, For the modern period: E. E. Evans- 
Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Oxford 1954, 
index ; N. A. Ziadeh, Sanusi yah, a study of a revivalist 
movement in Islam, Leiden 1958, index; idem, 
Barka, al-dawla al-'arabiyya al-thdmina, Beirut 
1950, 8 f., 18 f.; I.S.O., Playfair, History of the 
Second World War, The Mediterranean and the 
Middle East,!..., London 1954..., index; E. 
Rossi, II Regno Unito della Libia, in OM, xxxi 
(1951), 157-177 (ibid, bibliography, 162 (1)); road- 
map of the region of Darna ( 1 : 400,000) in Bollettino 
geografico del Governo della Cirenaica, Servizio 
Studi, no. 9; Guida d' Italia del Touring Club 
italiano, Possedimenti e colonic, Milan 1929, 484-7. 

(L. Veccia Vaglieri) 
DAR£HAN, also less correctly darsan, a Sans- 
krit word (dariana, from the root dr$ "see") meaning 
"showing, being visible"; hence, the ceremonial 
appearance of a king to his subjects. This Hindu 
practice was adopted by the Mughal emperor Akbar 
(AHn-i Akbari, i, 73) and his immediate successors. 
The English traveller Coryat records that Diahangir 
in Agra used to present himself three times a day 
from a canopied window. The failure of Shahdiahan 
to appear during his illness at the end of 1067/Sep- 
tember 1657 led to rumours of his death. The practice 
of darshan was at first followed by Awrangzib, but 
abandoned by him in 1078/1668 as savouring of 
idolatry. (J. Burton-Page) 

DARCtGHA. The word is derived from the Mongol 
daru-, 'to press, to seal' and was used to denote a 
chief in the Mongol feudal hierarchy (K. H. Menges, 
Glossar zu den Volkskundlichen Texten aus Ost. 
Turkistan, ii, Wiesbaden 1955, 714 s.v. dorya; 
B. Vladimirtsov, Le rigime social des Mongols, 
Paris 1948, 181, 209, 214; P. Pelliot, Notes sur 
I'histoire de la Horde d'or, Paris 1950, 73). In 617-8/122 1 
there was a Mongol ddrukhati, or representative of 
the head of the empire, in Almaligh beside the native 
ruler. The duties laid upon him included the making 
of a census of the inhabitants, the recruitment of 
local troops, the establishment of postal commu- 
nications, the collection of taxes, and the delivery of 
tribute to the court (W. Barthold, Turkestan*, 401). 
The term is first met with in Persia in the Ilkhanid 
period and by Timurid times it had virtually super- 
seded the term shihna, the ddrugha exercising 
broadly similar functions to the shihna. In his main 
capacities he belonged to the military hierarchy. 
The functions of the ddrugha in the Safawid period 
were sometimes those of the governor of a town 
(Olearius, The Voyages and Travels . . . ., London 
1669, 304; Chardin, Voyages, ed. Langles, Paris 
1811, v, 260); but more commonly he was a kind of 
police officer, usually under the diwdnbegi. His duty 
was to prevent misdeeds, tyranny, brawls, and 
actions contrary to the shari'a, such as prostitution, 
drinking, and gambling (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, 
Persian text in facsimile tr. and explained by V. 



Minorsky, London and Leiden 1943, 77b ff.; Taver- 

nier, Collections of Travels , 222, 232). He had 

power to fine and punish offenders and was himself 
responsible for the return of stolen goods (Tadhkirat 
al-Muluk, ibid.). Fees, known as ddrughdna, were 
levied in his favour (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, 90b; 
Du Mans, Estat de la Perse en 1660, Paris 1890, 
39). In the I2th/i8th and I3th/i9th centuries the 
main functions of the ddrugha in Persia continued to 
be those of a police official acting under the city 
governor. He regulated prices, weights and measures, 
preserved order in the towns and bazaars, and 
supervised the morals of the people; his jurisdiction, 
which tended to become restricted to the bazaar, 
encroached upon and in some cases superseded that 
of the muhtasib. In the capital he appears to have 
kept special registers of certain crafts which per- 
formed labour service for the crown (cf. P. A. 
Jaubert, Voyage en Arminie et en Perse, Paris 1821, 
334). The office of ddrugha was still found at the 
beginning of the Constitutional period (see E. Aubin, 
La Perse d'aujourd'hui, Paris 1908, 37, 109; De 
Tihlran a Ispahan in RMM., Jund-July 1907, 459 ; 
and Le Chiisme et la nationalitl persane in RMM., 
1908, 482) ; but with the new forms of government 
his office became an anomaly, the various functions 
formerly exercised by him being taken over by the 
municipalities and the police force. 

The term ddrugha was not, however, applied 
exclusively to an official whose functions were those 
of a town governor or police officer. There are 
several instances of the appointment of a ddrugha 
over a tribal group, whose functions were clearly 
rather different from those of the ddrugha of a town 
or the ddrugha of the bazaar. For example c Abd 
al-Razzak states that Timur used sometimes to send 
a ddrugha and a muhassil to collect the taxes due 
from the Hazara near Harat (Mafia* al-Sa'-dayn, ed. 
Muhammad Shafl c , ii, 1297). There was also a 
ddrugha of the Turkomans in Astarabad in Safawid 
times (cf . Hasan Rumlu, A hsan al-Tawdrikh, ed. and 
tr. C. N. Seddon, Baroda, 1931-4, 346-7); and under 
the Kadjars the taxes of various Turkoman tribes 
appear to have been collected by a ddrugha (cf. 
RUzndma-yi Dawlat-i C A liyya-i Iran, 2 Rabl c I 
1280, 26 Muharram, 1287). There are other cases 
also of a ddrugha being appointed over special 
sections of the population. Thus, the ddrugha of the 
Madjusiyan of Yazd is mentioned c. 1054/1644 
(Muhammad Mufid, DjdmiH Mufidi, B.M. Or. 210, 
f. 363b). It is not stated what his functions were; 
they may well have been to collect the taxes due 
from the Zoroastrian community and to enforce 
any special regulations relating to that community. 

Under the Safawids the term ddrugha was also 
used to denote a kind of head clerk controlling the 
staff of the larger government departments; such 
were the ddrugha of the farrdshkhdna and the ddrugha 
of the daftarkhdna (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, ii. gia-b, 
141 ; Tavernier, 222). This usage of the term ddrugha 
continued in the Kadjar period. 

In Muslim India the term ddrugha was used to 
denote an official in the royal stables (Abu '1-Fadl, 
AHn-i Akbari, tr. Blochmann, i, 53). In British 
India it was used to designate the native head of 
various departments; and from 1793 to 1862-3 the 
local chief of police was also known as the darbgha 
(H. Yale and H. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson, London 
1903, 297-8). In Georgia in Safawid times the 
ddrugha was a police officer working in conjunction 
with the mouravi (constable) and melik (Armenian 
burgomaster) and the kadkhudd (see the charters 



DAROGHA — DARtjRA 



163 



analysed by M. F. Brosset in Histoire de la 
Georgie). 

Bibliography: See text above and G. Le 
Strange, Clavijo's Embassy to Tamerlane 1403-1406, 
London 1928, 304; idem, Don Juan of Persia, 
London 1926, 46; J. Fryer, Travels, London 1698, 
339; W. Francklin, Observations on a Tour from 
Bengal to Persia, 130-1, 146-7; Krushinsky, The 
History of the Revolution in Persia, Dublin 1729, 
80; E. S. Waring, A Tour to Sheeraz by the Route 
of Kazroon and Feerozabad, London 1807, 67; 
Sir J. Malcolm, History of Persia, London 1829, 
ii, 324; M. Tancoigne, A Narrative of a Journey 
into Persia, London 1820, 238-9, J. B. Fraser, 
Travels and Adventures in the Persian Provinces 
on the Southern Banks of the Caspian Sea, London 
1826, 149; R. B. M. Binning, A Journal of Two 
Years Travel in Persia, Ceylon, etc., London 1857, 
i, 337-9; A. K. S. Lambton, The Evolution of the 
office of Ddrugha, in Mardum Shindsi, Tehran 
[nos. 1-3], 1338 S./1959-60. (A. K. S. Lambton) 
al-DArOM, the name of a coastal plain in 
Palestine, and later in particular the name of a 
famous fortress of the time of the Crusades, is to be 
found in the works of Arab authors with both these 
meanings. The Hebrew ddrom from which it is derived 
and to which it corresponds in the Arabic version of 
Deuteronomy, XXXIV, 3 , appeared in a few passages 
of the Old Testament for south as a cardinal point, 
or any country situated in the south (F. M. Abel), 
and it was later applied especially to the south-west 
of Judea, a low-lying region distinct both from 
Sephela which bordered it on the north and the 
southern, desert territory of the Negeb. The Byzan- 
tine name Daromas, which corresponded to this 
ancient Darom, was equally applied to the south- 
west section of the vast district of Eleutheropolis 
(see bayt djibrin), while not including the town 
itself. However, this distinction was forgotten in 
Arab times and al-Darflm, according to the evidence 
of al-MukaddasI, was identified with the territory 
surrounding Bayt Djibrin, and it shared its history 
from the time of its conquest under the Caliphate 
of Abu Bakr. 

As to the Palestinian citadel of al-Darum, the 
Daron of the Crusaders, it stood on the road from 
Gaza to Egypt on the site marked to-day by the 
ruins of Dayr al-Balah, to assure the defence of the 
Latin kingdom of Jerusalem from this side. Attacked 
especially by Salah al-DIn, then conquered by him 
in 583/1187 at the time of his re-occupation of the 
greater part of Palestine, it was later besieged, taken, 
and then dismantled by Richard Coeur de Lion and 
the Franks of the Third Crusade in 588/1192, but 
was still counted in the Mamlflk period as one of 
the fortresses depending directly on the ndHb of the 
district of Gaza, on the coastal border of the province 
of Damascus. 

Bibliography: F. M. Abel, Geographic de la 
Palestine, Paris 1933-8, especially i, 420-3; G. 
Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, London 
1890, 437; A. S. Marmardji, Textes Giographiques, 
Paris 1951, 71-2; Caetani, Annali, index (ii, 
1299); Tabarl, index; BGA, indices; Yakut, ii, 
525; Ibn al-Athir, especially xi, 326, 361, and xii, 
52-3; Hist. Or. Cr., i to v, indices; Ibn Shaddad, 
A'ldk, Southern Syria, ms. Leiden 800, fol. 139b; 
R. Grousset, Hist, des Croisades, Paris 1934-6, 
index, especially ii, 559-62 and iii, 85-7; M. 
Gaudefroy-Demomboynes, La Syrie a I'epoque 
des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, especially 14 and 50. 
(J. Sourdel-Thomine) 



PARCRA, necessity (also idtirdr), in works ol 
fikh has a narrow meaning when it is used to denote 
what may be called the technical state of necessity, 
and a wider sense when authors use it to describe the 
necessities or demands of social and economic life, 
which the jurists had to take into account in their 
elaboration of the law which was otherwise inde- 
pendent of these factors. 

I. The state of necessity, whose effects recall 
those of violence, does not result from threats 
expressed by a person, but from certain factual 
circumstances which may oblige an individual, 
finding himself in a dangerous situation which they 
have brought about (shipwrecked, dying of hunger 
or thirst in the desert, for example), to do some 
action forbidden by the law, or to conclude a legal 
transaction on very unfavourable terms in order to 
escape from the danger which threatens him. The 
IKur'an contains numerous verses which, directly or 
indirectly, legitimize on grounds of necessity certain 
acts which in principle are forbidden (II, 168; V, 5; 
VI, 119; XVI, 116). Ibn Nudjaym derived from 
this a maxim which became famous: al-darurat 
tubih al-mahzurdt, which the Ottoman Madxalla 
(art. 21) reproduced literally and which may be 
translated: "Necessity makes lawful that which is 
forbidden". 

The effects of the state of necessity of which the 
writers here fixed the conditions and limits, are 
more or less drastic according to the domain of 
fikh in which they occur. 

a) In what concerns prohibitions of a religious 
character (the prohibition against eating pork or 
dead animals, or against drinking blood or other 
liquids regarded as impure, for example), it is 
admitted without difference between the Schools, 
that necessity legitimizes the non-observance of 
these rules. It follows — and this is the opinion which 
has prevailed in doctrine — that one is even obliged 
to disregard them in a case of danger. 

b) Most of the offences committed under the rule 
of necessity (for example, the theft of food, a ship- 
wrecked person's throwing into the sea the goods of 
another shipwrecked person in the same boat if it 
is too heavily laden) are excused and do not give 
rise to any form of punishment, although they do 
not cancel any civil responsibility. Three offences 
are never legitimized, let alone simply excused, 
whatever may be the circumstances in which they 
are committed (apart from legitimate defence). They 
are: murder, the amputation of a limb, or serious 
wounding likely to cause death; in these cases the 
evil inflicted is equal, if not superior, to that which 
the perpetrator of the offence has endeavoured to 
avoid, and there is no reason to favour him rather 
than the victim. 

c) Jurists have not paid much attention to the 
effect of legal transactions (sale, lease) committed 
under necessity. They regard it only as a case of 
violence (ikrdh) to be decided according to the 
rules which govern violence in general. Never- 
theless, in treatises on fikh rules are found relating 
to a sale concluded in a state of necessity, when 
one of the parties (buyer or seller) exploits the 
circumstances which force the other to buy or sell. 
The Hanafis call such a sale fasid; the writers of the 
other schools decree that the price should not be 
that so agreed, but the habitual price of something 
equivalent {thaman al-mithl). 

II. Darura is used in a much wider sense by the 
commentators when they try to justify by practical 
necessity, solutions which the lawyers of the first 



DARORA — DARWISH 



i of the Hidjra adopted by istihasdn or 
istisldh rather then by the rules of reasoning by 
analogy (kiyds). In these very numerous cases, the 
word is no longer synonymous with constraint, but 
signifies practical necessity, the exigencies of social 
and economic life. This is why other expressions 
such as hddja or ta'-dmul al-nds or maslaha are 
frequently used. It is almost exclusively in Shafi'i 
law, which does not recognize istihsdn, that these 
divergencies from kiyds had to be justified by 
reason of necessity, then taken in its narrower sense 
(al-Ghazzali, al-Mustasfd, Cairo 1322, i, 284 ff.). 

Datura in its wider meaning takes into considera- 
tion the existence in Muhammadan law of rules and 
who'e institutions which reasoning by strict analogy 
{kiyds) would have condemned, but which the 
"necessities" imposed, for instance contracts of hire 
and lease (ididra) and of mercantile partnership 
(sharika), loan of money (kard), the agricultural 
contract of muzdra'a, several kinds of sale including 
the salam sale, and a number of rules concerning 
details which have no other justification. 

Biblography: I. Ibn Nudjaym, al-Ashbdh 
wa-'l-nazdHr, ed. Cairo, 43; al-Bahr al-rdHk, 
Cairo 1334, viii, 71 ff.; KasanI, BaddH c al-sandH c , 
Cairo 1328/1910, vii, 175 ff.; Ibn 'Abidin, Radd 
al-mukhtdr, ed. Cairo, iv, 146, v, 124; Hattab, 
Commentary on Khalil. Cairo 1329, iii, 233 ft.; 
Ibn Kudama, al-Mughni, 2nd ed. of al-Mandr, 
Cairo, xi, 75, 79-80; <Abd al-Kadir, 'Awda, al- 
Tashri* al-djandH al-isldmi*, Cairo 1379/1959, i, 
576-8i. 

II. <Abd al-Wahhab Khallaf, Masddir al- 
tashri' al-isldmi flmd la nass fihi, Cairo 1955, 
especially 62; D. Santillana, Instituzioni di 
Diritto Musulmano Malichita, Rome 1925, i, 
nos. 22 to 25. 
On the "necessity" in theologica, see id'tirar. 

(Y. LlNANT DE BELLEFONDS) 

DARWlSH (Darwesh) is commonly explained as 
derived from Persian and meaning "seeking doors", 
i.e., a mendicant (Vullers, Lexicon, i, 839a, 845b; 
Gr. I. Ph., i/i, 260; ii, 43, 45); but the variant form 
daryosh is against this, and the real etymology 
appears to be unknown. Broadly through Islam it is 
used in the sense of a member of a religious 
fraternity, but in Persian and Turkish more 
narrowly for a mendicant religious called in Arabic 
a fakir. In Morocco and Algeria for dervishes, in the 
broadest sense, the word most used is Ikhwdn, 
"brethren", pronounced khudn. These fraternities 
(turuk, plural of tarika [q.v.], "path", i.e., method of 
instruction, initiation and religious exercise) form 
the organized expression of religious life in Islam. 
For centuries that religious life (see tasawwuf) was on 
an individual basis. Beyond the single soul seeking 
its own salvation by ascetic practices or soaring 
meditations, there was found at most a teacher 
gathering round himself a circle of disciples. Such 
a circle might even persist for a generation or two 
after his death, led by some prominent pupil, but 
for long there was nothing of the nature of a perpetual 
corporation, preserving an identity of organization 
and worship under a fixed name. Only in the 6th/ 
1 2 th century — the troubled times of the Saldjuk 
break-up — did continuous corporations began to 
appear. The Kadirites, founded by 'Abd al-Kadir 
al-Djilanl [q.v.] (d. 561/1166), seem to have been the 
first still-existing fraternity of definitely historical 
origin. Thereafter, we find these organizations 
appearing in bewildering profusion, founded either 



by independent saints or by split and secession from 
older bodies. Such historical origins must, however, 
be sharply distinguished from the legends told by 
each as to the source of their peculiar ritual and 
devotional phrases. As the origin of Sufism is pushed 
back to the Prophet himself, and its orthodoxy is 
thus protected, so these are traced down from the 
Prophet (or rather from Allah through Gabriel and 
the Prophet) through a series of well-known saints to 
the historic founder. This is called the silsila or 
"chain" of the order, and another similar silsila or 
apostolic succession of Heads extends from the 
founder to the present day. Every darwish must 
know the silsila which binds him up to Allah 
himself, and must believe that the faith taught by 
his order is the esoteric essence of Islam, and that 
the ritual of his order is of as high a validity as the 
saldt. His relationship to the silsila is through his 
individual teacher (shaykh, murshid, ustddh, pir) 
who introduces him into the fraternity. That takes 
place through an 'ahd, "covenant", consisting of 
religious professions and vows which vary in the 
different bodies. Previously the neophyte (murid, 
"wilier", "intender") has been put through a longer 
or shorter process of initiation, in some forms of 
which it is plain that he is brought under hypnotic 
control by his instructor and put into rapport with 
him. The theology is always some form of Sufism, 
but varies in the different tarikas from ascetic 
quietism to pantheistic antinomianism. This goes so 
far that in Persia dervishes are divided into those 
bd-shar c "with law", that is, following the law of 
Islam, and those bi-shar'- "without law", that is, 
rejecting not only the ritual but the moral law. In 
general the Persians and the Turks have diverged 
farther from Islam than the Syrians, Arabs or 
Africans, and the same tarika in different countries 
may assume different forms. The ritual always lays 
stress on the emotional religious life, and tends to 
produce hypnotic phenomena (auto and otherwise) 
and fits of ecstasy. One order, the Khalwatiyya [q.v.], 
is distinguished by its requiring from all its members 
an annual period of retreat in solitude, with fasting 
to the utmost possible limit and endless repetitions 
of religious formulae. The effect on the nervous 
system and imagination is very marked. The religious 
service common to all fraternities is called a dhikr 
[q.v.], a "remembering", that is, of Allah (Kur. 
XXXIII, 41 is the basic text), and its object is to 
bring home to the worshipper the thought of the 
unseen world and of his dependence upon it. Further, 
it is plain that a dhikr brings with it a certain 
heightened religious exaltation and a pleasant dreami- 
ness. But there go also with the hypnosis, either as 
excitants or consequents, certain physical states and 
phenomena which have earned for dervishes the 
various descriptions in the west of barking, howling, 
dancing, etc. The Mawlawls, founded by Djalal 
al-DIn al-Rumi (d. at Konya in 672/1274). stimulate 
their ecstasies by a whirling dance. The Sa'dls 
used to have the Dawsa [q.v.] and still in their 
monasteries use the beating of little drums, called 
bdz. The use of these is now forbidden in the Egyptian 
mosques as an innovation (bid'a; Muhammad 
'Abduh, TaMkh, ii, 144 ff.). The Sa'dis, Rifa'is and 
Ahmadis have particular feats, peculiar to each 
tarika, of eating glowing embers and live serpents 
or scorpions and glass, of passing needles through 
their bodies and spikes into their eyes. But besides 
such exhibitions, which may in part be tricks and 
in part rendered possible by a hypnotic state, there 
appear amongst dervishes automatic phen 



DARWlSH — DASKARA 



clairaudieuce and clairvoyance and even of levitation, 
which deserve more attention than they have yet 
received. These, however, appear only in the case of 
accepted saints {walls: [q.v.]), and are explained as 
kardmdt [q.v.] (xapta|A<XTa) wrought by Allah for 
them. But besides the small number of full members 
of the orders, who reside in the monasteries (khdnkdh, 
ribdi.zdwiya, takiyya or takya) or wander as mendicant 
friars (the Kalanderis, an order derived from the 
Baktashis, must wander continually), there is a vast 
number of lay members, like Franciscan and 
Dominican tertiaries, who live in the world and have 
only a duty of certain daily prayers and of attending 
dhikrs from time to time in the monasteries. At one 
time the number of regular dervishes must have 
been much larger than now. Especially in Egypt 
under the Mamluks, their convents were very nu- 
merous and were richly endowed. Their standing 
then was much higher than it is now, when dervishes 
are looked down upon by the canon lawyers and 
professed theologians [^ulamd) in the essential contest 
of intuitionists on the one hand and traditionists and 
rationalists on the other. For this division see further 
under tasawwuf. Now their numbers are drawn 
mostly from the- lower orders of society, and for them 
the fraternity house is in part like a church and in part 
like a club. Their relation to it is much more personal 
than to a mosque, and the fraternities, in con- 
sequence, have come to have the position and 
importance of the separate church organizations in 
Protestant Christendom. As a consequence, in more 
recent times, the governments have assumed a 
certain indirect control of them. This, in Egypt, was 
exercised by the Shaykh al-Bakri, who was head of all 
the dervish fraternities there (Kitdb bayt al-Siddik, 
379 ff.). Elsewhere there is a similar head for each 
city. The SanOsis [q.v.] alone, by retiring into the 
deserts of Arabia and North Africa and especially 
by keeping their organization inaccessible in the 
depths of the Sahara, have maintained their freedom 
from this control. Their membership is also of a 
distinctly higher social order than that of the other 
fraternities. As women in Islam have generally the 
same religious, though not legal, status as men, so 
there are women dervishes. These are received into 
the order by the shaykh ; but are often instructed and 
trained by women, and almost always hold their 
dhikrs by themselves. In mediaeval Islam such 
female dervishes often led a cloistered life, and 
there were separate foundations and convents for 
them with superiors of their own sex. Now, they 
seem to be all tertiaries. To give a complete list 
of fraternities is quite impossible here. Besides the 
separate articles referred to above, see, also, the 
articles on the various Sufi leaders and orders. 
Bibliography: The bibliography on this 
subject is very large, and the following is only 
a selection: Depont and Coppolani, Les confrdries 
religieuses musulmanes, Algiers 1897; A. Le 
Chatelier, Les conjriries musulmanes du Hedjaz, 
Paris 1887; Goldziher, Vorlesungen, 168 ff., 195 ff.; 
Lane, Modern Egyptians, chaps, x, xx, xxiv, xxv; 
J. P. Browne, The Derwishes, or Oriental Spiritu- 
alism, London 1868, ed. with introd. and notes 
by H. A. Rose, Oxford and London, 1927; Hughes, 
Dictionary of Islam, s.v. Faqir; D'Ohsson, Tableau 
general de I'Empire Othoman, ii, Paris 1790; Sir 
Charles N. E. Eliot, Turkey in Europe, London 
1900; E. G. Browne, A Year among the Persians, 
London 1893; T. H. Weir, Shaikhs of Morocco, 
Edinburgh 1904; B. Meakin, The Moors, London 



1902, chap, xix,; H. Vamb^ry, Travels in Central 
Asia, London 1864, and all Vambery's books of 
travel and history; W. H. T. Gairdner, The 'Way' 
of a Mohammadan Mystic (in MW, April 1912 ff.); 
D. B. Macdonald, Dervish in Encyclopaedia 
Britannica, ed. xi, but to be corrected by above, 
also his Religious Attitude and Life in Islam, 
Chicago 1909, and Aspects of Islam, New York 
1911, both by index; Ahmad Amin, KdmUs al- 
c dddt . . . al-misriyya, Cairo 1953, 199; For the 
present state of the brotherhoods, L. Massignon, 
Annuaire du monde musulman, iv, 1954, 426; 
index no. 4, esp. on the Shaykh al-Bakri, ibid. 
274, after the list of congregations; more generally, 
L. Massignon, Annuaire du monde musulman, iii, 
1929, 457-6i: \arlka; idem, art. tarika in EI 1 ; 
P. J. Andri, Contribution a I'itude des confreries 
religieuses musulmanes, 1956. For the various 
meanings of the word and the two proposed 
etymologies see Vullers, Lexicon persico-latinum, 
s.v.; Dozy, Suppl., s.v. drwz. Mini a t ures: Ph. 
W .Schulz,Die Persisch-islamische Miniatur-malerei , 
pi. 156, 165; pi. 188 (caricature). 

(D. B. Macdonald ») 
DARYA-BEGI, Derya-beyi, sea-lord, a title 
given in the Ottoman Empire to certain officers of 
the fleet. In the gth/i5th century the term derya- 
beyi or deiiiz-beyi is sometimes used of the comman- 
dant of Gallipoli [see gelibolu], who had the rank 
of Sandjak-beyi, and was the naval commander-in- 
chief until the emergence of the Kapudan Pasha 
[q.v.]. In the ioth/i6th century the Kapudan 
Pasha became, as well as an admiral, the 
governor of an eydlet, which consisted of a group of 
ports and islands [see pjaza'ir-i bahr-i safId]. This 
province, like others, was divided into Sandjaks, the 
governors of which were called derya-beyi instead of 
sandjak-beyi. The deryd-beyis and the officers under 
them held appanages and fiefs like the feudal cavalry; 
they were required to serve with the fleet, and to 
supply, equip, and man one, two, or three galleys, 
according to the importance of their sandjaks. Their 
fiefs were administered by the department called 
Deryd Ifalemi, sea office, which also handled 
the mensukhdt [q.v.]. The deryd-beyis usually held 
their appointments for life, and transmitted them 
to their sons. Their ships were auxiliary to the 
main fleet. 

Bibliography: Marsigli, Etat militaire de 
I'Empire ottoman, i, The Hague 1732, 144-5; 
M. D'Ohsson, Tableau geniral de I'Empire othoman, 
vii, Paris 1824, 424; Hammer- Purgstall, Staats- 
verfassung, ii, 252-3; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh 
devletinin merkez ve bahriye teskildh, Ankara 1948, 
421, 427, 423; Gibb-Bowen, i/i, 102. 

(B. Lewis) 
DARYA-YI SHAHl [see urmiya] 
DASKARA, name of four places in 'Irak, 
viz: 1. a town on the Diyala N. E. of Baghdad, 
2. a. village in the district of Nahr al-Malik W. of 
Baghdad, 3. a village near Djabbul, S. of Baghdad, 
4. a village in Khuzistan (cf. Yakut, ii, 575 ; Mardsid, 
i, 402; cf. Mukaddasi, 26). 

Daskara is arabicized from the Pahlavi dasta- 
karta (Dastkarta, Dastakrta), modern Persian 
Dastadjird [q.v.]; it means a post, a village, a town 
or simply level ground (see Herzfeld, GeschichU 
der Stadt Samarra, Hamburg 1948, 44; J. Markwart, 
/( catalogue of the provincial capitals of Eranshahr, 
Rome 1931, 59; Djawallkl, Mu'-arrab, 67; A. Geiger, 
in WZKM, xlii, 1935, '124; Eddi Shir, al-Alfdz 



al-Fdrisiyya al-Mu c arraba, 64; Vullers, Lexicon 
Persico-Lat., i, 871-2, 878 (s.vv. Daskara, Dastikdr, 
Dastakarta) ; Fleischer in Levy, Chaldaeisches Worterb., 
ii, 577 (contra ii, 43°*); Perles, Etymol. Studien, 
83; H. Hiibschmann, Armenische Grammatik (1897) , 
135, Yakut, ii, 575). 

The best known is Daskara I, 16 parasangs (c. 
88 km.) by the post road east of Baghdad (Ibn Khurra- 
dadhbih, 18-19) just above the 34° N. Lat. It is the 
modest successor of Sasanian Dastadjird [?.».], prob- 
ably a caravan post which developed into an 
important town. Its association with Hurmizd I 
(272-3) who very probably rebuilt it (cf. Yakut, 
v, 575 and Hamza al-Isfahani), and with Khusraw 
Parvez (590-608) who made it his permanent 
residence, account for its name Daskarat al-Malik 
(The King's Daskara) (Herzfeld, Samarra, 44; Ibn 
al-Athir, i, 348, 363). 

In 628, Heraclius reduced it to a heap of ruins, and 
a few years later the Arab conquests followed. 

In the Islamic period, Daskara (or Daskarat al- 
Malik) was the centre of an agricultural district 
(tassudj) in Astan Shadh Kubadh, and a caravan 
station of some importance on the Khurasan road. 
(Ibn Khurradadhbih, 13, 41; Ya'kubi, Bulddn, 
270). In early Islamic history Daskara became a 
Kharidjite stronghold (Ibn al-Athir, iii, 290, 313; 
Tabari, i, 3310, 3388; ii, 890, 896. Even in the 3rd/ 
9th century the Khawaridj were associated with it, 
ibid, iii, 1689-90, 2108). 

Daskara, as a village or small town, grew gradually 
and attained some prosperity in the 3rd/gth century 
(See Kudama, 238 for the revenue of the tassudj of 
Daskara). Ibn Rusta considered Daskara a big town 
{164). Istakhri (318-321/930-933) and Ibn Hawkal 
(c. 367/977) describe it as a flourishing town, sur- 
rounded by date groves and abundant cultivations. 
They refer to a clay fortress probably constructed by 
the Arabs. (Istakhri, 87; Ibn Hawkal, i, 246). 
However, MukaddasI (375/985) found it a small town 
with one long market (121; cf. 53). Daskara declined 
further and in the 7th/i3th cent. Yakut followed by 
the Mardsid spoke of it as a mere village (Yakut, 
ii, 575; cf. iii, 227; Mara$id, i, 402). It is not known 
when Daskara was deserted. 

Arab geographers were impressed with the ruins 
of old Dastadjird. Ya'kubi {Bulddn, 270) refers to 
the wonderful buildings of old Persian kings, while 
Ibn Rusta (164) mentions a Sasanian palace sur- 
rounded by a high wall. 

The ruins of Dastadjird-Daskara are seen now 
about 9 miles south of Shahruban, left of the Diyala 
(Herzfeld described them in 1905). The ruins of 
Muslim Daskara are called Eski Baghdad. They 
occupy a quadrangular area of about half a square 
mile surrounded by a wall with round towers 
(Sarre-Herzfeld, Iranische Felsreliefs, Berlin 1910). 
Bibliography: in addition to sources quoted 

in the article: Yakut, Mushtarik (ed. Wustenfeld), 

179; Abu Dulaf, al-Risdla al-thdniya (ed. and 

tr. V. Minorsky), Cairo 1955; Le Strange, 62, 

also 48, 80; Ritter, Erdkunde, ix, 445, 500-10. 
(A. A. Duri) 

DASTAEJIRD, Arabicized form of the Persian 
Dastagard, the name of a number of towns in the 
Sasanian empire. See daskara. 

DASTCR [seeDusTUR]. 

DASTAN [see ijamasa]. 

al-DASCKI, Burhan al-DIn IBRAHIM b. 
Abi 'l-Madjd C ABD al- c A?IZ, nicknamed Abu 
'l-'Aynayn, founder of the Dasukiyya order, 
also known as the Burhaniyya or Burhamiyya, the 



al-DASOKI 

followers being generally called Barahima. Born 
most probably at the village of Markus in the 
Gharbiyya district of Lower Egypt in the year 633/ 
1235 according to Sha c rani in Lawdkih (but 644/1246 
according to Makrlzi in Kitdb al-Suluk and 653/1255 
according to Hasan b. C A1I Shamma the commentator 
on his hizb) he spent most of his life in the neigh- 
bouring village of Dasuk or Dusflk where he died 
at the age of 43 and was buried. His father (buried 
at Markus) was a famous local watt and his maternal 
grandfather Abu '1-Fath al-Wasiti (Sha'rani, Lawd- 
kih, i, 176) was the leading Rif5 c i khalifa in the 
Gharbiyya district. It would seem that Wasiti, in 
conjunction with a disciple of his, Muhammad b. 
Harun (ibid., ii, 3), possibly in rivalry to Ibrahim's 
father, were the first to start a legend concerning 
the saintliness of Ibrahim when they credited him 
with having certified to the beginning of Ramadan 
by refusing to take his mother's breast on the day 
of his birth at the end of Sha'ban. After a brief study 
of Shafi'I law, Ibrahim became a mystic. He left no 
children but was succeeded after his death by his 
brother Shaykh Musa. 

His works include al-Dxawdhir (quoted at length 
in Sha'ranrs Lawdkih) a collection mostly of in- 
structions to novices and homiletic injunctions, aU 
Djawhara. which enumerates his kardmdt, and al- 
JfakdHk, a record of intimate conversations (mund- 
djdt) with God. Ibrahim was also the author of 
several kasidas, two of which are quoted in Lawdkih 
(see also Dar al-Kutub, Cairo, Fihrist Tasawwuf 
no. 319 Madjaml c ) a $aldt (ibid., no. 2593) and a hizb. 
Al-Dxawdhir, his major work, consistently argues 
the compatibility of hakika and shari'a. Only in 
ecstasy is taklif dropped. Inner purity is the central 
theme. Adherence to the shari'-a is not by word of 
mouth, nor is Sufism a matter of outward garb or 
residence in zdwiyas. It is the inward action "'amal 
djuwwdni" that counts, inasmuch as one's real 
zdwiya is one's heart. The wall is in intimate com- 
munion with God "muttafil", and the strictest 
obedience to him is enjoined. Love, taslim (complete 
trust, i.e., in the wall) and self-mortification "dhabh 
al-nafs" are the true path of the Sufi. Although the 
kardmdt listed in the Djawhara are extravagant, yet 
they were not unusual for the times. In his flakdHk 
occurs the moving prayer that Ibrahim made to 
God that his body be so enlarged that it should fill 
up all Hell to ransom mankind. It is evident that 
Ibrahim owed no allegiance to any other Sufi. In 
the Djawhara he stated that at the age of seven he 
had exceeded in rank all the other saints with the 
exception of c Abd al-Kadir (thus affirming his 
independence of Rifa'i and Badawi) but later he 
stated that at a ceremony in heaven God ordered 
him to invest all saints with the khirka saying: 
"O Ibrahim, you are the nakib over them all". The 
Prophet at the time was by his side but c Abd al- 
Kadir was behind him and Rifa'I behind c Abd al- 
Kadir. 

Ibrahim receives the briefest note from Makrlzi 
(Kitdb al-Suluk, i, 739), and commenting on a 
certain Khayr al-Din Abu '1-Karam, the Dasiikl 
khalifa who died in 890/1485, Ibn Iyas (ii, 228) 
merely says "la ba'-sa bihi". But Ka'it Bay seems to 
have had great respect for Ibrahim, for he visited 
the sanctuary in 884/1479 (ibid., ii, 189) and enlarged 
the building (Mubarak, Khiiat, xi, 7)- Sha'ranI 
devotes more space in the Lawdkih (i, 143-58) to 
Ibrahim (mostly quotations from al-Djawahir) than 
to any other saint and it is possible that this was the 
starting point of a DasukI revival. In 1168/1754 



L-DASOKl — DATHINA 



Hasan b. C AU Shamma wrote the first commentary 
on Ibrahim's hizb entitled Masarrat al- c aynayn bi- 
sharh hizb Abi 'l-'Aynayn (Cairo Fihrist, Tasawwuf 
184 Madjaml 1 , and Sarkis 762) abridged by C AU b. 
Ahmad al-Sayrafl in Kashf al-ghdmma mukhtasar 
al-Shaykh IJasan Shamma (ibid., 2097). Another 
commentary on the hizb is by Muhammad al-Bahi 
{ibid., 2594) whilst a commentary on his salat was 
written by a certain c Abd al-Hayy in 1271/1862 
{ibid., 2593). It would seem that Ibrahim's reputation 
rested to a large extent on his hizb and its efficacy 
in fulfilling wishes, driving away djinn and its general 
curative and protective powers. According to Bahi, 
the famous 18th century Egyptian saint Muhammad 
al-Hifni used Ibrahim's hizb, which was usually read 
after the morning and sunset prayers. 

According to Djabartl (iv, 176) the Burhamiyya 
together with the Rifa'iyya, Kadiriyya and Ahma- 
diyya are the ashdb al-'ashdHr, i.e., processions. 
Their founders were frequently referred to as the 
four akydn. A full description of the DasukI mawlids 
is in Mubarak (KMM, xi, 7). There were three 
mawlids held in the three Coptic months of Barmuda, 
Tubah, and Misra respectively. The second and 
third lasted eight days each, but the third is al- 
mawlid al-kabir. The Khedive Isma'il enlarged the 
DasukI sanctuary, and in 1293/1876 Ibrahim Pasha, 
Isma c iPs son, presented it with a new kiswa. In his 
Salsabil al-muHn, Sanflsl sums up the characteristics 
of the Burhaniyya, as he calls the order, as being 
al-dhikr al-djahri, self-mortification mudjdhaddt, and 
the formula "Yd DdHm". 

Bibliography: Muhammad Bulklnl, fabakdt 
al-Shaykh Ahmad aUShamubi, Cairo 1280; Salilj 
b. Mahdl al-'Alam aUshdmikh, Cairo 1328, 476, 
T. Tawil, Al-Tasawwuf ft Misr, Cairo 1946, 
passim; A. Le Chatelier, Les confriries musul- 
manes, Paris 1887, 190, and Lane, Modern Egyp- 
tians, i, 303-7- (Walid Khalidi) 
al-DASC^I, al-Sayyid IBRAHIMb.IBRAhIM 
( c Abd al-Ghaffar), a descendant of Musa, brother 
of the Sufi Ibrahim DasukI (see the preceding article) 
born in 1 226/181 1 in a poor family following the 
MalikI ritual. After completing his elementary 
education in his native place of Dasflk, he attended 
the lectures of distinguished Shaykhs at the Azhar 
Mosque, among whom was the celebrated MalikI 
Muhammad 'Illish (d. 1299/1882). After himself 
lecturing in the Azhar for a short time, he entered 
the employment of the state in 1248/1832 where 
on account of the accuracy of his knowledge of 
Arabic philology he received the office of corrector 
of the text-books destined to be used in the higher 
educational institutes and was ultimately appointed 
bash-musahhih (chief reader) at the government 
printing office in BOlak in the time of the Khedive 
Isma c il Pasha. He was for a period also assistant 
editor of the official gazette al-WakdH c al-Misriyya. 
He died in 1300/1883. His claim to a place in 
this work is based on the fact that, on the recom- 
mendation of Fresnel, he was employed during 
E. W. Lane's second residence in Cairo with him for 
several years as a trusted collaborator in the 
preparation of and collection of material for Lane's 
Arabic-English Lexicon, for which Lane in his preface 
gave him a glowing testimonial. Even after Lane's 
return to England, DasukI continued to assist him 
with extracts from Arabic works (preface, i, xxii, 
xxiii). We possess a memoir prepared for the former 
Egyptian minister c Ali Mubarak's encyclopaedic 
work in sadx c from the pen of DasukI in which he 
describes his meeting and intercourse with Lane, 



his impression of his personality, his domestic 
arrangements and mode of life in Cairo, his inter- 
course with Muslims there (including Shavkh 
Ahmad, immortalized in the preface to the Manners 
and Customs of the Modern Egyptians), his singular 
mastery of the Arabic idiom ("as if he were an 
c AdnanI or a KahtanI"), their joint method of 
studying the authorities on Arabic philology and 
their work on the utilization of these materials for 
the Lexicon, Lane's generosity to his Arab collabor- 
ators, etc., in the fullest detail. This article is an 
important document for the biography of the great 
English Arabist. 

Bibliography: C A1I Mubarak, al-KMtat al- 

Djadida li-Misr al-Kdhira wa-mudunihd wa- 

bilddihd al-kadima wa 'l-shahira, Bulak 1305, 

xi, 9-13; S. Lane-Poole, Life of E. W. Lane, 

117 ff- (I. Goldziher) 

al-DASC$I, IBRAHIM b. MUHAMMAD B. 

c Abd al-Rahman, a Sufi of repute, b. 833/1429, 

d. in Damascus Sha'ban 919/October 1513, author 

of collections of prayers (wird, hizb). 

Bibliography: Ibn ai-'Imad, Shadhardt, 
year 919; Brockelmann, II, 153; SII, 153. 



(C. 



N») 



DATA GANPJ [see hudjwirI]. 
DAIHlNA (nim in Katabanic inscriptions), a 
district in South Arabia, situated between the 
lands of the 'Awdhilla (see art. c awdhalI), in the 
north-west and the c Aw51ik (see art. c awlakI), in the 
east. It belongs to the Western Aden Protectorate and 
has ca. 8000 inhabitants. The country is called by 
Hamdani ghdHf, a steppe, a description still applicable 
to the greater portion of it. The climate is dry and 
the soil is fertile only in the north-east, where it 
produces tobacco, wheat and maize. Dathlna is 
inhabited by two large tribes, the Ahl em-Sa'Idl (al- 
S.) and the c Olah (al- c Ulah: c Ulah al-Kawr and 
c Ulah al-Bahr). The chief market is al-Hafa (also 
called Suk Ahl em-Sa c Idi(. In a wider sense Dathlna 
also includes the districts of the Mayasir and Hasana 
tribes in the east; here is also the town Modiya 
(em-Awdiya "the wddis"), since 1944-5 the head- 
quarters of the Government. 

Dathlna is a very ancient country, mentioned in 
the inscriptions. Hamdani gives many details on it 
in his Diazira. By that time it probably also comprised 
the territory now belonging to the 'Awdhilla. It was 
inhabited by the Banu Awd, who spoke very good 
Arabic. The main Wadls are: W. Dathina, al-Har, 
Taran, al-Ghamr, al-Humayra', al-Ma c waran, Sahb, 
'Uruffan, Marran, c Azz5n, and Dura. Among the 
numerous settlements are mentioned: Athira, al- 
Khanlna, al-Muwashshah (once the largest town in 
Dathina) etc. The big mountain al-Kawr (K. 
'Awdhilla) at one time belonged to Dathina; minor 
hills are Djabal Aswad and Ra'ish. 

There are other places called (al-)Dathlna or 
Daflna; the geographers mention a town between 
Basra and Mecca, the name of which is usually 
recorded as al-Daflna. 

Bibliography: Ryckmans, Les noms propres, 
i, 330; Hamdani, Diazira (ed. Miiller), 78, 80, 
91 ff., 96, 125, 134; (trad. Forrer) 102, 126, 141 ff., 
153 ff.; Yakut, Mu'diam, ii, 550; Sprenger, Die 
alte Geographic Arabiens, Berne 1875, 81, 187, 
275 ff. ; H. v. Maltzan, Reise nach Sudarabien, 
Brunswick 1873, 269-74; C. Landberg, in Arabica, 
iv, 1897, 9-35; idem, Etudes sur les dialect es de 
VArabie mlridionale, ii: Datinah, 1-3 1905-13), 
passim; idem, Glossaire Datinois, i-iii (1920-42), 
passim; Doreen Ingrams, A Survey of social and 



1 68 



DATHlNA — DA'WA 



conditions in the Aden Protectorate, 
Eritrea, 1949, 27, 34; v. Wissmann and Hofner, 
Beitrage zur hist. Geographie des vorislam. Siid- 
arabien, Wiesbaden 1953, 60 ff., et passim. 
Map: Southern Arabia: Aden Protectorate, 
Sheet 1, by v. Wissmann, 1957; Scale 1 : 500.000 
(with special plan of Dathina 1 : 250.000). 

(0. Lofgren) 
DA'CD, DA'CD b. KHALAF, etc. [see dawud, 

DAWA 3 [see adwiya]. 

DA'WA, pi. da'awdt, from the root da'd, to call, 
invite, has the primary meaning call or invitation. 
In the Kurgan, XXX, 24, it is applied to the call to 
the dead to rise from the tomb on the day of Judge- 
ment. It also has the sense of invitation to a meal 
and, as a result, of a meal with guests, -walima: al- 
Bukharl, Nikdh, 71, 74; LA, xviii, 285. It also means 
an appeal to God, prayer, vow: al-Bukhari, Da'awdt, 
beginning and 26, Wudu', 69, Anbiyd', 9 (Abraham's 
prayer, cf. Kur'dn, II, 123), 40 (Solomon's prayer, cf. 
Kur'dn, XXXVIII, 34; see also Kur "an, II, 182; X, 
89 ; XIIII ; XV ; XL, 4 6(to which al'-Tabari, Tafsir, 24, 
45, gives a gloss dti'd'). The da'wat al-mazlum, prayer 
of the oppressed, always reaches God: al-Bukhari. 
Mazdlim, 9 (cf. DJihdd, 180). The da'wa of the 
Muslim on behalf of his brother is always granted: 
Muslim, Dhikr, 88. The word is applied to a vow of 
any kind (e.g., al-Mas'udi, Murudj, vii, 361 ; Ibn 
al-Mu c tazz, RasdHl, Cairo, 1365, 53 : da'wa bi 'l-shifd' 1 ). 
It can also have the sense of imprecation or curse. 
Finally, it can be synonymous with da'wa, signifying 
action, case, lawsuit. 

In the religious sense, the da'wa is the invitation, 
addressed to men by God and the prophets, to 
believe in the true religion, Islam: Kur'an, XIV, 46. 
The religion of all the prophets is Islam, and each 
prophet has his da'wa, an idea which has been 
developed, with the addition of heterodox elements, 
by the Isma'ffis (see S. Guyard, Fragments relatifs a 
la doctrine des Ismailiens, in Not. et Extr., xxii (1874), 
193; al-Makrizi, Khita\, i, 393. 3*; cf. Hodgson, The 
Order of Assassins, 1955, 200 ff.). Muhammad's 
mission was to repeat the call and invitation : it is the 
da'wat al-Isldm or da'wat al-Rasul. As we know, the 
Infidels' familiarity with, or ignorance of, this 
appeal determined the way in which the Muslims 
should fight against them. Those to whom the da'-wa 
had not yet penetrated had to be invited to embrace 
Islam before fighting could take place: see Abu 
Yusuf, Kitab al-kharddi, Fr. trans. Fagnan, 295; 
al-Mawardi, Ahkdm, ch. 4, kism 2; al-Bukhari, Siyar, 
101. Elsewhere De Goeje, BGA, iv, 235 noted da'-wa 
in al-MukaddasI, 311, 5 in the sense of invitatio ad 
vitam beatam and Goldziher, Muh. St., i, 61 in the 
meaning of shi'dr. 

The word da'wa is also applied to the propaganda, 
whether open or not, of false prophets: see, e.g., 
al-Djahiz, Kitab al-tarbi'. ed. Pellat 75. 

By a natural extension da'wa also denotes the 
content of this appeal, the religious law, and the 
words da'-wa, sunna, shari'a, din, are often used 
interchangeably. Lastly the word can be applied to 
those who have heard this appeal by the Prophet 
Muhammad, the Islamic community, considered as a 
united body as a result of this appeal, and to some 
extent the word becomes a synonym of umma. Thus 
in al-Mukaddasi, BGA, iii, 244, n.c; cf. Abu Hanlfa 
al-Nu c man, Shark al-akhbar, in Ivanow, The Rise of 
the Fatimids, text, 4. Note also idjtimd' al-da'wa in 
the sense of iditimd' al-kalima (BGA, iv, 236). 

In the politico-religious sense, da'wa is the invi- 



tation to adopt the cause of some individual or 
family claiming the right to the imamate over the 
Muslims, that is to say civil and spiritual authority, 
vindicating a politico-religious principle which, in 
the final analysis, aims at founding or restoring an 
ideal theocratic state based on monotheism. The 
whole organization responsible for attracting the 
greatest possible number of people to this idea and 
for giving power to their representatives, as well as 
propaganda for this purpose, is thus called da'wa 
which can often bs translated as mission or propa- 
ganda. The da'wa is one of the means of founding a 
new empire, as Ibn Khaldun noted, Proleg., ii, in 
and 118, Rosenthal, ii, 121 and 129. Such was the 
'Abbasid da'wa which was, strictly speaking, 
propaganda for a member of the Prophet's family 
denoted impersonally by the name al-Ridd min Al 
Muhammad, the accepted member of the family of 
Muhammad, of which the 'Abbasids took advantage 
after the claims of the heir of the c Alid Muhammad 
b. al-Hanafiyya were handed down to the 'Abbasid 
Muhammad b. c Ali. This is the da'wat Bant Hdshim 
or da'-wat Bani '1-' Abbas: al-Tabari, ii, 1467; Ibn 
AM Tahir Tayfur, 288. The sahib al-da'wa is the 
person in whose name the propaganda is carried out, 
but the term also denotes the actual head of the 
organization;' thus Abu Muslim is called sahib da'wat 
Bani Hdshim (al Tabari, iii, I2 g). Propaganda was 
carried out by missionaries devoted to the cause: 
dd'i, pi. du'dt, sometimes nakib, pi. nukabd'. 

In the same way one speaks of the da'wa of the 
c Alids who were persecuted by the 'Abbasids and 
took refuge in Tabaristan and Daylam, where they 
made their claims to the imamate and founded a 
short-lived state (Ibn Khaldun, Proleg., ii, 122, 
Rosenthal, ii, 133), or of the Almohad da'wa (ibid., ii, 
123, Rosenthal, ii, 134). Every adventurer claiming 
prophetic powers and seeking to win authority used 
the same tactics and had his da'wa (see above). 

The word da'wa is well-known as applied to the 
wide-spread Karmatl-Isma'ili propaganda movement 
appealing to Muslims to give their allegiance to an 
imam descended from Ism5 c il b. Dja'far al-Sadik, 
a movement which resulted firstly in the Karmati 
revolt in Syria-Mesopotamia in 289-294/902-907 (see 
al-Tabari, iii, 2218 ff.), and later in the establishment 
in North Africa of the Fatimid dynasty. In this 
context the word takes on a particular shade of 
meaning from the fact that, in conformity with the 
Shi'ite idea of the permanence of the revelation 
through the person of the imam, this da'wa had come 
to complete the Prophet's da'wa. The latter had 
preached faith in one single God, without the other 
articles of the faith, a thing permitted only to 
Muhammad, but that was no longer sufficient: see a 
saying of Dja'far al-Sadik in the KUdb Shark al- 
akhbar by Abu Hanlfa al-Nu c man (Ivanow, The 
Rise of the Fatimids, text, i, trans., 104-105), where 
we see that the da'wa (here called du'd*) must be 
renewed by the Mahdi; cf. also article 65 of Tdd[ al- 
'AkaHd by Sayyiduna C AU b. Muhammad, in Ivanow, 
A creed of the Fatimids; also ai-Shahrastani, Cairo 
1347, ii, 26: kdnat lahum da'wa /» kull zamdn. 

Isma'ili propaganda was at first secret, so long as 
the imam was not sufficiently strong and had to 
remain in hiding. It was in this way that it was 
exercised in the East, the Yemen and North Africa 
(cf. B. Lewis, The origins of Ismd'ilism, 19, 52, 73 
etc.), and that in the Maghrib the dd'i of the Mahdi 
'Ubayd Allah took over power from his master. Abu 
Hanlfa al-Nu c man's book describing the beginnings 
of Fatimid propaganda in the Yemen and Nortb 



Africa and the establishment of the dynasty in the 
Maghrib is entitled Kitab iftitdft al-da'-wa wa'btidd' 
al-dawla. When the imam was strong enough and at 
the head of a state, he made his da'wa public (azhara 
da'watahu: Ibn Khaldun, Proleg., i, 363, Rosenthal, 
i, 413). Unlike the 'Abbasid da'wa which ceased once 
the dynasty was established, the Fatimid da'-wa did 
not cease but, on the contrary, became organized 
and even more extensive from the time the dynasty 
was established in Cairo. Though overt in the 
Fatimid possessions or in territories won over to 
the doctrine, it continued in secret in other parts, 
except that it was proclaimed openly in favourable 
districts (thus the ddH al-Mu'ayyad fi '1-Din preaching 
to the Buwayhid Abu Kalidjar: see the Sira Mu'ay- 
yadiyya, ed. M. Kamil Husayn, Cairo 1949, 43 ff.). 
Missionaries were each entrusted with some specified 
province, denoted by the term Island {djazira: for 
this name and these divisions see Ivanow, Rise, 
20 and M. Kamil Husayn, Fi adab Misr al-Fdtimiyya, 
Cairo 1950, 19). In Persia it was known by a name 
recalling its Egyptian origin, da'wat-i Misriydn 
(Ivanow, Rise, 140). From the purely political aspect 
this propaganda could be effected by those who were 
merely sympathizers, but for doctrinal matters it 
was carried out by means of preaching by the ddHs 
whose head, ddH al-du'dt or chief missionary — whose 
duties were also called da'wa (al-Kalkashandl, 
$ubh, x, 434) — had his headquarters in Cairo. In 
general, the political aim was to convince the Muslims 
that the imam alone, divinely inspired, aided by 
God and guardian of the secrets transmitted to C AH 
by the Prophet, could give mankind good guidance, 
and that dynasties other than the Fatimids descended 
from Isma'il b. Dja'far were usurpers and illegitimate, 
rotten with vices and neglectful of the most sacred 
duties of religion. The expression kiyam (iltdmat) 
al-da'wa al-hddiya clearly shows the task of directing 
humanity undertaken by the imams and upon which 
their missionaries had to insist. It occurs, for example, 
in letters from caliph al-Mustansir to the Sulayhid 
queen of the Yemen, of Fatimid persuasion (RasdHl 
al-Mustansir, ed. c Abd al-Mun c im Madjid (Magued), 
Cairo 1954, no. 46, p. 157) or in missionaries' investiture 
diplomas (al-Kalkashandl, $ubh, ix, 19, 8, x, 435, 7 a f.) 
or in an Isma'ffi oath (Shihab al-Din al- c Umari, 
Ta'rif, 158; cf. B. Lewis, The origins .... 59-60, 
Arabic trans., 141, and in BSOAS, xii, 1948, 
597-8). In addition, M. Canard, Vimpirialisme 
des Fdtimides et lew propagande, in AIEO, Algiers, 
iv, (1942-1947), gives a survey of the methods 
used by Fatimid propagandists to demonstrate the 
justice of the dynasty's claims and its exclusive 
merits, and to denigrate and weaken its enemies, 
whether Byzantine, Umayyad or c Abbasid. 

The propaganda was also concerned with education 
and initiation in doctrine. The doctrine of the sect 
is indeed a combination of political, religious, 
juridical and philosophical instruction forming a 
secret, esoteric side {bdtin, whence the name Batiniyya 
also given to the sect and misinterpreted by Ibn 
Khaldun. i, 363, Rosenthal, i, 413, who makes it 
refer to the satr of the imam), founded upon the 
allegorical interpretation of the Kur'an and the laws 
of Islam, and another overt, exoteric side (zdhir), the 
first reserved for the intellectual elite of the faithful 
{awliyd , ) l the second for those from whom only 
fidelity to the imams was required, together with 
the various obligations it entailed (see the Kitab al- 
Himma by Abu Hanifa al-Nu c man), and the accom- 
plishment of the religious duties of Islam. Doctrinal 
propaganda and instruction went together, and more 



exclusively juridical or philosophico-scientific in- 
instruction also had propaganda objectives. This we 
can see, as early as 385/995, in a lecture given on 
Fatimid fikh at the al-Azhar mosque, with a list of 
names of those present, and then by the wazir Ibn 
Killis in his own house; Yahya b. Sa c id, Patr. Or., 
xxiii/3, 434 (226). In 385/995, a vast crowd thronged 
to the lectures on "Science of the ahl al-bayt" 
given by Kadi Muhammad b. al-Nu c man in the 
palace; eleven men perished, crushed to death. In 
395/1005 the caliph al-Hakim compelled people to 
"enter the da c wa", that is to say to attend lectures 
by the chief frddi c Abd al- c Aziz b. Muhammad b. al- 
Nu'man who arranged sessions at the palace on 
different days, attended either by men or women, or 
else by dignitaries; there too there was a crowd so 
dense that men and women perished in the press. 
From other information we learn that the chief ddH 
directed the da'-wa sessions, known as madjdlis al- 
hikma, in a section of the palace called al-Muhawwal, 
where the ddH had a special madjlis and his own chair 
{hursi al-da'-wa). He had the oath administered to 
those who were being converted to the Fatimid 
doctrine, and received offerings of silver from those 
present (al-nadjwd). The lectures which he had 
carefully prepared with the help of his naliibs and 
official fahihs who worked and taught at the ddr al- 
Hlm or ddr al-hikma Igq-v.], founded by al-Hakim in 
395/1005, a kind of university with a library, were 
submitted to the caliph before being read. As 
has been noted above, there were separate sessions 
for men and women. According to Ibn al-Tuwayr 
(525-617/1131-1220), those for men were held in the 
great hall of the palace (al-lwdn al-habir), those for 
women in the madjlis al-ddH. On the other hand al- 
Musabbihi (366-420/977-1029) records five different 
sessions, one for the awliya', one for the elite of the 
senior administrative and palace officials, one for 
the people and visitors from the interior of the 
country, another for women (at the al-Azhar 
mosque), and another for women from the palace 
(for all these points see al-MakrizI i, 341-42 and ii, 
390-391). According to al-Kalkashandl (iii, 487), it 
was at the ddr al-Hlm that the juridical meetings of 
the chief ddH were held, and the taking of oaths by 
converts to the Fatimid doctrine. But it is not 
absolutely certain that the religious and doctrinal 
lectures based on allegorical interpretation were held 
in this place (M. Kamil Husayn, Fi adab Misr al- 
Fdtimiyya, Cairo 1950, 32). Incidentally we know 
that at Aleppo at the time of the amir Ridwan, who 
died in 507*1113, there was a ddr al-da'-wa: Ibn 
Shihna, 27; Kamal al-Din b. al- c Adim, in Rec. Hist. 
Cr. Or., iii, 589-90; Abu '1-Mah5sin, Nudjum, Cairo, 






• 507. 



We have a detailed account of the procedure 
apparently used by Isma'ili missionaries to gain 
neophytes for their philosophico-religious theses 
imbued with the neo-platonic theory of emanation, 
their cyclic conception of the world and imamate, 
the way in which they made use of allegorical inter- 
pretation {ta'wil) of the Kur'an and the laws of 
Islam to attain their ends, and the different methods 
used, according to the religion of those whom they 
were trying to win over. According to this account 
which is found in al-Makrizi, i, 391 ff. and with 
greater detail in al-Nuwayri (translation in S. de 
Sacy, Exposi de la religion des Druzes, i, Introduc- 
tion), the initiation of neophytes (al-mad'u) was only 
completed after nine periods of instruction, each 
one of which was called da'-wa. This system was 
attributed to the alleged founder of Isma'Ilism, 'Abd 



DA C WA — DA'WA 



Allah b. Maymun al-Kaddah. In it we see how they 
proceeded gradually to reveal the secrets of the 
doctrine, the ta'wil and the ta'wil al-ta'wtt (for this 
last expression see al-Mas c udi, Tanblh, 395, trans. 
501, and cf. Goldziher, Vorlesungen*, 246; Fr. trans., 
206). Ivanow has on several occasions (An Ismailitic 
Work by Nasiru d-din 7"«s», in JRAS, 1931, 534; 
The organization of the Fatimid propaganda, in 
JBBRAS, xv (1939), 11 and Rise, 133 in the chapter 
The Myth of 'Abdu 'l-ldh b. Maymun al-Qadddh) 
challenged the existence of these nine degrees of 
initiation for converts to Isma'Ilism with a gradual 
revelation of the mysteries. According to him, this 
is a misinterpretation of the hierarchy of the hudud 
al-din, a kind of Fatimid "clergy" (for this expression 
see Ivanow, Organization, 8, and a note in M. Canard's 
translation of the Sirat Jaudhar, 52); these nine 
degrees have no connexion with either the ancient 
or modern grades of initiates, there is no trace of it 
either in the literature of the sect or in controversial 
literature; he similarly rejects any comparison with 
initiation in Masonic lodges and their secret cere- 
monies. It is however difficult to believe that it is 
merely an invention. The nine degrees were known 
before al-Makriz! and al-Nuwayri, from SunnI sources, 
not as stages in initiation but as stages (mardtib, 
daradjdt) in the Machiavellian tricks (hiyal) to 
recruit new adherents and detach them from their 
religion (SunnI interpretation, as opposed to the 
true religious fervour of the Fatimids). Each stage 
bears a name corresponding to the dialectical and 
psychological method used; the names given to these 
stages by al-Baghdadl, Fark, ed. Cairo 1367/1948, 
179 ff. are: tafarrus, ta'nis, tashklk, taHih, rabt, 
tadlis, ta'sis, after which come the oaths (aymdn), 
and then complete detachment (khal'). (See also 
al-Ghazali, Kitab faddHh al-Bdtiniyya (Goldziher, 
Streitschrift des G. gegen die Bdtinijja Sehte, 40 and 
p. t ff.), and M. Kamil Husayn, Ft adab . . ., 19 ff.). 

The question remains obscure. Various methods 
of propaganda and discussion were used, but the 
period of their full development can hardly be taken 
back to the time of the beginnings of Isma'Ilism. 
The outline given by al-Nuwayri and al-MakrlzI 
seems to be of later date. 

The word da'wa does not only have the sense of 
appeal and propaganda. We have seen above its use 
to denote the Islamic community. Similarly, in 
connection with the Fatimids and Isma'ilis, it has 
the sense of doctrine, religion, community, sect, 
party of the imam. Ivanow, Organization, 18-19, 
noted this polyvalence. Da'wa can even be equated 
with zone of obedience, empire, dynasty. Ibn 
Hawkal says (57-8) that the lands of the Maghrib are 
in the da'wa of the Commander of the Faithful al- 
Mu'izz li-Din Allah, and that (221) Kirman is in the 
da'wa of the people of the Maghrib. In the Kitab 
al-Himma by Abu Hanlfa al-Nu'man, chap. 7, man 
shamalathu da'wat al-imdm denotes the caliph's 
subjects, as a whole. Shuyukh al-da'wa in the Sirat 
Jaudhar (trans. 54, cf. Ivanow, Rise, V 9) is syno- 
nymous with shuyukh al-dawla. For this use in the 
sense of dynasty see also al-Istakhri, 36, 4 and 
296, 4: sawdd da'wat Bani 'I- Abbas, the black colour 
of the 'Abbasid dynasty (BGA, iv, 236); al-Makrizi, 
Suluk, i, 18. Finally we may note that da c wa is the 
equivalent of madhhab among the Wahbi Ibadites 
who call themselves ahl al-madhhab or ahl al-da'-wa 
(T. Lewicki, La repartition giographique des groupe- 
ments ibadites dans VAfrique du nord au Moyen Age, 
in RO, xxi, 1957). 

In the Isma'Hi community there was a schism 



after the death of al-Mustansir in 487/1094, when his 
son Musta'll was proclaimed in opposition to his 
other son Nizar. A group of Ismallis refused to 
recognize Musta c ll, and there were two branches or 
parties in the community, the Musta'lians and the 
Nizaris. The former were called al-da'-wa al-kadima, 
the old, and the latter al-da'wa al-djadida, the new 
da'wa. This schism became permanent. When Amir, 
Musta'li's successor, was assassinated in 524/1130 
by the Nizaris, before dying he handed over his 
authority to c Abd al-MadjId, the future Hafiz, his 
cousin, as his son Tayyib was a minor. The latter 
disappeared or entered the satr. The da'wa kadima 
was also called da'wa (ayyibiyya, and was perpe- 
tuated in the Yemen where the Sulayhid queen 
spread the da c wa for the imam al-Tayyib. It is 
is this da'wa kadima, or Musta'lian or TayyibI da'wa, 
which is today represented by the Bohoras in India, 
whilst the da'wa diadida or Nizari da'wa, made 
famous by Hasan b. Sabbah and the Hashlshiyya 
(Assassins), is today represented by the Khodias. 
For these two branches of the Isma'ilian da'wa see 
Ibn Khaldun, i, 363, Rosenthal; i, 413; al-Shah- 
rastanl, ed. Cureton, 147, 150-152, ed. Cairo 1347, 
ii, 26, 28-31; Hodgson, The Order of Assassins, 
index. The Nizaris or Assassins of Syria, also called 
Fida'iyyun, who with their fortresses played an 
important part at the time of the Crusades, were 
conquered by the Mamluk Baybars in 671/1278. 
They continued to occupy a certain number of places. 
They were then known by the name al-fdHfa al- 
ismd'iliyya bi-kild' al-da'wa; they called themselves 
ashdb al-da'wa al-hddiya, or mudidhidun, and had at 
their head an atdbek appointed by Cairo (see al- 
Kalkashandi, i, 122; iv, 146, 235, 309; ix, 254). For 
modern Islamic propaganda and the propagandist 
school founded by Rashid Rida in the island of Roda 
near Cairo, called Ddr al-da'wa wa'l-irshdd ("House 
of propaganda and direction"), see Goldziher 
Richtungen, 343-4. 

Bibliography: In addition to the works 
referred to in the text, see : De Goeje, Mimoire sur 
Us Carmathes du Bahrain et les Fatimides 16 ff., 
23 ff., 27 ff.; Casanova, La doctrine secrete des 
Fatimides d'Egypte, in BIFAO, xviii (1921); 
Husain F. al-Hamdanl, The history of the IsmdHli 
Da'wat and its literature during the last phase 
of the Fatimid Empire, in JRAS, 1932, 126-136; 
M. Kamil Husayn, edition of al-Madidlis al- 
Mustansiriyya, Cairo 1946, Introduction; M. 
Kamil Husayn and M. Mustafa Hilmi, edition of 
Rdhat al-'akl by Ahmad Hamid al-Din al-Kirmani, 
Cairo 1952, Introduction; M. Kamil Husayn, Fi 
adab Misr al-Fdtimiyya, Cairo 1950, 19 ff.; 
Ivanow, Brief survey of the evolution of Ismailism, 
1952; A. M. Magued, Institutions et cirimonial 
des Fatimides, Cairo 1953-5, i. i77nV. Mustafa 
Ghalib, Ta'rikh al-da'wa al-ismd'iliyya, Damascus 
1954 (not consulted) ; Bayard Dodge, Ismd'iliyyah 
and the origins of the Fatimids, in The Muslim 
World, Oct. 1959, 299-300. The work by B. Lewis, 
The origins of Ismd'ilism, Cambridge 1940, has 
been translated into Arabic by Kh. A. Jallu and 
J. M. Rajab, Cairo 1947 (see 164 ff. and passim). 

(M. Canard) 
DA'WA, action at law. According to a well- 
known formula the da'wa is defined as: "the action 
by which a person claims his right, against another 
person, in the presence of a judge" (Madjalla, art. 
1613). A case submitted to an arbitrator is, equally, 
a da'wa. The plaintiff is termed mudda'i, the defen- 
dant mudda'd alayh and the object of the claim 



mudda'd or, more popularly — though less accurately, 
as certain writers note, — mudda'd bihi. We also meet, 
particularly in the MalikI madhhab, the terms (dlib 
(plaintiff) and maflub (defendant). The parties to the 
suit are called, in the dual, khasmdn. and in the 
plural, khusum or khusamd' (opponents) — (singular 
khasm) ; more concretely each party is the khasm of 
the other. The contentious argument itself is the 
khusuma (additional synonyms, though of a slightly 
less technical character, are nizd c , mundza'a and 
tandzu'). 

The fact that the da'wd envisages two contesting 
parties excludes from this notion the process in 
which the magistrate effects ex officio the exercise 
of certain rights such as measures to safeguard the 
public welfare. 

But in every case which involves the three 
essential elements of contentious process there is a 
da'-wd, whatever the judicial authority before whom 
the action is brought and whatever the nature of the 

A da'-wd exists, therefore, in the following cases: 
in the suit brought by an individual, the victim of 
an offence against the person, who claims the 
application of ttie law of talion (kisds [g.v.]) or the 
payment of compensation (diya [g.v.]); in the case 
of prosecutions for various "legal" offences sanctioned 
by public penalties (hudiid) (see hadd) when brought 
in the exclusive or partial interest of the victim, 
such as the offences of theft or fornication; in the 
case of criminal prosecutions ex officio where the 
victim intervenes as plaintiff as well as in every 
case of the exercise of the so-called hisba action, a 
kind of actio popularis, based on the principle that 
every Muslim, apart from any personal grievance, is 
authorized to stand in the r61e of prosecutor for any 
infringement of the law (see hisba); and finally in 
the action brought in accordance with the extra- 
ordinary procedure of the mazdlim [q.v.]. 

Certain conditions are required for the "validity" 
{sihha), that is to say the acceptability, of the 
da'wd: there must be -an adequate determination of 
the object of the claim, of the identity of the parties, 
and of their capacity. The person who does not 
possess ordinary legal capacity, but who simply has 
the ability to discriminate, may go to law, provided, 
however, he is authorized to do so by his guardian 
or the judge. In a real action the defendant must 
necessarily be the person in possession of the object 
in dispute (sahib al-yad). 

A da'wd which does not satisfy all these conditions 
may, however, be subsequently rectified by the 
fulfilment of the condition(s) in question, such 
rectification being termed tashih al-khusuma. This 
may be accomplished solely upon the initiative of 
the plaintiff or upon the order of the judge. 

The parties may appear in person or through a 
representative, who may be either appointed by the 
party {wakil) or, as in the case of the guardian (wasi) 
or the wali of those lacking capacity, required by 
the law. In the case of things which are open to the 
use of the general public such as sea-water or the 
public highway, every person is entitled to go to 
law to defend his right of user. In the event of 
litigation between defined groups, such as villages 
in relation to communal property, such as forests, 
pastures, etc., a single member of each of the groups 
may go to law in the name of the group whether as 
plaintiff or defendant, provided, however, it is a 
question of groups whose number is "unlimited" 
(kawm ghayr mahsilr), such a group being, according 



to the general opinion, one whose number exceeds 
one hundred persons. 

Certain estates of property, such as wakfs, 
which are regarded as a legal entity, appear in 
process of law through the medium of their qualified 
representatives. The same applies to an inheritance 
prior to its distribution: in principle each heir may 
appear as plaintiff or defendant in the name of the 



The court which is competent to entertain a da'wd 
is the court of the domicile or of the place of simple 
residence of the defendant. This rule is equally 
applicable in the case of immovable property. In 
the MalikI madhhab, however, it is admitted that in 
this latter case competence also belongs to the court 
of the situs of immovable. Where there exists in the 
same locality a number of judges — as will be the case 
when judges are appointed for the different madhhabs, 
or when there is an ordinary judge and a judge 
appointed to hear suits concerning military personnel 
{kddi 'askar [g.v.]), the choice of the competent court 
rests with the defendant. However, all these rules of 
competence are not of a peremptory nature; they 
may be avoided by the common agreement of the 

The appearance of the parties, is, in principle, a 
necessary condition precedent to the fighting of the 
issue; there does not exist, in Islamic Law, a proce- 
dure of judgment in default of appearance. Further, 
various procedures of indirect coercion are laid down 
with the object of securing the appearance of a 
recalcitrant defendant. As a last resort, the judge 
will appoint for such a defendant an official represen- 
tative (wakil musakhkhar). 

In another system, followed notably in the 
Shafi'i madhhab and in the ShI'i doctrine, the view 
is maintained that the appearance of the duly named 
defendant is not a necessary condition of the da'wd: 
the procedure runs its course in the ordinary way 
in his absence, but without being for that reason 
considered as a procedure of default; further the 
judgment delivered will have precisely the same 
validity as a judgment delivered in the presence of 
the defendant. 

Essentially the process is an oral one; and while 
the parties may be allowed to present their pleas in 
written form, the writing nevertheless will have no 
validity until it is orally confirmed by the litigant 
before the judge. 

The term da/ c is used for the reply which tends to 
traverse the da'wd — and, by extension, for every reply 
made by a party in contradiction of a plea raised 
by his opponent. 

It is upon the plaintiff that the burden of proof 
falls. The methods of legal proof are acknowledge- 
ment or confession (ikrdr), the oath (yamin), 
testimony (shahdda), which is the normal proof par 
excellence, writing (khatt) and legal presumptions 



(kar 



in). 



One particular form of testimony is the tawdtur. 
This consists of the affirmation of a fact by a number 
of persons (a minimum of twenty-five according to a 
fairly widespread opinion) so large as logically to 
exclude any possibility of fraud or lying. It is not 
necessary in this case that the strict conditions of 
testimony properly so-called — such as the condition 
that the witness should have personal knowledge of 
the attested fact, or the condition of moral integrity 
('addla, [q.v.]) — should be observed. But in spite of 
this the tawdtur is superior to all other modes of 
proof with the exception of confession. 

Writing in itself has no evidential value; it is a 



DA'WA — DAWA'IR 



valid mode of proof only in so far as it is orally con- 
firmed by duly qualified witnesses. 

In the event of the defendant failing to put in a 
voluntary appearance with the plaintiff it is a matter 
of some controversy whether the suit is to be 
regarded as started by the simple action itself of 
the plaintiff,' or whether there can be no question of 
continuing the process further and naming the 
defendant until there has first been a preliminary 
enquiry by the judge to establish that there is at 
least a prima facie ground for the action. 

The system of proof is a 'legal' system, in the 
sense that once proof has been provided according 
to the dictates of the law and is in conformity with 
the facts alleged, it binds the judge, whatever his 
own inner conviction may be. Hence one arrives at 
solutions like the following: in the case where two 
contending parties, each of whom claims exclusive 
ownership of a certain chattel, both adduce a regular 
form of proof supporting their allegations, it will be 
incumbent upon the judge to decide that they are 
co-owners in equal shares; or even, according to one 
opinion, it will be necessary to draw lots (kur'a) to 
determine the title to the property. 

The trial terminates with the judgment (hukm). 
Since the system of Muslim judicial organization is 
a system of a single jurisdiction, the judgment of 
the kadi is not subject to an appeal before a superior 
jurisdiction, which does not exist. This principle, 
however, is subject to two important reservations. 
In the first place, in periods or in areas where there 
exists an organized procedure of mazdlim, any 
person who feels himself a victim of injustice as a 
result of the workings of the public services, may 
demand redress by presenting a petition to the 
sovereign authority. In the second place, the suit 
may be reopened either before the same judge or 
before another judge — the successor in office of the 
judge who delivered the decision, or in fact any 
judge who may be on other grounds competent — in 
order to determine the case afresh. Furthermore the 
principle of res judicata is, to a large extent, un- 
known to Islamic law. Although it would be difficult 
to indicate here the precise scope of this rule, which 
is, indeed, beyond a certain point a matter of 
controversy, it may simply be pointed out that the 
authorities are unanimous in holding that a judg- 
ment may be contested and, in suitable circum- 
stances, withdrawn or annulled where there is an 
infringement of an undisputed rule of law. 

The right of action at law is extinguished by 
prescription, the period of which varies, according 
to different opinions, from three to thirty-six years. 
In the Ottoman Empire the period was fixed at 
fifteen years, except in certain cases, such as those 
relating to a wakf fund, where the period was 
extended to thirty-six years. The law further 
recognizes certain causes of suspension or inter- 
ruption of the period. Prescription functions as a 
procedural bar, which paralyses the exercise of the 
right of action; it does not affect the substantive 
right itself. 

In the final stage of Islamic law in the Ottoman 
Empire, as represented by the code known as 
Medjelle-i ahkdm-i l adliyye [q.v.], which was 
promulgated between the years 1870 and 1877, the 
old system of the da l wa was reformed in a number 
of particulars, notably by the recognition of the 
intrinsic probative value of writing (art. 1736), by 
the acceptance of the principle of res judicata (art. 
1837), and by the introduction of procedure in default 
of appearance (art. 1833 if.). These modifications ran 



parallel with the modernization of the judicial 
organization, established in accordance with Euro- 
pean models and based upon the principles of 
benches of judges and the institution of a hierarchy 
of courts with systems of appeal. 

Bibliography: The chapter Da c wd in the 

works of fikh; Ibn £ Abd al-Rahman, Rahmat al- 

umma fi-'khtildf al-aHmma, edited by <Abd al- 

Hamid, Cairo n.d., 310 ff.; Medielle, art. 1613 ff.; 

Querry, Recueil de lois concernant les musulmans 

schyites, Paris 1877, ii, 385 ff.; T. W. Juynboll, 

Handbuch des islamischen Gesetzes, Leiden 1910, 

313 ff.; L. Milliot, Introduction d Vitude du droit 

musulman, Paris 1953, 683 ff.; M. Morand, £tudes 

de droit musulman algirien, Algiers 1910, 313 ff.; E. 

Tyan, Histoire de I 'organisation judiciaire en pays 

d' Islam, ii, Lyons 1943, 21 ff., 141 ff., 3goff.,477ff.; 

idem, La procedure du difaut en droit musulman, 

in Stud. Isl., 1957, 115 ff. (E. Tyan) 

DAWADAR, also Dawatdar, Duwaydar and 

Amir Dawat, the bearer and keeper of the royal 

inkwell. Under the 'Abbasids the emblem of office 

of the wazir was an inkwell. The post of dawdddr 

was created by the Saldjfiks, and was held by 

civilians. Sultan Baybars transferred it to a Mamluk 

Amir of Ten: Under the Bahri MamlOks the dawdddr 

did not rank among the important amirs, but under 

the Circassians he became one of the highest amirs 

of the sultanate, with the title Grand Dawadar 

(dawdddr kabir), and with a number of dawdddrs 

under him. The office of dawdddr ranked among the 

seven most important offices of the realm. There was 

competition between the ra's nawba and the 

dawdddr kabir for the fifth and sixth places, possession 

of which alternated irregularly between them. Some 

dawdddrs even became sultans. One of the dawdddr's 

duties during the later Mamluk period was to decide 

which of the members of the halha [q.v.] were fit 

to join in military expeditions; in addition, he 

regularly visited Upper Egypt, and sometimes the 

regions of Djabal Nabulus, al-Sharkiyya, and al- 

Gharbiyya, in order to collect taxes and gather in 

the crops. These trips would take place amid great 

pomp, and the sources discuss them at great length. 

They were accompanied by cruel oppressions of the 

local population. At the close of the Mamluk era, 

enormous power was concentrated in the hands of 

the dawdddr ; thus for example Amir Yashbak was, 

in addition to his duties as dawdddr, also amir sildh, 

wazir, ustdddr, kashif al-kushshdf (inspector-general), 

mudabbir al-mamlaka, and rah al-maysara; no 

previous Mamluk amir had accumulated such a 

great number of offices, chough exactly the same 

offices were accumulated by the dawdddr TOmanbay, 

who later became sultan. In the Ottoman and 

Safavid empires the dawdddrs (called divittdr and 

dawatdar) were functionaries with scribal duties in 

the chanceries. 

Bibliography: I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh 

devleti teskildhna medhal, Istanbul 1941, 91, 96 

and index; D. Ayalon, Studies on the structure of 

the Mamluk army, in BSOAS, xvi, 1954, 62-3, 

68-9. (D. Ayalon) 

DAWA'IR, plural of ddHra, group of families 

attached to the service and the person of a native 

chief in Algeria. Before the French conquest, the 

name of dawd'ir (local pronunciation dwayr) was 

borne especially by four tribal groups encamped 

to the south-west of Oran and attached to the 

service of the Bey of that city, although there were 

other dawd'ir, for example in the Titteri. They were 

organized as a militia, living on the products of the 



land put at their disposition by the Turkish govern- 
ment and the profit from expeditions against tribes 
who were unruly or refused to pay their taxes. The 
Zmala, their neighbours, played the same part. 

Local tradition, as discovered after the French 
conquest, held the members of these groups to be 
the issue of troops whom the Moroccan sultan, 
Mawlay Isma'il, had brought into the region to fight 
against the Turks in 1701. The campaign having 
failed, a number of Moroccan soldiers passed into 
the service of the Turks and formed a makhzen tribe, 
placed under the command of two local families. 
Dawa'ir and Zmala had the privilege of levying 
the taxes only in the district called Ya c kubiyya in 
the southern region of Oran, which extended from 
the neighbourhood of Mascara and the mountains of 
Tlemcen to the Djabal 'Amur. Apart from this 
task, the Dawa'ir were charged with policing the 
tribes of the western region of Oran, and accompanied 
the Bey on all his expeditions. They were completely 
devoted to the Turks. 

When the Turkish regime collapsed suddenly after 
the French expedition of 1830, the Dawa'ir found 
themselves deprived of their chief reason for existence 
and sought someone else under whom they could 
serve. They first embraced the cause of the envoy 
of the Moroccan sultan, Mawlay c Abd al-Rahman, 
who had come to occupy Tlemcen in 1830 at the 
request of part of the population, But the Moroccan 
regime did not last long and they found themselves 
ouce again out of employment. 

The Amir c Abd al-Kadir tried in his early days to 
enrol them into his service, but their chief, Mustafa 
b. Isma'il, had already entered into negotiations 
with the French general in command at Oran, and 
did not respond to the Amir's advances. Never- 
theless, a part of the tribe joined c Abd al-Kadir. He 
tried to win over the rest in 1833 and seemed at 
one time to have succeeded, but Mustafa b. Isma'Il, 
already an old man, found the authority of the young 
Amir difficult to bear and separated himself finally 
from him. He shut himself up in the citadel (mashwar ) 
of Tlemcen with fifty families of the Dawa'ir and the 
Kulughli [q.v.] of the town. At that time, other groups 
of Dawa'ir were submitting to the French and were 
settled around Misserghin. The whole tribe treated 
with General Trezel at the camp of le Figuier near 
Oran on 16th June 1835, and became again in the 
service of France, the Makhzen group that they had 
been in the days of the Turks. Mustafa b. Isma'il, 
who remained at Tlemcen, was aided by the French 
early in 1836 and took back his place as head of the 
Dawa'ir. In this position, he co-operated with them 
in the struggle of the French against c Abd al-Kadir, 
and was appointed a brigadier by Louis- Philippe. 
He was assassinated at the age of almost 80 after the 
capture of the smala of c Abd al-Kadir (1843). His 
death brought to an end the greatest period in the 
history of the Dawa'ir. 

Bibliography: Anon., Douair et Zmala, Oran 
1883; Pellissier de Raynaud, Annates algiriennes, 
3 vols., Paris and Algiers 1854, passim; W. Ezter- 
hazy, Notice sur le Maghzen d'Oran, Algiers 1838, 
and De la Domination Turque dans I'ancienne 
Rlgence d' Alger, Paris 1840, 266 ff.; Desmichels, 
Oran sous la Commandement du general Desmichels, 
Paris 1835, passim; Nasiri, K. al-Istiksd, Cairo 
1312, iv, 184-192; M. Emerit, VAlgtrie a l'£poque 
d'Abd al-Kader, Paris 1951, passim; R. Tinthoin, 
Colonisation et Evolution des Genres de Vie dans la 
Rigion Quest d'Oran de 1830 a 1885, Oran 1947, 
passim. (A. Cour-[R. Le Tourneau]) 



DAW'AN 173 

DAW'AN (sometimes Du'an), one of the principal 
southern tributaries of Wadi Hadramawt. Daw c an, 
a deep narrow cleft in al-Djawl, runs c. 100 km. 
almost due north to join the main wadi opposite the 
town of Haynan. The precipitous walls of Daw c an 
are c. 300 m. high; its towns nestle against the lower 
slopes with their palm groves lying in the valley 
bed below. The valley is formed by the confluence 
of two branches, al-Ayman (pronounced layman) and 
al-Aysar (pronounced laysar), with al-Ayman often 
reckoned an integral part of Daw c an proper. Among 
the cluster of settlements in al-Ayman are al-Ribat 
al-Khurayba, al-Rashid, and al-Masna c a. Just 
below the juncture of al-Ayman and al-Aysar is the 
town of Sif, after which come Kaydun and al- 
Hadjarayn [q.v.], the last of which sometimes gives 
its name to the lower reaches of the valley. North 
of al-Hadjarayn is the comparatively recent shrine 
of al-Mashhad with the tomb of al-Sayyid c Ali b. 
Hasan al- c Attas. Wadi al-'Ayn empties into the 
valley from the east and Wadi c Amd from the west. 
The name Wadi al-Kasr (Kasr Kamakish in al- 
Hamdani) is given to the lowest stretch where the 
stream beds of 'Amd, Daw c an, and al- c Ayn run 
together. The towns of Hawra and al-'Adjlaniyya are 
on the right bank. 

A motor road leads from al-Mukalla to the interior 
past Kawr Sayban, the highest peak in the region, 
and then past the sacred summit of Mawla Matar 
to upper Daw c an. 

Relics of Sabaean times have been found in the 
valley, and the ruins of Ghaybun lie south of al- 
Mashhad. The name Daw'an has been detected in 
Ptolemy's Thauane (Thabane) and in the Toani, a 
tribe mentioned by Pliny. The valley lays within the 
territory of Kinda, and the royal house of Akil al- 
Murar came from Dammun at al-Hadjarayn. In al- 
Hamdanl's time the Imam of the Ibadis in Hadra- 
mawt had his seat in Daw c an, perhaps on the site 
now known as al-Khurayba. Later the upper valley 
became the stronghold of Al al- c Amudi, whose 
ancestor, al-Shaykh Sa c id b. <Is5 (d. 671/1272-3 and 
buried in Kaydun) is said to have been the first to 
introduce Sufism into Hadramawt. The Bedouin 
tribes of Sayban and al-Dayyin in the highlands 
showed great reverence for the shaykhs of this 
family, but the religious basis of its influence did not 
keep the shaykhs from squabbling among them- 
selves, and they could not resist the expanding 
power of the Ku c ayti Sultanate of al-Mukalla at the 
close of the 19th century. Daw c an now forms a liwa' 
of the Sultanate with al-Hadjarayn as the northern 
limit. The house of B5 Surra of Sayban provides the 
provincial governors, but Al al- c AmudI has recovered 
something of its old standing, its main centre now 
being at Bida in al-Ayman. 

Many of the people of Daw c an have emigrated to 
Aden, East Africa, and Java. For sentimental 
reasons a number of the rich emigrants maintain 
homes and gardens in the valley, the only export 
from, which is honey. 

Bibliography : Hamdani; Muhammad b. 
Hashim, TaMKh al-Dawla al-kathlriyya, i, Cairo 
1367; Salah al-Bakri, Ta'rikh Ifadramawt al-siydsi, 
Cairo 1354-5; idem, Fi djanub al-djazira al- c ara- 
biyya, Cairo 1368; M. de Goeje in Rev. Colon. 
Internal., 1886; H. von Wissmann & M. Hofner, 
Beitrage zur hist. Geog., Wiesbaden 1953 ; L. Hirsch, 
Reisen, Leiden 1897; D. van der Meulen & H. von 
Wissmann, fladramaut, Leiden 1932; W. Ingrams, 
A Report on . . . Hadhramaut, London 1937; idem, 
Arabia and the Isles', London 1952. (G. Rentz) 



174 



L DAWANl — DAWAR 



al-DAWANI, Muhiammad b. As'ad Djalal al- 
DIn, was born in 830/1427 at Dawan in the district 
of Kazarun, where his father was Kadi; he claimed 
descent from the Caliph Abu Bakr whence his nisba 
al-Siddlkl. He studied with his father and then 
went to Shlraz where he was a pupil of Mawlana 
Muhyl '1-DIn Gusha Kinarl and Mawlana Humam 
al-DIn Gulbarl and SafI al-Din Idji. He held the 
office of Sadr under Yfisuf b. Djahanshah, the 
Kara Koyunlu, and after resigning this office became 
Mudarris of the Begum Madrasa, also known as the 
Ddr al-Aytdm. Under the Ak Koyunlu he became 
Kadi of Fars. During the disorders which occurred 
in Fars at the time of the break-up of the Ak 
Koyunlu kingdom and the wars between them and 
Shah Isma'il Safawl, Djalal al-Din took refuge in 
LSr and Djurun; and when Abu '1-Fath Beg Bayandur 
took possession of Shlraz, he set out for Kazarun but 
died some days after reaching the encampment of 
Abu '1-Fath in 908/1502-3. He was buried at Dawan. 
He wrote numerous commentaries on well-known 
works of philosophy and mystical literature and a 
number of dogmatic, mystic, and philosophical 
treatises in Arabic. His commentary on the Tahdhib 
al-Mantik wa 'l-Kaldm of al-Taftazanl (d. 791/ 
1389), Lucknow 1264, 1293 (with glosses by Mir 
Zahid), and his Risdlat al-Zawrd', completed in 
870/1465 (Cairo 1326 with TaHikdt) have been 
printed. His best known work is the Lawdmi'- al- 
Ishrdk fi Makdrim al-Akhldk, better known as the 
Akhldk-i Qialdli, which he wrote in Persian (lith. 
Calcutta, 1283/1866-7, translated into English by 
W. T. Thompson, Practical Philosophy of the Mu- 
hammedan People, London 1839). 

It is a 'modernized' and 'popular' version of the 
Akhldk-i Ndsiri of Nasir al-DIn TusI, made at the 
command of Uzun Hasan, the Ak Koyunlu ruler, to 
whom it is dedicated (Persian text, 16). Djalal al-DIn 
admits his debt to Nasir al-Din (321). The Akhldk-i 
Ndsiri is divided into three parts, ethics, economics, 
and politics; the first part is a translation and 
reworking of an Arabic treatise by Abu 'All Ahmad 
b. Muhammad b. Ya'kub b. Miskawayh, entitled 
Kitdb fahdrat al-A'-rdk fi Tahdhib al-Akhldk; the 
second derives from Bryson through an essay entitled 
Taddbir al-Mandzil by Abu 'All b. SIna; and the 
third is based on al-Farabl's Madina Fddila and 
Kitdb al-Siydsa al-Madaniyya. The Akhldk-i Djaldli 
follows a similar arrangement. Djalal al-DIn, like 
Nasir al-DIn TusI, argues the necessity of a supreme 
law, a governor, and a monetary currency. The law 
he interprets to be the Sharl'a and the governor that 
person distinguished by the support of God and 
possessing such qualities as would enable him to lead 
individual men to perfection. Government was 
either righteous, in which case it was the imamate, 
or unrighteous in which case it was the rule of force. 
He does not lay down any conditions of election or 
deposition for the ruler. Any righteous ruler was the 
shadow of God upon earth, His representative 
{khalifat alldh), and the deputy (na?ib) of the prophet 
Muhammad (236). It is, doubtless, in this sense that 
Djalal al-DIn addresses his patron, Uzun Hasan, as 
caliph. The righteous ruler maintained the equipoise 
of the world, for the preservation of which co- 
operation between men was needed. Djalal al-DIn 
recognizes two types of civilization, righteous and 
unrighteous, which, following al-Farabl and Nasir 
al-DIn TusI, he calls the "good city" (madina-i 
fddila) and the "unrighteous city" (madina-i 
gkayr-i fddila); and subdivides the latter into the 
"ignorant city" (madina-i djdhila), the "profligate 



city" (madina-i fdsika), and the "wicked city" 
(madina-i ddlla) (260-1). Within the good city there 
were several intellectual grades among the citizens 
and a differentiation of function. Equity demanded 
that each class should be kept in its proper place 
and each individual engaged in that occupation to 
which he was fitted and wherein he could attain to 
perfection (266). Righteous government, the ima- 
mate, consisted in the ordering of the affairs of the 
people in such a way that each might arrive at that 
degree of perfection which lay in him (269). Unrighte- 
ous government was force, and consisted in the sub- 
jugation of the servants of God and the devastation 
of His territories (270). In order to preserve the 
equipoise of civilization, society was to be resolved 
into four classes; (i) men of learning, such as the 
'ulamd,' fukahd', kddis, scribes, mathematicians, 
geometricians, astronomers, physicians, and poets; 
(ii) men of the sword; (iii) merchants, craftsmen, 
and artisans; and (iv) agriculturalists, without 
whom, Djalal al-DIn states, the continued existence 
of the human race would be impossible (277-8). He 
then, still following Nasir al-Din TusI, divides men 
into five classes according to their moral nature: 
(i) those who were by nature righteous and who 
influenced others, whom Nasir al-DIn describes as 
the choicest of creation, whom the ruler should treat 
with the utmost respect and consider to be over the 
other classes; and whom Djalal al-DIn declares to 
be such people as the c «tona' of the Shari'a, the 
shaykhs of darwlsh orders, and mystics; (ii) those 
who were by nature good but had no influence over 
others; (iii) those who were neither righteous nor 
unrighteous; (iv) those who were evil but had no 
influence over others; and those who were evil and had 
an influence over others (279-81). He then discusses 
the means to be adopted to coerce the evil and the 
need for the ruler to enquire personally into the 
affairs of his subjects (282 ff.). The final section of 
the work, also based on the Akhldk-i Ndsiri contains 
a number of political maxims attributed to Plato 
and Aristotle. 

Djalal al-DIn's c Ard Ndma, written for Sultan 
Khalll when he was governor of Fars on behalf of 
his father Uzun Hasan, has been translated into 
English by V. Minorsky, A Civil and Military 
Review in Fars in 881/1476, in BSOS, x/i, 141-78. 
Bibliography : Kh w andamir. Habib al-Siydr 
(Bombay 1857) iii, 4, in; Hasan Rumlu, Ahsan 
al-Tawdrikh (ed. C. N. Seddon, Baroda, 1931), i, 
71-2; Hadjdjl MIrza Hasan Fasa'I, Fars Ndma-i 
Ndsiri, Tehran, lith., 1894-6, ii, 250; Rieu, Cata- 
logue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British 
Museum, ii, 4426; Brockelmann, II, 217; Storey, 
i, 2, 1277; Browne, iii, 442; E. I. J. Rosenthal, 
Political Thought in Medieval Islam, Cambridge 
1958, 210-23. On Dawanl's influence in the Otto- 
man empire, see S. Mardin, The Mind of the 
Turkish Reformer 1700-1900, in The Western Huma- 
nities Review, xiv, i960, 418 ff. 

(Ann K. S. Lambton) 
DAWAR [see zamin-i dawar]. 
DAWAR, an encampment of Arab Bedouins 
in which the tents (sing, khayma) are arranged 
in a circle or an ellipse, forming a sort of enceinte 
around the open space in the middle Imurdh) where 
the cattle pass the night; this very ancient way of 
laying out an encampment is still to be found among 
the Bedouins of the east (northern Syria, Mesopo- 
tamia) and among all the nomads or semi-nomads of 
North Africa. The name of dawar which is given to it 
appears already in the writings of certain travellers 



L-DAWASIR 



and geographers of the middle ages. In the East, the 
exact form of the word is dawdr or dwdr; in the 
Maghrib, it is duwdr or dawwdr (pi. dwdwir). The 
number of tents of which a duwdr is composed can 
vary greatly ; it can be as many as several hundreds, 
or no more than ten. Many different reasons, such as 
abundance or scarcity of pasturage, security or the 
lack of it, etc., bring about the splintering of the 
same Bedouin group into dawdrs of little importance, 
or its reunion into dawdrs of considerable size. Beside 
this term, which has in a way become the generic 
one, one finds for less important groups the dialectal 
representatives rasm, hilla, nazla, farilf, etc. In the 
administrative language of Algeria, the word douar 
no longer bears its original primitive meaning, but is 
employed to designate an administrative area, either 
nomad or sedentary, placed under the authority of 
the same chief, frdHd, or shaykh. The word dawdr 
was known in Arab Spain. The Vocabulista (ed. 
Schiaparelli) gives it as the equivalent of the 
Latin mansio, without further definition. In modern 
Spanish aduar means a gipsy camp. 

Bibliography : Dozy, Supplement aux Diction- 

naires Arabes, i, 473 ; on the dawdr of the Bedouin 

of the east: Burckhardt, Voyages en Arabie 

(French, trans.), iii, 24; von Oppenheim, Vom 

Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf, ii, 44; A. Musil, 

Arabia Petraea, iii, 130-1 and fig. 180; on the 

duwdr, dawwdr of the MaghribI Arabs, cf. Delphin, 

Recueil de Textes pour I'Etude de I'Arabe Parll, 

284; A. Bernard and N. Lacroix, V evolution du 

nomadisme en Algirie, 276 ff.; Urquhart, Pillars 

of Hercules, i, 452; Archives Marocaines, iv, 105, 

106; Loubignac, Textes Arabes des Zaer, 129, 

215. 304; Marmal, Descripcion general de Africa, 

i, ch. xxiv, fol. 36 v. (W. Marcais-[G. S. Colin]) 

DAWARO, one of the Muslim trading 

states of southern Ethiopia. It was a long 

narrow strip of territory lying immediately east of 

Bali, and included the great Islamic centre of Harar. 

It seems to have reached the Webi Shabelle in the 

south, and the edge of the Danakil lowlands in the 

north, where, with Bali, it met the state of Ifat. It 

is clear, however, that for a time at least, and as 

early as the reign of c Amda Syon I of Ethiopia, 

there was an isolated continuation of Dawaro on the 

north side of the lower course of the Hawas river, 

which included part of the present sultanate of 

Awssa. Dawaro first appears in Ethiopic records in 

the reign of c Amda Syon I (1312-42). Like the other 

Muslim states of Ethiopia it was under a king of its 

own (called makuannen in the History of c Amda 

Syon, BM. MS. Orient. 821, fol. 43), who was tributary 

to the king of Ethiopia. Under 'Amda Syon the 

king, Haydara, revolted and joined the rebellious 

peoples of Adal ; but it was conquered, and remained 

a dependency of Ethiopia till after 1548 when 

Fanu'el was governor under Galawdewos. According 

to al- c Umari, though only five days' journey in 

length and two days' in breadth, it maintained a 

large and powerful army; the inhabitants were 

Hanafites. Al-Makrizi repeats the account of al- 

'Umari. The name Dawaro was applied also locally 

to the small Sidama state of Kullo west of the Omo 

because this area was colonized by refugees from 

Dawaro during the war of Ethiopia with Ahmad 

Graft (1527-42); but there was no other connexion 

between Kullo and Dawaro. 

Bibliography : Perruchon, Histoire des guerres 
d"Amda Syon, JA, 1889, 271-363, 381-493; 
I. Guidi, Le canzoni geez-amariiia, 1889, nos. viii 
and x; Perruchon, Les Chroniques de Zar'a 



Ya l eq6b et de Ba'eda Mdrydm, Paris 1893; 

c UmarI, Masdlik al-Absdr, tr. Gaudefroy-Demom- 

bynes, Paris 1927; Makrizi, ed. F. T. Rinck, 

Leiden 1790; Beckingham and Huntingford, 

Some Records of Ethiopia, 1593-1646, London 

1954. (G. W. B. Huntingford) 

al-DAWASIR (singular: Dawsari), a large 

tribe based in central Arabia. The Dawasir are 

remarkable for the way in which many of them 

have spread abroad and won success in areas and 

endeavours remote from their original environment, 

while at the same time even the settled elements 

among them have retained an unusually strong 

sentiment of tribal solidarity and attachment to the 

mores of their Bedouin forebears. 

Whatever the origins of the tribe, the Dawasir 
became primarily identified with Wadi al-Dawasir 
in southern Nadjd (the closest of the populated 
districts there to al-Rub c al-Khali) and with al- 
Afladj [q.v.]. Although the mainstream of Dawsari 
emigration has flowed off towards the north and east, 
Dawasir (emigrants or relics clinging to an earlier 
home ?) are found to the south and west in Raghwan 
near Marib and in al-Khurma in the HidjSz mount- 
ains. North of al-Afladj, Dawasir are numerous in 
the districts of al-Khardj (where they predominate 
in the principal town, al-Dalam), al- c Arid, al-Mahmal, 
and Sudayr. Among the towns for which they have 
provided rulers or judges or other prominent citizens 
in recent centuries are al-BIr and Thadik in al- 
Mahmal; and al-Madjma'a, Djaladjil, al- c Awda, and 
al-Ghat in Sudayr (Ibn Bishr, ii, 142-4, gives the 
biography of a famous Dawsari judge of Huraymila). 
Dawasir live in al-Zilfi on the borders of al-Kasim, 
but not many have moved farther north. 

The pride of the Dawasir is the house of the 
Sudayris (al-Sadara). Their name comes from 
Sudayr, where for about four centuries they have 
lived in al-Ghat. In the I3th/igth century Ahmad b. 
Muhammad al-Sudayrl was an illustrious lieutenant 
of Al Sa c ud, and his descendants have been intimately 
associated with this dynasty ever since. A daughter 
of his was the mother of King c Abd al- c Aziz (d. 1373/ 
1953), and a great-granddaughter of his bore the 
King seven sons, two of whom (Fahd and Sultan) 
were Ministers in the Saudi Arabian Government in 
1379/1960. In 1369/1950 thirteen of the Sadara held 
provincial or district governorships in Saudi Arabia; 
through this one family Dawasir have reached into 
every corner of the Kingdom. 

On the Persian Gulf Dawasir coming from Nadjd 
via Bahrayn have founded the new towns of al- 
Dammam [q.v.'] and al-Khubar. in which they are 
prospering. Others live in Bahrayn and Katar. From 
Bahrayn some have migrated to the Iranian shore, 
and from Katar a few to the island of Dalma. In 
c Irak there are Dawasir in al-Zubayr, and a stretch 
of Shatt al- c Arab is called the district of the Dawasir, 
whose name is also given to river islands there. 

The tribe consists of two principal divisions, c Iyal 
Zayid, and the Taghaliba, originally independent of 
each other. Neither claims an ancestor called Dawsar 
("strong camel"), though Dawsar occurs as a tribal 
name in classical sources. The plural Dawasir is 
popularly derived from the phrase al-da ydsir 
(sometimes given as al-dalydsir with an intrusive 
lam), the meaning and application of which are 
obscure. c Iyal Zayid's eponym is Zayid al-Maltum 
("the Slapped"— not al-Maltub as in Philby, etc.), 
whose name appears in the tribal war-cry. Zayid's 
identity is uncertain; frequently mentioned as a 
progenitor of his is c Umar al-Khattab (without ibn). 



but the ordinary tribesman knows him only vaguely 
as one of the Sahaba. In legend both Zayid and the 
Taghaliba are associated with Sadd MSrib (pronounced 
Maridz), and Zayid is said to have led the tribe from 
there into WadI al-Dawasir. Rather early sources 
speak of the Dawasir as an offshoot of 'A'idh, which 
may be plausible if c A'idh was in fact a branch of 
'Ukayl [?.«.], as c Adnanite 'Ukayl once occupied the 
valley now known as Wadi al-Dawasir. Against this 
identification are various indications, admittedly 
inconclusive, that c Iyal Zayid are Kahtanite rather 
than c Adnanite. c Iyal Zayid are sometimes called 
BanI Zinwan, legend holding that Zayid's mother 
had been falsely accused of adultery. 

The other principal division, the Taghaliba, has 
a firm tradition of descent from Taghlib (pronounced 
Tughlub) b. (not bint) Wayil, which is not impossible, 
as this c Adnanite tribe was in the forefront of eastern 
Arabian affairs well beyond the heyday of the 
Karmatians. For unclear reasons the Taghaliba, 
particularly the section of the Khiyalat, are referred 
to as c Abat al-Dawasir. The union between the two 
principal divisions is traced back to al- c Ir c Ir, the 
ancestor of Al Hukban of the Taghaliba, whose 
daughter is said to have been Zayid al-Maltum's 
mother. 

The most important sections of 'Iyal Zayid are 
the Masa'ira, Al Hasan, the Ridjban, the Makharim, 
the Wada c In, the Badarin (including the Sadara), 
the Ghiyathat, the Sharafa, and the Haradjin. The 
foremost chief is Ibn Kuwayd of the Masa'ira, who 
leads a semi-nomadic life in the hamlet of al-Kuwayz 
in Wadi al-Dawasir. The Taghaliba consist of five 
sections: the c Umiir, the Masarir, the Mashawiya, 
Al Hukban, and the Khiyalat. 

The Dawasir first appear by name about the 7th/ 
13th century, when they were in contact with Al 
Fadl of Tayyi', the Amirs of the Syrian Desert, and 
with the Mamluk Sultans in Cairo, who got horses 
from Arabia. The Dawasir are called a tribe of the 
Yemen, and Ibn Badran (of the Badarin) is named 
as their chief. 

Beginning in 851/1447-8, details on the history of 
the Dawasir become more abundant and precise. In 
that year Zamil b. Djabr, the Djabrid [q.v.] lord of 
al-Hasa and al-Katif, defeated the Dawasir and 
'A'idh in al-Khardj. In the following year Zamil led 
a large force of Bedouins and townsmen against the 
Dawasir in their own valley (the first mention of the 
valley as Wadi al-Dawasir) to punish them for then- 
many raids on the nomads of al-Hasa. Later Zamil's 
son Adjwad launched four separate expeditions 
against the Dawasir without reaching their valley 
on any of them. With the decline of Djabrid power, 
the Dawasir multiplied their attacks on caravans 
■carrying merchandise from al-Hasa to Nadjd. 

Of the 43 battles involving the Dawasir which are 
recorded for the period between 851 and 1164/1751, 
fifteen were fought against Kahtan. Other principal 
opponents were Subay', Al Maghira, Al Kathir, and 
the Fudul. Usually the Dawasir had fewer friends 
than foes; no other tribe stood by them steadfastly, 
but on occasion even some of their opponents 
mentioned above, such as Kahtan, joined then- 
side, such being the evanescent loyalties of desert 
warfare. 

The favourite battleground for the Dawasir was the 
watering place of al-Harmaliyya near al-Kuway c iyya, 
where no less than six encounters took place. In the 
broader district of al-Khardj the Dawasir fought 
seven or eight battles, and four in al-'Arama. The 
Dawasir engaged in most of their strife on territory 



not their own; other tribes seem to have lacked the 
temerity to assault them in their homeland. 

About 1100/1689 pressure by the Dawasir forced 
Al Sabah [q.v.] and Al Khalifa [q.v.], both of 'Anaza, 
to migrate from al-Haddar in al-Afladj to the Persian 
Gulf, where they in time became the rulers of 
Kuwayt and Bahrayn. As the power of Al Sa'fld 
[?.».] grew during the I2th/i8th century, the Dawasir 
were among the last of the great tribes of Nadjd to 
adhere to the reform movement of Shaykh Muham- 
mad b. c Abd al-Wahhab. In 1199/1784-5 Rubayyi* 
b. Zayd of the Makharim swore allegiance to Al 
Sa'fld, whose mainstay in Wadi al-Dawasir he 
remained for the rest of his days. The Ridjban and 
the Wada'in resisted the progress of the reform 
movement in the valley, supported first by the 
Isma'ili lord of Nadjran and then by Ghalib, the 
Sharif of Mecca. As the domains of Al Sa c ud expanded, 
the Dawasir fought for them in the west side by side 
with their old enemies Kahtan. In 1212/1809 Dawasir 
were among the Bedouins who raided Hadramawt. 
The large army annihilated by Muhammad 'All of 
Egypt at Bisl in 1230/1815 contained a contingent 
of Dawasir. 

When Al Sa c Qd returned to power after the 
capture of al-Dir c iyya by Muhammad 'All's forces 
in 1233/1818, both Turkl b. c Abd Allah and his son 
Faysal maintained Amirs in Wadi al-Dawasir. The 
tribesmen were not always obedient subjects; in 
1243/1827-8, for instance, Turkl disciplined Bedouin 
elements of the Dawasir for their lawlessness. 

About 1845 a number of Dawasir arrived in 
Bahrayn, having come from Nadjd by way of the 
island of al-Zakhnuniyya, where they sojourned for 
a few years. In Bahrayn they settled in the towns 
of al-Budayyi c (cf. the Dawsari town of al-Badi c in 
al-Afladj) and al-Zallak. 

During the civil war between Faysal's sons c Abd 
Allah and Sa c ud, the chief of al-Sulayyil in Wadi 
al-Dawasir and the Isma'ili lord of Nadjran cham- 
pioned Sa'Od's cause. In 1283/1866-7 c Abd Allah's 
forces under his brother Muhammad crushed Sa'Od 
and his partisans at al-Mu c tala in Wadi al-Dawasir 
and during the next year c Abd Allah himself spent 
two months in the valley inflicting condign punish- 
ment on its inhabitants. After the death of Sa'ud in 
1291/1875, the Dawasir supported his sons in the 
struggle which led to a temporary eclipse of Al 
Sa'ud, whose rule in Nadjd was supplanted by that 
of Al Rashid of Hall. Al Rashid is said to have 
kept a small force in Wadi al-Dawasir in the closing 
years of the 19th century. 

Following the recapture of al-Riyad by c Abd al- 
c Aziz Al Sa'Od in 1319/1902, Wadi al-Dawasir was 
quickly brought back into the fold, though c Abd al- 
c Aziz had no easy time in keeping the peace among 
the turbulent elements of the Dawasir, who if not 
fighting with each other were often at war with Al 
Murra to the east or Al Murra's cousins of Yam to 
the south-west. 

In 1336/1918 Philby became the first Westerner 
to visit Wadi al-Dawasir and provide an accurate 
description of it. The valley in recent years has 
remained a backwater of the new Kingdom of Saudi 
Arabia, scarcely touched by the material progress 
being achieved in many other parts. Wadi al- 
Dawasir, once an important way station for the 
coffee trade between the Yemen and Nadjd, has 
been replaced by Bisha in the 20th century. The 
present centre of influence of the Dawasir is in then- 
government positions and their new towns on the 
Persian Gulf. 



L-DAWASIR — DAWLA 



In the old days Dawasir would go from their 
valley to the Gulf to work as pearl-divers every 
summer. Now many who reside on the Gulf shore 
are landowners, merchants, contractors, and laborers 
in the oil industry. 

In Nadjd the Dawasir have been Hanbalis since 
the time of Ibn c Abd al-Wahhab. Along the Persian 
Gulf some are Malikls, while on the Iranian side a 
number have embraced Shi'ism. 

Wadi al-Dawasir is one of the great eastward 
trending channels which cut through the long wall 
of Tuwayk. The Wadi's ancient tributaries, the 
valleys of Bisha, Ranya, and Tathllth, descend from 
the Hidjaz mountains and meet in the basin of 
Hadjlat al-Mukhatmiyya (for al-Mukhatimiyya ?), 
where a sand barrier now prevents their waters from 
reaching the Wadi save in exceptional years (the 
Tathlith sayl flooded the Wadi the yea; before 
Philby's first visit). The name Wadi al-Dawasir is 
sometimes restricted to the western part of the 
valley, in which are found the capital of the whole 
district, al-Khamasin; its sister town, al-Lidam 
(incorrectly shown as Dam on many maps) ; and the 
westernmost settlements known as al-Far c a. Like 
al-Khamasin, a number of other towns bear the 
names of units of the tribe, such as al-Sharafa and 
al-Walamin (a subsection of the Wada'in). South of 
the gap in juwayk lies Tamra, which earlier lent 
its name to the valley, if the identification of c Akik 
Tamra with Wadi al-Dawasir is accepted. East of 
the gap is the oasis of al-Sulayyil, whence the prin- 
cipal route to the north leads to al-Afladj. The lower 
course of the Wadi, called al-Atwa, disappears to the 
east in the sands of al-Rumayla, the southerly 
extension of al-Dahna' [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: Hamad Ibn La'bun, Ta'rikh, 
Mecca 1357; Ahmad Ibn Fadl Allah, al-Ta'-rij, 
Cairo 1312; c Uthman Ibn Bishr, c Unwdn al-madid, 
Cairo 1373; Ibrahim Ibn c Isa, l lkd al-durar, 
Cairo 1954-5 ; J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian 
Gulf, Calcutta 1908-15; H. St J. B. Philby, The 
Heart of Arabia, London 1922; idem, Arabian 
Jubilee, London 1952; idem, Arabian Highlands, 
Ithaca, N. Y. 1952; Max Freiherr von Oppenheim 
& Werner Caskel, Die Beduinen, iii, Wiesbaden 
1952. Also information received from members of 
the tribe and Arab scholars in Saudi Arabia. 

(G. Rentz) 
al-DAWJJA (Doha), the capital and only major 
city of Katar, a Persian Gulf state. Al-Dawha is 
located at 25 17' N, 51 32' E in the SW corner of 
a natural shallow-draught harbour formed by two 
reefs in a bay (dawha in Persian Gulf Arabic) on the 
east coast of Qatar (Katar) Peninsula. A former 
fishing village, al-Bid c , on the site is now a quarter 

Little is known of al-Dawha before 1238/1823, 
when the British Political Resident in the Persian 
Gulf visited the town and reported that it was a 
dependency of Bahrain (al-Bahrayn). The nature of 
this relationship, however, varied with changing 
circumstances. During the early I3th/i9th century 
al-Dawha apparently belonged to Bahrain, which 
in turn paid Al Sa c ud of Nadjd zakah collected from 
al-Dawha by the British Resident, with whom both 
Bahrain, in 1235/1820, and Muhammad b. Thani. 
for al-Dawha in 1285/1868, had agreed to keep the 
maritime truce. After a Turkish force occupied al- 
Dawha in 1288/1872 and proclaimed it part of the 
so-called Sandjak of Nadjd, the town still maintained 
close relations with Bahrain, Al Sa c ud of Nadjd, and 
the British. Other parts of Qatar were treated 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



occasionally as belonging to Bahrain, Abu Dhabi 
(Abu ZabI) or Nadjd until after the departure of the 
Turks. In 1335/1916, c Abd Allah Al Thani as "Shaikh 
of Qatar" signed an agreement placing Qatar in a 
"special treaty relationship with H. M. Government". 
Its status has more recently been defined as that of 
"a British-protected state". As such, it remains the 
concern of the British Foreign Office, while British 
Protectorates proper, such as those in southern 
Arabia, come under the Colonial Office. 

The ascendancy of al-Dawha derives from the 
destruction of the rival city of al-Zubara in 1 312/1895 
and from the production of oil from a field at Dukhan, 
the oil being shipped from a marine terminal at 
Musay'id (incorrectly shown on most maps and in 
much other printed matter as Umm Said). In 1318/ 
1900 al-Dawha was a pearling port of some 12,000 
inhabitants in nine fariks or quarters, sprawling for 
almost two miles (three km.) along the waterfront 
on the rocky edge of the desert and dominated by 
the Kal'at al- c Askar or Kasr Kunara, as the Turkish 
garrison called it. This fort still stands in the quarter 
of the Kal'at al- c Askar, in which are the finest shops 
and residential areas. Until recently the town proper 
had no water or gardens; today water is piped in or 
extracted from sea water by a distillation plant. The 
hereditary mansion of Al Thani still stands in the 
quarter of al-Dawha, from which the town derives 
its name, but the family now has palaces in the 
western suburb of al-Rayyan. The present population 
of al-Dawha, which may be roughly estimated at 
20-30,000, forms the majorpart of the total population 
of Qatar. The city possesses a modern hospital and 
a small airport which affords connexions with inter- 
national flights out of Dhahran (al-Zahran) in 
Saudi Arabia and al-Muharrak in Bahrain. The 
British Political Agent is the only representative of 
a foreign government resident in al-Dawha. 

Bibliography: Ibn Bishr, c Unwdn al-madid, 

Cairo 1373; Muhammad al-Nabhanl, al-Tuhfa 

al-nabhdniyya, Cairo 1342; C. U. Aitchison, A 

Collection of Treaties . . ., xi, Dihll 1933; J. G. 

Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf . . ., Calcutta 

1908-1915. (R. L. Headley) 

DAWLA, 1) an Arabic word signifying the period 

of an individual's rule or power but also often 

employed in the meaning of "dynasty". The root 

d-w-l may occur in Akkadian ddlu "to wander around 

aimlessly" (The Assyrian Dictionary, iii, 59) and 

Syriac ddl "to move, to stir" (Brockelmann, Lex. 

Syr.', 144 b). However, the basic meaning of Arabic 

d-w-l is clearly "to turn, to alternate" (relating it to 

d-w-rl). The Kur'an has nuddwiluhd "We cause 

(days) to alternate" (III, 140/134) and dulatan 

"something whose ownership is passed around" (LIX, 

7/7). In addition, the hadith uses addla "to cause 

someone to obtain his 'turn' (success, victory)", and 

the famous report of the Sira (Ibn Hisham, ion) 

on Muhammad's death mentions that it took place 

when it was 'A'isha's regular "turn" (dawfulati) for 

Muhammad to visit her. The meaning "turn, time 

(of success, holding office, etc.)" is often attested in 

early times, as, for instance, in the verses of Farwa 

b. Musayk in which, however, one of the two 

occurrences of dawla is occasionally replaced by 

another word (LA, s.v. t-b-b; al-Tabari, i, 735). It 

appears to have been the starting point for the 

development of the meaning "dynasty". 

How dawla acquired this meaning remains to be 
investigated. There is nothing to indicate a pre- 
Islamic origin. Tribal terms, such as banu or al, 
continued to be used in Islam. Genuine verses antedat- 



- DAWLAT GIRAY 



ing early 'Abbasid times and containing dawla in 
the meaning of "dynasty" have not yet been 
signalized. Prose references are open to the suspicion 
of anachronism. Thus, it seems unlikely that an 
Umayyad general should have blamed a son of the 
caliph c Uthman in these words: "we are fighting 
for your dynasty (dawlatikum) while you betray it" 
(al-Baladhuri, Ansdb, IVB, 39). An increase in the 
use of the word is noticeable in the earliest c Abbasid 
documents, some of which may have been trans- 
mitted with literal accuracy. In his speech to the 
Kufans upon his accession, al-Saffah said: ". . . you 
have reached our time, and God has brought to 
you our dawla (time of success)" (al-Tabari, iii, 30). 
Al-Mansur, advising al-Saffah to kill Abu Muslim, 
praises the strength of "our dawla" {ibid., iii, 85 ; P. 
K. Hitti, History of the Arabs', 286). Al-Saffah speaks 
of Abu Muslim's dawla (time in office) (al-Tabari, 
iii, 86), and, in a document of doubtful historicity, 
he refers to those who "disrupt the rope of the dawla 
(dynasty)" (ibid., iii, 104). A few years later, al- 
Mansur speaks of those who supported the c Abb5sid 
dawla (ibid., iii, 339, but cf. the earlier, similar 
passage, iii, 32, where dawla means "victory"). In a 
paraphrase of al-Mansiir's last will, reference is made 
to the dawla (reign) of al-Mahdi (ibid., iii, 454). The 
evidence is inconclusive. It seems that at the be- 
ginning if the c Abbasid period, the term dawla was 
by no means well established in the meaning of 
"dynasty". However, the word was frequently used 
by the c Abb5sids with reference to their own "turn" 
of success. Thus it came to be associated with the 
ruling house and was more and more used as a polite 
term of reference to it. Soon, one could speak of 
the supporters and members (ashdb, rididl) belonging 
to the dawla, the supporters and members of the 
dynasty; again, the precise date of the earliest 
occurrence of such usage as yet eludes us. 

It has been assumed that Persian political specu- 
lation along the lines of the Polybian avaxuxXtoaii; 
tcSv 7roXiTeitov contributed to the formation of the 
concept dawla "dynasty". Such an assumption may 
find some slender support in the suggestion advanced 
here that it was the 'Abbasids who gave prominence 
to the term by stressing the significance of their 
"turn". However, no conscious application of any 
political theory seems to be involved, notwith- 
standing the fact that dawla occurred later in 
connexion with speculations about cycles of political 
power. Al-Kindi, in his Risdla ft mulk al-'-Arab (ed. 
O. Loth, in Morgenldndische Forschungen, Fest- 
schrift Fleischer, Leipzig 1875) usually paired dawla 
with mulk. Cf. also al-RazI, Ft amdrdt al-ikbal wa 
'l-dawla (ed. P. Kraus, Razis Opera Philosophica, 
Paris 1939), where dawla means "political success". 

2) Al-dawla as the second element in titles. At 
the end of the 3rd/ioth century, the wazir al- 
Kasim b. c Ubayd Allah Ibn Wahb was granted the 
title Wall al-Dawla "Friend of the Dynasty", which 
then also appeared on al-Muktafi's coinage; speci- 
mens dated 291/904 are common, but the existence 
of any dated 290 is doubted by G. C. Miles. Muslim 
authors stress that this is the first occurrence of 
a title composed with dawla. Al-Kasim's son, al- 
Husayn, continued the tradition inaugurated by 
his father when al-Muktadir solemnly bestowed 
upon him the title of c Amid al-Dawla "Support", 
which was also inscribed upon coins. This happened 
in al-Muharram 320/February 932 ( c Arib, 167; 
Miskawayh, in Eclipse, i, 223, trans, iv, 250). 

Occasional use of descriptive composites with 
dawla can be traced for the immediately following 



years. At about this time, we also find a 
and litterateur nicknamed Djirab al-Dawla "Bag" 
(Fihrist, 135); however, he is said to have chosen 
this nickname himself in order to ridicule the BuyJds 
(Yakut, Irshdd, ii, 62 f.). In any case, titles composed 
with dawla came into their own when in Sha'ban 
330/April 942, the Hamdanids Hasan and C A1I were 
granted the titles Nasir al-Dawla "Helper" and 
Sayf al-Dawla "Sword", respectively. Soon after 
(beg. 946), the three Buyid brothers claimed dawla 
titles as a sign that they had assumed control in 
Baghdad and the East. They received the titles 
Mu c izz al-Dawla "Fortifier", 'Imad al-Dawla "Sup- 
port", and Rukn al-Dawla "Pillar". Bestowal of 
these titles was not a meaningless gesture but a 
highly significant step indicating cession by the 
caliph of most of the powers of his office. 

The Hamdanids and the Buyids continued the 
use of dawla titles, and their example was followed 
in their time, for instance, by the Ghaznawids and 
Ilek-Khans in the East and even some of the reyes de 
taifas in Spain. The Fatimids also bestowed occa- 
sional dawla titles upon their highest officials. But 
the tenth century was hardly over when dawla 
titles lost greatly in significance. They were at first 
supplemented and eventually replaced by other 
similar titles; this marked the beginning of the 
excessive use of titles in Muslim countries, which we 
find occasionally criticized by Muslim authors. A 
comprehensive study of post-Buyid occurrences of 
dawla has not yet been made. In the twelfth century, 
for instance, a court physician was called Amin al- 
Dawla "Trusted Supporter" (Hibat Allah b. al- 
Tilmldh) (for dawla titles of non-Muslims, cf. al- 
Kalkashandi, Subh, v, 490!.; H. Zayyat, in al- 
Mashrik, xlii, 1948, 8 ff.). However, while composites 
with dawla were reduced to merely honorific appel- 
lations, it can fairly be said that they always denoted 
high standing in the community. In India, for 
instance, they continued to be used by some rulers, 
and, until the abolition of honorary titles in 1935, 
Persian cabinet ministers often received titles com- 
posed with dawla. 

Bibliography: Al-BIrunI, Chronology, 132-3; 

Hilal al-SSbi', Rusum ddr al-khildfa, in al-Suyiitl, 

Awa'il, Baghdad 1369/1950, 83; al-Kalkashandl, 

Subh, i, 431, v, 442, 490 f.; M. van Berchem, 

in ZDPV, xvi, 1893, 93 n. 1; F. Babinger, in 

Isl., xi, 1921, 20 n. 3; A. Mez, Renaissance, 133 

n. 1; J. H. Kramers, in AO, v, 1927, 53-67; E. 

de Zambaur, passim; H. Bowen, The Life and 

Times of C AU Ibn < lsd, Cambridge 1928, 59; H. 

Zayyat, in al-Mashrik, xlii, 1948, 7-12; G. C. 

Miles, Rare Islamic Coins, New York igso, 42 f.; 

B. Spuler, Iran, 223; M. Canard, Histoire de la 

dynastie des H'amdanides, i, Algiers, 1951, 426; 

E. Tyan, Institutions du droit public musulman, ii, 

Paris, 1956, 26 f.; Hasan al-Basha, al-Alkdb al- 

Isldmiyya, Cairo 1957, 410, 512, and passim. 

3) From its original meaning, dawla developed 

quite a few specialized connotations (cf. Dozy, Suppl; 

i, 476 f., and the dictionaries of Muslim languages 

other than Arabic; further, for instance, A. J. 

Maclean, A Dictionary of the Dialects of Vernacular 

Syriac, Oxford 1901, 62 b). In modern times, an 

adjectival formation dawli or duwali — from dawla, 

or its pi. duwal, in the meaning of "nation" ( < state 

< government < dynasty) — has become accepted 

in Arabic as the current term for "international". 

(F. Rosenthal) 

DAWLAT GIRAY (918/1512-985/1577). styled 

the Taht-alghan or Daghtt-alghan (Conqueror of the 



DAWLAT GIRAY — DAWLATABAD 



Capital), Khan of the Crimea from 958/1551 to 985/ 
1577. He was the son of Mubarek Giray, and was 
appointed kalghay, first heir to the throne, by 
Sa'adet Giray Khan in 938/1532. When he was made 
Khan in 958/1551 with the firm support of the 
Ottomans, the latter increased their influence in the 
Crimea. He vigorously continued the anti-Russian 
policy of his predecessor, and made an alliance with 
the Jagellons against Russian in 959/1552. He made 
several expeditions against Moscow but could not 
prevent the capture by the Russians of the two 
sister Khanates of Kazan [q.v.] and Astrakhan [q.v.]. 
When the Ottomans failed to get control of the lower 
Volga in their expedition of 977/1569, they en- 
couraged the Khan to continue the war against Russia. 
In 979/1571, breaking Russian resistance on the Oka 
river, he reached Moscow and burned it down, 
whence his cognomen. The following year, when the 
Czar rejected the Khan's claims on Kazan and 
Astrakhan, he made a new expedition but was 
severely defeated at Molodi near Moscow. 

His co-operation with the Ottomans in the Polish 
elections against Russia was more successful (see 
Belleten, no. 46, 390). He died in Safar 985/April-May 
1577. His reign was marked by the vital struggle of 
the Crimean Khanate against Russia for the heritage 
of the Golden Horde in the Volga basin, and by the 
further integration of the Crimea in the Ottoman 
empire. Mention should be made of the Great 
Mosque that he built at Gozleve in 979/1571. Six of 
his eighteen sons became Khan after him (see Giray 
in IA). 

Bibliography: Mehmed Rida, Al-Sab"- al- 
sayydr ft akhbdr al-muluk al-Tdtdr, ed. Kazim 
Bik, Kazan 1832, 93-101; Hallm Giray, Gulbun-i 
Khdndn. Istanbul 1278, 18-21; c Abd al-Ghaffar, 
c Umdat al-Tawdrikh, in TOEM, 112; H. Feyiz- 
khanoghlu-V. Zernov, Klrlm yurtuna wa ol taraf- 
largha ddHr bolghan yarltltlar wa hatlar, St. 
Petersburg 1864, 558 ft.; Ferldun, Munsha'dt al- 
saldtin, Istanbul 1265, ii, 541; 558-59; A. Reflk, 
Bahr-i Khazar-Karadeniz Itanali ve Ejderkhan seferi, 
in TOEM, vol. 8, no. 43, 1-14; H. Inalcik, Os- 
manh-Rus rekabetinin mensei ve Don-Volga kanah 
tesebbiisii, Belleten, xii, No. 46, 368-90. 

(Haul Inalcik) 
DAWLAT- SHAH (Amir) b. 'Ala' al-Dawla 
Bakhtishah, a Persian writer from a family owning 
estates at Isfara' in in the Khurasan. His father was 
one of the most intimate courtiers of Shah-Rukh, 
son of Timur; he himself took part in the battle 
fought by the Timurids Abu'l-GhazI Sultan Husayn 
and Sultan Mahmud near Andakhud. He was about 
fifty years of age when he began to write his Tadhkirat 
al-shu'ard' ("Memorial to the Poets"), which he 
finished in about 892/1487 towards the end of his life, 
the date of his death being unknown. In his Madjalis 
al-nafdHs (chap. VI), Mir 'All Shir Nawa'I, the 
famous minister, writer and patron of letters and 
the arts (cf. Browne, iii, 437), praises Dawlat-Shah 
for renouncing the society of the great in order to 
devote himself to study and to writing his book. 
This "Memorial to the Poets", the earliest of the 
tadhkira [q.v.] made known through von Hammer's 
translation, is divided into seven parts, each con- 
taining information on twenty or so poets and the 
princes who were their patrons; there is an intro- 
duction on the art of poetry; the concluding section 
is devoted to seven poets who were contemporaries 
of the author, and to the glorification of the Timurid 
prince Abu '1-GhazI Sultan Husayn b. Mansur b. 
Baykara, who was himself a man of letters (Browne, 



iii, 390 and 439). This concise anthology of poems 
which for the most part are well chosen is very 
useful in literary history, especially for the study of 
8th/i4th and gth/i5th century poets; but many 
mistakes have been detected in the notes on the 
princes and poets, while the judgments expressed 
on their talents are very often lacking in critical 

The eldest son of Fath <A1I Shah was also called 
Dawlat-Shah; born at Nawa on 7 Rabl c II 1203/6 
January 1789, he was for many years governor of 
Kirman-shahan, and died on 26 Safar 1236/3 De- 
cember 1820 on his return from his campaign 
against Mahmud Pasha; he has left a number of 
poems. 

Bibliography: editions: Bombay, 1887; The 
Tadhkiratu' sh-shu'-ard, ed. E. G. Browne, London 
1901. Translation: Geschichte der schbnen Rede- 

kiinste Persiens by J. von Hammer, Vienna 

1818. Rida Kull Khan, Madjma' al-fusahd, i, 26; 
Belin, in J A, i, (1861), 245; Browne, iii, index, 
sub nam.; idem, The Sources of Dawlat-shah, in 
JRAS 1899, 37-6o;listof othei tadhkiramGr.I.Ph., 
ii, 213-6. (Cl. Huart-[H. Mass*]) 

DAWLATABAD, a hill fort lat. 19 57' N., long. 
75° 15' E., ten miles N.-W. of Awrangabad, now in 
Maharashtra State, was called Deogiri (properly 
Devagiri), "the Hill of God", in pre-Muslim times as 
the capital of the Yadavas, originally feudatories of 
the Western Calukyas but independent since 1183 
A.D., after which they continued to rule the territory 
from Deogiri independently. c Ala' al-DIn, nephew 
of Sultan Djalal al-DIn FIruz Khaldji of Dihll, 
actuated by reports of the immense wealth of Deogiri, 
reached there by forced marches in 693/1294 and 
invested the fortress. RamJandra, the then Radja, 
taken by surprise, was ultimately forced to surrender 
to the invaders huge quantities of gold, silver and 
precious stones, which became c Ala 5 al-DIn's bait 
to lure FIruz to his death, as well as agree to the 
cession of Elicpur to the Dihll Empire. Ramjandra 
failed to remit the revenues of Elicpur and in 706/ 
1307 a force commanded by Kafur Hazardlnarl, then 
Malik Na'ib, was sent against him; but on making 
his submission to Kafur he was courteously sent to 
the capital where he offered sumptuous gifts in lieu 
of tribute. His ready pardon and official appointment 
as governor of Deogiri, with the title of Rdy-i Rdydn, 
has been attributed to c Ala al-DIn's superstitious 
regard for Deogiri as the talisman of his wealth and 
power. But his son and successor, Shankara, having 
defied the Dihll hegemony, Kafur was again sent 
south in 713/1313. where he assumed the government 
of the state having put Shankara to death. Shankara's 
son-in-law Harapala proclaimed his independence 
some three years later, and the new Dihll sultan, 
Kutb al-Din Mubarak Khaldji, personally led an 
expedition south, slew Harapala, re-annexed the 
Deogiri lands, and built in 718/1318 the g eat 
PJami' masdjid there (see Monuments, below). 
The next important date in the history of Deogiri 
was when Muhammad b. Tughluk decided in 727/1327 
that, since Dihll was not sufficiently central in his 
dominions, Deogiri should be renamed Dawlatabad 
and become his capital. Officials were at first en- 
couraged to settle there, but in 729/1329 the entire 
population was compelled to move to Dawlatabad 
as a punitive measure (BaranI, 481 ff.; Ibn Battu- 
ta, iii, 314 ff.), and from there as a base of operations 
order was restored in the Deccan. But shortly there- 
after Mughal raids in north India necessitated 
Muhammad's return to Dihli and Dawlatabad re- 



DAWLATABAD — al DAWLATABADI 



verted to its status as a southern garrison. It was at 
Dawlatabad that Isma'Il Mukh was elected their 
leader by the Amlran-i Sadah in . . ./1346 and it was 
again there that a year later Zafar Khan, who had 
defeated the Dihll army, superseded Isma'Il and 
became the first Bahmanid sultan. The Bahmanls 
retained Dawlatabad as a garrison on their northern 
frontier and improved its defences; the conspicuous 
Cand minar dates from their occupation. It passed 
to the Nizam Shahls of Ahmadnagar in 905/1500, 
becoming their capital in 1009/1600. The Mughal 
emperor Shahdjahan clearly considered possession 
of Dawlatabad to be the key to dominion over the 
Deccan, and in 1043/1633 it was taken for the Mughals 
by Mahabat Khan after a fierce siege ( c Abd al- 
Hamid Lahawri, Bddskdh-ndma, Bibl. Ind., 496-536). 
Salabat Djang secured Dawlatabad for the Nizam 
al-Mulk in 1170/1757, but lost it three years later to 
the Marathas. 

Dawlatabad once boasted of the Fathabad mint 
(for the name Fathabad given to Dawlatabad in the 
time of Muhammad I BahmanI, see Burhdn al- 
Ma'dtkir, 1936 ed., 17) where coin was struck 
from 761-6 A.H. ; it was also the centre of a paper- 
making industry. 

Bibliography : in addition to references above, 
see Bilgrami and Willmott, Historical and Des- 
criptive Sketches of H.H. the Nizam's Dominions; 
T. W. Haig, Historical Landmarks of the Deccan; 
Imperial Gazetteer of India, Hyderabad State. 
(H. K. Sherwani) 
(ii) Monuments. The earliest building work at 
Dawlatabad (apart from the rock-cut caves of the 
1st century B.C.) is the scarping of Devagiri, a 
single conical hill of rock some 200 m. high command- 
ing a natural pass. This scarping, dating at least 
fiom the early Yadava times, results in the entire 
circuit of the rock presenting a vertical face 50 to 
65 m. high, above a water-filled moat of rectangular 
section dug a further 15 m. into the rock (a causeway 
across the moat leading to a rock-cut shrine shows 
its Hindu provenance). The utilization of stone of 
Hindu workmanship in later Islamic building in- 
dicates the former existence of a town on the sloping 
ground to the east. 

It is on the east that the triple apron of fortifi- 
cation lies, dating in origin from the time of Muham- 
mad b. Tughluk. The outermost wall is the curtain 
of the outer town, which is traversed from south to 
north by the Awrangabad— KhuldabSd [qq.v.] road; 
the town (called 'Anbarkot in <Abd al-Hamld 
Lahawri, Bddshdhndma, passim) is an area about 
2 km. north-south by a maximum of 1 km. east- 
west; the second wall encloses an area of 1.2 km. by 
0.4 km. to the west of the first, called K a t a k 
(= Sanskrit kataka) by Ibn Battuta and Mahakot 
("great fort") by Lahawri, and is entered through 
a hornwork formed by a succession of rounded 
bastions [see burdj, iii]; a less elaborate entrance 
in the third apron leads to the citadel, Devagiri 
(B a 1 a k o't of Lahawri) through a steep flight of 
steps, the rock-cut moat crossed by a narrow stone 
bridge, a tunnel through rock-cut chambers and 
re-used Djayn caves emerging some 15 m. higher, 
a broad rock staircase leading to a Mughal bdradari, 
and finally another flight of 100 steps to the acro- 
polis, a platform 50 m. by 36 m., on which guns are 
mounted. All three walls are defended by external 
ditch and counterscarp; they all show signs (by 
heightening in work of smaller stone) of modifi- 
cation during the BahmanI period. Of interest in 



the defence works are: (1) the bridge over the 
final moat, with its central portion about 3 m. 
below the level of each side, approached by steep 
flights of steps from counterscarp and gallery. The 
height of water in the moat must have been under 
control, so that the central portion of the bridge 
could be submerged; (2) the long tunnel, at the head 
of which was an iron barrier which could be rendered 
red-hot by lighting a fire on it (for a different inter- 
pretation see Sidney Toy, The strongholds o) India, 
London 1957, 38 ff., criticized by J. Burton-Page 
in BSOAS, xxiii/3, i960, 516 ff.); midway is a rock- 
cut look-out post. 

The mosque of Kutb al-DIn Mubarak KhaldjI of 
Dihll (inscr. 718-1318) is perhaps the earliest Muslim 
monument. Largely an improvisation out of temple 
material, it has tapering fluted corner buttresses and 
a corbelled dome, and is some 78 m. square in 
overall plan (illustration in Ann. Report, Arch. Dept. 
Hyd., 1925-6, PI. Ill); the mihrdb has since been 
filled with an idol. 

The mosque has no minaret; fulfilling this 
function, however, is the Cand minar, 30 m. high, 
of about 840/1435, similar in shape to the towers of 
Mahmud Gawan's madrasa at BIdar [q.v.] but with 
three galleries supported by elaborate brackets. In 
addition to its function as a minar of the mosque, it 
was also an observation post, since it commanded 
the dead ground on the north-east. 

The palaces are mostly in ruins; noteworthy are 
the bdrridari mentioned above, built for Shahdiahan's 
visit in 1046/1636, and the CinI mahall in Mahakot, 
of the Nizam Shahi period, with fine encaustic tile- 
work; the latter was used as a state prison for the 
last Kutb Shahl ruler, Abu '1-Hasan (Kh'afi Khan, 
Muntakhab al-Lubdb, ii, 371 ff.). 

Bibliography: There is no monograph on 
Dawlatabad as a site; in addition to references in 
the text, see S. Piggott, Some ancient cities of 
India, Bombay 1945, 78 ff. (including sketch- 
map). (J. Burton-Page) 
al-DAWLATAbADI, Shihab al-DIn Ahmad b. 
Shams al-DIn b. c Umar al-ZawulI al-Hindl, an 
eminent Indian scholar of the 9th/i5th century, was 
born at Dawlatabad in the Deccan. He completed 
his studies in Dihll at the feet of Kadi c Abd al- 
Muktadir and Mawlana Kh"adigl, two eminent 
disciples of Shaykh Naslr al-DIn Ciragh-i Dihli. 
When Timur invaded India, Shihab al-DIn left 
Dihll and settled at Djawnpur where Sultan Ibrahim 
Shark! (804-844/1400-1440) received him with 
honour and appointed him as the kadi al-kuddt of 
his kingdom. Later on he conferred upon him the 
title of Malik al- l Ulamd~'. Firishta says that he was 
held in such high esteem by the Sultan that a special 
silver chair was provided for him in the court. He 
died at Djawnpur in 848/1445. 

Shihab al-DIn was a prolific writer. According to 
Shaykh c Abd al-Hakk Muhaddith Dihlawl and 
Muhammad GhawthI Shattari he enjoyed some 
reputation as a Persian poet also. Of his compositions, 
the following 'are particularly noteworthy : Shark al- 
Hindl, a commentary on the Kdfiya (for Mss, Contri- 
bution of India to Arabic Literature, Zubaid Ahmad 
401); Shark usul al-Bazdawi, (Ms. in possession of 
M. Abul Kalam Azad); Al- l Aka>id al-Isldmiyya, 
on scholastic theology (Ms, Rampur, 314) ; al-Irshdd, 
on Arabic syntax, (printed at Haydarabad) ; Musad- 
iik al-fadl, commentary on the famous Kasida 
Banat Su>dd, (printed at Haydarabad); Bahr al- 
mawwddi, a Persian commentary on the Kur'an, 
dedicated to Sultan Ibrahim SharkI (for Mss, 



il-DAWLATABADI — DAWSA 



Storey 10, 1193); Ta'rikh al-Madlna (Storey, 427); 
Fatdwd-i Ibrahim Shdhi; BaddH'- al-baydn; Mandkib 
al-sdddt, on the merits and prerogatives of the 
descendants of the Prophet, (Storey 211, 1261). 

Bibliography: c Abd al-Hakk Muhaddith 
Dihlawi, Akhbdr al-akhydr, (Dihli 1309) 175-6; 
Muhd. Ghawthi Shattari, Gulzdr-i abrdr, (Ms. As. 
Soc. of Bengal 47 V) ; Muhd. SSdik, Tabakdt-i 
Shahdjahdni, (Ms. British Museum f. 60) ; Ghulam 
C A1I Azad, Mahathir al-kirdm, (Agra, 1910) 188- 
189; Fakir Muhammad, Hadd'ik al-Hanafiyya, 
(Nawal Kishore, Lucknow, 1906) 316; Rahman 
C A11, Tadhkira-i 'ulamd'-i Hind, (Nawal Kishore, 
Lucknow, 1914), 88-9; Nur al-DIn, Tadjalli-i Nur, 
(Djawnpur, 1900) ii 33; Zubaid Ahmad, The 
Contribution of India to Arabic Literature, 167 ff.; 
Storey 9-10; Brockelmann II, 220. 

(K. A. Nizami) 
DAWR [see supplement]. 

DAWRA$, formerly a town in south-western 
Khuzistan, was also called Dawrak al-Furs, 'Dawrak 
of the Persians' and sometimes al-Madlna, 'the 
Town'. The original Persian name was Darak. In 
the middle ages Dawrak was the capital of a district 
which was sometimes called after it and was some- 
times known asSurrak. Dawrak lay on the banks 
of the river of the same name, which was a tributary 
of the Djarrahi; it was connected by canal with the 
Karun [q.v.]. It was famous for its veils and for its 
sulphur springs. Pilgrims from Kirman and Fars 
used to pass through Dawrak on their way to and 
from Mecca. As late as the 4th/ioth century a fire- 
temple and some other remarkable buildings dating 
from the Sasanid era were still to be seen in the 
town. Dawrak was described in the Hudud al-'Alam 
(130) as a pleasant, prosperous and wealthy town. 
Towards the close of the ioth/i6th century the 
Bani Tamim occupied Dawrak and the surrounding 
area, but they were ousted by Sayyid Mubarak, of 
the Mush c asha c dynasty of Hawiza, the well-known 
Wdli of 'Arabistan (Khuzistan) about the year 1000/ 
1591-2- In 1029/1619-20 the Beglerbegi of Fars 
conquered Dawrak and its district (see the Ta'rikh-i 
'■Alam-drd-yi '■Abbdsi, 675). Subsequently the 
district was occupied by a branch of the AfshSr tribe 
[q.v.], but they were displaced by Shaykh Salman 
of the Ka c b [q.v.] during the reign of Nadir Shah 
[q.v.]. Shaykh Salman built a new town, which he 
called Fallahiya, five miles to the south of Dawrak, 
which thereafter fell into ruin. In order to protect 
Fallahiya against the Huwala and other hostile 
tribes, Shaykh Salman erected a strong fort there 
and built a mud wall two miles in circumference 
round the town. When Layard visited Fallahiya a 
century later, he found this wall in bad repair; he 
stated, however, that the many canals and water- 
courses surrounding it would provide a formidable 
barrier to invasion if strongly defended (Description 
of the province of Khuzistan, in JRGS, 1846, xvi, 
39; see also his Early adventures in Persia, Susiana 
and Babylonia, London 1887, ii, 57). 

In 1933 the name of Fallahiya was changed to 
Shadagan; it is the capital of the sub-district 
(bakhsh) of the same name which forms part of the 
shahristdn of Khurramshahr (formerly known as 
Muhammara). The date-groves and rice fields sur- 
rounding the town are watered by irrigation canals; 
wheat is also grown. In the town there are some 
400 houses, 120 shops, two mosques and two schools; 
the population, including that of the surrounding 
district, is about 20,000. The swampy area between 
Shadagan and the coast of the Persian Gulf is 



still known as Dawrakistan. The name is also 

preserved in the Khawr Dawrak, a northern arm of 

the Khawr Musa, the large inlet of the Gulf which 

bounds Dawrakistan on the east and north-east. 

Bibliography: in addition to references in 

the text: BGA, passim; Baladhurl, Futuh, 382, 

415; Yakut, ii, 618, 620; Mardsid al-Ittild c , (ed. 

Juynboll), i, 414, v, 502-3; Kazwini, Kosmo- 

graphie (ed. Wustenfeld), 191; J. Macdonald 

Kinneir, A geographical memoir of the Persian 

Empire, 88-9; J. H. Stocqueler, Fifteen months' 

pilgrimage through untrodden tracts of Khuzistan 

and Persia, i, 72; Ritter, Erdkunde, ix, 158-60; 

Le Strange, 242; G. N. Curzon, Persia and the 

Persian Question, ii, 322-3; Razmara and Naw- 

tash, Farhang-i djughrafiyd-yi Iran, vi, 228. 

(L. Lockhart) 
DAWS [see azd]. 

DAWSA (Dosa), literally "trampling", a ceremony 
formerly performed in Cairo by the Shaykh of the 
Sa'dl tarika on the mawlids [q.v.] of the Prophet, 
of al-Shafi% of Sultan Hanafi (a celebrated Saint of 
Cairo who died in 847/1443; Khitat djadida, iii, 93, 
iv, 100), of Shaykh Dashtuti (or TashtQshi), another 
saint; Lane, Modern Egyptians, chap, xxiv; Khitat 
djadida, iii, 72, 133, iv, in), and of Shaykh YQnus 
(see below). These took place by day; a similar 
ceremony was performed by the Shaykh al-Bakri, 
the head of the (arikas in Egypt, on the mawlid of 
Dashtuti by night. The ceremony has been described 
at length by Lane (loc. cit., with drawing; another 
description, with a drawing by the artist C. Rudolf 
Huber, who was an eye-witness, in G. Ebers, 
Aegypten, Stuttgart and Leipzig 1879-80, ii, 129 ff.); 
it consisted, in short, of as many as three hundred 
members of the tarika lying down with their faces to 
the ground and the Shaykh riding over them on 
horseback. It was believed that by a special kardma 
[q.v.], inherent in the tarika, no one was ever injured, 
and by such physical contact the baraka [q.v.] of the 
Shaykh was communicated to his followers. The same 
ceremony was performed elsewhere (Lady I. Burton, 
The inner life of Syria, etc., chap, x, for Barze near 
Damascus; Muhammad b. c Umar al-Tunisi, d. 1274/ 
1857, in Voyage au Ouaday, tr. A. Perron, 700). In 
other tarikas, baraka has been ascribed to rubbing 
with the feet of the Shaykh and even to the dust on 
which he has trodden. The use of the horse by Sa'dl 
(arika has been associated with the rank of its 
founder as a descendant of the Prophet. The origin 
of the Cairo dawsa is obscure; the legend has it that 
when Shaykh Yunus, the son of SaM al-Din al- 
Djibawi, the founder, came to Cairo his followers 
asked him to establish for their usage a bid'-a hasana 
(good innovation) which by its kardma would prove 
his rank as a saint; he thereupon made them cover 
his path with round and smooth vessels of glass, 
and he rode over them without breaking one. This 
his successors could not do, and prostrated men were 
substituted for the glass (Goldziher, in ZDMG, 1882, 
647 f.; Muhammad Rashid Rida, Ta'rikh ... 
Muhammad 'Abduh, ii, 147 ff., 2nd. ed., ii, 139 ff.). 
This Shaykh Yunus is said by some to be buried 
outside the Bab al-Nasr (Goldziher, loc. cit.; Khitat 
Djadida, ii, 72). Sa c d al-Din is commonly assigned 
to the second half of the 7th/i3th century. The date 
is quite uncertain, and there may have been con- 
fusion with the ecstatic (madidhub) Shaykh Yunus 
al-Shaybani, the founder of the Yunusi tarika (al- 
Makrizi, Khitat, Bulak 1270, ii, 435). The dawsa was 
abolished by the Khediw Muhammad Tawfik in 
1881, after the Chief Mufti of Egypt had given a 



DAWSA — DAWOD 



fatwa in which he declared it a bid'a kabiha (evil 
innovation), involving undignified treatment of 
Muslims. For some time afterwards, on the mornings 
of those mawlids some members of the Sa'di \arika 
lay down in front of the door of their Shaykh and 
let him walk over them (A. Le Chatelier, Les Con- 
traries Musulmanes du Hedjaz, 225), but this, too, 
has now been discontinued. 

Bibliography: in addition to the references 
given: c Ali Pasha Mubarak, al-Khita\ al-diadida, 
iv, 112; O. Depont and X. Coppolani, Les con- 
jreries religieuses musulmanes, 329 ff.). 

(D. B. Macdonald*) 
DAWCD, the biblical David. David is mentioned 
in several places in the Kur'an, sometimes together 
with his more famous son and successor Solomon 
(Sulayman). He kills Goliath (Djalut, Sura II, 251). 
God grants him the rule of the kingdom (ibid.) and 
enforces it (XXXVIII, 20). He makes him a "khalifa 
on earth" (i.e., the successor of an earlier generation 
of rulers, XXXVIII, 26). He gives him knowledge 
(Him) and wisdom (hikma), and the ability to do 
justice (hukm, esp. XXI, 78 f.; XXXVII, 21-24, 26: 
fast al-khitdb, XXXVII, 20). He gives him a zabur 
(book, psalter, IV, 163; XVII, 55), and makes the 
birds and mountains his servants, so that they 
unite in his praise (XXI, 79; XXXIV, 10; XXXVIII, 
18 f.). God also instructs him in the art of fashioning 
chain mail out of iron (XXXIV, 10 f.; XXI, 80). 
Together with Solomon, he gives judgment in a 
case of damage to the fields (XXI, 78). The fable of 
the rich man and the poor man, which Nathan tells 
the king (2 Sam, xii, 1-4), is retold in a somewhat 
modified form (XXXVIII, 21-23). There is no 
mention of the wrong David did to Uriah, but 
the subsequent verses show that the king feels 
himself to be guilty. His prayer for forgiveness is 
heard (24 f.). 

The hadith stresses David's zeal in prayer, and 
especially in fasting. Kur'an commentators, histor- 
ians, and compilers of the "Tales of the Prophets", 
specifically mention David as a prophet and add 
further material from Jewish (and Christian) tra- 
dition, including the story of Saul's jealousy of 
David, and that of the wife of Uriah (this as proof of 
David's 'temptation', Sura XXXVIII, 24), and the 
story of Absalom and his early death. The details 
— especially in the later (and also in the mystical) 
works — are fantastically elaborated. The title 
khalifa fi 'l-ard (Sura XXXVIII, 26) is interpreted as 
'God's delegate on earth'. David's readiness to do 
penance is mentioned in particular. Another favourite 
theme is David's gift in singing psalms. His voice 
has a magic power: it weaves its spell not only over 
man, but over wild beasts and inanimate nature. 
There is proof of the name of Dawud (or Dawud) 
in pre-Islamic times. There are poems which mention 
a Dawud, or his son, as a maker of coats of chain 
mail. Perhaps this refers to a Jewish armourer. In 
any case, presumably even in pre-Muhammadan 
times, he was identified with King David (Horovitz, 
Koranische Vntersuchungen, 109 f.). In the Kur'an, 
the name is spelled Dawud « Hebrew Dawid), or 
Wwd (Dawud) throughout. Later on, the form 
Da'ud (with hamza) became common. 

Bibliography: Bukhari, Saum 59, Anbiyd? 
37-9; Muslim, Siydm 182-97; Tabari, i, 554-6, 
559-72; idem., Tafsir, Cairo 1321, ii, 375-81; 
xvii, 34-7; xxii, 40 f.; xxiii, 77-87; Ibn al-Athir, 
Chronicon (ed. Tornberg), i, Leiden 1867, 153-9; 
Mas c udl, Murudi, i, Paris 1861, 106-10; Tha'labI, 
Kisas al-Anbiya', Cairo 1292, 235-54; Kisa% 



Kisas al-Anbiya', Leiden 1922, 252-78; Ghazzali 
(supposed author), Al-Durra al-fdkhira (ed. 
L. Gautier, Geneva-Basle-Lyons 1878), 74-6, 
transl. 63 f. (trans, by M. Brugsch, Hanover 1924, 
83-5); Hudjwlri, Kashf al-mahdjub (trans, by 
R. A. Nicholson, GMS XVII, 1911), 402 f.; 
G. Weil, Biblische Legenden der Muselm&nner, 
Frankfurt 1845, 202-24; R- Basset, Mille et un 
contes, ricits et ligendes arabes, iii, Paris 1927, 
89-99; M. Griinbaum, Neue Beitrage zur semitischen 
Sagenkunde, Leiden 1893, 189-98; J. Walker, 
Bible characters in the Koran, Paisley 1931, 41-4; 
H. Speyer, Die biblischen Erzdhlungen imQoran, 
Grafenhainichen o.J., 369, 372, 375-82, 403 f.; 
J. Horovitz, Koranische Vntersuchungen, Berlin 
and Leipzig 1926, 109-n. (R. Paret) 

DAWCD b. 'AlI b. KHALAF al-IsfahanI Abu 
Sulayman, the imam of the school of the Zahiriyya 
([?.».]; also called Dawudiyya) in religious law. An 
extreme representative of the tendency hostile to 
human reasoning and relying exlusively on Kur'an 
and hadith, Dawud not only rejected personal opinion 
(ra>y) as al-Shafi c I [?.».] had done, but, as far as he 
could, systematic reasoning by analogy (kiyds) which 
al-Shafi c I had admitted and tried to regularize, and 
he made it his principle to follow the outward or 
literal meaning (zdhir) of Kur'an and hadith exclu- 
sively; he also restricted the concept of consensus 
(id[md c ) to the consensus of the Companions of the 
Prophet, and rejected the practice of allegiance 
(tahlid) to a single master which in his time had 
come to prevail in the other schools of religious law. 
In all these respects, his doctrine represents a one- 
sided elaboration and development of that of al- 
Shafi'I and his school. 

Dawud's family came from a village near Isfahan; 
he was born in Kufa in 200-2/815-8. He studied 
hadith under well-known authorities in Basra, 
Baghdad and Nisabur, and then settled in Baghdad 
where he became highly esteemed as a teacher and 
mufti. His biographers praise him for his piety, 
humility and asceticism. Nothing is known of his 
teachers in fikh proper; his father was a Hanafi, and 
he himself is called a fanatical adherent (muta c assib) 
of al-Shafi% a description which fits both the 
starting-point and the later development of his own 
doctrine, and he occupies an honoured place in the 
biographical works of the Shafi'I school. In theology, 
he is reported to have held the opinion that the 
Kur'an as it exists on the "well-preserved tablet", 
was uncreated, but as it exists in the actual copies, 
produced in time, and Ahmad b. Hanbal is said to 
have refused to meet him on account of this. 

Dawud was the author of numerous treatises (see 
a more or less contemporary list in the Fihrist), some 
of them extremely long (up to 3000 folios), covering 
legal theory (usul) and all branches of positive law 
(/«r« c ); nothing of all this has survived, and we 
depend for statements of his doctrine on questions 
of detail on later authors (e.g., al-Subkl, and parti- 
cularly Ibn Hazm [q.v.], and some of the works on 
ikhtildf), who however do not always distinguish 
between Dawud's own opinions and those of his 
followers. The Hanbali author Muhammad al- 
Shattl (1307/1889-90), at the suggestion of the mufti 
of Damascus, Mahmud b. Hamza Effendi al-Hamzawi 
(d. 1305/1887-8), collected many of these opinions and 
compared them with the corresponding Hanbali 
doctrines (if. fi MasdHl al-Imdm Dawud al-%dhiri, 
Damascus 1330). The school of the ?ahiriyya 
disappeared in due course, and for this r 
opinions and those of their imam, Dawi 



n their 



DAWOD — DAWOD pasha 



taken into account in establishing 
the scholars, although a number of Shafi'I scholars 
take, theoretically at least, a more accomodating 
view (see al-Nawawi and, in more detail, al-Subki). 
Dawud died in Baghdad in 270/884 and was buried 
there. His son, Muhammad b. Dawud [q.v.], was a 
famous man of letters. 

Bibliography: Fihrist, i, 216 f.; Td'rikh 
Baghdad, viii, no. 4473; Sam'ani, s.v. al-Zahirl; 
Ibn al-DjawzI, al-Muntazam, v/2, no. 164; al- 
Nawawi, Biographical Dictionary, ed. Wiistenfeld, 
236 ff.; Ibn Khallikan, s.v.; al-Yafi'i, Mirdt al- 
djandn, ii, 184 f.; al-Subki, Tabatsdt al-ShdjiHyya, 
ii, 42 ff.; Wiistenfeld, Der Imam el-SchdjiH, no. 46; 
Ibn Kathlr, al-Biddya wa H-Nihdya, xi, 47 ff. 
(Year 270); Ibn al-'Imad, Shadhardt al-Dhahab, 
ii, 158 f.; Ibn Taghribirdi, Cairo, iii, 478- (Year 
270). Goldziher, Die Zdhiriten, 27 ff. and passim 
(fundamental work); Brockelmann, I, 194 f.; idem, 
S I, 312; Schacht, Esquisse, 56 f. (J. Schacht) 
DAWCD al-ANTA^I [see al-antakI]. 
DAwCD b. c Abd Allah b. IdrIs al-FATAnI 
or FattanI, i.e., from Patani on the N.E. coast of 
the Malay Peninsula, a Malay author living in 
Mecca in the first half of the i3/i9th century. He 
belonged to the Shattariyya order. He wrote popular 
tracts as well as extensive handbooks on Shafi'ite 
fifth, theology and orthodox mysticism. All these 
works are translations from the Arabic into Malay, 
more literal than those of c Abd al-Samad al-Palim- 
bani [q.v.]. They aim at a public not learned enough 
to read Arabic fluently, but familiar, to a certain 
degree, with the structure of the language. His 
earliest dated work was finished in 1224/1810, the 
latest in 1259/1843. Most of his works are compiled 
from various Arabic sources, but it seems that 
sometimes he followed one model only, e.g., in his 
translation of al-Ghazzall's Minhddi al-'-dbidin ild 
Diannat Rabb al-'-Alamin, and in al-Bahdja al- 
wardiyya fi 'aftd'id ahl al-djamd'a al-sunniyya, 
a Malay version of c Abd al-Rahman b. c Abd al- 
Salam al-Saffuri's commentary on the Manzuma fi 
'l-tawhld by Aljmad b. c Abd al-Rahman al-Djaza'iri 
(printed Mecca 1331; on the title-page the manzuma 
is erroneously ascribed to Ibn al-Wardi ; the complete 
text of the Arabic manzuma is incorporated in this 
edition). Another remarkable work is Kanz al-minan 
'old hikam AM Madyan, translated from a commen- 
tary on the maxims of Abu Madyan Shu'ayb b. 
al-Husayn al-Andalusi (printed Mecca 1328; the 
maxims are quoted in Arabic). A popular treatise on 
marriage law by Daud Patani was lithographed in 
Singapore, 1287, and some other treatises a few 
years later in Bombay. His main works were printed 
in Mecca c. 1302, and from 1328 onward his 
descendants, still living in the holy city, reprinted 
some of his works and published some others for 
the first time. There are MSS. of Malay works by 
Daud Patani in Cambridge (Scott coll.), Djakarta, 
Leiden and London (R.A.S.) but none of them un- 
published. 

Bibliography: C. Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, 
ii, 386; H. H. Juynboll, Catalogus v. d. Mai. en 
Sund. hss. der Leidsche Univ. Bibl., 276; Ph. S. van 
Ronkel, Catalogus der Mai. hss. in het Museum 
v. h. Bat. Gen. v. K. en W., 374, 378, 382, 385, 401 ; 
C. O. Blagden, List of Malay books, in JRAS 1899, 
125 no. 50; R. O. Winstedt, A history of Malay 
literature, in JSBRAS xvii/3, 1940, 104. 

(P. Voorhoeve) 
DAWCD KHAN KARARANl, younger son of 
the governor of Bengal under Shir Shah, Sulayman 



Kararani, who later asserted his independence, was 
raised to the Bengal throne in 980/1572 by the 
Afghan nobles who had deposed his elder brother 
Bayazld. Intoxicated by a sense of power he defied 
the Mughal emperor Akbar and attacked his outpost 
at Ghazipur in 982/1574- Mun'im Khan [q.v.], sent 
to oppose him, occupied his capital at Tanda and 
compelled him to retreat into Ufisa; he counter- 
attacked at the important battle of TukaroT [q.v.] 
(= Mughalmari), but when Mughal reinforcements 
arrived he sued for peace and paid tribute to Akbar, 
being permitted to retain the province of Ufisa. In 
983/1575 Mun'im Khan died and in the following 
confusion Dawud attacked and regained Bengal. 
Khan Djahan and Todar Mall renewed the Mughal 
attack in 984/1576, when Dawud was captured and 
executed, and Bengal finally passed into Mughal 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Fadl c AllamI, Akbar- 
ndma, iii, 22, 70-3, 93 «-, "8 ff., 177-8; tr. Bever- 
idge, iii, 30 ff., 97 ff., 130 ff., 169 ff., 248 ff.; idem, 
AHn-i Akbari, tr. Blochmann, 2nd. ed. 334, 350, 
404, 407, 411. (J. Burton-Page) 

DAWCD PASHA, Kara (? — 1032/1623), 
Ottoman Grand Vizier. The year of his birth is 
uncertain, but, in a "relazione" submitted to the 
Signoria in 1612, Simone Contarini, who had been 
Venetian Bailo at Istanbul, mentions a Dawud 
Pasha, whom he describes as a Croat in origin and 
at that time about 46 years old. According to the 
Ottoman sources, however, Kara Dawud Pasha was 
of Bosnian descent. He was trained in the Palace 
Schools, being appointed in due course to the office 
of iukaddr (luhadar). During the reign of Sultan 
Mehemmed III (1003-1012/1595-1603) he became 
KapldjI Bashl and later, in the reign of Sultan 
Ahmed I (1012-1026/1603-1617), was made Beglerbeg 
of Riimeli in 1013/1604. Dawud Pasha served there- 
after against the Djalali [q.v.] rebels in Asia Minor 
and also in the Eriwan campaign against the 
Safawids of Persia in 1021/1612. He held the office 
of Kapudan Pasha [q.v.] for a short time during the 
tirst reign of Sultan Mustafa I (1026-1027/1617-1618) 
and also accompanied Sultan c Othman II (1027-1031/ 
1618-1622) on the campaign of Choczim (Hotin) 
against the Poles in 1 030/1 621. Dawud Pasha was 
married to a sister german of Sultan Mustafa. 
Mah-Peyker, the Walide Sultan {i.e., the mother of 
Mustafa I) used her influence to secure the elevation 
of Dawud Pasha to the Grand Vizierate (9 Radjab 
1031/20 May 1622), when her son Mustafa became 
Sultan for the second time (1031-1032/1622-1623). 
Dawud Pasha at once carried out the execution 
of Sultan 'Othman II, who had just been deposed 
from the throne. On 3 Sha'ban 1031/13 June 1622 
Dawud Pasha was dismissed from the office of 
Grand Vizier. The conflict of factions at the Porte 
brought about in the end his own execution in Rabi c I 
1032/January 1623. He was buried in the mosque of 
of Murad Pasha at Istanbul. 

Bibliography: Pecewi, Ta'rikh, ii, Istanbul 
A.H. 1283, 386 ff., passim; Hadjdji Khalifa, 
Fedhleke, ii, Istanbul A H. 1287, 19 ff., passim, 
33-4, 46; Na'ima, TaMkh, ii, Istanbul A.H. 
1283, 224 ff., passim, 235 ft., passim, 248-52; 
Ambassade en Turquie de Jean de Gontaut Biron, 
Baron de Salignac j605-j6.ro. Correspondance 
Diplomatique et Documents Inedits, ed. Comte 
Theodore de Gontaut Biron, in Archives Histori- 
ques de la Gascogne, fasc. xix, Paris 1889, 9, 11, 
186; R. Knolles, The Generall Historie of the 
Turkes .... Together with the Lives and Conquests 



DAWUD pasha 



of the Othoman Kings and Emperours, London 
1639: A Continuation 0/ the Turkish History 

from .... 1620 untill 1628. Collected out 0/ 

the Papers and Dispatches 0/ Sir Thomas Rowe, 
1408, 1412, 1417-8; S. Purchas, Purchas His 
Pilgrimes, viii, Glasgow 1905, 343-59, passim 
("The Death of Sultan Osman") ; The Negotiations 
0/ Sir Thomas Roe in his Embassy to the Ottoman 
Porte from the Year 1621 to 1628 inclusive, ed. 
S. Richardson, London 1740, 42, 47, 51, 125-6; 
A. Galland, La Mort du Sultan Osman, ou le 
Retablissement de Mustapha sur le Throsne, traduit 
d'un Manuscrit Turc ..... Paris 1678, 143-5, J 66, 
169, 171-2, 194-5, 196, 199, 201-2; M. Stein- 
schneider, Die Geschichtsliteratur der Juden, i, 
Frankfurt 1905, § 146; M. A. Danon, Contributions 
a I'histoire des Sultans Osman II et Mouctafa I, 
in J A, onz. ser., xiv, Paris 1919, 69 ff. and 243 ff., 
passim; Le Relazioni degli Stati Europei lette al 
Senato dagli Ambasciatori Veneziani nel secolo 
decimosettimo, edd. N. Barozzi and G. Berchet, 
ser. V: Turchia, i, Venice 1866, 142 {Relazione di 
Simon Contarini, 1612) and 294 (Relazione .... 
delBailo Cristoforo Valier, 1616) ; E. de Hurmuzaki, 
Documente privitdre la Istoria Romdnilor, Supple- 
ment i/i, Bucharest 1886, 197 ff. and 200 ff.; 
Hammer-Purgstall, iv, 549, 55 1 ff-, 558-9, 57i «.; 
Zinkeisen, iii, 749, 750, 754, 760; N. Jorga, Ge- 
schichte des osmanischen Reiches, iii, Gotha 1910, 
445 ff.; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh Tarihi, iii/2, 
Ankara 1954, 375-6; c Othman-zade Ahmed Ta'ib, 
Hadikat al-Wuzard', Istanbul A.H. 1271, 67 ff.; 
Husayn b. Isma'il, Hadikat al-Djawami'; Istanbul 
A.H. 1 28 1, i, 204; SamI, Kdmus al-AHam, iii, 
Istanbul A.H. 1308, 2110-1; Sidiill-i c Othmdni, ii, 
325; I A, s.v. Davud Pasa. (V. J. Parry) 

DAWCD PASHA. Kodja, Darwish, d. 904/1498, 
Ottoman Grand Vizier. Of Albanian origin, he came 
through the dewshirme to the Palace School. In 876/ 
1472, as beylerbeyi of Anadolu, he fought under 
Prince Mustafa, wall of Konya, against the Ak- 
koyunlu Yusufca MIrza. In the battle against Uzun 
Hasan at Otluk-beli in 878/1473, he was in command 
of the vanguard. He served in the Boghdan campaign 
of 881/1476 and, as beylerbeyi of Rumeli, in the 
operations in Albania and the siege of Ishkodra 
(883/1478). After the accession of Bayezid II he was 
made vizier and shortly afterwards, in 888/1483, 
succeeded Ishak Pasha as Grand Vizier, remaining 
in this post for 15 years. During this period he went 
on only two campaigns, the operations against the 
Mamluks in 892/1487, when he re-occupied Adana 
and Tarsus and reduced the Warsaks to obedience, 
and the Albanian campaign of 891/1492, when he 
took Tepedelen and defeated the Albanian forces 
(though according to one source he remained at 
Uskiib to guard against a possible Hungarian attack 
from the north). He was dismissed from the Grand 
Vizierate on 4 Radjab 902/8 March 1497 and ordered 
to live at Dimetoka (with a yearly pension of 
300,000 akdes). The reason for his dismissal was that 
the flight of the Ak-koyunlu Gode Ahmed Bey, a 
grandson of Mehemmed II, to Tabriz was attributed 
to Dawud Pasha's negligence. Two years later, in 
4 RabI C I 904/20 October 1498. he died and was 
buried in the tiirbe before the mihrdb of his mosque 
in Istanbul. 

He is described as a capable and upright statesman 
and a patron of learning. In foreign policy he 
supported Venice. He was one of the richest statesmen 
of his time: the resm-i kismet due to the kddi'asker 
on his estate amounted to no less than 2,000,000 



akles. The mosque which he built in the quarter 
which bears his name exists today, together with an 
Hmdret, a (eshme, a school and a medrese. There are 
also an iskele and a kasr named after him. The 
Dawud Pasha Sahrasi, on which the Dawud Pasha 
Barracks now stands, was for centuries a famous 
camping-ground for the Ottoman army. His sons 
Mustafa Pasha and Mehemmed Bey are mentioned 
in the sources. 

Bibliography: IA, s.v. (by I. H. Uzuncarsih); 
Hammer-Purgstall, GOR, ii, 309 ft. and index; 
Leunclavius, Hist., 644 ff. ; Kantemir, Gesch. d. 
Osm. Reiches, 428; al-ShahdHk al-Nu'-mdniya, 
Hadikat al-wuzard?, Hadikat al-djawdmi'- (s.vv.); 
for his wakfs, T. GSkbilgin, Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 
Istanbul 1952, index. (M. Tayyib Gokbilc.in) 
DAWCD PASHA (1181-1267/1767-1851), the last 
Mamluk ruler of Turkish 'Irak, was acquired in 
Baghdad as a Georgian slave-boy by Sulayman 
Pasha (the Great), marriage with whose daughter, 
together with his own good looks, charm, learning 
and ostentatious piety, assisted him in his upward 
career in the civil service under his patron, as con- 
fidential secretary, treasurer, daftarddr, and finally 
kahya. By opportunism, violence and a skilful 
balancing of forces — Kurds, Mamluks, the court, 
the mob, the tribes — Dawud, aged 50 years, obtained 
the Pashalik for himself in 1233/1817, and assured 
it by the assassination of his predecessor (Sa'Id 
Pasha), and by timely generosity. He ruled for 
fifteen years. He adopted a vigorous (at times a 
treacherous) tribal policy, preserved fair order, 
chastised the notoriously turbulent Yazidis and the 
mid-desert c Anaza, kept a watch on endless Kurdish 
princely schisms and threats, and contrived to stop 
a serious Persian invasion (1239/1823). Under orders 
from Istanbul, he disbanded the Janissary forces in 
Baghdad, raised and armed new-type regiments, 
and — fitfully, jealously and inconsistently — per- 
mitted a marked increase of European methods, 
traffic and trade. He constructed numerous public 
works, and maintained a luxurious court and 
entourage. His decline and fall (1247/1831) was 
inevitable in the changing atmosphere of the Turkish 
government; immediately, it was brought about by 
his persistent insubordination to the Istanbul 
authorities, whose emissary (and his own successor 
as wall) was able to evict and replace him thanks 
to a devastating flood in Baghdad and a terrible 
visitation of plague. Arrested and captive, Dawud 
was surprisingly well treated, re-promoted to 
important offices in both Europe and Asia, and, 
high in royal favour, became in 1261/1845 Guardian 
of the Holy Shrine at Madina. He died in 1267/185 1, 
after a career of extraordinary vicissitudes. 

Bibliography : S. H. Longrigg, Four Centuries 
of Modern '■Iraq, Oxford 1925, 234-274; the 
Appendix on sources (328 ff.) particularizes the 
Arabic and Turkish sources (partly in MS.), and 
European travellers. C. Huart, Histoire de Bagdad 
dans les Temps Modernes, Paris 1901. 

(S. H. Longrigg) 
DAWCD PASHA, first Ottoman mutasarri/ 
(governor) of Mount Lebanon (1861-1868). He was 
an Armenian Catholic, born in Constantinople in 
March 1816. He spent his early years with a French 
family at Galata; later he married an English wife 
whom he abandoned before being appointed muta- 
sarri). He began his public career as an attache to 
the Ottoman Embassy in Berlin, serving next as 
Ottoman consul general in Vienna. Transferred back 
to Constantinople, he held several posts in the 



DAWOD PASHA — DAWODPOTRAS 



Ministry of Interior. In 1857 he was put in charge 
of the government publications; and in the following 
year he became superintendent of the Telegraph 
Office, where he introduced a number of improve- 
ments. In that same year, he assisted the Foreign 
Minister Fu'ad Pasha in applying for a foreign loan. 
Finally, in 1861, he was appointed to the governor- 
ship of Mount Lebanon by the Porte in conjunction 
with the European Powers. Sent to Beirut with the 
rank of Vizier, he established the seat of his govern- 
ment in Dayr al-Kamar and organized the new 
administration in a manner satisfactory to all 
parties concerned. Among other things, he organized 
the gendarmerie of Mount Lebanon, built roads and 
bridges, and established a number of schools, and his 
wise government soon restored peace, order, and 
good will in Lebanon. Appointed at first to govern 
the country for three years, the term of his admi- 
nistration was extended for five more years. During 
his second term, however, he met with a strong 
resistance from some of the traditional leaders in the 
Mountain, and was therefore advised to resign from 
the governorship in 1868, before the end of his term. 
He next served as Minister of Public Works, and 
was sent to Europe to negotiate a loan. But, having 
somehow incurred disfavour with the Porte, he 
preferred to remain in Europe. He died in Biarritz 
on 9 Nov. 1873 — I2 9 2 / I 875 according to Sidiill-i 
'■Othmani. 

Dawud Pasha was described by a contemporary 
as an able statesman and administrator, a good 
linguist, and a lover of learning. Among other things, 
he was a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. 
Bibliography : Butrus al-Bustani, KitdbddHrat 
al-ma'drif, vii Beirut 1883, 576-7; Sh. Sami 
Frasheri, KdmUs al-aHdm, iii, Istanbul 1308 A.H., 
2111; Sidiill-i '■Othmani, iv, 874; Jouplain, La 
Question du Liban, Paris 1908, 484; G. Vapereau, 
Dictionnaire universel des contemporains, Paris 
1880, 507. (K. S. Salibi) 

DAWODPOTRAS, a rival branch of the tribe to 
which also belonged the Kalh5ras, one time rulers 
of former Sind. They and the Kalhoras both claimed 
descent from Abu '1-Fadl al- c Abbas b. c Abd al- 
Muttalib. The rulers of the former princely state of 
Bahawalpur, now merged with West Pakistan, 
belong to the Dawudpotras, who unlike their collat- 
erals, the Kalhoras, take pride in calling themselves 
the 'Abbasis. Their claim to nobility and high birth 
appears, however, based more on tradition, hallowed 
through a long period of rulership and authority, 
than on unimpeachable information derived from 
reliable sources. 

The genealogical tab'js, contained in some of the 
local Persian histories, such as the Mir'at-i dawlat-i 
c Abbdsi and the Djawdhir-i 'Abbdsiyya, are defective 
and on close examination appear to have been 
hastily composed at the behest of royalty. However, 
some references in the older and more authentic 
works like the Ma'dthir al-Umard', (i, 825) show that 
both the Dawudpotras and the Kalhoras were com- 
monly believed to be the descendants of al- c Abbas 

The common ancestor of both the Kalhoras and 
the Dawudpotras, of whom something is known to 
history, is believed to be one Muhammad Canney 
Khan (variants: Caynay Khan, Cina Khan, Canni 
Mian, Djlhna alias Clnah Khan), whose father 
Ka'im is said to have migrated to Sind from Iran 
via Kec-Mukran in c. 259/873, long before the 
advent of the Ghaznawids in the Indo-Pakistan 
. But this date is both doubtful and 



improbable. Most of the works make no mention of 
Ka'im. They instead mention one Miyan Odhana, 
who is said to have lived the life of- a shaykh with 
numerous followers. In the fifth generation from 
him was one Thull Khan (Fath Allah Khan?) 
whose son, Bhalla Khau (Baha' Allah Khan?) was 
the father of Canney Khan. Canney Khan was 
succeeded to the tribal chieftainship by his sons 
Muhammad Mahdl and Dawud Khan, the latter in- 
heriting a copy of the Kur'an, the tasbih (rosary) and 
the prayer-carpet (musalld) belonging to his father; 
while the family-sword and his turban fell to the 
share of Muhammad Mahdi whose descendants came 
to be known as the Kalhoras after his son, Ibrahim 
alias Kalhore Khan. 

As a result of family feuds, Dawud Khan I had to 
leave the place and shift for himself. He is stated to 
have founded a new settlement near the town of 
Wandji, now untraceable. He was followed by his 
son, Mahmud Khan and grandson Muhammad Khan 
as the leaders of the tribe. During the chieftainship 
of Dawud Khan II, a son of Muhammad Khan, the 
tribe had greatly multiplied and felt the need to 
enlarge its territory. The descendants and retainers of 
this Dawud Khan II came to be known as the Dawud- 
potras irrespective of the fact whether they were 
the issue of his body or had only spiritual or temporal 
attachment with him. This explains the fact why 
certain families of purely SindhI origin, mainly 
engaged in the weaving profession and living in the 
Shikarpur and Dadu districts of West Pakistan, still 
proudly call themselves Dawudpotras. Some foreign 
writers (for instance, R. F. Burton, A History of 
Scinde, London 1850, 410), not fully acquainted with 
the origins of the Dawudpotras, were led to believe 
that the Dawudpotras as a tribe were of indigenous 
origin and weavers by profession. In according 
recognition as equal members to all those who did 
not belong to the family or the clan of Dawud Khan II, 
the Dawudpotras simply revived the old Arab custom 
of admitting manumitted slaves (mawdll) into the 
family fold or the clan. The prevalence of this Arab 
custom among them also lends support to their 
claim to being of Arab stock and descent. 

Dawud Khan II was followed by eight chiefs, of 
whom only Bahadur Khan II deserves mention. He 
is credited with having laid the foundations of the 
town of Shikarpur in 1026/1617. The dates of birth 
and death of all the Dawudpotra chiefs who preceded 
Sadik Muhammad Khan I (1136/1723-1159/1746), 
the founder of the House of Bahawalpur [q.v.], are 
practically unknown, none of them being important 
enough for history to record his annals. 

One of the Dawudpotra chiefs, Mubarak Khan I, 
assisted the Mughal prince Mu'izz al-Din, a grandson 
of Awrangzib 'Alamglr, and the then siibaddr of 
Multan [q.v.] and Lahore [q.v.], in crushing the 
uprising of the Miranis, a powerful Baluc tribe of 
Dera Ghazi Khan, in 1114/1702. As a reward for this 
military assistance, the towns of Shikarpur, Bakh- 
tiyarpur and Khanpflr were granted to him as a 
djdgir. The town of Shikarpur became thereafter the 
seat of his clan. Most of his time was spent in 
fighting fraternal battles against the rival Kalhora 
chief, Yar Muhammad Khan alias Khuda-Yar 
Khan. A grim battle lasting over a week was fought 
in which both the sides lost heavily. Contemporary 
accounts show that the Dawudpotras suffered griev- 
ously and had to seek for a truce. It was purely a 
faction fight, a dynastic feud, which determined the 
future course of events. Coupled with subsequent 
encounters between the rival factions this battle 



186 



DAWODPOTRAS 



culminated in the separation and demarcation of 
their respective spheres of influence and control. 

The Dawudpotras, in the final phase, emerged 
successful, as they were able to conserve and con- 
solidate their hard-won possessions, while their 
rivals, the Kalhoras, were ousted by the Talpurs 
who, in their turn, gave way to the British when 
the latter occupied Sind in 1842, seven years 
before the annexation of the Pandjab and the 
termination of the short-lived Sikh rule. Mubarak 
KhSn I abdicated in 1 136/1723 in favour of his son 
Sadik Muhammad Khan c AbbasI I and died three 
years later in 1 139/1726. An ambitious ruler, he first 
annexed Ucch [q.v.] followed by a part of the Mughal 
suba of Multan and the fort of Derawar, wrested 
from Rawal Akhi Singh of Djaysalmer. whose fore- 
fathers had held it for long. In 1152/1739 when 
Nadir Shah Afshar invaded India, Sadik Muhammad 
Khan I waited on him at Dera GhazI Khan, and was 
granted the title of Nawwdb. In addition to what he 
had added to his possessions by the sword he was 
granted the parganahs of Slwastan and Larkana. In 
i i 59/i746 Shikarpur, his ancestral home, was 
attacked by the rival Kalhora chief, Khudayar Khan. 
Sadik Muhammad Khan lost his life in the contest, 
and was succeeded by Muhammad Bahawal Khan I 
who, the very next year, founded some towns in- 
cluding that of Bahawalpur, which ultimately gave 
its name to the state. It was during the rule of 
Bahawal Khan I that the state came to command 
respect and gained in political stature. The irrigation 
canals dug under his orders opened up a new era 
of prosperity for the otherwise arid regions of the 
state of Bahawalpur. Meanwhile the power of the 
Dawudpotras continued to increase. On the death of 
Bahawal Khan I in 1163/1749 Muhammad Mubarak 
Khan 1 1 was unanimously elected by the Dawudpotras 
to succeed him. In 1165/1751 Djahan Khan Popalza'i, 
the commander-in-chief of the Durrani forces, first 
attacked Ucch and then marched on Bahawalpur 
at the instance of £ Ali Muljammad Khan KhakwanI, 
the leaseholder of Dera GhazI Khan. A pitched 
battle was fought near Khanpur which resulted in 
the rout of the enemy, and Bhawalpflr gained in 
stature. In 1 173/1759 Rawal Ray Singh of Djay- 
salmer surrendered the border fort of Derawar 
which had been recaptured from the Amir of Baha- 
walpur. Two years later Ghulam Shah Kalhora, the 
ruler of Sind, who several times in the past had 
received help from the ruler of Bahawalpur, attacked 
the state timing his invasion with the onslaught of 
Ahmad Shah Abdall [?.».], banking on the confusion 
that was to prevail in the wake of the Afghan king's 
invasion. He had to be appeased by surrendering 
Ghulam Shah's brother, c It.r Khan, who had taken 
refuge in Bahawalpur, after an unsuccessful attempt 
against the former. 

On his death in 1 186/1772 he was succeeded by 
Muhammad Dja'far Khan, his nephew, who on acces- 
sion at the age of 12 years assumed the title of 
Bahawal Khan II. In 1191/1777 Multan was lost to 
the Sikhs and was never recovered thereafter. In 
1 194/1780 Shah c Alam II, Emperor of Delhi, 
honoured him with a khiFat and bestowed on him 
the titles of Rukn al-Dawla, Nusrat Djang, Hafiz 
al-Mulk. In 1201/1785 Tlmur Shah Durrani attacked 
the Nawwab's principality, and captured and plun- 
dered the town of Bahawalpur which was subsequently 
set on fire and destroyed. The fortress of Derawar 
was also captured and garrisoned with Durrani 
troops. Tlmur Shah even carried away his son, 



prince Mubarak Khan c AbbasI, as a hostage and set 
him up as the ruler of the state virtually deposing 
Bahawal Khan II. Tlmur Shah was so severe in his 
punishment that he also carried away to Kabul the 
cannon captured from Bahawalpur. Till 1203/1788 
Bahawal Khan II was engaged in mopping-up 
operations against the Durranis having earlier 
placed prince Mubarak Khan, on his return to 
Bahawalpur, under detention. 

The threat of Durrani invasion to his possessions 
over, he turned to aggression and began to annex the 
neighbouring areas. His territorial ambitions aroused 
the suspicions of Makhdum Hamid Gandj Bakhsh of 
Ucch, a descendant of MakhdQm-i Djahaniyan Djalal 
al-Dln Bukhari [q.v.] who, in close collaboration with 
the neighbouring chiefs, revolted in 1214/1799 
against the Nawwab and defied attempts at his 
capture. He also incited the ruler of BIkaner to 
invade the state, set prince Mubarak Khan free, and 
proclaimed him the Nawwab. After some sharp 
encounters with the rebels and their confederates, 
the state forces under prince c Abd Allah Khan 
(afterwards known as Nawwab Sadik Muhammad 
Khan II), succeeded in restoring peace. The dis- 
gruntled Makhdum, who wielded considerable 
influence in the state, again rebelled in 1221/1806 at 
the instance of Shah Shudja' al-Mulk of Kabul. This 
attempt also failed and two years later the Nawwab 
entered into a treaty of friendship with the British 
Government. Thereafter complete peace prevailed 
in the state and people from Lahore, Dihll, Dera 
GhazI Khan and Multan, etc., who felt insecure 
under the Sikh rule and the disturbed conditions in 
India, migrated to Bahawalpur. 

On the death of Bahawal Khan in 1805 he was 
succeeded by his son c Abd Allah Khan, in supersession 
to his elder brother, prince Wahid Bakhsh, who was 
put to death. As already mentioned, c Abd Allah Khan 
assumed the title of Sadik Muhammad Khan II, 
on his accession. The greater part of his reign 
of 15 years (he died in 1825) was spent in either 
repelling the attacks of the Amirs of Sind, suppressing 
the rebellions of his own umard' or defending his 
conquered territories. Among other notable events 
of his reign was the capture of Dera GhazI Khan 
in 1234/1818 by Shah Shudja 1 with the military 
assistance provided by the Amir himself. The very 
next year he was, however, dispossessed by Randjit 
Singh, the ruler of Lahore, who made over Dera 
GhazI Khan (see deradjat) to the Amir of Bahawal- 
pur in consideration of an annual sum of 250,000 
rupees. During the rule of his successor, Rahlm Yar 
Khan entitled Muhammad Bahawal Khan III 
(1825-52), Dera GhazI Khan along with Muzaf- 
fargarh and Multan were irretrievably lost to 
Bahawalpur, having been conquered in 1235/1819 
by the French military adventurer, General Ventura, 
for his Sikh master, Randjit Singh. The Nawwab 
wreaked his vengeance by providing a contingent 
23,000 strong to the British for the capture of 
Multan, which fell in 1848 to Herbert Edwardes, the 
founder of Bannu [q.v.], and was annexed to the 
dominions of the East India Company. 

On his death in 1852 he was succeeded by 
Sa'adat Y3r Khan, entitled Sadik Muhammad 
Khan III. The latter's coronation ceremony was 
performed by the Makhdum of Ucch, a happy result 
of the reconciliation reached between the ruling 
family and the head of the most powerful spiritual 
group in the state. His harsh treatment of his 
brothers caused the eldest, prince Hadjdji Khan, to 
rise against him. Subsequently Sadik Muhammad 



DAWUDPOTRAS — DAY'A 



187 



Khan was deposed and imprisoned in a grain silo in 
the fort of Derawar. A small allowance was later 
settled on him and he was deported to Lahore, 
where he lies buried, HadjdjI Khan assumed the 
title of Fath Khan, but soon alienated the support 
of the Dawudpotras, who continued to intrigue 
unsuccessfully against him. He died, after a rule 
of five years, in 1858. He was followed by 
Rahim Yar Khan entitled Muhammad Bahawal 
Khan IV (1858-66), whose otherwise uneventful 
reign was marred by internal disturbances and 
commotions culminating in his death through 
poisoning. He was succeeded by his minor son, 
Sadik Muhammad Khan IV. On attaining his 
majority in 1879 ne was formally invested with 
the ruling powers by the Government of British 
India, the state having accepted British para- 
mountcy in 1849 on the annexation of the 
Pandjab. Close on his accession the Dawudpotras 
broke out into a rebellion which was, however, 
ruthlessly suppressed and its leader put to death. 
During the minority of the ruler the state was 
administered by the Chief Political Officer and Agent 
to the Lieutenant-Governor of the Pandjab for 
Bahawalpur Affairs. A very popular ruler, he was 
known as "Subh-i Sadik". The 'Shahdjahan' of the 
House of Bahawalpur, he constructed a number of 
beautiful palaces, in the construction of which 
foreign and local artisans were employed. Of these, 
two, the Sadik-Gafh Palace and the Nur Mahall 
Palace, deserve mention. 

He was succeeded in 1899 by Mubarak Khan, 
entitled Muhammad Bahawal Khan V, a lad of 
16 years and the first Bahawalpur prince to have 
received education at the Aitchison College, Lahore. 
He died in the prime of youth in 1907 at Aden while 
on his way back home from a pilgrimage to Mecca. 
He was succeeded by his infant son, Sadik 
Muhammad Khan V (1907-56), then only three 
years old. During his minority, the affairs of 
the state were managed by a Council of Regency 
presided over by the late Mawlawi Sir Rahim 
Bakhsh, a native of Thaska MIrandjI (Gurahm) 
near Ambala. His efficient administration, anx- 
iety for public weal combined with piety and 
philanthropy won him much admiration. In 1947 
Bahawalpur acceded to Pakistan and rendered much 
useful service to the new state, especially in the 
rehabilitation of the uprooted refugees from India, 
who were then pouring in in large numbers. In 
1956 the state of Bahawalpur ceased to exist 
as an independent unit when it was merged with 
West Pakistan, on the creation of the One Unit. 
Bibliography: Dawlat Ray, Mir'dt-i Dawlat-i 
'Abbdsi, Dihli 1850 (materially different from the 
Brit. Mus. MS, Rieu iii 951 a); Muhammad A c zam 
Hashimi, Qiawdhir-i 'Abbdsiyya (MS); Djan 
Muhammad Khan Ma'rufani, Ta'rikh-i Bahawal 
Khan (Punjab University Library MS); A'zam 
Hashimi, Ikbdl-ndmah-i Sa'ddat Aydt (MS); Anon., 
Khuldsa-i Tawdrihh-i 'Abbdsiyya (an abridgement 
of a work by Sayyid Nur Allah, not available to 
me) ; Shahamet Ali, The History of Bahawalpur (an 
abridged English translation of a Persian work by 
Pir Ibrahim Khan Kh»eshgi Kasuri, British Agent 
at Bahawalpur 1840-56); Gazetteer of the Baha- 
walpur State, Lahore 1908; H. B. Edwardes, A 
year on the Punjab frontier in 1848-9, London 1851, 
ii, 314, 319, 344, 377; Ghulam Rasii! Mihr, Ta'rikh-i 
Sindh C-Ahd-i Kalhord), Karachi 1958, i, 42, 
48-60, 100-19 and passim; Sayyid Murad Shah. 
Ta'rikh-i Murad (MS); Nazeer Ali Shah, Sadiq- 



namah, Lahore 1959; 'Ata' Muhammad Shikar- 
purl, Tdzah Nawd'-i Ma'drik, Karachi i960, index; 
Hitto Ram, Ta'rikh Dera Ghdzi Khan, Lahore 
1875 ; idem, Ta'rikh-i Baluiistdn; Haflz al-Rahman, 
Ta'rikh-i Bahawalpur (in Urdu) ; 'Aziz al-Rahman, 
Subh-i Sddik\ Bahawalpur 1943; F. G. Goldsmid, 
A Memoir on Shikarpur, Bombay Government 
Records; see also the article bahawalpur, and 
C. U. Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engage- 
ments and Sanads relating to India, ix, Calcutta 
1892. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

PAY c A, plu. diyd', estate. The word can mean 
generally a rural property of a certain size, but is 
understood in a more precise sense in fiscal contexts. 
It is known that at the time of the Conquests the 
local people were left in possession of their lands, 
subject to their paying the kharddi; it was later 
understood that the conversion of the landowner 
would not change the fiscal status of the land. In 
contradistinction to the kharddi lands there were the 
original properties of the Arabs, especially in Arabia, 
and the grants made in favour of notables or their 
dependents by the Caliphs from public property, the 
kafd'i' (the plural of kati'-a) [see iktd']: in practice, 
the primitive katdH' were assimilated into the Arab 
properties. These were not subject to the native 
taxes, but the Muslim had to pay out of the revenues 
that he drew therefrom the zakdt, comparable in land 
matters to the tithe 'ushr [q.v.]. It was the group of 
tithe-lands which came to be called diyd', whatever 
the origin of the land, and which appertained in 
fiscal matters to a Diwdn al-diyd' as distinct from the 
Diwdn al-kharddi. It inevitably came about that 
some great landowners might possess numerous 
diyd', but the term day'a means not the group but 
each estate, the extent of which is sometimes less and 
rarely more than the area of a village. It was not 
unknown for the owner of a day'-a to be a notable 
living on the estate, but usually they were rural 
properties owned by townspeople. During the first 
centuries of Islam, kati'-a and day'-a described 
different aspects of the same thing; when, later on, 
it became customary to distribute to the soldiers, as 
iktd', the kharddi of certain districts, in time 
amounting to the quasi-possession of those districts, 
the term day'a became distinct from this new ik{d' 
and continued to describe only estates of the old 
sort, now mostly in the hands of "civilians". 

It follows from this that the holder of the day'a was 
not usually its cultivator. He maintained on the 
land, appointing a bailiff (wakil) for their manage- 
ment, some peasants, usually share-croppers [see 
muzara'a]. Here it must be understood that the 
rents payable by the muzdri' being of the same 
order as the taxes payable by the possessor of 
kharddi land, the real difference of status between 
the two categories of land rests less in an inequality 
in peasant conditions at the bottom — otherwise it 
would be difficult to explain why there was no 
migration from one to the other — than in the social 
hierarchy which required the fiscal revenues of the 
kharddi to go directly and entirely to the State, 
whilst on the tithe-lands the peasant rents went for 
the greater part to the holder of the day'a, who 
passed on to the State only a small part (a fifth in 
the case of the half crop of a muzdra'a). The social 
role of the formation of the diyd' was to ensure the 
existence of an aristocracy. The real difference 
between the kharddi lands and the tithe-lands faded 
in this respect as the practice developed of granting 
to local chiefs the levying of taxes on their subjects, 
on condition that they made an outright payment 



DAY'A 



to the State (mukdta'a), or to soldiers the right 
to the taxes of certain districts, on condition that 
they paid the tithe (usually a fifth of the kharddx) to 
the State (later, without any further payment). 
Certainly in law the holder of these revenues was 
not the landowner but in fact the difference gradually 
diminished, and many diyd* were in fact enlarged by 
the surrounding lands through the workings of the 
practice of recommendation, ildxd* [q.v.]. The theory 
moreover, recognizing of necessity past encroach- 
ments, permitted the Caliph in the public interest 
to convert kharddx lands into tithe-lands. 

The biggest owner of diyd* during the 'Abbasid 
epoch was the Caliph himself, whose diyd* were 
called khdssa; then came the princes of the Caliph's 
family, the amirs of the army, the heads of the 
administration and afterwards the merchants and 
other well-to-do citizens who had put a part of their 
savings in landed property; in general, very few of 
the notables lived in the country itself. On the other 
hand the estates directly maintained by the State 
(sul(dniyya, dlwdniyya) were likewise divided into 
diyd*; according to the state of the budget they 
could be disposed of, recovered, rounded off, or new 
estates created from land formerly uncultivated; 
no doubt this is the explanation of the formula 
diyd 1 mustahdatha which is found in the 'Abbasid 
budgets; occasionally there is added the group of 
estates sequestrated from a very great official, such 
as the furdtiyya of the wazir Ibn al-Furat, which 
were usually left to the management of an ad hoc 
diwdn, and even restored to its former owner in case 
of a turn of fortune. The allocation of the diyd* 
obviously did not correspond to the original distri- 
bution, since in most cases they could be freely 
transmitted by inheritance, or sold (which seems to 
have been common), or transformed into wakf, etc.; 
the only ones not to enjoy this were those which were 
a result of an iktd*-(u*ma, given with a life-title, or 
those attached to the discharge of a temporary office. 
Bibliography: See bayt al-mal, khass, ikta c , 
c ushr. It is impossible to give here all the sources 
in which diyd'- occur, judicial, chronological, geo- 
graphical etc. Many references will be found in 
Fr. Lokkegaard, Islamic Taxation, by consulting 
the word day*a in the index. See also A. von 
Kremer, Das Eitmahmebudget des Abbasiden 
Reiches v. Jahre 306 H ., in Denhschr. K. Ahad. 
d. Wiss. Wien, xxxvi, 1888, especially 292 ff., 
and c Abd al-'Aziz Durl, Ta'rikh al-'Irdk al- 
iktisddi, Baghdad 1948, chap. ii. (Cl. Cahen) 
DAYBUL (Debal or Dewal), the ancient port- 
town of Sind, which contained a dlwal (temple) of 
al-budd (Baladhuri, Futuh, Cairo ed., 442), situated 
on the mouth of a creek (al-khawr) and to the west 
of the Mihran, i.e., the Indus, was the first place to 
fall to Muhammad b. al-Kasim al-Thakafi [q.v.], who 
led a punitive expedition against Radja Dahir, the 
ruler of Sind, in 92/711-12, who was alleged to have 
connived at an act of piracy committed at Daybul 
on some boats carrying Muslim men and women on 
their way to Mecca and c Irak from Ceylon. A 
flourishing town, a centre of sea-borne commerce 
and trade, it was inhabited largely by traders and 
artisans belonging mostly to the Med tribe. Two 
earlier attempts by the Arabs under 'Ubayd Allah 
b. Nabhan and Budayl b. Tahfa al-Badjali to conquer 
Daybul by sea having ended in failure, Muhammad 
b. al-Kasim decided to march against it by the land- 
route. His plans met with success, the mandxanik, 
used by the Arabs for the first time in India, proving 
an effective weapon of war. The tower of Daybul, 



surmounted by a dome 40 yds. high from which 
flew a huge red flag, overshadowing the entire town, 
housed a Buddhist stupa (mandral al-budd) or the 
dewal, after which, it appears, the town itself came 
to be known as Dewal (Debal, pronounced by the 
Arabs as Daybul). A huge stone hurled by the 
mandxanik wrought havoc with the tower and 
brought it down with a thundering crash. The post 
and the gigantic flag, considered by the local popu- 
lation as a symbol of impregnability, fell to the 
ground. After the fall of the town Muhammad b. 
al-Kasim offered liberal terms to the vanquished 
non-Muslims and assured them of full protection as 
dhimmis. He also built a mosque, the first to be 
constructed on the soil of Sind, and settled 4,000 
Arab families in a new quarter, built by him. The 
ruined stiipa remained in a state of neglect and 
disrepair for a long time until it was partially 
restored and converted into a prison-house by 
c Anbasa b. Ishak al-Dabbl, governor of Daybul 
under al-Wathik Bi'llah [q.v.], about 232/846. 

According to the Arabic chronicles (Tabari, sub 
anno, Ibn al-DjawzI, Muntazam v/2, 143) a terrible 
earthquake destroyed a large part of the town in 
280/893, at the same time killing many thousands 
of the inhabitants. The town, however, survived the 
catastrophe and seems to have been rebuilt as it 
was long in existence thereafter having been visited, 
among others, in as late as c. 637/1239 by RadI al-Dln 
Hasan b. Muhammad al-Saghani [q.v.], who strangely 
enough refers to the old practice of the wealthy 
classes of Daybul of indulging in acts of piracy and 
buccaneering. In 618/1221 Pjalal al-DIn Kh'arizm- 
shah after his defeat at the hands of the Tatars came 
to Sind, attacked and captured Daybul and built 
a Djami' Masdjid there on the site of an idol- 
temple. This means that even in the 7th/i3th century 
idolatry was prevalent in Daybul and that there was a 
considerable number of non-Muslims residing there. 
Various attempts have been made to identify and 
locate the ruined city of Daybul but they have met 
with little success. The description of the town, as 
given by Arab writers and travellers, beyond sup- 
plying useful information on the past glory of the 
town, has been of little use otherwise. The Pakistan 
Archaeological Department undertook large-scale 
excavations for the first time in 1958 at the site of 
Bhambor, another ruined city, presumed by some 
scholars to be the original town of Daybul. But the 
uncovered topography of the Bhambor mound and 
the archaeological finds so far (i960) discovered there 
have failed to provide any conclusive evidence that 
the ruins of Bhambor are those of Daybul. Istakhri 
makes separate mention of the town of Daybul and 
the idol temple of Bahambura (Bhambor). 

During the early part of Muslim occupation it was 
a great centre of culture and learning and al-Sam'anl 
(Kitdb al-Ansdb, fol. 236 b) and Yakut mention a 
large number of traditionists who flourished here. 
The destruction of Daybul, its probable causes 
and the subsequent total disappearance of the town, 
despite its large size, a big population and its having 
been in existence till a very late date, are problems 
which have so far defied all attempts at a satis- 
factory solution. 

Bibliography: Sulayman al-Mahri, Kalddat 
al-shamus wa istikhrddx kawdHd al-usus, (not 
available to me); Ibn Khurradadhbih, al-Masdlik 
wa 'l-Mamdlik, Leiden 1306, 62 ff.; al-Mas c udI, 
Murudx (Cairo ed.), i, 378 ;al-Istakhri, 175 «•; 
Ibn Hawkal, 317, 328; Yakut, ii, 638; al- 
Nuwayri, Nihdyat al-'Arab, (not available to me); 



DAYBUL - 



al-Kalkashandl, Subh al-A'shd', v :64; Hudud al- 
c Alam, 372; al-ldrlsl, Nuzhat al-Mushtak (extracts), 
'Allgafh 1954, 28; Abdul Hamid Khan, Towns of 
Pakistan, Karachi n.d., 59-69; Journal of the Sind 
Historical Society, May 1934, 3 f f . ; J. McMurdo 
in JASB, 1834; Sulayman Nadwi in JPakHS, i, 
1953, 8-14; N. B. Baloch, The most probable location 
of Daibul, the first Arab settlement in Sind, in Dawn, 
Karachi, February (4, 18), 1951; Djuwaynl, ii, 94, 
142-8; Djuwaynl-Boyle, ii, 411 ff.; Sidi Ali Reis, 
Travels and Adventures, London 1899, 38; Calndma 
(ed. U. M. Daudpota), Dihli 1358/1936, 89-91, 100- 
10; al-BIrunl, Itdnun-Mas'udi, Haydarabad 1955, 
ii, 552; Mardsid al- c I(tila c , Tehran 1310/184; al- 
Baladhuri, Futuh 432, 435-8, 443; Le Strange 331 ; 
H. Cousens, The Antiquities of Sind, Calcutta 1925, 
124 ff.; Elliot and Dowson, The history of India 
as told by its own historians, London 1867, index; 
H. G. Raverty, The Mihran of Sind, Calcutta 
1892 (special issue of JASB); M. R. Haig, The 
Indus Delta Country, London 1894, 42 ff.; J. 
Abbot, Sind, Oxford 1924, 43-55; al-BIruni, Kitdb 
ma li 'l-Hind (transl. E. Sachau, London 1914, 205, 
208, 260, 316; Ya'kubi, ii, 330-1, 345-6, 448; 
Tabari, i. 868; Ibn al-Athir, Ta'rikh (Cairo ed.), iv, 
257-8: Minhadj-i Siradj, Tabakdt-i Ndsiri (transl. 
Raverty, i, 294, 295 n, 452 n2; Djawalikl, Mu'arrab, 
67; Muhammad Tahir Nasyani, Ta'rikh-i Tdhiri 
(MS), MukaddasI, 481-4; TA, under the root 
D'B'L; N. B. Baloch, The most probable site of 

Debal , in IC, xxvi/3, 1952, 35"49- 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
DAYDABAN, from Persian didebdn, a term 
applied at different times to certain categories of 
sentinels, watchmen, inspectors, etc. It already 
appears as the name of a profession in the RasdHl 
Ikhwdn al-Safd (8th risdla of 1st series, ed. Cairo, i, 
210; cf. IC, 1943, 147), together with the Ndtur. In 
classical Ottoman usage the term, pronounced 
Didebdn, was applied to the Customs-house guards, 
whose chief was the Didebdn bashl. It was also given 
to the watchmen on the fire-towers in Istanbul, as 
well as to naval and military look-outs. 

Bibliography: Dozy, Supplement, i, 481; 
I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh Devleti tvjkildtindan 
Kapikulu Ocaklari, i, Ankara 1943, 394; M. Z. 
Pakalin, i, 450. (Ed.) 

PAYF. From the basic meaning "to incline 
towards, to set (of the sun), swerve, glance off (of 
an arrow)", the verbal root comes to mean "to turn 
aside (from one's road)" and "to halt, on a visit to 
someone", whence for the noun the sense of "guest"; 
the meaning "host" — recalling the ambivalence of 
the French hdte — also occurs, but very much later, as 
indicated by Dozy, Suppl. ('maitre de maison'). The 
social implications of the right to protection were 
earlier associated with the word ajar [q.v.], the corres- 
ponding Hebrew word ger (but not exactly parallel; 
see djiwar) attesting the same Semitic institution. 
It is curious that the root of this word shows the 
some semantic derivation from "deviate" to 
"descend, stay with someone". For a short bibli- 
ography, see dakhil. (J. Lecerf) 

DAYl, Turkish word meaning "maternal 
uncle", which seems to have been used to designate 
official functions only in the Regencies of Algiers and 
Tunis. It probably began as a sort of honorific title 
(comparable to the word alp, used by the ancient 
Turks), and must have been difficult to acquire, as 
its bearer had to have demonstrated his prowess on 
land and sea in the Mediterranean (Pakalin, i, 
407-8). This usage would conflict with the legend 



in which the father of the Barbarossas is supposed 
to have told his sons to obey Khayr al-Din [q.v.] for 
"he will be your day" (Venture de Paradis, Alger au 
XVIII' siecle, in RA, 1896, 257). 

Another use of the honorific title was to designate a 
lower rank in the Janissary militia ; towards the end 
of the ioth/i6th century in Tunis, the name was born 
by the heads of the 40 sections of the militia. In 
1591 these dayis elected one of their number to the 
command of the army; this supreme dayi held the 
whole of the power in the Regency of Tunis, at least 
from 1594, allowing the beylerbeyi-pasha to remain 
in office but with only nominal power (Pierre Dan, 
Histoire de la Barbaric et de ses Corsaires, Paris 1637, 
144-5). Hamuda b. Murad, when he came into power 
in 1640 allowed the title of dayi to continue, but 
the person who bore it was no longer the head 
of the Regency, even if he remained one of its 
highest dignitaries. 

After 1705, the word dayi is no longer to be 
found among the titles conferred by the Husaynid 
sovereigns, but still appears in the Tunisian hierarchy, 
in the ninth rank, according to Muhammad Bayram 
al-Khamis al-TunusI (Safwat al-IHibdr, Cairo 1302/ 
1885, ii, 2-3); it is found in several diplomatic 
documents of the eighteenth century, particularly 
in the treaties drawn up between the Regency of 
Tunis and France on 16th December, 1710, 9th 
November, 1742, and 4 Ventdse, Year X. The word 
at that time referred to a high judicial officer. It 
seems to have continued up to the middle of the 
19th century. 

In Algiers, after 1671, when the Corsair Captains 
took over the power of the Aghas (see art. Algeria 
(ii) (2), the title of dayi was borne by the head of 
the Regency. This was not yet the case at the 
beginning of the seventeenth century, when Pierre 
Dan was in Algiers. 

Elected at first by the company (tdHfa) of corsair 
masters, the dayi was elected by the officers of the 
army after 1689. Thirty dayis succeeded each other 
in power between 1671 and 1830. In theory their 
power was limited by the control of the diwdn of 
the militia; in fact if the dayi had a strong per- 
sonality, he enjoyed an absolute power. 

The dayi resided in Algiers, first in the palace 
of the Djanina, on the site where the archbishop's 
palace now stands, then after 1816, in the fortress 
called the Kasba, which dominates the Muslim 
town. The private life of the ruling dayi was strictly 
regulated: he lived apart from his family, except on 
Thursday afternoons and the night of Thursday/ 
Friday, which he could spend in his private house. 
No woman could enter his palace, except for a public 
audience. He was entitled only to the high pay of a 
Janissary and to allocations of provisions, but he 
received numerous presents as well, so that several 
dayis amassed considerable fortunes. Fourteen of 
them died a violent death. 

Bibliography: No books or articles are 

specially concerned with the function of dayi; 

some scattered information can be found in 

sources or studies relating to the Turkish regencies 

of Algiers and Tunis. (R. Le Tourneau) 

DAYLAM, geographically speaking, the high- 
lands of Gilan [q.v.]. In the south, the lowlands 
of Gilan proper are bounded by the Alburz range; 
the latter forms here a crescent, the eastern horn 
of which comes close to the Caspian coast (between 
Lahidjan and Calus). In the centre of the crescent 
there is a gap through which the Safid-rvid, formed 
on the central Iranian plateau, breaks through 



190 DA" 

towards the Caspian Sea. Before entering the gorge 
at Mandjll the river, flowing here from west to east, 
receives a considerable tributary, the Shah-rud, 
which, rising in the district of Talakan and flowing 
east to west, skirts the southern face of the Alburz 
wall. On its southern side the basin of the Shah-rud 
is separated by a line of hills from the plain of 
Kazwin [q.v.], while on its right side it is fed by a 
number of streams flowing down the southern 
slopes of the Alburz. The principal of these tribu- 
taries is that watering the valley of Alamut [?.».]. 
The valleys of the Shah-rud and its tributaries seems 
to be the cradle of the Daylamite tribe. Though 
belonging to the basin of the great river of Gilan (the 
Safld-rud), 'Daylam proper' (al-Daylam al-mahd) is in 
fact separated from it by the Alburz wall. The Dayla- 
mites also occupied the northern slopes of the 
mountain and its ramifications stretching towards the 
sea (see Ifudud aW-Alam), and Daylam formed here 
a wedge between Gilan and Tabaristan [qg.v.]. 

While Gilan is marshy and unhealthy but highly 
fertile, the highlands of Daylam, much less favoured 
by nature, were inhabited by a robust and enter- 
prising race of men ready to emigrate or serve 
abroad. The geographical term 'Daylam' followed 
the destinies of the Daylamite expansion in the 
4th/ioth century, and came to comprise many 
other neighbouring lands (see below). 

The ancient period. The remote origins of 
the Daylamites are uncertain. They probably 
belonged to a pre-Iranian stock. The name of the 
peak of Dulfak (or Dalfak), which rises on the right 
bank of the Safld-rud gorge to the north-east of 
Mandjll, has been compared to the name of the 
ancient tribe of Apipuxe?. The name of the Dayla- 
mites is known to many classical writers. In the 
2nd century B. C. Polybius, v, 44, mentions the 
northern neighbours of Media: *AsXu(xouoi,, *'Ava- 
ptaxai, ('non-Aryans'), KaSouaioi, Maridvoi. In 
the 2nd century A.D., Ptolemy, vi, 2, places *AsXu- 
(ial'i; to the north of Choromithrene (Kh w 5r-u 
Waramln, to the south-east of Rayy), and to the 
west of the Tapuri (Tabaristan). On the Iranian side 
the information begins to emerge only in Sasanian 
times. Before the decisive victory of Ardashir the 
Sasanian over Ardavan the Arsacid the latter is 
said to have mobilized "the troops of Rayy, Dama- 
wand, Daylaman, and Patishkh'argar" (Kdrndmak-i 
Artakhshir, tr. Noldeke, 47)- This would suggest 
Arsacid influence established among the population 
of the southern face of the Alburz range. At first the 
Sasanians treated the Daylamites with caution (see 
Marquart, Erdnlahr, 126) but gradually the latter 
became conspicuous both in the army and at the 
court. Kawadh sent an expedition against Iberia 
(Georgia) under the command of a "Persian" whose 
name Boes (*B6ya) and title Ouapt^T)? (*wahriz) 
point, however, to his Daylamite connexions (see 
Procopius, De bello persico, i, 14). Under Khusraw 
Anushirwan a detachment of Daylamites is mentioned 
(ca. 552 A.D.) at the siege of Archeopolis (now Tsikhe- 
Godji) in Lazica where they were used as expert crags- 
men, while the Turkic Sabirs were leading the frontal 
attack (see Procopius, De bello gothico, iv, 14 ed. Din- 
dorff, 529-30). A few years later the Daylamites carried 
out an unsuccessful night attack on another corps 
of Sabirs employed by the Byzantines (see Agathias, 
iii, 17) According to Procopius, the "Dolomites" 
lived in inaccessible mountains; they were never 
subjects of the kings of Persia, and served them 
only as mercenaries. They fought on foot, each 
man being armed with a sword and a shield, and 



carrying three javelins (acontia) in his hands, which 
corresponds to the later Islamic descriptions. 

Khusraw I's famous expedition to the Yemen (ca. 
570 A.D.) consisted of 800 prisoners from Daylam and 
neighbouring places, and was led by an old man, also 
released from prison, bearing the title of wahriz [q.v]. 
When under Kawadh and Khusraw the passes of 
the Caucasus were fortified and military colonies 
settled near them, the names of the latter reflected 
their origin from Daylam and its neighbourhood 
(see below, Toponymy). The conspiracy against 
Khusraw's successor Hurmizd IV, which resulted in 
his overthrow in 590 A.D., was led by Zoanab, the 
chief of the "Dilimitic" people (Theophylactus 
Simocatta, iv, 3, 1). 

Daylam and the Arabs. During the Arab 
invasion the Daylamites took up an indecisive 
position when the people of Kazwin invoked their 
help, but, supported by the people of Rayy, they 
opposed Nu'man b. Mukarrin sent by the caliph 
c Umar. The Daylamites, led by their king (chief?) 
Muta (or Murtha), were defeated on the river Wadj in 
Dastabay (*Dasht-pay, i.e., the "edge of the plain" 
stretching between Rayy and Hamadan) (Tabari, i, 
265 (sub 22/642)). Baladhuri, 317-25, and other his- 
torians mention seventeen Muslim expeditions into 
Daylam, from the time of 'Umar I to that of al- 
Ma'mOn, which were reflected in Arabic poems 
(see Kasrawi, 4-20). The poet A'sha Hamdan 
(d. 83/702) was kept a prisoner by the Daylamites, 
though the place-names he quotes (K.llsm, Kayul, 
Hamin, Lahzamin) seem to refer to the region of 
Damawand (Wima ?). Nevertheless Daylam preserved 
its independence. The Muslim strongholds against 
them were in the south: Kazwin; and in the north- 
east, on the frontier of Tabaristan : the fortifications 
on the rivers Kalar and Calus. 

Language and religion. The name of the 
king Muta ( ?) sounds unusual, but when in the 
9th and 10th centuries A.D. Daylamite chiefs appear 
on the stage in large numbers, their names are 
clearly pagan Iranian, not of the south-western 
"Persian" type, but of the north-western variety: 
thus Gorangedj (not Kurankldj, as formerly deci- 
phered) corresponds to Persian gor-angez "chaser 
of wild asses", Sher-zil to sher-dil "lion's heart", etc. 
Istakhri. 205, distinguishes between Persian and 
Daylami and adds that in the highlands of Daylam 
there was a tribe that spoke a language different 
from that of Daylam and Gilan. 

There may have been some Zoroastrians and 
Christians in Daylam, but practically nothing is 
known about the pagan creed of the Daylamites. 
According to Biruni, (al-Athdr, 224) they followed 
the law established by the mythical Afridun who 
ordered men to be masters in their family and called 
them kadhkhudhd. Rather enigmatically Biruni adds 
that this institution was abrogated by the c Alid *al- 
Nasir al-Utrush (see below) and thus they reverted to 
the condition in which people were living in the time 
of the tyrant Dahhak BIwarasp, when "devils and 
demons" (al-shaydtin wa 'l-marada) dwelt in their 
houses and they were powerless against them. 

Apart from the kadkkkudhds exercising the rights 
of pater jamilias, the Daylamites had their local 
rulers of whose existence we can judge by such 
titles as War dan-shah, wahriz (cf. Hiibschmann, 
Armen. Gramm., 78: vahril-i vahrilay "vahriz of 
Vahriz"), and even kings (see above, Muta). The 
rdle of the latter becomes clearer on'y in the 9th acid 
A.D. in connexion with their colla- 
the 'Alids. 



The 'Alids. At an early date the mountain 
fastnesses of Daylam served as places of refuge for 
the 'Alids who had been obliged to flee from the 
'Abbasids. The earliest known refugee was Yahya b. 
c Abd Allah, whose two brothers had been executed 
and who himself joined a rebel brother of Harun al- 
Rashid. He came to Daylam in 1 75/791, but soon 
surrendered to the Barmakid Fadl b. Yahya. It 
appears that in the meantime the caliph used 
pressure on the king of Daylam both by threats and 
by offers of money (cf. Tabari, anno 176; Ya c kubl, ii, 
462). 

The Djustanids. When in 189/805 Harun 
arrived in Rayy he summoned the rulers of the 
Caspian region and let the lord of Daylam, Marzuban 
b. Djustan, go with a gift of money and a robe of 
honour; no payment of tribute is mentioned in this 
case, while such an obligation was imposed on the 
other kings. Although this is the first time that we 
hear of the family of Djustan, it is likely that the 
leniency of Harun had a connexion with the events 
of 175/791 when the same king (or his father?) must 
have been the ruler. Provisionally we can take 
Marzuban as the first in the list of the ruling Banu 
Djustan. 

The next king known to us is Wahsudan b. 
Djustan; the interval between Marzuban (who is 
mentioned in 189/805) and Wahsudan (who was 
still living in 259/872, cf. Tabari, iii, 188) is too 
great to consider them as brothers. The consensus 
(Justi, Vasmer, Kasrawl, Kazwini) is now to insert 
between them Djustan I (No. 2), putative son of 
No. 1, Marzuban, and father of No. 3, Wahsudan. 
In fact under 201/816 Tabari reports that c Abd 
Allah b. Khurdadhbih in the course of his victorious 
campaign in Daylam captured a king called Abu 
Layli. Layli (or LIU) is known in Daylam as a man's 
name (cf. the adventurer Layli b. Nu'man), and the 
question is whether he is identical with Djustan 
(no. 2) or whether he was a usurper or a local ruler 
(of Lahidjan?). 

The situation in Daylam becomes clearer with 
the advent on the frontier of Daylam of the line of 
Hasanid sayyids, clever politicians and able warriors 
who succeeded in involving the Daylamites in their 
struggles and schemes, although no obligation of 
professing Islam had yet been imposed on them. 

Sayyid Hasan b. Zayd al-daH al-kabir (no. I) 
stood at the head of a rising in Calus and Kalar in 
250/864 and protected the inhabitants against the 
Tahirid governor who wished to appropriate the 
common lands which served for collecting fuel and 
as grazing grounds (Tabari, iii, 1524). According to 
Istakhri, 205, before the time of Hasan b. Zayd, 
Daylam had been considered as the 'territory of 
unbelief (Ddr al-kufr) from which slaves had been 
taken, but the c Alids had intervened on behalf of 
the Daylamites. Wahsudan b. Djustan (no. 3) swore 
allegiance to Hasan b. Zayd, but soon after broke 
with him and died. 

The Ta'rikh-i Dill wa Daylam (quoted by Diu- 
wayni, iii, 271) reports that in 246/860 a Diustanid 
began the construction of a building (Hmdra) on 
Mt. Alamut, in which the kings of Daylam took 
pride. It is more likely that this enterprise marked 
not the end of the long reign of Wahsudan but the 
beginning of that of his energetic son Djustan II 
(no. 4). The latter invited the ddH to send his 
representatives to Daylam, and under the auspices 
of the c Alids took Rayy from the Tahirids and 
occupied Kazwin and Zandjan. In 253/867 the caliph 
al-Mu c tazz sent an army under Musa b. Bugha, who 



wiped out the successes of Djustan. In 259/872 the 
latter made a second, though unsuccessful, attempt 
to occupy Rayy, and continued to assist the ddH in 
his struggle against the Saffarids. In 270/883 Hasan 
b. Zayd died and was succeeded by his brother 
Muhammad b. Zayd, called al-daH al-saghir, to 
whom also Djustan swore allegiance (no. II). 

The worst experience befell Daylam ca. 276/889 
when the Khurasanian soldier of fortune Rafi c b. 
Harthama, acting on behalf of the Samanids, ousted 
Muhammad b. Zayd from Djurdjan. The ddH sought 
refuge in Daylam. The troops of Rafi c occupied 
Calus, but the sayyid, assisted by Djustan, sur- 
rounded them. Then Rafi c himself moved forward. 
Muhammad b. Zayd retreated to Gllan, while on 
the heels of Djustan R5fi c marched from Calus to 
Talakan, and for three months (summer of 278/891) 
this region was plundered by the invaders. Djustan 
gave a promise not to assist the sayyid, and Rafi 1 
went on to occupy Kazwin and Rayy (see Ibn 
al-Athlr, vii, 303, and Ibn Isfandiyar, ed. Eghbal, 
252-4). In 279/892 Rafi c , seeing himself threatened 
from many sides, suddenly swore allegiance to the 
ddH and returned Djurdjan to him, on the under- 
standing that he would send him 4000 Daylamite 
stalwarts. By threats and promises the Saffarid 
'Amr b. Layth prevented the ddH from helping 
Rafi c and the latter had to flee to Kh w arizm where 
he was killed in 283/November 896. Four years later 
(287/October 900) Muhammad b. Zayd fell in a 
battle against a Samanid commander. 

After a short interval the c Alid cause was taken 
up by the Husaynid Hasan b. c Ali (Nasir al-DIn, 
al-Tha'ir, al-Utrush "the deaf" (no. Ill), who 
despite the shortness of his reign (301-4/904-7) is 
regarded as the greatest of the c Alid rulers. According 
to Tabari (iii, 2296) the world had never known such 
justice as that of al-Utrush. He had lived for thirteen 
years among the Daylamites, and succeeded in 
converting to the Zaydl creed a considerable number 
of people "between the farther (eastern) side of the 
Safid-rud and Amul". To confirm this achievement 
al-Utrush had the fortifications of Calus razed to 
the ground. He was recognized by Djustan, and 
although their first campaign against the Samanids 
was a failure, the next year, after a pitched battle 
of forty days, the Samanids were driven out of the 
Caspian provinces. 

The enigmatic phrase of Blruni, referred to above, 
concerning Nasir's action in disrupting the ancient 
authority of the kadhkhudhd may hint at the in- 
fluence of Islamic institutions which had established 
control over isolated households. Such a trend of 
events must have been resented by the Djustanids, 
and some historians (Awliya 3 Amuli, Ta'Hkh-i 
Ruydn (750/1349), ed. Tehran, 77; Ibn Wasil, 
al-Ta'rikh al-Sdlihi in Dorn, Muhamm. Quellen z. 
Gesch. d. Kasp. Meeres, iv, 474) mention a period 
of struggles between Djustan and Nasir, though 
apparently before the latter's advent in 301/913. 
He died on 5 Sha'ban 304/31 January 917, after 
having appointed as his successor his son-in-law, 
the Hasanid Hasan b. al-Kasim (no. IV). 

At about the same time, after a reign of forty 
years, Djustan was assassinated. The perpetrator of 
this crime was his brother C A1I b. Wahsudan (no. 5), 
whom in 300/912 the 'Abbasids had already appointed 
their financial agent (ista'mala) in Isfahan. He was 
dismissed in 304, but in 307/919 the 'Abbasid 
commander Mu'nis, who had just taken prisoner 
Yusuf b. Abi '1-Sadj, reappointed C A1I as the governor 
of Rayy, Kazwin, and Zandjan. In the same year he 



I 9 2 



was killed in Kazwln by Muhammad b. Musafir 
(Kangari, or Sallarl, of the second Daylamite dynasty 
of Tarom), who being married to the clever Khara- 
siiya, daughter of Djustan b. Wahsudan (no. 4) 
wished to avenge his father-in-law (not his "nephew", 
as in Ibn al-Athir, viii, 76). With his political attitude, 
'Ali b. Wahsudan could hardly have been recognized 
in the whole of Daylam. However, we learn that 
when the Hasanid Hasan b. al-Kasim (the ddH 
no. IV) was captured in Tabaristan and delivered to 
£ Ali to be sent to Baghdad, c Ali had him imprisoned 
in his "ancestral fortress" of Alamiit (see Ibn 
Isfandiyar, ed. Eghbal, 281). Immediately after 
'All's death, his other brother Khusraw FIruzan, 
who apparently had acted as 'All's locum tenens, 
released the sayyid. Khusraw FIruzan (no. 6) 
marched against Ibn Musafir but was killed by him. 
Khusraw's son Mahdl (no. 7) also took up arms 
against the Kangarid, but was defeated and took 
refuge with the new rising star of Daylam, Asfar b. 
Shiroya or Shlrawayh [q.v.]. 

The epigons. With this event (ca. 315/927) 
ends our direct information about the Diustanids. 
but remnants of the dynasty may still have carried 
on, at least in a part of their dominions. When Ibn 
Musafir had dealt with his Diustanid opponents 
(nos. 5, 6, 7), the former amirs of the c Alids and 
Diustanids had already spread over the Iranian 
plateau, and Daylam proper lay at the mercy of 
Ibn Musafir. In a report in which an official (some 
time before 379/989) summed up the history of 
Shamlran (Tarom) for the Buyid minister Ibn 
<Abbad (see Yakut, iii, 149-50, as explained by 
Kasrawl, i, 130-4), he states that the Musafirid ruled 
over the whole of the mountainous "Ustaniya and 
(thus ?) appropriated a part of Daylam, whereas the 
descendants of Wahsudan (no. 3) b. Djustan had to 
content themselves with the region of "La'idjiya. 
The same terms appear in the anti-Daylamite and 
pro-Turkish tract which the secretary Ibn Hassul 
presented (ca. 450/1058) to al-Kundurl, the wazir of 
Tughril-beg (see Fadd'il al-Atrdk, ed. C A. al-'AzzawI, 
Belleten, iv/i4-5, (1940) 31). Ibn Hassul explains 
that *Ost5n is the highlands, and *La 5 idj (wrongly 
printed Ldndj) the lowlands of Daylam, the former 
being in the possession of the Wahsudanid (here 
Kangarid) governors, and the latter in the possession 
of the Djustanid kings. These independent reports 
indicate that soon after the death of Djustan b. 
Wahsudan (no. 4) his possessions were split up and 
the Wahsudanids (here children of the Kangarid 
Wahsudan b. Muhammad of Tarom) had taken 
possession of the highlands of Daylam (presumably 
the "ostdn", i.e., "home, centre" of the Djustanids). 
The latter must have migrated to the neighbourhood 
of Lahidjan (i.e., the coastal area of Daylam, of 
which ten districts are enumerated in the tfudud). 

On the contrary, when Sultan Tughril was operat- 
ing near Kazwln (Ibn al-Athir, anno 434/1042) the king 
of Daylam appeared before him with a tribute; then 
separately Ibn al-Athir mentions the submission of the 
Saldr of Tarm (Tarom). We have to conclude either 
that the Djustanids had succeeded in reoccupying 
a part of their dominions, or that the tribute was 
paid by the Lahidjan branch. The latter surmise is 
more likely, for Nasir-i Khusraw in his Safar-ndma 
states that in 438/1046 a levy (bddj) was collected 
at the crossing of the Shah-rud (near its confluence 
with the Safid-rud) on behalf of the amir-i amirdn 
who was "(one) of the kings of Daylaman". Nasir 
describes then his visit to Shamlran whose ruler bore 
the title of "Marzuban al-Daylam Djll-i Dylan (sic) 



Abu Salih"; his name was Djustan Ibrahim and he 
possessed "many castles in Daylam". This must have 
been the great-grandson of Wahsudan of Tarom (see 
Musafirids), and it appears as though the bddj on 
the Shah-rud was levied also in his name. 

The story of the ddHs ends with the rule of the 
above-mentioned Hasanid Hasan b. Kasim (no. IV), 
son-in-law (khatn) of al-Utrush. Although he was 
nominated by Nasir himself, struggles for the 
succession began between him and the sons of 
Nasir, and after the death of the latter the Daylamite 
amirs, involved in complicated struggles, fought 
for their own supremacy. Hasan b. Kasim was killed 
ca. 316/928 by Mardawidj b. Ziyar, then the ally 
of Asfar b. Shiroya. 

Daylamite expansion. The result of the 
'Alids' activities was that the Daylamites, partly 
converted to the Zaydi creed, developed strong 
oppositionary tendencies with regard to the cali- 
phate, and that in their numerous fights for the 
c Alids they greatly improved their military skill and 
became conscious of their strength. The revolts of 
the Sadjid Yusuf b. Dlwdad (in 295/907 and in 
304-7/916-9) and his final recall before his death in 
315/928 opened the field for a chaotic succession in 
Rayy of Samanid governors, Turkish slaves, and 
'Alids of Daylam. An important branch of the 
Musafirids of Tarom had expanded towards Adhar- 
baydjan and Transcaucasia (see Minorsky in BSOAS, 
xv/3, 1953, 514-29), while quite new elements 
appeared on the central plateau of Iran: first 
Asfar b. Shiroya who ca. 315/927 had proclaimed 
himself king, then the Ziyarids (316-434/928-1042), 
for a short time in Rayy in Isfahan, and later in the 
south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea whither 
they had had to withdraw under the impact of the 
more important Buyids [q.v.]. This period is known 
to us through such sources as Mas'udI, Murudj, ix, 
4-15; Miskawayh, in Eclipse; Ibn Isfandiyar, ed. 
Eghbal, 224-301, tr. Browne, 162-223; and such 
subsidiary mentions as are found in the historians 
of the Samanids, cf. GardizI, Zayn al-akhbdr; Ibn 
Fadlan, in his Rifila, etc. 

Having occupied the major part of the Iranian 
plateau (except Khurasan held by the Samanids) 
the Buyids, who rose in 320/932, occupied Baghdad 
i n 334/946, and for 109 years held the caliph under 
their c Alid tutelage. Under their shadow a great 
number of local dynasties of Iranian origin (Dayla- 
mite and Kurdish) sprang up in the peripheral areas : 
the Musafirids; the Kurdish Shaddadids of Gandja 
(340-409/951-1018) and their branch of Ani (451-559/ 
1059-1163); the Kakuyids [q.v.] of Hamadan and 
Isfahan (398-443/1007-51); the Kurdish Hasanuyids 
[see Hasanawayhids] in the region of Kirmanshah 
(348-406/959-1015); the Kurdish 'Annazlds [q.v.] in 
Hulwan and on the western slopes of the Zagros 
(381-511/991-1117); the Kurdish Marwanids [q.v.] 
of Mayyafarikin and Diyarbakr (380-478/990-1085), 
etc. The weakness of the Daylamite regime consisted 
in the dispersion of the not too numerous elements 
of Daylam over too vast an area; the splitting up 
of the dynasty into several rival branches; and 
finally the Turko-Daylamite antagonism in the 
army (see below). The first great blow to the Buyid 
power was the occupation of Rayy by the Ghaznawid 
Mahmud in 420/1029; the definite end came under 
the impact of Tughril-beg who in 447/i°55 arrested 
the last Buyid of Baghdad, al-Malik al-Rahim. In 
Fars, the last scions of the Buyid house carried 
on for a few more years as vassals of the Saldjuks, 
(see Bowen in JRAS, 1929, 229-45). Outside their 



country, the Daylamites continued to serve as 
mercenaries. Nizam al-Mulk, Siydsat-ndma, ch. xix, 
still recommends the employment of ioo Daylamites 
together with ioo Khurasanians as palace guards of 
the Saldjuks. Isolated colonies of Daylamites 
survived in many places before they were absorbed 
by the local populations. 

Toponymy. The area over which generations of 
Daylamites scattered throughout the ages is very 
wide, but, in view of the chronological difficulties 
involved, it is better to combine the references under 
a single heading. Thus the Babylonian name of the 
island of Dilmun (Bahrayn) still merits considera- 
tion, while the name of Bandar-i Daylam on the 
southern coast of Fars seems to date back to the 
Buyid period. In the sub-Caucasian region the 
existence of military settlements of the Sasanian 
times i9 reflected in such names as Layzan or La'izan 
(now Lahldj) connected with Lahldjan. The name of 
Shirwan is probably linked with that of Shir (in 
Arabic Shirriz) lying at the confluence of the rivers 
of Talakan and Alamut, cf. Hudud, ch. xxxii, § 24, 
and Pjuwaynl, iii, 425 (note of M. Kazwlni). Even the 
title of the king of Sarir (Avaria) figuring in Bala- 
dhuri, 196, as Wahrarzan-shah, may prove to be 
linked with the" title wahriz, cf. Minorsky, History 
of Sharvdn, 1958, 23-5. The so-called "Zaza", living 
north of Diyarbakr up to Palu and Darsim and still 
speaking an Iranian language, call themselves 
Dimld, which name F. C. Andreas identified with 
Daylam. The (now turkicized) tribe Dumbuli, 
active in the region of Khoy by the beginning of the 
19th century, seems also to be connected with the 
Dimla. It is noteworthy that Agathias, iii, 17, 
speaking of the Dilimnitai troops fighting in Lasica, 
says that their homes (perhaps of that particular 
group?) lay in the neighbourhood of Persian lands 
"on the middle course of the Tigris", i.e., (if the 
"Tigris" is not a mistake for the Safid-rud) in the 
region where the Zaza live nowadays. The traveller 
Abu Dulaf, ed. Minorsky, Cairo 1955, § 25, mentions 
a place called Daylamastan at seven farsakhs east 
of Shahrazflr whence "in the days of the ancient 
kings of Persia" the Daylamites used to send their 
raiding parties into the Mesopotamian lowlands. 
The borough of Daylaman lying west of Lahldjan 
may be the witness of the transfer of the Daylamite 
centre from *Ost5n (see above) to the region of 
Lahldjan. North-west of Lake Urmiya the centre 
of Salmas was until recently called Dilmakan; 
south-west of Lake Urmiya near an important 
Zagros pass one finds a district called Lahldjan (see 
sawdj-bulak in EI 1 ). Several other villages bearing 
the name Lahldjan are known in the basin of Lake 
Urmiya, north of Mt. Savalan (Lahi), etc. 

Territory and peoples. The earlier Muslim 
geographers, such as Ibn Khurradadhbih, Ya c kubi, 
Ibn Rusta, Ibn Faklh, have little to say on Daylam, 
but ample information on the country and its 
inhabitants is supplied by the geographers and 
historians after the rise of the Daylamite dynasties 
in the 4th/ioth century. Already Istakhri had 
described under Daylam all the southern coast of 
the Caspian and the lands forming a belt to the 
south of the Alburz range (including Rayy and 
Kazwln). MukaddasI (who lived in the heyday of 
the Daylamite dominion) adds to it all the coasts of 
the Caspian comprising the Khazar kingdom at the 
estuary of the Volga. 

Istakhri (possibly following Balkhl) places the 
capital of the Djustan family at Rudhbar. The 
editor of Djuwaynl, iii, 434, M. Kazwlni, has presen- 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



ted weighty arguments for identifying it with the 
Rudhbar of Alamut, which would mark the latter 
valley as the home (ostan) of the dynasty of Daylam. 
In Ibn Hawkal's text, which is mainly based on 
Istakhri, the capital of the Djustanids is placed at 
al-Tarm, which is a slip probably on the part of a 
scribe or reader, for al-Tarm (Tarom) was the 
capital not of the Djustanids but of the later 
Musafirids [q.v.]. More complicated is the identifi- 
cation of B.rwan, which according to MukaddasI, 
360, was the capital (kasaba) of Daylam. The place 
was devoid of amenity, as opposed to the fertile 
Talakan (in the Shah-rud valley) which in the 
author's opinion would have been more suitable 
for the capital. The residence of the government 
(mustakarr al-sultan), in B.rwan, was called Shahr- 
istan, where the treasure was kept in a deep well 
(Zahlr al-Din spells Shahr-astan, perhaps Shahr- 
•Ostan "the town of Ostan", see above). MukaddasI 
names separately Samirum (sic) the capital of the 
Salaarwand rulers (Musafirids) of the Tarom region, 
and Khashm the town of the c Alid ddHs, in eastern 
Gilan, situated by a bridge. 

Istakhri, 205, describes the Daylamites as lean, 
having "light" (probably "fluffy") hair, rash, and 
inconsiderate. They practised agriculture and had 
herds but no horses. According to MukaddasI, 
368-9, the Daylamites were good-looking and wore 
beards. Some valuable data on "Daylam proper" 
and Gilan are given in the Hudud al- c Alam, ch. 
xxxii, §§ 24-5: Daylam consisted of ten districts in 
the Caspian lowlands, and three, *Wustan, Shir 
(apparently Shirriz of the Arabic sources), and 
Pazhm, in the mountains. 

Customs. Many habits and customs of the 
Daylamites struck the contemporary authors. 
Their men were extremely hardy and capable of 
enduring great privations (Miskawayh, Eclipse, i, 
140). Particularly mentioned among their armament 
are javelins (zhopin) and tall shields painted in gay 
colours and carried by assistant lads. Set side by 
side these shields formed a wall against the attackers. 
Special men throwing javelins with burning naphtha 
(mazdrik al-naft wa 'l-nirdn) were also used in their 
army (see Eclipse, i, 282). A poetical description of 
Daylamite warfare is given in Gurganl's Wis wa 
Rdmin, ed. Minovi, ch. xcix. The great disadvantage 
of the Daylamites was their lack of cavalry; they were 
obliged to operate jointly with Turkish mercenaries 
(whose armament was more complete, Eclipse, ii, 
336) and basic rivalry between them disrupted the 

Reference is often made to the extravagance of 
the Daylamite lamenting over their dead, and even 
over themselves in misfortune (MukaddasI, 369; 
Eclipse, ii, 162; iii, 260). In 352/963 Mu'izz al-Dawla 
introduced public mourning (niydha) in Baghdad for 
the imam Husayn (Ibn al-Athir, viii, 406; Tanukhl, 
Nishwdr, tr. Margoliouth, 219; but see Hilal b. 
Muhassin on the temporary character of the per- 
formance, Eclipse, iii, 458, sub 393), and this in- 
stitution may be responsible for the later Persian 
ta'ziyas in the month of Muharram (cf. A. E. 
Krimskiy, Perskiy teatr, Kiev 1921). 

Ca. 200 A.D. the Syrian sage Bardesanes reports 
that the women of Gilan work in the fields [Leges 
regionum, Patrologia Syriaca, ii/i, 1907, ed. F. Nau, 
586). Eight centuries later the author of the Hudud 
writes that the Daylam womenfolk are engaged in 
agriculture like men. According to Rudhrawari. 
Eclipse, iii, 313, they were "equals of men in strength 
of mind, force of character, and participation in the 



194 DAYLAM 

management of affairs". The Daylamites practised 
endogamy within their tribes, and marriages were 
concluded by direct agreement between the parties 
(MukaddasI, 368-9). 

The Isma'Ilis. The Fatimid Isma'ili propaganda 
had been rampant in the environs of Rayy even 
since the beginning of the 3rd/9th century (see 
S. M. Stern, in BSOAS, xxiii, i960, 56-90). Asfar of 
Daylam and Mardawidj of Gilan had accepted the 
new teaching (Baghdad!, Fark, tr. A. Halkin, Tel- 
Aviv 1935, 113; Rashld al-DIn, IsmdHliydn, ed. 
DanishpazhQh, Tehran 1338/1959, 12). Under the 
last Buyids the Daylamites in Fars adhered to the 
doctrine of the Seven Imams, and the penultimate 
Buyid Marzuban Abu Kalidjar (d. 440/1048) lent 
his ear to the preacher al-Mu'ayyad who was 
finally expelled from Fars (Sirat al-Mu'ayyad /»' 
'l-Din, Cairo 1949, 43, 64; cf. Fdrs-ndma, 115). The 
strong position of Daylam and the oppositionary 
tendencies of the population naturally attracted 
Hasan-i Sabbah, who first sent his propagandists 
into Daylam, and then in 483/1090 seized the town 
of Alamut, which was then held by an 'Alid called 
Mahdi as a fief from Malik-shah (Djuwaynl, iii, 174). 
Thus for the next 166 years the great stronghold of 
Daylam was transformed into a danger-spot on the 
very doorstep of Saldjuk territory and a threat to 
the whole Sunni world. The efforts of the Saldjuks 
to liquidate Alamut were unsuccessful, but they 
caused much harm to the population; cf. the ex- 
pedition of Arslan-tash in 485/1092, that of the son 
of Nizam al-Mulk in 503/1109, that of Shlrgir before 
511/1117. The last reminiscence of the Buyids in 
Daylam is Djuwayni's report, iii, 239, on the deed 
of one of their scions, Hasan b. Namawar, who in 
561/1166 stabbed to death the master of the Isma'Ilis 
because, despite his being his brother-in-law, he 
disliked his propaganda. 

The Mongols and after. The total destruction 
of the fortresses of the Assassins (Alamut, Lamassar, 
Maymiin-diz) by the troops of Hulagu in 654/1256, 
and the extermination of the followers of the last 
master of the Assassins, dealt a terrible blow to the 
original Highlanders of Daylam. The Shah-rud 
valley became easily accessible from Kazwln (cf. 
the account of the operations of Oldjeytu Mian, who 
in 706/1307 invaded Gilan and reached Lahldjan; 
Ta'rikh-i Uldjdytil, Bibl. Nat., Supp. 4197. fol. 42V). 

At a later period the highlands of Daylam were 
more or less controlled by the dynasty of the kdr- 
kiyd of eastern Gilan (Biyaplsh) whose centre was at 
Lahldjan. They gradually eliminated their Hazaraspi 
princes of Ashkawar, the last scions of the Isma'Ilis 
of Alamut, and the clan of Kushldj of Daylaman 
and Rudhbar. In 819/1416 the sayyid Radi of 
Lahldjan invited the Daylamites to the bank of the 
Safld-rud and had two or three thousand of them 
murdered with their chiefs (Zahlr al-DIn, Ta'rikh-i 
Gilan, ed. Rabino, Rasht 1330, 57, 118, 122-6). 

The most recent movement in the history of 
Daylam is the uprising of the Ahl-i Hakk [q.v.] 
leader Sayyid Muhammad in Kalar-dasht in 
October 1891 (see Minorsky, Notes sur la secte des 
Ahli-lfaqq, Paris 1920-1, 51). 

No complete enquiries have been carried out on 
the population of Daylam proper, but H. Rabino, 
Le Guilan, 280, states that the original Daylamites 
are found only in Kalardeh and Cawsal (in winter) 
and in Kalac-khanl (in summer). The inhabitants 
of Daylaman (south-west of Lahldjan) have sold 
their lands and now live at Barfdjan (mentioned in 
the Ifudud as a canton in the lowlands of Daylam). 



Bibliography: Given in the course of the 
article. The Ta'rikh-i Qiil wa Daylam, dedicated 
to the Buyid Fakhr al-Dawla (who according to 
G. C. Miles ruled in Rayy 373-87/984-97), and 
used by Djuwaynl, iii, 270, is now lost. No 
Djustanid coins have yet been discovered. Marqu- 
art., Eraniahr, 126-7; H. L. Rabino, Les provinces 
Caspiennes, in RMM, xxxii, 1915-6, 227-384 
(Daylaman, Lahldjan, Ran-i kuh); R. Vasmer, 
Zur Chronologie d. Gastaniden, in Isl., iii/2, 1927, 
165-86, and 483-5; A. Kasrawl, Pddshdhdn-i 
gumndm, 1928, i, 23-37 (Djustaniyan) — a valuable 
work; V. Minorsky, La domination des Dailamitcs, 
Soc. des Etudes Iraniennes, no. iii, 1932, 1-26; 
M. KazwinI, annotations to Djuwayni, iii, 306-9 
('Alids), 432-45 (Pjustanids) ; lA, s.v. Deilem 
(A. Ate?). (V. Minorsky) 

DAYN [see supplement], 

DAYR, a word of Syriac origin denoting the 
Christian monasteries which continued to 
function after the Arab conquest of the Middle East. 
If we are to believe the lists drawn up by Arab 
writers, they were very numerous, particularly in 'Irak 
(along the Tigris and Euphrates valleys). Upper Meso- 
potamia, Syria (Stylite sanctuaries in the vicinity 
of the "dead cities"), Palestine and Egypt (along 
the whole length of the Nile valley). They were often 
named after a patron saint (Dayr Mar Yuhanna 
near Takrlt, DayrSam'anin northern Syria) or 
founder (Dayr 'Abdun in 'Irak), but also occa- 
sionally after the nearest town or village (Dayr al- 
Rusaf a in Syria) or a feature of the locality (Dayr 
al-a'15 near Mosul, Dayr al-Za'faran in Upper 
Mesopotamia). Monks, called dayydr or dayrdni, lived 
in the dayrs (also known in 'Irak as l umr , a word of un- 
certain origin). The monasteries were often no more 
than simple hermitages, particularly if they were lo- 
cated in remoter parts. Usually however they consisted 
of several buildings — a church (kanisa or bi'a), 
cells (killiya, pi. kaldli, or kirh, pi. akrdh and ukayrah, 
words of Syriac origin, the second being strictly 
speaking 'Iraki), and outbuildings such as shops and 
inns. The dayr in fact constituted a centre of agri- 
cultural development, and drew revenue from the 
lands which were cultivated to meet its needs 
(vineyards, olive groves and palm plantations). 
Hermitages and convents were made defensible either 
by the construction of fortifications or by the careful 
choice of site (e.g., on mountain-sides, or even set into 
the rock face and thus cut off from normal means of 
entry). 

The Christian monasteries were centres of religious 
and intellectual life during the early years of Islam. 
For instance, the liturgical rules adopted in the 
3rd-4th/9th-ioth centuries by the Nestorian church 
were formulated in the Dayr al-a'la> of Mosul (see 
J. M. Fiey, Mossoul chritienne, Beirut 1959, 126-32). 
They also played an important role in diffusing the 
works of classical Greece, generally translated into 
Syriac and then into Arabic, and in some instances 
they built up large libraries, such as the notable 
collection in St. Catherine's monastery on Mount 
Sinai (see A. S. Atiya, The Arabic manuscripts of 
Mount Sinai, Baltimore 1955). Furthermore, some 
'Iraki monasteries and the Christian communitites 
attached to them proved an important source of 
official clerks in 'Abbasid times. They took part in 
the administration of the empire, and if they 
adopted the Islamic faith they even had the right to 
be appointed vizier (see dayr kunna). 

The monasteries were also an important factor 
in the political and social life of the Islamic world. 



DAYR — DAYR C ABD al-RAHMAN 



They were open without distinction to virtually all 
travellers, including notabilities, and indeed often 
provided a safer stopping-place than elsewhere. At 
the Dayr Murran [q.v.] near Damascus, for example, 
there was a princely residence nearby (confused with 
the monastery by some authors), and sovereigns or 
governors were sometimes accommodated in the 
dayr itself. This was the case in the Dayr al-a c la 5 
of Mosul, the Dayr Zakkl of al-Rakka, or the 
monastery of al-Anbar where Harfln al-Rashid 
and his retinue stopped in 187/803 — it was here that 
Djafar the Barmakid was executed (Tabari, in, 
675, 678). Upon his arrival in Egypt the Fatimid 
al-Mu c izz lived for some months in the monastery of 
al-Giza. There are ample records showing that during 
their hunting excursions rulers and princes visited 
the local monasteries, where they were offered food 
and drink by the monks. Muslim visitors were also 
attracted to the monasteries on account of the 
taverns usually attached to them, and there they 
were free to drink as much wine as they wished. 
Each monastery solemnly celebrated an annual 
festival, and the buildings were generally surrounded 
by places of entertainment and even debauchery, 
particularly if they were situated near a large town. 
This explains why so many of the monasteries 
figure in bacchic and erotic poetry, and why there 
are so many stories relating to the questionable 
behaviour of some of their inhabitants. Indeed, Arab 
authors of the 3rd/oth and 4th/ioth centuries even 
wrote whole books about them by collecting poems 
and stories in which they were mentioned. Only one 
is still in existence, the Kitdb al-Diydrdt of al- 
Shabushti (d. 388/998). But the names of several 
other books are known, written by Hisham al- 
Kalbi, Abu '1-Faradj al-Isfahanl, the poet al-Sari 
al-Raffa', the two brothers al-Khalidiyyan and 
al-Sumaysatl. 

After the Arab conquest the monasteries and 
churches were subject to special conditions laid 
down by jurists. Although the existing monasteries 
remained intact, the monks were forbidden to put 
up new buildings, or even to repair damage incurred 
through wear and tear or accidental causes. In 
reality, however, the fortunes of the monasteries 
varied with the times, and periods of toleration were 
followed by periods of persecution. The tax regulations 
governing the occupants of the monasteries were a 
subject of continual discussion. The monks were 
initially exempt from poll-tax (djizya), and the 
tradition was often later confirmed by jurists. But 
some maintained that exemption applied only to 
those living in poverty, and the Shafi'is even went 
so far as to assert that the exemption was unjust. 
From the chroniclers it would seem that in the 
Umayyad age some governors subjected monks in 
Egyptian monasteries to personal taxation, and 
others in the c Abbasid age granted exemption only 
in certain circumstances. The question was raised 
again during the caliphate of al-Muktadir, when in 
313/925 c Ali b. c Isa, chief inspector of taxes in 
Egypt, demanded that exemption given to the 
monks of Wadi '1-Natrun be withdrawn; the caliph 
did not accede to his wishes, and in 366/976 al- 
Ta'i c announced once more that the djizya should 
not apply to poor monks (see dhimma). 

The 5th/nth century was the beginning of a 
period of increasing hardship for the Christian 
monasteries. They had to contend with successive 
Saldjukid and Mongol invasions, a growing in- 
security (e.g., Turcoman raids into Upper Meso- 
potamia), the worsening of relations with the Muslims 



195 

at the time of the Crusades, and the progressive 
disappearance of former small Christian communitites. 
In 'Irak the monasteries near Baghdad and 
Samarra perished, whilst many of those in Egypt 
were abandoned and became overrun by the sand 
(some of them have been discovered in recent 
excavations). After the Mongol invasion Christian 
monastic life was confined to a few groups of 
monasteries, primarily in Upper Mesopotamia, the 
Mosul and Mardin region (the monasteries of Tur 
c Abdin), the Sinai desert, and Egypt (at Wadi 
'1-Natrun and near the Red Sea). In Palestine and 
Syria, great monastic centres before the Arab 
conquest, there remained no more than a few 
scattered monasteries, mostly near Jerusalem and 
in Anti-Lebanon. In the Lebanon itself on the other 
hand monasticism found a new lease of life, parti- 
cularly in the 15th century when the Maronite 
patriarchate was established in the mountains at 
the monastery of Kannubin. 

During the age when they flourished, Christian 
monasteries took part in the artistic life of the 
region, and it is instructive to compare the decor- 
ative techniques used in some of them with 
Muslim works of the same period. Particularly 
interesting in this respect are the Dayr al- 
Suryani at Wadi'l-Natrun in Egypt, containing 
stucco ornamentation influenced by the style of 
Samarra, and the Mar Behnam monastery near 
Mosul, some parts of which date back to the 
6th/i2th century. Furthermore, the illuminating of 
some manuscripts copied in the monasteries bears a 
resemblance to that of the oldest Islamic miniatures, 
which seem to have inherited some features of their 
style and workmanship. 

Bibliography: H. Zayyat, al-Diydrdt al- 
Nasraniyya fi 'l-Isldm, in Mashrik, 1938, 219-417; 
A. Fattal, Le statut Ugal des non-Musulmans, 
Beirut 1958, 174-203, 270-2; al-Shabushtl, K. 
al-Diydrdt, ed. K. c Awwad, Baghdad 1951; BakrI, 
Mu'djam, ed. Wiistenfeld, i, 359-81; Yakut, ii, 
639-710 and iii, 724-6; 'Umari, Masdlik, Cairo 
e d., i» 254-386; A. S. Marmardji, Textes geogra- 
phiques arabes sur la Palestine, Paris 1951, 72-9; 
Makrlzl, Kkifat, Bulak ed., ii, 501-9 ; Cairo ed., iv, 
409-37; The churches and monasteries of Egypt, 
attributed to Abu Salih the Armenian, trans. 
Evetts-Butler, Oxford 1895; E. A. Wallis Budge, 
The chronography of Gregory Abu 'l-Faradj (Bar 
Hebraeus), London 1932, introduction; R. Honig- 
mann, Le Convent de Barsauma et le patriarcat Jaco- 
bite d'Antioche et de Syrie, Louvain 1954; N. Abbott, 
The monasteries of the Fayyum, in AJSL, liii 
(1937), 13-33,73-96,159-79; H. C. Evelyn White, 
The monasteries of the Wadi n'Natrun, 2 vols., 
New York, 1926-33; S. Flury, Die Gipsornamente 
des Der es-Surjdni, in Isl., vi (1916), 71-87; F. 
Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Archdologische Reise im 
Euphrat und Tigris Gebiete, ii, Berlin 1911, 247; J. 
Leroy, Moines et monastires du Proche-Orient, 
Paris 1958; idem, Les manuscrits syriaques a 
peintures conserve's dans les bibliotheques d'Europe 
et du Proche-Orient (to appear shortly). 

(D. Sourdel) 
DAYR C ABD al-RAIJMAN, a place in the 
vicinity of Kufa, next to Kanatir Ras al-Dialut 
(Tabari, ii, 701), near Hammam A'yun (Tabari, ii, 
703). It was the assembly point of the Kufan arrr.y 
which was sent by al-Hadjdjadi under the command 
of al-Djazl against the Kharidjites (Tabari, ii, 902) 






DAYR <ABD al-RAHMAN — DAYR al-DJAMADJIM 



and of Ibn al-Ash c ath (Tabari, ii, 930). Al-Harith b. 
Abi Rabl'a encamped there in his revolt against 
al-Mukhtar (Tabari, ii, 759). (Saleh A. El-Ali) 

DAYR AL-'AljLCL, a town in 'Irak 15 para- 
sangs (c. 83 km.) south east of Baghdad on the 
Tigris (Yakut, ii, 676-7. Mukaddasi, p. 134 gives the 
distance as two stages, while Ibn Fadl Allah al- 
c Umari, Masdlik al-Absdr, Cairo 1924, i, 263, makes 
it 12 parasangs or c. 67 km.). The town probably 
grew around a Christian monastery, and was the 
centre of an agricultural district ((assudj) in central 
Nahrawan. 

Ibn Rusta (300/912) mentions its Friday mosque 
and its market, thus indicating some prosperity. 
Besides, it was a post where tolls on merchandise 
carried in boats (ma y dsir) were levied. (Ibn Rusta, 
186). Istakhri (318-21/930-3) speaks of it as being 
similar to other towns north of Wasit, moderate 
in size with cultivations around (Istakhri, 87). 
Half a century later, the author of ffudud al-'Alam 
(372/982) describes it as a prosperous town, while 
Mukaddasi (ca. 375/985) considers it the most 
important town on the Tigris between Baghdad and 
Wasit. It was flourishing, well populated, and had 
markets with many branches at a distance from the 
mosque (Mukaddasi, 123). 

Dayr al-'Akiil is famous in history for the decisive 
battle fought there in 262/876 between Ya'kub b. 
al-Layth al-Saffar and the army of the Caliph al- 
Mu'tamid, led by his able brother al-Muwaffak, in 
which the rebellious governor suffered his first 
serious defeat and a great danger for the Caliphate 
was averted (cf. Tabari, iii, 1893; Mas'udi, Murudj, 
viii, 41 if.; Weil, Geschichte der Chalif., ii, 441; 
Muller, Isl., I, 583; Noldeke, Sketches (1892), 195 if.). 

Then the town began to decline, and when Yakut 
wrote of it, (beginning of 7th/i3th century), followed 
verbatim by the Mardsid al-IttiW, the period of its 
prosperity was already past. The decline of the 
Caliphate, the ruin of the Nahrawan canal, and the 
alteration in the course of the Tigris largely account 
for that. Yakut found it one Arab mile (1848 metres) 
east of the river; it stood alone in a desolate area. 
(Yakut, ii, 676; Mardsid, i, 435). 

Maps of Arab geographers show the gradual 
change in its position in relation to the Tigris. 
Balkhi (308/920) and Istakhri put it directly on the 
east bank of the Tigris. (Sousa, al-'Irdk fi 'l-Khawdrit 
al-Kadima, Baghdad i960, nos. 12 and 18, cf. the 
map of Mukaddasi no. 23 and DjayhanI no. 27). Ibn 
Hawkal shows the river slightly removed westward 
(ibid no. 22). Abu Sa'Id al-Maghribl (685/1236) puts 
it at a distance east of the Tigris, thus confirming 
Yakut (ibid., map no. 32). 

It seems that the town revived again, for Hamd 
Allah Mustawfl (d. 740/1339) describes it as a big 
town with humid air, as it was surrounded by 
gardens and palm trees (Nuzhat al-Kulub, 46). 
However, 'Umari (d. 748/1347) talks of the fine 
buildings of the monastery, but refers to Dayr al- 
c Akul as a big village (Masdlik al-Absdr, i, 256-7). 

Dayr al- c Akul ultimately became utterly deserted. 
Its site may be identified now among the ruins 
called locally al-Dayr, consisting of three mounds 
east of the Tigris, north of modern c Aziziyya (see 
T. Hashiml, Mufassal Diughrdfiyat al-Hrdk, Baghdad 
1930, 529)- 

The name Dayr al- c Akul, though seemingly 
Arabic (lit. monastery of the camel-thorn [Alhagi 
Maurorum or Hedysarum Alhagi]) is almost certain 
to be, like so many pre-Islamic names in 'Irak, of 



Aramaic origin. The Arabic < dkul reproduces the 
Aramaic dkola, 'bend'; therefore the name means 
'the monastery of the bend of the river'. Akola 
exists elsewhere as a place name in 'Irak as the name 
of the suburb of Kufa, a name given on account of 
a well marked bend in the Euphrates as is expressly 
stated in Syriac sources (cf. Noldeke, in SBAk. Wien, 
cxxiv, Abh. IX, 43). 

Bibliography: References are in the article. 

The following are to be noted: Sumer, x, 1954, 

120; Le Strange, 35; idem, in JRAS, 1895, 41; 

K. Ritter, Erdkunde, x, 191, 232. (A. A. Duri) 

DAYR al-A c WAR, a place in 'Irak named after 
a member of the clan of Umayya b. Hudhafa of the 
Iyad tribe (Baladhurl, Futuh, 283 ; HamdanI, Bulddn, 
182; Yakut, ii, 644). It is therefore an IyadI Dayr 
(HamdanI, 135, quoting al-Haytham b. c AdI; Bakri, 
69, quoting Ibn Shabba). Hamdanl's identification 
of it with Dayr al-Djamadjim, loc. cit., is probably 
an error, since no other source confirms it. 

Dayr al-A £ war was mentioned in the description 
of the march of the Sasanian general Rustam from 
Ctesiphon to Kadisiyya following the route Kutha 
Burs (ancient Bursippa) — Dayr al-A £ war — Miltat 
— Nadjaf, where he pitched his camps (Tabari, i, 
2254). This Dayr was also mentioned when Sulayman 
b. Surad, after leaving Kufa with the Tawwabln, 
chose it as the assembly point for his followers 
before he moved to Aksas Malik and Karbala 
(Tabari, ii, 548; Baladhurl, Ansdb, v, 209). It was 
mentioned also when Hamld b. Kuhtuba moved 
south along the route Karbala — Dayr al-A £ war — 
'Abbasiyya (Tabari, iii, 15); when al-Hasan b. 
Kahtaba followed a similar route (Tabari, iii, 18); 
and finally when Sa'Id and Abu '1-Butt passed 
through Dayr al-A'war in their advance from Nil to 
check Harthama's armies which were stationed in 
Shahi, a village on the Sura canal. 

These texts show that Dayr al-A c war is located 
west of Burs and east of Nadiaf; it is also south of 
Karbala, Sura and Shahi, and north of 'Abbasiyya 
and Nil; they also show that it was known up to 
the 3rd/9th century. 

The Kufan rebel 'Ubayd Allah b. al-Hurr is said 

to have withdrawn to Dayr al-A'war after having 

been defeated by 'Umar b. Ubayd Allah at the 

time of Mus'ab (Tabari, ii, 775; Ibn al-Athir, iv, 241). 

Bibliography: in the text. 

(Saleh A. El-Ali) 

DAYR al-EJAMADJIM, a P^ce in 'Irak, near 
Kufa. It was originally owned by the Iyad tribe 
before its migration from 'Irak (Bakri, 69, quoting 
Ibn Shabba; HamdanI, Buldan, 135, quoting al- 
Haytham b. £ Adi). 

Various etymological explanations of its origin 
have been given: Abu 'Ubayda states that its name 
was derived, from the wooden cups that were made 
in it (Nakd^id, 412; Ibn Kutayba, Ma'drif, 156; 
Bakri, Mu l diam, 574; Yakut, ii, 112, 652). Other 
authorities assert that it was named after the buried 
skulls of the casualties of the battle between Iyad 
Bahra (al-Sharki, Futuh, 283; HamdanI, Buldan, 
182) or between Iyad and the Sasanians (Ibn al- 
Kalbl, Futuh, 283 ; Ibn Shabba in Bakri, 70; Mas'udi, 
Tanbih, 175). Yakut (ii, 652) states that its name 
was derived from a well in a saline land. 

Dayr al-Djamadjim is west of the Euphrates 
(Bakri, 70, 573, quoting Ibn Shabba) on the high- 
lands of Kufa (IsfahanI in Bakri ,573; Yakut, ii, 
652) near £ Ayn al-Tamr and Falludja [?.».] (Tabari, 
ii, 1073) and is about 7 parasangs from Kufah. 

The description of the battle of Djamadjim (83/ 



DAYR al-DJAMADJIM — DAYR KURRA 



702) shows that this Dayr is near Dayr Kurra, 
nearer to Kufa and the Euphrates (Isfahanl 
Bakri, 592; Yakut, ii, 685), i.e. south-east of Dayr 
Kurra [q.v.]. 

In Islamic history Dayr al-Djamadjim is known 
as the battlefield of the war between al-Hadjdjadj 
and c Abd al-Rahman b. al-Ash'ath (see Ibn 
Ash'ath) in 83/702, the latter supported by mos 
the Arab KOfans as well as by some non-Arab 
Ma wall. The long negotiations had failed; al-Hadj- 
djadj, supported by Syrian Arab reinforcements, 
defeated Ibn al-Ash'ath, who retreated to Maskin, 
leaving al-Hadjdjadj the unrivalled master of Kufa 
and enabling him to assert his control over that city 
by taking severe measures against his opponents. 
On the battle see Tabari ,ii, 1070 ff.; Ya'kubi, 332; 
Mas'Odi, Tanbih, 315, and Muriidi, iv, 304; Ibn 
Kutayba, Ma c drif, 156; Abu Yusuf, Kharddj. 57; 
Ibn al-Athir, iv, 376 ff. 

Bibliography: in the article. 

(Saleh A. El-Ali) 

DAYR AL-DJAXHALIS, a name given to two 
monasteries in 'Irak. The first stands in the 
district (tassudj) of Maskin, which is watered by 
the Dudjayl canal. This canal flows off from the 
west bank of the Tigris south of Samarra and takes 
a southward course on almost the same line as 
modern Dudjayl till it reaches the neighbourhood of 
Baghdad. Maskin is to be located about 9-10 para- 
sangs (50-55 km.) north of Baghdad. Its ruins seem 
to keep their old name and are called Khara'ib 
(ruins of) Maskin; they are by the west bank of 
the modern Dudjay some 3 km. south of Smeika 
village (see Sousa, Rayy Samarra, i, 191. Abu 
Sakhar could not be the ruins of Maskin as Streck 
thought; it is by the old course of the Tigris; see 
ibid., map 6, facing 192). 

The place of Dayr al-Djathalik was near Maskin 
(cf. Baladhuri, Ansdb, v, 337). It seems probable 
that its remains are what is called "Tel al-Dayr", 
now some 6 km. S. E. of Smeika village. These 
ruins show a square building of bricks with a square 
courtyard higher than the neighbouring ground. 
(Sousa, op. cit., i, 196-7). 

Dayr al-Djathalik owes its fame in Arab histor 
to the decisive battle fought in its neighbourhood i 
72/691 between the Caliph c Abd al-Malik and 
Mus'ab b. al-Zubayr, governor of 'Irak for his 
brother, the anti-Caliph, 'Abdallah b. al-Zubayr. 
The ZubayrI poet c Abd Allah b. Kays al-Rukayyat 
calls it "The Day of the Dayr". Mus'ab was defeated 
and killed (see Baladhuri, Ansdb, v, 343, 350, 355; 
Mas'udi, v, 246 ff.; Aghdni, viii, 132, x, 147, xvii, 162; 
Tabari, ii, 806, 818,812; Ya'kubi, ii, 317; Well- 
liausen, Das Arab. Reich (1902) 120-123). 

A mausoleum was built on the spot where Mus'ab 
was buried which soon became an object of pilgrim; 
It is likely that the dome of Imam Mansur is the 
tomb of Mus'ab (see Baladhuri, Ansdb, v, ; 
Sousa, op. cit., i, 198. Baladhuri also states (p. 350) 
that the place of the battle is called Khirbat Mus'ab, 
a desert where — as people claim — nothing grows). 

The name 'Monastery of the Catholicos' points to 
the fact that the head of the Nestorians stayed here 

The second Dayr al-Djathalik was a great monas- 
tery in Western Baghdad (see M. Streck, Die Alte 
Landschajt Babylonien, i, 167; Le Strange, Baghdad, 
210; Shabushtl, al-Diydrdt, ed. G. 'Awwad, 221-224; 
R. Babu Ishak, Nasdrd Baghdad, i960, 104-108). 
Bibliography : References are mentioned in 

the article. The following are to be noted: Yakut, 



197 

ii, 251, 260; Mardsid al-Ittild 3 , ed. Juynboll, 1850 

ff., i, 426; v, 539; Sousa, Ray Samarra', i, (Baghdad 

1448), 198 ff.; M. Streck, Die Alte Landschajt 

Babylonien, ii, 190, 236; Shabushtl, Diydrdt (ed. 

G. 'Awwad), Bagdad 1951, 221-4. (A. A. Duri) 

DAYR KA C B, an Iyadi Dayr (Baladhuri, Futiik, 

283) in 'Irak on the main Ctesiphon-Kufa route 

which passes through Kutha — Dayr Ka'b — Muzahi- 

miyya (near Kissayn)— Kufa (Tabari, ii, 60; Tsfahani, 

Makdtil al-Tdlibiyyin, 63). The Muslim armies, in 

their advance on Ctesiphon after their victory in 

Kadisiyya, defeated a Sasanian detachment under 

command of Nukhayridjan (Futuh, 262). 

(Saleh A. El-Ali) 
DAYR KUNNA, a locality in 'Irak some 90 km. 
south of Baghdad and a mile from the left bank of 
the Tigris. The name comes from a large monastery 
still flourishing in 'Abbasid times; it consisted of a 
church, a hundred cells, and extensive olive and 
palm plantations, all enclosed by thick walls. On 
the occasion of the feast of the Holy Cross many 
people flocked to the monastery. It seems that it was 
abandoned at the time of the Saldjukid occupation, 
and geographers of the 7th/ 13th century record that 
only the ruins then remained. 

Dayr Kunna is famous primarily on account of 
the families of high officials, both Christians and 
converts to Islam, which came from there. The best 
known is the Banu '1-Djarrah family, of which the 
viziers al-Hasan b. Makhlad, Muhammad b. DawOd 
and 'All b. Isa were members. The secretaries of 
Dayr Kunna played a considerable political role in 
the late 3rd/9th and early 4th/ioth centuries. In 
al-Mu'tamid's reign they sought to obtain general 
recognition of the Nadjran convention which granted 
certain privileges to Christians, and supported the 
conspiracy of Ibn al-Mu'tazz (296/908). Once con- 
verted to Islam, they were devout Sunnis, tried to 
restore the waning authority of the Caliphate, and 
were influenced by the preachings of al-Halladj (of 
whose disciples at least one was from Dayr Kunna). 
But the open hostility of the pro-Shl'i groups 
frustrated all efforts to restore the Sunni caliph's 
authority and bring about a reconciliation between 
Christians and Muslims. 

Bibliography: Yakut, ii, 687-8; Shabushtl, 

K. al-Diydrdt, Baghdad 1951, 171-6, 248-50; 

Bakri, Mu'-dj.am, ed. Wustenfeld, i, 381; 'Umari, 

Masdlik al-Absdr, ed. A. Zakl Pasha, 256-8 ; Tabari, 

iii, 1961; Le Strange, 36-7; M. 'Awwad. Dayr 

Kunna, in Machriq, xxxvii, 1939, 180-98; L. Mas- 

signon, in Vivre et penser {Revue biblique), Ilnd 

series, 1942, 7-14; idem, in Dieu vivant, iv, 1946, 

18,22; A. Fattal, Le statut Ugal des non-Musulmans, 

Beirut 1958, 32; D. Sourdel, Le vizirat 'abbdside, 

Damascus 1959-60, index. (D. Sourdel) 

DAYR KURRA, a place named after a certain 

Kurra of the Umayya b. Hudhafa clan (Hamdani, 

Bulddn, 182; Yakut, Mu'djam, ii, 685, quoting Ibn 

al-Kalbi) of the Iyad tribe (Baladhuri, Futuh, 283; 

Bakri, 592, quoting Ibn Shabba), and is therefore 

to be considered as an Iyadi Dayr in origin (Hamdani, 

135, quoting al-Haytham b. c Adi; Bakri, 698, 

quoting Ibn Shabba). Al-Isfahani claims that 

Kurra was a Lakhmi (Bakri, 592; Yakut, ii, 685) 

and that the Dayr was established during al- 

Mundhir's reign (Bakri, loc. cit.). 

Dayr Kurra was mentioned in early Islamic 
history as the place through which a detachment of 
the Sasanian army passed in its retreat after the 
battle of Kadisiyya (Tabari, i, 2357) and where al- 
Hadjdjadj had encamped during the battle of 






DAYR KURRA — DAYR al-ZOR 



Pjamadjim [see dayr al-djamApjim]. This Dayr is 
about 7 parasangs from Kufa; it is far from, and 
not on the borders of, Karbala, as A. Musil erroneously 
locates it in his study {Middle Euphrates, 411). 
(Saleh A. El-Ali) 
DAYR MURRAN.name of two former Ch ri s ti a n 
monasteries in Syria. The name is of obscure 
origin; the Arab etymology dayr al-murrdn, "ash- 
tree convent", is suspect, and Syriac does not offer 
a satisfactory explanation. The better known of the 
two monasteries was near Damascus, though its 
exact location cannot be determined. It was on the 
lower slopes of the Djabal Kaysun, overlooking the 
orchards of the Ghuta. near the gateway of Bab 
al-Faradis and a pass {'akaba) where we may see in all 
probability the Barada [q.v.] gorge. It was a large 
monastery, embellished with mosaics in the Umayyad 
era, and around it was built a village and, one pre- 
sumes, a residence in which the caliphs could both 
entertain themselves and keep watch over their capital. 
Dayr Murran often figured in poems of the time. Its 
estates no doubt benefited from the improvements 
to the river Nahr Yazid carried out by the caliph 
Yazid I. He was staying there when, before his 
accession, his father asked him to lead the expedition 
against Constantinople. Al-Walld I died there in 
96/715, and it is thought that al-Walid II established 
his residence there. The 'Abbasid caliphs and their 
representatives visited or lived there on various 
occasions, as did Harun al-Rashld, al-Ma'raun, who 
built a watch-tower on the mountainside and had a 
new canal dug, and al-Mu c tasim. Radja b. Ayyub set 
up his headquarters there when al-Wathik sent him 
to Damascus to put down the revolt of the Kays. 
Dayr Murran was made well-known in the 4th/ 
10th century by the poets Abu '1-Faradj al-Babbagha 5 
(al-Tha c alibI, Yatima, i, 180), and Kushadjim and 
al-Sanawbari of Aleppo. In the Ayyubid era it was 
also mentioned by a geographer and by a panegyrist 
of Salah al-Dln. 

It has been incorrectly asserted by some that the 
tomb of the Umayyad caliph c Umar b. c Abd al- c Aziz 
was in this Dayr Murran. It was in fact in the other 
monastery of the same name on a hill overlooking 
Kafartab, near Ma'arrat al-Nu'man, in northern Syria. 
The latter was also called Dayr al-Nakira and Dayr 
Sam'an. Although it probably no longer existed in 
Ayyubid times, the locality was still inhabited, and 
it was the home of a holy figure, the shaykh Abu 
Zakariyya al-Maghribi. He was known to chroniclers 
of the 7th/i3th century, and was visited by the 
sultan Salah al-Din in person. He was buried near 
the tomb of c Umar (J. and D. Sourdel, Annates 
archiologiques de Syrie, iii, 1953, 83-8). 

Bibliography : Tabari, ii, 1270, 1792; Ya'kubl, 
ii, 272; Ibn al-Athir, vi, 372; Aghani, vi, 195; vii, 
55; xvi, 33; Bakri, Mu'-diam, ed. Wustenfeld, i, 
362; Ibn 'Asakir, Ta'rikh madinat Dimashk, ed. 
S. Munadjdjid, ii, Damascus 1954, 41, 104, 166; 
Ibn Shaddad, La description de Damas, ed. S. 
Dahan, Damascus 1956, 282-7; Yakut, i, 865; ii, 
696-7; iv, 480, 604; Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi, 'Uyun 
al-tawdrikh, after H. Sauvaire, Description de 
Damas, in JA, 1896, 381, 407; c UmarI c , Masdlik 
al-Absdr, ed. A. ZakI Pasha, i, 353"6; H. Lam- 
mens, Etudes sur le regne du calife omaiyade 
Mo'-dwiya Ier, Paris 1908, 377-8, 444-5; R- 
Dussaud, Topographie historique de la Syrie, 
Paris 1927, 184, 298; M. Kurd 'All, Ghutat 
Dimashk, Damascus 1368/1949, 241-3; H. Zayyat, 
in Mashrik, xliii (1949), 425-48. 

(D. Sourdel) 



DAYR MtJSA, a place near Kufa on the way to 
Sura (Tabari, ii, 644). Al-Ash c ath chose it as an 
assembly point for his troops after c Ali had sent 
him to fight the Kharidjites (Tabari, i, 3422-4). Al- 
Mukhtar reached this Dayr in his bidding farewell 
to Yazid b. Anas whom he sent to occupy Mosul 
(Tabari, ii, 644). (Saleh A. El-Ali) 

DAYR SAM'AN, the name of various places in 
Syria, often confused by writers past and present, 
which corresponded to the sites of Christian 
monasteries still flourishing during the first centuries 
of Islam. Among the monasteries to which the name 
Simeon, common in Syria, was given, were Dayr 
Murran [q.v.] near Ma'arrat al-Nu c man, whose name 
Dayr Sam c 5n was also incorrectly applied to the 
Dayr Murran at Damascus, and the Byzantine 
constructions built on hill-tops (called in every case 
Djabal Sam'an) in the region of Antioch. The most 
important of the monasteries was 40 km. north- 
west of Aleppo, and owed its fame to a Stylite who 
lived there, Simeon the Elder. In the 4th/ioth century 
it suffered severely during the wars between Byzan- 
tines and Arabs and, later, between Fatimids and 
Hamdanids. By Ayyubid times it had probably been 
abandoned. Nevertheless one of the most interesting 
archaeological sites in northern Syria today is the 
remains of the 'basilica of St. Simeon' together with 
the ruins of the extensive quarters which accom- 
modated pilgrims (to which the modern word dayr 
refers in particular). In the Middle Ages the Muslims 
transformed the basilica into a fortress called 
Kal'at Sam'an. A second monastery, situated on the 
road from Antioch to Suwaydiyya, commemorated 
the Stylite Simeon the Younger, and it is no doubt 
to this Dayr Sam'an that the description by Ibn 
Butlan, reproduced by Yakut (ii, 672), applies. 

Bibliography: Ibn al- c Adim, Zubda, S. 
Dahan ed., i, Damascus 1951, 224; J. Lassus, 
Sanctuaires chritiens de Syrie, Paris 1947, index, 
s.v. Deir Sem'an, Cjal'at Sem'an, Mont Admirable; 
G. Tchalenko, Villages antiques de la Syrie du 
Nord, iii, Beirut 1958, 92, 100, 119, 124; Howard 
C. Butler, Ancient architecture in Syria {Publications 
of the Princeton University archaeological expe- 
ditions to Syria in igoq-igog). Division ii, Leiden 
1919. (D. Sourdel) 

DAYR al-ZOR, a small Syrian town, 195 m. 
above sea-level, on the right bank of the Euphrates. 
A suspension bridge 450 m. long, completed in 1931, 
crosses the river a short distance down-stream from 
the town. In 1867 it became the chief town of a 
sandjak and later of a muhdfaza, and today it has a 
modern aspect about it. The majority of its 22,000 
inhabitants are SunnI Muslims, and the small 
Christian minority comprises mainly Armenian 
refugees from former Turkish possessions. There are 
three mosques and several Orthodox and Roman 
Catholic churches. It is an important military centre, 
and also a stopping-place on the road from Aleppo 
and Damascus to Hasatche, Mosul and Baghdad. It 
thus takes the part played in the Middle Ages by 
Rahbat Malik and Karkisiya. 

It was probably the site of the ancient town of 
Auzara, from which, via the transposition Azuara, 
the name Dayr al-Z6r is derived. Its meaning 
is now explained as "convent set in a grove", 
referring to the clusters of tamarisks alongside the 
river. We may suppose that in the immediate 
neighbourhood of Dayr al-Zor lay the Dayr al- 
Rumman mentioned by Yakut (ii, 662) between al- 
Rakka and Khabur. 



DAYR al-ZOR — DEDE 



Bibliography: V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, 
ii, Paris 1890, 275 if.; A. Musil, The Middle 
Euphrates, New York 1927, 1-3, 254; R. Dussaud, 
Topographie historique de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 
456,483-4; M. Canard, Histoire des H'amddnides, 
i, Algiers 1951, 95 (D. Sourdel) 

DAYSANIYYA, Daysanites or Disanites, disci- 
ples of Bar DIsan, Bardesanes, Ibn Daysan, the 
celebrated syncretist heresiarch of Edessa, 154 (or 
i34)-20i A.D., co-disciple and contemporary of 
Abgar the Great. Arab authors writing of the 
dualists have placed him among the false prophets, 
between Zoroaster (Zaradusht) and Marcion (Mar- 
kiyun), after Manes (Manl). The account of him 
which they give is very schematic and far from 
reliable. One may wonder if their knowledge of the 
Daysaniyya was confined to a chapter taken from one 
of the historians of the dualists, hitherto the sole 
source (e.g., Abu c Isa al-Warrak). They give neither 
a biography of the author nor details of his descent. 
The doctrine attributed to him is a somewhat 
general dualism, regarded solely from the point of 
view of what may be called the physical state of 
being, in conformity with the constant preoccupation 
of Arab writers dealing with religions and sects, and 
which from the start envisages a theodicy. The 
Daysaniyya, taking light and darkness as the primal 
elements, looked upon them as the sources of good and 
evil respectively, with the distinction that light was 
active, living, perceptive and endowed with the 
fundamental attributes of life, knowledge and power, 
as against darkness which was purely passive, 
devoid of these attributes and endowed merely with 
existence. The cosmogonal drama stems from the 
determination of light to penetrate the darkness, by 
deliberate action, and so to bring about salvation. 
From this voluntary action it is then unable to free 
itself through some physical misfortune, the cause of 
which is not explained. Arab authors writing of the 
doctrine of Bar DIsan and his disciples differentiate 
between two doctrinal tendencies: some believe that 
in darkness there is a tendency, among the superior 
forms, to unite with the lower ranks of the creatures 
of light, who are subsequently unable to free them- 
selves from this union; others consider the inter- 
mingling of light and darkness to be an action con- 
sciously undertaken by light, and followed by 
unexpected results inherent in the physical nature 
of darkness. 

Alongside these ideas we may set those which 
emerge from the information invariably given by 
the Christian heresiologists, headed by Eusebius, 
Epiphanius, St. John of Damascus and the Syriac 
authors Theodore Bar Kouni, Elias of Nisibis, 
Moses Bar Kepha and St. Ephraem, and thereby 
may make some useful comparisons. We know 
that Bar DIsan, after receiving a pagan education, 
studied and reflected upon this cosmological system, 
influenced by the emanationist and Hermetic 
doctrines that were called astrology. For him, as for 
the rest of his contemporaries, the world was the 
result of the action upon beings of the influence of 
the spheres, exerted in succession by either the 
Monad or the Dyad. Persian influences, which 
underlie the beliefs of the region of Edessa where 
Bardesanes lived, are no doubt the basis of the 
dualist conception which, according to Arab writers, 
can be discovered in his natural philosophy. On the 
basis of the cosmological ideas provided by his 
education Bardesanes developed an interpretation of 
Christianity as it appeared to an inhabitant of 
Edessa who had grown up in Hierapolis in the house 



of a priest of the Syrian goddess, at the very time 
Lucian of Samosata described the ceremonies 
performed there (Lucian was born about 120 a.d.). 
It is, no doubt, in his interpretation of Salvation 
that the origin must be found of the myths about the 
mingling of light and darkness, as given by Ibn 
al-Nadim and al-Shahrastanl. The Dialogue on the 
Laws on the Lands, the principal surviving work of 
Bar DIsan — with the very remarkable text on 
Destiny preserved by Eusebius — allows us to 
understand his basic philosophy as distinguishing 
between the physical state of being, horologically 
dependent upon the stars (it is possible to find an 
echo of his argumentation against the belief in astrol- 
ogical determinism in the chapter Ibn Hazm devotes 
to refuting the astrologers, Cairo ed., iv, 24), and the 
moral destiny which, like the escape from darkness, 
results from the contradiction between the irreme- 
diably determined nature of matter and the free 
nature granted to man by his Creator, who made 
him in his own image. Moreover this God is, above 
all, the co-ordinator and creator of a hierarchy of 
beings whose original characters and affinities he 
has defined, and in conformity with which this 
world is constantly built up and destroyed. It is 
furthermore a world of failure — and here the 
Manichaean spirit is revealed — where God in his 
patience allows confusion and promiscuity until, 
after the passing of 6,000 years, he will recreate a 
world all whiteness, light and good. 

Bardesanes' reputation as an astrologer, despite 
his own very clearly defined attitude, was finally 
fixed by St. Ephraem who fought against him in 
his own town of Edessa, wrote sermons against him 
and composed hymns which were destined to 
supplant those by Bardesanes. Posterity, while 
recognizing his attitude against Marcion, never- 
theless included him in the line of Manichaeans, 
alongside Marcion. The Arab authors followed suit. 
For the Christian heresiologists his philosophy, 
elaborated under the influence of Valentinism, is 
tainted with Manichaeism. 

Bibliography : Ibn al-Nadim, Cairo edn., 474; 
Shahrastani, on the margin of Ibn Hazm, Cairo, ii, 
70-2; c Abd al-Kahir al-Baghdadl, Cairo 1910, 333; 
Bakillani, ed. MacCarthy, Beirut, 67 ff.; Eusebius, 
apud Patr. Grace, xx, 397-400, 573; v. Philoso- 
phumena, Patr. Grace, xvi, col. 170/599; Merx, 
Bardesanes von Edessa, Halle 1863; F. Nau, Bar- 
disane I'Astrologue. Le livre des lois des pays, Paris 
1899; idem, Dictionnaire de Thiologie catholique, 
s.v. (with bibliography). (A. Abel) 

DAYZAN [see al-hadr]. 
DAZA [see tubO]. 
DEAD SEA [see bahr lOt]. 
DEBDOU [see dubdOj. 
DECCAN [see dakhan]. 

DEDE, literally "grandfather, ancestor", a term 
of reverence given to the heads of Darwlsh 
communities, as alternative for ata and baba. 
The meaning "father" is attested in Ghuzz as early 
as the Diwdn lughdt al-Turk (compare C. Brockel- 
mann, Mitteltiirkischer Wortschatz, Budapest and 
Leipzig 1928, under dado). In western Turkish 
heroic tales, the term is also used (again as 
an alternative for ata) for the rhapsodes, thus 
Korkut Ata, or Dede Korkut [q.v.]. Concerning its 
use preceding a proper name in ancient Anatolian, 
cf. Ismail Hakki Uzuncarsili, Osmanh teskildhna 
methal, Istanbul 1941, 173 (Dede Bali in a Germiyan 
deed of foundation). 

Dede, following the name, is used predominantly 



DEDE — DEFTER-I KHAkAnI 



in Mewlewl Derwish circles. It is also used as a term 
of respect for various wonder-working holy men in 
Istanbul and Anatolia, as reported by Ewliya 
Celebi (cf. Ewliya Efendi, Travels, translated by 
Hammer, i, 2, 21, 25; ii, 97, 213). 

With this meaning, Dede has also entered the 
Persian language (dada, plur. dadagdn) (compare 
F. Steingass, Persian-English Dictionary, London 
1830, s.v.). In the terminology of the Safawid 
(arika, dada denoted one of the small group of 
officers in constant attendance on the murshid 
(cf. Tadhkirat al-Muluk, 125, n. 4). 

Bibliography: other than the works already 

mentioned in the article: J. T. Zenker, Turkisch- 

Arabisch-Persisches HandwOrterbuch, Leipzig 1866, 

s.v. 1; Hiiseyin Kadri, Turk lugati, Istanbul 1928; 

Seyh Suleyman Buhari, Lugat-i (agatay ve tiirkii 

osmant, Istanbul 1928; AbO Hayyan, Kitdb al- 

idrdk li-lisdn al-Atrdk, ed. A. Caferoglu; lA, iii, 

506 (Mecdud Mansuroglu). (Fr. Taeschner) 

DEDE AfiHAC, now Alexandropolis, town on 

the Aegean coast of Thrace, founded in 1871, after 

the construction of the branch railway from the 

main Rumeli line. Being an outlet for the products 

of the hinterland it prospered rapidly, so that in 

1300/1883 it supplanted Dimetoka as the centre of 

a sandjak (mutasarrifllk) of the wildyet of Edirne. 

In 1894 the sandjak of Dede Aghac comprised the 

kadds of Dede Aghac, Enez (Inos) and Sofrulu; the 

kadd of Dede Aghac comprised three ndhiyes, 

Feredjik, Meghri and Semadrek, and 41 villages. This 

was the position until the region was lost as a result 

of the Balkan War of 1912-3. Two mosques were 

built in the town, one in the Muslih al-DIn quarter in 

1877, the other, in the Arab style, in the Hamldiyye 

quarter in 1890, in the court-yard of which the 

mutasarrif Trabzonlu Hiiseyn Rushdl Pasha is 

buried. In 1894 there were some 1500 houses in 

Dede Aghac. In the village of Fere-ilidjalari there 

were foundations of GhazI Ewrenos Beg [q.v.] and 

of (Kodja) Dawud Pasha [q.v.]. 

Bibliography : Edirne Sdlndmesi for 1310 and 
X317; 'All Djewad, Memdlik-i 'Othmdniyyenin 
ta'rikh we djoghrdfyd lughdtt, i, Istanbul 1313; 
Badi Aljmed, Riyad-i Belde-i Edirne, iii (Bayezid 
Library, Istanbul). (M. Tayyib Gokbilgin) 
DEDE SORSUT, a Turkish collection of 
twelve tales in prose, interspersed with verse 
passages, the oldest surviving specimen of the Oghuz 
epic and one of the most remarkable monuments of 
the Turkish language. They are named after the 
sage, a legendary character, who appears in each 
tale; he is the poet-singer who re-composes and 
recites each narrative, and bestows his blessings 
upon all. He is strongly reminiscent of the poet- 
magicians of the shamanistic era. The only existing 
complete manuscript is in Dresden (H. 0. Fleischer, 
Catalogus codicum man. orientalium ... no. 86) of 
which J. H. von Diez made a copy for the Berlin 
Library (A. Pertsch, Die Hand. V erzeichnisse . . . 
vi, no. 203). The works of von Diez (Denkwurdig- 
keiten von Asien, i, Berlin-Halle 1815, 399"457) and 
W. Barthold (Zapiski Vostoinago Otdeleniya, Imp. 
Russ. Arkh. ObsMestva, viii, X894, 203-218; also ix, 
X895; xi, 1898; xii, 1899; xv, 1904; xix, 1910) and 
the first edition of the book by Kilisli Mu'allim Rif'at 
{Kitdb-l Dede Korkut c ald lisdn-t (dHfe-i Oghuzdn, 
Istanbul, 1332/1916) are based on the Berlin copy. 
The first edition in transcription with a long 
historical-bibliographical introduction by Orhan 
§aik Gokyay (see bibliography) also uses the Berlin 
copy with some emendations from the Dresden copy. 



In 1950 Ettore Rossi discovered a second incomplete 
manuscript in the Vatican Library (Un nuovo 
manoscritto del "Kitdb-i Dede Qorqut" in RSO, xxv 
(1950), 34-43), which he published in facsimile with 
an Italian translation of the whole work and a 
95-page introductory study. In 1958 Muharrem 
Ergin published a new transcription of the whole 
text with the facsimiles of both the original manu- 
scripts and an introduction. A promised second 
volume will contain an index, grammar and notes. 
The work also aroused interest in Adharbaydjan 
(for a criticism, on ideological grounds, see Ost- 
Probleme, iii, no. 35, 195 1). An edition of the text 
appeared in Baku in 1939, and a Russian translation, 
based an a manuscript left by Barthold, in 1950. 
The publication of the complete text in 1916 gave 
great impetus to Dede Korljut studies, and since 
then a growing number of scholars have been 
occupied with elucidating many historical, literary, 
linguistic, ethnological and folkloristic problems of 
the work. Despite the remarkable contributions of 
the above-mentioned authors and other scholars 
(among them M. F. Koprulu, A. Inan, P. N. 
Boratav, Hamid Arash, Walter Ruben, Faruk 
Sumer, M. F. Kirzioglu, etc.) these problems con- 
tinue to be controversial and there is still disagree- 
ment as to the date, authorship, the origin of the 
existing text, the identity of the heroes and of the 
place-names, etc. As research stands at present, we 
can cautiously assume that these stories were 
collected from oral tradition and put together and 
polished by an unknown author, probably during 
the second half of the 9th/i5th century. They seem 
to be mainly based on the reminiscences of the 
Oghuz Turks concerning their life in their original 
home in Central Asia. In the present text they 
relate the life of the Oghuz Turkish bribes in north- 
eastern Anatolia, the deeds of their prince Bayundur 
Khan and their chief Salur Kazan Beg, of his wife 
Burla Khatun, and his son Uruz and their companions, 
their battles against other Turkish tribes and against 
the Black Sea Greeks and Georgians. The effect of 
Islamic culture is superficial. The pre-Islamic 
elements have strong common characteristics, in 
expression, style and content, with Anatolian and 
Central Asian popular literature. Some of the tales 
(e.g., Beyrek) still live in Turkish folklore in slightly 
altered versions, and two tales (Depegoz and Deli 
Dumrul) show striking resemblances to Greek legends 
(Cyclops and Admetus) (cf. C. S. Mundy, Polyphemus 
and TepegSz, BSOAS, xviii, 1956, 279-302). 

Bibliography: Detailed bibliographical data 
are given in the following works : Orhan Saik 
Gokyay, Dede Korkut, Istanbul 1938; Ettore 
Rossi, // Kitab-i Dede Qorqut, Vatican 1952; 
P. N. Boratav, Korkut Ata, in I A; idem, Dede 
Korkut hikdyelerindeki tarihi olaylar ve kitabtn 
telif tarihi, TM, xiii, 1958, 30-62 ; Muharrem Ergin, 
Dede Korkut Kitabt, i, Giris-Metin-Facsimile, 
Ankara 1958. For a recent study of the language of 
the work see E. M. Demircizade, Kitabt Dede 
Korkud dastanlanmn dili, Baku 1959. A German 
translation of the text was published by J. Hein, 
Das Buck des Dede Korkut, Zurich 1958. 

(FAHiR lz) 
DEDE SULTAN, epithet of a great religious 
fanatic by name of Biirkludje Mustafa, who was 
prominent in Anatolia in the time of Mehemmed I 
(further information under badr al-dIn b. ??ApI 
samawnA). (Fr. Taeschner) 

DEFTER [see daftar]. 
DEFTER-I KHAKANI [ see daftar.! miKANi]. 



DEFTERDAR — DELI 



DEFTERDAR [see daftardar]. 
DEFTER EMINI, the title given in the Ottoman 
Empire to the director of the Daftar-i KhakanI [$.».]. 
DEHAS, a river in northern Afghanistan, 
explained by Ibn IJawkal, 326, as dah-as "(that 
which drives) ten mills". It rises in the Band-i 
Amir massif in the mountains of KOh-i Baba 
(Bamiyan district), and flows in a general northerly 
direction through several natural lakes, past 
Mad(a)r and Ribat-i Karwan, finally reaching the 
region of Balkh [q.v.]. This area, especially the 
southern part, is dependent on the river for its 
irrigation and its consequent fertility — especially 
Siyahgird, on the route to Tirmidh, as well as the 
suburb Nawbahar. Because of its importance for 
Balkh, the Dehas was also called Nahr Balkh 
(e.g., Ifuiud aUHlam, 73, sn, no. 24); in the Middle 
Ages, however, this was also one name for the Amu 
Darya [q.v.], Today the river is called Balkh-ab. 
The neglect of the irrigation system in the late 
middle ages and in modern times has caused the 
once fruitful country-side to revert to marsh land, 
and brought about the complete decline of the 
Balkh region. 

In ancient times the Dehas was known as Baxrpoi; 
or ZapidtOTn)? and reached as far as the Oxus (Strabo, 
xi, 4, 2 (516); Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclop., ii, 
2814). Since Islamic times its waters have become 
dispersed in canals or in swamps. 

Bibliography : Istakhri, 278; Le Strange, 420; 
J. Markwart, ErdnSahr, 1901, 230; idem, Wehrot, 
Leiden 1938, 3 ff. ( 45, 169; W. K. Fraser-Tytler, 
Afghanistan, London 1950, index s.v. Balkh; 
A. Foucher, De Kaboul a Bactres, in La Giographie, 
xlii, 1924, 147-61. See also Bibliography to balio;. 
Maps: Hudud al- c Alam, 339; Fraser-Tytler, n. 

(B. Spuler) 
DEHHANl, Khodja, Anatolian poet of the 
7th/i3th century, one of the earliest represen- 
tatives of the diwdn poetry. Almost nothing is known 
about his life except that he came from Khurasan 
and was at one time at the court of the Saldjuk 
sultan 'Ala 5 al-DIn Kaykubad III, for whom he wrote 
a Saldjukid Shdhndma of 20,000 couplets which has 
not come down to us (M. F. Kopriilii, Anadolu 
Selfuklu Tarihinin Yerli Kaynaklari, in BelleUn, vii, 
27, 396-7). Only ten of his poems survive; they 
have been assembled from various nazlra collections 
and published from 1926 onwards (see bibliography). 
Dehhani, unlike his contemporaries, does not dwell 
on mystical or religious-didactic themes, but sings, 
with remarkable mastery of 'arud and a flowing 
style, worldly love, wine and other set themes of 
diwdn poets. 

Bibliography: Kopruluzade Mehmed Fu'ad, 
Khodja Dehhani, inljayat, i, 1, Ankara 1926; idem, 
Selfuklu devri edebiyah hakkmda bazi notlar, in 
Ifaydt, iv, 103, Ankara 1928; Mecdut Mansuroglu, 
Anadolu Tiirkcesi, xiii astr, Dehhani ve Manzume- 
leri, Istanbul 1947. (FAHiR iz) 

DEIR EZ-ZOR [see dayr al-zor]. 
DELHEMME [see dhu 3 l-himma]. 
DELHI, DELHI SULTANATE [see dihlI, dihl! 
sultanate]. 

DELI, Turkish adjective, meaning "mad, heed- 
less, brave, fiery" etc. In the Ottoman empire the 
delis were a class of cavalry formed originally in the 
Balkans (Rumeli, [q.v.]) at the end of the gth/i5th 
or the beginning of the ioth/i6th century. Although 
later official usage, abandoning their true name, 
styled them delil (guides), they continued to be 



popularly known by their original name until recent 

The delis were recruited partly among Turks and 
partly from Balkan nations such as the Bosniaks, 
Croats, and Serbs. At first they were private retainers 
in the suites of the Beylerbeyi (Beglerbegi, [q.v.]) of 
Rumeli and of the border beys. They were called deli, 
"mad", on account of their extraordinary courage 
and recklessness. The caliph c Umar was considered 
the patron of their od^aks. Their motto was yazilan 
gelir basha, "what is written (i.e., destined) will 

The delis were armed with curved scimitars, con- 
cave shields, spears, and maces (bozdoghan) attached 
to their saddles. They wore hats made of the skin 
of wild animals, such as hyenas or leopards, trimmed 
with eagles' feathers, and their shields were also 
decorated with such feathers. Their clothes and 
horsecloths were made of the skins of lions, tigers 
and foxes, and their breeches of wolves' or bears' 
skins, with the hairy side showing. Their calf-length 
spurred boots, pointed at the toes and high at the 
back, were known as serhaddlik or border boots. 
Their horses were renowned for their strength and 
endurance. They received a fixed salary from the 
Beylerbeyi or the Beys whom they served. In his 
fabakat al-Mamdlik fi Daradjdt al-Masdlik, Dielal- 
zade Mustafa Celebi mentions the delis of the Bey 
of Semendere, Yahya Pasha-zade Bali Bey, in 
connexion with the Mohacz expedition, and describes 
their clothes. In the first half of the ioth/i6th 
century the forces of delis of Yahya Pasha-zade 
Ball Bey and Mehemmed Bey and of GhazI Khusrew. 
Bey of the sandiak of Bosnia, were famous in the 
Balkans; Khusrew Bey had 10,000 delis in addition 
to his other forces. 

The cavalry organization of the delis spread later 
to Anatolia, where delis were numbered among the 
retainers of vezirs and Beylerbeyis. The clothes of 
delis were changed in the I2th/i8th century, when 
they were seen to wear pipe-like hats some twenty- 
six inches long, made of black lambskin with a 
turban wound round them. 

Fifty to sixty delis made up a company (under a 
standard, bayralt), groups of several companies being 
commanded by a delibashl. A new recruit was 
attached to the retinue of the agha [q.v.]; after 
learning the customs of the odjafc and proving his 
worth he took an oath to serve the Faith and the 
State and to be steadfast in battle. At the end of the 
ceremony, which included prayers, the recruit would 
then be entered as an agha-liraghl (apprentice to 
an agha), a deli's hat being ceremonially placed on 
his head. Delis breaking their oath, failing to observe 
the rules of the odja%, or deserting from the battle- 
field, were expelled and deprived of their hat. In 
the middle of the nth/i7th century a deli's daily pay 
amounted to 12 or 15 aspers (alfles), according to 
Rycaut; Marsigli, writing at a later date, says that 
delis were paid only while on active service. 

The delis served the state well in the ioth/i6th 
and nth/i7th centuries, but later they became 
disorganized like the other military units. Delis 
deprived of a patron, either through the dismissal 
of the wdli whom they served, or as a result of being 
paid off, wandered about in search of a new patron, 
raiding villages in the meantime. In the second half 
of the I2th/i8th century their depredations were 
centred in the regions of Kiitahya and Konya. A 
delibashi by the name of Kodja-Bashl, who stood 
at the head of a numerous band, was notorious at 
Kiitahya towards the end of the century, while the 



DELI — DELI-ORMAN 



delibashi Isma'Il terrorized the region of Konya in 
1801. In the rebellion which took place in Konya in 
1803 against the "new army" {nizdm-i diedid), 
Isma'H assisted the rebels and, entering Konya, 
shut off the kadi <Abd al-Rahman Pasha who had 
been appointed wait of Konya. 

The riotousness of the delis reached its peak at 
the end of the I2th/i8th and the beginning of the 
I3th/i9th centuries, when they were a grave evil 
to the people of Anatolia. This prompted the Grand 
Vizier Yusuf Diva Pasha to decide in Aleppo, on 
his return from the Egyptian expedition, to reor- 
ganize the delis. He had some of them sent to 
Baghdad, while those in his retinue were not demo- 
bilized but taken to Istanbul and billeted in the 
barracks at Oskudar. The numerous delis of the 
factious Gurdji (Georgian) c Othman Pasha in Rumeli 
were also brought to Istanbul and billeted in the 
Dawud Pasha barracks. Later all the delis in 
Istanbul, amounting to 200 companies (bayraks) 
were sent off to Baghdad. 

In 1829 after the Russian-Ottoman war, 2000 delis 
commanded by 18 delibashis and one hdytabashi 
(leader of armed band) moved into Anatolia and, 
gathering in the region of Konya, tried to take up 
brigandage again. Sultan Mahmud II, determined 
to carry through his reforms, succeeded however in 
eliminating them, a remnant fleeing to Egypt and 
Syria. Of those who stayed behind, those who 
disobeyed the order to settle on the land were 
defeated by the watt of Karaman Es c ad Pasha. 
(I. H. Uzuncarsili) 

DELI-ORMAN is the historical name of a 
district, the greater part of which lies in north- 
eastern Bulgaria and the remainder in southern 
Roumania. But as the term is a popular one, exact 
boundaries cannot be given. It is usually applied 
to the triangle, the apex of which is at the town 
of Rusiuk, and the two arms formed by the 
Danube and the Ruscuk- Varna railway, while the 
base is somewhat undefined and runs at a certain 
distance from the coast of the Black Sea. On the 
north-east, Deli-Orman is bounded by the Dobruja, 
in the south by the Bulgarian provinces of Tozluk 
and Gerlovo. The most important places in Deli- 
Orman are the towns of Balbunar, Kemanlar and 
Razgrad on Bulgarian territory and Akkadlnlar and 
Kurtbunar on Roumanian. 

The name Deli-Orman is of Turkish origin and 
means something like "wild forest, primeval forest". 
The country was actually at one time covered with 
primeval forest of which considerable stretches still 
survive at the present day. The wooded character 
of the district contrasts strongly with the flat and 
treeless Dobruja. 

The name is also extended to the land on the left 
bank of the Danube, where in the Wallachian plain 
between the mouths of the Aluta and Vede lies a 
district called Teleorman (C. Jirecek, Einige Be- 
merkungen titer die Oberreste der Petschenegen und 
Kumanen, sowie die Vdlkerschaften der sogenannten 
Gagauzi und SurguCi im heutigen Bulgarien, in 
Sitzungsber. d. K. bdhmischen Gesellschajt der Wiss., 
Philos.-gesch. Klasse, Year 1889, n). According to 
Jirecek, the name was formerly applied to the whole 
of the hilly forest country lying in front of the 
Carpathians in southern Moldavia and eastern 
Wallachia. Tomaschek thinks he recognizes the name 
Teleorman in a corrupt place-name in the Byzantine 
writer John Kinnamos of the 12th century. If he 
is right, the name Deli-Orman would be pre-Ottoman 
and come from an earlier North Turkish immigration. 



Deli-Orman only a generation ago was still 
inhabited predominantly by Turks, but since the 
middle of the 19th century Bulgarian colonization 
has been steadily increasing. Nevertheless the 
Turks still form a considerable percentage of the 
population. One hears Turkish spoken everywhere, 
as is also the case in the provinces of Tozluk and 
Gerlovo adjoining on the south. 

The Turks of this district form a particular type; 
they are remarkable for their tall stature and 
athletic build. Their language reveals dialectical 
peculiarities which are not found elsewhere in the 
Ottoman Turkish system but can be paralleled 
among the Christian Gagauz of Bessarabia. These 
peculiarities form the reason why they are regarded 
by some students as descendants of the Turkish 
Bulgars (K. and Ch. V. Skorpil, Pametnici na gr. 
Oddessos-Varna, Varna 1898, 4-6) and sometimes as 
descendants of the Kumans (V. MoSkov, Turetskiya 
plemena na Balkanskom poluostrove, in Izv. Imp. 
Russk. Geogr. Obshlestva, xl, 1904, 409-17). But a 
strict philological analysis proves no more than that 
their language shows certain North Turkish features 
which perhaps go back to an old North Turkish 
stratum in the population. This stratum was 
however assimilated in two waves of southern 
Turkish elements which came later (cf. T. Kowalski, 
Les Turcs et la langue turque de la Bulgarie du Nord- 
Est, in Mimoires de la Commission Orientaliste de 
VAcadimie Polonaise des Sc. et des Lettres, no. 16, 
1933). Nevertheless it is significant that in the 
Balkan Peninsula the most compact mass of Turks 
is found not in the south-east but in the north-east, 
which makes very probable the hypothesis of a very 
early Turkish settlement in the lands south of the 
lower Danube. Turkish immigration in the Saldjuk 
period (6th/i2th century) to the neighbouring 
Dobruja appears to be a historical fact (cf. F. 
Babinger, in Isl., xi, 1921, 24). 

In the Ottoman period Deli-Orman was a place 
of refuge for all kinds of political and religious 
refugees. It therefore still offers a great variety of 
sects. It was from here that in 819/1416 Shaykh 
Badr al-DIn began his missionary career (F. Babinger, 
Schefch Bedr ed-Din, der Sohn des Richters von Simdw, 
in Isl., xi, 1921, 60). At various periods different 
teachings, usually strongly tinged with ShI'ism, have 
found an asylum here. To this day there are in Deli- 
Orman considerable remnants of the followers of 
'All, who are here called c AlawI or Klzilbash 
(Redheads). Their headquarters seem to be the little 
town of Kemanlar (plural of Kemal with peculiar 
dissimilation of the two / sounds) in the vicinity of 
which is the famous, now disused, monastery of the 
BektashI saint Demir Baba (F. Babinger, Das 
Bektaschi-Kloster Demir Baba, in MSOSAs., xxxiv, 
1931; Babinger calls my attention to Ewliya Celebi, 
Seydhatndme, v. 579, where there is a reference to 
Demir Baba as a disciple of Hadjdjl Bektash). There 
is a short poem (nefes) composed in honour of this 
sanctuary by the BektashI poet Derdli Katib of 
Shumen (1 ith/i7th century) inN. E. Bulgaria (Sadettin 
Niizhet, Bektasi $airleri, Istanbul 1930, 55 ff.). 

A remarkable feature is the wrestling bouts, 
apparently connected with the worship of BektashI 
saints, which are the favourite amusement of the 
Turkish population of Deli-Orman. Indeed this 
little explored region is an interesting field for 
research not only for Turkologists but also for 
students of Islam. 

Bibliography : In addition to references in the 

text : F. Kanitz, Donau-Bulgarien und der Balkan, iii, 



DELI-ORMAN — DEMIRBASH 






Leipzig 1879 (with full indexes); C. Jireoek, Das 
Fiirstenthum Bulgarien, Prague- Vienna- Leipzigi8gi 
(indexes); W. Stubenrauch, Kultur geographic des 
Deli-Orman, in Berliner Geographische Arbeiten, 
fasc. iii, 1933 (with full references). — On the 
problem of population: L. Miletic, Staroto btigarsko 
naselenije v severoiztotna Bllgaraija, Sofia 1902; 
S. S. Bobcev, Za deliormanskite Turd i za Kizll- 
basite, in Sbornik na BUgarskata Akademija na 
Naukite, xxiv, 1929. — On the language question: 
D. G. Gadzanov, two short notices in Anzeiger der 
■philos.-hist. Kl. d.k. Akad. d. Wiss, in Wien, year 
1911, no. v. and year 1912, no. iii; T. Kowalski, 
Compie rendu de I'excursion dialectologique en 
Dobroudja, faite du 10 septembre au V T octobre 19J7 
in Bull. Intern. Acad. Polon. Philolog., 1938, i/3, 
7-12; idem, Les iliments ethniques turcs de la 
Dobroudja, in RO, xiv, 1939, 66-80; J. Eckmann, 
Razgard Turk aizi, Tiirk Dili ve Edebiyah hakkmda 
arastirmalar, Istanbul 1953, 1-25; P. Wittek, Les 
Gagaouzes = Les gens de Kaykaus in RO, xvii, 1953, 
12-24; J- Nemeth, Zur Einteilung der tiirkischen 
Mundarten Bulgariens, Sofia 1956; A. Caferoglu, 
Die anatolische und rumelische Dialekte, in Philo- 
iogiae Turcicae Fundamenta, i, 1959, 239-60; 
G. Doerfer, Das Gagausische, ibid. 260-71 ; I. 
Conea and I. Donat, Contribution a I'Stude de la 
toponymie pitchinegue-comane de la Plaine Rou- 
maine du Bos-Danube in Contributions Onomasti- 
ques, Bucarest 1958, 139-67. 
(T. Kowalski- 

[j. Reychmann and A. Zajaczkowski]) 
DELVINA, formerresidence of an Ottoman 
sandjak-bey in Albania. In Ottoman times 
Delvina (so in Turkish and Albanian; Gk. A£X(3lvov, 
Delvinon) formed a sandjak of the Rumelian gover- 
norship. It stands 770 ft. above sea level, about io*/i 
miles from the shores of the Ionian sea, and consists 
of one single bazar street set in the midst of olive, 
lemon and pomegranate trees, surmounted by the 
ruins of an old, perhaps Byzantine, stronghold. The 
inhabitants numbered about 3000 before 1940, of 
whom two-thirds were Muslims and the remainder 
Orthodox Christians, as well as a few (about 40) 
Jews, all of whom subsisted by cattle-breeding, 
fisheries, olive plantations, and retail trade. Delvina, 
as principal town of the sandjak of the same name, 
contains several mosques and Greek-Orthodox 
churches, and was formerly well fortified against 
the attacks of a population frequently restive under 
Ottoman dominion. 

The history of Delvina in the Middle Ages is 
nebulous. In Byzantine times, probably also even 
earlier, it played a part of some importance, as is 
shown by the church of St. Nicholas (Kisha Shen 
Kollit be Mesopotam) erected by the ruler Constan- 
tine IX Monomachos (1042-54) — of which some 
significant remains were until recently in existence; 
cf. Ph. Versanis, Bu^avTiax6? vao? bi AeXptvcp, 
in 'ApxatoXoYtx6v AeX-rtov, i (1915), 28-41, and 
S. Stoupi, Movao-TTjpux tou AeXptvou, in 'Htoi- 
ptorixr) 'Earta, iv (1959), 331 ff. — and likewise 
the imposing outworks of the castle which must have 
had a part to play in feudal times in Albania. An 
illustration of the church of St. Nicholas in its 
present state of conservation is to be found in Historia 
e Shqiperise, Tirana 1959, 191, fig. 30. Since the 
establishment of Ottoman domination (end of the 
9th/i5th century) until well into the 19th century 
Delvina was a bulwark against the independent 
minded Albanians of the Himara region, who were 
constantly in conflict with their overlords. In the 



ioth/i6th century Delvina was also a centre of the 
Khalwetl order of dervishes, which was spread in the 
direction of Albania about 937/1530 by one Ya'kub 
Efendi of Yanina, to be later supplanted by the 
Bektashis. The Khalwetis attracted a considerable 
following there, and some of the 12 mosques, two 
madrasas, and baths owed their beginnings to the 
adherents of this order. Yflsuf Sinan, son of the 
same Ya'kub Efendi, has expatiated upon this point 
in detail in his Mendkib-iSkerif [sic] we tarikandme-yi 
plrdn we meshdyikh-i tarikat-i c aliyye-yi Kholwetiyye. 
Istanbul 1290/1873; cf. H. J. Kissling in ZDMG, 
ciii, 1953, 264. 

Delvina is depicted as a sizeable colony by 
Ewliya Celebi in the Seydhatndme, viii, 668 ff.; 
it had first come into contact with the Otto- 
mans in 835/1431-2 through the incursions of Sinan 
Pasha (cf. HadjdjI Khalifa, Takwim al-tawdrikh, 
Istanbul 1146, 104), but was not definitely brought 
under subjection until 944/1537, by the Albanian 
Ayas Pasha [17.W.] in the reign of Sulayman the 
Magnificent (cf. Fr. Babinger, Rumelische Streifen, 
Berlin 1938, 9 ff.). The pentagonal castle, open 
towards the east, in the interior of which was the 
residence of the fort governor, a mosque, powder- 
magazine, and granaries, made a deep impression 
on the Ottoman globe-trotter. The largest mosque of 
that time was the Khunkar Djami'i, founded by 
Bayezld II, which has long since disappeared. 
Nothing has remained of all the Islamic places of 
worship of older times, with the exception of the 
mosque of HadjdjI Ahmed Agha built in 1269/1872. 
In 1913 Delvina came within the newly established 
principality of Albania, having formerly belonged 
to Greece (cf. L. von Thall6czy, Illyrisch-albanische 
Forschungen, i, Munich and Leipzig 1916, 360 
(Delvina in 1847), and ii, 240 (transfer to Albania); 
also Edith P. Stickney, Southern Albania 1912-1923, 
Stanford 1926, passim. 

Bibliography: In addition to references 
above: Rumeli und Bosna geographisch beschrieben 
von Mustafa Ben Abdalla Hadschi Chalfa, tr. 
J. von Hammer, Vienna 1812, 130 (whence the 
misspelling "Delonia"); M. F. Thielen, Die 
europdische Turkey, Vienne 1828, 58 ff. (also 
"Delonia"); Fr. Babinger in Karl Baedeker, 
Dalmatien und die Adria, Leipzig 1929, 250; 
Delvina was seldom visited and described by 
travellers, but cf. W. Leake, Travels in Northern 
Greece, i, London 1835; cf. here the important 
statements made by Frasheri, Kdmus al-aHdm, 
iii, Istanbul 1308/1889, 2153, with detailed in- 
formation on Delvina up to 1890. For the 17th 
century the most important source is Ewliya 
Celebi, Seydhatndme, viii, 668 ff . ; on the opposition 
of the Albanian population to the Ottomans at 
the end of the 15th century cf. Fr. Babinger, 
Das Ende der Arianiten, SBBayr. Ak., phil.-hist. 
Kl., i960, Fasc. 4, 19 ff., and the sources, mostly 
ms., there enumerated. On the Delvina basin cf. 
H. Louis, Albanien. Eine Landeskunde, Stuttgart 
1927, 9 ff., esp. 102. See further arnawutluk. 

(Fr. Babinger) 
DEMIRBASH, literally iron-head, a Turkish 
term for the movable stock and equipment, belonging 
to an office, shop, farm, etc. In Ottoman usage it was 
commonly applied to articles belonging to the state 
and, more especially, to the furniture, equipment, 
and fittings in government offices, forming part of 
their permanent establishment. The word Demirbash 
also means stubborn or persistent, and it is usually 
assumed that this was the sense in which it was 



DEM1RBASH — DENlZLl 



applied by the Turks to King Charles XII of Sweden. 
It is, however, also possible that the nickname is an 
ironic comment on his long frequentation of Turkish 
government offices. 

Bibliography: BSLP, 1960/1, xxxm. 

(Ed.) 
DEMIR KAPI [see dar-i ahanIn]. 
DEMNAT [see damnat]. 

DEMOKRAT PARTI, Turkish political party, 

registered on 7 January 1946. In the general elections 

held in July of the same year, the party put up 273 

candidates for 465 seats; sixty one of them were 

elected, forming the main opposition group. The 

first party congress, held on 7 January 1947, formally 

adopted the party programme and charter. As a 

result of various internal disagreements, notably the 

secession of a group of deputies who formed the 

National Party (Millet Partisi) in July 1948, the 

strength of the Democrat Party in the Assembly had 

fallen by 1950 to 31. Their influence in the country, 

however, continued to grow, and in the general 

election of May 1950 they won a clear majority. 

The Demokrat Parti now took over the government 

of the country, and remained in power for the next 

ten years. A series of cabinets was formed, Celal 

Bayar and Adnan Menderes retaining the offices of 

President and Prime Minister respectively. In the 

general elections of 1954 the D. P. won an increased 

majority, but in the election of 1957 they were able 

to win only a popular plurality, which, however, gave 

them a clear parliamentary majority over a divided 

opposition. After a period of mounting discontents 

the Demokrat Parti was ousted from power by the 

revolution of 27 May i960 (see tOrkiye, history). 

It was formally dissolved on 29 September i960. 

Bibliography : K. H. Karpat, Turkey's 

politics, the transition to a multi-party system, 

Princeton 1959, 408-31 and passim; Tank Z. 

Tunaya, Turkiyede Siyast Partiler, Istanbul 1952, 

646-92; B. Lewis, Democracy in Turkey, in ME A, 

x, 1959, 55-72; G. Lewis, Turkey: the end of the 

first Republic, in World Today, September i960, 

377-86 ; surveys of events in COC, ME A , ME J, OM. 

(Ed.) 
DEMOTIKA [see dimetoka]. 
DENEB [see nudjum]. 
DENIA [see daniya]. 

DENIZLI, chief t o w n of the wilayet of the same 
name, in south-western Anatolia. Situated in a 
fertile plain which has been inhabited since the 
earliest times, Defiizli in the 14th century replaced 
Ladik, the ancient Laodiceia ad Lycum, whose ruins 
stand at Eski Hisar, on the Ciiriik Su, a tributary 
of the Biiyiik Menderes, near the railway station 
of Gondjali, 9 km. from Denizli. Built in the 3rd 
century B.C. by the Seleucid Antiochus II on the 
site of the ancient Diospolis (Pliny, v, 105), Laodi- 
caea controlled an important meeting point of trade 
routes, and in Roman times was ranked as one of the 
principal towns of Phrygia (Strabo, xii, 578). Until 
the end of the nth century Laodicaea was Byzantine, 
but it was then disputed between the Comneni and 
the Saldjukid Turks who took possession of it on 
several occasions. Alexis I captured it from them 
in 491/1098 and held it temporarily (Anna Comnena, 
ed. Leib, iii, 27). In 513/1119, it was recaptured and 
fortified by John Comnenus (Cinn., 5; Nicetas, 17); 
although sacked in 553/1158 and 585/1189 by 
Turkish tribes who had settled at about that time 
in the district, it nevertheless remained in the hands 
of the Byzantines (Cinn., 198; Nicetas, 163, 523) 
until 602/1206, on which date Theodore Lascaris was 



forced to cede Laodicaea and Chonae (now Honaz) 
to Manuel Mavrozomes, father-in-law of Ghiyath 
al-DIn Kaykhusraw 1 (Nicetas, 842; Houtsma, Rec. 
de Uxtes rel. a I'hist. des Seldi., iii, 66-7; iv, 26). 
However in 655/1257 c Izz al-DIn Kaykawus II gave 
the town to Michael Palaeologus in order to secure 
his help against his brother Rukn al-DIn and the 
latter's allies, the Mongols; but the little Greek 
garrison could no longer hold out (Acropolitus, 
153-4) and two years later the town was once 
again in the hands of the Turcomans. It is at about 
this time, in eastern documents, that together with 
Ladik one first finds a mention of Tonuzlu; this 
name was later to be changed to Denizli, and it was 
to take the place of Ladik in the 14th century. In 
659/1261 the chief Turcoman of the district, Mehmed 
Beg — who must not be confused with the Karamanid 
of the same name who died in 675/1277, nor with 
Mehmed Beg Aydinoghlu who died in 734/1334 — 
rose in revolt against c Izz al-Din Kaykawus and 
conquered the district; then, refusing allegiance to 
the Saldjukid princes, he asked Hulagu for a charter 
of formal investiture for the towns of Tonuzlu, 
Khonas (Honaz) and TalamanI (Dalaman). Thus the 
first Turcoman principality of Denizli was founded, 
but it was short-lived: in 660/1262, at the request 
of Rukn al-Din, Hulagu marched against Mehmed 
Beg who was defeated and put to death. His son-in- 
law 'All Beg became chief of the Turcomans of the 
region, while the towns of Ladik and Kh5n5s were 
included in the possessions which were granted, in 
669/1271, to the sons of the vizier Fakhr al-DIn c Ali. 
It was, no doubt, in order to regain his independence 
that 'All Beg took part, in 675/1277, in the revolt of 
Djimri and Mehmed the Karamanid; but he was 
defeated by the sultan's army and put to death. 
However, as a result of the weakness of the central 
authority, the Tofiuzlu-Ladik region fell into the 
hands of the Turcoman amirs of Germiyan who in 
the last quarter of the 13th century seized the town 
of Kiitahya and lost no time in proclaiming their 
independence. According to the accounts of al- 
c Umari and Ibn Battuta who visited the town in 
730/1330 and 732/1332, Tofluzlu and the surrounding 
district were at that time in the hands of an amir 
of the Germiyan family, Ylnandj Beg. However the 
town, though still prosperous, lost its value owing 
to the conquests of the Turcoman amirs of Menteshe 
who, at the end of the 13th century, took possession 
of the sea-coast of Caria; Tonuzlu which was disputed 
between the amirs of Menteshe and the Germiyan 
thereby lost its position as a frontier post and could 
no longer remain the centre of a principality of any 
great importance. In 792/1390, the district of Tofiuzlu- 
Ladik was restored to the Ottoman empire at the 
same time as the amirate of Germiyan. Temporarily 
given back to the Germiyan by Timur who stayed 
in the town in the autumn of 1402, Tonuzlu served 
as a residence, in the reign of Bayezid II, for one of 
his sons; it was at that time the chief town of a liwd> 
attached to the eydlet of Anatolia. In the 17th 
century it was reduced to the rank of kada? attached 
to the sandiak of Kiitahya. It was at that time that 
the name Tonuzlu was replaced by Denizli, under 
which name the town was mentioned in the accounts 
of Ewliya Celebi and Katib Celebi. According to 
these travellers, Denizli was then divided into 24 
districts and included 7 mosques; a small fort 
protected the bazaar, whilst the population was 
housed outside the town proper, in gardens and 
fields; this situation still remains to the present day 
and, despite the allegations of European travellers 



DENiZLI — DERADJAT 






in the 19th century, it is not the consequence of the 
terrible earthquake which struck the town in 1702, 
when 12,000 people perished. Although Denizli has 
never managed to regain the position of importance 
it enjoyed in the Middle Ages, since the Republic was 
established it has once again become increasingly 
prosperous. In 1891 a railway line was built con- 
necting Denizli, via Gondjall, with the Izmir- 
Egridir line; Denizli, which since the end of the 
19th century had been the chief town of a sandjak 
attached to the wildyet of Aydln, after the Republic 
became the chief town of the wildyet of Denizli. The 
population consisted of 19,461 inhabitants in 1940 
(compared with 15,787 in 1927). Denizli now possesses 
a Lycee and is a centre for agricultural products 
(fruit, cereals, tobacco, cotton, sesame, poppy-seed) 
and handicraft industries (tanning, weaving, carpet- 
making). The remains of the ancient towns scattered 
about the region (ruins of Laodicaea, Hierapolis, 
Hydrela, Kolossai, Chonae) also make it an important 

Bibliography: Houtsma, Recueil, iii, 66-7, iv, 
26, 288-9, 3°8, 333; c Umari in Not. et Ext. des 
MSS de la Bibl. Nat., xiii, 358-9; Ibn Battuta, 
ed. Defremery and Sanguinetti, ii, 270-7; Ewliya 
Celebi, Seydhatndme, ix, Istanbul 1935, 192-5; 
Katib Celebi, Djihdnniimd, ed. Ibrahim Miiteferrika, 
Istanbul 1145/1732, 634; Pauly-Wissowa, xii, s.v. 
Laodikeia; W. M. Ramsay, The cities and bishoprics 
of Phrygia, i, Oxford 1895, 32-83; V. Cuinet, La 
Turquie d'Asie, iii, Paris 1894, 614-28; A. Phi- 
lippson, Reisen und Forschungen im westlichen 
Kleinasien, iv, Gotha 1914, 67-70, 85-107; I. H. 
Uzuncarsih, Kitabeler, ii, Istanbul 1929, 181-209; 
CI. Cahen, Notes pour Vhistoire des Turcomans d'Asie 
Mineure, in JA, ccxxxix (1951), 335-40; Besim 
Darkot, lA, iii, s.v. Denizli. (I. M£likoff) 
DEOBAND, in the Saharanpur district of Uttar 
Pradesh, is a place of great antiquity but its early 
history is shrouded in myth and romance. In one 
of the many groves which almost surrounds the site 
there is an ancient temple of Devi. On this account 
the name is supposed to be a corruption of Devi-ban, 
"forest of the goddess'. The earliest recorded reference 
to it is found in the AHn-i Akbari where Abu '1-Fadl 
refers to a fort of 'baked bricks in Deoband'. Monu- 
ments of earlier periods are, however, found in 
Deoband. The Chatta Masdjid is considered to be 
one of the oldest monuments of Deoband, dating 
back to the early Pafhan period. According to 
tradition, Shaykh 'Ala 3 al-DIn known as Shdh-i 
Djangal Bash, who lies buried here, was a pupil of 
Ibn al-Djawzi and a disciple of Shaykh Shihab al-DIn 
Suhrawardi. Some mosques and other buildings 
constructed during the reigns of Sikandar Lodi 
(894-923/1489-1517), Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605), 
and Awrangzlb (1068-1118/1658-1707) are still extant. 
Deoband is known to-day for its great seat of 
Muslim religious learning, the Ddr al-'Ulum, 
founded by Hadjdji Muhammad c Abid Husayn 
with the support of three eminent scholars in the 
Education Department, and to which Mawlawi 
Muhammad Kasim was appointed as patron-principal 
in 1282/1867. During the last 90 years this institution 
has attained an unrivalled place amongst Muslim 
religious institutions. It combines the characteristics 
of three different types of religious institutions which 
existed in Dihll, Lucknow and Khayrabad during the 
I3th/igth century. The institutions of Dihll empha- 
sized the teaching of tafsir and hadith; the insti- 
tutions of Lucknow [see dar al-'ulum, (c), (d)] 
took to fikh, while Khayrabad [q.v.] specialized 



in Him al-kaldm and philosophy. Deoband re- 
presents a synthesis of these three experiments, 
but its main emphasis has been on the traditions 
established by Shah Wall Allah and his Dihll 
school of muhaddithin. It attracts students from 
many different parts of the Muslim world. 
Residential accommodation is provided for nearly 
1500 students. The buildings of the Dar al-'Ulum 
comprise a mosque, a library, and a number of 
separate lecture halls for hadith, tafsir, fikh etc. Its 
library, though without a catalogue, is one of the 
biggest manuscript libraries in India. It comprises 
67,000 Arabic, Persian and Urdu books, both 
printed and manuscript. The system of instruction 
is traditional and the emphasis is more on building 
up a religious personality than on imparting know- 
ledge with a view to fulfilling the requirements of 
the modern age. The institution has, therefore, 
produced mainly religious leaders though its con- 
tribution in the political sphere cannot be ignored. 
Many of those associated with it have been in the 
forefront of the national struggle for freedom. The 
principal officers of the Dar al-'Ulum are: Sarparast 
(patron), muhtamim (secretary), Sadr mudarris 
(principal) and Mufti. Very eminent persons like 
Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Ganguhi, Mawlana Muham- 
mad Ya'kub, Mawlana Ashraf c Ali, Shaykh al-Hind 
Mahmud Hasan, Mawlana Anwar Shah Kashmiri 
and Sayyid Husayn Ahmad Madani have filled these 
posts. The present secretary, Mawlana Muhammad 
Tayyib is a grandson of the founder of the institution. 
The Djami'at 'Ulamd?-i Hind, a very influential 
organization of the Indian 'Ulama?, derives its main 
ideological strength from the Ddr al-'-Ulum. 

Bibliography: District Gazetteers of the United 

Provinces, ii (Lucknow 1921), 224-35; Sayyid 

Mahbub Ridwi, Ta'rikh-i Deoband, (Deoband 

1372 A.H.); Mawlana Muhd. Tayyab, Hdldt-i 

Ddr al-'-Ulum Deoband, (Deoband 1378 A.H.); 

G. M. D. Sufi, Al-Minhddj, (Lahore 1941); 

Muhammad Miyan, 'Ulamd'-i Hakk, Part I 

(MoradabSd 1939) 49 ft; S. M. Ikram, Mawdj-i 

Kawthar, Lahore n.d. ; Imdad Sabiri, Farangiyo 

ka dial, Dihll 1949, 177-89; W. Cantwell Smith, 

Modern Islam in India, London 1946, 294-7; 

Muhammad Ya'kiib Nanawtawi, Sawdnih 'Umari 

(Muhammad Kasim), Deoband n.d., 14-5; Husayn 

Ahmad Madani, Safamama Asir-i Malta..., 

Deoband n.d. (on the character and political 

activities of Shaykh al-Hind Mahmud Hasan, 

the first student and son of a co-founder) ; 

Mahbub Ridawi, Ddr al-'-Ulum Deoband ki ta'limi 

khususiyyat, Deoband n.d.; idem, Ddr al-'Ulum 

Deoband eh nazar me, Deoband n.d.; M. O'Dwyer, 

India as I knew it, 1855-1905, London 1925, 

178-81, 189; Manazir Ahsan Gaylanl, Sawdnih 

Kdsimi, Deoband n.d. (K. A. Nizami) 

DERABJAT, name of a tract lying between 

the River Indus to the east and the Sulayman 

Mountains to the west, including the modern 

districts of Dera Isma'il Khan and Dera Ghazi Khan. 

The name Deradjat is a supposed Persian plural of 

the Indian word dera, "tent, encampment", and 

means the "country of the deras", that is, of the three 

towns Dera Isma'il Khan, Dera Ghazi Khan, and 

Dera Fath Khan, founded by Baloc leaders in the 

early ioth/i6th century. (See balocistan). These 

three towns were all close to the R. Indus, and have 

been liable to damage by erosion; hence the modern 

towns show much rebuilding, especially Dera 

Isma'il Khan which was largely destroyed under 

Sikh rule. The mints of Deradjat and Dera under 



DERADJAT — DEREBEY 



the Durrani kings were at Dera Isma'il Khan and 
Dera GhazI Khan respectively; copper coins were 
also struck at Dera Fath Khan. Afghans form the 
most important element in the population, especially 
in the Daman or western part, and the Baloc are 
numerous in the south. (M. Longworth Dames*) 

DERBEND, a town of Daghistan {q.v.], called 
Bab al-Abwab [q.v.] by the Arabs in the Middle 
Ages. Only the modern period is described under 
this heading. 

Having belonged to Russia from 1722 to 1735, 
Derbend was restored to the Persians, and Nadir 
Shah attempted to restore to it its former importance ; 
but after the death of this sovereign it passed into 
the hands of the Mian of Kuba, Fath 'All (1765). 
Recaptured by the Russians in 1796, it was soon 
evacuated, to be ultimately occupied on 21 June/ 
3 July 1806. 

Under Russian domination the town has lost its 
former military importance. It has, however, 
retained traces of its past as a fortified town, care- 
fully preserved. Of the two walls which formerly 
enclosed the town and the citadel, the one most 
badly damaged is the south wall, now reduced to 
four gates and three towers, whereas the north wall, 
with its 8 gates and 30 towers, is still intact over 
almost all its length. 

To the north of the town lies the Arab cemetery 
of KIrklar, which dates from the 8th/i4th century. 
The old congregational mosque constructed in 
783/1381-2 out of a Christian church, several mosques 
of the 17th and 18th centuries, and a few very old 
caravanserais, remain practically intact. Remains 
of the old irrigation system bear witness to a very 
advanced technical civilization. 

The economic development of the old fortified 
city is very remarkable. It is favoured by a well- 
cultivated soil (supporting vines and fruit-trees), a 
sub-soil rich in petroleum and natural gas, the 
proximity of the sea which makes it an important 
fishing-port, and finally the Baku — Makhai — Kala 
railway which allows for the transport of merchandise 
and the multiplication of food industries which make 
use of the local produce. 

At the beginning of this century Muslims made 
up about 57 per cent of the population, against 18 
per cent of Russians, 16 per cent Jews, and 7 per 
cent Armenians. At that time there was a pene- 
tration of socialistic ideas under the influence on 
the one hand of the Bolshevik organizations of 
Tiflis and Baku, on the other of political exiles like 
I. V. Maligine and some others. The first agitators 
at Derbend were the Russian railway workers, whose 
rdle became apparent in the 1905 revolution. In 
December 1917 Soviet power was established in the 
town and entrusted to the workers' and soldiers' 
Soviet set up in the February revolution. From 
July 1918 to March 1920 the town was stricken with 
civil war; the power was in the hands of local 
nationalists ranged against the Bolsheviks, who had 
to appeal to the Red Army to establish their 
authority. Since the creation of the Republic of 
Daghistan, Derbend has become the capital of the 
district of that name, and in importance the second 
town of the Republic. In 1956 its population was 

Bibliography: W. Barthold, in Zapiski vost. 
old. Imp. Russkago Arkh. Obshl., xix, XI ff., 
073 ff.; xxi, IV ff.; idem, Derbend, in EI 1 ; 
E. I. Kazubskiy, Istoriya goroda Derbenta 1806- 
1906, Temir Khan Shura 1906; Abbas Kuli Agha, 
Gulistdn-i Iram, Baku 1926; M. I. Artamonov, 



Nastoyashliy Derbent, in Archlologie soviitique, 
1946; N. B. Baklanov, Pamyatniki Dagestana, 
viii, 1, Leningrad 1955. See also the Bibliography 

tO BAB AL-ABWAB. (H. CARRERE d'EnCAUSSE) 

DERDLI, iBRAHiM, Turkish folk poet (1186-1261/ 
1772-1845) born in Shahnalar, a forest village in the 
province of Bolu. At the death of his father, he tried 
his fortune in Istanbul but was soon forced to go- 
back to his native province. He then spent ten 
years in Egypt and travelled extensively in Anatolia 
where he became one of the leading poet-singers of 
the period. Again in Istanbul under Mahmfld II, he 
became a popular figure of the coffee-houses frequ- 
ented by folk poets and wrote his famous ka$ida on 
the fez, praising this newly introduced headgear, and' 
enjoyed for a short time the favour of the court. 
Falling into disgrace, he left Istanbul and wandered 
again in Anatolia and, after an unsuccessful attempt 
at suicide, died in Ankara. 

In his poems in l arud, written in an awkward 
language, he is an unskilled imitator of diwan poets, 
particularly of Fudull [q.v.]. His poems written in 
the traditional syllabic metre, though not perfect in 
language and style, echo in sincere tones his vagrant 
and nonchalant character, and reflect his endless 
sufferings in. his chequered life. 

Bibliography: Diwan, lithograph edition, 
1329/1913; Ahmet Talat, Afik Derdli, Hayatt- 
Divant, Bolu 1928 ; M. F. Koprulii, Turk Saz$airleri 
Antolojisi, xii, Istanbul 1940; Cahit Oztelli, 
Derdli ve Seyrani, Istanbul 1953. (FahIr Iz) 
DEREBEY, 'valley lord', the Turkish name 
popularly given to certain rulers in Asia Minor who, 
from the early I2th/i8th century, made themselves 
virtually independent of the Ottoman central 
government in Istanbul. The Ottoman historians 
usually call them mutaghallibe, usurpers, or, when a 
politer designation was needed, Khdneddn, great 
families. The derebeys became in effect vassal 
princes, ruling over autonomous and hereditary 
principalities. In time of war they served, with their 
own contingents, in the Ottoman armies, which 
came to consist to a large extent of such quasi- 
feudal levies. Though given, as a matter of form, 
such titles as muhassil and mutesellim, ostensibly as 
representatives of the titular governors, they were 
effectively independent within their own territories. 
Unlike the usurping pashas who had won similar 
autonomies in other Ottoman provinces, the Anatolian 
derebeys had deep local roots, and could count on 
powerful local loyalties. Being under no pressure, as 
were the pashas, to extract a quick return during 
a brief tenure of power, the;' were able to adopt more 
constructive policies, taking care for public security, 
the development of trade, and the well-being of 
their subjects, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. The 
travellers attest their good government, and the 
regard in which they were held by their people. The 
Porte found itself obliged to tolerate them and 
afford them some form of recognition, proceeding 
against them only if they openly rebelled against it. 
The war with Russia in 1182/1768-1188/1774 brought 
new opportunities, and helped to extend the derebey 
regimes over most of Anatolia. By the beginning of 
the 19th century only the eydlets of Karaman and 
Anadolu were still under direct administration by 
governors sent from Istanbul. During the reign of 
Selim III the derebeys reached the summit of their 
powers, and even began to play an important r61e 
in the affairs of the court and capital. Some of them, 
notably the Kara c Othman-oghlu and the Capan- 
oghlu, supported the reforms of Selim III, while 



DEREBEY 



their rivals the Djanlkli bitterly opposed them. 
While on the one hand the struggle between reform- 
ers and reactionaries in the capital was confused 
with the rivalries of the feudal chiefs, on the other 
the clash between the Capan-oghlu and the Djanlkli 
in central and eastern Anatolia assumed the appear- 
ance of a quarrel over the Sultan's New Order 
(see nizam-i djadId). Where the derebeys did apply 
the New Order [in their territories, they seem to 
have done so for their own purposes and to their 
own profit, using goverment money to strengthen 
their own armed forces. (For examples of abuse and 
corruption in the application of the New Order by 
the derebeys see c Asim, i, 111-3; cf. Akcura 140, 
MiUer 100-101). 

The leading derebeys played a role of some 
importance in the political struggles of 1807-8, and 
the victory of the Bayrakdar Mustafa Pasha seemed 
to consecrate their power. One of his first tasks, after 
becoming Grand Vezir, was to convene a great 
imperial assembly in Istanbul, to which he invited 
dignitaries of various types from all over the Empire. 
The great derebeys from Anatolia came to Istanbul 
in person, with large forces of armed retainers, and 
seem to have played a considerable part in the 
proceedings. A deed of agreement (Sened-i Ittifdk) 
confirmed their rights, privileges, and autonomies, 
which were now, for the first time, officially defined 
and ratified (Shanlzade, i, 66-73; Djewdet, Ta'rlkh?, 
ix, 3-7 and 278-83; Uzuncarsih, Alemdar, 138-44; 
Miller, 283-91. On the Sened-i Ittifdk see further 
A. Selcuk Ozcelik in Istanbul Oniv. Hukuk Fak. 



Mec. : 



1959. 



12). 



Sultan Mahmud II, who had thus been compelled, 
at the dawn of the 19th century, to recognize the 
privileges of a feudal baronage, was determined to 
end them; the 19th century provided him with the 
means. After the conclusion of the war with Russia 
in 1812, he turned his attention to the task of 
establishing the authority of the central government 
in the provinces. By a series of political, military, and 
police actions he overcame rebellious pashas and 
autonomous derebeys alike, and replaced them by 
appointed officials sent from Istanbul. (For the 
impressions of a contemporary Western observer see 
A. Slade, Record of travels in Turkey, Greece etc., i, 
London 1832, 215 ff.). The work of centralization 
was continued under his successors; the last major 
military expedition was that of 1866, sent to sub- 
jugate the surviving derebey dynasties in the 
Cukurova district, such as the Menemendji-oghlu, 
the Kokulii-oghlu, and the Kozan-oghlu of Kozan 
(Djewdet, Ma'riiddt, in TTEM, 14/91, 1926, 117 ff.). 
Though the autonomous principalities of the derebeys 
had disappeared, the term derebey remained part of 
the Turkish political vocabulary, used to designate 
large-scale hereditary landlords, especially in south- 
ern and eastern Turkey, who exercised quasi-feudal 
rights over their peasantry (see for example the 
remarks of K. H. Karpat in Social themes in 
contemporary Turkish literature, MEJ, i960, 34-5). 

The best known Derebey families were: 

1) The Kara 'Othman-oghlu of Aydln, Manisa, 
and Bergama; they ruled the sandjaks of Saruhan 
and Aydln and their influence extended from the 
Great Menderes river to the coast of the sea of 
Marmara. [See ijara 'othman- oghlu]. 

2) The Capan (Capar, Djabbar) -oghlu of Bozok, 
of Turkoman origin, practically contemporary with 
the Kara c Othman-oghlu. They ruled the sandjaks of 
Bozok (Yozgad), Kayseri, Amasya, Ankara, Nigde, 
and, at the height of their power, also controlled 



Tarsus. The first member of the family whose name 
is known was Ahmed Pasha, the mutasarrif of 
Bozok, who was deposed by order of the Porte in 
1178/1764-5. (Wasif, i, 233 ff., 268). He was succeeded 
by his son Mustafa Bey, who was murdered by his 
body-guard in 1196/1781 (Djewdet, Ta'rikh*, ii, 171-2) ; 
he in turn was followed by his brother Sulayman Bey, 
the most powerful of the Capan-oghlu, who played a 
r61e of some importance during the reigns of Selim III, 
Mustafa IV, and Mahmud II. After his death in 
1229/1814, his lands reverted to the direct authority 
of the Porte. Descendants of the family held high 
offices under the Sultans as governors and generals. 
One of them, Capanzade Agah Efendi (1832-1885), 
played a pioneer r61e in the development of Turkish 
journalism (see djarida). Another led an anti- 
nationalist band during the War of Independence. 
Their name survives in a Turkish proverbial 
phrase, with the meaning of a hidden snag. 

3) The family of C A1I Pasha of Djanik, in Trebizond 
and its neighbourhood. The founder of the family, 
Djanlkli c Ali Pasha [q.v.] was succeeded by his two- 
sons Mikdad Ahmed Pasha (executed in 1206/1791-2) 
and Husayn Battal Pasha (d. 1215/1801). After 
holding the offices of Kapldji-bashl, governor of 
Aleppo, and governor of Damascus, Battal Pasha 
became governor of Trebizond in 1202/1787-8. In 
1201/1787 he led his forces against Russia, but in 
1205/1790 was defeated and taken prisoner. The 
town of Battalpashinsk commemorates his name. 
After a period of disgrace, he was reappointed, thanks 
to Russian intercession, in 1213/1798-9. His elder son, 
Khavr al-Din Raghib Pasha* governor of Afyun Kara 
Hisar, was dismissed and executed in 1206/1791-2, 
when the independent political power of the Djaniklis 
ended. This family opposed the military reforms of 
Selim III, which were supported by their rivals the 
Capan-oghlu and the Kara c Othman-oghlu. Tayyai 
Mahmud Pasha, a younger son of Husayn Battal, was 
active against the reforms, and in 1805-7 was in 
exile in Russia. He returned to Turkey in 1807, and 
was appointed Ka'immakam to the Grand Vezir 
during the brief interval of reactionary rule under 
Mustafa IV. A few months later he was dismissed 
and executed by Mahmud II. 

These three were the most important derebey 
dynasties, and ruled in western, central, and 
eastern Anatolia respectively. Among lesser dyna- 
sties mention may be made of the Ilyas-oghlu of 
Kush Adasi (Scala Nuova, near Ephesus), who ruled 
the sandjak of Menteshe as far south as Bodrum 
from about the middle of the 18th century; the 
Kiiciik c AlI-oghlu, who ruled in Payas and for a 
while Adana, and the Yllanll-oghlu of Isparta and 
Eghridir, and the region of Antalya. 

Bibliography: The Ottoman chronicles pay 
some attention to the Derebeys, but tend to gloss 
over their independent status and represent them 
as servants of the Porte. More realistic information 
will be found in Western sources, notably in 
diplomatic and consular reports and in the 
writings of travellers and archaeologists. These may 
be supplemented, especially for names and dates, 
from the numerous local inscriptions. Some 
attention has been given to the derebeys in recent 
Turkish work on local history (as in the important 
studies of M. Cagatay Ulucay on Manisa), but the 
subject still awaits detailed examination. 

On the Kara-'Othman-oghlu, see Kgl. Museum, 
Altertumer von Pergamon, i, Berlin 1885, 84-91; 
F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the 
Sultans, ii, Oxford 1929, 597-603; C. Ulucay, 



DEREBEY — DERWlSH PASHA 



Raraosmano^ullartna ait bazt Vesikalar, in Tarih 
Vesikalart, ii, 1942-3, 193-207; 300-8; 434-40; 
idem, Manisa Vnliileri, Manisa 1946, 54-62; on 
the Capan-oghlu, J. Macdonald Kinneir, Journey 
through Asia Minor . . ., London 1818, 84 ff . ; 
Georges Perrot, Souvenirs d'un voyage en Asie 
Mineure, Paris 1864, 386 ff.; on the Djanikli, 
Djewdet, Ta'rikh 2 , iii, 144 ff.; iv, 29 f.; v, 133 ff., 
254 ff.; on the Ilyas-oghlu, P. Wittek, Das 
Fiirstentum Mentesche, Istanbul 1934, 109-110. 
In general, see Yusuf Akcura, Osmanlt Devletinin 
Dagtlma Devri, Istanbul 1940; I. H. Uzuncarsih, 
Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, Istanbul 1942; idem, 
Osmanlt Tarihi, iv/I, Ankara 1956, 318-9, 436-7, 
612-5; A. F. Miller, Mustafa Pasha Bayraktar, 
Moscow 1947; Gibb-Bowen, i/I, 193 ff.; B. Lewis, 
The Emergence of Modern Turkey, London 1961, 

38, 74, 441-2. (J. H. MORDTMANN-[B. LEWIS]) 

DERGAH [see dargah]. 
DERNA [see darn a]. 

DERSIM, area in eastern Anatolia: bordered on 
the north by the ranges of the Monzur Dagh (3188 m.) 
and the Mercan Dagh; on the west by the northern 
source of the Euphrates (the Kara Su) ; on the south 
by its southern source (the Murat Su); and on the 
east by its tributary, the Piri Su. The area is of 
a predominantly hilly character, and (in the country 
<listricts) inhabited by Kurds. At one time, Dersim, 
under the name of Cemishkezek (the capital at that 
time) was a liwd of the eydlet of Diyarbekir. Dersim 
became a wildyet temporarily in the 19th century, 
but in 1888 it came under the wildyet of Ma c muret 
al- c azlz (Harput) as a sandjak, with the capital 
Hozat and the kudo's Ovadjik, Cemishkezek, Car- 
sancak, Mazgird, Pertek, Kozican, Klzllkilise, and 
Pah. During the reorganization in the administration 
of the Turkish Republic, Dersim once more became 
a wildyet under the name of Tunceli [q.v.]. 

Towards the end of the 19th century, the sandiak 
of Dersim had 63,430 inhabitants, of whom 15,460 
were Sunni Turks, 12,000 were Kurds, 27, 
Klzll-Bash (Shi'is), 7,560 were Gregorian and 610 
Protestant Armenians. 

Bibliography: Katib Celebi, Qiihannumd, 
439; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, vol. ii, Paris 
1892, 384 ff.; Ch. Samy-Bey Fraschery, Ramus 
al-AHdm (Dictionnaire Universelle d'Histoire et 
de Glographie), iii, Istanbul 1308/1891, 2131 f.; 
Nasit Hakki Ulug, Derebeyi ve Dersim, Ankara 
1932. (Fr. Taeschner) 

DERVISH [see darwish]. 

DERWlSH PASHA (r-1012/1603)— the historian 
Pecewi refers to him (ii, 132) as Derwish Hasan 
Pasha — was born at Mostar in the Herzegovina and, 
in the reign of the Ottoman Sultan Sellm II (974-982/ 
1566-1574), entered the Palace service, where, in ' 
course of his education, he revealed an interest 
ability in literature and poetry. During the reign of 
Sultan Murad III (982-1003/1574-1595) he became 
one of the Imperial Falconers (doghandii) and < 
the favour of the Sultan through the kasides and 
ghazels which he presented to him. At the order of 
Murad III he rendered from Persian into Turkish 
verse the Shdhndme of the poet Bannal, giving 
his work the title of Murddndme. Derwish Agha ro 
to the rank of doghandjl bashi and, according 
Pecewi (ii, 132) acted as kapu ketkhudd of the Sultan. 
Pe£ewi (loc. cit.) describes him as a poet of force 
{shdHr-i metin) and a man who, in good qualities 
and knowledge, could vie with the greatest of the 
'ulemd*. It is possible that he did not go out from 
the Palace service until the reign of Mehemmed III 



(1003-1012/1595-1603). During the long war of 

1001-1015/1593-1606 between the Austrian Habs- 

burgs and the Ottomans Derwish Pasha was charged 

with the defence of the Hungarian fortress Istoni 

Belgrad (Stuhlweissenburg) in 1007/1599. He was 

at this time Beglerbeg of Bosnia. Derwish Pasha, 

again as Beglerbeg of Bosnia, shared also in the 

Ottoman reconquest (1011/1602) of Istoni Belgrad, 

which the Imperial forces had taken in the previous 

year (1010/1601). He was removed from the Begler- 

beglik of Bosnia in 1011/1602, the office being then 

given to Deli Hasan Pasha, hitherto one of the 

leaders of the Djelall rebels in Asia Minor. Derwish 

Pasha remained on the Hungarian front and fought 

in the campaign of 1012/1603, but was slain in 

battle near Pest on 4 Safar 1012/14 July 1603. 

Bibliography: Pedewi, Ta'rlkh, Istanbul A.H. 

1281-3, ii, 132, 228, 229, 271 ff.; Hadidji Khalifa, 

Fedhleke, Istanbul A.H. 1286-7, i. 126, 179, 198; 

Na'ima, Ta'rikh, Istanbul A.H. 1281-3, i, 226, 

227, 298, 330, 331; EwliyS Celebi, Seydhatndme, 

vi, Istanbul A.H. 1318, 211 ff.; Hammer-Purgstall, 

Histoire, vii, 557 and viii, 35; Wissenschaftliche 

Mittheilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina, i, 

Vienna 1893, 511; Sidjill-i '■Othmdni, ii, 329; 

Sadeddin Niizhet Ergun, Turk Sdirleri, iii, 1172 ff.; 

lA., s.v. Dervis Pasa (M. Cavid Baysun). 

(V. J. Parry) 
DERWlSH PASHA ( ? -1015/1606), Ottoman 
Grand Vizier, was of Bosnian origin. He served in 
the corps of Bostdndiis, becoming ketkhudd of the 
corps and then being raised, through the favour of 
the Walide Sultan, to the office of BostdndU basM in 
1013/1604. Derwish Pasha was set in charge of 
affairs at Istanbul, when Ahmed I visited Bursa in 
1014/1605. He was made Kapudan Pasha, with the 
rank of Vizier, in Ramadan 1014/January 1606 and 
became Grand Vizier in Safar 1015/June 1606. His 
tenure of the office was, however, brief, for the 
enemies whom he had made during his rapid rise to 
the Grand Vizierate so undermined the confidence 
which the Sultan reposed in him, that Ahmed I had 
him executed in Sha'ban 1015/December 1606. The 
Ottoman chroniclers describe Derwish Pasha as a 
harsh, unjust and incompetent man, but the English 
ambassador at Istanbul, Lello, took a much more 
favourable view of him and indeed refers to him 
(Lello-Burian, 27) as "the stouteste and pollitic- 
quest" of the Grand Viziers that he had known. 
Bibliography: Pecewi, TaMkh, Istanbul A.H. 
1281-1283, ii, 293, 294, 316, 319, 322, 324-9, 354; 
Hadidji Khalifa, Fedhleke, Istanbul A.H. 1286-7, 
i, 251, 271, 275-82, 288; Na'ima, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 
A.H. 1281-3, i, 407, 434, 441-53 passim and ii, 157; 
The Report of Lello, Third English Ambassador to 
the Sublime Porte, ed. 0. Burian (Ankara Univer- 
sitesi Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakiiltesi Yayinlan 
no. 83), Ankara 1952, 23-7, 29-32; Ambassade de 
Jean de Gontaut Biron. Correspondence Diplomati- 
que et Documents Inidits, 1605-1610, ed. Comte 
Theodore de Gontaut Biron, in Archives histori- 
ques de la Gascogne, fasc. 19, Paris 1889, 6, 7, 21, 
25-8, 33. 5o, 51, 55. 57. 61, 63, 66, 71, 78-84 passim, 
88, 90, 93-110 passim, 127; Hammer-Purgstall, 
Histoire, viii, 68, 92, 95-103 passim, 182; I. H. 
Uzuncarsih, Osmanlt Tarihi (Turk Tarih Kurumu 
Yayinlanndan, XIII Serf, no. i6 ! ), iii, Pt. 2, 
362-3; c Othman-zade Ta'ib, Hadikat al-wuzara'', 
Istanbul A.H. 1271, 54 ff.; Sidiill-i ^Othmdni, ii, 
329; Sami, Ramus al-A'ldm, iii, Istanbul A.H. 
1308, 2136; lA, s.v. Dervis Pasa (M. Cavid 
Baysun). (V. J. Parry) 



DERWlSH MEHMED PASHA 






DERWlSH MEHMED PASHA, (c. 993 '-1065/ 
1585 ?-i655), Ottoman Grand Vizier, was of Cerkes 
(Circassian) origin. As ketkhudd of Tabanl Yass! 
Mehmed Pasha, Grand Vizier (1041-6/1632-7) in 
the reign of Sultan Murad IV (1032-49/1623-40), 
he shared in the Eriwan campaign of 1044-5/1635 
against the Safawids of Persia and became there- 
after Beglerbeg of Sham, an appointment that 
he held, according to Ibn Djum'a, in 1046/1636-7. 
At the time of Murad IV's campaign against 
Baghdad in 1048/1638 he was Beglerbeg of Diyar- 
bekir, but in 1049/1639 became Beglerbeg of 
Baghdad, receiving soon afterwards the rank of 
Vizier. Derwish Mehmed Pasha remained at 
Baghdad for three years. During the course of his 
subsequent career he served as Beglerbeg of Aleppo, 
of Anadolu, of Silistria and of Bosnia. Appointed to 
Silistria for the second time in 1059/1649, Derwish 
Mehmed Pasha was given also a special assign- 
ment, i.e., command over the land defences of 
Canak-Kal'e Boghazl (the Dardanelles) with the 
object of driving off the naval forces of Venice, 
which, in the course of the Cretan War begun in 
1055/1645, were then blockading the Straits — a task 
that he accomplished with success in pjumada 1/ 
May 1649. There followed a second tenure of office 
as Beglerbeg of Anadolu in 1061/1651, at which time 
he was entrusted with the defence of Bursa against 
the threatening advance of the Djelall rebels in Asia 
Minor. Derwish Mehmed became Kapudan Pasha 
in 1062/1652 and then in Rabi' I 1063/M'arch 
1653 was raised to the Grand Vizierate, which he 
held thereafter until Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1064/October 
1654, when, disabled with paralysis, he was removed 
from office. Derwish Mehmed Pasha, noted as 
one of the wealthiest of the great Ottoman digni- 
taries of his time, died on 5 Rabi' I 1065/13 January 
1655 and was buried in the cemetery of the mosque 
of 'Atik 'All Pasha at Cemberlitash in Istanbul. 
Bibliography : Pecewi, Ta'rikh, Istanbul A.H. 
1281-3, 447; c Abd al-'Aziz Karacelebizade, 
Rawdat al-Abrdr, Istanbul A.H. 1248, 591, 592, 
599, 603, 634; HadjdjI Khalifa, Fedhleke, Istanbul 
A.H. 1286-7, ii, 167, 185, 186, 197-201 passim, 
205, 215-8 passim, 325, 343, 377, 381, 385-97; 
Na'Ima, Ta'rikh, Istanbul A.H. 1281-3, iii, 244, 
292. 295. 350, 351, 360, 367, 380, 420, 429, 431, 
432, 442-3; iv, 11, 73, 108, 227, 228, 380, 385, 
386, 390; v, 151, 162, 163, 208, 255, 275, 276, 
283 ft. passim, 304, 314, 324, 396 ff., 441-4; and 
vi, 22-9; Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire ix, 324, 
325, 356, 359, 362 and x, 24, 131, 217, 218, 303, 
305, 322-32 passim, 344, 347-52 passim, 357, 
390, 391 ; S. H. Longrigg, Four centuries of modern 
Iraq, Oxford 1925, 82, 109; H. Laoust, Les 
Gouverneurs de Damas sous les Mamlouks et les 
premiers Ottomans {6$&-ii$6\ii6o-i744). Traduc- 
tion des Annates d'Ibn Julun et d'Ibn Cum'-a 
(Institut Francais de Damas), Damascus 1952, 
206; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh Tarihi (Turk 
Tarih Kurumu Yayinlanndan, XIII Seri, no. i6«), 
iii/2, Ankara 1954, 406-8; 'Othmanzade Ta'ib, 
Ifadikat al-wuiard>, Istanbul A.H. 1271, 98 f..; 
Si&M-i 'Othmdni, ii, 331; SamI, Ramus al- 
AHdm, iii, Istanbul A.H. 1308, 2138; lA, s.v. 
Dervis Mehmed Pasa (M. Cavid Baysun). 

(V. J. Parry) 
DERWlfiH MEHMED PASHA (1142-91/1730- 
77), Ottoman Grand Vizier, son of Yaghlikc! ("oil- 
cloth merchant") Kadri Agha, was born in Istanbul in 
1 142/1730. (References to his having been born in 
1146/1733-4 are probably wrong.) Derwish Mehmed 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



Efendi entered the service of the State a: 
seal-keeper to the defterddr (treasurer) Behdjet 
Efendi. He then became dewdtddr (secretary or stew- 
ard) of Nalli 'Abdullah Pasha, Silahdar 'All Pasha 
and Sa'id Mehmed Pasha, in that order. Promoted 
defterddr keseddri (treasury cashier), he became 
finance clerk (mdliyye tedhkiredfisi) during the 
expedition of 1181/1768. On 22 Dh u '1-Ka'da 1185/ 
26 February 1772, while the army was camped at 
Shumnu (Shumen), he became defterddr of the first 
division (shikk). Although he left that post when 
the army returned to Istanbul, he was re-appointed 
to it on 6 Ramadan 1188/25 November 1774. On 
3 Safar 1189/5 April 1775 he became steward 
(kedkhudd) to the Grand Vizier, being finally 
appointed Gand Vizier himself on 7 Pjumada I 1189/ 
6 July 1775- 

Having in this way come to power in the period 
which followed the conclusion of the treaty of 
Kiiciik Kaynardja, Derwish Mehmed Pasha made 
use of the authority which Sultan 'Abd al-Hamid I 
was in the habit of granting to his Grand Viziers, to 
procure a pleasurable life for himself instead of 
trying to make good the damage suffered by the 
Empire during the war. The laxity of his conduct of 
State affairs combined with gossip about him led 
to his dismissal on 8 Dhu '1-Ka'da 1 190/19 December 
1776 and to his exile in Gallipoli. Nevertheless, he 
was appointed on 2 Muharram 1191/10 February 1777 
to be wall (governor) of Khanya (Canea in Crete). 
He fell ill, however, during his voyage out and died 
in Sakiz (Chios), being buried in the mosque of 
Ibrahim Pasha. Derwish Mehmed Pasha was a man 
of quiet disposition whose services to the State were 
negligible. Nevertheless, he built or, at least, 
repaired some pious establishments in Istanbul (in 
the districts of Eyyub and of Oskiidar-Scutari) , in 
Bursa and in Egypt. The fact that some of these 
were tekkes (tekyes) suggests that he had sufi 
sympathies. 

Bibliography: Wasif, Ta'rikh (Istanbul 1219 
A.H.) ii, 197 ff.; Djewdet Pasha, Ta'rikh (Istanbul 
1309 A.H.), ii, 11, 24, 49 ff. 70; iv, 246; Ahmed 
Pjawid, sequels to Hadi^at al-Wuzard' (published 
with latter) (Istanbul 1271) 27 ff. (tA) 

DERWlSH MEHMED PASHA (1178-1253/ 
1765-1837), Ottoman Grand Vizier, son of Riistem 
Agha from Anapoli (Nauplion) in Mora (Pelopon- 
nesus). He received his training as seal-keeper 
(muhurddr) of the Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha, also 
of Peloponnesian origin, thanks to whose protection 
he was appointed mir-i mirdn (Pasha of the second 
class) and sandiak-beyi. He became later tax- 
collector (muhasfil) of the liwd of Hamid, while in 
1232/1817 he served as mutasarrif (with the rank of 
wezir or Pasha) of Khudawendigar, Eskishehir and 
Kodja-ili. The most influential functionary in the 
Empire, Halet Efendi, wanted at that time to see a 
weak Grand Vizier and he, therefore, advised Sultan 
Mahmud II to appoint Derwish Mehmed Pasha, who 
became Grand Vizier on 27 Safar 1233/6 January 1818. 
During his two-year tenure of office Derwish 
Mehmed Pasha did not succeed in imposing his 
authority: he was even unable to ensure the security 
of Istanbul, where he refrained from punishing the 
gang leaders, preferring instead to propitiate every 
one. Although this conduct was agreeable to the 
leading functionaries and particularly to Halet 
Efendi, the Sultan realized the Grand Vizier's 
impotence, but chose to keep him for some time in 
order to safeguard the honour of the office. Finally 
on 19 Rabi' I 1235/5 January 1820 the Sultan 



DERWISH MEHMED PASHA — DEVSHIRME 



dismissed him and banished him to Gallipoli. On 
ii Rabl c II 1236/16 January 1821 he was appointed 
nevertheless, governor of Damascus with additional 
jurisdiction over the liwd of Nablus and with the 
additional function of amir al-hadjdi (official 
responsible for the pilgrims). In this capacity he 
quarrelled with 'Abdullah Pasha, the wall of 
Sayda (Sidon), whom he besieged in Acre in 
accordance with the orders of the Sublime Porte. 
When, however, the latter was pardoned, Derwish 
Mehmed Pasha was transferred to the eydlet 
(province) of Anatolia, where the tyrannical be- 
haviour of his son-in-law Hamdi Bey led to com- 
plaints by the people of Kutahya (Cotyleaum), as 
a result of which Derwish Mehmed Pasha was 
dismissed, stripped of the rank of wezir, deprived of 
his property and exiled to Afyun-JJara-Hisar, 
whence he was later transferred, at his own request, 
to Bursa. In Rabi c I 1253/June 1837 he was ap- 
pointed Shavkh al-IJaram (governor of Medina), 
but died (in Ramadan/December of the same year) 
at Yanbu' on his way there. 

A man of weak and kindly temperament, Derwish 
Mehmed Pasha is one of the least forceful of the 
Ottoman Grand Viziers. Some pious works in Bursa 
and in Istanbul are ascribed to him. 

Bibliographic : Shanlzade 'Ata'ullah Efendi, 

Ta'rikh (Istanbul 1290-1 A.H.) ii, 304, 331, 356 ff.; 

iii, 88 ff., 149; Djewdet Pasha, Ta'rikh (Istanbul 

1301 A.H.), xi, 38, 72, 80; xii, 23, 84 ff., 125; 

Lutfi Efendi, Ta'rikh (Istanbul 1302 A.H.), v, 

88 ff.; Rif'at Efendi, Ward al-Ifad&Hk (lith. 

Istanbul), 15. (M. CAviD Baysun) 

DESTOUR [see dustur]. 

DEVE BOYNU, literally "camel's neck", a 
Turkish geographical term used to designate certain 
mountain passes and promontories. The most 
celebrated mountain pass known as Deve Boynu 
is that between Erzurum [q.v.] and Hasan-Kal'e, 
which played an important part in the defence of 
Erzurum. The transit road leads from Trebizond 
(tarabzun, [q.v.]) to Iran, and the Erzurum-Kars 
railway passes through it (see F. B. Lynch, Armenia 
Travels and Studies, 1898, London 1901, ii, 194 ft.; 
E. Nolde, Reise nach Innerarabien, Kurdistan und 
Armenien, 1895, 260 ff.). Another pass known as 
Deve Boynu is situated near Goldjiik and is crossed 
by the Elaziz-Ergani (Diyar-Bakr, [q.v.]) road (see 
Hommaire de Hell, Voyage en Turquie, iv, 83; 
E. Chaput, Voyages d'itudes giologiques et giomor- 
phoginiques en Turquie, 193 ff.). There are other 
passes (between Gaziantep ('Ayntab, [q.v.]) and 
Besni in the Raradagh mountains) and villages 
(e.g. between Elbistan and Goksu) known by that 
name. Other similar place-names are Deve Gecidi 
("Camel Pass"), a village and valley north-west of 
Diyar-Bakr; Deve Cayin ("Camel pasture"), a 
village west of Gurun; Deve Tepesi ("Camel hill"), 
a peak in the Bulgar Daghl mountains, see T. 
Kotschy, Reise in den Kilik. Taurus, 1858, 201); 
Develi ("connected with camels"), name of inhabited 
localities and a mountain. Similar place-names 
occur in Syria and 'Irak. In ancient Assyria Gauga- 
mela (Aramaic Gab Gamela,) where the famous 
battle was fought, meant "camel's back" (Pauly- 
Wissowa, vii, 865, s.v. Gaugamela). Piri Rels 
mentions three promontories known as Deve Boynu 
on the Aegean coast of Anatolia (Kitdb-i Bahriyye, 
140, 151, 240). Modern maps show another pro- 
montory known as Deve Boynu at the western tip 
of the Dadya peninsula, and there is also a Deve 



Boynu promontory on the southern coast of Lake 
Van [q.v.]. . (Besim Darkot) 

DEVEDJI, a Turkish word meaning cameleer, the 

name given to certain regiments of the corps of 

janissaries [see yeni ceri], forming part of the 

Djemd^at, and performing escort duties with the 

supply columns. They were also called by the Persian 

term shuturbdn. The Devedjis originally formed the 

first five ortas of the Djema'at (four according to 

D'Ohsson), and were later augmented to include 

many others. They wore heron's feathers in their 

crests (see sorcu6) ; when attending the diwdn they 

wore velvet trimmed with sable and lynx fur. 

Devedji officers enjoyed high precedence among the 

ortas. According to Marsigli, the captains of the first 

five ortas were always preferred to the command of 

garrison centres. Their chief, the Bashdevedji, 

ranked high in the ladder of promotion, after the 

Khasseki Agha and above the Yaya-bashI [qq.v.]. 

Bibliography: Marsigli, L'Etat militaire de 

VEmpire ottoman, The Hague 1732, i, 72 ; D'Ohsson, 

Tableau gineral de I'empire othoman, vii, Paris 

1824, 343; Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire, iv, 217, 

436; idem, Staatsverfassung, ii, 209; Ahmed 

Djewad, Ta'rikh-i <Askeri-i c Othmdni, Istanbul 

1299 A.H./ 12 etc.; I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh 

Devleti teskildttndan Kaptkulu Ocaklart, i, Ankara 

1943, index; Gibb-Bowen i/I, 321-2. 

(B. Lewis) 
DEVELI SARA HISAR [see Kara HisAR]. 
DEVSHIRME, verbal noun of T. devshir- 'to 
collect' (with various spellings, cf. TTS s.v. dersur- 
mek), Ottoman term for the periodical levy of 
Christian children for training to fill the ranks of the 
Janissaries (see yeni 6eri) and to occupy posts in 
the Palace service and in the administration (Gr. 
7rai8ofi.<££cofi.a). The same verb is used in the earliest 
Ottoman sources (Giese's Anon. 22, 1. 12 = Urudj 22, 
1. 4) for the 'collection' of the fifth part of prisoners 
from the ddr al-harb due to the Sultan as pendfik 
[q.v.], from whom, according to tradition, the 
Janissary corps was first raised in the early years of 
the reign of Murad I ; but the date of the institution 
of the devshirme in its narrower sense of a levy of 
dhimmi children is still uncertain (Idris Bidlisi's 
attribution of it to Orkhan is certainly anachronistic, 
although, having been followed by Sa'd al-Din and 
Hammer, it long enjoyed general acceptance). The 
earliest contemporary reference to the devshirme so 
far known appears in a sermon preached in 1395 (i.e., 
in the reign of Bayezid I) by Isidore Glabas, the 
metropolitan of Thessalonica, lamenting the 'seizure 
of the children by the decree of the amir' ('OfiiXta 
TOpl Tffi 'ap^ay/)? tgSv 7rai8£tov xara to too 
i(i.i)pa i-Rlxayyux, first noticed by O. Tafrali, in 
Thessalonique au XIV'"™ Steele, 1913, 286 f., and dis- 
cussed by S. Vryonis Jr. in Isidore Glabas and the 
Turkish Devshirme in Speculum xxxi, 1956, 433-43) ; 
the second oldest appears in Sinan Pasha's letter, of 
1430, to the inhabitants of Ioannina, promising them 
if they submitted exemption from macjiov 7rai8tcov 
(cf. K. Amantos, in 'EXXi)Vix<£ ix, 1936, 119). 
Bartholomaeus de Jano, in his letter written in 1438, 
says (Migne Patr. Graec. vol. 158, col. 1066): 
'[Murad II] decimam puerorum partem de Christianis, 
quod prius numquam fecerat (sic, not fuerat as in EI 1 ), 
nuper accepit . . .', which has been interpreted as 
indicating that it was Murad II who introduced the 
devshirme; however in the light of Isidore Glabas's 
reference it seems rather that Murad re-introduced 
it, perhaps after it had been suspended in the years 
of confusion following the battle of Ankara (as is 



DEVSHIRME 



stated by c Ata I 33) and as part of his re-organization 
of the Janissaries (Sphrantzes 92). 

Although Idris Bidlisi maintained, on the ground 
that most of the dhimmis had been conquered by 
force (be-'anwa), that the devshirme was in accordance 
with the shar', this argument seems not to have 
commended itself to Sa c d al-Din (cf. V. L. Menage in 
BSOAS, xviii, 1956, 181-3), and the devshirme does 
appear in fact to have been an infringement of the 
rights of the dhimmis (see dhimma). It has been 
suggested however that a justification of the 
devshirme might have been drawn from the Shafi'I 
doctrine that Christians converted since the Descent 
of the Kur'an (and hence most of the rural population 
of the Balkans, but not the Greeks) were not entitled 
to the status of dhimmi (cf. P. Wittek, Devshirme and 
Shari'-a, BSOAS, xvii, 1955, 271-8). 

With certain exceptions (see below) all the 
Christian population of the European domains of the 
Empire, and later the Asiatic domains as well, was 
liable to the devshirme. In the 16th century, the 
devshirme was entrusted to a Janissary officer, 
usually a yaya-bashi (for the ranks eligible for this 
duty cf. I. H. Uzuncarsili, Kapukulu Ocaklari, i 
[hereafter KkO], 15), who went to the district where 
the levy was to be made, accompanied by a kdtib, 
and taking with him a letter from the Agha of the 
Janissaries, a berdt of authorization, and (according 
to Navagero [see Bibl.]) a supply of uniforms. In 
each kadd criers summoned the children to gather, 
accompanied by their fathers and by the priests, who 
brought the baptismal registers. Under the super- 
vision of the kadi and the sipdhis, or their represen- 
tatives, the officer selected the best of the children 
of the ages eligible. The age-limits reported in Euro- 
pean accounts vary greatly, from as low as eight 
years old to as high as 20 (cf . Lybyer 48) ; relatively 
late Ottoman documents (of 1601, 1621, 1622 and 
1666) prescribe the limits 15-20 (KkO, 95,98; A. E. 
Vakalopoulos [see Bibl] 286 f.). For each group of 
100-150 children two registers were made, listing 
their names, parentage, ages and descriptions; one 
remained with the recruiting-officer, the other went 
with the surudiu ('drover') who conducted the 
impressed children to Istanbul (see especially 
documents in KkO, 92-7). The local re c dyd were 
obliged to pay a special tax to meet the cost of the 
uniforms (KkO, 17 f., 22 n.). 

On arriving in Istanbul the children were inspected 
both for their physique and for their moral qualities 
as revealed by the science of Physiognomy (kiydja, 
[q.v.] ; cf . C AH, Kiinh, v, 14 f . ; id., MevdHdii'n-Nefd'is, 
Istanbul 1956, 21 ; Postel, iii, 3). The best were taken 
directly into the Palace service or distributed to high 
dignitaries; the rest were hired (for 25 aktes a head, 
according to Navagero [1553]: one ducat according 
to Busbecq; two ducats according to KoSi Beg) to 
Turks in Asia Minor, and later — already by the 
middle of the 16th century [Navagero, Busbecq, 
Chesneau] — in ROmeli as well, to work on the land 
for some years, learn Turkish and assimilate Muslim 
ways (the term for this training period was Turk 
Uzerinde olmak, cf. KkO, 115 ff.). The lads were called 
in as required to fill vacancies in the 'adjami odjak 
(see 'adjam! oghlan). 

In principle the devshirme was not applied to 
children of townsfolk and craftsmen, as being 
sophisticated and less hardy than peasant lads 
(KkO, 18, 39), though these rules were often abused: 
devshirmes were levied regularly in Athens in the 
middle of the 16th century (cf. the chronicle in 
Ecthesis Chronica, ed. S. Lampros, 1902, 86). As 



married lads were not taken, the Christian peasantry 
often married their children very young (Gerlach, 
306). Regions which had submitted voluntarily to the 
Ottomans seem to have been exempt from the 
devshirme (cf. Des Hayes): certainly exemption is 
specified among the terms granted, for example, to 
Galata (cf. E. Dalleggio d'Alessio in 'EXXijvixei xi, 
1939, 115-24), Rhodes (cf. Charriere, Negotiations, 
i, 92; Fontanus in Lonicerus [1584 ed.] i, 423) and 
Chios (cf. P. Argenti, Chins Vincta, 1941, cxliii, 
208 ff.). The inhabitants of Istanbul, perhaps as 
being townsfolk, were in practice not liable (Gerlach 
48; and cf. the story in the Historia Patriarchica 
[Bonn ed. 167, discussed by J. H. Mordtmann in 
BZ, xxi, 1912, 129-144] that Mehemmed II had 
granted them amdn). Moldavia and Wallachia were 
never subject to the devshirme (Cantemir, 1734 ed., 
38, and cf. KkO, 14 n., Jorga, iii, 188) ; the Armenians 
seem to have been exempt at first (Thevet, 799 b, 
but cf. KkO, 17), but were so no longer in later years 
(Kocl Beg). Freedom from the devshirme, temporary 
or permanent, was also included occasionally among 
the exemptions from taxes and c awdrid granted to 
various groups of re'dyd in return for services 
rendered directly to the State, e.g., miners, guardians 
of passes and dwellers on main roads, or to some 
dwellers on wakf-lands (KkO, 109-14; 6. L. Barkan, 
Kanunlar, 72, 85; relazione of Garzoni [1573] in 
Alberi, 3rd ser., i, 396); these exemptions were 
strictly checked and liable to be withdrawn (KkO, 
97-101). 

The Muslims of Bosnia were in a special position. 
According to a late Ottoman source (Sham'dani-zade. 
MarH al-tawdrikh, Istanbul 1338, 454) the Christian 
population embraced Islam en masse upon the 
Ottoman conquest in 867/1463, but requested that 
their children should nevertheless be eligible for the 
devshirme. Though the Islamization of the peasantry 
was not in fact instantaneous (cf. B. Djurdjev, bosna, 
1265 b above), there is a record of a recruitment of 
1000 lads for the Janissaries from the Muslim popula- 
tion of Bosnia and Herzegovina as early as 921/1515 
(Feridun 2 , i, 472). Here the converted Bosnians are 
called Poturndk (cf. A. V. Soloviev, in Byzantion, 
xxiii (1953), 73-86); they are called Potur tdHfesi in 
a document of 981/1573 (KkO, 103), and the recruited 
lads Potur oghullari in a document of 998/1589 
(KkO, 108), which defines them as 'circumcised but 
ignorant of Turkish', and which warns the beylerbey 
against recruiting boys who are 'TUrkleshmish', i.e., 
Turkish-speaking. An undated list preserved in the 
Topkapu archives (published by R. M. Meric in 1st. 
Enst. Dergisi, iii, 1957, 35-40) gives the names and 
descriptions of 60 boys (whose ages range from 13 to 
19) recruited from the kadd of Yenipazar; the names 
show that 44 of them are Muslim-born and 16 
Christian-born, the latter being identified both by 
their (new) Muslim names and by their (former) 
Christian names. It is said that these Muslims of 
Bosnia were not distributed for training, but mostly 
drafted straight into the Palace or into the odiak of 
the bostdndjis, [q.v.] (KkO, 19, referring to the 
Kawdnin-i Yeniceriydn, a work composed under 
Ahmed I— see Bibl.). 

Many of the European reports suggest that the 
devshirme was made at regular intervals, estimates 
ranging from every five years to annually (references 
in Zinkeisen, iii, 216 and Lybyer, 51). More probably 
it took place on an ad hoc basis according to need — 
infrequently in the reign of Mehemmed II, when the 
Janissaries were relatively few and pendjik prisoners 
abundant (cf. Cippico [1472] in Sathas, Docs, in- 



DEVSHIRME 



idits . . ., vii, 281: 'se non possono avere prigioni' = 
Basle ed. 1544, ii, 51; Iacopo de Promontorio-de 
Campis [ca. 1480I ed. Fr. Babinger, 1957, 36 
'manchandoli [i.e., prisoners] preda rape de figlioli de 
christian* subditi soi'), then at more and more 
frequent intervals throughout the 16th century, 
until at the end of the century the ranks of the 
Janissaries were in effect opened to all comers; 
thereafter, when recruitment was no longer dependent 
upon the devshirme, levies were spasmodic. 

Again, many reports maintain, erroneously, that 
the devshirme officials recruited a fixed proportion 
of children, often stated to be a 'tithe', though 
estimates range as high as one in five (Spandugino, 
Thevet) and even one in three (anon, report of 1582 
in Alberi, 3rd ser., ii, 245; Palerne [also 1582I). 
A fermdn, said to be of the early 16th century {KkO, 
92 ff.) shows that — at that time, at least — the 
number of boys to be levied was calculated before- 
hand on the basis of one boy (aged 14 to 18) from 
every 40 households. 

Reports of the numbers taken also vary greatly, 
Postel's being as high as 10-12,000 a year. According 
to Gerlach (34) a devshirme of 1573 (documents in 
KkO, 103 ff. show that it covered both Rumeli and 
Asia Minor) produced 8000 boys. Sa c d al-DIn cal- 
culated that in the 200 years and more that it had 
been in force the devshirme had produced over 
200,000 converts to Islam (i, 41), i.e., an average of 
1000 a year, which is the figure given by Sham'dani- 
zade (loc. cit.). However, there was much abuse by 
the recruiting officers, who levied more children 
than their warrants permitted, selling the surplus 
for their private profit (Spandugino) ; they also grew 
rich on bribes, both from Christians who bought their 
children off, and from non-Christians who smuggled 
their children in (Gerlach, 48, 306; Roe, Negotiations, 
534; SelanikI 263 f., referring to the devshirme of 
998/1589-90, for which cf. the documents in KkO, 
102 f.). 

When the devshirme was extended to Asia Minor 
is not clear. In 1456 the Greeks of the west coast 
appealed to the Grand Master of Rhodes for help 
against the Turks 'who take (Ttepvouv) our children 
and make Muslims of them' (Miklosisch and Miiller, 
Acta, iii, 291), but this complaint may refer only to 
piracy. Trabzon was liable to the devshirme at 
various times throughout the ioth/i6th century 
{KkO, 15 n., 19); it may be that the devshirme was 
extended from this (formerly Christian) district over 
the rest of Asia Minor. Kartal had been subject to 
the devshirme before 945/1538 {KkO, inf.); the 
sandjaks of Sis and Kayseri were visited shortly 
before 972/1564 {KkO, 126), and the districts of 
Bursa, Lefke and Iznik before 984/1576 — the year 
in which Gerlach visited Ulubad and found it liable 
to the devshirme (257). In 981/1573-4 there was an 
extensive devshirme not only in Rumeli but also in 
the area Begshehri-Mar'ash and around Biledjik 
{KkO, 103-6, 127), no doubt that which, according 
to Gerlach (34), brought in 8000 boys in January 
1574. The devshirme reached as far as Batum in 
992/1584 {KkO, 107), and in 1032/1623 almost the 
whole of Asia Minor was covered {KkO, 94 ff. and 
cf. 22 n.) ; in the latter year, that following the 
murder of Sultan 'Othman, Greece too was visited 
'to fill the seraglio' (Roe, Negotiations, 534)- 

By the beginning of the nth/i7th century, the 
ranks of the Janissaries had become so swollen with 
Muslim-born 'intruders' that frequent recruitments 
by devshirme were no longer necessary. Although 
5 Lithgow {Rare Adventures, 1906, 106 



and 149) the devshirme was 'absolutely abrogated' 
by Ahmed I, levies were made throughout the 
century, but sporadically: according to the relatione 
of Foscarini (1637) there had then been no levy for 
twelve years (Barozzi-Berchet, v/ii, 86). There was 
a devshirme however in the next year, 1048/1638 
(Fedhleke, ii, 211), and it was not, as Hammer 
believed (GOR, v, 244, and hence Zinkeisen, iv, 166), 
the last; for according to Rycaut {Present State, i, 
ch. 4) the Janissary leader Bektash Agha demanded 
(in 1661/1651) that henceforth the 'yearly' collection 
of children should be abolished, and only the children 
of Janissaries be admitted 'for the service of the 
Grand Signior' ; and Ewliya Celebi (i, 598) speaks of 
a devshirme in Rumeli every 7 years, when 7-8,000 
boys were collected at (jskiib, brought to Istanbul, 
and placed directly into the various odiaks (the 
preliminary training in Anatolia evidently being by 
now abandoned, cf. KkO, 24 f.). Rycaut found that 
in his time (he was in Istanbul from 1660) the 
devshirme was 'in a great part grown out of use' 
(op. cit., i, ch. 18) and 'wholly forgotten' (iii, ch. 8); 
so too Quirini (1676) reported that there had been 
no devshirme since 1663 (Barozzi-Berchet, V/ii, 160, 
and cf. Hammer GOR, vii, 555), and Morosini (1680) 
spoke of it as taking place only every twenty years 
or so (op. cit., 219); article 3 of the Ottoman-Polish 
treaty of Buczacz (1083/1672) provided that the 
inhabitants of Podolia would be exempt 'if a 
devshirme is ordered' (Rashid*, i, 285), a phrase 
implying that the practice was by then irregular and 
infrequent. All the same there were devshirmes in 
1666 (Vakalopoulos, 286) and 1674 (Hammer- 
Purgstall, GOR, vi, 299), the latter at least intended 
only to recruit staff for the Palace. Very shortly 
after his accession in 1115/1703 Ahmed III ordered 
that the turbulent bostdndjis should be enrolled in 
the Janissaries and 1000 devshirme boys be collected 
to replace them (Rashid 8 , iii, 88 f., Hammer- 
Purgstall, GOR, vii, 91); there may be a connexion 
between this and an attempt to carry out a devshirme 
in Greece in April 1705 (Vakalopoulos, 292). This is 
the latest record of a devshirme so far known, though 
Uzuncarsili has found a berdt of n 50/1 738 exempting 
a Christian subject from taxes and his son from the 
devshirme (KkO, 68 f.). 

Bibliography (further to references given in 
the text): Zinkeisen, iii, 215-230, which is based 
mainly on the Venetian reports in Alberi (the 
most circumstantial being that of Navagero [1553!, 
Alberi, 3rd ser., i, 48 ff.) and Gerlach's Tagebuch, 
34, 48, 306; J. H. Mordtmann, dewshirme in EI 1 
(1912) and references there (most of which have 
been incorporated above); Ko£l Beg, 1st. 1303, 
27 f. = tr. Bemhauer, ZDMG, xv, 284 = 1st. 
1939, 28; A. H. Lybyer, The Government of the 
Ottoman Empire . . ., 191 3, 49 ff.; F. W. Hasluck, 
Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 1929, ii, 
484 ff.; W. L. Wright, Ottoman Statecraft, 1935, 
index; Barnette Miller, The Palace School of 
Muhammad the Conqueror, 1941, 74 ff-, 174'-; 
D. Pephanes, T6 IIat8o[X(i^{i)(xa, Athens 1948 
(not seen); Gibb-Bowen, index; J. A. B. Palmer, 
The Origin of the Janissaries, in Bull, of the John 
Rylands Library, xxxv, 1953, 448-481 ; A. E. Vaka- 
lopoulos, npopXyjixara ty)? ta-ropta? tou nat- 
8o|ia£co[/.aTOS, in 'EXXy)vix<x xiii, 1954. 274-293- 
References in European travel-books etc. must 
be treated with caution, for authors frequently 
borrow without acknowledgement from their 
predecessors: thus the reference in Rycaut 
(Present State, i, ch. 10) to an annual devshirme of 



DEVSHIRME — DHABlHA 



213 



2000 boys mostly from the Morea and Albania 
derives, presumably via Withers, from Bon 
(Barozzi-Berchet, v/i, 77), who was writing 60 
years earlier, as does that in Baudier, and the 
account in B. de Vigenere's Illustrations (1650 ed., 
col. 49) largely from Postel. The following refe- 
rences seem to be independent: Spandugino, 
Petit TraicU, ed. Schefer 1896, 102 ff., 144 f., = 
Sathas, Documents inidits, ix, 212 f., 225; J. 
Chesneau, Le Voyage de M. d'Aramon, ed. Schefer 
1887, 44 f.; A. Geuffroy, Briefve Description 
(appendix to preceding) 242 f.; G. Postel, De la 
ripublique . . ., 1560, iii, 22 ff.; A. Thevet, Cos- 
mographie Universelle, 1575, 799 b, 808 b, 817 b 
(engraving); N. de Nicolay, Navigations, 1568, 
79 ff.; S. Schweigger, Neue Reysbeschreibung, 1608, 
168 ff.; Busbecq, De Acie . . ., 1581, 152 f. = Eng. 
tr. by N. Tate, 1694, 400 f.; J. Palerne, Peregrina- 
tions, 1606, 412 f., 502 f.; H. de Beauvau, Relation 
Journaliere, 1619, 68; L. Des Hayes, Voiage de 
Levant, 1624, 137 ff. 

These accounts can be controlled from the 
archive-material given by I. H. Uzuncarsili in 
Osmanh Devleti teskildtmdan Kapukulu Ocaklart, 
i, 1943, 1-141 (this includes nearly all the documents 
published by Ahmed Refik in Edebiyydt Fakiiltesi 
Medjm&asl, v, 1926, 1-14, and on it is based 
I. H. Uzuncarsili's article Devsurae in I A); 
Uzuncarfih refers frequently to a work K awdnin-i 
Yenileriyan in his private library : this seems to be 
identical with the work, composed under Ahmed I, 
which is described in 1st. Kit. Tarih-Cografya 
Yazmalan Kataloglan, i/10, 813 (MS Esad Ef. 
2068) and of which MS Revan 1320 contains 
another copy (cf. L. Forrer in Isl., xxvi, no. 62). 

(V. L. Menage) 
DEWLET [see dawla]. 
DEY [see day!]. 

CHABllJA: a victim destined for immolation 
according to Muslim law, in fulfilment of a vow, 
nadhr, for example, or for the sacrifice of 'akika, or 
on the occasion of the feast of the 10th day of Dh u 
'1-hidjdja (then called dahiyya), or in order to 
make atonement for certain transgressions committed 
during the hadidf (the victim in this case being 
known as hadi). 

This dhabiha must be slaughtered according to a 
strict ritual known as dhaka'a. Its form does not 
differ from the ritual slaughter of animals permitted 
as food: hence it is with this type of slaughter that 
we shall now concern ourselves. The differences 
between the various schools of law in this regard are 
comparatively unimportant. However, on this 
question, as with the rest of fifth, in order to adopt 
not only a theoretical but also a sociological point ot 
view, it would be necessary to show what the actual 
practice on this matter has been throughout the 
world of Islam as whole. On this subject we shall 
limit ourselves to a single observation. 

The matter is briefly referred to in the Kur'an 
(v, 4, vi, 147) and dealt with at greater length in 
the collections of traditions and the texts of fifth. 
1. What animals are proper subjects for ritual 
slaughter? The list does not coincide exactly with 
that of the animals that are permissible as food. For 
in the first place there are those animals which may 
be eaten without any necessity of ritual slaughter — 
grasshoppers or fish, for example (these latter, 
indeed, may be eaten even if found dead); in the 
second place there are special rules, which are not 
our present concern, applicable to hunting, and 
finally the foetus which is almost at term is permis- 



sible as food if its mother has been ritually slaughter- 
ed. On the other hand it is recommended that 
animals which are not lawful food should be slaugh- 
tered according to ritual in order to avoid any 
prolonged suffering. Nevertheless it is, in general, 
with a view to being able to eat the animal concerned 
that a ritual slaughter takes place, and this is the 
more so since the dhabiha, the sacrificial victim, is 
normally eaten. It may be remarked that a ritual 
slaughter makes the flesh of the animal lawful even 
if the animal is already sick or mortally wounded 
and the slaughter does no more than accelerate 

2. Who may perform ritual slaughter? It is 
lawful, although blameworthy, for the people of the 
Book to perform it on behalf of Muslims. On the 
other hand it is in no way prohibited, nor, even, is 
it reprehensible (contrary to a curious superstition 
which prevails in North Africa, for example) for a 
woman to kill an animal such as a chicken. (One 
observer has reported that at Tangier, if women are 
of necessity obliged to do this, they place a phallic 
symbol between their thighs). All those authorized 
to act as slaughterers must be in possession of their 
mental faculties. 

3. How is the slaughter (dhaka'a) effected ? Four 
methods of killing may be distinguished of which 
only the first two need concern us: the dhabh; the 
nahr (see below); the wounding or c akr (which is 
important with regard to the theory of hunting) ; any 
other method of killing. For the dhabiha to be 
validly put to death and the animal concerned to be 
permissible as food then either the dhabh or the nahr 
should be employed according to the circumstances. 
Otherwise the dead animal will be regarded as 
carrion (mayta) and therefore legally unfit for con- 
sumption except in the case of absolute necessity. 
At the moment of slaughter it is obligatory to have 
the necessary intention and to invoke the name of 
God. The dhabh is the normal method of slaughter, 
for the nahr is applicable only to camels (there are 
some differences of opinion among the schools as to 
the obligatory or simply praiseworthy character of 
these provisions). The dhabh consists of slitting the 
throat, including the trachea and the oesophagus; 
(as for the two jugular veins there are divergencies 
between the schools) ; the head is not to be severed. 
Preferably the victim should be laid upon its left 
side facing in the direction of the kibla. As for the 
nahr, it consists of driving the knife in by the throat 
without it being necessary to cut in the manner 
prescribed above, the camel remaining upright but 
at the same time facing the kibla. There are some 
casuistic discussions regarding the nature of the 
instrument to be used. More important is the fact 
that many provisions of fikh bear witness to an 
anxiety that the victims should be spared any 
unnecessary suffering. In particular the knife ought 
to be well sharpened; the practice of collective 
slaughtering is condemned, as too is that of cutting 
off part of an animal or removing its skin (except 
in the case of fish) before it is dead. 

Bibliography: The collections of traditions 
contain chapters on the subject — of a greater or 
lesser scope — such as Bukhari, tr. Houdas and 
Marcais, iv, 72 ; so too do all the books of fikh, 
usually in the context of hunting {e.g., Khalil. 
Mukhtasar, tr. Guidi, i, 315 ff., and tr. Bousquet, 
i, 85 ff.; Shirazi, Tanbih (tr. Bousquet, i, 108 ff.)). 
We might also note the classical treatises of 
ikhtildf, which have not yet been translated — for 
example, Ibn Rushd, Biddya; Sha'ranI, Mizdn, 



214 



DHABlHA — al-DHAHABI 



etc. ; E. Graf, Jagdbeute und Schlachttier im isla- 

mischen Recht, Bonn 1959. See also sayd. 

(G.-H. Bousquet) 

DHAFAR [see zafar]. 

DHAHAB, gold, played an important part in 
various areas of the life of Muslim society. The main 
reason for the significance of the metal was its 
economic assets. These were referred to in the 
Kur'an. Apart from implicitly alluding to the value 
aspect of gold (Sura III, 85), the Kur'an alludes to 
the attraction of 'hoarded kintars of gold' for people 
(Sura III, 12) and warns against hoarding since 
'those who treasure up gold and silver and do not 
expend them in the way of Allah' would meet with 
a painful punishment (Sura IX, 34). The problem 
of gold was also discussed by Muslim jurists who 
determined its taxability and regulated property 
laws in respect of lands possessing gold deposits 
(cf. al-Mawardi, Les Statuts gouvernementaux, trad. 

E. Fagnan, Algiers 1915, 252-3, 426-7, 447-8). 
Since gold, along with silver, constituted the basis 

for the official Muslim monetary system (see dInar), 
a sufficient supply of this metal was essential for 
general economic stability. This was secured by the 
exploitation of gold mines situated in the Muslim 
Empire, as well as by the influx of bullion from the 
adjacent countries. Although mediaeval sources 
refer to many mining areas (cf. D. M. Dunlop, 
Sources of gold and silver in Islam according to al- 
Hamdani (10th Century A.D.), in Stud. Isl. viii, 1957, 
29-49), the region of WadI 'AllakI was particularly 
famous for intensive mining activities (cf., al- 
Ya'kQbi, Les pays, trans. G. Wiet, Cairo 1937, 190), 
while that of Ghana for the excellent quality of its 
ore (cf., Description de I'Afrique septentrianale par 
el-Bekri, trans, de Slane, 177). It seems that the 
exploitation of gold mines was not subject to the 
monopolistic pressure of Muslim political authorities 
(cf. C. H. Becker, Islamstudien, Leipzig 1924, i, 
189; also, al- c Umari, Masalik al-Absdr fi Mamalik 
al-Amsar, trans. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris 
1927, i, 58). The total volume of gold circulating in 
the Near East during various periods of Muslim 
domination can hardly be ascertained. It is never- 
theless possible to infer on the basis of textual and 
abundant numismatic evidence that the Muslim 
Empire was well provided with gold. But a tremen- 
dous war expenditure connected with the operations 
of the Crusaders, a gradual re-establishment of 
European hegemony in the Mediterranean balance 
of trade, and a later absorption of West Sudanese 
gold by the Portuguese, led to a drastic draining of 
Near Eastern gold reserves (cf. M. Lombard, Les 
bases monitaires d'une suprfmatie (conomique. L'or 
tnusulman du VII' au XI' siicle, in Annates [Eco- 
nomies, SocOtls, Civilisations}, 2, 1947, 142-60; 

F. Braudel, Monnaies et civilisations. De l'or du 
Soudan a I'argent d'Amirique, ibid., i, 1946, 9-22). 

As in the pre-Islamic period, the use of gold in 
jewellery, ornamental crafts, in manuscript illuminat- 
ions and in calligraphy, was widely practised during 
the Middle Ages (Ahmad b. Mir-Munshi, Calligra- 
phers and painters, transl. V. Minorsky [Freer 
Gallery of Art Occasional Papers, vol. 3, ii], Washing- 
ton, D.C., 1959). A prominent place in the gold- 
smithing production was held by Baghdad (cf. CI. 
Cahen, Documents relatifs d quelques techniques ira- 
quiennes au dlbut du onziime siicle, in Ars Islamica, 
xv-xvi, 1951, 23-8). Gold woven robes and gold 
vessels, whose use was condemned by Muslim 
tradition, were also in demand. The fashion of 
collecting such luxury objects prevailed particularly 



during the Buwayhid regime (cf. E. Kiihnel, Die 
Kunst Persiens unter den Buyiden, in ZDMG, 106, 
i, [N.F. 31], 1956, 78-92). 

The natural properties of gold were studied by 
Muslim alchemists. Although they still accepted the 
theory of transmutation of metals (cf. G. Sarton, 
Introduction to the history of science, 2/ii, 1045), they 
were well acquainted with various chemical processes, 
such as cupellation, the separation of gold and silver 
by means of nitric acid, and the quantitative chemical 
analysis of gold-silver alloys (cf. E. J. Holmyard, 
The makers of chemistry, Oxford 1931, 77). 

Finally, gold was used by Muslim medicine. It 
was considered particularly effective in diseases of 
the eye, melancholia, palpitation of the heart, 
alopecia, etc. Instruments of gold were preferably 
used for the piercing of holes in the ear, as well as 
for cauterization (cf. Ibn al-Baytar, ed. Leclerc, 
Notices et extraits, ii, 150-151). 

See also khazaf. 

(A. S. Ehrenkreutz) 

al-DHAHABI [see ahmad al-mansur]. 

al-DHAHABI, Shams al-DIn Abu c Abd Allah 
Muhammad b. 'Uthman b. Kaymaz b. £ Abd Allah 

AL-TuRKUMANI AL-FARIIfl AL-DlMASHIfl AL-SHAFl'i, 

an Arab historian and theologian, was born 
at Damascus' or at Mayyafarikin on 1 or 3 Rabi c II 
(according to al-Kutubl, in Rabi c I) 673/5 or 7 
October 1274, and died at Damascus, according to 
al-Subkl and al-Suyutl, in the night of Sunday- 
Monday on 3 Dh u '1-Ka c da 748/4 February 1348, or, 
according to Ahmad b. 'Iyas, in 753/1352-3. He was 
buried at the Bab al-Saghlr. 

His Life. His main lines of study were Tradition 
and canon law. 

He began to study Tradition at Damascus in 
690/1291 or 691/1291-2 under Yusuf al-MizzI, 'Umar 
b. Kawwas, Ahmad b. Hibat Allah b. c Asakir, and 
Yusuf b. Ahmad al-Kamuli. He continued his 
studies in Tradition in several Islamic centres, 
especially at Cairo where he stayed longest, under 
the best authorities of his time. The number of his 
teachers is said to have surpassed 1,300, whose 
biographies he collected in his Mu'diam. The most 
important of them were: at Ba'labakk <Abd al- 
Khalik b. c Ulwan, and Zaynab bint £ Umar b. al- 
Kindi; in several towns of Egypt al-Abarkuhl, 
c Is5 b. Ahmad al-Mu'min b. Shihab, Abu Mu- 
hammad al-Dimyati and Abu '1- 'Abbas al-?ahiri; 
at Mecca al-Tuzari; at Halab Shawkar al-Zaynl; at 
Nabulus al-'Imad b. Badran; then at Alexandria 
Abu '1-Hasan 'All b. Ahmad al- c Iraki and Abu 
'1-Hasan Yahya b. Ahmad al-Sawwaf; and lastly at 
Cairo Ibn Mansur al-Ifrikl and chiefly Ibn Daklk 
al- c Id who was well-known for his discrimination in 
selecting his pupils. 

He studied canon law with Kamal al-Din b. al- 
Zamlikanl, Burhan al-Din al-Fazari, and Kamal al- 
Din b. Kadi Shuhba. He was an adherent of the 
Shafi'i school. 

Having obtained licence for teaching from Abu 
Zakariyya b. al-Sayrafl, Ibn Abi '1-Khayr, al-Kasim 
al-Irbili, and others, he became Professor of Tradition 
at the madrasa Umm al-Salih in Damascus; however, 
he was unable to succeed his teacher Yusuf al- 
Mizzi at the madrasa al-Ashrafiyya of the same city 
because he could not subscribe to the conditions 
made by the founder of the institute concerning the 
canon law school of the Professor of Tradition. 

The fields of research he mostly excelled in were 
Tradition, canon law, and history. He had an 
indefatigable energy, having been at his studies day 



and night, even when he was struck by blindness 
which befell him, according to Abu '1-Fida 3 and 
<Umar b. al-Wardl, in 743/1342-3, or, according to 
others, as early as 741/1340-1. He had a great many 
excellent pupils, among whom we particularly 
mention c Abd al-Wahhab al-Subkl, the author of 
the Tabakdt al-ShdfiHyya al-Kubrd, whose father 
Taki al-DIn al-Subkl, the famous Shafi'i doctor of 
law, was his most intimate friend. 

His many-sided qualities were acknowledged both 
by his contemporaries and his later biographers, 
the latter he was commonly referred to as muhadt 
almost ("traditionist of the age") and khdtam al- 
huffdz ("the seal [i.e., the last] of the hdfizs"). Al- 
Kutubi praised him with select poetical phrases. 
According to Salah al-DIn al-Safadi, "he had nothing 
of the rigidness of the traditionists or the stupidity of 
the historians; on the contrary, he was a lawyer of 
spirit, and was at home in the opinions of people". 
Ibn Hadjar al- c Askalani composed a beautiful 
kasida in praise of his excellent qualities. 

On the other hand, we also find opinions adverse 
to his reputation. His own most eminent pupil al- 
Subki reproached him with reviling even his own 
Shafi'I school, in addition to the Hanafis and the 
Ash'aris, and extolling the theological tendency 
known as al-Mudjassima. Similarly, Abu '1-Fida 3 and 
*Umar b. al-Wardi, while admitting that he was an 
historian and traditionist of a high rank, state that 
towards the end of his life, when he became blind, 
he compiled biographies of some of his living con- 
temporaries which, based on the biased information 
of his young admirers, quite unwittingly tarnished 
the good reputation of certain persons. 

His Work. As an author he was not as prolific as 
Ibn al-Djawzi before him or al-Suyuti after him; 
however, some of his works have attained a high 
standard in East and West alike. Like practically all 
the post-classical Arab authors he too was a compiler, 
but his works are distinguished by careful compo- 
sition and constant references to his authorities. It 
is for these peculiarities that his works on Tradition, 
■especially on the Him al-ridjdl, have become very 

A) History. His greatest work is the Ta'rikh 
■al-Isldm ("History of Islam"), printed together 
with his Tabakdt al-mashdhir wa '1-aHdm at Cairo 
from 1367/1947-6 onwards, an extensive history 
of Islam, beginning with the genealogy of the 
Prophet Muhammad and ending with the year 
700/1300-1. It follows the system of the Kitdb 
■al-muntazam of Ibn al-Djawzi [q.v.], containing 
both the general narrative (al-hawddith al-kdHna) 
and the obituary notices of the persons who died 
in the several years (al-mutawaffun). The whole 
work is divided into "classes" (tabakdt) of decades, 
so that it contains seventy "classes" altogether. In 
•each decade first comes the general narrative, 
subdivided into the several years; then follow the 
"classes" of the obituary notices, equally subdivided 
into the several years, and ended by the obituary 
notices of persons whose exact dates of death could 
not be stated. The relation of the extent of the general 
narrative to that of the obituary notices is, on an 
average, 1 to 6 or 7. 

The system of the general narrative of the 
first three centuries is entirely different from that 
of the last four centuries. For the first three centuries 
it is very short, giving only the gist of the matter and 
being but a concise compendium of al-Tabari's [q.v.] 
chronicle; it enumerates the notable persons who 
died in the year concerned, then the leaders of the 



HABI 215 

annual pilgrimage, and last the political events. For 
the last four centuries the order is quite inverted. 
First come the detailed annual records of political 
history, with constant references to the authorities 
consulted; then there follow those of local and 
administrative history, especially of Baghdad and 
Damascus; then the so-called "strange things" (al- 
'adjd'ib), i.e., the curiosities and striking phenomena 
of the year are recorded ; then comes the enumeration 
of the leaders of the annual pilgrimage from Baghdad 
and Damascus, and last the list of the names of the 
notabilities who died in the year concerned. The 
literary value of the general narrative is in its 
recording of events neglected by Ibn al-Athir [q.v.] 
in his al-Kdmil fi 'l-ta'rikh, such as 1) the history 
of the Saldjuks, Ayyubids, and the Mongol invasion; 
2) the internal development of Islam, especially the 
Batinls and the Shl'Is; 3) Western Islam. Al- 
Dhahabfs tendency is, therefore, to record the 
development of the whole of Islam although his 
narrative is more detailed for Syria and Egypt than 
for other countries. 

The obituary notices record the biographies 
of all the caliphs and minor rulers of both the 
Eastern and the Western Islam; then the viziers, 
generals, and functionaries of rank; then the juris- 
consults and theologians of all the schools of canon 
law as well as other scholars; and last the poets, 
whose biographies contain numerous quotations 
from their works. The obituary notices in general 
follow the scheme of the tabakdt- works; they have 
far greater historical value than the general n; 



The Ta'rikh al-Isldm was continued by at least 
six hands; three of these continuations are extant: 
1) from 701/1301-2 to 740/1339-40 by al-Dhahabi 
himself; 2) from 701/1301-2 to 786/1384-5 by c Abd 
al-Rahlm al-'Iraki and his son Ahmad (died in 
826/1422-3), only the latter's work being extant; 
3) from 701/1301-2 to 790/1388 by Ibn Kadi Shuhba 
(died in 851/1447-8) in his Al-i c ldm bi-ta'rikh al- 
Isldm. 

Owing to the voluminous character of the Ta'rikh 
al-Isldm it was abridged many times. Six abridg- 
ments were made by al-Dhahabi himself: 

1) Kitdb duwal al-Isldm or al-Ta'rikh al-saghir 
("Small History"), published at Haydarabad in 
1337/1918-9. 

2) aW-Ibar fi akhbdr al-bashar mimman 'abar 
(Muntakhab al-ta'rikh al-kablr), an abridgment of 
the biographical "classes". 

Whereas these two works combined give a fairly 
good synopsis of the whole of the Ta'rikh al-Isldm, 
the following are extractions from the biographical 
"classes" (tabakas) only. 

3) Tadhkirat al-huffdz, published at Haydarabad 
in 1332-3/1914-5 in five volumes. The best known 
abridgment and continuation of the work was done 
by al-Suyuti [q.v.] under the title Tabakdt al-huffdz, 
published by F. Wiistenfeld at Gottingen in 1833-4. 
Al-Suyuti's continuation was also published at 
Damascus in 1347/1928-9. 

The Tadhkirat al-huffdz is also the basis of the 
Tabakdt al-ShdfiHyya of Ibn Kadi Shuhba. 

4) al-Isdba fi taajrid asmd al-Sahdba, an alpha- 
betical list of Muhammad's Companions, based 
chiefly on the Usd al-ghdba of Ibn al-Athir, printed 
at Haydarabad in 1315/1897-8. 

5) T&bakdt al-kurrd? al-mashhurin, published in 
7 parts in al-Hiddya (an Arabic periodical in 
Turkey), iv, 1331/1912-3 and ff. 



2l6 



L-DHAHABI — DHAKA 



6) Siyar a'ldm al-nubald', printed in 2 vols, at 

7) al- c Ibar fi khabar man e abar, a transcript, 
enlarged in some passages, of al-Dhahabl's work 
under the same title (see above no. 2) by Ibn Kadi 
Shuhba (d. 851/1447-8). 

8) A similar recension of the same work by Ibn 
al-Shamma c (d. 936/1529-30), extending to 734/ 
1333-4- 

9) al-Mukhtasar mitt Ta'rikh al-isldm wa Tabakdt 
al-mashdhir wa '1-aHdm, by Ibn Ildekiz al-Mu c az- 
zami al-'Adili al-Ayyfibi. 

Two other historical works of al-Dhahabi are 

Mukhtasar U-Ta'rikh Baghdad li 'bn al-Dubaythi, 
a synopsis of the history of Baghdad according to 
Ibn al-Dubaythi (died in 637/1239-40). 

Mukhtasar akhbdr al-nahwiyyin li 'bn al-Kifti, 
a synopsis of Ibn al-Kiftl's (d. 646/1248-9) History 
of the Grammarians. 

B) Tradition. His works of this category are 
nearly all of lexicographical character. 

Tadhhib TahdMb al-kamdl fi asmd 'l-ridjdl, an 
improved edition of the Tahdjib al-kamdl fi asmd 
'l-rididl of Ibn al-Nadjdjar (died in 643/1245-6). 

al-Mushtabih fi asmd 'l-ridjdl, ed. by P. de Jong 
at Leiden in 1881. 

Mizdn al-iHiddl fi nakd (or tarddjim) al-ridfdl, 
published at Lucknow in 1301/1883-4, at Cairo in 
1325/1907-8, at Haydarabad in 1329/1911-1331/1913, 
and the letter hamza only at Istanbul in 1304/1886-7. 
It was extracted by Ibn Hadjar al- c Askalani (died 
in 852/1448-9) in his Lisdn al-mizdn. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, II, 46-8; S II, 
45-7 (with enumeration of the Oriental references 
and the manuscripts); G. Sarton, Introduction to 
the history of science, iii, the fourteenth century, 
Baltimore 1947-8, 963-7; Fr. Rosenthal, A history 
of Muslim historiography, Leiden 1952, 30 (n. 8), 
129-30; J. de Somogyi, The Ta'rikh al-isldm of 
adh-Dhahabi, in JRAS 1932, 815-55; idem, Ein 
arabisches {Compendium der Weltgeschichte. Das 
Kitdb duwal al-isldm des ad-Dahabi, in Islamica 
1932, 334-53; idem, A Qasida on the destruction 
of Baghdad by the Mongols, in BSOS 1933, 41-8; 
idem, Adh-Dhahabi' s TaMkh al-isldm as an 
authority on the Mongol invasion of the Caliphate, 
in JRAS 1936, 595-604; idem, Ein arabischer 
Bericht uber die Tataren im Ta'rih al-isldm des 
ad-Dahabi, in Islamica 1937, 105-30; idem, Adh- 
Dhahabi's record of the destruction of Damascus by 
the Mongols in 699-700/1 299-1 301, in Ignace 
Goldziher Memorial Volume I, Budapest 1948, 
353-86. (Moh. Ben Cheneb-[J. de Somogyi]) 
DHAHABIYYA, Persian name of the Kubrawiyya 
[?.».] order. See also TarIij a. 
DHAHRAN [see ?ahran]. 

DHAKA (Dacca) —(literally 'concealed', but 
origin obscure) is the capital of East Pakistan. 
The city is situated at the head of the waterways 
about a hundred miles from the sea, in a region 
which has had throughout history a premier position 
in this province of rivers and flooded plains. The 
Hindu capital was at Vikramapura, then favourably 
situated on the Dhaleshwari river, where the line 
of old fortification can still be seen, but more im- 
portant are the tomb and mosque (built 888/1483) 
of Baba Adam Shahid, a pioneer Muslim saint. 
Sonargaon on the Meghna river was the early 
Muslim capital, which was famous for the seminary 
of Shaykh Sharf al-DIn Abu Tawwama, a Hanafi 
jurist and traditionist of great renown in the 7th/i3th 



century, for the lively court maintained by the 
romantic Sultan Ghiyath al-Din A c zam Shah in the 
late 8th/i4th century, and for the fine muslin industry 
through the period. The place is full of ruined tombs, 
mosques and inscriptions, the most famous being 
the tomb of A'zam Shah and the remains of the 
Khankah of Shaykh Muhammad Yflsuf, who emi- 
grated from Persia in the 8th/i5th century. Later 
the local rebel chief 'Isa Mian made Sonargaon 
and its neighbourhood his headquarters, but the 
town was destroyed in 1017/1608 by the Mughal 
soldiery under Shaykh Islam Khan Cishti. The 
temporary Mughal camp, which was located in the 
old Thana of Dhakabazfi, came to be developed as 
the new Mughal capital of the siiba of Bengal under 
the name of Djahanglrnagar, after the reigning 
Mughal emperor Djahangir. 

The capital city stood on the northern bank of 
the Buriganga, the river Dulay of the Muslim histori- 
ans, about eight miles above its confluence with the 
Dhaleshwari and far away from the recurring floods. 
It was well protected against the raids of the Arakan- 
ese Maghs and the Portuguese pirates in the 1 ith/i7th 
century by a system of river fortresses, which still sur- 
vive at Munshigandj, Narayangandj and Sonakanda. 
The Mughal city spread out beyond the Hindu local- 
ities, well-laid with gardens, palaces, markets, mosques 
and minarets, which are all associated with the names 
of the Mughal officers. Of the princely governors 
Shah ShudiaS the ill-fated brother of the Mughal 
emperor Awrangzlb, and Muhammad A c zam, the 
latter's son, had a great reputation in Eastern India. 
From their time have been inherited the Bafa Katra 
(the great market quadrangle), the c Idgah and the 
fort of Awrangabad, commonly called Lai Bagh, the 
last still showing its terraced walls, bastions, gate- 
ways, a mosque and a beautiful mausoleum (partly 
in marble) of Bibi Pari, one of the wives of Muham- 
mad A c zam. Of the other governors Mir Djumla is 
better known for his conquest of Assam, and Shayista 
Khan for his twenty-five years' service in Bengal, his 
final conquest of Catgaon in 1076/1666, his lavishly 
kept harem, and above all the numerous mosques 
and mausolea built by him in the provincial Mughal 
style, wrongly called by the people the Shayista 
Khani style of architecture. Though the Mughal seat of 
government was transferred to Murshidabadin 1118/ 
1706, Dacca never lost its importance. It remained 
the centre of the flourishing muslin industry and 
many other luxury arts of the East, which attracted 
the foreign merchants, and as early as the middle of 
the 17th century we find here factories being 
established by the Dutch, French and British. 

With the introduction of British rule and the 
growing importance of the city of Calcutta, Dacca 
lost its premier place in Bengal. In 1905 it was again 
made the capital of the newly created province ol 
Eastern Bengal and Assam — an administrative 
measure to favour the Muslims which was annulled 
because of the growing opposition from Hindu 
nationalists. In 1906 Dacca witnessed the foundation 
of the All India Muslim League with the object of 
protecting the rights of the Muslims of the sub- 
continent. Many of the red-faced buildings of the 
newly-developed Ramna in Dacca were built at 
this time. In 1921 the University of Dacca was 
founded mainly to meet the demands of the local 
Muslims. It became a centre of both education and 
political training for the rising talents of Muslim 
Bengal. Today Dacca (population 432j853 in 1951) 
is the second capital of Pakistan and is fast growing 



DHAKA — DHAL 



into a modern city with its industrial suburban 

town of Narayangandj. The old Mughal city still 

survives with its numerous mosques and mausolea, 

but its lanes and by-lanes are being broadened, in 

line with the new developments in the city. Dacca 

shares fully in the rebirth of the Muslims of Pakistan. 

Bibliography: Mirza Nathan, Bahdristdn-i- 

Qhaybi, Engl. tr. by M. I. Borah, Gawhati 1936; 

C. D'Oyly, Antiquities of Dacca, London 1824-30; 

Ta'rikh-i-Nusratdiangi, in Memoirs of the Asiatic 

Society of Bengal, Vol. ii, no. 6, Calcutta 1908; 

J. Taylor, Topography and statistics of Dacca, 

Calcutta 1840; Sayid Awlad Hasan, Antiquities of 

Dacca, Dacca 1904; F. B. Bradley Birt, The 

romance of an Eastern capital, London 1906; 

Raljman c Ali Taysh, Tawdrikh-i Dhaka (Urdu), 

1910; A. H. Dani, Dacca, a record of its changing 

fortunes, Dacca 1956; idem, Muslim architecture 

in Bengal, Dacca 1961. (A. H. Dani) 

BHAkIR, KasIm Bey, the foremost Adhar- 

baydjanl poet and satirist in the first half of the 

19th century. He was born probably in 1786, at 

Penahabad in the Khanate of Karabagh (now 

Shusha, Nagorno-Karabakhskay_a Avtonom. Oblast). 

He belonged to the clan of Djawanshir, a renowned 

family of beys. 

In his satirical poetry he relentlessly castigated 
the religious fanaticism of the Mollas as well as 
corruption and all kinds of abuses by the beyzdde — 
the local aristocracy — and the Czarist administration 
officials. His criticism of the latter resulted in his 
being persecuted by the governor of Karabagh, 
Prince Konstantin Tarkhanov, who took advantage 
of illegal actions in which a nephew of the poet was 
involved, to have him deported to Baku for some 
time. Upon the intervention of his friends he was 
allowed to return to his family estate, where he 
spent most of his lifetime. 

There have been preserved and partly published 
(see M. A. Resulzade in the bibliography to this 
article) a number of complaints and appeals for help 
(shikdyat-ndma) which Dhakir addressed, in brilliant 
verse, to influential fellow-countrymen such as 
Mirza Fath C A1I Akhund-zada [q.v.] and the first 
Adharbaydjani novelist Isma'U Bey Kutkashinll 
(who had risen to the rank of general in the Russian 
army). His much esteemed style was obviously 
influenced by the great 18th century poet Molla 
Panah Wakl! (1717-97). Like his predecessor, he 
preferred the simple, popular lyric forms applied by 
the 'dshik folk literature, such as "Koshma" and 
"Kerayll", but he also wrote a number of poems in 
Persian and in traditional metric forms, as well as 
some pieces in rhymed prose (e.g., Darwishwe klz). 
His fables in verse {Ttilku we shir, kurd, (akkal we 
shir, Tulku we kurd etc.) follow the widespread 
oriental tradition set by the "Kalila and Dimna", 
but may be also influenced by Krtlov's (1768-1844) 
genial adaptations. In his works a number of 
Russian words — mostly taken from the terminology 
of administration and selected to suit his satirical 
purpose — made their first appearance in Adharl 
Turkish. 

The first publications of poetry by Dhakir seem 
to have appeared in 1854 (in the official Tiflis 
newspaper Kavkaz) and 1856 (within an anthology 
published in Temir-Khan Shura — now Buinaksk, 
Daghistan— by Mirza Yusuf Nersesov Karabaghi). 
Although there is reason to believe that Akhund- 
zada had planned a complete edition of Dhakir's 
works after the latter's death in 1857, no such 
edition was printed in the pre-Soviet era. 



The manuscripts of Dhakir's diwdn are kept 
in the fund of the Academy of Sciences of the 
Adharbaydjan SSR (Nizaml-Institute of Literature, 
inventory no. 15). 

Bibliography: Gaslm Bay Zakir, Asdrl&r, 
Baku 1953 (in Adharl); A. Bergi, Dichtungen 
transkaukasischer Sanger des XVIII. und XIX. 
Jahrhunderts in aserbaidschanischer Mundart, 
Leipzig 1868; F. Gaslmzade, XIX dsr Azdr- 
baydian adabiyyatl tarikhi, Baku 1956, 212-31; 
K. Mamedov, Gaslm B&y Zakir, Baku 1957 (in 
Adhari); M. A. Resulzade, Azert tiirklerinin hay at 
ve edebiyatxnda nes'e: Zdkir, in Azerbaycan Yurt 
Bilgisi, Hi, 1934, 113 ff. (H. W. Brands) 

EHAL, 9th letter of the Arabic alphabet, here 
transcribed dh; numerical value 700, in the Eastern 
system [see abdjad]. 

Definition: voiced interdental fricative; 
according to the Arabic grammatical tradition: 
rikhwa madjhura. For the makhradj: lithawiyya in 
al-Khalil (al-Zamakhshari, Muf., 191, line 2, znded. 
J. P. Broch) indicates a position of the tongue on 
the litha "gum", therefore gingival. Ibn Ya'ish 
(1460, line 21, ed. G. Jahn) records a position quite 
close to this, "the base of the central incisors", and 
therefore alveolar. Sibawayh (ii, 453, line 14, ed. 
Paris), much more widely accepted (e.g. Ibn 
Djinni, Sirr sind'a, i, 53, line 3), indicates an inter 
dental properly speaking "from between the tip of 
the tongue and the tips of the central incisors". 
Dh is the continuation in classical Arabic of a 
similar (or analogous) articulation in common 
Semitic (see S. Moscati, Sistema, 28-29) ; retained in 
epigraphic South Arabic, in Mehri, Shkhawri, and 
partly in Ugaritic; represented by z in Akkadian, 
Hebrew-Phoenician, Ethiopian (ancient and modern), 
by d in Aramaic and in Sokotri. In modern Arabic 
dialects the following principle can be stated: inter- 
dental fricatives are preserved unchanged in the 
speech of nomads or former nomads; they have 
changed into the corresponding occlusives in the 
speech of settled populations. Following this principle 
we shall find dh or d; for the details and the nuances 
see J. Cantineau, Cours, 50-54. In classical Arabic dh 
is subject to numerous conditioned corruptions 
(assimilations), see ibid., 47-49. 

For the phonological oppositions of the phoneme 
dh see J. Cantineau, Esquisse, BSL (no. 126) 965°; 
for the incompatibilities, see ibid., 134. 

Bibliography: in the text and under huruf 

AL-HIDJA 5 . (H. FLE1SCH) 

2. In Persian, and in Urdu which largely depends 
on Persian practice, dhdl is not distinguished in 
pronunciation from ze, dad and zd>. Its use in the 
writing systems of these languages is not, however, 
confined to borrowings of Arabic words with dhdl, 
for it occurs in words of certain Iranian origin. 

Most cases of the occurrence of dhdl in Persian 
words arise since modern Persian represents a xoivyj : 
in some Middle Iranian dialects post-vocalic d 
developed a spirant pronunciation, and is in fact 
shown fairly consistently as dhdl in the oldest 
Modern Persian mss, while in others the occlusive 
pronunciation persisted. The confusion between the 
dialects, and their mutual influence, has led to the 
general reintroduction of ddl, in spelling and pro- 
nunciation, for post-vocalic d, although cases of the 
spirant pronunciation, later > z, have resulted in 
the occasional retention of dhdl in some words. 

The few cases of variation between ddl and dhdl 
in Indian languages are the legacy of borrowings 
from Persian at different periods; thus Urdu 



kdghadh (pron. kdghaz), 'paper', appears in early 
1 6th century Hindi texts as kdgad, also in Mara£hl, 
Dakhni Urdu, and in the Dravidian languages 
Kannada and Telugu (kdgad") ; similar variations in 
gunbadh: gunbad, 'dome' (Kann. gumbad"). 

(J. Burton-Page) 

DHAMAR (or DhimAr, see Yakut s.v.), a 
district (mikhldf) and town in South Arabia, 
south of San'a, on the San'a-'Adan road, near the 
fortress of Hirran. The district of Dhamar was very 
fertile and had rich cornfields, splendid gardens, 
and many ancient citadels and palaces. On account 
of its fertility it was called the Misr of Yaman. The 
horses of Dhamar were famed throughout Yaman 
for their noble pedigree. 

Amongst places which are mentioned as belonging 
to the district of Dhamar are the following: Adra'a, 
Balad 'Ans, Baraddun, al-Darb, Dalan and Dhamu- 
ran (the women of these two places had the reputation 
of being the most beautiful in all South Arabia), 
Dh u Djuzub, al-TalbO', al-Tunan, Thamar. Rakhama 
(HamdanI mentions a Rudjma), al-Sam'aniyya, 
Sanaban, Shawkan, al-'Adjala, al-'Ashsha, al- 
Katayt, Ka'ra, Kunubba, Mukhdara, al-Malla al- 
'Ulya and al-Malla al-Sufla, Nahran, and al-Yafa'; 
among Wadls: Bana, Khuban, Surba or Suraba 
(a large Wadi, with many water-mills), Shurad 
and Mawa; among mountains: Isbil (near which 
on the black hill of 'UsI was a hot spring called 
Hammam Sulayman, "bath of Solomon", where 
people sought relief from leprosy) and Sayd (a high 
mountain with the citadel Sumara); among citadels: 
Bar', Hayawa, Dathar, al-Raba'a, 'Awadan, 'Uyana, 
al-Kawna, Hirran, Baynun [q.v.], and Hakir. 

Not far from Dhamar there were popularly believed 
to be remains of the throne of Bilkls {'Arsh Bilkis), 
consisting of several pillars near a large stream 
which could only be crossed at the risk of one's 
life; but the explorer Niebuhr, who visited Dhamar. 
could find no trace of it. 

The town of Dhamar used to be the headquarters 
of the Zaydiyya sect, and had a famous madrasa 
attended by 500 students, from whose numbers 
arose many famous scholars. Its inhabitants in- 
cluded many Jews and Banians. After the fail of 
the kingdom of the Zaydl Imams of San'a, Dhamar 
lost its importance and now enjoys but a miserable 



Bibliography: HamdanI, Qiazira, ed. Miiller, 
55, 80, 104 ff., 107, 135, 189; trad. Forrer, 103, 
144, 169-72, 179, 248; Yakut, Mu'djam, ii, 721 ff., 
and passim; Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 
Copenhagen 1772, 235; Sprenger, Die alte Geo- 
graphic Arabiens, . . . 1875, 73; H. v. Maltzan, 
Reise nach Sudarabien, Brunswick 1873, 399 > H> n 
al-Mudjawir, ed. Lofgren, 190; Nashwan, ed. 
'Azimuddin Ahmad, 39; von Wissmann and 
Homer, Beilrdge zur hist. Geogr. des vorislam. 
Sudarabien, Wiesbaden 1953, 21, 61. 

(J. Schleifer-[0. Lofgren]) 
al-DHAMMIYYA. "the people of the blame", 
is a name given by heresiographers to those who held 
certain disapproved doctrines. ShahrastanI (134) and 
MakrizI (Khitat, Bulak 1270 A.H., ii, 353) apply 
it to Shi'Is who claimed that Muhammad was 
originally an agent of 'All (the real prophet) but 
blameably summoned men to himself instead — a 
position noted (without a name) by Ash'arl (Makdldt 
al-Islamiyyin, ed. Md. Muhyl al-DIn 'Abd al-Hamld, 
Cairo 1950, 82), and ascribed also to al-Shalmaehani 
[q.v.]. MakrizI explains that 'All was silenced by 
being given Fatima. ShahrastanI says they believed 



'All was a god. Both associate them with 'Alba 5 (or 
'Ulyan, etc.) b. Dhira' al-DawsI (or AsadI or SadusI), 
who in Mas'udi (MurUdi, iii, 265 ; cf. v, 475) and Ibn 
Hazm (cf. I. Friedlaender, Heterodoxies of the 
Shiites, in JAOS, xxix, 102-3) seems to be the 
originator of the 'Alawiyya or 'Ayniyya, who 
exalted 'All's rdle in revelation above Muhammad's 
without disapproving Muhammad. 

The name is also applied by BaghdadI (Fark, 169) 
to Abu Hashim b. al-Djubba 5 ! and his followers 
among the Mu'tazilites, whose niceties of psycho- 
logical analysis led them into seeming to assert that a 
man could be condemned for a sin he had not yet 
committed. Mutahhar al-Makdisi (K. al-bacC wa 
'l-ta'rikh, ed. CI. Huart, Paris 1916, v, 143) gives 
a different explanation of the same name. He also 
ascribes the name to one group of Karramiyya 
(i45)- (M. G. S. Hodgson) 

DJIANAB [see nudjum]. 

DHAR, an ancient town on the scarp of the 
Vindhyas overlooking the Narbada valley, and 
since 1956 the headquarters of Dhar district, Madhya 
Pradesh, India. It stood on the main routes from 
Dihli to the Dakhan and to Gudjarat. From the 
3"rd/gth to the end of the 7th/i3th centuries it was 
a capital of the Paramaras who ruled Malwa first 
as Rashtrakufa feudatories and then as independent 
monarchs. The most powerful of these, Vakpati II 
(or Mufidja) and Bhodjadeva I, receive mention in 
many Muslim histories of India. Bhodja's troops may 
have joined Anandapala in 399/1008 against Mahmud 
of Ghaznl, while Djagaddeva, 480/1087-497/1104, 
defeated Ghaznavid forces in the Pandjab. Under- 
mined by Cawlukya and Yadava onslaughts and 
attacked by Kutb al-DIn Aybak in 596/1199, 
Iletmish in 632/1234 and Djalal al-DIn KhaldjI in 
690/1291 and 692/1293, the Dhar Paramaras broke 
up in confusion at the end of the 7th/i3th century. 

In 705/1305 'Ala 5 al-DIn's general 'Ayn al-Mulk 
MultanI defeated the Paramara Radja Mahlakdeva 
and his minister Gogadeva, slaying both. Dhar was 
taken and 'Ayn al-Mulk appointed governor of 
Malwa. Until 804/1401 Dhar remained the seat of 
the governors of Malwa appointed from Dihll. In 
731/1330-31 Muhammad b. Tughluk struck token 
iankas at Dhar. He himself was at Dhar during the 
famine of 736/1335. His appointment of 'Aziz 
Khammar as shikkddr of Dhar, with instructions to 
curb the amirdn-i soda, led to the massacre of over 
eighty of them at Dhar and precipitated the fatal 
revolts of 745/1345 onwards. The last governor, 
Dilawar Khan [q.v.], was appointed prior to 793/1390. 

From 801/1399 to 804/1401 Dilawar Khan enter- 
tained Sultan Mahmud Tughluk, a refugee from 
Timur, at Dhar, but on Mahmfld's return to Dihli 
Dilawar Khan declared himself independent at Dhar. 
His son, Alp Khan, succeeded him in 808/1405 with 
the title Hushang Shah. Accused of parricide, he 
was attacked at Dhar and carried off prisoner by 
Muzaffar Shah of Gudjarat, whose brother Nasrat 
Shah was appointed governor at Dhar. His extortion 
provoked rebellion and he was expelled from Dhar, 
where Hushang Shah was reinstalled in 811/1408. 

Thereafter Hushang Shah made Mandu his 
capital, as did his successors. The importance of 
Dhar consequently declined, though during the 
struggle between the sons of sultan Ghiyath al-DIn, 
in 905-06/1499-50 Nasir al-DIn made Dhar his 
headquarters, as did his son, Shihab al-DIn, when he 
rebelled in 916/1512. 

In the Mughal period, though visited by Akbar 
and pjahangir, Dhar was merely one of the sixteen 



DHAR — DHARRA 



tnahals of Mandu sarkdr, chiefly notable, as befitted 
PIran-i Dhar, for extensive suyilrghal grants. Its 
importance, as a strong fort on the Dihli-Dakhan 
communications, revived with the Mughal-Marafha 
struggle. South Malwa was first invaded in 1111/1699, 
and in 11 15/1703 the fawdjdar of Mandu took 
refuge from the Marathas in Dhar. From 1129/1717 
Shahu granted mokdsds to his generals in southern 
Malwa, and from 11 35/1722 Dhar was allotted to 
Udadji Pawar. The Mughal governor Girdhar 
Bahadur and his cousin Daya Bahadur refused 
Udadji's demands and repelled MaratM attacks 
until both were killed at the Amdjhera pass below 
Dhar on 25 Diumada I 1 141/29 November 1728. 
From 1141-42/1729 the Marathas collected dues 
from Dhar mahall, though the fort, strengthened by 
Girdhar's son and successor Bhawani Ram, held out 
and Muhammad Khan Bangash defeated the attacks 
made on Dhar from 6-18 Ramadan 1 143/15-27 
March 1731 by Malhar Holkar. But on 15 
Ramadan 1150/6 January 1738 Nizam al-Mulk con- 
ferred Malwa on the Peshwa, who allotted the Dhar 
territories to Yashwant Rao Pawar. (Dhar fort was 
only taken on 6 Shawwal 1153/25 December 1740). 
Dhar state, which came under British protection in 
1234/1819, remained under Pawar rulers until 28 May 
1948 when it was merged in Madhya Bharat, and in 
1956 in Madhya Pradesh. 

Bibliography: Central India gazetteer, v, 389- 
515; EIM, 1909-10, 1-29; D. C. Ganguly, History 
of the Paramara dynasty, Dacca 1933 ; H. N. Wright, 
The sultans of Delhi; their coinage and metrology, 
Delhi 1936, 167; R. Sinh, Malwa in transition, 
Bombay 1936; History and culture of the Indian 
people, vi, the Delhi sultanate, Bombay i960. See 
also dilawar khan; malwa; mandu. 

(J. B. Harrison) 
2. — Monuments. From the architectural point 
of view the monuments of Dhar are important only 
as illustration of the earliest phase of the Malwa 
style, one of the characteristic provincial styles of 
Indian Islamic architecture (see hind, Architecture). 
The earliest mosque building is that in the tomb en- 
closure of Kamal al-Din Malawi (locally called Kamal 
Mawla), a disciple of Nizam al-Din Cishti of Dihll; 
the oldest grave inscription in this enclosure is of 
795/1392-3, which records that the ruling sovereign 
was Mahmfld Tughluk, whose local representative 
was Dilawar Khan [?.w.]. This, and the slightly later 
PJami c masdjid, are both adaptations from 
pillaged Hindu temple material, of trabeate con- 
struction; the outer portico of the Pjami' masdjid 
shows an attempt to integrate the trabeate facade 
by the interposing of pointed arches, of no structural 
significance, between the columns, the forerunner of 
the arrangement in the mosque of Malik Mughlth at 
Mandu [q.v.]. The Djami' masdjid bears inscriptions 
of 807/1404-5 on the east entrance, and of 15 Radjab 
807/17 January 1405 on the north entrance (presu- 
mably misread by Djahanglr, Tuzuk-i Djahdngiri, 
Persian text 201-2); for these see EIM, 1909-10, 
11-2 and plates III and IV. A third mosque of 
similar style and date is the so-called School of 
Radja Bhodj, which owes its misnomer to 
paving slabs and pillar stones carved with 
rules of Sanskrit grammar. 

Later buildings almost all owe their origin to the 
first Khaldji ruler of Malwa, Mahmfld Shah (839/1436- 
873/1469), including the restoration of perhaps the 
oldest Muslim tomb in Dhar, that of c Abd Allah | 
Shah Cangal, who is said to have converted I 



"Radja Bhodj" to Islam; it has been disputed 
whether this refers to Bhodja I (1010-1053), a broad- 
minded and tolerant but nevertheless strict Shayva 
Hindu — in which case this pir could perhaps have 
come to Malwa with the army of Mahmfld of 
Ghaznl— , or to Bhodja II (1280-1310), at a time 
when conversion to Islam might have been politically 
expedient for the ruler of a small state; nothing is 
known of this pir, and the story of Bhodja 's conversion 
is now regarded as most doubtful, but the inscription 
erected by Mahmud Shah in 859/1455 (EIM, 1909-10, 
1-5 and Plate I; 42 couplets of Persian verse, one 
of the longest Persian inscriptions in India) shows 
the then implicit belief in this tradition. To Mahmud 
Shah is due also the restoration of the tomb of 
Kamal al-Din (inscription over doorway of 861/ 
1456-7) ; a tomb opposite the pir's is said by local 
tradition to be Mahmud's own. 

The Pjami' masdjid is known in later times as 
the Lat masdjid, from the iron pillar (lot) — 
probably a victory pillar of a local Paramara king 
in the early 13th century, cf. ASI, Annual Report, 
1902-3, 203 — lying outside; this pillar bears an 
inscription recording Akbar's brief stay in Dhar in 
1008/1599, its position showing that the pillar had 
already fallen. 

The fort, now empty of internal buildings, is 
said to have been built by Muhammad b. Tughluk 
on his way to the conquest of the Deccan; no 
adequate description of it exists. 

Bibliography: E. Barnes, Dhar and Mandu, 
in JBBRAS, xxi, 1904, 340-54; idem, Conser- 
vation of ancient buildings at Mandu and Dhdr, in 
ASI, Annual Report, 1903-4, 30-45; C. E. Luard, 
Dhdr state gazetteer, Bombay 1908, 106-12; G. 
Yazdani, The inscription on the tomb of 'Abdullah 
Shah Changdl at Dhdr, in EIM, 1909-10, 1-5 and 
Plate I ; idem, Remarks on the inscriptions of Dhdr 
and Mandu, in EIM, 191 1-2, 8-1 1; Zafar Hasan, 
The inscriptions of Dhdr and Mandu, in EIM, 
1909-10, 6-29. (J. Burton-Page) 

DHARRA, a term denoting, in the Kur'an or 
hadiths, the smallest possible appreciable quantity. 
The Kur'an uses it five times, in the expression 
mithkdl al-dharra, "the weight of a dharra",— to 
extol the Omniscience of God (X, 61 ; XXXIV, 3), or 
His absolute Omnipotence (XXXIV, 20), or His 
supreme Justice in retribution: IV, 40 and the cele- 
brated text XCIX, 7-8 "He who shall have done the 
weight of one dharra of good shall see it; he who 
shall have done the weight of one dharra of evil 
shall see it". 

Commentators on the Kur'an and interpreters of 
hadiths have explained dharra by two images, both 
of which go back to Ibn c Abbas. 1). From the most 
usual meaning of the root : powder, dust. The dharra 
is the dust which remains clinging to the hand after 
the rest has been blown off (the sense recollected in 
tafsir, for example, by Khazin in xcix, 7-8) ; or the 
weightless dust, seen when sunlight shines through 
a window (id., iv, 40). 2). The image of the "red 
(black) ant", by a kind of equivalence dharra-namla 
(al-Zamakhshari) : "the weight of the head of a red 
ant", (Khazin iv, 40) ; "little ant" (xcix, 7-8) ; "little 
red ant" (x, 61), etc. — The dharra is also said to be 
equivalent to "the hundredth part of a grain of 

In translation dharra is generally rendered as 
"atom" (cf. R. Blachere: "weight of an atom", 
except for iv, 40: "weight of an ant"). L. Massignon, 
Passion d'al-Hallddj, Paris 1922, 550, gives dharra in 
the sense of atom with nukta ("point") in order to 



DHARRA — DHATl 



explain the diawhar fard ("elemental substance") of 
the kaldm and the falsafa. It is noticeable, however, 
that dharra was not generally used as the technical 
term to denote the philosophical atomism of Demo- 
critus, Epicurus and the Muslim "atomists". Two 
technical expressions were used in preference: dfui* 
[q.v.], "part" (indivisible), and diawhar fard. On the 
other hand, modern Arabic readily renders the atom 
of modern physics by dharra (djuz' becoming "mole- 
Thus Arabic vocabulary is careful to distinguish 
between three terminologies: i) physical sciences: 
dharra, atom; 2) mathematical sciences: nufrta, 
geometrical point (thus Ibn Sina, Risdla fi 'l-Hudad); 
3) philosophy: djuz' and diawhar fard, "atom", — and 
ii this way to emphasize that the last usage does not 
include the atom of modern physics. (L. Gardet) 

DHARWAR, a district in the Belgaum division 
of the Indian State of Mysore. It has an area of 
5>3°5 square miles and a population of 1,575,386 of 
whom 15% are Muslims (1951 Census). Until the 
7th/i3th century it remained free from the Muslim 
invader. In the following century it formed part of 
Muhammad b. Tughluk's extensive empire. After 
the decline of Tughluk power its geographical 
position, especially its proximity to the Raycur 
Do'ab, made it a bone of contention between the 
Bahmani kingdom of the Deccan and the Hindu 
empire of Vidjayanagar. From about 972/1565 it seems 
to have been conquered by the c Adil Shahl sultans 
of Bldjapur who retained it until their power was 
crushed by Awrangzlb in 1097/1686. With the disinte- 
gration of the Mughal empire in the I2th/i8th century 
it was frequently overrun by plundering Maratha 
forces. For a time it was annexed to Haydar 'All's 
kingdom of Mysore but, in 1791, during the reign 
of Tipu Sultan, the fort of Dharwar was taken by 
an Anglo-Maratha force under Captain Little and 
Parasurama Bhau (see Grant Duff's History of the 
Mahrattas, vol. ii, 197-201, Oxford 1921 and Wilk's 
Mysoor, vol. ii, 483-8, Mysore 1932). After this 
it remained in Maratha hands until their defeat by 
the British in 1817. In 1857-8 Bhaskar Rao (Baba 
Sahib), the chief of Nargund in Dharwar, who had 
been refused permission to adopt an heir by Lord 
Dalhousie, rose in revolt and murdered Charles 
Manson, the British Commissioner and Political 
Agent for the Southern Maratha Country. This 
resulted in the execution of Bhaskar Rao and the 
forfeiture of the Nargund estate (see Indian Mutiny, 
Kaye and Malleson, vol. v, 164-72, London 1889). 
Dharwar was administered as part of Bombay until 
the reorganization of 1956 when it was transferred 
to the new State of Mysore. 

(C. Collin Davies) 
DH AT. In Muslim philosophy this term is used in 
several senses. As a general term it can mean "thing", 
like the words shay* and ma c nd; next, it signifies the 
"being" or "self" or even "ego": thus bi-dhdtihi 
means "by itself" or "by his self"; but most com- 
monly dhdt is employed in the two different meanings 
of "substance" and "essence", and is a translation of 
the Greek oiiata. In its former usage as "substance" 
it is the equivalent of the subject or substratum 
('u7COxet|xevov) and is contrasted with qualities or 
predicates attributed to it and inhering in it. In the 
second sense of "essence", however, dhdt signifies the 
essential or constitutive qualities of a thing as^a mem- 
ber of a species, and is contrasted with its accidental 
attributes [a'rdd [see <arap]). In this sense it is the 
equivalent of mdhiyya [q.v.] and corresponds to the 
Greek t6 ti 'Jjv elvai. Some Muslim philosophers 



distinguish, within the essence, its prior parts from 
the rest and apply the description "essential" 
{dhdti) to the former: dhdti is the conceptually and 
ontologically prior part of the essence of a thing. 
Derivative from this second sense of the term is the 
distinction between the essential and the temporal 
order. Thus ordinarily a cause is said to be both 
essentially and temporally prior to its effects. Some 
causes are, however, not temporally prior to their 
effects but only essentially; this is the case with the 
relationship between God and the world according 
to Muslim philosophers who reject the idea of tem- 

Both these meanings of dhdt as essence and sub- 
stance, however, are combined and often confused, like 
the term corresponding to diawhar [q.v.] by Aristotle 
and his followers. This is because essence is regarded 
as being constitutive of the substance which is a 
substance only in so far as it is constituted by this 
essence. The term dhdt, from the point of view of this 
ambiguity in meaning, is especially relevant to the 
philosophico-theological doctrine of God and His 
Attributes. The Mu'tazila and the philosophers deny 
Divine Attributes and declare God to be a simple 
substance or pure Essence; in this case simple sub- 
stance and simple essence coalesce and are identical 
with one another. The Attributes are then construed 
either as negations or as pure relations. Although 
both the Mu'tazila and the philosophers agree in the 
denial of Divine Attributes, their reasons for doing 
so are very different. The Mu'tazila were moved to 
deny Attributes through the theological anxiety that 
affirmation of these would be contrary to strict 
monotheism. The philosophers' reasoning, on the 
other hand, is the result of the rational search for a 
simple being from which all multiplicity and com- 
position — existential and conceptual — should be 
excluded, but which at the same time should 
"explain" the multiplicity of existing things. In 
this they were followers of Plotinus. The Islamic 
orthodoxy devised a formula according to which 
Attributes are "neither identical with God nor other 
than Him". 

The Sufi theosophy, which became widely in- 
fluential during the later middle ages of Islam, 
found another way of reconciliation between philo- 
sophy and orthodoxy. According to this theory God, 
as absolute, is pure and simple Being without any 
Attributes; but through a series of "descents" or 
"determinations" He becomes progressively deter- 
minate. In this pantheistic world-view the mystic, 
in his upward march towards communion with God, 
passes through a series of theophanies (tadialliydt) 
from the levels of Names and Attributes to the final 
theophany of the Absolute. 

Bibliography : al-Thanawi, Dictionary of 

Technical Terms, s.v. (F. Rahman) 

CHAT al-HIMMA [see dhu >l-himma]. 

DHAT al-SAWARI [see supplement]. 

CHATi, Turkish poet, b. 875/1471 in Bahkesir. 
The son of a modest bootmaker, as a boy he practised 
his father's craft but soon gave it up, moving to the 
capital during the reign of Bayezld I where, following 
his natural inclinations, he devoted his life to poetry. 
An easy and prolific versifier, he made a living from 
the gifts of the notables of the day, to whom he 
dedicated kasidas (among others, to the sultans 
Selim I, Suleyman I, to Dja'fer Celebi and Ibn 
Kemal). In his old age he practised geomancy in a 
shop which soon became a sort of literary club for 
men of letters, where Dhati helped and encouraged 
many young talents (such as Tashlldiall Yahya 



DHATl — DHAWK 



Khayali, Baki). A "bohemian", unmarried and a 
heavy drinker, he died in 953/1546 at Istanbul, in 
poverty. 

Apart from a voluminous diwdn, his major work is 
Sham 1 - we Pervdne, a mathnawi of nearly 4000 
couplets interspersed with ghazals, which develops 
one of the favourite themes of mathnawi literature 
(for a fairly good copy, see Siileymaniye (Lala 
Isma'il) no. 443)- 

With no regular education and training, Dhati 
taught himself all the knowledge which was required 
by a diwdn-poet. Much appreciated by his contem- 
poraries and early tedhkire-wrilers, unduly neglected 
later, Dhati was a poet of remarkable talent and skill, 
and contributed to the refinement of language and 
style of ditexirt-poetry, and thus became a link 
between Nedjati and Baki. 

Bibliography : The tedhkires of Latifl, Klnall- 
zade Hasan Celebi, and the biographical section 
of c Ali's Kunh al-Akhbdr, s.v.; Gibb, Ottoman 
Poetry, ii; M. Fuad Kopriilii, Divan Edebiyatt 
Antolojisi, Istanbul 1934, 133; A. Bombaci, 
Storia delta letteratura turca, Milan 1956, 336. 

(FAHiR Iz) 
DHAWK, "taste", is a technical term used in 
philosophy, in aesthetics (especially literature), and 
in SQfism. 

1. In philosophy [see falsafa] dhawk is the name 
for the gustatory sense-perception. Following 
Aristotle, it is defined as a kind of sub-species of the 
tactual sense, localized in the gustatory organ, the 
tongue. It differs from tactual sense, however, in 
that mere contact with skin is not sufficient for 
gustation to occur: besides contact, it needs a 
medium of transmission, viz. the salival moisture. 
The salival moisture, in order to transmit tastes 
faithfully, must be in itself tasteless, otherwise it 
will impose its own taste upon the object of gustation, 
as is the case with patients of bile. The problem is 
discussed whether the tasted object "mixes" with 
the saliva and thus its parts are directly tasted, or 
whether the object causes a qualitative change in 
the saliva, which is then transmitted to the tongue. 
The answer is that both are conjointly possible and 
it is therefore held that if it were possible for the 
object to be transmitted without this moisture 
gustation could occur all the same, unlike, for 
example, vision, for which a medium is absolutely 
necessary. Nine kinds of taste — which are joint 
products of the tactual and gustatory sensations — 
are enumerated by Avicenna. 

2. In aesthetics, dhawk is the name for the power 
of aesthetic appreciation; it is something that 
"moves the heart". But although it is psychologically 
subjective, it nevertheless requires objective stand- 
ards (idimd 1 ) for objectivity and verification, 
"just as the taste of sugar is private, nevertheless its 
sweetness is something universally agreed upon by 



3. The aesthetic definition of dhawk already 
stands at the threshold of the mystic use of the term. 
In its mystical usage this term denotes the direct 
quality of the mystic experience. The Christian 
mystics had also used the term (e.g., the afo07)(ji<; 
xapSta? and yeiaii; of Bishop Diadochus), although 
it would occur naturally to a mystic endeavouring to 
distinguish direct experience from discursive know- 
ledge. The metaphor of "sight" is also often used, 
but dhawk has more qualitative overtones of enjoy- 
ment and "intoxication" (sukr) besides the noetic 
element which it shares with the term "sight". Thus, 
Djalal al-DIn RumI says "you cannot appreciate the 



of this wine unless you taste it". Kamal 
al-DIn in his Isfildhdt al-sufiyya states that dhawk is 
the first stage of wadfd (ecstasy), the two further 
stages being shurb (drinking) and riy (satisfaction). 
According to some, however, wadjd is a higher stage 
than dhawk. These distinctions, however, are later, 
and concern the doctrine of SQfism rather than its 
practice. 

Dhawk is also commonly used to denote insight or 
intuitive appreciation, generally of any phenomenon 
whatsoever, and implies the previous acquisition and 
exercise of a skill. A doctor, for example, may on the 
basis of his previous experience be able to identify 
a novel disease by dhawk; or a historian, in face of 
conflicting evidence on a point, may be able to 
decide by a kind of "historical intuition". 

Bibliography : in addition to the references 
above, and general works on philosophy and 
literary aesthetics, see al-Thanawi, Dictionary of 
technical terms, s.v.; al-Djurdjanl, K. al-Ta l rifdt. 

(F. Rahman) 
DHAWK. Muhammad Ibrahim Shayioj, Urdu 
poet b. Dihli n Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1204/18 December 
1790 (so Azad; in 1203 according to a contemporary 
Calcutta newspaper, cf. Nawd-i Adah, 45), the only 
son of Sh. Muhammad Ramadan, a trusted servant 
of Nawwab Lutf 'All Khan of Dihli. His early 
schooling in Persian and Arabic was in the mosque- 
school of Hafiz Ghulam Rasul Shawk, a poet and a 
pupil of Shah Nasir (Shefta, 150), who inspired the 
young learner with a love for reading and writing 
poetry. Dhawk later became a pupil of Shah Nasir 
and followed his style, but after some time, when 
a rupture had taken place between the pupil and the 
teacher, he began to write successfully in the style 
of the well-known masters of Urdu poetry, parti- 
cularly Sawda. He was now attending mushd'aras 
and acquiring fame as a young poet (cf. Sprenger, 
222 ; Kasim, Madfrnu^a-i Naghz, ii, 385 : Dhawk was 
about 17 when this was written). He intensified his 
study of the sciences (medicine, music, astrology, 
etc.) when an opportunity came for him to complete 
his education, and the technical terms of these stood 
him in good stead later when he came to write 
kasidas. His reputation grew rapidly, and Mir Kazim 
Husayn, an old class-fellow, introduced him to Abu 
Zafar, the heir apparent of Akbar Shah II, whose 
poetical compositions he was in due course appointed 
to correct, roughly from 1816 (cf. Karim al-DIn, 
Tadhkira-i Ndznindn, 118; but cf. also his Tabakdt, 
459). On presenting a kasida to Akbar Shah he 
received the title of Khdkdni-i Hind, by which 
Shefta (between 1831-3) calls him. After the prince 
ascended the throne, as Bahadur Shah II, in 1837, 
Dhawk became his laureate, and his pay, formerly 
between Rs. 4 and 7, was raised to 30, later to 100, 
rupees. In his old age he was made a Khan Bahadur, 
and received many other favours after reciting his 
court odes in the c Id darbdrs and other ceremonial 
occasions. He died on 23 Safar 1271/15 November 
1854 (Sabir, 224 ff., quoting also Zafar, and an elegy 
of Soz, particularly 237, line 10). 

Dhawk was of rather small stature, with a dark 
pock-marked face (the result of a childhood attack), 
bright eyes, and a loud but pleasant voice. He had 
a good memory, and knew a large number of Persian 
verses by heart. He was a religious-minded man, of 
the Shi'a persuasion according to Karim al-DIn's 
information, contented and kind-hearted (he wrote 
no satires). His only son Muhammad Isma'il (called 
in the Nawd-i Adab, 49, Wakar al-Dawla Muhammad 
Isma'Il Khan) survived him for only a few years. 



He was a prolific writer, as his contemporaries 
(Sabir, Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Anwar, Azad and 
others) testify, but much of his work was lost in the 
disturbances of 1857-8. According to S_h6fta, who 
used to meet him occasionally, 106, and Sabir, 223, 
he did not arrange his poems in the form of a diwdn; 
according to Azad Dhawk compiled a diwdn when 
15 or 16 years old, though its fate is unknown. 
Zafar also refers to a diwdn of Dhawk (Hindustani, 
April 1945, 40). The earliest edition of the diwdn, 
186 pp., was lithographed in Dihll in 1859; no 
reference to it occurs in the subsequent editions. An 
attempt to collect his work was made by Hafiz 
Ghulam Rasul WIran (the blind pupil of Dhawk. 
who had associated with him for some 20 years and 
who knew a large number of his poems by heart) 
and his co-editors Zahlr and Anwar (for whom see 
Saksena, 156 ft.; Bailey, 74 if.); as well as taking 
dictation from WIran, ?ahlr and Anwar made use 
of various tadhkiras and of the note-books of the 
poet's pupils. This diwdn (2393 bayts) was litho- 
graphed in Dihli in 1279/1862-3, with an Urdu 
colophon and Anwar's Persian preface (20 
appended to the book; it was later lithographed 
several times, without the Persian preface, 
Kanpur, Dihli, Mira'th, etc. The largest edition was 
produced by Azad, in his old age (1885-9 ?) just 
before his mind became finally deranged; he states 
that soon after Dhawk's death he and the poet's 
son, Muhammad Isma'Il, collected Dhawk's poems 
after the labour of many months. This collection was 
published from Lahore in 1890 (Blumhardt, Suppl. 
Cat., 319), and is composed mostly of ghazals, 24 or 
25 kasidas, and some fragments (5040 bayts in all), 
with interesting prefatory and marginal notes. 
Several pages of rare verses of the poet have been 
quoted from a Nigdristdn-i Sukhan in the Mu'dsir. 
More of his unpublished verses can be collected from 
old tadhkiras. This and what follows would justify 
a new critical edition of the diwdn. 

In a critical examination of Azad's edition (Ph. D. 
thesis, 1939) Muhammad Sadik claims that Azad 
revised and improved Dhawk's juvenile work, in 
some cases slightly, in others drastically; later, in 
1944-7, Professor Mahmfld Sheran! proved the inter- 
polations throughout the diwdn even more fully and 
conclusively, and the same is shown by Azad's copy 
of the diwdn (edition of 1279 A.H.; now in Dr. 
Sadik's possession) which bears emendations in his 
own handwriting. 

As a poet Dhawk enjoyed great popularity among 
his contemporaries who praised him for handling 
ghazals, kasidas and other verse forms with equal 
facility. He owed his great prestige partly to his 
being a teacher of Bahadur Shah II, partly to his 
writing in a style which was, unlike Ghalib's, easily 
intelligible to all. His work shows great technical 
skill; the language he uses is perfect in its eloquence, 
purity, sweetness and naturalness of expression; he 
uses idioms in a masterly manner, and his similes 
and metaphors have novelty and beauty. His ideas 
arc well-arranged and often fresh, and his allusions 
have grace and elegance. Generally speaking, 
however, he has not the subjectivity of Dard or Mir; 
his ghazals, therefore, lack what ghazals must have 
— effect and warmth of feeling. In the kasida, 
however, he was much more successful, and is 
regarded as the best kasida-writer, next to Sawda, 
in Urdu. On the whole he shared the tastes of Nasikh 
and Atish of Lucknow, rather than those of the Dihli 
school. Gradually public opinion has swung more in 



the direction of the rival school represented by 
Ghalib and Mu'min. 

Bibliography: Kasim, Kudratallah, Madi- 
mu'-a-i Naghz, completed 1221/1806-7, Lahore 
1933; Ibn Aminallah, Tufan, Tadhkira-i Shu'ard'-i 
Urdu kd, Dihli 1844 (not available to me) ; Mustafa 
Khan Shefta. Gulshan-i Be-khdr, compiled between 
1832 and 1835, 2nd ed., lith., Dihli 1837; Karlm 
al-DIn, Guldasta-i Ndzanindn, Dihli 1261/1845, 118 
(cites 549 bayts of Dhawk); idem, Jabakdt-i 
shu<ard-i Hind, Dihli 1848, 458; Mirza Kadir 
Bakhsh Sabir, Gulistdn-i sukhan, Dihli 1271/1854-5 ; 
Nigdristdn-i sukhan (not available to me, but see 
Mu'asir (Urdu quarterly), x-xi, Patna 1957; 
WIran — Zahlr — Anwar, Diwdn-i Dhawk. Dihli 
1279/1862-3; Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Athdr al- 
sanddid, Lucknow 1900; A. Sprenger, Catalogue 
of the Arabic, Persian and Hindustany mss. of the 
libraries of the King of Oudh, Calcutta 1854, 222 
(notice based on Shefta, see above, and A c zam 
al-Dawla Mir Muhammad Khan Sarwar, '■Umda-i 
Muntahhaba, completed between 1216 and 124& 
A.H.); Nassakh. Sukhan-i shu'ard', composed 
1281, Lucknow 1291/1874, 166 ff.; M. Garcin de 
Tassy, Histoire de la littirature hindouie et 
hindoustanie 2 , Paris 1871, iii, 339, 364; Sayyid 
C A1I Hasan Khan, Bazm-i sukhan, Agra 1298/1881, 
51; Sayyid NOr al-Hasan Khan, Tadhkira Tur-i 
Kalim, Agra 1298/1881 ; J. F. Blumhardt, Catalogue 
of Hindustani printed books in the library of the 
British Museum, London 1889, col. 231; idem, 
A supplementary catalogue . . ., London 1909, 
col. 323; Muhammad Husayn Azad, Diwdn-i 
Dhawk (the life of Dhawk as given in this and the 
following work is to be used cautiously); idem, 
Ab-i Haydt, Lahore 1907, 420; Sri Ram, Khum- 
hhdna-i Djdwid, Dihli 1917, iii, 269; Shah Muham- 
mad Sulayman, Intikhdb-i ghazaliydt-i Dhawk 
(with Muwdzana-i Dhawk wa Ghalib) . Budayun 
1925 ( ?) ; T. Grahame Bailey, History of Urdu 
literature, Calcutta 1932, 70 and index ; Muhammad 
Rafik Khawar, Khdkdni-i Hind {ek mutdla'a) 
Lahore 1933; Muhammad Sadik, Maulvi [sicj 
Muhammad Husain Azad: his life, works and in- 
fluence (Ph. D. thesis, 1939, Appx. viii, VII, now 
in the Panjab University library); Ram Babu 
Saksena, History of Urdu literature, Allahabad 
1940, 152-6, 16, 29; Kadi Ghulam Amir, Bihtarin 
ghazal-go. Lucknow 1941; Firak Gorakhpuri, 
Anddze, Allahabad, xcii (1937), cii (1944); Kalim 
al-DIn Ahmad, Urdu shdHri par ek nazar 2 , Patna 
1952, i, 113; Hindustani (Urdu quarterly), Allah- 
abad, 1944, i, iv; 1945, all issues; 1946, i; 194 7, 
i; Sayyid Mas'Qd Hasan Ridawl, Ab-i Haydt kd 
tankidi mufdla'a, Lucknow 1953, 59, 69; Nawd-i 
Adab (Urdu quarterly), Bombay, ix/3 (July- 
September 1958), 41; Sayyid Imdad Imam Athar, 
Kdshif al-hakaHk, Lahore 1959. i. 29 ft., 258 ft., 
280 ff. (Muhammad Shafi) 

DHAWWAK [see cashnagIr]. 
al-DHPAB. "the wolves", a South Arabian tribe 
whose lands lie between the territory of the Lower 
'Awalik [q.v.] and the Lower Wahid! [q.v.]. There are 
also considerable settlements of the Dhi'Sb in the 
country of the Lower Wahid! itself, the villages of 
which are largely occupied by them. The soil is 
unfertile and mostly prairie-like pasture land. In 
the east of the distict is a mountain of some size, the 
Djabal Hamra, over 4000 ft. high. The chief place 
is the fishing village of Hawra (al-Ulya) with an 
important harbour. 

The Dhi'ab are a very wild, warlike tribe of 



l-DHI'AB - 



robbers, and are therefore feared throughout South 

Arabia. They are KabdHl (free, independent tribes) 

and are considered as genuine Himyaris ; their slogan 

(sarkha, ( azwa) is: and dhlb (dhib) l}amyar (IJimyar), 

"I am the wolf of Himyar". They have no common 

sultan, and the various branches of the tribe are 

ruled by Shaykhs, called Abu, "father", whom they 

heed only in case of war. The most influential 

Shaykh of the Dhi'ab lives in 'Irka (^Irgha). 

Bibliography: H. v. Maltzan, Reise nach 

SUdarabien, Brunswick 1873, 224, 235 ft.; C. 

Landberg, in Arabica, iv, 1897, 19 ff.; v, 1898, 

230 ft.; von Wissmann and Hofner, Beitrdge zur 

hist. Geogr. des vorislam. SUdarabien, Wiesbaden 

1953, 76, 92, 98 ff. (J. SCHLEIFER-[0. LOFGREN]) 

BHPB, the wolf. Most of the cognate forms in 
other Semitic languages have the same significance. 
Numerous synonyms and sobriquets are found in 
Arabic, such as sirhdn, uways, sid, abu dja'da, etc. 
In local usage, dhi'b may also denote the jackal 
(Jayakar, Malouf), yet Hommel's assumption (303, 
n. 1) that this was the only meaning of the word in 
ancient Arabic (so also Jacob) is inconsistent with 
its use in the Sura of Joseph (Kur'an, XII, 13, 14, 17), 
where it stands for the biblical 'evil beast' (Gen. 
xxxvii 20, 33). 

Ample mention of the dhy'b is made in ancient 
Arabic poems, proverbs, popular traditions and 
hadiths, some of which are quoted in later zoological 
writings. Other information given by Arab zoologists 
goes back to foreign sources, such as Aristotle's 
Historia Animalium and the ancient Physiologus 
literature. 

Since dhi'b, in the Arabic script, is similar to 
dubb (= bear), the two words were easily confused 
and, consequently, the behaviour and properties of 
one animal have sometimes been attributed to the 

The dhi'b is described as extremely malignant, 
quarrelsome and cunning. It is quick of hearing and 
possesses a powerful sense of smell. It feeds on 
flesh only but eats herbs when ill. It can go without 
food for a long time, whence the proverb: "More 
hungry than a wolf". Da* al-dhi'b (lit.: the wolf's 
disease) is a metaphorical expression for hunger. 
Its stomach (according to some: its tongue) is able 
to dissolve a solid bone but not a date stone. Its 
penis consists of bone. The female is robuster and 
more courageous than the male. If a hyena is killed 
or caught, the dhi'b takes care of her young. Some 
authors state that the wolf goes single and does 
not associate, while others describe its behaviour 
in aggregation; no one separates from the pack, as 
they do not trust one another. When one becomes 
weak or is wounded, it is eaten by the others. When 
asleep, they keep the right and left eye open alter- 
nately to keep watch on one another. The wolf is 
always prone to attack men in contrast to other 
wild animals which do so only when old and unable 
to hunt. It assails a person from behind, not from 
the front. A man who shows no fear of it remains 
unmolested, but is attacked when afraid. Only 
ravenous wolves are aggressive. When a wolf has 
designs on a flock of sheep, it howls so that the dog 
hears and runs in the direction of the sound; the 
wolf then goes to the other side where there is no 
dog and snatches the sheep away. It makes its raids 
preferably just before sunrise when shepherd and 
dog are both tired from the night watch. 

Some of the information on the wolf belongs to 
the field of superstition, e.g.: If a man carries with 
him the fang, skin or eye of a wolf, he will 



his opponents and be loved by all people. The wolf 
also played a part in Arabic oneiromancy. Its blood, 
brain, liver, bile, testicles, dung and urine were used 
for various medicinal purposes. 

Bibliography: c Abd al-Ghanl al-Nabulusi, 

Ta c (ir al-andm, Cairo 1354, i, 229 f.; Damirl, s.v. 

(transl. Jayakar, i, 834 ff.) ; Abu HayySLn al- 

Tawhidl, Imtd c , i, 144, 165, 171 f., 177, 183, 186; 

ii, 31, 105 (transl. Kopf, in Osiris xii [1956], index, 

s.vv. dhy'b, dhi'ba and wolf); Dawud al-Antaki, 

Tadhkira, Cairo 1324, i, 150 f.; Djahiz, IJayawdn*, 

index ; Hommel, Sdugethiere, 303 ff., 441 ; Ibn 

Kutayba, l Uyun al-Akhbdr, Cairo 1925-30, ii, 

79, 82, 88 (transl. Kopf, 54, 57 f., 64); Ibn al- 

Baytar, Djdmi 1 , Bulak 1291, ii, 127 f.; Ibshlhl, 

Mustatraf, bab 62, s.v.; G. Jacob, Beduinenleben', 

18 f.; A. Malouf, Arabic Zool. Diet., Cairo 1932, 

47 f.; Kazwlnl (Wustenfeld), i, 395 f.; al-Mustawfi 

al- Kazwlnl (Stephenson), 29 f.; Nuwayrl, Nihdyat 

al-arab, ix, 270 ff.; E. Wiedemann, Beitr. z. Gesch. 

d. Naturw., liii, 284. (L. Kopf) 

DHIHNl, Bayburtlu, Turkish folk-poet, b. 

towards the end of the I2th/i8th century in Bayburt. 

Educated in Erzurum and Trabzon, he spent ten 

years in Istanbul and later travelled in the provinces 

on minor governmental duties; he was for a short 

time in the service of Mustafa Reshld Pasha. He 

spent the last four years of his life in Trabzon and 

died in a village nearby while on his way to his 

home town (1275/1859)- 

His background, somewhat different from that 
of the usual folk poet, led him to imitate classical 
poets, and he even composed a complete diwdn of 
traditional poetry in *arud. But he remained a poor 
and awkward imitator of diwdn poets and his fame 
rests entirely on a few poems, written in the folk 
tradition, which he himself tried to ignore and did 
not include in his diwdn. Dhihni, as a folk poet, is 
strongly under the influence of classical poets and 
his poems are full of the figures, images, and similes 
of diwdn poetry. In spite of this he succeeds in 
capturing the spirit of the genuine folk poet of the 
early 19th century. His famous koshma about his 
home town was written when he saw Bayburt in 
utter ruin, after its evacuation by the Russians in 



Bibliography : Ziyaeddin Fahri, Bayburdlu 
Zihni, Istanbul 1928; Ibnulemin Mahmud Kemal, 
Bayburdlu Zihni, in Turk Tarih Encumeni Mec., 
i, 1929; M. Fuad Kopriilu, Turk Sazsairleri Anto- 
lojisi, Istanbul 1940, iii, 450. (FAHiR Iz) 

DH IKR. reminding oneself. "Remind thyself of 
(udhkur) thy Lord when thou forgettest" (Kur'dn, 
XVIII, 24). Thus: the act of reminding, then 
oral mention of the memory, especially the tireless 
repetition of an ejaculatory litany, finally the very 
technique of this mention. In tasawwuf the dhikr is 
possibly the most frequent form of prayer, its 
mukdbal ("opposite correlative") being fikr [q.v.], 
(discursive) reflection, meditation. In his Tawdsin, 
in connexion with Muhammad's "nocturnal ascen- 
sion", al-Halladj declares that the road which passes 
through "the garden of dhikr " and that which takes 
"the way of fikr " are equally valid. For the Sufis the 
Kur'anic basis of the dhikr is the above-quoted text 
(cited, among others, by al-Kalabadhi) and XXXIII, 
41: "O ye who believe! Remember (udhkuru) Allah 
with much remembrance (dhikr an kathir an )". 
Ifadlths are often quoted in support and in praise 
of the practice. 

As an ejaculatory litany tirelessly repeated the 
dhikr may be compared with the "prayer of Jesus" 



of the oriental Christians, Sinaitic then Anthonic, 
and also with the diapa-yOga of India and the 
Japanese nembutsu, and this quite apart from 
historical threads which may have played a r61e in 
one direction or another. One may recognize in these 
modes of prayer, without denying possible influences, 
a universal tendency, however climates and religious 
beliefs may differ. 

Traditions of the Brotherhoods :— The 
dhikr may be uttered aloud (Halt) or in a low voice 
(khafi). At the beginning the formula must always 
be articulated. In the Muslim brotherhoods (tarika) 
[q.v.] there is a double tradition: that of solitary 
dhikr (aloud or whispered), and that of collective dhikr 
{aloud). It is the first which the major texts of the 
great spiritual writers envisage: "The Sufi retires 
by himself to a cell (zdwiya) . . . After sitting in 
solitude he utters continously "God (Allah)" being 
present with his heart as well" (al-Ghazzali, Ihyd', 
iii, 16-7). Several brotherhoods (the Shadhiliyya 
and their offshoots Khalwatiyya, Darkawa, etc.) 
stress the advantages of solitary dhikr and seem 
to make it a condition of the dhikr al-khawa$s 
(of the "privileged", those well advanced along 
the spiritual path). Others (Rahmaniyya, etc.), 
without excluding the entry into solitude, stress the 
•dangers of it and recommend, at least for a long time, 
"sessions" (hadra) or "circles" (halka) of collective 
dhikr. The latter is without doubt as old as the 
solitary dhikr; but in its liturgico-technical form, 
with prescribed attitudes regulating the respiratory 
rhythm as well as the physical posture, it seems to 
have been born at a relatively late date, about the 
«th/i3th century, betraying Indo-Iranian influence 
among the Mawlawiyya ("Whirling Dervishes") of 
Konya, and Indian through Turko-Mongol influence 
(cf. the descriptions by the Mongol ex-functionary 
SimnanI, I3th-i4th centuries). This technicality, 
which must have been introduced progressively, 
extends its influence to the experience of the solitary 
dhikr itself (cf. in the Christian Orient the connexions 
between the "prayer of Jesus" and the hesychastic 
technique). 

The "sessions" generally take the form of a kind 
of liturgy which begins with the recitation of 
Kur'anic verses and prayers composed by the 
founder of the brotherhood. This is the hizb or the 
■wird [qq.v.], often accompanied by the "spiritual 
oratorio" (samd 1 -). Wird, samd c , and physical 
posture during the recitation of the dhikr vary with 
the brotherhoods (see, for the Maghrib, Rinn, 
Marabouts et Khouan). For the dhikr itself the best 
summary is the Salsabil al-muHn ji'l-tardHk al- 
arba'in of Muhammad al-Sanusi (d. 1276/1859) 
printed on the margin of the same author's MasdHl 
al-'ashr, where there is a condensed account of the 
essential characteristics of the dhikr practised by 
the forty preceding brotherhoods, of which the 
Sanusiyya claim to have adopted the essential. The 
collective dhikr sessions described by Western 
writers are generally classifiable as "dhikr of the 
commonalty (al- c awdmm)" . One of the best-observed 
accounts is that of the Rahmaniyya by W. S. Haas. 
It requires correction and completion (e.g., in con- 
nexion with the interpretation of the formula used) ; 
in any case it can hardly exhaust the subject. 

Description of the experience: — Whether 
collective or solitary, the recitation of the dhikr 
presupposes a preparation. This is the aim of the 
hizb and wird in the "sessions". But a general 
preparation is necessary ("renouncing the world to 
lead an ascetic life" says al-Ghazzali) and always the 



intention of the heart (niyya). The part played by 
the shaykh ("spiritual director") is a capital one. It 
is he who directs and regulates the recitation in the 
collective sessions; it is he who must guide the 
solitary disciple step by step. The beginner is 
recommended to close his eyes and to place the 
image of his shaykh before his mind. The disposition 
of the "circle" in the collective dhikr is carefully 
regulated. He who recites the dhikr in solitude is 
enjoined to sit in an attitude of tarabbu' (with legs 
crossed) or on his heels. The position of the hands 
is specified. It is recommended that the disciple 
should perfume himself with benzoin and wear 
ritually pure clothing. 

The formula chosen may vary according to tradi- 
tion and according to the spiritual advancement 
attained by the Sufi. A customary formula for the 
commencement is the "first shahdda", la ildh ilia 'Udh. 
The Shadhill method is: "One begins the recital 
from the left side (of the chest) which is, as it were, 
the niche containing the lamp of the heart, the 
focus of spiritual light. One continues by passing 
from the lower part of the chest on the right upwards 
to the upper part, and so on to the initial position, 
having thus, so to speak, described a circle" (Ibn 
c Iyad). There is another (slightly different) descrip- 
ion of the Shadhili dhikr by al-Sanusi, and a de- 
scription of the Rahman! dhikr (same formula) in 
the late work of Bash Tarzi, Kitdb al-minah, 
79-80, etc. 

A formula for advanced adepts (sometimes for 
solitary beginners, sometimes from the beginning of 
"collective" sessions) is the "Name of Majesty" 
Allah. The utterance is accompanied by two move- 
ments, says Bash Tarzi (ibid., 80): (1) "strike the 
chest (with the head) where the corporeal heart 
(which is cone-shaped) is, saying Allah with the head 
inclined over the navel; (2) raise the head as you 
pronounce the hamza {'A) and raise the head from 
the navel up to a level with the brain, thsn pronounce 
the remainder of the formula (lldh) on the secret 
navel". The dhikr known as that of the Halladjiyya, 
according to al-Sanusi, is: Allah, with the suppression 
of Al and with the vocalization laha, lahi, lahu (cf. 
L. Massignon, Passion d'al-flallddf, 342). Al-Sanusi 
warns that this procedure may only be used in 
solitude and by "a man aware of what the result 
will be". (It appears that the modern 'AUwiyya 
brotherhood of Mostaghanem has re-adopted this 

Other formulae are proposed by Ibn 'Ata 5 Allah 
of Alexandria, Simnani, Bash Tarzi, etc. in accordance 
with gnostic hierarchies where spiritual progress is 
matched with the vision of "coloured lights" which 
is the sign of it : Huwa, al-Ifakk, al-lfayy, al-Kayyum, 
al-Kahhdr. 

The duration of the experience is regulated either 
by the shaykh, or, in solitude, by numbers, with or 
without the help of a rosary (subfra): 300, 3,000, 
6,000, 12,000, 70,000 repetitions (cf. the 6,000 or 
12,000 "prayers of Jesus" daily of the "Russian 
Pilgrim" and the Japanese liturgy "of the million" 
(nembutsu). The invocation may finally become 
unceasing, without care about the exact number. 
Control of the respiration seems mostly to be 
concomitant, but it appears more deliberate in the 
Hamayli dhikr (6th/i2th century) and Simnani's 
descriptions and also in the counsels of Zayn al- 
Milla wa '1-DIn (no doubt KhawafI) the commentator 
on Ansari's Mandzil. 

The dhikr as an internal experience: — One 
of the best sources is the Miftah al-faldh of Ibn 



'Ata' Allah of Alexandria, the second Grand Master 
of the Shadhilt order. Reference may also be made, 
on the one hand, to al-Kalabadhl's chapter on the 
dhikr and the matter-of-fact description of Ghazzali. 
and, on the other hand, to the numerous gnoses of 
later times (Zayn al-Din, Bash Tarzi, Amin al-Kurdi 
Nakshbandi, etc.). Three main stages may be 
distinguished, each being subdivided; it is to be 
noted that these progressive stages are found again 
in the writings of Malay Sufism. 

(i) Dhikr of the tongue with "intention of the 
heart" (the mere "dhikr of the tongue" without 
niyya is rejected, for it would be "just routine, 
profitless", says Bash Tarzi). (a) At the first step, 
there is a voluntary recitation, with effort, in order 
to "place the One Mentioned in the heart" according 
to the exact modes of utterance and physical postures 
taught by the shaykh; it is firstly to this level that 
the foregoing descriptions apply, (b) At the second 
step the recitation continues effortless. The disciple, 
says Ghazzali (Ihya?, iii, 17), "leaves off the move- 
ment of the tongue and sees the word (or formula) 
as it were flowing over it". Cf. the similar testimony 
of those who have experienced the "prayer of Jesus" 
and the Japanese nembutsu. However, three elements 
are still present: the subject conscious of his expe- 
rience, the state of consciousness, and the One 
Mentioned: dhdkir, dhikr, madhkur (cf. the triad of 
Yoga-Sutra, i, 41 : receptive subject, act of reception, 
object received). The "effortless" step may be 
compared with the dhardnd stage of Yoga experience, 
"fixation" (of mental activity). 

(2) Dhikr of the heart 

"The Sufi reaches a point where he has effaced the 
trace of the word on his tongue, and finds his heart 
continuously applied to the dhikr (al-Ghazzali, ibid. 
Same testimony in Account by a Russian Pilgrim). 
Here also there are two steps : (a) witheffort (cf . Ibn 
c Ata 5 Allah, Mijtdh, 4), i.e., with the obscure desire 
to "maintain the formula" which results in something 
like a pain felt in the physical heart; (b) effortless : 
this presence is expressed in a sort of hammering 
of the formula by the beating of the physical heart 
(same in Russian Pilgrim) and by the pulsation of the 
blood in the veins and the arteries, with no utterance, 
even mental, of the words, but where the words 
nevertheless remain. This is a mode of " 
presence", where the "state of 
dissolves into an acquired passivity. Cf. the step 
of "absorption" (dhydna) of Yoga. Al-Ghazzali's 
analysis in the Ihyd } halts at this stage. "It is in his 
(the disciple's) power to reach this limit, and to make 
the state lasting by repulsing temptations; but, on 
the other hand, it is not in his power to attract to 
himself the Mercy of the All-High". This important 
distinction is reminiscent of al-Halladj's exclamation 
to God: "You are my ravisher, it is not the dhikr 
which has ravished me!" (Diwan, 53). Later tradi- 
tions no longer draw this distinction. Ibn c Ata 5 Allah's 
monograph speaks of a third stage, for which the 
second is an effective preparation. 

(3) Dhikr of the "inmost being" (sirr ) 

The heart (kalb) was the seat of the "knowledge 
of divine things"; the "inmost being" [sirr), "a 
substance more subtle than the spirit (ruh)" will 
be the place of the "vision" (mushdhada) of them. It 
is also the place where the tawhid takes place, the 
declaration of divine unity and the unification of 
the self with the self, and the self with God. The 
writers often associate this third stage of the dhikr 
with the state of ihsdn, spiritual perfection and 
beauty. The "arrival" of the "dhikr of the inmost 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



being" is known by this, that "if you leave off the 
dhikr it does not leave you, and the whole being of 
the Sufi becomes 'a tongue uttering the dhikr'" 
(Mijtdh, 6). The slave of God "has disappeared 
(ghdHb) both from the dhikr and the very object of 
the dhikr" (ibid.). Thus no duality must remain. 
But a twofold step is distinguished even here: 
(a) fand' c an al-dhikr wa 'l-madhkur ... ild 'lldh, 
annihilation away from the dhikr and its object . . . 
towards God; (b) fand 3 l an al-jand* . . . bi'Udh, 
annihilation away from the annihilation . . . in God. 

It seems that this state may be compared with the 
entry into samddhi of Indian Yoga (or at least the 
"samddhi with seed"; any equivalence with the 
"samddhi without seed" should be more closely 
examined) : "becoming one alone" (cf. the Indian 
kaivalya) conceived as abolition in God, generally 
in the line of "monism of the Being" (wahdat 
al-wudiud). The personality of the Sufi has, it as 
were, "disappeared" in the act of abolishing all 
acts. Ibn c Ata 3 Allah's description of the dhikr al-sirr 
goes as far as possible in expressing this. 

Accompanying phenomena and explica- 
tory gnoses: — Ibn 'Ata 3 Allah describes the dhikr 
of the tongue as sounds of voices and rhythms 
"within the periphery of the head". Explanation: 
"the son of Adam is a mixture of all substances, 
noble and base", and the sounds heard come from 
each of the "constituent elements of these sub- 
stances" (Mijtdh, 5) ; the dhikr liberates the harmony 
established between the microcosm and the macro- 
cosm (cf. the period of "cosmization" of Yoga). The 
dhikr of the heart resembles "the buzzing of bees, 
without a loud or disturbing noise" (ibid.) and is 
accompanied by luminous and coloured phenomena, 
at this stage intermittent. Al-Ghazzali drew attention 
to this apparition of "lights" which "sometimes pass 
like a flash of lightning and sometimes stay, some- 
times last and sometimes do not last, sometimes 
follow each other different from one another, some- 
times blend into one single mood" (he. cit.). He 
explains them as "gleams of truth" released by God's 
good will, but other authors later describe them as 
intrinsically and obligatorily bound up with the 
dhikr experience. 

Later writers describe these luminous phenomena 
as being even more brilliant at the step of the dhikr of 
the inmost being, of which they become the parti- 
cular mark. This time "the fire of the dhikr does not 
go out, and its lights do not flee . . . You see always 
lights going up and others coming down; the fire 
around you is bright, very hot, and it flames" 
(Mijtdh, 6). Yoga describes similar phenomena. 
Moreover it would be rewarding to make a 
comparison and a distinction between the Sufi 
analyses and either the Buddhist "objective" illu- 
mination or the "uncreated light of the Thabor" of 
the oriental forms of Christianity. Various late 
authors establish other successive stages from the 
dhikr of the inmost being which are also marked by 
variously coloured luminous phenomena. The descrip- 
tions vary with the texts and do not seem to affect 
the structure itself of the experience. This is the 
hierarchy proposed by Simnani: grey smoke (cor- 
poreal envelope); blue (physical soul); red (heart); 
white light ("inmost being"); yellow (spirit [ruh]); 
black (subtle and mysterious principle, khafiyya); 
green (reality [(takika], the state of the perfect soul 
"which sums up all the other states" as Bash Tarzi 
states). 

These rising and falling lights are held to be 
"divine illumination"; no longer a gift from Mercy, 






as al-Ghazzall believed, but an effect linked to the 
experience according to the extent to which the 
dhikr of the inmost being has liberated the divine 
element in the human spirit directly "emanating" 
from God (cf. the "trace of the One" of Plotinus). 
The dhikr also effects a direct communication with 
the "worlds" [see 'alam, § 2]. The dhikr of the 
tongue and its "cosmization" effects entry into the 
world of diabarut, All-Power. The higher stages 
introduce into the domain of malakut "angelic 
substances"; they may even lead to lahut, the 
world of the Divine Essence. "If you recite the 
dhikr with your inmost being, recite with yourself 
the Throne with all its worlds until the dhikr unites 
with the Divine Essence (dhdt) (Miftdh, 7). One is 
reminded here of the entry into the "Pure Land" 
of the Jodo promised to the disciples of the Japanese 
nembutsu. 

These gnostic visions, which in Ibn c Ata> Allah 
are relatively sober, later become involved in the 
extreme, as in the above-quoted text of Ibn Amin 
al-Kurdi. 

Interpretations :— Al-Halladj, al-Kalabadhi, 
etc., speak of the dhikr as a method of reminding 
one's self of God, of helping the soul to live in God's 
presence; but without for this reason underestimating 
the discursive method of fikr. Al-Ghazzall portrays 
the dhikr as the way of the Sufis, but still preserves, 
so it seems, the method aspect of its nature: a method 
of unifying the disciple's spirit and preparing him 
to receive, if the Lord wills, the supreme Mercies. 
Ibn c Ata' Allah informs us at the beginning of the 
Miftdh that to the best of his belief no monograph 
has yet been devoted to the dhikr. If this is true, 
then the developments ex professo in the theory and 
practice of the dhikr, and the absolutely capital 
importance assigned to it, may be dated from the 
6th/i2th century. Ibn c Ata' Allah no longer speaks 
of it as a preparatory or concomitant method, but 
as an effective technique, up to its consummation: 
entry into the domain of lahut. Later works insist 
even more on technique — voice, breathing, posture, 
etc., give themselves up to long disquisitions on the 
gnostic theme, and never cease to see in the dhikr 
pursued to its last steps a "guarantee" of attainment. 
This emphasis on technique (where non-Muslim 
influences are at work) dates from the period when 
Sufism was dominated by the One-ness of Being 
(wahdat aUwudjiid); man, in respect of his most 
"spiritual" aspects, is considered to belong by 
nature to the divine. 

Now the direct effect of experiencing the dhikr 
seems to be a monoideism working on the One 
Mentioned, "realizing" that perpetual (conscious) 
"re-remembering" which the first Sufis demanded 
of it (cf. the "prayer of Jesus" of the Sinaitic 
Fathers). But as techniques progressed the ever 
more numerous analyses are marked by the "cos- 
mization" of the dhikr of the tongue, the influence 
of the dhikr of the heart on the circulatory system, 
and the probable influence of the dhikr of the 
inmost being on the para- and ortho-sympathetic 
systems, and it seems as though we are in the pre- 
sence of a control by this monoideism on the indi- 
vidual's subconscious, not to say unconscious, zones. 
In this case we are dealing with an equivalent of 
the djapa-yoga, almost certainly bringing about a 
twisting-back of self on self towards an ineffable grip 
of the first act of existence. The conceptualizations 
of the wahdat al-wudjfld remain faithful to their 
monist view of the world by calling this movement 
of "enstasis" fand* . . . billdh. 



This "attainment" is the fruit of a difficult 
technique of natural spirituality based on long 
asceticism. It is understandable that certain brother- 
hoods should have sought the equivalent (or what 
they thought to be the equivalent) by purely 
physical procedures: the sacred dances of the 
Mawlawiyya, the cries of the "Howlers", not to 
mention stimulating and stupefying drugs. Thus 
one arrives finally at veritable counterfeits which 
have not been without effect on the opposition by 
the nahda of contemporary Islam to the brother- 
hoods and its distrust of Sufism. 

To sum up: we find, in the course of the history of 
Sufism, two distinct lines of utilization of the dhikr. 
The first and oldest makes it simply a method of 
prayer, without excluding other methods, where 
technique appears only in rudimentary form. The 
second, which became dominant, sees in it a guar- 
antee of efficacity in attaining the highest "states" 
(ahwdl) by virtue of a seeking after ittihdd conceived 
as a (substantial) identification with the divine. This 
latter tendency often yields to the attraction of 
"procedures" and gnoses which become ever more 
extravagant. The testimony of Ghazzall in the Ihya y 
stands at the hinge of the two lines — nearer to the 
first, and yet bearing witness already to the 
appearance of technique. 

Bibliography : I. Muslim works. An exhaustive 
list would be very long. We shall restrict ourselves 
to recalling and specifying the chief sources used 
in the article: Kalabadhi, Kitdb al-ta c arruf li- 
madhhab ahl al-tasawwuf, ed. Arberry, Cairo 1352/ 
1933, ch. 47; Halladj, K. al-fawdsin, ed. Massignon, 
Paris (Geuthner), 1913, 33; id., Diwdn, 2nd ed., 
ed. Massignon, Paris (Geuthner), 1955; Abu 
Hamid al-Ghazzall, Ihyd' 'uliim al-din, Cairo 
1352/1933, iii, 16-7; Ibn 'Ata' Allah of Alexandria, 
K. miftdh al-faldh wa-misbdh al-arwdh, Cairo n. d. 
(often printed on the margin of Sha'rani, e.g., 
Cairo 1321/1903); Zayn al-Din al-Khawafi. Al- 
wasiyya al-kudsiyya, MS. B.N. Paris, fonds arabe 
762 (pointed out and studied by S. de Beaurecueil) ; 
Ibn c Iyad, K. al-mafdrikh al-'-aliyya fi 'l-ma'dthir 
al-shddhiliyya, Cairo 1355/1937, 108-13 and 
passim; Bash Tarzi, K. al-minah al-rabbdniyya, 
Tunis 1351/1932; Muhammad al-Sanusi, op. cit., 
to which may be added most of the Sufi manuals, 
including Abu Talib al-Makki, Kut al-kuliib, 
Cairo 1351/1932, etc.; in translation: Hudjwlrl, 
Kashf al-mahdjub, tr. Nicholson, GMS, xvii, 
passim (see Index); extract from Muhammad 
Amin al-Kurdi al-Nakshbandl, Tanwir al-kulub, 
3rd ed., Cairo, 548-58, unsigned French tr. as 
appendix to Jean Gouillard, Petite Philocalie de 
la Priere du Cceur, Cahiers du Sud, 1953. 

II. Western works: A. le Chatelier, Les confriries 
musulmanes du Hedjaz, Paris 1887; Depont and 
Coppolani, Les contraries religieuses musulmanes, 
Algiers 1897; Goldziher, Vorlesungen, index s.v. 
Dhikr: J. P. Browne, The Derwishes, or oriental 
spiritualism, London 1868; Hughes, Dictionary of 
Islam, s.v. Zikr; D. B. Macdonald, Religious atti- 
tude and life in Islam, Chicago 1909, index s.vv. 
Darwish and Dhikr. For the primary meaning of 
dhikr = recollection, remembering, see for example, 
M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet, Paris 1957, 
517-9; for the technical meaning: Louis Rinn, 
Marabouts et Khouan, Algiers 1884; W. S. 
Haas, The zikhr of the Rahmanija-Order in Algeria, 
in MW, January 1943; Louis Massignon, Passion 
d'al-&allddi, Paris 1922, Index; idem, Recueil de 
textes inidits, Paris 1929, 143, ref. to Fleischer, 



ZDMG, xvi, 235; idem, Le souffle dans V Islam, 
in J A 1943-5; idem, Vidie et V esprit dans I' Islam, 
in Eranos-J ahrbuch 1945 ; Louis Gardet, La mention 
du Nom divin en mystique musulmane, in Revue 
Thomiste 1952, iii and 1953, i; S. de Beaurecueil, 
Les Recommendations du Shaykh Zayn al-Din, 
Cahiers (Cairo), Sept. 1952 ; Mircea Eliade, Le Yoga, 
Paris 1954, 220-3, 392 ; A. H. Johns, Malay Sufism, 
in J. Malayan Branch RAS, August 1957, 98-9. 

(L. Gardet) 
DHIMMA. the term used to designate the sort 
of indefinitely renewed contract through which the 
Muslim community accords hospitality and protec- 
tion to members of other revealed religions, on con- 
dition of their acknowledging the domination of 
Islam. The beneficiaries of the dhimma are called 
dhimmis, and are collectively referred to as akl al- 
dhimma or simply dhimma. An account of the 
doctrinal position of Islam vis-a-vis the religions in 
question, and of the polemics between the two 
sides, is given in the article ahl al-kitab; for a 
detailed account of the various religious communities 
see MApjus, nasara, sabi'un and yahud. Mention 
is made here only of the general characteristics of 
the Muslim attitude to non-Muslims, as expressed in 
their institutions and social practices. 

The bases of the treatment of non-Muslims in 
Islam depend partly on the attitude of the Prophet, 
partly on conditions obtaining at their conquest. 
Muhammad is known to have first tried to integrate 
the principal Jewish groups at Medina into a rather 
loose organization, then opposed them violently, 
and finally, after the expansion of his authority 
across Arabia, concluded agreements of submission 
and protection with the Jews of other localities such 
as Khavbar, and with the Christians of, e.g., Nadjran; 
this last action alone could and did serve as precedent 
in the subsequent course of the Conquest. The 
essential Kur'anic text is IX, 24: "Fight those who 
do not believe . . . until they pay the djizya . . ." 
which would imply that after they had come to pay 
there was no longer reason for fighting them. The 
conditions at the time of the conquest consisted 
essentially of the enormous numerical superiority 
of non-Muslims over Muslims in the conquered 
countries, and of their generally favourable bias 
towards the Arabs (because of the vexations to 
which they had been subjected by the official 
Churches); the natural, and indeed the only possible, 
policy was to extend to the inhabitants of the new 
territories the conception that had been tested 
experimentally in Arabia, — a flexible attitude in the 
absence of which no regime of the conquerors could 
have endured. 

However, the precise nature of the earliest regimes, 
which varied according to the conditions obtaining 
at each conquest, is difficult to determine exactly, 
since the relevant texts have often been altered, and 
sometimes fabricated from the whole cloth, as a 
consequence of the differing concerns of Muslims and 
non-Muslims at later periods. Certain regulations have 
the temporary character of the demands made on a 
subject population by an army of occupation: 
dwellings, food-supply, intelligence, and security 
against espionage (it is as an example of this that 
we must understand the prohibition, on which later 
rigorists were to insist, of the wearing by dhimmis of 
Arab dress, since in fact the natives and the Arabs 
dressed differently). But the essential — and lasting — 
stipulation concerns the payment of the distinguish- 
ing tax or djizya [q.v.], which was later to develop 
into a precise poll-tax, and which, expressing sub- 



jection, was to inaugurate the definitive fiscal status 
of the dhimmis; this was in conformity with the 
usual custom of all mediaeval societies where non- 
dominant religious communities were concerned. 
Precautions must have been taken to avoid clashes 
between different communities, which at first 
enjoyed such friendly relations that buildings could 
be divided between Christians and Muslims; but it 
was only in the amsdr that restrictions on the right 
to construct new religious buildings could already 
from that time be maintained. The preservation by 
each community of its own laws and peculiar customs, 
as well as its own leaders — this also in conformity with 
the attitude of all mediaeval societies — must have 
resulted in the first place from the situation as it 
was rather than from any formal decision. The 
autochthonous non-Muslims, who were often un- 
accustomed to bear arms, were only exceptionally 
called upon for military services. 

The dhimmi is defined as against the Muslim and 
the idolater (with reference to Arabia, but this is 
scarcely more than a memory); also as against the 
.harbl who is of the same faith but lives in territories 
not yet under Islam; and finally as against the 
musta'min, the foreigner who is granted the right 
of living in an Islamic territory for a short time (one 
year at most). Originally only Jews and Christians 
were involved; soon, however, it became necessary 
to consider the Zoroastrians, and later, especially 
in Central Asia, other minor faiths not mentioned in 
the Kur'an. The Zoroastrians, by committing to 
writing the previously orally transmitted Avesta, 
attained the status of A hi al-kitab ; but more generally 
the Muslims, without waiting for such a step, and 
whether or not there existed recognized communal 
chiefs to guarantee the unbroken performance of the 
agreements, in fact accorded to the subject believers 
of most religions an effective status comparable to 
that of the dhimmis properly so-called, except for 
a few points of inferiority of which one or two 
examples will be given. 

Soon, however, Islam was reinforced numerically, 
organized itself institutionally, and deepened cul- 
turally. Polemics began to make their appearance 
between the faiths, and the Muslims sought to 
delimit more clearly the rights of those who were not 
Muslims. The measures for Islamization of the state 
introduced by c Abd al-Malik already included, as it 
turned out, an indirect threat to the dhimmis; it is, 
however, to c Umar b. c Abd al- c Aziz that tradition, 
doubtless partially based on truth, attributes the 
first discriminatory provisions concerning them. The 
only other Umayyad of note in this connexion is 
Yazid II, on a special matter which will be referred 
to later; thereafter one must come down to Harun 
al-Rashid, and more especially to al-Mutawakkil, 
to encounter a policy really hostile to the dhimmis. 
But always, through the centuries, the evolution of 
ideas has shown two aspects at once different and 
interdependent. On the one hand are the doctri- 
naires, found mainly among the fukahd 3 and the 
kadis, who have interpreted the regulations con- 
cerning dhimma in a restrictive way, developing a 
programme which, if not one of persecution, is at 
least vexatious and repressive. From time to time 
a sovereign, either through Islamic zeal or through 
the need for popularity amongst them, ordains 
measures to the doctrinaires' satisfaction; some- 
times, also, there are outbursts of popular anger 
against the dhimmis, which in some cases arose 
from the places occupied by dhimmis in the higher 
ranks of administration, especially that of finance. 



But indeed, on the other hand, we must recognize 
that current practice fell very much short of the 
programme of the purists, which was hardly ever 
implemented except in the great Muslim centres 
and in the capitals, and was even then incomplete 
and sporadic; the different juridical schools are 
moreover not all in agreement, and some of them 
reiterate rules without any practical effect. On the 
whole the condition of the dhimmis, although 
unstable in its minor practical aspects, was until 
about the 6th/i2th century in the west, and the 
7th/i3th in the east, essentially satisfactory, in 
comparison with, say, that of the admittedly smaller 
Jewish community in the neighbouring Byzantine 
empire. 

The principal directions in which the strengthening 
of Islamic control operated were as follows. On the 
one hand people like the zindiks, Manichaeans and 
those under their influence, who were suspected of 
wishing to propagate false doctrines within Islam, 
were excluded from the benefits of the dhimma; so 
too, of course, were those who, like the Mazdakites 
of Babak, called in question the very political 
domination of Islam. As far as the dhimmis in the 
traditional sense are concerned, their rights held 
good, and it could even be said that their financial 
situation had become closer to that of the Muslims 
than it was at first, since the converted possessors 
of kharddx lands had to continue to pay this kharddx, 
which the Arabs from the time of the conquest had 
not paid, and, though they did not pay the Hizya, 
had to pay the zakdt on their other income. The 
dhimmis moreover retained the autonomy of their 
own internal law, the stipulations of which formed 
the subject of treatises compiled at that time, and 
although they were able, if they wished, to apply to 
a Muslim judge (who would then often adjudicate 
according to Muslim law), they continued normally 
to resort to their own chiefs where these existed. 
Nevertheless, in relations between dhimmis and 
Muslims, the two parties were not treated equally; 
thus, the Muslim could marry a dhimmi woman, 
but a dhimmi could not marry a Muslim woman; a 
dhimmi could not own a Muslim slave, although the 
converse was permitted; at the frontier the dhimmi 
merchant, although paying only half the rate paid 
by the harbi, would pay double the rate for Muslims 
(20%, 10%, 5%); in criminal law it was frequently 
considered, in spite of the contrary opinion of the 
Hanafis, that the blood-wit [diya [q.v.]) for a dhimmi 
was less (>/ a or */„) than that for a Muslim— less still 
in the case of a Zoroastrian — a principle the equiva- 
lents of which are encountered in all societies at 
this time. Finally the dhimmi had, according to the 
doctrine going back in part to the time of c Umar 
b. 'Abd al-'Aziz, to wear distinguishing articles of 
dress, in particular the zunndr belt, the original 
intention of which was perhaps merely to prevent 
administrative errors but which gradually came to 
be regarded as a sign of humiliation, and was 
accompanied by complementary restrictions such 
as the prohibition of fine cloth, noble steeds, uncut 
forelocks, etc.; in fact, it would appear that these 
regulations, often variable in their detail, had never 
been respected for any length of time (whence their 
repetition by pietistic sovereigns), and it is even 
doubtful whether there was any real desire to 
apply them outside Baghdad and the great Islamic 
centres. On the other hand, although there may have 
been a natural tendency for town-dwellers to reside 
in different districts according to their faiths, there 
were no precise quarters, nor a fortiori any obligatory 



quarters, for dhimmis of any kind. On the contrary, 
it was the close association of Muslims and non- 
Muslims in everyday life that provided the raison 
d'ttre of the restrictions mentioned above. Similarly, 
although there may have been some professional 
specialization, such as the trade of dyeing in the 
hands of the Jews, in general the mixture of faiths 
among all trades is the striking characteristic of 
society in "classical" times. 

Although there was obviously no "liberty of 
conscience", as it would now be understood, in any 
Muslim society, Islam tolerated the religions of the 
dhimmis subject to the following restrictions: it 
was forbidden to insult Islam, to seek to convert a 
Muslim, and apostasy was forbidden (all this, in 
principle, subject to the death penalty). The child 
of a mixed marriage was Muslim. As regards places 
of worship, the jurists are almost unanimous in 
interpreting restrictively the undertaking made on 
behalf of Muslims to uphold them, in the sense that 
this promise could apply only to those buildings 
which were in existence at the time of the advent of 
Islamic power; hence new building was forbidden, 
and rigorists opposed even the reconstruction of 
buildings fallen into decay. The practice of earlier 
centuries shows that these prohibitions were rarely 
made absolute, and that as long as money was 
available the construction of new buildings was 
usually possible, even in Muslim centres like Fustat 
and Cairo, and a fortiori in the regions where there 
was a non-Muslim majority during the greater part 
of the middle ages, such as certain districts in Upper 
Mesopotamia. Yazid II had forbidden figure-repre- 
sentations in these buildings, but this order— linked 
with the iconoclastic movement, regarded favourably 
by many monophysite Christians, which was shortly 
afterwards to show itself so strongly at Byzantium — 
was certainly not enforced in any lasting way. 
There were also various limitations on the outward 
expressions of worship, such as processions and the 
use of bells, though these were never general in the 
earlier centuries of Islam. Only in Arabia, most 
strictly in the Holy Cities, was permanent residence 
by dhimmis forbidden, following measures some of 
which go back to c Umar — although temporary 
exceptions made under the Umayyads and 'Abbasids 
were numerous, and indeed Jews lived in the Yemen 
until a few years ago. 

Of course, those Muslims who interpreted the 
early pledges on the dhimma restrictively endeavoured 
to find textual authority for their attitude, as did 
the Christians who opposed them. Thus appeared 
the allegedly ancient Pact of c Umar on the one 
hand — which in its complete form is not attested 
before the end of the 5th/nth century — and on the 
other the Edict of the Prophet to the Christians, a 
pious fraud of Nestorian monks of the 3rd/oth 
century. In addition there came gradually into 
prominence a person, the muhtasib [q.v.], who, 
entrusted with the maintenance of order in the 
streets and markets, was to include within his 
province the control of the dhimmis. 

The domain from which one might have expected, 
from a doctrinal point of view, to see dhimmis 
excluded is that of government; but in fact this is 
not the case. Originally the Arabs would, without 
their assistance, have been unable to carry out the 
duties of an administration which was primarily 
the administration of the non-Muslim population. 
Later Christian bureaucrats, Nestorians in 'Irak and, 
more permanently, Copts in Egypt, were able to 
uphold family positions acquired in the face of the 



competition of Muslims, who turned more readily 
towards other professions, and to whom authority 
would in any case have found it difficult to entrust 
duties whose Islamic legality was questionable; the 
dhimmis, whose situation depended more on the 
favour of prince or vizier, were more faithful to them. 
Nowhere had Jews and Christians played a more 
important part in these matters than in Egypt under 
the Fatimids; much the same position arose, however, 
at certain periods in Spain, and even in the east, al- 
Mawardi, the theoretician of Caliphal revival, 
admits — legitimizing past instances — that even a 
dhimmi vizier was possible, provided that his 
vizierate was 'executive' {tanfidh) and not with 
power to command, i.e., that in practice he should 
neither exercise explicit political responsibility for 
major political decisions nor, in particular, sit in 
judgment over Muslims or take the initiative in 
matters where Islam was concerned. Obviously, it 
happened on many occasions that the condition 
upon which a dkimmi could secure or retain a high 
post was that he should become a convert to Islam; 
but the bonds of clientship and patronage still held, 
and the official new Muslim could protect the 
dkimmi staff to whom he was used. 

Moreover, since the dhimmis remained to some 
extent under the jurisdiction of their own leaders, it 
followed that the latter were officially invested by 
the Muslim ruler — to whom the community did not 
hesitate to appeal when they disagreed on a candidate. 
The Jews thus came officially under the government 
of their Exilarch, and the Christians of different 
denominations similarly under that of their respective 
Catholicoi and Patriarchs; in this respect the position 
of the Zoroastrians is less clear. In 'Irak, the Catho- 
licos of the Nestorians had some precedence within 
the entire Christian community. 

One single persecution of the dhimmis has been 
recorded in the classical centuries of Islam, that of 
the Fatimid al-Hakim [q.v.], which made a con- 
siderable impact in both East and West, because 
of its severity and of the destruction of the Holy 
Sepulchre; this was, however, the work of a visionary 
caliph, whose decision, difficult to explain, may not 
derive from ordinary processes of reasoning; he 
himself, at the end of his reign, retracted his 
measures, and his successors until the end of the 
dynasty restored the previous tradition of an 
extremely broad toleration. Even the Ayyubid 
conquest, which adversely affected the Armenian 
community, hardly impaired the administrative 
position of the Copts. The restriction of dhimmis in 
special quarters in Jerusalem was an exceptional 
move on the part of the Fatimids, and was intended 
to ensure their safety. 

One cannot, therefore, say that it was persecution 
which led in some cases to the diminution and in 
others the complete disappearance of non-Muslim 
communities. The factors, essentially social, involved 
in this process cannot be discussed here; it must, 
however, be emphasized that the general position of 
the dhimmis was gradually transformed by the fact 
that they passed almost everywhere from the 
position of a majority to that of a minority com- 
munity. Moreover, instead of consisting, as previ- 
ously, of a variety of communities, the gradual 
disappearance of Christians (foreigners excepted) in 
the Maghrib, of Christians also in Central Asia a 
little later, and of Zoroastrians in Iran, bring it 
about that in some regions the category of dhimmi 
had practically ceased to exist, while in others it had 
come to comprise only the Jewish community, more 



:ma 229 

tenacious but by now almost exclusively urban. 
These proportions were of course to be reversed after 
the establishment of the Ottoman empire in Europe, 
but this represented a new phenomenon which was 
to lead to no modification in the rest of the Muslim 
world. 

It cannot be denied that from the last three or 
four centuries of the Middle Ages there was a general 
hardening against dhimmis in Muslim countries, 
helped materially and morally by the change in 
numerical proportions. Before proceeding further, 
however, it must be noticed that this hardening of 
opinion was contemporary with that which appeared 
in Christendom against the Jews and against 
Muslims where there were any, without our being 
able to say to what extent there was convergence, 
influence, or reaction. On the other hand it must 
be emphasized that the populace were more easily 
excited as a result of the deterioration in the economic 
climate, and that generally changes in the Muslim 
attitude had been occasioned more by political than 
by religious considerations. Hitherto there had been 
scarcely any difference in the treatment accorded 
to Christians and Jews (at most they were distin- 
guished by prescribed differences in dress); but it 
later came about that some categories of dhimmis 
were looked on as friends of foreign powers and were 
worse treated, and naturally some Christians were 
in this respect more of a target than the Jews. There 
is nothing in mediaeval Islam which could specifically 
be called anti-semitism. 

Although it has sometimes been considered that 
the formation of the Saldjuk empire aggravated 
the condition of the Christian community, this is 
only very marginally true. The Saldjukids, partly 
because the numerical proportions of the various 
communities made it less of a natural conclusion, 
employed Christian functionaries less than their 
predecessors, whence doubtless there were a few 
less safeguards in the life of the community; nothing, 
however, was directly changed in the regime of which 
they were the beneficiaries. In Asia Minor the 
Turkish conquest evidently caused much suffering 
and loss to Byzantine Christendom, but inter- 
denominational relations became singularly good 
once a stable political situation had been established. 
Contrary to what might have been expected, the 
Crusades had at first no noticeable effect on the 
condition of the dhimmis, because the eastern 
Christians were not of the Latin rite and maintained 
on the whole an attitude of correct loyalty to their 
masters — except for the Armenians, who were only 
to be met with locally. The first suspicions seem to 
have mounted against the Copts at the time of the 
Frankish expeditions into Egypt; there may also 
have been some in Syria and the neighbouring lands 
after the penetration of Latin missionaries, whose 
ministries were in vain precisely because it was 
impossible for the local Christian communities to 
come into contact with them without becoming 
politically suspect. The climax came with the 
Mongol invasions which, wherever they occurred, 
were of temporary advantage to the Christians, as 
there were Christians in the Mongol ranks, and 
because the Mongols held the balance between the 
various faiths; several acts of excess by Christians 
against Islam followed locally; but finally Muslim 
reaction made the Christians pay for their behaviour, 
and the expansion of intolerant nomads to the 
detriment of cultivators was a grave blow to rural 
Christian communities in Armenia and Upper 
Mesopotamia even when these were under Mongol 



the d 

In the Mamluk state the native Christians, 
the Maronites even more than the Copts, suffered the 
repercussions of the struggle against the Mongols, the 
perpetuation of the state of war maintained against 
the Franks on the mediterranean coastline, and the 
growing supremacy of western merchants over their 
eastern rivals. The Mamluk government tried in 
general to uphold the earlier legal system, but it 
was able neither to prevent popular violence stirred 
up by extremists, especially in 721/1321, nor to 
resist the pressure of jurists, such as Ibn Taymiyya, 
who insisted on an increasingly vexatious inter- 
pretation of the law regarding dhimmis. Not only 
were the regulations on dress periodically renewed, 
though still with doubtful efficacy, but the regula- 
tions on mounts were narrowed so as to allow the 
dhimmls nothing better than indifferent donkeys, 
and a new restriction was introduced — which has 
an Italian parallel — which forbade them to possess 
houses higher than those occupied by Muslims (thus 
indicating incidentally that they did not live in 
special quarters). Care was in general taken that 
nothing in their everyday social comportment 
might tend to conceal the evidence of their in- 
feriority vis-a-vis Muslims; an attempt was made 
to embarrass the dhimmi's trade by regulations, 
always temporary, against the sale of wine; there 
was a growing repugnance on the part of certain 
Muslims to associate with non-Muslims, and their 
religious buildings were destroyed on various pre- 
texts; there was a partial exclusion of dhimmis even 
from the administrative offices themselves. From 
this period date also treatises specially written 
against the dhimmis, (no longer merely religious 
polemics), to say nothing of chapters inserted in 
works of fikh. 

In the West the Almoravids, and even more 
the Almohads, had adopted, earlier than the 
East, an intolerant policy, which is partly explained 
by the suspicions entertained of their Christian 
subjects of complicity with the Spaniards of the 
northern kingdoms who were already intent on the 
Reconquista, although the Jews suffered no less, 
whence for example the emigration of Maimonides 
to the East; dhimmis ceased to be employed in the 
administration, the distinctive badges reappeared, 
etc. In the Maghrib there started to appear for the 
Jews, henceforth the only dhimmis, special quarters 
(malldh, hard) which remind one of the European 
ghetto, and they were authorized to live in certain 
towns only. They regained, however, some influence 
after the arrival of their co-religionists who had 
been expelled from Christian Spain. It must be 
remembered that this country, for long tolerant, 
moved at the end of the Middle Ages towards the 
expulsion of all non-Christians, Jews and Muslims 
alike; this was achieved at the beginning of the 
17th century after two centuries of ill-treatment. 

Objectivity requires us to attempt a comparison 
between Christian and Muslim intolerance, which 
have partial resemblances and partial differences. 
Islam has, in spite of many upsets, shown more 
toleration than Europe towards the Jews who 
remained in Muslim lands. In places where Christian 
communities did not die out it may have harassed 
them, but it tolerated them when they did not seem 
too closely bound up with western Christianity (as 
in Egypt and Syria); it has bullied them more 
roughly in Spain, after a long period of toleration, 



in the face of the Reconquista (it is impossible to 
say how the Maghrib would have tolerated Christian 
communities there while Spain was expelling its 
Muslims, since except for foreigners there were none). 
What one may emphasize is that, although religious 
factors obviously contributed to the intolerance 
shown in particular by the Almohads, it is political 
factors which in general outweighed strictly religious 
intolerance in Islam. Finally, it was at the time of 
the expulsions from Spain and the religious wars in 
the West that the constitution of the Ottoman 
empire restored— albeit without modifying the situ- 
ation in other Islamic countries — the spectacle of 
an Istemo-dhimmi symbiosis which was none the 
less remarkable for having been indispensable for the 
maintenance of the regime, as it had been for the 
Arab conquerors in the ist/7th century. The Jews 
found asylum there, the Armenians and Greeks, in 
the 18th century, backed by Christian Europe, 
attained to positions of the highest importance. The 
later deteriorations are connected with the history 
of nationalist movements and the change in the 
notion of the State, which, gradually reaching all 
Muslim peoples, has emptied the concept of dhimmi 
of its traditional content. No more can be done here 
than merely to mention this last phase [see ?awmi yya, 
milla and watak]. 

Bibliography: It is obviously impossible to 
enumerate here all the sources, which might in- 
clude almost all Islamic legal and historical 
literature, with additions from the geographers, the 
adab authors, etc. An extensive, but incomplete, 
list will be found in Fattal, cited below. One might 
notice the importance, for the earlier period, of 
Baladhuri and Abu Yusuf; later of Mawardi; then 
of the works on hisba, omitted by Fattal (see 
Gaudefroy-Demombynes, in J A, ccxxx, 1938, and 
'Arini's edition of Shayzari, Cairo 1946); and in 
general the Christian chronicles, either Arabic, 
like the History of the Alexandria Patriarchs and 
the historical chronicle of Mari (ed. Gismondi, 
1909), or non- Arabic, like the Syriac chronicle of 
Michael the Syrian (ed. Chabot); mention may 
also be made of the Jewish documents, mainly in 
Arabic, of the Geniza. Some smaller works specially 
directed against the dhimmis date from Ayyflbid 
and Mamluk times, such as al-NabulusI, Taajrid 
(fragments edited by CI. Cahen in BIFAO, lix, 
i960; complete edition in prepation by M. Perl- 
mann); Ghazi b. al-Wasiti, Radd '■aid ahl al- 
dhimmd, ed. and trans. R. Gottheil, in J A OS, 
xli, 1921; the Fetwa sur la condition des dhimmis, 
etc., trans. Belin, in J A. 4 e serie, xviii-xix, 185 1-2; 
the Tract against Christian officials of al-Asnawi, 
ed. M. Perlmann, in Goldziher Mem., ii, 1958. On 
this literature in general see Perlmann, in BSOAS, 
1942. 

In the modern literature there are two general 
studies worthy of notice: A. S. Tritton, The 
Caliphs and their non-Muslim subjects, London 
1930 (Arabic trans. Hasan Habashi, Cairo n.d.), 
and Ant. Fattal, Le statut Idgal des non-musulmans 
en pays d'islam, Beirut 1958. Neither however can 
be considered as complete, nor to have sought to 
portray and explain the evolution and the dif- 
ferentiation in the condition of the dhimmis. 
Deeper studies, but limited to the category of the 
Jews, are: S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs, New 
York 1955; the numerous but scattered passages 
relevant to the world of Islam in S. Baron, 
History of the Jews, iii-vii (up to the 12th century), 
New York 1957-9; E. Strauss[-Ashtor], History 



DHIMMA - 

of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the Mamluks 
(in Hebrew), 2 vols., Jerusalem 1944-51 ; E. Ashtor, 
History of the Jews in Muslim Spain, (in Hebrew), 
i, jii-1002, Jerusalem i960. The fuller and more 
diverse history of the Christians has not been the 
subject of any special study; for religious polemics, 
see am. al-kitab. An important work on the 
Christians in Spain is I. de las Cagigas, Los 
Mozarabes, 2 vols., Madrid 1947-8; E. Cerulli, 
Etiopi in Palestina, 2 vols., Rome 1943, deals in 
fact with the entire religious history of that 
country. For the Zoroastrians the only collected 
references are to be found in works on Iranian 
history, such as B. Spuler, Iran in friih-islamischer 
Zeit, Wiesbaden 1952 (expanded English trans- 
lation in the press). Some general information on 
Minimis as a whole in Mez, Die Renaissance des 
Islams, ch. iv; CI. Cahen, L'Islam et Us Minorite's 
confessionelles, in La Table Ronde, 1958; E. 
Strauss[-Ashtor], The social isolation of Ahl adh- 
dhimma, in P. Hirschler Memorial Book, Budapest 
1950; N. Edelby, Essai sur V 'autonomic juridiction- 
nelle des ChrtlienUs d'Orient, in Arch. d'Hist. du 
Droit Oriental, 1952; O. Turan, Les souverains 
Seldjouhides et lews sujets non-musulmans, in Stud. 
Isl., i, 1953." More detailed bibliography appears in 
the articles on the various religions. On the Ottoman 
period, see F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam 
under the Sultans, 2 vols., Oxford 1929; Gibb- 
Bowen, 1/2, ch. xiv. (Cl. Cahen) 

DHIMMA. The term dhimma, in its legal sense, 
bears two meanings, the first of which, that of the 
works on Usui (legal theory), is equivalent to the 
notion of capacity, and such is the definition of it 
given by the classical doctrine. The dhimma is the 
legal quality which makes the individual a proper 
subject of law, that is, a proper addressee of the rule 
which provides him with rights or charges him with 
-obligations. In this sense the dhimma may be 
identified with the legal personality. It is for this 
reason that every person is endowed with a dhimma 
from the moment of birth. Equally it follows that 
the dhimma disappears with the person at death. 
But the dhimma, an attribute of the personality, 
is never used exclusively, by the Muslim legal 
theoreticians, in relation to a person's estate. It 
embraces all kinds of proprietary and extra-pro- 
prietary rights. Thus the duty of the ritual prayer 
binds the person insofar as it is endowed with a 
dhimma. So completely is the dhimma identified 
with the legal personality that certain authors have 
been able to assert that it is a useless notion and even 
devoid of any real meaning (Taftazani, al-Talwih, 
ii, 726). 

In its second sense, that of the legal practitioners, 
the term goes to the root of the notion of obligation. 
It is the fides which binds the debtor to the credi- 
tor. The bond of the obligation requires the debtor 
to perform a given act (fiH), and this act will be 
obtained at the demand of the creditor, mutdlaba. 
In the case of a real right (hakfr fi'l c ay») on the 
contrary no bond exists: there will be no case of 
•exacting any performance from a specified person. 
For this reason, then, there will be no question of 
dMmma. Some authors have so completely identified 
the idea of dhimma with that of obligation that in 
their view dhimma is properly undertaking, l ahd, or 
guarantee, daman. Others restrict the term to 
contractual obligations (al-Nasafi, Istildhdt al- 
fyanafiyya, 65). 

But in actual fact dhimma is never identical with 
obligation: it is properly the basis of an obligati 



231 



Once fides has been brought ii 
object of the right will exist in the seat of rights 
which is the person. It is at this stage that the 
second sense given to the term by the legal practi- 
tioners merges with that of the theoreticians of 
Islamic law. The dhimma is not only the bond which 
ties the creditor to the debtor but is, in particular, 
the seat of it. But here it embraces only rights of 
debt properly so-called. Thus it is that the obligation 
to give alms to those in need is not held to exist in 
the dhimma. It must be particularly noted that, as 
distinct from Western law, a right of debt with 
which the dhimma is charged is restricted to the right 
which exists in relation to a sum of money or other 
fungible goods. It is therefore only the obligation 
termed dayn that has its basis in the dhimma. The 
case will be the same if the obligation is one of future 
performance (istisnd'). But if the obligation exists in 
regard to a specific object it will be termed '■ayn 
and this obligation will lie outside the dhimma. In 
this case indeed the obligation cannot be in futuro 
and on the other hand is not discharged, in case of 
non-performance, by payment of damages. 

It results that the idea of obligation in Islamic 
law is of a quite different structure according as to 
whether it is or is not directed towards a specific 

In the first case it does not create a legal bond 
since it cannot be in futuro. In the second case the 
creditor's purpose is to bind his debtor, and this bond 
is established on the basis of the dhimma. Obligation, 
then, will properly be, as it has been defined by 
Muslim lawyers, an incorporeal right existing in the 
dhimma of the debtor. Thus the dhimma becomes, 
in the final analysis, the equivalent of what is 
termed in modern law, the debtor's estate. 

Bibliography: Chafik Chehata, Essai d'une 
theorie glnirale de I 'obligation en droit musulman, 
Cairo 1936, i, 171, § 263; Juynboll, Handbuch, 263; 
idem, Handleiding i , 268; Santillana, Istituzioni, 
index; Taftazani, al-Talwih, Cairo 1304 H., and 
other works on usiil; Ibn c Abidin, Radd al-muhtdr , 
iv ; Ibn Nudjaym, al-Bahr al-rdHh, vi, 204 ; KasanI, 
BaddH' al-sandH, v and vi; Mikha'U c Id al-Bustani, 
Mardii 1 al-tullab, Beirut 1914, index. 

(Chafik Chehata) 
DHIMMl [see ahl al-dhimma]. 
DHIRA 1 . originally the part of the arm from 
the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, then the 
measure of the cubit, and at the same time the name 
given to the instrument for measuring it. The legal 
cubit is four handsbreadths (kabda = index finger, 
middle finger, ring finger, and little finger put 
together), each of six fingerbreadths (asba'- = middle 
joint of the middle finger) each the width of six 
barley corns (shaHra) laid side by side. A considerable 
number of different cubits were in common use in 
Islam. Roughly speaking they can be grouped 
around the following four measures: the legal cubit, 
the "black" cubit, the king's cubit, and the cloth 
cubit. The point of departure for all these cal- 
culations is the cubit of the Nilometer on the island 
of al-Rawda of the year 247/861, which, on an 
average, measures 54.04 cm. 

1) The legal cubit (al-dhird* al-sharHyya), is the 
same as the Egyptian hand cubit (dhird c al-yad, 
also called al-dhira'- al-kdHma), the Joseph cubit 
(al-dhird'- al-Yusufiyya, called after Kadi Abu 
Yusuf, who died in 182/798), the post cubit (dhird*- 
al-barid), the "freed" cubit (al-dhird 1 al-mursala), 
and the thread cubit (dhira' al-ghazl), measuring 
49.8 cm. (In c Abbasid times, a cubit measured only 



232 



DHIRA< — DHO, DHI, DHA 



some 48.25 cm. in Baghdad; this can possibly be 
traced back to the caliph al-Ma 5 mun (170-218/ 
786-833) who reorganized surveying). 

2) The "black" cubit (al-dhird' al-sawdd'), fixed 
as above at 54.04, is identical with the "common" 
cubit (al-dhird' al-'dmma), the sack-cloth cubit 
(dhird' al-kirbds), and the cubit in common use in 
the Maghrib and in Spain, al-dhird' al-Rashshdshiyya. 
The "black" cubit came into use in 'Abbasid times, 
but was not introduced, as is often stated, by al- 
Ma'miin, who had measurements carried out in the 
legal cubit. 

3) The originally Persian "king's" cubit (dhird' 
al-malik), since the caliph al-Mansur (136/754- 
158/775) known as the (great) Hashimi cubit (al- 
dhird' al-Hdshimiyya). It measured eight kabda 
instead of six, and measured on an average 66.5 cm. 
It is identical with the ZiyadI cubit (al-dhird' al- 
Ziyddiyya), which Ziyad b. Abihi (died 53/673) 
used in the survey of 'Irak, and which is therefore 
also known as the survey cubit (dhird' al-misdha) ; 
it is also identical with the "work" cubit (dhird' al- 
'amal), and probably also with the cubit al-dhird' 
al-hinddsa, which measures 65.6 cm. 

4) The cloth cubit, which is also known in Levan- 
tine commerce as pic, varied from town to town. 
The Egyptian cloth cubit (dhird'- al-bazz, also called 
al-dhird' al-baladiyya, identical with the late- 
mediaeval dhird'- al-hadid, or "iron" cubit, which 
seems to have been originally the same as the 
"black" cubit) measured 58.15 cm., the cloth cubit 
of Damascus 63 cm., the widely accepted cloth-cubit 
of Aleppo 67.7 cm., that of Baghdad 82.9 cm., and 
that of Istanbul 68.6 cm. 

Other cubit measures: beside the "great", there 
was also a "small" Hashimi cubit of 60.05 c m., 
also known as al-dhird' al-Bildliyya, after Bilal b. 
Abl Burda (died 121/739), a kadi in Basra. The 
Egyptian carpenter's cubit (al-dhird' bi 'l-nadjdidri) 
was identical with the architects' cubit (al-dhird' 
al-mi'mdriyya), and measured ca. 77.5 cm. (stan- 
dardised at 75 cm. in the 19th century). The 
c Abbasid "house" cubit (dhird' al-dur) which was 
introduced by kadi Ibn Abl Layla (died 148/765) 
measured only 50.3 cm. The "scale" cubit (al- 
dhird' al-mizdniyya), introduced by the caliph al- 
Ma'mun, was chiefly used for measuring canals, and 
measured 145.6 cm.; it was double the length of the 
cubit of the caliph 'Umar (al-dhird' al-'Umariyya) 
which was 72.8 cm. The Persian cubit (dhar', 
generally called gaz) was in the Middle Ages either 
the legal cubit of 49.8 cm. or the Isfahan cubit of 
8/5 dhar'-i shar'i — 79.8 cm. In the 17th century, 
there was a "royal" cubit (gaz-i shdhi) of 95 cm. in 
Iran; the "shortened" cubit (gaz-i mukassar) of 
68 cm. was used for measuring cloth; this was 
probably the cloth cubit of Aleppo. Today, 1 gaz = 
104 cm. in Iran. There was also a "royal" cubit 
(dhird'-i pddishdhi) in Mughal India which consisted 
of 40 fingerbreadths (angusht) = 81.3 cm. 

Subdivisions of the cubit: basically, there were 
six handsbreadths (kabda) to the cubit; the kabda of 
the legal cubit was thus 8.31 cm., that of the comi 
or "black" cubit was 9 cm. In the 19th century, the 
kabda in Egypt was even 16.1 cm. The kabda, in 
turn, consisted basically of four fingerbreadths 
(asba'); the asba' of the legal cubit was thus 2.078 
cm., and that of the "black" cubit 2.25 cm. In 
Egypt, the asba' is officially established at 3.125 < 
The fingerbreadth (angusht) of the Mughals ' 
standardized at 2.032 cm. by the emperor Akbar 
at the end of the ioth/i6th century. 



Multiples of the cubit: the bd' or 'fathom', also 
known as kdrna, is basically 4 legal cubits = 199.5 
cm., or approximately 2 metres, and thus the 
thousandth part of a mile (mil). Today in Egypt, 
the bd' = 4 "carpenter's" cubits = 3 metres. The 
kasaba, or measuring rod (Persian nab; bdb is a 
reading error) is predominantly used in surveying. 
The Fatimid al-Hakim bi-amri'llah (375-411/985- 
1021) introduced the kasaba ffdkimiyya, which 
measured 7 1 /, "black" cubits, on the norm of 3.85 
metres, established by a French expedition to Egypt. 
In 1830, the kasaba was established at 3.55 metres. 
The ashl or "rope" (Persian (andb) equals 20 bd' = 
60 Hashimi cubits = 80 legal cubits = 39.9 metres; 
150 (andb or 3 mil equal one parasang (farsakh) = 
5985 metres = approx. 6 km. 

Bibliography: W. Hinz, Islamische Masse 

und Gewichte, Leiden 1955, 54-64; A. Grohmann, 

Einfiihrung undChrestomathie zur arabischen Papy- 

ruskunde, Prague 1954, 171-178; W. Popper, The 

Cairo Nilometer, Berkeley 1951, 102-105. 

(W. Hinz) 

DHOLKA [see gudjarat]. 

DHtJ, DHL DHA, demonstrative forms based on 
the demonstrative element dh. The variety of their 
uses precludes" these forms from being regarded as a 
single declined word; thus: 

Dhu was the relative pronoun, invariable, of the 
Tayyi 5 ; corresponding to the Hebrew zu, the poetic 
form of the relative pronoun. 

Ph i forms part of the masc. relative pronoun 
alladhi; but allati in the feminine. The opposition 
dhjt marks the gender. Corresponding to dhi are the 
Aramaic biblical relative, invariable, di (df in syr.), 
the Geez masc. demonstrative ze, ace. za. 

Dh d masc. sing, demonstrative (near object), 
diminutive dhayyd; dhi for the feminine, the 
opposition a/t then marking the gender here. J. Barth 
understood it as l\i, maintaining the existence of an 
ancient sound e, from which followed his sharp 
controversy with A. Fischer (ZDMG, 1905, 159-61, 
443-8, 633-40, 644-71; J. Barth, Sprachwissen- 
schfl. Untersuch., i, Leipzig 1907, 30-46). Dhd occurs 
most often either reinforced with hd-: hddhd, or 
combined with other demonstratives: dhdha, dhdlika. 
Corresponding with dhd are the Geez feminine sing, 
demonstrative zd, Hebr. z6t h (= *dhd + t), the Geez 
masc. relative za. 

Once in the nominal form with the sense: "he of", 
then "who has", "possessor of", dhu follows the 1st 
declension, taking the dual and the external plural. 
But it is always followed by a noun in the dependent 
grammatical phrase (common noun, according to the 
requirements of the Arab grammarians: al-Zamakh- 
shari, Muf., § 130, 2nd ed. Broch; al-Harirl, Durra, 
ed. H. Thorbecke, 138). Thus dhu mdl in "possessor 
of money", pi. dhawu mdl in or (elegantly )ulu mdl*"; 
for the feminine with the same construction: dhdtu 
mdl ,n , pi. dhawdtu mdl in (or uldtu mdl'"). See W. 
Wright, Ar. Gr 3 , i, 265 D, in Lisdn the art.: dhu wa- 
dhawdt, xx, 344/xv, 456; Muf., § 122, for expressions 
like dhdta yamm in "a day", dhdta 'l-yamini "on the 

Phil, having this meaning of "possessor of" or 
"who has", was suited to provide surnames or nick- 
names (lakab), e.g. Dh u 'l-ICarnayn (for Alexander), 
which have sometimes become the most commonly 
known name for some individual, e.g. the poet Dh u 
'l-Rumma. For the kings or princes of the Yemen 
(such as Dha Yazan) it has become an autonomous 
word with internal plural; these are the adhwa* al- 
yaman (see Wright, ibid., 266 A and Lisdn, ibid.). 



DHU, DHl, DHA — DHU 'L-HIMMA 



233 



[see adhwa 3 ]. In addition, two Muslim names of 
months: Dhu 'l-hididja, Dhu 'l-ka c da [see ta'rikh, i]. 
Bibliography: in the text. In addition: 
J. Barth, Die Pronominalbildung in den semi- 
tischen Sprachen, Leipzig 1913, 103-16, 152-8; for 
modern dialects: W. Fischer, Die demonstrativen 
Bildungen der neuarabischen Dialekte, The Hague 
1959, 57-98. (H. Fleisch) 

DHU 'l-FAKAR, the name of the famous sword 
which Muhammad obtained as booty in the battle 
of Badr; it previously belonged to a heathen named 
al-'As b. Munabbih, killed in the battle. It is men- 
tioned in the Slra (ed. Sakka, etc., 1375/1955), ", 100, 
and in several hadiths (see for example Ibn Sa'd, ii, 2, 
section: fi suyuj al-Nabi.The expression Dhu '1-Fakar 
is explained by the presence on this sword of notches 
{/ultra) or grooves (cf. the expression sayf mufakkar). 
According to a tradition, the sword bore an inscript- 
ion referring to blood-money which ended with the 
words la yuktal Muslim bi-kdfir "no Muslim shall be 
slain for an unbeliever". The proverbial expression 
la sayf Hid Dhu 'l-Fakdr has often been inscribed on 
finely engraved swords, from the middle ages down 
to our own times, throughout the Muslim world. 
The words wa-ld fata ilia Mii are sometimes added, 
because, although Muhammad's sword, after be- 
longing to 'All, passed into the possession of the 
'Abbasid caliphs, it became an attribute of 'AH and 
an c Alid symbol. Muslim iconography represented it 
with two points, probably in order to mark its 
magical character (the two points were used to put 
out the eyes of an enemy; for a representation of a 
sword with two points, among other magic objects, 
see V. Monteil, in REI, 1940/i-ii, 22). Dhu '1-Fakar 
became a proper name which is found more particu- 
larly among Shl'Is. 

Bibliography : F. W. Schwarzlose, Die Wajjen 
der alten Araber, Leipzig 1886, 152 ; G. Zawadowski, 
Note sur I'origine magique de Dhou-l-Faqdr, in 
En Terre d'Islam, 1943/I, 36-40. (E. Mittwoch*) 
DHU 'l-FAI£ARIYYA, (alternatively Fakariyya, 
Zulfakdriyya); a Mamluk household and political 
faction in Egypt during the 17th and 18th centuries. 

(1) Origin and first ascendancy. The 
eponymous founder of the household, Dhu '1-Fakar 
Bey, is a shadowy figure, who seems to have 
flourished in the first third of the 17th century, but 
is not mentioned by contemporary chroniclers. The 
account (in DjabartI, "-AdidHb al-Athdr, i, 21-3) 
which makes Dhu '1-Fakar and the rival eponym, 
Kasim, contemporaries of sultan Selim I is legendary. 
The political importance of the Fakariyya began 
with the amir al-hadjdi Ridwan Bey, a mamluk of the 
eponym (Muljammad al-Muhibbi, Khuldsat al- 
Athdr, BQlak, 1290; ii, 164-6). He held the command 
of the Pilgrimage for over twenty years until his 
death in Djumada II 1066/ April 1656. The grandees 
of his household dominated the Egyptian political 
scene until Safar 1071/October 1660, when their 
rivals, the Kasimiyya faction, joined with the 
Ottoman viceroy to overthrow them. Their forces 
and leaders were dispersed, several of the Fakari 
beys being put to death at al-Tarrana by the Kasim!, 
Ahmad Bey the Bosniak. 

(2) The Kasimi ascendancy. For over forty 
years after the Tarrana episode, the Fakariyya 
remained in a state of diminished power and 
prestige. The Kasimiyya, although the dominant 
faction, did not display the arrogance and turbulence 
vis-d-vis the viceroys which had characterized the 
Fakariyya during their ascendancy. The disturbances 
of this period originated mainly in the garrison of 



Cairo. By 1123/1711-12, however, a dangerous 
political polarization had developed. The Fakariyya 
and Kasimiyya were allied respectively with the 
much older factions of Sa'd and Haram among the 
Egyptian artisans and nomads. In a quarrel between 
the Janissaries and c Azabs in that year, the Faka- 
riyya supported the former and the Kasimiyya the 
latter. The Kasimiyya-'Azab combination was 
ultimately victorious, but the death during the 
fighting of Iwaz ('Iwad) Bey, the leading Kasimi 
grandee, opened a vendetta between the two 
factions which dragged on for two decades. Finally 
in 1 142/1729-30, the Fakariyya succeeded in extir- 
pating their rivals, and restoring their own ascen- 
ts) The second ascendancy of the Faka- 
riyya. The architect of the Fakari triumph, another 
Dh u '1-Fakar Bey, (who was assassinated on the eve 
of victory), came, not from the original Mamluk 
household deriving from Ridwan Bey, but from a 
household established by a regimental officer of 
Anatolian [Rilmi) origin, Hasan Balfiyya, agha of 
the Gbnulliis, who flourished in the late nth/i7th 
century. Another branch of this household stemmed 
from Mustafa al-Kazdughli, also an Anatolian, who 
entered the service of Hasan Agha. The predomi- 
nance of the Kazdughliyya branch was established 
by Ibrahim Kahya, who in 1 156/1743-44 allied with 
Ridwan Kahya al-Djulfi to oust 'Uthman Bey, a 
mamluk of the late Dhu '1-Fakar Bey and holder of 
the supremacy (rPdsa) in Egypt. The Kazdughliyya, 
hitherto a regimental household, now entered the 
beylicate, several of Ibrahim Kahya's mamluks 
being appointed beys, both before and after his 
death in Safar 1168/November-December 1754. 
Amongst them was Bulut Kapan 'All Bey, usually 
called 'All Bey the Great (see 'alI bey). In spite 
of the inveterate rivalry among the Kazdughliyya 
grandees, they maintained their ascendancy, ulti- 
mately embodied in the duumvirate of Ibrahim Bey 
and Murad Bey, until the French invasion under 
Bonaparte in 1798. 

Bibliography: Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad 
b. Muhammad b. Abi '1-SurQr, al-Rawda al- 
zahiyya and al-Kawdkib al-sdHra, (Brockelmann, 
II, 297-8; 8, 409); the author was a friend of 
Ridwan Bey ; Anonymous, Zubdat ikhtisdr ta'rikh 
muluk Misr al-mahrilsa, (B.M., Add. 9972); 
anonymous fragment, Bibliotheque nationale, 
MS. arabe 1855; 'Abd al-Rahman b. Hasan al- 
Djabartl, '■AdidHb al-Athdr fi 'l-tarddiim wa 
•l-akhbdr, Bulak 1290. See also P. M. Holt, The 
exalted lineage of Ridwan Bey: some observations 
on a seventeenth-century Mamluk genealogy, in 
BSOAS, xxii/2, 1959, 221-30. (P. M. Holt) 

DJJU 'l-HIDJOJA [see ta'rikh, i]. 
DH U 'l-HIMMA or dhat al-himma, name 
of the principal -heroine of a romance of Arab 
chivalry entitled, in the 1327/1909 edition, Sirat al- 
amira Dhdt al-Himma wa-waladihd l Abd al-Wahhdb 
wa 'l-amir Abu (sic) Muhammad al-Battdl wa-'Ukba 
shaykh al-daldl wa-Shumadris al-muhtal, which, in 
the subtitle, describes itself as "the greatest history 
of the Arabs, and the Umayyad and 'Abbasid 
caliphs, comprising the history of the Arabs and 
their wars and including their amazing con- 
quests". Also known is the title Sirat al-mudjdhidin 
wa-abtdl al-muwahhidin al-amira Dh u (sic) 'l-Himma 
wa- c Abd al-Wahhdb etc. (catalogue of Vienna MSS 
by Fliigel, ii, 13). Cf. also Brockelmann, S II, 65 
and Sarkis, Diet, encycl., xi, 1930, 2008. 

The main subject of this romance is the Arab 



DHU 'L-HIMMA 



war against the Byzantines from the Umayyad 
period until the end of al-Wathik's caliphate, that is 
to say it covers in principle the first, second and 
third centuries of the Hidjra, but also reflects later 
events. Though this is the general character of the 
romance, it also has an equally important but 
individual character as the history of the rivalry 
between two Arab tribes, the B. Kilab and the B. 
Sulaym, the key to a whole series of vicissitudes in 
the Sira and to the course of action taken by the 
leading figures, and it may indeed be regarded as 
the epic of the B. Kilab tribe. In the edition noted 
above it covers a total of 5084 pages in 8vo with 
27 lines to the page, in 7 volumes of 10 sections 
(4iuz>) each, with 64 pages in each section except for 
sections 69 and 70 which have 92 and 158 pages 
respectively. 

The name of the heroine appears in different 
forms. She is often called simply Dalhama or al- 
Dalhama, and this might be her original name, the 
feminine of Dalham, a well-known proper name and 
appellation signifying wolf. It has been regarded as 
a vulgarism for a name beginning with dhu (cf. 
Abu 'I- becoming Bal), which could be reconstructed 
as Dhu '1-Himma, and then, as it refers to a woman, 
as Dhat al-Himma, the woman of noble purpose. In 
the edition and the different manuscripts all these 
forms occur concurrently, even Dhu '1-Himma al- 
Dalhama or Dhu '1-dalhama. It is by the name 
Delhemma that the romance is most generally known. 
But whilst several of the characters have a historical 
prototype, the heroine herself seems never to have 
existed historically. 

Contents of the romance. The starting point 
is the history in the Umayyad period of the rivalry 
between two Kaysi tribes in the Hidjaz, the B. 
Kilab and the B. Sulaym, the former belonging to 
the 'Amir b. Sa'sa'a group, a section of the Hawazin 
who, with the Sulaym, are one of the two principal 
branches of Kays 'Aylan. The head of the Kilab 
was Djandaba b. al-Harith b. c Amir b. Khalid b. 
Sa'sa'a b. Kilab, while the head of the Sulaym was 
Marwan b. al-Haytham. It was the latter, a favourite 
of the Umayyad caliph, who, despite the superiority 
which Djandaba had won by his exploits, held the 
imara (command) over the Arab troops. But after 
PJandaba's death his son al-Sahsah, having saved the 
daughter of caliph c Abd al-Malik b. Marwan, and 
sister of Maslama b. c Abd al-Malik, when she was 
attacked by Bedouin brigands on her return from the 
pilgrimage, won Maslama's friendship and, thanks 
to him, was given the imara. It was as head of the 
Arab tribes that he took part with Maslama in a 
great expedition against Constantinople, in the 
course of which he had romantic adventures in a 
fortress (a monastery in the corresponding episode 
in the 'Umar al-Nu'man's tale in the 1001 Nights) 
inhabited by a Greek princess who fell in love with 
him after a show of resistance and whom he carried 
off. He was the hero in the fighting outside Constan- 
tinople against the emperor Leo and his generals and 
allies, one of whom was the queen of Georgia, Bakhtus. 
After foiling the devilish plots of Shammas, a monk, 
he entered the town as victor with Maslama, had a 
mosque built there and had Shammas crucified. 

The romance then relates al-Sahsah's adventures 
in the desert with other women, one of whom was a 
diinniyya, his death while hunting, the disputes over 
the succession between his two sons Zalim and 
Mazlum, the birth of Zalim's son, al-Harith, and 
Mazlum's daughter, Fatima who, having been 
carried off in a raid with her nurse and foster- 



brother Marzflk by the B. Tayy, grew up among 
that tribe, became a fearsome amazon and was given 
the name of Dalhama (Dhat al-Himma). Returning 
to her own tribe as a result of romantic events too 
lengthy to describe here, she continued to astound 
the Kilab by her exploits. It was in these circum- 
stances that the revolution which brought the 
c Abb5sids to power took place. The amir of the 
B. Sulaym at that time, c Abd Allah ('Ubayd Allah) 
b. Marwan, supported the c Abbasid cause and 
obtained from al-Mansur command over the tribes 
which from then onwards was lost by al-Sahsah's 
successor. Delhemma persuaded the Kilab, despite 
their initial reluctance, to support the new dynasty. 
The Byzantines having taken advantage of the 
change of dynasty to regain the initiative, war broke 
out again and the two tribes, Kilab and Sulaym, 
took part in it at the caliph's request, acquiescing in 
c Ubayd Allah's leadership. They freed Amid, captured 
Malatya and took up positions to defend the frontiers, 
the Sulaym at Malatya, the Kilab in the nearby 
fortress of Hisn al-Kawkab. 

It was after this development that Delhemma's 
cousin al-Harith, son of the Kilabi amir Zalim, 
succeeded in overcoming the rebellious heroine's 
repugnance to love and marriage, aided by a drug 
(bandi) supplied by the fakih, later kadi c Ukba, of 
the Sulaym tribe, and made her the mother of a 
child, c Abd al-Wahhab who, as a result of the 
strange circumstances in which the conception took 
place, was black. c Abd al-Wahhab was educated by 
his mother and, on reaching manhood, became the 
head of the Kilab and the Blacks who formed a 
group under his leadership; he was the chief hero of 
the romance together with Delhemma, and won 
fame in the incessant wars against Byzantium. At 
his side was al-Battal, a Sulayml and pupil of the 
kadi c Ukba, playing an important part but relying 
on cunning rather than on force of arms. In the 
perpetual rivalry that existed between the two 
tribes al-Battal took the side of the Kilab, left 
Malatya for the Kilab's fortress and became the 
implacable enemy of the kadi £ Ukba who was 
secretly converted to Christianity and had become 
a traitor to Islam and the Byzantines' most valuable 
auxiliary. The amir of Malatya and head of the Arab 
tribes was now c Amr b. c Abd Allah ( c Ubayd Allah). 
Although he had concluded a pact of fraternity with 
£ Abd al-Wahhab and had been rescued by Delhemma 
from the hands of the Byzantines and their allies the 
"Christianized Arabs", a band whom Delhemma's 
ephemeral husband al-Harith had led into Greek 
territory and placed at the emperor's service, he 
remained in a state of veiled hostility to the Kilab 
and their leaders. If the Byzantines had valuable 
assistants like c Ukba and the "Christianized Arabs", 
the Muslims also had accomplices in Byzantine 
territory, in a small group of crypto-Muslims 
organized by Maris, the emperor's personal chamber- 
lain, and his brother and sister, and also, near 
Malatya, an ally in the person of Yanis, of the 
imperial family and lord of a Greek fortress which 
he put at the disposal of the Muslims. 

In the reign of al-Mahdl a great battle with the 
emperor Theophilus took place at Mardj al-'Uyun. 
Then the narrator, after a romantic account of al- 
Mahdi's death, takes us to the reign of Harun al- 
Rashid, whom he speaks of as the immediate 
successor of al-Mahdl, and in Byzantium to the 
reign of Manuel, son of Theophilus. It was at this 
point that the great duel between al-Battal and 
'Ukba began, each trying to seize his adversary and 



DHU 'l-HIMMA 



235 



have him put to death, and, as the Sulaym, their 
amir and the caliph supported and defended 'Ukba 
whose treason they refused to acknowledge despite 
the proof provided by Delhemma, c Abd al-Wahhab 
and al-Battal, in consequence the Kilab only took 
part in the war to save the situation when it had 
been rendered critical by the Byzantines' successes 
in capturing and even advancing beyond Malatya, 
or else to fight against the emperor and the caliph 
who were linked together in an unnatural alliance 
against the Kilab, or else to go off into far distant 
lands beyond Byzantium to rescue c Abd al-Wahhab's 
wife and daughter. Adventures which cannot be 
related here led al-Battal into the West, whence he 
brought back a Frankish king whom he converted, 
and a little later to the Maghrib, returning with a 
contingent of Berbers. Subsequently the two tribes 
were reconciled and secured victories over the 
Byzantines near the Cilician Gates, recapturing 
Malatya from them and imposing a truce. 

The narrator then tells, after the death of Harfln 
al-Rashld, of the war between al-Amin and al- 
Ma'mfin in which the Kilab fought against al-Amin 
whilst the Sulaym supported him. The amirs of the 
Kilab who had been summoned to Baghdad, with 
the exception of al-Battal who had escaped, were 
arrested by 'Amr at the instigation of Zubayda, she 
in turn being inspired by 'Ukba. A fratricidal struggle 
then broke out between the Sulaym, reinforced by 
troops from 'Irak, and the Kilab and c Amir. The 
Kilab overcame the Sulaym and the 'Abbasid troops, 
reached Baghdad, attacked the palace, set free the 
Kilabite amirs and took al-Amin prisoner, but were 
persuaded by 'Abd al-Wahhab and Delhemma to 
release him. However, some of the Kilab still 
continued to support al-Ma'mim. 

The emperor Michael, Manuel's successor, taking 
advantage of the civil war between al-Amin and 
al-Ma'mun, on 'Ukba's advice renewed hostilities. 
Al-Ma'mim, who had been supported by al-Battal, 
came to the throne but had Delhemma, 'Abd al- 
Wahhab and the Kilabi amirs who had helped al- 
Amin arrested. The caliph, following the not disin- 
terested advice of 'Ukba, the emperor's ally, set 
off in the direction of al-Rakka and was captured, 
together with the Kilabis whom he had taken with 
him, and they were all carried off to Constantinople. 
Delhemma was at once freed by al-Battal. The 
others regained their liberty under cover of a war 
against the emperor that had been launched by a 
king named Kushanush, grandson through his 
father of the king of the Bulgars (al-Burdjan) and 
through his mother descended from Nestor, king 
of the Maghlabites (sic). Kushanush captured Con- 
stantinople, and then in his turn renewed the 
struggle with Islam and penetrated as far as Basra. 
He was finally captured by the Kilab and beheaded 
by Delhemma herself. Thanks to the Kilab, the 
emperor was freed and restored to the throne, and 
he decided for the future to give them the tribute 
which, in the past, he had paid to the caliph, a step 
which led to some jealousy of the Kilab. However, 
the emperor resumed war against the caliph whom 
he compelled to take refuge in Persia with the 
Sulaym. Once again it was the Kilab who saved the 
situation. Then they hastily started new operations, 
this time by sea, with the help of the amir of Tarsus, 
'All al-Armani, against the king of a remote island 
named Karakiina who was holding some Kilabi 
women captive. But on hearing that al-Ma'mun 
had come to lay siege to Constantinople and been 
captured with the help of the Franks, they hurried 



to the rescue, fought a naval engagement and laid 
siege to the city; they captured the emperor and 
then, reinforced by an army commanded by the 
future caliph al-Mu'tasim, they set al-Ma'mun 
free; he had however been wounded by 'Ukba and 
died. Al-Mu'tasim took over power, at al-Battal's 
request set free the emperor Michael, who was to 
pay tribute, and gave orders to return to Malatya 
where for the time being he effected a reconciliation 
the Kilab and the Sulaym, later returning 



wards he was won over by the amir 
'Amr to the side of the Sulaym and 'Ukba. He came 
to Malatya with the intention of invading Byzantine 
territory, arrested Delhemma, 'Abd al-Wahhab and 
the Kilabi amirs, and also al-Battal shortly afterwards, 
while 'Amr released 'Ukba whom al-Battal after 
prolonged search had finally captured. An attempt by 
the Kilab to rescue the prisoners on their way to 
Baghdad failed on account of the superiority of 
al-Mu'tasim's and 'Aim's forces. Thereafter the 
Kilab seem to have been powerless against the Sulaym 
and 'Amr. Those of the Kilab and 'Abd al-Wahhab's 
Blacks who were unwilling to submit to 'Amr 
emigrated to Egypt. While the amirs were held 
prisoner in Baghdad the emperor, urged on by 'Ukba, 
launched an expedition. But he was soon besieged 
in his capital by Bahrun, the king of the island of 
Kamaran, and dethroned. Bahrun then invaded the 
Muslim territories, took Malatya, captured 'Amr 
and later the caliph, and marched on 'Irak. It was 
then that the Kilabi amirs were released during a 
riot. They at once out to fight Bahrun, defeated him 
and released his prisoners, and helped the caliph to 
recapture Constantinople and restore the emperor 
to his throne. They took the town of 'Amiida the 
Great, towards which Bahrun had fled, and once 
again freed the caliph who had been captured for 
the second time. 

However, the emperor Michael had died and been 
succeeded by the usurper Armanus (Romanus), who 
expelled the Muslims from Constantinople and was 
joined by Bahrun. Fighting continued, and an 
interminable series of adventures brought the Kilab 
to the kingdom of Kordjana, bordering on the 
country of the Abkhaz, in their search for Delhemma 
who was still a prisoner, while the Sulaym accom- 
panied by the caliph had returned to Malatya. Then 
followed a great offensive by Armanus who took 
Malatya and went as far as Mosul. The Kilab, who 
through 'Ukba's intrigues had been expelled from 
the frontier by the caliph, nevertheless saved the 
situation. Then the caliph became suspicious of 'Amr, 
but the latter returned to favour, set out an on ex- 
pedition, and was defeated. Finally Armanus was 
overcome and surrendered. He was soon compelled to 
seek help from the Muslims against his enemy king 
Karfanas who, with the Sakarika and the Malafita 
(Amalfitans) captured Constantinople. The caliph 
sent the Sulaym against him. Karfanas captured 
'Amr, defeated the caliph al-Mu'tasim and reached 
Amid. At that point 'Abd al-Wahhab intervened. 
Karfanas was killed and Armanus regained the 
throne. 

The narrator, who is not unaware that al-Mu'tasim 
led an expedition against Amorium in 223/838, does 
not fail to describe it in a fanciful way, with certain 
characteristics which recur in an already legendary 
account by Ibn al-'Arabi in his Muhddardt al-abrdr 
wa-musdmardt al-akhydr, ii, 64. Then he had Armanus 
dethroned by his own son Bimund. The latter 
maltreated al-Battal, who had fallen into the hands 



236 



DHU 'l-HIMMA 



of Armanus, and thereby provoked 'Abd al-Wahhab 
and 'Amr to intervene. The latter was made prisoner. 
Delhemma then came to the rescue, killed BImund 
and restored Armanus to the throne. 

'Ukba once more contrived to turn the caliph 
against the Kilab, and the Sulaym and Kilab were 
again at war, when the caliph called in Armanus 
against the Kilab. There followed a long series of 
exploits in the course of which, outside Constanti- 
nople, Delhemma killed a Frankish king, Milas, who 
had come for the Crusade and conquest of Jerusalem, 
'Abd al-Wahhab was carried off by the Pecenegs, 
'Ukba and al-Battal continued their perpetual game 
of hide and seek, and Armanus took and sacked 
Malatya. Armanus was later dethroned and strangled 
by Falflghus (Paleologos ?) whom Delhemma forced 
to keep peace. He resumed the war but was beaten 
and compelled to pay tribute and to rebuild in 
Constantinople Maslama's mosque which had fallen 
into ruin. 'Ukba, whom al-Battal had captured, was 
nearly crucified in Constantinople, but he managed 
to escape and returned to the caliph; he hatched a 
new plot against the Kilab and procured the arrest 
of 'Abd al-Wahhab and al-Battal, and it was only 
by the vizier's help that they escaped from the 
sentence of death by drowning in the Tigris. Never- 
theless, 'Amr and the Sulaym continued to fight 
against the Kilab. 

A new emperor named Michael twice sent ex- 
peditions against the Muslims, the second time with 
a Frankish king Takafur. He took Malatya but it 
was recaptured by the caliph and c Abd al-Wahhab; 
it was then that al-Mu'tasim, after seeing 'Ukba 
performing his devotions in the underground church 
in his house in Malatya, became convinced of his 
treason and no longer defended him, even suspecting 
'Amr also of being a Christian. 

We come now to the final section of the romance, 
section 70, which like the preceding one is almost three 
times longer than the others. It is given up to a 
description of two important events: the pursuit 
of 'Ukba through various countries from Spain to 
the Yemen, his capture and crucifixion on the Golden 
Gate at Constantinople in spite of the intervention of 
a vast army of Christian peoples led by 17 kings; the 
murderous ambush into which the Muslims fell on 
their way back, in the Defile of the Anatolians, from 
which the only survivors were the caliph with 
400 men, al-Battal and some of his companions, as 
well as Delhemma, c Abd al-Wahhab and a number 
of men who had been shut up in a cave and given 
up for lost, but were miraculously saved by a genie. 
Soon afterwards al-Mu'tasim died. 

His successor al-Wathik decided on a reprisal 
expedition against Constantinople. The emperor was 
captured and executed. Until then, Muslim con- 
querors had limited themselves to making the 
emperors pay tribute. From that time, a Muslim 
governor was appointed in Constantinople in the 
person of a son of c Abd al-Wahhab who had the 
mosque rebuilt with great splendour. The amir 'Amr 
had been killed in the disaster of the Defile of the 
Anatolians, and was succeeded at Malatya by his 
son al-PJarrah. 

At this point the narrator describes the deaths, 
first of Delhemma, then her son 'Abd al-Wahhab, 
after their return from Mecca, in a state of piety, 
while al-Battal ended his life at Ankuriya (a cor- 
ruption of Ancyra-Angora through contamination 
with 'Ammuriya-Amorium), saddened by the news 
that, from the time of al-Wathik's successor, al- 
Mutawakkil (or in some manuscripts al-Muktadir), 



the Byzantines had regained the initiative, recon- 
quered the whole territory between Ankara and 
Malatya, and sent out endless expeditions against 
the Muslim countries. He died and was buried in the 
mosque at Ankara, but his tomb, being concealed, 
escaped the notice of his foes. Islam was to remain 
in this critical situation until the coming of the 
Turks (Saldjukid ?— in some versions there is 
reference to Cerkesses, hence to the Mamluks), with 
their king Ak Sunkur, who recaptured Ankara and 
discovered al-Battal's tomb. 

Elements in the romance. Different elements 
enter into the creation of Delhemma. Firstly, a bedouin 
element which might be described as "antarian", 
since it is what occurs in the Sirat c Antar, which may 
have served as a model, as comparisons sometimes 
appear between some personage and 'Antar, whose 
horse Abdjar is mentioned. In the preamble of a 
Berlin manuscript the narrator, after giving al- 
Sahsah's genealogy, says that the events which he 
is about to describe took place after the death of 
'Antar b. Shaddad. To this element belong, in the 
first part of the romance, the intertribal raids and 
battles, the exploits of al-Harith, his son Djandaba, 
and later of al-Sahsah and Delhemma herself, tales 
of pursuits and horse-stealing, al-Sahsah's romantic 
encounters with first Layla, then Amama, then a 
djinniyya. In the last analysis these bedouin tales 
go back to pre-islamic antiquity. It is noteworthy 
that Islam only plays a subsidiary part (doxology, 
Muslim talismanic formulae) although the importance 
of the djihdd is stressed from the start. 

The most important element is the pseudo- 
historical, for the romance claims to be an accurate 
history of the Arabs. This element appears as the 
often very vague recollection of a certain number of 
facts and historical personages, garbed in romantic 
trappings and presented in an imaginary way, with 
constant disregard for chronology and probability. 
In the internal history of the Umayyad period we 
find traces of the history of Maslama b. 'Abd al- 
Malik and of the eulogy of him spoken by 'Abd al- 
Malik on his death-bed; Maslama's renunciation of 
the throne in favour of al-Walid rests on a historical 
basis, Maslama as the son of a non-Arab mother 
having been barred from the caliphate for that 
reason. The 'Abbasid propaganda and the story of 
Abu Muslim find an echo in the romance, like the 
founding of Baghdad by al-Mansur. The incident of 
the Zindik in al-Mahdi's time is transformed into a 
meeting of 12,000 zindlks with renegade Arabs 
acting in the service of Byzantium. It would be 
fruitless to reveal the improbabilities and inventions 
in the story of al-Mahdi's succession, or the account 
of the Barmakids interwoven with 'Ukba's intrigues. 
Similarly a KharidjI, in revolt against Harun al- 
Rashid, is endowed with the same characteristics as 
the Karmati in al-Muktadir's time, for he carries off 
the Black Stone. In the account of al-Battal's 
adventures in the West there is an incredible 
farrago in which the Spanish Umayyad called 
Hisham al-Mu 5 ayyad and described as the imam 
mahdi, the Mulaththama (Almoravids) whose king 
'Abd al-Wadud (a recollection of the 'Abd al-Wadids 
of Tlemcen) pays tribute to the Frankish king of 
Andalusia, and the Masamida (Almohads) all appear. 
Turks are mentioned in the Muslim army from the 
time of Harun al-Rashid. We have seen how the war 
between al-Amin and al-Ma 5 mun is described in 
terms of the rivalry between the Kilab and Sulaym. 
There is only a very brief allusion to the founding 
of Samarra by al-Mu'tasim. 



DHU 'l-HIMMA 



237 



As regards the Arabo-Byzantine war, it is the 
historical element which plays the chief part. Thus, 
in the first part Maslama's expedition against Con- 
stantinople in 97-9/715-7 is the central event, 
around which all the romantic episodes are grouped. 
Al-Battal who in actual fact took part in it is not 
mentioned here because he has been relegated to the 
second part of the romance. This part, which is based 
primarily on the Arabo-Byzantine war, reflects 
several important events of the 'Abbasid period, 
above all the establishment of a group of fortresses 
west of the Euphrates, with Malatya at the centre, 
■dating from the period of al-Mansur, a fact well- 
known from al-Baladhuri. Then came al-Mu c tasim's 
great expedition against Amorium, which inspired 
several episodes in the romance, either under Harun 
al-Rashld's caliphate or under al-Mu'tasim himself. 
Finally, and in particular, there is the fact that the 
amir of Malatya, c Amr b. c Ubayd Allah, is no other 
than the historical personage of that name of the 
nth century, for whom see M. Canard, Un personnage 
de toman arabo-byzantin, in RAfr., 1932 and H. 
Gregoire, VSpopie byzantine et ses rapports avec 
Vipopie turque et Vipopie romane, in Bull, de la CI. 
des Let. et des Sc. Mor. et Pol. de I' Ac. roy. de Belgique, 
5th series, volume" xvii, and articles in Byzantion, v 
and vi. And as we know from Byzantine historians 
that 'Ami was closely connected with the Paulician 
dissidents, we can deduce that the situation of the 
Greek Yanis al-Muta c arrab, poised between the two 
camps in his fortress near Malatya, reflects the 
position of the Paulician Carbeas. 

If the romance does not trace the Arabo-Byzantine 
war after the reign of al-Wathik (227-32/842-7), 
later events certainly inspired the narrators. It is 
probable that the disastrous defeat which the Arabs 
suffered at the end of al-Mu c tasim's reign is the 
counterpart of the defeat in which c Amr perished in 
249/863. There are many allusions to situations in 
the 10th century, in the period of the Hamdanids. 
Apart from Malatya, the frequent references made to 
Shimshat, Jrlisn Ziyad (also in the form Kharput. 
which takes us to a still later period), Mayyafarikin, 
Dara, Amid and the celebrated Byzantine stronghold 
Kharshana (Charsianon kastron) call to mind Sayf 
al-Dawla's campaigns. The emigration on two 
occasions of renegade Arab groups to Byzantium 
recalls the emigration of the B. Habib described by 
Ibn Hawkal. Various Greek names also seem to 
suggest the events of the 10th century. No doubt it 
is Corcuas, the conqueror of Melitene, who can be 
recognized in Karkiyas, the Domestikos in al- 
Dimishki, Nicephores (Phocas) in Takafur. In 
section 47, p. 34 there is a direct reference to John 
Tzimisces and his siege of Amid. Armanus suggests 
Romanus Lecapenus. For the rest, many names and 
episodes take us to an even later epoch. From the 
start, the rivalry for the imdra between the two 
tribes reveals a situation which belongs, not to the 
(Jmayyad, but rather to the Ayyubid period, when 
command of the Syrian tribes was held by one 
dominant tribe, but at that time the rivalry was 
between the Kilab and the Yemeni Fadl. The cere- 
monial forms of salutation, hospitality and procession, 
and the general use of titles are reminiscent of the 
Fatimid, Ayyubid or Mamluk ceremonial forms and 
titles. The Crusades and the Saldjukid period are 
the source of many names of persons and peoples. 
Among the Christian, or presumably Christian, 
peoples in addition to the Bulgars, Armenians and 
Franks, we find c Am51ika (Amalekites!), Georgians 
(Kurdj), Abkhaz, Alans, Pecenegs (al-Badjnak), 



Amalfitans (MalafUa), Venetians (Banadika), Saka- 
liba, Maghlabites (the Byzantine MaYYXaJJfT/)? = 
Latin manuclavium, lictor), Zaghawira, Dukas (sic). 
As names of individuals we find Kundafarun (Gode- 
froy, cf. Kundafari in Yakut, i, 207, ii, 381 and 
Gontofre in book x of the Alexiad), Fransis, Ghavta- 
fur who is certainly king Tafur in the Chanson 
d'Antioche, BImund (Bohemund) etc. Certain names 
of Christians, Greek or French, are simply taken from 
antiquity and to some extent garbled: Iflatun, 
Christopher, Pythagoras, Ptolemy. These names 
reveal a very superficial knowledge of history and 
geography on the part of the narrators who, on the 
other hand, seem to be better documented on 
Christian practices, religious festivals and formulae 
{e.g., Kyrie eleison, sect. 4, 39; 20, 4; 59, 26), the 
sign of the cross, the emperor's crown topped with 
a cross, and on certain Byzantine customs (games in 
the hippodrome, humiliation of prisoners by having 
a foot placed on the back of the neck, etc.). 

The description of land-battles is full of cliches, 
but the description of naval battles which have 
inspired prose or verse accounts seem to be more 
realistic. There is, for example, (sect. 18, 35) a 
detailed description of the use of Greek fire, kawarir 
al-naft, boarding with the help of grappling-irons 
and several names of ships. 

Folklore element. As in all romances and 
Futuh works, Delhemma contains a mass of features 
derived from folklore, of which we shall only specify 
a few : tricks to make the enemy kill each other, the 
description of wonderful objects (automatic birds, 
talismanic statues), amazons, the use of the bands, 
etc. In the story of the queen of Georgia, Bakhtus, 
which occurs in the first part, one can detect features 
which go back, through the legend of queen Thamar, 
to that of Zenobia. The theme of the camel-skin cut 
into strips in order to obtain a larger area for the 
building of the mosque in Constantinople is the same 
as the legend of Dido. Certain names (Kaykabus, 
Kilidj b. Kabus) suggest an Irano-Saldjukid in- 
fluence, rather than the Iranian legend. 

Composition of the romance. I have tried 
to show, in an article entitled Delhemma, Sayyid 
Battdl et Omar al-No'-man, in Byzantion, xii (1937), 
183 ff., following an article by H. Gregoire in 
Byzantion, xi (1936), 571 ff., on the subject of the 
relegation of the personage of al-BaUal, the hero of 
the Umayyad period, to the legend of c Amr b. 
'Ubayd Allah, amir of Malatya in the 'Abbasid 
period, that the romance of Delhemma is made up 
of two parts which are each a version or fragment 
of two cycles of different periods and origins. The 
first and shorter part goes back to a bedouin and 
Syrio-Umayyad cycle (other fragments of which are 
incidentally extant) describing the adventures of the 
Umayyad amir Maslama b. <Abd al-Malik and of 
personages of the B. Kilab tribe related to Maslama 
through his wife. Though this part does not include 
the historical heroes of the Umayyad period, al- 
Battal and his companion c Abd al-Wahhab who have 
been relegated to the second part, al-Battal's 
exploits have been put under the name of the 
KilabI amir al-Sahsah. The second, the principal and 
longer part of the romance, very closely related to 
the Turkish Sayyid Battal, represents not only the 
Turkish romance but also a cycle which H. Gregoire 
and I have called a Melitenian cycle on account of 
the part played by Malatya-Melitene and its amir 
c Amr b. 'Ubayd Allah, of the B. Sulaym tribe in the 
c AbbSsid period. This must originally have been 
the epic of the B. Sulaym and their famous amir. 



238 



DHU 'L-HIMMA 



As a result of al-Battal's popularity the Sulaym 
must have appropriated the personage who is 
described in the romance as being of Sulayml origin. 
In H. Gregoire's opinion, this change in respect of 
al-Battal was determined by the fact that in the 
expedition during which he met his death, he was 
accompanied by an amir of Malatya named Ghamr, 
a name easily confused with c Amr, and his relega- 
tion has also involved a similar change in respect 
of c Abd al-Wahhab. A later stage in the develop- 
ment of the romance was the fusion of the two 
cycles and the appropriation of the Melitenian cycle 
by the B. Kilab, to their advantage, for the 
reasons I have given in the article under reference 
(the submission of the amirs of Malatya to Byzantium 
in the 10th century, which was frowned upon by 
Islam; and, on the other hand, the important r61e 
played by the B. Kilab in the Byzantine war in the 
ioth centuries, and their eminence in north Syria). 
It is in this way that the end of the first part, in 
which we see the birth and childhood of Delhemma, 
al-Sahsah's granddaughter, and then of her son 
c Abd al-Wahhab, forms a transition with the second 
part where the Kilabis take their place in the 
Melitenian cycle, that c Abd al-Wahhab, historically 
an Umayyad mawld of unknown origin, becomes a 
KilabI and the principal character, with his mother, 
that al-Battal is represented as voluntarily leaving 
the B. Sulaym in order to join the B. Kilab, and that 
c Amr b. c Ubayd Allah, the central hero of the 
Melitenian cycle as he is in the Turkish romance 
under the name c Umar b. al-Nu c man (cf. also the 
story in the iooi Nights of the same name) becomes 
a personage not only less important than c Abd al- 
Wahhab but also less attractive, since the narrators 
give all their sympathies to the B. Kilab. Moreover, 
it is known from Kalkashandl, Subh, i, 340 and iv, 
231, that in his time the romance was regarded as 
having been written to glorify the B. Kilab of north 
Syria who claimed to be adherents of c Abd al- 
Wahhab. 

Date of composition of the romance. It 
goes without saying that it is impossible to give an 
exact date for the composition of this romance as 
we have it in the published edition and in the 
manuscripts which differ little from it. It is probable 
that, if the first outlines of the Syrio-Umayyad cycle 
were traced as early as the Umayyad period, and 
those of the Melitenian cycle shortly after the death of 
amir c Amr in 249/863, it was at a much later date, and 
under the inspiration of the spirit of hostility to the 
Crusaders, that an epic of the Arabo-Byzantine wars 
followed by the Islamo-Frankish wars finally took 
shape. Positive references to an epic of this sort do 
not go back beyond the 12th century. The Egyptian 
historian al-Kurti, writing at the time of vizier 
Shawar and the Fatimid caliph al- c Adid (555-67/ 
1160-72), speaks of the Ahddith al-Baftdl and the 
1001 Nights as being known in his time (al-MakrizI, 
Khifat, i, 485, ", 181; cf. Macdonald, in JRAS, 1924, 
381), a detail which should be added to the article 
al-Battal. Sama'wal b. Yahya al-Maghribl, a Jew 
converted to Islam in 558/1163, says that before his 
conversion he took pleasure in reading stories and 
romances and collections of legendary histories like 
the Diwan akhbdr 'Antara, the Diwdn Delhemma wa 
'l-Battdl (see Bibl. to al-battal). If we can accept a 
tradition from al-Mughultal reported in the Tazyin 
al-aswdk by D3wud al-Antakl (ed. Bulak, 1279, 55), 
a Maghribl shaykh was said to have heard the Sirat 
al-Battal recited in Cairo, at the time of al-IJakim. 
Thus a romance dealing with al-Battal, or with 



both Delhemma and al-Battal, was known in the 
Fatimid period, and it is difficult to tell if it is a 
question of one and the same romance, or of two 
separate romances. A Sirat aUBaftal is also mentioned 
by al- Kalkashandi, xiv, 149, 1. 9. Can we go back 
even further? According to H. Gregoire (ZDMG, 
lxxxviii, 213-32), the basis of Delhemma's history 
and the tale of c Umar al-Nu c man (see also my 
article Un personnage . . .) must have been known 
in about 390/1000 in north Syria since it served as 
a source for the Byzantine epic Digenis Akritas. 

After this period we find other mentions of 
Delhemma. In the 8th/i4th century Ibn Kathir (see 
Bibl. to al-battal), repeating what Ibn 'Asakir had 
said of al-Battal, adds that the Sira put out under 
the name of Delhemma, al-Battal, amir c Abd al- 
Wahhab and kadi c Ukba is no more than a tissue 
of lies, like the Sira of 'Antara or the one (on the 
Prophet) by al-Bakri [q.v.]. In the 16th century, 
the jurist al-Wansharlshl, in his al-Mi'-yar al- 
mughrib (see the analysis by Amar, in Arch. Maro- 
caines, xi (1908), 456-7 and the lith. ed. vi, 52), says 
that it is not permitted to sell historical romances 
like the one on 'Antar or the "Dalhama". Today, 
the disfavour shown by the most critical circles has 
become even more marked : see the modern contempt 
for this literature, in Brockelmann, S II, 62. 

The author or authors of the romance. 
In the edition, no author is named, but there is a 
list of rdwis. A manuscript analysed by Ahlwardt 
begins: kdla Nadj,d b. Hishdm al-Hdshimi al-Ifididzi, 
as though in reference to the author. But in another, 
six rdwis are listed, Nadjd being the third. The 
edition gives ten rdwis, of whom Nadjd, with the 
ethnic al- c Amiri, that is to say, of the tribe of c Amir 
who plays a large part in the romance with the 
related Kilab, is the last. These persons are unknown 
and one can scarcely draw any conclusions from the 
fact that the one has the nisba at al-Shimshatl, and 
the other at al-Mar c ashI, that is to say, lands situated 
on the Arabo-Byzantine frontier. The fact that a 
rdwi is stated to have been present at the event 
described (sect. 18, 64), dated 190 A.H. is merely a 
device by the narrator. 

Conclusion. Such then is this long romance of 
which our analysis gives only an incomplete idea, 
so complicated are the adventures of the characters, 
prolonged at will by the author by means of repeti- 
tion, the constant return of similar situations, the 
artificial duplication of characters with identical 
r61es etc. Such as it is, this epic of the Arabo-Byzan- 
tine wars and of the B. Kilab succeeded in pleasing 
a popular Muslim public by exalting the mudjahidun 
and their successes in battles and against adversaries 
that were often imaginary. A simple-minded audience 
accepted all this with enthusiasm as though it were 
fact. In addition to the epic character, with its 
accounts of combats and great feats of arms, the 
dramatic or melodramatic element is not lacking; 
the narrator is adept in holding his listeners spell- 
bound waiting for some climax, through agonizing 
situations, sudden changes of fortune whether happy 
or unhappy, and by various means rousing sympathy 
or antipathy. The comical element, at times of a 
somewhat crude sort, appears fairly frequently, 
particularly in scenes portraying disguise, abduction 
or theft, and in the more or less childish devices 
employed by al-Battal and c Ukba, the use of various 
mountebank tricks of which al-Battal is past master, 
when for example he appears as a Christian king 
with his ghuldm, in the guise of Christ and the 



DHU Y-H1MMA — DHU 'l-KADR 



239 



twelve apostles (cf. a similar story in Murudj al- 
dhahab, viii, 175). 

The personages are simple in character. They 

resemble each other and always act in the same way, 

according to the type they represent. The language 

is incorrect or careless, but at the same time it 

pretends to seem learned by making a show of 

rhymed prose and redundant and assonant epithets 

in descriptions (horses, arms, clothing, combats, 

receptions, processions). Verse which plays the same 

part as in the 1001 Nights is relatively infrequent, 

but section 70 contains a passage of 472 lines of 

verse in which al-Battal himself reviews his exploits. 

Bibliography: In addition to works referred 

to in the article, see M. Canard, Les expeditions 

des Arabes contre Constantinople dans I'histoire et la 

Ugende, in J A, ccviii (1926), 116 if.; idem, 

Delhemma, ipopie arabe des guerres arabo-byzan- 

tines, in Byzantion, x, 1935 ; idem, Les princi- 

paux personnages du roman de chevalerie arabe 

D5t al-Himma wa-1-Battal, in Arabica, viii, 1961, 

158-73. Mentions or fragmentary analyses in 

Perron, Femmes arabes, 352-3; Lane, Modern 

Egyptians, ed. 1836, ii, 146-162; M. Hartmann, 

in OLZ, 1899, 103; Chauvin, Bibl.des ouvr. arabes, 

iv; Kosegarten, Chrestomathie, 68-83 (extract: 

Djandaba and Kattalat al-Shudj c an) ; analysis of 

the beginning and end of the romance by W. 

Ahlwardt (Die Handschr.- Verzeichnisse der hgl. 

Bibl. zu Berlin, xx. Band; Verzeichnis der arab. 

Handschr., viii. Band, Berlin 1896; Grosse Romane, 

no. 10, 107 ff.). — Besides the edition noted above, 

there is another dated 1298 H. (M. Canard) 

DHU 'l-KA'DA [see ta^rI™, i]. 

DHU 'L-&ADR, Turkmen dynasty, which 

ruled for nearly two centuries (738/1337-928/1522) 

from Elbistan over the region Mar'ash-Malatya, 

as clients first of the Mamluk and later of the Ottoman 

Sultans. Name : The use in Arabic sources of the 

spellings Dulghadir and Tulghadir and in one of the 

dynasty's inscriptions of Dulkadir (see R. Hartmann, 

Zur Wiedergabe tiirhischer Namen . . ., Berlin 1952, 

7 ; this spelling occurs also in Bazm u Razm, Istanbul 

1918, 456) indicates that the Arabicized forms Dh u 

'1-Kadr and Dhu '1-Kadir, usual in the later Ottoman 

sources, are a folk-etymology ('powerful') of a 

(presumably Turkish) name or title : A. von Gabain 

has suggested tulga + dar, 'helmet-bearer' (Isl. 

xxxi, 115). 

The founder of the dynasty, Zayn al-DIn Karadja 
b. Dulkadir, first mentioned as penetrating Little 
Armenia with 5000 horsemen in 735/1335, was the 
leader of Bozok clans whose summer-pastures were 
in the east range of the Anti-Taurus and who 
wintered in the valley east of the Ainanus range. 
In the confusion following the death of the Ilkhan 
Abu Sa'Id, Karadja Beg seized Elbistan and procured 
from the Mamluk Sultan a diploma recognizing him 
as nd'ib (738/1337)- The rest of his life was spent in 
struggles with his neighbours and in revolts against 
Egyptian suzerainty. Defeated at last by a strong 
force led by the governor of Aleppo, he escaped 
capture, but was eventually surrendered to the 
Egyptians by his rival Muhammad b. Eretna and 
executed (754/i353)- 

Karadja's son and successor Khalll, seeking 
revenge for his father's betrayal, seized Kharput 
from the Eretna-oghlu and began to menace Malatya. 
The Sultan sought to depose him; after several 
inconclusive expeditions, in 783/1381 the Egyptian 
forces, driving Khalll out of Elbistan and advancing 
as far as Malatya, procured his temporary sub- 



mission. Sultan Barkuk finally resolved to dispose 
of the turbulent Khalll by craft and had him murder- 
ed (788/1386). 

The Turkmens recognized as his successor his 
younger brother Suli, who defeated an Egyptian 
army near Goksiin and allied himself with the 
rebellious Mamluk Mintash. Suli sent troops to take 
part in the revolt of the Syrian governors against 
Barkuk (791/1389); he remained loyal to Mintash 
for a time after Barkuk's recovery of power, but 
was obliged to submit in 793/i39i. Four years later 
Barkuk, learning that Suli had offered to guide 
TImur's army into Syria, sent an expedition against 
him and Suli narrowly escaped capture. Barkuk 
eventually had him murdered (800/1398); but at 
this juncture the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I arrived 
on the scene, drove Sull's son Sadaka from Elbistan, 
and installed Khalll's son Nasir al-DIn Muhammad 
(801/1399). In 803/1400, Timur, whose army had 
been harassed by the Dh u '1-Kadr Turkmens during 
the siege of Sivas, ravaged Muhammad's territories, 
and on his return from Syria sent a force to attack 
the Dhu '1-Kadr nomads near Tadmur (Sharaf al-DIn 
Yazdi, ?afar-ndma, Calcutta ed. ii, 270 ff., 346). 

Throughout his long reign Muhammad remained 
on friendly terms with Egypt, and also with the 
rising Ottoman state. In 815/1412 he sent troops to 
assist Mehemmed 1, who had married one of his 
daughters, against Musa (Neshri, ed. Taeschner, i, 
122, 136 f.). He took part in the Egyptian punitive 
expedition against the Karaman-oghlu in 822/1419, 
and after its withdrawal defeated him and sent him 
prisoner to Cairo; for these service the Sultan al- 
Mu'ayyad made over Kayseri to him (where, in 
835/1432, he built the Khatuniyye medrese). The 
Karaman-oghlu Ibrahim re-took Kayseri (O. Turan, 
Tarihi Takvimler, 40), but in 840/1436 Muhammad 
appealed for help to the Ottoman Sultan Murad II, 
who captured the city and restored it to him (lA, 
art. Karamanhlar [Sihabeddin Tekindag], 324 f.). 
In 843/1440, to restore the temporarily interrupted 
harmony with Egypt, Muhammad visited Cairo and 
married one of his daughters to Cakmak; he died, 
over 80 years of age, in 846. Bertrandon de la 
Broquiere, travelling through Syria in 1432, en- 
countered nomads attached to the Dhu '1-Kadr- 
oghlu north of Hama, and noted, on passing through 
his territories, that this prince "a en sa compaignie 
trente mil hommes d'armes Turquemans" (Le voyage 
d'outremer, ed. C. Schefer, 82, 118). 

The twelve-year reign of Muhammad's son 
Sulayman passed uneventfully. In 853/1449 Murad II, 
seeking an ally against the Karaman-oghlu and the 
Kara-koyunlu sultan (Ducas, 224), married the 
future Mehemmed II to Sulayman's daughter Sitt 
Khatun (see F. Babinger, Mehmed's II Heirat mit 
Sitt-Chatum (1449), in Isl. xxix, 1950, 217-35). 

During the reign of Sulayman's son Malik Arslan 
(858/1454-870/1465) the principality was menaced 
by Uzun Hasan, who seized Kharput, and Ottoman- 
Egyptian intrigues for control of the region became 
intensified. Malik Arslan was murdered, at the 
instigation of his brother Shah-budak and with the 
connivance of the Mamluk Sultan Khosh-kadem. 
who installed Shah-budak. But Mehemmed II sent 
against him his own candidate Shah-suvar, another 
brother (his diploma [see Bibl.], dated 14 Rabi c II 
870/4 December 1465, appointed him wdli over his 
ancestors' domains "and all the dispersed Bozoklu 
and Dhu '1-Kadirlii", i.e., the nomads). Shah-suvar 
drove out Shah-budak, and gained such successes 
over the Egyptians that he threw off Mehemmed's 



DHU 'L-KADR 



protection (see Ibn Kemal, VII. defter [facsimile], ed. 
§. Turan, 429-33). The Egyptians retaliated, took 
him prisoner to Cairo and executed him (877/1472), 
and re-installed Shah-budak. (Shah-suvar alone of 
the Dh u '1-Kadr rulers is said to have struck coins, 
cf. 'Arifi [see Bibl.], 430, 763). 

Another brother, 'Ala 5 al-Dawla (whose daughter 
was married to Prince Bayezid and had borne him 
the future sultan Sellm I), sought Mehemmed's 
protection (Ibn Kemal, 433-7) and in 884/1479 drove 
out Shah-budak. During the Ottoman-Mamluk war 
of 890-6/1485-90, 'Ala 5 al-Dawla began to incline 
towards Egypt, so that the Ottomans made an 
unsuccessful attempt to depose him in favour of 
Shah-budak, who had changed sides and was now 
sandjak-bey of Vize ('Ashikpashazade, ed. 'All, 
234-8; Sa'd al-Din, ii, 63-5). During the next twenty 
years 'Ala 5 al-Dawla remained at peace with the 
Ottomans, but came into conflict with Shah Isma'il, 
who in 913/1507 sacked Elbistan (destroying the 
monuments of the dynasty) and Mar'ash. When 
Selim I marched against Shah Isma'il the aged 'Ala 5 
al-Dawla refused to assist the Ottoman army, so 
that on his return Sellm sent against him Khadim 
Sinan Pasha and 'All, the son of Shah-suvar, an 
Ottoman sandjak-bey. 'Ala 5 al-Dawla was defeated 
and killed (Rabi' II 921/June 1515) and his head 
sent to Cairo (Sa'd al-Din, ii, 293-7; Feridun, 
Munsha'dt 2 , 1, 407-413). 

'All Beg, appointed in his stead, distinguished 
himself in Selim's Egyptian campaign; but by 
playing the major part in suppressing the Dialali 
revolt and the rebellion of Djan-birdi he aroused the 
jealousy of Ferhad Pasha, who procured Suleyman 
I's consent to his killing 'All Beg and all his family 
(Sha'ban 928/July 1522). Thereafter the region was 
administered as an Ottoman beglerbegilik, 'Dhu 
'1-Kadriyya', with its headquarters at Mar'ash (from 
which it was later named); in the 17th century it 
comprised five sandjaks, Mar'ash, Malatya, 'Ayntab, 
Kars (modern Kadirli) and Sumeysat ('Ayn-i 'All 
in P. von Tischendorf, Lehnswesen . . ., 60, 72). 

Under Ottoman suzerainty the Dh u '1-Kadr- 



oghullari enjoyed the privileges of a mediatized 
ruling house (e.g., in the alkdb, cf. Ewliya, Seydhat- 
ndtne, i, 170) and were in the 17th century still 
reckoned among the 'famiglie del Regio sangue' 
(Sagredo, Memorie istoriche . . ., Venice 1677, 1068). 
Members of the family appear, sometimes in official 
positions, throughout the Ottoman period (see 
'Arifi, 694-6). 

Dhu '1-Kadirlu was the name of a large ulus of 
tribesmen, widely spread not only in E. Anatolia but 
also in Safawid domains, where they formed an 
influential element in the state (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, 
tr. and comm. V. Minorsky, GMS New Series xvi, 
London 1943, 14-19). 

Bibliography: Mordtmann's article in EI 1 
was mainly based on Munedjdjimbashi, iii, 167-71, 
'AH, Kiinh iv/3, 38-45, and Hammer-Purgstall. 
See further 'Arifi, Elbistan ve Mar'-ashda Dhu 
•l-Kadr (Dulghddir) oghullari hukumeti, in TOEM, 
v, 358-77, 419-31, 509-12, 535-52, 623-9, 692-7, 
767-8, and (inscriptions) vii, 89-96; lA, art. 
Dulkadirhlar (Mordtmann's article in EI 1 much 
expanded by M. Halil Yinanc with many new 
facts, especially for the 14th century, from Arabic 
sources; lA, art Elbistan, by M. Halil Yinanc. 
Letters ofMehemmed II to and concerning Shah- 
suvar are found in Faith devrine ait munseat 
mecmuasi (= Vienna, Nationalbibl. MS H.O. 161), 
ed. N. Lugal and A. Erzi, Istanbul 1956 (the 
diploma of appointment at 41); see also Belleten, 
xxi, 1957, 279. A kdnun of 'Ala 5 al-Dawla, con- 
firmed by the Ottomans, is included in 0. L. Barkan, 
Kanunlar, Istanbul 1943, 119-24 (on the intro- 
duction of Ottoman administration see also lA, 
art. Elbistan, 229), and Arsiv Kilavuzu I (index 
s.v. Alauddevle) notes some letters of his in the 
Topkapu Sarayi archives. For the Dh u '1-Kadirlii 
tribesmen see firstly F. Sumer, XVI. asirda 
Anadolu, Suriye ve Irakta yasayan Tiirk asiret- 
lerine umumt bir bakis, in Iktisat Fak. Mecm., xi 
(1949-50), 509-23 (esp. 512-3); sporadic references 
to them appear in the various articles of F. Sumer 
and F. Demirtas concerning the tribesfolk. 



. Zayn al-Din Karadja b. Dulkadir 



1 

2. Ghars al-Din Khalil 
(754-788) 
I 
. Nasir al-Din Muhammad = d. of Kadi 

(801-846) Burhan al-DIn !) 

I of Sivas 

r 



5. Sulayman 

(846-858) 

, I 



= Sultan Cakmak 
(Egypt) 



(921-928) 



9. 'Ala 5 al-Dawla Sit 

Bozkurt = Mel 

(884-921) 

'A 5 ishe = Bayezid II 

I 
Selim I 



J ) 'Ashikpashazade, ed. Giese, 66; her name was perhaps Misr Khatun (Kh. Edhem, TOEM, v, 456). 

2 ) Perhaps named Emine, see Kh. Edhem, Diivel, 3ogn. 

(This table shows only the ruling members of the line and their dynastic alliances; for a full genealogy 
see the table in lA, art. Dulkadirlilar, 660, which corrects and expands those of Khalil Edhem (Diiwel-i 
Isldmiyye, 312) and E. de Zambaur {Manuel de Glnialogie . . ., 158 f.). 

(J. H. MORDTMANN-1.V. L. MANAGE]) 



DHO KAR — DHU 'l-KALASA 



DHU KAR, name of a watering-place near 
Kufa, in the direction of Wasit (Yakut, iv, io), where 
one of the most famous Arab ayyam [q.v.] took place. 
In contrast with most other clashes between Arabian 
tribes, this one had a historical importance because 
the Bakr b. Wa'il tribe (a coalition of all its clans 
except the Banu Hanlfa) put other Arabs to flight 
(Taghlib, Iyad, etc.) among whom, significantly, 
were regular Persian troops. Even if the battle was 
no more than a skirmish (though sources speak of 
several thousand combatants) it showed the Arabs 
that the Persians were not as invincible as had 
been supposed. Caetani points out that it was 
not mere coincidence that several years later, the 
same Bakr b. Wa'il tribe, led by al-Muthanna b. 
Haritha, took the initiative in making the first in- 
cursions into 'Irak ; it was henceforth well aware of 
the Persian weakness when faced with an Arab 
coalition. The date of the battle is uncertain (vari- 
ously put at the year of Muhammad's birth( !), or when 
he began preaching, i.e., ten years before the hidjra, 
or immediately after the flight to Medina, or some 
months after Badr, i.e., 2-3/623-625) but the account 
left of it allows us to place it within a very restricted 
period. Details vary, and are partly legendary; some 
of them however can be accepted as authentic, and 
indicate that the battle occurred soon after certain 
well-known historical facts. These details attribute 
the cause of the conflict to the imprisonment of the 
last Lakhmid leader, al-Nu c man b. al-Mundhir. 
by Khusraw Parwiz (Abarwlz in Arab sources) From 
them it is possible to reconstruct the train of events : 
the Sasanid made an error of judgment in replacing 
the Lakhmid monarchy by a system of direct 
government. The Bakr b. Wa'il were either incited 
by al-Nu c man's imprisonment followed shortly by 
his death, or else, suddenly freed from their fear of 
this guardian of the frontiers, they devoted them- 
selves to plundering, and the Sasanid resolved to 
punish them. His troops, however, were defeated and 
pursued as far as the Sawad, and through a combi- 
nation of circumstances the expected reprisal did 
not ensue. The end of al-Nu c man's reign has been put 
at 602 A.D. (605 by Caetani), and the government 
of the Taghlibid Iyas b. Kabisa, who followed the 
Lakhmid sovereign with a marzubdn at his side lasted 
until 611. The date of the battle can therefore be 
restricted to the years between 604 and 611 A.D. 
(Caussin de Perceval, Essai, ii, 185, puts it at 611; 
Noeldeke, Geschichte, 347, n. 1., between 604-610; 
Goldziher, Muh. Stud., i, 103, at 611; Caetani, 
Annali, Intr. § 230, at 610). 

A famous hadlth bears witness to the great im- 
portance which the Arabs attached to this military 
success; the Prophet is recorded as having said "It 
is the first time that the Arabs have got the upper 
hand of the Persians, and it is through me that God 
has helped them (nusiru)". Poets and story-tellers 
of the ayyam have perpetuated the fame of this 
battle; many poems are recorded by al-Tabari and in 
both the Aghdni and the HW, the traditions of the 
event have been collected together principally by 
Abu 'Ubayda [q.v.], and in time provided the 
material of popular romances, such as (according to 
Goldziher, xvi, 6-43) the romance of c Antar, and 
(according to Mittwoch, EI 1 , s.v. dhu kar) the 
romance entitled K. Harb Bant Shaybdn ma'a Kisrd 

The yawm of Dh u Kar is also known by the names 
of other places situated near the watering-place, 
such as al-Hinw (i.e., the hinw, "the curve", of Dhu 
Kar or of Kurakir), al-DjUbabat, al-'Udjrum or 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



Dh u 'l- c Udjrum, al-Ghazawan, al-Batha J (i.e., the 
bathd\ the "wide valley", of Dhu Kar). 

At Dh u Kar another battle took place, between 
the Bakr and Tamlm tribes, but it is of no historical 
interest (Hkd, Cairo 1305, iii, 73). 

Bibliography: Ya'kubl, i, 246, ii, 47; Tabari, 

i, 1015-37; Th. Noeldeke, Geschichte der Perser 

und Araber, 310-45; Ibn al-Athir, i, 352-8; Ibn 

al-Wardi, Cairo 1285, i, "7; Aghdni, x, 132- 

40 (summarized in Nuwayri, Nihdya, Cairo, xv 

(1949), 431-5 = end of farm v, kism iv, bob v) 

and index s.v. Kar; Mas'udI, Murudj, ii, 227ft.; 

iii, 205-9; idem, Tanbih, ed. al-Sawi, Cairo 1928, 

207-9 (trans. Carra de Vaux, 318-21); Maydani, 

Amthdl, in the bdb 19 (ed. Freytag, iii, 557); 

l I%d, Cairo, 1305, iii, 90-3 (at the end of K. al- 

durra al-thdniya); Bakri, Mu'-diam (ed. Wiisten- 

feld), 723; Yakut, iv, 10-12 (s.v. Kar); A. P. 

Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur I'histoire des 

Arabes avant VIslamisme, Paris 1847-8, ii, 171- 

85 ; G. Rothstein, Die Dynastie der Lahmiden in 

al-Hira, Berlin 1899, 120-3; L- Caetani, Annali, 

Intr. § 230 & Note 1; year T2, §§ 135 and 136; I. 

Goldziher, Muh. Studien, i, 103 ff; Djad, Badjawl 

and Abu Fadl Ibrahim, Ayyam al-'-Arab, Cairo 

1361/1942, 6-39. (L. Veccia Vaglieri) 

EHU 'l-SARNAYN [see iskandar]. 

DHU 'l-KHALASA (or Khulasa). Dhu '1-Khalasa 

refers to the sacred stone (and the holy place where 

it was to be found) which was worshipped by the 

tribes of Daws, Khath'am, Badjila, the Azd of the 

Sarat mountains and the Arabs of Tabala. "It was 

a white quartziferous rock, bearing the sculpture of 

something like a crown. It was in Tabala at the place 

called al-'Abla 5 , i.e., White Rock (V-A, viii, 3) 

between Mecca and the Yemen and seven nights' 

march from the former (i.e., approximately T92 

kilometres or 119 miles). The guardians of the 

sanctuary were the Banu Umama of the Bahila b. 

A'sur" (Ibn al-Kalbi, Asndm, 22 f.). As the rallying 

point for a good many tribes, the sanctuary acquired 

the name al-Ka c ba al-Yamdniya in contrast with the 

Meccan sanctuary which was called al-Ka'-ba al- 

Shdmiyya (Ibn Sa'd, i/i, 55), whence there arose 

occasional confusion with the legendary church built 

by Abraha in order to drawn Arabs away from Mecca 

(Yakut, ii, 461, iv, 170). Can the divinity referred to 

by this characteristic be identified with the idol 

bearing the name al-Khalasa "built in the lower 

part of Mecca" by c Amr b. Luhayy [q.v.] ? We are 

told that, "It was adorned with necklaces ; offerings 

of wheat and barley were made to it; milk was 

poured over it [as libations] ; sacrifices were offered 

and ostrich eggs placed on it" (al-Azraki, 78). 

The form of worship thus outlined suggests an 
agrarian goddess. She was also a cleromantic goddess, 
as is shown by the belomantic practices carried out 
in her sanctuary (cf. Semitica, viii, 1958, 59, 67). 
The arrows at Dhu '1-Khalasa were called al-dmir 
(ordering), al-ndhi (forbidding), and al-mutarabbis 
(expecting) (Aghdni, viii, 70, etc.). Legend has it 
that before leaving to avenge his father Imru 
'1-Kays consulted the oracle at Dhu'l-Khalasa. Seeing 
'forbidding' emerge he became angry, broke the 
arrow and continued on his way. "From then on 
until the advent of Islam and its destruction by 
Djarir b. c Abd Allah al-Badjall, nobody ever con- 
sulted the arrows again (ibid.; Ibn Sa c d, i/2, 78). 
From the time of Ibn al-Kalbi (op. cit., 23) the stone 
of Dhu '1-Khalasa was used as the threshold in the 
entry to the mosque of Tabala. 

A hadlth of eschatological character is recorded 



2 4 2 



DHU 'l-KALASA — DHU 'L-NUNIDS 



about the idol according to which the prophet said: 
"The hour will not come until the women of Daws 
crowd about Dh u '1-Khalasa, worshipping it as in 
the past" (Ibn al-Kalbl, I.e., 23; Wensinck, Con- 
cordance, i, 85). 

Bibliography: All traditional data has been 

assembled in Yakut, ii, 461-3, which uses Ibn 

al-Kalbl, K. al-Asnam, ed. Ah. ZakI Pasha, 

after R. Klincke-Rosenberg, Thesis, Leipzig 1941, 

22 f. and 29 (English translation by N. A. Faris, 

Princeton 1952, 29-32). Cf. J. Wellhausen, Reste*, 

Berlin 1897, 45-8. (T. Fahd) 

DHU 'l-KIFL, a personage twice mentioned in 

the Kur'an (XXI, 85 and XXXVIII, 48, probably 

second Meccan period), about whom neither Kur'anic 

contexts nor Muslim exegesis provides any certain 

information. John Walker (Who is Dhu '1-KifV., in 

MW, xvi (1926), 399-401) would like the name to 

be understood in the sense of "the man with the 

double recompense" or rather "the man who received 

recompense twice over", that is to say Job (Ayyub 

[q.v.]; cf. Job xlii, 10). Without being certain, this 

explanation does not lack probability; in any case, 

no better suggestion has been put forward. Muslim 

exegesis either adopts a similar opinion in making 

Dhu '1-Kifl the second name of Hizkil [q.v.] = Ezekiel, 

or else identifies him with an imaginary Bishr 

(Bashir), son of Ayyub (as early as Tabari, Annates, 

i, 364). "Etymological" speculations about the 

meaning of kifl or the derivatives of the root KFL 

(double, caution, subsistence) have helped to swell 

the legends that have been woven round the rather 

insignificant figure in the Kur 3 5n; thus, for example, 

Dh u '1-Kifl assumes the role of Obadiah, Ahab's pious 

major domo who, according to the Bible (I Kings, 

xviii, 4) kept and fed a great number of prophets. 

The figure of Dhu '1-Kifl reappears elsewhere in 

certain edifying accounts in which another person 

of the same name is presented as typical of the 

sinner who, having overcome some particularly 

strong temptation, gains his eternal reward. 

As with many other historical or legendary 
personages, various local traditions attribute to 
Dh u '1-Kifl burial places far removed from each 

Bibliography: Commentaries on the two 
passages in the Kur'an; Tha'labi: '■AraHs al- 
Madidlis, Cairo edition 1371, 155; other references 
in the very elaborate article by I. Goldziher 
in EI 1 ; in addition to the note by J. Walker 
quoted supra, there is also J. Horovitz, Koranische 
Untersuchungen, 113 (which adds nothing to 
Goldziher). For the theme of the repentant sinner, 
see the Judeo-Arab legend edited in the original 
language by J. Obermann (Studies in Islam and 
Judaism, The Arabic Original of Ibn Shdhln's 
Book of Comfort, New Haven 1933, 129 ff.), and the 
introduction by H. Z. Hirschberg to his Modern 
Hebrew version of this text, Rabbinu Nissim . . . 
mi-Kayruwdn, Ifibbur ydfeh meha-yeshu'-dh, Jeru- 
salem 1954, 63-9. — The burial of Dhu '1-Kifl: 
Harawi, K. al-ishdrdt ild ma'-rifat al-Ziydrdt, ed. 
J. Sourdel-Thomine, 76, trans, by the same 
Guide des lieux de Pelerinage, Damascus 1957, 174 
(in which the figure is identified with Hizkil). 

(G. Vajda) 
DHU 'l-NON, ABU 'l-FAYP Thawban b. 
Ibrahim al-MisrI. This early Sufi was born at 
Ikhmim, in Upper Egypt, about 180/796. His 
father was a Nubian and Dhu '1-Nun was said to 
have been a freedman. He made some study of 
medicine and also of alchemy and magic and he must 



have been influenced by Hellenistic teaching. Sa c dun 
of Cairo is mentioned as his teacher and spiritual 
director. He travelled to Mecca and Damascus and 
visited the ascetics at Lubban, S. of Antioch ; it was 
on his travels that he learnt to become a master of 
asceticism and self-discipline. He met with hostility 
from the MuHazila [q.v.] because he upheld the 
orthodox view that the Kur'an was uncreated: he 
was condemned by the Egyptian Maliki c Abd Allah 
b. c Abd al-Hakam for teaching mysticism publicly. 
Towards the end of his life he was arrested and sent 
to prison in Baghdad, but was released by order of 
the caliph Mutawakkil [q.v.] and returned to Egypt; 
he died at Djlza in 246/861. 

He was called "the head of the Sufis", a great 
teacher who had many disciples during his lifetime 
and afterwards. A few books on magic and alchemy, 
attributed to him, have survived, but his mystical 
teaching is found only in what has been transmitted 
by other writers, including his great contemporary, 
al-Muhasibl. There are many of his prayers recorded 
and also some poems of fine quality. He was the 
first to explain the Sufi doctrines and to give syste- 
matic teaching about the mystic states (ahwal) and 
the stations of the mystic way (makdmdt). He 
taught the, duty of repentance, self-discipline, 
renunciation and otherworldliness. Self, he consi- 
dered, was the chief obstacle to spiritual progress 
and he welcomed affliction as a means of self- 
discipline. Sincerity in the search for righteousness 
he calls "the sword of God on earth, which cuts 
everything it touches". Solitude helps towards this 
end, "for he who is alone sees nothing but God, and 
if he sees nothing but God, nothing moves him but 
the Will of God". 

Dh u '1-Nun was the first to teach the true nature 
of gnosis (ma'ri/a), which he describes as "know- 
ledge of the attributes of the Unity, and this belongs 
to the saints, those who contemplate the Face of 
God within their hearts, so that God reveals Himself 
to them in a way in which He is not revealed to any 
others in the world". "The gnostics are not them- 
selves, but in so far as they exist at all they exist 
in God". The gnostic needs no state, he needs only 
his Lord in all states. Gnosis he associates with 
ecstasy (wadid), the bewilderment of discovery. 
Dh u '1-Niin used the word hubb for love to God, 
which means, he says, to love what God loves and 
to hate what God hates. But the love of God must 
not exclude love to man, for love to mankind is the 
foundation of righteousness. He is one of the first 
to use the imagery of the wine of love and the cup 
poured out for the lover to drink. 

Dh u '1-Nun was a practical mystic, who describes 
in detail the journey of the soul on its upward way 
and gives the Sufi conception of the 



e life i. 



God. 



Bibliography: al-Sulami, Jabahdt al-Su/iyya 

(ed. J. Pedersen), i, 23-32; Abu Nu c aym, ffilya, 

ix, 331-95; 'Attar, Tadhkirat al-Awliya? (ed. 

R. A. Nicholson), i, 114-34; Djaml, Nafahdt al- 

Uns (ed. Nassau Lees), 35-18; Ibn 'Asakir, Ta'rikh, 

v, 271-88 ; L. Massignon, Lexique technique, 206-13, 

238; Brockelmann, S I, 214. (M. Smith) 

DJJU 'l-NUNIDS, in Arabic Banii Dhi '1-Nun, 

a prominent family of al-Andalus, originally Berbers 

of the tribe of Hawwara. Their name appears to be 

the Arabicization of an earlier Zannun (cf. Ibn 

'Idhari, Baydn, iii, 276) which would explain the 

alternative spelling Dhunnfln (adj. DhunnunI). In 

the 5th/nth century, during the first period of the 

'Party Kings' (Muhik al-TawdHf), the Dhu '1-Nflnids 



DHU 'l-NCNIDS — DHC NUWAS 



ruled, with Tulaytula (Toledo) as their capital, from 
Wadi 'l-Hidjara (Guadalajara) and Talablra (Tala- 
vera) in the N. to Murcia in the S. 

The original territory of the Banu Dhi '1-Nun lay 
E. of Toledo in the kura (administrative district) of 
Shantabariyya (represented by modern Santaver 
near the confluence of the Guadiela and the Tagus) 
where as early as the amlrate of Muhammad I 
(238-73/852-86) we find established Sulayman b. 
Dh i '1-Nun, a descendant in the fourth generation of 
a certain al-Samh, who is said to have been present 
at the conquest of al-Andalus. In this region of the 
Middle Frontier (al-thaghr al-awsat) or, as is also 
given, of the Northern Frontier (al-thaghr al-djawfi), 
the family played an active part, frequently in 
opposition to the reigning dynasty, until the end of 
the Caliphate of Cordova. 

In the troubles of the Fitna (literally 'sedition') after 
399/1009 the Dhu '1-Nunids rallied at first to Sulay- 
man al-Musta'in (died 407/1016), but soon c Abd al- 
Rahman al-Midras b. Dhi '1-Nun and his son Isma'il, 
who is said to ha ve received from Sulayman the double 
vizirate and the title Nasir al-Dawla (Ibn Hayyan, 
quoted Ibn Bassam, iv/i, no), struck out a line 
of their own. According to Ibn Hayyan, Isma c il 
was the first of-the 'Party Kings' to break with the 
central authority and was imitated in this by the 
others, but when and how he actually did so are not 
known. It is usually said that he began to rule in 
Toledo after the kadi Ibn Ya'ish in 427/1035. But 
this is evidently too late. The date of the death of 
Ibn Ya'ish is given by Ibn Bashkuwal (ed. Codera, 
628) as 419/1028-9. We also have an inscription of 
Isma'il in Toledo dated 423/1032 with the titles 
Dhu '1-RPasatayn (cf. above) and al-Zafir, 'the 
Triumphant', which must be placed after his 
accession (E. Levi-Provencal, Inscriptions arabes 
d'Espagne, 66). As king in Toledo Ismail was beset 
by difficulties on all sides, including war with the 
Christians (Ibn Sa'id, Mughrib, ii, 15-16), but he 
made good his position and survived till 435/1043, 
when he was succeeded by his son Yahya, called 
al-Ma'mun. 

Early in his reign al-Ma'mun was attacked by 
Sulayman b. Hud of Sarakusta (Saragossa), and 
subsequently both he and Ibn Hud at different times 
leagued themselves with the Christians, who were able 
to operate practically unopposed in Muslim territory. 
The death of his rival in 438/1046 put an end to these 
anxieties, at least temporarily, and al-Ma'mun was 
free in the next decades to occupy himself elsewhere. 
He intervened profitably in the E. of al-Andalus, 
wresting Valencia from the hands of a descendant of 
al-Mansur b. Abi 'Amir in 457/1065 (see art. balan- 
siya). In 464/1072 he received Alfonso VI, who had 
been defeated by his brother Sancho of Castile at 
the battle of Volpejares (Golpejera), and retained 
him as guest in Toledo for 9 months. The main 
object of al-Ma'mun's ambition was Cordova, the 
former seat of the Caliphate, held by the Djahwarids 
till 461/1069. To secure help against Ibn Hud, he 
had been obliged to support the claims to the 
Caliphate of the pseudo-Hisham, maintained by the 
'Abbadids of Seville, which his father al-Zafir had 
always denied. But even though thus compromised, 
he was able to gain possession of Cordova, which had 
passed to the 'Abbadids, in 467/1074-75, shortly 
before his own death in the same year. 

Al-Ma'mun was succeeded at Toledo by his grand- 
son Yahya al-Kadir, whose ineptitude was speedily 
shown by the assassination of the wazir Ibn al- 
Hadidi, hitherto a principal support of the Dh u 



'1-Nunid regime. Al-Kadir lost Cordova and Valencia 
and, faced by dissension at home and by the hostility 
of the other 'Party Kings', he took the disastrous 
decision of applying for help to Alfonso VI. He was 
brought back to Toledo, which he had been obliged 
to leave, by Christian arms and later installed by 
Alfonso in Valencia, in return for the cession of 
Toledo, but was assassinated in 485/1092. With al- 
Kadir ended the rule of the Dhu '1-Nunids. Toledo 
itself had passed into the hands of the Christians 
in 478/1085. 

Less well-endowed than the 'Abbadids, the 
family produced perhaps only one man of literary 
distinction, Arkam b. Dhi '1-Nun, brother of 
Isma'il al-Zafir (Ibn Sa'id, ibid., 14), and at first 
their court appears to have been deficient in poetical 
talent (Ibn Bassam, ibid., in, 114). This state of 
affairs must have radically altered under al-Ma'mun, 
since we know the names of many literary men and 
scholars who flourished under Dhu '1-Nunid pro- 
tection, among them the kadi Sa'id, author of the 
well-known Tabakdt al-Umam, valuable for the 
history of science, and the famous astronomer al- 
Zarkala (Azarchiel), who may have been employed 
as engineer by al-Ma'mun in some of his constructions 
at Toledo. The luxury of al-Ma'mun's court became 
proverbial in the expression 'the circumcision-feast 
of Ibn Dhi '1-Nun' (al-V-dhdr al-Dhunnuni), given in 
honour of his grandson (an eye-witness description 
in Ibn Bassam, iv/i, 99 ff., paraphrased by E. Levi- 
Provencal, Islam d'Occident, 119-120). 

Bibliography: Ibn Bassam, al-Dhakhira fi 
mahdsin ahl al-djazira, ed. Cairo, 1364/1945, iv/i, 
99-132, also i/2, 124-9; Ibn Sa c id, al-Mughrib 
fi hula 'l-maghrib, ed. Shawkl Dayf (DhakhaHr 
aW-Arab, x), ii, 11-4; Ibn 'Idhari, al-Baydn al- 
mughrib, iii, ed. E. Levi-Provencal, Paris 1930, 
276-83, also 266-7; Ibn al-Khatib, A'mal al- 
aHdm, ed. E. Levi-Provencal, Rabat 1353/1934, 
204-10; Makkari, Nafh al-tlb, ed. Leiden, i, 
126 ff., 288; ii, 672 ff., 748; E. Levi-Provencal, 
Alphonse VI et la prise de Tolede, in Islam d'Occi- 
dent [Islam d'Hier et d'Aujourd'hui, t. vii), 109-35 
(reprinted from Hespiris, t. xii, 1931, 33-49); 
D. M. Dunlop, The Dhunnunids of Toledo, in 
JRAS, 1942, 77-96; idem, Notes on the Dhunnunids 
of Toledo, in J R AS, 1943,17-9; A. Prieto y Vives, 
Los Reyes de Taifas, Madrid 1926, 52-5, 133-5, 
213-9 (chiefly numismatics); G. C. Miles, Coins of 
the Spanish Mulukal-TawdHf, Hispanic Numismatic 
Series, no. 3, American Numismatic Society, New 
York 1954, 122-34; Daniel of Morley, Liber de 
naturis inferiorum et superiorum, ed. K. Sudhof/, 
Archiv fiir die Geschichte der N aturwissenschaften 
und der Technik, viii, 1918, 33 (12th century Latin 
reference to architectural works of the Dh u 
'1-Nunid period). (D. M. Dunlop) 

EHC NUWAS, YOsuf Ash'ar, pre-Islamic king 
of the Yemen. According to a tradition probably 
deriving from Wahb b. Munabbih (Tidjdn, 2 ff.) and 
repeated by the Arab chroniclers (Ibn Kutayba, 
Ma'-drif, 277; al-Dinawari, Akhbdr, 63; al-Tabari, i, 
540 ff.; Ibn Khaldun, l Ibar, i, 90; al-Mas'Qdi, Murudj, 
i, 129 etc.), Lahay c a b. Yaniif (Lakhi'a, Lakhi'a 
Yanuf Dhu Shanatir; al-Tabari, i, 540; see also Ibn 
al-Athir, ii, 250) abandoning himself to unnatural 
practices with the sons of the aristocracy, the young 
Dh u Nuwas, who in Arab traditions is generally 
known as Zur'a b. Tibban As'ad, and who took the 
name Yusuf after his conversion to Judaism (Ibn 
al-Athir, ii, 252, calls him Yusuf Shurahbil), was 
placed on the throne by the Himyarites after he had 



assassinated Lahay'a b. Yanuf to escape from his 
attentions. On the subject of his reign, which is 
said to have lasted 38 years, tradition tells in parti- 
cular of the persecutions to which he subjected the 
Christians of Nadjran [see ashab al-uiojdud] and 
the invasion of the Yemen by the Negus at the 
request of the emperor of Constantinople. Dh u 
Nuwas was conquered by Aryat, (who had Abraha 
under his command, and threw himself into the sea. 

In the Martyrium St. Arethae he is called Aouvaa? 
(nom.) and Aouvaav (accus.) (Noldeke, Geschichte, 
i74> 3) (Theophanus calls him Dimianus, which 
Noldeke believes incorrect, the name belonging to 
an Ethiopian king). Thus the epithet Dhu Nuwas 
does not seem to be an invention of Arab traditions 
which explain it by his curly hair (al-Hamdani, 
Iklll, viii, 137); but a certain Dhu Ghayman and 
Nuwas, lord of a fief, is mentioned in CIH, 68, li 
(cf. M. Hartmann, Islamische Orient, ii, 292 ff.). 
However, The Book of the Himyarites (A. Moberg, 
lxxiv, 34a; D. Smith, 456, 3) and the Chronique de 
Seert (v, 2, 330-1) call our Dhu Nuwas Masruk; 
brought up in the Jewish faith by his mother (from 
Nisibis), he reigned after his father. The inscription 
Ry 446 = Ry 510, {Musion lxv, lxvi), whose author 
was the South Arabian king Ma'dlkarib Ya'fur, at 
that time (631 sab. = 522 A.D.) on a campaign in 
central Arabia against al-Mundhir III of al-Hira, 
and various pieces of evidence show that Dhu Nuwas 
Masruk had succeeded Ma'dlkarib on the throne. 
If the Chronique is authentic, Yusuf Dhu Nuwas 
must be his predecessor's son. The two inscriptions 
Ry 507 = Hima 444 (Philby 158, Musion, lxiv, 
93 ff.) and Ry 508 (Musion, lxvi), discovered in 
1952 by G. and J. Ryckmans confirm the historical 
existence of Yusuf Dhu Nuwas; they describe the 
operations conducted against the Christians and 
Abyssinians in Zufar, Mukha and Nadjran in 633 
sab. = 524 A.D. by a South Arabian king who can 
be conclusively identified with Yusuf Dh u Nuwas. 
Between the dates of Ry 510 (522 A.D.) and Ry 508, 
Ry 507 (524, March, April, July-September 524 A.D.) 
we note the date of the letter from Simeon Beth 
Arsham (cf. J. Ryckmans, Persecution, 18) written 
on the 20 January 524 and addressed to the Christians, 
telling of the coming of the new king and his persecu- 
tion of the Christians. E. Glaser has however remarked 
that the Sabaean year began between January and 
February. It emerges that PJju Nuwas, Yusuf Ash'ar 
had come to power at the end of 523 A.D. Simeon 
Beth Arsham's letter seems to establish this fact. 
Simeon was sent by Justinian I to negotiate a peace 
with al-Mundhir III at that time, in 524, to Ramla 
in the Syrian desert. It was there that the letter 
came from the king of Himyar telling al-Mundhir: 
"this king whom the Abyssinians sent to us is dead, 
therefore I have become king of the whole Himyarite 
region" (cf. J. Ryckmans, Muston, lxvi, 329; Guidi, 
Lettera, 480 ff.). 

John Posaltes' hymn and Simeon's letter, as I. 
Guidi has shown, must refer to the second persecution, 
that is to say to the period of Negus Ella Asbaha's 
second expedition. The letter from James of Sarug 
to the Himyarites dated 521 A.D. (Guidi, Lettera, 
479), must relate to an earlier and less general 
persecution. This letter and other facts from 
Abyssinian and Greek sources suggest that the 
persecution had in fact already started before Dh u 
Nuwas, during the reign of his predecessor Ma'dlkarib 
Ya'fur. According to a tradition from Ibn al-Kalbl 
(al-Tabari, above; Ibn al-Athlr, Kdmil, i, 254), the 
Negus must have made two expeditions. In the first, 



Dhu Nuwas by means of a ruse succeeded in wiping 
out the occupation forces. After installing a viceroy, 
the Negus withdrew to Ethiopia, leaving an Ethiopian 
garrison on Himyarite territory. According to Cosmas 
Indicopleustes, the Negus (Sidney Smith, Events, 
454) tried to establish Abyssinian claims to the 
Himyarite territory from 518 A.D. Abyssinian 
sources suggest that the Christians paid their tribute 
to the Negus himself. 

On the other hand, Ma'dikarib Ya'fur, the author 
of Ry 510, can be identified with his homonym of 
CIH 621 = RES 2633 (640 sab. = circa 530 A.D.; 
cf. Philby, Musion, lxiii, 271-5)- One explanation is 
therefore possible: Ma'dikarib Ya'fur may have 
abdicated as he could not restore the economic 
autochthonous situation. His regime must have been 
in financial difficulties, with the result that he was 
compelled to seek a large credit from a Nadjrani 
Christian, Rahma (A. Moberg, 26a, 43b). Then Yusuf 
Ash'ar, Dhu Nuwas and other leading Himyarites, 
specially those of Ry 508, Ry 507 and a certain 
number of those of RES 4069 and 1st. 7608 bis must 
have joined together to seize power and unleash the 
persecutions (cf. Philby, Musion, lxiii, 271 ff.). The 
Dhu Yazan tribe must have taken a leading part 
in these activities. Sharahil Yakbul Dhu Yazan acted 
for Yusuf Ash'ar in the persecutions at Zufar and 
Nadjran. Sumayfa' Ashwa (1st. 7608 bis 11. 1-2) 
whom the Abyssinians chose as king of Saba' after 
the defeat of Dhu Nuwas (G. Ryckmans, lix; J. 
Ryckmans, Muston, lxvi, 337-8; The Book of the 
Himarites, 54a and c/xvii-ix; see also Smith, Events, 
459) was grandfather of Sharahil Yakbul Dhu 
Yazan; this tribe must be the same as king Yusuf 's 
(J. Ryckmans, Musion, lxvi, 337). At the beginning 
of his reign, Yusuf Ash'ar invited the king of Hira, 
al-Mundhir, just when the latter was leading a 
campaign against Byzantium in the Syrian desert, 
to follow his example and exterminate all Christians 
who would not deny Christ. 

Then Yusuf Ash'ar began a savage onslaught on 
the Christians and Abyssinians, first of all at Zufar 
where he destroyed and burnt the church (Ry 508 
11. 2-3; Ry 507 1. 4; cf. The Book of the Himyarites, 
7b). Then turning to the neighbouring Christian 
tribe of al-Ash'ar, he ordered his commander 
Sharahil Dhu Yazan to march against Mukha (Ry 
508, 3-4). In the operations in the two inscriptions, 
casualties in the battles amount to 14,000 killed, 
with 11,000 prisoners. At Nadjran, where the siege 
was said to have lasted some months, the king asked 
the Nadjranis for guarantees to prevent any invasion 
by the South. Meanwhile a certain Daws Dh u 
Thu'luban fled and informed the emperor Justinian 
I. Simeon Beth Arsham arranged that the news 
should reach the monophysites in Tarsus and 
Antioch. An Ethiopian army then intervened, at 
Justinian's request, in May 525 A.D. (J. Ryckmans, 
Persicution, 18-22) and the Negus occupied the 
Yemen (see Bury, hater Roman Empire, ii, 324; 
Smith, Events, 451) at the head of 120,000 men 
(70,000 according to al-Tabari, i, 548) who came down 
on Bab al-Mandab (J. Ryckmans, lxvi, 334-5; Budge 
i, 262; Smith, 458). 

According to Syrian evidence, Dhu Nuwas Ash'ar 
was killed (A. Moberg, Ch. XLII; Philby, Background, 
120). We can see from what ensued that a split 
occurred among king Yusuf 's allies (cf. Smith, 549; 
Ibn Khaldun, Hbar, i, 92). Sumayfa' Ashwa, 
viceroy to the Negus in 525, was among Yusuf's 
supporters in 524. Inscriptions and The Book of the 
Himyarites are in agreement about the Jewish king's 



DHO NUWAS — DHU Y-RUMMA 



245 



successor, whom Ella Asbaha gave to the Himyarites 
(see Smith, 459, B.H. 54b); it is a question of king 
Sumayafa' Ash'wa (in Procopius, Wars, i, xx, 3-8, 
he is called Esimiphaeus) of Inst. 7608 bis, 1. 1, a 
Christian convert of the royal family. J. Ryckmans 
and A. F. L. Beeston think that RES 2633 = CIH 621, 
the date of which, 640 sab., must indicate his death, 
not that of Dhu Nuwas Yusuf (Persecution, 8-9). 
This inscription must relate to Abraha's revolt 
against king Sumayfa' AshSva in about 53° A.D. 
(see also Procopius, Wars, supra). According to this 
thesis, the Sabaean era started in about 109 B.C., 
and not in 115. It is by this system of dating, which 
conforms better with the evidence of inscriptions 
and traditions, that the inscriptions quoted in this 
article have been dated. 

Bibliography: J. B. Bury, Later Roman 
Empire, ii; A. Moberg, The Book of the Himyarites, 
Lund 1924; Sidney Smith, Events in Arabia in the 
6th Century, in BSOAS, xvi, 3, 1954, 425-68; Ibn 
Munabbih, Tidi&n, Haydarabad; Ibn Khaldun, 
'Ibar, Cairo 1936; Tabari, Cairo 1939; Hamdani, 
Iklil, viii; Budge, A. E. Wallas, History of 
Ethiopia, London 1928; E. Glaser, Z-c-ei In- 
schriften ttber den Dammbruch von Marib, 1879; 
Th. Noldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber zur 
zeit der Sasaniden; G. Ryckmans, Repertoire d'epi- 
graphie simitique, iv-vii; J. Ryckmans, Institutions 
monarchiques en Arabie mtridionale, 1951; idem, 
La Persecution des chrttiens himyarites au sixieme 
Steele, 1956; I. Guidi, Delia lettera di vescovo di 
Simeone Beth Ariam, in Rend. C. Lincei, 1881; 
Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum, iv (abbreviated 
CIH) ; H. Philby, Background of Islam, Alexandria 
1947. (M. R. Al-Assouad) 

DHU Y-RUMMA, lit. 'he who wears a piece of 
cord', nickname given to the famous Arab poet 
Ghaylan b. 'Ukba, who died in 117/735-36. 

He earned the name on account of a small charm 
which he hung around his neck by a piece of string. 
He was from the Sa'b b. Milkan clan, an offshoot of 
the 'Adi tribe which originated from the c Abd 
Manat peoples of Central Arabia. On his mother's 
side he was related to the Asad tribe. If we accept 
that he died at the age of forty, his date of birth 
would be 77/696. This information is however open 
to doubt, as it is based on a very obscure passage in 
one of his poems (see Ibn Kutayba, 334, 1. 7). He 
came from a family rich in poetical talent (see 
Aghdni 1 , xvi, in); and was known as the 'trans- 
mitter' (rami) of the poet al-Ra'I [?.».]. Later in his 
life, in Basra, he was regarded as an authority on 
poetry (Aghdni 3 , vi, 88), but is said not to have 
divulged the fact that he knew how to read and 
write (see Ibn Sallam in Aghdni 1 , xvi, 121, and Ibn 
Kutayba, 334). There is every reason to think that 
during his life he remained in close contact with his 
tribal group in Central Arabia; numerous anecdotes 
have come to us of his relations with the very aged 
governor of Yamama, Muhadjir (see Aghdni 1 , xvi, 
112, 115, and Aghdni 3 , viii, 54 — panegyric in his 
honour by the poet). Other anecdotes throw light on 
Dh u '1-Rumma's activities in Kufa (ibid., xvi, 122) 
and, above all, in Basra, where he frequently came 
into contact with the kadi-governor Bilal b. Abi 
Burda (d. after 120/738). Certain works addressed to 
this generous patron are evidence of the protection 
which he granted the poet (see Ibn Kutayba, 341. 
Ibn Sallam in Aghdni 1 , xvi, 121 bottom, 128 ff.). 
It was in Basra, moreover, that Dhu '1-Rumma met 
the reader (kdri 3 ) 'Anbasa and the grammarians Abu 
'Amr al-'Ala 5 [?.».], Yunus [q.v.] and <Isa b. 'Umar 



(see Aghdni>, xvi, 122 bottom; Ibn Sallam, 128; 
Ibn Kutayba, 334). The city was also the scene of 
his disputes with other poets from eastern Arabia; 
on one occasion, Ru*ba accused him in front of 
Bilal b. Abi Burda of the shameless plagiarism of 
his own poems (see Aghdni 1 , xvi, 121 and 123-5; 
also Rutayba, 339). The controversies with Djarir 
[q.v.] were a result of the open preference which 
Dh u '1-Rumma showed for the poetry of al-Farazdak ; 
his diatribes with the Tamimi Hisham seem to have 
given rise to some of the choicest anecdotes in 
Basra (see Aghdni 3 , viii, 55, and ibid. 1 , xvi, 117). 
We have only a few facts of doubtful authenticity 
on his love affairs with Mayya and a certain Kharka 5 ; 
they were later developed into a sort of novel. His 
thoughts on religion also remain obscure, there 
being but a few references to the Kur'an in his 
poems, e.g., Diwdn no. 7 verse 30, no. 22 verses 
35 & 79 (cf. anecdotes in Aghdni 1 , xvi, 128). His 
death, at a relatively young age, has been put at 
about 117/735 (for other estimations see Schaade in 
EI 1 , s.v., and references). According to a story 
originating from two sources in Basra, an unknown 
person reported his burial at Huzwa, on the borders 
of Dahma. 

As was normal for the times, Dh u '1-Rumma's 
works were diffused orally by rawis, one of whom 
is known by name (see Aghdni 1 , xvi, 112, 1. 27). Many 
stories attributed to him circulated among the 
nomads of eastern Arabia (ibid., xvi, 112), and, 
although often of doubtful authenticity, they have 
helped preserve his poetry for later generations. In 
time, oral accounts were written down in the form 
of a Diwdn, and by the end of the 3rd/9th century two 
collections existed, one by Tha'lab and the other, 
a more complete edition, by al-Sukkari (cf. Fihrist, 
158, 1. 20). In Macartney's work, the collection 
attributed to Dhu '1-Rumma is extensive, com- 
prising 87 complete poems to which the author has 
added 149 fragmentary works. Most of the poems 
are exceptionally long. Sometimes they are impro- 
vised for a particular occasion, e.g., nos. 31, 33 (in 
praise of Muhadjir), 57 (traditional kasida in honour 
of Bilal), 81 (an allusion to events of which nothing 
is known historically). More often than not they are 
lyrical odes written in a style common to Bedouin 
poets of the time, beginning with a description of 
deserted camps, followed by some reflections on the 
poet's lover, and ending with a description of his 
camel and its wanderings across the desert. His 
beloved Mayya is mentioned in nearly all of them 
(nos. 4, 7, 10, n, 17, 22, 28 etc.). The study of his 
works poses several well-known problems. Some pieces 
are fragmentary (e.g., the end of no. 60, kasida, is 
missing), others are of dubious origin because of the 
inconsistent sequence of themes treated in them. 
Some seem to have no more than a lexicographical in- 
spiration, and were no doubt composed to meet the 
demands of certain learned men of Basra and Kufa. 
If we are to believe Hammad 'the Transmitter', 
many poems full of pathos were written in Kufa by 
persons using Dh u '1-Rumma's name (see Aghdni 1 , 
xvi, 122, 1. 156 ff.). Moreover, it may well be asked 
whether certain elegaic poems were not included in 
the collection simply because they contained refe- 
rences to Mayya. From the 3rd/9th century onwards, 
the historical character of Dhu '1-Rumma began to 
change and he took his place among those famous 
Arab lovers who were victims of unrequited passion; 
in this case, the hero pines away for Mayya, who is 
married to a rich sayyid, and his songs addressed to 
Kharka 5 are designed only to arouse his Lady's 



DHU 'l-RUMMA — DHU 'l-SHARA 



jealousy (ref. Aghdni 1 , xvi, 113, 114, 119 ff., 125, 
quoting Ibn al-Nattah; cf. Ibn Kutayba 334-6, 
where the story, from an unknown source, is in a 
very conventional romantic manner). 

Although this epic of love has been much ela- 
borated (cf. mention of title in Fihrist, 306, 1. 22), 
it has nevertheless retained traces of its Bedouin 
origin, as is shown by comparison with a story in 
al-Hamadhanl's [q.v.] Makdmdt [q.v.] (Beirut 1924, 
43), which the author adapted from an old story of 
central Arabian origin. 

Dh u '1-Rumma's prestige stood particularly high 
with the Basra grammarians (see Aghdni 1 , xvi, 
113 ff.), although this assertion must be qualified 
with some reservations (see Ibn Sallam, 125, & Ibn 
Kutayba, 333). It was the profuse richness of the 
poet's descriptions of the camel, onager and oryx 
and the desert which aroused admiration; the great 
beauty of his elegies was also acknowleged, hence 
the large number of his verses which were set to 
music (Aghdni 1 , xvi, 129ft.), of which we may 
mention a Kitdb akhbdr Dhu 'l-Rumma composed by 
Ishak al-Mawsill (title in Fihrist, 142, 1. 19). But 
it was nevertheless the lexicographers whom Dh u 
'l-Rumma interested most, and, to give but one 
example, numerous verses of his are quoted in the 
dictionary Lisdn al- c Arab. This is due to the great 
number of rare expressions used by the poet. On 
the other hand, he is quoted only 6 and 20 times 
respectively in the Bayan of al-Djahiz and the '■Ikd 
of Ibn c Abd Rabbih. Set in the perspective of his 
age and society, Dhu 'l-Rumma is one of the great 
figures in the tradition of eastern Arabian poetry. 
His excessive use of rare terms was a common 
tendency in poets (e.g., Ru'ba, [q.v.]) who were in 
close contact with the philologists and grammarians 
of 'Irak; the frequent appearance of the radjaz 
metre in his Diwdn underlines his close relationship 
with certain of his contemporaries. He terminates 
a line of poets who, even in their own age, were 
considered 'behind the times'. 

Bibliography: Ibn Sallam, Tabakdt, ed. Hell, 

17, 125-8; Ibn Kutayba, Liber Poesis, ed. De 

Goeje, 29, 41, 333-42; Aghdni 3 , vi, 88, vii, 238, 

viii, 52-6, 58, 199 and Aghdni 1 , xvi, 110-30; Ibn 

Khallikan, Wajaydt, Cairo 1310, i, 404-6; Ibn al- 

Nadim, 158, 306; Kurashi, Diamhart ash'-dr al- 

'■Arab, ed. Sandubl, 360-74; quotations by Diahiz. 

Bay an, ed. Harun, index; by Ibn 'Abd Rabbih, 

Ikd, ed. 'Uryan, index; by Yakut, Mu c djam, 

index; R. Geyer, Altarabische Diiamben, Leiden 

1908, 69-86; Smend, De Dsur-Rumma poeta, 

Bonn 1874; C. H. H. Macartney, The Dtwdn of 

Chailan ibn 'Uqbah known as Dhu r-Rummah, 

Cambridge 1919, xxxviii, 676. (R. Blach£re) 

DHU 'l-SHARA is the soubriquet of a god 

borrowed from the Nabataeans, known in Aramaic 

as dshr, Dusares (E. Littmann, Thamud und Safd, 

30). These soubriquets for gods formed from the 

pronoun dhu (feminine dhdt) were of frequent use 

in Southern Arabia (G. Ryckmans, Les religions 

arabes priislamiques 2, 44-5; W. Caskel, Die alten 

semitischen Gottheiten, 108-9). According to Ibn 

al-Kalbi, Dh u '1-Shara was a divinity of the Banu 

'1-Harith of the tribe of the Azd (Kitdb al-Asndm, 

ed. Ahmad Zaki 2 , 37). Ibn Hisham records that Dh u 

'1-Shara "was an image belonging to Daus and the 

himd was the temenos which they had made sacred 

to him; in it there was a trickle of water from a 

rivulet from the mountain" (Ibn Ishak's Sira, ed. 

Wiistenfeld, 254; trans. A. Guillaume, The Life of 

Muhammad, 176). This tradition is resumed in the 



Kamus : dhu 'l-shard sanam daws. The tradition arose 
from confusion among the Arabs between Duserani, 
"the worshippers of Dusares", a naming for the 
Nabataeans, and the tribe of Daws (R. Dussaud and 
F. Macler, Mission dans les regions disertiques de la 
Syrie moyenne, by, n. 3). 

Dhu '1-Shara is attested in Thamudic and Safaitic. 
Its only trace in Thamudic is on an inscription from 
the region of Tabuk, in the Aramaic form dshr 
(Jaussen-Savignac 658 1 , according to the reading 
of A. van den Brauden, Les inscriptions thamoudien- 
nes, Louvain 1950, 451). Safaitic has the name of 
this god in the form dkshr (CIS, v 57, etc.) and in the 
Aramaic forms dshr (CIS, v 88 etc.) and dshry (CIS, 
v, 2955). The name Dhu 'l-Shard means "The One 
from Shara", the local god of the Shara range, the 
southernmost tip of the chain of mountains to the 
south-east of the Dead Sea (A. Musil, The Northern 
Hegaz, New York 1926, 252-5; R. Dussaud, La 
pinitration des Arabes en Syrie, 30; W. Caskel, Die 
alten sem. Gottheiten, 109). The name of this god was 
A c ara, as is shown by several Nabataean inscriptions 
dedicated to Du Shara A c ara (CIS, ii 190; RES 83, 
696; J- Cantineau, Le nabatien, ii, nos X-XII, 21-4). 
This name might belong to a root ghry; in Arabic, 
ghard means ."to coat with a sticky substance". At 
Hira, in the kingdom of the Lakhmids, there were 
known to be two obelisks (ghariydn) daubed with 
the blood of sacrifices (H. Lammens, L'Arabie 
occidentale avant I'Higire, 146 and 167). A c ara would 
then be the god whose bethel was daubed with blood. 
It was the same with Dusares (Suidas, Lexicon, s.v. 
0eu<T<xp7)(;) whose bethel was a black, rectangular, 
uncarved stone and who was the object of bloody 
sacrifices (D. Sourdel, Les cultes du Hauran a 
I'ipoque romaine, 59; R. Dussaud, Pinitration, 40 and 
n. 4; J. Starcky, Palmyriniens, Nabatiens et Arabes 
du Nord, 222). The confusion of Dusares with the 
god Ares is due to Suidas who "takes ©cuo-apT)?, a 
defective form of Dusares, for the god Ares" (M.-J. 
Lagrange, Etudes sur les religions simitiques 2, 210, 
n. 1). 

From the fifth century B.C. the god A'ara was 
identified with Dionysos, according to Herodotus: 
"Dionysos, with Urania, is the only god whose 
existence they [the Arabs] recognize . . . They 
call Dionysos Orotalt, Urania Alitat" (Hist, iii, 8). 
A'ara can be recognized in the part Oro, whatever 
may be the case with its second part talt or tal 
(C. Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'archiologie orientate, 
V, Paris 1903, 109-15; R. Dussaud, Pinitration, 45). 
Alitat, clearly, is the goddess Allat. Hesychius (s.v.) 
identifies Dusares with Dionysos: Aoucdp7)i; t6\i 
Ai6muow Na(J<XT<xloL. A c ara Dhu '1-Shara being 
none other than Dionysos the god of vegetation, 
"it may be concluded that during the occupation 
of Djebel esh-Shara by the Edomite Arabs the vine 
prospered there and that before the arrival of the 
Greeks the god of vegetation Orotal (A c ara) had 
soon been identified with Dionysos" (R. Dussaud, 
op. cit., 56). J. Perrot's excavations in the Negev and 
the recent experiments of the botanist M. Evenari, 
who has restored a Nabataean agricultural settlement 
dating from early in the Christian era, on the site 
of the former city of Subeita, prove that the fertility 
of the land in that desert area was ensured by the 
construction of terraces, dams and channels, irrigated 
by periodic rainfall and flooding. This explains how 
Dionysos-Dusares came to be represented on reliefs 
decorated with vine-branches, particularly on the 
lintels of Kanawat and Suwayda (R. Dussaud, 
Pinitration, 57-61; see M. Dunand, Le musie de 



DHU 'l-SHARA — DHUBAB 



Soueida, Paris 1934, nos 1, 2 and 3; D. Sourdel, Les 
cultes du Hauran, 64, expresses certain doubts on 
these identifications). Similarly, the statue of a 
bearded god at Ghariva-Shubavh. holding a horn 
of plenty filled with bunches of grapes, seems 
indeed to represent Dusares (R. Dussaud, op. cit. 61; 
see D. Sourdel, op. cit. 64, who does not share this 
opinion). 

An eagle with outspread wings was probably the 
symbol of Dusares. It figures above the entrance to 
numerous Nabataean tombs at Hegra (see parti- 
cularly Jaussen and Savignac, Mission, i, pi. 
xxxvi and fig. 160; ii, Atlas, pi. xli, xliii, xliv 
and xlv). Jaussen and Savignac see in it the 
symbol of Dusares, who might have been assimilated 
in Zeus the sun god (Mission, i, 400-401). An eagle 
figures also on one of the lintels of Suwayda (M. 
Dunand, op. cit., n. 2) ; attributing it to Dusares in 
this relief "is not subject to doubt" (R. Dussaud, op. 
cit., 60). R. Dussaud sees Dusares on an altar relief 
from a Nabataean temple to that god in Si 1 (formerly 
Seia in the Hawran; see R. Dussaud, Topographic 
historique de la Syrie antique et midiivale, Paris 
1927, 368-9), dating from early in the Christian 
era (D. Schlumberger, La Palmyrene du Nord-Ouest, 
Paris 1951, 9711. 3). But the altar is dedicated to 
Zeus Kyrios (R. Dussaud, Pinitration, 57). This 
assimilation, as does also the assimilation of Dusares 
to Helios in the Roman era, nevertheless raises 
problems which are far from resolved (D. Sourdel, 
op. cit., 63-5), and it should be noted that, while 
Strabo may associate Dionysos with Zeus Ouranos, 
he never identifies them with each other in any 
way (Strabo, xvi, 1, 11). 

In the Hellenistic period Dionysos gave his name 
to the town of Suwayda, Dionysias, formerly called 
Soada, in Djabal Druz. The Greek inscription 
{Waddington 2309 = CIG 4617] describes Dionysos 
as the founder of Dionysias: 7tp(dvota xuptou xtla- 
Xou Atovuaou. The identification of Suwayda with 
Dionysias has been established by the remains of 
an inscription, engraved on a milestone between the 
towns of 'Atil (formerly Athela) and Suwayda: 
. . . Spot Aiov[uaia]8o<; . . . [6]poi 'A6eXEv[oi]v (R. 
Dussaud and F. Macler, Mission, 247-248, Greek 
no. 23). This confirms that during the Nabataean 
occupation the worship of Dusares had spread into 
the Hawran and adjacent areas. Several Nabataean 
inscriptions were dedicated to Dhu '1-Shara dy 
bbsr', "who is at Er.srah" (CIS, ii 218; RES 83; 
see J. Cantineau, Le nabateen, ii, 21, no. X 36,; 
no. VII). 

According to Epiphanius (Contra Haeres., LI, 22, 
9-12), the Nabataeans celebrated on the sixth of 
January (formerly in the East the Christian feast of 
the Nativity) the feast of Dusares, the son of the 
virgin Xaa(3ou (correction for Xaajxou; R. Eisler, in 
ARW, xv (1912), 630). Epiphanius records this 
tradition with apologetical purpose, "with a view to 
showing that also the pagans had the notion of the 
virgin birth of a god" (D. Sourdel, Les cultes du 
Hauran, 67). But Epiphanius's account rests on a 
linguistic confusion: Xaa(3ou "virgin" (in Arabic 
ku'ba, kaHba) is in fact the Arabic ka l ba "cube" 
(a word belonging to the same root), whence ka'ba, 
■"stele" or "bethel", the term which designates the 
Ka'ba of Mecca. This tradition is perhaps only 
a reminiscence of the worship of the bethel 
personifying Dhu '1-Shara. In Aramaic bethel is 
mStab "seat". According to J. Starcky, coins from 
Bosra presenting the legend of "Dusares the god", 
as might also three egg-shaped bethels resting on 



a support, may give some idea of Dusares' "seat", 
represented by the support (Palmyriniens, NabaUens 
et Arabes, 221). 

According to Ibn Hisham (see above) the ka'ba 
or bethel of Dh u '1-Shara was in a himd, a sacred 
enclosure also called haram. According to a scholion 
in the Diwdn of the Hudhaylis (J. Wellhausen, 
Reste, 51), the haram was itself enclosed in the shard, 
which covered a greater area: al-shard md kdna hawl 
al-haram wa-huwa ashya^u 'l-haram. Thus Dh u 
'1-Shara, the god of Djabal Shara, becomes also "the 
master of the sacred enclosure" (M.-J. Lagrange, 
Etudes sur les religions simitiques', 184-5). Never- 
theless, that is only a secondary meaning of the 
name Dhu '1-Shara. 

Also known are the Nabataean theophorous 
proper names 'Abddushara, Taymdushara (refe- 
rences in J. Cantineau, Le nabateen, ii, 126 and 256), 
and the Arabic proper name c Abd dhi Shara (J. 
Wellhausen, Reste 1 , 3). 

Bibliography: CIS, ii and v; RES, i-iv; 
Ibn Hisham, ed. Wiistenfeld, Gottingen, 1858-60 
(translated by A. Guillaume, see below); C. 
Clermont-Ganneau, Recueil d'archiologie orientate, 
v, Paris 1903, 109-15; R. Dussaud and F. Macler, 
Mission dans les regions desertiques de la Syrie 
moyenne, Paris 1903; M.-J. Lagrange, Etudes sur 
les religions simitiques'', Paris 1905 ; A. Jaussen 
and R. Savignac, Mission archiologique en Arabie, 
i-ii, Paris 1909-20; Ibn al-Kalbi, Kitdb al-asndm, 
ed. Ahmad Zaki 2 , Cairo 1924 (French summary 
by M. S. Marmardji, Les dieux du paganisme arabe 
d'apres Ibn al-Kalbi, in Revue biblique, xxxv (1926), 
397-420; translations by R. Klinke-Rosenberger, 
Das Gotzenbuch Kitdb al-Asndm des Ibn al-Kalbi, 
Leipzig 1941, and N. A. Faris, The Book of idols, 
Princeton 1952); J. Wellhausen, Reste arabischen 
Heidentums', Berlin 1897; H. Lammens, L' Arabie 
occidental avant I'Higire, Beirut 1928 ; J.Cantineau, 
Le nabatien, i-ii, Paris 1930, 1932; E. Littmann, 
Thamud und Safd, Leipzig 1940; G. Ryckmans, Les 
religions arabes preislamiques 1 , Louvain 195 1; D. 
Sourdel, Les cultes du Hauran d I'ipoque romaine, 
Paris 1952; A. Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad, 
a translation of Ishdq's Sirat Rasul Allah, London 
1955 ; R- Dussaud, La pinitration des Arabes en Syrie 
avant Vlslam, Paris 1955; J. Starcky, Palmyri- 
niens, Nabatiens et Arabes du Nord avant I' I slam 
(in M. Brillant and R. Aigrain, Histoire des reli- 
gions, iv), Paris 1956, 201-37; W. Caskel, Die 
alten semitischen Gottheiten in Arabien (in S. 
Moscati, Le antiche divinita semitiche), Rome 1958, 
95-117. (G. Ryckmans) 

DHU YAZAN [see sayf]. 

DJJUBAB, the fly. Some authors state that 
word is used also for other insects, such as bees, 
hornets, butterflies or moths (fardsh), etc. According 
to Arab lexicographers, it is either a singular or else 
a collective noun, in which case dhubdba is used for 
the singular. Cognate synonyms are found in other 
Semitic languages, e.g., Hebrew 313T, Aramaic K33'7. 
The fly is often mentioned and described in ancient 
Arabic poems and proverbs. A hadith has it that 
there are flies in hell to torture the condemned. 
Numerous kinds are mentioned by Arab zoologists, 
some of them bearing specific names and some being 
distinguished by their colour (black, blue, red, tawny 
[asfar]). Another distinction is made according to 
the supposed origin of the different varieties: Some 
are said to be produced by spontaneous generation, 
in putrescent substances or in the body of certain 
animals (lion, dog, camel, horse, cattle, etc.), to 



DHUBAB — DI'BIL 



which they adhere exclusively; others are born by 
sexual procreation. The flies that molest man are 
produced in dung. Certain places are pointed out as 

particularly infested with flies, such as the town of 
Wasit. In some region flies are said to be eaten by man 
The fly lives no longer than forty days (based on 
a hadith). It belongs to the 'sunny' animals, appearing 
in summer and vanishing in winter. It is killed by 
intense heat or cold. It is active during day time 
and rests at night. It likes sweet and loathes certain 
substances, as oil, camphor and arsenic. It hunts 
bugs (6afcfc) and gnats (ba'-ud) and is eaten itself by 
bats, spiders, reptiles and other animals. If it were 
not for the flies' hunting bugs, it would be intolerable 
for man to live in houses. The tips of the fly's feet 
are rough so that it may not slip on smooth surfaces. 
The sources mention several devices for keeping 
flies away from human habitations. 

In various ways flies were used for medicinal and 
cosmetic purposes: rubbed over the sting of a 
hornet they relieve the pain ; burnt and mixed with 
antimony they increase the beauty of the eyes of 
women, etc. Their significance when seen in dreams 
was treated in pertinent writings. 

A work entitled Kitdb al-dhubdb (probably a 
lexicographical treatise) is attributed by Hadjdji 
Khalifa (ed. Fliigel, v, 85, no. 10120) to Abu <Abd 
Allah Muhammad b. Ziyad al-A c rabI, who, but for 
the year of his death, 333 A.H. as given by H.Kh.. 
could be identical with the well known philologist 
Ibn al-A c rabi (Brockelmann, S I, 179). 

Bibliography: c Abd al-Ghani al-NabulusI, 

TaHlr al-Anam, Cairo 1354, i, 229; Damiri, s.v. 

(transl. Jayakar, i, 8i6ff.) ; Dawud al-Antakl, Tadh- 

kira, Cairo 1324, i, 148; Djahiz, Ijayawdn*, index; 

Euting, Tagebuch, i, index s.v. Fliegen; Ibn al- 

Baytar, 'Qidmi 1 , Biilak 1291, ii, 123; Ibn Kutayba, 

'■Uyun al-Akhbdr, Cairo 1925-30, ii, 72, 75, 98, 104 

(transl. Kopf, 46, 50, 74, 79) ; Ibn SIda, Mukhassas, 

viii, 182 ff.; Ibshihi, Mustatraf, bab 62, s.v.; 

Kazwini (Wiistenfeld), i, 434 f. (transl. Wiedemann, 

Beitr, z. Gesch. d. Naturw., liii, 257 f.) ; al-Mustawfl 

al- Kazwini (Stephenson), 72 f.; NuwayrI, Nihdyat 

al-arab, x, 298 ff. (L. Kopf) 

DHUBYAN [see ghatafan). 

DHUNNCNIDS [see dhu'l-nunids]. 

al-DHUNCB, DAFN, burial of offences, a 

nomadic practice which consists of a make-believe 

burial of the offences or crimes of which an Arab 

is accused. According to Shihab al-DIn al- c Umari 

(al-Ta c rif bi H-mustalah al-sharif, Cairo 1312, 165 ff.), 

almost the only source, this curious ceremony was 

practised as follows. A delegation consisting of men 

who had the full confidence of the culprit appeared 

before an assembly of notables belonging to the tribe 

of the victim, to whom they said: "We wish you to 

perform the dafn for So-and-so, who admits the 

truth of your accusations". The delegates then 

enumerated all the offences of their client. The 

plaintiff agreed, dug a hole in the ground, and said: 

"I throw into this hole all the offences with which 

I charge So-and-so, and I bury them as I bury 

this hole". He then filled in the hole and levelled 

the ground. 

According to the same author, the practice of 
dafn was sometimes also applied to the amdn [q.v.]. 
However, contrary to the customs of the nomadic 
Arabs, who recognized only oral confessions, the 
offences which were forgiven were also recorded in 
a written document. 

This practice, about which we have little in- 



formation, seems to have been current in the time 
of al- c Umari. By the present day it would seem to 
have completely disappeared. 

Bibliography: see also Ibn Nazir al-Djaysh, 

Tathftif al-ta'rif, ms. Escorial, Arabic mss., no. 550, 

fol. 97-8; al-Kalkashandl, Subh, xiii, 352-5; 

Chelhod, V ' enterrement des dilits chez les Arabes, in 

RHR, April-June 1959, 215-20. (J. Chelhod) 

DIBAB [see c amir b. sa c sa c a]. 

DlBAEJ [see kumash]. 

al-DIBDIBA, an extensive gravel plain in north- 
eastern Arabia, bounded roughly on the east by the 
depression of al-Shakk (which forms the western 
boundary of the Saudi Arabia- Kuwait Neutral Zone), 
on the west by the wddi of al-Batin, and on the south 
by the gravel ridge of al-Wari c a. The plain extends 
northward from Saudi Arabia into the Shaikhdom 
of Kuwait for a distance of about 20 kms. It has an 
area of c. 30,000 sq. kms. and is remarkable for its 
firm, almost featureless surface, sprinkled with 
pebbles of limestone, quartz, and igneous rock 
carried from central and western Arabia during the 
Pleistocene by the Wadi al-Ruma al-Batin drainage 
system. Al-Dibdiba is drained internally, with rain 
water collecting in shallow, silt-floored basins 
(khabdri; sing., khabrd'). It is part of the traditional 
dim of Mutayr and is now a favourite winter grazing 
area of several north-eastern tribes. The plain was 
once famous for its gazelle hunting. The term 
dibdiba (pi. dabddib) is applied by some of the 
Bedouins to any flat, firm-surfaced area and is 
related to the classical dabdaba, referring to the 
drumming sound of hooves on hard earth. 

Maps: Series by the U. S. Geological Survey 
and Arabian American Oil Company under joint 
sponsorship of the Ministry of Finance and National 
Economy (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and the 
Department of State (U.S.A.). Scale 1:500,000 
(geographic); Wadi al-Batin, Map I-203 B (1959); 
Northern Tuwayk, Map I-207 B (1957). 

(J. Mandaviixe) 

DI'BIL, poetic nickname of abu c alI muhammad 
b. c alI B. razIn al-khuza c I. 'Abbasid poet, 
born 148/765 and died 246/860. His birthplace is 
uncertain; the cities of Kufa and Karkisiya are 
given as his places of birth. According to the accounts 
in the Kitdb al-Aghani, he spent his youth in 
Kufa from which he was forced to flee because of 
some mischievous activity. Di'bil's apprenticeship 
as a poet was under the tutelage of Muslim b. al- 
Walld [q.v.]. However, he soon made a reputation 
for himself as is indicated from his relationship with 
Khalaf al-Ahmar (d. 180/796) and Marwan b. Abi 
Hafsa (d. 181/797). The most probable date for 
Di c bil's entry into the circle of Harun al-Rashid 
(d. 193/809) lies between 795-809. 

Being pro-ShI c ite and famous for his poem praising 
c Ali al-Rida [q.v.] he generally attacks the 'Abbasid 
caliphs from Harun to al-Mutawakkil (d. 247/861). 
However, Di c bil's loyalty appears to be motivated 
also by monetary considerations so that we find 
him praising them on occasion. If Di'bil is famous for 
his satires — at times of the vilest content — he is 
also capable of expressing a fine sentiment and an 
appreciation of nature. The simplicity and directness 
of his expression share and give additional evidence 
of this tendency which has become characteristic 
of the early c Abbasid age. 

Ibn Rashik places him in the Tabalia of Abu 
Nuwas [q.v.] and al-Buhturi rates him above Muslim 
b. al-Walid. Di'bil's rivalry with Abu Tammam 
[q.v.], whom he excluded from his Kitdb al-shu'ard', 



DI'BIL — DIDJLA 



is based not only on literary grounds but also on 
political-religious foundations, since Abu Tammam 
was lukewarm to the Shi'a and was pro-North-Arab. 
Di c bil's Book of the Poets, whose date of final 
composition is post 231/846, and whose fragments 
are cited in works from the 9th to the 17th century, 
is important in Arabic literary history since it forms 
a link between the fabakdt of al-Djumahi (d. 230/845) 
and the Kitdb aUShi'-r of Ibn Kutayba (d. 276/889), 
Di c bil's pupil. Moreover, since Di'bil was chiefly 
interested in the minor poets of the Islamic period — 
including those of the category of Harun al-Rashid, 
c Abd Allah b. al-Zayyat (d. 233/847), and Ahmad b. 
Abl Du'ad (d. 240/854) — his work can be regarded 
as a defence of the "modern poets" which preceded 
and anticipated that of the Kitdb al-Shi c r by Ibn 
Kutayba. 

Bibliography : Brockelmann, I, 78, S I, 
121-2; Fihrist, 161; Aghdni, xviii, 29-60; Ibn 
Kutayba, al-Shi c r (De Goeje), 593-541; Ta?rikh 
Baghdad, viii, 382-5, ii, 342; iv, 143; Ibn al- 
Djarrah, al-Waraka, Cairo 1373/1953, 17, 123; 
Ibn al-Mu c tazz, Tabakdt al-shu<ard> al-muhdathin, 
ed. A. Eghbal, London 1939 (GMS, NS., xiii), 
124-7; Mas'udi, Murudj, index; al-Marzubani, 
Mu'-diam, Cairo 1354/1935, 244; al-Amidi, al- 
Mu'talif, Cairo 1354/1935, 168; Ibn Rashik, al- 
c Umda, Cairo 1325/1907, i, 64; Ibn Hadjar, al- 
Isdba, Cairo 1358/1939, ii, 102; idem, Lisdn al- 
mizdn, ii, 430-2. (L. Zolondek) 

PIDD, vavrtov, "contrary" is one of the four 
classes of opposites, 4vTixei(jieva, mutakdbildt, as 
discussed by Aristotle in his Categories x (and also 
in his Metaphysics v, 10). There are four classes of 
opposites: 1) relative terms; 2) contraries; 3) priva- 
tion and possession ; 4) affirmation and negation. The 
fact that there are contraries implies that there must 
be a substratum in which they inhere, for it is 
impossible, even for God, to change, e.g., the White 
into the Black, although a white thing may become 
black. There are things which have necessarily one 
of two contraries, e.g., illness and health, for every 
animal is either sick or healthy (Galen, however, 
distinguishes three conditions of the body, corpus 
salubre, corpus insalubre and corpus neuter) and there 
are contraries which allow an intermediate term, 
for not all bodies are necessarily black or white. 
The question whether there is an intermediate term 
between virtue and vice was much debated by the 
Stoics who originally denied this, for whether a man 
is a hundred stadia from his aim or only one stadium, 
he is equally not there. In Islam the question 
whether there is a medium term between faith and 
unbelief was much discussed and those theologians 
who asserted that belief is based only on tasdik assent, 
(for faith as a 6eoo-e(3eta<; auyy.ana.dsai.c, see for 
example, Clemens Alexandrinus, Strom, ii, 2.8) held 
that faith can be neither increased nor diminished. 
Pidd is used also as a translation of the Greek 
prefix <£vt£. So av-rtSorov is translated by didd al- 
samm or simply by al-didd. 

Bibliography: See, e.g., Ibn Rushd, Talkhis 
Kitdb al-Ma'kiildt (ed. Bouyges), Beirut 1932, 92 ; 
Ibn Sina, al-Ma l kulat, ed. Cairo 1958, 241. See 

alSO ADDAD. (S. VAN DEN BERGH) 

DIDJLA, the Arabic name (used always without 
the article al-) of the easterly of the "Two Rivers" of 
'Irak, the Tigris. The name is a modernized and 
Arabicized form of the Diglat of the Cuneiform, 
and occurs as Hiddekel in the Book of Genesis. 

The river (Dicle Nehri in modern Turkish) 
rises in the southern slopes of the main Taurus, 



249 

south and south-east of Lake Golcuk. Its upper 
course, with its many constituent tributaries, drains 
a wide area of foothills and plain, which formed the 
northern half of the 'Abbasid province of Djazira) in 
which stood the important towns of Amid (modern 
Diyarbakir), Mayyafarikln, and many others. Among 
the early tributaries the Arab geographers (Ibn 
Sarabiyun, Mukaddasi, Yakut) name the Nahr al- 
Kilab (alternatively Nahr al-Dhi'b), the Wadi Salb, 
Wadi Satidama and Wadi al-Sarbat. Identifications 
of these are not certain with the modern tributaries 
which are notably (in their Turkish forms) the 
Zulkarneyn Suyu, the Ambar-Cay, the Pamuk Cayi, 
the Batman Suyu and the Garzan Suyu. At the point 
where the river bends from eastward to southward, 
at the modern Til or Till (medieval Tall Fafan) the 
Bohtan Cayi enters from the east, and at least doubles 
the discharge of the Didjla: this, the Wadi al-Zarm 
of the Arab geographers, drains the high mountains 
south of Lake Van including the areas of Bidlis 
(modern Bitlis), and SI'ird (modern Siirt). Above 
this junction, 50 miles to the west, lay the important 
town of Hisn Kayfa, modern Hasankayf. 

Between the entry of the Bohtan Cayi and that 
of the Greater Zab, Arab geographers mention as 
tributaries the Nahr Bazna, the Nahr Ba'aynatha 
(or Basanfa, or Saffan) the Buyar and the Wadi 
DOsha. The identification of these with each of the 
present-day hill streams is uncertain. The Khabur 
al-Hasaniyya (modern Khabur) with its tributary 
the Itayzil Su, forms today the Turkish-'Irakl 
boundary. The town of Hasaniyya (probably the 
modern Zakho) contained a famous bridge. No main 
tributary except the Abu Marya (modern Wadi al- 
Murr, joining the Didjla at Eski Mosul, the former 
Balad), and many small left-bank flood-channels, 
comes in south of the Khanbur till the Greater Zab 
is reached, 30 miles below the great city of Mosul 
(al-Mawsil), itself a Sasanid city which grew to 
greatness under the Umayyads. 

The Greater Zab (al-Zab al-A c zam) which rises 
partly in the Hakari mountains and partly in those 
which form the Perso-'IrakI frontier, contribute a 
highly important volume to the Didjla. The same is 
true of the Lesser Zab, which joins the river some 
60 miles to the south, having drained a wide sector 
of the Perso- c Iraki frontier region. The point of 
junction of the Greater Zab was in the middle ages 
marked by the town of Haditha, that of the Lesser 
Zab by Sinn; neither of these survives. There are 
no intermediate tributaries, but it is possible that 
a stream or streams, rising in Djabal Sindjar, may 
in some periods have found an outlet for their flood 
water into the Didjla near Kal'a Sharkat. 

Below the point where the river cuts through 
Djabal Hamrin (at al-Fatha) it appears that, at or 
above Takrit, the Wadi Tharthar (which may in 
some flood seasons have drawn water from the 
(western) Khabur drainage-area, which belongs 
more naturally to the Euphrates) poured its waters 
into the Tigris passing by al-Hadr: Yakut speaks 
even of a formerly navigable Euphrates-Tigris 
channel in this area. Lands in the Didjla drainage 
area above Takrit have at all periods been rain- 
irrigated, and have therefore risked drought but not 
floods; skin-bucket water-lift devices (the modern 
karad) assured crops along the river-banks. The 
great mediaeval (and in part much more ancient) 
canal-system of 'Irak began below Takrit. The 
Nahr al-Ishakl, doubtless a partially-controlled 
spring-flood channel, took off from the right bank 
and after the expenditure of its waters in irrigation 



poured the remainder into the river below Sam ami. 
South of the latter the Dudjayl took off also from the 
right bank, and (it is said) was sometimes aug- 
mented from the tails of Euphrates canals; it 
returned to the river at varying points south of 
'Ukbara. The course of the main river between a 
point south of Samarra and one not far north of 
Baghdad (that is, for some 70 miles) lay in 'Abbasid 
times some five to twelve miles west of its modern 
channel, with the towns of Kadisiyya, al-'Alth, 
'Ukbara and Rashidiyya on its banks. Many flood- 
season irrigation canals led off from this stretch of 
the river which later, when partially or wholly 
abandoned (perhaps by the 7th/i3th century), was 
known as the Shutayt or Little River. 

On the left bank the great KatOl-Tamarra-Nahr- 
awan waterway, probably initiated in Sasanid times 
and improved under the early 'Abbasids, took off 
from the main river near Dur (15 miles above 
Samarra), and ran, at a maximum distance of 30 
miles from it and nearly parallel, to re-join the 
Didjla near (modern) Kut al-Amara (medieval 
Madharaya) having received into its left bank, and 
somehow disposed of, the very important waters 
of the c Uzaym and the Diyala which — especially the 
latter — are today major tributaries of the Didjla. 
(See nahrawan and diyala). Important canals 
taking off from the right bank of the Nahrawan 
system included the Khalis (which still exists under 
that name, but with different alignment) and the 
Bin; the waters of these made possible a closely- 
cultivated area north of Baghdad, and in part 
supplied the city itself. 

Bringing Euphrates water, thanks to its proximity 
in this area (minimum, 20 miles) and to the slight 
eastward dip of central 'Irak, a number of large 
canals took off from that river and poured the 
unutilized portion of their waters into the Didjla at 
various points between Baghdad city and Madharaya. 
These were the Nahr al-'Isa (approximately but not 
identically the modern Saklawiyya), the Sarsar and 
the Malik (corresponding to the modern Abu 
Ghurayb and Radwaniyya), the Kutha and the Nil, 
the last of which took off just above Hilla (and the 
ruins of Babylon) and joined the Didjla not far above 
(modern) Kut. Alike on these canals, on the main 
river channel, and on the parallel Nahrawan system, 
a relatively dense population lived in mediaeval 
times, cultivating by flow-water and lift. 

Madharaya marked the spot from which, down- 
stream, the greatest difference between the mediaeval 
and modern courses of the river was manifest. In 
'Abbasid times the present course, by way of modern 
C A1I al-Gharbi, Kal'a SSlih and 'Amara was unim- 
portant or (unless in high flood) non-existent; the 
main river ran down or near the channel of the 
(present) river rlayy or Gharraf, past the great 
mediaeval but now vanished city of Wasit, and the 
sites of the modern towns of rlayy, Kal c a Sikr, and 
Shatra. The change to the modern course of the 
Didjla (which had also probably prevailed in pre- 
Islamic antiquity), permitting to the Gharraf a far 
smaller but considerable discharge, took place 
gradually from late 'Abbasid times onwards and 
was (on the evidence of European travellers) nearly 
complete by the ioth/i6th century. Under the 
c Abbasids the Didjla, like the Euphrates, poured 
its waters, except in so far as used for irrigation 
higher up, into the swamps (al-Bata'ih) about 60 
miles below Wasit, a vast area of water which, 
corresponding to but much larger than the IJammar 
Lake of today, took the full flood-discharge of both 



the great 'Iraki rivers, and was in its turn drained 
into the Persian Gulf by the single water-way 
called in the Middle Ages Didjla al-'Awra' (one- 
eyed Didjla), and in modern times the Shatt al- 
c Arab. Kurna stood on the Shatt al-'Awra' a little 
below its point of emergence from al-Bata 5 ih, and 
below it villages and towns were continuous. Dry 
land, created by the deposited silt of the Two 
Rivers and of the Kariin, had in early 'Abbasid 
times pushed out as far as (modern) Abadan, and 
later ruined this seaport by advancing further. 
Many irrigation canals (including those serving 
Basra, the Ma'kil and Ubulla canals) took off from 
the Didjla al-'Awra' in the area today covered by 
extensive date gardens and numerous villages. 
Seagoing ships of the Caliphs could ascend the Didjla 
through the swamp to well above Wasit. 

Although, as mentioned above, the Didjla has 
changed its course in more than one area since the 
Middle Ages, and although an idea of the canal 
system derived from it can be gained from the 
contemporary geographers and from remaining 
traces, it is evident that this system was under 
constant modification between the 2nd/8th and the 
7th/i3th centuries, until it was substantially 
destroyed by the Mongols in the middle of the 
latter. The ' alignment and degree of water control, 
and the discharge of the canals, varied from century 
to century; most were seasonal flood-channels 
without head-works, and the solution if any found 
for disposal of the devastating annual floods does 
not satisfactorily appear. Nevertheless, irrigation 
from the Didjla — and rain cultivation in the north — 
undoubtedly supported a population perhaps three 
times more numerous than that of today, in a host 
of cities and villages now forgotten. During the 
centuries following the ruin caused by Hulagu (656/ 
1258) conditions fell to a low point of disorganization, 
misery and stagnation, during which the regime of 
the river deterioriated and all control was lost. No 
serious study of its problems was made thereafter 
until the I4th/20th century. 

The efforts of the modern 'Irak Governments 
have been concentrated on such irrigation works as 
will stabilize the course of the river, prevent the 
extremely serious annual flooding of the country 
side — and almost of Baghdad itself — and regulate 
and conserve the water for summer irrigation upon 
which, in central and southern 'Irak, all cultivation 
other than precarious spring crops must depend. 
Many control works have been built, notably in 
1357/1938 the Kut Barrage which regulates the 
supply into the Hayy (Gharraf) river; many more, 
and major flood-disposal arrangements — for in- 
stance, on the Greater Zab, and by utilizing the Wadi 
Tharthar— are in hand or planned. But the immense 
difference between the high water and the low water 
discharge of the river, varying between some 6000 to 
300 cubic metres a second at Baghdad, due to 
seasonal melting of snow in the north and to winter 
and spring rains, and the inadequacy of the river 
bed to take the flood water, combine to render the 
Didjla peculiarly difficult to control or utilize. The 
important extension of irrigation by mechanical 
pump from the Didjla has been a striking feature 
of the period since 1 346/1 927. 

The river contains large quantities of indifferent 
or low-quality fish. 

In modern as in ancient and mediaeval times, all 
the traditional types of river-craft — skin-borne rafts 
floating downstream from Mosul or the Zabs, 
bitumen-covered coracles, sailing-craft and paddled 



DIDJLA — DIENNE 



skiffs of every size have been and are in use. They 
have been supplemented regularly between Basra and 
Baghdad (and rarely and precariously between 
Baghdad and Mosul) by river steamers since 1256/ 
1840, and by motor-launches and tugs. In addition 
to public passenger and goods services, the work of 
river-steamship fleets has made an important 
contribution in both World Wars; the navigational 
difficulties are, nevertheless, formidable. The railway, 
of which a first German-made section (Baghdad- 
Samarra) was opened in 1332/1914, now runs from 
Baghdad to Mosul along the right bank of the river, 
and north of Mosul branching westward joins the 
Turkish system. Main roads, successors to imme- 
morial tracks, follow the course of the river in many 
areas. The river passes through the administrative 
provinces, in Turkey, of Diyarbakir, Siirt and Mardin, 
and in 'Irak those of Mosul, Irbil, Baghdad, Kut 
al-Amara, 'Amara and Basra. 

Bibliography : Istakhri, i, 72-7, 90; Ibn 
Hawkal, 138, 162; MukaddasI, 20, 124, 136, 
144; Ibn Khurradadhbih, 174; BGA = vii, 94-6; 
Mas'udi, al-Tanbih, 52 ff. ; Ibn Sarabiyun, in 
JRAS 1895, 1-76, 255-315; Mas'udi, Murudj, i, 
223-30; Yakut, ii, 551 K-, and passim; Abu 
'1-Fida', Takwim, 53-5; Dimashki (ed. Mehren), 
95-8; Kazwinl ( e d. Wustenfeld), i, 178. 

Le Strange; M. Streck, Die alte Landschaft Baby- 
lonien, Leyden 1901 ; E. Herzfeld, Memnon, i, 
89-143 and 217-38; W. Willcocks, The irrigation 
of Mesopotamia, Cairo 1905; A. Sousa and J. D. 
Atkinson, Hraq irrigation handbook, Baghdad 
1944/6; M. Ionides, The rigime of the rivers 
Euphrates and Tigris, London 1937", S. H. 
Longrigg, l Iraq 1900 to 1950, London 1953- 

(R. Hartmann-[S. H. Longrigg]) 
DIDO, a people comprising five small Ibero- 
Caucasian Muslim nationalities, whose total number 
reaches, according to a 1955 estimate, some 18,000. 
Ethnically close to the Andi [q.v.] and the Avar [q.v.], 
they inhabit the most elevated and inaccessible 
regions of Central Daghistan, near to the Georgian 
frontier. 

It is necessary to distinguish: 

1. The Dido proper (Tsez Tsunta), numbering 
about 7,200, distributed in 36 awls along the upper 
reaches of the Ori-Tskalis. 

2. The Bezeta (Kapuci, Kapcui, Beshite, Khwa- 
nal), the most developed of the Dido peoples (2,500 
in the 1926 census, 2,580 in 1933), who inhabit 
the three awls of Bezeta, Khodjar-Khota, and 
Tladal, in the district of Tlarata. 

3. Khwarshi (Kwan), 1561 in 1920, 1614 in 1933, 
living in five awls on the upper reaches of the Ori- 
Tskalis shortly before it flows into the Koysu of Andi. 

4. The Khunzal (Gunzal, Nakhad, Enzeli, Enseba, 
Gunzeb), 799 in 1920, 616 in 1933, in the four awls 
of Tlarata district on the upper reaches of the 

5. The Ginukh, numbering a few hundreds. 

The Dido peoples were converted to Islam by the 
Avars, and like them are Sunnis of the Shafi'i rite. 
Each Dido race has its own language, not committed 
to writing, belonging to the Avar-Ando-Dido group 
of the Daghistan branch of the Ibero-Caucasian 
languages, but the Dido are in general bilingual, and 
Avar serves as their cultural language. 

The geographical position of the Dido peoples has 
protected them from external influences, and 
because of this they have retained patriarchal 
customs and Muslim traditions more than have the 
Andi. The Avar influence is less noticeable among 



; traditional; 



them, except for the Bezeta, than among the Andi; 

and their integration within the Avar nation is less 

advanced. Russian linguistic influence is barely 

noticeable. 

The economy of the Dido r 

they subsist by fodder-produc 

toes), by sheep-raising over changing p; 

and by terraced horticulture. They are well-known 

for their craftsmanship: goldsmiths' work among 

the Dido and the Bezeta, and leatherwork among 

the Khunzal. 

Bibliography : A. Bennigsen and H. Carrere 
d'Encausse, Une Ripublique sovi&ique musulmane, 
in REI, 1956; A. A. Bokarev, Kratkie Svedeniya 
yazikak Dagestana, Makhafi-Kal'a 1949; A. Dirr, 
Materiali dlya izuleniya yazikov i nareciy ando- 
didoyskoy gruppi, in Sbornik materialov dlya 
opisaniya mestnostey i piemen Kavkaza, xl, Tiflis 
1909; I. V. Megelidze, Zvukovoy sostav tseskogo 
(didoyskogo) yazika, in Yazik i mishlenie, vi, vii, 
Moscow 1926. See also Bibliography of daghistan, 

AVAR, ANDI. (CH. QuELQUEJAY) 

DIENNE, a town in the Sudan Republic, 
360 km. SW of Timbuctoo and 200 km. ENE of 
Segou. Geographical position: lat. 13° 55' N. — long. 
4° 33' W. (Gr.). Altitude: 278 m. 

The etymology of this name (often wrongly spelt 
Djenne) is unknown but the most likely is Dianna 
= the little Dia (Dia is an ancient Sudanese town, 
70 km. to the NW.). Dienne was mentioned for 
the first time in 1447 by the Genoese Malfante, 
under the name Geni. 

The town is situated in the flood-area of the Niger 
and the Bani, 5 km. from the left bank of the latter 
river, to which it is connected by a navigable 
channel. It is built on a hill of sandy clay not subject 
to flooding, though surrounded by water particularly 
during the flood season, which normally lasts from 
August to February; and it is then that movement 
in the district is easiest, owing to the network of 
navigable channels between the Bani and the Niger, 
the most important and most freely used being the 
Kouakourou channel. In the dry season the town 
is linked up with surrounding districts by tracks 
which can be used by motor vehicles. 

In area, Dienne extends for 900 m. from east to 
west, and 600 m. from north to south. Until the 
end of the 19th century it was surrounded by a 
brick wall; this was destroyed by the French who 
also cleared and laid out a large square in the town. 

The population which has remained the same since 
1900 is about 6,300; of these, 3,000 are Diennenke, 
1,600 Fulani and 1,600 Bozo. Several languages are 
spoken, Songhai, Bozo and Fula among others. 

The date on which the town was founded is not 
known. The Ta'rlkh al-Suddn, trans. Houdas, 23, 
mentions a first settlement at Zoboro, the foundation 
of the town in about 150/767 and the conversion to 
Islam in about 500/1106. It seems more likely that 
the actual date of founding was later: M. Delafosse 
puts it at about 648/1250 and attributes it to 
Soninke merchants, the Nono; according to him, the 
inhabitants' conversion to Islam followed in about 
700/1300. Legend has it that a Bozo virgin, Tapama, 
was immured alive in the walls at the instigation of 
magicians, in order to ensure the future prosperity 
of the town. 

When chief Konboro was converted he pulled 
down his palace and, on the foundations, built the 
great mosque which remained standing until about 
1830 when it was destroyed by Shaykhu Ahmadu. 



dienne - 



Konboro's descendants remained in power until the 
Songhai conquest. 

In spite of the well-known passage in Ta>rikh aU 
Suddn (26) stating that from the time the town was 
founded the inhabitants of Dienne were never con- 
quered by any king until the day when Sonni Ali 
imposed his authority over them, there is a strong 
possibility that, after 735/1335, the city belonged to 
Mali. It must have regained its liberty fairly soon, 
before being captured by Sonni Ali (872/1467). 

The Songhai domination was very favourable to 
Dienne and it seems that it was from this time 
onwards in particular that it became a commercial 
centre of the highest importance in the Sudan. In 
direct communication with Timbuctoo by river, it 
was also situated at the head of the overland routes 
leading to the gold mines of Bitou (Bonduku region, 
Ivory Coast), Lobi and Boure. It was the great 
entrepot for salt from Teghaza on its way via 
Timbuctoo to the countries in the south. 

The first account to speak of the town is the 

Descripfam by Valentim Fernandes (1506): 

"Gyni is a large town built of rock and limestone, 
surrounded by a wall. To it come the merchants 
visiting the gold mines. These dealers belong to one 
particular race, the Ungaros LWangara), who are 

red or brownish When these Ungaros come to 

Gyni, each merchant brings with him 100 or 200 or 
more negro slaves to carry salt on their heads from 
Gyni to the gold mines, and to bring back gold. 
Merchants who trade with the gold mines deal in 
considerable sums. Some of them undertake a deal 
which may amount to 60,000 mithkal; even those who 
are content merely to take salt to Gyni make 

10,000 mithkal The Ungaros only come to 

Gyni once a year". 

Leo Africanus (1525) repeats the theme of the 
town's prosperity, describing it under the name 
Ghinea (ii, 465-485). 

This prosperity was maintained throughout the 
1 6th century, and even to the beginning of the 
Moroccan domination. In fact Dienne followed the 
fate of her sister town, Timbuctoo, which from 
1000/1591 was occupied by the Moroccans of Djudhar. 
The kdHds of Timbuctoo had no difficulty in com- 
pelling Dienne to recognize their overlordship. In 
Dienne the Moroccan authority was represented by 
a pasha, a hakim assisted by an amin or treasurer 
and a kaHd in command of the troops. 

In the middle of the 17th century the Ta'rikh al- 
Suddn once again described (22 ff.) a town at the 
height of prosperity: "This town is large, flourishing 
and prosperous; it is rich, and enjoys Heaven's 
blessing and favour .... Dienne is one of the 
great markets of the Muslim world. It is the 
meeting-place for merchants with salt from the mines 
of Teghaza and others bringing gold from the Bitu 
mines. Almighty God has drawn to this blessed town 
a certain number of scholars and men of piety, 
strangers in this country who have come here to 



The town's two-fold reputation for 
and religion continued even after the decline of 
Timbuctoo in the 17th and 18th centuries; protected 
by its marshes, Dienne was able to hold its own in 
spite of the attacks of the Bambara [q.v.] who for a 
time even succeeded in making themselves masters 
of the Dienneri but were unable to take the capital. 

After 1818, Shavkhu Ahmadu founded the Fulani 
empire of Massina and took Dienne after a well- 
conducted siege. He drove out part of the population 
and built a new mosque (on the site now occupied by 



the school) in place of the old one which he allowed to 
fall into ruin. He left the administration of the city 
to the people of Dienne, but he was represented by 
an Amlru mangal, military commander. It was at 
this time (1828) that Rene Caillie visited the town. 
The Fulani rule lasted until 1861-1862 when al- 
Hadjdi c Umar conquered Dienne. In 1893, Colonel 
Archinard took possession in the name of France. 
By bringing peace to the Sudan, French rule para- 
doxically enough led to the decline of Dienne, for 
what had previously been the source of its strength, 
its isolated position surrounded by flood-waters, in 
the 20th century became a source of weakness. The 
town's commercial functions were taken over by 
Mopti which is situated at the confluence of the Bani 
and the Niger, and is connected by a dyke with dry 
land. Dienne is no more than a second-rate local 
market and centre of the administrative sub-division. 
The town has kept its beautiful old houses, built 
in the style which was peculiar to itself, now wide- 
spread and known as the "Sudanese style"; the old 
mosque, built before the 19th century, has been 
rebuilt in the old style on the same foundations. 
Bibliography : P. de Cenival and Th. Monod: 
Description de la C6te d'Afrique de Ceuta au 
Sinigal par Valentim Fernandes {1506-1507), 
Paris 1938 s , Ta'rikh al-Fattdsh, trans. O. Houdas 
and M. Delafosse, Paris 191 3; Ta'rikh al-Suddn, 
trans. O. Houdas, Paris 1900; Leo Africanus, 
Description de I'Ajrique, trans, Epaulard, Paris 
1956, ii, 464-5; R. Caillie, Journal d'un voyage 
a Tombouctou et d Dienni dans I'Ajrique Cent- 
rale, Paris 1830, ii, ch. 18; Reisen und Ent- 
deckungen in Nord und Zentral Afrika in 1849- 
185s, Gotha 1857-8, iv; F. Dubois, Tombouctou la, 
mystirieuse, Paris 1896, ch. v-vi; Ch. Monteil, 
Monographic de Djinni, Tulle 1903; A. H. Ba and 
J. Daget: VEmpire du Macina, i (1818-1853), 
IFAN, Bamako 1955. (R. Mauny) 

DIFRlGl [see diwrigi]. 

DIGLAL, the title of the hereditary ruler of the 
Bani 'Amir tribal group in the Agordat district of 
western Eritrea and in the eastern Sudan ; he is also 
senior member of the aristocratic Nabtab class or 
caste, who, for historical reasons no longer possible 
to elucidate, form the superior stratum in every 
Bani 'Amir section. The title is believed of Fund] 
origin, and may recall days when the tribe was, in 
the ioth/i6th and nth/i7th centuries, inter- 
mittently tribute-paying to the Nilotic but Muslim 
Fundj dynasty of Sennar. The insignia of the 
Diglal's position include notably a red velvet three- 
cornered hat of unique design. 

The Diglal, whose relations with Ethiopian, 
Italian and British rulers of Eritrea have varied in 
the manner usual with feudal or tribal potentates, 
has at his best exercised good control over the 
lawless, scattered and wholly nomadic Bani c Amir, 
themselves numerous (some 60,000 in Eritrea in 
1936-44, and 30,000 in the Sudan), varied in 
origin (containing an original Hamitic base with 
large admixtures of Sudani, Ethiopian and Nilotic 
stocks), and speaking the Beja or Tigre languages 
according to subtribe or section. Indeed, the Diglal's 
traditional position, unchallenged for four centuries, 
has been a main unifying force in a group otherwise 
highly heterogeneous. 

He lives normally in a main settlement of the 
Dagga (Dega, Daga), a term which, by origin the 
"camp" of himself and his immediate circle, now 
signifies that section of the Bani c Amir (numerically 
the largest) which contains the Diglal's family, 



retainers and slaves, and the descendents and 
numerous accretions of these. 

Bibliography: A. Pollera, Le Popolozioni 

indigene deW Eritrea, Bologna 1935; British 

Military Administration of Eritrea (per S. F. 

Nadel), Races and tribes of Eritrea, Asmara 1943; 

S. H. Longrigg, Short history of Eritrea, Oxford 

1945. (S. H. Longrigg) 

DIGURATA [see ossetes]. 

DIHISTAN, name of two towns, and their 
respective districts in north-eastern Iran: 

1) A town north-east of Harat, the capital of the 
southern part of the Badghis [q.v.] region, and the 
second largest town in that region ("half the size 
of Bflshandj"), and according to Yakut (i, 461), the 
capital of the whole of Badghis around the year 596/ 
1200. The town was situated upon a hill in a fertile 
area, and near a silver mine ; it was built of brick. 
In 98/716-7, Dihistan is mentioned as the seat of a 
Persian dihkdn (Tabari, ii ( 1320); ca. 426/1035, it 
came into the possession of a Turkish dihkdn (these 
titles persisted amongst the Turks) by the agency of 
the Saldjuks (to whom the Ghaznawids had left it). 
In 552/1158, it was the residence of the Oghuz prince 
Ikhtiyar al-DIn -Ay tak, who, as the only ruler of this 
district, became subject to Kh w arizmshah II Arslan 
(Bayhaki, Ta'rikh-i Bayhak). The Kh'arizmshah 
Sultan Shah was robbed of his succession by his 
brother Tekesh, and fled with his mother Terken 
(Islamicized: Turkan) to Dihistan in 569/1174. Fol- 
lowing this, Tekesh occupied the town of Dihistan, 
and had Terken executed; Sultan Shah succeeded in 
escaping further to the Ghurids (Ibn al-Athir, xi, 247/ 
53). The town does not appear to have played an 
important part later on. It is probably to be equated 
with the modern shrine Kh w 5dia Dihistan. 

Bibliography: Istakhri, 268 f.; Ibn Hawkal 
319 f.; Mukaddasi, 50, 298, 308; Hamd Allah 
Mustawfl, Nuzha, 153, trans. (1919), 151; Le 

Strange, 414 f.; J. Marquart, ErdnSahr 

(1901), 150; J. Markwart (= idem), Wehrot 
und Arang (1938), 40; W. Barthold, Turkestan, 
308, 335, 338; Spuler, Iran, 311. 

2) A region rich in agriculture, to the north of the 
lower Atrek [q.v.], which waters its southern section. 
Its capital is Akhur (4 days' journey to the north 
of Djurdjan), which, according to Mukaddasi 
<358 f.), also bore the name of Dihistan, and was on 
the route from Djurdjan to Kh"arizm. There was 
also a frontier fortification (Ribat) by the name of 
Dihistan, with beautiful mosques and an active 
market (Mukaddasi, 358, compare also ibid., 312, 
367, 372; and see below). W. Barthold regards this 
fortress as the capital of the whole region in the 
1 2th century, and bases this view on Yakut (i, 39). 
Islamic data concerning the area are not consistent 
and lack clarity: according to Ibn Hawkal (i, 277, 
286; ii, 388, 398), the region was sparsely populated, 
and only by fishermen from the Caspian Sea. 
Mukaddasi, on the other hand, reckons the 24 
villages of this area amongst the most densely 
populated of the region of Djurdjan. 

According to the Middle Persian list of towns, 
Dihistan was founded by the Arsacid Narsahe 
(J. Marquart, ErdnSahr [1901], 54, 73, 310); in 
Islamic times, the Sasanid Kubadh b. Firuz (Peroz) 
is mentioned (Hamd Allah Mustawfl, Nuzha, [1915], 
160; trans. [1919], 157; comp. also index). In the 
4th/ioth century, the area was a border region 
{against the 'heathen' Turks], and even Hamd Allah, 
212 (trans. 205) mentions it as such in the 14th 
century. At this time it can only have referred to a 



few nomad tribes between Kh"arizm and the Ost 
Yurt, as by then, Islamization — even of the Mongols 
of Transoxania — was complete. 

The Hudud al- l alam, ed. V. Minorsky (1937), 60, 
mentions the peninsula Dihistdndn Sur ( ?), inhabited 
by fishermen and birdhunters, which W. Barthold 
takes to be the modern Cape Hasan Rult (to the 
north of the mouth of the Atrek). This is hardly 
possible, if Istakhri's data (219) are correct: he 
states that there are 50 parasangs between the 
mouth of the river Djurdjan and this peninsula, 
and this would get on to the region of the Bay of 
Kzll Suw (Russian: Krasnovodsk). 

V. Minorsky, Hudud, 386, connects the name of 
Dihistan with the name of the ancient Daher (Adtou) 
(concerning these, compare W. Tomaschek in Pauly- 
Wissowa, Realencyklopddie, iv, 12 [1901], col. 1945/6). 
Today, the ruins of Ribat Dihistan (as can be 
gathered from an inscription in a mosque of the 
beginning of the 13th century) are known as Mash- 
had-i Misriyyan [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: In addition to references in 
the text: Ta'rlkh-i Bayhaki, Tehran 1946, index 
[but note that the vocalization Dahistan de- 
manded on 1 35" — in view of the derivation from 
Aaai — contradicts Yakut and the other Islamic 
sources]; Sam'anI, K. al-ansdb, 1922 (GMS xx), 
fol. 234 v (gives the correct vocalization) ; Nikbl 
(in Narshakhi, ed. Ch. Schefer), 144; Gg. Hoff- 
mann, Syr. Akten pers. Mdrtyrer (1880), 277-81; 
W. Barthold, K istorii orosheniya Turkestana 
(History of irrigation in Turkestan) (1914), 31-7; 
Le Strange, 337-82; Spuler, Iran, 430, 455, 464'; 
Hudud al-'Alam, index. (B. Spuler) 

DIHtfAN, arabicized form of dehkdn, the head 
of a village and a member of the lesser feudal nobility 
of Sasanian Persia. The power of the dihkdns derived 
from their hereditary title to the local administration. 
They were an immensely important class, although 
the actual area of land they cultivated as the here- 
ditary possession of their family was often small. 
They were the representatives of the government 
vis-a-vis the peasants and their principal function 
was to collect taxes; and, in the opinion of Christen- 
sen, it was due to their knowledge of the country and 
people that sufficient revenue was provided for the 
upkeep of a luxurious court and the cost of expensive 
wars (L'Iran sous Us Sasanides 3 , Copenhagen 1944, 
1 12-3). Mas'udi divides the dihkdns into five classes, 
distinguished from one another by their dress 
(Murudi, ii, 241). Persian legend imputes their 
origin to Veghard, brother of the legendary king 
Hiishang (Christensen, Le premier homme et le 
premier rot dans Vhistoire Ugendaire des iraniens, i, 
144, 150, 151, 153, 155, 159). After the Arab con- 
quest the dihkdns continued to be responsible for 
local administration and the collection of tribute 
from the protected communities; many of them 
were converted to Islam and largely retained their 
lands (von Kremer, Culturgeschichte, ii, 160). In 
Transoxania, where immediately before the Arab 
invasion the dihkdns had enjoyed perhaps greater 
influence than in Persia in that their power was not 
limited by that of the monarchy and the Zoroastrian 
clergy, the local rulers as well as the landowners 
were designated by the term dihkdn (Barthold, 
Turkestan, 180-1; and see Narshakhi, TaMkh-i 
Bukhara, ed. Mudarris Rizavi, 7, 72). The power of 
the Tahirids and Samanids was largely founded 
on their community of interest with the dihkdns; 
but by the end of the Samanid period the dihkdns 
had become discontented and were in part responsible 



*54 



DIHKAN - 



for the eventual overthrow of the Samanid dynasty 

by Bughra Khan HarOn b. Musa, the Ilak Khan 

(Barthold, 257, 307). With the spread of the ik(d c 

system in the 5th/nth century and the depression 

of the landowning classes the position and influence 

of the dihkdns diminished. With this the term 

dihkdn became debased and by the 5th/nth century 

it was also used to denote a peasant, in which sense 

it is used by Nasir-i Khusraw (Diwan, Tehran 1304-7 

A.H. solar, 557) and Ka'us b. Iskandar (Kdbus 

ndma, G.M.S., 138). On the other hand under the 

Saldjflks the dihkdns appear to have continued to 

exist in the eastern part of the empire as village 

heads or landowners. The term would appear to 

have this sense in a document issued by the dlwdn 

of Sandjar {<Atabat al-kataba, ed. c Abb5s Ikbal, 

Tehran 1950, 53, 55) and in a diploma for the 

mi'-mar of Kh w 5razm belonging to the latter half of 

the 6th century A.H. (Baha 3 al-Din Muhammad 

Mu'ayyad BaghdadI, al-Tarassul ild 'l-tarassul, ed. 

Bahmanyar, Tehran 1315 A.H. solar, 113, 114). 

Similarly Nadjm al-DIn RazI uses the term dihkdn 

to mean landowner (Mirsdd al-Hbdd, Tehran 1312 

A.H. solar, 294 ft.). Nasir al-Din Tflsi (Akhldk-i 

Ndsiri, Lahore, lith., 180-1) and Djalal al-Din 

DawanI (Akhldk-i Djaldli, lith., 278), however, seem 

to use dihkdn simply in the sense of peasant, which 

is its meaning in modern Persia also. In Turkistan 

farmers are called dihkdn (RMM, xiii, 191 1, 568). 

Bibliography : Firdawsi, Shdhndma (ed. Mohl, 

viii, ff.); M. C. Inostrancev, Sasanidskie Etiudi; 

Quatremere, J A, 2 ser., xvi, 532; P. Horn, Gr.I.Ph., 

i, 2, 178; Noldeke, Gesch. der Perser, 440; Max 

Van Berchem, Propriiti territoriale, 25; A. V. 

Kremer, Culturgeschichtl. Streifziige, 14; Well- 

hausen, Das arabische Reich und sein Sturz, 

Berlin 1902; Bartold, Die Rolle der Gebiete des 

kaspischen Meeres in der Geschichte des muslima- 

nischen Welt, Baku 1924, 21; K. H. Menges, Drei 

Ozbekische Texte, in Isl., xxi, 179; F. Lokkegaard, 

Islamic taxation in the classic period, Copenhagen 

1950; D. C. Dennett, Conversion and the toll tax 

in early Islam, Harvard 1950, 22-3, 29-30, 32-3; 

F. W. Cleaves, Daruya and Gerege in Harvard 

Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1953, 237; A. K. S. 

Lambton, Landlord and Peasant in Persia, Oxford 

1953. (Ann K. S. Lambton) 

al-DIHLAWI, NCR al-UASS [see nOr al- 

HAKK AL-DIHLAWl]. 

AL-DIHLAWI, SHAH WALl ALLAH, the 

popular name of Kutb al-din ahmad abu'l-fayyap, 
a revolutionary Indian thinker, theologian, pioneer 
Persian translator of the Kur'an, and traditionist, 
the first child of the 60-year-old Shah <Abd al- 
Rahim al- c Umari of Dihll, by his second wife, 
was born in 1114/1703 at Dihll, four years before 
the death of Awrangzib. A precocious child, he 
memorized the Kur'an at the early age of seven 
and completed his studies with his father, both in 
the traditional and rational sciences, at the age of 
fifteen. On the death of his father in 1131/1719 he 
succeeded him as the principal of the religious 
college, Madrasa Rahimiyya, which Shah 'Abd al- 
Rahlm had founded, at Dihll. This institution, in 
later years, produced a galaxy of brilliant scholars 
and was the fore-runner of the famous Ddr al- 
'Ulurn at Deoband [q.v.]. In 1143/1730 Wall Allah 
went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina and 
stayed in al-Hidjaz for 14 months before returning to 
India in 1 145/1732. He took advantage of his stay 
in Medina to learn hadith from eminent scholars like 
Abu Tahir al-Madani, <Abd Allah b. Salim al- 



Basari, and Tadj al-DIn al-Kal% all of whom he 
held in high esteem (Anfds al- c drifin, 191-3, 197-200). 
After his return from al-Hidjaz he devoted himself 
to writing along with his old profession of teaching. 
He died in 1176/1762, the author of more than forty 
works {Nuzhat al-khawdtir, vi, 407 f.). He lies buried 
in the family graveyard beside his father and his 
equally illustrious son, Shah c Abd al- c Aziz al- 
Dihlawi, in the Menhdlyan cemetery of Old Dihll, 
behind the modern Central Jail. 

Basically an altruist, Shah Wall Allah may be 
called the founder of Islamic modernism. He was 
much ahead of his times, a revolutionary thinker 
who attempted, although with little success, the 
reintegration of the socio-economic and the religio- 
ethical structure of Islam. His chief merit, however, 
lies in the propagation of the doctrine of tafbik 
(conciliation) which he skilfully applied even to 
such controversial problems as the khitdfa and the 
conflict between dogmatic theology and mysticism. 

The reform movement outlined by Shah Wall 
Allah, which found full expression in the religio- 
military campaigns of Sayyid Ahmad Barelawl 
[q.v.] and Shah lsma c il, the grandson of Wall Allah, 
revolved round his concept of maslaha, i.e., the 
establishment of a kind of welfare state based on 
the "relationship of man's development with the 
creative forces of the Universe". The time and the 
environment were both unsuited for the success of 
such a revolutionary movement. The inevitable 
result was that the movement, although launched 
with a great deal of fervour, soon lost impetus when 
faced with realities. On the other hand, the Wahhabi 
movement launched by his contemporary, Muham- 
mad b. c Abd al-Wahhab, [q.v.] succeeded, as it sternly 
refused to accept the idea of compromise, which con- 
stitutes the kernel of Shah Wall Allah's thought; he 
even attempted to reconcile such antithetic theories 
as the wahdat al wudjud [see ibn al- c arabi] and 
wahdat al-shuhud [see ahmad sirhindI]. 

His mission failed because both he and his suc- 
cessors failed correctly to assess the impact of 
contemporary forces and the increasing conflict of 
the East and West consequent on the growth of 
European influence in India, especially those parts 
of the country where Muslims dominated. 

His chief works are: (a) Arabic, (i) Hudjdjat Allah 
al-bdligha, his magnum opus, a unique work on the 
secrets of religion (asrdr al-din), also dealing with 
various other subjects such as metaphysics, politics, 
finance and political economy. It was in this book 
(ed. Bareilly 1285/1868; Cairo 1322-3/1904-5), now 
prescribed as a course of study at al-Azhar and in 
the Sudan, that he propounded his revolutionary 
theory of "fakk hull nizdm" (down with all systems!). 
The book has also been translated into Urdu (Lahore 
1953, Karachi n.d.) ; (ii) al-Musawwd, a commentary 
on the Muwattd' of Malik b. Anas; (iii) al-Fath al- 

khabir the fifth and the last chapter of his 

Persian work al-Fawz al-kabir fi usul al-tafsir, 
but with the above independent title (Lucknow 
1289/1872); it is a pithy but highly useful dissertation 
on the principles of the science of Kur'anic exegesis; 
(iv) and (v) al-Budur al-bazigha and al-Khayr al- 
kathir, both on the Him al-asrdr, a branch of 
tasawwuf dealing with its truths and realities 
(Dabhel n.d.); (vi) al-Insdf fi baydn sabab al- 
ikhtildf, a masterly survey of the causes of the 
juristic differences between the various sects of 
Islam and the evolution of Islamic jurisprudence; 
(b) Persian, (vii) Tafhimdt-i Ildhiyya, partly in 
Arabic, contains inter alia addresses to the various 



L-DIHLAWI — DIHLI 



255 



groups in Muslim society, pinpointing their vices, 
failings and weaknesses; (viii) Hkd al-djid fi baydn 
ahkdm al-idjtihdd wa 'l-taklii, a scholarly survey 
of the two problems mentioned (Dihli 1344/1925; 
partial Eng. transl. by M. Da'ud Rahbar in 
MW, xiv/4, 346-587) (ix) Fath al-Rahmdn bi 
tardiamat al-Kur'dn, an annotated Persian trans- 
lation of the Kur'an, by far his greatest achievement, 
published several times in India and still in great 
demand; (x) al-Musaffd, a sister volume to the al- 
Musawwd, being a commentary on the Muwdttd'; (xi) 
Izdlat al-Vhafd? 'an khildfat al-khulafa' ; basically a 
vindication of the hhildfa of the first two caliphs, 
Abu Bakr and c Umar al-Faruk, but also comprising 
an exhaustive discussion of the doctrine of the 
khildfa, political theory in Islam, the basic principles 
of economics [tadbir al-manzil), the idjtihdd as 
practised by 'Umar b. al-Khattab and the signi- 
ficance of his judgments etc.; practically the same 
discussion figures in (xii) Kurrat al-'aynayn fi 
tafdil al-shaykhayn; (xiii) Altdf al-kuds, (xiv) Fuyud 
al-haramayn {At.); (xv) Ham'dt (Ar.) (Urdu trans- 
lation: Tasawwuf ki hakikat awr uskd falsafa-i 
ta'rikh, Lahore 1946); (xvi) Sat'dt (Ar.) and (xvii) 
Lam'dt (Ar.), all deal with the different aspects of 
tasawwuf as viewed by Shah Wall Allah; (xviii) 
Anfds al-'drifin, contains an account of his ancestors, 
the mashdHkh with whom they contracted their 
bay'a, and the teachers of the author. This work is 
very useful for a critical appreciation of Shah Wall 
Allah and the evolution of his religio-political 
thought. 

Bibliography: Shah Wall Allah, Antds al- 
'drifin (comprising his autobiography called al- 
Qiuz* al-latif fi tardiamat al-'abd al-da'if, (Eng. 
tr. by Hidayat Husayn in JASB 1912, 161- 
75), Dihli 1335/1917; c Abd al-Hayy Nadawi, 
Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad (Deccan) 1376/ 
1957, vi, 398-415 ; Siddik Hasan, Ithdf al-nubaW, 
Cawnpore 1288/1871, 1448; idem, Abdjad al- 
c ulum, Bhopal 1295/1878, 912 ff.; idem, al-Hitta 
bi dhihr sihdh al-sitta, Cawnpore 1283/1866; 
Brockelmann, II, 418 and index; Storey i, 20-2, 
I79J ", 1020-1, 1137, 1201, 1253, 1263; Muhsin b. 
Yahya al-Tirhuti, al-Ydni c al-djani fi asndd al- 
Shaykh c Abd al-Qhani, Dihli 1287/1870, 113-38; 
Ghulam Sarwar Lahori, Khazinat al-Asfiyd', 
Cawnpore 1333/1914, ii. 373; Zubayd Aiimad, 
Contribution of India to Arabic literature, Allahabad 
1946, 28-31; A history of the Freedom Movement, 
Karachi 1957, 491-541; Yusuf Husayn, Glimpses 
of medieval Indian culture, Bombay 1957, 60-3; 
F. Rahman, The thinker of crisis: Shah Waliy- 
Allah, in Pakistan Quarterly, Karachi (Summer) 
1956, 44-8; Rahman C A1I, Tadhkira-i 'ulamd'-i 
Hind, Lucknow 1899, 250; Muhammad Ishak, 
India's contribution to the study of Hadith lite- 
rature, Dacca 1955, 172-8; c Ubayd Allah Sindhi, 
Hizb Imam Wall Allah, Lahore 1942, 1311 1 , 43^; 
idem, Shah Wall Allah ki siydsi tahrik, Lahore 
n.d.; J Pak.H.S., (Shah Wali Allah's conception 
of idjtihdd), vii/iii, July 1959, 165-94; M. Saghir 
Hasanal Ma'sumi: An appreciation of Shah 
Waliyulldh al-Muhaddith ad-Dihlawi, in IC, 
October 1947, 340 ff.; Khalik Ahmad Nizami, Shdh 
Wali Allah Dihlawi ke siydsi maktubdt, (ed. K. A. 
Nizami), c AlIgafh 1950; Shibll Nu'mani, (TaMkh-i) 
Him al-kaldm, Azamgafh 109-19; Rahim Bakhsh, 
Haydt-i Wali, Dihli 1319/1901; Kalimdt-i tay- 
yibdt, (a collection of Persian letters of Shah Wali 
Allah, Mirza Mazhar Djan-i Djan and others), 
Muradabad, 1305/1887, 15; Manazir Ahsan 



Gaylani, Tadhkira-i Hadrat Shah Wali Allah, 
Haydarabad (Deccan), 1946; Isma'Il Godharawi, 
Wali Allah, Dihli n.d.; Mukhtar Ahmad, Khdnddn-i 
"■Azizi, Kanpur n.d., 1-26; Maktubdt Shah Wali 
Allah, Dihli n.d.; Abu Muhammad Imam Khan 
Nawshahrawi, Tarddjim c ulamd>-i hadith Hind, 
Dihli 1938, 4-48; Sharaf al-DIn Muhammad al- 
Husayni, al-Wasilat ila Hldh; Shah Ghulam c Ali 
al-Dihlawi, al-Makdmdt; al-Furkdn (ed. Muham- 
mad Manzur Nu c mani), Bareilly (special issue) 2 
1941; Bankipur (Arabic) Cat., V/i, 5-6; Bashir al- 
DIn Ahmad, Wdki'dt-i Ddr al-Hukumat-i Dihli, 
Dihli 1337/1919, ii, 286; Bashir Ahmad, Shah 
Wali Allah ke Hmrdni nazariyyg, Lahore 1945; 
Muhammad Ikram, Rud-i Kawthar, Karachi n.d., 
487-564; Fakir Muhammad Lahori, HaddHk al- 
Hanafiyya, Lucknow 1906, 447; A. J. Halepota, 
Philosophy of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi (in 
Press); Ma c drif (Azamgafh), xxii/5, 341 ff.; Amir 
al-Riwayat, Arwdh-i thaldtha (ed. Muhammad 
Tayyib), Deoband n.d., 44; Malfuzdt-i '■Aziziyya 
(Persian text), 40, 93 (Urdu transl., Meerut 1315/ 
1897); F. M. Asiri, Shdh Wali Allah, in Viiva- 
Bharali Annals, iv (1951); K. A. Nizami, Shdh 
Wali Allah and Indian politics in the eighteenth 
century, in IC, Jubilee Number, 1951; Muhammad 
Da'ud Rahbar, Shdh Wali-ulldh and Ijtihdd, in 
MW, xiv/4, October 1955; c Ubayd Allah al-Sindl, 
Kitdb al-tamhid (MS. in Arabic) ; for an appreciation 
by an Egyptian scholar see Dj. al-Shayyal, Muhd- 
darat '■an al-harakdt al-isldhiyya., Cairo 1957, 
34-51. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

DIHLI. I. — History. The city of Dihli, situated 
on the west bank of the river Djamna [q.v.] and now 
spread out between 28 30' and 28° 44' N. and 
77° 5' and 77° 15' E., was the capital of the earliest 
Muslim rulers of India from 608/1211 (see dihli 
sultanate), and remained the capital of the northern 
dynasties (with occasional exceptions: Dawlatabad, 
Agra, and Lahore (Lahawr), [qq.v.~\, were the centres 
favoured by some rulers) until the deposition of 
Bahadur Shah in 1858; from 1911 it became the 
capital of British India, and after 1947 of Indepen- 
dent India. 

The usual Romanized form of the name is Delhi, 
based on the commonest form in the earlier Muslim 
usage Dihli; the common spellings in Urdu, Hindi 
(certainly from the time of the Prithi Rddi Rdso of 
the 7th/i3th century), and Pandjabi represent Dilli. 
The etymology is obscure; for some popular etymo- 
logies see A. Cunningham, A SI, i, 137 ft. 

It has become popular to speak of "the seven cities 
of Delhi"; but the number of centres of government 
in the Dihli area has in fact been nearer double that 
number. These are here described in approximate 
chronological order; all appear on the accompanying 
map, on which those which are no longer in existence 
are marked with an asterisk. 

The earliest settlement was Indrapat, Sanskrit 
Indraprastha, a tell on which the present Purana 
Kil c a stands, supposed to have been built in legen- 
dary times by the Panda vas; the site is certainly old, 
and potsherds of Painted Grey ware and Northern 
Black Polished ware, types dating back to the 5 th 
century B.C., as well as Kushan fragments of the 
1st and 2nd centuries A.D., have been discovered 
there (see Ancient India, x-xi, 1955, 140, 144). 
The region of Dihli seems to have been almost 
abandoned thereafter, for the next settlement dates 
from the gth or 10th century, the Tomar city now 
known as Suradj Kund, where a large masonry 
tank and an earthwork are still in existence. More 



256 



e are the remains of the Cawhan Radjput 
town, dating probably from the ioth century A.D., 
which existed immediately prior to the Muslim 
conquest. On a small hill in the south-west of this 
region a citadel, Lalkoi, was built circa 1052 A.D. 
by Anang Pal, and around the town an outer wall 
was thrown, as a defence against the Muslim invaders, 
by Prithwl Radj in about 576/1180 (Cunningham, 



residence of the Dihli sultans until Mu<izz al-DIn 
Kaykubad built his palace at Kilokhfl, then on 
the banks of the Djamna (Briggs, Ferishta, i, 274), 
in about 688/1289; this was occupied, completed, 
and its suburbs extended, by Djalal al-DIn FIruz 
Khaldji in and after 689/1290. It has now fallen 
completely into desuetude. Even in Djalal al-DIn's 
case the older city seems to have had a higher 




Begampur Masdjid 

djahAn panAh 



>£-_£&* Masdjid Kuwwat al-Islam Badayun darwaza 

T. Adham Khan/S*;^^^^ PITH OR A 

^^. Djamall Masdjid 
V |^ • T. Balban 




' Hawd j <^ 
Shams! j 




Old Hindu walls 

Walls removed by 'Ala 1 al-DIn 



^^ Extension of C A15 5 al-DIn, c. 700/1300 



AS I, i, 183). Subsequent to the conquest a mosque, 
known as Masdjid Kuwwat al-Islam, was built in 
588/1192 by Kutb al-DIn Aybak, who later commen- 
ced the building of the adjoining mindr not only as 
a ma'dhana but also as a commemoration of his 
victory; for these, their extensions by Shams al-DIn 
Iletmish and c Ala 5 al-DIn Khaldji, and other buil- 
dings in this so-called "Qutb site" see Monuments, 
below. The systematic refortification and extension 
of these old Hindu walls was effected by the earliest 
governors and monarchs to form the first Muslim 
city of Dihli, known by the name of its former 
occupant as Kil c a Ray Pithora. An indication 
of the extent of these walls and of their periods is 
given in the sketch-map, Fig. 1; for a discussion of 
the archaeological evidence see J. D. Beglar, ASI, 
iv, 1874, 6ff. 

Kil'a Ray Pithora remained the only regular 



prestige value, and he moved his court there as soon 
as it was politically practicable so to do. The sultan 
c Ala' al-DIn Khaldji effected many improvements 
and repairs, including the west gate (Randjlt 
darwaza) of LalkoC (Amir Khusraw. trans, in Elliott 
and Dowson, iii, 561); he commenced also the 
extension of the citadel of LalkoC, see Beglar, loc. tit., 
and Fig. 1. As a protection against the invading 
Mongols he first established a camp on the plain of 
Sirl to the north, later encompassed it by entrench- 
ments, and finally walled it, in about 703/1303. The 
location of Sir! has been questioned {e.g., by C. J. 
Campbell, Notes on the history and topography of the 
ancient cities of Delhi, in JASB, xxxv, 1866, 206-14); 
but the descriptions of Ibn Battuta, iii, 146, 155, 
and TImur, Malfuzat-i Timuri, trans, in Elliott and 
Dowson, iii, 447, and the ruins and lines of defences 
on the ground, enabled Campbell's views to be 



convincingly refuted by Cunningham in ASI, i, 
207 ff. All that now remains within the walls is the 
comparatively modern village of Shahpur. 

Hardly a "city of Delhi", but an important site 
in its history, is the group of buildings, the earliest 
of which date from Khaldii times, surrounding the 



LI 257 

his defeat of the converted Hindu Nasir al-Din in 
720/1320, for the building of his capital Tughluk- 
abad. The trace of the outer enceinte is approxi- 
mately a half-hexagon, within which are a more 
strongly defended palace area, and an even stronger 
citadel; there are the ruins of a mosque in the city 





<0' zzzzzz - 


v) 4^ 




\\ 


A \f 




< 


^Vr— - 


r.-JLOL \ 






_^^ V \ Masd j' d \& 




£ B * f 

^ ba'oli V 


J-^T c j? 

\r« D T\l 

ba'oli \ \S 

II 1 \L band 




T. Ghiyath al-Din 


&& 'ADILABAD 1 V\ 




500 m. 


~~^ J band 


B-P. 




v ^. 



A: City 



Fig. 2. Tughlukabad 
■ : Palace C: Citadel D: Sluices 



shrine of the Cishti saint Nizam al-Din Awliya 5 , which 
make up what Piggott has described as the "squalid 
but entertaining complex" now known officially a 
"Nizamuddin" (for plan, and description of these 
buildings, see Monuments, below). 

Some of the most ambitious building projects ii 
the time of the Dihli sultanate were conceived during 
the rule of the following Tughluk dynasty. Firstly, 
Ghiyath al-Din Tughluk selected a site some 8 km. 
to the east of Kil'a Ray Pithora, immediately after 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



area, and the layout of the streets and houses of the 
streets and houses of the city, which shows it to 
have been well populated, can be seen from the 
aerial photograph in Ancient India, i, Plate IX. On 
the south of the city was formerly an artificial lake, 
in which stands the tomb of Ghiyath al-Din, con- 
nected to the citadel by a fortified passage supported 
on arches, itself fortified. Connected with Tughluk- 
abad by a causeway on the south-east, which formed 
a band to retain the waters of the lake, is the subsi- 



2 5 8 



diary fort of 'Adilabad built by his s< 
b. Tughluk c. 725/1325, but abandoned by him, 
together with Tughlukabad, in 729/1329 on his 
transfer of the capital to Dawlatabad [q.v.]. F°r 
these sites see Fig. 2, and the excellent article of 
Hilary Waddington, 'Adildbdd: a part of the "fourth" 
Delhi, in Ancient India, i, 60-76, with photographs 
and survey plans. A small fort, known as ths 
"Barber's" or "Washerman's" fort, to the east, 



machicolations, containing a palace complex, the 
remains of a fine mosque, and an extraordinary 
pyramidal structure built as a plinth for a column of 
Ashoka brought from near Ambala; the isolated 
Kadam Sharif and the nearby 'Idgah show the 
western extent of the city to have been no further 
than the later Shahdjahanabad. The extent of Firuz 
Shah's building activity around Dihli would indicate 
that the suburbs in his time were still well populated, 









Kashmir darwaza P^l ^O 








^•f^Fakhr \ »j4 \ 








r\ al-Masadjid^\\ Xj^ 




Kabul darwaza fejf 




v X_ Sallmgafh 




Sirhindi masdjid. 
Lahawr darwazaT* 




Fathpur 
masdjid )J 


Djahanara jl 
bagh 


— V? 


Lai I 
Kil'ai 




~t% 





Candnl Cawk 


y v 


| | 1 'Idgah \ 


i \. Dj5mi c 


Ig^^N. U'l Sonahri 


LJ-1 




Masdjid \ 


^ L masdjid 


Kadam \#* Sharif X^AdjmeT^V 
Madrasa GhazI al-DIn -fflrVrt =» rwa za \. 

^™" ^^ B^rKalan masdjid 


V^al-Masadjid 


500 m. 100 


^*^\ 


Dihli darwaz 










Turkoman darwaza 


?--• O \„ .. -r t 





Fig. 3. Shahdjahanabad 



possibly a madrasa or a shrine in origin, was fortified 
and presumably used as a residence for Ghivath 
al-DIn while Tughlukabad was in building. 

About contemporary with the building of 'Adilabad 
was Muhammad b. Tughluk's more grandiose 
project, the walling-in of the suburbs which had 
grown up between Kil c a Ray Pithora and Siri (see 
Map) to form yet another city, called Diahan- 
panah, the walls of which, some 12 m. thick, have 
almost completely fallen and the exact trace of 
which cannot easily be located; for the sluice built 
into this wall near the village of Khifki, the Sat 
Pulah, see Monuments, below. 

Muhammad's successor Firuz Tughluk was 
responsible for the building of another city, Firuz- 
abad, extending from Indrapat to Kushk-i Shikar 
some 3 km. north-west of the later city of Shah- 
djahanabad, and now largely covered by that latter 
city. Its buildings were dilapidated by later builders, 
especially Shir Shah Suri and Shahdjahan, and all 
that remains is the citadel, known as Firuz Shah 
Kotla, its walls reduced to below the level of their 



as evidenced by the two large mosques in Djahan- 
panah, another in Nizamuddin, and smaller ones in 
the northern suburbs and in Wazirabad. A further 
occupied site was around the old reservoir built by 
c Ala 5 al-DIn, the Hawd-i 'Ala'i, later known as 
Hawd-i Khass, where he established a large 
madrasa and built his own tomb. 

The TimOrid sack caused the eclipse of Dihli as a 
capital city for some time, and although the Sayyid 
governor Khidr Khan established his court at 
Khidrabad, and Mubarak Shah his at Mubarak- 
abad, both on the Djamna, and the latter sultan 
built also his own tomb in the fortified village 
Mubarakpur (also Mubarikpur, Mubarik [sic] Shah 
Kotla), the Sayyids and their successors the Lodis 
built no furth r cities at Dihli. The Lodis, indeed, 
moved their seat of government to Agra, and Dihli 
became little more than a vast necropolis, the 
plains between Siri and Firuzabad being covered 
with tombs and mausolea of this period; especially 
Khayrpur, 2 km. west of Nizamuddin, a region 
1 km. west of Mubarikpur ("Tin Burdj", i.e., "three 



towers"), and a region on the road to Hawd-i Khass 
( Kharera) ; there was also some building in the region 
of the reservoir of Iletmish, Hawd-i Shams!, south 
of the village of Mihrawli. 

After the Mughal invasions in the early ioth/i6th 
century [see mughals] Humayun settled at Dihll 
and started the building of a citadel, Dinpanah, 
on the mound of the old Indrapat in 940/1533, but 
was dispossessed by the usurper Shir Shah Suri. 
Shir Shah took over and completed the building of 
Dinpanah, as the citadel of a new city, to which no 
particular name is given, little of which remains 
except the northern gate, near Firuz Shah Kotla, 
and the southern gate, opposite the citadel, as most 
of the stone was removed for the building of Shah- 
djahanabad. His son and successor Islam Shah, 
popularly called Sallm Shah, built on the Djamna the 
fortress Sallmgafh as a bulwark against the return 
of Humayun in about 957/1550. Humayun's return 
five years later added nothing to the Dihll buildings, 
and the next two Mughal rulers preferred to reside at 
Agra and Lahore; some buildings at Dihll date, 
however, from their time, especially the complex of 
monuments around Humayun's tomb (see S. A. A. 
Naqvi, Humayun's tomb and adjacent buildings, 
Dihll 1947). Shahdjahan also reigned at Agra for 
n years, but the inconveniences there caused him 
to remove to Dihll ( C A mal-i Salih, fol. 575-6; Manucci, 
Storia do Mogor, i, 183) and found there on 12 Dh u 
'1-Hidjdja 1048/16 April 1639 (so the contemporary 
historians and inscription in the Kh"abgah; 9 
Muharram 1049/12 May 1639 according to the 
Ma^a-thir al-XJmara', iii, 464, and Sayyid Ahmad 
Khan) a new fort, the citadel of his new city (Fig. 3) 
Shahdjahanabad, known as the "Red Fort", 
Lai kil c a, which was completed after 9 years. The 
walling of the city proceeded at the same time, 
and it was enriched with many more buildings in the 
reign of Shahdjahan and his successors (notably 
the Djami c masdjid, commenced two years after the 
completion of the fort), who made no further ex- 
pansions of any of the successive cities. Shahdjahan- 
abad continued to be the capital of the Mughal 
rulers — except for Awrangzib, who spent much time 
in the Deccan and died at Awrangabad [q.v.] — 
although other sites around continued to be used; 
e.g., the Humayun's tomb complex, Nizamuddin, 
and the dargahs of Roshan Ciragh-i Dihll in Djah- 
anpanah and of Kutb al-Dln KakI at Mihrawli were 
all used as burial places for the later Mughal rulers, 
and at Mihrawli is a small summer palace used by 
the latest Mughals. 

With the fall of the Mughal dynasty in 1858, the 
destruction of many buildings by the British during 
and after the mutiny, and the transfer of the capital 
to Calcutta, Dihll became a town of less importance, 
the head of a local administration and a garrison 
town. The British expansion was to the north of 
Shahdjahanabad, where the Civil Lines were estab- 
lished; here the capital was transferred in 1911, 
and the building of the new city commenced, 
originally known as Raisena, later New Delhi, 
NaH Dilli. Later expansion has been westwards of 
Shahdjahanabad in the Sabzl Mandi, Karol Bagh, 
and Sadr Bazar quarters; south of Khayrpur and 
on the road to Mihrawli; and around the Canton- 
ment, north of the Gurga'on road, and the new 
airport of Palam. 

Some confusions of nomenclature, omitted in the 



LI 259 

long ago as Timur's time, and this phrase was in 
regular use in the early British period; since tlie 
building of New Delhi the expression "Old Delhi'' 
has often been falsely applied to Shahdjahanabad. 
After the building of Shahdjahan's new fort, Lai 
kil c a, the older fort of Humayun and Shir Shah was 
regularly known as the "Old Fort", Purana Kil'a 
or Kil c a-i kuhna. 

2. — Monuments. As the buildings of Dihll 
present the earliest monuments of a settled Islamic 
power in the sub-continent, and as it was there that 
the first characteristic Indian Islamic styles devel- 
oped, the influence of which was to spread far and wide 
from Dihll itself, the account of the monuments 
given here is confined to a simple description of the 
major works, arranged chronologically, and an 
account of the architectural features of the monu- 
mental complexes of buildings of different periods. 



T. Iletmish.n 




For a treatment of the styles, with plates and 
detailed drawings, see hind, Architecture. 

The earliest phase of Muslim building in Dihll is 
represented, as in the earliest stages in other sites (see 

ApjMER, BHAROC, BlDJAPUR, DAWLATABAD, DHAR, 
PJAWNPUR, GAWK, GUDJARAT, MANDU, TRIBENl) by 

the re-utilization of pillaged Hindu temple material. 
This applied to the first mosque constructed in 
India, Kutb al-DIn Aybak's Masdjid Kuwwat al- 
IsUm, earliest inscription 587/1191-2, in Kil c a 
Ray Pithora: on a temple plinth 37.8 m. by 45.4 m. 
is constructed the central court, 65.2 m. by 45.4 m., 
with colonnades of three bays on the east and two 
on north and south; the western liwan is four bays 
in depth, originally with five domes covering voids 
in front of the mihtrab recesses, its roof raised at the 
north end to accomodate a zandna gallery. The 
liwan is separated from the mosque courtyard by a 
great arched screen, added 595/1199, whose arches 



a 6o 



do not conform with the spacing of the columns and 
mihrdbs behind. The columns of the arcades were 
taken from some twenty-seven Hindu and Diavn 
temples, arranged haphazard, often set one over 
another to give the necessary height, ranged to 
support a roof made from ceiling slabs of similar 
temples, the sculptured figures mutilated and 
roughly covered with plaster, sometimes turned 
face inwards. The screen arches are corbelled, ogee 
at the top, some 2.5 metres thick, the central arch 
13.7 m. high with a span of 6.7 m. The whole surface 
of this maksura is covered with carving, Hindu 
floral motifs and arabesques, and vertical lines of 
naskh. In the court-yard stands a pillar of rustless 
malleable iron from a temple of Vishnu of the 
Gupta period (4th century A.D.), doubtless placed 
there by the builders not only as a curious relic but 
also as a symbol of their triumph over the idolaters. 
At the south-east corner of the mosque Kutb al-Din 
commenced, after the completion of his mosque, the 
minaret known as the Kutb mlnar, described 

The reign of Kutb al-DIn's successor, Shams al-DIn 
Iletmish, saw an increase in building, not only at 
Dihli. To the Dihll mosque he attempted to give 
greater scale and dignity by extensions of the 
colonnades and the great maksura screen — sym- 
metrically disposed as regards the new mihrdbs, 
columnar bays, and the arches of the maksura, thus 
indicating a design of homogeneous conception; the 
new sahn included the mlnar, to which he added 
also, and its entrances were arranged co-axially with 
those of the old mosque. The colonnade is composed 
of relatively plain columns, and the screen decora- 
tion, including Kufic character and tughra devices, 
is more obviously the work of a craftsman familiar 
with his material than is the earlier example. The 
arches, still corbelled, differ in contour from those 
of the earlier screen by the absence of the ogee 
counter-curve at the apex. Immediately west of his 
northern extension of the mosque is the Tomb of 
Iletmish (c. 632/1235 ? No dating inscriptions), a 
square chamber, originally bearing a circular dome, 
supported on corbelled squinches, the whole interior 
surface intricately banded with arabesques, diaper- 
work, and naskh and Kufic inscriptions (entirely 
Kur'anic) ; the exterior is of dressed ashlar, with the 
arched openings on north, east and south in red 
sandstone; red sandstone is also used for the 
interior, with marble on the mihrdb wall and the 
cenotaph; the true grave is in a subterranean 
tahkhdna. 

The Kutb mlnar was extended by Iletmish by the 
addition of three further storeys, to a total height 
of 69.7 m. (Cunningham, ASI, i, 195), completed 
c. 626/1229. The angle of slope is about 4 1 /* degrees 
from the vertical, and the four storeys are separated 
by balconies supported by stalactite corbelling. 
Each storey is fluted — developing probably the 
polygonal outline of the prototype minor at Ghazni 
— the lowest having alternately rounded and angular 
flutes, the second all rounded, the third all angular; 
the upper storeys, the work of FIruz Tughluk (see 
below), are plain. Each of the three lowest storeys 
is decorated with wide encircling bands of Arabic 
inscriptions in naskh (dating inscriptions, panegyrics 
of MuHzz al-Din Muhammad b. Sam and Shams 
al-Din Iletmish, Kur'anic verses); features of typi- 
cally Hindu origin are almost entirely absent. 

To the reign of Iletmish belongs the first instance 
in India of a monumental tomb, the mausoleum 
of his son Nasir al-DIn MahmQd, at Malikpur, 



of 629/1231. This stands within a plinth some 3 m. 
high in an octagonal cell, the top of which projects 
into a court-yard with a plain enclosure wall pierced 
by corbelled arches, with arcades of Hindu columns 
on the east and west walls; that on the west forms 
a small mosque, with central portico and tnihrdb. 
The external gateway bears the dating inscription 
in Kufic characters (non- Kur'anic inscriptions 
in Kufic are known only here, at the Masdjid 
Kuwwat al-Islam, and at Adjmer); the corner 
towers appear to be part of FIruz Tughluk's restora- 
tions (Futuhdt-i Firm Shdhi, 'Aligafh ed. 1943, 16). 
The tomb is locally known as "Sultan Gharl". 
presumably on account of the crypt {ghdr) in which 
Nasir al-DIn is buried, but this name is not known 
before Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Athdr al-Sanddid, lith. 
Dihll 1848, 206-8. For a detailed study see S. A. A. 
Naqvi, Sul(dn Qhdri, Delhi, in Ancient India, iii, 
1947, 4-10 and Plates I-XII. 

During the reigns of the suceeding sovereigns no 
buildings of note were erected until the reign of the 
KhaldjI ruler c Ala> al-Din, except for the tomb of 
the sultan Balban, d. 686/1287, in the south-east 
of Kil'a Ray Pithora, larger than the tomb of 
Iletmish, with side chambers leading off the main 
hall, in which appears for the first time the use of 
the true voussoired arch. This marks not only a 
technical advance in construction but also a streng- 
thening of Islamic building tradition, as opposed 
to that of the impressed Hindu craftsmen. 

c Ala> al-DIn KhaldjI's extensions to the citadel 
of Lalkot, and the building of Siri, have been men- 
tioned above. He started a grandiose plan of extension 
to the Kuwwat al-Islam mosque to the north and 
east; a few columns remain, and the foundations of 
the north gateway, to show the extent of this, and 
of the great arched maksura screen which was 
intended to be twice as long as the two previous 
screens combined, and of twice the scale; in the 
northern court-yard stands the incomplete first 
storey of a gigantic mindr, its diameter at base twice 
that of the Kutb mlnar. The most notable feature of 
these extensions is the southern gateway, the 
c Ala J i darwaza, of exceptional architectural 
merit : a square building of 10.5 m. internal dimen- 
sion, with walls 3.4 m. thick, is surmounted by a flat 
dome, with lofty (10.7 m. from ground level to apex) 
arches on east, south and west, and a smaller trefoil 
arch on the north leading to the new eastern exten- 
sion of the court-yard. The three large arches, and the 
squinches which support the dome, are of pointed 
horse-shoe shape, voussoired, with on the intrados 
a fringe of conventionalized spear-heads. A similar 
style is seen in the Djama'at Khana mosque at 
the dargdh of Nizam al-Din, the first example in 
India of a mosque built with specially quarried 
materials, not improvised from Hindu material. 
(For a discussion of this mosque see M. Zafar Hasan, 
A guide to Ni$dmu-d-Din ( = Memoir ASI, x), 
1922). Apart from the early building (madrasal) at 
Hawd 'Ala 5 ! (= Hawd-i Khass), the only other 
structure of 'Ala 3 al-DIn at Dihli is his tomb 
and madrasa to the south-west of the Masdjid 
Kuwwat al-Islam, now much ruined; the series of 
small cells on the west wall show for the first time 
in India domes supported by a corbelled pendentive. 
The location of this building and all others in the 
"Qutb site" is shown on Fig. 4; for an extensive 
description of all the monuments and archaeological 
work see J. A. Page, Historical Memoir on the Qutb, 
Delhi (= Memoir ASI, xxii), 1925; idem, Guide to 



the Qutb, Delhi, (abridged from above), Dihli 1938; 
best illustrations in H. H. Cole, The architecture of 
Ancient Delhi, London 1872. 

The achievements of GhiySth al-DIn, the founder 
of the Tughluk dynasty, are confined to the building 
of the city of Tughlukabad (see above, History), 
and his own two tomb buildings; for the first of 
these see multah; the second, commenced after 
leaving the Pandjab and coming to Dihli as sovereign, 
forms an outwork on the south side of Tughlukabad 
(see Fig. 2 above), an irregular pentagon with 
bastions at each angle, with the tomb-building 
placed diagonally at the widest part of the enclosed 
court-yard. This mausoleum is of red sandstone faced 
with white marble, its walls with a strong batter 
(25° from the vertical), with a recessed archway in 
the north, east and south sides (the west side closed 
for the mihrdb) with the "spear-head" fringe in- 
troduced under the Khaldjis and a slight ogee curve 
at the apex. Here the old Hindu trabeate system is 
joined with the newer arcuate by a lintel being 
imposed across the base of the arch. 

Muhammad b. Tughluk's foundation of 'Adilabad 
and Djahanpanah has been mentioned above; in 
the walling of the second of these is a sluice or 
regulator of seven spans, the Sat pulah, with 
subsidiary arches and end towers, its two storeys 
of seven arches holding the mechanism for regulating 
the level of a lake contained within the walls. 
Another building of his time, near the village of 
Begampur, is the Bidjay Mandal, which has 
been supposed to be the remains of his Kasr-i 
hazar situn, with the first example of intersecting 
vaulting in India; close to this is a superb but name- 
less tomb, and the Barah Khamba (see below). 

Muhammad b. Tughluk's act in transporting the 
entire elite population of Dihli to Dawlatabad [q.v.] 
resulted in the dispersal of the northern craftsmen, 
and the introduction of a rubble-and-plaster phase 
under the enthusiastic patronage of his successor 
Firuz Shah (752-90/1351-88). A list of the numerous 
building projects sponsored by this monarch is given 
by Shams-i Siradj c Afif, TaMkh-i Firuz Shdhi, and 
by Firishta, and in his own Futuhdt-i Firuz Shdhi 
he describes the monuments of his predecessors 
which he had rebuilt or renovated. These numerous 
building and restoration projects demanded a strict 
economy: plans for every undertaking were sub- 
mitted to the Diwdn-i wizdra, and the more expensive 
building materials, red sandstone and marble, were no 
longer used. Of Firuz Shah's cities, Firuzabad has been 
mentioned above; see also djawnpur, fathabad, 
hisar fIruza, and for the fortification of the kotla 
and the introduction of machicolation see BURry, 
iii. The Djami c masdjid within the kotla stands on 
a high plinth and the main gate is on the north ; the 
sahn was surrounded by deep triple aisles, and around 
the central octagonal hated was inscribed the record 
of the public works of Firuz. Only the shell of the 
building remains, much of the stone having been 
built into the walls of Shahdjahanabad by British 
engineers. The other building standing within the 
kotld is a three-storeyed pyramidal structure on which 
is mounted a pillar of Ashoka (3rd century B.C.) 
brought from the Mirath district. For these and 
other ruins in the citadel see J. A. Page, A memoir 
on Kotla Firoz Shah, Delhi (= Memoir ASI, lii) 
Dihli 1937. The mosque style of the period is better 
shown by half a dozen mosques of approximately 
the decade 766-76/1364-75: all are rubble-and- 
plaster, presumably originally whitewashed, with 



pillars and Hindu-style brackets and eaves in local 
grey granite, with prominent gateways, many- 
domed roofs, and tapering ornamental pillars 
flanking the gateways. The simplest is the mosque 
in the dargdh of Shah <Alam at Wazlrabad (= Timflr- 
pur), a simple west liwdn of five bays, with three 
domes, within which is the earliest example in Dihli 
of a zandna gallery in the rear corner of the liwdn; 
the large (court-yard 68.0 by 75.3 metres) Begampur 
mosque in the north of Djahanpanah has the sahn 
surrounded on all sides by a domed arcade, and the 
west liwdn has a tall arched pylon in the centre of 
its facade which completely masks the large central 
dome; the Sandjar mosque (also called Kali [black] 
masdjid) at Nizamuddin has the central court-yard 
divided into four smaller courts each 13. 1 by 10.1 
metres by a cruciform arcade one bay in depth, as 
well as the domed arcading on all sides (ASI, 
Annual Report, xxvii, Plate I); the Khifki mosque, 
at Khifki village in the south of Djahanpanah close 
to the Sat Pulah, has a similar arrangement, but the 
crossing arcades are of three ranks of arches, as are 
the side liwdns: hence only the four courts, each 
9.8 metres square, are open in the total area of about 
52 m. square; the Kalan (this also sometimes 
miscalled "Kali) masdjid, within the walls of the 
later Shahdjahanabad, is smaller with a single open 
court and surrounding domed arcades. This, the 
Khifki mosque, and the Djami c masdjid in the 
kotla, are all built on a high plinth over a tahkhdna 
storey, and the mosques themselves are approached 
by high flights of steps. The Kalan masdjid was no 
doubt the main mosque of the new Firuzabad 
suburbs, but the size of the Begampur and Khifki 
mosques implies that the older cities still maintained 
a considerable population. The northern suburbs 
were further provided for by the CawburdjI mosque 
on the Ridge, now so altered through various uses 
that its original plan is hardly discernible; near the 
mosque is the remains of Firuz Shah's hunting lodge, 
Kushk-i Shikar or Djahan-numa, to which he 
repaired for consolation after the death of his son, 
Fath Khan, in 776/1374- This prince is buried in the 
Kadam Sharif, a fortified enclosure (see burdj, 
iii, and ASI Annual Report, xxii, 4 and Plates IIIc 
and d) in which is a domed arcade surrounding the 
grave, over which is a stone print of the Prophet's 
foot set in a small tank of water. Firflz's own tomb is 
coupled with the madrasa he built on the site of 
'Ala 5 al-Dtn's structure at the Hawd-i Khass; the 
madrasa buildings on the east and south of the 
hawd, double-storeyed on the lake front and single 
behind, are colonnades, several bays deep, of arches 
or lintel-and-bracket construction, connecting square 
domed halls at intervals, extending about 76 m. on 
one shore and 120 m. on the other; at the south-east 
corner is the 13.7 m. square tomb, with plastered 
walls slightly battering, the two outer (south and 
east) with a slight projection in which is an arched 
opening in which the entrance is framed by a lintel- 
and-bracket; there is a single dome on an octagonal 
drum, supported by interior squinches, and the west 
wall, in which is a door to the adjoining hall, has a 
small mihrdb. The building stands on a short plinth 
extended southward to form a small terrace, which 
is surrounded by a stone railing of mortice and tenon 
construction resembling woodwork. Another tomb, 
of great architectural significance, is that of FTrOz's 
Prime Minister Khan-i Djahan TilanganI, d. 770/ 
1368-9, within the kot at Nizamuddin; this is the 
first octagonal tomb at Dihli (although the tomb- 



chamber at Sultan Gharl is octagonal also), and is 
surrounded by a verandah, each side of which has 
three arched openings surmounted by a wide 
cTtadidjd or eaves-stone; there is a central dome, and 
eight smaller dome-like cupolas, one over each face. 
The prototype of this tomb has been sought in the 
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem; it formed the model 
for many royal tombs of the subsequent "Sayyid", 
Lodi and Surl dynasties. One of the latest buildings 
of the Tughluks is the tomb of the shaykh Kablr al- 
Dln Awliya' (probably of the time of Nasir al-DIn 
MahmQd, after 796/1394); although an indifferent 



LI 263 

is early nth/i7th century; and others); outside the 
east wall of the court is the square polychromatic 
tomb of Atga Khan, foster-father of Akbar, d. 969/ 
1562, of a style similar to that of Humayun (see 
below). Some 60 m. south-east of this tomb is the 
Cawnsath Khambe, a grey marble pavilion of 
excellent proportions forming the family burial 
place of Atga Khan's son, MIrza 'Aziz Kokaltash., 
d. 1033/1624. The adjoining hot and Tilangani tomb 
have already been described. For a full account of 
all these buildings see M. Zafar Hasan, A guide to 




Fig. 5. Nizamuddin 



and half-scale copy of the tomb of Ghivath al-Din 
Tughluk, it is of interest in indicating a revival of 
sympathy for the earlier polychromatic style, a 
reaction against the Firuzian austerity. 

On FIruz Shah's tunnels at Dihli, see H. Hosten, 
in JASB, n.s. vii (1911), 99-108; viii (1912), 279-81; 
ix (1913), lxxxiii-xci. 

Since the major structures at the shrine of Nizam 
al-Din are of this time the complex is described here 
(Fig. 5). The entrance gate bears the date 780/1378-9, 
within which is a large bd'oli [q.v.] flanked by two 
tombs and a two-storeyed mosque, all of Firuzian 
appearance; the bd'oli is named Cashma-i dil kusha 
(= 703/1303-4 by abdjad). A further gate leads to 
the shrine enclosure; the shaykh's tomb dates from 
the time of Akbar, replacing an earlier one built by 
Firflz Tughluk, but has been much restored since, 
the dome being an addition of Akbar Shah II in 
1823; the Djama'a khana mosque, to the west of 
the tomb, has already been referred to. To the south 
of the enclosure are numerous graves (Djahanara, 
daughter of Shahdjahan; Muhammad Shah, d. 1161/ 
1748; Djahanglr, son of Akbar II; Amir Khusraw. 
a contemporary of the shaykh, although the tomb 



Nizdmu-d-Din (= Memoir ASI, X), Calcutta 1922. 

Another dargdh largely dating from Firuzian times 
is that of Nasir al-Din Ciragh-i Dihli, d. 757/1356 
(see cishtiyya); the east gate is of 775/'373. but the 
tomb has been much modernized ; the walls enclosing 
the shrine and village were built by Muhammad 
Shah in 1142/1729; beside stands one of the alleged 
tombs of Bahlol Lodi. 

The "Sayyid" and Lodi dynasties produced no 
great building projects; their monuments consist 
entirely of tombs, except for one significant mosque, 
and the principal ones are concentrated in three 
sites: Khayrpur, Mubarakpur, and south of Mu- 
djahidpur on the road to Haw<J-i Khass. The tombs 
are of two distinct types, square and octagonal, in 
both cases with a large central dome, frequently also 
with open ihatris above the parapets. The earliest 
octagonal example is that of Mubarak Shah, d. 838/ 
1434, in Kotla Mubarakpur, an improvement on the 
style of the Tilangani tomb although the dome Is 
not high enough and the octagonal chatris over 
each face are too crowded. The tomb of Muhammad 
Shah, ten years later, removes these defects by 
raising the drum of the dome and the lhatris, and 



adding a guldasta at each angle of the verandah 
parapet. The tomb of Sikandar Lodi, c. 924/1518, 
at the north end of Khayrpur, is of similar propor- 
tions but without the Chatris, and the dome has an 
inner and outer shell; the mausoleum stands in a 
fortified enclosure, on the west wall of which is an 
arrangement of arches resembling an Hdgdh, pre- 
sumably an outdoor mihrdb. The tomb of Mubarak 
has a detached mosque, but that of Muhammad has 
none. All tombs have sloping buttresses at the 

The square tombs probably all date from the last 
quarter of the 9th/i5th century, but they lack 
inscriptions and are known only by very uninfor- 
mative local names. The finest is the Bare Khan ka 
gumbad, "Big Khan's dome", the largest (height 
25 m.) of the three known as Tin burdj, west of 
Mubarakpur, apparently of three storeys from the 
exterior, but actually a single hall; this and the 
adjoining "Little Khan's dome" have octagonal 
chatris in the angles of the square below the drum, 
as had the Dad! ka ("Grandmother's) and Poti ka 
("Granddaughter's") gumbad of the Mudjahidpur 
group. At Khayrpur are the best preserved, the 
Bara Gumbad ("Big dome"), date 899/1494, 
which has no graves within and is locally said to be 
a gateway to the attached mosque, court-yard and 
madilis-khdna ( ?). The mosque has massive tapering 
and sloping pillars at each rear angle, each with a 
band of fluting, alternately rounded and angled, 
reminiscent of the lowest storey of the Kutb minar; 
the east facade has wide central arches whose 
spandrels are filled with the best cut-plaster deco- 
ration in Dihli. Near is the Shish gumbad, very 
similar to the Bafa gumbad, but with courses of 
dark blue encaustic tile work. 

Apart from the mosque mentioned above, the 
Lodis produced one major example of this class, the 
isolated Moth ki masdjid south of Mubarakpur, 
built by the wazir of Sikandar Lodi c. 911/1505; the 
west wall shows similar tapering pillar-turrets, but 
at the angles of the projecting mifirdb, and the 
external angles are provided with two-storeyed 
open towers; the side walls have trabeate balconies; 
the facade of the west liwdn has the contours of the 
arches emphasized by the recession of planes of the 
intrados, and the central arch is emphasized further 
by a pylon-like structure of the same height as the 
remainder; the liwdn side domes are supported on 
stalactite pendentives; white marble, red sandstone, 
and coloured encaustic tiles are used in the deco- 
rative scheme, as well as fine cut-plaster; it is 
aesthetically one of the liveliest buildings in the 
whole of Islamic art in India. Other buildings of the 
Lodis are few: a structure (madrasa?), incorporating 
a small mosque, known as the Djahaz mahall, 
on the east side of the Hawd-i l Ma1 at Mihrawli, a 
few small bdrdddris and mahalls near Nizamuddin, 
and the residence (Barah Khamba), with enclosed 
court-yard and three-storeyed tower, at Begampur. 

In the unsettled days of the early Mughal conquest 
the Lodi mode seems to have continued: the 
Djamali mosque, of 943/1536, in the south of 
Kil'a Ray Pithora, has fine ashlar masonry, five 
liwdn arches with recession of planes in the intrados, 
and the central archway sunk in a larger arch, 
with a spearhead fringe, in a central propylon rising 
above the general level of the facade, with a single 
central dome ; to the north is the insignificant-looking 
oblong building over the tomb of Fadl Allah [q.v.], 
takhallus Djamali, with the best colour decoration 
in Dihli on its ceiling. A continuation of the octagonal 



tomb style is in that of c Isa Khan Niyazi, of 954/ 
1547-8 and hence in the reign of Islam Shah Sflri; 
the construction is similar to the preceding examples, 
including the closed west wall and mihrdb, but more 
encaustic tile remains; a separate mosque stands on 
the west of the octagonal court-yard, of grey quartzite 
and red sandstone, the central bay of the three set 
in a projecting portico, with a central dome and 
Chatris over the side bays. The tomb-building has 
sloping buttresses at each angle, and is the last 
building in Dihli so treated. (For these buildings see 
S. A. A. Naqvi, Humayun' s tomb and adjacent 
buildings, Dihli 1947, 21-4). The last octagonal tomb 
in Dihli was built some fourteen years later, in the 
reign of Akbar, the tomb of Adham Khan in the 
extreme south-west of Kil'a Ray Pithora; this 
seeks to obtain additional elevation by converting 
the drum of the dome into an intermediate storey, 
arcaded externally, and without Chatris; the thick 
walls of the drum contain a labyrinth of stairways. 
Its general effect is rather spiritless. (Photograph 
and brief description in Cole, op. cit.). 

The first two Mughal emperors, Babur and 
Humayfln in his first period, added nothing to 
Dihli's monuments, except perhaps the commence- 
ment of the.Purana Kil'a; this, however, was mostly 
the work of the usurper Shir Shah Sflri, as a citadel 
for his new city. Of the city only two gateways 
remain, the northern (Lai, Kabul! or Khflni darwaza), 
opposite Firflz Shah Kotla, and the southern, with 
a short stretch of walling, near Purana Kil'a (see 
ASI, Annual Report, xxii, 6 and Plate II). Of the 
citadel the walls remain, and two major structures 
within, the Shir Mandal, a two-storeyed octagon 
of red sandstone of unknown original purpose but 
used by Humayun as a library and from which he 
fell to his death; and the mosque, with no distinc- 
tive name, which has the Djamali mosque as its 
immediate prototype: but each of the five facade 
bays has a smaller recessed archway, and every 
other feature of the earlier mosque is improved and 
refined in this later example. The external construc- 
tion is in coursed ashlar, and the liwdn facade in red 
sandstone, some of it finely carved, embellished with 
white marble and polychromatic encaustic tile work; 
inside the central dome is supported by two ranks 
of squinches, and in the side bays stalactite pen- 
dentives support the roof; the rear wall has tapering 
turrets on each side of the mihrdb projection, and 
an open octagonal turret at each angle. 

The first major building of the Mughals in Dihli 
is the tomb of the emperor Humayun, of a 
style already prefigured in the small tomb of Atga 
Khan at Nizamuddin; the foundations of it were laid 
in 976/1568-9 (so Sangin Beg, Siyar al-Mandzil, MS 
in Dihli Fort Museum; 973/1565 according to Sayyid 
Ahmad Khan, followed by most later writers) by his 
widow, employing the Persian architect Mirza 
Ghiyath, although the enclosure wall had been 
started some five years before. In a large square 
garden enclosure (340 m. side; this is the first 
Cdrbdgh garden in India still preserving its original 
plan) stands the mausoleum building, 47.5 m. 
square on a plinth 95 m. square, 6.7 m. high; each 
face is alike, having a central rectangular fronton 
containing an immense arch, flanked by smaller 
wings each containing a smaller arch; these wings 
are octagonal in plan and project in front of the main 
arches. The central chamber is surmounted by a 
bulbous double dome on a high collar, around which 
are Chatris over the corner wings and portals. The 



entire building is in red sandstone, with a liberal use 
of white and coloured marble. Neighbouring struc- 
tures are the small Nal ka gumbad, "Barber's 
dome"; the Nfla Gumbad, "Blue dome", earlier 
than Humayun's tomb and therefore not the tomb 
of Fahlm Khan, d. 1035/1626, as often stated; the 
"Afsarwala" tomb and mosque; the 'Arab Sara*!; 
and the tomb of c Isa Khan already described (see 
Fig. 6 for plan of this complex; full descriptioi 
these buildings in S. A. A. Naqvi, Humayun's Tomb 
and adjacent buildings, Dihli 1947)- Not far to the 
south is the tomb of 'Abd al-Rahim [q.v.l Khan-i 
Khanan, d. 1036/1626-7, a similar structure but 
smaller and without the octagonal corner compart- 
ments — hence a more obvious forerunner of the 



wards to the river. The diwan-i c amm is of red sand- 
stone, with slender double columns on the open 
sides; this and the palace buildings on the east have 
engrailed arches, stand on low plinths, and most 
have open lhatris at each corner of the roof. Through 
the palaces runs an ornamental canal, the Nahr-i 
Bihisht, which flows south from the Shah Burdj, 
water being brought from a point thirty kos up the 
Djamna (through the Western Djamna canal; for the 
history of this, which dates from the time of Firuz 
Shah Tughluk, see J. J. Hatten, History and descrip- 
tion of government canals in the Punjab, Lahore n.d., 
1-3) ; this has a plain marble channel, which in the 
Rang mahall flows into a large tank in which is set a 
marble lotus, having previously passed, in the royal 



Cilia Nizam al-din 



R ti 

. c Isa Khan - 1 £ 




400 500 m . 



Fig. 6. Humayun's tomb 



Tadj Mahall than Humayun's tomb; the white 
marble of this building was later stripped off by 
Asaf al-Dawla, wazir of Awadh. Other early Mughal 
buildings are the Lai cawk or Khayr al-manazil 
(the latter name a chronogram, 969 = 1561-2), a 
mosque built by Maham Anaga, foster-mother of 
Akbar, with double-storeyed chambers on east, 
south and north forming a madrasa (ASI, Annual 
Report, xxii, 6 and Plate I a and b; inscr., Memoir 
ASI, xlvii, 10); and the mosque of Shaykh <Abd 
al-Nabi, sadr al-sudur of Akbar, between Firuz 
Shah Kdtia and the Purana Kil'a, built 983/1575-6 
(see M. Zafar Hasan, Mosque of Shaikh l Abdu-n 
Nabi (= Memoir ASI, ix), Calcutta 1921). 

The main phase of Mughal building in Dihli was 
the construction of Shahdjahanabad and the Red 
Fort, L51 kil'a, founded 1048/1638. The main 
features of Mughal palaces and other buildings will 
be described in mtjghals; a brief account only is 
given here. Within the palace enclosure, about 950 
by 505 m., are a central court, containing the 
Diwan-i 'amrn; flanking this, two open spaces con- 
taining gardens; and, on the eastern wall, the range 
of palaces facing inwards to the gardens and out- 



private apartments, under a screen bearing a 
representation of the "Scales of Justice", Mizan-i 
c adl. Off these apartments is the external octagonal 
balcony, the Muthamman Burdj, from which 
the emperor gave the darshan [q.v.]. The Rang 
mahall and the Diwan-i khass are the most 
lavishly ornate of these palaces, built and paved in 
white marble, the piers of the arches inlaid with 
floral designs in pietra dura; the latter building 
contained the fabulous Peacock Throne (Takht-i 
td'iis), taken to Persia by Nadir Shah in 1152/1739 
and there broken up (G. N. Curzon, Persia and the 
Persian question, i, 321-2). The disposition of these 
and the other buildings is shown in the plan, Fig. 7. 

The fort originally contained no mosque; the 
Moti masdjid was added by Awrangzib in 1073/ 
1662-3, entirely of white marble, with a curved 
"Bengali" cornice over the central bay. For the 
fort and its buildings, see G. Sanderson, A guide to 
the buildings and gardens, Delhi Fort', Dihli 1937. 

The Djami' masdjid of Shahdjahanabad 
(named Masd[id-i Djahdn-numa) , built 1057-9/ 
1648-50, stands on an open plain to the west of the 
Lai Kil'a, its high basement storey, with blind 



DIHLI — DIHLI SULTANATE 



arches on all sides, built on an outcrop of the local 
Aravalll ridge. The gates on north, east and south 
have an external opening in the form of a half-dome 
with a smaller door in the base of each. The east 
gate, used as the royal entrance, is the largest. The 
Uwan surrounding the court is open to the outside, 
and has a square burdi, surmounted by an open 
lhatrl, at each angle. The western sanctuary is a 
detached compartment 79 m - b y 2 7-5 rn. with the 




a — Shah burdj b — Hayat Bakhsh bagh c — 
Hammam d — MotI masdjid e — Dlwan-i khass 
f — Kh'abgah & Muthamman burdj g — Rang 
mahall h — Mumtaz mahall i — Asad burdj j — 
Diwan-i c amm. k — Nawbat khana 1 — Chatta 
cawk m — Lahawr darwaza n — Dihll darwaza 

court-yard (99 m. square), with a wide central arch 
flanked by five smaller bays of engrailed arches on 
each side, and a three-storeyed minaret at each front 
angle; above are three bulbous domes of white marble 
with slender vertical stripes of black marble. The 
mosque as a whole is in red sandstone, with white 
marble facings on the sanctuary, and white marble 
vertical stripes on the minarets. Nearly contemporary 
is the Fathpurl masdjid at the west end of 
Candni Cawk, the main street of Shahdjahanabad, 
of similar style but less refinement, with a single 
dome; there is a mosque school within the enclosure. 
A smaller mosque of similar style, but with the 
three domes more bulbous and with equal black and 
white marble stripes, is the Zinat al-Masadjid, 
c. 1 1 12/1700, in the east (river) quarter of Shah- 
djahanabad. 

Of the latest Mughal phase must be mentioned the 
Moti masdjid in the dargah of Kutb al-DIn 
Awliya 5 at Mihrawll (early I2th/i8th century); the 
tomb, madrasa, and mosque of GhazI al- 



DIn Khan, father of Asaf Djah, in a hornwork 
outside the Adjm€r gate of Shahdjahanabad (1122/ 
1710), and where the Arabic school is still main- 
tained; the gateway of the Kudsiya Bagh, north 
of the Kashmir Gate, c. 1163/1750, and the elegant 
diminutive mosque (Sonahrl masdjid) of Dja- 
wid Khan, of fawn-coloured sandstone, of the same 
time; and the finely-proportioned fawn sandstone 
tomb of Safdar Djang, d. 1166/1753, standing in 
the last great Mughal garden. One British building 
is worth mention, St. James's church, built by Col. 
James Skinner in Palladian style in 1824. The vast 
building projects of New Delhi (NaH Dillt) show 
occasional reminiscences of the glory of Mughal 
building, but have no further Islamic significance. 
Bibliography: Specialist monographs and 
articles have been cited in the text. General 
works: H. C. Fanshawe, Delhi Past and Present, 
London 1902; H. Sharp, Delhi: its story and 
buildings, London 192 1; G. Hearn, The seven 
cities of Delhi, Calcutta 1928 (not generally 
reliable); P. Brown, Indian Architecture: Islamic 
period, Bombay n.d., passim; Sayyid Ahmad 
Khan, Athdr al-Sanddid, Dihli 1263/1847, lith., 
2nd ed. Dihll 1270/1854, later liths. Lucknow 1876, 
1900, and Cawnpore (Kanpur) 1904; Fr. trans, by 
Garcin de Tassy in JA, V e serie, xv, 508-36; xvi, 
190-254, 392-451. 521-43; xvii, 55i-6o; based on 
Ahmad Khan: Carr Stephen, The archaeology and 
monumental remains of Delhi, Simla etc. 1876; 
Journal of the Archaeological Society of Delhi, 
1850, passim; J. Ph. Vogel, Catalogue of the Delhi 
museum of archaeology, Calcutta 1908, Appx. II 
{The sultans of Delhi and their existing monuments 
....), 60-71; cf. also W. Franklin, An account of 
the present state of Delhi, in Asiatick Researches, iv, 
419-32 (1795). For inscriptions at Dihli, see 
specially J. Horovitz, A list of the published 
Mohamedan inscriptions of India, in EIM, 1909-10, 
30-144; Memoir ASI, xlvii. (J. Burton-Page) 
DIHLI SULTANATE, the principal Muslim 
kingdom in northern India from its establish- 
ment by Iletmish (608-633/1211-1236) until its 
submergence in the Mughal empire under Akbar 
(963-1014/1556-1605). The establishment of the Dihll 
sultanate was made possible by the Indian campaigns 
of the Ghurid Mu c izz al-DIn Muhammad b. Sam 
and his lieutenant Kutb al-DIn Aybak. Having 
recovered Ghaznl from the Ghuzz in 568/1173. in 
571/1175 Muhammad b. Sam captured Multan and 
UCC, hoping to by-pass the Ghaznawid possessions 
in the Pandjab. A severe defeat near Mount Abu 
in 574/1178 by Mularadja II, the Calukya ruler of 
Gudjarat, induced the Ghurids not to persist with 
the southern route into Hindustan via the Gumal 
pass. The capture of Peshawar in 575/"79, of 
Sialkot in 581/1185, and of Lahore finally in 582/1186, 
ended Ghaznawid rule in India and placed the 
Ghurids in a favourable strategic position vis-a-vis 
the Radjput clans. Defeated however at Taraln 
(Taraori) in 587/1191 by theCawhans (orCahamanas) 
under Prithvlradja, Mu'izz al-DIn returned the 
following year with an army, said by Firishta to be 
of 120,000 horse, decisively to defeat the Cawhans 
at the same place. Although HansI, Kuhram and 
Dihll (588/1192) were occupied, the political frag- 
mentation of northern India prevented Ghurid 
victories from having more than a temporary and 
local result. The Gahadavala chief, Djayacandra was 
defeated and slain near Candawar on the Djamna in 
590/1194 and Banaras occupied, but even so Kutb 
al-DIn Aybak had to fight hard to retain Koyl and 



DIHLI SULTANATE 



267 



Adjmer and Mu'izz al-DIn had to enter India himself 
in 592/1 195-6 to take Bayana, the stronghold of the 
Djadon Bhaffi Radjputs. Thereafter, however, 
until the year of his death, Mu'izz al-Din left Kutb 
al-DIn a free hand in Hindustan. In 592/1196, the 
latter defeated an attempt by the Mhers, in alliance 
with the Calukyas, to retake Adjmer and in the 
following year defeated the Calukyas near Mt. 
Abu without however attempting permanently to 
occupy their territory. Turning his attention to the 
upper Ganges, Aybak occupied Bada'Qn in 594/ 
1197-8 and Kanawdj in 595/1198-9. In 597/1 200-1, 
Gwaliyar was taken and the Bundelkhand area was 
penetrated in 599/1202-3 with the capture of 
Kalandjara (Kalindjar). 

When, in 602/1206, Mu'izz al-DIn was assassinated 
at Damyak on the Indus (on the identity of the 
assassins see Habibullah, The foundation of Muslim 
rule in India, 79), the Ghurid position in India was 
that of a precarious military occupation. Holding 
only the chief towns of the Pandjab, Sind and the 
Gaiiges-Pjamna Do'ab, the Ghurid forces were 
menaced by the Khokars along their line of com- 
munication with Ghazni and were faced by a 
resurgence of the Radjputs in Bundelkhand (Kalin- 
djar had been retaken by the Candelas) and around 
Gwaliyar which had been retaken by the Pariharas. 
Moreover the Gahadavalas were still active in the 
districts around Farrukhabad and Bada'un. The 
Radjput clans had but melted into the countryside 
hoping to re-emerge and take control when the 
Turkish invaders had passed on. Indeed, by accepting 
Prithvlradja's son and the Ray of Gwaliyar Sallak- 
shanapala as tributaries, the Ghurids may have 
testified to their limited political role in Hindustan 
and their principal pre-occupation with their extra- 
Indian rivalry with the Kh'arazm-Shah and the 
Kara-Khitav. 

That the consolidation of the Ghurid position in 
Hindustan was still a secondary consideration even 
after Mu'izz al-Dln's death is evident from the 
subsequent career of Kutb al-DIn Aybak. Said by 
his panegyrist Fakhr-i Mudabbir to have been 
appointed wall '■ahd-i Hindustan by Mu'izz al-DIn 
shortly before 602/1206, on his master's death Kutb 
al-DIn moved from the neighbourhood of Dihli to 
Lahore and assumed power there. (Statements that 
he assumed the title of sultan are not corroborated 
r inscriptional data and are not 
h others that he sought and obtained 
a patent of manumission and a diploma as malik 
of Hindustan from Ghiyath al-DIn Mahmud, nephew 
of Mu'izz al-Din and ruler of FIruz Kuh). Main- 
taining his headquarters at Lahore, he fended off 
Tadj al-DIn Ylldlz who claimed the Ghurid con- 
quests in Hindustan; when, in 605/1208 Ylldlz moved 
out of Ghazni into the Pandjab, Kutb al-Din promptly 
drove him back and occupied Ghazni himself, only in 
turn to be expelled by the people of Ghazni after the 
proverbial 'forty days'. 

It is significant that no efforts by Kutb al-Din to 
extend the conquests in Hindustan are recorded in 
the four years before his death at Lahore in an 
accident at tawgan in 607/1210. 

Kutb al-DIn was succeeded at Lahore by his son 
Aram Shah, but at Dihli a group of military officers 
set up Iletmish, mukfa 1 of Bada'iin and son-in-law 
of Aybak. Aram Shah was slain while marching on 
Dihli. However, before Iletmish was secure, he 
had first to put down a revolt by the Turkish 
dfdttddrs of Dihli. 



Shams al-Din Iletmish (lltutmish), an Ilbari 
Turk, may be regarded as the founder of an indepen- 
dent sultanate of Dihli. (The correct form of the 
name is Iletmish, as shown by Hikmet Bayur in 
Belleten, xiv, 1950, 567-88). His reign saw three main 
political developments — the severance of political 
ties between the Turks and Afghans in Hindustan 
and Central Asia, the achievement of primacy in 
Muslim India by the ruler of Dihli, and the firm 
grasping of the main strategic centres of the north 
Indian plain by the forces of Dihli. But in 608/1211, 
another former Mu'izzi slave, Nasir al-DIn Kabaca, 
the ruler of Multan, had taken advantage of the 
struggle between Aram Shah and Iletmish to occupy 
Lahore, Tadj al-Din Ylldlz had not abandoned his 
claim to the Ghurid conquests in India and numerous 
Hindu chiefs were threatening the Turkish hold over 
Bada'un, Kanawdj and Banaras. Radjasthan also 
had slipped out of Dihli's feeble grasp. 

Placating Ylldlz by acceptance of the (Itatr and 
durbdsh of sovereignty and by not stirring when the 
latter's troops drove Kabaca from Lahore, Iletmish 
tightened his hold over Sarsuti and Kuhram east 
of the Satladj and when, in 612/1215, YUdiz was 
forced out of Ghazni into the Pandjab by the forces 
of the Kh w arazm-Shah, Iletmish was able to defeat 
and capture him at Tara'in (Taraori). He still did 
not hasten, however, to occupy Lahore. 

Cingiz Khan's attack upon the Kh"arazm-Shah 
hastened the political isolation of the Turks in India. 
Iletmish refused to be drawn into the struggle 
between the Mongols and Djalal al-Din Kh'arazm- 
Shah [q.v.], watching the latter erode Kabaca's 
position in the Pandjab and Sind. Taking advantage 
of Kabaca's difficulties, Iletmish occupied Lahore 
and in 625/ 1228 drove Kabaca from Multan and 
Uc4 to a death by drowning in the Indus. Although 
Iletmish occupied Sialkof (and Lahore when he 
could), by drawing back his effective frontier east of 
the Beas, he managed to avoid a head-on clash 
with the Mongols before his death. 

In the east, where Muhammad Bakhtiyar KhaldjI 
had overcome the Sena kingdom in Bengal in 600-2/ 
1203-6, Iletmish repelled Ghiyath al-DIn 'Iwaz 
Khaldii's encroachments in Bihar in 623/1225; in 
the following year the latter was slain by Iletmish's 
eldest son Nasir al-Din Mahmud. Towards the end 
of 627/1230, Iletmish invaded Lakhnawti and slew 
the KhaldjI chief Balka. 

Against the Radjputs, Iletmish was successful in 
capturing, at least temporarily, Ranthambhor in 
624/1226, Mandor in 625/1227, Gwaliyar in 629/1231, 
and in plundering Bhilsa and Udjdjayn (Ujjain) in 
632/1234-5. Nevertheless his lieutenants were 
worsted in encounters with the Cawhans of Bundi 
and the Candelas of Narwar and even in the D6'ab 
Hindu chiefs needed constant overawing. 

The appearance of an independent Muslim power 
in north India was however signalized by Iletmish 
receiving, in 626/1229, a robe of honour and the title 
of Nasir Amir al-Mu'minin from the 'Abbasid caliph, 
al-Mustansir. 

That the Dihli sultanate had 'settled in' in 
northern India by the end of Iletmish's reign is 
suggested by its capacity to survive faction, Mongol 
pressure and sapping by Hindu chiefs during the 
years immediately following. Within ten years of 
Iletmish's death, the mwfcta's and officials had 
accepted and deposed four of his children or grand- 
children, Rukn al-Din Firuz (633/1236), Radiyya 
(634-7/1236-40), Mu'izz al-DIn Bahrain, (637-9/ 
1240-2) and 'Ala 3 al-Din Mas'ud (639-44/1242-6). 



DIHLI SULTANATE 



Stability was not achieved until the reign of Nasir 
al-Din Mahmud (644-64/1246-66) during whose time 
effective authority was exercised by Ghivath al-DIn 
Balban as nd'ib. Most sources picture Nasir al-DIn 
as a pious recluse, but from the evidence of 'Isaml's 
Futuh al-Saldtin, it is possible that this is an 
exaggeration. (See also K. A. Nizami, Balban, the 
regicide, in bibl.).). 

The ceaseless struggle required of the Turks and 
Afghans in Hindustan to maintain Dihli as the 
principal, let alone the paramount, power at this 
time, is emphasized by the career of Balban both as 
nd'ib and sultan. Ceaseless military activity was 
demanded. In 645/1247, Balban plundered the 
areas between Kalindjar and Karra; in 646/1248, 
he led an unsuccessful raid against Ranthambhor 
and in 649/1251 he marched against Cahafadeva, 
the Pjadjapella ruler of Gwaliyar and Narwar. In 
652/1254 he campaigned against the Katehriyas 
whose activities always threatened the hold of Dihli 
over Bada'On and Sambhal, north of the Ganges. 
Depredations by the YaduvanshI Radjputs of the 
northern Alwar area, the 'Mewatls', were endemic 
in the last decade of Nasir al-Din Mahmud's reign, 
with raids against HansI in 655/1256 and even as 
far as the environs of Dihli itself. 

Early in Balban's own reign (664-86/1266-87), 
he cleared the forests near Dihli of marauders and 
pacified the Bhodjpur, Patlyali and Kampil districts, 
stationing garrisons of Afghans there. One historian 
of the next century, Diya 5 al-Din Baranl, depicts 
Balban as consciously pursuing, in his own reign, a 
purely defensive policy and as concerned mainly to 
hold the western marches against the Mongols. 
That this is probably an ex post facto rationalization, 
provoked by the contrast with the succeeding 
period, is suggested by the fierceness of Balban's 
reaction to trouble in Lakhnawtl in the 1280's when 
he put forth a great military effort to suppress 
Tughril who had assumed independence under the 
title of Sultan Mughlth al-DIn. Dihli was not always 
so mindful of events in Bengal. Although Balban 
strengthened the frontier strongholds of Dipalpur, 
Samana and Bhatinda and posted his favourite 
son Muhammad to Multan and Lahore, the Mongols 
were too preoccupied with the quarrels between the 
Caghatays and the Il-Khanids and their rivalry in 
Afghanistan to be a serious threat to the Dihli 
sultanate in Balban's time. 

As Muljammad was killed in a skirmish with the 
Mongols in 684/1286, and Balban's second son 
Bughra Khan preferred his ik(d c of Lakhnawtl, 
Balban was succeeded by his grandson, Mu'izz al-DIn 
Kaykubad who, young and frivolous, proved in- 
capable of withstanding the intrigues of ambitious 
ministers and the faction struggles between groups 
of Turks and Khaldjls. Eventually, succumbing to 
paralysis, he was displaced by his infant son, 
Kayumarth, a puppet in the hands first of the 
Turks and then of the Khaldjls. The Khaldji leader, 
Pjalal al-DIn, accepted the status of ndHb to 
Kayumarth ; after about three months, finding that, 
in order to protect himself against the jealousies of 
other nobles, he needed the title to as well as the 
reality of power, Pjalal al-DIn assumed the sultanate 
himself (689/1290). 

By Muslim historians of a later generation, the 
end of Balban's dynasty was regarded as signalizing 
the end of the Turkish sultanate of Dihli. In the 
sense of the race of the sultan this is so, but not in 
the sense that the ruling elite had hitherto been 
exclusively Turkish. Pjalal al-DIn Khaldji had been 



Balban's mu%ta< of Samana before becoming '■arid-i 
mamdlik under Mu'izz al-DIn; and Balban's <-arid-i 
mamdlik, c Imad al-Mulk Rawat, was a converted 
Hindu. The outcome of the diversification of the 
Muslim ruling groups through immigration, inter- 
marriage and concubinage with the subject popu- 
lation was to become more evident under the 
Khaldjls, but Baranl's rhetoric, for example, cannot 
conceal the fact that the process had already gone a 
considerable way under Balban. 

Pjalal al-DIn Khaldji's assassination by his 
nephew, 'Ala 5 al-DIn, has enabled Baranl, against 
the evidence of events and the testimony of Amir 
Khusraw's Miftdh al-Futuh, to fasten upon him the 
character of an ageing, indulgent and gullible 
valetudinarian. Actually, he suppressed a revolt by 
Balban's former officers in Sha'ban 6S9/August- 
September 1290, besieged Ranthambhor (though 
unsuccessfully) in 690/1291 and defeated a Mongol 
foray in 691/1291-2. He also pillaged Mandor and 
Udjdjayn (Ujjain) at the end of 691/1292. 

But it was under 'Ala' al-DIn Khaldji (695-715/ 
1296-1315) that, for a brief period, the Dihli sultanate 
attained an imperial status in the sub-continent. 
c Ala> al-DIn was probably born about 666/1267-8. 
A participant in the Khaldji coup against Balban's 
family and • the other military officers, he was 
appointed mukfa' of Karra in 690/1291 from whence 
he raided BhllsS and then, in 695/1296, unbeknown 
to Pjalal al-DIn Khaldji, the Yadava kingdom of 
Devagiri (Deogir). Loaded with booty, he was met 
on the Ganges near Manikpur by Pjalal al-Din who 
appears to have been so avid to share the spoils 
that he was careless of his own safety. Fear of the 
influence of powerful enemies at court feeding his 
ambition, c Ala> al-DIn had his uncle slain. 

Supported by his brother Almas Beg, 'Ala' al-Din 
bought over many maliks and amirs by money and 
promotion. Within a few months of his accession, 
he had captured the surviving sons of Pjalal al-Din 
Khaldji and their supporters and blinded, im- 
prisoned or executed them. 

The reign was noteworthy in that serious attacks 
upon Hindustan by the Caghatay Mongols of 
Transoxiana were repulsed, the influence of Dihli 
over Radjasthan was greatly extended and profi- 
table raids, which made possible the introduction 
of a Muslim ruling class there later, were made 
against the Hindu kingdoms of the Deccan and the 
far south. The historian Baranl details important 
changes in the system of administration and 
measures to control the prices of necessities at 
headquarters and thus lessen the cost of a large 
army. (See Baranl, Ta'rikk-i-Firiiz Shdhi, Bib. Ind. 
ed., 282-8, 302-19). There are hints of unwonted 
activity in these spheres in other contemporary or 
near-contemporary evidence. It is not clear from tne 
evidence why 'Ala' al-DIn should have succeeded in 
winning the co-operation of the military and official 
classes for reforms which adversely affected them. 

The rivalry between Dawa Khan, great-great 
grandson of Caghatay and ruler of Transoxiana, and 
the Great Khans in the east in alliance with the II- 
Khans in the west, led to an effort by Dawa to expand 
in the direction of Afghanistan and Hindustan. The 
first Mongol invasion of 'Ala' al-DIn's reign, into 
the Pandjab in 697/1 297-8, was worsted at pjalandhar 
and the second, into Slwistan in 698/1299 was equally 
abortive. A third, later the same year, under Kutlugh 
Kh'adja, son of Dawa, reached Kill near Dihli 
before it too was defeated. The invasion of Targhl 
in 702-3/1303 invested Dihli and appears to have 



D1HLI SULTANATE 



been thwarted of success only by 'A13' al-DIn 
KhaldjI's entrenchments at Sirl. (On the location 
of Sirl, see ASI, i, Simla 1871, 207-12). Other in- 
cursions were defeated at Amroha in 705/1305, and 
near the Raw! in 706/1306 by Malik Kafur and Malik 
Tughluk. But although Dihll was almost uniformly 
successful against the Caghatay Mongols, the cessation 
of major attacks during the latter half of 'Ala' al-Din's 
reign was probably caused more by an intensification 
of antagonism between the Il-Khans and Dawa's 
successors than by discomfiture in Hindustan; 
Malik Tughluk appears to have been kept busy 
combatting minor forays as mukta' of Dipalpur. 

'Ala' al-DIn had not waited upon security from 
the Mongols before expanding the sultanate in India 
itself. In 698/1299, Gudjarat was invaded and 
Khambayat plundered. (See K. S. Lai, History of the 
Khaliis. 83, on the date of this expedition). In 
700/1301, Ranthambhor, in 702/1303 Cittor, in 
705/1305 Mandu were captured, to be followed in 
708/1308 by the capture of Siwana and in 711/1311-2 
of Djalor. These victories in Radjasthan were 
essential to the success of 'Ala' al-Din's expeditions 
south of the Narbada. The Yadava kingdom of 
Devagiri was laid under tribute in 706-7/1307, the 
Kakatlya kingdom of Telingana in 709/1309-10. In 
710/1311, with the help of the Hoysala Ballaladeva 
of Dwarasamudra, Malik Kafur invaded the Pandya 
kingdom in the far south, returning laden with 
spoils to Dihli in 711/1311. 

The successes of 'Ala' al-DIn KhaldjI's reign may 
be attributable partly to the personal drive of a 
sultan requiring, as his uncle's murderer, to go on 
living dangerously, partly to the financial appeal 
of his earliest Deccan raid and the conquest of 
Gudjarat to the soldiery, and partly to the services 
of Indian-born Muslims and converted Hindu 
slaves. Moreover, he treated defeated Hindu rulers 
in a conciliatory way, receiving them at court and 
marrying into their families. (He himself married a 
daughter of RSmadeva of Devagiri and his son 
Khidr Khan married "Duwal Rani" (correctly 
Devaldevi), daughter of Ray Karan of Gudjarat). 
It is significant that he was content to reduce 
the Hindu kingdoms of south India to a tributary 
status. His administrative measures will be men- 
tioned under a general reference to the political 
institutions of the Dihll sultanate. 

'Ala' al-DIn KhaldjI did not however succeed in 
perpetuating the sultanate in his family. On his 
death, his ndHb Malik Kafur raised 'Ala 3 al-Din's 
six-year-old son 'Umar Khan to the throne as 
Shihab al-DIn 'Umar KhaldjI, blinding Khidr Khan 
and Shadi Khan before himself being murdered by 
the palace payks. 'Ala' al-DIn's third son Kutb 
al-DIn Mubarak Shah KhaldjI then ascended 
the throne. During his reign (716-20/1316-20), a 
revolt in Gudjarat was suppressed, Devagiri was 
garrisoned and Telingana and the far south raided 
again. However, Kutb al-DIn was murdered by a 
Hindu convert, his favourite Khusraw Khan 
Barwari (on his name and origin see: Hodlvala, 
Studies in Indo-Muslim history, i, 369-71), who 
assumed the title of Sultan Nasir al-DIn Khusraw 
Shah. 

Tradition formed under the Tughluks depicts his 
rule of four months as that of an avowed Hindu 
infidel; it is evident however that Kutb al-DIn was 
unpopular among important elements of the military 
classes [there had been plots against his life in 718/ 
1318 when coins were struck in favour of one Shams 
al-DIn Mahmud Shah (see R. B. Whitehead, Some 



rare coins of the Pathan sultans of Delhi, in JASB, 
1910, Numismatic Supplement xiv, 566-7; Shamsu- 
d-din Mahmud of Dehli, in JASB, 1912, Numis- 
matic Supplement xvii, 123-124; H. Nelson Wright, 
The sultans of Delhi; their coinage and metrology, 
Dihll 1936, 109-10; K. S. Lai, op. cit. 330-2, 337-8)]. 
Historians favouring the Tughluks state that many 
Muslims either accepted office under him or refused 
to join Malik Tughluk's revolt, or fought energetically 
on the Barwari's behalf. It is stated that Hindu 
Khokhar chiefs also supported the Tughluks. 
However, Ghazi Malik, later Ghiyath al-DIn Tughluk, 
encouraged by his son Malik Fakhr al-DIn Diawna. 
marched on Dihll, defeating the forces of Nasir al- 
Din Khusraw Shah twice, capturing and executing 
him. 

According to Ibn Battuta, [Rihla, ed. Defremery 
and Sanguinetti, iii, 201), Ghiyath al-Din Tughlufc 
was a Karawna Turk. (On this see Wolseley Haig, 
Five questions in the history of the Tughluq dynasty 
of Dihli, in JRAS, July 1922, 319-21). He appears to 
have risen to the appointment of wakil-ddr under 
Mu'izz al-DIn Kaykubad and first to have obtained 
the post of mukta' under Djalal al-Din KhaldjI. 
His reign (720 5/1320-5) saw a further campaign 
against Telingana, the repulse of a Mongol raid, a 
raid into Djadjnagar and an expedition to Lakh- 
nawti to re-assert Dihll's suzerainty. Ghiyath al-DIn 
Tughluk met his death under a collapsing hunting 
pavilion at Afghanpur. The complicity of Muhammad 
b. Tughluk in his father's death has been exhaus- 
tively argued (see Syed Moinul Haq, Was Mohammad 
bin Tughlak a parricide?, in Muslim University 
Journal, Aligarh, v/2, October 1938, 17-48). In the 
light of Diya' al-DIn Barani's apparently genuine 
mystification at the event, the absence of condem- 
nation of Muhammad b. Tughluk (whom he condemns 
fiercely on other counts) and the unnecessarily 
elaborate and haphazard method of killing alleged, 
Muhammad b. Tughluk is, in this article also, 
adjudged innocent of his father's death. 

The reign of Muhammad b. Tughluk (725-52/ 
I 325-5i) appears to have been a watershed in the 
history of the Dihll sultanate. At the outset, Dihll's 
authority was, according to Diya' al-DIn Barani, 
recognized in twenty-three provinces, and the 
picture drawn by Ibn Battuta in the 730/1330's is 
one of Dihll's power and magnificence. Yet by 
752/1351 the power of Dihll south of the Narbada 
was clearly forfeit and revolt endemic elsewhere. 
Barani's interpretation of Muhammad b. Tughluk's 
troubles is too redolent of his general philosophy of 
history (see P. Hardy, Historians of medieval India, 
36-9, 124-5) to be acceptable as it stands (it 
hardly explains the military support the sultan en- 
joyed until his natural death, for instance). 

Perhaps the decision which did most, in the long 
term, to undermine the sultan of Dihll's authority was 
Muhammad b. Tughluk's attempt to make Deogir 
(Dawlatabad [q.v.]) a second capital and to settle 
numbers of Muslims belonging to the ruling elite in 
the Deccan. During the two previous reigns, the 
temptation among Muslims of the Deccan armies to 
plot against the Dihli sultan had been shown to 
exist. By changing the KhaldjI policy of suzerainty 
over south India for one of settlement in south 
India, Muhammad b. Tughluk unintentionally 
ensured that such temptations would be successful. 
The relationship of other projects of the sultan — an 
expedition said to have been aimed at the conquest 
of Khurasan, but probably at the seizure of Peshawar 
or Ghaznl (Barani's geographical s 



DIHLI SULTANATE 



vague and uncorroborated, while 'Isaml speaks of a 
Peshawar expedition about the same date), a 
disastrous campaign against Karafill in the Kumaon- 
Garhwal region of the Himalayan foothills, the issue 
of token currency [see dar al-darb] — to the many 
rebellions has not been satisfactorily established. It 
was perhaps important that the Dihll-Do'ab area was 
afflicted by a disastrous famine in 736/1335-6. In all, 
Muhammad b. Tughluk was called upon to put down 
twenty-two rebellions, the most important of which, 
as resulting in a permanent loss of hegemony, were 
in Ma'bar (735/1334-5). Gulbarga (740/1339). Waran- 
gal (746/ 1345-6) and Deogir, which led to the pro- 
clamation, in 748/1347, of an independent sultanate 
under c Ala J al-DIn Bahman Shah [see bahmanids]. 
Muhammad b. Tughluk died near Thatfha while in 
pursuit of one Taghi, a Turkish rebel, who had taken 
refuge with the Sammas of Sind. It is noteworthy 
that tradition in sUfi or s«/»-influenced writing is 
generally hostile to Muhammad b. Tughluk. (He is 
known to have welcomed a pupil of Ibn Taymiyya 
to his court (see K. A. Nizami, Some aspects of khdnqah 
life in medieval India, in Stud. Isl., viii, 1957, 69).) 
Muhammad's successor, his cousin Firuz b. Radjab, 
selected by the army in Sind, was apparently persona 
grata to the jr«/»s of the time; the extant accounts 
of the reign are mainly panegyrical and in the 
mandkib idiom; they depict him as pious and 
benevolent, shunning war and devoting himself to 
building. Nevertheless, before old age came upon 
him, he seems to have been no more pacific than 
Dihli sultans usually were. He led expeditions to 
Lakhnawti in 754/1353-4 and in 760/1359, followed 
by a foray into Diadinagar in 761/1360 and Nagarkof 
762/1361. Other campaigns followed to Thatfha in 
767-8/1366-7, Etawa in 779/1377 and Katehar 
in 782/1380. Firuz Shah Tughluk did however 
refrain, despite an invitation, about 767/1366, from 
disaffected leaders in the Bahmani sultanate, from 
attempting to recover Dihli's former possessions 
south of the Narbada. The impression of prosperity 
and contentment among all sections of the population 
given in 'Afif's Ta'rikk-i Firuz Shdhi was probably 
heightened by the contrast with the period after 
Timur's incursion into Hindustan, when the work 

Perhaps FlrOz's longevity (he died in 790/1388) 
had removed all restraint from the frustrated 
ambitions of his descendants, for after his death his 
sons and grandsons fell to struggling for the throne 
without regard for the consequences for the sultanate. 
By 796/1393-4, there were two would-be sultans, 
Mahmud, son of Muhammad the third son of Firuz 
Shah Tughluk, with headquarters in old Dihli, and 
Nusrat Mian, son of Fath Khan the eldest son of 
Firuz, with headquarters in Firuzabad, the new 
capital built by Firuz Shah Tughluk to the north-east 
of old Dihli. It was not surprising that the muktaH 
of the provinces seized their opportunity to become 
independent or to raise their terms for supporting 
one or other of the contestants. 

Upon a scene of political disintegration burst 
Timur's invading army. Crossing the Indus in 
Muharram 801/September 1398, capturing Bhat' 
nagar but by-passing Dipalpur and Samana, Timiir 
defeated the forces of Sultan Mahmud before Dihli 
and occupied and sacked Dihli itself. The consequent 
political anarchy is reflected in the purely local 
scale of the events recorded in the histories of the 
period. The possessor of Dihli itself became merely 1 
one of many military chiefs, both Muslim and | 



Hindu, struggling to widen the area in north India 
from which they drew revenue, or to increase their 
military following. Some of Dihli's former officers 
succeeded in assuming complete independence of 
Dihli. In 808/1406 Hushang Shah put the seal on 
his father Dilawar Khan's independent rule in 
Malwa with a proclamation of an independent 
sultanate; in 810/1407 Zafar Khan did the same in 
Gudjarat. In the east, the area of Awadh and Tirhut 
became the centre of the independent power of 
Pjawnpur under the eunuch Malik Sarwar (Diawnpur 
appears to have become formally independent of 
Dihli in 803/1400). Khandesh in the valley of the 
Tapti, Kalpi and Mahoba in eastern Radjasthan 
also became independent in the period immediately 
after Timur's invasion. 

Dihli itself, a capital city without an empire, came 
in 817/1414 into the possession of the 'Sayyid' 
Khidr Khan, governor of Multan, Mahmud, the last 
of the Tughluks, having died the previous year. He 
lay claim to a title no higher than Rayat-i A c la and, 
according to the Ta'rikh-i Mufiammadi, (B.M. Or. 
137, folios 3iib-3i2a) acknowledged the suzerainty 
of Shah Rukh, Timur's son. Khidr Khan and his 
'Sayyid' successors, Mubarak Shah (824-37/1421- 
34) and Muhammad b. Farid (837-49/1434-45) 
were obliged 'to play the part of provincial rulers, 
struggling with the Rays of Katehar, Etawa, 
Candwar, Bayana, Gwaliyar for the acknowledgment 
of suzerainty by the payment of tribute. The 
possession of Dihli and its historic claims was worth 
so little at this time that in 855/1451 the last of the 
Sayyids, 'Ala' al-DIn c Alam Shah, peacefully 
relinquished Dihli to the Lodi Afghan, Bahlul, 
contenting himself until his death in 883/1478 with 
possession of the district of Bada'un, a possession 
which, illustrative of the particularist outlook of the 
time, Bahlul was equally prepared peacefullv to 
allow. 

There are now extant no records strictly con- 
temporary with the Lodi period of the sultanate; 
moreover some authors in Mughal times tend to 
romanticize the Lodis under the influence of pro- 
Afghan sentiment. It is incontrovertible that con- 
siderable Afghan immigration into India occurred 
(it is said with the deliberate encouragement of 
Bahlul) and that during Bahlfll's reign (855-94/ 
1451-89), the Lohanis, the Sflrs, the Sarwanls, the 
Niyazis and the Karranis come into prominence as 
settlers in India. 

Bahlul Lodi was the grandson of Malik Bahrain 
who had migrated to Multan during the reign of 
Firuz Shah Tughluk. Bahlul succeeded his uncle 
Malik Sultan Shah as governor of Sirhind and 
acquired Lahore becoming Khdn-i Khdndn under 
Muhammad b. Farid. He was invited to take over at 
Dihli by Hamid Khan, the wdzir of c Ala> al-Din 
c Alam Shah. Bahlul succeeded in widening the area 
of Dihli's influence. He pacified the Do'ab, reduced 
Etawa, Candwar and Rewari and, in 856/1452. 
defeated an attempt by sultan Mahmud Shark! of 
Pjawnpur to seize Dihli itself. Another attempt by 
sultan Husayn Shah in 880/1475 was also defeated. 
Desultory warfare between Dihli and Djawnpur 
continued until, in 884/1479 Bahlul succeeded in 
occupying Djawnpur itself and seating his son 
Barbak Shah on the throne. Much of Bahlul's 
success is attributed to his dexterous handling of his 
Afghan amirs; he is reputed to have avoided any 
extreme assertion of the authority of the sultanate 
and to have limited his demands upon his djdgirdars 
to military service. 



DIHLl SULTANATE 



Bahlul's third son, Nizam Khan (Sikandar Lodi), 
was preferred as successor by the Afghan chiefs. 
Sikandar completed the incorporation of Djawnpur 
into the Dihll kingdom, deposing Barbak Shah, and 
campaigned in Bihar where the fugitive Husayn 
Shah had taken refuge. In order to control the 
Etawa, Koyl, Gwaliyar and Dholpur areas more 
effectively, he founded Agra in 910/1504, but the 
latter years of his reign (894-923/1489-1517) saw 
incessant military activity in this region. 

His successor, Ibrahim (923-32/1517-26), was 
soon faced by a LohanI and Farmuli revolt under 
the nominal leadership of Djal Khan, a younger 
brother, in Djawnpur and Bihar where the tradition 
of independence of Dihli at that time was still 
strong. Although Ibrahim enjoyed some successes, 
Dawlat Khan, governor of the Pandjab appealed to 
the Mughal Babur at Kabul to intervene in Hindu- 
stan, as also did 'Alam Khan, Ibrahim's uncle who 
claimed Dihli for himself. Babur, proving more 
adept at using them than they at using him, marched 
on Dihli to defeat and kill Ibrahim Lodi at Panipat 
in Radjab 932/April 1526. But this victory merely 
established Babur as one of the serious contenders 
for empire in Hindustan. The Afghans melted into 
the countryside or withdrew into Bihar out of 
Babur' s immediate reach, waiting on events and by 
no means reconciled to Mughal supremacy. 

The Afghan sultanate of Dihli was temporarily 
restored by Shir Shah Sur and his son Islam Shah. 
Farid Khan's (Shir Shah's) grandfather had migrated 
to Hindustan during the reign of Bahlul Lodi; his 
father Miyan Hasan Khan receiving under Sikandar 
Lodi the parganas of Sahsaram, Hadjlpur and 
Kharpur Tanda near Banaras in djagir for the 
maintenance of 500 horsemen. Shir Shah, who was 
born about 1472 (see P. Saran, The date and place 
of Sher Shah's birth, in Journal of the Bihar and 
Orissa Research Society, xx, 1934, 108-22, and 
Ishwari Prasad, Life and times of Humayun, 
Calcutta 1955, 96 fn.) was given the management of 
his father's parganas about 917/1511- Losing them 
to his half-brother Sulayman, in 933/1527 he took 
service with Babur only to leave him the following 
year to place himself under Bahar Khan LohanI 
who had set himself up as Sultan Muhammad Shah 
in southern Bihar. In 936/1529, after Muhammad 
Shah's death, Shir Khan ruled in co-operation with 
Dudu, the mother of the boy successor Djalal Khan. 
Shir Khan temporarily lost his position in Bihar to 
the Lodi claimant Mahmud b. Sikandar Lodi. His 
rivals were however discomfited by the Mughal 
Humayun at the battle of Dawra 937/1531, with the 
help of Shir Khan's neutrality. His spirited defence 
of Cunar rallied the Afghans of Bihar around him 
and he consolidated his position in Bihar by defeating 
an invasion by the forces of the Bengal ruler Mahmud 
Shah at Suradjgarh in 940/1534. Counter-attacking, 
by Dh u '1-Ka c da 944/April 1538, the sultanate of 
Bengal was at his feet with the occupation of the 
capital Gawf. 

Alarmed at the rise of Shir Khan, Humayun 
moved eastward from Agra in Safar 944/July 1537 
only to waste six months besieging Cunar. Losing an 
opportunity to secure Shir Khan's submission as a 
tributary, Humayun marched on to Bengal only to 
meet defeat at Cawnsa in Safar 946/June 1539. He 
was again defeated near Kanawdj in Muharram 
947/May 1540 and forced to flee to Lahore and then 
via Multan to Sind from whence he eventually made 
his way to Kazwin. 

Shir Shah secured his position in the west by 



occupying the Pandjab, founding a stronghold, 
Rohtas, near Balinath; Multan was also occupied in 
950/I543. Shir Shah took up Dihll's perennial 
struggle with the Radjputs with the capture of 
Raysen in 950/1543 and campaigns against Marwar 
in 950-1/1544. He was killed while besieging Kalindjar 
in RabI' I 952/May 1545. 

His successor, Islam Shah Sur (952-60/1545-53), 
the younger son of Shir Shah, though far from adroit 
in handling the Afghan chiefs, managed to hold 
Shir Shah's dominions together until his death. He 
is criticized by later Afghan writers for attempting 
to curb the powers of the djagirddrs. 

On his death the throne was seized by Mubariz 
Khan, a nephew of Shir Shah who took the title of 
Muhammad c Adil Shah. This was the signal for the 
collapse of any unifying authority in the area of the 
Dihli sultanate. Tadj Khan Karrani in Gwaliyar, 
Ibrahim Khan Sur, Ahmad Khan Sur in Lahore and 
Muhammad Khan Sur in Bengal threw off their 
allegiance. Upon this scene of political confusion 
Humayun re-entered in 962/1555, occupying Lahore 
in Rabi c II 962/February 1555, defeating the Afghans 
at Sirhind in Sha'ban 962/June 1555 and entering 
Dihli the following month. It was not however 
until after Humayun's death (RabI 1 I 963/January 
1556) that the Mughal victory at Panipat over Hemii, 
the Hindu general of Muhammad c Adil Shah, 
guaranteed that the Mughals would not be expelled 
from India again. 

Under Akbar, the Dihli sultanate merged imper- 
ceptibly into the Mughal e.npire, distinguished from 
that empire less by the character of its institutions 
(for Akbar built more upon Khaldji and Tughluk 
foundations than his panegyrists acknowledge) than 
by the narrower extent of its authority, its failure 
to guard the north-west marches and its failure to 
hold Radjasthan for any appreciable period. 

Despite the rhetoric of Muslim historians of the 
period and the undoubted achievements of the 
Khaldjis and the early Tughluks, the Dihli sultanate 
made no violent break with the later Radjpiit 
political tradition that rulers in Hindustan sought 
paramountcy rather than sovereignty, that is, 
acknowledgment of their superior rights in the 
spheres of military service and revenue enjoyment 
rather than a general control over the people at 
large. This is hardly surprising when it is remem- 
bered that at no time did the Turks and the Afghans 
succeed in reducing the Hindu chiefs to disarmed 
impotence. The panegyrics of Muslim historians 
require correction by the inscriptional evidence 
cited, for example, in H. C. Ray, The dynastic 
history of Northern India, i, Calcutta 1931, 544-7, 
565; ii, Calcutta 1936, 729-35, 908, 1096-1103, 
1132-4, 1190-5 (see also Cambridge History of 
India, in, Turks and Afghans, Chapter xx), which 
shows clearly that the Radjput clans remained 
politically active away from the principal centres 
of Turkish military occupation; the emergence of 
the Hindu chiefs into prominence in the 9th/i5th 
century is explicable only on the basis that they had 
been there all the time, concealed from view by the 
earlier Muslim historians. It is important to recall 
that except for a short period under the Khaldjis 
and Tughluks, Radjasthan was generally independent 
of Dihli. Moreover the Ghurid conquest of Hindustan 
was undertaken by a military ilite of Turks, Khaldjis 
and Afghans, accustomed at home to a predatory 
relationship with the economically productive 
sections of the population but leaving them a large 
measure of autonomy in law and custom. Although 



DIHLI SULTANATE 



there was a large and continuing (though imper- 
fectly documented) migration of Muslims to India 
during the sultanate period, it was largely a move- 
ment of professional classes and did not involve 
economic and social displacement of the mass of the 
Hindu population. The bulk of the Muslim 'working" 
population consisted of converts made in the group 
or the products of intermarriage and concubinage. 
Neither their own political traditions nor their 
political necessities would suggest more than the 
minimum interference, political and administrative, 
by the Muslim conquerors with the principal 
unit of Indian social life, the village community. (It 
is probable that the Muslim djdgirddri contingents 
living in the villages near the larger towns had some 
social and cultural impact upon the local population). 

The relations of the Dihli sultanate with the 
Hindu population were dominated usually by con- 
siderations of policy rather than of religion. Hindu 
chiefs were acceptable as tributaries and Hindu 
cultivators as tax-payers. Hindu clerical assistance 
in leyying the land revenue and Hindu bankers' 
services in providing sultans with ready cash were 
indispensable. The description of the place of the 
Radjputs at Muhammad b. Tughluk's court by Ibn 
Battuta, following upon KhaldjI marriages with 
Radjput families, suggests that Akbar's policy of 
conciliating the Radjputs was not without precedent 
in the sultanate period. It cannot be regarded as 
established, without question, that the sultans of 
Dihli normally levied djizya as a discriminatory tax 
on non-Muslims as such. It is suggested that many 
statements in Indo-Muslim historians to that effect 
may be discounted as attempts to depict, for the 
comfort and edification of the pious, an ideal 
Muslim ruler. Moreover, where the terms kharddj 
and djizya are found together, it is suggested that 
they are being used as conventional legal terms, 
with emotive intent, for what was in fact the tribute 
or land revenue customarily paid to a paramount 
power. In support of this latter hypothesis, it may 
be noted that in his Fatdwa-yi Djahdnddri, Diya 5 
al-Din Barani speaks of Hindu Rays taking kharddj 
and djizya from Hindu mushriks and kdfirs (India 
Office Library MS. 1149, f. 119a). However, for a 
contrary (and indeed the more usual) view of this 
very controversial question, see, e.g., Ishwari 
Prasad, History of mediaeval India, 475-6; A. L. 
Srivastava, The sultanate of Delhi, Agra 1950, 
443-5 ; and The advanced history of India, index, 
s.v. jizya, 1051. 

The Muslim ruling tlite was ethnically heteroge- 
neous. Turks from the steppe, Afghans and Khaldjis 
were dominant until Balban's time, but Hindu 
converts soon made their appearance in important 
offices (see P. Saran, Politics and personalities in the 
reign of Nasir-uddin Mahmud, the Slave, in Studies 
in medieval Indian history, Delhi 1952) and later, 
under the Khaldjis and Tughluks, sometimes played 
a dominant rdle (e.g., Malik Kafur, Khusraw Khan 
Barwari and Khan-i Djahan MakbOl, wazir of FIruz 
Shah Tughluk). Muhammad b. Tughluk was reported 
to have encouraged Muslims to come to India to 
take service under him. As in Mughal times, the 
Indian-born Muslim of Hindu stock did not enjoy 
the same prestige as did descendants of the original 
conquerors or Muslim immigrants. Although Kutb 
al-Din Aybak, Iletmish and Balban, their principal 
commanders and muk(a% and the KhaldjI favourites 
Malik Kafur and Khusraw Khan, began as slaves in 
the royal household, the position of slaves in admi- 
nistration and war under Dihli followed the Ghaz- 



nawid and Samanid precedents. Slavery was not the 
only or indeed the principal road to power; slaves 
formed merely one source of recruitment to the 
ruling Mite. 

The headquarters administration of the Dihli 
sultanate followed familiar Samanid and Ghaznawid 
lines. The wakil-i ddr and the amir-i hddjib were to 
be found managing the sultan's household and 
regulating access to him; the wazir, the 'drid-i 
mamdlik, the barid-i mamdlik and the kadi al- 
mamdlik appear to have exercised broadly the same 
functions as under the Samanids and Ghaznawids. 

The administrative, the military and the salary 
itttd'dt (cf. A. K. S. Lambton, Landlord and Peasant 
in Persia, London 1953, 61-64), are clearly discernible 
under the Dihli sultanate. The provincial governor, 
in the period from Balban to FIruz Shah Tughluk, 
wall or mukfa'- was an official, transferable at will, 
commanding the local military forces and paid 
personally by the grant of a revenue assignment 
or by a percentage of the provincial revenues. He 
was supposed to remit the revenue, surplus to local 
expenditure, to headquarters, where a record was 
kept of the numbers of the provincial contingents 
and the anticipated revenue. This system broke 
down after, the Tughluks when the distinction 
between the administrative and the military iktd* 
became blurred, governors became semi-independent 
tributaries with their own private armies, and the 
process of revenue audit also became spasmodic. The 
military assignment, or grant of the revenue from 
villages for the recruitment and upkeep of a body 
of cavalry, is reported to have existed under Balban ; 
c Ala 5 al-Din KhaldjI is said to have resumed many 
such assignments and to have paid his soldiers in 
cash. An Arabic source (Masdlik al-absdr fi mamdlik 
al-amsdr of Shihab al-DIn al- c Umari, trans. Otto 
Spies etc., Muslim University Journal, Aligarh, 
March, 1943, 28-9) written in Egypt during the 
reign of Muhammad b. Tughluk states that the troops 
of the Dihli sultan were paid in cash from the diwdn. 
The encomiast c Afif clearly indicates that during the 
time of FIruz Shah Tughluk the military assignment 
was common, though there are passages which 
suggest that the assignee was not always allowed 
the personal management of his assignment. In the 
'Sayyid' and LodI periods payment of troops by the 
grant of djdgirs or assignments, which the djaglrddr 
managed himself and over which the sultan's diwdn 
exercised minimal supervision, was usual. It is 
clear that there was throughout the sultanate period 
a tension between the sultan, like c Ala 5 al-DIn 
KhaldjI, with a preference for an extension of the 
khdlisa land, or area under direct revenue admini- 
stration from which the troops could be paid in 
cash, and the Muslim military class with a preference 
for assignments which they managed themselves. 
Neither the sultan nor the military class ever wholly 
succeeded in obtaining their wishes throughout the 
whole area of the sultanate. Probably c Ala' al-Din 
KhaldjI succeeded more in managing the assigned 
areas than in abolishing all such grants of revenue. 
The accounts of Shir Shah give a vivid picture of the 
opportunities open to a djdgirddr or military assignee 
in the Afghan period to become the de facto ruler of 
the area of the djdgir and aspire to a provincial 
sultanate or even to the throne of Dihli itself. Shir 
Shah did not himself, as sultan, abolish djdgirddrs 
but set a limit to their influence by maintaining a 
large army recruited by himself and financed by a 
more extensive khdlisa area. 

Evidence on the sub-organization of a province 



DIHLI SULTANATE 



373 



(ikfd* or wildyat) — which in any event denoted that 
area around the principal town which the wall or 
muk(a c could control rather than a clearly defined 
administrative area — is scanty. There are references 
to shikkddrs in the time of Muhammad b. Tughluk 
and fawdjddrs rather later ; these probably represented 
military commands subordinate to the wall or 
mukfa c rather than regular heads of a definite 
administrative subdistrict. Shir Shah is said however 
to have appointed shikkddr-i shikkddrdn to the unit 
known as the sarkdr under the Mughals. The existence 
of the pargana or kasaba as a revenue district of a 
number of villages is well attested. Shir Shah is said 
to have appointed a shikkddr and an amln to each 
pargana to control the police and the revenue 
aspects of its work respectively. Below the pargana 
was the village community with which the Muslim 
official dealt through its mukaddam or headman and 
patwdrl or village accountant. In the oth/i5th cen- 
tury shite is sometimes used to denote a province — 
a sign perhaps of the smaller political scale of that 

In the collection of the land revenue, the 
Dihli sultanate, its revenue officers and assignees, 
did not depart seriously from the principles and 
practices of the pre-Muslim period — of demanding 
a proportion of the gross produce of the soil assessed 
either by sharing the harvest (hukm-i hdsil), by 
estimating its probable yield (hukm-i mushdhada) 
or by measurement of the area under cultivation 
and assessment according to a standard rate of 
demand per unit area according to the crop sown 
(hukm-i misdhat). For the best account of the known 
changes and permutations in the sultanate period, 
see W. H. Moreland, The agrarian system of Moslem 
India, Cambridge 1929; see also dariba, 6(a). 

Bibliography: In addition to references in the 



text: 



ials 



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18 



274 



DIHLI SULTANATE — DIHYA 



madan coins in the State Museum Lucknow, in 
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pt. ii, 1958, 202; N. B. Roy, Anecdotes of Sher 
Shah, from the manuscript of Tarikh-i Daudi, 
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K istorii razvitiya lennoi sistemi v Deliiskom 
Sultanate v. XIV~v. (The history of the devel- 
opment of feudal land ownership in the Dihli 
Sultanate in the fourteenth century), in SO, 
iv, 1957, 51-62; A. K. Bhattacharyya, Some 
agricultural and irrigational activities of the Muslim 
rulers in medieval India, in Indo-Iranica, ix, 3, 
1956, 69-71. 

General Works. J. Mill, The history of 
British India, i, London 1817; Mountstuart 
Elphinstone, The history of India, two vols., 
London 1841; J. Talboys Wheeler, The history 
of India, iv, pt. », Mussulman Rule, London 
1876; S. Lane-Poole, Mediaeval India under 
Mohammedan rule, London 1903; V. A. Smith, 
Oxford history of India, third ed., P. Spear, 
Oxford 1958 ; Ishwari Prasad, History of mediaeval 
India, first ed., Allahabad 1925 ; ed. Sir Wolseley 
Haig, Cambridge history of India, Hi, Turks and 
Afghans, 1928; J. C. Powell Price, A history of 
India, London 1955; S. R. Sharma, Studies in 
medieval Indian history, Sholapur 1956; Karl 
Muhammad Bashlr al-DIn Pandit, Ta'rikh-i 
Hindi-i Kurun-i wusfd (Urdu), Aligarh 1949; Yusuf 
Hikmet Bayur, Hindistan tarihi (in Turkish), 
i, Ankara 1946; R. C. Majumdar, H. C. Ray- 
chaudhuri & Kalikinkar Datta, An advanced 
history of India, London 1948; R. C. Majumdar 
(ed.), The Delhi Sultanate, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 
Bombay i960; Awadh Bihari Pandey, The first 
Afghan empire in India (1451-1526), Calcutta 
1956; Muhammad Abdur Rahim, History of 
the Afghans in India A, D. 1 545-1631 with especial 
reference to their relations with the Mughals; K. 
A. Nizami, Some aspects of religion and politics 
in India during the 13th century, Aligarh 1961; 
Olaf Caroe, The Pathans 550 B.C.-A.D. 1957, 
London 1958, 124-50. (P. Hardy) 

DIHLI SULTANATE, ART. With the exception 
of the coinage [see sikka] and a very few ceramic 
fragments (a few described in J. Ph. Vogel, Catalogue 
of the Dehli museum of archaeology, Calcutta 1908; 
for the pottery fragments of the 'AdilSbad excavat- 
ions see H. Waddington, in Ancient India, i, 60-76), 
the only body of material for the study of the art 
of the Dihli sultanate is monumental. Most of the 



in Dihli itself and are described s.v. 
dihlI. The remainder are mostly described under 
the appropriate topographical headings, and are 
listed here in more or less chronological order. 

The first major undertaking outside Dihli was at 
Adjmer [q.v.], where Kufb al-DIn Aybak built the 
mosque, known as AfhaM din ka djhompfa 
("Hut of two-and-a-half days"), at about the same 
time as the Masdjid Kuwwat al-Islam at Dihli, to 
which Iletmish added a maksura screen as he had 
done to the Dihli example. Other buildings attri- 
buted to Iletmish include a large masonry tank, the 
Hawd-i Shamsl, and an '■idgdh and mosque at 
Bada'un [q.v.] ; for the last, one of the largest mosques 
in India, see J. F. Blakiston, The Jami Masjid at 
Badaun and other buildings in the United Provinces 
(= Memoir ASI, xix), Calcutta 1926, and Cunning- 
ham, AS I, xi, 1880. In Nagawr [q.v.] is a fine gateway, 
the Atarkin ka darwaza, c. 627/1230, and at 
Bayana, about 80 km. south-west of Agra, is a 
mosque made out of temple spoil with corbelled 
arches similar to those of the Dihli mosque; known 
as the Ukha mandir, it was later reconverted to 
temple use. Of the time of Balban is a mindr at 
Koyl (see 'aligarh), demolished in 1862, described 
in 'Aligarh Gazetteer, v, 218. 

Noteworthy buildings of the Khaldji dynasty 
include the bridge over the Gamberi river at Citawr 
built by <Ala 5 al-DIn in c. 703/1303, and the Ukha 
masdjid of Kutb al-Din Mubarak (716-20/1316-20) 
at Bayana, with colonnades of temple pillars but 
typical Khaldji arches with their "spear-head" 

Ghiyath al-DIn Tughluk's buildings after his ac- 
cession were confined to Dihli; for his previous 
buildings see multan. His son, Muhammad b. 
Tughluk, carried the Dihli craftsmen south to 
Dawlatabad [q.v.], whence the Dihli style spread to 
the Deccan (see bahmanis, monuments). Firuz Shah 
Tughluk was responsible for the early buildings of 
the towns of Djawnpur, Fathabad, Hisar and 
Lalitpur [qq.v.], and the last Tughluk, Mahmud 
Shah, for the Djami 1 masdjid at Iric [q.v.], the 
arches of which anticipate the recession of planes 
characteristic of the Lodls (there is not general 
agreement about the date of this building; the inter- 
pretation of Blakiston, op. cit., seems the most 
plausible). 

The Lodi dynasty's buildings outside Dihli are 
mainly at Agra, Kalpl, Lalitpur, and HansI, [qq.v.], 
to which must be added the fine tomb of Muhammad 
Ghawth at Gwaliyar [q.v.], of c. 972/1564, which is 
Lodi in spirit if not in date. The Cawrasi Gumbad at 
Kalpl is said to be the mausoleum of one of the 
Lodi sultans, who is not further identified (cf. 
Blakiston, op. cit.). 

For the buildings of the Suri dynasty see especially 
rShtas, rohtasgarh, sahsaram, and the biblio- 
graphy to BIHAR. 

See also hind, Architecture. 

(J. Burton-Page) 

DIHYA (or Dahya) b. Khalifa al-KalbI, 
Companion of the Prophet and a somewhat mysteri- 
ous character. He is traditionally represented as a 
rich merchant of such outstanding beauty that the 
Angel Gabriel took his features; and, when he 
arrived at Medina, all the women (mu'sir, see LA, 
root. c jf)cameout tosee him(Kur 5 an, LXII, n, may 
be an allusion to this occurrence). There is no reason 
to accept the suggestion put forward by Lammens 
(EI 1 , s.v.) of some commercial connexion with 
Muhammad; we only know that a sudden death put 



DIHYA — DlK al-DJINN AL-HIMSl 



275 



a stop to a projected marriage between a niece of 
Dihya and the Prophet, that the latter died just as 
he was about to marry a sister of the Kalbi and that 
Dihya, to whom Safiyya [q.v.\ had been allotted after 
the capture of Khaybar, had to renounce her, to 
receive instead a cousin of the young captive. 

After being present, if not at Uhud, at least at the 
Khandak, Dihya commanded a small detachment 
at the battle of the Yarmuk, but it was his "diploma- 
tic" activities in particular which have been 
pointed out. As a Kalbi he was bound to have 
an intimate knowledge of the districts along the 
Syrian limes, and his business allowed him to move 
freely everywhere without arousing suspicion; for 
this reason, he was probably used as a secret agent. 
Tradition however simply reports that, in 6 or 7, 
he was given the task of conveying to Heraclius a 
message from the Prophet inviting him to be 
converted to Islam, and that on his return the 
caravan was plundered by the pjudham, against 
whom Muhammad was compelled to send Zayd b. 
Haritha. Several orientalists have noted legendary 
characteristics in the account of these events and 
have called into question the authenticity of the 
letter addressed to Heraclius; M. Hamidullah has 
recently applied himself to the task of refuting 
their arguments and even of finding evidence con- 
cerning the fate of the original document which 
may still be in existence (see Arabica, 1955/i, 97-no). 
After the conquest of Syria, it is surprising that 
Dihya should disappear from the scene; one source 
makes him withdraw to Egypt, but most biographers 
state that he settled in Damascus (al-Mizza = Mezze), 
where he died in the caliphate of Mu'awiya, in about 
50/670. 

Bibliography: Djahiz, Ifayawdn, i, 299, vi, 
221; Muh. b. Habib, Muhabbar, 65, 75, 90, 93. 121; 
Ibn Kutayba, Ma'dri/, 114; Ibn Sa c d, Jabakat, 
iii/i, 173, iii/2, 52, iv/2, 184-5, viii, 46, "4, 115; 
Tabari, i, 175 ff., 1741, 2093, 2154, ii, 1836, hi, 
2349; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, i, 262, ii, 107; Ibn 
Hisham, Sira, index; Ibn c Abd al-Barr, Isti'db, 
s.v.; Bakri, Mu'-diam, 530; Aghdni, vi, 95; 
Nawawl, TahdMib, 239-40; Ibn Hadjar, Isdba, 
no. 2390; Caetani, Annali, s.a. 6; I. Goldziher, 
gdhiriten, 178-9; Buhl, Das Leben Muhammeds, 
245; Gesch. des Qor., i, 22-4, 186; H. Lammens, 
Moavia, 1" 292-3; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Ma- 
homet, Paris 1957, 74, 180; M. Hamidullah, Le 
ProphUe de I'Islam, Paris 1959, 2 vol., index (with 
complementary bibl.). 

(H. Lammens-[Ch. Pellat]) 
DlK, the cock. The word is perhaps of non- 
Semitic origin. No cognate synonyms seem to exist 
in the other Semitic languages, except in modern 
South Arabian (Leslau, Lexique soqotri, 1938, 126). 
The cock is mentioned quite often in ancient 
Arabic poems and proverbs and in the hadith. In 
zoological writings it is described as the most 
sensual and conceited of birds. It is of feeble intel- 
ligence, as it cannot find its way to the hen-house 
when it falls from a wall. Yet it possesses a number 
of laudable properties: it is courageous and enduring, 
bold and clever in fighting other cocks and in 
defending its hens. The numerous hens with which 
it mates at the same time are treated by it imparti- 
ally; it apportions to them grains even when hungry 
itself, its generosity having become proverbial. The 
best cocks (for eating) are those which do not crow 
yet. For fecundation a cock of two years should be 
chosen. Its vigour is recognizable by a round comb, 
a short mandible, a black pupil of the eye, etc. A 



good fighting cock is distinguished by its red comb, 
its thick neck, etc. 

The cock lays one small egg in its whole life-time, 
the cock's egg (bayfatu 'l- l ukr). Its testicles are big; 
they are tasty and easy to digest. Castrated cocks 
yield meat fatter and tastier than that of any other 
animal; yet the Prophet, according to a hadith, 
forbade their castration. When castrated their comb 
and 'beard' wither. Several kinds of dik with various 
epithets {hindi, nabafi, zandfi etc.) are mentioned 
in the sources. According to Nuwayri, the dik in a 
town of Sind reaches the size of an ostrich. 

It is one of the most remarkable characteristics 
of the cock that it apportions its crowing correctly 
to the different hours of the night, whether the 
night is 9 or 15 hours long. People are delighted by 
its crowing ; the sick, when hearing it, feel alleviation 
of their pains, and even God, according to a hadith, 
likes its voice. The Prophet was fond of white cocks 
and used to keep one in his house. 

There is an angel in the form of a gigantic cock in 
Paradise, immediately below the throne of Allah; 
by his crowing, which is repeated by all the cocks in 
the world, he announces the hours of prayer (M. Asin 
Palacios, La escatologia musulmana en la Divina 
Comedia, 2nd ed., Madrid and Granada 1943, 50 ff.; 
E. Cerulli, // "Libro della Scala", Vatican City 1949, 
98 ff. (§ 69) and plate 4 (opp. 49) ; R. Ettinghausen, 
in Convegno di Scienze Morali Storiche e Filologiche 
(XII Convegno "Volta", Rome 1957, 362 f.; J. 
Berque, Les Arabes, Paris 1959, 17.). The Bargha- 
wata [q.v.] determined the times of their prayers 
by the call of the cock, and did not eat him (al- 
Bakri, ed. de Slane, 139 f.). 

Although the dik is the male of the dadiddia [q.v.] 
it is treated in most of the sources under a separate 
heading. Its medicinal properties, however, are 
mentioned by Ibn al-Baytar and Dawud al-Antakl 
in the chapters of dadiddj. Mainly its flesh and a 
gravy soup prepared therefrom, its bile, brain, 
comb and blood were put to medicinal use. 

Djahiz, who mentions quite often a dispute 
between sahib al-dik and sahib al-halb, seems to 
quote from an anonymous work belonging to that 
kind of literature which has been treated by Stein- 
schneider in his Rangstreit-Litetatur {SBAk. Wien, 
phil.-hist. Kl., 155, Abh. 4, 1908). 

Bibliography: Suyuti, K. al-wadik ji jadl 
al-dik, Cairo 1322 (Brockelmann, II, 198, and S II, 
193, no. 245); Ahmad b. Ahmad al-Fayyumi al- 
Gharkawi, Al-Ishardt wa 'l-dald'il ild baydn ma 
ji 'l-dlk min al-sifdt wa 'l-fadd'il (Brockelmann, 
S II, 438); <Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, TaHir al- 
andm, Cairo 1354, i, 219 f.; Abu Hayyan al- 
Tawhidi, Irntd'-, i, 144, 187 (transl. Kopf, Osiris, 
xii [1956], index); Damiri, s.v. (transl. Jayakar, 
i, 800 ff.); Djahiz, ffayawdn', index; Ibn al- 
c Awwam, Fildha (transl. Clement-Mullet), ii/b, 
243; Ibn Kutayba, 'Uyun al-Akhbdr, Cairo 
1925-30, ii, 78, 89 (transl. Kopf, 53, 65); Ibshihi, 
Mustatraf, bab 62, s.v.; Kazwinl (Wiistenfeld), 
i, 412 f.; al-Mustawfl al-Kazwinl (Stephenson), 
71 f.; Nuwayri, Nihdyat al-arab, x, 219 ff.; 
J. Schacht and M. Meyerhof, The medico-philo- 
sophical controversy between Ibn Butlan of Baghdad 
and Ibn Ridwan 0/ Cairo, Cairo 1937, 73 ff., 79 f. 
(English), 37 f., 44 ff. (Arabic); J. Henninger, 
Vber Huhnopfer und Verwandtes in Arabien und 
seinen Randgebieten, in Anthropos, xli-xliv, 1946-9, 
337-46. (L. Kopf) 

DlK al-DJINN al-HIM§1, surname of the 
Syrian Arabic poet c Abd al-Salam b. Raghban b. 



DTK al-DJINN al-HIMSI — DILAWAR PASHA 



Abd al-Salam b. Habib b. c Abd Allah b. Raghban 
b. Yazld b. Tamlm. This latter had embraced Islam 
at Mu'ta [q.v.] under the auspices of Habib 
Maslama al-Fihri [q.v.], whose mawld he becan 
The great-grandfather of the poet, Habib, who 
was head of the dlwdn of salaries under al-Mansu 
gave his name to a mosque at Baghdad, masdjid 
Ibn Raghban (al-Djahiz, Bukhala', ed. Hadjiri 327, 
trans. Pellat, index; al-Djahshiyari, 102; Le Strange, 
Baghdad, 95). Dik al-Djinn, born at Hims in 161/ 
777-8, died under the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil, in 
235 or 236/849-51, without ever having left Syria. 
He is said to have had a frivolous and happy-go- 
lucky disposition. A moderate Shi'I. as the elegies 
on al-Husayn b. c Ali b. Abl Talib prove, he was 
associated particularly with Ahmad b. C A1I al- 
Hashiml and his brother Dja'far, to both of whom 
he addressed panegyrics. He also composed epigrams 
and erotic poems in the taste of the times. Arab 
critics do not recognize any superior talent in him, 
although his work has largely spread beyond the 
bounds of his native land. The Kayrawanis of the 
5th/nth century however have not failed to extract 
therefrom a particularly obscure and complicated 
verse (Ibn Rashik, <-Umda, i, 147; Ibn Sharaf, ed. 
and tr. Pellat, 85 ; A. Benhamouda, in Bull, des Et. 
Ar., March-April 1949, 65). The few fragments 
which have come down to us are of interest only 
since the poet upholds the equality of the rights of 
his compatriots, the Arabized Syrians, with those 
of the true Arabs, and since he seizes the opportunity 
to write on the conflicts between the Northern and 
Southern Arabs. 

Bibliography, in addition to the references 
in the text: Aghdni 1 , xii, 142-9 (= Beirut ed., xiv, 
49-65); Ibn Khallikan. no. 394, tr. de Slane, ii, 
133); Tha'alibi, Yatima, i, 66, 172; Goldziher, 
Muh. St., i, 156; Brockelmann, SI, 137. 

(A. Schaade-[Ch. Pellat]) 
DIKKA, or dikkat al-muballigh. During the 
prayer on Fridays (or feast-days) in the mosque, a 
participant with a loud voice is charged with the 
function of muballigh. While saying his prayer he 
has to repeat aloud certain invocations to the imam, 
for all to hear. In mosques of any importance he 
stands on a dihha. This is the name given a platform 
usually standing on columns two to three metres 
high, situated in the covered part of the mosque 
between the mihrab and the court. In Cairo numerous 
undated platforms are to be found. The oldest 
dated inscription, with the word d-h-t, dates back to 
Sultan Kaytbay (end of the 9th/i5th century). 
Mosques of the Ottoman period have their dihha in 
the form of a rostrum against the wall opposite the 
mihrab. Nowadays, a microphone is used to amplify 
the muballigh's voice. 

The dihha should not be confused with the kursi 
al-siira, the place where the ritual reader of the 
Kur'an sits cross-legged. The term dihha is also used 
to describe a kind of wooden bench of secular usage. 
Bibliography: Van Berchem, CIA, Egypte, 
index. (J. Jomier) 

DILAWAR KHAN, founder of the kingdom of 
Malwa [q.v.], whose real name was Hasan (Firishta, 
Nawalkishore ed., ii, 234); or Husayn (Firishta, 
Briggs's tr., iv, 170; so also Yazdani, op. cit. below); 
or c Amid Shah Dawud (Tuzuk-i Djahdngiri, tr. 
Rogers and Beveridge, ii, 407, based on the in- 
scriptions of the Djami c masdjid ( = Lat masdjid) in 
Dhar, cf. Zafar Hasan, Inscriptions of Dhdr and 
Mandu, in EIM, 1909-10, 11-2 and Plates III and 
IV). He was believed to be a lineal descendant of 



Mu c izz al-Din Muhammad b. Sam, Shihab al-DIn 
Ghuri, and this belief is reflected in the dynastic 
name Ghuri usually given to himself and his 
descendants. During the reign of Firuz Tughluk a 
title had been granted to him and a mansab con- 
ferred on him. From an inscription on a gravestone 
discovered in the enclosure of the shrine of shaykh 
Kamal al-DIn Malwl at Dhar it is established that 
in 795/1392-3 Dilawar Khan was the governor of 
Malwa. The date of his assumption of the pseudonym 
of Dilawar Khan is not known precisely, but most 
probably this was the title conferred on him by 
Firuz Shah Tughluk, whose son Muhammad Shah 
had appointed him as the subaddr of Malwa (the 
inscription referred to' curiously mentions the name 
of the regnant sovereign as Mahmud Shah). 

Dilawar Khan unhesitatingly offered protection 
and refuge to the runaway Tughluk monarch Nasir 
al-DIn Mahmud Shah when TImur attacked India 
in 801/1398. His devotion and loyalty to this ill- 
starred monarch, however, incurred the resentment 
of his ambitious son Alp Khan (later Hushang 
Ghuri [q.v.]) who disapproved of his father's homage 
to his fugitive overlord and removed himself to 
Mandu [q.v.] where he put in order and consolidated 
the fortress -buildings. On the departure of Mahmud 
Tughluk for Dihli in 804/1401 Dilawar Khan, 
who had since 795/1392 ceased to send to Dihli 
the balance of the revenue collections, proclaimed 
his independence, much instigated by his son Alp 
Khan (cf. Briggs, Ferishta, iv, 169). Dilaw; """ 



did i 



njoy 1 






of freedom, and died suddenly in 808/1405; his 
sudden death gave rise to a suspicion, shared by 
some of the high-ranking army commanders, that 
he had been poisoned by his ambitious son, and 
Muzaffar Shah I, ruler of the neighbouring kingdom 
of Gudjarat, long had the same impression and 
ultimately made tl 






rother-i 



attack 



Malwa. 

Pjahanglr's record (Tuzuk-i Djahdngiri, Lahore 
ed., 431) of the year of construction of the Djami c 
masdjid at Dhar as hasht sad wa ha/tdd (870) is 
apparently a misreading of the line in the inscription 
on the east gate referred to above, since Dilawar 
Khan had died in 808/1405; the inscription on the 
north entrance (EIM, 1909-10, 12 and PI. IV) gives 
the date of its construction as Radjab of sab' wa 
thamdni mi'a (807). Other buildings of Dilawar 
Khan are the mosque which bears his name at 
Mandu (insc. of 808/1405, EIM, 1909-10, 20-1 and 
PI. XII/i) and the Tarapur gate of that fort (Ins. 
of 809/1406, ibid., 19 and PI. VII/2); the latter 
inscription, though attributing its erection to 
Dilawar Khan, is presumably a reference to the date 
of its completion after his death. 

Bibliography: Muhammad Had! Kamwar 
Khan, Halt Gulshan (ms), ]asl 3; Firishta, 
Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, Nawalkishore ed., ii, 234; 
Tuzuk-i Diahdngiri, Eng. tr. Rogers arid Beveridge, 
London 1909, ii, 407 ff. ; E. Barnes, Dhar and 
Mandu, in JBBRAS, xxi, 1900-3, 339-91, passim; 
J. Fergusson, History 0/ Indian and Eastern 
Architecture, London 1910, 541; G. Yazdani, 
Mandu: the City of Joy, Oxford 1929; Amir 
Ahmad 'Alawi, Shdhdn-i Malwa, Lucknow n.d., 
14-7. See also dhar; malwa; mandu. 

(A. S. Bazmee AnsaRi) 
DILAWAR PASHA ( ?-i03i/i622), Ottoman 
Grand Vizier, was of Croat origin. He rose in the 
Palace service to the rank of Cashniglr Bashl, 



DILAWAR PASHA — DIMASHK 



becoming thereafter Beglerbeg of Cyprus and then, 
in Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1022/January 1614, Beglerbeg of 
Baghdad. As Beglerbeg of Diyarbekir — an appoint- 
ment bestowed on him in 1024/1615 — he shared in 
the Erivan campaign of 1025/1616 against the 
Safawids of Persia. His subsequent career until 
1030/1621 is somewhat obscure. The Ottoman 
chronicles (cf. Pecewi, ii, 366; Hadjdji Khalifa, i, 
392; Na'Ima, ii, 166) state that a certain Mustafa 
Pasha, killed in action during the last hostilities 
of the Ottoman-Safawid war (1024-7/1615-8), was 
Beglerbeg of Diyarbekir at the moment of his 
death in 1027/1618. A Venetian "relazione" of July 
1620 mentions the removal of Dilawar Pasha from 
the Beglerbeglik of Diyarbekir, the office being now 
given to the "Silidar del Re" (cf. Hammer- Purgstall, 
viii, 267). Dilawar Pasha fought— once more as 
Beglerbeg of Diyarbekir (cf. Hadjdji Khalifa, i, 
406; Na'ima, ii, 194) — in the Choczim (Hotin) 
campaign of 1030/1621 against the Poles. It was on 
1 Dh u '1-Ka c da 1030/17 September 1621, in the 
course of this war, that Sultan 'Othman II (1027- 
31/1618-22) raised Dilawar Pasha to the Grand 
Vizierate. His tenure of the office was destined to 
be brief. He lost his life on 8 Radjab 1031/19 May 
1622 during the "revolt of the Janissaries which led 
to the deposition and death of 'Othman II. Dilawar 
Pasha built a large khan at Car- Malik, between al- 
Ruha 5 (Urfa) and Biredjik, and another khan— not 
completed until the time of Sultan MurSd IV (1032- 
49/1623-40)— at SidI Ghazi (Seyyid Gazi). 

Bibliography: Pecewi, Ta'rikh, ii, 368, 378, 
382, 383; Karacelebizade, Rawdat al-abrar, 544, 
546, 547, 549; Hadjdji Khalifa, Fedhleke, i, 375, 
393, 406, 407, 410, 411 and ii, 1, 8, 10-16 passim, 
31; Solakzade, TaMkh, 702-14 passim; Na'ima, 
Ta'rikh, ii, 142, 168, 194, 201-19 passim; Nazmi- 
zade, Gulshan-i khulafd', Istanbul A.H. 1143, 
66v; M. Sertoglu, Tugi tarihi, in Belleten, xi, 
1947, 489-514 passim; Feridun, Munsha'at al- 
saldtin, ii, 429 ff. ; M. A. Danon, Contributions a 
Vhistoire des Sultans Osman II et Mouctafa I, 
in J A, onz. ser., xiv, Paris 1919, 69 ff. and 243 ff-, 
passim; A. Galland, La mori du Sultan Osman 
ou le retablissement de Mustapha sur le throsne, 

traduit d'un manuscrit Turc Paris 1678, 29, 

35, 41, 60, 79. 82. 85, 98, 104, 105, 117; M. Stein- 
schneider, Die Geschichtsliteratur der Juden, i, 
Frankfurt 1905, § 146; S. Purchas, Purchas his 
Pilgrimes, viii, Glasgow 1905, 343-59 passim 
("The Death of Sultan Osman"); R. Knolles, The 
Generall Historie oj the Turkes . . . together with 
the Lives and Conquests of the Othoman Kings 
and Emperours: A Continuation of the Turkish 
History from .... 1620 untill .... 1628. Collected 
out of the Papers and Dispatches of Sir Thomas 

Rowe London 1638, 1406-18 passim; The 

Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe in his Embassy 
to the Ottoman Porte from the Year 1621 to 1628 
inclusive, ed. S. Richardson, London 1740, 42-51 
passim; Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire, viii, 214, 
242, 243, 267, 278, 281-91 passim, 298, 302; 
Zinkeisen, iii, 744-9 passim; N. Jorga, Geschichte 
des osmanischen Reiches, iii, Gotha 1910, 444; 
I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh tarihi, iii/2, Ankara 
1954, 375; 'Othmanzade Ahmed Ta'ib, Hadikat 
al-wuzard', 31 ; Sami, Kamus al-aHdm, iii, Istanbul 
A.H. 1308, 2151; Sidiill-i "-Othmdni, ii, ii, 339; 
lA, s.v. Dilaver Pasa (M. Tayyib Gokbilgin). 

(V. J. Parry) 
DILSIZ, in Turkish tongueless, the name given to 
the deaf mutes employed in the inside service 



{enderun) of the Ottoman palace, and for a while also 
at the Sublime Porte. They were also called by the 
Persian term bizabdri, with the same meaning. They 
were established in the palace from the time of 
Mehemmed II to the end of the Sultanate. Infor- 
mation about their numbers varies. According to 
'Ata 5 , three to five of them were attached to each 
chamber (Koghush) ; Rycaut speaks of 'about forty'. 
A document of the time of Mustafa II (d. 1115/1703), 
cited by Uzuncarsih, dealing with the distribution 
of cloth to the palace staff, mentions one mute in 
the harem, two mutes and a dwarf (djudie) in the 
Privy Chamber (Khass oda), a chief mute, chief dwarf, 
six mutes and two dwarfs in the Treasury Chamber 
(Khazine Koghushu), a chief mute, chief dwarf, and 
ten mutes in the Campaign Chamber (Seferli 
Koghushu). 

The mutes received pay and pensions, and had 
special uniforms and ceremonial dress. Their chiefs 
were called bashdilsiz — chief mute. Though deaf 
mutes from birth, they are said to have been men of 
intelligence, and to have had an elaborate sign 
language in which they communicated among 
themselves and received orders from their superiors. 
According to Bon, many of them could write 'and 
that very sensibly and well'. Their duties were to 
act as guards and attendants, and as messengers and 
emissaries, in highly confidential matters, including 
executions. 

Bibliography: Ta'rikh-i c Atd>, i, 171-2, 283; 
Robert Withers, A description of the Grand 
Seignor's seraglio (adapted from Ottaviano Bon, 
// serraglio del gransignore [1608]), Purchas his 
Pilgrims, ii/II. London 1625 (repr. Glasgow 1905, 
vol. ix), chap. VII (also repr. J. Greaves, London 
1650, 1653, 1737); P. Rycaut, History of the Present 
State of the Ottoman Empire 1 , London 1675, ch. 
viii, 61-2; D'Ohsson, Tableau giniral de V Empire 
othoman, vii, Paris 1824, 45; Hammer-Purgstall, 
Staatsverfassung, ii, 57; Gibb-Bowen, i/I, 80; 
I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh Devletinin Saray 
Teskildti, Ankara 1945, 330; Pakahn, i, 237. 
There are descriptions and pictures of the deaf- 
mutes in a number of western accounts of the 
Ottoman court. (B. Lewis) 

DIMASHK, Dimashk al-Sham or simply al-Sham, 
(Lat. Damascus, Fr. Damas) is the largest city of 
Syria. It is situated at longitude 36° 18' east and 
latitude 33 30' north, very much at the same latitude 
as Baghdad and Fas, at an altitude of nearly 700 
metres, on the edge of the desert at the foot of 
Djabal Kasiyun, one of the massifs of the eastern 
slopes of the Anti-Lebanon. To the east and the 
north-east the steppe extends as far as the Euphrates, 
while to the south it merges with Arabia. 

A hundred or more kilometres from the Mediter- 
ranean behind the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, a 
double barrier of mountains which rise to 3,000 
metres, the city, which is deprived by these of sea- 
winds and cloud, gives the impression already of 
belonging to the desert. The seasons are capricious, 
the winter short but severe with very occasional 
snowfalls. The rains which come in December, 
January and February, this last being a particularly 
wet month, are by no means abundant (in fact the 
city only has from 250 to 300 mm. as against 850 to 
930 at Bayrut [q.v.]. The spring, sudden and short, 
lasts for only a few weeks at the end of March and 
the beginning of April, followed by a relentless 
summer. From May to November there is absolute 
dryness, the daily temperature exceeds 35° centi- 
grade in the shade and the glaring light a< 



the shadow. At the end of November the first heavy 
showers wash the dust from the leaves; it is autumn. 
In this semi-desert type of climate vegetation suffi- 
ciently abundant and above all sufficiently lasting to 
support animals or man would scarcely be expected. 
But nature had fixed the site of Dimashk in advance. 
It was at the point where the Barada [?.».], the only 
perennial water-course of the region, emerges on to 
the plain after crossing the mountain-side and 
before losing itself in the desert. By means of an 
ingenious system of irrigation, man learned how to 
use this water, succeeded in wrenching from the 
desert a corner of ground which responded to his 
needs, and even made of it one of the richest 
agricultural regions of all "Hither Asia", the Ghuta 
[q.v.], which Muslim tradition likes to regard as one 
of the three earthly paradises (the others are Samar- 
kand and al-Ubulla; Ibn 'Asakir, TaMkh, 169). 
Thus with its situation between the desert and the 
mountains, its fertile soil and abundant water, it was 
able to support human habitation on a scale which 
from the dawn of time has caused it to be regarded 

Difficulties of communication between the town 
and the sea forced Dimashk to turn towards the 
interior. Protected on the west by the mountains, 
endowed with an excellent water supply, situated 
along the road which crosses Syria from north to 
south, and in the middle of a rich oasis, the city 
served as a market for the nomads and as a halt for 
the caravans which joined the Euphrates to the 
Nile; the incessant movement of men and goods was 
not unlike the activity of a great maritime port. 
Turned towards the desert, many times attacked but 
never destroyed, Dimashk offers us, against this 
unchanging background, evidence of a history of 
several thousands of years. 

We have no precise knowledge of the epoch in 
which the city was founded. Nevertheless the ex- 
cavations made in 1950 to the south-east of Dimashk 
at Tell al-Salihiyya have disclosed an urban centre 
dating from the fourth millennium. When we compare 
the rudimentary equipment even of Bronze Age man 
with the complexity of the irrigation system, we 
can understand that the prosperity of this city in the 
middle of the second millennium must have been 
the result of a long and slow development. 

Dimashk enters into history with the mention made 
of her in the Tell al-Amarna tablets. She is named as 
one of the towns conquered in the 15th century B.C. 
by the Pharaoh Thutmoses III who occupied Syria 
for a time. 

In the nth century B. C. Dimashk was the 
flourishing capital of the land of Aram referred to in 
the history of Abraham (Genesis, X,22, XIV, 15); even 
to-day Muslims venerate the Masdjid Ibrahim 
at Berze, to the north of Damascus, which according 
to tradition was the birthplace of Abraham. It seems 
that it was at this time that the Aramaeans introdu- 
ced its grid-like plan with straight streets and 
rectangular intersections, similar to that which 
existed in the second millennium in Babylon and 
Assyria. The city owed the development of its canal 
system to the Aramaeans; we know from the Old 
Testament history of Na'aman the Leper (II Kings, 
V) that the Abana was already flowing alongside the 
Barada before the 10th century B.C., while the Nahr 
Tawra with its Aramaean name, which had been dug 
along the slopes of the Kasiyun, irrigated the region 
to the north and north-east of the city and played 
an important part in the agricultural economy of the 



The town was conquered by David (II Kings, 
viii, 5-6) but in the century of Solomon, the king 
of Dimashk fought successfully the Assyrian kings 
to the north and the kings of Israel to the south. In 
732 B.C. the Assyrian troops of Tiglatpilezer III put 
an end to the kingdom of Dimashk; they took the 
town and despoiled the temple and palace, part of 
whose furniture was rediscovered in 1930 in Upper 
Mesopotamia. For this period of the city's history, 
as for the successive occupations by the Assyrians 
in the 8th century, the Babylonians in the 7th 
century, the Achaemenids in the 6th century, the 
Greeks in the 4th century and the Romans in the 
1st century B.C., see K. Wulzinger and C. Watzinger, 
Damascus, i, Die Antike Stadt, and the articles 
of J. Benzinger in Pauly-Wissowa, iv, 2042-8, 
Jalabert in the Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne 
et de liturgie of Cabrol and Leclercq, art. Damas, iv, 

1920, col. 119-46, R. Janin in the Dictionnaire 
d'histoire et de ge'ographie ecclesiastiques of R. Aiibert 
and E. van Cauwenbergh, xiv, 1957, col. 42-7. 

The conquest of Alexander the Great in 333 B.C. 
is an important date, for Dimashk, lost to the 
Achaemenids, was now to come for several centuries, 
up to the time of the Arab conquest in 14/635, under 
western influence. Three stages can be distinguished 
in the Hellenistic period; first a Ptolemaic foundation 
in the 3rd century B.C., then the raising of the town 
to the rank of a capital by the Seleucid Antiochus IX 
of Cyzicus (in B.C.), and finally the installation of 
a new Greek colony about the year 90 B.C. under 
Demetrius III. As a Seleucid capital Dimashk 
became important once again and began to be 
developed according to Hellenistic urban planning. 
At the side of the Aramaean town, where stood the 
temple which since the 9th century B.C. had domina- 
ted the development of the city, there arose a twin 
city, that of the Greeks, following a normal procedure 
when two cultures of quite different character are 
obliged to exist upon the same site. Elements of 
Hellenistic urban architecture appeared such as the 
street with side arcades, traces of which are to be 
found to the east of the Umayyad Mosque, or the 
agora of which we are reminded by the still-existent 
Zukakal-Saha, or the small blocks of houses with 
the standard size of 100 by 45 metres with the longer 
side orientated north-south. 

In 85 B.C. the town fell for the first time into the 
hands of the Nabataeans who had come from Petra 
under the rule of Aretas III, the Philhellene. These 
fresh arrivals constructed a new quarter to the east of 
the Hellenistic city, which mediaeval Arab historians 
called al-Naybatun. In addition, they made on the 
the slopes of the Djabal Kasiyun above the Nahr 
Tawra a canal which was reconstructed under the 
Umayyads and then took the name of Nahr Yazid. 

In 64 B.C. Pompey proclaimed Syria a Roman 
province, but Dimashk was not its capital and the 
imperial legates installed themselves in Antioch. 
From 37 to 54 A.D., under Aretas IV Philopator, the 
Nabataeans became for a second time masters of 
Dimashk with the approval of Rome. It was at this 
period that Saul, the future St. Paul, came to visit 
the important Jewish colony of the city in order to 
seek out Christians and was himself converted to 
Christianity by Ananias whose chapel, excavated in 

1921, is still preserved to-day. Under Hadrian 
(beginning of the 2nd century) Dimashk was given 
the rank of metropolis. Septimus Severus and 
Caracalla carried out many public works there and 
Alexander Severus set it up as a Roman colony after 



to the town. The upward trend of its economy led to 
a considerable influx of population and goods and 
the city very soon became too small. The Romans 
therefore imposed a new urban plan and set about 
combining the original Aramaean town with the 
Hellenistic one to form a new city. The state occupied 
itself mainly with projects of general interest such 
as the city walls and additional canals to provide 

Rectangular walls measuring 1500 by 750 metres 
were built on the right bank of the Barada to protect 
the inhabitants against pillaging nomads. Strength- 
ened by a castrum in the north-east corner, the 
entry took on the appearance of a vast quadrangle 
which could be entered by seven gates: to the east, 
the Eastern Gate (Bab Sharkl), to the south the 
Kaysan Gate and the Little Gate (Bab al-Saghir), to 
the west the al-Djabiya Gate, and to the north the 
Gate of the Gardens (Bab al-Faradis), the Djinik Gate 
and the Thomas Gate (Bab Tuma). Important 
remains of these walls and gates are still visible 
to-day. The growth in the population necessitated 
the construction of an aqueduct, al-Kanawdt, to 
provide drinking water which functions up to the 
present time. New blocks of houses in the southern 
part of the rectangle settled the problem of finding 
homes for the newcomers. Two great colonnaded 
streets were new features of the urban picture. One 
of these important thoroughfares, 25 metres wide 
and with arcades on either side, joined Bab Shark! 
to Bab al-Djabiya, crossing the city from east to 
west and corresponding with the decumanus of 
Roman cities. This road, the present Suk Midhat 
Pasha, is still referred to by foreigners as the 'Street 
called Straight' from the allusion to it in Acts, IX, n. 
In the middle we can still see to-day one of the three 
Roman arches which used to stand there, and in a 
little semi-circular tell on its south side, crossed ob- 
liquely by a small alleyway, is the site of the ancient 
theatre. The second colonnaded street was the 
ancient road joining the temple and the agora, 
which was now turned into a forum. The temple, 
which was dedicated to Jupiter of the Damascenes, 
the successor to Hadad, god of storms, was partially 
rebuilt and altered on several occasions, especially 
in the second and third centuries A.D. Part of the 
peribolus (enclosure), two of whose corner towers 
serve as bases for minarets, is to be found in the 
outer wall of the Great Mosque. The eastern 
propylaea are to be seen in the present day Djayrun 
to the east of the Great Mosque, while the western 
propylaea, which are ornamented with a wide 
pediment, are visible at Bab al-Barid to the west of 
the sanctuary. Finally it is also known that the 
Circus, which perhaps replaced the Stadium, was 
situated on the site of the present Boulevard de 
Baghdad, north of a cemetery outside the Gate of 
the Gardens, where Roman sarcophagi have been 

Medieval Arab nomenclature has preserved in 
other ways the memory of certain Roman districts 
such as al-DImas, corresponding with the ancient 
demotion, al-Furnak which recalls the furnaces or 
pottery kilns, and again al-Fuskar, which seems to 
show that at this end of the Street called Straight 
there once stood the joscarion where the fusca was 
made and sold. 

Many of the ancient remains must have disap- 
peared beneath the earth whose level has risen by 
more than four metres in some places since the 



SHK 279 

Roman period, but the plan of the city as it was laid 
out at the beginning of the 3rd century A.D. was 
hardly altered up to the arrival of the Muslims. The 
Roman city, in fact, formed the skeleton of the 
mediaeval one. 

The Romans were succeeded by the Byzantines. 
Syria became a part of the Eastern Empire after the 
death of Theodosius in 395. When Dimashk became 
the outpost of Byzantium, a new urban element, the 
church, appeared there. First of all the Temple of 
Jupiter was rebuilt and transformed into the 
cathedral which was dedicated to St. John the 
Baptist. The head of Yahya b. Zakariyya' is 
preserved in a crypt now situated in the Great 
Mosque and is venerated alike by Christians and 
Muslims. The present Orthodox Patriarchate stands 
on what was once the site of the Church of St. Mary. 
The weakening of the Ghassanids and the Persian 
wars of the 6th century ruined the Syrian economy. 
In 612 the soldiers of Khusraw II occupied Dimashk, 
the majority of whose population was Jacobite 
Monophysite and hostile to the Melkite Byzantines. 
Well received, the Sasanids did not ravage the town 
as they were to do later (614) in Jerusalem. In 627 
on the death of the Persian monarch, the city was 
evacuated and the following year Heraclius returned 
to Syria. 

The Muslim Conquest.— After first the 
dissolution of the Ghassanid Phylarchate and then 
the devastations of the Persians, the Arabs of the 
Hidjaz must have had no difficulty in conquering 
Syria. Each year Arab expeditions crossed the 
Byzantine frontier; in Djumada I 13/July 634 
Khalid b. al-Walld's men crossed Palestine and 
then went up towards the north along the route of 
the Djawlan. The Byzantines offered some resistance 
to the north of al-Sanamayn in the Mardj al-Suffar 
before turning back to Dimashk in Muharram 
14/March 635. A few days later, the Muslims were 
at the gates of the city. Khalid b. al-Walid established 
his general headquarters to the north-east of the 
town; an ancient tradition puts his camp near the 
existing tomb of Shaykh Raslan outside Bab Tuma. 
A blockade aimed at hindering a reunion of the 
Byzantine troops flung back into Dimashk with any 
army which might come to their aid from the north. 
The dislike of the population of Dimashk for 
Byzantine rule brought a group of notables, among 
them the bishop and the controller-general, Mansur 
b. Sardjun, father of St. John of Damascus, to 
engage in negotiations to avoid useless suffering for 
the people of the city. In Radjab 14/September 635 
the Eastern Gate was opened to the Muslims and 
the Byzantine troops retired to the north. There 
are several traditions concerning the capture of 
the city. The most widely spread is that of Ibn 
'Asakir (Ta'rikh, i, 23-4) according to which Khalid 
b. al-Walid forced his way through the Bab Shark!, 
sword in hand, while Abu 'Ubayda b. al-Djarrah 
entered by the Bab al-Djabiya after having given 
them the atndn, and the two generals met in the 
middle of the Kanlsa. Another version, that of al- 
Baladhuri (Futuh, 120-30), says that Khalid received 
the surrender of the city at Bab Sharkl and that 
Abu 'Ubayda entered by force of arms at Bab al- 
Djabiya; the meeting of the two commanders is said 
to have been at al-Barls, towards the middle of the 
Street called Straight near the church of al-Maksallat 
(Ibn 'Asakir, Ta'rikh, i, 130). By demonstrating 
that Abu c Ubayda was not in Syria in the year 14, 
Caetani has destroyed the validity of these traditions. 
Lammens (MFOB, iii, 255) has tried to save them 



by proposing to substitute the name of Yazld b. 
Sufyan for that of Abu 'Ubayda. In any case, 
Lammens has shown the unlikelihood of a division 
of the town, a legend which seems to have come into 
being only at the time of the Crusades. 

The Muslims guaranteed the Christians possession 
of their land, houses and churches, but forced them 
to pay a heavy tribute and poll tax. 

In the spring of 15/636, an army commanded by 
Theodorus, brother of Heraclius, made its way 
towards Dimashk. Khalid b. al-Walid evacuated the 
place and reformed his troops at al-Djabiya before 
entrenching himself near the Yarmuk to the east of 
Tiberias. It was there that on 12 Radjab 15/20 
August 636 the Byzantine army was put to flight by 
Khalid who, after this success, returned to Medina. 
This time the conquest of Syria and Dimashk was 
to be the work of Abu 'Ubayda b. al-Djarrah. The 
town capitulated for the second time in Dhu 'l-Ka'da 
15/December 636, and was finally integrated into 
the dominion of Islam. 

The fall of Dimashk was an event of incalculable 
importance. The conquest put an end to almost a 
thousand years of western supremacy; from that 
time on the city came again into the Semitic orbit and 
turned anew towards the desert and the east. 
Semitic by language and culture, Monophysite and 
hostile to the Greek-speaking Orthodox Church, the 
people of Dimashk received the conquerors with 
unreserved pleasure, for they felt nearer to them by 
race, language and religion than to the Byzantines, 
and, regarding Islam as no more than another dissi- 
dent Christian sect, they hoped to find themselves 
more free under them. At Dimashk more than 
elsewhere circumstances seemed as if they ought 
to have favoured Arab assimilation to Greek culture 
but in fact Hellenization had not touched more than 
a minute fraction of the population who for the 
most part spoke Aramaic. While the administration 
continued to maintain Byzantine standards, religious 
controversies arose and contributed towards the 
formation of Muslim theology. Assimilation took 
place in the opposite direction so that the positive 
result of the conquest was the introduction of Islam, 
which within half a century succeeded in imposing 
Arabic, the language of the new religion, as the 
official tongue. 

The Caliph c Umar nominated Yazid b. Abi Sufyan 
[q.v.] as governor of the city. The more important of 
the conquerors installed themselves in houses 
abandoned by the Byzantines (Ibn c As5kir, Ta'rikh, 
xiii, 133-44). The town had made a deep impression 
on the nomads who referred to it as the 'beauty 
spot of the world', but the lack of space and above 
all of pasturage led the Bedouins to camp at al- 
Djabiya. Dimashk very soon took on the character 
of a holy city, for traditions recognized here places 
made famous by the prophets, and pilgrimages 
began to increase. People went chiefly to the Djabal 
Kasiyiin to visit Adam's cave, the Cave of the Blood 
where the murder of Abel was thought to have taken 
place, or the Cavern of Gabriel. At Berze, Abraham's 
birthplace was honoured; the tomb of Moses (Musa 
b. c Imran) was regarded as being situated in what 
is now the district of Kadam. Jesus ('Isa b. Maryam) 
was cited among the prophets who had honoured the 
town; he had stayed at Rabwa on the 'Quiet Hill' 
(Kur'an, XXIII, 50) and would descend at the end 
of time on to the white minaret sometimes identified 
as that of Bab Shark!, sometimes as the eastern 
minaret (ma'dhanat c Isd) of the Great Mosque, in 
order to fight the Antichrist. 



The Umayyads — In 18/639 Yazid b. Abi 
Sufyan died of the plague; his brother, Mu'awiya, 
succeeded him in command of the diund of Dimashk. 
In 36/656, after the death of c Ali, Mu'awiya was 
elected Caliph and, leaving al-Djabiya, he fixed his 
residence in Dimashk. The Umayyads were to 
carry the fortunes of the new capital to their highest 
point; for a century it was the urban centre of the 
metropolitan province of the Caliphate and the heart 
of one of the greatest empires that the world has ever 
known. 

The domination of the conquerors did not at first 
bring any changes in the life of the city since the 

minority; arabization was slow and Christians 
predominated at the court up to the reign of <Abd 
al-Malik. At this time the growth in the number of 
Muslim subjects provoked a reaction which caused 
Arabic to replace Greek as the official language of 
the administration. At the beginning of the dynasty, 
discipline, prosperity and tolerance were the order 
of the day, but later on civil strife culminated in 
anarchy and in the end of Umayyad rule. Troubles 
broke out in the city, fires increased in number, even 
th"e walls had been demolished by the time that 
Marwan II installed himself in his new capital, 
Harran, in 127/744. 

The change of regime was reflected in the urban 
plan only by the erection of two buildings closely 
connected with each other, the palace of the Caliph 
and the mosque, which did not alter the general 
aspect of the city. Mu'awiya was content to remodel 
the residence of the Byzantine governors to the 
south-east of the ancient peribolus on the site of the 
present-day gold- and silversmith's bazaar; it was 
called al-Khadrd>, 'the Green (Palace)'. This name 
must in fact have been given to a group of admini- 
strative buildings as was also the case in Constanti- 
nople and later at Baghdad. At the side of the palace, 
which under the 'Abbasids appears to have been 
transformed into a prison, was situated the Ddr al- 
Khavl or Hostel of the Ambassadors. The Caliph 
Yazid I improved the water supply by recon- 
structing a Nabataean canal on the slopes of the 
Djabal Kasiyun above Nahr TawrS which was given 
the name of Nahr Yazid which it still bears to-day. 
Al-Hadjdjadj, the son of the Caliph c Abd al-Malik 
b. Marwan, built a palace outside the walls to the 
west of Bab al-Djabiya whose memory is preserved 
in the name of the district of Kasr al-Hadjdjadj. 

It is to Caliph al-Walid I that we owe the first and 
one of the most impressive masterpieces of Muslim 
architecture, the Great Mosque of the Umayyads. 
The Church of St. John continued to exist under 
the Sufyanids and Mu'awiya did not insist on in- 
cluding it in the masdiid. The Gallic bishop, Arculf, 
passing through Dimashk about 50/670, noted two 
separate sanctuaries for each of the communities 
(P. Geyer, Itinera Hierosolymita, Saeculi ivrviii). 
Conversions grew in number and the primitive 
mosque, which was no more than a musalld situated 
against the eastern part of the south wall of the 
peribolus, became too small. <Abd al-Malik laid 
claim to the church and proposed its purchase but 
the negotiations failed. "By the time that Caliph 
al-Walid decided to proceed with the enlargement 
of the mosque, the problem had become difficult to 
solve. There was no free place left in the city, the 
temenos had been invaded by houses and there 
remained only the agora where the Sunday markets 
were held. In spite of previous agreements, he 
confiscated the Church of St. John the Baptist from 



the Christians, giving them in exchange, however, 
several other places of worship which had fallen 
into disuse". A legend which tells of the division 
of the Church of St. John between Christians 
and Muslims springs from an error in translation. 
Neither al-Tabari {Annates, ii/2), nor al-Baladhurl 
(Fu(ufi, 125). nor al-Masu'di (Murudj, v, 363) 
mentions the division of the church. The text of Ibn 
al-Mu c alla which Ibn c Asakir and Ibn Djubayr have 
helped to spread, speaks of a division of the kanisa 
where the Christian sanctuary adjoined the musalld 
of the Muslims. We must take the word kanisa in 
a broad sense as meaning place of prayer, that is 
to say the open-air fiaram of the ancient sanctuary 
(J. Sauvaget, in Syria, xxvi, 353) which can also be 
called masdiid. Fascinated by the plan of the mosque 
in which they hoped to discover an ancient Byzantine 
basilica, certain authors, of whom Dussaud is one, 
have stated that the Christian hall of prayer was 
divided between the two communities. Lammens 
admits, however, that the construction of the cupola 
must be attributed to al-Walid. All those who have 
studied it on the spot, such as Thiersch, Strygowski, 
Sauvaget and Creswell, agree with only some slight 
differences of opinion in regarding the Great Mosque 
as a Muslim achievement. In 86/705, al-Walid had 
everything within the peribolus of the ancient temple 
demolished (al-Farazdak, Diwan, 107-109), both the 
Church of St. John and the little chapel which stood 
over the three cubits square cript, in which there was 
a casket containing the head of St. John the Baptist 
(Yahya b. Zakariyya 5 ). Only the surrounding walls 
made of large stones and the square corner towers 
were allowed to remain. In this framework, approxi- 
mately 120 by 80 metres in size, the architects placed 
to the north a court-yard surrounded by a vast 
covered portico with double arcades. "Along the 
whole length of the south wall of the peribolus, 
extended in the same direction as that in which the 
faithful formed their ranks for prayer, an immense 
hall made a place of assembly for the Muslim com- 
munity". In the middle was an aisle surmounted by 
a vast cupola. In the east the "mihrdb of the Com- 
panions" served as a reminder of the primitive 
masdiid. In the west a new door, Bab al-Ziyada, 
was opened in the wall to replace the central portico 
which had been blocked up. "Finally, in the centre 
of the north wall a high square minaret showed from 
afar the latest transformation which had come to 
the old sanctuary of Damascus". The walls of the 
building were hidden in some places under marble 
inlays, in others under mosaics of glass-paste. The 
Great Mosque was built iu six years and "by the 
vastness of its proportions, the majesty of its 
arrangement, the splendour of its decorations and 
the richness of its materials" it has succeeded in 
impressing the human imagination down the 
centuries. A Muslim work in its conception and 
purpose, it was to be "the symbol of the political 
supremacy and moral prestige of Islam". 

Two new Muslim cemeteries were made in addition 
to that of Bab al-Faradis: the first was situated at 
Bab Tuma but the one in which most of the Com- 
panions of the Prophet were to lie was to the south 
of the city outside Bab al-Saghir. 

The 'Abbasid period.— <Abd Allah b. c Ali, 
uncle of the new Caliph Abu 'l- c Abbas al-Saffah, 
having put an end to the Umayyad dynasty, took 
Dimashk in Ramadan 132/April, 750 and became its 
first <Abbasid governor. Umayyad buildings were 
sacked, the defences dismantled, tombs profaned. 
A sombre era began for the city which dwindled to 



the level of a provincial town, while the Caliphate 
installed its capital in 'Irak. A latent state of in- 
surrection reigned in the Syrian capital. Under al- 
Mahdi (156-68/775-85) a conflict between Kaysis and 
Yamanis flared up into a vain revolt led by an 
Umayyad pretender called al-Sufyani, with the 
support of the Kaysis. Under the Caliphate of Harun 
al-Rashid, the movement against Baghdad became 
more broadly based; in 180/796, the 'Abbasid ruler 
sent a punitive expedition under the command of 
Dja'far al-Barmaki. Order was only temporarily 
re-established and the authority of the 'Abbasid 
governors was continually being put to scorn. In 
an endeavour to restore calm, the Caliph al-Ma'mun 
made a first visit there in 215/830, but the troubles 
continued. He made a second visit in 218/833, the 
year of his death. In 240/854 a violent revolt ended 
in the execution of the 'Abbasid governor of Dimashk, 
but troops of the Caliph succeeded in restoring 
order. Four years later the Caliph al-Mutawakkil 
tried to transfer his capital to the Syrian metropolis 
but only stayed there 38 days before returning to 
Samarra. 

In 254/868 a Turk of Bukhara, Ahmad b. Tulun 
[q.v.], was appointed governor of Egypt by the 
Caliph of whom he was no more than a nominal 
vassal. He seized the opportunity of the Caliphate's 
being much weakened by the successive revolts of 
the Zand] to occupy Dimashk in 264/878. His son, 
Khumarawavh [q.v.], succeeded him in 270/884 and 
continued to pay an annual tribute to the Caliph- 
Sultan in order to remain master of Egypt and 
Syria. He was assassinated at Dimashk in Dh u 
'1-Hidjdja 282/February 896. In the course of the 
last years of Tulunid power, the Karmatians [q.v.] 
appeared in Syria and helped to increase the centres 
of political and social agitation. The decline of the 
Tulunids and the growing activity of the Karmatians 
who got as far as besieging Dimashk forced the 
Caliph to dispatch troops who reduced the Karma- 
tians to order in 289/902 and lifted the siege of 
Dimashk whose governor, Tughdj b. Djuff, a Turk 
from Transoxania, re-allied himself with the 'Abbasid 
general, Muhammad b. Sulayman, without difficulty, 
and as a reward was appointed governor of Egypt 
by the Caliph. In this country his son, Muhammad, 
founded the dynasty of the Ikhshidids [q.v.] in 
326/938. Recognizing the nominal suzerainty of the 
'Abbasids, the new dynasty went to the defence of 
Dimashk against the Hamdanids. In 333/945 an 
agreement was reached, the Ikhshidids holding the 
town in return for paying a tribute to the masters of 
Halab. When Muhammad died at Dimashk in 334/ 
946 chaos was born again both there and in Cairo. 

The Fatimids [q.v.] replaced the Ikhshidids in 
Cairo in 357/968. With their coming, first in Egypt 
and then in Syria, a Shi'ite Caliphate was installed 
which was the enemy of Baghdad. At the beginning 
of the nth century, Dimashk was in a difficult 
situation; the Hamdanids were putting on pressure 
from the north, the Fatimids from the south, not to 
mention Byzantine movements, Karmatian activi- 
ties and Turkoman invasions. At one time the city 
was occupied by the Karmatians but in 359/970 the 
Fatimids expelled them, not without causing a 
certain amount of fire and destruction in the town. 
The Fatimid domination only aggravated the situ- 
ation for the city, where the Maghrabi soldiers in the 
pay of Cairo exasperated the population. It was a 
century of political anarchy and decadence. The 
riots sometimes turned into catastrophe, for the 
majority of the houses were built of unfired brick 



with framework and trusses of poplar trees, and 
any fire could have grave consequences; such was 
the case in 461/1069 when one which broke out 
owing to a brawl between Damascenes and Berber 
soldiers caused serious damage to the Great Mosque 
and the city. 

The Turkish domination. — A Turkoman chief, 
Atslz b. Uvak [q.v.], who had been in the pay of the 
Fatimids, abandoned their cause and occupied 
Dimashk on his own account in 468/1076, thus 
putting an end to Egyptian rule. Threatened by his 
former masters, Atslz hastened to strengthen the 
citadel and endeavoured to form an alliance with 
Malik Shah [q.v.] whom he asked to help him. In 
reply, the Saldjukid sultan gave the town in appanage 
to his brother, Tutush [q.v.]. He arrived in Dimashk 
in 471/1079, re-established order and got rid of Atslz 
by having him assassinated. The era of violence 
continued. In 476/1083, Muslim b. Kuraysh besieged 
the city; the Fa timid aid which he expected failed 
to arrive and Tutush succeeded in setting the city 
free. He died fighting his nephew, Barkyaruk [q.v.], 
in 488/1095. His sons divided his domain. Ridwan 
installed himself at Halab and Dukak at Dimashk. 
The latter put the direction of his affairs into the 
hands of his atabeg, the Turk Zahir al-DIn Tughtakin, 
who from that time on seems to have been the real 
ruler of Dimashk. His political position was a 
delicate one for he had against him the Fatimids, 
the Saldjukids of Baghdad and, after 490/1097, the 
Franks as well. 

On the death of Dukak (Ramadan 497/June 1104), 
Tughtakin exercised his power in the name of the 
young Tutush II who died soon afterwards. From 
then on, the atabeg was the only master of Dimashk 
and his dynasty, the Burids [q.v.], remained there 
until the arrival of Nur al-DIn in 549/1154. During 
the quarter of a century of Tughtakln's reign, there 
was a remarkable improvement in the state of the 
city, both morally and economically. On his death 
in Safar 522/February 1128, he was succeeded by 
his son, Tadj al-Muluk Burl. The Batiniyya [q.v.], 
who had already made themselves felt in Dimashk 
by killing the Amir Mawdud in 507/1 113, redoubled 
their activities supported by the Damascene vizier, 
Abu 'All Tahir al-Mazdakanl. In 523/1129 Burl had 
this vizier killed. This was the signal for a terrible 
massacre, the population, out of control, extermina- 
ting some hundreds of Batiniyya. The survivors did 
not long delay their revenge; Tadj al-Muluk Burl 
was the victim of an attempt on his life in 525/1131 
and died as a result of his wounds a year later in 
Radjab 526/May-June 1132. The two succeeding 
princes were also assassinated, the one, Ismail, by 
his mother in 529/1135, the other, Shihab al-DIn 
Mahmud, by his enemies in 533/"39- 

In 534/1140 the military leaders brought to power 
the young Abu Sa'Id Abak Mudjir al-DIn, who left 
the direction of his affairs to his atabeg, Mu'in al-Din 
Unur. On the atabeg's death ten years later Abak 
took over the power himself but was obliged to 
accept the guardianship of Nur al-DIn who finally 
chased him out of Dimashk. 

The situation of the Burids was not easy. Invested 
with their power by the Caliph, they defended an 
advance position on the road to Fatimid Egypt, 
while the replenishment of their grain supplies was 
dependent on two regions, the Hawran and the Bik c a, 
which were threatened by the Latin kingdom of 
Jerusalem. It was necessary at certain times to 
negotiate with the Franks, while at the same time 
they had to account for this conduct to Baghdad. 



A new threat hung over Dimashk from the beginning 
of 524/1130, that of the Zangids, who at that tima 
became masters of Halab. In order to cope with 
them, the Burids on more than one occasion obtained 
the help of the Franks, but as these last themselves 
attacked Dimashk in 543/1148, new agreements with 
them became no longer possible. The city was 
obliged to seek other alliances in order to safeguard 
its recently re-established economy. 

Before Tughtakin succeeded in restoring order, 
Dimashk had known three centuries of anarchy. 
Delivered up to the arbitrary power of ephemeral 
governors and their agents, the population lived 
under a reign of terror and misery. Hence the quest 
for security which haunted them determined the 
lay-out of its streets. They had to live among people 
whom they knew and who knew each other and be 
near to those who lived a similar kind of life. It was 
from this starting-point that they were able to make 
a new beginning in their corporate life. 

The plan of the city, which had changed very little 
since Roman times, from the beginning of the 4th/ 
9th century on became broken up into numerous 
water-tight compartments. Each district (ftdra) 
•barricaded itself behind its walls and gates and was 
obliged to form itself into a miniature city provided 
with all the essential urban constituents such as a 
mosque, baths, water supply [tali*), public bakery, 
and little market (suwayk;a) with its cook-shop 
keepers; each had its own chief (shaykh) and group 
of_ militia WWatt [q.v.]). 

This breaking up of the ancient town was accom- 
panied by a complete religious segregation since 
each community had its own sector of the city, the 
Muslims in the west near the citadel and the Great 
Mosque, the Christians in the north-east and the 
Jews in the south-east. The whole appearance of the 
city changed, houses no longer opening directly on to 
the streets. From this time on, there sprang up 
along the ancient roads of the city streets (darb) 
each of which served as the main thoroughfare of its 
own district and was closed at both ends by heavy 
gates. It branched out into little lanes (zukdk) and 
blind alleys. 

Nevertheless there still existed in the city some 
elements of unity. These were the fortified outer 
walls which protected the town, the Great Mosque 
of the Umayyads, its religious and political centre 
where official decrees were proclaimed and displayed, 
and finally the sujs which, under the supervision of 
the muhtasib, furnished provisions and manufactured 
goods. Commercial activities went on in the same 
places as in the Roman epoch. One sector was on 
the great thoroughfare with the side arcades and 
another on the street with the columns which, to 
the east of the Great Mosque, led from the temple to 
the agora. These highways had been completely 
changed. The arcades had been occupied by shops, 
the roadway itself invaded by booths, and in each 
of the commercial sectors there had developed a 
maze of siil?s. One of the centres of the ancient Decu- 
manus was the Dar al-Bittlkh which, as in 
Baghdad, was the actual fruit-market, while not far 
from the ancient agora the JJaysariyyas were 
much frequented. In these covered and enclosed 
markets, like civil basilicas based on Byzantine 
models, trade in valuable articles such as jewels, 
embroideries carpets and furs, was carried on. 

When tranquillity returned under Tughtakin, new 
districts were built, al- c Ukayba to the north, Shaghur 
to the south, and Kasr al-Hadjdjadj to the south- 
west. At the gates of the city, tanneries produced raw 



materials for the leather workers, two paper-mills 
functioned from the beginning of the 9th century, 
and many water-mills ground various fatty sub- 

Of the period preceding the Burids, the only 
monument which still exists is the cupola of the 
Treasure-house (Bayt al-Mdl) built in the Great 
Mosque in 161/778 by a governor of the Caliph al- 
Mahdl. 

During the reign of Dukak, the city's oldest 
hospital was built to the west of the Great Mosque, 
and there also in 491/1098 the first madrasa, the 
Sidiriyya, was constructed for the Hanafls. 

The first khdnakdh of Dimashk, the Tawusiyya, 
once contained the tombs of Dukak and his mother, 
Safwat al-Mulk, but the last traces of it disappeared 
in 1938. Intellectual activity andSunni propaganda 
developed in the city under the Burids. The Shafi'Is 
had their first madrasa, the Amlniyya, by 514/1120, 
whereas the first Hanbali one, the Sharafiyya, was 
not built until 536/1142. On the eve of Nur al-DIn's 
capture of Dimashk seven madrasas were to be found 
there but there was still none for the madhhab of 
the Imam Malik. 

Dimashk under Nur al-DIn.— A new era 
began for the city with the arrival of Nur al-DIn in 
549/1154. In establishing his residence at Dimashk, 
this prince, already master of Halab, set a seal on 
the unity of Syria from the foot-hills of Cilicia to the 
mountains of Galilee. For the first time since the 
Umayyads, Dimashk was to become once again the 
capital of a vast Muslim state, unified and indepen- 
dent. Nur al-DIn's politics imprinted his character 
on the city which assumed the role of rampart of 
Muslim orthodoxy as opposed to the Fatimid heretics 
and the infidel Franks. A recrudescence of fanaticism 
showed itself at this time; its one and only aim was 
the triumph of Sunnl Islam and all efforts were 
concentrated on the djihdd [q.v.]. Great centre of the 
Sunnis, its fame was heightened by a large number 
of new religious buildings, mosques and madrasas. 
Dimashk retrieved at this time both its military 
importance and its religious prestige. 

Works of military defence were carefully planned 
and carried out. The surrounding city walls were 
strengthened, and new towers built, of which one 
can still be seen to the west of Bab al-Saghir. Some 
gates such as Bab Shark! and Bab al-Djabiya were 
merely reinforced, others provided with barbicans 
(Bib al-Saghir and Bab al-Salam). A sector of the 
north part of the city wall was carried forward as 
far as the right bank of the Barada, and a new gate, 
Bab al-Faradj, was opened to the east of the citadel, 
while Bab Kaysan to the south was blocked up. 

Nur al-DIn carried out works at the citadel itself, 
strengthening Bab al-Hadld and building a large 
mosque. Finally, in keeping with the military life 
of the city, two great plots of ground were reserved 
for the training of cavalry and for parades, the 
Maydan al-Akhdar to the west of the >he town and 
the Maydan al-Khasa to the south. 

Religious and intellectual life was very highly 
developed and here two families played leading 
roles, the Shafi'I Banu 'Asakir and the Hanbali Banu 
Kudama who came originally from the now district 
of al-Salihiyya, outside the walls on the slopes of 
the Kasiyun,in 556/1161. Places of prayer multiplied; 
Nur al-DIn himself had a certain number of mosques 
restored or constructed. An especially energetic 
effort was made to spread Sunnl doctrine and 
traditions and Nur al-DIn founded the first school 
for the teaching of traditions, the Dar al-Hadith. 



There remain only ruins of this little madrasa whose 
first teacher was the Shafi'I historian, Ibn 'Asakir. 
Other new madrasas were built, for the most part 
Shafi'i or Hanafl. It was at this time that the 
first MalikI madrasa, al-Salahiyya, was begun, to be 
finished by Salah al-DIn. It was to the initiative of 
Nur al-DIn that we owe the construction of the great 
madrasa, al-'Adiliyya, now the home of the Arab 
Academy. Begun about 567/1171, it was only 
finished in 619/1222. 

Another new institution owed to Nur al-DIn was 
the Dar al-'Adl, which later on became the Dar 
al-Sa'ada. A high court of justice occupied the 
building to the south of the citadel; there, in the 
interests of equity, the prince grouped representa- 
tives of the four madhhabs around the Shafi'I kadi 
'l-fruddt. 

New forms showing an 'Iraki influence appeared 
in Damascene architecture, notably the dome with 
honey-comb construction outside, to be found on 
the funerary madrasa of Nur al-DIn which was built 
in 567/1 171, and in the cupola over the entrance to 
the Mdristdn whose portal is ornamented with 
stalactites. This hospital, one of the most important 
monuments in the history of Muslim architecture, 
was founded by Nur al-DIn to serve also as a school 
of medicine. An accurate inventory of the 12th 
century monuments of Dimashk is to be found in 
the topographical introduction drawn up by Ibn 
'Asakir for his Ta'rikh madinat Dimashk- By the 
end of Nur al-DIn's reign the number of places of 
worship had risen to 242 intra muros and 178 extra 

The Ayyubid period.— In 569/1174 on the 
death of Nur al-DIn his son, al-Malik al-Salih 
Isma'il, whose atabeg was the Amir Shams al-Dawla 
Ibn al-Mukaddam, inherited his father's throne. In 
Dimashk, where a powerful pro-Ayyubid party had 
been in existence since the time when Ayyub, father 
of Salah al-DIn [q.v.], had been governor, plots were 
hatched among the amirs. The young prince was 
taken to Halab while Ibn al-Mukaddam remained 
master of the city. To ensure its stability, the amir 
negotiated a truce with the Franks, an agreement 
which upset one section of public opinion. The agents 
of Salah al-DIn presented him as the champion of 
Islam and won over the population of Dimashk to 
their side. The former Kurdish vassal of Nur al-Din 
took over the waging of the Holy War and entered 
Dimashk in 571/1176. During the years which 
followed fighting hardly ever ceased; it was the time 
of the Third Crusade and the Muslims were dominated 
by a desire to throw the Franks back to the sea. At 
last, in 583/1187, the victory of Hattin [q.v.] allowed 
Islam to return to Jerusalem. Some months after 
having made peace with the crusaders, Salah al-DIn, 
founder of the Ayyubid dynasty [q.v.], died on 27 
Safar 589/4 March 1193 at Dimashk. Buried first 

sepulchre in the al-'Aziziyya madrasa to the north 
of the Great Mosque. After the sovereign's death 
fierce fighting broke out between his two sons and 
his brother. Al-Afdal [q.v.], who in 582/1186 had 
received Dimashk in fief from his father, tried to 
retain his property, but in 592/1196 he was chased 
out by his uncle, al-'Adil, who recognized the 
suzerainty of his nephew, al-'Aziz, successor of 
Salah al-Din in Cairo. Al-'Aziz died three years later 
and after lengthy disputes, al-'Adil was recognized 
as head of the Ayyubid family in 597/1200. Under 
the rule of this spiritual heir of Salah al-DIn there 
began a period of good organization and political 



relaxation. Cairo from that time on became the 
capital of the empire but Dimashk remained an 
important political, military and economic centre. 
Al-'Adil died near Dimashk in 615/1218 and was 
buried in the al- c Adiliyya madrasa. Al-Malik al- 
Mu'azzam c Isa, who had been his father's lieutenant 
in Syria since 597/1200, and who had received the 
province in fief in 604/1207, endeavoured to remain 
independent in Dimashk, but the twists and turns 
of political life brought him at the beginning of 
623/1226 to mention in the khutba the Kh w arazm-shah. 
Djalal al-DIn [q.v.], who thus became nominal suzerain 
of the city. When al-Mu'azzam died in 624/1227 his 
son, al-Malik al-Nasir Dawud, succeeded him under 
the tutelage of his atabeg, c lzz al-Din Aybak. Very 
soon afterwards, the Amir al-Ashraf arrived from 
Diyar Mudar, eliminated his nephew, Dawud, and 
installed himself in Dimashk in 625/1228. 

On the death of al-Kamil, who had succeeded al- 
'Adil in Cairo in 635/1138, there had begun a period 
of decline. Fratricidal disputes started again. In 
order to hold on to Dimashk, al-Malik al-Salih 
Isma c Il allied himself with the Franks against his 
nephew, al-Salih Ayyub, master of Egypt. With the 
help of the Kh w arizmians, Ayyub was victorious over 
him in 643/1245 and once again Dimashk came 
under the authority of Cairo. Ayyub died in 646/1248, 
his son, Turanshah, disappeared presumably assas- 
sinated a few months later, and in 648/1250, the 
prince of Halab, al-Malik al-Nasir Yusuf, seized 
Dimashk of which he was the last Ayyubid ruler. 
The Mongol threat was, indeed, now becoming more 
imminent; Baghdad fell in 656/1258 and less than 
two years later the Syrian capital was taken in 
its turn. 

The arrival of Nur al-DIn had undoubtedly 
brought about a renaissance in Dimashk, but the 
circumstances of the reign of Salah al-Din had put 
a stop to the evolution of the city. 

Progress began again under the Ayyubids when 
Dimashk became the seat of a princely court. The 
growth in population and new resources which such 
a promotion implied had repercussions on its 
economic life, all the more appreciable since the 
calm reigns of al-'Adil and his successor brought 
a peaceful atmosphere. This improvement in 
economic activity went side by side with the devel- 
opment of commercial relations. From that time on, 
Italian merchants began to come regularly to 
Dimashk. Industry took an upward trend; its silk 
brocades remained as famous as ever, while copper 
utensils inlaid or not, gilded glassware and tanned 
lambskins were also much in demand. The markets 
(s«As) stayed very active and at the side of the 
Kaysariyyas, warehouses (junduk) multiplied in the 
town, while the Dar al-Wakala, a depdt of 
merchant companies, gained in importance. 

To strengthen their resistance against both family 
cupidity and the threats of the Franks, as well as 
to bring the system of defence up to date with the 
progress of the military arts, the Ayyubids made 
changes and improvements in the outer walls and the 
citadel of Dimashk. The work on the walls was 
confined to the gates; Bab Shark! and Bab al- 
Saghir were strengthened in 604/1207 by al-Mu c azzam 
<Isa; al-Nasir Dawud rebuilt Bab Tuma in 624/1227; 
Bab al-Faradj was reconstructed in 636/1239; lastly, 
al-Salib Ayyub remodelled Bab al-Salam in 641/1243, 
adding a square tower which may still be seen at the 
north-east corner of the walls. Complete recon- 
struction of the citadel, a piece of work which took 
ten years, was begun in 604/1207. A new palace with 



a throne-room was built in the interior to serve as 
a residence for the Sultan, while the military offices 
and financial services were installed in new locations 
there. The present-day arrangements, indeed, go 
back to this period and although the citadel was 
burnt down and dismantled by the Mongols, two of 
these 7th/i3th century towers still remain almost 

The general prosperity allowed the Ayyubids to 
practise an exceptionally generous patronage of 
writers and scholars. Dimashk at this time was not 
only a great centre of Muslim cultural life but also 
an important religious stronghold. The SunnI politics 
of the dynasty showed themselves in the encourage- 
ment which its leaders gave, following the custom 
of the Saldjukids and the Zangids, to the propagation 
of the Islamic faith and of orthodoxy. Civil archi- 
tecture flourished at this time also. Princes and 
princesses, high dignitaries and senior officers 
rivalled each other in making religious foundations 
and Dimashk was soon to become the city of 
madrasas; the number of these — twenty are men- 
tioned by Ibn Djubayr in 1184/1770 — was to 
quadruple in a single century. (On the Ayyubid 
madrasas, see Herzfeld in Ars Islamica, xi-xii, 1-71). 
From then cvn, the madrasa with its lecture-room? 
and its lodgings for masters and students, began, like 
the mosques, to be combined more and more often 
with the tomb of its founder (see, for example, the 
'Adiliyya and the Mu c azzamiyya). Linked with the 
funerary madrasa, there appeared also at this time 
the turba of a type peculiar to Dimashk. The mauso- 
leum consisted of a square chamber whose walls 
were decorated with painted stucco, above which 
four semi-circular niches and four flat niches sym- 
metrically placed formed an octagonal zone sur- 
mounted by a drum composed of sixteen niches of 
equal size upon which rested a sixteen-sided cupola. 
This was the typical way of erecting a cupola over 
a square building. The first example whose date we 
know is the mausoleum of Zayn al-Din, built in 
567/1172. Among the monuments of this kind which 
can still be seen to-day are the following of 
the 6th/i2th century: the Turbat al-Badrl, the 
al-Nadjmiyya madrasa, the al-'Aziziyya madrasa 
where the tomb of Salah al-DIn is situated, and the 
mausoleum of lbn Salama, built in 613/1216. Most 
characteristic of Ayyubid architecture is its sense of 
proportion; the buildings have facades of ashlar of 
harmonious size, and the alternation of basalt with 
limestone forms a decorative motif whose finest 
example, perhaps, is the Killdjiyya madrasa, com- 
pleted in 651/1253. The dimensions of the cupolas 
are such that they seem to sink naturally into their 
urban background. 

The 7th/i3th century was one of Dimashk's most 
brilliant epochs. It had once more become "a poli- 
tical, commercial, industrial, strategic, intellectual 
and religious centre" and most of the monuments 
which still adorn the city date from this period. 

The Mamluk period (658-922/12 60-1516). — A 
new phase began in the history of Dima shk when in 
Rabi c I 658/March 1260 the troops of Hulagu entered 
the city. The governor fled, the garrison was forced 
to retreat towards the south, the Prince al-Malik al- 
Nasir and his children were made prisoners. The 
Ayyubid dynasty had come to an end. The invasion 
stopped at c Ayn Djalut [q.v.] where the Mamluks, 
under the command of the Amirs Kutuz and Bay- 
bars, put the Mongols to flight. These then evacuated 
Dimashk which was given by the powerful Kurdish 
family of the Kaymarl into the hands of the Sultan 



of Egypt's troops. The Christians of the city suffered 
reprisals for their attitude with regard to the 
Mongols, and the Church of St. Mary was destroyed 
at this time. From then on Cairo, where since 656/ 
1258 a shadow Caliphate had been maintained, sup- 
planted Dimashk which became a political depen- 
dency of Egypt. 

It was still to be the most important city of the 
Syrian province, the mamlaka or niydba of Dimashk. 
(For its administrative organization, see Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, La Syrie a Vipoque des Mamelouks, 
Paris 1923, 135-201). The first great Mamluk sultan, 
al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars [q.v.], interested himself 
especially in Dimashk which he visited frequently 
during his reign (658-76/1260-77). He reconditioned 
the citadel which served as a residence for the 
sultan when he visited the city; in it also were to 
be found the mint, the arsenal, a storehouse of 
military equipment, food reserves, a mill and some 
shops. This veritable "city" served also as a political 
prison (see J. Sauvaget, La Citadelle de Damas, in 
Syria, xi (1930), 50-90 and 216-41). 

On the Maydan al-Akhdar to the west of the 
town Baybars built a palace with black and ochre 
courses of masonry, the famous Kasr al-Ablak, of 
which the Sultan Muhammad b. Kalawun was later 
to build a replica in Cairo. In the ioth/i6th century 
the Ottoman Sultan Sulayman erected the takkiyya 
on the site of this building. Baybars died in this 
kasr in 676/1277 and on the orders of his son, al- 
Malik al-Sa c id, was buried in the al-Zahiriyya 
madrasa where the National Library is now situated. 
During his long reign of seventeen years Dimashk 
had only four governors but after the death of 
Baybars it was to undergo a long period of political 
anarchy punctuated by frequent rebellions. 

Dimashk was the second city of the empire and 
the post of governor was given to eminent Mamluks, 
usually coming from the niydba of Halab. The 
possibility of rivalry between the governor of 
Dimashk and the Sultan was diminished by the 
presence of the governor of the citadel. There were, 

received his diploma of investiture from the Sultan 
and who resided to the south of the citadel at the 
Dar al-Sa c ada where he gave his audiences, and the 
nfi'ib of the citadel who had a special status and 
represented the person of the Sultan. The constant 
rivalry between these two dignitaries and the amirs 
of their circles was sufficient pledge of the main- 
tenance of the Sultan's authority. A change of 
Sultan in Cairo usually provoked a rebellion on the 
part of the governor of Dimashk. Thus when al- 
Sa'Id, Baybars' son, was dismissed from the throne 
and succeeded by the Sultan al-Malik al-Mansur 
Kalawun [q.v.], the governor, Sunkur al-Ashkar, 
refused to recognize his authority. Supported by the 
amirs and strengthened by a fatwd given him by 
the kadi 'l-kuddt, the celebrated historian, Ibn 
Khallikan, Sunkur seized the citadel whose governor, 
Ladjln, he imprisoned, and proclaimed himself 
Sultan in Djumada 11 677/October-November 1278. 
He had the khutba said in his name until Safar 679/ 
June 1280, when the troops of Kalawun were 
victorious over him, following the defection of 
certain Damascene contingents. Sunkur fled to al- 
Rahba on the Euphrates. Ladjln, now freed, was 
proclaimed governor of the city. A new Sultan often 
decided to change the governor; thus c Izz al-DIn 
Aybak was relieved of his office in 695/1296 on the 
succession of al-Malik al- c Adil Kitbugha, who 
nominated Shudja' al-Din Adjirlu. After the deposing 



5HK 285 

of Kitbugha, who was imprisoned in the citadel of 
Dimashk, Ladjln, who became Sultan, nominated 
Sayf al-DIn Kipcak governor in 696/1297. The latter 
put himself at the disposition of prince Ghazan 
[q.v.] and accompanied him at the time of his in- 
cursion into Syria. In 699/1300 the Mongol army 
entered Dimashk; it seized the Great Mosque but 
did not succeed in taking the citadel where the 
Mamluks had entrenched themselves. The whole 
sector of the town between these two strongpoints 
underwent serious damage and the Dar al-Hadlth 
of Nur al-DIn suffered. When the Mongols evacuated 
the city, Kipcak betook himself to Egypt and 
rejoined the new Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad 
b. Kalawun. In 702/1303 a new Mongol threat hung 
over the city, but the advance was repulsed. From 
the beginning of 712/1312, in the course of the third 
reign of Muhammad b. Kalawun, Dimashk had, in 
the person of Tankiz, a governor of true quality 
whose authority was recognized by the Syrian amirs. 
Viceroy of Syria in fact as well as name, he inspired 
respect in the Sultan whose nominal representative 
he was for almost a quarter of a century. The 
prosperity which this period brought allowed in- 
tellectual life to flourish. This was the epoch of the 
Muslim reformer Ibn Taymiyya, and of the historian 
al-Safadl. In 717/1317 Tankiz built the mosque 
where his tomb was to be placed extra muros. Some 
years later he had work done on the Great Mosque; 
finally in 739/1339, he founded a Dar al-Hadith. On 
the succession of the new Sultan, al-Malik Abu Bakr, 
he fell suddenly into disgrace, was arrested in 
Dh u '1-Hidjdja 740/ June 1340 and imprisoned at 
Alexandria where he died of poison. 

From 730/1340 until 784/1382, the time when 
Ibn Battuta was visiting the Muslim East, twelve 
Bahri sultans succeeded each other in Cairo, while 
a dozen governors occupied the position of ndHb of 
the city. Some of them had charge of its destiny on 
more than one occasion. It was a continual struggle 
stirred up by the ambitions of one or another and 
aggravated by the audacity of the zu'-ar, whose 
militias, intended for self-defence, neglected their 
proper duties and, often with impunity, terrorized 

The succession of Barkuk [q.v.] in 734/1382 
brought a new line of Circassian Sultans to power 
who are also called Burdjis. 

In 791/1389 Dimashk fell for some weeks into the 
power of Yllbugha al-Nasirl, a governor of Halab 
who had revolted against the Sultan. Master of 
Syria, he penetrated the walls of Dimashk, overthrew 
an army sent by Barkuk and made his way towards 
Egypt. He was defeated in his turn but in Sha'ban 
792/July-August 1390 we find him once again 
governor of Dimashk. 

Although warned of the progress of Timur, 
Barkuk did not have time to reinforce the defences 
of his territory for he died in 801/1399. In Dimashk, 
Sayf al-Din Tanibak who had governed the city 
since 795/1393, revolted against Faradj, the new 
Sultan, and marched on Egypt. He was beaten near 
Ghazza, made prisoner and executed at Dimashk. 
Syria, torn apart by the rivalries of the amirs, fell 
an easy prey to Timur. The Mongol leader advanced 
as far as Dimashk and it was in his camp near the 
town that he received the memorable visit of Ibn 
Khaldun. The Sultan Faradj, coming to the aid of 
the Amir Sudun, Barkuk's nephew, was forced to 
turn back, following a series of defections. After its 
surrender the city was given over to pillage but the 
citadel held out for a month. Many were the victims 



of fires which caused serious damage. The Great 
Mosque itself was not spared nor the Dar al-Sa'ada. 
In 803/1401, TImurleft Dimashk, taking with him to 
Samarkand what remained of qualified artisans and 
workmen. This mass deportation was one of the 
greatest catastrophes in the history of the town. 
After the Mongols' departure, the Amir TaghrlbirdI 
al-Zahiri became the governor of a devastated city, 
despoiled and depopulated. The exhausted country 
had to face a thousand difficulties. Two long reigns 
gave Dimashk the opportunity of rising from its 
ruins: that of Sultan Barsbay (825-41/1422-38) and, 
more important, that of Ka'itbay [?.«.] whose rule 
from 872/1468 until 901/1495 brought a long 
period of tranquillity. Moreover between 16 Sha'ban 
and 10 Ramadan 882/23 November and 16 Decem- 
ber 1477 this Sultan paid a visit to Dimashk 
where the post of governor was held by the Amir 
Kidjmas, whose rapacity remains legendary. The 
civil strife had swallowed up large sums of money 
and the amirs did not hesitate about increasing the 
number of taxes and charges. The Sultans them- 
selves would often use violent means of procuring a 
sum of money with which the taxes could not provide 
them, nor did they scruple about reducing their 
governors to destitution by confiscating their 
fortunes. Under the last Mamluks corruption even 
won over the kadis who, in return for a reward, were 
willing to justify certain measures against the law. 
After Ka'itbay, there began once again a regime of 
violence and extortions which ended only with the 
reign of KansOh al-Ghawrl (905-22/1500-16). This 
last Mamluk Sultan had to defend himself against 
the Ottomans who had invaded Syria. He died 
in battle in Ramadan 922/mid-October 15 16, and 
the troops of Sellm I made their entry into Dimashk. 

Paradoxically enough, a large number of buildings 
were constructed in the city during this tragic 
period. The Mamluks, who lived uncertain of what 
the next day would bring, tried at least to secure 
themselves a sepulchre, so that mausoleums and 
funerary mosques multiplied although they built few 
madrasas. 

There were no innovations in the art of this period, 
for any lack of precedent frightened these parvenus. 
At the beginning of Mamluk times they built 
according to Ayyubid formulas. The al-Zahiriyya 
madrasa, now the National Library, where Baybars' 
tomb is situated, was originally the house of al- 
Akiki, where Ayyflb, father of Salah al-DIn, had 
lived, and the modifications made in 676/1277 were 
limited to the addition of a cupola and an alveoled 
gate. 

The only new type of building was the double 
mausoleum, of which that of the old Sultan Kitbugha, 
built in 695/1296, was the first example in Dimashk. 

In 747/1346 Yllbugha, then governor of the city, 
erected a building on the site of a former mosque 
whose plan was inspired by that of the Great Mosque. 
It was in this sanctuary, situated near the modern 
Mardja Square, that the new governor put on his 
robe of honour before making a solemn entry into 
the city. 

The artistic decadence which became more pro- 
nounced in the course of the 8th/i4th century came 
into the open at the beginning of the gth/isth 
century after the ravages of TImur. At this time 
everything was sacrificed to outward appearances 
and the monument was no more than a support for 
showy ornamentation. This taste for the picturesque 
manifested itself in the minarets with polygonal 
shafts, loaded with balconies and corbelling whose 



silhouettes were to change the whole skyline of the 
city. The first example was the minaret of the 
Pjami' Hisham, built in 830/1427. Polychromatic 
facades grew in popularity and even inlays were 
added. The al-Sabuniyya mosque, finished in 868/ 
1464, and the funerary madrasa of Sibay called the 
Djami' al- Kharratln, built in the very early years of 
the 9th/i6th century, are two striking examples of the 
decadence of architecture under the last Mamluks. 

It is interesting to notice that most of these 
Mamluk monuments were built extra muros. There 
was no longer room within the city walls and the 
city "burst out" because, paradoxically, "there was 
an immense development of economic activity 
during this sad period". "All the trades whose 
development down the course of the centuries had 
been assisted by the presence of a princely court, 
had now to satisfy the demand for comfort and 
the ostentatious tastes" of military upstarts who 
thought only of getting what enjoyment they could 
out of life and of impressing the popular imagination 
with their display. Dimashk, while remaining the 
great market for the grain of the Hawran, became 
also a great industrial town, specializing in luxury 
articles and army equipment. This activity was 
reflected by a new extension of the suks which was 
accompanied by "a sharp differentiation between 
the various trading areas according to their type 
of customer". A new district, T a h t K a 1 c a, developed 
to the north-west of the town below the citadel. In 
the Suk al- Khayl, whose open space remained the 
centre of military life, groups of craftsmen installed 
themselves whose clients were essentially the army 
and who left the shops inside the city walls to other 
groups of artisans. Wholesale trade in fruit and 
vegetables also went outside the town; a new Dar 
al-Bittlkh was set up at al- c Ukayba where the 
amirs and the members of their djund lived. 

Towards the middle of the 9th/i5th century there 
appeared the first symptoms of an economic crisis. 
The state, whose coffers were empty, lived on its 
wits, but commerce still remained active as is 
demonstrated by the accounts of such travellers as 
Ludovico de Varthema (Itinerario, v-vii) who 
visited Dimashk in 907/1502. The city profited from 
the very strong trading activity between western 
Europe and the Muslim East, but the hostility of 
the people of Dimashk and the despotic nature of 
its governors prevented European merchants from 
founding any lasting establishments likely to 
acquire importance. Merchants arrived bringing a 
above all cloth from Flanders, stocked themselves 
up with silk brocades, inlaid copper-work and 
enamelled glassware, and then departed. The effects 
of the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope did not 
immediately make themselves felt; it was excessive 
taxation rather which was beginning to slow down 
trade on the eve of the coming of the Ottomans. 

The Ottoman Period (922-1246/1516-1831). — 
On 25 Radjab 922/24 August 1516 the Ottoman 
troops, thanks to their well-trained infantry and the 
superior firing power of their artillery, put the 
Mamluk cavalry to flight at Mardj Dabik near 
Halab. This success gave the Sultan Selim I a 
conquest of Syria all the more swift since the majority 
of the ndHbs rallied to the Ottoman cause. There 
was practically no resistance at Dimashk where the 
Mamluk garrison retreated and the Sultan made his 
entrance into the town on 1 Ramadan 922/28 
September 1516. The Mamluk detachments pro- 
tecting Egypt were beaten three months later near 
Ghazza. The commander of the Syrian contingents, 



Djanbirdl al-Ghazali, joined forces with Selim and 
was allowed to return to the post of governor of 
Dimashk to which he had been nominated by 
Kansiih al-Ghawri, the last Mamluk Sultan. 

The arrival of the Ottomans seemed no more to 
the Damascene population than a local incident and 
not as a remarkable event which was to open a 
new era. To them it was merely a change of masters; 
the Mamluks of Cairo were succeeded by another 
group of privileged foreigners, the Janissaries who 
had come from Turkey. Fairly quickly, however, 
there was a reaction on the part of the amirs and 
Djanbirdl surrounded himself with all the anti- 
Ottoman elements. On the death of Selim I in 
927/1521 the governor of Dimashk refused to 
recognize the authority of Sulayman, proclaimed 
himself independent and seized the citadel. The 
rebel quickly became master of Tripoli, Hims and 
Hama, and marched against Halab which he be- 
sieged without success, then returning to Dimashk. 
Sulayman sent troops which crossed Syria and in a 
battle at Kabun, to the north of Dimashk, on 
17 Safar 927/27 January 1521, the rebellious governor 
was killed. The violence and pillaging of the Turkish 
soldiery then sowed panic in Dimashk and its sur- 
roundings. A third of the city was destroyed by the 

Under the rule of Sulayman, the political regime 
changed and the administration showed some signs 
of organization. In 932/1525-6 the Ottomans made 
their first survey of the lands, populations, and 
revenues of Dimashk (see daftar-i khaijani and 
B. Lewis, The Ottoman Archives as a source for 
the history of the Arab lands, in JRAS, 1951, 153-4, 
where the registers for Dimashk are listed) . Dimashk 
was no more than a modest pashalik in the immense 
empire over which the shadow of the Ottoman 
Sultanate extended. Most certainly the city no 
longer had the outstanding position in the game of 
political intrigue which it had enjoyed in the century 
of the Circassians. Pashas, accompanied by a Hanafi 
kadi and a director of finance but with no authority 
over the garrison, succeeded each other at a headlong 
rate; between 923/1517 and 1103/1679 Dimashk was 
to have 133 governors. A list of them and an account 
of these years is to be found in H. Laoust, Les 
gouverneurs de Damns sous les Mamelouks et les 
premiers Ottomans, Damascus 1952. 

Early in the I2th/late in the 17th century there 
was a change of feeling in the empire; the Sultans 
lost their authority and remained in the Seraglio, 
and the Ottoman frontiers receded, but they still 
remained wide enough to shelter Dimashk from 
enemy attempts. Furthermore the population had 
internal troubles at that time. The offices of State 
were farmed out during this period; the holders and 
especially the governors, wanting to recover the cost 
of their position as quickly as possible, put pressure 
on the people; corruption became the rule and lack 
of discipline habitual. Nevertheless Dimashk was 
not without a certain prosperity thanks to the two 
factors of trade and the pilgrimage to Mecca. 

As early as 942/1535, France concluded with the 
Porte a Treaty of Capitulations which opened 
Turkish ports to its traders and enabled them to 
do business throughout the eastern Mediterranean. 
European merchants, three-fifths of whom at the 
end of the 18th century were French, imported 
manufactured goods and exported raw materials 
and spices. Despite the very high custom duties, 
the bad behaviour of officials and even, to some 
extent, the insecurity, external trade remained very 



SHK 287 

lucrative and political events never succeeded in 
stopping the broad movements of commerce. At 
Dimashk, as in other parts of Syria, the native 
Christians served as intermediaries between the 
Europeans and both the Turkish administration and 
the population which spoke an Arabic that in the 
course of four centuries had taken in many Turkish 
loan-words. The intensity of the commercial traffic 
justified the construction of numerous khans which 
served as hotels, as well as exchanges and ware- 
houses, for the foreign traders. In the oldest khans, 
such as the Khan al-Harir, built in 980/1572 by 
Darwish Pasha and still in existence to-day, we find 
the usual Syrian arrangements: a court-yard, 
generally square, surrounded by an arcaded gallery 
on to which open the shops and stables, while the 
floor above is reserved for lodgings. Certainly the 
Venetian funduk which came into being in Damascus 
after 1533 would have had the same arrangements. 
Early in the 18th century this plan was modified; 
the central space became smaller and was covered 
with cupolas, the merchandise thus being protected 
in bad weather. This was a new type of building and 
specifically Damascene. Still to be seen to-day is the 
Khan Sulayman Pasha, builtin 1144/1732, whose 
central court is covered by two great cupolas, and 
most important of all, the Khan As'ad Pasha, con- 
structed in 1165/1752, which is still alive and active. 
This masterpiece of architecture is a vast whole, 
square in plan, covered by eight small cupolas 
dominated by a larger one in the middle which is 
supported by four marble columns. 

Trade with Europe was carried on via the ports 
of the wilayet of Dimashk, the most important of 
which was Sayda. 

The Ottoman Sultan, having become protector of 
the Holy Cities, showed a special interest in the 
pilgrimage to Mecca. This became one of Dimashk's 
main sources of income. Being the last stop of the 
darb al-hadjdj in settled country, the city was the 
annual meeting-place of tens of thousands of pilgrims 
from the north of the empire. This periodical influx 
brought about intense commercial activity. The 
pilgrims seized the opportunity of their stay in order 
to prepare for crossing the desert. They saw to acqui- 
ring mounts and camping materials and bought 
provisions to last three months. At the given moment, 
the Pasha of Dimashk, who bore the coveted title 
of amir al-badjdi, took the head of the official 
caravan accompanying the mahmal and made his 
way to the Holy Cities under the protection of the 
army. On the way back, Dimashk was the first 
important urban centre and the pilgrims sold there 
what they had bought in Arabia, whether coffee or 
black slaves from Africa. 

Once past the Bab Allah which marked the 
extreme southern limits of the town, the caravans 
passed for three kilometres through the district of 
the Maydan, where cereal warehouses and Mamluk 
mausoleums alternated without a break between 
them.. This traffic to the south helped to develop 
a new district near the ramparts outside Bab 
Djabiya; this was to be the quarter of the cara- 
vaneers. These found equipment and supplies in the 
swfcs where, side by side with the saddlers and 
blacksmiths, the curio dealers installed themselves 
as well. This district owed its name of al-Sinaniyya 
to the large mosque which the Grand Vizier, Sinan 
Pasha, wall of Dimashk, had built between 994/1586 
and 999/1591; its minaret covered with green glazed 
tiles could be seen from a very long way off. Some 
years earlier, in 981/1574, the governor, Derwish 



Pasha, had had a large mosque, whose remarkable 
faience tiles are worth admiring, built in the north 
of this quarter. This mode of decoration arrived with 
the Ottomans when the art of Constantinople was 
suddenly implanted in Dimashk. A new architectural 
type also appeared in the urban landscape, that of 
the Turkish mosque, schematically made up of a 
square hall crowned by a hemispherical cupola on 
pendentives, with a covered portico in front and one 
or more minarets with circular shafts crowned by 
candle-snuffer tops at the corners. The first example 
of this type in Dimashk was the large mosque built 
on the site of the Kasr al-Ablak by Sulayman 
Kanuni in 962/1555 according to the plans of the 
architect, Sinan. This mosque, indeed, formed part 
of a great ensemble which is still called to-day the 
Takkiyya Sulaymaniyya. The covered portico of the 
hall of prayer opens from the south side of a vast 
court-yard ; on the east and west side there are rows 
of cells with a columned portico in front of them; on 
the north stands a group of buildings which used 
to shelter the kitchens and canteen but which since 
1957 has housed the collections of the Army Museum. 
Active centres of religious life were to spring up both 
around the 'Umariyya madrasa at al-Salihiyya, and 
around the mausoleum of Muhyi '1-DIn al- c Arabl, 
where in 959/1552 the Sultan Selim I had an Hmaret 
constructed to make free distributions of food to the 
poor visiting the tomb of the illustrious sufi, or again 
at the Takkiyya Ma wlawiyya built in 993/1585 
for the Dancing Dervishes to the west of the mosque 
of Tankiz. The fact that all these great religious 
monuments of the Ottoman period were built extra 
muros shows that the Great Mosque of the Umayyads 
was no longer a unique centre of assembly for the 
Muslim community and definitely confirms the 
spread of the city beyond the old town. 

With the progress of artillery the ancient fortifi- 
cations of Dimashk became outdated, but on the 
other hand the peace which reigned over the empire 
diminished the value of the surrounding walls which 
at this time began to be invaded by dwelling-houses, 
while the moats which had become a general night-soil 
dump were filled with refuse. 

Within the ramparts the streets were paved, 
cleaned and lit at the expense of those living along 
them, as under the last Mamluks. If the piety of the 
population showed itself in the construction of public 
fountains (sabil), the madrasas and zdwiyas, in 
contrast, were deserted by many in favour of the 
coffee-houses which multiplied and added to the 
number of meeting-places for the people. The only 
monument worth notice intra muros apart from the 
khans is the palace which the governor As'ad Pasha 
al- c Azm had built to the south-east of the Great 
Mosque in 1162/1749. The whole body of buildings is 
grouped according to the traditional arrangements 
of a Syrian dwelling of the 18th century with a 
saldmlik and a haramllk decorated with woodwork 
in the Turkish style. This palace is at present 
occupied by the National Museum of Ethnography 
and Popular Art. 

The Modern Period (1831-1920).— Between 
1832 and 1840, Egyptian domination was to bring 
to Dimashk, which had for centuries remained 
outside the main current of political events, a relative 
prosperity. In 1832 Ibrahim Pasha, the son of 
Muhammad C AII, after crossing Palestine came to 
seize Dimashk, where revolts against the Ottomans 
had preceded his arrival. The population aided the 
Egyptian troops who put the Ottomans to flight 
near Hims, then at the end of July inflicted a new 



defeat on them near Halab and forced them back 
across the Taurus. 

The Egyptian regime lasted a decade and allowed 
the return of Europeans who up to that time had 
not been able to enter the town in western clothes 
and had been forced to submit to all kinds of irri- 
tating formalities. In spring 1833 the Sultan ceded 
the viceroyalty of Syria to Muhammad <Ali and 
Ibrahim Pasha governed it in his father's name. 
From that time on, foreign representatives came and 
settled in Dimashk. Very liberal and tolerant on 
the religious side, Ibrahim Pasha founded a college 
in Damascus where some six hundred uniformed 
pupils received both general and military instruction. 
Many administrative buildings were put up even to 

the Tankiziyya, which was turned into a military 
school and remained so until after 1932. A new 
residence, the Serail, was built for the governor. 
This, which was erected outside the walls to the 
west of the city facing Bab al-Hadid, was soon to 
bring about the creation of a new district, al- 
Kanawat, along the Roman aqueduct. The buildings of 
Dar al-Sa c 5da and the Istabl, where in 932/1526 
there had existed a small zoological garden dating 
from the Mamluks, were transformed into a military 
headquarters which only ceased to exist in 1917, 
while in this same sector of the city the best patron- 
ized shops were grouped together in the Suk al- 
Arwam. In J. L. Porter's Five Years in Damascus, 
2 vols., London 1855, an interesting picture of the 
city in the middle of the 19th century is to be found. 
In 1840, after having re-established order and peace, 
Ibrahim Pasha made a first attempt at reform (see 
baladiyya and madjlis) and proposed an in- 
dependent and centralized government. Europe, and 
above all Palmerston, was opposed to the ambi- 
tions of Muhammad C A1I; they profited therefore 
by the discontent provoked by the introduction of 
conscription to rouse the population against Ibrahim 
Pasha who was forced to evacuate Dimashk. His 
attempt at reform was not followed up and the 
Damascenes fell back under Ottoman domination. 
A violent outburst of fanaticism was to break the 
apparent calm of life there. Bloodthirsty quarrels 
having arisen between the Druzes and the Maronites 
of the south of Lebanon, public opinion was stirred 
up in Damascus and on 12 July i860 the Muslims 
invaded the Christian quarters and committed 
terrible massacres, in the course of which the Amir 
c Abd al-Kadir, exiled from Algeria, was able by his 
intervention to save some hundreds of human lives. 
This explosion was severely punished by the Sultan 
and, at the end of August i860, provoked the 
landing of troops sent by Napoleon III. 

From the beginning of this period European in- 
fluence made itself felt in the cultural and economic 
spheres. Foreign schools of various religious deno- 
minations were able to develop, thanks to subventions 
from their governments. The Lazarist Fathers had 
had a very active college since 1775, and a Protestant 
Mission had been functioning since 1853. New 
establishments were opened after i860 such as the 
British Syrian Mission and the College of Jesuits 
(1872). Education of girls was carried on by the 
Sisters of Charity. Midhat Pasha made an attempt 
to develop state education but it was no more than 
an attempt and was not followed up. Cairo was the 
true intellectual centre at this time, and it was 
Cairo's newspapers, al-Muktataj and al-Mukattam, 
which were read in Dimashk. Al-Sham, the first 
Arabic language newspaper edited and printed in 



THE ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF ISLAM 




Art. DlMASHK 




tfgkr Tawra_ 





I I 13th century 

J i6th century 
^ 19th century 



LIST OF MONUMENTS SHOWN ON THI- PLAN OF [JIMAMIK 



Roman arch 




3rd century 


IS. 


Khan Sulayiiiin I'.t-Ji-i 


18th century 


Agora 




B.C. 


33- 


Khanakah al-T.iwu-.iyya 


12th century 


Castrum 




3rd century 


J* 


Kasr al- c Aim 


1 8th century 


Chapel of Ananias 




1st century 


35 


Kasr al-Ablak 


13th century 


Citadel 




13th century 


3»- 


Kasr al-Had]djadj 


8 th century 


Bab al-Barid 




3rd century 


37- 


Madras al-'AdUiyya 1 


2th-i3th ceutury 


Bab al-Djabiya 


jrd 


-1 3th century 


«S. 


Madrasa al-Amlniyya 


12th century 


Bab Djayrun 




3rd century 


W- 


Madrasa al-'Aiizivva 


1 2 th centurv 


Bab Pjlnlk 




3rd century 


40. 


Madrasa al-KiIi-iir ■ ., 


nth century 


Bab al-Faradis 


, 3 th 


-15th century 




Madrasa al-Xuriyy.i 


1 2th century 


Bab al-Faradj 


nth 


-15th century 




\l.ii!r;n.i al-SAbuniyya 


15th century 


Bab Kaysan 




14th century 




Madrasa al-S^inw.i 




Bab aLSaghlr 




nth century 




Madrasa al-Sal:il.nv\-.i 


12th century 


Bab al-Salam 




1 3th century 


«. 


Madrasa al-Zihiiivi-.. 


13th century 


Bab Shark! 


3rd 


-1 2th century 


46. 


Maristan of Nflr al-Din 


I2lh century 


Bab Tuma 


jrd 


-13th century 


-\~- 


Mausoleum of Muhyi 'l-Din loth century 


Dar al-BiUik!i 




8th century 


«8. 


Mausoleu m of Sha ykh Raslan 1 2 1 h cen t ury 


Dar al-H.ui: 


il-IHii 


12th century 


49- 


Suk al-Arwam (site of) 


17th iciiliiry 


Dar al-Khayl 




7 th century' 


50. 


Siik al-Hamidivva 


lglh century 


Djami 1 Darwlshiyya 




1 6th century 


51. 


Sfik Midhat Pasha 


19th century 


Djami* Hisham 




15th century 


S* 


Takkiyya Mawlawiyya 


1 6th century 


Djami' Siba'iyya 




1 nth century 


53. 


Takkiyya Snlaymaniyya 


r6th century 


Djami' Sinaniyya 




16th century 


m. 


Primitive tell 




Djami' of Tankiz 




14 th century 


S5- 


Temple of Jupiter 


znd-3rd century 


Djami' of Yilbugha 




13th century 


M, 


Tower of Nflr al-Din 


1 2th century 


Church of St. Mary 






57- 


Tower of Salih Ayyt.h 


13th century 


Great Uniayyad mosque 


8th century 


S«- 


Turbat al-Badri 


1 2th century 


'lmaret of Selim 




tiith i-initury 


■i9- 


Turbat al-Nadjuiiyya 


12th century 


al-Khadra' 




7th century 


60. 


Turbat Zayn al-Din 


1 2th century 


Khan As'ad Pasha 




iSth century 


61. 


University of Damascus 


20th century 


Khan al-Hartr 




1 6th century 









P 



Damascus, was not to appear until 1897. Little by 
little, however, the Syrian capital was to become 
one of the centres of Arab nationalism. As in the 
other towns of Syria, secret revolutionary cells 
showed themselves very active in the last quarter 
of the 19th century and periodically exhorted the 
population to rebel. It was even said that Midhat 
Pasha, author of the liberal constitution of 1876, 
protected the movement after he had become 
governor of Dimashk in 1878. The great reformer 
had a population of about 150,000 to administer and 
accomplished lasting good in the city, chiefly in 
matters concerned with public hygiene and improve- 
ment of the traffic system, which since carriages had 
come on the scene had grown very inadequate in 
the old town. The governor replaced a number of 
alleyways in the sufcs with broader streets. The 
western part of the Street called Straight was 
widened and given a vaulted roof of corrugated 
iron; this is the present day Suk Midhat Pasha. To 
the south of the citadel the moat was filled in and 
its place occupied by new sw/ts, while the whole 
road joining Bab al-Hadid with the Great Mosque 
was made wide enough for two-way carriage traffic 
and was given the name Suk flamldiyya. New 
buildings were put up at this time on vacant lots to 
the west of the town around the Mardja, the 
"Meadow". These were a new "serai", seat of the 
civil administration, a headquarters for the military 
staff, the town-hall, the law-courts, a post-office 
and a barracks. The Hamidiyya barracks, which 
was newly fitted out and arranged after 1945, was 
to be the kernel of the present-day university. The 
Christian quarter of Bab Tuma saw the rise of fine 
houses where European consuls, missionaries, 
merchants and so on, settled themselves, while the 
old town began to empty, there were no longer any 
gaps between the suburbs of Suwaykat and al- 
Kanawat to the west, or those of Sarudja and al- 
'Ukayba to the north-west. A new colony of Kurds 
and of Muslims who had emigrated from Crete settled 
at a) -Salihiyya, which gave the quarter the name of 
al-Muhadjirin. The situation of this suburb on the 
slopes of the Djabal Kasiyun attracted the Turkish 
aristocracy who built beautiful houses surrounded 
by gardens there. At this time also relations with the 
outer world became easier and to the two locandas 
existing before i860 were added new hotels for the 
foreigners who, after 1863, were able to travel from 
Bayrut to Dimashk by stage-coach over a road newly 
constructed by French contractors. Further progress 
was made in 1894 when a French company opened a 
railway between Bayrut, Dimashk and the Hawran. 
Later on a branch from Rayyak to the north went 
to Hims and Halab. Then 'Izzat Pasha al- c Abid, a 
Syrian second secretary to the Sultan, conceived 
the idea of a Damascus-Medina line to make the 
pilgrimage easier. From this time on, the Sultan was 
to be on friendly terms with Kaiser Wilhelm II, who 
had visited Dimashk in the winter of 1898, and so 
the construction of this line was placed in German 
hands. The narrow gauge Hidjaz railway was in- 
augurated in 1908; it allowed pilgrims to reach the 
Holy City in five days instead of the forty which it 
had taken by caravan. In this same year, an army 
officers' movement forced the Sultan to restore 
the Ottoman constitution which had been sus- 
pended for 31 years and it was not long after this 
that c Abd al-Hamid II was overthrown. This news 
was greeted in Dimashk with large-scale popular 
manifestations and many firework displays, but 
their happiness was to be of short duration. The 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



spirit of liberalism which had led Kurd 'All to bring 
to the city his review, al-Muktabas, which he had 
founded in Cairo three years earlier as a daily paper, 
was deceptive. Indeed after 1909 the Ottoman 
authorities banned it and the only resource for the 
Arab nationalists was to band themselves together 

The declaration of war in 1914 was to have grave 
consequences for Dimashk. At the end of that year, 
Djemal Pasha was appointed Governor-General 
of Syria, Lebanon and Palestine, and Commander- 
in-Chief of the 4th Ottoman army with head- 
quarters in Dimashk. This town rapidly became the 
great General Headquarters of the combined German 
and Turkish forces and their operational base against 
the Suez zone. Djemal Pasha soon showed himself a 
mediocre general but a very energetic administrator. 
He had hoped to win the people of Dimashk over to 
the Turkish cause but was soon forced to give up 
this idea. It was in Dimashk, in the circle of the 
family al-Bakri, that the Amir Faysal, son of Husayn, 
the Sharif of Mecca, was won over to the idea of 
Arab revolt in April 1915; he met with members of 
the secret societies al-Fatdt and al-'Ahd, at that time. 
At the end of May, Faysal returned from Constan- 
tinople and shared in the elaboration of a plan of 
action against the Turks with the co-operation of 
the British. They arrived ultimately at the famous 
"Protocol of Damascus" asking Britain to recognize 
Arab independence and the abolition of capitu- 
lations. In January 1916, Faysal was in Damascus 
again and was still there on 6 May when Djemal 
Pasha had twenty-one partisans of the Arab cause 
hanged. This event, the "Day of the Martyrs", is 
still commemorated every year. On 10 June, the 
revolt broke out in the Hidjaz, where the Sharif 
Husayn proclaimed himself "King of the Arabs". It 
was not until 30 September 1918 that Turkish troops 
evacuated Dimashk. On 1 October Allied forces, 
including units of the Amir Faysal, entered the city. 
In May 1919 elections took place to appoint a 
National Syrian Congress and in June this congress 
decided to reject the conclusions at which the Peace 
Conference of Paris had arrived concerning the 
mandates. On 10 December a national Syrian 
government was formed in Dimashk. On 7 March 
1920 the National Congress proclaimed Syria in- 
dependent and elected Faysal as king. The Treaty of 
San-Remo in April 1920 gave the mandate over 
Syria to France, in the name of the League of 
Nations. But this decision roused serious discontent 
in Dimashk and other large Syrian towns. On 10 
July the National Congress proclaimed a state of 
siege and introduced conscription, but on 14 July 
General Gouraud, High Commissioner of the French 
Republic, gave an ultimatum to Faysal who accepted 
its terms. Popular agitation grew in Dimashk and 
on 20 July the Arab army had to disperse a large 
meeting of the people. French troops were sent to 
Syria to put the agreement which had been con- 
cluded into force. On 24 July fighting broke out at 
Maysalun and on 25 July the French entered 
Dimashk. King Faysal was forced to leave the 
country and power passed into the hands of the High 
Commissioner. The mandate had begun. 

The Contemporary Period.— The period of 
the mandate was marked by expressions of hostility 
to the mandatory power, which sometimes took the 
form of strikes, sometimes of more violent out- 

The most serious revolt which broke out in 1925 
in the Djabal Duruz, under the leadership of the 



290 DIM 

Amir Sul(an al-Atrash, succeeded in taking Dimashk. 
At the end of August the rebels, newly arrived in 
the suburbs of the city, were repulsed. The population 
did not openly support them until they came back 
a second time, when on 15 October 1925 serious 
rioting occurred in the city which caused General 
Sarrail to bombard it on 18 October. In April 1926 
a new bombardment put an end to a rising in the 
Ghuta and the city, but tranquillity was not restored 
until the following autumn. 

From 1926 onwards the town began to develop in 
the western sense of the word very quickly. Undevel- 
oped quarters between al-Salihiyya and the old city 
were rapidly built up and from then on, the suburbs 
of al-Djisr, al-'Arniis and al-Shuhada 5 provided homes 
for a growing number of Europeans and Syrians 
without any segregation of ethnic groups. The 
Christians of Bab Tuma left the city walls in greater 
and greater numbers to set up the new district of 
Kassa c . To avoid chaotic development, the French 
town-planner, Danger, in 1929 created a harmonious 
and balanced plan for the future town, and its 
working out was put into the hands of the architect, 
Michel Ecochard, in collaboration with the Syrian 
services. New roads, often tree-lined, were made and 
the ancient Nayrab became the residential quarter 
of Abu Rummana which continued to extend 
towards the west. New suburbs were developed to 
the north of the old city between the Boulevard de 
Baghdad and the Djabal Kasiyun, and to the north- 
east towards the road to Halab. In view of the growth 
of the population and in the interests of public 
health the drinking water was brought from the 
beginning of 1932 by special pipelines from the 
powerful spring of c Ayn Fldja in the valley of the 
Barada. 

Dimashk suffered very much less in the Second 
World War than in the first. In June 1941 British 
and Free French troops entered Syria. On 16 Sep- 
tember 1941 General Catroux proclaimed its in- 
dependence, but there was no constitutional life in 
Dimashk until August 1943. It was then that 
ShukrI al-Kuwwatli was elected President of the 
Republic. On 12 April 1945 the admission of Syria 
to the United Nations Organization put an end to the 
mandate, but a new tension was to be felt in Franco- 
Syrian relations. They reached a culminating point 
on 29 May 1945, when the town was bombarded by 
the French army. The British intervened in force 
to restore order and some months later foreign troops 
finally evacuated Syria. 

From 1949 until 1954 Dimashk was shaken by 
a series of military coups d'itat. In 1955 Mr. ShukrI 
al-Kuwwatli became President of the Republic again 
and from 1956 on discussions were broached with a 
view to a Syro-Egyptian union. On the proclamation 
of the United Arab Republic in 1958 Dimashk became 
the capital of the northern region; but after the 
coup d'etat of the 28th September 1961 it again 
became the capital of the Syrian Arab Republic. 

Ruled by a municipal council, the city in 1955 
had a population of 408,800 of whom 90% were 
Sunni Arabs. Important groups of Kurds, Druzes 
and Armenians were also to be found there. 

Numerous cultural institutions make Dimashk an 
intellectual centre of the first rank. The Arab Academy 
{al-Madimd c al-Hlmial-'-Arabi), founded in June 1919, 
on the initiative of Muhammad Kurd C A1I, is situated 
in the al- c Adiliyya madrasa, while opposite this, the 
al-?ahiriyya madrasa houses the National Library 
which possesses more than 8,000 manuscripts. The 
Syrian University, which originated from a school of 



medicine (1903) and a school of law (1912), was 
founded on 15 June 1923. In i960 it had about 
10,000 students divided into six faculties. The 
National Museum of Syria, founded in 1921, has 
been installed since 1938 in premises specially 
devised for the preservation of its rich collections 
(Palmyra, Doura Europos, Ras Shamra, and Mari 
rooms). The Direction ginirale des antiquiUs de 
Syrie, created in 1921, is housed in the same 
buildings. Many bookshops, a dozen or so cinemas, 
radio and television transmitting stations, help make 
Dimashk give a very modern impression. It is an 
important centre of communications with its railway 
with 'Amman and beyond that, 'Akaba, 
of the Dimashk-Hims line and its prolon- 
gation (D.H.P.), its motor-roads, Bayrut-Baghdad 
and al-Mawsil as well as Jerusalem- 'Amman-Bayrut, 
and its Class B international aerodrome situated at 
Mizza. It is also the greatest grain market of the 
tiawran and a centre of supplies for the nomads 
and peasants of the Ghuta. These not only find many 
foreign products in its silks but also goods specially 
manufactured to fit the needs of the country-dweller. 
There exists also a class of artisans which specializes 
in luxury goods such as wood inlays, mother of 
pearl mosaics, silk brocades and engraved or inlaid 
copper work. Wood turners and glass blowers are 
also very active. 

The protectionist measures of 1926 brought a 
remarkable upward trend to industry and thus it 
was that a first cloth factory (1929), a cement works 
at Dummar (1930) and a cannery (1932) were founded 
one after the other. Modern spinning mills were 
installed in 1937, and by 1939 there were already 
80 factories representing 1500 trades. A large glass- 
works was put up to the south of the city at Kadam 
in 1945, while to the east many tanneries and dye- 
works ply their centuries-old activities. Since 1954 
an important international exhibition and fair has 
been held at the end of each summer on the banks 
of the Barada. This has helped to establish Dimashk 
as a great commercial and industrial centre of the 
Arab Near East. 

Bibliography: in addition to the references 
in the text: on geography: R. Thoumin, Geogra- 
phic humaine de la Syrie Centrale, Tours 1936, 
2 37-59; Ch. Combier, La climatologie de la Syrie 
et du Liban, in Revue Giogr. Phys. et Giol. Dynam., 
vi (1933), 319 ff.; R. Tresse, L'irrigation dans la 
Ghouta de Damas, in REI, 1929, 459-576; R. 
Thoumin, Notes sur V aminagement et la distribution 
des eaux a Damas et dans sa Ghouta, in BEO, iv 
(1934), 1-26.— Arabic texts: Raba% K. FaddHl 
al-Shdm wa-Dimashk, ed. S. Munadjdjid, RAAD, 
195 1 ; Ibn c Asakir, Ta'rikh madinat Dimashk, i, 
ed. S. Munadjdjid, RAAD, 1951; c Abd al-Kadir 
Badaran, Tahdhib Ta'rikh Dimashk li'bn < Asdkir, 
7 vols., Damascus 1911-29; Ibn Shaddad, Al-AHak 
al-khafira (Description de Damas), ed. S. Dahan, 
PIFD, 1956; Yusuf b. <Abd al-Hadl, Thimdr al- 
makdsid fi dhikr al-masddiid, ed. As'ad Talas, 
PIFD, 1943 ; Nu'ayml, Al-Ddris fi ta'rikh al-madd- 
ris, ed. Dja'far al-Hasani, 2 vols., RAAD, 1948-51; 
Muhammad Kurd 'All, Khitat al-Shdm, 6 vols., 
Damascus 1925-29; Yakut, Mu'diam al-Buldan, 
s.v. Dimashk; Ibn al-Kalanisi, Dhayl ta'rikh 
Dimashk, ed. Amedroz, Leyden 1906; Harawi, 
K. al-Ziydrdt, ed. J. Sourdel-Thomine, PIFD, 
Damascus 1953, 10-6, (trans, idem, PIFD, Damas- 
cus 1957, 24-40). — Translations and general 
works : G. Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 
London 1890, 224-71; Ibn Djubayr, Journeys, 



trans. M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 3 vols., 

Paris 1949-56; Ibn Battuta, The Travels of , 

trans. H. A. R. Gibb, i, Cambridge 1958, 118-157; 
H. A. R. Gibb, The Damascus chronicle of the 
Crusades, London 1932; R. Le Tourneau, Damas 
de 1075 a 1154, PIFD, 1950; M. Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, La Syrie a Vtpoque des Mamelouks, 
BAH, Paris 1923, 135-201, 312-48; H. Lammens, 
La Syrie, precis historique, Beirut 1921; Sovre- 
mennaya Siriya, publ. A.N.S.S.R., Moscow 1958; 
P. Hitti, Syria, a short history, London 1959; R. 
Dussaud, Topographie historique de la Syrie, BAH, 
iv, Paris 1927, 291-322; R. Mantran and J. 
Sauvaget, Reglements fiscaux ottomans relatifs aux 
provinces syriennes, PIFD, 1951, 3-34; CI. Cahen, 
Mouvements populaires et autonomisme urbain dans 
I'Asie Musulmane du Moyen Age, in Arabica, v 
(1958), 225, 250; vi, (1959), 25-26, 233-65.— Works 
on the city and its monuments: H. Sauvaire, La 
description de Damas, in J A, 3rd series, iii-vii, 
1894-96, Index giniral by E. Ouechek, PIFD, 
'954; K- Wulzinger and C. Watzinger, Damashus, 
i, Die antike Stadt; ii, Die islamische Stadt, 2 vols., 
Berlin 1921-24; J. Sauvaget, Le plan antique de 
Damas, in Syria, xxvi (1949), 314-58; idem, 
Monuments historiques de Damas, Beirut 1932; 
idem, Esquisse d'une histoire de la ville de Damas, 
in REI, 1934, 422-80; K. A. C. Creswell, A short 
account of early Muslim architecture, London 1959, 
60 ff. ; Monuments ayyoubides de Damas, PIFD, 
Damascus 1938-50, 4 fasc. by J. Sauvaget, M. 
Ecochard and J. Sourdel-Thomine ; M. Ecochard 
and Ch. le Coeur, Les Bains de Damas, 2 vols., 
PIFD, 1942-3; E. Herzfeld, Damascus: studies in 
architecture, in Ars Islamica, ix, 1-53, x, 13-70, 
xi-xii, 1-71, xii-xiv, 118-38 (see J. Sauvaget, 
Notes , in Syria, xxiv, 211-28); J. Sourdel- 
Thomine, Les anciens lieux de pilerinage damascains 
d'apres les sources arabes, in BEO, xiv, 65-85 ; H. S. 
Fink, The Rdle of Damascus in the history of the 
Crusades, in MW, xlix (1959), 41-53; N. Elisseeff, 
Les monuments de Nur ad-Din, in BEO, xiii, 5-43; 
idem, Corporations de Damas sous Nur al-Din, in 
Arabica, hi (1956), 61-79. (N- Elisseeff) 

al-DIMASH&I, Shams al-Din Abu <Abd Allah 
Muhammad b. AbI Talib al-AnsarI al-SOfi, 
known as Ibn Shaykh Hittin, author of a cosmogra- 
phy and other works. He was shaykh and imam at 
al-Rabwa, described by Ibn Battuta as a pleasant 
locality near Damascus, now the suburb of al- 
Salihiyya, and d. at Safad in 727/1327. Al-Dimashki's 
best known work, Nuhhbat al-dahr fi '■adja'ib al-barr 
wa 'l-bahr is a compilation dealing with geography 
in the widest sense, and somewhat closely resembling 
the 'Adjd'ib al-makhlufrat of al-Kazwinl. Though 
the author's standpoint is conspicuously uncritical, 
his book contains a good deal of information not to 
be found elsewhere. Less well known but also of 
considerable interest is another work of al-Dimashkl, 
al-Makamdt al-falsafiyya wa 'l-tardjamat al-sufiyya 
(see E. G. Browne, Handlist oj the Muhammadan 
MSS preserved in the library of the University of 
Cambridge, 217-218, no. 1102), fifty makdmas, forming 
an encyclopaedia of physical, mathematical and 
theological information, placed in the mouth of one 
Abu '1-Kasim al-Tawwab (i.e., the Penitent), on the 
authority of Abu c Abd Allah al-Awwab (i.e., the 
Repentant). Al-Dimishki has also left a defence of 
Islam, Djawdb risdlat ahl djazirat Kubrus, in which 
traces of Sufi mysticism appear (see E. Fritsch, 
Islam u. Christentum im Mittelalter, Breslau, 1930, 
33-36). Another work of his has been printed: 



al-Risdla (variant: al-Siydsa) ji Him al-firdsa (Cairo 
1300 A.H.); but Mahdsin al-tididra (Cairo 1318 
A.H.) altributed to Shams al-Din by Brockelmann 
(correctly K. al-ishdra ild mahdsin al-tididra, tr. H. 
Ritter, in Isl., vii, 1917, 1-91) was written by 
Abu'1-Fadl Dja'far b. 'All al-Dimashki. 

Bibliography: A. F. Mehren, Cosmographie 

de Chems-ed-Din Abou Abdallah Mohammed ed- 

Dimichqui, Arabic text, St. Petersburg 1866, 

transl. Manuel de la Cosmographie du Moyen Age, 

Copenhagen 1874; Brockelmann, II, 130, S II, 

161, GAL*, ii, 161. (D. M. Dunlop) 

DIMETO&A, also called Dimotika, a town in 

the former Ottoman Rumeli. Dimetoka lies in western 

Thrace, in a side valley of the Maritsa, and at times 

played a significant role in Ottoman history. The 

territory has belonged to Greece since the treaty of 

Neuilly (27 November 1919), again bears its pre- 

Ottoman name of Didymoteikhon, and lies within the 

administrative district (Nomos) of Ebros. It has a 

population of about 10,000, and is the seat of a 

bishop of the Greek church as well as of an eparch 

(provincial governor). It is situated near the junction 

of the Saloniki — Alexandroupolis — Dimetoka line 

with the Orient line. 

Dimetoka, which was called Didym6teikhon 
(AtSu(ioTetxov) by the Byzantines, fell first into 
Ottoman hands in Muharram 763/November 1361, 
according to the Florentine chronicler Matteo Villani 
(cf. F. Babinger, Beitrdge zur Fruhgeschichte der 
Turkenherrschajt in Rumelien (14.-15. Jhdt.) = 
Sudosteuropaische Arbeiten, xxxiv, Munich 1944, 46). 
Dimetoka had been, defended by a castle encircled 
by a double wall, built for protection on a conical 
hill, and provided with strong fortifications under 
the ruler Matthew Cantacuzenus; it was probably 
the commander HadjdjI Ilbegi who brought it into 
Ottoman possession. Murad I, before the conquest of 
Adrianople early in 762/1361 (cf. F. Babinger, in 
MOG, ii (1926), 311 ff.), set up his court there. The 
Burgundian traveller and diplomat Bertrandon de la 
Broquiere (see his Voyage d'outre-mer, ed. Ch. 
Schefer, Paris 1892, 172 ft., 180) has vividly depicted 
its appearance in 1443 ; from this it may be seen that 
Dimetoka, as the first residence of the new Ottoman 
lords — their final removal to Adrianople/Edirne 
cannot have followed until about 766/1365— was 
built and beautified with especial care, although the 
layout of the fortifications of that time goes back 
for the most part to Byzantine times. The rich and 
broad hunting grounds of the surrounding country 
made Dimetoka a favourite resort of early Ottoman 
rulers, such as the prince and claimant to the 
Sultanate Musa Celebi, and Bayazid II, who was 
born there in Dhu '1-Ka'da 852/January 1449 to the 
15 year-old future Sultan Mehemmed II. The 
planning of the royal palace and its additions owed 
its origin to this circumstance. The first design was 
brought to completion under Murad I (Cf. Hadjdjl 
Khalifa, Rumeli und Bosna, trans. J. von Hammer, 
Vienna 1812, 65). Bayazid II, weary of wordly 
cares, proposed to spend the rest of his life there, to 
avoid persecution by his son Selim I, but died 
en route — probably poisoned — on 10 Rabi 1 I 918/ 
26 May 1512, not far from Hafsa (on the place of 
death cf. Hammer-Purgstall, GOR, ii, 365 ff., 625). 
The Swedish king Charles XII (1697-1718) fared 
rather better when, before reaching Stralsund, 
he stayed in Dimetoka from February 1713 to 
October 1714, and managed to evade pursuit by an 

A graphic description of Dimetoka in the year 
















. ™ * 


r^v ^ 




--. 






ap 








Rf 




^1 


' 1 


& 


* * 1 




Mf 




I mm P^B 























il-Din, eastern facade 



;e of Antiquities, Dan 



PLATE III 




DIMETOKA — al-DIMYATI 



1080/1670 is given by the Ottoman globe-trotter 
Ewliya Celebi [q.v.] in the eighth volume of his 
Siydhatndme (73 if.; cf. the abridgement in H. J. 
Kissling, Beitrage zur Kenntnis Thrakiens im 17. 
Jahrhundert = Abh.K.M., xxxii/3 (1956), 81 ff.). At 
that time the sole Muslim in the fortress of the city 
was its commandant (dizddr), for the inner castle 
(derun hisdr) consisted of a hundred tumbledown 
houses occupied by "unbelievers". Dimetoka was the 
seat of a judge and the administrative centre of a 
district (ndhiye). The upper fortress measured, 
according to Ewliya Celebi, 2500 paces in circum- 
ference, and the outer double walls of stone were 
defended by "a hundred" towers. There was no moat, 
no space for one being available. The citadel (it" kal c e) 
of the upper fort is arranged on two vertical levels; 
one part is commonly called the "Maiden's tower" 
(KU kaf-esi). From Ewliya Celebi's detailed 
description of the defensive arrangements of Dime- 
toka it is specially noticeable that the royal palace, 
which was at that time no longer much used, lay 
in the upper fortress, and could be reached through 
doors accessible only to the sultan. The lower city 
(vans') was divided in Ewliya Celebi's time into 
twelve wards (mahalle) and consisted of 600 multi- 
storeyed tiled houses. In Dimetoka at that time there 
were twelve places of worship, the most important 
of these being that with which sultan Bayazid I 
graced his usual abode. The remainder are smaller 
mosques (mesdjid), many of which our traveller 
mentions by name; they owe their origin for the 
most part to the well-to-do Ottoman dignitaries 
established there. Sultan Bayazid I had a Kur'an 
school erected in Dimetoka, which next to that of 
Urudj Pasha is the most important of the four in 
existence. Of the baths, the so-called "Whisper 
Bath" (flsilti hammdmi), with its "Ear of Dionysus", 
is also mentioned by Hadjdji Khalifa (op. cit., 66). 
According to the Sdlndme of Edirne, 1309/1891-2, 
208, it was still standing and widely famous. There 
was no bazzistdn, although the market (bazar) was 
dominated by some 200 potters' stalls, whose wares, 
especially the red Dimetoka glasses, beakers, dishes 
and jugs enjoyed a great reputation. The chief 
produce of Dimetoka and its environs is grapes and 
quinces. 

There were numerous graves of holy men, who 
found their last resting place in or near Dimetoka; 
Ewliya Celebi gives a list of them by name, from 
which it appears that they belonged entirely to the 
Bektashi order; from the evidence of Ottoman 
toponymy the hinterland of Dimetoka towards the 
west must have been to a very great extent a centre 
of the dervishes, particularly those of the Bektashis 
(cf. H. J. Kissling, op. cit., 83, n. 310). In more 
modern times Dimetoka, out of the way from the 
bustle of the world, had practically no part to play 
under the Ottomans, and gradually declined. 

Bibliography: in addition to references in the 
text, cf. Sdlndme-i Edirne, 18th ed. 1309, 203-9; 
28th ed. 1319, 996 ft.; Sami Bey Frasheri, Kdmus 
al-aHdm, iii, Constantinople 1308/1891, 2216 ff.; 
Ami Boue, Recueil d'itiniraires dans la Turquie 
d'Europe, i, Vienna 1854, 102 ff. European 
travellers have hardly touched Dimetoka and its 
surroundings and have left no descriptions. 

(F. Babinger) 
DIMYAT (Damietta), a town of Lower Egypt 
situated on the eastern arm of the Nile, near its 
mouth. Dimyat, which was an important town 
before the Muslim conquest, was captured by a 
force under al-Mikdad b. al-Aswad, sent by c Amr b. 



al-'As. As a Muslim town, it suffered repeated 
naval raids, at first from the Byzantines and subse- 
quently from the Crusaders. After an attack in 
Dhu '1-Hidjdja 238/June 853, al-Mutawakkil ordered 
the construction of a fortress at Dimyat as part of 
a general plan to fortify the Mediterranean coast. 
Dimyat, as the key to Egypt, played a particularly 
important part in the conflicts between Franks and 
Muslims at the end of the Fatimid dynasty and in 
Ayyubid times. When Salah al-DIn al-Ayyubl was 
vizier of Egypt, the Franks under Amalric I of 
Jerusalem besieged Dimyat, but were compelled to 
withdraw in Rabi c I 565/December 1169. Dimyat 
was twice more the centre of important military 
operations. The great Crusading expedition of 
615-8/1218-21 (see Hans L. Gottschalk, Al-Malik 
al-Kdmil von Egypten und seine Zeit, Wies- 
baden 1958, 58-70, 76-88, 104-15) succeeded in 
capturing the town but was ultimately forced to 
capitulate by al-Kamil. In Safar 647/June 1249 
Dimyat was taken by Louis IX, shortly before the 
death of al-Salih, but was restored to Muslim rule 
on Louis's subsequent capitulation. The Bahriyya 
Mamluks, who then formed the ruling elite of Egypt, 
decided to end its military importance. The walls 
and town, except for the mosque, were demolished 
in 648/1250-1; while in 659/1260-1 the river-mouth 
itself was blocked to sea-going ships by order of 
Baybars I. The devastation of Dimyat was no 
doubt the cause of the extinction of its famous 
textile industry, although a new urban centre, 
which took the old name, soon arose on a site south 
of the former town. In the Mamluk and Ottoman 
periods, Dimyat was used as a place of banishment. 
In Rabi c I 1218/July 1803 the Ottoman viceroy of 
Egypt, Mehmed Khiisrev Pasha, who had been 
expelled from Cairo by a revolt of Albanian troops, 
was compelled to surrender at Dimyat, where he had 
fortified himself, to a force commanded by Mehmed 
<Ali and the Mamluk grandee, 'Uthman Bey al- 
Bardisi. 

Bibliography : The principal data are given 
in Makrlzl, al-MawdHz, ed. Wiet, iv/2, 37-80; 
and 'Ali Mubarak, al-Khitat al-djadida, xi, 36-57 
(largely a reproduction of Makrlzl). For a full 
bibliography, see Maspero-Wiet, Matiriaux, 92-3. 

(P. M. Holt) 
al-DIMYAjI, 'Abd al-Mu'min b. Khalaf 
Sharaf al-DIn al-TOnI al-DimyatI al-SHAFI'1. 
traditionist born in 613/1217 on the island of Tuna 
between Tinnis and Damietta; at the end of his 
career he was professor at the Mansuriyya and at 
the ?ahiriyya in Cairo, where he died in 705/1306. 
Apart from the works listed by Brockelmann, to 
be supplemented by the recent study of A. Dietrich, 
'■Abdalmu'min b. Xalaf ad-Dimydti'nin bir muhdcirun 
listesi, in §arkiyat Mecmuasi, iii (1959), 125-55) he 
has left a dictionary of authorities, often cited and 
used by subsequent historians and biographers, 
called Mu'-diam Shuyuhh; it only survives at the 
present time in a single incomplete manuscript 
(Tunis, Ahmadiyya, 911-2,— about 1185 entries 
out of the 1250 contained in the complete work) 
which was written at the author's dictation. In this 
document are contained the Hadith, and also other 
texts collected by al-Dimyatl in the course of his 
numerous voyages in Egypt, the two holy cities, in 
Syria, pjazira and in 'Irak between 636/1238 and 
656/1258; these, together with the numerous 
reading-certificates which accompany them, will 
be the subject of a monograph by G. Vajda. Apart 
from his own works, al-Dimyatl is one of the most 



I.-DIMYATI — DIN 



293 



important figures of the last third of the 7th/i3th 
century in the field of the handing down of traditions. 
Bibliography: Brockelmann, II», 88; S. II, 79 
(to the sources quoted may be added al-Durar al- 
Kamina, ii, 417, no. 2525 and Ibn Rafi c , Mun- 
takhab al-Mukhtdr, in the edition of c Azzawi, 120-2, 
no. 104; for DimyatI as a transmitter of traditions, 
see also Ahlwardt, Verzeichniss . . . Berlin, no. 9648 
(ix, 193 f.) ; G. Vajda, Les certificate de lecture . . . 
12; Ahmed Ates, in RIM A, iv, 1, 1958, 14. 

(G. Vajda) 
al-DIMYAtI. al-Banna 1 . Ahmad b. Muham- 
mad b. Ahmad b. Muhammad b. c Abd al-Ghan! al- 
DimyatI, known as al-Banna', though he had some 
local reputation in Lower Egypt as a pillar of the 
Nakshbandiyya order of dervishes, owes his fame 
to his work Ithdf fudaW al-bashar on the Kur'anic 
variants of the Fourteen Readers. He was born at 
Dimyat where he had the usual education of a 
Muslim youth under local teachers, till he was able 
to journey to Cairo, where he studied kird'dt, 
hadith and Shafi'I fifth under al-Muzahi and al- 
Shabramulsi, and was able to hear such contemporary 
masters as al-Adjhuri, al-Shawbari, al-Kalyubi and 
al-Maymunl. At the conclusion of his studies he went 
on pilgrimage to Mecca where he studied hadith 
under al-Kurani. On his return to Dimyat he 
published his Ithaf, on which he had apparently been 
at work while in the Hidjaz, and in which he collected 
the variant readings of Ibn Muhaysin of Mecca, al- 
Yazidl of Basra, al-Hasan of Basra, and al-A c mash 
of Kflfa, as well as the more commonly studied Ten 
Readers, prefacing the whole with an excellent study 
on the science of kira'dt. He also made a one volume 
digest of the famous al-Sira al-Halabiyya, and 
compiled a treatise, al-Dhakhd'ir al-muhimmdt, on 
the signs which precede the coming of the Last Day. 
After a second pilgrimage to the Holy Cities he 
journeyed to the Yemen, where he was initiated by 
Shaykh Ahmad b. c AdjIl into the Nakshbandiyya 
fraternity. On his return to Egypt he established 
himself as a marabout in the sea-side village of 
c Ezbet al-Burdj. During a third pilgrimage he died 
at Medina in Muharram 11 17/ April-May 1705, and 
was buried in the Baki'. Besides the Ithdf, which 
has been printed at Constantinople in 1285/1868-9, 
and at Cairo in 1317/1899-1900, he wrote smaller 
works on Kur'anic readings, of which MSS survive, 
and the gloss he made to al-Mahalli's commentary 
on the Warakdt of Imam al-Haramayn has been 
printed at Cairo in 1303/1885-6 and again in 1332/ 
1913-14. 

Bibliography: al-Djabarti, 'AdjdHb al-Athdr, 
i, 89, 90, copied into 'All Pasha Mubarak's KUtat 
Uiadida, xi, 56; Sarkis, Bibliographie, col. 885; 
Brockelmann, II, 327; S. II, 454). 

(A. JEFFERY) 

al-DIMYATI. Nur al-DIn or AsIl al-DIn; his 
dates are uncertain but almost certainly not before 
the end of the 7th/i3th century, author of a 
kasida in lam on the names of God (see al-asma 5 
al-husna and dhikr); each verse of thi«s kasida 
is reputed to possess mysterious virtues, given 
in detail by the commentaries of which the text has 
several times been the object (the best-known is 
that by the Moroccan mystic, Ahmad al-Burnusi 
Zarruk, d. 899/1493). The kasida Dimydtiyya holds a 
considerable place in the worship of the semi- 
literate, in particular in North Africa. A translation 
of it was made into Ottoman Turkish in 1257/1841 
by Ibrahim b. Mehmed Salih al-Kadiri al-Kastamuni 
al-lstanbull, and printed in the following year at 



Istanbul, together with several takriz and the Arabic 
text, under the title of Fard'id al-La'dli fi baydn 
asmd' 'l-muta c ali. A fragment of another work of 
the same kind attributed to al-Dimyatt is preserved, 
with a commentary, in the ms. Paris, B.N. Arabe 
1050, fol. 138-139, while an imitation, not without 
vulgarisms in its language, was written by a certain 
Mahmud Hizza al-Dimyatl (printed as an appendix 
to Badi' al-makdl by an anonymous Andalusian, 
with the title of al-Istighfdr al-asma fi nazm asmd' 
Allah al-husna, Bulak 1319/1901). 

Bibliography : J. Goldziher, in Orientalische 
Studien .... Noldeke, i, 317-20; E. Doutte, 
Magie et Religion en Afrique du Nord, 199-211; 
G. Levi Delia Vida, Elenco 55-66; Brockelmann, 
S II, 361, note. (G. Vajda) 

DIN, I. Definition and general notion. 
It is usual to emphasize three distinct senses of 
din: (1) judgment, retribution; (2) custom, usage; 
(3) religion. The first refers to the Hebraeo-Aramaic 
root, the second to the Arabic root ddna, dayn (debt, 
money owing), the third to the Pehlevi din (revelation, 
religion). This third etymology has been exploited 
by Noldeke and Vollers. We would agree with 
Gaudefroy-Demombynes {Mahomet, 504) in not 
finding it convincing. In any case, the notion of 
"religion" in question is by no means identical in 
Mazdaism and Islam. On the contrary, the two first 
etymologies, Hebrew and Arabic, seem to interact, 
and the meanings are nothing like so diverse as 
has sometimes been stated. Thus the semantic 
dialectic of Arabic causes dayn "debt which falls due 
on a given date" to pass to din "custom" (cf. EI 1 , 
s.v., art. by Macdonald). "Custom, usage", in its 
turn, leads to the idea of "direction" (given by God), 
hudd; and to judge (the sense of the Hebrew root) 
is to guide each one in a suitable direction, hence 
to give retribution. In Gaudefroy-Demombynes' 
view the "Day of Judgment" (yawm al-din)" is 
the day when God gives a direction to each human 
being". Elsewhere the Arabic philologists freely 
derive din from ddna li- . . . "submit to". Din 
henceforth is the corpus of obligatory prescriptions 
given by God, to which one must submit. 

Thus din signifies obligation, direction, sub- 
mission, retribution. Whether referring to the Hebrew- 
Aramaic sense or the ancient Arabic root, there 
will remain the ideas of debt to be discharged (hence 
obligation) and of direction imposed or to be fol- 
lowed with a submissive heart. From the stand- 
point of him who imposes obligation or direction, 
din rejoins the "judgment" of the Hebrew root; 
but from the standpoint of him who has to discharge 
the obligation and receive the direction, din must 
be translated "religion" — the most general and 
frequent sense. 

There is no doubt about this translation. But the 
concept indicated by din does not exactly coincide 
with the ordinary concept of "religion", precisely 
because of the semantic connexions of the words. 
Religio evokes primarily that which binds man to 
God; and din the obligations which God imposes 
on His "reasoning creatures" (ashdb al-'ukul, as 
Pjurdjani says). Now the first of these obligations is 
to submit to God and surrender one's self to Him. 
Since the etymological sense of islam is "surrender 
of self (to God)", the famous Kur'anic verse then 
shows its full meaning: "This day I have perfected 
your religion (din) for you and completed my favour 
unto you, and have chosen for you as religion al- 
Isldm" (V 3; cf. II 126, III 19). 

These few remarks cast some light on and perhaps 



294 D 

oversimplify the difficulties encountered in translating 
the din of Kur'Snic verses into Western languages, 
(i) The sense of judgment (and retribution) is quite 
frequent in the suras of the Meccan period: four 
times taken absolutely and 12 times in the expression 
yawm al-din. (2) The sense of religion is suitable in 
the other cases. It is true that R. Blachere several 
times, and appropriately, translates it by "act of 
worship" (culte) (e.g. II, 189; XLII, 11 and 20, etc.). 
Notice XLII, n: "Discharge the debt of worship" 
{acquittez-vous du Culte), which evokes the primitive 
Arabic sense of debt, owing. But if we recall that din 
is defined by the obligations and prescriptions laid 
down by God, it must be admitted that the culte is 
the essential part of din. (Moreover Muslim authors 
often associate Hbdda, the act of worship proper, 
and din). Finally sundry Kur'anic expression must 
be indicated which are found again in subsequent elab- 
orations: al-din al-kayyim "the immutable religion" : 
"The Judgment (hukm) rests with Allah only Who 
hath commanded you that ye worship none save 
Him. This is the immutable religion" (XII, 40); 
din al-hakk, "the religion of Truth": "He it is 
Who hath sent this Messenger with the guidance 
(hudd) and the religion of Truth" (XLVIII, 28); 
al-din hunafd', "religion practised as a fianif [q.v.]" 
(XCVIII, 5); al-din al-khdlis, "the pure religion" 
(XXXIX, 3). The three texts cited above (V, 3; 
IX, 36; and XLVIII, 28) emphasize the relation- 
ships of meaning between din on the one hand and, 
on the other, islam (surrender of self to God), hukm 
(judgment), and hudd (right direction). Other 
references could be given. 

II. Content of the notion of din 
There are numerous Kur'anic verses which 
associate the worship of God, or the prayer due to 
God, and the. religion (or culte), e.g., XXXIX 14, etc. 
A well-known hadith (Bukhari, ii, 37) unites under 
"the teaching of religion" (a) the contents of the 
faith (imdn), (b) the practice of islam, (c) ihsdn or 
interiorization of the faith ("to adore God as though 
one saw him"). It later became common to define 
din by these three elements. 

We now come to a few elaborations of doctrine. 
The Hanafi-Maturldi text Fikh Akbar II defines 
religion as an appellation including faith, islam, and 
all the commandments of the Law. The Kitdb al- 
tamhid of the Ash'ari BakillanI devotes a short 
chapter to the meaning of din. He distinguishes 
several possible meanings: (1) judgment in the 
sense of retribution (in the expression yawm al-din) ; 

(2) judgment in the sense of decision (hukm); 

(3) doctrine (madhhab) and religious community 
(milla), implying faith, obedience, and the practice 
of a given belief; in this last sense there may be more 
than one religion (cf. below) ; (4) din al-hakk, which 
is islam (and Islam): allowing one's self to be led by 
God and abandoning one's self to Him. In his 
Ta'rifdt, Djurdjani defines din as a divine institution 
(wad') which creatures endowed with reason receive 
from the Apostle. Similar definitions are repeated 
in the treatises of the Ash'ari school. Thus in 
Badjurfs elementary manual din is "the corpus of 
prescriptions (ahkam) which God has promulgated 
through the voice of His Apostle". 

Thus the Maturidis willingly make faith an element 
in religion; the Ash'aris stress the prescriptions to 
be observed. As for the Hanbali school, their accent 
falls on the "authentic tradition" taken in the 
widest sense. The Kur'an and the Sunna — therein 
lies religion ('Akida I of Ibn Hanbal); Ibn Taymiyya 
repeats that it is "the whole of religion". Hence the 



assertion that din is taklid (Tabakdt al-handbila, i, 31), 
endowing taklid with a positive value of faith- 
fulness to the Prophet (contrarily to other schools 
who see it primarily as pure acceptance, passive 
and non-reasoning). L. Massignon writes that, for 
Ibn Hanbal (Passion d'aUIJaUddi, 669), din may 
be understood as "devoting our religious obser- 
vances to God", as distinct from islam (external 
practices) and shari'a (observance of legal precepts) : 
the whole constitutes faith (imdn). Thus understood 
din is nourished by the Tradition and supererogatory 
acts of piety. Besides the Hanbalis associate din 
with the act of worship (Hbdda) which is "action", 
and with right guidance (hudd). Now the first act of 
worship is prayer (saldt). Ibn Taymiyya quotes 
several Traditions where prayer is stated to be "the 
basis of religion"; "those (then) who cause it to be 
observed and themselves observe it preserve their 
religion" (cf. Siydsa, tr. Laoust, 19). He is pleased to 
reproduce the dictum of the "Ancients", which 
makes imdn the complement of din: "Religion and 
faith consist of word, action, and the fact of following 
the Sunna" (Ma'dridj., tr. Laoust, 76). Commenting 
on the author's thought, M. Laoust stresses that 
"religion" is "above all a law" (ibid., 79 n.). Finally, 
the contemporary writer Rashid Rida, whose links 
with Ibn Taymiyya are well known, presents religion 
as "the act of worship, the care to avoid bad and 
blameworthy deeds, to respect right and justice in 
social relationships, and to purify the soul and 
prepare it for the future life; in a word [it consists of] 
all the laws whose aim is to bring man near to God" 
(Khildfa, 192; tr. Laoust, 156). This concept, though 
losing nothing of its specifically Muslim character, 
reminds one of the more usual meaning of religio. 

III. Din wa-milla; din al-hakk 

In order to set forth clearly the elements of the 
problem din is often distinguished from terms with 
related meanings or made more specific by a deter- 
minative which limits its connotation. 

Ibn Hanbal employed milla in the sense of din 
(cf. Massignon, loc. cit., n. 4), and, as we have seen, 
BakillanI noted that din could be synonymous with 
milla or, in a more restricted sense, with madhhab. 
.Djurdjani (Ta'rifdt, in) distinguishes a shade of 
meaning: din and milla agree in respect of their 
essence, but are distinct in respect of their signifi- 
cation. Both go back to the idea of Law, divine 
positive legal prescriptions (shari'a). Here we come 
across the usual Ash'ari position again. Din, says 
Djurdjani, is the Law as something obeyed; milla 
(a word of Aramaic origin: word, revelation) is the 
Law gathering men in a community; madhhab is 
the Law to which one strives to return. Din relates 
to God, milla to the Apostle (rasul), madhhab to the 
founder of a school, the mudjtahid who strives to 
know and interpret the Law. It is to be noted that 
in the Kur'an milla is used now to designate the 
"religion of Abraham", which is already essentially 
Islam, now to designate the communities of "posses- 
sors of the Scripture". 

But Islam alone is din al-hakk, the "religion of 
Truth". Each time that this expression appears in 
the Kur'an it is to affirm that the "religion of 
Truth" has the primacy over the "whole of religion", 
that is over all the domain of religion, and so over 
any other religion (e.g., XLVIII, 27; IX, 33; and 
parallel text LXI, 9). Opposite to din al-hakk is al-din 
al-mubaddal "corrupted religion", "like that of the 
polytheists or the Zoroastrians" says Ibn Taymiyya 
(Ma'-aridi, tr. Laoust, 87). Tradition, especially that 
of the Hanbalis (e.g., Barbahari, cf. Laoust, La 



profession de foi d'Ibn Ba#a, 4, n. i), distinguishes 
liakk, what comes from God, i.e., the Kur'an; 
sunna, what was established by the Prophet; 
diamd'a, the common practices and beliefs of the 
Companions. Thus we have on the one hand din 
al-fiakft, revealed religion, and on the other al-din al- 
<atik "the ancient religion" understood as Islam as 
practised by the Companions (from whom Barbaharl 
exludes C A1I). This latter expression is connected 
with the Hanbalite conception of taklid. 

Din al-fia^k is to be compared with and distin- 
guished from the other Kur'anic expression al-din 
al-kayyim "the immutable religion": it is Islam 
referred to the faith of Abraham (VI, 162, here 
synonymous with din fiunafa'') or considered as 
bound to laws testifying to the order of the universe 
(IX, 36) and recapitulated in the worship of God 
alone (XII, 40). Note finally that one of the charac- 
teristics of the din al-hahk is to be a "religion of the 
golden mean", "far from extremes". Several Muslim 
apologists, arguing from Kur'an II, 137 where the 
determinativa is applied to the Community (umma) 
and on the other hand from the phrase "no con- 
straint in religion" (II, 256, cf. XXII, 78), like to 
present Islam as- a religion of the "golden mean". 
This is a theme which readily re-occurs when a 
writer wishes to urge a balanced solution on the 
opponents of his school (madhhab) • thus Ibn 'Asakir, 
in his defence of Ash'arism, or Ibn Taymiyya, in his 
solution of this or that legal problem {e.g., Siydsa, 
tr. Laoust, 31). In the opposite direction a severe 
warning is addressed to the "People of the Book" 
(Jews or Christians) who "are extravagant" or 
"exaggerate" in their religion {Kur'an II, 171; V, 77; 
cf. VII, 31); those who do not practise din al-fiakfr 
must be combated. 

IV. Din wa-dunyd, din wa-dawla 

Din, distinct from milla and madhkab, is opposed 
to dunya. The nearest translation would be the 
relations of the spiritual and the temporal. Din: the 
domain of divine prescriptions concerning acts of 
worship and everything involved in spiritual life; 
dunya: "domain of material life", as M. Laoust 
translates (dunya appears besides as the opposite 
correlative to dkhira: "this world" and "hereafter". 

Din and dunya are undoubted opposites. The 
Sufis stress the ascetic's disdain in the face of adhd 
"l-dunyd. But the most traditional tendency is to 
subordinate dunya to din, to make "this base world" 
in some way included in the "domain of religion". 
The Hanball school is insistent on this. It is "an 
act of religion (diydna)" says Ibn Batta, "to give 
good advice to the imams and all the other members 
of the Community, whether in the domain of religion 
(din) or that of material life (dunya)" (tr. Laoust, 
129-30). Ibn Taymiyya quotes Hasan al-Basri with 
approval: "Religion is good advice, religion is good 
advice, religion is good advice". Religion and 
state are closely bound to each other: "exercise of 
a public office is one of the most important duties 
of religion; we would add that public office is 
essential to the very existence of religion". Again: 
"Thus it is a duty to consider the exercise of power 
as one of the forms of religion, as one of the acts by 
which man draws near to God" (Siydsa, tr. Laoust, 
172-4). "Social order and peace" are indispensable 
to the exercise of religion. Commenting on Ibn 
Taymiyya's political doctrine, M. Laoust writes: 
"Religion (din) is intimately bound up with the 
temporal (dunya)", (Doctrines sociales et politiques 
d'Ibn Taymiyya, 280). 

The contemporary Salafiyya school puts the 



elements of the problem somewhat differently. By 
a modernized apologetic, Muhammad 'Abduh 
intends above all to show the conformity of reason 
(<«£/) and din. Rashid Rida, having set forth what 
in social life is an integral part of the religious 
domain (cf. quotation above), enumerates everything 
which depends on it in a wide sense: respect for life, 
honour, other people's property, an attitude based 
on sound counsel, shunning of sin, iniquity, violence, 
deceit, abuse of confidence, unjust wastage of other 
people's property; in other words the domain of 
morality. Thus it is a question, both here and there, 
of an equivalence between "the rights of God and of 
men", according to the classic distinction of Muslim 
jurists. But Rashid Rida adds that there is a third 
order of facts, which no longer depends on the 
domain of din: everything to do with "admini- 
strative, juridical, political, and financial organiza- 
tion" (Khildfa 92/154). Two concepts may be brought 
up here: (1) the principle of distinction established 
by Ibn Taymiyya between the prescriptions of the 
Kur'an, as distinct from the beliefs ('akiddt) and 
laws concerning the acts of worship (Hbaddt), which 
are untouchable, ethics (akhldk) (in certain cases) 
and social relationships (mu'dmaldt) (more generally) 
are capable of adaptation to time and place; (2) the 
prescriptions of the Kur'an taken as a whole (domain 
of din) do not by any means legislate in detail for 
the actual organization of social life ; this organization 
must be, and it is sufficient that it be, subservient 
to those prescriptions. Thus we see the sketch, 
according to a traditional line of reflection, of a 
possible principle of distinction between the "spiri- 
tual" and the "temporal" derived not so much from 
the object of the prescriptions as from their source 
("revealed" or not). 

The Muslim Brethren vie with one another in 
repeating that Islam is at one and the same time 
din and dawla (government, domain of politics). 
The principle of distinction is by no means abolished. 
Din and dawla are not identical. But Islam, which 
is the link between the two, includes both. According 
to this view there is a distinction between din, 
domain of religion, and Islam, which is religion, true 
enough, bYit temporal Community also. The Muslim 
"laicists" or "progressives", on the contrary, tend 
to identify din with Islam, and to see in the latter a 
"religion" in the Western sense of the word. 
V. Usui al-din 

Apart from this latter case, where modern Western 
influence is obvious, din and Islam are distinct. 
Sometimes Islam, as the practice of the Kur'anic 
faith, is one of the elements of din (fiadith quoted 
above, Bukhari, ii, 37) ; and sometimes din is 
one of the elements of Islam understood as an 
organized politico-religious Community (e.g. Islam 
is din and dawla). In current language din is employed 
absolutely in the sense of din al-ltakft and then 
becomes the religious expression and spiritual 
radiation of Islam itself. Such is the connotation of 
the frequent proper names where din is a determi- 
native (e.g., Muhyi — , Fakhr — , Nflr — , Salah — , 
Taki al-DIn, etc.). 

But if we translate din by "religion" or "spiritual 
domain" we must not forget that the Muslim concept 
denotes above all the Laws which God has promul- 
gated to guide man to his final end, the submission 
to these laws (thus to God), and the practice of 
them (acts of worship). The expression usul al-din 
"sources (or bases) of religion" is to be taken in this 



The advanced c 



1 the great mosques i 



DlN — DlN-I ILAHl 



often shared by three faculties (cf. an old official 
syllabus of al-Azhar, REI 1931, 241-75: kulliyyat al- 
lugha al-'arabiyya ["faculty of Arabic language"], 
k. al-shari'a [centred on fifth], and k. usul al-din 
["theology" and apologetics]). As a matter of fact 
the writers on Him al-kaldm often used the term 
usul al-din (or al-diydna) to denote an introduction 
to or a rfeum6 of dogmatics, and so we have the titles 
of well-known works: Al-ibdna 'an usul al-diyana 
(Ash'arl); Ma'dlim usul al-din (Fakhr al-DIn RazI), 
etc. The Usui al-din of <Abd al-Kahir al-Baghdadl 
deals with the methods {asbdb) towards know- 
ledge and their degree of certitude. The expression 
'ulum al-din made famous by Ghazzall's great work 
there signifies the body of knowledge on the spiritual 
plane. The ''religious sciences" as properly under- 
stood, in the technical sense of organized disciplines, 
are rather to be called al-'ulum al-shar'iyya (as often) 
or (more rarely, and also by Ghazzali) diniyya. 
Bibliography: The quotations in the body of 
the article are completed and specified by: I. 
M uslim Works. Fikh Akbar II, tr. Wensinck, The 
Muslim creed, Cambridge 1932, 194; Ibn Batta, 
Kitdb al-sharh wa 'l-ibdna 'aid usul al-sunna wa 
'l-diydna, text and tr. in Henri Laoust, La profes- 
sion de foi d'Ibn Ba((a, Damascus 1958 (see Index) ; 
Abu Bakr al-Bakillanl, Kitdb al-tamhU, ed. R. J. 
McCarthy, Beirut 1957, 345; Ibn Taymiyya, 
Ma'dridi al-wusill ild ma'rifat anna usul al-din, 
tr. H. Laoust, Contribution a une itude de la 
m&hodologie canonique de Taki al-Din Ahmad b. 
Taymiyya, Cairo 1939 (Index s.v. Religion); idem, 
Kitdb al-siydsa al-shar'iyya, tr. Laoust, Le traiti 
de droit publique d'Ibn Taimiya, Beirut 1948, 
Index; Djurdjani, Kitdb al-ta'rifdt, ed. Fliigel, 
Leipzig 1845, in; Badjuri, Ifdshiya ... 'aid 
Djawharat al-tawhid, Cairo 1 352/1934, 9-10; 
Muhammad c Abduh, Risdlat al-tawhid, Cairo 1353/ 
1935, 124-9; Rashld Rida, Al-khildfa aw al-imdma 
al- 'uzmd, Cairo (Manar) 1341/1922, 92 (tr. Laoust, 
Le calif at dans la doctrine de Rashid Ridd, Beirut 
1938, 154-5). (See also the principal tafsirs on the 
Kur'anic texts concerning din, e.g., Tabarl, i, 51). 
II. Western Works. References given by D. 
B. Macdonald {EI 1 ), especially for the etymology 
and meaning of the word: Lane, Lexicon, 944; 
Noldeke, ZDMG, xxxvii, 534, n. 2;Gr.I.Ph.. i/i, 
107, 270; i/2, 26, 170; ii, 644; Vollers, in 
ZA, xiv, 351; Juynboll, Handbuch, 40, 58. These 
are supplemented by: Louis Massignon, Passion 
d'al-Ifallddi, Paris 1922, 669 ; Henri Laoust, Essai 
sur les doctrines societies et politiques de Taki-d-Din 
Ahmad b. Taimiya, Cairo (IFAO) 1939, 280, 312, 
453; L. Gardet and M. Anawati, Introduction d la 
theologie musulmane, Paris 1948, 375; M. Gaude- 
froy-Demombynes, Mahomet, Paris 1957, 504-5. 

(L. Gardet) 
DlN-I ILAHl (Divine Faith), the heresy pro- 
mulgated by the Indian Mughal emperor Akbar 
[q.v.] in 989/1581. The heresy is related to earlier 
Alfi heretical movements in Indian Islam of the 
ioth/i6th century, implying the need for the re- 
orientation of faith at the end of the first millennium 
of the advent of the Prophet. Among its formative 
inspirations was Akbar's reaction to the decadence 
and corruption of contemporary 'ulamd', his 
eclecticism and religious tolerance, and the intel- 
lectual scepticism of his chief associate Abu '1-Fadl 
'Allaml. Ethically, the Din-i Ildhi- prohibited 
sensuality, lust, misappropriation, deceit, slander, 
oppression, intimidation and pride. To these was 
added the Djayn dislike of animal slaughter and 



the Catholic value of celibacy. Nine of the ten 
virtues enjoined were presumably derived directly 
from the Kur'an: liberality, "forbearance from bad 
actions and repulsion of anger with mildness", 
abstinence, avoidance of "violent material pur- 
suits", piety, devotion, prudence, gentleness, kind- 
ness; while the tenth was the sufistic "purification 
of soul by yearning for God". Ritually, it was a 
kind of solar monotheism with an exaggerated 
preoccupation with light, sun and fire, showing 
primarily Zoroastrian, and secondarily Hindu and 
sufi influences. 

The brunt of the orthodox Muslim criticism of 
Akbar's age was focussed on its indirect suggestion 
of extolling the emperor to a status of prophethood, 
even of divinity in such manifestations as the 
mutual greetings of his disciples Alldhu Akbar and 
Djalla djaldluhu hinting flatteringly at Akbar's 
name; though these were also familiar formulae of 
sufi dhikr. Actually Akbar discouraged enrolment to 
his sect on the plea: "Why should I claim to guide 
men before I myself am guided?" The number of 
its adherents did not exceed nineteen. Akbar seems 
to have regarded it as a spiritual club confined to 
those of the 61ite of his court whose devotion to 
himself, by his own encouragement, had assumed 
the form of an esoteric and heterodox personality 
cult. The Din-i Ildhi did not claim to possess a 
revealed text, and did not develop a priest-craft. The 
apologetics of Akbar in diplomatic correspondence 
with <Abd-AUah Khan Ozbek [q.v.], stressed that 
the basis of his religious faith was essentially 
rationalistic, affirmed Akbar's attestation of faith 
as a Muslim, and denied any claim on his part to 
prophethood or divinity. On the other hand Abu 
'1-Fadl quotes Akbar as confessing, at least figu- 
ratively, to cessation from Islam. 

Though electically influenced by other religions, 
the Din-i Ildhi derives its essential tenets from 
various streams of orthodox and heterodox sufism. 
Its preoccupation with light was an exaggeration 
of the Suhrawardiyya emphasis on nur; Akbar's 
personality cult was inspired by Ibn al- c ArabI [q.v.] 
and al-Djai's doctrines of the 'Perfect man'; the use 
of the Emperor's name in salutation was giving 
a heterodox significance to familiar sufi formulae 
of dhikr; the ritual of the initiation of a disciple was 
based on the Cishtiyya example. 

Some features of the ritual of sun and fire, speci- 
ally at one stage Akbar's recitation of one thousand 
Sanskrit names for the sun, suggest Hindu influence; 
but it is remarkable that very little was borrowed 
from either orthodox Hinduism or the Bhakti 
movement. The sect had only one Hindu member, 
Raja Birbal, while Akbar's trusted administrators 
like Bhagwan Das and Man Singh were opposed 

The trend of recent scholarship is to treat the 
Din-i Ildhi as a heresy within Islam, rather than a 
form of apostasy. In Akbar's own age Muslim 
orthodoxy treated it with some apprehension, and 
although it died out with him, it set in motion a 
strong orthodox reaction represented in Naksh- 
bandiyya sufism by Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi and in 
theological studies based on hadith by Shaykh c Abd 
al-Hakk Dihlawi. 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Fadl 'Allami, AHn-i 
Akbari, i (Eng. tr. by H. Blochmann), Calcutta 
1927, 50-8, 64, 110-5, 157-76; ibid, ii (tr. by 
Jarrett) Calcutta 1891, 30; ibid, iii (tr. by Jarrett), 
Calcutta 1948, 426-49; idem, Maktiibdt, Lucknow 
1863, ii, 26; c Abd al-Kadir BadayunI, Muntakhab 



DlN-I ILAHl — DINAR 



297 



al-tawdrikh, Calcutta 1868-9, ", 200-8, 255-87, 
301-26, 336-9, 356, 391-2, 399; Muhsin-i Fani, 
Dabistdn-i madhdhib (Eng. tr. by D. Shea and 
A. Troyer, Paris 1843, iij, 48-105); c Inayat Allah 
Khan "Rasikh", Hndyat ndma, India Office Pers 
Ms. 549, ff. 2ob-2ia; Vincent A. Smith, Akbar, 
the Great Mogul, Oxford 1927, 209-22, 237; F. W. 
Buckler, A new interpretation of Akbar's "Infalli- 
bility" decree of 1579, in JRAS, 1924, 591-608; 
Sri Ram Sharma, The religious policy of the 
Mughal emperors, Oxford 1940, 18-68; Makhanlal 
Roychoudhury, The Din-i Ildhi, Calcutta 1941; 
Shavkh Muhammad Ikram, Rud-i Kawthar, 
Karachi n.d., 47-82; E. Wellesz, Akbar's religious 
thought reflected in Mogul painting, London 1952; 
Y. Hikmet Bayur, VEssai de riforme religieuse et 

sociale d'Ekber Gurkan in Belleten, ii, 1938, 

127-85; Aziz Ahmad, Akbar, hlrltique ou apostatt, 
in JA, 1961, 21-38; Correia Afonso, Father Xavier 
and the Muslims of the Mughal empire, 1957- 

DlNAfiJPUR: a district in East Pakistan; 
population (1951) 1,354,432. 

In 1947 the district was partitioned, and its 
southern part was given to India. The name has 
been wrongly derived from Dinwadj or Danudj, 
identified with king Danudja Mardana Deva, whose 
coins are dated in Saka 1339-40 = A.D. 1417-18. 
This king has nothing to do with Radja Ganesa, 
whose original estate was at Bhatoriya in this 
district and who played an important role in the early 
9th/i5th century Muslim history of Bengal. Dinddj 
is a non-Aryan term, which with the Sanskrit ending 
pur makes the full name of the town and district. 
Such nou-Aryan terms are common in the place 
names of Bengal. The district is famous for the 
fortified remains of the old city of Devkot, the 
ancient Kotivarsha, about 18 miles south-south-west 
of Dinadjpur, now marking the boundary between 
India and Pakistan, just on the Indian side of the 
railway station Hilly. It was at this place that 
Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khaldji, the first Muslim 
conqueror of Bengal, returned from his ill-fated 
Tibetan expedition and died in 602/1206. There is 
also to be found the famous dargdh of Shaykh al- 
Mashayikh Mawlana c Ata J Wahid al-Din, who died 
in the middle of the 8th/i4+.h century. Another 
important saint, Shah Isma'il Ghazi, who died a 
martyr's death in the third quarter of the gth/isth 
century in fighting against the non-Muslim rulers 
of this area, has a memorial dargdh at Ghofaghat, 
18 miles east of Hilly. The third important place is 
Mahisantosh, spelt in Persian works as Mahisfln, 
which was a centre of Muslim education during the 
early Muslim rule. 

Bibliography: Eastern Bengal District Gazet- 
teers: Dinadjpur, Allahabad, 1912; A. Cunningham, 
ASI, xv, Calcutta 1882; G. H. Damant, Notes 
on Shah Isma'il Ghazi, with a sketch of the 
contents of a Persian Ms. Risdlat ush-Shuhdd, in 
J A SB, 1874; A. H. Dani, The House of Rddid 
Gatfeia of Bengal in JASB, 1952 ; idem, Bibliography 
of the Muslim inscriptions of Bengal, Dacca 1957. 

(A. H. Dani) 
DINAR (pi. dandnir), the name of the gold unit of 
currency in early Islam. The word derives from Greek 
Svjvapiov (Latin, denarius), originally signifying 
a silver coin but in post-Constantinian times com- 
monly synonymous with solidus, denarius aureus or 
v6(Xt<j(xa xpuaouv. The Arabs were familiar with tha 
word and with the Roman and Byzantine gold coin 
before Islam (Kur'an, ed. Fliigel, iii, 68; and cf. 



J. Stepkova in Numismatickf Sbornik, iii, 1956, 65). 

The earliest type of Arab dinar, undated but 
attributable to approximately the year 72/691-2, and 
struck almost certainly at Damascus, imitates the 
solidus of Heraclius and his two sons but with 
specifically Christian symbolism deleted and an 
Arabic religious legend added. A new type, more 
distinctly Arab, that of the "standing sword-girt 
Caliph", appears at the Umayyad capital with an 
issue dated 74/693-4 and is repeated in 76 and 77; 
but in the latter year c Abd al-Malik's coinage reform 
drastically affects the style of the dinar which 
henceforth, with very rare exceptions, is purely 
epigraphic. In North Africa and Spain the early 
dinar (kiiki) has an independent history: before 
approximately the year 85/704 the unit and its frac- 
tions imitates the Carthaginian solidus of Heraclius 
but bears Muslim legends in abbreviated Latin 
translation; thereafter until the year 95/713-4 the 
portraits are deleted and dates are sometimes given 
in indiction years; Hidjra dates appear in 95, bilingual 
legends in 97/715-6, and just after the turn of the 
century both Ifrikiya (Kayrawan) and al-Andalus 
(Cordoba) issue dinars of purely Arab type, differing 
only in minor detail from the reformed dinar of the 
East. The minting of gold in al-Andalus ceases in 
106/724-5 (except for an anomalous unpublished 
issue of 127/744-5) and is not resumed until 317/929 
under c Abd al-Rahman III. 

The weight standard of the early transitional 
dinar appears to have been the same as that of the 
Byzantine solidus, i.e., approximately 4.55 grams. 
With c Abd al-Malik's reform, however, the weight 
was reduced to 4.25 grams. The accuracy of this 
latter figure is attested not only by the weights of 
well-preserved dinars but by the evidence of Egyptian 
glass dinar and dinar fraction weights dating from 
the end of the first to the end of the second century 
A.H. The reduced standard of the post-reform dinar 
resulted from a decision to redefine the mithkal (i.e., 
dinar) in convenient terms of 20 Syro-Arabian 
kirats of 0.2125 grams in place of such cumbersome 
terms as 2i 3 /, kirats, or "22 kirats less a fraction", 
etc., which had been employed by the Arabs in pre- 
Islamic times to express the weight of the mithkal. 
The latter was doubtless based on the Attic drachm 
theoretically weighing 4.37 grams but actually, as 
circulated in Arabia, falling somewhat below that 
weight. While in general the weight standard of the 
dinar was maintained in most parts of the Islamic 
world down to the 4th century of the Hidjra, there- 
after extreme irregularity occurs both in weight and 
purity. In any case the dinar usually passed by 
weight rather than tale, except where payments 
were made in sealed purses (surra) of coins of 
guaranteed weight and fineness. 

The half dinar (nisf, semissis) and the third dinar 
(thulth, tremissis) were struck in North Africa and 
Spain in the transitional period and in the early 
years of the 2nd/8th century, while glass weights for 
these fractions (2.12 and 1.41 grams) continued to 
be issued until the third quarter of that century. The 
quarter dinar (rub 1 ) was introduced by the Aghlabids 
in North Africa early in the 3rd century and sub- 
sequently was issued in large quantities by the 
Fatimids both in North Africa, and in Sicily where 
in due course it became the well-known tari d'oro; 
as well as in Spain under c Abd al-Rahman III and 
his successors and some of the Muluk al-TawdHf. 

With respect to fineness the standard of the early 
dinar was exceptionally high. The post-reform 
Umayyad dinar ranges between 96% and 98% fine 



and this same standard prevails by and large during 
the 'Abbasid period. Exceptions are the years of 
civil war between al-Amln and al-Ma'mfin, the period 
between the end of Tiilunid and the beginning of 
Ikhshldid rule in Egypt and the Buwayhid period in 
Baghdad. Less debased but still below the early 
standard is the gold of the Caliph al-Nasir and his 
successors who resumed the striking of dinars and 
multiples in their own names in Baghdad during the 
last years of the Caliphate. In Egypt under the 
Fatimids the standard exceeds 98% and even 
approximates 100% under al-Amir; under Saladin 
it falls below 90% but rises again to 98-100% under 
his successors, particularly under al-Kamil. "There 
existed neither in the West nor in the East dinars 
of a standard excelling the standard al-Amiri al- 
Kamili" (Ibn Ba c ra, writing between 615 and 
635 A.H.). Reliable statistics for the fineness of the 
dinar in the period of its decline in the East are 
lacking (Ghaznawids, Saldjiiks, Khwarizmshahs, 
etc.), but it is evident from the appearance of 
preserved specimens and from limited technical data 
available that in eastern Khurasan in the 5th and 
6th centuries A.H. the alloy is low-grade electrum 
containing a large percentage of silver. Electrum 
fractions also appear among the Muluk al-Tawd'if 
in Spain. Silver and copper "dinars" of eastern Iran 
and Transoxiana are known in Mongol and post- 
Mongol times (see v. Schrotter, op. cit. in biblio- 
graphy). 

For the division of the dinar into various theore- 
tical fractions, see Ddnafr, Kirdt, If abba, s.v. sikka. 

In outward appearance the dinar of the Caliphates 
and of most independent dynasties differs very 
little. The prototype carries the shahdda and part of 
Kur'an CXII in the field or area, and the "prophetic 
mission" (Kur'an IX, 33) and a formula stating the 
date of striking in words in the circular margins. The 
'Abbasids alter the legends and arrangement slightly. 
Down to the year 170/786-7 the dinar is anonymous; 
thereafter the name of the official charged with the 
administration of the coinage begins to appear; some 
of the issues of al-Amln and al-Ma'miin bear their 
names, and from the time of al-Mu c tasim the Caliph's 
name appears regularly. Until the year 198/813-4 
there is no indication of the mint, but beginning with 
that year at Misr (Fustat) and subsequently at 
Madinat al-Salam (Baghdad), San'a, Dimishk, al- 
Muhammadiyya (Rayy), Marw, Surra-man-ra'a 
(Samarra) and many other cities, the name of the 
mint regularly appears in the date formula. Gradu- 
ally other legends are added, such as the name of 
the heir-apparent, supplementary religious legends 
and eventually the names of independent dynasts 
and princes. The Fatimids, while not entirely 
abandoning the style of the prototype, introduce 
Shi'ite legends and a type in which the inscriptions 
are arranged in concentric circles. 

The word dinar disappears from the coinage in the 
6th century A.H. in the West, in the 7th/i3th 
century in the East and in India, and in the 8th/i4th 
century in Egypt. As a money of account the word 
was widely used both during and after its circulation 

The influence of the dinar on the economy of 
western Europe, its rdle in mediaeval international 
commerce along with the Byzantine solidus or 
nomisma have been discussed at length, notably by 
Pirenne, Monneret de Villard, Block, Lombard, 
Lopez, Bolin, Grierson (synthesis and bibliography 
conveniently assembled by F.-J. Himly in Rev. 
Suisse d'Histoire, v, 1955, 31); and it was inevitable 



that it should on occasion be imitated as other popular 
media of exchange have at various times been 
imitated (e.g., the florin, the ducat, etc.). Most 
important was the Crusader bezant {besantius 
saracenatus, sarrazinas, etc., etc., the Arabic dinar 
suri), chiefly imitating Fatimid coins of al-Mustansir 
and al-Amir. In the western Mediterranean the dinar 
gave rise to the mancus, a European term used not 
only to describe the Arab dinar and as an accounting 
term, but also, with qualifying prop3r names, to 
designate various Christian imitations of the 5th/nth 
century in Spain (cf. P. Grierson in Rev. beige de phil. 
et d'histoire, xxxii, 1954, 1059, and J. Duplessy in 
Rev. Numismatique, 1956, 101). The original mara- 
botino (maravedi, etc.) of Alphonso VIII of Castile was 
an imitation of the Murabit dinar with Christian 
legends in Arabic character. 

Sauvaire (see bibliography) lists numerous ad- 
jectives and nouns which occur in written sources 
qualifying or describing various types of dinars. To 
these may be added: Atdbaki (Zangid), turi (for tari ?, 
JAOS 1954, 163), djayshi (Dozy, Suppl.), Hdkimi 
(Fatimid), Ifasani (Fatimid), al-kharifa (for special 
occasions, Herzfeld, Geschichte . . . Samarra, 195), 
c adad ("counted", apt6(i.ia voy.Lay.aTa, papyri), 
sawa ("correct weight", papyri), tard ("fresh", 
"uncirculated", papyri), frawdmi (Buwayhid, Ars 
lslamica 1951, 23), mithkati ("full weight", papyri), 
mudawwara (Fatimid, with concentric legends ?), 
musaftara (Fatimid, with legends in parallel lines?), 
mashkhas or mushkhas ("with effigies", ». e., European, 
BSOAS, 1953, 72, JESHO 1958, 48), mashrW 
("eastern", papyri), muzaffari (Shah-i Arman, JAOS 
1954, 163), ma'sul ("correctly counted out", papyri), 
maliki (Zuray'id, Num. Zeitschrift 47, 1914, 172), 
munahhat ("clipped", papyri), nizdri (Fatimid), 
yiisufi (Muwahhid, Ibn Khallikan). 

The word dinar as a denomination applied to 
coins of various metals including nickel, copper, etc., 
bearing no relationship to the classical Arab unit, 
has survived in modern times: e.g., Kadjars (Nasir 
al-DIn Shah and successors, and the Pahlavl dynasty), 
'Irak (1 dinar, paper money = 1000 fils), Yugoslavia 
(1 dinar =100 para). 

(See also dirham, mith^al, kIrat, sanadjat and 

Bibliography: al-Makrizi, K. Shudhur al- 
l ubud, various eds. including Tychsen (i797), 
Istanbul (1298 A.H.), L. A. Mayer (1933), A.-M. de 
St.-Elie (1939) ; E. v. Bergmann, Die Nominate der 
Munzreform der Chalifen Abdulmelik, in SBAk. 
Wien, 1870, 239; H. Sauvaire, Materiaux pour 
servir d Vhistoire de la numismatique et de la 
mltrologie musulmanes {J A, 1879-82); convenient 
summary of this comprehensive, indispensable 
work by S. Lane-Poole in NC 1884, 66-96; R. 
Vasmer in F. v. Schrotter, Wbrterbuch der Miinz- 
kunde (Berlin-Leipzig, 1930), s.v. Dinar; J. 
Walker, A catalogue of the Arab-Byzantine and 
post-reform Umaiyad coins {Cat. of the Muham- 
madan coins in the British Museum, ii, London 
1956); A. Grohmann, Einfuhrung und Chrcsto- 
mathie zur arabischen Papyruskunde (Monografie 
Archtvu Orientdlniho, xiii/i, Prague 1955); A - s - 
Ehrenkreutz, several articles on the dinar and its 
standard of fineness in JAOS 1954, 162, 1956, 
178, and JESHO 1959; G. C. Miles, Some early 
Arab dinars in American Numismatic Society 
Museum Notes, iii, 1948, 93; idem, The numis- 
matic history of Rayy (N.Y., 1938); idem, Fd(imid 
coins (N.Y., 1951); idem, The coinage of the 
Umayyads of Spain (N.Y., 1950); the various 



DINAR — DlNAWAR 



catalogues of Arab glass weights (see sanadjat); 
P. Grierson, The monetary reforms of l A bd al-Malik 
in JESHO, 1960, 241; the numerous catalogues 
of papyri (full bibliographies in A. Grohmann's 
Arabic papyri in the Egyptian Library) and of 
coin collections, notably those of London (Lane- 
Poole), Paris (Lavoix), Berlin (Niitzel), Istanbul 
(Israa'il GhSlib, Ahmed Tevhld, Khalil Edhem), 
and W. Tiesenhausen's compendium of Umayyad 
and 'Abbasid coins, Moneti vostolnago Khalifata. 
The bibliographical details are available in L. A. 
Mayer's Bibliography of Moslem Numismatics 2 , 
London 1954. (G. C. Miles) 

DINAR (Malik), name of one of the Oghuz 
chieftains who set themselves up at Khurasan after 
the dislocation of the kingdom of the Saldjukid 
Sandjar; unable to maintain his position there 
before the pressure of the Kh'arizmian state, he 
found a way to profit from the dissensions among the 
Saldjukids of Kirman to lay hands on that princi- 
pality (582/1186) and to hold it, in spite of hostilities 
on the borders of Sistan, Fars, and the Persian Gulf, 
until his death in 591/1195. After his death, however, 
Kirman in its turn became absorbed within the 
Kh"arizmian empire, on account of insufficient 
Oghuz immigration. 

Bibliography : Almost the only source for the 
history of Kirman in this period lies in the BaddV 
al-azmdn fi wakdV Kirman of the contemporary 
Afdal al-DIn KirmanI, the text of which, recon- 
stituted from later compilers (especially Hasan 
Yazdl), was published by M. Bayani in 1331/1952, 
but was already almost equally well accessible in 
Muhammad b. Ibrahim's History of the Saldjukids 
of Kirman ed. by Th. Houtsma as vol. i of his 
Recueil de textes relatifs a I'histoire des'Seldjoucides, 
and analysed by him in an article in ZDMG, 1885 ; 
also to be consulted is the special apologetic work 
of Afdal al-DIn on Malik Dinar, Hkd al-'Uld, 
ed. Tehran 1311/1932, and the Risdla recently 
discovered and published by A. lkbal, 1331/1952, 
which continues the history of Kirman until 612/ 
1215 (excellent editorial preface on Afdal al-Din). 
Isolated references in Ibn al-Athir, xi, 116, 248-9, 
and xii, 198 ; and Djuwaynl, TaMhh-i Qiahdngushd, 
ed. Muh. Kazwini, ii, 20-2 (Khurasanian period). 

(Cl. Cahen) 
DlNAWAR (sometimes incorrectly written Day- 
nawar) in the middle ages was one of the most 
important towns in Djibal (Media); it is now in 
ruins. The exact location is 34 35' Lat. N. and 
47° 26' E. Long. (Greenwich). The ruins are situated 
on the north-eastern edge of a fertile plain 1600 
metres above sea level which is watered by the 
Cam-i DInawar. This stream, after traversing the 
precipitous Tang-i Dinawar, joins the Gamas-Ab 
near the rock of Bisitun ; the Gamas-Ab is a tributary 
of the Kara Su which, in its lower reaches, is known 
as the Karkha. When Ibn Khurradadhbih (ed. de 
Goeje, 176) stated that the Nahr al-Sus (Karkha) 
rose in the neighbourhood of DTnawar, he was 
obviously regarding the Cam-i Dinawar as its real 

The foundation of Dinawar dates from the Seleucid 
era, if not earlier. As at Kangawar (42 km. east by 
south), there was a Greek settlement there; recent 
excavations have brought to light a stone basin 
decorated with busts of Silenus and satyrs, thus 
making it probable that the cult of Dionysus had 
been introduced there by the Greeks (see R. Ghirsh- 
man, Iran, 236). 

Dinawar surrendered to the Muslim Arabs imme- 



diately after the battle of Nihawand in the year 
21/642. In Mu'awiya's reign it was renamed Mah al- 
Kufa. In the administrative division of the Caliph's 
empire, Mah al-Kufa appears not only as the name 
of the town of Dinawar, but also as that of two 
districts of Djibal, Dinawar comprising the upper 
lands and Karmlsln (Kirmanshah) the lower. In the 
west M3h al-Kufa was bounded by the district of 
Hulwan, in the south by Masabadhan, in the east by 
Hamadhan and in the north by Adharbaydjan (see 
Kudama in BGA (ed. de Goeje), vi, 243 ff.). There has 
been some controversy as to the meaning of the word 
Mah in such names as Mah al-Kufa and Mah al-Basra 
(Nihawand). Some Arab authors have maintained 
that Mah was a Persian noun equivalent in meaning 
to the Arabic kasaba 'town' or 'capital', while 
Bal'amI, in his Persian translation of Tabarl, stated 
that it was a Pahlawi word meaning 'province' or 
'kingdom' (see Zotenberg's French version, iii, 
480); it is to be noted that this explanation is not 
given in the Arabic text. A more probable explanation 
is that Mah is equivalent in meaning to the ancient 
Mada or Media. It is noteworthy that all geographical 
names which are compounded with Mah and can 
be fairly definitely located (cf. for example Mah al- 
Basra) belong to Media. In the case of Mah al-Kufa, 
it has been said that the place was so called because 
the taxes raised from it and its district were applied 
for the benefit of the citizens of Kufa. On the word 
Mah, see in particular Noldeke in ZDMG, xxxi, 
559 ff. and his Gesch. der Perser und Araber zur Zeit 
der Sasaniden (1879), 103, and J. Marquart, Erdniahr, 
Berlin 1901, 18-19. 

In the Umayyad and 'Abbasid periods Dinawar 
was very prosperous. In the 4th/ioth century it was, 
according to Ibn Hawkal, only one-third less in 
size than Hamadhan. Mukaddasi praised its well- 
built bazaars and its rich orchards. The confusion 
that broke out in the last years of al-Muktadir's reign 
(d. 320/932) temporarily ruined the town. When the 
rebellious general Mardawldj of Gllan seized the 
whole province of Djibal after defeating the troops 
sent against him by the Caliph, Dinawar also fell 
into his hands (319/931), and several thousands (the 
figures vary from 7,000 to 25,000) of the inhabitants 
perished soon afterwards. Hasanwayh (Hasanuya), 
a Kurdish prince living in this region, founded a 
small independent kingdom of which the capital was 
Dinawar; he was able to retain possession of it for 
nearly 50 years (uniil his death in 369/979). Hamd 
Allah Mustawfi (Nuzha, 106) described Dinawar as a 
small town, with a temperate climate and abundant 
water, producing crops of corn and also fruit. Half 
a century after Mustawfi's time, Dinawar was 
completely destroyed by TImur and has never been 

Theodore Strauss, who visited the ruins of Dinawar 
in 1905, stated that: "The site of Dinawar is indicated 
only by mounds of earth which have been ransacked 
several times in the search for coins; numerous finds 
are still being made especially by peasants tilling the 
fields" (See his Eine Reise im Westlichen Persien, in 
Petermann's Geog. Mitteil., 1911, 65). Strauss also 
stated that traces can still be seen in the adjacent 
Tang-i Dinawar of an ancient road hewn out of the 
rock which probably connected Dinawar with 



Bibliography : in addition to the references in 
the text: BGA (ed. de Goeje), passim, particularly, 
iii, 395-*"', v, 259, vi, 119 ff., 226 ff., 243 ff-, vii, 
271; Baladhurl, Futuh, 194, 306-8, 310; Mas'udl, 
Murudj, iii, 263, ix, 24, 25, 31; Yakut, ii, 704, iv, 



300 DIN A WAR — 

407; Kazwlnl (ed. Wiistenfeld), ii, 250; Aghdni, 

Tables, 752; Le Strange, 189, 227; A. v. Kremer, 

Culiurgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen 

(1875), i, 337-8, 365; Noldeke, in ZDMG, 

xxviii, 102 ; Weil, Chalifen, i, 93 ; ii, 620 (wrongly 

vocalized Deinewr) ; J. de Morgan, Mission 

Scientif. en Perse, ttudes Giograph., ii, 95 f f . ; 

Guides Bleus: Moyen Orient, Paris 1956, 705. 

(L. Lockhart) 

al-DINAWARI, Abu HanIfa Ahmad b. Dawud, 

Arab scholar of the 3rd/9th century. The name 

of his grandfather, Wanand, indicates that he was 

of Iranian origin. In spite of the great value attached 

to his work by later authors very little has been 

handed down about his life except a short notice by 

Ibn al-Nadim (Fihrist, 78), copied by Yakut with 

additional notices about the year of his death, which 

according to various sources fell in 281 or 282/894-5 

or before 290/902-3; an appreciation of his work 

quoted from the K . Tabriz al-Qidhiz by Abu Hayyan 

al-Tawhidl and an anecdote about his meeting in 

Dinawar with the philologist al-Mubarrad (Irshdd al- 

arib, 1, 123-7; an extract in c Abd al-Kadir al- 

Baghdadl, Khizdnat al-adab, 1, 25-26). That he lived 

in Dinawar is corroborated by what is said by the 

astronomer c Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi, who in the year 

335/946-7 saw the house in Dinawar that served him 

as an observatory (Suwar al-kawdkib, Haydarabad 

1373/1954, 8). His philological studies he prosecuted 

in 'Irak, where he is said to have learned both from 

Basran and Kufan teachers, especially from the two 

grammarians al-Sikklt and his son Ibn al-Sikkit (see 

also SuyutI, Bughyat al-wu'dt, Cairo 1326, 132). 

Dinawar! belonged to the epoch of Arabic literature 
which was dominated by the spirit of al-Djahiz [q.v.] 
to whom he may be compared (as did Abu Hayyan 
al-Tawhidi) in consideration of his interests in the 
"philosophical" studies of the Hellenistic learning 
{hikmat al-falsafa) and the Arabic humanities alike. 
Unlike Djaljiz, however, he had a clear disposition 
for a systematical approach, which was from the 
very beginning applied by the masters of the philo- 
logical schools of 'Irak to materials treated by them. 
It may be that this disposition was connected also 
with his mathematical genius attested by works of 
his in the field ot the exact sciences, which were 
cultivated by scholars of Iranian origin like himself. 
From the beginning, Arabic philology, the study of 
pre-Islamic literature and culture, had been associated 
with Kur'anic studies; a commentary on the Kur'an 
is mentioned by the bibliographers among his works. 
These studies may have corresponded also to his 
temperament, because he is characterized as pious 
and ascetic iwari'- zdhid). 

Of his mathematical works, one on Indian arith- 
metic (K . al-bahth /» hisdb al-Hind) and another on 
algebra (K. al-djabr wa 'l-mukdbala), nothing has 
been preserved. A work on astronomical geography 
(K. al-Kibla wa 'l-zawdl) was plagiarized by Ibn 
Kutayba, according to Mas'udi (Murudj. vii, 335). 
For his K. al-anwd 1 , which was estimated by al- 
Sufi as most complete in its kind [op. cit., 7), he tried 
to check, by observations of his own, the statements 
made by the Bedouins and collected by the philolo- 
gists concerning the anwd? [q.v.]. 

To later authors Dlnawari is especially known as 
the author of the K . al-nabdt, the main purpose of 
which is lexicographical, to collect all available 
tradition, oral and literary, about names and termi- 
nations in the field of plants and plant life as docu- 
mented by verses of poetry or by authorities on 
Bedouin dialects. In this field he had predecessors 



among the philologists (see al-nabat). The work 
of Dlnawari incorporated their material and added 
to it collections and observations of his own. To 
later generations it was the standard work in the 
field and was to a great extent quoted by lexico- 
logists from Ibn Sida [q.v.] on. Of the two sections 
into which it was divided the first contained a series 
of monographs some of which go far beyond the field 
of "botany" proper, treating with themes that have 
a more or less indirect connexion with the world of 
plants; see B. Silberberg, Das Pflanzenbuch des 
Dtnawart in Z A xxiv, 1910: 225-65, xxv, 191 1: 39-88. 
Two volumes of the original work have come 
down to us, the 5th containing the last part of the 
monograph section and the letters alif to zdy of the 
alphabetical section (ed. by B. Lewin, Uppsala 
Universitets Arsskrift 1953: 10), and the 3d (M. S. 
Salisbury 77, Yale Univ. Libr.; an edition of this 
together with the monograph part of the 5 th vol. is 
under preparation to appear in Bibliotheca islamica). 

The only work of Dinawari's that has come down 
to us in its full extent is his historical work al- 
Akhbdr al-tiwdl (ed. by V. Guirgass, Leiden 1888; 
Preface, variantes et index par I. J. Krackovskij, 
Leiden 1912). That this work, in spite of its literary 
and scholarly qualities, never met with great 
approval and popularity in the Arab speaking world 
may be due to accidental circumstances rather than 
to a deliberate disregard. Its title was known to 
bibliographers from Ibn al-Nadim on, but the 
author is never called a historian. History is seen 
from an Iranian point of view; thus the Prophet is 
mentioned so to speak in a marginal note of the 
history of Anusharwan; Islam and the Arabs appear 
on the scene when invading Persia; the Umayyads 
are treated with only as far as the religious and 
political movements involving the eastern part of 
Islam are concerned, etc. This tendency towards 
promoting Iranian views may be due, not to anti- 
Arab feelings, but to the sources on which he drew. 
His chief aim was certainly to write a book of 
literary and entertaining qualities. For this reason 
he omitted the isndds of the akhbdr, took the liberty 
of choosing, among different traditions about one 
and the same event, the one that suited him and 
insisted on points of dramatic value; e.g., the days 
of Kadisiyya, Siffin and Nahrawan, the death of 
Husayn, the filna of Ibn al-Ash c ath etc., narratives 
which belong to the finest products of Arab historio- 
graphy. 

Bibliography: in the article. (B. Lewin) 

al-DINAWARI, Abu Sa'Id (Sa'd) Nasr b. 
Ya'ijOb, is a writer chiefly remembered as author of 
al-Kddiri fi 'l-Ta'bir (composed in 397/1006 and 
dedicated to al-Kadir Bi'llah 381-422/991-1020), 
which is the oldest authentic Arabic treatise on 
oneirocriticism and an excellent synthesis of every- 
thing that was known on the subject at the time. Its 
sources were Arabic: Ibn Sirin [q.v.] to whom 
innumerable interpretations are attributed; Greek: 
Artemidorus of Ephesus, whose Oneirocritica 
translated into Arabic by Hunayn b. Ishak (died 
260/873; cf. Fihrist, 255, MS A 4726 in the Istanbul 
University Library; edition being prepared) is 
reproduced almost in its entirety in this learned 
compilation. As for Christian and Byzantine sources, 
al-Dinawari would have used the Arabic original 
of the Greek treatise known as ' AxfieT u£6<; Ziqpein, 
written by a Christian and translated into Latin by 
Leo Tuscus in 1160 [see ibn s!r!n[. The same work 
would have served him for Hindu and Persian 
sources. The author makes frequent reference to 



- DIPLOMATIC 



interpretations imputed to the Jews and has 
numerous quotations from the Bible. 

Bibliography: al-Kadiri ji 'l-ta'blr is still 
unpublished; 29 MSS. are known. It was translated 
into Persian (AS 1718) and following Hadjdji 
Khalifa (ii, 312, no. 3068), translated into Turkish 
verse by Shihab al-DIn Ahmad b. 'Arabshah (died 
854/1450). On this work and Arabic oneirocritical 
literature, cf. T. Fahd, Les Reves en Islam, in 
Sources Orientates, ii, Paris 1960, 125-58. 

(T. Fahd) 
DINDAN, the lakab of Abu Dja'far Ahmad b. 
Husayn, a Shi'I traditionist of the 3rd/9th century. 
His father was a reliable authority who related 
traditions of the Imams 'All al-Rida, Muhammad al- 
Pjawad, and C A1I al-Hadi; originally from Kufa, he 
lived for a while in Ahwaz, where Dindan was born. 
Dindan also related traditions on the authority of 
his father's masters, but was regarded as a ghdli, 
extremist, and his reliability as a relator was 
impugned. He wrote several books, among them 
Kitdb al-ihtididdi, K. al-anbiya', K. al-mathalib, 
and K. al-mukhtasar ji 'l-da'wdt; none of them 
appears to have survived. He died and was buried 
in Kumm. 

These data are found in twelver Shi'i biographical 
and bibliographical sources (e.g., Tusys List of 
Shy'ah Books, edd. Sprenger and 'Abd al-Haqq, 
Calcutta 1853, 26; Ibn Shahrashub, Ma'dlim al- 
'ularnd', ed. Eghbal, Tehran T934, 10; Astarabadi, 
Minhddf al-makdl, Tehran 1307, 34). The reference 
to Dindan's extremist views is amplified in a group of 
SunnI sources, dealing with the genesis of Isma'ilism. 
(Fihrist 188; BaghdadI, Fark, 266, tr. A. S. Halkin, 
Moslem schisms and sects, Tel-Aviv 1935, 108; 
MakrizI, tr. Quatremere, in JA, 1836, 132, etc.). In 
these Dindan appears as one of the founders of the 
sect, in association with c Abd Allah b. Maymun 
[q.v.]. He is said to have played an active part in 
both the formulation and propagation of Isma'ili 
doctrines, and in addition to have provided large 
sums to finance the da'-wa. According to the Fihrist, 
he was secretary to Ahmad b. 'Abd al-'Aziz b. Abi 
Dulaf (d. 280/893). His name and pedigree are 
variously distorted in these sources, but remain 
recognizable. His grandfather's name is given, with 
various corruptions, as Cahar Lakhtan, 'four parts' — 
obviously a nickname. Abu '1-Ma'ali (Baydn al-adydn, 
ed. Eghbal, 36, tr. Masse in RHR, 1926, 57) makes 
Cahar Lakhtan an associate of Dindan and c Abd 
Allah b. Maymun in founding the Batini sect, and 
attributes to him the role of financier. 

The much better informed Shi'i sources make it 
clear that Dindan lived in the 3rd century. While 
therefore he may have been a secretary of Ibn Abi 
Dulaf, he cannot have been associated with c Abd 
Allah b. Maymun, who lived and died during the 
2nd/8th century. He may well, however, have 
played some part in the early history of Isma'ilism, 
though it is noteworthy that neither his name nor 
any of his works appear to have been preserved by 
the Isma'Ilis. 

Bibliography: M. J. De Goeje, Mimoire sur 
les Carmathes . . ?, Leiden 1886, 15; L. Massignon, 
Esquisse d'une bibliographic Carmathe, in A volume 
of Oriental Studies presented to E. G. Browne, 
Cambridge 1922, 331; B. Lewis, The origins of 
Ismd'ilism, Cambridge 1940, index; S. M. Stern, 
Abu'l-Qasim al-Busti and his refutation of Is- 
maHlism, in JRAS,, 1961, 28-9. (B. Lewis) 

DIOSCORIDES [see d:yus?uridisJ. 
DIPLOMACY [see elci, mu'ahada, safIr]. 



DIPLOMATIC 



1) Diplon 



has reached the status of a special 
science in the West, and the results of such research 
are accessible in good manuals (like Harry Bresslau's 
Handbuch der Urkundenlehre fur Deutschland und 
Italien, 2nd.ed. 1931). Much less work has been done 
on Arabic documents: the material is very scattered, 
and not yet sufficiently collated to permit detailed 
research. Yet Arabic documents have aroused 
interest for some considerable time: a number have 
been published, and the editing of Arabic papyri of 
the first centuries of Islam in particular has added 
materially to our knowledge. It is thus not mere 
chance that so much of the groundwork for the 
establishment of a science of Arabic diplomatic 
should have been done by a papyrologist (Grohmann), 
and it is to be hoped that the publishing of further 
papyri will advance work in that direction. It is 
indeed of very special advantage to possess original 
documents of so early a date, particularly as there 
are not so many Arabic documents of the later 
centuries. Some collections have become known 
only recently, and it is to be hoped that here, too, 
more material will be discovered. Numbers of 
important Arabic documents have already come to 
light in the Geniza collections and among the 
manuscripts in the St. Catherine's Monastery on 
Mount Sinai. Documents of the Mamluk period are 
preserved in archives in Italy and Spain. 

Arabic manuals for secretaries also form part of 
the material on which a science of Arabic diplomatic 
can be based, and these are preserved in great 
number. In part, they consist of theoretical explan- 
ations and advice to scribes, in part of practical 
examples in the text; these, however, are usually 
no more than model forms without either names or 
dates. It is obviously difficult to decide to what 
extent these texts are authentic, that is to say to 
what extent they are based on original documents. 
Such manuals gradually grew and became more 
complete, until in the time of the Mamluks they 
reach encyclopaedic extent in Kalkashandi's Subh 
al-a'-shd ft sind'-at al-inshd*. This great work is an 
essential source book for the study of documents, 
and therefore its author may be regarded as the most 
important precursor of scientific Arabic diplomatic. 
Here too, of course, it is hard to tell to what extent 
Kalkashandi had himself seen the originals of the 
numerous texts he gives. It is known that he did 
have access to the archives, and that many more 
texts survived then than do today. We are not so 
certain about the older texts: Kalkashandi probably 
based his work largely on literary sources (some of 
which he names), but we can hardly expect a critical 
treatment of these. 

The following is an attempt at a survey, based on 
Bresslau's classification, in order to get nearer to a 
complete picture. 

2) Composition of Documents. The same 
division which is observed in occidental documents 
is also to be found in Arabic ones; namely the in- 
troductory protocol, the text, and the closing 
protocol. 

A. The introductory protocol is known as 
tirdz and iftitdh. Tirdz is the name of the protocol 
in the Arabic papyri: to begin with the formulae 
were bilingual, Greek-Arabic, and later Arabic- 
Greek ; later on, purely Arabic. There is considerable 
variety in the wording, and extensive material has 
been published by Grohmann. The purpose seems to 



DIPLOMATIC 



have been to endow the document with a certain 
authenticity, but as far as the validity of Arabic 
documents goes, it is without import. From the 4th/ 
10th century it was omitted altogether, and the term 
(irdi is now used only in the sense of the inscription 
of names on clothes. Kalkashandi knows it only in 
this sense, and uses the term iftitdh for the intro- 
duction of documents, for example i/titdh al-kutub 
and iftitdli al-mukataba. He calls the individual 
parts of this i/titdh /awdtih; they are basmala, 
hamdala, tashahhud, salwala (tasliya), saldm, and 
ba'diyya [ammd ba'-du). Each of these terms has its 
own history; thus the salwala, for example, is said to 
have been added only in the year 797. 

The 'unwdn, a direction or address, is also part of the 
introduction. It was formerly known as min fuldn ild 
juldn or li-fuldn min fuldn, and developed from there. 
Kalkashandi collected 15 different forms. The 
designation of the sender in the 'unman was tardjama, 
which developed from the simple akhuhu or waladuhu 
to al-mamluk al-Ndsiri etc. There is also evidence of 
the use of tajdiya for sender, developing from the 
ancient dja'alani 'lldhu jida'aka through numerous 
intermediate forms, as early as 'Abbasid times. The 
formulae of benediction for the addressee, which 
were called du'd and were taken very seriously, were 
even more varied. Developing from inconspicuous 
beginnings in Umayyad times, there was a whole 
system of gradation under the 'Abbasids. Scribes 
appear to have compiled lists of these adHya fairly 
early on, which became more detailed when distinc- 
tions in rank became more and more minute in the 
times of the Fatimids and Mamluks, when every 
lakab had its own precise du'd'. 

The different personal names (asmd*, kund, alkdb, 
nu l ut) also underwent considerable development, 
and details concerning them are naturally of great 
importance in the interpretation of documents. 
Kalkashandi devoted his third makdla to them, and 
the material which he collected is very extensive. 
Here too, the development is towards ever increasing 
complexity. Under the Umayyads, ism and kunya 
were sufficient, but lakab and na't became current 
under the 'Abbasids. There was a veritable inflation 
of terms in Mamluk times, which is borne out by 
Kalkashandi's lists of 152 alkdb and 372 nu"-ut. These 
can be checked with Caetani's Onomasticon. 

B. The term used for the actual text is matn, in 
letters also ma bayn al-saldmayn, because they 
usually began and ended with saldm. The text can 
be cast in either a subjective or an objective form: 
objective, as for instance hddhd md . . . There are 
definite terms for different parts of the text: e.g., 
in letters of appointment the isndd mean the deci- 
sive words an yu'hada ilayhi, etc. The wasiyya 
is the part in which the duties of the nominee are 
specified in detail. Such details are important for 
the consideration of the ethics of civil servants and 
throw light on lesser known offices. 

C. The concluding protocol consists of the 
khawdtim : istithna> = in shd> alldhu ta'dld, often 
run together in writing, though some authorities 
state that this should have a line to itself. Ta'rikh = 
dating, sometimes omitted and a separate subject 
of enquiry, see 14 below. '■Aldma = signature of the 
person drawing up the document; this was known 
popularly, with great lack of respect as 'crow's foot' 
(ridjl ghurdb), often in particularly large writing 
(al-tumdr al-kdmil); in the ikhwdniyydt this was in 
the margin. Kalkashandi, for example, has hasab al- 
marsum al-sharif and bi 'l-ishdra aW-dliya al-wasiriyya 
as mustanaddt of the closing phrases. The hamdala, 



salwala, hasbala and others are religious closing 
phrases, and amongst these one might perhaps list 
the hr, which Kalkashandi did not understand, and 
explains as a second hasbala or mere padding (more 
correctly, perhaps, a mere differentiatory sign under 
the letter h). 

3. Types of Documents. Grohmann has made 
an attempt to submit Arabic documents to the same 
kind of classification as European ones: with and 
without legal content, public and private documents, 
cancellarial and non-cancellarial documents, man- 
dates, diplomas, evidential and business documents 
etc. The Arabs, Kalkashandi in particular, likewise 
classified their documents clearly. 

A. The following are general terms: kitdb, wathika, 
sakk, sanad, hudjdja, sidjill, zahir. Kitdb is frequent- 
ly explained by such additions as k. al-inshd', k. al- 
nikdh, k. al-taldk, k. al-iHimdd and others. A more 
limited meaning was attached to the other ones, but 
the Fatimids had a preference for sidpll, and in the 
Maghrib, for zahir. 

B. At the beginning, documents of state were 
apparently also just known as kutub, although quite 
early on a distinction was made between kutub 
<dmma or mutlakdt, and kutub khdssa, and these 
were further sub-divided into k. al-aymdn, k. al- 
awkdj, k. al-muluk, k. al-sid^ill, and others, accord- 
ing to their contents. Their inclusion under the 
heading of 'state documents' gives this a very wide 
meaning. Consequently, the exchange of letters 
concerning matters of state was called mukdtabdt 
by the 'Abbasids, and the chancellery the diwdn 
al-mukdtabdt. This was also usual in Egypt, under 
the Fatimids, Ayyubids, and Mamluks. There were 
also rasdHl and diwdn al-rasdHl. Murdsaldt and 
tarassul were also known, though these appear to 
have been less common. Inshd' and munsha^dt were 
used, and diwdn al-insha} was already known in 
'Abbasid times, then, especially under the Fatimids 
and Mamluks, it became the general term for 
chancellery (cf. 6 below). 

C. Letters of Appointment. Wildydt = offices 
are dealt with in detail under that heading by 
Kalkashandi in his 5th makdla. Generally, however, 
compound terms appear to have been more common, 
such as wildyat al- ( ahd, w. al-diwdn, w. al-hisba, w. 
al-Kdhira and others. Thus there is, for instance, 
a term like nuskhat sidiill bi-wildyat al-Kdhira. 
Tawliya was the right to appoint, but this, in 
Mamluk times, rested with the governors of Syria 
only, not with those of Egypt. The following terms 
for the different grades of appointment were, at least 
in Mamluk times, more common than these general 
terms: bay'a, l ahd, taklid. tafwid, mar sum, tawki c , 
manshur. Each of these has its own history. 

(a) bay c a [q.v.] = the homage paid to a Caliph. 
Under the Fatimids, this reached particular impor- 
tance, and reports of it were written in the capital 
and sent to the provinces, where the governor 
accepted the oath of allegiance from the subjects. 

(b) c ahd = contract in general, but here the 
contract between a caliph and his successor, or a 
sultan, in particular; and later also the contract 
between a sultan and his successor, or the sultan and 
rulers of smaller lands. Kalkashandi classifies all 
these as appointments. He believes that the first 
two are traceable back to the Prophet, but he 
describes the latter as developments which took 
place only under the Ayyubids after the death of 
Nur al-DIn. 

(c) In the actual letters of appointment of officials, 
there was also one supreme grade, called <ahd, 



DIPLOMATIC 



which concerned only the highest officials. It has 
not been usual since the time of the Fatimids. 

(d) taklid was a much used term for high officials 
such as wazirs and kadis, although under the 
Mamluks it was restricted to very special high 
officials such as the confidential secretary = hdtib 

(e) ta/wid, applied to supreme kadis, appears to 
have been used in Mamluk times only. It may have 
been introduced by Shihab al-DIn b. Fadl Allah ( ?). 

(/) marsum, used for military personnel, also 
seems to appear in Mamluk times only. By this, 
Shihab al-DIn b. Fadl Allah means minor documents 
which are not connected with appointments (of 
these, the more important with basmala, and the 
less important, such as passes, without), but Kalka- 
shandl distinguishes between major and minor 
mardsim : mukabbara for the appointment of the 
commander of a fortress, and military persons of 
medium rank, musagjtghara for the lower ranks. 
The latter are said to be rare (presumably because 
they were normally given a manshur). 

(g) tawhi': to begin with this seems to have been 
the ruler's signature, which was appended in the 
chancellery (whilst c aldma was a kind of motto 
written in the ruler's own hand, like a signature, at 
the bottom of documents). The tawfti' '■aid 'l-frisas 
may well have developed from this. Later on, 
tawki' was also used for letters of appointment: to 
begin with, quite generally (thus Ibn Fadl Allah, 
perhaps even Ayyubid) ; but later only for the lesser 
officials, and in Kalkashandl for the fourth and 
lowest group of the muta'ammimin = turban 



(h) manshur. In the first 
for peasants in Egypt, apparently designed to curb 
increasing movement away from the land. In c Abbasid 
times, it was the name given to grants of fiefs; under 
the Fatimids it denoted certain letters of appoint- 
ment; rather general appointments under the 
Ayyubids; but under the Mamluks, it became 
restricted to feudal grants, in different grades accord- 
ing to size and writing. The wording was short and 
precise, there were no instructions (wasdyd), neither 
was there the sultan's signature, but a kind of 
tughra can occasionally be found at the head. 

D. Contracts. The general terms c ahd, c aftd, and 
mithdfr appear as early as the Kur'an, and seem to 
have been usual at all times. c Ahd [q.v.] seems to have 
been used particularly for political agreements; 
c afrd [q.v.] for civil contracts, often more clearly 
defined by an additional genitive, such as 'akd al- 
nikdh, l aH al-dhimma, c alid al-sulh. Mithalt seems 
to have been less common. Kalkashandl does not 
mention it, but Ibn Fadl Allah's Ta'rij mentions 
mawdthib and muwdthafra. Kalkashandl uses the 
terms hudna and muhddana for an armistice, giving 
examples from c Abbasid and Mamluk times. He pays 
particular attention to the form which the oath 
takes, and states that such contracts have not been 
current in more recent times. He knew the terms 
muwdda'a, musdlama, mu^tdddt, and muwdsaja as 
having the same meaning, but these were probably 
all less usual. Neither did the terms faskh and 
mujdsakha, for revocation by one or both parties, 
appear frequently. See further shurut. 

E. Documents of a predominantly business 
nature. These include not only grants of fiefs (see 
C (ft) above) and annual tax settlements, but also the 
musdmahdt and the tarkhdniyydl. The former con- 
cerned tax-relief, probably only in Mamluk times, 
and were divided into large [H;dm), issued in the 



name of the sultan, and small (sighdr) in the name 
of the governor. Dues thus cancelled were called 
mukus, djihdt mustakbaha, munkardt, and bawaki 
(ref. balance of tax due). Some were valid for mer- 
chants and all their goods, others only for certain 
sums. The tarkhdniyydt were concessions granting 
aged officials exemption from taxes, and possibly 
also a fixed salary (ma'liim). In the case of the mili- 
tary, they were called marsum, and in others tawfri'. 

F. Documents of a predominantly legal 
nature. Such were amdn [?.!>.], safe-conducts either 
for whole tribes or for individuals, in particular for 
foreigners in Islamic territory, though later also for 
Muslims "whose attack is feared, and especially those 
who have renounced their allegiance", so that, if 
possible, they might yet be recalled to obedience. The 
drawing up of such documents gradually came to 
form the bulk of the work of a diwdn. Kalkashandl 
endeavours to trace both varieties back to the time of 
the Prophet and gives examples from Umayyad, 
c Abbasid, Fatimid, and Mamluk times. Some docu- 
ments refer to an application of the musta'min (e.g., 
innaha dhakarta raghbataka), others do not. 

Yarllgh = Ferman, extensively used by the 
Turks, and introduced as far as Mamluk Egypt by 
consular traffic, but only in its limited meaning of 
a pass for foreign ambassadors. 

Ifldftdt was the name given to documents reaf- 
firming decisions of former rulers; sometimes, 
however, they were simply called tawfri'. The 
Fatimid proclamation of the year 415/1024 (ed. 
Grohmann, RSO, 32, 641) can be added to the three 
texts cited by Kalkashandl. 

Dafn, the burying of sins, is said to have been 
known in pre-Islamic Arabia, but appears to have 
fallen into disuse (perhaps replaced by the amdn ?) 



< AI.-]. 



Taftdlid hukmiyya were occasionally written for 
the fiddis; they were appointments either in the 
form of diplomas or mere mukdtabdt. 

Isdjdldt al-'addla were certificates of good character 
of witnesses. They are known both in the papyri, and 
later right into Mamluk times. The 'aldma, date, and 
hasbala at the end were written by the ftddi himself, 
and witnessed by the scribes. 

al-tawhi' 'aid 'l-frisas, i.e., the decision of petitions 
in open court, is said to have been the custom even 
in Sasanid times. In Islam under the Umayyads, 
and under Harun al-Rashid, the right of tawfti' 
is said to have been transferred to Yahya al- 
Barmaki. Egyptian governors exercised this right, 
too, but it seems to have been forgotten after the 
Tulunids, and not revived until the Fatimids 
fostered and developed it. The decision was made 
immediately, and was noted briefly on the back by 
the 'owner of the fine pen', then, after instruction 
(ta'yin) by the head of the diwdn, it was fully 
executed by the 'owner of the broad pen'. The 
right of decision remained with the head of the 
diwdn al-inshd 1 , even under the Mamluks. The Sultan 
himself also presided in court, and Kalkashandl 
reports six different ways of submitting a petition. 
This tawlti' was so popular that the people applied 
the term taw(ti c to the profession of the scribe, and 
called the scribes themselves muwaklti'-un. 

'Alkd al-nikdh. Marriage contracts; legal documents 
in which the economic details were of special im- 
portance (hawd'idi al-'urs, nuskhat sadd#), though 
the attestation of equality, the undertaking to pay the 
remainder of the marriage portion, and the rejection 
of all claims in case of divorce, etc., were likewise 
important. 



DIPLOMATIC 



Fatwd. Whereas certain qualities were demanded 
of the mufti, there does not appear to have been any 
set form for the fatwa. A customary form did, 
however, emerge, as can be seen from the many 
collections, and a certain brevity appears to have 
been typical. 

Wakfiyya, deed of wafrf, also traced back to 
the Prophet. Lawyers have laid down regulations 
for the content and form of endowments, and the 
deciding words wakaftu, babastu, sabbaltu, as well 
as the exhortation that it must be neither sold, nor 
given away, nor bequeathed, appears in every such 
deed. Such texts are extant in the original, in 
literature, and carved in stone. The numerous 
endowments affected the economic situation ad- 
versely, and the state found a solution for this in 
large scale confiscations, as also — in more modern 
times — in supervision by Ministries of Aw^df. 

Wasiyya, last will and testament, legacy. The 
content is laid down by law in detail, the form 
appears to be free, but two witnesses are prescribed. 

Wasaya diniyya were large and ornate documents 
for reading from pulpits, in order to inculcate the 
rules of Islam. They were of particular importance 
at the time of the Sunni restoration after the fall 
of the Fatimids, but appear also in the Maghrib. 

Yamin. Oaths played an important part in the 
ceremonies of homage (bay'dt), and the aymdn al- 
bay'a, introduced by al-Hadjdjadj, were famed for 
being particularly strong. The Fatimids systemati- 
cally extended these oaths, particularly in view of 
the fact that their subjects were of a different faith. 
Later, too, the oaths had their significance when 
they sealed contracts, or were made on attaining 
office or entering certain professions. 

c Umra. These were documents for pilgrims to 
Mecca, who there made the 'umra; these appear to 
have been rather rare. 

Idjdzdt were frequently issued on behalf of 
scholars and writers, e.g., for futyd, tadris, riwaya, 
often in the form of large sized farkhat al-shdmi. 

Mulattifdt were sent by the Fatimids to the 
governor of a province when he took up his office, 
and also when honours were bestowed (khila 1 , 
tashdrif). Muldfafa was also the term applied to 
letters accompanying appointments or presents. 

Tadhkira were the orders laid down for the higher 
officials, ambassadors, and commanders of fortresses. 
These were chiefly concerned with income and 
expenditure. 

Tabriz recommending books or poems occur 
occasionally. 

documents. Naturally, the Arabs recognized a 
difference between draft, original, and copy (musaw- 
wada, asl, nuskha). A capable copyist (ndsikh) might 
advance to being a munshP (SOU 118). Ibn al-Sayrafl 
142 mentions copying as an important occupation, 
and also mentions a fair-copyist (mubayyid). Copies 
are marked with nusikha or nusikhat, and, like 
originals, could be attested by sahlf. The copies were 
kept, and it may well be that some collected works 
of the inshd 3 literature were compiled from collections 
of drafts or books of copies. 

There are innumerable examples of the trans- 
mission of documents, in historical works. M. Hami- 
dullah has collected no fewer than 269 texts attri- 
buted to the period before 652 (Documents sur la 
diplomatic musulmane a Vipoque du Prophete el des 
khalijes orthodoxes. Suivi de: Corpus des traitis et 
lettres diplomatiques de I'Islam, Paris 1935. Also in 
Arabic: al-WathaHk al-siyasiyya fi 'l-'ahd al-nabawi 



wa 'l-khildfa al-rdshida). This has of course no bearing 
on the unsettled question of their authenticity. 

5. Archives. The preservation of originals and 
copies in archives was already customary in the 
Ancient Orient and in Greek Egypt. It may therefore 
be assumed that the Arabs likewise knew of the 
practice at an early date, and indeed we find a short 
precis on the back of some papyri, intended to 
facilitate storing and reference. But there is no 
evidence of the existence of a central archive, as 
there was in Greek times. Barthold in 1920 treated 
the question of the preservation of documents in the 
states "of the Islamic orient (ArkhivnU Kursl, i, 
Petrograd 1920; cf. Islamica, iv, 145). Perhaps one 
might be permitted to regard the documents drawn 
up between Harun al-Rashld and his sons Amln and 
Ma'mun in 186/802, and sent to Mecca to be hung 
up in the Ka'ba, as being kept in a kind of archive 
in that holy place. 

There was a proper archive in Fatimid times, and 
Ibn al-Sayrafl (Kdnun, 142) calls the archivist khdzin 
[q.v.], and stresses his importance. He praises the 
Baghdad archive al-khizdna aW-uzmd as a model. It 
was the archivist's task to file the originals of 
incoming documents, and the copies of the outgoing 
ones according to months, in folders with headings 
(idbdra yaktub 'alayhd bitdka). A certain decline in 
this practice seems to have set in in Mamluk times, 
and there were periods when the dawdddr of the 
confidential secretary sufficed as an archivist. 

6. Chancelleries. A. Whether the Prophet 
himself had a chancellery in which his famous 
writings to the rulers of the world were written is 
not certain, although we do have a whole list of 
scribes of the Prophet, among them the first caliphs. 
According to one report, 'Umar is said to have set 
up the first chancellery and called it diwdn [q.v.], a 
word which might go back to the Persian diwdn, or 
even the Assyrian dep, and in fact, a certain parallel 
with Persian administration can be discerned. Yet 
it would appear to have been a diwdn for matters of 
finance and the army, rather than an actual chan- 
cellery of state. 

B. In Umayyad times, the official language — 
which had hitherto been Persian in the east and 
Greek in the west — became Arabic. This tahwil al- 
diwdn ild 'l- c arabi was carried through by al- 
Hadjdjadj in the east, and by 'Abd al-Malik in the 
west. It was indeed a disaster when all the diwdns 
were burnt in the battle near Dayr al-Diamadiim 
[q.v.] in 82/701. Otherwise we know little about 
Umayyad chancelleries. A special office for the 
sealing of documents (diwdn al-khatam) is said to 
have been introduced because of an attempted 
forgery under Mu'awiya. Some innovations are said 
to have been made by Walid b. c Abd al-Malik, 
when papyrus appears to have become better and the 
writing more beautiful; though here, as on other 
occasions, c Umar b. 'Abd al-'AzIz is said to have 
reverted to the customs of his forebears. The custom 
of the caliph's hearing and deciding complaints in 
open session (al-tawki'- 'aid H-ftisas) is said to have 
come into being under the Umayyads. The scribes 
then had to record the caliph's decisions in writing. 
The most famous of the Umayyad scribes was e Abd 
al-Hamid b. Yahya [q.v.], who was active from the 
time of Sulayman to the end of the dynasty. He 
appears to have enriched the scribal art in respect of 
both form and content, and he was probably in- 
fluenced by the Persians. Not all the writings 
attributed to him have, however, been authenticated. 

C. 'Abbasid Chancellery. The 'Abbasids do 



DIPLOMATIC 



not appear to have taken over much of the Umayyad 
administration. They developed a completely new 
scheme, in which Persian influence — still only latent 
in Umayyad times — came to the fore. The kdtib 
became wazlr, and the state chancellery became 
known as diwdn al-rasd'il or diwdn al-inshd'. We 
have only scanty reports (and those particularly from 
Ibn 'Abdfls al-Djahshiyari and MakrizI) of its organi- 
zation and the way it functioned. Some innovations 
are attributed to the Barmakids. Thus, for example, 
Khalid b. Barmak is said to have introduced 
parchment books (dafdtir min al-diulud) instead of 
scrolls {suhuf mudradia), Yahya b. Khalid is said to 
have enlarged the basmala by the tasliya, and 
Hariin al-Rashid is said to have bestowed the right 
of the tawki ( ( ala 'l-kisas on him. The tawki'dt of 
Dja'far b. Yahya were copied, collected, and studied 
as models of erudition. Al-Mahdi is said to have 
decreed that scribes should be free every Thursday, 
and it became a working day again only under al- 
Mu'tasim. The following were famous scribes and 
wazirs of the 'Abbasids : Ibn Mukla (died 328/940), Ibn 
al- c Amid (died 360/970), and Abu Ishak al-Sabi' (died 
384/994), and many innovations are traced back to 
them. One used to quote: Futifiat al-rasd'il bi-'-Abd 
al-ffamid wa-khutimat bi-Ibn al-'-Amid. We hear 
little of the working of the state chancellery in later 
'Abbasid times, but it will still have served as an 
example to the chancelleries in Egypt and other 

D. Chancelleries in Egypt. Papyri are the 
main source for the earliest days, and Grohmann has 
attempted to describe the administration of the 
provinces from these in From the world of Arabic 
papyri, 114 ft. Of course, Egypt had no state 
chancellery at that time, although it did have one 
for the provinces which dealt with the exchange of 
letters with the capital. A seal of the conqueror of 
Egypt, c Amr b. al-'As (died ca. 43/663), has survived 
by chance, and there are a number of letters by 
Kurra b. Sharik (died 96/714), which exhibit the 
uniform style of a chancellery. 

It was not until around 258/872, when Ahmad b. 
Tulun became independent, that a chancellery on the 
Baghdad pattern was introduced in the general 
development of his administration. Its first head 
was Ibn c Abd Kan, and some of his documents 
became famous. Other scribes were Ibn al-Daya 
(died 340/951), and four brothers of the Banu 
'l-Muhadjir family, descendants of c Abd al-Hamid b. 
Yahya. 

The first report of an exchange of letters between 
Egypt and a non-Islamic country dates from the 
time of the Ikhshldids: at the time when Muhammad 
b. Tughdj (323-35/935-46) wished to write to the 
Byzantine co-emperor Romanus I (920-944), he 
asked several scribes to submit their drafts, and 
chose that of Nadjirami. 

Thanks to Ibn al-Sayrafi we know a great deal 
more about the Fatimid chancellery. His Kanun 
diwdn al-rasd'il is practically a treatise on the 
chancellery. It is dedicated to the wazir al-Afdal 
(487-515/1094-1121). After a foreword, the work con- 
sists of what amounts to a chancellery programme; 
even if it was in fact put into practice, this still 
leaves the following questions unanswered: what 
was the diwdn like before ? On what pattern did he 
model his suggestions ? Did he evolve them himself, 
or in imitation of Baghdad or even Byzantium? 
According to Dolger, there are certain similarities 
with Byzantium; but how did Ibn al-Sayrafi come 
to hear of them ? Could it be through Monte Cassino 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



(cf. Roemer, Staatsschreiben der Timuridenzeit, 7) ? 
From Ibn al-Sayrafi we learn many details of 
the duties of civil servants in the state chancellery, 
which he calls diwdn al-rasdHl, also diwdn al- 
mukdtabdt, and (in his later work al-Ishdra ild man 
ndla rutbat al-wizdra) diwdn al-inshd y . He distinguishes 
12 different kinds of officials: 1) the head (raHs, 
mutawalli, sdhib), 2) a secretary for correspondence 
with rulers (mukdtabat al-muluk), 3) one for the 
decision of complaints (al-tawki'-dt fi rikd' al- 
mazdlim) with two under him (sahib al-kalam al- 
dakik, and sdhib al-kalam al-dialil), 4) one for nomi- 
nations and official proclamations (inshd'dt), 5) one 
for correspondence with the important men in the 
country, especially the governors of the provinces, 
6) one for letters of investiture (mandshir), 7) one 
fair-copyist (mubayyid), 8) one copyist (ndsikh), 

9) one keeper of bound model texts (tadhdkir), 

10) an archivist (khdzin), n) a keeper (hddiib), 
12) a translator (mutardiim), who was only con- 
sulted when the need arose. Thus the departments 
of the diwdn were: documents of state, appoint- 
ments, decisions of complaints and occasional 
documents such as proclamations of important 
events (al-kutub fi 'l-hawddith al-kibdr wa'l-muhim- 
mdt), passes (amdndt), texts of oaths (kutub al-aymdn 
wa'l-kasdmdt), and others. 

There is no special text giving us information 
concerning the chancellery of state in the time of 
the Ayyubids, but there are a few details in the 
RasdHl of al-Kadi al-Fadil, and in Ibn Mammati, al- 
NabulusI, and Ibn Shlth'. Al-Kadi al-Fadil describes 
his admission to the diwdn al-inshd* by a stringent 
examination. Cliques and intrigues in the diwdn are 
also mentioned. Ibn Shlth describes conditions in 
the province of Syria, and pays special attention to 
the form of the documents. There is a detailed 
description of the Tardjama of the sender; du'-d'', 
nu'-ut, and '■unwdn are treated in detail, and so is 
collaboration with other diwdns. 

Our most extensive sources date from Mamluk 
times, namely from Shihab al-Din b. Fadl Allah (d. 
749/1349), in his al-Ta'-rij bi 'l-mustalah al-sharif (with 
three commentaries: Tathkif, < Ur), and LatdHj); and, 
above all, there is Kalkashandl's (died 82 1/1418) great 
encyclopaedia Subh al-a c shd (with mukhtasar Daw 3 
al-subh). Of late Mamluk times, we have the Paris 
MSS Diwdn al-inshd', and Khalil al-Zahirl (died 
872/1468), Zubdat kashf al-mamdlik. Kalkashandi may 
be regarded as the main source, particularly as he 
did a great amount of historical research, and gives 
a survey of earlier developments. His work can thus 
be regarded as a precursor of an Arabic diplomatic. 
Amongst the heads of the Diwdn al-inshd^, the 
families of Banu 'Abd al-Zahir and Banu Fadl Allah 
became famous and continued to improve their 
position. The title kdtib al-sirr emerged under 
Kala'un, and under Nasir Muhammad b. Kala'un, 
the head acquired the right of the tawW- '■old 'l-kisas, 
and precedence over the wazir. The number of 
employees rose with the increasing importance of 
the office. The higher employees bore the title of 
kdtib al-dast, the others kdtib al-dardj. Although 
their numbers increased, their status in the public 
eye diminished. The head also succeeded in bringing 
official mail and the whole of the news service 
gradually under his control. 

The spheres of work were the same as under the 
Fatimids, but they were enlarged and differentiated. 
Foreign correspondence in particular had grown very 
much, through contact with almost the whole of the 
world which was then known. Foreign languages and 



DIPLOMATIC 



interpreters were of importance. The exchange of 
letters with governors became increasingly compli- 
cated as the number of grades, titles and addresses 
increased. Offices {wildydt) also became more numer- 
ous, demanding further written work, and one now 
distinguishes 5 different grades of officials (cf. 
C 3 above). The tawki'dt c ald 'l-kisas continued, as 
did a whole group of occasional documents such 
as contracts, passes, oaths, amnesties etc. 

E. Compared with Egypt our knowledge of chan- 
celleries in the other Arab countries, such as the 
Maghrib and al-Andalus, is scanty. In these, the 
term zahir was commonly applied to all documents. 
Ibn al-Khatlb (died 776/1374) became famous with his 
Rayhdnat al-kuttdb, which is frequently quoted by 
Kalkashandi. Cf. below, ii. 

7. Probative force of documents. Islamic 
law accepts only proof brought by witnesses, and 
rejects written testimony in principle. Nevertheless, 
in the actual practice of law, documents have 
achieved great importance. Incidentally, contracts 
seem to have appeared in writing in Arabia even 
in pre-Islamic times. The seal (khdtam), which is of 
very long standing in the Orient, was an important 
means of authentication in Arabic documents. This 
seal was not replaced, as it was in the West, by the 
use of a signature, for the document was not valid 
unless a seal appeared on it, even if it was signed. 
The Prophet is said to have had a silver seal with 
the inscription: Muhammad Rasul Allah. The 
earliest known seal is that of c Amr b. al- c As, which 
has the picture of a bull. 

8. Development of Documents. Petitions 
and preliminaries also occur amongst Arabic docu- 
ments. Petitions {kisas) naturally preceded decisions 
(taie>£t c ), and were the instigation of their formulation. 
The actual text of the iawlti 1 was generally short and 
to the point, so that mention of the petition was 
hardly possible. The fatwd, too, was preceded by an 
investigation, and the state of affairs was described 
more or less explicitly in a set formula which omitted 
names. Contracts were often preceded by lengthy 
negotiations, but there is no mention of these 
preliminaries in the actual text of the contract. 

9. Procedure and authentication, stages 
of authentication. Of the nine stages of authen- 
tication which are known in western documents, 
only a few can so far be traced in Arabic ones. Ibn 
al-Sayrafi (108 f.) mentions revision and correction 
as muhdbala and isldh. During the consultation with 
the ruler, the head of the diwdn merely indicated the 
main points of the reply, whilst the reply itself was 
drawn up by the relevant secretary. Then he com- 
pared the reply with the excerpt, corrected omissions 
and errors if need be (there is also mention of a 
special corrector = mutasaffih), and only then did 
he submit the completed reply to the ruler to be 
signed. The latter then added his signature ( c aldma), 
but the address ( l unwdn) had to be written by the 
head of the diwdn himself, in order to give visible 
proof that he Was aware of the contents and accepted 
responsibility for it. In order to be put into effect, 
the document required the ta'-yin for the charge of 
carrying out the decision, which was summarized on 
the reverse of the %issa; this charge had to be assigned 
in writing by the head of the diwdn. According to 
the rank of the secretary who was ordered to carry 
this out, it had different phrasing and placing, e.g., 
yuktab bi-dhdlika or li-yuktab bi-dhdlika (cf. Kal- 
kashandi, vi, 210). Great attention was obviously 
paid to the elegance of the fair copy, and the Fatimids 
had a special fair-copyist (mubayyid) who was 



responsible for all types of documents (cf. Ibn al- 
Sayrafi, 133 f.). Nothing is said concerning the 
reading of this fair copy to the ruler, or about its 
handing over. 

10. Intercessors and witnesses. The religious 
intercession (shafd'a) of the Prophet is well known in 
Islam. There are also intercessions of a secular 
nature, such as on the occasion of the handing in of 
a petition to the ruler, or on standing surety for a 
debtor. Kalkashandi, ix, 124 gives early and late 
textual examples, and, in xiii, 328, an amdn in which 
the intercessor is referred to as follows : inna M.b. al- 
Musayyib sa'ala fi amrikum wa-dhakara raghbatakum 
fi 'l-khidma. 

11. Model documents for use by scribes. 
In the West, set forms were always used, from the 
days of ancient Rome to the end of the Middle Ages. 
As early as the first century, there are some Arabic 
papyri which prove that letters and documents 
were written in a certain set form, and one may 
therefore assume the presence of models, although 
none is extant. Later Arabic formularies, the so- 
called inshd' works, are an independent genre of 
literature. Of these, three types can be distinguished: 
1) collections of models similar to the formularies of 
the West, 2) 'treatises on stylistics and rules concern- 
ing the drawing up of the documents, similar to the 
Western artes or summae dictaminis, 3) a mixture of 
both, that is to say, formularies with theoretical 
commentary, or theoretical treatises with examples 
from practice, similar to the ones found in the West 
from the 12 th century onwards. The most important 
of the many (over 50) Arabic inshd' works are 
probably the following: al-Suli (d. 335/946), Adab al- 
kuttdb (type 2); Abu Ishak al-Sabi' (d. 384/994), 
RasdHl (type 1); Ibn al-Sayrafl (d. 542/1147), 
Kdnun diwdn al-rasdHl (type 2); al-Kadl al-Fadil 
(d. 596/1200), RasdHl (type 1); Shihab al-DIn b. 
Fadl Allah (d. 749/1349), al-Ta'rif bi'l-mustalah al- 
sharif (type 3); al- Kalkashandi (d. 821/1418), Subb 
al-aHha fi sind'at al-insha' (type 3). As examples of 
preliminaries, one might perhaps mention those 
known as ifldkdi, which confirmed decisions of 
earlier rulers. These naturally refer to the older 
decisions, but there is no evidence of a complete 

12. Copies. There are many examples of official 
facsimiles or copies in the West, but I know of no 
Arabic ones. But there were grounds for them, too, 
such as the loss of an original, or the accession of a 
new ruler. There are Arabic examples of illegal 
imitations or forgeries. As early as Suli (143). there 
is mention of forgery from mpat alf to mi'atay alf, 
which is given as the reason for introducing the 
diwdn al-khdtam of the Umayyads. Kalkashandi 
(xiii, 104) writes on Tamim al-Dari's first investiture 
with land, and Shihab al-DIn b. Fadl Allah (Masdlik, 
i, 173) claims to have seen the original. This can 
hardly have been anything other than a forgery. 
Hamidullah seems to accept the documents attri- 
buted to the Prophet as genuine, but some internal 
evidence would argue against the authenticity of 
some of them. Concerning forged papyri cf. Groh- 
mann, Chrestomathie 35. 

13. The language of the documents. 
Whilst much thorough work has been done on the 
development of Latin in the Middle Ages, only the 
main outline of the development of modern literary 
Arabic from Classical and Middle Arabic is known 
(cf. 'arabiyya). This development is of great 
importance for the interpretation or documents. A 
special branch is the emergence of rhymed prose 



DIPLOMATIC 



307 



(sad?), on which there are the treatises by Zaki 
Mubarak (La prose arabe au 4' siicle de I'hegire, 
thesis, Paris 1931; also in Arabic, al-Nathr al-fanni 
ji 'l-karn al-rdW-, 2 vols., 1352/1934). The zenith of 
sad? was, in documents as elsewhere, the time of the 
Mamluks. The infiltration of the vulgar tongue into 
the language of the documents poses a further 
question. It can already be traced in the papyri and 
later it repeatedly led to errors on the part of the 
scribes. This is dealt with in detail by SOU (129) and 
Kalkashandl (i, 148 if.). 

14. Dating. Just as in the West, dating (ta'rlkh) 
brought a wealth of problems. Even the normal 
hidjra dating offered many possibilities, such as 
dating according to nights and days, feast-days, parts 
of the month etc.; but Kalkashandl (vi, 234ft.) treats 
no less than 19 older eras and one younger era, that 
of Yezdegird. Most of them were of little importance. 
Only the Christian and the Coptic occurred frequently. 
A special problem was the adjustment between the 
lunar and the solar year (sana hildliyya and kharddj,- 
iyya) for the purposes of taxes. As far back as 
'Abbasid times, special documents, /i tahwil al-sana, 
were written when the need arose, [see ta'rIkh]. 



15. Wri 



ing 1 



Extei 






been done on writing materials by papyrologists, the 
most recent being by Grohmann, (Chrestomathie 
63 ff.). Apart from the usual materials (papyrus up 
to the nth century, parchment, paper), there were 
the rarer materials, such as cloth (especially for 
marriage contracts), wood, stone, wax, bones and 
potsherds. Size (kat\ in Suli mikddr) also differed 
greatly, and so did the kinds and the prices. Kal- 
kashandl gives several recipes for the ink {liibr, 
middd). [See djild, kaghad, kirtas, rikk, warak]. 

16. Script in documents. Although much 
groundwork has been done by Moritz, Tisserand, 
Cheikho, and others there is as yet no full scholarly 
history of Arabic script (cf. khatt). Grohmann 
investigated the script of the papyri (Chrestomathie 
88-103). As far as later documents are concerned, 
observation of the peculiarities of different types of 
script, the use of diacritic marks and differential 
signs, must suffice in order to decide the age of 
undated pieces approximately. Certain formulae, 
numbers, notes on records etc. often appear in a 
shortened cursive hand which one might almost 
call shorthand. Grohmann (Chrestomathie 83) dis- 
cusses the writing materials, and Kalkashandl (ii, 
430) lists no less than 17 terms, the precise meaning 
of which can hardly be determined in the absence 
of drawings. Codes and hidden allusions may always 
have played a part, as in SOU (186) (tardjama), and 
Kalkashandl (ix, 229, ta'-miya, later hall al-rumiiz). 
They even occur in a papyrus (Grohmann, Chresto- 
mathie 103 2 ). 

17. Sealing. Suli (139) and Kalkashandl (iii, 273) 
were already interested in seals (khdtam), and in 
Europe too the shape and use of Arabic seals has 
roused a certain amount of interest since Hammer. 
According to Grohmann (Chrestomathie 129 f.), one 
should distinguish between the use of a seal to 
replace the signature as a means of authentication, 
the attaching of a seal by way of recognition and 
ratification, and sealing on the part of witnesses. 
[See KHATAMI. 

Bibliography : Information concerning the 
extensive literature on Arabic papyri now probably 
best found in A. Grohmann, Einfuhrung und 
Chrestomathie zur arabischen Papyruskunde, 1955, 
iv-viii. Cf. also Die Papyri und die Urkunden- 
lehre, 107-30. Works in Arabic: al-Suli, Adab 



al-kuttdb, ed. M. Bahdjat al-Athari, Cairo 1341 A.H. ; 
lbn al-Sayrafi, Kdnun diwdn al-rasd'il, ed. c Ali 
Bahdjat, Cairo 1905; Shihab al-DIn b. Fadl 
Allah, al-Ta'rij bi 'l-mustalah al-sharij, Cairo 
1312 A.H.; al- Kalkashandl, Subh al-a'-sha ji 
sind'at al-inshd', i-xiv, Cairo 1331-8/ 1913-9. 
Index in W. Bjorkman, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der 
Staatskanzlei im islamischen Agypten, Hamburg 
1928, 87-177. Older publications of documents by 
S. de Sacy, Amari, Cusa, de Sousa, Remiro, 
Ribera, and others, are collected by G. Gabrieli, 
Manuale 255-288. Concerning more recent publi- 
cations, cf. H. R. Roemer, Cber Urkunden zur 
Geschichte Agyptens und Persiens in islamischer 
Zeit, in ZDMG 107, 1957, 519-38 (this also 
mentions an Egyptian project of editing Fatimid 
and Mamluk documents) ; A. Grohmann and 
Pahor Labib, Ein Fatimidenerlass vom Jahre 
415/1024, in RSO 32, 1957, 641-54 (which men- 
tions a projected series of Monumenta diplo- 
matica arabica) ; J. Wansbrough, A Mamluk letter of 
S77II473, in BSOAS, xxiv/2 (1961), 200-13; S. D. 
Goitein, The Cairo Geniza as a source lor the history 
of Muslim civilization in Stud. Isl., iii, 1955, 75-92; 
G. E. El-Shayyal, Madimu'at al-wathaHk al- 
Fdtimiyya, i, Cairo 1958; Hasan al-Basha, Al- 
A Ikdb al-Isldmiyya, Cairo 1937. See further daftar, 
sidjill, etc. (W. Bjorkman) 

ii. — Maghrib 

In the Maghrib the external characteristics of 
documents (format, colour of paper, kinds of script, 
etc.) as well as the choice of protocols and formulae 
appear always to have been simpler than in the 
East. 

To be mentioned, however, is the introduction by 
the Moroccan Almohad dynasty (al-Muwahhidun) 
of a sign manual of authentication called c aldma. 
This consisted of the precatory formula wa 'l-hamdu 
li-lldhi teahdahl elegantly inscribed in large, thick 
letters, with a ligature of the ha' and the ddl in the 
final word, and followed by a "terminal sigla" (see 
below). This mark of authentication was written 
afterwards at the top of the document, in a broad 
space left free for this purpose by the scribe, below 
the basmala and the tasliya, of which it was a com- 
plement. 

Of a "unitarian" nature, this formula was possibly 
used by the mahdi lbn Tumart himself in some of 
his epistles. His successor c Abd al-Mu 3 min certainly 
used it in his famous Risdlat al-Fusul (see E. Levi- 
Provencal, Documents inidits d'histoire almohade, 
Arabic text, 13). But it is Ya'kub al-Mansflr (580-95/ 
1184-99) whom the Kirtas (ed. Fas 1305, 154) con- 
siders to have been the first to use this formula as 
an c aldma and to write it with his own hand. Indeed, 
it was not until under this ruler that the formula 
appeared, as a dynastic device, on the Almohad 
dinars (see Lavoix, Cat. mon. mus., Espagne et 
Afrique, 303-308) replacing the earlier formula 
al-hamdu li-lldhi rabbi 'l- c dlamin. 

The Almohad Hafsid rulers of Ifrikiya expanded 
the formula by adding wa 'l-shukru li'lldh. Later, the 
Nasrids of Granada chose wa-la ghdliba ilia 'lldh "and 
there is no conqueror but God", very likely in memory 
of the name of their eponymous ancestor Nasr 
("divine aid which grants victory"). Moreover their 
first ruler chose the lakab: al-Ghalib bi'llah. 

These two dynastic devices, Hafsid and Nasrid, 
appeared as well on their coins and some monuments. 

Left at first to the ruler himself, the responsibility 
for inscribing the '■alama was later entrusted to a very 



DIPLOMATIC 



high confidential official, a kind of head chancellor 
or keeper of the seal called sahib al-'aldma. It was 
most often a scholar of great distinction; thus it was 
that Ibn al-Abbar [q.v.] and Ibn Khaldun [q.v.] 
filled this office at Tunis. According to the im- 
portance of the document to be authenticated, it 
could have an 'aldma kubrd or an 'aldma sughrd, 
whose inscription was entrusted to two chancellors 
of different rank. 

In Morocco the use of the Almohad hamdala as 
< aldma continued to the end of the Sa'dian dynasty. 
But it became much more stylized and ended by 
becoming a kind of tracery of arabesques, difficult 
to decipher, and possibly in imitation of the Turkish 
fughrd [q.v.]. This very artistic 'aldma of the Sa'dians, 
for them a sort of coat of arms, is found on their guns, 
some of their coins, and in the ornament of their 
palaces. In the last years of the Sa'dian dynasty 
as well as the manual 'aldma, use was made of a 
stamp in ink engraved on an oval seal. 

The succeeding Moroccan dynasty, that of the 
'Alawids, abandoned entirely the Almohad '■aldma, 
both manual and stamped. The sole mark of authen- 
tication became the ink stamp of a round seal 
((dbi'), large or small according to the importance 
of the document, placed below the blank space 
between the fiamdala and the tasliya. 

Yet another particularity of Maghrib diplomatic 
must be noted. To mark the end of the text in a 
document, a terminal sigla was splaced immediately 
after the date, consisting of an initial fca' with a 
tail curving towards the right, which it is tempting 
to read, not without reason, as an abbreviation of the 
verb intahd ("it is concluded"). In any case it 
cannot be an abbreviation of the postscript (tawki') 
sahh hddhd or saltilt dhdlik ("this is authentic") 
which appears at the end of diplomas conferring 
privileges and favours, often written by the ruler in 
his own hand. 

We might add that some Moroccan documents, 
of the Wattasids and Sa'dians, are dated in "Greek 
numerals" which also appear on some of their coins, 
and that the Sa'dian sultan Ahmad al-Mansur made 
use of a cryptographic writing. 

The principal types of Maghrib! documents are 
the following: 

zahir (for kitdb zahir), pi. zahdHr, in the Moroccan 
dialect dahir, pi. dwdher. This is a diploma of in- 
vestiture or of immunity from taxes, tolls, and 
forced labour, especially in favour of sharifs or 

tanfldha, a diploma conferring a life pension or 
personal usufruct of a property belonging to the 
royal domain. These first two kinds of letters-patent 
are also called sakk. 

risdla or bard'a (in dialect bra), a letter addressed 
to a community, in order to announce an important 
event (the appointment of a new governor, victory 
over the enemy or rebels, etc.), or in order to exhort 
or to admonish. These official communications were 
generally read from the minbar in the mosque on 
Friday. Several Moroccan c Alawid sultans, among 
them Sayyidi Muhammad b. c Abd Allah and 
Mawlay Sulayman b. Muhammad, acquired a solid 
reputation as letter-writers in this genre. 

bay'a, the "contract of allegiance" concluded 
between notables and the new ruler. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, ed. 
Bulak 1274, 120, 129: trans, de Slane, Proligo- 
mines, i, xxxi, ii, 26, 63; Rabino, Contribution d 
I'histoire des Saadiens, in Archives berbires, iv 
(1920), 1; H. de Castries, Les signes de validation 



des chirifs saadiens, in Hespiris, i, (1921), 231; 
E. Tisserant and G. Wiet, Une lettre de Valmohade 
Murtadd au pape Innocent IV, in Hespiris, vi 
(1926), 27; E. Levi-Provencal, Un recueil de 
Icttres officielles almohades, in Hespiris, xxviii 
(1941), 1. The text and the notes of the last 
three articles provide a basic bibliography, which 
can be supplemented by S. de Sacy, Memoires 
d'histoire et de litterature orientales, Paris 1832, 
119 and 149; G. S. Colin, Contribution d Vitude 
des relations diplomatiques entre les Musulmans 
d'Occident et I'Bgypte, in Melanges Maspero, iii, 
197, Cairo 1935; idem, Note sur le systeme 
cryptographique du sultan Ahmad al-Mansur, 
in Hespiris, vii (1927), 221; L. Di Giacomo, 
Une poitesse grenadine du temps des Almo- 
hades, in Hespiris, xxxiv (1947), 64-65; R. 
Brunschvig, La Berbirie orientate sous les Ha/sides, 
ii, 61; Cusa, / Diplomi greci ed arabi di Sicilia, 
Palermo 1868; <Abd Allah Gannun, RasdHl 
Sa'diyya — Cartas de historia de fos Saadies, 
Tetuan 1373/1954; M. Nehlil, Lettres chirifiennes, 
(collection of 128 official documents of the 
Moroccan c Alawid dynasty, in facsimile), Paris 
1915. The collection of Sources Inidites de I'histoire 
du Maroc contains in transcription, as well as 
plates, numerous Moroccan diplomatic documents. 
(G. S. Colin) 

The origins of Persian diplomatic are to be found 
in the period of the foundation of Turkish states in 
Persian territory. While in the chancelleries of the 
Tahirids and Samanids, who in so many respects 
were influenced by Iranian culture, Arabic was em- 
ployed and efforts to introduce Persian (in the form 
of a "court language", [see darI]) failed, Mahmud 
of Ghazna (389-421/999-1030) declared Persian the 
official language and thus provided for its intro- 
duction into the chancellery. A similar development 
took place under the Saldjuks (see B. Spuler, Iran, 
245-6). It is impossible to say to what extent 
Arabic documents served as models for Persian, 
though the strong Arabic influence can very likely 
be traced back to this early period. The relations 
between the ruler of Ghazna and the Caliphal court 
necessitated the translation of Persian documents 
into Arabic as well as of Arabic into Persian. There 
were in addition a number of Turkish elements, 
considerably increased during the Ilkhanid period by 
elements of Mongol-Turkish origin, which for 
centuries were to influence in particular the external 
form of documents and other written communi- 
cations. 

Categories of documents. These correspond 
broadly with the types described above for Arabic 
documents. An important distinction is between docu- 
ments which attest and documents which command. 
The first consist of legal deeds or certificates 
which were recorded and confirmed by witnesses 
with seal and signature (muhr wa niwishta), for 
example, ^abdla (deed of purchase, confirmed by a 
judge), tamassuk (bill or receipt), 'akd-ndma or 
nikdh-ndma (marriage contract), wakalat-ndmla 
power of attorney), bay' shar\-ndmia (deed of sale), 
wasiyyat-ndma (testament), wakf-ndma (act for 
the establishment of a pious foundation). These 
documents (sidjilldt-i shar'iyya) belong primarily to 
the sphere of competence of the authorities for 
religious law. In contrast to these, documents con- 
taining orders were the exclusive prerogative of 
the organs of state, executed by the ruler or his 



DIPLOMATIC 



deputies and recorded in the chancellery. In principle 
an "official document" (jarmdn) can be found for 
every expression of the ruler's will. In practice they 
may be divided according to contents into the 
following groups : deeds of appointment, of investiture 
[ih(d c , in the Mongol and post-Mongol period: 
soyurghdl; musallami, tax-exemption; tiyul, office- 
holder's fief; wazlja, grants to religious from foun- 
dations or state funds; the awarding of a robe of 
honour, hhil'a, etc.), treaties, passports, judicial 
decisions of the ruler, and orders of a general nature 
to governors and officials. In the Saldjuk period the 
terminology appears to have been still largely 
undeveloped. In addition to jarmdn, the most 
general term, manshur (mandshir) refers to documents 
of the greatest diversity, while others are tahlid, 
tajwid, taslim, mithdl (amthila), and manshur-i 
tahlid or tafwid (see Rieu, Cat. Pers. Mss in the 
Brit. Mus., London 1879, i, 389; Ethe, Cat. Pers. 
Mss in the lnd. Oft. Library, i, 11 31; Muntadjab 
al-DIn Badi c Atabeg al-Djuwayni, '■Atabat al-hataba, 
passim). The expression nishdn appears in the 
Timurid period (see Roemer, Staatsschreiben der 
Timuridenzeit, Wiesbaden 1952, passim) and is 
used until the 17th century (see Chardin, Voyages 
du Chevalier Chardin en Perse, ed. Langles, Paris 
1811, ii, 97). Synonymous with nishdn is mahtub, 
occasionally used in the Timurid period (Nizam al- 
DIn Shami, Zajar-nama, ed. F. Tauer, ii, 264, index). 
Decrees were further called h»hm (Hafiz-i Abru/ 
Tauer, Cinque opuscules, 83, index), tawhi'- (originally 
only the signature of the ruler and later his seal as 
well, see below) or mithdl (Shami/Tauer, ii, 299). The 
Mongol designation yarllgh, alone or in the combi- 
nation huhm-i yarllgh, remained in use until the 
end of the 15th century (Shami/Tauer, ii, 274)- A 
distinction according to diverse introductory formulae 
(see below), though not according to contents, 
appears in the gth-ioth/i5th-i6th centuries: par- 
wdntta and huhm with solemn formulae are con- 
trasted with simpler documents designated by 
raham (see H. Busse, Untersuchungen zum islamischen 
Kanzleiwesen an Hand turhmenischer und safawidischer 
Urhunden (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archao- 
logischen Instituts Kairo, Islamische Reihe), i, 
Cairo 1959, 67); the acts of subordinate authorities 
are now evidently called mithdl (mithdl-i diwdn al- 
saddra: Papazyan no. 17, 970/1562). In the Kadjar 
period the designations depend upon the issuing 
authority: only the decrees of the Shah are called 
jarmdn; acts of governors of royal origin are called 
raftam (arhdm); those of other governors huhm (see 
Greenfield, Die Verfassung des persischen Staates, 
Berlin 1904, 115). In less official language, however, 
almost all of the expressions listed above occur (see 
S. Beck, Persische Konversationsgrammatik, Heidel- 
berg 1914, ii, 211 ff.). 

Distinct from deeds and orders in the strict sense 
are the letters concerned with domestic and 
foreign affairs {maktub, hitdbat or risdla). Like the 
former they are provided with an official attestation 
and have a fixed external and internal form, but 
lack a legal content, as for example in the letters 
confirming friendly relations (ihhwdniyydt). There 
is a form for every occasion, such as congratulation 
(adHyydt), condolence (ta'-ziyat-ndma), etc. Into the 
9th/i5th century foreign correspondence, based on 
a Mongol pattern, preserved in part the form of a 
decree, from which, however, it tended to depart 
under theSafawids in the nth/i7th century. Owing 
to their legal contents "border-books" (sinur-ndma, 
examples in Evoglu Haydar, Jnshd } , see Rieu, i, 390) 



approach the form of decrees. The same may be 
said of letters-patent for envoys. Letters from the 
royal hand (dast-khatf-i humdyun or mubdrah), the 
highest in rank, assume a middle position between 
documents and other writings, their contents 
ranging from the personal execution of an act by the 
ruler to confidential communications. 

The internal structure of documents and 
writings has in the course of nine hundred years of 
Persian chancellery history scarcely changed — that is, 
until modern times. The documents begin with an 
invocation to God (invocatio) frequently combined 
with a devotional ejaculation (al-hukm li'llah, al- 
mulh li'llah). These formulae, together with the 
formula of promulgation, the arenga and the narratio, 
constitute the protocol, which is followed by the 
most important part of the document, the dispositio. 
In the arenga the execution of the document in 
general terms, mostly of a religious character, is 
established, partly by the abundant use of Kur'anic 
citations, verse, and rhetorical analogy. Here, in 
contrast to other parts of the document which are 
bound by more rigid formulae, the writer is free to 
display his literary talent. Evidence of this art is to 
be found, however, in pronounced form more fre- 
quently in inshd' works than in original documents. 
The narratio on the other hand contains the essential 
transaction, for the most part a report of the pro- 
position {"-arda-ddsht) of the petitioner, while in 
documents of confirmation the proposed act, or, de- 
pending upon the affair in question, several acts are 
included completely or in their most important parts 
(insertio). In the narratio appear for the first time the 
name and title of the addressee, who is always 
referred to in the third person, and afterwards only 
by madhhur, mazbur, mushdr ilayhi and mumd ilayhi. 
The full titles can, in artistic combinations with 
panah, dastgdh, nizdm, etc., be extended for several 
lines. The formulae of promulgation (such as 
farzanddn wa wuzard . . . bi-ddnand hi) are placed 
before the arenga or narratio, but can be omitted. The 
arenga closes frequently with the phrase ammd ba'-d. 

The nucleus of the document is the dispositio, or 
decision of the ruler : in appointments and investitures 
the office and date of the nomination or object of the 
investiture are given in more detail (circumscriptio) , 
while in other acts the decision or command is set 
forth. The dispositio is expressed in either active 
(that is, the ruler refers to himself in the first person 
plural: muharrar farmudim wa arzdni ddshtim), or 
passive form, (muharrar jarmiida shud hi). Vestiges 
of an original first person singular were preserved in 
isolated phrases into the I7th-i8th centuries: shah 
bdbam, djadd-i buzurgwdram (accompanied by 
blessings). The transition from the narratio to the 
dispositio is accomplished by means of set formulae: 
frequently bind'an c alayhi, bind bar in, li-hddhd, 
or mi-bdyad hi. To the dispositio in cases of appoint- 
ments and investitures, prescriptions (adhortatio) for 
the addressee or officials and persons concerned might 
be added, usually introduced by sabil wa tarih. In 
contrast to the formulae of promulgation, where the 
highest dignitaries are named first, they appear here 
at the end. The accountants (mustawjiydn) are 
often directed to register the document (dar dajdtir 
l amal namdyand). Finally a prohibition might 
follow, forbidding the annual request for a renewal, 
with the directive "may this apply in all similar 
cases". Except for the invocatio all of these parts 
which precede and succeed the dispositio may be 
omitted, in which case the document consists only 
of the dispositio. Most frequently, however, the order 



3io 



DIPLOMATIC 



is narratio — dispositio — conclusion (date etc.). In 
this case the entire text is included between (un 
(beginning of the narratio) and bind bar in (dispo- 
sitio). In the narratio or in the dispositio by means of . 
siydkat script directions for registration of the 
document might be given; should these instead be 
written on the reverse side (zahr, dimn), this is 
indicated by a remark in the text. 

The documents close with a phrase in which 
reference is made to the seal (corroborate), and with 
the Islamic date : kuliba fi (as early as Rashld al-DIn, 
ed. Jahn, GMS, n.s. xiv, 222) or tahrir"' fi. The day of 
the month, in Arabic numerals as well as in Persian or- 
dinals, disappears almost completely in the ioth/i6th 
century. The Persian day of the week is occasionally 
given (Papazyan, no. 18, 977/i57o). The first day 
of the month is called ghurra, the last salkh. The 
names of the months appear with their customary 
attributes: Muharram al-hardm, Ramadan al- 
mubdrak, etc. The year was at first written in 
Arabic, replaced by Arabic numerals from the 10th/ 
16th century on. Until the ioth/i6th century the 
Hidira year was usually accompanied by the corres- 
ponding year of the animal cycle, which was used 
even later (with the Hidira year) with reference to 
dates in the dispositio. Up to the end of the 9th/i5th 
century the place of issue was named after the date : 
ba-makdm, ba-madina or ba-ddr al-saltana. With 
some exceptions this later disappears. In Turcoman 
documents, beneath the date and place name, is an 
apfrecatio: rabbi ikhtim bi'l-khayr wa'l-ikbdl (see 
Busse, Untersuchungen, no. 2). In the ioth/i6th 
century this phrase was moved to the right-hand 
margin and shortened to khuiima bi'l-khayr or 
khutima, later disappearing altogether. Similarly, 
until the end of the 9th/i5th and beginning of the 
ioth/i6th centuries, to the right below the text and 
perpendicular to it, was a reference to the secretary 
and other officials who might have participated in 
the preparation of the text: parwdnla-yi ashraf-i 
a'ld, ba-risdla (name), ba-wukiif (name). From the 
beginning of the nth/i7th century this remark can 
be found in altered form on the reverse side of the 
document (see below). 

The external form of the documents has been 
more subject to change than the internal form. The 
periods of modification are roughly the following: 
Pre-Mongol — Mongol — Timurid and Turcoman — 
Safawid to the beginning of the I4th/20th century. 
The tughra — [q.v.] was employed by the Saldjuks and 
the rulers of Kh w arizm (in 'Atabat al-kataba a wazir-i 
tughra is mentioned, no. 16; for Kh'arizm see al- 
Nasawi, Sirat al-sultdn Djaldl al-Din Mdngubdrdi, 
ed. Hafiz Ahmad Hamdi, Cairo 1953, 324). While 
here they consisted evidently only of the name and 
titles of the ruler, in the Mongol period was added, 
in addition to bahddur (after 1319, see Spuler, 
Mongolen 2 , 197 and 271), after the name the phrase 
ttge manu ("an order from us"). In Timur's documents 
the phrase reads in Turkish translation : Timur gurkdn 
sozumiiz (see Fekete, A rbeiten der grusinischen Orien- 
talistik auf dem Gebiel der liirkischen und persischen 
Paldographie und die Frage der Formel sozumiiz, in 
AO Hung, vii (1957), i, 14). In this form the tughra 
was preserved on particular documents throughout 
the Turcoman period into the nth/i7th century, and 
was employed by the khans of Bukhara as well ; 
by the Golden Horde in southern Russia (see Fekete, 
op. cil., 14). In Ak Koyunlu documents the tughra is 
combined with the tamgha which appears on their 
coinage (see Hinz, Irans Aufstieg zum Nationalstaat 
im fiinfzehnten Jahrhundert, Berlin and Leipzig 1936, 



106 and the illustration opposite 104). An innovation 
for the world of Islam was the Uyghur practice 
introduced by the Mongols of indenting the first lines 
of the text, as well as emphasizing (owing indirectly 
to Far Eastern influence) the name of the ruler and 
the word yarllgh by beginning a new line (see Busse, 
Die Entwicklung der Staatsurkunde in Zentralasien 
und Persien von den Mongolen bis zu den Safawiden, 
in Akten des XXIV. Intemationalen Orientalisten- 
kongresses Miinchen, Wiesbaden (1959), 372-4). 
With insignificant changes this usage can be observed 
as late as the nth/i7th century in documents with a 
tughra, from which it was also extended to other 
documents. During the rule of the Safawid Isma'il I 
(1501-24) the tughra disappeared from certain 
documents, though the first two lines of the text 
continued to be indented. The seal, earlier at the 
bottom of the document, came generally to be 
placed at the top (where it is still, in the form of a 
crest). There was a new development under the 
second Safawid Tahmasp I (1524-76), in that the 
tughra, written by the head of the chancellery 
(munshi al-mamdlik), appeared now in red or gold 
ink in two forms as an introductory phrase (while 
the indenting of the first two lines was dropped): 
farmdn-i humdyun shud and farmdn-i humdyun 
sharaf-i nafddh ydft. At the beginning of the nth/ 
17th century was added the phrase (written in black 
ink by the wdki'a-niwis, equivalent to the madjlis- 
niwis or wazir-i lap) : hukm-i djahdn-mutd' shud. In 
documents of the diwdn begi the same formula 
appears in red ink (see Tadhkirat al-Muluk, ed. and 
tr. V. Minorsky, London 1943, fol. 21b, 24b, 40a). 
A further differentiation had already begun to 
develop (the first example in Papazyan no. 3, 866/ 
1462), in that the tughra in documents emanating 
from members of the royal family had instead of 
sozumiiz the term sbziim ("my order"), to be found 
up to the end of the ioth/i6th century (see Puturidze 
no. 17, 1591). There appeared further in the 10th/ 
1 6th century in the documents of governors the 
formula amr-i 'all shud (also in combination with 
the tughra containing soziim: Puturidze no. 76, 
1051/1642), and in the nth/i7th century mukarrar 
ast ki. Under Isma'il II (1576-77) the phrase amr-i 
diwdn-i ashraf-i aHa was used in certain decrees 
(Papazyan no. 19, 984/1577). Documents of the 
authorities in the central government bore in the 
nth/i7th and beginning of the I2th/i8th centuries 
the imperial seal but contained no introductory 
phrase (see Busse, Untersuchungen, 65). The same 
is true even today for letters of the Shah, which 
begin directly with the name and title of the 
addressee. Diverse introductory phrases characteristic 
of different kinds of documents remained in use in 
the Post-Safawid period. The formula farmdn-i 
humdyun shud continued to appear in the acts of the 
Afshars, though combined with bi'awn Allah ta'dld 
(later a c udhu bi'lldh ta'-dld), while the strokes of the 
letters were curved into an artistic shape similar to 
a row of treble clefs. In Kadjar documents is the 
phrase hukm-i diahdn-mutd' shud (with al-mulk 
li'lldh ta'-dld), while in the acts of Muzaffar al-DIn 
Shah (1896-1907) farmdn-i humdyun shud reappears 
(see Beck, op. cit., ii, 342-3 and facsimile). The tughra 
in gold ink was preserved. The phrase hukm-i 
diahdn-mutd' shud (without additions) appears even 
in the late Afshar and in some Zand documents, 
retaining the same simple form of the Safawid period. 
The acts of Nadir Shah prior to his coronation 
(8 March 1736; the nominal ruler was the Safawid 
'Abbas III, 1732-6) contained the phrase farmdn-i 



DIPLOMATIC 



'all shud (with bi-'awn . . .) already in the peculiar 
form described above. After 1736 farmdn-i '■all shud 
was replaced by farmdn-i humdySn shud. Farmdn-i 
c dli shud (without additions and in simpler form) is 
also to be found in the documents of Karim Khan 
Zand (1750-96), who was content to hold the actual 
power under the nominal rule of the Safawid Isma'il 
III. His predecessor the Bakhtiyairl leader c Ali 
Mardan Khan, also unofficially Shah, employed the 
introductory phrase hukm-i wdld shud (without 
additions). Here tendencies towards a practice which 
was definitively established in the Kadjar period 
become apparent: documents emanating from 
governors belonging to the royal family bear the 
formula hukm-i wdld shud, while other governors must 
content themselves with hukm-i 'all shud (customary 
as early as the Safawid period; see Sayyid al-inshd', 
Tehran 1327/1919; Beck, op. cit., i, 451 and 455). 
Modern edicts (with an obvious European influence) 
contain the following protocol: crest (a lion and sun). 
farmdn-i mutd'-i mubdrak — a'ld-hadrat-i humdyiin-i 
shdhinshdhi — ba-taHddt-i khuddwand-i muta'dl — ma 
("we") — Pahlawi shdhinshdhi Iran. Seal. Here parts 
of the old formulae are combined into one. 

Scripts and writing materials. Owing to 
the lack of original documents nothing is known of 
the kinds of script used in the Saldjukid chan- 
cellery. The tughra was written with a "broad pen" 
(kalam-i ghaliz; see Spuler, Iran, 362). It may be 
presumed that the variety of scripts developed in 
the late 'Abbasid period (see Fihrist, ed. Fliigel, 4 ff.) 
continued to be cultivated in the chancellery in the 
5th/nth century. The earliest Persian fragment, a 
deed of sale (see Margoliouth, in JRAS 1903, 761 ff.), 
indicates tendencies towards ta'llk, which later 
came into general use. The Mongol documents of the 
Ilkhans were of course written in Uyghur script, 
still used in the Turkish documents of the Timurids 
in the gth/isth century though with an interlinear 
transcription in Arabic script (see Kurat, Topkapt 
Sarayi . . . yarhk ve bitikler, Istanbul 1940, 195 ff.: 
an act of Abu Sa'id 873/1468). In the post-Mongol 
chancelleries taHlk had become firmly established, 
though some parts (invocatio, tughra) were occasional- 
ly written in thulth. In the ioth/i6th century nasta'llk 
came into use, though shikasta script was also 
employed. The development towards shikasta, which 
did not attain its pure form until the nth/i7th 
century, had been evident in the ta'lll? of the 8th/ 
14th century. 

From the beginning the writing material 
used was probably paper, a domestic product in the 
Near East from the end of the 3rd/gth century. As 
early as the end of the gth/i5th century, as in other 
Islamic states, a part of the paper was obtained from 
Europe; Chardin (Voyages, iv, 271 f.) bears witness 
to this at any rate for the second half of the nth/ 
17th century in Persia. Better grades of paper came 
from Balkh, Bukhara and Samarkand. The format 
varied in breadth from 15 to 30 cm; some documents 
were several metres long (for example, Busse, no. 3: 
263 cm), consisting of separate sheets pasted together. 

Mongol decrees were already richly decorated in 
coloured (red and gold) inks, especially in those 
parts which were emphasized by means of elevatio. 
The same is true into the nth/i7th century for 
documents with a tughra, in which, especially, gold 
ink was used for the invocatio, prayers, the tamgha 
(in Ak Koyunlu decrees), Kur'anic citations, and 
words on the right-hand margin. Gold and red inks 
were used abundantly in documents with intro- 
ductory formulae, with the exception of those with 



hukm-i djahdn-mutd' shud, which with this phrase 
were executed completely in black. The use of 
coloured inks was dropped also in the documents 
emanating from provincial authorities. In writing, 
a large margin was left at the top and on the right, 
in which only words to be stressed were written. 
The lines rise, especially in the early period, slightly 
to the left; occasionally, in order to prevent later 
insertions, the last word of the line was extended to 
reach the left-hand edge of the paper. Until the end 
of the 9th/i5th century the beginning of the 
dispositio was indicated by particularly large letters 
(see Busse, no. 3). In letters to foreign rulers the name 
of the addressee is placed above the text; the place 
in the text in which it was to be inserted (after the 
execution of the title) was indicated by a small 

Seals. Originally, decrees and writings (except 
for those with a seal?) were attested by the ruler's 
flourish (tawkl' or imdd), in the place of which the 
seal (alone?) must have early appeared. In any 
event into the ioth/i6th century the expression 
tawkl' in the corroborate refers to the seal; not until 
the nth/i7th century was tawkl'- replaced by the 
(long overdue) designation muhr. Shah Isma c Il in- 
cluded in his edicts the phrase huwa Allah al-'ddil 
(Papazyan no. 19, 984/1577), though it was an 
exception; in principle the seal was enough. Not 
until the Kadjar period did the seal require a 
countersign (tughra) by the Shah (see Greenfield, 
op. cit., 197; Beck, op. cit., facsimile: sahha below 
the first line). The ruler's seal was originally at the 
bottom of the document. The Mongol square seal 
was also used on paste-joints, in order to preclude 
the possibility of later insertions, though in the 
gth/i5th century the seal appeared only at the 
bottom (see Kurat, op. cit., 19). At the beginning of 
the Safawid period, in acts of the ruler and those 
of the central government, the seal was put in 
the place of 'the tughra at the top of the docu- 
ment. In the decrees of governors with the 
tughra : hukm-i 'all shud, the seal remained at the end, 
while those governors who were princes placed their 
seals to the right of the tughra (similar to the penle 
of the Ottoman viziers). Correspondence (maktubdt) 
was sealed on the reverse side (see A chronicle of the 
Carmelites in Persia and the Papal mission of the 
XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries, 2 vols., London 
'939. plate opposite 95 in vol. i). In the Mongol 
chancellery seals for the various affairs of state were 
stamped in different colours, such as blue, red (or 
gold), green, and black (see Spuler, Mongolen, 293). 
For the square seal still to some extent used by the 
Timurids, gold ink was employed; later all seals were 
stamped in black. In addition to square seals 
(Ghazan Khan had introduced different kinds of 
seals for the different branches of government; see 
Rashld al-Din, ed. Jahn, 292) the Timurids also had 
round seals, often stamped at the top of the document 
(see J. Deny, Un soyurgal du Timouride Shah Rukh 
en Icrlture ouigure, in JA 245 (1957), 253-66). The 
use of different seals for different kinds of documents, 
of which there were tendencies under Isma c il I, 
reached full development in the later Safawid period : 
"great" seals (muhr-i sharaf-i nafddh and muhr-i 
humdyun) were used in documents with the intro- 
ductory formulae farmdn-i humdyun sharaf-i nafddh 
ydft and farmdn-i humdyun shud, while "small" seals 
(muhr-i angushtar-i dftdb-dthdr), or signet rings, were 
used for documents with hukm-i dxahdn mutd' 
shud. The inscription in the large seals partly con- 
tained the names of the twelve imams, that in the 



DIPLOMATIC 



small seals contained only the ruler's name, frequently 
combined with the title banda-yi shdh-i wildyat 
(servant of the king of holiness, that is, c Ali). Chardin 
gives evidence also of a square seal (Plate XXXI, and 
v, 461). The large seals were round (occasionally with 
an upper extension in the shape of a roof), and the 
small seals rectangular or in the form of a shield 
(plates in Rabino di Borgomale, Coins, medals and 
seals of the Shahs of Iran, 1500-1941, place of publica- 
tion not given, 1945, plate 3). The seals of the ruler 
were later for the most part rectangular with an upper 
extension in the form of a roof. The lion and sun 
(shir M khurshid) appears in the seal as early as 
1159/1746 (Chubua, no. 47). Large (rectangular with 
extension) and small (oval) seals are still to be found 
in the Kadjar period (plates in Rabino, op. cit., 4). 
The governors' seals were in the Safawid period 
mostly rectangular or oval (some isolated examples 
are round) with inscriptions containing the name of 
the office-holder and a religious device. These were 
not much changed. Imperial authorities employed 
during the Safawid period a special round "diwan- 
seal" (muhr-i musawwada-yi diwdn-i aHd). Originally 
in the custody of the keeper of the seal (muhr-i ddr), 
the seals passed in the early Safawid period into the 
safe-keeping of harem officials (see Roemer, Der 
Niedergang Irans nach dem Tode IsmaHls des 
Grausamen (1577-81), Wiirzburg 1939, 44), in whose 
protection they remained in the later Safawid period. 
The actual sealing was executed by officials with 
the title dawdt-ddr (see dawadar), while the 
keepers of the seal placed only a small stamp on the 
reverse side (see Tadhkirat al-Muluk, ed. Minorsky, 
fol. 41a ff.). 

Before delivery to the addressees the documents 
were sent through different departments of the 
financial administration (daftar khana-yi humdyun 
aHd), where high officials supplied flourishes and 
seals, and other officials confirmed the entry of the 
documents in various registers (daftar, dafdtir) by 
means of seals and annotations (muhr wa kha(() 
(other than for example in the Ottoman admini- 
stration, where these remarks were placed on the 
draft, that is, as mere bookkeeping comments; see 
Fekete, Die Siyaqat-Schrift in der tiirkischen Finanz- 
verwaltung, i, Budapest 1955, 67, 68 note 2). While 
flourishes and comments were placed, in Fatimid 
decrees for example, between the last lines (see 
Grohmann in RSO, xxxii (1957), 641-54), in Persia 
they appear early on the reverse side from and 
written in a direction perpendicular to that of the 
text. This procedure was already to be found in 
Ilkhan documents (see Cleaves in HJAS, xiv (1951), 
493-526). In this respect Ghazan Khan also intro- 
duced obligatory prescriptions (see Rashid al-DIn, 
ed. Jahn, 291-6). A series of seals and comments 
are also to be found on Tlmurid (see Deny, op. cit.), 
Turcoman and early Safawid documents (see Busse, 
Untersuchungen, 77 ff.). A definitive system was 
introduced at the beginning of the uth/i7th century 
and remained substantially in effect until the end of 
the Kadjar period. The flourishes consist of a 
religious device (for example, tawakkaltu 'ala'lldh), 
while the registration comments contain a reference 
to the nature of the business, for example, thabt-i 
daftar-i tawdjih-i diwdn-i aHd shud ("it has been 
entered in the outgoing register of the high diwan"), 
or simply sahha ("correct"). In the later Safawid 
period flourishes and seals were applied to all 
documents by the grand vizier (iHimad al-dawla), by 
the sadr and officials who belonged to the arkdn-i 
dawlat, such as the kurli bashi and kullar akasi, on 



documents which fell within their jurisdiction, while 
registration comments and seals were applied by the 
mustawfi al-mamdlik (or — khdssa), lashgar-niwis, 
sdhib-tawdiih, ndzir-i daftar-khdna-yi aHd, darugha-yi 
daftar-khdna-yi aHd, and others. The documents 
were brought first to the mustawfi, then circulated 
in the various departments, returning finally to the 
mustawfi. The registration comments of the imperial 
officials (sarkar-i mamdlik) differed from those of the 
officials for the royal domain (sarkar-i khdssa-yi 
sharifa) in composition : for example ba-nazar rasid 
(imperial), thabt-i daftar-i nazdrat shud (royal 
domain). In contrast to those documents which were 
registered in the daftar-khdna (arkdm-i daftari), are 
those which were not registered (arkdm-i bayddi) 
because they did not concern the financial admini- 
stration or because they were to be kept secret (see 
Tadhkirat al-Muluk, fol. 42b; and Busse, Unter- 
suchungen, 79). 

The documentary commission was given 
orally by the ruler or a high official directly, or in 
writing by way of the "relator", to the chancellery. 
The actual process was then, even in the Mongol 
period, entered on the document (see Hinz, Die 
Resdld-yi Falakiyyd des '■Abdolldh ibn Mohammad 
ibn Kiya al-Mdzandardni, Wiesbaden 1952, fol. 
44a ff.). In -Turcoman documents into the ioth/i6th 
century the annotation was placed on the lower 
right-hand front (see above), but from the beginning 
of the nth/ 17th century it is to be found on the 
reverse side: in an oral commission from the ruler 
bi'l-mushdfa al- c aliya aW-aliya, otherwise huwa hasab 
al-amr al-aHd. In the latter case beneath this formula 
the relator was named: az kardr-i niwishta . . . when 
the relator was the grand vizier; otherwise ba-risdla. 
The phrase hasab al-amr al-aHd was omitted when 
the grand vizier or another official had given the 
commission (see Busse, Untersuchungen, 69 ff.). In 
post-Safawid documents such annotations appear to 
have been omitted. After all of the formalities had 
been seen to the documents were rolled together 
with the writing inside and pressed flat. Letters to 
foreign rulers were often sent in richly ornamented 
covers of brocade, protected against unauthorized 
view by a special seal. 

In the early period documents and correspondence 
were prepared in the imperial chancellery (ddr 
al-inshd', diwan al-rasdHl) under the authority of the 
munshi al-mamdlik. From the nth/i7th century on, 
documents with the introductory formula (tughra) 
hukm-i djahan-muta 1 shud (in black ink) were 
executed in the chancellery of the waki'-a-niwis, who 
was also responsible for letters addressed to foreign 
princes. There was also a subdivision in the juris- 
diction for the empire and for the royal domain: 
documents relating to imperial affairs (with the 
introductory formulae farmdn-i humdyun sharaf-i 
nafddh ydft and farmdn-i humdyun shud) were 
prepared by the munshi al-mamdlik, those for the 
royal domain by the wdki'a-niwis. In addition to 
these two authorities separate departments of the 
daftar-khdna were also authorized to execute docu- 
ments, in the Safawid period for example, the 
lashgar-niwis and the secretariats of the kullar 
akasi, tubli bashi, tufangli bashi, and others. These 
documents contained no introductory formulae 
(tughra). The provincial authorities had their own 
chancelleries. Solemn documents were independent 
pieces of writing; on less important occasions, 
though the other formalities were preserved (seal, 
tughra), the resolution was placed in the upper 
margin of the petition farda-ddsht) . Supplementary 



DIPLOMATIC 



remarks and additions by subordinate officials were 
until the gth/isth century written between the lines, 
later in the right hand margin (with the phrase 
mukarrar ast ki and seal). In solemn edicts the ruler 
could make additions in his own hand (hdshiya ba- 
kha((-i mubdrak). 

In addition to the Persian section there were, as 
was mentioned before, in the chancellery depart- 
ments for foreign languages as early as the 
Ghaznawids. Especially comprehensive in this 
respect, corresponding to the many nationalities 
involved, was the Ilkhanid chancellery (see Hinz, 
Die persische Geheimkanzlei im Mittelalter, in West- 
ostliche Abhandlungen, Wiesbaden 1954, 345)- The 
Timurids corresponded with the Ottomans partly in 
Arabic and partly in Eastern Turkish (Rieu, i, 389; 
Kurat, op. cit., 195 ff.), the Safawids in Ottoman 
Turkish (see Fekete, Iran Sahlarmm iki turkce 
mektubu, in TM, v (1935), 269-74). During the 
Kadjar period French became the principal foreign 
language of the chancellery, a position which it has 
preserved. 

Original deeds and deeds of confirmation may be 
distinguished according to the occasion of their 
issue. Confirmations were necessary upon the death 
of the incumbents of hereditary offices and fiefs, and 
general upon a change of government. The prohibi- 
tion at the conclusion of many documents "a 
renewal (tadidid) shall not be requested annually" 
was very likely of a precautionary nature. In practice 
an annual renewal does not seem to have been 
customary. For practical reasons possessors of docu- 
ments might have issued verified copies of these 
which carried the same degree of authority as the 
originals. Edicts which concerned larger groups of 
people or the population of an entire community 
were frequently posted in the form of inscriptions 
in public buildings and places (see Barthold/Hinz, 
Die persische Inschrift an der Mauer der Manucehr- 
Moschee zu Ani, in ZDMG, ci (1951), 241-69; and 
Hinz, Steuerinschriften aus dent mittelalterlichen 
Vorderen Orient, in Belleten, xii (1949), 745-69). 

The oldest original documents preserved belong 
to the Ilkhan period (largely Mongol letters to 
European princes). Some Persian documents of the 
8th/i4th and gth/i5th centuries are to be found in 
Persia (and bordering territories), and in European 
archives and museums. Only Safawid and later 
documents have been found in greater quantity. 
Especially rich in this respect are Georgian (M. 
Chubua, Persidskie firmani i ukazl Muzeya Gruzii, i, 
Tbilisi 1949; and V. S. Puturidze, Gruzino-persidskie 
istorileshie dokumenti, Tbilisi 1955) and Armenian 
sources (A. D. Papazyan, Persidskie dokumenti 
matenadarana, 2 vols., Erivan 1956-60). A small 
collection of Safawid documents (of which two are 
Turcoman) is located in the British Museum (Rieu, 
Suppl. 252-60, the greater part having been published 
by Busse, Untersuchungen). Isolated documents and 
letters are to be found in the Vatican (A Chronicle of 
the Carmelites in Persia, Appendix B) and in Italian 
archives (see F. Gabrieli, Relazioni tra lo scid 'Abbas 
e i Granduchi di Toscana Ferdinando I e Cosimo 11, 
in Rend. Lin. 1949), in Poland (H. S. Szapszal, 
Wyobrazenia swietych muzulmanskich, Wilna 1934, 
26-48), in Sweden (see K. V. Zettersteen, Turkische, 
tatarische und persische Urkunden im Schwedischen 
Reichsarchiv, Uppsala 1945), in Austria (Vienna), 
and in Germany (Dresden, see Fekete, Iran Sahla- 
rmm . . .). In Persia there are large and small 
collections in private archives in Teheran (Husayn 
Shahshahani, Mahmud Farhad Mu'tamid, Khan 



Malik) and Tabriz (Muhammad and Husayn Aka 
Nakhdjuwani), other collections in the Archaeological 
Museum in Teheran, in the Cihil-Sutun pavilion in 
Isfahan, in the Armenian church in New Djulfa, and 
in the Sanctuary Library (kitdb-khdna-yi dstdna) in 
Mashhad. In Germany there is a small collection of 
documents, assembled in 1938-9 by Wilhelm Eilers 
(Wiirzburg) in Persia (original documents and 
copies of inscriptions), in the possession of Hans R. 
Roemer (Mainz). In two articles the latter has brought 
together the material known up to 1957: Vorschldge 
)ur die Sammlung von Urkunden zur islamischen 
Geschichte Persiens, in ZDMG, civ (1954), 362-70; 
and Uber Urkunden zur Geschichte Agyptens und 
Persiens in islamischer Zeit, in ZDMG, cvii (1957), 
519-38. 

Bibliography : V. Minorsky, Some early 
documents in Persian, in JRAS 1942, 181-94; 
1943, 86-99; A. Mostaert and F. W. Cleaves: 
Trots documents mongols des Archives secretes 
vaticanes, in HJAS, xv, 1952, 419-506; F. W. 
Cleaves, The Mongolian documents in the Musie 
de Tihiran, in HJAS, xvi, 1953, 1-107; P. Wittek, 
Ankarada bir ilhani kitabesi, in THITM, i, 1931, 
161-4; V. Minorsky, A soyurghdl of Qdsim b. 
Jahdngir Aq-qoyunlu 903/1498, in BSOS, ix, 1937, 
926-60; idem, A Mongol decree 0) 720/1320 to the 
family of Shaikh Zdhid, in BSOAS, xvi, 1954, 
515-27; Ann K. S. Lambton, The administration 
of Sanjar's empire as illustrated in the '■Atabat al- 
kataba, in BSOAS, xx, 1957, 367-80; Mahmud 
Miraftab, Dastur al-kdtib fi ta'-yin al-mardtib, 
Ph.D. thesis, Gottingen 1956; Arsiv Kilavuzu, 
edited by the administration of the Topkapi 
Sarayi Museum, 2 fasc, Istanbul 1938-40; J. 
Aubin, Note sur quelques documents Aq qoyunlu, in 
MClanges L. Massignon, 1956, 123-47; idem, Note 
priliminaire sur les archives du Takya du Tschima- 
Rud, Tehran 1955; Khan Malek, Un ferman d'Abu 
Nasr Hasan Bahadur, in Athdr-i Iran, iii, i937-39> 
203-6; W. Hinz, Zwei Steuerbefreiungsurkunden, in 
Documenta islamica inedita, Berlin 1952, 211-20; 
H. Horst, Ein Immunitdtsdiplom Schah Muhammad 
Khuddbandas vom Jahre 989/1581, in ZDMG, cv, 
I 955> 289-97; idem, Zwei Erlasse SdhTahmdsps I, 
in ZDMG, ex 1961, 301-9; Ann K. S. Lambton, Two 
Safavid soyurghdls, in BSOAS, xiv, 1952,44-54; 
Khanikoff, Lettre de M. Khanikoff a M. Dorn (16 
Sept. 1856), in Milanges Asiatiques, St. Petersburg, 
iii, 1857, 70-4 (late Safawid document) ; C. Speelman, 
Journal der Reis van de Gezant der 0. J. Com- 
panie Joan Cunaeus near Perzie in 1651-1652, ed. 
A. Hotz, Amsterdam 1908 (numerous documents 
in verbatim translation); Mahmud Farhad Mu c ta- 
mid, Ta'rikh-i rawdbit-i siydsi-yi Iran wa 'uthmdni, 
Tehran n.d. (numerous Kadjar dast-khatt-hdy-i 
humdyun in facsimile) ; H. L. Rabino di Borgomale, 
line lettre familiere de Fath Ali Chah, in RMM, 
xl-xli, 1920, 131-5; Muhammad Hasan Khan. 
Mir'dt al-bulddn-i Ndsiri, 3 vols., Tehran 1294 
« (text of some 70 documents); idem, Kitab-i 
ta'rikh-i muntazam-i Ndsiri, 2 vols., Tehran 
1298-9 (about 30 documents, of which 21 are 
Safawid); for a more detailed account see H. 
Busse, Persische Diplomatik im Uberblick. Er- 
gebnisse und Probleme, in Isl., xxxvii, 1961. 
(H. Busse) 

iv. — Ottoman Empire 

Diplomatic in Ottoman Turkey can be traced back 

to the beginnings of the Empire in the 8th/i4th 

century. The diplomatic system was fashioned after 



DIPLOMATIC 



the pattern brought by Asiatic Turks who in turn 
followed diplomatic models that were developed by 
the states of Central Asia, thus presenting a blend 
of Uyghur and Chinese traditions. On the other hand 
its organization was largely based on European 
practice, especially that established by the Byzantine 
Empire. The Tatar documents (those of the Golden 
Horde and of the Crimean Tatars) mainly followed 
Central Asian models and showed influence of 
Uyghur and indirectly of Chinese diplomatic usage. 
This fact is evidenced by Persian documents dating 
from the 16th to 17th century which use the title- 
forms of sSziimuz (see L. Fekete, Arbeite der grusini- 
schen Orientalistik auf dem Gebiete der tiirkischen und 
persischen Palaeographie und die Frage der Formel 
"soziimuz", in AOHung., vii, 1, 1957). The documents 
of Ottoman Turkey from the 15th century represent 
a set of more or less consistent patterns (see F. 
Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, in SbAK Wien 1921 and 
TOEM, xxviii, P. Wittek, in WZKM, 1957). The 
documents, their general names being ewrdk or 
wethika, were issued by the chancellor's office of the 
Sublime Porte; solemn public documents proclaimed 
by sultans or announced by viziers were issued by 
the office of the so-called beylik or beylik kalemi, 
a special department of the central office of the 
Porte, formally known as dlwdn-i humdyun kalemi. 
The secretary, the scribe and the official in charge 
of the whole department {beylikdii) attached their 
signatures to the documents, before they were sent 
to the reHs efendi for his stamp (the resid). More 
important deeds were checked by the nishandjl and 
had to bear his tughra. In the office of tahwil 
documents such as letters of appointments, procla- 
mations and letters-patent were renewed or ratified. 
The documents called tedhkere were issued by the 
office of the biiyiik tedhkeredji and those of the 
fisc were made out by the clerks of the defterddr. 
Officials of lower rank in the capital as well as 
in the provinces had their own secretariats and were 
endowed with the authority to issue their own 
documents (see J. Hammer, Staatsverfassung und 
Staatsverwaltung des osman. Reichs, Wien, 1815; 
I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh devleti teskildh, 1945, 
and also bkylik above). 

The documents were of two main trends. On the 
one hand there were proclamations, messages, and 
pronouncements, as for instance public edicts of the 
sultan, called name, mektub, kitdb, yazi, biti, tewki e . 
The most solemn was the royal proclamation called 
khatt-i-humdyun. These terms have never been very 
precise in meaning. Quite frequently the same 
document bore one or another name. The same is 
the case with various documents falling into the 
second category, of orders, edicts and ordinances 
such as fermdn, emr, hiikm, buyuruldu {[q.v.] see also 
I. H. Uzuncarsih, Buyuruldu, in Belleten, 5/19, 1941), 
and deeds of appointment (berdt). The most solemn 
public documents bore names consisting of several 
words, e.g., l ahd name, mulk name (or temlik name), 
sulh name. Of another category were the deeds called 
nishdn (denoting also patent letters, diplomas, or 
charters), menshur (a deed of nomination to an 
office or rank), mithdl, c ard hdl (Tk. arzuhal) etc. 
Documents would at times bear elaborate names, 
e.g., nishdn-i sherif 'dlishdn, fermdn-i beshdret-i 
'unwan etc. These names concerned exclusively 
documents promulgated by the ruler or by his 
highest officials and clerks of the public offices. 
There were, too, numerous acts issued by officials 
of lower ranks, such as tedhkere, telhis, tahrir, defter, 
sidiill etc., while the documents (diplomatic notes) 



presented to the Turkish government by members 
of the foreign diplomatic corps were called takrlr. 
Another group of documents issued by religious 
authorities (especially by the sheykh al-isldm), the 
so-called fetwa, concerned rulings in disputes and 



The body of a Turkish document shows a 
great similarity to a European document. It is 
quite probable that its form and shape were imitated 
from the Byzantine model. The Turkish document 
can be divided into two parts; the first (the opening 
and concluding formulae) bears the character of 
protocol while the middle part contains the essential 
text. There are particular formulae which are also 
found in any Turkish document: erkdn: (1) da'wet, 
being an invocation composed of the formula con- 
taining the name of governor (the Bey's name). 
This would range from the simplest huwa to the 
longest titles (numerous examples are quoted by 
Fr. Kraelitz, Osmanische Urkunden in tiirkischer 
Sprache, in SbAK Wien 1921). A little space that 
follows the initial formula somewhat to the right 
hand side (in the documents issued by the Sultan 
only) is succeeded by (2) tughra, the device or the sign 
of the sultan, named also nishdn-i humdyun, tewki c , 
or '■aldmet, and of different design for each sultan. 
This device contains the name of the sultan and 
all his titles and other distinctions with the formula 
muzaffer ddHmd. All this is encased in an ornamental 
design, always with the same motifs and shape. The 
tughra was drawn and painted with particular care 
by a clerk specially assigned to this work, the 
tughra-kesh. It was made in colours. The origin of 
tughra is not certain (see I. H. Uzuncarsih, in 
Belleten v, 1941; P. Wittek, in Byzantion xviii, 
1948 and xx, 1956; F. Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, in 
MOG i; F. Babinger, Sarre-Festschrift 1925; P. 
Miyatev, Tugrite na osmanskite sultani ot XV -XX 
wek, in Godischnik na plovdivska narodna biblioteka i 
muzei ig3y-ig3g, Sofia 1940; E. Kiihnel, Die osma- 
nische Tughra, Wiesbaden 1955; and tughra). The 
documents issued by higher officials bore instead 
of the tughra another sign, the pence. It was 
usually placed not at the beginning but on the 
left hand or right hand margin or at the foot of 
the scroll. Sometimes it was called imdd or errone- 
ously tughra (see F. Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, Studien 
zur osmanischen Urkundenlehre, i; Die Handfeste 
(PenUe) der osmanischen Wesire, in MOG, ii). (3) The 
c unwdn, that is, the title of the person in whose name 
the document was made, was, especially in sultanic 
documents, of considerable length and worded in 
solemn form beginning with the traditional benki . . . 
(see Orgun Zarif, Tugralarda el muzaffer daHma 
duast ve Sah unvam, Turk Tarih, arkeol. ve etnogr. 
dergisi, Istanbul 1949). (4) The inscriptio or the 
title of the person to whom the document was 
addressed (elkdb), especially in documents of great 
importance, was also very long, and was introduced 
with the formula sen ki or hald. Beside the name and 
titles of the addressee it contained (as regards Chris- 
tian rulers) certain long-established formulae, e.g., 
"the paragon of the highest princes of Jesus", "the 
pattern of the most illustrious dignitaries of the 
people of Messiah", etc. The addressee's name was 
followed by (5) du c d>, e.g., by a brief clause expressing 
the good wishes of the sender, an equivalent to a 
certain extent of a salutation in European documents. 
If the person addressed was a Muslim the clause 
contained also a blessing, an invocation to Allah 
for protection over his person, etc. If the letter was 
addressed to a Christian, this formula would contain 



DIPLOMATIC 



an allusively worded hope for his fu 
to Islam, e.g., khutimat c awdkibuhu bi'l-khayr, see 
J. 0strup, Orientalske Hoflighedsformler, Copenhagen 
1927, 85-8 (German tr., Orientalische HOfflichheit, 
Leipzig 1929). The du'd' concludes the introductory 
part of the protocol. The transition to the contents 
proper of the document is achieved through a special 
expression, e.g., "when this writing comes to your 
hand, let be known that", then follows (6) nakl-i 
ibldgh or tasrih, that is the main body of the letter 
or document which tells of the reasons for writing 
it, of favours bestowed or letters which have 
preceded it, sometimes introduced by means of the 
areng, i.e., excuses and apologies that would occasion- 
ally contain a quotation from the Kur'an, or a 
proverb, etc. In documents dispatched to foreign 
rulers no distinction is made between the narrative 
part and the succeeding one, which is (7) a dispositio 
with the opening words h,uhm or emr. This bears the 
main decision or resolution, either being strengthened 
by the use of the word te'kid and the formula, such 
as for instance shpyle bilesiz together with la c net, 
a threat of punishment in case of disobedience to 
orders (in relation to superior authorities). Then 
follows (8) an attesting formula, corresponding to 
the European- corroborate as biti taltkik biltib, 
i'timad kilasiz. The dating or (9) ta'rikh is marked 
by means of an Arabic formula, e.g., tahrir" 1 fi. 
Then comes the decade of the month, the name of the 
month, and the year. The numerals are written in 
letters without any diacritic signs. To the names of 
the months there are usually added such descriptive 
definitions as ramaddn-i sherif. Instead of the name 
of the day there we find the monthly decades 
indicated. The first one is called awdHl, the second, 
awdsit, the third awdkhir. The first day of the 
month is called ghurre, the last one, salkh, the 
middle of the month, muntasaf. To indicate par- 
ticular months abbreviations are used. This rule 
is followed in documents written in the siydkat 
script. From the abbreviated forms the names 
of the quarters of the year are made (the first is 
mushir, the second redjed±, the third reshen and the 
fourth ledhedh) see J. H. Mordtmann, in Isl. ix; 
F. Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, in Isl., viii; J. Mayr, 
Islamische Zeitrechnungen, in MSOS, xxx, 1927; 
H. Sabanovic, Izrazi eva' il, ewasit i evahir u datamima 
turskih spomenika, in Prilozi za Orijentalnu filologiju, 
i, 1950. (10) The place of promulgation or announce- 
ment comes after the date and here the usual 
formula is be-mekdm-i .... Then the name of the 
town is given (sometimes accompanied with an 
appropriate epithet), which frequently is descript- 
ively defined. If the writing was made out on a 
journey or in camp, the phrase be yurt is used. 
Last comes (n) the seal miihiir, khatem, serving to 
attest the document. It is impressed in China ink 
on the moistened paper. The seal is of various sizes 
and shapes, round, oval, square, polygonal etc. It 
contains the name of the writer, religious formulae 
and ornamental elements (see 1. H. Uzuncarsih, in 
Belleten, iv, 1940; also muhr). On the front page 
of the writing or on its back there are attached 
various attesting formulae for ensuring its validity, 
e.g., sh ( = sahib) inserted by the officials of the 
chancellery to attest to the authenticity and 
correctness of the document. There frequently 
occur abbreviated forms of certain terms, e.g., m in 
the meaning of merkum (= mentioned), la instead of 
Allah, etc. 

As a matter of course documents of the Turkish 
chancery were written in the vernacular (in Turkish), 



but there are also other documents in Greek, Old 
Slavonic (Cyrillic characters), Hungarian, with the 
genuine tughra or penie attached to them. Sometimes 
a translation in Italian, Polish etc. accompanied the 
Turkish text, or its transcription in Latin, Greek or 
Armenian characters. The documents of the Kazan 
Khans and those of the Golden Horde that were 
dispatched to the sultans in the 15 th century were 
written in the Uyghur language and bore the specific 
characteristics of Central Asian diplomatic documents. 

Turkish diplomatic practice led to the development 
of a specific technique for writing more formal and 
solemn documents. The left hand side of each line 
was rounded upward and resembled a sabre with a 
curved point. For the sake of more intricate orna- 
mentation the last letter in each line was inscribed 
in oval shape (usually nun, rd' or (a 1 ). The script used 
was the diwani, also known as tewki c in its various 
forms (see under khatt). Not infrequently the in- 
vocation would be written in thuluth while the rest of 
the text would be written in the diwani characters. 
Documents signed by inferior officials were written 
in neskhi and diwani (see Mahmut Yazir, Eski 
yazilari okuma anahtan, Istanbul, 1942). Fiscal 
documents were written in the siydkat characters 
which are very difficult to read (see L. Fekete, Die 
Siydqat-Schrift in der turkischen Finanzverwaltung, 
i-ii, Budapest 1955 ; N. Popov, Pa.leogra.fski 
osobenosti na Hslitelnite imena v pismoto siyakat, 
Sofia, 1955). 

Official papers are usually written with a rather 
broad margin (kendr) on the right hand side. It is 
covered with notes and remarks {der kendr), suggest- 
ing the main points to be worked into the body of 

The usual ink used for writing was black China 
ink; in some words the black letters were covered 
with gold dust (altin rig or rlh). 

Waxpaper, frequently imported from Italy, with 
watermarks was used (see F. Babinger, in OM, xi, 
1931). The sheets were of elongated rectangular 
shape about 50 cm. long and 20 cm. wide; the 
letters of sultans, solemn acts of alliance were at 
times several metres long. 

Generally the document was folded in pleats 
breadthwise so that when it was unfolded the 
introductory part with the forms of courtesy etc. 
would be the first to be read. Longer documents 
were rolled up like scrolls. Each document was 
kept in a satin bag, kise, tied up and having a slip 
of paper sticking out that contained the address or 
kulak. 

Copies (suret) were made and sewn together 
into files (munsha'dt). They would contain the bare 
text only, with no remarks, notes, tughra, or stamp. 
The legal formula which was usually placed on the 
right side close to the first lines of the text stated 
(usually in Arabic) the conformity of the copy with 
the original and was called imdd or tewki' -i kadi 
(see F. Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, Legalisierungsformeln 
in Abschriften osmanischer kaiserlicher Erlasse und 
Handschreiben, in MOG, ii, 1926). In order to 
indicate that this was a copy only and not an 
original, such phrases were used as yazUidiak, 
gonderilediek, irsdl olunan. Also registers of documents 
were kept with entries which contained transcripts 
or summaries, the so-called defter or sidjill. 

The development of the style and phraseology of 
the Turkish diplomatic document continued till 
about the 17th century, when the forms crystallized 
and acquired their uniform character. In the 19th 
century the lettering looked exactly like print. The 



DIPLOMATIC — DIR 



style and wording of Turkish documents had their 
effect upon the somewhat different tradition and 
usage of the Crimean Tatars, as they also left their 
mark upon Persian diplomatic practice. A certain 
number of letters sent out by the Chancellor's office 
of the Persian pddishdh in the 17th and 18th cen- 
turies were written in Turkish (see L. Fekete, in 
Turkiyat Mecmuasi, v, 1936). 

The copies of the documents and incoming 
correspondence were kept in special offices from 
which Turkish archives later developed (see 
basvekalet arsivi and F. Bajraktarevic, Glavni 
Carigradski arhivi i ispisi iz niega in Prilozi za 
orijentalnu filologijw i istoriju jugosl. naroda, vi-vii, 
Sarajevo 1958). 

Numerous Turkish documents are extant in the 
countries once forming part of the Turkish Empire — 
in Egypt (see J. Deny, Sommaire des Archives 
tv.rqv.es du Caire, Cairo 1930), Tunisia (see R. 
Mantran, in Les Cahiers de Tunisie, 1957, 341 ff.) ; 
Bulgaria (see V. Todorov-Hindalov in Godischnik 
na Narodna Biblioteka, Sofia 1923; P. Mutaf6iev in 
Mitteilvngen des deutsch. wissenschaft. Institvts in 
Sofia, Sofia 1 943 ; P. Miyatev in Leviltdri Kozleminyek, 
1936; B. Nedkov in Istorifeski Pregled, x/2, 1954), 
Yugoslavia (see F. Giese in Festschrift Jacob; G. 
Elezovi<<, Tvrski izvori za istorijv Jugoslavena, 
Belgrade 1932; H. Sabanovic, Turshi diplomatiiki 
izvori, in Prilozi za orijentolnv filologiju, i, Sarajevo 
1950; R. Muderizovic, Turshi dohumenti v dubro- 
vachom arhivu, in Glasnik Zem. Muz., Sarajevo, 1938, 
v. L.) ; Rumania (see M. Guboglu, Documentele 
turcesti din arhivele Statului, Bucharest 1957). Less 
numerous are Turkish documents in Greece (see 

E. Rossi, in OM, xxi, 1941). A great many of them, 
either through diplomatic channels or as booty or 
through trade relations, became part of foreign 
collections. Especially rich are the collections in 
those countries that maintained close diplomatic 
and other relations with Turkey : in Austria (see 

F. Zsinka, in KCA, i); Germany (on the Berlin and 
Dresden collections — see L. Fekete in Leviltdri Kbzle- 
minyeh, 1928-1929); Hungary; Poland (see E. 
Zawaliriski, in RO xiv, 1938 and Z. Abrahamowicz, 
Przeglqd Orient., 1954, 2); Italy (see A. Bombaci, 
in RSO, xviii, 1939 and xxiv, 1949; L. Fekete in 
Leviltdri Kdzlimenyek, 1926) ; the Soviet Union. 
Numerous documents are found in Sweden (see 
K. V. Zettersteen, Turkische, tatarische und persische 
Urkunden im schwedischen Reichsarchiv, Uppsala 
1945), Denmark (see H. Duda, Mitteil. d. Instit. f. 
Oesterreich. Geschichtsforschung, lviii, 1950), Great 
Britain (see P. Wittek, The Turkish documents in 
Hakluyt's 'Voyages', in Bull, of Inst, of Hist. Research, 
xix, 1942; and A. N. Kurat, Ingiliz devlet arsivinde . . . 
Tiirhiye tarihine ait bazt malzemeye ait, in A VDTCFD, 
1949), Czechoslovakia and in other countries (see the 
bibliography by J. Reychman and A. Zajaczkowski, 
Zarys dyplomatyki osmansko-tureckiej , Warsaw 1955, 
English edition in the press). Many collections are 
still to be classified, some are being catalogued at 

The fullest and most comprehensive bibliography 
of published Turkish documents is given by A. 
Zajaczkowski and J. Reychman (English edition). 

The first textbook of Turkish diplomatic was 
published by L. Fekete, Bevezelis a hodoltsdg torok 
diplomatikdjdba, Budapest 1926, with an introduction 
followed by a series of photographed documents. 
The introduction contained valuable information 
on the progress of research in this particular field 
of the history of diplomatic. 



In 1955 in Warsaw there was published a textbook 
by A. Zajaczkowski and Jan Reychman: An outline 
history of Ottoman Turkish Diplomatic (Zarys dyplo- 
matyki osmansko-tureckiej). An English version of 
this book, under the title: A manual of Ottoman 
Turkish Diplomatics, revised and considerably en- 
larged, is in the press. In 1958 a Rumanian scholar 
M. Guboglu published a new book: Paleografia, si 
diplomatica turco-osmand, Bucharest 1959, which 
beside the facsimiles contains 203 Turkish documents 
from Rumanian archives. In this book the author 
gives new and useful information on the subject of 
Turkish diplomatic and documents. 

Bibliography: in addition to the works 
mentioned above: F. Babinger, Das Archiv des 
Bosniahen Osman Pascha, Berlin 1931 ; L. Fekete, 
V Edition des chartes turques et ses problemes; in 
KorSsi Csoma, Arch., i, 1939; G. Jacob, Tiirkisches 
Hilfsbuch, i, Berlin 1917; H. Scheel, Die Schreiben 
der tiirkischen Sultane an die preuss. Kbnige, Berlin 
1930; Tarih Vesihalart, Ankara 1941-58 ; P. Wittek, 
Zu einigen fruhosmanischen Urkunden, i-iv; in 
WZKM, liii-lvi (1957-60) ; L. Fekete, A tbrfik okleve- 
lek nyelvezete is forrdsirtike in Leviltdri Kozleminyek. 
iii, 1925; see also under basvekalet arsivi, 

mahfuzat al-'umumiyva, khatt, muhr, sidjill, 

(J. Reychman and A. Zajaczkowski) 
DlR, a princely state, which acceded to Pakistan 
in 1947, with an area of 2,040 sq. miles and a popu- 
lation of 148, 648 in 195 1, lies to the south of Citral 
in 35° 50' and 34 22' N. and 71° 2' and 72° 30' E., 
taking its name from the village of Dir, seat of the 
ruler, lying on the bank of a stream of the same name 
and a tributary of the Pandjkofa. Politically the Dir 
territory roughly comprises the country watered by 
the Pandjkofa and its affluents. The state gained 
prominence in the second half of the 19th cen- 
tury for its hostility to the cause of the mudjdhidin, 
remnants of the defeated forces of Sayyid Ahmad 
Barelawi [?.».], with their headquarters first at 
Asmast (Samasta) and later at Camarkand in 
Yaghistan. 

The present Nawwab of Dir, Prince Muhammad 
Shah Khusraw, is a member of the Akhund Khel, a 
branch of the Payandah Khel subtribe of the Yusuf- 
zals. The founder of the ruling family, like those of 
the sister states of Swat, Amb and Citral, was one 
Mulla Ilyas alias Akhund Baba, who flourished in 
the nth/i7th century. His grandson, Ghulam Baba, 
however, is said to be the first to have discarded the 
r61e of a religious leader and assumed worldly power. 
It was his great-grandson, Ghazzan Khan b. Kasim 
Khan b. Zafar Khan who, with a force 10,000 
strong, joined the tribal lashkars during the 
Ambeyla Campaign of 1863 directed by the British- 
Indian troops against the mudjdhidin of Sayyid 
Ahmad Barelawi and their allies. He, however, 
withdrew his contingent when he found that the 
scales had turned in favour of the invaders. He was 
succeeded by his son, Rahmat Allah Khan, who, 
aware of his weak title, gained the throne with the 
monetary assistance of the Maharadja of Kashmir. 
In 1875 Rahmat Allah Khan, offended at the 
misbehaviour of the Kashmir agent, broke off 
relations with the Maharadja and threw off his 
suzerainty. On his death in 1884 his son Mu- 
hammad Sharif Khan came to the throne and 
soon started a series of campaigns and skirmishes 
against the neighbouring state of Citral [?.».]. The 
forces of Muhammad Sharif Khan were, however, 



DTR — D1RGHAM 



completely defeated and the Mihtar Aman al-Mulk 
of Citral acquired great influence in DIr. Muhammad 
Sharif Khan had to take refuge in Swat [q.v.] witl 
whom his principality had been almost constantly 
at war. He made several unsuccessful attempts 
regain from Aman al-Mulk his territory, which in 
1890 was conquered by the adventurer, c Umra 
Khan, chief of Djand61. Five years later in 1313/1895, 
Muhammad Sharif Khan succeeded with the moral 
and material backing of the British forces, in 
recovering DIr and even capturing Shir Afdal, 
pretender to the throne of Citral. 

In 1897 the title of Nawwab was conferred 
on Muhammad Sharif Khan who had, the same 
year, annexed a part of the upper Swat territory, 
the old enemy of his House. This title was, in all 
probability, conferred on him in recognition of his 
services to the British in dissuading the Dir tribes 
from participating in the d±ihad which Mulla Sa'd 
Allah Khan of Buner, nicknamed Sartor (crazy) 
Fakir, had launched against the alien governm 
A close ally of the British Government, in receipt of 
an annual allowance amounting to 26,000 rupees, 
Muhammad Sharif Khan died in 1904 and was 
succeeded by his son Awrangzib Khan (Badshah 
Khan). He soon fell out with his younger brother, 
Miyan Gul Djan, who in alliance with the disaffected 
sections of the population of Dir, marched against 
his elder brother and captured, in Djumada I 1323/ 
June 1905, two of the Dir fortresses. Peace was, 
however, restored through the efforts of the British 
Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier 
Province. It proved short-lived and fighting broke 

This period of internecine war came to a close with 
the death of Miyan Gul in Diandol in 1914. 

In 1917, while World War I was still in progress, 
Badshah Khan helped c Abd al-Matln Khan, a 
son of c Umra Khan, to regain the principality 
of Djandol but soon afterwards occupied it himself. 
This act was characterized as usurpation and betrayal 
of the worst kind. The Sultan of Turkey, in an appeal 
issued in Muharram 1336/October 1917 to the war- 
like tribes of Yaghistan, exhorted the Nawwab of 
DIr to give up creating discord among the tribesmen 
and restore Djandol to its rightful ruler. In 1919 
the oppressed people of Swat, under Miyan Gul Gul 
Shahzada, threw off Badshah Khan's rule but 
the British forced Shahzada in 1922 to withdraw 
from the area conquered by him. On his death 
in 1925 Badshah Khan was succeeded by his 
eldest son, Muhammad Shah DJahan Khan, the 
deposed ruler. In 1930 when the entire north- 
west frontier of India was ablaze he placed his 
resources at the disposal of the British Government 
for quelling the Red Shirt disturbances in Peshawar 
and the surrounding area. The same year existing 
boundaries between DIr and Swat were confirmed, 
putting an end to centuries-old hostilities. 

A great part of the DIr territory is divided into 
small Khanates, held by the Nawwab's relations. 
There have recently (1959) been some disturbances 
in the state but these were described as mostly 
agrarian rather than political in nature. 

In i960 Muhammad Shah Djahan Khan was 
deposed, arrested and interned by the Government 
of Pakistan on serious charges of misgovernment 
and maladministration. He was succeeded by his 
eldest son, Prince Muhammad Shah Khusraw, who 
was formally installed as the Nawwab of DIr on 
9 November i960 at Cakdara, in the Malakand' 



Bibliography: C. U. Aitchison, Treaties, 
Engagements and Sanads . . . , Delhi 1933, xi, 
417-46; Ghulam RasQl Mihr, Sarguzasht-i Mudja- 
hidin, Lahore 1956, 348, 359, 365, 368, 489, 
530; Imperial Gazetteer of India, Oxford 1908, 
360-1; W. W. Hunter, The Indian Musulmans, 
Calcutta 1945, 29; Memoranda on the Indian 
States, Delhi 1940, 210-15; also see the article 

DIR [see somali]. 

DIRAR b. al-KHATTAB b. Mirdas al-Fihri, 
a poet of Mecca. Chief of the clan of Muharib b. 
Fihr in the Fidjar [q.v.], he fought against the 
Muslims at Uhud and at the battle of the Trench, 
and wrote invectives against the Prophet. He was 
however converted after the capture of Mecca, but 
it is not known if he perished in the battle of Yamama 
(12/633) ° r whether he survived and went to settle 

Bibliography: Sira, ed. Sakka, etc., Cairo 
1375/1955, i, 414-5, 45°, ii, 145-6, 254-5; Tabarl, 
index; Muh. b. Habib, Muhabbar, 170, 176, 434; 
Buhturi, Hamdsa, index ; Ibn Sallam, Tabakat, ed. 
Shakir, 209-12; Aghani, iv, 5 = ed. Beirut, iv, 
144-5; Ibn Hadjar, Isaba, no. 4173; Ibn 'Asakir, 
vii; Nallino, Litt., 74. (Ed.) 

DIRE DAWA, important road, rail, and air 
communication centre and chief commercial 
town in Eastern Ethiopia, situated 35 miles North- 
West of Harar [q.v.] and thus within the cultural 
orbit of this major Muslim city in the Ethiopian 
Empire. The name is most probably derived from 
the Somali Dir-dabo 'limit of the Dir' (the Dir being 
the confederation of Somali tribes which inhabit the 
vast arid region between Dire Dawa and Diibuti). 
but it is possible that the Amharicized form is meant 
to reflect a popular etymology from the Amharic 
dire dawa 'hill of uncultivated land'. Dire Dawa 
owes its comparatively recent origin and importance 
to the Addis Ababa-Djibuti railway which climbs 
from the desolate Dankali plain to this first great 
centre of sedentary population at the edge of the 
escarpment at an altitude of just below 4000 feet. 
The total population (estimated between 30,000 and 
50,000) includes Ethiopians proper as well as Gallas, 
Somalis, Italians, French, Greeks, Indians, and 
Arabs. The ill-starred Emperor, Lid] Iyasu, built a 
mosque at Dire Dawa during the First World War, 
while during the Second the town became the head- 
quarters of the British Reserved Areas Admini- 
stration after the reconquest of Ethiopia in 1941. 
The Islamic culture of the Muslim population of 
Dire Dawa and its hinterland varies considerably 
and includes remnants of pagan practices. The 
Shafi'I is the most generally accepted madhhab in 
this area. 

Bibliography: Guida dell' Africa Orientate 
Italiana, Milan 1938, 432 ff. (street plan 435 ; 
area map 448); Reale Societa Geografica Italiana, 
L'Africa Orientate, Bologna 1936 (index under 
Dire Dawa); Chamber of Commerce, Guide Book 
of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa 1954 (index under Dire 
Dawa); Lord Rennell of Rodd, British military 
administration of occupied territories in Africa, 
1941-1947, H.M. Stationery Office 1948 (index 
under Dire Dawa); J. S. Trimingham, Islam in 
Ethiopia, Oxford 1952 (for general characteristics 
of Islam in this area). (E. Ullendorff) 

DIROHAM ("Lion"), Fatimid amir and wazir; 
his full name Abu '1-Ashbal al-Dirgham b. 'Amir b. 
Sawwar, he received the agnomens of Faris al- 
Muslimin, Shams al-khilafa, and, when he was 



vizier of the last Fatimid al- £ Adid, the title of al- 
Malik al-Mansur, the victorious king, according to 
a protocol issued by Ridwan [q.v.]. He was Arab in 
origin and was perhaps descended from the former 
kings of HIra, to judge from the dynastic names of 
al-Lakhmi and al-Mundhirl that he bore. 

The first mention of him is made in 548/1153. He 
was among the detachment charged with relieving 
the garrison of 'Askalan led by the future vizier al- 
'Abbas together with Usama b. Munkidh [q.v.]. It 
was during the advance of this company that the 
murder of the vizier Ibn al-Sallar [q.v.] was planned, 
and was carried out by Nasr, the son of al- c Abbas; 
the latter, advised of this, returned to Cairo with 
his company and seized the vizierate (Muharram 
548/April 1153)- Al- £ Abbas was overthrown by 
Tala'i' b. Ruzzik in 549/1154. The latter, whose 
trust Dirgham seems to have received (Abu '1-Mahasin 
calls him "one of the emirs of Banu Ruzzik"), made 
him commander of the corps of Barkiyya which he 
had just formed. He rose in the hierarchy and 
became nd'ib al-bdb, that is to say lieutenant of the 
sahib al-bdb or grand chamberlain. He distinguished 
himself as commander of the army sent by Tala'i' 
against the Franks, which gained a victory at Tell 
al- £ Adjul in Palestine on the 15 Safar 553/^9 March 
1158. The following year, together with Ruzzik, 
son of the vizier, he triumphed over the rebel 
Bahram in Upper Egypt near Atfih (Derenbourg, 
Oumara du Yimen, i, 1-3, ", 127)- During the 
vizierate of Ruzzik, Tal5'i c 's successor, pirgham, 
was sent with an army to stop the expedition of the 
king Amalric I who, in September 1162, invaded 
Egypt in order to claim the tribute already promised 
by Tala'i 1 . pirgham (Dargan of Guillaume de Tyr, 
in RHC. Occ. i/2, 890-1), was defeated and fell 
back on Bilbays. But, taking advantage of the 
rising of the Nile, he breached its dikes in order to 
flood the adjoining plain and Amalric had to with- 
draw into Palestine (Derenbourg, op. cit., ii, 203-4, 
208-9). Immediately afterwards, he took part in the 
putting down of a rebellion in the province of al- 
Gharbiyya. 

But there soon broke out the revolt of Shawar, 
the powerful prefect of Kus, which was to end with 
his victory and the death of Ruzzik. When Shawar's 
success was certain, pirgham, in spite of his good 
relations with Ruzzik whom he had instructed in 
horsemanship and knightly pursuits (al-Makrizi, 
Khitaf, ii, 78), did not hesitate to leave him and go 
over to the side of Shawar, who became vizier 
(Safar 558/January 1163). Shawar, in whose circle 
he remained, made him grand chamberlain or sdhib 
al-bdb (Abu '1-Mahasin, v, 338, 10), the most im- 
portant office after the vizierate. But Dirgham, 
supported by his brothers and a considerable part 
of the army, was not long in forming a faction against 
the vizier and, after nine months of the vizierate of 
Shawar, revolted against him, although Shawar, 
according to the Continuator of the History of the 
Patriarchs of Alexandria, had made him swear forty 
oaths that he would not betray him (Derenbourg, 
ii, 246). In Ramadan 558/August 1163 Shawar was 
driven from Cairo and took refuge in Syria where 
he sought the support of Nur al-DIn in regaining the 
vizierate. Dirgham had Tayy, the eldest son of 
Shawar, put to death, and on 29 Ramadan/31 
August he was invested with the vizierate with the 
title of al-Malik al-Mansur. 

He had three brothers, Nasir al-DIn Humam, 
Nasir al-Muslimln Mulham and Fakhr al-DIn Husam. 
The first, after his brother's accession to the vizierate, 



took the title of Faris al-Muslimin which Dirgham 
had formerly borne. According to al-Makrizi, during 
his vizierate Dirgham was dominated by his brothers 
Humam and Husam. 

Fortune did not smile on Dirgham for very long, 
and difficulties soon arose. Aware of Shawar's 
preparations for revenge, he attempted to start 
negotiations with Nur al-DIn by promising him his 
allegiance and an advantageous alliance against the 
Franks. Nur al-Din gave an evasive reply. And 
perhaps it was at the instigation of Nur al-DIn that 
Dirgham's messenger was seized by the Franks of 
Karak on his return from Damascus. Thwarted in 
this and disturbed by the attitude of the amirs of 
the corps of the Barkiyya, who had given him 
powerful support in winning the vizierate but some 
of whom envied him and were negotiating with 
Shawar, Dirgham trapped them in an ambush and 
massacred seventy of them, not counting their 
followers. Historians do not fail to point out that 
these executions removed men of ability and weaken- 
ed Egypt dangerously. 

Amalric however had not given up his scheme to 
conquer Egypt, and at the end of 1163 or at the 
beginning of n 64 his advance-guard invaded 
Egyptian territory. Dirgham, after failing to bring 
over Nur al-DIn to his cause, decided to negotiate 
with Amalric and offered him, on condition that 
he withdrew his troops, a peace treaty, the delivery 
of hostages, and the payment of an annual tribute 
to be levied until a date fixed by the king. But 
Shawar had finally gained the support of Nur al-DIn, 
who in Djumada I 559/April 1164 sent into Egypt 
with Shawar an army commanded by Shirkuh 
which included Saladin his nephew. It crossed 
unhindered the territory controlled by the Franks 
who were prevented from taking action by a 
manoeuvre of Nur al-DIn. Mulham the brother of 
Dirgham (Husam according to al-Makrizi), who was 
sent against the invaders with a large but, according 
to Shawar, inglorious army, was surprised near 
Bilbays and put to flight at the end of April n 64. 
This caused panic at Cairo, where Shirkuh and 
Shawar soon appeared. Several battles took place 
between the troops of Shawar and those of Dirgham. 
In order to raise some resources Dirgham made the 
mistake of seizing the possessions of the orphans, and 
so alienated the population. He was deserted by 
some of his troops; the corps of Rayhanis who had 
sustained some losses promised their aid to Shawar. 
Dirgham, after trying in vain to muster some 
supporters and accompanied by no more than 500 
cavaliers, presented himself at the palace of the 
Caliph, who refused to admit him and advised him 
to have a care to his own life. The desertions conti- 
nued until he retained only thirty cavaliers. He took 
to flight followed by the curses of the people while 
Shawar's troops entered Cairo. Overtaken between 
Cairo and Fustat, Dirgham was dragged from his 
horse and killed near the mausoleum of al-Sayyida 
Nafisa in Ramadan 559/July-August 1164, or, 
according to certain traditions, at the end of 
Djumada II/24 May 1164 or in Radjab/May-June 
1164. His three brothers were likewise killed soon 
afterwards. His corpse remained without burial for 
two or three days and his head was carried on a 
pikestaff. He was buried near Birkat al-FIl and a 
cupola was raised over his tomb. His vizierate had 
lasted only nine months. 

c Umara al-Yamani and al-Makrizi praised pirgham 
whom they consider among the greatest amirs and 
bravest cavaliers. He combined with his physical 



DIRGHAM — DIRHAM 



qualities (skill at polo, archery, wielding the spear, 
and feats of prowess at tilting in the ring) a gift for 
penmanship, for poetry (he composed some fine 
muwashshahdt) and for poetic criticism. 'Umara has 
spoken highly of his generosity, but has also noted 
that he was quick to turn against his friends, and it 
must not be forgotten that he betrayed successively 
Ruzzik and Shawar. 

Bibliography; Ibn al-Athlr, Cairo edition 
1303, xi, 108 f., inf., Tornberg edn., xi, 191, 
196-7; Ibn Khallikan. Bulak ed., i, 276 f., ii, 499 
(trans, de Slane, i, 609 f., iv, 485 f.) ; Derenbourg, 
Oumara du Yimen, sa vie et son oeuvre, i, [Kitab 
al-Nukat and Extraits du Diwan), 67 f., 73 f. ; 
ii (Vie de Oumara du Yimen, 101, 166, 257 f., 
281-303 and in the index; Kamal al-DIn Ibn al- 
'Adim, Ta'rikh Halab, ed. S. Dahhan, ii, 316-7; 
Ibn Muyassar, Akhbdr Misr, ed. Masse, 92, 97; 
Ibn Shaddad. Sirat Saldh al-Din, Cairo ed., 
1346, 28-9; Abu Shama, Kitab al-rawdatayn, in 
RHC Or., iv, 107-8; Ibn Wasil, Mufarridj al- 
Kurub, ed. Shavval. i (1953), 137-9; Diamal al- 
Din Ibn Zafir, Kitab al-Duwal , in Wustenfeld, 

Gesch. der Fatimiden-Khalifen, 329 f. ; Makrizi, 
MiM, i, 338, 358, ii, 12 f., 78; Abu '1-Mahasin, 
Nudjum, Cairo ed., v, 317, 338, 346-7; S. Lane- 
Poole, Hist, of Egypt, 175-8, Saladin, 80-2; 
Rohricht, Gesch. des Konigreichs Jerusalem, 314 f., 
and G. Schlumberger, Campagnes du roi Amaury 
I", 36 f. (with dates to be rectified); G. Wiet, 
Hist, de la Nation Egyptienne: L'Egypte arabe, 
284, 287 f., 291-4; idem, Precis dc I'hist. de 
I'Egypte, 196; Grousset, Hist, des Croisades, ii, 
447-8, 453-4 and in the index. For the poetic gifts 
of Dirgham, cf. M. Kamil Husayn, Fi adab Misr 
al-Fatimiyya, 138, 178, 199-200. See also the 
articles al- c adid, crusades, ruzzIk, shawar, 
shirkOh, talaV b. ruzzik. (M. Canard) 

DIRHAM. 1. The name of a weight, derived from 
Greek Spa/fiT). Traditionally the dirham kayl or 
sharH weighed from 50 to 60 average-sized, unshelled 
shaHra or habba, and was theoretically divided into 
6 ddnalt, the latter being calculated variously 
between 8 and 10 shaHra. So numerous and contra- 
dictory are the reports on the weight of the dirham 
and its relationship to other Arab metrological units 
in different parts of the Islamic world and at different 
times that they cannot be summarized here, and the 
reader is referred to such works as Sauvaire's 
Materiaux and Grohmann's Einjiihrung (see biblio- 
graphy under dinar). Efforts to define the weight of 
the traditional dirham in terms of modern metric 
grams have resulted in various figures, most of them 
probably erroneous. Cf. W. Hinz, Islamische Masse u. 
Gewichte (Handbuch der Orientalistik, Ergdnzungs- 
band 1, Heft 1, Leiden 1955, 2 ff.), where also 19th 
and 20th century legal definitions in different 
countries are to be found. Although most Muslim 
states have now officially adopted the metric system, 
the dirham and other traditional weights continue 
irregularly in use in various trades. In present-day 
Egypt, the dirham is defined as weighing 3.12 grams; 
two actual goldsmith's brass dirham weights of the 
year 1953 are found to weigh 3.1322 and 3.1335 
grams respectively. 

2. The silver unit of the Arab monetary system 
from the rise of Islam down to the Mongol period. 
The earliest Arab dirhams (baghll) were imitations 
of the late Sasanian drahms of Yezdigird III, 
Hormuzd IV and (chiefly) Khusraw II. The Sasanian 
iconography was retained, but a Kufic religious 
inscription was added to the margin; on a few 



issues the name of the Caliph (Mu'awiya and <Abd 
al-Malik) and on most issues the name of the provin- 
cial governor and the abbreviated mint name and 
date according to the Hidjra, Yezdigird or post- 
Yezdigird era (all in Pahlevi characters), were 
engraved. About the year 72/691-2 (American 
Numismatic Society Museum Notes vii, 1957, 191) 
and for a few years thereafter variations of the 
conventional type, including the use of more Kufic 
legends and innovations in iconography more 
suitable to Islam, were experimented with, but in 
the year 79/698-9 c Abd al-Malik's monetary reform 
drastically altered the style of the dirham, which 
thenceforth, with few exceptions, was, like the dinar, 
purely epigraphic. The post-reform dirham was at 
first anonymous, but in the course of the 2nd and 
3rd centuries A.H. the names of governors, heirs- 
apparent, Caliphs, etc. were added. The name of 
the mint and the date, in words, was always present. 
In Umayyad times the chief dirham mints were 
located in former Sasanian administrative centres, 
but silver was struck also in Damascus, North 
Africa and Spain. Wasit, founded in 84/703-4, 
appears to have been the most prolific of Umayyad 
dirham mints, and it is possible that the admini- 
stration of the silver coinage was centred in this 
city and that the dirham dies were engraved there. 

Little change in the style and general appearance 
of the dirham occurred under the various independent 
dynasties down to the end of the 4th/ioth century, 
except that the legends on the Fatimid dirham 
were usually arranged in concentric circles. There 
followed a period of silver famine in the East when the 
output of silver coinage was relatively insignificant 
(cf. R. P. Blake in Harvard Journal of Asiatic 
Studies, 1937, 291, where the study of this pheno- 
menon is broached but not investigated to the 
depth which it deserves); but with the rise of the 
Mongols in the mid-7th/i3th century, dirhams and 
multiples thereof, differing in design from the 
"classical" type, were again issued in immense 
quantities. For the late Fatimid dirham warak, the 
Ayyubid dirham Ndsiri and Kdmili, and Mamluk 
dirhams, see P. Balog in BIE, xxxiii, 1950-1, and 
v. Schrotter, s.v. dirhem. In the West the dirham 
declines in quality with the fall of the Umayyad 
dynasty of Spain, is restored in somewhat altered 
form under the Murabits, and undergoes a complete 
change in style and weight with the Muwahhids, 
when the square dirham (murabba 1 ), also imitated by 
the Christians in France (the miliar es), is introduced 
(corpus and bibliography in H. W. Hazard, The numis- 
matic history of late medieval North Africa, N.Y. 1952). 

With regard to the weight of the classical Arab 
dirham, statistics (unpublished) show that the 
highest frequency group of the Sasanian drachm of 
Khusraw II falls between 4. 11 and 4.15 grams. The 
Arab-Sasanian dirham was definitely lighter, ap- 
proximately 3.98 grams. After the reform of 79 A.H., 
an entirely new standard is adopted with the result 
that thenceforth until the middle of the 3rd/gth 
century, when weights begin to be very erratic, the 
peak weight of the dirham consistently lies between 
2.91 and 2.95 grams (A.N.S. M useum Notes, ix, i960, 
see bibliography). The corrected figure, allowing for 
loss of weight, is 2.97 grams, which conforms exactly 
with the traditional theoretical figure based on the 
classical Arab formula which pronounced the weight 
of the dirham to be 7/10 that of the mithkal (dinar), 
i.e., '/ 10 x 4.25 = 2.97 (see s.v. dinar). Dirham 
glass weights fall slightly below this figure; and a 
special category of glass weights establishes the fact 



that there were iii Egypt dirhams of 13 kharrilbas, 
weighing still less. 

The rate of exchange between dinar and dirham 
fluctuated widely at different times and in different 
parts of the empire. The jurists speak of 10 (or 12) 
dirhams to the dinar in the time of Muhammad, but 
subsequently there is plentiful evidence to show that 
the dirham at times sank as low as 15, 20, 30 and 
even 50 (see the numerous textual citations by 
Sauvaire, Lane-Poole in NC 1884, Grohmann in 
Einfiihrung, etc.). P. Grierson (op. cit. under dinar) 
has attempted to explain the economic bases of the 
mint and market gold-silver ratios, with particular 
reference to Byzantine-Arab relationships. 

Both typologically and economically the dirham 
exerted a strong influence on Byzantium and the 
West. The Byzantine miliaresion, introduced in the 
second quarter of the 8th century after a generation 
during which virtually no silver coinage was issued 
in Constantinople, was clearly inspired by the dirham, 
and many miliaresia of the 8th and 9th centuries 
were actually struck on Arab dirham planchets. 
There is some reason to believe also that the style 
of the Carolingian denier or denar may have been 
influenced by the dirham. The great importance of 
Arab silver in commerce between the lands of the 
Eastern Caliphate on the one hand and Russia, 
eastern Europe, Scandinavia and the Baltic regions 
on the other, is abundantly documented by the 
immense numbers of dirhams and fragments of 
dirhams found in these areas in hoards dating from 
four clearly defined periods between 780 and 1100 
A.D. (comprehensive summary and full bibliography 
in U. S. L. Welin in Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for 
nordisk middelalder, i, Copenhagen 1956, s.v. 
Arabisk mynt). Dirhams also have been found in 
lesser numbers in England and France (cf. J. Duplessy 
in Rev. Numismatique 1956, 101). 

Beginning in the 5th/nth century, dirhams of base 
silver (billon) and copper were struck by various 
dynasties (late Buwayhid, Karakhanid, Kh"arizm- 
shah, etc.). The large, thick copper dirhams of the 
Artukids (in the coin catalogues "Urtukids"), 
Zangids and Ayyubids, with figured types resem- 
bling those of Hellenistic, Roman provincial, 
Byzantine and other coinages, and occasionally 
exhibiting original Islamic iconography, constitute 
a unique phenomenon so far unsatisfactorily 
explained and deserving of further study (best 
illustrations in the British Museum and Istanbul 
catalogues and in S. Lane Poole, Coins of the 
Urtuki Turkumdns, London 1875; cf. also J. Kara- 
bacek, in Num. Zeitschr., 1869, 265). 

Bibliography : In addition to the bibliography 
under dInar and the works cited in the body of 
the present article, see R. Vasmer in F. v. Schrotter, 
Worterbuch der Miinzkunde (Berlin-Leipzig, 1930) 
s.v. Dirhem (with valuable bibliography); J. 
Walker, A Catalogue of the Arab-Sassanian Coins 
{A Cat. of the Muhammadan Coins in the British 
Museum, i, London 1941); U. S. L. Welin, in 
Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for nordisk middelalder, 
iii (Copenhagen, 1959), s.v. Dirhem; G. C. Miles, 
Byzantine miliaresion and Arab dirhem: some 
notes on their relationship in A merican Numismatic 
Society Museum Notes ix (i960), 189-218; idem, 
The Iconography of Umayyad Coinage in Ars 
Orientalis iii (1959), recent bibliography; idem, 
"Trisor de dirhems du IX' siicle", in Mimoires 
de la Mission Archeologique en Iran, xxxvii, i960, 
67-145 (detailed study of a large hoard of dirhams 
found at Susa). (G. C. Miles) 



al-DIR'IYYA (or al-Dar'iyya), an oasis in WadI 
Hanlfa [q.v.] in Nadjd, the capital of Al Sa'ud [q.v.] 
until its overthrow in 1233/1818. The oasis lies 
c. 20 km. north-west of al-Riyad, the present capital. 
The wadi flows south-east through the upper part 
of the oasis and then bends to the east before passing 
the main settlements. Beyond these settlements the 
high cliff of al-Kurayn forces the wadi to make a 
sharp turn to the south-west. The road from al-Riyad 
descends the cliff by Nazlat al-Nasiriyya to enter 
the wadi opposite Sha'ib Safar, the largest tributary 
on the right bank. On the left bank just below the 
pass lies the cultivated plot of al-Mulaybld. 

The wadi is a narrow ribbon threading the oasis 
from one end to the other, hemmed in by abrupt 
cliffs on both sides. The flash floods coursing down 
the wadi may be as few as two or as many as fifteen 
a year; as soon as they are gone the wadi is dry. In 
many places the date gardens occupy a raised step 
above the valley floor which is protected from the 
floods by a levee {djurf) of large stone blocks some- 
times three metres high. On occasion the floodwater 
surges over the levee and reaches the base of the 
cliff (djabal) at the outer edge of the palms. The 
houses are built either among the palms or on the 
heights above. 

The settlements farthest up the wadi are al- c Ilb 
and al- c Awda, both among the palms on the right 
bank. Below these is Ghaslba, now a complete ruin, 
on the high ground on the left bank opposite the 
tributary al-Bulayda. The tributary Kulaykil runs 
along the eastern side of Ghaslba. After the wadi 
bears eastwards the left bank is lined with a series 
of settlements, among them being the low-lying al- 
Budjayri, the home of the reformer Shaykh Muham- 
mad b. c Abd al-Wahhab and the many '■ulatruV 
among his progeny, Al al-Shaykh. A mosque stands 
on the site where the Shaykh was accustomed to 
worship, and his grave is not far off, though, in 
keeping with his doctrine, it is not an object of 
visitation. On the right or southern bank facing 
these settlements is the promontory of al-Turayf 
thrusting into the pocket between Wadi Hanlfa and 
Sha'ib Safar; here rise the majestic ruins of the 
palaces where the princes of Al Sa'ud once lived and 
held court— in Philby's words, "the noblest monu- 
ment in all Wahhabiland". The buildings, made of 
clay save for the pillars of stone, have a grace and 
delicacy of ornamentation unusual in Nadjd. Near 
the north-western corner of the fortified enclosure 
is the highest point in al-Turayf, the citadel known 
as al-Darisha (it is noteworthy that in Nadjd, the 
wellspring of Arabic, the common words for window, 
darisha, and gate, darwaza, are both Persian in 
origin). Leading up to the citadel from the shelf of 
palms below is a ramp called Darb Faysal after 
Faysal b. Sa'Od, one of the captains guarding the 
town when Ibrahim Pasha besieged it in 1233/1818. 
The most impressive palace still standing is Maksurat 
c Umar on the brink of the northern cliff. Near it is 
the congregational mosque of al-Turayf in which 
the Imam c Abd al- c Aziz was assassinated in 1218/ 
1803. The ruins of al-Turayf are gradually disinte- 
grating because of the ravages of time and the 
development of a new settlement which is spreading 
from the foot of the promontory up to its shoulder. 

According to the chroniclers of Nadjd, al-Dir c iyya 
was first settled in 850/1446-7 when Mani c b. 
Rabi'a al-Muraydi was given Ghaslba and al- 
Mulaybid by his relative Ibn Dir c of Hadjar al- 
Yamama. Mani c was an emigrant from the east; his 
former home, said to have been called al-Dir c iyya, 



is reported to have been in the region of al-Katlf, 
but its exact location is not known. Some genealogists 
state that the Marada, the kinsfolk of MSni', belong 
to Banu Hanifa, while others advocate a descent 
from c Anaza, which appears to be the prevailing 
view among members of Al Sa'Od. 

After Mani' various branches of his descendants 
took turns in ruling al-Dir'iyya. Ghasiba seems to 
have been the original centre and strong point; no 
record has been found of when it was supplanted by 
al-Turayf, which topographically enjoys an even 
greater degree of impregnability. In 1133/1721 
Sa'dOn b. Muhammad Al Ghurayr of Banu Khalid, 
the lord of al-Hasa, plundered houses in al-Zuhayra, 
Malwi, and al-Surayha, all settlements still existing 
along the left bank. 

In 1139/1726-7 Muhammad b. Sa'Od Al Mukrin, 
a direct descendant of Mani', became the independent 
ruler of al-Dir c iyya, including Ghasiba. At that time 
the primacy among the towns of central Nadjd was 
held by al-'Uyayna, farther up the valley, under the 
domination of Al Mu'ammar of Tamim. 'Abd Allah 
b. Muhammad, the most powerful representative of 
this house, died the same year Muhammad b. Sa'Od 
came to power in al-Dir c iyya. Muhammad b. Sa'Od 
won a good reputation as a secular lord. In 1157/1744 
Shaykh Muhammad b. c Abd al-Wahhab chose al- 
Dir'iyya as his new home when requested to leave 
al- c Uyayna, his native town, by 'Uthman b. Ahmad 
Al Mu'ammar. The Shaykh and Muhammad b. 
Sa'Od made a compact to work together in establish- 
ing the true version of Islam throughout the land of 

The spiritual force of Ibn c Abd al-Wahhab and the 
military skill of Muhammad b. Sa'Od and his son 
'Abd al-'AzIz and grandson Sa'Od brought virtually 
the whole of the Arabian Peninsula under the 
authority of al-Dir c iyya by the early I3th/igth 
century. Ibn Bishr records his own eye-witness 
description of the capital in the time of Sa'Od. Much 
of the land now given over to palms was then 
occupied by buildings. Particularly vivid are Ibn 
Bishr's vignettes of the market in the valley bottom, 
the sunrise religious assembly in the same spot 
attended by Sa'Od and his resplendent corps of 
mamlilks, Sa'Od's hearing of petitions and dispensing 
of largesse to his subjects and guests, and the diligent 
Islamic instruction given by the sons of the Shaykh. 
Sa'ud was said to own 1,400 Arab horses, of which 
600 were taken on campaigns by Bedouins or his 
mamluks. He had 60 cannon, half of which were of 
large size. For Nadjd, al-Dir'iyya had become a very 
cosmopolitan and expensive centre: visitors from 
Oman, the Yemen, Syria, and Egypt thronged its 
bazaar; shops rented for as high as 45 riyals a month, 
and houses sold for 7,000 riyals. So much building 
went on that there was a great scarcity of wood. 

The first and only European to see al-Dir'iyya 
while it flourished was J. L. Reinaud, an Arabic- 
speaking Dutchman (or Englishman?) sent there in 
1799 by Samuel Manesty, the East India Company's 
Resident in al-Basra, to negotiate with the Imam 
c Abd al- c Az!z. Reinaud, who spent a week in the 

establishment and the sullen hospitality of the 
inhabitants. 

When Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt advanced into 
Nadjd with the intention of breaking the power 
of Al Sa'Od, 'Abd Allah b. Sa'Od, who had succeeded 
to the rule in 1229/1814, fortified himself in al- 
Dir'iyya instead of using the superior mobility of 
his forces to harass the enemy's over-extended lines 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



of communication. Ibrahim, establishing himself 
athwart the wadi at al-'Ilb, began a siege which 
lasted about six months. The attack consisted of a 
ponderous advance step by step down the wadi, 
accompanied by a piecemeal reduction of the 
numerous towers and barricades of the defenders 
scattered about the heights on either flank. Ibrahim 
moved his headquarters from al-'Ilb down the wadi 
to Karl Kusayr (now known in memory of his army 
as Kurayy al-Rum), a tributary descending from 
the north. Sweeping around the oasis, the invader's 
horse fell on the town of 'Irka farther down the wadi. 
Progress was impeded by the explosion of Ibrahim's 
ammunition depot, but 'Abd Allah b. Sa'ud failed 
to exploit this opportunity. Once a new supply of 
ammunition had been built up, Ibrahim resumed 
pressure on the main front and fought his way into 
the palm grove of Mushayrifa south of the tributary 
al-Bulayda, thus gaining access to the promontory 
of al-Turayf from the heights to the west. A resolute 
offensive launched at all points brought about the 
surrender of the capital in Dhu '1-Ka'da 1233/ 
September 1818. After staying in al-Dir c iyya a 
short time, Ibrahim returned to Egypt. On his 
orders the place was systemically torn down in 
1234/1819. According to Captain Sadleir, a British 
officer who saw it almost immediately afterwards, 
"the walls of the fortification have been completely 
razed by the Pacha, and the date plantations and 
gardens destroyed. I did not see one man during 
my search through these ruins. The gardens of 
Deriah produced apricots, figs, grapes, pomegranates ; 
and the dates were of a very fine description; citrons 
were also mentioned, and many other fruit trees, 
but I could only discern the mutilated remains of 
those I have mentioned. Some few tamarisk trees 
are still to be seen." 

An attempt was soon made to restore al-Dir c iyya 
as the capital. As many members of Al Sa'ud had 
been killed during the siege or carried off to Cairo, 
Muhammad b. Mushari of the old princely house of 
Mu'ammar of al-'Uyayna, a nephew on the distaff 
side of the great Sa'Od, established himself in al- 
Dir'iyya before the end of 1234/Oct. 1819 with the 
aim of rebuilding the oasis and making himself the 
head of the reform movement in Nadjd. A few 
months later, in 1235/1820, Mushari b. Sa'Od ap- 
peared in al-Dir'iyya, and Ibn Mu'ammar swore 
allegiance to him as scion of Al Sa'ud. Having once 
tasted power, Ibn Mu'ammar dreamed of regaining 
it and rebelled against Mushari b. Sa'ud. Another 
member of Al Sa'ud, Turk! b. 'Abd Allah, a cousin 
of the great Sa'ud, now returned to the scene after 
having escaped Ibrahim Pasha's dragnet. TurkI 
sided with his relative Mushari b. Sa'ud, but ihe 
Egyptian forces got hold of Mushari and he died 
in captivity in 1236/1821. In revenge TurkI put Ibn 
Mu'ammar to death. After taking al-Dir'iyya, TurkI 
also occupied al-Riyad, but the Egyptian troops 
quickly drove him out. In 1236/1821 Husayn Bey, 
the new Egyptian commander, ordered all the 
people who had settled in al-Dir'iyya with Ibn 
Mu'ammar to go to Tharmada 3 , the new Egyptian 
headquarters. After their departure al-Dir'iyya was 
destroyed for the second time, trees being cut down 
and the torch set to whatever was inflammable. 
In Tharmada 3 about 230 men from al-Dir'iyya 
were paraded on orders from Husayn Bey 
and slaughtered in cold blood. The obliteration of 
al-Dir'iyya was complete. When Turk! in 1240/1824 
gained strength enough to challenge the Egyptian 
forces, he attacked them in al-Riyad, which he chose 



322 



l-DIR'IYYA — DIW 



as the new capital for his realm in preference to th 
twice desolated home of his forefathers. 

In 1281/1865 Colonel Pelly, the British Resident i; 
the Persian Gulf, passed through al-Dir c iyya on the 
way to al-Riyad; the place seemed to him "utterly 
deserted". The modern oasis, now encroaching . 
the territory of its forerunner even in the hallowed 
precincts of al-Turayf, was described by Philby after 
his visit in 1336/1917. 

Bibliography: Husayn b. Ghannam. Rawdat 
al-afkdr, Bombay n.d.; 'Uttjman b. Bishr, '■Un- 
man al-madid, Cairo 1373; von Zachs Monat- 
liche Correspondenz, 1805 [Reinaud's journey]; 
J. B. L. J. Rousseau, Description du pachalik 
de Bagdad, Paris 1809; L. A. Corancez, Histoire des 
Wahabis, Paris 1810; F. Mengin, Histoire 
I'Egypte, Paris 1823; G. Sadlier [Sadleir], Diary of 
a journey across Arabia, Bombay 1866; L. Pelly, 
Report on a journey to the Wahabee capital of 
Riyadh, Bombay 1866; H. St. J. B. Philby, The 
heart of Arabia, London 1922. (G. Rentz) 

DIRLIK, a Turkish word meaning living 
livelihood. In the Ottoman Empire it was used to 
denote an income provided by the state, directly 
or indirectly, for the support of persons in 
service. The term is used principally of the military 
fiefs (see timar), but also applies to pay (see 'ulufa), 
salaries, and grants of various kinds in lieu of pay 
to officers of the central and provincial governments. 
It does not normally apply to tax-farms, the basis 
of which is purchase and not service. 

Bibliography: Dja'fer Celebi, Mahruse-i 

Istanbul fethndmesi, TOEM suppl. 1331, 17; Kofi 

Bey Risalesi, ed. Ali Kemali Aksut, Istanbul 1939, 

84; c Abd al-Rahman Wefik, Tekdlif kawd'idi, i, 

Istanbul 1328, 243-4; Pakalin, i, 455; Gibb-Bowen, 

i/i, 47, 238. (B. Lewis) 

DlC, an island off the southern point of Sau- 

rashtra (Sawrashtra, Sorath), India, with a good 

harbour clear of the dangerous tides of the Gulf c " 

Cambay. Taken from the Cudasamas in 698/1298-99 

by the generals of 'Ala' al-DIn Khaldji, probably 

lost a few years later, it was recovered by Muhammad 

b. Tughluk in 750/1349. 

In 804/1402 Muzaffar Khan, governor for 
last Tughluks and first sultan of Gudjarat, built 
mosques, appointed kadis and installed a garrison 
in Diu. By 834/1431 Diu was a flourishing port 
furnishing ships for the Gudjarati fleet. From 916/ 
1510 it became the seat of the governors of Sorath, 
of whom the most famous was Malik Ayaz. He made 
Diu a great emporium, built the fort and harbour 
defences and threw a bridge to the mainland suburb 
of Gogla. Though in 914/1509 his fleet and that of 
the Mamluk admiral Amir Husayn were crushed i 
Diu harbour by the Portuguese viceroy Francisco 
d' Almeida, he was able to persuade Sultan Muzaffar 
II to withdraw his offer of Diu made to Albuquerque 
in 919/1513 and to repulse Portuguese fleets in 
926/1520 and 927/1521. 

Malik Ayaz died in 928/1522 and was succeeded at 
Diu by his son Ishak. Ishak rebelled in 933/1526-27 
and offered Diu to the Portuguese; their fleet was 
forestalled and defeated by the new governor 
Kawam al-Mulk, but next spring so crushed the 
Diu fleet under his son that Kawam al-Mulk was 
replaced by Malik Tughan, second son of Malik Ayaz. 
In 937/1531 Tughan, aided by the timely arrival of 
two Ottoman generals, Amir Mustafa and Kh'adia 
Safar, defeated a full-scale attack by the viceroy 
Nuno da Cunha. 

In 942/1535 Sultan Bahadur Shah, a refugee from 



Humayun, and the Mughal emperor both offered 
Diu to the Portuguese. Nuno da Cunha chose the 
less formidable Bahadur Shah with whom he signed 
a treaty of military aid in return for Diu on 27 Rabi c 
II 942/25 October 1535. 

In 943/1536 Bahadur Shah, having expelled the 
Mughals, returned to Diu. He invited Nuno da 
Cunha to come north, and having failed to tempt 
him ashore, visited his galleon. On his way back to 
the shore he was killed in a scuffle with the Portu- 
guese, 3 Ramadan 943/13 February 1537. 

The Portuguese thereupon seized the palace, 
treasury and arsenals in Diu, and in 943/1537 
proclaimed Muhammad Zaman MIrza sultan, in 
return for his confirmation of their position in Diu. 
He was defeated outside Diu, however, and in 945/ 
1538 Kh w adia Safar laid siege to the island. The 
siege was intensified after the arrival of Khadim 
Sulayman Pasha [?.».], governor of Egypt, with a 
powerful fleet, but after three months, distrust 
between Ottomans and Gudjaratis and reports of 
Nuno da Cunha's approach led to the break-up of 
the siege and the conclusion of peace, 6 Shawwal 
945/25 February 1539. 

On 20 Rabi< II 953/20 April 1546 Kh'adja Safar 
opened a s.econd siege of Diu which lasted seven 
months and cost the lives of the Kh"5dia and his 
son before the viceroy Joao de Castro routed the 
Muslim forces and lifted the siege on 19 Dhu '1-Ka'da 
953/n November 1546. 

For many years the Portuguese from Diu fort 
controlled all seaborne traffic from Gudjarat through 
a system of cartazes or passes. Though in 1079/1668 
and 1086/1676 Diu was overrun and sacked by 
Arabs the Portuguese were able to use Mughal decline 
to extend their control over the whole island and 
its mainland suburb. They retained them until 
December 1961. 

Bibliography: M. S. Commissariat, A history 

of Gujarat, i, London 1938; A. B. de Braganca 

Pereira, Os Portugueses em Diu, Bastora n.d. 
(J. B. Harrison) 

DIVAN [see diwan]. 

DIVINATION [see kihana, also djafr, fa'l, 

IKHTILADj, RAML, Ta'bIRJ. 

DIVORCE [see talak]. 

DlW (originally dew, Avestan daeva, Sanskrit 
diva), in Persian the name of the spirits of evil and 
of darkness, creatures of Ahriman, the personification 
of sins; their number is legion; among them are to 
be distinguished a group of seven principal demons, 
including Ahriman, opposed to the seven Amshas- 
pand (Av. amsSa sponta, the "Immortal Holy Ones"). 
"The collective name of the daiva designates . . . 
exclusively the inimical gods in the first place, then 
generally other supernatural beings who, being by 
nature evil, are opposed to the good and true 
faith .... These daiva, these dev have become in- 
creasingly assimilated to the ogres and other demo- 
niac beings whose origins are to be found in ancestral 
beliefs" (A. Christensen). In the Iranian epic Kayu- 
marth, the first of the civilizing kings of Iran, and 
then his son and his grandson, fought the Black Diw 
and his hordes; Tahmurath, his great-grandson, 
deprived them of power, and they taught him 
writing (Firdawsi, Shdh-ndma, Fr. tr. J. Mohl, i, 
19-32); Djamshld, son of Tahmurath (ibid., 35), 
controlled the dims (as Solomon did the ajinns in 
the Muslim legend [seesuLAYMAN B. dAwOd]); these, 
on his orders, constructed palaces and other buildings, 
then took him to heaven on a day later called 
nawruz; under the following dynasty, that of the 



DlW — DlWAN 



323 



Kayanids in the course of the war against the king 
of Mazandaran — a country frequented by the diws 
(ibid., 421 ff.) — the hero Rustam, champion of the 
king Kay-Kawus, killed the diw Arzang whose 
hordes he dispersed, and then the White Diw whose 
blood, which he carried to the king of Iran, cured 
him of incipient blindness (cf. the fish-gall which 
restored sight to Tobit). In the Garshdsp-ndma (see 
asadI) that hero, the great-grandfather of Rustam, 
several times opposed diws of monstrous form (Livre 
de Gerchasp, tr. Masse, ii, 46, 48, 129-31, 190). 

It is impossible to mention here all the diws who 
appear in Persian literary or popular sources : most 
frequently the term dim is juxtaposed to the Arabic 
epithets Hfrit, shayfdn, tdghut; for example, the 
Diws with Cows' Feet (diw-i gdw-pdy: Sa'd al-DIn 
Warawlnl, Marzubdn-ndma, ed. Muhammad Kazwlnl, 
79 ff.; M. NizamuM-dln, Introduction to the Jawdmi 1 
ul-hihdydt of Muhammad Awfi, 163). In modern 
popular tales djinn is generally substitued for diw; 
but diw remains, e.g., in H. Masse, Contes en persan 
populaire, nos. 27 and 29; or it may be associated 
with both djinn and pari (e.g., Ria Hackin and 
A. A. Kohzad, Ligendes et coutumes afghanes, 17 and 
note). According to the Shl'as, men, diws, and djinns 
will receive reward or punishment at the day of 
resurrection (Tabsirat aW-awdmm, ed. Iqbal, 210). 
Hamd Allah Mustawfi Kazwlnl mentions a Diw 
River (Diw rud, district of Djiruft, Kirman), so called 
because of its rapid current (Nuzhat al-kulub, tr. Le 
Strange, 217, 139)- 

Bibliography: For the various senses of diw 
and its use in metaphor and composition : Vullers, 
Lexicon persico-latinum, and Desmaisons, Dic- 
tionnaire persan-franfais; diw occurs frequently in 
Firdawsi (see F. Wolff, Glossar zu Firdosis Schah- 
name, s.v. diw, dlv; and Shdh-ndma, ed. and Fr. tr. 
J. Mohl, 1878, vii, index, s.v.); Spiegel, Eranische 
Altherthumskunde, n, 126-36; A. V. W. Jackson, 
in Gr.I.Ph., ii, 139, 165, 175, 196, 646 ff., 
662; A. Christensen, Essai sur la dimonologie 
iranienne, 60 (diws, paris and dragons in the neo- 
Persian epic), 67 (diws in Arabic and Persian texts), 
71 (diw and djinn), 92 (conclusions). On the diws in 
Persian secondary epics: Firdawsi, op. cit., i, 
introd., 68 note 1, 70 note 1, 72, 77, 87). Popular 
beliefs: H. Masse, Croyances et coutumes persanes, 
ii, chap. XIII and index III: div. On the Armenian 
dews: Christensen, op. cit., 87; F. Macler, Les dew 
arminiens (text and facsimile mss.). There are 
few miniatures representing the diws, apart from 
those illustrating the epics; some confuse diws 
and paris; see E. Blochet, Enluminures . . . de la 
Bibliotheque Nationale, plates 20, 64b, 75, 78a, 
106b, 117a; Sakisian, La miniature persane, plate 
78; Ph. W. Schulz, Die persische-islamische 
Malerei, plates 14 and 63, 31, 172 (diws and pari); 
Iran: Miniatures de la Bibliotheque Impiriale de 
Tihiran (New York Graphic Soc. — Unesco), 
plate 6 (diw in the aspect of a man). 

(Cl. Huart-[H. Masse]) 
DlWAN, a collection of poetry or prose 

literature; urdO literature and shi'r], a 
register, or an office. Sources differ about 
linguistic roots. Some ascribe to it a Persian 
origin from dev, 'mad' or 'devil', to describe secre- 
taries. Others consider it Arabic from dawwana, to 
collect or to register, thus meaning a collection of 
records or sheets. (See Kalkashandi, Subh, i, 90; 
LA, xvii, 23-4; Suli, Adab al-kuttdb, 187; MawardI, 
al-Ahkdm al-sultdniyya, 175; Djahshiyari, Wuzard', 



16-17; cf. BalaJhuri, Futuh, 449). However, in 
administration, the term first meant register for 
troops (cf. Suli, op. cit., 190; Kindi, Wuldt, 86; 
Baladhuri, Futuh, 454) and then any register. Only 
later was it used for office. It seems that the idea is 
foreign, but the term itself was in use earlier. 

i. — The Caliphate 

'Umar I instituted the first diwdn (usually called 
al-Diwdn) in Islam (Djahshiyari, op. cit., 16). The 
sources ascribe this action to the need to organize the 
pay, register the fighting forces, and set the treasury 
in order. (Cf. Djahshiyari, 16-17; Baladhuri, Futuh, 
449-51; MakrizI, KMtat, i. 148; Ya'kObl, Ta'rikh, ii, 
130; Abu Yusuf , Kharddj, 25; Suli, Adab, 190-1; Abu 
Salim, aW-Ihd, 154-5). Though some reports put this 
in 15 A.H., more reliable authorities prefer 20 A.H. 
(See Tabari, iv, 162; Ya'kubl, ii, 170; MakrizI, 
Khitat, i, 148-9; Baladhuri, Futuh, 450; Abu Yusuf, 
24). 

This first diwdn was the diwdn al-djund. The 
register covered the people of Medina, the forces 
that participated in the conquests and those who 
emigrated to join garrisons in the provinces, together 
with their families. Some mawdli were included in 
the register, but this practice was not continued. 
With the names, pay and rations were indicated 
(Abu HJbayd, al-Amwdl, nos. 562, 567, 568; Tabari, 
iv, 163). A committee of three genealogists carried 
out the registration, by tribes, and pay depended on 
past services to Islam and relationship to the prophet. 
Registration by tribes continued till the end of the 
Umayyad period. (Abu Yusuf, 24, 26-7; Tabari, iv, 
162-3; Ya'kubi, Ta'rikh, ii, 132; Abu HJbayd, 
Amwdl nos. 569, 520, 577; Baladhuri, Futuh 450 ff.; 
457-9, MakrizI, Khitat. i, 149-50). Similar diwdns (of 
djund) were set up in provincial capitals like Basra, 
Kufa and Fustat (cf. Djahshiyari, 21, 23; Tha 'alibi, 
LatdHf, 59). Besides, Byzantine and Sasanian 
diwdns of Kharadj continued to function in the 
provinces as before (Djahshiyari, 38; cf. 3). 

The Umayyad Period. — The diwdn al- 
kharddj of Damascus became the central diwdn 
and was now called 'al-diwdn' to indicate its 
importance. It looked after the assessment and 
levying of land taxes. Under Mu'awiya (d. 60/ 
680) the diwdn al-rasdHl (correspondence) took 
shape. The Caliph would read all correspondence 
and make his comments, and then the secretary 
(hdtib) would draw up the letters or documents 
required (Djahshiyari, 24, 34; Kalkashandi, i, 92). 
Mu'awiya established the diwdn al-hhdtam or 
'office of the seal', where a copy of each letter or 
document was made and kept while the original was 
checked, sealed and dispatched. It was set up as a 
check to prevent forgery (Djahshiyari, 25 ; Tha'alibi. 
LatdHf, 16; Nabia Abbott, Kurrah papyri, 14; See 
also Grohmann, CPR, iii, Bd. I/i, 17 ff). Baladhuri 
states that Ziyad b. Ablh, governor of c Irak, first 
organized it under Persian influence (Futuh, 464). 
Mu'awiya also initiated the diwdn al-barid (post 
office), which was later reorganized by c Abd al-Malik 
(d. 86/705) (see further barId). 

The diwdn al-djund carried out, at intervals, 
censuses of the Arabs by tribes to keep its registers 
up to date. The diwdn of Egypt made three censuses 
during the ist/7th century, the third by Kurra b. 
Sharlk in 95 A.H. (Kindi, Wuldt 86; Makrizi, 
Khitat, ', 151- 

The diwdn al-nafaftdt (expenditure), which is 
very probably a continuation of a Byzantine office, 
kept account of all expenditure (cf. Djahshiyari, 3). 



It seems to be closely linked to the treasury [Bayt al- 
Mdl [q.v.], Diahshiyari, 49). The diwdn al-sadaka 
was founded to assess the zakdt and c ushr [qq.v.~j. 
A diwdn al-mustaghalldt was established, appar- 
ently to administer government lands in cities, and 
buildings, especially silks rented to the people. The 
diwdn al-firdz was responsible for making banners, 
flags, official costumes and some furniture. The 
name of its secretary was inscribed on the cloth (cf. 
Diahshiyari, 60; Sabi, RasdHl, i, 141). 

Each province had a diwdn of kharddi to which 
all revenue came (li-wudjuhi 'l-amwdl), a diwdn of 
djund and a diwdn of rasdHl (Djahshiyari, 21, 23, 
24, 27, 36, 44-5, 60, 61, 63-4). The chief secretary of 
a diwdn received three hundred dirhams a month 
under Hadjdjadj (Diahshiyari, 61). 

c Abd al-Malik initiated the policy of Arabization 
in the diwdns, (irdz and currency. Hitherto, the 
diwdns of kharddi used local languages: Persian in 
'Irak and Persia, Greek in Syria, and Coptic and 
Greek in Egypt, and followed previous practices of 
book-keeping and recording. Even local seals and 
dates were frequently used. Arabic forms and 
formulas were introduced and previous calendars 
adjusted to the Muslim lunar year. (See PERF 
Nos 566, 559, 566, 586, 587, 572, 589, 601; CPR 
III Bd. I, Teil I 87, Teil II c-ci). Arabic was occas- 
ionally used (the first available papyrus dates from 
22 A.H. PERF no. 558) before it became the official 
language. However, local languages were occasionally 
used far into the 2nd/8th century (cf. Grohmann, 
Etude de papyrologie, i, 77-9; P. Lond IV, 417; 
Nabia Abbott, op. cit., 13-14). The arabization of 
the diwdns was effected in the Empire by stages. 
In 78/697 Hadjdjadi arabized the diwdns of 'Irak 
(Diahshiyari, 39; Baladhuri, Futuh, 300-1; Suli, 
Adab, 192); then in 81/700 <Abd al-Malik arabized 
the diwdns of Syria (Baladhuri, Futuh, 193; .Djah- 
shiyari, 40; Suli, Adab, 192-3). The diwdns of 
Egypt followed in 87/705 (Kind!, Wuldt, 80; Ibn 
'Abd al-Hakam, Futuh, 122; Makrizi, Khitat, i, rso). 
Finally, the diwdns of Khurasan were arabized under 
Hisham in 124/742 (Djahshiyari, 63-4). Dhimmis, 
who were the bulk of secretaries in these diwdns 
were to be removed, but some continued to be 
employed. The mawdli were always employed (cf. 
Djahshiyari, 61, 67, 38-40, 51; Tritton, The Caliphs 
and their non-Muslim subjects, Ch. ii; Kindi, Wuldt, 
80; Baladhuri, Futuh, 193; von Kremer, The Orient, 
196-7). 

The 'Abbasid period. — The 'Abbasids ex- 
tended and elaborated the Umayyad system 
of diwdns, and provided a central bureaucratic 
direction through the office of wazir [q.v.]. 

Under Saffah a diwdn for confiscated Marwanid 
lands was established (Djahshiyari, 90). It probably 
developed into the diwdn al-diyd', which looked 
after caliphal domains (ibid, 277). 

Under Mansur a temporary diwdn for confiscations 
(musddara) was created to look after confiscated 
properties of political enemies (Ya'kubl, hi, 127; 
al-Fakhri, 115). A diwdn al-ahshdm is mentioned; it 
probably looked after people in the service of the 
palace (Wiet-Ya'kubi, Les Pays, 15). There was a 
diwdn al-rikd c (petitions) responsible for collecting 
petitions to be presented to the Caliph (Ibn Tayfur; 
Ta'rikh Baghdad, vi). 

During the reign of Mahdi, in 162/778, we hear 
of diwdns of zimdm (control), one for each of the 
existing diwdns. In 168/784 a central diwdn, zimdm 
al-azimma, was established to control all zimdms. 
These diwdns checked the accounts of the diwdns, 



supervised their work and acted as intermediaries 
between single diwdns and the wazir or other diwdns 
(Diahshiyari, 146, 166, 168; Tabari, x, 1 1 ; Baladhuri, 
Futuh, 464). The diwdn al-mazdlim was created to 
look into complaints of the people against govern- 
ment agents. Judges sat in this diwdn (Fakhri, 131). 

The diwdn al-kharddi, it seems, looked after all 
land taxes, while the diwdn al-sadaka confined its 
work to the zakdt of cattle (cf. Ya'kubl, Bulddn, n; 
Abu Yusuf, Kharddi, 80-1). It had different sections, 
including one of diahbadha to check accounts and to 
examine the quality of items of revenue (i2iahshiyari, 
220 1 ; Tanukhl, al-Faradj, i, 39-40 [see further 
aiAHBADH]). Another section was the madilis al- 
'askuddr, where a record was made of incoming and 
outgoing letters and documents with the names of 
people concerned. The same section is found in the 
diwdn al-barid and in the diwdn al-rasdHl (Djah- 
shiyari, 199; Kh w arizml, Mafdtih al-'-ulum, 42, 50). 
Letters of the diwdn al-kharddi were checked in the 
diwdn al-khdtam, and delays here led Rashid to 
permit his wazir to send the letters directly 
(Diahshiyari, 178). 

Under Mutawakkil we hear of a diwdn al-mawdli 
wa 'l-ghilmdn, which may be another version of 
the diwdn al-ahshdm. It was concerned with slaves 
and clients of the Palace whose number was very 
large (Ya'kGbi, Bulddn, 23). 

The diwdn al-khdtam, also called diwdn al-sirr 
(confidential affairs) (Djahshiyari, 177), was of 
special importance because of the close relation its 
head kept with the Caliph (cf. Tabari, x, 51-2). 

In the provinces there were local diwdns of 
kharddi, djund and rasdHl which were smaller 
copies of the central diwdns (cf. Djahshiyari, 141, 



177, : 



-I). 



A distinguished kdtib was sometimes appointed 
over more than one diwdn (ibid., 266; cf. r79). 
Until the time of Ma'mun the salaries of kuttdb 
ranged between 300 dirhams and ten dirhams a 
month (Djahshiyari, 23, 126, 131-2. Djahi? states 
that the highest in pay after Ma'mfln was that of 
kdtib al-kharddi (cf. Three essays, ed. Finkel, 49). 
(See further katib). 

Diwdns reached full development during the 3rd- 
4th/9th-ioth centuries. 

The diwdn al-kharddi usually kept copies of records 
of local diwdns. But by the middle of the 3rd/9th 
century each province had a special diwdn (of 
kharddi) in the capital. Mu'tadid combined these 
diwdns and organized them into one diwdn called 
diwdn al-ddr (or diwdn al-ddr al-kabir). Under 
his successor Muktafi, it was reorganized in three 
diwdns: diwdn al-mashrik for Eastern provinces, 
diwdn al-maghrib for Western provinces, and 
diwdn al-sawdd for 'Irak. 'All b. c Isa considered 
the diwdn al-sawdd "the most important diwdn" 
(Miskawayh, Tadidrib al-umam, i, 152). However, 
under Muktadir a central office (diwdn al-ddr) still 
remained. The three diwdns remained under the 



tary n 






still 



considered sections of the diwdn al-ddr (Sabi, 
Wuzard\ 123-4, 131-2, 262; Yakut, Irshdd, i, 226; 
'Arib, 42; Miskawayh, i, 151-2; Bowen, C AH b. '■Isd, 
31-2). It seems that 'ddr' or palace refers to the ddr 
al-wizdra or ministerial residence (cf. Sabi, Wuzard', 
131). The secretary of the diwdn al-dar was authoriz- 
ed to communicate directly with the "-ummdl (Sabi, 
Wuzard', 177). After the Buwayhid occupation (334/ 
945) we hear only of diwdn al-sawdd because of the 
dismemberment of the caliphate (cf. Sabi, Td^rikh, 
467-8). 



The diwdns of kharddx kept a record of the areas 
of lands, the rates of taxation in money or in kind, 
and the measures used. (Mawardi, op. cit., 182-3; 
Kh'arizmi, Majdtih, 37). They received the revenue 
of kharddj, djizya and zakdt (al-Hasan b. c Abd 
Allah, Athdr al-uwal (Bulak 1295/72. Mawardl's 
reference to diwdn [al-'ushr could only mean a 
section of this diwdn. Mawardi, 182). 

When the diwdn al-ddr was formed, the relevant 
diwdns of zimdm were combined in one (SabI, 
Wuzard', 73, 84; idem, Ta'rikh, 468). The zimdm 
was "guardian of the rights of Bayt al-Mdl and the 
people" (Mawardi, 189). It kept another copy of the 
documents concerning lands in the diwdn al- 
kharddj an d checked assessments, orders for pay- 
ments and receipts (Mawardi, 190-1). An iktd' 
granted by Mu'tadid, and passed by the Wazir and 
the secretary of diwdn al-ddr, was not passed by 
the secretary of diwdn al-zimdm until he checked 
the iktd c in his records (SabI, Wuzard', 683). 

The diwdn al-nafakdt dealt with all diwdns. It 
examined accounts of their expenses and drew its 
reports (al-Hasan b. c Abd Allah, op. cit., 71). By 
the end of the 3rd/9th century it dealt mainly with 
the needs of Ddr al-Khildfa (Mez (Arabic), i, 125; 
cf. SabI, Wuzard', 11 ff.). It kept records of recurring 
and of current expenditures (SabI, Wuzard', 16), 
and had sub-sections dealing with various heads of 
expenditure (cf. Mez (Arabic) i, 125-6). There was a 
zimdm of nafakdt, and in 315/927 its secretary held 
the zimdm of treasury stores (khazd'in) as well 
(SOU, Akhbdr al-Rddi wa 'l-Muttaki, 61; Miskawayh, 

The diwdn of Bayt al-Mdl, also called al-diwdn 
al-sdmi, kept classified records of the sources of 
money and goods, coming to the Treasury, and 
maintained stores (khizdna) for the different cate- 
gories of revenue, and a small diwdn for each, such 
as diwdn al-khizdna (for cloth and money), diwdn 
al-ahrd' (for cereals), and diwdn khizdnat al-sildh 
(for arms) (al-Hasan b. c Abd Allah, op. cit., 72; cf. 
SabI, Wuzard', 16). This diwdn checked all items of 
income, and all expenditure had to be passed by it. 
The secretary's mark on all cheques and orders of 
payment was required by the wazir (Mez (Arabic), i, 
126-7). Usually, the diwdn drew up monthly and 
yearly balance sheets. (In 315/927 'All b. 'Isa 
requested weekly sheets. Miskawayh, i, 651-2; SabI, 
Wuzard'', 303, 306). 

The diwdn al-dxahbadha branched off from the 
Bayt al-Mdl. ([q.v.] See further daftar, djahbadh). 
The diwdn al-diyd' administered domains of the 
treasury (HamadanI, Takmila, 18; Miskawayh, i, 21; 
cf. SabI, Rasd'il, i, 139). Yet we hear at times of more 
than one diwdn for diyd'. In 325 A.H. there was a 
diwdn al-diyd' al-khdssa wa 'l-mustahdatha (i.e., 
Caliphal and newly acquired domains) and diwdn 
al-diyd'- al-Furdtiyya (i.e., Domains on the Euphrat- 
es) (SabI, Wuzard', 123-4; Miskawayh, i, 152). 

In 304/916 Ibn al-Furat established a diwdn al- 
mardfih (lit. aids; bribes, i.e., which were paid by 
governors, obviously from riches accumulated by 
dubious means). The mardfik amounted then to 
100,000 dinars per year from Syria and 200,000 
dinars from Egypt. C A1I b. 'Isa forbade the mardfik 
because they corrupted administration (Miskawayh, 
i, 44, 108, 241-2; SabI, Wuzard', 31-2, 81). 

While every diwdn dealing with finance had a 
zimdm, all diwdns of zimdm were occasionally put 
in one hand. In 295/907 the wazir of the one-day 
Caliph Ibn al-Mu'tazz put all the Usui (diwdns 
proper) under 'All b. c Is5 and the diwdns of zimdm 



under Ibn 'AbdOn (Miskawayh, i, 60). In 319/931 
the zimdms were put under one secretary and the 
usul under the wazir (Miskawayh, i, 226). This was 
repeated in 325/936-7 and in 327/938-9 (SOU, A khbdr 
al-Rddi wa 'l-Muttaki, 87, 147). 

The diwdn al-djund kept a register of the forces 
classified according to their ranks, and their pay or 
ikfd'. It consisted of two sections, one dealing with 
pay ('atd' [q.v.]) and expenses, and the other with 
recruiting and classification (tasnif) (Djahiz, Three 
essays, 49; Kudama calls them madjlis al-Takrir 
and madjlis al-Mukdbala, Mez (Arabic), i, 165. See 
also Mawardi, 179-80). This diwdn had a zimdm, 
called diwdn zimdm al-djaysh, to supervise its 
accounts and expenditure (Miskawayh, i, 152). 

The diwdn al-rasd'il was directly under the 
wazir or under a secretary. Letters and documents 
were drafted by the first secretary on the instructions 
of the wazir (or Caliph) and when approved by him 
the final copy was made. Sometimes, a special calli- 
grapher (muharrir) made the last copy. At intervals 
of three years, letters and documents were sent to 
the great store (al-khizdna al-'uzmd) to be finally 
classified and indexed (Kalkashandi, i, 96; Ibn 
al-Sayrafi, Kdnun diwdn al-rasd'il, 94, 100-3, 
108 ff., 116, 118, 144-5; Pjahiz, Three essays, 49; 
.Kh'arizmi, Mafdtih, 50; cf. SabI, Wuzard', 109 
where diwdn al-khard'it is used). The diwdn al- 
fadd, probably a section of the diwdn al-rasd'il in 
origin, received letters and documents, opened and 
classified them, put indications of their contents on 
the back, presented them to the wazir and kept a 
record of them. (Mez (Arabic), i, 130-1; Ibn al- 
Sayrafi, op. cit., 108; TawhidI, al-Imtd c wa 'l-mu'd- 
nasa, i, 98). In 315, Fadd and Khdtam were combined 
in one diwdn (Miskawayh, i,' 152). 

In 301 A.H. 'Ali b. 'Isa established a diwdn al- 
birr, to administer pious endowments and charitable 
gifts (wukuf and mdakdt). The revenue was spent 
on the holy places, in Mecca and Medina, and on 
volunteers in the Byzantine front (Miskawayh, i, 
257; cf. 151). The diwdn al-sadakdt continued to 
levy the zakdt of cattle. In 315/927 one secretary 
looked after the two diwdns of birr and sadakdt 
(Miskawayh, i, 152; SabI, Rasd'il, 111). 

Mention is made of a diwdn al-haram which 
looked after the affairs of the female section of the 
palace (Miskawayh, i, 152). 

There was a diwdn to administer confiscated 
property, called diwdn al-musddarin (SabI, Wuzard', 
306, 311). Two copies of confiscations were made, 
one for the diwdn, and the other for the wazir 
(Miskawayh, i, 155). A diwdn was created to ad- 
minister confiscated estates, diwdn al-diyd' al- 
makbiida (SabI, Wuzard', 21, 30; cf. Miskawayh, i, 
84; cf. HamadanI, Takmila, 83 where a diwdn al- 
mukhdlifin is mentioned, as administering the 
property of Mu'nis. 

It is clear that sections of a diwdn were sometimes 
called diwdns, while some diwdns were short-lived 
and were set up for temporary needs. Besides, more 
than one diwdn were sometimes put under one 
secretary (cf. SabI, Wuzard', 27, 123-4). 

In the reign of Mu'tadid, the two days rest was 
resumed, Tuesday for relaxation and Friday for 
prayers (SabI, Wuzard', 223). 

Salaries of the heads of diwdns varied. At the 
beginning of the 4th/ioth century, the secretary of 
the diwdn al-sawdd received 500 dinars per month 
and the secretary of the diwdn al-'atd' 10 dinars. In 
314, 'All b. 'Isa reduced salaries by one third, so 
the secretary of the diwdn al-sawdd got 333V2 dinars, 



326 



a nd the secretaries of the diwdn al-fadd and diwdn 
al-khatam 200 dinars each. The secretaries of the 
diwdn al-mashrik and diwdn al-diyd'- al-khdssa wa 
'l-mustahdatha 100 dinars each, the secretary of the 
diwdn al-ddr 500 dinars, and the secretary of the 
diwdns of zimdm, together with his kuttdb, 2700 
dinars (Sabi, Wuzard', 31, 84, 177. 178, 314; cf. ibid. 
20-1; Miskawayh, i, 68). Measures of economy led 
C A1I b. 'Isa to reduce the year to 8-10 months of pay, 
and this became a common practice (Sabi, Wuzard'', 
314; Miskawayh, i, 152. 

In the Buwayhid period (334-447/945-1055), we 
still hear of a diwdn al-sawdd with a secretary and 
an assistant-secretary (khalifa) , and of a diwdn al- 
diyd' (or al-diyd' al-khdffa) (Sabi, Ta'rikh, year 
390 A.H., 401-2, year 392 A.H., 467-8; Miskawayh, 
ii, 1 20-1; Abu Shudja 1 , Dhayl Tadidrib al-umam, 
147). The central diwdn for finance was now called 
al-Diwdn; it was under the wazir or a secretary next 
to him in importance (cf. Miskawayh, ii, year 338 
A.H., 242, 263, 266; Abu Shudja c , 143). In 389/ 
999, a special diwdn was set up to levy the 'ushr 
on silk cloth made in Baghdad (Sabi, TaMKh, 364). 
The diwdn al-nafakdt continued (Miskawayh, ii, 
120-1) with a special zimdm to check expenditure 
in accounts and in amount (cf. Sabi, Td'rikh, 353, 
357). However, there was the diwdn al-zimdm to 
supervise financial diwdns (ibid., 467-8). The diwdn 
of the Treasury was called diwdn al-khazdHn or 
diwdn al-khazn (Abu Shudja', 76, Sabi, Ta?rikh, 
368; Kh w arizmi, Mafdtih, 41). The head of its 
diwdn was the khdzin or ndzir , and at times, the mint 
{ddr al-darb) was put in his charge (Abu Shudja 1 , 
250-1). Al-Tawhldi, however, mentions a special 
diwdn for the mint called diwdn al-nakd wa 'l-Hydr 
wa ddr al-darb (Imtd", i, 98). 

The diwdn al-djund was divided into two diwdns, 
one for the Daylamites and the other for the Turks 
(the two main elements of the army) and called 
diwdn al-diayshayn (Sabi, Ta'rikh, 467-8). There 
was however one head or paymaster, called al-'drid 
(Abu Shudja', 258). 

The Fat imids. — Fa timid diwdns are basically 
related to the 'Abbasid. The diwdn al-rasdHl is 
here diwdn al-inshd'; its head is sahib diwdn al- 
inshd' or kdtib al-dast al-sharif. The detailed account 
of this diwdn given by Ibn al-Sayrafi shows that 
it was similar to the c Abb5sid diwdn. (See Ibn 
al-Sayrafi, Kdnun diwdn al-rasdHl, ed. A. Bahjat, 
Cairo 1905; MakrizI, Khitat. ii, 244, 306; iii, 140; 
Kalkashandi, iii, 490; i, 103; x, 310; Ibn al-Kalanisi, 
Dhayl ta'rikh Dimashk, 80; Shayyal, al-WathdHk 
al-Fdtimiyya, 365). 

The diwdn al-djund was called diwdn al-diaysh, 
or diwdn al-diaysh wa 'l-rawdtib (office of troops 
and salaries). It consisted of two sections: the diwdn 
al-diaysh, under a mustawfi, dealing with the 
recruitment, equipment and inspection of the troops, 
and the diwdn al-rawdtib dealing with pay. However, 
other references show that the two diwdns were often 
separate, the first under sahib diwdn al-diaysh and 
the latter concerned with salaries of the military 
and civilians (See MakrizI, Khifaf, ii, 242; Kalka- 
shandi, iii, 492-3, 495, cf. Ibn al-Sayrafi, Ishdra, 25, 
47; Makrizi, Itti'dz, year 542; Shayyal, WathdHk, 
304). The Fatimids, who attached great importance 
to the fleet, had a diwdn al- l amdHr to look after the 
construction of ships and their forces (Kalkashandi, 
iii, 496). 

Accounts of the diwdns of finance are involved. 
The diwdn al-madjlis seems to have been the central 
bureau. It had different sections, one of which dealt 



with fiefs {ikfd'dt). It was probably similar to the 
'Abbasid 'al-Diwdn'. It made the estimate of the 
budget (istimdr) when required, after getting 
estimates from all diwdns (MakrizI, Khitat. ii, 236 ff.; 
i, 160-2; cf. ii, 245; Shayyal, WathdHk, 325). The 
diwdn al-nazar had general control over the diwdns 
of finance (amwdl) and over their officials. It seems 
to correspend to the central diwdn of kharddi of the 
'Abbasids (cf. Shayyal, WathdHk, 304, i, Ibn al-Say- 
rafl, Ishdra 35 ; Makrizi, Khitat, ii, 241 ; Kalkashandi, 
i". 493)- The diwdn al-tafrkik was linked to diwdn 
al-nazar, but its function was to check the accounts 
of other diwdns of finance. It is parallel to the 
c Abbasid central zimdm (MakrizI, ii, 242; Kalka- 
shandi, iii, 493, i, 401; Ibn Muyassir, Akhbdr, 43). 

The diwdn al-khdss looked after the financial 
affairs of the palace (MakrizI, IUi'dz, 200). The 
office of wakf was the diwdn al-ahbds (Kalkashandi, 
iii, 494-5). The diwdn al-mawarith al-hashriyya was 
instituted to administer escheated and heirless 
property (Ibn Muyassir, 56; Kalkashandi, iii, 496). 

The Mazdlim [q.v.] were presented to the Caliph 
or wazir. There was a diwdn al-tawki 1 , with two 
secretaries, to deal with them (Makrizi, Itti'dz, 307; 
Kalkashandi, 491). 

Salaries pf secretaries varied. The secretary for 
inshd* got 150 dinars monthly, that of nazar 70, of 
bayt al-mdl 100, of tahkili 50, and the secretaries of 
djaysh, tawki' madilis and ikta 1 40 dinars each. 
Lesser secretaries got 5-10 dinars (Kalkashandi, iii, 
526; MakrizI, Khitat. ii, 243). Non-Muslims were 
widely employed in the diwdns and this led to 
occasional reactions against them (cf. Ibn al-Kala- 
nisi, 59; Ibn al- c Ibri, Ta'rikh, 370; Ibn al-Sayrafi, 
al-Ishdra, 34, 35, 48, 53. cf. Tritton, op. cit., ch. ii). 

The 1 1 t h - 1 3_t h centuries. — Since the 
Buwayhid period, the diwdn al-rasdHl had been 
called diwdn al-inshd', and its secretary kdtib 
al-inshd? (Abu Shudja' 153-4; Ibn al-Djawzi, Mun- 
tazam, ix, 55; x, 125; Ibn al-Fuwati, Ifawddith, 
16; Ibn al-Sa% Djdmi c , ix, 222). The central bureau 
was al-Diwdn (cf. Ibn al-Djawzi, ix, 91, 27, 28, 29, 
83). It was headed by the wazir, and at times by a 
secretary called sahib al-diwdn (Ibn al-Djawzi, x, 
56, 165, 125). Later it was called al-diwdn al-'aziz 
(cf. al-Fuwati, 47, 63, 88; Ibn al-Sa% Didmi\ ix, 
285). 

Finances were primarily the concern of diwdn al- 
zimdm, which in effect carried the work of diwdn 
al-kharddj; fief farmers and governors sent revenue 
to it (Ibn al-Sa% ix, 16). It had two sections: the 
main diwdn headed by a kdtib (kdtib al-zimdm) 
(cf. Ibn al-Djawzi, ix, 150, 223, x, 27, 124) later 
called sadr, and the other section headed by a 
mushrif who supervised the work of the diwdn and 
the revenue (Ibn al-Sa% ix, 98-9, 118; Ibn al-Fuwati, 
16, 62, 63). Each province (or district) had such a 
diwdn headed by a ndzir and a mushrif (Ibn al- 
Fuwati, 63, 101). 

Al-mahhzan al-ma'mur replaced, in time, al- 
makhzan (treasury) used for Bayt al-Mdl, and its 
head sahib al-makhzan was replaced by ndzir or 
sadr. This diwdn supervised the mint also (cf. Ibn 
al-Djawzi, x, 24-5, 52, 125; ix, 125, 155, 216). His 
standing was very high (cf. Ibn al-Djawzi, ix, 203). 
In 594/1198 the sadr of this diwdn was given 
authority over all diwdns (Ibn al-Sa% ix, 250). It 
had many sections each headed by a ndzir (for 
example khizdnat al-ghalldt. Ibn al-Fuwati, 7. 37- 
cf. Ibn al-Djawzi, ix, 83; x, 52; Ibn al-Sa c i, ix, 103, 
127. He describes the ceremony of appointment, 
141). Here, again, there was a mushrif to supervise 



the work of the makhzan. Obviously, ishrdf replaces 
the old zimdm (Ibn al-Fuwafl, 103; Ibn al-Sa c I, ix, 
20, 229). 

The diwdn al-diawdli (i.e., poll-tax) looked after 
assessing and levying the poll-tax. (See qiawalI, 
Biizya). A new bureau, diwdn al-tarikdt al-hashriyya, 
appeared to administer heirless property (Ibn al- 
Sa'i, 107; Ibn al-DjawzI, x, 68). The diwdn al- 
c akdr, headed by a ndzir, looked after buildings, 
such as shops, owned by the state (Ibn al-Fuwati, 63; 
cf. Ibn al-DjawzI, x, 243). Building and repairs, 
however, were the concern of another bureau called 
diwdn al-abniya (building bureau). It had engineers 
and architects among its staff (Ibn al-Sa c I, ix, 93, 
184). In 635/1237-8 it participated in repairing the 
walls of Baghdad (Ibn al-Fuwati, in). The diwdn 
al-hisba was usually under the Kadi al-Kuddt, or 
under a deputy (Ibn al-Sa'I, ix, 16; Ibn al-Fuwati, 
64). 

Non-Muslims worked with Muslims in financial 
offices to the end of the Caliphate. Occasionally 
restrictions against them were enforced, but only 
temporarily. In 533/1139, Jews and Christians were 
expelled from al-Diwdn and al-Mahhzan only to be 
returned after one month (Ibn al-Djawzi, x, 78). 
The repetition of such orders (like that of al-Nasir 
li-Din Allah in 601 A.H.) shows that they were not 
enforced and non-Muslims continued to be employed 
(Ibn al-Sa% ix, 162). 

Bibliography: Given in the article. See 
further Nabia Abbott, The Kurrah papyri, 
Chicago 1938; British Museum Greek Papyri IV, 
the Aphrodito Papyri, ed. H. I. Bell, London 
1910; National Bibliotheh Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer 
Vienna 1894; Corpus Papyrorum Raineri Archi- 
ducis Austriae III, ed. Adolf Grohmann, 1923-4; 
H. F. Amedroz, Abbasid administration in its 
decay . . ., in JRAS, 1913, 823-42; H. Bowen, The 
life and times of 'All b. <Isd, Cambridge 1928; 
A. A. Duri, al-Nuzum al-Isldmiyya, i, Baghdad 
1950; R. Levy, The social structure of Islam, 
Cambridge 1957, 325 ff.; S. A. Q. Husaini, Arab 
administration, Madras 1949, 76 ff., 149 ft.; Mez, 
Renaissance, chapter VI ; (Arabic tr. by A. H. 
Abu Rida, 2 v., Cairo 1920-1); D. Sourdel, Le 
vizirat '■abbdside de 132/750 a 324I934, Damascus 
1961. (A. A. Duri) 

ii. Egypt. 

Three periods may be distinguished in the devel- 
opment of the Egyptian diwdn, though, since con- 
tinuity in administrative institutions tends to be 
stronger than changes of governments, there are in 
reality no clear cleavages: (1) the time when Egypt 
was a province of the great Muslim Empire (18/649- 
358/969); (2) the Fatimid caliphate (358/969-567/ 
1171); (3) the Ayyubid and Mamluk period (567/ 
1171-923/1517). 

The sources for the first section are scattered 
remarks in the earlier and later historians and 
manuals for kuttdb as well as the growing number 
of Arabic papyri. For the second and third periods 
the manuals and encyclopaedic works for kuttdb 
provide ample materials which increase by the end 
of the mediaeval period; and the historians supple- 
ment the actual facts rather than the more theoretical 
explanations of the former. Among the latter al- 
Makrizl's (d. 845/1442) al-Khi(a( is of outstanding 
importance, as he gives a nearly continuous history 
of the Egyptian administration from the Muslim 
conquest until his own time (ed. Bulak, i, 81 ff., 
397 ff.; ii, 215 ff.), besides many important additions 



AN 327 

in the scattered "vitae" and the descriptions of 
buildings etc. 

(1) The Muslims carried on the administrative 
practice in Egypt that the Byzantines had estab- 
lished with the help of the resident Christian 
population, even allowing them the use of the Coptic 
language. 

Since the term diwdn was not in use in Egypt 
under the Byzantines, we may deduce that it was 
brought by the new masters. Severus b. al-Mukaffa c 
(living about 1000 A.D.; see ibn al-mu?affa c , 
abu'l-bashar) reports that the second governor 
c Abd Allah b. Sa c d b. Sahl (24/644-35/656, [?.».] 
"established the diwdn at Misr (al-Fustat) to which 
all the taxes of Egypt were paid" (History of 
the Patriarchs of Alexandria, ed. C. F. Seybold 103; 
ed. B. T. Evetts {Patr. Orient, v) i, 50, quoted 
by N. Abbott, The Kurra papyri, 13, and D. C. 
Dennett, Conversion and poll tax, 74). Unfortu- 
nately the Muslim sources do not offer any 
confirmation either for the establishment of a 
central revenue office, or the use of the word diwdn 
for it at such an early time. Al-MakrizI relates 
(Khitat. i, 94, 2-10) that the governor Maslama b. 
Mukhlid al-Ansari (47/667-62/682 ; al-Kindi, ed. Rh. 
Guest 38-40; Makrizi, Khitat i, 301, 18-27) appointed 
an official to go round among the immigrant Arabs 
each morning to inquire about changes in their 
family status, or the arrival of guests, and to report 
it to the diwdn. The governor would then advise the 
ahl al-diwdn (the officials of the diwdn) to pay the 
increased pensions. This narration indicates the 
existence of an organized office called diwdn, as 
well as its concern with registration and the payment 
of pensions to the immigrant Arabs. The same use 
of the term diwdn also appears in a note by al- 
Kindi (ed. Guest 71; Makrizi, Khitat i, 94, 10-3): 
the first diwdn was established in Egypt by 'Amr b 
al- c As, the second by c Abd al- c Aziz b. Marwan, the 
third by Kurra b. Shank [q.v.], the fourth by Bishr 
b. Safwan. After the establishment of the fourth 
diwdn nothing worth mentioning happened except 
the admission of the Kays into the diwdn during 
the caliphate of Hisham b. c Abd al-Malik b. Marwan 
(105/724-125/743). Al-Kindi (ed. Guest 76) refers 
to that event in the year 109/727 : 3000 families 
of the Kays were transferred to Egypt together 
with their diwdns. These notes show that the 
term diwdn was used from an early time to 
denote (a) the pension lists of the Muslim-Arab 
tribes, (b) that these lists accompanied the tribe 
wherever it moved, (c) that consequently the diwdn 
(pension list) of the Kays was transferred to Egypt 
and there added to the other already existing diwdns. 

During the second half of the ist/7th century, the 
use of the term diwdn to denote central government 
offices must have become more general. We read 
(al-Kindi, 58-9; al-Makrizi, al-Khift, i, 98, 11-15) 
that the change-over from Coptic to Arabic in the 
Egyptian diwdns took place in 87/705 (cf. ed. 
Wiet, ii, 58). This can only mean that in the above- 
mentioned year the term diwdn was already the 
name of the central government office at al-Fustat. 
The first independent director of finances ( c dmil al- 
kharddi) was Usama b. Zayd al-Tanukhi who was 
appointed in 96/715 by the caliph Sulayman b. 
<Abd al-Malik on the death of the governor Kurra 
b. Sharik. That Usama worked with the help of a 
diwdn is shown by the report of al-Makrizi (Khitat. 
i. 77, 37-8, 3) that MJmar b. c Abd al-'Aziz (99/717- 
101/720) abolished the poll-tax for Muslims and 
notified the diwdn (al-kharddil) about it. In 



328 Dl\ 

105/725 the governor al-Hurr b. Yusuf sent offi- 
cials of the diwdn against Coptic peasants 
in order to enforce the payment of higher 
taxes. Two years later the well-known c am»7 al- 
kharddj Ibn Habhab (C. H. Becker, Beitrdge, ii, 
107-10) set up lists of taxpayers which were carefully 
put together and provided with detailed information 
for the diwdn al-kharddj (al-Makrizi, Khi^ai, ". 74. 
24 & 99, 10). Ashdb al-ahrd' (officers of the govern- 
ment granary) are already mentioned in a papyrus 
dated Shawwal 90/August-September 709; it seems 
likely that they were officials of the diwdn al-ahrd' 
listed later by al-NabulusI (C. H. Becker, Pap. 
Schott-Reinhardt 70, 37 & 49! see below). — The 
diwdn al-barid {diwdn of the post) is alleged by 
al-MakrizI (Khitaf, ii, 226, 27-9; W. Bjorkmann, 
Staatshanzlei, 18 note 3) to have preceded the 
diwdn al-inshd' in early times; and A. Grohmann 
(Studien 2. hist. Geogr. und Verw. 35) takes it for 
granted that revenue-offices with a director (<dmil) 
and his deputy existed in the main places of the 
provinces (kurd) besides many other offices. The 
existence of the diwdn asfal al-ard (diwdn of Lower 
Egypt) is proved by a papyrus dated 143/761 
(C. H. Becker, Pap. Schott-Reinhardt, 36, note 9; 
A. Grohmann, APEL IV 143; see below). 

An increase of the number of diwdns can be 
noticed in the years shortly before the rise of the 
Tulunids (al-Makrizi, Khitat i, 107, 28-9; C. H. 
Becker, Beitrdge ii, 144; A. Grohmann, Zum Steuer- 
wesen im arabischen Agypten, in Actes d. V. Cong. 
Int. d. Pap., Brussels 1938, 132): The famous 
director of finances Ibn Mudabbir introduced new 
taxes on pasture and fishing (mardH, masdyid) and 
established a special diwdn for their administration. 
On the other hand an order of the caliph al-Mu c tasim 
terminated the pension-rights of Arab settlers and 
therefore presumably of the relevant diwdns. The 
seat of the diwdn al-kharddj at al-Fustat was at :" 
a building near the mosque of 'Amr ; the mutawalli 
'l-kharadj (inspector of finances) used to sit in public 
in the mosque itself in order to assess the fiefs. 
Ahmad b. Tulun transferred the seat of the diwdn 
to the mosque of Ahmad b. Tulun where it remained 
until the Fatimid period (al-Makrizi, Khi(a(, i, 82, 
3-15). — A papyrus dated 301/913 describes the local 
tax-office as diwdn al-kharddj (A. Grohmann, APEL 
IV s , 227). The de facto independence of Egypt under 
Ahmad b. Tulun from the Baghdad caliphate was 
shown by the foundation of the diwdn al-inshd' 
(chancellery of state) as first head of which was 
appointed Abu Dja'far Muhammad b. c Abd Kan 
(d. 278/868, al-Kalkashandl, i, 95; W. Bjorkman, 
18-9; Zaki Mohammad Hassan, Les Tulunides, 191- 
216 & 280-2). 

(2). The Fatimid period. Our main sources 
are (a) for general information (1) al-Kalkashandi 
(iii, 490-6; Wustenfeld, 188-94); (2) al-Makrizi 
(Khitat, i, 397-402); (3) for the last decades of the 
Fatimid dynasty and the first years of the Ayyubids 
Ibn Mammati (Kawdnin al-dawdwin, viii and ix); 
(b) for the diwdn al-inshd' especially Ibn al-$ayraf!'s 
Kanun diwdn al-inshd''. The reports of al-Kalka- 
shandi and al-Makrizi are largely based on the lost 
Nushat al-muklatayn ji akhbdr al-dawlatayn al- 
Fdtimiyya wa 'l-Sdlifriyya by al-Murtada Abu 
Muhammad c Abd al-Salam b. Muhammad b. al- 
Tuwayr al-Kaysarani, life-time unknown (Hadjdji 
khalifa, (ed. G. Fliigel) vi, 334, no. 13720; R. Guest, 
Writers, books, etc., in the Khitat, in JRAS, 1902, 
117; C. H. Becker, Beitrdge, i, 29-30; W. Bjorkman, 
26 note 1, 83). According to Ibn al-Tuwayr 



Kalkashandi, iii, 93; al-Makrizi, Khif"t, ". 397. 32 ff.; 
see also al-Nabulusi, Lam'a chapter iii, in CI. Cahen, 
Quelques aspects 103) the first central admini- 
strative office and the mother of all the other 
diwdns had been the diwdn al-madjlis (diwdn of the 
council) in which the whole of the administration 
was concentrated. A number of clerks sat there in 
their own rooms with one or two assistants (muHn). 
The chief of this diwdn was responsible for the grant 
of fiefs (iktd'-at; C. H. Becker, Islamstudien, i, 226; 
W. Bjorkman, Index; CI. Cahen, Evolution de I'iktd', 
in Annates ESC 1953), and his decisions were called 
daftar al-madjlis (record of the council). The different 
departments of the diwdn al-madjlis dealt with such 
topics as alms, gifts, clothing and administration ot 
the private purse of the sultan. Our sources do not 
state whether that diwdn existed already before the 
Fatimids or when its splitting up into different 
independent diwdns took place. But it seems probable 
that the diwdn al-madjlis was the predecessor of the 
diwdn al-amwdl, and that the diwdn al-inshd' 
existed side by side with it. 

The following list of diwdns culled from the 
above-mentioned sources can not claim to be a 
complete one. It should be kept in mind that the 
different offices styled diwdn do not rank on the 
same level, as diwdn denotes sometimes even 
provincial branches of central offices. 

(i) Diwdn al-inshd', or al-rasd'il, or al-mukdtabdt 
(chancellery of state) is subdivided into three 
departments: 1) Safrdbal diwdn al-inshd' wa 'l-mukd- 
tabdt, or diwdn al-nazar (head office or control- 
office). Its head was called ra'is (head), or mutawalli 
(superintendent), or sahib (master), or mushidd 
(director), and addressed as al-shaykh al-adjall 
(excellency). His exalted position resulted from his 
influence with the caliph to whom he brought the 
papers of state and whom he advised on their an- 
swering. He was assisted, according to Ibn al-Sayrafi, 
by two high-rank officials, The other two depart- 
ments of the diwdn al-inshd' were (2) the office of 
appeal (tawki'dt bi 'l-kalam al-dakik) which dealt 
with the caliph's decisions about complaints which 
any person could bring before him during a public 
audience, and (3) the registrar's office (tawki'-dt bi 
'l-kalam al-djalil), which executed the decisions of 
the office of appeal, with copious legal notes to the 
petitioner. Other minor offices of the diwdn al- 
inshd' included (a) the bureau for correspondence 
with foreign princes (mukdtaba ila 'l-muluk), (b) the 
appointments board (inshd'dt, taklid), (c) the bureau 
for correspondence with high officials in the prov- 
inces and nobles (mukdtaba ila umard' al-dawla wa- 
hubard'ihd), (d) the bureau for the letters-patent 
(mandshir), secret decrees (kutub litdj) and copies 
(nusakh). Besides these departments four clerks of 
lesser rank are mentioned, who, however, do not 
conduct independent bureaus: the copyist (ndsikh), a 
clerk for the safe-keeping of records in systematic 
order so that they could be used as models for later 
usage, the keeper of original documents (khizin) and 
the chamberlain (fiddjib) who takes care that no un- 
authorized person trespasses into the presence of the 
chief of the diwdn (Ibn al-Sayrafi-Masse, Index; al- 
Kalkashandi, i, 130 & iii, 490 ff.; W. Bjorkman 
20 ff.; al-Makrizi, Khitat i, 402). 

(ii) Diwdn al-djaysh wa 'l-rawdtib (diwdn of the 
army and the salaries) is divided into three depart- 
ments: (a) diwdn al-djaysh a kind of war office as 
well as military administration; its principal must 
be a Muslim; (b) diwdn al-rawdtib, the central pay 
office for all receivers of salaries from the wazir down 



to the cavalry trooper (cf . A. Mez, Renaissance 74-6) ; 
(c) diwdn al-ik(d ( (diwdn of fiefs and pensions) for 
civilians, as the military personnel belonged to the 
diwdn al-rawdtib (al-Kalkashandi, iii, 492-3; al- 
MakrizI, Khitat i. 401-2). 

(iii) Diwdn al-amwdl (diwdn of finance, the 
treasury) was divided into fourteen departments, 
also called diwdn, which are enumerated by al- 
Kalkashandi (iii, 493-6) and much more briefly by al- 
Makrizi ( Khitat, i, 400-1). Ibn Mammati offers a list 
of seventeen employees of the class of civil servants 
(asmd* al-mustakhdamin min hamal al-ihlim) which 
apparently belonged to the staff of the diwdn al- 
amwdl; but it is not always clear to which of the 
14 departments these 17 groups correspond (ed. 
A. S. Atiya 297-306). (a) Nazar al-dawdwin, or 
diwdn al-nazar (control-office of the diwdn). The 
head of it is ex officio the chief of the diwdn al-amwdl, 
i.e., the chancellor of the exchequer. Ibn Mammati 
distinguishes between the ndzir of the diwdn (the 
controller, auditor) who checked and countersigned 
the accounts and the mutawalli (superintendent) who 
was responsible for all business (C. H. Becker, 
Islamstudien i, 170, 173; (6) diwdn al-tahkik (diwdn 
of official enquiry (cf. Dozy s.v.) was founded 
by al-Afdal b. Badr al-Djamali [q.v.] in 501/1 107-8, 
when a Jew and a Christian were employed as its 
heads; later on it was not filled for most of the time 
(Ibn al-Sayrafi/Masse 82 note 1); (c) diwdn al-madilis 
(see above xxx) only administered royal gifts, 
alms etc.; (d) diwdn khazd'in al-kiswa, diwdn of the 
storehouses of clothing; about the numerous store- 
houses see the long lists in al-Kalkashandi, iii, 
475 ff. and al-Makrizi, Khitat, i, 408 ff. ; (e) Diwdn 
al-(irdz (diwdn of the embroidered garment-factories 
and storehouses). The diwdn maintained several 
branches at places where the factories were situated, 
e.g., Alexandria, Damietta, Tannis (Ibn Mammati 
330-1; A. Grohmann. Stud. z. hist. Geogr. u. Verw., 
44); (/) diwdn al-ahbds (diwdn of endowments). 
Since its foundation by the caliph al-Mu c izz in 
363/974 the diwdn dealt with the administration 
of pious foundations (wakj [q.v.]); its officials were 
Muslims only (al-Makrizi, Khitat, ii, 295ff.;Cl. 
Cahen, Le regime des impdts, in Arabica, iii, 24-5; 
(g) diwdn al-rawdtib (diwdn of wages). It is not 
clear what the relation had been between this 
diwdn and the office of the same name in the diwdn 
al-djaysh. It seems possible that this diwdn al-rawdtib 
had been a kind of predecessor to the diwdn al- 
khass (the diwdn of the private fund of the caliph; 
al-Kalkashandi, iii, 495 and 457); (A) diwdn al-SaHd 
(diwdn of Upper Egypt); (t) diwdn Asjal al-ard 
(diwdn of Lower Egypt); (;') diwdn al-thughiir 
(diwdn of the frontier districts). The marches of 
Alexandria, Damietta, Tannis and 'Aydhab formed 
an administrative unity for the purpose of levying 
import-taxes from the merchants at the ports (al- 
khums and matdjar [see maks]; Ibn Mammati 
325-7); (k) diwdn al-djawdli wa 'l-mawdrith al- 
hashriyya (diwdn of the poll tax and estate duty of 
dhimmis; F. Lokkegaard, Islamic Taxation 51 & 
140-1; C. H. Becker, Islamstudien, i, 172; Ibn 
Mammati 306, 317-8 and 454; CI. Cahen, Le rigime 
des impdts, in Arabica, iii, 24; (I) diwdn al-kharddji 
wa 'l-hildli (diwdn of the lawful and illegal taxes). 
F. Lokkegaard, 185-6; C. H. Becker, Islamstudien, i, 
177-9). Ibn Mammati enumerates several officials 
connected with this diwdn: al-djahbadh (the tax 
collector), al-shdhid (the notary) who countersigned 
the invoices, al-mdsih (the surveyor), etc.; (m) diwdn 
al-hurd or al-is(ibldt (diwdn of the horses or the 



AN 329. 

stables); (n) diwdn al-djihdd or aW-amdHr (diwdn 
of the holy war, or the navy). Its seat was in the 
dockyards at Cairo, and it served as administrative 
centre for the navy (Ibn Mammati, 340-1). 

(3). The Ayyubid period. The political and 
religious break which the end of the Fatimid cali- 
phate meant for Egypt was counterbalanced by the 
administrative continuity clearly demonstrated by 
the leading personality: the last sdhib diwdn al- 
insha*, al-Kadl al-Fadil Muhyi al-DIn, [q.v.], was 
kept on by Saladin in the same office and later 
on created wazir. Hence al-Kadl al-Fadil and 
his numerous pupils form a link between the two 
periods. As already mentioned Ibn Mammati's 
Kawdnin al-dawdwin can serve as a contemporary 
source for the first half of the Ayyubid period; for 
the second half two other contemporary authors 
have come down: Ibn Shith al-Kurashi and c Uthman 
al-Nabulusi. Like Ibn Mammati, Ibn Shith al- 
Kurashi was a pupil of al-Kadl al-Fadil whose high 
esteem he gained by his skill in poetry and prose. 
He went to Damascus where he became the head of 
the diwdn al-insha'' and the friend of al-Mu c azzam 
b. al- c Adil (d. 624/1227). Ma'-alim al-kitdba, being 
a guide to the correct form of letter-writing for 
clerks of the diwdn al-inshd', offers but one 
chapter dealing with our theme (pp. 23-32). The 
diwdn al-insha* is in the eyes of Ibn Shith the most 
important government office, hence its head (sdhib 
al-diwdn) should be of a moral standard that cor- 
responds to his exalted rank and the high esteem he 
enjoys among his colleagues. His next subordinate 
to whom he forwards the answering of letters and 
deeds was called mutawalli kitdbat al-insha', (super- 
intendent of the secretariat of the chancellery). 
Other offices enumerated by Ibn Shith: diwdn al- 
djuyush whose chief (kdtib al-djaysh) holds a lower 
rank than the sdhib diwdn al-inshd', and needs an 
account-book (djarida) with the names and fiefs of all 
the military personnel to be in a position to pay out 
their salaries, even if no head of the diwdn al-iktd' 
should have been appointed. The diwdn al-iktd c 
apparently was an independent office, whose head 
was of lower rank than that of the diwdn al-djaysh 
and both worked together with and under the 
control of the sdhib diwdn al-nazar who is the same 
person as the sdhib diwdn al-mdl, i.e., the chancellor 
of the exchequer. This important appointment is 
carried out directly by the sultan. The assistant to 
the sdhib diwdn al-mdl is called mustawfi (book- 
keeper); other ranks of the treasury include the 
shdhid bayt al-mdl (notary of the treasury), the 
mushdrif (the supervisor), the djahbadh (the tax- 
collector) and the khdzin (the recorder). Al-Nabulusi 
enumerates only the following diwdns : (a) diwdn al- 
djuyush, (b) diwdn al-insha', (c) diwdn al-ahbds that 
had grown into an independent ministry out of a 
branch office of the diwdn al-amwdl in the Fatimid 
period (above xx), (d) diwdn al-mdl which is divided 
into two departments (i) diwdn bi 'l-a'-mdl (diwdn 
for the provinces) and (ii) diwdn bi 'l-bdb (diwdn for 
the court). These two names and the offices are new 
ones; the first one seems to have taken the place of 
the diwdn al-SaHd, diwdn asfal al-ard and diwdn 
al-thughur; it administered the kharddji and hildli 
taxes in these provinces. The diwdn bi 'l-bdb managed 
the zakdt, and djawdli, and wawdrith duties as well 
as the control (nazar) of all other treasure depart- 
ments including the former diwdn al-tahkifr, diwdn 
al-madjdlis, etc. 

A wider and vaguer use of the term diwdn is found 
in such expression of the Lum'-a al-kawdnin as 



diwdn khazdHn al-sildh (diwdn of the arsenal), 
diwdn sdhil al-sanaf (diwdn of the acacia-coast, Ibn 
Mamma tl, ed. A. S. Atiya 347-8; al-MakrlzI, Khi(a( 
ed. Wiet ii, (MIFAO xiii, 1913) 108 note 4), and 
diwdn al-ahrd? (see above xxx). Al-Nabutusi also 
mentions the diwdn al-zakdt, diwdn al-mawdrith and 
al-diwdn al-nabawi (diwdn for the descendants of 
the Prophet) an office otherwise known as nikdbat 
al-ashrdf, whose head was called nakib al-ashrdf 
<syndic of the Prophet's descendants (W. Popper, 
Egypt and Syria 101, 15; W. Bjorkman, Index). 
(4). The Mamluk period. The administration 
under the Mamluks shows an increasing influence of 
the military class (arbdb or ashdb al-suyif) over the 
civilians, the kuttdb (arbdb al-akldm), in many govern- 
mental departments, such as exercised by the ustd- 
ddr, the dawdddr [qq.v], etc. Ibn Khaldun considers 
it as typical sign of "senility" of an epoch and a 
dynasty, as in such a situation "the sword" has the 
advantage over "the pen" (ii, 41, tr. Rosenthal ii, 
47; I. Goldziher, Ueber DualtiUl, in WZKM xiU 
{1899), 321-9). Two reforms of administration have 
been tried which both affected the diwdns: Sultan 
al-Nasir Muhammad b. Kala'iin (709/1309-741/1341) 
abolished for the first time in 710/1310 the 
■wizdra and divided its functions between four 
officials: ndzir al-mdl (controller of the exchequer), 
shddd al-dawdwin (superintendent of the diwdns), 
ndzir al-khdss (controller of the private funds of the 
sultan ; W. Popper, Egypt and Syria, 97 : "controller 
of privy funds) and kdtib al-sirr (secretary of state; 
al-Kalkashandl, iv, 28; al-Makrlzi, Khitat, "> 227, 
al-Suluk, ii, 2, 93 & 103). And again the first Cir- 
cassian Mamluk sultan, al-Zahir Sayf al-DIn Barkuk 
{784/1382-801/1208, [q.v.]) strengthened the diwdn 
al-khdss by surrendering to it the administration 
of the thaghr of Alexandria (see above) and 
established the diwdn al-mufrad (diwdn of the special 
bureau) for the control of stipends, clothing of the 
royal Mamluks etc., and all that at the expense of 
the wizdra. The wazir, however, becomes chancellor 
of the exchequer and was put "in charge of collecting 
all the different kinds, of taxes" being "the highest 
rank among the men who are in charge of financial 
matters", and thus Ibn Khaldun explains why many 
Copts were chosen for that and similar appointments 
who are "familiar with these matters since ancient 
times" (Ibn Khaldun, ii, 15 & 20; tr. Rosenthal, ii, 
19 & 25. Makrizi, Khitat, ii, 223, 28; Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, Syria xliii; W. Popper, Egypt and 
Syria, 96-8). (i) The diwdn al-insha>, called also 
kitdbat al-sirr (Makrizi, KhUat, ". 225, 36 ff.; al- 
Kalkashandl, iv, 30; al-?ahiri, zubda 99-100) still 
executed many of its former functions (see above 
xxx). Its chief, the kdtib al-sirr, enjoyed the highest 
esteem among the hierarchy of civil servants (W. 
Popper, Egypt and Syria, 97; Makrizi, Khifaf, ii, 
226, 37); but he was responsible to the dawdddr 
[q.v.], a sdhib al-sayf, a sign of the influence of the 
military caste. He had been the head of the sultan's 
civil cabinet who received the postbag and forwarded 
it to the sultan, or presented foreign ambassadors to 
the sovereign (al-Kalkashandl, iv, 19). On the other 
hand the kdtib al-sirr gradually took over the 
function of sdhib al-barid; the first holder of both 
offices had been Awhad al-DIn <Abd al-Wahid b. 
Isma c a al-Hanafl (d. 786/1385; Makrizi, KhiM, i, 
78; Abu '1-Mahasin b. TaghrlbirdI, Manhal no 1483; 
W. Bjorkman, Staatskanzlei, 41 & note 3). The 
diwdn al-inshd' was concerned with (a) correspond-' 
ence (mukdtabdt) with foreign powers as well as 
with the provincial authorities. Al-Kalkashandl, 



therefore, asks for the knowledge of foreign languages 
among the officials of that diwdn such as Turkish, 
Persian, Greek and 'Frankish' al-farandjiyya 
(Latin?); Subh al-a c shd>, i, 165-7; Bjorkman, 
Staatskanzlei, 44 and note 1); (b) appointments 
(wildydt), including the oath of allegiance (bay'a) 
and the document of investiture for the sultan's 
successor ( c ahd) as well as the governors of the 
provinces (taklid) and other officials (tafwid, tawki'; 
al-Kalkashandl, i, 252; Bjorkman, Staatskanzlei 48, 
52); (c) the royal decisions upon complaints of the 
common folk (tawki'dt ( ala 'l-kisas, see above, 
al-Kalkashandl, vi, 202 ff.; BjSrkman, Staats- 
kanzlei 52-3). (ii) Diwdn al-diaysh, or diwdn al- 
djuyush aUmansura administered the grant of fiefs 
of army personnel (al-Kalkashandi, i, 102), hence 
sometimes called diwdn al-ikfd'; al-Kalkashandl, 
in, 457; Bjorkman, Staatskanzlei 51, note 2). Its 
chief, ndzir al-diaysh (controller of the axmy-diwdn), 
often a Kadi, was assisted by the inspector of the 
diwdn al-diaysh (sdhib diwdn al-diaysh) and numerous 
other officials called shuhud, kuttdb, etc. (Popper, 
Egypt and Syria, 97). According to al-Zahiri (zubda 
103) the diwdn al-diaysh was divided into two 
regional sections, diwdn al-diaysh al-Misri and 
diwdn al-dia/ysh al-Shdmi. (iii) Diwdn al-khdss gained 
its importance under the sultan al-Nasir Muhammad 
b. Kala'fln (see above xxx; Makrizi, Khitat ii, 227, 
10 reports its existence already under the Fatimids) 
and it grew in influence during the following decades 
until it reached its peak at the beginning of the reign 
of al-Zahir Barkuk in 790/1388 when it absorbed the 
diwdn al-khizdna (diwdn of the storehouses ; Makrizi, 
Khitat. ii, 227, 15 ff.; Popper, Egypt and Syria 97, 4). 
(iv) Diwdn al-mufrad (diwdn of the special bureau) 
was founded by al-Zahir Barkuk when he replaced 
the wizdra with it (Makrizi, Khitat, ii, 223, 28 ff.; 
al-Kalkashandl, iii, 457, mentions an office of that 
name already under the Fatimids). Its real head was 
the ustdddr [q.v.], a sdhib al-sayf who even was 
appointed sometimes (titular) wazir (Popper, Egypt 
and Syria, 93, 9; al-Zahirl, zubda 107, tr. 178). Under 
the ustdddr the ndzir (controller) of the diwdn al- 
mufrad directed with the help of a large staff the 
obligations of that diwdn such as "stipends, clothing, 
fodder, etc., for the Sultan's mamluks" (Popper, 97). 
(v) The diwdn al-amwdl exercised the control of all 
the financial manipulations, and was responsible for 
the payment of salaries, and keeping of accounts (al- 
Kalkashandl, iv, 29 ff.; Makrizi, Khitat, ii, 224, 7 ff.)- 
His chief was the wazir, but he, too, became more 
and more subordinate to the ustdddr like the ndzir 
diwdn al-mufrad; hence the high esteem of that 
office declined (Popper, Egypt and Syria, 96; Ibn 
Khaldun. ii, 20-1; tr. ii, 25). And disastrous appoint- 
ments showed the real state of affairs such as when 
in 868/1464 a certain "wholesale butcher", Shams 
al-DIn Muhammad al-BabawI, was made wazir and 
ndzir al-dawla, or again in 870/1466 the "money- 
changer", Kasim Yughayta/Shughayta, both men 
without education (Abu '1-Mahasin b. TaghrlbirdI, 
ed. Popper, vii, 724-5 & 738-9; tr. Popper, iv 58, 
67; Ibn lysis, unpublished pages 136, 2 & 160, 4-5). 
The ndzir al-dawla (sometimes the vizi 
working with the vizier) functioned a 
the exchequer and under him were 
countants (mustawfi), notaries (shdhid), etc. As 
mentioned already the supervision of the diwdn al- 
amwdl extended over a number of offices called 
diwdn or nazar dealing with different branches of 
administration, e.g., nazar bayt al-mdl which accor- 
ding to Makrizi no longer existed at his time (Khi(<X> 



224, 36-7). nazar al-mawdrith al-hashriyya (control- 
office of heirless property; Popper, Syria and 
Egypt, 99, 17), nazar al-murtadia c dt also called 
nazar al-sultdn (control-office of reclaims; W. Popper, 
loc. cit. 99, 18; al-Kalkashandi, iv, 33) its head 
being called mustawfi al-murtadja'-dt, nazar al- 
wadjh al-kibli and nazar al-wadjh al-bahri (control- 
office of Upper and Lower Egypt respectively), 
diwdn al-istifd' [diwdn for the payment of salaries), 
diwdn al-ahbds [diwdn of pious foundations), diwdn 
al-zakdt (diwdn of alms), etc. The historians provide 
ample examples for the working of that complicated 
machinery, the disastrous effect of its inefficiency 
aggravated by the incessant changes of the leading 
personnel as well as of the rulers and the cruel 
arbitrary system of punishments (musddara) that 
accompanied every change. 

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ed. H. R. Roemer, Cairo i960. 

(H. L. Gottschalk) 



islin 



Wes 



A. So far as Muslim Spain is concerned, we do 
not know how much of the civil and military 
administration of the Visigoths, which unquestionably 
was influenced by the Byzantine system, was found 



and adopted by the first conquerors at the beginning 
of the 2nd/8th century. 

In the 4th/ioth century, in the Umayyad period, 
three basic diwdns are known to have been in operat- 
ion, corresponding with the three essential needs of 
a State, each directed by a special minister (wazir or 
sahib). These were: 

1.— The Chancellery and State Secretariat, diwdn 
al-rasdHl (= al-tarsU) wa'l-kitdba, which dealt with 
official correspondence, both incoming and outgoing, 
and also with the drafting of various diplomas and 
commissions {sidiilldt, sukiik). 

2.— The Ministry of Finance, diwdn al-kharddj wa 
'l-diibaydt, diwdn al-ashghdl or al-a'mdl (+ al- 
kharddiiyya or al-mdliyya), diwdn al-hisbdn, diwdn 
al-zimdm, which was responsible for the collection 
of various taxes, supervision of tax-collectors, and 
keeping of accounts of revenue and expenditure. 
Connected with it by more or less direct links was 
the Diwdn al-khizdna which looked after the State's 
secular treasury, and separate from the Bayt al-Mdl 
which was religious in character. 

3. — The Ministry of the Army, diwdn al-djaysh, 
diwdn al-djund, diwdn al- c asdkir, diwdn ahl aU 
thughur, which had three different functions; keeping 
up to date the financial records of the regular army ; 
keeping accounts and giving the army their pay 
(arzdk) and active service gratuities {'afiyydt); 
distributing gifts of estates to senior officers {iktd'dt). 
But it had no share in the command of troops or 
direction of campaigns. 

After the Umayyads, a similar tripartite organi- 
sation, though naturally on a much reduced scale, 
was found at the "satraps' "court (muluk al-fawd'if), 
and later at the Nasrids'. 

With regard to North Africa before the Almohad 
period (6th/i2th century), we know practically 
nothing about the diwdns. 

In 554/1159 the Almohad c Abd al-Mu'min, after 
imposing his authority over North Africa from WadI 
Nfll to Barka, had a survey made of his empire, with 
the aim of compiling a register for the assessment of 
land taxes (kharddj), payable in kind and money; 
from this we can deduce that a special fiscal diwdn 
was either set up or developed. 

Another Almohad, Ya c kflb al-Mansur (580-95/ 
1184-94) introduced the practice of l aldma, the 
formula of authorization written in large lettering 
at the head of despatches and commissions, the text 
of which was: wa'l-hamdu li-lldhi wahdah. At first 
this was inscribed by the sovereign himself; later the 
insertion of 'aldma was entrusted to the High 
Chancellor. The practice was maintained by the 
Hafsids and Marinids, and was observed until the end 
of the Sa'dids. The Nasrids alone did not adopt it. 

In other respects the Almohad diwdns correspond 
with those of the Umayyads in Spain. But the High 
Chancellery tended to become the diwdn al-inshd 3 . 
This organization was maintained in Ifrikiya by the 
Hafsids, and in Morocco by the Marinids. However, 
several diwdns were often put together and held 
simultaneously by a single statesman belonging to 
one or other of the great ministerial families. 

From the ioth/i6th century there is very little 
information about the operation, or indeed the 
existence, of diwdns in North Africa. In Morocco 
we only know of the diwdn al-djaysh which included 
all regular troops, at first Arab and later negro 
{ e Abid or Hardfin). As these troops (more particularly 
the c Abid) had often made and deposed 'Alawid 
sultans, their diwdn sometimes appeared to be a 
kind of royal Council. 



After the disastrous Tetuan war (i8fiol, sultan 
Muhammad III b. <Abd al-Rahman tried to establish 
a modernized diwdn al-diaysh, but his attempt 
proved abortive. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, ed. 
BOlak 1274, 114-20: trans, de Slane, 2nd part, 
1-29; E. Levi- Provencal, VEspagne musulmane 
au X' siecle, 69, 128; Ibn Fadl Allah al-'Umari, 
Masdlik al-absdr, trans. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 
in the index, s.v. Diwdn. For Morocco under the 
Sa'dids and 'Alaouits, cf. Ahmad al-Nasiri, Kitdb 
al-Istiksd*, trans. Fumey (= Archives Marocaines, 
vol. ix and x), i, 46, 66, 94, 128, 178, 239, 283; 
ii, 240. 

B. From the Almohad period (6th/i3th century), 
in those ports open to trade with Christian Europe 
(from al-Mahdiyya in Ifrikiya to Ceuta, and also 
in Almeria), the existence has been established of 
special offices which were subordinate to the diwdn 
al-ashghdl, and whose function was to collect tithes 
(a'shdr) and other incidental taxes (maldzim) which 
were imposed upon European importers. This sort 
of office was in general called simply al-diwdn; but 
more detailed titles are also encountered: diwdn al- 
bahr and in particular ddr al-ishrdj '■aid Hmdlal al- 
diwdn "supervisory headquarters for the levying of 
customs-duties". The local official in charge was 
called mushrij. 

To facilitate the operation of customs, and in 
addition to ensure the safety of Christian merchants 
and their merchandise, one or more entrepots (one 
for each nation) were situated very close to the 
diwdn; these were funduk or kaysdriyya, the eastern 
equivalents of which were khan and (ddr al-)wikdla. 

As an exception, offices of this sort also operated 
in capital cities situated inland, as for example at 
Tlemcen and Fez. In the latter town, the "office for 
the tax" levied on cloth imported from Europe 
which Leo Africanus (beginning of ioth/i6th 
century) recorded as being in the kaysdriyya there 
must correspond with the small commercial quarter, 
still known today as Ed-Diwdn, immediately north 
of the present kaysdriyya. 

The word diwdn, taken in this narrow sense (which 
must have been the one best known to European 
merchants), is evidently the origin of the Italian 
dogana and the Spanish aduana, and so of the French 
douane. But the loss of the -»- and the addition of the 
final -a in the two first borrowings cause difficulty. 
In Granada (end of gth/i5th century), P. de Alcala 
still gave, as the Arabic translation of the Spanish 
aduana, the word diwin. 

However that may be, the present-day term in 
Morocco is diwdna, perhaps influenced by the Spanish 
form. In the other MaghribI languages as in eastern 
languages, that is to say in the Arabic-speaking 
countries which were annexed to the former Ottoman 
empire, the words for "Customs" are borrowed from 
the Turkish giimruk which goes back to the Latin 
commercium through demotic Greek. 

Bibliography: Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, ed. De 

Goeje, for Alexandria (39-40) and c Akka (302); 

De Mas Latrie, Relations et commerce de VAjrique 

septentrionale, 1886, 166, 335; Uespiris, xii (1931), 

162 (for Ceuta). 

C. From the middle of the ioth/i6th century 
diwdns made their appearance in the Turkish 
principalities of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. At that 
time the word denoted a clique of senior officers who 
were appointed to assist and, more particularly, to 
supervise the leading Turkish official of the locality. 

It was no doubt on the precedent of these cliques 



that, at the beginning of the nth/i7th century, the 
Moors living in the kasaba of Rabat set up their 
Diwdn or Council (contemporary European texts 
refer to them as duan, duano, duana), the members of 
which exercised supervision over the Governor. 

In its present use in dialect, the word diwdn is 
sometimes applied to the "councils" which the 
Saints, and also djinns, are reputed to hold from 
time to time. It is partly for this reason that the 
word is sometimes used in the sense of "plot, cabal". 
B»6/»ogra£/>)>:Seethearticles Algeria, libya, 
Tunisia; de Castries, Les trois ripubliques du Bou- 
Regreg, in Sources intldites de I'histoire du Maroc 
(Holland, 1st series, V, i-xxviii), in which the 
author is mistaken with regard to "douane". 
In the East, special systems of writing were 
used in government offices, notably the diwdni for 
chancery and diplomatic usage, and the siydk or 
siydka, including a system of numerical abbrevia- 
tions, for fiscal and financial records. In the Muslim 
West the accountants in the financial offices made 
use of a series of 27 figures called rusum (or huruf) 
al-zimdm "abbreviations or characters of the great 
book", the Byzantine origin of which is established. 
See also khatt. 

Bibliography: G. S. Colin, De Vorigine 
grecque des "chiffres de Fes", in J A, 1933, 193. 
(G. S. Colin) 

iv. Iran 

The term diwdn was variously used to mean the 
central government in general, in which sense it was 
also more specifically known as the diwdn-i aHa, 
the office or place in which government business was 
transacted and the "civil" administration as opposed 
to the "military" administration, though the dividing 
line between them is sometimes difficult to establish. 
By the mid-igth century the term diwdn in the sense 
of the central government had been largely replaced 
by dawla or dd'ira-i dawla. Secondly the term diwdn 
was used to mean a government department in 
general, in which sense it was eventually replaced by 
wizdra, ddHra, and iddra. These diwdns varied 
according to the exigencies of the time. The adjective 
diwdni is similarly used. Thus, muhimmdt-i diwdni 
meant the affairs of the central administration; 
takdlif-i diwdni were taxes or dues (of a non- 
canonical nature) imposed by the diwdn. Applied to 
land diwdni meant state land in contradistinction to 
crown land or private estates. 

Barthold's statement that "throughout the whole 
system of the eastern Muslim political organization 
there runs like a red thread the division of all organs 
of administration into two main categories, the 
dargdh (palace) and diwdn (chancery)" (Turkestan, 
227) is, perhaps, an over-simplification; there was, 
almost inevitably, because of the intensely personal 
nature of power, a tendency for the dividing line 
between the competence of the various officials to 
be a shifting one. The general tendency in the early 
phases of Ilkhan, Safawid, and Kadjar rule, for 
obvious reasons, was for the central administration 
to be relatively simple and for the differentiation 
between the various organs of government to 
increase with the passage of time. This is noticeable 
especially in the Safawid and Kadjar periods. 

The diwan-i aHa covered the whole field of ad- 
ministration; but it was concerned primarily with 
three aspects; the issue of diplomas and decrees; 
financial administration; and the administration of 
justice (apart from cases of personal status which 
came under the shar'i courts). The first two fell 



within the purview of the wazir ; the last, so far as it 
was delegated, was delegated, not to the wazir , who 
lacked the power to execute decisions, but rather to 
■"military" officials. In Saldjuk times the sultan or 
his officials as well as conducting state business in 
the diwdn-i a'ld also held from time to time a 
diwdn-i mazdlim. Under the TImurids and Safawids 
the chief judicial official was the diwdnbegi, who was 
usually a member of the military classes. The 
tradition of personal administration, including the 
administration of justice, by the ruler continued into 
Kadjar times (Malcolm, History, London 1829, ii, 
308), and the royal residence in which state business 
of all kinds was transacted by the ruler (and by the 
governors in the provinces) in general, and the 
audience hall in particular, was known as the 
diwdnkhdna. 

The central administration had little influence in 
the field of policy or over the appointment of 
governors, which was in the hands of the sultan or 

alienated from its control in the form of iUd's or 
tiyuls. There was, nevertheless, a remarkable con- 
tinuity of administrative tradition in Persia, espe- 
cially in the field of finance, which was that aspect 
of the central government which was most highly 
organized. This tradition stretches back from 
the mid-igth century (after which administrative 
■changes influenced by the example of western 
European countries began to take place) to Safawid 
and TImurid times, and it can, in spite of certain 
innovations made by the Ilkhans, be traced back 
still further to the period of the Great Saldjuks. 
That this continuity should have been preserved was, 
perhaps, largely due to the fact that the members 
of the bureaucracy were drawn almost exclusively 
from the settled population and served the successive 
dynasties. Thus, the administrative personnel of the 
early Safawid empire was largely composed of 
officials who had served the preceding Turkoman 
dynasties; similarly the bureaucratic officials of the 
Ilkhans had served the dynasties ruling in Persia 
before the Mongol conquest. Equally striking is the 
extent to which high office under the early Kadjars 
was held by the ministers and officials of the Zands, 
who had ruled before them. 

The most important official of the central admin- 
istration was the wazir [q.v.]. His power was delegated 
to him by the ruler, and might, and sometimes did, 
range over the whole field of government, "civil", 
"military", and religious. The personal factor was of 
immense importance in deciding the extent of his 
authority and influence. For a brief period under the 
early Safawids the chief official of the state came to 
be known as the wakil [q.v.], the term wazir being 
used mainly for the head of a department or ministry 
and for the head official of the provincial admini- 
stration under the governor. In the later Safawid 
period the chief official of the central government was 
called the wazir-i a'zam and had the title IHimdd 
al-dawla; under the Kadjars the chief minister, who 
was called the sadr-i a'-zam, also sometimes bore 
this title. 

In Great Saldjuk times the wazlrate was the 
keystone of the central administration; the wazir, 
when he was at the height of his power, supervised 
all aspects of the administration over which the 
central government had control, including especially 
finance. Sources of revenue were in some measure 
regulated by him; and his main business was to 
increase the revenue. The principal diwdns under 
him were the diwdn al-inshd} wa 'l-tughrd' (< 



known as the diwdn-i rasdHl), which dealt with in- 
coming and outgoing correspondence, and the 
diwdn al-zimdm wa 'l-istijd> (also known as the 
diwdn-i ishrdf), which dealt with financial affairs. 
It is not without interest that two of the main 
departments of the central government in the 19th 
century were under the munshi al-mamdlik and the 
mustawfi al-mamdlik respectively. The diwdn al- 
zimdm wa 'l-istifd' was divided into two main 
sections, one under the mustawfi al-mamdlik and 
the other under the mushrif al-mamdlik. Their 
relative importance varied. In post-Saldjuk times 
the two offices tended to be independent, the former 
being concerned with revenue matters and the latter 
with inspection and control. The main object on 
which the revenue was expended was the army; it 
therefore followed that even when the revenue was 
alienated in the form of assignments (iktd's) from 
the control of the central government the records of 
these transactions should have been kept in a 
department of the central government, the diwdn-% 
'ard (cf. 'Atabat al-kataba, ed. c Abbas Ikbal, Tehran 
I95°> 39-4o, 76, and see daftar). 

After the reign of the first three sultans the im- 
portance of the wazir declined relative to that of the 
mustawfi [q.v.]. Fakhr al-Mulk b. Nizam al-Mulk, 
the wazir of Barkyaruk, was, for example, over- 
shadowed by the mustawfi Madjd al-Mulk al-Balasani 
(Bundarl, Dawlat al-Saldjukiyya, Cairo 1318, 79)- 
Further, whereas in the early period there was no 
intermediary between the sultan and the wazir, in 
the later period the wakilddr and amir hddjib were 
interposed between them (Bundarl, 86, 107, 175; 
Ibn al-Athlr, xi, 59) ; and as the wazirate decreased 

deal with the heads of the various diwdn?, directly 
and not through the wazir (cf. Rashid al-DIn, 
D±dmi' al-tawdrikh, B.M. Add. 7628, f. 251a). This 
is not to say that in the early period all diwdn 
business invariably went through the wazir or that 
in the later period the reverse was the case. 

In addition to the two major diwdns of the central 
government there were various diwdns which dealt 
with special aspects of financial affairs and land, 
such as the diwdn-i khdss (concerned with crown 
lands) and the diwdn-i awkdf ('Atabat al-kataba, 33, 
52 ff.),. The pattern of the central government was to 
some extent repeated in the provinces. The governor 

aydlat (cf. 'Atabat al-kataba, 79). There was a diwdn-i 
islifd? in the principal districts, for example in Marw 
and Bistam C-Atabat al-kataba, 56, 46); and a number 
of diwdns dealing with various aspects of the finan- 
cial administration. Thus in Rayy Kiwam al-DIn 
Inandj Kutlugh Bilga, who was governor on behalf 
of Sandjar, was ordered in his deed of appointment 
to hold the diwdn-i 'amal and the diwdn-i shihnagi in 
his own residence (sardy) {'Atabat al-kataba, 73). 
Similarly the document appointing Tadj al-DIn Abu 
'1-Makarim ra'is of Mazandaran on behalf of Sandjar 
laid down that he should hold the diwdn-i mu'dmildt 
wa kismdt in his own residence ('Atabat al-kataba, 
26). Cases concerning the levy of dues, public con- 






entlyin 



in-i riydsat (A. K. S. Lambton, 
of Sanjar's empire, in BSOAS, 
1957, xx, 386). The extent to which the heads of these 
various diwdns had freedom to appoint and dismiss 
their subordinates probably varied. Mu c In al-DIn, 
who was appointed shihna of Djuwayn by Sandjar, 
was given freedom to dismiss his subordinates but 
was instructed to confirm the appointment of the 



334 DI 1 

kadkhudd of the diwdn ('Atabat al-kataba, 61). There 
are also cases recorded of Saldjuk women having 
diwdns (cf. 'Atabat al-kataba, 61; Kh"andamir. 
Dastir al-wuzard', Tehran, 190). 

With the Mongol invasion of Persia there was to 
some extent a break with tradition; much of the 
earlier administrative structure nevertheless remain- 
ed, or was revived after the adoption of Islam by the 
II khans ; and the officials of the bureaucracy and the 
religious institution with their various diwdns were 
again found alongside the officials of the " military" 
government. The foremost minister of state con- 
tinued to be known as the wazir, or, sometimes, in 
his position as the representative of the ruler as the 
ndHb (Spuler, Mongolen', 282). There was, however, 
a tendency to remove financial affairs from the 
direct supervision of the wazir and to entrust these 
to an official known as the sdhib diwdn, who tended 
at times to overshadow the wazir. It seems not 
unlikely that the Ilkhans intended in this way to 
lessen the likelihood of the wazir gaining an undue 
ascendancy. Djuwayni as wazir shared power with 
Madjd al-Mulk Yazdl, the mushrif al-mamdlik, for 
several years from 677/1279; and from 699-718/ 
1300-18 there were joint wazirs at the head of the 
administration. In this, however, the Ilkhans may 
have been merely following the example of earlier 
rulers in Central Asia (cf. Pritsak, Die Karachaniden, 
in Isl., xxxi/i, 24). This practice of appointing two 
officials to hold office jointly was subsequently 
adopted on various occasions by the Safawids. When 
Rashld al-Din was appointed sdhib diwdn in 699/ 
1 299- 1 300 he was charged with the general super- 
vision of the kingdom, especially the tax admini- 
stration, and among other things crown lands, the 
appointment of the officials of the bureaucracy, the 
post {yam), and the development of the country. 
(Wassaf, Bombay 347). Under the sdhib diwdn was 
the mustawfi al-mamdlik and various departments 
dealing with different aspects of the finances, in- 
cluding a diwdn-i khdlisdt (Wassaf, 349). 

Under the Timurids, although there was an 
attempt in theory to reaffirm the principles of 
sKarH government and to return to the traditional 
forms, in practice the distinction between the "civil" 
and "military" branches of the administration, 
which broadly coincided with the dichotomy between 
Turk and Tadjik [i.e., Persian) was clearly marked. 
Under Husayn Baykara the diwdn-i aHd, the 
supreme organ of government was divided into the 
diwdn-i buzurg-i amdrat (under the diwdnbegi), 
which dealt with military affairs, and the diwdn-i 
mdl (under a wazir), which was concerned with 
"civil" affairs (Roemer, Staatsschreiben der Timuri- 
denzeit, 169 ff.). 

It seems likely that the administrative pattern of 
the Ilkhanid empire was inherited by the Kara 
Koyunlu (Minorsky, The Aq-Qoyunlu and land 
reforms, in BSOAS, 1955, xvii/3), but little is known 
of the details of the organization of their various 
diwdns apart from their tax administration. There 
is mention of the diwdn-i tawddji and the diwdn-i 
parwdnali (Minorsky, Persia in A.D. i4y8-go: 
An abridged translation of Fadlulldh b. Ruzbihdn 
Khunji's Tdrikh-i '■alam-dra-yi amini, London 1957, 
28, 101). For a survey of the administrative organi- 
zation of the Ilkhans in Persia see I. H. Uzuncarsili, 
Osmanh devleti teskildhna medhal, Istanbul 1941, 
specially 187 ff. 

Information on the central administration is con- 
siderably fuller for Safawid times than for the pre- 
ceding periods. It is, however, extremely difficult to 



establish a dividing line between the various aspects 
of the diwdn-i aHd, which was both the royal court 
and the central government; similarly there was not 
always a clear demarcation of the functions of the 
members of the bureaucracy, the military officials, 
and the officials of the religious institution. The inter- 
nal organization of the diwdn-i aHd was under the 
ishik-akdsi-bdshi (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, ff. 7b, 13a ff.). 
The master of ceremonies of the Kadjar court was 
similarly designated. There appears to have been 
something in the nature of a state council, to which 
certain members of the diwdn-i aHd belonged; this 
council seems to have been outside the traditional 
pattern of the central administration. Alessandri 
states that Tahmasp held a daily council attended by 
twelve sultans (i.e., provincial governors and there- 
fore members of the military classes) and those of 
his sons who were at court (A narrative of Italian 
travels in Persia, Hakluyt, 220-1). The functions of 
this council appear to have been purely advisory. 
The Tadhkirat al-Muluk states that the kurti-bdshi, 
kullar-dkdsi, ishik-dkdsi-bdshi, tufangli-dkdsl, wazir-i 
a'-zam, diwdnbegi, and wdki'a-niwis "had from early 
times belonged to the council of amirs of the umard-yi 
didnki and at the end of the reign of Shah Sultan 
IJusayn the ndzir, mustawfi al-mamdlik, and the 
amir-shikdr-bdski were also, on some occasions, in- 
cluded in the council. If the council met on the 
subject of sending an army commander (sipaksdldr) 
to some outlying part of the empire, the presence of 
the sipahsdldr at the didnki was a necessary con- 
dition" (ff. 7b-8a). Minorsky considers the institution 
to be of Mongol or Timurid origin. Chardin maintains 
that there was no council of state similar to the 
European institution; Sanson, on the other hand, 
states that all decisions were taken in the King's 
Council (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, 113-4). Under the 
Kadjars the didnki does not appear to have been a 
regular part of the central government admini- 
stration, but to have been a tribal council dealing 
with affairs concerning the Kadjar tribe, which 
presumably normally sat under the ilkhdni. 
Malcolm mentions a case of treason by a "high 
noble" of the Kadjar tribe being tried about 1808 
by a didnki (History, ii, 327n.). 

The highest official of the diwdn-i aHd under 
Isma'il and Tahmasp was the wakil, who was the 
alter ego of the shah as the wazir, in his heyday, had 
been of the sultan; his competence extended virtu- 
ally over the whole field of the administration. 
The use of the term wakil for the chief official of the 
diwdn-i aHd appears to have died out in the middle 
of the ioth/i6th century and to have been replaced 
by the term wazir-i a'-zam, who held the title of 
IHimad al-dawla. After 920/1514 his office tends to 
be referred to as the nizdrat-i diwdn-i aHd, nizdrat-i 
diwdn, or diwdn-i wizdra (R. M. Savory, The principal 
offices of the Safawid state, in BSOAS, xxiii/i, i960, 
91-105 and xxiv/i, 1961, 65-84). In due course an 
elaborate system of administrative procedure was 
evolved. As head of the diwdn-i aHd the wazir con- 
firmed official appointments; documents concerning 
these matters and the pay of officials went through 
an office called the daftarkhdna-i humdyun-i aHd 
under a special wazir. Documents concerning the 
pay of the "standing army" (kurlis, ghuldms, 
tufangtis, and members of the topkhdna) went 
through the relative department (sarkdr), which was 
under a wazir and mustawfi and staffed by secretaries 
belonging to the diwdn (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, f. 58 ff.). 
Letters of appointment and salary grants for "civil'' 
and military officials as well as being sealed by the 



wazir-i a'zam were also sealed by the lashkar-niwis 
of the diwdn-i a'ld, who was also wazir of the depart- 
ment (sarhdr) of the eunuchs, falconers (kushliydn), 
ushers (yasdwuldn), and doorkeepers (kdpWiydn) 
(Tadhkirat al-Muluk, f. 65a ff.). 

Among his other duties as head of the diwdn-i aHd 
the wazir checked the legality of the proceedings of 
officials and presided over the financial affairs of the 
state (Tadhkirat al-muluk, 115); this last was, in 
effect, his most important function. Like his prede- 
cessors in the wazlrate in earlier times, it was his 
duty to exert himself in increasing the revenue 
(Tadhkirat al-muluk, f. 8b). The financial admini- 
stration was divided into two main departments, the 
diwdn-i mamdlik under the mustawfi al-mamdlih and 
the diwdn-i khdssa under the ndzir-i buyutdt (also 
called the ndzir-i buyutdt-i sarkdr-i khdssa). The 
exact relationship of the wazir-i a'-zam to the ndzir-i 
buyutdt and the nature of his control over the 
diwdn-i khdssa are not entirely clear. The budget of 
the buyutdt was apparently submitted to the wazir-i 
a'-zam (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, f. 16a). Under the 
mustawfi al-mamdlih there were various officials in 
charge of different tax offices (daftar), parallel 
offices in many cases being in existence to deal with 
the relevant matters according to whether they were 
situated in mamdlik or khdssa areas. These included 
a daftar-i mawkufdt (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, t. 71a) and 
a daftar-i bakdyd (Iskandar Munshi, 'Alam-drd, 765). 
A special department, the sarkdr-i fayd dthdr, at 
Mashhad administered the wakfs of the shrine of 
the Imam Rida ('Alam-drd, 258 bis, 654). General 
supervision of wakfs was carried out by the diwdn 
al-saddra under the sadr-i a'zam (H. Busse, Unter- 
suchungen zum islamischen Kanzleiwesen, Cairo 1959, 
204). Some of the provincial sadrs also had diwdns or 
sarkdrs (cf. a diploma dated A.H. 1077 for the 
mustawfi of the mawkufdt of Yazd, Didmi'-i mufidi, 
B.M. Or. 210, ff. i68b-i70b; and Busse, 132). 

The diwdn-i mamdlik was concerned with the 
administration of provinces and districts which were 
administered by governors and were alienated from 
the direct control of the central government. The 
diwdn-i khdssa was concerned with areas directly 
administered by the central government under 
wazirs. The extent of the indirectly administered 
areas relative to the directly administered varied 
(Tadhkirat al-muluk 24 ff., A. K. S. Lambton, 
Landlord and Peasant in Persia, Oxford 1953, 108). 
With the increase in the extent of the khdssa which 
took place under Shah Safi the importance of the 
diwdn-i khdssa was presumably enhanced; the 
ndzir-i buyutdt-i sarkdr-i khdssa is mentioned as the 
greatest of the offices of the diwdn in the time of 
Shah Safi, (Didmi'-i Mufidi, f. 338b-33ga). The 
mustawfi of the diwdn-i khdssa appears to some 
extent to have been subordinate to the mustawfi al- 
mamdlik and hence to the wazir-i a'zam (Tadhkirat 
al-muluk, ff. 27b-28a). Isfahan, as the capital, 
enjoyed, perhaps, a special position. The sarkdr-i 
fayd dthdr and the sarkdr-i intikdli dealt with special 
categories of land (presumably wakfs and land 
resumed by the state) ; the administration of crown 
lands appears to have been under the wazir of 
Isfahan. All three departments were under the 
general supervision of the wazir-i a'zam of the 
diwdn-i a'ld (Tadhkirat al-Muluk, ff. 71a ff.). 

The buyutdt, i.e., the Royal Household, was ad- 
ministered by the wazir-i buyutdt under the general 
supervision of the ndzir-i buyutdt. It was divided 
into a number of offices (daftarhhdna) and workshops 
(kdrkhdna), each under a sdhib djam' and a mushrif, 



AN 335 

the former responsible for its general activities and 
the latter for administrative routine (Tadhkirat al- 
Muluk, 140). 

The department corresponding to the former 
diwdn-i insha' was known under the Safawids as the 
ddr al-inshd' and was under the munshi al-mamdlih 
(Tadhkirat al-Muluk, ff. 39b-4oa; Busse, 59 ff.). 

The diwdn-i a'ld under the Kadjars was broadly 
speaking modelled on the practice of the Safawids. 
As the royal court its procedure from the time of 
Fath C A1I onwards was elaborate. The administration 
of the royal household, which comprised a number 
of offices which were collectively known as the 
buyutdt, was, however, more clearly separated from 
the diwdn-i a'ld than had previously been the 
case. So far as the diwdn-i a'ld in the central 
government was concerned, its organization was less 
elaborate than in Safawid times; and there was no 
longer a distinction between the mamdlik and 
khdssa departments. Aka Muhammad Khan apparent- 
ly attended to the details of the administration 
largely in person; the rule of Fath C A1I was also 
personal, but during his reign the administration was 
expanded. The chief official of the diwdn-i a'ld was 
the sadr-i a'zam; his power varied with the relative 
energy, indolence, and competence of the shah. 
Under Aka Muhammad Khan the sadr-i a'zam, 
Hadjdji Ibrahim, is said to have presided over all 
the departments of state (Malcolm, ii, 308-9). The 
two most important departments were under the 
mustawfi al-mamdlik and the lashkar-niwis respect- 
ively; the latter was concerned with the pay and 
levy of the military forces, which was closely bound 
up with the tax administration. Under Fath 'All 
the office of munshi al-mamdlik again became im- 
portant. The internal administration of these 
various departments appears to have been of 
a relatively rudimentary nature under the early 
Kadjars. Morier, w 



office 






s of s 



palace where they 
assembled every day to be ready whenever the shah 
might summon them (A journey through Persia, 
London 1812, 216); but in fact the ministers often 
had to set up their departments wherever they 
happened to be. Aka Muhammad Khan and Fath 
c Ali both spent much of their time on military ex- 
peditions and in camp (as also did their successors) ; 
and they were normally accompanied on these 
occasions by their ministers. In such circumstances 
government departments had to function without 
any elaborate administrative apparatus. Malcolm 
states that "the accounts of the receipts and dis- 
bursements throughout the ecclesiastical, civil, 
revenue and military branches of the government, 
are kept with much regularity and precision" 
(History, ii, 310). In fact, these records were largely 
treated as the personal property of the officials who 
made them; and so far as they concerned the revenue 
assessment, by the middle of the century they often 
bore little relation to conditions as they were. The 
diwdn of the mustawfi al-mamdlik was organized on 
a geographical basis, the tax assessment and records 
of a given area being placed in charge of a mustawfi, 
who was known as the mustawfi of that district. 
Separate departments dealt with crown lands (khdlisa) 
and wakfs and other special aspects such as arrears 
(bakdyd). 

The provincial administration was delegated to 
the governor, who often attended to the details of 
this in person. In the case of a powerful provincial 
governor, especially if he were a Kadjar prince,. 



336 



1 to be a replic; 



the provincial court ten 

smaller scale) of the diwdn-i aHd. The most important 
provincial official was the wazlr, who was normally 
appointed by the diwdn-i a'-ld. His main responsibility 
was to ensure that the governor remitted the pro- 
vincial tax quota to the central government. 

Bibliography: see authorities quoted in the 
text. (Ann K. S. Lambton) 

v. India 
The term diwdn, meaning a government depart- 
ment, appears to have been first introduced into 
India during the rule of the Ghaznawids with the 
seat of their administration at Lahore. Ariyaruk, 
the Commander of India appointed by Sultan 
Mahmud, had all the wealth which be had accu- 
mulated during his viceroyalty in India confiscated 
on his dismissal and recall to Ghazna. A great part 
of this fortune must have come from kharddj (land- 
revenue) for whose collection and disbursement 
there must have existed a separate department. 
Narshakhi (cf. Ta'rikh-i Bukhara, ed. Schefer, 24) 
mentions the existence of no less than 10 diwdns 
under the Ghaznawids, including the diwdn-i wizdra 
or revenue department (cf. also Abu '1-Fadl Bayhaki, 
Ta'rikh-i Bayhaki, ed. Said Naficy, Teheran 1319 s/ 
'94°, 53, 180, 792). Bayhaki was himself on the 
staff of the diwdn-i risdla (diwdn-i inshd') during 
the rule of Mas'ud b. Mahmud. Moreland's contention 
[see Bibl.] that the word diwdn was first used 
by Indian historians to denote a department or 
a ministry in the 7th/i3th and 8th/i4th centuries is, 
therefore, erroneous. The term was in use much 



During the Sultanate period its use was mainly 
confined to the minister for revenue, who was 
ordinarily the wazir himself, and his department, 

creation, was also known as the diwdn, such as the 
diwdn-i risdla or the diwdn-i mazdlim. During the 
same period the word was also used for the military 
department, which too was under the control of the 
wazir, although under the Ghaznawids, this depart- 
ment was known separately as the diwdn-i '■ard. 
This system of government seems to have been 
fully developed during the Sultanate period as we 
find quite a number of departments in existence. 
These included: (i) diwdn-i wizdra, which dealt 
mainly with finance (cf. Shams Siradj <AfIf, TaMkh-i 
Firuz Shdhi (Pers. text, 419-20); (ii) diwdn-i "-ard, 
the military department, under the c Arid-i Mamdlik 
who was sometimes the Sultan himself; (iii) diwdn-i 
Risdla, which dealt with religious matters, endow- 
ments, and grants of madad ma c dsh, and which was 
controlled by the sadr al-sudiir, who also combined 
the office of the kddi-i mamdlik or Chief Judge of 
the realm; (iv) diwdn-i inshcC, the same as the 
diwdn-i khdtam, first established by Mu'awiya b. 
Abi Sufyan, or diwdn-i risdlat, under the Ghazna- 
wids. It dealt with all official correspondence, a 
prototype of the modern, but more complex and 
highly developed, secretariat; (v) diwdn-i mazdlim, 
which dealt with courts of Mazdlim \q.v.] juris- 
diction, the shari'-a courts being administered by 
the diwdn-i kada 1 , under the sadr al-sudiir or the 
kadi al-kuddt; (vi) diwdn-i ishrdj, under the mushrif 
it-general, which dealt with the 
1 the provinces or other 
departments. These were audited by the sister 
department controlled by the mustawfi al-mamdlik. 
During the reign of Firuz Tughluk (cf. c Afif, Pers. 
text, 409-10) the mushrif dealt with the income and 



the mustawfi with the expenditure only. Firuz 
Shah Tughluk had also set up a separate diwdn, 
under a mutasarrif, for the royal kdrkhdnas (factories), 
whose accounts were, however, audited by the 
diwdn-i wizdra. There occurred a slight change in 
the designation of the wazir during the Mughal 
period, who came to be known as the diwdn-i kull 
and his colleagues in the same department as mere 
diwdns, with such other appellations as denoted 
their functions and duties such as the diwdn-i tan 
or the diwdn-i khdlisa. 

Another significant change under the Mughals 
was that the head of the department of revenue and 
finance came exclusively to be known as the diwdn. 
During the reign of Akbar the word wazir in this 
sense was seldom used, having been replaced by 
the term diwdn, which had come to denote a person 
rather than an institution or a government depart- 
ment. However, in the reign of his son, Djahangir, 
the old practice was revived and the term wazir again 
came into vogue. It was during the reign of Shah- 
djahan that the wazir came to be known as the 
diwdn-i kull and his other colleagues in the depart- 
ment as diwdns, with the addition of such epithets 
as showed their designations. For some time the two 
words wazir .and diwdn remained almost synonymous, 
and even in private business, a person who managed 
a high officer's or a wealthy person's financial 
affairs came to be known as a diwdn. Dayanat Khan 
was the diwdn of Mumtaz Mahall in the first year 
of Shahdjahan's reign (Mahathir al-umard', Eng. tr. 
by A. H. Beveridge, i, 484)- Even to this day male 
members of some families, both Hindu and Muslim, 
proudly carry the hereditary honorific of Diwdn, 
once borne by some illustrious ancestor. 

The revenue ministry, under the diwdn, was con- 
sequently known as diwdni, a term which was 
destined to survive in the diwdni (civil) and fawd^ddri 
(criminal) courts of the British days, which still 
form a part of the legal structure of Pakistan. 

During the Mughal period the diwdn performed 
multifarious duties. He was not only responsible for 
the disposal of revenue papers, but also drafted 
urgent royal letters and farmdns. He also granted 
interviews to the agents of the princes, provincial 
governors and high nobles. The mounting of the 
guard, under the command of a nobleman, round 
the imperial palace at night was also a part of his 
duty. He had to submit revenue collection and 
expenditure returns to the emperor who was in this 
way kept informed of the finances of the State. As 
an administrative functionary, he allocated duties 
to all high dignitaries on first appointment, received 
regular reports from them, and also had powers to 
grant leave. He was also in charge of all official 
records which were deposited in his office (for a 
detailed list of these records, see Jadunath Sarkar, 
Mughal administration', Calcutta 1952, 29-32). 

His colleagues, the diwdn-i khdlisa and the 
diwdn-i tan, had separate duties to perform. The 
former, inter alia, examined the accounts prepared 
by the revenue department, checked up the tumar-i 
diam 1 (record of total standard assessment) of the 
khdlisa (Crown lands), prepared the estimates of 
expenditure (bardwurd) on the troops and the 
emperor's personal staff and retinue. The diwdn-i 
tan was responsible, inter alia, for the submission 
of all matters to the emperor, which dealt with the 
djdgirs or cash disbursements including the drafting 
of farmdns, memoranda, parwdnas etc. for the grant 
of madad ma < dsh to scholars, the '■ulamd?, kadis etc. 

The office of the provincial diwdn was next in 



DlWAN — DlWAN-I HUMAYON 



337 



importance to that of the sipdhsdldr only. The 
provincial diwdn having been appointed directly 
by the emperor on the recommendation of the 
central diwdn, was, in no way subordinate to the 
governor. He obtained his orders from the central 
diwdn and was only responsible to him; the idea 
was to keep the fiscus independent of gubernatorial 
control and thus minimize dangers of misappro- 
priation, defalcation and embezzlement of public 
money as well as of the insurrection of the subaddrs. 
The Mir^at-i Ahmadi (Baroda 1928, i, 163-70) 
quotes a farmdn of Akbar giving in a comprehensive 
form the duties of a provincial diwdn, who according 
to this farmdn, should be a "trustworthy and 
experienced person who has already served some 
high noble in the same capacity". His duties 
entailed heavy responsibilities as he was supposed 
to scrutinize the accounts of the revenue collectors 
C-dmils) and report corrupt ones for dismissal. He 
sometimes also acted as the provincial auditor. 

As time passed, the powers of the diwdn in- 
creased greatly. Not only could he make grants up 
to 99,000 dams but could also sign the deeds for the 
grant of djdgirs and a'imma lands, which technically 
were defective and void without the Imperial seal 
or the signature of the central diwdn. In spite of 
this the diwdn did not enjoy a rank equal to that 
of the subaddr who, as head of the executive, enjoyed 
a higher status, prestige and honour in the public 
eye than the 'chancellor of the exchequer'. 

The provincial diwdn was assisted in his duties 
by a pishkdr or personal assistant, who was appointed 
by an imperial sanad under the seal of the central 
diwdn, a ddrugha or office superintendent, a mushrif 
and a tahwilddr-i daftarkhdna (record- keeper), all 
holding a mansab. Among the lower staff the mirdhd 
(process-server) occupied an influential position in 
the public eye and was generally held in great 

In Iith-i2th/i7th-i8th centuries the term diwdni 
came to be used only for the revenue administration 
in contrast to the nizdmat or fawdiddri, terms which 
denoted the general administration, concerned 
primarily with the maintenance of law and order. 
Even to this day civil courts in the Indo-Pakistan 
sub-continent are known as diwdni courts, as 
distinguished from the criminal or fawdiddri courts. 
In this sense the word owes its origin to the appoint- 
ment of the East India Company as the diwdn of 
the Province of Bengal. The management of the 
Company found it desirable to establish their own 
court of justice which they named the Diwdni 
'Addlat, i.e., court of the diwdn. 

In some of the former princely States in India, 
now merged with the Indian Union, the chief minister 
was known as the Diwdn. The word also formed part 
of two of the titles Diwdn Sahib and Diwdn Bahadur, 
conferred by the British Indian Government; 
their use was, however, restricted to South Indian 
celebrities. 

The use of the word in expressions like the Diwdn-i 
c dmm (Hall of Public Audience) and the Diwdn-i 
khdss (Hall of Special Audience) in the Mughal forts 
at Lahore, Agra, Dihll, and elsewhere, is a faint echo 
of its original meaning. In the houses and mansions 
of the great or well-to-do people, in days gone by, 
there was a separate apartment known as the 
Diwdn-Khdna. equivalent to the modern drawing- 
room, but reserved exclusively for the use of the 
male members of the family or their guests and 

Bibliography: In addition to the authorities 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



quoted in the text: S. M. Jaffar, Mediaeval 
India . . . (The Ghaznawids), Peshawar 1940, 
242-54; idem, Some cultural aspects of the 
Muslim rule in India, Peshawar 1950, 25-9, 51, 
no; Jadunath Sarkar, Mughal administration 1 , 
Calcutta 1952, 25-40, 53-4; Ishtiaq Husain 
Qureshi, The administration of the sultanate of 
Delhi', Lahore 1944, index; Ibn Hasan, The 
central structure of the Mughul empire, London 
1936 (Urdu transl. entitled Dawlat-i Mughliyya 
ki Hay'at-i Markazi, Lahore 1958), index; P. 
Saran, The provincial government of the Mughals, 
Allahabad 1941, 189-97; R. P. Tripathi, Some 
aspects of Muslim administration, Allahabad 1936; 
W. H. Moreland, The agrarian system of Moslem 
India*, Allahabad n.d., xiv-xv, 78, 109, 133 ft., 
148, 197, 271; Rieu, iii, 926a, (gives a list of 
wakih, diwdns, etc., from the reign of Akbar to 
that of Muhammad Shah). 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
vi. — Ottoman, [see dIwan-i humayun]. 
DlWAN al-SHCrA [see madjlis al-shurA]. 
DlWANl [see khatt]. 

DlWAN-I HUMAYON, the name given to the 
Ottoman imperial council, until the mid nth/i7th 
century the central organ of the government of the 
Empire. Evidence on the diwdn under the early 
Sultans is scanty. According to 'Ashikpashazade 
(ch. 31; ed. N. Atsiz, Osmanh tarihlen, Istanbul 
1949, 118; German trans. R. Kreutel, V om Hirtenzeii 
zur hohen Pforte, Graz 1959, 66), the practice of 
wearing a twisted turban (burma dulbend) when 
attending the diwdn was introduced during the reign 
of Orkhan. Probably a kind of public audience is 
meant. The Egyptian physician Shams al-Din b. 
Saghir, sent by Barkuk to treat Bayazid II, describes 
how the Ottoman ruler used to hold public audience 
in the morning and dispense justice to the people 
(quoted by Ibn Hadjar in the Inbd^ al-ghumr, anno 
805; Sevkiye Inalcik, Ibn Hacer'de Osmanh'lara 
dair haberler, in AODTCFD, vi/3, (1948), 192, 195; 
cf. Tashkopriizade Kemal al-Din Mehmed, Ta'rikh-i 
Sdf, Istanbul 1287, 3+). 'Ashikpashazade (ch. 81; 
text 155-6, tr. 134) speaks of the pashas holding a 
diwdn when Mehemmed I was dying, and of a daily 
diwdn at the Porte (kapu), and again (ch. 122; text 
190-1, tr. 195) of a similar diwdn of the pashas on 
the death of Murad II. From these, and parallel 
narratives in Neshrl and other early chroniclers, it 
may be inferred that by the early gth/isth century 
it had become a regular practice for the Sultan to 
preside over a council of the pashas, and that during 
the interregnum between the death of a Sultan and 
the arrival of his successor the diwdn could, excep- 
tionally, be held by the pashas on their own. 
Mehemmed II seems to have been the first Sultan 
to give up the practice of presiding over the meetings 
of the diwdn, relinquishing this function to the 
Grand Vizier. According to an anecdote recorded by 
later historians the reason for this was that a peasant 
with a grievance came to the diwdn one day and said 
to the assembled dignitaries: "Which of you is the 
Sultan ? I have a complaint". The Sultan was offend- 
ed, and the Grand Vizier Gedik Ahmed Pasha 
suggested to him that he might avoid such embarrass- 
ments by not appearing at the diwdn. Instead, he 
could observe the proceedings from behind a grille or 
screen (Solakzade, Ta'rikh, 268; Mustafa Nuri Pasha, 
NetdHaj al-wuku'-dP, i, Istanbul 1327, 59; c Abd al- 
Rahman Sheref, Topkapu Sardy-i humdyunu, in 
TOEM, i/6, 1911, 351). Whatever the truth of the 



338 



DlWAN-I HUMAYON 



anecdote, the withdrawal of the Sultan is confirmed 
by the Kanun of Mehemmed II, which states clearly 
that the Sultan sits behind a screen (djandb-i 
sherijim pes-i perdede oturup (kanunndme 23)). 
This practice continued until the time of Suleyman 
KanunI, who ceased to attend the meetings of tha 
diwdn even in this form (Kocu Bey, Risdle, ch. 2, 
ed. A. K. Aksiit, Istanbul 1939, 20-3 ; German trans, 
by W. F. A. Behrnauer in ZDMG, xv, (1861), 275 ff. 
cf. Hammer- Purgstall, GOR, iii, 489; Histoire, vi, 
282). 

Constitution and procedure. The Kanun of 
Mehemmed II, which purports to set forth the 
practice of the Sultan's father and grandfather, lays 
down the constitution of the diwdn-i humdyun in 
some detail. The diwdn met every day; those 
attending were, in order of precedence, the Grand 
Vizier, the other viziers, the kadl'askers, the 
defterdars, and the nishandji. If the nishandjt had 
the rank of vizier or beylerbey, he sat above the 
defterdars; if that of sandjak-beyi, below the defter- 
dars. When they came, they were received with 
obeissance by the Chief Pursuivant (Ca'ush-bashi) 
and by the Intendant of the Doorkeepers (Kapldjllar 
Kdhyasl). Four times a week a meeting was held in 
the audience chamber (ard odasi), attended by the 
viziers, kadl c askers, and defterdars, at which the 
Sultan was present behind a grille (kanunndme 13, 
23). In former times, it had been the practice of the 
Sultans to dine with the viziers, but Mehemmed had 
abolished this (ibid. 27). 

In the course of the ioth/i6th century the member- 
ship of the diwdn was somewhat extended. A docu- 
ment of 942/1536, quoted by Ferldun (Munshe'dt 
al-Seldtin 2 , i, 595) authorizes the Beylerbey of 
Rumeli to attend the diwdn but excludes the Beyler- 
bey of Anatolia. Later, in recognition of the growing 
importance of naval affairs, the Kapudan Pasha 
was added. The Agha of the Janissaries, however, 
was only a member if he held the rank of vizier. 
Besides the full members of the diwdn, a number of 
other dignitaries were in attendance, though they 
had no seats in the council-chamber and did not 
participate in the deliberations. Among these were 
the Chief Secretary (re'is al-kuttdb [q.v.]), head of the 
chancellery; the Chief Pursuivant; the Intendant of 
the Doorkeepers, who maintained liaison between 
the Grand Vizier and the Sultan; the financial 
secretaries (see muhasaba); the diwdn interpreters 
(see terdjuman) ; the police chiefs [see shurta], and 
a number of other palace and administrative officers 
who might be called upon to carry out the decisions 
of the diwdn, with their assistants, clerks, and 
messengers. 

During the ioth/i6th century, the diwdn met 
regularly four times a week, on Saturday, Sunday, 
Monday and Tuesday. Its proceedings began at 
daybreak, and dealt with the whole range of govern- 
ment business. The morning was normally devoted to 
public sessions, and especially the hearing of petitions 
and complaints, which were adjudicated by the 
relevant member of the diwdn, or by the Grand 
Vizier himself. About noon, the mass of petitioners 
and other outside visitors withdrew, and lunch was 
served to the members of the diwdn, who then 
proceeded to discuss what business remained. 
Withers (after Bon) makes it clear that the council 
was purely consultative, the final responsibility 
resting with the Grand Vizier: "Dinner being ended, 
the chief Vizier spendeth some small time about 
general affairs, and taking counsel together (if he 
pleaseth and thinks it fit) with the other Bashaws; 



at last he determineth and resolveth of all within 
himself, and prepareth to go in unto the King (it 
being the ordinary custom so to do, in two of the 
four Divan days, viz. upon Sunday, and upon 
Tuesday) to render an account briefly unto his 
Majesty of all such businesses as he hath dispatched" 
(ed. Greaves 1747, 616). Besides the regular diwdn 
meetings, certain special diwdns were held. These 
were 1) the 'ulufe diwdni or ghalebe diwdni, held 
quarterly for the distribution of pay and supplies to 
the Janissaries and other 'slaves of the gate' (see kapu- 
kiulu), and also for the reception of foreign ambassa- 
dors, 2) the ayak diwdni — foot diwdn — an extra- 
ordinary or emergency meeting presided over by the 
Sultan or army-commander. It was so-called because 
all present remained standing. (On these two, see 
I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh devleti teshildtmdan 
hapukulu ocaklan, i, Ankara 1943, index, and idem, 
Osmanh devletinin saray teshildh, Ankara 1945, 
225-9). 

Place of meeting. The diwdn building, usually 
known as diwdnkhdne, stands in the second court of 
the Topkapu palace, between the Middle gate 
(Ortakapu) and the Gate of Felicity (Bdb al-se'dde). 
The present structure was erected during the reign 
of Suleyman Kanuni, by order of the Grand Vizier 
Ibrahim Pasha, and repaired in 1792 and 1819. In 
earlier times the diwdn met in another building, 
later referred to as the 'old diwdnkhdne'. The council 
chamber was known as kubbe-alti, 'under the dome', 
and those viziers who had the right to attend the 
diwdn were called 'the dome viziers' (see further 
wazIr). Overlooking the council-chamber was a 
screened enclosure, known as the kasr-i 'ddil or kafes, 
from which the Sultan could observe the proceedings. 
This was directly connected with the harem quarters. 
Adjoining the diwdnkhdne were the offices and 
quarters of the various viziers, and the office of the 
Grand Vizier, known as Divit (= dawdt) odasi (cf. 
dawadar). (On these buildings, see c Abd al-Rahman 
Sheref, Topkapu-Sardy-i humdyunu, in TOEM, i/6, 
1911, 329-64, especially 350 ff.). 

Administration. The main branches of the 
central administration, functioning under the 
diwdn-i humdyun, were as follows : 

(1) Diwdn kalemi, also called Beylik or Beylikdii 
kalemi, the central chancery office, headed by the 
Beylikdii, the senior chancery officer under the 
reHs al-kuttdb. This office was responsible for drafting, 
issuing, and filing copies of all edicts, regulations 
(Kanun), decrees and orders other than those con- 
cerned with finance. Treaties, capitulations, privi- 
leges and exequaturs issued to foreign powers were 
also, for a time, the concern of this department. 

Besides the chancery, there were two depart- 
ments dealing with questions of personnel, viz: 

(2) the Tahwil kalemi, also called nishdn or kese 
kalemi, which issued orders and kept records on 
appointments to the rank of vizier, beylerbey, 
sandjak-beyi, and mawld — i.e., kadi of a wildyet, as 
well as appointments and transfers to timars, and 
zi'dmets [qq.v.] (see further tahwIl). 

(3) the Ru'iis kalemi, which was concerned with 
appointments to all ranks and posts other than those 
covered by the Tahwil kalemi, the emoluments of 
which came from treasury or wakj funds. These 
included religious as well as civil and military 

Apart from these three main offices, there were 
two other branches, headed by the Teshrifdtdji and 
the Wak'anuwis [qq.v.], dealing respectively with 
ceremonial and with historical records. A later 



DlWAN-I HUMAYON — DlWANIYYA 



addition was the office of the Amedi or Ameddii [q.v.], 
who headed the personal staff of the ReHs al-kuttdb. 
This was concerned with the conduct of relations 
with foreign states, and with the maintenance of 
liaison between government departments and the 
palace. 

Some of the staff employed in these offices 
received salaries; others, of lower status, were paid 
with timdrs and zi'dmets. The latter could be pro- 
moted to salaried appointments. The more important 
established officials had the rank of kh"ddiegdn [q.v.]. 
Their subordinates were called khalife. 

Decline of the Diwdn-i humdyun. The 
growing importance of the Grand Vizierate as against 
the palace led to the practice of the Ikindi diwdni, a 
meeting held in the Grand Vizier's residence after 
the afternoon prayer {ikindi), to deal with unfinished 
business left over from the diwdn-i humdyun. This 
body came to meet five times a week, and gradually 
took over a large part of the real work of the diwdn-i 
humdyun. The transfer of the effective control and 
conduct of affairs from the palace to the Grand 
Vizierate was formalized in 1054/1654, when Sultan 
Mehemmed IV presented the Grand Vizier Derwish 
Mehmed Pasha with a building that served both as 
residence and as office (see bab-i c alI and pasha 
kapusu). To this new institution most of the ad- 
ministrative departments formerly under the diwdn-i 
humdyun were, in time, transferred. By the 18th 
century the diwdn-i humdyun had dwindled into 
insignificance. A new form of diwdn appeared under 
the reforming sultans Selim III and Mahmud II, 
who established special councils to plan and apply 
the reforming edicts (see tanzImat). These in time 
evolved into a system of cabinet government. 

Bibliography : an early statement, from an 
Ottoman official source, on the constitution and 
functioning of the diwdn-i humdyun will be found 
in the Kanun of Mehemmed II, dealing with the 
officers and organization of the government 
(Kdnunndme-i dl-i 'Othmdn, ed. Mehmed c Arif, 
TOEM Supplement 1330 A.H. 13 ft.; 23 ft. The 
existing copy contains revisions dating from the 
reign of Bayazid II). This description may be 
supplemented from information in the Ottoman 
chronicles (notably the Hasht Bihisht of Idris 
BidlisI [q.v.], reign of Mehemmed II), and the 
foreign sources {e.g., G. M. Angiolello [Donado da 
Lezze] Historia lurchesca, ed. I. Ursu, Bucarest 
1909, 130 ff.). The subsequent development of the 
institution may be traced in later kdnuns {e.g., that 
of 1087/1676, published in MTM, i/3, (1331 A.H.), 
506 ff.) and later foreign descriptions (e.g., the 
very full account written by the Venetian Bailo 
Ottaviano Bon in 1608, II Serraglio del gran Signore, 
in N. Barozzi and G. Berchet, edd., Relazioni degli 
stati europei lette al Senato . . ., 5 ser., i, Venice 1866 
(English adaptation by Robert Withers, A Descrip- 
tion of the Grand Seignor's Seraglio, Purchas' Pil- 
grims ii/II, London 1625, repr. Glasgow 1905, ix, 
322ff . ; also in John Greaves, Miscellaneous Tracts ..., 
ii, London 1650 and later reprints), P. Rycaut, 
History of the present state of the Ottoman 
Empire', London 1675, Bk i, ch. xi, 77 ff. From 
about the middle of the ioth/i6th century, 
the development and functioning of the diwdn-i 
humdyun and the various administrative depart- 
ments and services which it controlled can be 
followed in great detail in the records preserved in 
the Ottoman archives. A classification and 
description will be found in Midhat Sertoglu, 
Muhteva bakimindan basvekdlet arsivi, Ankara 1955, 



general description 



d basvekalet arsivi). The fullest 



the d 
5 that 



i humdyun and 
. H. Uzuncarsih, 

" ' ■ teskildh, 



izing Wasif); 



Osmanh devletinin merkez 1 
Ankara 1948, i-no. Briefer a< 
found in Djewdet 2 , i, 43 6 (sumi 
D'Ohsson, Tableau general de I' 
vii, Paris 1824, 211-32; Hammer-Purgstall, Staats- 
verfassung, 412-36; idem, GOR, index; A. H. 
Lybyer, The government of the Ottoman Empire in 
the time of Suleiman the Magnificent, Cambridge 
Mass. 1913, 187-93; Zinkeisen, Geschichte des 
osmanischen Reiches, iii, Gotha 1855, 117-25; 
Gibb-Bowen, i/i, 115 ff. and index; Pakalin, i, 
462-6, including a passage from the unpublished 
Kawdnin-i teshri/dl of Na'ili c Abd Allah Pasha 
(d. 1171/1757); Sertoglu, Resimli Osmanh tarihi 
ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1958, 78-81. On the early 
Ottoman and Saldjukid background, see I. H. 
Uzuncarsih, Osmanh devleti teskildtma medhal, 
Istanbul 194 1, 42-4, 95-8; V. A. Gordlevsky, 
Izbrannie socineniya, i, Moscow i960, 166-77; 
Mustafa Akdag, Tiirkiye'nin iktisadt ve ictimai 
tarihi, i, 1243-1453, Ankara 1959, 217-23, 323-33. 

(B. Lewis) 
DlWANIYYA, a town of central 'Irak, on 
the Hilla branch of the Euphrates, (at 44 55' E, 
32° N.), midway between Hilla and Samawa. With 
a population of some 12,000, almost all Shi c I Arabs, 
it is the headquarters of a liwd' (total population, 
508,000 according to the 'preliminary figures' of 
the 1957 census with the dependent kadds of 
Samawa, c Afak, Shamiyya, Abu Sukhayr, and 
Dlwaniyya itself; the tribes included in the liwd'' are 
among the largest and least amenable of the middle 
Euphrates, and whether in Turkish times or the 
British occupation (notably in 1336/39, 1919/20) 
or under the 'Irak government (notably in 1354/57, 
1935/38), have frequently embarrassed the govern- 
ment by faction and disobedience calling for punitive 
expeditions; the influence of the Nadjaf '■ulamd'' is 
strong. The town, built mainly on the left bank and 
with only small date-gardens, is now extending to 
the right and has been greatly modernized in recent 
years with improved streets, bazaars and public 
buildings. A new steel bridge has replaced the ancient 
pontoons, and passable roads and the c Irak Railways 
and a landing-ground serve the town and district. 
It is an important military station. 

Dlwaniyya under its present name dates only 
from about 1271/1854, when it was formed as a 
settlement of the Khaza'il shaykhs for the accomo- 
dation of the office and reception room {diwdn) 
of their tax-gatherers. The Turkish government 
adopted it soon afterwards as headquarters of a 
hadd, and merchants, officials, and a military and 
police garrison augmented the existing matting 
dwellings and mud-huts, and inaugurated the modern 

In site, however, and as an important middle- 
Euphrates tribal, administrative and intermittently 
military station, it seems to have continuity with 
the Hiska of earlier (post-medieval) centuries. It 
and its district were disorganized and largely 
deserted by the tribesmen and cultivators when the 
Euphrates increasingly abandoned its eastern 
(Hilla) channel from 1298/1880 onwards in favour 
of the Hindiyya channel; but conditions were 
restored by the erection of the Hindiyya barrage 
in 1330/1912. 

Bibliography: S. H. Longrigg, Four centuries 

of modern '■Iraq, Oxford 1925, and 'Iraq 1900 to 



340 



DlWANIYYA - 



1950, Oxford 1953; c Abd al-Razzak al-I-tasani, 

al- c Irdk Kadim an wa ffadith"*, Sidon 1947. 

(S. H. Longrigg) 

DIWRIGI or difrIgI, now DivRici, a small 
town in modern Turkey, situated on the confines 
of Armenia and Cappadocia on one of the routes 
leading from Syria and Upper Mesopotamia to the 
Anatolian plateau. Through it runs a torrent which 
flows into the Calti Irmak, a tributary of the Kara 
Su (northern Euphrates). This chief town of a kadd' 
in the province of Sivas, situated among market 
gardens and orchards which make it a pleasant 
resort — archaeological remains alone testify to its 
former prosperity in the Middle Ages — is now 
no more than a very scattered village, part 
of which is deserted (in about 1930 it had less 
than 4000 inhabitants). It stands at the bottom 
of a fertile valley, the old quarters of the town 
clustered together on the right bank, along with 
the ruins of the citadel. 

The ancient Byzantine Tephrike, which must not 
be confused, as is sometimes done, with the Nikopolis 
of Pompey, and which Arab authors of the early 
centuries knew by the name of al-Abrik or al-Abruk, 
"capital of the Paulicians" (G. Le Strange, Al- 
Abrik, Tephrike, in JRAS, 1896, 733-41, and Pauly- 
Wissowa, s. v. Tephriki), known to have been long 
occupied by Manichaean sectarians who were 
persecuted by the emperors of Constantinople and 
aided by the caliphs of Baghdad. But the most 
important period in its history followed the annexa- 
tion of the country to Islam, shortly after the battle 
of Manazgird in 464/1071 and the partial conquest of 
Armenia and Asia Minor by the Saldjukid sultan Alp 
Arslan. The upper Kara Su region, with Erzindjan 
as its capital, was in fact entrusted to a Turcoman 
officer serving under this prince, Amir Mangudjak, 
whose possessions were thus adjacent to those of 
Malik Danishmend who had settled in Kayseri and 
Sivas, and a second small Mangudiakid independent 
state was subsequently organized around Divrigi 
until, in 625/1228, it was compelled to recognize the 
suzerainty of the more powerful Saldjukids of Rum. 
It was at this period that the chief monuments in 
the town were erected, with inscriptions revealing 
the genealogy of this branch of the Mangudjakids 
(see table in CIA, Asie mineure, i, 90). Then 
the history of Divrigi, which though sacked 
on several occasions, by the Mongols among 
others, still continued to depend upon minor 
local dynasties, is consequently somewhat obscure. 
For a time reunited with the Ottoman possessions 
by Bayezid I in 801/1397, it was recaptured by the 
Mamluks who have left many epigraphic traces of 
their occupation and, along with the other Taurus 
frontier-zones which for a time protected their 
empire, from the Divrigi territory they created the 
third of the great Armenian districts forming the 
mountain marches of the province of Aleppo, con- 
nected with Malatya and Cairo by a post road. 
Finally, in the reign of Sellm I in 922/1516, Divrigi 
was to become Ottoman for several centuries. 

The dismantled castle which dominates the town 
was probably founded in ancient times, but the 
present fabric apparently dates entirely from the 
Middle Ages (inscriptions of 634/1236-7, 640/1242-3 
and 650/1252). The mosque of amir Shahanshah or 
Kal'e Djami'i, built in 576/1180-1, is still well- 
known, but the most remarkable building in the 
town, and indeed one of the most curious Turkish 
monuments in the whole of Anatolia is, beyond 
question, the architectural group comprising the 



great mosque and the adjoining hospital, built in 
626/1228 for Ahmad Shah, grandson of the previous 
sovereign, and his wife TQran Malik by the skill of 
a native craftsman of Akhlat. The rich decoration 
of the three doorways is no less effective than 
that of the vaults which have been used to cover 
these buildings. One must search far in the East to 
find parallels to these features. Various mausolea of 
the same period, aedicules built on an octagonal 
base, crowned with a pyramid of stone and containing 
a domed burial chamber, are also noteworthy, in 
particular the tomb of Shahanshah, known by the 
name of Sitte Malik Turbesi, and the tomb of the 
amir Kamar al-DIn, both of which were built in 
592/1 192-6. On the other hand, it is profitless 
to seek to identify in present-day Divrigi the site 
of the strange place of pilgrimage, venerated both by 
Muslims and by Christians and housing in a grotto 
the mummified bodies of "martyrs of the time of 
'Umar b. al-Khattab", which the shaykh c Alt al- 
Harawl, whose account has been reproduced by 
Yakut, had the opportunity to visit at al-Ubruk, 
doubtless the present locality of Ubruk which 
appears on maps between Konya and Ak Saray. 
Bibliography: Ibn Rusta, 93; Mas'udI, 
Murudi, viii, 74; al-Tanbih, 151, 183; Makdisi, 
Livre de la creation, ed. trans. CI. Huart, iv, 
54; Harawi, K.al-ziydrdt, ed. trans. J. Sourdel- 
Thomine, Damascus 1953 and 1957, 59-60 (trans., 
133-5); Yakut, i, 87-8; Ibn BibI, ed. Houtsma, 
iv, 210, 318; Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Nuzha, 
96; Badjdji Khalifa, Diihdnnuma, 624; Ewliya 
Celebi, Siydhatndme, iii, 210-4; Le Strange, 119; 
M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie a I'lpoque 
des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, 98; J. Sauvaget, 
La poste aux chevaux dans Vempire des Mame- 
louks, Paris 1941, 56; Cuinet, Turquie d'Asie, i, 
685. For inscriptions and monuments see: M. van 
Berchem and H. Edhem, CIA, Asie mineure, i, 
55-110; A. Gabriel, Monuments turcs d'Anatolie, ii, 
Paris 1934, 169-89 and pi. lxii-lxxix; J. Sauvaget, 
Dicrets mamlouks de Syrie, in BEO, xii, 1947-8, 
52-5 (decree of 891/1486-7); tA s. v. (art. by 
Besim Darkot). (J. Sourdel-Thomine) 

DIYA, a specified amount of n 



s of h 



njui 



to physical health unjustly committed upon the 
person of another. It is a substitute for the law of 
private vengeance. Accordingly it corresponds ex- 
actly to the compensation or wergeld of the ancient 
Roman and Germanic laws. Etymologically the term 
signifies that which is given in payment. The diya 
is also called, though very much more rarely, c akl. 

In a restricted sense — the sense which is most 
usual in law — diya means the compensation which 
is payable in cases of homicide, the compensation 
payable in the case of other offences against the body 
being termed more particularly arsh. 

The historical origin of the institution lies in pre- 
Islamic customary practice, where it was closely 
bound up with the social organization of Arabia. 
This rested upon a tribal basis, with the absence 
of any political authority, even within the individual 
tribe, and a system of private justice tempered to 
some extent by the practice of voluntary submission 
to arbitration. In matters of homicide particularly 
the principle of the exercise of personal vengeance 
(tha>r [q.v.]) reigned supreme, apart from the possi- 
bility of voluntary renunciation of the right against 
the payment of diya. The amount of this was, in 
principle, fixed— at least in the area in which Islam 
was born — at one hundred head of camels, although 



there are certain traditions which speak of ten 
camels only. A strong solidarity, as much active as 
passive, united the members of the tribe in the 
application of the system: the tribe as a whole was 
obliged to share in the payment of the diya, just as 
vengeance itself could be exercised upon members of 
the tribe other than the culprit himself. In the 
opposite case, and where the nearest blood-relative 
of the victim was himself unable to exact vengeance, 
any other qualified fellow-tribesman could take his 
place. 

Islam did not interfere with the basic system; 
various Kur'anic texts even expressly confirmed it. 
They indicated, however, certain modifications, 
among which the most important was the rule 
which made compensation obligatory in the case of 
accidental homicide. 

On the other hand the integration of the ancient 
custom in the Kur'anic revelation perforce had the 
effect of fixing this custom in a definite form in the 
law and thus constituting, in principle, a barrier to 
any further development. 

It was, however, soon to find itself out of tune 
with the new Islamic society such as was to develop 
rapidly into a community unified in principle and, 
in particular, organized as a State. 

Working under the influence of such opposing 
demands the jurists constructed a theory of the diya 
(and of the law of private justice (see sisas)) in 
which divergent trends are readily apparent. This 
theory is, in general, the same in both the Sunni 
and the ShI'I doctrine, apart from certain differences 
on secondary points, some of which will be noted 
below. 

The operation of the institution is confined to the 
field of homicide and a certain number of injuries to 
the body which will be defined below and which are 
restricted by enumeration to such effect that outside 
their bounds the developed common law of civil 
liability and the precise calculation of damage 
asserts its sway. Diyas are sometimes optional and 
sometimes obligatory. 

They are optional in the case of offences committed 
deliberately (<-amd). In the case of homicide the 
condition of intention is interpreted restrictively : 
notably it is necessary that the murder should have 
been committed with a weapon intrinsically likely 
to kill. In the absence of this last condition there is 
quasi-deliberate (shibh c amd) homicide where the 
diya is no longer optional. The Maliki madhhab does 
not recognize this separate category: whatever the 
means employed might be, as soon as the intention 
to kill is established the diya remains optional. 

There are, however, a certain number of cases 
where an < amd offence does not entail a right of 
vengeance and for which the diya is no longer 
optional, such as infanticide, murder which is not 
the direct and immediate result of the assault, etc. 
(see k:i?as). 

The diyas are obligatory in all cases other than 
those of deliberate offences which entail a right of 

Controversy exists among the different schools on 
the question as to whether the choice of the optional 
diya in place of kisds depends solely upon the wishes 
of the victim or his heirs, or whether the agreement 
of the offender is necessary for the choice to be 

In the absence of a contrary agreement between 
the parties there is a fixed tariff for the amount of 
the diya. In principle it consists of camels of different 
ages and sex. The diya in cases of homicide is one 



A 341 

hundred camels, split into five categories equal in 
number: twenty four-year-old, twenty three -year-old, 
twenty two-year-old and twenty one-year old female 
camels and twenty one-year-old male camels. Sub- 
ject, however, in the matter of this division, to 
divergent juristic opinions, if the homicide is deli- 
berate or quasi-deliberate, the value of the diya is 
increased (diya mughallaza) comprising now only 
female camels of the first four categories described. 

The diya for accidental homicide is also due in full 
in all cases of total loss of an organ or of a physio- 
logical or intellectual function. In cases of partial 
loss the amount of the diya is in proportion to the part 
lost: a half of the total diya for the loss of an arm, 
a leg, an eye or an eyelid; a quarter for the loss of 
eyelashes; a tenth for the loss of a finger or toe; a 
twentieth for a tooth, etc. 

The remaining physical injuries for which a diya 
or arsh is prescribed and for which, again, the amount 
is determined by reference to the diya of homicide 
are the following: the djdHfa, a wound penetrating 
the interior of the body, and the dmma (or md'muma), 
a wound penetrating the brain: i/3rd of the diya; the 
munakhila, a fracture with displacement of a bone : 
3/20ths; the hashima, a fracture of a bone: i/ioth; 
the mudiha, a wound laying bare the bone: i/ioth. 

All other injuries lie outside the system of the 
diya and are dealt with on the basis of what is called 
hukumat c adl, i.e., an assessment of the actual harm 
suffered. This remains, however, under the influence 
of the diya system inasmuch as compensation is 
determined by a comparison with an injury for 
which a fixed diya is established and it cannot, in 
any case, exceed the amount of the diya. 

The previously cited amounts of diya or arsh are 
due in full only where the victim is a Muslim, of the 
male sex and of freeborn status. The diya of a woman 
is half that of a man. According to the Malikis, 
however, who are here followed by al-Shafi% this 
reduction to half is only applicable where the diya 
exceeds a third of the full diya; but if, for example, 
the offence is one for which it would have been due 
of a quarter of the full diya, this same 



t will b 






The diya of the dhimmi or the musta'min (a non- 
Muslim foreigner, temporarily admitted to Muslim 
territory — in the case of the foreigner who is not 
musta^min nothing is due) is at the rate of one third 
or one half in the opinion of the majority, though 
the Hanafis admit an equal rate. In every case the 
diya is due only where the offence is committed in 
Muslim territory. As for the slave, he is outside the 
system when he is the victim (see below for his 
position when he is the offender). Since he is assi- 
milated to property, if he is killed or is the victim of 
some injury to his physical well-being, his master 
will be entitled to an amount of compensation 
equivalent to the loss he himself suffers from this 
fact. Such compensation may even exceed the 
amount of the relevant diya, except, according to 
a minority opinion, in the case of murder, where the 
compensation may not exceed this amount. 

Although, according to the original principle, the 
diya consists of camels, it was very soon recognized 
that it could eqally well be paid in gold coinage 
(1000 dinars) or silver coinage (10,000 or 12,000 
dirhams according to different versions which, 
without doubt, depend upon the variations in gold 
and silver currency rates). According to certain 
opinions the diya may consist of cattle (200), sheep 
(1000) or clothing (200 garments). Opinions differ, 
however, on the point as to whether the choice of 



the mode of payment depends upon the agreement 
of the parties or belongs to the guilty party or to 
the judge; or whether one or the other of the modes 
is obligatory in circumstances where it would con- 
stitute the mode of payment most widely or ex- 
clusively used in the locality where the debt is to 
be exacted, or whether the diya in camels is the 
fundamental obligation and it is only in circum- 
stances where the provision of payment in this 
form is impossible that recourse may be had to the 

As to the matter of deferred payment of the full 
diya, the majority opinion (Shafi'i, MalikI and 
Hanbali) draws a distinction according as to whether 
the offence is deliberate or not. In the former case 
the diya may be demanded within the year in which 
the offence was committed; while in other cases it 
may be paid over a period of three years in instal- 
ments of one third. According to the Hanafis the 
diya may, in all cases, be paid within the three year 

Where the diya is equal to one third of the full 
diya, payment may be exacted, in all cases and 
according to all opinions, in the course of the first 
year. Where the diya exceeds one third of the full 
diya the same controversy exists as in the matter of 
the full diya; the second third may also be exacted 
within the first year in the case of a deliberate 
offence according to the majority opinion, while 
according to the Hanafis it may be paid in the 
course of the second year. 

The legal nature of the diya is complex and is 
marked by diverse and contradictory characteristics 
which are the result of its origin and subsequent 
development. It appears at one and the same time as 
a manifestation of the law of private vengeance, as 
a measure to safeguard the public order and as a 
means of compensation for loss suffered. 

The creditor of the diya is the victim; in the case 
of homicide it will be the victim's heirs according 
to the order of succession; it is not precisely the 
circumstances of the victim of the loss which will be 
the determining factor. 

The debtor of the diya was, at the outset, the 
tribal group — referred to, in these circumstances, as 
the 'dttila [q.v.] — to which the culprit belonged; and 
this is the explanation for the comparatively high 
amount of the diya. The principle of this collective 
responsibility was firmly maintained in theory; but 
in fact it was progressively impaired, eventually 
disappearing altogether; it is avoided in the case of 
deliberate offences, as we have seen. The responsi- 
bility of the c aftila, having previously been the 
primary one, became subordinate to that of the 
culprit himself; it was now regarded as no more 
than the act of a beneficiary towards a debtor 
without means; and then, in recognition of the 
fact that the tribal organization had disappeared 
in developed Islamic society, the place of the c dkila 
was taken by the State itself, whose responsibility, 
in turn, eventually disappeared. In cases where there 
is a number of culprits the diya is divided among 
them per capita. 

If the perpetrator of the offence is a slave, again a 
distinction is drawn according as to whether the 
offence is deliberate or accidental. In the former case 
there is ground for kisdf just as in the case of a 
freeman, unless, according to one opinion, the 
victim or his heirs should choose to surrender the 
slave. In the view of the majority, however, the 
choice of the successful prosecutor lies solely between 
kisds and outright pardon. 



A secondary practice connected with that of diya 
and kisd$ is that of kasama [q.v.]. When the corpse 
of a murdered person is found in a locality — tribe, 
village or district — and the identity of the culprit 
is not discovered, fifty persons from the local 
population are asked to take an oath that they have 
no knowledge of the identity of the perpetrator of 
the offence. In default of such oaths, the obligation 
to pay the diya will fall upon the local population. 
This practice also, as was observed by an author of 
the 6th/i2th century, eventually disappeared. 

The survival of the diya. 

The system of the diya survives in the present 
contemporary period in two principal forms according 
to circumstances. 

Among the Bedouin tribes, with their innate 
hostility towards a State organization, the system 
of private vengeance tempered by the practice of 
the diya still survives upon a basis of customs 
which are analogous to ancient Arabian customs 
in several particulars — though they differ from 
tribe to tribe — and which often contradict the 
precepts of the Kur'an and the rules of Islamic law. 
The efforts of the governments concerned have not 
been able to achieve more than the imposition upon 
these groups of certain regulations of a procedural 
character and of limited scope. 

Thus, among the Arab tribes of Egypt, Jordan 
and Syria there is a fairly general custom which 
renders the diya obligatory in all cases save those 
of deliberate homicide. The composition of the diya 
varies from tribe to tribe — 40 male camels only, 
40 male camels and a virgin girl, a sum of money 
(in Egypt, for example, £E 400, or 300 or 150 etc.). 
The diya of a woman is usually greater than that of 
a man; among certain tribes it even reaches four 
times or eight times the amount of a man's diya. 
As regards proof of the offence, the system of ordeal, 
by fire and water particularly, is often practised. 
Among certain tribes a procedure of ftasdma is in 
evidence. 

The survival of the system in communities more 
fully developed and politically organized is essentially 
attributable to the religious character which it had 
acquired. A typical example in this regard is provided 
by the Ottoman Empire, where, despite the moderni- 
zation of the law towards the middle of the 19th 
century, and notwithstanding the fact that the 
principle of the rule of compensation (properly so- 
called) for loss suffered had been enunciated and the 
system of public law had been duly organized, the 
right of the interested parties to demand the appli- 
cation of fiisds and, finally, the diya, was retained, 
notably under the terms of the penal code of 1863. 
The amount of the diya was officially fixed at 
£T 224. 

All this has now, in actual fact, disappeared from 
positive legislative enactments; but traces, hard to 
erase, of the former state of things still persist. In 
certain countries such as Syria the courts, in spite of 
the spirit and the letter of legislation, suchas a civil 
code and a penal code wholly modern in inspiration 
and in force since 1949, still continue to pronounce 
liability for diyas, the amount of which, in cases of 
homicide, is always fixed as a lump sum of money, 
and is greater or less according as to whether it is 
a case of deliberate or accidental homicide. 

Bibliography: Shaykhzade, Madjma c al-anhur, 

ed. Ahmad b. 'Uthman, 1328/1910, ii, 614 ff.; Dar- 

dir on Dasuki, Commentary on the Mukhta?ar of 

Khalil, 14, 258 ff.; Ibn c Abd al- Rahman al-Dimash- 



DIYA — DIYAR BAKR 



343 



kl, Rahmat al-umma fi ikhtildf al-aHmma, ed. 'Abd 

al-Hamid, Cairo, 255 ff.; Ibn al-Human, Fath al- 

fiadir, Cairo, viii, 244 ff. ; Ibn Kudama, Mughni, 

3rd. ed. Rashid Rida, Cairo 1367/1947, vii, 636 ff., 

viii, 1 ff . ; Khirshl. Commentary on the Mukhtasar 

of Khalil, viii, 2 ff.; Querry, Recueil de lois con- 

cernant les musulmans chiites, Paris 1871, ii, 541 ff.; 

Shafi'I, Kitdb al-Umm, Cairo 1903, vi, 2 ff.; Abou- 

Heif, La diya (Arabic translation from the 

French), Cairo 1932; Hakim, Le dommage de 

source dilictueUe et son evaluation en droit musulman, 

thesis (typewritten), Beirut 1955, 1 ff.; Juynboll, 

Handbuch, 295 ff., 353; Tyan, Systeme de respon- 

tabiliti dilictueUe en droit musulman, thesis, Lyon 

1926, 13 ff. (E.Tyan) 

PIYA GttKALP [see gokalp, ziya]. 

PIYA PASHA [see ziya]. 

PIYAFA [see dayf, mihman, musafir]. 

DIYALA, an important river of east-central 

'Irak. Its name, of unknown origin and meaning, is 

ancient, appearing in antiquity as SiXXa or AeXa? 

or Dialas; its upper waters are known as the 

Sirwan or (originally and more correctly) Shirwan, 

as known to Yakut, and this name is in common 

use for most of its length. It forms a left-bank 

tributary of the Didjla (Tigris), navigable only by 

small craft, and with a discharge formidable in the 

flood season (March-May), slight in the later summer 

and autumn. 

The river rises in western Persia, where the many 
hill-streams (often dry in the summer and autumn) 
which unite to form its principal tributaries drain 
(1) the area north of Kirmanshah. (2) the area both 
north and south of Sanandadj (Senna, Sihna) in the 
Ardalan province, (3) the Perso-'IrakI frontier area 
around Mariwan, (4) the westerly area of Kirmanshah 
province, west of Karind, opposite ('Iraki) Khanikin 
and (Persian) Kasr-i Shirin. The first three of these 
sources have made their contributions before the 
main stream of the Sirwan crosses the frontier; the 
tributaries are known locally by various names, all 
flowing in valleys of great natural beauty and 
inhabited, from time immemorial, by Persian- 
Kurdish tribesmen. The contribution from area 
(4) of those suggested above forms the Alwand 
river (the Hulwan river of 'Abbasid times, called 
from the famous town of that name) and enters 
immediately west of Khanikin, in 'Irak. The 
Tandjera stream, draining the Shahrizur valley 
(Sulaymaniyya liwd'), also forms an 'Iraki con- 
tribution; there are others of lesser importance. 
The middle course of the river, until realignment by 
the Frontier Commission of 1333/1914, marked the 
Turko-Persian boundary in so far as that had by 
then been stabilized; but areas west of this sector, 
now forming part of Khanikin ftadd, were then 
assigned to Turkey as "Transferred Territories". 

The river greatly changes its character in its 
middle and lower course, where it flows first through 
undulating, then through flat country, diminishing 
its speed of flow, and lending itself to important 
use for irrigation. Near the point where it breaks 
through the Djabal Hamrin a series of major canals 
takes off, and maintains extensive date gardens and 
winter and summer crops. These are notably, from 
the right bank, the Khalis canal, which waters 
Daltawa [q.v.], and from the left bank the Ruz (on 
which stands Balad Ruz), the Mahrut, and the 
Khurasan. The intensive cultivation and famous 
ruits of the Diyala liwa? — itself named from the 
r iver, of which it contains nearly the whole length in 
'Irak (liwa' headquarters at Ba'kuba, dependent 



kadas of Khanikin, Mandali, Khalis, and Ba'kuba) 
— are due entirely to the presence of these canals, 
and to water-lift irrigation by Karad and mechanical 
pump from the main stream. This irrigation system 
is similar to, but less than and not identical to, that 
prevailing in the 3rd/9th to 7th/i3th centuries, 
before its ruin by the Mongols; but in that age, or 
most of it, the Diyala waters below the Djabal 
Hamrin discharged into the great Tamarra-Nahrawan 
canal (see didjla, and nahrawan), and were 
extensively canalized from it; a major part was 
probably delivered to the Tigris at or near the 
present mouth, 10 miles below Baghdad. Techni- 
cally, the relation between the Diyala (with its 
capacity for sudden and formidable flooding) and the 
Nahrawan canal-system, remains obscure; nomen- 
clature varies in the Arab geographers, who do not 
distinguish between canals and mere flood-channels, 
and at times even identify the Diyala with the Nah- 
rawan or Tamarra. The mediaeval cities dependent 
on the Diyala and its connected canals included 
Nahrawan, Badjisra, Ba'kuba, Daskara and Djalula. 
The area astride its lower course was closely admi- 
nistered and sustained hundreds of villages and a 
dense population; traces of Sasanian and older 
sites indicate that this had always been a favoured 
region. The main road from Baghdad to, and through, 
the province of al-Djibal — the Khurasan highway — 
ran through it, and largely followed the course of 
the river; this is still the case; the motor-road 
running from Baghdad to and across the Persian 
frontier follows substantially the old alignment by 
way of Ba'kuba, Shahraban, Kizil Rubat, Khanikin, 
and Kasr-i Shirin. The metre-gauge railway to 
Khanikin, constructed in and after 1337/1918, 
follows a similar line; railway bridges exist at 
Ba'kuba and at Karaghan, where the Kirkuk-Irbil 
line branches off. 

Bibliography: For the Arab geographers, see 

bibliography under didjla; equally for the 

relevant works of Streck, Le Strange, Willcocks, 

and Longrigg. (S. H. Longrigg) 

DIYAR BAKR, properly "abode of (the tribe of) 

Bakr", the designation of the northern province 

of the Djazira. It covers the region on the left and 

right banks of the Tigris from its source to the region 

where it changes from its west-east course to flow in 

a south-easterly direction. It is, therefore, the upper 

basin of the Tigris, from the region of Si'irt and Tell 

Fafan to that of Arkanin to the north-west of Amid 

and Hisn al-Hamma (Cermiik) to the west of Amid. 

Yakut points out that Diyar Bakr does not extend 

beyond the plain. 

Diyar Bakr is so called because it became, during 
the ist/7th century, the habitat of an important 
portion of the Rabi'a tribe of Bakr b. Wa'il [q.v.]. 
The latter had already moved forward, following 
the tribal wars of the pre-Islamic period, into 
Mesopotamia. Having stayed for some time in the 
region of al-Kufa, the Bakri groups spread out 
towards the north. It was at the time of the conquests 
under the caliphate of 'Uthman, while Mu'awiya was 
governor of Syria and the Djazira, that some 
Mudari and Rabi'i tribes were settled in the un- 
occupied lands of this region on the orders of the 
government. Mu'awiya installed these Mudaris in 
what came to be called the Diyar Mudar and 
the Rabi'Is in what came to be called the Diyar 
Rabi'a. Al-Baladhurl, who gives us this information, 
does not mention the Bakris expressly, who were 
included in the Rabl'I group, but it is probable that 






the s 



344 



DIYAR BAKR 



that they established themselves in the Diyar Bakr. 
This appellation does not however mean that this 
territory was inhabited by Bakris alone; on the 
other hand, there were Bakris elsewhere. 

The Diyar Bakr and the Diyar Rabi'a, since the 
two groups were connected, are sometimes spoken of 
jointly under the single name of Diyar Rabi'a 
(Yakut, ii, 637). 

The principal towns of the Diyar Bakr are Amid, 
the capital, Mayyafarikln, Hisn Kayfa, and Arzan, 
which strictly speaking is part of Armenia. The 
territory of the Diyar Bakr has, from the admini- 
strative point of view, generally followed the destiny 
of the Djazira. It has, however, sometimes formed, 
with neighbouring Armenia, a distinct and quasi- 
independent government. c Is5 b. al-Shaykh al- 
Shaybani, from 256/870 to 269/883, and his descen- 
dants ruled over the Diyar Bakr until the reconquest 
of Amid by the caliph Mu'tadid in 286/899. The 
same situation recurred in Hamdanid times when 
Diyar Bakr and Armenia were in the hands of the 
Amir of Aleppo, Sayf al-Dawla, at the same time 
as northern Syria. After the death of the latter in 
356/967 Diyar Bakr returned to the Hamdanid Abu 
Taghlib of al-Mawsil. With the rest of the Djazira, 
it fell under the domination of the Buwayhid 'Adud 
al-Dawla in 367/978, but after the death of the 
latter in 372/983 it passed into the hands of a 
Kurdish chief, Badh (the Kurds were also inhabitants 
of this part of the Djazira), then to those of his 
nephew Abu 'All b. Marwan, who disputed the 
Diyar Bakr lands with scions of the Hamdanid 
family, but remained in control, and was the founder 
of the Marwanid dynasty. 

From Diyar Bakr comes the name of the Bakri 
frontier posts (al-thughur al-bakriyya) enumerated 
in M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des ffamddnides, 
i, 254-61, and cf. 846 ff., which are situated in the 
north and north-west of the province. 

ii. The formation of the Saldjuk empire faced the 
Marwanids with a new problem. From the beginning 
they rejoiced in their increasing power, causing the 
khutba to be read in the name of the Sultans as well 
as of the Caliphs. The Saldjuks were in no hurry 
to suppress a principality which was functioning as 
a buffer state between themselves and Byzantium. 
The Marwanids, however, were unable to prevent 
some Turcoman infiltrations, some of which were 
accompanied by plunder. The collapse of the 
Byzantine power and the policy of the third Saldjuk, 
Malikshah, which tended to reabsorb autonomous 
states, were in the long run a danger to the Mar- 
wanids; the Banu Djahir [q.v.], originally from 
Diyar Bakr, whose resources they knew, were able 
to convince Malikshah and Nizam al-Mulk [q.v.] of 
the interest of a conquest, which these latter 
entrusted to them; it was a bitter struggle, since the 
population was attached to a dynasty which 
guaranteed their autonomy, and took two years of 
campaigning (476-7/1084-5). Scarcely, however, had 
Diyar Bakr been thus directly annexed to the 
Saldjuk empire when the troubles which followed 
after the death of Malikshah (485/1092) restored to 
them an autonomy of a different kind. A series of 
small Turcoman dynasties had set themselves up 
at Amid (Inalids), Arzan, Is c ird, etc., the most 
important of which was soon to become that of the 
Artukids [q.v.] at Mardin, Hisn Kayfa, Mayyafarikln 
and Kharput, and, after 578/1183, Amid as well. It 
is true that this family was divided into two branches 
often at rivalry, and that it ran counter to the 
ambitions of the Saldjukids of Rum, of the princes of 



Akhlat, and especially the Zangid governors, then 
princes, of al-Mawsil; nevertheless Diyar Bakr 
seems to have enjoyed in the 6th/i2th century a 
relative material and cultural prosperity. More 
serious for the Artukids was to be the ambition of 
the Ayyubids [q.v.], who aimed, for reasons of military 
recruitment, at setting foot in this country which 
was in part peopled by their Kurdish congeners. 
After 580/1185 Salah al-Din occupied Mayyafarikln, 
which afterwards fell to the lot of two successive 
sons of his brother al-'Adil, then in 630/ 1233 to the son 
of the latter, al- Kamil ; the Saldjuks of Rum, however, 
had occupied Kharput, and penetrated right into 
the heart of the Diyar Bakr country by the conquest 
of Amid (638/1241). Diyar Bakr was thus politically 
divided when the Mongol invasion took place. In 
the face of this invasion, Artukids and Ayyubids 
had no differences, and both Mayyafarikln and 
Mardin succumbed after severe sieges (657/1259 and 
659/1261), but the Mongols allowed two small 
dynasties, an Artukid one at Mardin and an Ayyubid 
one at Hisn Kayfa, to remain, under their suzerainty; 
these recovered some degree of autonomy as the 
dislocation of the empire of the likhans proceeded. 
The region, however, became the prey of nomadic 
pastoral tribes, especially Kurds in the north and 
Turcomans in the south, whose attacks against the 
rural Christian communities of Tur 'Abdin contri- 
buted to the Islamization of this region which had 
hitherto not proceeded very far. On the eve and the 
morrow of Timur's devastations (especially at 
Mardin), Diyar Bakr was the stake in the struggles 
with which the two great confederations of the Ak- 
Koyunlu and the Kara-Koyunlu occupied them- 
selves; the former, masters of Amid, made them- 
selves masters of the whole of Diyar Bakr having 
taken Mardin from the Kara-Koyunlu, and then 
Hisn Kayfa from the Ayyubids. Diyar Bakr was, 
however, occupied for a time by the troops of Shah 
Isma'il, founder of the Safawl dynasty in Persia 
(913/1507), and fell, for three centuries, into Ottoman 
hands in 922/1516. 

It must be borne in mind that, in the terminology 
of the Saldjukids of Rum, Diyar Bakr referred to the 
western confines of the province, which were all that 
they possessed, whereas in that of the Mongols it 
often refers to all the Djazira, including the Diyar 
Mudar and the Diyar Rabi'a. 

iii. Diyar Bakr, in its Turkish form Diyarbakir, 
is the name by which the Turks called the capital of 
the province, Amid, which they also called Kara 
("black") Amid, on account of the black colour of 
its ramparts and its houses, built of basalt (or mill- 
stone) ; this is noted by the Arab geographers, and is 
perhaps alluded to in a verse of al-Mutanabbl (ed. 
BarkukI, i, 182; cf. Vasiliev, Byzance et Us Arabes, 
ii/2, 316). A proverb relates that all there is black, 
dogs, walls, and hearts. 

Only the Amid of Arab times is described here. 
This was built on the left bank of the Tigris on a 
plateau which runs down abruptly to the river, 
which runs beside the enceinte on three sides, the 
fourth being protected by a moat and an outer wall. 

Amid was taken without a fight in 19/640 at the 
time of the conquest of the Djazira by c IySd b. 
Ghanm. It was besieged by al-Mu'tadid who put paid 
to the attempt at independence of the small ShaybanI 
dynasty (see above), and the walls of the town were 
dismantled; at the time of al-Muktadir, however, in 
297/910, they were restored. An inscription commem- 
orating this restoration is still legible on the 
Mardin gate. Amid fell into the hands of the Buway- 



hids in about 368/978. It was also the target of 
several attacks by the Byzantines, such as in 347 
and 348/958 and 959 by the Domesticos John 
Tzimisces, and again when the same Tzimisces was 
emperor, in 972, 973 and 974 A.D. In the course of 
that of 973 the Domesticos Melias was taken prisoner. 
But the accounts of the historians of these sieges are 
often vague, contradictory and in part legendary. At 
all events, at the time when al-Mukaddasi was 
writing, in 375/985, Amid, capital of Diyar Bakr, had 
become a frontier post threatened in consequence of 
the success of the Byzantines, and Ibn Hawkal 
seems to have foreseen that it would fall into Greek 

Amid was renowned for its woollen and fine lin( 
products, said to be "Greek" and "in the Sicili; 
style" (al-Mukaddasi, 145). 

Bibliography: i. (to the 10th century): Le 
Strange, 109 ff., where reference to the geographers 
will be found; M. van Berchem, Arabische In- 
schriften aus Armenien und Diyarbekr, in Lehmann- 
Haupt, Materialen zur dltesten Geschichte A rmeniens 
und Mesopotamiens, Abh. G. W. Gott., ix/3, 22; 
idem, Inschrijten Max Oppenheim, i, Arab. 
Inschr., 71, 91-2; M. van Berchem and J. Strzy- 
gowski, Amida; J. Strzygowski, Kara-Amid, in 
Orientalisches Archiv, i/5; Sarre and Herzfeld, 
Archaologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigrisgebiet, 
ii, 363; G. Bell, Amurath to Amurath, 322 ff.; 
J. Laurent, L'Arm'inie entre Byzance et I'Islam, 
index; Amedroz, The Marwanids, in JRAS, 1903; 
M. Canard, Hist, de la dynastie des H'amddnides, i, 
77 «., 572 ff., 795, 799, 838 ff. et passim; Margo- 
liouth, The eclipse of the Abbasid caliphate, index. 
On Amida in Roman times, see Chapot, La 
jrontiere de I'Euphrat, 323 ff. 

ii. The sources are those of the history 

general geography of the periods covered, 

which see aic-ijoyunlu, artuijids, ayyubids; 

only references specifically to Diyar Bakr are Ibn al- 

Azrak al-Fariki (Marwanid part ed. B. A. L. Awad 

and M.S. Ghorbal, Cairo 1959; Artukid part ; 

lysed by CI. Cahen in J A, 1935), and the anc 

mous Vienna ms. analysed by CI. Cahen in J A , 1 955 ; 

in Persian, the Kitdb-i Diyarbakriyya of Abi 

Bakr Tihrani (ed. Faruk Sumer); in Syriac, th( 

chronicle published by Ottomar Behnsch, Rerun 

saeculo XV in Mesopotamia gestarum, Bratislava 

1838.— Modern works: CI. Cahen, in J A 1935 anc 

1955; M. H. Yinanc and Faruk Sumer, in the 

articles Diyarbekir, Akkoyunlu and Karakoyunlu 

in lA. (M. Canard and Cl. Cahen) 

iv. Ottoman period. In 923/1527 the district • 

Diyar Bakr was conquered by the Ottomans, who 

organized the newly conquered territories intc 

extensive province (wilayet) centred on the city of 

Amid, and including the districts of Diyar Bakr, 

Mawsil, Diyar Rabi'a and Diyar Mudar, as well as 

the territory of Bitlis (Bidlis). Later, at the time of 

Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent, when 'Irak was 

conquered, another wilayet was formed at tjrfa, 

while the territory of Bitlis was included in the 

wilayet of Van which had been formed in the territory 

of Akhlat. The province of Diyar Bakr remained, 

nevertheless, one of the largest and most important 

Ottoman provinces, and during four centuries of 

Ottoman government, protected from invasion and 

wars, it began to recover some of its prosperity. Its 

position near the Persian frontier gave it special 

importance. Its first beylerbeyi was Biyikli (" 

mustachioed") Mehmed Pasha, who had taken 

city of Amid from the Persians and was, therefore, 



BAKR 345 

known as the Conqueror (Fatih Pasha). Other 
famous governors, who numbered Grand Viziers 
among them, included Khusrew, Rustem, Iskender, 
Behram, Ozdemir (Oz-temur)-oghlu 'Othman, Ci- 
ghala-zade Sinan, Hafiz Ahmed, Bosnali Khusrew, 
Tayyar Mehmed, Melek Ahmed, Kaplan Mustafa, 
Daltaban Mustafa, Kopriilu-zade c Abd Allah, 
Hekim-oghlu c Ali, Hasan, Reshld Mehmed, Es'ad 
Mukhlis and Kurt Isma'il Pashas. Both Biyikli 
Mehmed Pasha and Ozdemir-oghlu are buried 
within the enclosure of the Fatih Pasha mosque, 
founded by the former. Other walls are also buried 
in the same mosque. Two inscriptions made in the 
name of Suleyman the Magnificent are in existence, 
an Arabic one in the court-yard of the Ulu(gh) 
Djami' and a Persian one on the gate of the Ic-Kal'e 
(Inner Castle or Keep). A long decree (fermdn) 
drawn up in Turkish in the name of Sultan Mehem- 
med IV is engraved in the Djami'-i Kebir (Great 
Mosque) (Basn Konyar, Diyarbekir tarihi, ii, 130-3). 

As the centre of an important province and the 
base and winter quarters of the armies against 
Persia, Amid was also the headquarters of a beylerbeyi 
having a large number of troops under his command. 
Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent visited Amid on 
22 Rabi' II 942/20 October 1535, on his return from 
the Persian expedition, when he went up to the 
Castle, prayed in the Ulugh Djami' and spent some 
twenty days in the city, and also in 961/1554 when 
he stayed for eight days on his way out to the second 
Persian expedition. Sultan Murad IV visited Amid 
in 1047-8/1638 on his way out to the Baghdad 
expedition and also on his return in 1049/1639 when 
he ordered the execution of the famous and very 
popular Shaykh Mahmud Urmewi, known as the 
shaykh of Rumiyya. 

Of the Ottoman waits Khusrew, Iskender, Behram, 
Nasuh, Murteda, Melek Ahmed, Daltaban c Ali and 
Isma'il Pashas built one mosque each in the city, 
while Hasan Pasha had an inn (khan) built. Another 
khan is ascribed to Melek Ahmed Pasha. Baths were 
built by Mehmed, Iskender and Behram Pashas and 
a dar al-kurra' by Kopriilu-zade 'Abdullah Pasha. 
Sari (yellow or fair) c Abd al-Rahman Pasha founded 
a library. In 1815 Suleyman Pasha repaired the 
walls. 

Amid, now known as Diyarbakr, also became an 
important cultural centre in Ottoman times. In the 
ioth/i6th century it bred the poet Ibrahim Gulshenl, 
who also founded a tarika (religious order), and the 
historian Kadi Huseyn. It was during that century 
that the famous historian Muslih al-DIn Lari was 
mufti of Amid. Many poets are known as Amidi in 
the I2th/i8th century, including Labib, Hami, 
Wall and Ahmed Murshidi, as also the physician 
^ Ahmed Rida, the mathematician Isma'il and the 
'theologian Kiiciik Ahmed-zade Abu Bakr. Later 
local notables included the poets Refi', Raghib and 
Talib in the 19th century, as also the historian, 
belletrist and poet Sa'Id Pasha, while in modern 
times there are the latter's sons Suleyman Nazif and 
Fa'ik 'All Beys, 'All Emiri Efendi, the founder of 
the Millet library, and the political thinker Ziya 
(Diya) Gokalp. The 'Abd al-Djalali-zade family 
which gave many distinguished Pashas to the 
service of the Ottoman Empire is also of Diyarbakr 
origin. Descendants of tribal chiefs in the Kara- 
Koyunlu and Ak-Koyunlu States, of ioth/i6th 
century governors and of regional notables can 
still be found in the city. 

In the second half of the 19th century the Diyar- 
bakr region, like other Ottoman provinces, was the 



scene of opposition and sometimes of revolts of local 
amirs, tribal chiefs and other notables who did not 
wish to accept the reforms carried out in the Ottoman 
Empire. This led to long drawn out punitive opera- 
tions, as a result of which local chiefs, such as Bedr 
Khan Pasha, were forced to submit, or were punished, 
sometimes by exile. Leaders of nomadic or settled 
tribes, however, succeeded in maintaining their 
influence, even although their official titles had been 
abolished, only instead of gathering round amirs or 
tribal chiefs, these notables gave allegiance to the 
shaykhs of derwish orders (tarika). Led by shaykh 
Sa'id, the latter rebelled in 1925 against the reforms 
which the new Republican government of Turkey 
sought to carry out. The revolt started in Khani and 
spread before long to most of the Diyarbakr region. 
The rebels were, however, beaten back before the 
walls of Diyarbakr, after which the Government, 
which had proclaimed a partial mobilization, rapidly 
quelled the rebellion. In 1928 an Inspectorate- 
General was formed in the regions of Diyarbakr and 
of Akhlat with the object of promoting reforms. 
While it was in existence a small rebellion was quelled 
at Sasun. 

The city of Diyarbakr is always named Amid in 
all writings up to the end of the ioth/i6th century. 
It then began to acquire its present name, which 
was the name of the province of which it had become 
the centre, the name of Amid being gradually for- 
gotten. Under the Republic the form Diyarbakir was 
officially adopted, in place of the earlier Diyarbekir. 
Bibliography: Among Ottoman geographers 
and travellers, Katib Celebi (Qjihannuma) gives 
some information, Ewliya Celebi very much 
more (Siydhatndme, iv, 24 ff.). There are useful 
data on the social and cultural conditions in the 
region of Diyarbakr in the Mendkib of Ibrahim 
Gulshenl. Interesting information on local customs 
is given in the chapter on Diyarbakr written by 
Bakr Faydi (in the author's private library). At 
the end of the 19th century Diyarbekirli Sa'id 
Pasha gives the mediaeval Islamic history of the 
city in his Mir'dt al-Hbar: he does not, however, 
add very much to the data of Ibn al-Athir and 
Munedjdjim-Bashi. Detailed information on local 
scholars and writers is given in 'All Emlri Efendi, 
Tadhkira-i shu c ard-i Amid (Istanbul, 1227). The 
second volume of this work has not, however, 
been printed. There is further information in the 
same writer's Diyarbekir Vildyeti, Istanbul 1918, 
in his Mir'dt al-fawd'id and in the magazine 
Amid which he published. For more recent Turkish 
work on the history of the city and province see 
Basri Konyar, Diyarbekir tarihi, kitdbeleri, yxlhgi, 
Ankara 1936; Ibrahim Tokay, Diyarbakir, Istanbul 
1937; Osman Eti, Diyarbakir, Diyarbakir 1937; 
Kadri Giinkut, Diyarbakir tarihi, Diyarbakir n.d. ; 
Kazim Baykal and Siileyman Savci, Diyarbakir 
fehri, Diyarbakir 1942. Much useful information 
will also be found in the Sdlndmes of Diyarbakr. 
Data on the city and region can also be found 
in European travellers from the 16th century 
onwards. Scholars have also described the region 
and the archaeology, geography and history of 
the city. For local monuments and inscriptions 
see van Berchem and Strzygowski, Amida (Heidel- 
berg 1910) (reviewed by Khalil Edhem in TOEM 
1st year, no. 6, 1329, 365-77). Further information 
on inscriptions is given by J. Sauvaget and Basri 
Konyar. See also the extensive bibliography in 
A. Gabriel, Voyages archlologiques dans la Turquie 
orientate (Paris 1940). (MOkrimin H. Yinanc) 



Monuments. One of the most remarkable 
characteristics of the present-day town of Diyarbakr 
is without doubt the archaeological wealth of this 
city of black stone, with its old quarters still sur- 
rounded by walls which give the site its character and 
which, throughout the middle ages, gave a strategic 
value to this locality which is otherwise lacking in 
natural protection. The well preserved enceinte 
naturally attracted the attention of 19th century 
European travellers, as well as admiration from all 
visitors to the stronghold since the Arab conquest 
(for example, the account of Nasir-i Khusraw). But 
not until the serious archaeological investigation 
made on the spot by A. Gabriel, re-opening the joint 
study to which M. van Berchem and J. Strzygowski 
had formerly bent themselves on the basis solely 
of photographic material, was it possible to recognize 
in it one of the most eloquent witnesses of military 
art in the mediaeval Near East. The site shows a 
rampart of regular trace, somewhat modified by 
certain configurations in the terrain (the original 
town was in fact situated on the edge of a plateau 
bounded by escarpments on the side of the Tigris), 
displaying on a perimeter of more than 5 km. a 
curtain flanked by towers and contreforts, before 
which were a fausse-braie and a ditch, now filled 
in, interrupted by several monumental gates and by 
breaches of recent date. The layout of the curtain 
(8 to 12 m. high, 3 to 5 m. broad, built of masonry 
rubble between two matching facings), with its 
chemin de ronde protected by a crenellated parapet 
and its arched gallery running at certain places 
under the chemin de ronde, — the disposition of the 
square, polygonal or circular flanking towers, of 
varying dimensions, with powerful basalt piers 
equipped with lower casemates and with upper rooms 
or platforms arranged for defence, — the roman 
elements still in place between the circular salients 
of the gates now called the Kharput, Urfa and 
Mardin gates, all combine with epigraphic evidence 
to show the antiquity of an enceinte which indeed 
underwent successive alterations after the Arab 
conquest but "which remains the most important 
and the most complete example of Byzantine forti- 
fication of the 4th century" (A. Gabriel). No less 
significant, however, is the nature of the works which 
were carried out later, — on the one hand, during the 
'Abbasid period, indicated particularly by the restora- 
tion of the principal gates (dismantled by al-Mu c tadid, 
then rebuilt by al-Muktadir, as inscriptions of 297/709 
testify) — on the other, under the Marwanids, Saldju- 
kids and Artukids who undertook at different 
times partial repairs to the curtain and towers 
on the western front (indicated both by in- 
scriptions and by underpinning of coursework), 
or more important works of reconstruction attested 
by those enormous circular bastions of the Artukid 
period, Ulu Badan and Yedi Kardash, which are 
over 25 m. in diameter and encompass previous 
works within their complex systems of casemates 
and galleries — and, finally, under the Ottomans, 
who were content to keep the enceinte of. the town 
in repair but directed their main efforts to the 
citadel, on the north-east corner of the rampart, 
extended it, and substituted their own works for 
the ruins of the former palace of the Artukids. 

In the interior of the enceinte the great mosque, 
Ulu Djami', is noteworthy, whose abundant in- 
scriptions, scattered in the greatest disorder on a 
heterogeneous composition in which re-utilized older 
material dominates, have provoked a clash of 
opinions concerning its origin and history. In fact 



DIYAK BAKR — DIYAR MUDAR 



347 



the most probable conclusions, with regard to both 
the actual state of the building and the vicissitudes 
(fire in particular) which, according to textual in- 
formation, it must have undergone, tend to show it 
as a specifically Islamic construction, modified 
however continually under the different masters of 
the country "from Malik Shah down to the Otto- 
man sultans of the 16th and 17th centuries". 
Mention must also be made of some Artukid 
madrasas, with a central court surrounded by 
porticos and with a great interior iwdn, like the 
Mas'iidiyya and Zindjiriyya madrasas, as well as 
the numerous Ottoman mosques, with a prayer- 
hall entered by a simple portico and covered 
by a cupola on a polygonal drum, which were built 
in the years after the capture of the town in 920/ 
1 5 14. Other interesting remains of this last period, 
marked for Diyarbakr by a real commercial pros- 
perity, belong to the field of civil architecture, 
shown by the great caravanserais and spacious 
houses of an original type, built alike in fine ashlar. 
The structural qualities of these various works 
should not let it be forgotten that there developed 
at Diyarbakr in the middle ages a school of very 
capable sculptors, who not only left some reliefs on 
their walls, not without artistic merit (Artukid 
reliefs often representing animal forms), but also 
brought a remarkable impetus to the particular style 
of decorative writing which then was most favoured 
for the exterior enrichment of monuments. The 
inscribed bandeaux of the 5th/nth century at 
Diyarbakr, which have already been the subject of 
intensive research by S. Flury (a real pioneer in 
this field), constitute the best examples of this 
ornamental epigraphy of Upper Mesopotamia the 
i of which was to be felt in neighbouring 



; luxr. 






variations of detail brought to an initial type 
by an incomparable richness of invention" (J. 
Sauvaget, in Ars Islamica, 1938, 214), has been 
emphasized. 

Bibliography : M. van Berchem, Arabische 
Inschriften, apud M. von Oppenheim, InschrifUn 
aus Syrien, M esopotamien und Kleinasien, Leipzig 
1909, 71-100 (nos. 114-25); M. van Berchem and 
J. Strzygowski, Amida, Heidelberg-Paris 1910; 
S. Flury, Islamische Schriftbdnder Amida-Diarbekr , 
Basle-Paris 1920 (= Bandeaux ornementis a in- 
scriptions arabes, in Syria, 1920-1, 235-49, 318-28, 
54-62); A. Gabriel, Voyages archiologiques dans la 
Turquie orientals, with a Recueil d' inscriptions 
arabes by J. Sauvaget, Paris 1940, 85-205, 310-38 
(nos. 38-108). (J. Sourdel-Thomine) 

DIYAR MUPAR, a name formed in the same way 
as Diyar Bakr [q.v.], is the province of the Djazira 
whose territory is watered by the Euphrates and its 
tributary the Balikh as well as by the lower reaches 
of the Khabur. It extends on both banks of the 
Euphrates from Sumaysat (Samosata) in the north 
to 'Ana ( c An5t) in the south. The principal town of 
the Diyar Mudar was al-Rakka on the left bank of 
the Euphrates; other major towns were Harran on 
the Balikh, Edessa (al-Ruha, Urfa), capital of 
Osrhoene, and Sarfldj to the south-west of Edessa. 
Those places situated on the Euphrates after its 
confluence with the Balikh, such as al-Karkisiya 5 
and al-Rahba, were sometimes united in a special 
district known as the "Euphrates Road". 

For most of the time the Diyar Mudar formed 
part of the government of the Djazira, but was 
sometimes separated from it. Such was the case in 
Hamdanid times when it formed part of the amlrate 



of Aleppo with Sayf al-Dawla. After him it reverted 
to the amlrate of al-Mawsil, and later fell into the 
power of the Buwayhids like the rest of the Djazira; 
then it became the capital of the small Numayri 
dynasty (Banu Numayr), which was brought to an 
end by the Saldjflks. On the other hand, the Diyar 
Mudar was often overrun by the Byzantine armies 
in the 4th/ioth century, and in the 5th/nth century 
the Byzantine empire succeeded in annexing Edessa 
and its district, in 423/1032. 

Bibliography: Le Strange, 86 ff„ 101 ff.; 
CI. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord, no ff.; Margoliouth, 
The eclipse of the Abbasid caliphate, index; 
M. Canard, Hist, de la dynastie des H'amddnides, 
i, 86 ff., 795 ff., 838 ft., et passim; D. S. Rice, 
Medieval Harran, in Anatolian Studies, ii, (1952), 
36-83. (M. Canard) 

ii. — After the Byzantine conquest of Edessa, the 
Diyar Mudar, which continued to be a communi- 
cation territory without real autonomy, was divided 
into two parts, one in the north under Christian 
domination, partially colonized by Armenians, the 
other in the south, with Harran as its principal 
centre, where the dominant influence was that of 
the Numayri Arabs. From 457/1065, however, the 
country sustained the repercussions of Turkish 
expansion; it was troubled by marauding bands, and 
then at the beginning of 463/1071 it was crossed by 
the Saldjuk sultan Alp Arslan who, on his way to 
Syria, at one point besieged Edessa, and in 471/1078 
by Tutush, brother of the new sultan Malikshah. 
In the same year Harran and Sarudj were incorpo- 
rated, at the same time as Aleppo, in the principality 
of the 'Ukaylid of al-Mawsil, Muslim b. Kuraysh 
[q.v.], a nominal vassal of Malikshah, and Edessa into 
the state of the Graeco-Armenian Philaretes, master 
of the western Taurus and later of Antioch. Finally 
the two divisions of the Diyar Mudar fell into the 
hands of Malikshah himself, with al-Mawsil and 
northern Syria, in 479/1086. 

Nevertheless, Saldjuk domination in this frontier 
region was fairly lax, and the disorders following the 
death of Malikshah (485/1082) maintained at Edessa 
an Armenian rulership which was practically 
autonomous. The Crusade at the end of 1097 renewed 
for a half-century the partition commenced by the 
Byzantine conquest. Although the Franco-Armenian 
county of Edessa, as well as the lands to the south 
of the western Taurus along the middle Euphrates, 
formed its northern part, Harran, seat of an ephem- 
eral Turkish principality at the beginning of the 6th/ 
1 2th century, was cast with the lot of Aleppo between 
the hands of the Artukids and the Zangids. In 553/ 
1158 Zangi granted it in fief to 'All Kiiciik, the holder 
of Irbil to the east of al-Mawsil, in order to ensure 
the recruitment of the Turco- Kurdish contingents 
who were responsible for its defence, which was 
strategically important; his successors, the Begte- 
ginids [q.v,], held it for half a century. The 'Ukaylid 
Arab seignory which held sway at Kal c at Dia'bar 
was suppressed by Nur al-DIn [q.v.] in 558/1163. 
Thanks to the disturbances which marked the 
succession of this prince, the Diyar Mudar was 
occupied by SalSh al-Din [q.v.], who granted it first 
to his nephew Taki al-Din 'Umar, then to his 
brother al- c Adil. The latter, who had become master 
of the Ayyubid heritage, assigned it to his son al- 
Ashraf (597/1201), who in 624/1227 exchanged it for 
Damascus with his brother al-Kamil of Egypt. Al- 
KSmil incorporated it in the government set up in 
the east for the benefit of his son al-Salih Ayyub 
who, threatened by the anti-Ayyubid coalition 



DIYAR MUDAR — DIYAR RABI'A 



following the death of al-Kamil, granted it to the 
Kh'arizmians, recent fugitives from Asia Minor 
(635/1238). The later defeat of these latter and the 
fall of the Ayyubid dynasty in Egypt caused the 
region to pass into the hands of the Aleppo Ayyubid 
al-Nasir Yusuf, from whose time dates the adn 
strative description of c Izz al-DIn b. Shaddad; 
in 658/1260 it was conquered by the Mongols, who 
were already in control of Asia Minor and Mesopo- 

Henceforward the function of the Diyar Mudar 
changed. Reconquered by the Mamluks, who 
replaced the Ayyubids in Egypt and Syria, they 
established a frontier with the Mongols of Persia, 
and later with the Turcoman dynasties who succeeded 
them at the end of the 8th/i4th century. Successive 
invasions ruined the land, especially in the : 
and Harran declined irretrievably, although Edessa 
was the capital of the province. As in the neigh 
bouring regions of the north, east and west, th( 
Turcoman element, here especially of the tribe o 
the DSger, increased its influence. At the end of th( 
8th/i4th century, the region was again laid waste b) 
TImur. In the following century the fact that 
served as a base for the inconclusive expansioni 
attempts of the Mamluks towards the east gave it 1 
security. It fell without difficulty into the hands 
the Ak-Koyunlu of Diyar Bakr, under the nomin 
suzerainty of the Mamluks, and then to the Ottomans 
at the same time as Syria and Mesopotamia. It is 
remarkable that the bounds of the Arab population 
remain today much as they were at the time of the 
Crusades, so that the modern frontier between 
Turkey and Syria cuts the Diyar Mudar in two, 
as it was cut in the 5th/nth and 6th/i2th centuries. 
Bibliography : The sources of the history and 
geography of this period are to the found espe- 
cially, for almost all the Djazira, in c Izz al-DIn 
b. Shaddad, AHdk, iii, analysed by CI. Cahen in 
REI, 1934. (Cl. Cahen) 

DIYAR RABt'A, a name formed in the same way 
as Diyar Bakr [q.v.], is the most eastern and the 
largest province of the Djazira. It includes three 
regions: that of the Khabur and its tributary the 
Hirmas (Djaghdjagh) and their sources, i.e., the 
slopes of the Tiir c AbdIn; that which is contained 
between the Hirmas and the Tigris, the former Beth 
'Arabaye with the Djabal Sindjar; and that on both 
banks of the Tigris between Tell Fafan and Takrit, 
which marks the boundary with 'Irak. The lower 
reaches of the two Zabs are also included in this last 
region. The principal towns are the capital Mosul 
(al-Mawsil) on the left bank of the Tigris, Balad, 
Djazirat Ibn c Umar, al-Sinn, and in the west 
Barka'id, Sindjar, Nasibin, Mardin and Ra's al-'Ayn. 
The history of the Diyar Rabl'a is often confused 
with that of al-Mawsil. It was marked by numerous 
Kharidji revolts, which also affected other regions 
of the Djazira, as much in the Umayyad period as in 
the 'Abbasid. In the first period they were further 
complicated by the rivalries between the Caliphal 
governors of the Djazira and Syria. An account of 
the troubles which afflicted the Diyar Rabl'a in the 
'Abbasid period is given in Suleiman Saigh, Histoire 
de Mossoul, Beirut 1923-8, i, 73 ff.; L. Veccia 
Vaglieri, Le vicende del gdrigismo in epoca abbaside, 
in RSO, xxiv, (1949), 31 ff.; M. Canard, Hist, de la 
dynastie des Hamddnides, i, 291 ff. 

The Diyar Rabi'a is the region from which sprang 
the TaghlibI family of the Hamdanids, who took part 
in these Kharidji revolts and founded thereafter the 
quasi-independent amirate of al-Mawsil, which 



during the reign of Nasir al-Dawla consisted prin- 
cipally of the Diyar Rabl'a. After the conquest of 
the Hamdanid amirate of al-Mawsil by the Buway- 
hids, the attempt on the part of the last Hamdanids, 
Ibrahim and Husayn, to reconstitute this amirate 
to their advantage at the time of the Buwayhid 
Baha* al-Dawla (379-403/989-1012) was opposed on 
the one hand by the Marwanid of Diyar Bakr [q.v.'], 
and on the other by the 'Ukaylid amir Muhammad b. 
al-Musayyab, who had originally helped the two 
princes and had received three places in the Diyar 
Rabi c a in return. The latter became ruler of al- 
Mawsil, and was only nominally subject to the 
Buwayhid of Baghdad. He was the founder of the 
'Ukaylid dynasty of al-Mawsil, to which the Saldjuks 



put 






ibliography: in addition to the references 
given in the text, see : Le Strange, 87 ff. ; M. Canard, 
Hist, de la dynastie des H'amddnides, i, 97 ff., 
291 ff., 573 ff. el passim, where will be found 
information on the sources for the topography of 
the different regions of the Diyar Rabi'a; Margo- 
liouth, The eclipse of the Abbasid caliphate, index. 

(M. Canard) 
ii. — In the middle of the 5th/nth century the 
Diyar Rabl c a sustained the repercussions of the 
Turkish advance. From 433-5/1041-3 it was ravaged 
by the first band of Turcomans, who were finally 
massacred. When in 447/1055 the Saldjuk sultan 
Tughril Beg was enthroned at Baghdad by the 
'Abbasid caliph, the 'Ukaylids, fearing for their 
ShI'a faith and for their pastures, resisted his 
summons, and it was in their territories that the 
coalition of Arab adversaries of the sultan was 
organized, grouped under the former Buwayhid 
general al-Basasirl [q.v.], who was now adhering to 
the Fatimid caliph of Cairo (449-51/1057-9). The 
c Ukaylid Kuraysh however decided in due time to 
rally to Tughril Beg, who for his part in this frontier 
region preferred to content himself with his vassal 
status. The 'Ukaylid principality thus remained 
until 479/1086, the son of Kuraysh, Muslim, recently 
suspected of intrigues with Egypt, having met his 
death in a battle in Syria, and Malikshah, the third 
Saldjuk sultan, having thereupon annexed his 
dominions without a struggle. After the death of 
this sovereign the Saldjuk empire broke up, and the 
Diyar Rabl c a followed the fortunes of al-Mawsil, 
which was governed by a series of increasingly 
independent generals, one of whom, ZangI, ap- 
pointed in 521/1127, finally made himself independent 
and founded the Atabek dynasty of al-Mawsil. This 
lasted for about a century, although quarrels between 
its members, certain of which received Ayyubid 
support, had on occasion detached Sindjar or 
Djazirat Ibn <Umar from al-Mawsil. Their former 
slave and minister Badr al-DIn Lu'lu' succeeded the 
Zangids in the 7th/i3th century; he was led to pay 
homage to the Mongols for a time in 642/1244, but 
his sons, who had opened relations with the Mamluks, 
were dispossessed in 659/1261. Subsequently al- 
Mawsil and the Diyar Rabi'a, in front of the 
Kurds and Turcomans of Diyar Bakr and the 
Mamluk governors of the Diyar Mudar, were the 
foundation of the power in the Djazira of the Persian 
Ilkhans, then of their Djala'irid [q.v.] successors, the 
Kara-Koyunlu and Ak-Koyunlu Turcomans, and 
finally the Safawids, until their incorporation in the 
Ottoman empire which was completed only in 1047/ 
1637. In spite of Persian attacks, the province 
remained Ottoman until 1918, but having absorbed 
no true Turkish population, unlike Diyar Bakr, 



DIYAR RABI'A — DIYUSKURIDlS 



was not integrated into the new Turkey. The odd 
disposition of frontiers divides it between 'Irak and 
Syria. 

See further the articles djazira, djazirat ibn 
'umar, al-maw^il, nasibIn, sindjar, and ZANGIDS. 
Bibliography: The sources are those of the 
general history of the period; the only special 
work is Histoire des Atabeks de Mossoul of Ibn 
al-Athir (ed. and Fr. trans, in Recueil des Hist, 
des Croisades, Hist. Arabes, ii/2), which, however, 
is particularly devoted to the exploits of Nur al- 
Din, who reigned at Aleppo and not al-Mawsil. 
The A Hdk of <Izz al-DIn b. Shaddad describes the 
Diyar Rabl'a (see CI. Cahen, in REI, 1934), but 
does not give the developments promised about 
al-Mawsil). (Cl. Cahen) 

al-DIYARBAKRI, Husayn b. Muhammad b. 
al-Hasan, ioth/i6th century author of a once 
popular history of Muhammad, entitled Ta?rikh 
al-khamls /i ahwdl nafs nafis and preserved in 
numerous MSS and printed twice (Cairo 1283, 1302). 
The work is furnished in addition with a brief 
sketch of subsequent Muslim history. The brief 
enumeration of Ottoman rulers at the end stops in 
some MSS with- Siileyman KanunI but usually ends 
with Murad III (982/1574)- The author is also credited 
with a detailed description of the sanctuary in 
Mecca. There is much confusion concerning his 
identity. According to Hadjdji Khalifa (ed. Fliigel), 
iii, 177, the Ta?rlkh was finished in 940/1534, and 
its author lived in Mecca and died in the 960s/ 
1550s. His date of death is now given as 990/1582 
on the basis of an identification with Judge Karam 
al-DIn Husayn al-Malikl of Mecca, who was appointed 
judge of Medina in 982/1574-5 (al- c AydarusI, al- 
Nur al-sd/ir, 380-3; Ibn al-'Imad, Shadhardl, viii, 
419 f.), but proof for this identification is not 
available. The unpublished works of al-Nahrawall 
may decide the question. However, the identifi- 
cation is unlikely if only in view of Istanbul 
mss. of the Ta^rikh, such as Topkapusaray, 
Ahmed III 3044, which was written at the latest 
around 960/1553 and which states that the work 
was completed in 935/1528-9 (and which represents 
an earlier recension breaking off, originally, with 
the caliphate of Yusuf al-Mustansir in Egypt); or 
Damad Ibrahim 898, dated Wednesday, 28 Safar 
94i/(Tuesday) 8 September 1534, and stating that 
the work was completed on Sunday, 8 Sha'ban 
940/23 February 1534 (see Hadjdji Khalifa, lot, cit.). 
Bibliography: Brockelmann, II, 500, S II, 
514, III, 1293; '■Othmdnli muellijleri, iii, 118 f. 
A further ms. of the Risala fi dhar c al-Ka'ba 
in Istanbul, Bagdatll Vehbi 1142, iob-i6a. 

(F. Rosenthal) 
DIYUSKURIDlS, is the most correct tran- 
scription of the Greek AioaxopioT)?; other forms, 
such as Diyaskuridfls, allow a certain Syriac in- 
fluence to be admitted. In Islam the name always 
refers to Pedanius Dioscorides (1st. century 
B.C.), born at Anazarbe in Cilicia, whose name when 
fully arabicized is Diyuskuridls al-'Ayn Zarbi. What 
the Muslims in the Middle Ages knew of him and his 
work can be found summarized in the Tabakat al- 
atibbd* wa '1-hukamP by Ibn Djuldjul, ed. Fu'ad 
Sayyid, Cairo 1955, 21). After Galen (Pialinus [q.v.]) 
(377/987), he is the doctor most frequently quoted 
by Muslims. His Kept uXtj laTplX7)<;, which was 
already considered by Galen to be a definitive 
manual of materia medica and which has been the 
foundation of Muslim pharmacology [see adwiya] is 
known in Arabic by different names: Hayula 'ilddj. 



349 

al-tibb, Kitdb al-adwiya al-mufrada and Kitdb al- 
hashaHsh. It was an original translation from Greek 
into Syriac which provided the basis for the Arabic 
version; this was made by Istifan b. Basil, with the 
original text before him, and corrected by Hunayn 
b. Ishak [q.v.'] in Baghdad in the 3rd/gth century; it 
was the only complete translation made in the 
Muslim world. This translation, like the earlier Greek 
text, was issued in two versions: 1) the original 
edition of Dioscorides, which arranged simple 
drugs systematically in groups, divided the work 
into five books; to these were added up to three 
later apocryphal books on poisons. — 2) for ease of 
reference, alphabetical order was introduced, an 
arrangement which lent itself to expansion of the 
text. 

The Arabic text of Dioscorides was disseminated 
in extenso or in fragments throughout the whole 
Muslim world and has helped later pharmacological 
studies in the Arabic language. Two great difficulties 
have been evident from the start: the first a question 
of natural history, from the fact that botanical 
species were not the same everywhere; the second, 
a linguistic and lexical difficulty, for it was not 
easy to name the different species without ambiguity. 
The original Arabic translation acknowledges these 
difficulties by introducing into the text the original 
Greek, Syriac and Iranian names. 

For this reason, the marginal glosses are of the 
highest importance for the manuscripts of the 
materia medica of Dioscorides. One of the most 
precious, the codex copied at the imperial court of 
Byzantium for princess Ariicia Juliana, is of great 
interest on account of the variety of its glosses which 
bear witness to the hazardous progress from East to 
West of Greek as well as Arabic manuscripts, giving 
proof of the continuous scholarly work which they 
have inspired. During the 4th/ioth century the 
centre of this ceaseless labour was the caliphal court 
at Cordova where the monk Nicholas who had 
come from Constantinople, in collaboration with 
Hasday b. Shaprut [q.v.] and others, adapted the 
old eastern Arabic version to the needs of western 
Hispano-Arabic nomenclature, a task which was 
continued by Ibn Djuldjul, Ibn Buklarish and 
others. A similar readaptation was carried out in the 
East by al-Husayn b. Ibrahim al-Natlli who dedi- 
cated his Arabic Dioscorides in 380/990-91 to prince 
Abu C A1I al-Samdjurl of Tabaristan. Now, if Arabic 
pharmacology reached its apogee in al-Andalus with 
al-Ghafikl and Ibn al-Baytar [q.v.], not only was use 
made of fragments of the text of Dioscorides, but 
also Ibn al-Baytar (7th/i3th century) himself edited 
a Tajsir Kitdb Diyuskuridls, a manuscript of which, 
with its glosses, is preserved at Mecca. Later the 
polygraph Abu '1-Faradj — Bar Hebraeus (7th/i3th 
century) wrote a resume in Syriac entitled Kethabha 
dhe Dhioskoridhus. On the whole, the work of 
Dioscorides was known above all in the fragmentary 
form preserved by Ibn al-Wafid, Masawayh and 
others. Latin versions which for the most part were 
made in Toledo allowed mediaeval Europe to become 
acquainted, through the medium of two translations, 
with only part of his work; and the complete text of 
Dioscorides only became known in the West at the 
Renaissance. But fragments of the Arabic Dioscorides 
were also translated in the East, as is proved by the 
Armenian pharmacology of Amir Dawlat (2nd half 
of the 15th century). 

Any study of the materia medica of Dioscorides is 
incomplete if his iconography is omitted. Dioscorides 
himself used botanical drawings by Cratevas (1st 



DIYUSKURIDlS — DIZFOL 



century B.C.), whose sketches are preserved in Greek 
and Arabic manuscripts. In their illustrations these 
manuscripts contain an additional element which 
may help to determine their origins. As for the 
iconography, in addition to the ancient source 
already mentioned, it sometimes reveals Byzantine 
traces, and at other times Iranian influence; by the 
nature of things the different Muslims schools of 
painting are reflected, as for example the Baghdad 
school or the later Persian schools. Particularly 
interesting as a Muslim botanist and one of the most 
original is Ibn al-Suri (d. 639/1241), who when 
botanizing in Syria took with him an artist who 
made drawings of plants for him at different stages 
of growth; it is astonishing that Ibn al-Baytar does 
not quote this author who was his contemporary. 
In the iconography of the Arabic Dioscorides we 
have a proof that Diyuskuridls became the point 
of fusion of all the earlier traditions, enriched by the 
Muslims' observations of nature. 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Diosku- 
rides; G. Sarton, Introduction to the history of 
Science, i, 258-60, 611, 613, 678, 680, 682, 728, ii, 
52, 54, 79, 84, 649, 663, 976, 1073; L. Leclerc, De 
la traduction arabe de Dioscoride, in J A, ix (1867), 
5 f f. ; M. Meyerhof, Die Materia Medica des 
Dioskorides bei den Arabern, in Quellen u. Studien 
zur Gesch. d. Naturwissenschaften u. Medizin, iii, 
(1933), 72 ff.; H. P. J. Renaud, Le MustaHni 
d'Ibn Beklarei, in Hesp., x (1930), 135; C. E. 
Dubler, Le "Materia Medica" de Dioscorides, 
iransmision medieval y renacentista, i and ii, 
Barcelona 1953-1957; Ahmad c Tsa Bey, Ta'rikh 
al-nabdt Hnd al-'Arab, Cairo 1363/1944, 38 ft.; 
Mustafa al-Shababl, Tafsir Kitdb Diyuskuridis 
l-Ibn al-Baytar, in RIM A, iii/I (May 1937), 105 ff.; 
F. E. Day, Mesopotamian manuscripts of Dio- 
scorides, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
Bulletin, May 1950; K. Weitzmann, The Greek 
sources of Islamic scientific illustrations, in 
Archaeologica Orientalia in Memoriam Ernst 
Herzfeld, 250 ff. (C. E. Dubler) 

DIZFCL, the capital of the district (shah- 
ristan) of the same name in the Vlth ustdn (Khuzi- 
stan) of Persia, is situated in 32° 23' N. Lat. and 
48° 24' E. Long. (Greenwich), on the left bank of 
the Ab-i Diz or Dizful-rud. This river, which rises in 
the neighbourhood of Burudjird, flows into the 
Karun [q.v.] at Band-i Kir ( c Askar Mukram, [q.v.]). 
The town, which stands 200 metres above sea level, 
is built on a conglomerate formation; many of the 
inhabitants have made cellars (sarddbs) under their 
houses in this formation, into which they retire 
during the heat of the day in summer. Dizful 
(Persian Dizpul = 'Castle bridge') takes its name 
from the fortress which was built to protect the 
well-known bridge over the river there. The piers 
of this bridge, like those of the even more famous 
bridge at Shush tar [q.v.], are undoubtedly Sasanid; 
their construction may have been supervised by 
Roman engineers in the time of Shapiir I (see D. L. 
Graadt van Roggen, Notice sur les Anciens Travaux 
Hydrauliques en Susiane, in J. de Morgan's Mimoires 
de la DiUgation en Perse, Paris 1905, vol. vii, 187). 
The arches and superstructure are of later origin 
and have frequently been repaired. According to 
Mustawfi (740/1339-40), this bridge had 42 arches, 
while c Ali of Yazd (828/1424-5) stated that it had 
28 large and 27 small arches, making 55 in all (these 
authors doubtless regarded as arches the sup- 
plementary vents over the piers which were made in 



order to ease the pressure on the structure when 
the river was greatly in flood). 

The name Dizful did not come into use until the 
6th/i2th century; previously it had been known as 
Andalmishk or Andamishk (this name is now borne 
by the small town on the Trans-Iranian railway 
n km. to the north of Dizful). The older Arab 
geographers gave the town various names, such as 
Kasr al-ROnash, Kantarat al-Rum ('the Roman 
Bridge'), Kantarat al-Rud ('the River Bridge') and 
Kantarat al-Zab (Zab repeatedly occurs as a river 
name; it is from the Semitic root 31T 'to flow'). 

Procopius, in his Caesareensis (Book I, v, 7-9, 
28 and 29) has given an interesting account of a 
'castle of oblivion' (to Tr)<; A^6ir)<; 9pouplov) some- 
where in Persia where persons of high degree were 
incarcerated; no one, under pain of death, was 
allowed to speak of it. Neither Procopius nor the 
Arab and Persian writers who also mentioned this 
castle gave its precise location, but, according to 
Armenian sources, it was at Andamishn, which 
H. Hiibschmann, in his Armenische Grammatik 
(Leipzig 1897, 19), has identified with Andamishk, 
that is, Dizful. 

Dizful, like Shushtar, was for long overshadowed 
by the neighbouring city of Gundi-Shapur. Later, 
when Gundi-'Shapur fell into ruin, Dizful became 
more prosperous, but it and the surrounding district 
suffered when the wonderful hydraulic system of the 
Sasanids fell into disrepair. Although Dizful escaped 
destruction by the Mongols, it afterwards submitted 
to the rule of the Il-Khans. In 1393 it offered no 
resistance to Timiir. It is said that, shortly after its 
surrender to Timur, Kh w adja c Ali, the grandson of 
Shaykh Safi [q.v.] of Ardabil, visited Dizful and 
converted its inhabitants to ShI'ism by temporarily 
stopping the flow of the Ab-i Diz by a display of his 
supernatural powers. Nadir Shah [q.v.] visited 
Dizful on several occasions; in order to protect it 
against the Lurs, he built a fortress called Diz-i 
Shah some miles to the north-east. 

Muhammad c Ali Mirza, one of the sons of Fath 
c Ali Shah [q.v.], had the famous bridge repaired in 
the early years of the 19th century, but exceptionally 
heavy floods in 1832 swept away the parts that 
had been so carefully restored. It was at this time 
that the cultivation of indigo was introduced on a 
large scale in the neighbourhood. Much indigo was 
produced until the importation of foreign dyes made 
the industry uneconomic. Dizful was also noted for 
its reed pens, which were for long considered the 
best in the east and were exported far and wide. The 
raw material for this industry was supplied by the 
inexhaustible reed-beds in the so-called Batiha, the 
marshes of the lower reaches of the Tigris and 
Euphrates. 

Owing to very severe outbreaks of plague and 
cholera at Shushtar in 1831 and the following year, 
Dizful for a short while supplanted it as the capital 
of Khuzistan. About the middle of the 19th century, 
Loftus estimated the population of Dizful at between 
15,000 and 18,000, all of whom were Muslim except 
some 30 Mandaean families. Wells, in 1883, gave the 
total as 20,000, while Herzfeld, in 1907, estimated 
it at only 15,000, including Persians, Kurds, Lurs 
and Arabs. At the present time (1962), the population 
is approximately 50,000. Many of the inhabitants, 
like those at Shushtar, are Sayyids or descendants of 
the Prophet. In the town are some 35 mosques and a 
large number of tombs of saints ; in the suburb of 
Riiband is the shrine of Sultan Husayn which closely 
resembles that of the Prophet Daniel at Susa (Shush). 



DIZFOL — DJA'ALIYYUN 



Quite recently the bridge over the Ab-i Diz has 
been extensively repaired; in the process, a number 
of the old arches have been replaced by three modern 

Dizful and the surrounding area will undoubtedly 
benefit greatly when the big dam across the Ab-i 
Diz which is now (1959) under construction in a 
gorge 12 miles to the north-east of the town has been 
completed, as it will not only provide sufficient 
water to irrigate a large area, but it will also supply 
electricity on a large scale to northern and central 
Khuzistan. 

Bibliography: EGA, passim; Yakut, i, 372 
(s.v. Andamish); iv, m (s.v. Kasr Runash); Sir 
W. Ouseley, Travels in various countries of the 
East, London 1819, i, 358 ff. ; Sir A. H. Layard, 
Description of the province of Khuzistan, in 
JRGS, London 1846, 56-64; W. K. Loftus, 
Travels and researches in Chaldaea and Susiana, 
London 1857, 310-4; London 1846, 56-64; idem, 
Early adventures in Persia, Susiana and Babylonia, 
London 1887, ii, 293 ; Sir A. H. Houtum-Schindle;.-, 
in ZGErdk. Berl., 1879, 38 ff.; H. L. Wells, Sur- 
veying tours in Southern Persia, in Proceedings of 
the Roy. Geograph. Society, 1883; J. Dieulafoy, La 
Perse, la Chaldie et la Susiane, Paris 1887, 647-52; 
E. Herzfeld, in Petermann's Geograph. Mitteil., 
1907, 73-5 ; Razmara and Nawtash, Farhang-i 
djughrdfiyd-yi Iran, vi, 161; L. Lockhart, Persian 
cities, London 1959, chapter xx. 

(L. Lockhart) 
CIA'ALIYYCN: (i) A group of tribes in the 
Republic of the Sudan. The principal tribes of this 
group, mainly sedentary in their way of life, inhabit 
the banks of the main Nile from the Dongola [q.v.] 
region southwards to the Fifth (Sabaluka) Cataract. 
Other tribes and clans in Kurdufan (Kordofan) and 
elsewhere attach themselves to this group. The link 
among the tribes of the Dja'aliyyun is traditionally 
expressed in genealogical form: their eponymous 
founder (rather than ancestor) is said to have been a 
certain Ibrahim known as Dia'-al (i.e., "he made", 
because he made himself a following from those 
whom he relieved in a famine). More realistically, 
the common element of the Dja'aliyyun group may 
be seen in a Nubian strain in their ancestry. The 
Danakila, or northern tribes of the group still speak 
a Nubian tongue. They are separated from the 
southern Dja'aliyyun by the Shaykiyya. Although 
no memory of Nubian speech survives in the southern 
sector of the group, the name of Berber [q.v.] may 
well indicate an ancient linguistic enclave or frontier 
(cf. the Barabra [q.v.] further north). Migration from 
the Nile valley, a recurrent historical phenomenon, 
probably accounts for the numerous claims to 
Dja'all descent made in other parts of the Sudan, 
e.g., by the Hamadj of the Sinnar region, and by a 
group of tribes lying west of the Nile whose names 
are derivatives of the root DJ-M- C , "to gather" — a 
clear indication of synthesis. Elsewhere a ruling clan 
claims descent from the marriage of a Dja'all immi- 
grant with a local woman, e.g., the Nabtab among 
the Bedja [q.v.] Bani 'Amir, and the dynasty of the 
hill-state of Takall in the Nuba Mountains. The rise 
of the Shaykiyya confederacy in the 17th and 18th 
centuries produced a notable migration of Danakila- 
Dja'aliyyun which affected the culture and commerce 
of Dar Fur [q.v.]. Tradition also represents Ibrahim 
Dja'al as a descendant of al- c Abbas: this may be 
regarded as a later sophisticated pedigree of a type 
not uncommonly adopted by parvenu groups. 
'AbbasI has thus become virtually synonymous with 



351 

Dja'ali in Sudanese usage. The claims of the dynasties 
of Dar Fur and Wadday to 'Abbasid descent should 
be understood in this sense. 

(2) The name of Dja'aliyyun in a more restricted 
sense is commonly and currently applied to a 
specific tribe, the most southerly member of the 
riverain group, which has its territory [dar) between 
the Atbara-Nile confluence and the Sabaluka 
Cataract. It is probably the "kingdom of Al Ga'l" 
mentioned by the Jewish traveller, David Reubeni, 
who passed through its territory in 1523. During the 
Fundj period, the Dja'aliyyun were dependent upon 
their southern neighbours, the 'AbdaUab, whose 
hereditary chief, the Wad 'Adjib, was paramount 
over the Arab tribes under the sultan of Sinnar. 
From the late ioth/i6th century until the Turco- 
Egyptian conquest, the tribe was ruled by chiefs 
(mukuk, sing, makk) of the Sa'dab clan. Their capital 
was at Shandl (Shendi) on the right bank of the Nile. 
At the time of Bruce's visit (1772) the effective ruler 
was an 'AbdaUabiyya princess, the widow of the 
late makk. Under the last makk, Nimr Muhammad, 
the Dja'all tribal kingdom was far more important 
than that of the 'Abdallab, whose power was much 
decayed. At the time of Burckhardt's visit (1814) 
Shandl was the principal trading-centre of the 
eastern geographical Sudan, as it was the meeting- 
place of routes from the interior of Egypt and -the 
Red Sea. During the Turco-Egyptian invasion, 
Makk Nimr submitted to the ser'-asker Isma'il Kamil 
Pasha (23 Djumada II 1236/28 March 1821). When 
Isma'il returned from Sinnar in the following year, 
he was entertained at Shandl by Nimr. A quarrel 
over the slave-tribute, a matter then causing great 
tension in the newly annexed territories, led to 
Isma'il's assassination, which in turn touched off a 
revolt of the Dja'aliyyun and the tribes to their 
south. The rising was bloodily suppressed by the 
defterddr Mehmed Khiisrev Bey, the ser'-asker in 
Kurdufan. Shandl was devastated, and the sister- 
town of al-Matamma, on the left bank of the Nile, 
became the principal urban centre of the tribe. In 
general, however, the Dja'aliyyun, sharpwitted folk 
with great trading ability, profited under Turco- 
Egyptian rule. Dja'aliyyun of the dispersion were 
numerous in Kurdufan and Dar Fur, especially in 
the Arab-negroid southern fringe, where conditions 
were particularly favourable to petty traders 
(dialldba). The involvement of the djalldba in slave- 
trading led to severe measures being taken against 
them by the governor-general C. G. Gordon Pasha 
in 1879. It is therefore not surprising that many of 
the Mahdi's supporters were Dja'aliyyun of the 
dispersion. The Dja'aliyyun and other riverain 
tribes were prominent in the early years of the 
Mahdist state,' but the Khalifa 'Abd Allah [q.v.] 
transferred political power increasingly to the 
Bakkara [q.v.]. When Kitchener began his great 
advance towards Omdurman, the Dja'all chief of 
al-Matamma, 'Abd Allah Sa'd, refused to obey the 
Khalifa's order to evacuate the town (which was to 
form the base for the Mahdist forces), and sent for 
help to the serdar. This could not be given; al- 
Matamma was retaken by Mahdist troops, and 'Abd 
Allah Sa c d was killed (30 Muharram 1315/1 July 
1897). Under the settled rule of the Condominium, 
the Dja'aliyyun gained from the increasing oppor- 
tunities for trade and education, and are ubiquitous 
throughout the territories of the present Republic of 
the Sudan. 

Bibliography: H. A. MacMichael, A history 

of the Arabs in the Sudan, Cambridge 1922; i, 197- 



352 



DJA'ALIYYON — DJABAL TARIK 



236 and Index. S. HUlelson, David Reubeni, an 
early visitor to Sennar, in Sudan Notes and Records, 
xvi/i, 1933, 55-66. James Bruce, Travels to 
discover the source of the Nile, 2nd edn., Edinburgh 
1805; vi, 436 ff.; J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in 
Nubia, London 1819, 277 it; R. Hill, Egypt in 
the Sudan, London 1959, Index; P. M. Holt, The 
Mahdist state in the Sudan, Oxford 1958, Index. 

(P. M. Holt) 
PJABA [see bennak]. 

DJABA (variants: Ibn Rusta : N. djaba; Ya'kubi: 
N.h.ndya, Kanbaya; al-Idrisi: Qidfa; ibid, MS. 
Cairo: If aba; again, '■Aba, Ghdba, 'Ana, etc. occurring 
in the same list of kings separately in Ibn Khur- 
radadhbih and al-Idrisi are perhaps a dittography of 
Qidba) represents the name of the former hill-state 
of Chamba (old name Campd). The ancient capital 
of the state was Brahmapura (or Vayratapattana). 
Hiuen Tsang describes the kingdom as 667 miles in 
circuit, and it must have included the whole of the 
hilly country between the Alaknanda and Karnall 
rivers (Law, Historical geography). Later, the city of 
Chamba became the capital. On 15 April 1948 it 
was merged into Himacal Pradesh to be centrally 
administered by the Union Government of India. 
Djaba is generally used by the Arab writers as 
the title of the rulers of Chamba, who were probably 
Suryavamsi Radjputs. According to Ibn Rusta, the 
king enjoyed an honourable position (among the 
kings of India) and belonged to the Salulfi (race). 
The term Salulfiyyin, which undoubtedly applies to 
the ruling dynasty of Chamba, seems to have been 
wrongly used for the country in Hudud al-'dlam 
(for the salufti hound, see kalb). There is difference 
of opinion among scholars with regard to the date 
of the foundation of the Chamba dynasty. The 
earliest Arabic source to mention Djaba is Ibn 
Khurradadhbih, and the first draft of his work was 
prepared in 231/846, although the original report 
upon which his information and that of other Arab 
writers was based was drawn up much earlier. It is 
therefore very likely that the city of Chamba existed 
during the early decades of the 9th century A.D. 
Ibn Rusta and Marwazi state that the rulers of 
Chamba, on account of their pride (sharaf) took 
wives only from among themselves but the Balhard 
kings (the Rash traku fas), married their ladies. 
Then, they were always at war with al-Qiurz (the 
Gurdjara-Pratiharas) who also fought the Rash- 
trakutas and al-Tdkd (Takka-desa east of Sialko't). 
It may be deduced from the above information that 
the Rashtrakiifas and the rulers of Chamba may 
have been allies, not only because they had a common 
enemy in the Gurdjara-Pratiharas, but also because 
they were related to each other, in the internecine 
wars for political supremacy in India at this period. 
The Red Sandalwood, which according to Ibn 
Rusta was exported from Chamba, is the product of 
Pterocarpus santalinus, native of South India, 
Ceylon and the Philippine Islands; climatic condi- 
tions could not have favoured its growth in Chamba. 
Al-BIrim! says that the red sandalwood is O.C»- £->-j, 
<= Skt. rakta-landana) and was exported from 
Diawa. 

The kingdom of Djabat al-Hindi, the Island of 
Djaba (Ibn Khurradadhbih), the Indian Djaba 
(Hudud al-'alam) and Djaba Island (Kazwlni, 
'■Adi&Hb) are all the same place as Zdbadi of 
other Arab writers "and represent Java [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khurradadhbih. 16, 66, 
67; Ibn Rusta, 135; Sharaf al-Zamdn Tdhir 



Marvazi on China, the Turks and India, text, 
tr. and commentary by Minorsky, London 1942, 
34, 143; al-Idrisi, India and the neighbouring 
territories, ed. S. Maqbul Ahmad, 'Allgafh 1954, 22; 
idem, Nuzhat al-mushtdk fi'khtirdk al-afdk (MS 
Cairo, 275); Hudud al-'alam, 57, 91, 249-50; 
Ya'kubi, Ta'rikh, ed. Houtsma, Leiden 1883, 
106; Kazwlni, 'AdjaHb al-makhlakdt wa ghard'ib 
al-mawdiuddt, ed. F. Wiistenfeld, Gottingen 1849, 
112; C. V. Vaidya, History of mediaeval Hindu 
India, Poona 1921, i, 378; District Census Hand- 
boohs, vol. xxiv: Chamba District, Simla 1954, v, 
viii; David Ross, The Land of the Five Rivers and 
Sindh, London 1883, 204-5; S. M. H. Nainar, 
Java as noticed by Arab geographers, University 
of Madras 1953, 17-22; Cyclopaedia of India, and 
Eastern and Southern Asia, ed. Edward Balfour, 
Madras 1873; L. H. Bailey, Standard cyclopedia of 
horticulture, New York 1958; al-BIriini, Biruni's 
Picture of the World, ed. Zeki Valldi Togan 
(Memoir ASI, liii), 71, 126; B. C. Law, Historical 
geography of Ancient India, Calcutta 1954, 72, 
73; S. Q. Fatimi, In quest of Kalah, in Journal, 
South East Asian History, Singapore, i/2, 62-101. 

(S. Maqbul Ahmad) 
DJABAL. Mountain, see under the name of the 
Mountain. 

al-DJABAL [see al-djibal]. 
DJABAL -I BARAK AT [see yarpOt]. 
DJABAL al-HARIIH [see aghridagh and 

DJABAL TARIK, Gibraltar, the promontory 
of calcareous rock, a British possession, south-west 
of the Spanish province of Cadiz, almost at the 
southern extremity of Spain (length 4.6 km., 
breadth reaching 1.2 km.; area, 4.9 sq. km.; highest 
point 425 m.) ; the town extends the length of the 
western slope, which is fairly gradual, and numbers 
28,000 inhabitants (British, Spanish, Jews and 
Moroccans) (including the garrison) ; it is as it were 
the key to the Mediterranean, and is fortified and 
studded with batteries on a gigantic scale. In the 
bay to the west, called the Bay of Gibraltar or of 
Algeciras, there was in antiquity the European 
column of Hercules, also called Calpe or Abyla 
Mons, facing the African column called Columna 
Abyla or Abenna, the modern Ceuta. Gibraltar 
commands, from the north-east, the whole strait 
between Europe and Africa, the Atlantic Ocean and 
the Mediterranean Sea; in antiquity this strait was 
called TaSetptTiSc? LTuXat, Fretum Gaditanum 
(from Gades, Cadiz) or Herculeum; the Arabs call it 
(Khalidj) al-Zukdk, "(canal of) the alley" [see bahr 
al-maghrib]. Gibraltar received also the name 
of Qiabal al-Fath or Djabal Tdrih from the name of 
Tarik b. Ziyad [q.v.], who landed there in 92/711. 
During the entire Arab period the port, the town and 
the citadel ("The Moorish Castle") on the north- 
west of the rock played a continual part as a sure 
base for vessels, while Algeciras, facing it across the 
bay, developed still further and became the pros 
perous principal town of the entire southern extremity 
of Andalusia. The Almohad caliph c Abd al-Mu 5 min, 
on his return from the Ifrikiya campaign (554-5/ 
1159-60) sent from Constantine orders to his son and 
successor Yusuf, then governor of Seville, to con- 
struct a new town at Gibraltar which, with regard 
to the attacks aimed at Cordova, Granada and 
Seville, would serve as a base and as an assembly 
point for the large scale campaign he intended to 
undertake against the Christian kingdoms of the 
Peninsula. Yusuf, from Seville, and his brother 



DJABAL TARIK — DJABALA 



353 



'Uthman, from Granada, hastened to collect the 
necessary material and workmen for the foundation 
of a new and beautiful city with a cathedral mosque, 
palace for the Caliph and his children, and vast 
dwellings for the high officials of the empire, and for 
the troops, all, including gardens and orchards, 
supplied by water derived from mountain springs. 
The architect in charge of the works was al-Hadidi; 
in the "Moorish Castle" remains of the fortifications 
erected at that time by the Almohads have been 
preserved up to the present day. £ Abd al-Mu J min 
arrived in Gibraltar in Dhu '1-Ka'da 555/November 
1 1 60; he received the homage of the whole of al- 
Andalus with great pomp and, having organized a 
reception in which the poets took part, inspected 
and accelerated the work on the new city which he 
named Madinat al-fath "city of victory", he returned 
to Morocco in Muharram 5 5 6/ January n 61, after a 
stay of two months. In 709/1309 Gibraltar was taken 
by Alonso Perez de Guzman, el Bueno, on behalf 
of Ferdinand IV of Castile, but in 733/J333 it fell 
into the hands of the Marinids of Morocco, from 
whom the Nasrid Yusuf III Abu 'l-Hadjdjadj of 
Granada took it, but only in 813/1410, until the 
time when, on 24 Dhu '1-Ka c da 866/20 August 1462, 
the town was finally conquered by the duke Guzman 
de Medina Sidonia on behalf of Henry IV of Castile. 
From 1462 to 1502 it became, together with all the 
mountainous region of the Campo de Gibraltar, 



e the ei 






Gazules), a hereditary fief of the Guzmans of Medina 
Sidonia, after which it reverted to the crown. In 
947/1540 Gibraltar was pillaged by the Algerian 
corsair Khavr al-DIn, but in 959/1552 it was power- 
fully fortified by Charles Quint; in 1019/1610 the 
admiral Don Juan de Mendoza embarked at 
Gibraltar the Moors who had been driven out of 

of the Spanish succession Gibraltar fell in 1704 into 
British hands, and subsequently had to sustain 
several difficult sieges, particularly in 1779-83 under 
General Elliott, against Spain and France. 

Bibliography: Idrisi, Description de I'Afrique 
et de I'Espagne, text 177, trans. 213; Geographic 
d' About i&da, text 68, trans. 85; Marasid al-ittild c , 
v, 23-4; Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berberes, trans, 
de Slane, iv, index; Encyclopedic arabe (DaHrat 
al-ma'drif), vi, 383-6; Seybold, Zur spanisch- 
arabischen Geographie: die Provinz Cadiz, Halle 
1906, s.v. Cadiz; Baedeker, Spanien und Portugal 1 
(with plan); Ibn <Abd al-Mun<im, al-Rawd al- 
miHar, ed. Levi-Provencal, text 121, trans. 148; 
A. Huici Miranda, Historia politica del imperio 

(C. F. Seybold-[A. Huici Miranda]) 
DJABALA, Djeble, Lat. Gabala, Fr. Gibel, Zibel 
(not to be confused with Giblet-Djoubayl) is a 
small port on the Syrian coast, situated 30 km. 
to the south of al-Ladhikiya, facing the island of 
Ruwad; it is one of the termini of the main road 
from Khurasan, through the valley of the 'Aya al- 
Sharkl in contact with Djabal Bahira and Ghab, 
where there are roads towards Apamee and Aleppo. 
This town was an important commercial centre 
from the time of the Phoenicians, a Dorian colony 
in the 5 th century B.C. and then a prosperous 
Roman town, surrounded by a coastal plain rich in 
agricultural products; it was conquered and its 
fortifications destroyed by c Ubayda b. al-Djarrah 
in 17/638; Mu'awiya reorganized its defences and 
built a citadel separate from the Byzantine fortifi- 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



In the 4th/ioth century, with the renewal of the 
power of the Byzantines, the town was occupied by 
them on two occasions (Nicephorus Phocas in 357/ 
985, and John Tzimisces in 364/975). In 375/985 it 
once again became part of the djund of Hims. In 
473/1080, ftcidi Abu Muhammad 'Abd Allah b. 
Mansur, known by the name of Ibn Sulayha, drove 
the Byzantines out, and the town fell into the hands 
of the Muslims who kept an important Jacobite 
bishopric there. After the third attempt of the Franks, 
the kadi surrendered the town to the atabeg of 
Damascus Tughtakln (Shawwal 494/August 1101); a 
short time later the Damascan garrison was driven 
out and replaced by the Banu c Ammar of Tripoli. 

In 502/1 108-9 Djabala was captured by the 
Crusaders, its commerce was given to the Genoese 
and it became the seat of a Roman bishopric. 

In 584/July 1188 Salah al-DIn was called in by 
the inhabitants and captured the town, which 
became part of the empire of al-Zahir. Between 1192 
and 1285 Djabala was the object of rivalry between 
the Templars and the Hospitallers. In 1285 Sultan 
Kalawun took possession of it and joined it to the 
niydba of Hamah ; throughout the Mamluk occupat- 
ion the town's prosperity benefited from the important 
pilgrimage to the tomb of the Sufi Ibrahim b. Adham 
[q.v.] (d. 161/778). 

In 15 16 it remained for four centuries under 

Ottoman rule. Nowadays Djabala, surrounded by 

gardens, is no more than a small town where it is 

still possible to admire numerous traces of the past. 

Bibliography: Yakut, Mu'djam*, ii, 105-6; 

Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 460; 

Dussaud, Topographic Historique de la Syrie, 136, 

432; Grousset, Croisades, i, 128, 210, 444; ii, 824- 

6; CI. Cahen, Syrie du Nord, 233, 428-9, 634. 
(N. Elisseeff) 

DJABALA. an isolated mountain (known locally 
as a hadba) located in Nadjd at about 24° 48' N, 
43° 54' E, some 60 km. north-west of al-Dawadiml, 
25 km. south and east of NafI, and 15 km. west of 
WadI al-Risha J . The mountain, which consists of 
reddish stone, rises abruptly from the surrounding 
gravel plains. About seven km. in length and three 
km. wide, Djabala runs from south-west to north- 
east with three main wadls descending from its 
slopes on the south-east, the north-east, and the 
north-west, all of which eventually flow eastwards 
into Wad! al-Risha'. The local pronunciation of the 
name is Dja-ba-la (cf. Doughty's "Gabilly"). 

According to the classical Arab geographers, 
Djabala lay five days' journey from Hadjr in al- 
Yamama and was inhabited by the c Uyayna brauch 
of Badjlla. It had al-Shurayf on the east, whose 
water belonged to Banu Numayr, and on the west 
al-Sharaf, whose water belonged to Banu Kilab. 
None of these names is familiar to the present 
inhabitants of the area. 

Before Islam the battle of Yawm Djabala (or 
Yawm al-Nuk) took place in one of the wadls 
descending from this mountain; the Arabs number 
it with those of al-Kulab and Dhu Kar among the 
greatest battles. An unusually large number of Arab 
tribes took part. On one side were 'Amir b. Sa'sa'a 
[q.v.], with whom 'Abs amongst others had allied 
themselves; on the other side were practically all of 
Tamlm under the leadership of Lakit b. Zurara, 
supported by Dhubyan and Asad, detachments from 
al-Hira led by the step-brother of the reigning king, 
and men of Kinda under the "two Djawna", members 
of the family then ruling in al-Bahrayn. In spite of 
great numerical superiority, Tamlm and their allies, 



DJABALA — DJA'BAR 



relying, as suggested by a remark of the poet Labld, 
too much on one another, were utterly defeated. The 
prince L,akit fell, while Hadjib, one of his brothers, 
was taken prisoner and afterwards ransomed for a 
huge sum. This defeat shattered the last remnants 
of Kinda's power in Central Arabia; one of the 
tribe's leaders also fell in battle. The statements 
regarding the date of this battle are, as usual, con- 
tradictory and uncertain. According to some it took 
place 17 or 19 years before the birth of the Prophet, 
while others say it was fought in the year of his 
birth. Caussin de Perceval places it a few years later, 
and this must be the correct date, if the king of al- 
Hira who sent reinforcements was, as is said, al- 
Nu'man b. al-Mundhir; his reign did not begin 
until about 580 A.D. 

In 1347/1929 another memorable battle took 
place at Djabala between branches of c Utayba. 
Following the crushing defeat of the rebellious 
Ikhwan at al-Sabala by King <Abd al- c Aziz Al Sa c ud, 
the Barka branch of 'Utayba fled, under Sultan b. 
Bidjad Al Humayd, the paramount Shavkh of 
'Utayba and one of three leaders of the rebels. He 
and his men were eventually caught and beaten 
again at Djabala by 'Umar Ibn Rubay'an, in 
command of loyal elements of al-Rawka of c Utayba. 
Sultan himself managed to escape once more, but 
he was later taken prisoner. Like Tamim on Yawm 
Djabala, the fugitive members of c Utayba may 
have been attempting to reach one of the waters of 
Djabala, either the mishdsh of c Atiyya in the south- 
eastern wadl or the Hid of Muwadjih in the north- 
eastern wadi, the reputed site of the pre-Islamic 
battle. 

Bibliography: Bakri, Geogr. Wdrterbuch, ed. 
Wiistenfeld, 229; Yakut, ii, 24ft.; Ahlwardt, 
Anonyme arab. Chronih, 127; Tabarl, i, 966; 
Aghani, x, 34-47; Ibn c Abd Rabbihi, al-H^d al- 
farid, iii, 46 ft.; Ibn al-Athlr, i, 435-8; Mas'udi, 
Tanbih, 204 ft.; Kdmil, ed. Wright, 129 ft., 273, 
349. 659; Caussin de Perceval, Essai de VHistoire 
des Arabes, ii, 475-84; Sprenger, A Ite Geogr. 
Arabiens, 216; idem, in ZDMG, xlii, 337; Well- 
hausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi, 20; Rothstein, 
Die Lahmiden, 108 ff. ; Huber-Brockelmann, Die 
Gedichte des Lebid, 2; Philby, Sa'udi Arabia, 
London 1955; Dickson, Kuwait and her neigh- 
bours, London 1956. 

(F. Buhl-[R. L. Headley]) 
EJABALA b. al-AYHAM, the last of the Ghas- 
sanid dynasts whose personality dominates the 
scene in the story of Arab-Byzantine relations 
during the Muslim Conquests and may evidence 
the resuscitation of the Ghassanid Phylarchate 
after its destruction during the Persian invasion in 
A.D. 614. 

As the ally of Byzantium, Djabala fought against 
Muslim arms but lost twice, first at Dumat al- 
Djandal and later at Yarmuk, after which battle he 
made his exit from military annals. But tradition 
has remembered him in beautiful anecdotes whether 
as a Muslim who could not endure the rigour of 
Islam's egalitarian ideal or an apostate to Christianity 
living amid glittering court surroundings in Con- 
stantinople and reminiscing on his former days in 
the Djawlan. 

Bibliography: Baladhuri, Futuh, 135, 136; 
Tabari, i, 2065, 2066, 2347; Aghani 1 , xiv, 2-8; 
Caetani, Annali, iii, 551 ff., 562, 936; iv, 506; 
v, 194 ff. (Irfan Kawar) 

BJA'BAR or gAL'AT EJA'BAR, a ruined 
fortress situated on the left bank of the middle 



Euphrates, almost opposite Siffin. Also called Kal'at 
Dawsar from the name by which this locality was 
known in the pre-Islamic period and in the early days 
of Islam (Pauly-Wissowa, iv, 2234: to Dawsaron, 
which explains the Arab traditions connecting this 
name Dawsar with the king of al-Hlra, al-Nu c man 
b. al-Mundhir), it was described by ancient Arabic 
authors as a stopping-place on the route leading from 
al-Rakka to Balis (Ibn Khurradadhbih, 74 ; al- 
Tabari, iii, 220). In the Mamluk period it became a 
stage on the Hims-Ra's al- c Ayn postal route. 

The fortress owes its modern name to the Kushayrl 
DjaTjar b. Sabik who captured it in the time of the 
Saldjukids, but was forced to give it up to sultan 
Malikshah. The latter handed it over to the last 
'Ukaylid of Halab, Salim b. Malik, who had been 
expelled from his former possessions (479/1086-7), 
and Kal'at Dja'bar remained in the hands of Salim's 
descendants for almost a century, apart from a 
brief occupation by the Franks (497/1102). Zanki, 
the powerful atabeg of al-Mawsil, was assassinated 
there in 541/1146 while besieging it, and in 564/1168-9 
the 'Ukaylid Shihab al-Din Malik was forced to 
surrender it, in exchange for other districts, to Nur 
al-Din who put up various buildings there; of these 
a minaret still survives. The importance of the 
Jewish colony at the time was noted by Benjamin 
of Tudela. Subsequently Dja'bar passed into the 
hands of the Ayyubids, and then the Mamluks. 
Under the latter dynasty it was at first abandoned 
but the fortress, which had fallen into ruin in the 
time of Abu '1-Fida', was restored at the end of al- 
Nasir Muhammad's reign by governor Tanklz in 
736/1335-6. Traces of the fortress still attract 
attention, standing above a steep chalky cliff and 
dominating the wide Euphrates valley, but no 
serious archaeological investigations have ever been 
conducted there. According to 'Ashikpashazade 
(chapter 2) and other early Ottoman historians, 
Sulayman Shah, the ancestor of the Ottoman 
Sultans, was drowned nearby; he was buried by the 
castle of Dja'bar and commemorated by a tomb 
known as Mezar-i Turk or Turk Mezarl. The tomb was 
reconstructed by order of c Abd al-Hamid II and 
retained as Turkish property by article ix of the 
Treaty of Ankara of 1921. This story is perhaps due 
to a confusion between Sulayman Shah, the putative 
grandfather of c Othman I, and the Saldjukid prince 
Sulayman b. Kutlumush [q.v.]. The tomb itself is in 
all probability not connected with either of them. 
Bibliography: Ibn Khurradadhbih, 74, 98; 
Yakut, ii, 84, 621; iv, 164; Harawi, K. al-Ziydrdt, 
ed. trans. J. Sourdel-Thomine, Damascus 1953-7, 
63, 140; Abu 'l-Fida J , Geographie, ed. Reinaud, 
269, 276-7; Ibn al- c Adim, Zubda, ed. S. Dahan, 
ii, Damascus 1954, index; Ibn al-Kalanisi, ed. 
Amedroz, Eng. trans. Gibb, French trans. R. Le 
Tourneau, index; Ibn al-Athir, index; Ibn Iyas, 
ed. Bulak, i, 168; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La 
Syrie d Vipoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, 103; 
Le Strange, 102; R. Dussaud, Topographie histo- 
rique de la Syrie, Paris 1927, particularly 465; 
A. Musil, Middle Euphrates, New York 1927, 95; 
M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des Wamdanides, 
i, Algiers 1951, 88; CI. Cahen, La Syrie du nord A 
Vipoque des Croisades, Paris 1940, index, particu- 
larly 372 and 408; F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, 
Archaologische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris- 
Gebiete, Berlin 1911, i, 135; RCEA, ix, no. 3314; 
N. Elisseeff, La titulature de Nur al-Din, in BEO, 
xiv (1952-54), 165-6; J. Sauvaget, La poste aux 
chevaux, Paris 1941, 56-7. (D. Sourdel) 



DJABART — al-DJABARTI 



355 



JJJABART, the name of the Muslims of 
Ethiopia. Originally the name of a region (Djabara 
or Djabart) in the territories of Zayla c and Ifat (cf. 
al-Makrizi, al-Ilmdm, Cairo 1895, 6 ff.), later applied 
to all the Muslim, principalities of southern Ethiopia 
and, ultimately, to all Muslims living in Ethiopia. 
The term Djabart is sometimes also used by the 
Christian population of Ethiopia with reference to 
the Muslims of the Arabian peninsula and thus 
becomes identical with the term Muslim in general. 
In modern usage Djabart is almost invariably 
employed, in a narrow sense, to describe the Muslim, 
nuclei in the Christian plateau provinces of Eritrea, 
Tigre, Amhara, Shoa, etc. The common form 
Djabarti is scarcely a nisba but rather shows the -i 
ending by which Tigriiia and Harari dissolve final 
consonant clusters. According to Abyssinian tradition 
the word is derived from Ethiopic agbsrt (pi. of 
gabr) "servants (of God)" — cf. the similar develop- 
ment in the case of Hbdd. In Amharic a Muslim is 
called sslam or naggad'e ("trader"). 

The Djabarti live in families and small groups 
scattered throughout the Christian Abyssinian 
highlands. Ethnically and linguistically they are 
indistinguishable from their Christian neighbours. 
Their knowledge of Arabic is generally limited to 
the minimum necessary for an understanding of the 
Kur'an. Some of them claim descent from the first 
Muslim refugees who were sent to Abyssinia by the 
Prophet. The majority, however, owe their conversion 
to the sultanates in south-east Ethiopia and to the 
invasion of Ahmad Graft. In general, the relations 
between Djabarti and Christians are friendly, 
though discrimination against them was not un- 
known in the past, particularly in the deprivation 
of r$sti (the hereditary land-right), which led many 
of them into commerce and handicrafts. 

Estimates of their numbers vary greatly, but it 
seems safe to say that there are about 20,000 
Djabarti in the three plateau provinces of Eritrea 
and not less than 50,000 in Ethiopia (these figures 
exclude, of course, the fairly large number of 
Muslims other than Djabarti in the narrow appli- 
cation of the term). They maintain a number of 
mosques and Kur'an schools. In madhhab they 
belong to the Malikiyya and Shafi'iyya. The 
Djabarti have a riwdk at al-Azhar in Cairo. 

Bibliography: Djabarti, 'Adjd'ib, Bulak 1297, 
i, 385 ff ; E. Mittwoch, Excerpte aus dem Koran 
in Amharischer Sprache, in MSOS As., 1906, iii; 
E. Cerulli, in OM , 1925, 614-5 ; A. Pollera, Le popo- 
lazioni indigene dell' Eritrea, Bologna 1935, 149-52; 
J. S. Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, Oxford 
1952, 150-3. (E. Ullendorff) 

al-EJABARTI, <Abd al-Rahman b. Hasan, the 
historian, b. 1167/1753, d. 1825 or early 1826, was 
a descendant of a Hanafi family from al-Djabart 
[q.v.]. According to al-Djabarti the people of that 
region were very strict in their religion and were 
inclined to asceticism. Many of them went on foot to 
the Hidjaz, either as pilgrims or as mud±dwirun. 
They had three riwdks of their own: one in the 
mosque of Medina, one in the mosque at Mecca, and 
one in the mosque of al-Azhar at Cairo. The fore- 
father of the Egyptian branch of the family of al- 
Djabarti, c Abd al-Rahman by name, who was al- 
Djabarti's "seventh grandfather", went first to 
Mecca and Medina, where he studied for a long time; 
he then reached Egypt and joined the riwdk of the 
people of al-Djabart in al-Azhar at the beginning of 
the ioth/end of 15th or beginning of 16th century. 
There he became the head (shaykh) of the riwdk and 



the leader of the Djabarti community. The office 
of the shaykh of the riwdk was inherited from father 
to son in al-Djabartl's family; all the holders of this 
office are described as very religious, ascetic and 
upright people. 

From such a family rose a very great historian, 
who is undoubtedly a unique phenomenon in Muslim 
historiography. For in glaring contrast to the period 
of the Mamluk sultanate (648-918/1250-1512), which 
abounds in rich, most detailed and accurate source 
material, hardly surpassed in either quality or 
quantity by the source material pertaining to any 
other region of Islam, the period of Ottoman rule in 
Egypt (918-1226/1512-1811 approximately) is con- 
spicuous for the dearth of its historical sources 
written by contemporary inhabitants of the country. 
A very limited revival of historiography in Egypt, 
which took place towards the close of the nth/ 
17th century, did not change substantially this 
state of affairs. According to al-Djabarti's own 
testimony, the study of history was completely 
ignored and despised by his contemporaries. He 
himself would not have dealt with it had he not been 
ousted from public life. His knowledge of Muslim 
and Egyptian history up to 1 100/1688 (the year with 
which his chronicle opens) seems to have been very 
limited; yet in spite of these handicaps, and in spite 
of the fact that he had written only a local history 
of a province belonging to a much wider empire, 
he succeeded in writing one of the most important 
chronicles of the Arab countries during the Muslim 

Al-Djabarti's main historical work is his chronicle, 
entitled '■Adjd'ib al-dthdr fi 'l-tarddjim wa 'l-akhbdr, 
which covers the years 1 100/1688 to 1236/1821. He 
gives us two versions about its compilation: from 
the first version, which is somewhat unclear, it would 
appear that he started to take notes for his book 
regularly from 1190/1226-7. According to the second 
version, the Damascene historian al-Muradi, author 
of the biographical dictionary of famous people of 
the I2th/i8th century {Silk al-durar /» a'-ydn al-karn 
al-thdni 'ashar) was the "main cause" of the com- 
pilation of the chronicle in its existing form. Al- 
Muradi asked and obtained the co-operation of 
Muhammad al-Murtada al-Zabldi, the author of 
Tddj al- c arus, who lived in Egypt, in the compilation 
of that work. Al-Murtada was helped in this task by 
his pupil al-Djabarti. When al-Murtada died in 
Sha'ban 1205/April 1791 al-Muradi asked al-Djabarti 
to take his dead master's place. Al-Muradi died, 
however, in Safar 1206/October of the same year, a 
fact which discouraged al-Djabarti from pursuing his 
collection of material. Somewhat later, however, an 
"internal urge" (bdHth min nafsi) prompted the 
author to resume his work and add the chronicle of 
events "in the present order". 

From the above it is made clear that as long as 
al-Djabarti worked for al-Murtada and al-Muradi 
he collected material solely for biographies, and thBt 
only quite a long time after 1206/1791, when he 
decided to continue his work independently, did he 
start collecting purely chronological data as well. 
This explains the extremely large proportion of 
biographies in his book; it explains also why al- 
Djabarti concentrated on the I2th/i8th century, for 
al-Muradi's biographical dictionary is devoted to 
persons of the same century. In any case, it is no 
mere accident that al-Djabarti's chronicle is called 
al-Tarddjim wa 'l-akhbdr, biographies taking first 
place and the narrative only second. This fact 
acquires a considerably added significance if we 



recall that out of all the chronicles of Ottoman 
Egypt al-Djabartl's was the only one to include 
biographies in historical work. In the Mamluk 
sultanate there developed an extremely rich biogra- 
phic literature, unparalleled perhaps in any other 
Muslim country or region. This kind of historical 
writing died out completely in Egypt under 
Ottomans until it was revived by al-Djabartl alone, 
as a result of Syrian influence. Whether he was also 
influenced by the Mamluk biographical works is a 
matter which, in the state of our knowledge at 
present, cannot be ascertained. 

Al-Djabarti wrote the first three volumes of his 
chronicle in their final form during the year 1220 
and the beginning of 1221/1805-6; the fourth and 
last volume was compiled, seemingly, during the 
period which it covers, i.e., the years 1221-36/ 
1806-21. There is no doubt that he intended to 
continue the chronicle after the fourth volume, as 
may be inferred from his remark at the end of that 
volume. Whether he did continue it or not cannot 
be established with certainty. 

Because of al-Djabarti's vehement attacks on 
Muhammad 'All and his regime, the publication of 
the Mdfd'tft was long forbidden in Egypt. A. von 
Kremer gives revealing evidence of the Egyptian 
government's attempt to suppress the book (Aegyp- 
ten, ii, 326). Only towards the end of the 1870s was 
the ban on the book lifted. The first time any part 
of it was published without government interference 
was in 1878, when the press of the Alexandria news- 
paper Misr printed the section dealing with the 
French occupation; it was edited by Adib Ishak, 
who called it Ta'rikh al-Faransawiyya fi Misr. In 
1297/1879-80, soon after the Khedive Tawfik's 
accession to the throne, the whole chronicle was 
published for the first time at the Bulak printing 
press — this is the standard edition. In 1302/1884-5, 
the chronicle was published again in al-Matba c a al- 
Azhariyya in the margins of Ibn al-Athir's K. al- 
Kdmil. In 1322/1904-5, it was published as an 
independent book in al-Matba'a al-Ashrafiyya, Cairo. 
A French translation of the '■AdjaHb, called Mer- 
veilles biographiques et historiques, ou Chronique du 
Cheikh Abd-El-Rahman El-Djabarti, was published 
in Cairo at the Imprimerie Nationale, during the 
years 1888-96; it is an extremely inaccurate and bad 
translation and is very dangerous to use. 

The chronicle is of immense importance for the 
whole period which it covers. As for the early part 
of that period, it is difficult to establish, in the 
present state of our knowledge, to what extent al- 
Djabarti relied on earlier sources which he has not 
cited; also, he might have erred about certain facts, 
some of which are important. Yet the general 
picture which he depicts of that early part reflects the 
history of the Egypt of that time in the clearest and 
truest way. For the later part of that period, and 
especially for the French occupation and the early 
reign of Muhammad C A1I, he is undoubtedly the 
best extant source (for an enumeration and evaluation 
of the subjects with which the chronicle deals see 
D. Ayalon, The historian al-Jabarti and his back- 
ground, in BSOAS, xxiii/2, i960, 235-6). 

A second chronicle written by al-Djabartl, called 
Muzhir al-takdis bi-dhahab dawlat al-Faransis, 
covers the few years of the French occupation of 
Egypt. Its compilation was finished at the end of 
Sha'ban 1216/end of December 1801 or beginning 
of January 1802. In it al-Djabartl attempted to 
curry favour with the Ottomans by extolling them 
on the one hand and by denigrating the French on 



the other. It was published recently (in 1958 ?) by 
Muhammad c Ata under the title Yawmiyydt al- 
Djabarti (two small volumes, nos 59 and 60 in the 
series ikhtarnd laka, Dar al-Ma c 5rif, Cairo). It was 
twice translated into Turkish, by the historian 
c Asim, and by the physician Bahdjat Mustafa [qq.v.~\. 
The latter's version, under the name Ta'rikh-i Misr, 
was published in Istanbul in 1282 A.H. 

Al-Djabartl also made an abridgment of Dawfld 
al-Antaki's medical treatise Tadhkirat al-Albdb. 
According to Lane he also refined the language of 
the Thousand Nights and One Night, and "added 
many facetiae of his own and of other literati". This 
copy seems to have been lost. 

Although al-Djabartl's knowledge of Muslim 
history was very limited, and although he did not 
have any personal contact with any important 
Muslim historian, he was very well situated to 
acquire first-hand information on events which took 
place in Egypt and especially in Cairo. His family, 
and particularly his father, Hasan, had strong and 
numerous connexions both among the ruling class 
(•Mamluks and Ottomans) and the class of the 
'ulamd'. His father had the greatest share in 
moulding hrs character and shaping his outlook. He 
seems to have inherited from him the combination 
of Muslim piety and learning with the practical 
knowledge and understanding of a man of the 
world. Other persons who greatly influenced al- 
Djabarti were the above-mentioned Murtada al- 
Zabidi, Hasan al- c Attar [q.v.] and Isma c U al- 
Khashshab. 

Bibliography: (1) Autographs. For an 
example of the 'Adjd'ib in the 'Irak Museum 
library see RIM A, i, 1955, 45; for an autograph 
of the Muzhir in the Cambridge University 
library see E. G. Browne, Handlist, 1900, 207, 
no. 1058. Qq. 214. (2) Works and references 
in Arabic: c Ali Mubarak, al-Khitat al- Tawfikiyya 
al-djadida, passim; DjurdjI Zaydan, TaMkh 
dddb al-lugha al-'Arabiyya, Cairo 1914, iv, 
283-4; P. L. Cheikho, al-Addb al-'Arabiyya fi 
'l-karn al-tdsi < 'ashar 2 , Beirut 1924, 21; Sarkls, 
i, col. 676; Khalil Shaybub, <Abd al-Rahmdn al- 
Diabarti. Cairo 1948 (no. 70 in the series ikra 1 ) ; 
Mahmud al-Sharkawi, Dirdsdt fi Ta'rikh al- 
Djabarti, Misr fi 'l-karn al-thdmin 'ashar, 
3 vols., Cairo 1955-6; Muhammad Anls, al- 
Diabarti bayna Muzhir al-takdis wa-' AdjaHb al- 
dthdr, madjallat kulliyyat al-addb, Cairo 1956, 
xviii, 59-70; Djamal al-DIn al-Shayyal, aUTa'rikh 
wa'l-mu'arrikhun fi Misr fi'l-karn al-tdsi' 'ashar, 
Cairo 1955, 10 ff. (3) Works and references in 
European languages: D. B. Macdonald, art. 
djabartI in EI 1 ; Brockelmann, II, 364, 480; S II, 
730; Supplement to the catalogue of the Arabic mss 
of the British Museum, London 1894, no. 571; 
G. Wiet, Index de Djabarti (Arabic title: Fihris 
'Adjd'ib al-dthdr), Cairo 1954; Fr. Babinger, 
Geschichtschreiber, 340; Seetzen, Reisen, Berlin 
1854, iii, 128-9; E. W. Lane, Description of Egypt, 
Brit. Mus. MS, Add. 34080, vol. i, fol. 215; idem, 
Manners and customs of the modern Egyptians, 
(first publ. 1836), Everyman's Library ed. 222; 
idem, The Thousand and One Nights, London 1889, 
i, 61, n. 28; 66, n. to ch. I; 201, n. 85; Giambatista 
Brocchi, Giornale delle osservazioni fatte ne' viagi 
in Egitto, nella Siria e nella Nubia, Bassano 1641-3, 
i, 151; A. Cardin, Journal d' Abdurrahman Gabarti 
pendant V occupation Francaise en Egypte, Paris 
1938; Histoire scientifique et militaire de V Ex- 
pedition Francaise en Egypte, Paris 1830-4, i, 10 



L-DJABARTl — DJABIR b. HAYYAN 



et passim; A. von Kremer, Aegypten, Leipzig 1863, 
ii, 325-6; idem, Beitrage zur Arabischen Lexiko- 
graphie, Vienna 1883-4; Merveilles biographiques 
et historiques, Cairo 1888, i, Introd.; CI. Huart, 
Littirature arabe, Paris 1902, 415-6; J. Heyworth- 
Dunne, Introduction to the history of education in 
modern Egypt, 1938; idem, Arabic literature in 
Egypt in the nineteenth century, in BSOS, ix, 1938, 
675-89; Gibb-Bowen, i, Parts I and II; Nicolas 
Turc, Chronique d'&gypte 1798-1804, ed. and tr. 
G. Wiet, Cairo 1950 (specially the glossary, 289-314, 
and the annotations to the Fr. trans., where al- 
Djabarti's chronicle is frequently used) ; Gamal al- 
Dln al-Sayyal, Al-Yabarh y su escuela, in Revista 
del instituto de estudios isldmicos en Madrid, vi, 
(1958), 91-101; D. Ayalon, The historian al- J abarti 
and his background, in BSOAS, xxiii/2, i960, 
217-49. (D. Ayalon) 

DJABARCT [see c alam]. 
al-DJABBAR [see nudjum]. 
DJABBUL, a town in Central Babylonia, 
on the east bank of the Tigris, a few hours' journey 
above Kiit al- c Amara, and five parasangs (about 
twenty miles) south-east of Nu'maniya (the modern 
Tell Na'man). It is described as a flourishing place 
by the older Arab geographers; but, by Yakut's time 
(beginning of the 7th/i3th century) it had considera- 
bly declined. In course of time — we have no details 
of its decay — it fell utterly into ruins. This town 
must date from a very remote period; for the name 
of the Gambulu, one of the most important Aramaic 
nomadic tribes, frequently mentioned in the first 
thousand years B.C., must have survived in Diabbul: 
they have left traces of their influence in modern 
topography in several other places. The ruins of 
Djabbul, which were known by the name Diumbul. 
Djanbal, or Djenbil as late as the first half of the 
19th century according to the travellers Rich, 
Chesney and Jones, have now utterly disappeared 
owing to earthquakes. On the site where Chesney in 
1833 had seen the ruins of a large town, no trace of 
them was to be seen in 1848 when Jones passed it; 
the Tigris had in the interval entirely engulfed the 
remains of the town. 

Bibliography: BGA, passim; Yakut, ii, 23; 
Le Strange, in JRAS, 1895, 43; Le Strange, 38; 
M. Streck, Babylonien nach den arab. Geograph., 
ii, 1901, 307-9; idem, in Mitteil. d. Vorderas. 
Gesellsch., xi, 1906, 222; Ritter, Erdkunde, x, 232; 
xi, 934; H. Kiepert, in GErdk. Birl., 1883, 16. 

(M. Streck) 
al-EJABBCL, the ancient Gabbula, a place east- 
south-east of Halab, watered by the Nahr al- 
Dhahab. The salt-mines there lent Djabbul a 
certain economic importance in the middle ages as 
they still do, to which it probably also owed its 
position as an administrative centre in the political 
division of the Mamluk kingdom. 

Bibliography: M. Streck, Keilinschriftl. Bei- 
trage zur Geogr. Vorderasiens, 20; Schiffer, Die 
Aramder, 131ft.; Yakut, ii, 29; Kalkashandi, 
Daw' al-subh, Cairo 1324, 295; von Kremer, 
Beitrage z. Geogr. des nordl. Syrien, 18; Le Strange, 
Palestine, 460; Ritter, Erdkunde, xvii, 1694 ft. 
(R. Hartmann) 
DJABIR b. AFLAtf, abu muhammad, the astro- 
nomer Geber of the middle ages; he was often 
confused with the alchemist Geber, whose full name 
was Abu c Abd Allah Djabir b. Hayyan al-Sufi. He 
belonged to Seville; the period in which he flourished 
cannot certainly be determined, but from the fact 
that his son was personally acquainted with Maimo- 



nides (d. 1204), it may be concluded that he died 
towards the middle of the 12th century. He wrote 
an astronomical work which still survives under two 
different titles; in the Escurial Ms. it is called 
Kitab al-Hay'a (the Book of Astronomy), in the 
Berlin copy it is entitled Islah al-Madjisti (cor- 
rection of the Almagest). In it he sharply criti- 
cizes certain views held by Ptolemy; particularly 
rightly when he asserts that the lower planets, 
Mercury and Venus, have no visible parallaxes, 
although he himself gives the sun a parallax of 
about 3', and that these planets are nearer the 
earth than the sun. The book is otherwise note- 
worthy for prefacing the astronomical part with a 
special chapter on trigonometry [see abu 'l-wafa']. 
In his spherical trigonometry, he takes the "rule of 
fie four magnitudes" as the foundation for the 
derivation of his formulae, and gives for the first 
time the fifth main formula for the right-angled 
triangle (cos A = cos a. sin B). In plane trigonometry 
he solves his problems with the aid of the whole 
chord instead of using the trigonometrical functions 
sine and cosine. The work was translated into 
Latin by Gerhard of Cremona and this translation was 
published by Petrus Agianus in Nuremburg in 1534. 
Bibliography: Ibn al-Kifti (ed. Lippert), 319, 
393; Hadjdji Khalifa, vi, 506; M. Steinschneider, 
Zur pseudepigraphischen Litteratur, Berlin 1862, 
14 ft., 70 ff.; von Braunmiihl, Vorlesungen iiber 
Gesch. der Trigonom., Leipzig 1900, i, 81 ff.; 
H. Suter, Abhandlungen zur Gesch. der mathem. 
Wissensch., x, 119, xiv, 176; Duhem, Systeme du 
monde, ii, 172-9; Sarton, Introduction, ii, 206, 
1005, iii, 1521. (H. Suter*) 

DjABIR b. EAYYAN b. c Abd Allah al-KufI 
al-SufI, one of the principal representatives of 
earlier Arabic alchemy. The genealogy quoted above 
is taken from the Fihrist, where on p. 354 the oldest 
biography of Djabir is preserved. His kunya given 
there is not Abu Musa, as usual, but Abu c Abd Allah, 
although Ibn al-Nadim himself states that al-Razi 
(d. 313/925 or 323/935) used to quote: "Our master 
Abu Musa Djabir b. Hayyan says . . .". The bio- 
graphy shows not only complete uncertainty 
regarding facts, but also legendary elements ; on the 
other hand, Ibn al-Nadim contests the opinion that 
Djabir had never existed. The references to the 
Imam Dja'far al-Sadik (d. 148/765) as Djabir's 
master to be found in the writings attributed to 
Djabir, and further references to the Barmakids 
(see below) have supported the tradition given by 
al-Djildaki (d. 743/1342) according to which Djabir 
was a contemporary of the first 'Abbasids. As for 
Djabir's historic personality, Holmyard has suggested 
that his father was "a certain Azdi called Hayyan, 
a druggist of Kufa . . . mentioned ... in connexion 
with the political machinations that, in the eighth 
century, finally resulted in the overthrow of the 
Umayyad dynasty". This would explain why Djabir 
has in some later sources the nisba Azdi. 

It can no longer be denied that the list of Djabir's 
writings given in the Fihrist with reference to 
Djabir's own lists of his writings is on the whole 
correct. Many quotations from the books only 
known by name have recently been found in the 
writings preserved. They enabled P. Kraus to 
prepare a critical biography of the books belonging 
to the corpus, to arrive at a relative chronology of 
them, and to amend the list in the Fihrist (to his 
bibliography add Hall al-rumuz wa mafdtih al-kuniiz, 
quoted in the Shawk al-mustaham, ed. J. v. Hammer, 
Ancient alphabets, 1810, 80). 



DJABIR b. hayyan 



But the time of the writings is not that suggested 
by the names of the persons occurring therein. The 
earliest evidence of their existence is found partly 
in the works of the alchemist Ibn Umayl (c. 350/961) 
and of the forger Ibn Wahshiyya (c. 350/961), and 
partly in the Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadlm [q.v.]. 

The corpus was divided into several collections of 
which the most important are: the CXII books, 
incoherent essays on the practice of alchemy with 
many references to ancient alchemy (Zosimus, 
Democritus, Hermes, Agathodemon, etc.); the LXX 
books, a systematic exposition of the alchemical 
teaching of Diabir; the CXLIV books or Kutub al- 
mawdzin ("Books of the balances"), an exposition of 
the theoretical and more philosophical foundations 
of alchemy and of all occult sciences; the D books, 
consisting of isolated treatises investigating more 
fully certain problems of the Kutub al-mawdzin. 
These four collections also mark successive stages in 
the development of the Djabirian doctrine and in the 
composition of the corpus. To this have to be added 
other smaller collections dealing with alchemy in 
its relation to the commentaries on the works of 
Aristotle and Plato, then treatises on philosophy, 
astronomy and astrology, mathematics and music, 
medicine and magic, and finally religious works. 

This vast body of literature, which comprises all 
the sciences of the ancients which passed to Islam, 
cannot be the work of a single author nor can it date 
back to the second half of the 2nd/8th century. All 
the facts combine to show that the corpus was 
compiled at the end of the 3rd/gth and beginning of 
the 4th/ioth century. 

The writings of Diabir in the first place present us 
with a problem in religious history. Just as the 
ancient alchemists who have been preserved are 
oriented towards Christian gnosis, so Djabir introdu- 
ces into his system of sciences Muslim gnosis. This 
gnosis is not the primitive gnosis which developed 
in Shi'i circles of the ist/7th and 2nd/8th centuries 
as described to us by Muslim writers on heresy; it is 
rather the gnostic syncretism which was in vogue 
among the Shi'I extremists (ghuldt) at the end of the 
3rd/gth century, which, combining with revolutionary 
political tendencies, threatened the very existence 
of Islam. Diabir proclaimed the imminent advent of 
a new imam who would abolish the law of Islam and 
replace the revelation of the Kur'an by the lights 
of Greek science and philosophy. The teachings of 
the corpus are the expositions of this new, purely 
spiritual, revelation, the representatives of which are 
the c Alid imams. 

From the point of view of his religious terminology, 
Diabir is closely connected with Karmatianism (the 
Karmatians who came to the front after 260/873 are 
even quoted in Djabir). The imam is called ndtili in 
contrast to sdmit; the degrees of initiation are called 
by the same terms as among the Karmatians and 
the Fatimid Isma c ills [bob, hudjdja, ddH mutlali, 
sabik tall, lahik, etc.) ; the doctrine of the adversaries 
(adddd) of the imam is also developed. The history 
of the world is divided according to the successive 
revelations into seven stages, of which the revelation 
of the Djabirian imam is the last. Similarly the 
Muslim imams who have succeeded one another from 
l Ali to the new Ka'im number seven: Hasan, 
Husayn, Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya [sic], C A1I b. 
Husayn, Muhammad b. al-Bakir, Dja'far al-Sadik, 
Isma'Il (= Muhammad b. Isma'il = the new Ka'im). 
Contrary to the Karmatians and the Isma'Iliyya, 
c Ali is not regarded as one of the seven imams. He 
is a sdmit, a concealed divinity, superior to the 



ndtili, and the seven imams are his terrestrial incar- 
nations. In this Djabir's teaching resembles that of 
the sect of the Nusayris [q.v.]. With the Nusayris 
it also shares the conceptions of the three divine 
hypostases: c Ayn (= c Ali), Mim (= Muhammad), 
Sin (= Salman); the Sin being superior to the Mim 
in Djabir's view. In this system the imam proclaimed 
by Diabir and called Madrid or Yatim is a direct 
emanation from the c Ayn, after having passed the 
stages of the Mim and the Sin. As with all the 
Shi'I ghuldt and particularly with the Nusayris, the 
doctrine of metempsychosis is accepted (terms: 
tandsukh, adwdr, akwdr, naskh, faskh, rastih, maskh). 

In the second place the writings of Diabir present 
problems connected with the history of the sciences 
in Islam. The corpus is devoted to the study of the 
following branches: alchemy (which always takes 
first place), medicine, astrology, magic (telesmology), 
the doctrine of the specific qualities of things 
(khawdss), and the artificial generation of living 
beings (takwin). Granted that we are frequently ill- 
informed regarding the corresponding branches in 
ancient science, the writings of Djabir still enable 
•us to restore to Greek science some interesting 
aspects which were thought to have been lost. The 
alchemy of- Djabir is fundamentally distinct from 
all that has survived of ancient alchemy. It delib- 
erately avoids hermetic allegorism (of Egyptian 
origin) represented in antiquity by the writings of 
Zosimus and others and revived in Islam by most of 
the alchemists like Ibn Umayl, the Turba philo- 
sophorum, Tughral, Djildakl, etc. The alchemy of 
Djabir is an experimental science based on a philo- 
sophical theory. 

This philosophical theory comes for the most part 
from the physics of Aristotle. Djabir knows and 
quotes (often from the translations of Hunayn b. 
Ishak (d. 260/873-4) and his school) all the parts of 
Aristotle's work, as well as the commentaries of 
Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Simplicius, 
Porphyry and others. We also find quoted the 
writings of Plato, Theophrastus, Galen, Euclid, 
Ptolemy, Archimedes, the Placita philosophorum of 
Ps. Plutarchus, etc. Among these there are several 
of which the Greek originals are lost. No alchemical 
work of Islam reveals such vast knowledge of ancient 
literature or has such an encyclopaedic character as 
the writings of Djabir. In this they resemble the 
RasdHl Ikhwdn al-Safd, which, by the way, come 
from the same source. 

The scientific terminology used by JJjabir is 
without exception that introduced by Hunayn b. 
Ishak, which shows once more that the corpus could 
not have been composed before the end of the 
3rd/gth century. 

The fundamental principle in the science of 
Pjabir is that of mizdn (balance). This term combines 
the most diverse speculations and shows very well 
Djabir's scientific syncretism. Mizdn means: (a) spe- 
cific gravity (references to Archimedes); (b) the 
(JT<x0n6<; of the ancient alchemists, meaning the 
measure in a mixture of substances; (c) a speculation 
on the letters of the Arabic alphabet, which are 
connected with the four elementary qualities (hot, 
cold, wet, dry). This mizdn al-huruf is not only 
applied to all things comprised in the sub-lunary 
world, but also to metaphysical beings, like intel- 
ligence, the soul of the world, matter, space, and 
time. It was from neo-Pythagoreanism on the one 
hand and the Shi'i speculations of the dja.fr [q.v.] on 
the other that Diabir borrowed this system; (d) mizdn 
is also the metaphysical principle par excellence, a 



DJABIR B. HAYYAN — DJABIR b. ZAYD 



symbol of the scientific monism of Djabir. In this 
sense it is opposed to the dualist principle of the 
Manichaeans. Neo-Platonic speculations on the One 
do not seem to have been without influence here; 
(e) lastly, mlzdn derives from an allegorical explana- 
tion (ta'wtt) of the Kur'anic references to the 
weighing at the day of judgment. This speculation 
is also found in Muslim gnosis and it is through it 
that Djabir connects his scientific system with this 
religious teaching. 

The writings of Djabir seem to be closely i 
nected with the pagan scholarship of the Harrai 
milieu. Djabir expressly refers to the Sabi'a when 
reproducing their discussions of certain metaphysical 
problems. The direct sources of his scientific system 
are the writings of Ps.-Apollonius of Tyana (Balin 
[q.v.]), Kitdb sirr al-hhalika and others, apocryphal 
works which, according to a note by Muhammad b. 
ZakariyyS al-RazI, were composed in the time of 
al-Ma'mun and are found to be the best source for 
a knowledge of "Harranian" literature. 

Djabir says that his knowledge was handed down 
to him by his master Dja'far al-Sadik. It is to this 
"mine of wisdom" that all his knowledge goes back, 
he himself being only a compiler. In the religious 
hierarchy he ranks immediately after the imam, 
further quotes as his master a certain Harbi the 
Himyarf, a monk (rdhib) and a man named Udhn 
al-Himar. Among the contemporaries of Dja'far i 
mentioned the Barmakids Khalld, Yahya and 
Dja'far, to whom Djabir dedicated several of 
treatises, and the members of the Shi'I famil] 
Yaktin. 

All these statements belong to the realm of legend 
and are in contradiction to the internal evidence of 
the writings. Besides, a pupil of Dja'far named 
Djabir b. Hayyan is nowhere mentioned in Shi'I 
literature and seems to be a pure invention. I 
easily understood why the author of these works 
attributed them to a pupil of Dja'far, who was often 
regarded in Shi c i literature as the representative of 
Greek learning and particularly of occult scier 
Moreover, Dja'far was the father of the seventh 
imam Isma'il, whose advent is announced in these 

The Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim says that there \ 
in his time Shi'is who doubted the authenticity of 
these writings. The philosopher and scientist Abu 
Sulayman al-Mantiki (d. ca. 370/980-1) has left i 
his TaHikdt a note according to which he w; 
personally acquainted with the author of the 
writings attributed to Djabir. He calls him 
Hasan b. al-Nakad al-Mawsili. We have no re; 
to doubt the authenticity of this statement eve 
it is certain that the writings of Djabir are not 
work of a single author and even if the coi 
underwent a fairly long evolution before attaining 
its present form. The terminus ante quern would be 
about 330/942. 

The writings of Djabir considerably influenced the 
development of later Arab alchemy. All later writers 
quote them, and many wrote commentaries. Several 
books of the corpus were translated into Latin. The 
famous writings attributed to Geber rex Aral 
however, represent only a late recension by a Latin 
author of the 13th century A.D. 

Bibliography: P. Kraus, Jdbir ibn Hayyan, 
Essai sur Vhistoire des i&ies scientifiques dans 
V Islam, I. Textes choisis, 1935; idem, Jdbir ibn 
Hayyan, Contribution a Vhistoire des iiies scien- 
tijiques dans I'Islam, I, Le corpus des Merits jdbin 
r 933; II, Jdbir et la science grecque, 1942 (MIE, 



xliv and xlv; a third volume on Djabir's religious 
position was never finished). The K. al-Mddjid 
(Textes choisis, 115-25) has been translated and 
commented upon by H. Corbin, in Eranos-Jahr- 
buch, xviii, 1950. The K. al-Sumum wa daf 
maddrrhd has been published and translated by 
A. Siegel, Das Buck der Gifte des Gdbir ibn Hayyan, 
1958 (cf. M. Plessner, in Isis, li, i960, 356 ff.). 
A complete German trans, of the LXX Books by 
M. Plessner is still unpublished. — Books later 
than Kraus's magnum opus are: E. J. Holmyard, 
Alchemy, 1957 (Pelican books); Ps.-Magriti, Das 
Ziel des Weisen (Picatrix), Ger. trans. H. Ritter 
and M. Plessner, 1962 (Studies of the Warburg 
Institute, xxvii). For the quotations from Ps.- 
Plutarchus, Placita philosophorum, in the corpus 
see C A. Badawl's introduction to his ed. of the full 
text, Aristotelis De anima, etc., in Islamica, xvi, 
1954. For recent articles see Pearson, nos. 5121-47. 

(P. Kraus-[M. Plessner]) 
DJABIR b. ZAYD, abu 'l-sha c tha> al-azdi al- 
umani al-yahmidI al-djawfI (al-Djawf in Basra) 



BASRl, 



hdfiz 



and 



of the Ibadi sect. I 
in Nazwa (in c Uman), and, according to tradition, 
became head of the Ibadi community of Basra 
upon the death of c Abd Allah b. Ibad [q.v.]. He 
carried on the latter's policy of maintaining friendly 
relations with the Umayyads, and kept on good 
terms with the ruthless persecutor of the Azarika, 
al-Hadjdjadj, through whom he even succeeded in 
obtaining regular payments from the state coffers. 
But towards the end of the first century of Islam 
he was exiled to the southern part of the Arabian 
peninsula, together with other Ibadi leaders, on 
account of a political disagreement with the governor 
of Basra. The date of his death has not been firmly 
established (93/7", 96/714, 103/721, 104/722). 

At Basra he enjoyed an enormous prestige as a 
man of learning and an authority on the Kur'an, 
and when al-Hasan al-Basri was away from the 
city, he was asked for fatwds. He was a personal 
friend and the most celebrated follower of Ibn 
'Abbas. He composed a diwdn (to which reference is 
made in Kashf al-ghumma), and was the probable 
author of the oldest known collection of customs and 
traditions. Authorities have often called him A si 
al-madhhab or '■Umdat al-ibddiyya, because, so it 
would seem, of his systematic work on Ibadi doctrine 
and the organization of the sect. He is a vital link 
in the chains which hand down Ibadi doctrines from 

Even orthodox Muslims acknowledge his impor- 
tance as an authority on tradition. Abu Nu c aym, 
to give one example, wrote at length about him in 
Ifilya (iii, 85-91 no. 213), where he mentioned (89) 
that he was 'accused' of being an Ibadi. 

Bibliography : Dardjinl, K. tabakdt al- 
mashdyikh, MS. Lw6w, f. 57v°-66v°; BarradI, K. 
Djawdhir al-muntakdt, Cairo 1302, 155; Sham- 
makhl, K. al-Siyar, Cairo 1301, 70-77 and passim; 
Ibn Sa c d, K. al-\abakdt al-kabir, Sachau ed., 
Leiden 1321-35/1904-17, viii/I, 130-33; Ibn Hadjar, 
Tadhhib al-Tahdhlb, Haydarabad 1325, ii, 38 
no. 61; E. Masqueray, Chronique d'Abou Zakariya, 
Algiers 1878, 138, i8i-83n.; E. Sachau, Uber eine 
arabische Chronik aus Zanzibar, in MSOS As., 
1898, 14; T. Lewicki, Une Chronique ibadite, in 
REI 1934, 70 & 78; idem, Ibddiya, in Hand- 
worterbuch des Islam, 179; R. Rubinacci, // 'Kitdb 
al-Gawdhir' di al-Barrddi, in AIUON, N.S., iv, 
1952, 103; idem, II calif fo c Abd al-Malik b. 



3 6o 



DJABIR b. ZAYD - 



Marwdn e gli Ibdditi, ibid, v, 1954, 103, 105; 

G. Crupi La Rosa, / trasmettitori delta dottrina 

ibadita, ibid., 131; Ch. Pellat, Le milieu basrien 

et la formation de Gafriz, Paris 1953, 214, n. 5. 
(R. Rubinacci) 

DJABIR al-DJU c FI [see supplement]. 

al-DJABIYA. the principal residence of the amirs 
of Ghassan, and for that reason known as "Diabiva 
of kings", situated in Djawlan [q.v.], about 80 km. 
south of Damascus, not far from the site of the 
modern Nawa. It extended over several hills, hence 
perhaps the poetic form of plural Djawabi, with an 
allusion to the etymological sense of "reservoir", the 
symbol of generosity (cf. Aghdni, xviii, 72). It was 
the perfect type of ancient bedouin Itirthajltira, a 
huge encampment where nomads settled down, a 
jumble of tents and buildings; there is even a record 
of a Christian monastery there. At the present time 
the site is marked by a vigorous spring and pastures 
still visited by the bedouins of the Syrian desert. 
Even after it had disappeared, its memory was 
perpetuated by the name of the south-west gate in 
the Damascus wall, Bab al-Djabiya. 

The Arab conquest still further increased its 
importance. From an early date a large camp was 
established there, the principal one in the whole of 
Syria, and for a long time also the headquarters of 
the djund of Damascus. The name al-Djabiya is 
associated with the battle of the Yarmuk ; it was there 
that a skirmish with the Byzantines took place and 
that the booty was collected together after the 
victory. This situation explains why, in 17/638, the 
caliph c Umar went there to decide upon conditions 
in the new conquests, accompanied by the principal 
sahdba of the Hidjaz with the exception of 'All. 
A meeting of the generals and principal officers was 
then held there and has remained famous, with the 
name yawm al-Djdbiya, while MJmar's speech, 
frequently quoted in fiadith, was called khufbat al- 
Didbiva. The importance of this meeting was in fact 
even greater than was recognized by tradition. In 
all probability it was then that the institution of 
the diwdn or of regular endowments was initiated. 
At first it was desired to exclude from these benefits 
the native Arab tribes of Syria who had lent their 
assistance to the invaders from the Hidjaz; the 
attempt failed on account of their opposition. 
Having a very healthy climate, al-Djabiya became 
the place of refuge, during the 'Amwas plague, for 
troops that had been decimated in Palestine. 
Thereafter the troops' pay or 'atd> was distributed 
there ; from an early date the town possessed a large 
mosque with a minbar, a privilege that put it on the 
same footing as the amsdr and capital cities of the 
djunds. It will therefore be understood why, from 
the time of Mu'awiya, all the Umayyad caliphs 
passed through al-Djabiya. On returning from his 
winter residence in Sinnabra, c Abd al-Malik was 
accustomed to stay there a month before going 
back to Damascus. 

When Ibn al-Zubayr had had himself proclaimed 
caliph and had expelled the Umayyads from the 
Hidjaz, the Syrians met at al-Djabiya to appoint a 
successor to Mu'awiya II. Ibn Bahdal was the first 
to arrive at the rendezvous, with his Kalb; Dahhak 
b. Kays, governor of Damascus, with the Kays did 
not appear. Besides the young sons of Yazid I, the 
other Umayyads and all the Arab chiefs of Syria 
were there. Ibn Bahdal presided over the meeting 
(64/684). Various candidatures were discussed: 
Yazid I's children were passed over on account of 
their youth. Finally, on the intervention of the head 



of the Banu Djudham, Rawh b. Zinba', the caliphate 
of Marwan b. al-Hakam was acclaimed; he was 
eventually succeeded by Khalid, Yazid I's son, and 
then by the Umayyad 'Arar al-Ashdak. In this way 
the unity of the Umayyad party was restored, and 
al-Djabiya became the cradle of the Marwanid 
dynasty. It was there that, before marching against 
Dahhak b. Kays, the new sovereign hoisted the 
Marwanids' banner which from that time was 
devotedly guarded by his successors. The victory of 
Mardj Rahit effectively endorsed the resolutions 
voted upon at al-Djabiya. 

The recognition of the two elder sons of the 

caliph c Abd al-Malik as heirs presumptive was the 

last great political event accomplished at al-Djabiya. 

From the reign of Sulayman, expeditions against 

Constantinople caused the great military camp to 

be transferred from al-Djabiya to Dabik [q.v.], north 

Aleppo. But the town continued to be the centre of 

a district dependent on Damascus, though its 

importance continued to decline, particularly under 

the 'Abbasids. The name was. perpetuated in 

fradith since, according to Ibn 'Abbas, the souls of 

believers would meet at al-Djabiya on the day of 

Judgment, and those of the infidels in the Hadramawt. 

Bibliography: R. Dussaud, Topographie 

historique de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 332-3 ; R. Dussaud 

and F. Macler, Mission scientifique dans les 

regions disertiques de la Syrie moyenne, Paris 1903, 

45-8; H. Lammens, Etudes sur le regne du calife 

omaiyade Mo'-dwia I, Beirut 1906-8 (extract from 

MFO, i-iii), 61, 253, 380; idem, L'avenement des 

Marwdnides, in MUSJ, xii (1927), 77-96; idem, 

Etudes sur le siecle des Omayyades, Beirut 1930, 

index; Th. Noldeke, Die Ghassanidischen Fursten, 

Abh. preuss. Akad. Wiss., 1887; idem, in ZDMG, 

xxix, 79-80; Caetani, Annali, ii, 1129, 1131; iii, 

927; Ibn 'Asakir, Ta'rikh madinat Dimashfr, i, ed. 

al-Munadjdjid, Damascus 1951, 553-9; Yakut, ii, 

3-4; Bakri, Mu c d[am, ed. Wustenfeld, 227; Ibn 

al-Fakih, 105; Ibn Khurradadhbih, 77; Mas'udI, 

Murudx, v, 198; al-Tanbih, 308; Tabari, Ya'kubi, 

indices; Baladhuri. Futiih, index; Ibn Sa'd, iv/i, 

124; v, 28, 29; Hassan b. Thabit, Diwdn, ed. 

Hirschfeld, v, 7; xiii, 1; xxv, 3; Aghdni, Tables. 

(H. Lammens-[J. Sourdel-Thomine]) 
EJABR [see djabriyya]. 

al-DJABR wa 'l-MUSABALA, originally two 
methods of transforming equations, later the name 
given to the theory of equations (algebra). 

The oldest Arabic work on algebra, composed 
ca. 850 A.D. by Muh. b. Musa al-Kh"arizmi [q.v.], 
consistently uses these methods for reducing certain 
problems to canonical forms; al-Kh w arizmi's work 
was edited with English translation by F. Rosen, 
London 1831. A revision of Rosen's text is badly 
needed, cf. S. Gandz, The Mishnat ha Middot, in 
Quellen u. Stud. z. Gesch. d. Math., Abt. A: Quellen, 
2, 1932, 61 ff.; the translation is arbitrary and often 
wrong, not the least because Rosen tries to force 
the variable terminology into a preconceived rigid 
pattern. This edition has been the source of countless 
errors and mistakes in the older literature. It was 
J. Ruska who gave the first critical analysis of the 
question, Zur altesten arabischen Algebra und 
Rechenkumt, in SB Heidelberg AkWiss, phil.-hist. 
Kl., 1917; in particular his explanation of al-Djabr 
wa 'l-M. (5-14) has not been refuted by any later 
author. In the first problem, 25 Arab, text, 1 capital 
(mdl) is equal fadala) to 40 "something" (shay') 
without {ilia) 4 capitals. al-Kh"arizmi's instruction 
reads: "Fill it (the 40 "something" without 4 capi- 



al-DJABR vti 

tals) up (udiburhu) with (M) four capitals, and add 
them to the (i) capital". Thus al-diabr means 
eliminating quantities prefixed by ilia (later called 
lafz al-istithnd, term of exception), by adding these 
quantities, in accordance with the usual meaning 
"restoring", especially "filling up (the lacking sum 
of money)" (examples in Dozy, Suppl. s.v.). In the 
fifth problem, 28 Arab, text, 50 dardhim and 1 mdl 
are equal to 29 dardhim and 10 "something": 
"Balance confronting (kdbil) with (bi) it (the 29 
dardhim), and this means that you cast off twenty 
nine of the fifty", al-mukdbala is the operation of 
confronting two quantities with one another in order 
to examine their likeness or difference, al-ikmdl, 
"completion", also belongs to this kind of operation, 
it means multiplying the quantities involved in 
order to transform a fractional coefficient into an 
integer; al-Karadji [q.v.], d. ca. 1030 A.D. ; hitherto 
misread as "al-Karkdji", see G. Levi Delia Vida, Due 
nuove opere, etc., in bibliography) later takes this 
operation as a special case of al-diabr. Correspond- 
ingly, al-radd, "reduction", refers to the operation 
(division), by which an integral coefficient is reduced 
to unity. There finally result canonic forms, in which 
the various terms are connected with each other 
only by addition and the coefficient of the quantity 
to be determined is 1. 

The theory of S. Gandz [Math. Monthly 33, 1926, 
437-4o; approved by 0. Neugebauer, Studien zur 
Geschichte der antiken Algebra i, Quellen u. Stud. z. 
Gesch. d. Math., Abt. B: Stud., 2, 1933, 1-27, 1 f.), 
who derives djabr from Assyr. gabru and takes 
mukdbala as the translation of that term, fails to 
explain the special use of djabara. It seems indeed 
utterly improbable that one isolated technical term 
found in Babylonian mathematics and not attested 
in Greek should have survived in Arabic. As Ruska 
has shown (loc. cit., 11), al- Kh w arizmi's two main 
operations are mentioned already in Diophantus' 
Arithmetica (Book 1, ed. P. Tannery, vol. i, Leipzig 
1893, 14), viz. 1. TTpoadeivai t& XeCttovtcx ei8v) lv 

a(i<po"[ipoi<; to!? (lepeai and 2. d<peXeiv -nx 

8(ioia a7t6 tcov 6(io(cov, i<a<; av fcxaxepco tcov 
(ispcov 8v iiSo? xaTaXet<p&fl. The latter operation, 
evidently, is rendered by al-mukdbala; for the former, 
al-Kh w arizmI employs the very suggestive word al- 
diabr, borrowed originally from the terminology of 
the surgeon, where it means the setting of a fractured 
bone or a dislocated limb. Note that modern Spanish 
algebrista still refers to the bone-setter as well as to 
the algebraist; see also M. Steinschneider, in Archiv 
patholog. Anatomie 124, 1891, 125 ff. 

As to the different kinds of quantities occurring 
in al-Kh w arizmi's treatise and preserved throughout 
the centuries, they are prevalently borrowed from 
commercial parlance. Thus, in the examples given 
by al-Kh w arizrrii. the absolute number (al-'-adad al- 
mufrad, later called al-'-adad al-mutlak) is called 
dirham, Lat. dragma. The same is true of mdl, 
"capital", Lat. census, and of shay', "thing, some- 
thing", Lat. res, which already in the Kur'Sn, VII, 
83 et passim) assumes the meaning of "belongings" 
or "property". The word mdl grows into the term 
for the general quantities of the theory; shay' is 
used in the same way, especially to denote the 
unknown quantity in linear problems. Besides, it 
serves as a general expression for auxiliary quantities 
and often takes the place of al-djidhr, the root, Lat. 
radix, scil. of a mdl (not "the first power of the 
unknown quantity", as claimed by Rosen). In the 
problems of the second degrees, originally, the 
quantity sought for is the mdl, and the djidhr only 



serves as a means for its determination; cf. Ruska, 
loc. cit., 47-70. Ruska has shown, 60, that mdl, 
shay', and dirham correspond respectively to Indian 
dhdnam, ydvat tdvat, and rupa or rupaka. In the 
theory properly speaking, which is developed only 
for canonical equations, the mdl is represented by 
the area of a square, the diidhr by the area of a 
rectangle having the side of the square as its length 
and the unit as its width. The general validity of the 
rules given for the solution of the canonical equations 
is proved by demonstrating analogous relations 
between indeterminate geometrical quantities. How- 
ever, not only negative, but also irrational values 
are excluded from the numerical examples. 

On the puzzling question of the sources of al- 
Kh w arizrm's algebra with its relations to Greek, 
Hebrew and Indian works (a survey of the older 
literature is given by Ruska, loc. cit., 23-36; see also 
Gandz, The Mishnat) new light has been shed by 
the results obtained during the last fifty years by 
research into Babylonian mathematics; see Gandz, 
The sources of al-KhowdrizmV s algebra, in Osiris 1, 
1936, 263-77; Neugebauer, loc. cit. and Vorlesungen 
iiber Geschichte der antiken mathematischen Wissen- 
schaften, 1. Band, Vorgriechische Mathematik, 
Berlin 1934, 175 ff. 

al-Kh"arizmI derives the title of his work, al- 
Kitdb al-mukhtasar fi hisdb al-diabr wa 'l-m., from 
the two operations described; cf. 2, 10 Arab. text. 
Its influence contributed to introducing al-diabr wa 
'l-mukdbala as the name of the theory. In the 
writings of the Ikhwan al-Safa 3 [q.v.] Uth/ioth 
century), Rasd'il ed. Bombay 1303-6 i, 37, al- 
diabriyyun appears as the name of the representa- 
tives of this branch of mathematics; as to the 
authenticity of the passage see Ruska, loc. cit., 13. 
Ibn al-Haytham [q.v.] (965 or 6/1038 or later) 
uses the same word; see Ibn Abi Usaybi c a, ed. 
A. Miiller, 93, 32. 

In 1145 A.D. Robert of Chester translated the 
first part of the work of al-Kh w arizmI (1-50, 9 Arab. 
text) under the title Liber algebrae et almucabola, ed. 
by L. C. Karpinski, in Univ. of Michigan Studies 11, 
New York 1915. Gerard of Cremona (ca. 1114- 
1187 A.D.) composed a second translation of the 
first part, titled De jebra et almucabola, ed. G. Libri, 
Histoire des sciences mathematiques, i, Paris 1838, 
253-297- I" 1202 A.D. Leonard of Pisa, in the 
Liber abaci, ed. B. Boncompagni, vol. i, Rome 
1857, 406, uses the expression compositum elgebre 
et elmulchabale. According to Suter, in EI 1 , s.v. al- 
djabr wa 'l-mukabala, Canacci of Florence (14th 
cent.) was the first Western writer who used the term 
algebra, which he erroneously believed to derive 
from the name of Geber (Djabir, the astronomer 
or the alchemist ?) leaving aside ahnucabala; Gosselin 
(1577) is said to have been the last known 
who used almucabala. From the terms shay' and 
mdl derived ars rei et census, Ital. arte (or regola) 
della cosa, Germ. Regel Coss. 

the Islamic world, Abu Kami 



(bet 



1 Shudja c [q.v.] 
i 956 A.D.), who exercised a con- 
siderable influence also on the development of 
Western algebra, made valuable contributions to 
the theory, which he turned into a powerful in- 
strument for geometrical research, building upon 
the foundations laid by al-Kh w arizmi. He solved 
systems of equations involving up to five unknown 
quantities, represented by different kinds of coins. 
He discussed problems of a higher degree, but only 
those which could be reduced to quadratic equations. 
Irrational quantities here are admitted as solutions. 



l-MUKABALA — DJABRA'IL 



His work contains first steps leading to a theory of 
algebraical identities. He also dealt with problems 
of indeterminate analysis (integral solutions), which 
indicate close connection with analogous problems 
studied in India. 

The algebraists learnt new methods from the 
translations of Greek mathematical works. The 
theory of irrational quantities was carefully discussed 
by Abu 'Abd Allah al-Hasan al-Muh. b. Hamlihi ( ?), 
known as Ibn al-Baghdadl, in his Risdla fi 'l-makddir 
al-mushtaraka wa 'l-mutabdyina, ed. in al-RasaHl 
al-mutafarrika fi 'l-hay^a, Da'ira al-Ma'arif al- 
'Uthmaniyya, Haydarabad, 1366/1947. He is cited 
by al-Biruni in his Makdla fl rashikdt al-Hind, in 
RasdHl al-Biruni, ibid. 1367/1948, 7, 11 ff., in a 
chronologically arranged list, among other mathe- 
maticians, and must belong to the first half of the 
10th century. In the introduction to his Algebra, 
'Umar Khayyam states, in the ed. of F. Woepcke, 
Paris 1851, p. 2 Arab, text, that Muhammad b. 'Isa 
Abu c Abd Allah al-Mahani [q.v.] (flor. ca. 860 A.D.) 
endeavoured to prove the lemma of Archimedes, 
de sphaera et cyl. ii, 4, ed. J. L. Heiberg, vol. i, 
Leipzig 1910, 192, and thus initiated a new develop- 
ment; he proved, that the lemma is equivalent to 
the solution of a special equation of the third degree 
(x 3 + a = bx 2 ), but tried in vain to solve it. Ac- 
cording to 'Umar Khayyam, Abu Dja'far al- Khazin 
(d. 961 or 971 A.D.) was the first scholar who solved 
the equation with the help of the theory of conic 
sections; other solutions, as the ones by Sahl al- 
Din al-Kuhi [q.v.] (flor. ca. 988 A.D.) and Ibn al- 
Haytham followed; see F. Woepcke, loc.cit, 9r-ir4. 
However, Naslr al-Din al-Tusi tells us in the in- 
troduction (sadr) of his edition of de sphaera et cyl. 
{al-Rasd'il, part 2, Haydarabad 1359 A.H., Da'ira 
al-Ma'arif al-'Uthmaniyya), 2 f., "that he had at 
his disposal a complete translation, written by Ishak 
b. Hunayn, of Eutocius' commentary; in commenting 
ii, 4 he gives (89, 23-ro4, 1) the whole descriptions 
obtained by Greek mathematicians by application 
of the theory of conic sections; cf. also Woepcke, 
loc. cit.. no. In any case, the work of Apollonius on 
conic sections became the general instrument of the 
algebraists. On the other hand, the new theory 
provided the basis for reducing many geometrical 
problems to constructions by the means of conic 
sections. Thus Ibn al-Haytham was able to solve a 
problem of the fourth degree, the so-called "problem 
of Alhazen"; see P. Bode, Die alhazensche Spiegel- 
aufgabe, in Jahresber. d. physik. Vereins zu Frankfurt 
1891-1892, Frankfurt-am-Main 1893, 63-107; he 
moreover dealt with a special problem of the fifth 
degree, viz. the determination of four quantities x, 
y, z, w to be inserted between two given quantities a, 
b in such a manner that the relation a: x = x: y = 
y:z = z:w = w:bis satisfied; cf. 'Umar Khayyam. 
loc. cit., Arab, text 44 f. and Ibn Abl Usaybi'a, loc. 
cit., 98, 4. The general development culminated in 
the work of 'Umar Khayyam [q.v.] (ca. 429-39/1038- 
48 to 517/1123-4) who discussed all cases of canonic 
equations up to the third degree in a very systematic 
manner, djidhr or shay'' or dil' (especially in cases 
of the third degree), mdl or murabba 1 (especially in 
the geometrical proofs), ka'-b or muka"ab now 
denote the first, second, third power of the unknown 
quantity respectively. 'Umar Khayyam distinguished 
clearly between algebraical and geometrical proofs, 
which he considered both necessary; but he states 
shat he was unable to give algebraical ones for the 
tolutions of the equations of the third degree. He 
tried to fix the conditions of the existence of solutions 



in every case; however, he failed to use both branches 
of a conic and therefore sometimes missed one of the 
positive solutions. Negative solutions still are ex- 
cluded. The method employed is not very helpful 
in numerical calculations. The numerical solution 
was obtained by approximation and trial; see, e.g., 
the procedure choosen by al-BIrunl in his Risdla fi 
istikhrddj al-awtdr ji '1-ddHra, in the collection just 
cited, 224. 

Bibliography: For general information see 
G. Sarton's Introduction to the history of science, 
Baltimore 1927-1947, which contains articles on 
the cited authors with valuable bibliographical 
notes; J. Tropfke, Zur Geschichte der quadratischen 
Gleichungen, in Jahresber. deutsch. Mathematiher- 
Vereinig, 1933, 98-107; 1934, 26-47, 95-119; H. T. 
Colebrooke, Algebra from the Sanscrit, London 
1817; G. H. F. Nesselmann, Die Algebra der 
Griechen, Berlin 1842; P. Luckey, Zur islamischen 
Rechenkunst und Algebra, in Forschungen und 
Fortschritte 24, 1948, 199-204; S. Gandz, Isoperi- 
metric problems and the origin of the quadratic 
equations, in Isis 32, 1947, 103-15; idem, In- 
determinate analysis in Babylonian mathematics, in 
Osiris 8, 1949, 12-40; idem, The origin and develop- 
ment of the. quadratic equations, in Osiris 3, 1932, 
405-557; idem, The algebra of inheritance; in 
Osiris 5, 1938, 319-91; H. Wieleitner, Die Erb- 
teilungsaufgaben bei M. b. Musa Alchwarasmi, in 
Zeitschr. math, naturw. Unterricht 53, 1922, 57-67; 
J. Weinberg, Die Algebra des Abu So£d' ben Aslam, 
Diss., Munich 1935; F. Woepcke, Extrait du 
Fakhrl, traite d'algebre par ... Al-Karkhi, Paris 
1853; G. Levi Delia Vida, Due nuove opere del 
matematico al-Karagi (al-Karhl), in RSO 14, 249- 
264; H. J. J. Winter and W. 'Arafat, The algebra 
of '■Umar Khayyam, in JRASB, Science, 16, 1950, 
27-78 ; R. C. Archibald, Notes on Omar Khayyam, 
in Pi Mu Epsilon Journ. 1, 1953, 351-8; R. C. 
A(rchibald), Omar Khayyam, Mary Mellish 
Archibald Memorial Library, Notes, No. ro; 
A. P. Yushkevii, Omar Khayyam and his "algebra" 
(in Russian)', Ak. Nauk SSSR, Institut istorii 
estestvoznaniya, Trudl 2, 499-543; Abenbeder, 
Compendio de Algebra, Arabic text, translation by 
J. A. Sanchez Perez, Madrid 1916; al-Kashi, 
Klyuc Arifmetiki, transl. B. A. Rozenfeld, ed. 
V. S. Segal, A. P. Yushkevic, Moscow rg56; 
Mohammed Beha-eddin ben Alhossain, Essenz der 
Rechenkunst, ed. G. H. F. Nesselmann, Berlin 1843. 

(W. Hartner) 
EJABR IBN al-KASIM was a high official of 
the Fatimid Caliphs al-Mu'izz and al-'Aziz. On one 
occasion he was al- 'Aziz's vicegerent over Egypt; in 
373/984 he replaced Ibn Killis as vizier for a few 
weeks, without great success. 

Bibliography: Ibn al-Sayrafi, al-Ishdra ild 

man nula 'l-wizdra, in BIFAO, Cairo 1925, 90; 

Walter J. Fischel, Jews in the economic and 

political life of medieval Islam, London 1937, 

58 (there spelled Khabir). (M. G.S. Hodgson) 

DJABRA'lL, or DjibrIl, Hebrew GabrI'el, 

"Man of God", is mentioned for the first time in the 

Old Testament, Dan. viii, 15 ff.; ix, 21 as flying to 

Daniel in the shape of a Man, sent by God in order 

to explain the vision of Daniel about the future. In 

post-biblical Judaism Gabriel plays an outstanding 

part among thousands of angels representing nations 

and individuals and natural phenomena. He belongs 

to the archangels and is governor of Paradise and 

of the serpents and the cherubs (Enoch, xx, 7). He 

is one of "the angels of the face", standing at the 



left side of the Lord, and he dominates all forces 
{ibid., xl, 1-9, cf. Rev. v, 6). Michael has preference as 
the angel of Israel, but Gabriel is often the Messenger 
of God to man (Bereskit Rabbd xlviii; lxxviii; 
Luke i, 19, 26 ff.). Instead of the maPdk who slew 
the Assyrian army (2 Chron. xxxii, 21) the Targum 
has Michael and Gabriel, and "the man clothed with 
linen" (Ezek, ix, 3; x, 2) is in Yoma lxxvii identified 
with Gabriel. The same is even the case with the 
man who met Joseph in the field, Gen. xxxvii, 15, 
according to Targum Jonathan. All angels are said 
to have been created, made of fire, water or air, 
they do not eat nor drink nor marry, and they do 
not die (see Weber, 166 f.; Moore, 405; cf. Matth. 
xxii, 30; Luke xx, 35 f.). Their names, also that of 
■Gabriel, are used in the magic papyri (sec Blau, 134). 

These views were on the whole taken over into 
Islam, and here Djibril became conspicuous as the 
bearer of the revelations to the Prophet. In the Kur 5 3n 
Djibril is only named thrice, viz. 11,97,98 (here 
also Mlka'il); LXVI, 4; and II, 97 it is expressly 
said "he brought it (the Kur'an) down to thy heart". 
On the other hand the correspondence between God 
and man is also said to take place by the spirit 
(al-ruh) descending and ascending between heaven 
and earth and bringing messages on whom God will 
(XVI, 2, cf. LXX, 4; XCVII, 4). The role of the spirit 
was not understandable to the people: "They ask you 
about the spirit, say: The spirit is due to the com- 
mandment of my Lord, but you have only got little 
understanding" (XVII, 85). In some passages the 
spirit seems to have the character of a spiritual 
force, since God fortifies the faithful "by spirit from 
him" (LVIII, 22), and Jesus was fortified by God 
through the Holy Spirit (II, 87, 253; V, no). But 
other passages say explicitly that God sent the spirit 
to the Prophet with the revelation (XL, 15; XLIII, 
52) ; the Kur'an is brought down by "the trustworthy 
spirit" (XXVI, 193). Thus the spirit and Djibril are 
identified, just as we find in the New Test, that the 
seven angels standing before God (Rev., viii, 2, 6) 
also are named the seven spirits (msuy.a.'Ztt., Rev., 
i, 4; iii, 1; iv, 5; v, 6), and Jesus is named a spirit 
from God: sura IV, 171. 

In the tafsir (Tabari, Zamakhsharl, Baydawi) 
there is no doubt about Djibril being the messenger 
who brings the revelation to Muhammad, and the 
two visions of "the Mighty in power, the Vigorous 
one" (Sura LIII, 1 ff.) are interpreted in the way 
that it was Djibril whom the prophet saw, first "in 
the loftiest horizon", and later "by the siiira-tree 
at the furthest end". In the commentaries on sura II, 
97 the question of Djibrll's activity is made the 
salient point in the strife with the Jews. These asked 
Muhammad (another tradition c Umar) who was the 
angel that brought him revelations, and when he 
said it was Djibril, and that he was the helper (wall) 
of every prophet (cf. Ibn Sa c d i, 1, 116, 9), the Jews 
said that then they could not acknowledge him, 
because Michael was their wall and Gabriel their 
enemy (who betrayed their secrets). The Prophet 
answered that both of them were God's servants 
and so they could not be enemies, and then Sura II, 
97 f. was revealed. c Abd Allah b. Sallam was said to 
have given up his Jewish faith for Islam because 
Muhammad, after having demonstrated a knowledge 
that only a prophet could have, said that he had it 
from Djibril (Bukhari 60 {anbiyd'), bab 1; 65 {tafsir 
al-Kur'dn), bab 6). 

In the Sira Djibril is the constant counsellor and 
helper of the Prophet. When he had brought 
Muhammad the first revelation (sura XCVI, 1-5) on 



mount Hira' Waraka b. Nawfal assured Khadldja 
that he was the same "great ndmiis" who formerly 
came to Moses, and Khadldja understood from the 
discretion of the angel towards her that he was no 
shayfan (Tabari i, 1 150-3; Ibn Hisham, ed. Wiisten- 
feld, 153 f.). Thus Djibril became the guarantee of 
the coherence of Islam and the two older religions. 
The opening and purifying of the belly and the 
breast of Muhammad was executed by Djibril and 
MIkall (Tab. i, 1157; v. Wensinck, 166). Djibril came 
to the Prophet on the mountains of Makka, pro- 
duced a spring and taught him wudu' and saldt (Tab- 
i, 1157; Ibn Hish., 158), and he guided the Prophet 
on his ascension (Tab. i, 1 157-9; Ibn Hish., 263 ff.; 
v. Wensinck, 25). When Muhammad once was 
passive Djibril threatened him with God's punishment 
if he did not follow His commandments (Tab. i, 
1171), and when the Prophet's acknowledgement 
of the three goddesses al-Lat, al-'Uzza and Manat 
was made public, Djibril reproached him for reciting 
a message that he had not received from the angel 
(Tab. i, 1 192 f.). He warned the Prophet against the 
plot of the Meccans before the hidjra (Tab. i, 1231 ff.; 
Ibn Hish., 325 ff.), at Badr he appeared with 
thousands of angels (Ibn Hish. 449 f . ; Ibn Sa c d ii, 
1, 9, 18), and he ordered Muhammad to attack Band 
Kaynuka and later Banu Kurayza (Tab. i, 1360;, 
i486, cf. sura VIII, 58 ; LIX, 2 ff . ; Ibn Hish. 684) ; Ac- 
cording to several hadith, chiefly referred to 'A'isha, 
the Prophet only twice saw Djibril in the shape in 
which he was created (fi siiratihi), viz. in the horizon 
and at the sidra-tree. He had 600 wings of which 
every pair filled the space from East to West (Tabari, 
tafsir, vol. xxvii (Bulak 1328), 261. adsKra LIII, 6 ff.; 
Bukhari no 65 (tafsir al-Kur'dn, sura LIII), bab 1 ; Ibn 
Hanbal i, 395, 398, 407). It is also said that he 
was seen on a chair (kursi) between heaven and earth 
when he revealed sura LXXIV (v. Tab. i, 1155 and 
the commentaries), and once he promised help against 
the unbelievers from a cloud (Bukhari no. 59 {bad' al- 
khalk), bab 7). As a rule he appeared as an ordinary 
strong man (Tabari, tafsir loc. cit.; Bukhari, no. Ii 
(iman), bab 37; Muslim, kitdb al-imdn, bab 1), 
wearing two green garments and a silk turban, 
on a horse (Ibn Sa c d, ii, 1, 9, 24) or a mule 
(Tab i, 1485; Ibn Hish. 684). The Prophet said 
that he looked like Dihya b. Khalifa al-Kalbl, 
and in that shape he is said to have been seen by 
other men, and by 'A'isha as the only woman (Ibn 
Sa c d iii, 2, 52, 5 f f - ; iv, 1, 184; viii, 44, 23 f.; 46, 
17 ff., et al.). Ibn al-Farid sees in this an analogy 
to the state of the mystic: the Prophet sees an 
angel carrying a divine revelation, the others see 
an ordinary man [al-Td'iyya al-kubra v. 279-84). 
In his Kisas al-anbiyd"' (Leiden 1922) al-Kisa D I 
carries out the idea that Djibril was the messenger 
of God to every prophet. From Adam to Christ 
Djibril is acting as the helper and guide of all leading 
persons in the Bible as well as of the Kur'anic 
prophet Salih. Most tales are referred to the con- 
verted Jews Ka'b al-Ahbar and Wahb b. al-Munab- 
bih. A similar account is to be found in Tha'labl: 
Kisas al-anbiyd' (al-'ArdHs), Cairo, 1325. 

Also "pseudo prophets" pretended to be inspired 
by Djibril (v. Tabari iii, 1394), and this is a popular 
motif in jocular tales, e. g. Mas'udi, Murudi, vii, 
Paris 1873, 52 ff. 

Bibliography : M. Griinbaum, Neue Beitrdge 
zur semitischen Sagenkunde, Leiden 1893, passim; 
F. Weber, Jiidische Theologie, Leipzig 1897, 
160 ff., 384; W. Bousset, Die Religion des Juden- 
tums', Berlin 1906, 370 ff. ; G. F. Moore, Judaism I, 



364 



DJABRA'IL — DJABRAN KHALlL DJABRAN 



Cambridge 1927, 401 ff. ; L. Blau, Das jiidische 
Zauberwesen', Berlin 1914, 134; A. J. Wensinck, 
Handbook; E. DouttS, Magie et Religion dans 
VAfrique du Nord, Algiers 1908, 1598. 

(J. Pedersen) 
DJABRAN KHALlL DJABRAN, Lebanese 
writer, artist and poet, born on 6 January 
(al-Samir, iii/2, 52, Young 7, 142) or 6 December 
(Nu'ayma, 15) 1883, at Bsharri. The details 
which have been related about his childhood are 
often romanticized or imaginary (Nu'ayma, 14-96; 
Young 7, 16-18 and passim). Biographers are 
agreed upon 1895 as the date of his emigration to the 
U.S.A. with his mother Kamila Rahma (d. 28 June 
1903), his two sisters Maryana and Sultana (d. 4 April 
1902) and his maternal half-brother Butrus (d. 12 
March 1903). The family settled in Chinatown, a 
poor district in Boston (Nu'ayma, 29-30) where 
Djabran attended the elementary school (al-Samir, 
ibid.). On 3 August 1898 he returned to Beirut 
(Karam, thesis, 33). His knowledge of Arabic at 
that time was rudimentary. The three years he spent 
at the College de la Sagesse (Beirut) partly filled the 
gap. In 1902 he left the Lebanon, travelled to Paris, 
paid a brief visit to New York and was in Boston in 
January 1903, a year of misfortunes which only 
Maryana escaped (al-Samir, ibid.; Nu c ayma i, 50 
and 60; Young 7, 185). In 1904 he held an exhibition 
of his drawings, but without success (Young, ibid.) ; 
Khayrallah, 17-18), and corresponded with the 
Arabic journal al-Muhdd±ir which was then edited 
in New York by A. al-Ghurayyib. His quasi- 
philanthropic relation with Mary Haskell dates 
from this period. 

As regards his stay in Paris (14 July 1908-22 
October 1910), it has been finally disproved that he 
attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts regularly or that 
he was a pupil of Rodin (Huwayyik, 208-9). After 
the Arab Political Conference in Paris, he returned 
to Boston and formed a society, al-Halaka al- 
Dhahabiyya (unpublished sources; Mas'ud, 240); 
then settled in New York (autumn 1912), sharing 
with N. c Arida the work of editing al-Funun (191 3), 
an Arabic periodical which was replaced by al-Sd'ih. 
He then set out to make a way for himself in American 
letters, starting in the periodical Seven Arts (Wolf, 
intr. xv) and at the same time he held three exhibi- 
tions (1914-17), published his philosophical Arabic 
poem al-Mawdkib (Mir'dl al-Gharb, 1918) and his 
first work in English, The Madman (Sept. 1918). 
His Arabic writings from this period are collected in 
aW-Awasij (1920) and al-BaddH'- wa '1-TaraHj (1923). 
The most noteworthy event in 1920 was the 
establishment under his leadership of the literary 
society al-Rdbita al-kalamiyya, which exercised an 
decisive influence on contemporary Arabic literature. 
Henceforth Djabran's Arabic writings became less 
numerous. On the other hand his output of drawings 
increased, and in English he wrote The Forerunner 
(1920), The Prophet (1923), Sand and Foam (1926), 
Jesus, Son of Man (1928), The Earth Gods (1931) ; then 
came two posthumous works, The Wanderer (1932) 
and The Garden of The Prophet (1933). Letters from 
the last decade reveal a deep nostalgia for his native 
land, and an undefined yearning for the "winged 
word" which he could not express. On 10 April 
1931 he died in New York (Nu c ayma, 7; Young 
7, 147) and, on 21 August 1931, his body was brought 
to Beirut and buried at Mar-Sarkis (Bsharri). 

The classification of his works in Arabic made by 
Nu'ayma (1949) cannot be accepted without quali- 
fication. The dominant feature revealed in his work 



is a romanticism reflecting a mal de siecle similar 
to that in Europe in the 19th century. There is the 
same range of themes: revolt in social, religious and 
literary forms, lyrical outpourings, nature, love, 
death, mingled with recollections and his native land, 
an anxiety about the hereafter where metaphysical 
melancholy ends in mystical serenity and the 
diversity of the cosmos gives way to universal 
unity (Iram Dhdt al-Imdd). In fact, neither his 
stories 'ArdHs al-murudi (1906), al-Arwdh al- 
mutamarrida (1908) nor his novel al-Adjniha 
al-mutakassira (1912) entirely meet the formal 
requirements of the novel. They are merely a setting 
for a revolt or for a purely lyrical manifestation. 
Uprooted by emigration, and fostered by Western 
civilization, he escaped the traditionalists' strict 
discipline and was repelled by their dazzling 
linguistic feats and archaic artifices. Accordingly he 
took his inspiration from the Arabic version of the 
Bible. In his writings all difficulties of form dissolved 
into a kind of internal music, overflowing with 
quasi-mythological images and visions. The vocabu- 
lary he uses is severely limited, and' the commonest 
words seem to be new and enriched with a multiplicity 
of potentialities. This new and somewhat free poetical 
prose did not fail however to provoke much criticism 
from traditional quarters. 

His works in English are an extension of his Arabic 
writings. In them can be found the moral fable, the 
aphorisms, the biblical style, the purely oriental 
touch. The character of Jesus, the subject of his first 
works, received its fullest realization in Jesus, Son 
of Man; The Earth Gods is the perfect expression of 
the mystical outlook, and The Prophet, his master- 
piece, is the focal point in which elements scattered 
throughout his earlier writings are concentrated and 
centralized. In it, thought is detached from logic and 
transformed into feeling and atmosphere. And the 
symbol of al-Mustafa is the manifestation of the 
superman on his way towards the divine, to find full 
realization in the person of Jesus. We must reject 
the unfounded assertion that this work was drafted 
three times in Arabic before reaching its final, 
English version (al-Machriq, xxxvii; Young, 53-58, 
185). 

Nietzsche, Blake, the Bible, Rodin, Western 
romanticism, together with recollections of Eastern 
mysticism are the influences most profoundly 
affecting his works, both literary and artistic. 

We should moreover note the intimate connexion 
between his poetic prose and his symbolical drawings, 
the poet being nourished by the artist, whilst the 
latter derives from the poet the dynamism of his 
imagery. 

The translations of his English works by Antonius 
Bashir are unfailingly prolix or laconic. For this 
reason conservatives do not recognize him as the 
author of any masterpiece in Arabic. Nor is he 
regarded as an important figure either by historians 
of Anglo-American literature or by art historians. 
But it remains none the less true that he is a 
principal representative of the new Arabic literature, 
the reflection of a nation in torment, and a source 
of inspiration for contemporary Arabic poetry. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, III, 457"7iJ 
Y. A. Daghir, Elements de Bio-bibliographie, ii, 
Beirut 1956; Djabran, al-Ma&im&a al-kdmila, 
3 vol. Beirut 1949; Works in English published 
by Knopf and Heinemann; RasdHl, 1951; Kh. 
Hawl, Khalil Gibran, Ph. D. Thesis, Cambridge 
1959; Y. Huwayyik, Dhikraydti, Beirut 1958; 
A. Karam, La vie et Vceuvre de Gibran Khalil 



DJABRAN KHALlL DJABRAN — DJADHlMA b. 'AMIR 



Gibran, Thesis, Sorbonne, 1958; idem, in Cenacle 
Libanais, March 1956; J. Lecerf, in Stud. I si. 
i and ii, 1953-54; H. Mas'ud, Djabrdn hayy"" wa- 
mayt"", Sao Paolo 1932; M. Nu'ayma, Djabrdn 
Khalil Djabrdn, Beirut 1934; B. Young, This man 
from Lebanon, New York 1954. (A. G. Karam) 
QJABRl SA'DALLAH [see sa'd Allah djabri]. 
DJABRIDS [see supplement]. 
DJABRIYYA. or Mu^Ibira, the name given by 
opponents to those whom they alleged to hold the 
doctrine of djabr, "compulsion", viz. that man does 
not really act but only God. It was also used by 
later heresiographers to describe a group of sects. 
The Mu'tazila applied it, usually in the form 
Mudjbira, to Traditionists, Ash'arite theologians 
and others who denied their doctrine of kadar or 
"free will" (al-Khayyat, K. al-intisdr, 18, 24, 26 f., 
49 f., 67, 69, 135 f.; Ibn Kutayba, K. ta'wil mukhtalif 
al-hadith, 96; Ibn al-Murtada, K. al-munya (ed. 
Arnold), 45, 71 — of Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi; al- 
Ash'ari, Makdlat, 430; al-Malati, Tanbih, 144; 
Brockelmann, S I, 315 f.). The Maturidi author of 
Shark al-Fikh al-Akbar (Haydarabad 1321 A.H.) 
says (p. 12) that the Ash'ariyya hold the doctrine of 
djabr, though elsewhere he seems to use Mudjbira 
of the Djahmiyya (11, etc.). The Ash'ariyya con- 
sidered their doctrine of hasb, "acquisition", was a 
mean between diabr and kadar, and identified diabr 
with the doctrine of the Djahmiyya. Al-ShahrastanI 
classifies the latter as "pure Djabriyya", and al- 
Nadjdjar and Dirar as "moderate Djabriyya". (K. 
al-milal, London, 59 ff.). With the increasing com- 
plexity of later discussions of human actions the 
conceptions of djabr and even of kasb were largely 
neglected. 

Further references : Ibn Hazm, iii, 22-35 ; 

A. A. A. Fyzee, A ShiHte creed, London 1947, 

32 n.; E. E. Elder, A commentary on the creed 

of Islam (al-Taftazdni), New York 1950, 82 n., 84; 

Massignon, Passion, ii, 610-5; Watt, Free will 

and predestination in early Islam, London 1948, 

96-9. (W. Montgomery Watt) 

DJA'D b. DIRHAM [see ibn dirham]. 

DJA'DA ('AMIR), a South Arabian tribe. 

In early Islamic times Dja'da had lands in the 

southernmost part of the Yemen highlands, the 

Sarw Himyar, between the present-day towns of 

al-Dali' and IjCa'taba in the north and the Wadi 

Abyan in the south. The road from Aden to San'a' 

passed through the territory, and their neighbours 

were the Banu Madhhidj and Banu Yafi'. These 

South Arabian Dja'da are described by Hamdani 

as a clan of 'Ayn al-Kabr, and are to be distinguished 

from the North Arabian tribe of Dja'da b. Ka'b b. 

Rabi'a of 'Amir b. Sa'sa'a, from whose clan of Udas 

the poet al-Nabigha al-Dja'di arose. However, 

Hamdani goes on to say that in his day the South 

Arabian Dja'da were claiming kinship with the 

more powerful Dja'da b. Ka'b, "and this is how 

every desert tribe whose name resembles another's 

behaves; for it almost becomes drawn into it and 

comes to be joined to it. We see that frequently 

happening". Al-Bakri records that Dja'da b. Ka'b 

were to be found as far south as the Nadjran area, 

and it seems likely that emigrants of this tribe came 

from western Nadjd and that the Dja'da of the Sarw 

Himyar represent their southernmost point, doubtless 

mingled here with local South Arabian peoples. 

Hamdani gives copious topographical details of 
the Dja'da territory in the upper Abyan basin, 
enumerating their wadis, districts, castles, villages 
and wells; some of these names are still in use. 



The districts (kuwar) are attributed to the clans of 
Dja'da, of whom he mentions al-U'dud, A'had, 
Muhadjir, al-Uhruth and al-Sakasika. The language 
of the Sarw Himyar and Dja'da is described as 
incorrect and inferior to that of the regions nearer 
the coast of Lahidj, Abyan and Dathina: their 
Arabic has South Arabian elements (tahmir) in it 
and they drawl and elide their words (yadjurrun fi 
kaldmihim wa-yahdhifun). They use the South 
Arabian definite article am- and drop the prosthetic 

The present-day territory of the 'Amir tribe, a 
sub-section of Dja'da, is broadly that of the classical 
Dja'da, comprising the plateau 100 miles N. of 
Aden with its centre at al-Dali' (Dhala), capital of 
the Amirate of 'Amiri [q.v.]. There are also Dja'di 
tribesmen in the western Hadramawt in the Wadi 
'Amd region 100 miles N.-W. of Mukalla and 70 
miles E. of Shabwa, who practise agriculture by 
irrigation. The name of their ancient centre there, 
Hisn I<uda'a, indicates northern connexions, and 
these Dja'da trace their origin to the Band Hilal and 
a migration from further north. 

Bibliography: Hamdani, Diazira, ed. Miiller, 

78, 89-90, 94, 134; Wiistenfeld, Register zu den 

genealogischen Tabellen, Gottingen 1853, 175; 

C. Rabin, Ancient West Arabian, London 1951, 

43-4; H. von Wissmann and M. Hofner, Beitr. z. 

hist. Geogr. d. vorislam. SUdarabien, Wiesbaden 

1953, 61-2, 68, 122, 126; H. von Maltzan, Reise 

nach SUdarabien, Brunswick 1873, 353-60; Freya 

Stark, A winter in Arabia, London 1940, 147, 

213-6; H. Ingrams, Arabia and the isles, London 

1942, 300-6. (C. E. Bosworth) 

DJA'DA b. KA'B [see 'amir b. sa'sa'a]. 

D.IADHJMA al-ABRASH or AL-WAPpAp 

(i.e., the leper), an important figure in the history 

of the Arabs before Islam, whose floruit may be 

assigned to the third centry A.D. Tradition makes 

him an Azdi and places his reign during the pre- 

Lakhmid period in 'Irak. 

From a mass of richly informative traditions, 
Djadhima emerges as a king who played a dominant 
r61e in the history of the Arabs in Syria and 'Irak 
and in the history of their relations with Persia and 
Rome. His reign marked the inception of one of 
the pre-Islamic Eras. Tradition credits him with 
having been the first to use candles, to wear sandals, 
and to construct catapults, and consequently, ranks 
him among the awdHl (the firsts). 

Anecdotes about Djadhima are many, and some 
of them, probably authentic, have found their way 
into Arabic poetry and proverbial wisdom. Such 
are: his two idols, al-Dayzandn; his boon companions, 
first al-Farkaddn (the two stars), then Malik and 
'Akil; the marriage of his sister Rikash to the 
Lakhmid 'Adi; his own dolorous marriage to al- 
Zabba 3 (Zenobia); and, finally, his gruesome death 
at her hands. 

The Umm al-Djimal inscription has confirmed 
Djadhima as a historical figure and has also establish- 
ed his kingship over Tanukh. 

Bibliography: Tabari, i, 746-61; Caussin de 
Perceval, Essai sur I'histoire des Arabes avant 
I'Islamisme, ii, 16-34; Rothstein, Die Dynastie 
der Lahmiden, Berlin 1899, 34-40; Melchior de 
Vogiie, Florilegium, Paris 1909, 386-90. 

(I. Kawar) 

DJADJIiMA B. 'AMIR, an Ishmaelite tribe living 

at Ghumaysa 5 , south-east of Mecca and not far from 

that city. Its genealogy is: Djadhima b. 'Amir b. 

'Abd Manat b. Kinana [q.v.] etc. (Wiistenfeld, 



DJADHIMA B. 'AMIR — al-DJADIDA 



Register zu den genealogischen Tabellen, 175 ff., 
attributes the following facts to the Diadhima b. 
c Adi b. Du'il b. Bakr b. <Abd Manat, etc. (Table N), 
without apparent justification). There was an 
ancient grudge between the tribe of the Diadhima 
and that of the Kuraysh, although there was 
kindred between them : before Islam, the Kinana had 
attacked a caravan coming from the Yemen and had 
killed an uncle and a brother of Khalid b. al-Walid, 
and the father of c Abd al-Rahman b. c Awf; the 
latter had taken his revenge by slaying the chief of 
the aggressors, Khalid b. Hisham; the strained 
situation had been, however, eased when the Dia- 
dhima, while denying their complicity, had paid the 
blood-wit. 

It seems probable that the Djadhima had already 
accepted Islam before the conquest of Mecca by the 
Prophet; nevertheless the latter after the victory sent 
among them an expedition of 350 men commanded 
by Khalid b. al-Walid, to assure himself of their 
neutrality if not their support (8/629). The troops 
comprised, besides some Muhadjirun and Ansar, 
contingents of the Banu Sulaym b. Mansur and of the 
Banu Mudlidj b. Murra, who themselves entertained 
some grudge towards the Kinana, and moreover 
towards the Djadhima on account of the defeat 
which had been inflicted on them on the yawm of 
al-Burza. Although sent for a pacific purpose, 
Khalid took advantage of the occasion to revenge 
himself, which he did in a way which aroused lively 
indignation at Mecca. The Prophet, to calm the 
agitation, rebuked Khalid publicly. Khalid excused 
himself to c Abd al-Rahman, who had reproached 
him for having killed Muslims, saying that he was 
unaware of their status as Believers. Khalid thought 
it better to absent himself for some time, and on his 
return he was again treated with benevolence by 
the Prophet. The dispute with the Djadhima was 
adjusted by c Ali, who paid the blood-wit for the 30 
killed, and conscientiously compensated for the value 
of the booty. 

Bibliography: Tabari, i, 1649-53; Wakidi 
(Wellhausen), 351-4; Ibn Hisham, 833-8 (Guil- 
laume, 561 n. 1 of his translation of Ibn Ishak, 
observes that the order of events is better esta- 
blished than in Tabari); Aghani, vii, 26-30; Ibn 
Hadjar, ii, 265, no. 7077; Yakut, 817; Caussin de 
Perceval, Essai, hi, 242-4; Caetani, Annali, A.H. 8, 
107-12; W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at 
Medina, Oxford 1956, 70, 84, 257. 

(L. Veccia Vaglieri) 
PJADlD (Arabic 'new', 'modern'; Turkish 
pronunciation d^edid), followers of the usul-i 
diedid(e), the 'new methods', among the Muslims of 
Russia. The movement arose in about 1880 among 
the Kazan [q.v.] Tatars, who provided it with its 
first leaders; from there it spread to other Turkish 
peoples in Russia. The Djedids were against 'religious 
and cultural retrogression'; they pressed, above all, 
for modern teaching methods in the schools, for the 
cultural unification of all Turkish peoples living under 
Russian domination, but also for their participation 
in the cultural and social development of the 
Russia of that time. Consequently, it seemed necessary 
to them that the Turks of Russia should learn 
Russian, of which until then they had been largely 
ignorant. By about 1900, despite the opposition of 
the Mullahs, the Djedld movement had reached 
almost all of the intelligentsia of the Turks in Russia, 
especially in the European parts, and it found a 
gifted leader in the person of the Crimean Tatar 
Isma'il Gasptralt (Russ. Gasprinskiy; 1851-1914). 



He published, from 1885, his journal Terdiumdn 'The 
Interpreter', in such a way that it remained virtually 
free from police prosecution, in spite of the fact that 
the influences of pan-Islamic and pan-Turkish 
ideas were quite evident. GaspiraU himself put 
forward the idea of the creation of a language 
which would be understandable to all the Turks in 
Russia, the basis of which was, in fact, Ottoman 
(cf. Gustav Burbiel, Die Sprache IsmaHl Bey 
Gaspyralys, diss. Hamburg 1950). 

The Kadimls set up their own traditional ideas in 
opposition to the Djedids. Since this party, composed 
mainly of Mullahs, maintained a quietist policy of 
support for the status quo — a support which was in 
no way a danger to Russia — and represented a 
cultural self-sufficiency which was in no way aligned 
to that of 'modernist' Turkey, it repeatedly received 
the support of the Russian state. 

After the revolution of 1905 the efforts of the 
Djedids were able to expand more freely, and now 
reached more strongly into Central Asia. From this 
direction came efforts, in the years 1917-22, to 
establish independent Islamic states on the terri- 
tory of the former Tsarist Empire (for details see 
the articles on the Turkic peoples of the USSR). 
Although the- Djedids had, since 1905, worked 
closely with the representatives of the Russian 
leftist parties, from whom they hoped for some 
recognition of their efforts, the Soviet Government 
turned sharply, from the very beginning, against the 
Djedids and the corresponding movement in Central 
Asia, the Basmatts [?.».], whom they regarded as 
'foreign Imperialist agents'. Nevertheless, the 
Djedids remained faithful to their ideas as long as 
any distinctive intellectual movements survived 
among the Russian Turks, until about 1930. The 
ideologies of the older Russo-Turkish emigres remain, 
even today, influenced by the ideas of the Djedids. 
whereas the younger generation have come further 
and further from any thoughts of returning to 
their homeland. 

Bibliography : G. von Mende, Der nationale 
Kampf der Russlandtiirken, Berlin 1936; B. 
Spuler, I del-Ural. Volker und Staaten zwischen 
Wolga u. Ural, Berlin 1942; idem, in Isl., xxix/2, 
1949, 142-216; Zarevand, Turtsiya i pantyurkizm, 
Paris 1930; B. Hayit, Turkestan im XX. Jahr- 
hundert, Darmstadt 1957; C. W. Hostler, Turkism 
and the Soviets, London 1957; A. Bennigsen and 
Ch. Quelquejay, Der " Sultangalievismus" und die 
nationalistischen Abweichungen in der Tatarischen 
Autonomen Sovetrepublik, in Forschungen zur 
Osteuropaischen Geschichte, vii, Berlin 1959, 323-96; 
idem, Les mouvements nationaux chez les Musul- 
mans de Russie, Paris/The Hague i960; all the 
above contain further bibliographical references. 
The Soviet point of view is given in, e.g., A. 
Arsharuni and Kh. Gabidullin, OZerki panisla- 
mizma i pantyurkizma v Rossii, Moscow 1931. 

~~ (B. Spuler) 

al-DJADIDA. Arabic and the present-day official 
name of the ancient Mazagan (former Arabic name: 
al-Buraydja "the little fortress"), a maritime town 
of Morocco, situated on the Atlantic Ocean n km. 
south-west of the mouth of the wadi Umm Rabi c . 
Its population was 40,318 in 1954, of whom 1704 were 
French, 120 foreigners, and 3,328 Jews. 

Some authors have considered that Mazagan 
arose on the site of Ptolemy's c Pou<Tl(IU? Xtjj.T)v, 
Pliny's Partus Rutubis. The texts do not, indeed, 
say that there had ever been a town there, but 
merely an anchorage frequented by ships, and this 



367 



seems to have been the case throughout the middle 
ages. The name of Mazagan seems to have appeared 
for the first time in al-Bakri (sth/nth century). This 
geographer, enumerating the Atlantic Coast ports of 
Morocco, mentions one Marifen (de Slane's reading) 
which must certainly be restored as Mazighan, the 
form attested by al-Idrisi (6th/i2th century). The 
same place-name recurs in a ms. collection of edifying 
anecdotes concerning the great saint of Azammur, 
Mawlay Abu Shu'ayb, who also lived in the 6th/i2th 
century; here Mazighan appears as a fishermen's 
hamlet situated between the town of Azammur and 
the ribdt of Tit [q.v.]; the propinquity of these two 
relatively important centres impeded its develop- 
ment. The anchorage is marked on a whole series of 
planispheres and portolani of the 14th and 15th 
centuries (publ. Ch. de La Ronciere, Le dicouverte de 
I'Afrique au Moyen-Age, 1925), which give the forms 
Mesegan (1339 and 1373), Maseghan (1367), and 
Mazagem, forms intermediate between Mazighan and 
the Mazagao of the Portuguese. These latter had, 
since the end of the 9th/i5th century, come to load 
corn from the Dukkala in the port of Mazagan for the 
provisioning of their capital. In 1502 a squadron 
commanded by a- Portuguese gentleman, Jorge de 
Mello, caught by a storm in the straits of Gibraltar, 
is said to have been driven as far as Mazagan and to 
have landed there. The Portuguese accommodated 
themselves in an abandoned tower for protection 
against possible attack by the inhabitants. Shortly 
thereafter Jorge de Mello returned to Portugal and 
obtained royal permission to found a fortress at 
Mazagan. Although the account of these facts is 
only recorded by 18th century authors, it must be 
based on the actual events, for letters-patent of the 
king Dom Manuel, dated 21 May 1505, grant to Jorge 
de Mello the captaincy of the castle which he was 
authorized to build at his own expense at Mazagan. 
However, he did not avail himself of this privilege, 
because when, on 27 August 1513, the Portuguese 
army who were on their way to the conquest of 
Azammur under the command of the Duke of 
Braganza disembarked at Mazagan there was no 
town and no fortress except for the old ruined tower 
(al-Buraydja). The difficulties of access to the port 
of Azammur induced the Portuguese to establish a 
more accessible base at Mazagan. 

During the summer of 1514 there was built, under 
the direction of the architects Diego and Francisco 
de Arruda, a square castle flanked with four angle 
towers. One of these bastions was formed out of the 
old tower al-Buraydja, whose name, for the present 
inhabitants, continues to refer to the Portuguese 
town. Most of the original castle still stands; most 
worthy of notice is a magnificent room the vaulting 
of which is supported by twenty-five columns and 
pillars, probably a huge granary built to receive the 
quit-rent, paid in grain, of the tribes subject to 
Portuguese protection rather than an armoury; this 
was later (154 1 ) used as a reservoir. Since more than 
ten years previously the predicament of Portuguese 
strongholds on the coast, in the face of the religious 
and xenophobe movement roused by the accession 
and the conquests of the Sa'di sharlfs, was so bad 
that the king of Portugal thought of abandoning 
many of his fortresses. The capture of that of Santa 
Cruz in Cape Ghir [see agadir-ighir] by the Sharif 
(12 March 1541) was a warning. John III resigned 
himself to evacuating Safi and Azammur and con- 
centrating in Mazagan, a more favourable and more 
easily defendable position, for all that he wished to 
leave some Portuguese forces in the 'south of Morocco. 



It was at this time that the walls of Mazagan received 
their present layout. 

In preserving Mazagan the Portuguese wished to 
retain a base on the coast to guarantee the protection 
of the Indies route. They hoped also that the 
fortress might serve them as a springboard for the 
conquest of Morocco when conditions became 
favourable, but this was never to be realized. In 
fact, for over two hundred years while it remained 
in Portuguese possession Mazagan only furnished 
them with a pretext for obtaining papal bulls of 
Crusade, which furnished appreciable revenue to 
the treasury. But the tribes kept the town so tightly 
blockaded that the inhabitants were unable to 
venture outside the walls without military protection. 
The Muslims of the neighbourhood had founded, a 
mile or so from the town, two large villages, Fahs 
al-Zammuriyyln and Fahs Awlad Dhuwayyib, the 
ruins of which still remain, where they ensconced 
themselves in order to maintain the blockade. 

Badly provisioned by sea, often victims to famine 
and epidemics, the garrison and the population 
managed to live in fair security within the protection 
of their powerful walls, against which the tribesmen 
could do nothing, although on several occasions the 
stronghold sustained vigorous attack. In April 1562 
Muhammad, son of the Sa'dl sultan c Abd Allah al- 
Ghalib bi 'Hah, laid siege to Mazagan, but the be- 
siegers became discouraged after two attacks had 
been repulsed. During the disorders which accom- 
panied the decline of the Sa'di dynasty the governors 
of Mazagan seem to have succeeded in opening the 
blockade and in re-establishing relations with the 
tribes. The mudjdhid SIdi Muhammad al- c AyyashI, 
to remedy this offence, made an attack on the 
Portuguese in 1639 and inflicted some losses on them. 
Mawlay Isma'il, occupied with the siege of Ceuta, 
never seriously attempted to make himself master 
of Mazagan. The honour of reconquering it fell to 
his grandson SIdi Muhammad b. c Abd Allah. The 
sultan came in person to besiege it at the end of 
January 1769. The fortress resisted victoriously for 
five weeks, but the order to evacuate came from 
Lisbon, and the governor capitulated on honourable 
terms, and troops and civilians returned to Portugal 
with their arms and baggage. In abandoning Mazagan, 
on 10 March 1769, the Portuguese left mines there, 
the explosion of which caused great damage; the 
sultan took possession of a devastated town, which 
he partly repopulated, but which remained in such 
a sorry state that it was called al-Mahduma, "the 
ruin", until the time when, under the reign of SIdi 
Muhammad b. Hisham, in 1240/1824-5, it was 
restored by SIdi Muhammad b. al-Tayyib, ka'id of 
the Dukkala and of the Tamasna, who gave it the 
name of al-Djadida. 

Bibliography: St. Gsell, Hist, ancienne de 
I'Afrique du Nord, ii, 1928; Luis Maria do Couto 
de Albuquerque da Cunha, Memorias para a 
historia da prafa de Mazagao, publ. Levy Maria 
Jordao, Lisbon 1864; Alfonso de Dornellas, A 
prafa de Mazagao, Lisbon 191 3; J. Goulven, La 
place de Mazagan sous la domination portugaise, 
Paris 19 17; Vergilio Correia, Lugares dalem, 
Lisbon 1923; Agostinho de Gavy de Mendonca, 
Historia do cerco de Mazagao 1562, Lisbon 1891; 
Discurso da Iornada de D. Goncalo Coutinho a villa 
de Mazagam, Lisbon 1629; Jorge de Mascarenhas, 
Descrifdo da fortaleza de Mazagao (1615-19), publ. 
Belisario Pimenta, Lisbon 1916; G. Host, Den 
Marokanske Kajser Mohammed ben Abdallah's 
Historic, Copenhagen 1791; R. Ricard, Mazagan 



L-DJADIDA — DJADO 



et le Maroc sous le regne du sultan Moulay Zidan 
(1608-27), Paris 1956, with the bibliography 
therein; Nasirl, Kitdb al-istiksd, trans. Fumey in 
AM, ix and x; Guides bleus, Maroc, 1954, 172-7. 

(G. S. Colin and P. de Cenival) 
QJADlS [see tasm]. 

DJADC (djado) in Arabic, or Brao in Teda, 
designates at once the principal palm-grove and the 
bulk of a massif bounded by the 12 and 20 N. paral- 
lels and the 12° and 13° E. meridians. This massif is 
a short branch of the plateau of primary sandstones 
which, from Tassili of the Ajjers to the massif of Afafi, 
joins the Ahaggar to the Tibesti. Changes of level 
are not marked: one passes from 5-800 m. on the 
plateau to 450 m. at the foot of its western declivity; 
the impression of relief is given less by the height 
than by the appearance of the sandstones, looking 
almost like ruins, cut up, in bands running from 
north to south, by the beds of the "enneris". These 
intermittent streams flow towards a zone at the 
southern point of the massif where they expand; 
fed in part by the vast "impluvium" formed by the 
sandstone plateaux, their subterranean course is 
marked by the line of wells. The fallof the plateau 
to the west is marked in its northern part by the 
"gueltas" (Er Roui), and in the south-west by a 
string of oases. 

The richness in underground reservoirs allows life 
to flourish in this region where the desert characte- 
ristics of the climate, violent temperature constrasts 
and extreme dryness, are very noticeable; there is 
a cold season from December to February {night 
temperature -3 or -4° C. [5 to 7 degrees of frost F.], 
day temperature 25 to 30 C. [77°-86° F.]), when 
violent sandstorms from the north-east obscure the 
horizon; from March the temperature rises rapidly 
to day maxima of 45° to 48 C. (ii3°-n8° F.) with 
night temperatures of 16° to 20° C. (6i°-68° F.). The 
rains fall at this time, very irregularly, the total 
annual rainfall varying between 2 and 50 mm., 
sometimes in a single shower. The intense evaporation 
explains the rhythm of the variations in the water- 
level in the wells and numerous springs at the 
southern end of the massif: from March to November 
the springs weaken and the ponds and some of the 
wells dry up; then, at the beginning of December, 
the level again rises, the ponds expand to an area 
of about 10 acres in the oases. Palms need no irri- 
gation, and tomatoes, spices, millet, and tobacco 
grow in the gardens. There are numerous salt-mines. 
In the north and north-east of the massif the region 
of the "gueltas" and that of the wells are the hadd 
pasture-lands. 

Djado is also favoured by its proximity to a 
crossing of caravan routes: the old commerce route 
from Murzuk to Chad, joined at this point by the 
route which runs to Ghat and Ghadames via In 
Ezzan, bifurcates, like the line of wells towards the 
south, on the one hand towards Fashi, running to 
Air or the Nigerian steppes, on the other towards 
Kawar and Chad; these were the traditional routes 
of the Sudan-Mediterranean traffic studied by 
Nachtigal, doubled across the Tenere by the local 
traffic carried by the azalay [?.».]. 

The wealth in water and the ease of communication 
have been a twofold source of profit; but they have 
also been the cause of troubles, as the state of the 
oases testifies: the mud villages ranged one above 
another on the flanks of the mounds of derelict palm 
plantations are ruined; there are trunks to be seen, 
blackened by fire; a wholesale medley of under- 
growth marks the reverted form of palm-groves 



planted and then abandoned; on the borders are 
traces of gardens, three of which remained in 1950; 
matting hovels are scattered on the surrounding 
sands. The sedentary Kanurls who built the villages 
were doubtless impoverished after the end of the 
19th century by the decline in trade across the Sahara, 
particularly hard hit by the prohibition of slave 
traffic by the pasha of Murzuk in 1884, and were 
victims of marauding nomads into the bargain. 
Ajjer Tuaregs and Tedas would converge on Djado, 
either to fight or to form up in bands to batten on 
the caravans or to plunder Air. In any case the massif 
was a supply base, and so was sacked. The Kanurls 
fled, leaving their salt-workings and palm orchards 
in which the Tedas established themselves; the 1950 
census shows that in a population of 450 inhabitants 
over 63 families, 53 families were originally from 
Tibesti, and only 7 were "Braouia", that is to say of 
mixed Teda and Kanurl blood. The Tedas, attracted 
towards the south, would leave wives and children, 
the old men, perhaps a brother, in the oases, to take 
care of the propagation and cultivation of the palm 
plantations, and would return in August at harvest 
time, when the population of the oases would rise to 
some thousand persons. 

The French administration attempted to revive 
these deserted oases, and from 1943 an azalay again 
worked the Djado road, while the palm orchards 
were in part restored. The Djado oasis produced for 
it alone some 60 tons of dates from 7000 trees; this 
production, with that of the other oases in the 
massif, Drigana and Djaba, and that of Kawar, 
represented 1/5 of the production of the former 
French West Africa, Mauretania producing the 
remaining 4/5. 

Bibliography : J. Despois, Le Fezzan; Ch. and 
M. Le Coeur, Enquites dans les confins nigiriens 
(Cercles de Gourd et de Bilma) ; Lt. le Rouvreur, 
Notice sur le Djado (roneo, C.H.E.A.M.) ; Adminis- 
trative reports of the Bilma Circle. 

(M. Ch. Le Cceur) 
DJADC (djado), the old capital of the eastern 
region of the Djabal Nafusa in Tripolitania, nowadays 
a large village in the Fassato district situated on 
three hills of unequal height. The population of 
about 2,000 — towards the end of the 19th century 
there were 500 houses — mostly consists of Berbers 
of the Ibadi tribe of Nafusa. The ruins of the old 
town are nothing but a pile of broken stones and 
caves with a mosque in the centre. Near the mosque 
was formerly the business quarter and the market 
{silk), near which one can still see today the site of 
the Jewish quarter, synagogue, and cemetery. 
According to J. Despois, to whom we owe this 
description, the former large settlement of "Old 
Djadu" has been replaced by five modern villages, 
Djado (Djado), El Gsir (al-GsIr), Ouchebari (Ushe- 
barl), Ioudjelin (Yudjlln), andfemouguet (Temudjet). 
This information is not quite accurate. It appears, 
in fact, that at least two of these villages, Yudjlln 
and Temudjet, have nothing to do with the old 
town of Djadu, and that they already existed 
alongside this town long ago. According to J. 
Despois, the present Djado would be about four 
centuries old. As for the old town, we do not know 
exactly when it was abandoned. The last mention 
of Djadu found in the Ibadi chronicles is connected 
with a celebrated Ibadi shaykh who lived in the 
6th/i2th century (al-Shammakhl, Kitdb al-Siyar, 
54i). 

Litt 
theless it appears that t 



before the Muslim conquest of North Africa and that 
it owed its creation and prosperity to the fact that 
it was situated on the ancient highway joining the 
city of Tripoli (and probably Sabratha and Leptis 
Magna) with the Fezzan and the central Sudan (on 
this highway, see A. Berthelot, L'Afrique saharienne 
et soudanaise. Ce qu'en ont cotmu les anciens, Paris 
1927, 274-6). It seems to us, in fact, that it is with 
the name Djadu that the tribal name Gadaiae 
mentioned by Corippus (549 A.D.) must be connected. 

It must, however, be said that the first certain 
mentions of this town date from much later, the 
end of the 2nd/8th and the beginning of the 
3rd/9th centuries. At this time we hear already 
of a caravan of traders composed of men from 
Djadu in an anecdote concerning the shaykh Abu 
'Uthman al-Mazati and related by the Ibadi bio- 
grapher al-Dardjini [q.v.]. For some time, in the 
second half of the 3rd/9th and about the beginning 
of the 4th/ioth century, Djadu, according to the 
Ibadi historians, was the political and administrative 
centre of the entire Djabal Nafusa. It was the 
residence of Abu Mansur Ilyas, the governor of the 
country appointed by the Rustamid imam of 
Tahart, and later of Abu Yahya Zakariyya 5 al- 
Irdjani who ruled the Djabal Nafusa as an in- 
dependent imam. 

Djadu was at this time also a considerable com- 
mercial city. Ibn Hawkal (367/977) says that it 
possessed a mosque and a minbar. According to 
Abu 'Ubayd al-Bakri (461/1068), who got his in- 
formation about the Djabal Nafusa from the geo- 
graphical work of Muhammad b. Yusuf al-Warrak 
(d. 363/973), Djadu was a large city with bazaars 
and a considerable Jewish population. According 
to this geographer the caravans going from Tripoli- 
tania to the town of Zawila in the Fezzan (today 
Zuila N.E. of Murzuk), a sizeable centre for the 
export of slaves to Ifrikiya and the neighbouring 
lands in the Middle Ages, used to pass through 
Djadu. A march of 40 days separated Zawila from 
the Sudanese country of Kanem, with which the 
Djabal Nafusa, and in particular the town of Djadu, 
had close, but as yet very little studied, relations. 
In this connexion it is relevant that al-Dianawani 
[q.v.], governor of the Djabal Nafusa on behalf of 
the imam of Tahart in the first half of the 3rd/9th 
century, knew, besides Berber and Arabic, the 
language of Kanem {lugha kdnamiyya). Another fact 
attests the existence of close relations between 
Djadu and the Sudan: the name of the birth- 
place of al-Djanawani, Idjnawun (situated below 
Djadu), which is known from the middle of 
the 2nd/8th century onwards, is the Arabicized 
form of the Berber Ignawn, an appellation still 
used today, which is the masculine plural of 
the Berber word agnaw "dumb > negro, black 
man" (cf. G. S. Colin, in GLECS, vii, 94-5). It 
is therefore probable that the village of Idjnawun 
(Ignawn) "the Negroes" owes its name to an ethnic 
group of Sudanese origin, probably natives of Kanem, 
who had established themselves there some time 
previously to the 2nd/8th century (T. Lewicki, 
Etudes ibadites nord-africaines, i, Warsaw 1955, 
94-6). So one may speak of Djadu as having been 
from that period at least a stage on the ancient 
track Tripoli-Zawila-Kanem. 

The inhabitants of other places in the Djabal 
Nafusa used to come to the market at Djadu, which 
was above all an economic centre for the whole of 
the eastern region of the country. It even had, 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



DO 369 

about the 4th/ioth century, a special magistrate in 
charge of the market of the town. 

In spite of its mixed population Djadu was also 
an Ibadi religious centre of great importance. 
According to al-Shammakhi it was a meeting-place 
for the Ibadi scholars of the country. 

From a very distant period, the second half of the 
2nd/8th century at least, Djadu was also a political 
centre, the chief town of the eastern region of the 
Djabal Nafusa, which is called in the old Ibadi 
chronicles "the region of Djadu", "Djadu and its 
villages", or "Djadu and its neighbourhood". This 
region comprised the present districts of Fassato, 
al-Rudjaban, and al-Zintan. We know the names of 
some fifteen villages and strongholds (kusur) which 
existed in this neighbourhood in the early Middle 
Ages, as well as the names of several Ibadi Berber 
tribes who lived there side by side with the Nafusa 
proper. Of these tribes the Banu Zammiir and the 
Banu Tardayt deserve special mention. We do not 
know whether the region of Djadu enjoyed autonomy 
under the Rustamids and their governors in the 
Djabal Nafusa. But after the downfall of the 
imamate of Tahart, from the second half of the 
4th/ioth century onwards, at the time of the greatest 
economic prosperity of Djadu, there were hakims 
(local Ibadi chiefs) of this town (or perhaps of the 
whole region of Djadu) side by side with the hakims 
of the Djabal Nafusa. The first hakim "of the 
people of Djadu" whose name we know was Abu 
Muhammad al-Darfi, a contemporary of the hakim 
of Nafusa Abu Zakariyya 5 al-Tindemirti. He lived 
in the famous Dar Ban! c Abd Allah which was 
situated on the suk of Djadii. This house, which 
afterwards became the meeting-place of the shaykhs 
of the town, was considered later to be one of the 
holy places of the Djabal Nafusa. After the death of 
Abu Muhammad the office of hakim of Djadii 
passed to his son Abu Yahya Yusuf, who lived about 
390/1000. Along with the hakims of Djadii there were 
also in the region of this town from the 4th/ioth to 
the 5th/nth centuries hakims special to the Banu 
Zammur. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hawkal, 95 and map 
between 66 and 67; Bakri, text 9-10, tr. 25-6; 
Abu 'l- c Abbas Ahmad b. Sa'id al-Shammakhi, 
Kitab al-siyar, Cairo 1301/1883, 172, 203, 239, 
242, 243. 244, 253, 255, 273, 284, 285, 286, 287, 
288, 298, 299, 304, 306, 314, 320, 321, 324, 334, 
339. 340, 34i> 343, 54i, 544; R- Basset, Les 
sanctuaires du Djebel Nefousa, in J A 1899, May- 
June 453, July-August 99, no. 89; A. de C. 
Motylinski, Le Djebel Nefousa: Transcription, 
traduction francaise et notes avec une itude gram- 
matical, Paris 1899, 89; Abu 'l- c Abbas Ahmad 
b. Sa'Id al-Dardjini, Kitab tabakdt al-mashdyikh, 
Cracow MS. f° 89 v. ; Guida del Touring Club 
Italiano. Possedimenti e colonie. Isole Egee, Tri- 
politania, Cirenaica, Eritrea, Somalia, by L. V. 
Bertarelli, Milan 1929, 333; J. Despois, Le Djebel 
Nefousa (Tripolitaine) . Etude giographique, Paris 
1935. 245, 246, 269, 288, 289; T. Lewicki, On some 
Libyon ethnics in Johannis of Corippus, in 
Rocznik Orientalistyczny, xv, 1948, 125-6; idem, 
Etudes ibadites nord-africaines, Part i, Warsaw 
1955. 37, 84-5, 88-92, 95-6, and passim; idem, La 
repartition giographique des groupements ibadites 
dans I'Afrique du Nord au moyen dge, in Rocznik 
Orientalistyczny, xxi, 1957, 332, 334-6; cf. also 
the bibliographies to the two articles by F. 
Beguinot: 'al-nafusa' in EI 1 and 'Nafusa' in 
Enciclopedia Italiana, xxiv, 500-1. (T. Lewicki) 



DJADWAL — DJAF 



DJADWAL, pi. djaddwil, primarily "brook, water- 
course", means further "table, plan". Graefe sug- 
gested that in this meaning it might derive from 
schedula; but perhaps one should rather think of 
4x-d-l "to twist", cf. S. Fraenkel, Die aramdischen 
Fremdwbrter im Arabischen, 224, and the similar 
development of the meaning of zldj, as stated by 
£. Honigmann, Die sieben Klimata, 1929, 117 ff. In 
this second sense the word becomes a special term 
in sorcery, synonymous with khdtim; here it means 
quadrangular or other geometrical figures, into which 
names and signs possessing magic powers are inserted. 
These are usually certain mysterious characters, 
Arabic letters and numerals, magic words, the 
Names of God, the angels and demons, as well as of 
the planets, the days of the week, and the elements, 
and lastly pieces from the Kur'an, such as the 
Fdtiha [q.v.], the Surat Ydsin, the "throne-verse", 
the fawdtih, etc. The application of these figures is 
manifold: frequently the paper on which they have 
been drawn is burnt in order to cense someone with 
its smoke ; or the writing may be washed off in water 
and drunk (cf. Num., v, 23 ff.) ; along with the da'wa 
(conjuration) and often also the kasam (oath) the 
djadwal forms the contents of an amulet (hirz, [q.v.]). 
The very popular da'wat cd-shams, for example, is 
prepared as follows: it is quadrangular, divided into 
49 sections by six lines drawn lengthwise and six 
drawn across its breadth, and contains Solomon's 
seal and other peculiar figures: seven consonants, 
Names of God, names of spirits, the names of the 
seven kings of the djinns, the names of the days of 
the week, and the names of the planets. The under- 
lying notion is that secret relationships exist between 
these various components, and the djadwal is there- 
fore made to obtain certain certain results from the 
correlations of the elements composing it. The highly 
developed system of mystic letters, which is based 
on the numerical values of the Arabic letters, is very 
frequently used for the djadwal. A special class is 
formed by the squares called wafk [q.v.] in the fields 
of which certain figures are so arranged that the 
addition of horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines 
gives in every case the same total {e.g., 15 or 34). 
The celebrated name buduh is nothing but an artifi- 
cial talismanic word formed from the elements of the 
simple threefold magic square, i.e., from the letters 
in the four corners in the alphabetical order of the 




The name buduh evidently passed at an early date 
into South Arabic, became used there as a feminine 
proper name and as a feminine epithet, "fat", and 
was confused with the root t-Aj {LA, iii, s.v. i-Jj). 
It has no other meaning in Arabic. In magical books 
there are even a" few cases of the word being personi- 
fied (e.g., Yd buduh, in HadM Sa'dOn, Al-fath al- 
rahmdni, 21), although in popular belief Buduh has 
become a DjinnI whose services can be secured by 
writing his name either in letters or in numbers {J A , 
ser. 4, xii, 521 ff.; Spiro, Vocabulary of colloquial 
Egyptian, 36; Doutte, Magie el religion, 296, along 
with Kay yum as though a name of Allah; Klunzinger, 
Upper Egypt, 387). The uses of this word are most 
varied, to invoke both good and bad fortune: thus, 



in Doutte, op. cit., against menorrhagia (234), 
against stomach pains (229), to render oneself 
invisible (275), against temporary impotence (295); 
Lane's Cairo magician also used it with his ink 
mirror, and so in several treatises on magic. It is also 
engraved upon jewels and metal plates or rings which 
are permanently carried as talismans, and it is 
inscribed at the beginning of books (like kabikadj) 
as a safeguard, e.g., in Folk al-djalil, Tunis 1290. By 
far its most common use is to ensure the arrival of 
letters and packages. 

Besides the references above, see also Reinaud, 
Monuments musulmans, ii, 243 ft., 251 ff., 256. For 
the other meanings of djadwal cf. the notes s.v. in 
Dozy's SuppUment and Redhouse's Turkish and 
English lexicon. The K. al-buduh by Djabir b. 
Hayyan mentioned in the Fihrist is in fact a kitdb al- 
tadarrudj, cf. P. Kraus, Jdbir ibn IJayydn, i, 1943, 
p. 26, no. 47, and J. W. Fuck, in Ambix, iv (1951), 



128, n 



. 36. 



Bibliography: Ikhwdn, al-Safd\ ch. i; Ibn 
Khaldun, Mukaddima, vi, ch. xxvii-xxviii, and Ibn 
Khaldun- Rosenthal, iii, 156 ff.; al-Dayrabi, Mu- 
djarrabdt, 1298, passim; al-Bunl, Shams al- 
ma'-drif, i, ch. xvi; Tadhyil tadhkirat uli 'l-albdb 
li 'l-Antdki, passim; Muhammad b. Muhmud al- 
Amuli, NafdHs al-funun (Pers. Encycl., lith., 1309, 
in folio), ii, 199 ff., sub Hlm-i wafk-i a'ddd; 
Tashkopriizade, Miftdh al-sa'dda, i, 331, no. 182: 
Him a'ddd al-wafk; al-Kazwinl, Athdr al-bildd 
(Kosmographie, ii), 385 (credits Archimedes with 
the invention of the magic square) ; C. H. Becker, 
Islamsludien, i, 315; ii, 100; Lane, Manners and 
customs . . ., ch. xi-xii; W. Ahrens, in Isl., vii 
(1917), 186 ff., esp. 239; H. Winkler, Siegel und 
Charaktere, 1930, 55 ff.; P. Kraus, Jdbir ibn 
JJayydn, ii, 73; E. Mauchamp, La sorcellerie au 
Maroc, n.d., 208 (magic letters); H. Hermelink, 
in Sudhoffs Archiv, xlii (1958), 199-217; xliii (1959), 
351-4- 
(E. Graefe-D. B. Macdonald-[M. Plessner]) 
al-EJADY [see nudjum]. 

DJAF. A large and famous Kurdish tribe of 
southern ('Iraki) Kurdistan, and of the Sanandadj 
(Senna) district of Ardalan province of Western 

The tribe, cattle-owning and seasonally nomadic, 
was centred in the Djawanrud [q.v.] area of the latter 
province in the early nth/i7th century, and is 
first mentioned in connexion with the operations 
and Turko-Persian treaty of Sultan Murad IV. 
About 1112/1700, following bad relations with the 
Ardalan authorities, the main body of the tribe 
(estimated at 10,000 tents or families) moved into 
Turkish territory, leaving substantial sections in 
their own original homes. The Djaf who settled in 
the Turkish and border districts occupied, in summer, 
the highlands around Pandjwln: in spring and 
autumn, the plain of Shahrizur, with headquarters 
at Halabdja: and in winter, lands dependent upon 
Kifrl, on the right bank of the SIrwan (Diyala). 
Other Djaf elements at various periods became 
incorporated with the Guran, others with the Sin- 
djabi, others the Sharafbayani, others the Badjalan 
(all more or less astride the reputed frontier, which 
was not fixed until 1263/1847), and separated from 
their original tribe. 

The main body of the Djaf, although grouped in 
many distinct sections, sometimes of formidable size 
and self-consciousness, showed fair general cohesion 
under capable leaders. For a century and a half 
(1112-1267/1700-1850) they intermittently (but 



DjAF — Mir DJA'FAR 



never much more than nominally) formed part of 
the dependencies of the Baban [q.v.] empire. Their 
nomadic habit and indiscipline involved them in 
endless quarrels with neighbours and settled folk, 
and their seasonal entry into, and close contacts in, 
Persian districts gave them a footing in both 
countries which made them for a century an element 
in Turko- Persian frontier politics: an element the 
more unmanageable by reason of their formidable 
numbers, and the rivalries between claimants for 
power among their own Beg-rada, who frequently 
courted, or were championed by, both Governments 
in turn. Even after their nominal incorporation in 
the Turkish administrative system, about 1267/1850, 
and in spite of increasing contacts of their leaders 
with Turkish officialdom and forces, they remained 
effectively ungoverned until the first World War, 
dominated the area in which they camped and 
grared (as well as the town of Halabdja, which was 
a Djaf creation), and paid infrequent dues to the 
Treasury in the form of lump sums collected by 
their own chiefs. Since 1337/1918, however, a defined 
frontier, more effective government, and increasing 
tribal settlement have deprived the tribe of much 
of its former importance. 

Bibliography: E. B. Soane, Report on the 
Sulaimania district of Kurdistan, Calcutta 1918; 
'Abbas al-'ArrawI, 'AshdHr al- c Irdk, ii, Baghdad 
1366/1947. Cf. also senna. (S. H. Longrigg) 
Mir EJA'FAR or Mir Muhammad Dja'far Khan 
(Siyar al-muta'akhkhirin, vol. ii in both the text and 
rubrics, and not Dja'far 'All Khan), son of Sayyid 
Ahmad al-Nadjafl, of obscure origin, rose to be the 
Nawwab of Bengal during the days of the East 
India Company. A penniless adventurer, like his 
patron Mirra Muhammad 'AH entitled c AHwirdI 
Khan Mahabat Djang (see the article 'alI werdi 
iotan), he married a step-sister, Shah Khanim, of 
'Allwirdi and served his master and brother-in-law 
as a commandant, before the latter ascended the 
masnad of Bengal in 1153/1740 after defeating and 
killing Sarfraz Khan, son and successor of Shudja' 
al-Din, the Mughal subadar of Bengal. He fought, 
successfully on a number of occasions, against the 
Marathas, who were then making inroads into 
Bengal. In one of the encounters on the banks of 
the Bhagirthi in 1155/1741 he scattered and dispersed 
the lashkar of the Maratha chieftain, Bhaskar 
Pandit. After the withdrawal of the Marathas 
he was appointed ndHb-ndzim of Cuttack and 
fawdjddr [q.v.] of Medinipur and Hidjli. He, however, 
continued to held the office of paymaster (bakhshi) 
of the army, to which post he had been appointed 
in 1 153/1740 by c AlIwirdi Khan. In 1 160/1747 he 
was ordered to oppose the Marathas, but he fled and 
fell precipitately on Burdwan. The same year he 
was deprived of this and other offices held by him 
for malversation and his insolence towards 'Aliwirdi 
Khan, who had gone to his house to condole with 
him in a family bereavement. The next year, 
however, he was reinstated. In 1164/1751 he was 
again successful against Mir Habib and his Maratha 
confederates. On the accession of Siradj al-Dawla, 
a grandson of c Aliwirdi Khan, to the masnad of 
Bengal, Mir Dja'far was removed from the all- 
important office of bakhshi as by reason of his 
maturity, war experience, and high position, he 
was the only man whom Siradj al-Dawla had reason 
to fear in a trial of strength. It must have been 
within the knowledge of Siradj al-Dawla that Mir 
Dja'far was an ambitious man and had on an earlier 
occasion during the life-time of 'Allwirdi Khan 



conspired to kill his master and patron and himself 
occupy the masnad of Bengal (Siyar, ii, 157). Soon 
after the death of 'Aliwirdi Khan (1 169/1756), Mir 
Dja'far sent a secret letter to Shawkat Djang, the 
Nawwab of Purnia, to attack Siradj al-Dawla, 
assuring him of full support. Shawkat Djang needed 
no such invitation as he had refused to recognize the 
succession of Siradj al-Dawla. Dja'far, however, did 
not slacken his efforts and in 1170/1757 entered into 
a secret treaty with Lord Clive, through William 
Watts, the chief of the English Factory in Kasim- 
hazax, for the overthrow of Siradj al-Dawla, who 
had by his various indiscretions alienated not only 
his own officers but even the influential Hindu 
bankers, the Djagat Seths, whom he had threatened 
with circumcision. Not very sure of the support 
promised by Mir Dja'far, Clive took the field at 
Plassey in 1170/1757. On the fall of Mir Madan, the 
Chief of Artillery (Mir Atash) of Siradj al-Dawla's 
army, the Nawwab in utter despair called Dja'far 
to his tent and begged and implored him to "defend 
his honour". Dja'far, in spite of his having sworn 
on the Kur'an, informed Clive of the helplessness 
of the Nawwab and urged the English to advance at 
once and seire his camp. Next day Mir Dja'far. 
instead of supporting the Nawwab, retreated from 
the battlefield, thus facilitating the victory of the 
English. After the battle he returned to Murshldabad, 
the capital, and was proclaimed Nawwab by Clive. 
(S. C. Hill, Bengal in 1756-57, London 1905, ii, 437). 
A few days later he had Siradj al-Dawla, who had 
been captured while fleeing and brought back to 
Murshldabad, executed by his son MIran, although 
the fallen Nawwab abased himself by begging for 
mercy. Mir Dja'far soon found that he was not in a 
position to fulfil his monetary commitments 
(£ 3,388,000) rashly entered into with the East 
India Company. In 1174/1769 he was deposed and 
supplanted by his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, partly 
because of his doubtful attitude during the attempted 
Dutch invasion of Bengal in 1173/1759 and partly 
because of his having been in arrears with his 
payments to the Company. The declaration of war 
against the Company by Mir Kasim in 1177/1763 and 
his ultimate defeat and flight into Awadh again 
brought Mir Dja'far to the masnad, which he 
occupied till his death in 1178/1765. Taking account 
of the standards of the time, the prevailing atmo- 
sphere of political chicanery and doubtful entitlement 
to high offices of State, of the way his contemporary 
'Aliwirdi Khan had obtained the nizdmat of Bengal, 
of Siradj al-Dawla's incompetence and unpopularity, 
it is rather difficult to justify the charge of national 
treachery commonly levelled against Mir Dja'far, 
much less to dub him "Lord Clive's jackass". His 
last years were not very happy or comfortable as 
he had contracted leprosy and was strongly addicted 
to sensual pleasures, opium, and hashish. 

Bibliography: Ghulam Husayn Tabatabal, 
Siyar al-muta'akhkhirin, Lucknow 1314/1897, 
vol. ii; Yusuf 'All Khan, Ta'rikh (Ahwdl)-i 
Mahabat Qiang (in Persian, still in MS.) ; Karam 
'All, Muzaffarndma, I.O. (MS) no. 4 075; The 
history of Bengal, ii (Muslim Period), ed. J. 
N. Sarkar, Dacca 1948, 469-70 and index; 
Robert Orme, History of the military transactions 
of the British Nation in Indostan; C. R. Wilson, 
Early annals of the English in Bengal, (2 vols.), 
London 1895-1917; Lucy S. Sutherland, The East 
India Company in eighteenth-century politics, 
Oxford 1952, index; George Dunbar, India and 
the passing of empire, London 1951, 86-9, 102 



372 



MIr DJA'FAR — DJA'FAR b. c ALI 



n. 6; J. Mill, The history of British India, (2 vols.), 
London 1817-18; H. Dodwell, India, (2 vols.), 
London 1936; G. R. Gleig, History of the British 
empire in India, (3 vols.), London 1830; Cambridge 
History of India, v; A history of the Freedom 
Movement, Karachi 1956, index; Jadunath Sarkar, 
Fall of the Mughal empire; Kali Kinkar Datta, 
t Ali Vardi and his times, Calcutta 1939, index; 
F. N. Nikhilnath Ray, Murshidabad kahani, : 
Thompson and Garrat, Rise and fulfilment of 
British rule in India, 100-4; Alfred Lyall, Growth 
and expansion of British rule in India, 148, 143; 
J. N. Sarkar, Bengal Nawabs, Calcutta 1952; 
A. C. Roy, Career of Mir Jafar Khan, Calcutta 1953. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
CJA'FAR b. ABI TALIB, cousin of the 
Prophet and brother of c Ali, whose elder he « 
by ten years. When his father was reduced 
poverty, his uncle al-'Abbas took Dja'far into his 
house to solace him, while Muhammad took care of 
'AH. Soon being converted to Islam (Dja'far occupies 
the 24th, or 31st, or 32nd place in the list of the 
first Muslims), he was among those who emigrated 
to Abyssinia (his name heads the second list given 
by Ibn Hisham, 209) ; his wife Asma' b. c Umays 
followed him. When the Kuraysh sent Abu Rabl c ; 
Ibn al-Mughlra al-Makhzumi and 'Amr b. al-'As t< 
the Negus to demand the detention of the emigres 
Dja'far, by reciting Kur'anic verses on the Virgin 
(from Sura XIX) before the sovereign, and ; 
subsequent audience verses on Jesus (from Sura IV), 
obtained his protection for himself and his c 
panions; it is even said that he converted him to 
Islam. During this period of exile the Prophet 
expressly commended Dja'far to the Negus; at the 
time of the famous Pact of Fraternity between 
Muhddiirun and Ansdr, he allotted Mu'adh b. 
Djabal to him as adoptive brother, and, unless the 
tradition is in error, he considered him as present at 
the battle of Badr, since his name figures among the 
Badrites. 

On his return from Abyssinia, Dja'far met the 
Prophet on the day of the capture of Khavbar 
(7/628). Muhammad, embracing him with the 
greatest fervour, cried "I know not what gives me 
the greater pleasure, my conquest or the return of 
Dja'far". 

The name of Dja'far is found in the sources in 
connexion with an episode concerning 'Ammara, 
daughter of Hamza the uncle of the Prophet. The 
girl had stayed at Mecca ; to withdraw her from the 
pagans while respecting the pact of Hudaybiya, 
'All proposed to take her as wife to Medina. Zayd 
b. Haritha protested that he was her wall in his 
capacity as Hamza's brother and heir, and that 
Dja'far was also on account of his kinship with her 
(he was Hamza's nephew and brother-in-law of 
'Ammara's mother). Muhammad agreed that 
Dja'far should be the girl's guardian, but restrained 
him from marrying her because of his double bond 
of relationship. Dja'far welcomed the decision of 
the Prophet, skipping {hadiala) around Muhammad 
in the way in which the Abyssinians did around the 
Negus. It was on this occasion that the Prophet is 
reputed to have said "Thou art like me in thy features 
and thy manners {ashbahta khalki wa khuluki)". 

In the year 8/629, when the Prophet decided to 
send an expedition beyond the Byzantine frontier, he 
appointed Zayd b. Haritha as commander-in-chief, 
and, in case the latter should be killed, Dja'far, and 
then, as Dja'far's eventual replacement, 'Abd 
Allah b. Rawaha. All three fell in the battle of Mu'ta 



(Djumada I 8/629) and were buried in the same tomb 
which had no distinctive markings. A tomb is in 
existence at Mu'ta on which Dja'far's epitaph in 
Kflfic characters is partly preserved, which shows 
the antiquity of the tradition concerning him. 
Dja'far fought and died bravely (at this time he was 
about forty years old) ; he is said to have hamstrung 
his horse before the battle so that he should have no 
means of flight, and that he was the first in Islam 
so to do; having had his hands cut off one after the 
other, he carried the standard against his chest with 
his stumps; more than sixty wounds were counted 
on his body. The Prophet, through his supernatural 
powers of perception, witnessed the battle from his 
minbar. The following day he went to Dja'far's 
house and revealed to his widow, by his tears, the 
sorrow which had fallen upon her. 

Dja'far was the one of Muhammad's kinsmen who 
most closely resembled him. He was surnamed Abu 
'1-Masakin (or Abu '1-Masakin) for his charity 
towards the poor. After his death he was called 
Dja'far dhu '1-djanahayn or Dja'far al-Tayyar fi 
'1-djanna, as the Prophet declared that he had had 
a dream of him flying on two bloody wings among a 
group of angels in Paradise. The Usd and the l Umdat 
al-tdlib say that he was also called Dhu '1-hidjratayn 
because of his two emigrations, to Abyssinia and to 
Medina, which seems strange since, on account of 
his exile, he could not have had the opportunity of 
following Muhammad on his hidjra. 

Of the sons Dja'far had by his wife al-Asma', 
'Awn and Muhammad fell at Karbala' beside al- 
Husayn; only 'Abd Allah gave him any descendants. 

Ibn Abi 'l-Hadld tells us of the arguments of those 
who considered the merits of Dja'far to be superior 
to those of 'All: he had embraced Islam after 
puberty; he had died a martyr's death, whereas 
there was dispute as to whether 'All's had been a 
shahdda, etc. Abu Hayyan al-Tawhldl has also 
treated of this subject in the 5th part of his K. al- 

Bibliography: Ibn Hisham, 159, 164, 209 10 , 
219, 221, 344, 781, 794-6; Tabari, i ; u6 3 ff., 1184, 
1610, 1614, 1616-8; ii, 329; iii, 2297 ff.; Wakidi 
(Wellhausen), 73, 83, 282, 287, 296, 302 ff., 309 ff., 
433; Mas'udi, Murudi, iv, 159, 181, 182, 290, 449; 
v, 148; Ibn Khaldun, ii App., 7, 16 ff., 39 ff.; Ibn 
al-Athlr, Usd, i, 286-9; Ibn Hadjar, Isdba, ii, 584, 
no. 8746; Ibn 'Inaba, 'Umdat al-tdlib, Nadjaf 1358, 
19 ff.; Ibn Abi 'l-Hadld, Shark Nahdj al-baldgka, 
Cairo 1329, ii, 108 ff.; iii, 39-41; Caetani, Annali, 
index at end of 2nd volume ; W. Montgomery Watt, 
Muhammad at Mecca, Oxford 1953, 88, no, in; 
idem, Muhammad at Medina, Oxford 1956, 54 ff., 
380 ff. (for the explanation of the prohibition of 
Dja'far's marriage with 'Ammara). For the 
hadith on the resemblance see Wensinck, Con- 
cordance, s.v. shabaha. For the tomb, and relevant 
bibliography, see Harawl, Guide des lieux de 
Pelerinage [= K. al-Ziydrdt], trans. J. Sourdel- 
Thomine, Damascus 1957, 47. 

(L. Veccia Vaglieri) 
EJA'FAR b. 'ALl b. Hamdun al-ANDALUSI, 
a descendant of a Yemeni family which settled in 
Spain at an unknown date, subsequently moving to 
the district of Mslla, in the Maghrib, at the end of the 
3rd/gth century at the latest. Like his father 'All, 
he was at first a loyal supporter of the Fatimid 
cause, as Governor of Msila; then, probably inspired 
by jealousy of the ZIrids [q.v.] who were increasingly 
favoured by the Fatimid caliphs, he changed sides 
in 360/971 and swore obedience to the Umayyad 



DJA C FAR B. 'ALl — DJA C FAR BEG 



caliph of Spain. After a few years in favour, he 
incurred the displeasure of the all-powerful hddjib 
al-Mansur b. Abi c Amir [q.v.] who had him assassinat- 
ed in 372/982-3. 

Bibliography: M. Canard, Une famille de 
partisans, puis d' adversaires des Fatimides en 
Afrique du Nord, in Melanges d'histoire et d'archi- 
ologie de I'Occident musulman, Algiers 1957, ii, 
33-49, with references to sources in Arabic. 

(R. Le Tourneau) 
DJA'FAR B. al-FAPL [see ibn al-furat]. 
DJA'FAR B. HARB. Abu '1-Fadl Dja'far b. 
Barb al-Hamadhanl (d. 236/850), a Mu'tazili of the 
Baghdad branch, was first a disciple of Abu 
'1-Hudhayl al-'AUaf at Basra, and then of al-Murdar 
at Baghdad, whose asceticism he tried to imitate; 
this is what inspired him to give to the poor the large 
fortune which he had inherited from his father. 

In agreement with the Mu'tazila, he defended the 
doctrine that God knows through Himself from all 
eternity, that His knowledge is His very being, and 
that the object of His knowledge can exist from all 
eternity. He said that we have, in the divine wisdom, 
the guarantee that God does not commit injustice 
and does not lie ; indeed that we cannot reasonably 
conceive the idea of a God who in fact commits an 
injustice. The infidel who is converted by his own 
effort, he said, has greater merit than one who is 
converted by divine grace. Again in agreement 
with the Mu'tazila, he admitted that the Word of 
God — the Kur'an — is created; it is therefore an 
accident and its place is the Prophet. He considered 
the soul to be essentially different from the body 
and united to it accidentally. He said that we act 
according to the last decision we have taken, provided 
it is not halted by another decision or by an obstacle. 
Dja'far was a Zaydi: he said that the imamate 
falls on the most worthy and not on the person 
who deserves it by right; and 'All b. Abi Talib is 
the most deserving in the community after the 
Prophet. 

Bibliography: al-Ash'ari, Makaldt, Istanbul 
1929, 191, 202, 337, 373, 415, 557, 598; Ibn al- 
Nadlm, Fihrist, in Muh. Shafi* Presentation Volume, 
Lahore 1955, 65-6; Al-Baghdadi, Fark, 151; al- 
Malati, al-Tanbih, 27, 331 al-Khayyat, K. al- 
Intisdr (French trans, by Albert Nader, Beirut 
1957), 7, 12, 66, 74, 89, 100, 113; Ibn al-Mur- 
tada, K. al-Munya ed. T. W. Arnold, The MuHa- 
zilah, 41 ft.; ed. S. Diwald-Wilzer, Die Klassen der 
MuHaziliten, Wiesbaden 1961, 73 ff.; A. N. Nader, 
Le systeme philosophique des MuHazila, Beirut 
1956 (index). (Albert N. Nader) 

PJA'FAR b. MANSUR al-YAMAn [see sup- 

PJA'FAR B. MUBASHSHIR al-Kasabl (also 
al-Thakafi), a prominent Mu'tazili theologian 
and ascetic of the school of Baghdad, d. 234/848-9. 
He was a disciple of Abu Musa al-Murdar, and to 
some slight degree also influenced by al-Nazzam 
[q.v.] of Basra. Little is known of his life except some 
anecdotes about his abnegation of the world, and 
the information that he introduced the Mu'tazili 
doctrine to c Ana [q.v.], and held disputations with 
Bishr b. Ghiyath al-Marisi [q.v.]. He is the author 
of numerous works on fikh and kaldm (al-Khayyat 
81; Fihrist 37) and he had numerous disciples who, 
together with the disciples of his like-minded con- 
temporary Dja'far b. Harb [q.v.], were called 
Djafariyya, a branch of the MuHazila of Baghdad, 
by later heresiographers. Nothing of his literary 
output seems to have survived, except one long 



quotation on various opinions concerning the 
Kur'an, from which it appears that he had anticipated 
al-Ash'ari's style of literary exposition (Makaldt 
al-Islamiyyin, 589-98). His principle in fikh was, 
according to al-Khayyat (89), to follow the zdhir 
meaning of Kur'an, sunna and idjmd', and to 
avoid ra'y and kiyds, and among his writings are 
mentioned works directed against the ashdb al- 
ra'y wa- 'l-kiyds, and against the ashdb al-hadith. 
His opinions in theology remain within the frame- 
work of the various doctrines held by the Mu'tazila; 
some of them seem directly to reflect his unworldly 
attitude, such as his definition of the world of Islam 
not as the "world of faith" but as the "world of 
unrighteousness" (ddr fish, in the technical meaning 
of the word; Makaldt al-Islamiyyin 464); this seems 
to have been the basis for Ibn al-Rewendi's [q.v.] 
charge, repeated by later heresiographers but 
rejected as false by al-Khayyat (81), that Dja'far 
regarded some Muslim sinners (fussdk) as worse 
than the Jews, Christians, Zindiks and Dahriyya. 
As regards the caliphate, Dja'far held, in common 
with Dja'far b. Harb and al-Iskafi [q.v.], that 'Ali 
was the most meritorious of men after the Prophet, 
but that the appointment of his less meritorious 
predecessors before him was valid; he and the other 
Mu'tazila of Baghdad are therefore regarded as a 
branch of the Zaydiyya (al-Malati 27). 

Dja'far's brother, Hubaysh b. Mubashshir (d. 258/ 
872), was a fakih and traditionist who is claimed 
both by Sunni and by ShI'a biographers (al-Khatib 
al-Baghdadi, no. 4369; Ibn Hadjar al-'Askalani, 
Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, ii, no. 363; al-Mamakani, 
Tankih al-Makdl, Nadjaf 134911-, no. 2237); it is 
reported that Dja'far refused to talk to him because 
he was a Hashwi (al-Mas'udi, Murudj, v, 443). 

Bibliography: al-Khayyat, K. al-intisdr, ed. 
Nyberg, index; al-Ash'ari, Makaldt al-Islamiyyin, 
ed. Ritter, index; al-Malati, K. al-Tanbih, ed. 
Dedering, index; Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, in Muh. 
Shaft'- Presentation Volume, Lahore 1955, 64; 'Abd 
al-Kahir b. Tahir al-Baghdadi, K.al-fark bayn al- 
firak, ed. Badr, 153 f.; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, 
Ta'rikh Baghdad, no. 3608 (tradition from 'All, 
of an ascetic tendency) ; al-Isfaralni, al-Tabsir fi 
'l-Din, Cairo 1359, 47; al-Shahrastani, K. al-milal 
wa 'l-nihal, ed. Cureton (cf. T. Haarbrucker, Reli- 
gionspartheien etc., transl., index) ; Fakhr al-DIn al- 
Razi, K. firak al-Muslimin wa'l-Mushrikin, Cairo 
1356, 43; al-Idji, al-Mawakif, ed. Soerensen, 338; 
Ibn al-Murtada, K. al-Munya, ed. T. W. Arnold, 
al-MuHazilah, 43 L; ed. S. Diwald-Wilzer, Die 
Klassen der MuHaziliten, Wiesbaden 1961, 76 ff.; 
A. S. Tritton, Muslim theology, index; W. M. Watt, 
Free will and predestination in early Islam, 
index; A. N. Nader, Le systeme philosophique des 
MuHazila, index. 

(A. N. Nader and J. Schacht) 
DJA'FAR b. MUIJAMMAD [see abu ma'shar]. 
DJA'FAR b. YAIJYA [see al-baramika]. 
DJA'FAR BEG (?-926/i52o)— the "Zafir aga, 
eunuco" listed in the index to Marino Sanuto, Diarii, 
xxv, col. 832 — was Sandjak Beg of Gallipoli, i.e., Ka- 
pudan or High Admiral of the Ottoman naval forces. 
He was appointed to this office, not (as Kdmus al- 
aHam and Sidiill-i '■Othmdni assert) in 917/15". 
but in 922/1516. His tenure of the office coincided 
with the Ottoman conquest of Syria and Egypt 
(922-3/1516-7) and with the extensive naval pre- 
parations that Sultan Selim I (918-26/1512-20) 
urged forward during the last of his reign. Dja'far 
Beg was noted for his harsh character (cf. Hammer- 



374 



DJA C FAR BEG — DJA'FAR al-SADIK 



Purgstall, GOR, iii, 7). His misdeeds brought about 
his execution at the beginning of the reign of Sultan 
Sulayman KanunI (926-74/1520-66). 

Bibliography: Sa c d al-DIn, Tddf al-tawdrikh, 

Istanbul A.H. 1280, ii, 373, 389; HadjdjI Khalifa, 

Tuhfat al-kibar ft asfar al-bihdr, Istanbul A.H. 

1329, 23; Paolo Giovio, Historiarum sui temporis 

tomus primus, Paris 1558, lib. xvii, fol. I97r ( = 

La prima parte dell'istorie del suo tempo di Mons. 

Paolo Giovio .... tradotta per M. Lodovico Dome- 

nichi, Venice 1560, 469); M. Sanuto, / Diarii, edd. 

Barozzi, Berchet, Fulin, Stefani, Venice 1879-1903, 

xxiv, col. 848, xxv, cols. 832-833, xxvi, col. 628, 

xxviii, col. 821 and xxix, col. 549; Hammer- 

Purgstall, GOR, ii, 533; iii, 7; SamI, Ramus al- 

aHdm, iii, Istanbul A. H. 1308, 1818; Sidfill-i 

'■Othmdni, ii, 69; Arsiv kilavuzu, fasc. I, Istanbul 

1938, 88. (V. J. Parry) 

EJA'FAR CELEBI (864/1459-921/1515), Ottoman 

statesman and man of letters, was born at Amasya 

(for the date see E. Blochet, Cat. des mss. turcs, ii, 

1-2), where his father TadjI Beg was adviser to 

Prince (later Sultau) Bayezid. After rising in the 

theological career to miiderris, he was appointed 

nishandjl by Bayezid II (in 903/1497-8, see Tdci-zdde 

Sa'di Celebi Munsedh, ed. N. Lugal & A. Erzi, 

Istanbul 1956, 85). Suspected of favouring Prince 

Ahmad in the struggle for the succession, Dja'far, 

with other of Ahmad's partisans, was dismissed at 

the insistence of the Janissaries (Djumada II 917/ 

September 1511), but Bayezid's successor Sellm, 

appreciating his talents, restored him to office. 

After the battle of Caldiran he was given Shah 

Isma'U's wife Tadjll Khanum in marriage (see 

I. H. Uzuncarsih in Belleten, xxiii, 1959, 611 ff.) and 

appointed kadi'asker of Anadolu (Ferldun 2 , i, 406, 

464) ; back in Istanbul, however, he was accused of 

having encouraged the discontent of the Janissaries 

on the campaign and put to death (8 Redjeb 921/18 

August 151 5). 

His poetical works consist of (1) a Diwdn (selections 
published by Gibb and S. Niizhet, see Bibl.) and (2) 
Hevesndme, composed in 899/1493-4, a Turkish 
mathnawi completely original in theme, containing 
a description of Istanbul and the account of an 
amatory adventure. He was reckoned especially 
skilful as a munshi. His ornate description of Mehem- 
med IPs capture of Constantinople, Mahruse-i 
Istanbul Fethndmesi, was published from a MS 
owned by Khali? Ef. as the supplement to TOEM, 
parts 20-1, 1331/1913 (simplified text in Latin 
transcription by Seref Kayabogazi, Istanbul 1953; 
further MSS: 1st. Un. TY 2634, Vienna 993/1 [see 
A. S. Levend, Gazavdtndmeler , 16]). He translated 
into Turkish a Persian Ants al-'drifin (HadjdjI 
Khalifa, ed. Flugel, no. 1448; MSS: Istanbul, Esad Ef. 
1825, Un. TY 834). A collection of his official com- 
positions (Munsha'dt) was owned by Khalis Ef., but 
seems now to be lost (for one specimen see Ferldun 2 , 
i, 379 ff.). Dja'far was also a famous calligrapher and 
a patron of poets. 

Bibliography: Sehl, 28; Latlfi, 117; Tash- 

kopruzade, Shakd'ik, tr. Rescher 212 = tr. 

Medjdi 335 ff.; Gibb, Ottoman poetry, ii, 263-85; 

B. Mehmed Tahir, 'Osmdnh mu'ellifleri, i, 263; 

Babinger, 49 f.; S. Niizhet Ergiin, Turk sairleri, 

ii, 882-90; IA, s.v. Cafer Celebi (M. Tayyib 

Gokbilgin). (V. L. Menage) 

EJA'FAR al-§ADI$ ("the trustworthy"), Abu 

'Abd Allah, son of Muhammad al-Bakir, was a 

transmitter of hadiths and the last imam recognized 

by both Twelver and Isma'ill Shi'is. He was born 



in 80/699-700 or 83/702-3 in Medina, his mother, 
Umm Farwa, being a great-granddaughter of Abu 
Bakr. He inherited al-Bakir's following in 119/737 
(or 114/733); hence during the crucial years of the 
transition from Umayyad to 'Abbasid power he was 
at the head of those Shi'is who accepted a non- 
militant Fatimi imamate. He lived quietly in 
Madlna as an authority in hadith and probably in 
fikh; he is cited with respect in SunnI isndds. 

He made no sharp break with the non-Shi'I major- 
ity — even a ShI'i follower of his could appear in SunnI 
isndds (and his heir, 'Abd Allah, was accused by 
later Shi'is of SunnI tendencies); but he seems to 
have been a serious ShI'I leader nonetheless. He 
appears to haye permitted his own shV-a, his personal 
following, to regard him, like his father, as sole 
authoritative exponent of the sharV-a, divinely 
favoured in his Him, religious knowledge (and in 
principle as the only man legitimately entitled to 
rule). But he taught also a wider circle who con- 
sulted him along with other masters; Abu Hanlfa, 
Malik b. Anas, and Wasil b. 'Ata J ,. among other 
prominent figures, are alleged to have heard hadith 
from him. It is in his time, at the earliest, that 
distinctive ShI'I positions in fikh begin to appear; 
but it is uncertain how far the subsequent Twelver 
or Isma'ill (or Zaydi) systems may be ascribed to 
his teaching, though he is given a leading role in the 

At the time of Zayd's revolt (122/740), Dja'far 
served as symbol for those Shi'is who refused to 
rise; and during the revolutions after the death of 
al-Walid (126/744), when most Shi'is were expecting 
that at last the 'Alid family would come to power, he 
remained neutral. His support and possibly his 
candidacy may have been solicited by the Kufa 
ShI'a at the time of 'Abbasid victory, but he seems 
to have declined to recognize any other ShI'I candi- 
dacy than his own, while, if he did think of himself, 
he held to the principle of hu'-ud, that the true imam 
need not attempt to seize power unless the time be 
ripe, and can be content to teach. At the time of the 
ShI'I revolt of Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya in the 
Hijaz (145/762), he was again neutral, leading the 
Husaynids in their passivity in that largely Hasanid 
affair, and was left in peace by al-Mansur. 

Dja'far attracted a circle of active thinkers, most 
of whom, like the majority of his shi'-a, lived normally 
in Kufa (or some in Basra). The most fecund leader 
among the early Ghulat, Abu '1-Khattab [q.v.], 
seems to have had close relations with him, and 
some radical ideas were attributed to Dja'far 
himself (but were later rejected by Twelvers as 
interpolations by Abu '1-Khattab). Before the latter 
was killed in 138/755, howevsr, Dja'far repudiated 
him as going too far; this repudiation greatly disturb- 
ed some of his associates. It seems likely that though 
certain radical ShI'I ideas helped to make his 
imamate attractive in 'Irak, Dja'far made a point of 
keeping them within bounds. More technical philo- 
sophers also were associated with him and with 
his son, Musa, notably Hisham b. al-Hakam and 
Muhammad b. al-Nu'man, nicknamed Shaytan al- 
Tak, who were inclined to an anthropomorphist 
system in contrast to that of the early Mu'tazilites 
with whom they disputed. Dja'far himself is assigned 
(with uncertain authenticity) a position on the 
problem of kadar which claims to be between deter- 
minism and free-will. 

Dja'far died in 148/765 (poisoned, according to 
the unlikely Twelver tradition, on the orders of al- 
Mansur) and was buried in the BakI' cemetery in 



DJA'FAR al-SADIK — DJAFR 



375 



Medina, where his tomb was visited, especially by 

Shi'is, till it was destroyed by the Wahhabis. He left 

a cohesive following with an active intellectual life, 

well on the way to becoming a sect. But some of the 

differing tendencies which he had usually managed 

to reconcile now seem to have caused historic splits 

in it, occasioned by a disputed succession to his 

imamate. He had designated Isma'il, his eldest son 

(by an c Alid wife, Fatima, granddaughter of al- 

Hasan), but Isma'il had died before his father — a fact 

which had troubled the faith of some of Djafar's 

followers. A considerable body held by Ismail, some 

maintaining that he was himself not dead but only 

concealed; others passing on to his son Muhammad 

b. Isma'il. These formed the nucleus of the later 

Isma'iliyya, for whom Dja'far was the fifth imam. 

Most of Dja'far's following, however, accepted c Abd 

Allah, Isma'il's uterine brother and the eldest 

surviving son, on the ground that Dja'far had 

generalized that an imam's successor must be his 

eldest son; but c Abd Allah died without sons a few 

weeks later. The majority thereupon accepted Musa, 

whose mother was Hamlda, a slave (and whom some, 

including prominent philosophers, had hailed as 

imam from the start); these developed into the 

Twelver Shi'a, for whom Dja'far was the sixth imam. 

A few asserted that Dja'far was not really dead, but 

absent, and would return as mahdi (these were 

called the Nawusiyya). Some of Dja'far's following 

looked to Mfisa's young brother Muhammad, who 

later became the Imam of the Shumavtivva [?.».]. 

Among most Shl'is, Dja'far has b^en regarded as 

one of the greatest of the imams and as the teacher 

of fikh par excellence. The Twelvers, when referring 

to themselves as a madhhab, have called it the 

Dja'fariyya. To Dja'far have been ascribed numerous 

utterances defining Shi'i doctrine, as well as prayers 

and homilies; he has been ascribed, by both Sunnis 

and Shi'Is, numerous books, probably none of them 

authentic, dealing especially with divination, with 

magic, and with alchemy, of which the most famous 

is the mysterious Dfafr [q.v.], foretelling the future. 

He is regarded as the chief teacher of the alchemist 

Djabir b. Hayyan (who did in fact revere him as a 

religious teacher). He is also regarded as a master 

Sufi. Especially among the Shi'a, so many sayings 

on all sides of all controverted questions have been 

ascribed to him that such reports are almost useless 

for determining his actual opinions in a given case. 

Bibliography: Tabari, ed. de Goeje, iii, 

2509 f.; Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt al-a'-yan, ed. 

M. Muhyi '1-din <Abd al-Hamld, Cairo 1367/1948, 

i, 291 f. (no. 128); al-Hasan b. Musa al-Nawbakhti, 

Firah al-SM'-a, ed. M. Sadik Al Bahr al- c ulum, 

Nadjaf 1355/1936, 62-79. Other references in 

Julius F. Ruska, Arabische Alchemisten, ii, Ga'-far 

al-$ddiq, der Sechste Imam, Heidelberg 1924 (see 

also Ruska, Gabir ibn Hayydn und seine Bezieh- 

ungen zum Imam Ga'far as-$ddiq, in Isl., xvi, 

264-66), and in the less critical Dwight M. 

Donaldson, The Shi'ite religion, London 1933, 

Chapter XII. See also, for his alleged works, 

Brockelmann, SI, 104; and Marshall G. S. 

Hodgson, How did the early Shi'a become sectarian ? 

in JAOS, lxxv, 1955, 1-13; c Abd al- c Aziz Sayyid 

al-Ahl, Dja'-far b. Muhammad, Beirut 1954. 

(M. G. S. Hodgson) 

DJA'FAR SHARIF B. c AlI ShARIF AL-tCURAYSHl 

al-NagorI, whose dates of birth and death are 
unknown, wrote his Kanun-i Islam at the instigation 
of Dr. Herklots some time before 1832. He is said to 
have been "a man of low origin and of no account in 



his own country", born at Uppueliiru (Ellore) in 
Kistna District, Madras, and was employed as a 
munshi in the service of the Madras government. 
He was an orthodox Sunnl, yet tolerant towards the 
Shl'as, who had considerable influence in south 
India in his time, learned yet objective in his approach 
to his faith, knowledgeable in magic and sorcery yet 
writing of it in a deprecatory and apologetic tone, 
and a skilful physician of the YunanI school. In the 
course of his duties he met with Gerhard Andreas 
Herklots (b. 1790 in the Dutch colony of Chinsura 
in Bengal of Dutch parents, d. Waladjabad 1834), 
who had studied medicine in England and had been 
appointed Surgeon on the Madras establishment in 
1818. Herklots, struck by the lack of any information 
on the Indian Muslims comparable with the Manners 
and customs of the Hindoos of the Abb6 Dubois, had 
started a collection of material when he met Dja'far 
accidentally, whom he encouraged to produce the 
work himself acting "merely as a reviser", occasional- 
ly suggesting "subjects which had escaped his 
memory". 

The original was written in Dakkhini Urdu, which 
Herklots had intended to publish also, but his death 
prevented this and the original has now been lost. 
To the translation Herklots added notes and addenda 
incorporating additional material from Mrs. Meer 
Hassan Ali's Observations on the Mussulmauns of 
India, 1832, and Garcin de Tassy's Mimoires sur Us 
particulariUs de la religion mussulmane dans I'Inde, 
Paris 1831, that the work might embrace "an 
account of all the peculiarities of the Mussulmans 
... in every part of India". His Qanoon-e-Islam was 
published (London, late 1832) with a subvention 
from the East India Company. 

Dja'far's account traces the religious and social 
life of the south Indian Muslims from the seventh 
month of pregnancy to the rites after death, with 
full descriptions of all domestic rites and ceremonies 
and festivals of the year, including necromancy, 
exorcism, and other matters of magic and sorcery; 
Herklots's appendix adds information on relation- 
ships, weights and measures, dress, jewellery, games, 
etc., and a glossary. The work was rearranged and 
partially rewritten by W. Crooke for the new Oxford 
edition of 1921, enhancing its value as an authori- 
tative account of Indian popular Islam with parti- 
cular reference to the Deccan. (J. Burton-Page) 

DJA'FARIYYA [see fiijh, ithna 'ashAriyya]. 

UJAFR. The particular veneration which, among 
the Shl'as, the members of the Prophet's family 
enjoy, is at the base of the belief that the descendants 
of Fatima have inherited certain privileges inherent 
in Prophethood ; prediction of the future and of 
the destinies of nations and dynasties is one of these 
privileges. The ShI'I conception of prophecy, closely 
connected with that of the ancient gnosis (cf. Tor 
Andrae, Die Person Muhammeds in Lehre und 
Glauben seiner Gemeinde, Stockholm 1918, ch. vi) 
made the prophetic afflatus pass from Adam to 
Muhammad and from Muhammad to the 'Alids 
(cf. H. H. Schaeder, in ZDMG, lxxix, 1925, 214 ff.). 
The Banu Hashim, to whom 'All b. Abi Talib 
belonged, had long since claimed superiority over 
the Banu Umayya, as having prophecy as their 
appanage. Immediately after his conversion, seeing 
the armies of Muhammad filing off ready for the 
conquest of Mecca, the Umayyad Abu Sufyan said 
to al-'Abbas, the Prophet's uncle, who was standing 
beside him, "Your nephew's authority has become 
very great!"; and al-'Abbas replied, "Yes, wretched 
one, that is Prophethood!" (Tabari, iii, 1633). 



376 DJ 

A BatinI tradition tells that the Prophet, when on 
the point of death, said to c Ali b. Abi Talib, "0 'All, 
when I am dead, wash me, embalm me, clothe me 
and sit me up; then, I shall tell thee what shall 
happen until the day of resurrection". When he was 
dead, C A1I washed him, embalmed him, clothed him 
and sat him up; and then Muhammad told him what 
would happen until the day of resurrection (Ps. al- 
Dja'fi [read al-Dju c fi; cf. F. Wustenfeld, Register, 7, 
1. 13], K. al-Haft wa 'l-azilla, ed. C A. Tamir and 
I.-A. Khalife. Beirut i960, 135; on the K. al-djafr, 
attributed to c Ali, see Brockelmann, S I, 75). Here, 
clearly defined, is the terminus a quo of the djafr, 
which in origin was identified with the hidthdn and 
the maldhim. 

In the desperate struggle for the Caliphate carried 
on by the descendants of C A1I, early divided and 
weakened amongst themselves and suffering from 
the severe persecution of which they had been 
victims — notably in 237/851 under al-Mutawakkil — 
an esoteric literature of apocalyptic character arose, 
created in order to bolster the hopes of the adepts, 
who were near to despair, and to sustain in the 
minds of the ruling Caliphs that quasi-religious 
respect which they felt they should owe to the 
descendants of the daughter of the Prophet. This 
literature appears in different forms, all grouped 
under the generic name of djafr, to which is often 
added the noun djdmi'a or the adjective djdmi'-. It 
is of a fatidical and sibylline character, and in its 
later form is summarized in a table in which the 
djafr represents fate (kadd') and the djami'a destiny 
(kadar). "It is", says Hadjdji Khalifa (ii, 603 ff.), 
"the summary knowledge (of that which is written) 
on the tablet of fate and destiny, which contains all 
that has been and all that which will be, totally and 
partially". The djafr contains the Universal Intellect 
and the djdmi'-a the Universal Soul. Thus, the djafr 
tends to be a vision of the world on a supernatural 
and cosmic scale. Deviating from its original form 
of esoteric knowledge of an apocalyptic nature, 
reserved to the imams who were the heirs and 
successors of 'All, it became assimilated to a divi- 
natory technique accessible to the wise whatever 
their origin, particularly to the mystics [see c ilm 
al-huruf]. Among the numerous authors who 
contributed to the development of this technique 
four great names must be cited: Muhyl al-DIn Abu 
'l- c Abbas al-Buni (d. 622/1225), in Shams al-ma'drif, 
a work which exists in three recensions, the small, 
the mean, and the great; the last-named was edited 
in Cairo in 1322-4 (1903-6) in 4 vols. It should be 
noted that the small work called Djafr al-imdm 'All 
b. Abi Talib or al-Durr al-munazzam . , ., attributed 
to Ibn 'Arabl (cf. ms Leipzig 833, 1; cf. Paris 2646; 
Aleppo-Sbath 57 and 390), is nothing but paragraphs 
33 and 34 of the Shams al-ma'-drif (cf. Hartmann, 
Eine arab. Apokalypse . . ., 109 ff.). Muhyl al-Din b. 
'Arabl (d. 638/1240), Miftdh al-diafr al-djdmi* (mss. 
Istanbul-Hamidiye, Ism. Ef. 280; Paris 2669, 14, 
etc.). Ibn Talha al- c Adawi al-Radji (d. 652/1254), 
with the same title or under the title al-Durr al- 
munazzam fi 'l-sirr al-a'-zam (mss. Paris 1663/4; 
Istanbul, Amuca Huseyin Pasa 348; Saray Ah. Ill, 
3507, etc.). c Abd al-Rahman al-Bistami (d. 858/1454), 
with the same titles (mss. AS 2812/3; Vat. V. 1254; 
cf. Nicholson, in JRAS, 1899, 907). 

In all these writings, and in many others, there is 
great confusion as to the procedures to be followed. 
Other heterogeneous elements, belonging to other 
forms of obscure thought, have been added; one 
finds the occult properties of the letters of the 



alphabet (huruf) and of divine names (al-asmd' al- 
husnd), gematria and isopsephy (hisdb al-djummal), 
the indication of the numerical value of a name 
which one wishes to keep secret, the transposition 
of letters in a single word, for the purpose of forming 
another word, the combination of letters composing 
a divine name with those of the name of the object 
desired (al-kasr wa H-bast), the substitution of one 
letter in a word by another according to the atabash 
system (a table of concordance in which the first 
letter of the Hebrew alphabet corresponds to the 
last, the second to the penultimate, etc.), the 
formation of a word by putting together the first 
letters of the words of a phrase, in other words all 
the procedures made use of by the cabbala (cf. 
J. G. Fevrier, Histoire de I'icriture, Paris 1948, 
Appx. Ill, 588-91). 

These speculations on the numerical value of the 
letters have played a considerable part in Muslim 
mysticism, where not only the letters composing the 
divine names, but also the seven letters not found 
in the fdtiha, have been the object of a special 
veneration. In the Islamic hurufiyya neo-Platonic 
and cabbalistic traditions join with the speculations 
of certain exalted Sufis, to form a body of esoteric 
knowledge of such an obscurity that "only the 
Mahdl, expected at the end of time, would be capable 
of understanding its true significance" (Hadjdji 
Khalifa, ii, 603). This diversity of procedure is 
further complicated by divergences in the methods 
of classification. Certain authors, in fact, follow 
the long alphabet (alii, bd } , td } , tha 1 , etc.) while 
others follow al-abdjadiyya (alif, bd', djim, etc.). 
The first method is called al-diafr al-kabir and 
includes one thousand roots, the second al-diafr al- 
saghir and includes only seven hundred. There is 
also a djafr mutawassit based separately on the 
lunar and solar letters; this last method is preferred 
by authors, and is used generally in talismanic 
compositions (Hadjdji Khalifa, loc. cit.). 

Beside this numerical and mystical aspect of the 
letters, which by its technical and mechanical 
character puts the djafr on the level of the zdHrdja 
[q.v.], mention must be made of their astrological 
aspect. According to Ibn Khaldun (Mukaddima, ii, 
191; Rosenthal, ii, 218; cf. 184, Rosenthal, 209) the 
Shl'as gave the name of djafr to a work of astrological 
predictions by Ya'kub b. Ishak al-Kindl (d. after 
256/870), which is probably that mentioned by Ibn 
al-Nadlm under the title al-Istidldl bi 'l-kusiifdt c ald 
'l-hawddith (Fihrist 259; cf. the Risdla fi 'l-kadd > 
c ald 'l-kusiif, mss. Escurial, Casiri 913, 4; AS 4832, 27; 
for details, cf. De Goeje, Mimoire sur les Carmathes', 
Leiden 1886, 117 ff.). This work, in which al-Kindl 
establishes according to the eclipses the fortunes of 
the dynasty of the c Abbasids until its downfall, 
was not to be found at the time of Ibn Khaldun, 
who considered that it must have disappeared with 
the 'Abbasids' library, thrown into the Tigris by 
Hulagu after he had conquered Baghdad and killed al- 
MuHasim, the last caliph. However, it appears that a 
part of this work reached the Maghrib under the name 
of al-Djafr al-saghir, and must have been there 
adapted to the dynasty of the B. c Abd al-Mu J min. 

According to the Ps. Djahiz (Bdb al-Hrdfa wa 
'l-zadjr wa 'l-firdsa c ald madhhab al-Furs, ed. 
Inostranzev, St. Petersburg 1907, 4) this astrological 
aspect of the djafr is of Indian origin; "Al-djafr" he 
says, "is the knowledge of the [auspicious and 
inauspicious] days of the year, the knowledge of the 
direction of winds, of the appearance and withdrawal 
. The book called al-djafr 



contains the predictions for the year, 
according to the seasons and the lunar 
each group of seven lunar mansions, constituting a 
quarter of the year, is called diafr; they [the Persians] 
take omens from it for rains, winds, journeys, wars, 
etc. It is from India that the Chosroes and their 
people have learnt all these sciences ....". 

The last and most important of the aspects of the 
d^afr is the apocalyptic. This is properly the original 
aspect, already well developed under the Umayyads 
and much expanded in 'Abbasid times, in the form 
of books of oracles, called kutub alhidthan (cf. 
references in De Goeje, Carmathes, 115 ff.). The 
starting-point of these speculations was the book 
of Daniel. Books of predictions attributed to 
Daniel were being read in Egypt in the year 
61/680 (Tabari, ii, 399; on the Arabic apocalypse 
of Daniel cf. the references in A. Abel, in Stud. 
Isl, ii, (1954), 28 n. 2). Muhammad b. c Abd al- 
Malik al-Hamadhani (d. 521/1127), who continued 
al-Tabari's chronicle up to 487/1095 (ms. Paris 
1469, f° 45r, quoted by De Goeje, Carmathes, 225 ff. ; 
cf. ed. A. J. Kanaan, in Al-Machriq, 1955 ff. ; and 
cf. Ibn Khaldun, Mukaddima, ii, 198, Rosenthal 
227-8) relates that under the vizierate of (Abu 
Dja'far) al-Karkhi (324/936) there was in Baghdad 
a bookseller, called al-Daniyall, who exhibited 
ancient books attributed to the prophet Daniel, in 
which there figured certain prominent persons 
together with their descriptions. He enjoyed great 
success with the statesmen (cf. an anecdote in Tabari, 
iii, 496 ff., in the story of Mahdi, cited by Ibn 
Khaldun. Mukaddima, ii, 192, Rosenthal 219, 
illustrating the tricks employed by forgers in this 
genre of writing). This literature is also known under 
the name of Malahim (cf. the astrological mss. Berlin 
5903, 5904, 5912 and 5915, the last two of which 
are attributed to Daniel, as is Istanbul-Bagdath 
Vehbi Ef. 2234). It has been widely diffused in the 
Maghrib. Written in verse or prose, sometimes even 
in dialect, it deals sometimes with events which were 
to happen within the Islamic community in general, 
sometimes with those concerning one dynasty in 
particular. The greater part of these writings is 
attributed to famous authors, although it is not 
possible to verify their authenticity. A list of 
malahim is given by Ibn Khaldun (Mukaddima, ii, 
193 ff., Rosenthal 220 ff.), mostly of MaghribI 
origin and dealing in general with the Hafsid 
dynasty. Two names in this list deserve particular 
attention: Ibn c Arabi, in whose name there was 
current, in the time of Ibn Khaldun, a malhama 
entitled Sayhat album (on this work cf. A. Abel, in 
Arabica, v (1958), 6 n. 3), and al-Badjarbaki (d. 724/ 
1323) to whom a poem on the Turks is attributed. 
The latter belonged to the Karandaliyya (or Kalan- 
dariyya; cf. references in Dozy, Suppl, ii, 340), and 
founded a sect called al-Badjarbakiyya (Ibn Khaldun. 
Mukaddima, ii, 199 ff., Rosenthal 229; cf. TA, vi, 
283. Other sources on al-Badjarbaki are cited by 
Rosenthal, 230 n.). There are also many citations 
from these malahim to be found in the writings of 
Ibn Abi Usaybi'a (d. 668/1270) and al-Makrizl 
(d. 845/1442; cf. De Goeje, Carmathes, 125 ff.). 

Finally, one fact must be mentioned which 
enhances the prestige of the diafr in the eyes of the 
Shi'a; this is its use in a spiritual and mystical 
interpretation of the Kur'an as opposed to the 
traditional and lexicographical exegesis of the 
Sunnis. Ibn Sa'd (ii, 101) attributes such an inter- 
pretation to c Ali b. Abi Talib. From the latter it is 
said to have passed to Dja'far al-Sadik (d. 148/763) 



FR 377 

through his uncle Zayd b. 'AH (d. 122/740); and 
Harun b. Sa'id (Sa'd) al-'Idjli (cf. Brockelmann, 
S I, 314) is said to have received this esoteric inter- 
pretation from Dja'far al-Sadik [q.v.]. With regard 
to this, Ibn Khaldun says: "It should be known that 
the Kitab al-Djafr had its origin in the fact that 
.Harun b. Sa'id al-'Idjli, the head of the Zaydiyya, 
had a book that he transmitted on the authority of 
Dja'far al-Sadik. That book contained information 
as to what would happen to the family of Muhammad 
in general and to certain members of it in particular. 
The [information] had come to Dja'far and to other 
'Alid personages as an act of divine grace and 
through the removal [of the veil, kashf] which is 
given to saints like them. [The book was] in Dja'far's 
possession. It was written upon the skin of a small 
ox. Harun al-'Idjli transmitted it on [Dja'far's] 
authority. He wrote it down and called it al-Diajr. 
after the skin upon which it had been written, 
because diafr means a small [camel or lanik]. 
[Diafr] became the characteristic title they used for 
the book. 

The Kitab al-Dialr contained remarkable state- 
ments concerning the interpretation of the Kur'an 

in it] were transmitted on the authority of Dja'far 
al-Sadik. The book has not come down through 

as such. Only stray remarks unaccompanied by any 
proofs [of their authenticity] are known from it. If 
the ascription to Dja'far al-Sadik were correct, the 
work would have the excellent authority of Dja'far 
himself or of people of his family who enjoyed acts 
of divine grace. It is a fact that Dja'far warned 
certain of his relatives about accidents that would 
occur to them, and things turned out as he 
had predicted." {Mukaddima, ii, 184-5., Rosenthal 
209-10). Many books of mystic exegesis and of 
divination bear the name of Dja'far al-Sadik (cf. 
Brockelmann, S I, 104), notably a Kitab al-diafr 
(B.M. 426, 10; cf. Steinschneider, Zur pseudepigraph. 
Literatur, 71). The foundation of this "pneumatic'* 
exegesis seems to rest on this saying of Jesus: 
Nahn" ma'-dshir al-anbiyd' naHikum bi 'l-tanzil wa 
ammd 'l-ta'wil fa-sayaHi bih* al-Bdraklit al-ladhi 
sayaHikum ba'-di, "We the Prophets bring ye the 
revelation; its interpretation the Paraclete [the 
Holy Spirit], who shall come after me, will bring 
ye" (HadjdjI Khalifa, 603; cf. John, xiv, 26). 

Bibliography: In order sufficiently to cover 
the range of this literature, the lists of writings on 
the diafr to be found in the manuscript catalogues 
should be consulted, especially Ahlwardt, iii, 
nos. 4213-29, and Fihrist al-kutub al-'-arabiyya al- 
mahfuza bi 'l-kutubkhdna al-khidiwiyya al-Mis- 
riyya, v, 333 ff. ; numerous diafr treatises are to 
be found in the various collections at Istanbul. 
The principal works of reference are : R. Hartmann, 
Eine arabische Apokalypse aus der Kreuzzugszeit. 
Ein Beitrag zur G aft -Literatur, in Schriften d. 
Konigsber ger Gelehrten Gesellschaft, Geisteswiss. KL, 
Berlin 1924, 89-116 (Study of an extract of Ibn 
'ArabI, Muhddarat al-abrdr, ed. Cairo 1324/1906, 
i, 197 ff., completed by the Berlin ms. no. 4219); 
cf. especially 108 ff.; A. Abel, Changements poli- 
tiques et litterature apocalyptique dans le monde 
musulman, in Stud. Isl., ii (1954), 23-43; idem, 
Un hadit sur la prise de Rome dans la tradition 
eschatologique de I'Islam, in Arabica, v (1958), 
1-14; I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen, 224 ft., 263 ft.; 
Fr. trans. Arin, Paris 1920; idem, in ZDMG, xli 
(1887), 123-5. (T. Fahd) 



378 



l-DJAGHBOB — DJAHANDAR BEGAM 



al-DJAGUBCB, a small oasis to the south- 
east of Cyrenaica, the site of the tomb of Muhammad 
b. C A1I al-Sanflsi, founder of the brotherhood of the 
Sanusiyya. It is the furthest east, the smallest and 
the least prosperous of the oases along the important 
traditional route which leads from the valley of the 
Nile and Slwa to Fezzan and the region of Tripoli, 
passing through a chain of depressions where are to 
be found the palm-groves of Djalo, Awdjila, Marada, 
and Djufra, which are close to the 29th parallel. 

The depression of Djaghbub consists of a sinuous 
basin called Wad! Djaghbub covering 700 sq. km., 
and going down to 29 m. below sea-level: in the 
north it is dominated by the plateau in sand and 
limestone of the Marmaric (Miocene period); this 
gives way in the south to soft hills covered by dunes 
of Libyan erg. The depression is carpeted in red 
earth and yellow sand and the beds occupied by 
sebkhas or, to the east, by salt lakes (bahr). 

The only traces of the distant past are the tombs 
dug out of the northern cliff, similar to those at 
Siwa. Djaghbub owes its existence to Muhammad b. 
'All al-Sanflsi, who came from Cairo in 1856 with his 
family, followers and servants, and founded the 
mother zdwiya of the brotherhood on a slight hill to 
the N-E of the depression. Later a large mosque was 
built while gradually a town grew up, which, accord- 
ing to Duveyrier in 1881 had nearly 3,000 inhabitants, 
of which 750 were tolba and 2,000 slaves. But the 
departure in 1855 of Muhammad al-Mahdl — the son 
of the founder of the town, who died in 1859 — for 
Kufra, marked the start of the decadence of Djagh- 
bub, which is briefly mentioned by some travellers: 
Rohlfs (1869), Rosita Forbes and Hassanein Bey 
(1921 and 1923) and Bruneau de Laborie (1923). The 
town was occupied by the Italians in 1926: they put 
up two forts and encouraged agriculture. The 
British took it in 1941 and ceded it to Cyrenaica, 
a province of the Libyan federal union which was 
founded in 1951. 

Djaghbub is a very small settlement of 200 in- 
habitants. Its enclosure of huge dry stones surrounds 
the great mosque and the zdwiya, both of which 
have a large porticoed courtyard, their annexes and 
a small number of houses which are often two- 
storied. The tomb of Muhammad b. 'All al-Sanflsi, 
situated under the dome of the great mosque, is a 
place of pilgrimage for all the followers of the 
brotherhood, and the zdwiya a place of learning. 
Masters, tolba and officials of the zdwiya and the 
mosque form the greater part of the population, 
together with the negro servants who work in 
the few gardens in the date-grove; the latter consists 
of scarcely more than 2,000 cultivated date-palms; 
the gardens, watered by the brackish water of a 
shallow well, have been improved thanks to the 
drilling done by the Italians, who bored an artesian 
well of fresh water. There is practically no commer- 






tivity. 



Bibliography: A. Desio, Risultati scientifici 
delta missione alia oasi di Giarabub, 10.26-10.2y, 
Soc. Geogr. italiana, Rome 1928-31; E. Scarin, 
Le oasi cirenaiche del 20° paralUlo, Florence 1937; 
G. Rohlfs, Von Tripolis nach Alexandrien, Bremen 
1871; R. Forbes, The secret of the Sahara. Koufra, 
London 192 1; Hassenein-Bey, The lost Oases, 
London 1921; Bruneau de Laborie, Du Cameroun 
au Caire par le desert de Libye, Paris 1924. 

(J. Despois) 
al-DJAGHMInI (or CaghmInI), MahmOd b. 
Muhammad b. c Umar, a well-known Arab astro- 
nomer, a native of Diaghmin. a small town in 



Kh'arizm. The dates of his birth and death are not 
precisely established, but it is very probable that he 
died in 745/i344"5 (cf. Suter, in ZDMG, liii (1899), 
539)- The following works of his have been preserved: 
(1) al-Mulakhkhas fi 'l-hay 3 a (Epitome of astronomy), 
which was very widely known and was frequently 
commented upon, notably by KSdlzada al-Ruml, 
by al-Djurdjani, and by many others; a German 
translation of this work, by Rudloff and Hochheim, 
was published in ZDMG, xlvii (1893), 213-75; 
manuscripts of this work are to be found in many 
collections, e.g., Berlin, Gotha, Leiden, Paris, 
Oxford, etc. — (2) Kiwd 'l-kawdkib wa da'fuhd (The 
strong and weak influences of the constellations), 
preserved at Paris.— (3) lidnunla (The little canon), 
a medical work, an extract from the canon of Ibn 
Sin§, preserved at Munich, Gotha, etc., which has 
appeared in several lithograph editions. 

Bibliography: rjadjdji Khalifa, vi, 113; 
Brockelmann, I, 473; II, 213; S I, 826, 865 (this 
author makes Djaghmlnl two authors of the same 
name: the first, d. 618/1221, is said to be the 
author of no. 1 above and of two arithmetical 
treatises; the second, a physician, d. 745/1344, of 
no. 3 above); Nallino, Al-Battdni, Opus astrono- 
micum, passim (in index); Suter in Abh. z. Gesch. 
d. mathem.. Wissensch., x, 164; xiv, 177; Sarton, 
Introduction, iii, 699-700. 

(H. Suter-[J. Vernet]) 
DJAGIR, land given or assigned by govern- 
ments in India to individuals, as a pension or 
as a reward for immediate services. The holder 
(diagirddr) was not liable for land tax on his 
holding (see dariba), nor necessarily for military 
service by virtue of his tenure. See further hjta c . 
DJAHAN SHAH (i) [see supplement]. 
DJAHAN SHAH (ii) [See mughals]. 
DJAHANARA BEGAM, the eldest daughter of 
Shahdjahan and Mumtaz Mahall (the lady of the 
Tadj at Agra) and their first child, was born on 
21 Safar 1023/23 March 1614. She bore the com- 
plimentary title of Fatima al-Zaman, which misled 
von Kremer followed by Macdonald (The Religious 
Attitude and Life in Islam, London, 205) into 
believing that her name was Fatima. To contem- 
porary historians she is known by the Court title 
of Begam Sahib or Sahiba ( c Abd al-Hamld Lahawrl, 
Bddshdh-ndma (text), i, 1178 and Muhammad §alih 
Kanboh, c Amal-i Sdlih, i 80) or Padshah Begam. 
After the death of her mother in 1041/1631, she 
enjoyed the status of the first lady of the realm, 
partly reflected in her aforesaid Court title. Through- 
out her life she remained staunchly devoted to her 
father and even kept company with him during his 
incarceration after his deposition by Awrangzlb, 
whose displeasure she earned through her excessive 
fondness for her brother, Dara Shukoh [?.».], his 

An accomplished lady, she is the author of two 
§ufl works: (i) Mu'nis al-arwdh and (ii) Sdhibiyya, 
an incomplete biography of her pir, Mulla Shah 
Kadiri. According to her own statement (see 
Oriental College Magazine, Lahore xiii/4, 16), she 
was the first woman in the line of Timiir to have 
taken to mysticism. Originally a disciple of Mulla 
Shah Kadiri, she contracted her bay c a in the Cishtl 
order [q.v.], and one of her works, Mu'nis al-arwdh, 
is on the life of Kh»adja Mu'In al-DIn Cishtl [q.v.]. 
She wielded great influence during the reign of her 
father, and enjoyed an allowance of 600,000 rupees, 
half in cash and half in lands, settled on her by 
the Emperor; Awrangzib doubled this amount during 



DJAHANARA b£gam — DJAHANGIR 



379 



his reign. During Shahdjahan's captivity she served 
as a link between the deposed emperor and the 
reigning monarch, Awrangzlb, all the important 
political correspondence passing through her. She 
died unmarried in 1092/1681 and was buried in 
Delhi, according to her wishes, in the compound of 
the shrine of Nizam al-Din Awliya' [see dihli, 
Monuments] in a simple marble tomb, built by herself 
and covered with grass at the top. The allegations 
against her by some European travellers that she 
had illicit relations with her own father, the 
deposed emperor, are baseless and may be dis- 
regarded. 

The Djami' Masdjid at Agra, which had an 
attached madrasa, was built by Djahanara. This is 
the first mosque of major dimensions built under the 
Mughals, except for Akbar's at Fathpur Slkri [q.v.]. 
Bibliography: Autobiographical statements 
at the end of the Sdhibiyya (MS. Apa-Rao Bhola 
Nath Library, Ahmadabad); c Abd al-Hamld 
Lahawri, Bddshdhndma (Bib. Ind.), i, 1, 94; Muham- 
mad Salih Kanboh, "-Amal-i Salih (Bib. Ind.), i, 
80; Muhammad Saki Musta'idd Khan, Ma'dthir-i 
"Alamgiri (Bib. Ind.) 213; Shahnawaz Khan, 
Ma'dthir al-Umard' (Bib. Ind.) s.v.; G. Yazdani, 
Jahdndra in JPHS, ii/2 (Calcutta 1914), 152-69; 
Mahbub al-Rahman, Djahanara (in Urdu), 'Aligafh 
1918; H. A. Rose, Persian letters from Jahdn 

Ard, daughter of Shah Jahdn to Raja 

Budh Parkdsh of Sirmur, in JASB, 1911, 449-58; 
K. R. Qanungo, Dara Shukoh, Calcutta 1935, i, 
10; N. Manucci, Storia do Mogor, tr. W. Irvine, 
London 1907, i, 217 and index; Carr Stephen, 
The archaeology and monumental remains of Delhi, 
Calcutta 1876, 108-9; R. C. Temple, Shahjahan 
and Jahanara, in Indian Antiquary, xliv, 1915, 
n 1-2; Nazakat Djahan TImurl, Doctoral thesis 
Punjab University, 1959; Sabah al-Din c Abd al- 
Rahman, Bazm-i Timuriyya, A'zamgafh 1367/ 
1948, 447-455 (where other references especially 
on her poetic talents are given); Banarsi Prasad 
Saksena, A History of Shahjahan of Dihli, Alla- 
habad 1932, index; Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Athdr 
al-Sanddid, Kanpur 1846, s.v. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
DJAHANDAR SHAH, Mu'izz al-Din, Mughal 
emperor regnabat 21 Safar 1124/29 March 1712 
to 16 Muharram 1125/11 February 1713. Born 10 
Ramadan 1071/10 May 1661, eldest son of Bahadur 
Shah [q.v.], at the time of his father's death he 
was governor of Multan. Pleasure-loving and in- 
dolent, he was able to participate actively in the 
struggle among Bahadur Shah's sons for the throne 
only through the support of the ambitious Dhu 
'1-fikar Khan, mir bakhshi and subaddr of the Deccan 
who was anxious to exclude 'Azim al-Sha'n from 
the succession and to win the wizdra for himself. 
After three days fighting near Lahore, c Azim al- 
Sha'n was defeated and killed. With the help of 
Dhu '1-fikar Khan, Djahandar Shah disposed of his 
other brothers Djahan Shah and Rafi' al-Sha'n. At 
the time of his accession Djahandar Shah was 52 
(lunar) years of age. His sybaritic tastes and devotion 
to the dancing girl LSI Kunwar, quickly seized upon 
by contemporary historians as the explanation of 
his fate, certainly did nothing to restore the finances 
of the central government, nor did the intrigues of 
L51 Kunwar's entourage against the wazlr Dh u 
'1-fikar Khan make for vigour and loyalty in the 
administration. 

In Sha'ban 1124/September 1712, supported by 
the Sayyids of Barha [q.v.) <Abd Allah Khan and 



Husayn 'All Khan, whom Djahandar Shah had 
failed to conciliate, Farrukhsiyar, second son of 
'Azlm al-Sha'n, marched on Agra from Patna, 
defeating c Izz al-DIn, son of Djahandar Shah, at 
Khwadia on the way. Hastily gathering an army, 
Djahandar Shah and Dhu '1-fikar Khan marched 
to Agra but were defeated on 13 Dhu '1-hidjdja 
1124/10 January 1713. Djahandar Shah fled to 
Dihli to take refuge with the wakil-i muflak Asad 
Khan, father of Dhu '1-fikar Khan. Father and son 
imprisoned him in the fort of Dihli in the hope of 
mollifying Farrukhsiyar. The day before Farrukh- 
siyar's triumphal entry into Dihli, Djahandar Shah 
was slain by his orders. 

Bibliography : Nur al-din FarukI, Djahdnddr- 
ndma, India Office Library Persian MS 3988, 
fol. 6b to end; Kamradj, son of Nam Singh, 
c Ibrat-nama, I.O. Library, Persian MS 1534, 
fols. 45a- 4 7b; Mirza Mubarak Allah, "Wadih', 
Ta'rikh-i Irddat Khan, I.O Persian MS 50, fols. 43, 
58 to end; Muhammad Kasim "Ibraf Lahawri, 
Hbrat-ndma, B.M. Or. 1934, fols. 57a-72b, 75a; 
Mir Shafi c Warid, Mir'dt-i wdriddt, B.M. 
Add. 6579, fols. I26a-i42b; Mir Muhammad 
Ahsan Idjad, Farrukhsiyar-ndma, B.M. Or. 25, 
fols. 57b-93b; Muhammad Kasim, Ahwdl al- 
Khawdkin, B.M. Add. 26, 244, fols. 36b-59b; 
Anon., Ta'rikh-i Sultanat-i Farrukhsiyar, B.M. 
Add. 26, 245, fols. 36b-57b; L51 Ram, Tuhfat al- 
Hind, vol. ii, B.M. Add. 6584, fols. 8ob-87a; 
Khafi Khan, Muntakhab al-lubdb, Bibliotheca 
Indica, Part ii, Calcutta, 1874, index, 1086; 
Ghulam Husayn Khan Tabataba'I, Siyar al- 
muta'akhkhirhi, litli. Lucknow, 1866, vol. ii, 
381-93; F. Yalentyn, Oud- en Nieuw Oost-Indien, 
vol. iv, Dordrecht & Amsterdam, 1726, 280-302; 
trans, as Embassy of Mr. Johan Josua Ketelaar 
by D. Kuenen-Wicksteed, in Journal of the Punjab 
Historical Society, x, 1, 1929, 1-94; For other 
references not available to me see: Storey, i, 
600-10 passim and Satish Chandra, Parties and 
politics at the Mughal court, 1707-1740, c AHgafh 
1959; William Irvine, Later Mughals, Calcutta & 
London, 192 1. Cambridge History of India, vol. iv, 
The Mughul Period, 1937, Chapter xi. 

(P. Hardy) 
DJAHANGIR, the fourth Mughal emperor of 
India in the line of Babur [q.v.], the first surviving 
child of Akbar, others born earlier having all died in 
infancy, was born on 17 RabI' I 977/31 August 1569 
of a Radjput queen, called Miryam al-Zamanl, at 
(Fathpur) Slkri, near Agra, in the hermitage of a 
recluse Shaykh Sallm Cishtl, to whose intercession 
the birth of a son was attributed. The young prince 
was named Sallm after the Shaykh but Akbar always 
called him Shaykhu Baba, scrupulously avoiding the 
Shaykh's name. History is silent on the conversion 
of Djahangir's mother to Islam either before or after 
her marriage to Akbar. Bada'uni's silence on the 
subject may, however, be taken to mean that she 
had embraced Islam before entering the harim of 
the emperor. 

In spite of the best education that Akbar provided 
his son and successor, the youthful prince could not 
escape the prevailing atmosphere of political in- 
trigue and chicanery which ultimately vitiated 
relations between father and son. In 1001/1591 
Akbar fell seriously ill and in his agony accused 
Sallm of conspiring to poison him. This was the 
beginning of estranged relations which reached a 
climax in 1008/1599 when Djahanglr revolted and 
proclaimed his independence at Allahabad [q.v.]. 



380 DJAH 

His alleged romance with a palace-maid called 
Anarkall, which resulted in a tragedy, finds no 
corroboration in history. The mausoleum known as 
Anarkall's tomb, in Lahore (see S. M. Latif, 
Lahore, its history, architectural remains . . ., Lahore 
1892, 186-7) is said to have been raised over the 
mortal remains of his lady-love by the baulked 
lover, prince Sallm. The marble sarcophagus, still 
preserved in a corner of the plain whitewashed 
octagonal building, bears the intriguing inscription 
"madjnun Salim-i Akbar". The entire affair is so 
shrouded in mystery that nothing convincing can 
be said about it. The unusual inscription while on 
the one hand may be interpreted to reveal the depth 
of prince Salim's intense grief on the cruel death of 
his beloved, said to have been built up alive in a 
wall by the order of Akbar, on the other hints at 
a compromise having been reached between the 
emperor, as head of the royal family, and the 
demented prince, the heir to the 'Great Mogul'. Why 
none of the contemporary historians or Djahangir 
himself makes any mention of this tragedy is difficult 
to comprehend. Latif {op. cit., 187) gives the date 
1008/1599 as the date of Anarkali's death. This date, 
according to him, is inscribed on the sarcophagus 
along with another date 1024/1615 and the words 
"in Lahore" which is considered to be the date 
of the construction of the mausoleum, but in 
1008/1599 Djahangir was 31 (lunar) years of age 
and already married to a number of wives. More- 
over, Djahangir was at Allahabad in 1008/1599 
when he rose in open revolt against his father. Was 
the cruel fashion in which Anarkall was done to 
death the real cause of this rebellion? Akbar's 
leniency towards the rebel prince seems to be 
precalculated as he apparently wanted to soothe 
the lacerated heart of the erratic prince carried 
away by passion and distress by adopting a mild 

Akbar's attempts at a reconciliation were thwarted 
by the ambitious prince who in 1010/1601 marched 
at the head of a large army to Agra. On Akbar's 
showing signs of resistance the rebel prince retreated 
to Allahabad where he assumed the royal title and 
set up a regular court. Temporary reconciliation was 
again brought about by the widow of Bayram Khan 
[q.v.], Salima Sultan Begam, but the youthful 
prince soon after took to his old ways. He went back 
to Allahabad where he again set up his Court. In 
the meantime Sallm was convinced that Abu '1-Fadl 
[q.v.], the talented minister of Akbar, was responsible 
for his troubles and that he was constantly poisoning 
the ears of the emperor against him. He, therefore, 
designed an attack on Abu '1-Fadl and while the 
latter was on his way back from the Deccan in 1011/ 
1602 he was set upon by the retainers of the Bundela 
chieftain, Bir Singh Dew, who had been commis- 
sioned by Djahangir to perform the deed; his head 
was cut off and sent to Djahangir at Allahabad. 
This cold-blooded murder was unjustifiable, but 
Djahangir was so much convinced of the villainy of 
Abu '1-Fadl that he felt no compunction, but rather 
was relieved at the removal of a stumbling-block 
from his way. (Tuzuk-i DiahdnBiri. tr. Rogers and 
Beveridge, i, 25). 

On the death of Akbar in 1013/1605 Djahangir 
ascended the throne under the title of Abu '1-Muzaffar 
Nur al-Din Muhammad Djahangir Padshah-i 
Ghazi, which also appears on some of his coins. Soon 
after his accession he had to face the rebellion of his 
eldest son Khusraw in 101 5/1606. Although a recon- 
cilation was effected, the emperor never forgave the 



audacity of his son, whose death in suspicious 
circumstances in 1031/1622 at Burhanpur relieved 
Djahangir of considerable worry. The Sikh guru 
(spiritual leader) Ardjun, who had helped and 
sheltered Khusraw during his rebellion, was punished 
with' death by the emperor. This punishment, 
however, was interpreted as an atrocious act on the 
part of the Mughal emperor, and it laid the founda- 
tions of that deep-rooted hostility which continued 
to embitter the relations between the Indian Muslims 
and the Sikhs over the centuries, at its worst during 
the supremacy of the Sikh general, Banda Bayragi, 
in the I2th/i8th century, and during the large-scale 
disturbances in India on the eve of Independence in 
1947. 

In 1016/1607 Djahangir was able to crush a con- 
spiracy to murder him while camping at Kabul. 
Four of the ringleaders were executed while prince 
Khusraw, the moving spirit, was partially blinded 
by the orders of the emperor. With his marriage 
to Nurdjahan, daughter of Ghiyath Beg, known to 
history as I'timad al-Dawla, in 1020/1611 Djahangir 
commenced a new phase in his life as a ruler. Con- 
temporary sources make no mention of the popular 
story of Djahanglr's passionate love for Nurdjahar 
and the premeditated murder of her husband, 'All 
Kull Khan Istadjlu (Shir Afkan), at the instance of 
Djahangir, in 1016/1607. None of the European 
travellers who visited India during the reign of 
Djahangir makes even an oblique mention of 
Djahanglr's complicity in the murder of Shir Afkan 
and his anxiety to marry Nurdjahan, then known as 
Mihr al-Nisa 3 . After her marriage to the emperor, 
Nurdjahan gradually assumed all power and wielded 
great influence in affairs of state. Her name, along 
with that of the emperor, was inscribed on gold 
coins and she came to be recognized as the de facto 

The Shi'i scholar Nur Allah al-Shustarl, who had 
been appointed kadi of Lahore by Akbar and who 
had so far practised takiyya, successfully concealing 
his faith from the people, emboldened by the 
meteoric rise to power of Nurdjahan, herself an 
orthodox Shi'i, began to pronounce judgments which 
created doubts in the minds of the SunnI majority. 
This led to a Court conspiracy against the kadi, 
then in the queen's favour. He was accused of profes- 
sing the Shi'i faith while boldly acting as a SunnI 
kddi. This revelation resulted in his execution by 
order of the emperor, who punished him for practising 
a fraud (Nudjum al-samd', 15-6). This act of bigotry 
on the part of a latitudinarian and eclectic like 
Djahangir. whose own consort Nurdjahan was a 
Shi'i. is rather surprising but it shows, at the same 
time, the measure of influence that the disgraced 
theologians and c «/awa 3 had again come to exercise 
in state affairs, after their calculated downfall 
during the reign of Akbar. No less surprising is 
Djahanglr's estimate, based on intelligence reports, 
of shaykh Ahmad Sirhindl [q.v.'] whom he described 
as an impostor (shayyad), and his famous Mahtubdt 
as a tissue of absurdities (Tuzuk, Eng. tr., ii,. 91-2). 
He was so much convinced of the shaykh's fraudu- 
lence that on the pretext of his having transcended 
the limits of Sufic propriety in his Maktubat (i, no. 1 1), 
he ordered his imprisonment in the fort of Gwaliyar 
[q.v.], where political criminals were generally con- 
fined, but after a year or so revised his opinion and 
liberated him. 

In 1032/1623 Djahangir had to face a filial revolt 
when prince Khurram (Shahdjahan) rebelled, driven 
to this predicament by the machinations of 



DJAHANGlR — DJAHANNAM 



381 



Nurdjahan who wanted her son-in-law Shahryar, a 
step-brother of Shahdjahan, to succeed to the throne 
once the latter was removed from the way. Khurram's 
rebellion, pursued all over India with the support of 
his own forces, amounted to a civil war which 
weakened Imperial prestige and greatly depleted the 
treasury; but the superior generalship of Mahabat 
Khan [}.».] forced his surrender in Djumada II 1035/ 
March 1626 after a revolt of three years. 

An attempt by Mahabat Khan to seize Djahanglr 
in 1035/1626 in order to remove him from the in- 
fluence of Nurdjahan and her brother Asaf Khan was 
at first successful, to the queen's discomfiture; but 
Asaf Khan, having first fled, later joined Mahabat 
Khan at Kabul at Nurdjahan's instigation, and 
provoked dissension among the Imperial followers. 
On Mahabat Khan's flight and his subsequent 
alliance with Prince Khurram, Nurdjahan appointed 
Khan-i Djahan Lodi as Imperial commander, with 
orders to subdue the rebels; but her plans were 
thwarted by the death of Djahangir, whose health 
had been shattered by excessive drinking, his 
greatest weakness, pursued since his early youth. 
Some hagiological works attribute Mahabat Khan's 
conduct to the maltreatment and disgrace that 
Ahmad Sirhindi suffered at the hands of Djahangir. 
It has further been claimed that prince Khurram. 
(Azad BUgrami, Subfiat al-mardidn, Bombay 1303/ 
1886, 49), Mahabat Khan and some other high- 
ranking nobles had secretly contracted their bay'-a 
with the shaykh and held him in high esteem; and 
that the treatment meted out to him was bitterly 
resented by them all. Before any decisive action 
could be taken against Mahabat Khan, Djahangir 
died while on his way to Bhimbar from Radjawri, on 
27 Safar 1037/28 October 1627 in the 58th solar year 
of his age and the twenty-second of his reign. His 
body was brought down to Lahore where it was laid 
to rest, without its receiving an appropriate funeral 
on account of the disturbed conditions, at a spot 
designated by Nurdjahan over which she erected a 
magnificient mausoleum at her own expense. (For 
a description of the tomb, see lahawr). 

A well-read man, a patron of literature and art, 
a keen observer of men and matters, Djahangir was 
the most polished and cultured scion of the House 
of Timur. He was a sensible ruler, kind-hearted and 
generous, who hated oppression and had a passion 
for justice. Immediately after his accession to the 
throne he ordered a chain of gold, adorned with bells, 
to be hung from the imperial palace in Agra which 
an aggrieved person could shake at any moment of 
the day or night and get justice. (See Tuzuk, Rogers 
and Beveridge, i, 7). He was lover of nature; 
Djahangir's Tuzuk is full of descriptions of the 
scenic beauty of Kashmir and other lovely places 
and of the fauna and flora of the regions he visited. 
An accomplished prose-writer, his memoirs are in 
no way inferior to those of Babur, although he some- 
times portrays himself as a violent and unprincipled 
man whose personal account arouses our disgust and 
contempt. But unlike Babur he must be credited 
with greater honesty and frankness in whatever he 
writes except in one or two instances when he 
deliberately tried to conceal the truth. 

He makes no secret of his addiction to wine and 
opium, which ultimately ruined his robust health 
and hastened his end. He was exceedingly cruel 
sometimes, having once got a sodomite flayed alive 
and another castrated. Similarly he ordered the 
bones of Nasir al-Din Khaldji, ruler of Malwa, who 
was guilty of poisoning his father, to be exhumed 



and thrown into the Narbada, when he visited 
Mandu [q.v.] in 1027/1617. As a rule, his reign brought 
peace and prosperity to the people; industry and 
commerce flourished; architecture, painting and 
literature progressed and on the political side there 
was stability and strength only marred by a few 
wars in Mewar and the Deccan, and some minor 
disturbances in Bengal as the ineffectual revolt of 
'UthmSn Khan Afghan. 

Bibliography: Tuzuk-i Djahdngiri (with 
numerous variants), ed. Sayyid Ahmad Khan, 
Ghazipur 1864 (Eng. transl. Rogers and Beveridge, 
London, i 1909, ii 1914, Urdu transl. Lahore i960) ; 
there is another version of the memoirs called 
Ta'rikh-i Salim Shdhi translated into English by 
Major David Price (Calcutta*, 1906), quite un- 
reliable being a forgery and a fabrication; 
Samsam al-Dawla Shah Nawaz Khan, Mahathir 
al-umard', (Eng. transl. Beveridge), i, 573-4; 
Mu'tamad Khan, Ihbdl-ndmah-i Djahdngiri, (Bibl. 
Ind.), Calcutta 1865; Beni Prasad, History of 
Jahangir, Allahabad 1940 (contains an exhaustive 
bibliography and gives a fairly balanced account 
of Djahangir's reign; certain statements by the 
author are, however, not unbiased) ; Cambridge 
History of India, iv, s.v.; Jahangir and the 
Jesuits (transl. C. H. Payne), London 1939; 
Calcutta Review, 1869, xcviii, 139-40 (article by 
H. Blochmann); Sabah al-Din c Abd al-Rahman, 
Bazm-i Timuriyya (in Urdu), A c zamgafh 1367/ 
1948, 128-68; Storey, i, 556-64; Mirza Muhammad 
c Ali, Nudjum al-samd 1 (for an authentic account 
of the death of Nur Allah al-Shustari) Lucknow 
1302 A.H., 9-16; Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe, ed. 
William Foster (Hakluyt Society); Francis 
Gladwin, The History of Hindustan during the 
reigns of Jahangir, Shah Jahan and Aurungzeb, 
Calcutta 1788, (based mainly on Kamgar Husayni's 
Ma'dthir-i Diahdngiri, still in MS.); V. A. Smith, 
Oxford History of India, 1 s.v.; Dhaka 5 Allah 
Dihlawi, Ta'rikh-i Hind (in Urdu), vi, 'Aligafh 
1917, the only detailed account in Urdu; c Abd al- 
Hayy Nadwl, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad 
1375/1955, v, 120-22, (the only brief account in 
Arabic known to me). 



For the Mughal garden, which Djahangir spe- 
cially developed, see bustan, Kashmir, srInagar. 
For miniature painting, which reached its 
highest point in India under Djahangir's patron- 
age, see hind, Art. 

Mughal coinage reached its highest point of 
elaboration in the variety of pieces and the refine- 
ment of designs during Djahangir's reign. For 
Djahangir's coins see sikka. 

(A. S. Bazme'e Ansari) 
DJAHANNAM, Gehenna (Hebrew glhinnom, 
valley of the Gehenna); the Arabic word evokes 
etyinologically the idea of "depth" (cf. infernus). 
Used very often in the Kur'dn as a synonym of ndr 
("fire"), djahannam must accordingly be rendered 
by the general idea of Hell. The same is true in 
traditions. 

Exegetists and many treatises on kaldm (or 
tasawwuf) were, subsequently, to give it a particu- 
larized connotation. The description of the Muslim 
Hell, the problems relating to it and consequently 
the references to verses in the Kurgan mentioning 
diahannam, are considered in the article nar; 
here only its restricted sense is considered. Here 



DJAHANNAM — DJAHBADH 



are two examples from among the most familiar: 
i. Some traditionists like al-BaghawI, with an 
extremely literal and uncritical outlook, consid- 
ering the precise wording of the dialogue (taswir) 
in the Kur'dn, L, 30, between God and Gehenna, 
regard the latter as a fantastic animal of hell 
which they describe with endless hyperbole. It 
will be drawn along by 70,000 angels, its guardians, 
at the time of the resurrection, the width between 
the shoulders of each guardian angel being equal to 
70 years* march, etc. The description, supported by 
hadith, is repeated in al-Sha c rani's Mukhtasar (for 
this sort of commentary in Muslim thought, see 
Dianna). 

2. Descriptions which show hell as a place made 
up of concentric layers of increasing depth generally 
put Gehenna in the higher zone, that reserved for 
members of the Muslim community who have 
committed "grave sins" about which they have 
not repented and whom God, in accordance with 
his threats, decides to punish for a time with 
infernal torments. It is thereby admitted, even 
by those who uphold the eternity of hell, that 
Gehenna will cease to exist. It will be wiped out when 
the last repentant sinner among the believers leaves 
it to enter paradise. We may note that the 
etymological reference to the idea of "depth" is 
suppressed here. — This interpretation, which occurs 
in the to/sir of Khazin and elsewhere is freely 
expounded in the manuals of the Ash'ari school 
(e.g. al-BadjOrl, Ifdshiya .... 'aid Djawharat al- 
tawhid, ed. Cairo 1352/1934, 107). For the place of 
Gehenna in the circles of Hell according to Ibn 
c ArabI, see the diagrams reproduced by Asin 
Palacios, La Escatologia musulmana en la Divina 
Comedia, Madrid-Granada 1943, 147. 

Bibliography: in the article; detailed refe- 
rences will be given in the article nar. 

(L. Gardet) 
EJAHAN-SCZ, 'Ala 5 al-DIn Husayn b. al- 
Husayn, Ghurid ruler — poet, notorious for his 
burning of Ghazna in 546/1151. The cause of the 
violence between the Ghurids and Bahram Shah of 
Ghazna [q.v.] would appear to have been an attempt 
by Kutb al-DIn Muhammad, (eldest brother of C A15 3 
al-DIn) to seize Ghazna through an intrigue with 
some of its inhabitants. Bahram Shah had him 
poisoned; an attempt by another brother, Sayf al- 
DIn Suri, to avenge his brother ended, after the 
temporary occupation of Ghazna by the Ghurid 
forces, in his ignominious death at the hands of 
Bahram Shah. Death (from natural causes) prevented 
another brother, Baha 3 al-DIn Sam, from action, 
whereupon c Ala 5 al-DIn marched against Bahram, 
defeating him in three battles and occupying 
Ghazna. The city was probably sacked so ruthlessly 
through rage at the fickleness of its inhabitants but 
also with the intention of securing c Ala 5 al-DIn's 
rear for his wider ambitions against the Saldjuk 
possessions to the west and north of Ghur. In the 
year following (547/1152), with Bahram Shah a 
fugitive in the Pandjab, C A15 5 al-Din moved against 
Sandjar, in alliance with the muh\a l of Harat, only 
to be defeated and captured at Awba near Harat. 
He was released before Sandjar's quarrel with 
the Ghuzz in 548/1153 and appears to have 
ruled quietly at FIruz-Kuh until his death in 556/ 
1161. Several of his poems in self-praise survive 
both in the histories and in the biographies of 

Bibliography: Ibn al-Athir, ed. Tornberg, 
xi, 89-90, 107-8; Minhadj b. Siradj pjuidjani, 



Tabafrdt-i Ndsiri, trans. H. G. Raverty, Calcutta 
1873-81, index, vol. ii, 7; NizamI al-'Arudl al- 
Samarkandl, Cahdr mafrdla, ed. MIrza Muljammad, 
Leyden and London 1910, index, 282; Muhammad 
b. C A1I b. Sulayman al-Rawandl, Rdhat al- 
sudur, ed. Muhammad Iqbal, London 192 1, 175-6; 
trad. M. C. Defremery, Histoire des Sultans 
Ghourides (extract from Mir Kh'and's Rawdat 
al-safd), Paris 1844, 7-15; Firishta, i, 87-90; 
Dawlatshah, 75-6; c AwfI, Lubdb, i, 38-9. Fakhr-i 
Mudabbir, Addb al-harb wa 'l-shudid'a, British 
Museum MS. Add. 16,853 f°k. i7oa-i72b; Browne, 
ii, 107, 306, 338, 381. Other references (un- 
available to me) are given in Ghulam Mustafa 
Khan, A history of Bahram Shah of Ghaznin, in 
IC, xxiii, 3, July 1949. (P. Hardy) 

D_JAHBAD_H (pi. dJahabidha), a term of Persian 
origin, perhaps derived from a *gahbadh in the 
Sasanid administration, (the term is suggested by 
Herzfeld; Paikuli, gloss. N° 274) used in the 
sense of a financial clerk, expert in matters of 
coins, skilled money examiner, treasury receiver, 
government cashier, money changer or collector 
(Tddi al-'Arus, ii, 558; Dozy, Supplement, i, 226; 
Vullers, Lexicon Persicum, i, 544; Ibn MammatI, 



304, e 



From the end of the 2nd/8th century on, bearers of 
this title in the time of the <Abb§sid Caliphs Mansur, 
Harun, and Mahdi are mentioned (Djahshiyari ; 
Mas'udi, vi, 227) also frequently in Arabic papyri 
(Karabacek, Becker, Grohmann, Dietrich, etc.). 

In an economy based on bimetallism, dinar and 
dirham, with their fluctuating weights and values and 
their diversity in circulation, the function of the 
Djahbadh assumed an ever-increasing importance, 
as manifested by repeated references in Arabic 
sources of the 3rd/9th and 4th/ioth centuries to: 

(a) Mai al-Djahdbidha, also known as #a*£ al- 
Djahdbidha, which represents the fee of the Diah- 
badh for his services to the government, levied 
as a charge on the taxpayer and which, though 
somewhat dubious in its legality, became an integral 
part of the public budget (Kremer, Einnahmebudget; 
al-Sabl; Ta'rikh-i Kumm; Lokkegaard). 

(b) Diwdn al-Diahbadha. whose chief was required 
to prepare a monthly or yearly statement accounting 
for all the items of income and expenditure of the 
treasury (Kudama b. Dja'far; Lokkegaard; CI. 
Cahen; see further daftar); and above all to: 

(c) Individual bearers of the title Diahbadh by 
name with precise information about their activities. 

The text of an official appointment of a Diahbadh 
{Ta'rikh-i Kumm, 149-53) specifies his function, 
his salary, and his obligation "to be just and fair in 
the collection of taxes . . . and to give an official 
receipt for all incoming amounts in the presence of 



The 4th/ioth century Arabic sources (Miskawayh, 
Tanukhi, Sabi, Sull, etc.) indicate that it was 
customary for viziers to have their own Djahbadh 
with whom they deposited large, legally or illegally 
acquired, amounts of money as the safest method 
of securing their fortune. 

In the time of the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Muktadir, 
(295-320/908-32), however, the Djahbadh emerged 
as a banker in the modern sense, who, in addition 
to his functions as an administrator of deposit- and 
as a remitter of funds from place to place through 
the medium of the sakk and especially of the 
suftadia [qq.v.], — then a widely used instrument of 
the credit economy, — was called upon to advance 
huge sums to the Caliph, the viziers, and other 



DJAHBADH — DjAHILIYYA 



383 



t officials on credit t< 



with ii 



The Diahdbidha were mostly Christians and Jews 
whose appointment to this office despite their status 
as Dhimmi was legalized by a special decree issued in 
295/908 by the Caliph (Mukaddasi, ed. de Goeje, 183). 
Among the Diahdbidha listed in the sources were 
Ibrahim b. Yuhanna, Zakariya b. Yuhanna, Sahl b. 
Nazlr, Ibrahim b. Ayyub, Ibrahim b. Ahmad, 
Isra'il b. Salih, Sulayman b. Wahb, etc., and, above 
all two Jewish merchants and bankers, Yusuf b. 
Pinkhas and Harun b. c Imran of Baghdad. They 
were appointed to the office of Djahbadh of the 
Persian province of Ahwaz, and then became the 
court bankers (Diahdbidhat al-Hadra) of al-Muktadir 
and his viziers, and the pillars of the financial 
administration of their time. By virtue of their vast 
resources and commercial connexions, these Jewish 
merchants and Diahdbidha and their associates were 
instrumental in establishing the first State bank in 
Islamic history (ca. 302/913), through which the 
urgent financial needs of the State could be satisfied 
and the financial ruin of the State staved off. The 
sources indicate the amounts they lent, the con- 
tracts they concluded with the vizier c Ali b. c Is5, 
and other details of the methods of their credit 
transactions. They were given interest on their 
loans and securities in the form of the tax revenues of 
the province of Ahwaz (Fischel). 

Under the successors of al-Muktadir, the Djaha- 

bidha continued to play a role not only in Baghdad, 

but also in Basra and other cities of the 'Abbasid 

Empire. Under the Buwayhid Amirs mention is 

made of one c Ali b. Harun b. 'Allan (d. 329/941), 

and of Abu <A1I b. Fadlan (d. 383/993). At the 

beginning of the 7th/i3th century, Abu Tahir b. 

Shibr, the "chief of the Jews in Baghdad" occupied 

the position of a Djahbadh (Ibn al-Fuwati). In later 

centuries the Djahbadh lost his central significance 

aj a Court banker; his functions were equated with 

that of a sayrafi [q.v.] (Kalkashandi, Subh, v, 466). 

Bibliography: al-Djahshiyari, Kitdb al-wu- 

zard', Cairo 1938 ; Hilal al-Sabi, Kitdb al-wuzara>, 

ed. Amedroz, Leyden 1904; Ibn al-Fuwati, 

al-Hawddith al-djdmi'-a wa 'l-tadjdrib al-ndji c a, 

Baghdad 1351/1932, ed. Mustawfa Djawad; al- 

Miskawayh, The eclipse of the 'Abbasid caliphate, 

ed. and tr. by H. F. Amedroz and D. S. Margo- 

liouth, Oxford 1921; al-Tanukhi, Nishwdr al- 

muhddara, ed. D. S. Margoliouth; i, London, 1922; 

ii, Damascus, 1930. Tr. i, London 1923; ii, 

Haydarabad 1931; al-SQli, Akhbdr al-Rddi wa'l- 

Muttaki from the Kitdb al-awrdq, ed. J. 

Heyworth Dunne, London 1935; Fr. tr. Marius 

Canard, Algiers 1946, 1950; Ibn Mamma tl, Kitdb 

frawdnin al-dawdwin 2 , ed. A. S. Atiya, Cairo 1943, 

304; Ta'rikh-i Kumm, Teheran 1934, 149-55; 

159-61; Kalkashandi, Subh al-a c shd, v, 466; 

C. H. Becker, Neue Papyri, in Isl., ii, 1911, 254 ff., 

no. 327; CI. Cahen, Quelques problimes iconomiques 

et fiscaux de Vlraq Buyide d'apres un traitl de 

mathdmatiques, in AIEO, x, 1952, 326-36; A. 

Dietrich, Arabische Brief e in der Papyrus Samm- 

lung der Hamburger Stoats- und Universitdts- 

Bibliotek, Hamburg 1955; A. A. Duri, Ta'rikh 

al-Hrak al-iktisddi fi 'l-karn al-rdW- al-hidjrl, 

Baghdad 1948; A. Grohmann, Probleme der Ara- 

bischen Papyrusforschung, in ArO, v, 273-83; vi, 

125-49; vii, 278; idem, Griech.und Latein. Ver- 

waltungstermini Chronique d'Egypt, i, 13-14; 

J. v. Karabacek, Mitteilungen aus der Sammlung 

der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer, Vienna 1886-7; 



A. v. Kremer, Vber das Einnahmebudget des 
Abbasidenreiches, Vienna 1887, 8; A. K. S. 
Lambton, An account of the Tdrikhi Qumm, in 
BSOAS, xii, 1948, 594; idem, Landlord and 
Peasant in Persia, Oxford 1953, 42-5; F. 
Lokkegaard, Islamic taxation in the classic 
period, Copenhagen 1950, 158 ft.; L. Massignon, 
L'influence de V Islam au moyen dge sur la fondation 
et I'essor des banques juives, in B.Et.Or., 1932; 
A. Mez, Die Renaissance des Islam, Heidelberg 
1922; H. Zayyat, al-Mashriq, 1937, 491-6; W. J. 
Fischel, The origin of banking in medieval Islam, 
in JRAS, 1933, 339 ff., 569 ff.; idem, Jews in the 
economic and political life of medieval Islam, 
London 1937; D. Sourdel, Vizirat '■abbaside, 
Damascus 1959-60, index. (W. J. Fischel) 

EJAHIDIYYA [see iojalwatiyya]. 
DJAHIL wa 'A&IL [see duruz]. 
DJAHILIYYA, a term used, in almost all its 
occurrences, as the opposite of the word islam, and 
which refers to the state of affairs in Arabia before 
the mission of the Prophet, to paganism (sometimes 
even that of non-Arab lands), the pre-Islamic 
period and the men of that time. From the morpho- 
logical point of view, djdhiliyya seems to be formed 
by the addition of the suffix -iyya, denoting an 
abstract, to the active participle djdhil, the exact 
sense of which is difficult to determine. I. Goldziher 
{Muh. St., i, 219 ff.; analysis in Arabica, vii/3 (i960), 
246-9), remarking that djdhil is opposed to halim 
"administered" [see hilm], gives it the sense of 
"barbarous", and renders djdhiliyya as "the time of 
barbarism", but he has not been followed to the 
letter by translators of the Kur'an who render 
djdhil as "not knowing God, the Prophet and the 
Law", or "lawless", and djdhiliyya as "time of 
ignorance", "heathendom" (cf. however T. Izutsu, 
The structure of the ethical terms in the Koran, 
Tokyo 1959, index). The fact is that the nine 
attestations of djdhil and the four of djdhiliyya 
in the Kur'an scarcely permit of their sense being 
precisely determined; however, in the feeling of 
Muslims and of the commentators, djdhil is opposed 
to 'dlirn "one who knows God, etc.", and djdhiliyya 
to islam taken not in the sense of "submission to 
God" but rather that of "knowledge of God, etc." 
(compare the Druze terminology [see duruz], where 
djdhil is opposed to '■dkil, and designates all those 
who have not been initiated into the mysteries of 
the sect.) The word djdhiliyya as an abstract is thus 
applicable to the period during which the Arabs did 
not yet know Islam and the Divine Law, as well as 
to the beliefs current at that time. One the basis of 
Kur'an, XXXIII, 33, where the expression al- 
djdhiliyya al-'uld "the first djdhiliyya" appears, one 
is inclined to distinguish two periods, the first 
djdhiliyya extending from Adam to Noah (or to other 
prophets), and the second corresponding to the 
"Interval" between Jesus and Muhammad [see 
fatra]. The relative adjective djdhili formed from 
djdhiliyya is applied to all which is anterior to Islam, 
in particular to the poets who died before Muham- 
mad's preaching; those who knew both periods are 
called mukhadram, and those born after Islam isldmi. 
The double opposition djdhilijisldmi and djdhiliyyal 
islam thus marks an evolution and a departure from 
the primitive sense of djdhil. 

The history of the Arabs during the djdhiliyya 
has been dealt with under al- c arab, the geography 
and ethnography under djazIrat al- c arab, the 
language under c arabiyya, and nomadism under 
badw; on all these points the articles on the different 



DJAHILIYYA — DJAHlR 



regions, on the major tribes, and on the towns, 
should be consulted; for the economic situation see 
especially under tidjara. 

A point calling for some remark is, rather than 
the true state of pre-Islamic Arabia, the distinctive 
characters attributed by Muslims to their pagan 
ancestors, that is to say the traits which allow their 
conception of diahiliyya to be defined. 

The ideas of the Muslims on pre-Islamic paganism 
are based on the Kur'an and on traditions which, 
in spite of their contempt for everything before 
Islam, they have collected in the framework of their 
historical and linguistic researches; in the article 
kur'an will be found a rtsumi of the pronounce- 
ments of the Sacred Book on earlier beliefs; in the 
articles hadjdj and ka'ba an account of the 
ancient cult and the history of the Sacred House; 
under sanam a study of idolatry. Also to be con- 
sulted are the various articles on the principal 
divinities, and also the articles on the adepts of the 
revealed religions, nasara and yahud. 

While attributing to the Hdhiliyya the faults 
condemned in the Kur'an, Muslims do not fail to 
recognize a certain number of virtues among the 
ancient Arabs, such as honour [see c ird], generosity 
[see karam], courage and dignity [see muruwwa], 
and hospitality [see dayf]. 

For relevant information on social organization 
see 'a'ila, 'akila, Kabila, etc., and, for the 
position of women, nikah and talak. (Ed.) 

EJAHiM [see nar]. 

EJAHlR (Banu), one of the families of govern- 
ment contractors characteristic of their period who 
almost completely monopolized the caliph's vizierate 
during the protectorate of the Great Saldjukids, and 
deriving their particular importance from that fact. 
The founder of the political fortunes of the 
dynasty, Fakhr al-Dawla Abu Nasr Muhammad b. 
Muhammad b. Djahir, born in al-Mawsil in 398/ 
1007-8 of a family of rich merchants, entered the 
service of the Shi'I 'Ukaylid princes of that town; 
then, after one of them, Kirwash, fell in 442/1149, 
as a result of somewhat obscure feuds he went to 
Aleppo where at one time he was vizier to the 
Mirdasid Shi'I Mu c izz al-Dawla Thimal, and finally 
(in about 446/1054 ?) he settled down with, and soon 
became vizier to, the Marwanid of the Diyar Bakr, 
Nasr al-Dawla (401-53), a SunnI and vassal of the 
Saldjukids from before the time of Tughrul Beg's 
entry into Baghdad (447/1055). After his protector's 
death, the rivalries between the sons apparently 
caused him some anxiety, and he was able to take 
advantage of the difficulties which caliph al-Ka'im 
was experiencing in choosing a vizier who would be 
persona grata to the sultan and at the same time 
ready to safeguard the prerogatives of the caliphs, 
to have the post offered to himself (454/1062), for 
which no doubt he was further recommended by the 
administrative talents he had revealed at Mayya- 
farikln. The family was to hold the 'Abbasid vizierate 
almost without a break for half a century, and 
Fakhr al-Dawla himself was to remain as vizier, 
apart only from four months in 460-1/1068, until 
471/1078 when once again he fell into disgrace, to 
be replaced, however, after some months by his son 
(born in 435) and close colleague c AmId al-Dawla. 
Ibn Diahlr calculated that, if he was obliged on the 
one hand to defend the rights of the caliphate and to 
avoid wishing to appear to act without the caliph's 
orders, on the other hand he could only enjoy a 
really secure position if he maintained close personal 
relations with the sultanate and his eminent and 



powerful vizier (from the time of Alp Arslan's 
reign 455/1063), Nizam al-Mulk; these ties were 
strengthened, after the incident in 460-1/1068, by 
the marriage of 'Amid al-Dawla to one of Nizam's 
daughters, and then after her death (on the eve of 
the affair in 471/1078 which possibly her death preci- 
pitated) by his subsequent marriage to her niece: 
thanks to this it was possible at last to put a stop 
to the hostile intrigues of Goheraln, the sultan's 
representative in Baghdad, in that year. However 
in the second half of Malikshah's sultanate (463-85/ 
1072-92), in face of the Saldjukid hold over Baghdad 
which was becoming increasingly severe, the caliph 
al-Muktadi (467-87/1075-94) in 476/1083 replaced 
the Djahirids by Miskawayh's successor, Abu 
Shudja' Rudhrawari who, without being in any 
way anti-Saldjflkid, was perhaps a truer represen- 
tative of the vizier in his heart, and more attentive 
to the religious, orthodox aspect of the caliphate's 
own policy. It was then that the Djahirids embarked 
on another venture, the explanation of which, if not 
from their point of view at least from that of the 
sultan's government, seems far from clear. Taking 
advantage of the Marwanids' difficulties, Fakhr al- 
Dawla in fact arranged that Malikshah, who provided 
him with the necessary troops, should entrust him 
with the task of conquering the principality in which, 
it was true, he had maintained his interests and 
relations, but of which neither Malikshah nor his 
predecessors had ever had cause to complain. 
Furthermore, the military operations were difficult, 
being complicated by the intervention of the 
'Ukaylid of al-Mawsil, Muslim, who saw clearly that 
if an autonomous neighbouring state were to 
disappear, his own, which he had put to far more 
questionable uses, would not long survive, and even 
by the somewhat equivocal attitude of the Saldjukid 
Turkoman leader Artuk. Actual sieges were neces- 
sary to take Mayyafarikln, Amid and other fortresses 
in the Diyar Bakr, and the war in which 'Amid al- 
Dawla's brother al-Kafl Za'im al-Ru'asa' Abu 
'1-K5sim 'All also took part was only concluded at 
the beginning of 478/1085. Fakhr al-DIn hunted out 
and apparently squandered the Marwanids' treasure, 
appropriating a portion of it for himself, and from 
the end of that year Malikshah thought it advisable 
in view of his unpopularity to replace him by a less 
self-seeking representative as head of government 
in the province. However, in 482 'Amid al-Dawla 
obtained the right to farm taxes from the province, 
paying ten million dinars in three years, while his 
father received the administration of al-Mawsil 
which meanwhile had also come into Malikshah's 
possession; he won a good reputation with everyone 
by the remission of taxes, and the family was able 
to retrieve its fortunes before the death of Fakhr al- 
Dawla which occurred in al-Mawsil in 483. In the 
following year Nizam al-Mulk persuaded the caliph 
to reappoint 'Amid al-Dawla to the office of vizier 
which he was to retain after the death of the great 
Saldjukid administrator, Malikshah and al-Muktadi 
until 493/1100; to govern the Diyar Bakr he had left 
his brother al-Kafl as representative, later succeeded 

But harsher times were to befall the family. In 
487/1094, after Malikshah's death, his brother 
Tutush took possession of the Diyar Bakr; after 
retaining al-Kafl as vizier, perhaps for a short time, 
he recalled him and, under the Turkoman leaders who 
were to partition the province between themselves, 
we hear no more of the Djahirids. In Baghdad the 
new sultan Barkyaruk, running short of funds 



DJAHlR — al-DJAHIZ 



during the wars he was obliged to wage against his 
brothers, and possibly not being certain of c Amid 
al-Dawla's loyalty to his cause, had him arrested 
and fined an enormous sum on the charge of misap- 
propriating or squandering the treasure from the 
Diyar Bakr and al-Mawsil, and left him to die 
shortly afterwards in prison (493/1100). However, 
his brother al-Kafi later became vizier to al-Mustaz- 



•, the n 



1 496/11 



500/11 



nendation of the new sultan 
Muhammad, from 502/1108-9 to 507/1113-4. Hence- 
forward new families were to share the 'Abbasid 
vizierate among themselves. Nevertheless we do 
once again find a Nizam al-DIn Abu Nasr al-Muzaffar 
b. Muhammad b. Djahir as ustddhddr, and then 
vizier to the caliph from 535/1140-1 to 541/1146-7, 
so proving that the Djahirids had not completely 
disappeared. But that is the final mention. The 
residence of Fakhr al-Dawla b. Djahlr at Bab al- 
'Amma had been destroyed by al-Mustazhir, and 
the new one, belonging to Nizam al-DIn at Bab al- 
Azadj, soon fell into the possession of the caliphate. 
Bibliography: Sources: Ibn al-Djawzi, K. al- 
Muntazam, viii, ix and x, ed. Haydarabad, index; 
Ibn al-Azrak, Ta^rikh Mayydjdrikin, analysed in 
Amedroz, The Marwanid dynasty of Diyar Bakr, 
in JRAS 1903, 136 ft.; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kdmil, x 
and xi in Tornberg ed., index; Sibt b. al-Djawzi, 
Mir'dt al-zamdn (from Ghars al-Ni c ma b. Hilal 
al-Sabi), passim years 454 to 479 (not edited; the 
continuation not original) ; Ibn Khallikan, Wafdydt 
no. 711, and tr. De Slane, iii, 280; histories of the 
caliphs, such as Ibn al-Tiktaka, Fakhri, ed. Deren- 
bourg, 394 ff. ; and G. MakdisI, A n autograph 
diary (of Ibn al-Banna 5 ), in BSOAS, xviii (1956), 
254 with note 1. (Ci. Cahen) 

al-DJAKII?, Abu 'Lehman 'Ame b. Bahr al- 
FukaymI al-Basri, was a famous Arab prose 
writer, the author of works of adab, Mu'tazill 
theology and politico-religious polemics. Born at 
Basra about 160/776 in an obscure family of mawdli 
from the Banu Kinana and probably of Abyssinian 
origin, he owes his sobriquet to a malformation of 
the eyes (djdhiz = with a projecting cornea). Little 
is known of his childhood in Basra, except that from 
an early age an invincible desire for learning and a 
remarkably inquisitive mind urged him towards a 
life of independence and, much to his family's 
despair, idleness. Mixing with groups which gathered 
at the mosque (masdjidiyyun) to discuss a wide 
range of questions, attending as a spectator the 
philological enquiries conducted on the Mirbad [q.v.] 
and following lectures by the most learned men of 
the day on philology, lexicography and poetry, 
namely al-Asma% Abu 'Ubayda, Abu Zayd, he soon 
acquired real mastery of the Arabic language along 
with the usual and traditional culture. His pre- 
cocious intelligence won him admittance to Mu'tazili 
circles and bourgeois salons, where conversation, 
often light, was also animated by problems con- 
fronting the Muslim conscience at that time: in the 
realm of theology, harmonizing faith and reason and, 
in politics, the thorny question of the Caliphate 
which was constantly brought up by the enemies of 
the 'Abbasids, the conflicts between Islamic sects and 
the claims of the non-Arabs. His penetrating obser- 
vation of the various elements in a mixed population 
increased his knowledge of human nature, whilst 
reading books of all kinds which were beginning to 
circulate in Basra gave him some outlook on to the 
outside world. It is quite certain that the intellectual 
resources offered by his home town would have been 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



fully adequate to give al-Djahiz a broad culture but 
the 'Iraki metropolis, then at its apogee, had a 
decisive influence in helping to form his mind. It 
left its rationalist and realist imprint so clearly on 
him, that al-Djahiz might be considered not only 
one of the most eminent products of his home town, 
but its most complete representative, for the know- 
ledge he subsequently acquired in Baghdad did not 
modify to any noticeable degree his turn of mind as 
it had been formed at Basra ; Basra is the continuous 
thread running through all his works. 

Although he probably began writing earlier, the 
first proof of his literary activity dates from roughly 
200/815-6; it relates to an event which had a decisive 
effect on his subsequent career. Some works (the 
plural is no longer in doubt) on the imamate, a very 
characteristic subject, won him the compliments of 
al-Ma'mun and thereby that consecration by the 
capital coveted by so many provincials eager to have 
their talent recognized and so reach the court and 
establish themselves. From then on, without com- 
pletely abandoning Basra, al-Djahiz frequently stayed 
for long periods in Baghdad (and later Samarra) 
devoting himself to literary work of which an 
appreciable part, fortunately, has been spared the 
ravages of time. 

In spite of some slender indications, it is not really 
known on what he relied for his income in Basra. 
In Baghdad, we know, he discharged for three days 
the functions of scribe and was very briefly assistant 
to Ibrahim b. al- c Abbas al-Suli at the Chancellery; 
it is also probable that he was a teacher, and he 
records himself an interview he claims to have had 
with al-Mutawakkil who, anxious to entrust him 
with the education of his children, finally dismissed 
him because of his ugliness. Although information 
about his private and public life is not readily 
forthcoming from either his biographers or himself, 
it appears from what knowledge we have that 
al-Djahiz held no official post and took on 
no regular employment. He admits, however, that 
he received considerable sums for the dedications 
of his books and we know that for a time at least he 
was made an allowance by the diwdn. These frag- 
mentary indications are indeed confusing and tend 
to suggest that al-Djahiz who otherwise, unlike some 
of his fellow countrymen, does not appear to have 
led the life of a courtier, acted the part of an emi- 
nence grise, so to speak, or of unofficial adviser at 
least. We have seen already that the writings which 
won him the recognition of the capital dealt with the 
Caliphate and were certainly intended to justify the 
accession to power of the 'Abbasids; they were the 
prelude of a whole series of opuscules addressed to 
the authorities, if not inspired by them, and relating 
to topical events; notwithstanding some degree of 
artifice in risdlas beginning: "Thou hast asked me 
about such and such a question .... I answer thee 
that . . .", it may be presumed that in many cases 
the question had in fact been asked and he had been 
requested to reply in writing. For, if he was never 
admitted to the intimacy of the Caliphs, he was in 
continuous contact with leading political figures and 
it is rather curious that he should have attached 
himself successively to Muhammad b. c Abd al-Malik 
al-Zayyat [q.v.], then after the latter's fall from 
favour (233/847) which almost proved fatal to both 
men, to the Kadi al-kuddt (d. 240/854) Ahmad b. Abi 
Du'ad [q.v.] and to his son Muhammad (d. 239/853) 
and finally to al-Fath b. Khakan [q.v.] (d. 247/861). 

He nevertheless retained ample independence and 
was able to take advantage of his new position to 



further his intellectual training and to travel (parti- 
cularly to Syria; but al-Mas c udi, Murudf, i, 206, was 
to criticize him for having attempted to write a 
geography book — now almost entirely lost — without 
having travelled enough). In Baghdad also he found 
a rich store of learning in the many translations 
from Greek undertaken during the Caliphate of al- 
Ma'mun and studying the philosophers of antiquity 
— especially Aristotle (cf. al-Hadjirl, Takkridj 
nusus arisfafdliyya min K. al-Ifayawdn, in Madjallat 
kulliyyat al-dddb, Alexandria, 1953 ff.)— ^enabled 
him to broaden his outlook and perfect his own 
theological doctrine, which he had begun to elaborate 
under the supervision of the great Mu'tazilis of the 
day, of whom al-Nazzam and Thumama b. Ashras 
[qq.v.], who seems to have had a strong influence on 
him, should be placed in the first rank. 

Towards the end of his life, suffering from 
hemiplegia, he retired to his home town, where he 
died in Muharram 255/December 868-January 869. 

Like many Arabic writers, al-Djahiz had a very 
great output. A catalogue of his works (see Arabica, 
1956/2) lists nearly 200 titles of which only about 
thirty, authentic or apocryphal, have been preserved, 
in their entirety; about fifty others have been 
partially preserved, whilst the rest seem irremediably 
lost. Brockelmann (SI, 241 ff.) has attempted to 
classify his works according to real or supposed 
subjects and gives us some idea of the breadth and 
variety of his interests. Considering only the extant 
works, which now for the most part are available 
in editions of varying quality, two broad categories 
may be distinguished: on the one hand, works 
coming under the head of Djahizian adab, that is to 
say intended in a rather entertaining manner to 
instruct the reader, with the author intervening 
only insofar as he selects, presents and comments on 
documents; on the other hand, original works, 
dissertations where his ability as a writer and to some 
extent his efforts as a thinker are more clearly shown. 

His chief work in the first category is K. al- 
Ifayawdn (ed. Harun, Cairo n.d, 7 vols..) which 
is not so much a bestiary as a genuine anthology 
based on animals, leading off sometimes rather 
unexpectedly into theology, metaphysics, sociology 
etc. ; one can even find embryonic theories, without 
it being possible to say how far they are original, of 
the evolution of species, the influence of climate and 
animal psychology, which were not to be developed 
till the nineteenth century. Following K. al-Ifayawdn, 
which was never completed, came K. al-Bighdl (ed. 
Pellat, Cairo 1955). K. al-Baydn wa 'l-tabyin (ed. 
Harun, Cairo 1367/1948-50, 4 vols, and other 
editions) seems fundamentally to be an inventory 
of what have been called the "Arabic humanities", 
designed to stress the oratorical and poetic ability 
of Arabs; he attempts to justify his choice by 
positing the bases of an art of poetry, but he does 
so in an extremely disorderly fashion, as was pointed 
out by Abu Hilal al- c Askari, K. al-Sind'atayn, 5, 
who decided to write a more systematic treatise. 

Another quality of the Arabs, generosity, is 
emphasized in K. al-Bukhald (ed. al-Hadjiri, Cairo 
1948 and other editions; Ger. tr. O. Rescher, Ex- 
cerpti . . ; Fr. tr. Ch. Pellat, Paris 1951), which is at the 
same time a portrait gallery, an attack on non-Arabs 
and an analysis of avarice, the equivalent of which is 
not to be found anywhere in Arabic literature. His 
acute powers of observation, his light-hearted 
scepticism, his comic sense and satirical turn of mind 
fit him admirably to portray human types and 
society; he uses all his skill at the expense of several 



social groups (schoolmasters, singers, scribes etc.) 
generally keeping within the bounds of decency; 
only K. Mufdkharat al-djawdri wa 'l-ghilmdn (ed. 
Pellat, Beirut 1957), dealing with a delicate subject, 
is marred by obscenity, whilst K, al-Kiydn (ed. 
Finkel), which is about slave-girl singers, contains 
pages of remarkable shrewdness. But this work really 
belongs to the second category, which includes the 
dissertations assembled by Kraus and Hadjiri: al- 
Ma'dd wa H-ma'dsh, al-Sirr wa hif? al-lisdn, al- 
Djidd wa 'l-hazl, Fast ma bayn al-'addwa wa 'l-hasad, 
and several other texts published either by al- 
Sandubi or in the 11 Risdla. One might also add the 
politico-religious works, now for the most part lost, 
perhaps even deliberately destroyed when Sunnism 
finally triumphed over Mu'tazilism. Of those still 
extant, the most voluminous is K. al-'Uthmdniyya 
(ed. Harun, Cairo 1374/1955; see Arabica, 1956/3) 
in which al-Djahi? asserts the legitimacy of the 
first three Caliphs, attacks the claims of the 
Shl c a and thereby justifies the accession of the 
c Abb5sids to power. No less important is K. 
Taswib '■All fi tahkim al-hakamayn (ed. Pellat, in 
Machriq, July 1958), unfortunately incomplete and 
defective but clearly directed against the outdated 
partisans of the Umayyads, who again were enemies 
of the c Abbasids. In this respect Risdla fi 'l-Ndbita 
(or /* Bam Umayya) is interesting also (see Pellat's 
translation, in AIEO Alger, 1952), for it is nothing 
short of a report by al-Djahiz to the son of Ahmad 
b. Abi Du'ad on the political situation, the causes 
of division in the community and the danger 
presented by the ndbita, that is the neo-kashwiyya, 
who were reviving Mu'awiya for their own ends and 
using the kaldm to support their theses; Risdla fi 
nafyi 'l-tashbih (ed. Pellat, in Machriq, 1953) is in 
the same manner. Revealing of the correspondences 
between government policy and al-Djahi?'s activity 
are K. al-Radd 'aid 'l-Nasdrd (see Allouche's 
translation, in Hesp., 1939) and Risdla fi mand- 
(lib al-Turk, dealing respectively with measures 
taken against the Dhimmis and the forming of 
the Turkish guard. Gsnerally speaking, in politics 
al-Djalji? shows himself -esolute Mu'tazili, that is 
an apologist of the 'Abbasids against the pro- 
Umayyad movement of the Nabita, the Shu'ubis 
and the Shi'a; but his highly personal manner of 
presenting facts tends to mi lead his readers and in 
all probability the pro- c Alid al-Mas c udI in Murudf, 
vi, 55 ff. misunderstood the true significance of 
his writings. If the chronology of al-Djahiz's work 
could be established, one would probably see that 
after warning the authorities against the regression 
that might be the result of abandoning Mu'tazilism, 
he gave up the struggle once SunnI reaction had 
won the day and from then on restricted himself 
to purely literary activity; the fact that he wrote 
K. aLBukhaW'm the latter part of his life supports 
this hypothesis. 

As in politics so in theology al-Djahiz was a 
Mu'tazili, though his doctrine appears to offer 
hardly any original features; as the writings where 
he expounded are for the most part lost, one has 
to make do with occasional annotations in al- 
Khavvat. K. al-Intisdr, translated and edited by 
A. N. Nader, Beirut 1957, and with data supplied by 
the heresiographers (al-Baghdadi, Fark, 160 ff.; Ibn 
Hazm, Fisal, iv, 181, 195; al-Shahrastanl, on the 
margin of Ibn Hazm, i, 95-6; etc.; see also, Horten, 
Die phil. Systeme der spekulativen Theologen im Islam, 
320 ff.; L. Gardet and M. M. Anawati, Introd. a la 
Thiologie musulmane, index; A. N. Nader, Le Systeme 



L-DJAHI? — DJAHLAWAN 



387 



philosophique des MuHazila, Beirut 1956, index) 
which summarize or indicate points where al-Diahiz 
differs from other Mu'tazills. Too little is known of 
the doctrine itself for one to be able to do more at 
this stage than simply refer to the article mu'tazila, 
pending the completion of a thesis specifically con- 
cerned with the question. 

Meanwhile, even though al-Djahiz's place in the 
development of Muslim thought is far from negligible, 
he is chiefly interesting as a writer and an adib, for 
with him form is never overshadowed by content; 
even in purely technical works. If he is not the first 
of the great Arab prose writers, if in rhetoric c Abd 
Allah b. al-Mukaffa' [q.v.] and Sahl b. Harun [q.v.], 
to name but two, are his masters, nevertheless he 
gave literary prose its most perfect form, as was 
indeed recognized first by politicians who made use 
of his talent for the 'Abbasid cause and then by Arab 
critics who were unanimous in asserting his superi- 
ority and making his name the very symbol of 
literary ability. 

Al-Djahiz's writing is characterized by deliberately 
contrived disorderliness and numerous digressions; 
the individuality of his alert and lively style lies in 
a concern for the exact term — a foreign word if 
necessary — picturesque phrases and sentences which 
are nearly always unrhymed, but balanced by the 
repetition of the same idea in two different forms; 
what would be pointless repetition to our way of 
thinking, in the mind of a 3rd/<)th century writer 
simply arose from the desire to make himself clearly 
understood and to give ordinary prose the symmetry 
of verse; though difficult to render and appreciate 
in a foreign language, the flow of his sentences 
is perfectly harmonious and instantly recognizable. 
Nevertheless, for the majority of literate Arabs 
al-Djahiz remains, if not a complete buffoon, 
at least something of a jester; his place as such 
in legend can undoubtedly be attributed in part 
to his fame and his ugliness, which made him the 
hero of numerous anecdotes; but it must also be 
attributed to a characteristic of his writing which 
could not but earn him the reputation of being a 
joker in a Muslim world inclined towards soberness 
and gravity; for he never fails, even in his weightiest 
passages, to slip in anecdotes, witty observations and 
amusing comments. Alarmed at the dullness and 
boredom enshrouding the speculations of a good 
many of his contemporaries, he deliberately aimed 
at a lighter touch and his sense of humour enabled 
him to deal entertainingly with serious subjects and 
help popularize them. But he realized he was doing 
something rather shocking and one cannot help 
being struck by the frequency with which he feels it 
necessary to plead the cause of humour and fun; 
the best example is in K. al-Tarbi' wa 'l-tadwlr (ed. 
Pellat, Damascus 1955) a masterpiece of ironic 
writing, as well as a compendium of all the questions 
to which his contemporaries whether through force 
of habit, imitative instinct or lack of imagination 
offered traditional solutions or gave no thought at 
all. Without stepping outside the boundaries of the 
faith — this itself was something of a strain— he 
takes for granted the right to submit to scrutiny 
accepted attitudes to natural phenomena, ancient 
history and legends handed down as truths, to 
restate problems and skilfully suggest rational 
solutions. Nor is that all; for at a time when 
mediaeval Arabic culture was taking shape, he 
brought together what seemed of most value to him, 
drawing either on the Arab heritage, of which he 
was a passionate defender, or on Greek thought, 



always careful however to curb the intrusion of the 
Persian tradition, which he considered too dangerous 
for the future of Islam, into the culture he longed to 
bestow on his co-religionists. This vast undertaking, 
based on the spirit of criticism and systematic doubt 
in everything not directly concerned with the dogma 
of Islam, was unfortunately to be to a considerable 
extent narrowed and side-tracked in the centuries to 
follow. It is true that al-Djahi? was to have admirers 
as noteworthy as Abu flayyan al-Tawhldi, imitators 
and even counterfeiters, who made use of his name 
to ensure greater success for their works; but 
posterity has only kept a deformed and shrunken 
image of him, seeing him at the most as a master 
of rhetoric (see Pellat, in al-And., 1956/2, 277-84), 
the founder of a Mu c tazili school — whose disciples 
no one bothers to enumerate — and the author of 
compilations to be drawn upon for the elaboration 
of works of adab, a sizeable share of recorded infor- 
mation on djdhiliyya and the early centuries of 

Bibliography: The main biographies are 
those of Khatib Baghdad!, xii, 212-22; Ibn 
'Asakir, in MM I A, ix, 203-17; Yakut, Irshdd, vi, 
56-80. A general outline is to be found in manuals 
of Arabic literature, as also in: Sh. Diabri. al- 
Didhiz mu c allim al- c akl wa 'Uadab, Cairo 1351/1932; 
Kh. Mardam, al-Didhiz, Damascus 1349/1930; 
T. Kayyall, al-Didhiz. [Damascus] n.d. ; H. 
Fakhuri, al-Didhiz, Cairo [1953]; M. Kurd 'All, 
Umara? al-baydn, Cairo 1355/1937; H. Sandubl, 
Adab al-Didhiz, Cairo 1350/1931; Ch. Pellat, Le 
Milieu basrien et la formation de Gdhiz, Paris 1953; 
idem, Gdhiz a Bagdad et & Sdmarrd, in RSO, 1952, 
47-67; idem, Gdhiziana in Arabica, 1954/2, 1955/3 
and mainly 1956/2 : Essai d'inventaire de Vauwe 
gdhizienne, with an account of mss, editions and 
translations (one should add to the bibliography: 
A. J. Arberry, New material on the Kitdb al- 
Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim, in Isl. Research Assoc. 
Miscellany, i, 1948, which gives the notice from 
Fihrist on Djahiz, missing in the editions; and 
also: F. Gabrieli, in Scritti in onore di G. Furlani, 
Rome 1957, on the R. ft mandkib al-Turk; the 
Tunisian review al-Fikr, Oct. 1957 and March 
1958, on the R. al-Kiydn); J. Jabre, al-Didhiz et 
la sociiti de son temps (in Arabic, Beirut 1957 ( ?), 
not consulted here). It should be pointed out that 
in addition to the editions quoted in the course of 
the article, the following collections have been 
published: G. van Vloten, Tria opuscula, Leyden 
1903; J. Finkel, Three essays, Cairo 1926; P. 
Kraus and M. T. Hadjirl, Madimu' rasdHl al- 
Didhiz, Cairo 1943 (a French translation of these 
texts is being prepared) ; H. Sandubl, RasdHl al- 
Qidfiiz, Cairo 1352/1933; Ihdd 'ashrata risdla, 
Cairo 1324/1906; O. Rescher, Excerpte und 
Vbersetzungen aus den Schriften des ... ddhiz, 
Stuttgart 1931 (analytical translation of a good 
many texts). The texts in the three manuscript 
collections: Damad Ibrahim Pasha 949; Br. Mus. 
1 129 and Berlin 5032 (see Oriens, 1954, 85-6) 
have in a good many cases been published; those 
not yet published, along with some other texts of 
less importance, will be included in our Nusils 
Gdhiziyya ghayr manshura. K. al- c Urdidn, etc. 
has been recently discovered in Morocco, but is 
of no great interest. (Ch. Pellat) 

EJAHLAwAN (from Baloci djahla "below" or 
"southern"), district of Pakistani Balocistan, lying 
below Sarawan. Formerly part of the Khanate of 
Kalat and one of the two great divisions of the 



388 D J AH LA WAN — 

Brahols (or Brahui). Area, 21,128 sq. miles, popu- 
lation unknown, estimated 100,000. The capital is 
Khuzdar and the population is mainly Brahol with 
a few Baloc and Loris. It is mainly a grazing country. 
Bibliography: Baluchistan Gazeteer, vi, B, 
Bombay 1907; M. G. Pikulin, Beludzhi, Moscow 
1959. (R. N. Frye) 

PJAHM b. 5AFWAN, Abu Muhriz, early 
theologian, sometimes called al-Tirmidhl or al- 
Samarkandi. He was a client of Rasib (a bain of Azd) 
and appears as secretary to al-Harith b. Suraydj, 
"the man with the black banner" who revolted 
against the Umayyads and from 116/734 to 128/746 
controlled tracts of eastern Khurasan, sometimes in 
alliance with Turks. Djahm was captured and 
executed in 128/746, shortly before al-Harith himself. 
The basis of this movement of revolt, of which 
Djahm was intellectual protagonist, was the demand 
that government should be in accordance with "the 
Book of God and the Sunna of His Prophet" (al- 
Tabarl, ii, 1570 f., 1577, 1583, etc.); and the move- 
ment is therefore reckoned to the Murdji'a (al- 
Nawbakhtl, Firak al-Ski'a, 6). Nothing further can 
be said with certainty about Djahm's own views, 
except that he argued for the existence of God 
against the Indian sect of Sumaniyya (Ahmad b. 
Hanbal, Radd 'aid 'l-Djahmiyya, in Dar uUFunun 
Ildhiyydt Fakultesi Medimu'asi, v-vi (1927), 313-27). 
Other views ascribed to him are those of the sect 
of Djahmiyya [q.v.], which is not heard of until 
seventy years after his death, and whose connexion 
with him is obscure. (W. Montgomery Watt) 

DJAHMIYYA, an early sect, frequently mentioned 
but somewhat mysterious. 

Identity. No names are known of any members 
of the sect, apart from the alleged founder Djahm 
[q.v.]. The basic fact is that "after the translation of 
the Greek books in the second century a doctrine 
(makdla) known as that of the Djahmiyya was spread 
by Bishr b. Ghiyath al-Marlsi [q.v.] and his generation 
(Ibn Taymiyya, 'Akida Hamawiyya, ap. M. Schreiner 
in ZDMG, liii, 72 f.; lii, 544). A pupil of Abu Yusuf 
(d. 182/798), Bishr (d. 218/833 or a little later) was 
questioned about his strange views under Ibrahim b. 
al-Mahdi (c. 202/817) (Ibn Abi '1-Wafa>, al-Djawdhir 
al-mudi'a, i, nos. 1146, 371). Apart from this the 
early references to the Djahmiyya are by opponents, 
notably Ahmad b. Hanbal (al-Radd 'aid 'l-Zanddika 
wa 'l-Diahmivva) and men of similar outlook, e.g., 
Ibn Kutayba (al-Ikhtildj H 'l-lafz wa 'l-radd 'aid 
'l-Djahmiyya wa 'l-Mushabbiha), al-Ash c ari (esp. 
Ibdna), Khushaysh (in al-Malati, Tanbih), Ibn Khu- 
zayma (K. al-Tawhid); cf. ZDMG, liii, 73; Brockel- 
mann, S I, 281 (p), 310 (3a); Ibn Radjab al-Baghdadl, 
Histoire des Hanbalites, Damascus 1951, i, 38, 40; 
W. M. Patton, Ahmed b. Hanbal and the Mihna, 
Leiden 1897, 37 f., 48. Ahmad considered a Djahml 
one who said the speaking (lafz) of the Kurgan was 
created or who denied God's knowledge (H. Laoust, 
Essai sur .... Ahmad b. Taimiya, 172, 261; Nu'aym 
b. Hammad, who died in prison about 231/846 when 
he denied the Kur'an was created, said he had 
earlier been a Djahml, Ibn c Asakir, Tabyin kadhib 
al-muftari, 383 f.) and he attributed the growth of 
the sect to followers of Abu Hanifa and c Amr b. 
<Ubayd in Basra (Radd, 315). Thus the Hanbalites 
in attacking the Djahmiyya may have been thinking 
of men usually reckoned as MuHazila (cf. H. Laoust, 
Profession de Foi d'Ibn Batta, 167-9). There is in fact 
a close similarity between the views of the Djahmiyya 
and those of a Mu'tazili like Abu '1-Hudhayl (cf. 
S. Pines, Beitrage zur islamischen Atomenlehre, 



124-33). In course of time the Mu'tazila disacknow- 
ledged those who, while agreeing with them in many 
points, differed in the doctrine of kadar or 'free will' 
(al-Khayyat, Intisdr, 133 f.) and tried to minimize 
the resemblances between themselves and the 
Djahmiyya (ibid. 12). There is also criticism of the 
Djahmiyya by followers of Abu Hanifa, probably 
prior to the advent of Bishr al-Marisi (al-Fikh al- 
akbar I, § io, ap. Wensinck, Muslim creed, 104; 
Ibn Abi '1-Wafa, op. cit., i, nos. 23, 61); but the 
Maturidite author of Sharh al-Fikh al-akbar seems 
embarrassed by the reference in § 10, and brackets 
the Djahmiyya with the Kadariyya and Mu'tazila 
(19; cf. 30). Al-Baghdadi (Fark, 200; translation by 
A. S. Halkin, 14) says there were Djahmiyya in 
Tirmidh in his own time, some of whom became 

Doctrines. They held an extreme form of the 
doctrine of djabr, according to which men acted only 
metaphorically, as the sun "acts" in setting. They 
held the Kur'an was created. They denied that God 
had a distinct eternal attribute of knowledge, con- 
sidering that his knowledge of temporal events 
followed the occurrence of the event. More generally 
they denied the distinct existence of all God's 
attributies, .and were therefore accused of ta'til 
(making God a bare unity) and called Mu'attila. 
For attributes of God, such as hand and face, oc- 
curring in the Kur'an, they had a rational inter- 
pretation (ta'wil). On the question of faith their 
views were a form of those of the Murdji'a. 

Bibliography: al-Ash c ari, Makdldt, i, 279 f., 
with further references; Massignon, Passion, see 
Index; Montgomery Watt, Free will and pre- 
destination, London 1948, 99-104; c Abdus Subhan, 
in IC, xi (1937), 221-7; A. S. Tritton, Muslim 
theology, London 1947, 62 f., with further refer- 
ences; Ahmad b. Hanbal, al- Radd 'aid 'l-Zanddika 
wa 'l-Djahmiyya, Cairo n.d., and Dar Ul-Funun 
Ildhiyydt Fakultesi Medimu'-asi, v-vi (1927), 313- 
27; al-Darimi (d. 282/895), Kitdb al-Radd 'aid 
'l-Djahmiyya, ed. G. Vitestam (with introduction 
and commentary) Lund and Leiden i960. 

(W. Montgomery Watt) 
al-DJAHSHIYARI. AbO c Abd Allah Muham- 
mad b. c Abdus, a scholar born in al-Kufa, who 
played a political role at the beginning of the 4th/ 
10th century on account of his relations with the 
viziers of the time. He succeeded his father in the 
office of hddjib to the vizier c Ali b. c lsa, of whose 
personal guard he was in command in 306/912. 
Later, he is found among the supporters of Ibn 
Mukla whom he helped to be proclaimed vizier 
and whom he concealed after his fall; several times 
he was imprisoned and fined, either by the viziers 
or by the amirs Ibn Ra'ik and Badjkam. He died in 
33I/942- 

Al-Djahshiyarl is principally known as the author 
of a Kitdb al-wuzard' wa 'l-kuttab which traced 
the history of the Secretaries of State and viziers 
until 296/908; only the first part, stopping at 
the beginning of al-Ma J mun's caliphate, has been 
preserved for us intact. This work, which reveals the 
true spirit of inquiry of a chronicler as well as an 
undeniable taste for adab, lays quite as much 
emphasis upon men's characters and intellectual 
qualities as upon their administrative or political 
activities. Al-Djahshiyari also wrote a voluminous 
chronicle of al-Muktadir's caliphate, from which 
certain passages are thought to have been recovered, 
and a collection of stories (asmar) which seems to be 
lost despite the opinion of those who would like to 



L-DJAHSHIYARl — DJA'IZ 



attribute to al-Djahshiyari the K. al-yikdydt al- 
'adiiba, an anonymous work published recently (see 
Arabica, iv, 1957, 214). 

Bibliography: on his life, see M. Canard, 
Akhbdr ar-Rddi billdh, Algiers 1946, i, 143 n. 3; 
J. Latz, Das Buch der Wezire und Staatssehretdre 
von Ibn c Abdus al-GahUydri, Anfdnge und Umai- 
yadenzeit, Walldorf-Hessen 1958, 3-6; D. Sourdel, 
Le vizirat c abbdside, Damascus 1959-60, index; 
Ibn Khallikan, ed. Cairo 1948, vi, 23. On his 
writings, see GAL, S I, 219-20; in addition to the 
facsimile edition of the Kitdb al-wuzard' by H. 
von Mzik (Leipzig 1926), the edition by Mustafa 
al-Sakka 5 , etc., which appeared in Cairo in 1357/ 
1938, should be added; the pages devoted to the 
beginnings and the Umayyad period have been 
translated into German by J. Latz (supra); the 
character of the work has been studied by D. 
Sourdel, La valeur littiraire et documentaire du 
"Livre des Vizirs" d'al- GahSiydrl, in Arabica, ii, 
I 955, 193-210; the surviving fragments of the 
second part have been published or recorded by 
Mikhail 'Awwad, in MMIA, xviii, 1943, 318-32 
and 435-42, and D. Sourdel, Milanges L. 
Massignon, iii, Damascus 1957, 271-99. On the 
Akhbdr al-Muktadir, see D. Sourdel, Milanges 
L. Massignon, iii, 271 n. 2. (D. Sourdel) 

DJAHWARIDS. The terrible conflict brought 
about by the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate led the 
Cordovans, under the direction and advice of the 
influential and respected vizier Abu Hazm Djahwar 
b. Muxammad b. Djahwar, to declare incapable and 
expel from the city all the members of the imperial 
family. They proclaimed a form of republic (422/1031) 
at the head of which they placed the vizier, who had 
already demonstrated his great political talents at 
the court of Hisham II. Once elected, however, he 
refused to assume all the reigns of power, and formed 
a democratic government which administered all 
public affairs. He himself claimed to be no more 
than the executor of the Council's decisions on 
behalf of the people. Order and calm were restored 
at Cordova, the vizier earned the respect of the petty 
Berber kings in the neighbouring areas, and even the 
Banu 'AbbSd of Seville learned to leave him in peace. 
Trade took on a new lease of life, prices came down, 
and the ruins were repaired. His paternal government 
lasted for 12 years until his death in 435/1043. His son 
Abu '1-Walid Muhammad, called al-Rashld, succeeded 
him. Without assuming the title of Sultan, he 
followed the line of conduct established by his 
father. In order to avoid a rupture with al-Mu c tadid 
of Seville, he recognized the deceitful farce of Hisham 
II, and intervened as a mediator in the war between 
al-Mu c tadid and Ibn al-Aftas of Badajoz. But he was 
not of the same mettle as his father, and, lacking 
the energy to command, he delegated the adminis- 
tration of his small state to his vizier Ibn al-Raka, 
who became the virtual sovereign of Cordova. He 
earned the hatred of Muhammad's younger son, 
c Abd al-Malik, who, drawn into the intrigues of al- 
Mu'tadid, treacherously assassinated the vizier in 
Muharram 450/March 1058. Far from punishing him 
for the deed, his father appointed him crown prince, 
giving him a free hand in governing and the right to 
use Caliphate titles. The Cordovans rapidly developed 
a strong dislike for him on account of his illegal 
dealings. Whereas al-Mu c tadid dethroned the reyes de 
taifas of the south, c Abd al-Malik continued his 
arbitrary rule. In 461/1069, when al-Mu c tadid and 
the vizier Ibn Raka were dead, Ibn al-Aftas saw his 
chance to seize Cordova, and c Abd al-Malik sum- 



moned the assistance of al-Mu'tamid. The latter 
sent a cavalry detachment of 1300 men, and they 
raised the siege set by Ibn al-Aftas. But the Cor- 
dovans allowed al-Mu c tamid's generals to capture 
c Abd al-Malik and his aged father who had ruled for 
25V2 years, and they were both exiled to the island 
of Saltis, off Huelva, where the Odiel flows into 
the si 



liography: The 



Ibn 



by Ibn Bassam, Dhakhira, 
i/2, 114, i/4, 182; Dozy, Scriptorum arabum loci 
de Abbadidis, Leiden 1846; Ibn 'Idhari, Baydn, 
iii, ed. Levi-Provencal, 175-7; Ibn al-Khatlb, 
A'-mdl al-aHdm, ed. Levi-Provencal, 168. 

(A. Huici-Miranda) 
DJAEZA, Abu 'l-Hasan Ahmad b. Dta'far b. 
Musa b. Yahya al-BarmakI al-Nadim (and also 
al-TunburI, because he played the tunbur, lute 
(Fr. : "pandore")). A philologist and transmitter of 
traditions, singer and musician, poet and wit and a 
descendant of the Barmakids. He was reputedly 
born in 224/839, and died at the age of a hundred, 
at Wasit in Sha'ban 324/June-July 936. A man of 
very varied culture, but little religion, of doubtful 
morals and repulsive appearance (he was dirty and 
ugly, and owed his last name to a malformation of 
his bulging eyes), he is the hero of numerous stories — 
in which nonetheless he is shown as keeping the 
company of persons in high society: Ibn al-Mu c tazz 
(who apparently gave him his last name), al-Hasan 
b. Makhlad, Ibn Mukla, Ibn Ra'ik. Apart from the 
Amdli and a diwdn — what remains of the latter is 
mainly incidental writings — he has left a series of 
works enumerated by the Fihrist (208), about the 
kitchen, lute-players, astrology, and the life of al- 
Mu'tamid (K. ma shdhada-hu min amr al-MuHamid). 
Bibliography: M. Canard, Akhbdr ar-Rddi 
billdh, etc., i, 1440, note (biographical note and 
references) ; Bouvat, Barmecides, 104-5 ; Mas'udi, 
Muriidi, viii, 261-2; Aghdni, index; Khatib Bagh- 
dad!, iv, 65; Ibn Khallikan, i, 41; Tha'alibi, 
Thimdr al-kulub, 183; Ibn Hadjar, Lisdn al-mizdn, 
i, 146; Yakut, Mu'-djam al-udabd 3 , ii, 241-82. 

(Ch. Pellat) 
DJA'IZ. a term used in a general way to denote 
permissible acts, that is to say acts which are 
not contrary to a rule of the law. However, in 
the classical division of acts into five categories 
(al-ahkdm al-khamsa; cf. Diet. Tech. Terms, i, 
379 ff-; I- Goldziher, Die Zdhiriten, 66 ff.; Juynboll, 
Handbuch, 59 ff.) adopted by the writers on usul 
[q.v.] the permissible act is generally described as 
mubdh. It is thus quite as clearly differentiated 
from the act which is obligatory (wddjib) or merely 
recommended (mandub), as from that which is for- 
bidden (hardm) or simply considered reprehensible 
(makruh). 

In writings on furu', that is to say of the Muslim 
jurisconsults, the term djdHz assumes a different 
significance. The juridical act which is not com- 
pletely null and void (bdtil) or merely defective 
(fdsid) — according to the Hanafis — is regarded as 
sahih, that is to say valid. It is the act carried out 
in conformity with the prescriptions of the law, and 
it must in principle produce all its effects. A valid 
act of this kind is certainly djdHz, or permissible; 
but the correct term to denote it is sahih. 

Hanafi authors, however, preferred to use the term 
djdHz, not to denote a valid act but, in particular, 
to specify that the act was legitimate or licit, in 
point of law. In their works, the study of each 
contract under consideration generally begins with 



390 



DJA>IZ — DJALAL al-DAWLA 



a preamble in which the writer is at pains to state 
that the contract is didHz by reason of some text, or 
custom, or omnium consensus, or simply its practical 
usefulness (Chafik Chehata, Thiorie ginirale de 
I'obligation en droit musulman, i, 105, no. 117). This 
is true of the contract of hire (Kasani, BaddV, iv, 
174); of guarantee (ibid., vi, 3); and of deposit 
(Sarakhsi, Mabsut, xi, 108). In all these texts the 
writer raises the question whether the contract is or 
is not didHz, quite apart from the fact that it can be 
valid or not, according to whether the conditions of its 
conclusion or validity have or have not been fulfilled. 
Thus, with regard to the contract of locatio operis 
(istisnd 1 ), the conditions of legality are made clear, 
independently of conditions of conclusion (inHkdd), 
validity (sihha), irrevocability (luzum) or efficacity 
(nafddh) (KSsanI, v, 209). Sometimes the term 
mashru 1 is used in place of didHz, as for example in 
the contract of crop-sharing {muzdra'a) (Kasani, vi, 
175); and in the contract of association (ibid., v, 
220). In fact the didHz act is, correctly, the lawful 
act, mashru'- in point of law. But lawful must here 
be understood in a special sense. It is not a question 
of the legality of the object or cause of the contract, 
but rather of the act considered in itself, as to 
how far it is sanctioned by law. And thus, in the 
final analysis, the term didHz as used by jurisconsults 
in writings on /«>•«' by indirect means comes to 
approximate the term mubdh which is found in 
works on usul, in the writings of fikh logicians. 
Furthermore the term didHz, taken in the sense 
of mashru', goes beyond the limits of juridical 
acts. It underlies the theory of criminal respon- 
sibility, since it is established that a lawful act 
cannot give rise to damages (al-djawdz al-sharH 
yundfi 'l-damdn). Here again, by lawful act we 
must understand an act permitted by law, however 
prejudicial. 

Certain authors, however, including Hanafls, use 
the term to denote a valid contract. Thus for 
Kuduri a contract vitiated by risk is looked upon as 
illegal (Kuduri, Mukhtasar, 60), in the same way as 
a contract whose object is illegal (ibid., 54). In both 
these texts the writer specifies that the contract is 
not didHz. 

Finally it must be stated that, in non-Hanafi 
writers, the term didHz has assumed an entirely 
unexpected significance. In effect, in Malikl as well 
as Shafi'I and Hanball writings, the contract is said 
to be didHz when it is revocable. (For the Malikls, see 
Karafi, Furuk, iv, 13; for the ShSfi'is, Suyuti, 
Ashbdh, 141; for the Hanballs, Ibn Kudama, iv, 
119). Thus it is that the contract can be didHz for 
one of the parties, that is to say revocable by him, 
and not didHz, or irrevocable, for the other — just as 
it can be didHz for both, that is to say revocable by 
both parties (al- A'lawl, Bughy at al-mustarshidin, 112). 
In logic, didHz means what is not unthinkable, 
whether it be necessary, probable, improbable, or 
possible [Did. Tech. Terms, i, 207 ff.) 

Bibliography: the works on usul, e.g. al- 
Taftazanl, al-Talwih, 1304 H.; Chafik Chehata, 
Thiorie ginirale de I'obligation en droit musulman 
hanifite, i, Cairo 1936; J. Schacht, G. Bergstrasser's 
Grundzuge des islamischen Rechts, 31-3; al-Kasani, 
BadaH 1 al-SanaH'-, Cairo 1327; al-SarakhsI, al- 
Mabsut, Cairo 1324. (Chafik Chehata) 

PjA'IZA [see sila]. 

DJAKARTA, town on the north coast of Java, 
a few miles to the east of 107° E. Long. The name is 
believed to be the abbreviated form of Djajakarta, 
'Victorious and Prosperous'; in its turn it was cor- 



rupted into Jakatra (Jacatra) by the first Dutch 
visitors (1610). Judging by the name, we may 
suppose old Djakarta to have been the residence of 
a more or less independent king who was Javanese 
by descent or by culture. The Dutch settlement was 
given the name Batavia, from Batavi, one of the 
Latin names for the Netherlanders ; Jan P. Coen, 
local representative of the Dutch Chartered Company, 
decided to establish his headquarters here in 1619. 
In 1628 and 1629 Batavia was heavily attacked by 
Anjakrakusuma alias Sultan Agung, king of Mata- 
ram. The narrow escape was followed by a long 
period of peace and prosperity which made the 
Indonesians use the expression untung Betawi, 
'Batavian luck'. Several stories were invented to 
explain that luck, the most interesting being the 
one which Cohen Stuart published in 1850 (Ge- 
schiedenis van Baron Sahindher, Batavia); it says 
that Jan P. Coen was the son of a Javanese princess 
with a flaming womb who had been given in marriage 
to Sukmul, twin-brother of Sekender (Iskandar 
Dh u '1-Karnayn, Alexander the Great). 

The town was the seat of a Dutch Governor- 
General from 1619 to 1942, with a British interreg- 
num from 1811 to 1816. As such it developed into 
an international centre of trade, and within the 
Indonesian Archipelago into a centre of admini- 
stration. Under the Chartered Company (1619-1799) 
it attracted a multitude of merchants, from various 
parts of Indonesia as well as from various foreign 
countries (China, India, Arabia). Especially in the 
second half of the existence of the Netherlands 
Indies (1800-1942) Batavia was the gateway for 
various kinds of missionary activities, in the field of 
religion as well as in the field of school education. 
Both factors — commerce and propaganda — have 
contributed to the cosmopolitan character of the 
town; it may be true that the majority of the Indo- 
nesian population is Muslim, it is as true that the 
town does not owe its importance, character and 
function to the Muslims as such. 

From the view-point of Islamology it deserves 
attention that Batavia was an observation-post for 
the study of Muslim life ever since it came into 
existence as an Indonesian town under Dutch rule. 
When Snouck Hurgronje was appointed adviser to 
the Colonial Government for Muslim and native 
affairs (1889) his office in Batavia became a centre 
for theoretical and applied Islamology. The Batavian 
Faculty of Law, founded in 1924, had a chair for 
Muslim law and Islamology from the very beginning. 
This is why Indonesian Islam, in many respects 
different from the type of Islam which one finds in 
Egypt and similar countries, is fairly well known. 

See DJAWl, INDONESIA, JAVA, SUMATRA. 

Batavia became Djakarta once more in 1942, when 
the Japanese conquered Indonesia and put an end 
to the colonial empire of the Dutch. The Indonesian 
Republic, proclaimed in 1945 and recognized by the 
Dutch in 1949, maintained Djakarta as its capital. 
The town which counted a population of approxi- 
mately 400,000 people in 1940, is rapidly growing. 
It still has a cosmopolitan character, though its 
present function might detract from this character 
in a near future. (C. C. Berg) 

DJAKAT [see zakat]. 

PJA'L [see tazyIf]. 

DJALA j IR. DJALA'IRID [see djalayir, dja- 
layirid]. 

PJALAL al-DAWLA, honorific title of various 
princes, notably the Buyid (see below), the Ghaznawid 
Muhammad [q.v.], and the Mirdasid Nasr [q.v.]. 



DJALAL al-DAWLA — DJALAL al-DIN C ARIF 



PJALAL al-DAWLA, Abu Tahir b. Baha 'al- 
Dawla, a Buyid, born in 383/993-4- When Sultan 
al-Dawla, after the death of his father Baha' al- 
Dawla in 403/1012, was named amir al-umard', he 
entrusted his brother Djalal al-Dawla with the 
office of governor of Basra. The latter stayed there 
for several years without becoming involved in the 
private quarrels of the Buyids. In 415/1024-5 
Sultan al-Dawla died and his brother Musharrif al- 
Dawla died in the following year. Djalal al-Dawla 
was then proclaimed amir al-umard^, but, as he did 
not appear at Baghdad to take possession of his new 
dignity, an invitation was given instead to Abu 
Kalidjar, son of Sultan al-Dawla, who was also 
unable to accept the office. When Djalal al-Dawla 
heard that he was no longer named in public prayers 
he marched on Baghdad with an army, but was 
defeated and had to retreat to Basra. However, in 
Ramadan 418/October 1027 he entered the capital 
at the request of the Turks who were unable to keep 
on good terms with the population of Baghdad and 
were afraid of the influence of the Arabs. But friendly 
relations with the Turks were short-lived. In the 
following year an insurrection broke out in Baghdad, 
and Djalal al-Dawla restored order only with 
difficulty. At the same time Abu Kalidjar took 
possession of Basra without striking a blow and in 
420/1029 succeeded in capturing Wasit. As Djalal 
al-Dawla was preparing an expedition against 
Ahwaz, Abu Kalidjar wanted to start peace nego- 
tiations; but Djalal al-Dawla preferred to sack 
Ahwaz, and took prisoner the women of Abu 
Kalidjar's family. At the end of Rabl c I 421/April 
1030 the latter marched against Djalal al-Dawla 
but was defeated after a three days' battle and had 
to flee, while the victor first took Wasit and then 
entered Baghdad. Basra was also conquered, but 
Abu Kalidjar's troops soon reoccupied it, though in 
Shawwal/October of the same year they suffered a 
further defeat near al-Madhar. In the capital, the 
insubordination of the Turkish mercenaries increased 
constantly, and the amir al-umard' soon lost the last 
vestiges of his authority. In 423/1032 Djalal al- 
Dawla's palace was sacked, and he was obliged to 
leave the town and flee to 'Ukbara, while Abu 
Kalidjar was proclaimed amir al-umard* by the 
Turks in Baghdad. Abu Kalidjar then came to 
Ahwaz and, as the amirate held no particular 
attraction for him, Djalal al-Dawla was able, after 
about six weeks, to return to his capital where, 
however, the situation was steadily worsening. In 
the following year his palace was once again attacked 
and pillaged, and for the second time the Buyid, 
who from now on was completely powerless, was 
forced to take to flight. This time he went to al- 
Karkh where he was protected by the Shi'is, remain- 
ing there until the rebels called him back to Baghdad. 
In the same year the governor of Basra, Abu '1- 
Kasim, revolted against Abu Kalidjar who was 
intending to depose him, and called in Djalal al- 
Dawla's son al- c AzIz to Basra. But in 425/1033-4 
al- c Aziz was driven out, and the population again 
took an oath of loyalty to Abu Kalidjar. During this 
period complete anarchy dominated the capital and 
in 427/1035-6 a new revolt broke out in the army which 
however was brought back to loyalty by the caliph's 
intervention. In 428/1036-7 Barstoghan, who was 
one of the most powerful Turkish leaders in Baghdad 
and whose position was threatened, called on Abu 
Kalidjar for assistance. Once more Djalal al-Dawla 
was driven out of Baghdad but, after being helped 
by Kirwash b. al-Mukallid of Mawsil and Dubays b. 



'All of Hilla, while the' Daylamites broke away from 
the Turks in Baghdad, he was soon able to expel 
Barstoghan and occupy the capital. Barstoghan was 
taken prisoner and put to death, and Abfl Kalidjar at 
last made peace with Djalal al-Dawla. The final 
reconciliation was sealed by the marriage of one of 
Djalal's daughters with Abu Mansur, AbO Kalidjar's 
son. On this occasion Djalal al-Dawla took the 
ancient Persian title "king of kings", which in fact 
was far from justified by his own lack of authority 
and the general anarchy. In 431/1039-40 or, according 
to others, in 432/1040-1, he had to face a further 
Turkish revolt in the capital. Djalal al-Dawla died 
on 6 Sha'ban 435/9 March 1044, leaving the Buyid 
kingdom in a state of the deepest degradation. 
Bibliography: see buwayhids. 

(K. V. Zettersteen) 
Sharif DJALAL al-DIN AflSAN, d. 74o/i339. 
first Sultan of Madura [q.v.]. A native of Kaythal 
in the Pandjab, he is known from a well-inscription 
(cf. B. D. Verma, in Epigraphia Indica, Arabic and 
Persian Supplement, 1955-6, 109 ff.) to have been 
ndHb-i ik(d c in the province of Ma'bar [q.v.] in 725/ 
1324; later he was appointed governor by Muham- 
mad b. Tughluk (or, according to 'IsamI, Futiih al- 
Saldtin, 449, was kotwdl [q.v.] at Madura and usurped 
the government), but shortly after this, in 735/1335, 
he proclaimed his independence under the title of 
Djalal al-(Dunya wa '1)-Din Ahsan Shah at Madura, 
the old Pandya capital, where he struck coin. Mu- 
hammad's march south to crush the rebel was 
prevented by an outbreak of cholera at Waranga}, 
which decimated his army, and the Dihll sultan had 
no further opportunity of regaining his lost province. 
Djalal al-DIn was killed in 740/1339 by one of his 
officers who seized the throne as c Ala' al-Din 
UdawdjI Shah; thus although he was the first 
independent sultan of Madura he founded no 
dynasty. One of his daughters, however, married the 
fourth sultan, and another daughter, Hurnasab, 
married the traveller Ibn Battuta, who spent some 
time at the Madura court, and to whom much of the 
scanty knowledge of this small sultanate is due. 

Djalal al-DIn is erroneously called Sayyid Hasan 
by Piya' al-DIn Barani (Eng. tr. Elliot and Dowson, 
History of India . . ., iii, 243) and Firishta (Eng. tr. 
Briggs, i, 423). 

Bibliography: Ibn Battuta, iii, 328, 337-8; 
iv, 187 ff., 189, 190, 200; H. von Mzik, Die Reise 
des Arabers Ibn Battifa durch Indien und China 
(14 Jhdt.), Hamburg 1911, 170 ff. and note; C. J. 
Rodgers, Coins of the Musultndn kings of Ma'bar, 
in JASB, lxiv/i, 49; E. Hultzsch, The coinage of 
the sultans of Madura, in JRAS, 1909, 667-83. 
(J. Burton-Page) 
DJALAL al-DIN c ARIF (Celaleddin Arif), Turk- 
ish lawyer and statesman, was born in Erzurum 
on 19 October 1875, the son of Mehmed c Arif, a 
writer of some repute. He received his education at 
the military riishdiyye in Qesme and the Mekteb-i 
Sultdni at Galatasaray (Istanbul), where he gra- 
duated in 1895. He studied law in Paris and began 
to practise it in Egypt in 1901. He returned to 
Turkey after the 1908 revolution and joined the 
Ottoman Liberal (Ahrdr) Party, the first group of 
this period to oppose the centralizing tendencies of 
the Union and Progress movement in the name of 
multinational equality within the Empire. He 
became a lecturer at the Istanbul Law School and 
president of the Istanbul Bar Association (1914-20). 
In 1919 he acted as defence counsel in the trial of 
the wartime Union and Progress cabinet. In the last 



392 



DJALAL al-DIN <AR1F — DJALAL al-DTN KH'ARAZM-SHAH 



Ottoman Chamber of Deputies (medjlis-i meb'uthdn) 
he served as deputy for Erzurum, temporary 
presiding officer, and co-founder of the Nationalist 
Feldh-i Wafan group; upon the death of Reshad 
Hikmet, he was elected (4 March 1920) President of 
the Chamber. Two weeks later, after the reinforced 
occupation of the capital and the adjournment sine 
die of the Chamber, he led the flight of deputies to 
Ankara, where he urged his colleagues to join the 
Grand National Assembly convened by Mustafa 
Kemal [Atatiirk]. He became the Assembly's Second 
President (re'is-i thdni), Minister of Justice in the 
Ankara government (April 1920 to January 1921 
and July to August 1922), and its diplomatic 
representative in Rome (1921-3). His differences 
with Kemal became apparent as early as the 
autumn of 1920 during an extended stay in his 
native Erzurum. A proposal that c Arif be appointed 
governor-general over the Eastern wilayets went 
unheeded, and he in turn delayed for two months 
before accepting Kemal's invitation to return to 
Ankara. During his brief second tenure as Minister 
of Justice he was considered one of the parliamentary 
leaders of the conservative opposition (ikindji grub) 
in the Assembly. After 1923 he retired from political 
and diplomatic life. He died in Paris on 18 January 
1930. 

Bibliography: Istanbul Barosu Mecmuasi, 
February 1930; WI, x, 26-73; xii, 29-35; Hasan 
Basri Erk, Meshur Turk Hukukculan, Istanbul 
1958, 419; Kemal (Atatiirk), Nutuk, 1934 edn., i, 
302-5, ii, 29-40; Tank Z. Tunaya, Tiirkiye'de 
Siyasi Partiler, Istanbul 1952, 239, 539; Taldt 
Pasamn Hahralan, Istanbul 1958, 116-24. 



(D; 



w) 



DJALAL al-DIN UUSAYN al-BUKHARI, 

named Makhdum-i Diahdnivdn Djahangasht, one of 
the early pirs of India, was the son of Sayyid Ahmad 
Kabir whose father Sayyid Djalal al-DIn-i Surkh 
had migrated from Bukhara to Multan and Bhakkar 
[q.v.]. A descendant of Imam 'All al-Naki, his father 
was a disciple of Rukn al-Din Abu '1-Fath, son and 
successor of Baha' al-DIn Zakariyya [q.v.]. Born 
707/1308 at Ucch, where he also lies buried, he was 
educated in his home-town and in Multan but seems 
to have left for the Hidjaz at a very young age in 
search of more knowledge. He is reported to have 
visited, in the course of his extensive travels which 
earned him the sobriquet of Djahangasht, Kazarun, 
Egypt, Syria (including Palestine), Mesopotamia, 
Balkh, Bukhara and Khurasan, in addition to 
Mecca and Medina. The Safarndma-i Makhdum-i 
Diahdnivdn (Urdu transl. Lahore 1909), purporting 
to be an account of his travels, is full of supernatural 
stories and may, therefore, be regarded as apocryphal. 
A contemporary of c Abd Allah al-Yafi c I al-Yamani, 
with whom he read al-Sihdh al-Sitta in Mecca, and 
of Ashraf Djahanglr al-Simnanl [q.v.], he received his 
khirka from Naslr al-Din Ciragh-i Dihli [q.v.]. He 
was appointed Shaykh al-Islam by Muhammad b. 
Tughluk and forty khdnakdhs in Slwastan (modern 
Sehwan) and its suburbs were assigned to him; but 
he left for the Hadjdj before taking up the appoint- 
ment. Firuz Shah Tughluk became deeply attached 
to him after his return, and held him in high esteem. 
The shaykh used to visit the sultan at Delhi every 
second or third year. He had also accompanied him 
on his expedition to Tha'tta in 764/1362. Firuz's 
religious policy, as outlined in the Futuhdt-i Firuz 
Shdhi, was greatly influenced by the saint. He died 
on 10 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 785/3 February 1384. Three 
collections of his obiter dicta are known to exist: 



i) Khuldsat al-alfdz didmi c aW-ulum, compiled by 
'Ala' al-Din <Ala> b. Sa'd al-Hasani in 782/1380 (MS. 
Rida 5 Library, Rampur Urdu transl. "al-Durr al- 
manzum fi tardjamat talfuzdt al-Makhdum", Ansarl 
Press. Dihli n. d.) ; ii) Sirddj al-hiddya, compiled by 
c Abd Allah in 787/1385 (MSS. Rampur, Aligarh, 
I.O.D.P. 1038); and iii) Khizdna-i Djaldli (also called 
Manakib-i Makhdum-i Djahaniydn) compiled by 
Abu '1-Fadl b. Ridja' 'Abbasi (only an incomplete 
MS. in A.S.B.). All these collections, especially the 
Didmi c al- c ulum, are voluminous, and are written 
in a miraculous and supernatural strain. Another 
work based on his teachings is the Khizanat al- 
fawd'id al-DJaldliyya composed in 752/1351 by 
Ahmad Bah5 J b. Ya'kub (Storey, ii, 945). 

Bibliography: Shams-i Siradj c Afif, Ta'rikh-i 
Firuz Shdhi, Bibl. Ind., 514-6; Djamali, Siyar al- 
<-drifin, Dihli 1311/1896, 155-8; <Abd al-Hakk 
Muhaddith Dihlawl, Akhbdr al-akhydr, Dihli 
1332/1914, 141-3; Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, 
Bombay 1831-2, ii, 779-84; Muh. GhawthI 
Manduwi, Gulzdr-i abrdr (MS.) no. 128; Yusufi, 
Mahbubiyya (MS.) I.O.D.P. 658 (containing 
anecdotes of S. Djalal al-Din and his descendants) ; 
Dara Shukoh, Safinat al-awliyd', Kanpur 1884, 
166; 'Abd *al-Rahman Cishti, Mir'at al-asrdr 
(MS.), tabaka xxi; Muh. Akram Barasawi, SawaW 
al-anwdr, (Iktibas al-anwdr), Lahore 1895 ; 
c Abd al-Rashid Kayranwi, Ta'rikh-i Kddiriyya, 
(MS.) fol. 47b; Ghulam Sarwar Lahori, Khazinat 
al-asfiya, Kanpur 1914, ii, 57-63; LatdHI-i 
ashrafi, Dihli 1298/1880-1, i, 390-2, ii, 94; c Abd 
al-Hayy Nadwl, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad, 
i, 1350, 28-25; Sabah al-DIn c Abd al-Rahman, 
Bazm-i sitfiyya (in Urdu), A'zamgafh 1369/1949, 
394-440; c Ali Asghar Gudjaratl, Tadhkira Sddat 
al-Bukhdriyya (MS.); Riazul Islam, Collections of 
the Malfuzat of Makhdum-i Jahanian (130J-1388) 
of Uchh, in Proceedings of the All Pakistan History 
Conference, 1951 session, 211-6. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
EJALAL al-DIN KHALDJl [see dihli sulta- 
nate, khaldjids]. 

DJALAL al-DIN KH w ARAZM-SHAH. the 
eldest son of Sultan Muhammad Kh w arazm-Shah 
[q.v.] and the last ruler of the dynasty. The spelling 
and pronunciation of his personal name (mnkbrny) 
are still uncertain. Such forms as Mangoubirti, 
Mankobirti, etc., are based upon a derivation first 
proposed by d'Ohsson, from the Turkish mengii in 
the sense of "Eternal [God]" and birti (for birdi) 
"[he] gave"; but this etymology is now discredited. 
Muhammad had originally designated his youngest 
son, Kutb al-Din Uzlagh-Shah, as his successor, but 
shortly before his death on an island in the Caspian 
Sea had altered his will in favour of Djalal al-DIn. 
The princes, who had remained in attendance on their 
father throughout his flight, now left the island and 
landing on the Manklshlak Peninsula made their way 
to Gurgandj [q.v.], which they reached some little time 
before its investment by the Mongols. The discovery 
of a plot against his life caused Djalal al-DIn to 
leave the capital almost immediately and to make for 
the territories formerly allotted to him by his father 
and corresponding more or less to the modern 
Afghanistan. The Mongols had posted observation 
parties along the nothern frontiers of Khurasan but 
Djalal al-Din succeeded in breaking through this 
cordon and reaching Ghazna, where he found himself 
at the head of a heterogeneous force of some 60,000 
Turks, Kh"arazmls and Ghurls. At Parwan to the 
north-east of Carikar he inflicted upon a Mongol 



DJALAL al-DIN KH-ARAZM-SHAH — DJALAL al-DIN ROMl 



army the only serious defeat that the invaders 
suffered during the whole campaign. However, 
deserted on the very battlefield by almost half of 
his followers he was obliged to retreat southwards 
pursued by Cingiz-Khan in person at the head of the 
main Mongol army. He was overtaken on the banks 
of the Indus and after offering desperate resistance 
(8 Shawwal 618/24 November 1221) escaped to 
safety by riding his horse into the river and swimming 
to the farther side. After a successful expedition 
against a petty radja in the Salt Range Djalal took 
the field against Nasir al-DIn Kubaca [q.v.], the 
ruler of Sind, and sought in vain to form an alliance 
with Sultan Shams al-DIn Iletmish [q.v.] of Dihll. 
He remained nearly three years in India and then 
decided to make his way to c Irak-i 'Adjam, where 
his brother Ghiyath al-DIn had now established 
himself. In 621/1224 he appeared in Kirman, where 
Burak Hadjib [q.v.] had seized power. Djalal al-DIn 
found it expedient to confirm him in his usurped 
authority before continuing his journey to Fare, 
where he stayed only long enough to marry a daughter 
of the Atabeg Sa c d [q.v.], and to c Irak-i 'Adjam, where 
he was at once successful in dispossessing his brother. 
The winter of 621-2/1224-5 he passed in Khuzistan. 
his troops colliding with the forces of the Caliph al- 
Nasir. He then proceeded to attack and overthrow 
the Atabeg Oz-Beg [q.v.] of Adharbaydjan, whose 
capital Tabriz he entered on 17 Radjab 622/25 July 
1225. From Adharbaydjan he invaded the territory 
of the Georgians capturing Tiflis on Rabl c I 623/9 
March 1226. Here he received a report that Burak 
Hadjib had risen in revolt, and he travelled, according 
to Djuwayni, from the Caucasus to the borders of 
Kirman in the space of 17 days. Returning to the 
west he laid siege, on 15 Dhu '1-Ka c da 623/7 Novem- 
ber 1226, to the town of Akhlat [q.v.] in the territory 
of al-Ashraf [q.v.] but was obliged to raise the siege 
almost immediately owing to the severe cold. In the 
following year the Mongols reappeared in Central 
Persia and Djalal al-Din engaged them in a great 
battle before the gates of Isfahan. The result was a 
Pyrrhic victory for the invaders who at once retreated 
northwards and had soon withdrawn beyond the 
Oxus. After another campaign against the Georgians 
Djalal al-DIn again, in Shawwal 626/August 1229, 
laid siege to Akhlat. With the fall of the town in 
Djumada I 627/April 1230 he found himself involved 
in war with the combined forces of al-Ashraf and 
Kay-Kubad I [q.v.], the Sultan of Rum. Defeated 
in the battle of Arzindjan (28 Ramadan 627/10 
August 1230) he withdrew into Adharbaydjan and 
had no sooner concluded peace with his opponents 
than he was threatened with the approach of new 
Mongol armies under the command of Cormaghun. 
A Mongol force overtook him in the Mughan Steppe 
and he fled first to Akhlat and then to the vicinity 
of Amid. Here the Mongols made a night attack in 
his encampment (middle of Shawwal 628/17 August 
1231): roused from a drunken sleep he made off in 
the direction of Mayyafarikln and met his death in 
a nearby Kurdish village, where he was murdered for 
reasons either of gain or of revenge. The ruler of 
Amid recovered his body and gave it burial, but 
many refused to believe that he was dead, and time 
and again, in the years that followed, pretenders 
would arise claiming to be Sultan Djalal al-DIn. 
Bibliography: Nasawl, Histoire du Sultan 
Djelal ed-Din Mankobirti, ed. and transl. O. 
Houdas, 2 vols., Paris 1891-5; Djuzdjanl, The 
Tabaqdt-i-Ndsiri, transl. H. G. Raverty, London 
1881; Djuwayni, The history of the world- 



conqueror, transl. J. A. Boyle, 2 vols., Manchester 
1958; Barthold, Turkestan; V. Minorsky, Studies 
in Caucasian history, London 1953; H. L. Gott- 
schalk, A I- Malik al-KS.mil von Egypten und seine 
Zeit, Wiesbaden 1958; I. Kafesoglu, Harezmsahlar 
devleti tarihi, Ankara 1956. (J. A. Boyle) 

DJALAL AL-DiN rCm! - - 



SUL-I 



' Wal 



, Hu< 



KhatIbI, known by the sobriquet Mawlana (Mevlana), 
Persian poet and founder of the Mawlawiyya order 
of dervishes, which was named after him, was born 
on Rabl c I 604/30 September 1207 in Balkh, and died 
on 5 Djumada II 672/1273 in Konya. The reasons put 
forward against the above-mentioned date of birth 
(Abdiilbaki Gblpinarh, Mevldnd Celdleddin 3 , 44; 
idem, Mevldnd Sams-i Tabrizi He altmis iki yasmda 
bulustu, in Sarkiyat Mecmuasi, iii, 153-61 ; and Bir 
yazi iizerine, in Tarih Cogra/ya Diinyasi, ii/12, 1959, 
468) are not valid. His father, whose sermons have 
been preserved and printed (Ma'-drif. Madimu'-a-i 
mawdHz wa sukhandn-i Sultan al-'ulama* Baha? al- 
Din Muhammad b. Husayn-i Khatibi-i Balkhi 
mashhur ba-Bahd'-i Walad, ed. Badl c al-Zaman 
Furuzanfarr, Tehran 1333), was a preacher in Balkh. 
The assertions that his family tree goes back to Abu 
Bakr, and that his mother was a daughter of the 
Kh w arizmshah 'Ala' al-DIn Muhammad (AflakI, i, 
8-9) do not hold on closer examination (B. Furuzanfarr, 
Mawldnd Djalal al-Din, Tehran 131 5, 7; 'Allnaki 
Sharl c atmadarl, Nakd-i matn-i mathnawi, in Yaghmd, 
xii (1338), 164; Ahmad AflakI, Ariflerin menkibeleri, 
trans. Tahsin Yazici, Ankara 1953, i, Onsoz, 44). 
According to the biographical sources, he left Balkh 
because of a dispute with the Kh w arizmshah C A15 3 
al-DIn Muhammad and his protege Fakhr al-DIn al- 
RazI (d. 606/1209-10) and, when his son Djalal al-DIn 
was five years old (AflakI, ed. Yazici, i, 161), i.e., in 
609/1212-3, emigrated to the west. In fact the sermons 
of Baha' al-DIn contain attacks on the Kh"arizmshah 
and the above-named religious philosopher. But 
according to the same book of sermons, he was in 
Wakhsh between 600/1203 and 607/121 1, and in 
Samarkand in 609/1212-3 (Ma'arif. ed. Furuzanfarr, 
Mukaddima, 37 and Fihi md Fih, ed. Furuzanfarr, 
173 respectively). He must, however, have returned 
from Samarkand to Balkh, as according to the 
sources the emigration took place from there. The 
date of 609/1212-3 for the emigration is in any case too 
early (Isl. xxvi, 117 ff.). As according to AflakI he 
arrived in Malatya only in 614/1217, one may 
perhaps assume that he emigrated in 614/1217 or the 
year before. Whether his quarrel with the Kh w arizm- 
shah was connected with the latter's hostile attitude 
towards the Caliph in Baghdad cannot be settled, 
but would be possible. In 616/1219 Baha' al-DIn was 
in Sivas, stayed for some four years in Akshehir near 
Erzindjan, went to Larende, probably in 619/1222, 
and stayed there for seven years. In Larende there 
is the tomb of Mawlana's mother, Mu'mina Khatun 
(Azmi Avcioglu, Karaman'da mader-i Mevldnd cdmi 
ve turbesi, in Konya dergisi, v, no. 35, 2088). Baha' 
al-DIn married his son in Larende to Djawhar 
Khatun, the daughter of Sharaf al-DIn Laia. 

In the year 626/1228, at the request of the Saldjuk 
Prince c Ala' al-Din Kaykubad, the family moved to 
Konya, where Baha' al-Din Walad died on 18 Rabl c 
II 628/1231 (AflakI, i, 32, 56). A year after his death 
Sayyid Burhan al-DIn Muhakkik, an old pupil of 
his, came to Konya to visit his former master, but 
found that he was no longer alive. Djalal al-Din 
became a tnurid of Sayyid Burhan al-Din until the 
latter's death nine years later. Burhan al-Din, 



394 



DJALAL al-DIN ROMI 



however, withdrew to Kayseri after some time and 
died there, probably in 637/1239-40. His tomb is in 
Kayseri. According to Aflaki, Djalal al-DIn went to 
Aleppo and Damascus after the arrival of the Sayyid 
to complete his studies. Burhan al-Dln is supposed to 
have made him aware (hat his father possessed, 
besides exoteric learning, other learning that could 
be won not through study but through inner ex- 
perience. After the death of Burhan al-Din Djalal 
al-Din was alone for five years. On 26 Djumada II 
642/1244 the wandering dervish Shams al-DIn 
Muhammad Tabrizi came to Konya and put up in 
the khan of the sugar-merchants. Djalal al-DIn met 
and talked to him; Shams asked him about the 
meaning of a saying of Bayazld BistamI, Djalal al-DIn 
gave the answer. According to Aflaki, Djalal al-DIn 
had already seen Shams once in Damascus (Furu- 
zaniar, Mawlana, 65-6). However that may be, the 
appearance of Shams-i Tabrizi made a decisive 
change in the life of Mawlana. In the Sufi manner 
he fell in love with the dervish and took him into his 
home. It will be possible to say something about 
Shams's remarkable personality only when his 
collected sayings, the Makdldt, have been edited. He 
constantly wore a black cap (kuldh) and because of 
his restless wandering life was called paranda "the 
flier". Although, as his Makdldt show, he had the 
usual theological conceptions of his time, he tried to 
keep Mawlana away from the study of books. It 
seems from his sayings that he had a certain blunt- 
ness of character. Shams-i Tabrizi is called in the 
sources sultan al-ma'shukin, "prince of the loved 
ones", and Mawlana's son Sultan Walad, who knew 
Shams well, and was aware of the relationship Shams 
had with his father, develops in the Ibtiddndma a 
theory that there is another class of "lovers who have 
reached the goal" ( l dshikdn-i wdsil) besides the 
"perfect saints" (awliyd'-i kdmil). Beyond these 
there is a further stage (makdm), that of the "be- 
loved" (ma'shuk). Until Shams appeared nobody 
had heard anything about this stage, and Shams had 
reached it. Shams showed Mawlana this way of 
Sufi love, and Mawlana had to re-learn everything 
from him. Mawlana's love for Shams-i Tabrizi 
turned him into a poet, but at the same time caused 
him to neglect his murlds and disregard everyone 
but Shams. The murids were angered by this and 
maintained that they were more important than the 
foreign, unknown dervish and are even said to have 
threatened Shams's life. Thereupon Shams fled on 
21 Shawwal 643/n March 1246 to Damascus. But the 
murids did not achieve their end. Mawlana was quite 
disconcerted, and sent his son Sultan Walad to 
Damascus. Shams could not resist the spoken 
entreaties of Sultan Walad and the written poetical 
entreaties of Mawlana, and returned on foot with 
Sultan Walad to Konya. But at once the murids 
began to murmur again and took pains to keep 
Shams away from Mawlana. Shams is said to have 
declared that he would now disappear for ever and 
no-one would be able to find him again. On 5 Sha'ban 
645/5 December 1247 Shams was murdered with the 
participation of Sultan Walad's brother c Ala> al-DIn, 
or at his instigation, and the corpse was thrown into 
a well and later found and buried by Sultan Walad. 
It seems that his coffin has been discovered in the 
latest repairs done on the burial-place in Konya, 
(A. Golpinarli, Mevldnd Celdleddin', 83). It is under- 
standable that Sultan Walad says nothing of this 
murder in the Ibtiddndma, not wanting to make the 
family scandal public. Shams's death was obviously 
kept from the Mawlana, as he went to Damascus 



twice to look for him. His spiritual condition is 
depicted in touching verses by Sultan Walad 
(Waladnama 56-7) : he became all the more a poet, 
devoted himself to listening to music and to dancing 
{samd 1 ) to an extent that even his son obviously 
felt was immoderate, and found the lost Shams in 
himself. In most of his ghazals the takhallus is not his 
own name, but that of his mystic lover. 

Shams had, however, flesh and blood successors. 
In the year 647/1249 Mawlana announced that 
Shams had appeared to him again in the form of one 
of his murids, Salah al-DIn Zarkub of Konya. He 
appointed the goldsmith, who was illiterate but 
distinguished by his handsomeness and pleasant 
character, as khalaf, and thus as the superior of the 
other murids. He himself wanted to retire from the 
offices of shavkh and preacher. The murids found that 
Shams al-Din, the Tabriz!, had been more bearable 
than the uncultured goldsmith's apprentice from 
Konya, whom they had known from childhood. 
Plans were even made to murder him, and then 
revealed. The murids noticed that Mawlana threatened 
to desert them completely, and they asked remorse- 
fully for forgiveness. We may assume that the loyal 
attitude of Sultan Walad himself and the modest, 
pleasant personality of Salah al-DIn helped to sur- 
mount this second crisis. For ten years Salah al-Din 
filled the office of a deputy (nd'ib and khalifa), then 
he became ill and died, according to the inscription 
on his sarcophagus, on 1 Muharram 657/29 December 
1258 (A. Golpinarli, Mevldnd'dan sonra Mevlevilik, 
355). His successor, Celebi Husam al-DIn Hasan, whose 
family came from Urmiya, was to be the inspirer of 
the Mathnawl. Husam al-Din's father was the chief 
of the akhis in Konya and the surrounding districts 
and so was known as Akhi Turk. Husam al-DIn lived 
with Mawlana for ten years until the latter's death on 
6 Djumada II 672/18 December 1273; his appointment 
as Shaykh must therefore fall approximately in the 
year 662/1263-4, and there must therefore be five 
years between the death of his predecessor and his 
own taking office (according to this the statement 
in Isl. xxvi, 124-5, should be corrected). After 
Mawlana's death Husam al-DIn offered the office ot 
Khalifa to Sultan Walad, the son of the master, who, 
however, declined. Husam al-DIn died in 683/1283. 

On the people's insistence Sultan Walad now 
accepted the title of Shaykh and held it until his 
death on 10 Radjab 712/1312. He was followed by his 
son Ulu c Arif Celebi (d. 719/1319). followed by his 
brother 'Abid Celebi, followed by his brother Wadjid 
Celebi (d. 742/1341-2). A list of the Celebis to the 
present day can be found in A. Golpinarli, Mevldnd'dan 
sonra Mevlevilik, 152-3, and in Tahsin Yazici's trans- 
lation of the Mandkib al-'-drifin, ii, 62-6 of the Onsoz. 

The real history of the order begins with Sultan 
Walad. He founded the first branches of the order 
and helped it to gain greater respect. Already in the 
lifetime of Mawlana the members of the order had the 
title Mawlawl (Aflaki, i, 1, 334). At first they were 
recruited from among artisans, which gave offence 
(Aflaki i, 151). The central part of the religious 
practices was held by listening to music, and dancing, 
which were indeed usual among other orders, but 
never had the greatest importance, as with the 
Mawlawls. The dance ceremony in the regular, 
solemn form which is usual later, was, as Golpinarli 
has proved, first introduced by PIr c Adil Celebi 
(d. 864/1460) (Mevldnd'dan sonra Mevlevilik, 99- 
100). On this ceremony cf. H. Ritter, Der Reigen der 
tanzenden Derwische, in Zeitschrift fUr vergleichende 
Musikwissenschaft, i; A. Golpinarli, Mevldnd'dan 



DJALAL al-DIN ROMl 



395 



sonra, 370-89, and Mevlevt dytnleri (Istanbul kon- 
servatuan nesriyati, Turk Klasiklerinden VI-XV 
cild) 1933-9 publ. by Istanbul Music Conservatoire. 
Mawlana's piety and thought have not yet been 
the object of a thorough examination. Anyone 
undertaking such an examination would have to 
take care not to rely too much on the Mathnawi 
commentaries, which read into the work the views 
of their own time or their personal views. Also the 
Diwdn of Mawlana has only now become available 
in a critical edition, so that the examination can 
really begin. According to A. Golpmarli, himself a 
former Mawlawl dervish, the Mawlawis do not 
regard their order as a Sufi order in the strict sense. 
Golpmarli is inclined to connect the order with 
the Malamatiyya movement from Khurasan. Even in 
reading the sermons of Mawlana's father one notices 
a gladness praised there which reminds one of the 
"merriness of hearts" (tibat al-kulub) of the Kalan- 
dariyya, who are related to the Malamatiyya (cf. 
Ritter in Oriens, viii, 360 and xii, 15). Some of the 
Celebis lived like Kalandar dervishes, as Ulu c Arif 
Celebi, and still more his brother c Abid Celebi, and 
the Diwane, Mehmed Celebi, who was used in the 
expansion of the order (Golpmarli, Mevldnd'dan 
sonra, 101-22). But of course this does not prove 
anything for Mawlana himself. He appears to have 
been of a philanthropic, anything but fanatical, 
strongly emotional type, to judge from the countless 
love-poems in the Diwdn, easily inflamed, inclined 
to work off his excitement in the dance. Whether his 
religious ideas possess anything original besides the 
general mystical piety of his time, will have to be 
shown by the analysis of his works, which are : 

1) The Diwdn, containing ghazals and quatrains. 
There are also Greek and Turkish verses in this, the 
presence of which shows a certain connexion with 
sections of the common folk and also with the non- 
Muslim elements of the Konya population. His 
takhallus is "Khamush". This, however, is usually 
replaced with the name of Shams-i Tabriz. In some 
ghazah Salah al-Din also appears as the takhallus. 
Former impressions and editions of the Diwdn have 
now been superseded by the good edition of Badi c 
al-Zaman FurQzanfar, Kulliydt-i Shams yd Diwdn-i 
kabir, mushtamil bar kasdHd wa ghazaliyydt wa 
mukatta'-dt-i fdrsi wa c arabi wa tardji'-dt wa mulam- 
ma'-dt az guftdr-i Mawlana Djaldl al-Din Muhammad 
mashhur ba-Mawlawi, Tehran 1336 ff., of which so 
far three volumes have appeared. Complete Turkish 
translation by 'Abdiilbaki Golpmarli, Mevldnd 
Celdleddin, Divdn-i kebir, Istanbul 1957 ff. So far 
three volumes have appeared. Of earlier selections 
and translations the following are still important : R. 
A. Nicholson, Selected poems from the Divdni Shamsi 
Tabriz, edited and translated with an introduction, 
notes and appendices, Cambridge 1898 ; S. Bogdanov, 
The Quatrains of Jaldlu-d-din Rumi and two hitherto 
unknown manuscripts, in JASB, 1935, i, 65-80. 

2) Mathnawi-i ma'-nawi. Didactic poetical work 
in double verses, in six da/tars. (The seventh daftar 
supposedly discovered by Riisukhi Isma'il Dede is 
spurious). The long poem was inspired by Husam 
al-Din Celebi, who suggested to Mawlana that he 
should produce something like the religious math- 
nawis of SanSI and 'Attar. Mawlana is supposed to 
have at once pulled the famous eighteen verses of 
the introduction out of his turban already written. 
The rest he dictated to Husam al-Din. The date 
when the work was begun is not known. We know 
only that between the first and second daftar was 
a pause of two years, caused by the death of Husam 



al-DIn's wife. The second daftar was started in 
662/1263-4, as the poet says himself (ii, 7). Mawlana 
dictated his verse whenever it occurred to him, 
dancing, in the bath, standing, sitting, walking, 
sometimes in the night until morning. Then Husam 
al-Din read out what was written and the necessary 
corrections were made. The whole is composed very 
informally and without any thought of a well- 
planned structure. Thoughts hang together in free 
association, the interspersed stories are often inter- 
rupted and continued much later on. (On the style, 
cf. Nicholson's edition, 8-13 and the preface to 
Golpinarh's translation). The classic edition is that 
of R. A. Nicholson, The Mathnawi of Jeldlu'ddin 
Rumi, edited from the oldest manuscripts available; 
with critical notes, translations and commentary, 
London 1924-40 (GMS, vi, 1-8). Latest Turkish 
translation: Mevlana, Mesnevi, Veled Izbudak 
tarafindan tercume edilmis, Abdiilbaki Golpmarli 
taraftndan muhtelif serhlerle karsilastmlmis ve esere 
bir acilma Have edilmistir, Istanbul 1942 ff. The 
fourth edition is now in the press. On European 
translations before Nicholson cf. his edition ii-xv; 
on Urdu translations cf. Catalogue of the library of 
the India Office, ii, vi, Persian Books, by A. J. 
Arberry, London 1937, 301-4. The best known 
earlier printed Turkish commentaries and trans- 
lations are: Ankarali Isma'il Riisukhi, Fdtih al* 
Abydt, Istanbul 1289, six volumes; Bursal! Isma'il 
Hakki, Ruh al-Mathnawi (Commentary on one part 
of the first daftar) Istanbul 1287; Sari 'Abdallah 
Efendi (to the first daftar) Istanbul 1288, five 
volumes; translation in verse by Nahlfi, Cairo 1268; 
'Abidin Pasha, Istanbul 1887-8, six volumes. On 
the commentaries and translations written and 
printed in Iran and India, and the earliest oriental 
editions cf. Nicholson, Introduction to i, 16-18; vii, 
Introduction 11-12 and the above-mentioned cata- 
logue by Arberry, 301-4. On the Tehran edition of 
'Ala al-Din cf. 'Allnaki Shari'atmadari, in Nakd-i 
matn-i Mathnawi, in Yaghma, xii, 1338. On the 
sources of the stories in the Mathnawi; Badi' al- 
Zaman Furuzanfarr, Md'dkhidh-i kasas wa-tamthildt-i 
Mathnawi, Tehran 1333 (see Oriens, viii, 356-8); on 
the hadiths quoted in the Mathnawi: idem, Ahddith-i 
Mathnawi mushtamil bar mawdridi ki Mawlana dar 
Mathnawi az ahddith istifdde karde ast bd dhikr-i 
wudiuh-i riwdyat wa ma'dkhidh-i dnhd, Tehran 1334. 

3) Fihi ma fih. Collection of Mawlana's sayings. 
(The title comes from a verse of Ibn al- c Arabi). Cf. 
R. A. Nicholson, The Table Talk of Jalalu'ddin 
Rumi, in Centenary Supplement to the JRAS, 1924, 
1-8. Edition by Badi' al-Zaman Furuzanfarr, Tehran 
1330. Turkish translation: Mevlana Celaleddin, Fihi 
md fih. Ceviren, tahlilini yapan, aciklamasini hazir- 
layan Abdiilbaki Gblpinarh, Istanbul 1959. 

4) MawdHz macdlis-i sab c a. Mavldnd'nin 7 
bgiidiidiir. Diizelten Ahmed Remzi Akyiirek, miitercimi 
Rizeli Hasan Efendi-Oglu, Istanbul 1937. 

5) Maktubdt. Mevldnd'mn mektuplart. Diizelten 
Ahmed Remzi Akyiirek, Istanbul 1937. Also Sere- 
feddin Yaltkaya in Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi, 1939, vi, 
323-45; Fuad Kopriilii, in Belleten 1943, vii, 416. 

Bibliography: H. Ritter, Philologika XI. 
Mauldna Galdl-addin Rumi und sein Kreis, in Isl., 
xxvi, 1942. (Life. Sources for biography, manu- 
scripts of the works along with the works of his 
father, his son, and of Shams-i Tabriz!). The most 
important biographical sources are: Sultan Walad, 
Ibtiddndma, publ. by Djalal Humal, Waladndme, 
Mathnawi-i Waladi bd tashih wa mukaddima, 
Tehran 1315; Farldun b. Ahmad SipahsSlar, 



DJALAL al-DIN ROMI 



Risdla-i Sipahsdldr. Latest edition: Shams al-DIn 
Ahmad al-Aflaki al- c Arifi, Mandkib al-'drijin, ed. 
Tahsin Yazici, i, Ankara 1959. (Turk Tarih 
Kurumu Yayinlanndan.) 

Translations: CI. Huart, Us saints des 
dervisches tourneurs. Recits traduits du persan et 
annotis, 2 vols., Paris 1918 and 1922 (unreliable); 
Tahsin Yazici, Ahmet Efldkt, Ariflerin menkibeleri 
(Mandkib al-'-drijin), 2 vols., Ankara 1953 and 1954 
(Diinya Edebiyatindan Terciimeler. Sark-Islam 
Klasikleri: 26). On the value of the work as an 
historical source cf . CI. Huart, De la valeur historique 
des memoires des dervisches tourneurs, in J A 1922, 
19, 308-17; Fuad Koprulu, in Belleten, 1943, 422 if. 

Portrayals: Bad!' ai-Zaman Furuzanfarr, 
Mawldnd Djalal al-Din Muhammad mashhur ba- 
Mawlawi, Teheran 1315-17; H. Ritter, article 
Celaleddin Rumi in lA. (On other portrayals see 
Mawlawi c Abd al-Muktadir, Catalogue o) the 
Arabic and Persian manuscripts in the Oriental 
Public Library at Bankipore, Calcutta 1908, i, 
630); Konya halkevi kultiir dergisi, Mevldna ozel 
sayisi, Istanbul 1943; Abdulbaki Gblpmarh, 
Mevldnd Celaleddin. Hayati, Felsejesi, Eserleri, 
Eserlerinden secmeler 3 , Istanbul 1959; idem, 
Mevldnd' dan sonra Mevlevilik, Istanbul 1953; 
idem, Konya'da Mevldna Dergahimn Arsivi, in 
Istanbul Vniversitesi Iktisat Fakultesi Mecmuasx, 

On the meaning of the eighteen introductory 

verses of the Mathnawi: Ahmed Ates, Mesnevi'nin 

onsekiz beytinin rmnas%, inFuad Kopriilii Armagam, 

Istanbul 1953, 37-50. On Mawlana's Turkish 

verses: Mecdut Mansuroglu, Caldladdin Rumi 

Turkische Verse, in Ural-Altaische Jahrbiicher, 

xxiv, 1952, 106-15; idem, Mevldna Celaleddin 

Rumi'de Tiirkce beiyit ve ibareler, in Turk Dili 

Arashrmalari Yilhgi, Belleten 1954, 207-20. On 

the Greek verses of Mawlana and Sultan Walad; 

P. Burguiere and R. Mantran, Quelques vers grecs 

du XIII s siecle en caracteres arabes, in Byzantion, 

xxii, 1952, 63-80. (H. Ritter) 

ii) It is not easy to summarize systematically the 

main lines of Djalal al-DIn's thought. He was not a 

philosopher (in his works there are often attacks 

against the vacuity of purely intellectual philosophy) 

and claimed not to be a classical poet (both in the 

Diwdn and the Mathnawi he proclaims his dislike for 

rhymes and poetical artifices) but above all he was a 

passionate lover of God who expressed his feelings in 

a poetically unorthodox, volcanic way, thus creating 

a style which is unique in the entire Persian literature. 

Historically, influences on him by the religious and 

philosophical thought of Ghazzall, Ibn c Arabi, Sana'I, 

and c Attar have been traced. The importance of 

the influence of Ibn c ArabI on him has been perhaps 

exaggerated. The following account outlines as shortly 

as possible some of the main trends in Djalal al-DIn's 

thought. Quotations from the Mathnawi are from 

Nicholson's edition mentioned in Bibliography. 

God : The absolute transcendence of God seems 
conceived not only spatially and intellectually but 
even morally. God is Himself the Absolute Value, 
Good and Evil being relative to Him and both at 
His orders (ii, 2617 ff.). Reality is ordered in four 
"spaces": the Realm of Nothingness, of Phantasy, 
of Existence, of Senses and Colours (ii, 3092-7). God 
is beyond Nothingness and Being, He works in the 
Nothingness, which is His Workshop (ii, 688-90; ii, 
760-2; iv, 2341-83). In this sense is difficult to speak 
of a real "pantheism" in Djalal al-DIn: in any case 
s totally foreign to his turn of mind. 



Creation: Djalal al-DIn seems to accept the 
Ash'arl idea of the discontinuity of time and creation. 
God creates and destroys all in discontinuous atoms 
of time (i, 1140-8). He creates things murmuring 
enchanting words in their ears while they are still 
asleep in the Nothingness (i, 1447-55). 

The World : The non-human World is something 
created by God in preparation for the creation of 
Man. Nature is a hint of God: every tree that 
germinates from the dark earth extending its 
branches towards the sun is a symbol of the liberation 
of Spirit from Matter (i, 1335-6; 1342-8). Creation 
has been however progressive. In a famous passage 
(v, 3637 ff.) Djalal al-DIn sketches a theory of 
mystical evolution (not to be mistaken for a scien- 
tific and Darwinistic evolution). The emergence of 
Man (who always remained Man, even in his former 
stages of development) from the animal kingdom is 
a first step indicating further journeys to the realms 
of the Angels and of the Godhead. 

Man: Man is not simply a compound of body and 
soul. The human compound is formed by a body, his 
manifest part, a deeper soul (ruh, ijiu/T]), a still more 
concealed mind ( c akl) and, even deeper, a ruh-i wahy 
(spirit partaking of Revelation) present only in Saints 
and Prophets (ii, 3253 ff.). Djalal al-DIn's spiritual 
anthropology' does not accept an indiscriminate 
possibility for every one to reach the highest stages 
of sanctity. Prophets and Saints are "different" from 
ordinary men. In a very interesting passage Djalal 
al-Din shows the pragmatic utility of bowing in 
veneration to the Holy Men: it is the only way of 
breaking the ever-reappearing humanistic pride and 
superbity of Man (ii, 811 ff.). 

God speaks through the mouth of the "man of 
God". The Prophet, the Holy Man is the manifest 
sign of the Unity of God, he is above the normal 
human standards (i, 225-7). 

Ethics: Djalal al-DIn is far from speaking the 
language of modern "liberal" religious thinkers. The 
exterior practices of worship are binding for all. The 
reason given for this is also of a typically Muslim 
pragmatic character: the exterior rites are useful, 
like the presents of a lover to his Beloved. If Love were 
purely a spiritual thing why should God have created 
the material World? (i, 2624ft.). On the problem 
of freedom and destiny he acutely remarks that there 
is a great difference between the momentaneous act 
of God (sun') and the result of that act (masnu'), 
between kada? (the act of deciding or predestining) 
and makdi (the predestined thing). One has to love the 
sun' of God, not his masnu' like an idolater (iii, 1360- 
73). When his spiritual eyes are open, man recognizes 
that he is, at the same time, totally "operated" and 
moved by God (i, 598 ff.) and totally free, of a 
freedom unmeasurably above the petty freedoms of 
ordinary men (i, 936-9). To reach this deeper freedom 
in God, efforts and action (kushish) are necessary (i, 
1074-7). Perfect examples of this supreme freedom 
are the Saints and the Prophets (i, 635-7). 

Life after death: The nearness to God in the 
worlds beyond is never felt by Djalal al-Din as a real 
absorption in God without any residue. The metaphors 
he uses to express /and' in an interesting passage of the 
Mathnawi (iii, 3669 ff.) are for instance the following: 
the flame of the candle in the presence of the sun 
(but yet the candle exists and "if you put cotton 
upon it, the cotton will be consumed by the sparks") 
or a deer in presence of a lion, or, elsewhere, as 
red-hot iron in the fire, when iron takes the properties 
of fire without losing its own individual essence. In 
that state it can claim to be fire as well as iron. The 



DJALAL al-DIN rPmI — DJALALl 



soul near God becomes then one "according to whose 
desire the torrents and rivers flow, and the stars move 
in such wise as He wills" (iii, 1885 ff.). In another 
passage Djalal al-DIn tells of a lover who, as he 
reached the presence of his Beloved, died and "the 
bird, his spirit, flew out of his body" for "God is 
such that, when He comes, there is not a single hair 
of thee remaining" (iii, 4616, 4621). What an 
encouraging idea for a pantheist! But Djalal al-DIn 
is always ready to surprise us with some coup-de- 
scene. So the real end of the story is told some lines 
further, under the heading: "How the Beloved 
caressed the senseless lover that he might return to 
his senses" (iii, 4677 ff.). Djalal al-DIn goes even so 
far as to admit an element of activity in the 
otherworldly plane, so that the highest degree in the 
life of spirit "is not attainment but infinite aspiration 
after having attained": ". . . there is a very occult 
mystery here in the fact that Moses set out to run 
towards a Khidr . . . This Divine Court is the Infinite 
Plane. Leave the seat of honour behind: the Way 
is thy seat of honour!" (iii, 1957 ff.). 

Djalal al-DIn Rumi's style: The style of the 
ghazals of Djalal al-DIn's Diwan is conditioned by 
the fact that many of them were "sung" by the poet 
himself or were destined to be sung. A well known 
tradition shows us Djalal al-DIn improvising odes 
while gently dancing around a pillar in his school, 
and another story tells how he found one of his 
beloved pupils and companions, the already men- 
tioned goldsmith Salah al-DIn Zarkub, while 
listening enraptured, in a street, to the rhythmic 
beat of his goldsmith's hammer. His powerful sense 
of rhythm is not always accompanied by equal 
attention to the strict rules of classical quantitative 
Persian poetry. He often complains against metres 
("muftaHlun muftaHlun muftaHlun killed me!") and 
more than one verse both in his Diwan and in his 
Mathnawi shows strong irregularities. In his diwan 
two styles can be distinguished, a "singing" and a 
"didactic" style. Often some ghazals begin in the 
former (strong rhythm, double rhymes etc.) to pass 
slowly into the second or vice versa. In the Mathnawi, 
which is a single uninterrupted discourse, where the 
Speaker is often drawn by a word or a casual con- 









anecdotes and sub-anecdotes, three styles 
distinguished. The purely "narrative" style; at the 
end, or during the telling of a story, however, com- 
ments are introduced in a "didactic" style. Here 
and there, either in the context of a story or of its 
comment, the author seems to be suddenly taken 
away as by rapture and then he uses his "ecstatic" 
style, in which some of the best verses of the Math- 
nawi are composed. Both the narrative and the 
didactic styles are of a remarkable simplicity and 
colloquialness, almost unique in the Persian literature 
of that time. Elements of colloquial language 
penetrate sometimes even into the more refined 
language of the ghazals and of the "ecstatic" style 
of the Mathnawi. We have even some verses of 
Djalal al-DIn containing a few words and sentences 
in colloquial Greek. Because of its strongly personal 
features Djalal al-DIn's style found practically no 
imitators, but it is highly — and rightly — valued by 
modern Persians (even by those who do not fully 
agree with his mystical views) and perhaps exerted 
a certain influence in the movement of simplification 
and modernization of Persian literature begun in 
the past century. 

Bibliography : To the bibliography above add: 
Life: AflakI, Mandkib aW-arijin, is partly trans- 



lated in the Introduction to J. W. Redhouse, The 
Mesnevi ... of Mevldnd . . . Jeldlu 'd-Din, 
Muhammed, er-Rumi. Book the first . . . translated 
and the poetry versified, London 1881, 1-135; 
Badl c al-Zaman Furuzan-farr, Risdla dar tahkik-i 
ahwdl wa zindagdni-i Mawldnd Djalal al-Din 
Muhammad, Tehran 1315 s., 2nd ed. 1333 s. 
Books on Djalal al-Din: G. Richter, Persiens 
Mystiker Dscheldl-eddin Rumi, Breslau 1933; 
Khalifa Abdul Hakim, The metaphysics of Rumi, 
Lahore n.d. ; R. A. Nicholson, Rumi: poet and 
mystic, ed. A. J. Arberry, London 1950; Afzal 
Iqbal, The life and thought of Rumi, Lahore 1956. 

(A. Bausani) 
DJALAL al-DIN TABRIZ! [see tabrizi, djalal 

AL-DlN]. 

DJALAL al-DIN THANESARI [see thanesari, 

DJALAL flUSAYN CELEBI (Celal Huseyin 
Celebi), Turkish poet. He was born in Monastir, the 
son of a sipdhi ( ?-978/i57i ?). As a young man he 
went to Istanbul to study, later wandered in Syria 
where he found protectors through whose help he 
entered the court of prince Sellm, who liked his 
easy manner and gaiety and who kept him at his 
court when he ascended the throne as Selim II. 
Djalal remained a boon-companion of the Sultan 
until he became involved in political intrigues and 
religious controversies; he then had to leave court 
life and returned to his home-town where he died. 
His diwan has not come down to us. Many of his 
poems are collected in most medjmu c as. His only 
surviving book is a small collection of ghazels: 
Husn-i Yusuf, not yet edited. 

Bibliography: The tedhkires of 'Ahdl, c Ashik 
Celebi, Kinali-zade Hasan Celebi, and the biogra- 
phical section in 'All's Kunh al-akhbdr, s.v. 

(Fahjr tz) 
DJALAL NURl [see ii.ERi, celal nurj]. 
DJALAL REDJA'IZADE [see redja'Izade]. 
EsIALALABAD, principal town and admini- 
strative centre of the region of the same name in the 
Kirghiz SSR, situated in the plain of Kongar to the 
extreme south of the essentially mountainous region 
which is a prolongation of the Tian Shan and whose 
mean altitude is from 2000 to 3000 m., the lowest 
regions of the plains being no less than 500 m. This 
former small town, of no economic importance, is 
now a large industrial city supported by the cotton 
production of the hinterland. The urban population 
reflects that of the region, peopled since the remotest 
past by Kirghiz, to whom have been added Uzbeks 
in the southern part, also Tatars, Tadjiks, and 
Russians. (H. Carrere d'Encausse) 

DJALALl (Ta>rikh-i Djaldli), the name of an era 
and also that of a calendar used often in Persia 
and in Persian books and literature from the last 
part of the 5th/nth century onward. The era was 
founded by the 3rd Saldjukid ruler Sultan Malikshah 
b. Alp Arslan (465-85/1072-92) after consultation 
with his astronomers. It was called Djalall after the 
title of that monarch, Djalal al-Dawla (not Djalal 
al-DIn as some later authors supposed). The era was 
also called sometimes Maliki. The epoch of the era 
(i.e., its beginning) was Friday, 9 Ramadan 471/15 
March 1079, when the vernal equinox occurred in 
about 2 h - 6"" Greenwich time (in Isfahan 5 h- 33 m ')- 
The names of the astronomers who helped in the 
matter of the reform of the calendar and advocated 
the institution of the era are given in some sources, 
and include the name of the famous mathematician 
and poet c Umar b. Ibrahim al-Khayyami [?.».]• As 



398 DJA 

he died at least 50 years after the reform, Khayyami, 
if he ever took part in that consultation, must have 
been very young. 

By the term Ta>rikh-i D±alatt is meant a new 
calendar instituted in 467/1075 by the above men- 
tioned sultan Malikshah. This was, as a matter of 
fact, rather a reform of the common Persian calendar 
that had remained in general usage in Iran, side 
by side with the Arabian calendar with lunar year 
and months used by Muslims, after the downfall 
of the Persian empire and the domination of the 
Arabs in Iran in the 7th century A.D. Through 
this reform the Persian vague year of 365 days 
was stabilized and brought into exact agreement 
with the astronomical tropic year of 365V1 days 
(or strictly speaking 365 days 5 hours and about 
49 minutes). This regulation was effected by adding 
one day in every four and sometimes five years to 
the vague year, thus making it 366 instead of 365 
days. This was in a way more or less similar to the 
Julian calendar. 

The Persian year was, from the time of its insti- 
tution probably in the 5th century B.C., a vague 
year of 12 months of 30 days each and five odd days 
(andargdh, Arab, al-mustarafa) added at the end of 
the year as intercalary days. This is believed to have 
been the original order which was re-established 
towards the end of the 4th/ioth century in the great 
part of Persia by one of the Buyid kings of Fars, who 
transferred the epagomenae from the end of Aban 
where they then were, to the end of the 12th month 
where they remained in those parts of the country 
and also with the Zoroastrians of Iran and the Parsis 
of India. As a matter of fact the place of the five 
supplementary or intercalary days, i.e., the above 
mentioned andargdh (the so-called epagomenae) has 
not been always at the end of the year after the 12 th 
month, but they had been periodically advancing in 
the civil year by being moved forward a month every 
120 years. That is to say, after being at first at the 
end of the last month for 120 years, they were moved 
to the end of the first month, where they remained 
for another 120 years, and then they were again 
moved forward and put at the end of the second 
month and so on, until they were brought to the 
end of Aban or the 8th month probably in the 5th 
century A.D. (of course after some 960 years from 
the institution of this process). This periodical and 
regular movement or change of the place of the 
epagomenae in the civil year was a consequence 
of the periodical shifting of the places of the six 
Zoroastrian religious festivals of 5 days each, called 
gdhanbdrs, a whole month forward in the civil year 
once every 120 years, with a view of keeping those 
most important religious feasts fixed in their 
original astronomical places in the tropic year. 

The epagomenae, which were, as a matter of fact, 
the Avestan 5 GaOa days, also constituted one c 
those gdhanbdrs, the sixth one, i.e., the Avesta: 
HatnaspaQmalSaya, and hence it moved in th 
civil year in the same way as the other gdhanbdn 
This operation of shifting forward the gdhanbdrs 
periodically, and consequently the epagomenae 
well, was considered, according to the reports in the 
Muslim books of chronology, as an intercalation of 
one month in the year (in reality in the ecclesiastic 
fix year) carried out by a special process which 
cannot be fully explained in this article. 

The above mentioned periodical operation, 
executed more or less regularly in the pre-Islamic 
ages, ceased to be carried out during the last 
century or the last two centuries of the Sasanid 



period, and was no longer carried out after the 
downfall of that dynasty and the Muslim conquest 
of Iran. Therefore the epagomenae remained, 
as has already been said, at the end of Aban till 
about 1000 A.D. in the southern provinces of 
Persia, and still later in the northern provinces 
of the country e.g., in Mazandaran (and, as I have 
been recently informed, also in the district of 
Sangsar near Simnan) even at the present time. 

The effect of the calendar reform of Malikshah 
was (1) to fix the beginning of the Persian solar 
year in the day of vernal equinox. The New Year 
or the first day of the month Farwardin, through 
the retrogression of the vague year (due to the 
neglect of the quarter of a day which the tropic 
year has in excess to the vague year of 365 days), 
had reached 26 February (Julian) in the year in 
which the reform was decided upon (467 A. H.). It was 
now brought forward to 15 March (Julian), which cor- 
responded in that year to the day of vernal equinox ; 
and (2) to provide a rule for keeping New Year's 
Day always fixed in the same astronomical point of 
time by counting every fourth (or sometimes fifth) 
year 366 days instead of 365. This was, in fact, 
an intercalation of one day every four or five years 
at the end of epagomenae, somewhat similar to that 
effected in the Julian year, where once in every four 
years (leap years) an intercalary day is placed at 
the end of February. 

However, just as the above mentioned inter- 
calation in the Julian calendar did not bring the 
Julian year into exact agreement with the tropic 
year, because the latter is about n minutes (at the 
present rate n minutes and 14.9 seconds) shorter 
than the Julian year, which is 365 and a quarter 
days, the difference amounted to about 45 minutes 
in 4 years or one day in about 128 years, and there- 
fore a further adjustment was found necessary; the 
Pjalali year would have been as imperfect as the 
Julian if the intercalation of one day in the year 
were limited to every fourth year. 

In both calendars a means for eliminating the 
imperfection was elaborated. While in 1582 A.D. 
the Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new arrange- 
ment in the order of the above mentioned four- 
yearly intercalation in the Julian year, by establish- 
ing a rule according to which this intercalation 
would be omitted in the last year of every century 
except in those divisible by 400, such as 1600, 
2000, 2400 A.D. etc., the initiators of the pjalali 
calendar or rather reform made the intercalation of 
one day in the year dependent on the vernal equinox 
occurring in the afternoon of the 366th day, provided 
that it had been in the preceding year before midday. 
The equinox or the exact point of time when the sun 
(in reality the earth) reaches the equinoctial point 
of the ecliptic, which in astronomy is conventionally 
called "the first point of Aries", was the real com- 
mencement of the year. In other words the pjalali 
year, being a solar tropic year, always began on 
the vernal equinox and the exact time of this 
astronomical beginning could be found out every 
year by calculation. Thus the first day of the calendar 
year (civil year), or New Year's Day, was always 
the day on which the sun at midday was already 
in Aries, having entered that sign sometime between 
that point of time and midday of the preceding day. 

Now as a rule every time the equinox occurred in 
the afternoon after having occurred the last time 
(i.e., at the beginning of the preceding year) before 
noon, the year just coming to a close would be a 
leap year, i.e., an intercalation of one day would be 



effected. This happened normally once in every four 
years, when the fourth year was of 366 days instead 
of 365. However, if in a given fourth year when, as 
has been said, an intercalation would normally have 
been due, the equinox did not fall in the afternoon 
but occurred before midday, even though it also 
occurred before noon in the preceding year, such a 
year in spite of the fact that it followed three succes- 
sive common years (of 365 days each) would not 
be a leap or bissextile year and the intercalation 
would be effected only in the next year [i.e., in the 
fifth year). The precise time of this quinquennial or 
five-yearly intercalation was never fixed by a regular 
rule by the reformers. It was left absolutely dependent 
on the result of the astronomical calculation each 
year, that is to say it was to be estimated by deductive 
method. A similar process is followed in the modern 
calendar of Persia instituted in 1925 A.D. It was, 
however, noticed that this case (the postponement 
of intercalation to the fifth year) occurred only after 
some 6 or 7 or 8 quadrennial intercalations. In other 
words some oriental astronomers like Ulugh Beg 
(d. 1449) believed that the quinquennial intercalation 
would follow at times the sixth, and at other times 
the seventh, quadrennial ones, however without 
giving any regular sequence for the alternative 
cycles. Again, other astronomers like Kutb al-DIn 
of Shiraz (d. 1311) put the alternative periods as 
7 and 8. This means that according to the former the 
quinquennial intercalation would fall in the 29th 
(instead of 28th) or 33rd (instead of 32nd) year, and 
according to the latter in 33rd or 37th year. If by 
alternative numbers the regular sequence were 
meant, the first system (that of Ulugh Beg) would 
mean 15 intercalations in 62 years and the second 
(that of Kutb al-DIn) 17 intercalations in 70 years. 
Possibly every author worked out these cycles 
according to his own opinion of the length of the 
tropic year. 

By calculation on the basis of the length of the 
fraction of the day (over 365 days) in the tropic 
year, according to the modern measure, there will be 
still an error of one day in 3844 years in the case of 
15 intercalations in 62 years and in 1470 years in the 
case of 17 intercalations in 70 years. 

Some European scholars, misunderstanding the 
statements of the Oriental authors about the dif- 
ferent cycles and the alternative periods, have 
discussed at length the question as to whether this 
or that cycle was more correct and corresponded to 
what they supposed to be the original plan of 
Malikshah's astronomers. Golius, Weidler, Bailly, 
Montucla, Sedillot, Idler, Matzka, Ginzel and Suter 
have tried to find a more or less plausible solution 
and some of them have proposed formulae based, in 
fact, on their own calculation according to the 
modern opinion as to the length of the tropic year. 
Some of them have even credited the founders of 
the Djalali calendar with such an ingenious system 
as to make the divergence between the Djalali and 
tropic year possible only one day in every 10,000, 
28,000, or even 400,000 years. The truth, however, 
is that as it has already been said, not only was no 
rule ever established by the men responsible for the 
institution of the Djalali calendar for the cycles 
of the quinquennial intercalations, but even their 
own opinion of the length of the tropic year is not 
known with any certainty. Further, in order to find 
out whether the next leap year will be a quadrennial 
or quinquennial, several big cycles are proposed by 
different Oriental astronomers. These theories are 
given with details in an article by the present 



kU 399 

writer in BSOS, x/i, 115-6. They are conjectures 
worked out each according to the length of the tropic 
year in the opinion of its proposer. They have 
nothing to do with the supposed original scheme 
of the founders of the Djalali era and calendar, 
which most probably never existed. Perhaps it is 
not necessary to add that not only were the cal- 
culations of the old astronomers of the Middle Ages 
at variance with each other, but also all of them 
differ from the modern measures of time (year and 
day). Therefore no rule proposed or thought of for 
the sequence of quadrennial and quinquennial inter- 
calations would agree with the result of scientific 
observations of the present day. It is not impossible 
to work out a formula in accordance with the modern 
measures of the tropic year as Riyahi did (see 
bibliography) in his treatise on the subject (in 
Persian). He puts the quinquennial intercalations 
in 440 Djalali years in the 101st, 262nd, and 423rd 
or 68th, 130th, 192nd, 287th, 349th and 411th. But 
owing to the progressive changes in the measures of 
time, the shortening of the day, and so many 
other factors, no plan whatever can be permanently 
entirely correct. It must also be said that what 
astronomers until recent times conventionally con- 
sidered to be the beginning of New Year's Day 
(namely midday), must be now discarded, and mid- 
night (of Greenwich time) should be adopted for the 
beginning of the day. 

The question of whether the reform of Malikshah 
took place in Isfahan, Rayy or Nishapur is not very 
important from the astronomical point of view. 

The Djalali calendar found general usage in the 
greater part of Persia. The famous Persian poet 
Sa'dl used it in his verse about two centuries after 
its institution. In spite of losing ground to a certain 
extent, as a result of the extension of the Arabian 
calendar used generally by Muslims, it is still to-day 
commonly the means of time-reckoning in the 
cental part of Persia, especially by peasants and 
the inhabitants of many towns such as Kashan, 
Yazd, Naln etc. 

The year has 12 months of 30 days each, and five 
days (or 6 days in leap years) following the 12th 
months. A curious phenomena, however, is observed 
in a district, or rather a group of villages, near the 
small town of Natanz in the province of Kashan, 
where the epagomenae follow the eleventh month 
(Bahman) instead of the twelfth. The principal 
place of the district is the village Abiyana. 

The names and length [i.e., 30 days each) of the 
months of the Djalali calendar are the same as those 
of the Persian calendar before the reform. 

This seems to me to be unquestionable. Never- 
theless, according to the famous author Kutb al-DIn 
of Shiraz, some astronomers adopted for the length 
of each month the period of time during which the 
sun remained in the corresponding sign of the zodiac, 
so that the first and second month, corresponding 
to Aries and Taurus, were each of 31 days long, and 
the 3rd month, corresponding to Gemini, 32 days 
and so on. Further, while most of the sources agree 
that the names of the months were the some as 
those of the common Persian year, some authors 
speak of the introduction of new names for the Djalali 
months and even for the days of the month, of both 
of which a list is given by them. This list is to 
be found in a Persian treatise called St fa?l by the 
famous Nasir al-DIn Tusi, and elsewhere. 

Bibliography: ProUgomenes des tables astron. 

d'Oloug Beg (ed. L. A. Sedillot), Paris 1853, 27-31 

and 235, Persian text 309-13; Alfraganus, Ele- 



DJALALI — DJALALZADE SALIH CELEBI 



menta astronomica (ed. J. Golius), Notae, 32-5; 

L. Ideler, Handbuch der mathemat. u. techn. 

Chronologie, Berlin 1826, ii, 512-58; Matzka, Die 

Chronologic in ihrem ganzen Umfang, Vienna 1844, 

480; F. K. Ginzel, Handbuch der mathemat. u. 

techn. Chronologie, Leipzig 1906, i, 300-5 ; S. H. 

Taqizadeh, Various eras and calendars used in 

the countries of Islam, in BSOS, x/i, 108-17; 

TakI Riyahl, Sharh-i tahwimhd-yi mukhtalif wa 

Mas'ala-yi Kabisaha-yi Djaldli, Teheran 1335 A.H. 

solar 1956 (in Persian). (S. H. Taqizadeh) 

BJALAlI [see supplement]. 

BJALALZADE MUSTAFA CELEBI (ca. 896/ 
1490-975/1567), known as 'Kodja Nishandji', Ottoman 
civil servant and historian, was the eldest son of the 
kadi Djalal al-DIn from Tosya (for whom see 
ShakdHk, tr. Rescher, 297 = tr. Medjdl, 466). His 
talents having attracted the attention of Pirl Pasha, 
in 922/1516 he turned from the scholarly career to 
become a clerk to the dlwdn-i humayun. He was 
private secretary to Pirl Pasha during his Grand 
Vizierate (924/1518-929/1523) and to his successor 
Ibrahim Pasha; his services in helping to regulate 
the affairs of Egypt after the revolt of Ahmed Pasha 
were rewarded with the post of ra'is al-kuttdb 
(931/1525). Just after the conquest of Baghdad in 
941/1534 he was promoted to nishdndjl (Feridun, 
Munsha'dt", i, 592), holding office with great dis- 
tinction for 23 years: his state papers and the styles 
of address (alkdb) which he instituted remained 
models to the Chancery for years afterwards (PecevI, 
i, 43; Huseyn, BaddH 1 al-WakdH'-, Moscow 1961, 
584 f.). In 964/1557 he was induced by Rustem 
Pasha to resign, with the post of muteferrika-bashi, 
but allowed to retain his khdss (amounting to 300,000 
aktes, according to 'Ata'i). While on the Szigetvar 
campaign he was re-appointed to his old office by 
Sokollu, immediately after Suleyman's death (cf. 
Selaniki, 46, 51). He died a little over a year later 
(Rebi c II 975/October 1567), and was buried by the 
mosque which he had built at Ayyub, in the quarter 
known thereafter as Nishandj! (Hadikat al-Diawdmi'-, 
i, 295; Ewliya, i, 393 f.). 

Of his projected description of the whole Empire 
and its government in thirty books, Jabakdt al- 
mamdlik wa daradidt al-masalik, only the last, a very 
full and elaborate history of the reign of Suleyman to 
962/1555, is known to exist, although a note in a MS 
copied by the author's son (cf. Uzuncarsili [see Bibl.], 
405) refers to the other books as having been written 
(perhaps only in draft). The work was highly esteemed 
and used by C A1I, PecevI, and Hammer-Purgstall, 
who also published with translation a short excerpt 
from the description of the campaign of 939/1532 
(Fundgruben des Orients, ii, 143-54). Portions of the 
work exist independently in MS under such titles as 
Mohdc-ndme, Feth-ndme-i Rodos, etc. Mustafa Celebi 
later wrote a detailed history of Selim I, Md'dthir-i 
Selim Khdni, which depends in part on the relation 
of Pirl Pasha (also used by Hammer-Purgstall; 
except translated by H. v. Diez, Denhwurdigkeiten 
von Asien, ii, 355-71). 

The following works, all in Turkish, also survive: 
(1) Mawahib al-Khallah fi mardtib al-akhldk, a work 
on ethics; (2) Dald'il-i nubuwwat-i Muhammadi, a 
translation of Molla Miskin's Persian Ma'dridi al- 
nubuwwa; (3) a short treatise entitled Hadiyat al- 
mu'minin; (4) Djawahir al-akhbar fi khasd'U al- 
akhydr, a translation of Siradj al-DIn 'Umar's Zahr 
al-kimdm (Brockelmann, S II, 377 f.). He wrote 
poems under the makhlas Nishanl. One MS of a 
Kanun-name is ascribed to Mustafa Celebi (cf. 1st. 



Kit. Tarih-Cog. Yazmalari Kat. i/10, 805), but its 
editor Mehmed c Arif thinks the attribution false 
(TOEM Hldve, 1329, intr. v). The Istanbul catalogue 
ascribes to him also (791) the kanun-name for Egypt 
published by 0. L. Barkan (Kanunlar, Istanbul 
1943, 355-87). 

Bibliography: Sehl, 33 f.; Latlfi, 335-7; 
'Atal, 113 f.; Rieu, CTM, 49-51; B. Mehmed 
Tahir, 'Othmdnll Mii'ellifleri, iii, 37-9; EI', s.v. 
(J. H. Mordtmann); Babinger, 102 f.; tA, s.v. 
Celal-zade (M. Tayyib Gokbilgin); I. H. Uzun- 
carsili, TosyahCeldlzdde Mustafa ve Salih Celebiler, 
in Belleten, xxii, 1958, 391-441. For Istanbul MSS 
of his works see further A. S. Levend, Gazavdt- 
ndmeler, Ankara 1956, index, and F. E. Karatay, 
Topkapi Sarayi .... Turkie Yazmalar Kataloiu, 
Istanbul 1961, index. (V. L. Menage) 

EjalAlzAde sAlih Celebi. ottoman 

scholar, historian and poet, and younger brother of 
the famous nishandil, Djalalzade Mustafa Celebi. 
Born in the last decade of the 9th century A.H. in 
Vucitrn (NW of Prishtina) where his father, Djalal 
al-DIn, was kddi, upon completing his studies under 
Kamal Pasha-zade and Khayr ai-DIn Efendi, the 
tutor of Sultan Sulayman, he entered the normal 
teaching career, reaching the Sahn in 943/1536-7 
and the Bayazidiyya in Edirne in 949/1542-3. His 
judicial appointments include Aleppo (951/1544), 
Damascus (953/1546) and Cairo (954/1547), from 
which latter post he retired in 957/1550 to settle in 
Ayyub where he was later (966/1559) given the 
professorship of the local madrasa. Forced to retire 
by failing eyesight in 969/1561, he devoted himself 
to writing until his death at about the age of eighty 
in Rabi< I 973/September-October 1565. He is buried 
in the courtyard of his brother's mosque in Ayyub. Of 
the seventeen works ascribed to him, the most famous 
is certainly his Ta'rikh-i Misr-i diadld (953/1547), 
a compilation from familiar Arabic sources and, 
unlike his other historical works, of no original 
value. More interesting are his translations from the 
Persian of the Kissa-i Flruz Shah and 'Awfl's 
Diawdmi'- al-hikayat, representative works of a 
period when elegant Ottoman prose style was 
establishing its own aesthetic identity. Apart from 
his Layla wa Mad±nun, his poetry has commanded 
little praise or admiration. 

Bibliography: The most recent study on 
Salih is that of I. H. Uzuncarsili, Belleten, lxxxvii 
(1958), 422-41, which enters into more detail 
than M. T. Gokbilgin's contribution to tA, iii, 63, 
and fully discusses his surviving works. Babinger, 
100; Hammer-Purgstall, Gesch. osman. Dichtkunst, 
ii, 327; Sidiill-i '■Othmdni, iii, 300 and 'Othmdnli 
Mu'ellifleri, ii, 278, all contain inaccuracies. The 
most important source is 'Atal, Hada'ik al- 
hakdHk, 47; aside from c AhdI's Gulshan-i shu'-ard' 
(Brit. Mus., Add. 7876, f. 23b) and Latlfi's 
Tadhkirat al-shu'ard', 218 (neither this text nor 
the Brit. Mus. ms., Or. 6656, f. 68b, containing the 
kasida mentioned by Hammer-Purgstall), the other 
tadhkiras— viz., Kinallzade Hasan Celebi (Brit. 
Mus., Add. 24, 957), f. 157b; BayanI (Millet, 757), 
f. 100; RiyadI (Nuruosmaniye, 3724), f. 93b; 
Kafzade Fa'idi, Zubdat al- Ashlar (Sehid 'Ali Pasa, 
1877), f. 57b — all derive from that of 'Ashik 
Celebi (Suleymaniye, 268), f. 273b. c Ali, Kunh al- 
akhbar (Es'ad Efendi, 2162), f. 411b, adds nothing 
of value to the above, nor do Hafiz Husayn 
Aywansarayl, Hadikat al-diawdmi 1 , i, 296, or 
Mustakim-zade Suleyman Efendi, Tuhfat al- 
khaftdtin, 229. For his Layla wa Madinun, cf. 



DJALALZADE SALIH CELEBI — DJALAYIR 



Agah Sirri Levend, Leyla ve Mecniln hikdyesi 

(Ankara 1959), 287 ff., and for certain of his 

historical works, ibid., 6azavdt-ndmeler (Ankara 

1956), index. The Bibl. Nat. possesses fragments, 

additional to those in the Istanbul libraries, of 

his translation of the Kissa-i Firiiz Shah (A.F. 103, 

Supp. 140), and the unique copy of his diwdn is 

in the Nuruosmaniye, no. 3846. (J. R. Walsh) 

EJALAYIR, EJALAYIRID (djala'ir, djala'- 

irid). Originally the name of a Mongol tribe (see 

Rashld al-DIn, Ta'rikh-i Ghdzdni, esp. bdb a), the 

term Djalayir (and Djalayirid) in Islamic history 

principally denotes one of the successor-dynasties 

that divided up the territories of the defunct Ilkhanid 

empire. The spelling 'Djalayir' is given by al-Ahri, 

the contemporary, and very likely official, chronicler 

of the dynasty. Djalayirid genealogies usually begin 

with Ilka Nuyan (hence the dynasty's other name 

IlkanI), a follower of Hulagu, and proceed through 

Akbuka and Husayn to Hasan "Buzurg", the 

founder of the dynasty, who was Olfls Beg and 

governor of Rum under Abu Sa'id. 

When Abu Sa'id died without heirs in 735"6/i335 
A.D., the great chiefs of the Ilkhanid empire struggled 
to control the succession, and elevated in turn three 
obscure Hulaguids: Arpa (736/1335-6), Musa (736-7/ 
1336), and \luhammad (737-9/1336-8). These rapid 
changes at the top did not seriously disturb the 
structure of the empire: Muhammad, the protege of 
Hasan Buzurg, ruled over as large a realm as had 
Abu Sa'id. 

The breakdown of the empire began with the 
defeat of Hasan Buzurg and execution of Muhammad 
by the Cubanid, Hasan "Kiicuk" (so-called to 
distinguish him from the Djalayirid Hasan), in 
738-9/1338. Hasan Kiicuk, who ruled in the name of 
Satibek (739/1338-9) and Sulayman (740-4/1340-3), 
could not control the whole Ilkhanid realm. Hasan 
Buzurg and his followers established themselves at 
Bagdad, and continued to dispute Cubanid authority, 
as did Eretna, the governor (and, after 741/1340-1), in- 
dependent ruler) of Rum, and the ruler of Khurasan, 
Tugha TImur. Hasan Kiictik's attempts to subdue 
the Djalayirids (741/1340-1) and Artana (743"4/i343) 
failed. On his death in 743-4/1343, his brother, Malik 
Ashraf, seized power and forced Sulayman and 
Satibek to flee to Hasan Buzurg. Ashraf (who ruled 
in the name of a certain Anushirwan) also failed to 
dislodge the Djalayirids from Baghdad (748/1347-8), 
and, moreover, lost control of the provinces of 
Isfahan, Kirman, Yazd and Shiraz that had owed 
allegiance to Hasan Kiicuk. 

Although Hasan Buzurg was instrumental in the 
breakdown of the Ilkhanid empire, he seems to have 
hoped rather for its restoration — on his own terms — 
than its collapse. He used only the title Clus Beg 
that he had held under Abu Sa'id, and either 
acknowledged legitimate pjingizids as sovereigns — 
Tugha TImur (739/1338-9), 740-6/1340-5), Bjihan 
TImur (739-40/1339-40), and Sulayman (746-7/1346) — 
or left sovereignty unattributed (746-57/1346-56). 

Hasan Buzurg died in 757/1356, leaving Djalayirid 
leadership to his son, Uways. When, in the same year, 
Sultan Djanlbek of the Golden Horde overthrew 
Ashraf, the Djalayirids in Baghdad recognized 
Djanlbek as their sovereign. But the Mongol empire 
in Iran was not to be renewed. Djanlbek died in 
758-9/1357, and his son, BIrdlbek, abandoned Adhar- 
baydjan to Ashraf's former supporters, led by a 
certain Akhldiuk. 

Uways now assumed personal sovereignty (759/ 
1358), and undertook to annex Adharbaydjan. His 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



first campaign failed, but after his retreat, Muham- 
mad b. al-Muzaffar, who had seized Fars and Isfahan 
in the years following Hasan Kutuk's death, raided 
Adharbaydjan (760/1359), and so weakened Akhldjuk 
that Uways' second invasion succeeded (761/1360). 
There were further Djalayirid successes during the 
years 762-5/1361-4, especially in Fars, where the 
Muzaffarid princes, Shah Mahmud and Shah Shudja', 
having deposed their father, Muhammad, were 
quarrelling over the succession. Shah Mahmud 
acknowledged Djalayirid suzerainty, and was 
enabled by Uways to hold Isfahan and seize Shiraz. 
But after 765/1364 a series of reverses precluded 
further Djalayirid expansion. Until about 770/1368 
Uways was busy suppressing revolts by the Shir- 
wanshah, by Kh w adja Mirdjan in Baghdad, and by 
the Karakoyunlu Turkomans in the Diyarbakr region. 
While meeting these challenges, Uways faltered in 
his support of Shah Mahmud, who was driven from 
Shiraz. Another enemy appeared in 772/1370-1, 
when Amir Wall of Astarabad began to attack Rayy. 
Uways died in 775-6/1374, and was succeeded by his 
son, Husayn, after the great amirs had murdered an 
unpopular elder son, Hasan. Other harbingers of de- 
cline appeared during Husayn's reign (776-86/1374-82): 
Husayn came to depend entirely upon Amir 'Adil 
for leadership; and Husayn's brothers, Shaykh 'All, 
Ahmad, and Bayazld, were left at large and even 
given positions of power despite the example Husayn 
had set of profiting from a brother's murder. Abroad, 
the death of Shah Mahmud in 776-7/1375 enabled Shah 
Shudja' to occupy Isfahan and attack Adharbaydjan 
(777/1375-6, 783/1381); Amir Wall continued to 
threaten the border at Rayy; and the Karakoyunlu 
had again to be subdued (778-9/1377). 

The dangers implicit in these conditions were soon 
realized. Shaykh C A1I rebelled in 780/1378-9, held 
Shushtar against Husayn and 'Adil, and, in 782/1381, 
seized Baghdad. Then, in 783/1382, 'Adil led the army 
against Rayy, leaving Husayn at Tabriz. Ahmad, 
seeing Husayn unprotected, gathered a force from his 
own domains in Ardabil and slew his brother. When 
attacked in turn by Shaykh C A1I, coming from Bagh- 
dad, and by 'Adil, returning from Rayy with Bayazld, 
Ahmad called in the Karakoyunlu. Shaykh 'All was 
killed, and 'Adil and Bayazld retreated to Sultaniyya. 
Before Ahmad could consolidate his position in 
Adharbaydjan, the intervention of the Golden Horde 
and then TImur drove him away. Ahmad retired to 
Baghdad (787/1385), and later fled before TImur to 
the Ottomans, and then to Egypt. After TImur's 
death in 807-8/1405, Ahmad regained Baghdad, and 
briefly reoccupied Tabriz, only to be driven out by 
the TImurid Abu Bakr, who was, in turn, ousted by 
the Karakoyunlu. When Ahmad tried again to take 
Tabriz (812-3/1410), he was captured by the Karako- 
yunlu, and executed on the pretext of having 
violated an agreement to cede Adharbaydjan to 
Kara Yusuf Karakoyunlu, made while they were 
fellow-exiles in Egypt. 

Although Baghdad fell to the Karakoyunlu in 
814-5/1412, Djalayirid princes survived in lower 
Mesopotamia for some years. The last of these, 
Husayn II, fell during the siege of Hilla by the 
Karakoyunlu in 835-6/1432. 

Djalayirid patronage has left us the khan and 
mosque of Mirdjan in Baghdad, Salman SawadjI's 
poems, and the miniatures of Shams al-DIn. Ahmad, 
himself a poet, unsuccessfully offered his support to 
Hafiz, who would not leave Shiraz. 

Bibliography: Abu Bakr al-Ahri, Ta>rikh-i 
Shaykh Uways, ed. and trans. J. B. van Loon, 



DJALAYIR — DJALINOS 



The Hague 1954; Hafiz-i Abrii, Dhayl-i Qiami' 
al-tawdrikh-i Rashidi, ed. and trans. Kh. BayanI; 
i-text: Tehran 1317S/1938; ii-trans.: Paris 1936; 
A. Markov, Katalog Dielairidskikh monet, St. 
Petersburg 1897; idem, Inventamiy katalog 
musulmanskikh monet . . . Ermilaia (1 vol. and 
suppls.), St. Petersburg 1896, 1898; Lane-Poole, 
Cat., vi and x; CI. Huart, M (moire sur la fin de la 
dynastie des JUkaniens, in J A, 7eme ser., viii 
(1876); C. Defremery, Mimoire kistorique sur la 
destruction de la dynastie des Mozaffiriens, in J A, 
4'"" ser., iv (1844) and v (1845) ; Spuler, Mongolen 2 ; 
H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, iii, London 
1888; c Abbas al- c AzzawI, Ta'rikh al-Hrdk bayn 
ihtildlayn, ii, Baghdad 1354/1936; M. H. Yinanc, 
art. Celayir, in lA. See also cubanids. 

(J. M. Smith, Jr.) 
DJALI [see djawalI]. 

EJALlLl, a family and quasi-d y n a s t y in 
Mosul, where seventeen members held the position 
of wall of that wildya for various periods between 
1139/1726 and 1250/1834. If legendary origins in 
eastern Anatolia can be ignored, the founder of the 
family, c Abd al-Djalll, seems to have begun life as 
a Christian slave of the local and equally famous 
'Umari family in the later nth/i7th Century. His 
son Isma'U, a Muslim and well educated, attained 
the PashaUk of Mosul by exceptional merits after 
a long career of public office, and governed it with 
distinction for some years from n 39/1726; and the 
easy succession of his son, Hadjdj Husayn Pasha, in 
1 143/1730 to a position which, with interruptions, 
he was to hold eight times between then and his 
death in H73/I759, showed that the family was 
already a firm claimant to hereditary rule of the 
province. Hadjdj Husayn, an outstanding personality, 
attained lasting fame for his part in the defence of 
Mosul against Nadir Shah, notably in 1156/1743; 
he held also at intervals other wildyas and high 
positions in 'Irak and elsewhere in the Ottoman 
Empire, as did for the next fifty years his sons and 
relations, to an extent doubtless unique among 
'Iraki families before or since. The chronic tribal and 
country-side disorders of northern 'Irak, and of 
Mosul itself, at this period rendered all government 
precarious, and tenures shortlived; but a Dialili 
pasha, from the numerous descendents of Hadjdj 
Husayn, was to be found in office at Mosul, 
struggling with the forces of anarchy and with the 
jealous factions — and on one occasion, the murderous 
attacks — of his own family discontinuously till 1250/ 
1834, when the last wall of the family, Yahya 
Pasha, was displaced by a modernized central 
government. Eminent among these were Amin 
Pasha (son of Hadjdj Husayn) who was six times 
wdli, in part during his father's lifetime: his son, 
Muhammad Pasha, who ruled the wildya more or 
less at peace for 18 years (1204-22/1789-1807): and 
Ahmad Pasha, who rebuilt the walls of Mosul at 
intervals from 1228/1813. 

The local annals of the ninety years covered by 
Djalili pre-eminence in northern 'Irak are unedifying 
in their tale of violent, selfish and corrupt misgovern- 
ment, and are of interest mainly for the light they 
throw on the contemporary administration of the 
remoter Turkish provinces ; but the virile persistence, 
and at times the superior qualities, of the effectively 
irreplaceable Djalili dynasty for so long a period 
entitles them to a place in history. Their descendants 
in Mosul are still numerous, but no longer in- 
fluential. 



Bibliography: S. H. Longrigg, Four ce 
of modern l lraq, Oxford 1925, esp. 158, 176 f., 
210, 242, 284, authorities specified on 328-30, 
and genealogical tree, 347. (S. H. Longrigg) 
EJAlInCS, Arabic for Galen, born in Pergamon, 
in Asia Minor A.D. 129, died in Rome about 199; 
the last great medical writer in Greek antiquity, out- 
standing as an anatomist and physiologist as well as 
as a practising physician, surgeon and pharmacol- 
ogist. He also became known as an influential though 
minor philosopher. More than 120 books ascribed to 
him are included in the last complete edition of his 
Greek works by C. E. Kiihn (Leipzig 1821-33); they 
represent by no means his whole output: some 
works have survived in Arabic, Hebrew or Latin 
translation only, others are unretrievably lost. 

Although Djalinus stands nowhere in the first 
rank, his popularity especially as a physician grew 
steadily in subsequent centuries, and he eventually 
became the most influential teacher of medicine 
together with Hippocrates (Bukrat [q.v.]) whom he 
had helped to establish as a model physician and a 
pattern of perfection, and whose treatises he had 
explained in many elaborate commentaries. When 
the teaching of Greek philosophy and medicine was 
definitely ma'de part of the Christian syllabus of 
learning in ± 500, the preservation of the greater 
part of his numerous works was assured and his 
supreme position established for the next millennium. 
Whereas the far superior works of his predecessors in 
Alexandria and elsewhere have perished, his codi- 
fication of the great achievements of the Hellenistic 
physicians, whose independence of mind he still 
understood and taught himself, was handed on to 
posterity and was instrumental in establishing a 
fundamentally unbroken tradition of scientific 
medicine which never lost sight of him. 

As in the case of philosophy and other sciences, 
Syrian and Arabic medicine follow the late Greek 
syllabus almost without a gap. We are not too badly 
informed about the Syriac translations of Djalinus, 
by Sergius of Rash'ayna (d. 536) and Job of Edessa 
(about 825) for instance. We have Hunayn b. 
Ishak's [q.v.] detailed survey of 129 major and minor 
works by Djalinus translated into Syriac and/or Arabic 
by himself and others, he actually lists 179 Syriac 
and 123 Arabic versions (cf. 0. Neugebauer, The 
exact sciences in antiquity, Providence 1957, 180). 
This unduly neglected autobibliographical account 
by Hunayn was edited and translated into German 
by G. Bergstrasser in Abh. K.M. XVII/2, 1925 and 
XIX/2, 1932, cf. M. Meyerhof, in Isis VIII 1926, 
658 ff . ; Byzantion III, 1927, 1 ff. ; The legacy of Islam, 
Oxford 1931, 316 ff., 346 ff. Hunayn's list is not even 
complete. The Arabs eventually came to possess 
translations of every work of Djalinus still read in 
Greek centres of learning during the 7th, 8th and 
9th centuries A.D., and thus knew a number of 
medical and philosophical works of Djalinus which 
disappeared in the late Byzantine period. 

There can be no doubt — although details have 
still to be ascertained and interpreted in monographs 
— that Galen's medical works in their entirety, his 
methods and his results, were fully digested and 
appreciated by all the later Arabic physicians and 
became an integral part of their medical learning, 
in their original form as well as in summaries, 
commentaries and new works based on them. This 
by no means applies only to such outstanding phys- 
icians as Muhammad b. Zakariya al-Razi [q.v.] or 
Ibn Sina [q.v.] but to many others as well (cf., e.g., 
J. Schacht-M. Meyerhof. The medico-philosophical 



DJALINUS — DJALIYA 



403 



controversy between Ibn Butlan of Baghdad and Ibn 
Ridwan of Cairo, Cairo 1937, passim). A comparison 
between Diallnus and Ibn Sina's Kdnun fi 'l-tibb 
would yield very interesting results indeed. Diallnus 
deserves a major chapter in any future history of 
Arabic medicine down to the first half of the 20th 
century. The Galen studies in medieval and Renais- 
sance Europe owe very much to the Arab precedent 
and to Galen-translations from the Arabic. 

A number of otherwise lost medical and philo- 
sophical works of Diallnus has been recovered from 
Arabic translations, and it seems appropriate to 
mention them here. 

Medical works: 1) M. Simon, Sieben Bilcher 
Anatomie des Galen, 1906 (cf. G. Bergstrasser, 
Hunayn ibn I shah und seine Schule, Leiden 19 13) 
with Ger. tr.; Eng. tr. by the late W. H. L. Duck- 
worth, edd. M. C. Lyons and G. Towers, Galen on 
anatomical procedures; the later books, Cambridge 
1962. 2) Ps.-Galenus In Hippocratis de Septimanis 
Commentarius, ed. G. Bergstrasser, Corpus medicorum 
Graecorum, xi/2.i. 3) M. Meyerhof-J. Schacht, Galen 
iiber die medinischen Namen in Abh. Berl. Akad. 
Wiss., phil.-hist. Kl. 1931, no 3 (with Ger. tr.). 4) In 
Hippocratis Epidemias i, ii, vi/1-8, ed. E. Wenke- 
bach-F. Pfaff, Corpus medicorum Graecorum v/10, 1.1 ; 
v/10, 2.2 (German translation only, cf. Gnomon, xxii, 
1950, 226 ff.). 5) Schrift iiber die Siebenmonatskinder , 
ed. R. Walzer, in RSO, xv, 1935, 323 ff.; xxiv, 1949, 
92 (with Ger. tr. 6) On medical experience, ed. R. 
Walzer, Oxford 1944 (with Eng. tr.). 

Philosophical works: 1) Summary of Plato's 
Timaeus, see aflatun (with Latin translation). 
2) Additional fragments of the medical commentary 
on the Timaeus, ed. P. Kahle, see aflatun (with 
Ger. tr.). 3) Epitome of LTepl yjG&v, ed. P. Kraus 1939 
(Arabic text and notes), cf. R. Walzer in Classical 
Quarterly 1949, 82 ff. ; idem, in Harvard Theological 
Review 1954, 254 ff. S. M. Stern, Classical Quarterly, 
1956, 91 ff. 4) De demonstratione: P. Kraus, Jabir 
ibn Hiyydn, ii, Cairo 1942, passim; S. Pines, Rdzi, 
Critique de Galien in Actes du Septiime Congres 
Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences, 1953, 480 ff. 
5) Statements on Jews and Christians: R. Walzer, 
Galen on Jews and Christians, Oxford 1949. 6) S. 
Pines, A refutation of Galen by Alexander of Aphrodi- 
sias in Isis, lii, 1961, 21 ff. 7) J. Schacht-N. Meyerhof, 
Maimonides against Galen, in Bulletin of the Faculty 
of Arts in the University of Cairo, vi, 1939, 54-84. 

The Arabic versions of books by Galen which are 
preserved in the original Greek may often prove 
useful for the establishment of the Greek text, 
especially in cases where only late Greek manu- 
scripts are available. Moreover, they are very 
important for the general history of medical termi- 
nology, and work in this direction has scarcely 
stated. The Arabic text of Galen's commentary on 
Hippocrates K<xt' b)Tpe!ov, ed. M. Lyons (with Eng. 
tr.) will be published in 1962 as part of the Corpus 
Medicorum Graecorum. A Ger. tr. of the Arabic text 
of Ilepl Y]9cov by F. Pfaff is to be found in the Corpus 
Medicorum Graecorum Supplementum, iii, 1941. 

A survey of Arabic MSS of Galen, as far as it 
could be established at the time of the compilation, 
is to be found in H. Diels, Die Handschriften der 
antiken Arzte, Berlin 1906. Additions: H. Ritter- 
R. Walzer, Arabische Vbersetzungen griechischer 
Arzte in Stambuler Bibliotheken in Berichte der 
Berliner Akademie, phil-hist. Klasse, 1934 and in 
many miscellaneous publications. 

An intensive and detailed study of Arabic medical 
writers will no doubt eventually yield more texts of 



Galen and will make it possible to write the history 
of his very important impact on the development of 
Arabic medicine. 

Bibliography: In addition to references in the 
article: G. Sarton, Introduction to the history of 
science, passim; idem, Galen of Pergamon, Kensas 
Press 1954; D. Campbell, Arabian medicine and its 
influence in the middle ages, ii, Leiden 1926, 13-220; 
H. Schipperges, Ideologic und Historiographie des 
Arabismus, Wiesbaden 1961. (R. Walzer) 

DJALIYA (from Arabic djald ["an], to emigrate), 
used here for the Arabic-speaking communi- 
ties with special reference to North and South 
America. About eighty per cent of these emigrants 
are estimated to have come from what is today the 
Lebanese Republic; fifteen per cent from Syria and 
Palestine and the rest from al- c Irak and al-Yaman. 
Egypt's quota is negligible. 

Overpopulation in mountainous Lebanon, whose 
soil was less fertile than its women, combined with 
political unrest, economic pressure and a seafaring 
tradition, found relief in migration to other lands. 
Egypt, the only country to which the Ottoman author- 
ities before 1890 permitted emigration, offered a 
special attraction particularly after the British 
occupation in 1882. The response came from the 
Western-educated group, graduates of the American 
University of Beirut (then known as the Syrian 
Protestant College) and the Jesuit St. Joseph Uni- 
versity. Clerks, government employees, physicians, 
pharmacists, teachers found rewarding employment 
in Egypt and the Sudan. Two of the earliest and most 
influential learned magazines {al-Muktafaf and 
al-Hildl) and of the newspapers (al-Muka((am and 
al-Ahrdm) were founded by such graduates. In addi- 
tion a Syro-Lebanese commercial colony flourished 
mainly in Cairo and Alexandria and gained possession 
of about a tenth of the entire wealth of the land. 
Western Africa, where today Syro-Lebanese com- 
munities — with about 30,000 settlers — are sprinkled 
over the major cities, was not discovered until the late 
1890's. South Africa claims about an equal number. 
But the golden fleece lay in more distant horizons. 
The first recorded Arabic speaker to land in North 
America was a Christian Lebanese youth Antuniyus 
al-Bish'alani, whose tombstone in a Brooklyn (N. Y.) 
cemetery gives 1856 as his date of death, two years 
after his arrival. But there was no mass movement 
until after the mid-1890's following the World's Fair 
at Chicago. The peak was reached in the pre-first 
World War period. For the thirteen years ending 
in 1913 the Commissioner General of Immigration 
reported 79,420 "Syrians" (which term then em- 
braced Lebanese and Palestinians), of whom 4064 
entered the United States in 1901 and 9211 in 1913, 
By that time there was hardly a village in Lebanon 
which could not claim an American citizen as its son. 
Decline began with the war followed by restricted 
quota imposed in 1924 by the United States govern- 
ment. Its official statistics indicate that in 1940 there 
were about 350,000 of Arabic-speaking origin; esti- 
mates in 1950 raise the figure to 450,000 ; but Lebanese 
government statistics released in 1958 make those of 
Lebanese descent alone in the United States 450,000. 
The majority of these emigrants were Christians, 
who felt less strange in the Western world, and were 
recruited largely from the uneducated classes. 
Wherever these people went they carried along their 
cuisine, churches and Arabic printing press. By 
1924 they had established two hundred and nineteen 
churches and missions scattered all over the larger 
commercial and industrial cities of the United 



404 



DJALIYA — DJALLAB 



States. Since then nine mosques have been built, of 
which the most imposing is that of Washington, D.C., 
founded in 1952 and patronized by the embassies. 
Of the estimated 33,000 Muslims, mostly Palestinians 
and Yamanites, 5,000 live in Detroit, attracted by 
employment in the automobile factories. In 1924 
New York housed six newspapers (in i960 five) and 
three monthlies. The oldest newspaper extant, al- 
Hudd, celebrated on 22 February i960 its sixty- 
second anniversary. A census taken in 1929 lists 102 
Arabic periodicals and papers, extant and extinct, 
which saw the light in North America and 166 in 
South America [see djarida]. 

The first to reach Brazil was again a Lebanese in 
1874. The movement acquired mass proportions in 
the 1880's following Emperor Pedro IPs visit to 
Lebanon and Palestine. In 1892 an Ottoman- 
Brazilian treaty gave further impetus. Argentina was 
equally interested in new emigrants to develop its 
vast resources. The Syro-Lebanese community in 
Brazil is larger than that of the United States; that 
of Argentina numbers about 150,000, of Mexico 
60,000. A number of streets in Latin American 
countries bear the names of Syria, Lebanon or of a 
citizen born there. In South America such emigrants 
felt more at home than in North America; they also 
prospered more and maintained a stronger Arab 
tradition. In wealth and influence the Sao Paulo 
colony, headed by the Jafet (Yafith) family — 
founded by a Christian from al-Shuwayr, Lebanon 
— compares favourably with that of Cairo. In 1959 
the Sao Paulo community maintained two sport 
clubs (one Syrian, one Lebanese), two chambers of 
commerce, one hospital, one orphanage, two secon- 
dary schools and a score of philanthropic organi- 
zations. Its Greek Orthodox Cathedral, begun in 
1939, is the most imposing place of worship erected 
by Syro-Lebanese emigrants anywhere. 

Though originating mostly in villages the bulk of 
the emigrants to the two Americas took to business. 
The general pattern was to start from peddling, 
carrying a kashsha (from Portuguese caixa) and 
knocking at doors, move on to shopkeeping and 
graduate to large store owning and perhaps to a 
leading position as a merchant or industrialist. 
Arabic papers abound in "success stories" of pen- 
niless emigrants developing into millionaires. Arabic- 
speaking merchants are credited among other things 
with contributing to the introduction and popular- 
ization of kimonos, lingeries, negligees, linens, laces, 
Oriental rugs and Near Eastern food articles. The 
"folks back home" were generally never forgotten. 
Remittances to relatives and friends in the course 
of the first World War have been credited with 
saving numberless lives. Even as late as 1952 
Lebanese official statistics credit Lebanese emi- 
grants with remittances to relatives, friends and 
religious and educational institutions amounting 
to $ 22,000,000. Descendants of emigrants have 
entered all kinds of professions. In 1959 California 
sent to the House of Repesentatives in Washington 
the first son of a Lebanese emigrant ; in the same 
year a second-generation girl singer was admitted 
to the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In i960 an 
American citizen whose father was born in Zahlah 
(Lebanon) was elected mayor of a large city (Toledo, 
Ohio). 

More striking perhaps has been the literary con- 
tribution. New York boasted a literary circle, founded 
by Kahlil Gibran (Djabran Khalll Djabran, [q.v.]), 
whose influence has been felt throughout the Arab 
world. Its counterpart in Sao Paulo published for 



twenty years a magazine (al-Andalus) which had a 
wide vogue. These writers treated new themes, 
struck fresh notes, introduced modern styles and 
reflected the Western influences to which they were 
exposed in their adopted lands. By their writings, 
correspondence and return visits Arabic-speaking 
emigrants contributed substantially to the liberaliz- 
ing, modernizing trend of their native lands. Some 
of the tenderest and most often quoted modern 
verses have been composed by Arabic poets in New 
York and Sao Paulo. 

Legislative restrictions on immigration into the 
New World encouraged the movement into Australia 
where the Syro-Lebanese community is estimated at 
20,000 largely clustered in Sydney. 

The wave of migration which rolled from the 
eastern Mediterranean in the decade preceding the 
first World War sent sprinkles to the remotest 
corners of the habitable world. The Canadian com- 
munity now counts about 30,000. 

Bibliography: M. Berger, Americans from 
the Arab world, in The World oj Islam, ed. James 
Kritzeck and R. Bayly Winder, London & New 
York i960, 351-72); Tawfik Da'un, Mukhtdrdt al- 
djadid, Sao Paulo 1922; Wadi c Dib, al-Shi'-r 
aW-Arabl ji al-mahdjar al-Amirki, Beirut 1955; 
c Abdo A. Elkholy, Comparative analyses oj two 
Muslim communities in the United States, (Ms., 
Princeton University Library, i960); E. Epstein, 
Demographic problems oj the Lebanon, in Royal 
Central Asian Journal, xxxiii (April 1946), 150- 
4; Elie Safa, L'emigration libanaise,, Beirut i960; 
Philip K. Hitti, Antuniyus al-Bish'aldni awwal 
muhddjir Suri ild al- c dlam al-d±adid, New York 
1919; idem, The Syrians in America, New York 
1924; Salim al-Huss, al-Hidjra min Lubndn, in al- 
Abhdth, xii, pt. 1 (March 1959), 59-72; Institute of 
Arab American Affairs, Arabic-speaking Americans, 
New York 1946; Nadim al-Maqdissi, The Muslims 
oj America, in The Islamic Review, xliii, no. 6 
(June, 1955), 28-31; Djiirdj Saydah, Adabund wa- 
udaba'und ji al-mahadjir al-Amirikiyya', Beirut 
1957; 'Abdul Djalil 'All al-Tahir, The Arab commu- 
nity in the Chicago area (Ms., University of Chicago 
Library, 1952); Filib di Tarrazi, Ta'rikh al-sahdja 
al-'-Arabiyya, 4 vols., Beirut 1933 ; U. S. Department 
of Justice, Annual Report oj the Immigration and 
Naturalization Service in the fiscal year ended 
June 30, 1954, Washington 1954, table 4 and 
passim; U. S. Bureau of the Census, 16th census 
of the United States, 1940. Population, nativity 
and parentage oj the white population. Mother 
tongue, Washington 1943, tables 1, 2, 4; U.S. 
Bureau of the Census, U. S. Census oj Population, 
1950, vol. iv, Special reports. Nativity and 
parentage, Washington 1954, table 12; M. Zelditch, 
The Syrians in Pittsburgh (Ms., University of 
Pittsburgh Library, 1936). (P. K. Hitti) 

DJALLAB, or, according to the dialect, djal- 
laba or pjallabiyya, an outer garment used in 
certain parts of the Maghrib, which is very wide 
and loose with a hood and two armlets. The 
dj,alldb is made of a quadrangular piece of cloth, 
which is much longer than it is broad. By sewing 
together the two short ends a wide cylinder is 
formed. Its upper opening is also sewn up ex- 
cept for a piece in the centre where a hole is 
required for the head and neck. Holes are cut 
on each side for the arms. When the garment 
is put on, the seam joining the two short ends 
runs down the middle of the breast. The two 
seams which close the two ends of the upper 



DJALLAB — D.JALOR 



part run along the shoulders and the upper part 
of the arms. The head and neck are put through 
the space left open in the middle of the upper 
end. The forearms come through the holes at 
each side; they would be left uncovered if arm- 
lets were not sewn on to the edges of the arm- 
holes. These armlets are very short. At their 
lower extremity is a slit (nifuk) for the elbow and 
at the top a second slit ()atha) across, through 
which, when necessary (e.g., for the ritual ablu- 
tion) the bare fore-arm can be thrust. The djalldb 
is made either of native cloth or (in prosperous 
towns) of European. The former is woollen, rare- 
ly and only quite recently of cotton or cotton 
and wool. These cloths are dyed in different colours 
in different districts; red, brown, black, white, of 
uniform colour, striped or spotted. The European 
materials are thick, usually navy blue, black or 
dark grey. — The dialldb of native manufacture 
consists of a single piece of cloth, which is made 
of the required size. The hood is not added but 
consists of a quadrangular piece of cloth woven 
on, the sides of which are folded together behind 
and sewn. In the djalldb of European cloth, the 
hood is cut separately and put on. The seams of 
the djalldb are covered with braid and often or- 
namented with tassels, knots and rosettes. — The 
cut, the form of the djalldb and the hood, the 
ornamentation, the style of weaving, of sewing 
and of lining vary much in different districts. — 
This garment is called djalldb (djalldba, djalldbiyya), 
throughout the greater part of Morocco and in the 
west of Algeria; it is also used in other parts 
of the Maghrib, e.g., in the south of Algeria and 
in the Mzab but it is given another name there. 
Among the Andalusian Muslims, however, the word 
djalldbiyya was the name of a garment, the shape 
and use of which we do not know; in Egypt, we 
find a phonetic equivalent of the word, galldbiyya 
(with g for dj), but the garment it denotes is 
quite different from the djalldb of the Maghrib. 
The origin of the word is uncertain. Dozy con- 
siders the form djalldbiyya to be the original one 
and djalldb, djalldba to be corruptions. He there- 
fore gives the original meaning as "garment of a 
djalldb, i.e., a slave dealer". This view seems 
philologically untenable. It is much more probable 
that djalldb is connected with the Old Arabic 
djilbdb "outer garment". The dissimilative dropping 
of the b in this word of foreign origin (cf. N61- 
deke, Neue Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissen- 
schaft, 53) is not surprising; moreover it has also 
taken place outside the Maghrib in the modern 
forms of the word djilbdb: thus for example in the 
dialect of c Uman we find gilldb with the meaning 

Bibliography : Dozy, Dictionnaire ditailli des 
noms des vitements ches les Arabes, 122 ff.; idem, 
Suppl., i, 204, 205, with numerous references; 
Budgett Meakin, The Moors, 58 ff., 59, 59, with 
an illustration; Moulieras, Le Maroc inconnu, ii, 
16; Archives marocaines, xvii, 122; Bel, La 
population musulmane de Tlemcen, PI. xix, Fig. 
17; Bel and Ricard, Les industries et le travail 
de la laine a Tlemcen. (W. Marcais) 

EJALOR, a town in the Indian state of Rajas- 
than, some 75 miles south of Djodhpur on the left 
bank of the Sukri river. 

Although the troops of c Ala> al-Din Khaldji had 
passed through Djalor on their return from the 
conquest of Gudjarat in 696/1297, it was not then 
occupied by them. In Djumada I 705/December 



1305, however, that king sent c Ayn al-Mulk, governor 
of Multan, on an expedition to Djalor, Udjdjayn and 
Canderi; he was opposed by an army of 150,000 
Hindus on his entry into Malwa, and his victory over 
them, which brought Udjdjayn, Dhar, Mandu, and 
Canderi [qq.v.] into Muslim possession, so impressed 
the Cawhan radja of Djalor that he accompanied 
c Ayn al-Mulk to Dihli to swear his allegiance to c Ala 5 
al-Din. Two years later this radja's arrogance caused 
c Ala 5 al-DIn to attack Djalor, which was taken for 
Dihli by Kamal al-Din Gurg. On the weakening of 
the sultanate at 'Ala 5 al-DIn's death it seems to have 
relapsed into Cawhan possession. 

At some time in the 8th/i4th century a body of 
LohanI Afghans left their adoptive province of Bihar 
and came to Marwaf , where they entered the service 
of the Cawhan radja of Djalor. On the latter's death 
by a trick at the hands of a neighbouring radja in 
794/1392 their leader, Malik Khurram, assisted the 
radja's widow in carrying on the government, but 
after disagreements between the Afghans and the 
Radjputs he established himself as ruler over the 
city and its fort, Songir (Sanskrit: suvarna-giri 
"golden hill"), and sought through Zafar Khan. 
subaddr of Gudjarat under the Tughluks, a farmdn 
from Dihli confirming his title; this was given, 
796/1394. After TImur's depredations in north India 
in 801/1399 the Djaloris became independent rulers 
for a time, before later becoming feudatory to the 
new and powerful sultanate of Gudjarat. 

At some time in the early ioth/i6th century the 
Djalorl family had added Palanpur [?.».] to its 
dominions, and by mid-century its ruler had acquired 
the title of Nawwab. By about 1 1 10/1699 the Nawwab 
moved his seat from Djalor to Palanpur, which 
remained an independent Muslim state until 1956; 
for the history of the dynasty, see palanpur. 

Monuments. The fort of Djalor was built by the 
Paramara Radjputs, and remained substantially 
unchanged under Muslim rule except for the modi- 
fication of its perimeter wall for artillery. The oldest 
monument is the mosque in the city, built from 
temple spoil probably at the time of c Ala 3 al-Din, 
56.4 m. square, with cloisters of three arcades on 
north, south, and east, broken by doorways, and a 
deeper three-domed liwdn on the west. The latter 
is faced with a screen wall of later date, probably of 
the time of Muzaffar II of Gudjarat (917-32/1511-26); 
an inscription including the name of Muhammad b. 
Tughluk stands over the north door, implying an 
extension or restoration in his time. The arcades 
have been enriched by the addition of graceful and 
delicate stone lattice screens of the middle Gudjarati 
period. Known as the Topkhana masdjid, it was for 
long used as an arsenal. A smaller mosque stands in 
the fort; although said by Erskine (Rajputana 
Gazetteer, iii A, 1909, 189 ff.) to have been built by 
c Ala 3 al-DIn's armies, it seems to be in its present 
form entirely a construction of the period of Mahmud 
I (863-917/1458-1511) or Muzaffar II of Gudjarat, 
and bears an inscription of the latter. 

Bibliography: Malik Sulayman b. c Abd 
Allah b. Sharf al-Din, Khdtim-i Sulaymdni, on 
which the History 0/ Palanpur state (in Gudjarati) 
by H. H. Sir Taley Muhammad Khan, Nawab of 
Palanpur, is based; Bombay Gazetteer, v, 318 ff.; 
Rajputana Gazetteer, ii, 1879, 260, and second ed., 
1909, iii A, 189 ff.; J. Tod, Annals and antiquities 
of Rajasthan, 2nd. ed. W. Crooke, Oxford 1920, 
iii, 1266-8; Progress Report, ASI, Western Circle, 
year ending March 1909, Bombay 1909, 54 ff. 
(J. Burton-Page) 






DJALOLA' — DJAM', DJAMA'A 



EJALOlA', a town in c Ir5k (Babylonia) and, in 
the mediaeval division of this province, the capital 
of a district (tassudi) of the Shadh-Kubadh circle to 
the east of the Tigris, was a station on the important 
Khurasan road, the main route between Babylonia 
and Iran, and was at about an equal distance 
(7 parasangs = 28 miles) from Dastadjird [q.v.] in 
the south-west and from Khanikln in the north- 
east. It was watered by a canal from the Diyala 
(called Nahr Djalula'), which rejoined the main 
stream a little further down near Badjisra [q.v.]. Near 
this town, which seems from the statements of the 
Arab geographers to have been quite unimportant, 
the Arabs inflicted a severe defeat on the army of 
the Sasanian king at the end of the year 16/637. 

According to Mustawfl, writing about 740/1340, 
the Saldjuk sultan Malikshah (465-85/1073-92) built 
at Djalula 5 a watch-house (ribat, popularly rubdt) 
which probably served also as a caravanserai; after 
his time the place was usually called Ribat Djalula'. 
This statement helps us to locate the site of Djalula' 
with certainty, for indeed there can be almost no 
doubt that Ribat Djalula' must be identified with 
the modern Klzllrobat, especially since the distances 
given by the Arab geographers for Djalula' apply 
perfectly to Klzllrobat. Its geographical position is 
34 10' N., 45 E.; it lies within the mountains, at the 
east end of the pass through the Djabal Hamrin. The 
Diyala flows by at some distance to the east of the 
town. The name Klzllrobat ("red caravanserai") is 
popularly corrupted to Kazilabadh and Kazrabadh 
(cf. Petermann, Reisen im Orient, ii, 274) or abbrevi- 
ated to Kizrabat (cf. Herzfeld, in Petermarms 
Geogr. Mitt., 1907, 51). Like its mediaeval predecessor, 
the modern Klzllrobat is of only moderate impor- 
tance; it still has no other rdle than that of a transit 
and relay station on an important caravan route. 
Bibliography: in addition to references in the 
article ba'kuba, see in particular M. Streck, 
Babylonien nach den arab. Geograph., i, 8, 15; Le 
Strange, 62; and, on Klzllrobat, cf. Ritter, Erd- 
kunde, ix, 418, 489; Ker Porter, Reisen in Georgien, 
Persien u. Armenien, etc., Weimar 1833, ii, 234. 

(M. Streck) 
DJAlCT. The Goliath of the Bible appears as 
Djalut in the Kur'an (II, 248/247-252/251) (the line 
of al-Samaw'al where the name occurs is inauthentic), 
in assonance with Talut [q.v.] and perhaps also under 
the influence of the Hebrew word galut, "exile, 
Diaspora", which must have been frequently on the 
lips of the Jews in Arabia as elsewhere. The passage 
of the Kur'an where he is referred to by name (his in- 
troduction in the exegesis of V, 25 seems to be sporadic 
and secondary) combines the biblical account of the 
wars waged by Saul and David (I Samuel xvii) with 
some traces of Gideon's expedition against the 
Midianites (Judges vii, particularly the episode of 
the water drinking test to select warriors. 

Furthermore, Muslim tradition, tending to see in 
the Kur'an account a prefiguration of the Battle of 
Badr, embroiders on the Haggadic development of 
the Bible story (for instance, the sling-stones given 
to David and their joining together into one, the 
latter detail borrowed from the Midrashic legend 
about the stones of Bethel, which Jacob put for his 
pillow) ; the same tradition attempts to link the giant 
Djalut variously with the Amalekites (see c Amalik), 
the c Adites or the Thamudites, or even with the 
Berbers, no doubt in connexion with the Talmudic 
legend about the emigration of certain Canaanite 
tribes into "Africa" at the time of the Israelite 
conquest of Palestine {Tosefta Shabbat, vii, 25; 



Talmud of Jerusalem ShebiHt vi, 2 [36 c]; cf. H. Lewy, 
MGWJ, lxxvii, 1933, especially 178). With the help 
of these Unkings, even though the Bible story in its 
authentic form must have been known to a writer 
as particular about first hand information as al- 
Ya'kubi, Djalut became a kind of collective name for 
the oppressors of the Israelite nation before David. 
The battle against Djalut is localized in the Ghor or 
lower valley of the Jordan (see c ayn djalut). 

Bibliography: K. al-Tidfdn, Haydarabad 
1347/1928, 178 f.; Ya'kubl, Ta'rikh, 51 f. (Smit, 
Bijbel en Legende, 61 f.); Tabari, i, 370-6, cf. 
278-80; Mas'Odi, Murudi, i, 105-8; iii, 241; 
Kisal, Vita Prophetarum, 250-4; Mukhtasar al- 
'■adidHb (Abrlgl des Merveilles), translated by 
Carra de Vaux, 101 ; M. Grunbaum, Neue Beitrdge 
zur semitischen Sagenkunde, 191 f.; J. Horovitz, 
Koranische Untersuchungen, 106; R. Blachere, Le 
Goran, 803-5. (G. Vajda) 

EJAM [see fIruzkuh]. 

EJAM, a village in Afghanistan (orchards, 
particularly of apricots) in the region of Ghur [q.v.] 
on the Tagao Gunbaz, tributary on the left bank of 
the Hari Rud, above Cisht; an hour's march away, 
by the confluence of the tributary and the main 
stream, stands a cylindrical minaret of harmonious 
proportions, with an octagonal base which carries 
three superposed stages of truncated conical form, 
with an interior staircase (over 180 steps) ; the height 
of this minaret (about 60 m.) puts it between the 
Kutb minar of Dihll [q.v.] and the minaret of 
Bukhara [q.v.]. One of the inscriptions on this 
minaret, which is entirely covered with a striking 
decoration, gives the name of the prince who 
ordered its construction: Ghiyath al-Dunya wa 
'1-DIn Abu '1-Fath Muhammad b. Sam, 5th Ghurid 
sultan (558-99/1 163-1202; cf. ghurids, and Wiet, 
op. cit. infra, 21-55). A. Maricq, who in 1957 
discovered this minaret which previously had been 
known only by hearsay, considers it to have been a 
"tower of glory" as well as a minaret (as was the 
Kutb minar, so described in its inscription), the 
central point of the territories of the Ghurid sulta- 
nate; furthermore, he has collected {op. cit. infra, 
55 and 65) the texts and other evidence which allow 
this monument of Djam to be considered as the only 
apparent vestige of the town of FIruzkuh, the 
Ghurid capital (contrary to identifications previously 
proposed, e.g., fIruzkoh in EI 1 ); this hypothesis 
calls for a meticulous examination of the site. 

Bibliography: A. Maricq and G. Wiet, Le 
minaret de Djam: la dicouverte de la capitate des 
sultans Ghorides {Xll'-XlIV siicles), in Mtm. 
Delegation archiol. francaise en Afghanistan, xvi, 
Paris 1959, 91 pp., 17 plates and two maps. 

(H. Mass£) 
EJAMS EJAMA'A.— The aim of the present 
article is to clarify general ideas, and to show what 
system underlies the expression of grammatical 
number, as regards the Arabic plural and collective. 
The Arabic language distinguishes . between: 
1) the singular, 2) dual, 3) plural, 4) collective. 
Arab grammarians have paid close attention to the 
first three: 1) the singular: al-wdhid; mufrad is 
applied to the "simple" noun (as opposed to murak- 
kab, applied to the "compound" noun) by the Muf. 
§ 4; but it has also been used for "singular", like- 
wise fard [q.v.]. — 2) the dual: al-muthannd, for units 
of two. — 3) the plural: al-djam', for units numbering 
three or more, with the subdivision: diam'- sdlim 
"sound plural", the external plural and diam 1 
mukassar "broken plural", the internal plural. As 



regards 4), the collective, they have no general word 
to denote it. In relation to the noun of unity they 
have distinguished between: the ism al-djins 
"specific name", which possesses a noun of unity, 
made by means of the suffix -a', added to it, e.g. : 
tamr "dates", noun of unity tamra' "a date"; the 
ism al-djam'- which denotes a djama'-a "collection, 
assembly of beings", but does not possess a noun 
of unity or else forms it in a manner different from 
that given above : without a noun of unity, like kawm 
"tribe, group to which one belongs", with noun of 
unity provided by another word, like ibil "camels", 
baHr "a camel", or by another Form of the same root, 
like rakb "travellers" rdkib "a traveller". 

Note: A. Fischer has studied Die Terminologie 
der arabischen Kollektivnomina (ZDMG, xciv 
(1940), 12-24): Shibh al-djam', in the sense of ism 
al-djam'- and the plural ashbdh al-djam 1 , recent 
terms (taken from the author of the Bahth aU 
matdlib), current in European grammars, are to 
be ignored; asma? al-djam' can already be traced 
back to Ibn Ya'lsh (e.g. 732, 1. 6) (asmd* al-djumu'- 
in the Muf. § 285). Ism al-djins (coll.) gave rise 
to amphibology with ism al-djins (common noun). 
Al-Ushmuni (d. 900/1494) had already in his time 
defined the collective by ism al-djins al-djamH, 
a term at present in general use in Egypt, according 
to Fischer (20). 

The article by A. Fischer will provide useful 
references for Arabic terminology, see in particular 
the text of al-Ushmuni (op. cit. 21-22) on the 
difference between: al-djam 1 , ism al-djam 1 , ism 
al-djins al-djamH. In the latter, al-Ushmuni (1. 12) 
puts the collectives with noun of unity in -iyy- 
(like rum, rumiyy-). The text can be compared 
with that of the Sh. Sh., ii, 193 ff. 

1. — The external plural 
A. — The external plural for rational beings (al- 

a) By reason of their constitution, agent-nouns 
and passive nouns of Forms derived from verbs are 
not capable of forming an internal plural; they form 
the external plural necessarily, where there is a 
question of rational beings: mufa'Hjaluna, mufa"i\ 
aldt, etc. ; as for the IVth F., mufHjal can form the 
internal plural, but one finds only a few examples 
of this (Muf. § 252) ; the external plural is normal for 
them. The Forms fa cc dl (intensive agent-noun and 
noun of occupation), /»"«, fu"dl (with one exception, 
Muf., ibid.) take only the external plural for rational 
beings, similarly the relative adjective: misriyyuna 
"Egyptian (men)", misriyyat "Egyptian (women)". 
These constructions are constant. 

b) For the 'u^ald', the external plural is the 
proper plural of faHl and mafHil (agent-noun and 
passive noun which is exactly the sifa of the Arab 
grammarians), through and by reason of the verbal 
"value" which they contain, in the view of these 
grammarians: this is true of them considered as 
"participles". In proportion as they become sub- 
stantives (ism), they become further removed from 
the position of "participles" and can take the 
internal plural. This is the principle which emerges 
from Ibn Ya'ish's explanations, 625, in particular 
1. 14-9, on the subject of the masculine external 
plural (with exceptions: Muf. § 247 and 252). See 
aho Sh. Sh., ii, 116, 1. 9 ft. 

c) This extends to adjectives (sifa mushabbaha) of 
the Form jaH, fiH, fuH, fa'al, faHl, faHtl, fu'ul (Muf. 
§ 239; Ibn Ya'ish, 625, 1. 20-4); see (Ibn Ya'ish, 
626-8) examples and cases of internal plural. As 



for the numerous adjectives with a long vowel after 
the second root consonant (like fa'ul), the internal 
plural is normal for them (unlike the preceding 
instances). The external plural can occur, especially 
in the case of faHl in the active sense (karimUna, 
karimdt), as opposed to faHl in the passive sense 
which cannot take it for the i ukala > ; (for af-alu 
see Muf. § 249). 

This outline sufficently shows the Arab point of 
view; it remains, with the help of monographs, to 
define the usage of the authors themselves, par- 
ticularly in their use of the external feminine plural 
for non-rational beings, like wa-kuduri" rdsiydti" 
(Kur'an, XXXIV, 12/13) "and firm cooking-pots", fi 
ayydmi" ma i duddti n (Kur'an, II, 199/203) "on days 
well numbered". Such instances are infrequent, 
less frequent than those of the internal plural (like 
ayydm kaldHl" "days few in number"). 

Used as a feminine singular substantive for non- 
rational beings, fdHla' and mafSMa* take the internal 
plural e.g.: fdHda' "utility", pi. fawd'id", maksura* 
"small private room", pi. mafrdsir". This does not 
create any difficulties. It remains to examine the 
external plural for substantives which are only 
substantives (proper names included). The difficulty 
noted above, for the Htkald', arose precisely from 
the participial adjectives (the sifa) which can become 
substantives. 
B. — The external plural for substantives and 

a) Proper names: the question of the HikaW 
naturally affects the use of the plural of proper 
names and also of diminutives. 

For the former, Sibawayhi (ii, ch. 350) leaves a 
choice between the external plural and the internal 
plural when the name is capable of forming it, e.g.: 
for Zayd (masc. proper name): zayduna or azydd, 
zuyiid, for Hind (fem. proper name) : hinajiddt (or 
hinddt of the Tamim) or ahndd, hunud; but -at for 
the plural of men's proper names terminated by 
-at": falhat" "Talha", pi. talahdt (according to the 
Basrians, 4th disputed question, Ibn al-Anbari, K. 
al-lnsdf, ed. Weil, 18 ff.). 

As to the diminutive (like shuwayHr, diminutive 
of shaHr "poet"): for the masculine l u%ala': shuway- 
Hruna; shuwayHrdt for the feminine; -at for the 
plural of the diminutive for non-rational beings: 
kitdb "book", diminutive kutayyib, pi. kutayyibdt. 

b) Substantives which are purely substantives: 
a small proportion reverts to the suffix -una: 
biliteral nouns like sana* "year": sinuna and some 
isolated ones, like 'dlam "world": '■alamuna. The 
suffix -at is used much more widely. It is given to: 

1. feminine nouns with the suffix -d'u or -a: 
sahra'u "desert" sahrdwdt, dhikrd "memory" 
dhikraydt. 

2. names of the letters of the alphabet: alif, alifdt. 

3. names of the Muslim months: ramaddn", rama- 

4. infinitives of the derived Forms of verbs used 
as substantives: ta c rif "definition", ta'rifdt. 

5. foreign nouns: istabl "stable", isfabldt; the 
same, denoting men: bdshd "Pasha", bdshawdt. 
The modern language still carries on this proce- 
dure: tilifun "telephone", tilifiindt. 

6. biliteral nouns: sana* "year", sanawdt and a 
few isolated instances, some feminine like: ar4 
"earth", araddt, others masculine like djamad 
"mineral", djamdddt. 

7. a particular and important usage can be in- 
cluded here: agent-nouns or passive nouns of 



all Forms of the verb and of adjectives with 
the suffix -at are regarded as neuter, e.g.: al- 
sdlihdt "Good" (tfur'an, II 23/25, 76/82, etc.), 
al-sayyi'dt "Evil" (Kur'an, IV 22/18, VII 152/ 
153, etc.), al-makhlukdt "creatures", etc. This 
usage still exists in modern Arabic: al-mashrubdt 
"refreshments", etc. 
To sum up, for the 'ultaW the external plural is 
the proper plural of relative adjectives, the agent- 
nouns and passive nouns fdHl and maf'ul, mufHIal 
(and still more, Forms which take only the external 
plural), of the Forms fa"dl, /t"tj, fu"dl ; for adjectives 
with one or two short vowels, the external plural is 
also given as the standard form (the kiyds) but not 
for the other adjectives subject to greater variation. 
With substantives, the c ukald'" apply only in respect 
of proper names and diminutives. In this special 
treatment of rational beings is to be found the 
indication of a true Class, operative in classical 
Arabic. It was important to place it. 
C. — External plural, plural for small numbers. 

Another assertion by the Arab grammarians is that 
the external plural is a plural for small numbers 
[Muf. § 235, Ibn Ya'ish, 611-2) (which charac- 
teristic can cross its influence with the preceding). 
There is thus a way of explaining, in certain instances, 
the coexistence of the external plural and the internal 
plural for the same word, e.g. : karaydt (small number), 
kura* (large number) for a singular karya' "village". 
This seems to be particularly noticeable for the 
external plural in -at and to have had an influence 
on dialects : the plural for a small number, described 
by E. F. Sutcliffe in A grammar of the Maltese 
language, London 1936, 36, is of this kind. The 
question of small numbers will occur again in 
1 with internal plurals. 



II— The 






The internal plural is found sporadically (as it 
were, still on trial) in Western Semitic languages in 
the north (Hebrew-Aramaic) (Brockelmann, Precis, 
§ 165). It is the Western Semitic languages in the 
south which made use of the procedure, particularly 
Arabic (only ten Forms of the internal plural in 
Geez). But from what do these internal plurals 
derive ? Are they the plural of a singular following 
a genetic connection, or on the other hand are they 
independent words linked simply by the singular- 
plural relationship? This genetic connexion cannot 
be established: even in the case of sing, fu'la', pi. 
fu'al, sing, fi'la', pi. fi'al, the question is not clear 
(cf . below) ; some fi'ldn plurals are seen to come from 
a suffix -an: *akhwdn >ikhwdn "brothers", 'dfardn 
> djirdn "neighbours", but the words thus plural- 
ized are lost in the mass of internal plurals of 
the Form fi'ldn, independent of a singular. Thus 
the second position is adopted by many Orientalists 
(see Barth, Nominalbildung, 417-8). Internal plurals 
are therefore considered to be derived from collec- 
tives which are connected with abstract words 
(M. Bravmann has recently maintained the con- 
trary view, in Orientalia, xxii, 1953, 7-8, but he is 
not convincing). 

Internal plurals are collectives clarified by the 
plural: collectives offered a mass; through this use 
of the plural, individualities have become distinct in 
this mass (see below, III) and can be numbered 
(that is to say, counted precisely according to the 
different numbers), or else remain simply with a 
vague, not fixed, number — the indeterminate plural. 

The human mind can easily make the transition 



from the collective to the indeterminate plural 
because, while being a true plural, it retains some 
subtle element of the former through the vague- 
ness and imprecision of the number of units com- 
prised. This explains how, in Arabic, the same 
word without any internal change or variation in 
its external form may be looked upon in one con- 
nexion as a collective and in another as an indeter- 
minate plural. A good example is provided by RadI 
al-DIn al-Astarabadhi (Sh. Sh., ii, 196, 1. 1-3) when 
he states explicitly that the ism al-ajins (coll.) 
for the noun of unity with -a', takes the plural in 
-at for a small number and uses the same form 
without -a' for a large number, as for example for 
"ant": namla' (n. of un.) pi. namaldt (small number), 
naml (large number). This is his example (loc. cit.) 
even though there exists the internal plural for a 
large number nimdl. This concept of an indeter- 
minate plural, for a vague number of units, brings 
an element of clarity, here and in other instances, 
e.g. for kawm (see below). A true plural, it forms 
a link and transition between collective and plural. 
The link between collectives and abstract nouns, 
it seems to us, cannot be denied; a collective on the 
way to becoming an abstract word (this cannot be 
developed here (see my Traiti § 71) ; conversely, an 
abstract word which becomes collective, e.g. shabdb 
"youth" (abstract word), shabdb "young people" 
(coll.). The collective thus proves to be the link 
between the abstract word and the internal plural. 
But not all collectives derive from an abstract word. 
Can one therefore refuse the language the power 
of directly creating, for natural masses, collectives 
to which it has opposed nouns of unity to designate 
separate members of these masses ? In this question 
of the internal plural it is well to consider the 
complexity of the collective from which it derives, 
a complexity increased by the diversity of the 
collective wazns, which have passed into the internal 

How has the relationship between singular and 
plural for internal plurals been established ? Semantic 
analogies have been followed, e.g. fi'ala' for animals, 
and also formal analogies, e.g. the so-called plural 
of quadriliterals, also extensions purely analogical 
by simple propagation of a wazn. All this has 
varied from one region of the language to another, 
either in diachrony or in synchrony throughout the 
vast expanse of Arabia. 

Behind the internal plurals lies a long and com- 
plicated history which we have no longer the means to 
unravel. In classical Arabic they appear as a product 
that had been moulded in the general process 
of internal flexion. A good way of approaching 
the question is to consider this product within the 
framework of internal flexion, according to the 
series affected: initial basis and development, as a 
sort of outline. No doubt an outline simplifies and 
neglects cross-currents, but it is not altogether 
without its value in introducing a systematic ar- 
rangement based on the general progress of the 
language. 

In this way one can distinguish four main series, 
with progression in them according to the leng- 
thening of the vowels, the gemination of the second 
root consonant or the use of the affix: 

a) Series: fi'al, fi'dl, fi'dla' (ti'dl + a<), at'dl 
(= *a + ji'-al, or fC-dl > *f'dl > af-dl, see below), 
ti'-ala* (= fi'al + a' or secondary parallel formation 
of fi'dl). 

b) Series: fu'l, fu'ul, fu'-ul, fu'ula' (tu'ul + a<), 
at'ul (= "a + fu'ul), fu'ldn (fuH + an). 



DJAM C , DJAMA'A 



409 



c) Series: fiH, fiHl (these only collective), HHa* 
( = jiH + a<), ajHlc> ( = *a + fiHl + a'), afHWu 
(= *a + fiHl + d>u), fiHdn ( = fiH + an). 

d) Series: fW-al, fu'-ala' ( = fu'al + a'), fu'-aWu 
( = fu'al + a>u), fu«al, fu«dl. 

Out of series: fa'ld ( = faH + a) and fa'ala' 
(probably fa'-al + a'). The internal plurals of 
quadrilaterals will be discussed later. But fa'-al like 
khadam "servants" is a collective (ism al-djam'), 
similarly faHl (like hamir "asses") and fa'al for a 
singular fa'la' (like halka' "ring", halafi) is also a 
collective (ism al-djins). 

As for fu'al (sing. fuHaf), fi'al (sing. /» c to'), they 
are indisputably acknowledged by Arab gram- 
marians to be broken plurals. A problem arises with 
the development: fu'a\uldt, fi'a\ildt. Is this the 
plural of a plural (Brockelmann's solution, Grundriss, 
i, 430, Anm. 2) ? Or merely the external plural of the 
singular fuHa', fiHa' (with supplementary vowel for 
the second root consonant) (see Noldeke, in ZA, 
xviii, 72) ? Arab grammarians had proposed the 
solution adopted by Brockelmann ; Ibn Ya'ish 
refutes them (630, 1. 6-8) : fu'ajuldt, fi'-ajildt, applied 
in the usage for a small number l ), cannot be the 
plural of a plural, a kind of plural which is valid for 
a large number. The question could be discussed 
further. The situation is not clear. But the solution 
is, more probably, to be found in the direction: 
simple external plural. 

Internal plurals for a small number. 

The distinction is made between plurals for a 
large number and plurals for a small number (3 to 
10 inclusive) in the general teaching of Arab gram- 
marians (see e.g. Muf. § 235). They did not invent it. 
But to what extent they fixed what had been a 
flexible usage, or imposed a distinction which departed 
from the spoken language and which was preserved 
only in the traditions of fine language (poetry), one 
cannot tell exactly. A study of the practice of the 
different authors will certainly produce interesting 
results. We know already that poets have not always 
conformed with rules. The language itself did not 
always provide the means to observe them, e.g. 
fcalam "reed cut for writing" has only one plural 
akldm (plural for a small number), similarly 
rasan "horse's nose-band" arsdn; on the contrary, 
radjul "man" ridjdl, sabu' "wild beast" st6d c , without 
a plural for a small number (according to Ibn 
Ya'ish 612 1. 14; like Sibawayhi, he does not recog- 
nize any plural except sibd c , see LA, x, 10 1. 16). The 
so-called internal plurals of quadriliterals are in- 
capable of expressing the distinction, e.g.: burthun 
"talon, claws", pi. bardthin" (for a small or large 
number). From all this one can discern that in 
practice there was considerable variation. It remains 
to say that Arab grammarians have put forward, 
for a small number, the Forms afldl, af'ul, afila* 
(in frequent association respectively with fi'dl, 
fu'ul, fi'-ldn for a large number), and fiHa' (seldom 
used), and besides the external plural noticed 
above. This subdivision of the internal plural was 
noteworthy. 

Apart from this last [fi'la'), the other Forms (of 

1) Ibn Ya'ish argues from the possibility of saying: 
thaldth* rukabdti* "three knees". This is not the usual 
construction: according to the Sharh al-Kdfiya of 
Radi al-Din al-Astarabadhl, ii, 139 (ed. Constantinople 
1275 A.H.), the general practice is to use the internal 
plural and not the external plural for numbers 



the plural for a small number) have the peculiarity 
of having an initial hamza. It seems to me that this 
hamza is not unconnected with the indication of the 
small number and acts in the linguistic sense as a 
formative prefix (however a/HId* is not considered 
as a plural for small numbers). Barth (Nominal- 
bildung, 422, 1. 16-T7) already considered it to be 
"ein specifisches Mittel der Pluralbildung", but did 
not see how to explain its precise origin. It seems 
that some research work is to be done to investigate 
the possibility that a hamza, originally prothetic (in 
W-al > *fdl > af'dl), was later reinterpreted as a 
formative hamza and capable of generalization and of 
to other Forms. 



The so-called internal plurals of quadriliterals. 
The so-called formation of "quadriliterals" is con- 
sidered separately. In fact it possesses a special 
characteristic. It includes not only quadriliterals 
properly speaking like 'akrab "scorpion", but words 
which, with three root consonants, add another as 
prefix, like mahtab "place where one writes, office", 
or many words with a long vowel after the 1st or 
2nd root consonant, like fdris "horseman", 'adjuz 
"old woman". The term quadriliteral becomes in- 
correct but it is useful and in fact does not cause any 
misunderstanding as to its significance. This Form 
of internal plural has one single type, that is to say 
(denoting the four possible consonants by dots) 
the pattern : . a . a . i . and follows the second de- 
clension (special question). When applied to the 
examples given above, the formula gives c akdrib", 
mahdtib", fawaris", 'adxdHz". It has the very con- 
siderable advantage that in the great majority of 
instances it is possible to predict the result whereas, 
for the other Forms (described in order above) since 
in most of the cases two or more Forms of internal 
plural are possible for a given singular, one is 
reduced in practice to learning every word with 
its plural. 

An individual characteristic, and no doubt also 
an individual origin, but what is it ? Brockelmann 
in Grundriss (i, 434 Anm.) was unable at that time 
to see any certain explanation. M. Bravmann 
(Orientalia, loc. cit. 20 f.) proposed a phonetic 
solution, taking as his starting-point *fa'dlt, deriving 
from fa c dla'. This does not appear to be satisfactory ; 
fa'dl can be used, but in another manner, in a solution 
which I am describing very briefly here but which 
I shall develop later. It consists of these processes: 
adaptation of the Form fa c dl (collective) to quadri- 
literals, on the analogy of fu'-ayl (diminutive) which 
became fu'aylil for quadriliterals, and of fu'dl which 
became fu'-dlil (even with quadriliteral roots of the 
pattern 1212); fa'-dl (collective) thus became fa'-dlil 
(collective). This gives a collective to quadriliterals 
and makes it possible to represent, in this category, 
animals whose designation by a quadriliteral noun 
is not lacking in Arabic. Subsequently it was possible 
in the linguistic sense to interpret fa'-dlil as having 
been augmented by an a, internal, characteristic 
moved elsewhere, e.g. : faHd, collective (then internal 
plural of faHdn") could become fa'dld (kasldn" 
"lazy", pi. kasld and kasdld); fa'dld thus opened up 
a way of propagating. From the collective the 
internal plural was easily derived. 

Variations : fa'-dlW when the singular qua- 
driliteral noun contains a long vowel in the 
second syllable: 'usfur "sparrow", c asdfir"; 
fa'dlila', secondary and parallel formation of 
fa'-dUV, used especially for nouns of foreign origin: 
tilmidh "disciple", taldmidh' and taldmidha*. 



Ill— The collective 

It is important to have a clear conception of the 
collective. Collectives are not plurals. Plurals denote 
a plurality of distinct beings or objects, collectives 
on the contrary denote a sum or assembly of several 
objects, abstracting from the component units 
(see the Lexique de la terminologie linguistique 
by J. Marouzeau, Paris 1933, 41 and 145). The 
collective is the mass in which the individuality of 
those "massed together" is blurred: it is this mass 
which is envisaged and which constitutes as it were 
a unit, a kind of singular. A collective, considered 
purely as such, cannot be numbered, unless one 
wishes to indicate the plurality of the unit repre- 
sented by the mass of its components. When the 
collective can be numbered to denote the plurality 
of the latter, it is a sign that it has ceased to belong 
to the collective category through becoming plural: 
the individuality of the "objects massed together" 
has become distinct (see above for the indeterminate 
plural). 

At the beginning of this article the Arabs' termi- 
nology was explained: it now remains to examine 
the question of gender and the distribution of 
collectives in the light of the l ukaW. 

The ism al-djins (n. of un. with -a') is formed 
for natural masses of non-rational beings, e.g. 
nahl "bees", nahla' "a bee", very rarely for 
objects made by man. As for gender, it can be 
considered as either masculine or feminine, according 
to e.g.: Kur'an, LIV, 20 and LXIX, 7. This is 
the teaching of Muf. § 271, Ibn Ya'ish 701, 1. 20-2. 
But according to the Sh. Sh. (ii, 195, 1. 2-3) the 
masculine is dominant. 

The ism al-djins (n. of un. with -iyy-) is formed 
for the 'ukald* (with very rare exceptions), e.g. 
yahud "Jews", yahudiyy- "a Jew". The question 
of gender is not discussed in grammars; according 
to the usage of the Kur'an, yahud is used as masculine 
plural or feminine singular (for the verb which 
precedes, e.g.: kdlat-i-l-yahiidu). 

The ism al-djam 1 without an individual noun or 
with the individual noun provided by another word: 
masculine or feminine for the l ukaW, feminine for 
the others. 

The ism al-djam'- with the noun of unity 
provided by another Form of the same root. It 
exists both for the 'ukald' and for the others. Howell 
(i, 1 145) does not express himself clearly, Wright 
(i, 181 A) is not sufficiently thorough. For SIbawayhi 
in his ch. 429 (ii, 210-1), the masculine is dominant; 
the same view is held by al-Astarabadhi {Sh. Sh., ii, 
204, 1. 7-8) ; Ibn Ya'ish (673, 1. 23-4) is even more 

As regards the '■ukala', there exists an important 
collective which Arab grammarians have not fitted 
exactly into their categories {Muf. § 267, Ibn Ya'ish 
695). It is formed by means of the suffix -a' added 
to the agent-noun: al-sdbila' "the travellers", al- 
mukdtila' "the combatants", aUmuslima' "the 
Muslims", etc., and in particular to the relative 
adjectives: al-marwdniyya' "the Marwanids", al- 
zubayriyya' "the Zubayrites", etc. This procedure 
allows one to designate sects, groups, parties, and 
it is freely used in the modern language. Used in this 
manner, -a' has formed the collective in the reverse 
way from that used for the ism al-djins (n. of un. 
with -a'). 

Note: faH (coll.) can provide a complete system, 
e.g.: sahb (coll.) "companions", sahib (n. of un.), 
ashdb (plural for small number), sihdb (plural 
for large number), or else tayr (coll.) "birds", ta'ir 



(n. of un.), atydr (plural for small number), (uyUr 
(plural for large number). But this system cannot 
be generalized: it is not kiyds (al-Astarabadhi, 
Sh. Sh., ii, 203). One habitually says: sahib pi. ashdb, 
djdlis pi. djulus, etc., but genetically these internal 
plurals derive from faH (coll.) and not from the noun 
of the Form faHl. 

There are at least two aspects to the collective: 
the collective-unit, the mass considered as a sort 
of unit, whereby use in the singular is possible: 
kawm karim "a noble tribe", al-hamam al-mufawwak 
"the ring-dove"; the collective-object which inclines 
towards the neuter, and hence the tendency to 
denote the anonymous mass by a feminine singular, 
even for rational beings: ibil rd'iya' "grazing 
camels", kawm sdfira' "a nomadic tribe". The 
internal plurals of nouns have inherited from their 
former status as collectives the possibility of being 
treated in this way: ridjdl kathira*. But if the 
component parts resume their distinct individuality 
in the mass, the collective passes into the indeter- 
minate plural: kawm kuramd M , kawm mukrimuna 
"noble people". 

These different considerations have been able to 
exert their influence to a greater or lesser degree, 
and in the same way with greater or lesser regard 
for the c ukala', among the various tribes throughout 
the vast territories of Arabia. Arab grammarians 
intended to portray the c arabiyya as an entity 
and have been at pains to show its unity and harmony. 
It was necessary to simplify the diversity, but by 
selecting which aspect? Hence the divergencies of 
opinion. Only precise monographs furnished with 
statistics and based on texts will give a clear view 
of the situation. 

Bibliography: in the text; in addition, works 
discussing the genesis of internal plurals: H. 
Derenbourg, Essai sur les formes des pluriels 
arabes, Paris 1867, 105 (extract from JA, June 
1867); St. Guyard, Nouvel essai sur la formation 
du pluriel brisi en arabe, Paris 1870, 32 (Biblioth. 
Ec. H.-E., Sc. Ph. Hist., 4); L.-Marcel Devic, 
Les pluriels brisis en arabe, Paris 1882, 24; J. Barth, 
Die Nominalbildung in den semitischen Sprachen 2, 
Leipzig 1894, 417-83; C. Brockelmann, Grundriss 
der vergleUhenden Grammatik der semitischen 
Sprachen, i, Berlin 1908, 426-39; on the external 
plural, ibid., 441-55. Lists of internal plurals in 
all instructional grammars, in particular W. 
Wright, Arabic Gr. 3 , i, Cambridge 1933, 199-234 
or Le pluriel brisi by Mohammed-Ben-Braham, 
Paris 1897, viii, 121, using Arabic sources and 
following the Arab manner. Also J. H. Greenberg, 
Internal a-plurals in Ajroasiatic (Hamito-Semitic), 
in Afrikanistische Studien (Festschrift Wester- 
mann), Berlin 1955, 198-204. 

For Arabic sources: Kitdb by Sibawayhi (Paris), 
ii: internal plurals: ch. 416, 418, 422, 424, 426, 
427, 429-31; external plural: ch. 423, 425; 
plural of plurals: ch. 426; plural of biliterals: 
ch. 421; collectives: ch. 417, 419, 420, 429. 
Mufassal (quoted as Muf.) by Zamakhshari, 2nd, 
ed. J. P. Broch, § 234-61 ; Shark by Ibn Ya'ish, 
ed. G. Jahn, 604-80, Shark al-Shdfiya (quoted as 
Sh. Sh.) by Radi al-DIn al-Astarabadhi, 4 vols., 
Cairo 1358/1939, "» 89-210. 

On the external plural and its origin: W. Vycichl, 
in RSO, xxviii, 71-8; S. Moscati, ***<*., xxix (1954), 
28-52 and particularly 178-80; W. Vycichl, ibid., 
xxxiii, particularly 175-9 and on the plural in -at, 
in Aegyptus, xxxii (1952), 491-4- On collectives, 
H. L. Fleischer, Kleinere Schriften, i, 256-8. 



DJAM C , DJAMA'A — DJAMA C A 



For all the questions discussed in this article: 
H. Fleisch, Traiti de philologie arabe, i, Beirut 
1961, §§ 59-63, 65. 101 and 102. (H. Fleisch) 
DJAMA'A. meeting, assembly. In the 
religious language of Islam it denotes "the whole 
company of believers", diamd'at al-mu'minin, and 
hence its most usual meaning of "Muslim com- 
munity", diamd'a isldmiyya. In this sense diamd'a 
is almost synonymous with umma [q.v.]. The two 
terms must, however, be distinguished. 

The term umma is Kur'ariic. It means "people", 
"nation", and is used in the plural (umam). It 
acquires its religious significance particularly in the 
Medina period when it becomes, in the singular, 
"the nation of the Prophet", "the Community, e.g., 
Kur'an III, no, etc.). The term hizb Allah, "the 
party of God" is used in a similar sense on two 
occasions (V, 56; LVIII, 22). On the other hand, 
although J/dj.m/ is of very frequent usage, the word 
diamd'a itself does not belong to the vocabulary of 
the Book. It was, however, very soon to appear, for 
example in the (diplomatic) "Documents" repro- 
duced by Ibn Sa c d and ascribed by him to 
the Prophet. Letter from Muhammad to the 
Sahib of Bahrayn: "and that you enter into the 
Community (diamd'a)". The use of this term was 
to become general in the sunna. We may restrict 
ourselves to two frequently cited hadith sahib of 
Ibn c Abbas: "Whosoever removes himself from the 
Community by the space of a single span, withdraws 
his neck from the halter of Islam", and: "Whosoever 
dies after being separated from the Community, dies 
as men died in the days before Islam (didhiliyya)" 
(translation by H. Laoust). 

In Western languages umma and diamd'a are very 
often translated by this same word "community"; 
and Muslim writers, in fact, find no difficulty in 
using them interchangeably. (The famous hadith: 
"my community does (or: will) never agree upon 
error" uses umma. Cf. Wensinck, Handbook 48 A.). 
If, etymology apart, one wishes to distinguish them: 
umma is the community as constituting a nation 
on a religious-legal basis; while diamd'a is the whole 
body of believers united by their common faith. 
Both terms equally reflect "the desire to live 
together" (L. Massignon) — so characteristic of 
Islam — in accordance with the code of behaviour 
laid down by the Kur'an for this world and for the 
hereafter. But it is to the head of umma that the 
study of the ideal structure of this Community as 
ordained by siydsa al-shar'iyya is best referred; 
while the term diamd'a focuses our attention upon 
the bond which fashions from a group of individuals 
a community of believers. We may add that in 
current Islamic terminology, and even in actual 
popular sentiment, it is umma which first and 
foremost expresses the values of unity and solidarity. 
It is by a doctrinal implication that diamd'a 
comes to bear its technical religious sense. This 
"assembly of the believers" is united by its faith. 
It will, accordingly, stand opposed to those who 
"deviate" and those who "innovate" (even though 
these latter have not officially left the duly consti- 
tuted Community, umma). And it will be identified 
with al-diumla, "the majority" of Muslims, as 
opposed to the sects which "are withdrawn apart". 
Al-Fudayl: "The hand of God rests upon the Com- 
munity {diamd'a). God looks not upon the innova- 

The most widely used expression which embodies 
this doctrinal significance is ahl al-sunna wa 
'l-diamd'a "the people of the Tradition and the 



Community"; here, Tradition (of the Prophet) and 
"assembly" of the believers are mutually supporting 
(cf. L. Veccia Vaglieri, in Studi Orientalistici in 
onore di Giorgio Levi Delia Vida, ii, 573 ff.). From 
a slightly different standpoint, the ahl al-'akd wa 
'l-hall ("the people who bind and loosen") are an 
equivalent body. They are the representatives of 
Community (umma) insofar as they give it expression 
by their consensus (idimd' [q.v.]). Diamd'a and 
idimd' are two words from the same root; it may 
be said that the second is the agreement of the first. 
The two b<*dith of Ibn 'Abbas mentioned above, as 
well as that concerning the umma, are among the 
"divinely-revealed texts" which establish the idimd'. 

In fact, the extent of the diamd'a was to become 
closely linked with the recognized concept of idimd'. 
It is in the development of Hanball thought that 
we find a very particular attachment to the diamd'a 
which was that of the first Muslims and of them 
alone; and it is a well-known feature of Hanball 
doctrine that the only idimd' of value is the con- 
sensus of the Companions. Barbahari, a Hanball 
of the 3rd-4th/9th-ioth century, would define the 
diamd'a as "the ancient religion" (al-din al-'atik), 
by which we understand the practices, beliefs and 
customs of the Companions during the period of the 
first three "rightly guided" Caliphs (cf. Abu 
'1-Husayn b. al-Farra 3 . Tabakdt al-handbila, ii, 32-3, 
cited by H. Laoust, Ibn Batta, 9, n. 1). But if the 
diamd'a in its strict sense is the community of the 
Companions, there remains the fact that every 
Muslim is bound, down through the centuries, to 
follow it and conform to it. "To follow the Commu- 
nity", luzum al-diamd'a, is a duty of the believer 
upon which the Hanballs have consistently insisted 
(e.g. Ibn Batta, Ibdna, 5/10). By the same token, 
"the diamd'a of the Ancients" is kept alive down 
through the ages. At every epoch those Muslims who 
are wholly faithful to the Tradition are integrated 
in the diamd'a. The first credo ('Akida, i) of Ibn 
Hanbal describes them as ahl al-sunna wa 'l-diamd'a 
wa 'l-athar, thus joining to the first two terms the 
"precedent" of the Prophet and the Companions 
(cf. H. Laoust, Ibn Batta, n, n. 1). The expression 
ahl al-hadith ("traditionists") was to become an 
approximate equivalent, until the appearance of 
ahl al-hakk, which was to have a tendency to prevail 
later. 

The stream of Hanball doctrine was to remain 
faithful to this notion of a Community centred upon 
the faith of the Ancients as the only absolutely 
authentic faith. Ibn Taymiyya for example was to 
speak of both umma and diamd'a. He was to stress 
the obligation of the ahl al-sunna wa 'l-diamd'a to 
follow the "precedents" (athdr) °i the Prophet 
"just as much in the depths of their inmost beings 
(bdtin) as in their external behaviour (zdhir)", and 
to follow in the same way the paths of the Compa- 
nions (Wdsitiyya, 34, cf. H. Laoust, ibid., io,n.). 
This reverential attachment of Hanbalism to the 
diamd'a finally arrives, in a manner of introverted 
devotion, at the point where the faithful of the 
Medina period grouped around Muhammad are 
recalled, and where this ancient "religion" is revived 
by each generation of believers until the last hour 
of the end of time. 

The same was not to hold good for the other 
schools. For example, to the extent that the idimd' 
is understood (e.g. the Shafi'I school) to be the con- 
sensus of the scholars living in a given generation, and 
becomes the fourth "source" (distinct from the 
sunna) of Islamic law, al-diamd'a loses its strict 



historical reference to the first years of Islam. 
Already al-Tabari (cited by Rashid Rida, Khildfa, 14) 
had argued against a diamd'a restricted to the group 
of the Companions. According to him the luzum al- 
Hamd'a ought to be defined, without reference to 
any particular period, as the obedience of the Muslim 
community to the sovereign that it has chosen for 
itself; and "whosoever breaks his contract with the 
sovereign leaves the diamd'a". The verb here 
employed which signifies "to obey the sovereign" 
evokes the notion of "the one who commands 
authority", and must be taken to refer to the Imam, 
the guide and leader of the Community. The diamd'a 
will, therefore, be defined by reference no longer to 
the first Muslims alone, but to every Imam recog- 
nized as legitimate. It will become, according to this 
point of view, a factual reality rather than a value 
primarily doctrinal, and will thenceforth tend to 
be supplanted by umma. 

This is most noticeable in the 'Urn al-kaldm. 
Notwithstanding his affirmed respect for Ibn 
Hanbal, Abu '1-Hasan al-Ash c ari was to present his 
two celebrated credo of the liana and the Makaldt 
simply as the agreement of the ahl al-sunna. Once 
only is the notion of "community" there in opera- 
tion: the intercession of the Prophet for "the great 
sinners of the Community", and umma is the term 
employed {Makaldt, i, 322). In the Luma' likewise, 
whether it is a question of the attitude (condemned 
as dissidence) of the Mu'tazilites, or of the consensus 
of the Community as the foundation of the idimd', it 
is always umma which alone appears. It was no part 
of the task of kaldm to devote a chapter to al- 
diamd'a. As for the works which deal with "Public 
law" they look at the Imdma or the Khildfa from 
the aspect of the conditions of power, and have no 
concern to analyse the formal constituent elements 
of the Community. More and more it is the term 
umma which comes to epitomize the communal 
fervour of the believers. 

And yet diamd'a, with its connotation of doctrinal 
unity, never entirely disappeared from the technical 
vocabulary. It could be found, passim, in many 
works; such, too, is the case in the contemporary 
period. It is found also, incidentally, in the Zuhr al- 
Isldm, 199, of Ahmad Amin citing Mas'udl. The 
adjective djamdH was to retain the same sense. 
When Ibn c Asakir, in the 6th/i2th century, wrote 
his apologetic biography of al-Ash c ari, his purpose 
was to describe him as sunni, diamdH, hadithi: and 
one can recognize in these epithets the formula 
maintained by the Hanbalis. DiamdH also must be 
understood to mean the supporter of the true 
doctrine of the Ancients. It remains to note that 
in general the Ash'aris call themselves "the people 
of the Tradition and the Truth", ahl al-sunna wa 
'l-hahk, — this last word recalling quite accurately 
the technical sense of diamd'a, but, as is easy to 
appreciate, with other connotations. In short, al- 
diatnd'a, when understood as a duly constituted 
union of Muslims, tends here to give way to the term 
umma; when it is taken to signify the unity of the 
true beliefs, it is consistently replaced by al-hakk. 

As regards the contemporary period, mention 
must be made of the "reformist" movement of the 
salafi, which is broadly receptive to the influ- 
ences of Hanbal! thought. It might, therefore, be 
expected that their scheme would refer to diamd'-a. 
In fact, and very logically, Rashid Rida, in his 
analysis of the notion of idimd', examines, in his 
Khildfa, the meaning of al-diamd'a. But he does not 
hesitate to expand the strict sense given to it by the 



Hanbalis, readily admits the definition of Tabarf 
referred to above, and identifies diamd'-a with the 
"men who bind and loosen" in each period. In the 
same paragraph he uses umma in a fairly approximate, 
but nonetheless not identical, sense. For him the 
diamd'a is the whole group of those who hold the 
reins of authority and who must be followed when 
they are in agreement (idimd'). It is the umma which 
is liable to be split by disturbances; the best line of 
conduct to observe, therefore, (the hadith of Hudayfa 
b. al-Yaman) is to remain faithful to the diamd'-a 
and its Imam. Furthermore, the title of Rashid Rida's 
chapter, "Concerning the power of the umma and 
the meaning of the term diamd'a" is characteristic. 
In the salafi sense, then, it may be said that the 
people who constitute the diamd'-a are those Muslims 
whose faith and truth are guaranteed and who are 
thereby in perfect line of continuity with the faith 
of the Ancients (salaf). To them belongs the right to 
designate the supreme Imam to whom they promise 
allegiance (bay'a) in the name of all, and who, by 
the same token, will be the duly appointed leader 
of the entire umma. The diamd'a only .attains its 
full import when united with its Imam. 

The same applies to the more restricted, more 
localized meaning of the word. Every assembly of 
Muslims gathered together in order to "perform the 
prayer" (saldt [q.v.]) is a diamd'a. This definition is 
eminently suitable for the obligatory ritual of the 
zuhr on Friday, dium'a, which is, accordingly, the 
day of meeting par excellence; and the mosque, 
didmi', where the ritual is performed in the place 
which gathers together the believers. The same holds 
good for the obligatory prayers performed in con- 
gregation on the prescribed festivals. It is in relation 
to the congregational prayers that the two credo of 
al-Ash c arI speak of diamd'a in the singular in the 
Makaldt, i, 323, and in the plural in the Ibdna, 12. 
This diamd'a of Muslims united in the performance 
of the prayer, as testimony to their faith, will be of 
a form and nature which is not so much determined 
by principle as fixed by the description of its own 
particular imam "little imdma". 

Bibliography: as indicated in the text with 
the following particularizations or additions: 
Muhammad Hamidullah, al-WathdHk al-siydsiyya, 
2nd. ed., Cairo 1956, n. 67; W. Montgomery Watt, 
Muhammad at Medina, Oxford 1956, 247, 360; 
H. Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et 
politiques de Taki-d-Din Ahmad B. Taimiya, 
Cairo 1939 (v. Index, diamd'a) ; idem, La profes- 
sion de foi d'Ibn Batta, Damascus 1958 (v. Index); 
Abu '1-Hasan al-Ash c ari, al-Ibdna 'an usul al-din, 
Cairo edition 1348 A.H., 11-2; idem, Makaldt al- 
Isldmiyyin, Cairo 1369/1950,1, 322-3; Ibn 'Asakir, 
Tabyin Kadhib al-muftari fi ma nusiba ild 'l-imdm 
Abi 'l-Ifasan al-Ash'ari, Damascus 1347 A.H. (cf. 
A. F. Mehren, Expose de la reforme de I'lsla- 
misme ... in Travaux de la f session du Congres 
International des Orientalistes, ii; and the English 
translation of R. J. McCarthy, The theology of al- 
Ash'ari, Beirut 1953, 147 ff.); Rashid Rida, al- 
Khildfa aw al-Imdma al-'uzmd, Cairo 1341 A.H. 
(edition of al-Manar), 13-5 (French translation by 
H. Laoust, Le Califat dans la doctrine de Rashid 
Rida, Beirut 1938, 21-5). (L. Gardet) 

(ii) The word has been most regularly used in 
Morocco. In Algeria, records at least a hundred years 
old confirm the existence under the name "djemaa", 
of local administrative assemblies. Their competence 
to own property was confirmed as regards the 
patrimony of the "douar", but was suppressed 



DJAMA'A — 

politically and juridically (decree of 25 May 1863; 
ruling of 20 May 1868; decree of n September 1873, 
with particular reference to Kabylia). However, 

demanding a liberalization of the system. This was 
in part the aim of the 1919 reform which established 
elected "djemaas" within the "mixed commune". 
The administration was later to attempt, not without 
circumspection, to develop from these first assem- 
blies the communal evolution of which they con- 
tained the nucleus. 

As for Algeria, it was do doubt in the Berber 
regions, and especially in Kabylia, that the first 
observers had noted the most revealing features of 
these collective undertakings. The thajmdHh (and 
variants), which included all the adults but paid 
regard to individual and family influences, and much 

larly, deliberated on all matters of concern to the 
village and showed a vitality which has endured 
side by side with official life, even to the point of 
continuing to exert influence, in certain cases, through 
the codification of the kdnuns, an accepted func- 
tion of public law. 

But it is in Morocco, in the High and Middle Atlas, 
that investigation has demonstrated the system 
functioning in its purest form. A constant theme of 
the research conducted up to the present time has 
been to bring out the triple incidence of these com- 
munal customs upon political life which becomes 
organized, within the canton, in a sort of spontaneous 
democracy, upon judicial life which is governed by 
regulations of extraordinary detail, and upon the 
tenure of property. In 1922, L. Milliot defined the 
djamd'as as "representative assemblies of the 
different groupings of tribe, subdivision, douar, 
family which make up Muslim society in Morocco. 
These groupings exercise over vast stretches of 
territory rights characterized by occupation in the 
form of cultivation leaving widely scattered areas of 
fallow-land, and grazing . . . .". 

This economic aspect, stimulating the competition 
two systems of cultivation, the European and 



the 1 



, the i 






throughout the colonial period constituted a constant 
preoccupation for the legislator, administrator and 
judge through its actual effects on practical life. 
Juridical definitions have reflected the successive 
phases of the proceedings and have taken a particular 
turn in Algeria { c arsh or sdbga (sdbika) land) in 
Morocco (bldd sj-jma'-a {bildd al-djama c a)) , and lastly 
in Tunisia where this regulation seems to have 
reached its latest development. Tunisia, however, 
provides the example which reveals most clearly, 
through the interference that has taken place 
between private ownership of estates, collective 
property and religious foundations or frubus, both the 
richness and the danger of this form of tenure which 
is so exposed to spoliation from all sides. 

The juridical designation of the djamd'a, elevated 
to the small tribal or cantonal senate, gave rise in 
Morocco to an evolution that was taking shape at the 
time of the beginning of the Protectorate and which 
led to its acquiring a competence not merely with 
regard to property, but also in civil and penal matters. 
The culminating point was reached at the time of the 
celebrated "Berber dahir {zahir)" of 16 May 1930 
which the nationalist opposition, with the support 
of Islamic opinion throughout the world, at once 
denounced as an attack upon the religious Law. One 
of the first measures taken by Morocco after gaining 
independence was therefore the revocation of this 



JAMAKIYYA 413 

dahir, and the establishment of lay judges incident- 
ally contributed a further step towards modernity. 
In short, whatever may be the hazards of this long 
history, they have served to emphasize the intimate 
connexion which, in the rural Maghreb, associates the 
use of this term with certain forms of effort by local 
groups and of its connexions with the soil. These 
forms, hitherto characterized by their anarchic 
particularity, seem at the present day to be adapting 
themselves to the demands of a more intensive 
agriculture and of administrative decentralization. 
That is why, particularly in Morocco, the dxamd'a is 
always found as the central point of programmes of 
reform. It is possible that, by remarkable sociological 
conjuncture, certain contemporary evolutions are 
being based upon the rich communal potentialities 
comprised, in the Maghreb, by the djamd c a, an 
ancient word and a reality of long standing. 

Bibliography: Property law: P. Lescure, Du 
double regime /oncier de la Tunisie, 1900; L. 
Milliot, Les terres collectives {bldd Djemd'-aj—itude 
de legislation marocaine, 1922; F. Dulout, Des 
droits et actions sur la terre arch ou sabga en Algerie, 
1929 ; A. Guillaume, La propriete collective an Maroc, 
i960. Judicial procedure: A. Ribaut, Les djemaas 
judiciaires berberes, 1930; various articles and 
works by Henri Bruno, G. Surdon etc., listed in the 
excellent summary of J. Caille, La justice coutumUre 
au Maroc, 1945. — Administration and politics: in 
addition to the basic work of Hanoteau and 
Letourneux, La Kabylie et les coutumes kabyles 2 , 
Paris 1893 and the thesis of Masqueray, La 
formation des citis, etc., Paris 1886, cf. Maxime 
Champ, La commune mixte algerienne, 1933, 127 ff.; 
H. Brenot, Le douar, cellule administrative de 
V Algerie du Nord, 1938. — The connexion between 
these different aspects emerges from sociological 
studies that have emphasized the various regional 
peculiarities in the Maghreb: cf. especially R. 
Montagne, Les Berberes et le Makhzen, 1930; 
L. Milliot, Les institutions kabyles, in REl, 1932; 
G. Marcy, Le droit coutumier Zemmour, 1949; 
G.-H. Bousquet, Justice /rancaise et coutumes 
kabiles, 1950; J. Berque, Structures sociales du 
Haut-Atlas, 1955; idem, Droit /oncier et integration 
sociale au Maghreb, in Cahiers international de 
sociologie, 1958. (J. Berque) 

DJAMAKIYYA. A term current in the Muslim 
World in the later Middle-Ages equivalent to 
salary. Its origin is the Persian djama — "gar- 
ment", whence djdmakl, with the meaning of a man 
who receives a special uniform as a sign of in- 
vestiture with an official post. From this came the 
form dfdmakiyya with the meaning of that part 
of the regular salary given in dress (malbiis, libds) 
or cloth (kumdsh). Ultimately it took the meaning 
of "salary", exactly as the word djiraya, which 
meant originally a number of loaves of bread sent 
daily by the Sultan to someone, took the sense 
of salary in the terminology of the Azharis during 
the Ottoman period. Didmakiyya first seems to 
have acquired the sense of salary under the Saldjuks, 
since the official terminology of the Fatimids did 
not use the term. In his detailed study of the orga- 
nization of the Fatimid Empire, al-Kalkashandi 
uses only the Arabic term of rdtib (pi. rawdtib) 
{Subh, iii), but the term appears already in texts 
concerning the later Saldjuks {e.g., Ibn al-Athir, 
TaMkh al-Atdbika), Zangids, and Ayyubids {e.g., 
Abu Shama, Kitab al-rawdatayn, Ibn Wasil, Mu/ar- 
ridi al-kurub, and al-Makrizi, al-Suluk). This last 
author, speaking of the adinad (soldiers) mentions 



DJAMAKIYYA — al-DJAMAL 



mabdligh ik(d l dtihim (revenues of their fiefs), d£dma- 
kiyydtihim wa rawdtib nafakdtihim (the regular 
payments necessary to cover their expenditure) 
{Suluk, i, 52). The djamakiyyat most probably 
stands here for the part of the regular payment 
given in the form of dress or cloth. Later on the 
term was used under the Mamluks to denote the 
part of the salary given in money: al-Kalkashandl 
($ubh iii, 457) says that the payments of the 
mamluks of the Sultan were composed of d±dma- 
kiyy&t wa'alif (fodder) wa kiswa (dress). In the time 
of Baybars, al-Makrizi uses the term djdmakiyya as 
equivalent to "salary" in general (e.g., d±dmakiyyat 
al-kada', iii, 475). But al-Nuwayri (Nihdyat al- 
arab, Cairo 1931, viii, 205) specifies that the 
djamakiyydt were the regular payments for a category 
of Mamluks who worked as clerks (al-mamdlik al- 
kitdbiyya arbdb al-d[dmakiyydt). This sense is most 
probably what he meant when he said later on: wa 
asmd* arbdb al-istihkdkat wa 'l-didmakiyydt wa 'l- 
rawdtib wa 'l-sildt (viii, 218-9). In the Circassian 
period the djdmakiyya was the regular monthly 
pay of the army, paid at a special parade { c ard) 
in the sultan's court-yard {al-hawsh al-sultdni) 
usually beginning in the middle of the Muslim 
month. It was paid by (abaka [q.v.], each individual 
mamluk being called by name. For details of the 
procedure and the rates of pay, see D. Ayalon, The 
system of payment in Mamluk military society, in 
JESHO, i, 1958, 50-6. For the further use of the term 
in the sense of "salary" see Dozy, Suppl. i, 1666. 
Bibliography: Other than that included in 
the article: Alexandre Handjeri, Dictionnaire 
francais, arabe, persan et turc (Moscow 1844), 
under "habit", and Steingass, Persian-English 
Dictionary, under d±dma. (Hussain Mon6s) 
DiAMAL [see ibil]. 

al-EJAMAL, "the camel" is the name of the 
famous battle which took place in the month of 
Djumada II 36/November-December 656 near al- 
Basra between the Caliph 'All b. Abi Talib n the 
one hand, and the Prophet's widow 'A'isha [q.v.] 
with the Companions of the Prophet Talha b. 
c Ubayd Allah al-Tayml and al-Zubayr b. al-'Awwam 
[qq.v.] on the other. At that time it was these two 
companions who, after 'All, had most authority 
among the Muslims. 

'A'isha was completing the c umra in Mecca when 
she learned of the assassination of the Caliph 
'Uthman b. 'Affan, and, on the way back to Medina, 
of the election of 'All to the Caliphate at the same 
time as the riots in Medina where public order 
had broken down. Without revealing her inten- 
tions she turned back, and when she reached 
Mecca, gave a fiery speech near the Ka'ba accusing 
the rabble of the murder of 'Uthman, and demanding 
the punishment of the culprits, for 'Uthman, she 
said, had been killed 'unjustly' (maflum"") (al- 
Tabari, i, 3098 etc.); with these words she was 
alluding to a verse of the Kur'an (XVII, 32/35), 
which Mu'awiya was to invoke later (see 'alI b. abi 
Talib), and which prescribed revenge as a duty in 
such a case, thus establishing a hadd [q.v.]. She had 
been one of 'Uthman's opponents (this was used 
against her to impugn her right to protest) but she 
would not condone his murder and made some 
characteristic remarks on this point (cf. al-Tabari, 
i, 3097, Ibn Sa'd, iii, 1, 57-8); in particular she could 
not bear that 'All, towards whopi she had for long 
felt great animosity, should have taken advantage 
of the murder. Some time later (four months, it is 
said, after the death of 'Uthman; al-Tabari, i, 3102) 



Talha and al-Zubayr arrived in Mecca; after rather 
violent discussions with 'All, who refused them posts 
in the government, they had asked and obtained 
permission from him to go to Mecca to perform the 
e umra. A conspiracy was formed against 'All, in 
which took part, besides the persons mentioned 
above, some Umayyads and other Muslims alarmed 
by the turn of events. 'Uthman's assassination had 
caused a scandal, but the real causes of the rebellion 
were above all 'All's indulgent attitude towards the 
culprits, which indicated that they would go 
unpunished, his weakness towards the dissidents 
who had become so arrogant and dangerous that 
several persons had fled, and his popularity-seeking 
anti-IjCurayshi policy. In the provinces nearest to 
the Hidjaz, opposition to 'All was strong; in Syria, 
Mu'awiya had refused homage; KQfa had rejected 
the governor sent by the Caliph, preferring the one 
already in office, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari [q.v.]; 
elsewhere parties opposed to the newly elected 
Caliph had been formed. The rebels tried to choose 
the place offering the best prospects for the success of 
the insurrection, and in the course of a meeting the 
conspirators decided to go to Basra, in the hope of 
finding there the money and troops needed for the 
enterprise. 'A'isha agreed to join the expedition; 
she was to rouse the people, as Talha and al-Zubayr 
seemed hardly qualified for that r61e; not only had 
they so stirred up opinion against 'Uthman that they 
could be accused of being murderers of the Caliph, 
but they had also paid homage to 'All immediately 
after the election ; in rebelling against him they were 
thus violating their pact, so that they had to claim, 
in order to justify themselves, that they had been 
forced to pay homage by violence. Hafsa bint 'Umar 
[q.v.], whose first intention was to follow the rebels, 
was dissuaded by her brother 'Abd Allah [q.v.]. 
After collecting several hundred men with their 
mounts (600 or 700?) they set off. 'All, hearing of 
this, realized that he must react in order not to be 
isolated in Medina. After bringing together, slowly 
and with difficulty, a contingent of 700 warriors he 
too set out (according to al-Tabari, i, 3139, the last 
day of Rabi' II). His aim was to intercept the 
insurgents, but he did not succeed in reaching them; 
at al-Rabadha, he learned that they had already 
passed that halt, and as he too needed money and 
troops, he set off again, in the direction of al-'Irak. 
At the same time the rebels were hurrying to 
Basra. When, in a place called al-Haw'ab, dogs 
barked at the troops, 'A'isha was on the point of 
giving up the adventure, as she remembered a sort 
of foreboding of the Prophet's, but they swore to 
her that this was not al-Haw 3 ab, and, with her 
mind at rest, she carried on (cf. Yakut, Mu'diam, ii, 
352, etc.); this episode is worth mentioning only 
because of the importance attached to it in the 
sources. When they reached the outskirts of Basra, 
the rebel leaders opened negotiations and began to 
make propaganda. 'A'isha, through an emissary and 
letters to certain notables in the town, tried to 
persuade the Basrans to join the insurrection, the 
aim of which, she proclaimed, was isldh; a word 
that implied, for the rebels, the restoration of the 
law and its hudud and hence revenge for 'Uthman, 
the re-establishment of the disrupted social order, 
the placing of power in the hands of a Caliph legally 
elected by a committee or shurd, but, for 'AH, the 
restoration of his authority, a return to the obser- 
vance of the Sunna of the Prophet, and the sup- 
pression of privileges. The Basrans split into two 
parties: some followed the governor nominated by 



'All, 'Uthman b. Hunayf, who, without deliberately 
opposing the rebels, temporized while awaiting the 
arrival of C A1I; others made common cause with 
'Alsha and her two associates, whose forces had 
grown on the way. In a meeting at al-Mirbad, an 
esplanade three miles from Basra, the rebel leaders 
addressed the people and their propaganda was 
successful. Disorders followed, then a melee at the 
"place of the tanners" and on the following days 
fights near the Dar al-Rizk, or supply store (the 
sources do not agree on details). It is there that the 
chief of police, Hukaym b. Djabala, was killed. He 
was too pro-'AlI to stand aside and wait without 
acting. At last, an armistice was concluded: to settle 
who would hold power in the town of Basra, they 
were to await the return of a messenger sent to 
Medina to find out whether it was true that Talha 
and al-Zubayr had been forced to pay homage to 
'Ali (evidently the governor was trying to gain time). 
In the meantime, the situation was not to be altered: 
the governmental palace, the great mosque, and the 
bayt al-mdl were to stay in the hands of the governor 
Ibn Hunayf; but because of the significance attached 
to the leadership in prayer, it was agreed that this 
office would be . performed by two imams, the 
governor himself, and another nominated by the 
insurgents. Talha and al-Zubayr quarrelled, as each 
wanted to have this function, but 'A'isha decided 
that they would exercise it on alternate days, or, 
according to another version of the facts, that their 
respective sons Muhammad and 'Abd Allah would 
exercise it in turn. The inquiry of the messenger 
sent to Medina was favourable to Talha and al- 
Zubayr, but a letter which had reached the governor 
declared exactly the opposite of what they asserted. 
Consequently 'Uthman b. Hunayf would not give 
up his office and a brawl broke out in the mosque. 
But the most serious fact was the assault made by 
the rebels on the bayt al-mdl; they killed or made 
prisoner (and later decapitated) its guards who were 
Zutt [q.v.] and Sayabidja [q.v.]. The attackers more- 
over forced 'Uthman b. Hunayf to leave the palace 
and pulled out his hair and his beard : he succeeded in 
getting himself released and joining 'AH by threaten- 
ing them with reprisals against their families in 
Medina, where his brother Sahl was governor. In 
these brawls and fights, who were the aggressors? 
Some traditions praise the moderation of the rebels 
('A'isha is said to have forbidden her men to use 
their hands except in self-defence) but it is evident 
that it was they who were the attackers, as they 
needed provisions and money, and were afraid of 
being caught later between the advancing forces of 
'All and those of the governor. With Basra occupied, 
the rebels published an order calling on the population 
to surrender all who had taken part in the siege of 
the House (the house of the Caliph 'Uthman), called 
nuffdr in the sources, so that they might be killed 
like dogs. The people obeyed and those killed, it was 
said, numbered six hundred (only Hurkus b. Zuhayr 
[q.v.] was able to escape because he was protected 
by his tribe). This slaughter and the distribution of 
gifts and supplies which Talha and al-Zubayr made 
to their partisans angered part of the population of 
Basra, and 3,000 men went to join 'AH at Dhu Kar, 
among them the Banu 'Abd al-Kays. The tribe of 
the Tamlm, the most important in Basra, on the 
other hand, remained neutral with its chief al-Ahnaf 
b. Kays [q.v.]. 

While these events were taking place (the parleys 
with the governor had lasted, it is said, for twenty- 
six days), 'All had advanced as far as Dhu Kar, for, 



instead of marching on Basra, he had preferred to 
approach Kufa so as to win over its inhabitants to 
his cause. Unfortunately for him, the governor Abu 
Musa al-Ash'arl, although he had recognized 'All's 
election as valid, exhorted the Kufans to stay 
neutral in the approaching civil war and the envoys 
sent by C A1I to Kiifa (al-Ashtar, Ibn 'Abbas, al- 
Hasan, 'Ammar b. Yasir) had to make a great 
effort to persuade part of the population (6, 7 or 12 
thousand men?) to leave the town and join him. 
Abu Musa was deprived of his office. At last 'All 
arrived on the outskirts of Basra and negotiations 
were opened between him and the insurgents. 
Although everyone was convinced that agreement 
was near, fighting began between the two armies. 
The same question arises here — who started it ? 
According to some traditions, 'All had ordered his 
men not to attack, and it was only after the murder 
of some of his partisans that he felt himself entitled 
to fight against opponents belonging to the akl al- 
kibla (Aghdni, xvi, 132; al-Mas'udi, Murudi, iv, 
314 ff. etc.). But al-Tabari (i, 3181-3) reports another 
tradition which explains why and how the battle 
began: 'All is said to have shown his intention 
of not according protection to the persons implicated 
in the murder of the Caliph 'Uthman, and these, 
anxious about their fate, are said to have pro- 
voked the conflict by a sudden attack unknown 
to 'Ali. The battle lasted from morning to sunset 
(according to the (pseudo-) Ibn Kutayba, Cairo 
1377, 77, seven days). The sources differ on the date 
when it took place: the most frequent date is 10 
Djumada II 36/4 December 656, but according to 
Caetani (A.H. 36, § 200) the date 15 Djumada 11/ 
9 December is to be preferred. 

It is a striking fact that the warriors often belonged 
to the same tribes, to the same clans, and sometimes 
even to the same families, and they fought one 
another regardless of kinship. 'A'isha was present 
during the fighting on a camel, in a palanquin the 
cover of which had been reinforced by plates of 
iron and other materials (al-Mas'udi, Murudi, iv, 
315) and the camel was protected by a kind of 
armature (al-DInawari, 159); at the end of the 
battle, the palanquin had so many arrows stuck in 
it that it looked like a hedgehog. 'A'isha was not 
hit; all she received was scratch on an arm. The 
fighting round the camel was particularly fierce ; the 
defenders followed one after the other while declaim- 
ing verses ; those who fell handed the bridle of 'A'isha 's 
camel to other fighters and there were many dead 
(but the figures vary from 40 to 2,700). The victory 
went to 'All, when his soldiers succeeded in ham- 
stringing the camel, thus forcing the beast to lie 
down on its side with its precious burden. But even 
before this last episode the battle was virtually lost, 
as Talha, struck by an arrow which many sources say 
was shot by Marwan b. al-Hakam [q.v.], had retired 
into a house where he soon died, and al-Zubayr, who 
was no longer very sure of the merits or prospects 
of his cause, had withdrawn from the battlefield after 
a talk with 'Ali, who had reminded him of an episode 
of the past, and of certain sayings of the Prophet. 
Al-Zubayr was pursued by some Tamimis and 
treacherously killed in a lonely place (Wadi al-Siba'); 
al-Ahnaf b. Kays was suspected of instigating his 
murder (for the death of al-Zubayr, see also Ibn 
Badrun, Shark Ka?ldat Ibn '■Abdun, ed. Dozy, 
Leiden 1848, 150-4). 

The sources tell of a host of episodes concerning 
duels, the courage of the combatants, the verses 
declaimed by them, but they do not explain the 



416 



l-DJAMAL — DJAMAL al-DIN al-AFGHANI 



development of the battle from the tactical point 
of view; the general picture that emerges from the 
mass of details is that, following the Arab custom, 
the battle consisted of a series of duels and encounters 
along the opposing ranks, and not of a general 
engagement. The most serious fighting was un- 
doubtedly that which took place round the camel. 
It is impossible to calculate the numbers of com- 
batants or of casualties because of the great 
variation in the figures (which vary, for the dead, 
between 6,000 and 30,000; the latter figure is con- 
siderably exaggerated, since for the forces of C A1I 
alone, the combined figure of the men who followed 
him from Medina and those who joined him later can 
hardly have exceeded 15,000 men). 'A'isha was 
taken prisoner, but far from being ill-treated was 
shown great respect. 'All decided, however, that she 
must return to Medina and on that point he was 
inflexible. He granted amdn to all the insurgents, 
and certain compromised individuals (Marwan b. 
al-Hakam, for example) were able to join Mu'awiya 
in Syria. An act which caused a stir among 
'All's partisans, and which provoked recriminations 
among the most fervent of them, was his refusal 
to allow them to take captive the women and 
children of the conquered or to seize their goods, 
with the exception of things found on the battlefield 
(al-Tabari, i, 3227; al-Mas'Gdi, Murudj, iv, 316 ft., 
etc.); they asked why enemies whose blood it had 
been judged lawful to shed should be treated in 
this way; the Kharidiites made this afterwards one 
of their points of indictment against 'All. 

After the battle 'All received the homage of the 
inhabitants of Basra, of which he nominated Ibn 
'Abbas governor (with Ziyad b. Abihi at his side) 
thus causing the indignation of al-Ashtar, as two 
other sons of al-'Abbas had the same office, one in 
the Yemen, and the other in Mecca. 

In the whole insurrection of al-Djamal, the pre- 
eminent personality is 'A'isha; she appears as 
energetic, resolved (except for a moment at al- 
Haw'ab) to gain her end and respected in her 
decisions; while Talha and al-Zubayr, under her 
orders, quarrelling with each other, making weak 
excuses to defend themselves against the accusation 
of having broken faith with 'All, withdrawing during 
the battle instead of fighting to the death, look like 
men impelled only by ambition and at the same 
time lacking the energy and firmness necessary to 
succeed. Caetani assumed that there was an organizer 
of the enterprise behind the widow of the Prophet, 
namely Marwan, who followed the insurgents; the 
theory is attractive, but there is nothing to confirm 
it ; if Marwan was in fact the insurgents' counsellor, 
he operated so discreetly that the sources hardly 
speak of his actions. 

Bibliography: Tabari, i, 3091-233 (in detail, 
excluding episodes: 'All prepares to fight his 
opponents: 3091-6; 'A'isha excites the people in 
Mecca and calls for vengeance for the murder of 
'Uthman, agreement and march of the rebels, 
who occupy Basra: 3096-106, 3111-38; march of 
'Ali halting in Dhu Kar: 3106-n, 3141-3, 3154 ff.; 
situation in Kufa and 'All's efforts to win the 
inhabitants to his cause, removal of Abu Musa: 
3140ft., 3145-54, 3172 ft., 3187 ft.; 'All's march 
towards Basra: 3138-40; negotiations between 
'All and the rebels: 3155-8, 3*75 ff-; events 
preceding the battle, neutrality of al-Ahnaf; 
3143-5, 3162-9; battle: 3174-98; 'Ali and 'A'isha 
after the battle: 3224-6, 3231; homage of the 
Basrans and nomination of Ibn 'Abbas as governor 



of the town: 3229 ft.; Tabari transl. Zotenberg 
iii, 658-64 (with some additions); Baladhuri, 
Ansdb, ms. Paris, ff. 467 recto-493 verso (contains 
traditions neglected by Tabari: cf. G. Levi Delia 
Vida, II Calif fato di c Ali secondo il Kitdb Ansdb al- 
ASrdf di al-Baldduri, in RSO, vi (1913), 440-9); 
Ya'kubi, ii, 209-13; Abu Hanifa al-DInawari, al- 
Akhbdr al-tiwdl, 150-63; (pseudo) Ibn Kutayba, 
K. al-lmdma wa 'l-siydsa, ed. Muh. Mahmud al- 
Rafi'I, Cairo 1322/1904, i, 88-133; idem, ed., 
Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi, second ed. 1377/1957, 
i> 52-79 (speeches, letters and details missing 
elsewhere); Mas'udi, Murudj, iv, 292 ft., 304-23. 
324-37; idem, Tanbih, 295; Ibn Miskawayh, 
Tadjarib al-umam, facsimile of the Istanbul ms., 
i, 518-62; Ibn al-Athir, Kdmil, iii, 164-218 (resume 
of Tabari); Ibn Abi '1-Hadid; Sharh '■aid K. Nahd± 
al-baldgha, Cairo 1329, ii, 77-82, 497-501 (passage 
interesting for details of the occupation of Basra) ; 
Ibn Kathir, Biddya, vi, 229-44 (with details 
missing elsewhere) ; Ibn Khaldun. ii, App., 153-61 
(good resume of Tabari). The resumes of Ibn 
Taghribirdi, Dhahabi, and Abu • '1-Fida' are not 
important. Much information about al-Djamal 
and especially about its episodes and the verses 
declaimed _ on that occasion are to be found 
scattered among the books of adab (such as 
Mubarrad; Aghdni; '■Ikd; Bayhaki, Mahdsin; Ibn 
Kutayba, l Uyun; Djahiz, Baydn; etc., and in 
biographical collections, e.g. in Ibn Sa'd; Ibn 
al-Athir, Usd; Ibn Hadjar, Tahdhib; Ibn KhaUikan 
etc. The following are passages with a certain 
historic interest; Ibn Sa'd, iii, 1, 20; v,26; Aghdni, 
xvi, 131; c Ikd, ed. Bulak 1293, ii, 275-84; Ibn 
'Abd al-Barr, Isti'db, Haydarabad 1318-9, 209 
(part played by al-Zubayr), 213 ff. (part played 
by Talha). Besides the well-known histories of 
Weil, A. Muller, and Muir, see also: Fr. Buhl, MB 
som praetendent og Kali), Copenhagen 1921, 40-55; 
N. Abbott, Aishah the beloved of Mohammed, 
Chicago 1942 and especially Caetani, Annali, 
36 A.H., §§ 21-302. (L. Veccia Vaglieri) 

DJAMAL [see 'ii.m al-djamal]. 
CJAMAL al-DIN al-AFSHAnI, al-Sayyid 
Muhammad b. Safdar, was one of the most out- 
standing figures of nineteenth century Islam. 
Cultured and versed in mediaeval Muslim philosophy, 
he devoted his life and talents to the service of the 
Muslim revival. He was, in the words of E. G. 
Browne, at the same time a philosopher, writer, 
orator and journalist. Towards colonial powers he 
was the first to take the political attitude since 
adopted by many movements of national liberation. 
He is known above all as the founder of modern 
Muslim anticolonialism, admired unreservedly by 
many and considered by his opponents as a dangerous 
agitator. There is, on the other hand, a tendency to 
overlook the intellectual side of his personality, to 
forget his importance as a thinker. Notwithstanding 
the factors that crowded in on him (the decadence 
and lethargy of the Muslim countries, the increasing 
control of their economic and political life by 
European powers, the diffusion in the East of an 
atheism claiming its origin in Darwin) he had a 
clear view of the situation. It is with him that 
begins the reform movement which gave rise to 
the Salafiyya and, later, the Muslim Brothers. He 
expresses almost all the attitudes adopted between 
1900 and 1950 by Muslim apologetics. By the spoken 
and written word he preached the necessity of a 
Muslim revival, both in thought (the need to throw off 
blind fatalism and give intelligence and freedom their 



DJAMAL al-DIN al-AFGHAnI 



proper place in life) and in action. Courageous and 
uncompromising, he aroused and strengthened the 
enthusiasm of his audiences wherever he went in 
his long years of exile. In Egypt he influenced the 
youth of Cairo and Alexandria, so that his perso- 
nality left its mark both on future moderate leaders 
and partisans of immediate violence. He supported 
movements working for constitutional liberties and 
fought for liberation from foreign control (Egypt, 
Persia). He attacked Muslim rulers who opposed 
reform or did not show enough resistance to European 
encroachments. He even envisaged the possibility 
of political assassination. His ultimate object was 
to unite Muslim states (including Shi'i Persia) 
into a single Caliphate, able to repulse European 
interference and recreate the glory of Islam. The 
pan-Islamic idea was the great passion of his life. 
He remained unmarried, made do with the absolute 
minimum in the way of food and clothing and took 
no stimulants other than tea and tobacco. 

His family descended from Husayn b. 'All 
through the famous traditionist 'All al-Tirmidhl, 
whence his right to use the title Sayyid. According 
to his own account he was born at As'adabad near 
Konar, to the east and in the district of Kabul 
(Afghanistan) in 1254/1838-9 to a family of the 
Hanafi school. However, Shi'i writings give his 
place of birth as Asadabad near Hamadan in Persia; 
this version claims that he pretended to be of Afghan 
nationality, in order to escape the despotic power of 
Persia. He did in fact spend his years of childhood 
and adolescence in Afghanistan. At Kabul he 
followed the usual Muslim pattern of university 
studies and in addition began to pay attention to 
philosophy and the exact sciences, through the still 
mediaeval methods used at that time. Then he spent 
more than a year in India, where he received a 
more modern education, and made the pilgrimage 
to Mecca (1273/1857); on his return, he went back 
to Afghanistan and entered the service of the amir 
Dust Muhammad Khan [g.v.], whom he accompanied 
on his campaign against Herat. The amir's death led 
to civil war between his sons over the succession 
[see Afghanistan]. Djamal al-Din taking sides with 
one of them, Muhammad A'zam, shared the short- 
lived successes of that prince as his minister. But 
when the rival faction under Shir c Ali finally triumph- 
ed, he judged it prudent to leave the country. On 
the pretext of making the pilgrimage a second time 
(1285/1869), he went to India where he remained for 
less than two months; he was kept under observa- 
tion by the British, and requested to leave as soon 
as possible. He then went to Cairo where he stayed 
for forty days, became acquainted with Azharis and 
gave lectures in his home. Then he went to Constanti- 
nople (1287/1870). As he already enjoyed a brilliant 
reputation, the high society of the Turkish capital 
gave him an enthusiastic welcome. He was soon 
called to the council of public education and invited 
to give lectures at the Aya Sofya and the mosque of 
Sultan Ahmed. But many were jealous of his 
success. A lecture given at the Ddr al-Funun on 
the usefulness of the arts gave rise to such criticisms 
(especially from the shaykh al-Isldm, Hasan Fehmi) 
that he decided to leave Turkey. Certain of his 
words on the rdle of prophets in the organization 
of societies had been twisted to look like rationalism. 

He went to Cairo (March 1871) with no thought of 
settling there ; but the welcome he received made him 
decide to stay. The government made him an 
annuity of 12,000 Egyptian piastres without asking 
anything of him in exchange. Young men, among 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



them Muhammad 'Abduh, the future chief mufti of 
Egypt, and Sa'd Zaghlul, the future hero in the 
struggle for Egyptian independence, gathered round 
him. At his home he gave them lectures on various 
subjects, read to them from Muslim philosophy and 
generally broadened their outlook. A wider circle, 
composed of these same pupils and older people, 
would listen to him at the "Cafe de la Poste" speaking 
on literature, science, politics etc. He urged the 
young people to fight with the written word by going 
into journalism, considered as the modern method of 
influencing people's minds. He gave his encourage- 
ment to Adib Ishak who founded the review Misr, 
then the daily al-Tidjara; he helped found Mir'dt 
al-Shark. He contributed himself to these journals, 
but above all got his pupils to do so. He aroused 
patriotic resistance to European interference in the 
question of the Egyptian debt. In 1878 he joined 
the Scottish Freemasons; but, disillusioned, he 
founded an Egyptian lodge affiliated to the French 
Grand Orient, whose three hundred members formed 
the fieriest element of the nationalist youth. Politics 
were discussed in the lodge and plans for reforms 
drawn up. At that time, Djamal al-DIn was involved 
in all requests for a parliamentary regime. He is even 
said to have suggested to Muhammad 'Abduh the 
idea of assassinating the Khedive Isma'il. The 
replacement of Isma'il by the Khedive Tawfik 
(1879) put an end to any such project. In bad 
odour with the conservative Azharis and the Council 
of Ministers, closely watched by the British, Djamal 
al-DIn was finally expelled on the instigation of the 
latter (September 1879). Next he went to India, 
living under close scrutiny first at Haydarabad, 
then at Calcutta, where the British requested him 
to remain as long as the c Urabi Pasha affair lasted. 
It was while staying in Haydarabad that he com- 
posed in Persian his refutation of materialists [see 
dahriyya]. He begins with an attack on Darwin's 
ideas and goes on to assert that only religion can 
ensure the stability of society and the strength of 
nations, whilst atheistic materialism is the cause of 
decay and debasement. He stresses this assertion 
by detailing all that belief in God and religion gives 
a society, first in terms of the collectivity: pride in 
the knowledge of one's superiority to animals and of 
belonging to the finest community, i.e., Islam, and 
also in terms of the individual: fear of stricture, 
loyalty and truthfulness. He attributes the loss of 
political supremacy of certain states to materialism 
(Epicureanism in Greece, the doctrines of Voltaire and 
Rousseau in France etc.). He ends with an apologia 
for Islam, rendered antonomasically as religion. 

During this time the situation in Egypt was 
becoming explosive. In 188 1 'Urabi Pasha rose up 
against the Khedive, the Circassian officers in the 
army, and foreigners. It is certain that Djamal al- 
Din's activities in Egypt had helped to stir up 
unrest. The revolt failed because of the British 
intervention of 1882 ending in the occupation of the 
country. Djamal al-Din left India. We next find him 
in London in the spring of 1883, when Wilfrid 
Scawen Blunt met him. According to Blunt he had 
just returned from the United States where, after 
leaving India, he stayed for a few months with 
a view to naturalization. (This information given by 
Blunt without any explanation, cf. Browne, 401, is 
contested by all Arab studies on the subject; a 
letter from Djamal al-DIn to Muhammad 'Abduh 
written in Port Said on the 23 September— no 
mention of the year — bears simply the instruction 
to write to him in London where he is going. It can 



DJAMAL al-DIN al-AFGHANI 



only refer to 23 September 1882 although a number of 
studies in Arabic prefer 1883. But let us look at his 
subsequent activities). On 18 May 1883 in the 
Journal des Dibats of Paris he published a reply to 
the lecture which Ernest Renan had given at the 
Sorbonne on 29 March 1883 on L'Islam et la 
science and which had caused a great deal of feeling 
in Muslim circles in Paris. In his reply he asserted 
that Islam is compatible with science, that in the 
past there had been Muslim scientists, some of them 
Arabs; only the present state of Islam could support 
the opposite view. On 3 September 1883 Blunt 
met him in Paris. He was conducting a campaign 
against British policy in Muslim countries. Leading 
newspapers published articles by him which made 
an impact on influential circles (on the Eastern 
policy of Russia and Great Britain, the situation 
Turkey and Egypt, the importance and justification 
of the movement brought about in the Sudan by 
the Mahdi). But the outstanding feature of his stay 
in Paris was the joint publication with Muhammad 
'Abduh, who had joined him and acted as his editor, 
of an Arabic weekly Urwa al-Wuthkd (The Indisso- 
luble Link). This journal was the organ of a secret 
Muslim society of the same name which financed 
it. The first number appeared on 15 Djumada I 
1301/13 March 1884 and the eighteenth and last on 
26 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1301/16 October 1884. Sent free 
of charge to members of the association and anyone 
else requesting it, its entry into Egypt and India was 
barred by the British (confiscations and heavy fines 
for being in possession of it). In spite of various 
stratagems (such as sending it in closed envelopes, 
as Djamal al-DIn later revealed) it did not reach 
enough readers and had to lapse. Its influence was 
nevertheless considerable. It attacked British 
action in Muslim countries. It emphasized the 
doctrinal grounds on which Islam should lean, in 
order to recover its strength. In 1885 Muhammad 
'Abduh left his mentor and went to Beirut; from 
then on the two men followed politically divergent 
paths. Muhammad 'Abduh temporized, concentrating 
mainly on reforms that were immediately possibla, 
above all in teaching. Djamal al-DIn continued as 
a lone pilgrim along the road to pan-Islamism. 

In 1885, on the suggestion of W. S. Blunt, British 
statesmen approached Djamal al-DIn, in spite of 
the aggressive character of his anti-British activities, 
over steps to be taken with regard to the movement 
of the Mahdi in the Sudan. The discussions led to no 
practical result. Shortly afterwards (1886) Djamal 
al-DIn was invited by telegram to the court of 
Shah Nasir al-DIn in Tehran. He was given a 
lavish reception and was earmarked for high office. 
But very soon his increasing popularity and influence 
became offensive to the Shah and he was forced to 
leave Persia "for health reasons". Next he went to 
Russia where he established important political 
contacts and on behalf of Russian Muslims obtained 
the Tsar's permission to have the Kur'an and 
religious books published. He stayed there till 1889. 
On his way to the Paris World Fair he met the 
Shah in Munich, and was persuaded by him to 
return to Persia. During his second stay there 
Djamal al-DIn had cause to realise how changeable 
the sovereign was. Djamal al-DIn had drawn up a 
plan of legal reforms; by criticizing it the jealous 
and scheming grand vizier MIrza C A1I Asghar Khan. 
amin al-sulfdn, reversed the Shah's favourable 
attitude. Djamal al-DIn retired to the sanctuary 
of Shah <Abd al-'Azim near Teheran. In an asylum 
considered inviolable [see bast], he remained for 



seven months, sourrounded by a group of admirers 
who listened avidly to his theories for politcal 
reform in the oppressed country. Urged by the 
grand vizier and spurning the right of asylum, the 
Shah had him forcibly removed by 500 cavalry, put 
into chains and despite his delicate state of health 
taken as far as Khanikln on the Turko-Persian 
border (beginning of 1891). From then on Djamal 
al-DIn showed nothing but hatred and a desire for 
vengeance towards the Shah, an attitude which 
Ahmad Amin contrasts with the nobler feelings of 
other exiled reformers. From Basra, where he 
stayed just long enough to recover his health, he 
sent a scorching letter to MIrza Hasan-i ShirazI, the 
first mudjtahid of Samarra, opposing the Shah's 
decision of March 1890 to grant the tobacco rights of 
Persia to a British firm. He mentioned other con- 
cessions made to Europeans and accused the Shah 
of wasting public moneys to the advantage of "the 
enemies of Islam". He also denounced other abuses 
and cruelty by members of the government, parti- 
cularly c Ali Asghar Khan (see this letter in Arabic in 
Mandr, x, 820 ff., and in English in Browne, 15-21). 
His letter had swift results; the muditahid published 
a jatwd prohibiting the use of tobacco to all believers 
until the government cancelled the contract of 
concession. .The government had to give in and 
compensate the concessionaires. Djamal al-DIn then 
went to London for a year conducting a violent 
campaign through articles and lectures against the 
regime prevailing in Persia. He contributed parti- 
cularly to the bilingual monthly review (in Arabic 
and English) Diyd* al-Khdjikayn, "Radiance from the 
two hemispheres", which he helped to found (1892). 
He demanded the deposition of the Shah. He looked 
especially to the professional men of religion, assuring 
them they were the ramparts of Islam against Euro- 
pean designs. His repeated appeals, the feeling caused 
by his expulsion and the successful tobacco boycott 
were the beginning of a powerful movement for 
reform backed by the Persian religious authorities. 
The closing years of Djamal al-DIn's life were 
clouded by sadness. He spent them so to speak in a 
gilded cage at Constantinople, where sultan c Abd 
al-Hamid had twice summoned him through his 
ambassador in London (1892). After first declining, 
Djamal al-DIn consented to go. Was the sultan 
sincere in inviting the illustrious champion of a pan- 
Islamism, in which Turkey would have played a 
major part, and did he really intend to work with 
him towards its realization? Or, as Ahmad Amin 
suggests, did he want Djamal al-DIn near him to be 
able to neutralize his influence more effectively ? It 
is difficult to say. The newcomer was given a fine 
house on the hill of Nishantash, not far from the 
imperial palace of Yildiz. He received 75 Ottoman 
pounds a month and was allowed to keep contact 
with people wishing intercourse with him. The 
sultan behaved kindly towards his guest, listened 
to him to begin with at least and persuaded him to 
drop his resentful attitude to the Shah. He even 
offered him the post of shaykh al-Isldm, but he 
declined it. That was the turning-point. Intrigues 
and rivalries, especially on the part of Abu '1-Huda, 
the leading religious dignitary at the court, did the 
rest. Relations between the sultan and his guest 
became extremely frigid. Djamal al-DIn made 
several requests for permission to leave, which 
always met finally with a negative reply. We have 
some idea of his position at that time from the 
visitors he received. He was pained and dejected 
by the sight of so much cowardice around him. He 



DJAMAL AL-DlN al-AFGHANI — DJAMAL AL-DlN AKSARAYl 



criticized Muslims for their boastfulness and in- 
activity. His ideas were twisted so that he was 
accused, for example, of wanting to recognize the 
young Khedive 'Abbas as Caliph because the latter 
had gone out of his way to meet him during a walk 
one day. But he continued to profess the same 
ideas on the need for constitutional liberties and on 
Islam, the one solid foundation of reformed Muslim 
states of the future. When on n March 1896 the 
Shah fell victim to an assassin who was a loyal 
follower of Djamal al-DIn, he was accused of guiding 
the murderer's hand. He defended himself against 
the charge, notably in his statements shortly after- 
wards to the correspondent of the Paris newspaper 
he Temps. But his position was even more precarious. 
He died on 9 March 1897 from cancer of the 
chin; rumour had it that Abu '1-Huda ordered the 
doctor only to pretend to treat him, or even poisoned 
him. He was buried in the cemetery of Nishantash. 
At the end of December 1944, his remains were 
taken to Afghanistan and laid to rest on 2 January 
1945 in the suburbs of Kabul near C A1I-Abad, where 
a mausoleum had been raised to him. 

Despite his knowledge of Muslim theology and 
philosophy, Djamal al-DIn wrote little on these 
subjects. His treatise on the refutation of materialists 
was soon translated [see dahriyya]. He has left an 
extremely succinct outline of the history of Afgha- 
nistan called Tatimmat al-baydn (lith. Cairo, 
undated, 45 p.) and the article Bdbi in the DdHrat al- 
Ma'drif of Butrus al-Bustanl. But his pamphlets and 
political articles above all establish him as a com- 
mentator on current affairs. Apart from those in 
European languages, others in Arabic are to be found 
in the Egyptian press of about 1872-9 under his 
own name or such pseudonyms as Muzhir b. Waddah ; 
he later contributed to al-'-XJrwa al-Wuthkd (ano- 
nymously) and to Diyd' al-Khdfikayn (signing al- 
Sayyid or else al-Sayyid al-Husayni). It should 
finally be noted that the intensification of the struggle 
against the Western colonial powers after the war of 
J 939-45 gave Djamal al-Din a topical interest. 
Consequently, his life and ideas became the subject 
of several works published in Cairo and intended 
for the general public. 

Bibliography : The Arabic translation of 
Djamal al-Din al-Afghani's work, al-Radd "aid 
'l-Dahriyyin, Cairo 1925, is preceded by a bio- 
graphy (7-19) taken from the review al-Hildl, 
Cairo, 1 April 1897; Edward G. Browne, The 
Persian Revolution of igoyigoo., Cambridge 1919, 
contains a detailed biography based on original 
documents, appreciations and bibliography; 
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Secret history of the 
English occupation of Egypt, New York 1922; 
Rashld Rida, Ta'rikh al-XJstddh al-Imdm al- 
Shaykh Muhammad 'Abduh, Cairo 1931, brings 
together documents, extracts of biographies, 
articles by Djamal al-Din and articles from al- 
'-XJrwa al-Wuthka; the articles from that review 
have been reprinted several times in a single 
volume, first edition Beirut 1328/1910; L. Massig- 
non, in RMM, xii (1910), 561 ff., and in REI, 
1927, 297-301; Vollers, in ZDMG, xliii, 108; 
Ernest Renan, L'Islam et la science, lecture 
delivered at the Sorbonne on 29 March 1883, 
Arabic translation and refutation by Hasan 
Efendi c AsIm (Cairo, lith., undated); German 
translation of the Renan lecture, Djamal al-DIn's 
reply and Renan's reply to that reply in Ernest 
Renan, Der Islam und die Wissenschaft etc., Basle 
1883; two lectures by Djamal al-Din (on education 



and trade) in Misr (Alexandria 1296, 5 Djumada 
I); two articles on despotic governments (/»' 
'l-hukumdt al-istibdddiyya) in al-Mandr, iii. 
Considerable information is to be found in articles 
from periodicals on visits to Djamal al-Din and 
interviews with him. Cf. in German Berliner 
Tageblatt (23 June 1896, evening edition) and 
Beilage zur Allgemeine Zeitung (Munich, 24 June 
1896). Muhammad al-Makhzuml, Khdtirat Djamal 
al-Din, Beirut 1931 (a fundamental work, re- 
porting many conversations between the author 
and Djamal al-DIn, in the course of which most 
of the topics of modern Muslim apologetic are 
raised in turn); c Abd al-Kadir al-Maghribi, 
Djamal al-Din, Cairo, collection Ikra', n. 68; 
Charles C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in 
Egypt, London 1933, 4-17; Ahmad Amln, Zu'amd' 
al-Isldh fi 'l-'asr al-hadith, Cairo 1948, 59-120; 
Mahmud Kasim, Djamal al-Din al-Afghdni, 
haydtuhu wa-falsafatuhu, Cairo [undated, about 
I 955]> with a hitherto unpublished letter; 
Mahmud Abiiriyya, Djamal al-Din al-Afghdni, 
Cairo 1958, a popularization but with an interesting 
bibliography; Kabul almanack, year 1323, 344-7 
(in Pashto). I. Goldziher-[J. JomierJ) 

EJAMAL aj.-DIN A$SARAYl, a Turkish 
philosopher and theologian, who was born and died 
(791/1389?) at Aksaray. According to tradition 
Djamal al-DIn Mehmed, who during his lifetime was 
known by the name of Djamall, is said to have been 
the great-grandson of Fakhr al-DIn Razi. He was 
appointed instructor at the madrasa of Zindjirli, at 
Aksaray, after learning by heart the Sahtlh, al- 
Djawharl's Arabic lexicographical work, an in- 
dispensable requirement of anyone seeking to obtain 
this appointment. Like the ancient Greek philo- 
sophers he split up his very numerous pupils into 
three classes: those in the first class, known as 
meshd'iyyun (peripatetic), met outside the door of 
his house and accompanied their master to the 
madrasa, his lesson being given as they walked along; 
those in the second class, known as riwdhiyyun 
(stoics), awaited him under the pillars oi the madrasa 
where their master, still standing, gave his second 
lesson; finally he went into the hall of the madrasa 
to join the pupils of the third class. The learned 
Molla Fenari was one of his pupils; another scholar, 
Sayyid Sharif Djurdjani, attracted by the master's 
reputation, is said to have started out from Karaman 
to come to attend his lectures, but the news of 
Djamal al-DIn's death interrupted his journey. 
According to a written tradition recorded by Huseyn 
Husam al-DIn in his Amasya ta'rikhi (a work which 
appeared in 5 vol. in Istanbul 1330-2 and 1927-35), 
Djamal al-Din is said to have held office as kadi 
'asker to the governor of Amasya, Hadjdji Shadgeldi, 
and to have retired to Aksaray in 783/1381 after the 
latter's defeat by the Amir of Sivas, Kadi Burhan 
al-Din; however, this tradition derives from an 
unreliable source and must be treated with reserve. 
Writers differ as to the year of Djamal al-DIn's 
death: 1377 according to Brockelmann, 1389 ac- 
cording to Tahir Bursal], 1388 according to Adnan 
Adivar. His works in manuscript are divided among 
various libraries; with the exception of a moral 
treatise entitled Akhldk-i Djamdli, they consist for 
the most part of commentaries; a commentary on 
al-Ghaya al-kuswd of al-BaydawI; commentaries on 
theological works, Sharh al-iddh, Sharh-i mushkilat al- 
Kur'dn al-karim; on medical works, Hal al-mudjiz; 
on jurisprudence, Hdshiyat-i multakd; on syntax, 
Sharh al-lubdb al-musamma bi-kashf al-i'rdb, etc. 



DJAMAL al-DIN ASSARAYI — DJAMALl 



Bibliography: Brockelmann, S II, 328; T. 
Bursali, 'Othmdnli MueUifleri, i, 265 ; A. Adnan 
Adivar, La Science ches les Turcs Ottomans, Paris 
r 939> !7*> Turk Ansiklopedisi, s.v. Cemaleddin 
Aksarayi. (I. M£likoff) 

DJAMAL al-DIN (T. Cemaleddin) EFENDI, 
1848-1919, Ottoman Shavkh al-Islam, was born in 
Istanbul (9 Djumada I 1264/13 April 1848), the son 
of the kddi'asker Mehmed Khalid Ef. Educated by 
his father and by private tutors, he attained the 
rank of mudarris and entered the secretariat of the 
Shaykh al-Islam's department. In 1295/1880 he was 
appointed Secretary (mektubdiu), with the rank of 
misile-i Siileymdniyye, then became kddi'asker of 
Rumeli, and in Muharram 1309/August 1891 Shaykh 
al-Islam. He held office until 1327/1909, retaining his 
post in the cabinets formed immediately after the 
revival of the Constituent Assembly in 1908. He 
became Shaykh al-Islam again in 1912, in the 
cabinets of GhazI Ahmed Mukhtar Pasha and 
Kamil Pasha, but lost office with the fall of Kamil 
Pasha's cabinet in the coup of 1331/1913. Like many 
prominent personalities who were known to be 
opposed to the Society for Union and Progress he 
was banished from Istanbul, and spent his last 
years in Egypt, where he died in Radjab 1337/ April 
1919. He is buried in Istanbul. A shrewd and affable 
man, he won the confidence of c Abd al-Hamid II 
and managed to conform to the exigencies of his 
time. He was a writer of some power and an amateur 
of diwan literature. 

Bibliography: Basvekalet Arsivi, sicill-i 
ahval defteri, no. 47, 143; 'Ilmiyye Sdlndmesi, 
Istanbul 1334, 615 ff.; DjamSl al-DIn Efendi, 
Khdtirdt-i siydsiyye, Istanbul 1336; Ahmad 
Mukhtar, In(dk-i hakk, Istanbul 1926; Ali Fuad 
Turkgeldi, Goriip isittiklerim, Ankara 1949, 



(Cav 



JN) 



DJAMAL Ai-DlN HANSWl [see hanswi, 

DJAMAL AL-DlN]. 

DJAMAL al-HUSAYNI, a complimentary title 
of the Persian divine and historian AmIr 

DJAMAL [AL-DIN] c ATA> ALLAH B. FADL ALLAH AL- 
HUSAYNI AL-DASHTAKl AL-SIjlRAZl, who flourished 

at Harat during the reign of Sultan Husayn the 
Tlmurid (875-911/1470-1505); the probable date of 
his death is 926/1520. His known works are: (1) 
Rawdat al-ahbdb fi siyar al-Nabi wa 'l-dl wa 
'l-ashdb, a history of Muhammad, his family and 
companions, written at the request of Mir c Ali Shlr 
and completed in 900/1494-5 (Lucknow ed. 1297/ 
1880-2, Turkish tr. Constantinople 1268/1852); 
(2) Tuhlat al-ahibbd* /i mandkib Al al-'Abd', on 
the merits of Muhammad, Fatima, etc.; (3) Riydd 
al-siyar. 

Bibliography: For details of MSS., and 

additional biographical information, see Storey, 

ii/i, 189-92, and 1/2, 1254-5. (R. M. Savory) 

DJAMAL PASHA [see djemai. pasha]. 

DJAMALl. Mawlana c Ala' al-DIn c AlI b. 

Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Djamali, Ottoman Shaykh 

al-Islam from 908/1502 to 932/1526, also called 

simply C A1I Celebi or Zenbilli C A1I Efendi, was of a 

family of shaykhs and scholars of Karaman who had 

settled in Amasya. Djamali was born in this city 

(H. Husam al-Din, A masya ta'rikhi, i, Istanbul 1327, 

105, 321). After his studies under such famous 

scholars as Molla Khusraw in Istanbul and Husam- 

zade Muslih al-DIn in Bursa Djamali was appointed 

a mudarris at the C A1I Beg Madrasa in Edirne. His 

cousin, Shaykh Muhammad Djamali in Amasya, was 

using his influence in favour of Bayazld against 



Diem, rivals for the succession to Mehemmed II 
(cf. Madjdi, IfaddHk al-shakd'ik, Istanbul 1269, 285). 
'All Djamali had to resign when KaramanI Mehem- 
med, who favoured Diem, became grand vizier in 
881/1476. But with Bayazld II's accession to the 
throne in 886/1481 Djamali was again made a 
mudarris and then in 888/1483 a mufti in Amasya 
where he was appointed in addition a mudarris in 
the newly opened madrasa of Bayazld II (H. 
Hiisameddln, iii, 235-6) in 891/1486. After a long 
service in various important madrasas in the empire 
he was eventually appointed a mudarris at the 
Themaniye Madrasa in Istanbul in 900/1495, thus 
reaching the highest degree in the career of tadris. 
His biography (Madjdi, 302-8) suggests that he 
retained a spiritual influence on Bayazid II as did his 
cousin Shaykh Muhammad. 

C A1I Pjamali left Istanbul for the hadidi but had 
to stay one year in Egypt where he learned of his 
appointment to the post of Shaykh al-Islam [q.v.] in 
Pjumada II 909/November-December 1503. Under 
Bayezld II, Selim I, and Siileyman I he kept this 
post for twenty four years until his death in 932/1526. 
By his personal influence and bold interferences 
in certain important governmental affairs (cf. 
Madjdi, 305-7) he was responsible for making the 
office of Shaykh al-Islam one of the most influential 
in the state. When Selim I argued that his interference 
meant an infringement of the Sultan's executive 
power in the affairs of the sultanate which should 
be absolutely independent, Djamali replied that as 
Shaykh al-Islam he was responsible for the Sultan's 
salvation in the other world. The Sultan eventually 
agreed to modify some of his decisions to meet 
Pjamali's objections. As a sign of his admiration 
Selim wanted to confer on him the office of Ifddi'asker 
[q.v.] of both Rumeli and Anadolu. He declined the 
offer, saying that he would never accept a position 
in kadd [q.v.]. However, he was to overshadow the 
kddi'askers who were most influential in the govern- 
ment as the heads of the administration of tadris and 
kadd. 

In the tradition of the shaykh% attached to the 
Ottoman Sultans, Djamali was interested in tasawwuf 
[q.v.] and was also called Sufi 'All Djamali. He is 
said to be the author of a treatise on tasawwuf 
entitled Risdla fi hakk al-dawardn. He was venerated 
as a wait after his death and various mankibas were 
told about him. He was buried in the garden of the 
small mosque he had built in Zeyrek street in 
Istanbul. A selection of his fatwds were collected in 
Mukhtdrdt al-fatdwi. He is also the author of a 
Mukhtasar al-hiddya. 

Bibliography: Ahmad Tashkopri-zade, al- 

ShakdHk al-nu c mdniyya fi '■ulamar' al-dawla al- 

c Othmdniyya, Ger. tr. O. Rescher, Istanbul 1927, 

Turkish tr. with additions by Muhammad Madjdi, 

PaddHk al-shakd'ik, Istanbul 1269/1853, 302-8; 

'All, Kunh al-akhbar, MS. in the list of Selim I's 

c ulama 5 ; Sa'd al-DIn, Tddj. al-tawdrikh, ii, 549-54; 

H. Husam al-DIn, A masya ta'rikhi, i, Istanbul 1327, 

321; iii, 235-40, T. Spandouyn Cantacassin, Petit 

traicti de Vorigine des Turcqz, ed. Ch. Schefer, 

Paris 1896, 1 12-3; I A, art. Cemali (M. Cavid 

Baysun). (HALiL Inalcik) 

"DJAMALl", Hamid b. Fadl Allah of Dihll (d. 

942/1536), poet and Sufi hagiographer. He travelled 

extensively throughout the Dar al-Islam from 

Central Asia to the Maghrib, and from Anatolia 

to Yemen, meeting a number of prominent Sufis 

including Djami [q.v.], with whom he had interesting 

discussions in Harat. His travels c 



DJAMALI — DJAMl 



between the Indian Sufi disciplines and those of the 
rest of the Muslim world; while it is possible that 
the style of the Persian poetry of the court of Harat 
travelled to India in his wake, creating the sabk-i 
Hindi of the ioth/i6th century. Though a Sufi, with 
a reputation for asceticism, Djamali, like other 
Suhrawardi mystics before him, associated intimately 
with the Sultans of Dihli. His relations with Sikandar 
Lodi were especially cordial, on whose death he 
wrote a marthiya. After the overthrow of the Lodis 
by the Mughals [q.v.], he developed friendly relations 
with Babur [q.v.] and Humayun [q.v.], often accom- 
panying the later on his military expeditions. His 
son Shaykh 'Abd al- Rahman Gada'I became sadr 
early in the reign of Akbar [q.v.]. 

He compiled a lengthy diwdn and a mystical 
mathnawi, Mir'dt al-ma c dni; but his fame chiefly 
rests on Siyar al- z drifin, a tadhkira of the Indian 
saints of the Cishtiyya and Suhrawardiyya orders, 
a classic of hagiography. 

Bibliography: Works, Diwdn (unpublished), 
two known mss in the Rampur Library (Nadhir 
Ahmad, no. 179), and in the private library of 
Hablb al- Rahman Khan Shirwani, which also 
has a copy of his Mir'dt al-ma'dni. Siyar al- 
c drifin, mss: Lindesiana, no. 115; Rieu, i, 354a, 
355a; Ethe 637-9; Berlin 590-1; Ivanow, Curzon 
71; Bankipore, Suppt, i, 1782; ed. Dihli 1311/1893. 
c Abd al-Hakk Dihlawi, Akhbdr al-akhydr, Dihli 
1332/1914, 227-9; Nizam al-DIn Ahmad, Tabakat-i 
Akbari, Bibl. Ind., i, 340; 'Abd al-Kadir Bada'unI, 
Muntakhab al-tawdrikh, Calcutta 1864-9, i, 325-6; 
iii, 76-7; Abu Bakr Husayni, Haft Iklim, no. 393; 
Sadik Kashmiri, Kalimdt al-sddikin, no. 91; 
Brindabandas Kh'ushgu, Safina-i Kh w ushgu, 
no. 43; Mubtala, Muntakhab al-ash c dr, no. 137; 
Azad Bilgrami, Khizdna-i 'Amira, Kanpur 1900, 
177-9; Lutf c Ali Beg Adhar, Atashkada, no. 751; 
Ahmad c Ali Khan Sandilawi, Makhzan al-ghard'ib, 
no. 493; Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Athdr al-sanddid, 
Dihli 1270/1853, 47; Ghulam Sarwar, Khazinat al- 
asjiya', Kanpur 1914, ii, 84; Rahman 'All, Tadh- 
hira-i '■ulama'-i Hind, Lucknow 1894, 43; Yasln 
Khan NiyazI, Sikandar Lodi aur uske ba c d fdrsi 
musannifin, in Oriental College Magazine (OCM), 
ix/3 (May 1933), 37-48; Hablb al-Rahman Khan 
Shirwani, Tasdnif-i Shaykh Djamali Dihlawi, in 
OCM, x/i (Nov. 1933), 145-59; Imtiyaz C A1I 
'Arshl, Istidrdkdt, in OCM, xi/i (Nov. 1934), 74-8; 
Shaykh Muhammad Ikram, Ab-i Kawthar, Lahore 
1952; idem, Armaghdn-i Pdk, Karachi 1953, 47. 

(Aziz Ahmad) 
DJAMBI [see palembang]. 
DJAMBUL [see awliya ata]. 
DJAMBUL DJABAEV, a popular Kazakh poet, 
illiterate and thus representing oral poetic tradition. 
Born in 1846 in Semirece of a nomadic family, he 
took the name Djambul (Dzambul) from a mountain; 
later, in 1938, this name was to be given in his honour 
to the town of Awliya Ata [q.v.] and to an oblast' of 
Kazakhistan. From an early age he was devoted to 
music and singing, and by them earned his living while 
still a youth; taking his inspiration from popular 
grievances, he often improvised poems which he 
sang, accompanying himself on the dombra; the best 
known are entitled "The Plaint", "The poor man's 
lot", etc. His first teacher was the popular poet 
Syuyumbay, but he soon surpassed him and was 
given the title of "father of the popular poets" [akin). 
After the October Revolution he employed his 
talents in the cause of the new regime and made 
himself its panegyrist, composing poems in praise of 



Lenin, Stalin and other important figures; he even 
celebrated China and the Spanish Republic (1937), 
and later, during the Second World War, the Red 
Army's feats of arms, particularly at Leningrad, 
while in an elegy he mourned the loss of his son who 
fell on the battlefield. His poetry is characterized by 
its great simplicity, though daring comparisons 
occur not infrequently. 

The Soviet authorities who had previously 
awarded him the Order of Lenin and a Stalin Prize 
in 1941 were preparing to celebrate his centenary 
when he died in 1945. 

His original works, transmitted orally or in 
writing, were collected and published in Alma Ata 
in 1946, at the same time and in the same town as 
the collected edition of his poems translated into 
Russian. 

Bibliography: M. Abdlkadirov, Narodniy 
Pevets Stalinskoy epokhi, 1946; M. Balakaev, 
yazike Dlambula, in Vestnik Akad. Nauk Kazakhs- 
koy SSR, 1947/6; BSE, xiv, 206-8 (with portrait). 

(Ed.) 
EJAMDAR. The word djamddr is a contraction of 
Pers. didma-ddr, "clothes-keeper", cf. Dozy, Suppl. 
This word is not, as stated by Sobernheim in EI 1 , a 
"title of one of the higher ranks in the army in 
Hindustan . . .", although Ham'ddr, popularly 
diamdddr, Anglo-Indian Jemadar, "leader of a 
number (diam c ) of men", is applied in the Indian 
Army to the lowest commissioned rank, platoon 
commander, but may be applied also to junior 
officials in the police, customs, etc., or to the foreman 
of a group of guides, sweepers, etc. (Ed.) 

In Mamlflk Egypt the diamddriyya (sing, ajamddr), 
"keepers of the sultan's wardrobe", were all Royal 
Mamluks (mamdlik sultdniyya). Many, but not all, 
of them belonged to the sultan's corps of body- 
guards and select retinue (khdssakiyya). A head or 
commander of the diamddriyya was called ra's nawbat 
al-diamddriyya. Of these there were seven, according 
to Khalil b. Shahin al-Zahiri, Zubdat kashf al- 
mamdlik, 115-6. 

Bibliography: D. Ayalon, Studies on the 
structure of the Mamluk army, in BSOAS, xv/2, 
1953, 214 and note 5 (bibliographical note). 



(D.; 



>N) 



EJAMI, MawlanaNO 
the great Persian poet. He was born in Khardiird, 
in the district of Djam which is a dependency 
of Harat, on 23 Sha'ban 817/7 November 1414 
and died at Harat on 18 Muharram 898/9 
November 1492. His family came from Dasht, a 
small town in the neighbourhood of Isfahan; his 
father, Nizam al-DIn Ahmad b. Shams al-Din 
Muhammad, had left that district and settled near 
Harat; consequently the poet had for some time 
signed his works with the takhallus Dashti before 
adopting the takhallus Djami. In the regular course 
of his studies, he became aware of his deep passion 
for mysticism, and took as his spiritual director Sa'd 
al-DIn Muhammad al-Kashgharl, the disciple of and 
successor to the great saint Baha' al-DIn Nakshband, 
founder of the order of the Nakshbandis [q.v.]. Two 
biographers, 'Abd al-Ghafur Lari (his disciple, buried 
in 912/1506 beside Djami's tomb) and, in particular, 
Mir 'All Shir Nawa'I, a famous minister and scholar, 
have described the events of his life: apart from two 
pilgrimages, one to Mashhad, the other to the holy 
cities of the Hidjaz (in 877/1472, with a further stay 
of four months near Baghdad, and about two months 
in Damascus and Tabriz), he lived quietly in Harat, 
dividing his time between his studies, poetry and 



DJAMI — DJAMI'A 



spiritual exercises, honoured by the sovereigns of the 
time whom he in no way flattered with excessive 
panegyrics by dedicating his works to them. Babur 
[q.v.] in his Memoirs says that he was without an 
equal in his time in the field of the concrete and 
speculative sciences; Mehemmed II tried to attract 
him to Istanbul; Bayezid II sent two letters to him 
(reproduced in Ferldun Bey, Munsha'dt, i, 361-4); 
his influence on Turkish literature is well-known 
(Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, ii, 7 ff.). According to 
Dawlat-Shah (who should be treated with caution), 
DjamI is said at the end to have lost his reason; but 
'All Shir Nawa'I, who lived on intimate terms with 
him and was present during his last days, does not 
confirm this statement (which recalls St. Jerome's 
about the madness of the poet Lucretius). Djaml's 
funeral, conducted by the prince of Harat, was 
attended by great numbers; his tomb, near that of 
Sa'd al-DIn his director, is well cared for. Of his four 
sons (he was son-in-law of Sa c d al-DIn), three died 
in infancy, the fourth in early youth (when reading 
to him and commenting on Sa'dfs Gulistdn, he 
conceived the idea of writing his Baharistan). 

His writings, which are both diverse and numerous, 
testify to the flexibility of his genius, the depth and 
variety of his knowledge, and his perfect mastery 
of language and style. Although he wrote a great 
deal in prose, he is mainly known for his poetic 
works; these consist, firstly, of seven mathnawis 
Iq.v.] collected together under the title Hajt awrang 
("the seven thrones", one of the names of the Great 
Bear) and, secondly, of three collections of lyric 
poems (diwdn) written from the time of his youth and 
arranged, towards the end of his life, under the 
following titles: Fdtihat al-shabdb ("The beginning 
of youth", 884/1479), Wdsttat al-Hkd ("The central 
pearl in the necklace", 894/1489), Khdtimat al- 
liaydt ("The conclusion of Life", 895/1490) — on his 
lyric poetry: H. Masse, introd. to the translation of 
Baharistan, 18 ff. The seven poems mentioned above 
are : Silsilat al-dhahab ("The chain of gold") dedicated 
to Sultan Husayn Baykara, written between that 
prince's accession in 873/1468, and Djaml's journey 
to the Hidjaz in 877/1472: a series of anecdotes 
provides a framework for an expose of philosophical, 
ethical or religious questions; Salaman wa-Absdl, 
885/1480, dedicated to Ya'kub Ak-koyunhi, an 
allegorical romance in which the characters, in the 
words of Nasir al-DIn TusI, "are symbols denoting 
the various degrees of the intellect" (ed. Forbes 
Falconer, 1850-6; Eng. tr. by E. Fitzgerald 1879, 
new edition with literal translation by A. J. Arberry 
1956; Fr. tr. A. Bricteux, 1911, with an important 
introd.); Tuhjat al-ahrdr ("The gift to the noble", 
886/1481), a didactic poem of moral and philo- 
sophic character, written (as the two panegyrics 
inserted in the introduction show) in honour of 
Baha J al-DIn, founder of the order of Nakshbandls, 
and of the superior of the order, Nasir al-DIn 'Ubayd 
Allah, known by the name Kh w adja-yi Ahrar (ed. 
Forbes Falconer, 1848); Subhat al-abrdr ("The rosary 
of the devout", of about 887/1482, written in honour 
of Sultan Husayn Baykara), similar to the last, but 
with mystical trends (ed. 1811, 1818, 1848); Yusuj 
wa-Zalikha (Zulaykha), 888/1483, the best known, 
written in honour of the same prince: a legendary 
life of Joseph, son of Jacob, treated in a mystical 
manner (ed. and Ger. tr. Rosenzweig, 1824; Eng. tr. 
R. T. H. Griffith, 1882; Fr. tr. A. Bricteux, 1927); 
Layla wa-Madjnun, 1484, a romance with a theme 
of Arabic origin (Fr. tr. Chezy, 1805) ; Khirad-ndma-yi 
Sikandari ("The wisdom of Alexander"), a didactic 



poem written in about 890/1485 in honour of Husayn 
Baykara: discussions between Alexander and certain 
philosophers on philosophical and moral questions. 
Although earlier writers had already made use of 
identical or similar subjects, DjamI did not allow 
their works to exert an influence upon these great 
poems: for example, the Hadikat al-hakifra of Sana 'I 
and the Q[dm-i ajam of Awhadi upon the first; a 
lost work of Avicenna (known from the commentaries 
of Fakhr al-DIn RazI and Nasir al-DIn TusI) upon 
the second (cf . introd. by Bricteux, 47 ff.) ; the 
Makhzan al-asrdr of NizamI and the Matla 1 al-anwdr 
of Amlr-i Khusraw upon the third and fourth; the 
Yusuf wa-Zalikha attributed to Firdawsl upon the 
fifth ; the Arabic diwdn attributed to Kays upon the 
sixth; NizamI (Iskandar-ndma, 2nd part) and 
Amlr-i Khusraw upon the seventh. But if DjamI is 
not the first to deal with these subjects, he has the 
ability to bring new life to the material by means of 
a style that is fresh, graceful, supple and highly 
distinguished, at times foreshadowing his successors' 
over-elaborate affectations, but nevertheless avoiding 
the complexities and obscure allusions in which 
NizamI delighted; in addition to the revelation of 
the noblest moral qualities, in certain parts of these 
poems (especially in Yusuf and Salaman), and in a 
number of lyric poems we find the language and the 
themes of pantheistic mysticism, challenging com- 
parison with the works of the very greatest poets of 
Sufism; if DjamI is not, as he is often said to be, 
(perhaps through Dawlat-Shah's influence) the last 
of the classical poets, he is probably the last of the 
great mystical poets. 

Of his very numerous works in prose (commen- 
taries on the Kur'an, on the hadiths, and on mystical 
questions and poems — in particular on the Khamriyya 
of Ibn al-Farid), mention must be made of the highly 
prized collection Nafahdt al-uns ("The breath of 
divine intimacy", ed. Calcutta 1859), biographies of 
mystics, preceded by a comprehensive study of 
Sufism (trans. Silvestre de Sacy, in Not. et extr. des 
mss. B.N., xii (1831), 287-436; for this work, DjamI 
made use of the Tadhkirat al-awliyd' of Farld al-din 
'Attar while completing it) ; the treatise Shawdhid 
al-nubuwwa ("Distinctive signs of prophecy"), which 
is clear and precise; the short treatise on mysticism 
Lawd'ih ("Shafts of light"), interspersed with 
invocations and poems (ed. and tr. Whinfield and 
Muhammad Kazwlnl, Or. Translat. Fund, 1906); 
lastly, the Baharistan (1478), a collection of memor- 
able sayings, witticisms, striking anecdotes, short 
notes on poets and stories about animals (several ed.; 
Ger. tr. Schlechta-Wssehrd, 1846; Fr. tr. H. Masse, 
1925). 

Bibliography: the manuscript of the com- 
plete works (Kulliydt) of DjamI, in his own hand, 
is preserved in the Institute of Oriental Languages 
at Leningrad (cf. Victor Rosen, Collections de 
I'Institut ... Les manuscrits persans, 215-61). In 
addition to the references given in the article, 
see: Gr. I. Ph., ii, 231-3 and 305-7; E. G. Browne, 
iii, index s.v. JamI; and in particular C A1I Asghar 
Hikmat, Didmi (in Persian; Tehran 1320/1942: 
life and works, 1-228; selected pieces, 228-373). 

(Cl. Huart-[H. Mass*]) 
E»JAMI C [see masdjid]. 

P_jA.MI c A. From the root djama'a (to bring 
together, to unite), this Arabic term is used to 
denote an ideal, a bond or an institution which 
unites individuals or groups, e.g., al-Didmi'-a al- 
Isldmiyya (Pan-Islamism) ; D£dmi l at al-Duwal air 
'■Arabiyya (League of Arab States); Didmi'-a (Uni- 



versity). This article is limited to the last-mentioned 
meaning and deals with university institutions iD 
the Islamic countries. 

Although Djdmi'a, in this sense, includes, in 
popular and semi-official usage, traditional institu- 
tions of higher religious education (such as al- 
Djdmi'a al-Azhariyya; see, for example, Muh. c Abd 
al-Rahlm Ghanima, Ta'rtkh al-Qidmi c dt al-Isldmiyya 
al-Kubra, Tatwan 1953), officially it is restricted to 
the modern university, established on western 
models. Thus, Law no. 184 of 1958, organizing the 
djdmi'-dt of the United Arab Republic does not name 
al-Azhar among these universities. This article will, 
consequently, deal with "modern' 
should be stressed, however, that in Islamic 
higher education had a remarkable tradition in the 
older institutions of the mosque, the madrasa and 
other centres of education and learning. For these 
traditional institutions, see the articles al-azhar, 

The term djdmi'-a seems to have come into use 
towards the middle of the 19th century, and to have 
been translated from "universite" or "university". 
Butrus al-Bustani does not have an article on it 
in his Dd'irat al-Ma c drif (vi, Beirut 1882). Origi- 
nally, it seems to have been used as an adjective 
qualifying madrasa. (The earliest such use I have been 
able to trace is by Ahmad Faris al-Shidyak, in al- 
Sdk <ala al-sdk, Paris 1855, 513, where he speaks of 
maddrisihim al-djdmi'-a. But there may have been 
earlier ones. This adjectival form continued down to 
the early years of the twentieth century. See Diurdii 
Zaydan, al-Hildl, viii/8, 15 January 1900, 24, and 
xii, 18 and 19, 1 July 1904, 590; madrasat Oxford al- 
djdmi'-a). 

Furthermore, there was no clear distinction in 
those years between djdmi'a and kulliyya which was 
used as equivalent to "college". Badger's English- 
Arabic Lexicon (London 1881) includes madrasa 
djdmi'a as one of the Arabic equivalents of "college", 
whereas for "university" he gives: "ddr kulliyydt al- 
'ulum", and "ddr al-'ulum wa 'l-funun". Neither 
Bellot's Vocabulaire arabe-irancais (Beirut 1893), 
nor Hava's Arabic-English Dictionary (Beirut 1899), 
includes djdmi'a, but both include kulliyya, the 
former translating it by "l'universite" and the 
latter by "university, college". 

Similarly, other dictionaries published in the 
nineteenth or early twentieth century either do not 
include djdmi'a (such as al-Bustani's Muhit al- 
muhit, 1867-70, Steingass, Arabic-English Dictionary, 
1881, or Shartuni's Akrab al-mawdrid, 1889-93), or 
use it as an adjective qualifying madrasa, without 
distinguishing it properly from kulliyya (Abcarius, 
English-Arabic Dictionary 1903; Hammam, Mu'djam 
al-tdlib, 1907; Saadeh, English-Arabic Dictionary, 
1911). 

The first definite use of djdmi'a in the technical 
meaning of university appears to have been in the 
movement of some intellectual leaders and reformers 
in Egypt in 1906 for the establishment of a djdmi'a 
misriyya. On 12 October 1906 a group of such 
leaders, the most active among whom seems to have 
been Kasim Amln, met in the house of Sa c d Zaghlul 
and formed a preparatory committee to appeal to 
the Egyptian people for funds for the establishment 
of a university (djdmi'a) which, they decided, would 
be called "al-Didmi < a al-Misriyya" (Ahmad 'Abd 
al-Fattah Badlr, al-Amlr Fu'dd wa nash'at al- 
djdmi'a al-misriyya, Cairo 1950, 6 ff.). From then 
on, the use of djdmi'a began to be established in the 
Arab countries as equivalent to "university", 



[I<A 423 

whereas kulliyya is now reserved for a faculty or an 
independent college. 

In other Islamic countries, other terms came into 
use, either derived from the national language, such 
as Ddnishgdh (the abode of knowledge) in Iran, or 
borrowed from the West such as "Universite" in 
Turkey, "University" (U. Yuniwarsiti) in Pakistan, 
and "Universitas" in Indonesia. 

Survey of university activity in 
Islamic countries 

In recent years, university education has undergone 
rapid and extensive development in Islamic coun- 
tries. Established universities are yearly increasing 
their facilities, courses and student enrolments, and 
new universities are being planned or opened to meet 
the increasing demand for higher education. Any 
statement about them is likely to become out-of-date 
the time it is published. Consequently, only a 
general summary of their history and present 
situation will be attempted here. For current details 
the reader will have to consult the catalogues or 
handbooks of individual universities, national or 
regional handbooks or reports, or a general work of 
reference such as the International Handbook of 
Universities. No attempt will be made to refer to 
independent colleges, or any other institutions of 
higher learning that do not bear the name Djdmi'a 
or its equivalent. 

Since the establishment of universities is closely 
bound up with the cultural and national development 
of their respective countries, or regions, the following 
summary will follow the lines of the various cultural 
areas in the Islamic world. 

United Arab Republic: Egypt. Technical 
and professional education began in Egypt in 
the reign of Muhammad c Ali. The contacts which 
Egypt had with the West since Bonaparte's campaign 
and the autonomy it enjoyed within the Ottoman 
Empire laid the ground for the educational efforts 
and reforms under Muhammad c Ali. Use was made 
of foreign, particularly French, advisors and profes- 
sional men ; educational missions were sent to Europe, 
and a number of specialized technical and profes- 
sional schools were established, mainly to meet the 
needs of forming an army and a civil service on 
modern lines. The years 1824-37 witnessed a 
movement of active educational expansion. In 
1827 a School of Medicine was established and was 
followed by various military Schools, and by Schools 
of Pharmacy, Maternity, Engineering, Agriculture, 
Civil Administration and Accountancy, Languages 
and Translation, etc. This movement received a 
set-back under 'Abbas I and Sa'id (1848-63). Most of 
these Schools were closed, but they were reopened 
under Isma'il. In 1871, Ddr al-'Ulum for the training 
of teachers of Arabic was opened; in 1880 a Teachers' 
Training College; and in 1882 a School of Admini- 
stration (changed in 1886 to School of Law). 

In 1906, there arose a movement for the establish- 
ment of a national university. A committee of 
prominent citizens and intellectual leaders was 
formed and funds were sought from the Government 
and the public. This university — commonly known 
as al-Didmi'a al-Ahliyya to distinguish it from the 
later state university — was opened on 21 December 
1908. Its teaching was limited to courses in litera- 
ture, history, philosophy, and social sciences, and a 
number of leading European orientalists and other 
professors were invited to teach in it. Following 
World War I, the Egyptian Government took steps 
to establish a state university. This university, con- 



sisting of the former national university as the nucleus 
of the Faculty of Letters, of the Schools of Law and 
Medicine already established and of a new Faculty 
of Science, was instituted by law in March 1925. It 
continued to develop by the incorporation of existing 
Schools into Faculties, or by the creation of new 

In 1938 a branch of this University was establi- 
shed in Alexandria comprising branches of the 
Faculties of Letters and of Law. In 1941 a third 
branch, of the Faculty of Engineering, was opened. 
In 1942 a full-fledged university was founded in 
Alexandria. This was followed by another university 
in Cairo in 1950. These three universities which in 
course of time came to bear the names of, respectively, 
Fu'ad I, Farufc, and Ibrahim, have since the Revo- 
lution been called the Universities of Cairo, Alexan- 
dria and 'Ayn Shams. Following a policy of spreading 
facilities of higher education throughout the country, 
the Egyptian Government began in 1954-55 to plan 
for another university in Asiut. This university 
opened its doors in October 1957 with a Faculty of 
Science and a Faculty of Engineering. Other 
Faculties are being instituted gradually, the scien- 
tific ones taking precedence over others. Of the four 
universities in Egypt, the oldest and most developed 
is the University of Cairo. In addition to its twelve 
faculties and its various institutes in Cairo, it ad- 
ministers a branch in Khartoum comprising faculties 
of Law, Letters, and Commerce. 

In 1919 the American University at Cairo was 
established. An independent private institution, it 
now includes a faculty of Arts and Sciences, a 
faculty of Education, a School of Oriental Studies, 
a Social Research Centre and a Division of Extension, 
and is smaller than the state universities in facilities, 
number of staff and students, and educational 
influence. 

Syria. In 1902, under Ottoman rule, a School of 
Medicine was established in Damascus with Turkish 
as the medium of instruction. During World War I, 
it was transferred to Beirut, where a School of Law 
had been opened in 1912. Both institutions were 
closed at the end of the War. They were reopened in 
Damascus in 1919, with Arabic as the medium of 
instruction. In 1924, they were joined together in the 
Syrian University, which continued to be limited to 
them, until, with the gaining of independence, higher 
national education received a vigorous impulse. In 
1946 four new Faculties were opened in the Univer- 
sity: Letters, Science, Engineering (at Aleppo), and 
a Higher Teachers' College (later changed to Faculty 
of Pedagogy). In 1954-55, a Faculty of Holy Law 
{SharPa) was added. 

Following the formation of the U.A.R., the name 
of the Syrian University was changed into that of 
the University of Damascus. Law no. 184 of 1958, 
published on October 21, 1958 governed the organi- 
zation of universities in the U.A.R. In addition to 
the five universities mentioned above, it instituted 
a University at Aleppo (which was due to open in 
1960-61) and created the Higher Council of Univer- 
sities, with seat in Cairo, to co-ordinate the activities 
of these institutions. Since 28 Sept. 1961, the former 
organization was reestablished in Syria. 

Lebanon : The universities in Lebanon, in order of 
foundation, are : The American University of Beirut, 
the Universite St. Joseph and the (state) Lebanese 
University, all of which are located in the capital, 
Beirut. The oldest, the American University of 
Beirut was established by the American missionaries 
in the sixties of the last century, but was from the 



start made separate from the Mission, and governed 
by an independent Board of Trustees. Its original 
name was the Syrian Protestant College and under 
this name it was granted a charter by the State of 
New York in April 1864. University work in the 
School of Arts and Sciences began in 1866. The 
School of Medicine opened in 1867, the School of 
Pharmacy in 1871, the School of Commerce in 1900, 
the School of Nursing and the Hospital in 1905. On 
November 18, 1920, the Board of Regents of the 
University of the State of New York changed the 
name of the institution into the American Univer- 
sity of Beirut. In 1951, the School of Engineering was 
established, in 1952 the School of Agriculture and in 
1954 the School of Public Health. The medium of 
instruction is English. 

The Universite St. Joseph was founded by the 
Jesuits in Beirut in 1875. It received the title of 
University from Pope Leo XIII in 1881, but in 
Arabic it continued for many years to be called 
Kulliyyat Mar Yusuf (See Cheikho's article on its 
fiftieth anniversary, Al-Machrig, xxxiii 5, May 1925, 
321 ff.). Originally, its higher instruction was limited 
to theology and philosophy. In 1883, under agree- 
ment between the Jesuits of Syria and the French 
Government, the School of Medicine was established, 
and, in 1888, the School of Pharmacy, both becoming 
in 1889 the Faculty franfaise de Midecine et de 
Pharmacie, In 1902 was founded the Faculty of 
Oriental Studies which was closed with the rest of 
the University during World War I. In 1913, the 
School of Law was opened; in 19 19, the School of 
Engineering; and in 1937 the Institute of Oriental 
Studies. The medium of instruction is French. 

The Lebanese University started in 195 1 with a 
Higher Teachers' Institute for the training of teachers 
for secondary schools. It was formally organized by 
Legislative Decree no. 25 of 6 February 1953 
(revised by Leg. Decree no. 26 of 18 January 1955), 
but its activity remained restricted to the Higher 
Teachers' Institute with its two divisions, literary and 
scientific, of three years each leading to the Licence, 
and a fourth year of pedagogical training. In 1959 a 
Faculty of Law and Economic and Political Sciences 
was established, and in the same year a regulatory 
decree (no. 2883 of 16 June 1959) gave the Univer- 
sity its inner constitution. This decree provided for 
faculties of Letters, Sciences, Law and Economic and 
Political Sciences, for a Higher Teachers' Institute 
and an Institute of Social Studies, and, like similar 
state university constitutions or charters, for other 
faculties, colleges or institutes which might later be 
created. Also, like other state universities in Arab 
countries, the language of instruction is Arabic, 
unless otherwise decided in particular fields. 

'Irak. Before World War I, there was only one 
institution of higher education in c Irak: a School of 
Law. In 1923, the c Ir5k Government decided to 
establish a university called Didmi'at Al al-Bayt, 
but this plan was later abandoned. Instead, between 
1920 and 1949, a number of Faculties or Colleges 
(Medicine, Education, Engineering, Business and 
Economics, etc.) were established and made depen- 
dent to various ministries. In 1951, a "Council of 
Higher Education" was set up to co-ordinate the 
work of these Faculties, "in preparation for the 
establishment of the 'Iraki University". Following 
many commissions and reports, the University of 
Baghdad was established by Law no. 60 of June 6, 
1956. This Law provided for the establishment of a 
"Constituent Council" which was charged with the 
study of each of the existing Faculties and Colleges 



to decide on its inclusion in the University. On 
15 September 1958 a new Law was issued to replace 
the previous one. According to it, the University is 
composed of the Faculties of Letters, Sciences, Law, 
Commerce, Education, Education (Women), Engi- 
neering, Agriculture, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, 
Veterinary Medicine and such other Faculties and 
Institutes as may be established in the future. 

Sa'udi Arabia: The King Sa c ud University was 
established in Riyad by Royal Decree no. 17 of 21 
Rabi' II 1377/14 November 1957. It started with a 
Faculty of Letters. In 1958 a Faculty of Science was 
added, and in 1959 a Faculty of Pharmacy and a 
Faculty of Commerce. Each of these Faculties is 
being developed at the rate of a class a year. A 
project has been drawn up for an extensive campus 
and ample building facilities, and plans are under 
study for curricular and other developments. 

Kuwayt: The Government of Kuwayt asked a 
committee of experts to study the question of 
establishing a university in that Principality. The 
committee met in Kuwayt during the month of 
February i960, and presented its recommendations 
to the Government. 

Sudan: The University of Khartoum was 
officially constituted by Act of Parliament on 24 July 
1956, seven months after the establishment of 
the new Republic of the Sudan. It developed from 
the University College of Khartoum, which was 
instituted in 195 1 by the fusion of Gordon Memorial 
College and the Kitchener School of Medicine. The 
former had in 1945 grouped together the Schools 
which had been set up from 1936 onwards to give 
post-secondary training in Arts, Law, Public Admi- 
nistration, Engineering, Agriculture and Veterinary 
Science. The academic standard of the College was 
recognized in 1945 by the University of London 
which admitted it to Special Relationship. The 
Kitchener School of Medicine was founded in 1924, 
and from 1940 onwards its final examination was 
supervised by a visitor appointed by the Royal 
Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of England. 

The University of Khartoum includes at present 
the following Faculties: Agriculture, Arts, Economic 
and Social Studies, Engineering, Law, Medicine, 
Science, and Veterinary Science. The only other 
institution of higher education in the Sudan is the 
previously mentioned branch in Khartoum of the 
University of Cairo including faculties of Law, 
Letters, and Commerce. 

Libya. The University of Libya was founded in 
1955-56. The Law establishing it was issued on 
15 December 1955. It started with a Faculty of 
Letters and of Pedagogy in Benghazi. Since then a 
Faculty of Commerce in Benghazi and a Faculty of 
Science in Tripoli have been added. Plans for the 
development of these Faculties and for the creation 
of new ones are under way. 

Tunisia: al-Djami c a 1- A c z a m, the traditional 
centre of higher religious instruction in Tunisia has 
in recent years been popularly called a 1-Dj ami'a 
a 1-Z a y t u n i y y a, but the only post-secondary edu- 
cation it has given is in the fields of Islamic studies 
and of Arabic language and literature related to them. 
Modern university studies were recently started in 
schools or institutes on the French model and using 
generally the French language. Thus, the Institut 
des Hautes £tudes, founded in 1945 and attached to 
the Sorbonne, covered the fields of Law, Arabic 
Studies, Sciences, and Social Sciences. In i960, the 
Tunisian University was founded incorporating 
existing institutions and establishing new ones. Law 



II'A 4 25 

no. 2 of i960 (31 March i960) established the Tunisian 
University as a public institution, Decree (Amr) no. 98 
of the same date set up its organization, and a ten- 
years plan for its development has been formulated. 

Algeria : The University of Algiers was until 1962 
a French university organized and administered as 
other French state universities. Growing out of a 
School of Medicine and Pharmacy (1859) and Schools 
of Law, Science and Letters (1879), it was formally 
established as a university in 1909. It included 
these Faculties and certain specialized institutes and 
used French as the medium of instruction. 

Morocco: As in the case of other countries, 
modern higher instruction in Morocco started with 
separate institutions: the Institut des Hautes Etudes 
Marocaines, Centres d'&tudes Juridiques and Centre 
d'£tudes Superieures Scientijiques. With the acqui- 
sition of independence, there was a movement for 
the establishment of a national university. This 
university, the University of Rabat, was inaugurated 
in December 1957, and was formally organized by 
royal decree (Zakir Sharif (no. 1.58.390 of 29 July 
1959). It consists of Faculties of Holy Law (Shari'a), 
Legal, Economic and Social Sciences, Letters, 
Physical and Natural Sciences, and a Faculty of 
Medicine and Pharmacy to be established. Here 
again the relation of this University (and particu- 
larly its Faculty of Holy Law) with the traditional 
Islamic higher education centred around the cele- 
brated Djami' al-Karawiyyin in Fas depends upon 
future developments. 

Turkey: Modern technical and professional edu- 
cation started in Turkey towards the end of the 
18th and the beginning of the 19th century, to meet 
the needs of the army, navy and civil service. In 1773 
a Mukendiskhdne [q.v.], or School of Engineering for 
the navy was set up and another for the army in 
1796. These were followed by a School of Medicine 
(1827), and a school of Military Sciences (Harbiyye 
[q.v.]) in 1834. In 1846 a committee on education 
recommended the creation of a state university, 
without however any practical result. A new start 
was made in 1859, with the foundation of a school 
for Civil Servants (Miilkiyye [q.v.]) which was re- 
organized and expanded in 1877. Many other higher 
schools followed, including finance (1878), law (1878), 
fine arts (1879), commerce (1892), civil engineering 
(1884), etc. In August 1900, after long preparation, 
the University of Istanbul, at first known as the Dar 
al-Funfln, was opened, and in 1908 the Schools of 
Medicine and of Law were incorporated in it. This 
University now includes Faculties of Medicine, Law, 
Economics, Letters, Science, and Forestry, and 
Schools of Dental Medicine and of Pharmacy. 

Growing out of the Muhendiskkdne, the Technical 
University of Istanbul (Istanbul Teknik Universitesi) 
was established in 1944. It includes to-day five 
Faculties and several Institutes, for teaching and 
research in various fields of engineering. In 1946 the 
University of Ankara (Ankara Universitesi) was 
founded in the capital, incorporating the already 
existing Faculties of Law, Letters, Science, Medicine 
and Agriculture. Now it includes in addition Facul- 
ties of Veterinary Medicine, of Political Science and 
of Theology (Ildhiyat). 

In 1955 the Aegean University (Ege Universitesi) 
was established in Izmir. In 1956 Ataturk Univer- 
sitesi was founded in Erzurum to serve the 
needs of eastern Turkey. This was done with the 
assistance of the University of Nebraska, under 
contract between this University and the Technical 
Cooperation Administration of the U.S.A. All these 



universities are stat 
Law of 1946, they 
financial autonomy. 

In 1957, the Middle East Technical University was 
established in Ankara, by special act of parliament, 
with certain unique features. The United Nations 
and Unesco have been closely associated with the 
Government of Turkey in the planning and develop- 
ment of this university. Whereas the other univer- 
sities use Turkish as their medium of instruction, 
this uses English and hopes to attract students from 
other countries of the region. 

Iran: The oldest and the most important of the 
universities of Iran is the University of Tehran, 
Ddnishgah-i Tehran. Growing out of the poly- 
technic school, Ddr al-Funun (1851), and of other 
more recently established schools, it was constituted 
as a state university in 1934. It now includes eleven 
Faculties: Arts, Fine Arts, Islamic Sciences pUlum-i 
Ma^ul tea Mankill), Law, Science, Engineering, 
Agriculture (at Karadj), Medicine, Dentistry, 
Pharmacy and Veterinary Medicine. Other univer- 
sities to serve the needs of the provinces have been 
established since World War II. In 1947, the Univer- 
sity of Tabriz (Adharbaydjan) was founded, and was 
followed by the Universities of Mashhad (Khurasan), 
of Shiraz (Fars), of Isfahan, and of Ahwaz (Khuzi- 
stan). 

These provincial universities have as yet a limited 
number of Faculties (mostly professional), but their 
development in this short period indicates the 
concern of the Government of Tran to extend the 
facilities of university education and to spread it 
throughout the country. The language of instruction 
in all the universities of Iran is Persian. 

Afghanistan: Higher university education in 
Afghanistan began with a Faculty of Medicine in 
1932. Other Faculties were later established and all 
were incorporated in the University of Kabul, which 
was founded by Royal Decree in 1946. This Univer- 
sity now includes Faculties of Medicine (including 
Women's Division and School of Nursing), Law and 
Political Science, Science, Letters, Islamic Law, 
Agricultural Engineering, a Women's Faculty 
(Social and Physical Sciences) and Institutes of 
Economics and of Education. Instruction is through 
the medium of Persian and Pashto. 



It v 



antil t 



early decades of the nineteenth century that schools 
and colleges on western models began to be esta- 
blished in the sub-continent of India. These in- 
stitutions used English as the medium of instruction. 
Following the recommendations of Sir Charles Wood, 
the Universities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras 
were established in 1857, and remained for twenty- 
five years the only universities in India. In 1882 the 
University of the Panjab was created at Lahore, 
and in 1887 the University of Allahabad. No other 
university was established before World War I. 
Subsequently there were two periods of rapid 
development of university institutions: 1915-1929, 
and after partition. The latest edition of the Common- 
wealth Universities Handbook (i960) lists thirty- 
seven universities in India, of which eighteen were 
established or achieved full university status after 
1947. Of the six universities of Pakistan, only two, 
the University of the Panjab (1882) and the Uni- 
versity of Dacca (1921), existed before independence, 
although many colleges were affiliated to univer- 
sities in India before partition. 

In India, two universities have been active in the 
field of higher education for the Muslim community. 



The older, the c AHgafh Muslim University, has 
played its particular r61e in the intellectual life of 
this community. Founded in 1875 by the author and 
reformer Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, as the Moham- 
medan Anglo-Oriental College, with the object of 
imparting to the Muslim youth a modern scientific 
education, it received its charter as a university in 
1920, and has since its establishment served as an 
influential centre cf Indian Muslim intellectual life. 
The other University, Osmania, at Haydarabad, 
Deccan, was established in 1918 and has also paid 
special attention to Islamic studies. In addition to 
these two universities, there are Muslim colleges 
which either form part of, or are affiliated to, other 
Indian universities. Among other institutions of 
higher education, mention should be made of the 
Jamia Millia Islamia [q.v.] at Jamaniagar, Dihli, 
whose courses in the arts and social sciences lead to an 
examination recognized by the government as 
equivalent to the B.A. degree of an Indian university. 

In Pakistan, there are six universities: University 
of the Panjab at Lahore (1882), University of Dacca 
(1921), University of Sind (1947)., University of 
Karachi (1950), University of Peshawar (1950), and 
University of Rajshahi (Radjshahi) (1953). Although 
these institutions are entirely secular and pursue 
liberal, scientific and professional education on 
modern lines, they are permeated by Islamic tradi- 
tions and spirit. 

The first universities established in the sub- 
continent of India in the middle of the last century 
took as their model the then newly established 
University of London. This University was at that 
time a purely examining body. Thus the early 
universities were slow to develop teaching of their 
own. At present, the universities of India and 
Pakistan are of various types, but most of them are 
both teaching and affiliating. Post-graduate teaching 
is generally carried on by the universities them- 
selves, whereas first-degree teaching is still largely 
done by affiliated colleges under university super- 
vision and examination arrangements. 

Malaya and Singapore: The University of 
Malaya was founded in 1949 by the combined actions 
of the governments of the Federation of Malaya and 
the Colony of Singapore. It grew out of two existing 
colleges in Singapore, King Edward VII College of 
Medicine and Raffles College. Full university 
teaching began in Kuala Lumpur in 1957, and on the 
Singapore site in 1949-50. It includes teaching in 
arts, science, engineering, law and medicine. Ac- 
cording to the new constitution which came intc 
effect in 1959, the University now comprises two 
divisions of equal status, the University of Malaya 
in Singapore and the University of Malaya in Kuala 
Lumpur, each with its own principal, divisional 
council and divisional senate. These two divisions 
are equally represented on the central council of 
the University. 

Indonesia: Although Faculties (largely profes- 
sional) had been instituted in Indonesia in the period 
between the two World Wars, the movement for 
the establishment of universities began in 1949 and 
has progressed rapidly since the country acquired its 
sovereignty. These universities have incorporated 
previously-existing Faculties and created new ones. 
In 1949 Universitas Gadjah Mada was instituted at 
Djogdjakarta by merger of five Faculties, whose 
number has grown to eleven. Universitet Indonesia 
was founded in 1950 at Djakarta and now includes 
Faculties of Medicine, Law and Social Sciences, 
Philosophy and Letters, Economics, Mathematics 



DJAMI'A — DJAMlL 



427 



and Natural Sciences (at Bandung), Technology (at 
Bandung), Veterinary Medicine (at Bogor) and 
Agriculture (at Bogor). Other Faculties of the 
University established at Surabaya, Bukitinggi and 
Makassar, have since formed the nuclei of separate 
universities: Universitas Airlangga (1954), Surabeja 
(also incorporating the former Faculty of Law of 
Universitas Gadjah Mada in Surabeja); Universitas 
Andalas (1956), Bukitinggi; and Universitas Hasa- 
nuddin (1956), Makassar. A new university is being 
established in Bandung independently of the 
Faculties of the Universitet Indonesia set up there. 
In addition to the above, which are all state 
universities there are a number of private institutions. 
Of particular importance for us are the Universitet 
Islam Indonesia, Diogdjakarta (theology, social 
economics, law) and the Perguruan Tinggi Islam 
Indonesia, Medan (law and social sciences, theology). 
Reference should finally be made to universities in 
some of the predominantly Muslim Republics of the 
U.S.S.R. which also serve the needs of the Muslim 
population, such as the Adharbaydjan State Univer- 
sity at Baku (1919), the Tadjik State University at 
Stalinabad (1948), and the Uzbek State University 
(1933). These Universities follow the pattern of 
universities in the Soviet Union, and use, along with 
Russian, local languages in their instruction. 

Bibliography: As the majority of the univer- 
sities in the Islamic countries are state institutions, 
the basic sources on their constitutions and organi- 
zation are the government promulgated charters 
embodied in laws, decrees, or other government 
acts, as well as the catalogues, reports, or hand- 
books issued by the individual universities, 

government ministries. For universities in Arab 
countries, Sati* al-Husri's Hawliyyat al-thakafa 
al-'-arabiyya, published by the Cultural Section 
of the League of Arab States (5 vols., Cairo, 1949- 
57), summarizes the governing legislation and 
other acts, and gives pertinent information on the 
programs and activities of the universities up to 
1956. For Pakistan and India see the Handbook 
of the Universities of Pakistan, 1955-6 (Inter- 
University Board of Pakistan, 1956) and the 
Handbook of the [Indian] Universities, 1 953-4 (Inter- 
University Board of India, 1958). For universities 
in these two and other countries of the British 
Commonwealth, see Commonwealth Universities 
Yearbook, i960, (37th edition, ed. J. F. Foster, 
London i960). General information about univer- 
sities (outside the Commonwealth and the U.S.A.) 
is given in the International Handbook of Univer- 
sities (1st edition, ed. H. M. R. Keyes, Inter- 
national Association of Universities, Paris 1959). 
Discussions of various problems will be found in 
Universitdt und moderne Gesellschaft, edd. C. D. 
Harris and M. Herkheimer, Frankfurt 1959; 
Science and Freedom, 12, Oct. 1958; J. Jomier, 
Ecoles et universites dans I'Egypte actuelle, in 
MIDEO 1955, ii, 135-60, 1956, iii, 387-90; H. de 
la Bastide, Les universitis islamiques d'lndonesie, 



. For 



current university activity and development see 
the Bulletin of the International Association of 
Universities (quarterly, published since February 
1953). The International Association of Univer- 
sities (6, Rue Franklin, Paris, i6 e ) also maintains 
a documentation and information centre on uni- 
versities, including those treated in this article. 

(C. K. Zurayk) 
DjAMID [see nahw and tabI'a]. 



DJAMlL b. c Abd Allah b. Ma'mar al-'UdhrI, 
an Arab poet of the ist/7th century, in literary 
tradition the most famous representative, and 
almost symbol of, the "'Udhri(te)" school of poetry, 
with its chaste and idealized form of love. He is a 
quite authentic historical figure, although very few 
details of his life have come to light. He was born 
about 40/660, and spent his life in the Hidjaz and 
in Nadjd. It is also thought that, on the instigation 
of the parents of his beloved, he fled for a period 
to the Yemen in order to escape persecution by an 
Umayyad governor. Towards the end of his life he 
went to Egypt, where he made the governor c Abd 
al-'Aziz b. Marwan famous in his kasidas, and it 
was there that he died in 82/701, still relatively 
young. Although most of the poems which have 
come to us are on the theme of love, we can also 
discern other aspects of his character and poetic 
ability. He was adept at composing fakhr and 
hidia' poetry, was quarrelsome and quick at repartee, 
and devoted to the glories of his forefathers and his 
clan. (Although genealogists assert that the Banu 
c Udhra tribe originated from the south, he speaks 
of his ancestors' triumphs as those of the Ma'addls). 
But the outstanding historical image of Diamil is 
that of the love-poet. Right from his early youth he 
was inflamed with love for his fellow tribeswoman 
Bathna, or Buthayna, of the Banu '1-Ahabb c Udhri 
tribe, and the story of his deep and unhappy love 
is commemorated both in the work of the poet 
himself and in the stories of other men of letters of 
the 2nd/8th century (often based in part on DjamU's 
own poems). Buthayna's parents refused him their 
daughter's hand, and she was married off to a 
certain Nabih b. al-Aswad. After periods of recon- 
ciliation followed by periods of reproach, he even- 
tually left Wadi '1-Kura, the camp of the c Udhra 
where his love had first become inflamed, and never 
returned. He remembered it in moving lines com- 
posed on his death-bed. 

The diwan of Diamil (during whose lifetime the 
poet Kuthayyir c Azza was rawi) circulated widely in 
the 3rd/9th century, and was studied and made known 
by philologists such as Ibn al-Anbari and Ibn 
Durayd. But it was not preserved for posterity, and 
we have access to no more than a few fragments and 
extracts of Djamil's poetry gleaned from anthologies 
and other literary sources (primarily from the 
Aghdni). They amount to some 800 verses, and bear 
the stamp of an unmistakably individual personality, 
although his originality has been somewhat clouded by 
the mass of imitators, and by the literary conventions 
of Djamil's time which even he could not ignore. 
The story of his passionate love as it emerges from 
his poetry is much more than the normal run of 
such stories. He was the first to speak of love as an 
ever-present cosmic force which attracts a person 
from the moment he is born, and lives on after his 
death. True to the c Udhri tradition, he constantly 
laid emphasis on the purity and nobility of love, the 
virtue of self-denial, the ability to worship the be- 
loved one, and endure suffering oneself. There is with 
him no trace of the wanton and joking love de- 
scribed in the trifles of c Umar b. Abi Rab! c a and 
others. He developed the Bedouin tradition of love, 
infusing into it his own deep personal experience, 
the poignant sincerity of which cannot be doubted. 
His poetry, together with that of c Umar, soon became 
classical (al-Walid b. Yazid was proud of his 
ability to write verse "in the manner of Djamil 
and c Umar"). Time has with good reason shown him 



DJAMIL — DJAM'IYYA 



to be the most perfect representative of the c Udhra 
poets, who "when loving, die". 

Bibliography: The principal sources are 
AghdnV, viii, 90-154; Ibn Kutayba, Shi'r, 260-8; 
Ibn Khallikan, no. 141 Wustenfeld; Ibn Asakir, iii, 
395-405 Badran; F. Gabrieli, Gamil al-Udhri. Studio 
criHco e raccolia dei frammenli, in RSO, xvii (1937), 
40-71, 132-72; idem, Contributi alia interpretazione 
di Gamil, in RSO, xviii (1938), 173-98; Oriental 
editions of fragments, by Bashir Yamut, Beirut 
1934, and (much superior) by Husayn Nassar, 
Cairo 1958; R. Blachere, Les principaux thimes 
de la poisie irotique au siicle des Umayyades de 
Damas, in AIEO, Algiers, v (1939-41), 82-128. 

(F. Gabrieli) 
DJAMlL (b.) Nakhla al-Mudawwar, Arab 
journalist and writer, born in Beirut in 1862, died 
in Cairo on 26 January 1907. Djamll came from a 
wealthy, intellectually active, Christian family, and 
grew up in conditions which were very favourable 
to his development as a writer. His father (1822- 
89), who had attended lectures on Arabic grammar, 
French, and Italian in Beirut, was an interpreter at 
the French Consulate, and a member of the Beirut 
town council; he also took part in editing the Beirut 
newspaper tjadifrat al-Akhbdr, as well as being a 
member of the Socitti Asiatique, Paris, and of al- 
QiamHyya al-Hlmiyya al-suriyya, Beirut. 

Diamil pursued Arabic studies, and also studied 
French language and literature at Beirut University. 
He soon began to show a preference for the history 
of the peoples of the ancient Orient. Later on, he 
became editor of several journals. He collaborated 
in the semi-monthly al-Djindn. and also in al- 
Muktataf. The second of these moved its offices 
from Beirut to Cairo in 1888. Finally, he brought 
out the pan-Islamic paper al-Mu'ayyad in Cairo. 
Djamil al-Mudawwar reached fame with his 
Ifadarat al-Isldm fi Ddr al-Saldm, Cairo 1888, "1905, 
'1932. This work is of great literary importance, 
because it is a completely new departure in Arabic 
literature. It was probably modelled on J. Barthe- 
lemy's (1716-95) Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en 
Grice, and takes the form of letters. It quotes many 
sources and treats of early 'Abbasid times from al- 
Mansur to Harun al-Rashid in a popular manner. 
Occasional references to the past of Islamic history 
and culture add further to the attraction of the book. 
The special quality of al-Mudawwar's presentation 
of history lies in the fact that he views the rule of 
the caliphs from the point of view of a ShI'i Persian 
and friend of the Barmakids. Yet his view is also 
influenced by such great modernistic ideas as 
Panislamism and Nationalism, which appeared in 
the Islamic Orient at that time. As a document of 
modern Arabic thought, the Ifadarat al-Isldm is one 
of the most important works of the so-called renais- 
sance of Arabic literature. 

Al-Mudawwar also wrote TaWkh Bdbil wa Ashur, 
a compilation based on European sources, which was 
improved and edited by Ibrahim al-Yazidji. From 
the French, he translated c A{lald, Beirut 1882 
(F. R. de Chateaubriand's Red Indian tale of Atala), 
and al-Ta>rlkh al-^adlm, Beirut 1895, ed. Yuhanna 
c Akka, director of the catholic patriarchal school. 
Bibliography: L. Cheikho, Kitdb al-makhtutat 
al- c arabiyya li 'l-kataba al-nasraniyya, Beirut 
1924, 120, 187; Ta'rikh al-dddb al-'-arabiyya fi 
'l-rub' al-awwal min al-karn al-Hshrin, ii, Beirut 
1926, 22 f.; E. J. Sakis, Dictionnaire de biblio- 
graphic arabe, Cairo 1929, 172 1; Djirdji Zaydan in 
al-Hildl, xv, 1907, 338 ff. (this article is in Zaydan's 



Tarddjim mashdhir al-shark, ii, Cairo 1922, 223 ff.) ; 
Ta'rikh dddb al-lugha al- c arabiyya, iv, Cairo 1914, 
293; Ph. de Tarrazi, TaMkh al-sihdfa aW-arabiyya, 
i, Beirut 1913, inf., 114 f.; ii, Beirut 1913, 45, 
56; iii, Beirut 1914, 40; I. Krackovskij, in WI, 
xii, 1930, 67 ff.; idem, in MSOS, xxxi, 1928, 
189; Brockelmann, S III, 184ft.; G. Graf, 
Gesch. d. christlichen arabischen Literatur, iv, 
Citta del Vaticano 195 1, 293 (Studi e Testi, 147); 
E. Kocher, Untersuchungen zu Gamil al-Mudau- 
wars Ifadarat al-isldm fi Ddr as-Saldm, Berlin 
1958. (Dtsch. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, Inst. f. 
Orientf. Veroff. 43). (E. Kocher) 

DJAMlL, TANBURl [see tanburi djamIi.]. 
DJAMlLA, a famous singer of Medina 
at the time of the first Umayyads. Tradition has 
it that she taught herself the elements of music and 
singing by listening to her neighbour Sa'ib Khathir 
[q.v.] (d. 63/682-3). It became unanimously recognized 
that her great natural talent put her in a class of her 
own, and she founded a school where, among numer- 
ous lesser-known singers and friydn, Ma'bad [q.v.], 
Ibn 'A'isha [q.v.], Hababa and Sallama received 
their training. Artists as great as Ibn Suraydj [q.v.] 
would come to hear her, and would accept her 
critical judgments, while her salon was regularly 
frequented by such poets as 'Umar b. Abi Rabi'a, 
al-Ahwas, and al- c ArdjI. When at one time she was 
on a pilgrimage, all the singers and musicians of the 
Hidjaz gathered to accompany her, or to welcome 
the 'star' of Medina to Mecca. They then accompanied 
her back to Medina, where an enormous festival of 
music and song lasted for 3 days. Although the story 
is of doubtful authenticity, being regarded as false by 
Abu '1-Faradj al-Isfahan! himself, it is nevertheless an 
indication of the fame which has always surrounded 
the figure of Djamlla. The date of her death is 

Bibliography: The basic reference-work is 
the Kitdb al-Aghdni, vii, 124-48 (Beirut ed., viii, 
188-234); it has been extensively used by Caussin 
de Perceval, Notices anecdotiques sur les principaux 
musiciens arabes des trois premiers siecles de VIs- 
lamisme, Paris 1874 (J A, 1873), and by 'Amrusi, 
Al-Diawdrl al-mughanniydt, Cairo n.d., 48-73. 

(A. Schaade-[Ch. Pellat]) 
EjIAM c IYYA. This term, commonly used in 
modern Arabic to mean a "society" or "association", 
is derived from the root DJ - M - c , meaning "to 
collect, join together, etc.". In its modern sense it 
appears to have come into use quite recently, and was 
perhaps first used to refer to the organized monastic 
communities or congregations which appeared in the 
eastern Uniate Churches in Syria and Lebanon at 
the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the 
eighteenth centuries (e.g., Djam'-iyyat al-Mukhallis, 
the Salvatorians, a Greek Catholic order founded 
c. 1708). In the middle of the nineteenth century the 
term came into more general use first in the Lebanon 
and then in other Arabic-speaking countries, to refer 
to voluntary associations for scientific, literary, 
benevolent or political purposes. Perhaps the first 
of them was al-DjamHyya al-suriyya, founded in 
Beirut in 1847 through the efforts of American 
Protestant missionaries with learned tastes, for the 
purpose of raising the level of culture. Its members 
were all Christians, and included the famous writers 
Nasif al-Yazidji and Butrus al-Bustanl [qq.v.], as 
well as a number of missionaries and the English 
writer on the Lebanon, Colonel Charles Churchill, 
then living near Beirut. The society met regularly 



until 1852; in 1857 it was succeeded by al-DiamHvva 
al-Hlmiyya al-suriyya, a larger society on the same 
model but including Muslims and Druzes; it had 
corresponding members in Cairo and Istanbul, 
including the reforming Prime Minister Fu'ad 
Pasha, and in 1868 received official recognition from 
the Ottoman government. In 1850 the French Jesuit 
missionaries in Beirut created a similar organization, 
al-DjamHyya al-sharkiyya; its membership was partly 
foreign, partly local and wholly Christian. 

At a slightly later date there arose societies with 
more practical aims: for example, the first feminist 
society, DiamHvvat bakura Suriyya, founded in 
Beirut in 1881 or earlier, and a number of benevolent 
associations. Perhaps the first of these was al- 
DiamHyya al-khayriyya al-islamiyya, founded in 
Alexandria in 1878, as an expression of the new 
public consciousness which was appearing in Egypt 
at that time. Its aim was to found national schools 
for boys and girls; one school was established in 
Alexandria and placed under the direction of the 
famous nationalist orator, c Abd Allah al-Nadlm, but 
the c UrabI movement and British occupation put an 
end to it, as to a similar society, DiamHvvat al- 
makdsid al-khayriyya, founded in Cairo about the 
same time for the same purpose. A later organization, 
al-DjamHyya al-khayriyya al-islamiyya, started in 
1892, had more success: the great reformer of 
Egyptian Islam, shaykh Muhammad c Abduh, was 
active in it, and it established a number of schools. 
The DiamHvvat al-makdsid al-khayriyya of Beirut, 
founded in 1880, had a similar success, and its 
schools for the Sunni Muslim community of the 
Lebanon are still flourishing. 

In an age when representative institutions did not 
exist, and newspapers were still new, such societies 
provided an opportunity for educated men to form 
political ideas and exert a certain pressure of opinion 
on the government. Some of them were political by 
implication, and in the i87o's the development of 
is and the comparative freedom 
a Egypt led to the growth of specifi- 
associations. Among the earliest was 
the "Young Egypt" society, formed in 
879. It included c Abd Allah al-Nadlm 
and other Muslim nationalists and a number of 
Lebanese Christian journalists working in Egypt; 
one of them, Adlb Ishak, published the journal of 
the society until it was suppressed. It had a pro- 
gramme of reforms — ministerial responsibility, 
equality before the law, liberty of the press, etc. — 
but could do nothing effective to carry it out, and only 
remained in existence for a year or so. More famous 
although scarcely more effective was the DiamHvvat 
al-Hirwa al-wuthkd, a secret society of Muslims pledged 
to work for the unity and reform of the Muslim world, 
through the restoration of a true Islamic government, 
and more specifically for the liberation of Egypt from 
British control. The moving spirits in this society were 
the famous publicist Djamal al-DIn al-Afghanl and 
his disciple Muhammad c Abduh. It was established 
in the period after the British occupation of Egypt, 
and appears to have had branches in several Muslim 
countries and an oath of initiation. Little is known 
of its activities, and perhaps in fact it did nothing 
except to sponsor the publication of the famous 
periodical al- c Urwa al-wuthkd, issued in Paris by al 
Afghani and c Abduh in 1884. Although this lasted 
for a few months only it had a far-reaching influence 
on educated Muslims, and the leading articles are 
still reprinted from time to time and widely read. 

The use of the term djamHyya for political 



of expression 
cally political 
Misr al-jatdt 01 
Alexandria 



intinued for some time. For example, 
the most famous of the Arab nationalist societies of 
late Ottoman days was called al-DjamHyya al- 
'arabiyya al-fatdt. Founded in Paris in 1911 by seven 
Arab students, its centre later moved to Damascus 
and its membership grew to two hundred. It played 
an important part in the secret negotiations between 
the Sharif Husayn and the British authorities in 
Cairo, which led to the revolt in Arabia against 
Turkish rule; the military leader of the revolt, 
Husayn's son Faysal, was himself a member of the 
society. A generation later, in Egypt, there was 
founded another djamHyya which played an im- 
portant role in politics : al-Ikhwdn al-Muslimun [q.v.], 
started in 1928 by Hasan al-Banna' [q.v],, had the 
explicit purpose of bringing about a moral reform in 
Islam, but in course of time it became more openly 
political in its aims and methods, and in the confused 
decade after 1945 seemed near to taking over power 
in Egypt, until suppressed by the military regime in 
1954. In general however the word hizb [q.v.] had by 
this time replaced djamHyya to refer to political move- 
ments, although the latter term still remained in use 
for charitable, cultural and other such voluntary 
organizations. 

Bibliography: G. Graf, Geschichte der Christ- 
lichen arabischen Liter atur, iii, 36; Dj. Zaydan, 
Ta'rikh addb al-lugha al-'-arabiyya, iv, 67 f f . ; 
G. Antonius, The Arab awakening, London 1938, 
51 ff., mff.; al-Mashrik, xii (1909), 32 ft.; 

Rashid Rida, TaMkh al-shaykh Muhammad 

c Abduh, i, 283 ff., 726 ff.; J. M. Landau, Parliaments 
and parties in Egypt, Tel Aviv 1953, 101 ff.; 
I. M. Husaini, The Moslem Brethren, Beirut 1956; 
R. Hartmann, Arabische politische Gesellschaften 
bis 1914, in R. Hartmann and H. Scheel, Beitrdge 
zur Arabistik, Semitistik, und Islamwissenschaft, 
Leipzig 1944, 439-67. On the DiamHvvat al-Shubbdn 
al-Muslimin, see Kampffmayer, in H. A. R. Gibb, 
ed., Whither Islam, London 1936. 

(A. H. Hourani) 

Ottoman Empire and Turkey 
The most common term for "society" or "associa- 
tion" in Ottoman and modern Turkish is djemHyyet 
(cemHyet or cemiyet), to which partisans of bzturkce 
prefer dernek, or more rarely, birlik. Since the late 
19th century djemHyyet has been the word used for 
voluntary associations, secret or open, for political, 
benevolent, professional and other purposes. In the 
early twentieth century, political parties began to 
call themselves firka or, occasionally, hizb, both of 
these yielding, in common usage since the 1920's, 
to parti. Among the near-synonyms of djemHyyet, 
endjiimen (enciimen, from P. andjuman [q.v.]) desig- 
nates (i) a parliamentary committee and (ii) a quasi- 
public organization such as the Turkish History and 
Turkish Language Societies, its ozturkce equivalents 
in these two senses being, respectively, (i) komisyon 
and (ii) kurum; hey'et or heyet ("committee") desig- 
nates a temporary or ad hoc grouping; gurup or parti 
gurubu a parliamentary party; and kuliib (club) a 
more informal cultural, social, or convivial organi- 

Legislation granting and regulating the right of 
association has been a product mainly of the 20th 
century. The Ottoman reform decrees of 1839 and 
1856 promised civic equality and security of person 
and property, but the 1876 constitution for the first 
time included a specific if limited guarantee of 
freedom of association (art. 13: "Ottoman subjects 
have the right within the limits of existing laws and 



430 



regulations to found all m 
commercial, industrial, and agricultural purposes"), 
buttressed by promises of freedom of the press 
(art. 12: ". . . free within the limits of the law . . .") 
and of the right of individual and collective petition 
for redress of grievances (art. 14). The constitutional 
revision of 21 August 1909 left art. 13 unchanged but 
added a new art. 120 guaranteeing freedom of 
assembly and association generally, except for (i) 
; offending against public morals, (ii) 
ing at violation of the territorial 
integrity of the state or at a change of the con- 
stitution or the government or at setting various 
ethnic groups against each other, and (iii) secret 
societies. A Law of Association adopted at the same 
legislative session (DjemHyyetler Kdnunu of 16 
August 1909) elaborated these constitutional pro- 
hibitions and provided for registration of associations 
with the local civil authorities. The immediate polit- 
ical target of the 1909 legislation were "reactionary" 
political movements such as that leading to the abor- 
tive counter-revolution of 13 April 1909 (known, 
according to the Julian calendar then in effect, as 
Otuz-Bir Mart Hadisesi) and nationalist and seces- 
sionist tendencies among ethnic minority groups. 

The 1909 Law of Associations remained in force 
until the end of the Ottoman period and (with two 
amendments: laws 353 and 387 adopted by the 
Ankara Grand National Assembly in 1923) under 
the First Republic until 1938. Article 70 of the 1924 
constitution guarantees in summary fashion "the 
rights and freedoms of conscience, of thought, of 
speech and press, of travel, of contract, of work, of 
owning and disposing of property; of assembly and 
association and of incorporation . . .". A new Law 
of Associations (no. 3512) of 28 June 1938 specifically 
prohibited, among others, associations with aims 
contrary to the five of the Six Arrows (alti ok) of 
the Republican People's Party incorporated by 1935 
amendment into art. 2 of the constitution (i.e., 
republicanism, nationalism, etatism, secularism, and 
revolutionism (inkildpfthk]) ; associations directed 
against the territorial integrity of the state or 
"disrupting political and national unity"; and 
associations based on "religion, confession, or sect", 
on "region", and on "family, congregation [cemaat], 
race, kind [cms], or class" (art. 9). Branches of inter- 
national organizations or of those with headquarters 
outside Turkey also were outlawed, except where 
special permission should be granted by cabinet 
decree in the interests of international cooperation 
(art. 10). By a major amendment of 5 June 1946 
(law no. 4919), the prohibitions against associations 
contrary to the Six Arrows and against those based 
on class were lifted, and that against regional 
associations limited to political parties. Other laws 
of the First Republic provided additional restrictions. 
Laws no. 334 (15 April 1923) and 556 (25 February 
1925) prohibited propaganda for restoration of the 
sultanate or caliphate and the abuse of religion for 
political purposes. A decree of 1922 outlawed Com- 
munism, and one of 2 September 1925 closed the 
dervish orders. These prohibitions were incorporated 
into the Penal Code (Turk Ceza Kanunu) of 1926 
(arts. 141 and 142 being directed chiefly against 
Communism and art. 163 against religious-political 
associations). Law no. 5018 of 20 February 1947 for 
the first time specifically regulated trade unions and 
employers' associations (both being termed sendika, 
from Fr. syndicat). The Constitution of the Second 
Republic of 9 July 1961 provides broad and specific 
guarantees of the freedom of 



"Every individual is entitled to for 
without prior permission. This right can be restricted 
only by law for the purposes of maintaining public 
order or morality") and of the right to form trade 
unions and employers' associations (art. 46) and 
political parties (art. 56). 

The actual development of associational life was 
at times broader and at times narrower than the 
legislative history would indicate. Until the 1908 
revolution, political associations within the Empire 
took the form of secret conspiracies, often with 
headquarters in exile. Among the first were those 
organized by nationalists among the Christian 
minorities, notably the Greek Ethnike Hetairia 
(National Association) founded in Odessa in 1814, 
followed by the Armenian Hincak party (Geneva 
1887) and the Dashnaktsutiun (Armenian Revolu- 
tionary Federation, 1890). The earliest political 
movements among Ottoman Muslims lacked elaborate 
organization; rather they were short-lived and 
abortive conspiracies aimed at the quick overthrow 
of the reigning sulfdn. Such was the nature of the 
Kuleli Incident of 1859, the Ciraghdn Incident of 
1878 and the so-called Scalieri-'Aziz Committee of the 
same year. A more elaborate society was formed in 
1865 by a number of prominent literary and political 
figures with - liberal and constitutionalist aims, 
including the poet Namlk Kemal. When its members 
were banished or exiled in 1867, the centre of their 
activities shifted to Europe, where they adopted the 
name Yeni c Othmdnlttar (New Ottomans) or Jeunes 
Turcs. From this time onward, "Young Turks" 
became the name commonly used by Europeans to 
designate the advocates of Ottoman constitution- 
alism; in Turkish, the name occurs only as a French 
loan word, Jon Turk. Returning from exile after the 
deposition of c Abd al- c Aziz, the original "Young 
Turks" played a leading role in the events leading to 
the adoption of the constitution of 1876. With the 
establishment of c Abd al-Hamid II's autocracy, the 
movement was at first eclipsed and then relegated 
once again to secrecy, banishment, and exile. In 
1889, a number of students at the Army Medical 
College (Mekteb-i Tibbiyye-i '■Askeriyye) in Istanbul, 
including Ibrahim Temo and 'Abdullah Djewdet, 
formed a secret political society known at first as 
Terakkl we Ittihdd and later as '■Othmanll Ittihdd we 
Terakki DiemHyyeti (Ottoman Society of Union and 
Progress, later commonly known to Westerners as 
the Committee of Union and Progress). In Paris, the 
most prominent spokesman of the anti-Hamldian 
exiles was Ahmed Riza (Rida), editor of the journal 
Mechveret (i. e., Meshweret, "Consultation"). Defec- 
tions and factionalism weakened the movement from 
time to time, whereas c Abd al-Hamid's repressive 
measures supplied a steady stream of new recruits 
both for the secret internal and for the exiled 
opposition movement. Thus, whereas Ahmed Riza 
considered himself an adherent of Comtean positivism 
and hence an advocate of strong central government, 
his rival "Prince" Sabah al-DIn formed a "Society 
for Individual Enterprise and Decentralization" 
(Teshebbuth-ii Shakhsi we c Adem-i Merkeziyyet 
DiemHyyeti, Paris 1902). By 1906, the centre of 
gravity of the opposition movement had once again 
shifted from Europe to the Empire itself, where 
discontented military officers and civil servants 
spread the conspiracy to the provincial centres to 
which they were posted. That year a small Father- 
land and Freedom Society (Watdn we Hiirriyyet 
DiemHyyeti) was formed in Damascus with the partici- 
pation of Mustafa Kemal (the later Ataturk) and a 



larger 'Othmdnli ffurriyyet DiemHvveti in Salonica 
with participation of Tal c at, Djemal (both later 
Pashas) and other prominent future figures. By the 
end of 1907, the Salonica group had absorbed the 
remnants of the Damascus society and merged with 
representatives of the Paris exile movement under 
the name of "Committee (or Society) of Union and 
Progress — a name adopted out of respect to its 
predecessors rather than a name acquired by direct 
inheritance" (Ramsaur, 122 f.). The successful 
revolution of 1908 was the result mainly of pressure 
of Macedonian army units enlisted into the con- 
spiracy by this consolidated Salonica group. 

From 1908 to the present, periods of proliferation 
of political and other voluntary associations have 
alternated with periods of suppression or coordination 
under the aegis of a single, powerful party. The 
number of parties and political associations listed for 
each of these periods in the index of Tunaya's work 
(772-7) may serve as a rough measure of this ebb 
and flow: 1814-1908: 18; 1908-13: 22; 1913-8: 2; 
1918-23: 55; 1923-45: 5; 1945-52: 30. Among the 
many associations formed after the 1908 revolution 
were the New Generation Club (Nesl-i Qiedid 
Kulubii, 1908, representing Sabah al-DIn's decen- 
tralist tendency), an Ottoman Press Association 
(Matbu'dt-i '■Othmaniyye QiemHyyeti, 1908), an 
Arab-Ottoman Brotherhood Society (1908), a pro- 
Unionist association of 'ulemd' (QiemHyyet-i Itti- 
hddiyye-i 'Ilmiyye, 1908), the Turkish Society 
(1908) and the Turkish Home Society (1911) both 
later (1913) merged and expanded into the Turkish 
Hearth (Turk Odjaghi, for the next two decades the 
most important association of Turkish nationalist 
intellectual and cultural leaders with branches 
throughout the country). The list of constituent 
organizations which on 17 April 1909 formed the 
Ottoman Unity Committee (Hey'et-i Miittejika-i 
'■Othmaniyye) to oppose the threat of counter- 
revolution provides an indication of the variety of 
political and semi-political associations which had 
sprung up in the capital in the first few months 
after the 1908 revolution (see Tunaya, 275 f.) : 
Ottoman Society of Union and Progress, Ottoman 
Liberal Party, Dashnaktsutiun, Greek Political 
Society, Ottoman Democratic Party, Albanian 
Central Club, Kurdish Mutual Aid Club, Circassian 
Mutual Aid Club, Bulgarian Club, Club of Miilkiyye 
Graduates, Ottoman Medical Society, etc. Philan- 
thropic and professional societies, such as the Red 
Crescent (Hilal-i Ahmer QiemHyyeti, later called 
Kizilay), the Children's Aid Society (tfimdye-i 
Etjal QiemHyyeti, today Qocuh Esirgeme Kurumu), 
and the Istanbul Bar Association also date back to 
this period. On the political scene, the Society of 
Union and Progress was the most powerful organi- 
zation in the country, and for the next decade it 
became known as the Society — QiemHyyet tout 
court — even though in 1913 it officially proclaimed 
its transformation into a political party. Meanwhile, 
adherents of Sabaheddin and a continuous stream of 
dissidents from Unionist ranks formed a number of 
opposition parties, most of which eventually merged 
in the Freedom and Accord Party (liurriyyet we 
IHilaf Firkasl, or, with its official French name, 
Entente Liberate) in 1911. But the coup d'etat of 
January 1913 (Bab-i 'AH Wah'asi) firmly entrenched 
the Unionists in power and the assassination of 
Mahimfid Shewket in June of that year prompted 
a wave of stern suppression, including banishment 
of most Freedom and Accord leaders. For the next 
five years, the Union and Progress Party, led by 



;yya 431 

Tal'at and Enwer, ruled unchallenged, and control 
of government patronage and tightening wartime 
economic regulations gave it the opportunity to 
dominate such voluntary associations as continued 
to be active in public life. 

The period following upon the Ottoman defeat in 
the first World War and the armistice of Moudros 
(30 October 1918) led to an intensive resumption 
of party and other associational activity in the capital. 
Many of the new groups were political parties trying 
to rally the anti-Unionist politicians for whom the 
discrediting and flight of the Unionist leaders had 
left an open field. The largest among these resumed 
the name Freedom and Accord Party, and for a time 
provided the major political support for the govern- 
ment of Damad Ferid Pasha [q.v.] in 1919. Other, 
semi-political societies of the armistice period in- 
cluded the Kurdistan Resurrection (Te'dli) Society, 
the National Unity Committee, the Society of the 
Friends of England and the Society for Wilsonian 
Principles (the last two respectively a collaborationist 
and a nationalist group), a Society for Mutual Aid 
Among Victims of Political Persecution (Maghdurin-i 
Siydsiyye Te'dwun QiemHyyeti). Once again the list 
of societies adhering to a non-partisan effort at 
national unity, the National Congress (Milli Kongre) 
of 29 November 1918, gives an indication of the wide 
variety of associations then in existence. It reads, in 
part, as follows: Turkish Hearth, Children's Aid 
Society, Teachers' Colleges Alumni Association, 
Navy Society, Galatasaray Students' Home, Mutual 
Aid Society of Kabatash (a quarter of Istanbul), 
Women's Employment Society {Kadinlarl Calish- 
tlrma QiemHyyeti), National Defence Society, Press 
Association, Teachers' Society, National Instruction 
and Physical Education Association, Bar Association, 
Painters' Society, Farmers' Association, National 
Association of Private Schools, Craftsmen's Society, 
Women's Welfare Association (QiemHyyet-i Khay- 
riyye-i Niswdniyye), Muslim Women's Employment 
Society, Society of Music-Loving Ladies, Society for 
the Modern Woman ('Asri Kadin QiemHyyeti), Society 
for the Promotion of Fine Arts, etc, etc. (Tunaya, 
420). During this same period we also encounter the 
first parties with a specific appeal to the lower 
classes, notably the Workers' and Peasants' Socialist 
Party of Turkey, the Ottoman Labour Party, and 
the Socialist Party of Turkey (ibid., 438, 458, 463). 

While the capital and the central government were 
coming increasingly under the control of Allied 
occupation authorities, local societies were forming 
in most of the wildyet and hadd seats of Anatolia and 
Eastern Thrace for the purpose of opposing Allied 
occupation, partition, and annexation plans. In the 
case of one of the earliest and most prominent of 
these, the Ottoman Committee for the Defence of 
Thrace and Pashaeli (Edirne, 2 December 1918), 
we know that it was prepared and founded at the 
behest of Tal'at Pasha, who hoped that such local 
groups would be able to carry on the Unionist 
political cause after the defeat of the Empire and 
the demise of the central party organization (see 
Biyiklioglu, i, 123; cf. Rustow in World Politics, 
xi, 541). Since several similar organizations were 
founded in other important cities within a few days 
or weeks of each other, in some cases also with direct 
participation of local Unionist leaders (Ottoman 
Society for Defence of Rights of Izmir, 1 December 
1918; Society for the Defence of Rights of the 
Eastern Wilayets, founded in Istanbul, 4 December 
1918, Erzurum branch opened 10 March 1919; 
Cilician Society, Adana 21 December 1918), one 



may infer that there may have been a more com- 
prehensive central plan. Whereas the earlier natio- 
nalist organizations rallied to the slogan of "Defence 
of Rights" {miiddfa'a-i liukuk), those formed in 
western Anatolia at the time of the Greek occupation 
of Izmir (May 1919) commonly called themselves 
"Rejection of Annexation" (redd-i ilfrak) societies. 
Regional congresses of these groups were held 
throughout the summer of 1919 at Erzurum, 
Ballkesir, Alashehir, and elsewhere. Whatever the 
antecendents of the Defence of Rights movement, its 
nation-wide consolidation was the result of the 
activities of Mustafa Kemal Pasha [Ataturk] [g.v.], 
who was elected chairman of the Erzurum Congress 
and himself called for a nationwide congress at 
Sivas (4-11 September 1919) which repudiated the 
Union and Progress Movement, defined the foreign 
policy aims of the nationalist resistance movement 
in the so-called National Pact (mithdk-i miUi), and 
created the consolidated Society for the Defence of 
Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia (Anadolu ve Rumeli 
Mtiddfa c a-i Hukuk DjemHyyeti). Following the 
reinforced occupation of Istanbul in March 1920, 
the convening of a Grand National Assembly at 
Ankara on 23 April created a de facto nationalist 
government which was to become the foundation of 
the First Turkish Republic (proclaimed on 29 
October 1923). 

In the Ankara Assembly Kemal time and again 
faced a religious- conservative opposition, known as 
the Second Group, but the elections of 1943 resulted 
in the complete elimination of these opponents. Later 
that year the Defence of Rights Society was recon- 
stituted as the People's Party, later as the Repub- 
lican People's Party (Khalk Firkasi, Djumhuriyyet 
Khalk Firkasi [?.«.], and eventually Cumhuriyet Halk 
Partisi). The precipitate manner in which the 
Republic had been proclaimed and fears of personal 
rule by Kemal led to the formation of a new oppo- 
sition group, the Progressive Republican Party 
(Terakkiperver Djumhuriyyet Firkasi, 17 November 
1924), led by Kemal's closest and earliest associates 
of the 1919-20 period. Following the Kurdish 
uprising of February-April 1925, this party was 
charged with complicity in the insurrection and 
dissolved by cabinet decree (3 June 1925) under 
authority of the Law for the Restoration of Order 
(Takrir-i Siikuti Kanunu, 4 March 1925). The 
following year, most of the members of its Assembly 
group were tried, and seven of them sentenced to 
death and executed, on unproven charges of com- 
plicity in the attempt on Kemal's life discovered in 

Although the formation of opposition parties was 
never formally prohibited, the events of 1924-26 
clearly discouraged any would-be founders for the 
next two decades. The only important exception was 
the short lived Free Republican Party founded (and 
reclosed within four months) at Kemal's suggestion 
by his close friend Ali Fethi [Okyar] [g.v.] in 1930. 
The dissolution of the Turkish Hearth (see above) in 
1931 (involving the conversion of its branches into 
People's Houses to be administered by the People's 
Party), the merger of the posts of wall and wildyet 
chairman of the Republican People's Party (1936), 
the formation of a new Press Association under the 
chairmanship of Atatiirk's long-time journalistic 
spokesman Falih Rifki Atay (11 June 1935), and 
the Law of Association of 1938 (see above) were so 
many steps toward the complete coordination of all 
associational and political activities within a single 
official party. Earlier, the formation under Atatiirk's 



personal auspices of the Turkish Historical Society 
and the Turkish Language Society (Turk Tarih 
Kurumu and Turk Dil Kurumu, 1932), provided a 
vehicle for Atatiirk's concern with the promotion of 
a national-historical consciousness and of language 

A radical shift toward a policy of democratization 
and liberalization came at the end of the Second 
World War, first heralded in President Inonii's 
speech of 19 May 1945, and confirmed after some 
wavering by his pledge of impartiality between 
government and opposition parties of 12 July 1947. 
(The 1946 revision of the Law of Associations and 
the new Labour Code of 1947 were parts of the new 
political course). As a result, the formation of 
political and other associations multiplied in un- 
precedented fashion in the years after 1945. Tunaya 
lists as many as 14 parties founded during the 
single year of 1946. During the same year voluntary 
associations of national prominence were numerically 
distributed among various categories as follows: 
Craftsmen's Associations 343; sports clubs 246; 
social clubs 241; benevolent societies 100; town clubs 
89; student societies 80; sports societies 79; civic 
improvement associations 79; scholarly a 
22; trade unions and employers' ; 
health societies 17; journalists' 
(Turkiye Yilhgi 1947, 266). The more liberal atmos- 
phere also encouraged a secret revival of dervish 
orders which continued to be outlawed. (For specific 
cases of arrest see G. Jaschke, Die Turkei in den 
Jahren ig42-^i, Wiesbaden 1955, index s.v. Der- 
wischorden). Among these, the Tidjaniyye attracted 
the greatest notoriety because of its campaigns for 
reintroduction of the Arabic version of the adhan 
and of smashing statues of Ataturk. The latter 
subsided after the passage in 1953 of a new law for 
the protection of the memory of Ataturk which 
imposed heavy penalties on such activity. 

A number of parties were disbanded after 1945 
because of Communist leanings, notably the Socialist 
Toilers' and Peasants' Party of Turkey (closed 
16 December 1946 by the Istanbul Martial Law 
Command) and the Socialist Party of Turkey 
(closed by the same decision, reopened after acquittal 
of its founders in 1950, and reclosed by court order 
on 17 June 1952). A number of other parties or 
associations of the extreme right were similarly 
dissolved, including the Islam Democratic Party 
(involved in an assassination attempt on the liberal 
journalist Ahmed Emin Yalman and closed by 
court order on 20 October 1952), the Great East 
(Biiyiik Dogu) Society (dissolved itself 26 May 195 1 
while on trial for "reactionary" activities and after 
its leader, Necip Fazil Kisakurek had been appre- 
hended on a gambling charge), and the pan-Turkist 
and racist Turkish Nationalists' Association (Turk 
Milliyetciler Derneii, dissolved by court order 
4 April 1953). (Information in this paragraph 
furnished to author by Turkish Ministry of the 
Interior, January 1954). 

The advent to power of the Democratic Party 
under Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes as a result 
of the 1950 elections soon brought more systematic 
legal and extra-legal restrictions upon the freedom 
of association. Whereas the parties just listed con- 
sisted mainly of small groups of obscure men whose 
aims were repudiated by the vast majority of 
thoughtful citizens, the major targets of Menderes's 
repressive policies, it soon became clear, were the 
major opposition parties themselves. In December 
1953, the assets of the Republican People's Party 



(in opposition since 1950) were taken over by the 
government treasury, and just before the 1954 
elections the second largest opposition group, the 
Nation Party (Millet Partisi) was dissolved by court 
order on tenuous allegations of being in fact a 
religious association. The latter party soon reappeared 
as the Republican Nation Party, enlarged in 1957 
into the Republican Nation Peasants' Party. Toward 
the end of the decade opposition parties were subject 
to stringent police controls at their meetings, sup- 
pression of their newspapers, and systematic har- 
rassing of their leaders in their movements throughout 
the country. At the same time many voluntary 
associations were pressed into joining the Patriotic 
Front (Vatan Cephesi) under Democratic Party 
auspices. The overthrow of the Menderes regime in 
the revolution of 27 May i960 brought a temporary 
moratorium on all political activities under the 
provisional government of General Gursel's Com- 
mittee of National Unity. With the proclamation of 
the Constitution of the Second Republic, political 
and associational freedoms were once again restored, 
although the leaders of the deposed Democratic 
regime of Bayar and Menderes remained barred from 
political activity for the time being. 

Bibliography: Tevfik Biyikhoglu, Trakya'da 
Milli Mucadele, 2 vols, Ankara 1955-6; F. von 
Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, ed., Die Verjassungsgesetze 
des Osmanischen Reiches (Osten und Orient 
iv/i : 1), Vienna 1919; B. Lewis, The emergence of 
modern Turkey, London 1961 ; E. E. Ramsaur, Jr., 
The Young Turks, Princeton 1957; D. A. Rustow, 
The army and. the founding of the Turkish Republic, 
in World Politics, xi (July 1959), 513-52; T. Z. 
Tunaya, Tiirkiye'de siyasi partiler, Istanbul 1952; 
Turkiye Yilhgi, 1947, 266, and 1948, 240-96; 
Turk Ansiklopedisi, x, 151-4; Turkiyede siyasi 
dernekler (vol. ii only), Ankara: Emniyet Genel 
Mudurliigu, 195 1 ; F. R. Unat, ed., Ikinci mesrutiyet 
ildni ve otuzbir Mart hadisesi ... Ali Cevat Beyin 
Fezleke'si, Ankara i960, 158-88. 

(D. A. Rustow) 
(iii)— Persia. The word which came to be 
commonly used in Persian for a voluntary society 
or association for literary, scientific, benevolent, or 
political purposes was andjuman [q.v.]. The terms 
madima 1 , iditima', and ittifiddiyya were less fre- 
quently used. The formation of andjumans in 
Persia was a relatively late growth. In a country 
where government was despotic and power arbitrary 
any group of persons regularly associating together 
was likely to be suspected of plotting against the 
state (cf. the story related in the Siydsat-ndma of 
Nizam al-Mulk, Persian text, ed. Schefer, 145 ff.) ; 
or of religious heresy, which was also closely bound 
up with opposition to the state, since an attack on 
orthodoxy implied a threat to the established order. 
This was perhaps a dilemma inherent in the very 
nature of the Islamic theory of state, which led the 
government to adopt an uncompromising attitude 
towards the unorthodox, thereby driving them to 
the very action which the government feared, 
namely the formation of secret societies, whose 
ultimate aim was the violent overthrow of the state. 
Further, co-operation between the citizens was 
mainly through associations such as the dervish 
orders and the craft guilds; and the futuwwa orga- 
nizations, which in medieval Persia were connected 
at one extreme with the dervish orders and at the 
other with the craft guilds, and of which the zurkhana 
of modern Persia was in some measure an offshoot; 
and lastly perhaps even the factions, which had a 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



vigorous life in some towns. Many of these various 
types of association were in some measure charitable 
associations also. These various factors to some 
extent account for the late growth of voluntary 
associations in Persia and their relative weakness 
in the nineteenth century when they were first 
found in any number. 

The earliest andjumans mentioned in modern 
times are the literary societies which are recorded in 
early Kadjar times. That the first associations to be 
formed should have been literary societies is probably 
due to two factors: first there was a long tradition 
in Persia of literary discussion, and secondly a 
literary circle was less likely to draw the suspicion of 
the authorities upon itself than was any other type 
of association. Mention is made of a literary circle 
formed by the poet, Mushtak (d. 1171/1757-8); 
and the formation of another some time prior to 
1218/1803-4 in Isfahan by the poet Nishat (d. 1244/ 
1828-9) in imitation of the andiuman-i mushtak. 
Nishat's andjuman, which met weekly, was a centre 
for poets, men of letters, and Sufis (Ibrahim Safal, 
Nahdat-i Adabi-i Iran, Tehran n.d., 17). Sir 
Harford Jones Brydges describes literary gatherings 
which were attended by a mixed company of jurists, 
officers, merchants, and others, c. 1747 at the house 
of the poet Mirza Husayn Wafa in Djiraz (The 
dynasty of the Kajars, London 1833, cxlviii). The 
Sahib Diwan, Mirza Muhammad Taki 'All Abadi 
(d. 1256/1840-1) is also said to have formed a 
literary society in Zandjan and later in Shlraz during 
the reign of Muhammad Shah (Nahdat-i Adabi-i 
Iran, 28-9). Wisal (d. 1262/1845-6) formed a similar 
society in Shlraz during the reign of Fath c Ali Shah 
(ibid., 35). It is difficult to know whether these 
literary societies really had any regular membership 
or were merely circles of literary-minded men. 
IHidad al-Saltana, at one time minister of education 
to Nasir al-DIn (reg. 1848-96) mentions in an essay 
that as a young man at the beginning of Nasir al- 
Din's reign he liked having meetings with literary 
and mystically inclined persons and had formed a 
group which met nightly. It included poets, such 
as Ka'ani, and learned men, such as Mirza c Abd 
al-Rahman Harawi, who later became one of the 
Babi leaders (RasdHl-i Muta'addida, Madjlis, ms. 
1293). 

Under Rida Shah Pahlawi when freedom of 
political association was limited, a number of 
literary societies (known individually as andiuman-i 
adabi) were founded in Tehran and the provinces 
under official and private inspiration. 

During the reign of Nasir al-Din there was a 
gradual intellectual, or rather political, awakening; 
and with this there began a movement of revolt 
against internal corruption and misgovernment on 
the one hand and foreign intervention on the other. 
There was, however, at the time little political 
freedom and it was difficult for men to meet openly 
for political discussion, nor was there a free press 
in which they could express their views. This 
accounts both for the slowness with which the 
movement of revolt developed and also for the 
tendency to form secret or semi-secret societies. 
About the middle of the century there appear to 
have been attempts to organize societies known 
as fardmush-khdna, which are alleged to have been 
connected with freemasonry (though neither English 
nor French freemasonry apparently recognized these 
associations). On 12 Rabi c II 1278/19 October 1861 
a notice appeared in the official gazette forbidding 
the organization of such groups. 

28 



One of the earliest societies to be formed during 
the reign of Nasir al-DIn was the Madjma'-i 
Ukhuwwat founded by 'All Khan Zahir al-Dawla b. 
Muhammad Nasir Khan, the Ishihdhdsibdshi and 
son-in-law of Nasir al-DIn. ?ahlr al-Dawla succeeded 
Safi 'All Shah as the leader of a group of Ni'matallahi 
dervishes who had gathered round Safi 'All Shah 
as their pir. Although Madjma'-i Ukhuwwat was 
something in the nature of a Sufi fraternity rather 
than a literary or political society, it appears to 
have been regarded by some as the first of the 
"political" andjumans and on these grounds its 
premises were destroyed on the orders of Muhammad 
c Ali Shah after the bombardment of the National 
Assembly (Mu'ayyir al-Mamalik, Ridjdl-i 'Asr-i 
Ndsiri, in Yaghmd, ix/7, 1956, 326 ff.). Nevertheless 
the society appears to have continued in existence 
or to have been reformed (see Husayn Sami'I, 
Manthurdt ya munsha'dt wa tarasulldt, Tehran n.d., 
314 ff.)- 

Towards the end of Nasir al-DIn's reign various 

Tehran and the provinces. When these andjumans 
(which came to be known individually by the 
term andjuman-i milli, i.e., a national or popular 
society), first started to meet their deliberations 
appear to have been mainly confined to discussions 
on the desirability of the liberation of the people 
from the yoke of tyranny, and of the benefits which 
accrued from freedom, justice, and education. Their 
members were held together by discontent at 
existing conditions and a belief in the need for 
modernization. After the assassination of Nasir al- 
DIn in 1896 the activities of the andjumans increased 
and their members advocated reform more openly. 
Their membership appears to have been drawn 
predominantly from the middle ranks of the '■ulamd. 
At this period the andjumans (or those of which we 
have records) seem to have considered their function 
to have been purely an educative one: to awaken 
the people to the evils of despotism and the benefits 
of freedom. Their members were apparently con- 
vinced that "progress" would inevitably result from 
the acquisition of the "new learning". With this 
in view they encouraged their members to found 
schools, which some of them did. In the second 
period of their existence after the grant of the 
constitution many of the andiumans themselves ran 
classes to combat illiteracy and even founded 
schools (Yahya Dawlatabadi, ffaydt-i Yahya, 
Tehran n.d., ii, 207-8; E. G. Browne, The Persian 
revolution of igoyigog, Cambridge 1910, 245). One 
of the late 19th century andiumans, the Andjuman-i 
Ma'arif founded in 1315/1897-8, was apparently 
specifically concerned with educational matters 
(Tarbiyyat, no. 90, 6 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1315, Tehran; 
c Isa Sadik, Ta'rikh-i farhangi-i Iran, Tehran, 1957-8, 
340). Some of the andiumans after the grant of the 
constitution published newspapers; but most of 
these were ephemeral (see Browne, The press and 
poetry of modern Persia, Cambridge 1914, and 
Muhammad Sadr Hashimi, Td'rihh-i djardHd 
wa madjalldt-i Iran, 4 vols., Isfahan). 

By 1903 discontent against the government had 
become more open and the need for reform seemed 
to the members of the andjumans more urgent. In 
1904 a secret meeting of various groups which had 
hitherto been acting independently took place. They 
agreed to work for the establishment of a code of 
laws and the rule of justice and the overthrow of 
tyranny. The drew up a programme of action, or 
consisting of eighteen 



articles; and set up a revolutionary 
nine. The main purposes of tl 
dissemination of information, the establishment of 
contact with various classes of people inside and 
outside Persia, and the fanning of dissension among 
those opposed to their aims. (Malikzada, Ta'rikh-i 
inkildb-i mashrutiyyat-i Iran, Tehran n.d., ii, 8; and 
see also Malikzada, Zindagi-i Malik al-mutakallimin, 
Tehran 1946). Somewhat later, in 1905, a group 
called the Andjuman-i Makhfl (the Secret Society) 
was formed. Its membership was mainly drawn 
from the religious classes. It, too, was concerned to 
restrain corruption on the one hand, and curtail 
foreign intervention in the affairs of Persia on the 
other. It was both nationalist and Islamic. It is 
clear from its proceedings as recorded in theTa'rikh-i 
Biddri-i Irdniydn by Nazim al-Islam-i KirmanI 
(Tehran, 2nd edition, n.d.) that its members were 
convinced that the despotism and the tyranny of the 
government on the one hand and the possibility of 
intervention by Great Britain and Russia on the 
other constituted a threat to Islam, and secondly 
that they believed that all the ills of the country 
could be cured by education. The activities of this 
and other andjumans played an important part in 
preparing the. people for modernization, canalizing 
the growing discontent, and bringing the disaffected 
elements together. Their members became active 
supporters of the constitutional revolution. About 
the end of 1905, or the beginning of 1906, after the 
conflict between the Shah and the "reformers" had 
become open, a group broke away from the Andju- 
man-i Makhfl and the Andjuman-i Makhfi-i Thanawi 
(the Second Secret Society) was formed. The original 
andjuman continued its activities for some months, 
but by June 1906, various of its members having 
been arrested, it ceased to exist. 

With the grant of the constitution in August 1906 
the Andjuman-i Makhfi-i Thanawi was reconsti- 
tuted and numerous other andjumans, with local 
and professional affiliations, sprang up in the capital 
and the provinces. In Tehran within a short space of 
time some two hundred andjumans were formed ; some 
of the larger ones are said to have had several thou- 
sand members. Their purpose was to support the 
constitution, advocate reforms, watch over the 
actions of the government and its officials, and 
demand redress for the citizens in cases of real or 
alleged injustice. Two main types of andjuman came 
into existence: "official" andjumans and "popular" 
andjumans. The former were the provincial councils 
(andjuman-i aydlati wa wilayati) which were origi- 
nally set up in the provincial towns for the purpose 
of electing deputies to the National Assembly and 
were later recognized by Article 90 of the Supple- 
mentary Fundamental Laws promulgated on 7 
October 1907. Article 91 lays down that they should 
be elected by the people and Article 92 states that 
they were to be free to exercise supervision over all 
reforms connected with the public interest. The 
second type of andjuman, the "popular" andjuman, 
was also recognized by the supplementary Funda- 
mental Laws, Article 21 of which states "Societies 
(andjumans) and associations (idjtimd'dt) which are 
not productive of mischief to religion or to the state 
and are not injurious to good order are free through- 
out the whole empire, but members of such associa- 
tions must not carry arms, and must obey the regu- 
lations laid down by the law on this matter . . ." 

The provincial councils varied a good deal from 
place to place. The Andjuman-i AyalatI of Tabriz, 
which had been set up for the purpose of the election 



of deputies to the new National Assembly, was 
dissolved by Muhammad c Ali, the wall c ahd and 
governor of Adharbaydjan, as soon as the deputies 
had been elected. It reformed almost immediately 
as the Andjuman-i Milli though it subsequently 
appears to have been known by its original name 
(Karim Tahirzada Bihzad, Kiydm-i Adharbaydjan dar 
inbildb-i mashrutiyyat-i Iran, Tehran n.d. 148-9, 
174 ff; cf. also Aubin, La Perse d'aujourdhui, Paris 
1908, 40). After the coup d'etat of 1907 it became, in 
the absence of the National Assembly, the focal point 
of the constitutional or nationalist movement in 
Persia. In Isfahan the Andjuman-i Mukaddasi-i 
Milll-i Isfahan, opened on 6 Dhu'l Ka'da 1324/22 
December 1906, appears to have had executive as 
well as consultative functions and to have been run 
by the leading '■ulama', merchants, and citizens of 
the town (see the weekly paper published by the 
Andjuman-i mukaddas-i milll-i Isfahan, 1907-8; and 
also Muhammad Sadr Hashimi, op. cit., i, 290). The 
membership of the "popular" andjumans also varied 
from place to place. They were more strongly deve- 
loped in Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and north Persia 
than in the south. Whereas prior to the grant of the 
constitution the Tehran andiumans were largely 
drawn from the religious classes and the intellectuals, 
in the second phase they had a strong connexion with 
the craft guilds; many of them also had local affilia- 
tions. In Tabriz each street tended to have its own 
andjuman; and in Tehran not only were there local 
andjumans but the inhabitants of different districts 
and provinces who lived in Tehran also formed their 
own andjumans. In Adharbaydjan from the first the 
andjumans were opposed to the large landowners 
and had a strong "middle class" bias. In Isfahan, on 
the other hand, the andjumans were largely domi- 
nated by the local religious leaders. In Rasht some 
of the members of the Andjuman-i Milli formed 
there are said to have been connected with the 
Social Democratic Party of Baku (Malikzada, 
Ta'rikh-i inkilab-i mashrutiyyat-i Iran, ii, 264). In 
general, however, the members of the andjumans 
had had no political experience, and there was a 
tendency on the part of some of them to an irrespon- 
sible interference in the administration of the country 
(Cf. Cd. 4581 Persia No. 1 (1909), no. 176, p. 143). 
In spite of this they played an important part in 
creating a public opinion in favour of constitutional 
reform and were the one support which the National 
Assembly had against the reactionary party. Further, 
through the contact which the andiumans established 
with each other they fostered a certain sense of soli- 
darity among those who were seeking to assert 
themselves against the arbitrary, and often tyranni- 
cal, rule of the provincial governors. Prior to this 
time any attempt by the people to assert themselves 
against the local authorities was likely to be isolated. 
The andjumans created a sense of a community of 
interest and this gave the people in widely separated 
districts courage to act. The success of the andjumans 
in providing a focal point for public opinion in support 
of the constitution was such that their opponents 
sought to counter this by infiltrating into existing 
andjumans and by forming andjumans themselves, 
hoping to confuse the issue by working in secret 
against the constitution under cover of nationalist 



Muhammad C A1I, who succeeded his father, 
Muzaffar al-DIn, in January 1907, disliked the 
constitution from the start. After the appointment 
of Mirza C A1I Asghar Khan Amin al-Sultan, the 
Atabak-i A'zam, as prime minister in the late spring 



of 1907 there was a great increase in the numbers of 
the anajumans, secret and otherwise, formed for the 
defence of the constitution ('Abdallah Mustawfi, 
Sharh-i zindagi-i man, Tehran 1945, ii, 244-6; 
memorandum by Churchill, enclosed by Sir Cecil 
Spring Rice to Sir Edward Grey in a letter dated 
23 May 1907, Cd. 4581, no. 26, p. 27). Little was done 
to implement the constitution. Disorders were fo- 
mented in the provinces. Russia was suspected of 
aiding and encouraging the Shah against the National 
Assembly, and the belief grew that there was secret 
collusion between the Shah and the Amin al-Sultan 
for the overthrow of the constitution and the sale 
of the country to Russia. On 31 August the Amin 
al-Sultan was assassinated by a certain 'Abbas Aka 
(who immediately afterwards shot himself). On the 
assassin's body was found a paper stating that he 
was devotee (fidaH-i milli) no. 41 of the Andjuman. 
Whether in fact such an andjuman whose members 
were thus known as fidd'is really existed remains an 
open question. There is, however, no doubt that the 
murder heightened the morale of the nationalists, 
and gave rise to the belief that the membership of 
secret societies whose members would not stop at 
political assassination to gain their ends was spread- 
ing. Popular sentiment approved the murder and 
regarded 'Abbas Aka as the saviour of the country 
(Kasrawi, op. cit. (in Bibl.), 447 ff-, Browne, op. 

at., 150 ff.). 

An abortive attack by the court party on the 
National Assembly in the winter of 1907-8 was 
frustrated by the help of the Tehran and provincial 
anajumans. Some of them meanwhile began to raise 
volunteers for a kind of national militia. In June 
1908 a more serious attack was made against the 
National Assembly. The andjumans again rallied to 
its defence, this time in vain. The Cossack regiment 
bombarded the Assembly and the andjumans were 
dispersed after a brief resistance. The Assembly was 
closed and a number of prominent nationalists were 
arrested and some executed. The organization of the 
nationalist resistance, which culminated in the 
deposition of Muhammad c Ali and the restoration 
of the constitution in July 1909, largely devolved on 
the andjumans. They were helped in this by andju- 
mans formed by Persian communities abroad, espe- 
cially the Andjuman-i Sa'adat in Constantinople. 

As soon as Muhammad c Ali had closed the National 
Assembly he sent instructions to the provinces for 
all the anajumans to be closed also (Kasrawi, op. cit., 
672). Immediate and effective resistance came from 
Tabriz only. Government troops were expelled from 
the town, which was then blockaded, the siege being 
raised by Russian troops who opened the Julfa road 
in April 1909. The resistance of Tabriz organized by 
the Andjuman-i (Milll-i) Ayalati, although the 
nationalists were eventually forced to capitulate, 
gave the nationalists in other cities of Persia, 
especially Isfahan and Rasht, time to recover after 

eventually established between the anajumans and 
the Bakhtiyaris and in January 1909 Isfahan was 
taken. At the end of April a force of Bakhtiyaris 
and nationalist fighters (mudjdhidin) set out from 
Isfahan for the capital, while the Sipahdar-i A'zam 
Muhammad Wall Khan, who had been in command 
of the government troops outside Tabriz and had 
gone over to the the nationalists and assembled a 
force of mudjdhidin in Gilan and Tunakabun, 
marched on Tehran from the neighbourhood of 
Kazwin. The two forces entered Tehran on 13 July 
and Muhammad 'All abdicated on 17 July. 



With the restoration of the constitution the 
activities of the "popular" andiumans declined. 
For a brief period in 191 1 when renewed attempts 
to strangle the constitution were made they were 
again sporadically active; and various acts of 
violence were attributed to them. However, when 
the constitution was again suspended in 191 1 on 
account of the opposition of the National Assembly 
to the Russian ultimatum demanding the dismissal 
of Mr. Morgan Shushter, the treasurer-general, the 
cumulative effect of internal disorders, the infil- 
tration of hostile elements into the nationalist 
movement, and, above all, Russian pressure, dis- 
couraged, if it did not make virtually impossible, 
the emergence of a popular movement of protest. 
The "popular" andiumans, thus, had no longer a 
function to perform and so they disappeared from 
the political scene. 

Bibliography: In addition to references on 
the text: A. K. S. Lambton, Secret societies and 
the Persian Revolution of 1 905-6, in St. Antony's 
Papers, no. 4, Middle Eastern Affairs, no. 1, 
London 1958 ; idem, forthcoming article The Polit- 
ical r6le of the Anjumans 1906-11 in St. Antony's 
Papers, Oxford, xvi; Kasrawl, Ta'rikh-i hidjda- 
sdla-i Adharbdydj[dn, Tehran 1933-41 ; Central A sian 
Review, iv/4; Nurullah Danishwar 'Alawl, Ta'rikh-i 
mashruta-i Iran, Tehran 1956-7; Morgan Shushter, 
The strangling of Persia, London 1912. 

(A. K. S. Lambton) 
(iv) — Tunisia. In Tunisia, the term djamHyya 
does not appear to have been in use before the 19th 
century. Khayr al-Din al-Tunusi used it in 1284/1867 
in the sense of academy, scientific association; 
charitable society; municipal or cantonal organization 
(diamHyyat al-kdntun), agricultural or industrial 
association; parish, parish council; various groups of 
teachers, notables, officials, local magistrates, muni- 
cipal councillors. In the field of economics he used 
sharika (but ajamHyya for a joint-stock company). 
He even used the expression al-sharikdt al-diamHyya 
(Akwam al-masdlik, 77). 

In the twentieth century djamHyya signifies 
association, society, corporation, league, parlia- 
mentary assembly (al-dxamHyya al-wataniyya) and 
includes so-called voluntary associations of every 
sort (al-diamHyydt al-hurra). 

Religious associations. — The oldest is the DjamHy- 
yat al-Awkdf, in charge of the public habous and with 
the right to inspect the endowments of private habous 
and Zaouias (zawdyd). It is social and religious in 
character. With it can be connected the diamHyyat 
khayriyya (charitable), the first of which was founded 
in 1323/1905. In 1380/1902 the Yearbook (Riizndma) 
added the takdyd (sing: takiyya), institutions dating 
from 1 188/1774 under 'All Pasha Bey). Neither the 
traditional Islamic organizations nor the confrater- 
nities (tarika) bear this name. The non-confessional 
associations founded after 1900 added to their titles 
the adjective isldmiyya or 'arabiyya, to be replaced 
by tilnusiyya or wa(aniyya between 1919 and 1938 
(a period ot intense Destour activity). In 1935 
shaykh c Abd al- c Aziz al-Bawandi founded the 
diamHyyat al-imld'dt al-kur'dniyya (Kur'anic read- 
ings). 

Political associations. — To the "evolutionist" 
group are attributed numerous foundations con- 
nected with music (al-Hilal, 1322/1904 and al- 
Husayniyya founded in 1907 in al-Nasriyya), sport 
(al-Islamiyya, 1905), the theatre (1905), etc. Special 
mention must be made, on account of its influence, 
of the "Association of North African Muslim students 



in France" (DiamHyyat (alabat shamdl Ifrikiya al- 
muslimin bl-Firansa), which was presided over by 
several well-known Tunisians. From the time of its 
foundation (1934) the Neo-Destour created or 
controlled numerous associations (for example, al- 
shubbdn al-muslimun). In 1945 there occurred a 
characteristic regrouping of existing associations 
(agricultural labourers, workers, officials, students, 
and teachers, women, young people etc.). The word 
hizb, party, denotes a purely political association 
from the time of the foundation of the Young 
Tunisian Party (1907). 

Economic associations. — The first of these appears 
to have been the association of food merchants: 
DiamHyyat tudididr al-ma'-dsh (15 September 1888). 
After 1906 they became more numerous (at least 
nine societies were founded between 1910 and 1921); 
in this sphere, after 1906 sharika tends to replace 
didmHyya. From 1888 to 1938, out of 38 societies 
only 6 bear this second name. At first societies had 
a symbolic name (nahda, ta'dwun, ta'-ddud) with 
sharika as a secondary name, but soon sharika 
became their name. After 1900, as the development 
of such societies was curbed by the latent objection 
to loans subject to interest («&«'), their Islamic 
character was stressed: Islamic Commercial Society 
(al-Ikbdt, 1908). After 1910 the national aspect was 
emphasized: the Tunisian Islamic Society (al- 
Tarakki, 1910), the National Commercial Society 
(al-Amdn, 1914); and the still more significant title 
al-Istikldl al-iktisddi. 

Cultural associations. — The term djamHyya applies 
particularly to unaffiliated associations of this sort. 
The earliest in date (18 Radjab 1314/22 December 
1896) was al-DjamHyya al-khalduniyya whose aim 
was the teaching of modern science to Tunisian 
students, particularly those of the great mosque. 
The second (23 December 1905) was the Association 
of Former Pupils of SadikI (DiamHyyat Kudama> 
taldmidhat al-sddikiyya) which rapidly acquired 
great political importance. Groups with aims con- 
cerned with sport, music, the theatre etc. also 
adopted or at least implied the title DjamHyya. 

New associations. — With the coming of indepen- 
dence (20 March 1957), the associations underwent 
a transformation (juridical reforms, a new political, 
cultural, social and economic orientation). Unions 
(ittihdd) took the place of DiamHyyat. However, the 
term remained in use for cultural associations, as is 
shown by the recently established "Cultural Asso- 
ciations Centre" (Ddr al-diamHyydt al-thakdfiyya). 
Bibliography : Khayr al-Din al-Tunusi, 
Akwam al-masdlik fi ma'-rifat ahwdl al-mamdlik, 
Tunis 1284/1867, passim; al-DjamHyya al-khal- 
duniyya (List of members), Tunis 1318/1900; 
Moh. Lasram, Une association en Tunisie, la 
Khaldounia, Tunis 1906; Takrir diamHyyat 
kudama? taldmidhat al-madrasa al-sddikiyya, Tunis 
1924-25; Emile Lesueur, Les associations agricoles 
en Tunisie, Paris-Tunis 1906; 'Abd al-Wahhab, 
RawdHd Him al-iktisdd, Tunis 1338/1919; M. S. 
Mzali, L'ivolution economique de la Tunisie, 
Tunis 1921, 69 ff.; Tahir al-Haddad, al-'Ummdl 
al-tilnusiyyun wa-zuhur al-hdraka al-nikdbiyya, 
Tunis 1346/1927; Chedly Khairallah, Le mouve- 
ment Jeune tunisien, Tunis n.d.; al-Fadil b. 
'Ashur, al-Haraka al-adabiyya wa 'l-fikriyya fi 
Tunis, Arab League, 1955-56; Van Leeuwen, 
Index des publications piriodiques parues en Tunisie 
(18 j 4-1954); J. Rousset de Pina-H. Pilipenko, 
Rlcapitulation des piriodiques officiels parus en 
Tunisie (1881-1955), Tunis 1956; Records (reports, 



DJAM'IYYA — DJAMNA 



437 



publications) of 

Arabic and French): a more detailed study is to 

appear in IBLA. (A. Demeerseman) 

India and Pakistan. — In Muslim India the 

word ajamHyya is replaced by ajaml'at or djamd'at 

as a term for religious or religio-political as distinct 

from purely political organizations. The term, in 

this sense, is of recent though not of modernist 

The Djamd'-at-i mudjdhidin, the religio-political 
organization formed by Sayyid Ahmad Barelwl, 
owed its name to its movement of djihdd against 
the Sikhs in the early 19th century and later 
against the British. Essentially it based its pro- 
gramme on the teachings of ghah Wall Allah and 
his successors to purify Indian Islam from syncretic 
elements borrowed from Hinduism and to organize 
and strengthen the Muslim community socially and 
politically. It was a popular organization deriving 
its support from all cross-sections of Muslim society 
and operating its own bayt al-mdl and law courts. 

The Djaml'at al-'-ulama'-i Hind was founded in 
19 19 at the peak of the Indian Muslim agitation in 
favour of the Ottoman Khilafat. Mawlana Mahmud 
Hasan, already a well-established religio-political 
leader was among its founders, and though the 
'ulama* of the FarangI Mahall [see dar ai.- c ulum] 
and members of the Nadwat al-'ulamd? also parti- 
cipated in it, the element of Deoband [q.v.] remained 
by far the most powerful. It supported the nation- 
alist programme of the Indian National Congress 
and was opposed to separatist trends in Muslim 
politics and to the demand for Pakistan by the 
general Muslim consensus. 

This led in 1945 to the formation, by a dissident 
group of Deoband! and other 'ulama', of the 
Djaml'at al-'ulamd'-i Islam, under the leadership of 
Shabbir Ahmad 'UthmanI, which supported the 
Muslim League's demand for Pakistan. It moved to 
Pakistan in 1947, and during the various phases of 
that country's constitution-making championed the 
traditionalist view of the shari'a. Another tradition- 
alist organization which participated to some extent 
in the processes of constitution-making and legisla- 
tion was the Djaml'at al-'ulamd'-i Pakistan. 

The Djamd'at-i lsldml differs from these tradi- 
tionalist religio-political bodies in basing its pro- 
gramme strictly on fundamentalism. It was founded 
in 1941 by Abu 'l-'Ala' Mawdudi, with its centre at 
Pafhankot, and moved to Pakistan in 1947, where 
it developed itself into a well-knit, well-organized 
religio-political group, extending its influence into 
urban and rural areas of West Pakistan and playing 
a controversial role on the question of the ideals and 
constitution of Pakistan as an Islamic state. Its 
fundamentalism is the complete antithesis of liberal 
modernism and vests all rights of legislation im- 
mutably in God alone, denying them to all human 
agencies, individual or collective, thus preaching a 
theocracy which is to be run by the consensus of 
the believers according to the letter of the revealed 

Bibliography: Rahman C A1I, Tadhkira-i 
'ulamd'-i Hind, Lucknow 1914; Sayyid Muham- 
mad Miyan, 'XJlama'-i Hind ha shdnddr mddi, 
Delhi 1942-61; c Ubayd Allah Sindhi, Shah Wdli- 
Alldh aur un ki siydsi tahrik, Lahore 1952; Sayyid 
Muhammad C A1I, Makhzan-i Ahmadi, Agra 1882; 
DJa'far Thanesari, Tawdrlkh-i 'adjlba, Lahore; 
W. W. Hunter, The Indian Musulmans, Calcutta 
1945; Abu '1-Hasan c Ali Nadwi, Sirat-i Sayyid 
Ahmad Shahid, i, Lucknow 1938; Ghulam Rasul 



Mihr, Sayyid Ahmad Shahid. Lahore 1952; idem, 

Djamd'-at-i Mudjdhidin, Lahore 1955; idem, 

Sarguzasht-i Mudjdhidin, Lahore 1956; Husayn 

Ahmad Madani, Naksh-i haydt, A'zamgafh; 

Shabbir Ahmad 'UthmanI, Khutbdt, Lahore n.d.; 

'Ali Ahmad Khan, Djamd'-i lsldml, Lahore n.d.; 

Abu 'l-'Ala* Mawdudi, Towards understanding 

Islam, n.d., n.p.; idem, The political theory of 

Islam, Pathankot n.d.; idem, The process of 

Islamic revolution, Pathankot 1947; W. Cantwell 

Smith, Modern Islam in India, London 1946; 

L. Binder, Religion and politics in Pakistan, Los 

Angeles 1961. (Aziz Ahmad) 

al-DJAMMAZ, Abu <Abd Allah Muhammad b. 

<Amr b. Hammad b. c Ata> b. Yasir, a satirical 

poet and humorist who lived in Basra in the 

2nd-3rd/8th-9th centuries. Nephew of Salm al- 

Khasir [q.v.], pupil of Abu 'Ubayda, and friend of 

Abu Nuwas, of whom he has left an exceptionally 

accurate portrait (see al-Husri, Zahr al-dddb, 163; 

idem, Djam' al-djawdhir , 115). Unlike many of 

his contemporaries, he does not seem to have 

gained entrance to the court of Baghdad, despite 

his attempt during the reign of the caliph al- 

Rashld. He therefore remained, poverty-stricken, 

in his native town, satisfying himself with amusing 

the local notabilities. But it is said that late in life 

he was called to the capital by al-Mutawakkil and 

presented with the sum oi 10,000 dirhams; legend 

has it that he died of shock on the spot. This event 

must have taken place before 247/861, but his 

death has also been put at 255/868-9. 

As a satirical poet he composed little other than 
mukatta'dt of 2 or 3 verses, which were nevertheless 
remarkable for their malicious liveliness aimed, 
among others, at Abu 'l-'Atahiya and al-Djahiz. He 

following the taste of the time, was in general very 

Bibliography: Among old writers, it is to be 

noticed that Husri (Zahr and Djam', see index) 

frequently quotes anecdotes and lines of al- 

Djammaz; Khatib BaghdadI, iii, 125-6, and 

Kutubi, 'Uyun al-tawdrlkh, MS. Paris 1588, 

149 a-b, carry a notice of him; Marzubani, 

Muwashshah, 278, and Mu'djam, 431, concentrate 

more on the work than the man. See also: 

Djahiz, Hayawdn, i, 174-5, Baydn and Bukhald', 

index; Ibn Kutayba, Mukhtalif, 71 ; Tabarl, iii, 

1412: Ibn al-Athir, vii, 39; Aghdnl, index; Tha'a- 

libi, Thimdr al-kulub, 322; Ibn al-Shadjari, 

Hamdsa, 275; c Askari, Sind'atayn, 50; Kali, 

Amdll, iii, 46; Yakut, Irshdd, ii, 60. Biographical 

data and a number of lines are contained in 

Sandubi, Adab al-Djdhi?, 46-8; Hadjlri, in his 

edition of the Bukhald' of Djahiz, 315, gives a 

summary of his biography. (Ch. Pellat) 

DJAMNA, the usual modern Muslim spelling of 

the Indian river which rises in Tehrl in the Himalaya 

and falls into the Ganges at Allahabad. Generally 

called Janina (older Jumna) on western maps, its 

Sanskrit name Yamuna has been largely re-adopted 

in modern India; it was known to Ptolemy as 

Aia^iouva, to Arrian as'IwPapT);, and to Pliny as 

Iomanes; the spellings Gemini (Roe) and Gemna 

(Bernier) occur among early European travellers. 

Early Muslim historians of India refer to it as by>-. 

Its depth and width have made it a natural 

frontier in the division of territory in north India, 

between the Pandjab and the Do'ab lands and 

between Awadh (Oudh) and the districts (Gwaliyar, 



DJAMNA — DJAMSHID 



etc.) to the south. Navigable for the greater part 
of its length in the plains, it was an important 
traffic route until the coming of the railways; this 
and the purity of its water have largely been 
responsible for its urban settlements in Dihli, 
Mathura (Muttra), Agra, Etawa, Kalpi and Allahabad 
[«•*■]. 

Of its canals, the East Jumna canal was a British 
enterprise. The western canal, however, was begun 
by Firoz Shah Tughluk in 757/1356, as a monsoon 
supply channel to Hisar and Hansi [qq.v.]. In 976/ 
1568 it was re-excavated, by Akbar's orders, and 
became a perennial water-course, as shown by the 
contemporary bridges at Karnal, Safldon, etc., and 
implied by the sanad of construction. It was further 
extended and improved in 1025/1626 by 'All Mardan 
Khan. On the canals see J. J. Hatten, History and 
description of government canals in the Punjab, 
Lahore n.d. [see also nahr]. 

The "Jumna musjid" of Forbes (1785) and other 
18th-century writers is a misapprehension of Djami' 
(commonly Djama, Djamma) masdjid. 

(J. Burton-Page) 

al-DJAMRA, lit. "pebble", (pi. djimdr). The 
name is given to three halts in the Vale of Mina, 
where pilgrims returning from 'Arafat during their 
annual pilgrimage (hadjdj) stop to partake in the 
ritual throwing of stones. The Lisan at- 1 Arab 
explains that the place acquired its name either 
through the act of throwing, or through the stones 
themselves, which accumulate as more pilgrims 
perform the rite. Travelling from 'Arafat, one comes 
first to al-djamra al-uld (or al-dunyd), then, 150 
metres further on, to al-djamra al-wustd. They are 
in the middle of the main street of Mina, which 
runs in the direction of the valley itself. There is at 
each halt a square column of stonework surrounded 
by a trough into which the stones fall. 115 metres 
further on to the right, where the road leaves Mina 
and climbs towards the mountains in the direction 
of Mecca, the pilgrim comes to djamrat al- c akaba 
(also known as al-kubrd in hadith), which consists of 
a wall and a basin sunk into the earth. The columns 
and wall are called 'the devils' (Iblis or Shaytdn) by 
the people. The halts also sometimes go by the name 
al-Muhassab, which is a plain lying between Mecca 
and Mina. The ritual stone-throwing is considered 
compulsory {wddjib) by the 4 schools, and exact 
procedural instructions are laid down. Any in- 
fraction invokes a penalty, ranging from the giving 
of food to a beggar to the offering of a victim for 

On 10 Dhu '1-Hidjdja, before the sacrifice of 
the Feast, the pilgrim throws 77 stones into the 
djamrat al- l akaba. On the nth, generally between 
midday and sunset, he visits each djamra in turn, 
beginning with the djamra al-uld, and throws 7 
stones into each one. He does the same on the 12th 
(and on the 13th should he still be in Mina). The 
stones normally come from Muzdalifa, although 
this is a custom and not an obligation, and they are 
about the size of a date-kernel or large bean. 
Burckhardt speaks of stones collected into actual 
heaps by some pilgrims. They are thrown from a 
short distance with a flick of the right thumb, 
rather like marbles. As he makes a throw, the 
pilgrim utters a takbir, which some jurists con- 
sider is the essence of the rite. The crowd 
presses thick and excitedly round the djimdr. Poets 
of the past recounted that the mob allowed them a 
glimpse of their beloved (see e.g. Kitdb al-Aghdni, 
vi, 30; Yakut, iv, 427; Mubarrad, Kdmil, ed. Wright, 



166, 13; cf. 370, 8 ff.). The Sa'udi Arabian authorities 
have recently improved the means of access to the 
djamrat aW-altaba. In Arab countries, where stones 
are within easy reach, lapidation is an expression of 
hostility (cf. stones thrown at tombs which carry a 
curse). At al-djamra it is Satan who is stoned; there 
is an old story that Adam was the first person to 
drive Satan away there by stoning him. Another 
version attributes the event to Abraham, Hagar 
and Ishmael. The three djimdr are said to mark 
the spots where each in turn was accosted by Satan, 
who wished to prevent the sacrifice of Ishmael. They 
all resisted the temptation, and repelled him with 
There is no explicit mention of the Mina 






5 them 



1 be 



found in the biographies of Muhammad and the 
hadith (see for example Ibn Hisham, 970; Wakidi, 
Wellhausen, 417, 428 ft.; Ibn Sa'd, ii, 1, 125, viii, 
224 ff.). They can be traced to an ancient pagan 
rite adapted by Islam. According to Ibn Hisham, 
534. 17 (see also Wellhausen, Maghri), in pagan 
times there existed blood-spattered stones, used in 
sacrifices, near the present heaps; cf. references to 
stone idols of al-Muhassab in a poem of al-Farazdak 
(Boucher ed., 30). Both van Vloten and Houtsma 
have given interpretations of the pre-Islamic signi- 
ficance of lapidation (cf. EI 1 , and bibliography 
below). In a more detailed study, Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes suggested that it was an idolatrous 
cult of planetary origin, but warned that the present 
state of knowledge does not permit of a definitive 
answer being given (see hadjdj). 

Bibliography : Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le 
Pelerinage a la Mekke, Paris 1923; Ibrahim Rif'at 
Basha, Mir l dt al-Haramayn, Cairo 1925, with 
photographs; Lane, i, 453*; Mukaddasi, in BGA, 
iii, 76; Bakri, Geogr. Wbrterbuch (ed. Wustenfeld), 
iv, 426-7, 508; Bukhari, Kitdb al-Hadjdj, chap. 
Ramy al-djimdr; Wensinck, Concordances et 
Indices de la tradition musulmane, Leiden; Azraki, 
(ed. Wustenfeld), Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, i, 
402-5; Burckhardt, Reisen in Arabien, 474-5; 
Snouck Hurgronje, Het Mekkaansche Feest, 159- 
61, 171-2; Van Vloten, in Feestbundel aan de 
Goeje (1891), 33 ff.; idem in WZKM, vii, 176; 
Th. Houtsma, in Vers. Med. Ak. Amst., 1904, 
Literature section, series 4, vi, 154 U-\ Wellhausen, 
Reste arab. Heidentums 2 , in; Juynboll, Handbuch, 
155-7. (F. Buhl-[J. JOM 1E R]) 

DJAMSHlD (Avestan Yima Khshaeta "Yima the 
brilliant"), in abbreviated form Djam, an Iranian 
hero who has "remained alive in popular and literary 
tradition, from Indo-Iranian times until our own day 
(see the texts collected, translated and commented 
upon by A. Christensen, Le premier homme et le 
premier roi dans Vhistoire legendaire des Iraniens, ii). 
To the Indian hero Yama, son of Vivasvant, some- 
times immortal man become god, sometimes the first 
human to have suffered death and to have become 
its god (Rig-Veda Mahdbhdrata, Atharva-Veda; 
cf. the texts in Christensen, op. cit.) there corresponds, 
in the texts from ancient Iran, the hero Yima, son 
of Vivahvant, a hero of the millennium when men, 
rescued from the influence of the diws [q.v.] by the 
establishment of morality and religion, did not know 
hunger or thirst, heat or cold, old age or death; he 
founded towns and villages in thousands, kindled 
the three sacred fires, organized the social castes, 
preserved humanity from perishing by providing a 
safe, vast refuge, underground but nevertheless light, 
the Var (cf. Noah's ark), on the approach of a 
terrible winter followed by floods, provoked by a 



DJAMSHlD — DJANAB SHIHAB al-DIN 



439 



sorcerer or demon; but, according to the texts, he 
taught men, who were then simply vegetarians, to 
eat animal meat (hence his condemnation by the 
Avesta which forbids sacrifices of blood; cf. text and 
commentary in Christensen, op. cit., ii); moreover, 
having fallen under the demon's influence, he 
believed he was God, lost his purity, gave himself 
up to profane pleasures and was forsaken by his 
glory (kh«'ar9na) which was of divine origin; it was 
in this way that he brought misery upon mankind 
and was reduced to living in hiding for a century; 
finally, on being discovered by the demons, on the 
order of their leader Azhi-dahaka (Azhdahag, Zah- 
hak) he was sawed in the hollow tree in which 
he had taken refuge (a borrowing from Talmudic 
tradition: Christensen, op. cit., 74); later, he was 
avenged upon Azhi-dahaka through ©raetaona 
(Faridun), a hero descended from the royal family 
who inherited the divine glory and re-established 
the monarchy which for some years had been 
usurped. Christensen has shown that three of the 
legend's principal characteristics recur in legends 
of various Iranian herons: the loss of divine favour 
as a result of a deadly sin (cf. Hartman, Gayomart, 
87), the building of a wonderful palace, immor- 
tality lost. According to the oldest texts, which 
find a reflection in al-Tabarl (Persian tr. by 
Bal'ami), Yima was the type of the first man to 
reign throughout the first millennium; but very soon 
legend credited him with predecessors: Gayomart 
(Kayumarth) and his children, Hushang, Takhmoruv 
(Tahmurath) whose reigns preceded his own, in the 
course of the first millennium (Christensen, Premier 
homme, i, 124 ff.). 

Arabic and Persian texts deriving from the (lost) 
Pahlavi work Kh w adainamagh differ as to the 
genealogy and chronology of these heroes. As an 
example we may note that only the Shdh-ndma of 
Firdawsi makes Pjamshid the son of Tahmurath, 
unlike tradition which makes them brothers; again, 
several authors insert two or three generations 
between Hushang and Piamshid. In these works we 
find, developed to a lesser or greater extent (most 
of all in al-Tabari, Bal'ami, Firdawsi, from the 
Kh w adainamagh), details from the ancient texts 
summarized above (see the summaries and tr. in 
Christensen, op. cit., ii). Popular tradition and 
Persian poetry have clung to two elements in the 
Pjamshid legend: the magic cup (ajdm-i Djam) in 
which he saw the universe (a very ancient legendary 
theme: Christensen, op. cit., ii, r28 ff.), the celebration 
of the nawruz (ibid., 138). Several Arab authors 
protest against the identification of Pjamshid with 
Solomon — which proves that this belief was wide- 
spread (Christensen, op. cit., ii, 119), and hence the 
buildings which they are supposed in popular tradition 
to have erected: Takht-i Piamshid ("Pjamshid's 
throne": Persepolis), Takht-i Sulayman (Murghab), 
Masdjid-i madar-i Sulayman ("mosque of the mother 
of Solomon": tomb of Cyrus at Pasargadu). In short, 
Islamic authors do not add any notable element to 
the legend of Pjamshid; in their works we find 
borrowings from Avestan sources through the inter- 
mediary of Pahlavi texts and the Khoddi-ndma 
( Kh" 'adainamagh) ; in general, they are agreed on the 
details of his civilizing work, but differ as to his 
genealogy. 

Several historical personages bore the name of 
Pjamshid (or Pjam); among others, the son of the 
Sasanid king Kavadh I (Christensen, L'Iran sous les 
Sassanides, index: Zham; idem, Les Kayanides, 40), 
a son of the Ottoman sultan Mehemmed II [see 



djem], Ghiyath al-Pin Pjamshid, who collaborated 
with Ulugh-Beg [q.v.] for his astronomical tables, 
zidj (Browne, iii, 386). According to Yakut (Mu'djam, 
ed. Wustenfeld, ii, 118), "Pjamm (sic) is a town in 
Fars to which was given the name of Pjamshid son 
of Tahmurath". 

The poet Asadi [q.v.] of Tus told of the romance 
between Pjamshid and the daughter of the king of 
Kabul with whom he had taken refuge from Zahhak, 
who pursued him as far as China (Livre de Gerchasp, 
i, 37-91, text and trans. CI. Huart); Pjamshid's 
magic cup has given the name to a poem djam-i 
Q[am [see art. awhadi; the vowel of the second 
Djam should be changed to a short a] ; a romance in 
verse by Salman of Save [q.v.] tells of the love of 
Pjamshid, son of the emperor of China, and Khurshid, 
daughter of the emperor of Byzantium. As it is not 
possible to mention here all the poems in which 
Pjamshid features, we will limit ourselves to the 
kasida by Manucahrl (ed.-trans. Biberstein-Kazi- 
mirski, no. 57) on the wine-jar which the poet calls 
"Pjamshid's daughter", following the popular belief 
which credits Piamshid with the invention of wine 
(cf. Muhammad Mu'in, Mazduyasna, Tehran 1326/ 
1948, 267 ff.); Piamshid appears many times in the 
ghazals of Hafiz (play of words on dfam and Diarn : 
ed. Kazwinl-Ghani, no. 78, 179, 431, 468). 

Bibliography: in addition to the works 
mentioned in the text, see: Pesmaisons, Diet, 
persan-francais, art. Pjam, the name denoting 
three sovereigns; Gr. I Ph. (s.v. Yima); A. 
Christensen, Les Kayanides (index : Yim) ; Sven S. 
Hartman, Gayomart (index: Yim, Yima); E. 
Benveniste, Les classes sociales dans la tradition 
avestique, in J A, ccxxi (1932), 117 ff.; G. Pumezil, 
Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus, 45 ff. ; Browne (index : 
Pjamshid as named in lyric poetry) ; Pr. Safa, 
Hamdsa-sard'i dar Iran, 396 ff.; idem, Ta'rikh-i 
adabiydt-i Iran, (index); H. Masse, Croyances et 
coutumes persanes (index I: Pjamchid). 

(Cl. Huart-[H. Masse]) 
DJAN-I ejANAN [see mazhar]. 
EJANAB SHIHAB al-DIN (Cenap Sehabettin) 
(1870-1934). Turkish poet and writer, one of the 
three representatives of the Therwet-i Fiinun school 
of literature (the others being Tewflk Fikret and 
Khalid Piya (Ziya)). 

He was born in Monastir. Upon the death of his 
father, an army officer, killed at the battle of 
Plewna (1876), he settled in Istanbul with his mother 
and attended, as a boarder, various military high 
schools, graduating from the military School of 
Medicine in 1889 as an army doctor. He spent four 
years in Paris completing his medical studies. On 
his return to Turkey he served in various Pepart- 
ment of Health offices in the provinces and in 
Istanbul. After the Constitution of 1908 and during 
the First World War he tried political life without 
success. On retiring from government service he 
joined the staff of the Faculty of Arts of Istanbul 
University (1914) but had to resign in 1922, following 
a student protest about his hostile attitude towards 
the Nationalist movement in Anatolia. After the 
establishment of the Republic (1923), and after a 
vain attempt to win the favour of the new Govern- 
ment in Ankara, he lived until his death a relatively 
secluded life, contributing essays and occasional 
poems to the revived literary review Therwet-i 
Fiinun. 

In his early youth Pjanab came under the influ- 
ence of the last important group of supporters of 



440 



DJANAB SHIHAB al-DIN — DJANABA 



the old school of literature and his first poems are 
in the classical tradition. But he soon freed himself 
of this influence and began to write poems strongly 
inspired by the work of the great modernist c Abd 
al-Hakk Hamid and of Redjalzade Ekrem. On his 
return from Paris, where he had ample opportunity 
to study contemporary French literature, he defi- 
nitely chose the modern school, which, led mainly 
by Redjalzade Ekrem and Tewfik Fikret, was now 
developing round the literary review Therwet-i 
FUnun. Djanab was invited to join this review, which 
gave its name to the literary movement of the turn 
of the century. He became, after Fikret, the most 
successful and admired poet of the movement. 

After 1908, the prose-writer eclipsed the poet, and 
with his numerous articles, political and literary 
polemics, essays, criticisms and travel notes, he came 
to be considered, by a whole generation, as the 
brilliant master of Turkish prose. 

Ignoring completely all the new tendencies which 
were to revolutionize Turkish poetry and the Turkish 
language, Djanab remained an adherent of 'Art for 
art's sake'. He was influenced in choice of words, 
concern with rhythm and unusual images by the 
French Parnassiens and to a lesser degree by the 
early Symbolists. Djanab's comparatively few poems 
(collected after his death by Saadettin Niizhet Ergun, 
see Bibliography) are all limited variations upon two 
themes: nature and love. Despite his obsession with 
metre and choice of words, which were often un- 
earthed from the depths of Arabic and more parti- 
cularly Persian dictionaries, he is no master of form. 
But his uncertainty, often awkwardness in form, does 
not prevent him from achieving at times an original 
and strangely attractive poetry, with unusual 
imagery and internal rhythm. "A silvery dew had 
fallen on the black leaf of night — The moon quivered 
like a dewdrop on the night". 

Djanab's prose is more ornate and very precious 
and equally full of rare Arabic and Persian words ; it 
quickly became antiquated because of his failure to 
see the rapid and inevitable development of the 
Turkish literary language and style after 1910. In 
long and futile polemics, supported by his admirers, 
he fought a losing battle against the generation of 
young writers, supporters of "New Language" 
\"Yeni Lisdn"), led by the short story writer 'Umar 
Seyf al-DIn (Omer Seyfettin), who were determined 
to rid Turkish of the domination of Arabic and 
Persian grammar and vocabulary and introduce 
spoken Turkish, "the living Turkish" as they called 
it, into literature. When he realized his mistake in 
the 1920's and began experimenting with the "new 
language", it was too late: his day as writer was 
over. He collected some of his many essays and 
articles in Ewrak-i Eyyam, Istanbul 1915, and 
Nethr-i Ifarb, Nethr-i Sulh, Istanbul 1918; and his 
travel notes in Ifadxdj. Yolunda, Istanbul 1909, 1925, 
and in Avrupa Mektublari, Istanbul 1919. He also 
wrote two plays: Yalan,igu, KSrebe, 1917. His last 
book was a study on William Shakespeare, 1931. 

Djanab owes his important place in the history of 
Turkish literature to his remarkable contribution 
in the 1890's to the modern school of Turkish 
poetry, which completed the break with almost all 
the traditions of diwan poetry and established for 
good the "westernized" type of Turkish poetry. In 
this, his role was second only to that of Tewfik 
Fikret. 

Bibliography: Rushen Eshref, Diyorlar ki, 

Istanbul 1918, 81-93 and passim; Sadettin Niizhet 

Ergun, Cenap Sehabettin, Hayati ve seftne siirleri, 



Istanbul 1934; Ali Canip Yontem, in Aylik 

Ansiklopedi, Istanbul 1945, i, 298-9; Kenan 

Akyiiz, Bah tesirinde Turk siiri antolojisi 1 , Ankara 

1958, 265-96. (Fahir Iz) 

al-QJANABA (sing. Djunaybl), one of the 

leading tribes of Oman. Apparently at one time the 

strongest of all the Bedouin tribes there, the Djanaba 

still number enough nomadic members to rank as 

peers of the Duru* [q.v.] and Al Wahiba [q.v.] in the 

desert. The main divisions of the Djanaba are the 

Madja c ila (sing. Madj c all, pronounced Me c all), the 

Fawaris, Al Dubayyan, and Al Abu Ghalib, of which 

the first is recognized as paramount. The present 

chief (rashid) of the tribe is Djasir b. Hamud, whose 

predecessors were the descendants of al-Murr b. 

Mansur. 

Covering a wide territory, the Djanaba generally 
speaking fall into two groups, an eastern and a 
western. In the east many have settled along the 
coasts, in Sur on the Gulf of Oman, which is shared 
with Bani BQ C A1I, and in the little ports of the coast 
of the Arabian Sea as far south as al-Djazir. These 
settled folk have largely turned their hand to 
nautical affairs, and some have done well as mer- 
chants, trading to Bombay, Zanzibar, and the Red 
Sea. The nomads in the eastern group have large 
herds of camels and goats, which they keep on the 






the i 



sheltering themselves in caves from the south-west 
monsoon. Some are skilful fishermen, especially in 
catching sharks. 

The western group consists primarily of Bedouins, 
though some own property, e.g., the chief of the 
tribe, Djasir, who has land in <Izz, which is regarded 
as the tribal capital. Djasir also has a claim to the 
island of Masira, on which he stays for a time each 
year. The favourite range of the western Djanaba. 
the wadis in the vicinity of the town of Adam, lies 
east of the range of the Duru'. 

The Djanaba belong to the Ghafirl faction, in 
which they are allied with the Duru* in opposition 
to Al Wahiba, who are Hinawls. The enmity between 
these tribes is no longer as bitter as it once was. 
In Djalan the Djanaba are allies of Bani Bu { AH. 
The Djanaba call themselves Sunnis; Ibadi doctrines 
have not made much headway among them, though 
they respect the Ibadi Imam. 

Bibliography : B. Thomas, Alarms and 
excursions in Arabia, Indianapolis, 1931; W. 
Thesiger, Arabian sands, London, 1959; 'Abd 
Allah b. Humayd al-Saliml, Tuhfat al-A'-yan, 
Cairo, 1332-47. Also information from inhabitants 
of Oman. (G. Rentz) 

DJANABA. the state of so-called major ritual 
impurity. It is caused by marital intercourse, to 
which the religious law assimilates any efjusio 
seminis. One who is in this state is called diunub, 
and can only become ritually clean again by the so- 
called major ritual ablution [ghusl [q.v.]) or by the 
tayammum [q.v.]. On the other hand, the law pre- 
scribes for a Muslim in the state of so-called minor 
impurity the minor ritual ablution (wudu* [q.v.]). 
The distinction is based on the wording of Kur'an, 
V, 6. The dfunub cannot perform a valid saldt; he 
may not make a fawdf round the Ka'ba, enter a 
mosque (except in cases of necessity), touch copies 
of the Kur'an or recite verses from it; these last 
provisions are based on the traditional interpretation 
of Kur'an, LVI, 77-9- Qiandba is also called "the 
major hadath" [q.v.], in opposition to the minor 
ritual impurity. 

Bibliography: The chapters on tahara in the 



DJANABA — DJANAZA 



441 



collections of traditions and the works on fihh; 
I. Goldziher, Die gdhiriten, Leipzig 1884, 48-52. 

(Th. W. Juynboll*) 
AL-EJANADt, Abu 'Abd Allah Baha' al-DIn 
Muhammad b. Ya'kOb b. Yusuf, Shafi'ite jurist and 
historian of Yemen. His family was of the town of 
Zafar in Yemen although he resided most of his life 
in Zabld where he apparently died in 732/1332. His 
only known extant work, Kitab al-suluk fi tabakdt 
al- c ulamd } wa 'l-muluk, is an important biographical 
dictionary of the learned men, primarily jurisconsults, 
of Yemen arranged by the towns in which they were 
born or lived. The dictionary proper is preceded by 
a long introduction comprising a political history of 
the country from the time of the Prophet to 724/ 
I 3 2 3 _ 4. early recognized by the later historians of 
Yemen to be of the greatest value so that his work 
is quoted as a source by al-KhazradjI, al-Ahdal, Abu 
Makhrama. and others. The biographical portion 
was later continued by al-KhazradjI in his Tirdz 
aHdm al-zaman fi tabakdt a c ydn al-Yaman and in the 
Tuhfat al-zaman fi a'-yan al-Yaman by al-Ahdal. The 
Suluk of al-Djanadl has not as yet been edited in its 
entirety although a portion of the historical in- 
troduction, that concerning the Fatimid ddHs in 
Yemen, has been edited and translated from the 
manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale (2127, 
Add. 767, foil. 3oa-32b) by H. C. Kay in his Yaman, 
its early mediaeval history (London, 1892). To those 
manuscripts of the Suluk listed by Brockelmann 
should be added the excellent copy in the Chester 
Beatty Library (no. 3110, i. & ii) and another in the 
Egyptian National Library in Cairo (25 Ta'rikh); 
the latter is a recent photocopy of that in the library 
of the great mosque of San'a'. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, II, 184, S II, 
236; Hadjdji Khalifa, ed. Flugel, ii, 613; al- 
Sakhawl, IHdn in Franz Rosenthal, A history of 
Muslim historiography, 406-7; Kay, pp. xii-xiv. 

(C. L. Geddes) 
al-EJANAHIYYA (or al-Tayyariyya), the special 
partisans of 'Abd Allah b. Mu'awiya [q.v.], great- 
grandson of Dja'far al-Tayyar Dhu '1-Djanahayn. 
Though Dja'far and his son and grandson were 
highly respected by Shl'is, no political or religious 
party seems to have been attached to the family 
until c Abd Allah took the leadership of the general 
ShI'i revolt against the Umayyads in 127/744. The 
wider party of c Abd Allah included for a time most 
politically active Shl'is (including some 'Abbasids), 
not to mention certain displaced Kharidjites; but 
the term Diandhivva may be applied more particu- 
larly to those for whom c Abd Allah had exclusive 
rights to the imamate. These claimed that Abu 
Hashim b. Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya had left the 
imamate not to the 'Abbasids but to c Abd Allah b. 
Mu'awiya, then still a lad, in care of a certain Salih b. 
Mudrik. They are said to have believed that the imam 
knew the unseen, and that whoever knew the imam 
was exempt from other (presumably ritual) obli- 
gations. (It is doubtful if c Abd Allah b. Mu'awiya 
shared these opinions). Among them, Ishak (or c Abd 
Allah) b. Zayd b. al-Harith and his partisans are 
said to have believed in reincarnation and in the 
presence of the light of God in the imam. On the 
death of c Abd Allah b. Mu'awiya, some claimed he 
was withdrawn into the mountains of Isfahan, 
whence he would return to put an 'Alid in power; 
others evidently accepted Ishak b. al-Harith as imam. 
Bibliography: see c abd Allah b. mu'awiya 
(to which add in particular Tabarl, ii, 1976 ft.); 
see also Mas'udi, Murudi, vi, 41, 42, 67-8; Naw- 



bakhti, Firak, 29, 30, 31, 32, 35; Ash 'an, Makdldt, 
6, 22 (the group was strengthened by the Kaysani 
Harbiyya), 85; Baghdad!, Fark, ed. M. Zahid 
Kawthari, 142-3, 150, 152, 163, 193, 216 (ed. 
M. Badr, 235 ft.); Ibn Hazm, Cairo ed. iv, 137, 
143; Shahrastani, Milal, ed. Cureton, i, 113 (ed. 
on margin of Ibn Hazm), i, 156 (branch of the 
Hashimiyya), trans. Haarbrucher, ii, 408); Ibn 
Nubata al-Misri, Sarh al-'-uyun (commentary of 
the Risdla of Ibn Zaydun), Cairo ed., 241-4; 
Djahiz, Hayawdn, iii, 488 and note (the Hamasa 
of Buhturi contains many of his verses), vii, 160; 
Aghdni, xi, 72 ff.; Tha'alibi, Thimdr al-kulub, 261; 
I. Friedlaender, The heterodoxies of the ShiHtes, in 
JAOS, xxviii, 45, 71, and xxix, 44-5; Moscati, II 
testamento di Abu, Hashim, in RSO, xxvii, 32-3, 46. 

(M. G. S. Hodgson and M. Canard) 
al-EJANAWAN! (also al-PjenawunI), Abu 
'Ubayda 'Abd al-HamId, governor of the 
Djabal Nafusa for the Ibadite imams of Tahart. 
He was a native of the village of Idjnawun (also 
Djenawen, in Berber Ignaun) situated below the 
town of Djadu in the present district of Fassato. He 
already enjoyed great prestige there about 196/811 
during the stay of the imam 'Abd al-Wahhab b. 'Abd 
al-Rahman b. Rustam in the Djabal Nafusa. On 
the death of Abu '1-Hasan Ayyub he was elected 
governor of the Djabal Nafusa by the people of the 
country and afterwards received the investiture from 
'Abd al-Wahhab, probably a little before the death 
of the latter which occurred in 208/823. His gover- 
norship, the duration of which corresponded very 
nearly with the reign of the imam Aflah b. 'Abd al- 
Wahhab (208/823-258/871), was troubled by the 
continuous war which he had to wage against the 
heretic Khalaf b. al-Samh, grandson of a previous 
Ibadite imam of North Africa, Abu '1-Khattab 'Abd 
al-A'la al-Ma'afirl. Several episodes are known of 
this war which came to an end only after the victory 
which al-Djanawanl achieved over Khalaf's army 
in 221/835. As a result of this victory the Djabal 
Nafusa, whose population were fanatical partisans 
of the Rustamids, continued to be a province of the 
state of Tahart until the latter's downfall. 

Al-Djanawani was pious and learned. Besides 
Berber he also knew Arabic and the language of 
Kanem {lugha hdnamiyya), a very strange fact. He 
is counted among the twelve mustadi&b al-du'd' 
('those whose prayers are answered') who inhabited 
the Djabal Nafusa towards the end of the 2nd/8th 
century and the beginning of the 3rd/9th. He resided 
at Idjnawun which at this period became for a time 
the religious and political centre of the whole Djabal 
Nafusa. The Ibadite tradition recorded by al- 
Shammakhi speaks of seventy Ibadi scholars who 
flocked there at that time from all the province 
governed by al-Djanawanl. 

Bibliography: Chronique d'Abou Zakaria, 
trans, with comm. by E. Masqueray, Paris- 
Algiers 1878, 144-74; Abu 'l-'Abbas Ahmad b. 
Sa'id al-Shammakhi, Kitab al-Siyar, Cairo 1301/ 
1883, 179-89; A. de C. Motylinski, Le Djebel 
Nefousa, Paris 1899, 88, n. 2; R. Basset, Les 
sanctuaires du Djebel Nefousa, in J A 1899, July- 
August, 95-6; T. Lewicki, ttudes ibddites nord- 
africaines, i, Warsaw 1955, 92-3, 131, and passim. 

(T. Lewicki) 
EJANAZA (or Pjinaza, Ar.) a corpse, bier, or 
corpse and bier, and then, funeral. It was sunna [q.v.] 
to whisper the shahdda [q.v.] in the ear of a dying man 
whose face was turned towards Mecca. The dead 
body was washed by those of the same sex though 



DJANAZA — DJANBAZ 



there were exceptions; Abu Bakr [q.v.] gave orders 
that he should be washed by his widow. It was a 
mark of piety for one at the point of death to wash 
himself in readiness. The body was not stripped 
entirely and was washed several times, always an 
uneven number, and for the last sidr leaves or 
camphor was steeped in the water. If disease made 
it unwholesome to touch the body, it was enough to 
pour quantities of water over it. Washing began 
with the right side and the parts washed in the 
ritual ablution. Martyrs who fell in battle were not 
washed and were buried in their blood-stained 
clothes without prayers. Grave-clothes might be the 
every day garments, usually three, though sheets 
were used ; white was the normal use though colours 
were allowed but not red. The eyes were closed, the 
jaw tied up and the graveclothes tied tightly but 
were loosened in the tomb. If the clothes were short 
they had to cover the head while the feet might be 
covered with reeds. The body was carried to the 
grave on an open bier with a cloth thrown over it, 
and there was an extra covering for a woman. 
Burial might be in the house but was more usual 
in a cemetery. The funeral moved quickly for, "If 
I am good, hurry me to God; and if I am bad, get 
rid of me quickly". It was better to walk in the 
procession than to ride and it was a work of merit 
to help carry the bier, if only for a few steps. A halt 
might be made at a mosque for prayers which 
differed from the saldt [q.v.] because the mourners 
stood throughout. Prayers were said by the grave. 
A near relative officiated though the governor or 
a famous scholar might be asked to lead or might 
insist on doing so. The imam [q.v.] stood by the head 
of a man or by the trunk of a woman. Prayers were 
said over an infant if it had cried once but not over 
a suicide. Those sitting in the street should stand as 
a funeral passes. Women were not allowed to be 
present; this was to avoid the lamentation customary 
in the Didhilivva [q.v.] because lamentations added 
to the pains of the dead. The earth must not press 
on the body which must sit up to answer Munltar 
and Nakir (see c adhab al-kabr) so the grave was 
a pit with a narrower trench at the bottom or a 
niche hollowed out at the side; the trench was 
roofed with flagstones and the niche shut off by a 
wall of sun-dried bricks. Grave-diggers specialized 
in one or other of these forms and Muhammad's 
grave depended on whether a "trencher" or a 
"nicher" came first. If this tale is true, these forms 
of burial existed before Islam but the details are so 
precise that the whole is suspect. The nearest 
relatives descended into the grave to put the body 
in position with the face towards Mecca and to 
loosen the grave-clothes. One man one grave is the 
rule; after the battle of Uhud two bodies were put 
in one grave but one was taken away later; if a man 
and a woman had to be laid in one grave, there had 
to be a partition between them. Burial might be on 
the day of death or the following day but a hurried 
burial at night was not approved. Some held that 
the earth over a grave should be level though others 
allowed a small mound. Covering it with plaster and 
inscriptions was forbidden but headstones with 
name, date and sentences from the Kur'an soon 
became common. Water was often sprinkled on the 
grave; rain watered that of a saint and in later times, 
if there was a horizontal stone, it had a hole in it to 
let water through. Coffins were not used at first but 
by the 6th century they were common. There might 
be a meal with gifts of food to the poor. Customs 
changed; women followed funerals, professional 



: employed and ir 



■y tombs became 



Bibliography: Chapter djandHz in the collec- 
tions of traditions; Ibn Sa c d, Tabakdt, 2/ii, 60 ff. 
(burial of Muhammad) ; Ibn Abi '1-Hadjdj, Madkhal 
(1929), 2, 220 ff., 281 ff., 3, 234-80 (middle ages); 
M. Galal, in REI, ii (1937), 131-300 (modern 
Egypt) ; Lane, Modem Egyptians, ch. 28 ; Hughes, 
Dictionary of Islam, s.v. Burial; I. Gruetter, in 
Isl., xxxi (1953), 147-73, xxxii (1955), 79-04, 
168-94; A. S. Tritton, in BSOS ix, 653-61. 

(A. S. Tritton) 
EjANBAZ. The Persian djdnbdz 'playing with 
one's life; dare-devil' developed three meanings 
which, mainly through Ottoman Turkish, spread 
into a number of languages: 1. 'acrobat', especially 
'rope-dancer', which is known in the east as far 
as Eastern Turki {(dmbashci), in the west in the 
Caucasus, Turkey, and Egypt (ganbddhiya 'rope- 
dancers', gunbdz 'gymnastics'), 2. 'soldier' [see 
article djanbazan), 3. 'horse-dealer'; this latter 
word spread through Turkey (recorded in the 16th 
century: Glisa Elezovic, Iz Carigradskih Turskih 
Arhiva Muhimme Defteri, Belgrade 1951, 115, 
no. 659) north as far as Rumania and south to 
Syria and Lebanon, often with pejorative develop- 
ment of the meaning: 'one who drives a hard 
bargain' (Bulgaria), 'merchant who demands ex- 
orbitant prices' (Syria), 'trickster' (Rum. geambas). 
—Acrobats, known since antiquity, were always 
popular in the Near East, and, in particular, in the 
festivities given by the Ottoman sultans to the 
people of the capital they were never missing. 
'A troupe of excellent Tumblers and Mountebanks 
(where of Turkey abounds aboue all the Regions of 
the Earth) . . .' begins the description of such a 
festivity (Michel Baudier, transl. by Edward Grime- 
stone, The History of the Serrail and of the Court 
of the Grand Seigneur, London 1635, 88 f.). The 
earliest reference to djdnbdz in Ottoman times seems 
to be found in the description of a circumcision feast 
for the royal princes in Edirne in 1457 (here Laonikos 
Chalkokondyles translates the Turkish term, spelled 
Tdcjira^iv instead of T^dtjjiTre^iv, as 'rope-dancer', cf. 
Moravscik, Byzantinoturcica, vol. 2, 252). From the 
16th century we have many descriptions, often 
accompanied by illustrations, both in Turkish sources 
and narratives of European travellers, of the 
performances of various kinds of acrobats at public 
festivities; particularly famous was the circumcision 
feast which Murad III gave for his son Mehemmed 
(III) in 990/1582. Ewliya Celebi's travel book offers 
interesting details about the djdnbdz in the 17th 
century. In his account cf the parade of the Istanbul 
guilds he mentions the guild of the acrobats (i, 
625 f.), listing several names. He also mentions that 
the most outstanding rope-dancer, Mehmed Celebi of 
Uskiidar, was holding an imperial letter patent 
(khatt-i sherif) by which he was appointed warden 
(ser-leshme) of all acrobats (here the term is pehliwdn) 
of the empire, of whom a total of 200 masters were 
listed in his register (defter). Mehmed Celebi is again 
mentioned among the participants of a memorable 
show at Istanoz (now Zir, vilayet of Ankara) 
where— we are told by Ewliya Celebi (ii, 439"42, 
ed. Ozon, iii, 10-13) — all rope-dancers (here the 
narrower term resenbdz is used) assembled once 
every 40 years for a contest which resulted in the 
promotion of the apprentices to master's status. 
The sources for the 16th and 17th centuries can be 
found in Metin And, Kirk giin, kirk gece, Eski 
donanma ve shenliklerde seyirlik oyunlari, Istanbul 



DJANBAZ — djanbulAt 



1959. For the djdnbdz in Istanbul's more recent pas 
see Refik Ahmed, Istanbul nasrl egleniyordu \ 
Istanbul 1927, 83-86, and Musahipzade Celal, Esk 



Istan 



yasay, 



, Istan 



(A. 



EJANBAZAN (Persian plural of djdnbc 
previous article) — the name of a military corps 
in the Ottoman Empire. It is not known when 
exactly the corps was founded, although it may 
have been in the reign of Orkhan GhazI [q.v.]. 
The djanbazdn served only in time of war, like the 
"■azab [q.v.], gharibdn and ierekhbr ("territorial" 
miners and sappers). Grzegorzewski (Z sidzyllatdw 
Rumelijskich epoki wyprawy wiedenskiej, Lwow 
1912, 53 ff.) believes, however, that they were 
organized in 844/1440 by Murad II [q.v.] to meet the 
first Balkan expedition of John Hunyady and that 
they took part in the battle of Varna. The djanbazdn 
served in the vanguard and were charged with 
dangerous tasks. This fact led Hammer (Staats- 
verjassung, index) to class them with the irregulars 
known as serden-getti (lit. "mad or wild adventurers"), 
gbnullu ("volunteers") and deli ("madmen", [q.v.]). 
Grzegorzewski followed by Babar [Zur wirtschajt- 
lichenGrundlage des Feldzuges der Tiirken gegen Wien 
im Jahre i683 r Vienna/Leipzig 1916, 29 ff.) held, 
however, that they formed the personal body-guard 
of Beglerbegis [q.v.] and sandjak begis, like the 
djdnddrdn, while D'Ohsson (Tableau general, vii, 309) 
thought that, like the gharibdn, the djanbazdn served 
as coastal militia in Anatolia. 

The djanbazdn later joined the yuriiks ("nomads", 
[q.v.]) and Tatars as well as the yaya ("infantry") 
and musellems ("sappers") in forming support forces 
for the Janissaries (cf. Djelal-zade Nishandji, 
Tabakdt al-mamdlik ji daradjdt al-masdlik, Fatih 
Library MS 4467, f. 8; I. Hakkl Uzuncarsili, Osmanh 
devleti teskildhnda kapi kulu ocaklari, Ankara 1943, 2). 

A kdnunndme dating back to the middle of the 
ioth/i6th century is in existence concerning the 
djanbazdn of Rumeli. It states that 10 djanbazdn 
formed an odjak, that only one served at a time, the 
remaining nine paying 50 akces each as '■awdrid-i 
diwdniyye [see c AWARip].The kdnun-ndme describes 
the djanbazdn as nomads, paying taxes (bdd-i hawd 
rusumu) to their own officers (Su-bashi). The relatives 
and dependants of the djanbazdn were assimilated 
to the corps, which could also be joined by outsiders, 
related by marriage, and by converts. The djanbazdn 
of Rumeli were considered part of the yiiruk ze'dmet 
of Vize; they were subject to the same penal, taxation 
and other rules, and seem, therefore, to have come 
largely from the same stock. They were subject, 
however, to a more complicated system of '■awdrid 
services (Kdnunndme-i Djanbazdn, Basvekalet 
Arsivi, Tapu Defterleri, no. 226). The Kanunname-yi 
Al-i <Othmdn (v. TOEM) states that djanbazdn on 
active service should be considered as soldiers and 
that the "estate duty" (resm-i kismet) for any killed 
in war should be paid to the kadi 'asker, if it exceeds 
100 akces, and in other cases to the kadis of wildyets. 
Later, however, all djanbazdn were considered soldiers 
and all duties became payable to the kadi '■asker of 

In 950/1543 the corps (tdHje) of djanbazdn 
amounted to 39 and in 964/1557 to 41 odjaks. 'Ayn-i 
<Ali(Kawdnin-iAl-i 'Othmdn, 45) gives their strength 
together with that of 'azabs as 1280, of whom one 
tenth served at any one time. The corps was abolished 
towards the end of the 16th century (according to 
D'Ohsson under Selim II) together with those of the 
yaya and musellems. 



The djanbazdn were cavalry troops and they also 
bred horses for the army. After their dissolution 
their name lived on in the form "at djdnbdzl" 
meaning "horse broker". (M. Tayyib Gokbilgin) 

DJANBULAT, a family of amirs, Duruz in 
religion and Kurdish in origin ("soul of steel" in this 
language), established in the Lebanon, where they 
formed the DJanbulati party, active until the present 
day (common modern spellings: Djoumblatt, Jom- 
blatt, etc.). The Djanbulat, related to the Ayyubids 
according to Lebanese tradition, appeared in the 
region of Killis during the latter half of the ioth/i6th 
century (the Mamluk Djanbulat al-Nasiri, governor 
first of Aleppo and then of Damascus in 902-4/ 
1497-9, sultan of Egypt for six months under the 
name of al-Malik al-Ashraf Abu '1-Nasr, d. 906-7/ 
1501, seems to have no connexion with this family). 

Djanbulat b. Kasim al-Kurdi (d. 980/1572), 
surnamed Ibn 'Arabi, perhaps by takiyya, sup- 
pressed brigandry in the sandjak of Killis, where he 
hade been placed in charge by the Ottomans, and 
participated in the conquest of Cyprus. His son 
Husayn (d. 1013/1604) evicted the wall Nasuh Pasha 
from Aleppo, whom he had assisted against the 
rebels of Damascus, and was executed at Van for 
having refused to join in an expedition against Iran. 
'All, his son (Djanbulatoghlu to the Ottoman 
historians), rebelled in Aleppo and extended his rule 
in Syria; he aligned himself with the amir of Mount 
Lebanon, Fakhr al-DIn Ma'n, against Yusuf al- 
Sayfa, also a Kurd, the governor of Tripoli, defeated 
the latter at Hama, but then was reconciled to him; 
he established an independent amirate from Hama 
to Adana, failed to remit taxes to the Sultan, had 
the khutba recited in his own name, and raised an 
army of more than 30,000 men. He was conquered 
at Orudj in 1016/1607, as was his ally Fakhr 
al-DIn; thanks to his uncle Haydar, he received the 
pardon of the Sultan at Istanbul. Placed in command 
of Temesvar, he joined battle with the Janissaries, 
fled to Belgrade, and was decapitated in 1020/1611. 
The Djanbulat, however, kept their command over 
Killis and thereafter remained faithful to the Sultan; 
a nephew of 'All, Mustafa, became bey of Rumeli. 
They seem to have left some remnants in the 
Lebanon, where one of these was imprisoned at 
Shaklf in 1019/1610, and where they struggled 
against Yunis Ma'n during Fakhr al-DIn's absence 
in Italy, the latter, however, after his return and 
before his new revolt, made a fresh appeal to the 
Djanbulat of Killis. 

Djanbulat b. Sa c id (d. 1 050/1640), probably 
grandson of 'All, finally emigrated to the Lebanon 
in 1040/1630 with his sons Sa'Id and Rabah, settled 
in the Shuf, and, from 1041/1631, joined the cam- 
paigns of the amir. His son Rabah succeeded him, 
and 'All, his grandson (d. 1124/1712), outlived his 
brothers Faris and Sharaf al-DIn, who were assassi- 
nated; he entered the service of the powerful Druze 
chieftain Kablan al-Kadl al-Tanukhi, married his 
daughter, and inherited his fortune and his influence, 
which he increased by his generosity towards the 
common people. He helped the amir Haydar Shihab 
to carry the battle of c Ayn Dara, 1123/1711, against 
the YamanI "party". Before his death he wished to 
divide his fortune between his son-in-law 'All and 
the amir, but the Druzes bought back the latter's 
portion for 'All's benefit. This son-in-law 'All built 
the castle of Mukhtara, finally established the local 
authority of his family, developed with the Djan- 
bulatl "party" an opposition movement to the 
amlral power, and intervened in the dissensions 



djAnbulAt — DJANDARLl 



of the Shihab whom he looked upon as upstarts. In 
1173-4/1760 he assured the succession of the amir 
Mansur against his co-regent Ahmad, then, deceived 
by him, brought the amir Yflsuf to power, joined 
with him in an unhappy struggle against Pahir al- 
'Umar, and later turned against him, won over by 
the intrigues of Djazzar. He died as an octogenarian 
in 1192/1778. 

Bashir Djanbulat, grandson of 'All (?), built the 
mosque of Mukhtara on the model of that of Acre, 
and undertook important irrigation works; he 
helped the accession to power in 1202/1788 of the 
amir Bashir II Shihab, and long supported him, but 
he set up his lieutenant 'Abbas against him during 
the amir's absence in Egypt ; the latter on his return 
defeated him at Mukhtara and had him strangled in 
1240/1825. After the downfall of the Shihab dynasty 
in 1841 the Ottomans preferred the Arslan to the too 
rich and powerful Djanbulat for the Ka'imakamate 
of the Shuf. Sa'Id Djanbulat, set aside in this way, 
took an active part in the bloody events of i860; 
condemned to death, he died in prison in 1861. His 
son Naslb continued after him the struggle for 
authority against the Arslan, whom he eliminated, 
at the end of the 19th century, from the Ka'ima- 
kamate of the Shuf. 

The Djanbulat! "party" (with a scarlet flag edged 
with green, bearing a hand and a dark green scimitar) 
was formed, not in the 17th century as is often 
supposed, but during the first half of the 18th, when 
the amir Haydar supported against C A1I Djanbulat 
c Abd al-Salam Yazbak c Am5d, who formed the 
YazbakI "party". These parties do not continue, as 
is sometimes claimed, the classical YamanI (totally 
eliminated from the mountains after 'Ayn Dara) 
and Kaysl (with whom the Djanbulat were always 
friendly) clans, but substitute for this traditional 
division an analogous one, some effects of which 
persist in the contemporary political life of the 
Lebanon. 

Bibliography: G. Mariti, Geschichte Fakkar- 
dins, Gross-Emirs der Druzen, und der ubrigen 
Gross-Emiren bis 1773, Gotha 1790; C. F. Volney, 
Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie pendant les annies 
1783, 1784 & *7&5, 6th ed. Paris 1823, ii; H. Huys, 
Relations d'un sijour de plusieurs annies dans le 
Liban, Paris 1850, i, 279; ii, 48, 78-80, 112, 126 
etc.; Tannus al-Shidvak. Akhbdr al-a'-ydn fi 
Diabal Lubnan, Beirut 1859; M. von Oppenheim, 
Vom Mittelmeer zum persischen Golf, Berlin 1899, 
i, 30, 115, 150, 163, etc.; Haydar Ahmad al- 
Shihabl, Ta'rtkh, Cairo 1900-1; Jouplain, La 
question du Liban, Paris 1908 ; Michael of Damas- 
cus, Ta'rikh hawddith al-Shdm wa Lubnan, ed. 
Ma'luf, Beirut 1912; H. Lammens, La Syrie, 
prtcis historique, Beirut 192 1; P. K. Hitti, The 
origins of the Druze people and religion, New York 
1928, 22; N. Bouron, Les Druzes, histoire du Liban 
et de la montagne haouranaise, Paris 1930; A. N. 
Poliak, Feudalism in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and 
the Lebanon, 1250-1900, London 1939, 44, 57, etc.; 
tA, s.v. Canbulat (M. C. Sihabeddin Tekindag); 
Adel Ismail, Histoire du Liban du XV IV siecle d 
nos jours; I, Le Liban au temps de Fakhreddine II 
(1596-1633), Paris 1955; M. Chebli, Une histoire 
du Liban a Vipoque des imirs (1635-1841), Beirut 
1955. (P. Rondot) 

DJANDAR or Djandar, the name given to certain 
guards regiments serving the great Saldjuks and 
subsequent dynasties. Attached to the royal house- 
hold, they provided the sovereign's bodyguard, and 
carried out his orders of execution. Their commander, 



the amir d£dndar, was a high-ranking officer; some of 
them are reported as becoming atdbaks [q.v.]. Under 
the Saldjuks of Rum, they formed an elite cavalry 
guard, and wore their swords on a gold-embroidered 
baldric. At the accession of 'Ala' al-DIn Kaykobad I 
in 616/1219 he is said to have had a bodyguard of 
120 djandars (Ibn BIbi, El-Evdmiru 'l-'-aldHyye, 
facsimile ed. A. S. Erzi, Ankara 1956, 216). Under 
the Kh w arizm-Shahs the djandars, as guards and 
held positions of great influence 
Turkestan, 378). Under the Ayyubids the 
amir O^dndar was one of the highest ranking officers 
in the state ; he remained so under the early Mamluks 
[q.v.], the post being held by an amir of a thousand. 
Later the office declined in importance, and from the 
middle of the 9th/i5th century to the end of the 
Mamluk Sultanate the djandars were common 
soldiers. From Mamluk Egypt the term passed to 
North Africa, where it was used of the bodyguards 
of the Marinids. 

Bibliography: I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh 
devleti teskildtma medhal, Istanbul 1941, 37, 88-9, 
382; D. Ayalon, Studies on the structure of the 
Mamluk army-Ill, in BSOAS, xvi/i, 1954, 63-4; 
CIA, Egypte, 77, 78, 291, 370, Syrie lix; W. Popper, 
Egypt and Syria under the Circassian Sultans, 
Berkeley-Los Angeles 1955, 94; H. Quatremere, 
Histoire des Sultans mamlouks, ia 14; tA ('Candar' 
by M. Mansuroglu). (Ed.) 

DJANDARLl, name of an Ottoman family of 
'wtema'-statesmen, prominent from ca. 750-905/ 
1350-1500, five of whom held the office of Grand 
Vizier. The name, variously spelt in the early 
sources, in later works usually Candarli, appears in 
the oldest inscriptions as Djandari, which has been 
explained as a nisba from Pers. djdnddr, 'body- 
guard' (so Fr. Taeschner and P. Wittek, in Isl. xviii, 
83) or from a locality Djender or tender near Sivri- 
hisar (so I. H. Uzuncarsili, in Belleten, xxiii, 457 f.). 

(1) Khayr al-DIn Khalll b. 'All (popularly 'Kara 
Khalll') is said to have been kadi successively of 
Biledjik, Iznik and Bursa. Murad I, shortly after his 
accession, appointed him to the newly-created office 
of kadV-asker [q.v.], and later (certainly by 783/1381, 
perhaps earlier, see Belleten, xxiii, 465-8) made him 
vizier; as the first Ottoman vizier to combine with 
the supervision of the administration the command 
of the army he is reckoned the first 'Grand Vizier'. 
He played a prominent part in the conquest of 
Western Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaly, and 
penetrated Albania (787/1385). Left in Rumeli as 
Murad's representative during the Karaman cam- 
paign, he died at Serres in 789/1387. 

Khayr al-DIn Pasha is credited by the chroniclers 
with the establishment of the corps of the yaya 
[q.v.] and later of the yeni-ceri [q.v.]. He was married 
to a daughter of Tadj al-DIn KurdI, muderris of 
the medrese of Iznik. Three sons of his are known: 
C A1I (2), Ibrahim (3) and Ilyas; the last is said to 
have been beglerbegi and to have died under 
Bayezld I ; he had a son, Dawud Celebi, who died in 
898/1492. 

(2) 'All Pasha [q.v.] served Murad I, Bayezld I 
and Emir Suleyman as Grand Vizier, and died in 
809/1406. 

(3) Ibrahim Pasha's early career is obscure (he 
too seems to have been a partisan of Emir Suleyman). 
In 808/1406 he was kadi of Bursa (Belleten, v, 560 i.). 
According to one account (Neshri, ed. Taeschner, i, 
133) he was sent by Musa Celebi, after Emir Suley- 
man's death, to Constantinople to demand tribute, 
and seized the opportunity to desert to Mehemmed I, 



DJANDARLl — DJANGALl 



445 



who appointed him vizier (but 'Ashikpashazade [ed. 
Giese, 196] says he had been kddi c asker to Mehemmed, 
who made him vizier on occupying Bursa). A 
document of 818/1415 shows that he was in that 
year kddi'asker (TTEM xvi, 379 and n. 11), and 
another of 823/1420 (Belleten, v, 561) that he was 
by then second vizier (Bayezid Pasha being Grand 
Vizier). When, shortly after Murad II's accession, 
Bayezid Pasha was killed by the pretender 'Diizme' 
Mustafa, Ibrahim succeeded him as Grand Vizier 
and remained in office until his death, of the plague 
(O. Turan, Tarihi takvimler, 24), on 24 Dhu '1-Ka'da 
832/25 August 1429. Ibrahim Pasha restored the 
influence of his family, weakened by their adherence 
to Mehemmed I's rivals, and followed a cautious and 
prudent foreign policy. 

(4) Khalil Pasha [q.v.], the eldest son of Ibrahim, 
was by 847/1443 Grand Vizier. He enjoyed Murad 
II's full confidence to the end of his reign, but the 
part he had played in recalling Murad to the throne 
in 850/1446 and the suspicion of having dealings 
with the Byzantine Emperor incurred the displeasure 
of Mehemmed II, and he was executed (the first 
Grand Vizier so to suffer) shortly after the capture 
of Constantinople (857/1453). 

His brother Mahmud Celebi was married to a 
sister of Murad II; taking part as sandjak-bey of 
Bolu in the campaign of the Izladi Pass (847/1443-4) 
he was captured, but later ransomed (Neshri, ed. 
Taeschner, i, 172). Mahmud had a son, Suleyman 
Celebi, who died in 860/1455. 

Khalll's son Suleyman Celebi was by 851/1447 
kddi'asker ; he predeceased his father (Medjdl, 126). 

(5) Ibrahim Pasha, son of Khalil, was born in 
833/1429-30. Documents (to those cited by Uzun- 
carsili, lA s.v. Candarli, 356a, add M. T. Gokbilgin, 
Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, 333, 203, 344, 327 etc.) 
show that he was kadi of Edirne at the time of his 
father's disgrace and remained in that office until 
869/1465, when he was appointed kddi'asker (thus 
Tashkopriizade's story of the poverty he suffered is 
to be rejected); by 878/1473 he was lala (with the 
rank of vizier) to Prince Bayezid (cf. also Ibn 
Kemal, VII. defter, ed. S. Turan, 1954, 399 ff.). After 
his accession, Bayezid II appointed him kddV-asher 
of Rumeli in 890 and, in Safar 891/February i486, 
vizier (Sa'd al-Din, ii, 217, and cf. Gokbilgin, 
Edirne, 74-5, 418, 121). Second vizier by 893 (KiwamI, 
ed. F. Babinger, Istanbul 1955, 321), he succeeded 
Hersekzade Ahmed Pasha as Grand Vizier in 903/ 
1498, but died two years later while on the campaign 
against Lepanto. 

Thereafter the family fell into relative obscurity. 
One son of Ibrahim, Huseyn Pasha, died after 940/ 
'533-4 as beglerbegi of Diyarbekir, and another, 
c Isa Pasha, for a short time nishdndji, died in 950/ 
1543-4 a s beglerbegi of Damascus; the latter's son 
Khalil was lala to Prince Orkhan, the son of Suleyman 
I's son Bayezid, and died in 976/1568-9 as defterdar 
of Budin. 

Bibliography: Fr. Taeschner and P. Wittek, 
Die Vezirjamilie der Candarlyzdde (14.I15. Jhdt.) 
und ihre Denkmaler, in Isl. xviii, 1929, 60-115 and 
('Nachtrage') xxii, 1935, 73-5 (full references to 
and discussion of the sources); I. H. Uzuncarsili, 
lA art. Candarli (mainly following the preceding 
but with some further details from archival 
sources etc.) ; idem, Qandarhzade Ali Pasa vakjiyesi, 
in Belleten, v, 1941, 549-76; idem, Qandarh (Cen- 
derli) Kara Halil Hayreddin Pasa, in Belleten, 
xxiii, 1959, 457-77; lA art. Murad II (H. Inalcik). 
Further members of the family are named in 



documents in M. T. Gokbilgin, XV. -XVI. asirlarda 
Edirne ve Pasa Livdsi, Istanbul 1952 (see index, 
s.v. Ibrahim Pasa b. Halil Ps.). (V. L. Menage) 
DJANEJIRA [see habshI]. 
BJANFIDA KHATCN [see supplement]. 
EJANGALl, the name of a nationalist and 
reformist movement in Persia which came into being 
in 191 5 in the forests (djangal) of Gllan under the 
leadership of Mirza Kucik Khan, Ihsan Allah Khan 
and a number of other liberals (dzddikh w dhdn) and 
constitutionalists (mudidhidin) . The Djangalls (in 
Persian; djangaliydn or ahrdr-i djangal), whose 
slogans were freedom from foreign influence and the 
independence of Iran under the banner of Islam, set 
up a revolutionary committee called Ittihdd-i Islam, 
published a newspaper entitled Djangal, and engaged 
as military instructors a number of German, Austrian 
and Turkish officers. The movement, which was 
financed by money extorted from the landowners 
of Gllan, was given an added impetus by the Russian 
Revolution of 1917, and by 1918 had spread to other 
Caspian regions, notably the province of Mazandaran. 
In March 1918 the Djangalls were narrowly prevented 
from occupying Kazwin. The territory held by the 
Djangalls lay across the path of the British force 
which had been dispatched from Hamadan to prevent 
German and Turkish penetration of the Caucasus 
and seizure of the Baku oilfields. After some fighting 
between the Djangalls and the British on the 
Mandjll-Rasht road, the British signed an agreement 
with Mirza Kucik Khan on 12 August 1918 whereby 
they recognized the latter's authority in Gllan; in 
return, Mirza Kucik Khan agreed to suspend 
hostilities against the British, expel his German and 
Turkish instructors, and release his remaining 
British hostages. This agreement caused a split 
between Mirza Kflcik Khan, who represented the 
more moderate element among the Djangalls, and 
the radicals led by Ihsan Allah Khan, and this 
dissension enabled the Persian Government's 
Cossack troops temporarily to disperse the Djangali 

The second phase of the Djangali movement was 
marked by open Bolshevik support, which changed 
its whole character. On 18 May 1920 the Red fleet 
bombarded Enzeli, and Soviet troops occupied Rasht, 
the capital of Gllan; a new committee was formed, 
and on 5 June 1920 Mirza Kucik Khan, styling 
himself the "representative of the Persian Socialist 
Soviet Republic proclaimed in the city of Rasht", 
announced the establishment of the Soviet Republic 
of Gllan. The Gllan Soviet, which remained in power 
until the autumn of 1921, confiscated the estates of 
the big landowners and distributed them among 
the peasants, but met with no success in its attempts 
to organize the Persian peasants into independent 
local Communist groups. 

By the terms of the Soviet-Iranian treaty of 
26 February 1921, the Soviet Government renounced 
the imperialist policies of the former Czarist Govern- 
ment towards Persia, and on 8 September 192 1 
Soviet forces were withdrawn from Persia. Deprived 
of Soviet support, the Djangali movement collapsed 
when faced by strong Persian forces under the 
leadership of Rida Khan (later Rida Shah [q.v.]), 
and by October 1921 the rebellion was over. Mirza 
Kucik Khan was captured and executed. 

Bibliography: Gen. L. C. Dunsterville, The 
adventures of Dunsterforce, London 1920, index 
s.vv. Jangali and Kuchik Khan; M. Martchenko, 
Kutchuk Khan, in RMM, xl-xli (1920), 9S-116; 
G. Ducrocq, La politique du gouvernement des 



DJANGALl — DjANlKLI HADJDJI <ALl PASHA 



Soviets en Perse, in RMM, Iii (1922), 84 ft.; G. 

Lenczowski, Russia and the West in Iran, 1918- 

1948, New York 1949, 16 ff., 54 ff.; N. S. Fatemi, 

Diplomatic history of Persia 1917-1923, New York 

1952, 217 ff.; Husayn Makkl, Ta'rikh-i bist-sdla-yi 

Iran, i, Tehran 1323 A.H. solar/1944, 239, 308 ff., 

319 ff. (biographical information on Mirza Kucik 

Khan) ; E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik revolution 

1917-1923, iii, London 1953, index s.v. Kuchik 

Khan; D. Geyer, Die Sowjetunion und Iran, 

Tubingen 1955. (R. M. Savory) 

DJA.NIDS, name of the dynasty which ruled 

Bukhara [q.v.] from 1007/1599 to 1199/1785. It was 

descended from Djan(I) b. Yar Muhammad, a prince 

of the house of the Khans of Astrakhan (Tatar 

Azhdarhdn and Ashtarkhan) who had fled from his 

homeland before the advancing Russians to Bukhara 

around 963/1556. It was from this homeland of his 

that the dynasty was also called Ashtarkhanids (for 

genealogy cf. £ingizids). 

Djan married Zahra Khanim, a sister of the 
ShaybSnid ruler c Abd Allah II b. Iskandar [q.v.]. On 
the latter's death in 1006/1598 the empire that he 
had founded rapidly crumbled, and it was then that 
the son of this marriage, Baki Muhammad, was able 
to establish himself in the territory at the core of the 
state around Bukhara in 1007/1599 (for more 
detailed information see Bukhara); he died in 1014/ 
1605-6. The state was strengthened by Imam Kull 
Khan (1027-53/1611-43 ?), who secured internal order 
by the cruellest of methods and, thanks to his 
religious leanings, enjoyed the favour of the dervishes. 
He finally retired to undertake the hadjdi (1060/1650). 
The most significant ruler of the dynasty was c Abd 
al- c AzIz (1055-91/1645-80), who was also outstanding 
as a Mufti. After his death the authority of the 
dynasty sank rapidly. The local princes (Biy) became 
almost independent, and the Farghana valley was 
separated off as a Khokand [q.v.] Khanate on its own. 
Abu 'I-Fayd (1123-60/1711-47) became a plaything 
in the hands of the amlral family of Mangit [q.v.], 
whose members often held the position of an Atallk. 
From 1167/1753-4 it was the Mangits who exercised 
the actual power within the state. The last Djanid 
Abu '1-GhazI (1171-99/1757-85) was only nominally 
Khan, rather like the Cingizids in the case of Tlmur. 
Yet the first completely independent Mangit ruler 
(since 1 199/1785) continued to be related in marriage 
to the Djanids, 

Under the Djanids Bukhara was one of the centres 
of Sunni orthodoxy; its leading role in defensive 
struggles against Shi'i Persia was politically signifi- 
cant also. Furthermore, the state constantly had to 
do battle with penetrations of the Kazakhs and of 
the Khans of Khiwa (e.g., in 1099/1688), and also 
withstood attempts on the part of the Mughal ruler 
Shahdjahan [q.v.] in the first half of the nth/i7th 
century to regain the homeland of his ancestors. 
Through the rivalries of the Biys and the growing 
pressure of taxation, however, the agriculture of the 
state deteriorated more and more, and commerce 
took other paths. Literary expression was in Persian 
rather than in Ozbeg, and it consisted essentially of 
works of a traditional stamp; yet these works, as 
also the historical writings of this period (in spite of 
much Russian pioneer work) have not yet been fully 
investigated. The architecture is greatly inferior to 
that of the TImurids. 

Bibliography: Storey, i/2, 2, 375-86, 1301 
(since then also published: Amin Bukharl [Storey 
no. 508, 378 ff.], 'Ubaydalldh-nama, trans, and 
annotated A. A. Semenov, Tashkent 1957; and 



Muhammad Yusuf al-Munshi, Tadhkira-yi Mukim 

Khan [cf. Storey no. 509, 379 «•])• Cf. further Abu 

'1-GhazI Khan, i, 120 ff. For general treatises, see 

H. H. Howorth, History of the Mongols, ii/ 2> 

London 1880; R. Grousset, L' empire des Steppes, 

Paris 1939; P. P. Ivanov, Oierki po istorii Sredney 

Azii (Outlines of the History of Central Asia, 

1 6th to the middle of the 19th century), Moscow 

'958, 67-114; E. Sarkisyanz, Geschichte der 

oriental. Volker Russlands bis 1917, Munich i960, 

186-90; B. Spuler, in Handbuch der Orientalistik, 

v/5, Leiden 1961 ; see also Bukhara. For dynastic 

genealogies see Zambaur, 273 (data in some 

instances open to question). (B. Spuler) 

EJA-NiK (Canik), an area along the Black Sea 

between Bafra and Fatsa, including the mouths of 

the rivers Kizil and Yeshil irmak, as well as the 

mountainous regions to the east. It is called after 

the Tsan (Georg. fan, compare Macdonald Kinneir, 

Journey, 282)— a tribe of the Laz— and it has a mild 

climate and fertile soil; consequently, it is relatively 

densely populated (between 50 and 100 people per 

sq. km.). Until recent times, the name was applied 

to the sandjak of Samsun [q.v.], and is applied even 

today to the beautiful mountain forests of Djanik 

Daglari along the Black Sea coast from Samsun to 

Ordu. 

Djanik once belonged to the Turkish principality 
of the Djandar-oghlu of Kastamuni, and together 
with this, it was incorporated into the Ottoman 
Empire by Sultan Bayazid I. After Bayazid's 
defeat at Ankara in 1402, Djanik was re-established 
by Tlmur, but it was later conquered by Mehemmed 
I, becoming a liwd of the eydlet of Siwas with 
Samsun (which — next to Trabzon — is the most im- 
portant port on the Black Sea) for capital. In more 
recent times, it was a sandjak of the wildyet of 
Trabzon, with the kadds Samsun, Fatsa, Uniye, 
Terme, Carshamba, and Bafra. Under the Turkish 
Republic, the greater part of Canik forms the 
vildyet of Samsun. 

Bibliography: D. M. Girard, Un coin de 
de I'Asie Mineure, le Djanik..., in Muse'on, 
N.S. viii, (1907), 100-71). Katib Celebi, Djihdn- 
numd, Istanbul 1145, 623 f.; V. Cuinet, La 
Turquie d'Asie, i, Paris 1890, 86 ff.; Ch. Samy- 
Bey Frascheri, Ramus al-aHdm (Dictionnaire 
universelle d'Histoire et de Geographic), iii, 1308/ 
1891, 1762 f. ; Trabzon wilayeti sdlnamesi; E. 
Banse, Die Turkei, 87-9; v. Hammer, GOR, 
i, index in X, s.v.; Munedjdjimbashi, SahdHf, 
iii, 36: I A, iii, 25 (Besim Darkot). 

(Fr. Taeschner) 
EjANlKLI BADJDJI <ALl PASHA, Ottoman 
soldier and founder of a Derebey [q.v.] family. He was 
born in Istanbul in 1133/1720-21, the son of Ahmed 
Agha, a kapidjl-bashi at the Imperial palace. As a 
youth he accompanied his elder brother Suleyman 
Pasha to Djanik, where he eventually succeeded him 
as ruler with the title, customary among the auto- 
nomous derebeys, of muhassil [q.v.]. During the 
Russo-Turkish war of 1182/1768-1188/1774- he held 
a number of military commands. Serving first in 
Georgia, he was appointed in Djumada II 1183/ 
September-October 1769 to the staff of the Ser'asker 
of Moldavia, where he distinguished himself in the 
fighting against the Russians and took part in the 
battle of Khotin, narrowly escaping capture. As a 
reward he was given the rank of vizier. In 1188/1774 
he led an expedition to the Crimea and in 1190/1776 
was appointed Ser'asker of Kars. In the meantime 
he had been able to consolidate his authority in 



DJANlKLI HADJDJI c ALl PASHA — DJANNA 



Djanik, overcoming or winning over such opposition 
as existed, and to extend his dominions eastwards. 
In 1185/1771 he was recognized as Wall of Trebizond, 
where his brother Siileyman Pasha had preceded 
him. The province was assigned to him as a mdlikdne 
[q.v.]. Within the next few years his holdings were 
extended to include Sivas and Erzurum. 

On 3 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1191/2 January 1778 he was 
again appointed Ser'asker of the Crimea and given 
the command of an expeditionary force which, with 
naval support, was to threaten the peninsula. This 
plan came to nothing. c Ali Pasha now had to deal 
with his Anatolian rival the Capanoghlu (see 
derebey), who, at the instigation of his enemies in 
Istanbul, launched an attack against him. Deprived 
of his offices and of his vizierial rank, he fled in 
1 193/1779 to the Crimea, where he sought refuge with 
the Khan, Shahln Giray. In Sha'ban 1195/August- 
September 1781, thanks to the mediation of the 
Khan, he was pardoned and reinstated, recovering 
the rank of vizier and the control of his dominions. 
In 1 190/1776 he presented a memorandum to the 
government on the reasons for the Turkish defeat 
in the Russian war and, more generally, on the 
reforms that were needed in the Empire. The work 
of a man of action, it deals with practical problems 
in simple, direct, and sometimes forceful language, 
and is a remarkable document of its time. An 
edition is in preparation. c Ali Pasha died in Sha'ban 
1199/June-July 1785. 

Bibliography: Djewdet, Ta'rikk', iii, 144-6; 
SidjiU-i 'Othmdni, iii, 548-9; Ismail Hakki Uzun- 
carsih, Osmanh tarihi, iv/I, Ankara 1956, 447-51, 
509-n, iv/II, 1959, 32-3. C A1I Pasha's memorandum 
is mentioned by Djewdet [loc. cit.) and is preserved 
in Upsala (a rather free paraphrase of parts of it 
will be found in M. Norberg, Tutkiska Rikets 
Annaler, v, Hernosand 1822, 1425-43). 

(B. Lewis) 
EJANNA, "Garden", is the term which, used 
antonomastically, usually describes, in the Kur'an 
and in Muslim literature, the regions of the Beyond 
prepared for the elect, the "Companions of the 
right". E.g.: "These will be the Dwellers in the 
Garden where they will remain immortal as a reward 
for their deeds on earth" (Kur'an, XLVI, 14). Other 
Kur'anic terms will be considered later either as 
synonyms or as particular aspects of the "Garden": 
c Adn and Diannat c Adn. (Eden, e.g., LXI, 12), 
Firdaws ("Paradise", sg. farddis, cf. 7tapa8st<Jo; 
XXIII, n), the Dwelling of Salvation or of Peace 
(ddr al-Saldm, VI, 127; X, 25), of Sojourn (al- 
Mukdma), XXXV, 35), of the true Life (al-Hayawdn, 
XXIX, 64), Garden of Retreat or of Refuge (diannat 
al-Ma?wa, LIII, 15), of Eternity or Immortality (al- 
Khuld, XXV, 15), Gardens of Delight (diannat al- 
NaHm, X, 9), etc. Following current usage, we will 
translate Qianna as "Paradise", and cite Firdati'S in 
its transliterated form. 

(A) Evidence from the Kur'an 
The description of Paradise, the presentation of 
the relationship between its delights and the "good 
deeds" (sdlihdt) performed on earth by the believer, 
together with the description of Hell (ndr, diahannam) 
and the torments awaiting the damned, form one of 
the major themes of Kur'anic preaching. These 
passages constitute a form of tarika khitdbiyya ("way 
of eloquence") with frequent and urgent evocations 
of the blessed life. The schools were to differ on the 
interpretation of these verses. 



It would take too long to classify and enumerate 
here the descriptive details of the Kur'an. The 
essentials may be found in Subhi al-Salih, Les 
Dilices et les Tourments de I'Au-Deld dans le Cot an, 
doctoral thesis (Sorbonne 1954), typescript, 18 ff. 
The following summary is derived from it: — Locat- 
ion: "the garden of Retreat" is in heaven, near the 
"Lotstree of the Boundary (al-Muntahd)" (LI, 22, 
LIII, 14-5). Two texts which suggest a prosopopoeia 
(taswir) foretell that Paradise "shall be brought 
near" to the righteous (LXXXI, 13), "close unto 
them" (L, 31). There is mention of the gates of 
Paradise, of their guards and of the greetings with 
which they met the elect (XXXIX, 73)- The size of 
Paradise is equal to that of earth and heaven 
together (e.g., Ill, 133, LVII, 21). There will be 
pleasant dwellings for the chosen (XIX, 72) and 
pavilions where Houris are kept (LV, 72). Lofty 
gardens (LXXXVIII, 10), leaping fountains (passim), 
streams of living water (id.), of milk, wine and 
honey (XLVII, 15), fountains scented with camphor 
(LXXXVI, 5) or ginger (id., 17), shady valleys, all 
sorts of delicious fruits (passim), of all seasons and 
without a thorn .... 

The life of Paradise is described in concrete details, 
especially in the Suras of the first Meccan period 
(the Suras of the other periods also refer to it) : regal 
pomp (LXXXIII, 24), costly robes, scents, bracelets; 
the texts lay emphasis on the visions of exquisite 
banquets, served in priceless vessels (e.g. LII, 24) by 
immortal youths "like separate pearls", with meats 
and fruits to the heart's desire (LII, 22, LV, 54, etc.), 
where scented wines, never-failing goblets of a 
limpid liquid (LXXXVII, 47), "delight for those who 
drink" (XLVII, 15), bring neither drunkenness 
(XXXVII, 46-7) nor rouse folly or quarrelling 
(LXXXVIII, 35). "Eat and drink in peace, as a 
reward for your deeds, reposing on rows of couches!" 
(LII, 19-20),— couches inlaid with gold or with 
precious stones (LXVI, 15), etc. 

The elect will rejoice in the company of their 
parents, their wives and children who were faithful 
(XIII, 23, XXXVI, 56, XL, 8, XLIII, 70). They 
will praise their Lord (XXXV, 34), bending towards 
each other in love, conversing in joy and recalling 
the past (e.g. XV, 47, LII, 25, etc.). "Pure consorts" 
are promised (II, 25, III, 15, IV, 57). Tradition has 
identified these with the Houris (hawrd?, pi. hilr), 
beings from the Other World "with modest looks 
and large fine eyes" (XXXVII, 48), "like the hidden 
pearl" (LXVI, 23), "whom We have created in 
perfection and whom We have kept virgin" (id., 
34-5) "so that they have been touched by neither 
man nor demon before" (LV, 72-4). 

A happy life, without hurt or weariness, neither 
sorrow, fear nor shame (Subhi al-Salih 24) where 
every desire and every wish is fulfilled (XVI, 31, 39). 
"The Pious will there enjoy what they desire and 
We will grant yet more (mazid)" (L, 35). This "more", 
like the "addition" (ziydda) of, X 26, is usually 
associated with the "approval" (tidwdn) of God fore- 
told to the elect (thus, III, 15 in tine). Now, "to 
believers, God has promised Gardens where rivers 
flow, where they will rest immortal. He has promised 
them goodly dwellings in the gardens of Eden. (But) 
the approval of God is greater. That will be the great 
Victory' (IX, 72). The fruits of it will be nearness 
to God. God will bring the elect near to his Throne 
(passim), and "011 that Day some faces will shine in 
contemplating their Lord" (LXXV, 22-23). This last 
text, understood in the sense given in our translation, 
was to serve as the accepted scriptural foundation 



448 DJ. 

for the dominating thesis of the "vision of God" 
(ruy'at Allah) in Paradise (see below). 

Subhi al Salih, 12 ff., emphasizes a certain pro- 
gression in the Kur'anic annunciation of Paradise: 
the Suras of the first Meccan period describe it with 
numerous brief, concrete details "in an ardent, 
brief and elliptical style, with the symmetry of 
antithesis". During the second and third Meccan 
periods "the descriptive elements become (. . .) 
more summary". Later we find "a more abstract 
means of evocation". Well-known is verse XIII, 35, 
Mathal al-dianna, "the picture of the Garden 
promised to the Pious"; the later allegorical inter- 
pretations were to base themselves on it, making 
the concrete descriptions of Paradise the repre- 
sentation of an inexpressible reality. And it was 
during the Medina period that stress was laid on the 
divine "approval", joy above all others. 

Does the Kur'an refer to different sorts of Gardens 
organized hierarchically, or should we understand 
the terms used as synonyms ? Either hypothesis can 
be accepted, according to the commentators. Let 
us simply consider two verses: "For those who fear 
the (Judgment) seat of their Lord, there will be two 
Gardens" (LV, 46), and "this side of the two, two 
Gardens" (id., 62) ; certain to/sirs render dun not by 
"this side of" like M. Blachere (en dega), but by 
"above". Should we assume four distinct Gardens ? 
A single description applies to each pair; and the 
descriptions of both groups are identical except for 
infinitesimal differences. 

Relationships may be established between the 
Muslim Paradise and some earlier eschatological 
traditions, particularly Persian and Judeo-Christian, 
cf . as an example the comparison proposed by Grimme 
and Tor Andrae between the Kur'anic descriptions 
and certain Syriac hymns by the Deacon Ephrem 
(cf. Tor Andrae, Der Ursprung des Islams und das 
Christentum, Fr. tr., Les origines de VIslam et le 
Christianisme, Paris 1955, 151 ff.). 

(B) Principal elaborations 
How has Muslim thought interpreted the data 
of the Kur'an? Laying aside the copious Shi'I 
exegeses, we shall consider: — (1) hadith and so- 
called traditional commentaries; (2) developments 
of the "science of kaldm"; (3) falsafa and tasawwut ; 
(4) efforts at synthesis; (5) reformers and con- 
temporary modernists. 



litio 



and tradit 



The hadiths devoted to Paradise and the life 
therein are very numerous. Their dominating 
tendency is a literalness which emphasizes the 
reality and the detail of sensual pleasure. The value 
attributed to them is variable. While many are 
considered sahih (authentic), others are called daHj 
(doubtful). Certain of them derive not from the 
Prophet, but from a Companion or a Follower 
{hadith mawkiif or maktu c ). Among the many sahih, 
if some are mutawdtir (ensured by many lines of 
transmission), many are <aziz (rare), little known 
and vouched for by only two authorities; or even 
ahdd (unique), by one only. The Musnad of Ibn 
Hanbal abounds with descriptions of the joys of 
the Beyond. The two Sahih (al-Bukhari and Muslim) 
and the four Sunan reproduce numerous traditions 
on the same subject; see in particular al-Bukhari. 
K. Bad 1 al-Khalh, c. 8, K. al-Rikdk, . c. 51, and 
especially K. al-Tafsir. Muslim's commentators are 
in the habit of grouping eleven principal hadith 
reproduced by him, on the subject of Paradise. For 



a restatement and discussion of these sources, see 
Subhi al-Salih, op. cit., 43 ff. A typical example 
of traditional exegesis is given in the tafsir of al- 
Tabari. It may be considered together with the 
abundant contribution from the "preachers", 
themselves inspired by the old "story-tellers" 
(kassds) and "weepers" {bakkd'un), who in their 
concern to catch the popular imagination multiplied 
all kinds of extravagant concrete details. On the 
basis of these diverse sources, there were extensive 
and varied developments. It is impossible to give 
an exhaustive survey. Here are some points of 
reference, borrowed from authoritative compilations 
of hadith, or from al-Tabari, or al-Sha<ranI {Mukh- 
tasar), who himself gives a summary of al-l£urtubl, 

Location: — most commonly Paradise is placed 
under the Throne of God, above the highest heaven. 
It is usually distinguished from the Eden of Adam. 
Traditional accounts of the "ascension" {mi'rddf, 
[q.v.]) of the Prophet describe in detail his progress 
across the levels and degrees of Paradise. 

The Entrance : — the different levels of Paradise 
are reached through eight principal gates, the 
respective dimensions and distances of which are 
described (the figures are intended to give an 
impression of limitless space). Each level is in turn 
generally divided into a hundred degrees. The 
highest level, which is either in the seventh heaven 
or, better (see below), beyond, is sometimes called 
Eden, sometimes Firdaws, etc. According to an 
often-quoted hadith (e.g., al-Bukhari, DfandHn, 7), 
the key to open these doors has three webs: the 
proclamation of the divine Unity (tawhid) ; obedience 
to God; and abstention from all unlawful deeds. 
Others add "the swords of battle on the path of 
God". The Prophet Muhammad will enter first. 
The poor believers will precede the rich. Angels 
will welcome the elect to the strains of an exquisite 
Arab melody — Arabic being the only language in 
Paradise. A banquet of welcome awaits them and 
each dish is described at length. They will be led to 
dwellings made ready for them, "accompanied by 
their wives, their children, by houris and by youths" 
(Subhi al-Salih, 121). Note: though Paradise al- 
ready exists, the descriptions of a happy Beyond 
are always related to the resurrection of the body. 
It is not until after the resurrection, the "gathering" 
(hashr) and the Judgment, that the "Halls Eternal" 
will receive their guests. 

The representation of Paradise. An eternal 
Spring will spread an everlasting light. One day in 
Paradise is equal to a thousand days on earth. 
The stuff of which it is made is of musk, gold 
and silver. The palaces are of gold, silver, pearls, 
rubies, topazes, etc. : descriptions which may be taken 
metaphorically, but which the commentaries usually 



e realiti 



;. The s 



al-Kai 



(cf. Kur'an, CVIII, 1), with a scent more subtle than 
musk, flows over pearls and rubies between banks 
of gold. Four rivers, whose names are given, spring 
from mountains of musk, flow between banks of 
pearls and rubies, and carry to the elect milk "of 
an unvarying flavour", wine "a delight to those who 
drink", "clearest" honey (cf. al-Tabari, Ibn Hanbal, 
etc.). There are references to four mountains (Uhud, 
Sinai, Iebanon, Hasib), to a large valley, innumerable 
plains, wonderful fruit-trees. It would take a horse 
a hundred years at the gallop to emerge from the 
shade of the banana-tree (al-Bukhari, Rikdl?, 114; 
Musnad, passim). A single leaf from the "Lote-Tree 
of the Boundary" could shade the whole Community 



of the Faithful. In Paradise there are horses and 
camels "of dazzling whiteness", perhaps goats and 
sheep, and winged Rafraf made of red rubies will 
serve as the mounts of the elect (al-Tirmidhl, Dianna, 

The pleasures of Paradise. Here too there 
is the same concern for extravagant and concrete 
descriptions. Each of the elect will have the same 
stature as Adam (60 cubits by 7), and the same age, 
33 years, as Jesus. Their robes and adornments will 
be marvellous. The delights of eating and drinking 
are the occasion for a surfeit of endless detail, as are 
also the hours of rest which follow them. The 
Kur'anic evocation of the Houris calls forth endless 
commentaries (cf. Subhi al-Salih, 133-40) which 
celebrate the carnal joys, "a hundred times greater 
than earthly pleasure", that the elect will derive 
from their perpetual virginity. But the female 
Believers who have been admitted to Paradise 
through the merit of their good deeds will rank 
70,000 times greater than the Houris in the eyes of 
God. — The whole of Paradise will be drenched in 
glorious music: the angels, the elect, the creatures 
of Paradise, the hills, trees and birds all joining in 
the universal melody. 

The Vision of God. The most wonderful 
melody of all is the voice of God greeting the elect. 
Several traditions {e.g., al-Sha c rani, Mukhtasar, 118; 
Ibn al-Kayyim al-DJawziyya, Hail 'l-arwdh, 225) 
speak of the visit that the elect will pay "each 
Friday" to the Most High, at his invitation, and 
after they have chosen "a fine face" at the "suk of 
Recognition". The men following the Prophet, the 
women in the train of his daughter Fatima, will 
cross the heavens, pass by the celestial Ka'ba 
surrounded by praying angels, draw near to the 
"Guarded Table" (al-lawh al-mahjuz) where the Pen 
writes the divine decrees, and finally emerge on to 
the "terrace of the Throne", which is of musk. "The 
veil of light lifts" and God appears to his guests "like 
the moon at the full" (Subhi al-Salih, 148). He 
greets each and everyone with "Peace be with you", 
and the angels serve them. There is supreme bliss 
which surpasses all other joy. 

These traditional concepts and their concrete 
details permeate the mind of the Islamic peoples. In 
considering their implications tw 
necessary. They are put forward 
extrapolation of sensual earthly pleasures. If the 
"Vision of God" is the highest reward, even so that 
too is described as a sensual ocular sight. However, 
the famous hadith, both sahih and mutawdtir, "I have 
prepared for my faithful servants that which no eye 
has seen, no ear heard, no human heart ever felt", 
is constantly quoted. A literalist exposition explains 
it by multiplying every earthly joy tens of thousands 
of times. But the idea of "without common measure", 
indeed the idea of "another order" of reality or 
existence, also has its place. This is certainly one of 
the leitmotifs of Ibn al-Kayyim al-Djawziyya (14th 
century), the well-known disciple of Ibn Taymiyya, 
in his Hail al-arwdh. 

2. "The Science of kalam". 

Among the mutakallimun, three fundamental atti- 
tudes may be distinguished: a) Mu'tazili schools 
(which influence the tafslr of al-Zamakhshari). Their 
principle of "reason as the criterion of the Law" does 
not favour an allegorical or spiritual interpretation, 
but in the sense of a more restrained literal 
exposition, which treats as figurative any statement 
or description deemed rationally unacceptable. 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



Applications: the anthropomorphisms applied to 
God or to the acts of God are interpreted meta- 
phorically; the sensual delights of Paradise, on the 
contrary, are taken literally, but with the exclusion 
of all the hyperbole and all the traditional wonders. 
The Houris are like beautiful women, the fruits of 
Paradise like earthly fruits, etc. The future here- 
siographers (al-Ash c arI, al-Baghdadl, al-Shahrastanl, 
al-Khayyat) were to note that Abu '1-Hudhayl 
does indeed allow the "corporeal pleasures" (dft's- 
miyydt) of Paradise but that, with the rest of the 
school, he associates with them "spiritual" delights 
(ruhdniyydt). All the Mu'tazila, on the other hand, 
deny the vision of God and, by an appropriate 
" exegesis, give a different interpretation 



e Kur'i 



which m 



t. In tr 



way they reject the present existence of Paradise 
which, according to them, will only be created at 
the Resurrection. 

b) The first Ash'ari school asserts the 
reality (haliltia) of the attributes of God as expressed 
by the anthropomorphisms of the text, the reality 
of the descriptions of Paradise, those deriving from 
the principal traditions as well as those of the Kur'an, 
and the reality of the ocular but not spatialized 
vision of God, "like the moon at the full". In his 
Ibdna, Cairo ed. 15, al-Ash c ari calls this last the 
"highest bliss": a "spectacular", not a trans- 
forming, vision (Massignon). Paradise, which will be 
eternal, already exists. But the emphasis is laid on 
the incomparable and ineffable nature of the con- 
ditions of the future life. In conformity with one of 
the great Ash'arl principles, all that is said of it 
must be taken literally but bild hay], "without 
asking how". Not only have the pleasures of Paradise 
no common measure with earthly joys, but they 
bear no analogy to them; they are of a different 

c) The later Ash'aris (called "modern" by Ibn 
Kjialdun), in whom there is often a mixture of 
Ash'arism properly so called and Maturldism, adopt a 
td'wll (interpretation) which is perhaps more influ- 
enced by the Faldsija than by the MuHazila. The most 
notable example is Fakhr al-DIn al-RazI (i2th-i3th 
centuries). The principles of his exegesis are stated 
in his Kitdb asds al-takdls (Cairo ed. 1327), and 
applied at length in the famous Mafdtlh al-ghayb 
(Cairo ed. 1321), still known as the "great tafslr". 
A broad metaphorical interpretation is given of the 
descriptions of Paradise as well as of the divine 
attributes. While allowing, with the school, the 
reality of the Beings of the Beyond, al-Razi con- 
cludes, in conformity with a hadith of Ibn c Abbas, 
that there is equivocality between the names which 
describe them and the same names which describe 
things on earth (Mafdtlh, viii, 280; cf. Subhi al- 
Salih, 245 ff.). He does not deny the sensual rewards 
of Paradise, the luxury, the feasts, the carnal 
relations with the Houris, but he underlines the 
"without asking how", and insists upon "the glorious 
divine presence which impregnates the soul with 
sanctity and spirituality" (viii, 281 ; tr. Subhi 
al-Salih). 

A disputed question in the Kalam: is 
Paradise, especially under its name of Eden, or the 
Garden of Eden, the Eden where God placed Adam 
and Eve? The Mu'tazili al-Djubba'i, who was at 
one time the teacher of al-Ash c arI, placed Eden in 
the seventh heaven. A later opinion, which is 
supported by al-Isfahanl and which claims to follow 
Hanafl-Maturidis, considers the Eden of Adam an 
29 



450 Dj; 

earthly garden, distinct from the heavenly Paradise. 
The commentaries which distinguish the two Edens 
in this way usually place Paradise above the seventh 

One last detail. Some hierarchical plans ("stages") 
of Paradise are often allowed; but there was no 
consensus on the order of enumeration. A haditk of 
Ibn c Abbas proposes: (i) (the highest circle) the 
dwelling of Majesty, (2) of Peace, (3) the garden of 
Eden, (4) of Refuge (or "Retreat"), (5) of Immorta- 
lity, (6) of the Firdaws, (7) of Delights.— But in other 
texts the Firdaws is put at the summit; and in 
others again Eden. Certain opinions, less popular, 
define only four "dwellings" or gardens, and place 
Eden on the level of the fourth heaven. But it is 
generally accepted that, beyond the seventh heaven 
(or simply the highest heaven), and thus not cosmi- 
cally located, Paradise, whether or not divided 
into plans or hierarchical divisions, has above it 
only the Stool (kursl) and the Throne ( c arsh) of 
the Most High God. (See below the summary by 



3- Fal 



wuf. 



Between al-Ash c ari, who follows Ibn Hanbal, and 
the tajsir of Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi, the Hellenistic 
falsafa, during the course of these controversies, 
exerted some influence on the school. For the 
"philosophers", the future life begins, not with the 
Resurrection, but with the individual death; and the 
human soul separated from its body will know, in 
accordance with its nature, only intelligible joys. Ibn 
Sina in his exoteric works is careful not to deny 
the Resurrection; the same is true of Ibn Rushd, 
who, at the conclusion of the Tahdjut al-tahdjut, 
confines himself to declaring his respect for the 
prophetic teaching. But everything is determined 
by the conception of prophecy in question. In his 
"esoteric" Risdla adfiawiyya /» amr al-ma'ad (ed. 
S. Dunya, Cairo 1949), Ibn Sina clearly suggests that 
the Resurrection must be taken as a lesson meant 
for the people; the wise man must understand it as a 
symbol or allegory, for "opposed to the true happiness 
of man is the existence of his soul in the body, and 
(...) corporeal pleasures are different from true 
pleasures, and to return to the body would be a 
punishment for the soul" (53). Henceforth, in its 
deepest reality, the life of Paradise will be that of 
intelligible substances united with the Active 
Intellect and the Universal Intellect in which, as in 
a clear mirror, will shine the supreme Divine Lights. 
— Is then the apparent meaning of the Kur'anic 
descriptions totally ignored? No. They are of 
value, in their literalness, for the "weak-minded" 
(buhl) who, although they have observed God's 
commandments on earth, will be incapable of rising 
to the life of pure intelligence. They will be experien- 
ced, in the strict sense, not as sensual delights, 
but as pleasures of the imagination, thanks to 
the heavenly Bodies (cf. Nadjdt, 2nd Cairo ed. 
1357/1938, 298; see also Ishdrdt, ed. Forget, Leiden 
1892, 196 § 2; Ibn Sina, in order to put forward 
this opinion, takes shelter behind the authority 
of "certain teachers"). 

Avicenna's influence marks a break in the history 
of tasawwuf. The first Sufis took Kur'anic teaching 
literally, but focussed their hopes on the supreme 
bliss and reward, the vision of God. Well-known is 
the allegorical act of Rabi'a, who wanted "to burn 
Paradise" (and "drown Hell") so that God might 
be loved for Himself alone and not for His rewards 



(and feared for Himself alone and not for His 
punishments). In some famous texts, al-Bistaml 
objects to the "market of images" (the s«* of the 
traditional exegesis where the elect choose "a fine 
face" for "the visit on Friday"), and proclaims: "If 
in Paradise I were prevented from meeting Him, 
were it only for an instant, I would make life intoler- 
able for the elect of Paradise" (cf. L. Massignon, 
Lexique technique, Paris 1954, 253). For al-Halladj 
everything is turned towards the ruy'at Allah, 
dazzling but intermittent, in which the elect find 
happiness only "after the event". — Characteristic 
is the attitude of al-Muhasibi, of whom certain 
texts transpose the promised bliss into spiritual 
values, whilst his Kildb al-tawahhum, in order to 
encourage popular piety, emphasizes the sensual 
and carnal descriptions. 

The later Sufis took care not to remove the 
sensual character of the joys of Paradise, but they 
developed, often extensively, the "superior" spiritual 
sense, revealed by the kashj ("unveiling"). The most 
remarkable presentation is that of Ibn c ArabI in his 
al-Futuhdt al-Makkiyya. Paradise is an "abode of 
Life", ddr al-IJayawdn, overflowing with both 
sensual and spiritual joys. In Futuhdt, i, 353 ff., he 
enumerates three Gardens or Paradises: "the Garden 
of the Exception" for children who died before 
attaining the age of reason, the amentes, the righteous 
who have not received the revealed Law, "and 
those for whom God destines it"; "the Garden of 
Inheritance" into which the souls in the "Exception" 
and the believers who have been punished for a time 
in Gehenna may enter; and lastly "the Garden of 
Works" where believers will be rewarded for their 
good deeds. This last is in turn subdivided into eight 
Gardens, each comprising a hundred degrees. The 
highest Garden is Eden (preceded by the Firdaws) ; 
and the highest degree of Eden, al-Md'wa, is reserved 
for the Prophet (ii, 96). The second volume of the 
Futuhdt takes up the traditional descriptions and 
gives a commentary based on distinctions between 
desire, pleasure and will. The eschatology of Ibn 
'Arab! has been briefly summarized by Subhi al-Salih, 
288 ff., and analysed in detail by Asin Palacios, La 
escatalogia musulmana en la Divina Comedia, Madrid- 
Granada 1943, 230 ff. and references given there. 
See particularly the diagrams reproduced on pp. 233, 
262, 264, where the gardens of Paradise are drawn in 
concentric and ascending levels. Another representa- 
tion (ibid., 235) in a pyramid of eight levels has been 
suggested on the basis of the Ma'rifat-ndma of 
Ibrahim Hakki, studied by Carra de Vaux (Fragments 
d'eschatologie musulmane, Brussels 1895). 

If we refer to Futuhdt i, 353, it appears that 
the concrete eschatological descriptions of Ibn 
c Arabi may all bear an allegorical meaning; and that 
they refer, not to two distinct Paradises, "earthly" 
and "heavenly", as Asin Palacios suggests, but to 
one single place of delights in which these two 
aspects join to make one: an application of the 
gnostic thesis of the author, which was developed 
in the Fusils al-flikam (Cairo ed. 1365/1946) where 
the world of the created being is the manifestation 
ad extra of the transcendent God. A text attributed 
to Ibn c Arabi, but which is more, probably from al- 
Kashani (cf. Subhi al-Salih, 312) gives to the 
Kur'anic texts themselves an interpretation which 
is very spiritual and uses a very Avicennian termino- 
logy: where the "lofty beds" are the degrees of 
perfection, the brocade lining is the inward aspect 
of the soul, the Houris the heavenly Spirits. 



4. Two essays in synthesis. 

The jaldsija on one side and the many Sufis on 
the other were regarded with mistrust and often 
opposed by the official teaching. Nevertheless their 
influence was effective. The expansion of Tarlkas 
("brotherhoods") spread throughout the masses 
many Sufi interpretations, sometimes but not 
always mixed with "philosophical" glosses. This 
resulted in some attempts at synthesis, clearly 
concerned to maintain the values of the faith. We 
will consider two of them. 

Al-Ghazzali. — The most important synthesis is 
that by Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali (earlier therefore 
than Ibn 'Arabi), in which are united the traditional 
currents, kaldm, jalsaja and tasawwuj. In the Iktisad 
and the Ihyd\ al-Ghazzali defends the Ash'ari thesis 
of the vision of God. The Kitdb al-mawt wa-md 
ba'dahu of the last quarter of the Ihyd' (Cairo ed. 
1352/1933, iv, 381-468) reproduces extensively 
hadlth and traditional texts which describe the 
sensual pleasures and joys of Paradise. But the 
Maksad al-asnd (Cairo ed., n.d.), without rejecting 
them, insists on the superiority of spiritual bliss. 
Paradise is a "medium of bliss" of which only images 
are revealed to us. There is the same doctrine in 
Mizdn al- c amal <cf. tr. Hikmat Hashim 5-6): it is 
because the pleasures of Paradise "are incompre- 
hensible to the understanding of the commonalty 
of men" that they "assimilate them to the sensual 
pleasures which they know". Here we are very close 
to the theses of Ibn Sina. Al-Ghazzali, however, 
differs radically from the "philosopher" in his 
teaching of the reality of the resurrection of the body. 
His own personal ideas seem to take shape as follows: 
the believers who can only conceive of sensual and 
material happiness will enjoy the pleasures of 
Paradise in the flesh; others will delight in imagina- 
tive pleasures; and others again, "the holy and the 
initiated ( c drifun)" will enjoy superior delights, 
intellectual and spiritual, which alone can satisfy 
them and of which the sensual delights described 
in the Law are only the image. Elsewhere the 
possibility is not ruled out that some of the 
elect may share in the three kinds of joy at the 
same time (cf. ArbaHn, 40, and Subhl al-Salih, 286). 

An elementary manual of kalam.— The 
popular treatise on kaldm by al-Badjuri (i8th-i9th 
centuries, fldshiya . . . c ald Diaivharat al-tawhid, 
Cairo ed. 1352/1934), so often taught in the great 
mosques and the centres of the brotherhoods, 
contains only some sober observations on the subject 
of Paradise. Throughout his work al-Badjuri faith- 
fully follows the traditional Ash'ari line; reality in 
the literal sense of the texts, but bild kayf, "without 
asking how"; he is sometimes not averse from 
admitting a double meaning, literal but also alle- 
gorical, and is receptive to Sufi influences. He does 
not treat in detail the question of paradisiacal 
rewards, and confines himself to noting that "the 
whole of Paradise is abundantly supplied with all 
sorts of delights" (107). He centres his comments on 
the existence and the structure of the Garden. 
Existence: (1) Paradise has already been created 
(contrary to MuHazill opinion), and the Eden of 
Adam and Eve is identified with the Dwelling 
Beyond; (2) it is an eternal abode which will never 
end (contrary to the Djahmis). — Structure: three 
hypotheses are admitted, and al-Badjuri draws no 
conclusion (id.): (1) Paradise will consist of seven 
parts (and not of eight as proposed by Ibn c Arabi), 
concentric and ascending circles. The Highest, 
which is in the centre, is the Firdaws, where the rivers 



fNA 451 

part; and Eden comes in the second place; (2) four 
Gardens, according to the Kur'an, LV, 46 and 62, 
which are named in ascending order: Delights, 
Refuge, Eden, Firdaws; (3) a single Abode to which 
the seven designations may be applied, each under- 
lining one of its qualities. 

5. Reformers and contemporary modern- 
ists (cf. Subhl al-Salih, Vth part.). 

Muhammad c Abduh (Risalat al-tawhld, Cairo 
J 353H., 203-4 on the "vision of God", Tajsir Diuz 3 

c amma a commentary on the thirtieth part of 

the Kur'an or the "thin suras", 1st ed., Cairo 1322/ 
1904; an article from the Manor). The vision of God 
is possible, but is not of the same nature as an ocular 
vision on earth; it is by transforming their visual 
faculty that God will reveal himself to His elect. 
The literal, descriptive sense (localization and 
pleasures of Paradise) is upheld but soberly explained. 
The principle of bild kayj is reaffirmed, especially 
on the subject of the joys dispensed by the Houris. 
Let us note finally that a critique of traditional 
sources is adumbrated. For Muhammad c Abduh, 
the hadiths, even if sahlh, may only be retained if 
they are mutawdtir, warranted by many lines of 
transmission. This principle leads him to reject the 
hyperboles of many literalist descriptions. 

Rashid Rida and his great Tajsir al-Mandr — -This 
important differentiation between the hadiths is 
taken up again and elaborated, even to the point of 
an internal criticism of certain main (texts) of the 
traditions. Thus Rashid Rida rejects as inauthentic 
those which promise to the elect Houris in abundance, 
and he refers to a hadlth reproduced by al-Bukharl 
and Muslim, which awards to everyone in Paradise 
his earthly wife and a single Houri. The descriptions 
abounding in hyperbolical literalism are, he says, 
mistaken in not considering the spirit of the Arabic 
language, which requires that all anthropomorphisms 
be interpreted metaphorically. We should strive to 
understand the inner spirit of the Kur'an which 
teaches both sensual and spiritual delights, but which 
places the second far above the former. For Rashid 
Rida, the authentic hadlth par excellence is that 
which defines the blessed life as "that which no eye 
has seen, no ear heard" .... He criticizes in turn 
the descriptive hyperboles of many "literalists", the 
excessively rationalist principle of the Mu c tazila, the 
allegorism of the Sufis, and he attacks by name Ibn 
'Arabi. Only the attempt to understand the actual 
text of the Kur J an counts. If the spiritual life 
prevails over the life of the flesh, if the delights of 
Paradise are both sensual and intelligible, it is because 
that is the teaching of the Book. The vision of God 
is possible (contrary to the Mu c tazila) but "it is 
not a fundamental basis of the Islamic faith" (see 
Subhl al-Salih, 325-35, and ref. Tajsir al-Mandr). 

In conclusion it may be useful to mention with 
M. Subhl al-Salih "the philological exegesis" 
presented by c Abd al-Kadir al-Maghribi who, in 
1920, wrote a commentary on the twenty-ninth 
section of the Kur'an, djuz' Tabdrak (reissued in the 
work 'Aid hdmish al-Tafslr, Cairo n.d.). The author 
dismisses the literalist exegesis which presents the 
life of the Beyond in purely sensual terms: that 
would be to fail to take account of the incomparable 
power of expression of the text; he also dismisses the 
purely spiritual allegorical exegesis, for it derives 
only from subjective views. He requires an exegesis 
founded on the laws of the Arabic language, its 
eloquence and its use of metaphor. The terms 
describing the delights of Paradise aim at evoking 



DJANNA — al-DJANNAbI 



the grandest possible conception of joy. We should 
then understand these terms literally, but as desig- 
nating, in the Other World, concrete realities in- 
trinsically different from those here below. It is 
thus we should understand the fleshly joys promised 
to the elect: consequently, the feasts ot Paradise are 
by no means intended for the satisfaction of sensu- 
ality, and the delights offered by the Houris represent 
a reality inaccessible to human understanding, a 
noble pleasure in which the female believers will 
share. — The author adds that his exegesis is only 
one of the interpretations possible, and that a 
Muslim is free to prefer another. 

The Egyptians Sayyid al-Kutb, Amin al-Khuli. 
and especially Muhammad Ahmad Khalaf Allah, a 
disciple of the former, go even further than the 
shaykh al-Maghribi in the study of the "literary 
genres" of the Kur'an. Azhari circles displayed 
violent opposition towards Dr. Khalaf Allah. 

In conclusion: the official teaching has never 
confirmed the exclusively allegorical and spiritual 
interpretations of Kur'anic verse and hadith concern- 
ing Paradise. Throughout the centuries two trends 
have co-existed: (i) the so-called traditional exegesis, 
which accepts many traditions and which endlessly 
multiplies concrete details about the life of Paradise 
and its sensual pleasures ; (2) the attempts of kaldtn, 
of al-Ghazzali, the Salafiyya reformers, etc., who 
retain indeed the obvious literal meaning of the 
Kur'anic text, but take care not to amplify it; who 
insist on the intrinsic difference between the realities 
of the Beyond and earthly realities, emphasizing the 
primacy of the spiritual over the carnal order. Even 
without mentioning the "philological" exegesis of al- 
Maghribi, we may say that the attempts of Mu- 
hammad 'Abduh and of Rashid Rida to perform 
an internal critique of the traditions may well 
open new perspectives to our knowledge of the 
tafsir. 

Bibliography : in the article. (L. Gardet) 
HJANNABA, (Djannaba, Djunnaba), arabicized 
forms of Ganafa, a town and port in the Vllth 
ustdn (Fars) of Persia. The name is a corruption of 
Gand-db, 'stinking water', so called because of the 
bad quality of its water (see Ibn al-Balkhl, Fars- 
ndma, 149 and Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Nuzha, 130). 
Ganafa is situated on the coast of the Persian Gulf 
in Lat. 29° 35' N. and Long. 50° 31' E. In former 
times it was an important manufacturing centre 
where cloths of good quality were produced. Pearl- 
fishing was also carried on from there. It was 
the birthplace of Abu Sulayman al-Djannabl [?.».], 
the well-known Karmatian ddH. According to 
the Hudud al- c Alam (r27), it was a large and 
flourishing town in the 4th/ioth century. An oil 
pipe-line from the Gac Saran oilfield (which 
lies 70 km. to the north-east) to the island of 
Kharag [?.».], where tankers of the largest size will 
be loaded, is shortly to be constructed; it will enter 
the sea just to the north-west of Ganafa. The town 
is connected with Bushahr [q.v.] by a dry weather 
road 156 km. in length. Agriculture, fishing and 
shipping repairs are carried out at Ganafa, the 
population of which in 1951 was 2,235. The modern 
form of the name is Ganaveh. 

Bibliography: in addition to the references 
in the text: BGA, passim: Yakut, ii, r22; Fuch, 
De Nino Urbe, Lipsiae 1845, 10; Le Strange, 
273-4. 296; P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter n. 
den Arab. Gcogr., ii, 61, 63, 86; iii, 125-7: 
Monteith, in JRGS, 1857, 108: Tomaschek, 
Die Kustenjahrt Nearchs = SBAk.Wien, cxxl/8, 



67 ; Razmara and Nawtash, Farhang-i diughrd- 
fiyd-yi Iran, vii, 204. (L. Lockhart) 

al-UJANNAbI, Abu Muhammad Mustafa b. 
Hasan b. Sinan al-HusaynI al-Hashimi, 10th/ 
16th-century author of an Arabic historical work 
dealing with eighty-two Muslim dynasties in as 
many chapters, entitled al- l Aylam al-zdkhir fi ahwdl 
al-awdHl wa'l-awdkhir, usually called Ta'rikh al- 
Djanndbl. A Turkish translation and abridgment 
were prepared by the author himself. Whether the 
accepted form of the makhlas is correct or should 
be rather Djanabl cannot be decided in the absence 
of information as to whence it was derived. Al- 
Pjannabi came from a distinguished Amasya family, 
studied and taught in various cities, and was for 
a short time judge of Aleppo. His younger brother 
was the poet Su'udl. Both died in the same year 
999/1590. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, II, 387, S II, 
4" f., Ill, 1281; '■Othmdnli mtiellifleri, iii, 40; 
F. Babinger, 108 f. (F. Rosenthal) 

al-DJANNAbI, Abu Sa'Id Hasan b. Bahram, 

East Arabia. Born at Djannaba on the Fars coast, 
he is said to have become a flour merchant at Basra. 
He was crippled on the left side. His first mission as 
a Karmatian is said to have been as a ddH in 
southern Iran, where he had to go into hiding from 
the authorities. He was then sent to (mainland) 
Bahrayn, where he married into a prominent family 
and won followers rapidly, perhaps among a group 
formerly attached to the line of Ibn-al-Hanafiyya. 
We find that in 286/899 he had subjected a large 
part of Bahrayn and taken Katif. In 287 his partisans 
were in strength around Hadjar, the capital of 
Bahrayn, and were approaching Basra. The Caliph 
MuHadid sent an army of 2,000 men against them, 
to which were added many volunteers. This army 
was cut to pieces; its general was taken prisoner, 
then set at liberty; the other prisoners were killed. 
About 290/903 Abu Sa c id took Hadjar after a long 
siege, by cutting off the water supply; he then 
subjected Yamama and invaded c Uman. In 300 his 
troops again invaded the district of Basra, but in 
3or/gr3 he was murdered by a slave, together with 
several of his high officers. 

He left seven sons, of whom Sa'id succeeded, to 
be replaced later by the youngest, the famous Abu 
Tahir [see art. below]. Abu Sa'id was venerated 
after his death. His partisans believed that he 
would return; a horse was always kept saddled 
at the door of his tomb. The Karmatians of 
Bahrayn called themselves Abu Sa'Idis after him, 
and attributed to him the later constitution of 
their republic. 

Bibliography: The sources are presented and 
in part translated in Silvestre de Sacy, Exposi de 
la religion des Druzes, Paris 1838, i, ccxi ff., and 
M. J. de Goeje, Memoire sur les Carmathes du 
Bahrain et les Fatim ides', Leiden 1886, 31-47, 69-75. 
Add Mas'udi, Tanbih, transl. Carra de Vaux, 
498-501. Important corrections are in Bernard 
Lewis, Origins of IsmdHlism, Cambridge 1940 (see 

(B. Carra de Vaux-[M. G. S. Hodgson) 
al-EJANNABI, Abu Tahir. Abu Tahir Sulayman 
b. Abi Sa'id al-Hasan was one of the most famous 
chiefs of the small Karmatian state of Bahrayn and, 
for several years, the terror of the pilgrims and of the 
inhabitants of lower 'Irak. On the death of Abu Sa c Id 
[see art. above] in 301/913-4, or 300/912-3 according to 
al-Mas c udi, his son Sa'id succeeded him and governed 



with a council of notables (al-'Ikdaniyya). For some 
time the Karmatians refrained from troubling the 
caliphate and were even on good terms with the 
government of the vizier 'All b. 'Isa, who granted 
them privileges such as the use of the port of SIraf, 
in 304/916-7. In 307/919-20, however, there was an 
attack on Basra to support a Fatimid attempt against 
Egypt, according to Ibn Khaldun {'lbar, iv, 89). 
At this time Abu Tahir was not personally at the 
head of affairs, since he was still too young, having 
been born in Ramadan 294/June-July 907, and he 
seems not to have wielded any power before 31 1/923-4 
when he appears, although aged then no more than 
16, in Rabi' II/July-August 923, as commander of 
the Karmatians who entered Basra by surprise at 
night. Escalading the walls, they established them- 
selves in the town before any resistance could be 
organized, and spent seventeen days in pillage and 
massacre. As early as 305/917-8, however, Sa'Id, whom 
the sources depict as lacking energy and authority, 
had been deposed, perhaps at the instigation of the 
Fatimid 'Ubayd Allah. The latter, according to Ibn 
Khaldun, sent a letter of investiture to Abu Tahir, 
whose reign is by some sources dated from this 



The a 



11/923 



icided 



with the removal of the vizier C A1I b. 'Isa whom his 
enemies represented as the ally of the Karmatians. 
At the end of the same year Abu Tahir attacked the 
pilgrim caravan returning from Mecca to al-Habir, 
and took prisoner the amir Abu 'l-Haydja 3 'Abd 
Allah b. Hamdan, who had been charged with the 
protection of the caravan. Abu '1-Haydja 3 and the 
prisoners were released some time afterwards at the 
same time as an envoy from Abu Tahir arrived 
at Baghdad demanding the cession of Basra, 
Ahwaz and even other territories. This claim was 
rejected and, in 312/924-5, the pilgrims were again 
attacked and KQfa was sacked by Abu Tahir. In 
315/927-8, having again plundered Kufa, Abu 
Tahir gained a great victory over the army sent 
against him by the caliph and commanded by 
Yusuf b. Abi '1-Sadj [q.v.], whom he captured and 
who was put to death in Dhu '1-Ka'da 315/January 
928 in the course of the operations that followed. 
Advancing up the Euphrates, Abu Tahir arrived at 
Anbar, crossed the river with the intention of 
marching on Baghdad, but was stopped by the 
army of Mu'nis [q.v.] thanks to the destruction, at 
the instigation of Abu 'l-Haydja J , of the bridge on 
the Nahr Zubara. He thereupon turned north and 
reached Rahba, Karkisiyya and Rakka, holding the 
Inhabitants to ransom. Some detachments penetrated 
as far as Sindjar, Ra's c Ayn and Naslbin. Abu Tahir 
did not return to Bahrayn until the beginning of 
317/February-March 929, when he had built a ddr 
al-hidjra called al-Mu'miniyya (it is known that 
the Karmatians called themselves mu'minun), near 
al-Ahsa, his capital. 

The most sensational act of Abu Tahir was his 
expedition against Mecca where the pilgrims were 
gathered and where he arrived on 7 Dhu 'l-Hidjdja 
3 1 7/1 1 January 930. He killed the pilgrims in the 
mosque, removed everything of value in the holy 
house, and took away the Black Stone, having spent 
eight days in pillage and massacre. In 318/930 he 
possessed himself of 'Uman. In 319/931 he was 
thought to be reattempting the conquest of 'Irak, 
but the Karmatians went no futher than Kufa where 
they remained for 25 days of pillage. According to 
De Goeje, the expedition was put off on account of 
the troubles which broke out in the Karmatian state 



following the enthronement as Mahdi of an impostor 
set up by the vizier Ibn Sanbar and for some time 
recognized by Abu Tahir himself (see below). 

Since the pilgrimage had become impossible and 
the operations of Abu Tahir were continuing (against 
Sinlz in 321, and against Tawwadj in 322, that is to 
say against the coast of Fars), the chamberlain of the 
caliph al-Radl, Muhammad b. Yakut, in 322/934 
entered into negotiations with Abu Tahir for his 
recognition of the authority of the caliphate, the 
cessation of his interference with the pilgrims, and 
the return of the Black Stone; in return he would 
receive official investiture for the regions which he 
possessed or had conquered. Abu Tahir refused to 
restore the Black Stone, but agreed to cease ob- 
structing the pilgrims and offered to have the 
khutba read in the name of the caliph if he were 
allowed free use of the port of Basra. However, in 
323/935 he again attacked the pilgrimage, defeated 
the caliphal troops between Kufa and Kadisiyya, 
and occupied Kufa for everal days before returning 
to Bahrayn. Fresh negotiations were commenced in 
325/937, by the amir al-umard? Ibn Ra'ik, with Abu 
Tahir who had again entered Kufa. In reply to the 
demand of the Karmatian, who wanted the caliph 
to give him 120,000 dinars per year in silver and 
supplies, Ibn Ra 3 ik proposed that Abu Tahir and 
his troops should consider themselves as enrolled 
in the service of the caliph and that this sum be 
considered as a salary. No agreement was signed. 
Finally, in 327/939, thanks to an c Alid of Kufa, the 
pilgrimage was able to resume in consideration of a 
tribute of 25,000 (or 120,000) dinars and a protection 
due (khifdra) which was regularly levied by the 
Karmatians on the pilgrims; this did not, however 
in any way prevent incursions into the south of 
'Irak. 

Abu Tahir died of smallpox at the age of 38 in 
332/943-4, and was succeeded by his brother Ahmad. 

The activity of Abu Tahir raises questions as to 
what were his relations with Isma'Ilism, whether he 
really considered the Fatimid caliph 'Ubayd Allah 
to be the awaited imam and obeyed him, and whether 
it was at his secret request that he carried off the 
Black Stone and launched attacks against 'Abbasid 
territory. The question of the differences and the 
common ground between Karmatians and Isnia'UIs, 
dealt with by Ivanow, Ismaili tradition concerning 
the rise of the Fatimids, 69 ff., and Ismailis and 
Qarmatians in JBBRAS, 1940, 78 ff., and B. Lewis, 
The origins of Ismd'ilism, Cambridge 1940, ch. iii on 
the Karmatians of Bahrayn and particularly the 
Karmatians and the Fatimids, will not be examined 
here; this account is restricted to a review of the 
facts concerning the history of Abu Tahir. There 
are documents as much in favour of an adherence to 
the Fatimid caliphs as against (see the texts in 
B. Lewis, op. cit.). In their work on 'Ubayd Allah 
al-Mahdl H. Ibrahim Hasan and T. Ahmad Sharaf 









between Abu Tahir and the first Fatimid caliph, 
and a real subordination of the former to the latter 
(cf. also De Goeje, passim). Many sources indicate 
that Abu Tahir recognized 'Ubayd Allah as the 
mahdi, that he sent him the khums, and that he 
was his agent in Bahrayn (see the declarations of 
the Karmatian interrogated by 'All b. 'Isa and of 
the secretary of Yusuf b. Abi '1-Sadj in Miskawayh, 
i, 167, 181, and cf. B. Lewis, op. cit.). Al-Dhahabi 
cites the words of Abu Tahir : And al-ddH ild 
'l-mahdi (H. Ibrahim Hasan, 277). Abu '1-Mahasin 
declares that he recognized 'Ubayd Allah as mahdi 



454 al-DJANNA] 

on his return from Rahba in 317/929; but the 
letter of c Ubayd Allah to Abu Tahir which is cited 
in support of this theory, extracts from which are 
given by al-Baghdadl, is most probably apocryphal. 
Moreover, Abu Tahir cannot have been very con- 
vinced of the legitimacy of 'Ubayd Allah, since he 
considered as the awaited imam an impostor of 
Persian origin, the very name of whom varies in the 
sources, and enthroned him as such (it is said that 
he even proclaimed him as God). The attitude of Abu 
Tahir is comprehensible if, as Ivanow says, the Fati- 
mids were not regarded as imams by the Karmatians. 
Moreover, how did Abu Tahir himself appear in the 
eyes of the Karmatians? If we are to believe al- 
Dhahabl, some considered him as Prophet, some as 
the Messiah, some as the Mahdi himself, some as 
"he who prepares the way for the Mahdi" (al- 
mumahhid ila 'l-mahdi). At all events there is a 
curious mixture of phantasmagoria and realism 
about him, for he did not hesitate to put to death 
the impostor in whom he had believed when certain 
of the latter's acts had opened his eyes, and his 
politics towards the c Abbasids is further evidence 
of realism. 

It does not appear that the attacks of Abu Tahir 
against the caliphal territories, whether Basra, Kufa, 
etc., or the south-west region of Persia, could have had 
as their precise purpose to help the Fatimid caliphate 
in its attempts against Egypt; but everything which 
could weaken the c Abbasid caliphate, to which 
Abu Tahir as a Karmatian was violently hostile, 
would help the Fatimids. Nevertheless he agreed to 
negotiate with the c Abbasid caliphate, as has been 
shown, to obtain certain advantages, while keeping 
up relations with their enemies, such as the Fatimids, 
the Grand Mobed Isfandiyar, or the Daylamid 
Mardawldj who supported him, or the Baridi, who 
offered him sumptuous presents on the occasion of 
the birth of his son and who took refuge with him 
for a time. In all, it could be said that if Abu Tahir 
did assist the Fatimids, this was perhaps not on 
account of absolute devotion to their cause; he was 
carrying out a very personal policy. In his attitude 
to the practices and dogmas of Islam one must 
recognize, even making allowances for the exaggera- 
tions and slanders of the SunnI authors, an extra- 
ordinary violence, which Ivanow explains (in 
JBBRAS, 1940, 82) by saying that the Karmatians 
"regarded themselves as the followers of a new 
religion, revealed to supersede the now obsolete 
religion of Islam", and he compare, this attitude 
with that of the original Islamic community in 
the face of Christianity and Judaism both of which 
refused to recognize their legitimate continuation 
by Islam. But his violent acts, even if the removal 
of the Black Stone was executed at the instance of 
c Ubayd Allah, as Defremery and later De Goeje 
thought, could not have been openly approved by 
the caliph who was aspiring to supplant the 
'Abbasids (cf. H. Ibrahim Hasan, 225-6). 

Bibliography: The basic work remains that 
of De Goeje, MSmoire sur les Carmathes du Bahrain 
et les Fatimides', Leiden 1886, where reference 
will be found to the works of historians and 
geographers and other authors, published or in 
manuscript. Of editions and translations later than 
this work: Miskawayh, i, 33-4, 121, 139, 167, 
181 ff., 201, 330, 367; ii, 55 (with a long passage 
from al-Dhahabl on the history of the impostor in 
a footnote) ; Mas'udi, Tanbih, tr. Carra de Vaux, 
149, 483, 484-92, 495-7; idem, Murudj, viii, 285-6; 
Abu '1-Mahasin, Nudjum, Cairo ed., iii, 207, 211, 



213, 217, 220, 224-5, 232, 245, 260, 264, 279, 281, 
287; Hilal al-Sabi c , vVuzara?, 49, 56, 210, 314-6; 
SOU, Akhbdr al-Rddi w 'l-Muttaki, tr. i, 71, 77, 
122, 152, 207; ii, 27, 66, 78; BaghdadI, Farft, ed. 
1367/1948, 172-3, 175, 177-9; It>n Khallikan, tr. 
de Slane, i, 246; Kutubi, Fawat, i, 173-5. For 
modern works, other than those of Ivanow and 
B. Lewis mentioned in the article (there is an 
Arabic tr. of B. Lewis entitled Usui al-IsmaHliyya, 
Baghdad 1947), see H. Bowen, The life and times 
of -Ali Ibn 'ls&, Cambridge 1928, index; Hasan 
Ibrahim Hasan and Taha Ahmad Sharaf, 'Ubayd 
Allah al- Mahdi, Cairo 1947, 94, 176, 180 ff., 217 ff., 
225 ff., 220 ff ., 231, 277, 279, 302. For the episodes 
of Abu '1-Haydja' and Ibn Abi '1-Sadj, see M. 
Canard, Histoire de la dynastie des H'amddnides, 
i, 352 ff., 355 ft (M. Canard) 

DJANZA [see gandja]. 
J2JAR [see djiwar]. 

al-EJAR, once an Arabic port (furda) on the Red 
Sea, 20 days' journey south of Ayla, 3 from al-Djuhfa. 
Until almost the end of the Middle Ages (when 
Yanbu c , which is situated further uorth, took over 
this function), al-Djar was the supply port of 
Medina, one day's journey away (this according to 
Yakut, ii, 5 ; according to BGA, vi, 191 it was two 
days' journey; according to BGA, i, 19, and ii a , 31 
it was three). Al-Djar was half on the mainland, and 
half on an island just offshore. Drinking water had 
to be brought from the Wadi Yalyal, two parasangs 
distant. It was an important entrepot for trade with 
Egypt, Abyssinia, India and China. The harbour of 
Karaf (probably the Komxp x<o(X7) of Ptolemy), used 
for trade with Abyssinia, was situated on an island, a 
square mile in area,facing the town. There were many 
castles {kusiir) in al-Djar. Their beginnings must date 
back to the time of 'Umar, who had two castles built 
here for the purpose of housing 20 ship-loads of grain 
(Ya'kubl, ii, 177). By 1800, the name of the town 
no longer appears in descriptions of travel, and it was 
apparently replaced by Burayka (Bureka), which is 
the name of the bay of al-Djar. Extensive ruins found 
there may well be the remains of the old castles. The 
whole stretch of the Red Sea from Djudda to al- 
Kulzum was referred to as al-Djar in antiquity. 
In the time of the Prophet, those who had taken 
part in the second great emigration to Abyssinia 
returned in two ships to al-Djar, and then went on 
to Medina (Ibn Sa c d, i/i, 139; Tabarl, i ( 1571). 
c Umar gave c Amr b. al- c As the order to bring 
Egyptian grain to Medina by sea via al-Djar 
(Baladhuri, Fuluh 216; Ibn Sa c d, iii/i, 224; Ya'kubl, 
ii, 177), and this supply-route — though occasionally 
interrupted by pro-'Alid risings (in 145/762: Tabarl, 
iii, 257) — remained the usual one until the time of 
the Caliphate of al-Mansur. The trade in assignments 
($ukuk) for grain from the stores in al-Djar, the 
earliest recorded instance of promissory notes, ie 
recorded in the hadith and in the discussions of ths 
scholars of Medina (Malik, al-Muwatta', sections 
al-Hna and djdmi c bay 1 al-ta c am, with al-Z.urkani's 
commentary; Ibn <Abd al-Hakam, Futuh Misr, ed. 
Torrey, 166 ff.; G. Jacob, Die alUsten Spuren des 
Wechsels, in MSOS, xxviii/2, 1925, 280-1). The name 
of al-Djar is also frequently linked with reports of 
unrest on other occasions : for instance in 230/814-5 
(Tabarl, iii, 1336), 266/879-80 (Tabarl, iii, 1941), under 
al-Muktadir (Abu '1-Faradj al-Isfahani, MakalU al- 
talibiyyin 706, Cairo 1949)- 
Bibliography: (In addition to works mentioned 
in the text): BGA, i, 27; ii*, 40; iii, 12, 53, 69, 83, 
97, 107, no; v, 78; vi, 153, 191; vii, 96, 313, 34i; 



l-DJAR — DJARAD 



455 



Hamdani (ed. D. H. Miiller) 47, 182, 218; Yakut, 

Mushtarift (ed. Wustenfeld) passim; BakrI, 

Mu'djam, ii, 355-7 (ed. al-Sakka J , Cairo 1947); 

Jfudiid al-'-Alam (transl. Minorsky) 81, 148, 414; 

Abu '1-Fid5 5 (ed. Reinaud) 82; Dimashki, Cosmogr. 

(ed. Mehren) 216; Aghdni', ix, 25, Cairo 1936; 

Sam'ani, Ansdb, fol. 119 a, b; Wustenfeld, Das 

Gebiet von Medina, 12 f.; Sprenger, Geographic des 

alten Arabien, 38; Ritter, Erdkunde, xii, 181-3. 
(A. Dietrich) 

EJARAD, locusts. The word is a collective noun, 
the nom. unit, being djardda, which is applied to the 
male and the female alike. No cognate synonym 
seems to exist in the other Semitic languages. For 
the different stages of the locust's development the 
Arabic language possesses special names (such as 
sirwa, dabd, ghawghd', khayfdn, etc.) which, however, 
are variously defined by different authorities. 

Being found in abundance in the homeland of the 
Arabs, locusts were often mentioned and described 
in ancient Arabic poetry and proverbs. In the Kur'an 
they figure in the enumeration of the Plagues of 
Egypt (VII, 133) and in a simile describing the resur- 
rected on the day of judgement (LIV, 7). According 
to some hadiths they are lawful as human food. 

In Arabic zoological, pharmacological and lexi- 
cological works numerous kinds are mentioned, part 
of which, according to some authors, differ in colour 
(green, red, tawny [asfar], white). Where it is stated 
that the male is tawny and the female black, a 
specific variety is obviously spoken of. Some locusts 
fly and some leap. Some have a big and some a small 
body. They have no fixed habitat but wander about 
from place to place following a leader. The males 
have a lighter body and therefore are better able to 
fly. Locusts have six feet, the tips of which (or: the 
tips of the two hindlegs) are like saws. Their eyes 
are immobile. Next to fish they lay the largest 
number of eggs of all oviparous animals. The young 
hatch in less than a week. Several authors state that, 
for laying eggs, the female seeks rocky ground which 
cannot be broken even with sharp tools, strikes that 
ground with her tail (ovipositor) and thus makes 
a crevice into which she lays the eggs. Other sources 
give a different and more detailed description: In 
spring, the females seek out good, soft soil, dig holes 
with their tails, in which they conceal the eggs, fly 
away and perish of cold or are killed by birds; in 
spring of the following year, these buried eggs open, 
the young hatch, feed on all they can find and, when 
they are big, fly to another country where they in 
their turn lay eggs. Locusts eat dung and the young 
of hornets and of similar animals; they themselves 
are eaten by sparrows, crows, snakes and scorpions. 
No animal causes greater harm to the means of 
human sustenance since they eat all that they come 
across. Their saliva is a deadly poison to plants. 
Some devices to keep them away from crops are 
mentioned in the sources. 

In the opinion of the ancient Arabs, who used to 
eat them, locusts yield a delicious food tasting like 
the meat of scorpions; and Djahiz wondered why 
certain people did not like it. Yet eating it was 
believed to cause epilepsy (sar c ). Locusts are eaten 
to this day by the Bedouin; methods of preparation 

Medicinal uses of the locust and its significance 
when occurring in dreams are dealt with in pertinent 

Three writings, each entitled Kitdb al-Djarad 
(probably little lexical treatises), none of which is 
extant, are attributed to the following authors 



(Fihrist, 56, 59, 83): 1) Abu Nasr Ahmad b. Hatim 
(al-Bahill [q.v.]); 2) Abu Hatim al-Sidjistanl [q.v.]; 
3) al-Akhfash al-Asghar [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: <Abd al-Ghanl al-Nabulusi, 
Ta'fir al-andm, Cairo 1354, i, 126 f.; Damlri, s.v. 
(transl. Jayakar, i, 407 ff.); Da'fid al-Antakl, 
Tadhkira, Cairo 1324, i, 96; Djahiz, Hayawdn', 
index; J. J. Hess, ZATW, xxxv (1915), 123 f.; 
Ibn al-Baytar, Dj.dmi c , Bulak 1291, i, 161; Ibn 
Kutayba, 'Uyun al-akhbdr, Cairo 1925-30, ii, 
100 f. (transl. Kopf, 75, 77) ; Ibn Slda, Mukhassas, 
viii, 172 ff.; Ibshlhi, Mustafraf, bab 62, s.v.; 
RasdHl Ikhwan al-Safd', Bombay 1305, ii, 202 
(= Dieterici, Thier und Mensch, 84); Kazwlnl 
(Wustenfeld), i, 430 f. (transl. Wiedemann, Beitr. 
z. Gesch. d. Naturui., liii, 252, 271); al-Mustawfl 
al-Kazwini (Stephenson), 37, 67; A. Malouf, Arabic 
zool. diet., Cairo 1932, 152; Nuwayrl, Nihdyat al- 
arab, x, 292 ff. (L. Kopf) 

(ii). The locust, more commonly known as grass- 
hopper, exists in various harmless forms in almost 
all climatic regions, but in its gregarious destruc- 
tive form it is particularly and lamentably well- 
known. Invasions of locusts are a phenomenon 
not peculiar to the Muslim world, since they occur 
from China to America and from the U.S.S.R. to 
South Africa, but almost the entire Muslim world 
lies within the affected area, and in a region where 
invasions are especially frequent and severe. There 
is no need to give an account here of a well-known 
phenomenon which from the Bible to our own times 
has been described by many writers. Contemporary 
biologists have established that in their gregarious 
forms locusts are the same as in their solitary, 
peaceful forms: unfavourable climatic conditions 
simply modify the nature of their reproduction and 
mode of life. Young locusts then take flight in dense 
masses numbering millions which darken the sky 
like a vast cloud; the sound of the rasping of their 
legs and wings is intensified; when there is a drop 
in temperature, as for example in the evening, they 
suddenly settle on the ground and in a few moments 
every scrap of vegetation is destroyed, sometimes 
over an area of several square kilometres. As a result 
the local population suffers an economic catastrophe, 
except only that the locusts themselves, if they can 
be killed, provide some food. 

From time to time chronicles mention certain 
particular invasions of locusts, but generally without 
giving details, and the information to be gathered 
from these references is, it seems, too haphazard and 
localized to allow any deductions to be made in 
respect of possible modifications in the habits of 
the locusts, the periodicity of their invasions or the 
area of their migrations. Today there are several 
migratory species, the two that chiefly concern us 
being the Desert Locust (Schistocerca gregaria, 
mainly in East Africa and Asia) and the Migratory 
Locust (Locusta migratoria, all other parts of Africa). 
Attempts have always been made to prevent these 
invasions; and although modern techniques have to 
some extent increased the effectiveness of control, 
they have not in fact introduced any new methods 
for a long time nor, as yet, have they overcome the 
scourge. Naturally, the local inhabitants have 
destroyed the eggs whenever they have found them, 
as a preventive step. When an invasion takes place, 
they try to stop the locusts advancing, or to kill 
them by digging pits, spraying poison, using wheeled 
screens and flame-throwers etc., (poison and fire 
already envisaged by Ibn Wahshiyya) although 
the destruction inflicted does not prevent terrible 



DJARAD — DJARADJIMA 



damage being done. Resistance can only be successful 
if immediate notice of the locusts' flight from their 
outbreak areas is sent, together with details of their 
route; and it is obvious that particular efforts must 
be made to discover the places where egg-masses are 
deposited and to destroy eggs and young on the spot, 
and perhaps later to make these areas ecologically 
unsuitable as breeding-grounds. This is what the 
international organizations are now trying to do, so 
far without success; and they have suffered from 
the vicissitudes of African politics, particularly the 
Organisation Internationale contre le Criquet Migra- 
teur which is chiefly concerned with the breeding 
grounds on the Niger, and the Anti-Locust Research 
Centre for East Africa and West Asia, with its head- 
quarters in Nairobi. Partial successes have been gained, 
for example in South Africa, and it is to be hoped that, 
so long as the state of international relations does not 
once again lead to a postponement of effort, it may 
at last be possible to put an end to one of the 
strangest and most fearful of the scourges of 
nature ever known, particularly in the climatic zones 
inhabited by the Muslim peoples. 

Bibliography: It seems difficult to include a 
bibliography, since in essence it consists of semi- 
official publications of the various regional admini- 
strations concerned. For biological questions the 
pioneer works are those of P. B. Uvarov, e.g., 
Locusts and Grasshoppers, 1928; for the geogra- 
phical aspect the synthesis, dated, however, 1935, 
by E. W. Schleich, Die geographische Verbreitung 
der Wander heuschrecken ; for anti-locust control see 
in particular the periodical Locusta, from 1954. 

(Cl. Cahen) 
PJARApjIMA (Mardaites). This name, the 
singular of which is Djurdjumanl (cf. Aghdni 1 , v, 
158, Aghdni*, v, 150, in a poem of A'sha Hamdan), 
according to Yakut, ii, 55 denotes the inhabitants of 
the town of Djurdjuma, situated in the Amanus 
(Lukkam), and of the marshy districts north of 
Antioch between Bayas and Buka. This word could 
abo be connected with Gurgum, the old name of a 
legendary province in the region of Mar'ash, on 
which see Dussaud, Topogr. hist, de la Syrie, 285, 469. 
On the other hand Father Lammens recorded a 
village called Djordjum near the road between 
Aleppo and Alexandretta and the springs of Hammam 
(Hammam Shaykh c Is5?). 

As inhabitants of the Arabo-Byzantine border 
country, the Diaradiima played an important part 
during the early days of Islam in the wars between 
Arabs and Byzantines, and they were known to 
Byzantine historians by the name Mardaites (see 
below). Somewhat lukewarm Christians, though 
whether Monophysite or Monothelite is not known, 
and dependants of the "patriarchate of Antioch", 
they enjoyed a semi-independence vis-a-vis the 
Byzantines to whom they supplied soldiers and 
irregular troops. The Arabs, after taking Antioch, 
sent an expedition against them commanded by 
Habib b. Maslama al-Fihri. According to al- 
Baladhuri and Ibn al-Athir, the Diaradiima agreed 
to serve the Arabs as scouts and spies, to guard the 
Amanian Gates and, along with the Arabs, to 
garrison the small forts commanding the road into 
and out of Syria. Wellhausen has, however, questioned 
whether they ever played this rOle before the time 
of Walid I, after 89/708 (see below). They were given 
exemption from djizya and had the right to a share 
of the booty when they took part in military opera- 
tions. But their loyalty was intermittent, and they 
did not hesitate to betray the Arabs and pass in- 



formation to the Byzantines. The instability of the 
frontier and the difficulty of access to their country 
made it impossible for the Arabs to impose their 
authority over them. 

The Byzantine historian Theophanes, like Michael 
the Syrian and Bar Hebraeus, states that during the 
reign of Mu'awiya, the emperor Constantine Pogo- 
natus (641-68) sent the Mardaites (Djaradjima) 
against Syria. Suported by Byzantine troops and 
under the command of Greek officers, their forces 
occupied the whole stretch of territory from the 
Black Mountain (the Amanus) to the Holy City 
(Jerusalem) and took control of all the mountains 
in the Lebanon. Many runaway slaves, no doubt 
Greek in origin, joined the Djaradjima, as did a 
number of the inhabitants of the mountain districts. 
In a short time their forces numbered several 
thousand men. According to Father Lammens, this 
operation is said to have started in about 46/666. 
To put a stop to this dangerous development, 
Mu'awiya began negotiations with the emperor and, 
after lengthy discussions, accepted a severe peace 
treaty (annual tribute of 3,000 gold pieces, liberation 
of 8,000 prisoners and handing over of 50 thorough- 
bred horses). This treaty was perhaps accompanied 
by a promise that the emperor would abandon the 
Mardaites a'nd withdraw from them all help in the 
form of men, arms and money. It is not known if 
the emperor intervened with the Mardaites in the 
Lebanon who in any case, as Michael the Syrian 
testifies, suffered partial defeats at the hands of 
Mu'awiya and were further discomfited in about 
49 or 50 by the settlement of the Zutt [q.v.] in the 
Antioch region and further north in the country of 
the Diaradjima (al-Baladhuri). 

It is curious that the account given by Theophanes 
is not confirmed by the Arab historians who do not 
connect the peace treaty, probably concluded in 
58 or 59/678-9 shortly before Mu'awiya's death, with 
the question of the Djaradjima whom they do not 
mention at that period. Wellhausen has accordingly 
raised doubts regarding the account given by 
Theophanes, suggesting that he had brought the 
Mardaites into Mu'awiya's treaty as a result of 
confusing it with the treaty made by c Abd al-Malik 
and the history of the Diaradiima in his time, which 
we shall deal with later; while Father Lammens 
thinks, on the contrary, that the Arab historians have 
not preserved any record of this incident because they 
have confused it with events at the time of c Abd al- 
Malik. However al-Baladhuri, when speaking of the 
Djaradjima at the time of c Abd al-Malik, makes a 
very clear reference to a treaty concluded with them 
by Mu c awiya, who gave them money and in return 
took hostages whom he kept at Ba'albekk. But the 
writer places this incident at the time of Mu'awiya's 
war against "the people of 'Irak". That would mean 
the war against C A1I, that is to say at an earlier period. 
The uncertainty remains. 

In the time of c Abd al-Malik, in 69-70/688-9, 
taking advantage of the fact that the caliph was not 
only engaged in a difficult war with the anti-caliph 
Ibn al-Zubayr but also preoccupied with the revolt 
of the Umayyad 'Amr b. Sa'id al-Ashdak whom he 
had left in command of Damascus, the emperor 
Justinian II sent the Djaradjima to attack Syria. 
Al-Baladhuri reports that Greek cavalry, under the 
command of a Byzantine officer, came into the 
Amanus district and then advanced as far as the 
Lebanon, and that this force was joined by large 
numbers of Djaradjima, native peasants (anbdt) and 
runaway slaves. To put an end to the attacks of 



these adventurers the caliph was compelled to sign 
a treaty with them, guaranteeing a weekly payment 
of 1,000 dinars. Then he offered the emperor to m 
peace on the same terms as Mu c 5wiya when the 
latter had been engaged in the war with the people 
of c Irak. Theophanes also mentions this treaty, 
connexion with two particular years, 6176 (65/684) 
and 6178 (67-8/686), the latter possibly being 
renewal. The figures given by him are not the sai 
as for the treaty with Mu'awiya (for 6176 : 365,0 
gold pieces, 365 slaves, 365 thoroughbred horses; 
for 6178 : 1,000 gold pieces a day, 1 horse and : 
slave). But at the same time the emperor increased 
his claims, for we see in 6178 that the caliph had t 
surrender to the emperor half the tribute from 
Cyprus, Armenia and Iberia (cf. Michael the Syrian, 
ii, 469). For this consideration Justinian agreec" 
withdraw the Mardaites, and he recalled 12,001 
them; they settled on Byzantine territory. Theo- 
phanes reproves him for denuding the frontier in 
way. But al-Baladhuri who dates the treaty 70/689 
is unaware of this withdrawal and, according to 
Nicephorus, Breviarium, 36, the recall of the 
Mardaites, insofar as they were recalled, took place 
when Justinian broke the truce, and in order 1 
reinforce his army. Theophanes also says under 
6179 (68-9/687) that some Mardaites from the 
Lebanon came to rejoin the emperor's army in 
Armenia. Others remained in the Amanus, 
there were still some there at the time of Walld II 
(see below). 

According to al-Baladhuri, the caliph after signing 
the treaty resorted to a trick to get rid of the 
Djaradjima. He sent one of his trusted supporters, 
by name Suhaym b. al-Muhadjir, to see the Greek 
officer commanding them; Suhaym succeeded in 
winning his confidence by pretending to take his 
part against the caliph. Then, using troops that had 
been in hiding, he made a surprise attack, killing the 
officer and massacring the Greeks who were with him. 
As for the Djaradjima, he granted them the amdn; 
some went away and settled in villages in the neigh- 
bourhood of Hims and Damascus, others went back 
to the Amanus. The native peasants who had made 
common cause with them returned to their villages 
and the runaway slaves returned to their masters. 

Some of these adventurers entered the caliph's 
service. According to al-Baladhuri, one of them 
named MaymOn al-Djurdjumanl (known to 
Byzantines as Maiouma), a former Greek slave 
member of the Umayyad family, was set free at the 
request of c Abd al-Malik who had been told of the 
prowess he had shown in battle in the Lebanon, 
and he was put in charge of a garrison at Antioch. In 
the time of Walld, at the head of an army of 1,00 
men who were no doubt Mardaites, he took part i 
the expedition sent by Maslama b. c Abd al-Malik 
against Tyana, where he was killed. But al-Baladhuri 
was certainly mistaken when he said that his death 
was a great sorrow to c Abd al-Malik, for the latter 
was already dead at that time. Another mistake 
about him occurs in al-Tabari who, under 87/706, 
records a tradition from Wakidi, according to which 
he was said to have been killed in the ranks of the 
Greeks. We see from Theophanes (under 6201 
(89/709-10); cf. Nicephorus, Breviarium, 43-4) that 
this is certainly a reference to a former Mardaite 
fighting for the Arabs; it was precisely to avenge his 
death that the Arabs were said to have undertaken 
the expedition in the course of which they laid siege 
to Tyana. (For the complications of this incident 



see Wellhausen 436-7, according to whom the Tyana 
expedition lasted for two years, 88 and 89). 

However the Djaradjima, in their retreats in the 
Amanus, and with the support of Greeks who had 
come from the neighbourhood of Alexandretta, 
continued to be a source of trouble for, in the same 
year 89, Maslama organized an expedition against 
their stronghold Djurdjuma which was captured and 
destroyed. But the Djaradjima were treated excep- 
tionally : they were allowed to keep their Christian 
faith whilst wearing Muslim dress, without being 
subject to djizya, to receive pay and rations for 
themselves and their families and to take part in 
Muslim expeditions with the right to despoil those 
whom they slew; their goods and their trade were 
not to be subject to any discrimination from the 
fiscal point of view. This shows beyond doubt that 
their secession was feared and that they were needed. 
A number of them were settled in the region of 
Tlzin and Laylun in north Syria, others at Hims and 
at Antioch. Many emigrated however, crossing over 
into imperial territory. They settled in Pamphylia 
in the neighbourhood of Attaleia where they were 
known by the name of Mardaites and were com- 
manded by a catapan. It has been observed that, 
even today, the population of this district still shows 
very clear traces of its Syrian origin (see Honigmann, 
Ostgrenze, 41, following Petersen and Von Luschan, 
Reisen in Lykien, Milyas und Kibyratis, ii, 1889, 
208 ff.). 

We find references to those who stayed on in 
Muslim territory under Yazid II in the 'Irak army 
(al-Djahiz, Baydn, i, 114), and under Hisham b. 
<Abd al-Malik in a garrison in the Amanus (al- 
Baladhuri, 167, ed. Cairo, 174). During the 'Abbasid 
period their privileges were confirmed for them by 
Wathik, but Mutawakkil ordered that they should 
be subject to djizya, though continuing to give pay 
to those who were employed in the frontier posts. 

As we have seen, the Djaradjima are the Mardaites. 
The Syrian historians call them Gargumaye, with 
the additional epithet Liphuri or Lipore, that is to 
say brigands (cf. lusiis in Ibn al-Athir, Nihdya, 
under hardjama). The name Djaradjima is given in 
Ibn al-Fakih, 35, as denoting natives [ c uludj) of 
Syria, as opposed to Djaramika, natives of Djazira, 
Nabat, natives of Sawad and Sababidja, natives 
of Sind. But we find in Aghani 1 , xvi, 76 {Aghani 2 , 
xvi, 73) that Djaradjima, in Syria, denotes those of 
Persian origin like the Abna c in the Yemen, the 
Ahamira in Kufa, the Asawira in Basra and the 
Khadamira in Djazira. An allusion to the existence 
of the Djaradjima in the Amanus in the 4th/ioth 
century will be found in H. Zayat, Vie du Patriarche 
melkite d'Antiochc Christophore (d. 967) par le proto- 
spathaire Ibrahim b. Yuhanna. Document inedit du 
X" siecle, in Proche Orient Chretien, ii, 1952, 60, 
where mention is made of a monastery of the 
Virgin called Dayr al-Djaradjima in the Djabal al- 

Bibliography: In addition to the authors 
referred to in the text of the above article, see: 
Mas'udI, Murudj, iv, 224-5; Balacjhuri, 159-67 
(Cairo ed., 166-9); Tabari, ii, 796. "85; Ibn al- 
Athir, Cairo ed. 1303 H, ii, 192, iv, 118-9; idem 
Nihdya under djardjama and hardjama; Suyutf, 
Ta>rikh al-khulajd'- 87 (where Djurdjuma should 
be read instead of Djurthuma); Michael the 
Syrian, ed. Chabot, ii, 455 479; Bar Hebraeus, 
Chronographia, ed. Budge, 101; Theophanes, 
A.M. 6169, 6176, 6178, 6179, 6201 (Bonn ed., 
542, 552, 555, 557, 576-7); Constantine Porphy- 



458 



DJARADJIMA — DJARBA 



rogenitus, ch. si, 22 (repeated from Theophanes), 
and 50; Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich, 116 
(= Eng. tr., 187), and Die Kdmpfe der Araber mit 
den Rom&ern in der Zeit der Umaijiden, in NGW 
Gott., 1901, 216 ff., 428 ff., 436 ff.; H. Lammens, 
Etudes sur le regne du calife omaiyade Mo'dwiya 
let, in MFOB, i, 14-22; Van Gelder, Mohtar de 
valsche profeet, Leiden 1888, 98-9; Sachau, Zur 
historischen Geographic von Nordsyrien, in SB I Pr. 
Ak. W., 1892, 320; Schiffer, Die Aramder, 92-3. 

(M. Canard) 
EJARASH. the ancient Gerasa, a place in 
Transjordan situated south-east of the Diabal 
'Adjlun, in a well-wooded hilly district, standing 
on the bank of a small tributary of the Wadi 
'1-Zarka', the Wadi '1-Dayr or Chrysoroas of the 
Greeks. Founded in the Hellenistic era at a centre of 
natural communications, later to be followed by 
Roman roads, it was captured by the Jewish leader 
Alexander Jannaeus in about 80 B.C., but freed by 
Pompey; it then belonged to the towns of the 
Decapolis, being incorporated successively in the 
Roman province of Syria and the province of Arabia. 
Known as Antioch on the Chrysoroas, it enjoyed its 
greatest prosperity in the time of the Antonines, and 
it was then that most of the monuments whose 
imposing remains we admire today were built. A 
fortified city in the 4th century, it became the seat 
of a bishopric, and churches and basilicas abounded. 
Conquered in 13/634 by Shurahbil, it formed part 
of the district of al-Urdunn. In the 3rd/9th century, 
according to al-Ya c kubi, its population was still 
half Greek, half Arab. But soon the town lost all 
its importance. No building of the Muslim period 
survives, nor is there any trace of the castle which 
Tughtakin, atabeg of Damascus, had built, and which 
Baldwin captured and destroyed in 515/1121. 
According to Yakut, the town was entirely in ruins 
at the beginning of the 7th/i3th century, and through 
it ran various water-courses used to drive mills, 
while numerous villages were scattered over the 
nearby hills. 

It was only in 1878 that the Cerkes came and 

settled on the deserted site of Djarash, and built 

the present village on the east bank of the wadi. 

Bibliography: C. Kraeling, Gerasa, City of 

Decapolis, New Haven 1938; Baladhurl, Futuh, 

116; BGA, indices; Yakut, ii, 61; Le Strange, 

Palestine, 462; A. S. Marmardji, Textes geogra- 

phiques arabes sur la Palestine, Paris 1951, 4, 46, 

58, 106; F. M. Abel, Geographic de la Palestine, 

Paris 1938, particularly 331-2. (D. Sourdel) 

DJARBA (Djerba) is the largest island of the 

Maghrib littoral, with an area of 514 sq. kms. It 

lies to the south of Tunisia in the gulf of Gabes 

(Little Syrtis in ancient times), an area noted for 

its sandbanks and tidal currents. The two peninsulas 

of Mehabeul and Accara reach out towards it from 

the Djeffara plain, but the island is separated from 

the mainland by the Bou Grara Sea and Strait of 

al-Kantara to the west, and the Adjim channel to 

the east. Although the channel is no more than 

2 kms. wide, it can be navigated by ships drawing 

up to 4 metres of water. The Bou Grara Sea, in the 

shape of a sack, has an area of 500 sq. kms., and a 

depth ranging between 5 to 25 metres. Low tide 

forms a series of shallows in the Strait of al-PCantara. 

Djerba consists of a small plateau with an elevation 

of 15-40 metres. It attains its highest point to the 

south near Sedwikesh (55 m.) and slopes down 

towards the coastal plains, which are very wide to 

the west of the island. The terrain is a deposit of the 



quaternary age, being marine on the periphery and 
continental inland. 

There is no source of fresh water on the island 
apart from the few gullies along the clayey cliff of 
Guellala in the south, where the water merely 
trickles for a few hundred yards even after the 
heavy rains. The precipitation is slight and sporadic, 
an average of 200 mm. (= 7.84 in.) falling in a 
season of about 40 days, and even a continually 
high relative humidity cannot offset this lack of rain. 
The underground water-level to which wells are 
sunk through a layer of sandy soil and a limestone 
crust is abundant but salty, except in the eastern 
interior. Deep drillings have been made to an 
artesian water-level in the miocene clay of the sub- 
structure, but the water is salty and virtually 
unusable. The inhabitants of the island have 
always had to collect water in tanks, private and 
public, and except on certain small plots, cultivation 
of the land has yielded a very low output. All those 
who throughout the centuries have attacked the 
island have had to contend with its shortage of 

Like the Kerkena islands, Djerba is connected 
with the mainland by the wide sandbanks which 
surround it less than 10 m. below the surface of the 
sea. These banks often silt up completely. At Trik 
el-Djmel, for instance, the caravans cross them on 
their way to the Tarbella peninsula, and nearby a 
road has recently been constructed over the remains 
of the Roman causeway to al-Kantara. There is thus 
a direct link for modern traffic between the mainland 
and the island. The effect of tidal currents on the 
mud and fine sand has been to create a series of 
channels, 'oueds', in the sandbanks. Indeed, the gulfs 
of Venice and Gabes are the only areas of the Medi- 
terranean which are tidal. At Djerba there is a diffe- 
rence of 1 m. between high and low tide. The dangers 
of navigating the currents and sandbanks have always 
served as a defence against outside intruders. In 253 
B.C., during the first Punic War, a Roman fleet ran 
aground at low tide off Djerba, and it was only 
refloated at high tide by unloading the ships. 
(Polybius, i, 39). In 1511, Pedro Navarro landed his 
troops at high tide, and had sufficient foresight to 
withdraw his ships with the ebb tide. But the 
Spanish soldiers were thrown back by the islanders, 
and had great difficyulty in regaining their ships 
which were lying four miles offshore (Leo Africanus, 
trans. Epaulard, 401). It should be added that the 
sea abounds in fish, and certain shallows are strewn 
with sponges. 

"Djerba, the isle of the shallows of Periplus, of 
the Lotus-eaters of Erasthones and other Greek 
writers, was called Pharis by Theophrastus, Meninx 
by Polybius, and possibly Phla by Herodotus. The 
land was well cultivated from the middle of the 
fourth century B.C. onwards, at which time it was 
certainly under the rule of Carthage" (Gsell, Hist., 
ii, 124). As in Roman times, its economy was based 
mainly on the growing of olives, although in the 
fourth century B.C. the oil was still extracted from 
wild trees. Not much is known about its maritime 
activity during classical times apart from the fact 
that there were considerable fishing-grounds in the 
area. The for the most part shapeless remains of 
ancient settlements point to its economic importance 
at that time. Only Meninx can be accurately located, 
its ruins standing under the Burdj al-Kantara at 
the end of the Roman causeway. It is probable that 
Girba, from which the island's name originated, was 
situated near Houmt-Souk, and that Tipaza and 



Haribus were in the neighbourhood of Adjim and 
Guellala respectively. The sack of Jerusalem in the 
first century A.D. resulted in a considerable influx 
of Jews, from whom most of the present-day Jewish 
population is descended. After having been part 
of the proconsular province, Djerba fell successively 
under the power of Tripolitania, the Vandals, and 
Byzantium. In the Byzantine age the bishop of 
Djerba was appointed from Tripoli. In 665, during 
the wars waged in Byzacene by Ma'awiya b. JSudaydj, 
Djerba was conquered and occupied by Ruwayf b. 
Thabit. For the next few centuries little is known 
about the island, except that it came under the rule 
of Kayrawan and Mahdiyya. Its natural isolation 
was reinforced by the independent spirit of its 
inhabitants and their attachment to the Kharidiite 
schism, which between the 2nd/8th and 4th/ioth 
centuries extended to places so wide apart as Diabal 
Nafusa (Tripolitania) and the Mzab (Algerian 
Sahara). It explains perhaps why Arab writers such 
as al-Bakri and al-Idrisi have so few kind words to 
spare for them, finding them ill-natured and hypo- 
critical. Al-Bakri remarked that they 'acted pirati- 
cally on both land and sea', and al-Idrisi pointed out 
that they were Berbers and could speak no other 
tongue. Nevertheless the island was described in the 
eleventh century as a mass of gardens and olive- 
groves, and Djerba (Girba) figured as one of its 
small towns. 

The invasions of the Banu Hilal in the 5th/nth 
century, and the fall of the Zirid dynasty, seemed to 
increase the Djerbians' spirit of independence. Their 
piratical raids on the Tunisian coast and on the 
Christian fleets became more frequent. In 11 15-6 
C A1I b. YahyS the Zirid was still their master. But 
George of Antioch, admiral to the Norman king of 
Sicily Roger II, conquered and occupied the island 
in 1 1 35. The capture of Mahdiyya in 1 148 strengthened 
Norman rule, which persisted until 1160 despite an 
uprising in 1153 which was rapidly suppressed. They 
were then driven from the Tunisian coast and islands 
by the great Almohad conqueror c Abd al-Mu 3 min. In 
683/1284, at the beginning of the reign of the Hafsid 
prince Abu iiats 'Umar, a Christian expedition 
easily retook the island. It was under the command 
of Roger of Lauria, and was sent by the king of 
Sicily, Peter III of Aragon. In 1289 the Christians 
built a fortress to guard over the Strait of al-Kantara 
and the Roman causeway. It was sited near the 
ruins of ancient Meninx, and its towers and battle- 
ments formed a square surrounded by a moat. 
After several uprisings, and a raid by the Tunisians in 
706/1306, Frederick of Sicily sent Ramon Muntaner 
to reoccupy Djerba. This Catalan adventurer 
maintained an iron rule from 1311 until 1314, at 
which date the island was brought under the direct 
rule of Sicily. But a fresh revolt, in which the Djer- 
bians gained the assistance of the liafsid king AbO 
Bakr, forced the Christians to relinquish the island 
after a heroic resistance in the ^Cashtil (1334-5), 
Only once more were they to regain control of it. 
from 1383 until 1392, when the Sicilian expedition 
was reinforced by a Genoese fleet. In the following 
century, attempts by Alfonso V of Aragon to 
recapture the island were doomed to failure. During 
his second assault, in 835/1432, the sultan Abu Faris 
came in person to the assistance of the Djerbians, 
and the Arabs built a second fortress on the island, 
this time near the ancient ruins of Girba in the north. 
It became known as al-Burdj al-Kablr, and in time 
a small trading settlement named Houmt-Souk grew 
up round its walls. 



The defiant and independant spirit of the Djerbians 
brought clashes with the IJafsids as well as with the 
Christians. Not only did they turn a deaf ear to Abu 
Faris's peaceful propaganda in favour of orthodoxy, 
but in 885/1480 they suddenly broke their association 
with Abu 'Umar 'Uthman and deliberately destroyed 
their only link with the mainland, the Roman 
causeway. Up to then it had been restored several 
times and kept in good condition. 

Despite the plunderings, massacres and deporta- 
tions resulting from Christian invasions, and the 
internal dissensions of the two rival sects (the 
Wahbiyya in the north-west and the Nakkara in the 
south-east), Djerba was reputed for its wealth. The 
Sfaxians came from the ravaged mainland to buy 
oil, there was a considerable trade in dried raisins, 
and the vegetation included apple-trees, fig-trees 
and palms. Salt was supplied to the visiting merchants 
of Venice, and the fishing industry flourished. There 
were also exports of djarbl, the name given to the 
plain and coloured woollen cloths produced on the 
island. Goods were stored in 'fondouks', which also 
housed Christian merchants. The general population 
was dispersed among the plantations in houses 'of a 
square shape and very unusual in style'. In the 
fifteenth century the traveller Adorne recorded that 
'the king raises taxes of 20,000 doubloons or ducats 
annually'. But successive wars and droughts brought 
serious famines, such as that of 711/1311, when bread 
was made from the sawdust of palm-trees. 

In the sixteenth century, Djerba became a stake 
in the struggle between Spaniards and Turks for 
mastery of the Mediterranean. The I-Iafsids ceded 
it to the latter as a base, from which the Christians 
were not able to dislodge them. The Spanish invasion 
of 15 1 1, led by Pedro Navarro, victor in Algeria and 
Tripoli, ended in failure. In 1550 the island served as 
an operational base for Dragut, the famous corsair 
[see turghOd c alI pasha and the following article]. 

Djerba finally came under Turkish rule, and it 
was variously administered from Algiers, Tripoli, 
and Tunis. It came under the permanent control of 
Tunisia during the reign of liammuda-Bey (1040-69/ 
1631-59). It was to suffer under its several masters. 
In 976/1568, the Pasha of Tripoli imposed a crushing 
burden of taxation, and in 1006/1598 the island 
was literally laid waste by Ibrahim Pasha in 
punishment for its refusal to bow to the demands 
of Tripoli. The description of Djerba given by the 
writers of the 16th century, though more detailed 
than that of their predecessors, differs little from 
earlier accounts; the cultivation of trees and export 
of woollen cloths were still its principal occupations. 
There was a persistent shortage of corn and abun- 
dance of dromedaries and donkeys. All livestock 
came from the mainland. The population varied 
between 30-40,000, and the countryside was only 
sparsely inhabited. In the mid-seventeenth century 
Leo Africanus wrote that 'trade done with merchants 
from Alexandria, Turkey and Tunisia yielded a 
revenue of 20,000 doubloons from the salt tax and 

The rulers of Turkish Tunisia, Deys and Beys, 
who were succeeded from 11 17/1705 onwards by the 
rulers of the liusaynid dynasty, appointed first 
shaykhs and then kd'ids to represent them in the 
outlying possession of Djerba; these important 
officials were recruited hereditarily from certain 
families. In the ioth/i6th century it was the Semu- 
meni family which ruled, and they were succeeded 
by the Bel Djellouds. One of them, Sa'id, was put 
to death in 1151/1738 for ordering the sinking of all 



flat-bottomed boats in order to prevent them falling 
into the hands of the invading troops of Yunus Bey, 
son of C A1I Pasha. Thereafter the Ben Ayed bdHds 
ruled the island until the last quarter of the nine- 
teenth century. 

From the early eighteenth century onwards, 
Malikl orthodoxy gradually replaced the Ibadi 
schism, and Arabic began to establish itself as the 
most common language. Uprisings against the 
central power periodically brought war to the island, 
in particular from 1 007/1599 to 1 009/1601, and in 1864. 
In the 18th century there were also several raids by 
the nomadic Urghamma and Accara tribes from the 
plain of Djeffara. In 1794 a bold adventurer from 
Tripoli, c Ali Burghul, occupied and plundered the 
island for 58 days. In 1864 it was the turn of tribesmen 
from the Zarzis area to invade it. Plague ravaged the 
island in 1705-6, 1809, and 1864. Its economy was 
severely affected when Ahmad Bey suppressed the 
slave-trade in 1846, for until then Djerba and Gabes 
had been the principal outlets for the slaves carried 
by merchant caravans which crossed the desert 
from eastern Sudan via Ghadames and Ghat. The 
new law forced the caravans to head for Tripoli, 
which was already supplied with slaves from the 
Fezzan route. Nevertheless, travellers of the nine- 
teenth century describe an active and prosperous 
island, and so it was when, by the treaty of the 
Bardo Protectorate, a small French force came to 
garrison the Burdj al-Kabir on 28 July 1881. 

The population had always been relatively large, 
and the period of peace ensuing after 1881 saw a 
great increase. Although there has been much 
emigration, its population in 1956 was 63,200, 
or 121 per sq.km. Ibn Khaldun (iii, 63) classes the 
Djerbians as part of the Kutama people, although 
he is careful to point out that there are elements 
also of the Nefza, Huwwara and other Berber tribes. 
In recent years there has been much immigration 
from the mainland, especially from southern Tunisia. 
Some were from the Ibadi tribe of Nafusa, others 
were penniless shepherds given work as labourers, 
whilst yet others were exiles from various countries, 
seeking asylum in Djerba. Most of them were easily 
absorbed into the population. Djerbians themselves 
are nearly all distinguished by their short stature and 
flat skulls. About 50% of them speak Berber — 
particularly in the south-west — but they virtually 
all speak Arabic as well. Half the population has 
retained the Ibadi faith in its local form of 
'Wahbism', but the great majority in the eastern 
and central parts are orthodox Muslims. In 
general the Wahbis are bearded and wear the turban 
{kashta). They lead an austere life which excludes 
gambling and smoking, and they only break the 
fast of Ramadan after having personally observed 
the crescent moon. The great number of squat and 
simple mosques is evidence of the former importance 
of their sect. They have certain traditional customs 
in common with orthodox Muslims, such as the 
ritual visit to the olive-grove, symbol of wealth and 
peace, on the occasion of marriage or circumcision. 
Another marriage custom, of Berber origin, is the 
diafrfa procession, which recalls the old Bedouin 
custom of the abduction of the bride. The island's 
Jewish inhabitants are mostly descended from im- 
migrants of the first century, and have remained 
dolichocephalic. They are concentrated in the two 
villages of Hara Kabira and Hara Saghira, in the 
north. These villages, together with the economic 
and administrative centre of Houmt-Souk, which for 



the 1 






5 of r 



i the 



only centres of population in an island which is 
characterized by the sparse distribution of its rural 
settlements. 

Cultivation of the land is intensive only in the 
centre and east, where irrigation of fruit and vegetable 
crops from an underground water-level is effected 
by means of animal-driven pumps. Cereal crops are 
grown on only a few small fields in the south. The 
island contains 400,000 olive trees, most of them 
now too old to be productive, and 570,000 palm 
trees, many of which are neither fertile nor irrigated. 
As in Zarzis, they are extensively used in the 
making of fishing tackle. Land-holdings are small, 
being usually of 2 to 5 acres where there is irrigation, 
and 7 to 13 where the land is dry, but they are cul- 
tivated to an average degree of 70%. As already 
mentioned, there is virtually no stock-farming. 

For centuries the houses have been dispersed all 
over the island, for the constant danger of attack 
precluded the islanders from living in village com- 
munities as on the mainland. Many of the farms were 
built on defensive lines, and the earth embankments, 
from which Barbary fig trees stand out like spikes, 
served the double purpose of enclosing the fields 
and guarding against attack. Because of the shortage 
of productive land on the island itself, the Djerbians 
have for centuries owned land on the nearby coastal 
strip, and farmed it with labour from their related 
tribe, the Towazins. 

The old crafts have lost a lot of their former 
importance, but nevertheless there are still 1500 
looms in use, mostly primitive machines grouped 3 
or 5 to a small workshop. Their supply of wool comes 
from the island's 8,000 sheep, and imports which 
find their way from the steppes. The industry 
produces brightly-striped woollen cloths, and other 
fabrics. The art of pottery has not died out in 
Guellala (S.-W.), where there are some 250 kilns, 
and various types of vessels are shipped to all parts 
of the coast, as far as Tunis. Jewellery and embroidery 
are the domain of the Jews, and are consequently 
declining in importance as the Jewish elements 

The main source of wealth for Djerba lies outside 
the island itself. It is derived from the fishing 
industry (employing 11% of the adult population), 
coastal traffic to Sfax, Sousse and Tunis by luds 
(flat-bottomed sailing ships which can safely nego- 
tiate the shallows), navigating for the Mediterranean 
or even other shipping companies, and above all 
from emigration. 

Emigration is exclusively by males, for a temporary 
period, and for commercial reasons. The Djerbians 
form themselves into limited partnerships and 
dispense with the need for banks. Wherever possible, 
the partnership is restricted to a particular family, 
and they are found predominantly in the grocery, 
weaving, and hosiery trades. Of the 6,000 traders 
who are known to be living outside Djerba, 80-90% 
are in Tunisia, concentrated in the Tell and Tunis 
areas, and a few have settled in the Constantine and 
in Tripolitania. The male members of the partner- 
ships replace each other abroad according to a 
certain roster, which is so arranged that they spend 
about one third of their time with their family in 
Djerba. This system enables the island to support 
a greater population than would otherwise be 
possible on its meagre natural resources. 

Fishing is carried out in the gulf of Gabes, mostly 
from 'bordigues', which are small constructions built 
in the sandbanks with mud and palm leaves. A 
speciality of their catch is the large number of 



DJARBA — al-DJARDJARA'I 



octopuses and sponges which are so abundant in the 
waters off Djerba. The islanders also fish with rods, 
eel-pots and various types of nets. 

The Djerbians work hard in their several occupa- 
tions, and although they emigrate a good deal they 
remain very devoted to their island, and to their 
social and family ties. 

Bibliography: R. Stablo, Les Djerbiens, 
Tunis 1941; S. Tlatli, Djerba et les Djerbiens, 
Tunis 1942; Y. Delmas, Vile de Djerba, in Les 
Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, Bordeaux 1952; S. Gsell, 
Hist, ancienne de VAjrique du Nord, Paris, ii, 
1921, iv, 1924; Bakrl, Description de VAjrique 
septentrionale, trans, de Slane', 191 1; Idrisi, 
Description de VAjrique et de VEspagne, trans. Dozy 
and De Goeje; Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berberes, 
trans, de Slane, iii, Paris 1934; Tidjani, Rihla, ed. 
H. H. c Abd al-Wahhab, Tunis 1378/1958, index 
(trans. Rousseau, in J A, 1852); R. Brunschvig, 
La Berbirie orientate sous les Hajsides, Paris, 
2 vol., 1940 and 1947; idem, Deux recits de voyage 
inedils d'Abdalbasit B. Halil et Adorne, Paris 1936; 
F. Braudel, La Miditerranee et le monde miditer- 
ranien a Vipoque de Philippe II, Paris 1949; Leo 
Africanus, Description de VAjrique, trans, Epaulard, 
Paris 1956; Monchicourt, V 'expedition espagnole 
de 1560 contre Vile de Djerba, Paris 1913; A. Bom- 
baci, Le jonti turcke delta battaglia delle Gerbe (1560), 
in RSO, 1946, 193-218; M. Seghir ben Youssef, 
Mechra el Melhi, trans. V. Serre and M. Lasram, 
Tunis 1900; L. Ch. Feraud, Annates tripolitaines, 
Paris-Tunis 1927; Exiga dit Kayser, Description 
et histoire de Djerba, Tunis 1884; J. Servonnet 
and F. Lafitte, Le golje de Gabes en 1888, Paris 
1888; Bossoutrot, Documents musulmans pour 
servir a une histoire de Djerba, in RT, Tunis 1903. 

(J. Despois) 
DJARBA (Battle of). — In the middle of the 10th/ 
16th century the Ottoman corsair Turghud RaTs 
made the island of Djarba the base of his operations 
against the Spaniards. Although the latter had 
succeeded in blockading it in Rabi' I 958/ April 
1551, he was able to escape with his fleet by 
cutting the causeway of al-Kantara and digging a 
channel which enabled him to reach the Gulf of Bu 
Ghrara and thence the high seas (13 Rabi< II 958/20 
April 1551). Shortly afterwards he seized Tripoli 
(Sha'ban 958/August 1551), then put into repair the 
fortress of Houmt Souk (Burdj al-Kabir; inscr. of 
964/1557). In the face of the menace of these Turkish 
bases of Tripoli and Djarba John of Valletta, the 
Grand Master of Malta, and the Duke of Medina-Celi 
obtained in 1559, from Philip II, king of Spain, 
permission to send out a naval expedition. This left 
Malta on 10 February 1560 with 54 galleys, 36 cargo- 
vessels, and 11 to 12 thousand men; but, rather than 
attack Tripoli, it sailed on Djarba, which was 
occupied on 7 March. The Ottoman fleet, however, 
under the command of Piyiile Pasha and Turghud 
Rals surprised the Spanish fleet at its anchorage on 
11 May, and destroyed the greater part of it. The 
garrison of Burdj al-Kabir, commanded by Alvaro 
de Sande, was besieged from 16 May; short of water 
and decimated by sickness, it surrendered on 31 July 
1560, and the few thousand survivors were either 
massacred or divided among the Ottoman galleys 
as oarsmen. Following their defeat the Spanish 
were totally driven out of southern and central 

The famous "Tower of Skulls" (Burdj al-ru'us) 
built by the Djarbans with the bones of the dead, 
often mentioned by European travellers, was 



demolished in 1848 by order of Ahmad Bey, bey of 

Bibliography: Ch. Monchicourt, Episodes de 
la carrier e de Dragut: ii, Le stratageme de Dragut 
a El-Kantara de Djerba, in RT, xxv (1918), 263-73; 
and, especially, idem, L 'expedition espagnole de 
1560 contre Vile de Djerba, in RT, xx (1913), 499- 
519, 627-53; xxi (1914), 14-37, 136-55, 227-46, 
332-53, 419-50, where there is an important 
bibliography of documents in archives and of 
various sources relevant to this expedition; 
I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh tarihi, ii, Ankara 1949, 
372, 375-6; A. Bombaci, Le jonti turche delta 
battaglia delle Gerbe (1560), in RSO, xix, (1946) 
193-218. (R. Mantran) 

al-PJARBA\ an ancient fortress in Arabia 
Petraea situated on the Roman road leading from 
Busra to the Red Sea, about one mile north ot 
Adhruh [q.v.]. Like Adhruh, it submitted to Muham- 
mad, in 9/63 1 , on condition of payment of tribute. The 
distance between Adhruh and al-Djarba 5 , estimated 
at "three days' journey", has been mentioned fre- 
quently in the haditk as an indication of the size of 
the basin {hawd [q.v.]) where the Prophet will stand 
on the day of Judgment. The expression "between 
Adhruh and al-Djarba"' has thus become proverbial 
to denote a considerable distance. 

The place came into prominence for the second 
time during the Crusades, when Salah al-DIn 
camped there in August 578/1182, during his ex 

Bibliography: Baladhuri, Fntuh, 59; Tabari, 
i, 1702; Yakut, ii, 48; Bakri, Mu'djam, ed. 
Wustenfeld, 83-4, 239 ; Le Strange, Palestine, index; 
A. S. Marmardji, Textes geographiques arabes sur la 
Palestine, Paris 1938, 183; Ch. Clermont-Ganneau, 
La marche de Saladin du Caire a Datnas, in RB, 
1906, 469-70 (following William of Tyre, xxii, 14, 
15); Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, ed. Cairo 1313 H, ii, 21; 
Muslim, Sahih, ed. 1330-4 H, ii, 209. 

(D. Sourdel) 
al-DJARDJARA'I, patronymic deriving from 
the locality of Djardjaraya in 'Irak (on the Tigris, 
south of Baghdad), borne by several viziers of the 
'Abbasid and Fatimid caliphs. 

1. — Muhammad b. al-Fadl, former secretary of 
al-Fadl b. Marwan [q.v.], was vizier to al-Mutawakkil 
at the beginning of the reign, after Ibn al-Zayyat's 
disgrace, but was soon discarded by reason of his 
negligence. Recalled to the vizierate by al-Musta c In 
in Sha'ban 249/September-October 863, he died soon 
afterwards in the year 250/864-5, aged about eighty 
(see Safadi, al-Wdji, iv, 4, ed. Dedering, no. 1878). 

2. — Ahmad b. al-Khasib, son of a governor of 
Egypt (Ibn al- c Imad, Shadharat, a. 265), had been 
secretary-tutor to prince al-Muntasir and became 
vizier in Shawwal 247/December 861 when his 
master was proclaimed caliph; after his death, he 
helped to secure al-Musta'in's succession, but he 
incurred the hostility of the Turkish officers in 
Samarra and was exiled to Crete in Djumada I 
248/August 862. He died in 265/879. 

3. — al-'Abbas b. al-Hasan, private secretary to 
the vizier al-Kasim b. 'Ubayd Allah under al- 
Muktafi, thanks to the recommendation left by his 
master succeeded in taking his place after his death 
in Dhu 'l-Ka'da 291/October 904. As vizier to al- 
Muktafl, he entered into close alliance with Abu 
'1-Hasan <Ali b. al-Furat whom he made his right 
hand man and chose as his successor; it was on the 
advice of this unscrupulous individual that, in Dh u 
'1-Ka'da 295/September 908, he had the young 



l-DJARDJARA'I — DJARID 



Dja'far proclaimed caliph when he was only thirteen 
years old; he took the name of al-Muktadir and 
retained him as his minister. The haughty atti 
of al-'Abbas seems to have occasioned the conspiracy 
of Rabi' I 296/December 908 which, even if it did 
not succeed in replacing al-Muktadir by Ibn al- 
Mu'tazz, nevertheless cost the vizier his life. 

Bibliography : D. Sourdel, Le vizirat c abbdside, 

i, Damascus 1959, 271-5, 293, 289-90, 359-71. 

4. — Abu '1-K5sim 'All b. Ahmad, a secretary of 
'Iraki origin who came to Fatimid Egypt with his 
brother, and held various offices in the provinces 
where his peculation was punished by his hands 
being cut off in 404/1013-4 on al-Hakim's orders; 
nevertheless he succeeded in becoming director of 
the diwdn al-nafakdt in 406/1015-6, and then 
holding the office of wdsita in 412/1021-2 and of 
vizier in 418/1027. He was retained in the vizierate 
under the reigns of al-Zahir and al-Mustansir until 
his death in Ramadan 436/March 1045. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khallikan, ed. Cairo 1948, 

iii, 84-5 ; Ibn al-Sayrafi, al-Ishdra ild man nil 

•l-wizdra, in BIFAO, xxv (1925), 77-9- 

(D. Sourdel) 

al-PJARB wa 'L-TA c DlL, (disparaging am 
declaring trustworthy), a technical phrase used 
regarding the reliability or otherwise of traditionists 
and witnesses. This article deals with the former; 
for the latter see <adl. While the criticism of 
hadith did not, as is often said, apply solely to the 
isndd, this formed a very important part of it. In 
the course of the 2nd/8th century when it was 
realized that many false traditions were being 
invented, interest in the transmitters developed, 
and statements regarding their qualities were made. 
In the 3rd/9th century books began to be written, 
generally in the form of lists of men with their 
dates, and statements regarding their credibility. 
We also find notes on the qualities of traditionists 
in the canonical Sunan collections of tradition, 
the Sunan of al-Darimi [q.v.], and elsewhere. In t 
introduction to his Sahih Muslim found it necessary 
to justify the investigation of traditionists' ere " 
entials because many felt it was wrong to critici 
them. Such views must have continued for a loi 
time, for al-Hakim (d. 405/1014) still found 
necessary to defend the practice. When books < 
Him al-hadith were written (4th/ioth centui 
onwards), al-djarh wa 'l-ta'dil formed a recognized 
branch of the subject. 

The Companions of the Prophet were considered 
reliable, so djarh could not apply to them; b 
traditionists of later generations were subject 
investigation. Views were held regarding the qualities 
of a reliable transmitter. He must (1) be a Muslim, 
(2) have sound intelligence, (3) be truthful, (4) never 
conceal defects in his transmission, (5) be trust- 
worthy. In his K. al-djarh wa 'l-ta'dil, Ibn Abi 
Hatim al-RazI (d. 327/939) discusses in the intro- 
duction the various classes of transmitter, and his 
classification served as a standard for writers of 
later times; e.g., al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 463/1071) 
in his Kifdya, and Ibn al-Salah (d. 643/1245) in 
his 'Ulum al-hadith. He mentions in order of merit 
four types whose traditions may be accepted. They 
are (1) thifra (trustworthy), or mutkin (exa " 

(2) faduk (truthful), mahalluhu al-sidk (his statio 
veracity), or Id ba's bihi (there is no harm in him); 

(3) shaykh; (4) fdlih al-hadith (good, or upright, ii 
tradition). The second type is not so authoritativ 
as the first and the third is slightly inferior to the 
second. The fourth contains men whose traditions 



may be written down for comparison with those of 
others. There are four classes of lower authority 
still: (1) lay yin al-hadith (easy-going in tradition); 
(2) laysa bi-kawi (not strong); (3) da'if al-hadith 
(weak in tradition); (4) matruk al-hadith (one whose 
traditions are abandoned), dhdhib al-hadith (rejected), 
or kadhdhdb (liar). The first two deserve to have 
their traditions considered and compared with 
those of others; the third, though inferior, is not to 
be rejected outright, but one must find whether his 
traditions are supported elsewhere. The fourth is 
utterly rejected. A number of other terms are also 
applied by other writers. 

But while this sounds straightforward matters 
were not so simple, for sometimes a transmitter 
called trustworthy by one authority was called weak 
by another. This raised a difficulty, but opinion 
seemed to prefer the view that when both djarh and 
ta'dil were expressed about the same man, the 
djarh had more authority because those who express- 
ed this view must have possessed information not 
available to others. But while those who expressed 
ta'-dil did not need to supply reasons for their view, 
those who expressed djarh must do so, for people 
differed in their idea of what constituted weakness, 
and it is only when the reasons are stated that one 
can know whether the judgment is valid. Opinions 
differ as to whether one authority is enough to 
express djarh and ta'-dil. Two men are required to 
attest the reliability of witnesses, but Ibn al-Salah 
holds that the testimony of one man is sufficient to 
state the reliability or otherwise of a transmitter of 
tradition. 

Bibliography: <Abd al-Rahman b. Abi 
Hatim al-Razi, K. al-Djarh wa 'l-ta'-dil, 9 vols., 
Haydarabad 1952-3; al-Hakim Abu 'Abdallah 
Muhammad b. 'Abdallah, Ma'rijat 'ulum al- 
hadith, Cairo 1937, 52 ff., and al-Madkhal ild 
ma'rifat al-Iklil, ed. J. Robson, London 1953; 
al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, K. al-Kijaya fi Him al- 
riwdya, Haydarabad 1357, 81 ff.; Ibn al-Salah, 
'Ilium al-hadith, Aleppo 1931, 114 ff.; al-Dhahabl. 
Mizdn al-i'tiddl, Cairo 1325, i, 2ff.; Ibn Hadjar 
al-'Askalani, Lisdn al-mizdn, Haydarabad 1329-31, 
i, 5 ff. ; Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Musa al-Hazimi, 
Shurut al-aHmmal al-khamsa, Cairo 1357, 20-30, 
38 ff. ; Abu '1-Hasanat Muhammad c Abd al-Hayy, 
al-Raf wa 'l-takmil fi 'l-djarh wa 'l-ta'dil, at 
end of al-Dhahabfs Mizdn, ii; Muhammad 'Abd 
al-'Aziz al-Khawli, Miftdh al-sunna, Cairo 1921, 
44 ff (containing lists of writers) ; Ahmad Muham- 
mad Shakir, al-Bd'ith al-hathith, commentary on 
Ibn Kathlr's Ikhtisdr 'ulum al-hadith, 2nd. edn., 
Cairo 195 1, 101 ff.; Ahmad Amin, Duhd 'l-Isldm, 
Cairo 1952, ii, 129 ft.; Subhi al-Sahh, 'Ulum al- 
hadith wa-mus(alahuh, Damascus 1959, 107-9, 
130-40; I. Goldziher, Muh. St., ii, 141 ff., 272 ff; 
J. Robson, in Bulletin of the John Rylands 
Library, Manchester, xliii, 462 ff. 

(J. Robson) 
PJARIB [see kayl]. 
DJARID [see djerid]. 

DJARlD (Bilad al-). The Djerid or "country of 
palms" is a district of the Sahara situated in south- 
western Tunisia which includes the oases of Nefta, 
Tozeur (Tuzar), El-Oudiane (al-Udyan) and al- 
Hamma (not to be confused with al-Hamma of 
Gabes). In the Middle Ages the Djerid was more 
often called Kastiliya; but this name which is 
sometimes a synonym of Tozeur only (Ibn Hawkal, 
243; al-ldrisl, 121), frequently embraces Gafsa 
and the Nefzawa (Ibn Khaldun, i, 192) along 



with the modern Djerid, and sometimes even the 
district of Gabes (Leo Africanus, 8). 

Apart from al-Hamma which is in the north, the 
oases are situated at the foot of the last anticlinal 
fold (Dra c al-Djarid) of the Atlas, between 25 and 
75 metres in altitude, on the edge of an immense 
sebkha wrongly named Chott el-Djerid on maps: it 
is an immense plain of salty clay, absolutely sterile, 
no by 70 km.; it produces no pasturage of sal- 
solaceous plants except along its border, to which 
alone the name shott applies; this is the sebkha 
Takmart of Arab writers. According to tradition, the 
sea covered this district at quite a recent period; in 
fact, its altitude is about twenty metres, and it 
has been possible to show recently that the sebkha 
of Djerid and its eastward extension, the sebkha of 
Fedjedj, were in the Quaternary Age merely lagoons 
temporarily connected with the Gulf of Gabes. 

The climate is essentially that of a desert : Tozeur 
only receives 89 mm. (3V2 ins.) of rain a year, and 
very irregularly; mean temperatures there for 
January and July are io°5 C. (50.9 F.) and 32°3C. 
(90.1 F.); frosts are very rare, but the temperature 
often exceeds 40° C . It is the typical climate of 
the date-palm, provided that it is given abundant 
irrigation. Numerous springs appear at the foot 
of the Dra c al-DJarid, fed by a strong artesian water- 
level enclosed in the upper Cretaceous limestones 
and Pontien sandstones (Tertiary): with some 
artesian wells, which have been sunk fairly recently, 
they provide a total of about 1850 litres a second. 
Thus the oases of the Djerid have always had 
the reputation of being the finest in Tunisia. 

Tozeur (Tusuros, or Blad al-Hadar), Nefta 
(Nepte) and al-Hamma (Aquae) were points on a 
forward road near the Roman and Byzantine limes. 
It is not certain that Tokyus (El-Oudiane), referred 
to by al-Ya c kubi in the 3rd/9th century, is of ancient 
origin. The Djerid was twice conquered by Arab 
conquerors : in 26/647 by Ibn Zuhayr and in 49/669 
by c Ukba b. Nafi c . But the Djerid was "at all times 
the home of separatist movements and rebellions" 
(G. Marcais). In the 9th century, however, Kastiliya 
was an Aghlabid province with a governor and, 
although mainly Ibadite, it only once revolted, in 
839. There were then few Arabs in the district; the 
nomads were Luwata, Zowara and Miknasa. The 
"Rum" (of European origin) were still mentioned 
in the cases. The sugar-cane was cultivated there, 
the Kastiliyan fairs were crowded and trade in black 
slaves was brisk. The country remained prosperous 
until the middle of the 5th/nth century although it 
was often autonomous ; its centres were in fact small 
principalities administered by councils of notables 
who were to a greater or lesser degree consulted by 
the heads of the most powerful families like the Banu 
Furkan, and the Banu Watta of Tozeur. Tozeur was 
a real town, with ramparts pierced by four gates, 
a large mosque, crowded bazaars, baths and densely 
populated suburbs. The mosque of Blad al-Hadar, 
built between 1027 and- 1030 in the traditional 
style of al-Kayrawan, did not have its tnihrdb 
ornamented with Hispano-Maghribin decoration 
until 1 193. The system of irrigation described by 
Al-Bakri is still in existence. Nefta was guarded by 
a wall and had a large population. At Tokyus, which 
included "four cities enclosed by walls, so close that 
it was possible to hold a conversation from one to 
the other", various crops including olives were 
cultivated. The Djerid had plentiful resources, its 
oranges were celebrated, its sugar-cane was well 
known, but the date was its great product: Al-Bakri 



claims that every day there left Tozeur "a thousand 
camels or even more, laden with this fruit". The 
inhabitants were reputed to be cynophagists. There 
were still some Ibadites in the 5th/nth century. 
In 1053, the Kastiliya was ravaged by the Riyah, 
the vanguard of the Banu Hilal, commanded by 
c Abid b. Abi '1-Rayth; it was quickly incorporated 
in the independent principality carved out of 
southern Tunisia by the governor of Gafsa, c Abd 
Allah b. al-Rand; this principality, with its some- 
times brilliant court, was to endure until the 
Almohad conquest (1159-60). Shortly afterwards 
the Djerid became one of the bases of operations of 
c Ali, and then of Yahya b. Ghaniya, in their attempts 
to restore the Almoravid empire. Under the Hafsids, 
in the 13th and 14th centuries, it was in fact in the 
hands of families who were seeking to preserve their 
hereditary power; among them were the Banu 
Yamlul at Tozeur and the Banu '1-Khalaf at Nefta, 
both descended from nomadic Arabs; they paid no 
more heed to the councils of notables than to the 
advice of their sovereigns, especially in the 14th 
century. But they were compelled to negotiate 
constantly with the nomads, to whom the settled 
population paid tribute (ghafdra on harvests or a 
payment of money); the nomads guaranteed their 
supplies of grain and the export of dates, stored 
provisions in the houses and guarded the flocks of 
the rich oasis inhabitants; though turbulent and 
dangerous, it was not in the nomads' interest to 
abuse their strength. These nomads, the Riyah, 
were little by little thrust back in the course of the 
6th/i2th century, and in the 13th century were 
replaced by tribes of Sulaym origin, the Kub and 
Mirdas, who migrated from the Djerid to the 
neighbourhood of B6ne. In the 14th century the 
Kub levied the ikta'-, whilst certain Mirdas, after 
acquiring property at Tozeur, gradually began to 
settle. But the great Hafsid sovereigns of the 15th 
century, as a result of several expeditions, succeeded 
in imposing their authority over the settled as well 
as the nomadic population, through the help of 

From the 12th century Kharidjism was in full 
decline, weakened by dissensions between Wahbiyya 
and Nekkara; it seems to have disappeared when 
faced with the propaganda of a marabout who lived 
in about 1200, SidI Abu c Ali al-Naftl, whose tomb 
stands in the middle of the palm grove at Nefta. The 
economy was still based on cultivation of oases and 
on trade with nomads. Tozeur was still the capital, 
and was renowned for the additions which had been 
made to its palm grove: it had two mosques with 
khutba and public baths; but the trade in human 
excrement and the practice of cynophagy sometimes 
brought its inhabitants into disrepute. 

From the end of the 16th century the Turks, and 
from 1705 the Husaynid sovereigns, attempted by 
repeated expeditions to maintain their authority 
over the Djerid and to enforce the payment of 
taxes. As a result of the refusal of the inhabitants of 
Ceddada to pay taxes during the third quarter of the 
17th century, their village which at that time was 
situated high up by the tomb of Sid! Bii Helal, was 
destroyed and a number of the inhabitants massacred 
by the regular troops; the survivors went down and 
settled by their palmtrees at El-Oudiane. The 
habit grew up among the Husaynides of organizing 
a force (mehalla) in winter, to come in January and 
February to collect taxes and, where necessary, to 
restore order in the tribes in the South and the 
oases. This practice gave rise to abuses which were 



464 



DJARID — DJARIDA 



Tunis), in part of the 
decline in handicrafts. 



denounced at the beginning of the 18th century by 
the traveller Moula-Ahmed (Berbruger, Voyages 
dans le sud de VAlglrie, 245-7) shortly after Yunus, 
the son of 'All Pasha, kept the proceeds of heavy 
fines levied irregularly on the wealthy inhabitants 
of Djerid. More than once, unjustified confiscations 
of estates were effected for the benefit of the Bey 
who lost no time in reselling them. Nevertheless the 
mehalla was successful in settling, at least for the 
time being, the not infrequent disputes between the 
settled population and the nomads, and internal 
feuds like the one between the inhabitants of the 
El Hadef and Zebda districts of Tozeur. The Djerid 
trade suffered from the abolition of slavery (1857) 
and the decline in trans-Sahara trade. 

Since 1880, the year when the French Protectorate 
was established, the oases have been extended as the 
result of a number of borings, and many more 
palm-trees of the deglat al-nur variety, which produces 
soft dates for export to Europe, have been grown. 
In the Djerid there are more than 1,100,000 date- 
palms, almost half of which are deglat al-nur; but 
the cultivation of fruit and vegetables is not on a 
large scale. The luxuriance of the vegetation is in 
contrast to the abject poverty so wide-spread among 
the people, the result in part of the rapid increase 
in population (despite considerable emigration to 
- ry unequal distribution of 

small units, and also the 
addition, the land is often 
inadequately manured and indifferently cultivated. 
Gardens are enclosed by banks of earth (tabya), 
thickly planted with palm-trees; a Spring festival, 
a nature festival of pagan origin, called mayo, is 
still celebrated there. 

The richest palm-grove, where however the greatest 
disparity between the various proprietors is to be 
seen, is at Tozeur. Tozeur, with its 12,000 inhabitants, 
is the chief town of the Djerid and the largest market 
in the Tunisian Sahara; it is patronized in particular 
by the Ulad Sidi c Abid, nomads from the frontier 
region. Tozeur often has an urban appearance, with 
its lofty houses of brick decorated with geometrical 
motifs, and with new districts near the station. It 
has been connected by railway with Sfax since 1919. 
Nefta, with a larger population (14,600 inhabitants) 
is more purely rural, and suffers from an irregular 
water supply in summer: the Nememcha, who are 
Algerian nomads, are its principal customers. El- 
Oudiane has five villages (Degache, Zaouyat al-Arab, 
Zorgane, Kriz and Ceddada) which are scattered 
along an almost continuous palm-grove, fed by a 
chain of abundant springs: its trade is mostly with 
the Hamama. This is true also of al-Hamma, a 
modest group of three villages (El-Nemlet, Mharet, 
El-Erg), situated on the north of the Dra c al-Djarid, 
with only 2,800 inhabitants, but with a local repu- 
tation since ancient times for its hot springs. The 
small mountain oases of Tamerza, Mides and Chebika, 
near the Algerian frontier, as picturesque as they are 
poverty-stricken and inaccessible, are for admini- 
strative purposes grouped with the Djerid. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hawkal, Description de 
I'Afrique, trans, de Slane, in J A, 1842; Bakri, 
Description de I'Afrique septentrionale, trans, de 
Slane, 2nded. 1913; Idrisi, Description de I'Afrique 
et de I'Espagne, trans. Dozy and De Goeje, 1866; 
Ibn Khaldun, Histoire des Berberes, 2nd. ed.; 
'Umari, L'A frique moins I'Egypte, trans. Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, 1927; Leo Africanus, Description de 
I'Afrique, trans. Epaulard, 1956; M. Seghir Ben 
Youssef, Mechra el Melki, trans. V. Serre and M. 



Lasram, Tunis 1900 ; V.Guerin, Voyage archiologique 

dans la Rlgence de Tunis, 2 vols., 1862 ; P. Penet, 

Kairouan, Sbeitla, le Djerid, 1912; idem, L'hy- 

draulique agricole de la Tunisie miridionale, 1913; 

G. Castany, R. Degallier and Ch. Domergue, Les 

grands problemes d'hydrologie en Tunisie, 1952; 

G. Marcais, Les Arabes en Berbtrie, 1913; R. 

Brunschwig, La Berbirie orientate sous les Haf sides, 

2 vol., 1940-7; G. Payre, Une flte du printemps 

au Jerid, in RT, 1942; H. Attya, V organisation 

de I'oasis, in CT, 1957. (J. Despois) 

CJARfDA, literally "leaf", which has become the 

usual term in modern Arabic for a newspaper, its 

adoption being attributed to Faris al-Shidyafc [q.v.]. 

Its synonym sahifa is less used in the sing., but the 

plural suhuf is more common than dfardHd. Some 

interest in the European press was shown by the 

Ottomans as early as the 18th century and, it would 

seem, excerpts from European newspapers were 

translated for the information of the diwan (Prussian 

despatch from Constantinople, of 1780, cited by 

J. W. Zinkeisen, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, 

vi, Gotha 1859, 290-1). This grew into a press bureau, 

which served the Ottoman government throughout 

the 19th century and after. 

The first, newspapers in the Middle East were in 
French, and were published under French official 
auspices. In the seven teen-nineties the French 
printing press in Constantinople (see matba'a) began 
to produce bulletins, communiques and other 
announcements put out by the French embassy. 
In 1795 the ambassador, Verninac, reported that he 
was printing every fortnight, after the arrival of the 
mail from Europe, a bulletin of 6 to 8 octavo pages 
where French nationals could find information about 
new laws and events of concern to them. This 
bulletin was distributed throughout the Levant. In 
the following year, under his successor Aubert 
Dubayet, the bulletin became a newspaper — the 
Gazette francaise de Constantinople, the first to appear 
in the Middle East. It consisted of 4 octavo pages, 
sometimes increased to six, and was published 
rather irregularly, at intervals of about a month, 
from the French Embassy, for a period of about two 
years. In September 1798, after the French expedi- 
tion to Egypt, the French staff were interned and 
the press sequestered by the Turkish authorities. It 
was returned in 1802, and later used to reprint 
military communiques for local distribution, but the 
Gazette did not apparently resume publication. 

At the time of the Egyptian expedition, Bonaparte 
was accompanied by two printing-presses; one of 
these, privately owned, belonged to the printer Marc 
Aurel and only possessed Latin characters, while the 
other, officially owned, was placed under the 
direction of the orientalist J. Marcel and was equipped 
with French, Arabic and Greek characters. It 
was from the former printing-press that the 
first number of the Courrier [sic] de l'£gypte 
appeared in Cairo on 12 Fructidor VI = 29 August 
1798; published every five days, it contained local 
news, announcements, notices etc., as well as items 
of European news. A month later, on 10 Vendemiaire 
VII = 1 October 1798, the same publisher was selling 
the first number of a quarterly review, La Dicade 
tgyptienne, which was devoted to the publication of 
records of the meetings of the "Institut d'Egypte" and 
the papers read to this learned society. When Bona- 
parte returned to France, Marc Aurel followed him, 
with the result that J. Marcel's "Imprimerie orientate 
et f rancaise" took on the printing of the two periodicals, 
with the direction of which the names of the mathe- 



matician Fourier and doctor Desgenettes, among 
others, were connected. The 116 numbers, each of 
4 quarto pages, of the Courtier and the 3 volumes of 
the Dicade constitute a historical source of the 
highest importance. In Arabic, Marcel's printing- 
press had mainly published proclamations, notices 
and communiques, but after Kleber's assassination 
(16 June 1800) it also printed the first Arabic news- 
paper, al-Tanbih, which was founded by Menou and, 
it seems, was only short-lived (see F. Charles-Roux, 
Bonaparte, gouverneur d'Egypte', Paris n.d., 138 ff.; 
R. Canivet, Vimprimerie de Vexpidition d'Egypte, in 
Bit., 1909; Reinaud, in JA, 1831, 249). 

It was at Ceuta, at the opposite end of the Maghrib, 
on 1 May 1820, that the first newspaper to be 
published in Morocco appeared, El Liberal Africano, 
the weekly publication of the patriotic Society of the 
town; it came to an end after 6 numbers on 5 June 
of the same year (V. Ferrando la Hoz, Apuntes para 
la historia de la Imprenta en el Norte de Marruecos, 
Tetuan 1949, 23). 

In 1824 a French monthly, called Le Smyrnten, 
was founded in Izmir by a Frenchman, Charles 
Tricon. After some initial difficulties with both the 
Turkish and French authorities, it was reorganized 
under new management, and began to appear weekly, 
under the name of Le Spectateur oriental, with four 
quarto pages. It circulated mainly among foreign 
commercial elements. In 1827 Alexandre Blacque, a 
lawyer from Marseilles and a well-known figure in 
the Levant, became part owner and effective editor 
of the Spectateur, to which he was already a regular 
contributor. Later renamed the Courrier de Smyrne, 
it played a lively role in the affairs of the time, and 
more than once involved its editor in trouble with 
the Powers by its forthright comment, notably by 
its advocacy of the Ottoman cause against the Greek 
insurgents (L. Lagarde, Note sur les joumaux 
francais de Constantinople a Vipoque re'volutionnaire, 
in JA, ccxxxvi, 1948, 271-6; idem, Note sur les 
joumaux francais de Smyrne a I'epoque de Mahmoud II, 
in J A, 1950, 103-44; Selim Niizhet, Turk Gazeteciligi 
1831-1931, Istanbul 1931, 10-28 — with a reproduction 
of a whole issue of the Gazette, dated 1 Floreal, 
year V = 20 April 1797, and of Le Spectateur 
Oriental of 21 July 1827; Ahmed Emin, The develop- 
ment of modern Turkey as measured by its press, New 
York 1914, 28-9; Charles White, Three years in 
Constantinople, ii, London 1845, 218-22). A Turkish 
account of Russian attempts to get the paper sup- 
pressed will be found in the history of Lutfi (Ta'rikh-i 
Lutfi, iii, 98 ff.). Lutfi quotes the Russian ambassador 
as saying "Indeed, in France and England journalists 
(gazetedji) can express themselves freely, even against 
their kings; so that on several occasions, in former 
times, wars broke out between France and England 
because of these journalists. Praise be to God, the 
divinely-guarded realms were protected from such 
things, until a little while ago that man turned 
up in Izmir and began to publish his paper. It 
would be well to prevent him . . ." (Lutfi, iii, 100; cf. 
Emin 28). 

It was at this point that Egypt was to re-appear 
on the scene. As early as 1821, Muhammad C A1I had 
given instructions for the publication of a daily 
newspaper which was to be submitted to him each 
day and to contain various official, administrative 
and economic items of information, but it was 
probably (the numbers prior to 1840 have not been 
preserved) on 12 Djumada I 1244/20 November 1828 
that there appeared in Cairo the first number of the 
first real periodical in Arabic, al-WahdH' al-Misriyya, 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



tlDA 465 

the organ of Muhammad 'All's Government of 
Egypt; at first issued weekly in Arabic, it later 
appeared for several months in Turkish and then 
finally returned to Arabic; it subsequently appeared 
three times weekly, with a separately published 
French edition, and it remained the only periodical 
in Egypt under Muhammad 'All's Government; 
from the time of the Khedive Isma'Il it was published 
daily, and in addition to orders, decrees and laws it 
also contained new local and foreign items, editorials 
and occasional illustrations. In 1881, with Muhammad 
c Abduh [q.v.] as chief editor, it was the most important 
and widely circulated newspaper of the time. 

During the British occupation it reverted to its 
earlier form and merely contained notices and 
information on affairs of state. In 1929 it still 
appeared in official lists. 

In this as in so many other matters, the Sultan in 
Istanbul responded quickly to the challenge of the 
pasha in Cairo. In 1831 M. Blacque was summoned to 
Istanbul to publish the Moniteur ottoman, the official 
journal of the Ottoman government, in French. 
The following year, on 1 Djumada I 1247/14 May 
1832, the first issue of the Turkish Takwim-i WekdV 
appeared. A leading article presented the newspaper 
as a natural development of the imperial historio- 
graphies, with the function of making known the 
true nature of events and the real purport of the 
acts and commands of the government, in order to 
prevent misunderstanding and forestall uninformed 
criticism. A further purpose was to provide useful 
knowledge on commerce, science, and the arts. 
Unlike the Moniteur, which gave some space to news 
and comment, the Takwim was limited to official 
statements. It was issued by an office called the 
Takwimkhane-i '■Amire, the first director of which 
was the Imperial Historiographer Es'ad Efendi (on 
whom see Babinger, GOW, 354-6). Five thousand 
copies were distributed to officials and notables, as 
well as to foreign embassies. The inauguration of the 
postal service in 1834 greatly helped its circulation. 
Between 1832 and 1838 about 30 issues a year were 
published. Thereafter it appeared about once a week, 
though with some interruptions. The final issue, 
number 4,608, was published on 4 Rabi' I 1 341/4 
November 1922, after which it was replaced as offi- 
cial organ of the Turkish government by the Resmi 
Djeride, later renamed Resmi Gazete, of Ankara. 
(Lutfi, iii, 156-60; Niizhet, 30-5; Emin 29-32). 

The first non-official newspaper published in the 
Turkish language was the weekly Dieride-i Hawddith, 
founded in 1840 by the Englishman William Churchill. 
After his death in 1864 it was continued by his 
son. In appearance rather like the Takwim-i WeftdH'-, 
it was commercial in purpose, and carried an in- 
creasing amount of advertising. It did, however, 
publish many articles and features, often in serial 
form, thus offering an apprenticeship in journalism 
to a number of Turkish men of letters. (On some of 
the contributors to the Dieride-i tfawddith see the 
articles of Ibnulemin Mahmud Kemal in Turk 
Ta'rikhi Endjumeni Medjmu'-asi, 96 and 97). The 
Crimean War brought new needs and opportunities. 
Churchill reported from the battlefront for English 
newspapers, and his reports were also published 
in Turkish in special supplements of the Dieride-i 
IJawadith, giving the Turkish reader, anxious for 
news of the war, a new insight into the function of 

A second officially sponsored Turkish periodical 

was the WakaV-i Tibbiyye, a medical monthly 

published for the first time in 1850, in both Turkish 

30 



466 DJA 

and French. Other journals also appeared in French, 
as well as in Italian, Greek, Armenian, and Judaeo- 
Spanish. 

In 1855, the second Arabic newspaper, the Mir'dt 
al-A hwdl, founded by IJassan who was compelled to 
take refuge in London [see below, iiil, appeared in 
Beirut; the same town also saw the start of al-Sultdna 
in 1857 and, on 1 January 1858, of the Ifadihat at- 
Afkdr, published in Arabic and French by Khalil al- 
Khuri; the main purpose of this publication, which 
had the backing of the Turkish Government, was to 
acquaint the numerous foreigners residing in Beirut 
with the Porte's views. 

The year i860 brought two important innovations: 
the first was the establishment of an Arabic news- 
paper, al-DiawdHb, compared with which the earlier 
efforts seemed formless and inarticulate; started in 
Constantinople by the Lebanese Ahmad Faris al- 
Shidyak in July i860, and vigorously supported by 
the Turkish Government, this periodical defended 
the cause of Islam which had been recently embraced 
by its founder. The latter can be regarded as the 
father of newspaper Arabic, having done so much to 
enrich the language, while al-DiawdHb was the 
greatest Arabic newspaper of the 19th century, on 
sale in Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, 'Irak and West 
Africa, its wide circulation depending on the care 
lavished upon its editing and presentation. It reached 
its apogee in about 1880, but after the death of 
Ahmad Faris in 1884 his son Salim was unable to 
maintain the earlier standard. From 1288 to 1298/ 
1871-81, al-Shidyak printed, under the title Kanz al- 
raghdHb fi muntakhabdt al-DiawdHb. seven volumes 
made up of articles on literature, history etc. 
reproduced from his newspaper, and still of undeni- 
able documentary interest. — The second innovation 
of i860 was the weekly Terdiiimdn-i Ahtvdl, the first 
privately owned newspaper produced by a Turk. Its 
founder was Capanzade Agah Efendi, scion of a 
derebey [q.v.] family, and a senior official in the 
Translation Office of the Sublime Porte. Associated 
with him as editor was the writer Ibrahim Shinasi 
[q.v.]. Churchill responded to this competition by 
publishing a daily version of his paper five times a 
week — the Ruzndme-i Dieride-i Ifawddith, and for 
a while there was keen rivalry between the two. In 
the increasingly authoritarian mood of the time the 
press began to encounter difficulties, and soon the 
Terdjiimdn was suspended for two weeks because of 
an article probably written by Ziya (Diya 5 ) Pasha. 
This was the first time a newspaper was suppressed 
by the government in Turkey. 

(B. Lewis & Ch. Pellat) 

In the preceding section we have tried to give an 
account of the first attempts to establish a press 
throughout the Muslim world, necessarily devoting 
most attention to the publications directed by 
foreigners in the various Islamic countries, since they 
played a considerable part in the rise of journalism. 
From about i860 there began a new period during 
which journalistic activity developed to the point at 
which it becomes necessary to relegate newspapers 
published in European languages to second place, 
despite their importance, and to trace the history of 
the press in the various Muslim countries separately, 
with due regard to the language in which publication 



the time of the British occupation. After al-WakdV 
al-Mifriyya, it was only in 1866 that the Wddi 
'l-Nil appeared, founded in Cairo by c Abd Allah Abu 
'l-Su'ud; in 1869, the Nuzhat al-Afkdrv/as started by 
two Egyptians, Ibrahim al-Muwaylihi and 'Uthman 
Djalal, but it was between 1876 and 1878, under the 
impulse of Syro-Lebanese journalists who were 
unable to follow their career in their own countries 
in freedom, that the great organs of the press came 
into being. At their head we must note al-Ahrdm, 
founded by Salim and Bishara Takla, and making 
a modest start in 1876 at Alexandria in the form of a 
4-page weekly, dependent upon French cultural in- 
fluence but paying close attention to the policies of 
the caliph in Constantinople; it was later issued 
daily and, maintaining its high literary standards 
and scrupulous presentation, was to remain until 
our own time as the greatest newspaper in the Arabic 
language. In addition to al-Ittihdd al-Misri, a bi- 
weekly founded in Alexandria in 1879 which lasted 
until 1892, we should mention the Cairo Coptic 
newspaper al-Watan (founded in about 1878, and 
still recorded in 1929), and the interesting attempt at 
nationalistic propaganda by Ya c kub Sanu c , known 
as Abu Naddara [q.v.] who had to continue his 
activities in Paris. 

The second period lasts from the British occupation 
to the first world war. It was in about 1885 that the 
Sarriif-Nimr-Makaryos consortium was set up for a 
group of publications, the mo^t important of them 
being the fortnightly review al-Muktataf, founded in 
Beirut in 1877 and moving to Cairo, and al-Mufratfam, 
a daily paper with political news which was pro- 
British and in sympathy with reform; after 1889 it 
became an opponent of al-A hrdm which still supported 
the policies of Constantinople. A third party, opposed 
to reforms and advocating traditional Islam, was 
formed and, after 1890, represented by a daily news- 
paper, al-Mu'ayyad, under the remarkable and 
skilful direction of Shaykh c Ali Yusuf. The Syro- 
Lebanese, who until then had had a monopoly of the 
press, were gradually replaced by Muslim Egyptians, 
mostly conservative and orthodox; al-'-Addla, 
founded in 1897, took over the r61e held by al-MW-ay- 
yad as soon as the latter began to become more 
moderate and, during the last decade of the 19th 
century, there appeared a considerable number of 
newspapers also belonging to the conservative party, 
and of varying degrees of fanaticism. The growing 
nationalism was defended at first by Adlb Ishak, one 
of the chief editors of the daily Misr (1896), and later 
by Mustafa Kamil whose principal organ was al- 
Liwa'. It was during this period that another large 
newspaper appeared in Cairo, al-Diarida. which 
took account of the effective domination of the 
British. Mention must also be made of the review of 
al-Hildl, directed in Cairo (1892) by Djirdji Zaydan, 
which has survived until our own time, and of the 
Mandr, founded by Rashid Rida in 1897. For that 
same year Washington-Serruys (XVII-XIX) lists 52 
different publications in Cairo, more than half of 
which date from 1895 at the latest, and 6 in Alex- 
andria, including al-Ahrdm. In 1909 there appeared 
in Egypt 144 reviews and various newspapers, 90 of 
them in Cairo and 45 in Alexandria (see RMM, 
xii, 308). 

During this second period, therefore, we see the 
expansion of a powerful press, still producing many 
non-political publications, but tending, when 
entering the political arena, to express the still 
vague aspirations of the Muslim peoples, to formulate 
them more precisely, and to stimulate the con- 



n of the divergent trends in an Arab and 
Muslim nationalism. In the third period of the 
Egyptian press, after the dismemberment of the 
Ottoman Empire, the general aspiration for in- 
dependence took shape and gathered momentum, 
though not without the accompaniment of violent 
crises. In 1922 the "Liberal-Constitutional" Party 
started a weekly publication, al-Siydsa, under the 
direction of Husayn Haykal; after 1926 it was 
duplicated by a daily edition, and it shows signs of an 
Egyptian particularism. The Wafd Party in its turn 
owned a group of newspapers representing the 
opinions of Sa c d Zaghlul and his successors: al- 
Baldgh, Kawkab al-Shark and al-Misri are the most 
important. 

During the second world war and the years 
following, the Egyptian press took a more active 
part in the political struggle which culminated in 
the evacuation of British troops. From October 1944 
the different parties created new organs: al-Kutla 
(the Wafdist "Bloc"), Bilddi (Sa'dist weekly), al- 
Liwa' al-DiadU (Nationalist Party weekly), to which 
was added a weekly review of news, A khbdr al-Yawm. 
This upsurge of newspapers does not include the rise 
of extensive undertakings made by the press: 
Sociitt Orientate de Publicity Ahrdm, Ddr al-Hildl, 
all of whose publications cannot be listed (for the 
state of the Arabic press of Egypt at the end of 1944, 
see COC, No. 1, 124-6; at the end of 1946, ibid., No. 4, 
817, giving a detailed list). 

The final period opens with the suspension of the 
political press as a result of the revolution of 25 July 
1952. The political parties having been dissolved and 
replaced by a single party, the "National Union", in 
1958, the press was reorganized in May i960 and the 
ownership of newspapers was transferred from the 
hands of private individuals or companies to the 
National Union, with the result that the whole press 
was subject to a single official administration. Of the 
principal newspapers which continued to appear, 
mention may be made of al-Ahrdm, al-Diumhuriyya, 
al-Masd', and al-Akhbdr. (Ed.) 

The Sudan. — The Sudanese periodical press orig- 
inated during the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium 
(1899-1955). The earliest Arabic newspaper, al-Suddn, 
was first issued on 24 September 1903, by a Syrian 
editor, under the auspices of Dr. Faris Nimr. Four 
or five other papers appeared during the next 
thirty years, the most successful being Haddrat al- 
Suddn, which ran from 1919 to 1938. The rise of 
Sudanese nationalism in the 'thirties resulted in a 
greatly increased output of newspapers, chiefly as 
organs of political comment. In 1958, out of a total 
of 35 papers, mostly dailies or weeklies, 5 had been 
founded between 1935 and 1945, 20 between 1946 
and 1955, and 10 under the Republic. There has also 
been a succession of English and Greek journals 
from 1903 and 1909 respectively. Since the establish- 
ment of the military regime in November 1958, the 
Sudanese press has not enjoyed freedom of expression. 
(P. M. Holt) 

Lebanon. — It was only in 1869 that the first real 
Arabic newspaper appeared in Beirut, al-Bashir, a 
weekly published by the Jesuits which survived until 
recent times. Before that, Butrus al-Bustani had 
founded the modest Nafir Suriya as far back as 1860, 
but it was from the middle of 1870 that, to interest 
public opinion in the cause of general education and 
national literature, he brought out the bi-weekly al- 
Dianna which his son Salim continued to publish 
until 7 July 1886. Its vogue was such that djanna 
became synonymous with newspaper in Lebanon. 



Al-Bustani also published al-Diunayna, which only 
lasted three years, and al-Djindn. 

Not wishing to be left behind, the Muslims of 
Beirut in 1874 founded the weekly Thamardt al- 
Funun which carried on until the Young Turk 
revolution and then took the name of al-Ittihdd al- 
'■Uthmani; this newspaper was conspicuous for its 
poverty and the turgid prose of its pedantic conser- 
vative contributors. The same year saw the founda- 
tion of al-Takaddum, which declared itself the 
earnest champion of progress and the inveterate 
enemy of all reactionary elements in the country; 
Adib Ishak was a notable contributor. 

On 18 October 1877 KhaKl Sarkis, son-in-law of 
Butrus al-Bustani, brought out the first number of 
the Lisdn al-Hdl, a daily and, to some extent, a rival 
to al-Qianna. The two newspapers hardly concerned 
themselves with politics and presented events in as 
colourless a form as possible, while paying particular 
regard to the government's opinion. The Lisdn al- 
Hdl mainly concerned itself with scientific and 
economic matters, but nevertheless it fell foul of the 
Ottoman Government which suspended it for some 
months, during which Sarkis published another 
newspaper, al-Mishkdt; but that did not stop him 
from resuming publication, and he became the doyen 
of the Lebanese press in our day. 

In 1880 a new party took shape: the Maronites 
who opposed the encroachments of the Roman Curia 
founded a small newspaper al-Misbdh, while Pro- 
testantism was supported by the reviews Kawkab 
al-Subh al-Munir and al-Nashra al-UsbuHyya; the 
Greek Orthodox church, for its part, also had a news- 
paper, al-Hadiyya. An important addition to the 
press came in 1885 with the weekly Bayrut which, 
with government support, served as a counterpoise 
to the Thamardt al-Funun. When in March 1888 
Beirut became the chief town of the wildyet, an 
official governmental organ was set up under the 
name Bayrut al-Rasmiyya. At the nd of the century 
(see Washington-Serruys, XIX, XX), 9 periodicals 
were being published in Beirut and 3 elsewhere in 
Lebanon; for 1912, the figures are 8 dailies, 17 week- 
lies and 12 reviews (RMM, xix, 76 ff.). 

In addition to the Lisdn al-Hdl, various dailies 
date from this period as for example the Sadd 
Lubndn (1900), al-Baldgh (1910), al-Bayrak (1913) 
and the Zahle weekly, Zahla al-Faldt (1910), all of 
which can be regarded as veterans. Later, the 
development of the Lebanese press continued without 
interruption. During the French mandate a certain 
number of dailies ?ppeared, some of which have 
survived until our own time: al-Ahrdr (1923), al- 
Shark (1926), al-Nahdr (1933), al-Ittihdd al-Lubndni 
(1933), al-Rawwdd (1934), Bayrut (1936), al-Niddl 
(1936), al-Yawm (1937), Rak'ib al-Ahwdl (1939), and 
finally aW-Amal (1939), the organ of the KatdHb 
(Phalanges). 

Since 1941, and especially in the years following 
the second world war, a considerable number of 
newspapers and reviews were introduced; the 
situation of the Arabic press of Lebanon in 1946 was 
the subject of a survey in COC, No. 4, 809-12, which 
noted 29 dailies and 25 periodicals appearing in 
Beirut, and 16 other periodicals elsewhere in the 
country. 

In 1956 the Lebanese press consisted of 27 dailies 
and 37 periodicals, figures which are explained only 
by the extreme complexity of the social, religious and 
political structure of the country, as well as by the 
great liberty enjoyed by the press. To these figures 
should be added 18 periodicals from inland districts, 



2 dailies in Armenian, 2 publications in English and 
10 in French, of which L'Orient (1924), la Revue du 
Liban (1928) and Le Jour (1934) date from the time 
of the mandate, and reacher circulation figures that 
were high for this country (up to 7,000 or 8,000 
copies); Le Commerce du Levant (1928), on economic 
and financial subjects, had a wide distribution. 

Syria.— It was only in 1865 and 1866 that there 
appeared, in Damascus and Aleppo respectively, the 
first newspapers to be printed in Arabic and Turkish 
and founded by the Ottoman Government, Suriya 
and al-Furdt; the foundation of these publications 
was correlated with the reorganization of the Turkish 
administration ; it was decided at the same time that 
the authorities of all ivildyets should have a newspaper 
printed, and this fact explains the bilingual nature of 
these publications. Other instances which may be 
quoted are Dimashk, set up by the Turkish Govern- 
ment in 1879, and the Mir'dt al-Akhldk. which 
appeared in 1886. An independent political weekly, 
al-Shdm, came out in Damascus in 1896, whilst in 
Aleppo the weekly al-Shahbd* was published from 
1893, and al-IHiddl from 1879, and in Tripoli 
Tardbulus al-Shdm, a weekly publication, from 1892. 

In Syria, however, as in Lebanon, the press had a 
precarious existence, all the more since the govern- 
ment treated any independent criticism of its 
actions with the greatest severity. Consequently we 
find that a good many Syro-Lebanese journalists 
took refuge in Egypt. After the setting up of the 
French mandate, the Damascus press underwent a 
very extensive development and a large number of 
newspapers made their appearance, but for the most 
part circulation figures remained very low. In 1939, 
9 Arabic and 2 French dailies, not counting a varying 
number of periodicals, appeared in Damascus alone; 
the number is obviously excessive since an output 
of this order was in no way justified by the same 
reasons as at Beirut; and yet this number actually 
increased after the second world war. In 1946, 19 
dailies are recorded at Damascus, 7 at Aleppo and 1 
at Hamat, as well as 3 Damascus periodicals (COC, 
No. 4, 812-3). From the period of the mandate the 
only survivors in 1956 were Alif Bd* (1920) and al- 
Ayytim (1931), both moderate, al-Kabas (1928), al- 
Ahhbdr (1928) and al-InsW (1936), organs of the 
National Party; in addition to these veteran dailies 
about 15 others came out, representing every sort of 
political opinion. At the same time half a dozen 
periodicals also sprang up and, elsewhere in Syria, 
about ten other publications, the organs of the 
various parties. We may note that an independent 
Aleppo paper established in 1928 and published in 
French. "L'£clair du Nord", in 1945 became the 
Bark al-Shimdl. 

Palestine.— The development of the Arabic press 
in Palestine was slower and later than in Egypt, 
Syria, or Lebanon. Syrian and Lebanese publications 
no doubt circulated in Ottoman Palestine, but apart 
from a few mission sheets and school publications, 
the first Palestinian Arabic newspaper was al- 
Karmal, founded in Haifa in 1908 by Nadjlb Nassar, 
an Orthodox Christian. It lasted until 1942. In 
191 1 another orthodox Christian, c Is5 al- c Isa, started 
the newspaper Falastin in Jaffa. Both papers 
appeared at somewhat irregular intervals, and during 
the first world war were suppressed by the Turkish 
authorities. After the war, they resumed publication, 
and were accompanied by many new journals, 
expressing Arab political reactions to the British 
Mandate and the policy of the Jewish national home. 
Among these were Suriya al-Djanubiyya (ed. c Arif 



al- c Arif and Muh. Hasan al-Budayri) and Mir'dt al- 
Sharli (ed. Bulus Shehada) ; both were started in 1919, 
and were of brief duration. Al-Sabdh- (ed. Muh. 
Kamil al-Budayri and Yusuf Yasln), founded in 1921, 
became the organ of the Arab executive. 

The first daily newspaper in Arabic was the old 
Falastin, which began regular daily publication in 
1929, and has continued to the present day in the old 
city of Jerusalem. Other dailies were al-Sirdt al- 
Mustakim (founded 1925, daily from 1929, edited by 
Shaykh 'Abdallab al-Kalkili) and al-Difd' (founded 
1934, ed. Ibrahim al-Shanti). Both papers were 
owned and edited by Muslims; the former was 
markedly Islamic in tone ; the latter expressed strong 
Arab nationalist views, at first connected with the 
Istikldl party, later with the groups led by the 
Husaynls. It is still published in Jordanian Jerusalem. 
The weekly al-Wahda, founded in 1945, became a 
daily in the following year. 

During the nineteen-thirties and forties there was 
a very rapid development of the periodical press, 
notably of political weeklies and fortnightlies. 
Modelled on the Egyptian weeklies, some of them 
offered their readers feature articles, film news and 
other lighter entertainment, sometimes with pictures, 
in addition to political news and comment. Two 
papers, the weekly al-Ittihdd (founded 1944) and 
the fortnightly al-Ghadd (first published irregularly 
in the twenties, re-started 1945) represented com- 
munist or pro-communist views; the remainder 
expressed various shades of Arab nationalism and 
factions among the Arab leadership. The press in 
languages other than Arabic was mainly Jewish. 
The first Hebrew journal, the IJavaseleth, began 
publication in Jerusalem in 1871. Other Jewish 
papers, in Hebrew and other languages, followed in 
great numbers. 

After the termination of the Palestine Mandate, 
the major Palestinian Arab journals continued or 
resumed publication in Jordan where, according to 
the Middle East for 1961, there were 7 daily news- 
papers in Jerusalem and Amman, and 14 periodicals, 
in Arabic and English. The same source cites one 
Arabic daily newspaper and 6 Arabic periodicals in 

'Irak.— The liberal Ottoman governor Midhat 
Pasha in 1868 set up the first newspaper in 'Irak, al- 
Zawrd?, which appeared in Arabic and Turkish and, 
while supporting the government's policy, published 
official texts and news in general. In 1875 the govern- 
ment started another newspaper in Mosul, al-Mawsil, 
and, in 1895, a third entitled al-Basra, in Basra. 

Among the many newspapers which sprang up 
after the promulgation of the Constitution of 1908, 
the following may be mentioned: Baghdad (1908), 
al-Rahib (1909), Bayn al-Nahrayn (1909) in Arabic 
and Turkish, al-Riydd (1910), al-Rusdfa (1910), and 
al-Nahda (1913). Under the British mandate a great 
number of new newspapers appeared, notably al- 
WakdV aW-Irdkiyya, al-Mawsil, aW-Irdk and al- 
Shark. After the second world war the many newly 
established political parties owned their own organs 
and until the revolution of 14 July 1958 practically 
every town in 'Irak had a daily or weekly newspaper. 

Arabia. — In the Arabian peninsula the oldest 
newspaper, .San'a 3 , dates back to 1877 and, like so 
many official publications under the Ottoman 
regime, was printed in Arabic and Turkish. It was 
only in 1908 that Mecca had its first newspaper, al- 
ffidjdz. The press is now represented by the official 
newspaper which appears once a week in Mecca, Umm 
al-Kurd, and by al-Bildd al-Su c udiyya (bi-weekly, 



Mecca), al-Hadjdj (monthly, Mecca) and al-Madina 
(weekly, Medina). In 1953 a more modern newspaper, 
al-Riydd, made its appearance at Djudda but it was 
compelled to stop publication as a result of the 
hostility of the Ikhwdn [q.v.]. 

The Colony of Aden has six Arabic publications, 
among which al-Akhbar al- c Adaniyya and Fatdt al- 
Djazira may be noted. In Kuwayt the most important 
newspaper is al-Kuwayt al-Yawm (1955), but it also 
produces a monthly review with coloured illustra- 
tions, al-'-Asall, published by the government. 

Bibliography: Ph. de Tarrazi, Ta'rikh al- 
sihdfa aW-arabiyya, Beirut 1913-33 (4 vol.); 
Ibrahim c Abduh, Tatawwur al-sihdfa al-misriyya, 
Cairo 1945 ; Kostaki al-Halabi, Ta'rikh takwln al- 
suhuf al-misriyya, Alexandria n.d.; c Abd al- 
Razzak al-Hasani, Ta'rikh al-sihdfa al-Hrdkiyya*, 
Baghdad 1957; M. Samhan, al-Sihdfa, Cairo 1358/ 
1939; Kamal Eldin Galal, Entstehung und Ent- 
wicklung der Tagespresse in Agypten, Frankfurt 
am Main 1939; al-Hildl, i (1892), 9-16, v (1896), 
141 ff. ; Washington-Serruys, L'arabe moderne 
itudil dans les journaux et les pieces officielles, 
Beirut 1897 (situation of the Arabic press at that 
date); M. Hartmann, The Arabic press of Egypt, 
London 1899; L'Agypte indlpendante 1937, 
Paris 1938, 369-456; Pearson, 343-6; RMM, 
passim; The Middle East, passim; Annuaire du 
monde Musulman 3 , Paris 1929, 49-77; Margot, La 
pressc arabe en 1927, Casablanca 1928. 

B. — North Africa. 

Paradoxical though it may appear, it was 
Algeria, at present the Maghrib country which is 
poorest in Arabic newspapers, which was the first 
of them to put into circulation a modest periodical, 
al-Mubashshir, from 1847 to 3 December 1926; this 
was an Arabic edition of the official Moniteur 
founded at Algiers on 27 January 1832 (see H. Fiori, 
in RAfr., lxxxii (1938), 173-80; G. Sers-Gal, in 
Documents algeriens, 8 December 1948). As well as 
official information, the Mubashshir carried news, 
historical, archaeological, and medical studies, etc. 
Its example was not immediately followed, and it 
was necessary to wait until the beginning of the 
20th century for an independent press to appear, 
edited by Muslims indeed, but directed in many 
cases by Europeans who were desirous of informing 
and educating the Arabic-reading public; in this 
way al-Ndsih (1899), al-Djaziri (1900), then al- 
Ihya> (1906), Tilimsdn (Tlemcen), Kawkab Ifrikiya 
(Algiers, 17 May 1907), al-DjazdHr (Algiers, 1908), al- 
Fdruk (Algiers, 1909), al-Rashidi (Djidjelli), etc., 
were founded. These publications, however, had 
only an ephemeral life and disappeared before 1914. 

The inter-war period was the second in the history 
of the Muslim press in Algeria. This saw the birth, 
on the one hand, of a series of newspapers edited in 
French by Muslims, such as La Voix indigene, La 
Voix des Humbles (1923), L'Entente, La Difense, La 
Justice, Le Riveil de VIslam (B6ne, 1922), etc., all 
intended for the expression of popular aspirations and 
various political tendencies; and, on the other hand, 
of a periodical press in Arabic, of a distinct politico- 
religious character. This period was, in fact, dominated 
by the struggle which opposed two active groups and 
caused heated polemics: the reformist c Ulamd> 
(Oulemas), hostile to the Brotherhoods [see ta'ifa], 
and to the bidd c [see bid'a], etc., relied on al-Shihdb 
(daily, then monthly; Constantine 1924-39), then on 
al-Isldh (Biskra 1929-42), and finally al-BasdHr 
(Algiers, 27 December 1935-56); and the Marabout 



tlDA 469 

party, generally favourable to the Franco-Muslim 
entente, which had as its organs al-Nadjdh (tri-, 
then bi-weekly, Constantine, 1919-56) and al- 
Baldgh al-DjazdHri (Mostaganem, 1927-47). The 
Kharidii Wddi Mizdb (Algiers, 1926-38) is also 
worthy of mention, among about ten papers which 
flourished during this period. 

In 1945 only al-Baldgh al-DjazdHri, al-BasdHr 
(prohibited 5 April 1956), and al-Nadjdh (which 
ceased to appear from 1 September the same year) 
remained. The organ of the < Ulamd > had been 
supplemented, from 15 December 1949 to 8 February 
1951, by a weekly published at Constantine, al- 
Shu'-la, while the Marabout party published a 
monthly, al-Dhikrd, at Tlemcen from 15 December 
1954 to August 1955. However, during this third 
period, Muslim predilections perceptibly changed, 
and some essentially political newpapers (al-DjazdHr 
al-Djadida, January 1946 to 14 September 1955, 
communist; Sawt al-DjazdHr, from 21 November 
1953, which became Sawt al-Sha'b from 21 August 
1954 to 5 November 1956: MTLD) made a timid 
appearance. All have now (i960) ceased to appear, 
or have been prohibited by the authorities; for 
its information the public depends on a highly 
developed French-language press. It must be noticed, 
moreover, that none of the Arabic dailies has ever 
held good in Algeria, and that the papers men- 
tioned above have, in many cases, known only an 
irregular appearance. It should be said that they 
were published by amateurs, with precarious financial 
resources and rudimentary technical means. 

In Morocco, the first newspaper was founded 
at Ceuta on 1 May 1820, but was in Spanish; and in 
this language or in French the press developed, 
particularly at Tangier, in the course of the 19th 
century. In 1889 an Arabic paper (al-Maghrib) 
appeared a few times, published by an Englishman 
in that town, where, at the beginning of the 20th 
century, many European journalists tried to reach 
the Muslim population by supplementing their 
papers with an entire or partial Arabic edition. Thus, 
thanks to European initiative and the collaboration 
of editors from Syria and Lebanon, the weeklies al- 
Sa'-dda (1905), al-Sabdh (1906), Lisdn al-Maghrib 
(1907), the Arabic supplement to El Telegrama del 
Rif (1907), and the Istikldl al-Maghrib, Arabic 
edition of the bi-monthly V Independance marocaine 
(1907), were able to appear at Tangier. The first 
Muslim newspaper was al-Td c un ("The Plague", 
sic), a monthly controlled by the sharij al-Kittani 
(March 1908). In the same year the Moroccan 
government had an official newspaper published, 
al-Fadjr, edited by a Syrian Christian, which was 
transferred to Fez in 1909. Other weeklies also were 
founded at Tangier, notably al-Hakk (191 1) and 
al-Tarakki (1912). 

After the inauguration of the Protectorate, al- 
Sa'dda was transferred to Rabat, where it became 
first tri-weekly, then daily; this semi-official news- 
paper, edited with care, beautifully printed, graced 
with numerous illustrations, anxious to inform its 
readers of events in Moroccan life, and widely cir- 
culated in all Morocco, played an undeniable 
educative and political r61e. In other towns the 
Arabic press hardly developed at all. Al-Widdd had 
only a restricted number of readers; a daily, al- 
Akhbdr al-tilighrdfiyya, was started at Fez, while a 
weekly, al-Akhbar al-Maghribiyya, supplemented 
L' Information Marocaine at Casablanca; at Marra- 
kesh al-Djanub had only a short life, but in the 
north, at Tetuan, several political newspapers met 



with some success (al-Isldh, al-Ittihdd, Izhdr al- 

Ham. 

The accession of Morocco to independence (1956) 
saw the renewal of the Arabic press in the country, 
although the French-language newspapers had 
received authority to continue publication, at least 
provisionally. Three dailies were produced: the 
unofficial al-'-Ahd al-Diadld (Rabat), supplemented 
since 1 September i960 by al-Fadjr, which was des- 
tined to replace it, aW-Alam (Rabat), and al-Tahrir 
(Casablanca), these two latter being organs, with 
some bias, of the Istiklal party. The total circulation 
of these three dailies was less than 25,000. The 
Democratic Party of Independence (PDI), which 
has on occasion published a weekly in French 
(Dlmocratie), relies on a bi-weekly, al-Ra'y al- < Amm. 
The Moroccan Labour Union (UMT) and the Moroc- 
can Union of Commerce, Industry and Handicrafts 
(UMCIA) own two weeklies at Casablanca, al- 
Tali'-a and al- Ittihdd respectively. In 1959 four other 
political weeklies were also published: al-Ayydm 
(Istiklal, Casablanca), al-Maghrib al-'-Arabl (Moroc- 
can Popular Movement, Rabat), al-Niddl (indepen- 
dent Liberals, Rabat), and Ifaydt al-Sha c b (com- 
munist). Finally, a monthly literary review at 
Marrakesh, Risdlat al-Adib, must be mentioned. 

It is, naturally, in Tunisia that the Arabic 
press has reached its greatest development; the two 
world wars, bringing about some flexibility, would 
make it possible for three periods to be distinguished, 
but on the whole one can consider that the end of 
the French Protectorate and the advent of the 
country's independence (1955) mark the limits of 
two well-differentiated periods. 

As early as 1861 Tunisia possessed an official news- 
paper, al-RdHd al-Tunusi, and, from 1890, a daily 
news-sheet, al-Zuhra, which was to survive more 
than 60 years; a second daily, al-Rushdiyya, 
appeared from 1904 to 1910, and a third, al-Nahda, 
was founded in 1923. To these publications a crowd 
of periodicals of political, religious, commercial, etc., 
character, and of more or less ephemeral duration, 
was early added. Among the weeklies may be 
mentioned the unofficial al-ffddira, from 1888 to 
1910, then the liberal al-Zamdn (1930), the Pan- 
Islamist al-Sawdb (1904-11, 1920), the (Archaeo-) 
Destourian Lisdn al-Sha'-b (1920-37). In the inter-war 
period a few weeklies appeared in the provinces ; of a 
sharply marked political character, they were divided 
between Archaeo-Destourian (al- c Asr al-Djadid, Sfax 
1919-25, 1936; al-Dijd'-, Kayrawan, 1937) and, 
especially, Neo-Destourian tendencies (at Sfax, 
Sadd al-Umma, 1936-7; al-Anis, 1937; al-Inshirdh, 
1937; al-Kashkul, 1937. At Susa: Fata al-Sdhil, 
1936-7. At Kayrawan: Sabra, 1937). 

In 1937 G. Zawadowski (see Bibliography) col- 
lected 161 titles and presented a very striking 
diagram: from 1861 to 1903 the number of Arabic 
journals varied between one and six; it reached 23 
in 1907, after the relaxation of security on 2 January 
1904, fell to four during the first world war, to attain 
32 in 192 1 ; it fell again to eleven in 1928-9, following 
the measures taken for the suppression of criminal 
and political offences, and finally reached the figure 
of 51 in 1937. The same author indicates, moreover, 
13 periodicals published in French by Tunisians, and, 
no less interesting, 73 titles of Judaeo-Arabic publi- 
cations, in Arabic but in Hebrew characters, the 
oldest of which, al-Mubdshir, appeared in 1884-5. 
Flourishing until the first world war, this Jewish press 
afterwards continually declined until in 1937 there 
were only three miserable papers, atTunis and at Susa. 



The Arabic press of the capital played an important 
part during the years which immediately preceded 
the country's independence; depending on financial 
resources and skilled techniques, directed and 
partly edited by professional journalists, it became 
the herald of nationalism, endeavoured to bring its 
public round to the idea of independence, and spread 
the themes of anti-French propaganda in the towns 
and villages. Their end achieved, or on the point 
of being so, some papers, among the most important, 
went into opposition and tried to outbid the govern- 
ment; they had finally to cease publication, so that 
there remained of the former press only aW-Amal, 
a bi-weekly founded 1 June 1934 by the future 
president of the Republic, al-Habib Abu Rukayba 
(Bourguiba), and now a daily; and the communist 
weekly al-JaW-a, founded 1937. A new daily, al- 
Sabdh, has been started, while the weekly al-Irdda, 
organ of the Archaeo-Desturians since 1934, has been 
replaced by al-Istitildl. A few other nationalist 
periodicals such as al- c Alam, al-Nidd* and al- 
Diumhiiri appear more or less regularly. The organ 
of the FLN, the weekly al-Mufidwama al-QiazdH- 
riyya, has become al-Mudidhid. Finally must be 
noticed a monthly cultural review, since 1 October 
1955, al-Fikt, which young Tunisians of university 
education maintain at a respectable standard. Three 
French dailies, the oldest of which is Depeche 
i one Italian, now (i960) appear 



Worthy of mention is a political weekly V Action 
(now Afrique-Aclion) which won some renown abroad. 
Bibliography: RMM, i-lxii, passim (and 
particularly L. Merrier, La presse musulmane au 
Maroc, 1908, 619-30); L. Massignon, Annuaire du 
Monde musulman 3 , Paris 1929, 49-77, passim; 
E. Dermenghem, in Sciences et Voyages, xxv/4, 
!935; H. Peres, Le mouvement rejormiste en 
Algerie et I'influence de I'Orient, d'apres la presse 
arabe d'Algerie, in Entretiens sur Involution 
des pays de civilisation arabe, Paris 1936, 49-59J 
Tawfik al-Madanl, Kitdb al-DjazdHr, 367-72; 
J.-L. Miege, Journaux et journalistes a T anger au 
XIX' siecle, in Hesperis, 1954, 191-228; G. Zawa- 
dowski, La presse indigene de Tunisie, in REI, 
1937, 357-89; Vassel, La litterature populaire des 
Israelites tunisiens, 1905-7; A. Canal, La litterature 
et la presse tunisienne de I'occupation a 1900, 
Paris 1924, 133-204; A. van Leeuwen, Index des 
publications periodiques parus en Tunisie {1874- 
1954), in IBLA, xviii (1955), 153-67. 
Libya.— In 1871 the first Arabo-Turkish news- 
paper, Tardbulus al-Gharb, was started in Tripoli; it 
was of an official character. It still continues to be 
published in Arabic and forms the chief organ of 
information for the Federal Kingdom. A second 
weekly, of a scientific and political nature, al- 
Tarakki was published from 1897. Other news- 
papers were published during the period of Italian 
domination but are of only the most slender interest. 
Since the country became independent various news- 
papers have made their appearance, notably the 
periodicals al-RdHd and al-TaW-a (the organ of the 
Federal Union of Workers). (Ed.) 

C. — Arabic-speaking Emigrants. 
In the course of the last decade of the 19th 
and the first of the 20th centuries colonies of Arabic- 
speaking emigrants (dfdliya, [q.v.]) sprang up in large 
cities of North and South America, Australia and West 
Africa. The main source of emigration was Lebanon 
and Syria, where the Arabic press was cradled and 



Arabic journalism, in the proper sense, was born 
and nurtured. Prior to 1890 Ottoman authorities in 
the area permitted emigration nominally only to 
Egypt, but Lebanese and Syrian emigrants had 
found their way, even earlier, into numerous Euro- 
pean capitals where a rash of Arabic papers and 
magazines made its appearance. The census of the 
historian of the Arabic press, Tarrazi (iv, 490), for 
the period ending 1929 makes the number in Con- 
stantinople 49, Russia 3, Switzerland 2, Germany 7, 
Italy 4, France 43, Great Britain 14, Malta 8, 
Cyprus 5, a total of 135 of which 107 were newspapers. 

The pioneer emigrant journalist was an Armenian 
from Aleppo, Rizk Allah Hassun, who founded 
MWdt al-Ahwdl and later (1872) in London Al Sam. 
First a favourite with the Ottoman authorities, 
Hassun had to flee for his life to London. There he 
re-issued Mir'dt al-Ahwdl in about 450 litho- 
graphed copies and used it to attack the Ottoman 
government. 

Of the Paris publications mention should be made 
of al- c Urwa al-Wuthhd issued March 1884 by the 
Egyptian reformer Muhammad 'Abduh and his 
celebrated friend Djamal al-Din al-Afghanl. Though 
short lived, aW-Urwa distinguished itself in its 
vigorous defence of Islam and attack on the British 
in Egypt and India. A Beiruti deputy in the Ottoman 
parliament of 1876, Khalil Ghanim, incurred the 
anger of the Porte for his liberal views and fled to 
Paris, where he started (April 1881) al-Basir, which 
exposed the massacre of Armenians. Like other anti- 
Ottoman publications al-Basir was banned by 
Turkish authorities and thus doomed to early death. 
With Amin Arslan, a Lebanese Druze, Ghanim 
issued (1890), partly in French, Turkiyd al-Fatdt. 
Of a different character was the only known paper 
in West Africa, Ifrikiyya al-Tidjdriyya (commercial 
Africa, Dakar, 1931-5). 

Most of these papers began as and remained 
personal sheets with the founder, editor and publisher 
as one person. They were more concerned with 
politics and literature than with news and, with no 
local colonies to support them, they were destined 
to be short lived. None survived. 

The New World papers likewise began as personal 
sheets but the founder-editor-publisher was usually 
an adib (literary) emigrant — not a political emigre — 
who sought his living by the pen. Though the rate of 
mortality was high, certain papers developed into 
real newspapers and received enough local support 
to give them a long lease of life. But the circulation 
rarely exceeded 5,000. The census of Tarrazi (iv, 
492; cf. al-Hildl, i (1892), 12, 14) for the period ending 
1929 credits North and Central America with 102 
publications, of which 71 are newspapers, South 
America with 166, including 134 newspapers of which 
3 appeared in Cuba. The pioneer in this area was 
Ibrahim 'Arbili, a Damascene graduate in medicine 
from what is now the American University of 
Beirut. c Arbffi had to secure the aid of the American 
embassy in Constantinople for a permit to export 
Arabic type from Beirut. The first number of his 
Kawkab Amirikd was issued in New York, 15 April 
1892, and bore his and his brother Nadjib's name. 
One of his editorial assistants, Nadjib Dhiyab, a 
Greek Orthodox Lebanese, founded seven years later 
Mir'at al-Gharb, still issued in New York. In February 
1898 a Maronite, Na"um Mukarzal, founded in 
Philadelphia al-Hudd, which later moved to New 
York and is still perhaps the most widely read in 
America. Sectarian rivalry between these two papers 
spurred their early circulation. Both Dhiyab and 



Mukarzal attended the Arab congress of Paris (1913) 
which advocated decentralization for the Arab 
provinces of Turkey. Other than these two papers 
New York had in December 1961 al-Baydn, founded 
191 1 ; al-Isldh, 1933; al-Rdbi(a al-Lubndniyya, 1957 
(cf. Hitti, Syrians, app. F). The late birth of this 
paper is rather unusual. For many years after its 
foundation in 19 12 al-SdHh served as an organ for a 
circle of literary men (al-Rdbita al-Ifalamiyya) led 
by the celebrated Djabran Khalil Djabran [q.v.] 
(Kahlil Gibran). So did al-Funun magazine, founded 
1913. A leading poet, Iliya Abu Madi, published 
in New York al-Samir from 1929 till his death 
in 1956. Detroit supports at present (December 
1961) three newspapers. 

In South America al- c Id, himself a Syrian journal- 
ist in Buenos Aires, names in Rio de Janeiro (1958) 
31 newspapers, of which 2 are living, and 3 magazines 
(391-2); in Sao Paulo 52 papers and magazines, of 
which 5 are extant (350-1); in Buenos Aires 31 news- 
papers, of which 6 are living, and 16 magazines 
(381-3); cf. al-BadawI, ii, 567-85). The pioneers were 
again Christian Lebanese: Na"um Labaki, co- 
founder in 1896 at Rio of al-Rahib and later of two 
other papers in Sao Paulo, and Shukri al-Khuri. co- 
founder in 1899 of the first paper in Sao Paulo and 
in 1906 of the longer lived and especially influential 
Abu 'l-Hawl. Of special interest in Sao Paulo was 
al-'-Usba al-Andalusiyya magazine (founded 1928), 
organ of a literary circle headed by the two poets 
Rashid Salim al-Khuri (al-Sha c ir al-Karawi) and 
Shaflk Ma'luf. In Buenos Aires the oldest surviving 
paper is al-Saldm (1902), and of special interest is 
al-Istikldl (1926) founded and still edited by a Druze. 
In the struggle for existence within a steadily 
shrinking market of readers some editors resorted 
to dubious if not outright unethical journalistic 
practices. Others, wiser and more adventurous, made 
their publications bilingual or entirely in the new 
language of the second generation of emigrants. One 
pictorial monthly in Portuguese (Sao Paulo), one 
in Spanish (Mexico City) and a third in English 
(Hollywood) thrive on social functions. The Lebanese 
American Journal (founded 1951), and The Caravan 
(1953, which was to cease publication in 1962), are 
weekly newspapers. More learned was The Syrian 
World (New York, 1926-32) of Sallum Mukarzal, 
who also edited Arabic papers and introduced the 
Arabic linotype. 

The Arabic press of the diaspora was predominantly 
liberal but hardly ever radical, loyal to the countries 
of its adoption while mindful of its obligation to the 
countries of origin. As a liaison agent it kept alive 
the ties of relationship between emigrants and old 
folks and meanwhile interpreted the new culture and 
helped adjustment to it. It contributed generously 
to the enrichment of modern Arabic literature — 
prose and poetry — in vocabulary and ideas and to 
the enhancement of the Westernization of the Arab 
East. 

Bibliography: al-BadawI al-Mulaththam [Ya- 
c kub al- c Udat], al-Ndtihun bi 'l-ddd ft Amirikd al- 
Qianubiyya, 2 pts., Beirut 1956; Philip K. Hitti, 
The Syrians in America (New York 1924); idem, 
Lebanon in History*, London and New York 1962, 
464-7; Yusuf al-'Id, Djdwldt fi 'W-dlam al-djadid, 
Buenos Aires 1959; The Institute of Arab 
American Affairs, Arabic-speaking Americans, ii, 
New York 1946; McFadden, Daily journalism in 
the Arab states, Columbus 1953; Adib Muruwa, al- 
Sahdfa al-'-Arabiyya: nastfatuhd wa-tatawwuruhd, 
Beirut i960; Joseph Nasrallah, L'imprimerie au 



Liban, Beirut 1948 ; Khalil Sabat,7Vr ikk al-{ibd c a fi 
'l-sharh aW-Arabi, Cairo 1958; Djurdi $ayda&, 
Adabund wa-udabd'und fi 'l-mahddj,ir al-Amirikiy- 
ya', Beirut 1957; Luwls Shaykhu (Cheikho), al- 
Addb al- c Arabiyya fi 'l-lfam al-tdsi ( 'askar', ii, 
Beirut 1926, 75; idem, in dl-Machriq, i (1900), 
174-80, 251-7, 355-62; Fllib TarrazI, Ta'rlkh al- 
sahdfa al- c Arabiyya, i-iv, Beirut 1913-33; Djurdji 
Zaydan, Ta'rikh dddb al-lugha al-^Arabiyya, new 
ed. Shawki Dayf, Cairo 1950, 43-54, 63-4; Elie 
Safa, V 'Emigration Libanaise, Beirut i960. 

(Philip K. Hitti) 
D.— Survey of the Arabic Language Press. 
The language of the press has already been studied 
in the art. 'arabiyya, II, 4, but one cannot emphasize 
too strongly the part taken by the various news- 
papers, and particularly the Egyptian ones, in the 
evolution, development and enrichment of the so- 
called modern or contemporary Arabic which is 
indebted to them, far more than to actual literature, 
for its ability to express a multitude of new ideas, 
most of which have been imported from the West. 
Basically, the Arabic press has made enormous 
progress ; for a long time the only material that it had 
presented to the public, apart from news from 
abroad that was already stale, had been such in- 
formation as would please the Ottoman Government 
or the notices provided by it; al-Diawd'ib alone 
perhaps constituted a fortunate exception. From 
the beginning of the century and especially since the 
first world war the main daily newspapers have 
explored a wider field, giving their readers infor- 
mation of every kind, concerning themselves with 
social, economic, literary and artistic questions, and 
shaping, orienting or arousing public opinion by 
means of commentaries which are not always 
dictated by the most praiseworthy objectivity. Side 
by side with this press, which in certain respects is 
comparable with the Western press and has at its 
disposal powerful technical and financial resources, 
a large staff and modern printing presses, there 
exists a swarm of minor publications whose prepara- 
tion is entirely the work of craftsmen, when then- 
frequency of publication does not depend upon the 
more or less acknowledged resources of their pro- 
prietors. Without going so far as to resort to the 
odious practice of blackmail to guarantee a certain 
edition of their newspaper, far too many journalists 
of the lowest category often indulge in petty 
polemics, crude quarrels and personal vituperation. 
Sanctions are frequently taken, sometimes leading to 
the disappearance of the paper, but they can hardly 
change the general demeanour of the so-called 
independent press. The measures taken in recent 
years in Egypt, even though they have unfortunately 
deprived journalists of their freedom, at least have 
the merit of having clarified the situation. 

The very large daily newspapers, like the Ahrdm, 
can call upon sources of information which could well 
be a matter of envy to many of the organs of the 
Western press. But this is not the case with the 
majority of newspapers. These do indeed receive 
bulletins from one or two world-wide European or 
American agencies, without counting the purely 
Arabic Middle East Agency, but in each of them one 
editor exploits broadcast material, while one or two 
colleagues are employed in collecting local news. It 
is rare for newspapers to keep correspondents 
abroad, and the proprietor generally acts as chief 

Newspapers of this sort almost always have a 
small printing press where the newspaper is composed 



by hand and printed on 4 or 6 pages; the circulation 
figures seldom exceed a few thousands, and readers 
are few outside the town where the newspaper is 
printed. Some Lebanese newspapers, however have, 
subscribers in America, and copies of the leading 
Egyptian or Lebanese dailies can be seen on news- 
paper stalls in the European and American capitals. 
The reviews deserve especial mention. Many of 
these have assumed the task of spreading among 
the populace a useful knowledge of science, literature 
and history, and circulation figures reveal that they 
often reach a fairly wide public. The Hildl (1892) 
needs no further praise; the Machriq, published since 
1898 by the Jesuits in Beirut, enjoys an international 
scientific reputation. The Muktabas, founded in 
Damascus in 1908 by Muh. Kurd C A1I and the 
Lughat aW-Arab, published in Baghdad by the Rev. 
Father Anastasius, played a cultural and scientific 
r61e that in our own time has been taken by the 
journals of the various academies of the Arab world. 
The different published lists also contain the titles of 
various reviews of juridical, economic, financial, 
commercial or corporate character, etc., as well as a 
certain number of feminist publications. 

Since the experiment of Abu Naddara, satirical and 
humorous papers are not very numerous: in Beirut 
al-Sahdfi al-t&Hh (1920) and al-Dabbur (1924), with 
the addition in 1943 of al-Sayydd, are still continuing, 
while a larger number of illustrated magazines like 
al-Musawwar (Cairo) are enjoying an undeniable 
success. (Ed.) 

ii. — Iran 
The first printing press was set up in about 1817 
in Tabriz, followed by one in Tehran; but in about 
1824 lithography quickly and almost completely 
eclipsed printing for over half a century. From 1848 
the first newspapers appeared, first in Tehran, then 
in Shiraz, Isfahan and Tabriz; in about i860 
portraits and illustrations were introduced; the 
first periodical of scientific character dates from 
1863; the first daily newspaper from 1898; the first 
humorous and satirical newspaper from 1900. In 
1875 the first of the newspapers established outside 
Iran appeared in Constantinople; others appeared in 
London, Calcutta, Cairo, Paris, Bombay and 
Washington (Baha'i). 

In its early period the press was literary rather 
than political; the opposite was true after the 
Constitution of 1906. The development of the press 
was caused by the spread of printing which little by 
little replaced lithography. From 1910 to 1912 it 
underwent various changes caused by the political 
turmoil in the country. Nevertheless, E. G. Browne 
(The Press . . .), completing the list drawn up in 
191 1 by H. L. Rabino, named 371 daily publications 
and periodicals in 1914 (see his summary of the 
development of the press, 7 ff.) ; many periodicals 
are of literary or scientific character; it is important 
to add that political newspapers very frequently 
ranked as literature: so too the numerous political 
poems and satirical articles in prose which, besides 
their literary value, also possess actual historical 
interest (see Browne, op. cit., introd., xvi and the 
anthology, 167 ff.). 

If the newspapers of the early period were often 
unofficial and poorly supplied with information, 
they provided a wealth of instructive articles, 
edited in excellent style; "they inspired a taste for 
reading and thus contributed to the progress of 
general instruction" (Rabino). As for the press which 
prepared for and followed the Constitution of 1906, 



Browne, the eminent authority, states: "Several of 
these newspapers, in particular the Sur-e Isrdfil, 
the Habl ol-matin and the Musdwdt were indeed of a 
superior sort and serve as models of a vigorous, 
nervous and concise style which until then was 
virtually unknown" (The Persian Revolution, 127); 
later he defined his views (Lit. History). To the 
bibliography which he drew up (in The Press) can 
be added the lists of newspapers and periodicals 
compiled by 'All N6 Rouze (Nawruz) (1914-1925) 
and the Annuaire du monde musulman (1929). It is 
also worth recalling various newspapers published in 
French, Armenian and Chaldaean. 

In 1930, in his supplement to the Persian trans- 
lation of Browne's Literary History, Rashid Yasmi 
makes a stand against the increasing disregard for 
literary form in many newspapers, the result of the 
enforced speed of publication, and of the invasion 
of foreign words introduced in information and 
articles translated from European newspapers; he 
provides a list of newspapers (among which he 
singles out Ra c d "The thunder", Iran, Shafak-i 
surkh "The red twilight", Ittila'-dt "Information", 
Ndhid) and a list of periodicals (among which he 
notes Armaghdn "Gift", Bahdr and Nawbahdr 
"Spring", Ayanda "Future", Irdn-i diawdn "Young 
Iran", Shark "East", Mihr "Sun"); to these 
periodicals should be added those published by the 
Ministry of Public Instruction and the Universities 
(Tehran and Tabriz) and, though it is not possible to 
mention them all, the literary review Yadgdr 
"Memorial", the critical review Rdhnumd-yi kitdb 
"Guide to [new] books", and several scientific and 
technical reviews; finally he mentions some annual 
publications with a wealth of information as im- 
portant as it is varied {Pars, Gdhndma). Several 
newspapers listed by the Annuaire du monde musul- 
man have disappeared; to the list should be added, 
among others, Kayhan "The world", (Tehran), 
Azddi "Liberty" (Mashhad) and the remarkable 
reviews Farhang-i Iran zamin "Iranian culture", 
Madialla-yi musiki, Sukhan" The word", Ydghmd 
"Booty". 

Bibliography : E. G. Browne, The press and 
poetry of modern Persia, Cambridge 1914; his list 
completes that given by H. J. Rabino, La presse 
depuis son origine jusqu'd nos jours, in RMM, 
1913, xxii, 287: Fr. tr. from the original Persian 
mentioned by Browne, op. cit., 2, n. 2; idem, 
The Persian Revolution of igo$-igog, Cambridge 
1910; Ali N6 Rouze, Registre analytique de la 
presse persane, 318 items, 1919-23 (RMM, 1925, 
(lx), 35 ff.); RMM, general index (index vi: 
Presse: Bakou, Bender- Bouchir, Ourmiah, Perse 
proces de presse, Tauris, Teheran, "persane"); 
Annuaire du monde musulman, 1925, 351 (general 
index of the Muslim press; see Chiraz, Enzeli, 
Hamadan, Ispahan, Kaboul, Kazwin, Kerman, 
Khoi, Meched, Qandahar, Recht, Tabriz, Teheran, 
Yezd); ibid., "1929, 51 (index of the press; 
besides the towns named above, see Kerman- 
chah, Djelalabad, Herat); Bogdanov, in IC, 
1929, 126-52, for the Afghan press); E. G. 
Browne, iv, (ed. 1930), 468-90; Rashid Yasmi, 
Ta'rikh-i adabiydt-i Iran taHij-i professor Edward 
Browne, wa adabiydt-i mu'dsir, Tehran 1316/1938; 
Bahar Malik al-Shu c ara, Sabk-shindsi, Tehran 
1321/1943, iii, 344 ff.; TaHim-o tarbiyat, Tehran 
1313/35, iv, 657-64 and 721-5; Yadgdr, Tehran 
1323-4/1945 iii, 49-54 and vii, 6-17; Muhammad 
Sadr Hashlmi, Ta'rikh-i diard'id-wa madjalldt-i 
Iran, Isfahan 1327/1949, 2 vols, (important); 



IDA 473 

Jan Rypka, Iranische Literatur-geschichte, Leipzig 
■959. 323 ff-, 346 ff., 3698-, 459 ff-, A. Towfigh, 
Le rile de la presse humoristique et satirique dans 
la sociiti iranienne, unpublished Sorbonne thesis, 
1962. (H. Masse) 

iii. — Turkey 
The early history or the press in Turkey is 
given in section i above, i860 saw the birth of 
the first unofficial Turkish newspaper published by 
a Turk. This was the Terdiumdn-i Ahwdl published 
by Agah Efendi, with the help of the writer and poet 
Shinasi and numbering Ahmed Wefik Pasha among 
its contributors. Polemics between this and Churchill's 
paper were frequent, the first occasion being a criti- 
cism in Churchill's newspaper of Shinasi's ShdHr 
Evlenmesi ("A Poet's Marriage") which was serialized 
in the Terdiumdn-i Ahwdl. 

In 1861 Shinasi, wishing for greater freedom of 
expression in his own newspaper, started the 
Taswir-i Efkdr which also carried articles by Namik 
Kemal as from issue number 200. The Taswir-i 
Efkdr closed down in 1866: in all 830 issues were 
published, issues of the greatest importance in the 
history of the Turkish Press, because of the news- 
paper's advocacy of libertarian ideas. 

1861 also saw the birth of the first purely Turkish 
magazine in Turkey, the Medimu c a-i Funun of 
Munif Pasha [q.v.; see also djem c iyyet-i c ilmiyye-i 
'othmaniyye], followed in 1863 by the first military 
publication, the Qieride-i '■Askeriyye of Ahmed 
Midhat Efendi, and then in 1865 by the first 
commercial magazine, the Takwim-i Tididret of 
Hasan Fehmi Pasha. In the meantime, in 1864, the 
Government published the first Press regulations 
(the 1857 regulations did not mention the periodical 
Press as such, but applied to books and pamphlets 
which were to be submitted to the Council of Edu- 
cation, Ma c drif Shurdsl, before publication). The 
1864 regulations remained in force, save for a short 
interruption, until 1909, and provided for official 
warnings to the Press, for suspension and the 
cancellation of licences at government discretion, 
and also for the trial of Press offences by the Medilis-i 
Ahkdm-i '■Adliyye tribunal. Newspapers were also 
asked to submit a copy of each issue, signed by the 
responsible Editor, to the Press Directorate, a 
Government office the beginnings of which are 
obscure, but the existence of which in 1862 can be 
inferred from the fact that Saklzli (from Chios) 
Ohannes Pasha was appointed to it. The 1864 Press 
regulations were inspired by the Press Law of 
Napoleon III and did not provide for a censorship as 
such. Until 1877 Press affairs were the responsibility 
of the Ministry of Education, although the 1864 
regulations provided for the submission to the 
Foreign Ministry of applications for Press licences 
by foreigners. Mention must also be made of the 
"Society for original compositions and translations" 
(TeHif we Terdieme DiemHyyeti), attached to the 
Ministry of Education and entrusted with the choice 
and translation into Turkish of useful foreign 
publications. The 1864 regulations seem to have 
fallen into desuetude in 1867, when an order issued 
by 'All Pasha authorized administrative action 
against the Press, including suspension, where this 
was dictated by the public interest. The reason for 
this was the growth of the revolutionary Press, 
ushered in by C A1I Su'awi's Mukhbir, first published 
in Philippopolis (Filibe) in 1866 and closed down in 
the following year. The task which that newspaper 
set itself originally was to defend the rights of the 



Muslims against foreign (Christian) encroachment 
and in the face of presumed official lethargy. The 
publication of the 1867 order led to the flight abroad 
of members of the "Society of New Ottomans" {Yehi 
'Othmdnlllar DiemHyyeti), including C A1I Su'awl, 
Namtk Kemal, Ziya (Diya 5 ) Pasha, Agah Efendi and 
others. With financial help from the Egyptian prince 
Mustafa Fadil Pasha they undertook the publication 
of revolutionary newspapers directed against the 
policy of 'Ali Pasha. 'All Su'awl restarted the 
Mukhbir in 1867 in London. In 1868 it was followed 
in London by Ifiirriyyet, designed by Ziya Pasha and 
Namlk Kemal as a weekly organ of the New Otto- 
mans. Namlk Kemal left the paper in 1869, while in 
the following year Ifilrriyyet moved to Geneva, where 
another 11 issues were published, making 200 in all. 
C A1I Su'awi had in the meantime moved to Paris, 
where in 1869 he published 'Ulum, which was the 
first newspaper in Turkish to advocate Turkish 
nationalism. Another revolutionary sheet, Inkildb, 
published in 1870 in Geneva by Huseyn Wasfi Pasha 
and Mehmed Bey, is noteworthy for the fact that it 
attacked not the Sultan's Ministers, but Sultan 'Abd 
al-'Aziz himself. 

In the meantime there was an increase in Press 
activity in Turkey, particularly between 1868 and 
1872; new publications included important organs 
of opinion like Terakfyi, Basiret, 'Ibret and Jfadika 
and humorous publications like Diogene and Khaydli, 
whose outspokenness shows that the "provisional" 
order of 1867 was no longer applied. Tera^ki, which 
first appeared in 1868, had the first weekly supple- 
ment for women, while MUtneyyiz, which followed it 
in 1869, had the first children's supplement in the 
country. Diogene started publication in Greek and 
in French, appearing later in Turkish, ffadifra was 
started in 1869 by 'Ashir Efendi, as a scientific 
publication passing in 1871 under the control of Ebii 
'1-Ziya (Abu '1-Diya') Tewfik [q.v.] (who had colla- 
borated earlier with Terakki) and in 1873 under 
that of Shems al-DIn Saml. Basiret, which carried 
articles by the Pole Karski, by Ahmed Midhat 
Efendi and also by 'Ali Su'awl, can be considered as 
the most successful newspaper of the time, coming 
second in popularity after the official police sheet 
Waraka-i Dabtiyye. 'Ibret, first edited unsuccessfully 
by Ahmed Midhat Efendi, passed in 1872 under the 
control of Namik Kemal, Ebii '1-Ziya Tewfik and 
Reshad Nuri. In it Namlk Kemal attacked the 
Grand Vizier Mahmud Nedlm Pasha, who in con- 
sequence had him exiled to Gallipoli, suspending the 
newspaper for four months. Namlk Kemal returned 
from exile and resumed editorship after his enemy's 
fall from favour. The newspaper suffered one more 
suspension and was then permanently closed down 
in 1873, as a result of the excitement caused by 
Namlk Kemal's play Watan weyd Silistre, the 
author being exiled this time to the castle of 
Famagusta. In all 132 issues of i Ibret appeared, and 
this newspaper can be considered as the best propa- 
gator of liberal ideas during the period of the 
Tanzimdt. The period saw the birth of many short- 
lived journalistic ventures of predominantly political 
character, as well as of some organs of more enduring 
importance, like the best-selling newspaper Wakit, 
which owed its popularity to the political commen- 
taries of Sa'id Bey; Mehmed Tewfik Bey's $abdh, 
first published in 1876 and noteworthy for its 
courage in being the first newspaper to appear with 
several blank columns as a protest against the 
censors; and finally, the high-minded Istikbdl which 
devoted much attention to educational matters. 



Mention must also be made of the Medjm&a-i Ebii 
'l-Diyd, published by the prolific journalist and 
author Ebii '1-Ziya Tewfik (1880), and of the first 
children's magazine Effdl. 

The return to absolutism under 'Abd al-IJamld II 
was marked administratively by the transfer of 
Press affairs to the Ministry of the Interior in 1877; 
in 1878 newspapers came under the joint censorship 
of the Ministries of Education, Interior and Police; 
in 1881 an "Inspection and Control Commission" 
(Endiiimen-i Te/tish we Mu'dyene) was formed and 
charged with preventive censorship, an even higher 
authority, the "Commission for the Examination of 
Compositions" (Tedkik-i Mu'ellefdt Komisyonu) 
being formed in 1897 and supplemented for religious 
publications in 1903 by the "Commission for religious 
and legal books" (Kvtub-i Diniyye we SherHyye 
hey'eti); dangerous publications outside the borders 
of the Empire were dealt with by the Foreign Press 
Directorate {Mafbu'dt-i Edjnebiyye Mudurlughu) 
formed in 1885. All these measures were taken in 
spite of the 1876 Constitution which, in article 12, 
guaranteed the freedom of the Press "within the 
bounds of the law", and in spite of the rejection by 
Parliament of the draconic Press Law of 1877. 
Press censorship under 'Abd al-Hamid II was 
supplemented by control of printing presses (1888) 
and of booksellers (1894). 

All this limited the number and contents of 
publications, although it did not stop the develop- 
ment of the Turkish Press. Important dailies in- 
cluded Mihran Efendi's Sabdh, founded in 1876 and 
already mentioned, which included the young and 
later famous journalist IJiiseyn Djahid Bey among 
its contributors; Ahmed Djewdet Bey's I%dam 
(1890), which had a semi-legal correspondent in 
Paris in the person of the later famous 'All Kemal 
Bey, and Ahmed Midhat Efendi's (known as "the 
typewriter" for his prolific writings) Terdjiimdn-i 
ffafiikat, which between 1882 and 1884 had a passing 
literary phase thanks to Mu'allim NadjI. Important 
periodicals included Murad Bey's political weekly 
Mizdn (1886-90 with interruptions), and above all 
'Ahmed Ihsan Bey's Therwet-i FUnun, standard- 
bearer of a new literary school (Tewfik Fikret, 
Pjenab Shehab al-Din [see djanab shihab al-dIn], 
Khalid Ziya (Diya 5 ) etc.) in opposition to Mu c allim 
Nadji's conservatives. Therwet-i Funun was started 
in 1892 and, after a period of brilliance, was reduced 
to dull harmlessness by official pressure. 

This official repression led to a rebirth of revolu- 
tionary publications abroad: in 1880 'All ShefkatI 
started Istiltbdl in Geneva; in 1895 Ahmed Rlza 
(Rida 5 ) Bey founded the important Meshweret in 
Turkish and French (the French side being edited by 
another temporary expatriate, Murad Bey of Mizdn). 
Started in Paris, Meshweret was driven by official 
Ottoman pressure first to Switzerland and then to 
Belgium. The last decade of the 19th and the first 
years of the 20th centuries saw a host of short-lived 
Turkish revolutionary sheets in Paris, Switzerland, 
London and Egypt. They included organs of the 
Committee of Union and Progress, such as 'Othmdnli, 
published by Ishak Sukuti and 'Abdullah Djewdet; 
ffakk and Shurd-i Ummet, published in Cairo with the 
cooperation of Ahmed Riza Bey. In the same year as 
the latter, in 1902, Prince Sabah al-Din published his 
newspaper Terakki. Another influen tial newspaper 
published abroad was Terdiiimdn, which Gasplrall 
Isma'il (Gasprinski) founded in the Crimea in 1883. 

When the Constitution was once again put into 
practice on 24 July 1908, the Turkish Press attained 



to unlimited freedom for a period of some eight or 
nine months. The three main newspapers of the 
Hamidian era (Ikddm, Sabdh and Terdjumdn-i 
flakikat) were soon joined by a daily edition of 
Thermet-i Fiinun, by the Yefii Gazete of 'Abdullah 
Zuhdi and Mahmud Sadik and, most important, by 
Janin, published by Tewfik Fikret, Hiiseyn Kazim 
and Hiiseyn Djahid. In all more than two hundred 
newspaper licences were granted in the first few 
weeks of the constitutional regime, while the number 
of periodical publications in 1908-9 amounted to 353. 
This number decreased constantly in subsequent 
years: 130 in 1910, 124 in 1911, 70 in 1914. The 
fortunes of the Press were linked closely with the 
course of the political struggle between the Com- 
mittee of Union and Progress and its opponents. 
In the months between the restoration of the 
Constitution and the "31st March incident" (13 April 
1909) the Committee was opposed by HHhmatM, the 
organ of the Liberal Party of Prince Sabah al-DIn, 
by Ikddm, which carried articles by 'All Kemal, by 
Yefii Gazete, Therwet-i Fiinun and others. It was 
supported by Shurd-i Millet, Ebii '1-Ziya Tewfik's 
Yefii Taswlr-i Ejkdr, Milliyyet, flurriyyet and other 
publications. The religious opposition was led by 
Derwish Wahdetl's newspaper Volkan and by the 
magazine Beydn al-flakk. After the "incident" 
censorship was re-imposed by the military ad- 
n spite of the provision in the revised 
1 forbidding all pre-publication censor- 
ship. Military censorship continued until the assump- 
tion of power by the "opposition" in 1912, but was 
reimposed by the Union and Progress after the coup 
of 10 January 1913. It then lasted until the dis- 
solution of the Empire. Military censorship rendered 
largely inoperative the 1909 liberal Press Law, 
which was in any case amended in 1913, the amend- 
ment granting wide powers to the authorities in 
cases where publications were deemed to endanger the 
security of the State. A Directorate-General of the 
Press was formed at the same time. Opposition news- 
papers tended in these conditions to be short-lived. 
Among the few which deserve mention one could 
include Seldmet-i '■TJmumiyye (1910) which carried 
articles by 'Abdullah Diewdet. signed "A Kurd", 
and also Te'mlndt, published in 1912 by Isma'il 
Hakki Pasha on behalf of the Party of Freedom and 
Concord (fftirriyyet ve Ptildj). The years before the 
First War also saw the birth of some important 
literary and scientific magazines, like the journal of 
the Ottoman Historical Society (Ta'rikh-i '■Othmdni 
Endjumeni Medjmu'asi) (1910), Turk Yurdu, the 
organ of the Turkish Hearths {Turk Odjaklari), and 
the literary avant-garde papers Gent Kalemler and 
Rubdb. One must also point to the existence of a 
numerous religious periodical Press. In 191 3 'All 
Kemal founded the daily Peydm, which was to 
amalgamate after the war with Mihran Efendi's 
Sabdh and, under the name of Peydm-i Sabdh, to be 
in the forefront of the opposition to Mustafa Kemal 
in Istanbul during the Turkish War of Independence. 
The last years of the 1914-18 war witnessed the first 
ventures of journalists who were to become famous 
under the Republic. It was then that Ahmed Emin 
(Yalman) and Hakki Tarik (Us) started Wahit, that 
Yunus Nadi entered the field with Yefii Gun and 
Sedad Simavi with the humorous magazine Diken; 
it is also to those years that the important daily 
Aksham goes back. Newspapers published in 
Istanbul at the end of the war included also Sa'Id 
Molla's Istanbul, Refi' Djewad's 'Alemddr and 
Mehmed Zekeriyya (Sertel)'s Btiytik Gazete. 



In Anatolia the nationalist r 
defended by Irdde-i Milliyye, the organ of the Sivas 
Congress, which first appeared on 4 September 19 19. 
A fortnight after his arrival in Ankara on 27 De- 
cember 1919 Mustafa Kemal Pasha founded his 
organ IJdkimiyyet-i Milliyye, which was renamed 
Ulus in 1928, Halkci in 1955, reverting to Ulus in 
1956. In 1920 Yunus Nadi transferred his Yefii Gun 
to Ankara, returning to Istanbul in 1923 to found 
Djilmhuriyyet [Cumhuriyet), which then became the 
main Kemalist newspaper in the old capital. Note- 
worthy magazines founded or published in the years 
between the end of the war and the proclamation of 
the Republic included the Communist Aydinltk, the 
literary Dergdh, which carried articles by Ya'kub 
Kadri (Karaosmanoglu) and Ziya Gokalp's Kutuh 
Medjmu'a, started in Diyarbekir (Diyar-Bakr) in 
1922. 

Censorship ceased with the entry of the Turkish 
Army into Istanbul on 7 October 1923. The 1924 
Constitution re-asserted the existing constitutional 
assurance that the Press was free within the bounds 
of the law and could not be submitted to pre- 
publication censorship. Powers of suspension were, 
however, assumed by the authorities the following 
year under the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i 
Suhun) law which remained in force for two years. 
Suspension and confiscation by Government decision 
were also allowed by the 1932 Press Law, which was 
later repeatedly amended, Press offences, penalties 
and other provisions being several times re-defined. 
The Directorate-General of the Press which had been 
disbanded in 1931 was reformed in 1933, becoming 
in 1940 the "Directorate General of Press, Broad- 
casting and Tourism", attached to the office of the 
Prime Minister, and, towards the end of the Demo- 
cratic Party administration (1950-60), the Ministry 
of Press, Broadcasting and Tourism. 

The Turkish Press was faced with great difficulties 
in 1928 when the Arabic alphabet was replaced by 
the Latin alphabet. Newspapers appeared for a time 
printed in both alphabets. Circulations dropped and 
the Government had to come to the assistance of the 
Press with subventions which were continued for 
three years. The development of the Press under the 
Turkish Republic was greatly influenced by a small 
number of distinguished journalists and journalistic 
dynasties. They include Ahmed Emin Yalman who, 
after leaving Vahit, founded Vatan in 1923, Inkildb in 
'934. was associated with Tan in 1935, then restarted 
Vatan and remained in control of it until i960 when 
he founded a new paper HUrvatan; the Nadi family 
who retained control until the present day of 
Cumhuriyet; the Simavi family who own the best- 
selling Hiirriyet, founded by Sedad Simavi; the 
Sertel family who edited Tan until 1946 when the 
newspaper's left-wing views provoked official 
displeasure and student demonstrations, as a result 
of which the paper's offices were wrecked; the Ali 
Na'i family, associated with Inkildb, Ikdam and, at 
present, with the successful Milliyet etc. An im- 
portant part was also played by the veteran journalist 
Hiiseyin Cahid (Yalcin) who, after having made his 
peace with the Republic, resumed journalistic 
activity in Yeni Sabah (started in 1938) and then 
re-started Tanin, in whose columns he defended the 
Allied cause during the Second World War and the 
policy of the Turkish Republican People's Party 
after it. 

Important political and social developments in 
the Republican period were reflected largely in 
political, social and literary periodicals: the People's 



476 DJ^ 

Houses (Halkevleri) organization had its organ in 
Vlku; new ideas of social development which inspired 
the policy of itatisme, were championed in KaA.ro 
(1933) ; a populist conception of literature took shape 
in the columns of Varhk (1933-); the revival 
of racialist and Pan-Turanian ideals, particularly 
noticiable in the years of the Second World War, was 
marked by the appearance of the reviews Bozkurt, 
Qxnaraltx etc. ; the vogue for extreme left-wing views 
at the end of the war had its counterpart in the 
periodical Gdriifler (and the short-lived newspaper 
Ger(ek); the influence of American news magazines 
led to the appearance of their Turkish equivalents, 
such as Akis (Ankara) and Kim (Istanbul); the 
influence of serious British political weeklies made 
itself felt in the fortnightly Forum (Ankara) etc. 

The years after the Second World War were 
marked by the political struggle between the 
Republican People's Party and its opponents, a 
struggle in which the Turkish Press played a 
prominent part. Between 1950 and i960 the Demo- 
cratic Party administration had an organ in Ankara 
in the daily Zafer, while in Istanbul the Government 
cause was defended by Havadis and criticized by 
the majority of the other dailies. The Turkish Press, 
as a whole, played an important part in preparing 
the ground for the military coup d'itat of 27 May 
i960 as well as in the political struggle which has 
followed it. Just as important, however, as this 
political rdle has been the increasing professional 
competence of the Press: equipment and lay-out 
were much improved, circulations soared (reaching 
the 300,000 mark), the industry became highly 
capitalized with a growing tendency to produce mass- 
circulation, non-political newspapers, providing not 
only news, but also entertainment. This tendency 
can be expected to gather strength, with a consequent 
reduction in the number of newspapers published in 
the country. Journalistic history was made in i960 
when the daily Aksam started simultaneous publi- 
cation in Istanbul and Ankara, thus opening a 
new line of approach to the problem of increasing 
circulations. In the meantime improved communi- 
cations and distribution have consolidated the 
dominant position of the Istanbul papers in the life 
of the Turkish Press. 

Bibliography: Selim Niizhet Gercek, Turk 
gazetecili^i, Istanbul 1931; Sadri Ertem, Propa- 
ganda, Ankara 1941; Server Iskit, Turkiye'de 
matbuat rejimleri, Ankara 1938; idem, Turkiye'de 
matbuat idareleri ve politikalart, Ankara 1943; 
Mustafa Nihat Ozon, Son astr Turk edebiyatt, 
Istanbul 1945, 416 ff.; Ragip Ozdem, Gazete dili in 
Tanzimat, Istanbul 1940, 859-931; Hasan Refik 
Ertug, Basin ve yaytn tarihi, Istanbul 1955, i, 
82-88; Necmettin Deliorman, Mefrutiyetten once 
. . . hudut harici Turk gazeteciligi, Istanbul 1943; 
J. Deny, &tat de la presse turque en jtiillet 102$ in 
RMM, lxi (1925), 43-74; Almanak, Istanbul 1933; 
Hilmi Z. Ulken, Turk dufuncesi ve dergilerimiz in 
Turk DUfuncesi, i, 1945, 82-87. 

(Vedad GOnyol and Andrew Mango) 



Compared with the press of the other Islamic 
countries, the Muslim press of Russia is of relatively 
recent date, mainly on account of the hostility of the 
Russian authorities towards movements of cultural 
revival among the non-Russian peoples of the 



Nevertheless, the first attempt to establish an 
organ in a Muslim language dates back to the be- 
ginning of the 19th century. It was due to a professor 
of Kazan University, Zapol'skiy, who in 1808 worked 
out a plan for a bilingual weekly in Russian and 
Tatar, but the project remained unfulfilled. In 1828, 
a second attempt was made, successfully this time, 
by a Russian official in the Military Administration 
of Transcaucasia, A. S. Sosnovskiy, who succeeded in 
publishing at Tiflis a Russian newspaper, Tifliskie 
Vedomosti, which also included an edition in Persian 
and, after in 1832, in Adhari Turkish. After a few 
numbers this original venture came to an end, and 
we have to wait until 1870 to see the appearance of 
the first newspaper intended for Muslims, the 
Turkistdn Wilayetinin Gazeti, published at Tashkent 
in Uzbek, on behalf of the Chancellery of the General 
Government of Turkestan, by the Russian missionary 
N. P. Ostrumov. Five years later, at Baku, there 
appeared the Adhari weekly Eklnti, edited by the 
author-schoolmaster Hasan Bey Melikov Zerdabi 
[q.v.1; and it is this little newspaper, with only 
700 printed copies, that can be regarded as the true 
ancestor of the Muslim press in the Russian Empire. 
Quite soon it brought upon itself the hostility of 
conservative .circles, and it was suspended by the 
Russian authorities in 1877. 

The Muslim press of Russia only reached inter- 
national rank with the famous Terdiuman, published 
at Baghce-Saray in 1883 by Isma'il Bey Gasprinski 
[see gaspIralI isma'Il], in the Crimean Tatar 
language strongly influenced by Ottoman Turkish. 
The Terdiuman survived until 1918. For some 
forty years it was the mouth-piece of the reform 
movement and of pan-Turkism in Russia, and for over 
twenty years remained the only press organ of the 
Muslims in Russia, since the severity of the Russian 
censorship over the Muslims, until 1905, prevented 
the rise of the national press. Until the revolution of 
1905, in fact, apart from the above-mentioned news- 
papers there were only six organs of local significance. 
Four were in Adhari Turkish : Diyd' (1879), P»3"» 
Kdfkdsiyd (1880), Keshkul (1884), and Shark-i rus 
(1903) at Tiflis; one in Kazak (Kirghiz) : Ddld 
Wildyeti, published in 1899 at Omsk (Siberia); 
and one in Kazan Tatar at St. Petersburg: Nur, 
in 1904. 

After the publication of the Manifesto of 17 
October 1905 granting liberty of the press to all the 
peoples of Russia, periodicals sprang up throughout 
all the regions of the Empire inhabited by Muslims, 
representing every sort of political opinion from 
right-wing conservative to left-wing socialist. 

Thus, from 1905 until the revolution of February 
1917, Muslims in the Russian Empire published 
159 periodicals (newspapers and reviews) in the fol- 
lowing languages : Kazan Tatar, 62 ; Adhari Turkish, 
61; Uzbek, 17; Kazak (Kirghiz), 8; Crimean Tatar, 
6; Arabic, 2; Turkmen, 2; Persian, 1. The principal 
centres for the editing and publication of the press 
were Baku (59 periodicals), Kazan (22), Orenburg 
(13), Tashkent (12), St. Petersburg (9), Astrakhan 
(9), Ufa (6), and Baghce-Saray (5). Periodicals and 
newspapers were also published at Troitzk, Ural'sk, 
Tomsk, Samarkand, Ashkabad, Bukhara, Samara, 
Karasu-Bazar, Omsk, Erevan, Kokand, Gandja and 
Petropavlovsk. 

The majority of the Muslim newspapers had only 
an ephemeral existence because of their very slender 
finances, lack of subscribers and, above all, the 
interference of the censorship which after 1908 again 
became very vigilant. Some of them, however, played 



a leading part in developing a national feeling among 
the Turkish peoples of Russia. 

Among the most remarkable which were read far 
beyond the frontiers of the Russian Empire, we 
should mention the liberal organs Wakit and Shurd 
of Orenburg which, from 1906 to 1917, made them- 
selves the disseminators of pan-Turkism in Russia; 
Kazan Mukhbire (1905) and Yulduz (1906) in Kazan; 
Ifaydt (1904), Irshdd (1905) and Fuyuddt (1906) in 
Baku; Molld Nasreddin (1906) in Tiflis; the last- 
named, a satirical weekly, had a fairly wide circu- 
lation in Persian Adharbaydjan. Other organs, of 
local importance and with a more restricted circu- 
lation, also exerted a lasting influence on the cultural 
life of the Muslims, such as the Kazak of Orenburg 
{1913), published in Kazak by Ahmed Baytursunov. 
In Turkestan alone, where the Russian authorities 
maintained a very close watch on the cultural 
development of the Muslim population, there 
existed no real press, all the organs which made 
their appearance there being swiftly banned by the 
censorship. 

The overthrow of the monarchy in February 1917 
introduced a new chapter in the history of the 
Muslim press in Russia. The earlier, and often 
apolitical, periodicals were succeeded by a 'com- 
mitted' press reflecting the opinions of the various 
political groups of Muslim society which, after 
October 1918, whether from intention or force of 
circumstances, were to be involved in the Revolution 
and civil war. From February 1917 to the end of 
1920, 256 periodicals made their appearance on 
Russian territory, spread over 53 towns and large 
villages. Inferior in quality to its predecessors, the 
press of the revolutionary period attempted to 
reach wider circles, both by a larger circulation and 
also by the use of language nearer to popular speech. 
Kazan Tatar enjoyed unrivalled supremacy since 
nearly half (139 exactly) of the periodicals published 
during this period were in this language, Adhari 
Turkish coming far behind with only 39 organs, 
followed by Uzbek (37), Kazak (21), and Crimean 
Tatar( 7). In 1917 other newspapers also appeared, 
in Turkish (2 at Batum), Kumik (3 at Temir Khan 
Shura), in Avar, Abkhaz and Lak. 

In 1921, with the victory of the Red Army in the 
civil war, a new era began, that of the Soviet press, 
distinguished from earlier periodicals by its mono- 
lithic character, its very wide circulation and, lastly, 
by the appearance of new languages. Under the 
Soviet regime, six Turkic languages, two Iranian 
languages and nine Ibero-Caucasian Muslim langu- 
ages became literary languages. Until 1924-8 they 
were written in Arabic characters; between 1928 
and 1930 they were given a Latin alphabet, which 
was replaced between 1938 and 1940 by the Cyrillic 
alphabet. These new languages are : Bashkir, 
Kirghiz (formerly Kara-kirghiz), Nogay, Karakalpak 
and Uyghur (Turkic languages); Kurdish and Tat 
(Iranian languages); Abkhaz, Kabard, Adighe, 
Cecen, Ingush, Abaza, Darghin, Lezg and Tabasaran 
(Ibero-Caucasian languages). The total number of 
periodicals has much increased. In 1954 in the Soviet 
Union there existed (counting only the dailies) : 
190 newspapers in Uzbek, 171 in Kazak, 116 in 
Adhari Turkish, 107 in Kazan Tatar, 72 in Kirghiz, 
70 in Tadjik, 53 in Turkmen, 30 in Bashkir, 19 in 
Avar and Ossetic, 17 in Kabard, 13 in Karakalpak 
11 in Darghin, 9 in Kumik, 8 in Lezg, 5 in Abkhaz, 
4 in Nogay, 3 in Uyghur and Lak, 2 in Tabarasan and 
Abaza, 1 in Adighe, 1 in Cerkes, 1 in Tat and 1 in 
Kurdish. Since then, new periodicals have been 



RIDA 477 

published in Cecen, Ingush, Crimean Tatar and 

Karacay-balkar. 

Bibliography: No comprehensive study on 
the Muslim press of Russia exists, but only mono- 
graphs or articles for certain regions. For the 
Tatar press, besides the basic work of Ismail 
Ramiev, Wakittt Tatar Matbu'dti, Kazan 1926, 
fragmentary information is contained in Elif-Bi, 
Iz tatarskoy musul 'manskoy pecati, Kazan 1908; 
Fedotov, Pecat' Tatrespubliki, in Bulletin d'in- 
formation du V.O.K.S., Moscow 1927, no. 23-5; 
T. Nasirov, Sovet vlastenin berence ellerinda tatar 
vakitli matbu'dtl, in Sovet Addbiyati Kazan, no. 9 
1956); A. Saadi, Tatar addbiyati ta'rikhi, Kazan 
1926; A. Safarov, Z istorii tatarskoy periodicnoy 
prcsi- igo5-25, in Shidny Svit, Kharkov 1928, 
no. 3-4 (in Ukrainian) ; Dj. Validov, Oterki istorii 
obrazovannosti i litteraturi Tatar do revolyutsii J917 
goda, Moscow 1933; P. 2uze, Musul' manskaya 
pecat' v Rossii, St. Petersburg 191 1. 

On the Caucasian Adhari press, we have a 
detailed study in Jeyhun bey Hajibeyli, The origins 
of the national press in Azerbaydjan, in The Asiatic 
Review, xxvi (1930), fas. 88 and xxvii, fas. 90, and 

mukhtasar td'rikhtesi, in Yeni Kafkasiya, Istanbul, 
iii/9. For the origins of the Caucasian press one 
may consult the article of I. Enikopolov, Pervaya 
turkskaya gazeta na Kavkazc, in Kul'tura i pis'men- 
nost' Vostoka, iii, Baku 1928, as well as the mono- 
graphs devoted to the newspaper Ekinci, the 
most important being Adharbaydjan matbu'-dtinin 
yilligi-Ekinci, Baku 1926. Several works have 
been devoted to the review Molld Nasreddin, 
among them being A. H. M. Ahmedov, Molla 
Nasreddin Zurnalinin yayilmasi ve ta?siri hak- 
kinda, in Izvestiya Akadcmii Nauk Adher. SSR, 
Series of Social Sciences, i, Baku 1958 and A. 
Sharif, Molla Nasreddin, Baku 1946. 

Information on the history of the press in the 
Crimea, with more particular reference to the 
Terdiumdn, is contained in the work of Cafer 
Seydahmet, Gaspirah Ismail Bey, Istanbul 1934, 
and in the study of Ahmed Ozenbashli, Geien devri- 
mize tenkitli bir bakis, in Oku Ishleri, Baghce-Saray 
June 1925. 

For the press of Turkestan, we possess an 
excellent monograph of Ziya Saidov, Uzbek vakitli 
matbu'dti tarihige matiriyyalar, Samarkand- 
Tashkent 1927. For the Turkmen press, an article 
of Mihaylov, Natsional'naya pecat' Turkmenii, in 

and for the press of Daghistan, that of Sh. Mago- 
medov, Kumikskaya periodiceskaya pecat' v igiy-8 
godakh, in Trudl Instituta Istorii Partii pri Dage- 
stanshom obkome K.P.S.S., ii, Mahac-Kala 1958. 
(Ch. Quelquejay) 



e Mus 



N China 






{a) China. — China has a Muslim population of 
some ten to twelve million persons according to the 
census of 1959. About two-thirds live in Sinkiang 
province where they constitute an overwhelming 
majority. The following table contains data on the 
geographical distribution of Chinese mosques in 
1935 and on Muslim periodical publications during 
the period 1908-39. We may assume that an average 
Chinese mosque serves 200 to 250 people. In the 
absence of precise statistics, the table therefore 
indicates the distribution of the Muslim population 
in the mid-Thirties. 



Province 


Number of 


Number of 




mosques 


periodicals 




(1935) 


(1908-39) 


Anhwei 


1,515 




Chekiang 


239 




Chinghai 


1,031 




Fukien 






Honan 


2,703 


4 


Hopei 


2,942 


33 


Hunan 


932 


2 


Hupei 


1. 134 


4 


Kansu 


3,891 




Kiangsi 


205 




Kiangsu 


2,302 


24 


Kwangsi 


429 


2 


Kwangtung 


201 


7 


Kweichow 


449 




Manchuria 


6,811 


2 


Mongolia 


1,083 


1 




1,931 




Shantung 


2,513 


1 








Sinkiang 


2,045 




Szechwan 


2,275 




Yunnan 


3,971 


6 


Others 




5 



Total 



42,371 



A total of 100 Chinese-Muslim papers have been 
located. One was published abroad (1908), and for 
13 the dates of origin are unknown. The remaining 
86 were founded between 1913 and 1939; 18 maga- 
zines being established between 191 3 and 1926. In 
the decade marked by the establishment of the 
Chinese Nationalist Government in Peking (1927) 
and the beginning of the Chinese- Japanese conflict 
( I 937), tne press expanded rapidly, and 63 new 
journals came into being — 38 after the capital was 
moved from Peking to Nanking (1932). The outbreak 
of hostilities between China and Japan brought 
repressions and most of the papers disappeared. The 
five new periodicals which were issued during the 
next two years were actually official publications of 
the two combatants aimed at gaining increased 
Muslim support of the war effort. 

The frequency of issue is known for 71 magazines : 
12 appeared at least weekly; 50 — monthly or semi- 
monthly; 9 — quarterly or annually. One magazine 
had a circulation of more than 3,000 copies; eight 
others ranged from 1,000 to 2,000 copies, while the 
remainder served local needs and ran to a few 
hundred copies only. Not more than six periodicals 
exceeded 40 pages. 

Most of the publications appeared in Chinese, 
though a few were written partly or entirely in 
Japanese, Arabic, Uygur (Eastern Turk!), and 
English. The great majority were religious in content, 
while the remainder in addition dealt with historical 
or contemporary problems. Most of the magazines 
were printed and circulated in the cultural and 
national centres of Peiping and Nanking, and in 
large port cities, such as Tientsin, Shanghai, Canton, 
and Hongkong. 

Yiieh Hua ( ff ffi), Peiping, was the leading 
Muslim national magazine with a circulation of 



3,000. It was begun in 1929 under private subsidies 
and attempted to represent all factions fairly. In 
its columns were domestic and international news 
items pertaining to Islam. 



T'u Chiieh ( S 



fi ), Nanking, w 



; established 



in 1934. It was the most substantial Muslim organ 
in the capital area, and advocated the "Three 
People's Principles", improvement of education, 
domestic unification, and contacts with co-religonists 
abroad. 

T'ien Fang Hstteh Li Yiieh K'an ( ^ Ht &L 
J|| ^J "J-fJ ), Canton, was founded in 1929. It was 
distributed monthly without charge, but financial 
support was solicited. T'ien Fang dealt chiefly with 
contemporary issues, and the editor answered readers' 
queries in a special column. 

The Muslim communities in the large cities during 
the 1930's organized protest demonstrations under 
Ahungs (Mullahs) whenever Islam wa.i slandered in 
the Chinese press. In some instances the offices and 
printing plants of the offending . newspapers were 
wrecked. The Nationalist government, needing the 
good will of its Muslim subjects, took prompt action 
to prevent further insult. 

During the first decade of the twentieth century, 
in addition to native papers, some liberal Arabic and 
Turkish journals advocating constitutional reform 
were imported from Constantinople. The need for 
them was gone after the revolution of 191 1. 

The Muslim press in China was late in developing 
because of low educational and economic standards 
and because of language difficulties. Arabic was 
known only to religious leaders and to a few theolo- 
gically trained laymen. The Ahungs, on the other 
hand, had often only a rudimentary knowledge of 
the Chinese script. Most of the population were 
illiterate. The declining Manchu dynasty was 
suspicious of any particularistic or sectarian tenden- 
cies, especially in the Turki-speaking north-west 
borderland. One might say that the revolution of 
191 1 paved the way for the Muslim press in China, 
while the Communist revolution of 1949 decisively 
ended it. Muslim publication efforts were fragmen- 
tary. Most magazines were too small or too ephemeral 
to have a lasting influence. In contrast to the 
Protestant and Catholic missions in China, the 
Muslims lacked a centralized organization and 
adequate funds. 

(b) Japan. — Japan has very few Muslims, but 
Japanese interest in Islam dates from the invasion 
of China (1937-45) when efforts were made to win 
over Chinese Muslim minorities. Prior to that date 
Japan experienced three private attempts to publish 



m - 



Muslim 



Muslim papers. Hsing Hui ( m 
Awake") was established as a quarterly by Chinese 
students of the Muslim College in Tokyo for distri- 
bution in China; it dates back to 1908. In 1925, I. T. 
Sakuma, a Japanese business man and convert to 
Islam, founded in Shanghai the progressive Mu 
Kuang ( Xjg jfc "Light of Islam") with articles in 
Chinese, Japanese, and English. He desired an 
Islamic revival in China, Korea, and Japan and even 
advocated the translation of the Kur'an into 
Chinese; Mu Kuang survived only three issues. Hui 
Chiao (fiijj Wt "Islam"), a Peiping monthly 



DJARlDA — DJARIR 



issues also contained biographies of Chinese Muslim 
leaders. 

Following the actual occupation of Chinese terri- 
tory, Japanese military authorities launched new 
Muslim papers, or adapted existing periodicals to 
their own purposes. The Japanese took over the 
ten-year old illustrated monthly Chen Tsung Pao 
( 'S ij^ ^B ) after they occupied Peiping in 1937. 
Thereafter it assumed a strongly anti-Soviet 
character. The Hsing Shih Pao ( jgj|[ fl^p ^g ), a 

non-political monthly, first appeared in Mukden, 
Manchuria, in 1925. It was revived by the Japanese 
in 1937, reporting mainly on Muslim life in Japan. 
Copies were distributed locally free of charge. 
Another monthly by the name of Hui Chiao 
( fg| i|ar "Islam") began to appear in April 1938 

under the auspices of the Japanese-sponsored 
United Chinese Muslim Association, Peiping. This 
was a Japanese propaganda organ, but it was 
printed in Chinese. The Hsin Min Pao ( ^jfj- ^ 
itj ), official Chinese newspaper of the Japanese 
occupation authorities in Peiping, launched in 
October 1939 a weekly supplement, the Tsung Chiao 
Chou K'an ( ^ ^ ^ ^jj )» which furnished 
historical and religious information on Islam. 

Japanese research on Islam and Islamic peoples 
is scattered among numerous academic journals. 
Only two Japanese periodicals are entirely devoted 
to this topic. Both are published in Tokyo and date 
from 1959 and i960 respectively. Chu-Kint6 geppo 

( 4 1 *2£ Bl M f$ "Middle and Near East 



Kyokai [J* & f >g ^ jft fc^Z) 

publishes Arabu ( "^P ^p ^7 "Arab") reporting 
on Arabs and Arab countries. 

Bibliography: R. Loewenthal, The Moham- 
medan press in China, in Collectanea Commissionis 
Synodalis in Sinis, Peking, xi/9-10 (Sept.-Oct. 
1938), 867-94, with 2 charts.— Reprinted in: The 
religious periodical press in China, Peking, The 
Synodal Commission in China, 1940, 211-49. 

(Rudolf Loewenthal) 



There is a regular weekly newspaper in Hausa, 
Gaskiya ta fi kwabo, printed in Zaria, which began 
publication in January 1939. In addition, news 
sheets in the main recognized Hausa dialects are also 
published, while the Kano Times includes articles 
in the Hausa language. 

It was on Saturday 14 November 1931 that there 
issued from the newly built printing house at 
Kaduna the first number of The Northern Provinces 
News. It consisted of sixteen pages of items in three 
columns, printed respectively in English, in Hausa in 
a roman orthography, and in Arabic, together with 
a page of photos of stallions and agricultural subjects. 
The reader is told "Mallams of the Secretariat have 
written the Hausa and Arabic translations, and 
compositors sent to the Press by the Emir of Kano 
have set up the Arabic type". This number was 



produced "as a basis for discussion as to whether 
Residents and Native Chiefs would desire the regular 
issue of a News Sheet of this or a similar type in the 
future". The next issue was on 9 April 1932, and had 
the Hausa title added, Jaridar Nigeria Ta Arewa, 
together with an Arabic title. It consisted of twenty- 
six pages of print and three pages of pictures. The 
third number also included items translated into 
two other Northern vernaculars, Tiv and Fula 
(Fulani). By July 1934, when number eight appeared, 
the paper was of a smaller format, and was printed 
only in Hausa, and no longer bore titles in English 
and Arabic. The tenth issue, 1 June 1935, included 
an article by R.M. East, of the Translation Bureau, 
Zaria, on the subject of Hausa books and writing. 
The spelling included new letters, k, d and b. 

After the Translation Bureau in Zaria began 
publication of Gaskiya ta fi kwabo, it also produced 
a smaller news sheet Jakadiya, in a simpler form of 
the language, as well as a news sheet in Tiv. In 
addition, it undertook the production of a large 
number of cheap pamphlets in Hausa on a wide 
range of educational topics, from well-digging to 
baby care. More literary works in Hausa were pro- 
duced, as well as books in other Nigerian languages, 
such as Igbo. The Hausa newspaper has helped to 
develop the written language and has set a standard 
for the importation into Hausa of a large number of 
borrowed words — mostly from English. The printing 
of the news also in the chief dialects is now enriching 
the standard language, by enabling people from all 
over the Hausa-speaking area to share and enjoy the 
different forms, expressions and idioms of this widely 
used and colourful language. (J. Carnochan) 



[see si 



ient]. 



DJARlMA (a.), also djurm, a sin, fault, offence. 
In Ottoman usage, in the forms djerime and djereme, 
it denoted fines and penalties (see djurm). In the 
modern laws enacted in Muslim countries it has 
become a technical term for crime (djurm in Pakistan). 
For the corresponding Islamic concepts, see hadd, 
and for penal law in general, c ukOba. (Ed.) 

DJARlR b. 'Atiyya b. al-Khatafa (Hudhayfa) 
b. Badr was among the most important hid±a'- 
writers of the Umayyad period (the other two were 
his rivals al-AWjtal and al-Farazdak [qq.v.], and may 
be considered one of the greatest Islamic-Arabic 
poets of all time. He belonged to the clan of the 
Banu Kulayb b. Yarbu c an, a branch of the Mudari 
Tamlm who were widespread in the eastern part of 
central and northern Arabia. He was born in the 
middle of the ist/7th century and began by entering 
into verbal disputes with second class writers in his 
own district, ostensibly because he himself had been 
attacked but in fact because of his naturally argu- 
mentative disposition. In 64/683-4 or shortly after- 
wards he began his famous forty-year-long dispute 
with al-Farazdak, who was a foe worthy of his steel. 
It was caused indirectly by a long quarrel between 
the Banu Dhuhayl, a branch of the Banu Yarbii c , 
and the Mudjashi c , also Tamlmi and the tribe to 
which al-Farazdak belonged, over the theft of a 
camel. After they had abused each other from a 
distance for some time, Djarlr went to 'Irak and 
met al-Farazdak for the first time in Basra. There 
were such scenes that the authorities had to put a 
stop to the meetings — although without any lasting 



Djarir began his public 



t by writing poems 



48o 



DJARlR — DJARIYA b. KUDAMA 



in praise of al-Hakam b. Ayyub, an official of 
the governor of 'Irak, al-Hadjdjadj. Al-Hakam 
recommended him to his master who invited him 
to Wasit. After staying with al-Hadjdjadj for 
some time and writing a series of %asidas of praise 
to him, Diarir was sent with his son Muhammad 
to 'Abd al-Malik's court in Damascus. He was first 
rejected, then graciously received by c Abd al-Malik. 
But in the long run their relationship was not 
particularly good, for the caliph favoured the 
Taghlibi Christian al-Akhtal ("al-Akhtal is the poet 
of the Umayyads!") who took al-Farazdak's part 
against Diarir. Djarir's relations with 'Abd al- 
Malik's successor al-Walid were even worse ; the latter 
supported his favourite 'Adi b. al-Rika' [q.v.] against 
Djarir's attacks. In fact Diarir and his friend Ladj'a 
al-Tayml are even said to have been whipped and 
publicly stripped on account of some satirical lines 
on the court ladies. However he was on a rather 
better footing with 'Umar II who, as a pious man, 
took no very passionate interest in either eulogies or 
satires, and remained courteously neutral. Never- 
theless he does seem to have preferred Diarir to his 
rivals. Djarir also attempted to win the favour of 
the later caliphs Yazld II and Hisham by writing 
poems in praise of them. Finally, in old age he 
retired to the Yamama where he owned property 
(in Uthayfiyya). He died there when over eighty, in 
1 10/728-9 or a little later, shortly after the death of 
his opponent al-Farazdak. Among his numerous 
descendents were three sons (Bilal, 'Ikrima and 
Nuh) who also produced poetry but did not, how- 
ever, approach their father's importance. 

In Djarir's diwan, collected by Muhammad b. 
Habib (died 245/859), the satirical poems occupy 
the most space, and of them the larger number are 
directed against al-Farazdak. The extent to which 
contemporaries were interested in this poetic battle 
is shown by a report of a quarrel which broke out 
among soldiers in al-Muhallab's camp during the 
Azraki war — a quarrel eventually decided (thanks 
to one of the Kharidji soldiers) in Djarir's favour. 
The total number of poets satirized by Djarir is 
something over forty. After the satirical poems, the 
poems of praise form the largest category in the 
diwan, but it also contains some fine elegies. Accord- 
ing to his adversary al-Akhtal, Djarir was particularly 
skilled in the nasib and the tashbih. The Arabic 
literary historians and critics rightly praise Djarir's 
fluent diction. 

Djarir's work does indeed show him to be a true 
descendent of the old Bedouin poets, with all their 
strong points and weaknesses. In his work and that 
of his rivals al-Akhtal and al-Farazdak, the old 
Arabic form of fcasida-poetry underwent "an Indian 
summer of undeniable loveliness' (G. E. Von 
Grunebaum). 

There are several editions of Djarir's diwan in which 
the poems are sometimes arranged according to the 
rhyme-letters. Mahmud 'Abd al-Mu 5 min al-Shawaribl 
is the man chiefly responsible for the first of these 
editions (Cairo 1313); its sources are not given. The 
editions of Muhammad al-Sawi (Cairo 1353). and 
Karam al-Bustani (Beirut 1379/1960) are no more 
worthy of critical attention. The NakaHd, however, 
of Djarir and Farazdak, as collected by Abu 'Ubayda 
(d. ca. 210/825) and revised by others, have been 
published in a model edition by A. A. Bevan (Leiden 
1905-12), and furnished with a glossary and indexes. 
Finally, the NakaHd of Djarir and Akhtal have also 
been published, according to the recension of Abu 
Tammam, by the Akhtal scholar Salhani (Beirut 



1922). Both NakaHd also contain poems attacking 

other persons and their answers. 

Bibliography: Djumahi (ed. Hell), 86-108; 
Ibn Kutayba, al-Shi c r, 283; Aghdni', viii, 3-89; 
Marzubani, Muwashshah, 118-32 and passim, cf. 
Brockelmann, II, 53-5; SI, 86-7. Cf. also Rescher, 
Abriss, i, 265-74 and A. Schaade, Diarir (supple- 
ment to the German edition of EI 1 . 

(A. SCHAADE-[H. GXTJE]) 

DJARIYA [see 'abdJ. 

EiARIYA B. fcUDAMA B. Zuhayr (or: b. 
Malik b. Zuhayr) b. al-Husayn b. Rizah b. As'ad 
b. Budjayr (or: Shudjayr) b. RabI'a, Abu Ayyub 
(or: Abu Kudama, or: Abu Yazld) al-Tamimi, al- 
Sa'di, nicknamed "al-Muharrik", the "Burner" — was 
aCompanionof the Prophet (about the identity 
of Djariya b. Kudama with Djuwayriya b. Kudama 
see Tahdhib, ii, 54, 125, and Isaba, i, 227, 276). 
Djariya gained his fame as a staunch supporter of 
c Ali b. Abi Talib. 

According to a tradition quoted by Ibn Sa c d 
(Tabakdt, vii/i, 38) Djariya witnessed the attempt 
at the assassination of c Umar; later; he was in Basra 
when the forces of Talha and al-Zubayr entered 
the city. He harshly reproached 'A'isha (al-Tabari, 
ed. Cairo 1939, iii, 482; al-Imdma wa 'l-Siydsa, 
ed. Cairo 1331 A.H., i, 60), and took part in the 
battle of the Camel with 'All (although his tribe, 
the Sa'd, remained neutral) ; he was given command 
of the Sa'd and the Ribab of Basra in the battle 
of Siffin and distinguished himself in this battle 
(Nasr b. Muzahim: WaFat Siffin, 153, 295, ed. 
Beirut). He seems to have approved the idea of 
arbitration and was among the delegation of the 
heads of Tamim, who tried to mitigate al-Ash'ath 
and the Azd (al-Mubarrad, al-Kdmil (ed. Wright) 539). 

Djariya remained faithful to 'AH after the arbi- 
tration and supported him in his struggle against the 
Khawaridj: he was at the head of the troop levied 
with difficulty by c Abd Allah b. 'Abbas from Basra 
(37 A.H.) and despatched to fight the Khawaridj 
(al-Tabari, iv, 58; Caetani, Annali, x, 85). He 
remained faithful when the influence of c Ali began 
to shrink and C A1I was deserted by his friends. After 
his conquest of Egypt Mu'awiya, being aware of the 
peculiar situation in Basra, in which the differences 
between the tribal groups were acute and the parti- 
sans of 'Ali not numerous, decided to wrest the city 
from 'AH. The details about these events holding 
'Irak are provided by al-Baladhuri's Ansdb al-Ashrdf 
among other sources (fols. 2o6b-20ga). Mu'awiya sent 
to Basra (in 38 A.H.) his emissary, 'Abd Allah b. 
'Amir (or b. 'Ami) al-Hadrami, [see ibn al- 
hadramI] in order to win the hearts of the Banu 
Tamim in Basra. He gained in fact the protection 
of the Banu Tamim. The deputy prefect of Basra 
Ziyad b. Abihi was compelled to seek protection for 
himself with the Azd in Basra. 'Ali sent his emissary, 
A'yan b. Dubay'a al-Mudjashi'I in order to prevent 
the fall of the city into the hands of Mu'awiya; he 
was, however, killed by a group of men said to have 
been Kharidjites (although the version of the parti- 
cipation of 'Abd Allah Ibn al-Hadrami seems to be 
plausible). Ziyad asked 'Ali to send to Basra Djariya 
b. Kudama, who was highly respected in his tribe 
(Ibn Abi '1-Hadid, Shark Nahdj al-Baldgha, i, 353). 
Djariya arrived at Basra with a troop of 50 warriors 
(or 500— see al-Tabari, iv, 85; or 1000 or 1500— see 
Ansdb, fol. 208b), met Ziyad b. Abihi, rallied the 
followers of 'Ali, succeeded in winning the hearts 
of groups of Tamim who joined him, attacked 
the forces of Ibn al-Hadrami and defeated them. Ibn 



DJARIYA b. KUDAMA — DJARRAH 



al-Hadrami retreated with a group of 70 followers to 
a fortified Sasanid castle, belonging to a Tamlml 
called Sunbil (or Sunbil). Djariya besieged the castle, 
ordered wood to be placed around it and set the wood 
on fire. Ibn al-Hadraml and his followers were burnt 
alive. There are controversial traditions about the 
course of the encounter between Djariya and Ibn 
al-Hadrami (see Ansdb, fol. 208b). According to a 
rather curious tradition (refuted by al-Baladhuri) 
Djariya came to Basra as an emissary of Mu'awiya 
together with Ibn al-Hadraml, but forsook him how- 
ever in Basra {Ansdb, fol. 209a). After the victory of 
Djariya, Ziyad returned to the residence of the 
Governor of Basra. 

The authority of C A1I was thus secured in Basra. 
Ziyad b. Ablhi praised in his letter to c Ali the action 
of Djariya and described him as the "righteous 
servant" (al-'-abd al-sdlih). It was Djariya who advised 
C A1I in 39 A.H. to send Ziyad to the province of Fars 
to quell the rebellion of the Persians who refused 
to pay their taxes (al-Tabari, iv, 105). According to 
Ibn Kathir (cf. Ibn al-Athir, al-Kdmil, iii, 165) the 
revolt was caused by the brutal action of burning 
committed by Djariya (al-Biddya, vii, 320). 

Djariya fought his last fight in the service of C A1I 
against Busr b. Abi Artat \q.v.\ in 40 A.H. When the 
tidings about the expedition of Busr reached 'AH 
he dispatched Djariya with a troop of 2000 men to 
pursue Busr (another troop under the command of 
Wahb b. Mas'Od was also despatched by 'Ali). 
Djariya, following Busr, reached the Yemen (so al- 
Baladhuri, Ansdb 211b; according to al-Tabari, iv, 
107 he reached Nadjran) and severely punished the 
partisans of Mu'awiya. Pursuing the retreating Busr, 
Djariya arrived at Mecca and was told that C A1I 
had been killed. He compelled the people of Mecca 
to swear allegiance to the Caliph who would be 
elected by the followers of C A1I. In Medina he 
compelled the people to swear allegiance to Hasan 
b. c Ali. 

In the time of Mu'awiya there was a reconciliation 
between Djariya and Mu'awiya. Anecdotal stories 
report about the talks between Djariya and Mu'awiya 
(al-NakdHd, ed. Bevan, 608; al-Baladhuri, Ansdb, 
fol. 358b; al-Djahiz, al-Baydn, ii, 186; al-Mubarrad, 
al-Kdmil, ed Wright, 40). According to a fairly 
reliable tradition in al-Baladhuri's Ansdb (fol. 1048b) 
Mu'awiya granted Djariya a large fee of 900 djarib. 
Djariya died in Basra. His funeral was attended 
by al-Ahnaf. 

Bibliography: al-Bukhari, Ta'rlkh, i'2 (ed. 
Haydarabad 1362 A.H.) 236, 240 (N. 2309, 2325); 
al-Dhahabi, Ta'rikh, ii, 182, 187; Ibn 'Asakir, 
Ta'rikh, ed. 1331 A.H., iii, 223; Wellhausen, The 
Ar. kingdom, 100; Ibn al-Kalbt, Djamhara, Ms. 
Br. Mus., fol, 82a; Ibn Durayd, al-Ishtikdk, (ed. 
'Abd al-Salam Harun), 253; al-Baladhuri, Ansdb 
al-Ashrdf, fols. 2o6b-209a, 211a, 366a, 358b, 1048b, 
1130b; Muh. b. Habib, al-Muhabbar, index; al- 
Mubarrad, al-Kdmil, index; Ibn al-Athir. al-Kdmil 
(ed. Cairo 1301 A.H.), iii, 156, 165-7; Ibn Kathlr, 
al-Biddya, vii, 316, 322, 320; Ibn Sa'd, Tabakdt, 
index; al-Ya'kObi, Ta'rikh, index; al-'Askalani: 
Tahdhib al-tahdhib, s.v. Djariya and Djuwayriya; 
al-'Askalani, al-Isdba, s.v. Djariya and Djuway- 
riya; al-Marzubani, Mu'djam al-shu c ard, (ed. 
Krenkow), 306; Muir, The Caliphate, Edinburgh 
1924, 280; Taha Husayn, c Ali wa banuhu, 143-* 
150-1; al-Jabari, index; a tradition of Djariya 
and its parallels, see: Djami' Ibn Wahb (ed. 
David- Weill) 54, 106; Ibn al-Hadid. Sharh Nahdj 
al-Baldgha, ed. 1329 A.H. (M. J. Kister) 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



DJARR [see nahwj. 

DJARRAH. "he who heals wounds", "surgeon"; 
djirdha, "the art of healing wounds , "surgery", 
from djurh, "injury", "wounds" — like the German 
"Wund , whence "Wundarzt", "Wundarznei", etc. 
In the time of the Arabic versions of the Greek texts 
on medicine, another expression corresponding 
exactly to djirdha made its way into Arabic medical 
language and was adopted by the classical authors, 
namely: c amal bi 'l-yad (Ibn Sina) or c amal al-yad 
(al-Zahrawi), "work, action performed with the 
hand" or "by hand" (which was only a literal 
translation of ^eipoupyia). But this last expression, 
perhaps for practical reasons of usage, was gradually 
to lose ground in the course of centuries and ulti- 
mately to be replaced by the first, which is the only 
one to have remained in use until today, with all its 
derivatives. However, it is under the title c amal bi 
'l-yad or c amal al-yad, in classical texts, that we find 
mentioned many expressions relating to medico- 
surgical techniques. From general surgery we may 
note such terms as rabt "ligature" (of veins), kat c 
"excision" (of soft diseased substance), bait and batr 
"incision" (for the removal of morbid matter), kayy 
"cauterization by fire (from x<x(eiv "to burn"), with 
the object of surgical excision; from specialized 
surgery such terms as hadh "operation for cataract", 
"reclinatio"); from minor or simple surgery, djabr 

from manual practices having medical purposes, 
like hadjm "cupping" without or after the shart 
"scarification", fasd "bleeding", kayy itself as a 
revulsive or stimulating remedy, etc. 

From < amal [al-yad] there remain in modern 
Arabic only the words '■amaliyya, followed by the 
adjective djirdhiyya, "operation", or "surgical 
operation" properly speaking, and 'amali, "opera- 
tive" or "operational". 

In old texts one very often comes across the forms 
[Hlddj] bi 'l-hadid or bi 'l-dla, the [cura] cum ferro and 
cum instrument respectively of the Latin translators 
of the Middle Ages, referring specifically to surgical 
operations which necessitated the use of cutting 
instruments. 

Djarrdh occurs for the first time in Arabic literature 
in translations of the 3rd/9th century, and from there 
the expression made its way into medical literature. 
As the name of a well-known family we find the word 
in the 4th/gth century [see Ibn al-Djarrah]. However, 
in contradistinction to the custom of the Hellenistic- 
Roman period, in Islam, as in mediaeval Europe, 
the surgeon has always been regarded as a worker of 
an inferior order. It is probable that this point of view 
derives in essence from the Islamic aversion from 
any interference with the condition of the human 
body, and even with the bodies of animals (the 
prohibition of vivisection of animals). With regard 
to the most celebrated and distinguished doctors in 
Islam such as Ibn Sina and Ibn Zuhr, we know that 
they vigorously expressed their dislike of every sort 
of surgical treatment, which they left to the djarrdh 
and mudjabbir (bone-setter and bone-healer). In 
spite of that, Ibn Sina devoted a large part of his 
Kdnun to the art of surgery (Him al-djirdha), and 
his precursor 'Ali b. al-'Abbas al-Madjusi (d. 384/ 
994) treated surgery in great detail in the ninth book 
of his work Kdmil al-sina'-a, devoting no less than 
no chapters to it, and added to the tenth book a 
special theory of surgical therapy. 

The only specialized surgical manual of any 
importance in Islamic medical literature seems to 
be al-'Umda fi sind'at al-djirdha of Ibn al-Kuff 

31 



DJARRAH — DJARRAHIDS 



(Syria, 7th/i3th century). The work which exerted 
the greatest influence on the West was the part on 
surgery by Abu '1-Kasim al-Zahrawi (Cordova, 4th/ 
10th century), section XXX of his Kitdb al-Tasrif. 
This part was translated into Latin at a very early 
date and was studied with great enthusiasm in the 
West, although close links between this work and 
Paul of Aegina's surgery can be noted. It is illustrated 
with drawings of instruments. In the works on hisba 
[q.v.] one frequently finds a section devoted to 
doctors, oculists and surgeons, as for example in the 
unpublished book of al-Shayzari. In it the surgeon is 
required to be familiar with the anatomy and therapy 
of Galen (Djalinus [q.v.]) and to possess a well- 
assorted set of instruments which must include 
methods for checking bleeding. The work of the bone- 
setter (mudiabbir) is given special attention by al- 
Shayzari: he is required to know the number and 
shape of all the bones as well as Paul of Aegina's 
chapter on bone fractures and sprains. 

Throughout the Middle Ages, Arab surgery was 
always advanced in comparison with European 
surgery, and indeed it helped the latter to make 
great advances (it is known that Lanfranc of Milan, 
a famous exponent of surgery in Paris in the 13th 
century, had based his theories almost exclusively 
on the Makdla fi 'amal al-yad, the famous treatise 
De chirurgia of Abu '1-Kasim al-Zahrawi). But Arab 
surgery avoided every kind of destructive operation 
(amputation), even apart from prohibitions or 
scruples of a religious nature. Nor did it fail to 
contribute as well to the knowledge of the human 
body, replacing anatomical dissection, however, 
casually and in a limited way. Incidentally, Him al- 
tashrih "anatomy" was always regarded as an in- 
dispensable science even in the practice of specialized 
surgery. In this connexion one may recall the anec- 
dote of al-Razi dismissing the man who was to have 
operated oil him for cataract, but who had been 
unable to answer the questions on ocular anatomy 
previously put to him by the great doctor (Ibn Abi 
Usaybi'a). 

Bibliography: Ibn Abi Usavbi'a, 'Uyiln al- 
anbd>, Cairo 1882, i; H. Bowen, The life and times 
of '■All b. <Isd, Cambridge 1928, 33-6; 'All b. al- 
<Abhas al-MadjOsi, Kami! al-sind'a, Bulak 1924, 
li, 454-607; Ibn SIna, Kdmln fi 'l-tibb, Bulak 1924, 
iii, 146-217; c Abd al-Rahman b. Nasr b. <Abd 
Allah al-Shayzari, Nihdyat al-rutbafi talab al-hisba, 
chap. 8 of manuscript 20 'Uliim ma'-dshiyya of 
Bibl. Egypt., Cairo; Ibn al-Kuff, in Ibn Abi 
Usaybi'a, ii, 273; Leclerc, Hist, de la mid. arabe, 
Paris 1876, ii, 203; idem, La chirurgie d'Abulcasis, 
Paris 1 861; G. Sarton, Introduction to the history 
of science, Baltimore 1927-31, i, 681; ii, 1098; 
K. Sudhof, Beitrage zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im 
Mittelalter, Leipzig 1918; Ahmad c Isa Bey, Alat 
al-libb wa 'l-ajirdha wa 'l-kihdla- Hnd al-'-Arab 
(Opening address at the Arab Academy, Damascus, 
with 187 drawings, 5 tables ,and explanatory 
notes), Cairo 1925; A. Khairallah, Outline of 
Arabic contributions to medicine and allied sciences, 
Beirut 1946; Goyanes Capdevila, El ingenio 
tecnico en la cirugia ardbigo-espanola, in Adas del 
XV Congreso Inlernac. de Hist, de la Medicina, 
Madrid 1956. (M. Meyerhof-[T. Sarnelli]) 
al-EJARRAH b. <ABD ALLAH al-HakamI, 
Abu c Ukba, an Umayyad general, called Batal al- 
Isldm, 'hero of Islam', and Faris A hi al-Shdm, 
'cavalier of the Syrians'. He was governor of al- 
Basra for al-Walid (Caliph 86-96/705-15) under al- 
Hadjdjadj, then governor of Khurasan and Sidjistan 



for 'Umar b. c Abd al- c AzIz, till deposed by c Umar 
after a year and five months (99-100/718-9) for 
harsh treatment of the new converts to Islam in 
Khurasan. In 104/722-3 al-Djarrah was appointed 
governor of Armenia with orders to attack the 
Khazars, who at this time were threatening the lands 
south of the Caucasus. Advancing from Bardha'a, he 
occupied Bab, the frontier town (see bab al-abwab), 
near which he defeated a large Khazar force under 
'Bardjik, the son of the Khakan'. Continuing his 
advance round the eastern end of the Caucasus, al- 
Djarrah captured the Khazar towns of Balandjar 
and Wabandar, and reached the neighbourhood of 
Samandar, probably Kizlar (Kizliyar) on the Terek, 
before withdrawing. Some time later he was recalled, 
but was reappointed in 11 1/729-30. Next year the. 
Khazars appeared in force in his province and were 
met by al-Djarrah with an army of Syrians and local 
levies in the plain of Ardabil (Mardj Ardabil). Here for 
several days in Ramadan 112/November-December 
730, a great battle was fought, which ended in the 
total defeat of the Muslims and the death of al- 
Djarrah. The Khazars temporarily occupied the 
whole of Adharbaydjan, their cavalry raiding as far 
south as Mosul. The loss of al-Djarrah caused wide- 
spread consternation and grief, especially among tl 



soldiei 



He is 



o have 



o tall a 



n that 



when he walked in the Great Mosque of Damascus, 
his head seemed to be suspended from the lamps. 
Bibliography : al-Dhahabl, Ta'rikh al-Isldm 
(Cairo, A.H. 1367-9), iv, 237-8; al-Tabari, ii, 
1352-6; D. M. Dunlop, History of the Jewish 
Khazars, Princeton 1954, index; F. Gabrieli, 77 
Calijjato di Hishdm, Alexandria 1935, 74 ff. 

(D. M. Dunlop) 
DJARRAHIDS or Banu 'i.-Djarrah, a family of 
the Yemeni tribe of Tayy which settled in Palestine 
and in the Balka 1 region, in the mountains of al- 
Sharat as well as in the north Arabian desert where 
the two hills of 'Adja' and Salma, known also as the 
mountains of the Band Tayy. are part of their 
territory. This family attained some importance at 
the end of the 4th/ioth and 5th/nth centuries, but 
without ever succeeding in creating a state as the 
Banu Kilab tribe did at Aleppo, or in having a 
capital, except for a very short time at Ramla. The 
Banu '1-Djarrah followed a policy of vacillation 
between the Fatimids and the Byzantines, at times 
supporting one side and at times the other, not 
hesitating to flatter abjectly either of them when 
danger threatened, or to betray them, and only 

chance of plundering towns or the countryside or 
caravans on pilgrimage. In general they remained 
essentially Bedouins, with the qualities and failings 
of the Arabs of the desert, and their activities were 

The first of the Banu '1-Djarrah to figure in the 
chronicles was named Daghfal b. al-Djarrah and was 
an ally of the Karmatians. At the time of his ex- 
pedition against Egypt in 361/971-2, al-Djannabl [q.v.] 
left one of his officers with Daghfal at Ramla. During 
the second Karmatian invasion of Egypt in 363/974, a 
Djarrahid named Hassan b. al-Djarrah was in the 
Karmatian army, and it was thanks to his defection, 
in return for a bribe of money by the caliph al- 
Mu'izz, that the Karmatian force was routed after 
reaching the gates of Cairo. Daghfal and Hassan are 
possibly one and the same person. 

Some years later Daghfal's son Mufarridj made his 
appearance, and was to remain in prominence until 
404/1013-4; certain texts give his name wrongly as 



Daghfal b. al-Mufarridj. At the time of the caliph 
al-'Aziz's expedition against Alptekln, a Turk who 
had seized Damascus and allied himself with the 
Karmatians, in the battle which took place outside 
Ramla in Muharram 367/ August-September 977. 
Alptekln took to flight and was found dying of thirst 
by Mufarridj with whom he was on friendly terms. 
As the caliph had promised 100,000 dinars to anyone 
who handed over Alptekln to him, Mufarridj, whose 
allegiance at that moment is not specified in the 
records, had Alptekln kept in custody at Lubna. He 
then went to the caliph and, on receiving an assurance 
that the offer of the reward still held good, betrayed 
Alptekln and took him to the caliph. Two years later 
we find him involved in the Hamdanid Abu Taghlib's 
venture in Palestine. For the moment he was in 
control of Ramla, a fact recognized by the head of 
an Egyptian army, al-Fadl, whom the vizier Ibn 
Killis had sent into Syria at that time against a 
usurper from Damascus, Kassam, and Abu Taghlib. 
Mufarridj was then on bad terms with the Banu 
c Ukayl; as they appealed to Abu Taghlib, war broke 
out between him and Mufarridj who was supported 
by Fadl. Abu Taghlib was defeated and made 
prisoner by a supporter of Mufarridj. Fadl asked the 
Djarrahid to surrender Abu Taghlib to him so that 
he might take him to Egypt. Fearing that the caliph 
might use Abu Taghlib against himself, Mufarridj 
killed his prisoner with his own hand. 

The agreement between Mufarridj and Fadl did 
not last long, and Fadl turned against him. But 
Mufarridj was sufficiently adroit to persuade the 
caliph al- c Aziz to give orders to his general to leave 
him in peace, so allowing Mufarridj to become 
master of Palestine once again and to ravage the 
land (370/980). His exactions led the caliph to send 
troops against him in the following year. Being put 
to flight, he went off to raid a caravan of pilgrims 
returning from Mecca, probably at the end of 371/ 
June 982. He was more fortunate against a second 
Fatimid force which he crushed at Ayla. He returned 
to Syria but was defeated and, taking the desert 
route, sought refuge at Hims with Bakdjur, the 
governor of the Hamdanid Sa'd al-Dawla, probably 

where he sought protection and help from the 
Byzantine governor. He appears to have received 
nothing more than gifts and fair words. It is not 
certain that he returned to Syria, for after 373/983 
we find him accompanying Bardas Phocas the 
Domesticus when he went to the rescue of Aleppo 
after it had been attacked by the rebel Bakdjur. 
Warned by him of the imminent arrival of the 
Byzantine troops, Bakdjur took to flight. 

Mufarridj then seems to have rejoined Bakdjur, 
for when the latter received from the caliph al- c Aziz 
the governorship of Damascus, entering office in 
Radjab 373/December 983, the vizier Ibn Killis put 
the caliph on his guard against a possible revolt by 
Bakdjur with the warning that he had Mufarridj 
with him, and that he was an enemy. He followed 
Bakdjur when the latter, threatened by a Fatimid 
army, left Damascus for Rakka in Radjab 378/ 
October 988. In the following year we find him 
attacking a caravan of pilgrims in north Arabia. It 
is said that Ibn Killis regarded him as a dangerous 
individual and that on his deathbed in 380/991 he 
advised his master not to spare Ibn Pjarrah if he fell 
into his power. Nevertheless the caliph pardoned 
him, for next year he had a gift of apparel and 
horses sent him and invited him to take part in the 
expedition against Aleppo for which the Turkish 



iHIDS 483 

general Mangutekin was making extensive pre- 
parations. But we do not know if he took any part 
in the campaign of 382/992 °r in subsequent cam- 
paigns. We find no other mention of him until 
386/996, the year of al-Hakim's arrival. 

At that period he was supporting Mangutekin, 
the governor of Damascus, in his attempt to seize 
power from Ibn 'Ammar and the Kutama, and took 
part in the fighting led by the Turkish general 
outside 'Askalan against Sulayman b. Dja'far b. 
Falah. Following his usual tactics, however, he did 
not hesitate to desert Mangutekin and to cross over 
to Sulayman's camp. It was one of his sons, 'AH, 
who pursued and captured Mangutekin when he 
took to flight. 

In 387/997 he tried to take Ramla and laid waste 
the district. The new governor of Damascus, Djavsh 
b. Samsama, having crushed c Allaka's revolt at Tyre, 
attacked and gave chase to Mufarridj who took refuge 
in the mountains of the Banu Tayy. When on the 
point of being captured he took part in a little 
comedy, sending the old women of his tribe to ask 
for amdn and pardon, which were granted. And thus 
in 396/1005-6 we find Mufarridj sending his three 
sons C A1I, Hassan and Mahmud with a large number 
of Bedouins to assist al-Hakim's troops against the 
rebel Abu Rikwa. But in the following year he held 
up pilgrims from Baghdad north-east of the moun- 
tains of c Adja> and Salma, that is to say in Tayyl 
territory, and compelled them to pay tribute; as the 
enforced halt had made them lose time, they were 
obliged to turn back and to call off their pilgrimage. 

Some years later, an opportunity occurred for 
Mufarridj to play a part of genuinely political 
significance. In about 402/1011-2 the Fatimid vizier 
Abu '1-Kasim al-Husayn b. 'All al-Maghribl fled and 
took refuge in Palestine at the encampment of 
Mufarridj's son Hassan who gave him his protection. 
The caliph having given the governorship of Damas- 
cus and the command of troops in Syria to Yarukh, 
a Turk, Mufarridj's sons were unwilling to submit 
to his authority, representing to their father the 
danger to which they would be exposed from this 
all-powerful governor and advising him to attack 
Yarukh before he arrived at Ramla. The vizier al- 
Maghribl also stirred up Hassan against Yarukh. 
with the result that the Djarrahids laid an ambush 
for him on the Ghazza road, took him prisoner and, 
at al-Maghribl's instigation, occupied Ramla. 
Hassan, fearing that his father would yield to the 
pleas of the caliph to have Yarukh set free, had him 
beheaded. Urged on by this same al-Maghribi, 
Mufarridj took a further step towards rebellion 
against al-Hakim at the beginning of 403/July 1012 
when, at Ramla, he proclaimed an anti-caliph in the 
person of the c Alid Sharif of Mecca. But al-Hakim 
knew that it was always possible to suborn the 
members of this family. He had already arranged for 
Hassan, who had been entrusted with the care of 
Djawhar's grandsons, to betray them to one of the 
caliph's officers who had them executed. He also 
succeeded in persuading Hassan and his father to 
abandon the anti-caliph who returned crestfallen to 
Mecca, whilst al-Maghribl fled to 'Irak. 

The Djarrahids remained masters of Palestine for 
only two years and five months. During this period 
Mufarridj tried to win the favour of the Christians in 
Jerusalem, and perhaps of the Emperor also, by 
giving orders for, and helping with, the restoration 
of the Church of the Resurrection which had earlier 
been destroyed on al-Hakim's instructions. 

At the beginning of 404/July-August 1013 al- 



484 DJAR] 

Hakim, changing his tactics, decided to treat the 
Djarrahids with severity and sent an army against 
them. 'All and Mahmud surrendered; at that moment 
Mufarridj died, possibly poisoned by order of al- 
Hakim; Hassan who had taken to flight succeeded in 
obtaining a pardon from the caliph by sending his 
mother to beg the caliph's sister, Sitt al-Mulk, to 
intercede for him. The caliph pardoned him and 
allowed him to return to Palestine where he recovered 
his father's lands. Thereafter he refrained from 
stirring up trouble until the disappearance of al- 
Hakim. He even took part in the expedition against 
Aleppo organized by 'All b. Ahmad al-Dayf, the 
former governor of Afamiya, at the same time as 
the Kalbids of Sinan b. Sulayman in 406/1015-6. 
However he entered into closer relations with the 
heir presumptive to the throne, <Abd al-Rahim, 
brother of al-Hakim and governor of Damascus, who 
sent an envoy to him to seek an undertaking that he 
would support him in case of need. But Sitt al-Mulk, 
the regent, had c Abd al-Rahim assassinated. Hassan 
also intrigued with C A1I al-Dayf who was anxious to 
be sent to Palestine, and who was also put to death 
by Sitt al-Mulk. Hassan himself escaped an attempt 
on his life, also made on her orders. 

Hassan's ambition was to rule Palestine. Even in 
al-Hakim's time he had concluded a pact with the 
Kalbid Sinan and the Kilabid Salih b. Mirdas, 
whereby Damascus was allotted to the Kalbid, 
Aleppo to the Kilabid and Palestine to himself. This 
pact was renewed in 415/1024-5. The emperor Basil 
refused to give them his support. Nevertheless they 
overcame the general sent by al-Zahir, Anushtekin 
al-Duzbarl, at 'Askalan, and Hassan entered Ramla. 
With the help of Salih b. Mirdas, Hassan once again 
defeated Anushtekin and continued his depredations 
in Syria. After Sinan's death, his nephew joined the 
caliph's cause; but Salih continued to support 
Hassan. In 420/1029, at al-Ukhuwana near lake 
Tiberias, they joined battle with Anushtekin who 
gained a complete victory. Salih was killed and 
Hassan fled to the mountains. 

Like his father, Hassan was in touch with the 
Byzantine empire. In the next year, 1030, when the 
emperor Romanus Argyrus was preparing his 
expedition against the sons of Salih b. Mirdas of 
Aleppo, he offered him the support of his tribe, and 
the emperor received his envoys at Antioch with 
great cordiality, gave them a flag for their master 
(according to Ibn al-Athlr, it was decorated with a 
cross) and promised to reinstate the Djarrahid in 
his country once again. The emperor's expedition 
ended in disaster. Hassan, again with the support of 
the Kalbids of Rafi c b. Abi '1-Layl, started a campaign 
against the Fatimid troops in the region of Hawran, 
but was driven back towards the desert. There, in 
the neighbourhood of Palmyra, he met an envoy 
from the emperor who persuaded him to come and 
settle near Byzantine territory. As a result, a group 
of over 20,000 people, with their herds and tents, 
moved towards the region of Antioch, almost 
certainly in the year 422/1031. Hassan was loaded 
with gifts from the emperor and his son 'Allaf was 

The Tayyls pitched their camps in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Rudj, south-east of Antioch. They 
were twice attacked by Anushtekin al-Duzbarl. The 
names of the places mentioned in this connexion 
(Kastun, al-Arwadj, Inab; for the identification of 
the last-named place, see Ibn al-Shihna, al-Durr al- 
muntakhab, 117; Dussaud, Top. historique . . . ., 168; 
Guide bleu, 280) show that they were not in Byzantine 



territory. Hassan gave active support to the Byzan- 
tines, not only making a successful raid on Afamiya 
but also, according to the Byzantine historians, 
helping Theoctistus, Domesticus of the Scholae, 
to take the fortress of Menikos (Manika) in the 
Djabal al-Rawadlf then held by Nasr b. Musharraf. 
It was on this occasion, so it is recorded in Scylitzes- 
Cedrenus, that his son 'Allaf (Allach to the Byzan- 
tines) was received at court and made a patrician. 
Hassan is called Pinzarach (Ibn al-Djarrah) or 
Apelzarach (by Kekaumenos), but Scylitzes in- 
correctly gives him the title of amir of Tripoli. 
According to these authors he was twice received 
at Constantinople, but Kekaumenos says that he 
did not always have cause to be satisfied with 
his visits. 

Moreover we know that, at the time of the 
negotiations which took place between the caliph 
and the emperor, after the Byzantines captured the 
fortress of BIkisrall in the summer of 423/1032, 
Hassan was present in person at the discussions at 
Constantinople. One of the conditions laid down by 
the emperor for the peace settlement was that the 
caliph should allow Hassan to return to his country 
and to resume possession of the lands he held at the 
time of al-Hakim, except for those that he had 
appropriated since the coming of al-Zahir, in return 
for a promise of fidelity to the caliph. But the caliph 

When Anushtekin al-Duzbarl, taking up a curious 
attitude, asked the emperor to send an expedition 
against Aleppo (which he did not enter until 429/ 
1037-8), promising to hold it as a vassal of the 
empire, we note that with him was Hassan's son 
t Allaf ('Allan in Kamal al-DIn). In 427/1035-6, when 
the Numayrid Ibn Waththab and the Marwanid 
Nasr al-Dawla attacked Edessa, a Byzantine pos- 
session since 422/1031, Hassan came to the rescue 
with 5,000 Greek and Arab horsemen. There is a 
further mention of him in 433/1041-2 (we are then 
in the reign of al-Mustansir, al-Zahir having died in 
427/June 1036). It is said that at that moment he 
regained possession of Palestine, after al-Duzbarl 
had been driven from Damascus, but that the new 
governor of Damascus continued the war against him. 

After that date we hear nothing more of Hassan. 
Much later, we come across his nephews, Humayd b. 
Mahmud and Hazim b. 'All, during the disturbances 
which Badr al-Djamali had to face in Damascus in 
about 458/1065-6, in the entourage of an c Alid 
sharlf, Ibn Abi '1-Djann, who tried to seize Damascus. 
They must have been arrested and imprisoned in 
Cairo, for in 459/1066-7 the amir Nasir al-Dawla b. 
Hamdan asked the caliph to free them from the 
Flag store where they were incarcerated. 

Finally, in 501/1 107-8 we find a certain Abu 
'Imran Fadl b. Rabi'a b. Hazim b. al-Djarrah 
coming from Baghdad to enter the service of the 
Saldjukid sultan. His equivocal behaviour in Syria 
— at times he was on the side of the Franks, at 
others on the side of the Egyptians — led the atabek 
Tughtekln of Damascus to expel him from Syria. 
In Baghdad he offered to fight the Mazyadid from 
Hilla, Sadaka, and to bar the desert route to 
him. He went to Anbar and nothing more is heard 

That, it seems, is all that we know of this turbulent 
family who were not without significance as pawns 
on the chess-board of Syria in the 4th-5th/ioth-nth 
centuries, whom the Fatimids alternately attacked 
and wooed, whom the Byzantines succeeded in 
using, but who seem to have created for themselves, 



DJARRAHIDS — DJARUNDA 



in their own best interests, a rule of duplicity, 
treason and pillage. 

Bibliography: Yahya b. Sa'Id al-Antaki, 
P.O. xxiii, 403, 41 1 -2, 476, 501-2, 504, 520 (ed. 
Cheikho, 207, 215, 226-7, 244-6, 253-6, 261-2, 

266 ff.); Miskawayh, in Eclipse ii, 385, 

402-3; Abu ShudjaS in Eclipse iii, 185, 226-7, 

233-5, 238-9; Ibn al-Kalanisi, 3, 19, 22, 24-5, 29, 
30, 46-9, 62-4, 72-3, 93; Sibt Ibn al-DjawzI, in 
Ibn al-Kalanisi, 2, 96-7; Ibn al-Athlr, viii, 469; ix, 
5, 48. 86-7, 145, 233-4, 260, 286 bis, 305, 343-4; 
x, 308 (ed. Cairo 1303, viii, 211, 219, 232; ix, 19, 
24, 41-2, 71, 78 ff., 114, 128, 132, 145, 155, 173; 
x, 20, 155; Kamal al-DIn, ed. Dahhan, i, 215, 223, 
228, 231, 250-1; Ibn Muyassar, 48-9; Dhahabi. in 
Ibn al-Kalanisi, 64; Ibn Taghribirdi, Cairo, iv, 248, 
252, 253, 266; Ibn Khallikan. Bulak ed., i, 196 
(cf. Yakut, Irshad, x, 80-1 ; Ibn Khald'un, Berberes, 
tr. i, 16, 43; S. de Sacy, Expose - de la religion des 
Druzes, i, CCLXXXVII, CCCL-CCCLIII; Wiisten- 
feld, Gesch. der Fat.-Chalifen, 122, 140, 141-2, 150, 
167, 193-4, 221, 223, 224-5, 229; idem, Die Chro- 
niken der Stadt Mekka, iv, 218; Tiesenhausen, 
Gesch. der Oqailiden-Dynastie, 26; V. R. Rosen, 
Basil Bulgaroctonos (in Russian), 149, 150, 157, 
159, 160, 162, 321, 353, 355-7, 36 9> 376 ' 377 > 379 > 
382-3; G. ScHlumberger, Epople byzantine, iii, 
90-2, 128 ff., 130 ff., 196; Honigmann, Ostgrenze, 
109-10, 114-5, 137-8; Scylitzes-Cedrenus, ed. Bonn, 
ii, 495-6, 502; Kekaumenos, Strategikon, tr. H. G. 
Beck, 221-2; Muhammad c Abd Allah c Inan, al- 
Hakim bi-Amr Allah, 101-2; G. Wiet, in Hist, de 
la nation igyptienne, iv: L'Egypte arabe, 183-5, 
192-3, 194, 198, 210-1, 216-7, 221-3, 224; M. Canard, 
Hist, de la dynastie des Wamdanides, i, 570-1, 
686-7, 850. (M. Canard) 

DjARSlF [see guercif]. 

al-DJArODIYYA (or Surhubiyya), a group 
of the early Shi'a, listed as "Zaydi" [q.v.] 
because they accepted any Fatimid c Alid as imam if 
he were worthy and claimed the imamate with the 
sword. Their chief teacher was the blind Abu '1- 
Djarud Ziyad b. al-Mundhir, who reported hadith 
from Muhammad al-Bakir and was nicknamed by 
him "Surhub" (blind sea-devil); other leaders were 
Abu Khalid Yazid al-Wasiti and Fudayl b. al- 
Zubayr al-Rassan. In contrast to other early 
"Zaydis", they rejected Abu Bakr and 'Umar, not 
admitting the imamate of the less worthy when the 
worthier was present. They seem to have regarded 
supporters of a non- c Alid imam as kdfir. They 
claimed that authority was potentially equal in all 
Fatimids; some claimed that the needful knowledge 
came to the imam by nature, not by teaching. The 
name continued to be applied to certain Shi'Is for 
a century and a half. Some of them are said to have 
believed that one or another c Alid rebel was to 
return as mahdi: either Muhammad al-Nafs al- 
Zakiyya of Madina (killed under al-Mansur), or 
Muhammad b. al-Kasim of Talikan (killed under 
al-Mu c tasim), or Yahya b. 'Umar of Kflfa (killed 
under al-Musta c In). 

Bibliography : Abu '1-Hasan b. Musa al- 
Nawbakhti, Firdk al-SM-a; al-Shahrastani ; al- 
Ash c ari, Makalat al-lsldmiyyin; Baghdad!, Fark 
(see indexes). Other references in Israel Fried- 
lander, Heterodoxies of the ShiHtes in JAOS, 
xxix, 22. Discussion in Rudolph Strothmann, 
Staatsrecht der Zaiditen, Strassburg 1912, 28-36, 
63-67. (M. G. S. Hodgson) 

EJARUNDA (Spanish Gerona), capital of the 
province of the same name, one of the four capitals 



of the principality of Catalonia. It stands about 
25 km. from the sea, and its coastline extends along 
the well-known Costa Brava. Situated in the outer 
foothills of the Pyrenees, on a small eminence 
surrounded by the Ter and Oflar rivers, it has at the 
present day about 40,000 inhabitants. By reason of 
its strategic situation on the eastern route between 
France and Spain it has throughout its history been 
subjected to sieges and constant attacks, from which 
it derives its name Ciudad de los sitios "the town of 
sieges". From a village of Iberian origin the Romans 
raised it to the rank of a town: it figures in the 



Itin, 






1 haltini 



1 the 



first road to cross Catalonia. Falling in turn into the 
hands of the Visigoths, Arabs, Franks of the Spanish 
march and the Catalan-Aragonese, it became a 
great fortress known in the Middle Ages as Forsa 
vella. At the beginning of their occupation the Mus- 
lims, under the command of c Abd al- c Aziz, son of 
Musa b. Nusayr, took possession of the whole sub- 
Pyrenean region, including Gerona, passing through 
it on their way to invade the Narbonnaise. In the 
2nd/8th century there was no fixed frontier on what 
was later the Spanish march. For this reason the 
inhabitants of Gerona in 169/785 entrusted their 
town to the authority of the Franks, under Louis 
the Pious, after the Amir of Cordova 'Abd al- 
Rahman I had been defeated in this sector. The 
establishment of this Frankish enclave on Spanish 
soil foreshadowed the conquest of more extensive 
territories, that is to say Barcelona, in the near 
future. But the Muslims were not long in reacting, 
and in 177/793 'Abd al-Malik b. Mughlth, Hisham I's 
general, laid siege to Gerona and, according to the 
Arab chroniclers, decimated the Frankish garrison 
and destroyed a large part of the towers and ramparts, 
but he was unable to capture the town by assault and 
went on to raid Narbonne. In 178/798 the Franks 
occupied the mountain region between Gerona and 
the upper valley of the Segre, and surrounded 
Barcelona which they succeeded in capturing after 
a long siege. Among the feudal overlords taking part 
in this siege was Rostaing, Count of Gerona, at the 
head of one of the three corps which comprised the 
besieging army. In 212/828, a new saHfa against 
Barcelona and Gerona failed; the Spanish march 
having been consolidated, the Muslims were unable 
to reach Gerona, even when the hadjib al-Mansur 
captured Barcelona. On the other hand, during the 
final period of the caliphate in Dhu '1-Ka c da 400/ 
June 1010, a band of Catalans fought on the side of 
caliph Muhammad al-Mahdi against the Berbers in 
the valley of the Guadiaro, not far from Ronda; 
they were routed and suffered casualties, among 
them Ot6n, Bishop of Gerona, at the head of his con- 
tingent from Gerona. The county of Gerona, as a 
dependency of the principality of Catalonia, was 
the scene of a meeting on 1 November 1143 at 
which the Order of Templars of Catalonia was 
admitted. In 1205 Philip Augustus of France seized 
it. Thereafter, as the result both of civil wars pro- 
voked by the prince of Viana and also of struggles 
against France, the town had to endure numerous 
sieges and assaults; after being razed to the ground 
during the war of the Spanish Succession for declaring 
itself in favour of the Archduke, its tribulations 
reached their culminating point with the heroic 
resistance directed by General Alvarez de Castro 
when, for seven months, the town stood out against 
Napoleon's Marshals. 

Bibliography: Codera, Narbona y Barcelona, 
in Estudios crit. hist. ar. esp., viii, 339-41; L. 



DJARUNDA — DJASUS 



Auzias, Aquitaine carolingienne, 43-53 and 59-66; 

Soldeville, Hist, de Catalunya, i, 32; Chronique de 

Moissac, ad. ann. 785; Madoz, Diccionario geo- 

grdfico, s.v. (A. Huici Miranda) 

fijASAK (Djasek or Djasik), an island in the 

Persian Gulf mentioned only by Yakut, ii, 9) and 

Kazwini (Kosmographie, ed. Wiistenfeld, 115) among 

Arab geographers. From their statements, it is 

probably to be identified with the island of Larak 

in the straits of Hormuz 35 km. SSE. of Bandar 

'Abbas [q.v.], and not with the large island of 

Kishm as was done by Le Strange (261). In the time 

of these two authors Djasak belonged to the prince 

of Kis (Kish, the modern Kays), a small island in 

Lat. 26 33' N., Long. 54° 02' E. 

At the present time the name Djasak (now 
pronounced Djask) is borne by the flat, low-lying 
promontory on the Persian side of the Gulf of 
'Uman in Lat. 25 31' N., 57° 36' E. and by the 
adjoining village. Early in the ioth/i6th century 
Djask was seized and fortified by the Portuguese 
and in the following century the English East 
India Company established a factory there. There 
is a landing strip for aircraft south-west of the 
village. The population in 195 1 was 3,115. 

Bibliography: in addition to the references 
in the text: Mardsid al-ittila'-, Lexic. geograph. (ed. 
Juynboll), ii, 235; Tomaschek, Die Kiistenfahrt 
Nearchs in Sitz.-Ber. der Wien. Akad., cxxi, 
no. viii, 37, 48; P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelaiter 
nach d. arab. Geogr., ii, 89. On the cape and 
village of Djask, cf. Thomas Herbert, Travels in 
Persia, ed. Sir W. Foster, London, 1928, 39; 
Ritter, Erdkunde, xii, 428-30; Preece, Journey 
from Shiraz to Jashk in the Supplem. Papers, 
the Royal Geographical Society, i, 403 ff. ; Sir 
A. T. Wilson, The Persian Gulf, Oxford 1928, 
40,136-8, 224; Razmara and Nawtash, Farhang-i 
djughrdfiyd-yi Iran, viii, 94. (L. Lockhart) 
al-DJA$$A§, Ahmad b. c AlI Abu Bakr al- 
RazI, famous Hanafi jurist and chief represen- 
tative of the ashdb al-rd'y [q.v.] in his day. He was 
born in 917/305, went to Baghdad in 324, and there 
studied law under 'All b. al-Hasan al- Karkhi. He 
also worked on the Kur'an and hadith, handing 
down the hadiths of al-Asim, c Abd al-Baki Kani' (the 
teacher of the famous al-Darakutnl [q.v.]), c Abd 
Allah b. Dja'far al-Isfahani, TabarSnl, and others. 
Following the advice of his teacher Karkhi, he went 
to NIshapur, in order to study usul al-hadith under 
al-Hakim al-Nisaburi. During this time, Karkhi 
died, whereupon he returned to Baghdad (in 344). 
Later, Djassas became the head of the Hanafis in 
Baghdad. According to reports, he was twice 
nominated for the office of judge but he declined. 
He mediated between the traditionists and the 
lawyers. Amongst his pupils were Kudurl, Abu Bakr 
Ahmad b. Miisa al-Khwarizml, and others. He died 
on 7 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 370/14 August 981 in NIshapur. 
Of his works, the following survive: Kitdb al- 
Usul; his commentary on al-Djdmi'- al-kabir by 
ShaybanI; his commentary on al-Mukhtasar fi 
'l-fikh by Tahawl (which is the oldest of its com- 
mentaries); his excerpts from the Kitdb ikhtildf al- 
fukahd' by Tahawi, compare Schacht, Aus den 
Bibliotheken, i, no. 24; Ahkdm al-Kur'dn, ed. 
Kilisli Rif'at, Istanbul 1335-38; 3 vols., Cairo 1347. 
Bibliography: Ta>rikh Baghdad, \v, 314, no. 
2112; al-Djawdhir al-mudi'a, i, 84; Ibn Kutlub- 
ugha, 4, no. n; Shadhardt iii, 71; Flvigel, Classen 
der hanefitischen Rechtsgelehrten; Brockelmann, I 2 , 
S I, 335- (O. Spies) 



al-PJASSASA, "the informer", "the spy", a name 
which seems to have been given by Tamim al-Dari 
[q.v.] to the fabulous female animal which he claimed 
to have encountered on an island upon which he 
had been cast by a storm, at the same time as the 
Dadjdjal [q.v.] who was chained there; the latter 
being unable to move about, the Djassasa, which is 
a monster of gigantic size, brings him whatever news 
it has gathered. Assimilated by later exegesis with 
the Beast (ddbba [q.v.]) mentioned in the Kur'an 
(XXVII, 84/82), it adds considerably to the fantastic 
element in travellers' and geographers' tales in the 
classical period which place the incident on an island 
in the Javaga (Zabadj [q.v.]) to which Ibn Khur- 
radadhbih (48) and others give the name Bartall. 
(Ed.) 

EJASSAWR (Jessore), principal town of a 
district of East Pakistan. The town has a garrison 
and a landing strip. Population of the district in 
1951 : 1,703,000. Its name is said to derive from the 
Sanskrit yashohara "disgraced", relating to the story 
of Radja Pratapaditya, a zaminddr whose rebellious 
attitude was crushed at the time of the Mughal 
emperor Djahangir. Under Muslim rule the region 
formed part of the sarkdr of Khalifatabad, represented 
now by Bagerhai in Khulna district, where Khan 
Djahan (d. -863/1459), conqueror of this region under 
the Bengal sultan Nasir al-Din Mahmud II, is buried. 
A number of monuments of this period remain at or 
near Bagerhai, the most important being the tomb 
of Khan Djahan and the Sathgunbad, Masdjidkur, 
Kasba and Saylkuppa mosques. These mosques 
mark the appearance of a new style of Muslim 
architecture in Bengal which, with its dwarf angle 
buttresses and covered sahn, seems to bring together 
some aspects of the Dihli style of Firuz Shah Tughluk 
and those of local origin. Khan Djahan, popularly 
called Khandja C AH, is today venerated as a saint; 
with Muhammad Tahir, alias Plr C A1I, he promoted 
the expansion of Islam in this region. The latter 
personage brought into being a sect, the Plr C A1T 
Muslims, which is widespread in the region. 

Bibliography: Babu Gourdas Bysack, in 

JASB, xxxvi (1867); J. Westland, A report on the 

district of Jessore, Calcutta 1871; J. N. Sarkar, 

History of Bengal, ii, Dacca 1948; A. H. Dani, 

Muslim architecture in Bengal, Dacca 1961, 141-52. 
(A. H. Dani) 

PJASTANIDS, DJUSTANIDS [see daylam]. 

PjASftS, a word used to denote the spy, con- 
currently with c ayn, observer, literally "eye", with 
the result that it is not always possible to distinguish 
between the two words and one can hardly discuss 
the one without speaking of the other. However, it 
seems that didsus is used more particularly to refer 
to a spy sent among the enemy. Dictionaries also give 
for didsus the sense of bearer of an unfavourable 
secret {sahib sirr al-sharr) as opposed to ndmus, the 
bearer of a favourable secret (sahib sirr al-khayr; 
see LA, vii, 337, Ibn al-Athir, Nihdya, i, 163). 

The Kur'an (XLIX, 12) ordains that believers 
should not spy upon one another. According to al- 
Mawardi {Ahkdm, tr. Fagnan, 538) it is permissible 
for the muhtasib to make use of taajassus when there 
is a violation of a prohibition and proof of it might 
be overlooked, but al-Ghazzali {Ihyd>, ed. 1348, ii, 
285, 289) refutes this. 

Espionage was practised by the authorities inter- 
nally for administrative and governmental reasons, 
and externally for politico-military reasons. Works 
of the Mirror of Princes type note that sovereigns of 
all periods have invariably made use of spies in order 



to obtain information about their subjects, their 
ministers and officials, their entourage and even 
their own family (see the Kitdb al-tddj of the Ps. al- 
Djahiz, 99, tr. 124; 122, tr. 141-2 (on this passage, 
cf. al-Kalkashandi, Subh, i, 116), 167, tr. 184 ff.; 
Athdr al-uwal, of al-Hasan al- c Abbasi, in the margin 
of Ta'rikh al-khulafp of al-Suyutl, 97 ff-; the 
Siydsat-ndma of Nizam al-Mulk, tr. Schefer, 88, 99, 
103 ff . ; R. Levy, A mirror of Princes, tr. of Ibn 
Kabus, 135). We know that the Postal Service (barld) 
was made responsible for this surveillance. Thus the 
official organization of espionage was reflected in the 
allegory of the dxuniid al-ftalb of al-Ghazzall, in which 
the five senses are the spies (diawasis) who bring 
their information to the imagination which is, so to 
speak, the sahib al-barld (Ihya?, iii, 5 and 8; cf. 
Kimiyd? al-sa'-dda, ed. 1343, 10 and tr. H. Ritter, 
Das Elixir der Gliickseligkeit, 30). There are numerous 
accounts relating to the use of spies of this sort, for 
example al-Tanukhl, Nishwdr, ii, 157-63, tr. 253-8 
(al-Mu c tadid having his vizier spied on), Abu 
Shudja' al-Rudhrawari, 59 ( c Adud al-Dawla asking 
schoolmasters to seek information from the children 
about their fathers' activities, and to pass it on to 
the sdhib al-barld). For the spies in the Buwayhid 
period, sent out to search for fortunes to be con- 
fiscated, known as su'dt, calumniators, and gham- 
mdzun, informers, see Miskawayh, ii, 308 (cf. ii, 83), 
Hilal al-Sabi 5 , in Eclipse, iii, 438. 

Politico-military espionage was used by the 
Prophet who had his djawdsis and c uyun against 
the polytheists and Abu Sufyan. There are many 
instances of the use of spies in war, particularly in 
civil wars and rebellions: al-Tabari, ii, 585, 904, 947, 
949 (Kharidji affairs), ii, 1248 (Kutayba's conquests in 
central Asia) ; ii, 1588, 1966 ( c Abbasid movement); 
iii, 284 (affair of the <Alid Ibrahim b. c Abd Allah) ; 
iii, ii74ff- (war with Babek: al-Afshin wins over 
Babek's spies). For the Arabo-Byzantine wars, see 
al-Mas c udi, Murudj, ii, 434; viii, 75 ft.; al-Tabari, 
iii, 485 etc. We know that in Constantinople St. 
Basil the Younger was mistaken for an Arab spy 
{BEt.Or., xiii, 55); cf. the legend of al-Battal, a spy 
of Harun al-Rashld. The Mongols used spies disguised 
as faftirs, ascetics and holy men (al-Mufaddal, Hist, 
des suit, mamelouks, ed. Blochet, 343, 355). 

Just as military leaders are recommended to send 
spies among the enemy (R. Levy, op. cit., 219; Ibn 
Djama'a, Tahrir al-ahkdm, in Islamica, vi, 402), so 
they are advised to exclude from their forces all 
those who might act as spies for the enemy (al- 
Mawardi, tr. 74), and the sdfiib al-barid must watch 
both land and sea routes by which enemy agents 
might enter (al- c Abbasi, Athdr al-uwal, 100). One of 
the reasons why it is recommended that non-Muslim 
secretaries be not employed is that they might act 
as spies for the Infidels (al- Kalkashandl, Subh, i, 61). 
Precautions against espionage were not otiose, for 
there are instances of correspondence with the enemy 
(Theophanes, under the year 6248: the Patriarch of 
Antioch writing to the Byzantines with information 
about the Arabs; al-Baladhuri, 192, ed. Cairo, 201: 
an amir executed for having corresponded with the 
Greeks). 

In al-Kalkashandi (i, 123 ff., Fi amr al-'-uyun wa 
'l-djawdsis), we find a statement of the conditions 
which a good spy has to fulfil: absolute sincerity, 
intelligence and sagacity, cunning, experience of 
travel and knowledge of the countries to which he is 
sent, the ability to endure torture if caught in order 
to avoid betrayal of what he knows. The author also 
indicates the rules of conduct of the sahib diwdn al- 



inshd' (upon whom they were dependent in the time 
of the Mamluks) with regard to spies : to show them 
sincere affection and not let them feel any suspicion 
on his part, to pay them liberally both before and, 
what is more important, after their mission, to 
provide for their families' needs, not to hold a grudge 
against them in the event of failure ; spies must never 
know each other, or be known by the army; there 
must be no intermediary between them and the 
sahib diwdn al-insha?, etc. This long passage ends 
with a warning against enemy agents and stresses the 
importance of winning them over to one's own 
cause. See also the less detailed statement by al- 
c AbbasI, loc. cit. 

There is also some discussion of diawasis and 
'■uyun in works of jurisprudence. First of all, in the 
rules relating to dhimmis, which include a clause 
forbidding them to communicate to the enemy any 
secrets relating to poorly defended points of Muslim 
territory, or to guide or give shelter to their agents 
(see, for example, Abu Yusuf, tr. Fagnan, 305; al- 
ShirazI, Tanblh, 295; Abu Shudja', Takrib, tr. Van 
den Berg, 624; al-Tabari, Ikhtildf, 239). Incidentally 
this clause occurs in the first treaties drawn up 
between Muslims and Christians (Ibn 'Asakir, i, 
149, 1. 8, 178, 1. 9. See also the typical treaty from the 
Kitdb al-umm of al-Shafi c i in Tritton, The Caliphs 
and their non-Muslim subjects, chap. I and A. Fattal, 
Le statut legal des non-Musulmans en pays a" Islam, 77). 

In the Kitdb al-ikhtildf of al-Tabari (58-9, cf. 24) 
or in al-Mlzdn al-kubrd of al-Sha c rani (ed. 1291, ii, 
233 ff. and tr. Perron, 1898, 198 ff.), we find a 
summary of the jurists' views as to how spies working 
for the enemy should be treated, on which subject 
there is a considerable divergence of opinion. In the 
event of a spy being a dhimmi, according to al- 
Awza c i he is thus breaking the contract which binds 
him to the Muslims and he can be put to death; Abu 
Yusuf, tr. 294, takes the same line. But al-Shafi c i 
believes that he is only subject to an exemplary 
punishment since there is no breach of contract. Abu 
Hanifa also maintains that there is no breach of 
contract and the dhimmi is only liable to corporal 
punishment and imprisonment. According to the 
Malikis (Ibn al-Kasim), there is a breach of contract 
and the dhimmi can be put to death (al-Khalil, tr. 
Guidi, i, 418). The Hanbalis (see, e.g., Ibn Kudama's 
commentary on al-Mukni c in al-Rawd al-murbi 1 of 
al-Mansur al-Bahuti, ii, 71) consider that there is a 
breach of contract: the criterion is the harm caused 
to the Muslims (for the whole question cf. Fattal, 
op. cit., 81 ff.). 

When the spy is a foreigner who has entered 
Muslim territory without a safe-conduct he is put to 
death, and if he came with a safe-conduct without 
commercial objectives he is simply expelled; if 
travelling for purposes of commerce, he is sentenced 
to corporal punishment and is expelled (Abu Hanifa; 
cf. also al-Shafi c i, Kitdb al-umm, iv, 167). According 
to the Malikis, (Khalil, i, 392), it is permitted to kill 
enemy spies even though they have come armed with 
a safe-conduct, and Abu Yusuf (tr. 294) also recom- 
mends having them beheaded. If the spy is a Muslim 
guilty of corresponding with the Greeks and passing 
them information about the Muslims, according to 
al-Awza c I he is liable to corporal punishment, 
banishment and prison, unless he shows repentence ; 
the same is true of Abu Hanifa (cf. also Abu Yusuf, 
tr. 294). In al-Shafi c i's view, since the action is not 
a characteristic act of kufr, punishment is therefore 
not inevitable and it rests with the imam to decide. 
Malik also states that the case is left to the free 



488 



DJASOS — DJAT 



decision of the imam (al-Tabarl, Ikhtildf, 172). It is 
probable that, in practice, and according to circum- 
stances, greater severity was shown. 

Bibliography: in the article. See also <Abd 

al-Hamld al-Katib, Risdla fl nasihat wall c ahd 

Marwdn b. Muhammad, in Rasd'il al-bulaghd', ed. 

Kurd 'All, 153. (M. Canard) 

DJAT, the central Indo-Aryan (Hindi and Urdu) 
form corresponding to the north-west Indo-Aryan 
(Pandjabl, Lahnda) Djaft, a tribe of the Indo- 
Pakistan sub-continent found particularly in the 
Pandjab, Sind, Radjasthan and western Uttar 
Pradesh. The name is of post-Sanskritic Indian 
origin (Middle Indo-Aryan *diaUa), and the form 
with short vowel is employed by the Persian 
translator of the Cal-ndma (compiled 613/1216), 
the author of the Ta'rikh-i Sind (Ta'rikh-i MaHumi) 
and Shah Wall Allah al-Dihlawi [q.v.] in his Persian 
letters. For the Arabicized form Zutt [q.v.] see TA 
and Muhammad Tahir al-Patanl, Madima c bihdr al- 
anwdr, Kanpur 1283, ii, s.v. Zutti. 

Little scientific or systematic study has been 
undertaken so far to determine the ethnological and 
anthropological strains in the Djats, tall, well-built, 
sturdy with a dark complexion. It may be presumed 
that they are racially Aryans, although some 
writers have alluded to their Scytho-Aryan origin 
and to the subsequent fusion of various local tribes 
into the main body (cf. Pradhan, 15). In the undivided 
Pandjab the Djats in the districts west of the Ravi 
were mostly Muslims, those in the centre mostly 
Sikhs and those in the south-east mostly Hindus. 
The non-Muslim Djats of the present Pakistan 
regions have now all migrated to India. In the 
northern and western districts of Uttar Pradesh 
(India) they constitute an important element of the 
population, and played a significant role in bringing 
about the downfall of the Mughal empire, which was 
unable to withstand, in the days of its decadence, 
their lawlessness and predatory raids on the seat of 
the government itself. Mostly agricultural by 
profession, they include Hindus and Muslims, while 
many Djats in the Indian Pandjab profess Sikhism. 
The Hindu and Sikh Djats may still interdine (and 
intermarry?); Muslim Djats in many cases retain 
the old tribal and clan (khap) names, and although 
they may associate with Hindu and Sikh Djats in 
some social and political activities at the village 
level in India, their Pakistan cognates have largely 
lost this connexion. 

The Indian Hindu Djats practised polygamy 
until the passing of the Hindu Marriage Act (1955), 
and a fraternal polyandry was at one time common. 
Female infanticide was fairly common until the end 
of the 19th century. Widow marriage and the 
levirate are still permitted. The widespread and 
indiscriminate exogamous marriages and liaisons 
reported by earlier writers seem no longer to be 
permitted. 

The Djats are proverbially stupid, awkward, and 
simple in money-matters, caring more for then- 
buffaloes and sugarcane than for their fellow 
humans, although they are courageous and make 
good soldiers. On the Djats in the Muslim countries 
of the Middle East see Zutt. 

In India they fought against the Arab commander, 
Budayl b. Tahfa al-Badjall, during his attack on the 
sea-port of Daybul [q.v.], some years prior to the 
invasion of Muhammad b. al-Kasim, and killed him, 
and again encountered the forces of Muhammad b. 
al-Kasim when he marched upon Daybul in 94/712. 
A very large number of them was captured by the 



Muslims, and Muhammad b. al-Kasim sent ship-loads 
of them to al-Hadjdjadj b. Yusuf [q.v.]. Thereafter they 
seem to have taken to a settled and peaceful life both 
in Sind and abroad, as they figure in no further events 
until the times of Mahmud of Ghazna [q.v.] who had to 
fight a naval engagement with them on the Indus, 
where they troubled the victorious Sultan by 
attacking his rear and several times looting the 
baggage (see Gardlzl. Zayn al-akhbdr, ed. M. Nazim, 
Berlin 1928, 87-9). The Djats, thereafter, suffered a 
long eclipse until the reign of the Mughal emperor 
Shahdjahan [q.v.], when in 1047/1637 they broke out 
into a revolt and killed the fawdjddr [q.v.] of Mathura, 
Murshid Kull Khan. During the reign of Awrangzib 
[q.v.], taking advantage of his preoccupation with the 
Deccan wars, the Djats of northern India, under 
their leaders Radja Ram and Ram Cehra, terrorized 
the population and even attempted to despoil the 
tomb of the emperor Akbar at Sikandra. They were, 
however, met with stout opposition from the local 
commandant, Mir Abu '1-Fadl (Jadunath Sarkar, 
History of Aurangzib, v, 696-7). In 1097/1686 
Awrangzib, in a bid to crush them, deputed his 
general Khan-i Djahan Kokaltash, who was, 
however, defeated by the Djats in several engage- 
ments; this compelled the emperor to change the 
command, 'and entrust it to his grandson, BIdar 
Bakht b. Muhammad A'zam. After the death of 
Awrangzib, when the Mughal empire had begun to 
disintegrate, the Djats of Bharatpiir [q.v.] and the 
surrounding territory, under their leader Suradj 
Mall, terrorized the entire country lying between 
Agra and Dihli. The atrocities perpetrated by them 
on the ill-starred inhabitants of Dihli have been 
vividly described by Shah Wall Allah al-Dihlawi 
and his son Shah <Abd al- c Aziz al-Dihlawi [qq.v.] in 
their letters. The depredations of the Djats provoked 
Ahmad Shah Abdall, when he attacked India, to 
say "Move into the territories of the accursed Jat, 
and in every town and district held by him slay and 
plunder .... Up to Agra leave not a single place 
standing", (cf. Indian Antiquary, . . . 58-9 and J. N. 
Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal empire, Calcutta 1950, 
ii, 61, 85). In 1171/1757, during his fourth invasion of 
India, Abdall marched against them but could not 
subdue them completely, and the Djat chieftain 
refused to own allegiance to the Durrani chief. The 
terrible defeat of the Marathas at his hands in 1175/ 
1761 at the third Battle of Panlpat practically 
broke the back of the Djats. Almost at the same 
time, a petty Djat chieftain of the Pandjab, Ala 
Singh, received a number of villages from the retiring 
Shah as a grant, in return for military services 
rendered. Later these villages formed the nucleus of 
the former Indian princely state of Patiala. Early in 
the I3th/i8th century Randjit Singh Djat succeeded 
in establishing a small and shortlived Sikh kingdom 
in the Pandjab. Elsewhere the Djats kept quiet till 
the Mutiny of 1857 when, taking advantage of the 
general chaos at Dihli, they indulged in loot and 
massacre and became a terror to the neighbouring 
population and the refugees. The subsequent British 
occupation of India subdued them. During the 
disturbances of 1947 they were again active in and 
around Alwar and Bharatpur [qq.v.], taking a leading 
part in the loot and massacre that followed the 
partition of India. They are still politically active in 
the Indian Pandjab and Uttar Pradesh. For then- 
political organization, see Pradhan (in Bibliography). 
In India some Djats appear to have embraced 
Islam during or soon after the Muslim conquest of 
Sind; in the Pandjab most of the Djat tribes were 



DJAT — DJAWAD PASHA 



489 



converted either by Djalal al-Din Husayn Bukhari or 
by Farid al-DIn Gandj-Shakar [qq.v.] of Pak-pattan 
(see Gazetteers of Multan district and Bahawalpore) ; 
many further conversions are reported from the time 
of Awrangzlb. 

Contrary to the popular belief that the Djafe 
are deplorably lacking in common sense and are 
illiterate and uncultured, they have produced a 
number of people who have made a name for 
themselves in the field of learning. A Djat (Zutt) 
physician, who was apparently well-versed in 
witch-craft also, is said to have been called 
in to treat 'A'isha, when she fell seriously ill. 
(Cf. al-Bukhari, al-Adab al-Mufrad, Cairo 1349 A.H., 
45, Urdu tr. Kitdb-i Zindagi by c Abd al-Kuddus 
Hashimi, Karachi i960, 84, where the translator, in 
a note, characterizes this tradition as munhar). Abu 
Hanifa [q.v.] was also of Zutt stock, his grandfather 
being known as ZQti, apparently a corruption of 
Zutti. (Cf. Ta'rikh Baghdad, xiii, 324-5). Imam al- 
Awza'i [q.v.] was of Sindhi origin and his forefathers 
might have belonged to those Djais who fell into the 
hands of Muhammad b. al-Kasim and were sent as 
prisoners of war to c Irak (cf. Dhahabi. Huffdz, ii, 61). 
The Indian Muslim writer and biographer of the 
Prophet, Shibli Nu'mani [q.v.] was also of Djat 
(Rawat) origin, a fact reflected in his self-adopted 
nisba Nu c manl, pertaining to Abu Hanifa. A 
Pakistani Djat (Muhammad Zafar Allah Khan) till 
recently (1961) served as a judge of the International 
Court of Justice at the Hague. 

Bibliography: In addition to the authorities 
cited in the text: 'All b. Hamid b. Abi Bakr al- 
Kufi, Cacndma, Dihli 1358/1939, index; Sayyid 
Muhammad Ma'sum Bhakkari, Ta'rikh-i Sind (ed. 
U. M. Daudpota), Poona 1938, index; Mahdsin 
al-masdH fi mandhib .... al-AwzdH, Cairo n.d., 
48; Jadunath Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal empire, 
Calcutta 1950-2, ii, 60, 84-5, 306-51, 353; iii, 62-91; 
K. R. Qanungo, History of the Jats, Calcutta 1925; 
Ghulam Muhammad Khan, Nawddir al-kisas 
[Ahwdl-i Qidtj, Persian MS. Rieu, iii, 981 b; H. A. 
Rose, A glossary of the tribes and castes of the Punjab 
and the North-West Frontier Province, Lahore 191 1- 
26, s.v. Jats; Ibn Battuta, index; Firishta, Nawal 
Kishore ed. 35 ; Abu ' Zafar Nadwi, Ta>rikh-i 
Sindh (in Urdu), A'zamgafh 1366/1947, 273, 275-6; 
D. Ibbetson, Outlines of Punjab ethnography; idem, 
Glossary of the tribes and castes of the Punjab and 
N.W.Frontier Province . . ., Lahore 1911-4, s.v. Jats; 
H. M. Elliot, Races of the North-Western Provinces; 
W. Crooke, Tribes and castes of the North-Western 
Provinces, 1896; Shah Wall Allah he Siydsi Mahtu- 
bdt (ed. Khalik Ahmad Nizami), <Aligaf h ( ?) 1950, 
48-9, 51, 60-5, 85, 88-9, 168, 196. See also zutt. 
For their tribal organization, much general in- 
formation, and full bibliography, see M. C. 
Pradhan, Socio-political organization of the Jats 
of Meerut District, Ph. D. thesis, London November 
1961. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

DJAWA [see djaba, djawi, Indonesia, Java]. 
al-DJAWAD al-ISFAHAnI, Abu Dja'far 
Muhammad b. c AlI (he also had the honorific name 
of Djamal al-DIn), vizier of the Zangids; he had 
been carefully educated by his father, and at a very 
early age was given an official appointment in the 
diwdn al-'ard of the SaldjQkid sultan Mahmud. 
Subsequently he became one of the most intimate 
friends of Zangi, who made him governor of Nasibin 
and al-Rakka and entrusted him with general 
supervision of the whole empire. After Zangl's 
t he very nearly shared his master's 



fate, but succeeded in leading the troops to 
Mosul. Zangi's son, Sayf al-Din Ghazi, then con- 
firmed his position. Meanwhile, Djamal al-DIn was 
so greatly renowned for his charity that he was given 
the name al-Djawad "the noble". He particularly 
deserved the Muslims' gratitude for the many useful 
improvements he made at his own expense in the 
two holy cities of Medina and Mecca. However, in 
558/1163 he was imprisoned in Mosul by Kutb 
al-DIn Mawdud who had in the meanwhile succeeded 
his brother, and he died in prison during the course 
of the following year. His body was taken, first to 
Mecca where it was carried round all the holy places, 
then to Medina where it was buried. Haysa-Baysa 
and c Imad al-Din were among his panegyrists. 

Bibliography: see especially Ibn al-Athir, 
Atabehs, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, ii, 
147 and 226 ff., and Ibn Khallikan, no. 714, de 
Slane, iii, 295; of secondary importance, Ibn al- 
Kalanisi, ed. Amedroz, 286, 307, 356, 361, with 
extracts from Ibn al-Azrak published in notes 
ibid.; 'Irnad al-Din al-Isfahani, Seldjoucides, ed. 
Houtsma, 209 ff. and in Abu Shama, i, 134; Ibn 
al- Djawzi, al-Muntazam, ed. Haydarabad, x, 209; 
Usama b. Munkidh, in H. Derenbourg, Vie 
d'Usdma, 298; Ibn Djubayr, ed. De Goeje, 124; 
Ibn al-Athir, xi, 202 ff. (Ed.) 

DJAWAD PASHA, Ahmad (T. Ahmed Cevad 
Pasa), 1851-1900, Ottoman Grand Vizier. Born in 
Syria, the son of the miraldy Mustafa c AsIm (whose 
family originated from Afyonkarahisar), he was 
educated at the Military College and completed the 
Staff College course in 187 1. He served in the Russo- 
Turkish war as A.D.C. to the Commander-in-Chief 
Suleyman Pasha and as chief of staff of Nadjib 
Pasha's division. Rapidly promoted, he was appoint- 
ed successively ambassador to Montenegro, with 
the rank of mirliwa (1301/1884), chief of staff to the 
governor and military commander of Crete, Shakir 
Pasha, with the rank of ferik (1306/1889), and soon 
afterwards vice-governor of Crete and extra- 
ordinary commissioner. His services in Crete having 
commended him to c Abd al-Hamid, he was appointed 
Grand Vizier on 29 Muharram 1309/20 February 1891 
and held office for over three years. 

During this period, when the Ottoman Empire was 
disturbed particularly by the Armenian question, 
Djawad Pasha tried to act justly, but he lost the 
favour of c Abd al-Hamid, who was dissatisfied with 
his conduct of affairs. In memorials addressed to the 
Palace Djawad Pasha attributed the various revolts 
in different parts of the Empire to the ineffectiveness 
of the system of government, and proposed that the 
influence of the Palace in the government should 
be reduced and the authority of the Bab-i c AlI 
increased : these recommendations led to his dismissal 
on 9 June 1895. After a period in disgrace, he was 
again appointed military commander of Crete 
(14 July 1897) and soon after, when he was already a 
sick man, commander of the Fifth Army in Syria. 
His health worsened in Syria and he was recalled to 
Istanbul, where he died shortly afterwards (14 Rabi c 
II 1318/n August 1900). 

Djawad Pasha, who had from his early years 
devoted himself to study, was a man of learning, and 
knew Arabic, Persian, French, Italian and Greek. 
Among his works are : MaHumdt-i kdfiye /» memdlik-i 
'Othmdniyye, Istanbul 1289 (a textbook for military 
i'dddi schools); Ta'rikh-i '■askeri-i'-Othmdni, Istanbul 
1297, = £tat militaire ottoman . . ., 1882, (on the 
history of the Janissaries); Riyddiyyenin mebdhith-i 
dakikasl; Kimydnin sandyi'a tatbiki; Semd; Telefon. 



490 



DJAWAD PASHA — DJAWAN 



He published a review entitled Yddigdr and founded 
a rich library. 

Bibliography : Memdfih Pasha, Aswdt-i sudur, 
Izmir 1328; 'Othman Nun, 'Abdiilhamid II ve 
dewr-i salfanatt, Istanbul 1327; Ibniilemin Mahmud 
Kemal, Osmanh devrinde son sadrazamlar, Istanbul 
1949, x; Bursal! Tahir, 'OthmdnU MU'ellifleri, iii, 
43; lA, art. Cevad Pasa (M. Tayyib Gokbilgin); 
Babinger, 382-3. (Cavid Baysun) 

DJAWAlT, double plural of ajdli (through the 
intermediate form djdliya which is also found, 
particularly in old papyri), literally "emigres", a 
term which, in administrative usage, very soon 
served to denote the djizya [q.v.]. Ancient writers 
believed that the word had originally been applied to 
the poll-tax on the dhimmis who were emigres 
(driven out) from Arabia ; some modern writers have 
thought that it could have taken on its meaning, 
by extension, from a term used of the tax on the 
Jewish community in "Exile" djdliU: there is no 
trace of any such specific use. It would seem that, 
in order to understand the semantic development of 
the word, account should be taken of the distinction, 
going back to the Roman Empire, made between 
colonists attached to the soil, and consequently to 
an immutable fiscal community, and those men whom 
the efforts of the administration did not succeed in 
preventing from changing their place of residence 
and occupation, inquilini, (fUfiiStK;. Muslim fiscal 
practice distinguishes more and more sharply 
between, on the one hand, the tax due upon the land, 
which was immovable, from the community collec- 
tively responsible, irrespective of the actual where- 
abouts of each individual on the date of the assess- 
ment or payment, and, on the other, the tax due 
upon the person, which could only be paid by the 
individual in the place where he was. In the tax 
registers therefore an entry was made, among the 
theoretical inhabitants of each district, of the names 
of those who were "emigres", together with their 
place of emigration, for the purpose of informing the 
authorities concerned. Since this procedure related 
more particularly to the djizya, it might in conse- 
quence have led to the name djawdli being given to 
this tax, meaning the individual tax paid also by 
the emigres, or, to express it better, by all individuals 
irrespective of their place of residence. However, no 
text confirms the truth of this explanatory hypothesis. 
Bibliography: see djizya; more particularly 
Lokkegaard (index), and Fattal, 265. 

(Cl. Cahen) 
al- EJAWALTfcf or Ibn al-DjawalIkI, Abu 
Mansur MawhOb b. Ahmad b. Muh. b. al-Khadir, 
so named according to Brockelmann, I 2 , 332 and S I, 
492. Born in Baghdad in 466/1073, he died there on 
15 Muharram 539^9 July "44. According to 
Brockelmann, he belonged to an ancient family, but 
the nisba al-ajawdliki "maker, seller of sacks", 
Persian gowdl(e) "sack", arabicized djuwdlik, pi. 
djawdliku, recorded in the Mu'arrab (48 end -49), pi. 
djawdliku (Slbawayhi, ii (Paris), 205, allows us to 
suppose a humble origin. 

He was the second successor of his master al- 
Tibrizi in the chair of philology at the Nizamiyya. 
A zealous Sunni (Hanbali, according to Shadhardt 
al-dhahab, iv, 127 and al-Tanukhi, in RAAD, xiv, 
164), he was appointed in place of 'All b. Abi Zayd 
(d. 516/1122), a too notorious Shi'i who was compelled 

The man was a conscientious teacher, prudent in 
his answers to questions and with a much admired 
calligraphy. His works deservedly take their place 



along with those of al-Tibrizi in raising the cultural 
level in the Arabic language from the depths to 
which it had fallen in the Saldjukid period: a) the 
K. al-Mu c arrab min al-kaldm al-'aajami l ala huriij 
al-mu'diam, to preserve the tasty language by 
collecting together words of foreign origin and 
recording them as such. This explanatory lexicon, 
which was highly thought of in its time, has proved 
to be very useful and made Ibn al-Djawalikl's 
reputation. In fact, as was said by one of his pupils 
(Abu '1-Barakat Ibn al-Anbari, Nuzha, 475), "the 
shaykh was a better lexicographer than grammarian". 
But it remains principally a creditable application 
of his predecessors' work: published by Ed. Sachau, 
from the Leiden MS, Leipzig 1867, x + 70 (notes) 
+ 158 (Arabic text) + 23 (Index) pp. in 8°. W. 
Spitta filled the gaps from the two Cairo MSS 
(ZDMG, xxxiii, 208-24); an edition in Cairo (Dar 
al-kutub al-Misriyya), 1361 A. H. by Ahmad Muh. 
Shakir. Glosses originated by Ibn Barri (d. 582/1186) 
occur in an Escurial MS (H. Derenbourg, Les Manu- 
scrits arabes de I'Escurial, ii, 772, 5). b) K. al- 
Takmila /t ma yalhan fihi 'l-'dmma, the aim of this 
work on incorrect expressions is evident: published 
by H. Derenbourg, Morgenldnd. Forsch. (Fest- 
schrift Fleischer), Leipzig 1875, 107-66 (from a 
Paris MS, entitled: K. Khata> aW-awdmm), published 
again in Damascus by <Izz al-DIn al-Tanukhi (RAAD, 
xiv, 1936, 163-226) from the Zahiriyya MS (with 
glosses by Ibn Barri), under the title Takmilat 
isldh md taghlit fihi 'l- c dmma, This complements 
the works of this sort, apart from the Durrat al- 
ghawwds by al-Harirl (al-Tanukhi, ibid., 167-168). 
c) The Shark of the Adab al-kdtib by Ibn Kutayba, 
a guide for the practice of the pure Arabic language, 
in fact an average work; printed, Cairo, Maktabat 
al-Kudsi, 1350 A.H. 

In manuscript (Kopr. 1501, Mesh, xi, 16, 50), the 
K. al-Mukhtasar fi 'l-nahw. Ibn al-Anbari (Nuzha, 
474) attributes to him a K. al- e Arud written for 
the caliph al-Muktafi. Brockelmann lists as his work 
a Shark Maksurat Ibn Durayd (S I, 492) and al- 
Tanukhi (loc. cit. 166) a K. Qhalat al-du'-atd? min 
al-fukahd\ The K. Asmd 3 khayl al- c arab wa- 
fursdnihd is to be deleted from his works. 

Bibliography: J. Fuck, t Arabiya, Paris 1955, 

179; Ibn al-Anbari, Nuzhat al-alibbd', 473-8; 

Yakut, Udaba>, xix 205-7; Ibn Khallikan, i Vj 

424-6 (no. 722) ; Suyuti, Bughya, 401 ; Ibn al- 

c Imad, Shadhardt al-Dhahab, iv, 127; Kifti, Inbd' 

al-ruwdt "-aid anbd? al-nuhdt, iii, 335-7, see 335 

note for other references. (H. Fleisch) 

DJAWAN, Mirza Kazim 'AlI, one of the 

pioneers of Urdu prose literature and a munshi at 

Fort William College (Calcutta), originally a 

resident of Dihli, migrated to Lucknow after the 

break-up of the cultural and social life of the 

Imperial capital following the invasion of Ahmad 

Shah Abdali in 1174/1760, and was living in Lucknow 

in 1196/1782 when Ibrahim Khan Khalil was busy 

compiling his tadhkira (see Gulzdr-i Ibrahim, C A1I- 

garh 1352/1934, 93). A writer of simple, chaste and 

unornamented Urdu prose and a scholar of Persian 

and Arabic (he revised the Urdu translation of the 

Kur'an, undertaken partially by Amanat Allah and 

others), he was also conversant with Bradj-bhasha. 

He joined Fort William College on its establishment 

in 1800 as a teacher and settled permanently in 

Calcutta. He was alive in 1815 when he revised, in 

part, the second edition of Haflz al-Din's Khirad 

Afriiz, an Urdu translation of Abu '1-Fadl's c Iydr-i 

Danish. 



DJAWAN — DJAWF 



In 1216/1801 he translated from a Bradj-bhasha I 
version Kalidasa's Sanskrit drama Shakuntald into 
Urdu at the instance of Dr. Gilchrist, head of the 
Hindustani Department of Fort William College and 
one of the early patrons of Urdu literature (ed. 
Calcutta 1804, London 1826, Bombay 1848 and 
Lucknow 1875). His second literary achievement is 
the bdrah-mdsa Dastur-i Hind, a long poem in Urdu, 
arranged according to the Hindu calendar months, 
describing in detail the Hindu and Muslim festivals 
falling in those months, composed 1802 and published 
at Calcutta 1812. He also attempted a translation of 
the Ta'rikh-i Firishta comprising the chapters on the 
Bahmanis [q.v.], and collaborated in the preparation 
of an anthology of the poems of Wall, Mir, Sawda 
and Soz [qq.v.]. He also helped Munshl Lalludji Lai, 
his colleague at Fort William College, in the trans- 
lation of the Simhdsana Dvdtrimiika, a collection of 
tales of Vikramaditya, the radja of Udjdjayn, from 
the Bradj-bhasha version (Singhdsan Battisi) made 
by Sundar, a kavi-rdy of Shahdjahan's court. He 
died some time after 1815. 

Bibliography: Sayyid Muhammad, Arbdb-i 

Nathr-i Urdu 3 , Lahore 1950, 196-207; Muhammad 

Yahya Tanha, Siyar al-Musannifin, Dihli 1924, 

119-20; Ram Babu Saksena, A history of Urdu 

literature*, Allahabad 1940, 248; T. Grahame 

Bailey, A history of Urdu literature, Calcutta 1932, 

82; Beni Narayan Pjahan, Diwdn-i Diahdn (a 

tadhkira of Urdu poets compiled in 1227/1812); 

EI 1 , s.v. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

BJAWAN MARDI [see futuwwa]. 

PJAWANROD (local Kurdish pjwanro), a 

district of Persian Kurdistan lying to the west of 

Mt. Shaho, between Avroman (Hawerman [q.v.]) in 

the north, Shahrizur in the west, and Zuhab and 

Rawansar in the south and east. The country is 

generally mountainous and thickly wooded. The 

valleys are well watered and very fertile, being in 

effect the granary of the Avroman area. 

There is no river now known by this name, but 
Minorsky derives it from * Qidwdn-rud, influenced 
by Persian djawdn 'young'. A Kurdish tribe Djawani, 
listed by Mas'udi (Murudj, iii, 253; Tanbih, 88), 
appears to be the same as the Djaf [q.v.]. Those 
sections of the Djaf still living in Persia are known 
collectively as Pjaf-i Djawanrud. The Kurd-i 
Pjwanro proper occupy villages as far north as the 
river Sirwan, where this becomes the frontier of 
'Irak, and thus surround the Hawrami villages of 
Pawa. 

There have been a number of poets of Djawanrud, 
the most famous being Mawlawi [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: V. Minorsky, The Gurdn, in 

BSOAS, xi, 81; C. J. Edmonds, Kurds, Turks and 

Arabs, London 1957, 141, 189, 198; C A1I Razmara, 

Diuehrdfiyd-yi nizdmi-yi Iran, Kurdistan, [Tehran] 

1941; Muhammad Mardukh Kurdistani, Kitdb 

ta'rikh-i Mardukh, 2 vols., Tehran n.d.; B. Nikitine, 

Les Kurdes, Paris 1956, 36, 55 n. 1, 204; M. Amin 

Zaki, Khuldsat ta'rlkh al-Kurd wa-Kurdistdn, Ar. 

tr. Cairo 1936, 362-3. (Ed.) 

al DJAWBARl [see supplement]. 

D.TAWDHAR. a eunuch— as is indicated by the 

epithet ustddh generally appended to his name — and 

slave who played an important part under the first 

Fatimid caliphs. Even in the time of the last Aghlabid 

he was already working in his service and, while still 

young, was marked out by al-Mahdi when he came 

to al-Rakkada. By his devotion he won the favour 

of the caliph and his son al-Ka'im. During the latter's 

reign he became director of the Treasury and Textile 



Stores, but in addition was the intermediary (safir) 
of the caliph, that is to say in charge of relations 
between him and the various functionaries and 
officers. In this capacity he was chosen as the 
depository of important secrets, for example al- 
Ka'im's choice of al-Mansur as his heir. In the time 
of al-Mansur, who was much preoccupied with the 
struggle against Abu Yazid, very real power had 
been delegated to Djawdhar. He was given his 
freedom, directed the tirdz workshops and had his 
name marked on officially woven fabrics. Moreover 
he was responsible for the upkeep of the treasure, in 
particular the caliph's books, and for watching over 
the inhabitants of the palace, especially the caliph's 
uncles and brothers, and he was the sovereign's 
confidential adviser. Under al-Mu'izz who made him 
move from al-Mahdiyya to the new capital al- 
Mansuriyya he exercised still greater responsibilities, 
dealing with the receipt and transmission of letters 
and requests addressed to the caliph, and with the 
transmission of the sovereign's replies and decisions. 
But he did more than merely transmit letters; some- 
times he not only made for the caliph a resume of 
incoming letters and the problems they raised, but 
the sovereign also made him answer them himself, 
merely indicating what general lines he should take 

Djawdhar's boundless devotion inspired such con- 
fidence in the caliph that he became a sort of prime 
minister. Holding the secret of the nomination of the 
heir to the throne, flattered by members of the great 
families from whom the governors were selected, and 
apparently even figuring in the Isma'ili hierarchy, 
he ranked third in the State, coming after the heir 
apparent. He possessed great wealth, ships with 
which he imported wood from Sicily (perhaps he 
owed his skill in maritime commerce to his slave 
ancestry?), and he was in a position to make gifts 
of wood and money to the caliph. 

Djawdhar left for Egypt at the same time as al- 
Mu'izz, and died on the road near al-Barka, still 
affectionately regarded by the caliph who held him 
in his arms shortly before he died. 

Certain information about this person whom 
historians have ignored is to be found in his Life 
{Sira), compiled by his private secretary al-Mansur, 
who was probably a slave like himself, in the time 
of al- c Aziz. This work contains biographical sections, 
but it is also primarily a collection of documents 
relating to the various affairs in which Djawdhar was 
involved, and includes sermons, letters and drafts 
made by the caliphs, and from this point of view it 
is very important historically. It was published in 

Bibliography: See M. Kamil Husayn and 
M. 'Abd al-Hadi Sha'ira, Sirat al-ustddh Djawdhar, 
Cairo 1954 (Silsilat makhtutat al-Fatimiyyin, 11), 
with a detailed introduction, and the French 
translation with introduction and notes by M. 
Canard, Vie de I'ustddh Jaudhar, Public, de l'lnst. 
d'Etudes Orientales de la Fac. des Lettres d' Alger, 
II e serie, tome xx, Algiers 1958. See also Ivanow, 
Ismaili tradition concerning the rise of the Fatimids, 
263 and index, and M. Kamil Husayn, Fi adab Misr 
al-Fdtimiyya, 29, 114-6, 170, 309. (M. Canard) 
DJAWF, a topographical term denoting a 
depressed plain, is similar in meaning to and some- 
times replaced by djaww, as in Djawf or Djaww al- 
Yamama (al-Bakri, 11, 405) and Djawf or Djaww 
Tu'am. The name djawf is applied to many locations: 
chiefly Djawf al-Sirhan and Djawf Ibn Nasir (also 
known as Djawf without the definite article (al- 



DJAWF — DJAWF KUFRA 



Bakrt), Diawf al-Yaman, al-Djawf, and the 
Djawfs— Djawf Hamdan and Djawf Murad of the 
lexicographers). Djawf Ibn Nasir of north-west al- 
Yaman is a broad plain, roughly trapeziform, 
bounded on the north by Djabals al-Lawdh, Barat, 
and Sha<af ; on the west by Djabals Madhab, Kharid 
Khabash, and al^Ishsh; on the south by Djabal 
Yam; and on the east by the sands of Ramlat Dahm 
of the south-western Rub c al-Khall. Djawf Ibn Nasir, 
which lies north-west of Ma'rib [q.v.], was the ce 
of the Minaean Dynasty and abounds with archaeo- 
logical sites (called locally Kharib, the plural of 
Khariba) which were first described by Hamdani 
and later by Halevy, Habshush, Glaser, Philby, 
Fakhry, Tawfik, and von Wissman, and which 
include Ma c In, al-Hazm, Barakish, Kamna (KumnS 
in the local dialect), al-Sawda, and al-Bayda. Among 
the wddis originating in the mountains to the v 
and flowing into Wadi al-Djawf and thence to 
sands in the east, are Wadi al- c Ula, Wadi al-Kharid, 
and Wadi Madhab. Two canals of ancient con- 
struction, Bahi al-Kharid (which parallels Wadi al- 
Kharid) and Bahi al-Sakiya, are still in use to 
irrigate the agricultural lands of al-Hazm and al- 
Ghayl respectively, while al-Matimma is irrigated by 
the seasonal waters of Wadi Madhab. Al-Hazm, the 
chief village of Djawf Ibn Nasir, is the markaz of the 
ndhiya of al-Djawf and seat of the 'dmil, who 
reports to the governor of the province in San'5 5 . 
Djawf Ibn Nasir produces wheat, barley, grain 
sorghums, sesame seeds and oil, cotton, fruit, camels 
and sheep for export. It is the dira of Dahm, a tribe 
tracing its ancestry to Nasir (whence Djawf Ibn 
Nasir) through Hamdan [q.v.]. Dahm's warlike 
reputation, which was noted by Niebuhr in r 
has survived to the present, and raids were carried 
out by Dahm until the late 1940's (Thesiger). 
Hamdani speaks of the bellicosity of the tribes of 
al-Djawf and mentions two opposing groups, Hamdan 
and Madhidj, whence Djawf Hamdan and Djawf 
Murad ibn Madhhidj according to Schleifer) of the 
lexicographers. 

Bibliography: Hamdani, index s.v.; Yakut, 
ii, 157 3.; BGA, iii, 89; vi, 137, 249; al-Bakri, 
Mu'djam ma ista'-djam, ii, 404-6, Cairo 1945; Ibn 
Bulayhid, §ahih al-akhbdr, iv, 167-9, Cairo 1953; 
M. Tawfik, Athar MaHn fl Djawf al- Yaman, 
Cairo 1951; A. Fakhry, An archaeological journey 
to Yemen, i, 139-52, Cairo 1952; N. Faris, The 
antiquities of South Arabia, Princeton 1938; S. 
Goitein (ed.) Travels in Yemen, Jerusalem 1941 ; 
N. Lambardi, Divisioni amministrative del Yemen, 
in OM, xxvii, no. 7-9; D. Miiller and N. Rhodo- 
kanakis, Edttard Glasers Reise nach Marib, Vienna 
1913; C. Niebuhr, Description de I'Arabie, Copen- 
hagen 1773; H. St. J. Philby, Sheba's Daughters, 
London 1939; Thesiger, Arabian sands, London 
1959; H. von Wissman and M. Hofner, Beitrage 
zur historischen Geographic des vorislamischen 
Sudarabien, Mainz 1952. (M. Quint) 

al-EJAWF, district and town in north central 
Saudi Arabia, near the southern terminus of Wadi 
al-Sirhan. The district of al-Djawf (= "belly, 
hollow"), also known as al-Djuba, is a roughly 
triangular depression, with one base along the 
northern fringe of al-Nafud and its northern apex 
at al-Shuwayhitiyya. It is bounded on the west by 
Djal al-Djuba al-Gharbl and on the east by Djal 
al-Djuba al-Sharki. Al-Djawf, or al-Djuba, with < 
area of approximately 3,850 square kms., is separated 
from Nadjd by the sand desert of al-Nafud. It i 
administered as a district under the Saudi Arabian 



Amirate of the Northern Frontiers. The area is 
relatively well watered, has many palm groves, and 
is considered to have agricultural potential. The two 
most important settlements of al-Djawf are the 
towns of Sakaka, now the administrative centre, and 
al-Djawf. Kara, al-Tuwayr, and Djawa are smaller 
villages. The total population of the district was 
roughly estimated as 25,000 in 1961. 

The town of al-Djawf, or Djawf c Amir (29 48.5' N., 
39° 52.1' E., elev. c. 650 m.), has historically been 
the centre of al-Djuba and has been identified with 
the Dumetha of Ptolemy. It was known to the early 
Arab geographers as Dumat al-Djandal, [q.v.]. The 
name Djawf c Amir (also Djawf Al c Amir, Djawf Ibn 
'Amir) is often used to differentiate the town from 
the southern Djawf, Djawf Ibn Nasir, south-east of 
Wadi Nadjran. 

Muhammad b. Mu c aykil added al-Djawf to the 
WahhabI realm of c Abd al-'AzIz b. Muhammad b. 
Sa c ud in 1 208/1 794, when the people of the area 
surrendered to his combined forces from Nadjd. In 
c. 1853 the district was taken by Al Rashid of Ha'il 
who held it, in the face of internal rebellion and 
threats from the Turks, until 1909. In that year, 
NOri b. Shaman, the Ruwala chief, took al-Djawf. 
There followed 13 years of struggle between the 
Ruwala and . Shammar for mastery of the area, 
with the town changing hands several times. The 
Ikhwdn levies of Ibn Sa c ud took al-Djawf in 1922 
with the aid of local leaders who had adopted 
WahhabI tenets. The area has since remained a part 
of the Sa c udi state. Al-Djawf, now declining in 
importance because of the rise of the new admini- 
strative centre at Sakaka, has been a trading town 
of the Shammar, Ruwala, and Shararat. It is still 
known for its date market and crafts, while a 
planned (1961) road system and development scheme 
may make it an important agricultural centre. 

Bibliography: c Uthman b. Bishr, c Unwdn 
al-madjd, Cairo 1373, 110-11; Hafiz Wahba, 
Djarirat al-'Arab*, Cairo 1956, 45, 67; J. Euting, 
Tagebuch einer Reise in Inner-Arabien, i, 123-40; 
Ibn Hisham, 668, 903, 991 ; J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer 
of the Persian Gulf, Calcutta 1908-15, 935-3; A. 
Musil, Arabia Deserta, New York 1927, 464-74, 
520-3, 531-53 (a valuable historical discussion 
with many additional references); H. St. J. B. 
Philby, Arabia, London 1930; Saudi Arabia, 
London 1955; Ritter, Erdkunde, xii, 71, 713,842; 
xiii, 343, 362, 377 ff-, 389-95, 467; Yakut, i, 825; 
ii, 157-8, 625-9; iii, 106, 277; iv, 12, 32, 76, 389. 
index; C. A. Nallino, V Arabia Sa*udiana, Rome 
1938, 68 ff., 87. 

Maps: Series by the II. S. Geological Survey 
and Arabian American Oil Company under joint 
sponsorship of the Ministry of Finance and 
National Economy (Kingdom of Saudi Atabia) 
and the Department of State (U.S.A.). Jawf- 
Sakakah, Map I-201 B, scale 1 : 500,000 (1961). 

(J. Mandaville) 
EJAWF KUFRA is the chief oasis of the Kufra 
oasis complex in the Libyan Desert and is located 
about 575 miles SE of Benghazi. The 2200 (1950 
estimate) inhabitants of Djawf raise dates, grapes, 
barley, and olives. Local industry is limited to 
handicrafts and olive pressing. In the mid-nineteenth 
century, the founder of the Sanusi Order, al-Sayyid 
Muhammad b. c Ali al-SanusI, established Zawiyat 
al-Ustadh at Djawf at the request of the local tribe, 
Zwuyya (Ziadeh 49, cf. EI 1 , iv, 1108 which gives the 
tribe's name as Zawiya) and opened the Sahara and 
the central Sudan to Sanusi penetration. Diawf 



DJAWF KUFRA — DJAWHAR 



493 



experienced a short period of prominence in 1895 
when al-Sanusfs son and successor, al-Sayyid 
Muhammad al-Mahdi, transferred the capital of 
the order to Zawiyat al-Ustadh. However, the 
capital was soon moved to the newly constructed 
Zawiyat al-Tadj, also in the Kufra Oasis, and 
finally in 1899 was moved to the Central Sudan. 
Bibliography : A. Desio, "Cufra", Enciclopedia 
italiana, xii, 86-8, Milan 1931-40; E. Evans- 
Pritchard, The Sanusi of Cyrenaica, Oxford 1949 ; 
R. Forbes, The secret 0) the Sahara, New York 
1921; J. Wright, Wartime exploration with the 
Sudan Defence Force, in GJ, cv, Nos. 3-4, 100-11; 
N. Ziadeh, Sanusiyah, Leiden 1958. (M. Quint) 
EJAWHAR "substance" (the Arabic word is 
derived from Persian gawhar, Pahlawi gor, which has 
already the meaning of substance, although both in 
Pahlawi and in Arabic, it can mean also jewel) is 
the common translation of ouata, one of the funda- 
mental terms of Aristotelian philosophy. "Sub- 
stance" in a general sense may be said to signify 
the real, that which exists in reality, al-mawdjfid 
bi 'l-hakika. In opposition to Plato, for whom the 
particular transitory things of the visible world are 
but appearances and reality lies in a world beyond, 
the world of constant, eternal ideas, for Aristotle 
and his followers in Islam the visible world possesses 
reality and consists of individuals and in its most 
pregnant sense "substance" is the first and most 
important category of Aristotle's table of categories, 
that which signifies the concrete individual, toSe ti, 
al-mushdr ilayhi, al-shakhs. In this sense it may be 
said that all things in the visible world, all bodies, 
parts of bodies, plants and animals are substances 
(these individual substances are sometimes called 
first substances, Trp&Tca ouatai, djawdhir uwal to 
distinguish them from the second substances, 
Ssiixepca ouatai, al-diawdhir al-thawdni, species 
and genera). However, according to Aristotle and 
his school every concrete individual is composed of 
two factors, matter and form, and although mere 
matter, unendowed with form, cannot exist by 
itself, nor form — at least in the sublunar world — 
can exist without matter, both possess objective 
reality. Matter in its pregnant sense is prime matter, 
the underlying entity, substratum of the forms, and 
is by itself absolutely undetermined. Still, as it 

has at least some reality and therefore the name of 
substance cannot be denied to it. Besides, although 
it is mere potentiality, it is the principle of all 
becoming and therefore cannot have become itself, 
but is eternal. Form is the essence, to ti, to ti 9]V 
elvat, dhdt, mdhiyya, hakika, the universal character 
of any particular and is the cause which differen- 
tiates this particular being from other particular 
beings of its genus through its species, for instance, 
every particular man is a man and his being a man, 
his essence, differentiates him from other living 
beings and is the cause — the formal cause according 
to Aristotle and his school — of his being a man. 
Although these essences, according to Aristotle, 
never exist by themselves, for only particular beings 
exist, he regards them as having a reality superior 
to that of the transitory beings, for they are causes— 
and a cause, according to him, is superior to its 
effect — and they are eternal and they merit therefore 
still more the name of substance than the particular 
things. But how can one regard these essences, non- 
existent by themselves, but eternal, as the formal 
causes of the transitory existents? It is here that 
the neoplatonizing Muslim philosophers go beyond 



Aristotle. According to them the fundamental and 

God or in God's thinking them; it is God's thought 
which is the ultimate formal and final cause of all 
things. However, God's absolute Unity is not 
affected by his thought; in God's self-consciousness 
these essences are comprehended and in God, the 
thinker, the thinking and the object of thought are 
all one. 

There is besides another point where the Muslim 
Aristotelians go beyond their master. It is one of 
the characteristics of Aristotle's system that reality 
is regarded as having degrees or, as he expresses it, 
that being is predicated analogically; first there is 
the sublunar world of transitory things, then beyond 
it is the heavenly eternal world of the incorruptible 
in which there is this mysterious substance, the 
active intellect, 6 vou? Trou]Tix6?, al- c akl al-fa"dl, 
ungenerated and immortal, the immaterial form 
which in combination with the passive reason 
activates the thoughts in human beings. Still higher 
are the intellects, pure immaterial forms or sub- 
stances, which are the movers of the celestial sphere, 
and at the pinnacle is God, the most Real, substance 
in the truest sense. However, for Aristotle God is 
but the eternal mover of an eternal universe, he is 
not its creator, nor are the movers of the celestial 
spheres dependent on him in their nature or existence. 
But for the Muslim philosophers under the influence 
of the neoplatonic theory of emanation God is the 
eternal, constant creator of the world, co-existent 
and co-eternal with him. According to them the 
plurality of the world arises out of God's unity 
through the eternal and timeless emanation of a 
descencing chain of intermediaries, intellects and 
souls, immaterial substances moving the heavenly 
spheres and,the last of these intellects is the active 
intellect, the dator formarum, wdhib al-suwar, which 

disposed to receive them, provides them with their 
forms. All these immaterial substances, essences 
or forms have a different degree of reality and their 
reality increases with their nearness to God, who is 
an existent, a substance, an intellect and a cause, 
these terms taken, however, in a superior sense to 
what they have in all other beings, for God's very 
essence consists in his existence which is necessary 
by itself and exclusively confined to him and God's 
substance is the only truly independent substance 
on which all other substances depend. 

The whole theory is highly controversial and 
Ghazall in his Tahdfut al-faldsifa has seen its 
fundamental weakness. If the plurality in the world 
derives from the intermediaries, there will be primary 
causes besides God, if from God himself, they will 
be useless; if God is the supreme, eternal and con- 
stant cause of the World's existence all changes in 
the world will derive from him; they cannot derive 
from a pre-existent mattter, since here is no such 
pre-existence and besides, matter not endowed with 
form does not exist. The philosophers, indeed, tried 
to combine two contradictory theories: the super- 
naturalistic theory of a divine, eternally acting 
cause for all existence and the naturalistic theory 
of an eternal and independent matter in which lie 
the potentialities of all becoming. 

The theory of the Ash'ari theologians, on the 
contrary, is frankly supernaturalistic. For them 
djawhar means simply the underlying substratum 
of accidents; one may regard it as matter — not of 
matter in the Aristotelian sense of an entity 
possessing potentialities, but only as that which 



494 

bears or carries accidents — or even as body for the 
substratum consists of atoms which by their 
aggregation compose the body. The term, however, 
is somewhat ambiguous, since often in Ash'ari 
terminology djawhar means atom, although the full 
designation for atom is al-djawhar al-jard or al- 
djawhar al-wdhid. The atoms out of which the world 
consists have no independent existence; they rest 
only on the power of God who, continually, in every 

And since djawhar has in theology a purely material 
meaning it is forbidden to apply the term to God. 

One point, where the Muslim Aristotelians deviate 
from Aristotle, should be still mentioned. Although 
Aristotle calls the soul a substance, since it is the 
formal cause of the living organism, he does not 
regard it as having an existence separate from the 
body, that is independent of the body and surviving 
it. The Muslim philosophers regard the soul as a sub- 
stance subsistent by itself, djawhar kd'im binafsihi, 
that is independent of the body, and they teach 
personal immortality. It is however somewhat 
difficult for them as Aristotelians to uphold this, 
since, according to Aristotle, matter is the principium 
individuationis — Avicenna gives this as an argument 
against the possibility of the pre-existence of the 
soul — perception and representation are localized 
in the body and all thinking, according to Aristotle, 
presupposes preliminary perception and representa- 
tion and is activated by the active intellect which is 
one for all human beings. Their theories are therefore 
not always consistent or easily understood. 

Bibliography: al-Ghazali, Tahdfut al-taldsifa 

(ed. Bouyges), Beirut 1927, where the philosophers' 

theories are exposed and critically examined; 

Ibn Rushd, Tahdfut al-tahdful (ed. Bouyges). Beirut 

1931. (S. VAN DEN BERGH) 

DJAWHAR (ii) [see supplement], 

DJAWHAR Aft abaCI, the author of Tadhkiral al- 
wdhi'-dt, valuable memoirs of the reign of Humayun 
[q.v.] and giving much useful information not 
available elsewhere, was for some years ewer-bearer 
{dftdba(i) to Humayun and in this capacity came very 
close to the emperor. He enjoyed the honorific title 
of mihtar (cf. Akbarndma, Bib. Ind., i, 346; the 
appellation mihtar was, however, common to all the 
dftdbaiis in the service of the emperor), and was a 
trusted confidant of his master. Although he was 
neither a scholar not a writer of any high standard, 
history has, however, preserved Djawhar's name 
for the simple, unostentatious and truthful narration 
of events of the reign of Humayun and his deep 
loyalty to his majter. In recognition of his services he 
was appointed in 962/1554-5 muhassil (tax-collector) 
of the pargana of Haybatpur Bin! and subsequently 
of the villages included in the djdgir of Tatar 
Khan Lodi. It, however, appears that he enjoyed 
this office for a short while only, as the same year 
(cf. Akbarndma, i, 346; tr. Beveridge, i, 627) he was 
appointed the khazinaddr (treasurer) of the govern- 
ment of the sarkars of the Pandjab and of Multan. 
While in Haybatpur, dominated by the Baniyas 
(Hindu traders and bankers), Djawhar paid off the 
debts which the local Afghans owed to the Hindus 
and secured the release of pawned Afghan women 
and children. This humanitarian act earned for him 
royal approbation resulting in his promotion as a 
provincial treasurer (khizdnci; cf. Tadhkifat al- 
wdki'dt, fol. 132, B.M. MS. Add. 16711). Although a 
personal servant of Humayun, he was entrusted 
with special State assignments on critical occasions 
and his counsels were given due weight (cf. Tadh- 



DJAWHAR — DJAWHAR al-SIKILLI 



kirat al-wdki'dt, fasl 32 passim). As with the meagre 
details of his life, nothing is known about the 
dates of his birth and death. He survived his 
imperial patron but passed into eclipse after 
Humayun's sudden death in 963/1556. 

His claim to fame rests chiefly on his only work, 
the Tadhhirat al-wdhi'-dt, whose value as a very 
useful source-book for the reign of Humayun has 
been fully recognized. The original Persian text is 
still in MS. although English and Urdu translations 
have since appeared; (C. Stewart, The Tezkereh al- 

Vakiat London 1832 Calcutta 1904; Mu'in 

al-Hakk, Tadhkirat al-wdki'dt, Karachi n.d.). At 
the request of Djawhar a recension in ornate prose 
was made by Ilah-dad Faydl Sirhindi the author of 
the Persian lexicon Maddr al-Afddil for presentation 
to Akbar (cf. Rieu, hi, 927a and Ethe 222). 

Bibliography: Tadhkirat al-wdki'dt (Urdu tr. 

Mu c in al-Hakk), Karachi n.d., index s.v. Djawhar; 

Storey, i, 536-7; Rieu, i, 246; Elliot and Dowson, 

History of India . . . ., v, 136-49. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

DJAWHAR al-SIKILLI, generai and.adminis- 
strator, one of the founders of the Fatimid Empire 
in North Africa and Egypt. 

His name was Djawhar b. c Abd Allah, also 
Djohar together with the epithets of al-Saklabl (the 
Slav), al-Sikilll (the Sicilian) or al-Rumi (the Greek) 
and al-Katib (the State Chancellor) or al-Ka'id (the 
General). The first two epithets cast some light on 
his obscure origin, the other two denote the two 
highest posts he occupied. His birth date is unknown, 
but judging by the date of his death (20 Dhu '1-Ka'da 
381/28 April 991) we may guess that he was born 
sometime during the first decade of the 4th/ioth 
century; he was in the prime of his activity between 
340/950 and 366/975. From the parallel career of 
.Djawdhar, well known to us, thanks to his recently 
published biography, we may infer that Djawhar 
was a freedman of the Fatimid house, of Slav origin. 
(Leo Africanus, tr. Epaulard, 19, 503 = Esclavon; 
on this question see I. Hrbek, Die Slaven im Dienste 
der Fdtimiden, in ArO, xxi (1953), 560-71). His 
father c Abd Allah was most probably a slave, but 
Djawhar appears as a freedman from the very 

The first time we hear of Djawhar he was a 
ghuldm, perhaps also the secretary of the third 
Fatimid Caliph al-Mansur. In 347/958 al-Mu c izz 
decided to put all the power he possessed in a 
military venture to dominate the whole of North 
Africa, and chose for the leadership of this important 
campaign his secretary Djav.har. giving him in this 
way the opportunity to prove that he was the most 
talented soldier the Fatimids ever had. 

Djawhar's campaign in the Central and Far 
Maghrib was perhaps the most resounding achieved 
by a Muslim army since that of c Ukba b. N5fi< some 
284 years before, but in spite of the victories 
Djawhar gained, it was neither decisive nor of any 
lasting effect. This was due not to any fault of 
Djawhar, but to the difficulty of the terrain 
and to the greatly superior strength of the 
enemy. Near Tahart Djawhar had to measure arms 
with a large army of Zanatis, supporters of the 
Umayyads, under Ya'la b. Muhammad al-Yafranl, 
governor of Tahart and Ifkan; according only 
to Ibn Abi Zar c , also of Tandja (Tangier). He 
won the day and killed Ya'la (347/958). Instead 
of marching on Fez and the other Umayyad strong- 
holds in the region, he chose to use his small forces 
to realize easier gains. He turned south-east, invaded 



DJAWHAR al-SIKILLI — AL-DJAWHARl 



the small principality of Sidjilmasa and put 
prince Muhammad b. al-Fath b. Maymun b. Midrar 
to flight. Some days later this last of the Midraris 
fell into the hands of Djawhar who killed him m 
lessly. He spent more than a year in this region 
waiting for a suitable opportunity to move nc 
wards. In the last days of Sha c b3n 349/October 960 
he headed towards Fez and laid siege to it. 
20 Ramadan 349/13 November 960 he stormed the 
city, thanks to the bravery of ZIrl b. Manad al-San- 
hadji who was under his command. Its Umayyad 
governor Ahmad b. Abl Bakr al-Diudhaml 
taken prisoner and died in prison. This great victory 
brought all the Maghrib al-Aksa (except Tandja and 
Sabta) under Fatimid authority for a short tin 
Even the last of the Idrisids, al-Hasan b. Djannun, 
who contented himself with a small principality 
around the city of al-Basra under Umayyad vassal- 
age, paid homage. To give al-Mu c izz a tangible 
proof of his victory he sent to him some live fish, 
taken from the Atlantic Ocean, in huge jars full of 
water. Some months later he returned victoriou 
al-Kayrawan with prisoners and rich booty. 

These victories of Djawhar's opened the eyes of 
his master al-Mu c izz to his talents, and convinced 
him that with his aid he could realize the dearest 
Fatimid dream since the rise of their power: 
conquest of Egypt. 

Between 350/961 and 358/968-9 we have 110 
formation whatsoever about Djawhar. But in 
968-9 he came to the fore once more as the general 
chosen by al-Mu c izz to lead the campaign in Egypt. 
Al-Mu c izz had such confidence in him that he is re- 
ported to have said: "By God, if this Djawhar were 
to go alone, he would conquer Egypt and we would 
be able to enter this laud clad only in our simple 
clothes {i.e., without armour or shield) without war 
and we could dwell in the ruined abodes of Ibn 
Tulun and build a city which would dominate the 
world" (Khitat, i, 378). As a sign of honour al-Mi 
bestowed 011 Djawhar before his depature all 
royal garments and apparel except his seal 
underwear. He ordered all the governors on the n 
to Egypt to meet hiin dismounted and to kiss 
hand. The governor of Barka [q.v.] Aflah al-Nashib 
offered to pay 100,000 dinars to be spared this 
humiliation to his dignity, but the Caliph refused. 
Djodhar, the highest dignity after the Caliph, was 
ordered to address Djawhar as an equal brother. 

Al-Mu c izz was not disappointed in his hopes. 
Within four months Djawhar achieved the conquest 
of Egypt. He left al-Kayrawan in Rabi' II 358/ 
February 969 and by mid-Sha c ban of the same 
year/i July 969 he was already master of al-Fustat 
after a very little fighting near al- Djiza on 1 1 Sha'ban/ 
30 June. He knew how to gain the sympathies of the 
Egyptians and inspire their confidence in the 
regime through a long pompous proclamation read 
in public and through the nomination of Dja r 
b. al-Furat as wazir. As a measure of precaution, 
however he did not dwell in Fustat, but passed the 
first night after his victory in his camp to its 
north. The next day he laid the foundations of a 
new capital Cairo (al-Kahira [q.v.]) which was destined 
to be the greatest of Muslim cities after Baghdad. 
A year later (24 Djumada I 359/4 April 970) he 
founded the famous mosque of al-Azhar [q.v.]. 

Having established Fatimid rule in Egypt, Djaw- 
har stayed as sole governor of Egypt for more than 
four years; al-Mu c izz entered Cairo only on 17 
Muharram 364/7 October 974. A little later he 
dismissed Djawhar. 



During these four years Djawhar showed note- 
worthy capacity and foresight as administrator. 
Besides the sympathies of the people, which he 
fully gained, he succeeded in putting order in 
the finances of the country which were in complete 
chaos during the last years of the Ikhshidids. It 
is known that Egypt had yielded since the time 
of Mu c awiya an annual revenue of about 4 million 
dinars when well administered. Djawhar raised 
3,400,000 dinars during the first year of his admin- 
istration, almost the largest revenue of Egypt 
in the Fatimid period. Some 85 years later, the able 
vizier al-Yaziiri could raise only 800,000. Djawhar 
had more confidence in the Maghribls who came 
with him than in Egyptians, and gave them almost 
all the important posts. He may have been following 
in this respect the instructions of al-Mu c izz. 

Besides his work in the administration of the new 
province, Djawhar had to face the menacing peril 
of the Karmatians [q.v.], who in Dhu 'l-Hidjdja 
358/September 969 defeated and took prisoner at 
Damascus his lieutenant Dja'far b. Fallah, who had 
been placed in change of the occupation of Palestine 
and Syria. During this conflict with the Karmatians 
and their allies, Djawhar was able to annex al- 
Hidjaz to Fatimid rule. By 366/976 the khutba was 
read in their name in Mecca and Medina. 

After 368/976 we hear no more of Djawhar till 
his death in 20 Dhu '1-Ka c da 381/30 April 992. He is 
said have passed those idle years of his life between 
368 and 381 in works of piety and welfare. His son 
al-Husayn, commander-in-chief to the caliph al- 
Hakim, was killed as a result of intrigues in which 
he took part against the Caliph. 

Bibliography: Nu'man (Abu Hanifa b. Muh. 
al-Maghribi), al-Mad±dlis -wa 'l-musdyardt (Ms. 
Nat. Library, Cairo No. 26060); Ibn Hammad 
(Muh. b. c Ali, Akhbdr muluk Bani 'Ubayd (ed. 
M. Vonderheyden, Algiers-Paris 1927, 40-49; Ibn 
Khallikan, Cairo ed. 1948, biog. no. 130, 141, 
698 ; Ibn Abl Zar', Kirtds, ed. Tornberg, Upsala- 
Paris 1843, 27-63, (tr. Beaumier, 49122); Ibn 
al-Athir, viii, passim, ix, 64 (tr. Fagnan, passim); 
Bakri, Description de I'Afrique septentrionalc s.v. 
Sidjilmasa; Kitdb mafdkhir al-Uarbar, ed. Levi- 
Provcncal, Rabat, 1934, 4-5; Yahya b. Sa c id al- 
Antakl, Silat Kitab Aftishyush (liutychius), Beirut 
1909, i, 132; Ibn al-Kalanisi, Dhayl Ta'rikh 
Dimashk, (Beirut, 1902, 1-20; Ibn Dukmak, 
Intisdr, Cairo 1893, iv, ioff.; Mansur al-Katib, 
Sirat al-Ustddh Djawdhar, ed. M. K. Husayn and 
c Abd al-Hadi Sha'ira, Cairo 1954, index (tr. M. 
Canard, Vie de VUstddh Jaudhar, Algiers 1958), 
Ibn 'Idhari, i, 191 ff.; MakrizI, Khitat, ed. Bulak 
1270, i, 350 ff.; idem, Itti'az al-hunafd', ed. Dj. 
Shayyal, Cairo 1947, 64-87; Nasiri, Istiksd, Casa- 
blanca 1954, i, 198-206; Hasan Ibrahim Hasan, 
Ta'rikh al-dawla al-fdtimiyya, Cairo 1958, index; 
Quatremere, Vie du Khalife fatimite Moezz-li-din 
Allah, in J A, 1836; S. Lane- Poole, The story of 
Cairo, London 1912, 119-20; G. Marcais, Berbirie 
musulmane, Paris 1946, 153-6; c Ali Ibrahim Hasan, 
Ta'rikh Djawhar al-Sihilli. Cairo 1933; Hasan 
Ibrahim Hasan and Taha Ahmad Sharaf, Al- 
MuHzz li-din Allah, Cairo 1367/1948. 

(H. Mon£s) 
AL-DJAWHARl, Abu Nasr Isma c Il (b. Nasr?) 

of Turkish origin, born in the town (or: in the 
province) of Farab [q.v.] (whence his nisba al-Farabi), 
situated east of the Sir-Darya. In later times, Farab 
was called Otrar or Otrar. 



The date of his birth is unknown. For the year 
of his death most sources give either 393/1002-3 
or 398/1007-8, while others mention 397/1006-7 
or about 400/1009-10. The first date (or even 
earlier ones; see Rosenthal) is made doubtful by the 
statement of Yakut that he had seen an autograph 
copy of al-Djawhari's Sihdh dated 396. 

Al-Djawhari commenced his studies at home under 
his maternal uncle Abu Ibrahim Ishak b. Ibrahim 
al-Farabi (Brockelmann I, 133; SI, 195 f.), the 
author of the Diwdn al-adab, an Arabic lexicon which 
greatly influenced al-Djawhari's own dictionary 
al-Sihdh. In order to complete his education he went 
to Baghdad where he attended the lectures of Abu 
Sa'Id al-Sirafi [q.v.] and Abu C A1I al-FarisI (Brockel- 
mann I, 116; S I, 175) and later travelled to the 
abodes of the Bedouin tribes of Mudar and Rabl'a 
(probably in Syria and 'Irak) and even to the 
Hidjaz and Nadjd (see, e.g., Sihdh, s.v. n kh s). He 
thus followed the habit of earlier lexicographers who 
used to make linguistic investigations among the 
Arabs of the desert, and he seems to have been the 
last lexicographer of fame to maintain that tradition. 
After having spent a large part of his life on travel he 
returned to the east, stayed some time in Damaghan 
[q.v.] with the Kdtib Abu 'All al-Hasan (variant: 
al-Husayn) b. 'All and then settled in Nisabur, 
where he made a living by teaching and copying 
books, especially the Kur'an, and also devoted 
himself to literary activity. His beautiful hand- 
writing was so much admired that it was put on the 
same level as that of the celebrated Ibn Mukla. He 
died in Nisabur either as the result of an accidental 
fall from the top of his house or of the old mosque, 
or else, in a fit of madness, while trying to fly with 
two wooden wings (or: with the two wings of a door) 
fastened to his body. 

Besides some verses, part of which are preserved 
in a Berlin MS. (Ahlwardt 75892) or quoted by later 
authors (e.g., al-Tha'alibi and Yakut), he wrote an 
introduction to syntax, Mukaddima fi 'l-nahw, and 
a treatise on metre, l Arud al-warafra, both of which 
appear to be lost. His distinction in the field of 
metrics, where he deviated in some respects from 
the system laid down by al-Khalil [q.v.], is pointed 
out by Ibn Rashik. 

His fame rests on his dictionary Tddj al-lugha 
wa-sihdh aW-Arabiyya, commonly known as al- 
Sihdh [al-Sahdh is also correct), which represents a 
milestone in the development of Arabic lexico- 
graphy. For centuries it was the most widely used 
Arabic dictionary until, in more recent times, the 
Kdmus of al-FIruzabadl [q.v.] took its place. In 
addition to outspoken statements in the sources, 
the important standing of al-Djawhari's lexicon is 
attested to by the fact that, in the centuries following 
its appearance, it gave rise to a huge mass of lexico- 
graphical literature, part of which has been described 
and characterized by Goldziher. The Sihdh was 
abridged, rearranged, supplemented, commented 
upon, and translated into Turkish and Persian; its 
contents, together with those of other dictionaries, 
were merged into new lexicographical works; the 
verses and hadiths quoted in it as shawdhid were 
assembled in special treatises; a versification of it 
was begun by Zayn al-DIn al-Maghribl (Yakut, ed. 
Margoliouth, vii, 292); and a considerable number 
of writings were devoted to criticism of its short- 
comings. On the other hand, several authors made 
it a point to defend al-Djawhari from the attacks 



of h 



s the title suggests, the Sihdh was intended t 



contain only authentic lexicographical data, their 
authenticity, according to the notions of indigenous 
Arabic lexicography, being dependent upon their 
transmission through a continuous chain of reliable 
tradition (cf. Suyuti, Muzhir, i, 58). Hence, the same 
degree of authority was attributed to the Sihdh in 
lexicography as to the two Sahihs of Bukhari and 
Muslim in the science of iadtth. In both cases, 
however, the formal principles adopted did not make 
for absolute correctness, and numerous errors were 
detected in the Sihdh although the work as a whole 
was held to be highly reliable. 

In his short introduction, al-Djawhari claims that 
he arranged his subject matter according to an 
entirely new scheme. His innovations, however, are 
mainly a combination of various principles followed 
by his predecessors. The arrangement of the roots 
under the last radical, adopted, after the model of 
the Sihdh, by the best known of later lexicographers, 
had already been introduced by al-Djawhari's 
teacher and uncle, al-Farabi, in the Diwdn al-adab. 
The use of the common order of the Arabic alphabet, 
in contrast to the phonetical arrangement of al- 
Khalil which was followed by several of al-Djawhari's 
forerunners and successors, had also been in vogue 
before the Sihah. As to the principle of authenticity, 
as understood by Arabic lexicographers, al-Djaw- 
hari's older contemporary, Ibn Faris [q.v.], had set 
the example in his Mudjmal. 

The use of the last radical as the primary basis for 
the arrangement of the Sihdh has been interpreted 
as being due to the author's intention to help poets 
find rhyme words. However, Sanskrit lexicography, 
which seems to have influenced Arabic lexicography 
in some respects, occasionally used the same prin- 
ciple, although Sanskrit poetry has no rhyme. 

At al-Djawhari's time, independent lexicological 
research had already come to a close. So the Sihdh 
contains mainly an abstract from earlier lexico- 
graphical works, in the first place the Diwdn al- 
Adab (see Krenkow), while al-Djawhari's own con- 
tributions are minimal. Being replete with gram- 
matical discussions, the Sihdh earned its author the 
reputation of being the outstanding expert on 
grammar among lexicographers. It is reported that 
al-Djawhari compiled his dictionary for the Ustddh 
Abu Mansur 'Abd al-Rahim (variant: Rahman) b. 
Muhammad al-BIshaki, with whom he became 
closely associated in Nisabur (cf. Yakut, Bulddn, 
s.v. BIshak). In the circulation of the work an 
important part was taken by the author's pupil 
Isma'Il b. Muhammad b. 'Abdus al-Dahhan al- 
Nlsaburi, the Egyptian philologist Abu Sahl Muham- 
mad b. 'All b. Muhammad al-HarawI and, later on, 
the well known calligrapher Yakut al-Mawsili. 
Variant readings in different MSS of the Sihdh are 
frequently pointed out by later lexicographers. 

According to a tradition which has never been 
doubted by Western scholars, al-Djawhari did not 
live to finish a fair copy of his work, reaching only 
the middle of the letter Dad, while the rest was 
completed from his rough draft by his pupil Ibrahim 
b. Sahl (variant: Salih) al-Warrak. This fact, ac- 
cording to tradition, is held responsible for the 
numerous errors which later scholars detected in 
the Sihdh. The account, however, may have been 
a mere invention, probably designed to maintain 
al-Djawhari's reputation as an unfailing authority. 
Doubts with regard to its correctness were already 
voiced by Yakut and, more outspokenly, by HadjdjI 
Khalifa, since the existence of autograph copies of 
the complete work had come to their knowledge or 



L-DJAWHARI — DjAWlD 



else since, according to some traditions, the entire 
lexicon had been handed down from al-Diawhari 
himself. In addition, errors were found not only in 
the latter part of the Sihah but also in the first 
which, as agreed by all, had been edited by the 
author himself. A similar account, probably resulting 
from the same tendency, exists with regard to the 
authorship of al-KhahTs Kitab aW-Ayn. 

The Sihah is available in a Persian lithographed 
edition (1270) and two Bulak prints (1282 and 1292), 
while a critical edition is still awaited. Of a European 
edition, undertaken by E. Scheidius, only the first 
fascicle appeared (1776; 179 PP-; see Zenker, Bibl. 
Or. i, Leipzig 1846, 5). The Turkish version of 
Van Kulu [q.v.] was the first book issued from the 
Miiteferrika press in Istanbul, in 1141/1729. 

Bibliography: Abu'1-Fida', Ta'rikh, year 
398; Brockelmann, I, 133 f.; SI, 196 f., 943 f.; 
S III, 1196; idem, &auhari u. d. Anordnung d. arab. 
Alphabets, in ZDMG, xix (1915), 383 f.; M. Djawad, 
FawdHd Lughawiyya, in Lu ghat al-< Arab, viii (1930), 
48 ff. ; Flugel, Gramm. Schulen, 227, 253 f.; Gold- 
ziher, Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Sprachgelehrsamkeit b. d. 
Arabern II, in SBAk. Wien, lxxii (1872), 587 ff.; 
Huart, Les calligraphes et les miniaturistes, 78, 83, 
119; HadjdjI Khalifa, ii, 1071 ff.; idem, ed. Flugel, 
iv, 91 ff. and passim (see index, vii, 1184, no. 
6859); Ibn al-Anbari, Nuzha, Cairo 1294, 418 ff.; 
Djam'iyyat Ihya' Ma'athir c Ulama 3 al- c Arab, Cairo, 
227 ff.; Ibn al- c Imad, Shadhardt, year 393; Ibn 
al-Kifti, Inbdh al-ruwdh, i, 194 if.; Ibn Rashlk, 
c Umda, Cairo 1934, i, 114; Ibn Taghribirdi, 
Nudjum, year 393; Krenkow, The beginnings of 
Arabic lexicography, in Cent. Suppl. to the JRAS, 
1924, 269; Lane, Preface, xiv, xvif.; Nasr 
al-Hurini, Mukaddima, at the beginning of 
the edition of the Sihah, Bulak 1292; F. 
Rosenthal, The technique and approach of Muslim 
scholarship, 2 1 ; Sarton, Introduction to the history 
of science, i, 652, 654, 689; al-Suyuti, Bughya, 
195; idem, Muzhir, Cairo, index; Tashkopriizade, 
Miftdh al-sa'-dda, i, 100 ff.; al-Tha c alibI, Yatima, 
iv, 289 f.; G. Weil, Grundriss u. System d. altar. 
Metren, 49; Yakut, Irshdd, ed. Margoliouth, ii, 
, 356, v, 107, vi, 4 i 9 f., vii, 268; 



xviii, 34 f., xix, 313; c Abd Allah Darwish, al- 
Ma'adjim aW-Arabiyya, Cairo 1956, 91 ff. 

(L. Kopf) 
DjAWl, plur. Djawa, Muslims from the Bilad al- 
Djawa. Bilad al-Djawa was the collective name for 
the South-East Asian area used by the inhabitants 
of Mecca when C. Snouck Hurgronje visited it in 
1884-5, and probably much earlier; it has remained 
se. Djawa means not only the Javanese, but also 
the linguistically related people from the other 
islands, including the Philippines, and even the 
linguistically non-related peoples from the South- 
East Asian mainland. Generally well-to-do and pious, 
he Djawa were welcome guests in Mecca, especially 
ince they were less parsimonious than the pilgrims 
rom various other countries and therefore more apt 
o provide the shaykhs concerned with pilgrims with 
in easy income. Snouck Hurgronje took a particular 
interest in those Djawa who came from the Nether- 
lands Indies; to this circumstance we owe the 
valuable sociological treatise on the Djawa group in 
Mecca in Mekka, ii, Aus dem heutigen Leben, The 
Hague 1889, ch. iv. The whole pattern of Djawi life, 
e.g., their behaviour in their unfamiliar surroundings, 
how they spent their time in case of a prolonged 
sojourn, how they reacted upon international and 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



pan-Islamic influences, is discussed here brilliantly 
and in a very illuminating way. This picture, 
however, needs to be completed by Snouck Hur- 
gronje's later studies of Islam in Indonesia [q.v.], and 
it is now of historical interest only owing to the con- 
siderable change in conditions both in Mecca and in 
South-East Asia. (C. C. Berg) 

EjAWlD, Young Turk economist and statesman. 
Mehmed Djawid was born in 1875 in Salonika, where 
his father was a merchant, and received his early 
education both there and in Istanbul. He graduated 
from the Miilkiyye in 1896, where he formed a 
lasting friendship with his classmate Hiiseyin Djahid 
[Yalcin], the journalist. After a brief tour of duty 
with the Agricultural Bank, he entered the service 
of the Ministry of Education, resigning in 1902 as 
secretary of the bureau of primary education. Back 
in Salonika he became director of a private element- 
ary school, Mehteb-i Tefeyyiiz, and joined the 
'■Othmanli Ittihdd we Terakki QiemHyyeti, the Mace- 
donian nucleus of the Young Turk conspiracy 
against the despotism of c Abd al-Hamid II. In 1908 
he became lecturer in economics and statistics at the 
Miilkiyye. During this period in Salonika and 
Istanbul he published several textbooks on economics 
(Hlm-i iktisdd, 4 vols., 1905, 2 I9I2; InshdHyydt, 1909; 
and Mekdtib-i i c dddiyyeye tnakhsus Hltn-i iktisdd, 
1909, 2 i9i3) and, together with Ahmed Shu'ayb and 
Rida Tewfik [Bolukbasi], edited a learned journal 
called '■Ulum-u Iktisddiyye ve IdjtimdHyye Medjmii'- 
asi (1909-n). Following the 1908 revolution he 
was elected a deputy for Salonika (1908-12) and 
Bigha (Canakkale, 1912-8), and became minister of 
finance (1910, 1913-4, 1917-8), and a member 
of the general assembly (medjlis-i c utnumi) of the 
Union and Progress (Ittihdd we Terakki) party 
(1916-8). In the Chamber of Deputies he soon 
distinguished himself as an eloquent orator and a 
competent rapporteur of the Budget Commission. 
During his years as finance minister he conducted 
delicate negotiations in Paris and other European 
capitals for public loans to the Ottoman Empire. 
Together with a number of other ministers he 
resigned from the cabinet after Turkey's entry into 
the war, in opposition to the Germanophile policy 
of Enwer Pasha; later he re-entered it on the plea of 
Tal'at Pasha. He was the only wartime Young 
Turk minister to retain his position in the c Izzet 
Pasha cabinet (14 October to 14 November 1918). 
Subsequently he went into hiding and exile to 
escape the wave of prosecution of Union and 
Progress leaders; in July rgi9 an Istanbul tribunal 
sentenced him in absentia to 15 years' hard labour. 
In 1920 he married c Aliyye, divorced wife of Burhan 
al-DIn, son of the late c Abd al-Hamid II. 

Djawid returned to Istanbul in 1922, where he 
acted as representative of the Ottoman creditors 
of the Dette publique ottomane. According to Halide 
Edib, The Turkish Ordeal, London 1928, 74, Mustafa 
Kemal rejected Djawid's suggestion that he be 
allowed to join the Anatolian movement. In 1923 he 
served as an adviser to the Turkish delegation to the 
Lausanne peace conference. He was arrested following 
the 1926 assassination attempt on Mustafa Kemal 
[Ataturk], and tried before the special Independence 
tribunal in Izmir (6 July) and Ankara (10 August) 
on charges of having conspired to resuscitate the 
Union and Progress movement and thereby to 
subvert the regime. Much of the questioning turned 
around a meeting of former Union and Progress 
leaders held in Djawid's house in Instabul on r6 
April 1923; yet no specific or overt acts of high 



498 



DjAWlD — DJAWNPUR 



treason were alleged or proved against him. Together 
with three other ex-Unionist leaders he was sentenced 
to death and executed by hanging in the Djebedji 
quarter of Ankara on 26 August 1926. 

Bibliography: Djawid, Memoirs, Tanin, 30 
August 1943 to 22 December 1946; Turk Ansiklo- 
pedisi, x, 37-8; Ibrahim Alaettin Govsa, Turk 
mefhurlar ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1946, 79; Ali 
Qankaya, Mulkiye ve mulkiyeliler , Ankara 1954, 
ii, 332 f.; Ali Fuat Tiirkgeldi, GiJrup isittiklerim", 
Ankara 1951, 117; Harp kabinelerinin isticvabt, 
Istanbul: Vakit Matbaasi, 1933; Kandemir, Izmir 
suikasttntn icyuzu (Ekicigil Tarih Yayinlan), 
Ankara 1955, ii, 29-49. 

(Dankwart A. Rustow) 
DJAwIDAN [see supplement]. 
EJAWKAN [see Cawgan]. 

al-DJAWLAN. a district in southern Syria 
bounded on the west by the Jordan, on the north by 
the spurs of Hermon, on the east by the Nahr al- 
' Allan and on the south by the Yarmuk. The northern 
part lies at a certain altitude and presents the 
appearance of a wild, hilly region, covered with 
blocks of lava and oak forests which were once 
magnificent but are now extremely impoverished. 
The southern part is fairly low-lying and differs 
but little from the plain of Hawran, with a 
soil of volcanic detritus, more even and of greater 
fertility. 

The territory of Djawlan corresponds with the 
ancient Gaulanitis of the Hellenistic period, which 
probably took its name from the town of Golan 
mentioned in the Old Testament. But it appears 
to have dwindled with time. At one period, continuing 
into the early days of Islam, this province included 
the country lying to the east of Nahr al- 'Allan, which 
can be inferred from the existence of places called 
Djabiyat al-Djawlan and Sahm al-Djawlan beyond 
that boundary. It was the latter village, which still 
keeps the same name, that Schumacher thought 
to be identified with the ancient Golan. A distinction 
may have been made later, from the 7th/i3th 
century, between Djawlan and Djaydur where Yakut 
places al-Djabiya [q.v.]. 

Djawlan, which during the Byzantine period 
belonged to Palestina Secunda and which had then 
been one of the centres of power of the Ghassanids 
(Nabigha, ed. Derenbourg, iv, 4; xxiv, 25, 29; 
Hassan b. Thabit, ed. Hirschfeld, index) was con- 
quered by Shurahbil when he occupied Urdunn, but 
was later restored to the province of Damascus (al- 
Tabari, iii, 84) and, according to al-Mukaddasi, 
formed one of its six districts. Its capital was 
originally Baniyas [q.v.] which still held that position 
in the Mamluk period but which in modern times 
was replaced by Kunaytra, situated on the important 
road between Damascus and Tiberias. The population, 
which previously consisted mostly of Banu Murra, 
now forms an ethnic and linguistic mosaic in which 
Druzes and mutdwila Shi'is who have settled at the 
foot of Hermon live side by side with Cerkes and 
Turkoman colonies and various nomadic tribes who 
are turning to a sedentary life. It has always been 
praised for the richness of its agricultural produce 
which served to supply Damascus and today still 
forms the main resource of the region. 

Bibliography: Baladhuri, Futiih, 116; BGA, 
indices; Schumacher, Across the Jordan, London 
1886, 91-9; , idem, Der Dscholan, in ZDPV, 
xi (1886), 165-368, and xxii (1899), 178-88; R. 
Dussaud, Topographic historique de la Syrie, 
Paris 1927, particularly 343-4 and 381 ff.; F. M. 



Abel, Giographie de la Palestine, Paris 1938, 338-9; 
J. Cantineau, Les parlers arabes du Hordn, Paris 
1946, 4- (D. Sourdel) 

EJAWNPUR (Jaunpur), city on the Gumti in 
Uttar Pradesh, north India, lat. 25 48' N., long. 
82 42' E., and the surrounding district. The city was 
founded in 760/1359 by Firuz Shah Tughluk [q.v.], 
near the ancient Manayc reduced by Mahinud of 
Ghazni in 409/1018 and renamed Zafarabad by 
Zafar Khan, its governor under Ghiyath al-Din 
Tughluk after 721/1321. Muslim historians derive the 
name Djawnpur from Djawna Shah, Muhammad b. 
Tughluk's title before his accession; but Djamanpur 
is known as a by-form of the name ( ? connexion with 
Djawn = Djamna, [q.v.]; Skt. Yamunendrapura has 
been suggested as the etymon), and this origin 
cannot be regarded as established. 

In the confused conditions at the beginning of the 
reign of Nasir al-Din Mahmud Tughluk [see dihlI 
sultanate] the disaffected Hindus of the eastern 
provinces rejected all obedience to Dihli. The 
eunuch Malik Sarwar, Kh'adja Djahan, persuaded 
Mahmud to grant him the title of Sultan al-Shark and 
sand him to crush the rebellion in 796/1394; having 
brought under control Koyl, Efawa and Kanawdj he 
occupied Djawnpur. and there established himself as 
independent ruler of a kingdom extending over 
Awadh, west to Koyl and east into Tirhut and Bihar; 
to these lands were later added the Cunar district of 
Urisa (857/1453) and Rohilkhand (870/1466). For 
the history of this kingdom see sharkids. In 884/1479 
Bahlol, the first LodI sultan of DihlI, defeated the last 
Shark! sultan, Husayn, and established his son 
Barbak as ruler over Djawnpur with permission to 
use the royal title and to issue coin. After Sikandar 
overcame his brother Barbak as sultan of Dihli in 
894/1489 Djawnpur was absorbed in the DihlI empire. 
In 933/1526-7 Djawnpur was taken for his father 
Babur by Humayun, and a governor was appointed; 
but the growth of the power of Shir Khan (Shir Shah 
Suri, [q.v.]) and the disaffection of the Afghan 
faction on the death of Djunayd Birlas, the governor, 
compelled Humayun to march again on Djawnpur 
in 943/1536, with success; but Humayun's long 
absence from Dihli lost him his hold on the eastern 
provinces, and even before his great victory of 
Muharram 947/May 1540 Shir Shah was in command, 
with his son c Adil Khan installed as viceroy in 
Djawnpur. The importance of Djawnpur declined 
with the rise of Cunar, and not until the rebellion 
(970/1563 onwards) of c Ali Kuli Khan, governor 
since 965/1558, does it again come into prominence; 
'All's final defeat in Dhu '1 I.Iidjdja 974/June 1567 led 
to Akbar's temporary residence there and the gover- 
norship of Khan-i Khanan Muhammad Mun c im Khan. 
After the foundation of Allahabad [q.v.] the impor- 
tance of Djawnpur waned; it passed into the 
possession of the Nawwabs of Awadh in the early 
I2th/i8th century, and into British hands in 1775. 
Djawnpur was long celebrated for its learning, 
"the Shiraz of Hind", from its foundation. by Firuz 
certainly until the time of Shir Shah; some of its 
rulers — notably Ibrahim and Husayn — were cultured 
connoisseurs of more than mere scholastic learning; 
Kur'an schools still exist within the precincts of the 
mosques. 

Monuments. The fort of Firuz Shah, an 
irregular quadrilateral on the north bank of the 
Gumti, is of high stone walls built largely from local 
temple spoil, with a single gateway protected by 
tapering semicircular bastions; other bastions were 
destroyed in 1859 by the British, as were some of the 



DJAWNPUR — al-DJAWNPORI 



499 



internal buildings, including the palace built by 
Firuz Shah's governor, the Cihil Sutun (Plate I). The 
fort mosque of the same governor, Ibrahim Na'ib 
Barbak, still stands : the side liwdns are low, trabeate, 
supported on rows of pillars from Hindu temples set 
up at random; there are many additions of later 
periods (illustration in Kittoe, see Bib!.) ; a detached 
mindr in the court-yard, some 12 m. high, has a fine 
Arabic inscription giving its date as Dhu '1-Ka c da 
778/March-April 1377. A small detached pillar 
within the fort proclaims an edict of Asaf al-Dawla 
of Awadh on the continuance of the daily stipend to 
indigent sayyids (sdddt bi-nawd) from the revenues 
of Djawnpur (1180/1766). 

The Atala mosque, whose foundations were 
prepared on the site of the Hindu temple to Atala 
Devi by Firuz Shah Tughluk, was not built until 
810/1408 under Ibrahim Shark!; its main feature, 
the central bay of the west liwan covered by a large 
dome which is concealed from the court-yard by a 
tall pyramidal gateway resembling the Egyptian 
propylon, is the special characteristic of the Djawnpur 
style under the Shark! sultans. The Atala mosque is 
the largest (78.7 m. square) and most ornate: the 
liwdns on north, east and south are composed of five 
pillared aisles in two storeys, the two outer aisles at 
ground level being formed into a range of pillared 
cells facing the streets; in the middle of each side 
is an archway, with a smaller propylon on the 
outside, and with domes over the north and south 
gates; a dome covers the central bay of each liwan 
on the north and south of the main dome, each with 
its propylon facing the court-yard. Within each 
propylon is a large arched recess, with a fringe of 
stylized spear-heads similar to those of the KhaldjI 
buildings at Dihli [q.v.], in which are pierced arched 
openings in front of the dome, and the main 
entrances beneath. The main propylon is 22.9 m. 
high, the dome behind being only 19.5 m., and 16.8 m. 
wide at its base. The dome is supported on a sixteen- 
sided arched triforium, on corner brackets over an 
octagon with pierced windows, supported on 
squinch arches. The kibla wall is relieved on its 
exterior by square projections behind each dome, 
the corners of each supported by a tapering buttress; 
larger tapering buttresses support the main angles 
of the wall. There are no mindrs, the top storeys of 
the propylon serving for the mu'adhdhin. 

The masdjid Khalis Mukhlis, built by two governors 
of Ibrahim, is of the same period, only the central 
propylon and dome and western liwdns remaining, all 
massive and without ornament. Of the contemporary 
Djhandjharl (dfhandihar "perforated") mosque 
only the screen of the central propylon remains, 
filled with the finest stone tracery in Djawnpur. The 
1,51 darwaza ("red gate"; near the gate of a former 
palace) mosque in the north-west of the city, the 
smallest of the Djawnpur mosques, was built c. 851/ 
1447, the sole surviving monument of the reign of 
Mahmud Shark!, has a single central dome and 
propylon with tall trabeate transepts, and zandna 
galleries on a mezzanine floor flanking the central 
bay. The foundation of the Djarni' masdjid (Plate II) 
was laid in 842/1438, but it was not finished until the 
reign of Husayn. The mosque stands on a raised 
terrace 5 to 6 m. above street level, with a single 
propylon in the west liwan, the transepts covered by 
fine barrel-vaults, and the facade entirely arcuate. 
These are the only remains of the Sharkis standing 
at Djawnpur, the rest having been demolished by 
Sikandar Lodi; all are of stone, largely pillaged from 
Hindu or Buddhist temples, and cement, the work of 



Hindu craftsmen. Echoes of the characteristic style 
of the capital occur in other places within the quon- 
dam Djawnpur kingdom, in the Afhal Kangura 
masdjid at Banaras (Benares), and in the Djami c 
masdjids at Etawa and Kanawdj [qq.v.]. 

By far the most significant monument of Mughal 
times is the great bridge of Mun'im Khan, begun 
972/1564 and finished 976/1568. Built by Afghan 
workmen under a Kabul architect, Afdal c Ali, it 
consists of ten spans of arches — the four central ones 
of wider span than those at each end — the very 
massive piers of which carry pillared and screened 
pavilions at road level, partly projecting over the 
water on brackets; a further five spans carry the 
road over a smaller branch of the Gumtl. 

In the old town of Zafarabad, 6.5 km. south-east 
of Djawnpur, is the mosque of one Shaykh Barha, 
converted c. 711/1311 from Buddhist temple remains, 
entirely trabeate though originally with a large 
central arch between two piers which was probably 
the prototype of the propylons of the Djawnpur 
mosques. There are also many tombs, the most 
noteworthy being those of Makhdiim Sahib Ciragh-i 
Hind (781/1389) and Sayyid Murtada in the dargdh-i 
shahdd, the burial ground of the martyrs who fell in 
the invasion of Shihab al-Din Shuri in 590/1194. 
Bibliography : Khayr al-Din Muhammad 
Ilahabadi, Diawnpur-ndma, ed. Djawnpur n.d., 
a late 18th century work which makes much use 
of the Ta'rikh-i Firishia and Barani's Ta'rikh-i 
Firuz ShaM, but is not entirely derivative; Eng.tr. 
R. W. Pogson, Calcutta 1814; for the monuments: 
A. Cunningham, ASI xi, Calcutta 1880, 102-26; 
A. Fiihrer, The Sharqi architecture of Jaunpur 
(architectural drawings by E. W. Smith), ASI, 
NIS xi, Calcutta 1889: text very turgid; J. 
Fergusson, History of Indian and eastern archi- 
tecture, London 1876, 522 ff. Illustrations of some 
buildings not available elsewhere in Markham 
Kittoe, Illustrations of Indian architecture from the 
Muhammadan conquest . . ., Calcutta 1838. A new 
monograph on Djawnpur is badly needed. 

(J. Burton-Page) 
al-DJAWNPCRI, Sayyid Muhammad ai.-Ka- 
zimi al-HusaynI b. Sayyid Khan alias Baddh 
UwaysI (cf. AHn-i Akbari, Bibl. Ind., ii, 241) and 
BIbI Aka Malik, the pseudo-Mahdl [q.v.], was born 
at Djawnpur [q.v.] on Monday, 14 Djumada I 
847/10 September 1443. None of the contemporary 
sources mentions the names of his parents as c Abd 
Allah and Amina, as claimed by the Mahdawi 
sources (e.g., Sirddi al-Absdr, see Bibliography), 
in an obvious attempt to identify them with the 
names of the Prophet's parents so that the prediction 
made in the ahadith al-Mahdi (cf. Ibn Taymiyya, 
Minhddf al-Sunna, Cairo 1321/1903, ii, 133) might 
fit his case. The Tuhfat al-kirdm of 'All Shir Kani c 
and the Qiawnpurnama of Khayr al-Din Ilahabadi, 
which mention these names, are much later com- 
pilations and therefore not reliable. 

A precocious child, gifted with an extraordinary 
memory, he committed the Kur'an to memory at 
the early age of seven and received the title, ac- 
cording to Mahdawi sources, of Asad al- c Ulama' at 
the age of twelve from his teacher Shaykh Daniyal 
Cishti. At the age of forty he left Djawnpur for 
Mecca and, after visiting a number of places en route 
such as Danapur, Kalpi, Canderi, Djapanir, Mandu, 
Burhanpur, Dawlatabad, Ahmadnagar and Bidar, 
reached there in 901/1495. During his stay at Mecca, 
one day while performing the (awdf, [q.v.], he 
suddenly announced that he was the promised 






^fH 







MahdI. He was not taken seriously by the Meccan 
'ulama', who simply ignored his claim. He returned 
to Gudjarat the following year. While at Ahmadabad 
he came into conflict for the first time in 903/1497 
with orthodox 'ulama', who challenged his assertion 
that God could be seen with physical eyes. Finding 
the atmosphere hostile, he left Ahmadabad and in 
905/1499 reasserted his claim to being the Mahdi 
at a small place called Bafhli near Pa£an. 

The same year he wrote to some of the independent 
rulers about his mission inviting them either to 
accept him as the Mahdi or condemn him to death 
if he was proved to be an impostor. Of these, ac- 
cording to Mahdawl sources, Ghiyath al-DIn KhaldjI 
of Malwa, Mahmfld Begfa of Gudjarat, Ahmad 
Nizam Shah of Ahmadnagar, Shah Beg of Kandahar 
and Mir Dhu' 1-Nfln of Farah accepted his claim. 
This, however, failed to impress the '■ulama', and the 
majority of the people continued to regard him as 
an impostor. The '■ulama', finding his influence 
growing among the masses and unable to counteract 
or stem it, demanded his banishment. Hounded 
from place to place and unable to convince the 
leading 'ulama' of the validity of his claim, he 
ultimately came to Farah [q.v.] in Khurasan and died 
there on Thursday 19 Dh u '1-Ka c da 910/23 April 
1505. Monday, as claimed by the Mahdawl sources 
to be the day on which he died in order to make it 
tally with the day of his birth, is definitely to be 
discarded, as Dhu '1-Ka c da 910 began on a Sunday. 
His shrine in Farah is still visited by his followers 
who are mainly concentrated in certain places in 
South India. 

After his death he was succeeded in his spiritual 
heritage, in imitation of the Prophet, by a number of 
his Khulafd', the first being his son Sayyid Mahmud. 
By this time the Mahdawis had established a number 
of centres called dd'iras, mostly in Gudjarat, where 
they lived a communal life, dealing only among 
themselves and shunning the rest of the population 
who were regarded as unbelievers. Their growing 
popularity was interpreted as a danger to the State 
and society, leading to the persecution of the 
Mahdawis. They were accused of heresy and their 
leader, Sayyid Mahmud, was put into prison where 
he died in 918/1512, unable to bear the rigours of 
incarceration. His successor, Kh w 5nd Mir, faced 
still harder times when the 'ulama' of Gudjarat 
declared it permissible to kill a Mahdawl. Conse- 
quently a pitched battle was fought between the 
Mahdawis and the Gudjarat troops at Sadrasan in 
Shawwal 930/August 1524 in which Kh"and Mir, 
along with a large number of his followers, was 
killed. In spite of these reverses and the mounting 
opposition of the 'ulama' and the masses, the 
movement did not completely die out. Among 
historical personalities who suffered in the cause of 
the movement are Shaykh <Abd Allah Niyazi, who 
flourished during the reign of Islam Shah Sur, his 
disciple, Shaykh c Ala 3 I and Miyan Mustafa GudjaratI, 
a very learned man of his times who ably argued his 
case with the 'ulama' of the Court of Akbar but 
failed to convince them. After his death in 983/1575-6, 
while on his way from Fathpur Sikri to Gudjarat, 
the movement withered and collapsed. 

The piety, learning and sincerity of Sayyid 
Muhammad convinced even a severe critic like c Abd 
al-Kadir al-Bada'uni, who regards him as one of the 
greatest ol the awliyd'. Like most of the suji 
shaykhs who lay stress on the renunciation of the 
world (tark al-dunya), seclusion from the people 
('uzla 'an al-khalk), tawakkul, associating with right- 



eous people, Sayyid Muhammad bade his followers 
to remain constantly absorbed in dhikr, which he 
raised to the level of an article of faith with them. 
Great importance was also attached to hiajra and 
here again the founder himself set the example in 
imitation of the H id^ra of the Prophet. Although the 
Mahdawis abjured politics, their activities compelled 
the authorities to act. Consequently, c Abd Allah 
Niyazi, his piety notwithstanding, was severely 
punished, and Shaykh c Ala'I, his disciple, lost his life. 
Sawiyat, which the Mahdawis interpret as the equal 
distribution of wealth, material possessions and what- 
ever comes to or is acquired by the community, among 
its members living within a particular da'ira, is the 
cardinal point of the teachings of Sayyid Muhammad, 
who also denounced capitalism, stockpiling and 
hoarding as utterly un-Islamic. The failure of the 
movement, on a deeper analysis, can be attributed 
to the aloofness of its adherents from the main body 
of the Muslims, their insistence on the recognition of 
the founder as the promised Mahdi and the consequent 
opposition of the 'ulama' and the State. Lack of 
capable leadership in the North and the subsequent 
involvement of its adherents in politics in the Deccan 
hastened the decline of the movement which had, 
in its heyday, fired the Indian Muslim community 
with a new zeal and religious fervour. At the present 
day pockets ot Mahdawis exist in the former 
Haydarabad State (India), Mysore, Djaypur and 
Gudjarat. In Pakistan, at Shahdadpur in Sind, they 
have established a da'ira after their migration from 

C A1I al-Muttakl (d. 975/1567), the author of Kanz 
al-'ummdl and C A1I al-Karl (d. 1016/1607) took 

/i 'alamat Mahdi dkhir al-zamdn and Risdlat al- 
Mahdl respectively in which they forcefully rebutted 
the claim of Sayyid Muhammad to being the 
promised Mahdi. C A1I al-Muttakl followed al-Burhdn 
by his Risdlat al-radd, which aroused considerable 
opposition among the Mahdawis and has been the 
subject of criticism in a number of Mahdawl works 
in vindication of their faith. As c ad al-Makkl (see 
Rahman C A1I, Tadhkira-i 'ulamd'-i Hind, 178) also 
wrote his Shuhub muhrika on the same subject. An 
Indian writer, Abu Ridja 3 Muhammad Zaman Khan of 
Shahdjahanpur, who strongly criticized the Mahdawis 
and the founder of the movement, fell in 1872 
to the knife of an assassin for his polemic work 
Hadya Mahdawiyya (ed. Baroda 1287/1870, Kanpur 
1293/1876). 

Bibliography: c Abd al-Kadir al-Bada'uni, 
Muntakhab al-tawdrikh (Bib. Ind.), ii 319; idem, 
Nadidt al-rashid (MS. Asafiyya no. 1564), a near- 
contemporary and very detailed account of 
Sayyid Muhammad and his movement; Abu 
'1-Fadl, A'in-i Akbari (Bib. Ind.) ii 241, English 
translation, H. Blochmann, Calcutta 1873, Intro, 
iv-v; Sikandar Mandjhu b. Muhammad, Mir'at-i 
Sikandari (Eng. trans. Fazlullah Lutfullah Faridi), 
90-1; C A1I Shir Kani c , Tuhfat al-kiram, Lucknow 
1304/1886-7, ii, 22 ff.; Ashraf C A1I Palanpuri, 
Siyar-i Mas'ud, Muradabad 1315/1897-8, 7 It; 
c Abd al-Malik al-Sadjawandl, Sirddj al-absdr 
(with a voluminous introduction and Urdu trans- 
lation by S. Mustafa Tashrif Allah!) , Haydarabad 
(Dn.) 1365 (this work contains, in the beginning, 
a very comprehensive and detailed bibliography); 
Shah c Abd al- Rahman, Mawlud (MS. in Persian); 
Sayyid Yusuf, Matla' al-wilayat (MS.); Shah 
Burhan al-DIn, Shawahid al-wilayat, Haydarabad 
1379 (a first-hand complete biography of the 



l-DJAWZAHAR 



Sayyid, very rich in detail); Wall b. Yusuf, 
Insdfndma, Haydarabad 1367; c Abd al-Rashid, 
Nakliyydt, Haydarabad 1369; S. Athar c Abbas 
Rizvi in Medieval India, 'Aligafh 1954 ("The 
Mahdavi movement in India") ; Abu '1-Kalam Azad, 
Tadhkira', Lahore 1960, 39-44, 52 ff.; Khavr 
al-Din Muhammad Ilahabadi, Djawnpurndma, 
Djawnpur 1878; D. S. Margoliouth, On Mahdis 
and Mahdism, London 1916; Mahmud Shirani 
in Oriental College Magazine, Lahore, Nov. 1940; 
Muhammad Ma'sQm Bhakkarl, Ta'rikh-i Sind, 
Poona 1938, index; 'Abd al-Hakk Muhaddith 
Dihlawi, Akhbdr al-akhydr, s.v. Muhammad b. 
Yusuf; idem, Zdd al-muttakin (MS.); Samsam 
al-Dawla Shah Nawaz Khan, Ma'dthir al-umara', 
(Bib. Ind.) i, 124 ft.; I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen* , 
364; idem, Ghair Mahdi in ERE, vi, 189; Bombay 
Gazetteer, Bombay 1899, ix/2, 62; Dja'far Sharif, 
Qanoon-e-Islam 2 , Oxford 1921, 208-9; Sayyid 
Wall, Sawdnih Mahdi Maw c ud (not available to 
me); Miyan Mustafa Gudjarati, Makdtib (MS.); 
Sayyid Shah Muhammad, Khatm al-hudd subul 
al-sawd, Bangalore 1291; 'Abd al-Hayy Lakhnawi, 
Nuzhat al-khawdtir, iv, Haydarabad, s.v. Muham- 
mad b. Yusuf; apparently follows the notice in 
Akhbdr al-akhydr where the copyist seems to have 
read Yusuf for Sayyid Khan written in shikasta 
style; Muhammad Sulayman, Khdtam-i Sulaymdni 
(still in MS.); 'Abd Allah Muhammad b. 'Umar 
al-Makki, Zafar al-wdlih bi Muzajjar wa dlih, (ed. 
Denison Ross), 35-6; 'Abd al-Kadir b. Ahmad, 
Ma'dan al-djawdhir, Haydarabad 1304, 98 ff., 161; 
Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, Kanpur 1874, ii, 
150; Kh w and Mir, <-Akida-i skarifa (MS.), an 
important Mahdawi source as it is the work of the 
son-in-law of Sayyid Muhammad; 'Abd al- 
Ghanl Rampurl, Madhdhib al-Isldm, Kanpur 1924, 
713 ft.; Rahman 'Ml, Tadhkira-i 'ulamd'-i Hind, 
Lucknow 1332/1914, 197-201; 'All al-Muttaki, al- 
Burhdn fi c aldmdt Mahdi dkhir al-zdman, (MS.) 
Asafiyya no. 968); idem, Risdlat al-Radd (MS.) 
extensively quoted in Sirddj al-absdr; 'Ali al- 
Kari, Risdlat al-Mahdi (MS. Saldiyya, Haydarabad 
fakdHd wa kaldm no. 65); idem, Mirkat (ed. 
Cairo), v, 183 ff; Nizam al-Din Ahmad Bakhshi, 
Tabakdt-i Akbari (Bib. Ind.), index; W. A. 
Erskine, A history of India under the first two 
sovereigns of the House of Taimur, London 1854, 
ii, 475 ff. ; Beloochistan Gazetteer (s.v. Zikris) ; Sayyid 
Gulab Miyan, Ta'rikh-i Pdlanpur; Sayyid 'Jsa, 
Ma'-drid al-riwdydt, Bangalore 1283 ; idem, Shubhdt 
al-fatdwd, Bangalore 1283 (both in refutation of 
Risdlat al-Radd); anon., Hdldt-i Sayyid Mu- 
hammad-i Djawnpuri, MS. Asafiyya, ii, no. 34; 
anon., Intikhdb-i tawdrikh al-Aghydr, MS. Pesha- 
war no, 1549. See also mahdawi, mahdi. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
al-EJAWWAnI, Abu <AlI Muhammad b. As'ad, 
Arab genealogist and historian, b. 525/1131, 
d. 588/1192. The Djawwanl family claimed c Alid 
descent through a son of 'Ubayd Allah b. al-Husayn 
b. c Ali b. al-Husayn b. c Ali b. Abi Talib. This pedigree 
was well established at least as early as the first half 
of the 4th/ioth century when Abu '1-Faradj al- 
Isfahani (Makatil al-Tdlibiyyin, Cairo 1368/1949, 
193, 435, 438) reported historical information 
received by hiin personally from 'All b. Ibrahim al- 
Djawwani, himself a genealogist and the eighth 
lineal ancestor of our Djawwanl. The latter was born 
and educated in Egypt. He taught hadith there as 
well as in Damascus and Aleppo. At one time, he 
was appointed 'Alid Chief of Egypt, apparently by 



Shirkuh or Salah al-Din in the late 1160s. It seems 
that he did not hold this position very long. His 
main love and occupation were his genealogical and 
historical studies. They may have compensated him 
for the pain he must have felt in witnessing the 
decay of the power of the Fatimids whose fame, it 
seems, had attracted his family to Egypt. However, 
he continued to enjoy the favor of the Ayyubids to 
whom he dedicated some of his works. Salah al-DIn 
is said to have granted al-Djawwaniyya, the estate 
near Medina after which his family was named, to 

A list of his works from al-Makrizi's Mukaffd 
mentions eighteen titles, some of them large works. 
They deal with 'Alid genealogy, including a history 
of the Djawwani family, a study of his father's 
pedigree, and works on Talibid biographies, Talibid 
genealogists, the Banu '1-Arkat, and the Idrisids. 
He also wrote genealogical and historical works of 
a more general nature, among them works on the 
praiseworthy qualities of the c ashara (al-mubashshara, 
[q.v.]), on those who, like al- c Adil, had the hunya 
Abu Bakr, and on Arabic tribes (al-Qiawhar al- 
maknun fi dhikr al-kabdHl wa 'l-butun). The last 
work, as well as a topographical work on Egypt (al- 
Nukat '■ala 'l-khitat) and a monograph on the 
sanctuary of Sayyida Naflsa, are also known from 
quotations in al-Makrizi's Khitat (the Djawhar is 
also cited in Ibn al- c Adim's Bughya). These quota- 
tions tend to confirm al-Djawwani's considerable 
stature as a scholar, although even in his case 
orthodox scholars could not entirely suppress their 
customary suspicion of the veracity of Shi'I genea- 
logists. 

Manuscripts of only two works by al-Djawwani 
appear to have been signalized so far. One of them, 
on the genealogy and history of the Prophet and 
the people in his life, is dedicated to al-Kadi al-Fadil 
and entitled al-Tuhja al-sharifa (Berlin 9511, Paris 
2010, 4798, Topkapusaray Ahmet III, 2759, Cairo 2 , 
v, 129 f., Sohag 315 ta'rikh). The other, on tribal 
genealogy, is called al-Tuhja al-zarifa or Usui al- 
ahsdb wa-fusiil al-ansdb (Paris 4798, Cairo 2 , v, 30 f.). 
Al-Makrizi's list does not include any exactly corres- 
ponding titles, but the second work may correspond 
either to Tddj_ al-ansdb wa-minhddj al-sawdb or to 
Tadhkirat uli 'l-albdb li-usul al-ansdb. 

Bibliography: Ibn al-Sabuni, Takmilat Ikmdl 
al-ikmdl, Baghdad I377/I957, 83, 99-i°4, 189. 299- 
The editor, Mustafa Djawad, adds detailed in- 
formation on other sources, to wit: al-'Imad al- 
Isfahani, Kharida (on Egyptian poets), Cairo, n.d. 
(1951), 117 ff.; al-Kifti, al-Muhammadun min al- 
shu'-ara', and Inbdh; Yakut, ii, 137; al-Dhahabi, 
Ta'rikh al-Isldm, anno 588; al-Safadi, Wdfi, ii, 
202 ; Ibn Hadjar, Lisdn, v, 74 ff. (containing 
references to other sources at present unavailable) ; 
Ibn 'Inaba (<Utba), 'Umdat al-tdlib, 212, 285. 
Cf., further, C. H. Becker, Beitrage zur Geschichte 
Agyptens, Strasburg, 1902, 26 ff.; Brockelmann, 
I, 451 f., S I, 626; Fihrist al-makhtutdt al-musaw- 
wara, ii/i, Cairo n.d. (1954), 83. 

(F. Rosenthal) 
al-EJAWZA j [see nudjum]. 

al-DJAWZAHAR or al-Djawzahr, technical 
occurring in Arabic and Persian astrological 









1. It indicates primarily the two lunar nodes, al- 
'■ukdatdni, i.e., the two diametrically opposite points 
of intersection between the moon's orbit and the 
ecliptic: the ascending node or "head", ra J s, and 
the descending node or "tail", dhanab (soil, of the 



DJAWZAHAR — DJAYHAN 



dragon, al-tinnin). In many cases it refers only to 
the "head" ; in some mss. a special word, nawbahr, is 
used for the "tail" [see below]. 

The word Djawzahar, though explained differently 
in the Mafdtlh al- l ulum, clearly derives from the 
Avestan gao-lithra {— Pahlawi golihr = mod. Persian 
gawzahr), an (adjectival) epithet of the Moon 
meaning "forming the origin of the bull" (Bartho- 
lomae) or rather "preserving the sperma bovis". In 
the Bundahishn, golihr, together with the tailed 
(dumbomand) mush-partk, on one occasion appears 
as an antagonist of the sun and the moon, while, on 
another, it is said to have "placed itself in the centre 
of the heaven, in the shape of a serpent {mar, 

The complicated semasiological development of 
the word and its various functions in mythology and 
early astrology can be understood only when seen 
in connexion with the myth of the eclipse monster 
(dragon), of wide distribution all over the Eurasian 
continent, and in particular the Indian Rahu myth: 
There the demon Rahu, immortalized by the 
forbidden amrta drink, from which he had sipped, 
is beheaded by Vishnu; but his two parts, the head 
(Rahu) and the tail (thenceforth called Ketu), 
having become stellified, incessantly try to devour 
the Sun and the Moon so as to take revenge for their 
having denounced Rahu's crime to Vishnu. Thus 
Rahu and Ketu are both identified with the eclipse 
monster, but the latter also appears at irregular 
intervals in the shape of a comet (dhumahetu, 
"smoke-fete" ; see also art. kayd, under which name 
the cometary aspect of the Indian Ketu has 
survived in Islamic astrology). 

In the later, "scientific" [i.e., computing) phase 
of astrology, in India, Rahu was identified with the 
ascending, and Ketu, with the descending, node, in 
view of the fact that eclipses can occur only when 
the two luminaries stand sufficiently near the nodes. 
In Arabic it is undoubtedly owing above all to 
Indian influence that the Or. terms 6 dvapi|3d£<>>v 
and 6 xaTa(3ipd£tov (scil. oiivSea^oi;) as found in the 
Almagest were replaced by al-ra's and al-dhanab; 
in particular, the synonym of al-dhanab: nawbahr, 
"the new part", clearly betrays its relationship with 
Ketu. As for the eclipse monster, the Djawzahar, 
it is regarded as a giant serpent or dragon (tinnin) ; 
for its representation in Near Eastern art, see Hartner, 
opp. cit. below; for its appearance in Western art, 
see also Kiihnel, op. cit. below. As indicated above, 
the Bundahishn identifies the golihr with the constel- 
lation of the Dragon, which stands in fact "in the 
centre of the heaven", near the pole of the ecliptic; 
but in the same context it is said that it "retrogrades 
in such a way that after 10 years the head takes the 
place of the tail, and the tail that of the head". This 
applies of course not to the immovable constellation 
but to the Djawzahar joining the two nodes, because 
these make indeed a complete retrograde revolution 
in the course of 18.6 years (of which one-half is 
approximately 10). The circumstance that the nodes 
have a constant motion, again, gave rise to the 
astrologers' conceiving of, and treating them as 
invisible planets ("pseudo-planets") : they attributed 
to them "exaltations" (ashrdf), viz. Gemini to the 
head, and Sagittarius to the tail, and counted them 
among the maleficent stars. In European horoscopes, 
the Djawzahar is always called Caput et Cauda 
(Draconis), and Latin transliterations of the term 
itself, though sometimes occurring, have not become 
common. Ephemerides for the Djawzahar are con- 
tained in all astronomical tables; they serve of 



course not only astrological but also astronomical 
purposes because they are needed for the computation 
of solar and lunar eclipses. 

2. The following two meanings, encountered 
mostly in texts dating from the nth century A.D. 
or later, are obviously secondary: (a) al-Djawzahar 
= the circulus pareclipticus [see article c ilm al- 
hay'a, section on "Theory of planetary motion"] of 
the moon, Ar. al-mumaththal bi-falak al-burildj = 
6 6n6xevTpoi; T<j> x6c[iu> xiixXoi; (Aim.), or in Ibn al- 
Haytham's theory of solid spheres, the spherical shell 
concentric with the earth, within which the excentric 
sphere [al-falak al-m&Hl, "sphaera dejlectens") is 
comprised, (b) al-Djawzahar = the nodes of the 
orbit of any of the five planets. 

Bibliography: W. Hartner, The pseudo- 
planetary nodes of the moon's orbit in Hindu and 
Islamic iconographies, in Ars Islamica, idem, 
v/2, Ann Arbor 1938; idem, Zur astrologischen 
Symbolih des "Wade Cup", in Aus der Well 
der islamischen Kunst, Festschrift fur Ernst 
Kiihnel, Berlin 1959; E. Kiihnel, Drachenportale, 
in Zeitschrift fur Kunstwissenschajt, iv, 1/2, 
Berlin 1950; Albattani, Opus Astronomicum, i, 
250; Mafdtih aW-ulum (ed. van Vloten), 220; 
Dictionary of technical terms, etc. (ed. Sprenger) 
s.v. Djawzahar and Dhanab; Tabulae long, ac 
latit. stellar, fixar. ex observat. Ulugh Beighi (ed. 
Th. Hyde, Oxford 1665), p. 14 of the commentary. 

(W. Hartner) 
EJAYASl [see malik muhammad pjayas!]. 
DJAYB-I HUMAYtJN, the privy purse of the 
Ottoman Sultans. Under the authority of the privy 
secretary (Sirr kdtibi), it provided for the immediate 
needs and expenses of the sovereign. Its regular 
revenues consisted of the tribute from Egypt (see 
irsaliyye), the income from the imperial domains 
(see khass), and the proceeds from gardens, orchards, 
forests etc. belonging to or attached to the imperial 
palaces. Irregular revenues included the fees paid 
by newly appointed rulers of Moldavia, Wallachia, 
Transylvania and, for a while, Ragusa, the Sultan's 
share of war-booty, and the proceeds of confiscations 
(see musadara). 

Bibliography: Ismail Hakki Uzuncarsili, 
Osmanh devletinin saray teskildh, Ankara 1945, 
77-8; idem, Osmanh devletinin merkez ve bahriye 
teskildh, Ankara 1948, 363-4; Pakahn, i, 265-6; 
Midhat Sertoglu, Resimli Osmanh tarihi ansi- 
klopedisi, Istanbul 1958, 55. See further khazine. 

(Ed.) 
DJAYJlAN, (modern Turkish Ceyhan), the name 
by which the Arabs denote the ancient Pyramus, one 
of the two rivers which cross Cilicia and flow into 
the Mediterranean, the other and more westerly 
river being the Sayhan, the ancient Saros. The 
names Diavhan and Sayhan appear to have been 
given by the Arabs to these rivers which separate 
them from Greek territory, on the analogy of the 
Djayhun and Sayhun in central Asia, rivers which 
separate them from Turkish territory, and which 
owe their names to a corruption of the names of 
biblical rivers (Genesis, ii, n, 13), unless they are 
an arbitrary translation of the Greek names (cf. 
Noldeke, in ZDMG, xliv, 700 and the articles amu 






t YA). 



The Djayhan rises a little to the north-east of 
Elbistan, in the mountains which divide it from the 
valley of the Tohma Suyu, a tributary of the Eu- 
phrates. Its upper part is the Sogutlii Suyu. Near 
Elbistan it is swollen by numerous secondary streams, 
one of the most important being the Hurman Suyu. 



DJAYHAN — DJAYPUR 



503 



Below its confluence with the Geksiin Cayi, south 
of Afshin (the old Yarpuz-'ArbasOs-Arabissos), it 
flows southwards towards Mar'ash. On the outskirts 
of this town it is joined by the Ak SO (Nahr Hurith 
of Suhrab) which comes from the north-east and 
flows past al-Hadath. It then turns south-west, 
passing to the west of the Anti-Taurus, and reaches 
the edge of the Cilician plain after receiving tribu- 
taries from the region of Sis (now Kozan). It makes 
its way to Missis (al-Massisa) where the main Adana 
road crosses it by an ancient stone bridge. The mouth 
of the Djayhan into the Mediterranean has moved 
several times owing to the delta formed by alluvial 
deposits. At the present time, after bending sharply 
to the east, it comes into the sea in a bay lying to 
the west of Yumurtalik (the old Ayas). Abu '1-Fida' 
compares it in importance with the Euphrates. 

The region of the lower and middle Djayhan 
formed part of the thughur (frontier districts). The 
name of the river consequently occurs more than 
once in poets of the Hamdanid period, al-Mutanabbl, 
Abu Firas and al-Sari [for its history, see cilicia]. 
In the Mamluk period this region was conquered by 
Malik Nasir Muhammad and was known as air 
Futuhdt al-didhdniyya, following the Armenian 
corruption Djahan from Djayhan. 

The name Djayhan is sometimes used to signify 
the region rather than the river. This is so in Yahya 
b. Sa c Id al-Antakl (cf. Stephanus of Taron, tr. 
Gelzer and Burckhardt, 140). 

Bibliography: BGA, i, 63-4; ii, 122, 246; iii, 
19, 22, 137; vi, 177; vii, 91, 362; viii, 58; Suhrab, 
ed. v. Mzik, 143; Mas'udi, Murudf, ii, 359; vi, 273; 
Yakut, ii, 170; Abu '1-Fida 5 , ed. Reinaud, 50 
(tr. ii, 62-3); Dimashkl, ed. Mehren, 107; Ibn Fadl 
Allah al- c Umari, Ta'rif, Cairo 1312, 56, 183; al- 
'Umari's Bericht uber Anatolien, ed. Taeschner, 
6, 30; Ibn al-Shihna, al-Durr al-muntahhab, 180; 
Makrizi, Suluk, i, 617, 632, 838, 869; Abu 
'1-Mahasin, Nudjum, ed. Cairo, vii, 168 and index; 
Kalkashandl, Subh, iv, 76, 82, 123, 133, 134, 136; 
xiv, 145; Mufaddal, Hist, des suit, mamelouks, ed. 
and tr. Blochet, 229; Quatremere, Hist, des suit, 
mamelouks, ii/i, 260; Hadjdji Khalifa. Diihdnnumd. 
598, 601 ; von Kremer, Gesch. des nbrdl. Syriens, 19; 
R. Hartmann, Pol. Geogr. des Mamlukenreichs, in 
ZDMG, lxx (1916), 32; Tomaschek, Zur hist. 
Topographic von Kleinasien in Mittelalter, in 
SBAk. Wien, cxxiv (1891), 86; idem, Hist.- 
Topographisches vom oberen Euphrat und aus Ost- 
Kappadokien, in Kiepert Festschrift (1898), 145; 
Ritter, Erdkunde, xix, 6-1 19; Schaffer, Cilicia, 
18 ff.; Le Strange, 131, 132 and cf. 434; Rosen, 
Basil Bulgaroctonos, 2, 23 (= Yahya b. Sa'id, PO, 
xxiii, 165, 214), 85, 193; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 
La Syrie du Nord a Vipoque des Mamelouks, 8, 18, 
88, 98-101; Honigmann, Ostgrenze, 63, 84-5, 87, 
I °3, 153; Cahen, La Syrie du Nord . . ., 150; 
Canard, Sayf al-Daula, Recueil de textes, 44-6, 91, 
98, 103, 104, 114, 141, 393; idem, Hist, de la 
dynastic des H'amddnides, i, 270 ff., 279 ff., 764, 
775 and passim; IA, art. Ceyhan (Besim Darkot). 

(M. Canard) 
al-EJAYHAnI [see supplement]. 
BJAYtfCN [see amu darya]. 
DJAYN, The Djayn (Jain) community (followers 
of Mahavira, called the Jina) was much more widely 
distributed over the Indian sub-continent at the time 
of the Muslim conquest than in later times, as is 
shown by the re-utilization of Djayn material in 
tarly Islamic building. Although they were fairly 
widespread in the Deccan, their particular stronghold 



was peninsular Gudjarat. Allusions to the Djayns in 
earlier histories have probably been obscured by 
their being not distinguished from their Hindu 
neighbours and described with them as "unbelievers" 
and "idolators"; but their chief social characteristic, 
an exaggerated reverence for the sanctity of all 
animal life, was certainly known to and exploited 
by the Muslims, as the account of the Portuguese 
traveller Duarte Barbosa, who visited Gudjarat 
early in the ioth/i6th century, shows: the Muslims 
would take fowls and other birds and offer to kill 
them in the presence of devout Djayns, or threaten 
to kill themselves, or visit them as rat- or snake- 
catchers, and would be paid large sums of money not 
to do these things. They were, however, tolerated 
by the Muslims, since they were of economic im- 
portance as the money-lending community (cf. The 
book of Duarte Barbosa, ed. and tr. M. Longworth 
Dames, Hakluyt Socy., i, 111-2). 

Religious contact with the Djayns was made by 

the Mughal emperor Akbar in 990/1582, who invited 

first Hiravidjaya and later the great Bhanuiandra 

to the Mughal court, and whose personal beliefs and 

habits seem to have been much influenced by the 

Djayn leaders (Bada'uni, Muntakhab al-tawdrikh, 

tr. Lowe, ii, 331, speaks with disgust of Akbar's 

orders prohibiting the slaughter of animals on 

certain days — adding that disobedience was visited 

with capital punishment!). Many of Akbar's farmdns 

in favour of the Djayns were confirmed by his 

successor Djahangir, on whom however the personal 

influence was never profound and who ended by 

condemning their character and morals (cf. Tuzuk-i 

Diahdngiri, ed. trans. Rogers and Beveridge.i, 437-8). 

Bibliography: For Mughal farmdns in favour 

of the Djayns see particularly M.S. Commissariat, 

Imperial Mughal farmans in Gujarat, in Journal 

Univ. Bombay, ix/i, 1940; cf. also Akbar-ndma, tr. 

Beveridge, iii, 1061-3. For Djayn sources on the 

relationship between Bhanucandra and Akbar and 

Djahangir see Bhdnuiandra-iarita, ed. and Gudj. 

trans. Mohanlal M. Desai, Ahmedabad 1941 ; some 

farmdns corroborated in Djayn inscriptions 

especially in Epigraphia indica, ii, and in A. 

Guerinot, Repertoire d'ipigraphie jaina, Paris 1908. 

See also Kamta Prasad Jain, Jainism under the 

Muslim rule, in New Indian Antiquary, i, 516-21; 

Kalipada Mitra, Jain influence at Mughul court, 

in Proc. 3rd Ind. Hist. Cong, 1939, 1061-72; idem, 

Historical references in Jain poems, in Proc. 6th 

Ind. Hist. Cong., 1943, 344-7; idem, Jahangir's 

relations with the Jains, in IHQ, xxi (1945), 44-8. 

(J. Burton-Page) 
EJAYPUR, formerly a princely state in India, 
now a part of the Indian Union, lying between 
25 41' and 28° 34' N. and 74 13' E., with an area 
of 15,579 sq. miles and a population of 1,650,000 in 
1951. The ruling dynasty claimed descent from a 
son of Rama, the legendary king of Ayodhya and the 
hero of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana by Valmiki, in 
spite of the fact that the ex-ruler was also the head 
of the Kaihwaha clan of Radjputs. The first ruler of 
the country, then known as Dhundhar, was a descend- 
ant of the Kachwaha chief of Gwaliyar, who had 
received the district of Daosa in about 522/1128 as 
a gift from his father-in-law. Daosa thus became the 
first capital of the newly acquired territory. The 
present city of Diavpur. which gave its name to 
the entire state was, however, founded by Radja 
Djay Singh II, better known to history as Djay 
Singh Sawa'i, in 1141/1728. Abandoning Amber, the 
former capital, he made the new city the seat of 



50 4 



DJAYPUR — DJAYSH 



his government. The city was planned on the model 
of Ahmadabad [q.v.] with broad boulevards and 
spacious bazars. Even craftsman skilled in various 
trades were sent for from that place, but the founder 
of Djaypur did not succeed in making the new city 
as prosperous as its model ( c Abd al-Hayy Lakhnawi, 
Ydd-i Ayydn, 'Aligafh 1337, 30-1, in which the city 
is called Djaynagar). The title Sawd'i, conferred on 
him by the Mughal emperor, and meaning i 1 /,, is not 
only indicative of the respect that he enjoyed at the 
Mughal Court but is also a tribute to his personal 
qualities as the scion of an illustrious ruling family. 
This ruler who ascended the gaddi of Amber in 1111/ 
1699 and died in 1156/1743 was a remarkable and 
accomplished person. He made good use of his 
scientific knowledge and skill in constructing obser- 
vatories at Djaypur, Dihli, Banaras, Mathura and 
Udjdjayn (see G. R. Kaye, A guide to the old obser- 
vatories at Delhi, Jaipur, Ujjain and Benares, Calcutta 
1920). The sun-clock, mounted on a triangular tower 
in the Dihli observatory, gives accurate time even 
to this day. He also reconstructed the astronomical 
tables known after the reigning Mughal emperor of 
Dihli, Muhammad Shah, as the Zidj Muhammad 
Shahl. More illustrious and better known to history 
is, however, Djay Singh I who enjoyed a mansab of 
6,000 and the imperial title of Mirza Radja, conferred 
on him by Awrangzib. Soon after Djay Singh's death 
in 1156/1743 the Djats of Bharatpur [q.v.] succeeded 
in wresting, following a number of sharp encounters, 
a part of the state; the defection of the chief of 
Maceri (now Alwar) about 1205/1790 further reduced 
the area of the State. By the end of the century 
Djaypur was in confusion, torn by internal strife 
and the extortions of the depredatory Marathas. 
A treaty concluded in 1218/1803 with the East India 
Company, was dissolved only two years later. 
Another treaty was concluded in 1234/1818 putting 
a stop to the molestation of the Marathas. 

On the outbreak of a rebellion in 1820, during the 
infancy of Djay Singh III, a British Officer was 
posted in the state. In 1835 another rising took place 
resulting in the murder of a British political officer 
and injuries to the Agent to the Governor-General. 
Repression naturally followed resulting in the 
tightening of the administration and reduction in 
the state troops. 

The Djaypur Records Office has a rich and rare 
collection of historical documents, including a large 
mass of akhbdrdt, the daily news-sheets pertaining 
mostly to the reign of Awrangzib. Two unique works 
of Amir Khusraw [q.v.], the KhazaHn al-futuh (ed. 
Wahid Mirza, Calcutta 1952) and Insha'-yi Khusraw 
are preserved in the State Library. 

Bibliography: C. U. Aitchison, A collection 
of treaties, engagements and sanads relating to India, 
New Delhi 1940, s.v.; J. C. Brooke, Political 
history of the state of Jeypore, London 1868; 
T. H. Hendley, Handbook of the Jeypore courts at 
the London Indo-Colonial exhibition, London 1886; 
idem, Medico-topographical account of Jeypore, 
London 1895; V. P. Menon, The story of the inte- 
gration of the Indian states, Calcutta 1956, index; 
Rajputana Gazetteer, ii, 1879; Ardjumand Muham- 
mad Khan Salim, Ta'rikh-i Djaypur {or Jaipur 
Guide), Lahore 1904; R. N. Chowdhuri, A glimpse 
of Jaipur a century ago, in Proc. 14th Ind. Hist. 
Cong, 1951, 355-62; Imperial Gazetteer of India, 
Oxford 1908, xiii 382-402. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
DJAYSH. one of the common Arabic terms (with 
djund and ( askar) for the army. 



-Clas 



Except possibly in the Yaman, pre-Islamic Arabia, 
although living under permanent conditions of 
minor warfare, knew no armies in the proper meaning 
of the term apart from those of foreign occupation. 
Conflicts between tribes brought into action virtually 
all able-bodied men, but without any military 
organization, and combats were very often settled 
by individual feats of arms. The embryo of an army 
may be said to have appeared with Islam in the 
expeditions led or prepared by the Prophet, although 
the gjihdd at this stage was the duty of all able- 
bodied Muslims. One cannot speak of a real army 
until the beginning of the Conquests, when there 
first appeared a division between the combatant and 
non-combatant sections of the Muslim people. Even 
though in principle all able-bodied Muslims could 
be summoned to the ajihdd, in practice the tribes 
had only to supply a certain percentage of their 
menfolk, and the numbers were usually more or less 
made up by volunteers. Their installation in the 
conquered countries separated these men, if not 
from their families who usually accompanied them, 
at any rate from the other members of their tribe 
and from their traditional way of life. They did not 
form an army stricto sensu, inasmuch as that, in the 
intervals between campaigns, they followed other 
activities if they wanted to and, with few exceptions, 
were not shut up in barracks away from their 
families; but in any case they were a section of the 
people permanently obliged to respond to the call 
of war, and deriving their main livelihood from this. 
In relation to the conquered, tbey considered them- 
selves from the start not entirely as a conquering 
people but rather as an army of occupation. Superior 
to their adversaries because of their mobility, their 
being used to a rough mode of life, and a consecrated 
enthusiasm which was reinforced by the appeal of 
booty and confirmed by victory, they lacked all 
knowledge of strategy, their arms remained rudi- 
mentary, and their successes were more than half 
due to the weakness of the enemy empires, the 
disaffection of the peoples of which these were made 



o the r< 



reign 



part of the troops which these empires employed. 
It is perhaps imprudent to try to reckon the man- 
power which the conquerors were actually able to 
mobilize: probably round about fifty thousand men 
under c Umar, and double this at the time of the 
greatest extension of the Umayyad empire. 

Except to a certain degree in Syria, the Arab 
troops were not installed in the settlements of the 
natives, but rather in camps which ultimately became 
new cities, the amsdr (see misr). Thus there came into 
being Basra and Kufa in 'Irak, Fustat in Egypt, 
somewhat later Kayrawan in Ifrikiya, and so on. 
Their organization was a compromise between new 
necessities and tribal heritage: the whole army was 
a mixture of men of various tribes, but in the lower 
ranks of the army as in the towns, the soldiers 
remained grouped in communities of tribal origin. 
Originally they had no other income but the profits 
of victory which rapidly became considerable, and 
were regulated by the rules relating to the ghdnima 
[q.v.]. When immense territories were added to the 
spoils reaped on the battlefield, there were differences 
of interest between those who would have liked to 
have seen them entirely divided up, and those 
around the growing Caliphate who succeeded in 
imposing the doctrine that they belonged to the 
Islamic community collectively, both present and 
future, which meant in fact allowing the original 



owners to keep them against payment of taxes, 
which in turn served to provide the money for regular 
army pay (see c arIf, c ata j , and diwan). In Syria, 
and later in the Islamic west, the coordinated pro- 
vincial-military organization of the djund [q.v.] was 
brought into being, an organization no precise 
equivalent of which ever appeared in the vast area 
of expansion in the east ( c Irak-Iran). 

Needless to say, this first, primitive army was 
entirely Arab-Muslim; in the former Byzantine 
provinces at any rate, this was all the easier to ensure, 
as the native populations had long since lost the habit 
of following the profession of arms. Nevertheless, 
soon enough, the Arab chiefs began to bring their 
mawdli [q.v.] with them in a subordinate rank, while 
on the other hand, certain warlike border peoples 
(in Central Asia, northern Iran and Armenia, and 
in the Syrian Amanus), without embracing Islam, 
were associated with the military operations of the 
Muslims as auxiliaries exempt from taxes; only a 
little later the Berbers, superficially converted to the 
new religion, were to form the greater part of the 
army that set out to conquer Spain. 

Fairly soon, a special corps under the name of 
shurta [q.v.] was constituted which, more closely 
linked to the Caliph or the Governor, was basically 
concerned less with war than with the maintenance 
of internal order, and little by little became a kind 
of police force (see also ahdath). 

From the time of the Umayyads onward, the 
conditions of military organization were very con- 
considerably modified. War, because of growing 
resistance and lengthening lines of communication, 
ceased to be as profitable as before. The result was 
that pay, which was not very high, now became the 
main source of income of the troops, if not of their 
commanders, and they therefore became all the more 
demanding. On the other hand, a new cleavage 
appeared between the reserve troops stationed at 
Basra, KOfa, etc., living an increasingly civilian life, 
and the frontier elements who no longer came back 
but continued to live on the borders of Asia Minor, 
Central Asia, the Maghrib or Spain. Finally, the 
nature of military operations changed and demanded 
war-materials and methods adapted from those of 
their enemies, an adaptation for which the Arabs 
were not always very well prepared. Tradition 
credits tactical reform to the last of the Umayyads, 
Marwan II, who had had long experience of war in 
Armenia; but on the whole, the army had not been 
substantially re-organized when the dynasty was 
overthrown by the 'Abbasids. 

These owed their success from the military point 
of view to the new army organized by Abu Muslim 
[q.v.] from among the people of Khurasan. For 
nearly a century, this army was the backbone of the 
new regime, and at first, the Khurasanls alone 
formed the troops quartered near the Caliph and in 
the great political centres. There were thus for a 
certain time two armies side by side. Of prime 
importance from the social point of view, the inter- 
vention of the Khurasanls was no less so from the 
military standpoint. Iran, and more especially 
Khurasan, had, in this respect, their own traditions 
which the Arab occupation had not succeeded in 
effacing. In archery, in siege warfare, in the use of 
"naphtha" (Greek fire), they possessed skills with 
which the Arabs could not compete, and thus brought 
to the 'Abbasids an element of technical reform which 
had been missing in the Umayyad army. On the 
other hand, the Arabs divided their lives between 
civilian life and that of the camps, still closely linked 



'SH 5°5 

to the quarrels of the tribes and the clans; the 
Khurasanls, however, formed a more clearly defined 
corps of professional mercenaries linked to the person 
of the sovereign. Actually, despite some brilliant 
exceptions, it was less in external warfare than in 
the repression of internal revolts that they were 
mainly employed. The Arabs themselves henceforth 
belonged to two categories: there were those who 
lived far away from the zones of military activity, 
who were above all the cause of disorders, and whom 
in Egypt the Caliph al-Mu c tasim was for this reason 
to delete entirely from the registers of the diwan; 
and there were the frontiersmen who could not be 
demilitarized in the same way, but who organized 
themselves according to the autonomous new world 
of the ghdzis and murabit(tin), cutting themselves 
off from the regular army proper. The result socially 
was that the Arabs for the most part no longer formed 
the breeding-ground of the aristocracy and were 
lucky indeed if they did not relapse into a miserable 
Bedouin way of life. 

Whoever its members were, the regular army was 
distinguished from other more ephemeral bodies of 
combatants, in that they alone appeared on the 
registers of the diwan as having a right to a permanent 
wage and a status which made a kind of state 
corporation out of them. The others, who wer2 
various kinds of free corps of "volunteers" (mutta- 
wi'a), not only received less pay but, what is 
more important, only received it for the duration of 
the campaign for which their presence was required, 
and were not considered as professionals. As for the 
ghazis, they lived on the combined profits of their 
non-military activities in the intervals between 
campaigns, on booty during them, and on pious 
foundations which the Muslims of the interior created 
in increasing numbers in their favour as a substitute 
for waging the djihad. They also did not appear in 
the ordinary registers of the dfaysh and were clearly 
not professionals. 

In its turn, the KhurasanI army did not survive 
the first c Abbasid century. When the Caliph al- 
Ma'mun bestowed the autonomous government of 
Khurasan on the family of the Tahirids, these tended 
to keep for themselves a large part of the KhurasanI 
recruitment. Furthermore, if the 'Abbasid dynasty 
had owed its power to the Khurasanls, and more re- 
cently, in particular, al-Ma 3 mun had owed his victory 
over his brother, al-Amln, to them, they themselves 
were fully aware of this, and in Baghdad itself, where 
the Tahirids were responsible for keeping order, they 
came in the end to be resented as somewhat burden- 
some protectors. Al-Mu'tasim, the same who had 
suppressed the regular Arab army in Egypt, also 
took the initiative in replacing the Khurasanls by 
Turks. Actually, it was at first mainly the Turks 
established within the frontiers of Islam who were 
referred to as such, above all the people of Farghana 
whose social conditions resembled those of the 
Khurasanls; but soon young people born outside 
Islam and brought there as slaves {mamluk in this 
case rather than c abd) from Central Asia or what are 
now the Russian steppes by warriors or merchants, 
were to be recruited as Turks. The Turks, who were 
above all excellent horsemen, not only had an 
apparently justified reputation for military, physical 
and moral courage, as is witnessed by a well-known 
short treatise of al-Djahiz, but it was thought that 
they, linked to the person of their master by ties of 
slavery, acquired young enough to be formed in 
character by him, and being strangers to the 
aspirations and rivalries of the indigenous peoples, 



would form a still more reliable army for the sovereign 
than had the first Khurasanls. In fact, experience was 
to prove that, having the sovereign in their power, 
they were to be far less tolerable and far more 
devoted to their own generals than to the Caliph 
(who, after al-Mu c tasim, never again commanded 
them directly). Nevertheless, because of their 
technical qualifications, because of the care bestowed 
by the Turkish chieftains on maintaining recruitment, 
and even because the acquisition of new slaves was 
the easiest remedy against the lack of discipline of 
the old ones (although in the long run, of course, it 
merely perpetuated the evil), it seemed no longer 
possible, right up to modern times, for oriental 
Muslim states to do without a Turkish army, and all 
of them, one after another, were to adopt one. At 
best, in the orient, they were counter-balanced by 
the calling in of other elements, rough, indigenous 
mountain people, skilled in fighting on foot in the 
mountains, such as the Daylamis, or horsemen like 
the Kurds, or locally negroes (in Arabia) or Hindus 
(army of the Ghaznavids) . In Egypt, the Fatimids, who 
conquered it with Berber contingents, reinforced as in 
Ifrikiya with negroes, Slavs and Rumis, themselves 
later tried to neutralize these by introducing Turks, 
whom in turn they sought to replace by Armenians 
under chiefs who could hardly be claimed as Muslims, 
and finally gave back some part in army affairs to 
the Arabs. The breaking up of the 'Abbasid empire 
also gave the opportunity of a military career to the 
Arabs of Mesopotamia and Syria, who gave support 
to the Hamdanid [?.».], Mirdasid [?.«.], 'Ukaylid 
[q.v.'] and other principalities. The Bfiyids in western 
Iran owed their specific strength to the Daylamis, 
but the need for cavalry compelled them never- 
theless to reinforce them from the start with Turks. 
But the racial differences of the contingents, which 
language and technical differences hindered from 
mixing easily together, were the cause of disorders, 
because they were jealous of each other, quarrelled 
over their share of the state revenues, and espoused 
the disagreements of their leaders; they made the 
streets of Baghdad and Cairo run with blood when 
they were not occupied in promoting their respective 
generals to power. Even when, later on under the 
Saldjukids, a Turkish people and no longer only an 
army were to instal themselves in former Islamic 
territory, the structure of the army was not perma- 
nently affected: in the beginning, the Turkoman 
element, nomadic and natural warriors like the first 
Arabs, assured them victory; but the new masters 
of the Muslim east re-organized their army in the 
traditional manner with Turco-Muslim forces 
recruited from slaves, and the Turkomans were only 
able to use their warlike qualities as ghdzis in the 
outer battlefields of Asia Minor, which they had 
taken from the Byzantines. The successors of the 
Saldjukids added a new element by introducing, 
among their Turks, some Kurds, from whom the 
Ayyubid dynasty was to rise; but the Ayyubids, 
masters of Egypt which they had taken from the 
Fatimids, had themselves an army which became 
increasingly Turkish in content. The Saldjukids of 
Asia Minor added Armenian mercenaries, Franks, 
etc., to their ranks in the Byzantine manner, and the 
Mongol conquerors brought Georgians into theirs. 
As for the Arabs, the Turkish conquest, combining 
as it did the old half-Bedouin country of the "fertile 
crescent" with the Asiatic part of the Byzantine 
empire which had been the stage of their occasional 
efforts as ghdzis, eliminated them finally and com- 



pletely (except in some comers of Arabia) from any 
part whatsoever in military life. 

The evolution which has just been described was 
not peculiar to the Muslim world. Following the 
example of the former Roman empire, Byzantium 
in Islamic times left the running of its wars more 
and more to mercenaries, of whom a great number 
were Turkish. Recruitment of slaves proper was 
unknown to it, but this omission probably made 
only a limited difference in practice. It was un- 
common for the mercenaries to return to then- 
country of origin and they were bound by oath to 
the emperor. On the Muslim side it must be empha- 
sized that the mamluk in the army of a sovereign, 
whose agent of power he was, could not be compared 
with a private, domestic slave. Like the mercenary, 
he received a salary, he had considerable freedom of 
action outside his military duties, if he rose in rank 
he could be set free and the most successful could 
even rise to govern provinces and rule over free men. 

It has already been indicated that the develop- 
ment outlined here was affected by technical as well 
as social factors. There is no need to give here the 
full account of armaments and military art (difficult 
enough in any case because of the lack of earlier 
studies of these subjects) which will be attempted in 
the articles harb and silaft (see in the meantime the 
names of the various arms); this much, however, 
must be said — that the dominant characteristic of 
the development of warfare was the growing role of 
heavy cavalry. This was also the situation in Europe, 
but, because of the oriental tactical preference for 
mobility, they never went quite as far as the Europ- 
eans in the matter of sheer weight of equipment. 
From the time of the Arab conquests up to the ap- 
pearance of fire-arms, armament changed little in 
nature, but it could change in bulk and above al lin 
the relative propor tions of the various arms, and 
technical progress, albeit of a secondary kind, could 
exercise some influence on the art of combat and the 
fortunes of war. The struggle against the Crusaders 
before the time of the Mongols possibly played a 
locally stimulating part in this respect. 

Amongst the ancient Arabs the principal arms 
were the sword (sayf) and the javelin (rumh), as well 
as the lance (harba) used by the infantry, the bow 
was not unknown, but little used on horseback; it 
served more as a weapon in hunting than in warfare, 
where it did not lend itself well to single combats of 
the traditional type. Here lay a difference between 
the Arabs on the one hand, and the Persians and 
Turks on the other: among the Persians the exercise 
of drawing a bow, which might be of any shape or 
size, was a living tradition among the whole popu- 
lation; the Turks excelled in the rapid shooting from 
horseback of a hail of arrows (ndvak) in all directions, 
thus sowing disorder in the ranks of their enemies. 
The cross-bow (diarkh), often included also with the 
ordinary bow under the same name (fraws), followed 
by a qualifying expression, seems to have been known 
in the orient since the 3rd/9th century. 'Abbasid and 
later cavalry made much use of the bow, but still 
also of the javelin, and the lance, too, now became a 
cavalry weapon; the infantry used the cross-bow 
while remaining faithful also to the sword which was 
was much improved by the quality of the so-called 
"Damascus" steel — in reality an Indian technique; 
amongst other weapons, the club ( c amud, Persian 
gurz) was still employed as well as the knife (sikkin). 
In defence, Arabs used the shield (daraka), the 
cuirass (tirs), various types of coats of mail {dur e , 
zarad, djawshan), and the helmet; they nevertheless 



avoided armour that was too heavy, and the large 
shield does not seem to have been in current usage 
before the Crusades, the period when this size in 
shields became fashionable. The cavalryman was 
almost always mounted on a horse which was also 
protected by armour; in the armies of eastern Iran, 
the Indian elephant was used in some heavy corps; 
the camel, however, was only used for transport. 
The fully equipped horseman was given various 
names, one of which among the Ayyubids was 
tawdshi, a meaning which should be carefully distin- 
guished from its other possible meaning of "eunuch". 
The soldiers had to maintain their arms as well as 
their animals but, except in very early times, they 
were given to them in the first place and renewed 
in case of need; most of them came from state 
workshops which, in Egypt, held an almost complete 
monopoly in their manufacture. A fortiori, the state 
workshops alone dealt in engines worked by teams, 
that is to say, above all, siege artillery whose use 
developed increasingly: the heavy-beamed mangonels 
(mandjanik), light ballistas, farrdda, [q.v.]), battering- 
rams (dabbdba), etc. The Muslims did not take very 
long to pierce the secret of naft or "Greek fire", 
which land as well as naval forces used ; archaeology 
has found the pots from which it was hurled. It was 
to an army possessing all this equipment that the 
term c askar (Persian lashkar) was more particularly 
applied. When on campaign they settled themselves 
in camps and based themselves on fortresses, ftisn 
[q.v.] or Ital'-a, the attacking of which, from the 
opposing point of view, was one of the most impor- 
tant forms of warfare (see ^isar). Finally, mention 
may be made of the importance, at the beginning of 
a battle, of the trumpet and other resounding in- 

We know little of how young soldiers (ghuldm, pi. 
ghilmdn) of the c Abbasid army were trained, and 
what Nizam al-Mulk says about the Ghaznavid army 
must be treated with some reserve; for precise 
information we must wait until the time of the Mam- 
luks [q.v.]. Occasionally billeted on the people, the 
troops were far more usually gathered together in 
barracks or camps, one group of them, the hudjariyya, 
near the palace of the sovereign, whether Caliph or 
otherwise entitled. The brawls which nevertheless 
frequently broke out between them and the popula- 
tion were one of the causes of the temporary emi- 
gration of the Caliphate to Samarra from the time of 
al-Mu c tasim. The shurta, however, was no longer 
recruited from amongst themselves, and tended to 
be replaced by local elements which were sometimes 
opposed to them. But the Saldjukid conquest re- 
created unity by increasing the numbers of heads of 
garrisons (shihna), and giving them the duties of the 
shurta which was generally abolished. The army did 
its military training in open spaces situated on the 
outskirts of cities. 

The army of a large state was divided into regi- 
ments which generally corresponded both with a 
division into ethnic groups and a division according 
to technical functions, complemented by detach- 
ments of sappers. There was also a division according 
to recruitment under famous generals or during 
certain reigns. The soldiers who had been part of a 
general's army continued to form a group solidary 
until death, and those who had been recruited by 
one prince kept themselves apart from those 
younger ones who had been recruited by his suc- 
cessor; hence there were differences and jealousies, 
with each prince favouring his own. In the lower 
ranks there were units which might be of ten or a 



hundred, etc., but these numbers seem fluid. The 
head of an army, often called kdHd in the early days 
of Islam, and even later than this in the Islamic west, 
now began to call himself amir [q.v.], a title which 
ultimately included the rule over a province linked 
to the command of an army. Where there was a 
commander-in-chief he called himself amir al- 
umard'; but the title of amir was in the end to become 
devalued and to finish as a title for all officers, and 
consequently amir al-umard? fell to being the title of 
any general. In the Saldjukid period, etc., the man 
who represented the military authority of the 
sovereign when he himself did not exercise it over 
the body of the army, was the Grand Chamberlain, 
hddfib, who was first and foremost .head of the guard. 
In Iran, the commander of an army was called sdldr, 
the commander-in-chief, ispdhsdldr or sar-i lashkar; 
among the Turks, the practical equivalent of amir 
was beg, while amir al-umard' was beglerbeg or 
subashi. 

While there was no uniform in the modern sense, 
each regiment had its own regulation dress. We can 
picture for example, that of the Ghaznawid guard 
since the archaeological discoveries at Lashkar-i 
Bazar. The different corps had their flags (rdya), and 
the general or sovereign his own (lima?), flying near 
the tent from which he commanded the battle and 
forming a rallying point. If there were no true 
medical services, at least there were transports of 
arms and food, for which purpose the camel was 
invaluable. Women often accompanied the army 
and in case of defeat, formed part of the spoils. A 
kadi, "readers" of the Kur'an and preachers, some- 
times doctors as well, were likewise attached to the 
army. 

The chief preoccupation, whether of the soldiers 
or of the power they served, was the provision for 
their pay {rizk, khubz), which went with the super- 
vision of the strength of the establishment and its 
maintenance. These services were dependent on the 
section of the diwdn al-djaysh called c ard, which was 
so important that in the Iranian states the head of 
military administration was called '■arid. This 
supervision was based on an extremely exact regi- 
stration of the men, and of the animals branded with 
the mark of the prince. It was exercised by means of 
periodic and very strict parades ( c ard) which were 
taken if possible by the prince or at least in his 
presence, and at the end of which the men were given 
their pay [see daftar]. 

The total amount of pay was very variable, as 
was its nature and the intervals at which it was paid, 
which might be monthly or yearly, while the situation 
of temporary soldiers was a further confusing factor. 
In general, money payments and payments in kind 
which could be dealt with in accounts together with 
the former were combined. As far as we can believe 
the scattered and inaccurate data which are all we 
have, it seems that up to about the 4th/ioth century, 
the pay of a foot-soldier in the Caliphate varied 
between 500 and 1,000 dirhams a year, that is, about 
two to three times the earnings of a Baghdad jour- 
neyman; the cavalry earned double this and the 
commanders naturally more again. To this must be 
added payments in kind, gifts from sovereigns on 
their succession to the throne, gratuities on the 
occasions of feasts, battles, etc., not to mention those 
which the troops' growing lack of discipline enabled 
them to appropriate, or the booty taken after 
victories or perhaps rather in the permitted period 
of pillage which followed them. In addition, the state 
budget had to support the cost of manufacturing 



arms, the upkeep of armouries, fortresses, roads of 
military importance, transports, animals, etc. At 
I4V» dirhams to the dinar, the legal rate of exchange 
in 'Abbasid times, the manufacture of arms, etc., 
may be estimated to have cost some five million 
dinars, quite apart from the expense of an army of 
50,000 men, whose overall budget at the zenith of 
the empire we know to have been in the neigh- 
bourhood of fourteen million dinars. The two 
together presumably accounted for half the income 
of the state; a heavy burden, bringing with it heavy 
taxation, discontent and, in a vicious circle, revolts 
provoked by this discontent which lessened the 
chancer of a decrease in taxes since military effort 
had then to be intensified and an ever-growing 
proportion of the budget be taken up by the demands 
of the army. Moreover, even when it had sufficient 
available funds on account, the Treasury did not 
always possess the liquid assets needed for the 
payment of the army at the time promised, and when 
this happened another vicious circle appeared, and 
the complaints of those concerned over the delays 
could only be appeased by means of increases which 
compromised the future even more. More and more 
often, the caliphs had to cede the government of 
provinces to generals on condition that hence- 
forward they and not the state would pay their own 
army. It is hardly necessary to recall the way in 
which this development led to the formation of 
autonomous principalities, but all the same it did 
not solve the problem of finding by one means or 
another the resources needed for the upkeep of the 
whole army. 

This was why very soon it was necessary to re- 
organize the system of payment completely by means 
of the spread and transformation of the system of 
iW ([?.».]; see also dav'a) which, to express it 
briefly, allowed the army to tax a village or a district 
and thus take directly from the source the sums 
which were due to them. It is not possible to dwell 
here on the alterations in the administrative order 
which resulted from this development, but it is 
worth remarking that the value of the iktd c seems 
to have been considerably greater than that of their 
former pay (500-1,000 dinars). This indicates clearly 
the growing social and political importance of the 
army and fits in with the fact that on his iktd 1 the 
cavalryman had to provide for some few retainers 
as well as to maintain an increasingly large amount 
of gear and secure the whole of his supplies in kind. 
It must be kept in mind, too, that in the district 
allocated to him, the muktd 1 had now to take over 
the expenses which had formerly been the business 
of the state, so that the income of the iktcf was not 
solely given up to covering the simple pay of earlier 
times. Such very varied applications of iktd c were 
tried out under different states and in different 
periods, that only a brief enumeration of them is 
possible here. The system of iktd' could be used for 
the whole army or for only a part of it; it could free 
the muktd ( or not from the obligation of paying the 
tithe, zakdt; it could be temporary and exchangeable 
or definitive and hereditary; it could be individual, 
that is to say formulated to assure the upkeep of 
each cavalryman and his few retainers or general, 
that is to say very much broader and put into the 
charge of an officer on condition of his being respon- 
sible for the supplies and upkeep of a whole contin- 
gent, a situation which, due allowances being made, 
amounts more or less to the grant of a whole district 
(for which see above). Finally, the ik(d c could to all 
intents and purposes free the muhtd'- of all narrow 



governmental control within the extent of the juris- 
diction assigned to him or, on the contrary, leave him 
under detailed supervision and subject to the inter- 
vention of the state administration. This was the 
situation in Egypt, and from it developed the 
organization of the Mamluks [q.v.]. It is possible 
that in Syria certain mutual influences occurred 
between the Muslim Md c and the fief of the Latins 
installed there following the Crusades. 

Leaving aside differences of time and place, it can 
be seen that in almost every country of the Muslim 
east (rather less so in the west), the army has played 
an important and special part. Guardian of real 
power and of growing fortunes based on landed 
property, it constituted more and more the true 
aristrocracy superimposed upon the ancient native 
rural and urban aristocracies. By the manner of 
their recruitment almost foreigners to the native 
population, which in consequence paid little atten- 
tion to their internal conflicts and changes of domi- 
nation, the army imposed on this native population 
something of the regime of a military occupation 
which, nevertheless, was only upheld by the mutual 
support given to one another by the army and 
the orthodox religious framework of the regime 
which depended on it. This was a development 
whose scope, overflowing by far the domain of mili- 
tary matters proper, can in conclusion be no more 
than indicated here. 

Bibliography: Most of the important in- 
formation is to be found in the chronicles. However, 
ideas concerning certain aspects or problems of 
the army are to be found more explicitly discussed, 
from the first century of the 'Abbasids on, in 
treatises such as the Risdlat al-sahaba of Ibn al- 
Mukaffa c and the Risdla fl mandkib al-Turk ma 
"■dmrnat djund al-Khildfa of al-Djahiz (ed. Van 
Vloten 1903); and in some works on finance, 
certain chapters deal specifically with military 
administration, for example, the K. al-Kharddj of 
Abu Yusuf and especially, the general treatise on 
institutions with the same title by Kudama 
written at the beginning of the 4th/ioth century; 
then in the 6th/i2th century, the Minhddj of 
MakhzumI for Egypt which enables us to complete 
the retrospective accounts in the Khitat of Makrlzl 
(i, 94 ff.) and, in Persian, the Siydsatndma of 
Nizam al-Mulk (Saldjukids), the Adah al-muluk of 
Fakhr-i Mudabbir Mubarak-shah (representing 
the military tradition of the Ghaznawids and 
Ghurids, still unpublished), the Dastur al-kdtib 
of Hindushah Nakhdjawanl (representing the 
military tradition of the Mongols of Persia), etc. 
On the other hand, according to the evidence of 
the Fihrist, there existed early enough a technical 
literature in Arabic concerned with the military 
arts and engines of war, which drew its inspiration 
from Greek and Iranian antiquity; however, no 
example of this has been preserved prior to the 
Ayyubid period which produced the Tadhkira fi 
'l-hiyal al-harbiyya of al-Harawi, ed. and French 
trans. J. Sourdel-Thomine in BEO, xvii (1962), 
the Treatise on swords attributed to Kindl, 
analysed by J. v. Hammer- Purgstall in J A, v/3 
(1854) and published by c Abd al-Rahman ZakI in 
Rev. Fac. Lettres Univ. Fuad I xiv/2 (1952). and 
especially, the Traite d'armurerie put together for 
Salah al-DIn by Marda or MardI TarsusI, ed. 
CI. Cahen in BEO, xii (1947), a type of literature 
which was to be developed further in the time 
of the Mamluks. On the Persian side should be 
mentioned the K. al-harb wa 'l-shadjd'a (Ghaz- 



nawid), published by I. and M. Shafi' in IC, 
1946. Earlier information about the Muslims' 
manner of fighting has been preserved in Byzan- 
tine literature, especially in the Taktikon of Leon 
VI and the Strategikon of Kekaumenos, as well 
as in Armenian chronicles. 

No general and thorough modern work exists on 
the Muslim army in the "classical" centuries. The 
account of A. v. Kremer in his Kulturgeschichte des 
Islams, i, remains useful; it should be comple- 
mented on several points by the corresponding 
chapters of R. Levy in his Social structure of Islam, 
by C A. Ibrahim Hasan and H. Ibr. Hasan in al- 
Nuzum al-Isldmiyya, and by A. v. Pawlikowski- 
Cholewa in Die Heere des Morgenlandes, 1940; 
better, but more limited geographically, is the 
chapter, p. 485-508, of B. Spuler in his Iran in 
friihosmanischer Zeit; see also M. F. Ghazi, 
Remarques sur I'armee chez les Arabes, in Ibla, i960. 
The following are monographs dealing with 
shorter periods: for pre-Islamic Arabia, F. W. 
Schwarzlose, Die Waffen der alten 
which should be complemented by the studies on 
pre-Islamic Arab society of H. Lammens, B. Fares, 
etc. ; for the period of the conquests, the considera- 
tions of Caetani in his Annali, iv, and the disser- 
tation of L. Beckmann, Die musl. Heere del 
Eroberungszeit, Hamburg 1952 ; for the Umayyads, 
N. Fries, Das Heereswesen der Araber zur Zeit der 
Omayyaden nach Tabari, 1921, and A. E. Kubbel, 
Sur certains traits du systeme militaire omayyadc. 
In Palestinskiy Sbornik, in, 66 (1958) (in Russian, 
with an analysis in French by M. Canard, ir 
Arabica, i960, 219-21); for the 'Abbasids, W, 
Hoenerbach, Zur Heeresverwaltung der Abbasiden, 
Studie Uber Qudama, in Isl., xxix (1950); and for 
some later states, the two important studies by 
C. E. Bosworth, Ghaznavid militar 
in Isl., xxxvi (i960), and H. A. R. Gibb, The 
armies of Saladin, in Cahiers d'Histoire Egypt 
iii (1951); see also the chapter on military matters 
in B. Spuler's Mongolen % , 1955. For the political 
and social aspects, see CI. Cahen, The body politi 
in Unity and variety in Muslim civilization, e< 
G. E. Von Grunebaum, 1955. 

From a more technical point of view, K. A. ( 
Creswell's Arms and Armour, 1956, gives coi 
siderable space to examples from 
for the most part of a later period than that w 
has been dealt with here; important is K. Hi 
Zur Geschichte des mittelalterlischen Geschiitzwesens 
aus orientalischen Quellen, Helsinki 1941, which 
compares all the "oriental" societies; also A. Zeki 
Velidi, Die Schwerter der Germanen (in fact, this 
speaks mainly of the Muslim world), in ZDMG, 
xc (1936), not used by A. Mazaheri, Le sabt 
contre Vipee, in Annates ESC, xiii (1958); cf. C 
Cahen's notes to his editon quoted supra. For 
Greek fire, there is now a general review of the 
use of this in all countries by J. R. Partington, 
A history of Greek Fire and gunpowder, Cambridge 
i960 (cf. D. Ayalon, A reply to Prof. J. R. Partingh 
in Arabica, 1963). For the iktd c , see CI. Cahen, 
Annates ESC, 1953. For the sake of comparisc 
it is worth reading R. C. Smail, Crusading warfa 
Cambiidge 1956. (Cl. Cahen) 



jluk [se, 



JLUKS]. 



1. Djish, plur. Djyush means in the south of 
Algeria and Morocco an armed band to go out 
on a ghazw (ambush for purposes of plunder or of a 
holy war) against a caravan or a body of troops. 
When the djish consisted of several hundred men, 
it was called a harka. The Djyush carried on their 
operation from the northern Sudan or the Niger 
valley throughout the Sahara and the south of 
Algeria and Morocco. They were composed sometimes 
of Tuaregs but more often of Berbers from the 
southern slopes of the High Atlas. The latter 
assembled on the al-Mayder plateau in the valley of 
the Wed Gheris. 

When the formation of a djish was decided upon, 
the Tuareg who were to belong to it bound them- 
selves together by an oath before setting out. 
Among the Awlad Djarir on the borders of Algeria 
and Morocco, two mounted marabouts were placed 
opposite one another. Between these two men of 
religion ran those intended for the foray, with a 
branch of the retem (Sahara broom) in their hands 
which they would throw into the air. Each djish 
took with him some one to bring him luck, usually a 
marabout or a warrior who had already taken a 

In the sandy plains of the Sahara or in the sand 
hills the members of the djish walked in Indian file 
so that the enemy could not estimate their number 
from their tracks. They also made all sorts of devia- 
tions. When they came to the place chosen for the 
ambush, they lay in wait. The attack was usually 
made by night or in the grey of morning, a fierce 
onslaught, a hail of shot mingled with the shrill wild 
yells of people shrieking like demons, while the rifles 
poured forth bullets. All the forces of the attacking 
party were concentrated on the first onslaught. The 
terrified animals could no longer be controlled and 
often stampeded in all directions. Then began the 
second part of the fight, in which the best horsemen 
of the djish played the principal part in driving their 
dismounted opponents into the desert to die. It was 
mainly to put down the djyush that the French 
military authorities instituted the corps of Miharistes 
Sahariens, who have succeeded in restoring order. 
Bibliography: D. Albert, Une Razzia au 
Sahel, in Bull. Soc. Geog. d'Alger, 1900, 126 ff.; 
M. Benhazera, Six mois chez les Touaregs du 
Hoggar, Algiers 1908, 55 ft.; Augustin Bernard, 
Les confins algero-marocains, Paris 191 1, 95, 96; 
M. Bernard, Notes sur I'O. Gheris, in Bull. Soc. 
Giog. d'Oran, xxx, 373; Deschamps, Le Mehariste 
saharien, in Bull. Soc. Geog. d'Oran, xxix, passim 
and more particularly 283 ff. ; A. Durand, Notes 
sur les Touaregs, in Bull. Soc. Geog. d'Alger, 1904, 



Historical. The djish dates from the beginnings 
of the reigning dynasty. Previously the various 
dynasties of North Africa had succeeded to power 
with the help of groups of the people whose political 
and religious interests were their own. Revolutions 
not only overthrew the ruling families but forced 
them to maintain their power by force of arms and 
to spill their blood on countless battlefields. The 
great families, tribes and clans, who had accompanied 
the first ruler, became extinct. Lest they should 
become dependent on Berber clans, who could not 
be relied on to be faithful to a dynasty they had not 
created, the sultans had to surround themselves with 
foreign mercenaries, who had no connexion with the 



5io DJ/ 

Atlas territory. The older North African dynasties 
enlisted Christians, Kurds, Persians and negroes. 
Under the Banu Wattas, however, the Kurd, 
Christian and negro guards were abolished and 
replaced by a guard composed solely of Arabs (al- 
shurta). This was composed mainly of the elements 
which had been introduced to west Morocco by the 
Almohad ruler Ya'kub al-Mansflr (Dwi Hassan, 
Shabanat, Kholot etc.) or of Ma'akil Arabs from the 
Tlemcen country (Swid, Banu 'Amir, Sbayh, Riyyah, 
etc.). The latter were quartered in the environs of Fas 
(Fez) and formed the corps of Sheraga (Orientals). 
The attacks of the Christians in the 9th/i5th century 
forced the ruler of Fas to place garrisons in the 
strongholds on the coast called makhzen (garrison 
placed in a stronghold), which was very soon to be 
transferred to the whole feudal organization of 
Morocco. But this makhzen succumbed to the attacks 
of the Portuguese and Spaniards, the rebellious 
Berbers and those of a new Ma'akil makhzen, which 
had been formed by the Sa'did Sharifs of Sus 
(1545). 

When the Sa c dids had become lords of the kingdom 
of Fas, they quartered the Arabs of their diish in the 
garrisons of Fas, under the name of Ahl Sus; they 
were soon afterwards transferred to the fortresses of 
the Gharb as a defence against the Kholot Arabs of 
the former Marlnid diish. They later united the 
remnants of the diish of the Banu Wattas (Shabana, 
Zirara, Awlad Mta c 5, Awlad Djerrar) with their own 
and placed them in the garrisons of Tadla and 
Marrakush. The Sheraga were also enlisted and 
remained in garrison in the neighbourhood of Fas. 
The Sa'did army, the diish, was thus created. As in 
the time of the Banu Wattas, it consisted of military 
cantonments of members of the makhzen who were 
at the call of their sovereign throughout their lives. 
They lived on estates which formed a kind of fief 
and were free from taxation. The highest officials 
rose from their ranks. 

But the Sa c did court became influenced by the 
Turks in the adjoining lands. In addition to the 
corps of Mish, the Sharifs wished to have a corps 
drilled in the European fashion by Turkish in- 
structors. The nucleus of this corps, consisting of 
Andalusian Moors, renegades and for the greater 
part of Sudan negroes, was only of any real value 
in the reign of Sultan Ahmad al-Dhahabl (al-Mansur). 
While this dynasty was breaking up in the civil wars 
caused by rival claimants for the throne, Sultan <Abd 
Allah b. Shaykh wished to have a body of faithful 
troops upon whom he could implicitly rely and gave 
the Sheraga most of the lands which they had 
previously held only in fief. 

When Mawlay al-Rashid seized the throne in 1665, 
and with the help of Arabs and Berbers from the 
Udjda country founded the dynasty of c Alid Sharifs, 
he amalgamated his retainers with the Sheraga of 
Fas. His successor Mawlay Isma'Il gave the diish 
its character. His mother belonged to the Arab tribe 
of Mghafra, a division of the Udaya. He invited this 
tribe to come from the other end of Sus and settled 
them as a makhzen tribe near the lands of the Sheraga 
of Fas. He reorganized the negro contingent the 
members of which he had sought out with the help 
of the Sa'did Sultan Ahmad al-Mansfir's registers. 
They had to swear an oath of fealty on the Imam 
al-Bukhari's book; whence their name 'Abid al- 
Bukhdri (slaves of Bukhari, plur. Bwakher). The 
diish further consisted of the Sheraga (Awlad Djama 1 , 
Hawwara, BanO c Amir, BanO Snfls, Sedj c a, Ahlaf, 
Swid, etc.), the Sherarda (Shabana, Zirara, Awlad 



Djerar, Ahl Sus, Awlad Mta c , etc.), the Udaya 
(the Udaya proper, Mgafra etc.) and Bwakher. 
These were the four makhzen-tribes and together 
formed the diish. Henceforth the history of the diish 
is that of the domestic history of Morocco ; indeed it 
may be said that their history is that of the revolu- 
tions of Morocco. In the reigns of Mfilay Isma'il's 
successors, it was the diish that decided the fate of 
the rulers. The four great tribes acted as suited their 
individual interests. From 1726 to 1757, in the brief 
space of 31 years, 14 Sultans were enthroned, and 
deposed or slain by them, in consideration of the 
presents (mund) they received. In 1757 on the death 
of the Sultan <Abd Allah b. Isma'il, who had himself 
been seven times deposed and restored again, his son 
Muhammad succeeded him. Under his iron rule, the 
diish tribes were kept under control. He broke the 
power of the Bwakher by dividing them up and 
sending them to garrison the various seaports. To 
counteract the influence of the Sherarda of Tadla 
and the plain of Marrakush, he enlisted sections of 
the tribes of this plain in the makhzen — Mnabeha, 
Rhamna, c Abda, Ahmar and Harbil. Each of these 
tribes had to send two ka'ids and their retainers to 
the diish. These detachments were released from 
their tribes" entered the makhzen of Marrakush, to 
which they belonged, received the pay of other troops 
and were freed from taxes (nayba). 

Under Sultan Yazid, son of Muhammad, insub- 
ordination again broke out, favoured by the weak 
character of the ruler. He was assassinated and the 
struggles for the throne of Morocco began again, 
which became the plaything of the diish tribes. 
Finally, about 1791, Mawlay Sliman succeeded in 
winning his way to the throne and overthrowing his 
rival Mawlay Hisham, who had been chosen in 
Marrakush. While he was on a campaign against the 
Berbers in the south, the Sherarda aroused a great 
rebellion against him. The Udaya took his side 
against the rebels and seized the opportunity to 
plunder Fas. Mawlay Sliman was victorious but 
on his death his successor Mawlay c Abd al- Rahman 
was proclaimed sultan by the Udaya in T822. The 
latter was almost overthrown by another rising 
of the Sherarda and had as a rule to reside in 
Marrakush, the better to be able to control the 
tribes. But events in the north of his kingdom, 
a rising of the Udaya, the conquest of Algeria by 
the French and the wars of his representative 
c Abd al-Kadir against them, forced him to retire 
to Fas. He wished to take the field in person against 
the French. But after his defeat at Isly, he recognized 
how unequal to European armies his diish was, and 
resolved to have an army modelled on those of 
Europe. His successor Muhammad carried out this 
plan by his edict of 22 Radjab 1277/18 July i86r. 
The organization of the new army was after many 
experiments finally entrusted to a body of French 

State of the Diish since the French 
Protectorate. The diish still consisted of the 
Sheraga, Sherarda, Udaya and Bwakher with the 
half makhzen-tribes of the plain of Marrakush ( c Abda 
etc.). The tribes still had only the use of the lands 
occupied by them, except the Sheraga, who 
obtained the cession of most of their lands, and 
the Bwakher, almost all of whom had land around 
Meknes (Miknasa). The diish-tribes were divided into 
regiments of 500 men (rha). At the head of each rha 
was a KdHd rha, a kind of colonel. Below him were five 
ka'id al-mya, commanders of 100 men, each of whom 
had 5 mukaddams below them, who were subordinate 



officers commanding 20 men. The private soldier of 
the djish was called mhhazni. 

The members of the djish could attain to the highest 
positions in the makhzan. The Bwakher retained 
a special privilege; from their ranks alone were drawn 
the Shwirdet, pages of a kind, who were employed in 
the palaces of the sovereign. The Udaya had the 
right to call themselves "Uncles of the Sultan". The 
tribes belonging to the djish were each commanded 
by a Pasha, except the Sherarda and Udaya, who 
were divided into garrisons, each of which was com- 
manded by a ICa'id. The Pasha of the Bwakhlr was 
also Pasha of Meknes, and the Pasha of the Ahl Sus 
was also Pasha of Fas Djadid. All officers were sup- 
posed to live in their garrison towns but in time of 
peace they did not strictly observe this rule. Their 
military duties were not taken very seriously and 
most of them lived on their estates. The administration 
of the affairs of the tribe was in the hands of the 
shaykh, the oldest of the ka'id rha. 

When the Sultan required troops each makhzen- 
tribe sent a detachment corresponding to the 
number of its rha. This held for the Sheraga, 
Sherarda and Udaya, all of which consisted of too 
many families for them to belong in a body to the 
diish. The families who were to be detached were 
chosen by drawing lots. The others were free, though 
they paid no taxes and tilled the lands granted them 
for the time. They formed the reserve of the djish, 
from which the Sultan drew the corps of msakhkhrin 
(muleteers, army service corps) for the c asker (regular 
army) and for the artillery. Each member of the djish 
called to the colours received in his garrison an 
allowance of rations (muna) and a monthly pay (rateb). 

The Bwakher, who numbered only 4000 men at the 
time ii question, and the Ahl Sus, were all soldiers. 
A special register was kept of them. They all received 
the muna and the rateb and their widows also received 
pensions. 

Positions in the djish often descended from father 
to son and their holders thus formed a permanent 
element in the makhzen caste. 

Although the creation of a standing army on the 
European model, the 'asker, lessened the influence 
and political importance of the most prominent 
members of the djish, it by no means destroyed 
its military value. The fact that they were peerless 
horsemen was largely due to the W-b al-bdrud [q.v.] 
"powder-game", in which the djish excelled. The field 
artillery of the standing army was also recruited from 
them. Trained by the officers of the French military 
mission, this artillery acquitted itself excellently. 

As we have already seen, the djish was divided into 
rha and these were commanded by a ka'id, below 
whom were five ka'id mya with their mukaddam^,. The 
standing army on the other hand was divided into 
tabors (battalions or regiments) of varying strengths; 
these were commanded by a ka'id rha who had a 
khalifa and a corresponding number of ka'id mya 
below him. 

Distribution, Armament and Dress. The 
dfisA-troops were unequally distributed among the 
four imperial cities Fas, Meknes, Rabat and Marra- 
kush, the two seaports Tangier and Larash, and a 
few small garrisons in the Gharb (weU), and the 
east and south of Morocco. In these places the djish 
and their people lived by themselves and hardly mixed 
with the local populations by whom they were feared. 

These horsemen were armed with the Winchester 
rifle, which supplanted the long flintlock; they also 
carried the sekkin, a sword with an almost straight 
blade, a horn handle and a wooden sheath covered 



with red leather. They also carried the kummiyya and 
the khandjar, t ngraved daggers with very curved 
blades. Their horses as a rule, were good, but the 
harness as usual among the Arabs was very poor. 
They wore a cloth kaftan of some loud colour 
over which they put a white faradjiyya, the whole 
being held together by a leather girdle with silk 
embroidery. Their red sheshiyya was conical in shape 
and wound round by a turban of white muslin. Soft 
slippers of yellow leather with long spikes instead of 
spurs completed this picturesque outfit. 

Bibliography: al-Salawi, Kitdb al-Istiksd, 
Cairo 131 2, passim, especially iii and iv; Cour, 
Etablissement des dynasties des Chirifs, Paris 1904, 
passim; E. Aubin, Le Maroc d'aujourd'hui, Paris 

1905, 172 ff.; Weisgerber, Trois mois de campagne 
au Maroc, Paris 1904, 82 ff.; Massignon, Le Maroc 
dans les premieres Annees du XVI' Steele, Algiers 

1906, 172 ff.; Houdas, Le Maroc de 1631 a 1812, 
Paris 1886, passim. (A. Cour) 



The history of Islamic armies in modern times is, in 
its most significant aspect, the history of their reform 
and westernization. The progress of the sciences in 
Europe enabled European Powers to wage war with 
increasing efficiency and their threat to the Islamic 
domain became progressively more difficult to 
contain. But it is only towards the end of the eight- 
eenth century that Islamic rulers came to appreciate 
the threat in its full extent and began to take 
measures to cope with it. It is true that European 
techniques of war had been introduced here and there 
before that time, but the attempts were neither 
systematic nor long-lived. In the Crete campaign of 
1644-69 the Ottoman Government employed English 
and Dutch instructors to train their sappers. At the 
end of the seventeenth century, the foundries for the 
manufacture of cannon were being supervised by a 
Venetian ex-officer of artillery named Sardi who 
had turned Muslim. In 1731, the French Count de 
Bonneval (1675-1747) who had adopted Islam and 
taken the name of Ahmad (see ahmad pasha 
bonneval), was given the task of reforming the 
Corps of Bombardiers. He recruited and trained 
some 300 Bombardiers and opened a school of 
geometry. The innovation did not survive opposition 
by the Janissaries. In the 1770s, the Baron de Tott, 
a French Officer of Hungarian extraction who had 
gone to Turkey with Vergenne's Embassy, and had 
then been employed by Choiseul on an embassy to 
the Crimean Tatars, was employed to form a corps 
of artillery on modern lines. He formed a corps of 
600 siir'-atiis and built a foundry for cannon. He 
also introduced the use of the bayonet and set up a 
mathematical school for the navy. His work was 
continued, after his return to France in 1775, by a 
Scotsman called Campbell who had adopted Islam 
and was known as Ingiliz Mustafa. When the 
Russians annexed the Crimea in 1783, westernization 
of the Ottoman army gained impetus, and the 
French Government, fearing the extension of Russian 
power further, lent officers headed by General 
Lafitte for technical instruction and training in 
military engineering and the art of fortification. 

But it was not until the reign of Selim III (1203-22/ 
1787-1807) that a sustained attempt was made to 
transform the old-style army into an instrument fit 
for modern conditions. In 1792 and 1793, as part 
of his attempt to reform the civil and military 
institutions of the Empire, and to set up a new 
system, a Nizam-i djadid, he issued regulations for 



a new model army, which itself came to be known 
by this very title. The advantages to be derived 
from a new model army may be gathered from a 
treatise published in translation in an appendix to 
W. Wilkinson, An account of the principalities of 
Wallachia and Moldavia . . ., London 1820. The 
treatise, which the author states to be a translation 
from a Turkish Ms, dating from 1804, when the 
Sultan was concerned to extend his military reforms, 
purports to be "An explanation of the Nizam-y- 
Gedid institution", and to have been written on the 
Sultan's orders by "Tshelebi-Effendi, one of the 
Chief dignitaries of the Ottoman Empire, Counsellor, 
Mini-ter of State etc. [= Celebi Mustafa Reshid 
Efendi, known as Rose Kedkhuda]". It is a long de- 
fence of the Sultan's policy setting out the evils of the 
old system and the reason for the superiority of Euro- 
pean armies which it explains thus : ". . . their regular 
troops keep in a compact body, pressing their feet 
together that their order of battle may not be broken; 
and their cannon being polished like one of Marco- 
vich's watches [Markwick Markham, a London 
watchmaker in great esteem with the Turks] they 
load twelve times in a minute and make the bullets 
rain like musket balls". The advantages of the 
Nizam-i dfadid, according to the author, are that the 
wearing of a distinctive uniform makes desertion 
more difficult, that the troops, drawn up in lines 
with the rear ranks parallel with the front, are easy 
to manoeuvre, that discipline is easier to enforce, and 
that defeats are not turned into routs. A British 
Admiralty handbook of 1920 summed up and con- 
trasted, after a century or so of reform, the methods 
and aims of the old and the new model armies: "The 
chief features of the new methods were the systematic 
training of the soldiers in drill movements and in the 
handling of weapons; (2) their organization in 
symmetrical units (regiments etc.). The undrilled 
forces of the older armies fought to a large extent as 
individuals, and the military units, so far as they 
existed, lacked cohesion and discipline, and there- 
fore full effectiveness in attack and defence. Under 
the new system the commanders exercised more 
control in battle and could better calculate the 
numbers of their troops and thus dispose them more 
accurately to plan [whilst in the old style armies 
units were not of uniform size, even approximately]. 
Under the reformed system an army in battle order 
was arranged in two or three successive lines, the 
rear line acting in support and as reserves and each 
unit being of uniform depth. The ancient crescent 
movement of the front line was replaced by move- 
ment in straight lines". (Geographical Section of the 
Naval Intelligence Division, Naval Staff, Admiralty, 
A handbook of Syria, 1920, 163). From all this it 
may be concluded that the objects of military 
reforms were threefold: the acquisition and manu- 
facture of modern weapons, the inculcation of 
technical knowledge in the appropriate sections of 
the army such as sappers and artillerymen, and the 
creation of a disciplined body of troops easily 
manoeuvrable by their commanders. The second 
requisite has always been, in the modern period, 
more difficult to attain than the first, and the third 
infinitely more so than the second. 

Selim III took up and amplified previous attempts 
at modernization. He introduced reforms in the 
artillery, tightened discipline, and increased the pay 
for privates from 20 to 40 aspers per day. The corps 
was put under the command of a topli bashi who was 
made a pasha of two tails, but administration, 
supplies and finances were separated from operational 



command and entrusted to a nazir. In 1796, following 
earlier negotiations, the Ambassador of the French 
Republic Aubert-Dubayet brought with him to 
Istanbul a number of officers who were assigned to 
train the Nizam-i dfadid. The new corps, composed 
of voluntary recruits, consisted of topcis, sipdhis and 
infantry. The recruits were drilled in the European 
fashion and taught how to manoeuvre in a body on 
the battlefield. Seeking to avoid undue contact with 
the Janissaries who looked askance at these innova- 
tions, the Sultan housed the Nizam in barracks 
outside Istanbul. When the French, in Bonaparte's 
Egyptian expedition, marched into Palestine in 1798, 
the new corps, which amounted by then to three or 
four thousand gunners and musketeers, was em- 
ployed to help with the defence of Acre and gave a 
good account of itself. This raised its reputation 
particularly with the people of Istanbul and en- 
couraged the Sultan to take a further step. He now 
desired to recruit troops for the Nizam by con- 
scription both from among the Janissaries and the 
general population. This new departure had the 
support of the Mufti, Welizade Mehmed Emin, and 
other high religious dignitaries who were convinced 
of the necessity of reform. It is presumably in aid of 
this policy tjiat the treatise of "Tshelebi-Effendi" 
mentioned above was written. The Sultan promul- 
gated a khatt on these lines in 1805, but strong 
opposition was soon apparent. The reading of the 
khatt was interrupted by a riot in Edirne, and one 
kadi reading its text in Rodosto was actually killed. 
The Janissaries broke out in revolt in Rumelia and 
the authorities dared not have the khatt read in 
Istanbul. A regiment of Nizam sent from Anatolia 
against the rebellious Janissaries was decisively 
defeated. The Sultan had to appoint the Agha of the 
Janissaries as Grand Vizier, to return the Nizam 
to Anatolia, and abandon for the time being the 
extension of reforms. But he does not seem to have 
given them up altogether for in 1806 an attempt was 
made to recruit for the Nizam in Karaman whose 
Wall, c Abd al-Rahman Pasha, had shown energy 
and loyalty in carrying out the Sultan's policy, and 
in 1807 auxiliary levies, Yamaks, were ordered to 
put on the Nizam uniform. This precipitated a 
revolt, and the Yamaks marched on Istanbul and 
were soon the masters there. The Sultan attempted 
to save his throne by decreeing the abolition of the 
Nizam, but he was deposed by virtue of a fatwa 
which ruled that his actions and enactments were 
contrary to religion. The Janissaries burnt down 
the barracks of the Nizam. 

Bayrakdar Mustafa Pasha, who shortly thereafter 
procured the deposition of Selim's successor Mustafa 
IV and the enthronement of Mahmud II, attempted 
in 1808 to carry on with Selim's schemes, by recruit- 
ing troops for the new model army which he sought 
to disguise by giving its members the traditional 
title of Sagbdns [q.v.], but his ruin and death at the 
hands of the Janissaries ended attempts at reform 
for the time being. It was not until eighteen years 
afterwards, in 1826, that Sultan Mahmud II (1808-39) 
was enabled, by a shrewd and lucky stroke, to end 
the power of the Janissaries and endow the Empire 
with a modern army. In 1826, having secured the 
support of the Mufti and the principal Janissary 
officers at a council held on 24-5 May 1826, the 
Sultan promulgated a khatt which, while speaking of 
restoring the traditional practices of the Empire, in 
effect proposed the continuation of Selim's reforms. A 
new force was to be formed by each Janissary 
battalion stationed in Constantinople providing 150 






i all v 



enrolled. The khaft provided for regular payment of 
salaries, for promotion by seniority, for the orderly 
provision of leave and pensions and for the abolition 
of the sale of military offices. The troops were to be 
armed with rifles and swords and to be trained by 
Muslim and not European officers. In spite of the 
ostensible agreement of their chiefs, the Janissaries 
revolted against the innovation. They proclaimed 
rebellion on 15 June, but the Sultan was ready for 
them and the mutiny was crushed. On 17 June the 
order of the Janissaries was abolished and shortly 
thereafter the Sipdhis, the Slllhddrs, the Ghurabd 
and the 'Ulufedjis likewise. 

No time was lost in proclaiming the formation of 
a new army which, to emphasize the ostensibly 
Islamic and traditional character of his reforms, the 
Sultan called the 'Asdkir-i Mansure-i Muhammediyye. 
The new military code, published towards the end 
of 1826, divided the army into 8 sections and put at 
its head the Ser'asker [g.v.] who combined the 
functions of commander-in-chief and minister of 
war, and, under the Sultan, controlled the whole, 
except that a Grand Master of the Artillery (Topkhdna 
Ndziri) was made responsible directly to the Sultan 
for the artillery, the engineers and 
further bab-i ser c askeri). This division of 
between the Commander-in-chief and the Grand 
Master of the Artillery remained until 1909. The new 
army was to consist of 12,000 troops serving for 
twelve years; but the term of service was at times 
extended, as appears from a letter of Helmut v. 
Moltke of 1838, where he speaks of a term of service 
of 15 years. 

In the following decades the army was consid- 
erably enlarged and its administration rationalized. 
By a law of 1843 army service was fixed at five 
years. In 1869 service was reduced to four years, in 
1886 to three. In the Army Law of 1886, Ottoman 
subjects were made liable to service in the army for 
nine years from the age of twenty; they were then 
to be transferred to the reserve (redif) for a further 
nine years and to the territorial army (mustahfiz) for 
a further two. The Law of 1843 provided for five 
army corps: the Imperial Guard, and the army corps 
of Istanbul, Rumelia, Anatolia and Arabistan. In 
1848 a sixth army corps, with headquarters at 
Baghdad, was created. The army ranks were graded 
in the European fashion (a list of Ottoman army 
ranks with their equivalents in the British Army is 
conveniently found in Captain M. C. P. Ward, R.A., 
Handbook of the Turkish army, London 1900). The 
12,000 of Sultan Mahmud's army were quickly 
increased. By the eighteen-forties the Ottoman 
armies had some 150,000 members, and this seems 
to have remained its peace-time strength thereafter. 
Until the promulgation of the Khatt-i humdyun of 
1856 the army was exclusively drawn from the 
Muslim population of the Empire. The Khatt. 
envisaging equality of rights and duties for all the 
Sultan's subjects, laid it down that henceforth 
military service would be borne by all, the poll-tax 
payable by the Minimis being abolished. This 
intention remained a dead letter, for until 1909, the 
non-Muslim subjects of the Sultan were exempt from 
military service against payment of a badal [q.v.], 
and such exemption seems to have tallied with the 
s of both the Muslim and the non-Muslim 
e law of 1909 which abolished 
exemption for non-Muslims also abolished the 
privileged exemption from military service of the 
inhabitants of Istanbul. 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



This latter exemption gives an indication of the 
kind of difficulty which stood in the way of uniform 
military administration. The heterogeneous character 
of the Empire, the multiplicity of its religions and 
sects, the survival of ancient privileges and the 
creation of new ones during the nineteenth century 
militated against uniformity. The law of 1886 which 
mentions the exemption of the inhabitants of 
Istanbul also lays down that inhabitants of the 
sandjak of the Lebanon and of Samos would also be 
exempt. Also the law was not to be applied in 
Scutari (except for Durazzo), in the Yemen, the 
Hidjaz, Nadjd, Tripoli and Benghazi. These anoma- 
lies are a fair indication of the resistance which 
uniform European-style administration aroused. 

The training and management of a conscript army 
and its performance in war depend on the existence 
of efficient health, supply and financial services, and 
on the orderly keeping of records. It was of course 
the case that such services had to be created at the 
same time as the army was being recruited and 
expanded, and it is to be expected that in time of 
emergency, particularly in the beginning, they 
would fall short of the need. In 1842, for instance, 
soldiers slept in their clothes and wore a heteroge- 
neous collection of uniforms. Furthermore, the new 
model army depended heavily for training on a 
miscellany of foreign officers, French, English, 
Prussian, Austrian, who, as Christians, were treated 
with scant respect by the rank and file. Leadership 
at the top may have been energetic and knowled- 
geable, but subalterns and non-commissioned officers 
were scarce and inexperienced. This was the judg- 
ment of one observer in 1828 (C. Macfarlane, Con- 
stantinople in 1828 . . ., London 1829, 26). The 
judgement is echoed by the Marechal de St.-Arnaud 
in 1854 who wrote that in the Turkish Army there 
were two things only: a commander-in-chief and 
soldiers and that there were no intermediary points, 
no officers, and even less non-commissioned officers 
(E. Engelhardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, Paris 
1882, i, 116). In Helmut v. Moltke's judgment the 
advantages of European drill were lost by reason of 
the impersonality and mass character of the con- 
script army. The cavalry, he wrote, "learned to ride 
in masses, but they lost the impetuosity of the wild 
Turkish charge; and with their endurance of new 
customs, the old fanatical inspiration vanished. What 
was good in barbarian warfare was lost without 
gaining much benefit from the resources of civiliza- 
tion; popular prejudices were shaken, but the 
national spirit was destroyed at the same time, and 
the only change for the better was that the troops 
obeyed the orders of their leaders more than before". 
(The Russians in Bulgaria and Rumelia . . ., London 
1854, 269.) The deficiency of officers was gradually 
made good. Mahmud II sent military and naval 
cadets to European colleges in 1827, and in 1834 the 
military college at Pangalti (see harbiye) was 
opened. The following decades saw a steady increase 
in and accumulation of modern military knowledge, 
but it was not until the educational reforms of 
Sultan c Abd al-Hamld II that a notable extension 
of military education came about. The creation of 
this modern military (lite, conscious of its superior 
knowledge and open, by virtue of its training, to 
European ideologies, was to have momentous 
consequences in the political history of the Empire 

Contemporary with the Ottoman army reforms 
were those carried out by Muhammad C A1I, the 
Wali of Egypt. Shortly after the consolidation of his 



power in the country, Muhammad c Ali determined 
on forming an efficient army. In 1815, after his 
return from the Hidiaz expedition, Muhammad 
'AH introduced European drill in his forces. The 
enterprise aroused great discontent and a mutiny 
broke out in Cairo ; Muhammad C A1I had to postpone 
his plans for the time being. In 1819 he obtained the 
services of Colonel Joseph Seve, a retired Napoleonic 
officer (who later embraced Islam and became 
known as Sulayman Pasha [q.v.]) to direct training 
in a new military school which he established at 
Aswan, away from Cairo. The trainees were Sudanese 
slaves and 300 of Muhammad 'All's mamluks. Seve 
encountered the same difficulties which European 
officers met in the Ottoman Empire : insubordination 
owing to contempt for the European Christian, and 
utter unfamiliarity with European techniques and 
drill. To start with, Muhammad 'All attempted to 
recruit Sudanese slaves for the rank-and-file, but 
their rate of mortality was extremely high: of the 
24,000 slaves collected up to 1824 only some 3,000 
were still alive by then. This method was abandoned 
and Muhammad 'All began recruiting from among 
the Egyptian peasantry. The mudirs of the provinces 
were ordered each to provide a fixed quota of 
recruits. Press-gangs were first used to round up the 
recruits, an attempt was then made to substitute 
choice by lot (frar'a) for the more forcible method, but 
neither force not persuasion could 
peasant's repugnance for military ser\ 
flight, self-mutilation were his unavailing resort; 
recruitment by lot proving even more unsatisfactory, 
the press-gang was once again employed. After the 
Morea campaign, Muhammad 'Ali, seconded by his 
son Ibrahim, increased the facilities for the training 
of officers; an infantry school, a cavalry school and 
an artillery school, all directed by Europeans, were 
established, and the French military code was 
translated and adapted for use in the army. He 
entrusted the administration of the army to a 
nazir al-djihadiyya, whose labours were to be guided 
and supervised by a council of officials, diwdn al- 
djihadiyya. By 1831 a disciplined force consisting of 
20 regiments of infantry and 10 of cavalry was ready 
to take the field against the Ottoman Army in the 
Levant. At the end of the Levant campaigns in 1841 
it was estimated that some 100,000 troops, including 
irregulars, were at the disposal of the Wall of Egypt. 
As part of the settlement between Muljammad 
'All and the Ottoman Empire following his with- 
drawal from the Levant, the Egyptian Army was 
reduced to 18,000 troops, by & fermdn of 13 February 
1 84 1. This figure was, however, informally increased 
by vizieral letters under the khedivate of 'Abbas I 
and Sa'id, the informal arrangement being confirmed 
by a fermdn of 27 May 1866 issued to Isma'Il. This 
Khedive later succeeded in removing the limit oil 
the number of Egyptian troops, a fermdn to this 
effect being issued to him on 8 June 1873. But 
following his deposition, and consequent on the 
disturbed and enfeebled state of Egypt, the Ottoman 
Government was able to withdraw this concession 
on the accession of Tawfik, and a fermdn of 7 August 
1879 once again limited the number of Egyptian 

The second year of Tawfik's khedivate saw the 
promulgation of a law (of 31 July 1880) which laid 
down that all Ottoman subjects in Egypt regardless 
of religion were liable, from the age of 19, to four 
years' active military service, followed by five years 
in the redif and a further six in the territorial reserve. 
The recruits were to be chosen by lot from among 



those liable to conscription. It seems that this law 
contributed to the discontent which led to the 'Urabi 
movement, since 'Urabi and his friends argued that 
four years active service were not enough to gain 
promotion from the ranks; they therefore considered 
this law as directed by the Turkish element in the 
Army against the Egyptian element. An indication 
of their feelings on this matter is the law of 22 
September 1881, which they forced the Khedive to 
promulgate, and which made promotion regular and 
mandatory once the prescribed periods of service, 



Following the collapse of 'Urabl's 1 
the British occupation of Egypt, the Khedive, by 
a decree of 17 September 1882, disbanded the 
Egyptian Army prior to its reorganization. A 
Khedivial rescript of December 1882 provided for a 
new army to be formed limited to 10,000 men. This 
army was intended for internal purposes, its general 
officers were British and its methods of training and 
organization followed the British model. Khedivial 
decrees promulgated in 1886 reiterated the provisions 
of the Law of 1880 and further allowed exemption 
on payment of a badal (a decree of 22 April 1895 
disallowed exemption by payment of badal after the 
holding of the annual recruitment ballot). At the 
reconquest of the Sudan in 1898, the Army was 
increased to some 30,000 troops, but numbers 
thereafter reverted to 10,000-15,000 men until the 
signature of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936. 

The attempts to reform military institutions in 
Persia during the nineteenth century were neither 
as sustained nor as systematic as in Egypt and the 
Ottoman Empire. Persia was drawn into European 
politics during the Napoleonic period, and both 
France and Britain attempted to acquire exclusive 
influence in the country. The French sent a mission 
to train Persian troops in 1807-8, as did the British in 
1810. Thereafter a succession of foreign officers, 
Russian, French and Italian, attempted to introduce 
European drill and techniques, but their impact was 
neither profound nor lasting. In 1842 a modified 
form of conscription was introduced. The cultivated 
land was surveyed and divided into units, each unit 
(the amount of land which could be tilled by one 
plough) being liable to provide a soldier together 
with a monetary contribution, part of which went 
to provide for the conscript's family and part to the 
Government, to defray the expenses of the soldiers. 
The division of the country into British and Russian 
zones of influence following the Anglo-Russian 
Agreement of 1907, and the events of the First World 
War, prevented the Persian Government from 
exercising effective control over its armed forces, 
and it was not until after the coup d'etat of 1921 
that Rida (Riza) Shah, who then became commander- 
in-chief, was able to organize the Persian army on 
the European model. A Conscription Act passed in 
1925 provided for universal military service for a 
period of 2 years. A military college was also set 
up in Tehran. 

The successor Arab States which were set up after 
the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World 
War had, under the mandatory regime, small 
volunteer forces organized and trained by the 
mandatory governments whose methods of training 
and organization tended to influence later practices. 
On attaining full independence these states speedily 
introduced universal conscription, the administration 
of which was not always easy. The Government of 
'Irak, the first to do so (by Law No. 9 of 1934). 
encountered armed resistance to conscription among 



DJAYSH — DJAYYAN 



515 



the Euphrates tribes and the Yazidls of Djabal 
Sindjar. A table of equivalent ranks in the armies of 
Arab states is conveniently set out in 'Abdallah al- 
Tall, Kdrithat Filastin, Cairo 1959, p. x. 

Bibliography : c Abd al Rahman al-Rafi'i, c Asr 

Ismd'il, i, Cairo 1932 ; Actes diplomaiiques etFirmans 

impiriaux relaiifs a l'£gypte, Cairo 1886; Ahmad 

c UrabI, Kashf al-sitar 'an sirr al-asrdr, Cairo n.d. ; 

Aristachi Bey, Legislation ottomane, Istanbul 1875; 

A. Bilioti and Ahmed Sedad, Legislation ottomane 

depuis le retour de la constitution . . ., i, Paris 1912; 

A.-B. Clot Bey, Apercu glnlral sur I'Egypte, 2 vols., 

Paris 1840; G. N. Curzon, Persia and the Persian 

question, 2 vols., London 1892; Ahmed Djevad, 

£tat militaire ottoman, i, Istanbul 1882 ; H. Dodwell, 

The founder of modern Egypt, Cambridge 1931; 

Egypt, Dekretdt wa takrirdt . . ., Bulak 1881 . . .; 

Egyptian Government Almanac (annual); E. Engel- 

hardt, La Turquie et le Tanzimat, 2 vols., Paris 

1882-4; Gibb-Bowen, i/i; Iraq directory, Baghdad 

1935; Iraq, Ministry of Defence, English-Arabic 

military dictionary, Baghdad n.d. ; Isma'il Sarhank, 

HakdHk al-akhbdr 'an duwal al-bihar, 2 vols., Bulak 

1314-41; Juchereau de St.-Denis, Histoirede I'Em- 

pire ottoman, 2 vols., Paris 1844; L. Lamouche, 

L' organisation militaire de I'empire ottoman, Paris 

1895; B. Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey, 

London 1961; C. Macfarlane, Constantinople in 

1828 . . ., London 1829; Mahmud Shewket, c Oth- 

manli teshklldt we kiydfet-i 'askeriyyesi, 2 vols., 

Istanbul 1325; H. v. Moltke, Briefe iiber Zustande 

undBcgebenheiten in der Tilrkei aus den Jahren 183s 

bis 1839 s , Berlin 1877; Muhammad Es'ad, Vss-i 

zafer, Istanbul 1243 (tr. Caussin de Perceval, Pricis 

historique de la destruction du corps des Janissaires, 

Paris 1833); H. \V. V. Temperley, England and 

the Near East . . ., Cambridge 1936; Baron F. de 

Tott, Mcmoires, 4 vols., Amsterdam 1784; A. 

Vingtrinier, Soliman-Pacha, Paris 1886; A. 

Ubicini, Lettres sur la Turquie, 2 vols., Paris 1853-4; 

M. C. P. Ward, Handbook of the Turkish army, 

London 1900; M. Weygand, Histoire militaire de 

Mohamed Ali et de ses fils, 2 vols., Paris 1936; 

W. Wilkinson, An account of the principalities of 

Wallachia and Moldavia . . ., London 1820; A. T. 

Wilson, Persia, London 1932; G. Young, Corps de 

droit ottoman, Oxford 1905; H. Zboiriski, L'Armie 

ottomane . . ., Paris 1877. (E. Kedourie) 

al-EJAYTALI (also al-PjItali, var. al- 

Djitali), Abu Tahir Isma'il. b. Musa, celebrated 

Ibadite schoiar who was a native of Idjaytal 

(also Idjital or Djital), an ancient village of the 

Djabal Nafusa still there today and now called 

Idjeytal or Djeytal. The date of his birth is unknown. 

However, we know that he was a pupil of the shaykh 

c Is5 b. Musa al-Tarmlsi, who lived in the second 

half of the 7th/i3th century. For some time he 

taught at Mazghura (today Mezghura or Timez- 

ghura) in the eastern part of the Djabal Nafusa not 

far from Idjeytal. He also lived for nine years at 

the village of Forsata situated in the western part 

of the Djabal Nafusa. It seems that at this period 

he was occupied with trade. It is said that he once 

went to Tripoli with some slaves he wished to sell 

there. Thrown into prison by the kadi and the amir 

of this town who wished to confiscate his goods, he 

was freed by the intervention of Ibn Makki, governor 

of Gabes, to whom he had addressed a poem full of 

eulogies. Set at liberty, he retired to Djarba, which 

at this time was under the authority of the governor 

of Gabes. He died there, according to al-Shammakhi, 

in 750/1349-50, or according to Abu Ras in 730/1329- 



30, and he was buried in the cemetery of the great 
Ibadite-Wahbite mosque on this island. 

He was the author of many treatises, especially 
concerning dogma and the law, which, according to 
the opinion of later Ibadite scholars, revived their 
sect: 1) KawdHd al-Isldm on the fundamental 
tenets of Islam, of which there is a lithographed 
Cairo edition with a commentary by Abu c Abd 
Allah Muhammad b. Abi Sitta al-Kusbi (ioth/i6th 
century); 2) Al-Kandtir (or Kandtir al-khayrdt), a 
kind of religious and moral encyclopaedia in several 
volumes, lithographed at Cairo; 3) Shark al-Nuniyya 
(also Shark al-Kasida 'l-Niiniyya or Shark al-Usul 
al-diniyya mushtamil" n 'ala talkhis ma'dni 'l-kasida 
'l-nilniyya, a three-volume commentary on the 
poem rhyming in nun on the principles of religion 
composed by Abu Nasr Fath b. Nuh al-Malusha'i; 
4) Kitdb fi 'l-hisdb wa-kism al-fardHd or simply 
Kitdb al-FardHd, a treatise on the calculation and 
division of inheritances based on a compilation by 
Abu 'l-'Abbas Ahmad b. Sa'id al-Dardjini (7th/i3th 
century, printed edition); 5) Adjwibat al-aHmma, 
a collection of legal opinions originating with imams 
of the Ibadite sect (in three parts); 6) Kitdb al- 
Hadjdi wa 'l-mandsik, a book on the pilgrimage and 
the ritual practices attaching to it; 7) a collection of 
epistles (ma djama'a min al-rasdHl); 8) poems 
(kasd'id), probably religious; 9) Makdyis al-djuruh 
wa'stikhrddj al-madjhuldt, on fikh, lithographed 
edition appended to the K. al-FardHd; 10) Tardfamat 
al-'akida al-kandfir; n) Kitdb al-Mirsdd. Several 
manuscripts of these works are to be found in the 
libraries of the Mzab. 

Bibliography: Al-Shammakhi, Kitdb al-Siyar, 

Cairo 1301/1883-4, 460-1, 556-9; Abu Ras, Ta y rikh 

Diazirat Djerba, ed. and tr. Exiga, Tunis 1884, 

8 (of the Ar. text) ; E. Masqueray, Chronique d'Abou 

Zakaria, Algiers 1878, 141 n.; A. de C. Motylinski, 

Bibliographic du Mzab. Les livres de la secte 

abadhite, in Bulletin de Correspondance Africaine 

iii (1885), 23; idem, Le Djebel Nefousa, Paris 

1898-9, 94-6; R. Basset, Les Sanctuaires du Djebel 

Nefousa, in JAs. 1899 (July-August), 89-90; T. 

Lewicki, Etudes ibddites nord-africaines , i, Warsaw 

'955. 33-4 and passim; J. Schacht, Bibliotheques et 

manuscrits abadhites, in RAfr., c, nos. 446-8 (1956), 

388, 391, 395- (T. Lewicki) 

DJAYYAN (Spanish Jaen), capital of the 

Andalusian province of the same name, situated 

on the slopes of the rocky hill of Santa Catalina, on 

the summit of which the Muslims built a fortress 

which was considered to be impregnable; they also 

encircled the town with a wall. At the present time 

the town has a population of about 70,000. It stands 

in the centre of a fertile plain in which al-Idrisi 

noted as many as 3,000 villages devoted to agriculture, 

and in particular to the breeding of silk-worms which 

is also the speciality of the iklim of the Alpujarras, of 

which Jaen is the capital. On the other hand, he 

does not mention the cultivation of olive-trees, now 

the chief source of wealth. Ibn Hawkal speaks of it 

as one of the ancient cities of Spain under the name 

Auringis, conquered by Scipio during the second 

Punic war, after Hasdrubal's defeat nearby. At the 

time of the Arab conquest of the Peninsula, the 

djund of Kinisrin settled there; on his arrival in al- 

Andalus, c Abd al- Rahman I came in touch with it. 

In 210/825 c Abd al-Rahman II ordered the lata 

Maysara, governor of Jaen, to build the great 

mosque with five naves supported by marble pillars, 

which dominated the whole view of the city. At the 

end of the reign of the amir Muhammad, the revolt of 



DJAYYAN — DJAYZAN 



'Umar b. rlafsiin broke out and the district of Jaen 
was the scene of struggles and frequent uprisings 
until the rebel was crushed at Poley in Safar 278/ 
May 891. The town took the side of the amir of 
Cordova but, in the following year, it was recaptured 
by the rebel and remained under his domination 
until 290/903. On the fall of the Caliphate the Banu 
Birzal and the Banu Ifran settled there as the result 
of a grant made by Sulayman al-Musta c in. Later the 
town was taken by Habbus b. Maksan, lord of 
Granada. The Almoravids occupied it without 
resistance, and it was from this town that Tamim b. 
Yusuf set out, in 501/1108, for the Ucles campaign. 
The Almohads entered the town in 543/1149, but 
the king of Murcia Ibn Mardanish annexed it in 554/ 
1 159 and handed it over to his father-in-law Ibn 
Hamushk. The sayyids Yusuf and 'Uthman laid siege 
to it in the summer of 557/1162 but failed to capture 
it; and Ibn Mardanish, irritated by the defection of 
his father-in-law who had given the town to the 
Almohads in 564/1169, also failed. When starting 
the campaign for al- c Ikab (Las Navas de Tolosa), 
al-Nasir set up his head-quarters at Jaen. The 
sayyid c Abd Allah al-Bayasi, governor of Jaen, 
rebelled against the caliph al- c Adil, and allied 
himself with Ferdinand III of Castile, who laid 
siege to the town with great vigour, but was compelled 
to withdraw with heavy losses, in revenge for which 
he devastated the whole district. It was only in 
644/1246 that he finally succeeded in incorporating 
the town in the kingdom of Castile. During the 
7th/i3th and 8th/i4th centuries the town was 
subjected to constant attacks by the Banu Marin 
and the Nasrids of Granada and, thanks to its 
powerfully-built castle, became the defensive 
bastion of Castile. Al-Idrisi, and Ibn <Abd al- 
Mun'im who copied him, noted the variety and 
wealth of springs, both hot and cold, within the town; 
some of these springs existed before the Arab period, 
such as Ijammdm al-thawr "the hot springs of the 
bull", where there was a marble statue of a bull, and 
the large spring covered with very ancient vaulting, 
from which the water flowed out into a large pool. 
Today, the cathedral square is embellished with a 
monumental fountain. Among the famous natives 
of Jaen in the Muslim period can be mentioned the 
poet Yahya al-Ghazal "the gazelle", who was sent 
to Constantinople by c Abd al-Rahman II as his 
ambassador to the emperor Theophilus; the philo- 
logist Abu Dharr Mus'ab, kadi of his native town in 
509/1 1 15-6, and referred to in al-Rawd al-miHar in 
various poems; Abu Muhammad b. Djiyar al- 
Djayyani, tax-collector in Fez under the Almoravids, 
who betrayed the governor prince Yahya Ibn al- 
Sahrawiya, great-grandson of Yusuf b. Tashfin, 
handed it over in 540/1146 to c Abd al-Mu 3 min and 
thereafter enjoyed great influence under his govern- 

Bibliography : Idrisi, Descrip., 202 of text and 
248 of trans.; Ibn <Abd al-Mun c im, al-Rawd al- 
miHar, ed. Levi-Provencal, 70-1 of text and 88-9 
of trans.; Ibn 'Idhari, al-Bayan al-mughrib, ii, 
86; trans., 137; Codera, Bibl. Arabico-Hispana, v; 
Ind. Madoz. Diccionario geogrdfico, ix, 563-4; Rawd 
al-kirtas, 183. (A. Huici Miranda) 

HIAYYASH b. na&tah [see nasiah, ba). 
DJAYZAN, the name of a wadi, a port, and a 
mukd(a'a (district or province) on the Red Sea in 
south-western Saudi Arabia. The classical form, 
Djazan, is still often used, especially by writers from 
the province itself. Variant pronunciations are Die-. 
Dji-, Did-, and rarely Ze- (among the tribe of the Masa- 



riha). The form Qizan, which occurs on many maps, is 
spurious; it is said to be the plural of kawz (sand hill), 
whereas the plural of this word is actually akwdz. 

The name appears to have belonged originally to 
the wadi, which rises in Djabal Razih and the 
territory of Khawlan in the Yaman, flows south of 
Djabal al-'Urr, and then turns south-westwards to 
empty into the Red Sea at the modern port (lat. 
16° 53' N, long. 42° 33' E). A detailed list of tribut- 
aries is given in al-'Ukayli, i, 33-5, along with the 
names of 13 small dams fakm, pi. < ukum). The sayls, 
with a volume of water reaching 500,000 gal. a 
second and waves over 10 m. high, make the lower 
reaches one of the most productive agricultural 
regions in Arabia, but without proper flood control 
much of the water is wasted. The principal crops are 
millets (dkura and dukhn) and sesame; other grains, 
cotton, and indigo are also grown. The soil is so rich 
that fertilizers are not needed, and four plantings a 
year can be raised. In 13S0/1961 the Saudi Arabian 
Government, with technical and financial assistance 
from the United Nations, was implementing a 
scheme for erecting a large dam across the wadi, 
modernizing the irrigation system, and building 
good roads to link the port with its immediate 
hinterland. 

Two channels, one of which is known as the 
Pearly Gates, lead from the open sea past the 
Farasan Bank to Djayzan port. The approach is 
beset with shoals, and large vessels must anchor a 
I mile or more offshore. A haven for dhows lies inside 
the reefs. The town is built beside hills, the highest 
rising c. 60 m. Probably salt domes in origin, the 
hills are now capped with forts. There is no other 
elevated ground in the vicinity, and on the landward 
side the town is encircled by a salt flat. Round grass 
huts with conical roofs of African design prevail, 
but there are also a number of masonry houses, 
along with a new hotel, hospital, customs house, 
and school, all of modernistic aspect. 

The climate is trying, with very high temperatures 
and humidity and fierce sand storms in summer, 
and the water supply is poor, the only sweet wells 
lying some distance out of town. Many inhabitants 
are stricken with malaria during the monsoon rains. 

Pearling was once the occupation for which 
Djayzan enjoyed special fame. On the outskirts of 
the town a salt mine is exploited commercially; the 
open face of the salt is c. 5 m. thick. 

Djayzan province, sometimes called Tihamat 
c Asir [see c asir and the accompanying map], 
embraces, in addition to the lowlands, the mountains 
west of the continental divide on the crest of which 
stands Abha. Among the mountains belonging to 
Djayzan are those of al-Kahr, Harub, al-Rayth, 
Banu Malik, and Fayfa, all of which are 50 km. or 
more from the coast. The port of al-Kahma, cut off 
from the rest of the province by a lava field, its 
neighbour al-Shukayk, and the Farasan Islands [q.v.] 
are the only places in the province where the date 
palm grows; elsewhere the dawm palm flourishes. 
Some of the numerous livestock are regularly 
exported to the Hidjaz. The grazing grounds of the 
nomads are called mayr. 

The chief tribe of the region in early Islamic times 
was Hakam b. Sa'd al-'Ashira [q.v.] of the Southern 
Arabian stock of Kahlan, with Banu c Abd al-Djadd 
as the ruling family. The tribe's capital was the city 
of al-Khasuf, the site of which appears to be no 
longer known, and its port was al-Shardja, the ruins 
of which lie near al-Muwassam just north of the 
present Yemen border. Other tribes in the lowlands 



were Kinana, al-Azd, and Khawlan. It has been 
suggested that Ghassan [q.v.] once lived in this part 
of Arabia. 

A comprehensive list of the modern tribes is 
provided by al- c UkaylI, i, 83-93, including 12 tribes 
in the lower wadi with Djayzan port as their head- 
quarters and 17 in the upper wadi centered on Abu 
c Arish [q.v.~\. Among the more important ones are 
the Masariha near Abu 'Arish, the Dja'afira along 
the coast of Sabya [q.v.], and Banu Shu'ba with 
their capital at al-Darb (or Darb Ban! Shu'ba, 
incorrectly shown on the map in EI 2 , i, 708 simply 
as Darb). The province contains a noteworthy 
linguistic boundary: in Djayzan port and Abu 
'Arish and to the south the old form am for the 
definite article is still common, while in Sabya and 
Baysh and to the north it gives way to al. 

The information given here on the history of the 
province supplements the account in the article 'asir. 

The name Djayzan (Djazan) occurs in a hadith 
attributed to the Prophet, in which it is bracketed 
with Damad, the name of the wadi immediately 
to the north. Djayzan when mentioned in the early 
geographers apparently refers to the wadi only, and 

The dates 373-93/c 983-1003 are suggested by 
al-'Ukayli for the rule of Sulayman b. Tarf (or 
Taraf), the lord of 'Aththar (or c Athr) on the coast 
of Baysh, but these dates are not certain. Possibly 
al-Husayn b. Salama (d. 402/1011-2), the Ziyadid 
vizier who improved the pilgrim road to Mecca, 
was the one who broke Sulayman's power and 
brought al-Mikhlaf al-Sulaymani back under Ziyadid 

Husayn al-Hamdani, 101-3, presents new evidence 
to show that C A1I b. Muhammad al-Sulayhl was 
kiUed in 459/1067, not in 473/i°8i (cf. EI 1 , iv, 516). 
If this is correct, 'All's victory in the battle of al- 
Zara'ib could not have taken place in 460/1068; 
Husayn al-Hamdani, 83, dates it in 450/1058. 

The time of the establishment of the Sulaymanid 
sharifs in the Mikhlaf is undetermined. One source 
states that Da'Od b. Sulayman, great-grandson of 
Mflsa al-Djun, was the first of the line to migrate 
from the Hidjaz to the Mikhlaf, in the days of the 
Rassid al-Hadi Yahya (d. 298/910). However, the 
Sulaymanids do not appear to have transferred the 
core of their power to the Mikhlaf until after the 
final defeat in Mecca, c. 462/1070, of their leader 
Hamza b. Wahhas at the hands of the Hashimid 
Abu Hashim Muhammad. Hamza's son Yahya and 
grandson Ghanim both held authority in the Mikhlaf. 
The Sulaymanids from Ghanim on are often called 
Ghanimids (al-Ghawanim), a name which has the 
advantage of avoiding confusion with Sulayman b. 
Tarf. Wahhas b. Ghanim was the Ghanimid killed 
in battle near Harad by the Mahdid c Abd al-Nabi 
b. C A1I in 560/1164. 

Under the Ziyadids, the Nadjahids, and the 
Mahdids, parts of the Mikhlaf, if not the whole 
region, were at times brought under the nominal 
or real suzerainty of Zabid, the capital of all these 
dynasties (204-569/819-1174). For example, Surur, 
who as vizier was the power behind the Nadjahid 
throne, 529-51/c. 1135-56, secured the Mikhlaf 
as a fief for himself. From time to time the Zaydi 
Imams, often reigning in Sa'da in the highlands al- 
most due east of Djayzan, intervened in the 
affairs of the Mikhlaf. 

Under the Ayyubids the Ghanimids in the 
Mikhlaf were called the Shutut, the meaning of 
which sobriquet is not given. Two sons of Kasim b. 



revolted against AyyObid rule 



Ghanim ii 
but were 

The Rasulid al-Malik al-Ashraf 'Umar b. Yusuf 
(d. 696/1296) in his Turfat al-ashdb names Hashim 
b. Wahhas, a great-great-grandson of Ghanim b. 
Yahya, as lord of Djayzan in his time. Other 
Ghanimids were lords of Baysh and Baghita, while 
members of collateral branches ruled in lower and 
upper Damad, Sabya, and al-Lu'lu'a (al-Shukayk). 

In the early gth/i5th century a new branch of 
Ghanimids appeared, the Kutbids, the issue of Kutb 
al-DIn Abu Bakr b. Muhammad, who chose as 
their capital Darb al-Nadja, the ruins of which are 
still to be seen near Abu c Arish. The Kutbids were 
usually subject to the Rasulids and later the 
Tahirids. In 882/1477 or 884 the Sharif of Mecca, 
Muhammad b. Barakat I, raided the Mikhlaf and 
carried off much loot, including precious books. The 
connexion of Barakat II 's brother and rival, Ahmad 
Djayzan (or al-Djayzanl, d. 909/1503-4), with the 
Mikhlaf is not clear. He may have lived with his 
Ghanimid relatives there for a time and secured 
support from them. One of his descendants was c Abd 
al-Malik al-Djayzani. Some of the descendants of 
the Sharif al-Hasan b. Muhammad Abu Numayy 
(d. 1010/1601) were also known as Dhawu Djayzan. 

Visiting Djayzan in 909/1503, Varthema found 
45 vessels from different countries in the port. 
Writing in the late 9th/i5th century, the master 
pilot Shihab al-DIn Ahmad b. Madjid [q.v.] gives 
instructions for entering Djayzan (Djazan) port. He 
mentions both the Mikhlaf and the port of al- 
Shardja. As an authority on this part of the Red Sea 
he cites the famous captain 'Utliman al-Djazanl. 

During the first half of the ioth/i6th century, 
Djayzan was attacked on three different occasions 
by Kays b. Muhammad al-Hirami, the lord of Haly 
Ibn Ya'kub [q.v.]. 

In 946/1539 an Ottoman Mudir was assigned to 
the Mikhlaf with headquarters at AbO 'Arish. 
About this time the district was occupied briefly 
by the Sharif Muhammad Abu Numayy. In the 
nth/i7th century the influence of the Zaydi Imams 
grew stronger. In 1102/1690 Ahmad b. Ghalib, who 
had made himself master of Mecca for several years 
despite the fact that he did not belong to any of the 
three principal clans of Sharifs (Dhawu Barakat, 
Dhawu c Abd Allah, and Dhawu Zayd), was appointed 
governor of the Mikhlaf by the Zaydi Imam of 
San'a 3 to whom he appealed for favour after his 
expulsion from Mecca. The first Khayratid master 
of the Mikhlaf, Ahmad b. Muhammad, also began 
his career in 1141/1728-9 as governor there for the 
Zaydis. Ahmad's grandfather Khayrat, on coming 
from Mecca to Abu c Arish, had been assigned a 
stipend from the revenues of Djayzan port by the 
Zaydi Imam al-Mutawakkil Ismail b. al-Kasim 
(d. 1087/1676). 

In the mid-i2th/i8th century the warlike tribe of 
Yam of Nadjran penetrated into the Mikhlaf under 
its new leaders, the Makramid [q.v.] d&Hs of the 
Isma'ili persuasion. 

Niebuhr in 11 76/1 762-3 found the second Khay- 
ratid, Muhammad b. Ahmad, an independent ruler 
over the extensive district of Abu <Arish, which 
included Djayzan port. 

Although the Wahhabis were never very active 
in the Red Sea, in 1809 ships of theirs entered 
Djayzan port and seized coffee and other goods. 
About a year later the port was taken by WahhabI 
mudjdhidun of the tribe of Ridjal Alma c . The 
Khayratid Sharif Hamud Abu Mismar was instru- 



DJAYZAN — DJAZA' 



mental in bringing about the capture by Muhammad 
'All Pasha's forces of the Wahhabl highland chief- 
tain, Taml b. Shu'ayb al-Rufaydi, who recited the 
Kur'an as he was paraded through the streets of 
Cairo in a scene described by al-Djabarti, iv, 219-20. 
Combes and Tamisier, visiting Djayzan in 1835, 
observed that the commerce of the port had greatly 
declined as a consequence of Muhammad 'All's 
monopolistic practices. Senna and coffee were sent 
from the mountains to Cairo. 

The most powerful of the Khayratids who came 
after Hamud was his grandnephew al-Husayn b. 
'Ali (regn. 1840-8), who held Tihama as far south 
as Mocha and even occupied for a time Ta'izz 
and other places in the mountains of al-Yaman al- 
Asfal. Beaten in battle by the Zaydi al-Mutawakkil 
Muhammad b. Yahya, al-Husayn abdicated. Under 
Ottoman rule two of al-Husayn's sons served short 
terms as Ka'imakams in Abu 'Arish. 

The last Khayratid, a nephew of al-Husayn b. 
'All, revolted against the Turks and ruled indepen- 
dently and oppressively for a brief span. His name is 
given by al-'Ukayll as al-Husayn b. Muhammad, 
whereas Nayl al-watar, i, 356, calls him al-Hasan. 
Having supplanted the Turks in the Mikhlaf in 
1909, Muhammad b. 'All al-Idrisi defeated them two 
years later at al-Hafa'ir, close to Djayzan port. The 
capital was moved by al-Idrisi from Abu 'Arish to 
Sabya. 

Under Saudi Arabian administration the capital 
has been transferred to Djayzan port. The fullest 
description of the port and province in recent times 
is given by Philby, who was there in 1936. 

Bibliography: To the works given under 
'asIr should be added Ahmad b. Madjid in 
G. Ferrand, Instructions nautiques, i, Paris 1921-3; 
Dahlan, al-Qxaddwil al-mardiyya, Cairo 1306; al- 
Djabarti, c AdjdHb, Cairo 1297; 'Abd Allah b. 
'Abd al-Karlm al-Djirafi, al-Muktataf min ta'rikh 
al-Yaman, Cairo 1370; Husayn b. Fayd Allah al- 
Hamdani, al-Sulayhiyyun, Cairo n.d.; al-Shaw- 
kanl, al-Badr al-fdli', Cairo 1348; Muhammad b. 
Ahmad 'Isa al-'Ukayli, Min ta'rikh al-Mikhlaf 
al-Sulaymdni, i [ii not yet published], al-Riyad 
1378; Zabara, Nashr al- c urf li-nubald' al-Yaman 
ba'd al-alf, Cairo 1359; E. Combes and M. 
Tamisier, Voyage en Abyssinie, Paris 1838; 
C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, Copenhagen 
1772; Ch. Schefer, Les Voyages de Ludovico di 
Varthemo, Paris 1888; F. Wiistenfeld, Jemen im 
XI. (XVII.) Jahrhundert, Gottingen 1884; nu- 
merous articles in the Saudi Arabian press and 
periodicals, particularly al-Yamdma of al-Riyad 
and al-Manhal of Mecca. (G. Rentz) 

DJAZA' (Ar.), recompense, both in a good and 
in a bad sense, especially with reference to the next 
world; thawab (Ar.) means the same but usually 
only in a good sense. Opinions differed on its nature, 
duration, the recipients, and how men knew of it. 
The Mu'tazila held that God must reward goodness 
and punish wickedness; reason shows this though 
some held that the eternal duration of recompense 
was known only by revelation. The opposing view 
was that God is not a subject for argument; if He 
sends all to the fire, it is His justice, and if He takes 
all into paradise, it is His mercy. The Mu'tazila of 
Basra said that God must reward goodness but may 
forgive all sinners. Ibn Karram taught that revelation 
told that reward may be merited. Some said that 
reward should be eternal because it is greater than 
man's merit but not punishment because of God's 
mercy, though wilful disobedience to Him deserves 



an eternity of penalty. The c 
no believer would be kept in the fire for ever; God 
would at last deliver him. Most Mu'tazila and the 
Khawaridj said that great sins sent the sinner to the 
fire for ever but Pjahiz said that this was the fate 
of obstinate unbelievers only and that the fire drew 
such to itself by its nature, God did not send them. 
Ka'bi said that venial sins would not be punished 
in the fire but that they might add up to great. 
Murdar said that even venial sins sent to the fire 
for ever. Some argued that, if the penalty were 
limited, so should the reward be, for man's acts are 
limited. Another view was utilitarian; if God's 
threats were to be efficacious, they should be as wide 
as possible but, if encouragement were needed, the 
limitation of punishment should be stressed. The 
general view was that all infants would go to paradise 
though some made their lot depend on the religion 
of the parents. 

Bishr b. Mu'tamir [q.v.] said that God can punish 
infants without being unjust. Some held that 
believing djinn would be in paradise but others 
thought there would be no resurrection for them, 
either because there was no resurrection except as 
a reward or no reward except after responsibility 
and on either ground djinn were excluded. Some 
said that useful animals would be in paradise but 
in more beautiful forms to delight the blessed while 
noxious beasts and insects would be in the fire, 
helping to torment the wicked but feeling no pain 
themselves. Paradise is a reward for merit or bounty 
to those without it, infants and madmen. The nature 
of recompense was in dispute, whether spiritual, 
corporeal or both; Nazzam argued that bodies were 
needed if the blessed were to eat and drink. He also 
said that there were no rewards in this world as 
blessings were only for encouragement; he also said 
that God cannot lessen the joys of paradise nor the 
pains of the fire. Djubba'I taught that the torments 
in hell were not profitable to any but were the result 
of wisdom and justice. A saint, seen in a dream, said 
that friends were eating and drinking before the 
throne but God knew that he cared for none of these 
things so granted him to look on His face. It was one 
of the charges against the philosophers that they 
taught only a resurrection of the spirit. Ka'bi said 
that if the hand of a thief were cut off and he died 
an unbeliever, it was given to one who had lost a 
hand but died a believer or was given to some other 
believer. The next world is ddr al-djazd'. 

Bibliography: Shahrastani, Nihdyat al-ikddm 
chap. 17; Ibrahim al-Saffar, Talkhis al-adilla 
(B. M. Add. 27526) f. 92 If.; A. S. Tritton, Muslim 
theology, London 1947; G. Vajda, in Stud. Isl., xi, 
29 ff. gives quotations from Dawud b. Marwan b. 
Mukammis which reproduce ideas of the Mu'tazila. 
(A. S. Tritton) 

ii. — Ottoman Penal law 
In Ottoman usage, djazd* means punishment 
and kdnun-i djazdH (cezai) a penal code. 

The oldest Ottoman penal code so far discovered 
forms part of the kanun-ndme of Mehemmed II 
published by Kraelitz [MOG, i, 1921, 13-48)- !t deals 
chiefly with those criminal offences that are to be 
punished by strokes and fines. Soon it was enlarged 
by an additional chapter, a siydsetndme [q.v.] (see 
Belleten, vi, 1942, 37-44), which prescribes capital or 
severe corporal punishment (siydset) and regulates 
criminal procedure. This enlarged code constitutes 
the first part of the so-called Kdnunndme of Siiley- 
man I (TOEM, 1329, suppl.) which in its major parts, 



DJAZA' — al-DJAZA>IR 



519 



however, seems to have been compiled already under 
Bayezid II. A third criminal code came into existence 
in Suleyman I's time. This kdnunndme, which will 
be published soon, covers many additional fields and 
is differently organized. A fourth, most comprehensive 
but rather inconcise version, was compiled privately 
by a clerk of a shari'a court in the nth/i7th century. 
In addition, there exist a number of intermediary and 
secondary types. 

Criminal regulations are also found in individual 
jermdns and yasakndmes (e.g., Babinger, Suit. 
Urkunden, Munich 1956) and in the kdnunndmes 
concerning the organization of the State, the market 
police, the artisans, and the various military forces. 
The numerous provincial kdnunndmes contain 
relatively few penal regulations, since in principle 
the same criminal law was in force in all parts of the 
Ottoman Empire. In some Muslim countries con- 
quered in the early ioth/i6th century the Ottomans 
at first confirmed existing secular, including criminal, 
law, such as the Dh u '1-Kadr codes (Barkan, 
Kanunlar, 119-29). After a short time, however, they 
introduced their own penal code, proclaiming their 
wish to abrogate many bida c of the previous rulers 
and alleviate the "plight of the population by reducing 
penalties and abolishing abuses in criminal procedure. 

In Ottoman criminal codes wide use is made of 
ta c zir , i.e., discretionary punishment by the kadi in the 
form of corporal chastisement, generally the bastinado 
[see falaka]. For many offences the penalty is a fine 
(kinlik, dierime), with or without taHir and often in 
addition to damages. Fines are laid down either as 
fixed amounts of money (mostly graded in accordance 
with the financial circumstances of the offender) or 
set in a certain ratio to the number of strokes 
inflicted on the criminal. In many instances slaves 
and non-Muslims pay half the fine of a free Muslim, 
but in the case of the non-Muslims this privilege is 
partly cancelled out by their being graded differently. 
The fines constituted a considerable income for the 
fief-holders and/or governors (or their subordinates) ; 
in later periods kadis often exacted fines for them- 
selves. Many offenders were also condemned to be 
ignominiously led through the town and exposed to 
to public scorn (teshhir). Imprisonment and banish- 
ment are rarer penalties; sending to the galleys, 
though not mentioned in the kdnun, was quite 
common. The form of capital punishment referred 
to specifically in the criminal codes is hanging; 
historians and travellers also report impaling, 
beheading, ganching, strangling, etc. Other severe 
penalties mentioned in kdnunndmes are emascula- 
tion, the cutting off of a hand or the nose, the 
branding of the forehead, etc. 

The kdnun, though pretending merely to complete 
the sharPa, diverges from its criminal law in a 
number of important points. On the one hand, it 
commutes certain hadd penalties or seems to assume 
that they are commonly commuted to lighter punish- 
ment. On the other hand, it extends the range of 
many penal regulations of the sharV-a and adds a 
great many delicts not covered by it. With a view to 
serving, above all, the interests of the State and 
ensuring public peace and order, many more crimes 
are made punishable by death [siydseten katl) ; many 
of the penalties are evidently meant to be preventive 
or intimidating. The monetary fines and some of the 
corporal penalties laid down in the kdnun are 
unknown to religious law. The treatment of attempt, 
complicity and repeated offences also differs from 
the shari'a. Most important, the kdnUn frees criminal 
procedure from the latter's limitation and strict 



regulations. Similar to the earlier mazdlim (shurta, 
hddjib) and muhtasib jurisdiction in other Muslim 
countries, the Ottoman kdnun accepts evidence that 
is not admissible according to the shari'a and proof 
regarded by it as insufficient. Admission of guilt 
may be obtained by torture; suspicion and the 
criminal past of the accused are taken into decisive 
consideration. In several later kdnunndme manu- 
scripts, marginal notes, mostly ascribed to the 
Nishdnaji, abolish some regulations of the criminal 
code because of their inconsistency with the shari'a. 
The Ottomans tried to eliminate the traditional 
dualism of kadi and mazalim jurisdiction by making 
the kadi administer both shari'a and kdnun. Ordinary 
citizens were generally to be punished by the 
governors, subashh, voyvodas, etc. only after a trial 
by a kadi, but in reality this rule was constantly 
violated. The clash between the authority of the 
kadi and the governor in the administration of 
criminal justice remained a major problem throughout 
Ottoman history. Certain classes of the population 
(soldiers and other kapl kullarl, Hmar-holders, 
sherifs, 'ulemd', foreigners, etc.) were in many cases 
subject to special penal regulations and tried by 
separate tribunals. Trade delicts and certain religious 
and moral . misdemeanours were dealt with by the 
muhtasib [q.v.]. 

The Ottoman penal codes were not conceived 
merely as laws for the protection of society from the 
criminals but to a large extent also as a means of 
protecting the people from oppressive officials and 
fief-holders. Sultan Suleyman I ordered that a bound 
copy of the penal and feudal kdnunndme be sent to 
every law-court, but to what extent its criminal 
regulations were actually enforced is not known. 
From the nth/i7th century, in any case, the kanun 
for various reasons began to lose its practical im- 
portance. Criminal justice was henceforth based 
exclusively on the shari'a as administered by in- 
creasingly corrupt kadis or the arbitrary will of 
oppressive governors and their subordinates. Ottoman 
criminal justice, praised by European observers in 
earlier periods for its efficiency, degenerated corn- 
Modern reform of Ottoman penal law began under 
Mahmud II. After the destruction of the Janissaries 
(1826), governors were forbidden to inflict the death 
penalty without the formal sentence of a kadi. A new- 
penal code, published in 1840 in the spirit of the 
Gulkhane Charter, still largely aims at curbing 
tyrannic officials. Penalties are reduced and proce- 
dure is to become more regular; every capital 
punishment has to be confirmed by the Sultan. This 
primitive and very deficient law was somewhat 
improved by the code of 1851, only to be replaced in 
1858 by a completely different, secular and com- 
prehensive penal code which followed French law 
and, with many amendments, remained in force 
until 1926. 

Bibliography: D'Ohsson, Tableau general, iii, 
1820, 236-81, 362-3; B. Djurdjev and others, 
Kanuni, Sarajevo 1957, 160-68; H. Hadzibegid, in 
Glasnik, N.S., iv-v (1949-50); J. Schacht, in Isl., 
xx (1932), 211-2; xxii (1934-5), "6-31; C. Ocok, 
in Ank. Huk. Fak. Derg., iv (1947), 52-73". H - 
Inalcik, in Siy. Bilgiler Fak. Derg., Ankara, xiii 
(1958), no. 2; Tanzimat, i, Istanbul 1940, 176-80, 
221-32; U. Heyd, Studies in Old Ottoman criminal 
law (with text of codes) (in preparation). 

(U. Heyd) 
al-HJAZA'IR is the name given to the islets 
just off the north-west coast of Algiers Bay, 



and which now constitute the Admiralty of the town. 
The Arabs applied the name of the islets to the town, 
which was founded in the 4th/ioth century on the 
mainland opposite them. Under the Turks it became 
the capital of Algeria, and has remained so ever 
since. It was the French who transformed its Arab 
name into "Alger" (Algiers). It lies at a latitude of 
36° 47' N., and a Iongtitude of 3 4' E. (Greenwich) 
In the census of 1954 a municipal population of 
355,000 was recorded, of whom 162,000 were 
Muslims; in 1959, the population of Greater Algiers 
(city and adjacent communes) stood at 805,000, of 
whom 456,000 were Muslims. 

The discovery in 1940 of an important collection of 
Punic coins, of lead and bronze, found in the district 
neighbouring the port (J. Cantineau & L. Leschi, 
Monnaies puniques d' Alger, in Comptes Rendus Ac. 
Inscr. et Belles Lettres, 1941, 263-77), is ample proof 
of the existence of a Phoenician warehouse, probably 
on the islets, with the name Ikosim (the isle of 
owls, or thorns). 

The Latin form of the name, Icosium, was given 
to the Roman settlement on the mainland. It is not 
known at which date this was founded, but it was 
not an important settlement, although it was the 
seat of a bishopric. We find no more reference to 
it in historical documents after the fifth century. 
According to al-Bakri {Desc. del'Ajr. sept., 66, tr., 156), 
its ruins existed until the 4th/ioth century, when 
the Muslim town was founded by Buluggin b. Ziri. 

Its name then became Djaza'ir BanI Mazghanna, 
after a Sanhadjian tribe which lived in the region 
at that time. It remained a town and port of little im- 
portance up to the early ioth/i6th century, and was 
tied to the vicissitudes of the central Maghrib. It 
should nevertheless be mentioned that at the be- 
ginning of the 6th/i2th century the Almoravids erected 
a large mosque in Algiers, and that from about 771/ 
1370 onwards, under the protection of the Tha'aliba 
Arabs in the Mitidja area, it gradually asserted its 
claim to be an independent town. In the 9th/i5th 
century its protector was a holy figure, Sidi c Abd 
al-Rahman al-Tha'alibi, and since that time he has 
been the patron saint of the city. The mediaeval 
population of Algiers consisted in part of refugees 
who had fled from the Christian reconquest of 
Andalusia, and many of them established themselves 
as corsairs in Algiers. 

In 1510 the Spanish imposed a levy on the city 
and occupied the islets, in order to suppress the 
corsairs. When it was realised that this would 
seriously impair their prosperity, the inhabitants 
and their leader, Salim al-Tflml, sought for an ally 
to help rid them of the Spanish yoke. When they 
summoned to their aid the Turkish corsair, c Arfldj 
[q.v.], who at that time ruled over Djidjelli, he did not 
succeed in expelling the Spaniards, but seized the town 
himself and established it as his principal base of 
operations. The Spaniards attempted to recapture 
Algiers in 1516 and 1519, but met both times with 
failure. After the death of c Arudj in 924/1518, his 
brother Khayr al-DIn assumed power, but was not 
able to maintain control over Algiers, and fell back to 
Diidjelli, 926-31/1520-5. Then in 1525 Algiers once 
more sent out an appeal for assistance, and on 27 May 
1529 he succeeded in capturing the fortress (Perion) 
which the Spaniards had built on the largest of the 
islets. The Pefion was pulled down, and the mate- 
rials served to construct the breakwater which hence- 
forth connected the islets with the mainland. Such 
was the origin of the port of Algiers. 

Meanwhile, Khayr al-DIn had bequeathed his 



conquest to the Ottoman Empire, which was thus 
in possession of an important naval base in the 
western Mediterranean. It is therefore in no way 
surprising that Charles V attempted to capture 
Algiers in 1541. On October 23 his forces landed on 
the shores of the Bay of Algiers, and after crossing 
the Wadi Harrash, they set up camp on a hill over- 
looking the town, now known as the Fort l'Empereur 
but at that time called Kudyat al-Sabun. But 
during the night of 24-5 October the weather 
quickly deteriorated, and half the landing fleet was 
lost in the consequent storm. Defeated as much by 
the elements as by the Turks, Charles V had to 
abandon much material and withdraw from Algiers, 
leaving it with a legend of invincibility which 
remained intact until 1830. 

Charles V's expedition served as a warning signal 
to the Turks, and they proceeded to extend and 
perfect the fortifications, especially on the seaward 
side, until Algiers literally was a stronghold. More- 
over, it had become the capital of a considerable 
Turkish province, enjoying a de facto independence 
of Constantinople, and was the operating base for 
many corsairs. All these factors contributed to its 
great economic and social development, beginning 
in the 16th century. 

Very little is known of the town before the Turkish 
period. It is probable that the original city-wall ex- 
tended as far as the Turkish wall, but that the density 
of building within it was much smaller. The Turkish 
wall, 3,100 m. long, was continuous, even on the 
coastal side, and was equipped with towers and a 
moat. Five gates gave access to the city : the Fishery 
gate and the Fleet gate on the harbour side, Bab 
al-Wad to the north, Bab 'Azziin to the south, 
and Bab Djadid to the south-west. Various other 
fortifications reinforced the protection offered by 
the city-wall: the Kasba, which in 1816 became the 
residence of the Dey of Algiers, was built in 1556 to 
replace a Berber stronghold on the summit of the 
triangle which the town then formed; the Fort 
l'Empereur, built on the site of Charles V's camp; 
several forts and gun emplacements between the Bab 
al-Wad and Bab 'Azzun gates along the sea-front, 
and on the former islets which guarded the port. 

The Turks built a palace called the 'Djanina' 
(small garden) inside the town, and the former 
archbishop's palace was at one time part of it. It was 
used as the Regent's residence until 181 6. In the 
lower part of the town, near the port, several 
Turkish dignitaries and wealthy privateers built 
themselves luxurious dwellings. The interior de- 
corating, depending on the owner's taste and his 
'catch' on the high seas, was often of European 
origin (Venetian crystal, Dutch porcelain, etc.). 
Many mosques were built, the best-known of which 
is the Djami c Djadid (also called the 'Fishery 
Mosque') in Government Square (1660). There were 
also a number of barracks and prisons in the town, 
but virtually nothing remains of them. 

We have at hand only rough estimates of the 
population at various times. Haedo put it at 60,000 
at the end of the 16th century. According to P. Dan, 
it was 100,000 in 1634, whereas Venture de Paradis 
counted only 50,000 inhabitants at the end of the 
18th century, and 30,000 in 1830. It was always a 
very mixed population; there were the Turks, 
mainly members of the army and administration 
(numbering 4,000 in 1830); the Kulughlis (Turkish 
Kul-oghlu, cf. the Awlad al-Nas in Egypt), offspring 
of Turks and the indigenous women of that region, 
and held in disdain by the Turks; old families with 



L-DJAZA'IR — DJAZA'IR-I BAHR-I SAFlD 



521 



long roots in the past, often of Andalusian or 
Moorish origin, forming the bulk of the com- 
mercial and artisan classes; the numerous Kabyles, 
forming the labouring class; Saharans from Biskra 
and the Mzab; Jews (4,000 in 1830), the richest 
of whom had come from Leghorn in the 18th 
century, and enjoyed the privileges of Europeans; 
some European business-men and consuls; finally, 
those taken prisoner from the Christians, numbering 
as many as 25,000 in 1634 (P. Dan). It is clear that 
the population was just as much Mediterranean as 
North African. 

As far as is known, the town of Algiers was placed 
directly under the authority of the head of govern- 
ment. The judicial system was administered by 
two Kadis, one from the Hanafi school for the 
Turks, the other from the MalikI school for the 
Arabs. They worked together with a tribunal of 
rabbis and consuls representing the Jewish and 
Christian minorities. The police-force was staffed by 
shdwshs (Turkish ((Push [q.v.]) under the command 
of a bash shdwsh. There was one force to deal with 
the Turks, and another to deal with the Moors. To 
complete the administration, there was a chief of 
municipal services {shaykh al-balad), and a mizwdr, 
more or less the equivalent of the muhtasib in 
Moroccan cities. The Jewish community had its 
own institutions, and Europeans enjoyed the pro- 
tection of their respective consuls. 

Privateering was the great industry of the Turkish 
era. After having taken the form of a holy war or of a 
conflict between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro- 
Spanish Empire of Charles V and Philip II, it 
became a profitable business and therefore the chief 
occupation of the inhabitants. All sections of the 
population drew benefit from it — the government, 
which received part of the takings, private indivi- 
duals, who formed companies to arm the ships, and 
the general populace, who gained from the generosity 
of the privateers and wealthy ship-owners. It also 
led to an influx of adventurers, usually of European 
or Mediterranean origin, who 'took to the turban' 
to give vent to their spirit of adventure and taste 
for plunder, or simply to avoid falling into the hands 
of slave-traders. It has been estimated that there 
were 8,000 renegades in Algiers in 1634. 

Such piracy often provoked reprisals from the 
European powers. They generally took the form of 
naval bombardments of Algiers, some of which 
caused serious damage. The Spaniards bombarded 
it in 1567, 1775 (the ensuing landing did not succeed) 
and 1783, the Danes in 1770. The main attacks came 
from France (1661, 1665, 1682, 1683, 1688) and 
England (1622, 1655, 1672). After having been 
largely suppressed by the end of the 18th century, 
privateering experienced a revival during the wars 
of the French Revolution and the First Empire, and 
the British consequently carried out further shellings 

The French invasion of 1830 had been prepared 
in 1808 by Major Boutin, an engineering officer 
sent by Napoleon to make a first-hand report 
of the conditions necessary to carry out such an 
operation successfully. The general lines of his plan 
were used by those who prepared the expedition of 
1830; the French forces landed on the shore of the 
Sidi Farrush peninsula, to the west of the town, on 
14 June, and by the 29th they had reached the 
defences of the Fort l'Empereur. It was captured on 
4 July, and on the following day the town itself 
surrendered, without having suffered much damage. 

For many years the French lived within the 



existing urban boundaries, although they did burst 
out at one or two points. But as the town's popu- 
lation increased, it overflowed northwards (Bab al- 
Wad quarter) and southwards (Bab 'Azzun quarter). 
Today the metropolis extends to the suburban 
districts of Saint-Eugene (N), Hussein Dey (S.-E.), 
Birmandreis (Bi'r Murad Ra'Is) (S), El-Biar (S.-W.) 
and almost as far as Bouzarea (W). Its growth 
remains uninterrupted, and is gradually spoiling 
the open spaces and gardens which formerly sur- 
rounded the town. 

The port has undergone a considerable expansion in 
recent years, and in 1955 it registered the movement of 
9387 ships and 500,000 passengers. The airport of 
Maison-Blanche (25 kms. E. of the town) meets all the 

The organization of local authorities has been 
modified since April 1959. The city, divided into 
arrondissements on the French pattern, together 
with the neighbouring communes, forms the single 
municipality of Greater Algiers. 

After the Anglo-American landings of 8 Novem- 
ber 1942, Algiers became the provisional capital of 
France until Paris was liberated in August 1944. Since 
the beginning of the Algerian revolution on 1 Novem- 
ber 1954, Algiers itself has been the scene of political 
events of far-reaching importance, particularly those 
of 6 February 1956, 13 May 1958 and 24 January 
i960 and the following days. Since 1 July 1962 it has 
become the capital of independent Algeria. 

Bibliography : Corpus Inscr. Latin., VHIb, xv 
(Icosium) and Supplement; G. Colin, Corpus des 
inscriptions arabes et turques de I'Algerie, i, De- 
partement d' Alger, Paris 1901; Ibn Hawkal, tr. de 
Slane, in JA, Feb. 1842, 183; Bakri, Descr. de 
I'Afr. sept., 66, tr. de Slane, 156-7; Idrisi, Extraits, 
ed. H. Peres, 62; c Abdari, Notices et extraits du 
voyage d'El-Abderi, tr. Cherbonneau, in J A, 
1854, "J L eo Africanus, Descr. de I'Ajrique, tr. 
Epaulard, ii, 347-5°; D- Haedo, Topographia e histo- 
ria general de Argel, Valladolid 1612, French trans. 
Monnereau and Berbrugger, in R.Ajr., 1870-1; 
Histoire des rois d' Alger, French trans. H. de Gram- 
mont, in R.Ajr., 1880-81; P. Dan, Histoire de Bar- 
barie et de ses corsaires, Paris 1637, 94-138; Venture 
de Paradis, Alger au XVIII' siecle, ed. Fagnan, 
Algiers 1898; Boutin, Reconnaissance de la ville, 
des torts et batteries d' Alger, in Nettement, Hist, 
de la conquete d'Alger, Paris 1879, 574"99; H. de 
Grammont, Histoire d'Alger sous la domination 
turque, Paris 1887; S. Lane- Poole, The Barbary 
Corsairs, London 1890; A. Devoulx, Les edifices 
religieux d'Alger, in R.Ajr. vi-xiii; H. Klein, 
Feuillets d'El-Djezair, Algiers 1937; Lespes, Alger, 
Paris 1930; G. Esquer, Les commencements d'un 
Empire. La prise d'Alger, Paris 1929; idem, Alger 
et sa region, Paris 1949; Laye, Le port d'Alger, 
Algiers 1951 ; Documents Algiriens, economic series, 
no. 82-3; cultural series, no. 55-6 et 62. 

(R. leTourneau) 
DJAZA'IR-I BAHR-I SAFlD, the name given 
to an eyalet of the Ottoman empire, often called 
simply djaza'ir and usually known to Europeans as 
the Vilayet of the Archipelago. It originated as the 
area under the administration of the Kapudan Pasha, 
the sandjak beyleri being known as deryd beyleri [see 
dar ya-bk<;i] and serving with the fleet instead of with 
the army. At its greatest extent, in the nth/i7th 
century, it comprised most of the islands of the 
Aegean Sea, coast districts of Asia Minor and Greece, 
and for a time Cyprus, but never Crete. At first the 
Kapudan Pasha, an official of two tughs, governed 



DJAZA'I 



[ BAHR-I SAFlD — al-DJAZARI 



the sandjak of Gallipoli (Gelibolu) with the kaddh 
of Galata and Izmid. Khayr al-DIn Barbarossa, who 
submitted to the Sultan in 940/1533, and his 
successors were wazirs of three (ughs and members 
of the diwdn-i humdyun. He already governed 
Algeria and Mahdiyya. His eydlet was extended to 
incorporate the sandjaks of Kodja-eli, Sughla and 
BIgha in Asia, and Negropont (Eghriboz, Euboea), 
Lepanto (Aynabakhtt), Karll-eli, Mitylene (Midilli), 
and Mistra (Mizistre) in Europe. Rhodes (Rodos) was 
added after his death and about 1027/1618 Chios 
(Saklz), Naxos (Naksha) and Andrbs (Andlra). In 
1052/1642 Algiers became virtually independent. 
Cyprus was added to the eydlet about 1080/1670 
but was detached again in 1115/1703 when it 
became a khdss of the Grand Vizier. It reverted 
to the Kapudan Pasha in 1199/1785. Mistra and 
Karll-eli were attached to the eydlet of the Morea 
by Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, and by the 
time that the Tanzlmat abolished the juris- 
diction of the Kapudan Pasha the eyalet con- 
sisted of the six sandjaks of BIgha from which 
it was governed, Rhodes, Chios, Mitylene, Lemnos 
(Limni) and Cyprus. In 1876, after the transfer of 
BIgha to the eyalet of Khudavendigar. the centre 
was moved to Chios and later, in the course of 
further reorganizations, to Rhodes. Cyprus was 
occupied by Britain in 1878; Rhodes and the 
Dodecanese islands passed to Italy after the war of 
191 1-2, and were incorporated in the Greek kingdom 
after the second world war; the remaining islands 
were occupied by Greece during the Balkan war, 
and the 'eyalet of the islands' ceased to exist. The 
islands of Imroz (Imbros) and Bozdja-Ada (Tenedos) 
[qq.v.] were returned to Turkey by the treaty of 
Lausanne, 1923. 

Bibliography: Sami Frasherl, Ramus al- 
aHdm, iii, 1794-5; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh 
devletinin merkez ve bahriye teskildh, Ankara 1948, 
420-2; further information will be found in the 
articles on the various islands, placed under their 
Turkish names. (C. F. Beckingham) 

al-DJAZA'IR al-KHALIDA, 'the Eternal Is- 
lands', the Arabic equivalent of Gk. ai Ttov Maxdtpiov 
vrjaoi, Lat. Fortunatae Insulae, as applied to certain 
islands off the W. African coast, apparently the 
Canaries. The 'Fortunate Islands', Djaza'ir al- 
Sa'adSt (also Djaza'ir al-Su'ada 5 ), are sometimes 
distinguished from, more usually identified with, the 
Eternal Islands. As these names indicate, the early 
Arab geographers acquired their knowledge of the 
Atlantic islands from Classical, i.e., Greek, sources, 
and their accounts share the vagueness of reference 
of the originals. Thus, as well as the Canaries, the 
Madeira group and the Azores, even the Cape Verde 
Islands, may occasionally be intended (cf. Reinaud, 
Takwim, i, ccxxxv). The islands are described as 
possessing rich natural fertility and a mild climate 
throughout the year. They are inhabited, six or 
seven in number, lying in the Circumambient Ocean 
(al-Bahr al-Muhit) at the farthest point to the west. 
According to al-BIruni (cited Yakut, Bulddn, ii, 70), 
they are 200 farsakhs out to sea, while in other 
accounts (Makkari, Nafh al-(ib, i, 104, see also 
below) they can be seen from shore on a clear day. 
Following Ptolemy, Arab geographers made the 
prime meridian pass through the Eternal Islands. 
The Spaniard Bakri (d. 487/1094) has fresh know- 
ledge, or at least a new source, for he names the 
islands Furtunatash, certainly from Latin (cf. Pons 
Boigues, Historiadores, 163), and al-ldrisl (circa 
1 1 54) gives the names of two of the six islands: 



Masfahan, for the volcanic peak of which he cites a 
description, evidently Teneriffe, and Lamghush (?). 
Al-Idrlsl also knows that in the time of the Almo- 
ravid C AU b. Yusuf b. Tashifin (500-37/1106-43) an 
expedition was planned, though it never took place, 
to an island opposite Asafi (Safi, Morocco), the smoke 
of which could be seen on a clear day. Al-Dimishkl 
(d. 727/1327) has the story of a successful voyage 
to certain islands 10° west of al-Andalus (ed. 
Mehren, 135), which should be taken with accounts 
of the exploits of KhashkhSsh and the Adventurers 
(al-Mugharrirun) (see al-bahr al-muhTt). These 
stories afford perhaps the only indications of direct 
contact in early times between the lands of Islam 
and the Atlantic islands. On the other hand, Ibn 
Khaldun (Mukaddima, ed. Bulak- Beirut, 53-4) men- 
tions a Christian expedition to the Eternal Islands, 
which seems to refer to Portuguese activity in the 
Canaries in 1341 (cf. R. Hennig, Terrae Incognitae, 
Leiden 1936-9, iii, 138, 206 if.). 

Bibliography: C. A. Nallino, Al-#uw<&rizmi e 
il suo rifacimento delta Geografia di Tolomeo, 
Memorie d. R. Accad. d. Lincei, class, sci. morali., 
Ser. quint., ii/ia (Rome, 1896), 24-5 (reprinted in 
Raccolta di scritti, v. 490 ff.); Al-Battani sive 
Albatenii Opus Astronomicum, ed. Nallino, 25-8, 
transl. 17-20; a!-Bakri, Description de VAfrique 
septentrionale, ed. De Slane, 109; al-ldrisl, Des- 
cription de VAfrique e.t de I'Espagne, ed. R. 
Dozy and M. J. de Goeje, 2, 28, 55, transl. 1, 
33-34, 63 ; F. Rosenthal, The Muqaddimah, London 
1958, i, 117. (D. M. Dunlop) 

al fiJAZARl, the historian Shams al-DIn Abu 
c Abd Allah Muhammad b. Madjd al-Din Abi Ishak 
Ibrahim b. Abi Bakr b. Ibrahim b. <Abd al-'AzIz al- 
Djazari al-Dimashki (not to be confused with his 
compatriot Abu '1- Khayr Shams al-DIn Muhammad 
b. Muhammad . . . , better known as Ibn al-Djazari 
[q.v.], the author of liisn liasln and a contemporary 
of TImur), was born at Damascus on 10 Rabi c I 
658/25 February 1260. He studied with a number of 
teachers including al-Fakhr C A1I al-Bukharl, Ibrahim 
b. Ahmad b. Kamil al-Taki al-VVasitl, Ibn al-Mudjawir 
and al-Dimyatl [q.v.]. Hard of hearing, he was a good 
conversationalist, pure of heart, sincere and upright; 
he liked the company of virtuous people, towards 
whom he showed great magnanimity. His fame chiefly 
rests on his historical work styled al-Ta'rikh al- 
musammd bi-hawddith al-zamdn wa-anbd'ih wa- 
wafayat al-akdbir wa 'l-a'-yan min abnd'ih, better 
known by the shorter and simpler title of TaMkh 
al-Djazari. It is a large work of which only the last 
volume is preserved both in the library of Koprii- 
ltizade at Istanbul and in the Dar al-Kutub al- 
Misriyya. Several other copies are also to be found 
in European libraries; a detailed analysis of the 
Paris fragment was published by J. Sauvaget in 195 1. 
The remaining portion, however, still awaits an 
editor. It is patterned more or less on the lines of 
al-.Dhahabl's Ta'rlkh al-Isldm, arranged as a diary 
of events (annals). The latter's work is apparently a 
continuation of al-Djazarl's. The Istanbul MS. has 
a detailed biography of the author appended to it in 
the hand of his friend and admirer the historian al- 
Kasim b. Muhammad al-Birzali [q.v.] who also 
compiled for him a Mashyakha (Mashikha) com- 
prising the biographies of ten of his shaykhs. The 
extant portion of his work is in three volumes and 
comprises the events of thirteen years from 726/1326 
onwards until his death in 739/1338. 

He was rated very highly as a historian, and his 
work would have proved a mine of information had 



the whole of it survived. Al-DhahabI and al-Birzali 
have both utilized it and extensively quoted from it. 
Al-Dhahabi. however, is of the opinion that facts 
have been mixed up with fiction (al- c adxaHb wa 
'1-gharaHb) in this work. Al-Djazari died at Wasit on 
12 Rabi' I 739/29 September 1338. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hadjar al-'Askalani, 
al-Durar al-kdmina, iii, 301; al-Husayni al- 
Dimashki, Dhayl Tadhkirat al-huffaz, Damascus 
1347 A.H., 22; idem, al-Tanbih wa 'l-ikdz, 
Damascus 1347 A.H., 8-9; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya 
wa 'l-nihdya, xiv, 186 (where his nisba is wrongly 
printed as al-Djawzi); Makrizi, Suliik, 2, 471; 
Muhammad b. Raft" al-Sulami, Ta'rikh 'ultima' 
Baghdad, Baghdad 1357/1938, 212-3; Fihris Dar 
ai-Kutub al-Misriyya, 8oa-b; al-Zirikli, al-A'ldm, 
vi, i8ga-b; CI. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord . . ., Paris 
1940, 80; idem, Chroniques des demiers F atimides , 
in BIFAO, 1937, 8-9; Brockelmann, S II, 45 
(also see S II, 33 where Brockelmann confuses the 
author's name and the year of his death). 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
EJAZIRA (Ar.), pi. djazdHr, a term which 
signifies essentially an island and secondarily a 
peninsula (for.example Djazirat al-Andalus, Spain; 
Djazirat aW-Arab [see al- c arab, djazirat-]). By 
extension, this same word is applied also to terri- 
tories situated between great rivers (see following 
article) or separated from the rest of a continent by 
an expanse of desert; it also designates a maritime 
country (see Asin Palacios, Abenhdzam de Cordoba, 
Madrid 1927-32, i, 291 n. 347) and, with or without 
a following al-nakhl, an oasis (see Dozy, Suppl, s.v.). 
Finally, with the Isma'ilis djazira is the name of a 
propaganda district; see S. de Sacy, Expose de la 
religion des Druzes, cxiv; W. Ivanow, The organi- 
zation of the Fatimid propaganda, in JBBRAS, xv 
(1939), 10, and Ismaili tradition concerning the rise 
of the Fatimids, 20-1. See also da'i. (Ed.) 

al-DJAZIRA, Djazirat Akur or IklIm A*Cr 
(for Akur or Athur see Yakut, i, 119, 340; ii, 72) is 
the name used by Arab geographers to denote the 
northern part of the territory situated between the 
Tigris and the Euphrates. But the Djazira also 
includes the regions and towns which are across the 
upper Tigris in the north (Mayyafarikin, Arzan, 
Si'irt) and which lie to the east of the middle stretch 
of the river (Ba'aynatha, the Khabur al-Hasaniyya, 
the two Zab). In the same way, a strip of land lying 
to the west, along the right bank of the Euphrates, 
in the neighbourhood of the Euphrates Route, is 
also considered to belong to the Djazira. 

The Djazira is a fairly low-lying plateau which 
includes certain groups of mountains, the Karadja 
Dagh between Amid and the Euphrates, the TOr 
'Abdin between Mardin and Djazirat Ibn HJmar, 
the Djabal 'Abd al-'Aziz between the Balikh and 
the Khabur, the Djabal Sindjar between the Khabur 
and the Tigris, and the Djabal Makhul south of 
Mosul. In these mountains rise various streams, and 
in particular the tributaries of the left bank of the 
Euphrates, that is to say the Balikh which comes 
from the district of Harran, and the Khabur which 
comes from Ra's c Ayn with its tributary the Hirmas 
which rises in the Tur 'Abdin. In the Djabal Sindjar 
are the sources of the Nahr Tharthar which flows into 
the desert and disappears. 

The Djazira is bounded on the west by Syria, on 
the north-west by the region of the Mesopotamian 
thughur, on the north and north-east by Armenia, 
on the east by Adharbaydjan and on the south by 
'Irak which begins at a line from Anbar to Takrit. 



It consists of three districts (kura), the Diyar Rabi'a 
in the east, the Diyar Mudar in the west, the Diyar 
Bakr in the north, called after the names of tribes 
who inhabited them in the pre-Islamic period and at 
the beginning of the Islamic period. But even in 
ancient times there were already Arabs in the 
Djazira and one of its districts, that of Nisibis 
(Nasibln) was called Arvastan by the Persians and 
Beth Arabaya by the Aramaeans. Apart from the 
Arabs, the Djazira contained considerable Aramaean 
elements, especially in the Tur 'Abdln, and a number 
of localities bear Aramaean names, and there were 
Kurds in the Mosul region and Armenians to the 
north of the upper Tigris. 

The Djazira is of great importance historically, 
being astride the lines of communication between 
'Irak and Anatolia (it is crossed by the Baghdad 
railway), 'Irak and Syria on the vast curve of the 
so-called Fertile Crescent, and between the Armeno- 
Iranian regions and Syria on the one side and 'Irak on 
the other. It contained many market- towns and 
cities on the banks of the two rivers and on their 
tributaries in the Tur 'Abdin and along the Mawsil- 
Rakka road. In the Romano-Byzantine period it was 
divided between Persia and Rome-Byzantium. At 
the time of the Arab conquest, Byzantium held the 
region extending from Ra J s 'Ayn to the Euphrates 
and the plain to the south of the Tur 'Abdin. The 
frontier lay between Nisibis and Dara, at the fort 
of Sardja (Yakut, ii, 516; iii, 70; Abu Yusuf Ya'kub, 
K. al-kharddj, ed. 1302, 22, tr. Fagnan, 62). After 
the conquest of Syria the Byzantine garrisons were 
isolated, only being able to communicate with the 
Empire through Armenia. 'Iyad b. Ghanm therefore 
encountered no resistance; the western part was 
conquered between 18/639 and 20/641, and the 
eastern part in 20/641 by troops coming from 'Irak 
(al-Baladhuri, 171 ff., ed. Cairo, 179 ff.). 

In the Umayyad period the Djazira was the scene 
of strife between the Syrians and the 'Iraki Shl'is : 
Sulayman b. Surad, supported by the Kaysi Zufar 
b. al-Harith, was killed in 65/685 in a battle near 
Ra's 'Ayn against a lieutenant of 'Ubayd Allah b. 
Ziyad; after Mukhtar's victory over the Syrians in 
67/686 on a tributary of the Zab, the victors occupied 
Nisibis, Dara and Sindjar (see al-Tabari and Ibn al- 
Athir under the years indicated). 'Abd al-Malik, 
before being able to go on to defeat Mus'ab b. al- 
Zubayr at Dayr al-Djathalik in 'Irak in 72/691, first 
had to conquer the Djazira. It was also in the Djazira 
that the fighting between the Kaysis and Tagjjlabis 
took place before and after this date (cf. al-Tabari and 
Wellhausen, Das arabische Reich, 126 ff. ; Eng. tr. 
202 ff.). In like manner numerous KharidjI revolts 
started in the Djazira at the time of al-Hadjdjadj, and 
later in the reigns of the last Umayyads when the 
Kharidiis of Djazira all but succeeded in seizing 
power (see Wellhausen, Oppositionsparteien, 41 ff.) 
It was in the Djazira, at Harran, that the last 
Umayyad, Marwan II, had his capital. 

At the time when Mu'awiya was governor of 
Syria the Djazira was joined with it under a single 
administration. It later became a separate province 
comprising the three districts, responsibility for it 
being sometimes held by members of the Umayyad 
family, such as Muhammad b. Marwan and Maslama 
b. 'Abd al-Malik who were at the same time governors 
of the neighbouring province of Armenia. Mosul was 
separate, and it was only under Marwan II that it 
became the capital of the Djazira. 

The Djazira did not submit to the 'Abbasids 



cidents at Mosul where Muhammad b. Sfll, and 
then Yahya, brother of the first c Abbasid caliph, had 
been sent (see Ibn al-Athlr, anno 132, ed. 1303 A.H., 
163 and 166-7). It was the scene of the rebellion of 
c Abd Allah b. <Ali, al-Mansur's uncle; later, under 
al-Ma c mun, Nasr b. Shabath's revolt swept through 
the Diazira and was with difficulty crushed by c Abd 
Allah b. Tahir, governor of Syria and the Djazlra, 
in 209/821. In the reign of al-Mu c tasim, a Kurdish 
revolt to the north of Mosul was put down with 
difficulty. Kharidji revolts broke out again in the 
Diazira. particularly after al-Mahdi's reign. The 
province was known as a Kharidji stronghold, and 
al-Djahiz was able to say: amma 'l-Djazira fa- 
liaruriyya shdriyya wa-khdridja marika (Fi manaliib 
al-Turk, ed. 1324, 10; cf. on the Kharidjis in the 
Djazlra, Hudud al- c dlam, tr. Minorsky, 140). In 
Harun al-Rashld's time there took place the rebellion 
of the Taghlabi Kharidji al-Walid b. Tarif (see Ibn 
al-Athlr, vi, 47). Violent Kharidji outbreaks occurred 
in the second half of the 3rd/oth century with 
Musawir, and later with Harun al-Shari [sec the 
references given in diyar rabi'a]. The caliph al- 
Mu'tadid put an end to these revolts (same refer- 
In the c Abbasid period Mosul was at times sepa- 
rated from the administration of the Diazira. at other 
times the province was included in a larger grouping. 
Armenia, the neighbouring province, was often linked 
with it or on occasion united merely with the Diyar 
Bakr [see diyar bakr]. Among the governors of the 
Diazira worthy of note, we may mention Tahir b. 
al-Husayn and, later, his son c Abd Allah b. Tahir in 
al-Mu'mun's reign. In the second part of the 3rd/9th 
century the Djazlra for a time escaped from the 
central authority and became a dependency of the 
TulQnid ruler of Egypt, with Ishak b. Kundadjlk, 
then Muhammad b. Abi '1-Sadj, and then Ishak's 
son. But it was recovered by the caliph al-Mu c tadid 
after 279/892. 

The Diazira is the home of the Hamdanid family 
who, after various wanderings (their ancestor 
Hamdan was himself a Kharidji), extended their 
power over the entire province which was divided 
between the two Hamdanid amlrates of Mosul and 
Aleppo which, though recognizing the nominal 
authority of the caliph, were almost independent. 
It then passed under the domination of the Buway- 
hids of Baghdad after the conquest by c Adud al- 
Dawla in 367/977. Then, as a result of the increasing 
weakness of the Buwayhids, it was divided between 
the Marwanids in the north (Diyar Bakr) and the 
'Ukaylids (Mosul), one of whose princes, Kirwash b. 
Mukallad, in 401/1010-1 recognized Fatimid suze- 
rainty. The Saldjukids put an end to these two 

The Djazlra was a relatively rich and fertile 
province, plentifully supplied with water by its 
rivers, and the steppes with their abundant pastures 
were not short of wells. The triangle enclosed by the 
Armenian mountains, the Djabal c Abd al- c Aziz and 
the Djabal Sindjar, was an immense cultivated area, 
and there were also large areas of cultivation along 
the Ballkh and the Khabur. Horses and sheep, cereals 
(Mosul supplied Baghdad and Samarra with flour — 
see al-SulI, Akhbdr al-Rddi, 76, 109, tr. 133, 177— 
and the floating mills of Mosul and Balad were 
famous), rice (Nisibis), olive-oil (al-Rakka, Mardin), 
butter, cheese, sugar-cane (Sindjar), fowls, fresh and 
dried fruit, raisins, chestnuts (Nisibis), jam (kubbayt), 
honey, dried meat (namaksud), charcoal, cotton 
(Harran and the Khabur valley) etc. — these, among 



AZIRA al-KHADRA' 

other things, were the agricultural products of the 
Djazlra specially mentioned by al-MukaddasI and 
Ibn Hawkal. Among the products of local industrial 
crafts are mentioned: soap, tar, iron, buckets, 
knives, arrows, chains, straps, scales (Harran and 
Nisibis), linen and woollen fabrics (Amid), fullers' 
hammers. Aided by shipping on the Tigris and 
Euphrates, commerce flourished there. Djazirat Ibn 
c Umar was the port of shipment for goods from 
Armenia and the Greek countries, and Balis for goods 
from Syria. 

It is therefore not surprising that the authority 
established in Baghdad always tended to keep the 
Djazlra either directly or indirectly under its domi- 
nation, which explains the policy of al-Mu c tadid, 
and of the central authority in Baghdad in the 
Hamdanid period. It is difficult to form an exact idea 
of the revenues of the Djazlra. The amounts vary 
greatly, and if one compares the figures given by 
Kudama with those for the 306 budget, given in von 
Kremer, fiber das Einnahtnebudget des Abbasiden- 
Reiches vom Jahre 306 H, and with the figures of 
tribute paid by, or demanded from, the Hamdanid 
amir of Mosul, we notice a large fall in the contri- 
bution. According to Kudama, the Diyar Mudar had 
a revenue of 6 million dirhams, the Diyar Rabi c a 
9,635,000, Mosul 6,300,000. However, in 332/944 the 
Hamdanid Nasir al-Dawla agreed to pay for the 
Diyar Rabi c a and part of the Diyar Mudar 3,600,000 
dirhams, in 337 the Bu way hid demanded 8 million 
dirhams from him but settled for 3 million, and it 
seems that he never paid more than 2 million. Even 
if payments made in kind are added, it is little 
enough. But for the central authority it was not to 
be despised. 

For the subsequent history of the Djazlra, see 
diyar bakr, diyar rabI c a, and diyar mudar. 
Bibliography : Le Strange, 86-114 where 
references to the Arab geographers are given; in 
addition, the anonymous Hudud al- c dlam, tr. 
Minorsky, see index; E. Herzfeld, Vber die 
historische Geographic von Mesopotamien (Pet. 
Mitt., 1909, xii); F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Archdo- 
logische Reise im Euphrat- und Tigris-Gebiet (For- 
schungen zur islamischen Kunst), 3 vols. 191 1-20; 
Von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen 
Golf, 2 vols. 1899-1900; Banse, Die Turkei, 238 ff.; 
A. Poidebard, Les routes anciennes de Haute 
Djezireh, in Syria, viii (1927); idem, Mission 
archeologique en Haute Djezireh, in Syria, xi (1930); 
MahmudAlusI,B«/«£ft(i/- c ^ra6,i, 217 ff.; Dussaud, 
Topographie historique, deals with the towns on 
the middle Euphrates and in the Khabur basin, 
447 ff-, 481 ff.; M. Canard, Hist, de la dynastie des 
H'amddnides, i, 75-143, 291-302, 308-11, 334 ff-, 
377-407, 418, 520 ff., 526-31 and passim. 

(M. Canard) 
al-PJAZIRA al-SHAPRA 5 , Spanish Algeciras. 
The town takes its Arabic name from the Isla Verde 
which lies opposite, in the bay between the Punta 
del Carnero and the Punta de Europa. It is also 
called Djazirat Umm Hakim, from the name of a 
woman with whom Tarik b. Ziyad, when freed by 
Musa b. N'usayr, entered the peninsula and to whom 
he left it as a bequest. It was here that Julia Traducta 
must have been founded by a number of colonists 
brought from Arcila and Tangier; and it was here 
that the Syrian leaders were held the hostages given 
by Baldj in 124/740 when he crossed from Ceuta to 
the peninsula to suppress the Berbers' revolt. The 
town also had the hybrid Latino-Punic name of 
Julia loza which is the equivalent of Julia Traducta. 



KHADRA 5 — DJAZlRAT SHAKlK 



In the time of the Romans the present Algeciras 
was called Ad Portum Album, and in Christian 
sources there are references to two places with the 
name Algeciras, one on the island which was later 
deserted, the other on the mainland which kept its 
name and importance since its harbour and bay 
have from remotest antiquity provided a safe 



orage, e 






to Ceuta, a distance of only 
1 8 miles. The Almohads almost always preferred to 
cross by the Tarifa-Alcazarseguir route, which is 
12 miles across; and the Marinids followed their 
example. 

The town is situated on a hill dominating the sea, 
and its walls go right down to the sea-shore; the 
citadel, built of stone, rises sharply above the 
ravine that lies alongside the town, to the East. 

Through the town runs a river, the Wadi 'l-'Asal 
— river of honey — which has kept this name in 
Spanish; its banks are covered with orchards and 
gardens. To the south-east, not far from the gate 
to the sea, was the Mosque of Banners where the 
standard-bearers met before the invasion, whilst 
the Berber contingents sent by Tarik came by 
Gibraltar. It was opposite this same mosque that the 
Normans (al-MadjOs [q.v.]) drew up their forces in 
245/859-60, when they seized and burnt it. 'Abd al- 
Rahman III built an arsenal there for his squadrons 
and it was from this port that his generals under- 
took expeditions against the Idrisids of Morocco. 
On the fall of the caliphate the Berbers pillaged it 
in 401/1011 and from 427 to 448/1035-56, the 
Hammudids Muhammad and al-Kasim established 
themselves there as caliphs before it was annexed 
to Seville. 

In 479/1086, al-Mu'tamid delivered it to Yusuf b. 
Tashfln who went into al-Andalus to rout Alfonso 
VI at al-Zallaka. Yusuf lost no time in fortifying 

he had the town entirely surrounded by a moat, 
laid in stocks of arms and food, and installed a 
picked garrison of his best soldiers. On his second 
crossing he again disembarked at Algeciras, setting 
out from there to lay siege to Aledo. The Almohads 
occupied the town in 541/1146, and the Castilians 
laid waste its territory and that of Ronda in 569/1173 
and 578/1182. In 629/1231-2 Algeciras recognized 
Ibn Hud. Alfonso the Learned blockaded Algeciras 
by sea in the summer of 677/1278, and the Christian 
army camped there in March 1279; on 10 Rabi' 
1/2 1 July the Castilian squadron was routed by 
the Marinids; Algeciras was taken by assault and 
its defenders put to the sword. In his four Andalusian 
campaigns Abu Yusuf made Algeciras the base of 
his operations and built nearby the royal palace of 
al-Binya, on the lines of the palace he had built at 
Fez with Fas al-djadida; he died there in Muharram 
685/March 1286. On the same day his son Ya'kub 
was proclaimed king in this same palace of al-Binya. 
Abu T-Hasan C A1I returned to the Marlnid tradition 
of a ajihdd in al-Andalus and, in 741/1340, after 
defeating admiral Tenorio's squadron in Algeciras 
bay, he disembarked there and set out to lay siege 
to Tarifa nearby ; after being defeated on the Salado 
on 7 Djumada I 741/29 October 1340, he returned 
to Algeciras where he had left his harem, and from 
there went back to Morocco. With him the Marinids' 
intervention in al-Andalus came to an end; two 
years later Alfonso XI laid siege to his great naval 
base and, after twenty months of fierce fighting, 
succeeded in taking it. In 771/1369 the sultan of 
Granada recaptured it and completely destroyed it. 



525 

The territory was annexed to that of Gibraltar and 
it was not separated administratively from San 
Roque until 1755. Later, it developed rapidly 
in the 18th and 19th centuries and, in 1905, an 
international conference on the question of Morocco 
was held there. 

Bibliography: Idrisi, Descript., 176-7 in the 
text, 212-3 in the trans.; Ibn 'Abd al-Mun c im 
al-Himyari, al-Rawd al-mi'fdr, ed. Levi-Provencal, 
73-5 in the text, 91-4 in the trans.; Ibn 'Idhari, 
Baydn, ii, 99 in the text and 158 in the trans.; 
Memoirs 0/ c Abd Allah b. Zlri King 0/ Granada, 
in al-Andalus, ii/2, 399 in the text and iv/i, 72 in 
the trans.; A. Huici, Les grandes batallas de la 
reconquista, 399 ft.; Cronica de Alfonso XI, in 
Biblioteca de Autores espanoles, lxvi, 339 f£. ; 
Carlos da Silva, Cronica dos sete reis, ii, 317 ff.; 
Ibn Abi Zar, Rawd al-kirtds, Fas ed., 191 ff. in 
the text and 302 ff. in the Huici trans. 

(A. Huici Miranda) 
DJAZlRAT IBN C UMAR [see ibn 'umar, 
PjazIrat-]. 
DJAZlRAT &AYS [see kays, djazIrat]. 
DJAZlRAT SHARIK, Name given by the Arabs 
to the small peninsula thrusting from the eastern coast 
of Tunisia between the two gulfs of La Goulette 
(Halk al-wadi) and al-Hammamat. As a physical 
continuation of the Tunisian Dorsal range, its 
surface is rather hilly and cut by ravines, but in its 
east and west and particularly its northern part are 
wide plains famous since Roman times for their 
wheat and olives. Its area is about 600 square kilo- 
metres. Its farthest point in the north (Cap Bon, or 
Ra J s Maddar, currently called al-Dakha-) is the 
nearest point of Africa to Sicily. The peninsula is 
actually a part of the province (wildya) of Grom- 
balia (Kurunbaliya). Its western and northern parts 
form a subdivision (delegation, muHamadiyya) of 
that province called Kiiibia (Iklibiya). There are 
some middle-sized and small towns, such as Grom- 
balia (capital of the province), Korbes (Kurbus), 
Sulayman, Manzil Bu Zalfa, and Tazeghzan; fishing- 
ports, such as Iklibiya, Manzil Tamlm, liurba, 
Bani Khiyar, and two fairly important ports: Nabeul 
(Nabil) and al-Hammamat. Communications are 
assured by railways between Nabil, al-Hammamat, 
Manzil Tamim, and Tunis. 

Sharik al-'Absi, after whom the peninsula was 
named, was one of the officers of the Arab army 
which conquered Ifrlkiya under 'Abd Allah b. Sa c d b. 
Abi Sarh in 27-8/647-9. After the victory of Subaytila 
(Sbeitla, Suffitulum), c Abd Allah b. Sa'd sent 
Sharik to occupy the peninsula and nominated him 
its governor. 'Abd Allah b. Sa'd evacuated Ifrlkiya 
before the end of 28/649 and the Byzantines were 
able to reconquer the peninsula from their stronghold 
of Carthage (Kartadjanna). Some 32 years later Abu 
'l-Muhadjir Dinar, leader of the Arab troops in 
Ifrikiya between 55/674 and 62/681, was able to 
conquer Carthage and consequently assure perma- 
nent Muslim domination of this important bridge- 
head to Sicily. 

Owing to its strategic importance, Diazirat 
Sharik was always a target for all those contem- 
plating the conquest of Ifrikiya from the sea, and 
hence for long periods of its history it was a battle- 
field between Ifrikiya and its attackers. The Normans 
dominated it after their conquest of al-Mahdiyya in 
543/1148 and held it till 555/1160, when the Almohads 
under 'Abd al-Mu J min b. 'All expelled them and 
annexed Ifrikiya to their Empire). Later, during the 
ioth/i6th century, Diazirat Sharik. like the rest of 



526 



DJAZlRAT SHARIK — DJAZULA 



Tunisia, was one of the battlefields in the war 
between the Spaniards and the Ottomans in their 
fierce dispute for the hegemony of the Mediterranean 
[see Tunisia]. 

Two other aspects are characteristic of the history 
of Diazirat Shank during the middle ages: the first 
is that its hilly terrain offered refuge for rebels 
against the governors of Ifrikiya, especially under 
the Fatimids, when a group of the Nakkariyya (a 
branch of the Khawaridj) allies of Abu Yazld [q.v.] 
caused much trouble to al-Ka 5 im; later, during the 
second half of the 6th/i2th century, the Banu 
Ghaniya [q.v.] invaded Diazirat Shank, and com- 
mitted atrocities against its inhabitants. The second 
aspect is that its coasts, as well as those of the 
adjacent islands of Kawsara (Pantelleria), Kirkinna 
and Djarba were from the beginning of the 8th/i4th 
century suitable lairs for pirates (ghuzdt al-bahr), 
which brought against Ifrikiya the wrath of the 
Normans, the Pisans, the Genoese, the Venetians, 
the Spaniards, and almost all Europe, and were the 
cause of disastrous attacks on their part. 

Djazlrat Shank was described by at least four of 
the leading Muslim geographers and travellers in the 
middle ages, namely al-Bakri, al-Tidjanl, al-ldrisl 
and Yakut. All, except al-Tidjanl, agree that the 
peninsula was flourishing and rich. Al-Idrlsl calls 
it Djazlrat Bashshu, after its then biggest town 
Manzil Bashshu. Al-Tidjanl, who visited it in 706/ 
1306-7, gives in his Rihla the most detailed descrip- 
tion we possess, including a sad picture of the 
peninsula as a result of the devastations of the Banu 
Hilal and the Banu Ghaniya [q.v.]. A branch of the 
Hilaliyya, the Banu Daladj, were masters of Diazirat 
Shank in his days. He mentions only three towns: 
Manzil Bashshu, Siltan and al-Fallahin. 

Bibliography: Bakri, Sijat Ifrikiya, ed. De 

Slane, Algiers 1911, 39"4°; Yakut, iii, 99-100; 

IdrisI, Maghrib, 118-25; Tidjani, Rihla, ed. H.H. 

l Abd al-Wahhab, Tunis 1958, 11-23; H. Mones, 

Fath al-'Arab li 'l-Maghrib, Cairo 1947, 173-4; 

R. Brunschvig, Ha/sides, i, 239-78; P. Hubac, 

Tunisie, Paris 1948, 9-18. (H. Mon£s) 

DJAZlRAT SHURR, Spanish Alcira, called by 

the Muslims the island of the Jucar, since it is 

situated between two channels of the river Jucar, 

in Latin Sucro, one of which is now dry. 37 km. from 

Valencia, it has a population of about 30,000 and 

stands at the centre of a natural region known as 

the Ribera which includes the lower part of the 

Jucar valley, from Jativa to Catarroja and from the 

sea to the valley of Career. The fertile alluvial plain 

is one of the richest in the Peninsula. It is watered by 

the royal irrigation canal of the Jucar which was 

constructed by James I the Conqueror in the second 

half of the 13th century, built up on the site of 

earlier irrigation works which go back not merely 

to the Arab period but to the Visigothic and Hispano- 

Roman periods. Orange-trees, rice and horticulture 

have brought prosperity. Al-ldrisl praised it for its 

fertility and the distinction of its inhabitants; he 

said that in his time it was possible to reach it only 

by boat in winter, and by a ford in summer, but in 

622/1225, according to al-Mu c djib, it had a bridge. It 

must have been inhabited even in prehistoric times, 

to judge by excavations made on its boundaries, on 

the mountain of Sola. Its identity with Sucro or 

Sicania Iberica is open to question, and in the 

Roman period it must have been fortified, as a 

stopping place on the Via Augusta, to judge by the 

commemorative tablets found there. 



During the Arab period and until comparatively 
recent times, timber felled in the great pine-forests 
of Cuenca was transported on the river Cabriel and, 
after being taken across the Jucar was brought 
through Alcira to Cullera, with Denia as its final 
destination for ship-building and Valencia for 
building. 

Throughout the amirate and Umayyad caliphate 
its history was uneventful; it was a dependency of 
Murcia or of Valencia at the time when the first 
kingdoms of Taifas were created, until the Cid took 
possession of it when conquering Valencia and its 
territories. Ibn c A'isha, the son of Yusuf b. Tashfin, 
reconquered it and then routed and wiped out a 
division of the Cid's army. In 519/1125 Alfonso I 
the Warrior, when undertaking his celebrated 
expedition into Andalusia, tried to seize it; but after 
several days he was repulsed, and withdrew with 
heavy losses. In 523/1129 he once again invaded the 
region, and between Alcira and Cullera he routed 
another Almoravid army, thereby opening up 

When the Almoravids of al-Andalus disappeared 
and the second period of the kingdoms of Taifas 
started, Sa c d b. Mardanish succeeded in making 
himself master of Murcia and Valencia, and appointed 
as governor of Alcira a noble inhabitant of the town, 
Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Dja'far b. Sufyan. The 
latter, after seeing Ibn Mardanish reinforce the 
Christian garrison of Valencia and, to make way for 
them, turn out a number of Muslims from their 
homes, and fearing that he too would be turned out 
in the same way, rebelled and joined the Almohads, 
as Ibn Hamushk had done at Jaen and c Abd Allah 
b. Sa c d at Almeria. 

Believing that he could recapture the town and 
so set an example, Ibn Mardanish laid siege to 
Alcira in the middle of Shawwal 566/June 1171, 
helped by his brother Abu 'l-Hadjdjadj Yusuf, amir 
of Valencia; the siege lasted for two months until 
the middle of Dhu '1-Hidjdja/August. The caliph, 
who had been in Cordova since July, and the sayyid 
Abu Hafs 'Umar, who was besieging Murcia, came 
to the help of the inhabitants of Alcira; but they saw 
that they were being more and more closely confined, 
and appealed to Abu Ayyut Muhammad b. Hilal, 
the friend and colleague of Ibn Basit during the 
relief of Almeria. Ibn Mardanish, unable to force 
the town, had to withdraw. 

Under the Almohads the town enjoyed a period 
of comparative calm, but was soon threatened by 
the advance of the Christians; and two celebrated 
poets, Ibn Khafadja and Abu '1-Mutarrif Ibn c Amira, 
sensing that its loss was imminent, wrote with 
nostalgia of its charms and the beauty of its sur- 
roundings. At the end of 1242 James I the Conqueror 
captured the town. 

Bibliography: Ibn <Abd al-Mun'im al- 
Himyarl, al-Rawd al-miHdr, ed. Levi-Provencal, 
102-3 of text and 126-7 of trans.; Ibn al-Abbar, 
al-Ifulla, ed. Dozy, 236-7; Idrisi, Descript., 192, 
195 of text and 233, 237 of trans.; Diet, geogrdfico 
de Espana, i, 515 ff.; Ribera, Topografia de Alcira 
Arabe, in El Archivo, ii, 54. 

(A. Huici Miranda) 
DJAZM [see nahw]. 
al-DJAZR wa 'l-MADD [see madd]. 
DJAZfJLA. Arabic name of a small ancient 
Berber tribe in south-western Morocco, doubtless 
related to the Sanhadja group [q.v.]. In association 
with the Lamta [q.v.], their kinsmen, they led a 
nomadic life south of the Anti-Atlas. But, at quite 



DJAZULA - 

an early date, some of them began to settle in the 
western part of this mountain (Djabal Hanklsa) ; 
their chief settlement was at Taghdjizat, now known 
as Taghdjidjt, 80 km. south-south-east of Tiznlt. 

It was among them that c Abd Allah b. Yasin 
was born, the originator of the religious and politi- 
cal movement of the Murabitun [q.v.]. The Djazula 
took an important part in it and some of them 
settled in the Moroccan plains. 

At the time of the first reverses of the Almoravids 
in the Sus, the Djazula rallied round the Almohads 
(533/ II 38) and provided them with contingents. But 
the loyalty of the latter at Tlemcen, when faced by 
their kinsmen the Almoravids, was so suspect that 
the Almohads treacherously massacred them (539/ 
1144). As a result, they gave a welcome to several 
persons who had revolted against the Almohads and 
were severely punished. 

Later, for almost a century the Djazula were 
subjugated by the Banu Yaddar of Sus. The latter 
having introduced Arab Bedouin from the group of 
the Ma'kil as allies, the Djazula in the end united 
with one of their tribes, the Dhawu-Hassan. At the 
beginning of the 16th century, Leo Africanus 
described them as impoverished and bellicose villa- 
gers; it was from among them that the first Sa'did 
princes recruited their harquebusiers. 

During the decline of the Sa'did dynasty, the 
Djazula's country was governed by the Dja'farid ( ?) 
Shurafa 5 of the tribe of the Samlala, with High 
as capital. Their domination lasted for about fifty 
years until 1080/1670; it extended over the Sus and, 
for the time being, over Dar'a and Sidjilmasa 
(period of Abu Hassun, surnamed Abu Dumay'a). 

At the beginning of the 19th century a new 
principality appeared, still with Iligh as its centre, 
founded by a sharif of the Samlala; it was to be 
maintained until towards the end of the 19th century. 
Under the name of the "kingdom of Sidi Hashem, 
or Hishem", it enjoyed among European travellers 
and cartographers a notoriety not attested by the 
Arab historians of Morocco. 

Today the name Djazula is no longer used except 
for one of the two ethno-political clans (/«//) between 
whom the tribes of the Anti-Atlas district were 
divided. The former Djazula are now the confede- 
ration of the Waltita (Berb. Ida Ultit); the centre 
of this district is the Tazarwalt. 

In addition to c Abd Allah b. Yasin and the two 
personages who form the subject of the following 
articles, the Djazula have produced two other men 
of distinction: the great saint Ahmad b. Musa al- 
Samlall (d. 971/1563), popularly known by the name 
Sidi Hmad u-Musa [q.v.], and Muhammad b. Ahmad 
al-Hudigi [q.v.] (d. 1 197/1782), author of a collection 
of biographies of local saints. 

The Arabic orthography Djazula (sometimes 
Djuzula) corresponds with the Berber plurals 
awguzulm (archaic) and igzulen. Some have tried to 
identify them with the ancient Getuli. 

Bibliography : The ancient Arab historians 

and geographers, in the indexes (in particular 

those quoted in the bibl. to the article al-sus 

al-aksa); Leo Africanus, trans. Epaulard, i, 94, 

115; Marmol, L'Afrique, trans. d'Ablancourt, ii, 

42, 75 J Justinard, Notes sur I'histoire du Sous, in 

Archives Marocaines, xxix (1933), 59 and passim; 

also in Hespdris, v (1925), 265 and vi (1926), 351; 

Ch. de Foucauld, Reconnaissance au Maroc, 318. 
(G. S. Colin) 

al-DJAZCLI, Abu c Abd Allah Muhammad b. 

SuLAYMAN B. ABI BaKR AL-DjAZULI AL-SaMLALI, 



L-DJAZULl 



527 



although both his father's name and, still more, 
his grandfather's are in dispute, according to his 
biographers and associates was descended from 
the Prophet, like all founders of religious orders. 
He was born and bred in the Berber tribe of Djazula 
in Moroccan Sus [q.v.]. 

After having studied for a time in his native 
country he went to Fas and entered the madrasat 
al-saffarln where one can still see the room he 
occupied. Hardly had he returned to his tribe when 
he was compelled to go back to north Morocco, 
after charging himself with a crime he did not 
commit in order to avoid bloodshed. He went 
to Tangier, then he sailed for the East, spending 
forty years ( ?) there partly at Mecca and Medina, 
partly at Jerusalem. He returned to Fas, and 
it was during this second stay that, with the 
help of books from the library of al-Karawiyyln, he 
wrote his DalaHl al-khayrat. He was then initiated 
into the order of the Shadhiliyya, then he 
withdrew into a khalwa to worship the Eternal for 
fourteen years. On leaving his retreat he went to 
live at Asfi (Safi) where he soon had so great a 
number of proselytes that the governor of the town 
felt obliged to expel him. Al-Djazuli thereupon 
invoked the help of God against the town which, 
as a result, was for forty years in the hands of the 
Christians (Portuguese). It even appears that this 
governor, thinking him to be the awaited Fatiinid 
(the Mahdi), is said to have poisoned him, and the 
Shaykh died in prayer at Afughal in Dh u '1-Ka c da 
869/25 June-24 July 1465, or 16 RabI' I 870, 872 
or even 875. 

One of his disciples, 'Umar b. Sulayman al- 
Shayzaml, known as al-Sayyaf, who as a result 
claimed to be a prophet himself, conceived the idea 
of avenging al-Djazuli. He had the body of his 
master placed on a bier and raised the standard of 
revolt. For twenty years he burned and sacked the 
district of Sus, accompanied by the body of his 
master; every evening he laid it out in a place he 
called al-ribdt, surrounded by a guard and illuminated 
all night long by a wick the size of a man's body 
which stood in a sort of bushel measure full of oil. 
'Urnar al-Sayyaf was killed in 890/1485-6. . Al- 
Djazuli was then buried in the locality of Haha, at 
a place called Afghal or Afughal. Seventy-seven 
years later, on the orders of Sultan Abu 'l- c Abbas 
Ahmad known as al-A'radj, at the time of his entry 
into Marrakush, and for what were perhaps political 
motives, his body was exhumed together with that 
of the Sultan's father who had been buried beside 
al-Djazuli. Wrapped in shrouds, they were taken to 
Marrakush where they were both finally buried side 
by side, in the place known as Riyad al- c Arus where his 
mausoleum stands. It seems that when the shaykh 
was exhumed from his first tomb, his body had 
suffered no change and it would have been thought 
that he had just died. Popularly known by the name 
of Sidi Ben Sliman, he became one of the patron 
saints (sab'-atu ridjal) of Marrakush. 

There grew up in Morocco a sort of religious 
brotherhood called the Ashab al-Dalil, whose 
essential function was the recital of the celebrated 
collection of prayers. This book of prayers is often 
carried as a talisman, hanging over the shoulder in 
an embroidered leather or silver case (tahlil). 

Apart from his immense knowledge of Sufism 
al-Djazuli was also a jurisconsult and knew by 
heart the Mudawwana and al-Mukhtasar al-farH of 
Ibn al-Hadjib. 

Of his numerous Sufi works only the following are 



528 



l-DJAZOLI — DJEBELI 



now known: i. — DaldHl al-khayrd, 
anwdr fi dhikr al-saldt <ala 'l-nabl al-mukhtdr, a 
collection of prayers for the Prophet, description of 
his tomb, his names, etc., published several times in 
Cairo and Constantinople, and in St. Petersburg in 
1842; 2. — Hizb al-faldfi, a prayer, exists in MS. in 
Berlin 3886, Gotha 820, Leiden 22003; and 3. — 
Hizb al-Diazuli, now called Hizb subhdn al-dd'im Id 
yazul, which is found among the Shadhilis, is in 
the vernacular. 

Al-Djazuli founded a Shadhili sect called al- 
Djazuliyya whose adherents are required without 
fail to recite the basmala 14,000 times and the 
DaldHl al-khayrdt twice a day, the DaldHl once 
and a quarter of the Kur'an every night. 

Bibliography: Ibn al-Kadl, Djadhwat al- 

iktibds, Fas 1309, 135; Ahmad BabS, Nayl al- 

ibtihddi, Fas 1317, 339! idem, Kifdyat al- 

muhtddj, MS. in the Medersa at Algiers, fol. 174 v°; 

Muhammad al-Mahdi al-Fasi, Mumti c al-asmd l fi 

dhikr al-Djazuli wa 'l-tabbd* wa-md lahumd min 

al-atbd'-, Fas 1313, 2-33; Kadirl, al-Ishrdf c ald 

nasab al-ak\db al-arba'-a al-ashrdf, Fas 1309; Abu 

Hamid, Mir'dt al-mahdsin min akhbdr Abi 

•l-Mahdsin, MS. in Bibl. nat. Algiers, 1717, fol. 141 ; 

WafranI, Nuzhat al-hddi (ed. Houdas), Paris 1888, 

Ar. text, 18; Nasiri, al-Istiksd, Cairo 1312, ii, 161, 

iii, 7; Brockelmann, II, 252, S II 359; Leo Afri- 

canus, Descr. de I'Ajrique, trans. Epaulard, i, 82 ; De 

Castries, Les sept patrons de Merrakech, in Hesperis, 

1924, 272. (M. Ben Cheneb) 

al-DJAZClI. Abu Musa c Isa b. c Abd al- c Aziz 

b. Yalalbakht b. c Isa b. YumarIli, a member of 

the Berber tribe of DjazQla, a section of the Yaz- 

dakten in southern Morocco, is chiefly known for 

his short Introduction to the study of Arabic 

grammar, Mukaddima, entitled al-Kdnun. 

After studying at Marrakush he went to the East 
to make the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. In 
Cairo he attended classes given by the celebrated 
lexicologist Abu Muhammad c Abd Allah b. Barri; 
and some have even said that the Introduction 
merely reproduces his teacher's lectures on al- 
Djumal by al-ZadjdjadjI, adding by way of proof 
that al-Djazuli himself admitted that he was not 
the author. In Cairo he also studied the Sahih by 
al-Bukhari with Abu Muhammad b. c Ubayd Allah. 
While in Cairo he endured the greatest privations 
and, to raise some money to meet his needs and 
to be able to complete his studies, he was on several 
occasions compelled to take on the duties of imam 
in a mosque in the suburbs, refusing to go into a 
madrasa. 

On returning from the East, and still in the 
grip of poverty, he stopped at Bougie for a time, 
which he spent teaching grammar. 

In 543/1 148-9 he was in Algiers where he taught 
his Kdnun to Abu c Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. 
Kasim b. Mandas, a grammarian and native of 
Ashir. Crossing into Spain, he stayed for some time 
in Almeria where he taught grammar. It was in this 
town that he pawned his copy of the Usui by Ibn 
al-Sarradj which he had studied with Ibn Barri and 
which was in his own handwriting. His creditor to 
whom this work was given as security disclosed his 
plight to Abu VAbbas al-Maghribi, at that time 
the greatest ascetic in the land, and he in his turn 
approached the Almohad sultan on his behalf. The 
latter entrusted al-Diazuli with the khutba at the 
great mosque at Marrakush. He died at Azammur 
in 606 or 607 or 610, or else in 616 according to 
Ibn Kunfudh in his Wafaydt. 



Of his disciples two in particular are noteworthy, 
Zayn al-Din Abu '1-Husayn Yahya b. c Abd al- 
Mu'ti (or more simply Ibn Mu'ti) b. c Abd al-Rahman 
al-Zawawi, the first grammarian to compose an 
Alfiyya, and Abu c Ali 'Umar b. Muhammad b. 
c Umar b. c Abd Allah al-Azdi al-Shaiubinl who 
edited his master's Kdnun with commentaries, 
copies of which survive at the Escurial (Cat. Seren- 
bourg; no. 2, 36, 190). 

Al-Djazuli composed the following works: 1. — 
Commentary on Banal Su'-dd by Ka c b b. Zuhayr, 
published by M. R. Basset in Algiers in 1910; 
2. — al-Kdnun, also called al-Mukaddima al-Djazu- 
liyya; 3. — Commentary on the preceding work; 
\.—Amdli fi 'l-nahw (dictations on grammar); 
5.— An abridged version of the commentary by 
Abu '1-Fath 'Uthman b. Djinni on the dlwdn by 
al-Mutanabbi; 6. — Commentary on the Usui by Ibn 
al-Sarradj (grammar). 

Bibliography: Ibn al-Abbar, Takmila (ed. 
Codera), Madrid 1889, no. 1932; Ibn Khallikan. 
ed. de Slane, 486, (Cairo 1310, i, 94); Suyuti, 
Bughyat al-wa'-dt, Cairo 1326, 369; Ghubrini, 
l Unwdn al-dirdya, Algiers 1911, 231; Ibn 
Kunfudh, Wafaydt; Ahmad b. c Ali al-DaladjI, al- 
Faldka wa 'l-maflukun, Cairo 1322, 91; Brockel- 
mann, I, 308, S I 541-2. (M. Ben Cheneb) 
DJAZZAR PASHA [see supplement]. 
DJEBEEJI [see supplement]. 
DJEBELI, also djebelu, in the Ottoman empire 
an auxiliary soldier equipped by those to whom the 
state assigned a source of income such as timdr', 
ciftlik, wakf etc. The word dfebeli is made by adding 
the suffix -li or -lii to the word djebe, arms (cf. 
Mogollarm gizli tarihi, tr. A. Temir, Ankara 1948, 
75; in the Ottoman army the djebedxi-bashl was the 
superintendent of the arms store at the Porte, see 
I. H. Uzungarsih, Kapikulu ocaklari, ii, Ankara 
1944, 3-31)- 

In the 15th century the arms of a djebeli consisted 
mainly of a lance, bow and arrow, a sword, and a 
shield (cf. Kdnunndme Sultan Mehmeds des Eroberers, 
ed. F. Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, MOG, i, 28; B. de La 
Broquiere, Voyage d'outremer, ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris 
1892, 221, 269, 270). Soldiers equipped with such 
arms and sent to the Sultan's army from various 
organizations in the provinces such as yaya miisellem, 
tatar, yiiriik etc. were designated under the general 
term of djebeli or eshkiindii [q.v.]. Certain wakfs and 
mttlks also were required to send such djebeli% for 
the Sultan's army (see for example, Vaktflar Dergisi, 
ii, 318 doc. 49; c AynI c Ali, Kawdnln-i Al-i c Osmdn . ., 
Istanbul 1280 H., 75)- In the Ottoman timdr [q.v.] 
the diebeli was a cavalryman equipped with the same 
kind of arms. According to a timdr register of 835/ 
1431 (Suret-i defter-i sancdk-i Arvanid, ed. H. 
Inalcik, Ankara 1954) the holders of the smallest 
timdrs between 750-1500 akies were d^ebelis them- 
selves. Those between 1500-2000 approximately were 
diebelis themselves but in addition were to bring 
with them an oghlan, or ghuldm, page. Those above 
2000 were called buriime, "one with a coat of mail". 
These and the begs who usually held timdrs of more 
than 20,000 akces were to furnish diebelis for a 
certain portion of their timdrs (for the number of 
dfebelis in proportion to the timdrs see the table in 
Siileymdn's Kdnunndme; M. c Arif's edition in TOEM 
is unreliable in this part). 

If the heir to a timdr was too young to join the 
army in person he had to send a diebeli instead (see 
Kdnunndme, Bib. Nationale, Paris, MS. turc 41). 
To "show one's djebelis" meant a military parade 



and inspection (cf. 'Ashikpashazade, Ta'rikh, 
'All, Istanbul 1332, 135). Most of the ajebcli-i ii 
timdr system were of slave origin. 



(Hai 



DJEDDA [see pjudda 
PJEK [see shahdagh]. 
DJELALI [se 

DJEM, son of Sultan Mehemmed II, was born on 
27 Safar 864/22 December 1459 in Edirne (cf. 
Wdki'dt-i Sultan Diem, 1). His mother, Cicek 
Khatun, was one of the djdriyes in Mehemmed IPs 
harem. She may have been connected with the 
Serbian royal house (cf. Thuasne, Djem-Sultan, 
Paris 1892, 2). Her brother, <Ali Beg, was with 
Diem in Rhodes in 887/1482 (Wdki<dt, 7). 

Djem was sent to the sandjak of Kastamoni as its 
governor with his two lalas in the first ten days 
(awdHl) of Radjab 873/15-25 January 1469 (Wdki'dt, 
1 ; according to Kemal Pashazade, Tevdrih-i Al-i 
Osman, ed. S. Turan, Ankara 1954, 316, 412, he was 
sent to Magnisa). There, in these early years, he 
showed a keen interest in Persian literature (cf. 
I. H. Ertaylan, Cent Sultan, Istanbul 1951, 11-4). 
He came back to Istanbul for his circumcision in 
875/1470-1 (cf. Kemal Pashazade, 316) and to 
Edirne (cf. Speculum, xxxv/3, 424) to safeguard 
Rumeli during Mehemmed II's expedition against 
Uzun Hasan in 878/1473. A reliable source (Angio- 
lello, cited in Thuasne, 8) relates that having no 
news from his father for more than forty days, 
his two lalas made Djem decide to take the bay c a 
[q.v.] of high officials. On his return Mehemmed II, 
though he forgave the young prince, executed the 
two lalas, Kara-Siileyman and Nasuh (cf. his letter 
to Djem in Feridun, Munshe'dt, i, 283). In the middle 
of Sha'ban 879/20-30 December 1474 {Wdki'dt, 1) 
Djem succeeded his deceased brother Mustafa as 
governor of Karaman in Konya. KaramanI Mehem- 
med Pasha, grand vizier from 881/1476 to 886/1481, 
favoured Djem (cf. Al-ShakdHk al-Nu'-mdniyya, 
tr. MadjdI. Istanbul 1269, 285; Th. Spandouyn 
Cantacasin, Petit traicti de I'origine des Turcqz, ed. 
Ch. Schefer, Paris 1896, 43). But Bayezid, his elder 
brother, had become virtually the leader of all the 
opponents to Karaman! and his financial policy 
which had been especially ruinous for the holders of 
wafrfs and mulks in the empire (cf. art. Mehmed II, 
in lA). Mehemmed II himself had serious complaints 
against Bayezid in the last years of his reign (see the 
documents in Ertaylan, 51, 53). 

When Mehemmed II died on 4 Rabi< I 886/3 May 
1481 Karamanl's enemies, supported by the Janis- 
saries, eliminated him, invited Bayezid to the throne 
and took all measures to block the way for Djem 
(cf. documents in I. H. Ertaylan, 82, 84). When 
Bayezid was in Istanbul Djem came to capture 
Bursa (Rabl c I 886/May 1481). Here he had the 
khutba read and coins struck in his name (Neshrl, 
Djihdnnumd, ed. F. Taeschner, i, Leipzig 195 1, 220; 
the silver coin described by H. Edhem, Meskukdt-i 
'Othmdniyye, i, Istanbul 1334, No. 447). He cooperated 
with the Karamanids (cf. document in I. H. Ertaylan, 
97). His proposal for dividing the empire was declined 
by Bayezid (Neshrl, 22-3). Defeated by the regular 
forces of the empire under Bayezid at Yenishehir 
on 22 Rabl c II 886/20 June 1481 (cf. Wdki'dt, 2; 
Neshrl, 221, Feridun, Munshe'dt al-Saldtin, i, 
Istanbul 1274, 290), Djem fled to Konya (he arrived 
on 27 Rabi c II 886/25 June 1481) and took refuge in 
Tarsus, a town under the Mamluks (12 Djumada I 
886/9 July 1481). He arrived in the Mamluk capital 
on 1 Sha'ban 886/25 September 148 1 and was 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



- DJEM 529 

received by Sultan Kayitbay as a prince (Wdbi'dt, 4; 
Ibn Iyas, BaddV al-zuhur . ., ii, Bulak 1311, 208). 
When he made the pilgrimage and returned to Cairo 
(1 Muharram 887/20 February 1482) Kasim Beg, 
the Karamanid pretender (see karaman-oghlu) 
and Meljemmed, sandjak-beg of Ankara, urged him 
to return to Anatolia. Despite the objection of the 
Mamluk amirs, Sultan Kayitbay permitted him to 
leave Egypt for Anatolia (Ibn Iyas, ii, 213; Wdbi'dt, 
5; document in Ertaylan, 121). Djem was in Aleppo 
on 17 Rabi c I 887/6 May 1482; Kasim and Mehemmed 
joined him in Mamluk territory. While Djem and 
Kasim came to lay siege to Konya, Mehemmed Beg, 
who had moved towards Ankara, was defeated and 
killed in Cubuk-Owa. They gave up the siege of 
Konya and went to capture Ankara, but, at the news 
of the advance of an army under Bayezid II himself, 
hastily retreated. Djem, changing his original plan 
of going to Iran, fled to Tash-eli in Karaman (29 
Rabl c II 887/17 June 1482). There he entered into 
negotiations with Bayezid II who always rejected 
his demand for the assignment to him of at least a 
part of the Ottoman territories. He only promised a 
yearly allowance of one million akles provided that 
he would retire to Jerusalem (cf. Wdki'dt, 5 and his 
letters in Feridun, i, 291-2; Djem's original letter in 
Ertaylan, 127). Kasim, who never gave up the idea 
of restoring his principality of Karaman, made Djem 
decide to pass over to Rum-eli by sea. With this in 
mind Djem made an agreement with P. d'Aubusson, 
Grand Master of the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. 
While governor of Karaman in his father's time 
Djem had had close relations with P. d'Aubusson 
(cf. Thuasne, 11-7). The agreement of safe-conduct 
(text in Thuasne, 60, cf. Wdki'dt, 7) dated 24 
Djumada I 887/10 July 1482 provided that Djem 
could enter, stay and leave Rhodes as he pleased. 
He arrived at the island on 13 Djumada II 887/30 
July 1482 (Wdki'dt, 7). P. d'Aubusson wrote to the 
Pope that Djem should be used as an instrument to 
destroy the Ottoman empire (Thuasne, 68) while 
Djem hoped that he could at least reach an agreement 
to partition the empire with his brother. In Shacban 
887/September 1482 Bayezid agreed to a peace 
treaty with the knights favourable to the Order and 
at the same time his ambassador to the Grand 
Master made a separate agreement about Djem who 
was to be detained by the Knights so as not to cause 
any concern to Bayezid (Thuasne, 85; document in 
Ertaylan, 152). In return he was to pay 45 thousand 
Venetian gold ducats annually to meet Djem's 
expenses (24 Shawwal 887/6 December 1482) 
(Thuasne, 86 ; for the negotiations now see the docu- 
ments in Ertaylan, 156-61). It was understood that 
the Grand Master had Djem's mandate on this 
matter (cf. Thuasne, 80, 86 and Bayezld's letter to 
the French King in Ertaylan, 186). With the promise 
of sending him to Hungary via France (cf . Wdki'dt, 8) 
d'Aubusson interned him in the Order's places in 
France for seven years (his departure from Rhodes 
was on 17 Radjab 887/1 September 1482). Bayezid II 
had asked Venice to intercept him on the sea if he 
should leave Rhodes (see documents in Ertaylan, 
142-3, 188). Actually the Venetians must have 
attempted to seize him on his way to France (doc. in 
Ertaylan, 158-9; in Wdki'dt, 8, Neapolitan ships). 
Worried lest Djem should proceed to Hungary, 
Bayezid sent envoys and spies to the West to prevent 
it (see documents in Ertaylan, 186, 189, 192, 193, 203). 
His envoy to the French King, Hiiseyn Beg, was 
sent to assure Djem's detention there {Wdki'dt, 12; 
Thuasne, no). 



530 DJ 

As Diem was a valuable hostage bringing political 
prestige as well as money the rulers of the time were 
most anxious to have him and the Kinghts had to 
be always on guard. In 892/1487 they imprisoned 
him in the Grosse Tour or Tour de Zizim, a fort 
especially built to intern him near Bourgneuf 
(Wdki'dt, 16; Thuasne, 157). Sultan Kayitbay who 
had been at war against the Ottomans since 890/1485 
and Matthias Corvinus, Hungarian King, maintained 
active diplomatic relations with the Knights and the 
Pope to get Djem (for Kayitbay's ambassadors in 
Europe see Thuasne, 174, 199, 337). pjem's early 
attempt to get into contact with Matthias Corvinus 
had failed (cf. Wdki'dt, n, in Muharram 888/ 
February 1483). 

When Diem was interned in France Bayezid II 
put to death Gediik Ahmed Pasha, the strong man 
of the empire, and Djem's son, Oghuz-khan, who was 
then only three years old (Shawwal 887/December 
1482) (documents in Ertaylan, 167-8). 

Finally the Knights and the Pope Innocent VIII 
thought it necessary "for the general good of 
Christendom" to transfer Diem to Rome, where he 
arrived on 1 Rabi c II 894/4 March 1489. He met the 
Pope in a royal reception ten days later (description 
of the reception in Wdki'dt, 21-2; Thuasne, 232) and 
in their private talk Djem complained that the 
Knights had violated their agreement to lead him to 
Rum-eli and treated him as a prisoner. He wanted 
the Pope to send him back to his family in Egypt 
asserting that he would never cooperate with the 
Hungarians against his co-religionists (Wdki'dt, 21-3). 

Djem's presence in Rome increased the inter- 
national prestige and activities of the Pope who now 
planned a Crusade against the Ottomans for which, 
he said in the letters to the Christian rulers, the 
conditions were most propitious (Thuasne, 241, 260, 
265). 

Bayezid was most worried by Djem's transference 
to Rome and he protested against it as a breach of 
the pact on the part of the Knights. Actually 
Matthias Corvinus was now pressing the Pope and 
the Egyptian Sultan was offering 150-200 thousand 
ducats to have Djem. On 17 Muharram 896/30 
November 1490 Bayezld's ambassador, Kapldjt- 
bashl Mustafa Beg, came to Rome with a letter 
assuring the Pope of his friendship and asking him 
to stand by the agreement made with the Knights. 
He had brought with him 120 thousand ducats 
representing three years' pension for Djem which 
was to be delivered after Mustafa's seeing him alive. 
Mustafa saw him and delivered him a letter and 
presents from Bayezid. (Wdkfdt, 23-4). On 23 
Sha'ban 898/9 June 1493 another ambassador 
of Bayezid came to Rome to renew the agreement 
about Djem with Alexander VI, successor of In- 
nocent VIII, and delivered 150 thousand ducats as 
Djem's pension (Thuasne, 314). The Pope gave 
guarantees about Djem, and, on the other hand he 
assured the Christian powers that with Djem in his 
hands he could neutralize the Ottomans in their 
plans against Christendom. Soon afterwards he 
could even expect support from Bayezid II against 
Charles VIII of France who was about to invade 
Italy. The French King came to Rome in 899/1494 
and compelled the Pope to hand Djem over to him 
for his plans of crusade (1 Djumada I 900/27 January 
1495) (Wdki'dt, 30). He was taken by the king in 
his expedition against Naples. On the way he fell 
ill and died in Naples on the night of 29 Djumada I 
900/25 February 1495. Rumours spread that the 
Pope had poisoned him (Thuasne, 365-76; Sa c d al- 



Din, tddj al-tewdrikh, ii, 37; but in Wdki'dt, 30-5, 
the latter's source, there is no hint at Djem being 
poisoned; Sa c d al-DIn must have taken this from 
Idrls Bidllsl's Hasht Behisht. Bayezid took the place 
of the Pope in the story in some Ottoman chronicles, 
see <AlI, Kunh al-akhbdr, MS.). Djem left a testament 
(WdkPdt, 32) in which he expressed the wish 
that his death be made public so that the "infidels" 
could not use his name in their plans of crusade, 
that Bayezid should have his corpse taken to the 
Ottoman land, that all his debts be paid, and that 
his mother, daughter and other kin and servants 
receive proper care from the Sultan Bayezid. 

Bayezid learned of Djem's death through the 
Venetians on 24 Radjab 900/20 April 1495. He made 
it known throughout the empire by public prayers 
for Djem's soul (Ferldun, i, 294), and brought back 
his corpse, which was embalmed and put in a lead 
coffin (Wdki'dt, 32), from Naples only in Ramadan 
904/April 1499. Buried at last in the mausoleum of 
Mustafa, his elder brother, in Bursa (cf. I. Baykal, 
Bursa ve Anitlari, Bursa 1950, 40), Djem's corpse, 
too, had been subject of high politics (cf. Thuasne, 
378-87). 

Pjem's will was fulfilled by Bayezid II (an official 
record shows that his daughter Gawhar Malik 
Sultan was honored by the Sultan with presents in 
Ramadan 909/February 1504, cf. T. Gokbilgin, 
Edirne ve Pasa Livasi, Istanbul 1952, 474). His son 
Murad, however, who took refuge in Rhodes, was 
captured during the conquest of the Island and 
executed with his son on 8 Safar 929/27 December 
1522. Murad's wife and two daughters were sent to 
Istanbul (Ferldun, i, 539; Thuasne, 389). 

Djem, whose poems were collected in two diwdns, 
one in Persian (ed. in part by I. H. Ertaylan, Cem 
Sultan) the other in Turkish (ed. by I. H. Ertaylan, 
Cem Sultan) was considered as a distinguished poet 
(cf. Latifl, Tedhkire, Istanbul 1314, 64). He is also 
the author of a Fdl-i reyhdn-i Sultan Djem (ed. by 
I. H. Ertaylan, Fdlndme, Istanbul 1951). 

Bibliography: Documents connected with 
Djem and his own letters that are preserved in the 
archives of Tokapi Sarayl Miizesi, Istanbul, have 
recently been published in fascimile by I. H. 
Ertaylan {Sultan Cem, Istanbul 195 1). These 
original documents as well as the correspondence 
of Djem in Ferldun (Munshe'dt al-Saldfin, i, 
Istanbul 1274, 290-4) have not yet been studied 
properly. They are mostly undated. The tahrir 
defters of Konya and Karaman contain a number 
of documents given in the name of Djem (Basve- 
kalet Arsivi, Istanbul, tapu def. No. 119, 392, 63, 
32, 40, 58, 809). The Wdki'dt-i Sultan Djem (ed. 
M. c Arif, Istanbul 1330 H.) was written or dictated 
by one of the closest men to Djem, Haydar (cf. 
M. Arif's introduction) Ayas or Sinan, who had 
been with him from his childhood until his death. 
Sa'd al-Din (Tddj al-tewdrikh, i, Istanbul 1280, 
8-40) reproduced it with a few additions from 
other sources. Ghurbetndme (1st. Universite 
Kutuphanesi, Halis Efendi Kitaplan) is an in- 
complete copy of the Wdki'dt. The collections of 
poems of c AynI-i Tirmldhi (Konya Miizesi Kutu- 
phanesi 2420/16), of HamidI (ed. I. H. Ertaylan) 
and of Kabull (ed. I. H. Ertaylan) contain con- 
temporary information on Djem's life in Anatolia. 
Donado Da Lezze, Historia turchesca, ed. I. Ursu, 
Bucarest 191 1; L. Thuasne, Djem-Sultan, itude sur 
la question d'Orient a la fin du XV siicle, Paris 
1892; Hasan b. Mahmud Bayati, Djdm-i Djem- 
dyin, Istanbul 1331 H.; Ahmad Sayyid al-Darradj, 



DJEM — DJEMAL PASHA 



Diem Sultan wa 'l-diblumdsiyya al-duwaliyya , in 
al-Madjalla al-ta'rikhiyya al-misriyya, viii, (1959), 
201-42; I A, art. Cem (Cavid Baysun). 

(Haul Inalcik) 
DJEMAL PASHA (Cemal Pasa), Young Turk 
soldier and statesman. Ahmed Djemal was 
born in Istanbul in 1872. He graduated from the 
erkan-l harbiyye mektebi in 1895, was commissioned 
as a captain in the general staff, and posted to the 
Third Army in Salonika. There he joined the Mace- 
donian nucleus of the Young Turk conspiracy, the 
l Othmdnll Ittihad we Terakkl Qiem'iyyeti (known in 
Europe as the Committee of Union and Progress), 
using his assignment as inspector of railways in 
Macedonia to help spread and consolidate the 
Committee's organization. Following the 1908 
revolution he became a member of the Ittihad we 
TerakkVs executive committee (merkez-i c umumi). 
He participated energetically in the suppression of 
the 1909 counter-revolution (the Otuz-bir Mart 
Wak'asl) and became military governor (muhdjiz) 
of Oskudar (Asiatic Istanbul). Later that year he 
was appointed wall of Adana and, in 191 1, of 
Baghdad. In 1912 he took command of the Konya 
reserve division and, in the First Balkan War, 
fought at Vize.was defeated at Pinar Hisar, and 
later took over the inspectorate of the Cataldja front. 
Following the Ittihad we TerakkVs coup d'etat of 
23 January 1913 (known as the Sublime Porte 
Incident or Bab-l < Ali Wak'-asi), Djemal Pasha 
became military governor and wall of Istanbul. He 
strongly supported the Unionists' plans for recaptur- 
ing Edirne in the Second Balkan campaign and, by 
his forceful measures in rounding up and deporting 
opposition leaders in the capital, contributed 
decisively to the consolidation of the new regime; 
he could not, however, prevent the assassination, 
in June 1913, of the sadr a'zam, Mahmud Shewket 
Pasha. From this period onward and until the end 
of the World War, Djemal was widely considered, 
together with Enwer and Tal'at Pashas, to be part 
of the informal dictatorial triumvirate ruling the 
Ottoman Empire. He was promoted to Lieutenant- 
General, in December 1913 entered the cabinet as 
minister of works and, in February 1914, was 
transferred to the navy office, where he worked 
hard to improve the equipment and training of the 
fleet. His efforts, during, a trip to Paris in July 1914, 
to bring about a closer understanding between the 
Ottoman Empire and France bore no fruit and he 
later supported, somewhat reluctantly, Enwer's 
policy of alliance with Germany. 

In August 1914 Djemal Pasha was given command 
of the Second Army (then stationed on the Aegean 
coast), and from November 1914 until December 
1917 he was commander of the Fourth Army, with 
headquarters in Damascus, as well as military 
governor of the Syrian Provinces (including Palestine 
and the Hidjaz). Throughout this period, and until 
October 1918, he retained the navy portfolio, which 
put him in the anomalous position of being both the 
colleague and subordinate of Enwer Pasha (as 
minister of war and deputy commander-in-chief). 
Djemal Pasha's initial assignment on the Syrian 
front was to prepare an attack on the Sinai peninsula 
and the Suez canal. But several successive forays 
towards the canal (in February 1915, and in April 
and July 19 16) brought no decisive advance, and 
Ottoman hopes for an anti-British uprising in Egypt 
in response to the Ottoman proclamation of djihdd 
were disappointed. During the early war years, 
Djemal undertook a large programme of public 



works in the Syrian provinces and took an active 
interest in the archaeology of the region. But there 
were indications of political disaffection among the 
local Arab leaders, and to these Djemal reacted with 
characteristic severity. Eleven prominent Arabs 
were hanged after a summary trial in August 1915, 
and 21 more, including a member of the Ottoman 
senate (medjlis-i a'ydn), in May 1916 — this time 
without formal trial. A month later, the revolt in 
the Hidjaz under the Sharif Husayn (with which 
some of the executed Syrians had been connected) 
greatly weakened the Fourth Army's position. Early 
in 1917 the British began their attack on Palestine, 
and when Djemal was recalled from the Syrian front 
at the end of the year, his forces were retreating 
before Allenby's advance. 

Djemal resigned as minister of navy along with the 
rest of the Tal'at Pasha cabinet. On 2 November 
1918 he fled with Enwer and Tal'at, going first to 
Berlin and then to Switzerland. (In the meantime 
his case was tried before an Istanbul court-martial, 
and he was ordered to be expelled from the army and 
was later sentenced to death in absentia). While in 
Europe, Djemal took service with Amir Aman 
Allah of Afghanistan and upon the mediation of 
Karl Radek, travelled to Russia, where he secured 
the support of Chicherin, Soviet commissar of 
foreign affairs, for his mission of modernizing the 
Afghan army. While in Moscow, he offered his 
support to the Turkish nationalist movement under 
Mustafa Kemal (Atatiirk), with whom he carried 
on an intermittent correspondence by letter and 
telegram beginning in June 1920; together with 
Enwer's uncle Khalil Pasha (Halil Kut), he facilit- 
ated the diplomatic contacts between the Bolshevik 
and Kemalist regimes which culminated in the 
Treaty of Moscow of 1921. In the summer of 1920 
Djemal stopped in Tashkent, where he recruited a 
group of interned Ottoman officers for his mission, 
and proceeded to Afghanistan to assume his post 
as inspector-general of the army. He returned to 
Moscow in September 1921 for further negotiations 
with the Bolsheviks, with Kemal, and with Enwer 
Pasha (whom he tried to dissuade from his activities 
against Kemal and from his adventurous plans in 
Uzbekistan). On his way back to Afghanistan, 
Djemal was shot to death in Tbilisi (Tiflis) on 
21 July 1922 by two Armenians, Kerekin Lalayan 
and Sergo Vartayan — his death apparently being 
part of the same assassination campaign to which 
Tal'at and Sa'Id Halim Pashas had earlier fallen 
victim. He was buried in Tbilisi and later reburied 
in Erzurum. 

Bibliography: Turk Ansiklopedisi, x, 141 f.; 
Ibrahim Alaettin Gbvsa, Turk meshurlari ansi- 
klopedisi, Istanbul [1946], 82; Milli Newsdl 132, 
3141-; Djemal's memoirs (Khdtirdt 1913-1922, 
Derse'adet 1922, and modernized and annotated 
edition, Hatiralar, ed. Behcet Cemal (his son), 
Istanbul 1959; translations: Erinnerungen eines 
turkischen Staatsmannes, Munich 1922, and 
Memories of a Turkish Statesman igi3-igig, 
London, n.d.) are largely an apologia for his 
conduct in Syria, as is the "red book" La viriti sur 
la question syrienne, Istanbul 1916, issued by the 
Fourth Army; for the Arab point of view, see 
especially George Antonius, The Arab Awakening, 
London 1938, 150-52, 185-90, 202-3. On the war 
years in Syria much information will he found in 
the memoirs of his chief of staff Ali Fuad Erden, 
Birinci Diinya Harbinde Suriye hdhralan, i, 
Istanbul 1954. The most detailed and reliable 



532 



DJEMAL PASHA — DJEKlD 



account of Djemal's last three years is provided 

by his comrade-in-arms of his Syrian days, Ali 

Fuat Cebesoy, Moshova hdhralan, Istanbul 1955, 

48-50, 57-8, 274-99. Djemal's archaeological 

interests are reflected in his book Alte Denkmdler 

aus Syrien, Paldstina, und West-Arabien, Berlin 

1918. (D. A. Rustow) 

DJEMALl EFENDI [see djamalI efendi]. 

EJEM C IYYET-I C ILMIYYE-I 'OTHMANIYYE. 

the Ottoman Scientific Society, was founded in 

Istanbul in 1861 by Munlf Pasha [q.v.]. Modelled on 

the Royal Society of England, and perhaps inspired 

by the reopening of the Institut d'Egypte [q.v.] in 

Alexandria in 1859, it consisted of a group of Turkish 

officials, dignitaries and scholars, some of them 

educated in Europe. It was the third such learned 

society to appear in 19th century Turkey, having 

been preceded by the Endjiimen-i Danish in 1851 

(see andjuman), and by the 'learned society of 

Beshiktash' in the time of Mahmud II (see Djewdet, 

Ta'rikh*, xii, 184; Lutfl, 168-9,; Djewad, 69, n. 1.; 

Mardin, 229 ff.). The Ottoman Scientific Society 

arranged public lectures and courses on premises 

assigned to it by the government, where there was 

also a reading-room with a small library. Its most 

important achievement, however, was the publication 

of the Medimu'a-i Fttniin, the first scientific periodical 

in Turkish, published monthly and circulated with 

official support. Besides the natural sciences, history 

and geography, politics, economics and philosophy 

figured largely in the pages of the journal, which 

introduced its readers to classical and European 

achievements and writings in these fields, and to the 

scientific, non-dogmatic study of scientific and 

philosophical problems. Its role in Turkey has been 

likened by Ahmed Hamdi Tanpinar to that of the 

Grande Encyclopedic in 18th century France. It was 

of brief duration. During the cholera epidemic of 

1865 the journal was compelled to cease publication, 

and after a brief resumption some years later was 

finally suppressed in 1882 by Sultan <Abd al-Hamid II. 

Bibliography: Mahmud Djewad, Ma'-drif-i 

c Umumiyye Nezdreti ta'rikhle-i teshkildt we idird'dtl, 

Istanbul 1339, 69-72; Schlechta-Wssehrd, Ueber 

den neugestifteten tiirhischen Gelehrten-Verein, in 

ZDMG, xvii (1863), 682-4; cf. ibid. 711-4; Ali 

Fuad, Muni) Pasa, in Turk tarih encumeni mec- 

muast, n.s. i/4, 1930, 5-6; A. H. Tanpinar, XI X 

asir Tiirk edebiyah tarihi 2 , Istanbul 1956, 151-4; 

A. Adnan-Adivar, Interaction of Islamic and 

western thought in Turkey, apud T. Cuyler Young, 

(ed.), Near eastern culture and society, Princeton 

1951, 124-5; B. Lewis, The emergence of modern 

Turkey, London 1961, 431-2; V. A. Gordlevsky, 

Izbrannle Solineniya, ii, Moscow 1961, 366-8; 

S. Mardin, The genesis of Young Ottoman political 

thought, Princeton 1962, 238-40. (B. Lewis) 

EJEMSHlD [see djamshid]. 

DJENDERELI [see djandarl!]. 

DJENNE [see dienne]. 

DJERBA [see djarba]. 

PJERlD. the wooden dart or javelin used in the 
game of Djerid, i.e., Dierid Oyunu in Turkish and, 
in the Arabic of Egypt, La'b al-Djerid — a game 
which was popular and widespread in the Ottoman 
empire of the ioth/i6th-i3th/igth centuries. The 
actual form of the djerid or wooden javelin varied 
somewhat in the different parts of the empire; its 
length, moreover, seems to have ranged in general 
between '/« and i x / 2 metres (von Oppenheim, 598-9). 
The djerid, in Egypt, consisted of a palm branch 
stripped bare of its leaves, such being indeed the 



original sense of the Arabic word dfarid. At the 
court of the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul the game 
of Djerid was much in evidence and never more so 
than in the second half of the nth/i7th century. It 
afforded to the pages of the Sultan and to the 
other personnel of the court an admirable opportunity 
to show their physical prowess and dexterity. The 
Djerid Oyunu was in fact a mock battle in the course 
of which horsemen threw darts at one another, each 
participant in the game being now the pursuer and 
now the pursued. Some of the sources declare that 
the Djerid horsemen sought, during their mounted 
evolutions, to gain possession of the darts thrown 
earlier in the game and carried for this purpose thin 
canes curved at one end (Hobhouse, 634). At 
Istanbul large numbers of the court personnel often 
engaged in the Djerid Oyunu — indeed rival "fac- 
tions" existed under the names of LahanadjI (cabbage 
men) and Bamyadjl (gumbo men). The game of 
Dierid demanded a high degree of skill in horseman- 
ship and in the throwing of the javelin or dart 
(Guer, Mceurs et usages des Turcs, ii, 252 gives an 
interesting account of the methods followed in order 
to acquire proficiency in this latter art.). It meant 
also for the participants a considerable risk of serious 
wounds and even of death, since the head was a 
common target of attack. The Djerid Oyunu was 
abolished at Istanbul in the reign of Sultan Mahmud 
II (1223-55/1808-39) after the suppression of the 
Janissaries in 1241/1826, but it survived long there- 
after in the provinces as a game popular amongst 
the mass of the people. 

Bibliography: Hafiz Khidr Elyas, TaMkh-i 
enderun, Istanbul A.H. 1276,6, in ff., 389 ff.; 
<Ata, Ta\rikh, Istanbul A.H. 1291, 31ft., 127 ff., 
177 ff.; S. Gerlach, Tage-buch, Frankfurt am Main 
1674, 312 (according to von Oppenheim, 599, the 
oldest Western account of the Djerid Oyunu) ; La 
Boullaye Le Gouz, Voyages et observations, Paris 
1657, 291; J.-B. Tavernier, Nouvelle relation de 
I'interieur du Serrail du Grand Seigneur, Paris 1675, 
69-71; G. Bremond, Descrittioni esatte dell'Egitto 
.... tradotta dal Francese dal Sig. Angelo Riccardi 
Ceri, Rome 1680, lib. ii, cap. 29; Reizen van 
Cornelis de Bruyn, door .... Klein Asia .... 
Aegypten, Syrien en Palestina, Delft 1698, 136 ff.; 
J. A. Guer, Mceurs et usages des Turcs, Paris 1747, 
ii, 218, 252; C. F. de Volney, Voyage en Syrie et 
en Egypte, pendant les annees 1783, 1784 et 1785, 
Paris 1787, i, 160-2; G. A. Olivier, Voyage dans 
Vempire Othoman, VEgypte et la Perse, Paris 1801-7, 
i, 52-3; W. Wittman, Travels in Turkey, Asia 
Minor, Syria and .... Egypt during the years 1799, 
1800, and 1801, London 1803, 35, 125, 208-9; 
J. C. Hobhouse, A journey through Albania and 
other provinces of Turkey in Europe and Asia, to 
Constantinople, during the years 1809 and 1810, 
London 1813, 633-5; J. B. Schels, Militar = Ver- 
fassung des turkischen Reiches. Im Jahre 1810 .... 
dargestellt (= Oesterreichische militdrische Zeit- 
schrift, Zweyte Auflage der Jahrgange 1811 und 
1812, Zweyter Band, Vienna 1820, 207-350), 
279-8i; J. J. Morier, Ayesha, The Maid of Kars 
(Standard Authors, no. 100), 133 ff. (a detailed 
description of the Djerid Oyunu); Journal et 
correspondance de Gidoyn "Le Turc", ed. A. Boppe, 
Paris 1909, 126; E. W. Lane, Manners and customs 
of the modern Egyptians, London 1895, 362-3 (an 
account of the Djerid game as played amongst the 
peasants of Upper Egypt); M. von Oppenheim, 
Der Djerid und das Djerid-Spiel, in Islamica, ii/4, 
Leipzig 1927, 590-617; B. Miller, The curriculum 



DJERID — DJEZA'IRLI GHAZl HASAN PASHA 



533 



o] the palace school of the Turkish sultans, in 
MacDonald Presentation Volume, Princeton, New 
Jersey 1933, 303-24 (Djerid = ibid. 321-3) and 
also The palace school oj Muhammad the Con- 
queror (Harvard Historical Monographs, XVII), 
Cambridge, Mass., 1941, 120-3; N. M. Penzer, The 
harlm, London 1936, 69-70; Halim Baki Kunter, 
Eski Turk sporlart iizerine arastirmalar, Istanbul 
1938, 47 ff. ; Eremiya Celebi Komiirciiyan, Istanbul 
tarihi. XVII.asirda Istanbul, ed. H. D. Andreasyan 
Istanbul Universitesi Edebiyat Fakiiltesi Yayin- 
lan, no. 506), Istanbul 1952, 98 ft.; Metin And, 
Kirk gun kirk gece, Istanbul 1959, 192-3 (quoting 
from the Surname of Huseyn Wehbi (d. 1148-9/ 
1736) : cf. Metin And, op. cit., 199). (V. J. Parry) 
DJEWDET, <Abd Allah (Abdullah Cevdet) 
Turkish poet, translator, politician, free-thinker and 
publicist. He was born of the Kurdish family of the 
'Umar Oghullari, at 'Arabgir, on 3 Djumada II 
1286/9 September 1869. Having completed his 
studies at the military school at Ma'muret el- c Aziz 
(Elazig), he came to Istanbul about the age of 15 to 
attend the Army Medical School. There, in May 1889, 
he became a founder-member of the Ottoman Society 
for Union and Progress. 

By 1891 he had published four small volumes of 
poetry, the second of which opened with the well- 
known NaH-i Sherif in praise of the Prophet, which 
more than once during his stormy career swayed 
officialdom in his favour. In 1892 he underwent a 
brief spell of imprisonment for his political activities, 
and in 1896 was exiled to Tripoli. Becoming involved 
with the local branch of Union and Progress he was 
again imprisoned, but after his release succeeded 
in escaping from Tripoli and making his way to 
Geneva (September 1897), where he worked for the 
Young Turk fortnightly 'Othmdnli. In 1899 he was 
induced to accept the post of medical officer to the 
embassy in Vienna: by thus taking service under 
<Abd al-Hamid he debarred himself for life from 
attaining office under the Young Turks. 

Yet so far was he from abandoning his revolution- 
ary activities that in September 1903 he was dis- 
missed from his post and forced to leave Austria. 
Returning to Geneva, he put all he possessed into 
founding the Imprimerie Internationale, which on 
1 September 1904 produced the first number of 
Idjtihdd, a periodical devoted to the cause of political, 
intellectual, religious and social liberty, which 
Djewdet was to edit, albeit with interruptions, for 
almost 30 years. In the same year he began publi- 
cation of the series known as Kiitiibkhdne-i idjtihdd, 
in which many of his own works appeared and 
which he controlled until his death. 

Among his works published about this time were 
Kafkasyadaki Miislilmanlara Beydnndme, an appeal 
to the Muslims of the Caucasus to fight against 
Russian absolutism, and translations of Byron's 
Prisoner of Chillon and Alfieri's Del principe e delle 
lettere. 

Within a few months the Turkish ambassador in 
Paris brought about Djewdet's expulsion from 
Switzerland. After a short stay in France, during 
which the Ottoman government sentenced him, in 
his absence, to life-imprisonment, loss of civil rights 
and confiscation of his property, he moved on to 
Cairo (late 1905), where he remained till mid-1911, 
working as an oculist while continuing his political 
and publishing activities. He joined the Young 
Turk Decentralist party and maintained an incessant 
output of pamphlets against the Sultan and, for a 
short while only, against the Ottoman house in 



general. Regarding c Abd al-Hamid as an incorrigible 
despot, he was not impressed by his acceptance of 
the Constitution in 1908, but in this matter Djewdet's 
was a lone voice. 

In July 1909, after the Sultan's abdication, 
Idjtihdd ceased publication in Cairo, reappearing in 
June 191 1 in Istanbul, where Djewdet had taken up 
residence. But his troubles did not end with the 
abdication. In February 1910 the Young Turk 
cabinet of Ibrahim Hakki Pasha banned 'the 
History of Islam by <Abd Allah Djewdet Bey, 
which is directed against the Muslim faith', though 
it was Dozy's original and not Djewdet's preface 
to his translation of it which most offended the 
authorities. He was imprisoned for a month in 
the winter of 1912, after the Turkish defeats in the 
Balkan war. His attacks on the official theologians 
in the pages of Idjtihdd led to its temporary suspen- 
sion in 191 3 and to a compulsory change in its 
title on three occasions in 1914. Djewdet's opposition 
to Turkish participation in the First World War 
caused the periodical to be suppressed again, from 
13 February 1915 to 1 November 1918. Meanwhile 
he published several non-political works, among 
them his edition and translation of the RubdHyydt-i 
Khayyam. 

During the grand-vizierate of Damad Ferid Pasha 
he twice served as director-general of public health. 
But he again brought himself into conflict with the 
authorities by an article which he wrote in favour 
of Baha'ism; in April 1922 he was sentenced to 2 
years' imprisonment for blasphemy (enbiydya (a'n), 
but the legal argument dragged on till December 
1926. In the result he was discharged and the crime 
itself was dropped from the new Turkish code. Ha 
died on 29 November 1932, working to the end. 

His published works, original and translated, 
number over 60. Among his translations are six of 
Shakespeare's plays: although all but Antudn we 
KWopdtra suffer through being made from French 
versions, they are by no means without merit. He 
deserves great credit also for making the modern 
study of psychology known to his compatriots. 

The long article on djewdet by K. Siissheim in 
EI 1 (Suppl.), on which the present article is based, 
gives a complete list of his works and a bibliography, 
to which may be added: Enver Behnan Sapolyo, 
Ziya Gokalp, tttihat ve Terakki ve Mesrutiyet tarihi, 
Istanbul 1943, 30, 49-50, 70; Ahmed Bedevl Kuran, 
inkildp tarihimiz ve Jon Turkler, Istanbul 1945; 
idem, inkildp tarihimiz ve ittihad ve Terakki, Istan- 
bul 1948; E. E. Ramsaur, Jr., The young Turks, 
Princeton 1957; B. Lewis, The emergence of modern 
Turkey, London 1961. (G. L. Lewis) 

EJEWDET PASHA [see ahmad djewdet pasha]. 

DJEZA'IRLI QHAZl IJASAN PASHA, one ol 
the most famous kapudan pashas (Grand Admirals) 
of the Turkish navy. He was born in Tekfurdaghl 
(Rodosto) on the Sea of Marmora, where he is said 
to have been a slave in the service of a Muslim 
merchant; on being set free, he took part as a 
janissary in the campaign against Austria in 1737-39. 
At the end of the war he went to Algiers where he 
was received by the Deys and in the end was 
appointed beg of Tlemcen. Some time afterwards, 
to escape from the persecution of the Dey of Algiers, 
he took refuge in Spain. In 1760 he returned to 
Constantinople and was put in command of a 
warship by Sultan Mustafa III. In 1180/1766-7 he 
obtained command of the kapudana (admiral's 
flag-ship) and in 1770 took part in the naval war 
against Russia in the Mediterranean. At the nava 



534 



DJEZA'IRLI GHAZl HASAN PASHA - 



battle of Ceshme [q.v.] the kapudana of which he was 
in command caught fire while an attempt was being 
made to board the Russian flag-ship, and both 
ships blew up; Hasan Beg, although wounded, 
swam to safety. He then reached the Dardanelles 
and from there embarked on a daring manoeuvre, 
as a result of which he succeeded in capturing from 
the Russians the island of Lemnos which they had 
previously occupied (10 October 1770). For this 
brilliant feat he was awarded the title of Ghdzi and 
the position of kapudanpasha. In 1773 and 1774 he 
took part, as ser'asker of Ruscuk, in the continental 
war against Russia; after the signature of the 
Treaty of Kaynardja (17 July 1774) he once again 
held the office of kapudanpasha. During the following 
years (1775 and 1776) he brought to an end the 
domination of Shaykh Zahir al- c Umar [q.v.] and his 
sons over 'Akka; in 1778, when disputes with Russia 
over the Crimea gave rise to fears of a new war, he 
conducted a naval demonstration in the Black Sea; 
but in fact it entirely failed to achieve its purpose 
and resulted in the loss of several large ships which 
ran aground or were involved in various accidents. 
In 1779 he was sent to the Morea and drove out the 
hordes of Albanians who had settled there after the 
withdrawal of the Russian fleet. He was made 
responsible for governing the Morea while continuing 
to hold the position of kapudanpasha; and in 1780 
he crushed the revolt of the Ma'inots. In the years 
that followed he took an important part in the 
government of his country. On three separate 
occasions (in 1781, 1785 and 1786), though for short 
periods only, he was entrusted with the Grand 
Vizierate in the capacity of kdHmmakdm. His second 
tenure of the Grand Vizierate followed the fall of 
his rival Khalil Hamid Pasha (31 March 1785) whom 
he had denounced to Sultan 'Abd al-Hamid I as the 
instigator of a plot to depose the sultan and replace 
him by the crown prince Selim. At the same time he 
carried out a reorganization of the navy, built the 
first barracks for the crews of the fleet (1784) and 
organized the upkeep of the forts on the Bosphorus, 
at the entry into Black Sea. In the years 1786 and 
1787 he was given the task of restoring the Porte's 
control over Egypt which, under the Mamluk begs 
Murad and Ibrahim, had become virtually indepen- 
dent. Though with only inadequate forces, he 
advanced to Cairo, set at liberty Yegen Mehmed 
Pasha who was imprisoned there (8 August 1786) 
and routed the rebel begs; but in the autumn of 
1787, while still engaged in restoring order in Egypt, 
he was recalled on account of the threat of war with 
Russia. When hostilities broke out, he was ordered 
to relieve the siege of Oczakov; with this aim, he 
engaged in several naval battles with the Russians 
in June 1788, in the vicinity, but in each case 
without success; he did contrive to send troops and 
supplies of food into the town, but he was unable 
to force the Russians to raise the siege. After losing 
several ships in a storm, he returned to Constanti- 
nople at the beginning of December 1788. On 
7 April 1789 his patron Sultan c Abd al-Hamid died. 
The new sultan, Selim III, dismissed Djeza'irli 
Hasan Pasha from the office of kapudanpasha and 
appointed him ser'-asker of Isma'il. After the Grand 
Vizier had suffered a severe defeat near Martineshti 
(22 September), Hasan Pasha who had just driven 
back a Russian army from the fortress of Isma'il 
received the seal of office as Grand Vizier and Com- 
mander-in-chief of the forces (end of November). 
He spent the winter at Shumla and there carried 
on negotiations with Prince Potemkin. Some days 



after giving orders to leave winter-quarters he 
fell ill and on 14 Radjab 1204/30 March 1790 he 
died, perhaps poisoned by order of the Sultan. He 
was buried in the Bektashi convent which he had 
himself built outside the gates of Shumla. 

Djeza'irli GhazI Hasan Pasha was distinguished 
in a quite remarkable way from other commanders 
of his time by his personal bravery: his missions 
to Syria, the Morea and Egypt show not only his 
military skill but also a political clear-sightedness 
which was rare at that period. Although his two 
expeditions in the Black Sea in 1778 and 1788 failed 
on all counts, he at least had the merit of rebuilding 
the fleet which had been destroyed at the battle 
of Ceshme and of inaugurating the work of reorganiz- 
ing the Turkish navy with the help of European 
technicians, a task which was to be continued by 
Kiiciik Huseyn Pasha [q.v.]. His complicity in the 
fall and death of Khalil Hamid Pasha, though a 
proof of his own fidelity to his master, was never- 
theless a dastardly action which delayed the revival 
of the Empire. 

Bibliography: Ahmed Djawid, Hadikat al- 
wuzarP, App. II, 41 ff. ; Aywansarayi Huseyn, 
Hadikat al-d±awdmi'- , ii, 28 ff.; Djewdet, Ta'rikh*, 
i-v; Ghazawdt-i Ghdzi Hasan Pasha, MS. Suley- 
maniye Kiituph. Es c ad Ef. no. 2419 (for other 
MSS. : Agah Sim Levend, Gazavdt-ndmeler, Ankara 
1956, 153 ff.) see also Erclimend Kuran, Gazavat-i 
Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Pasa'ya dair in TD, xi, 
i960, 95 ff.; Hammer- Purgstall, viii; idem, Staats- 
verfassung . . ., ii, 350 ft.; Zinkeisen, vi; W. Eton, 
A Survey of the Turkish Empire 3 , London 1801, 
79 ff.; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Cezayirli Gazi Hasan 
Pasa'ya dair, TM, 1940-42,17 ff.; idem, Osmanh 
Tarihi, Ankara 1959, iv/2, 446ft.; IA, s.v. (by 
Uzuncarsih). (J. H. Mordtmann-[E. Kuran]) 
DJIBAL, plural of the Arabic djabal (mountain 
or hill), a name given by the Arabs to the region 
formerly known as Mdh (Mdda, Media), which they 
also called 'Irak 'Adjami, to distinguish it from 
Arabian 'Irak, i.e., Lower Mesopotamia. The pro- 
vince came by its name of Djibal because it is, 
except in its north-eastern portion, extremely 
mountainous. It was bounded in the east by the 
great desert of Khurasan, on the south-east by 
Fars, on the south by Khuzistan, on the west and 
south-west by Arabian 'Irak, on the north-west by 
Adharbaydjan and on the north by the Alburz 
range. The boundaries were never well defined and 
therefore underwent frequent changes. According to 
Istakhri (203) and Ibn Hawkal (267) there were 
antimony mines at Isfahan. Owing to the altitude, 
the climate is in general cold and there is much 

Bibliography: Yakut, ii, 15 (= Barbier de 
Meynard, Diet, de fc Perse, 151); A. F. Mehren, 
Manuel de la cosmographie, 248 ; Mukaddasi, 384 ; 
General Sir A. Houtum-Schindler, Eastern Persian 
Irak (Royal Geographical Society publication, 
London 1896); Le Strange, 185 ff. 

(L. Lockhart) 
al-DJIBAL, name formerly given by Arab 
authors to that portion of Arabia Petrea 
situated directly south of the WadI al-Hasa, an 
affluent of the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, 
which from its lofty summits (rising to 1400 or 
1600 m.) dominates the depression of the Wadi al- 
'Araba [q.v.], the southern prolongation of the Jordan 
Fault. This important mountain system, continued 
afterwards by that of al-Sharat [q.v.] with which 
it is often confused, thus corresponds to the broken 



l-DJIBAL — DJIBtJTl 



535 



border of the steppe desert, in a region where the 
Transjordan plateau perceptibly rises. Its tortuous 
relief, which makes it appear almost like a wall 
coloured with granites and porphyries on the east 
of Palestine, opens however by deep gashes on to 
the basin of the Dead Sea which receives most of 
the water of its streams, and for long supported by 
exports of bitumen the traffic of its commercial 
routes. It was always a region of communication, the 
strategic importance of which was plain at the time 
of the defence of the Roman limes against the 
invasions of the nomads, and at the time of the 
struggles between the Franks of Palestine (fortress 
of Montreal or al-Shawbak built by Baldwin I in 
1115) and the Muslim principalities of Egypt and 
Syria. But it was also, until the first centuries of 
Islam, a cultivated region where the relatively 
abundant springs permitted the development of 
small centres of settled population, still attested by 
numerous ruins although these have been little 
studied. 

In the Hellenic period this ancient land of eastern 
Edom, separated from the country of Moab by the 
traditional frontier of the Wadi' al-Hasa already 
mentioned, had -seen the growth of Nabataean power, 
the apogee of which must have marked the first 
period of Arab penetration to the borders of Palestine. 
We know that some sites of Gebalene like Bosra, 
the former Mibsar identified with the present-day 
village of Busayra to the south of al-Tafila, are 
reckoned among the localities of the caravan 
kingdom of Petra. The same territory thereafter 
became part of the province of Arabia, the frontier 
marches which Trajan had substituted, in 106, for 
the Nabataean kingdom and which must then have 
gradually lost, to Palmyra's advantage, its monopoly 
of wealth of merchant origin. In 295 new adminis- 
trative changes rejoined Gebalene to Palestine, an 
enormous province which was divided first into two 
and later into three departments in the second half 
of the 4th century. It was thus to the Third or 
Salutary Palestine that belonged, according to the 
Byzantine lists, the towns of Metrocomia (al- 
Tafila), Mamopsora (Busayra), Arindela (al- c Arandal) 
and the military post of Rabatha (the former 
Rehoboth near the Wadi al-Rihab), all townships 
whose location can today only be established with 
difficulty, but whose importance seems to have 
been maintained at the very beginning of Muslim 
domination. 

In fact the names of 'Arandal (Arindela), provided 
by al-Ya'kubi, and of Ruwath (Robatha), given by 
Ibn Hawkal (113), are generally found in the early 
Arab geographers mentioning the capital of the 
canton of al-Djibal (according to the authors a 
canton of the djund of Damascus or of the djund 
of Filastin) and distinguishing this district from 
Ma'ab (capital: Zughar) and from al-Sharat (capital: 
Adhruh). Such a distinction, which Ibn Khurradadh- 
bih also observes in his enumeration of the Syrian 
cantons, was not long in becoming blurred, doubtless 
because of the impoverishment and the progressive 
abandonment by its population of a region which 
had however been conquered without a struggle by 
Yazld b. Abi Sufyan and would have been able to 
continue to live on its former prosperity. Even al- 
MakdisI (145) knows only al-Sharat, to which he 
attributes Zughar as its capital and cites Ma c 3n and 
Adhruh as its principal towns, and Yakut does 
likewLe, locating the village of 'Arandal there. The 
term al-Djibal had then fallen into desuetude, and 
in the MamlOk period writers, such as al-Kalkashandi 



and al- c Umari, only mention, in the niyaba of al- 
Karak, the wildyas of al-Shawbak, Zughar and Ma'an, 
extending over all the southern part of the province 

Bibliography: F. M. Abel, Gdographie de la 
Palestine, Paris 1933-8, i, 15-6, 18, 69, 157, 283; 
ii, passim, esp. 287 (Bosra), 386 (Mibsar), 434 
Rehoboth), 479 (Thaiman/Teiman) ; Le Strange, 
Palestine, 28, 32, 35, 395; A. S. Marmardji, Textes 
gdographiques, Paris 1953, 43, 105; M. Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, La Syrie a I'dpoque des Mamelouks, 
Paris 1923, 129-34; A. Musil, Arabia Peiraea, 
Vienna 1907, ii; Briinnow and Domaszewski, Die 
Provincia Arabia, Strasbourg 1904-9, i; Baladhuri. 
Futuh, 126; BGA, indexes; Ya c kubi-Wiet, 174-5; 
Yakut, iii, 657 ( c Arandal). 

(J. Sourdel-Thomine) 
EJIBAYA [see c amil, bayt al-mAl, darIba, 

DJAHBADH, KHARADJ, etc.]. 

EJIBRlL [see pjabra'Il]. 

EJIBCTI (modern orth. Djibouti), a town ana 
port on the African coast of the Gulf of Aden, at the 
mouth of the Gulf of Tadjoura. The promontory, 
composed of four small madrepore reefs upon which 
the town is built, was called Ras Djabuti or GabutI, 
probably an Arabicized form of Gabod (in 'Afar: 
"the plateaux in wicker-work"), a name still used 
for part of the coast nearby. The territory of Djibuti 
was given to France in March 1885 by local notables 
of the c Ise, a Somali-speaking tribe who had taken 
the place of the 'Afar in that region during the 19th 
century and enjoyed independent status. 

The town and port were built up from nothing by 
France. The former was founded by governor 
Lagarde on 6 March 1888. In 1896 it officially 
replaced Obok as chief town of the French establish- 
ments in the Gulf of Aden. In 1897 work was started 
on the Franco-Ethiopian railway (completed in 1917) 
which connects Djibuti with Addis Ababa, the 
capital of Ethiopia (784 m.). The port very soon 
supplanted Zayla c and Tadjoura as the outlet for 
southern Ethiopia: possessing several deep-water 
docks, it is one of the leading ports on the east coast 

The population of Djibuti consists of 32,000 in- 
habitants, 28,000 of whom are Muslim. About two- 
thirds of the latter are Somalis ( c Ise, GadabbOrsi, 
Habar-Awwal and other Isak, and some Darod), 
mostly immigrants from the former Somaliland or 
Ethiopia; a quarter are of foreign extraction. In 
addition, there are about 5,000 Arabs, 2,000 of whom 
are of foreign extraction, from the Yemen and Aden 
Territory, and who hold an important position in 
commerce; about 3,000 c Afar, and a small number of 
Indian, Ethiopian and Sudanese Muslims. Arabic is 
the common language of the majority. 

For the territory known as French Somali Coast 
the Kadi of Djibuti, traditionally of Arab origin, is 
the leading religiou:- personage. A very great 
majority of the population belongs to the Shafi'i 
school; almost the only exception are some Zaydi 
Arabs. With the 'Afar and the Somali, custom 
C-dda and her, respectively) frequently takes prece- 
dence over the shari'a. The religious order most wide- 
spread in Djibuti and throughout the region is the 
Kadiriyya; the next, though only in Djibuti, is the 
Ahmadiyya which predominates in the Somali tribe 
of the Habar-Dja c lo. In addition to c Abd al-Kadir 
al-Djilani, whose maximal are numerous, various 
saints of either foreign or local origin are venerated 
almost everywhere; in the c Afar country the (false) 
tomb of a certain shaykh Abu Yazld, who is said to 



be Abu Yazid al-Bistaml [q.v.] dominates the Goda 
mountain. Besides the veneration of local inhabitants, 
pilgrims from the Arab and Somali regions sometimes 
visit it. In DjibutI there are eight large mosques 
(djdmi') of masonry, and several other smaller ones 
of lighter construction. Several Somali tribes or tribal 
groups ( c Ise, Izak, Darod) have dedicated small 
mosques or-oratories in the town to their eponymous 



Since 1957, through the application of the law of 
23 June 1956, DjibutI, an over-seas territory of the 
French Republic, is administered, under the tutelage 
of a Governor representing metropolitan France, by 
a Council of Government, and possesses a Territorial 
Assembly elected by universal suffrage. 

Bibliography: S. Vigneras, Une mission 
franfaise en Abyssinie, Paris 1897; Angoulvant 
and Vigueras, Djibouti, Mer Rouge, Abyssinie, 
Paris 1902; Martineau, La CSte Francaise des 
Somalis, Paris 1931; Jourdain and Dupont, 
D'Obock a Djibouti, Paris 1933; Aubert de la Rue, 
La Somalie francaise, Paris 1939; Deschamps, 
Decary, Menard, CSte des Somalis, Rdunion, Inde, 
Paris 1948; Trimingham, Islam in Ethiopia, 
London 1952; articles in Tropiques (Revue des 
Troupes Coloniales), Paris May 1955; Cahiers de 
I'Afrique et I'Asie, v, Mer Rouge, Afrique Orientate 
(Albospeyre, etc.), Paris 1959. (E. Chedeville) 
al-BJIDD wa 'l-HAZL "seriousness and joking", 
a common combination of antithetical terms which 
have a certain resonance in Muslim ethics and 
the Arabic literary genre known as adab. Although 
only the second of these words occurs in the 
Kur'an, without implication of any kind, while 
its antonym diidd and its synonym muzdh do 
not appear there at all, and although the Kur'an 
does not explicitly prescribe either serious behaviour 
or the avoidance of jocularity, Islam without 
necessarily inspiring sadness and tears in spite 
of its pessimistic view of this world here below, 
at least invites Believers seriously to consider the 
divine promises and threats and, during their life 
on earth, to prepare for the eternal life which awaits 
them. Thus, in contrast to the levity and care- 
free attitude of the heathen who, not believing 
in the immortality of the soul and the resurrection, 
are inclined to enjoy all worldly pleasures with 
impunity, in Islam there is found a gravity dictated 
by the constant anxiety to deserve the divine 
reward; if, furthermore, hilm [q.v.] is a fundamental 
basis of Islamic ethics, it implies in particular a 
dignity of attitude which excludes any possibility 
of giving way to laughter and joking. The recol- 
lection of the ridicule suffered not only by the first 
Muslims but also by God's earliest messengers 
inspires a distaste for mockery which moreover is 
forbidden by the Kur'an (XLIX, II), and even 
mere laughter, which is itself disapproved of; it 
is indeed God "who causes to laugh and causes 
to weep" (LIII, 44), but they will weep much in the 
other world who in this world have laughed a little 
(IX, 83/82); laughter is the behaviour of the enemies 
of God (cf. XXIII, 112/11; XLIII, 46/47; LIII, 60; 
LXXXIII, 29); however, the Believers will be 
rewarded in the hereafter, they will laugh and their 
faces will be bright and joyful (LXXX, 38-9). 

Conscious of the nobility and dignity of his 
religion, of the gravity of his most ordinary actions 
and the moderation which he must observe in all 
things the Muslim, when he does not consider himself 
compelled to shed countless tears [see bakka 3 ], 
accordingly feels that he must be essentially serious 



and must reject any conduct incompatible with the 
impassivity which hilm requires, above all laughter 
and jocularity. This feeling, based upon a narrow 
interpretation of Kur'anic ethics, finds an additional 
justification in a certain number of hodiths and 
memorable sayings which somewhat later authors of 
ethical works or popular encyclopaedias unfailingly 
collect together in special paragraphs. Thus al- 
Ghazali [Ihyd 3 , book xxiv) declares jocularity to be 
forbidden and blameworthy, and quotes various 
hadiths in support of his assertion, not, however, 
without tolerating a moderate joke; al-Ibshlhl 
(Mustatraj, ii, 308), immediately after the chapter 
concerning the prohibition of wine, devotes a 
paragraph to the forbidding of the joke, but does 
not fail to quote the favourable traditions at greater 
length and to repeat a certain number of droll 
anecdotes. 

Indeed, the defenders of the joke are not short of 
arguments; the basic ideas which would serve to 
justify complete condemnation are in fact con- 
tradicted by certain hadiths and reflections of wise 
Muslims, and it is easy to invoke the help of the 
Prophet himself who joked in various circumstances, 
as well as the pious forbears who hardly seem to have 
observed literally the Kur'anic provisions against 
laughter and jocularity. The instance of the great 
luftahd 3 of Medina is readily taken as a precedent, 
and one cannot forget the curious but explicable 
fact, from the ist/8th century in the Holy Cities, 
especially Medina, of the rise of an actual school of 
humourists whose profession it was to bring laughter 
and who helped to raise the amusing anecdote, the 
nadira [q.v.], to the rank of a literary form. 'Irak was 
not unaffected by this movement, and it is only 
necessary to glance through the Fihrist (Cairo ed., 
201 ff., 435) to get an idea of the wealth of collections 
of anecdotes, either signed or anonymous, in circu- 
lation as early as the time of Ibn al-Nadlm; it is very 
probable that, insofar as they have a historical exis- 
tence — and it is known that some of them did indeed 
exist — these entertainers and their aristocratic clients 
were scarcely embarrassed by prohibitions which 
others considered absolute. Collections of this kind, 
which certainly enjoyed a great vogue, have for the 
most part disappeared — like the imaginative writings, 
the richness of which is shown by the Fihrist — prob- 
ably as the result of puritanical reaction, but they have 
been partly absorbed in more recent collections, and 
the literature of adab has preserved extracts from 
them which testify to the enduring though unacknow- 
ledged taste of Arab readers for the anecdote that is 
piquant, not to say obscene and indecent. 

Apart from its moral aspect properly speaking, 
the comic element in fact raises a literary problem 
which al-Djahiz appears, once again, to have been 
the first to define clearly. Inheriting a religious and 
literary tradition of long standing, he was shocked 
by the needlessly stiff attitude of some of his con- 
temporaries, and from the start he set out to justify 
laughter, which he associated with life, and jocularity, 
stressing its advantages so long as it was not exag- 
gerated, and showing that Islam was a liberal 
religion which in no way enforced reserve and 
severity; from there he went on to attack the boredom 
bred by most writings which, in his opinion, were too 
serious, and he suggested a leavening of a little had 
in even the most severe speculations ; at times he did 
not hesitate to interrupt a learned argument to 
quote some anecdotes, at the risk of discrediting the 
rest of his work, but he succeeded in harmoniously 
blending together the serious and the comic in 



*. 'l-HAZL - DJIDJELLI 



537 



several of his writings, among which the Kitab al- 
Tarb? wa'l-tadwir is unquestionably the most 
perfect example; in a word, he wished the literary 
form of adab to instruct while it amused. On this 
point he seems to have been partially successful for 
he has many imitators in both West and East. 
Going still further he put into practice, although 
unknowingly, the motto castigat ridendo mores, and 
wrote the Kitab al-Bukhald' in which he used 
laughter as an element in a moralizing design; in 
this case, however, his success is more questionable, 
and Ibn al-Djawzi appears to be more or less the 
only other writer who tried to use laughter freely 
for a similar purpose (Akhbar al-ltamftd wa 'l-mughat- 
fattn, Damascus 1345, 2-3). In general, comic writings 
and even contemporary theatrical comedies (a 
comedy is called hazliyya) are never looked on as 
more than an agreeable diversion, without any 
moral significance. (Ch. Pellat) 

DJIDDA [see djudda]. 

DJIDJELLI (Gegel in Leo Atricanus; Zizeri, 
Zigeri-Gigerry, Gigeri in western writers), a coastal 
town in Algeria, 70 km. west of Bougie and 50 km. 
east of Collo. Geographical position 36 49' 54" N.- 
5° 44' 38" E. Population 21,200 inhabitants (1955). 

The ancient town of Djidjelli stood high up, where 
the citadel still stands, on a rocky peninsula which 
juts out between two bays, one to the west, small and 
very sheltered, the other lying to the east in a deep 
basin divided from the open sea by a line of reefs. 
The present town was built after the destruction of 
the Turkish town by an earthquake in 1856, and lies 
along the sea near to the large easterly bay. The 
port gains a certain importance from the export of 
cork which comes from the forests of the Little 
Kabylia. 

Djidjelli is of very ancient origin. The Phoenicians 
in fact established a trading post at this spot, named 
Idgil, which later passed into the hands of the 
Carthaginians. During the Roman period the colony 
of Idgilgili was included in Mauretania Caesariensis, 
eventually being restored to Setifian Mauretania in 
the time of Diocletian. It was the seat of a bishopric. 
It passed successively under the domination of the 
Vandals and Byzantines. When the Arabs became 
masters of the Maghrib, Djidjelli no doubt retained 
its independence. Ibn Khaldun tells us, in effect, that 
for the early centuries of the Hidjra it was in the 
hands of the Berber tribe of the Kutama, who 
inhabited the nearby mountains (Ibn Khaldun, 
Hist, des Berberes, tr. de Slane, i, 198). It seems, 

depopulated, since al-Bakri describes it as a town 
"now inhabited" {Description de VAfriquc septen- 
trionale, tr. de Slane, 193). According to this geo- 
grapher, some remains of ancient monuments still 
survived. The inhabitants exported copper ore from 
the surrounding mountains to Ifrlkiya and to other 
even remoter regions (al-Idrisi, III e climat, tr. De 
Goeje, 114). The Hammadids who had incorporated 
it in their kingdom had a castle built there. 

Like various other places on the coast of Africa, 
Djidjelli passed into the hands of the Christians in 
the 6th/i2th century. In 537/1143 George of Antioch, 
an admiral of Roger II of Sicily, seized the town and 
the castle. This situation remained unchanged until 
the overthrow of the tlammadid dynasty by c Abd 
al-Mu'min (547/1152). The Christians were then 
compelled by this prince to evacuate Djidjelli. 

After the break-up of the Almohad empire, 
Djidjelli fell to the Hafsids and on several occasions 
was the subjects of disputes between the kings of 



Bougie and Tunis. Taking advantage of these 
quarrels, the inhabitants succeeded in making 
themselves practically independent of both parties 
(Leo Africanus, ed. Epaulard, 362). They made 
their living by exporting barley, flax, hemp, nuts 
and figs which they sent to Tunis, Egypt and even to 
towns in Italy. The port there was crowded with 
Christian shipping from Naples, Pisa, Catalonia and 
Genoa. Genoese merchants were even given favoured 
treatment there. The commercial importance of 
Djidjelli declined however in the gth/isth century 
owing to the increase in piracy. 

At the beginning of the ioth/i6th century the 
Genoese, alarmed by the Spanish occupation of 
Bougie [see bi&taya], had Djidjelli occupied by a 
fleet commanded by Andreas Doria. But in the 
following year 'Arudj, who had been called in by the 
inhabitants, seized the Genoese fortress with the 
help of the Kabyle chief Ahmad b. al-Kadl and 
settled in Djidjelli. It was from there that he set out in 
918/1512 to lay siege to Bougie and, in 922/1516, to 
take Algiers [see 'arudj]. It was also there that 
Khayr al-Din came to seek refuge when defeated by 
the Kabyles, while his enemies ravaged Mitidja and 
made themselves masters of Algiers. He lived there 
from 926/1520 until 934/1527, making it the base 
for his fleet, and even thought of choosing Djidjelli 
as his capital. He gave up the idea after the capture 
of the Peiion at Algiers [see khayr al-dIn], but 
granted exemption from all taxes in kind to the 
people of Djidjelli, for themselves and their descen- 
dants, as a reward for their fidelity. 

Throughout the 16th century and the first half 
of the 17th, the Djidjelli seafarers continued their 
privateering, thus provoking reprisals from the 
Christian Powers. In 1020/1611 a Spanish fleet 
commanded by the marquis of Santa Cruz came and 
burnt the town. In 1074/1663 the French Government, 
on the advice of Admiral Duquesue and the engineer 
Clerville, considered setting up in Djidjelli a perma- 
nent base for the warships engaged in combating the 
Barbary corsairs. In the following year, a squadron 
under the orders of the duke of Beaufort disembarked 
at Djidjelli an expeditionary corps of 8,000 men 
commanded by the count of Gadagne. The French 
troops took possession of the town, almost without 
striking a blow, on 23 July 1664, and constructed 
entrenchments and fortifications at some distance 
from the shore. But, paralysed by the quarrels 
between their two leaders, they remained inactive in 
their positions and allowed the Algerians to bring 
up an army and to establish powerful batteries. 
Pulverized by the fire of the enemy's artillery, they 
were compelled to evacuate the town on 31 October 
1664 and with great difficulty they re-embarked, 



vith tl 



s of 2, 



e Turks 



As a guarantee against further attacks 
then established a permanent garrison ii 
It was, however, much too small to overawe the 
Kabyle tribes, and it remained penned in the citadel 
in a state of almost perpetual siege. The deys were 
only able to negotiate with the local inhabitants, 
from whom they had to obtain the wood required 
for ship-building, through the intermediary of 
marabouts belonging to one of the branches of the 
family of the Mokrani. One of them, al-HagM 'Abd 
al-Kadir, was appointed marabout of Djidjelli in 
1168/1755, and the office was inherited by his 
descendants. At this period Djidjelli seems to have 
regained some of its commercial activity. 

This relative prosperity was compromised by the 
Kabyle insurrection of 1803. The marabout Bu 



538 



DJIDJELLI — DJIHAD 



Dali (al-H3djdj Muhammad b. al-Harsh) attacked the 
town, and the Turkish garrison fled. Bu Dali pro- 
claimed himself sultan and entrusted the government 
of Djidjelli to one of his supporters with the title of 
agka. Sent with a squadron to punish the rebels, the 
ra'Is Hamldu bombarded the town, without result 
(1805). But shortly afterwards, having been mal- 
treated by the Kabyles, the inhabitants made their 
submission to the dey who set up a new garrison in 
the town. 

The fall of the Turkish Government in 1830 gave 
the people of Djidjelli their independence which they 
kept until 1839, when the sack of a French trading- 
post made Marshal Valee, the Governor-General of 
Algeria, decide to have the town occupied, on 13 May 
1839. But the garrison, having no communications 
with the hinterland, remained besieged by the 
Kabyles until the moment when an expedition led 
by general Saint-Armand brought the tribes of the 
Little Kabylia to submission (1851). 

Bibliography: Feraud, Histoire des villes de 
la province de Constantine, Gigelli, Constantine 
1870; Watbled, Expidition du due de Beaufort 
contre Gigelli, in RA, 1873; Montchicourt, L 'ex- 
pedition de Djidjelli (1664), in Revue maritime, 
1898; P. Marcais, Textes arabes de Djidjelli, Paris 
1954; idem, Le parler arabe de Djidjelli (Sord 
Constantinois, Algerie), Paris 1956; A. Retout, 
Histoire de Djidjelli, Algiers 1927; Guide Bleu, 
Paris 1955. (G. Yver») 

DJIHAD etymologically signifies an effort 

(Cf. idjtihdd: the work of the scholar-jurists in 
seeking the solution of legal problems; mudjdhada 
or, again, djihdd: an effort directed upon oneself 
for the attainment of moral and religious perfection. 
Certain writers, particularly among those of ShI'ite 
persuasion, qualify this djihdd as "spiritual djihdd" 
and as "the greater djihdd", in opposition to the 
djihdd which is our present concern and which is 
called "physical djihdd" or "the lesser djihdd". It is, 
however, very much more usual for the term djihdd 
to denote this latter form of "effort"). 

In law, according to general doctrine and in 
historical tradition, the djihdd consists of military 
action with the object of the expansion of Islam and, 
if need be, of its defence. 

The notion stems from the fundamental principle 
of the universality of Islam: this religion, along 
with the temporal power which it implies, ought to 
embrace to whole universe, if necessary by force. The 
principle, however, must be partially combined with 

Islamic community itself, of the adherents of "the 
religions with holy books", i.e., Christians, Jews and 
Madjus [q.v.]. As far as these latter are concerned the 
djihdd ceases as soon as they agree to submit to the 
political authority of Islam and to pay the poll tax 
(djizya [q.v.]) and the land tax (kharddj [q.v.]). As 
long as the question could still, in fact, be posed, a 
controversy existed — generally resolved by a nega- 
tive answer — on the question as to whether the 
Christians and Jews of the Arabian peninsula were 
entitled to such treatment as of right. To the non- 
scriptuaries, in particular the idolaters, this half 
measure has no application according to the opinion 
of the majority: their conversion to Islam is obligatory 
under pain of being put to death or reduced into 

In principle, the djihdd is the one form of war 
which is permissible in Islam, for, in theory, Islam 
must constitute a single community organized under 



a single authority and any armed conflict between 
Muslims is prohibited. 

Following, however, the disintegration of Muslim 
unity and the appearance, beginning in the middle 
of the 2nd/8th century, of an ever increasing number 
of independent States, the question arose as to how 
the wars which sprang up between them were to be 
classified. They were never included within the 
strict notion of djihdd — even in the case of wars 
between states of different religious persuasion — at 
least according to the general SunnI doctrine; and it 
is only by an abuse of language that this term is 
sometimes applied to them, while those authors who 
seek for a precise terminology label them only as 
kitdl or mukdtala (conflict, war). There is even 
hesitation in referring to the struggle against the 
renegade groups in Islam as djihdd. The viewpoint 
of Shi'ite doctrine is not the same, for, according to 
the Shi c a, a refusal to subscribe to their teaching is 
equivalent to unbelief (kufr). The same holds good, 
a fortiori, for the Kharidjite doctrine [see further 

The djihdd is a duty. This precept is laid down in 
all the sources. It is true that there are to be found 
in the Kur'an divergent, and even contradictory, 
texts. These are classified by the doctrine, apart 
from certain variations of detail, into four successive 
categories: those which enjoin pardon for offences 
and encourage the invitation to Islam by peaceful 
persuasion; those which enjoin fighting to ward off 
agression; those which enjoin the initiative in attack, 
provided it is not within the four sacred months; and 
those which enjoin the initiative in attack absolutely, 
at all times and in all places. In sum, these differences 
correspond to the stages in the development of 
Muhammad's thought and to the modifications of 
policy resulting from particular circumstances; the 
Meccan period during which Muhammad, in general, 
confines himself to moral and religious teaching, and 
the Medina period when, having become the leader 
of a politico-religious community, he is able to 
undertake, spontaneously, the struggle against 
those who do not wish to join this community or 
submit to his authority. The doctrine holds that the 
later texts abrogate the former contradictory texts 
(the theory of naskh [q.v.]), to such effect that only 
those of the last category remain indubitably valid; 
and, accordingly, the rule on the subject may be 
formulated in these absolute terms: "the fight 
(djihdd) is obligatory even when they (the un- 
believers) have not themselves started it". 

In two isolated opinions, however, attempts were 
made to temper the rule in some respects. According 
to one of these views, attributed to c Ata (d. 114/ 
732-3), the ancient prohibition against fighting 
during the sacred months remains valid; while 
according to the other, attributed to Sufyan al- 
Thawri (born 97/715), the djihdd is obligatory only 
in defence; it is simply recommended (li 'l-nadb) 
in attack. According to a view held by modern 
orientalist scholarship, Muhammad's conception of 
the djihdd as attack applied only in relation to the 
peoples of Arabia; its general application was the 
result of the idjmd c (general consensus of opinion) of 
the immediately succeeding generations. At root, of 
course, this involves the problem as to whether 
Muhammad had conceived of Islam as universal 

The opinion of al-Thawri appears to have been 
adopted by al-Djahiz. The heterodox movement of 
the Ahmadiyya [q.v.], beginning towards the end 
of the 19th century, would go further than al- 



Thawrl inasmuch as it refuses to recognize the 
legitimacy of the diihad even as a recommended 
activity. Cf., in the same sense, the doctrine of 
Babism (see bab). 

According to the general doctine of the Shi'a, 
due account taken of their dogma concerning "the 
absence of the Imam", who alone has the necessary 
competence to order war, the practice of the diihad 
is necessarily suspended until the re-appearence of 
the Imam or the ad hoc appointment of a vicar 
designated by him for this task. The Zaydi sect, 
however, which does not recognize this dogma, 
follows the same teaching as that of the SunnI 

Characteristics of the duty of djihdd.The 
diihad is not an end in itself but a means which, in 
itself, is an evil (fasdd), but which becomes legitimate 
and necessary by reason of the objective towards 
which it is directed: to rid the world of a greater 
evil; it is "good" from the fact that its purpose is 
"good" (hasan li-husn ghayrih). 

A religious duty. The diihad has the effect of 
extending the sway of the faith; it is prescribed by 
God and his Prophet; the Muslim dedicates himself 
to the diihad in- the same way that, in Christianity, 
the monk dedicates himself to the service of God; in 
the same vein it is said in different kadiths that "the 
diihad is the monasticism of Islam"; the diihad is 
"an act of pure devotion"; it is "one of the gates to 
Paradise"; rich heavenly rewards are guaranteed for 
those who devote themselves to it; those who fall in 
the diihad are the martyrs of the faith, etc. A sub- 
stantial part of the doctrine reckons the diihad 
among the very "pillars" (arkan) of the religion, 
along with prayer and fasting etc. It is a duty which 
falls upon every Muslim who is male, free and able- 
bodied. It is generally considered that non-Muslims 
may be called upon to assist the Muslims in the 
diihad. 

A "collective" obligation (lard kijaya) in 
contrast to fard c ayn. The fard kijaya is that duty 
which is imposed upon the community considered 
as a whole and which only becomes obligatory for 
each individual in particular to the extent that his 
intervention is necessary for the realization of the 
purpose envisaged by the law. Thus, as soon as there 
exists a group of Muslims whose number is sufficient 
to fulfil the needs of a particular conflict, the 
obligation of the diihad no longer rests on 
the others. The general teaching is that the duty 
of diihad falls, in the first place, individually 
as a fard c ayn, upon those who live in the territory 
nearest to the enemy, and that the same holds good 
in the case of the inhabitants of a town which is 
besieged. In the organized State, however, the 
appreciation of the precise moment at which the 
diihad is transformed into an c ayn obligation is a 
matter for the discretion of the sovereign; so that, 
in the case of general mobilization, the diihad loses, 
for all the members of the community, its character 
of fard kijaya, and becomes, instead, fard c ayn. 

All this implies, however, that for those who hold 
the reins of authority and, in particular, the sove- 
reign, the diihad is always an individual duty, since 
their own personal action is necessary in every case. 
Where there are several independent Muslim states, 
the duty will fall upon the ruler of the state which is 
nearest to the enemy. 

Further, the duty of the diihad is relative and 
contingent in this dual sense that, on the one hand, 
it only comes into being when the circumstances are 
favourable and of such a nature as to offer some hope 



539 



ome, and, on the other hand, the 
fulfilment of the duty may be renounced in con- 
sideration of the payment by the enemy of goods 
reaching a certain value, if such policy appears to 
be in conformity with the interests of the moment. 

Its subsidiary character. Since the djihad is 
nothing more than a means to effect conversion to 
Islam or submission to its authority, there is only 
occasion to undertake it in circumstances where the 
people against whom it is directed have first been 
invited to join Islam. Discussion turned on the 
question as to whether it was necessary, on this 
ground, to address a formal invitation to the enemy. 
The general doctrine holds that since Islam is 
sufficiently widespread in the world, all peoples are 
presumed to know that they have been invited to 
join it. It is observed, however, that it would be 
desirable to repeat the invitation, except in cases 
where there is ground for apprehension that the 
enemy, thus forewarned, would profit from such a 
delay by better organizing his defences and, in this 
way, compromising the successful outcome of the 
diihad. 

Its perpetual character. The duty of the 
diihad exists as long as the universal domination 
of Islam has not been attained. "Until the day of 
the resurrection", and "until the end of the world" 
say the maxims. Peace with non-Muslim nations is, 
therefore, a provisional state of affairs only; the 
chance of circumstances alone can justify it tempo- 
rarily. Furthermore there can be no question of 
genuine peace treaties with these nations; only 
truces, whose duration ought not, in principle, to 
exceed ten years, are authorized. But even such 
truces are precarious, inasmuch as they can, before 
they expire, be repudiated unilaterally should it 
appear more profitable for Islam to resume the 
conflict. It is, however, recognized that such repu- 
diation should be brought to the notice of the 
infidel party, and that he should be afforded suffi- 
cient opportunity to be able to disseminate the news 
of it throughout the whole of his territory [see 

racter. The djihad has principally an offensive 
character; but it is equally a diihad when it is a case 
of defending Islam against aggression. This indeed, 
is the essential purpose of the ribat [q.v.] undertaken 
by isolated groups or individuals settled on the 
frontiers of Islam. The ribat is a particularly meri- 

Finally, there is at the present time a thesis, of a 
wholly apologetic character, according to which 
Islam relies for its expansion exclusively upon 
persuasion and other peaceful means, and the diihad 
is only authorized in cases of "self defence" and of 
"support owed to a defenceless ally or brother". 
Disregarding entirely the previous doctrine and 
historical tradition, as well as the texts of the 
Kur'an and the sunna on the basis of which it was 
formulated, but claiming, even so, to remain within 
the bounds of strict orthodoxy, this thesis takes 
into account only those early texts which state 
the contrary (v. supra). 

Bibliography : Damad Ef., Madima c al-anhur, 
ed. Ahmad b. 'Uthman, 1328/1910, i, 636 ff.; 
Dardir, al-Sharh al-saghir, with the gloss of 
Sawi, i, 398 ff.; Djahiz, RasdHl, ed. Sandiibi, 
Cairo 1933, 57; Farra', Ahkdm sulfdniyya, Cairo, 
25 ff.; Goldziher, SchiHtisches, in ZDMG, lxiv, 
531 ff.; Addison, The Ahmadiya movement, in 
Harvard Theological Review, xxii, 1 ff.; Ibn'Abidin, 



DJIHAD — DJ1LD 



Raid al-muhtdr, Istanbul 1314/1905, iii, 315 ff.; 
Ibn c Abd al-Rahman, Rahmat al-umma /* 'khtfldf 
al-aHmma, Cairo, 294 ; Ibn Djuma'a, Tahrlr al- 
ahkam, ed. Kofler, (in Islamica, 1934), 349 ff.; Ibn 
Kudama, Mughnl, 3rd. ed. Rashld Rida, Cairo 
I 367/ I 947. vui, 345ff.; Ibn Taymiyya, al-Siyasa 
al-sharHyya, Cairo 1322/1904, 156 ff.; Maraghi, 
al-Tashri c al-isldmi, Cairo, 24 ft.; MawardI, 
A hkam sultdniyya, Cairo, 30 f f . ; Querry, Recueil de 
lots concernant les musulmans chiites, Paris 1871, 
i, 321; Rashid Rida, Khildla. Cairo 1341/1922, 29, 
51; Sarakhsl, Mabsuf, Cairo, x, 35; Shafi'i, Kitdb 
al-umm, Cairo 1903, with the Muzani gloss, v, 
180 ff.; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet, Paris 
I 957, 578 ff.; Draz, Le droit international publii et 
I'Islam, in Revue igyptienne de droit international 
public, 1949, 17 ff.; Haneberg, Das muslimische 
Kriegsrecht (Abh. der kgl. Bayer. Akad. der 
Wissensch., 1870, philos.-philol. cl., xii. Bd., 
II. Abt.), 219 ff.; Juynboll, Handbuch 57, 335 ff.; 
Milliot, Introd. a I'etude du droit musulman, Paris 
1953, 22, 34; Sa'idl, al-Siyasa al-islamiyya, Cairo; 
Sanhoury, Le Califat, thesis, Lyon 1925, 146; 
Strothmann, Das Staatsrecht der Zaiditen, Stras- 
bourg 1922, 42 ff.; Muh. Shadid, al-Djihad fi 
'l-Isldm, i960; lA, art. Cihad (Halim Sabit Sibay). 

(E. Tyan) 
PjIHANGIR [see djahangIr]. 
EJILD. The use of leather (djild, adim) as a 
writing material is well known in the Near East. In 
Egypt it was used already in the Middle Kingdom; 
leather manuscripts are known from the empire of 
Meroe and Nubia to the south of Egypt, from 
Palestine and Persia. In the latter country the 
JJaaiXlxal 8iq>0epai— the Royal archives consisting 
of leather documents — were known to Ctesias (apud 
Diodorus Siculus, ii, 32, cf. daftar), and when 
the Persians conquered Egypt for a short time 
at the beginning of the 7th century A.D., they 
continued to write on leather here. The leather 
pieces found in Egypt and preserved in several 
European collections testify to this fact. When the 
Persians conquered Southern Arabia soon after 
570 A.D., they greatly encouraged the leather 
industry there; the South-Arabian leather was 
famous as a writing material of special delicacy and 
smoothness. But even before the Persian occupation 
of the Yaman, leather was known there as a writing 
material. The debenture of a Himyarite to the 
grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad, c Abd al- 
Muttalib b. Hashim, which was preserved in the 
treasury of the Caliph al-Ma'miin, was written on 
a piece of leather. Leather was thus well known to 
the Arabs even before Islam, and poets like al- 
Murakkish the Elder and Labid quote instances to 
this effect. Arabs even knew how to colour skins 
yellow with saffron, and later invented, in al-Kufa, 
an improvement on the treatment of skins, viz., they 
replaced quick-lime (which made the skins very dry) 
by dates, so that the skins became soft. We are told 
of numerous cases when the Prophet Muhammad 
wrote (or had written) on leather — e.g., gifts of lands 
and wells — and even pieces of the Revelation were 
written on it. His immediate successors, e.g., 'AH, 
followed this example. As a peculiarity it may be 
mentioned that the Caliph c Uthman is credited with 
a Kur'an, written on ostrich-skin and preserved in 
the £ Arif Hikmet Library in Medina (cf. ZDMG, 
xc, 1956, 102). During the Umayyad period leather 
was used among the Arabs as writing material; for 
example the poet Dhu '1-Rumma (d. H7/735-6) 
one of his Kasidas (Aghdni, xvi, m). 



A letter on leather, addressed in Arabic by the 
Soghdian ruler Diwashti to the governor Djarrah b. 
c Abd Allah about 100/719, was discovered in 1932 
in Zarafshan in Central Asia (cf. I. Yu. Krachkovsky, 
Among Arabic manuscripts, Leiden 1953, 142). This 
document was not a unique piece, for the book- 
collection of Muhammad b. al-Husayn, mentioned 
in Ibn al-Nadlm's Fihrist (40, 54), contained also 
leather pieces along with papers and papyri. Various 
documents on leather are preserved in different 
papyrus-collections; the oldest piece, a debenture in 
respect of a nuptial gift, dated 233/847, is in the 
possession of the Egyptian National Library in 
Cairo (Cat. Ta'rikh, n° 1871), the youngest, dated 
722 A.H., of the State Museum in Berlin. Special 
mention must be made of Kur'an-manuscripts 
written on antelope-skins, to which al-BIrunl refers 
in his Ta'rikh al-Hind (81). 

A special kind of leather is parchment (djild, 
warak, kirtds, rakk, rikk), refined from skins of 
sheep, goats and calves. It was known in Arabia 
already in the fifth century A.D., since the Him- 
yarite poet Kudam b. Kadim mentions it in his 
poem, and Labid speaks of "talking parchment" 
(tirs ndtik). firs means parchment from which the 
original text had been washed off and which then 
was written on again; such a tirs, bearing a Latin 
biblical fragment of the fifth century A.D. on one 
side and an Arabic legal text of the ist/7th century 
running across the Latin text on the other, is 
preserved in Florence. Such palimpsests are still rare. 
Parchment was used — among other materials — to 
write parts of the Revelation, and such scraps were 
found in the legacy of the Prophet. The use of 
parchment for sacred books was specific for the 
Hebrews, and the parchment T/iora-rolls were well 
known to the Arabs (cf. Bakri, Mu'djam, ii, 511, 
who quotes a verse of Djarir (d. 110/728)). Also the 
Prophet Muhammad used parchment on several 
occasions, and rakk as well as kirtds is mentioned in 
the Kur'an (VI, 7, L1I, 3). The collection of the Holy 
Book of Islam, arranged by Zayd b. Thabit, is also 
said to have been written on parchment (A. Sprenger, 
Das Leben und die Lehre des Muhammad, iii, p. xl). 
In the early Umayyad period parchment was 
preferred as a writing material along with papyri in 
Syria; in Egypt it was especially used for Kur'an- 
codices — as also in other Islamic countries — but 
only exceptionally for secular literary texts. In 
North Africa a depository of the Sidi c Ukba Mosque 
in al-Kayrawan furnished lately some hundreds of 
literary parchment manuscripts. In 'Irak parchment 
was predominantly used in the chanceries until the 
Barmakid al-Fadl b. Yahya b. Khalid replaced it 
by paper. A special precious kind of parchment was 
made of gazelle-skins. This gazelle-parchment was 
expensive but nevertheless mentioned several times 
in papyri, e.g., also in a magical text. The Egyptian 
National Library possesses several Kur'an manu- 
scripts written on gazelle-parchment (cf. Fihrist al- 
kutub aW-arabiyya al-mahfuza bi 'l-kutubkhdna al- 
Khediwiyya, i, Cairo 1892-93, 2). In Egypt parch- 
ment, made of skins of sheep, goats and calves, 
plays a very minor role in comparison with papyrus. 
The oldest parchment document hitherto known is 
dated 168/784; it formed part of the collection of 
the late German consul Todros Muhareb in Luxor. 
A specially precious kind of parchment was purple- 
coloured, well known from early Latin mediaeval 
manuscripts. The collection of F. Martin contained 
a beautiful bluccoloured parchment with exquisite 
Kufic script in gold, originally belonging to a 



Kur'an manuscript from the Mosque at Meshhed 
(Persia). 

Bibliography: A. Grohmann, Corpus Papy- 
rorum Raineri Archiducis Austria e, III series 
Arabica i/i, Vienna 1924, 51-8; From the World 0/ 
Arabic Papyri, Royal Society of Historical Studies, 
Cairo 1952, 44-9, 237; Einfuhrung und Chrestoma- 
thie zur arabischen Papyruskunde, i, Prague 1954, 
Monografie Archivu Orientalniho XIII, 71-72. 

(A. Grohmann) 
al-DJILDAK! [see supplement]. 
al-DJIlI [see <abd al-kadir al-siIlAnIJ. 
EJILLI^. the name of a pre-Islamic site famous 
for its abundant water and shady gardens, and often 
celebrated by Damascene poets who discovered this 
name in Hassan b. Thabit. It was there that the 
Ghassanid princes of the Djafnid branch venerated 
the tomb of one of their ancestors, and that they 
built what was, with the exception of Djabiya [q.v.], 
the most renowned of their dwellings. It was also no 
doubt the principal, if not permanent, place of 
encampment for their troops. About twelve kilo- 
metres south of Damascus, the place became a 
bddiya [see hira] to which Yazld b. Mu'awiya loved 
to go. When praising the beauties of this resort, the 
poet 'Arkala al-Dimashki called it "the languorous 
pupil of the eye of the world". 

The identification of this site is somewhat vague in 
the writings of Arab authors: according to some, it 
is a village in the Ghuta, where there is a statue of 
a woman from which a spring gushes forth ; for others, 
the name covers the whole group of districts of 
Damascus together with the Ghuta. Finally, some 
writers, among whom are the mediaeval geographer 
al-Dimashki and the polygraph al-Kalkashandi, who 
is the only one to use the spelling Diillak. attribute 
the name to Damascus itself; thus for instance 
Quatremere in his Histoire des Sultans Mamelouks 
always translates Djillik by Damascus. Yakut 
placed Djillik in the Ghuta, by which term we must 
understand all the cultivated land in the territory 
of Damascus, the southern boundary of which for 
administrative purposes was on the Djabal Kiswa. 
From the different texts at our disposal we can deduce 
the following topographical data : Djillik was situated 
to the south-east of Mount Hermon for, when coming 
from the south, one could see the "snow mountain" 
behind the town; it was not far distant from Bosra 
[q.v.]; through it passed the road from the Balka', as 
well as the road from Damascus to Cairo, crossing 
the hills at Djillik by the pass of the '■akdba of al- 
Shahura. 

Relying on these facts, R. Dussaud has shown that 
Djillik must be distinguished from Damascus and 
identified with Kiswa. These conclusions, although 
accepted by R. Devreesse, were not shared by 
H. Lammens who tried to fix the place in the south 
of Syria and, despite the philological difficulties of 
the change in the last syllable, identified it with 
Djillin in southern Hawran. In support of his theory 
Lammens quoted as evidence a gloss from De Goeje. 
The identification of Djillik with Kiswa is supported 
by the fact that on two occasions, in 12/633 and 
15/636, the Byzantines when fighting against the 
Muslim conquerors pitched camp at Djillik; now the 
only place south of Damascus where a strategic 
position for the defence of the town is to be found, 
and where, on many occasions throughout the 
centuries, armies have regrouped at the natural 
barrier (the thaniyya of al-Tabarl) formed by the 
Nahr al-A'wadj is precisely at Kiswa [q.v.]. 
We do not know at what date the name Djillik ! 



disappeared from Syrian toponomy. At the end of 
the Umayyad period it was still sufficiently alive for 
the Syrian conquerors of Spain to give the name to a 
spot renowned for its abundant supplies of water, 
not far from Sarragossa. 

Bibliography: Tabarl, i, 2081, 2107; Hassan 
b. Thabit, Diwan, ed. Hirschfeld, xiii, 4; Yakut, 
ii, 104-6 (Beirut ed., 154-5); De Goeje, Mi- 
moire stir la conquete de la Syrie', Leyden 
1900, 55-6; A. F. Mehren, Syrien og Palestina, 
Copenhagen 1862, 37-8; Le Strange, Palestine, 
258, 265, 424, 488; Ibn Battuta, i, 157, 192, 196; 
'Imad al-DIn al-Isfahani, Kharidat al-kasr, ii, 
ed. Sh. Faysal, 1959, 113, 338, 339; M. Kurd 
'All, Ghutat Dimashk, 1949, index; Quatremere, 
Histoire des Sultans Mamelouks, Paris 1837-45, 
ii 2 , 161 n. 19; Caetani, Annali, ii, 1224-5; ii', 
517; H. Lammens, Mo'-awiya I", Beirut 1908, 
379 n. 10, 442; R. Dussaud, Mission dans les 
regions disertiques de la Syrie Moyenne (1903), 
44 I_ 3 (39-4 1 ); idem, La pinitration des Arabes en 
Syrie, BAH, lix, 1955, 70; idem, Topographie 
historique de la Syrie, BAH, iv, 1927, 317, 320; 
M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie a Vipoque 
des Mamelouks, BAH, iii, 1923, 32, 49; R. 
Devreesse, Arabes Perses et Arabes Romains, in 



(N. Elisseeff) 
EJILLtSIYYA, Galicia, the north-west region of 
the Iberian peninsula, which now includes the 
four Spanish provinces of La Coruna, Lugo, Pon- 
tevedra and Orense. Arab geographers thought of 
al-Andalus as a triangle, one of the angles being 
fixed on the sea-coast at the end of the Cantabrian 
Cordillera; there they placed an image or monument 
which can be identified with the Tower of Hercules 
— situated on the promontory where the town of La 
Coruna stands — which, from Roman times, has 
served as a lighthouse. As Arab rule lasted for 
only a short time in this part, historians were not 
very familiar with its boundaries or topography. 
They made no distinction between Galicia and 
Asturias, and gave no clear definition of the eastern 
frontier, even putting it as far away as the country 
of the Vascones. They placed the Rock of Galicia and 
the mountain of Pelayo — Covadonga — in the sea. 
For al-Idrisi, the church of St. James of Compostella 
stood on a promontory in the Atlantic, and al-Rawd 
al-miHar speaks of the lighthouse castle — the Tower 
of Hercules ? — as being near Lugo, on the third 
angle of the triangle and near the church of St. 
James. In order to indicate the frontiers of Galicia 
they relied on the state of the country as they knew 
it at the time they were writing or as described by 
their sources, without taking their date into account. 
In this way they placed the south-west frontier in 
the Algarve, the old name of what is now Portugal, 
and gave Braga as the frontier, while at other times 
they spoke of the town of Viseo as the centre of Por- 
tuguese Galicia which extended to the Mondego. 
At the time when it was conquered, Lugo was 
looked upon as the capital and the whole of Galicia 
was occupied by the Berbers who, after being 
defeated by the Arabs and made desperate by famine, 
fled to Morocco, leaving Alfonso I to extend the 
territories of the Djillikiyya as far as the Duero. A 
state of war existed permanently between Galicia 
and Cordova, and military expeditions were halted 
only when the belligerents were compelled by 
disputes and internal difficulties to refrain from war. 
Al-Bakri, an Andalusian, writing in the middle of 
the 5th/uth century, is the Arab writer who indicates 



542 



DJILLIKIYYA — DJILWATIYYA 



most precisely the limits and divisions of the Djil- 
Hkiyya at his own time, that is to say when the 
kingdom of the Taifas was at its height. In the 
Kayrawan manuscript which the editor of al-Rawd 
al-mi c (dr cannot have known, he tells us that the 
ancients had already divided Galicia into four 
regions: the first lies to the west, curving round 
towards the north. Its inhabitants are Galicians and 
its territory is Galicia, properly speaking, reaching 
as far north as the town of Braga; the second is the 
region of Asturias which, according to him, takes its 
name from the river Ashtru, an unknown name which 
cannot be identified phonetically with the Nal6n, 
the principal river in Asturias; the third zone is 
south-west Galicia, and its inhabitants, owning only 
the small enclave between Braga and Oporto, took 
from the latter town the name "Portuguese"; the 
fourth zone, situated in the south-east, was called 
Castile and included two sub-divisions, Upper 
Castile corresponding with the kingdom of Leon 
and Lower Castile, at that time with fortresses at 
Grafion in the province of Logrofio, 25 km. from 
Najera, Alcocero on the Oca 30 km. from the same 
town, and lastly Burgos caput Castellae. Al-Bakrl 
was familiar with Constantine's division of the 
Peninsula into six zones; in the second of these 
zones, the centre of which was Braga and which 
included the region of the Galicians and Celts, he 
names Oporto, Tuy, Orense, Lugo, Britania — now 
Santa Maria de Bretonia, in the partido judicial of 
Mondoiiedo — Astorga, in the province of Leon, St. 
James of Compostella — which can only be the town 
of the Golden Church (Kanisat al-dhahab), although 
al-Bakri makes them two distinct towns — and 
lastly Iria — now Padr6n in the province of La 
Coruna — Bataca, an unidentified name, and Sarria, 
35 km. south of Lugo. Ibn <Abd al-Mun c im, following 
al-Bakri, describes Galicia as a country with flat, 
sandy ground while the inhabitants are depicted as 
unscrupulous warriors, highly primitive in their 
customs. On the other hand al-Makkari praises them 
for their beauty and remarks upon the good qualities 
of captives; but all are agreed in thinking their 
reckless courage equal or even superior to that of 
the Franks, and in striking contrast to the character 
of the Visigoths and Hispano- Romans before the 
Muslim invasion. 

Under the one name Djillikiyya Arab historians 
include the kingdoms of Asturias and Leon ; in their 
view, the kings of both are Galician, and the towns 
Galician also, Oviedo and Leon like Zamora and 
Astorga. Military expeditions by the Caliphate did 
not succeed in reestablishing a firm hold upon the 
territories south of the Duero which had been lost; 
and although c Abd al-Rahman III and al-hdd±ib al- 
Mansur were successful in imposing their authority 
over the kings of Asturias and Leon and making 
them their vassals, the victorious campaigns of the 
latter, which reached their apogee with the capture 
and sack of St. James of Compostella, completed the 
wide ring of devastating raids into the territories of 
the Great Djillikiyya; and very soon afterwards, 
when the Umayyad caliphate crumbled, it was these 
kingdoms, springing from the nucleus of Galicia, 
which carried the war into the Muslim territories 
and, under Alfonso VI, even captured Toledo. 

Bibliography: Ibn <Abd al-Mun c im al- 
Himyari, al-Rawd al-mi c (dr, ed. in part Levi- 
Provencal, 28, 66 and 185 in text, 35, 83, 223 and 
248 in the trans.; Ibn 'Idhari, Bayan, ii, passim; 
Makkari, AnalecUs, i, passim; Dozy, Recherches 3 , 
i, 89 ff. (A. Huici Miranda) 



According to al-Djurdjani who bases himself on 
Muljyi '1-DIn al-'Arabi (Dejinitiones, ed. Flugel, 80, 
294), djilwa is the name of the state in which the 
mystic is on coming out of the khalwa: filled with 
the emanations of divine attributes, his own per- 
sonality has disappeared and mingles with the 
being of God (cf. Guys, Un derviche Algiricn, 
203). 

One of the two sacred books of the Yazldis is called 
Kitab al-Diilma [q.v.]. (Cl. Huart) 

EJILWATIYYA (Turkish Djelwetiyye), the 
name of a tarika founded by Sheykh 'Aziz Mahmud 
Huda'i of Oskudar (Scutari, nr. Istanbul). The 
name is said to come from djalwa (leaving one's 
native country, emigrating), which, as a sufi term, 
denotes a creature's emergence from solitary with- 
drawal (khalwa) through contemplation of God's 
attributes and its annihilation in God's Being 
(Sayyld Sharif, Ta'rifdt, 3). An alternative or simul- 
taneous derivation from d±ilwa [q,v.], can also be put 
forward. The Djilwatiyya were a purely SunnI 
tarika, based on the dhikr [q.v.] of seven of the names 
(asmd') of God, known as "essential" or "root- 
names" (usul-i asmd?) to which five "branch-names" 
furu'-i asmd') were added (i.e., Wahhdb, Fattdh, 
Wahid, Ahad and Samad). The sheykh of the tarika 
prescribed to individual dervishes those names 
which they had to recite, a prescription which might 
be varied on the basis of dreams reported by the 
dervishes. Other devotional practices of the tarika 
included various supererogatory prayers and fasts. 
Djilwatis wore green turbans (tddj) made of 13 strips 
of material which were meant to symbolize the 12 
names of God and their transcendent unity (Isma'Il 
Hakki, Silsilandme-i Dplwatiyye, 1291 AH, 87). The 
centre (pir mak&mi) of the tarika was in the tekke in 
Oskudar where Mahmud Huda'I was buried. A 
second famous centre was the tekke in Bursa of 
Isma'il Hakki, the historian of the order and the 
author of the Turkish commentary Ruh al-bayan 
and of other treatises. 

According to Isma'Il Hakki (Silsilandme, 63) the 
practice of the dhikr of seven names derives from 
Sheykh Ibrahim Zahid GllanI (690/1291) through 
his pupil Shaykh Abu Ishak SafI al-Din Ardablll 
(735/1334-5). It was also the former who devised 
the practice (mashrab) of djalwa, as opposed to that 
of khalwa. Isma'Il Hakki adds that a Djilwatl who 
stops short at the withdrawal of khalwa should 
really be considered a KhalwatI, just as a Khalwati 
who has tasted the joy of djalwa (or djilwa) is really 
a Djilwatl (op. cit., 64). 

In any case the Djilwatiyya were an off-shoot of 
the Bayramiyya, although the spiritual filiation of 
Mahmud Huda'I to Hadjdjl Bayram is uncertain in 
places. In his treatise entitled Wdki'dt, Huda'I 
names as his sheykh Muhyi al-Din Uftade, who died 
in Bursa in 988/1580-1. The latter was, according 
to Isma'Il Hakki, the khalifa of Koturum (or 
Paralytic) Khidr Dede, also of Bursa, who was in 
turn a follower of Hadjdjl Bayram (op. cit., 76). 
Another tradition (Haririzade Kamal al-DIn, Tibyan 
was&Hl al-hakdHk ft bayan saldsil al-tardHk, Fatih 
Lib., Ibrahim Efendl Collection, Nos. 430-2. '. 
227b, 246a), the spiritual genealogy is from Hadjdjl 
Bayram to Ak Shams al-DIn to Hamd Allah Celebi 
to Uftade. 

According to c Ata1 (Shakd'ik-i nu'-mdniyye dheyli, 
64 ff., 358 ff., 760 ff.), Huda'I was born at 



DJILWATIYYA 



- DJlM 



543 



Seferi-Hisar. Meljmed Gulshen Efendi (Kulliydt-i 
fladrat'-i HuddH, 1338-40 A.H.) varies this to Sivri- 
Hisar and gives the date of birth as 950/1543-4, 
while both the Silsilandme and Tibydn agree on 
Koc-Hisar of Konya, the latter bringing the date 
of birth forward to 948/1541-2. Huda'I studied in 
Istanbul before becoming an instructor {muHd) at 
the madrasa of Sultan Selim in Edirne, from where 
he went to Syria and Egypt as assistant kadi (nd'ib). 
In Egypt he attached himself to one Karim al-DIn 
Khalwati. becoming himself a Khalwatl. He went 
next to Bursa where he was appointed mudarris at 
the Farhadiyya madrasa and na'ib at the Court of 
the Old Mosque (Djami'-i c AtIk). Tradition has it 
that it was at this time that he saw in a dream a 
vision of some people whom he considered righteous 
tormented in hell, and others in heaven whom he had 
thought sinners. He thereupon made his submission 
to .Sheykh Uftade. The Tibydn and the Kulliyat 
give the date of the conversion as 985/1577, the 
latter giving another version of the story, according 
to which Hudal first served Uftade for some three 
years and was then sent as the latter's khalifa to 
Sivri Hisar (op. cit., 4 ff.). Going later to Istanbul, 
Huda'I first settled in two rooms which he had 
built of stone next to the mastoid of Musalla in 
Camlldja, moving on first to a room near the mosque 
of Rum (the Greek) Mehmed Pasha and then to the 
present Djilwatiyya mosque and tekke which was 
built between 997/1589 and 1003/1595. He also 
preached and taught in other mosques, chief among 
them the Conqueror's mosque (Fatih Djami'i), 
where, according to Pecewi (Ta'rikh, 1283 AH, ii, 
36, 357) he was appointed preacher at the instigation 
of Sun< Allah, the kad'-asker of Rumeli. This, Pecewi 
says, was the beginning of his fame. He enjoyed the 
favour and the respect of the Sultan Ahmed I, owing 
these, according to the Silsilandme, to a miraculous 
interpretation of the Sultan's dream. This royal 
favour is corroborated by the respectful references 
to Huda'I in both Pecewi and Na'Ima (Rawdat al- 
Ifusayn ft khuldsat akhbar al-khdfikayn, 1280 AH, 
i, 112 ff., 357; ii, 154, 158). Na'ima reports, for 
example, that he was asked to wash the dead 
Sultan's body, but that he excused himself 
on the grounds of old age, entrusting the duty 
to his khalifa Sha'ban Dede (ii, 154). Huda'I 
per-formed the pilgrimage three times. He died in 
1038/1628. 

Na'ima describes Huda'I as an eloquent and soft- 
spoken man. The dhayl (continuation) of the 
Shakd'ik (i, 64) reports that he let his hair grow long, 
a habit which was imitated by his followers. Hudal 
wrote 18 works in Arabic and 12 in Turkish. These 
are to be found in the Selim Agha Library in Uskiidar 
(for titles of lost works see Kulliyat, 607 note). Most 
of them are short treatises, including an unfinished 
Arabic commentary on the Kur'dn entitled Madialis. 
His printed Kulliyat includes a diwdn, as well as an 
Arabic treatise entitled Risdla fi Tarikdt al-Muham- 
tnadiyya, a Turkish Tarikatndme and a Turkish 
rhymed treatise, entitled Nadjat al-gharik (Salvation 
of the Drowned). His most important work is un- 
doubtedly the Wdki'-dt or collected sayings (in 
Arabic rendering) of Sheykh Uftade (MS in the 
author's hand, No. 574 in the Selim Agha Library). 
Apart from its mystical interest, this contains many 
important historical references to contemporary 
men and events. Mehmed Gulshen Efendi in his 
edition of the Kulliyat dates many ot the devotional 
poems, one of which commemorates the death of 
Murad III (p. 79), adding that many of them were 



set to music, some by Hudal himself. Some of the 
poems are syllabic in metre and are strongly in- 
fluenced by Yunus Emre. They show Huda'I as an 
orthodox SunnI shaykh, an ascetic (zdhid) within 
the limits of the shari'-a, hostile to exalted and more- 
or-less free-thinking su/is. He even petitioned the 
Sultan against Badr al-DIn, the son of the kadi of 
Simavna, and his followers, among whom he seems 
to have been numbered for a time (M. Sharaf al-DIn 
(Serefeddin), Simavnakddlsi-oghlu Sheykh Badr al- 
Din, Istanbul 1927, 72 ff-). 

The Djilwatiyya had an off-shoot in the Hashi- 
miyya, founded by Hashim Baba (d. 1773), a 
Djilwati sheykh who was simultaneously a MalamI 
(even laying claim to the title of "Pole" or ku(ub) 
and also a BektashI (among whom he was known 
as Baba or Dede and whom also he tried to split by 
devising an amended ritual). 

Bibliography: in the article. 

(ABDOLBAKi GoLPINARLl) 

DJlM, 5th letter of the Arabic alphabet, tran- 
scribed dj,; numerical value 3, so agreeing, like 
ddl, with the order of the letters of the Syriac (and 
Canaanite) alphabet [see abdjad]. It represents a g 
(occlusive, postpalatal l , voiced) in the ancient 
Semitic (and in common Semitic). 

In Arabic, this articulation has evolved: the point 
of articulation has been carried forward, in an 
unconditioned way ', to the middle and prepalatal 
region, as a consequence of which it readily developed 
elements of palatalization (g* and d') and affrication 
(ii). A simplification of the articulation into a spirant 
became possible, through the dropping of the first 
occlusive phase in the affricated (di > ;' where ;' 
represents a voiced palatal fricative, as French ;'), 
through the weakening and disappearance of the 
occlusive element in the palatalized consonant 
(d> > y). This course of evolution can be written 
out as follows: 

It is probable that the sound g of the Semitic diim 
began at a very early time to evolve in the field 
which we are now considering. In any event, from 
the traditional pronunciation of the readers of the 
Kur'an, from the basic ideas of the Arab gramma- 
rians regarding its articulation, and from the modi- 
fications in it conditioned by the proximity of other 
sounds which they have noted (assimilations and 
dissimilations), one can justifiably conclude that, 



g is defined as: occlusive, postpalatal, voiced; 
g and k (the corresponding unvoiced) are the 
most influenced, as regards the point of 
articulation, by the adjacent vowel; they are brought 
forward to the mediopalatal region with a palatal 
vowel, and carried back to the velar region with a 
velar vowel; postpalatal signifies a medial position: 
that of g, k, articulated with a vowel a. 

2) It would be better to say : for reasons unknown. 
A. Martinet has tried precisely to discover the 
causes of this displacement by structural methods, 
in his study La palatisation "spontanie" de g en 
arabe, in BSL, liv/i, 90-102; he has brought out the 
structural conditioning of the evolutionary processes, 
by starting from the concept that Arabic emphatics 
are derived from glottalized consonants. His analysis 
is original and instructive, but in its turn also 
is conditioned by the basic hypothesis described 



from the dawn of the classical period, the occluded g in 
djim was opened through palatalization, affrication 
or even complete spirantization, at least in certain 
dialects. Naturally, differences analogous to those 
existing today in spoken languages, concerning the 
pronunciation of djim, must have existed between 
the various ancient languages ; some of them had no 
doubt gone much further than others in evolving 
towards spirantization. Besides, this process of 
evolution is still continuing today, as we can see: in 
Jerusalem, for example, a European observer 
(Dr. Rosen) has noticed that the affricated dj which 
as a child he used to hear as the pronunciation of 
djim has now, in the pronunciation of the present 
time, become a palato-alveolar j (see E. Littmann, 
Xeuarabische Volkspoesie, 3 n. 1). In certain lan- 
guages in which the current pronunciation of dj im is 
now 7, dissimilations in d or g can only be explained 
as fixed survivals of a former condition, at a com- 
paratively recent stage in the development of this 
consonant (cf. Brockelmann, Grundriss, i, 235-6). ! 

Arab grammarians looked upon djim as a shadida, 
and therefore an occlusive, which excludes an 
affricated {dj) or spirant (7); and as a madjhura, 
which means voiced (Sibawayhi, ii (Paris), 453 and 
454; al-Zamakhsharl, Muf., 2nd ed. Broch. § 734; 
etc.). As regards the makhradj, al-KhahTs shadjriyya 
(Muf., ibid.) is difficult to interpret, but the descrip- 
tion given by Sibawayhi (ii, 453 1. 7-8) indicates J 
clearly that the active organ of articulation is the | 
middle of the tongue (that is to say, the front) and 
the middle of the upper palate. Elsewhere they 
rejected (Sibawayhi, ii, 452; etc.) the articulatic 
of djim like k if (usual in Baghdad and in the Yemen) 
and of djim like shin, that is to say like g for the first 
and / for the second, which is a quite justifi; 
interpretation (as in J. Cantineau, Cours, 72 
others); d" (palatalized d) being excluded by the 
designation of the front (and not the tip) of 
tongue, there only remains g" l . Arab grammari 
appear indeed to consider this to be the only con 
pronunciation of djim. This articulation fulfils the 
required conditions and in addition easily conforms 
with the passage of ya' to djim practised in cer 
tribes (Rabin, chart 19). In the traditional reading 
of Arabic the pronunciation dj (affricated, prepala 
voiced) is generally adopted. 

As regards the modern dialects, it is possible to 
draw up a table tracing the pronunciation of djim 
in general lines as follows: 

1. Retention of the original pronunciation g: this 
seems to have been known in Aden in the Middle 
Ages (according to al-Mukaddasi, 96 /. 14). It is found 
today in Muscat, in Yemeni dialects and in various 
Bedouin-dialects in central Arabia. In Dathina 
(south-west Arabia) it is found in the conjugation 
of verbs with djim as first radical, when it forms a 
syllable with the prefixes (e.g.: yigza'). In Dofar 
(south-east Arabia) this pronunciation no loi 
exists save in the recitation of poetry, that is to 
it has an archaic and quasi-artificial character. This 
pronunciation is also the manner of articulation 
proper to the dialects of Lower Egypt, and of Cairo in 
particular. Finally, in most of the dialects of north 
Morocco and also in NMroma (Algeria), g is by 
dissimilation the pronunciation of djim when used 
in conjunction with a sibilant or palato-alveolar. 

2. Pronunciation of djim as g» or d": this is the 
pronunciation found in the majority of Bedouin- 



1) An occlusive dorsal mediopalatal v 



pala- 



dialects in north, central and south Arabia. It 
is also the pronunciation used by the fellaheen 
and Bedouins of Upper Egypt. It occasionally 
occurs in Dofar. 

3. Pronunciation of djim as y: today this occurs 
widely in the lower Euphrates region. It is the most 
widely used pronunciation in Dofar. It is common 
but not regularly used in various dialects in south- 
west Arabia. It is attested in a certain number of 
north Arabian tribes (notably the Sardlye and the 
Sirhan) and in the Djof; for further particulars see 
J. Cantineau, Cours, 74. In the other Arabic dialects 
only a few sporadic examples can be given. 

4. Pronunciation of djim as dj: this pronunciation 
is already attested in c Irak in the golden age of 
classical literature (according to Brockelmann's inter- 
pretation, in ZA, xiii (1898), 126 and Grundriss, i, 
122). It is found in certain places in central Arabia, it 
is the form most widely used in the Yemen, it is 
current in Mecca, in c Irak, among the Muslims in 
Jerusalem, in Aleppo, and is most widely used in 
country districts in Palestine, Jordan and Syria; in 
the Syrian desert it is regularly used among the tribes 
of nomad-shepherds. In north Africa it is in almost 
general use in both rural and urban dialects in north 
Algeria (for more precise details see J. Cantineau, 
Cours, 75); it has remained in use in Tangier and 
perhaps in certain places in north Morocco, in cases 
of gemination (kudjdja "lock of hair", but pi. k"jej). 

5. Pronunciation of djim as 7: in Syria, Palestine 
and Jordan this is the town-dwellers' pronunciation: 
Damascus, Nablus, Jaffa, Jerusalem (Christians), 
etc. It is the pronunciation of the whole of the 
Lebanon (except to the north of the Bek5 c : dj), the 
Anti-Lebanon and the Djabal al-Druz. In North 
Africa it is found in Tunisian, Tripolitanian, Moroccan 
and south Algerian dialects; it is found in certain 
places in northern Algeria. Probably it was the usual 
pronunciation of djim in the Arabic dialect of 
Granada. 

6. Pronunciation of djim as z: it must, finally, 
be noted that in the towns of north Africa one can 
observe a tendency in certain individuals to open 
the palato-alveolar / into a sibilant z. This tendency 
appears to be limited to certain social groups (Jews) 
or to certain social classes (lower-class people in 
north Morocco), and is not sufficiently generalized 
to make it possible to refer to anything more than 
individual pronunciations. 

All the pronunciations of djim given above are 
voiced. Some unvoiced pronunciations are known, 
and are extremely local: (Jin Palmyra and in some 
villages in the Anti-Lebanon, ts in Sukhne (between 
Palmyra and the Euphrates). 

In classical Arabic djim is subject to certain 
conditioned modifications (accommodations, assimi- 
lations), see J. Cantineau, Cours, 72-3; (for the 
various modifications in modern dialects, see ibid., 
76-9). For the phonological oppositions of the 
phoneme djim, see idem, Esquisse, BSLP, cxxvi, 102, 
18; for the incompatibilities, see ibid. 135. 

Bibliography: K. Vollers, The Arabic sounds, in 
Proc. IXth Orient. Congress, London 1892, ii, 143 
and Volkssprache und Schrijtsprache im alten 
Arabien, Strasbourg 1906, io-11; C. Brockelmann, 
Grundriss, i, 122-3 and references; A. Krimsky, in 
Machriq, i, 1898, 487-93; A. Schaade, Sibawaihi's 
Lautlehre, Leiden 191 1, 72-4; de Landberg, 
Etudes sur les dialectes de I'Arabie Miridionale, i, 
539. ". 353 n - 4. 806 n. 1 ; idem Glossaire Dathlnois, 
i, 256-7; A. Socin, Diwan aus Centralarabien, 
iii, § 161; N. Rhodokanakis, Der vulgar arabische 



DJlM — DJINAH 



545 



Dialekt im Dofdr, i, p. viii, ii, 78-9 ; J. Cantineau, 
Cours de Phonitique arabe, Algiers 1941, 71-9; 
M. Bravmann, Materialien und Untersuchungen 
zu den phonetischen Lehren der Araber, Gottingen 
1934, 48-9; C. Rabin, Ancient West-Arabian, 
London 1951, 31, 126. 

(W. Marcais-[H. Fleisch]) 



In Persian the. letter djim represents a voiced 
palatal affricate, which has a voiceless counterpart 
( (dim). The voiced velar occlusive is represented 
always by go/, although in Arabic loanwords 
Iranian djim frequently represents this Iranian g 
(e.g., djamus "buffalo", P. 'gdw-mesh). The letter 
iim is formed on the model of djim, with f 
nulftas instead of one. 

In Ottoman Turkish, djim and cim are wri 
as in Persian and with the same values, except that 
in some morphophonemically conditioned situat' 
the voiced/voiceless opposition disappears. In 
modern Turkish orthography djim and dim 
replaced in general by c and f respectively » 
however, account taken of phonetic values ; hence ( 
can on occasion represent original djim. 

In Urdu dj' (djim) and c (It, (im) are palatal 
affricates as in Persian, frequently but not invariably 
uttered with dorsal contact with the tongue-tip 
behind the lower teeth. Among less educated speak- 
ers, especially in areas in India away from the main 
centres of Muslim culture, dj is also the pronunciation 
of the four z sounds (dhdl [zall, dad [zad, zwad], 
za 1 [zwe, zoe], as well as 21J 5 [ze]), which results in occa- 
sional false back-formations, e.g., mawzud for mawdjud. 
Both dj and I occur with aspiration, written with 
djim or c"e with the "butterfly" (dufashmi) form of ha. 
In Sindhi there occurs beside dj and djh the 
voiced palatal implosive affricate, written with two 
nufrtas arranged vertically, »-, . Other modifications 
of djim\tim are the aspirated (h (£■„), and the palatal 
nasal, «, with two nuktas placed horizontally, r. 
In P ash to beside dj and c~ occur the dental 
affricates dz and ts, both, however, written with the 
sign £. 

Bibliography: see Bibliography to dal, ii. 
(J. Burton-Page) 
DJIMAT (Malay), an amulet, more particularly 
a written amulet. The word is of Arabic origin = 
'azima. [see hama'il]. (Ed.) 

DJIMMA, known also as Djimma Kaka, "Djimma 
of the confederacy", and Djimma Abba Djifar, from 
the name of its most famous king. This state lies 
in the angle formed by the Omo and Godjeb rivers 
in south-west Ethiopia, and was inhabited by Sidama 
(Hamites) of the same stock as the neighbouring 
kingdom of Kafa; the south-east corner of Djimma, 
called Garo, was inhabited by the Bosha, who 
are mentioned in an epinikion of Yeshak of 
Ethiopia (1412-27) together with the neighbouring 
state of Enarya, later known as Limmu and Limmu- 
Enarya (I. Guidi, Le canzoni geez-amarina, in 
Rend. Lin., ii, 1889,). The Bosha were among the 
pagans forcibly converted to Christianity by Sarsa 
Dengel of Ethiopia about 1586. When the Galla 
invaded Ethiopia they reached this region about the 
middle of the 16th century, and began to found 
small monarchies in the Gibe region, the first of 
which was Enarya, where a Galla dynasty was 
founded about 1550-70. In Djimma six tribes of the 
Djimma group formed the basis of the Galla state, 



Encyclopaedia of Islam, 



whence the name Djimma Kaka. Nominally 
Christian under Ethiopian rule, which ended about 
1632, and pagan under the Galla founders of the 
new dynasty, a Muslim element soon entered, but 
died out together with Christianity during the 18th 
century. A monarchy is repugnant to the Galla, and 
its development was due to the influence of Islam. In 
Djimma alone of the five Galla monarchies was the 
kingship allowed to survive after the Ethiopian 
conquest between 1891 and 1900. The language 
spoken here is Galla, and there has been a blending 
of Galla and Islamic institutions. The king has both 
a Galla war-name, e.g., Abba Djifar, "owner of a 
dappled horse", and a Muslim name, Muhammad b. 
Da'ud. The kingship was hereditary, passing to a 
brother if there was no son. Owing to the influence 
of the monarchy, which was inconsistent with the 
Galla ideal of a tribal ruler who held office for only 
eight years, the Galla gada-system became much 
curtailed, and eventually the gada-grades were 
reduced from five to two. Islam was re-introduced 
early in the 19th century, and by the last quarter of 
the century Djimma had become a centre of Islamic 
learning in western Ethiopia, though it caused no 
real anxiety to the kings of Ethiopia; nevertheless 
this did prevent Menilek II from annexing Djimma 
to his kingdom along with the rest of the tributary 
states that lay round Ethiopia. From the time of 
the re-introduction of Islam till the end of the 
century the names of eight kings are preserved, the 
best known being Sanna Abba Djifar I; the last 
king was also called Abba Djifar. The trade route 
from Kafa to the coast lay through Djimma; since 
it was a fertile land, the presence of traders from 
outside encouraged the development of agriculture; 
wheat, coffee, cotton, and aromatics were its chief 
products. It was also a centre of the slave-trade. 
Under Ethiopian rule the kingship was allowed to 
remain, the king being a vassal of the king of 
Ethiopia. 

Bibliography: Cecchi, Da Zeila alle frontiere 
delCaffa, 1885, ii; E. Cerulli, Etiopia occidental, 
I932-3. i, 87-91, and ii chap, xii; Beckingham 
and Huntingford, Some records of Ethiopia, 1954, 
lxi-Ixii, lxxxii-lxxxiv; Huntingford, The Galla of 
Ethiopia, 1955, 53, 56-7, and map opp. 14. 

(G. W. B. Huntingford) 
DJINAB (Indian-Pakistani equivalent of Djanah ; 
English spelling: Jinnah), Muijammad c Ali. Mu- 
hammad c Ali Djinah, known by his fellow-country- 
men as the KdHd-i A'zam, was the founder of 
the state of Pakistan. He organized and led 
the Pakistan movement and became the first 
Governor-General of the new state. 

It is generally accepted that he was born on 
25 December 1876, though some records give dates 
in 1875 and 1874. His father was a moderately 
wealthy merchant, a member of a Khodia family 
living in Karachi. His early education took place in 
Bombay and later at the Sindh Madrasat al-Islam 
and the Missionary Society High School in Karachi. 
After matriculation he was sent to England in 1892 
where he qualified for the bar (Lincoln's Inn) in 1896. 
While in London, during the final days of Glad- 
stonian liberalism, he showed a keen interest in 
public life, as an admirer and supporter of Dadabha 5 I 
Nawrodji, the first Indian to be elected to the House 
of Commons. At this stage also he assumed the out- 
ward appearance of an Englishman. Until the last 
year of his life he normally wore immaculate English 
clothes and he used a monocle. All his important 
speeches were delivered in English and even his 

35 



546 



DJINAH — DJINN 



broadcast on 3 June 1947 on the acceptance of the 
partition scheme was translated into Urdu by 
others. In short, he had become "Mr. Jinnah". 

He returned to India in 1896 and in the following 
year began to practise law in Bombay. After several 
lean years he became quite rapidly a leading member 
of the Bombay bar. His mind was always that of 
the lawyer. His speech aimed at precision rather 
than eloquence. He had little patience with those 
who used words as symbols to awaken emotions. He 
addressed himself to the British government or to 
the educated Indian minority. When he spoke to 
the masses it was in English and in the same terms 
he employed in writing a brief. If the masses res- 
ponded it/ was to the man's intensity and uprightness, 
not to the warmth of his words. 

Djinah's first venture into Indian politics was 
as a member of the Indian National Congress. He 
attended the 1906 session as private secretary to 
Nawrodji who was then Congress President. Three 
years later, in January 1910, he took his place as a 
member of the first Imperial legislative Council. 
He was elected to represent the Muslims of Bombay, 
and he was the first non-official member to secure 
adoption of a legislative Act, in this case an Act 
validating Muslim wafts. 

In 1913, while remaining an influential figure in the 
Congress, Djinah joined the Muslim League. He 
was to serve, said Gokhale, as the "ambassador of 
Hindu-Muslim unity". He took the leading r61e in 
negotiating the "Lucknow Pact" whereby the 
Congress and the Muslim League agreed on a scheme 
of constitutional reform containing guarantees for 
the rights of the Muslim community. Djinah 
presided over the 19 16 session of the League which 
approved these proposals. 

The years after 1918 brought a wave of radicalism 
and violence into Indian politics. Djinah. with his 
repeated emphasis on what he called "constitutional 
lines" felt himself being supplanted by the extremists. 
In 19 19 he resigned from the Legislative Council in 
protest against the extension of repressive police 
authority. The following year he parted from the 
Congress on the issue of non-cooperation. In 
addition to his break with the Congress, Djinah 
found himself separated from many of his fellow 
Muslims who were ardent supporters of the Khilafat 
movement. The Muslim League declined in import- 
ance and was internally divided. 

Djinah was married for the first time as a child, 
before he left for England in 1892, but his wife died 
whilst he was away. His second marriage, to the 
daughter of a rich Parsi, took place in 1918. It was 
not a success and they had separated before her 
death ten years later. Throughout most of his life 
his sister Fatima looked after his domestic needs. 

Between 1920 and 1930 Djinah played a part in 
Indian public life but he cannot be said to have 
been a leading figure and certainly not the sole or 
principal spokesman for the Indian Muslims. He 
was elected to the new Central Assembly and was a 
delegate to the first two Round Table Conferences 
(1930-1). At this stage he began to practise at the 
Privy Council bar and established a home in London, 
paying only intermittent visits to India. 

His final return took place in 1935, after the 
enactment of the new constitutional provisions of 
the Government of India Act. Almost at once he 
began to move toward control of the Muslim League 
and its development as the main instrument of 
Muslim nationalism. In 1936 be became President 
of the Parliamentary Board of the League, the 



that took charge of the election campaign. 
Their object was a programme of mass contact but 
they were not markedly successful as was shown by 
the poor electoral record of the League in 1937. The 
Congress, which had done well, now assumed power 
in the majority of the Provinces and seemed to have 
established a claim to be the sole heir to British 
authority. Djinah, now President of the League, 
moved to dispute this claim, stating that no further 
constitutional steps could be taken without the 
consent of the Muslim nation, represented by the 

Djinah's first line of argument was that the 
Muslims could not expect full justice in a political 
society with a Hindu majority. The League gave 
much attention to Muslim grievances against 
Congress provincial ministries. In 1939, after the 
outbreak of war, the Congress governments resigned. 
Djinah, giving cautious support to the war effort, 
was able to strengthen his organization and to bring 
about, during the war years, League participation 
in the government of several provinces. 

The second main argument was now launched. It 
consisted in the assertion that a separate state for 
the Muslims of India was possible and necessary. 
Muhammad Ikbal had suggested such a scheme in 
1930 but it was not adopted as a political programme 
until the meeting of the Muslim League at Lahore in 
March, 1940. This was the Pakistan Resolution. 

It was not yet clear whether Djinah could validly 
claim to speak for Muslim opinion. In Bengal, the 
Pandjab, Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province, 
all Muslim-majority areas, the League was unable 
to exercise effective and continuous control. How- 
ever, in the elections of 1946 the League won 
almost all the Muslim seats and Djinah's position 
as spokesman for the overwhelming majority could 
not be denied. 

He participated actively in the negotiations 
leading to the partition scheme, insisting always that 
the Muslims must be allowed to choose a separate 
state. In June 1947 his object was accomplished and 
the state of Pakistan came into existence at midnight 
on 14-15 August 1947. He took office as Governor- 
General and President of the Constituent Assembly. 
His first efforts were directed to ending communal 
bloodshed and hatred. He was, by this time, seventy 
years old and his health was showing signs of collapse. 
Nevertheless he presided over the establishment of 
the machinery of government and was in effective 
control of policy. During 1948 he became progressively 
weaker and on n September he died. 

He was a man who changed the course of history, 
for, while there was Muslim national feeling before 
Djinah, he gave it self-confidence and organization. 
He was a man of rigid integrity, perhaps hard to love 
but made for admiration. He was a nationalist who 
seemed at times to be more English than Indian; 
he was a Muslim who made few references to God 
or the Prophet or the Kur'an. He was not a deeply 
religious man. To him the Muslim heritage was a 
civilization, a culture and a national identy. And he 
founded a state just as surely as had Babur. 

Bibliography: H. Bolitho, Jinnah, London 

1954; Matlubul Hasan Sayid, Mohammad AH 

Jinnah, Lahore 1953; Jamilud Din Ahmad (ed.), 

Speeches and writings of Mr. Jinnah, 2 vols., 

Lahore 1942 and 1947. (K. Callard) 

PJINAS [see tadjnIs]. 

DJINDJI KH'ADJA [see susayn anNfiii]. 

DJINN. according to the Muslim conception 
bodies {adisdm) composed of vapour or flame, 



intelligent, imperceptible to our senses, capable of 
appearing under different forms and of carrying out 
heavy labours (al-BaydawI, Comm. to Kur'an, 
LXXII, i; al-Damlrl, Uayawdn, s.v. djinn). They 
were created of smokeless flame (Kur'an, LV, 14) 
while mankind and the angels, the other two classes 
of intelligent beings, were created of clay and light. 
They are capable of salvation; Muhammad was sent 
to them as well as to mankind; some will enter 
Paradise while others will be cast into the fire of 
hell. Their relation to Iblis the Shaytan, and to the 
Shaytans in general, is obscure. In the Kur'an, 
XVIII, 48, Iblis is said to be a diinn; but according 
to the Kur'an, II, 32, he is said to be an angel. In 
consequence there is much confusion, and many 
legends and hypotheses have grown up on this 
subject; on the last passage quoted, see al-BaydawI 
and al-RazI, Mafdtih, Cairo 1307, i, 288 ff. The Arab 
lexicographers try to make the word diinn derive 
from idjtindn, "to be hidden, concealed" (see Lane, 
s.v. djinn and al-Baydawi, on II, 7)- But this ety- 
mology is very difficult, and the possibility of 
explanation through borrowing from Latin (genius) 
is not entirely excluded. The expression "naturalem 
deum uniuscuiusque loci" (Serv. Verg. G., i, 302) 
exactly expresses the formal localization of the 
dfinn (cf., e.g., Noldeke, Mu'-allahdt, i, 74, 78 and ii, 
65, 89) as well as their standing as semi-divinities 
in old Arabia (Robertson Smith, Rel. of Semites'-, 
121 ; Ger. tr. (Stiibe), 84 ff.). In the singular one says 
"diinni"; didnn is also used as the equivalent of the 
form diinn (but cf. Lane, Lexicon, 492c); ghul, 
Hfrtt, si'ldt are classes of the diinn. For an Ethiopic 
point of contact with didnn see Noldeke, Neue 
Beitrdge, 63. 

Consideration of the djinn divides naturally under 
three heads, though these necessarily shade into one 
another. 

I. The diinn in pre-Islamic Arabia were the nymphs 
and satyrs of the desert, and represented the side of 
the life of nature still unsubdued and hostile to man. 
For this aspect, see Robertson Smith, loc. cit.; 
Noldeke in ERE, i, 669 ft.; Wellhausen, Reste; van 
Vloten, Ddmonen . . . bei d. alt. Arabern, in WZKM., 
vii and viii (the author uses materials in al-Djahiz, 
Ifayawdn). But in the time of Muhammad diinn 
were already passing over into vague, impersonal 
gods. The Arabs of Mecca asserted the txistence of a 
kinship (nasab) between them and Allah (Kur'an, 
XXXVII, 158), made them companions of Allah 
(VI, 100), offered sacrifices to them (VI, 128), and 
sought aid of them (LXXII, 6). 

II. In official Islam the existence of the diinn was 
completely accepted, as it is to this day, and the full 
consequences implied by their existence were worked 
out. Their legal status in all respects was discussed 
and fixed, and the possible relations between them 
and mankind, especially in questions of marriage and 
property, were examined. Stories of the loves of 
djinn and human beings were evidently of perennial 
interest. The Fihrist gives the titles of sixteen of these 
(308) and they appear in all the collections of short 
tales (cf., e.g., Dawud al-Antaki, Tazyin al-aswdk, 
Cairo 1308, 181 ff.; al-Sarradj, Masdri' al-'ushshdk, 
Istanbul 1301, 286 ff.). There are many stories, too, 
of relations between saints and djinn; cf. D. B. 
Macdonald, Religious attitude and life in Islam, 
144 ff. A good summary of the question is given in 
Badr al-Din al-Shibli (d. 769/1368), Akdm al- 
mardidn fi ahkdm al-djdn (Cairo 1326); see also 
Noldeke's review in ZDMG, lxiv, 439 ff. Few even of 
the Mu'tazila ventured to doubt the existence of 



•JN 547 

diinn, and only constructed different theories of 
their nature and their influence on the material 
world. The earlier philosophers, even al-Farabl, 
tried to avoid the question by ambiguous definitions. 
But Ibn Sina, in defining the word, asserted flatly 
that there was no reality behind it. The later believing 
philosophers used subterfuges, partly exegetical and 
partly metaphysical. Ibn Khaldfin, for example, 
reckoned all references to the diinn among the so- 
called mutashdbih passages of the Kur'an, the know- 
ledge of which Allah has reserved to himself (Kur'an, 
III, 5). These different attitudes are excellently 
treated in the Diet, of teclm. terms, i, 261 ff.; cf. also 
al-Razi, Mafdtih, lxxii. 

III. The djinn in folk-lore. The transition to this 
division comes most naturally through the use of the 
djinn in magic. Muslim theology has always admitted 
the fact of such a use, though judging its legality 
varyingly. The Fihrist traces both the approved and 
the disapproved kinds back to ancient times, and 
gives Greek, Harranian, Chaldean and Hindu sources. 
At the present day, books treating of the binding of 
diinn to talismanic service are an important part of 
the literature of the people. All know and read them, 
and the professional magician has no secrets left. In 
popular stories too, as opposed to the tales of the 
professed litterateur, the diinn play a large part. It 
is so throughout the Thousand and One Nights, but 
especially in that class of popular religious novels of 
which Weil published two in his Translation of the 
Nights, namely the second version of "Djudhar the 
Fisherman" and the story entitled " C A1I and Zahir 
of Damascus". In the Thousand and One Nights, 
particularly in the first part, the diinni generally 
turns against any human being out of spite to get 
the better of him; roaming the world at night 
(Night No. 76), the djinni (or fairy, pari) transports 
a man for immense distances, to make him lose his 
way; he turns him into an animal (a monkey, in 
No. 48, a dog, in No. 5 and 66); but on the other 
hand he sometimes restores his human form (No. 5 
and 34) ; he protects the man undeservedly duped by 
one of his fellows (No. 47); he teaches man how to 
free someone possessed by another djinni, by means 
of exorcism (ibid.); moreover, diinn and fairies 
sometimes join together to do good (No. 78) ; on the 
other hand, man can defend himself and by his 
cunning has thedjinni at his mercy (like the fi; 
who imprisons him in a jar, No. n); and s< 
a man harms djinn unintentionally (a man eating 
dates throws away a stone which kills one of their 
children, No. 1). Still nearer to the ideas of the 
masses are the fairy stories collected orally by 
Artin, 0strup, Spitta, Stumme, etc. In these stories 
the folk-lore elements of the different races overcome 
the common Muslim atmosphere. The inspiration of 
these tales is more characteristic of the peoples of 
North Africa, as well as of the Egyptians, Syrians, 
Persians and Turks rather than of Arabia or Islam. 
Besides this there are the popular beliefs and usages, 
so far very incompletely gathered. Throughout this 
field also there are points of contact with the official 
Islamic view. Thus, in Egyptian popular belief, a 
man who dies by violence becomes an Hfrit and 
haunts the place of his death (Willmore, Spoken 
Arabic of Egypt, 371, 374), while in the Islam of the 
schools a man who dies in deadly sin may be trans- 
formed into a djinni in the world of al-Barzakh 
(Diet, of techn. terms, i, 265). Willmore has other 
details on the djinn in Egypt. For South Arabia see 
c Abdullah Mansur, The land of Uz, 22, 26, 203, 
316-20. See also R. C. Thomson in Proc. of Soc. of 



Bibl. Arch., xxviii, 83 ff.; Sayce, in Folk-lore, 1900, 
ii, 338 ff.; Lydia Einszler, in ZDPV, x, 170ft.; 
H. H. Spoer, in Folk-lore, xviii, 54 ff . ; D. B. Mac- 
donald, Aspects of Islam, 326 ff. But much still 
remains to be done. 

Diinn are most commonly spoken of by allusion 
{hdduk al-nds, "those people there", North Africa) 
or by antiphrasis, like the Eumenides (az ma bihtardn, 
"those better than ourselves", Iran). 

Bibliography: Damiri, Ifayawdn, for the 
words diinn, si'ldt, Hfrit, ghul (cf. also the trans- 
lation of Jayakar, London and Bombay 1906-8); 
Kazwini, 'AdjdHb, ed. Wiistenfeld, 368 ft.; R. 
Basset, Mille et un contes, remits et Ugendes arabes, 
i, 59> 74, 90, 123, 151. 159, 174, 175, 180; Goldzihcr, 
Arabische Philologie, i, index; idem, Vorlesungen, 
68, 78 ff . ; Macdonald, Religious attitude and life 
in Islam, chap. V and X and index; Lane, Arabian 
Nights, Introd. n. 21 and chap. I, No. 15 and 
34. For Egypt: Lane, Manners and customs of 
the modern Egyptians, 1836 (vol. i, chap. X; 
superstitions, and index, s.v. ginn); Ahmad Amin, 
Ramus al-'-dddt . . . al-misriyya, 141 ff. For the 
Yemen: two djinn, the l udru( and the dubb, are 
described in R. B. Serjeant, Two Yemenite diinn, 
in BSOAS, xiii/i (1949), 4-6, with further biblo- 
graphy. For North Africa: E. Doutte, Magie et 
religion (passim) ; Dermenghem, Le culte des saints 
dans V Islam maghrtbin, 96 ff . ; Desparmet, Le mat 
magique, in Publ. Fac. Lettres Alger, lxiii (1932); 
Legey, Essai sur la folklore marocain (index, s.v. 
genies); E. Westermarck, Ritual and belief in 
Morocco (index : s.v. jenn, jinn, inun) : H. Basset, Le 
culte des grottes au Maroc; idem, Essai sur la littira- 
ture des Berberes, 101 ff . ; M. L. Dubouloz-Laffin, Le 
Bou-Mergoud, folklore tunisien (1st part) ; W. Mar- 
cais, Textes arabes de Takrouna, index s.v. Djinns ; 
P. Bourgeois, L'univers de Vecoiier marocain, Rabat 
1959, 23-43. For Iran: A. Christensen, Essai sur la 
dimonologie iranienne, 71: dim and diinn; H. 
Masse, Croyances et coutumes persanes (index III: 
diinn). (D. B. Macdonald-[H. Mass£]) 

In Turkish folklore. Of the words used to 
denote these, cin (djin) is the most common; 
ecinni (edjinni) is a variation of it. The word 
in, used only in the form in-cin, has in certain 
instances the same sense as diinn; it is a corruption 
of ins, from the group ins wa diinn (= "men and 
djinn"), which occurs frequently in the Kur'an. In 
everyday speech as well as in stories of fantastic 
adventures and tales of the supernatural, the word 
peri is often taken as a synonym of diinn; the two 
terms are often confused even in traditions, never- 
theless the former really belongs to the realm of 
supernatural tales where the word diinn is less 
common. In parts of eastern Anatolia (at Tokat and 
Erzurum, for example : for the latter locality, see Sami 
Akahn, Erzurum bilmeceleri, Istanbul 1954, glossary) 
the word mekir is used to denote a supernatural 
being with all the characteristics of a diinn. At times 
when one is anxious to avoid any harm being done 
by them, the word diinn, by a linguistic taboo, is 
replaced by expressions such as iyi saatte olsunlar 
("may they be at an auspicious moment", meaning: 
"beings who, I hope, are in good humour and well- 
disposed towards us"). It is believed that there are 
Muslim diinn and heathen diinn; the latter are 
considered to be the more wicked and difficult to 
control. 

They are thought of as beings of both sexes, and 
living collectively. They have their chief or, as he is 
usually called, pddishdh. All theii 



place at night and come to an end with the first 
cock-crow or the first call to morning prayer. 
Traditions, tales and supernatural stories of all 
kinds name the places where they live or which they 
frequent and where they choose to meet for their 
amusement (always at night); — mills, hammdms 
(public baths), ruins, derelict houses, cemeteries, 
certain inns (particularly when deserted and falling 
into ruin), certain places in the country, especially 
at the foot of big trees. Certain private houses are 
reputed to be haunted by diinn, and similarly "guest 
rooms" in villages. In Istanbul, according to local 
tradition, there are a number of places inside and 
outside the town which are reputed to be inhabited 
by these supernatural beings; and the home of 
the King of the sea-dfinn is said to be off Leander's 
Tower, in the Bosphorus. One legend explains why 
even a mosque, at Dimetoka (in Rumelia) is frequen- 
ted by diinn at night. Even in daytime precautions 
have to be taken with regard to certain places such 
as water-closets, remote corners where rubbish is 
piled or where dirty water overflows, at the foot of 
trees, quiet dirty corners on river-banks, the base 
of walls above the gutter, enclosed dark places in 
houses (like lumber-rooms) etc. 

Diinn appear to men in many different forms, 
most often in the guise of animals, such as; — a black 
cat (without any light markings), a goat (kid, or 
he-goat), a black dog, a duck, a hen with chickens, 
a buffalo, a fox; or else in human shape; either as 
men of ordinary size or dwarfs, and sometimes as 
men of gigantic stature (many who claim to have 
seen them describe them as quite white, thin, and 
as tall as a minaret or a telegraph pole); they also 
appear with the features of a baby wrapped in its 
swaddling-clothes. In the magic arts of the negroes 
in Turkey, the snake is regarded as the animal in 
which diinn are incorporated. Wolves and birds are 
the only other living creatures to whose attacks 
diinn are vulnerable. 

Their behaviour towards human beings is of three 
sorts: if people understand how to refrain from 
irritating them, they do no harm: they are indifferent 
or, at times, are satisfied if they tease people by 
playing various harmless tricks; to those whose 
actions deserve some reward they bring great 
benefits; the imprudent and insolent they punish 
by inflicting illnesses or infirmities. Some tales, and 
in particular some legendary stories, give accounts 
of happenings at certain places, in which persons 
who have suffered strange treatment by these super- 
natural beings are mentioned by name (for stories of 
this type see Eberhard-Coratav, Typen tiirkischer 
Volksmdrchen, Wiesbaden 1953, types no. 67, 
67 III, 67 V, 118 and the words: Geister, Peri, Teufel 
in the index; Melahat Sabri, Cinler in Halk Bilgisi 
Haberleri, iii, 143-51; the same article is repeated 
intact in M. Halit Bayn, Istanbul folkloru, Istanbul 
1947, 176-181; A. Caferoglu, Orta Anadolu agizlar- 
indan derlemeler, Istanbul 1948, 209-210). Among 
these supernatural stories there are some which tell 
how men can make requests, either on their own 
initiative or with the help of an "initiate", to the 
King of the Djinn while he is taking counsel. A 
characteristic feature of the rewards granted by 
diinn to those they favour is that they are given 
in the form of onion and garlic peel, the former 
being subsequently changed into gold pieces, the 
latter into silver. 

The illnesses which they inflict are of various 
kinds: hemiplegia, different forms of paralysis and 
twisted limbs are the most usual. They sometimes 



Interfere in family life and wreck marriages; such 
'ncidents are due to the young man or woman having 
irritated a djinn in some way, or else because one 
or other of them is loved — and indeed "regarded as 
a spouse" — by one of these supernatural beings, 
either by a male or female djinn according to the 



Methods of avoiding diinn and their misdeeds 
be put into two categories: precautionary 
which anyone can take of his own initiative, and 
measures to be taken in cases requiring recourse to 
a specialist. Some of the precautions to be taken in 
order not to irritate djinn are as follows: — so far as 
one can, to avoid the places they frequent, never to 
"profane" those places (by soiling, spitting, urinating 
etc.), always to say a besmele (bism-illdh) or a destur 
(this word means "with your permission") before 
each action and before moving anything, never to 
forget to say these words, e.g., each time any object 
or article of clothing is put away in a chest or when 
any provisions are put in store etc., so that the 

In serious cases of illnesses or infirmities thought 
to have been incurred through djinn, recourse is 
made to specialists, who are khodja or shaykhs or 
even simple people without any religious title who 
however are initiates of the djinn; they are called 
huddamh, "masters— or patrons — of servants", the 
djinn being considered as servants or slaves entirely 
subject to them. The procedure for exorcising takes 
various forms, but the principle is invariable : the sor- 
cerer (who is also given such names as cindar [djindar] 
or cinci [djindji], signifying the captor of a djinn), in- 
vokes the djinns or djinn thought to be responsible for 
the trouble, or to be able to reveal it ; when he succeeds 
in calling up the guilty djinn, he negotiates with him, 
either with apologies or with threats, to free and cure 
the victim. Some of these exorcisms are carried out 
in the absence of the victims; others require their 
presence — as is the case in the magic arts of the 
Turkish negroes (natives of Africa) who, before 1920, 
and especially in big towns like Istanbul and Izmir, 
set up corporations of exorcisors under the godyas, 
their spiritual leaders; the efficacity of their magic 
cures was acknowledged by the white population also. 
(On this subject see: A. Bombaci, Pratiche magiche 
africane, in Folklore, iii, no. 3-4, 1949, Naples, 3-1 1; 
P. N. Boratav, The Negro in the Turkish folklore, 
in Journal of American Folklore, lxiv (1951), no. 251, 
83-8; P. N. Boratav, Les Noirs dans le folklore 
turc et le folklore des Noirs de Turquie, in Journal de 
la Sociiti des Africanistes, xxviii (1958), 7-23). 
Bibliography: In addition to the works 
quoted in the text of the article, the author has 
made use of materials resulting from his own 
research, together with the texts of tales, legends 
and fantastic stories in his collection of manu- 
scripts. The lack of any single comprehensive work 
on this subject is a gap in Turkish folklore studies. 

(P. N. Boratav) 
India: In India one encounters three distinct 
concepts of djinn — traditional or orthodox, based 
on literal interpretations of the Kur'anic verses; 
superstitious, as revealed in the popular super- 
stitions; and rationalistic, as attempted by Sir 
Sayyid Ahmad Khan and others of his school of 
thought. 

(a) In traditional or orthodox accounts the djinn 
is represented as a creature created from fire, unlike 
man who has been created from clay. The djinns 
are invisible and aery {Lughdt al-Kur'dn, c Abd al- 
Rashid Nu'mani, ii, 254-6). Almost all the Indian 



scholars c 



549 



sis have held this view. 'Inayat 
types of djinn: (i) aerial creatures, 
without any physical form, (ii) snake-like creatures, 
(iii) those who shall be subjected to the same process 
of divine dispensation on the Day of Judgment as 
human beings, and (iv) creatures with beast-like 
features {Misbdh al-furkdn fi lughdt al-Kur'dn, Dihll 
1357 A.H., 85). Some jurists have, despite their 
belief in the supernatural character of the djinns, 
considered them so real as to deal with hypotheti- 
cal problems arising out of human marriages with 
djinns. 

(b) It is popularly held that the djinns are invisible 
creatures with great supernatural powers and with 
an organization presided over by a king. Even in the 
educated circles of Muslim society, this concept was 
common in the middle ages. During the time of 
Iletmish, an area in the vicinity of the Hawd-i 
Shamsl of Dihli had the reputation of being the 
abode of djinns (Miftdh al-tdlibin, Ms personal collec- 
tion). Djamali [q.v.] refers to a guest house which 
was constructed by Iletmish (607-33/1210-35) and 
was known as Ddr al-Djinn because it was 
thought to be frequented by the djinns. A Shaykh 
al-Isldm of Dihli, Sayyid Nadjm al-DIn Sughra, 
accommodated Shaykh Djalal al-Din TabrizI in this 
house in order to test his spiritual powers. The 
Shaykh sent his servant to place a copy of the 
Kur'an in the house before he himself occupied it 
(Siyar aW-Arifin, Dihli 1311 A.H., 165, 166). This 






1 that b 



house is occupied, a copy of the Kur'an should be 
placed therein in order to expel the djinns. Since 
it was believed that the djinns could do harm to 
human beings and also cause serious ailments, many 
religious writers deal with incantations and litanies 
to counteract their evil effects. Shah Wali Allah 
(d. 1763) suggests methods to expel djinn from 
houses (Kawl al-Djamil, Kanpur 1291 A.H., 96, 97). 
(c) An attempt to rationalize the concept of djinn 
by divesting it of all supernatural and superstitious 
elements was made by Sayyid Ahmad Khan* He 
held the view that by the word djinn the Kur'an 
meant Bedouins and other uncivilized and uncultured 
people. To him the expression djinn wa 'l-ins which 
occurs fourteen times in the Kur'dn meant 'the 
uncultured and the cultured people'. The different 
contexts in which the word djinn is used in the 
Kur'an have been explained by him as references 
to different qualities and characteristics of these 
'people' (Tafsir al-Kur'dn, iii, 'Aligafh 1885, 79-89); 
this point of view was subjected to criticism by the 

Bibliography : In addition to references above 
and the different tafsirs written by Indo-Muslim 
scholars: Mawlana Muhammad Zaman, Bustdn 
al-Djinn, Madras 1277 A.H.; Sadik 'All, Mahiyyal 

min al-tadabbur fi dydt al-Kur'an, Rawalpindi 

1899; Aslam Djayradjpurl, TaHimdt al-Kur'dn, 

Dihli 1934, 37-8; Mawlawi Abu Muhammad c Abd 

al-Hakk Hakkani, al-Bayan Ii 'uliim al-Kur'dn, 

Dihli 1324, 119-28. (K. A. Nizami) 

Indonesia. The Arabic djinn is generally 

known to Indonesian Muslims from Arabic literature 

and its offshoots. The word djinn passed into 

various Indonesian languages (Malay, Gayo etc. 

djin, Javanese djin or djim, Minangkabau djihin, 

Acheh djin etc.) and even into the literary language 

of a non-Muslim people such as the Batak (odjim). 

Malays use it as a polite equivalent or euphemism 



550 



DJINN — DJINS 



for hantu (evil spirit) ; in some languages (e.g., Gayo) 
it is used as a general name for all kinds of indigenous 
spirits. (P. Voorhoeve) 

EJINS, Y^vos, genus, is the first of the five 
predicables al-alfdz al-khamsa (genus, species, 
difference, property, accident) as given by Porphyry 
in his Introduction (Isagoge) to Aristotle's Logic — 
introduction which is incorporated by the Muslim 
philosophers in Aristotle's Organon — and its logical 
sense (for also its common sense of "race", "stock", 
"kin", is mentioned by Aristotle, Porphyry and the 
Arab commentators) is said to be that which is 
predicated of many things differing in species in 
answer to what a thing is, e.g., animal. These 
predicables are also called al-ma'dni al-thdniya, 
"intentiones secundae" in scholastic terminology, to 
distinguish them from al-ma'dni al-uld, "intentiones 
primae". According to the later Greek and to the 
Muslim commentators the first intentions refer to 
the particular things, the second intentions refer 
to the ten categories which are themselves the 
highest genera of particular things and to which 
the Muslim philosophers give the name of the al- 






t, the t( 



i gener. 



sals, it is not discussed as much in Muslim philosophy 
as in Scholasticism, although it is one of the funda- 
mental problems in Aristotilean philosophy and 
constitutes one of its fundamental difficulties (cf. 
for this and the following the article djawhar). 
There are three possible views, the realist view that 
universals exist objectively, the conceptualist view 
that they are but abstractions of the mind without 
a corresponding reality, the nominalist view that 
they are but names without any reality. Now 
Aristotle holds at the same time the conflicting 
realistic and conceptualist views. On the one hand 
he holds the immanent realistic view that universals 
form a constitutive part in individuals, Socrates, 
e.g., is a man because the specific, the universal form 
of nran is realized in him, on the other hand he holds 
that universals are but entities in the mind and 
acquired by abstraction. The Muslim philosophers 
tend to the view that the specific forms are indi- 
vidualized through their realization in the individual, 
a theory already held by Alexander of Aphrodisias 
(an individual specific form, however, is a con- 
tradictio in adjecto and they express Aristotle's 
conceptualist view by the maxim, often quoted in 
scholastic philosophy, intellectus in formis agit 
universalitatem, it is the mind that gives the forms 
their universality. On the other hand they go beyond 
Aristotle in their neoplatonizing transcendent 
realism and they hold that the universal forms 
emanate from eternity out of the mind of God, the 
supramundane intellects and the dator formarum, 
and we find in a passage in Avicenna's Introduction, 
al-Madkhal, to the Logic of his Shifd'-, Cairo 1952, 
65, a threefold distinction djins tabiH, natural genus, 
djins l akll, mental genus, djins mantiki, logical 
genus, the first exists before the many, kabl al-kathra 
(ante res, as the Latins have it) that is in the active 
intellect, the second in the many, fi 'l-kathra (in 
rebus) that is in the particular things, the third 
ba'd al-kathra (post res) that is in the human mind. 
In this passage Avicenna takes the curious view that 
genera in their own nature are neither universal nor 
individual; if e.g., "animal" by itself were universal, 
there could not be several animals; if it were indivu- 
dual, there could not be the universal "animal", 
individuality and universality are therefore acci- 



dents added to it, the former in the exterior world, 
the latter in minds (this passage has been discussed 
by I. Madkour in his introduction to al-Madkhal 
63, and his L'Organon d'Aristote dans le monde arabe, 
Paris 1934, 151). 

Although AverroSs often polemizes against the 
transcendent realism in Avicenna's theory of the 
dator formarum, he holds fundamentally the same 
position and he says e.g.: "Just as artifical products 
can only be understood by him who has not made 
them, because they take their origin in an intellect 
that is in the form which is in the soul of the artisan, 
so the products of nature prove the existence of 
supermundane Forms which are the causes that the 
sensible substances are potentially intelligible". And 
he adds: "This is the theory to which the partisans of 
the Ideas tended, but which they could not attain" 
(cf. my Die Epitome der Metaphysik des Averroes, 
Leiden 1924, 42). 

The Muslim theologians, generally speaking, are 
nominalists. They argue against the conceptualist 
side of the philosophers' view by asking: "how can 
knowledge give any truth, if reality is individual and 
knowledge universal, since truth is the conformity 
of thought with reality?" The theologians do not 
admit the objective reality of forms, all reality is 
individual, universals exist only in minds, they are 
sifdt najsiyya, spiritual qualities which, however, 
are not wholly real, but something intermediate 
between reality and unreality, or unreal, that is 
to say they are h&ldt, modi, or ma'dni (the Stoic 
XexTdt or o-7)|iatv6|ieva, ma'nd in this sense is the 
literal translation of o-7)|iaiv6|ievov, meaning, 
something meant, cf. Lane, s.v.). We find also the 
absolute denial of universals. Since for their sen- 
sualism thinking is nothing but the possession of 
representations and you cannot represent a universal 
e.g., "a horse", but only a particular, e.g., a definite 
horse, the universals are totally denied by then, 
(cf. Ghazzali, Tahajut al-Faldsija (ed. Bouyges, 
Beirut 1927, 330). 

Bibliography: The works quoted in the text 
and my translation (with notes) of Ibn Rushd 
Tahajut al-Tahafut (the Incoherence of the Inco- 
herence), Oxford 1954. (S. van den Bergh) 
EiIINS is the Arabic word in use at the present 
time to denote "sex", the adjective dfinsi corres- 
ponding to "sexual" and the abstract djinsiyya to 
"sexuality" as well as "nationality". The juridical 
aspect of sexual relations has already been examined 
in the article bah, and is to be the subject of further 
articles, nikah and zina; the present review will be 
limited to general considerations on the sexual life of 
the Muslims and the place that it occupies in literature. 
Pre-Islamic poetry, in so far as it is authentic, 
indicates that a certain laxity of behaviour was 
prevalent among the Arabs of the desert (Lammens, 
Le berceau de I'Islam, 276 ft.), and the "reunions 
galantes" of the contemporary Touaregs, described 
by Father de Foucauld (in his Dictionnaire touareg- 
francais, Paris 1952, ii, 559 ff., s.v. ahal), probably 
are not far removed from pre-Islamic practices. The 
naslb of the classical kasida, markedly erotic in 
character, is no doubt an indication of the existence 
of temporary unions in the encampments; in any 
case, its position at the head of the poem is 
evidence of the importance which the ancient 
Arabs attached to love, and especially sensual love, 
particularly since a number of lines of verse as 
realistic as those of Irnru 1 al-Kays have probably 
been deleted, through puritanical reaction, from the 
ancient poems collected in the 2nd and 3rd/8th and 



gth centuries; a further indication of this interest is 
shown by the richness of the vocabulary relating 
to the sexual organs, which is no doubt mainly due 
to the use of slang terms, as is confirmed at the 
present time by an unpublished study by Dr. 
Mathieu on the prostitutes of Casablanca. Inciden- 
tally we know that prostitution {bigha'), which is 
to be discussed in the article zina, was already in 
existence and that prostitutes were distinguished by 
a special emblem which floated over their tents (see 
Caussin de Perceval, Essai). 

It does not seem that Islam has in practice made 
many changes from the earlier state of affairs. 
Certainly the Kur'an, in several verses (IV, 30; 
XVII, 34; XXNI, 5-7, 35; XXIV, 31, 33; LXX, 
29-31), enjoins chastity, but only outside the bonds 
of marriage or concubinage (see S. H. al-Shamma, 
The ethical system underlying the Qur'dn, Tubingen 
I0 59> 95 fi- and bibliography) ; it condemns prosti- 
tution (XXIV, 33) and, above all, fornication [see 
zina], but the conditions laid down by the fukahP 
for the legal proof of zina are such that it more often 
than not escapes punishment. Marriage, as conceived 
by the Kur'an, has a two-fold object: it is intended to 
allow the male, who is largely favoured since it is 
he who benefits from the privileges of polygamy and 
repudiation (while women are in certain cases even 
deprived of the right of giving their consent), to 
satisfy his sexual needs lawfully, and to ensure the 
perpetuation of the race. That is why celibacy is in 
no way recommended, and it is even recommended 
to give the celibate in marriage (XXIV, 32). The 
Kur'an is realistic where it deals with sexual pleas- 
ures which it authorizes and the enjoyment of which 
the sole condition that Believers 
of one of the two means at their 
»e and concubinage [see c abd]. The 
(II, 223; see also 183,222) "Your 
women are a field for you. Come to your field as you 
will" may be compared with some of the suras, 
such as that of Joseph (XII), or verses such as those 
which describe the delights of paradise and, above 
all, the houris (LV, 56, 70, etc.). The Prophet 
himself is cited as an example of ardent sensuality, 
and tradition has preserved a certain number of 
hadiths which strongly favour satisfaction of the 
sexual instinct; G.-H. Bousquet (Ethique sexuelle, 41) 
notes that the 25th of the Forty hadiths of al-Nawawi 
contains this statement by the Prophet: "Each time 
that you satisfy the flesh, you do a deed of charity"; 
al-Ghazall (Le livre des bons usages en mature de 
mariage, trans. L. Bercher and G.-H. Bousquet, 
Paris-Oxford 1953, 40 ff.) sees only three disad- 
vantages in marriage (the impossibility of lawfully 
gaining the necessities of life, the difficulty for the 
husband of meeting all his obligations to his wives, 
and neglect of religion), while he has no difficulty 
in celebrating its virtues. It should, however, be 
noted that sexual relations, though greatly facilitated 
by Islamic legislation, not only are not absolutely 
free, but even within their lawful sphere place the 
partners in a state of major impurity which only the 
greater ablution (ghusl) can remove; in this a certain 
ambiguity of attitude manifests itself. 

Pederasty [see liwat] is explicity condemned by 
the Kur'an (VII, 78, 79) which on the other hand 
makes no reference to sapphism (sahk, sihdk, tasdhuk), 
to bestiality (wahshiyya) which the jurists rank with 
zina without, however, considering that it entails the 
penalty of death, nor finally to onanism [istimnd 3 ; 
nikdh al-yad; djald '■Umayra), regarding which the 
jurists' opinions do not agree (see al-Ghazall, op. cit., 



it encourages, 

disposal, mat 
celebrated 



NS 551 

119, n. 47) but which is often considered as more 
reprehensible than sodomy and bestiality (see 
Bousquet, Ethique sexuelle, 57). 

The freedom with which the Kur'an and the 
Prophet discuss these delicate questions ensured that 
the early Muslims felt no shame in speaking of them 
in the most direct terms, as is especially shown by 
juridical literature in its treatment of particular 
cases. Traditions relating to the early years of Islam 
are full of details about the importance then attached 
to sexual life, and in this respect the Kitdb al-Aghdni 
is a mine of information for the historian ; it abounds 
with precise particulars about relations between the 
sexes in the holy cities, and about the tastes of the 
women of the aristocracy who often lived lives of 
the greatest freedom, entirely preoccupied with their 
pleasures, in surroundings where the flourishing arts 
of poetry and music invited frivolity (see ghazalI. 
It is impossible in this brief account to mention all 
the anecdotes which cast a harsh light on the pre- 
occupations of this leisurely society, and of certain 
caliphs too, but it will be recalled that temporary 
marriage [see mut c a] which the Kur'an had not 
suppressed (although Sunni Islam finally rejected it) 
allowed transitory unions at small cost and, along 
with female musicians and singers, true professionals 
of love gained lasting reputations; for example the 
woman of Medina, by name Hubba, of whom al- 
Djahiz (Qiawdri, 64, 65; Hayawdn, ii, 200; vi, 61, 75) 
relates that she gave her son advice which seems to 
us shocking, and that she taught the women of 
Medina every sort of erotic refinement. 

Under the c Abbasids we see the development of 
a refined society, of luxury and pleasures (on the old 
Persian practice of incest, see particularly al-Djahi?, 
K. al-Bukhald 3 , ed. Hadjirl, 3-4). We have little in- 
formation about the sexual life of the lower orders 
of Muslims, among whom there was apparently a 
certain degree of laxity, but it seems clear that if the 
members of the aristocracy and bourgeoisie married 
free women who gave them children, they went 
elsewhere in search of sensual pleasures; this is the 
reign of the kiydn [see ijayna], so magnificently 
described by al-Djahi?, bringing with them an 
atmosphere of distinguished sensuality. Although 
during the pre-Islamic period and in the early days 
of Islam men's tastes had favoured women of ample 
proportions, it was now slenderness of figure that 
they sought, and literature provides many examples 
of the dubious taste shown with regard to ghuldmiy- 
ydt who adopted the appearance of boys. The 
pronounced liking for ephebes (ghuldm [q.v.]), whose 
praises were so often sung by poets such as Abu NuwSs, 
is a recurring characteristic (see A. Mez, Renaissance, 
337 ff-; English trans., 358 ff.; Spanish trans., 427ft.). 
A text such as the one by al-Djahiz entitled 
Mufdkharat al-diawari wa 'l-ghilmdn, despite the ob- 
scenity of certain passages, is in this respect ex- 
tremely instructive. The literary sources abound with 
anecdotes which refer to sexual abnormalities such 
as bestiality (al-Djahiz, K. al-Bighal, (53, § 73. 67, 
§ 100) and sapphism. Prostitution, controlled, existed 
almost everywhere (Mez, op. cit., 432). In the account 
of Bashshar given in the Aghdni, the most striking 
detail is the number of successes with women that 
this poet achieved, but it would be wrong to generalize 
too hastily and to conclude that debauchery had 
invaded the whole of society. The heroes of the 
anecdotes which are related to us almost all belong 
to the same class of libertines, whilst persons of 
rectitude, especially the Hanballs, protested vigo- 
rously against public immorality. 



On this question, an anecdote attributed to al- 
Asma c I [q.v.] seems to show to what an extent 
certain Bedouins had succeeded in keeping their 
sober habits; the philologist having asked a Bedouin 
to give him a definition of love (Hshk), the latter 
replied : "a glance after a glance and, if it be possible, 
a kiss after a kiss; this is the entrance to Paradise". 
The Bedouin's reply astonished al-Asma c i who, 
when asked in his turn to give his own definition, 
drew this remark from his interlocutor: "But you 
are not in love! You are merely seeking to have a 
child!" (al-Washsha', Muwashsha, 77). 

Throughout the following centuries, interest in 
sexual matters continued, as can be seen from 
the copious literature devoted to these subjects. In 
this connexion we should note that, if writers and 
poets of restraint do exist in Arabic literature, 
many others practise complete freedom of language ; 
the restrictions on the circulation of unexpurgated 
translations of the Arabian Nights are well known, 
and Das Buck der wunderbaren Erzdhlungen und 
seltsamen Geschichten edited by H. Wehr, Damascus- 
Wiesbaden 1956, again confirms the general tendency 
towards indecency, towards sukhf, later successfully 
cultivated by the poet Ibn al-Hadjdjadj and many 

To meet the sort of demand that requires that 
serious matter should be interspersed with amusing 
passages, works of adab literature frequently contain 
smutty anecdotes, and even popular encyclopaedias 
indulge in scabrous sections; there is no reason to 
be shocked by thus, for the prudishness displayed 
by some is often no more than hypocrisy, as al- 
Djahiz points out, who, in his introduction to the 
Mufakharat al-djawdri wa 'l-ghilmdn, after making 
fun of the Tartuffes who are too easily offended, 
recalls that the virtuous ancestors were in no whit 
so prudish and states that the words of the Arabic 
language were made to be used, even though they 
may seem shocking. The short work just referred to 
is particularly scabrous, dealing plainly with one 
aspect of sexual life and at the same time providing 
a sort of anthology of love, normal and abnormal; 
the author verges on obscenity without any sort of 

Earlier works dealing with sexual life seem to have 
been quite numerous already, if we can judge by the 
references that Djahiz makes to the Kutub al-bdh, 
of Indian origin, saying that these works are in no 
sense pornographic and that the Indians regarded 
them as manuals of sexual education with which 
they taught theirc hildren [K. al-ffayawdn, index); 
no doubt he is here alluding to the Kamasutra, of 
which, however, no Arabic translation has survived. 
Other and later works also appear to have been 
inspired by the Indian tradition, in particular the 
K . al-Alfiyya which the Fihrist quotes, while Hadjdji 
Khalifa (see index) says that it was written by a 
certain al-Hakim al-Azrak for the master of Nisabur, 
Tughan Shah (569-81/1174-85). and embellished with 
suggestive illustrations. In its development, adab 
literature soon spread to sexual questions also, and 
two authors of the 3rd/9th century seem to have 
specialized in this type of writing. The first, Abu 
'l-'Anbas al-Saymari (d. 275/888 [see al-saymarI]), 
who had, however, been a kadi and to whom are 
attributed books on astrology still preserved in mss., 
is the author of some forty works which include one 
treatise on onanism (K. al-Khadkhada fi djald 
l Umayra) and one on sapphism (K. al-Sahhdkdt wa 
'l-baghghd'in). The second is a certain Muhammad 
b. Hassan al-Namali to whom the Fihrist (217) 



devotes a passage, reproduced in full by Yakut 
(Udabd', xviii, 119), and entirely taken up with the 
enumeration of titles relating to sexual questions, 
in particular a large work K. Bardjdn wa-hiibahib in 
which the author makes a special study of the best 
ways to fascinate women. The Fihrist (436) lists the 
titles of 12 works "on the Persian, Indian, Byzantine 
and Arab bah", none of which appear to have 
survived, but it is probable that some of them were 
serious in purpose: a study of the harmony between 
men and women in relation to their physical charac- 
ters, female physiology, the mystery of generation, 
sexual medicine and hygiene, etc. 

Subsequently, the literature that can be described 
as erotologic adab developed quite considerably; to 
modern eyes it may appear obscene in character, 
though it was not so regarded by its readers, since 
whole chapters characteristically combine verses from 
the Kur'an and hadiths of the Prophet with obscene 
anecdotes or poems, while others on the contrary 
are merely inspired by the wish to popularize 
certain notions about medicine and hygiene. S. 
al-Munadjdjid (IJayat djinsiyya, 107 ff.) reproduces 
a list of the contents of several of these works 
which are mostly unpublished; we will name them 
briefly, noting the characteristics of the authors to 
whom several are, rightly or wrongly, attributed: 
Qiawdmi' al-ladhdha of Abu '1-Hasan 'All b. Nasr 
al-Katib who took his documentation from earlier 
texts, now lost, particularly the K. Bardjdn wa- 
hubdhib referred to above; in character it is at once 
lexicographical, juridical, medical, psychological 
and magical, and deals especially with aphrodisiacs. 
— Nuzhat al-ashdb fi mu'-dsharat al-ahbdb of the 
doctor al-Samaw'al b. Yahya al-Maghribi al-Isra'ill 
(d. 570/1174, see Brockelmann, I, 892), composed 
for the Artukid c Imad al-dln Abu Bakr; it is an adab 
work of somewhat composite nature, medical ideas 
appearings side by side with advice on buying slaves 
or behaviour in society. Nuzhat al-albdb fi-md Id 
yudjadfi kitdb of Ahmad b. Yusuf al-Tifashi (d. 651/ 
1253 [see AL-TljUANi]) is mainly devoted to prosti- 
tution and sexual anomalies.— Kitdb al-Bdhiyya wa 
'l-tardkib al-sultdniyya of Naslr al-DIn Tusi (d. 672/ 
1274 [see TusI]), a medical work with some chapters 
on sexuality. — Nuzhat al-nufus wa-daftar al-Hlm wa- 
rawdat al-'arus, an anonymous urdjuza of 10,000 
lines of verse on the virtues of marriage, the termino- 
logy of the subject, aphrodisiacs, physiognomy and 
its use in love. — Tuhfat al-'arus wa-rawdat al-nufus 
of Muhammad b. Ahmad al Tidjani (d. after 709/1309 
[see al-tIdjanI]), which contains above all the canon 
of female beauty; this very popular work was printed 
at Cairo in 1301. — Rudiu'- al-shaykh ild sibdh fi 
'l-kuwwa c ald 'l-bdh, attributed to Ibn Kemal Pasha 
(d. 941/1535 [see kemal-pashazade]), a compilation 
of earlier works, medical and hygienic in character 
but at the same time markedly erotic; this work was 
printed several times at Cairo and Bombay, and 
enjoyed great popularity. To this list must be added 
al-Rawd al-'dtir fi nuzhat al-khdfir, composed ca. 813/ 
1910 by Muhammad al-NafzawI on the request of a 
minister of the Hafsid Abu Faris, and which offers 
"the advantage of informing us of the ideas then 
current, at certain levels, on the subject of women 
and love" (R. Brunschvig, yaf sides, ii, 372-3); this 
has been the object of numerous editions and a 
Fr. trans. (Algiers 1876, Paris 1904, 1912). 

Systematic search through catalogues of manu- 
scripts would certainly provide a richer harvest, but 
the particulars given above should prove sufficient. 
Bibliography: In the text. Two funda- 



DJINS — DJISM 



mental studies have been devoted to the subject 
discussed in this article; the first, by G.-H. 
Bousquet, La morale de I'Islam et son ithique 
sexuelle, Paris 1953, is the work of a jurist and 
sociologist who does not neglect practical reality; 
the second, by Salah al-Din al-Munadidjid, al- 
Ifayat al-djinsiyya Hnd al 'Arab, Beirut 1958, is 
an excellent expose based essentially on literary 
sources; another work by the same author, 
Qiamdl al-mar>a Hnd aW-Arab, Beirut 1957, is also 
rewarding. Since then two works have appeared but 
iiave remained unavailable to me: M. c Abd al- 
Wahid, al-Isldm wa'l-mushkila al-djinsiyya, Cairo 
1380/1961, and Y. el-Masri, Le drame sexuel de la 
femme dans I'Orient arabe, 1962. (Ch. Pellat) 
DJIRDJA [see girga]. 

BJIRfiJENT (in Arabic Di.r.dj.n.t and K.r.k.nt.; 
we know of a nisba of Kirkinti, borne by a 
mystic of Sicilian origin, in the 4th/ioth century), 
Agrigentum. Far removed from its ancient splen- 
dour, the town fell into the hands of the Arabs 
in 214/829 and was destroyed, or more probably 
dismantled, in the following year for fear that the 
Byzantines would return. It rose again, however, 
under Arab rule, and was frequently involved in 
hostilities with Palermo, which resulted in the 
bloody struggles of the first half of the 4th/ioth 
century: in the years 325-9/937-41 in particular the 
people of Agrigentum rose against the Fatimid 
authorities, whose representative in Sicily was the 
governor Salim b. Rashid until he was succeeded by 
the general Khalll b. Ishak, sent by the caliph of 
of Mahdiyya, al-Ka 3 im. The general reduced Diirdient 
to a state of obedience to the Fatimids and carried 
off several notables as prisoners to Africa; he had 
them drowned during the crossing by sinking the 
ship in which they were travelling. Diirdjent then 
came under the rule of the Kalbid amirs of Sicily, 
and when in about 431/1040 their power collapsed, 
it was taken into the territories of the amir of 
Castrogiovanni Ibn al-Hawwas who had a palace at 
Djirdjent. In the general anarchy which preceded 
the arrival of the Normans, the town was occupied 
first by the ZIrid prince Ayyub b. Tamim, and then 
by a Hammudid sharif from Spain. The Normans 
under Roger captured the town from the sharif on 
25 July 1087, and thereafter it formed part of the 
Norman state of Sicily. Al-Idrisi speaks of Diirdient 
as a flourishing town with very rich markets, 
beautiful buildings and imposing ancient remains 
(this certainly refers to the Greek temples). Today 
nothing survives from the Muslim period apart from 
the name "Porta Bibirria" (Bab al-Riyah, Gate of 
the Winds) which is still current. The Biblioteca 
Lucchesiana there possesses a few dozen Arabic 
manuscripts. 

Bibliography: M. Amari, Storia dei Musul- 
mani di Sicilia and Biblioteca Arabo-Sicula, index; 
Idrisi, L'ltalia nel libro del re Ruggero, ed. Amari 
and Schiaparelli, Rome 1883, 31-2 in the text, 
36 in the trans. (F. Gabrieli) 

DJIREJl ZAYDAN [see zaydan]. 
D_JIRD_JlS, St. George. Islam honours this 
Christian martyr as a symbol of resurrection and 
renovation; his festival marks the return of spring. 
The legend of St. George had become syncretic 
long before the days of Islam, for we can recognize 
in St. George overthrowing the dragon a continuation 
of Bellerophon slaying the Chimaera. Bellerophon 
himself was symbolic of the Sun scattering the dark- 
ness, or of spring driving away the mists and fogs 
of winter. 



According to Muslim legend, Djirdjis lived in 
Palestine in the time of the disciples, and was mar- 
tyred at Mosul under the ruler Dadan — presumably 
Diocletian; during his execution the saint died 
and was resurrected three times. The legend is 
found in a considerably developed form in the 
Persian version of Tabari and always with the 
same motif: it is simply a series of deaths and 
resurrections. The saint makes the dead rise from 
the tombs; he makes trees sprout and pillars 
bear flowers; in one of his martyrdoms, the sky 
becomes dark and the sun only appears again after 
he has returned to life. 

In the end St. George converts the wife of the 
monarch persecuting him; she is put to death; the 
saint then begs God to allow him to die, and his 
prayer is granted. 

In the town of Mosul a mashhad of Nabi Djirdjis 
is still known, already noticed in the 6th/i2th 
century by al-Harawi {K . al-Ziydrdt, ed. Sourdel- 
Thomine, Damascus 1953, 69; trans. Damascus 1957, 
154), and which corresponds to a former Chaldaean 
church (F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Archaeologische 
Reise im Euphrat und Tigris Gebiet, Berlin 1911-22, 
ii, 236-8; A. Sioufi, Les antiquitis et monuments de 
Mossoul, Mosul 1940, 17-23; J. M. Fiey, Mossoul 
chritienne, Beirut 1959, 118-20). 

In Islam St. George is frequently confused with 
the prophets Khidr and Elias [see khidr and 

KHIDRELLEZl. 

Bibliography : Tabari, index; Tabari, Chronicle, 
tr. Zotenberg, Paris 1869, ii, 54-66; Ibn Kutayba, 
Ma c drif, ed. 'UkSsha, index; Tha'labl, Kisas al- 
anbiyd, Cairo 1282, 466 ff.; Sami, Kdmus al-a'-lam, 
iii, 1778. (B. Carra de Vaux*) 

EJIRM [see djism]. 

EJlRUFT, a fertile, high lying district of Kirman 
with a city of the same name south-west of Bam and 
separated from it by the Baridjan Mountains. There 
is no record of the city in pre-Islamic times and the 
first mention of the city is when Djiruft was captured 
by Mudjashi 1 b. Mas c ud in 35/655 (al-Baladhuri, 
Futuh, 391). Thereafter the city is mentioned many 
times, especially in the Arabic geographies. 

The Kharidjites were active in Djiruft but nothing 
is known of the history of the city. The geographer 
al-Mukaddasi (461) praises the district highly in 
describing the fertility of its land and its beauty. The 
Saffarid Ya c kub and his brother c Amr are said to 
have embellished Djiruft with buildings (Sykes, ii, 
16). The city suffered much from the anarchy of the 
Mongol and post-Ilkhanid periods but it continued 
to exist in the Timurid period after which Djiruft 
disappears from the sources, although the district or 
shahristdn retains the name to the present day. 

The site of the old city of Djiruft is unknown but 
it must be near the present town of Sabzawaran, 
and some nearby ruins (Le Strange, 314) may be 
those of the old city. 

Bibliography : Le Strange, 314; Schwarz, Iran, 

iii, 240; P. Sykes, A history of Persia, London 1930, 

ii, 16. (R. N. Frye) 

PJISM (a.), body. In philosophical language the 

body (otojxa) is distinguished from the incorporeal 

(aotojxaTOv), God, spirit, soul, etc. In so far as 

speculation among the Muslims was influenced by 

Neo-Platonism two features were emphasized: 1. the 

incorporeal is in its nature simple and indivisible, the 

body on the other hand is composite and divisible; 

2. the incorporeal is in spite of its negative character 

the original, the causing principle, while the body 

is a product of the incorporeal. 



The more or less naive anthropomorphism of early 
Islam, i.e., the conception of God after the analogy 
of the human form, is not to be considered here. On 
it one may consult I. Goldziher, Vorlesungen uber 
den Islam, 1910, 107 f., 120 f., and A. J. Wensinck, 
The Muslim Creed, 1932, 66 f. But from the usual 
tadjsim or tashbih we must distinguish the teaching of 
certain philosophers who called God a body; this 
is to some extent a question of terminology. Ac- 
cording to al-Ash c ari (Makdldt, ed. Ritter, i, 31 f., 
44 f., 59 f., 207 f., ii, 301 f.), the Shi'I theologian 
Hisham b. al-Hakam (first half of the 3rd/9th 
century) was the most important champion of the 
view that God is a body. He would not however 
(cf. 208 and 304) compare Him with worldly bodies 
but only describe Him in an allegorical sense as an 
existing being, existing through Himself. His descrip- 
tion of God (p. 207) is thus to be interpreted : God is 
in a space which is above space ; the dimensions of His 
body are such that His breadth is not distinguished 
from His depth and His colour is similar to His taste 
and smell; He is a streaming light, a pure metal 
shedding light on all sides like a round pearl. If we 
add that the qualities of bodies are also called bodies 
by Hisham and others, then we must conclude with 
S. Horovitz (Uber den Einjluss der griechischen 
Philosophic, 1919, 38 f.) that here Stoic terminology 
is present but with foreign additions. The doctrine 
that God is light etc. is not a Stoic theory. 

After a long fight among the theological schools 
the incorporeality of God was recognized by Islam. 
Only the doctrine of the spirituality of the soul of 
man, held by many theologians, notably Ghazali, did 
not find general recognition [cf. nafs]. Ibn Hazm, 
for example (Kitab al-Fasl, 80 ff.), calls the individual 
na/s a djism, because it is distinguished from the 
souls of other individuals, because it has knowledge 
about much that another does not know, and so on. 

A remarkable doctrine about the body had already 
appeared before Ash'ari and then developed in his 
school, namely a theological atomism. Regarded 
from the philosophical side, the atomists and their 
opponents have at least one hypothesis in common: 
the body is composed of the incorporeal. But how ? 
According to the view of the atomist theologians, the 
body is composed of the smallest particles (atoms) 
which cannot be further subdivided, incorporeal 
themselves and not perceptible. They then fall out 
over the question how many atoms are required to 
make a body, in a way which reminds one of the old 
problem of how many grains of corn make a heap. 
A survey of this speculative atomism, the origins 
of which have not yet been fully explained, is given 
by D. B. Macdonald, Continuous re-creation and 
atomic time in Muslim scholastic theology (in Isis, 
no. 30, ix/2, 1927, 326 ff.). 

The philosophers, on the other hand, say with 
Aristotle and his school that the body is composed of 
matter and form (hayula or mddda and sura). Both 
are in themselves incorporeal, indivisible and 
imperceptible, but their combination, the body, is 
divisible because the body is a continuous magnitude. 
This is really a philosophically diluted cosmogonic 
conception, the birth of the body from a male 
active principle (form) and a female receptive 
principle (matter). For Aristotle, who taught the 
eternity of a world order coming from God, the idea 
had hardly any importance; still less had it for the 
Stoics, who taught that matter and form are in 
reality eternally combined and can only be separated 
in imagination (Arab, ji 'l-dhihn, ji 'l-wahm). But 
for the Neo-Platonists it became a gigantic problem, 



to derive the material, corporeal world from the 
incorporeal; it became still more difficult for the 
Muslim philosophers to effect a reconciliation with 
the absolute doctrine of creation. 

Aristotle gives the following definition (cf. De 
coelo, i, I, 268', 7 f., and Metaph., v, 13, 1020*, 7): 
a body is that which has three dimensions (dimension 
= Siaarami;, 8idaT»)|jta, Arab bu'd, imtiddd) and 
is a continuous, therefore always divisible, quantity 
(rcoaov auvex^S, kam muttasil). 

A wordy dispute arose over this; the question was 
which is the most essential, the dimension or the 
magnitude, and how the magnitude is to be conceived 
(as incorporeal form). When the Neo-Platonists wish 
to "explain" something they make an abstract out 
of the concrete: tco<t6v becomes t:oc6tt\c„ kam 
becomes kamiyya, magnitude becomes quantity and 
djism djismiyya (corporeality). The following 
answer is then given to the question how a body 
comes into being: through corporeality (= corporeal 
idea of form) being assumed by matter (also in- 
corporeal by definition). When the absolute body or 
second matter is thus brought into existence, the 
dimensions and other qualities of the concrete 
bodies come into existence; the gap between in 
corporeal and corporeal is thus bridged. 

As regards matter, this doctrine comes from the 
Enneads (ii, 4) ; the formulation, that corporeality is 
the first form of the body (<rco|jia"rix6v eTSoi;) is 
found in the Neo-Platonist expositor Simplicius 
(4th century) in his commentary on Aristotle's 
Physics (ed. Diels, 227 ff.). Hence in Arabic the 
expression sura djismiyya and in Latin forma 
corporeitatis ; because the body according to Aristotle 
is one of the five continuous magnitudes (like line, 
surface, space and time) one talks of continuitv 
(ittisdl) as the form of the body. 

The Ikhwan al-Safa, Ibn Sina and al-Ghazali 
adopted these subtleties, although in different 
proportions. The Ikhwan al-Safa place corporeality 
or absolute body (djism mutlab) last in the series of 
emanations [cf. fayd]. 

Ibn Sina, who also distinguishes two matters, 
although he knows that mddda is the translation of 
the Greek (iXir) (hayula) and he regularly uses it 
synonymously, regards as the first form of existence 
of the body continuous quantity, in which the power 
is according to the dimensions, in other words, the 
dimensions are added like attributes or accidents 
(cf. hudud in Tis' Rasd'il, 58, 60 [thereon al-Ghazali. 
Mi l yar al-Hlm, 180]; Ishdrat, ed. Forget, 90 ff.). 

Ibn Rushd disputes (Metaphysics, Cairo ed., 37 ff.), 
as so often, the teachings of his predecessor without 
quite clearing up the problem. 

When the Neo-Platonizing philosophers and 
theologians talk of the body, it should always be 
asked what they mean by it: the divine original 
(= idea of the body) or its purest, unalterable copies 
in the heavenly spheres and constellations, or 
lastly the sublunar elementary bodies with their 
qualities, changes and combinations. This is the first 
step to comprehension, so far as this is possible. 

The distinction between the heavenly bodies and 
earthly bodies influenced by them was very important 
for the natural philosophy of the period. The latter 
were composed of the four relatively simple bodies 
(elements, in Aristotle anXi ato|jtaTa: Arab, al- 
basd'it). In the higher sense the heavenly bodies were 
simple; to describe them the term djirm (plur. 
adjrdm) was often used, which otherwise is synony- 
mous with djism. It is to be noted that the Theology 
oj Aristotle (ed. Dieterici, 32, 40 f.) understands by 



DJISM — DJISR al-HADIU 



Djirmiyyun those philosophers who as followers of 
Pythagoras teach that the soul of man is the 
harmony of its body {iHildf, ittifdk, ittihdd). This was 
a theory particularly common among physicians. 

Generally popular also was the distinction taken 
from Aristotle between the physical and the mathe- 
matical body (dj. tabiH and dj. taHimi = d±. al- 
handasa). The geometricians are said to regard 
dimensions as ideal figures, abstracted from the many 
qualities possessed by natural bodies, with which 
the physicists deal. 

Djirm, badan and djasad are used as synonyms 
of djism; the two last are usually applied to the 
human body, badan often only to the torso. While 
badan is also used for the bodies of animals, djasad 
is rather reserved for the bodies of higher beings 
(angels etc.). Djamdd is an inorganic body, but 
adjsdd is used particularly for minerals. It may also 
be mentioned that haykal (plur. haydkil) means 
with the gnostics and mystics the physical word as 
whole as well as the planets, because the world-soul 
and the spirits of the stars dwell in them like the 
soul of man in its body (cf. al-sabi'a; Nicholson, 
Studies in Islamic mysticism, no; cf. Theology of 
Aristotle, 167). 

Bibliography: P. Duhem, Le systeme du 

Monde, iv, 541 ff.; S. v. d. Bergh, Die Epitome des 

Averroes, Leiden 1924, 63 ff. ; H. A. Wolfson, 

Crescas' critique of Aristotle, 278 ff.; S. Pines, 

Beitrdge zur islamischen Atomenlehre, Berlin 1936, 

4; L. Gauthier, Ibn Rochd, Averroes, Paris 1948, 71. 

See also c alam and madda. (Tj. de Boer*) 

DJISR, pi. djusur (Ar., cf. Frankel, Aram. 

Fremdworter im Arabischen, 285), "bridge", is more 

particularly, though by no means exclusively, a 

bridge of boats in opposition to kantara [q.v.], an 

arched bridge of stone. 

An incident in the history of the conquest of 
Babylonia has become celebrated among the Arab 
historians as yawm al-djisr "the day of [the fight at] 
the bridge": in 13/634 Abu 'Ubayd al-Thakafi was 
defeated and slain in battle against the Persians at 
a bridge across the Euphrates near Hira; cf. Well- 
hausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi, 68 ff., 73 ; 
Caetani, iii, 145 ff. (Ed.) 

DJISR BANAT YA'SUB, the "bridge of the 
daughters of Jacob", name of a bridge over the 
Upper Jordan, above the sea of Galilee and to 
the south of the former marshy depression of the 
lake of al-Hiila, now dry. At this point, which was 
that of an old ford known at the time of the Crusades 
under the name of the "ford of Ya'kub" (Vadum 
Jacob of William of Tyre) or "ford of lamentations" 
(makhddat al-ahzdn of Ibn al-Athir and Yakut), the 
Via maris from Damascus to Safad and c Akka 
crossed the river, following a trade route which was 
especially frequented in Mamluk times and which 
coincided also with a barid route. From this time 
dates the improvement of the crossing by the 
erection of a bridge of basalt of three arches, traces 
of which are still visible, and the construction nearby 
of a caravanserai, before 848/1444, by a Damascene 
merchant, who marked along with his foundations the 
route from Syria to Egypt (al-Nu c aymi, al-Ddris, 
ed. Dj. al-Hasani, ii, Damascus 1951, 290; cf. H. 
Sauvaire, in J A, 1895, ii, 262). Travellers and 
geographers, oriental and western alike, only rarely 
omit mention of this stage, sometimes under the 
designation, also frequent, of Djisr Ya'kub or 
Pons Jacob. 

The strategic importance of this crossing, again 
emphasized in 1799 wn en it marked the extreme 



point of the advance of French troops, was especially 
marked in the 6th/i2th century when Franks and 
Muslims contested it furiously: Baldwin III was 
defeated here by Nur al-DIn in 552/1157; Baldwin IV 
built here in 573/1178 a fortress entrusted to the 
Templars, the Castellet of the ford of Jacob, whose 
ruins still remain on a knoll on the west bank 500 m. 
south of the bridge; this stronghold was taken and 
destroyed by Salah al-Din a year later, in 575/1179. 
The favour enjoyed by the Biblical reminiscences 
centred on this locality even in the middle ages, and 
which seem to have resulted from a transfer to the 
Jordan of the tradition of Jacob's crossing of 
the Jabbok (now Nahr al-Zarka), according to 
Genesis, xxxii, 22, is attested by the toponymy 
of the region and by the mentions in Arabic authors 
of the 6th/i2th century of a mashhad Ya'-kubi, 
then a place of pilgrimage, and of a "castle of 
Jacob" (frasr Ya'kub) or "house of lamentations" 
(bayt al-ahzdn) ; the latter name refers to the lamen- 
tations of Jacob for the death of his son Joseph 
(recalled not far from there, at the place called 
Djubb Yusuf or Khan Djubb Yusuf, by the pit 
in which he is said to have been cast by his 
brothers). At the present day there further exists 
the "grotto of the daughters of Jacob" (magharat 
bandt Ya'kub), a sanctuary whose name explains 
that of the bridge, and whose history is fixed 
by an inscription of the 9th/i5th century (L. A. 
Mayer, Satura epigraphica arabica, inQDAP, ii (1932), 
127-31). 

Bibliography: R. Dussaud, Topographie 

historique de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 314; F. M. Abel, 

Giographie de la Palestine, Paris 1933-8, i, 162, 

480, 486; ii, 226; Le Strange, Palestine, 53; A. S. 

Marmardji, Textes giographiques, Paris 195 1, 7; 

M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie d I'epoque 

des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, 246; R. Hartmann, 

Die Strasse von Damaskus nach Kairo, in ZDMG, 

lxiv, 694-700; William of Tyre, xxi, 26; Ibn al- 

Athlr, xi, 301; RHC Or., i, 636; iv, 194, 203 ft.; 

Harawi, K. al-ziydrdt, ed. Sourdel-Thomine, 

Damascus 1953, 20 (Fr. tr. idem, Damascus 1957, 

51 and note); Yakut, i, 775; Dimashki, ed. 

Mehren, 107; R. Grousset, Hist, des Croisades, 

Paris 1934-6, index s.v. Jisr Bandt Yaqub and 

Gui de Jacob). (J. Sourdel-Thomine) 

DJISR AL-flADlD, "iron bridge", name of a 

bridge over the Orontes in the lower part of 

its course, at the point where the river, emerging 

from the valleys of the calcareous plateau and 

widening towards the depression of al- c Amk [q.v.], 

turns sharply westwards without being lost in that 

marshy depression whose waters it partly drains to 

the sea. The fame of this toponym, frequently 

mentioned in mediaeval documents but of obscure 

origin (perhaps local legend), is explained by the 

strategic and commercial importance of this stage, 

through which, in antiquity and in the middle ages, 

has always passed the route joining Antioch to 

Chalcis (Kinnasrin) and then Aleppo (a route 

frequently taken, at the time of Antioch's prosperity, 

by the caravan traffic descending from the col of 

Baylan [q.v.]). The bridge itself, defended by strong 

towers and fortified on various occasions (notably in 

1 161 by Baldwin IV), is known to have played a 

part of prime importance in the wars between Arabs 

and Byzantines as early as the 4th/ioth century, 

later in the history of the principality of Antioch 

after its storm by the Franks of the first crusade. 

The present bridge retains no trace of the building 

of this period. In the neighbourhood is a raised site 



556 



DJISR al-HADID — DJISS 



which doubtless marks the position of the ancient 
Gephyra. 

Bibliography: J. Weulersse, L'Oronte, Tours 

1940, passim; R. Dussaud, Topographie Historique 

de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 170, 171-2, 434; M. van 

Berchem and E. Fatio, Voyage en Syrie, Cairo 

I9I3-5. 238-9; CI. Cahen, La Syrie du fiord, Paris 

1940, part. 134 and index; Abu '1-Fida', Takwlm, 

49; Le Strange, Palestine, 60; M. Gaudefroy- 

Demombynes, La Syrie a Vipoque des Mamelouks, 

Paris 1923, 17. (J. Sourdel-Thomine) 

DJISR AL-SHUfiHR or Djisr al-ShvghOr, the 

modern name of a place in north Syria, the site of a 

bridge over the Orontes which has always been an 

important centre of communications in an area that 

fact at this spot that the most direct route from the 
Syrian coast to the steppes in the interior and the 
Euphrates, passing over the Djabal Nusayri and 
the Limestone Massif, crossed the line of communi- 
cations that ran north-south and followed the Orontes 
between Apamea/Kal'at al-Mudik and Antioch/ 
Antakiya. Of these two routes the second is today 
abandoned, its traffic having gradually declined 
during the Middle Ages, while swamps spread 
over the once fertile and cultivated plain of al- 
GhSb [q.v.]. But the valley of the Nahr al-Kabir 
and the depression of al-Rudj are still partly followed 
by the modern road from al-Ladhikiya to Halab, 
crossing the Orontes by this bridge which has been 
so often rebuilt and altered, and across which the 
old trade route used to run, linking the coastal town 
of Laodicaea with Chalcis/Kinnasrin and Berea/ 
Halab, in one direction, and with al-Bara [q.v.] and 
Arra/Ma c arrat al-Nu c man in the other. 

There have long been attempts to identify this spot 
with the Seleucia ad Belum of Ptolemy, or Niaccuba 
(corruption of Seleucobelus) of the Itinerary of 
Antoninus, which in ancient times commanded one 
of the routes leading from the Limestone Massif. But 
the identification of this bridge with the one at 
Kashfahan, so often mentioned in the fighting at the 
time of the Crusades, has given rise to much discus- 
sion which has served to emphasize the utter lack 
of precision in the descriptions given by Arab 
authors, and also the modern aspect of the present 
village. Only a caravanserai and a mosque of the 
Ottoman period testify to the fact that it was once 
a halting-place for pilgrims of the hadjdj coming 
from Anatolia and crossing Syria by the ancient road 
along the Orontes valley, and it is difficult to place 
at a date earlier than the Mamluk period (defaced 
inscription) the bridge with its assortment of materi- 
als and the sharp elbow projecting .upstream. There 
seems however to be a convincing case, and on this 
point we follow R. Dussaud in his refutation of Max 
van Berchem's suggestion, for distinguishing the 
site of the cross-roads, the Kashfahan of the Crusades, 
and Shughr in the Voyage of the Mamluk sultan 
Kaytbay, from the site of the twin castles of al- 
Shughr and Bakas which stood in the same valley, 
but 6 km. to the north-west, and constituted one 
of the eastern defences of the Frankish principality 

It is this fortress, whose ruins still crown a ridge 
of rock of which the central part has collapsed (hence 
the need to build two separate fortications) and 
dominate the village of Shughr al-Kadim amidst its 
gardens, which was conquered by Salah al-Din in 
the course of the celebrated campaign of 584/1188, 
during which he first halted at Tall Kashfahan. 
Later, this fortress formed part of the domains of 



the Ayyubid al-Malik al-Zahir Ghazi and, after 
being captured by the Mongols, it became during 
the Mamluk period the centre of a military district 
ranking as one of the niydbas of the province of 
Aleppo. Its decline, from the time when it lost all its 
strategic importance, finally explains the subsequent 
rise of the modern Djisr al-Shughur and the return 
of a settled population to the neighbourhood of the 
bridge where, in the time of Abu '1-Fida 5 , there had 
only been a weekly market (crowded, however), and 
where caravanserais for foreign merchants were then 
built (the sovereign of Aleppo promised to put up a 
fondaco for the Venetians). 

Bibliography: J. Weulersse, L'Oronte, Tours 
1940, passim; R. Dussaud, Topographie historique 
de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 155-64, 180; G. Tchalenko, 
Villages antiques de la Syrie du nord, Paris 1953-8, 
index s.v. Gisr al-Sugur; M. van Berchem and 
E. Fatio, Voyage en Syrie, Cairo 1913-5, 251-64; 
CI. Cahen, La Syrie du Nord, Paris 1940, index under 
Djisr ach-Choughour, Tell Kachfahan and Choughr- 
Bakas; Le Strange, 80, 537, 543; M. Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, La Syrie a Vipoque des Mamelouks, 
Paris 1923, 89, 216; Yakut, i, 704, 869; iii, 303; 
Abu '1-Fida 5 , Takwlm, 261; Ibn Battuta, i, 165; 
J. Sauvaget, Les caravansdrails syriens du hadjdj 
de Constantinople, in Ars Islamica, iv (1937), 108-9; 
W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant, 
Amsterdam 1959, i, 377. 

(J. Sourdel-Thomine) 
EJISS (A.), plaster.— Muslim builders have 
generally shown themselves unanxious to use care- 
fully chosen and worked materials in their con- 
structions. Frequently walls, apparently hurriedly 
built, are composed of rubble (undressed stones) or 
even of pis6 (compacted earth and lime) or mud-brick. 
This mediocre skeleton, however, is clad by facings 
which disguise its poverty and give it the illusion of 
richness. Just as the Byzantine builders decorated 
church sanctuaries and rooms in princely dwellings 
with marble plaques and mocaics with a gold ground, 
those of Persia, Egypt, or the Maghrib have covered 
the facades and interiors of their mosques and 
palaces with incised fayence or with sculptured and 
coloured plasters, and the windows themselves are 
adorned with perforated plaster claustra, their voids 
filled with coloured panes. 

Plaster and stucco (made of a mixture of lime and 
marble or powdered eggshell, or else of pure gypsum 
and dissolved glue) are both of especial interest as 
the facings of exteriors and interiors. The plaster is 
carefully smoothed and decorated with paint, or, 
when it has been applied more or less thickly on the 
wall, sculptured by an iron tool whence the name of 
naksh hadida given in North Africa to work of this 
genre. In his book L'Alhambra de Grenade, 5, Henri 
Saladin has provided the following technical account 
[here translated]: 'On a wall coated with plaster the 
craftsman would trace the intended design with a 
dry-point; then, with the help of chisels and burins, 
he would cut in the fresh plaster the ornaments 
which he had outlined. This prodecure necessitated 
the use of a slow setting plaster, which could be 
obtained by the addition of gum or salt to the 
plaster, as the Tunisian craftsman do today. Later 
this method was replaced by moulding, but this 
gives less delicacy. Mouldings of the Arab period may 
still be seen at the Alhambra. An examination of the 
ornamentation of the convent at S. Francisco, an old 
Arab palace . . . reveals the manner in which plaster 
was retained against wooden surfaces: at one place 
where the plaster has fallen the wooden backing 



DJISS - 

can be seen, pierced by nails joined one to another 
by a network of string'. One should add that besides 
the sculpture obtained by cutting away the field 
between the decorative elements one does also find 
moulded or impressed reliefs — particularly border 
mountings — level with and adhering to the ground- 
work, which has been cut back for this purpose. 

The important r61e played by decoration of this 
genre in the Islamic art of the 8th/i4th century, 
which saw the erection of the most notable parts of 
the Alhambra, is attested by a passage of Ibn 
Khaldun, who considers it as a branch of architecture 
(Mukaddima, ii, 321 ; Rosenthal, ii, 360-1) : he remarks 
that the work is executed by iron tools (bi mathdkib 
al-hadid) in the still wet plaster. However, it goes 
without saying that plaster as an element of decora- 
tion is much earlier than the blossoming of Hispano- 
Moorish art. To what period should one assign its 
adoption by the Muslims, and to what influence can 
it be attributed? 

Hellenistic art, one of the essential sources of the 
Muslim arabesque, was not ignorant of stucco 
relief, which was often delicately modelled. It must 
not be supposed, however, that Islam has inherited 
the art of the Roman or Byzantine workers in 
gypsum plaster, for Islamic moulded-plaster decora- 
tion is very different, both as a technique and as a 
style. It is apparently towards Sasanian art that the 
search for its origin must be directed. The Syrian 
castle of Kasr al-Hayr, founded by the Umayyad 
Hisham in 110/728, in the ornamentation of which 
Sasanian motifs preponderate, presents some panels 
which are indicative of this origin. A compact floral 
decor, wholly filling the geometrical frames which 
divide the panels, is treated without relief but by 
cutting out the plaster perpendicularly or obliquely 
to the surface plane. This sunken two-dimensional 
scupture, in which there is no projection, is already 
that of the Muslim works in plaster of the succeeding 
centuries. It flourishes in the 3rd/9th century at 
Samarra and, mixed with Hellenistic elements, 
gives rise to the linear undercut decoration of the 
'Abbasid palaces. This was transmitted, with many 
another fashion, from 'Irak to the Egypt of the 
TGlunids. From Egypt it reached North Africa, 
where it found a favourable soil. An extension 
towards the Sahara among the Kharidjites, who had 
taken refuge at Sedrata near Wargla, must be 
mentioned. The plaster there, which mixed with 
sand is very durable, is used, under the name of 
timshent, for incised decorative facings, where the 
African Christian inheritance appears side by side 
with Mesopotamian reminiscences. However, it is 
especially in the Maghrib and in Spain that sculptured 
plaster attains its greatest beauty. The 6th/i2th 
century saw the birth in Marrakesh, Fez, and 
Tlemcen, of facings with a floral decoration where 
the sculptor has given to this plastic decoration a 
richness of forms, a firmness yet a flexibility of 
composition, a vigour in relief {e.g., the Almoravid 
domes of the middt at Marrakesh and of the Kara- 
wiyyin of Fez, the Almohad capitals of the Kutubiyya 
etc.) which greatly transcend the usual frontiers of 
the arabesque. The role played by sculptured plaster 
in Hispano-Moorish art in the 13th and 14th centuries 
is well known. It was to be maintained in Spain in 
the mudijar monuments, and to survive in the later 
Tunisia and Morocco, attesting less the decorative 
invention of th3 artists than their fidelity to tradition 
and their manual skill. (G. Marcais) 

UitTAL [see sikka, wazn]. 



al-DJIWA^ 557 

al-JJJIWA' (also Liwa, probably derived from the 
local pronunciation of dj as y, resulting in al-yiwa 5 > 
liwa) a district of many tiny oases in the heavy 
sands of south-central al-Zafra, the large, almost 
completely sand-covered region extending southward 
from the Persian Gulf between Sabkhat Matti in the 
west almost to Long. 55° E. The oases nestle in the 
hollows and passage ways of the northernmost sand 
mountains of al-Batin, with the greatest number 
lying between Lat. 23 N. and Lat. 23 15' N. The 
eastern third of the oases, which are smaller and 
less frequented than the others, bear to the south- 
east below Lat. 23° N. 

The water of al-Djiwa", which lies only a few feet 
below the surface, supports numerous small groves 
of date palms growing on the sheltered side of great 
dunes. In many places the owners live above their 
gardens on the dunes themselves, where there is a 
chance of catching a cooling breeze. The ruins of 
several forts are scattered throughout the district, but 
today the inhabitants live only in palm-thatch huts. 
All but a few of the oases are uninhabited except 
during the summer when the date groves require 
attention. During the rest of the year most of 
the owners are in the desert with their herds or along 
the coast of the Persian Gulf. Among the settlements 
usually inhabited the year round are al-Mariya, 
Katuf, Shidk al-Kalb, al-Kayya, al-Karmida, .Shah, 
and Tharwanivva. 

The people of al-Djiwa' belong, in roughly 
descending order of numbers, to the tribes of al- 
Manasir, al-Mazari', al-Hawamil, al-Mahariba, al- 
Kubaysat, Al Bu Falah, al-Marar, and Al Bu 
Muhayr. All but al-ManasIr belong to the con- 
glomeration usually referred to as BanI Yas [q.v.\. 
Sand-dwelling tribesmen, such as members of Al 
Rashid and al-'Awamir, some of whom even own a 
few palms, are frequent visitors. A few residents of 
al-Djiwa* own pearling boats, and every year some 
of the men journey north to the Persian Gulf to seek 
their fortunes on the pearling banks. Their number 
declines, however, as more find employment with 
the oil companies operating in various parts of 
Arabia. 

Al-Djiwa' lies within the more than 70,000 sq. km. 
of territory in dispute between Saudi Arabia and 
Abu Zaby. During the abortive arbitration of this 
dispute in 1954-5 (see al-buraymi), both sides 
contended that they had historical rights to sover- 
eignty over al-Djiwa 5 and that they had exercised 
jurisdiction by collecting zakdt (Saudi Arabia on 
camels and Abu Zaby on dates) and by maintaining 
law and order. Abu Zaby claimed the traditional 
loyalty of all the inhabitants of al-Djiwa', while 
Saudi Arabia maintained that the preponderance, 
including all of al-ManasIr and al-Mazari', were 
loyal Saudis. 

Al-pjiwa' was unknown to the Western world 
until 1324/1906 when the acting British Political 
Resident in the Persian Gulf, P. Z. Cox, learned of 
its existence from a former inhabitant. 

Bibliography: Admiralty, A handbook of 
Ar.ibia, London 1916-17; R. Bagnold in GJ, 
cxvii, r95i; H. Hazard, Saudi Arabia, New 
Haven 1956; F. Hunter in GJ, liv, 1919; 
J. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, 'Oman, 
and Central Arabia, Calcutta 1908-15 (in vol. ii 
see dhafrah); Saudi Arabia, Memorial of the 
Government of Saudi Arabia [al-Buraymi Arbi- 
tration], 1955; VV. Thesiger, Arabian Sands, 
London 1959; idem, in GJ, cxi, cxiii, cxvi, 
1948, 1949, 1950; United Kingdom, Arbitration 



558 



L-DJIWA' — DJIWAR 



concerning Buraimi and the Common Frontier 
between Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, 1955. The 
only detailed material on the district in Arabic is 
to be found in the Arabic versions of the Saudi 
Arabian and United Kingdom arbitration memor- 
ials cited above. (W. E. Mulligan) 
EJlWAN, the <urj of Mulla Ahmad b. Abi Sa c id 
b. c Ubayd Allah b. c Abd al-Razzak b. Makhdum 
Khassa-i Khuda al-Hanafi al-Salihi (he claimed 
descent from the Prophet Salih) was born at AmSthI, 
near Lucknow, in 1047/1637, as he was 21 (?) lunar 
years old in 1069/1658 when he completed his al- 
Tafsir al-Ahmadi (cf. HaddHk al-Hanafiyya, 436). 
The same source, however, states that he was 83 
years of age at the time of his death in 1130/1717. 
Gifted with an extraordinary memory, he learnt the 
Kur'an by heart at the age of seven. Studying in his 
early years first with Muhammad Sadik al-Sitarkhl, 
he completed his education in rational and tradi- 
tional sciences at the age of sixteen with Lutf Allah 
Kofa-.Djahanabadi. Contrary to the official histories 
such as the c Alamgir-ndma and the Ma'dthir-i 'Alam- 
giri, all his biographers unanimously agree that he 
was appointed as one of his 'teachers' by Awrangzlb 
who greatly respected and honoured him. This 
must have happened between 1064/1653 and 1068/ 
1657, the year Awrangzlb ascended the throne. Most 
probably the emperor, on his accession, read certain 
books with the youthful Mulla. Shah 'Alam I, the 
son and successor of Awrangzlb, like his father, also 
held him in great esteem. The Mulla must have 
attained high proficiency in filth as, at the compara- 
tively young age of 21, he compiled his Arabic 
Tafsir dealing with those ahkdm sharHyya that are 
deducible only from the Kur'an. After completing 
his education, he began to teach at his home-town. 
He left for Adjmer and Dihll in 1087/1676, where he 
stayed for a considerable time teaching and preach- 
ing. In 1 102/1690 he left on a visit to Mecca and 
Medina for the first time and after a stay of five 
years there returned to India in 1 107/1695. He then 
joined the imperial service and spent some six years 
with the armies of Awrangzlb who was then engaged 
in fighting against the Deccan kingdoms. In 1112/ 
1700 he left for the second time for al-Hidjaz and 
after twice performing the hadjii and ziyara 
returned to Amethi in 11 16/1704. After a short stay 
of two years, during which he received the Sufi 
khirka from the Shaykh Yasin b. c Abd al-Razzak 
al-Kadiri, he repaired to Dihli with a large number 
of pupils. He was received in audience at Adjmer 
by Shah c Alam I (1119-24/1707-12) who took him 
to Lahore. He returned to Dihli on the death of 
Shah 'Alam and engaged himself again in his favourite 
profession of teaching. He had also established a 
madrasa in his home-town Amefhl. A detailed 
account of this institution appears in the Urdu work 
Ta'rikh kasaba-i Amelhi by Khadim Husayn (ed. ? 
date ?). He died in his zdwiya in the Djami' masdjid 
of Dihli in 1130/1717 but his dead body was later 
disinterred and taken to his home-town for final 

He is the author of: (i) al-Ta/sirdt al-Ahmadiyya 
fi baydn al-aydt al-sharHyya, compiled in five years 
1064-9/1653-8 while he was still a student (ed. 
Calcutta, 1263 A.H.); (ii) Nur al-anwdr, a com- 
mentary on al-Nasafi's Manar al-anwdr on the 
principles of jurisprudence, written at the request of 
certain students of Medina in a short period of two 
months; aLso frequently printed; (iii) al-Sawdnih, 
on the lines of Djami's [q.v.] al-LawdHh written in 
the Hidjaz during his second visit in 11 12/1700; 



(iv) Mandkib al-awliyd', biographies of saints and 
mashdyikh which he compiled in his old age at his 
home-town. The work contains a supplement by 
his son c Abd al-Kadir and a detailed autobiographical 
note (for an extract see Nuzhat al-khawdtir, vi, 21); 
(v) Addb-i Ahmadi, on sufism and mystic stations, 
compiled in his younger days. 

Bibliography: Azad BilgramI, Subhat al- 
mardjan, Bombay 1303/1885, 79; idem, Mahathir 
al-kiram, Agra 1328/1910, 216-7; Rahman C A1I, 
Tadhkira-i '■ulamd'-i Hind', Cawnpore 1914, 45; 
Fakir Muhammad, HaddHk al-Hanafiyya 3 , Luck- 
now 1324/1906, 436; Siddik Hasan .Khan, Abdjad 
al-Hlum, Bhopal 1295 A.H., 907; c Abd al-Hayy 
Lakhnawi, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad 1376/ 
1957, vi, 19-21 (contains the most detailed 
and authentic notice) ; c Abd al-Awwal Djawnpurl, 
Mufid al-Mufti, 113; Shah Nawaz Khan, Mahathir 
al-umard?, Bibl. Ind., iii, 794; M. G. Zubaid 
Ahmad, Contribution of India to Arabic literature, 
Allahabad 1946, index; Brockelmann, S II 264, 
612; Khadim Husayn, Ta'rikh kasaba-i Amelhi, 
n.p. n.d.; Sarkis, Mu'djam al-matbu^dt al- c Ara- 
biyya, ii, col. 1 164-5; Muhammad b. Mu c tamad 
Khan, Ta'rikh-i Muhammadi (Ethe 2834), contains 
a short but useful notice in Arabic; Khadim 
Husayn, Subh-i Bahar (MS. in Urdu). 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
EiIIWAR, "protection" and "neighbourhood", 
noun of action of the 3rd form to which only the 
second meaning corresponds, as in the grammatical 
term djarr al-djiwdr "attraction of the indirect case" 
(syn. djarr al-mudjdwara, cf. Wright, Gr. Ar. Lang. 3 , 
1955, ii, 234 B). Djiwdr "protection" corresponds to 
the 4th form adjdra, and particularly to the sub- 
stantive djdr "one protected, client" coinciding with 
the Hebrew glr "one protected by the clan or com- 
munity". Noldeke in his study of the Adddd noted 
the identity of the institution "in the same juridical 
sense" (im wesentlich demselben rechtlichen Sinne, 
Neue Beitrage zur sem. Sprachw., Strasbourg 1910, 
38). The religious suggestion of "protection of a holy 
place", so frequent in Arabic, strangely recurs in the 
Hebrew ger and especially in the Phoenician equiva- 
lent which, in numerous proper names, denotes one 
protected by a sanctuary or divinity, as well as in a 
text of Ras Shamra kindly brought to our attention 
by M. Ch. Virolleau, the eminent pioneer in this field 
of study: "gr already figures in the 14th century B.C. 
in a poem containing the expression gr bt il 
which I translated in 1936, in my Ligende de Danel, 
165, as Thote de la maison de Dieu' . . . Cyrus 
H. Gordon, Ugar. Manual glossary no. 357, rendered 
it by 'a person taking asylum in a temple' ". The 
evident relationship of the term to the religious 
vocubulary is further emphasized by the later 
evolution of the Hebrew glr in the well-known sense 
of "converted to Judaism". Noldeke's remark [loc. 
cit.) giving precedence to the sense of "one protected" 
presupposes, in accordance with a well-known law, 
a term of socio-religious significance, owing its 
survival to the importance of the institution in 
nomadic customary law. Despite the Arab lexico- 
graphers, and also Gesenius, who wish to derive from 
a primitive meaning "to deviate", the meaning "to 
stay in the house of a host", it may be a question of 
the almost universal semantic link between "foreig- 
ner, enemy" (cf. Latin hostis) and "guest, client", 
for the root gwr in both languages also has the sense 
of hostility, injustice. Gesenius compares the 
Akkadian geru, but it is rather gar, "enemy", which 
would agree with the suggested etymology. 



DJ1WAR — DJ1ZYA 



Bibliography: Gesenius-Buhl, Hebr. aram. 
Hdwbrterbuch, 16 ed. Leipzig 1915, 134-5; also 
quotes an Egyptian proper noun and Coptic 
goile, "foreigner", Aramaic giyyura from which the 
Septuagint took a Greek yeicopaq on which see 
Noldeke, op. cit., 37. On the old sense of ger, cf. 
A. Lods, Israel des origines au VIII siecle, 229, 
and for the later evolution, JE, art. Proselyte, 
and Vigouroux, Diet, de la Bible, Paris 1912, v, 
758. The Akkadian gdru is noted in the index of 
J. J. Stamm, Die Akkadische Namengebung, 
Leipzig 1959, with reference to p. 179. 

(J. Lecerf) 
DJlZA [see al-kahira]. 
DJlZAN [see djayzan]. 

AL-EJlZl, Abu Muhammad al-Rabi' b. Sulayman 
b. Dawud al-Azdi al-A'radj (died in Djiza, Egypt, in 
Dhu'l-Hidjdja 256 or 257/870 or 871), an eminent 
follower of al-Shafi c i and most probably a direct 
disciple of his. Like a good number of early Shafi'is 
he was originally a Malik! and disciple of c Abd Allah 
b. <Abd al-Hakam. After his adherence to Shafi'ism 
he devoted himself to making an accurate compilation 
of Kitdb al-Umm. Together with that of al-Buwaytl, 
his version of this master work of Shafi'ism is the 
most trustworthy. It may be considered as represent- 
ing the second phase of Shafi'I jurisprudence known 
as the Egyptian. His compilation was rewritten at 
a later date with insertions of another Rabi< (Abu 
Muhammad b. Sulayman al-Muradl, d. 270/883). 
It is difficult to distinguish in Kitdb al-Umm 
things attributed to our Rabi c from those of the 
other. Zaki Mubarak, in his study of Kitdb al-Umm 
has tried to find characteristics of both, but his 
reasoning is not convincing. Al-Rabi c al-Diizi 
counts among his disciples Abu Dawud and al- 
Nasa'i. Ibn Khallikan illustrates him as a most 
virtuous and modest man. 

Bibliography : Al-Subki, Tabakdt, Cairo, i, 53; 
Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt, Cairo 1948, i, 53, no. 220; 
Ibn al-Zayyat, Al-Kawdkib al-sayydra ft tartib 
al-ziydra, Cairo, 151; Zaki Mubarak, Ta(i%i% nasab 
Kitdb al-Umm, Cairo 1932, 73; M. K. Husayn, 
Adab Misr al-Isldmiyya, Cairo, 58, 95 (note). 

(H. Mones) 
DJIZYA (i)— the poll-tax which, in traditional 
Muslim law, is levied on non-Muslims in Muslim 
states. The history of the origins of the djizya is 
extremely complex, for three different reasons: 
first, the writers who, in the 'Abbasid period, tried 
to collect the available materials relating to the 
operation of the djizya and the kharddj found 
themselves confronted by texts in which these 
words were used with different meanings, at times 
in a wide sense, at others in a technical way and 
even then varying, so that in order to be able to 
complete a reasonable picture they tended to inter- 
pret them according to the meaning which had 
become current and best defined in their own time; 
secondly, it is a fact for which due allowance is not 
made that the system which sprang from the Arab 
conquest was not uniform, but resulted from a 
series of individual, and not identical, agreements 
or decisions; finally, this system followed after, but 
did not overthrow, earlier systems which themselves 
differed one from another and which, moreover, in 
the period immediately before Islam, are imper- 
fectly understood and a subject of controversy. In 
these conditions, the account that follows can do 
no more than serve as a provisional guide. 

The word djizya, which is perhaps connected with 
an Aramaic original, occurs in the Kur'an, IX, 29 



559 

where, even at that time, it is applied to the dues 
demanded from Christians and Jews, but probably 
in the somewhat loose sense, corresponding with the 
root, of "compensation" (for non-adoption of Islam), 
and in any case as collective tribute, not differen- 
tiated from other forms of taxation, and the nature 
of its content being left uncertain (the examples 
given in the works on the biography of the Prophet 
are very variable; tribute was adapted to the in- 
dividual conditions of each group concerned). It is 
possible that, mutatis mutandis, precedents can be 
found in pre-Islamic Arabia outside the religious 
sphere, in the conditions of submission of inhabited 
oases to more powerful tribal groups, in return for 
protection; but as a result of their conquests the 
Arabs, heirs of the Byzantine and Sasanid regimes, 
were to be faced with new practical problems. 

Naturally there was no hesitation over the fact 
that the dkimmis [q.v.] had to pay the Muslim 
community a tax which, from the point of view of 
the conqueror, was material proof of their subjection, 
just as for the inhabitants it was a concrete continu- 
ation of the taxes paid to earlier regimes. This tax 
could be of three sorts, according to whether it was 
levied on individuals as such, or on the land, or was 
a collective tribute unrelated to any kind of assess- 
ment. In the 'Abbasid period, the texts show us a 
clear theoretical distinction between two taxes, on 
the one hand a tax on land, the kharddj, which 
except only in particular instances could not be 
suppressed since the land had been conquered once 
for all for the benefit of the permanent Muslim 
community, and a tax on persons, the djizya, which, 
for its part, came to an end if the taxpayer became 
Muslim. But it is far from being the case that such a 
distinction was always made, either in law or in 
fact, in the first century of Islam, and the problem 
is simply to determine what was the primitive 
practice, and how the ultimate stable system was 
gradually attained. 

Starting from the indisputable fact that in the 
very early texts the words djizya and kharddj are 
constantly taken either in the wide sense of collective 
tribute or else in apparently narrower but inter- 
changeable senses (kharddj on the head, djizya on 
land, as well as vice versa), Wellhausen, and then 
Becker and Caetani etc., built up a system according 
to which the Arabs, at the time of the conquest, are 
alleged to have levied collective tribute on the 
defeated, without taking the trouble to distinguish 
between the different possible sources of tax, and 
it was only the multiplicity of conversions which, at 
the very end of the Umayyad rule, led, particularly 
in Khurasan, to a distinction in the total revenues 
being made between two taxes, the one on the 
person, ceasing with the status of dhimmi, the 
other on land which remained subject to the obli- 
gations placed upon it by the conquest. This theory, 
apart from the prejudicial question that it contradicts 
the opinion of all classical jurists, in fact comes up 
against numerous difficulties and recently has been 
severely breached, especially by L0kkegaard and 
even more by Dennett whose conclusions, in their 
general lines and inspiration, no longer seem to be 
refutable, although even they do not answer all the 
problems which they in their turn raise. They have 
demonstrated completely that the texts often make 
an effective distinction between the tax on land and 
the tax on the person, even if the term denoting 
them is variable, and have stressed the improbability 
that a reform which covered the whole empire should 
have started in the remote province of Khurasan 



during the final anarchic years of the Umayyad 
dynasty, and (especially Dennett in a closely reasoned 
analysis of the situation region by region) that one 
could not speak of a uniform system immediately 
after the conquest, since neither the earlier insti- 
tutions nor the conditions of occupation had been 
everywhere the same. 

The Sasanid empire had possessed a fiscal system 
which distinguished between a general tax on land 
and a poll-tax, at rates varying according to the 
degree of wealth, but from which the aristocracy 
were exempt. The Roman-Byzantine empire had a 
more complex system about which we still remain 
uncertain on many points. A personal tax did exist, 
but was scarcely used, except only for colonists and 
non-Christians. The general tax made no distinction; 
in the case of a small property fiscally subject to the 
direct administration of the State, it was apparently 
levied on agricultural cultivation, on the basis of a 
unit of measurement or jugum; on the other hand, 
in large estates enjoying a certain autonomy it 
appeared to be more practical to base the calculation 
on the number of persons working; but if the tax 
was in this way proportional to the size of the 
population, it was still in no way a specific poll-tax 
since it was not added to another tax which was 
apparently based on the land. This precise point 
must be kept clearly in mind if we wish to understand 
the subsequent developments. 

Now in some instances the conquest was effected 
purely by force, in which case the system established 
was at the conqueror's discretion, at other times as 
the result of a treaty of capitulation, and in this 
case, when the native population kept its fiscal 
autonomy, a particular fiscal system might be 
merely stipulated, or else a certain sum might be 
fixed in advance as tribute to be paid, with allow- 
ances being made for considerations of assessment. 
In 'Irak, the province to which most of the 'Abbasid 
jurists refer, the conquest was in general effected 
by force, or at least with the abandonment of the 
Sasanid administrative services; with the help of 
native subordinates the Arabs controlled the in- 
stitution and collection of taxes which followed the 
tradition, that is to say a poll-tax was still distinct 
from a land tax, though its rate was probably 
increased (i, 2, 4 dinars = 12, 24, 48 dirhams), but 
the grading of wealth was maintained. To remain 
exempt from this poll-tax, the members of the 
aristocracy declared their allegiance to the Muslim 
faith; one cannot say if at the same time they were 
freed from the land tax, though subject to it in the 
modified form of the tithe levied on Muslims' 
property. — In most of the towns of Syria and Upper 
Mesopotamia, the Arab occupation was carried out 
by means of treaties which distinguished them from 
the large autonomous estates of the previous regime; 
although temporary agreements at the very beginning 
had established collective tribute, the system which 
was set up was one of autonomous control, but with 
the tax defined by the conqueror and usually cal- 
culated (as at Hira in 'Irak) on the basis of a fixed 
contribution (generally 1 dinar) per head, and thus 
a tax proportional to the population, as was the 
case before on the large estates; the same method 
of calculation may have continued on the large 
estates, but under the direct control of the conqueror, 
since most of the great Byzantine landowners had 
disappeared, and with the addition of the poll-tax 
on the colonists (?); incidentally the conquerors 
often found it advantageous at that time to accept 
the peasants' payments in kind. In Egypt most of 



the Christian communities were taxed under a 
system which united payments in kind, a land tax of 
1 dinar per faddan (unit of cultivated land) and a 
specific poll-tax of 2 dinars per head, this last figure, 
however, being based on the calculation of the sum 
which the community had to pay, on the condition 
that the total amount would eventually be divided 
among the inhabitants in the most equitable pro- 
portions (as papyri show); contrary to previous 
belief, this poll-tax must in practice have constituted 
for the mass of the inhabitants a burden almost as 
heavy as the land tax. Finally, in the greater part 
of Iran and central Asia, as well as in some places in 
Cyrenaica, the system established was of fixed 
tribute to be paid by the local rulers who were 
maintained in office, with no interference from the 
conquerors either in declaring or collecting the tax; 
in Khurasan in particular, taxpayers continued to 
be charged on the basis of the Sasanid dual system 
of land tax and poll-tax, apart from any questions 
of conversion or non-conversion to the new religion. 
Whatever uncertainties remain in particular systems 
(especially in Syria, it seems), it will be seen that, in 
general, the duality of land tax and poll-tax existed 
at the taxpayer's level, under various conditions, 
for the greater part of the peasant populations, 
while on the other hand a system of unitary contri- 
bution prevailed throughout most of the Syrian 
towns and in Upper Mesopotamia; the conquerors, 
particularly in the East, held aloof from these 
distinctions so long as the tribute was paid. 

However, difficulties very soon appeared. In 
Egypt monks were exempt from poll-tax; the Copts, 
who since Roman times had been past masters of 
tax evasion, noted that the taxpayer could escape 
payment of poll-tax if he left the district where he 
was enrolled or, better still, if he entered a monastery. 
It therefore became necessary to make all monks in 
their turn subject to poll-tax (a much more probable 
explanation than the alternative upon which one is 
driven back if one accepts that the poll-tax was 
absent at the beginning of the Muslim regime: 
since it was later found applied to monks, the 
argument runs that it made its original appearance 
in the form of a tax on the monks). It was necessary 
to apply for authorization for removal, and to mark 
taxpayers with an indelible stamp, hence all those 
passports, seals etc. of which archaeologists have 
provided us with so many unimpeachable examples. 
Phenomena of the same sort must have existed in 
many places, and are for example recorded in Upper 
Mesopotamia and also in 'Irak. 

There, however, matters are presented to us 
somewhat differently. In 'Irak, in fact, evasion of 
taxes took the form of conversion to Islam, the 
convert believing that his new status would free 
him from the whole fiscal complex levied on the 
non-Muslim, that is to say the land-tax and the 
poll-tax. In reality what happened at the beginning 
— and the Muslim administration did not look upon 
it amiss — was that the convert abandoned his land, 
with no thought of it ceasing to be subject to the 
kharddj, to a non-convert who guaranteed its cul- 
tivation and fiscal capacity. The thing was possible 
so long as it happened infrequently and the treasury 
had little to fear, for the new regime had inherited 
from its predecessors, both Byzantine and Sasanid, 
the idea of the joint liability of each locality in 
regard to taxation, and those who remained therefore 
paid for those who had left and whose land they 
exploited. However, by the time when the terrible 
governor al-Hadjdjadj came to 'Irak the matter had 



already assumed dangerous proportions as regards 
the development of land, and hence also threatened 
the treasury. He then took the draconic decision to 
send back the peasants to the land, to subject them 
to taxation again, including poll-tax, and, in practice, 
to forbid them to be converted to Islam. — A similar 
problem arose in Khurasan; but there it was the 
native aristocracy who persecuted the peasantry 
who were guilty of conversion to Islam: since 
every conversion risked increasing the burden of 
taxes on non-Muslims and compelling the aristocracy 
to make good from their own pockets any short- 
comings in payments, they tried wherever they 
could to impose still heavier taxes upon the Muslims, 
at least the poorer ones, rather than on the non- 
Muslims: inequality in reverse .... 

It is clear that these repressions also could not 
last. It was somehow inadmissible, in a Muslim 
State, virtually to penalize entry into Islam. The 
pious c Umar b. c Abd al- c AzIz is credited with an 
attitude of absolute reaction to the policy, and he is 
said to have gone so far as to encourage conversions 
by the remission of the whole complex of taxes 
levied on non-Muslims. The most authoritative texts 
recently discovered or interpreted do not confirm 
such a Utopian outlook (H. A. R. Gibb, The fiscal 
ipt of Umar II, in Arabica, ii, (1955))- It seems 
that, under the influence of the jurists who elaborated 
the doctrine of fay'' [q.v.], there was a move towards 
the idea of dissociating from the complex of taxes 
mposed on the non-Muslims the kharadj, which from 
his time on was regarded rather as being levied 
specifically on land and not on the person, and 
hence was compatible with the status of Muslim: 
ie poll-tax, as such, was to disappear, but the 
easury did not necessarily suffer nor did the 
xpayer gain as a result, since the convert had to 
pay the zakdt on his income. It was a system of this 
sort that, at a later date, Nasr b. Sayyar, the last 
great Umayyad Governor, tried to introduce in 
Khurasan; he is thus at the rear of the movement, 
and not in the vanguard. In a country like Syria a 
more delicate adaptation must have been necessary, 
and appears to have been undertaken from the time 
of Yazld and <Abd al-Malik (Abu Yusuf, 24; cf. 
Lokkegaard, 133), to give a truly personal character 
to the traditional poll-tax, in addition 



1 In ai 



mthem 






! poll-t« 



I been differentiated from the land-tax 

nent, the same could also be done in the 
collection, and the collective responsiblity of places 
in respect of taxation would cease to operate in this 
matter. In Egypt particularly, we know that 
movement of persons became legal, provided that a 
record of them was kept and that the whereabouts of 
those concerned was known (see CI. Cahen, Impots 
du Fay yum, quoted below, 21). Thus the term which 
customarily denoted "fugitives" — in Greek cpuyaSe? 
— the djawali (plur. of djaliya), in administration 
came to be taken, without further addition, as a 
synonym of djizya in the sense of poll-tax. Naturally, 
this fiscal arrangement did not solve the economic 
problem of peasant emigration, and there were 
further instances of the enforced return of peasants 
to their fields (see CI. Cahen, FiscaliU, etc. in Arabica, 
i (1954), 146-7); but, in proportion as the rural 
communities were now able to become Muslim, the 
problem no longer affected the djizya, and it is 
probable that it was less grave in the solidly-based 
Christian communities which remained faithful to 
their creed (Lebanon, Upper Mesopotamia, Egypt 
itself) and where collective responsibilty was to act 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



YA 561 

against emigration (ibid., 151). Other factors may 
have counted in favour of attachment to the land, 
and against emigration to towns, which cannot be 
discussed here; it seems in any case that, in "the 
centuries that followed, the problem was no longer 
expressed in the terms in which the sons of the Arab 
conquerors had known it. 

The c Abb5sid period thus witnessed the speciali- 
zation of terminology, as of institutions, at least in 
technical writings and works of fifth (the latter 
treat of it as an appendage to the djihad); and 
whilst the kharadj no longer denotes anything 
more than land-tax, djizya is henceforth applied 
only to the poll-tax on dhimmis. The latter inci- 
dentally lost its financial importance everywhere 
when the non-Muslim communities ceased to be 
numerically superior. Even when thus diminished, 
it does not appear to have become uniform. Syria- 
Palestine and Egypt kept their own system until 
the 18th century (see Gibb-Bowen, i/2, 254 and 
NabulusI in CI. Cahen, Impdts du Fayyum, in 
Arabica, iii (1956), 21-2), despite the assertions of 
theorists (including Baladhurl but, characteristically, 
excluding Malik and Shafi'i), while the hierarchized 
tax system attributed to 'Umar continued to be 
practised in the East and from there later passed into 
the non-Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. 
The numerical importance to it of the dhimmis, as 
earlier in Saldjukid Asia Minor (for this point see in 
particular Kerimuddin Aksarayl, Miisdmeret ul- 
ahbar, ed. O. Turan, 153, with analysis of F. Isiltan, 
1943, 81), once again confers considerable importance 
on the djizya, although the word often bestowed 
on it is kharadj (the land-tax at that time bearing 
other names; see below). 

A certain number of rules formulated during the 
'Abbasid period appear to be generally valid from 
that time onwards. Djizya is only levied on those 
who are male, adult, free, capable and able-bodied, 
so that children, old men, women, invalids, slaves, 
beggars, the sick and the mentally deranged are 
excluded. Foreigners are exempt from it on condition 
that they do not settle permanently in the country. 
Inhabitants of frontier districts who at certain times 
could be enrolled in military expeditions even if 
not Muslim (Mardaites, Armenians, etc.), were 
released from djizya for the year in question. 

A personal fixed contribution, the djizya was 
levied by lunar years (generally just before or just 
after the beginning of the year; sometimes in Rama- 
dan under the Mamlfiks), unlike taxes connected 
with agriculture; it could thus be dissociated from 
them in tax-farming and iktd c concessions. Money 
was stipulated, and normally payment had to be 
made in it, but payment in kind was admissible, 
under an officially determined scale of equivalent 
values. According to the Kur'anic text, one must 
give al-djizya" c an yad'", which has since been 
interpreted, perhaps wrongly, to mean "by hand" 
and personally (on this point see F. Rosenthal, Some 
minor problems in the Qur'dn, in The Joshua Starr 
Memorial Volume, New York 1953, 68-72, and CI. 
Cahen, Coran IX-2g . . ., in Arabica, ix (1962), 76-9); 
administratively, this meaning suggests the need to 
count the non-Muslim population, hence for instance 
the forbidding of all village notables to accept a lump 
payment of djizya from their subordinates. Further- 
more it was desired to have confirmation given to 
every individual concerned of his status as a subject 
of Islam or, more accurately, as a member of an 
inferior social class; it is apparently in this way that 
we must interpret the Kur'anic formula (which 
36 



562 

follows the one given above) wa-kum sdghi 
times glossed as akarrii bi 'l-saghdr), in 
with the well-known instances of notables or Arabs 
refusing, although Christians, to pay the "djizya of 
the 'uludj", rather than as implying the necessity for 
a humiliating procedure, which later rigorists claimed 
to find in it. Actual censuses were apparently under- 
taken, especially at the time of the differentiation 
between djizya and kharddj (by 'Abd al-Malik in 
Syria, Yazid II in Egypt, etc.), and, reciprocally, 
the evaluation at 130,000 dinars of the total return 
from djizya in Egypt at the time of Saladin, for 
example, at the average rate of 2 dinars, allows us 
to estimate the Christian population then in the 
country at about 65,000 heads of families. 

In principle, the diizya, like the zakdt, had to be 
used for pensions, salaries and charities. But under 
this pretext it was often paid into the Prince's 
khd??, "private" treasury. Malik and al-Shafi c I 
admit that the rate of tax could be increased; with 
or without doctrinal justification, arbitrary demands 
appeared at times during the economically difficult 
and religiously strict period of the Mamluks; 
however, we must take count of the fact that the 
growing scarcity of gold and the devaluation of the 
dirham had often brought the djizya to a level 
lower than was stipulated by doctrine; moreover 
the monks, or at least those in poor monasteries, 
found a way to reduce their returns. 

In the territories directly controlled by the 
Mongols, before their conversion to Islam, the 
original fiscal system abolished the poll-tax on non- 
Muslims; when they adopted the Muslim religion, 
zealous agents sought to make the Christians pay 
all the arrears (forty years . . .) (al-Djazari, Chronique, 
ed. Sauvaget, 48, Nr 307). — In Sicily, after the 
Norman conquest, the poll-tax on Muslims and 
Jews was called diizya. 

The diizya has naturally disappeared from modern 
Muslim States as a result of the growing equality 
of religions, the introduction of military service 
and the organization of new fiscal systems. 

Bibliography : Almost the whole bibliography 
of sources, al-Baladhuri, Abu Yusuf, al-Mawardi 
and other chroniclers, recorders of traditions, 
jurists, etc., is to be found collected together in 
Caetani, quoted infra; to it should be added Abu 
'Ubayd b. Sallam, K. al-Amwal, and, for the K. aU 
Kharddi of Yahya b. Adam, the annotated English 
translation by A. Ben Shemesh, 1958 ; for papyri 
see, besides Becker and Grohmann quoted infra, 
C. Becker, Papyri Schott-Rheinhardt, 1906, and 
H. I. Bell, Greek papyri in the British Museum, 
iv, 1910, as well as R. Remondon, Les papyrus 
d'Apollonos Ano, 1953, and C. J. Kraemer, Ex- 
cavations at Nessana, iii, Non-literary papyri, 1958. 
It is not possible here to give the very extensive 
bibliography of works relating to poll-tax and the 
associated problems in the Roman-Byzantine 
Empire; the latest restatements will be found in 
the bibliography of R. Palanque's edition of the 
posthumous Histoire du Bas-Empire of E. Stein, 
i, 1959. and in Karayannopoulos, Das Finanz- 
wesen des fruhbyzantinischen Staates, I9«s8; the 
outstanding works are still those of Piganiol, F. 
Lot and E. Deleage; for Egypt, A. Ch. Johnson 
and L. C. West, Byzantine Egypt, 1949. 

For the Muslim world, J. Wellhausen, Das ara- 
bische Reich, 172 ff., Eng. tr. 276 ff . ; C. Becker, Bei- 
trdge zur Geschichte Aegyptens, 81 ff. (in the 2nd 
fascicule) ; idem, Islamstudien, i, 1924 ; Caetani, A n- 
nali, v, 280-532; A. Grohmann, Probleme der ara- 



bischen Papyrusforschung, in A rO, 1933, 276 ff. and 
1934, 125 ff.; Fr. Lekkegaard, Islamic taxation, ch. 
VI ; D. C. Dennett, Conversion and the poll-tax in 
early Islam, 1951 ; A. Fattal, Le statut Ugal des non- 
musulmans en pays d'Islam, 1958, ch. VII, more 
detailed than Tritton, The Caliphs and their non- 
Muslim subjects, 1930; M. Diya al-Din al-Ra'is 
(Rayes), al-Kharddj /» al-dawla al-isldmiyya (a 
history of Muslim state-finances), Cairo 1957, 
especially 107 ff.; Mez, Renaissance, ch. IV and 
VIII. Among specialized studies, Habib Zayyat, 
al-Djizya in al-Machriq, xli (1947), 2; Finocchiaro- 
Sartorio, Gizyah e Kharaj nella Sicilia, in Archivio 
giuridico, lxxxi (1908). (Cl. Cahen) 

ii— Ottoman 

The word kharadi was used for preference instead 
of djizya by the ioth/i6th century, later djizye or 
djizye-i sherH. (cf. indexes in R. Anhegger-H. 
Inalcik, Kdnunndme-i Sultdni . . ., Ankara 1956; 
Tayyib Gokbilgin, Pasa Livasi, Istanbul 1952; 
F. Kraelitz, Os. Urkunden in tiirkischer Sprache, 
Vienna 1922; 0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, Istanbul 
1943). Bash-kharaajl for diizya was occasionally 
found in the documents (cf. T. Gokbilgin, 158, and 
B. Lewis, in BSOAS, xiv (1952), 553, 559) to 
distinguish it from land-kharddj. For the collector 
of djizya, hharddji or kharadjdji is used in the first 
period, djizyedar later. 

The payment of djizya was sometimes dependent 
on the land possessed: anyone, Muslim or non- 
Muslim, who possessed a bashtina, land recorded 
under the possession of a dhimmi (cf. ciftlik), was 
to pay diizya (cf. the regulation of Ohri dated 1022/ 
1613 in O.L. Barkan, 295; that of Avlonya in Suret-i 
Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid, ed. H. Inalcik, Ankara 
1954, 124). The reason given for this was the trea- 
sury's concern to protect the djizya revenues. 

Following a conservative policy in the conquered 
lands, the Ottomans identified certain pre-Ottoman 
poll-taxes with djizya. Upon the request of their new 
subjects in Hungary (Barkan, 304) they accepted 
for djizya the old tax of one flori, gold, paid per family 
to the Hungarian kings before the conquest (cf. 
Barkan, 303, 320). Previously in the Balkans the 
Ottomans, however, had introduced a native poll- 
tax, probably of the same origin as the Hungarian 
one flori tax, in their own taxation only as an 'urfi 
poll-tax under the name of ispendje (cf. H. Inalcik, 
Osmanhlarda raiyyet riisumu, i-a.BeU.eten, xcii, 602-8). 
They ruled that anyone subject to djizya was to pay 
ispendje (Belleten, xcii, 602). But the latter was 
ordinarily included in timdrs [q.v.]. It can be supposed 
that the Ottomans, like the first Muslim conquerors 
of Egypt and Syria, found in the Balkans and 
Hungary a poll-tax of one gold piece, probably from 
a common Roman origin (cf. F. Lekkegaard, Islamic 
taxation, Copehagen 1950, 134-5). Sanctioned by 
nass and idjtihdd as asserted in the firmans, djizya 
was for the Ottomans a religious tax the collection 
and spending of which had to receive special care. 
It was collected as a rule directly for the state 
treasury by the Sultan's own kuh [q.v.]. It was 
exceptional to grant djizya revenues as timdr or 
mulk. Also it was farmed out only in special cases 
(cf. Anhegger-Inalcik, 39). As a sharH tax belonging 
to the bayt mdl al-muslimin its administration was 
put under the supervision of the kadis and not 
infrequently its actual collection was made by them 
(cf. Gokbilgin, 158). 

The djizya revenues were spent usually for military 
purposes or assigned to the regular pay of a military 



unit as odjaklik. Mahmud II raised the rates of 
djizya and assigned it to the upkeep of his reformed 
army of 'asdkir-i mansura, claiming this as a religious 
use for gkqza (cf. Hadfibegic, Diizja Hi haral, in 
Prilozi, v (1954-5), doc. 19, 78-9). Exemption from 
djizya was usually made in return for militaiy services 
as was the case with the voynuks, martolos and eflaks. 

When a conquered land was to be organized as an 
Ottoman province a census of people subject to 
diizya was made by the kadi appointed there, and a 
book called dejter-i djizya-i gabrdn was drawn up 
(for an example made after the conquest see the 
defter of Buda and Pest in L. Fekete, Die Siyaqat- 
schrift in der turkischen Finanzverwaltung, Budapest 
1955, i, doc. 8, 20, pp. 176-98, 350-5; ", facsimiles, 
Tables XI, XXXVI). Referred to also as asl defter, 
original defter, this book was made in two copies, 
one for the central treasury, the other for the 
provincial administration. The census was to be 
renewed. But, as we read in the nishdn of 22 Dju- 
mada II 1102/23 March T691 such censuses were not 
renewed for long periods and as a result of deaths 
and births, flights and conversions the books did 
not reflect the actual situation. In the reign of 
Mehemmed II half of the djizya due from the 
fugitives of a village was to be made good by its 
«»wr-holder and the other half by the remaining 
djizya--payers (R. Anhegger-H. Inalcik, 76). But 
with the collapse of the titndr system in the late 
roth/i6th century the whole burden fell upon the 
latter. Finally by the reform of TT02/1691 each 
djizya payer was made responsible only for his own 
personal djizya and a paper, kdghid or warak, was 
delivered to certify its payment. On the other hand 
the fugitives were pursued, (ibid.) or, sometimes, the 
authorities would try to bring them back by prom- 
ising a reduction in the rate of djizya, as was done 
to repopulate the deserted villages in the province 
of Manastir (Monastir) in n 17/1705. 

As a rule every third year, called new-ydfte (Naw- 
Ydfta) yili a general inspection was made to cross 
out the dead, mtirde (murda) and to add new-ydfte 
(naw-ydfta), those who were omitted from the 
defter for one reason or another, among them the 
bdligh, adolescents who by the time of the inspection 
had become legally fit to pay djizya. But the in- 
spectors were instructed to carry out this operation 
so as not to reduce the number of djizya-payers. 
Strangers and passers-by found in a district were 
subject to the payment of djizya on the spot, as 
ordered in the firmans issued after the reform of 
1102/169T (cf. Hadzibegic, doc. 5, in vol. iii-iv, in). 

It seems that ruhbdn, clerics, and keshish, monks, 
were exempted from djizya in the first period (for 
exemption from djizya of a metropolit in the time of 
Mehemmed II see Anhegger-Inalcik, 66). But in the 
reform nishdn of T102/1691 all clerics except those 
who had really a disability were subjected to djizya. 
In IT03/1692 the ruhbdn sent a petition to the 
Sultan stating a shar'i opinion about the exemption 
of those ruhbdn who were in retirement and not 
earning their own living (cf. Al-Durar, 213; Mew- 
kufatl, i, 351), but it was rejected on the basis of 
the different opinion of Imam Yflsuf. By 1255/1839 
the monks of the Mount Athos were exempted from 
all taxes but djizya. 

However, in accordance with the precise command 
of the shari'a, the Ottoman government always 
exempted from djizya children, women, disabled 
and blind men, and the unemployed poor. Only the 
widows (bive) possessing the land of their deceased 
husbands were liable for djizya. 



YA 563 

The treatises of fikh (Al-Durar, 212; MewkufatI, 
i, 350) distinguished two kinds of djizya, that fixed 
by sulh, agreement, the amount of which could not 
be altered, and that levied from individuals, al- 
djizya 'ala 'l-ru'us. The former, called in Ottoman 
official terminology djizya ber wedjh-i maktu' or 
simply maktu', was extensively applied and found 
two different fields of application in the Ottoman 
empire : (a) The submission as a vassal of a Christian 
prince always implied the payment of an agreed 
yearly tribute however small the amount might be. 
Then the Sultan considered the non-Muslims under 
the prince as the Sultan's own Maradf-paying 
subjects (see boghdan, ragusa) and the yearly 
tribute which was usually paid in gold pieces as a 
kharddj-i maktu' (see oar al-'ahd) ; (b) In some 
cases the dhimmis under the Sultan's direct rule were 
permitted to pay their djizya in a fixed sum, ber 
wedjh-i maktu 1 -, as a community. The dhimmi ra'dyd 
applied for it mostly to escape the abuses of the 
djizya-coWectors and their request was accepted by 
the government often to insure its payment, for other- 
wise they often threatened to abandon their villages 
and run away. On the other hand the Albanian 
mountain tribes of Klementi living in five villages 
were permitted to pay a nominal fixed sum of one 
thousand akie for their djizya in 902/1497, and in 
return they promised to guard the highway passing 
through their area. Also in Kurvelesh, Albania, 
seventeen villages in rebellion agreed to submit on 
condition that they paid their djizya ber wedjh-i 
maktu'- at a fixed sum of 330T esedi ghurush in 1106/ 
1695. In these examples we see the government being 
rather forced to come to an agreement with its 
dhimmi subjects. Sometimes the maktu' was agreed 
upon between the djizya-coWectors and the kodja- 
bashh, Christian notables, who thus being able to 
distribute the djizya in their communities them- 
selves expected to have some advantages such as 
to alleviate their own share, as actually stated in 
a document. But this practice was denounced by 
the government. 

The maktu' system gave the Jewish community 
of Safad the opportunity to save their clerics from 
paying djizya (B. Lewis, Notes and documents from 
the Turkish Archives, Jerusalem 1952, rr; U. Heyd, 
Ottoman documents on Palestine, Oxford i960, 121; 
cf. idem on the Djizya-registers for Palestine in 
Jerusalem, iv (1952), 173-84 (in Hebrew, with 
Turkish documents). 

Considering its basic character of a poll-tax, 
however, the government often insisted on its 
payment individually. On the other hand the 
maktu', fixed sum of djizya for a group, might 
become too onerous when the number in such a 
group for one reason or another decreased. In such 
cases a new census was often asked for, to reduce 
the amount or to return to the payment by indivi- 

The maktu' system in djizya, however, came to 
be more and more extensively applied in the period 
of decline during which the central government had 
increasingly lost the control of tax collection in the 
provinces. The kodja-bashis, forbadjk and knez then 
took over, as the a'ydn among the Muslim popula- 
tion, the collection of taxes within their communities, 
and this prepared their rise as a local aristocracy in 
the Balkans in the I2th/i8th century. In the belief 
that the maktu' system was favourable for the 
ra'dyd the initiators of the tanzimdt [q.v.] generalized 
the system (the circular of 25 Muharram 1257/17 
March 1841 in Miihimme no. 13663 Maliye Yeni 



564 DJ 

Sen, Basvekalet Archives) and even sanctioned it 
by a fatwd [q.v.]. 

It was the Sultan's responsibility to declare every 
new year the rates of djizya to be collected on the 
basis of a fatwd given by the Shavkh al-Islam who 
determined it according to the sharH scale. In 
Ottoman terminology the grades were aHd, awsaf 
and adnd corresponding to zdhir al-ghind' mukthir, 
wealthy, mutawassit al-hdl, medium status, and 
fa£ir mu'tamal, working poor man, who were to 
pay, 48, 24 and 12 dirham-i sharH (see dirham) of 
pure silver, or four, two and one dinar gold pieces 
respectively. In a document of 6 Djumada II 896/ 
16 April 1491 (Gokbilgin, 159) we find diizya applied 
according to the sharH scale. But in a firman of 
880/1475 tne collector was instructed to accept 
payments over fixed rates (Anhegger-Inalcik, 78). 

Payment could be made in silver and gold coins 
in circulation, and rarely the rates were also shown 
in current copper coins. In Radjab noi/April 1690 
the rate for the lowest grade was fixed as one 
Egyptian gold piece, sharifi alttm, or 2 1 /, esedi 
(Dutch) ghurush, or 90 para or 1170 copper manghlr. 
But payments were mostly made in silver akce [q.v.] 
until the late ioth/i6th century, and in ghurush or 
para in later periods. The recurrent debasements and 
depreciations in coinage (cf. H. lnalcik, in Belleten, 
loc, 676-84; Hadiibegid, in Prilozi, v, 51-6) made it 
necessary for the Ottoman government to declare 
in the firmans of dftzya-collection every year (cf. 
examples in Hadiibegid, doc. nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 
12, 14, 19, 22, 25) a schedule of the official rates of 
the coins in circulation. But disparities between the 
official and current rates often gave rise to disputes 
between the tax-payers and collectors, and the 
treasury sometimes preferred to accept only gold 
pieces. At other times, on their own initiative, the 
collectors forced the tax-payers to pay only in gold 
with the intention of exchanging this later for their 
own profit. To prevent this the Sultan often had 
to send special orders to the collectors to accept 
silver coins too (the Ahkdm defterleri in the Basve- 
kalet archives, Istanbul, are indeed full of such 
orders). The rates of djizya in the Ottoman silver 
coinage went up from 1102/1691 to 1249^834 as 
shown in the following table (Hadzibegic, in Prilozi, 



(in 


esedi ghurush) 


Year 


aHd awsa 


1102/1691 
1 108/1696 
1156/1744 
1218/1804 
1231/1816 


9 4'/« 
10 5 

12 6 
16 8 


1239/1824 
1242/1827 
1244/1829 
1249/1834 


24 12 
36 18 
48 24 



Mahmud II emphasized in his firmans that the 
increases, damd'im, were not newly assessed taxes, 
muhdathdt, but simply the result of a necessary 
adjustment of the fixed sharH quantities of silver to 
be paid as djizya in the currency of the day (cf. 
Hadiibegic, v, 69, 79)- But these increases, even if 
they were not real in value, gave rise to widespread 
discontent among the dhimmis in the Ottoman 

It must be remembered that until the introduction 
of radical changes in the Ottoman finances in the 
nth/i7th century, djizya was levied in some large 
areas of the empire only at one single fixed rate (cf. 



the Sandjak regulations in Barkan, 83,201, 226, 316) : 
for the dhimmis subject to djizya of all classes 25 
akle in the province of Yeni-il in Suleyman's time, 
40 akle in 991/1583, 35 «*'« in some areas and 55 in 
others in the province of Bitlis 30 in the island of 
Tashoz, 46 in the province of Mosul in the ioth/i6th 
century. It was 80 akle in the lands conquered from 
the Mamluks, namely in the provinces of Adana, 
Damascus, Safad; the rates here, except for the 
latter, were less than the normal lowest rate (one 
gold piece was 60-70 akle during this period). The 
reason given for this special treatment in the 
provinces of Eastern Anatolia was the poverty due 
to the physical conditions of the area. As for the 
islands, similar conditions together with the special 
defence responsibilities imposed on the population 
accounted for it. The dhimmis of the island of Imbros 
were even exempted altogether from djizya (Barkan, 
237). The single rate of 80 akle in Syria and Palestine 
appears to be a survival from the last phase of the 
Mamluk period during which djizya was for all 
classes one gold piece plus a fraction to cover 
collection costs (B. Lewis, Notes, n). Being con- 
sidered too low as compared to the sharH rates, these 
fixed single rates of assessment were raised on the 
new Sultan to the throne (on Sellm II's 
increase of ten akle was made; cf. 
Barkan, 318). 

The assessment of djizya was made per family in 
Hungary, Palestine in the ioth/i6th century (cf. 
B. Lewis, Notes, 10; idem, Studies in the Ottoman 
Archives, in BSOAS, xvi/3 (1954), 484-5), in the 
province of Salonika, and many other places in the 
Balkans (cf. Gokbilgin, 155-7) before the reform 
nishdn of n 02/1 691. 

Also in the early period there were certain groups 
exempted from djizya. It was true, in principle, that 
the exemption from djizya was considered as a waste 
of a revenue belonging to the bayt mat al-muslimin ; 
hence it was made only exceptionally and, if done, 
in return for military services. Thus the dhimmi 
population of a crucial fortress (cf . Barkan, 204 ; but 
in 835/1431 the population of Akcahisar, Albania, 
was exempted from all taxation but djizya, cf. 
Suret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid, 104), dhimmis in 
charge of guarding a mountain pass (cf. H. lnalcik, 
Fatih devri, i, Ankara 1954, doc. 1), relatives of the 
children levied for the Janissaries, dhimmis sup- 
plying sulphur for the powder factories in Salonika 
(defter, K. Kepeci tasnifi no. 3510, Basvekalet 
archives) were exempted from djizya. The Christian 
soldiers who formed part of the Ottoman fighting 
army in the 9th/i5th century, namely Christian 
timar holders, voynuks [q.v.], martolos [q.v.] and 
eflaks, enjoyed total exemption from djizya (H. 
lnalcik, Fatih devri, i, 176-9). The sons and brothers 
of voynuks were subjected only to a bedel-i djizya, 
substitute of djizya, at a fixed rate of 30 akle which 
was about half of the lowest rate of djizya by 922/1516 
(Barkan, 396, 398). When these groups lost their 
military use in the ioth/i6th century they were 
mostly made dhimmi ra'dyd and subjected to 
djizya. Those maintained were subjected to a fixed 

At all times the Ottoman government granted 
partial exemption from djizya to the dhimmis of a 
particular position. Those living in the provinces in 
the borderland, i.e., Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, 
Montenegro, paid djizya only at the lowest rate, 
adnd, and in time of war the dhimmis living nearest 
to the fields of operation and on the military routes 
paid it as half (cf. Hadfibegii, in Prilozi, iii, doc. 2, 



ioi; v, V, 102). The dhimmis having to abandon 
their homes because of enemy invasion were exempted 
from djizya for a certain period. 

The dhimmi miners in some regions paid it at a 
very low rate (only six akle in Silistre in the mid- 
16th century, cf. H. lnalcik, Osmanhlarda raiyyet 
riisumu, in Belleten, xcii, 608, note 173). As late as 
1170/1757 the dhimmis of 21 villages in Chios who 
were engaged in the production of mastic paid it all 
equally at the lowest rate. 

Under the capitulations the dhimmi terdjumdns, 
dragomans, attached to the foreign embassies, 
enjoyed exemption from djizya. But many dhimmis 
had managed to obtain berdts of terdjumdn by 
dubious ways to escape paying diizya (see beratl!). 

If a musta'min (see aman) prolonged his stay in 
the Ottoman dominions longer than one year he 
was treated as a dhimmi, subjected to diizya, and 
could not leave the country for the Ddr al-harb 
[q.v.] (cf. Al-Durar, 207). Though we find in the 
records, sidjilldt, of the kadi of Bursa cases testifying 
the application of this rule, some ways must have 
been found to allow foreign merchants to stay as 
musta'min for longer periods in the great commercial 
centres even as early as the gth/isth century (cf. 
documents in Belleten, xciii, 67-96). Later on under 
the capitulations the Ottoman government became 
more and more tolerant on this matter (cf. the 
capitulation of 1153/1740 to France, article 63). The 
Armenians of Persia, Ardmine-i'-Adjem, visiting the 
Ottomans lands usually as merchants, were also 
subject to djizya (the nishdn of 1102/1691, and 
Hadiibegi<5, doc. 4, 10, pp. 107, 125). 

The nishdn of 1102/1691 provided that djizya was 
to be levied per head by all the dhimmis subject to 
djizya on the basis of the SharH scale, thus abolishing 
the maktu<- system and exemptions (cf. Findlkllli 
Mehmed Agha, Sildhddr ta'rikhi, i, ed. A. Refik, 
Istanbul 1928, 559). But many old practices and 
exemptions survived, and only in 1255/1839 with 
the proclamation of equality in payment of taxes 
all such exemptions and privileges were abolished. 

Diizya-yayeis had always to pay two additional 
dues, maHshat or ma'dsh for the living expenses of 
the collector and resm-i kitdbet (also called resm-i 
hesdb.udjrat-i kitdbet, khardj-i muhdsebe or kalemiyye) 
for the services of the central department of djizya 
(cf. Hadzibegi<5, iii, 112). Actually these were well 
established dues found with all the departments of 
the Ottoman finances. In the firman of 880/1475 on 
the collection of djizya (Anhegger-Inalcik, 77-8) we 
find a due of two akle per family called resm-i kitdbet 
and a one akle due levied formerly by the il- 
ketkhudds. In the ioth/i6th century the collector 
and the scribe accompanying him each took one 
akle for themselves (Barkan, 180; in Hungary, in 
addition, one akle resm-i khdne, Barkan, 316). In 
1102/1691 maHshat was 12, 6 and 3 para for aHd, 
awsat and adna respectively and one para was paid 
for udjrat-i kitdbet by all alike. Four years later a 
new due, maHshat for the kadi?, was added, which 
was 9, 4 and i*/» para for aHd, awsa\ and adna 
respectively. In 1 106/1694, to prevent the abuses in 
collection of these dues, it was made clear that the 
collectors were to levy these not for their own 
account but for the treasury, and the remunerations 
were to be paid to them by the treasury from the 
djizya-revenues at the central department of djizya 
(Hadiibegic, iii-iv, doc. 4, 5, 10, 11, pp. 107, 112, 
125, 131). The total sum of these legal dues amounted 
to V a5 of the djizya itself and their rates were raised 
following the increases in djizya. From the same 



iYA 565 

firmans we learn that the collectors were illegally 
subjecting the djizya payers to some exactions under 
the names dhakhira, kdtibiyya, sarrdfiyya, koldju 
aklesi, khardj-i mahkeme (Hadiibegii, iii-iv, 113, 127), 
mum-aklesi buyruldu awdHdi and others. With the 
proclamation of the Tanzimdt in 1255/1839 collectors 
with a salary from the treasury were appointed and 
were allowed to take from the tax-payers only a 
minimum of provisions for themselves and their 
animals (Had2ibegi<5, Prilozi, v, doc. 25, 93). But 
the heaviest burden on the djizya--pa.yers was the 
obligation to make good the djizya of the fugitive 
dhimmis, gurikhta (in Turkish giirikhte) and the dead, 
murda (in Turkish miirde), which sometimes caused 
the depopulation and ruin of a whole village. As 
disclosed in the nishdn of 1102/1691, in some villages 
the surviving quarter of the previous population was 
forced to pay the djizya of the missing three quarters 
too. On the other hand the collectors in cooperation 
with the local kadis sometimes tried, without official 
permission, to collect djizya from the new-ydfte 
(naw-ydfta) , those not yet recorded as djizya payers 
in the official defters. They also collected bedel- 
aklesi, a lump sum for those names in the defter 
under which no one could be identified. The govern- 
ment always struggled to prevent such abuse and 
ended by assessing a fixed new tax, called gurikhte, 
to be levied equally on each djizya payer. This 
appears in the diizya accounts of 1102/1691 and it 
was then 40 akle per head, a sum about one-eight of 
the djizya itself. Also we find a similar tax called 
nev-ydfte aklesi even at an earlier period. These 
proved to be only new burdens for the ra'dyd since the 
collectors continued their exactions according to the 
established customs. When in 1102/1691 the method 
of collecting djizya by distributing personal certifi- 
cates of payment was established, the collectors, in 
an effort to use all the certificates delivered to them 
by the treasury, forced people not subject to djizya 
to accept them, or imposed certificates of higher 
rates to those subject to low rates. Some of the 
collectors were denounced as having accepted 
bribery from the wealthy to save them from the 
certificates of high rate and then forced the poor to 
accept them. To all this must be added the common 
complaint about the ra'dyd having to provide the 
needs of the collectors' large suite of koldjls, guar- 
dians, and many other exactions which were common 
in the collection of taxes in the period of decline. 
The collectors acted apparently even more harshly 
towards djizya-payers, since the firmans comman- 
ded, on the basis of the shari'a, that the 
dhimmis were to pay djizya in complete humiliation, 
dhull wa saghar (cf. Hadzlbegic, doc. 5, 10, pp. 112, 
126). All this was no doubt mainly responsible for 
the discontented ra'dyds cooperating with foreign 
invaders from the late nth/i7th century on. The 
reform measures taken in 1102/1691 and later did 
not improve the situation, and it can be safely said 
that the abolition of the exemptions, especially those 
of clerics under the new system, ended by turning 
some influential groups among non-Muslims against 
Ottoman rule. 

Bibliography: The Ottoman state followed 
the Hanafi school in the application of djizya; 
Al-Durar fi sharh al-ghurar al-ahhdm by Molla 
Khiisrew (Istanbul 1258, 195-216) and later 
Mewkufati's translation of the Multaka al-abhur 
(Istanbul 1318, 349-51) became the principal 
authorities for the Ottoman 'ulema' and admini- 
strators on these matters. For a statement of the 
sharH principles in an official Ottoman regulation 



see 0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, 351. The earliest 
firman on the levy of djizya that has come down 
to us is dated 880/1475-6 in R. Anhegger-H. 
Inalcik, lidnunndme-i Sulfdni ber muceb-i c orf-i 
Osmdni, Ankara 1956, 76-8; facsimile in F. 
Babinger, Sultanische Urkunden zur Geschichie 
der osmanischen Wirtschaft und Staatsverwaltung 
am Ausgang der Herrschaft Mehmeds II, des Er- 
oberers, i, Munich 1956, 270-80; French summary 
in N. Beldiceanu, Les actes des premiers Sultans, 
Paris-The Hague i960, 148-50; H. Hadzibegic 
in his fundamental article on djizya in the Ottoman 
empire DSizja Hi harai, in Prilozi, iii-iv, 55-135; 
v, 43-102, published twenty-seven documents 
from the sidjilldt of the kadis of Bosnia and 
Macedonia. Two berdts dated 5 Ramadan 1111/ 
24 February 1700 and 1 Sha'ban 1121/6 October 
1709 published by B. C. Nedkof in Sammlung 
orientalischer Arbeiten, xi, Leipzig 1942 and 
reproduced in Belleten, xxxii, 641-9, are trans- 
cribed with some errors. 

The cizye muhasebe defterleri, mdliye ahkdm 
defterleri and mukata&t defterleri in the collections 
of Maliye, Kamil Kepeci and Yeni Seri, the 
Basvekalet archives, Istanbul, constitute an 
inexhaustible source on the subject. The oldest 
defters in these series are a defter-i mukdta'-dt of 
Mehemmed II's time, Yeni seri, nos. 176, 6222 
and 7387, a defter-i tawzi c -i djizya-i gabrdn-i 
wildyat-i Rumeli wa Anadolu, dated 958/1551, 
K. Kepeci, no. 3523 and a defter-i ahkdm-i mdliyye, 
dated 973/1565 Maliye Yeni Seri, no. 2775. The 
collection of daftar-i muhdsebe-i djizya, the most 
comprehensive source on djizya, start in 1101/1690, 
K. Kepeci nos. 3508-3799- (Hai.il Inalcik) 

The question of the levy of djizya in India has 
provoked more emotion than scientific study, it 
being assumed that practice in India was closely 
modelled on the teachings of fikh, or the precepts 
of Indo-Muslim scholars, or the policies of the Otto- 
mans. The view taken here that djizya was not 
normally levied under the Dihli Sultanate in the 
sense of a discriminatory religious tax may be con- 
tested; the evidence for this view is set out below. 

The earliest extant source for the Arab conquest 
of Sind, Baladhuri, Futuh, 439, speaks of Muhammad 
b. KSsim levying kharddj as tribute upon the 
conquered. The Cac-ndma, said to be a Persian 
translation (c. 613/1216-7) of an early Arabic account 
of the conquest, speaks (India Office Library MS 435, 
268) of the Sindhls being allowed the status of 
dhimmi and of a graduated poll-tax being laid upon 
the people of Brahmanabad, the three classes paying 
at the canonical rates of 48, 24 and 12 dirhams 
respectively (MS. 261-262). This account, however, 
would seem more a reflection of later tradition than 
of events in 94/712 which antedate the differentiation 
between kharddj as land-tax and djizya as poll-tax 
under the late Umayyads which became the basis of 
fikh teaching. 

Under the Dihli sultanate [?.».], political conditions 
— the continued presence of armed Hindu chiefs in 
rural areas, the particularism of the period 801/1398-9 
to 932/1526 — do not appear apt for the imposition of 
a novel discriminatory tax by a minority upon a 
majority. Kadi Minhadj al-Siradj Djuzdjani does not 
refer to djizya being levied in the period to 658/1260. 
Amir Khusraw, Kirdn al-sa'-dayn, 'Allgafh lith, 1918, 
35, uses djizya to mean tribute from Hindu kings. 
References in the Khaldii and early Tughluk period 



couple djizya indiscriminately with kharddj to mean 
tribute or land revenue (e.g., Diya* al-Din BaranI, 
Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, Bib. Ind., 291, 574; BaranI 
states also (Fatdwa\yi Djahdnddri, India Office 
Library MS 1149, foil 119a) that Hindu Rays and 
Rands levied kharddj and djizya from their own 
Hindu subjects). An anecdote in Amir Hasan 
Sidjzi's FawdHd al-Fuwdd (707/1307-722/1322) speaks 
(Dihli lith. 1865, 76) of a Muslim darwish being 
required to pay djizya, in a context showing that 
tax in general is meant. 

There are, however, for the reign of Flruz 
Shah Tughluk, a number of references, principally 
in works of the mandkib idiom, stating that that 
Sultan levied djizya. The anonymous Sirat-i Firuz 
Shdhi, (772/1370-1), (India Office Library Roto 34 
of Bankipur MS, fol. 61b), claims that Flruz Shah 
Tughluk ordered that only canonical taxes should 
be collected, a claim repeated in the Futuhdt-i 
Firuz Shdhi, ed. Shaykh Abdur Rashid, 'Allgafh 
1954, 6. Shams al-Din Siradj c Afif, Ta'rikh-i Firuz 
Shdhi, states (Bib. Ind. ed. 382-4) that Flruz, 
having obtained a fatwd that djizya should be levied 
from the Brahmans, ordered it to be levied, but 
reduced its incidence, after protest from the Brah- 
mans of Dihli and petition from other Hindus, from 
the three rates of 40, 20 and 10 tankas to 10 tankas 
of 50 djitals. The contemporary collection of or- 
namental epistles, Inshd-yi Mahru (ed. Shaykh 
Abdur Rashid, 'Allgafh n.d.), also mentions (41, 
53-4) the levy of djizya, although the latter context 
suggests it was not distinguished from land revenue. 

In the Sayyid and Lodi period nothing is heard of 
the levy of djizya. From the manner in which the 
historians of Akbar's reign report its abolition by 
him, even the references to it in the Tughluk period 
may be largely panegyrical There is indeed no 
agreement on the date at which the abolition 
100k place. Abu '1-Fadl in the Akbar-ndma (Bib. Ind., 
ii, 203), places it in 971/1564, Bada'uni in 987/1579 
(Muntakhab al-tawdrikh, Bib. Ind., ii, 276). The 
latter, who is otherwise quick to condemn Akbar 
for any deviation from orthodoxy, mentions the 
event without comment. Nizam al-Din Ahmad 
does not refer to djizya but mentions an abolition 
of zakdt in 989/1581. 

Following a number of orthodox measures 
discriminating against non-Muslims, Awrangzib 
imposed djizya in 1090/1679, the Mir'dt-i Ahmadi 
states (i, 296-8), after a petition by '■ulamd? and 
fukahd'. Financial stringency as well as Awrangzib's 
personal inclination doubtless helped to prompt the 
decision, although this would not, of course, explain 
the discriminatory character of the tax. Isar Das, 
Futuhdt-i '■Alamgiri, (British Museum Add. 23884, 
fol. 74a-74b), states that government servants were 
exempted and that there were three rates of tax — 
owners of property worth 2,500 rupees were assessed 
at 16 rupees, those worth 250 rupees at 6 rupees 8 
annas, and those worth 52 rupees were assessed at 
3 rupees and 4 annas, the blind, the paralysed, and 
the indigent being exempt. Its introduction encoun- 
tered popular and court opposition at Dihli, which 
was, however, overborne. The Mir'dt-i Ahmadi 
states that djizya brought in 500,000 rupees in the 
province of Gudjarat. 

Djizya did not long survive the death of Awrangzib 
in 1 1 18/1707. Bahadur Shah, Djahandar Shah, 
Farrukhsiyar and Muhammad Shah are all said to 
have abolished it, although Farrukhsiyar had at one 
time struck a dirham sharH to facilitate payment of 
the djizya at the canonical rates (see dar al-darb, 



DJIZYA — DJOLOF 



iii). Nizam al-Mulk Asaf DjSh attempted to revive 
it in 1135/1723, and Muhammad Shah nominally 
restored it in 1 137/1725, but this restitution was 
never carried into effect. 

Bibliography: In addition to references 

above, see: C AU Muhammad Khan, Mir'at-i 

Ahmadi, i, Baroda 1928, 296-298; Muhammad 

Saki Musta'idd Khan, Ma'athir-i 'Alamgirl, 

Calcutta 1870-3, 174; Khafl Khan, Muntakhab 

al-lubdb, Calcutta 1860-74, index s.v. djizya; 

N. Manucci, Storia do Mogor, ed. and trans. W. 

Irvine, iii, London 1907, 288-9; S. R. Sharma, 

Religious policy of the Mughal emperors, Calcutta 

1940, index s.v. jizya; W. Irvine, Later Mughals, 

two vols., Calcutta 1921-2, index s.v. jizya; 

Satish Chandra, Jizyah in the post-Aurangzeb 

period, in Proc. gth Indian History Congress, 1946, 

320-6. (P. Hardy) 

DJODHPUR or Marwar was the largest of the 

former Indian States in the Rajputana Agency with 

an area of 36,120 sq.m. and a population of 2,555,904 

(1941 Census). There appears to be no evidence to 

support the Radjput legend that the state of 

Djodhpur was founded by the Radjputs of Kanawdj 

after their defeat by Muhammad of Gliur in 590/1194. 

SiyahdjI, the founder of the Rathor dynasty of 

Djodhpur, was probably descended from Rathor 

radjas whose inscriptions are found in Djodhpur as 

early as the tenth century. The city of Djodhpur 

dates back to 1459. Raw Maldew of Djodhpur, who 

refused to grant asylum to Humayun, was defeated 

by Shir Shah and by Akbar whose tributary he 

became. From this time the rulers of Djodhpur 

were closely connected with the Mughal emperors of 

Dihli, giving their daughters in marriage to the 

imperial family and serving in the Mughal armies. 

The most famous Radjput in the service of the 

Mughal emperors was Maharadja Djaswant Singh 

(1048-89/1638-73). Because of Awrangzlb's orthodox 

religious policy war broke out in 1090/1679. Djodhpur 

was sacked, but guerilla warfare continued for many 

years. The Sayyid brothers forced the ruler of 

Djodhpur to give a daughter in marriage to the 

Emperor Farrukhsiyar. With the decline of Mughal 

power Djodhpur was overrun by Marathas and by 

the forces of Amir Khan the Pa than freebooter. It 

came under British protection in 1818. Maharadja 

Takht Sing who was loyal to the British in 1857 was 

guaranteed the right of adoption in 1862. The 

history of the State under British protection is 

uninteresting. In 1949 Djodhpur was merged into 

the new Indian State of Radjasthan. 

Bibliography: C. U. Aitchison, Treaties, 
Engagements and Sanads, iii, Calcutta 1909; 
Annual reports on the political administration 
of Rajpootana (Selections from the Records of 
the Government of India. Foreign Department), 
Calcutta 1867 if.; Imperial Gazetteer of India 
(1908) s.v. Jodhpur; J. Tod, Annals and anti- 
quities of Rajasthan, 2 vols., London. 

(C. Collin Davies) 
DJOLOF (Diolof) is the name of a kingdom 
which was set up on what is now Senegalese territory 
from the 13th to the 16th centuries. At the height 
of its power this kingdom included Walo, Cayor, 
Baol, Sine, Salum and Dimar, as well as part of 
Bambuk. The inhabitants and their language are 
called Wolof (modern spelling: Ouolof). 

Physical features.— Djolof, which now desig- 
nates merely one region of the Republic of Senegal, 
lies between I4°-i6° N., and i6°-i8° W. On the north 
it is bounded by Walo, Dimar and Futa Toro, on the 



east by Futa Damga and Ferlo, on the south by 
Niani-Ouli and Baol, and on the west by Cayor and 
N'Diambour. 

The Nounoum runs across Djolof from south-east 
to north-west, a river which is permanent only in 
its lower reaches where, from downstream, it receives 
the outflow from lake Guiers. It is one of the least 
fertile regions of Senegal; it can count on only 
500 mm. of rain during the four months of the rainy 
season (July to October), called navtte, a period of 
violent storms alternating with dry tornadoes. A 
transition period which is already dry, the lolU, 
though sometimes marked by a little rain (heug), 
then follows, corresponding with the ground-nut 
season (November to January). It is then that 
water-melons (beref) are cultivated, being harvested 
at the end of the dry season (nor). The harmattan 
blows violently in February and March, while in 
May and June, during the tiorom, the drought is 
alleviated and vegetation begins to grow green again. 

History. — The history of Djolof is not fully 
known. Legend relates that in about 595/1200, a 
pious Muslim of the Prophet's family, by name 
Bubakar (Abu Bakr) b. 'Umar, also called Abu 
Darday, came fiom Mecca to settle in Senegal, and 
converted the country to Islam. Apparently it was 
only in the 15th century that one of his presumed 
descendants, Ndiadiane Diaye, freed Djolof from the 
domination of Tekrur and annexed Walo, Baol, Sine 
and Salum in turn. The sovereigns bore the title of 
Bour ba Djolof. Quarrels that broke out between the 
various Ouolof communities led to the secession of 
the Lebou who crossed Cayor and went to settle on 
the peninsula of Cap Vert under the suzerainty of the 
darnel. In the 16th century a certain Koumbi Guielem, 
with the help of the Lebou, started a revolt against 
Bour Biram Diem Koumba who crushed it, but was 
unable to prevent the chiefs of Cayor and Baol from 
seceding. In the middle of the 16th century, Leleful 
Fack was unable to withstand a further revolt, led 
by a certain Amani Gone Sohel who was the true 
founder of the kingdom of Cayor, with M'Bour as 
its capital. 

Probably as a result of the profoundly democratic 
temperament of the Ouolofs, there is not a single 
sovereign from this period whose name is outstanding. 
But the linguistic and cultural mark had been set, 
and was later confirmed during the colonial period. 

Djolof, being situated inland, was affected by 
European colonization only at a late date. In the 16th 
century Islam had only superficially penetrated to 
this region where the pagan practices of the Ouolofs 
scandalized the pious Muslims. However, the pro- 
gressive Islamization of the inhabitants was noted 
as early as 1445 by Ca da Mosto. 

After settling on the coast from 1683, the French 
explored the interior. In 1682 Lemaire gave informa- 
tion about the Ouolofs, while three years later La 
Courbe sent his agents to make a treaty with the 
Bour ba Guiolof. From 1749 to 1753, Djolof was 
visited by the French naturalist Michel Adanson. A 
century later it served as a place of refuge for the 
rebels during the campaigns conducted against Lat 
Dior, darnel of Cayor. In 1871 the Tidjanl chief 
Ahmadu Sheykhu invaded Djolof and Cayor, but 
was routed by an expeditionary force and killed in 
i875. 

In 1889, a force under the command of Colonel 
Dodds put the bour ba Djolof to flight. The latter's 
brother acknowledged the French Protectorate on 
3 May 1890. Henceforth Djolof shared in the develop- 
ment of Senegal and, in 1931, a branch line of the 



DJOLOF — al-DJUBAYL 



Dakar-Saint Louis railway reached Linguere in the 
heart of the Djolof country. At the present t 
the region is almost entirely Islamized. In every 
village can be found a place reserved for communal 
prayer (didma) and one or more marabouts. The 
Muslim Ouolofs are very strict in praying and 
fasting; the name tabaski (Touareg tafaski, from 
pascha) which they give to al-'id al-kdbir is evide 
of their partial conversion by the Berbers; they are 
very ready to become members of a religious con- 
fraternity, usually the Kadiriyya. It was from 
Djolof that Ahmadu Bamba, founder of the Murld 
sect, recruited his followers. This Muridism (in 
peasant form) is regarded as a "Ouolofisation" of 

Society. — According to tradition, the 1 
villages are said to have been formed by gifts of land 
by the Burba Djolof to warriors who had disting- 
uished themselves in expeditions. As in most of the 
Ouolof country, society if divided into endogamous 
groups which no-one can leave or join. The freemen 
(gor ) are descendants of the founder of the village or 
marabout: artisans, cobblers (wudi), blacksmiths 
(teugne), wood- workers (laobl), sorcerers (gueveul). 
The caste of the unfree (or diame) seems to h 
disappeared. 

The place of habitation is the village (deuh), formed 
of squares which house the scattered family. Al- 
though the ground-nut has noticeably improved 
living conditions, Djolof is one of the most barren 
regions of Senegal, and hence the temporary emi- 
gration of the men to the towns. 

Bibliography: Adam, Le Djolof et le Ferlo, 
in Annates de Glographie, 1915; Ancelle, Les 
explorations du Sinigal, Paris 1887; Dr. Anfre- 
ville de la Salle, Notre vieux Slnlgal, Paris 
1909; Angrand, Manuel franfais-Ouolof, Dakar 
1942 (bibliography); J. Audiger, Les Ouolof du 
Bas Ferlo, in Les Cahiers d'Outre-Mer, Bordeaux, 
April-June 1961, 157-81; Beranger-Feraud, Les 
peuplades de Sinlgambie, Paris 1879; Histoire 
militaire de VAfrique occidentale franfaise, Paris 
193 1 ; Carrere and Holle, De la Sinlgambie 
franfaise, Paris 1855; Chevalier, Monographic de 
Varachide, Paris 1936; Coutumiers juridiques de 
VA.O.F., i; Faidherbe, Notice sur la colonic du 
Slnlgal et sur les pays qui sont en relation avec elle, 
Saint Louis 1868; idem, Le Slnlgal, Paris 1889; 
Gaden, Llgendes et coulumes slnlgalaises d'aprls 
Yoro Diao, Paris 1912; Geismar, Coutumes civiles 
des races du Slnlgal, Saint Louis 1931; Hardy, 
La mise en valeur du Slnlgal de 1816 a 1854, 
Paris 192 1 ; Mgr. Kobes, Dictionnaire ouolof- 
franfais revu par le P. Abiven, Dakar 1923; 
Labouret, Paysans de VAfrique occidentale, Paris 
1941; Marty, £tude sur I'Islam au Slnlgal, Paris 
1917; Olivier, Le Slnlgal, Paris 1906; Papy and 
Pelissier, Problemes agricoles au Slnlgal, Saint 
Louis 1952; Sere de Rivieres, Slnlgal-Dakar , 
Paris 1953; Villard, Histoire du Slnlgal, Dakar 
1943. (R. Cornevin) 

EJUBAYL, a small port in Lebanon situated 
between Bayrut and Tripoli on the site of the ancient 
Byblos (or Gebal in the Old Testament), formerly a 
centre at once maritime, commercial and religious, 
closely connected with Egypt since the 4th millen- 
nium B.C., and as celebrated for the worship of 
Adonis, of a syncretistic nature, as for its specializa- 
tion in woodwork and products from the forests on 
the mountains nearby. If Byblos remained truly 
prosperous in the Roman period and later became 
the seat of a bishopric, it appears to have greatly 



declined by the time when it was conquered by the 
Muslims, and when Mu'awiya established a colony of 
Persians there, as in the neighbouring territories. 
Djubayl, which was attached to the djund of 
Damascus, kept a small garrison until the 5th/nth 
century. At that period, when the Fatimids had 
extended their domination over the Syrian coast, it 
was under the direct dependency of the ShI'I 
kadis of Tripoli, the Banu 'Ammar. According to 
the traveller Nasir-i Khusraw who passed through 
it in 438/1047 the town, triangular in shape and 
surrounded by high walls, stood by the sea, whilst 
the surrounding plain, at the foot of Mount Lebanon, 
was covered with date-palms. 

Captured in 496-1103 by Raymond de Saint 
Gilles, Count of Tripoli, it became a feudal domain 
under the name Gibelet, and was given to a family 
of Genoese origin who were known as the "lords of 
Gibelet"; it remained in the hands of the Crusaders 
until reconquered by Saladin in 583/1187. Archaeo- 
logical traces of the Frankish period can be seen in 
the castle which stands on a hill at the north-east 
angle of the enceinte, no doubt on the site of an 
earlier Muslim fortress, and in the church of St. 
John, most of which was later rebuilt, though the 
baptistery, a masterpiece of Romanesque art, has 
survived intact. 

At one time reoccupied by the Franks, to whom 
the Kurdish garrison put there by Salah al-Din had 
surrendered in 593/1197, the town was reconquered 
in 665/1266-7 by Baybars who restored the forti- 
fications, and later made it part of the Mamluk 
district of Bayrut. Then, at the end of the gth/isth 
century, it fell into the hands of the Banu Hamada, 
a family of Mutawalls dominating Upper Lebanon, 
and remained in their power until the I2th/i8th 
century. The importance of its port had by then 
greatly diminished, its place being taken by Djuniya, 
a rival port from ancient times which had long been 
in control of the local coastal shipping. 

At the present day Djubayl is merely a small 
village of about 1,500 inhabitants, almost all 
Maronite, and it is chiefly known for the ruins of 
the Phoenician town which have been methodically 
excavated since 1921 by the French mission under 
the direction of M. Montet and M. Dunand respec- 
tively. 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s. v. Byblos; R. 
Dussaud, Topographic historique de la Syric, Paris 
1927, 63-9; M. van Berchem and E. Fatio, Voyage 
en Syrie, Cairo 1913-5, 105-13; Guide Bleu, Syrie- 
Palestine, Paris 1932, 38-45; Le Strange, Palestine, 
32, 464-5; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie 
a I'lpoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, cv and 74 ; 
R. Grousset, Histoire des Croisades, index, esp. i, 
141 and iii, 147; Ibn Khurradadhbih. 77 and 255; 
Ibn al-Fakih, 105; Ya'kObl, Bulddn, 328; Ya'kiibi- 
Wiet, 178; Nasir-i Khusraw, ed. Schefer, 43; Ibn 
Shaddad, al-AHdk al-khatira, 2nd part, ms. Leyden 
800, f° 98b; Yakut, ii, 32; Mardsid, 1, 240. 

(D. Sourdel) 
al-EJUBAYL, a Sa'udi Arabian port on the 
Persian Gulf, located at 27° oo' N., 4 9°39'E.; 
also known as 'Aynayn. Al-Diubavl al-Bahri, a 
rocky islet several hundred metres offshore, is the 
most prominent landmark of the site; al-Djabal 
al-Barri is a hill about 12 km. to the south of the 
town. Al-Djubayl is located at the start of the Darb 
al-Kunhurl, a caravan trail and motor track leading 
to al-Riyad. Members of the tribe of Al Bu c Aynayn 
assert that the site was settled by their ancestor 
Khuwaylid b. <Abd Allah b. Darim of Bani Tamim 



l-DJUBBA'I 



569 



and took the name 'Aynayn from its two flowing 
springs; it is also said to have been once occupied 
by the tribe of 'Abd al-Kays. In the early Islamic 
period 'Aynayn was noted for its plentiful date 
palms and for a poet, Khulayd 'Aynayn, who is 
chiefly remembered for exchanging lampoons with 
the famous Umayyad satirist Diarir b. 'Atiyya. The 
site was later abandoned. The present town was 
populated about 1330/1911-2 by members of Al Bu 
'Aynayn who emigrated from Katar, with the 
permission of the Turkish authorities, as the result 
of a local dispute. The settlers were Malik! Sunnis 
engaged in pearl fishing and other seafaring occu- 
pations. Al-Djubayl came under Sa'udi rule during 
the conquest of al-Hasa by 'Abd al-'Aziz Al Sa'ud 
in 1331/1913. The town was formally acknowledged 
to be Sa'udi territory in the treaty of 1334/1915 by 
which Britain recognized the independence of 'Abd 
al-'Aziz. During the consolidation of the Sa'udi 
Kingdom, al-Djubayl became a port of entry for 
goods destined for Central Arabia. Its significance 
has since diminished as the result of the decline in 
the Persian Gulf pearling trade and of the develop- 
ment of modern communication routes through the 
port, rail, and road centre of al-Dammam [q.v.]. The 
population of al-Djubayl was estimated in i960 at 

Bibliography: LA, xhi, Beirut 1955, 308; al- 
Bakri, Mu l djam ma ista'diam, hi, Cairo 1949, 986; 
al-Fayruzabadi, al-Kamus al-muhit, iv, Cairo 
1344/1925, 252; J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer oj the 
Persian Gulf, '■Oman, and Central Arabia, Calcutta 
1908-15. (H. W. Alter) 

al-DJUBAYLA, a small town of 50-60 dwellings 
located in Nadjd at 24° 54' N, 46 28' E, on the 
left bank of WadI Hanifa between al-'Uyayna and 
al-Dir'iyya. Yakut mentions a place called al- 
Djubayla as the chief town of Band 'Amir of 'Abd 
al-Kays, but there is no evidence definitely linking 
this place with the present town. According to Ilm 
Bulayhid and local tradition, the site of 'Akraba' 
[q.v.] is near the present town. Mounds on the right 
bank of WadI Hanifa, called locally Kubur al- 
Sahaba, are believed to be the graves of Companions 
fallen in the battle of 'Akraba', and 'Akraba' is the 
name of the garden area of al-Djubayla, a small 
rawda about one kilometre east of the town, which 
is said to be the actual site of the gardens in which 
the battle took place. 

Ibn Bishr relates that in 850/1446 al-Djubayla 
belonged to Al Yazld, whom Musa b. Rabi'a b. 
Mani' al-Muraydi, an ancestor of Al Sa'ud, attacked 
and virtually exterminated shortly thereafter. Al 
Dughaythir of al-Dir'iyya claim descent from the sur- 
vivors of Al Yazid, who were a branch of the Banu 
Hanifa (Hanif b. Ludjaym of Bakr ibn Wa'il), the 
supporters of Musaylima al-Kadhdhab at the battle 
of 'Akraba' and the tribe which gave its name to 
WadI Hanifa. The battle site of 'Akraba' was in 
ancient al-Yamama, which is believed to have 
extended as far north as the present town of al- 
Djubayla and its garden of 'Akraba'. However, in 
many cases the identification of ancient places by 
modern usage remains inconclusive. 

Both al-Djubayla and 'Akraba' are mentioned 
several times by Ibn Bishr as the scene of clashes 
between the growing power of Al Sa'ud and the 
influential lords of Banu Khalid from al-Hasa (al- 
Ahsa 5 ) between 1133/1721 and 1172/1758-59- 

In 1 1 53/1740 the young reformer, Shaykh Muham- 
mad b. 'Abd al-Wahhab, then virtually unknown 
outside of al-'Uyayna, destroyed the alleged tomb 



of Zayd b. al-Khattab, the eldest brother of the 
Caliph 'Umar and one of the Companions who fell 
at 'Akraba 1 , as a step towards the obliteration of 
false worship in Nadjd. Today the site of the tomb 
is forgotten. 

Al-Djubayla lies at the juncture of two roads from 
al-Riyad to al-Hidjaz; one road winding across the 
rolling rocky country between the east bank of 
WadI Hanifa and al-Riyad, and a second road which 
is paved as far as al-Dir'iyya [q.v.] and then follows 
the bed of WadI Hanifa to al-Djubayla. These roads 
give the town access to al-Riyad for the sale of 
crops raised in the garden of 'Akraba' and a small 
steady income from trans-peninsular motor traffic. 
In 1961 a new road was completed which provides a 
paved all-weather route from al-Riyad to the 
Tuwayk escarpment at Sha'ib Luha (sometimes 
shown on maps as al-Ha) south-south-east of al- 
Riyad, whence it proceeds north-west, parallel to 
the escarpment, as far as Marah where it rejoins 
Darb al-Hidjaz, eliminating completely the difficult 
stretch of road between al-Djubayla and the pass of 
al-Haysiyya at the head of WadI Hanifa. 

Bibliography: Ibn Bishr; Ibn Bulayhid; 

Philby, Sa'udi Arabia, London 1955; Yakut. 
(R. L. Headley) 

EJUBBA [see libas]. 

al-DJUBBA'I, AbO 'AlI Muhammad b. 'Abd 
al-Wahhab, one of the most celebrated of the 
Mu'tazila [q.v.]. Born at Djubba in Khuzistan, he 
attended the school at Basra of Abu Ya'kub Yusuf 
al-Shahham who at that time occupied the chair of 
Abu '1-Hudhayl al-'Allaf. He succeeded al-Shahham, 
and it can be said that he was able to add a final 
brilliance to the tradition of the masters, while at 
times he refreshed it and opened the way to new 
solutions. He died in 303/915-6. 

He thus holds a place in the line of the Basra 
Mu'tazila who, especially over the question of human 
actions, differ from the Baghdad Mu'tazila. In 
Basra itself, he was particularly at variance with al- 
Nazzam (whom he opposed) and al-Djahiz, but he 
also differed from the two lines of thought of al- 
Asamm and 'Abbad although these were closer to 
his own. The two last-mentioned both combined the 
influence of Mu'ammar with the tradition of Abu 
'1-Hudhayl; and the two former added to the Basra 
teaching influences deriving from Baghdad (school 
of al-Murdar). 

Al-Djubba'i had two pupils who later became 
celebrated: his son Abu Hashim (cf. below), and Abu 
'1-Hasan al-Ash'arl [q.v.] who, after breaking away, 
was to devote himself to refuting Mu'tazilism and 
to become the "founder" of the so-called school of 
the Ash'ariyya [q.v.]. The traditions of the Him al- 
kalam take pleasure in recounting the dialogue 
reputed to have brought al-Ash'arl and his teacher 
into conflict on the subject of the fate of the "three 
brothers" — one pious, one impious and one who 
died infans. In this issue was posed the problem of 
the rational justification of the divine Decree. Al- 
Djubbat, it is said, was unable to reply, and al- 
Ash'arl left him. W. Montgomery Watt has reminded 
us that the wish to "justify" absolutely the divine 
Decree in respect of every human destiny seems to 
derive perhaps from the Baghdad Mu'tazila rather 
than from the Basra school {Free will and predesti- 
nation in early Islam, 137). 

However that may be, no complete work of al- 
Djubba'I has survived until the present time. We 
know that he left a Kitdb al-usill, to the refutation 
of which al-Ash'arl devoted several treatises (cf. in 



l-DJUBBA'I — DJUBOR 



the bibliography of McCarthy, Lutna 1 , Appendix iii, 
nos. 16, 61, 65, 78), and various polemical works 
against Ibn al-Rawandl and al-Nazzam. But one of 
the best available sources allowing us to evaluate his 
tendencies is still the Makdldt al-Isldmiyyin of al- 
Ash'ari (see particularly Cairo ed., ii, 181-5, 196, 



199.2, 



, 243, « 



The teaching given by al-Djubbal followed after 
the reaction by caliph Mutawakkil which dates from 
235/850. Mu'tazilism is no longer the official doctrine. 
Certain tendencies of al-Djubbal are linked with 
the best traditions of the school, others already 
proclaim the solutions of the Ash'ari kaldm. On the 
one hand, he maintains the validity of c akl (reason) 
as a criterion, and he continues to affirm the identity 
of the divine attributes and the divine essence; on the 
other hand, however, he tends to introduce once 
again the mystery of the divine Will and its action 
upon the world. — Two examples: (1) those of the 
Baghdad Mu'tazila, followed with certain modifi- 
cations by al-Shahham, who adopted the idea of 
"acquisition" {kasb, iktisdb), applied it only to in- 
voluntary human actions, God being, in their view, 
in no way the "cause" of free human actions; for al- 
Djubbal, on the contrary, God retains Supreme 
Power even over the actions which man performs 
freely. But, unlike the later Ash'ari solution, he 
refuses to apply the theory of the kasb to free actions; 
and he calls man the "creator" {khdlik) of his actions, 
in the sanse that man acts, or his actions proceed 
from him, with a determination {kadar) which 
comes from God. — (2) 'Abbad objected to any 
association of God with evil, and for example 
refused to speak of sharr or kabh as sickness or weak- 
ness; according to al-Djubba 5 i, they can be called 
"evils", provided that this term is taken metaphor- 
ically. Similarly, he offers personal solutions to the 
problem of "divine aid" (tawfik) and "divine favour" 
(lutf), which do not destroy the voluntary character 
of the action. What is more, foreshadowing certain 
Ash'arl theories, he breaks away from the Mu'tazila 
tradition of allotting merit and demerit according 
to an exact, rational criterion, and maintains that 
God grants to whom He will His favour or good-will 
gratuitously (the problem of tafaddul). 

Al-Djubba'i was no doubt one of the Mu'tazila 
whom al-Ash c arI took the greatest pains to refute, 
all the more since he knew him better; but this did 
not happen without his influence being felt, and we 
have already noted al-Djubbal putting forward 
certain Ash'arite arguments. This complex relation- 
ship between al-Ash'ari and his former teacher helps, 
we feel, to explain the paradox of Ash'arism in its 
infancy: claiming kinship with the "Ancients", 
particularly Ibn Hanbal, but rejected, no less than 
Mu'tazilism, by contemporary Hanbalites. 

Abu Hashim c Abd al-Salam, son of al- 
Djubbal, d. 321/933. He was a contemporary of al- 
Ash'ari, and one of the very last Mu'tazila to 
exercise a direct influence on Sunni thought. He 
conducted a school, his disciples being called bahsha- 
miyya, or even, by their enemies, dhammiyya [q v.] 
(mentioned in al-Baghdadl). The Mu'tazili influence, 
though opposed by the official Sunnism, continued 
to affect the Shi'a, and Ibn 'Abbad al-Talakani 
(326-85/938-95), vizier of the Buyid princes Mu'ayyid 
al-Dawla and Fakhr al-Dawla, recognized Abu 
Hashim as his master. 

The works of Abu Hashim have not suivived, and 
we know almost nothing of the author himself except 
from later polemical works. He was known chiefly 
for his theories of "modes" (ahwdl), a sort of con- 



ceptualism which was to exert great influence on 
the falsafa on the one hand, and on the later kaldm 
on the other. It was on the question of the relation- 
ship between the divine attributes and the divine 
essence that the problem was raised. Anxiety to 
safeguard the absolute Unity of God led the Mu'ta- 
zila, and even al-Djubbal, to "extenuate" (taHll) 
the reality of the attributes to the point of turning 
them into simple denominations. Abu Hashim made 
use of the grammatical notion of hdl, "state" of the 
verb in relation to the agent, to define the degree 
of reality of mental concepts, and thence the degree 
of reality of the divine attributes. According to 
an observation of L. Massignon {Passion d'al- 
Hallddj., 556), he compares "les modes [ahwdl] d'in- 
herence des attributs divins en Dieu avec les moda- 
lites [id.] d'insertion des concepts en notre esprit". 
Now, as Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was to say (Muhassal, 
38), the hdl is the "state" established in our mind by 
the meaning according to which the idea is r< 









"betw( 






From the human concept to the divine attribute 
there is thus, for Abu Hashim, a constant interplay 
between the logical (and noetic) and the metaphy- 
sical. Just as the kasb of al-Shahham (rejected by 
al-Djubbal) was later taken up and transformed by 
the Ash'aris, so the hdl of Abu Hashim was later 
adopted in terms of their own perspectives by al- 
Ash'ari, no doubt by Bakillani, and certainly by 
Djuwayni, master of al-Ghazzali in kaldm. What 
is more, it is not inopportune to turn to Abu 
Hashim's theses to explain the semi-conceptualism 
of Ibn Sina and his commentator the ShI'I Naslr 
al-DIn al-Tusi. — Al-Djubba'i and his son thus exerted 
on Muslim thought an influence which far surpassed 
the direct r61e of Basra MuHazilism, considered as 
an independent school. 

Bibliography : Houtsma, Zum Kitdb al- 
Fihrist, in WZKM, iv, 224; Ibn Khallikan, nr 393, 
618; Arnold, al-MuHazilah, 45 ft.; ShahrastanI, 
Milal (ed. Cureton), 54 ff.; Baghdad!, Fark, 167; 
Steiner, Die MuHaziliten, 82 ff.; Horten, Die 
Modustheorie des Abu Hashim, in ZDMG, lxiii, 
308 ff.; idem, Die philosophische Systeme der 
spekulativ. Theologen im Islam, 352 ff., 403 ff. (and 
ref.); Abu '1-Hasan al-Ash c ari, Kitdb al-Luma"-, 
ed. and English tr. R. J. McCarthy, Beirut 1953, 
29-30/41-2 and ref. in art.; idem, Makdlat al- 
Isldmiyyin, ref. in art.; Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi, 
Muhassal, Cairo n.d., 38; Ibrahim Badjuri, 
Hdshiya . . . 'aid Djawharat al-tawhid, Cairo 1352/ 
1934, 64; L. Massignon, Passion d'al-Hallddj, 
Paris 1922, s.vv. DjubbdH and Abu Hashim; 
L. Gardet and M. M. Anawati, Introduction a 
la theologie musulmane, Paris 1948, index; W. 
Montgomery Watt, Free will and predestination 
in early Islam, London 1948, 83-7, 136-7. 

(L. Gardet) 
DJUBtJR, a large and predominantly sedentary 
Sunni tribe of central and northern 'Irak. A con- 
siderable community so named occupies land and 
villages in the Khalis kadd of the Diyala liwd', and 
another on canals drawing from the Hilla branch 
(right bank) of the Euphrates, below Hilla. Minor 
sections calling themselves Djubur are also found 
elsewhere in central 'Irak. But the largest body lives 
in riverain villages on the Lesser Zab between Altun 
Koprii and the Tigris, and on the latter river between 
points south of Mosul and north of Takrit. The 
former of these branches have habitually quarrelled 
with the 'Ubayd of the Hawldja west of Kirkuk 



DJUBOR — DJUDDA 



571 



and the Dizal in the plain between the two Zabs; 
the latter have a long history of bad relations with 
the Shammar (Djarba) of the Djazlra. All alike were 
in frequent collision with the Turkish Government 
in the I3th/i<)th and earlier centuries. As with most 
settled 'Irak tribes, however, disorder and disobe- 
dience are now less in evidence than ever before. 

The Djubflr have limited sheep-grazing sections, 
who take their flocks into the steppe each winter; 
but the great majority are cultivators on the flow 
canals of the Khalis or the Hilla river, or on the 
water-lift lands of the Zab and Tigris where mecha- 
nical pump-irrigation and some flow-irrigation have 
greatly developed. Many from the latter districts 
work for the oil company whose pipelines from 
Kirkuk oilfields cross or skirt their territory. 

The various Djubur sections have little cohesion, 
and have produced no unifying leader for generations. 
They consist of many unconnected elements with 
little bond save their name. The usual legend of 
noble origins in Nadjd, and entry into 'Irak via the 
WadI Hawran as conquering immigrants, does not 
contain any assessable historical basis. 

(S. H. Longrigg) 

DJUCl or rather Djoci (ca. 580-624/1184-1227), 
the eldest son of Cingiz-Khan [q.v.] and the ancestor 
of the Khans of the Golden Horde, Krim, Tiumen, 
Bukhara and Khiwa. A depalatalized, perhaps Turkish 
form of his name, Toshi or Doshi, is represented by 
the Tushl of Djuwayni and DjQzdjanl, the Tosucchan 
(i.e., Toshi Khan) °f Carpini and the Diishl of 
Nasawi. The historical data on this progenitor of so 
many dynasties are sparse and contradictory. His 
very paternity is uncertain. It is implied in the 
Secret history 0/ the Mongols that his real father was 
Cilger Boko of the Merkit, by whose tribe his mother 
Borte Fudjin was carried off into captivity shortly 
after her marriage to Cingiz-Khan. On the other hand 
Rashid al-DIn, who reproduces the Altan Debter, 
the official chronicle of the imperial family, specifi- 
cally states that Borte was already pregnant at the 
time of her capture. Contrary to the Secret history 
she was not, according to Rashid al-DIn, rescued 
by a joint expedition of Cingiz-Khan, Djamuka and 
Ong-Khan but was handed over by the Merkit to 
the last named, with whose tribe, the Kereyt, they 
were then at peace. Delivered up by Ong-Khan to 
an emissary of Cingiz-Khan Borte gave birth to 
Djoci in the course of the homeward journey, and 
the circumstances of his birth are in some way 
reflected in his name, apparently the Mongol word 
dioci "guest". Djoci is first mentioned in the Secret 
history, under the year 1207, as being sent on a 
campaign against the Oyrat and other forest peoples 
along the western shores of Lake Baykal: after 
conquering these peoples he advanced in a westerly 
direction to receive the submission of the Kirghiz 
tribes in the region of the Upper Yenisey. Rashid 
al-DIn, whilst recording the submission of the 
Kirghiz in 1207, makes no mention of Dioci in this 
connection, though he refers to him as having 
suppressed a revolt of that people in the winter of 
1218-19. Djoii took part in his father's campaigns 
against the Chin rulers of Northern China, being 
active with his brothers Caghatay and Ogedey in 
Shan-hsi {121 1) and Chih-li, Ho-nan and Shan-hsi 
(1213). He likewise took part, in 1216 or 1217, in a 
campaign against the remnants of the Merkit which 
resulted in their defeat and annihilation in what is to- 
day the Kustanai region of Northern Kazakhstan. A 
clash with Sultan Muhammad Kh'arizm-Shah [q.v.] 
as the Mongols were returning eastwards from this 



campaign formed the prelude to the hostilities which 
broke out in 1219. Upon the arrival of Cingiz- 
Khan's forces before Otrar, probably in September 
of that year, Djoii was dispatched upon an expedition 
down the Sir-Darya. The details of this expedition, 
which is passed over in silence by the contemporary 
Muslim sources, are given by Djuwayni, who refers to 
Djoci as Ulush-Idi, a title which Rashid al-DIn, in 
reproducing Djuwaynl's account, takes to be the 
name of a general in joint command. Advancing 
down the Sir-Darya Djoci captured Sughnak, 
Ozkend, Bariin and Ashnas. It had been his intention 
not to attack Djand but to rest his troops in the 
Kara-Kum steppe to the north-east of the Aral Sea 
in what is now Central Kazakhstan. However a 
report on the conditions prevailing in Djand caused 
him to change the direction of his march and lay 
siege to the town, which surrendered in April or May, 
1220. Djoci now proceeded to the Kara-Kum steppe 
and seems to have remained in this region or in the 
Djand area until the end of the year, when he was 
ordered by Cingiz-Khan to join Caghatay and 
Ogedey in the siege of Gurgandj [q.v.]. The siege 
operations appear to have been hampered by a 
quarrel between Djocl and Caghatay: upon the fall 
of the town in Safar 618/March-April 1220 it became 
part of Djoci's yurt or appanage, which now extended 
from the region of Kayaligh [q.v.] to the eastern banks 
of the Volga, comprising within its limits almost the 
whole of the present-day Kazakhstan. From Gurgandj 
Djoci withdrew northwards into this enormous 
territory, there to remain till the spring of . . . /1223, 
when he joined his father and brothers in the 
Kulan-Bashi steppe between the present-day 
Cimkent and Djambul in Southern Kazakhstan, 
driving before him, for the purposes of a battue, great 
herds of wild asses: he brought also with him, as 
a present for Cingiz-Khan, 20,000 grey horses. After 
the battue the princes passed the remainder of the 
summer in Kulan-Bashi and Djoii then returned to 
his own territories, where he remained for the rest 
of his life, apparently on bad terms with his father, 
whom he predeceased by several months. Upon his 
death his yurt was divided between his eldest son 
Orda and his second son Batu [q.v.], the founders 
respectively of the White Horde and the Kipcak 
Khanate or Golden Horde. 

Bibliography: As in the article cingiz- 
khan with the following additions: Barthold, 
Turkestan; Pelliot, Notes sur Vhistoire de la Horde 
d'Or, Paris 1950; J. A. Boyle, On the titles given 
in Juvaini to certain Mongolian princes, in HJAS, 
xix (1956). (J. A. Bovle) 

DJUDALA [see gudala]. 

DJUDDA, pronounced Djidda locally, a Saudi 
Arabian port on the Red Sea at 2i°29'N., 39 n'E. 
Its climate is notoriously poor. The town, flanked 
by a lagoon on the north-west and salt flats on the 
south-east, faces a bay on the west which is so 
encumbered by reefs that it can only be entered 
through narrow channels. By paved road, Djudda 
is 72 km. from Mecca and 419 km. from Medina. 
Most Arab geographers and scholars maintain that 
Djudda, signifying a road (Lane; al-Bakrl, ii, 371) 
is the correct spelling of the name of the town, 
rather than Djidda or Djadda (grandmother) as 
claimed by Gautier, Philby (Heart, i, 221) and 
others (cf. Yakut, ii, 41; Hitti; Wahba) on account 
of the existence (until 1928), of the "tomb of 
Eve" not far from the city (for description and 
photographs, see E. F. Gautier, Maeurs et coutumes 
des Musulmans, Paris 1931, 64-6). The town dates 



572 DJl 

from pre-Islamic times. Hisham b. Muhammad al- 
Kalbl in al-Asndm claims that 'Amr b. Luhayy of 
the Khuza'a introduced idols from Diudda into 
Mecca several centuries before Islam (cf. al-Ansarl, 
in bibliography). According to Yakut, Diudda b. 
Hazm b. Rabban b. Hulwan of the Kuda c a 
took his name from the town which was part of 
the territory of the Kuda'a [q.v.]. The foundations 
of Djudda's importance were laid in 26/646 by the 
Caliph c Uthman, who chose it as the port of Mecca 
in place of the older port of al-Shu c ayba a little 
to the south (al-Batanflnl, 6; Nallino, 155). As the 
focus of the Muslim world, Mecca became a great 
importing centre, its supplies coming from Egypt 
and India via Diudda. 

By the 4th/ioth century Diudda was a prosperous 
commercial town and its customs were a considerable 
source of revenue to the rulers of al-Hidjaz (Mukad- 
dasl, 79, 104). In addition, taxes were levied on 
pilgrims at Diudda. for it was here that those who 
came by sea landed on Arabian soil. Nasir-i Khusraw 
(ed. Schefer, 65 ; 181-3 of the translation) describes the 
city in the 5th/nth century as an unwalled town, 
with a male population estimated at 5,000, governed 
by a slave of the sharif of Mecca, whose chief duty 
was the collection of the revenues. A century later 
Ibn Djubayr (ed. De Goeje, 75 ff.) gives a picture 
of the town with its reed huts, stone khans, and 
mosques, and he praises Salah al-DIn for having 
abolished the taxes levied by the sharifs. 

With the decline of the c Abbasid Caliphate, much 
of the trade formerly going to al-Basra was diverted 
to Diudda, where ships from Egypt, carrying gold, 
metals, and woollens from Europe, met those from 
India carrying spices, dyes, rice, sugar, tea, grain, 
and precious stones. Djudda exacted about ten per 
cent ad valorem on these goods. After 828/1425 the 
Mamluk Sultans of Egypt, whose cupidity had been 
aroused by Djudda's prosperity, took the collection 
of customs at Djudda into their own hands (although 
they shared it with the sharifs from time to time), 
thus making Djudda politically as well as economi- 
cally dependent on Egypt (Ibn TaghribirdI, iv, 21, 
41; v, 79). 

The coming of the Portuguese to eastern waters, 
and their attacks on Muslim shipping from 1502 
onward, brought a new threat to Djudda, which the 
Mamluks and after them the Ottomans made 
determined efforts to meet. Husayn al-Kurdl, the 
Governor of Djudda, appointed by the Mamluk 
Sultan Kansuh al-Ghuri, built a formidable wall 
around the town in 917/15 11 (al-Batanunl erroneously 
states that it was in 915/1509) and made Diudda a 
base for attacks against the Portuguese fleet. Lopo 
Soares de Albergaria sailed to the Djudda harbour in 
923/1517 in pursuit of the Mamluk fleet commanded 
by Salman Rels but declined to attack the city 
because of its powerful fortifications (Danvers, The 
Portuguese in India, 1894, 335). In 945/1538 the 
Ottoman naval expedition, on its way to India, 
called there, and collected masts and guns (Hammer- 
Purgstall, GOR 1 , ii, 156-8; Uzuncarsili, Osm. Tar., 
ii, 379 ff-> 538; Fevzi Kurtoglu in Belleten, iv, (1940), 
53-87; Stribling, 89-90). In 948/1541 the Portuguese 
made their last unsuccessful attempt to take the 
city, which was defended by the Sharif Abu Numayy. 
The Sultan Siileyman repaid him for his successful 
resistance by granting him half of the fees collected 
at Djudda (Dahlan, 53). The trade of the Red Sea 
did not, as was at one time thought, end with the 
Portuguese circumnavigation of Africa, but continued 
under Ottoman protection, right through the 10th/ 



1 6th century. Ottoman sources of this period refer 
to the regular appearance at Djudda of ships from 
India, and a Venetian consul in Cairo, in May 1565, 
speaks of the arrival of 20,000 quintals of pepper at 
Djudda. It was not until the late 16th and early 17th 
centuries that the transit trade through the Red 
Sea began to come to an end (F. Braudel, La Midi- 
terranie et le monde miditerranden a Vipoque de 
Philippe II, Paris 1949, 423-37; Halil inalcik, in 
Belleten, xv, (1951), 662 ff.). 

Little of importance occurred in the history of 
Djudda during the nth/i7th and I2th/i8th centuries. 
Al-Hidjaz, under the suzerainty of the Sultan, was 
ruled locally by the Hasanid family of the sharifs, 
who intrigued to their own advantage against the 
declining power of the Turks (Dahlan, al-Djabartl). 
The town of Djudda was a sandjak, for a while the 
centre of the eydlet of Habesh, later part of the 
wilayet of Hidjaz. According to Ottoman sources, the 
Grand Vizier Kara Mustafa Pasha (held office 
io87/i676-ro94/i683) endowed Djudda with a 
mosque, khan, hammam, and water supply. 

During the I3th/igth century, Djudda passed 
through a number of vicissitudes. In 1217/1803 the 
Wahhabis [q.v.] besieged the sharif Ghalib in Djudda 
but were unable to take the town, which began to 
boast of itself as a Gibraltar (Ibn Bishr, i, 122). 
Ghalib later surrendered and Djudda was subject to 
the rule of the Wahhabis until 1226/1811, when 
Muhammad 'All restored nominal Ottoman sover- 
eignty. In r22g/i8i4 Burkhardt described Diudda 
as a town with 12,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, among 
whom indigenous elements were scantily represented, 
while strangers from the Yemen and Hadramawt 
appeared to be numerous. Both Burton (i, r7g) and 
al-Batanuni (6) mention the coral and mother-of-pearl 
taken from the Red Sea at Djudda and made into 
prayer beads at Mecca and crucifixes at Jerusalem. 
In i256/r840 Egyptian rule was replaced by the 
direct rule of the Porte, represented by a wall in 
Djudda. 

On 3 Dhu '1-Ka'da 1274^5 June r8s8 Djudda 
was the scene of a massacre, instigated, it is thought, 
by a former Djudda police chief, and several dissat- 
isfied Djudda merchants, in which about 25 Christ- 
ians were killed, including the British and French 
Consuls and a group of wealthy Greek merchants. 
The British steamship Cyclops, anchored in the 
harbour, bombarded the city for two days and 
restored order without much damage (Isabel Burton, 
ii, 5i3 ff.)- 

Djudda was the first HidjazI city to fall into sharif- 
ian hands after Sharif al-Husayn's proclamation of 
Arab independence in 1334/1916 (Nasif, 50). The Turks 
surrendered the city on 15 Sha c ban/r7 June after a 
combined land attack by Sharif al-Husayn's army and 
a six-day bombardment by the British navy. The 
port then became the major supply depot for the 
sharifian forces operating behind Turkish lines 
during the Arab revolt. 

Under the short-lived Kingdom of al-Hidjaz, 
Djudda was a focal point in the struggle between the 
Wahhabis and the sharifs for control of al-Hidjaz. 
After the Sa c udi occupation of Mecca in Rabi c I 
r343/October 1924, Djudda became the capital of 
the government of c Ali b. al-Husayn. The city was 
under siege by the Wahhabi forces, situated in the 
coastal hills ten miles from the town, for almost an 
entire year from Djumada II 1343/January 1925 
until its submission in Djumada II 1344/Deceniber 
1925. Defence of the city was hindered by the 
inadequacy of the sharifian army, estimated by 



DJUDDA — DJUDl 



Philby (Forty Years, 114) at 1,000 regulars aug- 
mented by Bedouin recruits, and by internal 
divisions among the citizens, a party of whom, led 
by the Ka'immakam, favoured negotiation with the 
Sa'udls and the deposition of c Ali (Nasif, 156 ff. 
Details of the town's history during this year are 
contained in the newspaper Barid al-fUdfdz, ed. 
Muhammad Nasif). In Dh u '1-Ka'da 1345/May 1927 
c Abd al-'Aziz Ibn Sa'ud and Gilbert Clayton met in 
Djudda and concluded the Treaty of Diudda in 
which Britain recognized the "complete and absolute" 
independence of Al Sa'ud's territories. 

Nallino, describing the town in 1938, mentions the 
site of the tomb of Eve, quietly demolished by the 
Sa'udis in 1928, the so-called European cemetery, 
which is thought to date from 1235/1820 and which 
contains the remains of some Jews and Asiatics, and 
the villages beyond the wall. These included al- 
Hindawiyya to the south, al-Nuzla to the south-west, 
al-Baghdadiyya and al-Ruways to the north, and 
Nakatu, a reed hut settlement inhabited by Takarir 
(sing. Takruri) [q.v.], all of which have become part 
of the enlarged city. 

The city now has a population variously estimated 
at 106,000 to 160,000; it is governed by a Ka'im- 
makam (the only local governor in Saudi Arabia who 
still retains the Turkish title), who is under the ad- 
ministrative authority of the Governor of Mecca. 
The town has an elected Municipal Council. Since 
World War II, Djudda has experienced a commercial 
boom. Its wall was demolished in 1946-7, and the town 
expanded in three directions: east along the road to 
Mecca, north along the road to Medina, and south 
along the pier road. Many of the traditional coral 
block houses with their latticed balconies have been 



e old s( 



n of tl 



is knov 



notably Harb, still live in separate quarters of the 



Diudda has numerous light industries including 
a cement plant and several marble cutting works. 
A new water system completed in 1948 supplies the 
town with over 2,500,000 gallons of water a day, 
most of which is piped in from wells in Wadi Fatima. 
A modern port at the southern end of the city, 
equipped with a two-berth pier 1,300 feet long, 
handles over 800,000 tons of cargo a year. Diudda 
is the official air and sea port of entry for pilgrims 
on their way to Mecca, over 147,000 of whom 
landed in Diudda during 1381/1961. The city has a 
quarantine station, with a hospital and an observa- 
tion clinic, and two Pilgrim Towns, one attached to 
the pier and the other attached to the airport, all 
built since 1950, to handle the pilgrims. 

Bibliography: al-Bakri, Mu'djam ma ista- 
'■diam, Cairo 1945-51; Yakut; Ahmad b. Zayni 
Dahlan, Khuldsat al-kaldm, Cairo 1887; 'Uthman 
b. Bishr, c Unwdn al-madid, Mecca 1349; Husayn 
b. Muhammad Nasif, Modi al-Hidjdz wa-hddiruh, 
1349; Muhammad Labib al-Batanuni, al-Rihla al- 
Ifidjaziyya, Cairo 1329; Hafiz Wahba, Khamsun 
'■dm fi Djazirat al-'Arab, Cairo i960; Fu'ad 
Hamza, Kalb Djazirat al-'Arab, Cairo 1352; al- 
Pjabarti, 'Adjd'ib al-athar, Cairo 1904; Muham- 
mad b. Bulayhid, Sahih al-akhbdr, Cairo 1951-3; 
Ibn Taghribirdi; Ritter, Erdkunde, xiii, 6-33; von 
Maltzan, Wallfahrt nach Mekka, i, 213-323; idem, 
Reise nach SUdarabien, 46 ff. ; British Admiralty, 
Western Arabia and the Red Sea, 1946; C. A. 
Nallino, Scritti, i; Isabel Burton, The life of Captain 



573 

Sir Richard Burton, 1893, ii, 513 ft.; Hopper; 
Jiddah, in Lands East, Feb. 1956; H. St. J. 
Philby, Forty years in the wilderness, 1957; idem, 
Arabian jubilee, 1952; idem, Sa'udi Arabia, 1955; 
idem, Arabian Days, 1948; Snouck Hurgronje, 
Mekka, ii, 1888; idem, in Bijdragen tot de taal-, 
land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indie, 5th 
series, ii, 381 ff., 399 ff-; idem, in Verhandl. der 
Gesell. fiir Erdkunde, xiv, 141; c Abd al-Kuddus 
al-Ansari, Diudda 'abr al-ta'rikh in al-Manhal, 
Djudda Jan/Feb. 1962. — For the Ottoman period 
see Feridun, Munsha'dt al-saldtin, Istanbul 1265, 
ii, 6 ff.; Ewliya Celebi, Seyahatndme, ix, 794 ff-; 
HadjdjI Khalifa, Djihannumd, 519; I. H. Uzun- 
carsili, Osmanlt tarihi, iii/2, Ankara 1934, 44-5; 
G. W. F. Stripling, The Ottoman Empire and the 
Arabs 1511-1874, Urbana 1942, index. 

(R. Hartmann-[Phebe Ann Marr]) 
DJUDHAM. an Arab tribe which in Umayyad 
times claimed descent from Kahlan b. Saba' of 
Yemen and relationship with Lakhm and 'Amila; 
this certainly corresponded with the prevailing 
political alliances. However, the North Arab tribes 
claimed that Djudham, Kuda'a and Lakhm were 
originally of Nizar but had later assumed Yemeni 
descent. Djudham were among the nomads who 
had settled in pre-Islamic times on the borders of 
Byzantine Syria and Palestine; they held places like 
Madyan, 'Amman, Ma'an and Adhruh, and ranged 
as far south as Tabuk and the Wadi '1-Kura. The 
Judaized tribe of al-Nadir in Medina allegedly arose 
from them. From their Byzantine contacts, part of 
Djudham were superficially Christian, but Ibn al- 
Kalbi includes them among the "people of Syria" 
who worshipped the idol al-Ukaysir. 

When Muhammad was expanding northwards, 
Djudham barred his way at Mu'ta. One clan, that 
of al-Dubayb, had become Muslim, but punitive 
expeditions under Zayd b. Haritha and c Amr b. al- 
c As were necessary. Djudham were among the Arab 
allies (Musta'riba) of the Emperor Heraclius, and 
fought for him at the Yarmuk in 15/636; later, they 
became Muslims and took part in the conquest of 
Syria. Under the Umayyads, they formed the greater 
part of the Djund of Filastin, and together with Kalb, 
were the mainstay of the Yemeni party in the tribal 
warfare in Syria. On the death in 64/684 of Mu'awiya 
b. Yazid, their chief Rawh b. Zinba c proposed the 
succession of Marwan b. al-Hakam as Caliph, and 
their connexions with the Marwanids remained close 
until the fall of that dynasty. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hisham, 975-9, tr. Guil- 
laume, 662-4; Ibn Sa'd, 1/2, 83 (= Wellhausen, 
Skizzen, iv/3, no. 140), ii/i, 93; Wakidi (Well- 
hausen), 235-6; Ya'kubl, Historiae, i, 229, 264, ii, 
299; Tabari, i, 1555-6, 1604-5, 1611, 1740-1, 
2347-8, ii, 468; Ibn al-Kalbi, The book 0/ idols, tr. 
N. A. Faris, Princeton 1952, 33-4, 42-3; Hamdani, 
Djazira, 129; Ibn Durayd, Ishtikdk (Wustenfeld), 
225; Wustenfeld, Register zu den genealogischen 
Tabellen, 186; O. Blau, Arabien im sechsten Jahr- 
hundert, in ZDMG, xxiii, 1869, 572-3- 

(C. E. Bosworth) 
EJCDI, Djabal DjudI or DjCdI Dagh, a lofty 
mountain mass in the district of Bohtan, 
about 25 miles N.E. of Djazirat Ibn 'Umar, in 
37° 30' N. Djudi owes its fame to the Mesopo- 
tamian tradition, which identifies it, and not 
Mount Ararat, with the mountain on which 
Noah's ark rested. It is practically certain from 
a large number of Armenian and other writers 
that, down to the 10th century, Mt. Ararat was in 



DJODI — DJODI al-MAWRURI 



no way connected with the Flood. Ancient Ar- 
menian tradition certainly knows nothing of a 
mountain on which the ark rested; and when 
one is mentioned in later Armenian literature, 
this is clearly due to the gradually increasing 
influence of the Bible, which makes the ark rest 
on the mountains (or a mountain) of Ararat. The 
highest and best known mountain there is Masik 
(Masis), therefore Noah must have been stranded 
on it; the next stage in the growth of the Armenian 
tradition is due to Europeans, who transferred 
Ararat (Armen. Ayrarat), the name of a district, 
to Masik, through an incorrect interpretation of 

The tradition that Masik was the mountain on 
which the ark rested only begins to find a place 
in Armenian literature in the nth and 12th cen- 
turies. Older exegesis identified the mountain now 
called Djabal Djudi, or according to Christian 
authorities, the mountains of Gordyene (Syr. Kardu, 
Armen. Kordukh) as the apobaterion of Noah. 
This localization of the ark's resting-place, which 
is found even in the Targums, is certainly based 
on Babylonian tradition, and arose out of the 
Babylonian Berossus. Besides, the mountain Nisir 
which appears in the Flood-legend in the cuneiform 
inscriptions might well be located in Gordyene (in 
the widest application of the name). The ancient 
Jewish-Babylonian tradition was adopted by the 
Christians and the Arabs learned it from them, when 
their conquests carried them into Bohtan in 20/640. 
"They simply transferred the name Djudi, which the 
Kur>an(Sura XI, 46) mentions as the landing-place 
of Noah, to Mount Kardu which had, from the 
remotest times, been regarded as the apobaterion". 
Thus writes Noldeke in the Festschr. fur Kiepert 
(1898), 77, and he is clearly right. But the Kur'an 
meant Djudi in Arabia (Hamasa, 564 = Yakut, ii, 
270, 11 = Mushtarik, in), which was probably 
considered the highest mountain of all. It is also 
possible that the Kur'an in its localization of the 
mount on which the ark rested had taken over some 
older tradition current in Arabia. For this view we 
might quote a remark of the apologist Theophylus 
{ad Autolycum, lib. iii, c. 19) who mentions that, 
even in his time, the remains of the ark were to be 
seen on the mountains of Arabia. The transference 
of the name Djudi from Arabia to Mesopotamia by 
the Arabs must have taken place fairly early, as 
has been mentioned, probably as early as the time 
of the Arab invasion; even in the older poets, for 
example, Ibn Kays al-Rukayyat (ed. Rhodokanakis, 
cf. Noldeke, WZKM, xvii, 91) and Umayya b. Abi 
'1-Salt (ed. Schulthess, Beitr. z. Assyr., viii, no. 3, 5) 
Djabal Djudi is no longer the Arabian, but the 
Mesopotamian mountain. The transference of the 
name Djudi to the Kardu chain and the rapid 
acceptance of the new name may probably have 
been favoured by the circumstance that the land 
south of Bohtan, towards Assyria, had often in the 
Assyrian period formed part of the district of 
Gutium, the land of the GutI (Kutu) nomads, 
and this, the name of a people and district, had 
not quite disappeared in the early years of Islam. 
On the geographical term Gutium, which is known 
to have existed even in the early Babylonian 
period, see Scheil, Compt.-rendus de VAcaiimie des 
Inscript. et Bell. Lettres, 1911, 378 ff., 606 ff. 

If we assume, as is obvious, that the term Ararat 
(Assyr. Urartu) at one time also included an area to 
the south of Lake Van (cf. the mountain name Ararti 
in the Gordyene cuneiform inscription; see also 



Sanda, in the bibliography) then Masik (Great 
Ararat) and Djebel Djudi, both traditional resting- 
places of the Ark, might each be called Mount 
Ararat in conformity to the Biblical account. 

Like the whole country round Ararat, the neigh- 
bourhood of Djabal Djudi is to this day full of 
memorials and legends which refer to the Flood 
and the life of Noah after leaving the ark. Thus 
for example at the foot of the mountain is the 
village of Karyat Thamanln = "the village of the 
80 (Syr. Th'mdnin; Armen. T-man = 8; now: 
Betmanln)" where legend says the people saved in 
the ark first settled; cf. Hiibschmann, xvi, 333-4. 
The Arab geographers also mention a monastery on 
Djudi in their time, Dayr al-Djudi; on this cf. 
Shabushti, Kitdb al-Diydrdt (J. Heer, Quellen, 1898, 
96; Sachau, Vom Klosterbuch, Berlin 1919, 20, no. 
49) = Yakut, ii, 653. The ruined sanctuary (known 
today as Safinat Nabi Nuh) is venerated by 
Muslims, Jews and Christians (G. L. Bell, Amu- 
rath*, 293). 

We might further mention that Layard and 
subsequently (1904) L. W. King discovered rock- 
sculptures and inscriptions of Sennacherib in the 
Djabal Djudi; King therefore proposes to identify 
this mountain with the Nipur of the Sanherib 
texts. Cf. Layard, Niniveh u. Babylon, 621; King 
in the Journ. of Hellenic Stud,, 1911, xxx, 328 s . 
Bibliography: Harawi, Ziydrat, 68-9 (French 
transl. 152-3); Mas'udi, Murudj, index; Yakut, 
ii, 653; Mardsid al-ittild* (ed. Wustenfeld), v, in; 
Ibn Battuta, ii, 139; Kazwini, Kosmographie (ed. 
Wustenfeld), i, 156); Le Strange, 94; Tuch, in 
ZDMG, i, 59 ff.; G. Hoffmann, Ausziige aus syr. 
Akten persisch. Martyrer, 174 ff., 213 ff.; M. Hart- 
mann, Bohtan, in Mitt, der Vorderas. Ges., i, 
121 ff., ii, 27,67 (and index); H. Hiibschmann, 
in Indo-germ. Forsch., xvi, 316, 334, 371, 384 1 ; 
Ritter, Erdkunde, xi, 156, 449; Petermann, 
Reisen im Orient, 1886, 106 ff.; G. L. Bell, 
Amurath to Amurath*, London 1924, 291-5. 
Hudud al-'-dlam, 203; M. Canard, H'amddnides, 
112. On the Christian and Muslim legends 
of the Ark and their association with Ararat 
and Djudi, cf. in particular G. Weil, Bibl. 
Legenden der Muselmanner, 1845, 45; Griin- 
baum, in ZDMG, xxxi, 301 ff.; M. Streck, in ZA, 
xv, 272 ff.; Fr. Murad, Ararat u. Masis, Heidelberg 
1901; S. Weber, in Tubinger Theolog. Quartalschr. 
83 (1901), 321 ff.; A. Sanda, in MVAG, vii (1902), 
30 ff.; Dolmer, in Bibl. Zeitschr., i, (1903), 349 ff. 
(cf. a contrary view in Sanda, loc. cit., ii, 113 ff.); 
J. Marquart, Streijziige, 1903, 286 ff.; H. Hiibsch- 
mann, loc. cit., xvi, 206, 278-83, 364, 370, 398, 
451; H. Hilprecht, The earliest version of the 
Deluge story, Philadelphia 1910, 30-2; B. Nikitine, 
Les Kurdes, Paris 1956, 26-7, 153. 

(M. Streck') 
DjCDl al-MAWRURI, eminent Andalusian 
grammarian. His complete name is Djudi b. 
'Uthman al-'Absi al-Mawruri (of Mor6n). Born in 
Toledo, he later went to Granada where he specialized 
in grammatical studies. He made a long voyage to 
the East where he studied with leading representa- 
tives of the school of Kufa, such as al J Ru 3 5si, al- 
Farra 3 and al-Kisa 3 i. Returning to Spain he brought 
with him the book of al-Kisa 3 i and set up to teach it. 
This is considered a marked event in the history of 
grammatical studies in Spain, because all such 
studies in that part of the Muslim world had hitherto 
been based on the principles of the school of Basra, 
particularly the book of Sibawayh. In spite of the 



- DJUGHRAFIYA 



predominance of the Basrans, the Kufans found 
their way and gained disciples. The two schools were 
later on reconciled in Spain, thanks to the work of 
the most active of the grammarians of Muslim Spain, 
al-Rabahi [g.v.]. DjudI was successful in his work. 
His halaha in the Mosque of Cordova was famous. 
Umayyad amirs chose him to teach their sons. Ibn 
al-Abbar attributes to him a book called Munbih 
al-hidjdra, a title which suggests an agreeable sense 
of humour. He died in 198/813. 

Bibliography: al-Zubaydi, Tabakdt al-lugha- 
wiyyin wa 'l-nuhdt (ed. Abu '1-Fadl Ibrahim), 
Cairo 1958, Index; al-Suyuti, Bughyat al-wu'dt, 
Cairo 1326, i, 213-214; Ibn al-Abbar, Tahmila 
(Madrid 1886) i, 8 no. 7; Ibn Khayr, Fahrasa (ed. 
F. Codera and J. Ribera), Madrid 1893, 305 ff.; 
A. Gonzalez Palencia, Historia de la literatura 
Arabigo-espanola, Madrid 1945, 136 and its 
enlarged Arabic version entitled Ta'rikh al-fikr 
al-Andalusi by H. Mones, Cairo 1948, index; 
M. A. Makki, Estudio sobre las aportaciones 
orientates en la Espana musulmana (unpublished 
thesis) 387-390. (Hussain Mones) 

al-EJUFRA, a depression in the Libyan desert 
situated on the 29th parallel, between the district 
of Sirte and the Fezzan. The word denotes the 
three oases of Waddan, Hon and. Sokna, and also the 
depression (170-280 m.) in which they are situated 
between the Dj. Waddan and the gloomy volcanic 
massif of the Dj. al-Soda (803 m.). The historical 
significance of Djufra is explained by the abundance 
of the underground water-supply throughout the 
depression, and also by its position at the meeting- 
point of three traditional routes which were once 
much frequented and which lead respectively from 
Tripoli via Bu-Nedjem, from the Sudan via the 
Fezzan, and from Egypt via Djalo and Awdjila. 

When the Arab conqueror c Ukba b. Nafi c imposed 
his authority in 47/667 upon the local prince, the 
latter was called the Waddan, after the name of his 
principal oasis. It was inhabited by Mazata Berbers. 
It was for a time Ibadite and belonged to the district 
of Surt. In the 5th/nth century the settlement at 
Waddan consisted of two hostile quarters inhabited, 
according to al-Bakri (29-30), by Sehmids and 
natives of the Hadramawt; but there was only one 
large mosque, and there a number of scholars. Most 
authors speak highly of the quality of the local 
dates. This remote oasis served as a hiding-place 
for the Armenian adventurer Karakouch who was 
traced there, captured and put to death by the 
Almoravid Ibn Ghaniya (1195). We know almost 
nothing about the region during the centuries that 
followed, either in respect of its trade, or at what 
period Sokna took the place of Waddan as leading 
town of the district, or when the district took the 
name of Djufra. It was comparatively independent, 
being partly isolated by the powerful and dreaded 
tribe the Olad-Sliman (of the Debbab), nomads who 
were partly exterminated by the Turks after the 
revolt of their chieftain c Abd al-Djalil in 1842; at 
that the Djufra was a kadd' dependent upon the 
sandfak of the Fezzan. Of the 19th century European 
travellers, only Rohlfs has left us detailed information 
(chapters VI and VII). The district was occupied 
by the Italians in February 1928 and abandoned 
by them in 1943. 

The population consists of about 5,000 inhabitants, 
most of them settled. A copious supply of water not 
far below the surface enables date-palms to bear 
crops, provided that they are cross-fertilized; there 
are known to be about 90,000 date-palms of which 



15 to 20,000 are infertile. The best crops of dates are 
produced in gardens irrigated from wells worked by 
animals; the cultivation of other crops is of secondary 
importance, and this is true also of the breeding of 
camels and sheep which for grazing go as far as the 
ravines of the Dj. al-Suda. 

Waddan, the most easterly and no doubt the 
oldest of the settlements, still stands on its mound, 
encircling the ruins of its old castle; but the greater 
part of the population lives in an ancient town 
which lies to the north. In 1936 there were 1,700 
inhabitants; half of them claim to be shurfa, and a 
quarter of the rest are semi-nomadic. To the west, 
the houses of Sokna huddle round the old castle, 
within crumbling ramparts pierced by eight gates: 
the Turks made this the leading town of the district, 
and their garrison occupied a small fort to the 
north. Half of the 1,200 inhabitants still speak 
Berber and live in a separate quarter, and from two 
to three hundred are semi-nomadic Riyah. Hon, in 
the centre, is a settlement of recent date, 4 km. to 
the north of a ruined village. The Italians made it 
the leading town. The 1,800 inhabitants, several 
groups of whom are said to be Berber, live in a 
compact and crowded rectangular area of houses; 
the market-place and the Italian buildings lie to 
the south. 

Bibliography: G. Rohlfs, Kufra. Reise von 
Tripolis nach der Oase Kufra, Leipzig 1881; E. 
Scarin, la Giofra e Zella, in Rivista geografica 
italiana, 1937; Bakri, Description de I'Afrique, 
trans, de Slane, 2nd. ed. 1913; Idrisi, Description 
de I'Afrique et de I'Espagne, trans. Dozy and De 
Goeje, 1866; Fagnan, Extraits inidits relatifs 
au Maghreb, Algiers 1924; E. de Agostini, he 
popolazioni delta Tripolitania, Tripoli 1917. 

(J. Despois) 
EJUGHRAFIYA, Geography. 
(I) The term diughrdfiyd and the Arabs- 
conception of geography 
The term djughrdfiyd (or djighrdfiyd, djdoghrd- 
fiyd, etc.), the title of the works of Marinos of Tyre 
(c. 70-130) and Claudius Ptolemy (c.A.D. 90-168) was 
translated into Arabic as Surat al-ard which was 
used by some Arab geographers as the title of their 
works. Al-Mas c udi (d. 345/956) explained the term 
as kof al-ard, 'survey of the Earth'. However, it was 
used for the first time in the RasdHl Ikhwdn al- 
Safd' in the sense of 'map of the world and the 
climes'. The Arabs did not conceive of geography as 
a well-defined and delimited science with a specific 
connotation and subject-matter in the modern sense. 
The Arabic geographical literature was distributed 
over a number of disciplines, and separate mono- 
graphs on various aspects of geography were 
produced under such headings as Kitdb al-Bulddn, 
Surat al-ard, al-Masdlik wa 'l-mamdlik, '■Ilm al- 
turuk, etc. Al-BIrum considered al-Masdlik as the 
science which dealt with fixing the geographical 
position of places. Al-MukaddasI came nearest to 
dealing with most aspects of geography in his work 
Ahsan al-takdsitn (i ma c rifat al-akdlim. The present 
use of the term djughrdfiya for geography in Arabic 
is a comparatively modern practice. 



(II) 



ind Early Islai 



c Periods 



In pre-Islamic times the Arabs' knowledge of 
geography was confined to certain traditional and 
ancient geographical notions or to place-names of 
Arabia and the adjacent lands. The three main 
sources where these are preserved are: the Kur'an, 



the Prophetic Tradition (hadlth) and ancient Arabic 
poetry. Many of these notions must have originated 
from Babylonia in ancient times or were based on 
Jewish and Christian traditions and indigenous 

The geographical concepts or information con- 
tained in ancient Arabic poetry reflect the level of 
understanding of the pre-Islamic Arabs of geo- 
graphical phenomena and the limits of their know- 
ledge. The Kur'an preserves traces of some geo- 
graphical and cosmographical ideas which resemble 
ancient Babylonian, Iranian and Greek concepts 
and the Jewish and Christian Biblical traditions. 
Verses like 'the heavens and the earth were joined 
together before we clove them asunder' (XXI, 30); 
'God is He Who created seven Firmaments and of 
the earth a similar number' (LXV, 12); 'God is He 
who raised the heavens without any pillars' (XIII, 2); 
'And we have made the heavens as a canopy well 
guarded' (XXI, 32); 'He withholds the sky from 
falling on the earth except by His leave' (XXII, 65); 
and verses that describe the earth as being spread out 
and the mountains set thereon firm so that it may 
not shake, all form a picture which resembles the 
ancient Babylonian concept of the universe in which 
the Earth was a disc-shaped body surrounded by 
water and then by another belt of 
which the Firmament rested. There 
the Earth as well as above it. Again, concepts like 
that of 'the Sun setting in a spring of murky water' 
(XVIII, 86) referring to the Atlantic, and of the 
earth's being flat must have had their origin in Greek 
geography. The concept of the two seas, one of sweet 
water and the other saline (XXV, 53), referring 
to the Mediterranean and the Arabian Sea, and that 
of al-barzakh, 'the barrier' between them (a by-form 
of farsakh 'parasang', from Pahlavi frasang) were 
most probably of Iranian origin. Besides, certain 
terms in the Kur'an, e.g., burudj, (= Gr. riupyo?, 
Latin burgus), baladun or baladatun (a Semitic 
borrowing from the Latin palatium: Gr. LTaXdcTiov), 
karya (> Syriac kritha', a town or village), in- 
dicate the non-Arab origin of the concepts with 
which these terms are associated in the Kur'an. 

There are some traditions attributed to 'All b. 
Abi Talib (d. 40/660), Ibn 'Abbas (d. 66-9/686-8), 
'Abd Allah b. 'Amr b. al-'As and others, which deal 
with cosmogony, geography and other related 
questions, but it seems that these traditions which 
reflect the ancient geographical notions of the 
Arabs were concocted in a later period to counteract 
the scientific geographical knowledge that was 
becoming popular among the Arabs of the period, 
although they were presented as authentic know- 
ledge by some geographers in their works. Though 
scientific knowledge advanced, some of the traditions 
exercised deep influence on Arab geographical 
thought and cartography, e.g., the tradition according 
to which the shape of the land-mass was compared 
to a big bird whose head was China, right wing 
India, left wing al-Khazar, chest Mecca, Hidjaz, 
Syria, 'Irak and Egypt and tail North Africa (Ibn 
al-Faklh, 3-4) became the basis of the geographical 
writings of the Balkhl School. It is not unlikely that 
this concept had its origin in some ancient Iranian 
maps observed by the Arabs. 

The political expansion of the Arabs, after the 
rise of Islam, into Africa and Asia, afforded them 
opportunities to collect information and to observe 
and record their experiences of the various countries 
that had come under their sway or were adjacent to 
the Arab Empire. Whether such information was 



gathered for military expeditions or for other pur- 
poses, it is very likely that it was also utilized in the 
topographical works that were produced during the 
early 'Abbasid period. 



It was not until the beginning of the 'Abbasid rule 
and the establishment of Baghdad as the capital 
of the empire that the Arabs began acquainting 
themselves with scientific geography in the true 
sense. The conquest of Iran, Egypt and Sind gave 
the Arabs the opportunity to gain first hand know- 
ledge of the scientific and cultural achievements of 
the peoples of these ancient cradle^ of civilization, 
as well as giving them ownership of, or easy access 
to their centres of learning, laboratories and obser- 
vatories. But the process of acquiring and assimila- 
ting foreign knowledge did not begin until the time 
of the Caliph Abu Dja'far al-Mansur (135-58/ 
753-75). the founder of Baghdad. He took a keen 
interest in the translation of scientific works into 
Arabic, which activity lasted for nearly two hundred 
years in the Islamic world. The Barmakid [q.v.] 
wazirs, also played an important role in the promotion 
of scientific activity at the court. Quite often the 
translators were themselves eminent scientists whose 
efforts enriched the Arabic language with Indian, 
Iranian and Greek geographical, astronomical and 
philosophical knowledge. 

Indian Influences. Indian geographical and 
astronomical knowledge passed on to the Arabs 
through the first translation into Arabic of the 
Sanskrit treatise Surya-siddhdnta (not Brahma- 
sphulasiddhdnta as believed by some scholars) 
during the reign of al-Mansur. The work showed 
some earlier Greek influences (see A. B. Keith, 
History of Sanskrit literature, 517-21), but once 
translated into Arabic it became the main source of 
the Arabs' knowledge of Indian astronomy and 
geography, and formed the basis of many works 
that were produced during this period, e.g., Kitab 
al-Zidi by Ibrahim b. Habib al-Fazari (wrote after 
170/786), al-Sind Hind al-saghir by Muhammad b. 
Musa al-Kh w arizmi (d. after 232/847), al-Sind Hind 
by Habash b. 'Abd Allah al-MarwazI al-Baghdadl 
(second half of the 3rd/9th century) and others. 

Among other Sanskrit works translated into 
Arabic during this period were: Aryabhafiya (Ar. : 
Ardjabhad) by Aryabhata of Kusumapura (b.A.D. 
476) who wrote in A.D. 499; then, Khandakhddyaka 
of Brahmagupta son of Djishnu of Bhillamala (near 
Multan). He was born in A.D. 598 and wrote this 
work in A.D. 665. It was a practical treatise giving 
material in a convenient form for astronomical 
calculations, but this was based on a lost work of 
Aryabhata, who again agreed with the Siirya- 
siddhdnta. The Sanskrit literature translated into 
Arabic belonged mainly to the Gupta period. 

The influence of Indian astronomy on Arab thought 
was much deeper than that of Indian geography, 
and although Greek and Iranian ideas had a deeper 
and more lasting effect, Indian geographical concepts 
and methods were well known. Indians were compared 
to the Greeks in their talent and achievements in the 
field of geography, but the Greeks were considered 
more accomplished in this field (al-BIruni, al-Kdniin, 
536). 

Among the various geographical concepts with 
which the Arab scientists became acquainted were: 
the view of Aryabhata that the daily rotation of the 



heavens is only apparent, being caused by the 
rotation of the earth on its own axis; that the 
proportion of water and land on the surface of the 
Earth was half and half; that the land-mass, which 
was compared to a tortoise, was surrounded by 
water on all sides, and was shaped like a dome whose 
highest point had Mount Meru (an imaginary 
mountain) on it directly under the North Pole; the 
northern hemisphere was the inhabited part of the 
Earth and its four limits were Djamakut in the 
East, Rum in the West, Lanka (Ceylon) which is the 
Cupola and SIdpur, and the division of the inhabited 
part of the Earth into nine parts. The Indians 
calculated their longitudes from Ceylon and believed 
that this prime meridian passed through Udjdjayn 
[q.v.] (Ujjain). The Arabs took over the idea of 
Ceylon's being the Cupola of the Earth, but later 
believed that Udjdjayn was the Cupola, mistakenly 
thinking that the Indians calculated longitudes 
from that point. 

Iranian Influences. There is sufficient evidence 
in Arabic geographical literature to point to Iranian 
influences on Arab geography and cartography, but 
the actual process of the transmission of Iran's 
knowledge to the Arabs has not been worked out 
in detail. J. H. Kramers correctly points out that 
during the gth century Greek influence was supreme 
in Arab geography, but from the end of the gth 
century the influence was more from the east than 
from the west, and it was from Iran that these 
influences mainly came, for most of the authors 
came from the Iranian provinces {A nalecta Orientalia, 
i, 147-8). Djundaysabiir was still a great centre of 
learning and research and there is little doubt that 
the Arabs were acquainted with some of the Pahlavi 
works on astronomy, geography, history and other 
subjects which were extant in some parts of Iran 
during this period. Some of these works were 
translated into Arabic and formed the basis of the 
Arabic works on the subject. Al-Mas c udi ascribes to 
Habash b. c Abd Allah al-Marwazi al-Baghdadi an 
astronomical treatise Zidi al-Shdh which was based 
on the Persian style. He also recorded a Persian 
work entitled Kdh-ndma which dealt with the 
various grades of kings and formed a part of the 
larger work entitled AHn-ndma, 'Book of Customs'. 
Again, he mentions having seen at Istakhr in 302/915 
a work that dealt with the various sciences of the 



was not found either in KhuddH- 
ndtna, AHn-ndma or Kdh-ndma. This work was 
discovered among the treasures of the Persian kings 
and was translated from Persian into Arabic for 
Hisham b. 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (105-25/724-43). 
It is not unlikely that works of this nature formed 
part of the sources of the Arabs' knowledge on the 
geography and topography of Iran and on the limits 
of the Sasanian Empire, its administrative divisions 
and other details. 

Among the various Iranian geographical concepts 
and traditions followed by Arab geographers, the 
concept of the Seven Kishwar s {Haft Iklim) was 
the most important. In this system the world was 
divided into seven equal geometric circles, each 
representing a kishwar, in such a manner that the 
fourth circle was drawn in the centre with the 
remaining six around it, and included Iranshahr of 
which the most central district was al-Sawad. The 
Arab geographers continued to be influenced by 
this system for a long time, and in spite of the view 
of al-BIrunl that it had no scientific or physical basis 
and that the Greek division of the Climes was more 



AFIYA 577 

scientific, the Greek division of the world into three 
or four continents never appealed to them. The 
concept of the two main seas, namely, the Bahr al- 
Rum and the Bahr Fars (the Mediterranean and the 
Indian Ocean) which entered the land from the 
Bahr al-Muhit (the Encircling Ocean), one from the 
north-west, i.e., the Atlantic and the other from the 
east, i.e., the Pacific, but were separated by al- 
Barzakh ('the Barrier', i.e., the Isthmus of Suez), 
also dominated Arab geography and cartography for 
several centuries. As pointed out by J. H. Kramers, 
although it is very probable that the notion rests in 
the last resort on Ptolemy, the fact that the Indian 
Ocean is most often called Bahr Fars, seems to prove 
that this sea, at least, formed part of the original 
geographic sketch of the Persians. As to the origin 
of this sketch itself we find ourselves in uncertainty 
(A nalecta Orientalia, i, 153). 

Persian traditions deeply influenced Arab maritime 
literature and navigation also, as is evident from the 
use of words of Persian origin in the nautical 
vocabulary of the Arabs, e.g., bandar (port), ndkhudd 
(shipmaster), rahmdni (book of nautical instructions), 
daftar (sailing instructions), etc. Certain Persian 
names like khann (rhumb), kutb al-didh (pole), etc., 
also indicate Persian influences on the Arab windrose. 
Such examples can be multiplied. Persian influences 
are apparent in Arab cartography as well, an in- 
dication of which is found in the use of terms of 
Persian origin, e.g., taylasdn, shdbura, kuwdra, etc., 
to describe certain formations of coasts. These terms, 
originally indicating certain garments, were used right 
down to the 7th/i3th century. They also point to the 
existence of maps in ancient Iran (J. H. Kramers, op. 
cit. 148-9). As for the 'Indian map which is at al- 
Kawadhiyan' (Ibn Hawkal, ed. Kramers, 2) Kramers 
pointed out that al-Kawadhiyan must contain here 
an allusion to more primitive maps of the Balkhl- 
Istakhri series, because the maps of Ibn Hawkal are 
partly in conformity with this series and partly 
different (Kramers, op. cit., 155). A correct identifi- 
cation of these maps or their discovery would cer- 
tainly help to solve the problem of the origin of the 
maps of the Balkhl school. Here it may be pointed 
out that if we read Ibn Hawkal's text as 'the geome- 
trical map at al-Kawadhiyan' (a town near Tirmidh 
in Central Asia), then he must have been referring 
to some map that was there and was used by geo- 
graphers as a basis for cartography. It is quite likely 
that it was based on the Persian kishwar system, for 
al-BIruni remarks that the term kishwar was derived 
from 'the line' (al-khalt) which really indicated that 
these divisions were as distinct from each other as 
anything that was drawn in lines would be {Sifat, 
ed. Togan, 61). 

Greek Influences. More positive data are 
available on how Greek geographical and astro- 
nomical knowledge passed on to the Arabs in 
the mediaeval period. The process began with the 
translations of the works of Claudius Ptolemy 
and other Greek astronomers and philosophers into 
Arabic either directly or through the medium of 

Ptolemy's Geography was translated several times 
during the c Abb5sid period, but what we possess is 
the adaptation of Ptolemy's work by Muhammad b. 
Musa al-Kh"arizmi (d. after 232/847) with contem- 
porary data and knowledge acquired by the Arabs 
incorporated into it. Ibn Khurradadhbih mentions 
having consulted and translated Ptolemy's work 
(perhaps it was in the original Greek or in Syriac 
translation) and al-Mas'udi also consulted a copy of 



Encyclopaedia of Islan 



II 



578 DJUGK 

the Geography and also the world map by Ptolemy. 
It seems that some of these translations had become 
corrupt, and foreign material was interpolated into 
them which did not belong to the original work, 
e.g., the copy consulted by Ibn Hawkal (ed. Kramers, 
13). Among other works of Ptolemy translated into 
Arabic and utilized by Arab geographers were: 
Almagest (Ar.: Almadiisfi); Tetrabiblon (Ar.: al- 
Makdlat al-arba'-a); Apparitions of fixed stars, etc. 
(Ar.: Kitdb al-Anwd'). 

Among other works translated into Arabic were: 
the Geography of Marinos of Tyre (c. A.D. 70-130) 
consulted by al-Mas c udi who also consulted the 
world map by Marinos ; the Timaeus ( Ar. : Tayma'us) 
of Plato; the Meteorology (Ar.: al-Athdr al- c ulwiyya), 
De caelo (Ar. : al-Sama? wa 'l- c dlam) and Metaphysics 
(Ar.: Md\ba c d al-(abi c a) of Aristotle. 

The works of these writers and of several other 
Greek astronomers and philosophers, when rendered 
into Arabic, provided material in the form of con- 
cepts, theories and results of astronomical obser- 
vations which ultimately helped Arab geography to 
evolve on a scientific basis. Persian influences were 
no doubt marked in regional and descriptive 
geography as well as in cartography, but Greek 
influence dominated practically the whole canvas 
of Arab geography. Even in fields where it may 
be said that there was a kind of competition between 
Persian and Greek ideas or methodology, e.g., 
between the Persian hishwar system and the Greek 
system of Climes, the Greek were more acceptable 
and remained popular. The Greek basis of Arab 
geography was most prominent in mathematical, 
physical, human and bio-geography. The Greek 
impact had a very lasting influence, for it remained 
the basis of Arab geography as late as the 19th 
century (traces found in 19th century Persian and 
even Urdu works on geography written in India), 
even though on European minds Ptolemaic influence 
had decreased much earlier. It cannot, however, be 
denied that throughout this period there was an 
undercurrent of conflict between the theoretical 
concepts of the Greek masters on the one hand and 
the practice and observation of the merchants and 
sailors of this period on the other. Al-Mas c udi 
refers to it in the case of the Ptolemaic theory of 
the existence of an unknown land in the southern 
hemisphere. On the other hand Ibn Hawkal con- 
sidered Ptolemy almost infallible. The fact was that 
Greek information when transmitted to the Arabs 
was already outdated by about five centuries, and 
so difficulty arose when Arab geographers tried to 
incorporate fresh and contemporary information 
acquired by them into the Ptolemaic frame-work 
and to corroborate it with Greek data. The result 
was confusion and often misrepresentation of facts 
in geographical literature and cartography, as is 
evident from the works of geographers like al- 
Idrisi. 

(IV) The Classical Period 
(3rd-5th/ 9 th-nth centuries) 
(a) The Period of al-Ma'mun (197-218/813-33): 

Over half a century of Arab familiarity with, and 
study of Indian, Iranian and Greek geographical 
science, from the time of the Caliph al-Mansur 
(136-57/754-74) up to the time of al-Ma'mun, 
resulted in completely revolutionizing Arab geo- 
graphical thought. Such concepts as that the Earth 
was round and not flat, and that it occupied the 
central position in the Universe, were introduced 
to them for the first time properly and systemati- | 



cally. Henceforth, the Kur'anic verses dealing with 
cosmogony, geography, etc. and the Traditions were 
utilized only to give religious sanction to geogra- 
phical works or to exhort the believers to study 
geography and astronomy. Thus, by the beginning 
of the 3rd/9th century the real basis was laid for the 
production of geographical literature in Arabic and 
the first positive step in this regard was taken by 
the Caliph al-Ma'mun, who successfully surrounded 
himself with a band of scientists and scholars and 
patronized their academic activities. Whether al- 
Ma'mun's interest in astronomy and geography was 
genuine and academic, or whether it was political 
is not certain. During his reign, however, some very 
important contributions were made towards the 
advancement of geography: the measurement of an 
arc of a meridian was carried out (the mean result 
gave 56% Arabic miles as the length of a degree of 
longitude, a remarkably accurate value); the 
astronomical tables called al-Zidi al-mumtahan (The 
verified tables) were prepared by the collective 
efforts of the astronomers; lastly, a World Map 
called al-$ura al-Mai'muniyya was prepared, which 
was considered superior to the maps of Ptolemy and 
Marinos of Tyre by al-Mas c udI who had consulted 
and compared all three (Tanbih, ed. De Goeje, 
33). It was most probably based on the Greek 
system of climes. 

(b) The Astronomers and Philosophers: 

The Arab astronomers and philosophers made 
equally important contributions to mathematical 
and physical geography through their observations 
and theoretical discussions. From the time of the 
introduction of Greek philosophy and astronomy in 
the second half of the 2nd/8th century up to the first 
half of the 5th/nth century a galaxy of philosophers 
and astronomers worked on various problems of 
mathematical, astronomical and physical geography. 
The works of the Greek scientists had already 
provided enough basis and material for this. Thus 
the results of the experiments, observations and 
theoretical discussions of the Arab scientists were 
recorded in their more general works on astronomy 
and philosophy or in monographs on special subjects 
like tides, mountains, etc. The contemporary and 
later writers on general geography in Arabic often, 
though not always, reproduced these results in their 
works and sometimes discussed them. Some of these 
writers reproduced various current theories, Greek 
or otherwise, about a problem in the introductory 
parts of their works. Thus a tradition was established 
of writing on mathematical, physical and human 
geography in the beginning of any work dealing 
with geography. This is noticeable, for example, in 
the works of Ibn Rusta, al-Ya c kubi, al-Mas c udI, Ibn 
Hawkal, etc. 

Among the outstanding Arab philosophers and 
astronomers whose works were utilized and theories 
discussed by Arab geographers were: Ya'kub b. 
Ishak al-Kindi (d. 260/874), to whom two works on 
geography are attributed, (1) Rasm al-maf-mur min 
al-ard and (2) Risdla ft 'l-bihdr wa 'l-madd wa 
'l-djazr. One of al-Kindi's pupils, Ahmad b. Muham- 
mad b. al-Tayyib al-Sarakhsi (d. 286/899), is also said 
to have written two works, (1) al-Masalik wa 'l-ma- 
mdlik and (2) Risdla fi 'l-bihdr wa 'l-miydh wa 
'l-djibdl. Neither the works of al-Kindi nor those of 
al-Sarakhsi are extant, and what we know of their 
geographical views are from other sources which 
used them. It seems that the two authors utilized 
the works of Ptolemy and other Greek writers, as 



we find in al-Mas'udi that their works did contain 
Ptolemaic information on physical and mathematical 
geography and on oceanography. Al-Kindi's work 
Rasm al-maHnur min al-ard may have been a version 
of Ptolemy's Geography as the title of the work 
itself suggests; al-Mas'udi consulted a work of 
Ptolemy's entitled Masktin al-ard and a world map 
called Surat maHnur al-ard (al-Mas'Odl, Murudj, i, 
275-7; Tanbih, 25, 30, 51). 

Among other philosophers and astronomers whose 
writings served as a source of information on 
mathematical and physical geography were: al- 
Fazari (second half of the 2nd/8th century); Ahmad 
b. Muhammad b. Kathir al-Farghani (d. after 247/ 
861) author of al-Fusul al-thaldthin (al-Mas'udi, 
Murudj, iii, 443; Tanbih, 199) and al-Mudkhil ild 
Him hay'at al-afldk; Abu Ma'shar Dja'far b. 
Muhammad al-Balkhi (d. 273/886), author of al- 
Mudkhil al-kabir ild Him al-nudjum; al-Mas'udi con- 
sulted another work by him entitled Kitdb al-uluf 
H'l-haydkil wa 'l-bunydn al-'-azim; then Abu c Abd 
Allah Muhammad b. Djabir al-Battani (d. 317/929) 
and others. The fourth Risdla of the Rasd'il Ikhwdn 
al-Safd deals with Djughrdfiyd. Written in about 
370/980, it simply deals with elementary knowledge 
about mathematical and physical geography based 
on Greek geography, since the main purpose of the 
writers was to guide the reader to achieve union 
with God through wisdom. 

(c) General Geographical Literature : 

By the 3rd/9th century a considerable amount of 
geographical literature had been produced in various 
forms in the Arabic language, and it appears that the 
Arabs had at their disposal some Pahlavi works, or 
translations thereof, dealing with the Sasanian 
Empire, its geography, topography, postal routes 
and details essential for administrative purposes. 
These works must have become available to those 
interested in geography and topography. It is not 
surprising, therefore, to find that early writers like 
Ibn Khurradadhbih, Kudama and others were heads 
of postal departments or government secretaries, 
besides being men of learning. During the 3rd/9th 
century, therefore, a number of works were produced 
that were given the generic title al-Masdlik wa 
'l-mamdlik. In all probability the first work bearing 
this title was that of Ibn Khurradadhbih. The first 
draft of his work was prepared in 231/846 and the 
second in 272/885; it became the basis and model 
for writers on general geography and was highly 
praised by almost all geographers who utilized it. 
He was the Director of the Post and Intelligence 
Department and was a man of learning and erudition. 
What prompted him to write a geographical treatise 
may be explained from his own statement that it 
was in fulfilment of the desire of the Caliph, for 
whom he also translated the work of Ptolemy (from 
Greek or Syriac) into Arabic (Ibn Khurradadhbih, 3). 
However, the desire of the Caliph may itself have 
arisen from the practical needs of the government. 
We find that Kudama b. Dja'far al-Katib considered 
the 'science of roads' (Him al-turuk) not only useful 
for general guidance in the Diwdn, but also essential 
for the Caliph who might need it for his travels or 
for despatching his armies (185). 

The geographical works produced during the 
3rd/9th and 4th/ioth centuries may be divided into 
two broad categories: (1) works dealing with the 
world as a whole but treating the 'Abbasid Empire 
(Mamlakat al-Isldm) in greater detail. They attempt- 
ed to give all such secular information as could not 



find a place in the general Islamic literature, and 
hence this category is called 'the secular geographical 
literature of the period'. The writers described the 
topography and the road-system of the 'Abbasid 
Empire and covered mathematical, astronomical, 
physical, human and economic geography. Among 
the representatives of this class of geographers were: 
Ibn Khurradadhbih, al-Ya'kubi, Ibn al-Fakih, 
Kudama and al-Mas'udi. Since 'Irak was the most 
important centre of geographical learning at this 
time and many of the geographers belonged to it, 
we may for the sake of convenience use the term 
'Iraki School for them. Within this School, however, 
two groups of writers may be discerned: those who 
present the material following the four directions, 
viz., north, south, east and west, and tend to consider 
Baghdad as the centre of the world, and those who 
arrange it according to various Iklims (regions) and 
for the most part treat Mecca as the centre. (2) To 
the second category of works belong the writings of 
al-Istakhrl, Ibn Hawkal and al-Mukaddasi, for 
whom the term Balkhi School has been used, as 
they followed Abu Zayd al-Balkhi (see below). They 
confined their accounts to the world of Islam, 
describing each province as a separate Iklim, and 
hardly touching upon non-Islamic lands except the 

(i)The 'Iraki School. The works of Ibn Khurra- 
dadhbih, al-Ya'kubi and al-Mas'udi are distinguished 
from the writings of other geographers of this School 
by two special features : first, they follow the Iranian 
kishwar system, and second, they equate 'Irak 
with Iranshahr and begin their descriptions with it, 
thus placing 'Irak in a central position in Arab 
regional and descriptive geography. According to al- 
Biruni the Seven kishwars were represented by seven 
equal circles. The central kishwar was Iranshahr 
which included Khurasan, Fars, Djibal and 'Irak. 
He considered that these divisions were arbitrary 
and had been made primarily for poUtical and 
administrative reasons. In ancient times the great 
kings lived in Iranshahr, and it was necessary for them 
to live in the central zone so that they would be 
equidistant from other kingdoms and therefore find 
it easy to deal with matters. Such a division had no 
relation either to the physical systems or to astrono- 
mical laws, but was based on political changes or 
ethnological differences (Sifa, ed. Togan, 5, 60-62). 
With the foundation of Baghdad as the capital of 
the 'Abbasid Empire, 'Irak naturally occupied a 
central and politically important position in the 
world of Islam. Ibn Khurradadhbih equated 'Irak 
with Iranshahr and the district of al-Sawad which 
was called dil-i Iranshahr in ancient times occupied 
the central position in his system of geography, and 
he begins his account with its description. Similarly, 
al-Ya'kubi considered 'Irak as the centre of the 
world and 'the navel of the earth' (surrat al-ard), but 
for him Baghdad was the centre of 'Irak, for it was 
not only the greatest city of the world unparalleled 
in its glory, but it was also the seat of government 
of the Banu Hashim. Because it occupied a central 
position in the world, 'Irak had a moderate climate, 
its inhabitants were handsome and intelligent and 
possessed high morals. But in his system of geo- 
graphy Baghdad is grouped with Samarra, and the 
description begins with these two towns. A similar 
note of the superiority of 'Irak is struck by the 
historian and geographer al-Mas'udi, who thought 
of Baghdad as the best city in the world {Tanbih, 
34; cf. Ibn al-Fakih, 195 ff.). 

As against these writers, Kudama, Ibn Rusta and 



Ibn al-Fakih display no enthusiasm for 'Irak or 
Iranshahr. In their system Mecca and Arabia are 
given precedence. In Kudama Mecca is given 
absolute precedence and all roads leading to Mecca 
are described before an account of roads leading out 
of Baghdad is given. He did give importance to 
'Irak, but as the capital province of the Mamlakat 
al-Isldm. Thus he considered it important, but only 
from a political and administrative point of view. 
In his system of geography, therefore, there is a 
slight shift of emphasis from the Iranian concept to 
what might be termed an 'Islamic approach' to 
geography. A similar tendency is also noticeable in Ibn 
Rusta (beginning of 4th/ioth century) who departed 
completely from the Iranian traditions and assigned 
to Mecca and Medina the foremost place in his 
arrangement of geographical material. In his de- 
scription of the Seven Iklims he prefers to describe 
them according to the Greek pattern and not 
according to the kishwar system. In the geo- 
graphical work of Ibn al-Fakih also, the description 
of Mecca takes precedence, but a considerable 
portion of the work is devoted to Fars, Khurasan, 
etc. and the Iklims are described according to the 
kishwar system. 

An important feature of the works of Ibn Khur- 
radadhbih, al-Ya'kubi and Kudama is that the 
material in them is arranged and described following 
the four directions, namely, east, west, north and 
south according to the division of the world into 
four quarters. Such a method of description must 
have had its origin in some Iranian geographical 
tradition, and the Arab geographers must have had 
some pattern before them to copy. According to al- 
Mas'udi the Persians and the Nabataeans divided 
the inhabited part of the world into four parts, viz., 
Khurasan (east), Bakhtar (north), Khurbaran (west) 
and Nimruz (south) (Tanbih, 31; cf. al-Ya c kubi, 268). 
However, Kudama points out the arbitrariness of 
such a division. For him the terms east, west, 
north and south had only a relative value. In 
Ibn Rusta and Ibn al-Fakih, the arrangement 
is by regions. 

Ibn Khurradadhbih, who may be called the father 
of geography, laid down the pattern and style for 
writing geography in the Arabic language. But, as 
J. H. Kramers pointed out, he was not an inventor 
of this style or pattern. He must have had some 
pattern or sample of an earlier work on the subject 
before him. Theie is a great likelihood that an Arabic 
translation of some earlier Pahlavi work on ancient 
Iran was accessible to him. His work covers not only 
the Mamlakat al-Isldm, but describes its frontiers 
and kingdoms and the peoples bordering on them. 
He was well acquainted with Ptolemy's work as is 
evident from his description of the limits of inhabited 
parts of the world and from the description of the 
Greek conception of the continents, namely, Arufd, 
Liibya, Ityufiyd and Iskutiyd. 

Ahmad b. Abi Ya'kub b. Wadih al-Katib al- 
Ya'kubi (d. 284/897) claims to have travelled a great 
deal. He emphasized the fact of having obtained 
information from the inhabitants of the regions 
concerned, and of having verified it from trust- 
worthy persons (232-3). His object in writing the 
book was to describe the routes leading to the 
frontiers of the Empire and the territories adjacent to 
them. It is for this reason that he dealt in a separate 
monograph with the history and geography of Rum 
(the Byzantine Empire), and devoted another work 
to the conquest of Ifrikiya (North Africa). Al- 
Ya'kubi's work deals mainly with topography and 



:, and his arrangement of the material is 
similar to that of Ibn Khurradadhbih. 

Kudama b. Dja'far al-Katib (4th/ioth century) 
devoted the eleventh chapter of his work Kitdb al- 
kharddi fa san'at al- kitdb to a description of the 
postal stations and routes of the 'Abbasid Empire. 
The main objective of his work was to describe the 
Mamlakat al-Isldm and its frontiers, especially the 
frontiers with the Byzantine empire (Rum) which he 
considered the greatest enemy of Islam (252). In his 
geography the 'Islamic approach' is perceptible, but 
a political attitude like the defence of the frontiers 
is also discernible. His work also covers descriptions 
of peoples and kingdoms surrounding the Mamlaka. 
He deals with general and physical geography and 
seems to have borrowed information on regional and 
descriptive geography from the Greek sources. 

Ibn Rusta's work (beginning of 4th/ioth century) 
entitled al-AHdk al-nafisa resembles that of Kudama 
in that it describes Mecca and Medina in the very 
beginning of the portion dealing with regional 
geography. The main purpose of the work, however, 
seems to have been to provide general information 
about the world as a whole, and hence one finds in 
it, besides a description of the Islamic lands, descrip- 
tions on a regional basis of several countries lying 
outside the limits of Islam. He dealt with mathe- 
matical geography in a systematic and exhaustive 
way and collected varied theories and opinions 
about various problems (23-4). He presents material 
on general and physical geography and describes the 
Iklims after the Greeks. Considering the variety of 
information accumulated in it, his work may be 
described as a 'small encyclopaedia of historical and 
geographical knowledge'. 

Like Ibn Rusta, Ibn al-Fakih al-Hamadhani also 
arranged his geographical material on a regional 
basis in his Kitdb al-Bulddn (written c. 290/903). The 
description of Mecca takes precedence over other 
places, and the general arrangement of the subject- 
matter resembles that of al-Istakhri and Ibn Hawkal. 
He incorporated the account of the merchant 
Sulayman on India and China, but the special 
feature of his work is that, along with trustworthy 
and authentic information, it records long pieces of 
verse, various traditions and information of a 
legendary character. The work is poor in the treat- 
ment of general and mathematical geography. 

Abu '1-Hasan <Ali b. al-Husayn al-Mas'udi (d. 345/ 
956), the celebrated historian, combined the qualities 
of an experienced traveller with those of a geographer 
of high distinction. Unfortunately his own account of 
his travels (Kitdb al-Kaddyd wa 'l-tadidrib) is not 
extant, but an approximate idea of his travels can 
be formed from his extant works, namely, Murudi 
al-dhahab wa ma c ddin al-diawhar and al-Tanbih wa 
'l-ishrdf (the work entitled Akhbdr al-zamdn, etc. 
ed. <Abd Allah al-Sawi, Cairo 1938, and a MS of the 
Maulana Azad Library, Muslim University, 'Aligafh 
(Qutbuddin Collection, MS No. 36/1) entitled Kitdb 
"■AdidHb al-dunyd (in the colophon Kitdb al-'Adid'ib) 
are both wrongly attributed to al-Mas'udi and have 
nothing to do with his great work Kitdb Akhbdr al- 
zamdn which is lost). Al-Mas c udl regarded geography 
as a part of history, which explains the fact that his 
works deal with geography as an introduction to 
history. He drew upon the earlier geographical 
writings in Arabic as well as upon contemporary 
travel accounts and maritime literature. This he 
reinforced by the information collected by himself 
during his travels or from people whom he met. He 
does not give any systematic topographical account 



of the 'Abbasid Empire or deal with routes of the 
kingdom or postal stations, but he presents an 
excellent survey of contemporary Arab knowledge 
on mathematical and physical geography. However, 
al-Mas c udi's main contribution was in the field of 
human and general geography. He advanced geogra- 
phical science by challenging certain theories and 
concepts of Arab geographers which he found 
baseless in the light of his own experience and 
observation. He did not hesitate even to question 
the age-old theories of the Greek masters like 
Ptolemy, e.g., the existence of land in the southern 
hemisphere. In the field of human and physical 
geography he emphasized the influence of the 
environment and other geographical factors on the 
physique and character of animals, plants and 
human beings. Al-Mas c udi was also influenced by 
Iranian geographical traditions, e.g., the Seven 
kiskwar system, considering 'Irak as the central and 
the best iklim in the world and Baghdad as the best 
city, etc. 

An outstanding geographer of this period whose 
influence on the development of Arab geography was 
as varied and deep as that of Ibn Khurradadhbih 
was the Samanid wazir Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad 
b. Ahmad al-Djayhanl (earlier part of the 4th/ioth 
century). Unfortunately, his work Kitdb al-Masdlik 
wa 'l-mamdlik (the Kabul MS has nothing to do 
with the great work of Djayhanl, see V. Minorsky, 
A false Jayhdnl, in BSOAS, xiii, 1949-50, 89-96) has 
not come down to us; but it is quite likely that al- 
Djayhani used the original text of Ibn Khurradadh- 
bih's Kitdb al-Masdlih. Being in the privileged 
position of a wazir and writing in Bukhara he 'could 
extend the field of his investigation much deeper into 
central Asia and the Far East than was possible for 
his Arab contemporaries' (Minorsky, Marvazi, etc. 
6-7, London 1942). He collected first-hand informa- 
tion from different sources, hence the importance 
of his work. A large number of later Arab geographers 
utilized al-Djayhani's work which, in the opinion of 
al-Mas'udl, was 'interesting because of its novel 
information and interesting stories'. 

The anonymous Hudud al-'-dlam, written in 
Persian in 372/982 is one of the earliest works in 
Persian on world geography. The author utilized 
numerous earlier Arabic authorities on the subject 
and he had undoubtedly a copy of the work of al- 
Istakhri before him. There is a tendency in the 
work towards completeness and numerical exactitude. 
Besides, the author is independent of other geo- 
graphers in his geographical generalizations and 
terminology. The originality of the author lies in his 
conception of the division of the inhabited world 
into 'parts of the world' and separate 'countries' 
(see Barthold, Preface to Hudud al-'-dlam, 21-33). 
The work appeared in an English translation with 
an excellent commentary by V. Minorsky (London 
1937), one of the most exhaustive ever written on 
any Persian or Arabic geographical work in modern 

(ii) The Balkhl School. To the second main cate- 
gory of writers on general geography belonged al- 
Istakhri, Ibn Hawkal and al-MukaddasI as well as 
Abu Zayd Ahmad b. Sahl al-Balkhi (d. 322/934) 
after whom this School is named. Al-Balkhi wrote 
his geographical work Suwar al-akdlim (primarily a 
commentary on maps) in 308/920 or a little later. 
He spent some eight years in 'Irak and had studied 
under al-Kindl. He had travelled widely before his 
return to his native place and had acquired a high 
reputation for knowledge and erudition. However, 



probably in the later part of his life he held orthodox 
views and wrote several treatises which were highly 
appreciated in orthodox circles. Although the text 
of al-Balkhf s geographical work has not yet been 
separately established, and the MSS, at one time 
attributed to al-Balkhi, have now been proved to 
be of al-Istakhri, the view of De Goeje still seems 
to hold good that the work of al-Istakhri represents 
a second and greatly enlarged edition of al-Balkhi's 
work, compiled between 318/930 and 321/933, in 
al-Balkhi's lifetime. 

The geographers ' of the Balkhl School gave a 
positive Islamic colouring to Arab geography. In 
addition to restricting themselves mainly to Islamic 
lands, they laid emphasis on such geographical 
concepts as found concurrence in the Kur'an or were 
based on the traditions and sayings of the Com- 
panions of the Prophet and others, e.g., they 
compared the land-mass with a big bird (see above). 
This was in conformity with a tradition attributed 
to c Abd Allah b. c Amr b. al- c As (Ibn al-Fakih, 3-4). 
Again, the land-mass, round in shape, was encom- 
passed by the 'Encircling Ocean' like a neck-ring, 
and from this Ocean the two 'gulfs' (the Mediter- 
ranean and the Indian Ocean) flowed inwards 
without joining each other, being separated by al- 
Barzakh [q.v.], the 'barrier' at al-Kulzum, a concept 
found in the Kur'an (see above). Again, unlike some 
geographers of the 'Iraki School, the geographers 
of the Balkhl School assigned to Arabia the central 
place in the world, for it had Mecca and the Ka'ba 
in it. These new trends in the methodology and 
treatment of the subject-matter became the dominant 
feature of the geographers of this School, and must 
in all probability have been a culmination of the 
early process wherein Mecca was given precedence 
over 'Irak by one group of geographers. The prime 
object of these later geographers was to describe 
exclusively the bildd al-Isldm which they divided 
into twenty iklims, except that they discussed the 
non-Islamic lands in general in their introductory 
notes. The basis of the division of these 'provinces' 
was neither the Iranian kishwar system nor the 
Greek system of Climes. It was territorial and purely 
physical. This was a positive advancement on 
previous methods and in a way 'modern'. As 
pointed out by Ibn Hawkal (2-3) he did not follow 
the pattern of the 'seven iklims' (of the map at al- 
Kawadhiyan, see above), for although it was correct, 
it was full of confusion, with some overlapping of 
the boundaries of the 'provinces'. Hence he drew a 
separate map for each section describing the position 
of each 'province', its boundaries and other geo- 
graphical information. An important contribution 
made by these geographers was that they systema- 
tized and enlarged the scope of geography by in- 
cluding in it new topics with a view to making it 
more useful and interesting, for they believed that 
a much wider range of people were interested in it, like 
the kings, the people of muruwwa and the leading 
sections of all classes (Ibn Hawkal, 3). In cartography, 
besides drawing the regional maps on a more 
scientific basis, they may be said to have introduced 
the element of perspective. They drew a round map 
of the world showing the various 'regions' of the 
bildd al-Isldm and other non-Islamic 'regions' of the 
world. The aim was to bring them in proper perspec- 
tive and to show the relative position and size of 
each. But since it did not represent the true size and 
shape (round, square or triangular) of the respective 
iklims, they mapped each in a magnified form. 
Their drawing these on a purely physical basis was 



probably the first experiment of its kind in Arab 
cartography. The maps of al-Istakhrl and Ibn 
Hawkal are, in this respect, superior to those of al- 
IdrisI, who divided the seven latitudinal Climes into 
ten longitudinal sections each and drew a map for 
«ach section separately with the result that these 
sectional maps do not represent geographical units 
but geometrical divisions. Al-Istakhrl, Ibn Hawkal 
and al-Mukaddasi present for the first time the 
concept of a country as defined in geographical 
terms, and even go so far as to delimit the boundaries 
of each, just as they define the boundaries of the 
four main kingdoms of the world. 

Abu Ishak Ibrahim b. Muhammad al-FarisI al- 
Istakhri (first half of the 4th/ioth century) seems to 
have been mainly responsible for spreading the 
ideas of the Balkhi School. Little is known of his 
life, but he travelled a good deal and incorporated 
the experiences of his travels in his work al-Masdlik 
wa 'l-mamdlik (a new edition of this woik has 
appeared recently, ed. by M. Djabir c Abd al-'Al 
al-HIni, Cairo 1961). There is little doubt that the 
work was based on that of Abu Zayd al-Balkhl. Al- 
Istakhri's work served as an authentic source of 
information for the geographers of this School. It 
was translated into Persian and became the basis 
of many Persian works on geography. 

Abu '1-Kasim Muhammad b. Hawkal, a native of 
Baghdad, completed his geography entitled Kitab 
Sirat al-ard (2nd ed. J. H. Kramers, Leiden 1938) in 
c. 366/977. From his childhood, Ibn Hawkal was 
interested in geography and had travelled widely 
between 331/943 and 357/968. He was so devoted 
to geography that the works of al-Djayhanl, Ibn 
Khurradadhbih and Kudama never parted from him 
during his travels. About the first two he says that 
they so engaged him that he was unable to devote 
any attention either to the other useful sciences or 
to the Traditions. However, what prompted him to 
write his work was that he found none of the existing 
works on the subject satisfactory. He claims to have 
improved the work of al-Istakhri whom he had met. 
However, the claims of Ibn Hawkal may not be 
accepted unequivocally, for the similarity between 
the works of the two geographers itself suggests that 
Ibn Hawkal must have been considerably indebted 
to al-Istakhri. There is little doubt, however, that 
he ranks among the most outstanding geographers 
of the period, for in cartography he shows indepen- 
dence and individuality and does not follow others 
slavishly. Besides, he incorporated new information 
based on his travels or acquired from hearsay. He 
remained an authentic source of information for the 
succeeding geographers for several centuries to come. 

Abii c Abd Allah Muhammad b. Ahmad al- 
MukaddasI (d. 390/1000), the author of Afisan al- 
takdsim fl ma'rifat al-akdlim was a very original 
and scientific geographer of his time. He rightly 
claims to have put Arab geography on a new 
foundation and given it a new meaning and wider 
scope. Since he considered the subject useful to 
many sections of society, as also to the followers of 
various vocations, he widened its scope, including 
in it a variety of subjects ranging from physical 
features of the iklim (region) under discussion to 
mines, languages and races of the peoples, customs 
and habits, religions and sects, character, weights 
and measures and the territorial divisions, routes 
and distances. He believed that it was not a science 
that was acquired through conjecture (kiyds), but 
through direct observation and first-hand infor- 
mation. Hence he laid his main emphasis on what 



was actually observed and was reasonable. From the 
earlier writers he borrowed what was most essential 
'without stealing from them". Thus, according to the 
nature of the sources of information, his work may 
be divided into three parts: what he observed 
himself; what he heard from trustworthy people; 
and what he found in written works on the subject. 
Al-Mukaddasi is one of the few Arab geographers 
who discusses geographical terminology and specific 
connotations of certain phrases and words used, 
besides giving a synopsis and an index of the iklims, 
districts, etc., in the introduction of his work for 
the benefit of those who want to get an idea of the 
contents quickly or wish to use it as a traveller's 
guide. Unlike Istakhri and Ibn Hawkal, al-Mukad- 
dasl divided the Mamlakat al-Isldm into fourteen 
ilflims (seven '■arab and seven c adjam) perhaps to 
conform to the belief that there were seven climes 
north of the Equator and seven others to its south, 
an idea attributed to Hermes, the legendary figure 
known to the Arabs as an ancient philosopher of 
Egypt. In this respect he differed from Abu Zayd 
al-Balkhi and al-Djayhani, whom he however con- 
sidered Imams (here authorities). An important 
feature of his work is that like a mufassir he 
discusses at length certain questions relating to 
general geography, e.g., the number of the seas, etc., 
in order to bring them into conformity with the 
Kur'anic verses relating to them. 



An important aspect of the development of 
Arabic geographical literature of this period was the 
production of the maritime literature and travel 
accounts, which enriched the Arabs' knowledge of 
regional and descriptive geography. This became 
possible firstly, because of the political expansion of 
the Muslims and the religious affinity felt by them 
towaids one another irrespective of nationality or 
race, and secondly, because of the phenomenal 
increase in the commercial activities of the Arab 
merchants. Incentive to travel and exploration was 
provided by several factors, viz., pilgrimage to 
Mecca, missionary zeal, deputation as envoys, 
official expeditions, trade and commerce, and, last 
but not least, the mariners' profession. 

From very ancient times the Arabs played the 
r61e of intermediaries in trade between the East 
(India, China, etc.) on the one hand and the West 
(Egypt, Syria, Rome, etc.) on the other. But with 
the foundation of Baghdad as the capital of the 
'Abbasid Empire and the development of the ports of 
Basra and SIraf, the actual and personal participa- 
tion of the Arabs now extended as far as China in 
the east and Sofala on the east coast of Africa. They 
had learned and mastered the art of navigation from 
the Persians, and by the 3rd/9th century Arab 
navigators had become quite familiar with the 
monsoon and trade winds, and their boats sailed not 
only along the coasts but direct to India from 
Arabia. They had become intimate with the various 
stretches of the sea between the Persian Gulf and 
the Sea of China, which they divided into the Seven 
Seas giving each a specific name. Again, they sailed 
from Aden to East Africa as far south as Sofala and 
freely sailed on the Red Sea, the Mediterranean, the 
Black Sea and the Caspian and also on a number of 
navigable rivers including the Nile and the Indus. 
Although their boats were small as compared to 
those of the Chinese, and the Indian Ocean was 
infested with whales, they performed long and 



hazardous voyages with courage and fortitude. They 
used sea-charts (rahmdnis and dafatir). Al-Mas c udl 
{Murudi, i, 233-4) records names of certain captains 
of boats whom he knew and expert sailors of the 
Indian Ocean; similarly, al-Mukaddasi (10-n) gives 
the name of an expert merchant-sailor whom he 
consulted on the question of the shape of the Indian 
Ocean. Ahmad b. Madjid ([?.».]> see also below) 
speaks of an old rahmdni composed by Muhammad 
b. Shadan, Sahl b. Abban and Layth b. Kahlan 
(lived in the later part of the 3rd/oth century), but 
he considered them much below the standard (see 
Hourani, Arab seafaring, 107-8). Since none of these 
charts is extant, it is not possible to make a correct 
assessment of the contribution made by these early 
Arab navigators to nautical geography. 

With the development of Arab navigation, Arab 
trade also expanded. With a strong political power 
in the Middle East and a developing economy at 
home, the Arabs acquired considerable importance 
as traders in the East. The sphere of their trade not 
only widened, but became more intensive. They even 
traded by barter with the primitive tribes of the 
Andaman and Nicobar Islands, whose languages they 
did not understand. Arab trade with China declined 
from about the end of the 3rd/oth century, for it is 
said that in the peasant rebellion under Huang 
Ch'ao (A.D. 878) large numbers of foreigners were 
massacred in China. From this time onwards Arab 
boats went only as far as Kala, a port on the 
western coast of the Malay Peninsula, no longer 
existing. 

The Arabs' urge to explore new lands was mainly 
prompted by a desire for trade and rarely for the sake 
of exploration. Although some instances of early 
Arab adventures and exploration are recorded, many 
of these seem to have been 'wonder tales' (e.g., the 
interpreter Sallam's account of his trip to the wall 
of Gog and Magog under the orders of the Caliph 
Wathik (227-32/842-7), see Minorsky, Ifudud al- 
*dlam, 225). The story of a certain young man of 
Cordova (Spain) who sailed with a group of young 
friends on the Atlantic Ocean and then returned 
after some time, laden with booty, may have had 
some historical truth in it (al-Mas c udi, i, 258-9). On 
the whole the Arabs of this period did not make any 
substantial contribution to or improve upon the 
knowledge acquired from the Greeks. There is no 
doubt however that in regard to certain regions, 
viz., North and East Africa, West Asia, Middle Asia, 
India and a few other countries, their information 
was much more authentic and intimate. 

The fact that the Arabs did not explore the 
regions unknown to them, even those of which they 
had a theoretical knowledge, may be explained by 
several factors: wherever the trade incentive was 
satisfied, they did not proceed beyond that point; 
secondly, certain notions or preconceived ideas 
continuously dominated their thought and dissuaded 
them from taking a bold step, e.g., the Atlantic was 
a Sea of Darkness and a Muddy Spring (aW-ayn al- 
hamPa). For the same reason they did not sail 
further south along the east coast of Africa, for they 
believed that there were high tidal waves and 
sea commotion there, although al-BIrunl, on the 
basis of certain evidence discovered in the 3rd/oth 
century, namely, the discovery in the Mediterranean 
of planks from boats of the Indian Ocean (see above), 
had conceived that the Indian Ocean was connected 
with the Atlantic by means of narrow passages south 
of the sources of the Nile (Sifa, 3-4). Lastly, the 
fear of encountering aboriginal tribes and cannibals 



of the East Indies must have prevented the Arabs 
from sailing further east. 

Among the travel accounts of this period that 
have survived, one of the earliest is that attributed 
to the merchant Sulayman, who performed several 
voyages to India and China and described his 
impressions of the lands and the peoples in the 
travelogue Akhbdr al-Sin wa 'l-Hind (235/850). The 
work is a testimony of the keen but academic interest 
taken by Arab merchants in conveying to the Arabic- 
reading peoples of the time unique and interesting 
information about the distant lands of the East. This 
account was first published in 302/916 by Abu Zayd 
al-Hasan of SIraf along with other accounts collected 
and verified by him in a work entitled Silsilat al- 
tawdrikh. Abu Zayd was apparently a well-to-do 
person, and although he had not himself travelled, 
he was keenly interested in gathering information 
from travellers and merchants and in recording 
it. He met al-Mas c udI at least twice and exchanged 
much information with him. Al-Mas'Gdi, who 
represented the finest spirit of exploration of his 
time, had travelled very widely and sailed on many 
seas including the Caspian and the Mediterranean. 
He must have discussed with Abu Zayd the discovery 
near Crete of the planks of a boat belonging to the 
Arabian Sea. This was a unique pheno 
was believed that the Arabian Sea had n< 
with the Mediterranean. Al-Mas c udi came to the 
conclusion that the only possibility was that these 
planks may have flowed towards the East into the 
Eastern Sea (the Pacific) and then northwards and 
finally, through the khalidi (an imaginary channel 
flowing down from the northern Encircling Ocean 
into the Black Sea) into the Mediterranean (Muriidi, 
i, 365-6). The fact that they both recorded this 
unique discovery is evidence of their concern about 
geographical problems. It also shows that interest 
in geography was dynamic during this period, and 
had not become static as in the later period. 

An interesting writer of this period was Buzurg 
b. Shahriyar, the captain of Ramhurmuz (299-399/ 
912-1009) who compiled a book of maritime tales, 
entitled Kitab 'AdfdHb al-Hind in about 342/953. 
The book relates a number of very amusing and very 
strange stories concerning the adventures of the 
sailors in the Islands of the East Indies and other 
parts of the Indian Ocean. These were apparently 
composed for the general reader, and though mostly 
fantastic, they cannot be completely brushed aside 
as untrue and ignored in any serious study of Arab 
geography and exploration. It seems that during 
this period there was a great demand for wonderful 
and amusing tales, which fact is borne out by the 
existence of several MSS in Arabic dealing with 
'adfdHb literature. 

This period was on the whole marked by a spirit 
of enquiry and investigation and exploration among 
the Arabs. But the maritime literature, most of 
which seems to have perished, posed itself against 
the theoretical knowledge derived from the Greek 
and other sources. Hence at times there was a con- 
tradiction between theory and practice, and this was 
the fundamental problem with which the Arab 
geographers and travellers were faced. It was this 
conflict between theory and practice that finally 
determined the course of the development of Arab 
geography in the later period. When the 'practi- 
calists' gave way to the theoreticians, the decline of 
Arab geography became certain. Why the word of 
the sailor, the traveller and the merchant was not 



DJUGHRAFIYA 



given due credence is difficult to explain, but a 
large amount of maritime literature must have 
perished through either neglect or animosity. 

The 5th/nth century may be taken as the apogee 
of the progress of Arab geography. The geographical 
knowledge of the Arabs, both as derived from the 
Greeks and others and as advanced by themselves 
through research, observation and travel, had, by 
this period, reached a very high level of develop- 
ment. Besides, geographical literature had acquired 
a special place in Arabic literature, and various 
forms and methods of presenting geographical 
material had been standardized and adopted. The 
importance of al-BIruni's contribution to Arab 
geography is two-fold: firstly, he presented a critical 
summary of the total geographical knowledge up to 
his own time, and since he was as well-versed in 
Greek, Indian and Iranian contributions to geo- 
graphy and in that of the Arabs, he made a com- 
parative study of the subject. He pointed out that 
the Greeks were more accomplished than the Indians, 
thereby implying that the methods and techniques 
of the former should be adopted. But he was not 
dogmatic, and held some important views that were 
not in conformity with Greek ideas. Secondly, as an 
astronomer he not only calculated the geographical 
positions of several towns, but measured the length 
of a degree of latitude, thus performing one of the 
three important geodetic operations in the history 
of Arab astronomy. He made some remarkable 
theoretical advances in general, physical and human 
geography. On the basis of the above-mentioned 
discovery in the Mediterranean of the planks of an 
Arabian Sea boat a hundred years earlier, he con- 
ceived the theoretical possibility of the existence of 
channels connecting the Indian Ocean with the 
Atlantic, south of the Mountains of the Moon and 
the Sources of the Nile. But these were difficult to 
cross because of high tides and strong winds. He 
argued that just as towards the east, the Indian 
Ocean had penetrated the northern continent (Asia) 
and had opened up channels, similarly, to balance 
them, the continent has penetrated the Indian 
Ocean towards the west; the sea there is connected 
through channels with the Atlantic. Thus, although 
theoretically he laid down the possibility of circum- 
navigating the South African coast, in practice it 
was never accomplished by the Muslims. The idea, 
however, persisted until the time of the arrival 
of the Portuguese, when it was hinted by al- 
Nahrwall that the Portuguese might have taken 
this route. Al-BIrunI conceived that the land-mass 
was surrounded by water, that the centre of 'Earth's 
weight' shifted and caused physical changes on its 
surface, e.g., fertile lands turned barren, water 
turned into land and vice versa. He described very 
clearly various concepts and the limits of the in- 
habited parts of the earth of his time, for which he 
seems to have had recourse to some contemporary 
sources which were not available to the earlier 
geographers. He made an original contribution to 
regional geography by describing India in detail. 

Among the astronomers of the 5th/nth century 
one who deserves mention was Ibn Yunus, Abu 
'1-Hasan £ Ali b. c Abd al-Rahman (d. 399/1009). 
While al-BIruni was working in India and other 
places, Ibn Yunus made valuable observations in 
the observatory on the Mt. al-Mukattam in Egypt 
under the patronage of the Fatimid caliphs al- 
c Aziz and al-Haklm. The results of his observations 



recorded in the al-Zidi al-kabir al-fldkimi became 
an important source of up-to-date astronomical and 
geographical knowledge for the scientists of the 
Islamic East. 

Among the geographers and travellers contempo- 
rary to al-Biruni there was the Isma'ill poet- 
traveller Nasir-i Khusraw (d. 452/1060 or 453/1061) 
whose travel account entitled Safar-ndma written 
in Persian covers the author's personal experiences 
in and descriptions of Mecca and Egypt. 

Abu c Ubayd c Abd Allah b. c Abd al-AzIz al-Bakri 
(d. 487/1094) was the best representative of lexico- 
graphy of the period in as far as place-names were 
concerned. His geographical dictionary Mu'diam 
ma 'sta'dfam min asmd' al-bildd wa 'l-mawddi' is an 
excellent literary-cum-geographical work. It dis- 
cusses the orthography of place-names of the Arabian 
peninsula mainly, furnishing literary evidence from 
Arabic literature, ancient Arabian poetry, Ifadlth, 
ancient traditions, etc. His second geographical 
treatise Kitdb al-masdlik wa 'l-mamdlik has not 
survived in its entirety. Al-Bakri was, however, 
more a litterateur than a geographer [see abu 



SRI]. 



es) 



From the 6th/i2th to the ioth/i6th century Arab 
geography displayed continuous signs of decline. 
The process was chequered and with some exceptions 
like the works of al-Idrisi and Abu '1-Fida' the 
general standard of works produced was low 
compared to those of the earlier period. The scientific 
and critical attitude towards the subject and 
emphasis on authenticity of information that was 
the mark of the earlier writers gave place to mere 
recapitulations and resume's of the traditional and 
theoretical knowledge found in the works of earlier 
writers. This was, in a way, the period of consolida- 
tion of geographical knowledge, and the literature 
may be divided into eight broad categories: 

(a) world geographical accounts ; 

(b) cosmological works; 

(c) the ziydrdt literature; 

(d) mu'-djam literature or geographical dictionaries; 

(e) travel accounts; 

(f) maritime literature; 

(g) astronomical literature ; 

(h) regional geographical literature. 

(a) World geographical accounts: 

The tradition of describing the world as a whole 
as practised by the geographers of the classical 
period continued to be followed by some geographers 
of this period, but works dealing exclusively with 
the world of Islam had become rare, for the 'Abbasid 
Empire had itself disintegrated. The pattern of 
description and arrangement was also different from 
the earlier works. There was a tendency towards 
rapprochement between astronomical and descriptive 
geography in these works, and Greek influence was 
still prominent in some works, while Persian in- 
fluence had comparatively diminished probably 
because of the production of geographical literature 
in Persian as well. But geographical activity had 
expanded and places like Syria, Sicily and Spain had 
become important centres of geographical learning, 
and some very important works were produced there. 
Among the important works on world geography 
and astronomy produced during this period we may 
mention Muntahd al-idrdk fi taksim al-afldk by 



Muljammad b. Ahmad al-Kharaki (d. 533/" 38-9); 
Kitdb al-Qiughrdfiyd by Muhammad b. AbQ Bakr 
al-Zuhri of Granada (lived towards 53i/"37); 
Nuzhat al-mushtdl? fi 'kktirdb al-dfdl? by al-Sharif al- 
Idrisi (d. 56/1166); Kitdb al- Qiughrdfiyd fi 'l-akdlim 
al-sab'-a by Ibn Sa c Id (d. 672/1274); and Takwim al- 
bulddn by Abu '1-Fida (d. 731/1331). 

Al-Zuhri's work was based on the Greek system 
of ifilims and represented the trend of rapprochement 
between astronomical and descriptive geography. 
The work of al-Idrisi, which also represents this 
tendency, is a fine example of Arab-Norman co- 
operation in geographical activities. It was produced 
at Palermo under the patronage of the Norman 
king Roger II. Al-Idrisi, who was a prince, and 
belonged to the Hammudid dynasty, was neither a 
renowned traveller nor a trained geographer before 
he joined the court of Roger. The aim of Roger in 
calling him to his court seems to have been to utilize 
his personality for his own political objectives. There 
is little doubt, however, that Roger was interested 
in geography and he was able to collect a team of 
astronomers and geographers in his court. As a 
result of their efforts, for the first time in the history 
of Arab cartography, seventy regional maps based 
on the Ptolemaic system of climes were drawn, and 
a large silver map of the world constructed. The 
total geographical information acquired from con- 
temporary as well as earlier Greek or Arab sources 
was classified according to the relevant sections 
each of which formed a description of one of these 
maps. The work was an important contribution to 
physical and descriptive geography. The work of 
Ibn Sa'id was based on the clime-system. It also 
gives the latitudes and longitudes of many places 
which facilitates their reconstruction into a map. 
By this time Syria had become an important centre 
of geographical activities. Abu 'l-Fida J , the Syrian 
prince, historian and geographer, completed his 
important compendium on world geography in 721/ 
1321. The work gives latitudes and longitudes of 
places and treats the subject-mattei on a regional 
basis. It is arranged in a systematic way and covers 
descriptive, astronomical and human geography. 
The author seems to have utilized some contem- 
for we find some 



(b) Cosmological works: 

During this period several works were produced 
which dealt not only with geography but also with 
cosmology, cosmogony, astrology and such other 
topics. The main purpose of these works seems to 
have been to present in a consolidated and syste- 
matic form world knowledge for the benefit of the 
average reader. No doubt the authors utilized 
earlier Arabic sources, but on the whole the material 
is presented uncritically, and there is hardly any 
question of investigation or research, and the zeal 
of enquiry is totally lacking. The tendency to 
produce such works was mainly due to the decline 
in education and learning which affected the progress 
of geographical knowledge. 

The following are some of the works that belong 
to this category: Tuhfat al-albdb (or al-ahbdb) wa 
nukhbat al-'adjd'ib by Abu Hamid al-Gharnatl (d. 
565/1169-70); c AdjdHb al-bulddn and Athar al-bildd 
by al-Kazwinl (d. 682/1283); Nukhbat al-dahr fi 
'adjdHb al-barr wa 'l-bahr by al-Dimashki (d. 727/ 
1327); Kharidat al-'adidHb wa faridat al-ghard^ib by 
Ibn al-Wardi (d. 861/1457). 



(c) The ziydrdt literature: 

A special feature of this period was that a number 
of works dealing with the towns and places of 
religious significance or places of pilgrimage were 
produced. These were not purely descriptive or 
topographical works. They dealt with the holy 
spots of Islam, tombs of saints, the takyas of the 
sufis and ribdts along with educational institutions 
(madrasas) specializing in various schools of the 
Shari'a and other such topics. One finds in them 
detailed accounts of place-names in various towns 
like Mecca, Damascus, etc. On the whole such 
works were meant to be religious guides for pilgrims 
and devotees, and represent the period of religious 
reaction in Islam. Among the representative works 
of this type of literature are : Ishdrdt ild ma'rifat al- 
ziydrdt by al-Harawi (d. 611/1214); al-Ddris fi 
ta^rikh al-maddris by c Abd al-Kadir Muhammad al- 
Nu'aymi (d. 648/1520); in the Maulana Azad Library, 
'Aligafh Muslim University, there exists a MS 
(Sherwani Collection, MS No. 27/34) which, in all 
probability, is an abridgment of al-Nu c aymI's 
original work, written 50 years after his death. 



(d) Mu'-diam li 



r Geogrs 



The traditions of geographical studies developed 
in Syria bore many fruitful results. Besides the 
Compendium of Abu '1-Fida' and the ziydrdt 
literature, Yakut al-Hamawi (d. 626/1229) produced 
one of the most useful works in Arabic geographical 
literature, namely, Mu'-diam al-bulddn. Completed 
in 621/1224, this geographical dictionary of place- 
names, which includes other historical and sociolo- 
gical data, was in keeping with the literary and 
scientific traditions of the earlier period, and 
represents the consummation of geographical know- 
ledge of the time. As a reference book it is indispen- 
sible even to-day for the student of Arab historical 
geography. The fact that Yakut crowned the work 
with an introduction on Arab geographical theories 
and concepts and physical and mathematical 
geography shows the depth of knowledge of the 
author. The work also represents that period of 
Arab geographical development when scholars 
thought in terms of compiling geographical diction- 
aries, which would not have been possible without 
the vast amount of geographical literature that had 
already come into existence by this time and 
without the geographical tradition that was present 
in Syria. Another important work of Yakut is the 
Kitdb al-Mushtarik wad'"" wa'l-mukhtalif fak"", 
composed in 623/1226. 

(e) Travel accounts: 

During this period the Arabs' knowledge of 
regional and descriptive geography was considerably 
enriched by the production of travel literature in 
Arabic on a large scale. Besides the usual incentives 
for travel like the pilgrimage to Mecca or missionary 
zeal, the extension of Muslim political and religious 
influences, especially in the East, had opened up 
for Muslims new vistas of travel and more opportu- 
nities for earning a livelihood. 

Among the outstanding travel accounts may be 
included the work of al-Mazini (d. 564/1169); the 
Rihla of Ibn Djubayr (d. 614/1217); Ta'rikh al- 
Mustansir (written in c. 627/1230) by Ibn Mudjawir; 
then the Rihlas of al-Nabati (d. 636/1239), al- 
'Abdari (d. 688/1289), al-Tayyibi (698/1299) and 
al-Tidjanl (708/1308) and others. Whereas these 
accounts are of great importance for the Middle East, 



586 



DJUGHRAFIYA 



North Africa and parts of Europe, for they furnish 
contemporary and often important information, 
the work of Ibn Battuta [q.v.] (d. 779/1377) entitled 
Tuft/at al-nuzzar remains the most important 
mediaeval travel account in Arabic for the lands of 
India, South-East Asia and other countries of Asia 
and North Africa. 

(f) Maritime literature: 

During the period under consideration Arab 
maritime activities were confined to the Mediter- 
ranean and the Arabian Seas. In the Mediterranean 
the Arab navies, using the term in a broader sense, 
could never really become all-powerful. They were 
always busy in sea-wars with the Christian navies and 
sometimes as many as a hundred men-of-war were 
employed in the forays. Again, although the Arab 
navigators were quite familiar with the Mediter- 
ranean, sailing on the Atlantic was still dreaded, 
and there is only one instance of Arab adventure, 
namely, that of Ibn Fatima (648/1250). From the 
account of his voyage preserved in Ibn Sa c id it 
appears that he had reached as far as White mountain 
(identified with Cape Branco) along the West 
African coast. On the whole it is difficult to assess the 
amount of the contribution made by the Arabs of 
this Sea to nautical geography, for very little is 
known of their accounts. But with the rise of the 
Ottoman power in Asia Minor, the Ottoman Navy 
ultimately became very powerful in the Mediter- 
ranean (see VI below). 

In the Indian Ocean, however, the Arab navigators 
maintained their importance until the arrival of the 
Portuguese. It was Shihab al-DIn Ahmad b. Madjid 
(the date of his birth or death is not known) who 
piloted the boat of Vasco da Gama from Malindi 
on the east coast of Africa to Calicut in India in 
1498. This incident indeed marks the turning point 
in the history of Arab navigation and trade in the 
East. The advent of the Portuguese had an adverse 
effect on the trade and commerce of the Arabs. 
Their maritime strength was destroyed and their 
trade systematically ruined by the Portuguese. 

Ibn Madjid, who spent more than fifty years of 
his life on the high seas, may be considered as one 
of the greatest Arab navigators of all times. He 
wrote thirty nautical texts and was one of the 
most important Arab writers on oceanography, 
navigation, etc. His contributions bring him in line 
with the leading scientists of the period. His most 
important contribution is the work Kitdb al-Fawd'id 
fi usul ilm al-bahr wa '1-kawdHd. 

Sulayman b. Ahmad al-Mahri, a younger con- 
temporary of Ibn Madjid, was another important 
navigator of this period. He was also author of five 
nautical works written in the first half of the 10th/ 
1 6th century. Among these may be mentioned of 
special importance: al- l Umda al-mahriyya fi dabt al- 
'ulum al-bahriyya compiled in 917/1511-2 and Kitdb 
Sharh tuhfat al-fuhul fi tamhid al-usul. 

The works of Ibn Madjid and Sulayman al-Mahri 
represent the height of the Arabs' knowledge of 
nautical geography. These navigators used excellent 
sea-charts, which are supposed to have had the lines 
of the meridian and parallels drawn on them. They 
also used many fine instruments and made full use 
of astronomical knowledge for navigation. There is 
little doubt that their knowledge of the seas was 
considerably advanced, especially of the Indian 
Ocean, for in their works they describe in details 
the coastlines, routes, etc. of the 



During this period some very important works 
were produced on astronomy, and one of the most 
outstanding astronomers of this period was the 
Timurid prince-mathematician Ulugh Beg (d. 853/ 
1449)- But with the death of Ulugh Beg Muslim 
astronomical literature may be said to have come to 
an end, for this was the last scientific effort on the 
part of a Muslim prince, before the period of decline 
in Islamic society set in, to revise the data of 
Ptolemy and to perform independent astronomical 
observations. The results of Ulugh Beg's observations 
in which his collaborators also participated were 
included in the Zidj-i djadid-i Sulfdni. 

(h) Regional geographical literature: 

Between the 7th/i3th and the ioth/i6th centuries 
a large amount of geographical literature, both in 
Arabic and Persian, came into existence on a 
regional or 'national' basis. Although no outstanding 
contributions were made by the geographers of this 
period, regional geographical knowledge was enriched 
by the efforts of several historians and geographers. 
Geographical traditions of the classical period were 
kept up, but there was no originality in thought or 
practice. In astronomical, physical or human geo- 
graphy no substantial advances were made. The 
production of literature on regional geography 
during this period was closely connected with the 
extension of Islam and Muslim political power in the 
East, and due to the attention paid by Muslim 
potentates to historiography and geography mainly 
for political purposes. 

In 'Irak and Mesopotamia, the old centre of geo- 
graphical activity, little was produced in geographical 
literature; Mearath Kudshe by Bar Hebraeus (d. 685/ 
1286) showed much influence of Islamic tradition and 
has a semi-circular world map. In Egypt and Syria 
the ftAtfaf-literature was produced under the 
Ayyubids and the Mamluks. Interest in the 'adjd'ib 
literature and ancient Egypt from the time of the 
Ayyubids resulted in the production of and collection 
of some fantastic accounts and stories about ancient 
Egyptian kings (!) and other tales of common 
interest. However, some new and fresh information 
on the Muslim states of the East, India and other 
countries, was also incorporated in these accounts. 
Authors who wrote on such subjects were Ibrahim b. 
Wasif Shah (wrote in 605/1209); Nuwayri (d. 629/ 
1332); Makrlzi (d. 845/1441-2); Ibn Fadl Allah al- 
'Umari (d. 749/1348); al-Kalkashandi (d. 821/1418) 
and others. In North Africa, al-Hasan b. 'All al-Marra- 
kushl wrote Didmi 1 al-mabddi wa 'l-ghdydt which 
gives latitudes and longitudes partly compiled by 
the author. Ibn Khaldun's Mukaddima contains a 
chapter on geography, representing the tradition 
of some Arab historians of describing the world as 
a prelude to history. 

In Iran, Central Asia and India some historical 
works in Persian dealt with regional and descriptive 
geography, and some monographs on world geography 
were also produced. The geographical works were 
mainly based on earlier Arabic authorities; addi- 
tional contemporary information was included in 
general histories and accounts of conquests. Among 
the important works we may mention: Ibn al-Balkhl, 
Fdrs-ndma, written in the beginning of the 6th/i2th 
century; Hamdallah al-Mustawfi (d. 740/1340), 
Nuzhat al-kuliib; Muhammad b. Nadjib Bakran 



(wrote for the Kh'arizm-shah Muhammad, 596- 

617/1200-20), Diihdn-ndma, which contains some 

'interesting information on the geography of Trans- 

oxania'; c Abd al-Razzak al-Samarkandl (d. 887/ 

1482), Mafia* al-sa'dayn; Amln Ahmad KazI, Haft 

iklim, written in 1002/1594, a biographical work, but 

contains much valuable geographical information. 

Bibliography: Arabic geographical literature 

is too vast to allow any brief survey here. Hence 

only a select bibliography is given below: 

1. Texts, translations and commen- 
taries: Abu Dulaf Mis c ar b. al-Muhalhil, al- 
Risdla al-thdniya, ed. V. Minorsky, Cairo 1955; 
al-Birunl, Kitdb al-Kdnun al-Mas'udi, published 
by the Da'irat al-Ma'arif, Haydarabad (India), 
2 vols., 1955 ; idem, Biruni's picture of the world 
(Sifat al-ma'mura '■aid al-Biruni), ed. A. Zeki 
Velidi Togan, Memoir AS I, liii, New Delhi 1941 
(the work contains texts pertaining to geography 
selected from al-Biruni's: 1. al-Kdnun al-Mas'-udi, 
2. Tahdid nihdydt al-amdkin li-tashih tnasdfdt al- 
masdkin, 3. al-Djamdhir fi ma'rifat al-diawdhir , 
and 4. al-Saydana) ; Hamdallah Mustawfi, Nuzhat 
al-kulub, ed. Muhammad Dabir Siyaghi, Tehran 
1958; al-Hamdanl, Kitdb Sifat Djazirat al-'Arab, 
ed. Muhammad b. Balhid " al-Nadjdi, Cairo 1953; 
al-HarawI, c Ali b. Abi Bakr, al-Ishdrdt ild ma'rifat 
al-ziydrdt, ed. and French transl. J. Sourdel- 
Thomine, Damascus 1953-7; Hudud al-'dlam; 
Ibn Battuta (Eng. tr. H. A. R. Gibb, i- , 
Cambridge 1958- ); Ibn Fadlan, Risdla, second 
edition of the translation and commentary by A. P. 
Kovalevsky 1955 (transl. Canard, in AIEO Alger, 
xvi, 1958); Ibn Hawkal; Ibn Khaldun-Rosenthal; 
Ibn Madjid, Three unknown nautical instructions on 
the Indian Ocean, published by T. A. Shumovsky, 
Moscow 1957; al-Idrisi, Polska i kraje sasiedni w 
iwietle "Ksiegi Rogera", geografa arabskiego z XII 
w. al-Idrisi'' ego, czesd i, Krakow, 1945; czesd ii, 
Warsaw 1954; al-Idrisi, India and the neigh- 
bouring territories in the Kitdb Nuzhat al-mushtdk 
fi 'khtirdk al-dfdk of al-Sharif al-Idrisi, tr. and 
commentary by S. Maqbul Ahmad, Leiden i960; 
al-Idrisi, India and the neighbouring territories as 
described by the Sharif al-Idrisi, c Aligafh 1954; 
al-Istakhri, al-Masdlik wa ' l-mamdlik, ed. M. 
Djabir c Abd al- c Al al-HIni, Cairo 1961 ; T. Lewicki, 
Zrodla arabskie de dziejow stowianszczyzny, i, 
Wroclaw, Cracow 1956; Muhammad b. Nadjib 
Bakran, Diihdn-ndma. reproduced with translation 
by Y. Borshcevsky i960; al-Nu c aymi, c Abd al- 
Kadir, al-Ddris fi ta'rikh al-maddris, 2 vols., 
Damascus 1948-51; Marwazi, Sharaf al-Zamdn 
Tdhir Marvazi on China, the Turks and India, 
text, tr. and commentary by V. Minorsky, London 
1942; Akhbdr al-Sin wa 'l-Hind, Relation de la 
Chine et de I'Inde, redigee en 851, text, French 
tr. and Notes by Jean Sauvaget, Paris 1948; 
Yakut, The Introductory chapters of Ydqut's 
Mu'jam al-bulddn, tr. and annotated by Wadie 
Jwaideh, Leiden 1959; R. Blachere and H. 
Darmaun, Extraits des principaux geographes arabes 
du moyen dge 2 , Paris 1957. 

2. General Works: Nafis Ahmad, Muslim 
contribution to geography, Lahore 1947; Barthold, 
Turkestan; G. F. Hourani, Arab seafaring, Princeton 
1951; Had! Hasan, A history of Persian navigation, 
London 1928; G. H. T. Kimble, Geography in 
the middle ages, London 1938; J. H. Kramers, 
Geography and Commerce in The legacy of Islam, 
ed. T. Arnold and A. Guillaume, London 1943; 



kFlYk 587 

Analecta Orientalia, posthumous writings and 
selected minor works of J. H. Kramers, Leiden 
1954; I. Y. Kraikovskiy, Arabskaya geografi- 
leskaya literatura (vol. iv of his collected works), 
Moscow 1957; Al-Mas'udi commemoration volume, 
ed. S. Maqbul Ahmad and A. Rahman, c AHgafh 
i960; S. Muzaffar Ali, Arab geography, 'Allgafh 
i960 (being the tr. of Section Ilof M. Reinaud's 
Introduction ginirale d la giographie des Orien- 

3. Articles: Ziauddin Alavi, Physical geo- 
graphy of the Arabs in the Xth Century A.D., in 
Indian Geographical Journal, xxii/2, Madras 1947; 
idem, A rab geography in the ath and 10th centuries 
A. D., in Muslim University Journal, c Aligafh 1948; 
Leo Bagrow, The Vasco Gama's Pilot, in Studi 
Colombiani, Genoa 195 1; S. Q. FatimI, In quest of 
Kalah, in Journal Southeast Asian History, 1/2, 
September i960; V. Minorsky, A False Jayhdni, 
in BSOAS, xiii, 1949-50, 89-96; S. Maqbul Ahmad, 
A I- M as'udi's contribution to mediaeval Arab geo- 
graphy, in IC, xxvii/2, 1953; IC, xxviii/i, 1954; 
idem. Travels of Abu 'l-Hasan 'AH b. al-Husayn 
al-Mas'udi, in IC, xxviii/4, 1954; C. Schoy, 
Geography of the Muslims of the Middle Ages, in 
Geographical Review (American Geographical So- 
ciety), xiv, 1924, 257-69. Other articles in Pearson, 
pp. 269-79; idem, Supplement 1956-60, pp. 82-5. 
(S. Maqbul Ahmad) 

VI. The Ottoman geographers 
The Ottoman Turks do not seem to have begun 
to write geographical works until the middle of 
the 9th/i4th century. The first of these were small 
cosmographies in the style of Books of Marvels, which 
treat of the wonders of Creation. The best known 
of these works is probably the "Well-preserved 
Pearl" (Diirr-i meknun) by Yazldjl-oghlu Ahmed 
Bidjan (d. ca. 860/1456) [q.v.], the brother of the early 
Ottoman poet Yazldjl-oghlu Mehemmed (died 855/ 

make a translation of extracts from an Arabic 
cosmographical work, the 'Adid'ib al-makhlukdt of 
Kazwlni (1203-1283), under the same title, in which 
the stress likewise is less upon scientific knowledge 
than upon the wonders of Creation (see Rieu, Catal. 
of Turkish Mss. in the Brit. Mus., 106 ff.). 

Kazwinl's 'Aajd'ib al-makhlukdt was translated 
several times into Turkish (Brockelmann, S I, 882, 
indicates four Turkish translations of the work). 
Likewise under the same title there were in circu- 
lation Turkish translations of Ibn al-Wardi's (d. 1457) 
Kharidat al-'adjdHb (indicated in Beitrdge zur 
historischen Geographic .... vornehmlich des Orients, 
ed. Hans Mzik, Festband Eugen Oberhummer, Leipzig 
and Vienna 1929, 86 ff.), among them one with some 
contemporary additions by a man of the early Otto- 
man period called c Ali b. c Abd al-Rahman (see my 
articles Der Bericht des arabischen Geographen Ibn 
al-Wardi iiber Konstantinopel in Festband Eugen 
Oberhummer, 84-91, and Ein altosmanischer Bericht 
iiber das vorosmanische Konstantinopel in A I ON, 
N.S., i, 1940, 181-9). Further, after Sipahlzade 
Mehemmed b. 'All (d. 997/1588) had produced a new 
Arabic edition of Abu '1-Fida's Takwim al-bulddn 
under the title Awdah al-masdlik ild ma'rifat al- 
bulddn wa'l-mamdlik with the material arranged 
in alphabetical order and supplemented (Brockel- 
mann, II, 46), he translated extracts of the work 
into Turkish under the same title (Brockelmann, 
S II, 44). 



588 DJUGH 

One of the last of the translations from earlier 
geographical works is the "Views of the Worlds" 
(Mendzir al- K awdlim) by Mehmed b. c Omer (not 
'Othman), b. Bayeztd al-'Ashlk (b. 964/1555, date of 
death unknown; the book was completed 1006/1598). 
It consists of two parts, of which the first treats the 
"world above", that is, heaven, its inhabitants and 
the celestial bodies, and, in appendix, a part of the 
"world below", that is, hell and its inhabitants. 
Apart from astronomy, which indeed is only 
summarily included, this section consists almost 
exclusively of theology and mythology. But this first 
part is actually only an introduction. The bulk of the 
work is contained in the second part, which describes 
the "world below", that is, the earth and its inha- 
bitants. It contains first a universal geography, that 
is, a little general knowledge of the earth, followed 
by separate descriptions arranged in the mediaeval 
manner according to natural objects: oceans, islands, 
swamps and lakes, rivers, springs, warm springs, 
mountains and finally, comprising the main section 
of the descriptive geography, cities. In this section 
all of the geographical material is arranged according 
to the seven climates of Ptolemy, the "actual 
climates" (akdlim-i hakikiyye). Within this frame- 
work the localities represented are arranged according 
to the 28 "traditional climates" (akdlim-i 'urfiyye) 
or regions, a principle which c Ashik had borrowed 
from the work of Abu '1-Fida', with result that some 
of the cities treated, according to their location, 
appear in more than one of the akdlim-i hakikiyye, 
the applications of the two principles thus over- 
lapping. Under each heading 'Ashik indicates in 
order the reports of his authorities translated into 
Turkish, of the mediaeval Arabic and Persian writers 
such as Ibn Khurradadhbih, Ibn al-Djawzi, Yakut, 
Kazwini, Hamdullah Mustawfi and Ibn al-Wardl, 
each with a precise indication of the source. c Ashlk 
supplements these with his own reports, especially 
for Anatolia, Rumelia and Hungary, also with 
precise indication that this particular information 
derived from the "writer" (rdkim al-huruj), with the 
date of his visit to the city in question, thus affording 
a chronological sequence of his travels. 

The geography is followed by a universal descriptive 
natural science, that is, the solid, liquid and gaseous 
minerals, scents, metals, plants, animals and man. 
The work in its totality is a broadly sketched 
compendium of traditional geography and natural 

Belonging in a wider sense to the translations of 
geographical literature is the manual of astronomy 
and mathematics written in Persian by 'Alt Kushdji 
(d. 879/1474), formerly director of Ulugh Beg's 
observatory in Samarkand and later the court 
astronomer of Mehemmed II, which was several times 
translated into Turkish (see ZDMG, lxxvii, 1923, 
40 note 2). To this category also belongs the "China 
Book" (Khitdv-ndma) written originally in Persian 
by Sayyid C A1I Akbar Khital in 1516, in which the 
author describes his journey to China in 912-4/1506-8 
and his stay of three years there, and which he 
dedicated to Selim I. Under Murad III, probably in 
990/1582, it was translated into Turkish (see P. Kahle 
in AO, xii, 91 ff, and Opera Minora 322-3). 

In the fields of marine geography and navigation 
the Ottoman Turks produced original works. In this 
respect special mention should to made of the work 
of Pin Muhyi '1-DIn Reis (d. 962/1554), a nephew of 
the famous naval hero Kemal Re Is who knew every 
corner of the Mediterranean. In 919/15 13 he produced 
a map of the world in two parts, of which only the 



western part has been preserved, which he presented 
to Sultan Selim I in Cairo (923/1517). For that 
portion of his work treating the west Phi Reis used 
as sources maps containing the Portuguese disco- 
veries up to 1508, as well as a map, since lost, 
containing the discoveries made by Christopher 
Columbus during his third voyage (1498). He had 
got the latter from a Spanish sailor who had gone 
with Columbus to America three times and who in 
1501 at Valencia had been made a Turkish prisoner 
by Piri Rels's uncle Kemal Reis (see P. Kahle, 
Die verschollene Columbus-Karte vom Jahre 149S in 
einer tiirkischen Weltkarte von 1513, Berlin-Leipzig 
1933; idem, A lost map of Columbus, in Opera 
Minora, Leiden 1956, 247-65; Ibrahim Hakki, Eski 
Hantalar, Istanbul 1936; Afet, Un Amiral Geographe 
turc du XVI' siecle, Piri Reis, auteur de la plus 
ancienne carte de VAmirique in Belleten, i (1937), 
333-49', Sadi Selen, Die Nord-Amerika-Karte des 
Piri Reis {1528), ibid. 519-23). 

Piri Re'Is then wrote a nautical handbook of 
the Mediterranean, the Bahriyye, containing 129 
chapters each provided with a map in which he 
gives an exact description of the Mediterranean and 
all its parts. His models are Italian portulans and 
other navigational handbooks, the major part of 
which have disappeared. He first dedicated the work 
to Sultan Selim I in 927/1521. After the latter's 
death he prepared a second edition with many 
additional maps, a modified text, and a poetical 
introduction of some 1200 verses in Turkish on the 
lore of the sea and the sailor, which he presented 
in 932/1525-26 to Sultan Suleyman by means of the 
Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha (see P. Kahle, Piri 
ReHs und seine Bahriye in Beitrdge zur historischen 
Geographie . . . , Festband E. Oberhummer, Leipzig- 
Vienna 1929, 60-76; idem, Bahriyya, das tiirkische 
Scgelhandbuch fiir das Mittellandische Meer vom 
Jahre 1521, the first part of an unfinished edition, 
Berlin-Leipzig 1926; the complete work in facsimile, 
Kitabi Bahriye, Istanbul 1935). 

A similar work of marine geography and navigation 
on the Indian Ocean was written in 961/1554 by 
Seyyidi c Ali Re'Is b. Huseyn, known as Katib-i 
RumI (died 970/1562), entitled "The Ocean" (al- 
Muhit). c Ali Reis made use of the experience of 
South Arabian sailors who had served as guides for 
Vasco de Gama on his voyage to Calicut, and also 
translated parts of Suleyman al-Mahri's al-'-Umda 
al-Mahriyya into Turkish in his work (see W. 
Tomaschek and M. Bittner, Die topographischen 
Kapitel des indischen Seespiegels Mohit, Vienna 1897; 
for the Arabic precursors see Gabriel Ferrand, 
Relations de Voyages et textes glographiques . . . , ii, 
Paris 1914). 

Yet another work of marine geography from a 
later period is the "Book of the Black and White 
Seas" (Kitab Bahr al-aswad wa H-abyad) written by 
Seyyid Nuh during the reign of Mehemmed IV 
(see F. Babinger, Seyyid Nuh and his Turkish 
sailing handbook in Imago Mundi, xii (1955), 180-2). 

A kind of terrestrial counterpart to these works of 
marine geography is the "Collection of Stations" 
(Medjmu'-i mendzil), an illustrated book by Nasuh 
al-Matraki (dates unknown) in which he describes 
briefly and depicts separately the stages of Sultan 
Suleyman Kanunl's first Persian expedition (940-2/ 
1534-5)- It exists only in a single manuscript, in all 
probability the dedication copy for the sultan, in 
the University Library in Istanbul, and constitutes 
an important source for the military routes used by 
the sultans for their eastern expeditions (see Albert 



Gabriel, Les etapes d'une campagne dans les deux 
Irak d'apris un manuscrit turc du XVI' Steele in 
Syria (1928), 328-41; Franz Taeschner, The itinerary 
of the first Persian campaign of Sultan Suleyman 
1534-36, according to Nasuh al-Ma(rdki in Imago 
Mundi xiii (1956), 53-5; idem, Das Itinerar des 
ersten Persienfeldzuges des Sultans Suleyman Kanuni 
nach Matrakfi Nasuh, in ZMDG, 1961). 

The campaign itineraries of sultans Selim I and 
Suleyman I, as well as those of Murad IV are 
contained, moreover, in the collection of documents 
called Munshe'dt al-Seldtin of Feridun Ahmed Beg 
(d. 991/1583), or his continuator (only the two 
volume second edition of the Munshe'dt contains the 
itineraries, Istanbul 1274-75/1857-59; the itineraries 
there are enumerated in F. Taeschner, Das anatolische 
Wegenetz nach osmanischen Quellen, i, Leipzig 1924, 
20). 

The most important comprehensive geographical 
work, constituting at the same time the transition 
in Turkey from the mediaeval oriental to the modern 
European point of view, is the "View of the World" 
(Djihdnniimd) of the famous scholar Mustafa b. 
'Abdallah, known as Katib Celebi [q.v.] or Hadjdii 
Khalifa (1017-67/1609-57). The work has a com- 
plicated history. Katib Celebi began it twice 
and twice it remained uncompleted. In 1058/1648 
he had begun it as cosmography in the medieval 
style of such works as the one mentioned above of 
Mehmed 'Ashlk, which he used and acknow- 
ledged. After he had described oceans, rivers and 
lakes, he started on lands, of which the western 
came first, Muslim Spain and North Africa. The 
lands of the Ottoman Empire were to follow as the 
main section, which he began with the three imperial 
capitals, Bursa, Edirne and Constantinople, followed 
by the provinces of the European half of the empire, 
Rumelia, Bosnia and Hungary (from a manuscript 
of this version in Vienna, J. von Hammer translated 
Rumeli und Bosna, Vienna 181 2; see F. Taeschner, 
Die Vorlage von Hammers •'Rumeli und Bosna" in 
MOG, i (1923-25), 308-10). 

When Katib Celebi had reached the heading 
Hatvan in writing the description of Hungary he 
came across a copy of the Atlas Minor of Gerhard 
Mercator, edited by Jodocus Hondius in 1621 at 
Arnheim. He abandoned the Djihdnniimd and from 
1064/1654 on, with the help of a French renegade, 
Mehmed Efendi Ikhlasi, he worked at a translation 
of the atlas, to which he gave the title Lewdmi' 
al-nur fi zulumdt-i Atlas Minur. 

When this work was two-thirds finished Katib 
Celebi began again to write his Diihdnnumd, ac- 
cording to a new plan based on the western model. 
This time however he began in east Asia for which 
he used, in addition to European, Oriental sources 
as well, such as the Khitdy-ndme of 'All Akbar; 
these preponderated the further west he moved. When 
he had progressed in his description from east to west 
as far as Armenia (Eyalet of Van), death hastened 
on by an accident stayed his hand (1067/1657). 
Thus the second version of his work also remained 
unfinished. 

Yet another European work was to provide the 
impulse for the continuation of the Djihdnniimd and 
eventually its completion. On 14 August 1668 the 
Dutch envoy Colier presented to Sultan Mehemmed 
IV in Edirne on behalf of his government a copy 
of the Latin edition in eleven volumes of Blaeu's 
Atlas Maior sive Cosmographia Blaviana (1662). A 
few years later, in 1086/1675, the Sultan had this 
work translated into Turkish by Abu Bakr b. Bahrain 



:AFIYA 589 

al-Dimashki (d. 1102/1691). Abu Bakr published his 
translation under the title Nusrat al- 1 slant wa 'l-surur 
fi takrir-i Atlas Mdyur, and based on it, with the 
further use of other, especially, Oriental sources, 
produced a "Major Geography" (Djughrdiiyd-yi kebir) 
(see P. Kahle, The Geography of Abu Bekr Ibn Behram 
ad-Dimashki: Ms. A.S. 575 of the Chester Beatty 
Collection). 

When later, in 1 140/1728, the Hungarian renegade 
Ibrahim Miiteferrika established the first printing- 
press in Istanbul, the Djihdnniimd of Katib Celebi 
became the eleventh product (in 1 145/1732) in the 
new Turkish art of printing. As a basis for this 
edition Ibrahim used the second version of the work, 
that is, the description of Asia begun by Katib 
Celebi, and supplemented this with the corresponding 
portions ("insertions", Idhika) from the work of Abu 
Bakr, so that the printed edition included the 
complete description of Asia. In the introductory 
chapters containing astronomical, mathematical and 
geographical data, he brought the work up to date 
by means of series of "printer's addenda" {tadhyil 
al-(dbi') (see F. Taeschner, Zur Geschichte des 
Djihdnnumd in MSOS ii, 29 (1926), 99-m; idem., 
Das Hauptwerk der geographischen Literatur der 
Osmanen, Katib Qelebis Gihannuma in Imago Mundi 
1935, 44-7; Kdtip Celebi, HayaH veeserleri hakkinda 
incelemeler, Ankara 1957: on the Diihdnnumd the 
essay by Hamit Sadi Selen, 121-36). 

In 1 153/1740 one Shehrizade Ahmed b. Mudhehhib 
Sa'id (d. 1178/1764-5) undertook a further con- 
tinuation of Katib Celebi's Djihdnniimd with the 
title Rawdat al-anfus. But the work was never 
printed owing on the one hand to the death of 
Ibrahim Miiteferrika (1157/1744) after which the 
press was silenced and, on the other hand, to the 
influx of original European literature in the face 
of which Turkish productions in the geographical 
field lost in originality and thereby in interest. 

Concerning travel descriptions those of 'All 
Akbar from China and his sojourn there have been 
mentioned. Worthy also of indication is the brief 
description by Seyyidi 'All Rels of his journey to 
India and, after the unsuccessful Ottoman naval 
expedition against the Portuguese in the Indian 
Ocean, his fortunate return to the sultan's court 
in Edirne. These are contained in the tiny book 
Mir'dt al-mamdlik (completed 964/1557 and printed 
Istanbul 1313; Eng. tr., A. Vambery, Travels and 
adventures of the Turkish Admiral Sidi Ali Reis .... 
during the years i553-'55^, London 1899). 

The major work, however, in the field of travel 
description is the great, ten-volume "Travel Book" 
(Seydhatndme) or "History of the Traveller" 
(Ta'rikh-i seyydh) of Ewliya b. Derwlsh Mehemmed 
Zilll, usually known as Ewliya Celebi [q.v.]. It 
is a unique work in the entire literature of the 
Islamic peoples. For forty years (1631-1670) Ewliya 
Celebi travelled in every direction throughout the 
Ottoman Empire and its neighbouring lands, 
largely as field chaplain in the retinues of dignitaries, 
governors and ambassadors, as well as with divisions 
of the army. His work is thus a kind of memoir and 
contains in addition to a knowledge of the lands 
which he visited many insights into the higher 
politics of his period. Besides his own experiences 
he has mingled the results of his reading and the 
manifold products of his lively imagination in the 
work. Through his contacts with political persona- 
lities and his participation in their destinies, Ewliya 
Celebi's book has become an important record for 
the history of his times. 



DJUGHRAFIYA — DJUHA 



A stimulation to travel description was provided 
by the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. There are indeed, 
especially from the 18th century, a series of texts 
which describe the journey from Oskudar, the point 
of departure on the Asiatic coast of the Bosphorus 
for pilgrims to Mecca, and the ceremonies accom- 
plished in Mecca. Most of the pilgrims limited their 
descriptions to the latter and touched only in passing 
the voyage itself. Some, however, did describe the 
journey and for that reason are of importance from 
the point of view of geography. The most detailed 
of these is "The ceremonies of the pilgrimage" 
(Mandsik al-hadjdj) by Mehemmed Edib (1193/1779) 
(printed in Istanbul 1232/1816-17; Fr. tr. by M. 
Bianchi, Itiniraire de Constantinople a la Mecque in 
Recueil des Voyages et des Mimoires publiis par la 
Sociiti deGiographie, ii, Paris 1825, in which the work 
is wrongly dated 1093/1682 instead of 1 193/1779). 

To travel literature in a certain sense belong also 
the reports from the ambassadors of the Porte to 
European courts (Sefdretndme) . These belong at the 
same time to the category of historical literature, for 
which reason they are generally included by the 
historiographers of the Empire in their works 
(enumerated by me in ZDMG, lxxvii (1923), 75-8; 
more completely by Faik Resit Unat in Tarih 
Vesikalari, reprinted in Resimli Tarih Mecmuasi, 
8 August 1950) (see further el£i). 

A brief word may also be said concerning carto- 
graphy. Piri Re'Is's world map of 1513, originally in 
two parts, has already been described above. In 
his sailing manual for the Mediterranean (the 
Bahriyye), Piri Rels included in each chapter, after 
the fashion of the Italian portulans and probably 
based on them, a map representing the region of the 
Mediterranean treated in the respective chapter. 
The late editor of the periodical Imago Mundi, 
Leo Bagrov, had in his possession such a map of the 
entile Mediterranean with parallel meridians, based 
on a mistaken planispheric concept. 

The manuscripts of the first version of Katib 
Celebi's Djihdnniimd have in the margins finely 
sketched maps of the Liwd (Sandiak) in question. 
The 1145/1732 printing of the Djihdnniimd is 
provided with full-page maps, obviously in the 
style of contemporary European cartography, but 
with inverse orientation (north at the bottom). 
From the workshop of the printer Ibrahim Miiteferrika 
came as well a manuscript map of the Near and 
Middle East, now preserved in the Austrian Military 
Archives, dated either 1139/1726-7 or 1141/1728-9 
(see F. Taeschner, Das anatolische Wegenetz nach 
osmanischen Quellen, ii, Leipzig 1926, 62 ff.). 

In conclusion brief reference may be made to 
the world map known as that of Hadjdji Ahmed of 
Tunis, dated 967/1559, in the Marciana in Venice. 
At one time believed to be of Muslim origin, this has 
now been shown to be of European manufacture, 
prepared for the Muslim market (V. L. Menage, 'The 
Map of Hajji Ahmed' and its makers, in BSOAS, xxi, 
1958, 271-314; see also George Kish, The suppressed 
Turkish map 0/1560, Ann Arbor (William L. Clements 
library, 1957 [includes facsimile]). 

Bibliography : in the article, and general: F. 
Taeschner, Die geographische Literatur der Osmanen, 
in ZDMG, lxxvii (1923). 31-80; F. Babinger, Die 
Geschichtsschreiber der Osmanen und ihre Werke, 
Leipzig 1927, in which the geographical writers 
are also discussed; Abdulhak Adnan-Adivar, 
Osmanh Turklerinde Ilim, Istanbul 1943; idem, 
La science chez les Turcs Ottomans, Paris 1939. 
(Fr. Taeschner) 



DJUIJA (Ij~»- or ^^w-), the nickname of a per- 
sonage whom popular imagination made the hero of a 
few hundred jests, anecdotes and amusing stories. The 
oldest literary instance of this name goes back to the 
first half of the 3rd/gth century, in al-Djahiz, who 
numbers Djuha among others renowned for their 
follies (Risdla fi 'l-Hakamayn, ed. Pellat, in Machriq, 
1958, 431), and attributes to him futile schemes and 
an extraordinary tendency to make mistakes and 
blunders; the same author also quotes (K. al-Bighdl, 
ed. Pellat, Cairo 1955, 36) a story borrowed from 
Abu '1-Hasan [al-Mada'ini ?] in which Djuha gives 
an unexpected but witty retort to a Himsi (the 
inhabitants of Hims were considered particularly 
dull-witted; see R. Basset, 1001 Contes, i, 427-8, 
451-2). Already a by-word by the time of al-Djahiz, 
Djuha soon became the central figure in a number 
of stories which were to form the anonymous mis- 
cellany called K. Nawddir Djuha, mentioned by the 
Fihrist (written in 377/987-8) in the following 
century (i, 313; Cairo ed., 435), from which later 
writers, notably al-Abi (d. 422/1030) in Nathr al- 
durar (MS Dar al-kutub) and al-Maydanl (d. 518/ 
1124) were to borrow material. In recording the 
term ahmak min Djuha, the latter quotes thite 
anecdotes and adds that Djuha was a member of 
the Banu Fazara bearing the kunya of Abu '1-Ghusn ; 
this is also mentioned in other works: the Nathr 
al-durar, the Sahdh (s.v.) by al-Djawhari (d. ca. 
400/1009), the Akhbdr al-hamkd wa -'l-mughajjalin 
(Damascus [1926]) by Ibn al-Djawzi (d. 597/1200), 
the c Uyun al-tawdrikh (Paris MS. 1588, s.a. 160) by 
Ibn Shakir al-Kutubi (d. 764/1363), the Haydt al- 
hayawdn (s.v. dddiin) by al-Damin (d. 808/1405), 
the Ifdmus (sub D.DJ.N., DJ.H.W., GH.S.N.), the 
Lisdn (sub GH.S.N.), the Mudhik al-'abus (anony- 
mous MS. Dar al-kutub, 5102 adab.). As for his 
name, it varies according to the source: Nuh, 
Dudjayn/al-Dudjayn b. Thabit (or b. al-Harith), 
finally c Abd Allah. None of them calls into question 
his historical existence: the Nathr al-durar makes 
him live more than a hundred years, and die at 
Kufa in the reign of Abu Dja'far al-Mansur (136-58/ 
754-75), and refers to a text, now lost, by al-Djahiz 
in which moreover was quoted a poem by 'Umar b. 
Abi Rabi'a (d. 93/712 ?) containing an allusion to 
Djuha (but this poem does not appear in the Diwdn 
of the poet) ; for his part, Ibn al-Djawzi, who under- 
takes the defence, asserts that he was simply scatter- 
brained (mughaffal) and that it was his neighbours, 
at whom he jested, who made up at his expense the 
stories which we know: he quotes among his con- 
temporaries Makkl b. Ibrahim (1 16-214 or 215/734- 
830 or 831; see Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, s.v.; the passage 
from Ibn al-Djawzi was taken up by the author of 
the Nuzhat al-udabd?; but the translation given in 
Fourberies [see Bibliography], 4-5, should be correct- 
ed), and some anecdotes actually connecting him 
with certain personnages of the first half of the 
2nd/8th century, particularly Abu Muslim and al- 
Mahdi. 

The biographers make mention of a traditionist of 
weak reputation, Abu '1-Ghusn Dudjayn b. Thabit 
al-Yarbu c I al-Basri, whose mother was a slave of the 
mother of Anas b. Malik [q.v.]; this tdbiH, who 
collected traditions from Anas, Aslam (mawld of 
'Umar), Hisham b. 'Urwa, and handed them down 
to Ibn al-Mubarak, Waki c , and even al-Asma'I, is 
said to have been called Djuha, so that he is some- 
times confused with our hero. Ibn Hadjar al- c Askalani 
(d. 852/1449) rejects such an identification (Lisdn 



al-mizdn, s.v. Dudjayn), but an earlier and clearer 
passage from al-Kutubl (op. cit.) hints at the solution 
to this problem: it says in effect that Dudjayn, 
surnamed Djuha, died in 160/777 but adds, according 
to Ibn Hibban, that two men, one the traditionist 
[of Basra] Dudjayn, and the other Nuh = Djuha 
[established at Kufa], have been confused because 
both died in 160. This coincidence is, to say the 
least, strange, and it is not impossible that the 
traditionist of Basra was a victim of the spite of the 
inhabitants of Kufa, but, until we are better informed, 
there is no reason to doubt the historic existence of 
Djuha, who might, moreover, have been called Abu 
'1-Ghusn Nuh al-Fazari. Some Shi c I authors regard 
Djuha as a Shi c i and consider him as a traditionist 
together with Abu Nuwas and Buhlul [qq.v.]; as a 
matter of fact, al-Astarabadhi, Minhddj al-makdl, 
Tehran 1888, 258, mentions a Musnad AH Nuwds 
wa-Diuhd wa-Buhlul . . . wa-md rawaw min al-hadith, 
which was in the hand of Abu Fans Shudja 1 al- 
Arradjani, d. 320/932 (cf. J. M. Abd-El-Jalil, Breve 
histoire de la litt. ar., Paris 1943, 169). 

Al-Suyuti (d. 911/1505), who must have had at 
his disposal sources inaccessible to us, saw in Djuha 
(in Kdmus) an open-hearted tdbiH and declared that 
most of the stories of which he is the hero are without 
foundation; this proves that the character was well 
known in Egypt, but throws no light at all on the 
problem which now presents itself; which is, that 
at an undetermined date towards the end of the 
Middle Ages there appeared among the Turks another 
symbolic figure who, under the name of Nasr al-DIn 
Khodja [q.v.], partially and at least locally took the 
place of Djuha. Indeed the first Arabic edition of 
the collection of anecdotes published in lithograph 
about 1880 at Bulak bore the unexpected title of 
Nawadir al-Khudid Nasr al-Din al-mulakkab bi- 
Djuha al-Rumi, and the Egyptians again turned 
Nasr al-DIn and Djuha into one and the same 

For R. Basset (in Fourberies, see Bibliography), 
this confusion arises from the fact that the primitive 
K. Nawadir Djuha was translated into Turkish in 
the gth/i5th or ioth/i6th century, and that this 
Turkish version, adapted and amplified, was in turn 
translated into Arabic in the nth/i7th century; 
if this latter assertion corresponds with reality, 
the first is not entirely accepted, and there is 
every reason for believing, with Christensen (see 
below), that the "follies" of Nasr al-DIn were an 
independent collection into which were incorporated 
the stories of Djuha which had been handed down 
orally. This problem, already complex enough, will 
be examined in the article nasr al-din. We should 
however note here that the introduction of the figure 
of Djuha among the Turks may have been accom- 
plished through the intermediary of Persia, where 
A. Christensen (Juki in the Persian Literature, in A 
Volume . . . presented to E. G. Browne, Cambridge 
1922, 129-36) discovered some early evidence of 
Djuha (Djuhi/ Djuhi), notably in the Mathnawi of 
Djalal al-DIn RumI (d. 672/1273) and the Bihdristdn 
of Djami (d. 898/1492). 

The method advocated by Christensen, consisting 
in the search for stories about Djuha in literature 
prior to the presumed appearance of Nasr al-Din, was 
recently applied independently and successfully by 
'Abd al-Sattar Ahmad Farradj, in his Akhbdr Djuha 
(Cairo n.d. [1954]). Taking advantage of the article 
nasr al-din in the EI 1 (by F. Bajraktarevii), he 
took as his starting point R. Basset's thesis, without, 
however, referring to the works of that distinguished 



HA 591 

orientalist, and attempted partially to restore the 
original K. Nawadir Djuha, by a searching analysis 
of early literary works in Arabic; he thus discovered 
about 166 anecdotes of which two-thirds (107) 
appeared in the edition of the collection of Nawadir 
Djuhd; of the other 241 anecdotes of this latter 
collection (which he had not immediately eliminated 
on account of their manifestly recent insertion), he 
counted 217 for which he could discover no early evi- 
dence, 17 in which Timur Lang (8th/i4th century) 
appeared, and finally 7 which contained Turkish 
words. From these figures, which are by no means 
final, two provisional conclusions may be drawn: the 
first, that the proportion of anecdotes attested at an 
early date is comparatively considerable (40%), and 
the second, that the additions of undoubted Turkish 
origin are rather few (6%). These proportions are 
given here only as an indication, for the published 
collection which served as a basis for the calculation 
is very far from containing all the stories in cir- 
culation under the name of Djuha which in fact belong 
largely to the world's folk-lore. Farradj moreover 
has not examined all the works, as a matter of 
fact the more recent, which contain further stories 
about Djuha, whether or not the name appears 
therein, in particular Ibn Hidjdja (d. 837/1434), 
Thamardt al-awrdk, Bulak 1300; al-Ibshihi (d. after 
805/1446), Mustatraf, Cairo n.d. ; al-Kalyubi, 
Nawadir, Cairo 1302 (see O. Rescher, Die Geschichten 
und Anekdoten aus Qalj&bi's Nawadir, Stuttgart 
1920); al-BalawI, K. Alif bd>, Cairo 1287; Nuzhat 
al-udabd', B.N. Paris MSS 6008, 6710. 

The jests of Djuha are known outside the Muslim 
world (see nasr al-dIn), and on the east coast of 
Africa they are attributed to Abu Nuwas [q.v.] but 
the character is popular in Nubia (Djawha), in 
Malta (Djahan), in Sicily and in Italy (Giufa or 
Giucca) and, with greater reason, in North Africa, 
where he was certainly introduced at an early period 
(al-Husri [d. 413/1022], Diarn* al-Djawdhir, Cairo 
1953. 82, knows that a wit of the 3rd/gth century, 
Abu 'l- c Abar, wore a ring on which was engraved 
"Djuha died on [a] Wednesday"; in the nth/i7th 
century Yusuf b. al-Wakil al-MIlawi wrote an Irshad 
man nahd ild nawadir Djuha, see L. Nemoy, Ar. 
MSS in the Yale Univ. Lib., New Haven 1956, 
no. 1203). Some vestiges certainly remain, in Arabic 
or Berber, of the primitive Arabic version, amplified 
doubtless by folk-lore elements from other sources. 
A. Moulieras (see Bibliography) has succeeded in 
mustering 60 "fourberies" in Kabyle, and some of 
them can be found in several studies of Berber dialec- 
tology (H. Stumme, Mdrchen der Berbern von Tamaz- 
ratt, Leipzig 1900, 39-40; R. Basset, Zenatia du Mzab, 
Paris 1892, 102, 109; idem, Recueil de textes .... 
Algiers 1887, 38; idem, Manuel Kabyle, Paris 
1887, 37*; B. Ben Sedira, Cours de langue kabyle, 
Algiers 1887, passim; S. Biarnay, Dial, berbere des 
Bet't'ioua du Vieil Arzeu, Algiers 1911, 130; E. Laoust, 
Dial, berbere du Chenoua, Paris 1912, 185, 190). The 
personality of the Berber Djuha formed the subject 
of a rather detailed analysis by H. Basset, Essai sur 
la littirature des Berberes, Algiers 1920, 170 ff., 
which for the greater part holds good for the Arab 
Djuha. In dialectal Arabic, most manuals reproduce 
some anecdotes (see especially F. Mornand, La vie 
arabe, Paris 1856, 115-24; F. Pharaon, Spahis et 
Turcos, Paris 1864, 174-210; Abderrahman Moham- 
med, Enseignement de V arabe parli . . ., Algiers '1913, 
1-28; AUaoua ben Yahia, Recueil de themes et versions, 
Mostaganem 1890, 1-66, passim; L. Machuel, Miihode 
pour Vttude de I'arabe parli, Algiers '1900, 210 ff ;. 



592 



DJUHA — DJUM'A 



references in H. Peres, L'arabe dialectal algirien et 
saharien, bibliographic . . ., Algiers 1958, m). For 
Morocco, there is a series in G. S. Colin, Chrestomathie 
marocaine, Paris" 1955, 87-114, and Recueil de textes 
en arabe marocain, Paris 1937, 15-26. The Moroccans 
claim that the authentic Djuha (2ha) was originally 
from Fas, where a road bears his name (L. Brunot, 
Textes arabes de Rabat, Paris 1931, 118); as opposed 
to this 2ha '1-Fasi, malicious and humorous, there 
are some secondary characters, also called 2ha, but 
who symbolize the gullible provincial. The Moroccans 
make a sharp distinction between their national and 
multiform 2ha and the "Egyptian" Djuha (Goha), 
confused in the printed collection with Nasr al-DIn. 
The Goha who was the hero of a tale by A. Ades 
and A. Josipovici, Le livre de Goha le simple, Paris 
n.d. [ca. 1916] has just (1959) made his appearance 
in the cinema in a film in two versions, Arabic and 
French, based on the above-mentioned novel and 
entitled Goha (although pronounced 2ha by the 
Tunisian actors). 

There the popular figure of Djuha can hardly be 
rediscovered. Of him al-Suyuti (in Kdmus) said: 
"No-one should laugh at him on hearing of the 
amusing stories told against him; on the contrary 
it is fitting that everyone should ask God to 
allow him to profit from the barakdt of Djuha [as 
a tdbiH]"; he was a little ingenuous, simple and 
sometimes clumsy, but at times singularly clever, 
later on, he appeared in many different aspects: 
rarely completely stupid, he was more often, under 
a foolish exterior, supremely cunning; he some- 
times assumed the demeanour of a simpleton only 
to hoax his fellows or to gull them and live at 
their expense, for parasitism was his life; his sham 
silliness was prompted by interest and his intentions 
were rarely honest. Fertile in expedients, capable, 
through his knack of doing the right thing, of 
extricating himself from the most delicate situations, 
he reminds us less of Gribouille than of Panurge and, 
by his "espiegleries", of Eulenspiegel. 

It is indeed strange that folklore has retained the 

name of Djuha from among so many figures who were 

at an early period proverbial among the Arabs and 

who are now forgotten; that it has gathered round 

his name a great part of the little stories of which 

they were the heroes, and that it has preferred him 

to all the professional humorists (see F. Rosenthal, 

Humour in early Islam, Leiden 1956) who flourished 

in the 2nd/8th and 3rd/gth centuries and vied with 

each other in inventing droll stories [see nadira]. 

Bibliography: The first Arab edition of the 

Nawddir was followed in 1299/1883 by the Nawddir 

Djuha, then by the Kissat Djuha, Beirut 1890, 

and by a series of popular editions in booklet form. 

A translation of the Turkish collection was 

elaborated by Hikmat Sharif al-Tarabulusi who 

published it under the title Nawddir Djuha al- 

hubrd, Cairo n.d.; also to be noted are Hasan 

Husnl Ahmad, Djuha, ta'rihhuh, nawadiruh, 

hikdydtuh, Hlmuh, khawdtiruh, falsa/atuh, Cairo 

1950; 'Ata 5 Allah Tarzi Pasha, Qiuha al-kddi, in 

al-Risdla, no. 993 (4 July, 1952). R. Basset has 

explained his thesis in an introduction to A. 

Moulieras, Les fourberies de Si Djeh'a, Paris 1892, 

1-79 and 183-7, which comprises a comparative 

and abundantly annotated table of the three 

versions, Turkish, Arabic and Berber; there are 

also some studies by the same author, published 

in the Revue des traditions populaires, as well as 

1001 Contes, rUits et legendes arabes, Paris 1924, i, 

passim, where some stories are translated. For 



translations, see Galland, Les paroles remar- 
quables, les bons mots et les maximes des Orientaux, 
Paris 1694, the works cited by R. Basset, in 
Fourberies, 12, and especially A. Wesselski, Der 
Hodscha Nasreddin, Weimar 191 1, 2 vols, and T. 
Garcia- Figueras, Cuentos de ?eha .. . , Jerez 1934. 
— see also the Bibliography of the article nasr 

AL-DIN. (CH. PELLAT) 

DJUHAYNA [see Supplement]. 
DJULAMARG [see colemerik]. 
al-EJULANDA (also al-Djulunda, according to 
TA and al-Isdba) b. MAS'tJD b. DJA'FAR b. al- 
CJULANDA was the chief of the Ibadi Azd in 
'Uman. During the caliphate of the Umayyad 
Marwan II al-Djulanda supported the claims of 'Abd 
Allah b. Yahya, known as Talib al-Hakk, who was 
defeated and killed in 129/747. When the 'Abbasids 
came to power the Ibadis tried to assert their in- 
dependence in 'Uman and elected al-Djulanda as 
their first imam, but in the year 134/752 al-Saffah 
sent an expedition under Khazim b. Khuzayma al- 
Tamimi against the Kharidjis in the 'Uman region. 
He first drove the Sufris out of Djazirat Ibn Kawan 
(Kishm [q.v.]); they took refuge in 'Uman where they 
were routed by al-Djulanda, so that when Khazim 
crossed to 'Uman he had only the Ibadis to subdue. 
They refused to pay homage to al-Saffah and 
resisted successfully until Khazim adopted the 
stratagem of setting fire to their hutments, thus 
causing them to abandon their positions and rush to 
save their women and children. In their panic they 
were cut down with an estimated loss of 10,000 men, 
including al-Djulanda. 

Bibliography: Tabari, iii, 1, 77-8; Ibn al- 
Athir, v, 346-7; Mas'udi, vi, 66-7; Ya'kubi, ii, 405 
(ed. Beirut i960, ii, 339); Ibn Kathir, x, 57; al- 
Salimi, Tuhfat al-a'ydn (1332), i, 66-72; Salil Ibn 
Razik, Imams and Sayyids of 'Oman (tr. G. P. 
Badger), 7-8; Sirhan b. Sa'id b. Sirhan, Kashf 
al-ghumma (tr. E. C. Ross as Annals of Oman), 
Calcutta 1874, 12. (W. 'Arafat) 

CJULFA (i) [see Supplement], (ii) [see Isfahan]. 
PJULUS [see khilafa, sultan, taklId-i sayf, 

Ta'rIKH]. 

DJUM'A (Yawm al-), the weekly day of com- 
munal worship in Islam. The only reference to it in 
the Kur'an, LXII, 9-1 1, clearly indicates that the 
is pre-Islamic, for v. 9 says: "When you are 
called to prayer on the day 0/ the assembly", and not 
the Prayer of the Assembly". The decisive proof 
the correctness of this interpretation is the fact 
: Ibn Ubayy read yawm al- c aruba al-kubrd for 
yawm al-djum'-a, the former being another pre- 
Islamic name for Friday, meaning eve of the Sabbath, 
cf. A. Jeffery, Text 0/ the Qur'dn, 1937, 170; R. 
Blachere, Le Coran, 1950, 825. 

The expression yawm al-dium'a, "the day when 
people come together", an exact equivalent of 
Hebrew (and Aramaic) yom hak-kenisa, designated 
the market day, which was held in the oasis of al- 
Madina on Friday, "when the Jews bought their 
provisions for the Sabbath", cf. Kashani, BaddV al- 
sanaH'-, Cairo 1327/8, i, 268 and Ibn Sa'd iii, 1, 83, 
where tdjhz (tadiahhazu) is to be read for ydjhr, as in 
Kashani. It is natural that the day preceding the 
weekly holiday of the Jews should have been chosen 
as the market day in a place like Medina, which 
had a large Jewish population. Similarly, in Islam, 
Thursday served as a weekly market day all over 
Arabia, cf. H.St. J. Philby, Arabian Highlands, 1952, 
36, 130, 233, 274-5, 387, 485-7, 597. Friday as market 
day is well attested in pre-Islamic Jewish literature, 



cf. S. Krauss, Talmudische Archaeologie, Leipzig ic 






5 340. 



According to the unanimous testimony of the 
ancient Muslim sources, no Friday service was held 
in Mecca, cf., e.g., al-Tabari, i, 1256. However, even 
before Muhammad arrived in Medina, the Muslims 
convened there for public worship, but it was 
Muhammad who ordered that it should be observed 
regularly on "the day when the Jews prepared for 
their Sabbath", cf. Ibn Sa c d, quoted above, and 
parallel sources. The Jewish and Christian institutions 
of a weekly day of public worship might have served 
as an example in general, as suggested by al-Kastal- 
lanl, ii, 176. However, the reference to the Jews in 
the ancient account of the inauguration of the Friday 
service betrays no particular dependence on Judaism, 
nor a polemical tendency against the older religions 
— two assumptions in vogue in modern research on 
the subject, cf. D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed, 1905, 
248-9, M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet 1957, 
522, and the works of Wensinck, Buhl and Watt 
quoted in the bibliography. It was Muhammad's 
practical wisdom, which decided for Friday, as in 
any case on that day the people of the widely 
dispersed oasis dwellings of Medina gathered 
regularly for their weekly market. 

This origin of the Friday service explains one of 
its most puzzling aspects: It is held at noon, a very 

dissolved early in the afternoon, see, for Arabia, 
e.g., Philby, Arabian Highlands 234. In classical 
times, aY°P% SiAXuck;, the breaking up of the 
market, was a term designating the early afternoon, 
Liddell and Scott s.v. Thus noon was the reasonable 
time for the public prayer. 

The admonition of the Kur'an, not to leave the 
prayer and to run after business and amusement, 
LXII, 11, is to be understood against this back- 
ground. The people of Medina were farmers, not 
business men; but Friday was their market day, on 
which also, as everywhere at fairs, amusements were 
provided. 

The main feature of the Friday service is the 
khutba [q.v.~], a sermon, the preacher of which holds 
in his hand a rod or sword or lance. These were 
originally, as C. H. Becker has pointed out, the 
insignia of the pre-Islamic judges. Market days 
provide a natural opportunity for people gathered 
there to settle their law suits. Philby describes the 
sitting of the judges on the weekly markets and the 
same custom prevailed in the Greek world and on 
the yom hak-kenisa of the ancient Jews. The ancient 
epithet yawm al-harba "the Day of the Lance", see 
TA, i, 206, s.v. hrb, may have had its origin in this 
aspect of the yawm al-djum'-a. However, the bio- 
graphies of the Prophet do not seem to stress that 
he preferred Friday over other days for sitting as 
a judge. 

From its very inception the Friday service had a 
political connotation. In early Islam it was a proof 
that the participants had joined the Muslim com- 
munity; later on, it implied a manifestation of 
allegiance to the caliph or governor who conducted 
the service, or whose name was mentioned in the 
sermon. This religio-political background explains 
why attendance at the Friday service — as opposed to 
the daily prayer — is a duty incumbent on all male, 
adult, free, resident Muslims; why, according to the 
Shafi c Is and many others, it should, if feasible, be 
held only in one mosque (the djdtni') in each town; 
and why it required a minimum attendance of 40 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



593 



the Shafi'is, or at least a sizeable 
number according to others. 

The fully developed Friday ceremonial consists of 
an adhdn, which is proclaimed inside the mosque, a 
khutba, which is said in two sections, during which the 
preacher is standing up, interrupted by an interval, 
during which he is required to sit down, and a saldt, 
consisting of two rak'as, which follows the sermon. 
Usually, a saldt of two rak'as is performed also before 
the khutba. According to C. H. Becker, some of 
these features follow the pattern of the mass in the 
ancient Oriental churches. 

The yawm al-ajum'a is not a day of rest. According 
to Malik, the ashdb disapproved of the practice of 
some Muslims who refrained from doing work on 
Friday in imitation of the Jewish and Christian 
weekly holidays (al-Tartushi, K. al-Hawddith, Tunis 
!959. 133). In general, the Sabbath institution is 
foreign to Islam (for a socio-economic explanation of 
this difference between Islam and the older religions 
cf. S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs, New York 1955, 
39-40). Still we have reports about government 
offices and schools being closed on Fridays in 
c Abbasid times, and a query addressed to Maimonides 
around 1200 speaks about Jewish and Muslim 
partners in a jewellery workshop, who replaced one 
another on Fridays and Saturdays (cf. Moshe ben 
Maimon, Responsa, Jerusalem 1934, 62). In modern 
times most Muslim states have made Friday an 
official day of rest. Turkey has chosen Sunday, 
while in Pakistan Friday is a half-holiday, Sunday 
a full day of rest. 

As a holiday, Friday is honoured by special food 
— already referred to in the Hadith— and better 
clothing. The night preceding it is set aside for the 
fulfilment of matrimonial duties, to be followed 
on Friday morning by a bath, as well as perfuming. 
The Sabbath should be a foretaste of the world 
to come, where the righteous are granted the beatific 
vision of God. This idea, prevailing in ancient 
Judaism, was enormously expanded — or perhaps 
developed independently — by Islamic mysticism and 
religious folklore. In Heaven, Friday is called yawm 
al-mazid, the day of Allah's special bounty (cf. 
Sura L, 35). On it, Allah sends to each of the pious 
Muslims in Paradise an apple. When they take the 
apple in their hands, it splits in two, and out steps a 
beautiful maid with a sealed letter containing a 
personal invitation from Allah. Soon the general 
move of those who are thus invited begins. The men 
on horseback, the women in litters, the men led by 
Muhammad, who is accompanied by Adam, Moses 
and Jesus, the women led by Fatima and other 
women saints, all move towards the Holy Enclosure, 
where a gorgeous meal, described with glowing 
details, awaits them. At its conclusion the pious call 
on Allah asking Him to show them His face. Allah 
lifts His veil and reveals Himself to them (cf. al- 
Tabarl, Tafsir, 1326, xxvi, 108; Abu Talib al-Makki, 
Kut al-kulub, i, 72; Abu '1-Layth al-Samarkandi, 
Kurrat al- c uyun, 130-1 and the extensive literature 
quoted in S. D. Goitein, Beholding God on Friday, 
in IC, xxxiv, i960, pp. 63-8). 

Bibliography: in addition to that indicated 
in the article: The chapters on Djum'a in the 
collections of Hadith and Fikh; Dimishkl, Rahmat 
al-umma fi-'khtildf al-aHmma, Bulak 1300, 29 ff.; 
C. H. Becker, Zur Geschichte des islamischen 
Kultus in Isl., iii, 1912: now in Islamstudien, 
Leipzig 1923, i, 472-500); idem, Die Kanzel im 
Kultus des alien Islam in Noldeke-Festschrift, 1906, 
i, 33i-5i: now in Islamstudien, i, 450-71); I. 



DJUM'A — DJUMHORIYYA 



Goldziher, Die Sabbath-institution im Islam 
{Gedenkbuch fur David Kaufmann, 86-105); Fr. tr. 
Bousquet, in Arabica, vii (i960), 237-40; idem, 
Islamisme et Parsisme (RHR, xliii, 1901, 27 ft.); 
idem, Muh. Stud., ii, 40-4; idem, ZDMG, xlix, 
1895, 315; E. W. Lane, Manners and customs of 
the modern Egyptians, chap, iii; A. J. Wensinck, 
Mohammed en de Joden te Medina, 1908, noff. 
(Fr. tr. in RA/r., 1954); Frants Buhl, Das Leben 
Muhammeds, Leipzig 1930, 214-5; W. Mont- 
gomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina, Oxford 
1956, 198; Muhammad Hamidullah, Le prophete 
de V Islam, Paris 1959, 115, 681; S. D. Goitein, 
Le culte du Vendredi musulman; son arriere-plan 
social et economique, in Annates, Economies, SocUUs, 
Civilisations, 1958, 488-500; idem, The origin and 
nature of the Muslim Friday worship, in MW 1959, 
183-95. (S. D. Goitein) 

EJUMADA [see ta'rIkh]. 
AL-EJUMAIJi [see ibn sallam]. 
DJUMBLAT [see djanbulat]. 
EJUMHURIYYA, in Turkish djumhuriyyet, 
republic, also republicanism, a term coined in Turkey 
in the late 18th century from the Arabic djumhur, 
meaning the crowd, mass, or generality of the people, 
and first used in connexion with the first French 
Republic. In classical Arabic, as for example in 
Arabic versions and discussions of Greek political 
writings, the usual equivalent of the Greek iroXixeia 
or Latin res publica, i.e., polity or commonweal, was 
madina; thus, the 'democratic polity' of Plato's 
classification is called, by FarabI and others, madina 
djamd'-iyya (FarabI, Ard' ahl al-madina al-fddila, 
ed. Dieterici, Leiden 1895, 62; E. I. J. Rosenthal, 
Political thought in medieval Islam, Cambridge 1938, 
136, 278; F. Rosenthal, The Muslim concept of 
freedom, Leiden i960, 100-1). According to the law 
as stated by the Sunni jurists, the Islamic polity 
itself was to be headed by a non-hereditary, elective 
sovereign, subject to and not above the law (see 
khilafa). This principle has led some 19th and 20th 
century writers to describe the Islamic doctrine of 
the Caliphate as republican (e.g., Namik Kemal in 
Hiirriyyet, 14 September 1868, cited by Serif Mardin, 
The genesis of Young Ottoman political thought, Prince- 
ton 1962, 296-7; Agaoghlu Ahmed, in Khildfet wemilli 
hdkimiyyet, Ankara 1339 [= 1923], 22 if.; Rashid 
Rida, Al-Khilafa, Cairo 1341, 5, tr. in H. Z. Nuseibeh, 
The ideas of Arab nationalism, Cornell 1956, 125). 
Others, perhaps under the influence of recent 
developments in the use of the term, have gone 
further, and described the government of the patri- 
archal caliphs as a republic. In the more technical 
sense of a state in which the head holds his place 
by the choice of a defined electorate exercised 
through prescribed legal processes, the term republic 
seems to have no precise equivalent in classical 
Islamic usage. Such states existed and were encount- 
ered in Europe, in Ragusa, Venice and other Italian 
city republics. Arabic seems to have used no special 
term for them; thus Kalkashandi, speaking of the 
government of Genoa, calls them a djamd'-a mutafd- 
witii 'l-mardtib; for Venice he speaks only of the 
Doge (Subh, viii, 46-8). Turkish used djumhur. 
Perhaps this was the word chosen by the dragomans 
of the Porte as equivalent, for official usage, to the 
Latin res publica. Thus, Venedik Djumhuru was the 
formal translation of 'Republic of Venice'. Even so, 
the word djumhur was comparatively rare in the 
sense of republic; more commonly the Turks, in 
their letters to Venice and their discussions of 
Venetian affairs, preferred to speak of the Doge 



(Venedik Dozhu) or Signoria (Venedik Beyleri) 
rather than of the Republic. 

The word djumhur took on new life after the 
French Revolution, when it was used in Turkish to 
denote the French Republic as well as other republics 
— some of them on the borders of Turkey — that were 
formed on the French model. In Egypt, some of the 
translators attached to General Bonaparte's expedi- 
tion, groping for an Arabic equivalent for republic, 
chose mashyakha (cf. J. F. Ruphy, Dictionnaire 
abrege francais-arabe, Paris, an X [1802], 185). This 
term is recorded by some subsequent Arabic lexi- 
cographers, and was used of the French Republic by 
Haydar al-Shihabi (d. 1835: Lubndn ft c ahd al- 
umard* al-Shihdbiyyin Beirut 1933, ii, 218-9 e tc.) 
and others. It was not, however, confirmed by sub- 
sequent usage. The documents of the French occu- 
pation of Egypt, as cited by Haydar himself (ii, 
222-4) and by Nikula al-Turk (cited op. cit. 213 n. 1) 
and al-Djabarti ( c AdjdHb, iii, 5, etc.; Mazhar al-takdls, 
ed. Cairo n.d. i, 37) prefer the Ottoman term djumhur, 
and speak of al-Djumhur al-Faransdwi. 

The modern word djumhuriyya — which is simply 
djumhur with an abstract ending — was coined, like 
many other Islamic neologisms, in Turkey, the first 
Islamic state to encounter the ideas, institutions, 
and problems of the modern world, and to seek and 
find new terms to denote them. It was at first used 
as an abstract noun denoting a principle or form of 
government, and meaning republicanism rather than 
republic, the usual term for which was still djumhur 
(see for example c Atif Efendi's memorandum of 1798, 
in Djewdet, Ta'rikh 2 , vi, 395, speaking of 'equality 
and republicanism' — musdwdt we-djiimhuriyyet; the 
documents on the Septinsular republic (DiezdHr-i 
Seb'a-i Mudjtemi'-a Djumhuru) of 1799 published by 
I. H. Uzuncarsili in Belleten, i, 1937, 633, — djum- 
huriyyet wedjhile idjtimd'-; the despatches of Halet 
Efendi from Paris in E. Z. Karal, Halet Efendinin 
Paris Buyiik Elciligi (1802-06), Istanbul 1940, 35;cf. 
'Asim, Ta'rIkh, i, 61-2, 78-9, and the Turkish trans- 
lation of Botta's Storia d'ltalia, Cairo 1249/1834, 
repr. Istanbul 1293/1876, passim. Shaykh Rifa'a Rafi c 
al-Tahtawi (Talkhis al-ibriz), Bulak 1834, Ch. 5 = 
Cairo ed. 1958, 252-3) uses djumhuriyya in both 
senses). From Turkey the term spread to the Arabs, 
Persians, Indians, and other peoples, and was used 
in the new political literature inspired by western 
liberal and constitutional ideas. In the 19th century 
republic and democracy were still regarded as 
broadly synonymous terms, and the same words 
were often used for both. It is instructive to 
trace the renderings of the terms democracy and 
republic in the 19th century dictionaries from English 
or French into Arabic, Turkish etc. Bocthor (1828) 
translates the two terms by Kiydm al-ajumhur bi 
'l-hukm and djumhur or mashyakha; Handjeri (1840) 
by hukumat al-ajumhur al-nds [sic] and djumhur; 
Redhouse (i860) translates democracy as djiimhur 
or djumhuriyyet usulu, republic as djumhur, and 
republicanism as djumhuriyyet. Zenker (1866) and 
Sami Frasheri (1883) already identify djumhuriyyet 
with republic. In Urdu the same word, with a minor 
variation, has served both for democracy (djum- 
huriyyat) and republic (djumhuriyya). 

Republican ideas are rarely expressed in the 
writings of the 19th century Muslim liberals, even 
the most radical of whom seem to have thought in 
terms of a constitutional monarchy rather than a 
republic. Even where the terms djumhuri and 
djumhuriyya do occur, they often connote popular 
and representative rather than republican govern- 



DJUMHORIYYA — DJUMHORIYYET khalk FlRKASl 



595 



ment (see for example the instructive comments of 
c Ali Su'awi in 1876 on the 'true meaning' of djumhur, 
cited in M. C. Kuntay, Ali Suavi, Istanbul 1946, 95, 
tr. in S. Mardin, op. cit., 382-3. It is probably in this 
sense that the term is used of the Lebanese peasant 
rebels led by Tanyfls Shahin: see Yflsuf Ibrahim 
Yazkak, Thawra wa-fitna fi Lubndn, Damascus 1938, 
87; Eng. trans. M. H. Kerr, Lebanon in the last years 
of feudalism . ., Beirut 1959, 53 ; cf. Ralf al-Khuri, 
Al-fikr aV-arabl al-hadith, Beirut 1943, 94). During 
the 20th century, however, republicanism developed 
rapidly. The first republics to be established were in 
the Muslim territories of the Russian Empire, when 
the temporary relaxation of pressure from the centre 
after the revolutions of 1917 allowed an interval of 
local experimentation. In May 1918, after the 
dissolution of the short-lived Transcaucasian Fede- 
ration, the AdharbaydjanI members of the former 
Transcaucasian parliament, together with the 
Muslim National Council, declared Adharbaydjan 
an independent republic — the first Muslim republic 
in modern times. In April 1920 it was conquered by 
the Red Army, and a Soviet Republic formed. The 
same pattern was followed by the Bashkirs and other 
Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire, who set up 
their own national republics, all of which were in due 
course taken over and reconstituted by the Com- 
munists, and incorporated, in one form or another, 
in the U.S.S.R. 

The first Muslim republic to be established outside 
the Russian Empire seems to have been the Tripo- 
litanian Republic, proclaimed in November 1918 by 
Sulayman Pasha al-Barunl [q.v.] (documents in 
C A. K. Ghara'iba, Dirasdt fi ta'rikh Ifrikiya al- 
'Arabiyya, Damascus i960, 105 ff.), and later in- 
corporated in the Italian colony of Libya. The first 
independent republic to remain both independent 
and a republic was that of Turkey, proclaimed on 
29 October 1923 (for texts and debates see A. S. 
Goziibuyuk and S. Kili, Turk Anayasa metinleri, 
Ankara 1957, 95 f.; K. Anburnu, Millt Miicadele ve 
inkildplarla ilefli kanunlar, i, Ankara 1957, 32 ff.; 
cf. E. Smith, Debates on the Turkish constitution of 
1924, in Ankara Univ. Siyasat Bilg. Fak. Derg., xiii 
(1958}, 82-105). In Syria-Lebanon republican ideas 
were current in some circles at an earlier date, and 
the forms of government set up by the French 
as mandatory power were generally repubb'can in 
tendency. The republics were not, however, formally 
constituted until some years later; Greater Lebanon 
was proclaimed a republic on 23 May 1926, Syria 
on 22 May 1930. 

The ending of West European colonial rule in 
Islamic lands after the second World War brought 
several new republics into being. The republic of 
Indonesia was proclaimed in August 1945 ; Pakistan, 
independent since 1947, introduced a new theme by 
declaring an 'Islamic Republic' in November 1953. 
In Africa, the Sudan became a republic on attaining 
independence in January 1956; Tunisia, already 
independent, abolished the monarchy and proclaimed 
a republic in May 1959. Among the older Arab states 
in the Middle East two new republics were established 
after the revolutionary overthrow of the existing 
monarchical regimes — in Egypt in June 1953, in 
'Irak in July 1958. A union of Egypt and Syria, 
called the United Arab Republic {al-Djumhuriyya 
aW-Arabiyya al-Muttahida) was formed in February 
1958 and dissolved in September 1961. The name 
United Arab Republic has been retained by Egypt. 
An anti-monarchist revolution began in the Yemen in 
September 1962. At the present time the majority 



of Muslim states are called republics, though the 
common designation covers a wide variety of 
political realities. 

Bibliography: given in the article. On the 
idea of freedom see hurriyya; on political thought 
in general, see siyasa; on constitutions see dustur; 
on parliamentary government, see madjlis; on 
revolutionary and insurrectionary movements, 









nizam c askarI; on socialism, see ishtirakiyya; 

on the case-histories, see the articles on the 

individual countries. (B. Lewis) 

DJCMHURIYYET KHALK FlRKASl (modern 
Turkish Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Republican 
People's Party), the oldest political party in the 
Turkish Republic, was organized by Mustafa Kemal 
[Atatiirk] in Ankara on n September 1 339/1923. It 
was successor to the Society for the Defence of Rights 
of Anatolia and Rumelia (Anadolu ve Rumeli 
Muddfa'a-i Hukuk DjemHyyeti) the organization 
formed by Kemal in 1919 as the political instrument 
to fight the War of Independence. The party's 
original name was Khalk Firkasi. On 10 November 
1 340/1924 the name was changed to Djumhuriyyet 
Khalk Firkasi, and at the 4th National Congress in 
'935, in connexion with the language modernization 
programme, became the Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi 
(CHP). 

Few exact membership figures for the party are 
available. Membership in 1948 was estimated at 
1,898,000, or about 10% of the population. 

The party is organized vertically beginning with 
the branch (ocak) in villages, localities and sub- 
divisions of towns and cities. The number of these 
local branches was estimated in 1950 to be about 
23,000. The organization continues at the county 
(nahiye), district (kaza), and province (vildyet) levels, 
and culminates in the national organization with 
head-quarters in Ankara. The party is headed by a 
General Chairman (Genel Baskan), a post occupied 
from 1923 to 1938 by Atatiirk, and since that time 
by ismet inonii. In 1927 Atatiirk was made "un- 
changing" (degismez) General Chairman, and after 
his death the Special National Congress of 1939 
proclaimed him "eternal" (ebedi) General Chairman. 
Most of the actual work of the party, however, is 
directed by the General Secretary. General Secre- 
taries have included Recep Peker (1923-5 and 
1931-6); Sukrti Kaya (1936-8); Refik Saydam 
(1938-9); Dr. Fikri Tuzer (1939-42); Memduh Sevket 
Esendal (1942-5); Nafi Atuf Kansu (1945-7); Tevfik 
Fikret Silay (1947-50); Kasim Giilek (1950-9); 
Ismail Rustu Aksal (1959-62); and Kemal Satir 
(1962 — ). The National Congress meets periodically 
to make general policy and elect a 40-member 
Executive Committee. Fifteen regular Congresses 
were held between 1919 and 1961. The Sivas 
Congress of the Defence of Rights Society in 1919 is 
generally called the first Congress of the party. In 
addition there were special Congresses in 1939 and 
1946. The 2nd National Congress in 1927 was the 
occasion of Ataturk's Six-Day Speech (Buyuk Nutuk). 

Party organization has vacillated from time to 
time between tendencies toward more or less cen- 
tralization. In the 1920's the national organization 
controlled its branches tightly through a network of 
Inspectors and sub-Inspectors. In 1930 maximum 
authority and responsibility were given to local and 
provincial party officials. The period of greatest 
centralization was between 1936 and 1939 when the 
Interior Minister was concurrently CHP General 
Secretary, and governors of the provinces were also 



596 



DJCMHORIYYET khals FlRKASl 



CHP chairmen in their provinces. Since 1950 law as 
well as political expediency has resulted in consi- 
derable decentralization, though policy and party 
discipline remain in the hands of the national 
organization. 

From 1923 to 1946 the CHP was the sole party in 
the Grand National Assembly, except for two 
occasions when opposition was permitted but then 
eliminated after short periods. The oppositions were 
the Republican Progressive Party (Terakkiperver 
Diumhurivvet Firkasi) of 1924, composed of a group 
of prominent conservatives who split off from the 
CHP when Atatiirk began his personal direction and 
domination. The Progressive Party was closed by 
the government in 1925 in reaction to a resurgence 
of conservative sentiment in the country. In 1930 
another attempt at opposition took place when 
Atatiirk persuaded several close friends to form the 
Free Party (Serbest Firka), but this party also was 
dissolved after three months when it became the 
rallying ground for counter-revolutionary groups. 
Neither of these parties contested a general election. 
After the failure of the Free Party Atatiirk introduced 
several "independent deputies" into the 1931 and 
1935 Assemblies. They were to criticize and to be 
free of party discipline, but not to organize as an 
opposition or oppose basic aspects of the CHP 
program. By 1939, these independents were limited 
to a token representation of non-Muslim minorities. 
In addition the 1939 party Congress decided on the 
formation of an Independent Group of 21 members 
selected from among the already-elected CHP 
deputies. In the 7th Assembly in 1943 the size of the 
Independent Group was increased to 25. The In- 
dependent Group was abolished by the Special 
National Congress of 1946 when it was decided to 
permit opposition parties. Following the 1946 
election a group of 35 young CHP deputies (the 
Otuzbefler) rebelled against the policies of the Prime 
Minister Recep Peker, but did not leave the party. 

In 1945 opposition parties were again allowed, and 
four CHP deputies, Celal Bayar, Adnan Menderes, 
Refik Koraltan and Fuat Koprulii formed the 
Demokrat Parti [q.v.]. In 1946 an election was held 
before the Democrats had time to organize in more 
than a few provinces, and the CHP retained a 
heavy majority. In 1950, however, the Democratic 
Party won a majority, and the CHP went into 
opposition. In the 1954 election the CHP strength 
was reduced to 21, but in 1957 it again increased 
to 178. Following the overthrow of the Menderes 
government by the army in i960, three opposition 
parties arose to compete with the CHP in the 1961 
election, in which the CHP received 36.7% of the 
vote and returned 173 members to the 450-man 
Assembly, and 36 to the newly-created 150-man 
Senate of the Republic. The CHP leader Ismet 
Inonii was appointed to head a coalition cabinet. The 
CHP's Assembly strength after each election since 
1923 has been as follows: 

Assembly 2 (1923) : all CHP. 

Assembly 3 (1927): all CHP. 

Assembly 4 (1931): CHP 290, Independents 8. 

Assembly 5 (1935): CHP 390, Independents 9. 

Assembly 6 (1939): CHP 404, Indep. Group 21, 

Assembly 7 (1943) : CHP 416, Indep. Group 25, 

Independents 4. 
Assembly 8 (1946) : CHP 397, others 68. 
Assembly 9 (1950): CHP 67, others 420. 
Assembly 10 (i954>: CHP 31, others 510. 



Assembly 11 (1957): CHP 178, others 432. 
Assembly 12 (1961): Assembly: CHP 173, others 

277; Senate: CHP 36, 

others 114. 

The Nine Principles {Dokuz c Umde) proclaimed 
by the Defence of Rights Society in April 1923 were 
adopted by the CHP that September as its first 
programme. Its points proclaimed that sovereignty 
belongs unconditionally to the nation, that full 
authority is granted to the Grand National Assembly, 
and outlined political, social, and economic reforms 
to be undertaken. When Atatiirk brought into the 
open his plans for rapid and radical transformation 
of the Turkish nation, the programme was expanded 
to include the principles which in 1931 became the 
Six Arrows (Alh Ok), Republicanism, Nationalism, 
Secularism (Ldikhk), Populism {Halkfihk), Etatism 
(Devletfthk), and Revolutionism {inkildpcihk). In 
1938 the Six Arrows were incorporated into Article 2 
of the Constitution, and all except Etatism and 
Revolutionism were carried over into the Constitu- 
tion of the 2nd Republic in 1961. Secularism has'been 
one of the points of greatest emphasis in the CHP 
program, and was one of Atatiirk's major interests. 
Its implications of rapid and radical change in the 
lives of the great majority of Turks have made 
specific policies for its application a major area of 
controversy among Turkish political parties, though 
all accept the secularization of political life as a 
principle. Revolutionism has been taken to mean 
various things from an acceptance of the Atatiirk 
reforms to a spirit of continuous rapid and radical 
change until westernization is complete. Populism at 
the least means equality of all citizens before the 
law, and usually is taken to include the principle 
of majority democracy as well. One of the prin- 
ciples which most distinguishes the CHP from 
other parties is etatism, i.e., a major role for the 
state in economic development. Most authorities 
agree that it was necessary in the 1920's and 1930's, 
but all of Turkey's other political parties contend 
that it is no longer needed today. The six principles 
remain at the head of the CHP programme, but 
since the beginning of the multiparty period in 
1946 there have been tendencies to modify the more 
extreme policies for their implementation. 

In 1931 the CHP abolished the Turkocagi national 
cultural organization and instead began creation of 
a series of People's Houses (Halkevleri) and People's 
Rooms {Halkodalan) throughout the nation to serve 
as centres of education and community activity. 
Their programmes included practical education in 
agricultural, home-making, and literacy skills; 
political education in the principles of secular, 
Republican politics; sports activities, cinemas, 
concerts, lectures, and libraries; and attempts to 
strengthen physical and social-psychological links 
between urban and village populations. In 1950 there 
existed 478 Halkevleri and 4,322 Halkodalan. Wholly 
owned by CHP, the Halkevleri became involved in 
political controversy during the multiparty period 
after 1946, and were closed by the Democratic 
Party regime. 

The CHP has published the proceedings of most 
of its Congresses, as well as numerous reports of 
programmes and activities. In the 1930's the 
Halkevleri published a regular monthly magazine 
Vlkti, and local Halkevi publications abounded. The 
CHP central office today includes a Research 
Bureau which publishes analyses of political, social 
problems. The party has published 



DJUMHORIYYET KHALK FlRKASl — DJONAGARH 



597 



its own daily newspaper in Ankara since 1920 under 
the name Hdkimiyyet-i Milliyye ("National Sove- 
reignty"), and later as Ulus ("The Nation"). 

Bibliography : Tarik Z. Tunaya, Ttirkiye'de 
siyast partiler, Istanbul 1952, 540-605; Turkiyede 
siyast dernekler (vol. ii only), Ankara 1951; Kemal 
H. Karpat, Turkey's politics, Princeton. N. J., 
!959, 393-4o8; Bernard Lewis, The emergence of 
modern Turkey', London 1962, passim; Donald E. 
Webster, The Turkey of Ataturk, Philadelphia 1939; 
CHP Buyuk Kurultayi Zabitlari, 1927, 1931, 1935, 
1939, 1943, 1947; CHP X [XV, XXV] Ytl Kita- 
plari, 1933 [1938, 1948]; Mustafa Kemal [Atatiirk], 
Nutuk, passim; Ataturk'un sbylev ve demecleri, i, 
Istanbul 1945; Inonii'niin sbylev ve demecleri. i, 
Istanbul 1946. (Walter F. Weiker) 

DJUMLA [see nahw] 

HIONAGARH, a city and (formerly) a princely 
State in India lying between 22° 44' and 21° 53' N. 
and 70 and 72° E., with an area of 3,337 sq. miles 
and a population of 670,719 in 1941, of whom some 
20% were Muslims. While otherwise contiguous with 
the Indian mainland, it is bounded on the west and 
south-west by the Arabian sea with the flourishing 
port of Veraval, 300 nautical miles from Karachi 
(Pakistan). It is dotted with a group of the sacred 
Girnar hills, housing a number of Djayn and Hindu 
temples of great antiquity. The edicts of Asoka are 
found inscribed on a rock in the gorge between the 
town of Djunagafh and the Girnar hills, pointing 
out unmistakably to the area being in ancient times 
thriving centre of Buddhism and forming a part of 
the Mawryan empire. The dense Gir forests are the 
only abodes of lions outside Africa; hence a favourite 
hunting ground for the nobility and native chiefs. 
The State also enshines within its boundaries the 
temple of Somnath, sacked and destroyed by Sultan 
Mahmud of Ghazna [q.v.]. 

The Mawryas were followed by the Bactrians and 
the Greeks with their seat of government at Djuna- 
gafh ( < Yavanagadha or Yavananagara, as is proved 
by the discovery of some Greek coins of Apollodotus 
at Bhadardaw). These foreigners in their turn were 
subjugated and expelled by the local Radjput chiefs 
who were still ruling the territory when Mahmud of 
Ghazna invaded Somnath Patan in 416/1025, con- 
quered the place, ruined the temple and destroyed 
the idol of Somnath. The victorious Sultan retreated 
to Ghazna leaving the place in the charge of a Muslim 
fawdjdar [q.v.], who was thereafter turned out by 
the Wadja Radjputs of the area. Kutb al-Din Aybak 
[q.v.] marched on Soraih (Skt. Sawrashtra = Kathiy- 
awaf including Djunagafh) after conquering Anhil- 
wafa [q.v.] in 593/"94, but it was no more than a 
plundering raid. Although during the next hundred 
years no Muslim ruler invaded the territory, it 
continued to be visited by Muslims from the North 
some of whom settled in the area. The Mai Gadici 
inscription dated 685/1284, discovered at Djunagafh. 
reveals that the place was the headquarters of a 
Muslim sadr (agent?), who supervised the departure 
of Muslim pilgrims to Mecca via the port of Balawal. 
In 697/1297 Almas Beg Ulugh Khan, a brother of 
'Ala 5 al-Din Khaldji, invaded Soraih, wrested 
Somnath from the Radjputs, and in a fit of fanaticism 
razed the already ruined temple to the ground. He, 
however, did not interfere with the Cawdasama 
Radjputs who were in control of Djunagafh. The 
historic temple seems to have been soon rebuilt, as 
it attracted the attention of Muhammad b. Tughluk 
[q.v.] who in 751/1350 invaded the territory and 
captured the fort of Djunagafh which then became a 



dependency of the suba of Gudjarat. During the 
reign of Firuz Shah Tughluk (752-89/1351-88), 
Shams al-DIn Abu Ridja>, ndHb of the ndzim of 
Gudjarat, established a thdna (post) in Djunagafh. 
It, however, appears that the local chiefs were not 
completely reconciled to the change as Zafar Khan, 
the ndzim of Gudjarat, who later proclaimed his 
independence in 810/1407, twice marched on Somnath 
in 797/1394 and 804/1401 in order to punish the 
refractory Radjputs, who continued to chafe under 
foreign rule until 871/1467 when the last ruler of the 
Cawdasama dynasty was defeated and ousted by 
Mahmud Begafa (863-917/1459-1511) of Gudjarat, 
who annexed Djunagafh to his territory. Mahmud 
Begafa had to mount another two punitive expedi- 
tions in 872/1468 and 874/1469-70 to suppress the 
revolt of the deposed Radjput ruler who regained 
much of his lost possessions. After a year of bitter 
fighting the Sultan was able to recover the fort of 
Djunagafh, terminating Hindu rule once and for all. 
The city was renamed Mustafabad and Sayyids, 
'■ulama', kadis and other notables mainly from 
Ahmadabad were invited to settle in the town. The 
ancient citadel called Oparkot was repaired and well- 
to-do people were persuaded to build large houses, 
mosques, public buildings, etc., thus adding to the 
glory of the town. The citadel-town of Oparkot 
continued to be called Djunagafh while the new 
town lower down was named Mustafabad, although 
this name was never popularly adopted. 

The sarkar of Djunagafh remained in the possession 
of the Sultans of Gudjarat till 999/1590 when it was 
conquered and annexed to the Mughal empire by 
the victorious armies of c Abd al-Rahlm Khan-i 
Khanan [q.v.]. As a part of the suba of Gudjarat it was 
controlled by fawdjddrs appointed by the ndzim. One 
such ndHb fawdjdr Shir Khan BabI, a man of Afghan 
stock, whose ancestors had migrated from the Kalat- 
Kandahar region to the plains of Hindustan in search 
of employment during the beginning of Mughal rule, 
taking advantage of the enfeeblement of the central 
authority, expelled the local fawdiddr Mir Dust c Ali 
and founded his independent dynasty in 1150/1737-8. 
A shrewd military commander, he successfully kept 
at bay the marauding bands of the Marathas, who 
in the glow of easy victories wanted to overrun the 
whole of Kaihiyawaf. During his rule of 20 years, 
marred by minor clashes with the Marathas, he con- 
solidated his position and firmly established his rule. 
On his death in 1 172/1758 he was succeeded by his son, 
Muhammad Mahabat Khan I, whose very first year 
of rule was marred by an abortive dynastic conspiracy 
to depose him. After a brief rule of 12 years he died 
in 1 184/1770 and was succeeded by his minor son, 
Muhammad Hamid Khan, all other rival claimants 
having fully recognized the title of the Shir Khan 
family to the rulership of the new principality. 

After an otherwise inconspicuous rule of 27 years, 
which witnessed the murder of the Diwan Amar-djI 
father of Ran66f-dji (see Bibl.), he died in 1226/1811. 
The East India Company entered into an engagement 
with the ruler of Djunagafh for the first time in 






t had I 



arrived at between Djunagafh and the vassal states 
of Manawadar and Mangrol and other taHukas, 
recognizing the overlordship of Djunagafh, regarding 
the amounts of zortalbi (tribute exacted by force), a 
relic of Muslim supremacy, due from the feudatory 
states etc., with the active intervention of the 
British Resident at Baroda. This incident, small in 
itself, throws ample light on the growing influence 
of the British in the internal affairs of even as 



598 



DJONAGARH — DJUNAYD 



remote a part of the country as Kathiyawaf, long 
before the final eclipse of the Mughal rule in 1857. 
In 182 1 the ruler of Djunagafh recognized the 
paramountcy of the East India Company, who 
undertook to collect zorfalbi on behalf of the ruler 
and pay it into his treasury. He died in 1840 and was 
succeeded by a minor son. 

Among the later rulers, Muhammad Rasul Khan 
(1892-1911) deserves special mention as a progressive 
and enlightened chief. It was during his rule that a 
colege, a library and museum, a modern hospital 
a water- works and an orphanage were established. 
Steps were also taken for the protection and preser- 
vation of the historic edicts of ASoka and the temple 
of Somnath was repaired at considerable expense to 
the State. On his death in 191 1, his son Muhammad 
Mahabat Khan being a minor, the administration of 
the State was taken over by the Government of 
India. On his attaining the age of maturity the 
prince, the ninth in succession and the last de facto 
ruler of Djunagafh, was invested with full powers in 
1920. According to the Attachment Scheme, in- 
troduced by the Government of India in 1943, the 
feudatory estates of Sardargafh and Bantwah and 
many other taHukas were attached to Djunagarh 
with a view to ensuring better administration. On 
the lapse of British paramountcy in August 1947 the 
State acceded to Pakistan. This was, however, 
disputed by the Government of India, and on the 
refusal of the ruler to retract his decision the State 
was occupied in November of the same year by 
Indian troops. The ruler, along with his family, took 
refuge in Pakistan (Karachi) where he died in i960. 
The accession and possession of Djunagafh are still 
(1962) the subject-matter of a dispute between India 
and Pakistan, which figures on the agenda of the 
Security Council of the United Nations. 

The chief city of the State, Djunagafh, is one of 
the most picturesque towns in India. Its ancient 
citadel, the Oparkot, is one of the strongest mountain 
fastnesses in the sub-continent. It has two large-size 
cannon dating back to the times of the Turkish 
Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent, brought to 
Djunagafh by gunners of foreign origin who were 
in the employ of the ruler. The town has a number 
of stately buildings, including the mausolea of the 
former rulers, their wives and the Minister Shaykh 
Baha> al-Din, which are fine specimens of a style 
of architecture similar to that of the Deccan, the 
dominant feature of which, however, is the flanking 

the style of the minaret of the mosque of Ibn Tulun, 
found nowhere else in the subcontinent. 

Bibliography: Rancof-dji Amar-dji, Ta'rikh-i 
Soralh or WakdV-i Soralh, Persian text still in 
manuscript, Eng. transl. Bombay 1882 (one of 
the earliest histories of Djunagafh by a native of 
the State, who like his father and brother was 
Diwan of Djunagafh. Many statements of the 
author are, however, not free from bias, as he 
suspected that in the murder of his father Diwan 
Amar-dji the ruler of the State was indirectly 
involved); 'AM Muhammad Khan, Mir'dt-i 
Ahmadi, (ed. Nawab Ali), Baroda 1928, i, 177-9', 
Sikandar b. Mandjhu, Mir'dt-i Sikandari, Bombay 
1308/1890, 71 ff., 87 if., 114; Ghulam Muhammad, 
Td'rlkh Mir'dt-i Mustafdbdd, Bombay 1931 (a 
detailed court-chronicle of Djunagafh, hence suffers 
from all those defects which are common to all 
court-historians); Imp. Gaz. of India, Oxford 1908, 
xiv, 236-9; Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency 
(Kathiawar), Bombay 1884, viii, 462 ft.; C. U. 



Aitchison, Collection of Treaties, Sanads etc., vi, 
90 ff., 168 ff.; J. Burgess, Report on the Antiquities 
of Kdfhidwdd and Kachh (Archaeological Survey 
of Western India), ii and xvi, 242 ff.; Nizam al-Din 
Ahmad, Tabakdt-i Akbari, Eng. transl. Bibl. Ind., 
index; H. Wilberforce-Bell, The history of Kdthi- 
dwdd, London 1916, 147, 156, 160-4, 192, 194; 
Bombay Government Selections no. 39; Col. Walker, 
Statistical account of Junagadh, Bombay 1808; 
J. W. Watson, A history of Gujarat (not available 
to me) ; V. P. Menon, The story of the integration 
of the Indian States, Calcutta 1956, 124-50 and 
index; Memoranda on the Indian States, Delhi 
1940; Indian Antiquary, iv, 74 ff.; Anon., Sahifa-i 
Zarfin, Lucknow 1902, i, 130 ft.; Anon., Who's 
Who in India, (Coronation ed.), Lucknow 1911, 
ii/vii, 7-8; Cambridge History of India, iii, 59, 64ft., 
70, 340; Commissariat, History of Gujarat, Bombay 
1938. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

EJUNAYD, shaykh, the 4th Safawid shaykh in 
line of descent from Shaykh Sail al-Din Ishak, the 
founder of the Safawid tarika, succeeded his father 
Ibrahim as head of the Safawid order at Ardabil in 
851/1447-8; the date of his birth is not known. 
Djunayd for the first time organized the Safawid 
murids on a military footing and, unlike his prede- 
cessors, clearly aimed at temporal power as well as 
religious authority. His political ambitions at once 
brought him into conflict with Djahanshah [q.v.], 
the Kara-Koyunlu ruler of Adharbaydjan, who 
ordered him to disband his forces and leave Kara- 
Koyunlu territory; if he failed to comply, Ardabil 
would be destroyed. Djunayd fled to Asia Minor, 
but the Grand Vizier Khalil Pasha dissuaded Sultan 
Murad II from granting him asylum in Ottoman 
territory. After staying successively in Karaman, 
with the Warsak tribe in Cilicia, and at Djabal 
Arsus in Syria, Djunayd was forced to flee northwards 
(Sultan takmak [q.v.] had ordered the governor of 
Aleppo to seize him ; this must have occurred before 
857/i453> the year of Cakmak's death), and went to 
Djanik [q.v.] on the Black Sea. After an unsuccessful 
attempt to capture Trebizond (860-1/1456), Djunayd 
went to Hisn Kayfa in Diyar Bakr and thence to 
Amid, where he spent three years (861-3/end of 1456 
to 1459) with the Ak-Koyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan 
[q.v.]. In 862-3/1458, or early 1459, Djunayd married 
Uzun Hasan's sister Khadidja Begam. The advan- 
tages of a political alliance outweighed the religious 
antipathy between the Shi'i Safawiyya and the 
Sunni Ak-Koyunlu; each saw the other as a useful 
ally against the Kara-Koyunlu who, doctrinally, 
were much closer to the Safawiyya. 

In 863/1459 Djunayd left Diyar Bakr and attempt- 
ed to recover Ardabil; threatened by superior Kara- 
Koyunlu forces, he decided on an expedition against 
the Circassians (autumn 1459). While crossing the 
territory of the Shirwanshah Khalil Allah b. Shaykh 
Ibrahim, he was attacked and killed near Tabarsaran 
on the banks of the river Kur on 11 Djumada I 
864/4 March 1460. 

Bibliography: The Persian and Turkish 
manuscript sources listed in W. Hinz, Irans 
Aufstieg zum N ationalstaat im fiinfzehnten Jahr- 
hundert, Berlin and Leipzig 1936, which contains 
the best and fullest account of Djunayd's life. 
For a discussion of the question whether Djunayd 
was the first Safawid shaykh to adopt the title 
sultan, see R. M. Savory, The development of the 
early Safawid state under Isma c il and Tahmdsp, 
unpublished University of London thesis, 1958, 
54-5. (R. M- Savory) 



DJUNAYD. last of the amirs of the family of the 
Aydin-oghlu [q.v.]. Djunayd who is given in the 
Ottoman sources the surname of Izmir-oghlu, 
succeeded for nearly a quarter of a century in 
prolonging the existence of the Aydin amirate 
through intrigues as clever as they were bold and 
by turning to account the dynastic wars between 
the sons of Bayezid I. The recent researches by 
Himmet Akin, whose efforts were directed mainly 
towards documents in Turkish archives, have helped 
to enrich the insufficient information from sources, 
and to shed light on the origins of this figure who 
has been unjustly called an adventurer. The son 
of Ibrahim Bahadur, Amir of Bodemya, and grandson 
of Mehmed Beg, founder of the Aydin amirate, 
Djunayd appears in history after the departure from 
Anatolia of Timur-Lang. In 804/1402 Timur had 
restored the Aydin amirate annexed in 792/1390 by 
Bayezid I, and returned it to the sons of c Is5 b. 
Mehmed, Musa, then Umur II. Djunayd and his 
brother Hasan Agha, who had been the kara-subashi 
of the upper fortress of Izmir (the fortress of the 
port, occupied since 744/1344 by the Knights of 
Rhodes, had been retaken in 804/1402 by Timur) 
during Ottoman rule, contended for power with their 
cousins and obtained respectively Izmir and Aya- 
soluk. But upon the death of Musa in 805/1403, 
Umur II sought the aid of his kinsman Menteshe- 
oghlu Ilyas Beg, who helped him to reconquer 
Ayasoluk and imprisoned Hasan Agha in Marmaris. 
Djunayd succeeded in arranging the escape of his 
brother who was brought to Izmir by boat, and then, 
thanks to the intervention of the former governor 
of the province of Aydin, Suleyman Celebi, who was 
proclaimed Sultan at Edirne he regained Ayasoluk 
and made peace with Umur II whose daughter he 
married. On the death of his father-in-law in 807/1405, 
he alone governed the amirate to which he had added 
Alashehir, Salihli and Nif. In the same year c Isa 
Celebi, whom Suleyman supported, came to Izmir 
to seek the help of Djunayd against his brother 
Mehmed; Djunayd brought into the war his neigh- 
bours, the amirs of Sarukhan, Menteshe, Teke and 
Germiyan, but in spite of their greater numbers, the 
allies were defeated by Mehmed; c Isa fled, while 
Djunayd asked for pardon and safeguarded his 
authority by submitting to the victor. The following 
year Suleyman led a campaign in Anatolia; Djunayd, 
allied with the Amirs of Karaman and of Germiyan, 
made preparations for resistance; but, fearing 
betrayal by this allies, he deserted their side to ask 
pardon of the sultan; Suleyman, who now mistrusted 
him, took him into Rumelia and made him governor 
of Ochrida. In 814/1411, however, Suleyman was 
killed in fighting his brother Musa, and Djunayd 
profited from the troubles of the interregnum and 
returned to Izmir, expelled the governor of Ayasoluk, 
appointed by Suleyman and reconquered his former 
amirate. But when Mehemmed I had triumphed 
over Musa and consolidated his power in Rumelia, 
he turned against Djunayd and took the fortresses 
of Kyma, Kayadjlk and Nif; then he besieged Izmir 
which had to surrender after ten days. Once more 
Djunayd asked pardon and won it; according to 
Turkish sources, the sultan granted him the region 
of Izmir after making him renounce the right to 
pronounce the khutba and to mint money. The 
Sultan, however, had to alter his decision for, 
according to Dukas' testimony, towards 818/1415 
Djunayd was sent to Rumelia and made governor of 
Nicopolis, while the province of Aydin was given to 
Alexander, son of Shishman, of the royal family of 



AYD 599 

Bulgaria, who was killed in 819/1416 during the revolt 
of Borkludje Mustafa. Djunayd, meanwhile, in his 
Danubian province, did not hesitate to get into 
contact with the pretender whom the Turkish 
historians call Mustafa Diizme [q.v.] and who was, 
according to Neshri and the Byzantine historians, 
the son of Bayezid I who had disappeared in the 
battle of Ankara. After seeking the aid of Byzantium 
and Venice, Mustafa had taken refuge with the prince 
of Wallachia, with the support of some Begs of 
Rumelia; he made Djunayd his vizier. In 819/1416, 
profiting from the troubles aroused in Anatolia by 
the religious propaganda of Shaykh Bedreddin (Badr 
al-DIn) and Borkludje Mustafa, and supported in 
part by Byzantium and Venice, Mustafa laid claim to 
the throne. But Mehemmed I, returning from 
Anatolia, concluded a treaty with Venice; Mustafa 
and Djunayd took refuge in Salonika where the 
Byzantine governor refused to deliver the fugitives 
to the Sultan who blockaded the town. Mehemmed I 
undertook to pay an annual allowance for the 
custody of the prisoners; Mustafa was interned on 
the isle of Lemnos, and Djunayd in the monastery 
of Pammakaristos, at Constantinople. But in 824/ 
1 42 1, on the death of Mehemmed, the emperor 
restored the prisoners to liberty. With the support 
of Byzantium, Mustafa had himself proclaimed 
sultan at Edirne and won to his cause all the Begs 
of Rumelia. In spite, however, of his promise to the 
Emperor, he refused to restore to him Gelibolu, 
taken with his assistance, and Byzantium turned 
against him. The meeting with Murad II took place 
at Ulubad (Lopadion) in 825/1422; by trickery, 
Murad induced the defection of the Rumelian Begs 
and promised to Djunayd the restitution of his 
former territory, if he abandoned the pretender's 
cause; Djunayd fled in the night and returned to 
Izmir where the population welcomed him with 
open arms. But not content with the region of 
Izmir, he expelled from Ayasoluk the son of Umiir II, 
Mustafa, who was subject to the Ottomans, and 
gradually reconquered the former amirate of Aydin. 
In 827/1424 Murad II turned against Djunayd; 
meaning to limit the possessions of the latter to 
the region of Izmir, he named as governor of the 
province of Aydin a renegade Greek, Khalll Yakhshi, 
who recaptured the towns of Ayasoluk and of Tire. 
But Djunayd did not stop raiding the Ottoman 
territories, and seized the sister of the new governor. 
Murad II sent against him a new army under the 
command of the son of Timurtash, Orudj, begler-begi 
of Anatolia; the region of Izmir was conquered, and 
Djunayd had to take refuge in the fortress of Ipsili, 
situated on the coast opposite Samos; he put to 
death his prisoner, the sister of Yakhshi. From 
Ipsili, Djunayd sent a petition to Venice, asking 
help for himself and for the son of Mustafa, brother 
of the Sultan Mehemmed, who was with him; but 
Venice did not respond to this appeal. Meanwhile, 
Orudj having died, his post was given to Hamza, a 
forceful man. In 828/1425 there was a new appeal 
from Djunayd to Venice and a request for assistance 
to the amir of Karaman, who did not reply. Djunayd's 
army, under the command of his son Kurt Hasan, 
was defeated in the plain of Ak Hisar (Thyatira), and 
Kurt Hasan was taken prisoner. On the other side, 
with the help of some Genoese from Phocea, Ipsili 
was attacked from the sea. Blockaded on two sides, 
Djunayd had to surrender; but although he had 
obtained a safeguard for his life, Yakhshi, to avenge 
his sister, put him to death, as well as Kurt Hasan 



DJUNAYD — al-DJUNAYD B. <ABD ALLAH 



and all the other members of his family. Such was 

the end of the Aydin-oghullari. 

Bibliography: Dukas, Bonn ed., 79-89, 96-7, 
103-21, 134, 139-56, 164-76, 189-96; Chalkokon- 
dyles, Bonn ed. 204, 223-6; 'Ashtkpashazade, ed. 
'All, Istanbul 1332, 96, 107-9; Neshri, edd. Unat 
and Koymen, ii, Ankara 1957, 445-51, 497-9, 555, 
557-63. 583-7; Sa'd al-Din, i, Istanbul 1279, 232-6, 
261-5, 306-15, 323-7; <Ali, KUnh al-akhbdr, v, 
Istanbul 1285, 156, 167-8, 198-9, '203; N. Iorga, 
Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, i, Gotha 1908, 
366-7, 369-74, 379-80, 384-6; Himmet Akin, 
Aydtn ogullan tarihi hakkmda bir arashrma, 
Istanbul 1946, 63-82, 113, 122-3, 141, 147, 159, 
174, 185, 202; I. H. Danismend, Izahh Osmanh 
tarihi kronolojisi, i, Istanbul 1947, 152-4, 156, 
157, 165-6, 171, 176, 181, 185-6, 191-3. 

(I. MeLIKOFF) 

al-EJUNAYD, Abu 'l-Kasim b. Muhammad b. 
al-Djunayd al-Khazzaz al-KawarIr! al-Niha- 
wandi, the celebrated Sufi, nephew and disciple 
of Sari al-Sakati, a native of Baghdad, studied law 
under Abu Thawr, and associated with Harith al- 
Muhasibi [?.».], with whom indeed he is said to have 
discussed during walks all kinds of questions relating 
to mysticism, Muhasibi giving his replies extempore 
and later writing them up in the form of books (Abu 
Nu'aym, fiilyat al-awliya', Leyden MS, fol. 284a). 
He died in 298/910. With Muhasibi he is to be 
accounted the greatest orthodox exponent of the 
"Sober" type of Sufism, and the titles which later 
writers bestowed on him — sayyid al-tdHfa ("Lord 
of the Sect"), td'us al-fukard> ("Peacock of the 
Dervishes"), shaykh al-mashdyikh ("Director of the 
Directors") — indicate in what esteem he was held. 
The Fihrist (186) mentions his RasdHl, which have 
in large measure survived, in a unique but frag- 
mentary MS (see Brockelmann, S I, 354-5). These 
consist of letters to private persons (examples are 
quoted by Sarradj, Kitdb al-luma'-, 239-43), and 
short tractates on mystical themes: some of the 
latter are cast in the form of commentaries on 
Kur'anic passages. His style is involved to the point 
of obscurity, and his influence on Halladj [q.v.] is 
manifest. He mentions in one of his letters that a 
former communication of his had been opened and 
read in the course of transit: doubtless by some 
zealot desirous of finding cause for impugning his 
orthodoxy; and to this ever-present danger must in 
part be attributed the deliberate preciosity which 
marks the writings of all the mystics of Djunayd's 
period. Djunayd reiterates the theme, first clearly 
reasoned by him, that since all things have their 
origin in God they must finally return, after their 
dispersion (tafrik), to live again in Him (dfam') : and 
this the mystic achieves in the state of passing-away 
(fand>). Of the mystic union he writes "For at that 
time thou wilt be addressed, thyself addressing; 
questioned concerning thy tidings, thyself question- 
ing; with abundant flow of benefits, and interchange 
of attestations ; with constant increase of faith, and 
uninterrupted favours" {RasdHl, fol. 3a-b). Of his 
own mystical experience he says "This that I say 
comes from the continuance of calamity and the 
consequence of misery, from a heart that is stirred 
from its foundations, and is tormented with its 
ceaseless conflagrations, by itself within itself: 
admitting no perception, no speech, no sense, no 
feeling, no repose, no effort, no familiar image; but 
constant in the calamity of its ceaseless torment, 
unimaginable, indescribable, unlimited, unbearable 
in its fierce onslaughts" (fol. ia). Eschewing those 



extravagances of language which on the lips of such 
inebriates as Abu Yazld al-Bistami and Halladj 
alarmed and alienated the orthodox, Djunayd by 
his clear perception and absolute self-control laid 
the foundations on which the later systems of 
Sufism were built. 

Bibliography : in addition to references in the 
text: A. H. Abdel-Kader, The life, personality and 
writings of al-Junayd, GMS, NS XXII, London 
1962 (with text and translation of the Istanbul 
ms of the RasdHl). (A. J. Arberry) 

al-EJUNAYD b. <ABD ALLAH, al-MurrI, one 
of the governors and generals of the Umayyad 
caliph Hisham who in 105/724 appointed him 
governor of the Muslim possessions in India (Sind, and 
Multan in the south Pandjab), conquered some years 
earlier in 92-4/711-3 by Muhammad b. al-Kasim. 
'Umar II had recognized Djushaba b. Dhabir, the 
Indian king who had embraced Islam, as sovereign of 
these territories. Al-Djunayd evidently had doubts 
about this man's loyalty for he attacked him, took 
him prisoner and put him to death; by subterfuge he 
also contrived the assassination of Ibn Dhabir's 
brother who was anxious to go to 'Irak to protest 
against what he considered to be perfidious behav- 
iour. Al-Djunayd remained governor of Sind until 
1 10/728-9, and during his tenure of office made 
several expeditions (e.g., against the king of al- 
Kiradj who was compelled to flee) and occupied 
various towns whose names are recorded in Arabic 
sources. Since the Muslim conquest of territories 
outside Sind only took place from the second half of 
the 4th/ioth century, it should be noted here that 
from the time of al-Djunayd the Muslim invasions 
in the south penetrated into Gudjarat, and in the 
east as far as the plateau of Malwa in central India. 
Other expeditions in the north, according to Arabic 
sources, enabled al-Djunayd to reach the country 
of the Ghuzz, and also a dependency of China where 
he captured a town and a castle. 

In 110/729 al-Djunayd was dismissed from his 
post, and after his fall a revolt compelled his suc- 
cessor to give up Sind. However, he had not forfeited 
the caliph's esteem for he was appointed governor 
of Khurasan by him in 11 1/729-30 (according to al- 
Baladhurt, in 112); his military skill was relied on 
to restore the situation in Transoxiana which had 
become precarious through attacks by the Turks, 
and Ashras b. c Abd Allah al-Sulami, the former 
governor of the Khurasan, was at war with them. 
Al-Djunayd hastened to give help, joined forces 
with Ashras at al-Bukhara and fought a number of 
battles with the Turks, finally crushing them at 
Zarman, not far from Samarkand. On his return to 
Khurasan (where he selected his lieutenants from 
among the Mudar), he invaded Tukharistan, but was 
soon forced to return to Transoxiana, summoned to 
the aid of the prefect of Samarkand, Sawra b. Hurr 
al-Tamlml, in face of the threats of the Turkish 
khdkdn. Al-Djunayd hurriedly crossed the Oxus. 
From Kiss he had a choice of routes to Samarkand, 
either through the steppes or across the mountains; 
he decided to take the latter, but when he reached ai- 
Shi'b (= the Gorge) he was attacked by the people 
of Sughd, Shash and Farghana. The battle, in which 
a great number of Muslims perished, has remained 
famous in the history of Islam under the name 
Wak'at al-Shi'b. However, it was not a complete 
disaster: al-Djunayd sent a message to Sawra 
ordering him to leave Samarkand and come to his 
aid, and Sawra obeyed, although he realized the full 
extent of the danger to which he was exposing 



L-DJUNAYD B. «ABD ALLAH — DJUND 



601 



himself. As was foreseen, he was attacked by the 
Turks and fell in the melee; his troops were wiped 
out. But al-Djunayd succeeded in disengaging from 
the enemy and entering Samarkand. For the next 
four months he stayed in Sughd, and as Bukhara, 
defended by Katan b. Kutayba, was being besieged 
by the Turks and was in great danger he organized 
an expedition to free it. He defeated the Turks near 
al-TawawIs (Ramadan 112/730 or 113/731), and 
afterwards made his entry into Bukhara. Trans- 
oxiana had been occupied only about twenty years 
earlier by Kutayba b. Muslim, and the conquest 
was far from being final; the instability of the 
situation can be gathered from the fact that Hisham 
had to send from al-Basra and al-Kufa 20,000 men 
who rejoined al-Djunayd on the way and were later 
left at Samarkand. At the beginning of the year 
116/734 al-Djunayd was recalled, having incurred 
the caliph's displeasure by his marriage to al- 
Fadila, a daughter of the rebel Yazid b. al-Muhallab. 
He died at Marw from a severe attack of dropsy even 
before his successor c Asim b. c Abd Allah al-Hilali 
arrived in Khurasan. The latter could persecute only 
al-Djunayd's relatives and employees. 

The report according to which al-Djunayd, after 
being dismissed from the office of governor of Sind, 
supported the anti-Umayyad movement fostered by 
Bukayr b. Mahan in Sind, seems to be absurd in 
view of the fact that he was almost immediately 
appointed governor of Khurasan, and that he even 
had the leaders of this movement arrested there. 
The information which al-DInawari (387 ff.) gives in 
this respect is suspect for it is wrong chronologically, 
as is also the information about the deposition of 
Asad b. <Abd Allah (337). 

Al-Djunayd must have been a general of excep- 
tional qualities, and it was probably to his merits 
that the Muslims were indebted for the stability of 
their authority in Transoxiana during a very strong 
Turkish counter-movement. It is more difficult to 
judge his qualities as an administrator since on this 
point we have only one detail at our disposal: al- 
Djunayd left in the Bayt al-mdl of Sind 18 million 
(atari dirhams ( 1 (atari dirham = 1 '/« dirhams of fine 
silver; see the glossary to al-Baladhuri and Dozy, 
Suppl.), and his successor sent the whole sum to the 

Bibliography: Tabari, ii, 1467, 1527-30, 
1532-59, 1563, 1564-5; Baladhuri, 442-3; Ya c kubl, 
Hist., ed. Houtsma, ii, 379-80; Dinawarl, 337-8; 
Ibn al-Djawzi, Muntazam, ms. Aya Sofya 3095, 
f° 21 v°, ms. Bodl. Pococke 255, f os 90 v°-gi r°; 
Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi, Mir'dt, ms. Bodl. Pococke 



37i, 



115 v°-i 



[23 v°, 



. M. Add. 23277 f 08 168 
172 r°, 175 vo-176 r°-i77 r°; Ibn al-Athir, iv, 466; 
v, 93, 101, 115-7, 120-8, 134-5; Ibn Khaldun, iii, 
88, 91 ; other references in Caetani, Chronographia 
Islamica, for the years 105, 107, 110-6. 

(L. Veccia Vaglieri) 
DJUND, a Kur'anic word of Iranian origin 
denoting an armed troop. In the Umayyad period 
the term applies especially to military settlements 
and districts in which were quartered Arab soldiers 
who could be mobilized for seasonal campaigns or 
for more protracted expeditions. Quite naturally 
it also denotes the corresponding army corps. 
According to the chroniclers, the caliph Abu Bakr 
is said to have set up four djunds in Syria, of Hims, 
Damascus, Jordan (al-Urdunn, around Tiberias) and 
Palestine (around Jerusalem and 'Askalan and, 
afterwards, al-Ramla). Later, the djund of Kinnasrin 



is said to have been detached from this organization 
by the Umayyad caliph Yazid I, and the fortified 
towns known as aW-Awdsim [q.v.] by the 'Abbasid 
caliph Harun al-Rashid. The term iiund., in practice 
restricted to the military areas in Syria which were 
to correspond approximately to the old Byzantine 
divisions, did not apply to the military settlements 
in c Irak or Egypt. The army corps thus established 
consisted exclusively of Arabs drawing regular pay 
^■ata? [q.v.]), the sum required for this purpose being 
normally provided by the proceeds of the land-tax 
on the corresponding district, but the troops seem 
to have benefited also in the majority of cases from 
grants of property, though we still do not know the 
exact conditions under which such grants were made 
and enjoyed. These regular troops were generally 
accompanied by detachments of retainers or 
shdkiriyya, and in addition there were often volun- 
teers (mutatawwi'-a [q.v.]), who received no pay 
(Tabari, i, 2090, 2807; Baladhuri, Futuh, 166). 

In the 'Abbasid period the term djund continued 
to apply to Syrian administrative districts (Tabari, 
iii, 1 1 34) which survived until the time of the 
Ma'mluks, but the diwdn al-djund, which can be 
proved to have been still in existence under al- 
Mutawakkil (Ya'kubi, Bulddn, 267, and Ya'kubl- 
Wiet, 61), administered the non-Arab contingents. 
(Tabari, iii, 1507, 1685). The word djund in fact 
little by little took on a wider meaning, namely the 
armed forces (Tabari, iii, 654, 815, 1369, 1479, 
1736) while for the geographers of the 3rd/9th and 
4th/ioth centuries the adjndd, the equivalents of 
amsdr, denoted the large towns. 

The Umayyad organization of the djund seems 
to have been partly imitated in the province of al- 
Andalus. From 125/742 Arab, Syrian and Egyptian 
contingents received grants of land in nine districts 
(kuras), called mudjannada, in the Iberian peninsula 
[see al-andalus, iii]. To the members of these diunds 
there were added, as in the East, enlisted volunteers 
(kuskud) who were all grouped together under the 
same denomination in the 4th/ioth century and were 
distinct from the foreign mercenaries (hasham) who 
gradually eliminated the old army. In Aghlabid 
Ifrikiya the word djund, which at first denoted Arab 
contingents brought by the conquerors and successive 
governors, came ultimately to signify the personal 
guard, the nucleus of the new permanent army. 
Under the various dynasties connected with the 
Maghrib, the term djund kept a restricted sense which 
is often difficult to define, rarely applying to the 
whole army. Similarly, with the Mamluks the word 
djund is sometimes applied to a category of soldiers 
in the sultan's service, but distinct from the personal 
guard [see halka]. 

Bibliography: Baladhuri, Futuh, 131-2, 144, 
166; Ya'kflbi, Bulddn, 324-9 (Ya'kubl-Wiet, 169- 
83); Ibn al-Fakih, 109; Ibn Rusta, 107-8 (Ibn 
Rusta-Wiet, 119-20); Kudama, K. al-Kharddj, 
BOA, vi, 246,247, 251; Yakut, i, 136; Mukaddasi, 
415, 416; Tabari, i, 2090; iii, 1134; Abu '1-Fida', 
Tafcwim, ii/2, 2-3; Le Strange, Palestine, 24-30; 
M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie a Vipoque 
des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, XXXIII, CIV, 29-31; 
E. Herzfeld, Geschichte der Stadt Samarra, Hamburg 
1949, 98, 99 n. 1 (on the origin of the word djund) ; 
R. Levy, The social structure oj Islam, Cambridge 
1957, 407-27; A. Vonderheyden, La Berberie 
orientate sous la dynastie des Banu 'l-Arlab, Paris 
1927, 69, 80-6; R. Brunschvig, La Berberie 
orientate sous les Hafsides, ii, Paris 1947, 82, 88 ; 
J. F. P. Hopkins, Medieval Muslim government 



DJUND — al-DJURDJANI 



in Barbary, London 1958, 71-84; E. Levi-Pro- 
vencal, Hist. Esp. Mus., iii, 66-72; D. Ayalon, 
Studies on the structure of the Mamluk army, in 
BSOAS, xv (1953), 448-59. On military organization 
in general, see djaysh. (D. Sourdel) 

DJUNDAYSABCR [see gondeshapOr]. 
EJUNDl [see halka]. 

EJUNNAR, town in the Indian State of 
Bombay, 56 m. north of Poona. Its proximity to the 
Nana Pass made it an important trade centre 
linking the Deccan with the west coast. The fort of 
Djunnar was built by Malik al-Tudjdjar in 840/1436. 
The district around Djunnar was one of the (arafs 
or provinces of the Bahmani kingdom of the Deccan 
during the administration of Mahmiid Gawan [q.v.]. 
It later formed part of the Sultanate of Ahmadnagar. 
In 1 067/ 1 65 7 the town was plundered by Shiwadii. 
the Maratha leader, who was born in the neigh- 
bouring hill-fort of Shiwner. The surrounding hills 
are famous for their Buddhist caves. These are 
described in great detail in the Gazetteer of the 
Bombay Presidency, xviii (Part iii), 140-231. 

(C. Collin Davies) 

EJCR [See FIRUZABADj. 

QJUR'AT, takhallus of Kalandar Bakhsh, an 
Urdu poet of Indian origin, whose real name was 
Yahya Aman, son of Hafiz Aman, one of whose 
ancestors Ray Aman, after whom a street in Old 
Dihli is still known, suffered at the hands of Nadir 
Shah's troops during the sack of Dihli in 1152/1739. 
The title of Aman or Man was conferred on the 
ancestors of Djur'at, according to MIrza 'All Lutf 
(Gulshan-i Hind, 73), by the Emperor Akbar. Born 
at Dihli, Djur'at was brought up at Faydabad and 
later joined the service of Nawwab Muhabbat Khan 
of Bareilly, a son of Hafiz Rahmat Khan Rohilla 
[q.v.] at an early age. In 1215/1800 he went to 
Lucknow and ingratiated himself with prince 
Sulayman Shukoh, a son of Shah c Alam II [q.v.], 
titular emperor of Dihli. The 'court' of Sulayman 
Shukoh had become the refuge, after the sack of 
Imperial Dihli, of great poets and writers like 
Mushafi and Insha' Allah Khan [qq.v.], included 
among his stipendiaries. Ten years later Djur'at 
died in that city in 1225/1810. 

A pupil of Dja'far 'All Khan Hasrat, a poet of 
some note, he was a skilled musician and played on 
the guitar with dexterity. He was also a good 
astrologer and well-groomed in social etiquette, 
qualities which made him extremely popular with 
people of high rank. On account of cataract, which 
afflicted him in the prime of life, he lost his eye- 
sight; others say he feigned blindness in order to 
further his amours. Essentially a bon viveur, 
Djur'at was a lyrical and especially an erotic 
poet. Author of more than 100,000 lines (Ahad 'All 
Yakta: Dastur al-fasahat, Rampur 1943, 98 ff.), 
mostly passionate ghazals, he wrote some voluptuous 
mathnawis also, of which one, entitled Husn wa Hshk, 
deserves mention. The well-known Urdu poet Mir 
[q.v.] spoke slightingly of Djur'at whose compositions 
he described as mere bon mots, of the 'kissing and 
hugging type'. Mir's verdict has been characterized 
as wholly unjustified as he failed to appreciate the 
social and political conditions of Djur'at's times and 
the Lucknow of his days, where Mir was compara- 
tively a stranger. It was Djur'at, who for the first 
time in Urdu poetry, addressed his ghazals to 
women, contrary to the time-dishonoured practice 
of showering praises on young, handsome boys and 
amrads. His diwan was published in the now defunct 



Urdii-i Mu'alld (ed. Hasrat Mohahi), Kanpur, 
October-December, 1927. 

Bibliography: All the relevant tadhkiras of 
Urdu poets (enumerated in Dastur al-fasdhai, 
99 n.); Muhammad Husayn Azad, Ab-i haydt, 
s.v. Djur'at; Ram Babu Saksena, History of 
Urdu literature, Allahabad 1940, 88-90; T. Gra- 
hame Bailey, History of Urdu literature, London 
1932, 55-6; Abu '1-Layth Siddiki, Djur'at unkd 
'ahad awr Hshkiyya shdHri, Karachi 1952 (the 
first critical study of Djur'at). 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
EJURAYQJ, a saint whose story is said to have 
been related by the Prophet himself and has therefore 
found a place in the hadtth. The various versions 
differ in details one from another, but one motif is 
common to them all, that the saint is accused by a 
woman, who had had a child by another man, of 
being its father; but the child itself, on being asked 
by the saint, declares the real father's name and thus 
clears the saint from suspicion. "Djuraydj" is the 
Arabic reproduction of Gregorius, and one version 
rightly states that he lived in the prophetless period 
[fatra [q.v.]) between Jesus and Muhammad. There 
is a similar episode in the biographies of Gregorius 
Thaumaturgus, and it may be assumed as probable 
that the story became known among Muslims 
through the Christian tradition until finally it was 
accepted in the hadith. 

Bibliography: Bukharl, Sahih al-'amal fi 
'l-saldt, Bab 7, Mazdlim, Bab 35; Muslim (Cairo 
1283), v, 277; Makdisi, al-Bad? wa 'l-ta'rikh, ed. 
Huart, Ar. text 135; Samarkandl, Tanbih, ed. 
Cairo 1309, 221; Migne, Patrologia graeca, xlvi, 
901 ff.; Acta martyrum et sanctorum, ed. Bedjan, 
vi, 101 ff. ; Horovitz, Spuren griechischer Mimen, 
78-83. (J. Horovitz) 

DJURBACHASAN [see gulpayagan]. 
QIURDJAN [see gurgan]. 

al-DJURDJANI, <Abd al-Kahir [see Supple- 
ment]. 

al-DJURBJAnI, c AlI b. Muhammad, called al- 
Sayyid al-Sharlf, was born in 740/1339 at Tadjii near 
Astarabadh; in 766/1365 he went to Harat to study 
under Kutb al-DIn Muhammad al-Razi al-Tahtani, 
but the old man advised him to go to his pupil 
Mubarakshah in Egypt; however he stayed in Harat 
and went in 770/1368 to Karaman to hear Muham- 
mad al-Aksaral who died before his arrival (al- 
Aksaral died in 773/1371: al-Durar al-kdminaiv , 207). 
He studied under Muhammad al-Fanari and went 
with him to Egypt where he heard Mubarakshah and 
Akmal al-DIn Muhammad b. Mahmud, staying four 
years in Sa'Id al-Su c ada'; he visited Constantinople 
in 776/1374 and then went to Shlraz where he was 
appointed teacher by Shah Shudja' 779/1377- When 
Timur captured the town, he took him to Samarkand 
where he had discussions with Sa'd al-DIn al- 
Taftazanl [q.v.]; opinions differed as to who was the 
victor. On TImur's death he went back to Shlraz 
where he died 816/1413. The usual tales are told of 
his brilliance as a student. He wrote on many 
subjects, on grammar and logic in Persian. He 
belonged to an age which wrote commentaries on 
earlier works ; as a theologian he allowed a large place 
to philosophy, thus half his commentary on al- 
Mawdkif of al-ldjl [q.v.], is given up to it. On law, 
he wrote a commentary on al-FardHd al-sirddjiyya 
of al-Sadjawandl; on language, glosses on al- 
Mutawwal a commentary by al-Taftazani on Talkhis 
al-miftdh by al-Sakkakl; on logic, glosses on a 
commentary by al-Razi al-Tahtani on al-Risdla 



L-DJURDJANl — DJURHUM or DJURHAM 



al-shamsiyya ji H-kawdHd al-mantikiyya by al- 
Katibi. In his Ta'rijdt he was not afraid to be 

His son, Nur al-Din Muhammad, translated 
his father's Persian logic into Arabic, wrote on logic, 
also a commentary on his father's book on tradition 
and a Risdla ji 'l-radd '■aid 'l-rawdjid. Nothing is 
known of his biography except the date of his 
death in 838/1434. 

Bibliography: al-Sakhawi, al-Daw* al-ldmi', 
v, 328; al-Shawkani, al-Badr al-tdli', i, 488; 
Muhammad Bakir, Rawdat al-djanndt, 497; al- 
Lakhnawl al-Hindi, al-Fawd'id al-bahiyya, 125; 
Kh w andamlr, Ifabib al-siyar, iii/3, 89, 147; 
Brockelmann, II, 216, S II, 305; Browne, iii, 355; 
Storey, i, 36. (A. S. Tritton) 

PJURPJANl, FAKHR al-DIN [see gurgani]. 
al-PJURDJAnI, ISMA'lL b. al-HUSAYN 
Zayn al-DIn Abu 'l-Fada'il al-HusaynI, often 
called al-Say yid Isma'Il , a noble and celebrated p h y s- 
i c i a n who wrote in Persian and in Arabic. He went to 
live in Kh w arizm in 504/1 no and became attached to 
the Kh'arizmshahs Kutb al-DIn Muhammad (490/ 
1097-521/1127), to whom he dedicated his Dhakhira, 
and Atslz b. Muhammad (521/1127-551/1156), who 
commissioned him to write a shorter compendium, 
al-Khuiti al-'AWi, so called because its two volumes 
were small enough to be takeu by the prince on his 
journeys in his boots {khuff). He later moved to 
Marw, the capital of the rival sultan Sandjar b. 
Malikshah, and died there in 531/1136. His Dha- 
khira-i Kh K drizmshdhi. probably the first medical 
Encyclopaedia written in Persian and containing 
about 450,000 words, is one of the most important 
works of its kind ; it also exists in an Arabic version, 
and was translated into Turkish and (in an abbre- 
viated form) into Hebrew. Apart from the Dhakhira 
and the Khuffl, al-Djurdjanl wrote about a dozen 
other works, some of them substantial, mainly on 
medicine and philosophy. Most of his literary 
output, which was highly regarded already by his 
contemporaries, has been preserved in manuscripts. 
A short treatise on the vanity of this world, al- 
Risdla al-munabbiha (in Arabic), was incorporated 
by Bayhaki in his biography. 

Bibliography: Zahlr al-Din C A1I b. Zayd al- 
Bayhakl, Ta'rikh hukamd' al-Isldm, Damascus 
1946, 172 ff. ; idem, Tatimmat Siwdn al-hikma, 
ed. M. Shafi', Lahore 1935, i, 172 'ff. (text), 216 ff. 
(bibliographical notes) ; M. Meyerhof, in Osiris, 
viii, 1948, 203 f. (digest of the preceding, with 
additional bibliography) ; Nizami-i c ArudI, Cahdr 
makdla, ed. Mirza Muhammad, 1910, 70 f. (text), 
233. 236ft. (notes); transl. E. G. Browne, 1921, 
78 ff. (transl.), 158 f. (notes); Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, 
'Uyun al-anbd', ii, 31; A. Fonahn, ZurQuellen- 
kunde der persischen Medizin, 1910, 13 ff. ; E. G. 
Browne, Arabian medicine, 98 ft.; Abbas Naficy, 
La Medecine en Perse, 1933, 41-48 (biography), 
65-124 (summary of the first four "books", on 
the theoretical foundations of medicine, of the 
Dhakhira) ; G. Sarton, Introduction to the history 
of science, ii, 1931, 234 f. ; C. Elgood, A medical 
history of Persia, 1951, 214 ff. and index; 
Brockelmann I, 641 ; S I, 889 f. (J. Schacht) 
al-DJURDJANI, NUR al-DIN [see al-djur- 
djani, c ali b. muhammad]. 
al-DJURDJANIYYA [see gurgandj]. 
DJURDJURA, a scarped chain of mountains 
60 km. long in the Tellian Atlas of Algeria, enclosing 
and dominating the wide depression of the wddi 
Sahel-Soummam, and the principal Kabyle massif 



in the West, known as Greater Kabylia or Kabylia 
of Djurdjura. It consists of four ridges running 
roughly E.-W., almost everywhere exceeding 1,500 m. 
(4,921 ft.) in altitude and with the Dj. Haizer 
reaching 2,133 rn. (6,998 ft.), the Akouker 2,305 m. 
(7,562 ft.) and the Tamgout (Berber for summit) of 
Lalla Khadldja 2,308 m. (7,572 ft.). Massive lime- 
stone deposits of the Lias and, in the West, of the 
Eocene, sharply inclined and faulted, give the 
appearance of Sierras, with such characteristic 
features as eroded rocky plateaux, vertical shafts 
leading to caverns, and swallow-holes (the one at 
Boussouil is over 360 m. [1181 ft.] deep). 

Standing 50 km. from the Mediterranean, the 
Djurdjura has a very heavy rainfall (1200 to 1800 mm. 
[47.24 to 70.86 ins.]) and is under snow for from one 
to three months. For this reason it is the source of 
vigorous springs which are utilized by numerous 
villages on both sides of the range, as well as by 
various hydro-electric power-stations. The white 
mountain-tops tower above ancient but decayed 
forests of cedars and the remnants of groves of 
evergreen oaks, the home of colonies of Barbary 
apes. Grasslands provide summer pasturage for 
the small flocks from nearby villages. The altitude, 
the picturesque scenery and in addition the snow 

The villages, in which only the Kabyles speak 
Berber, are situated not higher than n 50 m. 
(3,772 ft.) on the north side and 1,350 m. (4,429 ft.) 
on the south side. The mountain range is thus 
inhabited. The altitude of the passes (tizi), 1,636 m. 
(5,367 ft.) at the Tizi n-Kouilal and 1,760 m. 
(5,774 ft.) at Tizi n-Tighourda, proves an effective 
barrier as regards both weather and inhabitants. 
Together with the wide belt of forest stretching 
eastward from the high ground of Sebaou and 
reaching as far as the sea, the range cuts off and 
isolates a Kabylia of irregular form, at the centre of 
which is Tizi Ouzou, and also a long depression, 
the wddi Sahel-Soummam, which again is Kabyle 
but exposed to the direct influence of Algiers and 

Bibliography: A. Belin, J. Flandrin, M. 

Fourastier, S. Rahmani, M. Remond and R. de 

Peyerimhoff, Guide de la montagne algerienne. 

Djurdjura, Algiers 1947. See also kabylia. 

(J. Df.spois) 

DJURHUM or DJURHAM, an ancient Arab 
tribe reckoned to the 'Arab al-'Ariba (see art. c arab, 
PJAzirat al-, vi). According to later standard Arab 
tradition, Djurhum was descended from Yaktan 
(Kahtan). The tribe migrated from the Yaman to 
Mecca. After a protracted struggle with another 
tribe Katura (also referred to as 'Amalik), led by 
al-Sumaydi c , Djurhum under their chief (called 
Mudad b. c Amr, al-Harith b. Mudad, etc.) gained 
control of the Ka'ba. This they retained till driven 
out by Bakr b. c Abd Manat of Khuza'a. The above 
is doubtless the pre-Islamic form of the tradition, 
and it presumably has some historical basis. This 
older account, however, has been transformed by 
the introduction of Kur'anic material about Isma'il 
(Ishmael), who is said to have been given protection 
along with his mother by Djurhum and to have 
married a woman of the tribe. The Kur'anic material, 
and the need for sufficient generations back to 
Isma'Il (by Biblical chronology) has encouraged the 
suggestion that Djurhum flourished in the distant 
past and was extinct by Islamic times. Careful 
study of references, however, especially those in 
early poems, shows that Djurhum had been at 



DJURHUM or DJURHAM — DJUWAYN 



Mecca in the comparatively recent past (cf. Th. 
Noldeke, Ftinj Mo'allaqdt, iii, 26 f.; S. Krauss, in 
ZDMG, xli, 717; also ZDMG, lxx, 352; al-Hassan b. 
Thabit, Diwdn, ed. Hirschfeld, 43 f. [= Ibn Hisham 
251]). This is further confirmed by the mention 
r6pa[/.a and TopajiTJvoi by the Greek write 
Stephanus Byzantinus (London 1688, 276), and b 
the occurrence of an <Abd al-Masih among the 
chiefs of Djurh-um (cf. E. Pococke, Specimen, 79 f.). 
Al-Azraki (ed. Wustenfeld, i, 54) speaks of a remnant 
in his day, and the nisba Djurhumi occurs. Al-Tabari 
(i, 749) states that Banu Lihyan are descended from 
Djurhum, but the basis of this is unknown. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hisham, 7I-74 - , Tabari, 
i, 219, 283, 749, 768, 904. 1088, 1131-4; al-Azraki 
(Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, ed. Wustenfeld, i), 44- 
56; Mas'udi, Muriidj, iii, 95-103; idem, Tanbih 
(BGA, viii), 80, 82, 184 f., 202; Ibn Habib, 
Muhabbar, 311, 314, 395; Caussin de Perceval, 
Histoire des Arabes avant I'Islamisme, i, 33 f., 
168, 177, 194-201, 218; Buhl, Muhammed, 106 n.; 
al-A'sha, Diwdn, 15, 44- 

(W. Montgomery Watt) 
DJURM (fine) (in the Ottoman Empire). 
Though fines are unknown to the criminal law of 
the shari'a, some )ukahd> admitted of monetary 
penalties in certain cases (see e.g., Dede Efendi, 
Siyasetndme, at end). The Ottoman kdnunndmes 
([q.v.]; see also djaza 3 ), while pretending merely to 
apply and complete the shari'a, prescribed fines 
{djiirm, djerime or djereme, kinlih, ghardmet) for a 
large number of offences. These even included 
crimes liable to hudud [q.v.] penalties, such as 
adultery, theft, the drinking of wine, etc. Generally 
fines were imposed in addition to corporal chastise- 
ment (ta'zir, [q.v.]) and sometimes in addition to 
to blood-money (diyet) or damages (tazmin). 

The fines were of three kinds: (a) a certain amount 
(one akce, more rarely half an akce or less) for each 
stroke inflicted on the offender; (b) a certain number 
of akce for each dirhem lacking in the weight of a 
price-controlled commodity; or (c) as usual in the 
Dh u '1-Kadr codes (Barkan, Kanunlar, 120-9) and 
many Ottoman provincial kdnunndmes where no 
ta'-zir is mentioned, a fixed amount of money. The 
fines of the third group were, similarly to the poll-tax 
(djizya), mostly graduated in accordance with the 
financial circumstances of the offender — rich, 
medium, poor (and very poor), the ratio being 

10 and 400 akce, but a fifteenth century fermdn 
(Anhegger-Inalcik, Kdnunndme-i Sultdni, 58) and 
kdnunndme {TOEM, 1330, Suppl., 28) prescribed 
higher fines. In many cases non-Muslims were to 
pay only half the fine imposed on Muslims (MOG, i, 
29; Barkan, 81), but this privilege was partly 
cancelled out by discrimination in the way they were 
graduated. For certain offences slaves paid half the 
fine of a free Muslim, while in Egypt fellahs were 
subject to double the fine collected in the old 
Ottoman dominions (Barkan, 362). No fines were 
to be exacted from criminals sentenced to retaliation 
{kisds) or to capital or severe corporal punishment 
{siydset). 

Fiscally the fines formed part of the rusum-i 
'■urfiyye and were sometimes included in the bdd-i 
hawd [q.v]. After the offender had been duly con- 
victed by a kadi, the fine was exacted by the organs 
of the executive power (ehl-i Htrf). Peasants on most 
of the "free" (serbest) lands had to pay fines to their 
"landowners" (sdhib-i ard), i.e., the Sultan, members 
of his family, beylerbeyis, sandjakbeyis, zaHms and 



other high officers, or to their agents, ['dmils, emins, 
voyvodas, miitesellims, etc.). On lands that were not 
"free", i.e., most of the smaller timdrs, half the fines 
usually went to the fief-holder and the other half to 
the local governor and/or his subordinate (subashl). 
Fines from people on wakj lands were due to the 
waft or, as in the case of offenders on privately 
owned land, to the Sultan's Treasury. In towns they 
generally belonged to the subashl, 'asesbashl or 
muhtasib [q.v.]. Egyptian fellahs paid to their 
kdshijs, Kurds to their beys. Special regulations also 
applied to soldiers, nomads, gypsies, foreigners and 
others who were subject to separate jurisdiction. 
No fines were imposed on fief-holders and holders of 
a berdt [q.v.]. 

In the cadastral registers the annual revenue 
from the fines of a certain district (niydbet, [resm-i] 
djiirm we djinayet) was often entered as a fixed sum 
and those entitled to it used to lease out its collection. 
Many fermdns and 'addletndmes contain strict orders 
to prevent illegal or excessive fining. From the 10th/ 
1 6th century, however, such abuses greatly increased. 
The officials more and more ignored the prescribed 
amounts of fines which, despite the considerable 
depreciation of the Ottoman currency, had remained 
unchanged. On the other hand, many offenders 
punishable with fines (and ta'-zir) were henceforth 
sent to the galleys or forced labour. In the early 
I2th/i8th century several provincial kdnunndmes 
(Barkan, 333, 338, 354) abolished the fines, together 
with all other rusum-i 'urjiyye, as impositions 
contrary to the shari'a. In the first two modern 
Ottoman penal codes (1840, 1851) no mention is 
made of fines; in the latter (iii, 10) they are even 
expressly forbidden. The last Ottoman criminal code 
(1858) prescribes a great many fines (djezd-yl nakdi), 
now however in accordance with the French legal 
conception. 

Bibliography: Kdnun-i Pddishdhi-i Sultan 
Mehemmed bin Murdd in MOG, i, Vienna 1921, 
19-48; Kdnunndme-i dl-i 'Othmdn in TOEM, 1329, 
Suppl., 1-10, 38, 45, 47, 49, 62-8; 1330, Suppl., 28; 
Ahmed Lutfi, Mir'dt-i 'addlet, Istanbul 1304, 47-57, 
78-89, 127-76; Hammer- Purgstall, Staatsverfassung, 
i, 143-52 (incomplete and often faulty transl. of 
criminal code) ; O. L. Barkan, Osm. imparator- 
lugunda zirat ekonominin . . . esaslan, i, Kanunlar, 
Istanbul 1943, index; c Othman Nuri, Medjelle-i 
umur-i belediyye, Istanbul 1338/1922, 409-18; 
M. C. Ulucay, XVII. Asirda Saruharida eskiyaltk, 
Istanbul 1944, 164; H. inalcik, Suret-i de/ter-i 
Sancak-i Arvanid, Ankara 1954, XXVII-XXVIII, 
XXXII; J. Schacht, in Isl., xx, 211-2; G. Ocok, 
in Ankara Oniv. Hukuk Fak. Dergisi, iv (1947), 
48-73; U. Heyd, Studies in old Ottoman criminal 
law (in preparation). (U. Heyd) 

DJURZ, DJURZAN [see gurdjistan]. 
DJUSTANIDS, DJASTANIDS [see daylamj. 
DJUWAYN, name of several localities in Iran. 

1. A village in Ardashir Khurra, five farsakh from 
Shiraz on the road to Arradjan, usually called 
Djuwaym, the modern Goyum, cf. Le Strange, 253; 
P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter, 44, i73. J 79 ( not 
to be confused with Djuwaym Abi Ahmad in the 
province of Darabdjird, the modern Djuyum, see 
Le Strange, 254; Schwarz, 102, 201). 

2. Djuwayn (also written Guyan), a district in 
the Nishapur country, on the caravan route from 
Bistam, between Djadjarm and Bayhak (Sabzewar). 
The district, whose capital is given as Azadhwar, 
later Fariyumad (see JRAS, 1902, 735) contained 
189 villages according to Yakut, ii, 164-6, whose 



information is taken from Abu '1-Kasim al-Bayhaki; 
they were all in the northern half, while the southern 
half was unsettled; cf. Le Strange, 391 ff. The plain 
of Djuwayn, enclosed on the north and south by 
ranges of hills, still forms a district of Sabzewar with 
about 65 townships, which lie along the river 
Djuwayn in a long series. In the middle of the valley, 
near the village of Azadhwar. lie the ruins of the 
ancient capital. The modern centre is Diugatav 
(Caghatay) which is situated to the south-east of it, 
at the foot of the hills on the south; cf. McGregor, 
Khorasan, ii, 145, 225; C. E. Yate, Khurasan and 
Sistan, 389 ff. 

3. Djuwayn or Guwayn, a fortified place in 
Sidjistan, 3 to 5 km. north-east of Lash on the 
Farahrud, appears under its modern name in 
ancient (see Marquart, Erdnlahr, 198 : raPrjvr) 7t6X«;, 
emendation on Isidorus of Charax) and mediaeval 
itineraries (Istakhri, 248; Ibn Hawkal, 304). The 
importance of the sister towns of Lash and Djuwayn 
still rests on the fact that the roads from Kandahar 
and Harat from the Afghan side, and those from 
Mashhad, Yazd and Nasirabad on the Persian side, 
meet here. The Arab geographers say that Djuwayn 
on the road from Harat to Zarandj was a Kharidii 
stronghold (Mukaddasi, 306; Ibn Rusta, 174). It 
was sacked by Yakut!, the Ghuzz leader, in 447/ 
1055-6 {Ta'rikh-i Sistan, ed. Bahar, 376-7). 

Djuwayn, built on a slight elevation in the centre 
of a fertile plain covered with ruins, and surrounded 
by a quadrangular wall of clay, forms a striking 
contrast to the rocky stronghold of Lash; it appears 
to have considerably declined in the second half of 
the 19th century. Cf. Le Strange, 341 ff.; Euan 
Smith in Eastern Persia, i, 319 ff.; A. C. Yate, 
England and Russia face to face in Asia, 99 ff. 

(R. Hartmann) 

al-DJUWAYNI, c Abd Allah b. Yusuf Abu 
Muhammad, a ShafiM scholar, father of c Abd 
al-Malik [see the following art.], lived for most of his 
life in Nisabur, and died there in 438/1047. As an 
author, he was mainly concerned with the literary 
form of furuk, on which see Schacht, in Islamica, 



ii/ 4 , 1 



'5«- 



Bibliography: al-Subki, Tabahdt, iii, 208-19; 
W. Wustenfeld, Der Imam el-Schdfi'i, etc., 
no. 365 (a), 248 ff.; Brockelmann, I, 482; S I, 667. 

(J. Schacht) 
al-DJUWAYNI, Abu 'l-Ma'alI c Abd al-Malik, 
son of the preceding, celebrated under his title of 
Imam al-Haramayn, born 18 Muharram 419/17 
February 1028 at Bushtanikan, a village on the 
outskirts of Nisabur; after his father's death, he 
continued the latter's teaching even before he was 
twenty years old. He was connected with the school 
of Him al-kaldm inaugurated by Abu '1-Hasan al- 
Ash'ari at the beginning of the 4th/ioth century. 
But c Amid al-Mulk al-Kundurl, vizier of the Saldjuk 
Tughrul Beg, declared himself against this "innova- 
tion", and had the Ash'aris, as well as the Rawafid, 
denounced from the pulpits. Al-Djuwayni, like Abu 
'1-Kasim al-Kushayri, immediately left his country 
and went to Baghdad; then, in 450/1058, he reached 
the Hidjaz where he taught at Mecca and at Medina 
for four years: hence his honorary name of "Imam 
of the two holy Cities". But when the vizier Nizam 
al-Mulk came to power in the Saldjuk empire, he 
favoured the Ash'aris and invited the emigrants to 
return home. Al-Djuwayni was among those who 
returned to Nisabur (the information in ZDMG, 
xli, 63 is not quite exact), and Nizam al-Mulk 
actually founded in this town a special madrasa 



for him, which was called Nizamiyya like the 
similar establishment in Baghdad. Al-Djuwayni 
taught there to the end of his days (we know that 
al-Ghazali held a chair there for some time towards 
the end of his life, from 499/1105 onwards). Al- 
Djuwayni died in the village of his birth — where he 
had gone in the hope of recovering from an illness — 
on 25 Rabi c II 478/20 August 1085. In his Tabafrdt 
al-ShdfiHyya, al-Subki devoted to him a long 
laudatory study, and declared (Tab., ii, 77, 20) 
that the abundance of his literary production could 
be explained only by a miracle. 

Al-Djuwayni's researches were divided between 
the fifth (more precisely the usul al-fifrh) and the 
Him al-kaldm. — Fikh: His principal treatise, K. al- 
Warakdt fi usul al-fikh, continued being commented 
upon until the nth/i7th century. His methodology 
is best expressed in the K. al-Burhdn fi usul al-fikh, 
where he was probably the first to wish to establish 
a juridical method on an Ash'ari basis. In his 
Tabakdt (iii, 264), al-Subki remarked the difficulty 
of the work and called it laghz al-umma ("the 
enigma of the Community"). He also drew attention 
to the reservations entered by al-Djuwaynl with 
regard to al-Ash c ari and Malik, reservations which 
would have prevented this juridical work from 
becoming very popular, espe cially among the 
Malikls. 

c Ilm al-Kalam: it is in the r61e of doctor in 
kaldm that al-Djuwaynl made his deepest impression 
on Muslim thought; and to him goes the glory of 
being the teacher of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in 
this discipline. Unfortunately, his great work, the 
Shdmil, has not been published. One manuscript 
(incomplete) is to be found in the National Library 
in Cairo [Him al-kaldm, no. 1290), copied from a 
manuscript in the Kopriilu library; another copy, 
with extracts from al-Nasafi added, belonged to 
Dr. al-Khudayri in Cairo. These manuscripts have 
been studied by G. C. Anawati (cf. Introduction a la 
thiologie musulmane, Paris 1948, 181-5). On the 
other hand, the compendium K. al-Irshdd ild 
kawdti 1 al-adilla fi usul al-iHikad has been edited, 
and often studied and quoted. There are two modern 
editions: (1) by J.-D. Luciani, Paris 1938, with a 
French tr. (left unfinished by the death of the editor- 
translator) ; (2) by M. Y. Musa and A. c Abd al- 
: Abd al-Hamid, Cairo 1950, which is the 



best c 



tical e 



Al-Djuwaynl is important because he wrote in 
the intermediate period between the old Ash'arism 
and the school which Ibn Khaldun was to call 
"modern". This is marked by (1) a systematical 
enquiry, influenced — not without the introduction 
of new schemes — by that of the Mu'tazila (whose 
theories are rejected); (2) the emphasis laid, in the 
theory of knowledge, and with regard to the divine 
attributes, on the idea of "modes" (ahwdl), thus 
taken over from the semi-conceptualist line initiated 
by the Mu'tazili Abu Hashim; (3) the importance 
attributed to rational methods, and the use of 
"reasoning by three terms" in the Aristotelian way: 
e.g., the proof of the existence of God, which is 
nevertheless a novitate (rather than a contingentia) 
mundi. The Aristotelian syllogisms moreover remain 
affected by the inference "from two terms" (istidldl), 
cf. Gardet-Anawati, Intr. a la thiol, musulmane, 
360-1. — The solutions to the principal problems are 
for the most part faithful to the Ash'ari tradition. 
Methodological trends proper to al-J2Juwayni exist, 
but they show themselves mainly in the presentation 
of the problems, the conduct of the discussions, and 



l-DJUWAYNI — DJUWAYNI 



the importance accorded to the channels (asbdb) by 
which conclusions are reached. In kaldm as in fikh, 
it was above all the question of the «j«Z that interested 
the Imam al-Haramayn. 

Bibliography: in addition to the references 

in the article: Ibn Khallikan, Cairo no. 351 ; Subki, 

Tabakdt, ii, 7071; i", 249-82; Ibn al-Athlr, (ed. 

Tornberg), x, 77 (ann. 485); Ibn TaghribirdI, 77i; 

Wiistenfeld, Die Akademien der Amber, no. 38; 

idem, ShdjiHten, no. 365; Schreiner, in Grdtz' 

Monatsschrift, xxv, 314 ff. ; Brockelmann, I, 388. 
(C. Brockelmann-[L. Gardet]) 

EJUWAYNl, 'Ala 3 al-DIn 'Ata-Malik b. 
Muhammad (623/1226-681/1283), a Persian governor 
and historian, author of the Ta'rikh-i djahdn- 
gushdy, a work which is almost our only source on 
the details of his life. His family belonged to Azad- 
war, then the chief town of Djuwayn ([q.v.], No. 2). 
According to Ibn al-Tiktaka (al-Fakhri, ed. Ahl- 
wardt, 209) they claimed descent from Fadl b. 
RabI', the vizier of HarQn al-Rashld. 'Ala 3 al-DIn's 
great-grandfather, Baha 3 al-DIn Muhammad b. 'All, 
had waited on the Kh w arazm-Sh5h Tekish [q.v.] when 
in 588/1192 he passed through Azadwar on his way 
to attack Toghril II [q.v.], the last Saldjuk ruler of 
'Irak-i 'Adjam. His grandfather, Shams al-DIn 
Muhammad b. Muhammad, was in the service of 
Sultan Muhammad Kh"arazm-Shah [q.v.], whom he 
accompanied on his flight from Balkh to NlshapOr. 
At the end of his life the Sultan appointed him 
Sahib Diwdn, a post which he continued to hold 
under Sultan Djalal al-DIn : he died during the latter's 
siege of Akhlat, i.e., at some time between Shawwal 
626/August 1229 and Djumada I 627/April 1230. 
His son, Baha 5 al-DIn, 'Ala 3 al-DIn's father, is first 
heard of ca. 630/1232-3 in NlshapOr. Two of Djalal 
al-DIn's officers, Yaghan-Sonkur and Karaca, had 
been active in this area, and Cin-Temiir, the Mongol 
governor of Khurasan and Mazandaran, sent an 
army to dislodge them. Upon the approach of the 
Mongol forces Baha' al-DIn together with some of 
the chief notables of the town fled to TOs, where 
they sought refuge in a castle amidst the ruins of 
the city. The governor of the castle handed them 
over to the Mongols, by whom, however, they were 
kindly received: Baha 3 al-Din was admitted into 
the conquerors' service and held the office of Sdhib 
Diwdn not only under Cin-Temiir but under his 
successors Korgiiz and Arghun Aka. In 633/1235-6 
he accompanied Korgiiz upon a mission to the 
Great Khan Ogedey, from whom he received a 
payza or "tablet of authority" and a yarllgh or 
rescript confirming his appointment as Sdhib Diwdn. 
On several occasions he was left in absolute control 
of the occupied territories in Western Asia while the 
governor was absent in Mongolia. In 651/1253, being 
then in his 60th year, it was his wish to retire from 
the public service, but to this the Mongols would not 
agree, and he died during the same year in the 
Isfahan region, whither he had been sent to carry 
out fiscal reforms. 

'Ala 3 al-Din tells of himself that while still a youth 
he chose, against his father's wishes, to take a 
position in the diwdn. He twice visited Mongolia in 
the suite of Arghun Aka, first in 647-9/1 249-51 and 
then in 649-51/1251-3: upon the arrival of Hiilegii 
in Khurasan early in 654/1256, he was attached to 
his service and accompanied him on his campaigns 
against the Isma'ilis of Alamut and the Baghdad 
Caliphate. It was 'Ala 3 al-Din who drew up the 
terms of surrender of the last Isma'IlI Grand Master 
Rukn al-DIn Khur-Shah, and it was through his 



t the famous library of Alamut was 
saved from destruction. In 657/1259, a year after the 
capture of Baghdad, he was appointed governor of 
'Irak-i 'Arab and Khuzistan, a post which he continued 
to hold for more than 20 years, though under Abaka, 
Hulegii's son and successor, he was nominally 
subordinate to the Mongol Sughuncak. During his 
tenure of office he did much to improve the lot of the 
peasantry and it was said, with some exaggeration, 
that he restored these provinces to greater prosperity 
than they had enjoyed under the Caliphate: at the 
expense of 10,000 dinars of gold he caused a canal 
to be dug from Anbar on the Euphrates to Kflfa 
and Nadjaf and founded 150 villages along its banks. 

During the reign of Abaka both 'Ala 3 al-Din 
and his brother Shams al-DIn [see below] the Sdhib 
Diwdn were much exposed to hostile attacks, of 
which the consequences were more serious for the 
former than the latter. In the late autumn of 680/ 
1281 he was arrested, at the instigation of a personal 
enemy, on the charge of embezzling from the 
Treasury the enormous sum of 2,500,000 dinars. On 
4 Ramadan 680/17 December 1281, thanks to the 
intervention of certain members of the II- Khan's 
family, he was released from custody, only to be 
almost immediately re-arrested on a charge of 
maintaining a correspondence with the Mamluk 
rulers of Egypt. His arrival in Hamadan to answer 
this charge coincided with the Il-Khan's death and 
he was retained in custody until the election of 
Abaka's successor Teguder or Ahmad (1282-4), a 
convert to Islam, who at once gave orders for 'Ala 3 
al-DIn's release and reinstatement as governor. He 
did not long survive his rehabilitation. Tegiider's 
nephew, the future II- Khan Arghun (1284-91), 
arrived in Baghdad in the winter of 681/1282-3 and 
reviving the old charge of embezzlement began to 
arrest the governor's agents and put them to the 
torture. News of these proceedings reaching 'Ala 3 
al-DIn in Arran, where he then was, he had an 
apoplectic stroke and died on 4 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 
681/5 March 1283. 

'Ala 3 al-DIn's references to the defects in his 
literary education must certainly be put down to 
conventional modesty; he is praised by his contem- 
poraries as a highly cultured man and a patron of 
poets and scholars; and his history was held up as 
an unrivalled model of style. The work is divided 
into three main sections: I. History of the Mongols 
and their conquests down to the events following 
the death of the Great Khan Giiyiik, including the 
history of the descendants of Djo6i and Caghatay; 
II. History of the dynasty of the Kh"arazm-Shahs, 
based in part on previous works such as the Mashdrib 
al-tadjdrib of Abu '1-Hasan BayhakI and the Diawdmi' 
al-'-ulum of Fakhr al-DIn al-RazI, and a history of 
the Mongol governors of Khurasan down to the year 
656/1258; III. Continuation of the history of the 
Mongols to the overthrow of the Isma'ilis, with an 
account of the sect, based chiefly on works found in 
Alamut such as the Sargudhasht-i Sayyidnd; other 
works now lost are also quoted such as the Ta'rikh-i 
Dpi wa Daylam and the Ta'rikh-i Salldmi (written 
for the Buyid Fakhr al-Dawla). The Ta'rikh-i 
diahan-gushdy, which has considerably influenced 
historical tradition in the East, is for us also a 
historical authority of the first rank. The author was 
the only Persian historian to travel to Mongolia and 
describe the countries of Eastern Asia at first hand; 
it is to his work and the Journal of William of 
Rubruck that we owe practically all we know of the 
buildings in the Mongol capital of Kara-Korum. The 



DJUWAYNl — DJUZ> 



accounts of Cingiz-Khan's conquests are given 
nowhere else in such detail; many episodes, such as 
the battles on the Sir-Darya above and below Otrar 
and the celebrated siege of Khudiand are known to 
us only from the Ta'rikh-i djahdn-gushdy . Un- 
fortunately Djuwaynl gives us in these cases not 
the first-hand impressions of a contemporary, but 
the opinions of the next generation, so that the 
details of his narrative, particularly the statements 
on the numbers of the combatants and the slain 
have to be taken with great caution; cf. for example, 
the fact, pointed out long ago by d'Ohsson (i, 232 ff.), 
that the citadel of Bukhara according to Djuwaynl 
was defended by 30,000 men, all of whom were 
slain upon its capture, while Ibn al-Athlr (xii, 
239), on the authority of an eye-witness, says the 
garrison consisted only of 400 horse. Again we find 
in Djuwaynl two versions of the struggle between 
the Kara-Khitay and Muhammad Kh"arazm-Shah. 
based apparently on different sources (written or 
oral). It was only by later compilers like Mirkh'and 
that these contradictory accounts were woven into 
a uniform narrative, not, of course, in accordance with 
the standards of modern criticism; European 
scholars, to whom such compilations were much 
more accessible than the original authorities, have 
been frequently led astray by them. 

Djuwaynl began work on his history during his 
residence in Mongolia in 650/1252-3; he was still 
working on it in 658/1260, for he refers to the state 
of M5 wara 3 al-Nahr in 658/1259-60 (Kazwini's text, 
i, 75, tr. Boyle, i, 96) and also to a Georgian rising 
that took place in the autumn of that year (text, 
ii, 261; tr., ii, 525); but there are no references to 
subsequent events, nor indeed to the operations 
against the Caliphate 655-6/1257-8), and there are 
many indications that the history was left in a state 
of incompletion. 

Towards the end of his life he composed in Persian 
(not in Arabic as stated by Quatremere and repeated 
by Barthold in EI 1 ) two treatises describing the 
misfortunes which had befallen him under Abaka, 
the first named Tasliyat al-ikhwdn and the second 
bearing no special title: extracts from these short 
works have been published in the Persian introduction 
to Kazwini's edition of the Ta'rikh-i djahdn-gushdy. 
Bibliography : The text of Djuwaynl's 
history is available in the edition of MIrza Muham- 
mad Kazwlnl: The TaWkh-i-jahdn-gushd of M/4'w 
'd-Din c Atd-Malik-i-Juwayni, 3 vols., (GMS, Old 
Series, xvi/i, 2, 3), London 1912, 1916 and 1937; 
and in the translation of J. A. Boyle, The history 
of the world-conqueror, 2 vols., Manchester 1958. 
On Djuwaynl as a stylist see Bahar, Sabk-Shindsi 
iii, 51-100. (W. Barthold-[J. A. Boyle]) 

EJUWAYNl, Shams al-DIn Muhammad b. 
Muhammad, Persian statesman known as 
"Sahib Diwdn", brother of the historian 'Ala' al-Din 
Pjuwayni (difference in their respective ages 
unknown), was made Chief Minister in 661/1262-3 
by the Ilkhan Hiilegu [q.v.], according to Rashid al- 
Din, ed. Quatremere, i, 302 ff., 402. Nothing is 
known about his youth, and his brother does not 
mention him in his historical work. He became 
Sahib (-i) Diwdn (approximately equivalent to 
Finance Minister), and also held this post under 
Abaka (664-81/1265-82); with the help of devoted 
officials he extended his influence throughout the 
whole state of the Ilkhans. His reputation grew 
steadily, especially among his fellow-Muslims, whom 
he protected from many a despotic act on the part 
of their heathen overlords. His fortune grew simul- 



taneously, especially with regard to landed property, 
from which, it is reckoned, he finally had a daily 
income of one tumdn (Wassaf, ed. Bombay, i, 56; 
although Rashid al-Din speaks of only one-tenth of 
this sum). Thus in 676/1277 pjuwayni emerged as 
the fitting personality to strengthen the weakened 
position of the Mongols in Anatolia. He also succeeded 
in establishing himself with the Karaman Oghullari, 
installing his son Sharaf al-Din Harun as governor 
there (transferred to Baghdad 682/1283 and put to 
death there 685/1286), and then returned home to 
Iran. In the meantime one of his opponents, Madjd 
al-Mulk Yazdi, had come to the fore and was created 
State Controller {Mushrif al-mamdlik) ; all decrees 
had to bear his signature alongside Djuwaynl's 
(Wassaf, ed. Bombay, i, 95). From now on Abaka 
withdrew his favour more and more from Pjuwayni; 
it has been supposed (Koprulii in I A) that the 
contrast between the anti-Islamic ruler with his 
policy of western alliance and the strictly Muslim 
Pjuwayni may have contributed to this. In this 
difficult situation pjuwayni also met with a stroke 
of fate in the deatli of his (eldest ?) son, the admit- 
tedly very harsh governor of Isfahan, Baha J al-Din 
Muhammad, in Sha'ban 678/December 1279 (cf. 
Wassaf, i, 60-6). Only Abaka's death (Muharram 
681/April 1282) gave Djuwaynl the chance of ridding 
himself of Yazdi (put to death Djumada I 681/ 
August 1282). Djuwaynl was once again the sole 
leading minister and stood in high favour with the 
new Ilkhan Ahmad, who was the first Muslim in 
this position — the more so since he had helped him 
towards a temporary victory over the pretender to- 
the throne, Arghun, son of Abaka. He made use of 
this time to bring about an agreement with Egypt 
(682/1283), and thus to terminate for the time being 
the struggles which, hitherto, had been religious in 
nature. When Arghun finally succeeded in establish- 
ing himself (683/1284) Djuwaynl at first attempted 
to flee to India, but later decided to ask the new 
Ilkhan for pardon. He offered a ransom for himself 
and his family but, as he was able to raise only 
400,000 dirham out of the 2000 tumdn demanded, 
he was cruelly put to death on 4 Sha'ban 683/16 
October 1284 near the village of Ah(a)r between 
Kazwin and Zandjan. Several of his sons also met 
with the same fate, although information about 
this is self-contradictory in detail. 

Like his brother, pjuwayni patronized theology, 
science and art to the best of his ability, and gave a 
large proportion of his income to this end (Hamd 
Allah Mustawfi, Ta'rikh-i guzida, i, 584). A number 
of .learned men such as Nasir al-DIn TusI [q.v.], and 
theologians have dedicated their works to him or 
to one of his sons, and poets have composed kasidas 
to him (e.g., Sa c dl, Sahibiyya). Djuwaynl himself 
wrote Arabic and Persian poetry with great command 
of language which (with reservations about Arabic: 
Wassaf, i, 58) was also recognized by his contem- 
poraries (several published in the Tehran periodical 
Armaghdn, v, 284 ft.; xiii, 379 ft.). Besides these 
some of his writings from government offices have 
been preserved in collections (munsha?dt). 

Bibliography: M. Fuat Koprulii in lA, iii, 
2 55-9; Spuler, Mongolen 3 , Berlin 1955, index 
(here references to the original sources are also 
to be found). (B. Spuler) 

DJUZ J , pi. adjza 3 , (i) a "foot" in prosody [see 
c arud]. (ii) a division of the Kur'an for purposes 
of recitation [see kur'an]. 

DJUZ 3 (pi. adizd'), part, particle, term used in 
the technical language of kaldm and of falsafa 



DJUZ 5 — DjOZDjAN 



to describe the (philosophical) atom in the sense 
of the ultimate (substantial) part, that cannot be 
divided further, al-djuz' alladhi la yatadjazza' (cf. 
al-Djurdjani, Ta'rijdt, ed. Fliigel, Leipzig 1845, 78); 
al-djuz* al-wdltid is sometimes used. Synonym: 
"elementary and indivisible matter": d^awhar fard; 
al-d^awhar al-wdhtid alladhi la yankasim. — For other 
definitions of vocabulary see dharra. 

Atomistic conceptions of the world (philosophical 
atomism) existed very early in Islam, sometimes 
along heterodox lines, sometimes fully accepted by 
official teaching. Thus we have the atomism of 
Muhammad b. Zakariyya al-Razi [q.v.], and of 
numerous trends from the 'Urn al-kaldm. One of the 
first elaborations, as Horten has shown, was that 
of the Mu'tazili Abu '1-Hudhayl (contested by al- 
Nazzam and the Isma'ill Abu Hatim al-Razi).— Al- 
Bakillani and his school inherited this atomism, 
modified it along Ash'ari principles, formed from it 
a strict occasionalism, and organized it into a natural 
philosophy which has become famous. Many Ash'arls 
were faithful to it, in a rigid form in various manuals 
and later commentaries (al-Lakani, al-Sanusi of 
Tlemcen, al-Badjurl, etc.) — sometimes in a miti- 
gated form, e.g., al-Idji and his commentator 
al-Djurdjani (there is a similar tendency in the 
Maturidi al-Nasafi, and in al-Taftazani). It may be 
said on the other hand that the atomism of the old 
kaldm, hardly mentioned and made much more 
flexible by al-Ghazali, was practically abandoned by 
Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi, whilst al-Shahrastani attemp- 
ted an intermediate solution (see below). It would 
therefore be inaccurate to join together, as has 
sometimes happened, occasionalist atomism and 
Ash'arl solutions. 

This atomism of the kaldm certainly derives from 
Greek sources, Democritus and Epicurus, but 
transforming them; and still more perhaps from 
Indian sources (see S. Pines, Beitrage zur islamischen 
Atomenlehre, Berlin 1936, 102-23). It was known to 
Maimonides, explained and refuted in the "Guide to 
the Perplexed", but in a somewhat more rigid 
form. Thomas Aquinas made a similar refutation 
in the Summa contra Gentiles, and made it familiar 
to the Latin Middle Ages. A detailed statement of the 
atomist theses of Abu '1-Hudhayl, and especially the 
Ash'ari theses, would take a long time and belongs 
rather to the history of kaldm [q.v.]. There is a 
suggestive summary in L. Massignon, Passion d'al- 
fiallddi, Paris 1922, 550-3. In brief: only the atom is 
substance, and material substance, tangible or 
tenuous; all the rest is of the order of "accidental" 
C-arad) ; no accidental lasts longer than an instant 
(an, wakt); no accidental can be superadded to 
another, it can only reside in the substance-atom and 
cannot pass from one subject to another; each 
accidental is thus created directly by God; in con- 
sequence, all transitive action between two bodies 
is impossible; therefore, there can be no effective 
secondary causes (asbab). We can see the link 
between atomism and the Ash'ari negation of 

To conclude, here is an enumeration that al- 
Djurdjani gives, following al-Idji, in the chapter 
where he treats of the nature of simple bodies 
(Shark al-Mawdkif, Cairo ed. 1325/1907, vii, 5 ff.). 
He notes five possible theories, and centres them 
all on atoms, al-adiza>: (1) atoms exist in esse 
(bi'l-jiH), are determined and indivisible: these are 
atoms in al-Bakillani's sense; (2) al-Nazzam's thesis 
(corrected by S. Pines, id., v. Index): atoms exist 
in esse but are not determined — a thesis that al- 



Djurdjani compares to Galen and Xenocrates (?); 
(3) contrary thesis of al-Shahrastani (this time 
closer to Plato ( ?) : atoms are determined, which 
rules out hylomorphism, but they only exist in posse 
(bi 'l-kuwwa); (4) thesis of the faldsifa: atoms are not 
determined and exist only in posse, extent is 
absolutely continuous,— hylomorphism is thus the 
principle of explanation; (5) to these four theses 
collected by al-Idji, al-Djurdjani adds a fifth which 
he attributes to Democritus; the simple body is 
composed of "little bodies" which cannot be divided 
in fact, but can in spirit, by hypothesis. From an 
historical point of view, need it be said, this summary 
requires revision. It is nevertheless an indication 
of the efforts of al-Idji and al-Djurdjani to give 
an account of all the theories — including the 
hylomorphism of the jalsaja — in terms of atoms. 
Bibliography: in the article. The fundamental 
work remains that of S. Pines, where essential refer- 
ences to Arabic texts and works in European 
languages are given. See in particular the article by 
O. Pretzl, Die friihislamische Atomenlehre, in 7s/., 
1931, 117-30. Also Gardet-Anawati, Introduction 
a la thiologie musulmane, Paris 1948, see index I, 
"Atomisme". (L. Gardet) 

DJOZDJAN, Persian Guzgan, the older name of 
a district in Afghan Turkestan between Murghab 
and the Amu Darya. Its boundaries were not well 
defined, particularly in the west, but it certainly 
included the country containing the modern towns 
of Maymana, Andkhuy, Shibargan and Sar-i Pul. 
Lying on the boundary between the outskirts of the 
Iranian highlands and the steppes of the north, 
Djuzdjan probably always supported nomad tribes 
as it does at the present day in addition to the 
permanent settlements in its fertile valleys (cf. Ibn 
Hawkal, 322 ff. ; Hadjdji Khalifa, Djihdn-numd, ed. 
1145 A.H., 316). The principal wealth of the land lay 
in its flocks (camels: Ibn Hawkal, loc. cit.; Vambery, 
Reise in Mittelasien 2 , 213; horses: Marquart, Erdn- 
Sahr, 138, 147; Vambery, 222; sheep: VambSry, 213; 
Yate, Northern Afghanistan, 344; cf. Istakhri, 271 ; Ibn 
Hawljal, 322). Although the way from the highlands 
of Iran to Ma wara 1 al-Nahr lay through Djuzdjan. 
it was used not so much for friendly intercourse as as 
a military road for armies passing through it. 

The district, which in the beginning of the ist/7th 
century was attached to Tukharistan (see Marquart, 
op. cit., 67), was conquered on the occasion of the 
campaign of al-Ahnaf b. Kays in 33/653-4 by his 
lieutenant al-Akra c . The marches suffered not only 
from the wars with the Turks but also from domestic 
differences within Islam. In the year 119/737 the 
Khakan was defeated by Asad b. <Abd Allah al- 
Kasrl near the capital of Djuzdjan (Shuburkan). In 
125/743 the c Alid Yahya b. Zayd, whose tomb was 
revered long afterward (cf. Wellhausen, Arab. Reich, 
311), fell in battle here against the Umayyads. 
During the 'Abbasid period the governor's residence 
was in Anbar (probably the Djuzdjanan of Nasir-i 
Khusraw, 2, possibly the modern Sar-i Pul); the 
native ruling house of Guzgan-Khudha, the Afrlghun 
dynasty, continued however to survive, and had 
its capital in Kundurm (cf. Istakhri, 270; Ibn 
Hawkal, 321 ff.; Ya'kubl, 287). Shuburkan occasion- 
ally appears as the political centre of Djuzdjan, while 
MukaddasI (297) and Yakut (ii, 149 ff.) mention al- 
Yahudiyya (= Maymana [q.v.]) as the capital. The 
ancient name Djuzdjan appears gradually to have 
fallen into disuse, to survive in literature only for 
some time longer. The various towns in it continue 
to be repeatedly mentioned as the scenes of hostile 



DJOZDJAN — DO'AB 






attacks; only the invasions of Cingiz Khan and 
TImur can be mentioned here. Nothing shoi 
importance of the district more clearly than tl 
that a number of towns have survived all 
vicissitudes until the present day. 

In modern times a number of petty Uzbeg Khanates 
(Akte, Andkhuy, Shibargan, Sar-i Pul, Maymana) 
have been established in the ancient Djuzdjan, 
but they were much harassed by raids of their n 
powerful neighbours such as the invasions of 
Turkoman nomads. Since the time of Dust Muh; 
mad these Khanates have gradually been incorporE 
in Afghan Turkestan; Maymana alone retain 
vestige of independence under Afghan suzerainty. 
Bibliography: Marquart, ErdnSahr, 78, 80 ff., 
86 ff.; S. de Sacy in Annates et voyages, xx (1813), 
172 ff.; Le Strange, 423 ft.; Vambery, Reise in 
Mittelasien*, 211 ff.; C. E. Yate, Northern Afgha- 
nistan, 334-52. (R. Harimann) 
al-DJCZDJAnI, Abu <Amr (not 'Urnar as stated 
by Storey, i, 68) Minhadj al-DIn 'Uthman b. 
Siradj al-DIn Muhammad al-DjuzdjanI, com- 
monly known as Minhadj-i Siradj, the premier 
historian of the Slave dynasty of India, was born 
at Firuzkuh [q.v.] in the royal palace in 589/1193, as 
on his own showing, he was 18 years of age in 607 
1210-1 when Malik Rukn al-Din Mahmud was slain ai 
Firuzkuh. His father, Siradj al-Din, a leading scholai 
and jurist of his day, and a courtier of Sultan Ghiyath 
al-Din, ruler of Firuzkuh, was appointed kadi of tl 
army stationed in India by the Ghuri sultan Mu c i 
il-DIn Muhammad b. Sam, also known as Shihab a 



Din, i 



:. 582/n 



. He s 






5 subsequently summoned from Firuz- 
kuh to Bamiyan by Baha> al-Din Sam b. Shams al- 
Din Muhammad who appointed him the kadi and 
khatib of his kingdom. Being a state dignitary his 
father was held in great esteem by the members of the 
royal family. Minhadj al-Din consequently passed his 
childhood in the harim of the princess Mah-i Mulk, a 
daughter of Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad b. Sam, sultan 
of Ghur and Firuzkuh (558-99/1 162-1202). In 622/1225 
at the age of 33 he was sent as an envoy to the court 
of Malik Tadj al-Din Yinaltigin (incorrect form: 
Niyaltigin, see V. Minorsky in BSOS, viii/i (1935), 
257), at Nimruz. He was sent on a similar mission 
again in the following year. 

The same year, i.e., 623-4/1226-7, he left for India, 
most probably at the invitation of Nasir al-Din 
Kabaca, ruler of Uch, where he was appointed, in 
view of his erudition and vast learning, principal of 
the Madrasa-i FIruzI, one of the earliest educational 
institutions in India established by the Muslims. On 
the overthrow of Kabaca by the Slave sultan of 
Dihli, Shams al-DIn Iletmish, in 625/1228, Minhadj 
changed his loyalty and accompanied the conqueror 
to Dihli, where he held, under him, high legal and 
judicial offices, including that of the Chief Justice of 
the realm. A great orator and an accomplished 
scholar, his discourses and lectures were attended 
even by the highest nobles and the grandees of the 
Sultanate. In 639/1241-2 he was made kadi al-kuddt 
by the Slave king Mu'izz al-DIn Bahram Shah 
(reigned: 637-9/1239-41). Disturbed by the pre- 
vailing political instability and confusion at Dihli, 
al-Djuzdjani decided to try his luck at the court 
of Lakhnawti, the stronghold of Muslim occupation 
in Bengal. However, he did not find conditions 
very congenial there, and after a stay of two years 
returned to Dihli in 642/1244-5. 

He was once more the recipient of royal favours 
and held the double appointment of the kadi of 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



Gwaliyar and the principal of the Madrasa-i Nasiriyya, 
a college named after the sultan Nasir al-Din 
Mahmud Shah, son of Iletmish, who reigned from 
644-64/1246-65. 

The same Sultan, greatly impressed with his vast 
and varied knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and 
the dispensation of justice, appointed him once 
again the Chief Judge of the realm. He, however, 
fell a prey to the machinations of a court clique, 
headed by c Imad al-DIn Rihan, Wakil-i Dar, who 
compassed his ruin, and he fell from grace in 651/1253, 
after having been in office for two years only. He was 
reinstated in 652/1254 and soon afterwards the title 
of Sadr-i Diahdn was conferred on him. The next 
year he was re-appointed Chief Judge of the realm, 
through the good offices of his patron Ulugh Khan-i 
A c zam, the powerful minister of Sultan Nasir al-DIn. 
He was alive uutil at least 658/1259-60 when he com- 
pleted tabaka 22 of his work. He seems to have died 
some time during the reign of Sultan Ghiyath al- 
DIn Balban (664/1265-686/1287), full of years and 
honours, and was, in all probability, buried at Dihli. 

His fame chiefly rests on his magnum opus, the 
Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, written mainly during the years 
657-8/1259-60, after his retirement from active life, 
and dedicated to Sultan Nasir al-DIn Mahmud. It is 
the main source of information for the early Sultanate 
period, the author having utilized some of the works 






lotable 



omissions is the total lack of mention of the embassy 
of Radi al-Din Hasan b. Muhammad al-Saghanl 
[q.v.], who was sent by the 'Abbasid Caliph al-Nasir 
li-DIn Allah as a special envoy to the court of 
Iletmish in 616/1219-20 (see TA under the root 
K.N.DJ and the Urdu monthly Ma'drif, A c zam- 
gafh, June 1959). A Sufi and a poet given to wadfd 
and samd c , he has been mentioned by c Abd al-Hakk 
Muhaddith in his Akhbdr al-akhydr (see Bibliography), 
where one rubd'i of Minhadj has been quoted. Some 
other tadhkiras of Indian Persian poets (see Hablbi 
in the Bibl.) also mention him, but his poetry and 
other achievements have been overshadowed by his 
historical talents. 

Bibliography: H. G. Raverty, Eng. trans, of 
Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, London 1881, ii, xix-xxxi 
(mainly gleaned from the Tabakdt itself) ; Tabaqdt-e- 
Ndsiri (ed. Aqa-ye c Abd-ul-Hayy HabibI Afghani), 
Lahore 1954, ii, 724-72 (mostly based on the 
Tabakdt, but contains numerous other references) ; 
c Abd al-Hakk Muhaddith al-Dihlawi, Akhbdr al- 
akhydr, Meerut 1278/1861, 80; H. G. Raverty in 
JASB, li, 1882, 76; Rieu, i, 72; Catalogue of Persian 
MSS. in the Bankipur Library, vi, 451; Elliot and 
Dowson, History of India as told by its own 
Historians, ii, 259 ft.; 'Abbas Ikbal, Ta'rikh-i 
istiW-yi Mughul, Tehran, 483; Hakim c Abd 
al-Hayy Lakhnawl, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Hayd- 
arabad 1366/1947, i, 174-8; Aligarh Magazine (in 
Urdu) vol. xiii/i (Jan. 1934), article by Zakariyya 
Fayyadi; <Abd al-Hakk Muhaddith, Tadhkira-i 
musannifin-i Dihli, 7; Storey, i, 68-70; there are 
also casual references in Fawd'id al- fu'dd by 
Amir Hasan Sidjzi ; Barthold, Turkestan*, 38 and 
index. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

DO'AB, (Pers.) 'two-waters', corresponding to the 
Greek (xeaoTtOTafxta, is in the Indo-Pakistan sub- 
ontinent generally applied to the land lying 



betv 



.nfluei 



particularly to the fertile plain between the Djamna 
and the Ganges in Uttar Pradesh. The long tongues 
of land between the five rivers of the Pandjab are 
also known as do'dbs. Between the Satladj and the 






DO'AB — DOBRUDJA 



(Bardjan i 
Bulgar 
Karbona' i 



Be'as lies the Bist do'ab; between the Be'as and the 
Rawi, the Ban do'ab; between the Raw! and the 
Cenab, the Recna do'ab; between the Cenab and 
Djhelam, the Cadi or Djec do'ab; and between 
Djhelam and the Indus, the Sind Sagar do'ab. The 
names for these do'dbs are said to have been invented 
by the emperor Akbar (A'ln-i Akbari, trs. H 
Jarrett, ii, 311 ff.). The most famous do'al 
Southern India is the Raycur do'ab between 
Kistna (Krishna) and the Tungabhadra rivers w 
formed a fluctuating frontier between the Hindu 
kingdom of Vidjayanagara and the Muslim state 
of the Deccan. (C. Collin Da vies) 

DO c AN [see daw c an]. 

DOBRUDJA. the plateau between the Danube 
and the Lom river in the North, the Black Sea in 
East and the Prowadijska river or the Balkan range 
in the South. Deli Orman in this area is distinguished 
from the steppe region, Dobrudja- Ktri, in the East 
which is considered as the Dobrudja proper. Called 
Scythia Minor in the Graeco-Roman period, it w; 
included in the Byzantine province of Paristric 
n Idrisi's world map) in 361/972. In 
1 Karvunska Chora, it was 'the land of 
n the mediaeval Italian maps. Its modern 
name came from Dobrudja-eli (as Aydin f 
Aydin-eli) which in Turkish meant the land of 
Dobrudja, DobrotiC (as Karlofdja fiom Karlowitz) 
(cf. Susmanos-eli in Neshri, Gihanniima, ed. Fr. 
Taeschner, Leipzig 1951, 66). Yanko or Ivanko, 
son of Dobrotif, was mentioned as Dobrudja-oghlu 
in Neshri (66, 68). 

From the early 5th century A.D. until the 13th/ 
19th century Dobrudja became, primarily for the 
peoples of Turkic origin coming from the Eurasian 
steppes, a natural route leading to the invasion of the 
Balkans or a refuge for those pushed by their rivals 
beyond the Danube. Thus in the footsteps of the 
Huns (408 A.D.) came Avars (in 534 and especially 
in 587 A.D.), Bulghars (especially in 59/679) with 
their capital in Preslav, southern Dobrudja, Peceneks 
(440/1048), Uz (456/1064) and Klpcaks (Cumans) 
(484/1091). Among those the Klpcaks appeared to 
play politically and ethnically the most important 
part in the history of Dobrudja until the advent of 
the Ottoman Turks. T. Kowalski finds (Les Turcs et 
la langue tut que de la Bulgarie du Nord-Est, in Ac. 
Pol. Mim. de la commission orientaliste, xvi, Cracow 
1933, 28) linguistic remains of these early Turkish 
invasions from the North in the Gagauz Turkish 
(cf. gagauz). The name Deli Orman comes from the 
Cuman Teli Orman (cf. G. Moravcsik, Byzantinotur- 
cica, ii, Berlin 1958, 305-6). The Cumans in the 
Balkans were mostly Christianized, and, mingled 
with the native Wallachs and Slavs, they continued 
to play the r61e of a ruling military class among 
them (cf. L. Rasonyi-Nagy, Valacho-turcica, Berlin- 
Leipzig 1927, 68-96; P. Nikov, The Second Bulgarian 
Kingdom, Sofia 1937, in Bulgarian). Furthermore 
the Mongol invasion of the Dasht-i Klpcak in 620/ 
1223 and the foundation of the Khanate of the 
Golden Horde in 635/1238 caused large groups of 
Cumans to flee to the West (cf. B. Spuler, Die Goldene 
Horde, Leipzig 1945, 19-20). As to the bulk of the 
Klpcaks who remained in the Dasht under Mongol 
rule, they mostly adopted Islam and were to play 
a significant part under the name of Tatar in 
Dobrudja's history in the following periods. With 
their support Noghay [q.v.] established his over- 
lordship on the Bulgarian kingdom by 681/1282, 
where the king and many of his boyars were of 
Cuman origin. The lower Danube with Sakdji 



(Isaccea) was reported in the Arabic sources (Bay- 
bars, Zubdat al-fikra, in W. de Tiesenhausen, Altin- 
ordu devleti tarihine ait metinUr, Turkish trans. 
I. H. Izmirli, Istanbul 1941, 221; Nuwayrl, ibid., 
282) as one of the headquarters of Noghay. He was, 
Z. V. Togan thinks (Umumt Turk tarihine giris, 
Istanbul 1946, 256, 325), acting against the Byzan- 
tines under the influence of the ghazd preachings of 
Saru Saltuk, who was active in Sakdji and the 
Crimea during this period. After the suppression 
of Noghay by Tokhtu, Khan of the Golden Horde 
(autumn 698/1299), Tukal Bogha, his son, was placed 
in the lower Danube and Sakdji and Noghay's son 
Ceke came into Bulgaria to seize the throne for a 
short time (cf. Baybars and Nuwayrl, ibid.). 

As for the Anatolian Turks who were said to come 
with Saru Saltuk in Dobrudja in this period, we are 
now in a position to assert after P. Wittek's com- 
parative study of the original Turkish account 
of Yazldjioghlu 'All with the Byzantine sources 
(Yazijioghlu <Ali on the Christian Turks of Dobruja, 
in BSOAS, xiv (1952), 639-68) that these came 
actually to settle in Dobrudja after 662/1263-4 with 
Sultan <Izz al-DIn Kaykaus who was then a refugee 
in Byzantium. Michael VIII Palaeologus gave 
permission to Kaykaus's followers in Anatolia to 
come to settle in Dobrudja, then a no-man's-land 
between the Golden Horde, Bulgaria and the 
Byzantine empire (the arguments of P. Mutafciev, 
Die angebliche Einwanderung von Seldschuk-Tiirken 
in die Dobrudscha im XIII. Jahrh., in Bulg. Acad. 
Sci. Lett., lxvi/i, 2, are not valid after Wittek's 
study; cf. also H. von Duda, Zeitgenossische islami- 
sche Quellen und das Oguzndme des Jazygyoglu '■Ali . . ., 
ibid. 131-45; see also Adnan S. Erzi, in IA, v/2, 716). 
These Muslim Turks from Anatolia, mostly nomads, 
formed there "two or three towns and 30-40 06a, 
clans" (Yazldjioghlu in Wittek, 648; von Duda, 144). 
Abu '1-Fida > 's note about the majority of the popu- 
lation of 'Sakdji' being Muslims (Giographie, ed. 
Reinaud and de Slane, Paris 1840, 34) apparently 
referred to them rather than the Tatars settled 
under Noghay. With his headquarters in Sakdji 
Noghay, then converted to Islam, must have become 
after Berke Khan's death (665/1267, cf. Spuler, 51) 
the protector of the Anatolian Turks in Dobrudja 
(cf. Z. V. Togan, ibid.). It is interesting to note that 
the emigration of them back to Anatolia about 
706/1307 followed the death of Noghay and the 
arrival of Tukal Bogha, apparently a pagan like his 
father Tokhtu Khan. In 699/1300 Noghay's son Ceke 
too was killed by Svetoslav in Bulgaria. Yazidjloghlu 
noted (Wittek, 651) that these Turks decided to 
emigrate because the Bulgarian princes had risen 
up and occupied the larger part of Rumeli. Those 
who remained, he added, became Christians. These 
people of Kaykaus were, as Wittek demonstrated 
after Balascev, named Ghaghauz after their lord 
Kaykaus (cf. Wittek, ibid., 668). But in 732/1332 
Baba Saltuk (later Baba-dagh) was, Ibn Battuta 
reported (Voyages, ii, 416; English trans. Gibb, ii, 
Cambridge 1959, 499), an important town possessed 
by the 'Turks'. 

By 766/1365 an independent despotate under a 
Christianized Turkish family rose in the part of 
Dobrudja where the Gagauz always lived (in the 
Ottoman defter of 1006/1598, Tapu Kadastro Um. 
Md, Ankara, no. 399, some Christians in the area 
still bore Turkish names such as Arslan, Karagoz). 
Balik (758/1357) (also Balica; the name is a Cuman 
name, cf. Rasonyi, ibid.; Iorga identified it with 
Rumanian Balita; Notes d'un historien, in Acad. 



Roum. Bull. Sec. His. ii-iv (1913), 97. Colpan, an 
important man under the son of Dobrotii, bore an 
Anatolian Turkish name) and especially his energetic 
brother Dobrotii (the name is undoubtedly of 
Slav origin) founded in the area from the delta of 
the Danube down to the Emine promontory south 
of Varna a despotate independent of Byzantium 
and Bulgaria. Its capital was at Kalliakra by 767/ 
1366 (Iorga, Dobrotisch, in Ac. Roum. Bull, de la 
Sec. His. ii-iv, 1914, 295) and Varna by 790/1388 
(Neshri, 68). Apparently he profited from the 
Ottoman onslaught in Byzantine Thrace and 
Shishman's Bulgaria between 762-73/1361-71. From 
763/1362 to 767/1366 his and the Ottomans' enemies 
were the same (cf. Iorga, Dobrotisch, 295). Allied 
with Venice, Dobrotic challenged the Genoese in the 
Black Sea. For Venice the wheat export of Dobrudja 
was then vitally important (cf. F. Thiriet, Regestes 
des deliberations du Sinat de Venise concernant la 
Romanic, i, 1958, documents nos. 545, 575, 576, 653, 
671, 689). The land over which he ruled was named 
after him 'the Land of Dobrotic', terra Dobroticii 
(in 758/1357, Acta Patr. Const., i, 367) or Dobrudja-eli 
in Turkish (Yazldjioghlu in Wittek, 649). His son 
Ivanko or rather Yanko (Ioanchos) was an Ottoman 
vassal by 790/1388 (Neshri, 66, 68). It is most likely 
that Dobrotii too had accepted Ottoman suzerainty 
as had Shishman since 773/1371. Under Yanko 
Dobrudja experienced the first Ottoman conquest. 
In the winter of 790/1388 Murad I hastily sent an 
army under c Ali Pasha against Shishman and 
Yanko who had refused to join as his vassals the 
Ottoman army against Serbia. { Ali passed the 
Balkan range through the pass of Nadir, captured 
Provadija (Pravadi), Shumla (Shumnu), Eski- 
Istanbulluk (ancient Preslav), Madera, and pro- 
ceeded toward Trnovo (see Bulgaria). Then 
Yakhshi, son of Timurtash, was ordered to subdue 
the land of Dobrudja. According to a Turkish source 
(Neshri, 66-70, reproduces an old and detailed 
account of this expedition. ROM gives the same 
account with omissions. Fr. Babinger, Beitrdge zur 
Fruhgeschichte der Turkenherrschaft in Rumelien, 
Miinchen 1944, 30, confused the expeditions of 790/ 
1388 and 795/1393) two men from Varna came and 
said that the notables of the city had decided to 
seize the Tekvur, son of Dobrudja, and surrender the 
fortress to the Pasha. But the fortress did not 
surrender when Yakhshi came (Neshri, 68). The 
Ottomans, busy elsewhere, left Bulgaria to come 
back only in 795/1393. In the meantime Dobrudja 
and Silistre (Durostor) were occupied by Mircea, a 
Wallachian prince. In his treaty with Poland in 
791/1389 and in its renewal in 793/1391 he called 
himself 'the Lord of Silistre and Despot of the Land 
of Dobrotii' (despotus terrarum Dobrodicii) (N. Iorga, 
Hist, des Roumains, iii, Bucarest 1937, 339). The 
'Turkish Towns' mentioned among his possessions 
(Iorga, Dobrotisch, 298) might be Sakdjl and other 
towns founded by the 'people of Kaykaus'. From 
there Mircea attacked the akindjis at the Ottoman 
udj of Karin-ovasi (Karnobad) who were a constant 
threat to his new possessions (cf. A. Decei, L'expe- 
dition de Mirlea I contre les akindji de Karinovasi, in 
Rev. des £t. Roumaines, Paris 1953, 130-51). It was 
this bold attack that made Bayezld I come to 
consolidate Ottoman rule in Bulgaria (see bayazId I). 
Dobrudja and Silistre were taken under direct 
Ottoman rule during the operations in 795/1393- 
Then Dobrudja was made an important udj [q.v.] for 
akindjis, and preserved this character throughout its 
history, attracting warlike elements as well as 



dissidents and sectarians. Mircea profited from the 
Ottoman disaster at Ankara in 805/1402 to take 
back Silistre and the northern Dobrudja (Iorga, 
Hist, des Roumains, iii, 385). Siileyman, Bayezid's 
successor in Rumeli, appears then to have recognized 
the fact. But soon the akindjis renewed their raids 
against Mircea (Neshri, 130; P. S. Nastrul, Une 
victoire de Voyvode Mircea, in Studia et Acta Orien- 
talia, i, Bucarest 1958, 242). To free himself of them 
Mircea invited and gave his support to Musa Celebi, 
Siileyman's brother and rival (Neshri, 130; P. P. 
Panaitescu, Mircea eel Bdtran, Bucarest 1943, 214). 
The akindjis joined Musa [q.v.] against Siileyman, 
and left Mircea alone. In 819/1416 he supported 
Mustafa, another pretender, and Shaykh Badr al- 
Din [q.v.] against Mehemmed I [q.v.] in Dobrudja and 
Deli Orman. The tovidjas, akindji leaders, Sufi 
dervishes who were in this udj area in great numbers 
joined them (cf. S. Yaltkaya, Seyh Bedreddin'e dair 
bir kitap, in TM, iii, 251; Orudj, ed. Fr. Babinger, 
45, in). Though in their official titles Mircea and 
Mihai, his successor, always mentioned 'the two 
sides of the Danube' among their possessions it was 
apparent that Dobrudja and Silistre were then 
actually in the hands of the akindjis, who in their 
antipathy toward Mehemmed I must have continued 
their friendly relations with the Wallachian voyvodas. 
Mircea's death (Dhu 'l-Hidjdja 820/ January 1418) 
and the ensuing confusion provided the Sultan 
with the opportunity to establish his control in 
Dobrudja in 822/1419. After he subdued his rivals in 
Anatolia, the Djandarids and then the Karamanids 
(see karaman oghlu), Mehemmed I organized a 
large-scale expedition against Wallachia in which 
both Anatolian principalities sent auxiliary forces. 
An Ottoman fleet participated in the operations. In 
the summer of 822/1419 he crossed the Danube, 
captured and fortified Yergogii (Giurgiu) and 
attempted to take Kilia while the raiders devastated 
the enemy's country. Mihai first took refuge in 
Argesh and then perished in an skirmish. Before his 
return the Sultan strengthened Sakdjl and Yeni-Sale 
against future attacks of the Wallachians. No 
mention is made of Silistre during this expedition. 
Dan I, the new Voyvoda, recognized Ottoman 
suzerainty, though the Emperor Sigismond had 
started southwards with the intention of invading 
the Dobrudja. He was delayed by the Ottoman 
action against Severin (autumn 822/1419). (Iorga, 
GOR, i, 375, and Hist, des Roumains, iii, 401-2, 
dates this expedition 820/1417. In this year Mehem- 
med I was at war against the Karaman oghlu in 
Anatolia, cf. Ibn Hadjar, text in S. Inalcik, Ibn 
Hacer'de Osmanhlara dair haberler, AODTCF 
Dergisi, vi/5, 525. Following Neshrl's confused 
chronology, Uzuncarsih, Osmanh tarihi, i, new ed. 
Ankara 1961, 356; and A. Decei, IA, iii, 635, 
adopted 819/1416 as the date of the expedition 
against Wallachia. For our dating see further 
O. Turan, Tarihi takvimler, Ankara 1954, 20, 56; 
Atsiz, Osmanh tarihine ait takvimler, Istanbul 1961, 
20; Ibn Hadjar, ibid., the years 821/1418 and 822/ 
1419; and a letter of Mehemmed I to the Mamluk 
Sultan in Ferldfln, Munsha'dt al-saldtin, i, 164-5). 
The Wallachians under Dan attempted to take 
Silistre during the period of the renewed civil war 
in the Ottoman empire in 825/1422 (Iorga, Hist, des 
Roumains, iv, 20; Neshri, 154; 'Ashikpashazade, ed. 
c AlI, 105). Against him Flrflz (Feriz) Beg was appoint- 
ed in this udj to organize counter-raids. 

Firmly established in Dobrudja since Mehemmed 
I's expedition in 822/1419, the Ottomans used it as 



a base to extend their control on the other side of the 
Danube. The imperial army under Mehemmed II 
invaded Boghdan [q.v.] in 881/1476, passing through 
Dobrudja (see mehemmed II), Bayezid II using the 
same route took Kilia and Akkerman in 889/1484. 
During this expedition he built the great mosque and 
the zdwiya of Saru Saltuk in Baba Kasabasi (Baba- 
dagh) and endowed them with all the tax revenues 
of the town and surrounding villages (for these 
endowments a wakf defteri exists in the Tapu ve 
Kadastro Um. Md., Ankara, no. 397). In his ex- 
pedition against Boghdan in 945/1538 Siileyman I 
too showed the same interest in this pre-Ottoman 
Islamic centre (cf. Feridun, i, 602-3). 

According to the defters (see daftar-i khakani) of 
the ioth/i6th century (in the Basvekdlet Archives 
Istanbul, Tapu nos. 65, 542, 688, 304, 483, 732, and, 
in Tapu ve Kadastro Um. Md. Ankara, nos. 397, 398, 
399) the sandjak oi Silistre and Akkerman comprised 
the badas of Akkerman, Djankerman, Kili, Bender, 
Ibrail, Silistre, HIrsova, Tekfurgolii and the nahiyes 
of Varna, Pravadi, Yanbolu, Ahyolu, Rusi-Kasrl, 
Karin-abad and Aydos. Baliik, Kavarna and 
Kaligra were included in the nahiye of Varna. The 
Ottomans applied in Dobrudja typical Ottoman laws 
and regulations with special provisions for such 
groups as eshkiindjis, miisellems, Diebelii-Tatars. 
Matrak-Tatarlari, djanbdz (cf. the kdnunndmes in 
0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, 272-89). 

The following is a table drawn up according to the 
defters of 1006/1597 (Tapu ve Kadastro Um. Md., 
Ankara, nos. 397, 398, 399). 



Dasht-i Kipcak in autumn 797/1395- Their leader 
Aktaw was a general of Tokhtamlsh Khan (cf. 
Nizam al-Din ShamI, Zafamama, Turkish trans. 
N. Lugal, Ankara 1949, 194). Bayezid I took them 
into his own service with the same status as the 
Yuruk [q.v.] (O. L. Barkan, in Iktisad Fak. Mec, xv, 
211-3). From Budjak [q.v.] and the Crimea Tatar 
refugees continued to come into Dobrudja in later 
periods (especially in 918/1512 and 920/1514, cf. 
Miistecib H. Fazil, Dobruca ve Turkler, Kostence 
1940, 36). In 1007/1599 Baldasarius Waltheri 
reported that in the plain of Dobrudja lived 6000 
Tatar families, Dobrudja Tatarlarl, who provided an 
auxiliary force to the Ottoman army under a Crimean 
prince (Miistecib H. Fazil, ibid., 37). 

In the regions of Tekfur-golii, HIrsova, Silistre and 
Varna also lived the Yiiruk [q.v.] groups: those of 
Kodjadjlh 44 odjak, each odjak being regularly 30 men, 
Nal-dbken 34 odjak, Taiiri-dagh about 95 odjak by 
1009/1600 (cf. T. Gokbilgin, ibid., 56, 70, 76, 212-30). 
Each odjak furnished five fighters for the army. 

Turkish Muslims made up, in the countryside too, 
the majority of the population. The study of personal 
names and village names (the above mentioned 
defters are mufassal defters in which the names of 
the heads of the households are recorded) shows 
that an overwhelming majority of the villages were 
the new ones founded by the Turkish Muslim 
immigrants from Anatolia. We know that the Otto- 
man state made from the early conquest onwards 
forced settlements of Anatolian Turks in this 
important udi area (cf. Barkan, Kanunlar, 273, 274, 



t™ 


Number of Muslim 
districts 


Number of non-Muslim 
districts 


Tax revenue 


Silistre 


I6 


< 1 Jewish 
( 1 Gypsy 


215,429 


Isakdjl (Isakca, Sakdjl) 






187,995 








83,113 


Baba (Baba-dagh) 


16 


2 


107,350 (Wakf) 


HIrsova 


2 


— 


50,000 


Tekfur-golii 


1 


^56 families of 
tuzdju 


34,477 


Balclk 




3 




Kavarna 








Pazardjik 


16 






Kaligra (Kalliakra) 


1 (dervishes in 
the zawiya) 


1 


12,110 



As separate small communities gypsies lived in 
all these towns. They were mostly Christians. Only 
in Silistre 21 Jewish families were recorded. Here is a 
table of the ports in Dobrudja with their revenues from 
the dues on fish, salt, mills and the customs dues : 

Silistre: 566,666, Tulca, Isakdjl and Maim together: 
561, 675. Varna, Balclk, Kaligra, Mangalya, Kostendje, 
Kara-Harmanllk, Kamci-suyu, Galata, Baba-golu 
and Yeni-Sale together: 281,004. 

In 32 villages of the kadd of HIrsova and in 9 
villages of that of Tekfur-golii lived Tatardn-i Qiebe- 
luydn (Qiebelii Tatarlar) with the obligation to equip 
at their own expense 360 djebelus for the army, and 
in return they were exempted from the '■awdrid 
[q.v.] taxes. The Tatars of Aktaw who were settled 
around Tekfur-golii, Pravadi, Varna, Yanbolu and 
Filibe (T. Gokbilgin, Rumeli'de Yuriikler, Tatarlar ve 
Evlad-i Fdtihdn, Istanbul 1957, 26, 87, 88) had 
immigrated into Rumeli when Timur invaded the 



and Iktisad Fak. Mec, xv, 227). A great number of 
the villages bore a personal name ending with the 
word kuyu, well (Akindji Kuyusu, Kara Bali 
Kuyusu, Avunduk Kuyusu etc.). A large number of 
them revealed a tribal origin with the word Hemd'-at 
(for example Karye-i Eyerdji Khayr al-Din Pinari, 
djema'at-i Seyyid Khizir, Karye-i Kartallu Mustafa 
c an djema c at-i Salih Tovidja etc.). Apparently few 
villages with a mixed population of Muslims and 
Christians were pre-Ottoman. In the northern 
Dobrudja there existed large villages of exclusively 
Christian population (Macin, Kara-Harmanllk, Ester- 
bend etc.). Some names indicated their Romanian 
origin (Radul, Yanko, Mihne etc.). Most of the 
Christian villages enjoyed exemption from '■awdrid 
taxes in return for their services to repair the bridges 
and roads, or for their work in the salt production. 
The repopulation and prosperity of Dobrudja 
under the Ottomans were primarily due to the fact 



DOBRUDJA — DOGER 



613 



that they considered it as an important udj area, 
and the Anatolian immigrants were encouraged to 
engage in agriculture by the increasing demand for 
and easy transportation of the wheat production 
of Dobrudja for Istanbul. From Kara-Harmanllk, 
Kostendje, Mangalya, Balclk and Kaligra a large 
quantity of wheat and fish was exported regularly 
to the Ottoman metropolis. At these ports the state 
had built special storehouses for wheat. Muslims 
paid two per cent and dhimmis four per cent as 
customs due on their export. The ports of Silistre, 
Tulca, IsakdjI, Macin, Hirsova exported, in addition, 
Wallachian timber, salt, felt of Brashow and slaves 
for Istanbul and Rumeli (The kdnunnames of the 
ports of Dobrudja in the above-mentioned defters are 
not yet published; also see 'Othman Nurl, Medielle-i 
Umur-i Belediyye, Istanbul 1338, 781, and Tarik 
Vesikalart, v, 333). The towns of Hadjioghlu 
Pazardjlk, Mangalya and Baba with their weekly 
fairs were important trade centres for the whole 
region (cf. EwliyS Celebi, Seydhatndme, iii, Istanbul 



■. 329 



7i). 



From 983/1575 onwards Cossack attacks became 
a constant threat to Dobrudja. In 995/1587 they 
burned down Baba (Babadagh). In 1003/1595 Mihai, 
the rebellious Voyvoda of Wallachia, supported 
by the Cossacks, renewed Mircea's attacks on 
the Ottoman cities and fortresses in Dobrudja 
and caused a mass emigration (cf. A. Decei, in lA, 
iii, 637). The continuing Cossack threat made the 
Ottoman government decide to create a new eydlet 
including the sandjaks of the Eastern Black Sea 
with Silistre and Ozii as its capitals (cf. c Ayni c Ali, 
Kawdnin-i Al-i 'Othmdn . . ., Istanbul 1280, 13). 

The Dobrudja was invaded by the Russian armies 
for the first time in 1185/1771. Babadagh, general 
headquarters of the Ottoman armies, fell in 1185/1771, 
and, when in 1188/1774 Hadjioghlu Pazardjlk, the 
new headquarters, also fell the Ottomans demanded 
a cease-fire. The Dobrudja became again a battlefield 
between the Ottoman and Russian armies in 1224/ 
1809, 1244/1829 and 1271/1855. The Russian in- 
vasion of 1244/1829 proved especially ruinous for 
the Dobrudja, causing a mass emigration of the 
Turkish-Tatar population. Whole towns and villages 
were deserted. The population of the Dobrudja after 
this war was estimated at only 40,000 (Mustecib 
H. Fazil, op. cit., 75 ; E. Z. Karal, Os. Imp. ilk ntifus 
saytmt, Ankara 1943). Appreciating its strategical 
importance the Ottoman government took special 
measures to repopulate the Dobrudja by improving 
agriculture and bringing in settlers. In Muhanam 
1253/April 1837 Mahmud II (cf. H. Inalcik, Tanzimat 
ve Bulgar Meselesi, Ankara 1943, 27-8) and in 
spring 1262/1846 Sultan c Ahd al-Medjid [Seydhat- 
ndme-i Humdyun, 11-5) visited the area. In 1266/1850 
an expert was sent to explore the agricultural possi- 
bilities there (I. I. de la Brad, Excursion agricole 
dans la plaine de la Dobroudja, Const. 1850). At this 
date in the kadds of Tulca, Isakca, Macin, Hirsova, 
Babadagh, Kostendje, Mangalya, Pazardjlk, Balclk 
and Silistre were 4800 Turkish, 3656 Romanian, 
2225 Tatar, 2214 Bulgarian, 1092 Cossack, 747 
Lipovani, 300 Greek, 212 Gypsy, 145 Arab, 126 
Armenian, 119 Jewish and 59 German families. 
After the Crimean war in the period between 1270/ 
1854 and 1283/1866 the Tatar immigrants from the 
Crimea who were settled in the Dobrudja were 
estimated at dabout 100,000 (F. Bianconi quoted in 
M. H. Fazil, 90-1). When in 1281/1864 the wildyet 
of Tuna was created the sandfaks or liwds of Tulca 
and Varna with a total population of 173,250 made 



a part of it. The former included the kadds of 
Balclk, Pazardjlk, Pravadi, and Mangalya, the 
latter those of Baba, Hirsova, Siinne, Kostendje, 
Macin and Medjidiye (Karasu) (Sdlndme, 1294; cf. N. 
V. Michoff , La population de la Turquie et de la Bul- 
garie au XVIII' et au XIX' siecUs, i, Sofia 1929). 
The Turco- Russian war of 1877-8 caused about 
90,000 Turks and Tatars to emigrate from the 
Dobrudja to Turkey and Bulgaria and most of them 
never returned. By the treaty of Berlin signed on 
13 July 1878 (Art. 46), the sandjak of Tulca and the 
Southern Dobrudja from the east of Silistre to the 
south of Mangalya were annexed to Romania. The 
rest of the Dobrudja made the part of the Prin 
cipality ' of Bulgaria under Ottoman suzerainty 
(Art. 1-2). Under the Romanian administration 
emigrations of Muslim population into Turkey 
continued especially in 1300/1883 when these were 
subjected to compulsory military service and in 
1317/1899 during the famine in the Dobrudja 
(M. H. Fazil, 109-10). In 1328/1910 in the Romanian 
Dobrudja only thirty per cent of a population of 
210,000 and in the Bulgarian Dobrudja forty per 
cent of a population of 257,000 were Muslim Turks 
and Tatars. 

Bibliography : The Basvekalet Archives, 
Istanbul, Tapu Defterleri, nos. 304, 483, 732; 
Tapu ve Kadastro Um. Md., Ankara, Kuyud-i 
Kadime, nos. 397, 398, 399; I. Bromberg, Topo- 
nymical and historical miscellanies on mediaeval 
Dobrudja, Bessarabia and Moldo-Wallachia, in 
Byzantion, xii, 151-207, 459-475; xiii, 9-72; 
N. Banescu, La question du Paristrion, in Byzan- 
tion, viii (1933); P. Mutafciev, Dobrudja, Sofia 
1947 (in Bulgarian); La Dobrudja, ed. Acad. 
Roumaine, Bucarest 1938; Mustecib H. Fazil 
(Ulkiisal), Dobruca ve Tiirkler, Kostence 1940; 
C. Jirecek, Geschichte der Bulgaren, Prague 1876; 
N. Iorga, Hist, des Roumains, i-x, Bucarest 1936-9; 
P. Wittek, Yazijloghlu <-Ali on the Christian Turks 
of the Dobruja, in BSOAS, xiv (1952), 639-68; 
A. I. Manof, Gagauzlar, Turkish trans, by T. 
Acaroglu, Ankara 1940; N. Iorga, La politique 
vinitienne dans les eaux de la mer noire, in Acad. 
Roumaine, Bull. sect, hist., ii-iv (1914), 289-307; 
idem, Dobrotich, Dobrotil, Dobrotici, in Rev. hist, 
du Sud-Est Europeen, v (1928); Documente privind 
Istoria Romlniei, A. Moldova, i, Bucarest 1954 
(the text of the treaty between Ivanco and the 
Genoese, 296-301); G. I. Bratianu, Recherches sur 
Vicina et Cetdtea Alba, Bucarest 1935; Ewliya 
Celebi, Seydhatndme, iii, Istanbul 1314 H., 335-75; 
Analele Dobrogei, publ. in Constanta since 1920; 
lA, art. Dobruca (Aurel Decei). See also baba- 
dagh!, DELI ORMAN, GAGAUZ, SARl SALtIk (SarU 

Saltuk). (Haul Inalcik) 

POFAR [see zafar]. 

DOG [see kalb]. 

DOGER, name of an Oghuz tribe {boy). They are 
mentioned in the Oghuz-ndme (the account of the 
life of the Oghuz people before they embraced Islam, 
see F. Siimer, Oguzlar'a ait distant mahiyette eserler, 
in Ank. Vn. DTCFD, xvii/3-4), where it is said that 
some prominent beys of the Oghuz rulers belonged 
to this tribe. According to the Syrian historian Shams 
al-Din Muhammad al-Djazarl (658/1 260-739/ 1 338), 
the Artuk [q.v.] dynasty, ruling the Mardin-Diyar- 
bekir region, belonged to the Doger tribe (F. Siimer, 
op. cit., 405, n. 171), which must therefore have taken 
part in the conquests of the Selcuks. In the second 
half of the 8th/i3th century an important branch of 
the Doger was living south of Urfa (Edessa) and 



DOGER — DOGHANDjl 



around Dia'bar: their leader was, in 773/1371-2, a 
bey named Salim. 

Salim played a part in the events of North Syrian 
history and died towards the end of the century. 
Three sons of his are known. Dimashk Khodia. 
probably the eldest, was in 801/1398 appointed nd y ib 
of Dja'bar by the Mamluk Sultan; profiting from 
the anarchy left by TImur's invasion, he brought 
under his control also Rakka, Sarudj, Harran, Urfa 
and Siverek, but was killed in battle with the famous 
Arab amir Nu'ayr (Muhammad b. Muhanna) and 
his head was sent to Cairo (806/1404). He was suc- 
ceeded by his brother Gokce Musa, who, like 
Dimashk, was hostile to the Ak-koyunlu and friendly 
with the Kara-koyunlu: in 807/1405 he entertained 
at Dja'bar the Kara-koyunlu ruler Kara Yusuf, who 
was travelling home from Syria; he assisted the 
Kara-koyunlu in various campaigns, helping Kara 
YQsuf's son Iskender to defeat Kara Yuluk 'Othman 
Beg in the battle fought at Sheykh-kendi (between 
Mardin and Nasibin) in 824/1421. In 840/1436 he 
defeated Kara Yiiluk's grandson, c Ali Beg-oghlu 
Djihangir, and sent him prisoner to Cairo, but died in 
the same year. Thereafter, under pressure from the 
Ak-koyunlu, the Doger lost even Dia'bar. In Gokce 
MQsa's lifetime his younger brother Hasan Beg had 
entered the service of the Mamluk Sultan and 
became nd'ib of 'Adjlun; Hasan's son Amirza was 
nd'ib of Karak in 890/1485. 

Apart from Salim's family, other beys of the 
Doger — Yar c Ali, Muhammad and Katl — are found 
in Syria as leaders of Doger clans among the Turk- 
mens of Haleb; Katl was in 857/1453 ndHb of 
Buhayra for the Mamluks. In the time of Suleyman I, 
the Doger of Syria were divided in three clans 
(oymak) in the regions of Haleb, Hama and Dimashk- 
The tapu registers show two small groups in Jerusalem 
residing in the Bab al- c Amud and Banu Zayd 
quarters (cf. B. Lewis in BSOAS, xvi/3 (1954), 479). 
Other clans were found around Diyarbekir, among 
the Boz-Ulus (one remnant of the Ak-koyunlu con- 
federacy), at Karkuk, and even among the Turkish 
tribes in Persia. In the ioth/i6th century the name 
Doger was found in many toponyms, few of which 
have survived. 

Bibliography: F. Sumer, Dogerlere ddir, in 
Tiirkiyat Mecmuasi, x, 1953, 139-158; CI. Cahen, 
Contribution d Vhistoire du Diydr Bakr au quator- 
zieme siccle, in J A, ccxliii, 1955,81; Abu Bakr-i 
Tihrani, Kitdb-i Diydrbakriyya, ed. N. Lugal and 
F. Sumer, Ankara (TTK) 1962, 53, nn. 5-7; 123, n. 1. 

(F. Sumer) 
DOfiHANDJI, Turkish term for falconer, from 
doghan, falcon (toghan in KIpcak Turkish, of. 
al-Tuhfa al-zahiyya fi 'l-lugha al-Turkiyya, ed. 
B. Atalay, Istanbul 1945, 260), and in general use 
any kind of bird of prey. Bdzddr, from Persian, was 
also frequently used for the doghandji. 

In the Ottoman empire the term doghandji in 
the same sense as in later periods was found as early 
as the 8th/i 4 th century (cf. P. Wittek, Zu einigen 
friihosmanischen Urkunden, in WZKM, liv (1957), 
240; lvii (1961), 103; for doghandji (iftligi see 
H. Inalcik, Suret-i defter-i sancak-i Arvanid, Ankara 
1954, 106). 

Hawking, a favourite traditional sport at the 
Ottoman court, gave rise to a vast organization in the 
empire. There were doghandjis at the Enderun and 
the Birun [qq.v.], and in the provinces. The doghandjis 
at the Enderun, under a doghandjl-bashi, were found 
in the different odas (chambers). They accompanied 
the Sultan in his hawking parties. Their number 



varied according to the reigning Sultan's care for the 
sport (nine in 883/1478, forty in the early 17th 
century, cf. i. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh devletinin 
saray teskildti, Ankara 1945, 421-2). 

At the Birun the doghandjis, generally called 
shikar khalki, made three different djemd'-at, groups, 
divided into bbluks, (aklrdjiydn, shdhindjiydn and 
atmadjadjiydn, those taking care of (akirs, merlins 
and falcons, of shdhin, peregrine falcons, and of 
atmadja, sparrow-hawks. They were under a (akirdji- 
bashi, a shdhindji-bashi and an atmadjadjl-basht 
respectively. The (aklrdjl-bashi [q.v.~\ was the head 
of the whole organization, and in this capacity was 
usually called mir-i shikar. In the hierarchy of 
aghas at the Birun he stood in the fourth grade, 
the first being yeniteri-aghasl (cf. Kdnunname-i 
Al-% '■Othman, ed. M. <Arif, in TOEM, 1330 H., 
appendix, 12). When promoted, the (akirdji-bashi was 
made sandjak-begi under Mehemmed II {ibid., 15), 
and beglerbegi in the nth/i7th century. The 
shdhindji-bashi was then made (akirdji-bashi, and 
the doghandjl-bashi from the Enderun shdhindji- 
bashi. The doghandjis at the court all received 'ulufe, 
salary (cf. 0. L. Barkan, H. 933-934 malt ythna ait 
bir butfe ornegi, in 1st. Univ. Iktisat Fakultesi Mec- 
muasi, xv (1953-4), 300; c Ayni c Ali, Kawdnin-i Al-i 
'Othman . . ., Istanbul 1280, 95). 

In the provinces there existed a similar organiza- 
tion. In the sandjaks [q.v.~\ where birds of prey were 
found, there were doghandjis or bdzddrdn, cakirdjis, 
shahindjis and atmadjadjis under a doghandji-bashi. 
Their number with their dependents reached 2171 
persons in Anatolia and 1520 in Rumeli in 972/1564 
(Defter-i bdzddr dn-i wildyet-i Rumeli we Anadolu we 
ghayruh, in Belediye Kutuphanesi, Istanbul, Cevdet 
Kitaplan, O 60. This important source gives in 
idjmdl, summary, the number of doghandjis and the 
copies of the hukms, decrees, on them). They formed 
large groups especially in the sandjaks of Gallipoli 
(642), Vidin (706), Menteshe (503), Mar'ash (770) and 
Kars (537). The local doghandji-bashis were appointed 
by the cahirdji-bashi and were given timdrs [q.v.]. 
Under each doghandji-bashi there were two khdssa 
kushbdz, giirenldji (apparently from giire, wild) and 
gbturiidju, who also held timdrs and were in charge 
of training and taking to the court the birds of prey 
caught in their areas. 

Under the doghandji-bashis there were a group of 
doghandjis living in the villages who were originally 
re'dyd [q.v.], Christian and Muslim, to provide birds 
of prey. They were assigned to this service by the 
Sultan's diploma, doghandji berdti, which granted 
the possession for cultivation of a piece of land 
called doghandji (iftligi or doghandji bashtinasi (see 
Ciftlik) with the exemption from c ushr, (ift-resmi 
[q.v.] and '■awdrid [q.v.] taxes. They paid the bdd-i 
hawd [q.v.] taxes to their doghandji-bashi or to the 
Sultan's collectors directly. If they cultivated any 
land outside their (iftliks they had to pay in addition 
the regular re'dyd taxes for it to the land-holder. 
Their sons had the right of inheritance on the (iftliks 
and, in their turn, became doghandjis (for all these 
cf. 6. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, Istanbul 1943, 20, 272, 
274, 280, 331). But in the ioth/i6th century the 
re'-dyd who were made doghandjis only one gene- 
ration before were not granted these exemptions. 

The doghandjis of re'-dyd origin were divided into 
different groups according to the kind of bird of 
prey they were to catch or train as bdzddrs, cakirdjis, 
shahindjis or atmadjadjis. Also according to their 
functions they were divided into sayydds, hunters, 
and yuwadjls, nest-tenders. The latter were in their 



DOGHANDjl — DONME 



turn divided into kayadjls and didebdns, i.e., those 
who discovered the nests in the mountains and 
guarded them, and tulekdiis, those taking care of the 
nestlings. When the sayydds or yuwddjis delivered 
the birds to the local doghandjl-bashl they were 
given a muhurlu tedhkire, certificate of delivery. 
Then at a certain time of the year the doghandji- 
bashi and khdssa doghandjis took the birds to 
Istanbul to deliver to the cakirdji-bashi. Anybody 
who took a bird of prey from the guarded places or 
through a sayydd had to pay a fine of 500 akce to 
the treasury. The ordinary re'dyd and '■askeri were 
forbidden to hunt birds of prey. 

From the nth/i7th century onward, the doghandji 
organization in the provinces was neglected, and, in 
most places, abolished. The doghandjis were returned 
to the status of simple re'-dyd with the abolition of 
their exemptions. But the organization in general 
survived until Rabi c II 1246/September-October 1830 
when MahmQd II abolished it altogether. 



(Ha 



lIn, 



DOLMA BAGHCE [see 

DONANMA, 'a decking-out, an adorning', 
Turkish verbal noun derived ultimately from ton, 
'clothes'. The word is used in Ottoman Turkish in 
two restricted meanings: 

(1) 'fleet of ships, navy' (presumably a caique of 
Ital. 'armata'), for which see art. bahriyya, iii 
(adding to bibliography H. and R. Kahane and A. 
Tietze, The Lingua Franca in the Levant, Urbana 
1958, i-45). 

(2) 'decoration of the streets of a city' (synonyms: 
shenlik, shehr-dyin) for a Muslim festival or on a 
secular occasion of public rejoicing such as a victory, 

and, more particularly, the illumination of the city 
by night (kandil donanmasi) and the firework- 
displays which formed part of these celebrations. 
The most elaborate of these public feasts was that 
given by Murad III in 990/1582 for the circumcision 
of his son, the future Mehemmed III. 

Bibliography: For full descriptions, with 
extensive quotations from Turkish and European 
sources, see Metin And, Kirk gun kirk gece, 
Istanbul 1959. (V. L. Manage) 

DONBOLl [see kurds]. 

DONGOLA (Arabic, Dunkula, Dunkula; obsolete 
forms, Dumkula, Damkala), the name of two 
towns in Nubia; more generally, the riverain 
territory dependent on these towns. All lie within 
the present Republic of the Sudan. The arabized 
Nubians of Dongola are called Danakla, a regional, 
not a tribal, designation. 

(1) Old Dongola (Dunkula al- c adjQz), on the right 
bank of the Nile, is on the site of a pre-Islamic town, 
the capital of the Christian kingdom of al-Makurra. 
It was besieged by an army under c Abd Allah b. 
Sa'd b. Abi Sarh [q.v.] in 31/652, but the Muslims 
withdrew after concluding a convention (bakt, [q.v.]) 
which regulated relations between Nubia and Egypt 
for some six centuries. Mediaeval Dongola is described 
as a walled city with many churches, large houses and 
wide streets. The royal palace with domes of red 
brick was constructed in 392/1002. With the collapse 
of Christian Nubia, Dongola became a Muslim town; 
the mosque, formerly a church, has an Arabic in- 
scription dated 16 Rabi' I 717/29 May 1317. With 
the establishment of Fundj [q.v.] hegemony over 
Nubia in the ioth/i6th century, Dongola reappears 
as the seat of a vassal king (makk). His authority 
extended as far north as the Third Cataract, the 
border between the Fundj dominions and the 



Barabra [q.v.], who recognized Ottoman suzerainty. 
After the rise of the Shaykiyya confederacy in the 
late nth/i7th century, the principal north-south 
trade-routes tended to avoid the Dongola region. 
In its last days, the territory was the prey of both 
the Shaykiyya and of the Mamliik refugees in New 
Dongola. The petty rulers therefore welcomed the 
Turco-Egyptian forces of Isma c Il Kamil Pasha, who 
suppressed both these predatory military aristo- 
cracies (1 236/1820). 

(2) New Dongola (al-'Urdi, i.e., Ordu, "The 
Camp"), now the principal town of the region, arose 
on the site of the settlement of the MamlQks who 
escaped from the proscription by Muhammad c Ali 
Pasha in 1226/1811. After their expulsion, New 
Dongola became the seat of a kdshif (later mudir, 
governor) and the capital of the province of Dongola. 
Between 1886 and 1896 the province was ruled by 
Mahdist military governors ('umrndl, sing. c dmil). 
Kitchener's Dongola campaign of 1896 effected the 
reconquest of the province. It has now lost its 
separate identity as, during the Condominium, it 
was fused with Wadi Haifa and Berber [q.v.] to 
form the Northern Province. 

Bibliography: The scattered and rather 
slight references in mediaeval sources are listed in 
Maspero-Wiet, Mat&riaux, 94. To these may be 
added O. G. S. Crawford, The Fung kingdom of 
Sennar, Gloucester 1951, especially 33-6. Old 
Dongola in 1698 was described by Ch. J. Poncet, 
A voyage to Ethiopia, London 1709; reprinted by 
Sir William Foster (ed.), The Red Sea and adjacent 
countries at the close 0/ the seventeenth century, 
(Hakluyt Society, Second Series, no. C); London 
1949, 99-100. It was described in 1821 by L. M. A. 
Linant de Bellefonds, Journal d'un voyage a 
Meroi, (ed. M. Shinnie), Khartoum 1958, 32-4. 
The official correspondence of the Mahdist period 
is preserved in the Sudan Government Archives 
in Khartoum. (P. M. Holt) 

DONME (Turkish: convert) name of a sect in 
Turkey formed by Jews upon their conver- 
sion to Islam late in the nth/i7th century in 
emulation of Shabbetai Sebi whom they considered 
the Messiah. 

The sect emerged out of mystic speculations 
justifying the conversion of Jews to Islam as a link 
in the chain of Messianic events, and served as a 
means to consolidate those who wished to emulate 
and remain faithful to the converted Messiah, even 
after his death. It attempted, in the spirit of the 
Messiah, to maintain secretly within Islam as much 
as possible of Judaism, its lore and rites, with 
sabbatian-messianic modifications. In the course of 
time the original concepts of the stormy period of 
messianism and conversion were largely blurred and 
forgotten, and the life of the group expressed itself 
in ritual pecularities, social welfare activity, and 
basic devotion to the memory of the Messiah in 
expectation of his reincarnation or second advent, 
with subsequent dissensions concerning rightful 
succession to leadership. 

Thus, intermarriage with Muslims was avoided; 
the fast-day commemoration of the destruction of 
the Temple (9th of Ab) became a day of rejoicing 
as the birthday of the Messiah; some knowledge of 
Hebrew was maintained; outward conformity with 
Islamic rites was encouraged while, in secret, 
Hebrew names were preserved and separate marriage 
and funeral rites were held. 

The group conversion took place, it seems, in 
Salonika in 1094/1683. Salonika became the the centre 



DONME — DRAC 



but there were branches in Edirne, Izmir, later 
Istanbul, and in Albania. 

Inner squabbles, mostly engendered by various 
pretenders to Messianic succession and leadership, 
brought about the split into three sub-sects (the 
names vary: the recent being Hamdibeyler, Karakas, 
Kapancilar) all refusing intermarriage. This division 
may have been not unrelated to social divisions, 
and expressed itself in peculiarities of hairstyle and 
garb. The Donme lived in separate quarters. 

The sect considered itself the community of the 
believers (ma'aminim). It maintained strict secrecy. 
After the initial period, its literary output appears to 
have shrunk to poems and prayers in Hebrew, 
Aramaic, Judaeo-Spanish, and Turkish. Paucity of 
sources and secretiveness combine to make the study 
of the sect difficult, and its history obscure. 

Around 1700, there were a few hundred families 
belonging to the central Salonika group. About 
1900, the number of that group was estimated at 
10,000. They were represented in trade, crafts, and 
the civil service. 

Toward the end of the 19th century, a growing 
new layer of westernized young people came to the 
fore as teachers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, and 
these took part in Turkish public life, sometimes 
with considerable success. Most spectacular was the 
rise of Djawid Bey [q.v.] in the Young Turkish 
regime following the revolution of 1908. 

On the whole the Muslims were indifferent to the 
sect's existence, but from time to time there was a 
spurt of inquiry or persecution (e.g., in 1720, 1859, 
and 1875). Imputing Donme origin to undesirables 

A new phase began for the Donme when, with the 
Graeco-Turkish exchange of population, the Salonika 
DOnme were forced to quit their ancestral town and 
to move into the Turkish Republic (1923-24). They 
settled mostly in Istanbul, smaller groups settling 
also in other cities. This change of domicile, the 
dispersal that followed, the loss of contact with the 
solid Jewish atmospere of Salonika, the influence of 
the secular Turkish national school — all contributed 
to a growing loss of cohesion and indifference among 
the younger generation of the Donme although group 
existence, especially in the area of social welfare, 
continued. The arrival in Istanbul of several thousand 
Donme stimulated a discussion of sectarian segrega- 
tion versus national assimilation in the Turkish press 
in 1924-5. Intermarriage with Muslims is slowly 
spreading and complete integration into modern 
Turkish society, despite setbacks, is on the increase. 
Bibliography: Accounts will be found in the 
general works on Jewish history by H. Graetz, 
S. Dubnow, S. W. Baron. G. Scholem's capital 
researches on Jewish mysticism are summarized in 
the sketch included in The Jewish people, i, New 
York 1948 ; idem, Main trends in Jewish mysticism, 
New York 1941, esp. 287-236; idem, Shabbetai Sebi 
(Hebrew), 2 vols., Tel Aviv 1957; idem, articles in 
Zion vi, Kiryat Sepher xviii-xix; idem, Die krypto- 
judische Sekte der Donme (Sabbatianer) in der Tttrkei, 
in Numen, vii (i960), 93-122; Cf. s.v. in Encyclo- 
paedia Hebraica (xi, 1959, I. Ben Zvi), and lA iii, 
646 ff. ; I. Ben Zvi, The exiled and the redeemed, 
Philadelphia 1957; A. Danon, in RE J 1897; L. 
Sciaky, Farewell to Salonica, New York 1946, Ch. 
9; A. Struck, in Globus 1902; A. Galaute, Nouveaux 
documents stir Sabbetai Sevi, Istanbul 1935 ; E. E. 
Ramsaur Jr., The Young Turks, Princeton 1957, 
96 ff., 108 n. Turkish reactions are reflected in A. 
Govsa, Sabatay Sevi, Istanbul, n.d., and \V. Gord- 



levsky's paper in Islamica, ii, 1926. Donme texts 

have been published by M. Atias, I. Ben Zvi, R. 

Molho, G. Scholem; cf. Sefunot, iii, Jerusalem 

i9 6 °- (.M. Perlmann) 

DONUM [see misaha]. 

DOST MUHAMMAD [see dust Muhammad]. 

DOUAR [see dawarj. 

DOWRY [see mahr]. 

DRAA [see dar'a], 

DRAC (DIrac, DuraC), Slavonic and hence 
Ottoman name for the classical Dyrrhachium (med. 
Latin Duracium, Hal. Durazzo, Alb. Durres), the 
principal port of modern Albania (41 18' N., 19 26' 
E.). The classical town was founded (c. 625 B.C.) 
under the name Epidamnus at the southern end of 
a narrow rocky peninsula (once an island) running 
parallel to the mainland coast, to which it was 
connected in antiquity at the North by a sand-spit 
and at the South by a bridge; the lagoon so enclosed 
has progressively contracted over the centuries. In 
Roman times, now known (perhaps after the Illyrian 
name of the peninsula) as Dyrrhachium, to its com- 
mercial prosperity was added immense strategic im- 
portance as the starting-point of the Via Egnatia, the 
continuation, after the short and easy sea-crossing 
from Brundisium, of the Via Appia, and the principal 
military road between Italy and the East. Hence in 
Byzantine times too Dyrrhachium was strongly forti- 
fied as the Western gateway to the Empire. 

After falling to Venice at the partition of 1205, 
Dyrrhachium changed masters repeatedly, to be 
ceded to Venice in 1392 by the native Thopia 
dynasty, who were no longer able to protect it 
against the Ottomans. The Venetians rebuilt the 
walls on a narrower circuit and made vigorous but 
fruitless attempts to scour the lagoon, in order to 
arrest the silting of the harbour and the spread of 
malaria. During Mehemmed II 's Albanian campaign 
of 1467, Durazzo, practically deserted by its terrified 
inhabitants, escaped a determined assault (see 
F. Babinger, Mahomet II le Conquirant et son temps, 
Paris 1954, 311-3); the end came only in 1501 
(17 August), when, the governor being temporarily 
absent, Durazzo fell to a night-attack by c Isa Beg- 
oghlu Mehemmed Beg, sandjak-bey of the nearby 
Elbasan (Sa'd al-DIn, ii, n 3-4, following the con- 
temporary account of Idris BidlisI). Thereafter 
Durazzo was administered as a kadd of Elbasan 
[q.v.}; its walls were reconstructed to enclose a still 
smaller area (600 m. X 250 m.) in the South-East 
corner of the antique city, leaving the ancient 
acropolis outside the enceinte. 

Under the Ottomans practically nothing of 
Durazzo's old importance remained. Ewliya (1670) 
describes a small town of 150 houses with only one 
mosque; it had still (as in mediaeval times) a con- 
siderable salt industry and a not insignificant trade, 
and was administered as a voyvodahk under an emin 
(who, with the kadi, resided at the more salubrious 
Kavaya, 20 kms. to, the South-East). 

Durazzo's modern prosperity began shortly before 
the Second World War, with the construction by 
Italy of a first-class harbour; now linked by rail 
with Tirana and Elbasan, it has developed consi- 
derably both as a port and as a holiday-resort 
(pop. 30,000). 

Bibliography : Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Dyrrha- 

chion (Philippson); K. Jirecek, Die Lage una" 
Vergangenheit der Stadt Durazzo in Albanien, in 

L. von Thalldczy, Illyrisch-Albanische For- 

schungen, i, 1916, 152-7; L. Heuzey, Mission 

archiologique de Macedoine, Paris 1876, 349-92 and 



DRAC — DU'A 5 



plan; Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, viii, 710-2 = 
F. Babinger's abridged trans, and comm., MSOS, 
xxxiii (1930) 166 (with further references); H. 
Hecquard, Histoire et description de la Haute 
AlbanieouGuegarie, Paris 1858, 258-63; Baedeker's 
Dalmatien und die Adria, 1929, 235-6 (F. Babin- 
ger) ; Enc. It., s.v. Durazzo; S. Skendi (ed.), Albania, 
London 1957; Guide d'Albanie (Albturist), Tirana 
1958, 166-73; art. arnawutluk above. 

(V. L. Manage) 
DRAGUT [s 
DRAMA [se 
DREAMS [see ta'bir al-ru'ya]. 
DRESS [see libas]. 
DRUZES [see duruz]. 

DU'A 5 , appeal, invocation (addressed to God) 
either on behalf of another or for oneself (li . . .), 
or else against someone ('aid . . .); hence: prayer of 
invocation, calling either for blessing, or for im- 
precation and cursing, connected with the Semitic 
idea of the effective value of the spoken word. 
Cf. Kur'an XVII, 11: "Man prays for evil as he 
prays for good". — Du'd' therefore will have the 
general sense of personal prayer addressed to God, 
and can often be translated as "prayer of request". 

I. — The scope and practice of du'd'. 

1. In the Kur'an, du'd' always keeps its original 
meaning of invocation, appeal. Man "appeals" for 
good fortune (XLI, 49), and "when misfortune visits 
him, he is filled with unceasing prayer (du'd')" 
(ibid., 51). To practise du'd' is to raise one's suppli- 
cations to God; du'd' here assumes the general 
meaning of "prayer", of two categories in particular: 
(a) prayer (and especially prayer of request) made 
by the pre-Islamic worthy men and prophets; (b) the 
vain prayer of the infidels. In the first case, God is 
He who hears, who answers the du'd': it was so for 
Abraham (XIV, 39-40; XIX, 48) and for Zachariah 
(III, 38). In the second case, "the prayer of the 
infidels is but vanity" (XIII, 14; cf. XLVI, 5); and 
the false gods hear no part of the prayer addressed 
to them (XXXV, 14), etc. — Some shades of meaning 
should be distinguished: thus, in verse XXV, 77 
(addressed to the opponents), du'd' evokes any 
relationship of man to God; "Say: my Lord will not 
become anxious save through your prayer"; whilst 
XIX, 40, repeating a saying of Abraham, distin- 
guishes between saldt, a ritual and liturgical prayer 
to be "performed", and du'd', prayer, personal in- 
vocation: "Lord, make of me one who performs the 
saldt (and let it be so) for my posterity, O Lord, and 
accept my prayer (du'd')". 

2. There are numerous Itadiths which speak of 
du'd'. Traditionists and jurists define its significance, 
the principal ones being reproduced by al-Ghazali. 
Ihyd' Hdum al-d'm (Cairo 1352), i, 274-8.— Tradition 
attributed to 'All: "my followers are those who have 
taken the earth as their carpet, water as their per- 
fume, prayer (du'd') as their adornment". 

Du'-a? must be clearly distinguished from saldt 
[q.v.], ritual or liturgical prayer. But it would be 

saldt, vocal fixed prayer, and du'-a', mental prayer 
or orison. Ibn Taymiyya (Fatdwd, Cairo 1326, i, 
197) proposes this scale of values: "the saldt con- 
stitutes a form (djins) which is superior to Kur'anic 
recitation (kird'a); recitation in itself is superior to 
dhikr, and dhihr to individual invocation (du'd')" 
(from the trans, of Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines 
sociales et politiques de Taki-d-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya, 
Cairo 1939, 328-9). A critical enumeration frequently 



saldt, dhihr [q.v.] (incessant repetition, 
ejaculatory prayer), hizb and wird (supererogatory 
"liturgies"), du'd'. Inward prayer would be suggested 
rather by dhikr and fikr (meditation), du'd' always 
connoting the idea of a formulated request, of an 
invocation either beneficent or imprecatory. 

3. The request addressed to God in the du'-a' can 
be greatly varied according to the circumstances. It 
is in this sense that it is legitimate to translate it (cf. 
translation from Laoust above) as "personal in- 
vocation"; it can also assume a communal value and 
aspect. The choice of words is free, but Kur'anic 
texts or traditional prayers already in existence will 
often be used. 

Treatises which recommend du'd', and especially 
the Sufi treatises, like to define the conditions 
which must accompany it and the rules of its 
adab. Both of these seek to provide a maximum 
guarantee of its being received by God. A brief 
summary (al-Badjurl, Hdshiya . . . 'aid Diawharat 
al-tawhid, Cairo 1353/1934, 90-1) gives them as 
follows, (a) Conditions: to eat only food that is legally 
permitted; to pray, feeling convinced that the 
prayer will be answered; not to be distracted during 
prayer; that the object of the request should not lead 
to any sinful act, or give rise to enmity between 
those of the same blood, or harm Muslims' rights; 
and finally, not to ask for anything impossible, for 
that would be a lack of respect towards God. 
(b) Adab (how to pray): to choose the best times, 
and al-Badjuri suggests during the sudjud, when one 
is prostrate, or while standing upright (ikdma), or 
during the summons to prayer (adhdn) ; to precede 
the du'd' with ablutions and the saldt on the one 
hand, and on the other with a confession of faults 
and an act of repentence ; to turn towards the (tibia ; 
to raise the hands towards heaven (raf al-yadayn) ; 
to pronounce the "divine praise" (al-hamdu li'lldh) 
and the "blessing on the Prophet" at the beginning, 
in the middle and at the end of the du'd'. 

These detailed recommendations are in some 
measure "advisory". In some cases, however, when 
the object of the du'd' concerns the common good of 
the Community, it assumes a ritual, set form recog- 
nized by all; in these circumstances it makes use of 
the procedure for saldt. The most notable example is 
that of the istiskd' ("prayer for rain"): for this, the 
du'd' must be preceded by a ritual prayer of two 
rak'as [q.v.], two khutbas ("sermons"), and the rite 
(sympathetic magic) of the "turning of the cloak". 
The "prayer for the dead" made communally 
(frequently during the "sessions" of the brotherhoods) 
also obeys various regulations. 

These conditions and rules for the du'd' are 
intended to surround it with guarantees of efficacy. 
And we see that to the power of the word there are 
added the effective forces of legal purity and of 
gesture. This last point provides matter for discus- 
sion. Texts which widely recommend the practice 
of du'd' speak constantly of ablution and the raf 
al-yadayn; in doing so they rely on hadith: before 
raising his hands in the du'd' the Prophet had 
performed the ablution of wudu' (al-Bukhari, 
Maghazl, ii, 55). But al-Nasa 5 i and Ibn Hanbal (ii, 
243) only accept the raising of the hands in the 
du'd' of the "prayer for rain". 

4. Islamic devotional trends insist on the du'd' 
being regarded as a prayer of request for well- 
being, especially the public weal of the Muslim com- 
munity, and the personal spiritual well-being of 
oneself and others. Beautiful du'd' texts are not rare 
in Shi'i works of piety. The popular pietism of the 



DU<A> ■ 



Hanbalis often mentions it. It is to be seen mingled 
with the liturgies of hizb and wird in the handbooks 
of the religious brotherhoods. It is, then, much less 
an appeal of invocation (and of imprecation, espe- 
cially) than an appeal trusting in divine Mercy. It 
is in this way that the utterance of the divine Names 
can turn either to the metrical repetition of the 
dhikr or to a form of du'd' which links its request 
with the evocation of each Name and each 
and thereby defines it; in t 
the monograph written in the last century by 
Muhammad c Ali Khan al-Bukhari, Kitdb minhat al- 
sarra' fi shark al-du'd' (ed. Haydarabad, 1337). 
The du'-a' becomes an equivalent of the spiritual 
impulse towards God. 

II. — Questions raised in kaldm and falsafa. 

The incantation value and the effectiveness of word 
and gesture was no doubt the first consideration in 
the idea of du'd', and derived from a Semitic under- 
standing of the relation of man to what is holy. But 
the Hellenistic influence which moulded Muslim 
thought encouraged falsafa on one hand, and the 
Him al-kaldm ("theology" or, more accurately defen- 
sive apology) on the other, to raise the question of 
the prayer of request and of its efficacity before the 
Almighty and the Decree of God. 

The reply varies according to the school and the 
writer. Here are three typical examples. (A summary 
of the principles of kaldm is given by al-Badjuri, 
loc. cit., among others). 

(a). The MuHazila deny the usefulness of the prayer 
of request; in their eyes it would be derogatory to 
the pure divine transcendence. Man, in fact, being the 
"creator of his own actions" has no need to ask God 
to make his enterprises favourable. Human actions 
themselves bear the weight of their own consequences. 
Thus when God, in the Kur'an, tells His servants to 
invoke Him, it is the attitude of adoration that He is 
demanding; and when He promises to hear their 
prayers, it is the just reward for a rationally good 
action that He is guaranteeing. 

(b). On the other hand the Ash'ari kaldm, centred 
upon the absolute and free will of God, was to 
restore its traditional value to du'd'. The "prayer 
for the dead" (al-saldt 'aid 'l-mayyit, or al-djindza) 
has the value of a du'-a' asking God for mercy, 
if such be His will. Moreover, the imprecatory 
aspect of du'd' is not forgotten. The invocation 
is harmful to those one curses, if the cause is 
just. "The du'd' of one suffering an injustice is 
answered (says a hadith of Anas), even if it be an 
infidel". Sometimes the prayer will be answered 
exactly as it has been formulated and at once, 
s after a delay for a reason known to God; 
:s God will grant something different 
from what was asked, in view of a greater benefit. 

The acknowledged virtue of du'd' clearly proves 
that the Ash'ari denial of free human choice and 
secondary causes, and the total surrender required 
with regard to the divine will, in no way con- 
stitutes, strictly speaking, a "fatalistic" attitude. 
Incidentally the Ash'ari manuals pose very clearly 
the problem of reconciling effective du'd' with 
absolute divine predetermination (kadd') or im- 
mutable decree (kadar). 

The usual reply makes a distinction between 
"fixed" predetermination (kadd') and "suspended" 
(conditional) predetermination. In the latter case, 
whether some event will happen or not is decided by 
God considering the actual fact of the du'd' which 
thus, in its turn, enters into the conditions deter- 



mined by divine decree. In the case of "fixed" 
predetermination, the prayer of request can change 
nothing in God's will — He will, however, grant His 
favour to one who implores Him. And this favour 
will indeed bear on the actual objectof the request, 
the circumstances of granting the prayer then 
being taken in a "suspended decree". 

(c). Following quite different principles but a 
similar approach, the faldsifa logically include the 
du'd' in their universal determinism. The subject is 
treated on several occasions by Ibn SIna {e.g., 
Nadjat, 2nd ed. Cairo 1357/1938, 299-303; Ma'nd 
al-ziydra and Risdla fl mdhiyyat al-saldt, ed. A. F. 
Mehren, Leiden 1894). The effective prayer of 
request is a result of the co-operation of terrestrial 
dispositions and celestial causes. The invocation by 
the du'd' comes as a psychical influx which acts 
physically upon the phantasms of the celestial 
Spheres according to all the laws of the macrocosm, as 
inevitably as man's imagination acts upon his own 
body. Furthermore, it is these celestial Spheres 
which in reality gave men the suggestion to pray, 
this suggestion in turn taking its place in the 
chain of causes. And it can then be 
a result in fact of the interplay of causes, 
prayer is answered. The du'd', according 
puts man into direct relationship with 
the celestial Spheres alone. That is why "those 
prayers particularly which beg for rain and other 
such things" are found to possess "very great 
usefulness" {Nadjat, 301 ; cf. L. Gardet, La pensie 
religieuse d'Avicenne, Paris 1951, 135-7). 

These various attempts to provide a rational 
justification of du'd' testify to its importance in the 
religious life of Islam. But we must observe that 
the cosmological interpretation of an Ibn SIna does 
not in any way spring from the most current vision 
of the world. For the pious Muslim by and large, 
du'd' effects a relationship between the man at 
prayer and not the celestial spheres, but God, 
integrating and often sublimating the familiar con- 
ception of the power of the name (ism) over the one 
named (musammd). 

Bibliography : in the article. (L. Gardet) 

DUALISM [see khurramiyya, thanawiyya, 
zindIk]. 

DUBAYS [see mazyadIs]. 

DUBAYTl [see ruba'I]. 

DUBAYY (commonly spelled Dubai), a port 
(25° 16' N., 55" 18' E.) and shaykhdom on the 
Trucial Coast of Arabia. The town lies at the head 
of a winding creek (khawr) extending some eight 
miles inland; ferries ply between Dayra, the 
market quarter on the north-east bank, and al- 
Shandagha and Dubayy proper, quarters on the 
south-west bank. The population of the town, about 
47,000, is predominantly Arab with some Iranians, 
Indians, and Baludis (Hay, 114). The Arab inhabi- 
tants of the principality comprise members of al- 
Sudan, al-Marar, al-MazarI c , Al Bu Muhayr, al- 
Hawamil, al-Kumzan, al-Mahariba, al-Sabayis, and 
Al Bu Falah, tribal groups considered components 
of Ban! Yas in the Persian Gulf area, as well as 
members of al-ManasIr, primarily a Bedouin tribe. 
The ruling family, Al Bu Falasa, are members of al- 
Rawashid and, like the majority of the inhabitants, 
are Malikls. 

The frontiers of the shaykhdom are not completely 
defined. The land boundary between the shaykhdoms 
of Dubayy and Abu Zaby has a coastal terminus 
between al-Djabal al-'Ali (sometimes called al- 
Djubayl) and Khawr Ghanada; the land boundary 



between the shaykhdoms of Dubayy and al-Sharika 
terminates just north-east of Dayra. Two small 
coastal villages, Umm al-Sukaym and Djumayra, 
and the larger village of Hadjarayn, about 50 miles 
inland in Wadi Hatta and separated from the rest 
of the principality's territory, acknowledge the 
overlordship of the Ruler of Dubayy. Some date 
cultivation is practised, but water is scarce. 

Little is known about Dubayy before 1213-4/1799 
when it is first mentioned in available sources 
(Lorimer). Dubayy was considered a dependency of 
Abu Zaby during the first third of the 19th century, 
with the exception of a period of several years after 
1241/1825 when Shaykh Sultanb. Sakr of al-Kawasim, 
Ruler of al-Sharika, increased his influence over 
Dubayy by marrying a sister of its governor, 
Muhammad b. Hazza c b. Za'al (India, Selections, 
xxiv, 317). 

Dubayy became an independent principality in 
1 249/1833 when about 800 members of Al Bu Falasa, 
under the leadership of Maktum b. BatI b. Suhayl, 
left Abu Zaby and took control of the settlement 
of Dubayy (al-Salimi, 31). Rivalry between al- 
Kawasim and BanI Yas for control of the shavkhdom 
continued throughout the 19th and early 20th 
centuries, but Dubayy preserved its independence by 
aligning itself sometimes with al-Sharika, sometimes 
with Abu Zaby, and on occasion with the smaller 
shaykhdoms of c Adjman and Umm al-Kaywayn. 
Dubayy increased in population and wealth, derived 
primarily from pearl fishing and entrepot trade. 

Like other Trucial States, Dubayy signed the 
General Treaty of Peace with Britain in 1235/1820 
and the temporary Maritime Truce (later made 
perpetual) in 1251/1835 (see abu zaby). In 1309/1892 
the Ruler of Dubayy agreed not to establish relations 
with any foreign country except Britain without 
British consent, and in 1340/1922 he agreed not to 
grant rights to any oil found in his territory except 
to a person appointed by the British Government. 
The British Petroleum Exploration Company, 
Limited (formerly D'Arcy Exploration Company, 
Limited) holds a two-thirds interest, and Compagnie 
Francaise des Petroles holds one-third interest in an 
offshore oil concession, while Petroleum Develop- 
ment (Trucial Coast), Limited, an Iraq Petroleum 
Company affiliate, holds an onshore concession. 
Until 1381/1961, no oil had been discovered. 

The silting up of al-Sharika creek and the decline 
of Linga [q.v.) have contributed to the recent 
prosperity of Dubayy. It exports pearls (a declining 
industry) and dried fish; it imports foodstuffs, 
textiles, and light machinery. A coastal route 
connects Dubayy with al-Sharika, nine miles to the 
north, and with Abu Zaby town, about 80 miles to 
the south; desert tracks lead inland to al-Buraymi 
and to Muscat. 

The administrative agencies of the shaykhdom 
have recently expanded and now include a Municipal 
Council, a Customs Administration, Courts, and 
Departments of Education, Health, Land Regi- 
stration, and Water Supply. The town has a hospital, 
four schools for boys and two for girls, telegraph 
and telephone communications, regular mail service, 
and a small airport. The headquarters of the British 
Political Agent for all of the Trucial States except 
Abu Zaby was transferred from al-Sharika to Dubayy 
in 1374/1954. The present (1962) Ruler of Dubayy is 
Shaykh Rashid b. Sa c id b. Maktum. 

Bibliography: al-'Arabi, no. 22, Kuwait, 

Sept. i960; Muhammad al-Salimi, Nahdat al- 

a c ydn bi-hurriyyat c Umdn, Cairo 1380/1961; 



Admiralty, A handbook of Arabia, London 1916-7; 
C. Aitchison, ed., A collection of treaties, engage- 
ments and sanads, xi r Delhi 1933; India, Selections 
from the records of the Bombay government, n.s., 
xxiv, Bombay 1856; Rupert Hay, The Persian 
Gulf states, Washington 1959; J. Lorimer, Gazetteer 
of the Persian Gulf, '■Oman and Central Arabia, 
Calcutta 1908-15; Saudi Arabia, Memorial of 
the government of Saudi Arabia [al-Buraymi 
Arbitration], 1955; Reference Division, Central 
Office of Information, The Arab states of the 
Persian Gulf and south-east Arabia, London 1959; 
United Kingdom, Arbitration concerning Buraimi 
and the common frontier between Abu Dhabi and 
Saudi Arabia, 1955. (Phebe Marr) 

al-DUBB [see kudjum]. 

DUBDU (modern spelling Debdou; usual pron.: 
Dabdu, ethn. cbbdubi, pi. dbddba), a small town in 
eastern Morocco, at an altitude of 1,100 m., "at the 
foot of the right flank of the valley" of the Oued 
DubdO "which rises in a perpendicular cliff to a 
height of 80 m. above the valley"; on a plateau 
nearby stands the fortress (kasha [kasaba]) protected 
by a fosse on the side facing the mountain; on the 
left side of the valley lies a suburb named Msalla. 
A dependency of the c amdla (under the administra- 
tion of the French Protectorate in the region) of 
Oujda, it is the centre of the tribe of the Ahl Dubdu 
(numbering 6,599 i n I 93 6 )> but its own population 
consists of Arabized Berbers, of Arabs and of Jews 
who, though becoming less and less numerous, still 
form the majority (in 1936, 917 out of 1,751 in- 
habitants) ; the Jews, who live in the central quarter 
(mullah) of the township, are in some cases of Berber 
origin, and in others are the descendants of Andalu- 
sian Jews who emigrated at the time of the Recon- 
quest. This Jewish community of traders and 
artisans, not to mention agricultural workers, has 
been reduced since the establishment of the French 
Protectorate as many of its members have swarmed 
away to newly created centres in eastern Morocco 
(Missour in particular), though not without preserv- 
ing firm links with their native town. 

Situated on the route to Taza taken by Saharan 
tribes, Debdou (where a market is held on Thursdays) 
has always been a commercial centre of some im- 
portance; the fertility of the surrounding districts 
(vines, fruit trees, wheat, barley, etc.) also make it 
an agricultural centre. 

It is certain that Debdou is a very ancient foun- 
dation; and since the 7th/i3th century it has never 
ceased to play a part in the history of Morocco, as it 
occupies a strategic position between Fas and 
Tlemcen and was consequently a perpetual source 
of strife in dynastic struggles. At the time of the 
partition carried out by c Abd al-Hakk (592-614/ 
1197-1218) between the Marinid tribes, it fell to the 
lot of the Berber Banu Urtajjan who, given the task 
of protecting Fas from the designs of the c Abd al- 
Wadids [q.v.] of Tlemcen, made it the capital of 
their fief; it was rewarded by being sacked, in 766/ 
I 3 6 4-5. by the king of Tlemcen. However in about 
833/1430 a chieftain of the Banu Urtajjan succeeded 
in setting up a small principality at Debdou; its 
rulers remained independent of the Wattasids and 
even conceived the project, in 904/1499, of capturing 
Taza; the little state of Debdou only disappeared in 
the reign of the second Sa'did sovereign, al-Ghalib 
bi'llah, who in 970/1563 placed his territory under 
the authority of a pasha. From this point the history 
of the town, which is somewhat obscure, was reduced 
to the level of local conflicts between Arabs and 



DUBD0 — DUFF 



Berbers. Nevertheless, in the 19th century Debdou 
still possessed an autonomous administration; the 
Muslim population were dependents of the c dmil of 
Taza who every year sent his khalifa to receive 
taxes, while the Jews sent their tribute to the pasha 
of Fas al-Djadld. At the end of the century after the 
coming of Mawlay <Abd al- c Aziz (1894) and during 
the revolt of the pretender BQ Hmara [?.».], a Berber 
named Bu Haslra tried to make himself independent, 
but in 1904 the town and district gave their support 
to BO Hmara at the instigation of a Jew named 
Dudii b. Hayda who was appointed kd'id of Debdou, 
and took advantage of his position to inflict reprisals 
on his enemies, the Jews of Andalusian origin. 
Peace was restored by the French occupation which 
was decided upon in 19 n as a result of the murder 
of a Frenchman. 

Throughout the last centuries, Arab influence and 
the Arabic language have been dominant to such a 
degree that Berber is no longer used except in the 
surrounding mountains. The dialect of the Jews 
presents some interesting features (see Ch. Pellat, 
Nemrod et A braham, dans le parler arabe des Juifs de 
Debdou, in Hespiris, 1952, 1-25). 

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun. c Ibar, tr. de 
Slane, index; Yahya Ibn Khaldun, Bughyat al- 
ruwwdd, ed. tr. A. Bel, Algiers 1903-13, index s.v.; 
Leo Africanus, tr. Epaulard, i, 299-302; Ch. de 
Foucauld, Reconnaissance au Maroc, 248 ff.; 
Marmol, L'Afrique, ii, 296; L. Massignon, Le 
Maroc dans les premieres annies du XVI' me siecle, 
Algiers 1906, passim; La Martiniere and Lacroix, 
Documents pour servir a Vitude du Nord-ouest 
africain, i, 122 ff.; A. Bernard, Les Confins algiro- 
marocains, 28 ff. ; Nehlil, Notice sur les tribus de la 
region de Debdou; N. Slousch, Les Juifs de 
Debdou, in RMM, xxii (1913) 221-69; L. Gentil, 
L'amalat d'Oudjda, in La Giographie, 1911, n-38, 
332-56; Desnottes and Celerier, La vallie de Debdou, 
ibid., 1928, 337-57; L. Voinot, De Taourirt a la 
Moulouya et a Debdou, ibid., 1912, 21-33; idem, 
Pelerinages judio-musulmans du Maroc, Paris 1948, 
9, 10, 32-4, 76, 93, 96, 97; EI 1 , art. by A. Cour 
(which has been considerably abridged). (Ed.) 
DUBROVNIK [see ragusa]. 
DUD al-RAZZ [see harir]. 
DUDJAYL [see karunj. 

DUFF (Daff, the modern pronunciation, may be 
traced back to Abu c Ubayda [d. ca. 210/825]) 



for 



of 



ily, although sometimes 
the name for a special type. Islamic tradition 
says that it was invented by Tubal b. Lamak 
Mas'udi, Murudi, viii, 88) whilst other gossip avers 
that it was first played on the nuptial night of 
Sulayman and Bilkls (Ewliya Celebi, i/2, 226). 
Al-Mufaddal b. Salama (d. 307-8/920) says that it 
was of Arab origin (fol. 20) and Ibn Iyas (d. ca. 930/ 
1524) says in his Bada'i 1 al-zuhur that it was the 
duff that was played by the Israelites before the 
Golden Calf. Certainly the name can be equated 
with the Hebrew loph and perhaps with the Assyrian 
adapa. Sa'adya the Jew (d. 312/924) translates toph 
by duff. We see both the round and the rectangular 
instrument in ancient Semitic art (Rawlinson, Five 
great monarchies, i, 535; Perrot-Chipiez, Hist, de 
I'art, iii, 451; Heuzey, Figurines antiques, pi. vi, 4), 
and in ancient Egypt (Wilkinson, Manners and 
customs of the ancient Egyptians, i, 443, fig. 220). 
The tambourine of Islamic peoples may be divided 
into seven distinct types: 1. The rectangular form; 
2. The simple round form; 3. The round form with 



snares; 4. The round form with jingling plates; 
5. The round form with jingling rings; 6. The round 
form with small bells; 7. The round form with both 
snares and jingling implements. 

1. The rectangular tambourine of modern 
times has two heads or skins with "snares" (awtdr) 
stretched across the inside of the head or heads. We 
know from al-Mutarriz! (d. 610/1213) that the name 
duff was given both to a rectangular and to a round 
tambourine. As early as the 6th century a.d. we 
read of the duff in the poet Djabir b. Huyayy and 
this was probably the rectangular instrument. The 
author of the Kashf al-humum says that the 
pre-Islamic tambourine (tar didhili) was different 
from the round Egyptian tambourine (duff misri) 
of his day (fol. 193). Tuways, the first great musician 
in the days of Islam, played the duf) murabba 1 or 
square tambourine (Aghdnl, iv, 170). He belonged 
to the mukhannathun and it was perhaps on that 
account that the rectangular tambourine was 
forbidden whilst the round form was allowed (al- 
Mutarrizi). At the same time the rectangular in- 
strument was favoured by the ilite of Medina in the 
first century of Islam (al-Mufaddal b. Salama, fol. n). 
We know also that the Syrians used this type of 
instrument since it is called r'bhV-a (rectangular) 
in the Syriac version of the O.T. (Exodus, xv, 20; 
Judith, iii, 7). To-day this form has fallen into 
desuetude in Arabia, Syria, Egypt and Persia, but 
may be found in the Maghrib. For designs see 
Christianowitsch, 32, pi. n where it is called a daff, 
and Host, 262, Tab., xxxi, 11, where it is called a 
bandayr. Actual specimens are to be found at Brussels, 
Nrs. 339, 340 (Mahillon, i, 400) and at New York, Nrs. 
392, 1316 (Catalogue, ii, 82; iv, 50). 

2. The simple round form. This was also 
called the duff (al-Mutarrizi) and it is said that 
this type, without jingling plates or bells, was 
considered "lawful" (Ewliya Celebi, i/2, 226). 
Probably, this was .the mazhar or mizhar of pre- 
Islamic and early Islamic times. It is true that 
Arabic lexicographers say that the mizhar was a 
lute ( c ild), a definition borne out by Arabic writers 
on music (<-Ikd al-farid, iii, 186; al-Mufaddal b. 
Salama, fol. 27; Kitdb al-Imtd'- wa 'l-intifa'-, fol. 13"; 
Mas'udi, Murudi, viii, 93), but it is extremely 
doubtful that the mizhar or mazhar was a lute. The 
mistake probably arose with an early lexicographer 
saying that "the mizhar was a musical instrument 
(see the Misbdh of al-Fayyumi) like the l ud (lute)" 
meaning "like the c ud is a musical instrument". In 
the nth century Glossarium Latino- Arabicum the 
mazhar (562) or mizhar (508) equates with tinfanum 
(= tympanum). The type is still to be found under 
this name in Turkey (Lavignac, 3023) and in Palestine 
(ZDPV, 1, 64, plate 8). The mazhar of Egypt has 
jingling rings attached to it. 

3. The round form with "snares". This is 
similar to the preceding but with the addition of 
"snares" stretched across the inside of the head. We 
cannot be sure of its name in the early days of Islam 
but probably it was the ghirbdl, so-called because 
it was round like a sieve. Al-SaghanI (d. ca. 660/ 
1261-2) says that this was the tambourine which was 
referred to by Muhammad when he said: "Publish 
ye the marriage, and beat for it the tambourine 
(ghirbdl)". Other accounts of this hadith call this 
instrument the duff. In Algeria of modern times this 
type of instrument is known as the bandayr or bandir, 
a name borrowed, seemingly, from the Gothic 
pandero, one of the instruments of pre-Moorish Spain 
mentioned by Isidore of Seville. The bandayr is 



DUFF — DOGHLAT 



generally larger than the other types such as the 
duff, mazhar and tdr, although in the Kashf al- 
humum we read that tambourines were made in 
various sizes 'from the large tdr (far kabir) to the 
small ghirbdl (ghirbdl dakik)". For the Egyptian in- 
strument see Villoteau (988), and for the Algerian 
see Christianowitsch (31, pi. 9), Delphin et Guin (37) 
and Lavignac (2931). In Morocco, according to Host 
(261, pi. xxxi, 6), it was called the dif (CiL^i). Actual 
specimens may be found at Brussels, Nrs. 308, 309 
(Mahillon, i, 393, 400) and at New York, Nr. 452 
(Catalogue, Hi, 50). 

4. The round form with jingling plates. 
This is similar to No. 2 but with the addition of 
several pairs of jingling plates (sunudj.) fixed in 
openings in the shell or body of the instrument. 
This is the (dr. Although the author of the Kashf 
al-humum makes the name older than that of the 
duff, yet we have no substantial proof of this. We 
find the tdr in the Yemen in the 6th/i2th century 
(Kay, Yaman, 54) and in the 7th/i3th century 
Vocabulista in Arabico it is given as tarr ( = tin- 
panum). The Persian instrument is depicted by 
Kaempfer under the name of daf (741, fig. 7) and 
Niebuhr shows .an Arabian example which he calls 
the duff (i, pi. 26). Host (261, pi. xxxi) gives a design 
of a Moroccan instrument in the I2th/i8th century 

under tirr (J). In Algeria it is called the tdr (Delphin 
et Guin, 42; cf. Tadhkirat al-nisydn, 93; Lavignac, 
2844), and a design is given by Christianowitsch 
(pi. 10). The Egyptian (dr is described and delineated 
by Villoteau (i, 988) and Lane (chap, xviii), whilst 
actual examples may be seen at Brussels, Nrs. 312-5 
(Mahillon, i, 394-5) and New York, Nrs. 455, 13 19, 
1359 [Catalogue, iii, 51). In Egypt the smaller types 
were given the name of rikk (Villoteau, i, 989), by 
no means a modern name (Kashf al-humum, fol. 193). 
There are examples at Brussels, Nrs. 316, 317 
(Mahillon, i, 395). 

5. The round form with jingling rings. 
This is a similar instrument to the preceding but 
with jingling rings (djalddiil) fixed in the shell or 
body instead of jingling plates. In Egypt, in the 
time of Villoteau (i, 988), it was known as the 
mazhar, but in Persia, a century earlier, Kaempfer 
calls it the ddHra (741, 8 ). 

6. The round form with small bells. This 
is the same instrument as the preceding in regard to 
shape but the jingling apparatus, instead of being 
fixed in spaces in the shell or body, is attached 
to the inside of the shell or body. These small bells 
(adjirds), often globular in shape like sonnettes, are 
sometimes attached to a metal or wooden rod fixed 
across the inside of the head. This instrument is 
popular in Persia and Central Asia where it is general- 
ly known as the ddHra. An nth/i7th century instru- 
ment is shown by Kaempfer (742, „). For a modern 
instrument see Lavignac (3076). Apparently ddHra 
and duff became generic names for all types of the 
tambourine although the former must have been 
reserved for a round type. 



ind for 



jingling implements. In the Maghrib this in- 
strument is called the shakshdk (Delphin and Guin, 
38, 65 ; Lavignac, 2932, 2944). In some parts, however, 
this type is called the tabila. In Egypt, according to 
Villoteau, it was the bandayr. 

If the drum (tabl) sounds the martial note of 
Islam, as Doughty once said, the tambourine sounds 
the social note. It is true that in the didhiliyya 



the tambourine was in the hands of the matrons 
and singing-girls (kayndt) during the battle, some- 
times in company with the reed-pipe (mizmdr) as 
with the Jewish tribes (Aghdni, ii, 172), but it 
was also the one outstanding instrument of social 
life (al-Suyuti, Muzhir, ii, 236) as many a hadith 
testifies. In artistic music the tambourine has ever 
been the most important instrument for maintaining 
the rhythm (ikd'dt, usul, durub). 

The duff became the Persian daff or dap, the 
Kurdish dafik, the Albanian and Bosnian def, and 
the Spanish and Portuguese adufe. The ddHra is 
the Caucasian dahare, the Serbian and Albanian 
daire, and the ddrd of India. The tdr survives in the 
Polish tur and the Swahili atari. The tambourine was 
popularized in Europe by the Moors of Spain and 
was, for a long time, known as the tambour de Basque, 
the latter region being one of the gateways for the 
infiltration of Moorish civilization. It fell into 
desuetude in Europe about the 15th century but 
was revived again in the 17th century when Europe 
adopted it as part of the Turkish or Janissary music 

Bibliography: Farmer, History of Arabian- 
music to the xiiith century, 1929; idem, Studies 
in oriental musical instruments, 1931; Sachs, 
Reallexikon der Musikinstrumente, 1913; Fetis, 
Histoire ginirale de la musique, 1869-76; Christia- 
nowitsch, Esquisse historique de la musique arabe, 
1863; Delphin and Guin, Notes sur la poisie et la 
musique arabes dans le Maghreb algirien, 1886; 
Advielle, La musique chez les Persans en 1885, 
1885; Host, Nachrichten von Marokos und Fes, 
1787; Kaempfer, Amoenitatum exoticarum . . ., 
1712; al-Mufaddal b. Salama, Kitdb al-Maldhi, 
Cairo MS., f. dj. 533; Kashf al-humum, Cairo MS., 
f. dj. 1 ; Aghdni, Bulak ed.; Mahillon, Catalogue . . . 
du Musie Instrumental du Conservatoire Royal de 
Musique, 2nd ed.; Catalogue of the Crosby Brown 
collection of musical instruments, New York; Ewliya 

Celebi, Narrative of Travels by Evliya Efendi, 

tr. J. von Hammer, 1834; Ibn c Abd Rabbihi, al- 
Hkd al-farid, Cairo 1887-8 ; Kitdb al-Imtd c wa 'l-in- 
tijd'-, Madrid MS., Nr. 603; G. Toderini, Letteratura 
turchesca, Venice 1787; Lavignac, Encyclopidie de 
la musique, v, 1922; Villoteau, in Description de 
I'Egypte, i, (Folio ed.); Glossarium Latino- 
Arabicum, ed. Seybold; Niebuhr, Voyage en 
Arabic, 1776; Fitrat, Uzbek kllassik musikdsi, 
Tashkent 1927; Mironov, Pesni Fergani Bukhari 
i khivl, Tashkent 1931; Belaiev, Mustkalnie in- 
strumentl uzbekistana, Moscow 1933; Kamil al- 
Khula'i, Kitdb al-Musiki al-sharki, Cairo 1322. 

(H. G. Farmer) 
DCGHLAT, occasionally Duiclat, a Mongol tribe 
whose name, according to Abu '1-GhazI (ed. Des- 
maisons, St. Petersburg 1871, i, 65), derives from the 
plural of the Mongol word dogholong (-lang) "lame". 
The tribe appears to have played no part in the early 
period of the Mongol Empire, though it is supposed 
always to have supported Cingiz Khan (Rashid al- 
Din, ed. Berezin in Trudl vost. otd. Imp. Rtissk. 
Arkheol. obshiestva, vii, 275, xiii/text 47, 52; tr. 
L. A. Khetagurov, Moscow- Leningrad 1952, i/i, 193). 
At that time the tribe apparently emigrated 
in its entirety out of Mongolia; there is at least no 
Mongol tribe of that name today. 

The DQghlat did not attain political significance 
until after the disintegration of the Ilkhan Empire 
[q.v.], from which time Muhammad Haydar Dughlat 
(Haydar Mirza, [q.v.]), a member of the tribe, 
provides information about them in his Ta'rikh-i 



DOGHLAT — DUKAYN al-RADJIZ 



Rashldi (ed. N. Elias and E. Denison Ross, London 
1895). But his information is not everywhere reliable 
and, in the few places where the tribe is mentioned 
in other sources, contradicts these. According to 
Haydar a member of the Dughlat, Tulik or perhaps 
his younger brother Buladji (the form Puladci 
printed in the edition of Abu '1-GhazI, 56 ff., does 
not appear in the manuscripts), is supposed in 
748/1347-8 to have placed Khan Tughluk Temur 
on the throne at Aksu in the Tarim Basin. The latter 
in turn is supposed to have expressed his gratitude 
to the Dughlat by granting them "nine powers" 
and thus to have stabilized their power in the Tarim 
Basin. Haydar Dughlat claims to have seen this 
document "in the Mongol language and script" in 
his childhood, but says that it was lost during the 
reign of Shaybani Khan, d. 916/1510 [q.v.] {Ta>rlkh-i 
Rashldi, 54 f., 305). But the inaccurate chronology 
of this historian in the pertinent notices tends to 
provoke strong doubt as to the genuineness of the 
document. Between 769/1368 and 794/1392 (?) 
power in Mogholistan (as eastern interior Asia 
starting at about Semiryefi'e was at that time called) 
was wielded by Kamar al-DIn Dughlat (Sharaf al-DIn 
Yazdi, Zafar-ndma, ed. Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1887-8, 
i, 78 ff.), a brother of Buladji according to the 
Ta'rikh-i Rashldi. After an early period of co- 
operation with TImur [q.v.], he was forced by the 
latter, after a long struggle, to flee across the Irtish 
into the Altai (Yazdi, i, 494 ff.). Two of his brothers 
remained in the service of TImur (Yazdi, i, 104 ff., 
650), whose sister was married to a member of the 
Dughlat. 

After 1392 Kamar al-DIn's nephew ( ?) Khudaydad, 
nominally major domo, was in fact the ruler of 
Mogholistan. The Cingizid [q.v.] khans whom he put 
on the throne were nothing but puppets. Khudaydad 
demonstrated his readiness to reach a settlement 
with the Timurids [q.v.], ostensibly owing to their 
common Islamic faith, and met in 828/1425 Ulugh 
Beg [q.v.] without battle in Semiryec'e ( c Abd al- 
Razzak Samarkand!, MaUa c al-sa'dayn, Ms. Lenin- 
grad, 157, fol. 230). In view of this agreement the 
khans of Mogholistan had to accept the division of 
their land among the brothers and sons of Khudaydad 
(Ta'rlkh-i Rashldi 100). His eldest son Muhammad 
Shah was appointed tribal chief (Ulus Begi) by 
Khan Wals (ca. 1418-29) and took up residence 
in Semiryei'e (Ta'rlkh-i Rashldi 78). His younger 
son was driven out of the western Tarim Basin by 
the Timurids (1416? Samarkandl in Notices el 
extraits xiv, i, 296) and died even before his father 
did. His son Sayyid 'All finally retook Kashghar 
and ruled there for 24 years (died 862/1457-8, 
according to his tomb in Kashghar; see Ta^rlkh-i 
Rashldi 87, 99). He was succeeded by his two sons 
Saniz MIrza (until 869/1464-5) and Muhammad 
Haydar (until 885/1480), both of whom performed 
great services in the development of the region. 
Then Abu Bakr MIrza, the son of Saniz, drove his 
uncle and Khan Yunus of Mogholistan out of the 
western Tarim Basin, after which he took up resi- 
dence in Yarkend and defended himself in 904-5/1499 
against an attack by the khans of Mogholistan. Not 
until 920/1514 was he eliminated by Sa'Id Khan 
{TaMkh-i Rashldi 293). 

In addition to the principal line other branches of 
the Dughlat repeatedly established small principal- 
ities, occasionally at war with the former. Muham- 
mad Haydar for example, the grandfather of the 
historian Muhammad Haydar, fought in alliance 
with the Cingizid Yunus and with the Timurid 



Ahmad MIrza against Abu Bakr MIrza (see above). 
His sons Muhammad Husain and Sayyid Muhammad 
MIrza vacillated continuously between the two 
dynasties and were even from time to time in the 
service of the Uzbeks. The former was finally killed 
in Herat at the command of Shaybani [q v.] in 
914/1508-9. His brother fell victim in 1533 to the 
hatred of Khan <Abd al-Rashld of Mogholistan, 
who had come to power in the same year (Ta'rlkh-i 
Rashldi 106 ff., 305, 450). Muhammad Husayn's 
son, the historian Muhammad Haydar MIrza, left 
in 1541 his position as governor of Ladakh in the 
service of the ruler of the Tarim Basin to proclaim 
his independence in Kashmir (see haydar mIrza). 

With the elimination of this line and the end of 
Abu Bakr's (see above) rule in 920/1514, the inde- 
pendence of the Dughlat in the Tarim Basin caine to 
an end. They continued to support the Cingizids 
there and wielded considerable power into the 
17th century. 

A tributary of the "Great Horde" of Kazakhs 
between the Hi and the Jaxartes bore the name 
Dulat into the 20th century, obviously derived from 
Dughlat. At the end of the 19th century, they 
included almost 40,000 tents (see N. Aristov, 
ZatxMki ob etniteskom sostavl Tyurkskikh piemen i 
narodnostey, St. Petersburg 1897, 77). 



liblio 



aphy: 



the : 



above. Studies include W. Barthold, Zuolf Vor- 
lesungen titer die Geschichte der Tilrken Mittelasiens, 
Berlin 1935, 209-14 (French tr. Paris 1945); idem, 
Four studies on the history of Central Asia, tr. 
V. Minorsky, i, 1956, 54; R. Grousset, V Empire 
des steppes, Paris 1939, index; P. P. Ivanov, 
Olerki po istorii Sredney Azii (Outlines of the 
history of Central Asia), Moscow 1958, i and ii; 
B. Spuler, in Handbuch der Orientalistik, volume 
v, 5, index. The last two works named contain 
further detailed bibliography. 

(W. Barthold-[B. Spuler]) 
DUIjA (Ar.), "forenoon", the hour of one of the 
prayers [see salat]. 

DUKAYN al-RADJIZ, the name of two 
poets who were confused by Ibn Kutayba (Shi'r, 
Shakir ed. 592-95) and the authors who copied or 
utilized him: Ibn c Abd Rabbih, Hkd, 1346/1928 ed., 
202-3; Aghdnl, viii, 155 — Beirut ed., ix, 252-3; C. A. 
Nallino, Litt, (with a note of correction by M. 
Nallino). 

1. — Dukayn b. Radja 5 al-Fukayml (d. 105/ 
723-24); a panegyric in radjat composed by him on 
Mus c ab b. al-Zubayr, and an urdjiiza upon his horse 
who won a race organized by al-Walid b. <Abd al- 
Malik (see Yakut, xi, 113-17; Ibn 'Asakir, v, 274-9), 
have been preserved. 

2. — Dukayn b. Sa c id al-Dariml (d. 109/727-28) 
to whom Ibn Kutayba actually dedicated his 
article entitled Dukayn al-Radjiz; see also Ibn 
'Asakir, ibid.; Yakut, xi, 1 17-19. He wrote a 
panegyric on 'Umar b. c Abd al- c AzIz when the 
latter was made governor of Medina (87/706), 
which brought him a rich present, formal promises 
and perhaps the intimacy of 'Umar. After the latter 
had risen to the Caliphate (99/717), Dukayn went to 
visit him, reminded him of their covenant and 
received a new gift. This Dukayn is said to have 
written the line: "When a man has not sullied his 
honour with vile deeds, whatever garment he wears 
is fine", which appears, however, at the beginning of 
the famous Lamiyya by al-Samaw 3 al (F. BustanI, 
al-Madjdnl al-hadltha, i, 345). 

This poet should not be confused with Dukayn 



DUKAYN al-RADJIZ — DULAYM 



623 



b. Sa c Id (Sa'd) al-Khath c amI (al-Muzanl), Companion 

of the Prophet (see Ibn Hadjar, Isdba, no. 2401). 

Bibliography: in the text. (Ch. Pellat) 

THIKHAN [see tOtOn]. 

DUKKALA, a confederation of Moroccan 
tribes which constituted an autonomous admini- 
strative region during the French Protectorate. 
When Morocco attained independence, it was 
attached to the province of Casablanca, and now 
forms no more than the al-Djadida circle (Mazagan). 
Some sections of the Gharb tribe also have this name. 

Al-BakrI does not mention the Dukkala, but al- 
IdrisI, together with Ibn Khaldun flbar) and Leo 

confederation, comprising roughly the triangle within 
the rivers Umm al-rabl c and Tensift, and the Atlantic 
coast. The name Dukkala, moreover, was given to 
one of the gates of Marrakesh from the early 12th 
century onwards. Tradition has it that there were 
6 tribes in the confederation, the Ragraga, Hazmlra, 
Banu Dghugh, Banu Magir, Mushtarayya, and 
Sinhadja tribes. The above list explains a contra- 
diction already pointed out by Ibn Khaldun, whereby 
the Dukkala are sometimes considered part of the 
Masamida [q.v.] (the first five tribes certainly were), 
and at other times part of the Sinhadja [q.v.]. Both 
were of Berber descent. Their relationship with 
another Berber group which is now extinct, the 
Tamasna, is difficult to define. The confederation 
was not spared the serious events which, under the 
Almohads, followed the introduction of Arab tribes 
into Morocco, and later the Haha and the Band 
Ma'kil tribes were driven back onto their territory. 
In the south only the Ragraga tribe remained intact, 
after having played an important role historically. 
The legend of its seven saints found a place in all 
religious chronicles; on receiving news of the Islamic 
revelation, all seven went to Mecca and spoke, in 
Berber, with the Prophet. Their tombs in the Djabal 
al-Hadid are objects of veneration to the present day. 
The name Dukkala no longer has any ethnic signi- 
ficance today; it denotes Arab tribes, or tribes 
completely under Arab influence. The tribes are 
sedentary, and although some of them still inhabit 
tents, it is for practical reasons and not in order to 
pursue a nomadic existence. The wind blows fair 
for the economic future of the region if developments 
based on the Imfout dam, completed in 1950, go 
according to plan. On relations between the Dukkala 
and the Portuguese, see the articles asfi, azammur 
and above all al-djadIda. 

Bibliography: The essential information is 
given by M. Michaux-Bellaire, Reg. des Dukkala, I, 
in Villes et Tribus du Maroc, x, Paris r932; see 
also P. Lancre, Rep. alph. des Conf. de tribus, des 
tribus de la zone franc, de I'emp. cher., Casablanca 
1939; H. Terrasse, Histoire du Maroc; Ibn Zaydan, 
Ithdf aHam al-nas (5 vols, published 1929-33) and 

Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Kanunl, Asafi 

Cairo 1353/1934. (G. Deverdun) 

DULAB [see na'Ora]. 

DULAFIDS, an important tribe in the 3rd/9th 
century whose holdings formed a special district 
of their own known as al-Igharayn (the two fiefs) 
in al-Djibal, east of Nihawand between Hama- 
dan and Isfahan. c Isa b. Idris laid the basis for 
the Dulafid fortune by engaging in highway robbery 
to such an extent that he was able to retire and 
erect a stronghold at al-Karadj, which his son 
and successor, al-Kasim b. c Isa al-Idjli, known 
as Abu Dulaf, employed as the foundation for the 
Dulafid dynasty. 



Abu Dulaf was a Shi'I, a highly educated man, a 
lauded poet, a great general and a competent leader 
whose integrity was such that although he was a 
fervent pro- c Alid and had led troops against al- 
Ma'mun, the latter pardoned him and accepted him 
at court. (Cf. al-kasim). With his troops he played an 
active r61e in subduing the revolt of Babak al-Khur- 
rami (222/836-7) [q.v.], and his descendants, known 
as the Dulafids, served under and on the side of the 
reigning Caliphs, taking part as loyal supporters in 
many military enterprises of the Caliphate. Abu 
Dulaf and his grandson, Ahmad, especially distin- 
guished themselves as generals under the Caliphs al- 
Mu'tasim and al-Mu'tadid respectively. Theirs was 
an almost completely independent dynasty which 
existed for some seventy years; their fief was given 
in perpetuity and the Dulafids paid a fixed yearly 
tribute to the Caliphs with no other taxes levied. 
They also coined their own money. 

The Dulafid capital, al-Karadj, was a long town 
built on a height, an important site in the midst of 
fertile lands which averaged an annual yield amount 
ing to 3,100,000 dirhams. Abu Dulaf had extended 
the town to an area covering about two leagues with 
well-built houses of clay brick, two markets and 
numerous baths. 

Upon the death of Abu Dulaf in 225/839-40 the 
principality was governed in turn by his direct 
descendants commencing with his son, c Abd al- 
'Azlz who, in 252/866 under the Caliph al-Mu c tadid, 
was also governor of al-Rayy (d. 260/873-4), and 
followed successively by his grandsons, Dulaf 
(d. 265/878-9), Ahmad (d. 280/893-4), <Umar (d. 283/ 
896-7), and al-Harith, known as Abu Layla, all of 
whom were loyal to the existing Caliphate. 

Al-Harith was accidentally killed in battle in 
284/897-8 when, according to Mas'udl, his horse was 
felled under him causing the unsheathed sword he 
was carrying on his shoulder to plunge into him and 
mortally wound him. With his death the power of 
the Dulafids and their dynasty came to an end and 
their lands reverted to the control of the central 
government. 

Bibliography: Tabari, iii; Mas'udl, Murudj, 
indexes, s.v. ; Schwarz, Iran, v, 573 ff. ; Le Strange, 
197-8; Ibn Khallikan, tr. de Slane, ii, 502-7; 
Meynard, Dictionnaire giographique, 478-9; Yakut, 
ii, 832; Ibn Khurradadhbih. 244; Zambaur, r99, 
44; Ritter, Die Geheimnisse der Wortkunst (Asrar 
al-Baldgha) des Abdalqdhir al-Curcdnt, Bibl. Isl., 
xix, 1959, note on p. 34. (E. Marin) 

DULAYM, a large Sunni tribe in 'Irak, living 
on the Euphrates from a point just below Falludja 
to al-Ka J im. They claim origins at Dulaymiyyat in 
Nadjd five centuries ago, but these are doubtless 
mythical and in fact the tribe represents a wide 
variety of mixed tribal fragments and tribeless 
peasantry. A few sections are nomadic in the Diazira. 
moving to the river only from April to September; 
but the great majority live, at the humble level of 
'Iraki peasantry, by cultivating by water-lift or 
flow-canal (notably the Saklawiyya) from the 
Euphrates, and entrust their sheep and camels to 
specialized grazing parties or sections of their own 
sub-tribes. The populations of 'Ana, Rawa, Haditha 
and Falludja contain certain elements of settled 
Dulaym. The tribe itself is divided into many sub- 
tribes and sections, cohesion among which depends 
upon the personality and inter-relations of the leading 
shaykhs. Numbers work for the oil company whose 
pipelines from Kirkuk cross their territory in the 
Haditha neighbourhood, and others at the Hit 



DULAYM — DOMAT al-DJANDAL 



bitumen deposits. The tribe has a record of bad 
relations with the Shammar of the pjazlra, and of 
friendliness with the 'Anaza in the Syrian desert; 
but tribal disorder has been slight and rare since 
1 340/1921, and the Dulaym, thanks largely to leader- 
ship by two or more outstanding shaykhs (notably 
'All Sulayman) are among the better behaved major 
tribes of 'Irak. In Turkish times their frequent 
aggressions against travellers on the Baghdad- 
Aleppo trunk road called for punitive action by 
Government, notably by Nazim Pasha in 1910, 
and for the building of a line of military posts and 
khans in the I2th/igth century. The tribal area 
was occupied by the British in 1917, and insurgent 
action in the turbulent year 1920 was limited to 
one section of the tribe. Since then, settlement and 
prosperity have increased. 

The tribe has given its name to the Dulaym liwa' 
(province) of 'Irak (population in 1947, 193,000) 
which, with headquarters at Ramadi, contains the 
dado's of 'Ana, Falludja and Ramadi. 

(S. H. Longrigg) 

DULDUL, the name of the grey mule of the 
Prophet, which had been given to him by the Mukaw- 
kis [q.v.], at the same time as the ass called Ya'fur/ 
'Ufayr. After serving as his mount during his cam- 
paigns, she survived him and died at Yanbu' so old 
and toothless that in order to feed her the barley had 
to be put into her mouth. According to the Shi'i 
tradition, 'All rode upon her at the battle of the 
Camel [see al-djamal] and at Siffin. As Duldul in 
Arabic means a porcupine, it is possible that she 
derived her name from her gait, but this is far from 
certain. For the names of the horses of the Prophet, 
see G. Levi Delia Vida, Les "livres des chevaux", 
Leiden 1928, 8, 51; for his she-camels al-'Adba 2 and 
al-Kaswa', see al-Djahiz, Hayawdn, index. 

Bibliography. Djahiz, Bighdl, ed. Pellat, 

Cairo 1955, 21; Muh. b. Habib, Muhabbar, 76; 

Tabari, i, 1783; Mas'udi, Murudi, iv, 317, 356, 

369; Ibn al-Athir, ii, 238; Nawawi, 46; Damiri, s.v.: 

TA s.v. ; LA , s.v. (Cl. Huart-[Ch. Pellat]) 

al-DULFIN [see nudjum]. 

DULCK, the name given by the Arab authors to 
a locality situated, on the borders of Anatolia and 
Syria, in the upper valley of the Nahr Karzin, at the 
foot of the Anti-Taurus (Kurd Dagh), north-west of 
'Ayntab. It was the ancient Doliche, famous for the 
cult of a Semitic divinity who in the Graeco-Roman 
period received the name of Zeus Dolichenos. Being 
at the intersection of the routes from Germanicia, 
Nicopolis and Zeugma, it had been conquered by 
'Iy5<j b. Ghanim and became one of the fortresses 
which since the earliest days of Islam had defended 
the frontier against the Byzantines (cf. the verse of 
'Adi b. al-Rika' in Yakut, ii, 583, and Noldeke's 
remark in ZDMG, xliv, 700); it belonged to the 
d±und of Kinnasrln before being incorporated in the 
district of the 'Awasim [q.v.] organized by Harun al- 
Rashld. Duluk also played a part in the Hamdanid- 
Byzantine wars at the time of Sayf al-Dawla and 
Abu Firas, and was conquered by the Byzantines in 
351/962 (Ibn al-Athir, viii, 404), the year in which 
Abu Firas [q.v.] was captured. The citadel at this 
time was supplied with water by an important 
aqueduct, and it was surrounded by rich orchards. 
Having become during the Crusades the seat of a 
bishop of the province of Edessa (under the name 
of Tulupe), it was the theatre for numerous engage- 
ments, and when, in 549/1155, the troops of Niir 
al-Din regained possession of it, shortly after 
'Ayntab [q.v.], Duluk had much declined; its 



fortress was ruined and there r 
than a mediocre village. 

The old name is preserved in that of the village 
of Diiliik k6y, a Turkish village near the Syrian 
border, and in that of Tell Diiliik situated to the 
south of this locality where there is now a monument 
erected for a wall. 

Bibliography: Fr. Cumont, Etudes syriennes, 

Paris 1917 173-7; idem, Syria, i (1920), 189; 

P. Merlat, Jupiter Dolichenus, Paris i960, 1-5; 

R. Dussaud, Topographic historique de la Syrie, 

Paris 1927, 472 ; M. Canard, Histoire de la dynastie 

des H'amdanides, i, Algiers 1951, 232; Cl. Cahen, 

La Syrie du nord d Vepoque des Croisades, Paris 

1940, index, esp. 115, 320; R. Grousset, Histoire 

des Croisades, 3 vols. Paris 1934-6, index; Le 

Strange, Palestine 36, 386-7, 438; Baladhuri, 

Futuh, 132; Ibn Khurradadhbih, 75, 97; Kudama, 

254; Ya'kiibi-Wiet 230; Yakut, iii, 742, 759; Ibn 

al-Shihna, al-Durr al-muntakhab, 224; Ibn al- 

'Adim, Ta'rikh Halab, ed. S. Dahan, index; Ibn 

al-Athir, index; Ibn Wasil, Mufarridj al-kurub, ed. 

Shayyal, i, 125; Abu Shama, K. al-Rawdatayn, 

Cairo, i, 76, (= ed. Hilmy Ahmad, i/1, Cairo 1956, 

192-3)- (D. Sourdel) 

DUMAT al-EJANDAL, an oasis at the head 

of the Wadi Sirhan which runs from south-east 

to north-west, linking central Arabia on one side 

and the mountains of Hawran and Syria on the 

other; it is thus situated on the most direct route 

between Medina and Damascus, being about 15 days' 

journey on foot from the former and about 7 days 

or rather more from the latter. The oasis is in a 

ghdHt "depression" or khabt "vast low-lying area", the 

length of which, according to Yakut, is 5 parasangs 

or, in modern terms, according to Hafiz Wahba, 3 

miles, the width half a mile and the depth 500 feet 

below the level of the desert surrounding it. The 

morphology of the region has brought about a 

change in the name of the oasis which, at least since 

the last century, has become al-Djawf (el-Djof), 

"vast depression", "round basin", "flat, spongy 

floor of a valley or region in which water collects". 

Yakut, who describes the locality at some length, is 

unaware of this change in the name. 

Duma (the spelling Dawma is not acceptable) is 
perhaps an Aramaic word; according to the ancient 
Arab scholars Ibn al-Kalbl and al-ZadidjadjI, this 
term derives from the name of one of the sons of 
Isma'il (Dum or Duman or Duma'): incidentally 
the name Dumah also occurs in the Bible (Genesis, 
xxv, 14 ; Chronicles, i, 30) as the name of an Ishmaelite 
tribe. The Arab writers say that, as the Tihama no 
longer provided sufficient grazing for the too nume- 
rous Isma'il clan, the son mentioned above emigrated 
to this region which took its name Duma from him, 
and there he built a fortress. In fact, a fortress was 
already in existence before Islam at Dumat al 
Djandal, and its name Marid is mentioned in an 
ancient proverb deriving from a phrase said to h." ve 
been uttered by al-Zabba 5 [tamarrada Marid wa 
'azza al-Ablaft). The remains of an ancient fortress 
still survived in the last century, and Euting made a 
sketch of them in 1883. The fortress was built of stone 
and in addition there stood around it a wall also of 
stone; it was on account of these constructions that 
Duma was given the additional epithet al-Djandal, 
a common noun signifying "stone". In the pre- 
Islamic period the idol Wadd was worshipped there. 
Yakut and other Arab geographers tell us that 
three places bore the name Duma, one near Damascus 
(where there is still a Duma), another near al-Hira, 



DOMAT al-DJANDAL 



and the one with which we are concerned, in northern 
Arabia. This identity of names has given rise to 
confusion in certain Arab historical sources; and 
there has been a tendency to ascribe to Dumat al- 
Djandal events which took place in the other 
localities. 

The inhabitants of Dumat al-Djandal were the 
Banu Kinana, for the greater part of this sub-tribe 
of the Banu Kalb had, before Islam, spread into the 
desert of al-Samawa in northern Arabia, from the 
plain of Dumat al-Djandal in the north as far as the 
two mountains of the Tayy (Adja 5 and Salma) in the 
south. This territory had been allotted to them as 
their pasturages at a general assembly of the Kalb, 
held in order to put an end to a civil war between 
two groups (F. Wiistenfeld, Register, s.v. Kalb b. 
Wabara; cf. al-Bakri, Mu'diam, 33 ff.). But in the 
oasis itself a certain number of the c Ibad of al-HIra 
had settled (in Baladhuri, the name appears as 
" c Ibad al-Kufa", but De Goeje corrected it to c Ibad 
al-HIra), that is to say a certain number of Chris- 
tians who lived in that town and who were distinct 
from the Tanfikh, nomads from the surrounding 
districts. It may be conjectured that these c Ibad in 
the oasis practised trade as well as agriculture, for 
Dumat al-Djandal was one of the principal markets 
of northern Arabia. 

Dumat al-Djandal enjoys a certain fame in the 
annals of ancient Islam, particularly on account of 
the three expeditions undertaken by Muhammad 
to conquer it; the first, in 5/626, led by the Prophet 
himself, achieved no results since the inhabitants of 
the oasis scattered before he arrived; the second, in 
6/627-8, commanded by c Abd al-Rahman b. c Awf, 
brought about the conversion to Islam of the chief al- 
Asbagh (in some sources al-Asya, probably an error) 
b. c Amr al-Kalbi; the third was organized by 
Muhammad at Tabuk and entrusted to Khalid b. 
al-Walid. The latter took possession of the town in 
the oasis, levied a heavy war indemnity on the 
population and compelled the chief Ukaydir b. c Abd 
al-Malik al-Kindi al-Sakuni [q.v.] to go to Medina to 
conclude a treaty with the Prophet; the text of 
the treaty still survives, possibly with interpolations 
(al- Baladhuri, Futuh, 61 ff.; Ibn Sa'd, i, 2, 36 ff.; 
Yakut, ii, 627; see also M. Hamidallah, WathdHk, 
Nr. 191; Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, iv, 
!33. n - 3. 4°4 n - 1; Caetani, Annali, 9 A.H. and 
45, note 3). The difference in the names of the 
chiefs with whom the Muslims had to deal in 6 and 
9, the difference in origin of these chiefs, one Kalbi 
the other Kindi, the diversity of certain details 
in traditions relating to Ukaydir, led De Goeje to 
raise questions and Caetani to express doubts which 
appear to be excessive. In reality, various difficulties 
can be overcome if one distinguishes the Kalb, 
nomads inhabiting a vast area and having their own 
chiefs, from the population of the oasis which was 
sedentary and composed of agricultural workers, 
merchants and artisans, and had immigrated even 
before Muhammad's expeditions, as moreover al- 
Mas'udi confirms (Tanbih, 248). In the account 
relating to Ukaydir it should be noted that, according 
to al-Baladhuri (Futuh, 62) and Yakut (ii, 626 ff.), 
Ukaydir is said to have called his dwelling in 'Irak 
Duma, in remembrance of Dumat al-Djandal, after 
leaving the oasis; another tradition also preserved 
by al-Baladhuri (ibid., 63) and Yakut (ii, 627) 
relates on the contrary that Ukaydir called the 
Arabian oasis Dumat al-Djandal in order to distin- 
guish it from the Duma near al-HIra from which he 
came, but the first tradition appears to be the more 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



References to Dumat al-Djandal occur in certain 
sources in connexion with the celebrated crossing 
of the desert made by Khalid b. al-Walid in 12/633. 
Having been asked to rejoin the Muslim forces in 
Syria as soon as possible since they were in danger, 
Khalid set out, and is said to have attacked Dumat 
al-Djandal and killed Ukaydir. De Goeje (op. cit., 
15 ff.) considers al-Djandal here to be an inter- 
polation, and supposes that the Duma referred to by 
the sources is Duma of al-HIra; it seems impossible 
that Khalid could have made such a detour which 
would have taken him so far out of his way while 
delaying the accomplishment of his mission. De 
Goeje's argument is very logical, and it has been 
accepted by Mednikov (Palestina, i, 435 ff.) and 
Caetani, so that the murder of Ukaydir, if murder 
it was, would have taken place in 'Irak. Let us also 
add that c Amr b. al- c As was ordered during the 
ridda to fight the Kalbi Wadl'a who had revolted 
with some of the Kalb and entrenched himself at 
Dumat al-Djandal, whilst al-Asbagh's son had 
remained faithful to Islam (al-Tabarl, i, 1872, 1880); 
it was perhaps c Amr who conquered Dumat al- 
Djandal, but it is also possible to attribute this feat 
to c Iyad b. Ghanm; in fact, the story goes that an 
expedition under his command set out from Medina 
with this objective but ran into difficulties, but it is 
also related that c Iyad was governing the oasis in 
13/634 (al-Tabarl, i, 2136). In the same way, it was 
at neither Dumat al-Djandal nor Duma near al- 
HIra, but at Duma near Damascus that, according 
to De Goeje (ibid., 16 ff.), the fair Layla, the daughter 
of al-Djudl al-Ghassani and loved by c Abd al-Rahman 
b. Abl Bakr, fell into the hands of the Muslims. 

On another occasion in the history of Islam, at 
the time of an incident of great importance, the 
mention of Dumat al-Djandal has given rise to 
argument: the oasis was said to have been chosen 
at Siffin as the meeting-place for the arbitrators 
Abu Musa al-Ash c ari [q.v.] and c Amr b. al- c As [q.v.] 
after their investigation of the dispute between C A1I 
and Mu'awiya, and it was there that they were to 
announce their verdict; but some sources place the 
meeting at Adhruh [q.v.], and it has been explained 
supra, s.v. c ali b. abi talib, that in fact there were 
two meetings, on different dates, one at Dumat al- 
Djandal and the other some months later and in very 
different circumstances, at Adhruh (this point 
being established, the sequence of events becomes 
clear and the highly complicated question of their 
chronology becomes soluble). One of the actions 
which Mu'awiya took to harass C A1I was to dispatch 
a force to Dumat al-Djandal in 39/660; c Ali succeeded 
in driving it out, but the inhabitants of the oasis 
refused to recognize either his authority or Mu'a- 
wiya's. When the centre of the Muslim empire was 
set up in Syria, under the Umayyads, and in 'Irak, 
under the c Abbasids, Dumat al-Djandal lost all its 
importance ; from then onwards it was no more than 
an oasis in Arabia inhabited by a poor sparse 
population of agricultural workers, since trade 
henceforth followed other routes; the Arab geo- 
graphers in fact do no more than relate the historical 
events described above and quote from the verses 

We know that during the last centuries of Ottoman 
domination in northern Arabia anarchy was general 
and the situation only improved when the Wahhabis 
imposed their authority over the country. They also 



DOMAT al-DJANDAL — DURAYD B 



L-SIMMA 



took possession of DQmat al-Djandal which belonged 
to them until the time of Talal, amir of Shammar, of 
the Al Rashid, for in 1855 it became a dependency 
of Hayil. In 1909 it was occupied by Nuri Ibn 
gha'lan, chief of the Ruwala tribes, in 1920 the 
amir of Shammar recovered possession of it, and 
finally e Abd al- c Aziz Ibn Sa c ud, when he over- 
threw the amirate of Shammar, added it to his 
domains (192 1). Immediately afterwards, Trans- 
jordania attempted to move her frontier southwards 
to Nafud, but Ibn Sa c ud held firm and at the Con- 
gress of al-Kuwayt (1923-4) the question was not 
resolved. Ibn Sa c ud also made incursions into 
Transjordania, within the framework of his much 
wider activities against the Hidjaz and 'Irak. The 
frontier was established by the Hadda Agreement 
between Ibn Sa'ud and Sir G. Clayton (2 November 
1925), and the Wadi Sirhan along with al-Djawf 
[q.v.] and Kurayyat al-Milh thenceforward became 
part of Nadjd (OM, i-viii (1922-8), index). 

The nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes who inhabit 
the region between Tayma 5 in the south as far as 
Kerak in the north, Nafud and Wadi Sirhan in the 
east are grouped under the collective name of al- 
Huwaytat [q.v.]. During the last century several 
European travellers visited the oasis; an account of 
their explorations will be found in Hogarth. 

Bibliography: Wakidi.ed. Wellhausen, 174 ff., 
236 ff., 391, 403 ff.; Ibn Hisham, ed. Wustenfeld, 
668, 903 (and ii, 205), 991; Ibn Sa'd, i/2, 36 ff., 
ii/i, 119 ff.; Baladhuri, Futuh, 61-3, in; Tabari, i, 
1462 ff., 1556, 1702 ff., 1872, 1880, 2065, 2077, 
2136 and index s.v. DQmat al-Djandal and 
Ukaydir; Mas'udi, Tanbih; BGA, vol. viii, 248, 
253, 272, 296; Ibn al-Athlr, ii, 135 ff., 160, 214 ff., 
303 and index; Yakut, i, 152, 825; ii, 625-9, 852; 
iii, 106; iv, 76, 389, 913; idem, Mushtarik, ed. 
Wustenfeld, 186 ff., 338; BakrI, Mu'djam, ed. 
Wustenfeld, 352 ff. ; Ibn al-Athlr, Usd al-ghdba, 
s.v. Ukaydir; Caetani, Annali, 4 a.H., § I, Nr 7, 
5 a.H., §§ 4, 77-8, 6 a.H., § 16, 9 a.H., §§ 24, 36, 
45-8, 12 a.H., §§ 170, 180-2, 219-20, 232-4, 38 a.H., 
§§ 28, 38; L. Veccia Vaglieri, It conflitto l Ali- 
Mu'dwiya e la secessione khdrigita riesaminati alia 
luce di fonti ibddite, in AIUON, 1952, 49-50, 52, 
53, 82-7; J. Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeitett, 
iv, 133 note 3, 404 note I; M. J. de Goeje, Mimoire 
sur la conquete de la Syrie (in his Mimoires d'histoire 
et de geographic orientates), 2nd ed., 10-5; D. G. 
Hogarth, The penetration of Arabia, London 1904, 
index. (L. Veccia Vaglieri) 

DUNAYSIR, mediaeval ruined town of Upper 
Mesopotamia (within the borders of modern Turkey), 
situated 20 km. south-west of Mardin on a trib- 
utary of the Khabiir, the site of which is today 
marked by the Kurdish village of Koc Hisar, the 
Kosar of the western chroniclers. A fortress of 
former times, generally identified with the Adeny- 
strai of Dio Cassius, Dunaysir is not noted as 
an important place in the early years of Islam, 
and was subsequently never a fortress. Not until 
the 4th/ioth century does its name appear, in 
a ms. of Ibn Hawkal, as the site of a market. Later, 
at the beginning of the 7th/i3th century, the town 
of Dunaysir had become a caravan, agricultural and 
intellectual Centre, whose prosperity is reflected in 
the monuments erected at this time by order of the 
Artukid princes: mosques and madrasa, traces of 
which still remain. Spread over a wide plain, without 
a wall, beside a watercourse crossed by a stone 
bridge, it was, says Ibn Diubayr. "surrounded by 
flower and vegetable gardens", and was a centre of 



attraction for all inhabitants of the neighbouring 
regions. A popular fair was held there from Friday 
to Sunday. Later, Dunaysir declined and became a 
direct dependency of Mardin. 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Adeny- 

strai; R. Dussaud, Topographic historique de la 

Syrie, Paris 1927, 493; Le Strange, 96; A. Gabriel, 

Voyages archiologiques dans la Turquie orientate, 

Paris 1940, 45-53; Ibn Hawkal, in BGA ii, 151 n. b; 

Ibn Diubayr, Rihla, ed. De Goeje, 240-2, tr. 

Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 277-8; Yakut, ii, 612. 

On the dictionary of the literati of Dunaysir, see 

Brockelmann, I, 406 (333), S I, 569. 

(D. Sourdel) 

DUNBAWAND [see damawandj. 

DUNGHUZLUM [see denizlj]. 

DUNtfULA [see dongola]. 

DUNYA (Ar.), the feminine of the elative adjective 
meaning 'nearer, nearest', is used in the Kur'an, 
often combined with 'life' to mean this world. It 
had more or less this sense before Islam (Noeldeke, 
Mu'allakdt des '■Amr und des Ifdrith, 49). The heaven 
of the dunyd is the lowest of the seven; dunyd is 
what is contained in the succession of night and day, 
is overshadowed by the sky and upheld by the earth, 
is all that the eye can see, the world of the seen 
(shahdda). In the realm of the spirit it includes all 
that Christians mean by the world and the flesh and 
it denotes the lot of man, whatever befalls him 
before death and does not continue with him after- 
wards. The interests of this world may oppose those 
of the next so a man may have to deny himself or 
use temperately part of his dunyd, money, food, 
drink, clothing, houseroom and, some say, life itself. 
One authority says that love of women is not love 
of the dunyd. Another definition is: every pleasure 
or desire, even speech with friends, so long as they 
are not aimed at the service of God. Denial of the 
dunyd means putting less trust in what is in your 
own power than in what is in the hand of God. All 
this is only a development of what is said in the 
Kur'an: Those who buy this world at the price of the 
hereafter (sura II, 80/86) and, The hereafter is better 
(sura LXXXVIL 16). The truly religious man will 
have no desires (Muhammad b. Muhammad b. al- 
Zayyat, al-Kawdkib al-sayydra, 130), and an 
extreme statement is ascribed to the prophet: 
Grant to one who loves me and obeys me little 
wealth and few children and to one who hates me 
and does not obey me much wealth and many 
children. At the judgement the dunyd will appear 
as a horrid old hag and will be cast into the fire 
(Ghazzall, Ihya' c ulum al-Din (1312 A.H.), 3, 54, 148) 
an idea which contradicts the fundamental thought 
of Islam. 

Without going into legal details, the dunyd consists 
of things allowed and things forbidden. Good 
Muslims avoided what was forbidden but many 
carried scruple to excess, e.g., by refusing to eat the 
food of one who might have made some money by 
sharp practice in trade or by acting as a government 
servant. Asceticism was often considered good in 
itself and some went so far as to say: Entrust your 
affairs to God and take your rest. 

Bibliography: see Akhira, and in addition: 

Ibshihi, al-Mustafraf, last chapter. 

(A. S. Tritton) 

DURAYD B.. al-§IMMA, ancient Arabic poet 
and leader of the Banii Djusham b. Mu'awiya, one 
of the most powerful Bedouin opponents of Muham- 
mad, born ca. 530. He is a prominent figure of 
Arabic pre-Islamic antiquity; to later generations, 



L-SIMMA — DURBASH 



he was the embodiment of ancient paganism which 
fought stubbornly against Islam. 

His father was Mu'awiya b. al-Harith, called al- 
Simma, leader of the Banu Djusham b. Mu'awiya, 
who belonged to the group of the Hawazin tribes, 
and lived between Mecca and Ta'if. Despite the 
similarity in their religion, and their economic, 
political and social ties, there was an ancient rivalry 
between these two places, which also concerned the 
Bedouin tribes who lived between Mecca and Ta'if. 
This antagonism was caused by the contrast between 
the urban Kuraysh, and the predominantly nomadic 
Hawazin, the difference of their cultural standing, 
and their different economic and political con- 
ditions. This period of the Hidjaz was characterized 
by the resultant battles. These disturbances are 
known as the battles of al-Fidjar. 

Durayd b. al-Simma did not take part in these 
battles for personal reasons arising from his links with 
the Kinana tribes, although he himself had fought 
earlier on against the Kinana, and although his 
father had played an important part in the Fidjar 

He did, on the other hand, play an important 
part in the battles between Hawazin and Ghatafan, 
where he lost his two brothers <Abd al-Yaghuth and 
<Abd Allah. It was particularly the death of <Abd 
Allah which resulted in the renewed enmity and 
battles, in which the tribe of the Banu DjusJ 
again played a prominent part. It was the duty of 
Durayd b. al-Simma to avenge his brother's dea 
and he fulfilled this duty in numerous raids against 
the Ghatafan. 

Friendly ties linked him with Banu Sulaym. He 
also asked for the hand of the young poetess al- 
Khansa 1 in marriage, but she refused him because 
of his advanced years, although her relatives would 
have wished to retain the favour of this influent 
chief. The al-Khansa' episode did not, howevi 
endanger his friendship with her brothers Mu'awiya 
and Sakhr. 

Even in the time when Muhammad began to 
spread his teaching among the Bedouin, the old 
Durayd b. al-Simma played a prominent part. It 
would even appear that he was responsible for the 
opposition which the Hawazin tribes offered the 
new faith, and that he was also the tool of the 
intentions of the Thakif tribe from Ta'if. Perhaps 
he was the instigator of the alliance — which never 
materialized — between the Hawazin and the Kuraysh. 

After Muhammad had left for his last battle 
against Mecca, the Hawazin, the Thakif, and his 
khalifas under Malik b. <Awf of the tribe of Nasr in 
Hunayn, rose in opposition to Muhammad. The 
aged Durayd b. al-Simma was brought on a li 
to give the benefit of his experience of battle to the 
tribes. Just before the battle he had an argument 
with Malik b. c Awf, concerning the accomodation 
of women, children, and the cattle of the tribe, all of 
whom he wanted to get away from the battle-field. 

After the defeat of Mecca, Muhammad went 
against the Hawazin. The armies met in Hunayn. 
After an initial success, the Bedouin were beaten 
and scattered. The faithful gained great booty. 
Durayd b. al-Simma met with a tragic death in this 
battle, at the hand of Rabi c a b. Rufay', of the 
formerly allied tribe of Sulaym. He died at a g 



age, a 



•s old. 



Durayd b. al-Simma by stating that he was a br 
fdris, a shaHr fahl. Muhammad b. Sallam placed 1 
first among those who were considered shu'-ara' i 



luhala*. According to the Arabs, he was the greatest 
fdris poet. Al-Asma c i in Fuhulat al-shu'ard', in 
ZDMG 65, 498, line 20, also regards him highly. 

In his poems, which may be regarded as typically 
Bedouin, battle descriptions, expressions of love and 
friendship, lament, and praise can be found. He has 
all the advantages and shortcomings of an enibodi- 

;nt of all that is typical of the . 



The 



:s he u: 



aitly ai 






tawil, and also basit, mutakdrib, radiaz, kdmil and 

Bibliography: Aghdni, ix, 2-20, and also 
see Tables 332; Ibn Kutayba, K. al-Shi < r, 197, 
219, 470-3; Khizdnat, i, 125, ii, 121, 324, iii, 
166, iv, 148, 444-7, 5i3, 516; There are also 
verses in: Bakri, Mu'djam, Sirat "-Antar, <-Ikd, 
AsmaHyydt, Kdmil, Hamdsa of Buhturi and Abu 
Tammdm, LA, TA and others. 

Editions: R. Ruzicka, Duraid ben as-Simma, 
obraz stfedniho Hidzdzu na tisvitl islamu, Prague 
1925-1930, part 3, vol. 2 in Rozpravy Ceski 
akademie vld a umlni, Kl. Ill, no. 61, 67. Contents 



cf. . 



1951, n 



, 99-1. 



(K. Petracek) 

DURAZZO. [see drac]. 

DCRBASH (Persian, lit. "be distant"), the 
mace or club used as an emblem of military 
dignity; in Persian and Turkish usage the durbdsh 
can also be the functionary who carries the mace 
[see ca'ush, sarhang]. The ciibddrs described by 
Nizam al-Mulk, Siydsat-ndme, ch. xxxix, who seem 
to have been similar functionaries, carried gold and 
silver staffs; 'Awfl, Djdmi' al-hikdydt (passage 
cited by M. Fuad Kopriilii, Bizans miiesseselerin 
Osmanh mttesseselerine tesiri hakkmda bazi muldha- 
zalar, in Turk Hukuk ve Iktisat Tarihi Mecmuasi, 

Istanbul 1931, 213; Hal. tr., Alcune osservazioni 

Rome 1953, 57) describes the durbdsh as wearing 
silver belts and carrying maces encrusted with gems; 
Kopriilii, loc. cit., attributes the use of the jewelled 
mace, found also with the Ghaznawids and indeed 
with the Samanids, to an inheritance from the 
Sasanid court. 

In Muslim India the word is applied to the mace 
rather than to the functionary. The earliest mention 
of it appears to be in Amir Khusraw, Nuh sipihr, ii, 
where the author speaks of the radja of Warangal 
delivering the durbdsh he had received from the 
former sultan to Khusraw Khan, general of Kutb 
al-DIn Mubarak Shah, for its replacement by a 
durbdsh from the reigning sultan in ca. 718/1318 (the 
word here is mistranslated "canopy" in Elliot and 

Dowson, History of India iii, 561); cf. Amir 

Khusraw, Kirdn al-saUayn, lith. 'Allgafh, 78-9. 
According to Diya> al-DIn Barani, TaMkh-i Firuz 
Shdhi, Bibl. Ind., 136, men would run "before 
the stirrups of kings" with the durbdsh on their 
shoulders. Yahya b. Ahmad Sirhindi, Ta'rlkh-i 
Mubarak Shdhi, speaks of it as a two-branched orna- 
mented baton (cf. Ghiydth al-lughdt, s.v. ; Farhang-i 
andjuman drd-i Ndsiri, s.v.), and the Mu'ayyad al- 
fudald' as spears (nizahd) which are borne before 
emperors and kings (ms Mulla Firuz Library, s.v.). 
Its use in Mughal times is confirmed by the European 
travellers; Manucci, Storia di Mogor, i, 220, describes 
the use of the durbdsh in the escort of Shahdjahan's 
daughter Djahanara, in which 'menservants held 
sticks of gold or silver in their hands and called out 
"Out of the way! " '. These menservants are called 
gurzbarddrs by the travellers Tavernier and Bernier. 
Bibliography: in addition to the references 

in the text: Redhouse, Brit. Mus. MS Or. 2965, 



DORBASH — DURRANI 



vii, 778-9 (detailed notice with several quotations). 

For rods, staffs, etc., see £ anaza, i; c asa j ; kadIb; 

sawladjan. (J. Burton-Page) 

al-DURR, the pearl. The ancient legend of its 
origin is found at great length in the Arabic authors, 
first in the Petrology {Steinbuch, ed. Ruska) of 
Aristotle, then with variants in the RasdHl Ikhwdn 
al-Safd* and the later cosmographers. According to it, 
the asfurus ('oaTpetov) rises from the depths of the sea 
frequented by ships and goes out to the ocean. The 
winds there set up a shower of spray and the shells 
open to receive drops from this; when it has collected 
a few drops it goes to a secluded spot and exposes 
the drops morning and evening to the breeze and the 
gentle heat of the sun until they ripen. It then 
returns to the depths of the sea where it takes root 
on the sea-bed and becomes a plant. If the sun or 
the air reach it at midday or in the night the pearls 
are destroyed; they are also ruined if they stay too 
long at the bottom of the sea, just as over-ripe dates 
lose their beauty and flavour. 

Scattered among these fables we find a few real 
facts and critical observations, for example the 
statement that the shells, though rough and unclean 
outside, are smooth and brilliant within, or that the 
substance composing the pearl is identical with that 
which lines the interior of the shell, which points to 
its being produced from the latter. We also find a 
comparison with the hen's egg or with the child 
in its mother's womb. Of particular interest is the 
statement that there is a worm in the pearl, since 
it is now established that pearls are formed by the 
oyster when parasitic worms are present. 

Mas'udi gives us the earliest account of the 
provenance of pearls in various parts of the Indian 
Ocean and of the pearl-fisheries in the Persian Gulf; 
in the Murudi he refers to an earlier work of his in 
which he appears to have drawn upon Yahya b. 
Masawayh's book on stones, which was extracted 
from Tifashl. According to him the only pearl- 
fisheries are on the coast of the sea of Habash at 
Kharak in the Persian Gulf, at Katar, 'Urnan and 
Sarandib. The divers live on fish and dates; a slit is 
made in their necks below the ear through which 
they can breathe, for they close the nostrils by 
clasping a piece of tortoiseshell on the nose (or, 
according to Yahya b. Masawayh, they place a long 
reed in the nose and breathe through this). They can 
remain half an hour below the water. They put 
cotton- wool steeped in oil in their ears; when under 
the water they squeeze some of it out so that it 
becomes quite bright. They paint their legs with a 
black substance lest they should be devoured by 
underwater monsters. While under the water they 
communicate with each other by a kind of barking 
sound. Ibn Battuta also relates some of these fables, 
but on the whole his account of the pearl-fisheries 
is based on his personal observations at SIraf. There 
the Banu Si'af dive for pearls in a calm bay. In the 
months of April and May many boats assemble here 
with divers and Persian merchants. The diver places 
the clamp on his nose, ties a rope round himself, and 
remains one to two hours (!) under water. He finds 
shells firmly attached between small stones, pulls 
them off by hand or cuts them off with a special 
knife, and puts them in a leather bag which he carries 
hanging round his neck. When he can remain below 
no longer he shakes the rope; the man in the boat 
on seeing this pulls him up, takes the shells, opens 
them, and collects the pearls. The sultan receives 
five of each haul and the merchants sell the others, 
but the divers themselves have little profit as they 



are always in debt to the merchants for advances 
made to them. 

The pearl is the jewel par excellence and is distin- 
guished above other jewels by the fact that it is 
haywdni and not turdbi. Tifashl gives a very full 
account of the perfections and defects of pearls, etc., 
while al-Dimashki explains how mother-of-pearl 
{Hrfr al-lu'lu' [q.v.]) is obtained from the layers 
composing the pearl shell. Valuable medicinal quali- 
ties are of course ascribed to the pearl. They are 
believed to be particularly effective in cases of 
palpitation of the heart or in melancholia, they 
strengthen the nerves, cure headaches, and, if 
dissolved in water and rubbed on the affected part, 
mitigate leprosy. They are dissolved with citron 
juice and vinegar. 

The pearl has been prized by Muslim rulers for 
its value (a brief note on the classification and 
values of pearls in the Mughal emperor Akbar's 
treasury in AHn-i Akbari, i, Aln 3) and as a symbol 
of purity. The name "pearl mosque" (moti masdjid) 
is frequently given in Muslim India to pure white 
mosques of marble or polished stucco. The ancient 
Hindu legend of the origin of pearls, that when the 
sun is in Arcturus (Skt. svdti), in October, the rain 
then falling drops into the open shells and so forms 
pearls, appears in several Indian Muslim works. 

For the r61e of the pearl in book-titles, in poetry 
and in rhetoric see futher lu'lu 5 . 

Bibliography : Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles, ed. 
Ruska, 64, 96, 130; RasdHl Ikhwdn al-Safd' ed. 
Bombay, ii, 75; Mas'udi, Murudi, i> 3 2 8; IdrisI- 
Jaubert, i, 157, 377; Ibn Battuta, ii, 244ft.; 
Kazwlnl, 'AdjdHb al-makhlukdt, ed. Wustenfeld, i, 
115, 223; al-Dimashki, Kosmographie, ed. Mehren, 
77 etc. ; Tifashl, Azhdr al-afkdr, tr. Raineri Biscia, 6 ; 
Ibn al-Baytar, in Leclerc, Notices et extr., xxvi/i, 
248 ; Clement-Mullet, Essai sur la min. arabe, in J A, 
Vlth ser. xi (1868), 16; M. Mokri, La piche des perles 
dans le golfe Persique, in J A, ccxlviii/3 (i960), 381- 
97, with bibliography ; idem, Le symbole de la perle 
dans le folklore persan, ibid. fasc. 4, 463-81. On trade 
see tipjara. (J. Ruska*) 

DURRANI, an Afghan tribe known as Abdali 
until their name was changed by Ahmed Shah 
Durrani. (See abdali, ahmad shah, Afghanistan). 
The tribe was moved from Harat and granted lands 
in the region of Kandahar by Nadir Shah. At this 
time they were pastoral nomads but in the later 
I2th/i8th century they began to take up agriculture. 
Their large financial and economic privileges were 
continued and extended in the reigns of Ahmad 
Shah and TImur Shah, when the Durrani tribe 
formed the main political and military support of 
the monarchy. During this period they extended 
their landholdings in the districts more distant from 
the town of Kandahar, e.g., Zamindawar, NIsh, 
Tirin, forcing the original cultivators (Tadjiks, 
Hazaras, Parslwans, Balo&s, Kakafs, etc.) to work 
as tenants or labourers, as they continued to do in 
the regions nearer Kandahar. Towards the end of the 
18th century, however, and particularly after the 
transfer of the capital from Kandahar to Kabul and 
the cessation of Afghan expansion, the central 
government began to reduce the power of the 
Durrani chiefs and to increase its revenue by 
preventing the evasion of liabilities by the Durranis. 
Durrani resistance to this policy was a contributory 
cause of the civil wars of the later 18th and early 
19th centuries, in which the Durranis suffered con- 
siderably. Under the Barakzay Sardars of Kandahar 
1233-4/1818 to 1255/1839 and 1259/1843 to 1272/1855 



DURRANI — DURRlZADE 






the power of the Durrani chiefs was further eroded 
by their virtual exclusion from administration and 
military employment, and by steadily increasing 
taxation and the government control of water 
distribution. This policy was continued after the 
incorporation of Kandahar into the Kabul dominions. 
Its success always varied inversely to the distance 
from Kandahar. 

There is no recent information available about 
Durrani clan divisions and it is supposed that these 
have tended to be obliterated with settlement. There 
is information about the important period down to 
the mid-i9th century. According to Elphinstone the 
tribe was nominally divided into two branches (Zirak 
and Pandjpaw), although from an early period this 
division had lost all importance except to indicate the 
descent of the clans. The clans of the Zirak branch 
were the more powerful and wealthy. The Zirak branch 
included three important clans, those of Popalzay, 
c Alikoz5y and BSrakzay.The Acakzays of the northern 
slopes of the Kh'adja Amran range in the Quetta- 
Pishln district of West Pakistan are a branch of the 
BSrakzays, supposedly separated by Ahmad Shah. 
According to Elphinstone the Pandjpaw clans were 
those of NOrzay, c Alizay, IshSkzay, Khugani, and 
Maku. There is little information about the last two 
although they still appeared as distinct entities on the 
Kandahar tax returns as late as 1857. The other 
Pandjpaw clans lived principally in the more westerly 
areas — the c AHzays in the fertile province of Zamin- 
dawar, where they settled in the early 19th century, 
the Ishakzays in Garmsir on the lower Halmand and 
the Nvirzays, who continued to live as nomads later 
than other clans, in various areas north of Kandahar 
(Nlsh, Thin), in Garmsir and westwards towards 
Farah and Harat. The Zirak clans lived nearer 
Kandahar, although they tended to spread out to 
other areas as well, e.g., the Barakzays who originally 
settled in the Arghasan valley, south of Kandahar, 
also were found on the Halmand, and the Popalzays 
of the lower Tarnak and Arghasan valleys also 
moved into Tirin and the other districts in the hills 
north of Kandahar. The c Alikozays lived in the 
Tarnak valley as far as Djaldak on the borders of 
the Ghilzay country and also were found westwards 
as far as the Halmand. The various clans were 
divided into sub-groups, e.g., the Popalzays included 
the royal family of the Sadozays and possibly also 
the BSmazays. These sub-groups, like some of the 
clans themselves, sometimes decayed or amalgamated 
to form new groups. 

Bibliography: See Afghanistan. Also Wdki- 
c dt-i Durrani, Kanpur 1292; M. Elphinstone, 
Caubool, London 1839; B. Dorn, History of the 
Afghans, London 1836; C. M. Macgregor, Central 
Asia, ii, Afghanistan, Calcutta 1871, esp. Appendix 
III ; H. Rawlinson, Report on the Dooranees . . . ; Yu. 
V. Gankovski, Imperiya Durrani, Moscow 1958. 

(M. E. Yapp) 
DtjRRlZADE, the patronymic of a famous 
family of Ottoman '■ulema* of the i8th-i9th 
centuries, five members of which attained the office 
of Shaykh al-Isldm [q.v.] on no less than nine different 
occasions between the years 1734 and 1815. Only 
these latter can be dealt with here, and details must 
be confined to the periods of their meshikhat which, 
unless otherwise stated, was reached by the normal 
progress through the offices of kadi of Istanbul, 
kadi 'l- c asker of Anadolu and kadi 'l- c asker of Riimeli. 
1. DurrI Mehmed Efendi. The son of a certain 
Ilyas, his date and place of birth are unknown. (The 
statement in the Sidiill-i 'Othmdni that he was a 



native of Ankara probably derives from a misreading 
of the Dewha). While kadi 'Wasker of Riimeli for the 
second time, he was appointed Shaykh al-Isldm on 
3 Djumada II 1147/31 October 1734 on the death of 
the incumbent Ishak Efendi. In Shawwal 1148/Fe- 
bruary-March 1736 he was stricken with apoplexy, 
which in Dhu '1-Hidjdja/April-May of the same year 
compelled him to retire from office. He died at his 
home in Usktidar in 1149/1736-7 and was buried in 
the cemetery of Karadja Ahmed. (Subhl, 63b, 71b). 

2. Durrizadf. Mustafa Efendi. The son of the 
above by the daughter of the former kadi 'Wasker 
c Abd al-Kadir Efendi, he was born in 1114/1702-3. 
After having been kadi 'W-asker of Riimeli twice, 
he was appointed Shaykh al-Islam on 21 Shawwal 
1169/19 July 1756, but on 28 Djumada I of the 
following year (18 February 1757) he was dismissed 
from office and exiled to Gallipoli. His second 
occupancy of this office came on 5 Shawwal 1175/ 
29 April 1762 and lasted until 24 Dh u '1-Ka c da 1180/ 
23 April 1767; and on 15 Dh u '1-Hidjdja 1187/27 
February 1774 he was appointed for a third time. 
Infirm with old age, he retired on 22 Radjab 1188/ 
28 September 1774 and died the same year on 7 
Dh u 'l-Hidjdja/8 February 1775. He was married to 
the daughter of the former Shaykh al-Isldm Pash- 
makclzade c Abd Allah Efendi of a family claiming 
descent from the Prophet, and his sons by her all 
enjoy the title of seyyid. In 1179/1765-6 he restored 
the mosque at Yefti Kapl (Hadikat iil-diewdmi c , i, 
237), and would also appear to have founded a 
family burial ground outside Edirne KapisI in the 
vicinity of the fountain of LaSizade. A work on 
fikh entitled Diirre-i beydd is ascribed to him 
C-Othmdnll muellifleri, i, 308), and his translation of 
a short Arabic tract is to be found in a manuscript 
medimu'-a in Topkapi, Emanet Hazinesi, no. 1308. 
(Wasif, i, 83a, 91a, 210b, 290a; ii, 285a; Djewdet, i, 
72, 78). 

3. DOrrIzade Seyyid Mehmed 'Ata 3 Allah 
Efendi. The second son of the above, he was born 
in 1142/1729-30. After having twice occupied the 
post of kadi 'W-asker of Riimeli, on 17 Djumada II 
1197/20 May 1783 he was appointed Shaykh al-Isldm 
and he retained this office until 20 Djumada I 1199/ 
31 March 1785 when, suspected of complicity with 
the Grand Vizier Khalll Hamid Pasha in a conspiracy 
to depose Sultan c Abd al-Hamid I, he was dismissed 
and sent to Gallipoli with orders to go on the 
pilgrimage. However, he died here of some dropsical 
affliction soon after his arrival, and the news of his 
death reached Istanbul on 6 Radjab 1199/15 May 
1785. (Djewdet, ii, 71, 309, 317; 1. H. Uzuncarsih, 
in TM, v (1935), 251, refers to a rumour that he was 
poisoned). 

4. DurrIzade Seyyid Mehmed c Arif Efendi. 
The younger brother of the above, he was born in 
1 153/1740- 1 and reached the post of kadi 'Wasker of 
Riimeli on 26 Ramadan 1 198/13 August 1784. On 
17 Shawwal 1199/23 August 1785 he was appointed 
Shaykh al-Isldm, but was dismissed from office on 
10 Rabi c II 1200/10 February 1786 because of his 
political activities, and after being ordered to go on 
pilgrimage, he was forced to live in exile in Kiitahya. 
He was permitted to return to Istanbul in 1205/ 
1790-1 when his enemy the Shaykh al-Islam Hamidi- 
zade Mustafa Efendi was discharged from office, and 
on 22 Dhu '1-Ka c da 1206/12 July 1792 he was again 
appointed to the meshikhat. Being held in some way 
responsible for the state of unpreparedness of Egypt 
when Napoleon launched his invasion, he was 
replaced in office on 18 Rabi c I 1213/30 August 1798, 



and after a few months' exile in Bursa, he returned 
to Istanbul where he died on 20 Djumada I 1215/9 
October 1800 and was buried at Egri Kapi. A collec- 
tion of his fetwds exists in Topkapi Sarayi, Yeniler, 
no. 4403; and no. 4783 in the same library is a note- 
book he kept of appointments and dismissals of the 
'ulemd* for the years 1209-13 (Diewdet. ii, 292, 331, 
347; iv, 456; v, 181; vii, 57, 68, 174). 

5. DOrrIzade Seyyid c Abd Allah Efendi. The 
son of the latter, the date of his birth is not recorded. 
While nakib iil-eshrdf and a nominee (pdyeli) for the 
post of kadi 'l- c asker of Rumeli, on 3 Shawwal 1223/ 
22 November 1808 he was appointed Shaykh al- 
Isldm, remaining in office until 22 Sha'ban 1225/ 
22 September 1810. His second term in the meshikhat 
began on 30 Djumada I 1227/12 June 1812 and 
lasted until 10 Rabi c II 1230/22 March 1815. He died 
on 3 Diumada I 1244/11 November 1828 and was 
buried near his great-grandfather in the cemetery of 
Karadja Ahmed (Shanizade, i, 146, 399; ii, 114, 
239; Lutfi Efendi, ii, 153; Khidr Ilyas, 8). 

Bibliography: Details of about forty members 
of this family who attained positions of varying 
importance in the learned profession can be traced 
through the following references to the Sidjill-i 
'Othmani, though the caution must be given that 
no detail, and in particular dates, can be accepted 
without verification from another source: i, 336, 
399; ii, 338, 396; i", 146, 242, 267, 363, 396, 476; 
iv, 75, 444, 586 (Nur Allah Efendi), 627. Miistakim- 
zade Siileyman Sa'd al-Din Efendi (with the 
continuations of Miinib Efendi and Rif c at Efendi), 
Dewhat Ul-meshdHkh, litho., Istanbul n.d., 91 
(text corrupt), 100, 108, 109, 122. Specimens of the 
fetwds issued by all the individuals mentioned in 
the article can be found in the Hlmiyye Sdlndmesi, 
Istanbul 1334, 515, 529. 55i. 553. 575; I- H. 
Danismend, Izahh Osmanh tarihi kronolojisi, iv, 
Istanbul 1961, index; 1. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh 
tarihi, iv/2, Ankara 1959, 472, 484, 501, 502; 
F. E. Karatay, Topkapi Sarayi MUzesi Kiitii- 
phanesi Tiirkfe yazmalar hatalogu, 2 vols., 
Istanbul 1961. The works mentioned in the article 
are: Mehmed Subhi Efendi, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1198; 
Ahmed Wasif Efendi, Ta'rikh, 2 vols., Istanbul 
1219; Ahmed Djewdet Pasha, Ta'rikh, 12 vols., 
Istanbul 1 270-1 301; Ayvansarayl Haflz Htiseyn 
Efendi, Hadikat iil-djewdmi', 2 vols., Istanbul 1281 ; 
Mehmed c Ata J Allah Shanizade, Ta'rikh, 4 vols., 
Istanbul 1290-1; Ahmed Lutfi Efendi, Ta'rikh, 
8 vols., Istanbul 1290-1306; Khidr Ilyas Efendi, 
WakdH'-i letdHf-i Enderun, Istanbul 1276. 

(J. R. Walsh) 
DtfRRlZADE c Abd Allah Bey or Efendi 
(1869-1923), one of the last Shaykh al-Isldms of the 
Ottoman Empire, known for his fetwds condemning 
the Turkish nationalist movement under Mustafa 
Kemal (Atatiirk). He was born into a wealthy family 
claiming the title of seyyid, most of whose male 
members belonged to the Hlmiyye class, and five 
of whom had previously served as Shaykh al-Isldm 
[see preceding article]. The son of the last there 
mentioned, c Abd Allah, was Diirrizade Mehmed 
Efendi, who rose to the rank of Kadi'asker of 
Rumeli, and was the father of the 'Abd Allah with 
whom this article is concerned. 

c Abd Allah attended secular elementary and 
intermediate schools, then studied at the Fatih 
medrese, receiving his ididzet from Eginli Khodia 
Ibrahim Hakki Efendi (d. 1894), at the time under- 
secretary (mttsteshdr) of the Meshikhat. He received 
his first appoinment as miiderris (ibtidd'-i khdridj) 



in 1883, and joined the Meshikhat in 1886, where 
by 1893 he rose to the rank of miiderris of the Siiley- 
maniyye. In 1897 he left the Hlmiyye service to 
rejoin it in 1901 as member of the council for Shar'i 
studies (Medjlis-i Tedkikat-i SherHyye), and later as 
kadi c asker of Anatolia. Dismissed after the 1908 
revolution, he became an opponent of the Ittihad 
we Terakki [q.v.] movement and devoted himself to 
civilian pursuits (from which period he became 
known as «Bey»). After the armistice of 1918 he 
was placed in charge of a comittee examining religious 
publications, became under-secretary at the Meshi- 
khat on 1 February 1920, and Shaykh al-Isldm in 
the third cabinet of Damad Ferid [q.v.] on 3 April, 
less than three weeks after the reinforced Allied 
occupation of Istanbul. In this office he signed on 
11 April 1920 four fetwds, of which the main one 
referred to the Kemalists as « certain civil persons 
[who] have allied and united and chosen for them- 
selves leaders . . ., with fraud . . . are deceiving . . . 
the loyal Imperial subjects and without authority 
are rising up to enlist soldiers from the populace; 
and to this end are imposing, in contravention of the 
sacred law and against high orders, certain dues and 
taxes ostensibly on the pretext of feeding and 
equipping these soldiers but really by reason of 
[their own] greed for worldly goods . . .». Among 
many other specific accusations it charged these 
same persons with « treason* and with being « rebels* 
(btighdt, bdghiler), who in accordance with religious 
law were to be killed (katl ii kitdlleri rneshrU'- we 
fard olur) one at a time or in groups. The briefer 
subsidiary fetwds obliged Muslims to heed the 
sultan's call to arms against the rebels and threatened 
eternal punishment for deserters from any such army 
and earthly penalties for those disobeying orders in 
this fight against the rebels. 

For a brief period 'Abd Allah also became acting 
Minister of Education and, during Damad Ferid's 
attendance at the Paris Peace Conference, acting 
Grand Vizier (sadr a'zam wekili). He was dropped 
from the cabinet upon its reorganization on 30 July 
1920. At the time of the final nationalist victory in 
September 1922 he left Turkey for Rhodes and then 
Italy. On 23 March 1923 he left for Mecca where he 
died on 30 April in the act of performing the pilgrim's 
prayers at the Ka'ba. Although he died before the 
signature of the Treaty of Lausanne he was placed 
on the list of 150 persons (Yiizellilihler) excluded 
from its amnesty provisions. 

Bibliography: Sidjill-i '■Othmani, iv, 691; 

Mehmet Zeki Pakalin in islam Turk ansiklopedisi, 

ii, 246-7, and in Sidjill-i '■Othmani dheyli (in the 

ms collection of Turk Tarih Kurumu); Ismail 

Hami Danisment, izahh Osmanli kronolojisi, iv 

(1955). 536 ff.; Galip Kemali Soylemezoglu, 

Basimiza gelenler, Istanbul 1939, 219 ff. For the 

original text of the fetwds see Takwim-i Wekdyi 1 

no. 3834 of 11 April 1336. 

(Faik Resft Unat and Dankwart A. Rustow) 

al-DURC (Dir'i), a large Ghafiri tribe, mainly 

nomadic and IbadI, of the foothills and steppes of 

'Uman in south-eastern Arabia. From Wadi al-Safa 

and areas of the Ghafiri Al Bu Shamis (of Nu c aym) 

and Bani Kitab in al-Zahira, their dira extends 

south-east across the plain (Sayh al-Duru') to 

Wadi Halfln and the territory of the Hinawl tribe 

of Al Wahiba. From Hamra 5 al-Duru c and other 

outliers of the mountains of Inner 'Uman (among 

which, centering around c Izz and Adam, is found 

the north-west enclave of the Ghafiri al-Djanaba), 

it extends south to the broken district of al-Hukuf 



L-DURO c — DUROZ 



(al-Hikf ?) and the barren area of Djiddat al-Harasis, 
and south-west to the sands of the Rub c al- Khali 
[q.v.], the low borderland of which (al-Wata') includes 
the sabkhas and quicksands of Umm al-Samim [q.v.]. 

The main tribal centre, ca. 15 km. south of 'Ibrl, 
is the village of Tan'am. This is the summering place 
{makiz, pi. makayiz) of the shaykhly clan, al- 
Maliamid, and of al-Makarida, of whom about 100 
settled men care for the date gardens. Al-Mahamld 
and al-Dababina have gardens also in al-Sulayf, 
north-east of Tan'am and south-east of c Ibri, and 
al-Mahamid also at c Ibri. Other groups summer 
around their gardens at al-Ma'miir (Ma'mur of 
al-Duru<), al-Habbi, Fill, Madri, Bisah, Yabrin, 
Taymisa, and Adam. 

Although c Ibri is their main trading centre, al- 
Duru c also visit other inland markets including 
those at Nazwa, Bahla', and Adam, and occasionally 
travel as far as Dubayy on the Persian Gulf and 
al-Khabura and Muscat on the Gulf of c Uman. 
Their chief vendibles are the following: animals — 
camels, goats, and sheep; handicrafts — ropes and 
cordage, mats (simma, pi. samim), baskets, etc., 
made from fibre of the palmetto-like sa c f (in c Uman 
called ghadaf), and sheep's wool rugs, over the 
quality of which al-Durii c vie with Al Hikman; 
wood products^charcoal (sakhkham), burned mainly 
of samr and ghdf from thickets growing along the 
numerous wddis which traverse the steppe south- 
westward and southward; minerals — sulphur, from 
Karat al-Kibrit, for treating animal mange and for 
making gunpowder, and salt, from Karat al-Kibrit, 
Karat al-Milh, and two mamlahas which lie in 
sabkhas on the eastern margin of Umm al-Samim. 

Of famous 'Umani camels al-Duru c raise three 
prize breeds: Banat 'Usayfir, Banat Khabar, and 
Banat Humra. The salt mines are exploited under 
general supervision of the shaykhs, but are not their 
property. The best salt comes from Karat al-Kibrit, 
which is also called Karat al-'Uraysha. At the sources 
of the coarser and less pure salt bordering Umm al- 
Samim, (where the mining is safer and without 
the fatalities which occur at the two kdras), the 
salt is cut out in blocks, four to a camel-load, the 
gain from which ranges from one to four Maria 
Theresa dollars. The price is highest in summer, 
when mining is very difficult because of the heat 
and the distance from water, the nearest perennial 
sources— Muwayh al-Raka and al- c Ubayla,— being 
over a day away by camel. 

Because al-Duru' ordinarily shun the vast sand 
desert of the Rub c al-Khali, they have little reason 
for risking travel across Umm al-Samim, in the 
quicksands of which, according to popular accounts, 
unwary travellers, shepherds, and raiders, and their 
animals, have been swallowed up. Members of the 
section of 'IySl Kharas of al-Mahamid are said to 
know safe paths leading north and south of the inner 
morass, but they themselves rarely cross. 

Despite their commercial exploitation of what 
nature affords them, al-Duru c have no professional 
merchants and are a truly nomadic tribe. They 
have a reputation for bold and wide raiding, and 
active participation in tribal wars. 

The majority of al-Durvi c are Ibadis, but the 
large division of al-Makarida and most of the small 
but ruling clan of al-Mahamid are said to be Sunnls. 

The origin of the tribe is unknown. The similarity in 
name with Al Dir c , relatives of Al Sa'ud who formerly 
lived in Wadi Hanifa and gave their name to the 
first Sa c udi capital of al-Dir'iyya, is probably 
without significance. A popular tradition of the 



south says that al-Duru c have the same origin as 
the tribe of al-Manahll— from Ban! (or Ahl) al-Zanna. 
The frequency of naming from the mother — fuldn b. 
fuldna — may be an indication of southern origin. 
Of other groups living in the territory of al-Duru c 
the most interesting is that composed of some 
40 men of al- c Ifar [q.v.], a tribe originally from the 
area of Habarut in western Zufar, where the majority 
still live. Al- c Ifar are Sunnls and Hinawis, but have 
the privilege of giving safe escort to strangers in 
Dir'i and other Ghafiri areas. Their leaders are 
accorded considerable respect. Al (or c Iyal) Khu- 
mayyis, ranging in Wadi Sayfam and neighbouring 
valleys between Hamra 3 al-Duru c and al-Djabal al- 
Akhdar and numbering several hundred males, are 
said to be of Dir'i origin, but are now regarded as a 
separate tribe. Other groups stemming from al-Duru c 
live in al-Sharkiyya and al-Batina. 

The paramount shaykh is called al-tamima. Chiefs 
of divisions or sections other than those of al- 
Mahamid may be given the title of shaykh, but the 
usual title is rashid (pi. rushadd 3 ). 

Bibliography: J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the 
Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central Arabia, ii, 
Calcutta 1908-15; Admiralty, A Handbook of 
Arabia, ii, London 1916-17; S. B. Miles, The 
Countries and Tribes oj the Persian Gulf, ii, 
London 1919; Wilfred Thesiger, Across the Empty 
Quarter, in GJ, cxi, 1-3 (pub. July), 1948, 1-21; 
idem, Desert Borderlands of Oman, in GJ, cxvi, 
4-6, 1950, 137-71; idem, Arabian Sands, London 
and New York 1959; Arabian American Oil 
Company, Relations Department, Research Di- 
vision, Oman and the southern shore of the Persian 
Gulf, Cairo 1952 (in English and Arabic). 

(C. D. Matthews) 
DURCZ (Druzes), sing. Durzi, a Syrian people 
professing an initiatory faith derived from the 
Isma'iliyya [q.v.]. They call themselves Muwahhidun, 
"unitarians", and number (in the mid-twentieth 
century) almost 200,000, living in various parts of 
Syria, especially in the mountains of the Lebanon, 
Anti-Lebanon, and Hawran, chiefly as cultivators 
and landlords. 

The faith originated in the closing years of the 
reign of al-Hakim [q.v.], Fatimid Caliph of Egypt 
(386-411/996-1021). According to the Isma'ili Shl c i 
faith then officially received in Egypt, al-Hakim, as 
imam, was the divinely appointed and authoritative 
guardian of Islam, holding a position among men 
which answered to that of the cosmic principle al- 
c akl al-fa' <dl, the active intellect, and unquestionable 
head of the Isma'ili religious hierarchy. Al-Hakim 
proved an eccentric ruler both in his personal life 
and in his religious policy, which flouted alternately 
the feelings of Isma'ilis and Sunnis alike. In his last 
years he seems to have wished to be regarded as a 
divine figure, above any rank which official Isma'Uism 
could accord him. A number of Isma'ilis were in fact 
inclined so to regard him and, evidently with his 
private permission, set about organizing a following 
in the expectation of a public acknowledgement of 
the position. 

The first of these men to catch the public eye was 
al-Darazi [q.v.], a non-Arab (like several of the 
leaders) ; the whole movement was called al-Daraziyya 
(or al-Durziyya) on his account. He seems to have 
interpreted the mood of the Hakim-cult circles in 
terms of a recurrent Isma'ili heterodox attitude 
which exalted the ta'wil (inner truth) and its repre- 
sentative, the imam, over the tanzil (outward 
revelation) and its representative, the Prophet; so 



632 DU1 

giving the current imam, al-Hakim, a supernatural 
status as embodiment of al-'atil al-kulli, the highest 
cosmic intellect. But his public activity (408/1017-8) 
caused disturbances and forced al-Hakim to be more 
cautious. In 410, however, al-Hakim gave his 
support to another leader, Hamza b. 'AH [q.v.'i of 
SOzan in Iran, who gave to the Hakim cult its 
definitive Druze form. 

Hamza had begun his mission in 408/1017 (the 
first year of the Druze era — the second being 410, 
when the public mission was renewed) and claimed 
to have been the only authorized spokesman for al- 
Hakim from the first. In 410, after al-Darazi's death, 
he tried to rally the whole movement under himself. 
His doctrine was evidently more original than al- 
Darazl's. It was, like Isma'ill doctrine generally, a 
doctrine of cosmic emanation from the One and of 
return to the One through human gnosis. But it was 
unique in its special emphasis on the immediate 
presence of the cosmic One and made correspond- 
ingly rather less of the subordinate emanations. 
Hence Hamza called his own followers "unitarians" 
par excellence. 

For Hamza, al-Hakim was no longer merely imam, 
however highly exalted. Hamza himself was the 
imam, the human guide, and therefore al-'afrl al- 
kulli, the first cosmic principle; while al-Hakim was 
the embodiment of the ultimate One, the Godhead 
who created the Intellect itself and was accordingly 
Himself beyond name or office, beyond even good 
or evil. Compared to Him, 'All and the Isma'ill 
imams as such were secondary figures (though, 
since the One is ever present even when unrevealed, 
some of the latter, together with several obscure 
figures from earlier times, had also been embodiments 
of the One in their time). In al-Hakim, the One was 
uniquely present openly in history. The contrasting 
extravagances of his life expressed the workings of 
the ultimately Powerful, Whose acts could not be 
called to account, though they always revealed a 
meaning to His imam, the c akl, the cosmic intellect, 
Hamza. Al-Hakim was the present makam, locus, 
of the Creator; only in knowledge of Him could men 
purify themselves. Accordingly, Hamza's teaching 
was no longer strictly an extremist Isma'ilism, though 
it made use of extremist Isma'ill conceptions and 
language; it claimed to be an independent religion 
superseding both the Sunni tanzil and the Isma'ill 
ta'wil. 

Hamza evidently looked to al-Hakim to introduce, 
by his caliphal power, the messianic culmination of 
history, forcing all men to discard the various 
symbolisms of the old revealed religions, including 
Isma'ilism, and to worship the One alone, revealed 
clearly in al-Hakim. In preparation for al-Hakim's 
decisive move, Hamza, as imam, built up his own 
organization within the Hakim-cult circles to spread 
the true doctrine. Like al-Hakim and Hamza himself, 
the members of this organization embodied cosmic 
principles. There were five great hudud, cosmic 
ranks, adopted in a modified form from Isma'ill lore : 
the c Akl (Hamza— identical with Shatnil, the "true 
Adam" during the current historical cycle, during 
which the One is also known as al-Bar) ; the Nafs al- 
Kulliyya, Universal Soul (Isma'il b. Muhammad al- 
Tamimi); the Kalima, the Word (Muhammad b. 
Wahb al-Kurashl) ; the Right Wing or the Sabilf, the 
Preceder, in Isma'ilism identified with the c a%l but 
here demoted (Salama b. 'Abd al-Wahhab) ; and the 
Left Wing or the Tali, the Follower, in Isma'ilism 
identified with the nafs (Abu '1-Hasan 'All b. Ahmad 
al-Samuki, called Baha 5 al-Din al-Muktana). Below 



these five ranks were a number of ddHs 
ma'dhiins, licensed to preach; and mukasirs, per- 
suaders — embodying respectively the cosmic djidd, 
effort; fath, opening; and khayal, fantasy. Subor- 
dinated to these were the common believers. (In all 
these ranks what was regarded was not the indivi- 
dual person, the embodiment, but the undying 
principle of which the embodiment was merely the 
current veil; in the ordinary person this implied an 
eternally reincarnated soul). To one or another of 
these ranks were attributed most of the titles or 
concepts that figured in the complex Isma'ill 
system. Despite this hierarchy, however, the imme- 
diate presence of the One was kept primary and 
remained so in later Druzism. 

Ranged in opposition to these true budud, and 
equally the creatures of al-Hakim as the ultimate 
One, were a series of false hudud, accounting for the 
dark side of the cosmos, and embodied likewise in 
men of al-Hakim's time — for instance, in al-Hakim's 
Isma'ill officials, teachers of the misleading doctrines 
of the old faiths. The eschatological drama was seen 
as the conflict between Hamza as KdHm al-zamdn, 
Master of the Time, with his true hudud, who would 
at last be openly supported by al-Hakim, and these 
false teachers whom al-Hakim would openly abandon. 
The followers of the Hakim-cult, whether under al- 
DarazI or under Hamza, seem to have been eager to 
precipitate events by proclaiming abroad the abolition 
of all the old faiths, including the sharpa law of 
Islam and its Isma'Iti bdtin interpretation. Despite 
Hamza's relative cautiousness, insults to the esta- 
blished faith were offered publicly, with al-Hakim's 
tacit support, and riots ensued. The innovators, who 
regarded themselves as emancipated from the 
shari'a, were accused of every sort of gross immo- 
rality. The Hakim cult seems to have contributed 
heavily to the growing political crisis of al-Hakim's 
last years. 

When al-Hakim disappeared, late in 411/1021, 
Hamza announced that he had withdrawn to test 
his adherents and would soon return to manifest his 
full power, placing the sword of victory in Hamza's 
own hands. Soon after, at the end of 411, Hamza 
himself withdrew, to return with al-Hakim. The 
faith then entered into a period corresponding to 
the little ghayba of the Twelver Shi'is, with the Tali, 
Baha* al-Din al-Muktana [q.v.], as link between the 
absent Hamza and the faithful. 

After al-Hakim's disappearance, the Hakim cult 
seems to have gradually ceased activity in Egypt, 
but to have afforded the ideology for a wave of 
peasant revolts in Syria. There proselytizing was 
pursued actively by a number of missionaries, some 
of whose names have been preserved; the movement 
gained control of some mountainous areas, where 
they are said to have torn down the mosques and 
established their own new system of law. Presumably 
they dispossessed the old landlords in favour of a free 
peasantry. In 423/1032 the amir of Antioch, aided 
by the amir of Aleppo, suppressed a group in the 
Djabal al-Summak which included peasants who had 
gathered there from the vicinity of Aleppo. 

In the midst of the turmoil, al-Muktana at 
Alexandria (who had been appointed Tali only at 
the last minute, in 411) tried to maintain Hamza's 
authority and his own. He was evidently in touch 
with the absent Hamza and was preparing for his 
momentary advent from the Yemen. He encouraged 
the rebels in the Djabal al-Summak after their 
defeat. His many pastoral letters — some directed 
not only to Syria but to contacts and converts in all 



Isma'fli communities, as far away as Sind — served 
meanwhile to lay down Druze orthodoxy. He had 
to struggle against more than one claimant to 
leadership, of whom Ibn al-Kurdi, aided by one 
Sikkln, seems to have been the most prominent; 
some of these seem to have encouraged a wide moral 
licence which he condemned. But with the years the 
general movement faded away and the Syrian 
peasant revolt seemed hopelessly torn by dissension; 
at last al-Muktana discharged all his dd'is and, 
sometime after 425/1034, himself withdrew from the 
faithful, as had Hamza; though he continued to 
send out letters as late as 434/1042-3. 

Despite al-Muktana's discouragement, his work 
became the basis of such of the movement as did 
survive. Later Druzes have supposed it was al- 
Muktana himself who compiled one hundred and 
eleven letters, many of them his own, some of them 
by Hamza and by Isma'il al-Tamimi, and certain 
pieces by al-Hakim, into a canon which has since 
served as Druze scripture, called Rasd'il al-Iiikma, 
the Book of Wisdom. From the time of al-Muktana's 
withdrawal began a period, lasting to the present 
among the Syrian Druzes, of passive expectation of 
Hamza's and al-Hakim's return, which has corres- 
ponded to the greater ghayba of the Twelver Shi'is. 
Hamza's hierarchical organization, including the 
dd'is and lesser ranks, fell into disuse and the 
scriptural canon has served as guide in place of the 
absent hudiid. Though al-Muktana had insisted on 
continuing proselytizing as long as possible, on his 
withdrawal it ceased and it was taught that 
thenceforth no further conversion to the unitarian 
truth could be accepted. (To this ban there have been 
a few exceptions). The Druzes became a closed 
community, keeping their doctrines secret, frowning 
on intermarriage and permitting neither conversion 
nor apostasy, and governing themselves as far as 
possible in such mountain fastnesses as they had 
seized, notably in the Wadi Taym Allah by Mount 
Hermon. These converts from the Syrian peasantry, 
led — according to tradition — by certain families from 
old Arabian tribes, formed in time a homogeneous 
people with distinctive physical features and social 
customs, dominated by their own aristocracy of 
ruling families. The aristocratic families have been 
noted equally for their habits of lawless raiding, for 
their uncompromising hospitality, and for their 
strict moral discipline which spared, for instance, the 
women of those they plundered and which was 
merciless toward unchastity in Druze women. (There 
is little foundation for the long series of Western 
speculations which assigned to the Druzes one or 
another exotic racial source, such as Persia or France). 

During this long period of autonomous closed 
group life there appeared a new system of religious 
practice strongly contrasting to the hierarchism 
which had disappeared. We know of a number of 
writers on the gnostic cosmology and cyclical sacred 
history implied already by Hamza, and commen- 
tators on the scriptural canon, but it is not known 
just when the new system took full form, though 
this was presumably at least by the time of the 
great Druze moralist (whose tomb is revered by 
both Druzes and Christians), c Abd Allah al-Tanukhi 
[see al-tanukhI, <abd allah], d. 885/1480. By 
this system the Druze community has been 
divided into 'ukkdl (sing. 'dkil), "sages" initiated 
into the truths of the faith, and djuhhdl (sing. 
djdhil), "ignorant", not initiated and yet members 
of the community. (Those aristocratic notables who 
are not initiated may be distinguished from the 



ordinary djuhhdl in their character of amir). Any 
adult Druze (man or woman) can be initiated if 
found worthy after considerable trial, but must 
thereafter lead a soberly religious life, uttering 
regular daily prayers, abstaining from all stimulants, 
from lying, from stealing, from revenge (including 
raiding in feuds), and so on. The 'ukkdl are distin- 
guished by a special dress with white turbans. As 
long as one is still a djdhil, he is permitted more 
personal indulgences, within the code of honour of 
the Druze community, but he cannot look to spiritual 
growth ; however, if he fails to be initiated in a given 
lifetime he can expect a renewed opportunity in a 
future birth. 

The more pious or learned of the 'ukkdl are 
accorded special authority in the community as 
shaykhs. In addition to what is required of the 
ordinary 'ukkdl, they must be very circumspect 
morally, not making use of goods of a dubious 
source, avoiding any excess in their daily behaviour, 
keeping themselves on good terms with all, and 
ready to make peace wherever there is a quarrel. In 
each Druze district some one of these shaykhs, 
normally chosen from a given family, is recognized 
as holding the highest religious authority, as raHs. 
The shaykhs are trained in a special school; they 
spend much time in copying religious works and 
especially the scriptural canon, and the more zealous 
commonly have gone on spiritual retreats in 
khalwas, houses of religious retirement, built in 
unfrequented spots; some have even devoted their 
whole lives to such retirement. Preferably any 'dkil 
should support himself with his hands, but the 
shaykhs are a fit object of alms by the djuhhdl, 
nevertheless. They are expected to offer spiritual 
guidance to their djdhil neighbours, presiding at such 
occasions as weddings and funerals. 

All the '■ukkdl attend at least some of the madjlis 
services, held on the eve of Friday in starkly simple 
houses of worship, though djuhhdl have been admitted 
to the least secret of these, when moral homilies are 
read in classical Arabic. The 'ukkdl alone are per- 
mitted to read the more secret books of the faith and 
to participate in, or even know about, its secret 
ritual — which the Druzes have allowed the outside 
world to suppose involves a metallic figure of a calf 
in some way, whether as representing the human 
aspect of al-Hakim or possibly the animality of 
Hamza's enemies. (The neighbours of the Druzes 



t been 



1 of 



Hamza and al-Muktana prescribed a sevenfold set 
of commandments, replacing the Muslim "pillars of 
the faith", which have become the basis of the moral 
discipline of the 'ukkdl and to some degree of all 
Druzes. They must above all speak truth among the 
faithful (or at least keep silent, but never misrepres- 
ent), a commandment which includes truth in the 
theological sense; but lying to unbelievers is per- 
mitted in defence of themselves or of the faith. This 
first commandment covers also any act, such as 
stealing, which must entail lying. The second com- 
mandment is to defend and help one another, and 
seems to imply carrying arms for the purpose. The 
other commandments are to renounce all former 
religions; to dissociate themselves from unbelievers; 
to recognize the unity of Our Lord (Mawlana, the 
general title given al-Hakim as the One) in all ages; 
to be content with whatever he does; and to submit 
to His orders, particularly as transmitted through 
his hudud. Hamza prescribed, in addition, special 
rules of justice and of personal status to replace the 



6 34 



shari'-a, notably insisting on equality of 

between husband and wife in marriage; thus divorce 

was penalized in either partner unless for good cause. 

The faith of the diuhhdl is placed under the 

general guidance of the *ukkdl, but it is strongly 

affected by the principle of religious dissimulation — 

that to protect the secrecy of his faith, a Druze must 

affect to accept the faith of those in power about 

him; that is, normally, SunnI Islam. Druzes have 

accepted the HanafI legal system, though with 

modifications such as permission of more unlimited 

bequests and placing of limitations on divorce. They 

celebrate the C M — though not the Hadjdj nor the 

Ramadan fast; many families use circumcision (or 

baptism), but attach no religious meaning thereto; 

at funerals they may use Islamic formulas but the 

key feature is the blessing of the shaykhs. Like 

Syrians of other faiths, they visit the shrines of 

Khidr [q.v.] and the tombs of the prophets and saints. 

Nevertheless, even the diuhhdl know, and may 

freely speak of, the principle of their unitarianism. 

They possess a developed doctrine of creation and 

eschatology, which is founded in the teachings of 

the l ukkdl. The number of souls in existence is fixed, 

all souls being reincarnated immediately upon death 

(unless, having reached perfection, they ascend to 

the stars); those which believed in Hamza's time 

are always reincarnated as Druzes, either in Syria 

or in a supposed Druze community in China. The 

variety of incarnations each soul passes through 

gives a thorough moral testing. (Some of the diuhhdl 

believe in reincarnation of the wicked in lower 

animals). In the end, when al-Hakim and Hamza 

reappear to conquer and establish justice in the 

whole world, those Druzes who have shown up 

well will be the rulers of all mankind. The best will 

then dwell nearest to God— a notion which the 

l ukkal understand, like much else, in a spiritual sense. 

Bibliography: The Druze canon is available 

in numerous manuscripts in European, American, 

and Syrian libraries, as are many other Druze 

writings. A description and some translation of the 

canon is included in the fundamental work of 

Silvestre de Sacy, Exposi de la religion des Druzes, 

2 vols., Paris 1838 (partial translation, Philipp 

Wolff, Die Drusen und ihre Vorlaufer, Leipzig 

1845); see also his Mimoire sur Vorigine du culte 

que les Druzes rendent a la figure d'un veau in 

Mlmoires de I'institut royal, classe d'histoire, iii, 

1818, 74 ff. Some Druze pieces are printed and 

annotated in Silvestre de Sacy's Chrestomathie 

arabe, ii, Paris 1826. Other Druze writings are 

printed in Christian Seybold, Die Drusenschrift: 

Kitdb Alnoqaf Waldawair (and N.-L. Kirchhain, 

Das Buck der Punkte und Kreise), Leipzig 1902; 

in Henri Guys, Thtogonie des Druzes, Paris 1863; 

in Martin Sprengling, The Berlin Druze lexicon in 

American Journal of Semitic Languages, lvi (1939), 

388-414, and lvii (1940), 75 ff. (which includes 

an excellent study of Druze cosmology); in 

Rudolph Strothmann, Drusen- A ntwort aui Nu- 

sairi Angriff, in Isl., xxv (1939), 269-81; in Ernst 

von Dobeln, Ein Traktai aus den Schriften 

der Drusen, in Monde Oriental, iii (1909), 89- 

126; in J. Khalil and L. Ronzevalle, al- 

Risaldt al-Qustantiniyya, MFOB, iii, Beirut, 1909, 

493-534- A common Druze "catechism" has been 

variously published and translated ; see Eichhorn, 

Repertorium fur morgenldndische und biblische 

Literatur, xii (1783), or Regnault, Catichisme a 

I'usage des Druses djahels, in Bull, de la Societi 

de Giographie (Paris), vii (1827), 22-30. The most 



important general study, apart from those men- 
tioned above, is Narcisse Bouron, Les Druzes, 
histoire du Liban et de la Montagne haouranaise, 
Paris 1930. Useful is Hanna Abu-Rashid, Djabal 
al-Duruz, Cairo 1925. Henri Guys, La Nation druze, 
son histoire, sa religion, ses masurs, et son (tat 
politique, Paris 1863, is often incautious. Of the 
many travellers who have written of them, the 
best is Max von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum 
Persischen Golf, Berlin 1899, i, noff. Also in- 
teresting is W. B. Seabrook, Adventures in Arabia, 
New York 1927, chap. ix. On modern Druze legal 
status see F. van den Steen de Jehay, De la 
situation Ugale des sujets ottomans non-musulmans, 
Brussels 1906, and J. N. D. Anderson, Personal 
law of the Druze community in WI (1952), 1 ff., 
83 ff. Especially for listings of manuscripts, 
see Hans Wehr, Zu den Schriften Hamzas im 
Drusenhanon in ZDMG, xcvi (1942), 187-207; also 
A. F. L. Beeston, An ancient Druze manuscript in 
Bodleian Library Record, v/6 (October 1956). For 
further references, especially to travellers' writings, 
see bibliography in Bouron, and footnotes in 
Philip K. Hitti, The origins of the Druze people 
and religion, New York 1928 (includes also some 
translated fragments) ; omitted from these two 
are F. Tournebize, Les Druzes in Etudes des pires 
de la Compagnie de Jesus, 5 October 1897; B. J. 
Taylor, La Syrie, la Palestine, et la Judie, Paris 
1855, 35-40, 76-83; Henri Aucapitaine, Etude sur 
les Druzes in Nouvelles Annates des Voyages, VI me 
serie, February 1862; Magasin pittoresque, 1841, 
367, and 1861, 226. For chroniclers on the earliest 
period, see Silvestre de Sacy, Expose (Nuwayri, 
Nihdyat al-Arab; Md. Dja'farl, Anhadi al-tardhk; 
Severus of Ushmunayn, Life of Patriarch Zechariah ; 
Abu '1-Mahasin Ibn Taghribirdl, al-Nudium al- 
zdhira [based on Sibt Ibn al-DjawzI, Mir'dt al- 
zamdn]; and Djurdjus al-Makin, Ta'rikh al- 
Muslimin). The latter is based on Yahya al- 
Antakl, continuation of Eutychius, Scriptores 
Arabici, text, ser. Ill, vii/2, ed. L. Cheikho, B. 
Carra de Vaux, H. Zayyat, Beirut 1909, 220 ff.; 
see also Ibn al- c Adim, Ta'rikh ffalab, s.a. 423; 
M. G. S. Hodgson, Al-Darazi and Ifamza in the 
origin of the Druze religion, in JAOS, lxxxii 
(1962), 5-20. (M. G. S. Hodgson) 

(ii) — Ottoman Period 
When the Ottoman and the Mamluk armies met 
in battle at Mardj Dabik in 922/1516, the Druzes 
fought on both sides. The Buhturids from the west 
of the country fought on the side of the Mamluks, 
while the Ma'nids of Shuf supported the Ottomans 
by allying themselves to Ghazall. the nd'ib of 
Damascus. Under the Ottomans, the Druzes were 
governed by local dynasties, of which the Al Tanukh. 
the Ma'nids and the Shihabids, and particularly the 
last two (for whose genealogy see Zambaur, i, 108 ff.) 
were the most important. At the battle of Mardj 
Dabik the Ma'nids were led by the Amir Fakhr al- 
Dln I, who at the crucial point changed sides, 
abandoning the Mamluk Kansuh al-Ghuri and going 
over to Sultan Selim I in Damascus. The Sultan 
rewarded him with overlordship over the amirs of 
Mount lxbanon, the Al Tanukh dynasty being con- 
fined to Sayda and Sur (Blau, Zur Geschichte Syriens, 
in ZDMG, viii (1854), 480 ff.). In 951/1544 Ma'nid 
rule passed to Fakhr al-Din's son Korkmaz. Druze 
attacks against the Ottomans led in 992/1584 to a 
punitive expedition by Ibrahim Pasha, the wait of 
Egypt. The son of Korkmaz, the Amir Fakhr al-DIn 



II [q.v.] challenged the wali of Tripoli, Sayf-oghlu 
Yusuf Pasha. He had some initial successes, but was 
eventually forced to withdraw to the Mountain, 
after the defeat of the rebels in 1016/1607 in the 
battle between Kuyudju Murad Pasha and Djan- 
bulat-oghlu, the importance of whose family among 
the Druzes dates from this time. The Druze alliance 
dissolved as a result of the expeditions led by land 
by the wali of Damascus, Hafiz Pasha, and by 
sea by the Kapudan Pasha Okiiz ("The Bull") 
Mehmed Pasha between 1018/1609 and 1022/1613. 
Fakhr al-DIn allied himself to Florence in 1017/1608 
and on 30 Radjab 1022/15 September 1613 he went 
to Italy to seek help under the alliance, returning 
to the Djabal in 1027/1618. Ma c nid rule was pre- 
served during his absence, particularly as his spies 
in Istanbul and Damascus gave preliminary warning 
of any Ottoman military measures. Although the 
Ottoman Sultan, by a fermdn issued in 1034/1625, 
recognized Fakhr al-Din as A mir of the Druzes from 
Aleppo to Jerusalem (Haydar, i, 715), the latter 
was subjected to constant pressure from Kiiciik 
Ahmed Pasha, who had been appointed wait 
of Damascus by Murad IV. In 1044/1634 the 
Druzes were decisively defeated at Magharat 
Djarzln, the Amir and three of his children being 
carried off prisoner to Istanbul, where all but 
Husayn Bey were executed. 

The death of Fakhr al-DIn marked the end of 
Ma'nid ascendancy. It was followed by Kaysl- 
Yamani dissension. Fakhr al-Din, like the ruling 
branch of the Al Tanukh before the Ma c nid ascen- 
dancy, belonged to the YamanI clan (known as 
akli, "white" by the Ottomans, the Kaysls being 
known as "red", kizllll, cf. Flndlklill Mehmed Agha, 
Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1928, i, 215; C.-F. Volney, i, 414, 
note 1). Amir Malham, who succeeded him in 1045/ 
1635, represented the Kaysi clan and was opposed 
by the Amir c Ali c Alam al-Din on behalf of the 
Yamanls. Dissension gave openings for Ottoman 
intervention, as in 1061/1651 by the wait of Tripoli, 
Hasan Pasha. In 1064/1654 Amir Malham extended 
his rule to Safad, by agreement with the wall of 
Damascus. Malham died in 1069/1659 and was 
succeeded in the Djabal by his son Amir Ahmad, the 
last Ma'nid ruler, who died in 1 108/1697 and was 
succeeded by Shihabids of the Kaysi clan. The 
latter had been protected by Amir Ahmad, who had 
refused to give them up to the wait of Damascus, 
Kopriilii Fadil Ahmed Pasha, in 1070/ 1660. The 
wall of Damascus, helped by the wall of Tripoli, 
thereupon defeated the joint Ma'nid-Shihabid forces 
at Kasrawan. The two dynasties later fell out, 
however, with the Ma'nids winning a short-lived 
victory at al-Fulful in 1076/1666 (Ibn Sabata, 
Salih b. Yahya, appendix, 237). After the death of 
Amir Ahmad, however, it was the Shihabid amir of 
Rasheya, Bashlr b. Husayn, who was chosen over- 
lord of the Djabal with the agreemenf of the Otto- 
mans. The Yamanls tried unsuccessfully to undo 
Kaysi ascendancy: from the court in Istanbul 
Husayn, the son of Fakhr al-DIn II, managed, for 
example, to relegate Bashir to the position of regent 
to the 12-year old Haydar, of the family of the 
amirs of Hasbeya, whose local supporters later 
poisoned Bashlr. But when Haydar became Amir 
in his own right he crushed the Yamanls at the 
battle of 'Ayn-Dara which changed the whole feudal 
picture of the Djabal. Thereafter under the over- 
lordship of the Shihabls, who tried to prevent Druze- 
Maronite struggles, the Djanbulats reigned over 
Shuf, Abu '1-Lama s held Matn, while at Shuwayfat 



the Arslan family of the YamanI clan had to share 
their rule with Talmuk Yamanls. In holding together 
the Djabal, the Shihabls had to rely on the support 
of Ottoman wdlis, whose intervention led to the 
increase in the number of local shaykhs, who in turn 
exterted pressure on the amir. Thus, while the 
shaykhs paid tribute to the amir, it was they who 
decided in council whether to keep the peace or wage 
war. Amir Haydar died in 1 144/1732 in the Shihabi 
capital at Dayr al-Kamar, having in 1141/1729 
abdicated in favour of his son Malham. Under the 
latter's rule which lasted until 1 167/1754, the port 
of Bayrut regained the importance which it had 
enjoyed under Fakhr al-Din and became the second 
Shihabi centre after Dayr al-Kamar. Many of 
Malham's children were converted to Roman 
Catholicism, Christianity in general gaining ground 
in the Djabal. Malham and his successors generally 
tried to maintain a balance between local Muslims 
and Christians. Thus, when in 1171/1758 Greek 
pirates flying the Russian flag attacked Bayrut and 
when local Muslims retaliated by attacking the 
Franciscan monastery in the town, two of the 
Muslim leaders were hanged at the Amir's orders. 
Malham was succeeded by his brothers Ahmad (the 
father of the historian Ahmad al-Shihabl) and 
Mansur, although Nu'man Pasha, the Ottoman wait 
of Sayda, appointed to the amirate Kasim b. c Umar, 
who, however, had to content himself with the area 
round Hazlr. Kasim died a Christian in 1 182/1768, 
his son Bashlr II also making no secret of his 
Christian beliefs (Blau, op. cit., 496; Lammens, La 
Syrie, Beirut 1921, ii, 100 ff.). These conversions did 
not, of course, prevent the majority of Druzes from 
retaining their faith, a fact which sowed the seed of 
future trouble. Mansur was dismissed in 1 184/1770 
by Derwlsh Pasha, the wall of Sayda, and replaced 
by Amir Yusuf. In 1185/1771 when the Russian 
fleet commanded by Alexei Orlov was encouraged 
by Zahir al-'Umar, the rebel ruler of Safad and Acre, 
to bombard Bayrut, Mansur sued for peace against 
payment of 25,000 piastres, while Amir Yusuf asked 
for Ottoman reinforcements, whereupon c Uthman 
Pasha, the wali of Damascus, despatched Djazzar 
Ahmad Pasha who occupied Bayrut in the name 
of Amir Yusuf. The latter succeeded, however, in 
ejecting this unwelcome deputy from Bayrut in 
1187/1773 after a four-month siege, in which he was 
helped by the Russian fleet which he summoned from 
Cyprus. Nevertheless, Djazzar Ahmad Pasha con- 
tinued to exert pressure from Acre and Sayda on the 
Shihabls of the Djabal. Payment of a tribute and 
loyalty to the Ottoman cause in the face of the 
Napoleonic expedition from Egypt, did not shield 
Bashir II from this pressure. Even although Yusuf 
Diya Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman forces 
against Napoleon, confirmed Bashlr as ruler of the 
Djabal, Djazzar Ahmad Pasha had him expelled by 
forces commanded by Husayn and Sa c d al-DIn, 
the sons of the Amir Yusuf, whom he wanted to 
appoint in his place. Bashlr sought refuge with the 
British admiral Sidney Smith, who took him in his 
flagship to al-'Arish, returning later to the Djabal, 
Djazzar Ahmad Pasha contenting himself this time 
with keeping one of Bashir's sons as a hostage. 
Pressure on the Druzes decreased in 1804 with the 
death of Djazzar Pasha. In 1810 when the Wahhabls 
threatened Damascus, the wali Yusuf Pasha asked 
the help of Suleyman Pasha, the sandiak-beyi of Acre, 
who in turn summoned the Druzes to Damascus. 
The Druzes forced the departure of Yusuf Pasha and 
were only with difficulty compelled to retire into the 



Hawran by Suleyman Pasha's successor, c Abd Allah 
Pasha. Bashlr's absence from the Djabal had, 
however, caused so much resentment that the wall 
of Damascus and c Abd Allah Pasha were forced to 
allow the shaykhs to summon him back to the Leba- 
non. Bashir thereafter sided with l Abd Allah Pasha, 
in his revolt against the Ottomans in Acre, whereupon 
his rival Shaykh DjanbulSt had 'Abbas al-Shihabl 
proclaimed amir, while Bashir and his sons had to 
seek refuge with Muhammad C A1I in Egypt. Before 
long, however, Bashir was back, defeated Djanbulat 
at the battle of Mukhtara in 1825 and had him 
executed. In the following year, an attack on Bayrut 
by the fleet of the Greek insurgents led once again 
to a pogrom of local Christians, many of whom 
emigrated to the Djabal. Muslim feeling against 
Bashir was also inflamed by the permission given 
to Melkite Christians to settle in the Djabal. In 
1830 Bashir once again helped c Abd Allah Pasha, 
this time to suppress a revolt in Nablus. He then 
sided with Muhammad C A1I against the Ottomans 
and helped the conquests of Ibrahim Pasha. 

(M. C. SiHABEDDIN Tekinda6) 
After the Kiitahya agreement of 1833 Bashir did 
his best to help the Egyptians, securing in return a 
wide autonomy for the Lebanon. Egyptian rule was 
at first welcomed, particularly as certain impositions 
on non-Muslims were abolished, but difficulties 
arose when Ibrahim Pasha tried to confiscate 
firearms and to call up Druzes. In 1835 Ibrahim 
Pasha introduced troops into Dayr al-Kamar and 
tried to collect the arms of local Christians but 
preferred later to suspend his measures in so far as 
they affected the Druzes. Nevertheless a Druze 
revolt broke out in 1837 when an attempt was made 
to call up Druzes in the Hawran, who retaliated by 
assassinating Ibrahim Pasha's emissaries. The 
Ottoman Government tried to stir up the Druzes 
and to supply arms to them, Ibrahim Pasha retali- 
ating by stirring up the Kurds and by closing Syrian 
ports to Ottoman shipping. A Druze revolt broke 
out in Ladja, but from his palace in Bayt al-DIn, 
from where he exercised wide influence over the 
Maronites, Bashir succeeded in preventing its 
spreading from the Hawran to the Lebanon, be- 
lieving as he 1 did that thanks to French support 
the Egyptians would be finally victorious. A general 
revolt in the Lebanon, including this time the 
Maronites, broke out again, however, when Ibrahim 
Pasha made another attempt to call in arms and 
Egyptian forces in Bayrut found their communi- 
cations cut. On 14 August 1840 the British naval 
commander Sir Charles Napier established contact 
with the rebels, who were supplied with arms after 
the joint bombardment of Bayrut the following 
month by British, Austrian and Ottoman ships. 
After vainly waiting for help from Ibrahim Pasha 
in Dayr al-Kamar, Bashir submitted to the Sultan, 
whose troops were in the process of reconquering 
Syria as a result of the London agreement. Bashlr's 
personal security was guaranteed, but he was never- 
theless deposed in favour of a relative, Bashir 
Kasim Malham. The Egyptian occupation on the 
one hand disorganized the feudal structure of the 
Djabal and, on the other, sharpened antagonism 
between the Druzes and the Maronites. Bashir 
Kasim's rule lasted for approximately one year and 
was underpinned by the Mushir of Sayda, Selim 
Pasha, whose seat of government was transferred to 
Bayrut and who formed a mixed council of the 
various communities to advise the amir. Taxation 
reform (the Egyptians had raised the taxation of 



the Djabal from 3,650 to 6,500 purses and this was 
then reduced to 3,500 purses) and the question 
of compensation led to communal friction, which 
erupted at Ba'aklln, after which many houses and 
shops were set on fire at Dayr al-Kamar. Relative 
peace was restored after the Druze adventurer 
Shibal al- c Uryan, who was in the service of the 
wall of Damascus, was forced to return to that city 
from Zahla. These events caused much stir abroad 
and led to foreign complaints against the Ottoman 
administration. The Ottomans thereupon deposed 
Bashir Kasim, and entrusted the administration of 
the Djabal directly to the ser'asker Mustafa Nurl 
Pasha, who in turn appointed to the amlrate one of 
his infantry commanders, the mirliwd l Omer Pasha. 
Continued foreign displeasure led to the despatch to 
Bayrut of Selim Bey as an investigator in 1842, but 
the latter's report that the situation was satis- 
factory and that the appointment of either a Druze 
or a Maronite amir was impossible, was disbelieved 
by foreign ambassadors at the Porte. Meanwhile new 
incidents were reported, whereupon Es c ad Mukhlis 
Pasha was appointed mushir of Sayda, and after his 
arrival at Bayrut the ser'asker's mission was 
declared completed. Es'ad Pasha appointed two 
kdHm-makdms, the Maronite Haydar from Bayt 
Abi '1-Lami c and the Druze Mir Ahmad from Bayt 
Arslan, and detached the northern districts of 
Djubayl from the Djabal, placing them under 
Tripoli. More serious troubles broke out in 1845, 
when Es'ad Pasha was succeeded by the wall of 
Aleppo, Wedjlhl Pasha. Bloody incidents included 
an attack by the Maronites on the Druzes of Matn as 
well as Druze attacks on the monasteries of Abi and 
Sullma which were set on fire. Accusations and 
counter-accusations followed, the French accusing 
Wedjihl Pasha of being pro-Druze, while the French 
themselves were being accused of stirring up the 
Maronites. Another mission was then undertaken by 
the Foreign Minister Shekib Efendi, who started by 
demanding that all arms should be handed in, an 
order which led to resistance and further compli- 
cations. A further emissary, the ferik (divisional 
general) Emin Pasha was sent to Bayrut in January 
1846. He helped Shekib Efendi in his work of reor- 
ganization, returning with him in June 1846. Shekib 
Efendi's reforms provided for the retention of the 
two kdHm-makdms, advised by mixed councils, 
special deputies (wekil) being elected in villages 
having a mixed population. The two kdHm-makdms 
were to receive a salary of 12,500 piastres a month 
each, and to be appointed and dismissed directly by 
the Sultan on the advice of the mushir of Sayda. The 
councils were given judicial as well as administrative 
and financial powers. Stability was thus established 
at the beginning of 1847, even although the failure 
to expel some trouble-making Druze leaders created 
difficulties. Taxes were apportioned between the 
two communities, the Maronites being asked to pay 
1994 and the Druzes 1506 purses. 

Peace was preserved until the khatt-i humdyun of 
1856, which by its promise of concessions to non- 
Muslim subjects led to a more generalized Christian- 
Muslim rivalry. The first signs of trouble appeared in 
1859. In the following year the Druzes and the 
Maronites clashed openly, whereupon Khurshld 
Pasha sent troops to the border between the two 
kadds. This did not prevent the major outbreak of 
i860: in May the Druzes attacked and set fire to 
villages in Matn; in June they were joined by 
Druzes from the Hawran, led by Isma'il Atrash 
(the Djabal Druzes being led mainly by Sa'Id Djan- 



DUROZ — DOST MUHAMMAD 



bulat and Khattar Ahmad). While the General 
Council of the province (Medjlis-i c Umumi) rejected 
the waifs suggestion to send troops, the Druzes 
overpowered the defenders of Government House 
at Hasbeya, massacring the local Christians: similar 
outrages were perpetrated at Rasheya, Ba'albak 
(where local government was overthrown by the 
Harkubln family), Zahla and Dayr al-Kamar. To 
crush the insurrection the Ottoman Government 
dispatched the Foreign Minister Fu'ad Pasha, arming 
him with emergency powers. His arrival coincided 
with a massacre of Christians in Damascus by the 
local mob, reinforced by Druzes and Bedouins. In 
the meantime Khurshid Pasha had secured an 
armistice between Druzes and Maronites, of which 
Fu'ad Pasha did not approve, on the grounds that 
it compromised future judicial proceedings, but 
which he feared to denounce as bloodshed might 
then be renewed. France intervened directly by 
landing 5,000 troops and by suggesting the total 
expulsion of the Druzes from the Djabal. This Fu'ad 
Pasha succeeded in avoiding by taking firm action 
against guilty Druze leaders, pursuing and appre- 
hending them, and finally putting them on trial at 
a court-martial at Mukhtara, where some of them 
were sentenced to death. He also took severe punitive 
action in Damascus and had the wall Ahmed Pasha 
sent under escort for trial in Istanbul, Khurshid 
Pasha having also been dismissed from Bayrut. 
These measures made possible the evacuation of 
French troops from the Djabal. Under the agreement 
signed on 9 June 1861, the Djabal was completely 
detached from the wildyets of Bayrut and of Damas- 
cus and placed under a Christian mutasarrif, who 
was, however, to come from outside the district. The 
mutasarrif was to be advised by an agent (wekil) 
from each community. Administrative councils were 
also formed at the centre and in seven newly formed 
kadas; a mixed police force was also constituted. At 
the instance of foreign embassies, an Armenian 
Catholic, Dawud Pasha, was appointed mutasarrif, 
a post which he retained for five years and in which 
he was succeeded by a Christian Arab, Franko 
Pasha. Dawud Pasha had many schools opened in 
Druze as well as in Maronite villages, and the Druzes 
continued to prosper under his successor. Disorder 
continued to prevail, however, among the Druzes of 
the Hawran who were joined by refugees from the 
Lebanon, so that Djabal Hawran began to be known 
as Djabal DurOz. Here Druzes came under the 
ascendancy of the Atrash family, as a result of the 
leading role played by Isma'il al- Atrash in the events 
of i860. Isma'U's son Ibrahim raided Suwayda, the 
capital of the Djabal Hawran, in 1879. When the 
wall of Damascus led a punitive expedition against 
him, the Druzes put up a stiff resistance until an 
armistice was concluded in 1880. There was more 
trouble when Ibrahim's son Shibli was imprisoned 
at Dar'a by the Ottoman authorities, as a result of 
incidents which were largely economic and social in 
origin. The Druzes rose up again and Shibli had to 
be freed. Shibli was once again arrested and once 
again freed by a Druze insurrection in 1893, when in 
alliance with the Bam Fadjr he led his followers 
against the Ruwala tribe. During these troubles 
many Druze families were banished to Anatolia, but 
they were later allowed to return, while, at the same 
time, projects to call up the Druzes for military 
service were dropped. 

In the meantime the Druzes in the Lebanon 
remained peaceful until 1897 when they complained 
that Maronite pressure was constantly increasing 



a separate 



and when they demanded the formation of 
(tadd for the 10,000 Druzes of Matn, ii 
Maronites succeeded in detaching four c 
(ndfiiya) from the only one existing Muslim (tadd at 
Shuf. After the Young Turkish Revolution of 1908 
operations against the Druzes were entrusted to 
Sami Pasha, who proclaimed martial law and then 
summoned the Druze leaders to Damascus where he 
had many of them executed. Druze resistance con- 
tinued, nevertheless, until 1911. Druze demands 
became irrelevant when, after the beginning of the 
First World War, the capitulations, and with them 
Lebanese autonomy, were abolished and Isma'il 
Hakkl Bey was appointed independent mutasarrif. 
During the war, Djemal Pasha kept some Druze 
leaders as "guests" in Jerusalem. Also during the 
war, the Druze leader, Yahya al-Atrash, whom 
Djemal Pasha accused of complicity with the 
French (Khdtirdt. Istanbul 1339, 179), died and was 
succeeded by his son Selim. Djemal Pasha praised 
the services of two members of the Atrash family, 
Naslb and <Abd al-Ghaffar. but a third member, 
Sultan, whose father had been executed by Sami 
Pasha, was opposed to the Ottomans and was the 
first Druze leader to enter Damascus with the 
Allied troops on 2 October 1918. 

(M. TAYYiB GoKBiLGiN) 

DUSHMANZIYAR [see kakawayhids]. 

DUST MUHAMMAD, the real founder of 
Barakzay rule in Afghanistan, was the 20th son of 
Payinda Khan, chief of the Barakzay clan under 
Timur Shah. After the execution of Payinda Khan 
in the reign of Zaman Shah, Dust Muhammad was 
brought up by his Klzllbash mother's relatives 
until he came under the care of the eldest brother, 
Fath Khan, who held considerable influence under 
Mahmud Shah. In the second reign of Mahmud, 
Dust Muhammad held prominent offices including 
that of governor of Kiihistan, and he led successful 
expeditions to suppress rebellions in Kashmir and 
Harat (1816). Following the Harat expedition Dust 
Muhammad fell into disgrace (allegedly for insulting 
the wife of a Sadozay prince) and he fled to Kashmir. 
Whether in revenge for this action or through 
jealousy of his power, Mahmud Shah and his son 
Kamran then blinded and killed Fath Khan. Dust 
Muhammad raised a force in Kashmir and captured 
Kabul, putting up Shahzada Sultan c Ali as nominal 
ruler. He foiled an attempt by Mahmud to dispossess 
him but he was forced to surrender Kabul to his 
eldest surviving brother, Muhammad A'zam Khan, 
formerly governor of Kashmir, and he himself 
became ruler of Ghazna. However, he continued to 
aspire to power in Kabul, and after the death of 
A'zam in 1238-9/1823 he defeated his son and 
successor Habib Allah Khan, but Kabul fell to 
another brother, Sultan Muhammad Khan of 
Peshawar. But Dust Muhammad retained the 
support of the Klzilbash element in Kabul and 
eventually Sultan Muhammad gave up the attempt 
to maintain himself there and in 1241-2/1826 Dust 
Muhammad became ruler. He took the title of Amir 
in 1250/1834. 

Once established in Kabul Dust Muhammad 
began to extend his power over other areas of 
Afghanistan, replacing the existing rulers with his 
own sons. He failed to recover Peshawar from the 
Sikhs in 1250/1835 and 1253/1837 and failed to hold 
it in 1265/1848-9 after it was made over to him as 
the price of his support for the Sikhs in the second 
Anglo-Sikh war. Elsewhere he was markedly 
successful. Before his expulsion from Kabul in 1255/ 



DOST MUHAMMAD — DUSTOR 



1839 by the forces of Shah Shudja' and the English 
East India Campany he had extended his power over 
DJalalabad and Ghazna and by his defeat of Murad 
Beg of Kunduz in 1254/1838-9 into the area north of 
the Hindu-kush. Within his dominions he consoli- 
dated his authority in Kuhistan, Kunar and 
among the Hazara tribes. After his restoration in 
1259/1843 he continued this policy. In the north 
he extended his power over Balkh and Khulm 
(1266-7/1850), Shibarghan (1271/1854), Maymana 
and Andkhuy (1271/1855) and Kunduz (1276/1859), 
although his authority was not entirely unquestioned. 
In the West he took Kandahar (1272/1855) and 
Harat (1279/1863). At the same time he increased 
his power at the expense of the tribal chiefs, princi- 
pally by developing a regular army to replace the 
feudal militia, which had been the basis of the 
Durrani [q.v.] monarchy, and diverting to the support 
of this army the revenues which had formerly been 
appropriated by the tribal chiefs. He destroyed the 
power of the Ghalzavs, murdered, imprisoned or 
exiled certain prominent tribal chiefs, and held both 
the Kizilbash and the Sunni elements, who had 
formerly made Kabul governments so unstable, 
under firm control. The weakness of his system was 
that it depended on the continuing co-operation of 
his sons, whom he employed as governors, a con- 
dition which was not met after his death. None the 
less he established the geographical outlines of 
modern Afghanistan and laid the foundations of its 
internal consolidation. More than anyone else he 
deserves the title of the founder of Afghanistan. 
Dust Muhammad died in 1279/9 June 1863. He had 
numerous sons, the most important of whom were 
the following: Muhammad Afdal Khan, Muhammad 
A'zam Khan and Wall Muhammad Khan, who were 
all sons of a Bangash wife from Kurram, and 
Muhammad Akbar Khan, (d. 1848, wazir 1843-8, 
and the leading figure in the disturbances of 1841-2), 
Ghulam Haydar Khan (d. 1274/1858), Shir C A1I Khan 
(the future amir), Muhammad Amin Khan and 
Muhammad Sharif Khan, who were all sons of a 
Popalzay wife. It is noteworthy that in choosing a 
successor Dust Muhammad ignored his older sons 
and chose Akbar, Ghulam Haydar and Shir C A1I in 
that order, they being the sons of a nobler born wife. 
Bibliography: See Afghanistan. Also C. M. 
Macgregor (ed.), Central Asia, ii, Afghanistan, 
Calcutta 1871; Hamid al-Din, Dost Muhammad 
and the second Sikh war, in /. Pak. Hist. Soc, ii 
(Oct. 1954), 280-6; D.M.Chopra, Dost Muhammad 
in India, in Proc. I.H.R.C, xix (1943), 82-6; 
B. Saigal, Lord Elgin I and Afghanistan, in J.I.H., 
xxxii (1954), 61-81; M. E. Yapp, Disturbances in 
Eastern Afghanistan 1839-42, in BSOAS, xxv/3 
(1962), 499-523; H. B. Lumsden, Mission to 
Kandahar, Calcutta i860. (M. E. Yapp) 

DUSTCR, in modern Arabic constitution. A 
word of Persian origin, it seems originally to have 
meant a person exercising authority, whether 
religious or political, and was later specialized to 
designate members of the Zoroastrian priesthood. 
It occurs in Kalila wa-Dimna in the sense of "coun- 
sellor", and recurs with the same sense, at a much 
later date, in the phrase Dustur-i mukerrem, one of 
the honorific titles of the Grand Vizier in the 
Ottoman Empire. More commonly, dustur was used 
in the sense of "rule" or "regulation", and in parti- 
cular the code of rules and conduct of the guilds and 
corporations (see futuwwa and sinf). Borrowed at 
an early date by Arabic, it acquired in that language 
a variety of meanings, notably "army pay-list", 



"model or formulary", "leave", and also, addressed 
to a human being or to invisible diinn [q.v.], "per- 
mission" (see further Dozy s.v.). 

In modern Arabic, by a development from the 
general meaning of "rule", it has come to mean con- 
stitution or constitutional charter, and is now used 
in this sense in the Arab countries, though not 
elsewhere, to the exclusion of all other terms. The 
following articles deal with the development of 
constitutional law and government in various parts 
of the Islamic world. 

i. — Tunisia 
Until the middle of the 19th century, the despotism 
of the Bey (bay [q.v.]) was tempered only by the 
momentary power of some members of his entourage 
who governed as they pleased. The foreign consuls, 
alarmed by the dangers of the situation, accordingly 
advised Muhammad Bey [q.v.] to be guided by the 
provisions of the khatl-i humdyun [q.v.] which had 
been promulgated in Turkey on 18 February 1856, 
granting certain guarantees to non-Muslim subjects 
of the Empire; but the Bey turned a deaf ear, and 
a grave incident was needed to precipitate the course 
of events. It was in fact the summary execution in 
1857 of a Jewish carter who, after knocking down 
a Muslim child, was said to have hurled insults and 
blasphemies at the crowd that was threatening him 
with violence, that aroused the anxiety of the 
European Powers and made them decide to instruct 
their consuls to make representations to the Tunisian 
Government. It was in this way that Muhammad 
Bey was led to make a formal announcement, on 
9 September 1857, of the principles of the Funda- 
mental Pact C-Ahd al-amdn; see L. Bercher, En 
marge du pacte jondamenlal, in RT, 1939, 67-86) 
which repeated in part the khatf-i sharif of Giilkhane 
(26 Sha'ban 1255/3 November 1839; see B. Lewis, 
The emergence of modern Turkey, London 1961, 104-5 
and bibl. cited there) and guaranteed complete 
security to all inhabitants of whatever religion, 
nationality and race; the equality of all before the 
law and taxation, as well as freedom to trade and 
work, were recognized. At the same date the Bey 
announced his intention of granting the country a 
constitution. Some partial reforms were actually 
introduced (notably the setting up of a municipal 
council [see baladiyya'J), and preparatory work was 
in fact started on a draft constitution in which the 
French Consul, Leon Roches, took part. On 17th 
September i860 Muhammad al-Sadik [q.v.], who had 
succeeded his brother Muhammad on 24 September 
1859, himself gave a copy of the constitution drafted 
in French to Napoleon III in Algiers, and received the 
Emperor's approval. The constitution, consisting of 
13 headings and 114 articles, was promulgated in 
January 1861 and put into force on 26 April of 



the s: 






By the terms of this constitution, the hereditary 
Bey was supreme head of the State and of religion, 
but he no longer controlled the revenues of the State 
and was allotted « 
responsible, as were 
have at his side, to the Grand Council which con- 
sisted of 60 councillors nominated for five years and 
chosen by the Tunisian Government from the 
ministers, high officials, senior officers and notables. 
"The agreement of the Grand Council is indis- 
pensable for all the procedures listed below : making 
new laws; changing a law . . . .; increasing or cutting 
down . . . expenditure . . . ; enlarging the army, its 
equipment or that of the navy; .... interpreting 



the law". Thus the Grand Council participated in the 
preparation of laws which were made valid by the 
Bey and his ministers. The executive power reverted 
to the Bey and his ministers, whilst the independence 
of the judicial power in respect of the legislature and 
the executives was recognized. The fci'tds continued 
to preside over police courts for the trial of minor 
offences, courts of first instance were set up and the 
court of the shar c [q.v.] continued to function for all 
questions within its competence. A court of appeal was 
to sit in Tunis and the Grand Council was to act as 
Supreme Court of Appeal. Finally, the provisions of 
the Fundamental Pact with regard to the rights of 
Tunisian and foreign subjects were confirmed and 
completed. 

The establishment of the French Protectorate 
suspended the operation of the Constitution of 1861. 
From the earliest years of the 20th century a number 
of Young Tunisians, the spiritual heirs of the general 
Khayr al- Din [?.«;.], endeavoured to raise the material, 
moral and intellectual level of their compatriots, and 

a more or less political character. In 1907 was 
created a Consultative Conference, considered 
inadequate, and from that time the idea of demanding 
the grant of a Constitution was in germination. 
After the war, on 4 June 1920, the Tunisian Liberal 
Constitutional Party (al-Ifizb al-Ifurr al-Dusturi al- 
Tunusi) was founded, more commonly known as the 
Destour Party. The vade-mecum of Tunisian natio- 
nalism at that time was a collective work, La Tunisie 
martyr e, which called for: the election of a deliberative 
assembly composed of Tunisian and French members 
elected by universal suffrage; the formation of a 
government responsible to this assembly; the 
absolute separation of powers ; the access of Tunisians 
to all administrative posts; the election of municipal 
councils by universal suffrage; the respect of public 
liberties. In 1922 the authorities of the Protectorate 
set up the Great Council, an arbitral commission, 
councils of cai'dat and regional councils [see Tunisia]; 
but the conservative class of the nation, who would 
have been satisfied with gradual reforms, lost ground 
to a new petty bourgeoisie, on the whole of French 
and Arab culture, which tried to reach the public 
in greater depth; a split, the beginnings of which 
had been apparent in the Destour Party since 1932, 
came about on 1 March 1934 with the creation of 
the Neo-Destour (as opposed to the Archaeo- 
Destour) Party, which called for full and complete 
independence and organized mass demonstrations to 
achieve it. The leaders of this movement were 
exiled, and the second world war silenced the demands 
for independence. They were renewed immediately 
after the restoration of peace, and independence 
was granted to Tunisia by France on 20 March 1956; 
this was a triumph for the president of the Neo- 
Destour Party, M. Habib Bourguiba (al-Hablb Abu 
Rukayba), the future President of the Tunisian 
Republic. (Bibliography on the nationalist mo 
ments is copious but scattered among many papc 
periodicals, bulletins, etc. ; in particular RET, passi 
OM, passim; also Ch. Khairallah, Essai d'histoire et 
de synthese des mouvements nationalistes turn 
Tunis n.d. ; H. Bourguiba, La Tunisie et la France, 
Paris 1954; F. Garas, Bourguiba et la naissance d'une 
nation, Paris 1956; P. E. A. Romeril, Tunisian 
nationalism, a bibliographical outline, in ME] , xiv 
(i960), 206-15; N. A. Ziadeh, Origins of nationalism 
in Tunisia, Beirut 1962). As early as 29 December 
1955 the Bey promulgated a decree permitting the 
establishment of a National Constituent Assembly, 



Or 639 

which was elected on 25 March 1956 and drafted 
a new constitution, promulgated on 25 Dh u '1-Ka c da 
I 378/i June 1959, with 10 headings and 64 articles. 

It is laid down in the preamble to this Constitution 
that the Tunisian peoples, who "have freed them- 
selves from foreign domination thanks to their 
powerful cohesion and to the struggle they have 
sustained against tyranny, exploitation and reac- 
tion", proclaim that "the republican regime repre- 
sents the best guarantee of human rights . . . and 
the most efficacious means of ensuring the pros- 
perity of the nation". Part I provides that Tunisia 
is a Republic whose religion is Islam, that it forms 
a part of the Greater Maghrib, that its motto is 
"Liberty, Order, Justice", and that sovereignty 
belongs to the people. The Tunisian Republic 
guarantees the dignity of the individual and freedom 
of conscience, and protects freedom of worship 
provided that public order is not disturbed (art. 5). 
All citizens are equal before the law and for purposes 
of taxation, and enjoy full rights which can be 
limited only by law (arts. 6-7). Freedom of opinion, 
of expression, of the press, of publication, of 
assembly and of association are guaranteed, as 
well as trade union rights (art. 8). Inviolability 
of domicile, secrecy of the mails and freedom of 
movement are assured (arts. 9-10); right of property 
is guaranteed (art. 14). Part II treats of the legislative 
power exercised by the National Assembly which 
is elected for 5 years by universal suffrage, at the 
same time as the President of the Republic. The 
right to initiate legislature belongs to the President 
or to the President and the members of the Assembly 
(art. 28); the President may enact, in the interval 
between two ordinary annual sessions of the Assem- 
bly, decrees, which must be submitted for ratifi- 
cation by the deputies in the course of the following 
session (art. 31) ; in addition, in the case of imminent 
danger the President may enforce exceptional 
measures and report them to the Assembly (art. 32). 
The State budget is voted by the Assembly (art. 35). 

Part III is devoted to the executive power exer- 
cised by the President of the Republic, who must be a 
Muslim, aged at least 40 years, of Tunisian father and 
grandfather and in possession of full civic rights (arts. 
37-9). He is elected for 5 years by direct and secret 
universal suffrage, and is not eligible for re-election 
for more than three consecutive terms (art. 40). He 
promulgates the laws and ensures their publication 
within 15 days in the official newspaper, during 
which time he has the power of referring a bill back 
for a second reading before the Assembly; if the bill 
then receives a two-thirds majority the law is promul- 
gated within a fresh period of 15 days (art. 44). The 
President decides government policy, and selects the 
members of the government who are to be responsible 
to him (art. 43). He nominates holders of civil and 
military office and is the supreme chief of the armed 
forces (arts. 45-6). The rest of the chapter deals with 
foreign relations, the making of treaties, the granting 
of pardons, and the vacancy of the Presidency. 

Part IV, very short, relates to the judicial power. 
The Constitution assures the independence of the 
judiciary (art. 53) and sets up a Higher Judicial 
Council which supervises the application of the 
guarantees granted to judges (art. 55). Part V in- 
stitutes a Supreme Court which is to meet to try a 
charge of high treason brought against a member 
of the government. Parts VI, VII and VIII treat of 
the Council of State, which is at once an admini- 
strative jurisdiction and an Audit Office, the Eco- 
nomic and Social Council, and municipal and regional 



councils. Finally Parts IX and X provide for the 
conditions for amending the Constitution, initiative 
for which belongs to the President or to one-third of 
the members of the Assembly, as well as of interim 

Bibliography: The 1861 Constitution is 
analysed and studied in E. Fitoussi and A. 
Benazet, L'£tat tunisien et le protectorat jrancais, 
Paris 1931, i, 52-117; see also J. Ganiage, Les 
origines du protectorat jranfais en Tunisie (1861S1), 
Paris 1959, 69 ff. (with bibl.) ; the Journal of Ibn 
Abi '1-piyaf who took part in drafting the Constitu- 
tion is at present being edited and translated. Con- 
stitution of 1959: 'Amal, 29 May 1959; c Alam, 
1 June 1959; OM, 1959, 4""5; ME], xiii (1959), 



(Ed.) 



-TuRf 



The word diistur (modern Turkish form dttstur) is 
used in Turkish in the general senses of principle, 
precedent, code or register of rules. It was applied in 
particular to the great series of volumes, containing 
the texts of new laws, published in Istanbul (and 
later Ankara) from 1279/1863 onwards. (An earlier 
volume of new laws, not under this name, had already 
been issued in 1267/1851.) Three series (tertib) of the 
Diistur were published, the first covering the years 
1839-1908, the second 1908-22, and the third con- 
taining the laws of the nationalist regime in Ankara 
and, after it, of the Turkish Republic, from 1920 
onwards (see G. Jaschke, Tiirkische Gesetzsamm- 
lungen, in WI, N.S. hi (1954) 225-34). 

Diistur has not been used in Turkish with its 
modern Arabic meaning of constitution, for which 
the normal terms are kdnun-i esdsi (basic law) and 
meshrutiyyet (conditionality, conditionedness). The 
former term is applied to the constitution itself, and 
was replaced during the linguistic reforms in the 
Republic by Anayasa; the latter denotes constitu- 
tional government. In what follows a brief sketch is 
given of constitutional development in Turkey during 
the 19th and 20th centuries. 

The Sened-i Ittifak 

The modern constitutional history of Turkey is 
usually dated from the year 1808 when, shortly after 
the accession of Mahmud II, the Grand Vizier 
Bayrakdar Mustafa Pasha [q.v.~] convened a meeting 
in Istanbul, to which he invited a number of the 
local rulers and dynasts (see a'yan and derebey) 
who at that time enjoyed virtual autonomy in most 
of the provinces of the Empire. A number of the 
leading a'ydn and derebeys, from both Rumelia and 
Anatolia, came with large retinues and military 
forces (Isma c Il Bey of Serez is said to have come 
with 12,000 men, Kalyondju Mustafa, of Biledjik, 
with 5000, and others with considerable but un- 
specified numbers), and camped at various places 
outside the city; others, though not attending in 
person, sent agents to represent them. After an 
interval of discussions and negotiations to prepare 
the ground, a general consultative meeting (endpi- 
■men-i meshweret-i 'umumiyye) was held, at which 
the Grand Vizier presided; also present were the 
Shaykh al-Isldm, the aghas of the Janissaries and of 
the sipahls, and other dignitaries of the central 
government, as well as the invited a'-ydn. The Grand 
Vizier made a speech in which he described the weak- 
nesses of the Ottoman state and army and set forth 
a programme of reform. His proposals were unani- 
mously approved, and the meeting resolved that a 
"deed of agreement" (sened-i ittifak) should be 



drafted, signed and sealed, expressing the points of 
agreement reached between the parties. Contacts 
between officials, a'-ydn and the Sultan followed, and 
on 17 Sha'ban 1223/7 October 1807 the final draft of 
the sened-i ittifak, bearing the signatures and seals 
of the Grand Vizier, the Shaykh al-Isldm, and other 
dignitaries, and of the leading a'ydn, was sent to 
the Sultan for ratification. Mahmud II, despite his 
strong objections to the document, found himself 
obliged to ratify and authenticate it with his 
imperial signature. 

The sened-i ittifak consists of a preamble, seven 
articles, and a conclusion. The preamble, after 
describing the decline of Ottoman power and the 
weakness of the Ottoman state, explains that the 
following articles represent the unanimous agreement 
of the signatories, reached after several meetings, on 
the need to strengthen the empire and the faith and 
on the means of accomplishing this. 

Article one begins with what might be called a 
pledge of homage to the Sultan by the a'ydn, who 
together with the officers of the central government, 
undertake not to oppose or resist the Sultan, and to 
come to his help if others oppose him. The signatories 
pledge themselves collectively to enforce this against 
offenders, including other parties who have not signed 
the document. They accept these obligations for 
themselves during their lifetimes, and for their sons 
and heirs after them. 

Article two is concerned with military matters. 
Since the main purpose of the meeting and agreements 
was to restore the military power of the Empire, the 
signatories undertake to cooperate in the recruitment 
of troops, and to come to the Sultan's help when 
required, against both foreign and domestic enemies. 
They accept joint responsibility for dealing with 
offenders. 

Article three is financial, and records the promise 
of the signatories to respect and observe the rules and 
regulations laid down by the government in financial 
matters. They undertake to show solicitude in 
collecting and remitting sums due to the government, 
and to refrain from abuses, for the punishment of 
which they accept joint responsibility. 

Article four establishes the authority and respon- 
sibility of the Grand Vizier. The signatories recognize 
the Grand Vizier as absolute representative (wekdlet-i 
mutlaka) of the Sultan, and promise to obey his orders 
in all matters, as if they came from the Sultan. Other 
functionaries are to keep within the limits of their 
own offices and jurisdictions. If they exceed them, 
the signatories collectively will stand forth as 
accusers. Similarly, if the Grand Vizier himself acts 
against the laws of the Empire (khildf-i kdniin) or 
violates this agreement, takes bribes, practises 
extortion, or commits acts harmful or likely to be 
harmful to the state (dewlet-i 'aliyyeye . . mudirr), 
then all the signatories conjointly will stand forth 
as accusers, and secure the removal of such abuses. 

Article five regulates the relations of the a'ydn 
with one another and with the officials of the central 
government, on a basis of mutual guarantees. If any 
of the signatories violates the agreement, the rest 
will be collectively responsible for his punishment. 
The article guarantees the a'ydn in possession of their 
lands, and confirms the rights of succession of 
their heirs, who are also to be bound by the agree- 
ment. The same guarantees are extended by the 
a'ydn to the lesser a'ydn under their jurisdiction; 
this appears to involve a kind of sub-infeudation. 
The a'ydn undertake not to attack each other's lands, 
not to oppress their subjects, and in general to deal 



justly with the government, the people, and with one 
another. 

Article six deals with the contingency of a further 
outbreak of disorder in the capital, whether due to 
a Janissary meeting or other causes. In such an 
event, the a'yan promise to come at once to Istanbul 
with their forces, to restore order and the authority 
of the central government. 

Article seven is concerned with the protection of 
the subjects from extortion and oppression. The 
a'-yan undertake to deal justly with their subjects, 
and to observe and report on one another. 

The significance of the sened-i ittifdk has been 
variously assessed. Turkish constitutional historians 
have seen in it a kind of Magna Carta, an attempt by 
a baronage and gentry to exact from the Sultan a 
recognition of their rights and privileges, and thus 
to limit the authority of the sovereign power. Serif 
Mardin takes a diametrically opposite view ; according 
to him, the agreement was planned by officials of 
central government, for whom the Grand Vizier was 
no more than a "military figurehead"; it "was aimed 
at curbing the powers of the local dynasties . . and . . 
was one of the first steps towards the transformation 
of the Ottoman Empire into a modern centralized 
state". The recognition of the independence of the 
a'-yan was merely "a temporary compromise due to 
the weakness of the central powers" (Mardin, 146-8). 

From the historical evidence it would seem clear 
that the pact was freely negotiated between the 
Grand Vizier and other dignitaries of the central 
government on the one hand, and the leading a'yan 
on the other. Neither side imposed its will on the 
other, and indeed it is difficult to see how the a'yan 
could have been compelled, in view of the impressive 
armed forces that they had brought with them. 
Djewdet remarks that the meeting and agreement 
were made possible because the a'yan trusted 
Bayrakdar Mustafa Pasha — though apparently not 
far enough to come to Istanbul without armies, or 
to move into the city when they had got there. 

One party to the agreement is known to have 
objected to it — the Sultan, who saw in it a derogation 
of his sovereignty. According to Djewdet he signed 
it unwillingly, and with the intention of annulling it 
at the first opportunity. He nourished resentment 
against the a'yan and even against the drafter of the 
document, the Beylikdji c Izzet Bey, whom he later 
found occasion to condemn to death (Djewdet, ix, 
7-8). 

Whatever the historical balance of forces that 
produced it, the constitutional significance of the 
sened-i ittifdk lies in its character as a negotiated 
contract — an agreement between the Sultan and 
groups of his servants and subjects, in which the 
latter appear as independent contracting parties, 
receiving as well as conceding certain rights and 
privileges (cf. the comments of Djewdet, ix, 6 on the 
infringement of the Sultan's absolute prerogative). 
The effective agreement is between the Grand 
Vizierate and the a'yan; the Sultan merely ratifies it, 
and is clearly expected to reign rather than to rule. 

(The text of the sened-i ittifdk will be found in 
Shanizade, Ta'rikh, i, 66-78, and Djewdet, Ta'rikh", 
ix, 278-83. For accounts of the events leading to it, 
see Shanizade. i, 61 ff.; Djewdet. ix, 2 ff. ; A. de 
Juchereau de Saint-Denys, Revolutions de Constan- 
tinople en 1807 et 1808, ii, Paris 1819, 200 ff.; J. W. 
Zinkeisen, Gesch. des osm. Reiches in Europa, vii, 
Gotha 1863, 564 ff.; O. von Schlechta Wssehrd, Die 
Revolutionen in Constantinopel in den Jahren 180J 
■und 1808, in SBAk. Wien (1882), 184-8. For studies 
Encyclopaedic of Islam, II 



rOR 641 

and views of the pact see I. H. Uzuncarsih, . . . 
Alemdar Mustafa Pasa, Istanbul 1942, 138-44; 
A. F. Miller, Mustafa Pasha Bayraktar, Moscow 1947, 
283-91; A. Selcuk Ozcelik, Sened-i Ittifak, in Istanbul 
Vniv. Hukuk Fak. Mec., xxiv (1959), 1-12; T. Z. 
Tunaya, Tiirkiyenin siyasi hayahnda batiltlasma 
hareketleri, Istanbul i960, 25-6; S. Mardin, The 
genesis of Young Ottoman thought, Princeton, 145-8, 
as well as the general works on constitutional history 
and law listed below.) 

The 'Deed of Agreement' was short-lived. Almost 
immediately after its signature the Grand Vizier 
Bayrakdar Mustafa Pasha was overthrown and killed, 
and in the years that followed Sultan Mahmiid II 
subjugated the a'yan and brought what remained of 
the Empire under the effective countrol of the central 
government. The great reforming edicts of 1839 and 
1856 have sometimes been described as 'constitu- 
tional charters', in that they lay down such general 
principles as the security of life, honour and property 
of the subject, fair and public trial of persons accused 
of crimes, and equality before the law of all Ottoman 
subjects irrespective of religion. Some of the other 
reforms of this period may also be said to have a 
quasi-constitutional character, such as the councils 
set up by Mahmud II and his successors (see madjlis 
and tanzImat) and especially the Council of State 
{SMrd-yi Dewlet), founded in 1868. Modelled on the 
French Conseil d'£tat, this was a court of review in 
administrative cases; it also had certain consultative 
functions, and was supposed to prepare the drafts of 
new laws. Though its members were all appointed 
and not elected, it has been described as "a kind 
of rudimentary chamber of deputies". In 1845 the 
government actually experimented — unsuccessfully 
— with an assembly of provincial notables in the 
capital (Lutfi, Ta'rikh, viii, 15-17; Ed. Engelhardt, 
La Turquie et le Tanzimat, i, Paris 1882, 76; Lewis, 
Emergence, 110-1); the provincial reorganization law 
of 1864 provides for elected councils in the provinces. 

Despite these developments, the general effect of 
the Westernization of the apparatus of government 
was to increase, rather than to limit, the autocratic 
authority of the central power. The old and well- 
tried checks on the Sultan's despotism — the entrench- 
ed intermediate powers of the army, the 'ulemd* 
and the notables — were one by one abrogated or 
enfeebled, leaving the reinforced sovereign power 
with nothing but the paper shackles of its own edicts 
to restrain it ; the new laws were too little understood, 
too feebly supported, too ineptly applied, to have 
much effect. 

The growing autocracy of the state — at times of 
the Sultan, at others of the ministers acting in his 
name — did not pass unnoticed. Towards the middle 
of the 19th century a libertarian movement of 
political thought began to gain ground (see hurriyya, 
ii), deriving its inspiration from European liberal 
and constitutional ideas, which Muslim writers tried 
to identify with the older Islamic doctrine of con- 
sultation (by the ruler of his counsellors — see 
mashwara). In 1839 a Turkish translation appeared 
of the account by the Egyptian Shaykh Rafi c 
Rifa'a al-Tahtawi [q.v.] of his stay in Paris; this 
included an annotated translation of the French 
constitution, with an explanation of the merits 
of constitutional government. Constitutionalism did 
not, however, become a political force in Turkey 
until the eigh teen-six ties, when its development was 



stimulated by a series of external events. The 
Tunisian constitution of 1861 (see above) brought 
the first precedent of a constitution in a Muslim 
state; the Egyptian legislative assembly of 1866 and 
the Rumanian constitution of the same year provided 
examples nearer home. Mustafa Fadil Pasha [q.v.], the 
brother of the Khedive Isma'Il of Egypt, and later 
the Khedive Isma'il himself, gave encouragement to 
members of the group of liberal patriots known as 
the Young Ottomans (see yeni c othmanlIlar), some 
of whom campaigned actively for the introduction of 
a constitutional regime in Turkey. At first they were 
strongly opposed by the government, and driven into 
exile; the Grand Vizier c Ali Pasha himself wrote refu- 
ting the arguments in favour of such a change (Mardin, 
19-20). The death of 'All Pasha in September 1871, 
however, and the growing influence of Midhat Pasha 
[q.v.] brought a change in attitude at the centre, while 
the mounting pressure of external events made a con- 
cession to liberal opinion seem desirable. In May 1876 
the British Ambassador Sir Henry Elliott reported 
that "the word 'constitution' was in every mouth". 
As early as the winter of 1875, Midhat Pasha told 
Sir Henry that the object of his group was to install 
a constitutional regime, with ministers responsible 
to "a national popular assembly" (Sir Henry Elliott, 
Some revolutions and other diplomatic experiences, 
London 1922, 228, 231-2). The stages by which the 
constitution was prepared are still imperfectly known. 
The first steps seem to have been taken soon after 
the accession of Murad V, when exploratory discus- 
sions were held. The sickness and deposition of 
Murad delayed matters, but work was resumed after 
the accession of c Abd al-Hamid II, who had promised 
Midhat his support for the constitutional cause. A 
new constitutional commission, this time led by 
Midhat himself, was appointed on 19 Ramadan 1293/ 
8 October 1876 N.S. It consisted initially of the 
chairman and 22 members, including a number of 
civil and military pashas, a contingent of '■ulema', 
most if not all of them in government service, and 
some high officials, several of them Christian. Other 
persons, including some of the Young Ottomans, 
were later added to the commission or to its drafting 
subcommittee. After some delays, and disagreements 
between the members and with the Sultan, a com- 
promise text was finally adopted, and promulgated 
by the Sultan. Midhat Pasha, as president of the 
Council of State, as chairman of the commission, and, 
since 20 December 1876, as Grand Vizier, had played 
a predominant r61e in securing this result. (On 
the preparation and adoption of the constitution, 
see Bekir Sitki Baykal, 93 Mesrutiyeti, in Belleten, 
vi/21-2 (1942), 45-83; documents in idem, Birinci 
Mesrutiyete dair belgeler, in Belleten, xxiv/96 (i960), 
601-36; Mithat Cemal Kuntay, Namtk Kemal, ii/2, 
Istanbul 1956, 55 f f . ; Yu. A. Petrosian, "Novie 
Osmani" i borba za Konstitutsiyu 1876 g. v Turtsii, 
Moscow 1958; S. Mardin, The genesis . ., 70-8.) 






1876 



The first Ottoman constitution {kdnun-i esdsi) was 
promulgated by Sultan c Abd al-Hamid on 7 Dh u 
•1-Hidjdja 1293/23 December 1876 N.S. In form 
rather more than in content it was a constitutional 
enactment in the Western style, consisting of twelve 
sections with 119 articles, and accompanied by an 
Imperial Rescript (Khatt-i humdyun) of promulgation 
serving as a preamble. In framing their text, the 
Ottoman draftsmen seem to have been greatly in- 
fluenced by the Belgian constitution of 1831, both 
directly and through the Prussian constitutional 



edict of 1850 which, while owing much to its Belgian 
model, adapted it in a number of respects to the 
more authoritarian traditions of Prussia. While the 
Belgian constitution was promulgated by a con- 
stituent assembly representing the sovereign people, 
the Prussian derived from the goodwill of the king, 
whose ultimate sovereignty was in no way thereby 
diminished. The Ottoman constitution also derives 
from the will of the sovereign who voluntarily 
renounces the exclusive exercise of some — though by 
no means all — of his prerogatives, and retains all 
residual powers. Again like the Prussian constitution, 
the Ottoman constitution gives perfunctory recog- 
nition to the principle of the separation of powers, 
but unlike the Belgian constitution does not apply 
it very rigorously. 

The first section (articles 1-7) is headed "The 
Ottoman Empire" (Memdlik-i Dewlet-i c Othmdniyye); 
it defines the Empire, names its capital, and lays 
down the rights and privileges of the Sultan and the 
imperial dynasty. The Ottoman Sultanate, with 
which is united the supreme Islamic Caliphate 
(khildfet-i kubrd-yi isldmiyye) belongs in accordance 
with ancient custom to the eldest member of the 
Ottoman dynasty (art. 3). The Sultan, as Caliph, is 
protector of the Islamic religion (din-i isldmln 
hdmisi) (art. 4. On the Ottoman claim to the Caliphate 
see khilafa). The Sultan's person is sacrosanct 
{mukaddes) and he is not responsible (ghayr-i mes'iil) 
(art. 5). Article 7 enumerates some of the Sultan's 
prerogatives, in a form of words .clearly indicating 
that the list is not intended as a complete definition, 
and that there is no renunciation of residual powers 
(. . hukuli-i mulbaddese-i Pddishdhi djiimlesindendir ; 
in the official French translation "S.M. le Sultan 
compte au nombre de ses droits souverains les pre- 
rogatives suivantes . ."). These include, together 
with such traditional Islamic rights as the striking 
of coins and mention in the Friday prayer, the 
appointment and dismissal of ministers, the making 
of war and peace, the execution {idjrd) of shari'a and 
state law {ahkdm-i sher'iyye we ^dnuniyye), the 
regulation (nizamnamelerin tanzimi) of public ad- 
ministration, the convocation and prorogation of 
parliament and, if he thinks it necessary (lada 
'l-i^tida? — in the official French version "s'il le 
juge necessaire") the dissolution of the Chamber of 
Deputies, on condition that new elections be held 
(a'-dasi yeniden intikhdb olunmak shartile). 

The second section (articles 8-26) deals with the 
public rights (hukuli-i '■umumiyye) of Ottoman 
subjects (teba c a). It defines Ottoman nationality, 
and affirms the equality of all Ottomans, irrespective 
of religion, before the law. Though Islam is the state 
religion, the free exercise of other religions is pro- 
tected. Article 10 lays down that personal freedom is 
inviolable ( hiirriyyet-i shakhsiyye her tiirlii ta'-arruddan 
masundur), and subsequent articles deal with freedom 
of worship, the press, association, education etc., 
together with freedom from arbitrary intrusion, 
extortion, arrest, or other unlawful violations of 
person, residence, or property. 

The remaining sections deal with the ministers 
(articles 27-38), officials (39-41), parliament (42-59), 
the Senate (60-64), the Chamber of Deputies (65-80), 
the judiciary (81-91), the high courts (92-95), finance 
(96-107), and provincial administration (108-112). 
A final section of "miscellaneous provisions" 
(mewadd-i shettd) includes the notorious article 113, 
giving the imperial government the right to proclaim 
martial law on the occurrence or expectation of 
disorders, and giving the Sultan the exclusive right, 



after reliable police investigations, to deport persons 
harmful to the state from Ottoman territory. 

The executive power belongs to the Sultan, and is 
exercised in part through a council of ministers 
(medjlis-i wiikeld), presided over by the Grand Vizier, 
and including the Shaykh al-Isldm. These two 
dignitaries are chosen and appointed by the Sultan; 
the appointment of other ministers is effected by 
imperial order (irade-i shdhdne). The ministers are 
individually but not collectively responsible — and 
to the Sultan. If a government bill is rejected by the 
Chamber of Deputies, the Sultan can, at his discre- 
tion, either change the cabinet or dissolve the Cham- 
ber and order new elections. 

The legislative power also belongs to the Sultan, 
but its exercise is shared, on a rather restricted 
basis, with a Parliament {medjlis-i c umumi). This 
consists of a Senate (hey'et-i a'ydn), nominated 
directly for life by the Sultan, and of a Chamber of 
Deputies (hey'et-i meb c uthdn), elected for four years 
on the ratio of one deputy for every 50,000 male 
Ottoman subjects. The Senate must not exceed one 
third of the numbers of the elected Deputies. The 
manner of election was fixed by an irdde of 28 
October 1876, on a basis of restricted franchise and 
indirect elections. The power to initiate legislation 
in Parliament belongs to the government; proposals 
from either chamber must first be submitted through 
the Grand Vizier to the Sultan, who may, if he thinks 
fit, instruct the Council of State to draft a bill. To 
become law, a bill must be passed by both Chambers, 
and receive the Sultan's assent. Bills rejected by 
either chamber cannot be reconsidered in the same 

The judicial power is exercised through two 
systems of judiciary, the first (sherH) concerned with 
the Holy Law of Islam, the second (nizdmi; in the 
official French translation rendered "civil") with 
the new laws made by the state. Judges are appointed 
by berdt; they are irremovable (Id yaHazil) but can 
resign, or be revoked after a judicial conviction. 
Article 86 guarantees the freedom of the courts from 
"any kind of interference". 

The effective life of the 1876 constitution was of 
short duration. The first Ottoman parliament met 
on 4 Rabl c I 1294/19 March 1877 N.S. [= 7 March 
O.S.], with a Senate of 25 and a Chamber of 120 
deputies. Its fifty-sixth and last meeting was held on 
16 Djumada II 1294/28 June 1877 N.S. [= 16 June 
O.S.]. After further elections, a second Parliament 
assembled on 13 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1294/13 December 
1877 N.S.[= 1 December O.S.], and soon showed un- 
expected vigour. On 13 February 1878 the deputies 
went so far as to demand that three ministers, against 
whom specific charges had been brought, should 
appear in the chamber to defend themselves (cf. 
article 38 of the constitution). The next day the 
Sultan dissolved the Chamber, and ordered the 
Deputies to return to their constituencies. In the 
words of the Proclamation "Since present circum- 
stances are unfavourable to the full discharge 
of the duties of parliament, and since, according to 
the constitution, the limitation or curtailment of the 
period of session of the said parliament in accord- 
ance with the needs of the time form part of the 
sacred Imperial prerogatives, therefore, in accord- 
ance with the said law, a high Imperial order has 
been issued . . . that the present sessions of the 
Senate and Chamber, due to end at the beginning 
of March ... be closed as from today". Parliament 
had sat for two sessions, of about five months in all. 
It did not meet again for thirty years. 



The Young Turk period 

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 ushered in 
what is known to Turkish historians as the 'second 
constitutional regime' (ikinci mesrutiyet). The Con- 
stitution had never actually been abrogated — it was 
indeed regularly reprinted in the imperial year books 
(sdlndme) right through the reign of c Abd al-Hamid 
II; it was, however, tacitly suspended. On 21 July 
1908 the Young Turk leaders in Rumelia sent a 
telegram to the Sultan demanding the immediate 
restoration of the constitution, and after a brief 
interlude of hesitation the Sultan gave way. A 
Rescript (khatt-i humdyun), dated 4 Radjab 1326/ 
19 July 1908 O.S. [= 1 August N.S.], and addressed to 
the Grand Vizier Sa'id Pasha, declared that the 
country was ready for constitutional government, 
and that all the provisions of the constitution were 
effective and in force (. . kdffe-i ahkdmi merH til- 
idjrd . .). In addition, the Rescript added a number 
of new provisions, extending the personal liberty of 
the subject. These prohibit arrest and search except 
by proper legal procedures, abolish all special and 
extraordinary courts, and guarantee the security of 
the mails and the freedom of the press. Article 113, 
giving the Sultan the right to deport persons dan- 
gerous to the state, was unaffected by the Rescript, 
but was abolished in the following year. Another 
important change gave the Grand Vizier the right 
to appoint all ministers other than the Ministers of 
War and of the Navy who, like the Shaykh al-Isldm, 
were to be appointed by the Sultan. The acceptance 
of these restrictions led to the fall of Sa c id Pasha; 
his successor, Kamil Pasha, secured a new Rescript 
reserving the nomination of all ministers, other than 
the Shaykh al-Isldm, to the Grand Vizier. 

After the opening of Parliament on 17 December 
1908 further constitutional reforms were considered, 
and a constitutional commission formed to draft 
proposals. These consisted of a series of amendments 
to the existing text, modifying some articles, remaking 
or replacing others. The amendments became law on 
21 August 1909, and amounted to a major constitu- 
tional reform. Their general effect was to strengthen 
Parliament and weaken the Throne. Both the Sultan 
and his nominee, the Grand Vizier, were shorn of 
much of their authority; and for the first time; the 
collective responsibility of the cabinet was clearly 
laid down. The sovereignty of parliament was 
vigorously affirmed. 

These changes were adopted when the Committee 
of Union and Progress (see ittihad we-terakki) 
were firmly in control of both houses of parliament, 
but still feared the palace. The weakness of the 
executive resulting from the reforms soon, however, 
proved inconvenient for the Unionists themselves, 
once they were in control of it. In 191 1 the govern- 
ment submitted proposals for constitutional changes, 
increasing the Sultan's authority over parliament. 
These were vigorously challenged by the opposition in 
parliament, on the ground that their purpose was to 
strengthen, not the Sultan, but the Committee of 
Union and Progress; and in the parliamentary and 
constitutional crisis that followed parliament was 
dissolved. It was not until 28 May 1914, when the 

intry was in effect ruled by a Unionist dictatorship, 



that a 



inally 



became law. Later amendments, in January 1 
March 1916 and April 1918, further increased the 
power of the Sultan, who was now able to convene, 
prorogue, prolong or dismiss parliament almost at 
discretion. 



The electoral law, the preparation of which was 
envisaged in the constitution, was drafted and 
debated in 1877, but did not become law until 
after the 1908 revolution. It improved and extended 
the framework of the irdde of 1876, but retained 
the limited franchise and the system of indirect 
elections through electoral colleges. Elections under 
this law were held in 1908, 1912, 1914 and 1919. 
All but that of 1914 were contested by more than 
one party; none resulted in a transfer of power. In 
January 1920 the last Ottoman parliament, elected 
in the sixth and last general election in the Ottoman 
Empire, assembled in Istanbul. On 18 March the 
Chamber prorogued itself; on 11 April it was dis- 
solved by the Sultan. Twelve days later the Grand 
National Assembly of Turkey held its opening session 
in Ankara. 

(The Turkish text of the 1876 constitution was 
printed in the Diistur, 1st series, iv, 2-20, and 
reprinted in the sdlndmes of the Empire; later 
amendments in Diistur, 2nd series, i, n ff., 638 ff.; 
vi, 749 ; vii, 224 etc. ; modern Turkish transcriptions 
in Gozubiiyuk and Kili (work cited in bibliography), 
23 ff.; official French translation in G. Aristarchi, 
Legislation ottomane, v (Appendice . . by D. Nico- 
laides), Constantinople 1878, 1-25; cf. A. Ubicini, 
La constitution ottomane du 7 zilhidji 1293, Constanti- 
nople 1877; an annotated German version of the 
constitution, amendments and electoral law in F. von 
Kraelitz-Greifenhorst, Die Verfassungsgesetze des 
Osmanischen Reiches, Vienna 1919; an English 
translation of the constitution in E. Hertslet, The 
map of Europe . ., iv, London 1891, 2531-40; amend- 
ments in H. F. Wright, The Constitutions of the 
states at war 1914-1918, Washington 1919, 589-605. 
For studies of the constitution and its application 
see G. Jaschke, Die Entwicklung des osmanischen 
Verfassungstaates von den Anfdngen bis zur Gegenwart, 
in WI, v (1917), 5-56; idem, Die rechtliche Bedeutung 
der in den Jahren 1909-1916 vollzogenen Abanderungen 
des turhischen Staatsgrundgesetzes, in WI, v (1918), 
97-152. See also W. Albrecht, Grundriss des osmani- 
schen Staatsrechts, Berlin 1905. 

The Republic and its antecedents 

Almost from the beginning, the Grand National 
Assembly (Biiyiik Millet Medjlisi) convened in 
Ankara by the nationalists was concerned with con- 
jnal problems. Its first formally constitutional 
s the "Law of Fundamental Organiza- 
tions" {Teshkildt-i esasiyye kdnunu) of 20 January 
1921 — in effect the provisional constitution of the 
new Turkish state that was emerging (Diistur, 3rd 
series, i, 196; Goziibiiyuk and Kili, 85-7). The first 
article proclaims the revolutionary principle that 
"sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation" 
(hdkimiyyet bild kaydii sharf milletiHdir), and that 
"the systeih of administration rests on the principle 
that the nation personally and effectively {bi 'l-dhdt 
we bi '1-fiH) directs its own destinies". The second 
article declares that "executive power and legislative 
authority are vested and expressed in the Grand 
National Assembly, which is the only and real 
representative of the nation". The third article lays 
down that "the state of Turkey (Tiirkiye dewleti) is 
administered by the Grand National Assembly, and 
its government bears the name of 'the government of 
the Grand National Assembly'." The remaining 
articles are concerned with the holding of elections 
and the conduct of government business (text in 
Diistur, 3rd series, i, 196; Goztibiiyuk and Kili, 85-7; 
English version in D. E. Webster, The Turkey of 



Ataturk, Philadelphia 1939, 97-8). This e 
with its equally revolutionary references to "the 
sovereignty of the nation" and "the state of Turkey", 
marked the first decisive step in the series of legal and 
constitutional changes that regulated the trans- 
formation of Turkey from an Islamic Empire to a 
secular national state. The next was a resolution 
adopted by the Assembly on 1 November 1922, 
after the final victory of the nationalists. It contained 
only two articles: the first declared that "the Turkish 
people consider that the form of government in 
Istanbul resting on the sovereignty of an individual 
[the Sultanate] had ceased to exist on 16 March 1920 
[i.e., two and a half years previously, the day of the 
British military occupation of Istanbul] and had 
passed forever into history." The second recognized 
that the Caliphate belonged to the Ottoman house, 
but reserved to the Assembly the right to choose and 
appoint the most suitable Ottoman prince. This 
attempt to separate the Caliphate from the Sultanate 
proved a failure, and on 3 March 1924 the Caliphate 
was abolished and the last Caliph sent into exile. 

Meanwhile, however, another radical change had 
been accomplished. On 29 October 1923, after hours 
of debate, the Assembly passed a group of six 
amendments to the constitutional enactment of 1921. 
Their purpose, said Mustafa Kemal, was to remove 
ambiguities and inconsistencies in the political 
system of the country. The amendments, prepared 
the previous night, declared that "the form of govern- 
ment of the state of Turkey is a Republic . . the 
President (re'is-i djumhur) is elected by the Grand 
National Assembly in plenary session from among 
its own members . . . the President is head of the 
state . . . and appoints the Prime Minister . .". The 
new order was confirmed in the republican con- 
stitution, adopted by the Assembly on 20 April 1924 
(on republican ideas in Islam see djumhuriyya). 

The republican constitution retains elements of 
the enactment of 1921 and even of the reformed 
Ottoman constitution, but introduces a great deal 
that is new. The constitution is promulgated by the 
Assembly, which can amend it by a two-thirds 
majority (art. 102). The only entrenched clause is 
article 1, stating that "the Turkish state is a Repu- 
blic". "No amendment or modification" of this 
article "can be proposed in any form whatsoever". 
No article of the constitution can be disregarded or 
suspended for any reason or under any pretext, and 
no law may contain provisions contrary to the con- 
stitution (Art. 103; the constitution, however, 
provides no special machinery for testing the con- 
stitutionality of laws). 

Both the legislative authority and the executive 
power are vested in the Assembly, representing the 
sovereign people. The Assembly exercises its legis- 
lative power directly, its executive authority through 
the person of the President, whom it elects, and 
through a Council of Ministers (articles 4-7)- 
Article 7 also gives the Assembly the right — which 
it never exercised — to dismiss the Council of 
Ministers. Judicial authority is exercised by inde- 
pendent courts (art. 8). The Assembly consists of a 
single chamber, elected once every four years. The 
Assembly can, however, by a majority vote, decide 
to hold new elections before the expiration of its 
term (articles 13, 25). The President of the Republic is 
elected by the Assembly, by secret ballot and absolute 
majority, for the duration of one parliament. He is to 
promulgate laws passed by the Assembly within ten 
days but may refer them back, within the same 
period, with a statement of his reasons for doing so. 



This right does not extend to the constitutional law 
or to budgetary laws. If the Assembly again passes 
a law which has been referred back, the President is 
obliged to promulgate it. He is responsible to the 
Assembly in case of high treason, but responsibility 
arising from decrees promulgated by the President de- 
volves on the Prime Minister and the minister signing 
the decree (article 41). The Council of Ministers is 
collectively responsible for the general policy of the 
government, but each minister is individually 
responsible for executive matters falling within his 
jurisdiction, and for the acts of his subordinates 
(article 46). The Prime Minister is chosen by the 
President, the other ministers by the Prime Minister. 
The remaining sections deal with the judiciary, which 
is free and independent, with "the public rights of 
the Turks", and with "miscellaneous matters", in- 
cluding provincial administration, officials, finance, 
and rules relating to the constitution. 

The constitution was twice amended in matters of 
substance before its final abrogation. The first was 
in April 1928, when article 2 was amended by the 
deletion of the words "The religion of the Turkish 
state is Islam", with consequential changes in some 
other articles, to remove references to religion or holy 
law. The second was in February 1937, when article 2 
was again amended, by the inclusion of the six 
principles of the Republican People's Party, declaring 
that the Turkish state is "republican, nationalist, 
populist, etatist, secular and reformist". Some other 
small changes were made at the same time. The 
replacement of the text of the constitution by a 
'pure' Turkish version in 1945, and the abandonment 
of the latter in 1952, are of purely linguistic interest. 

General elections under the Law of Fundamental 
Organizations and the republican constitution were 
held in 1923, 1927, 1931, 1935, 1939, 1943, 1946, 
1950, 1954 and 1957. Of these, only the last four 
were contested by more than one party; only one, 
that of 1950, resulted in an opposition victory and 
a transfer of power, bringing the Democrat Party 
to power. The political development of Turkey after 
1945 gave reality to much that had previously been 
theoretical in the constitution. While the constitution 
itself was not touched, changes in the law of asso- 
ciations, the penal code, and the electoral law, 
accompanied by changes in administrative practice, 
made possible the creation and functioning of an 
effective constitutional opposition, which in 1950 
became the government. The second electoral 
victory of the Democrat Party in 1954 was followed 
by a deterioration. Already before the election, on 
7 May 1954, a new Press law was passed, providing 
heavy penalties for libel against official persons, and 
for the publication of "false news or information or 
documents of such a nature as adversely to affect 
the political or financial prestige of the State or 
cause a disturbance of the public order". It was no 
defence to a charge brought under this law to prove 
the statements were true. After the election two new 
laws, of 21 June and 5 July, gave the government 
powers to retire judges after twenty five years' 
service, and to retire all officials other than judges 
and members of the armed forces after a period of 
suspension. At the same time, on 30 June, the 
electoral law was amended. On 27 June 1956 an 
amendment to the law of meetings and associations 
was carried against vigorous opposition in the 
chamber, placing severe restrictions on the holding 
of public meetings and demonstrations. In April 
i960, during a period of mounting political tension, 
a parliamentary committee of the government party 



JTUR 645 

was formed to investigate the opposition, with legal 
authority. On 27 May the government was over- 
thrown by a military coup d'itat. 

(On the period of transition from the Ottoman to 
the Turkish constitutions, see G. Jaschke, Die 
ersten Verfassungsentwiirfe der Ankara-Turkei, in 
MSOS, xlii/II (1939), 57-80; idem, Wie lange gait die 
osmanische Verfassung?, in WI, N.S. v (1957), 118-9; 
idem, Auf dem Wege zur turkischen Republik, in WI, 
N.S. v (1958), 206-18; idem, Die Entwicklung der 
tiirkischen Verfassung 1924 bis 1937, in Orient-Nach- 
richten, iii/9-10 (1937), 122-3; T. Z. Tunaya, OsmatUt 
Imparatorlugundan Tiirkiye Buyuk Millet Meclisi 
hukHmeti rejimine gefis, in Prof. M. R. Sevig'e 
Armagan, Istanbul 1956; idem, Tiirkiye Buyuk 
[Millet] Meclisi hilkumeti'nin kurulusu ve siyast 
karakteri, in Istanbul Univ. Huk. Fak. Mec, xxiv 
(1958). For the text of the 1924 constitution, see 
Dustur, 3rd series, v, 576-85, amendments of 1928, 
Dustur, ix, 142, of 1937, xviii, 307 ff. and xix, 37 ff., 
of 1945, xxvi, 170 ff.; transcription in Goziibiiyuk 
and Kili, 101-23 (with amendments); English 
translation, with amendments to 1937, in D. E. 
Webster, The Turkey of Ataturk, 297-306, also in 
Helen M. Davis, Constitutions, Electoral laws . , . 
of the states in the Near and Middle East', Durham 
NX. 1953, and, with useful notes, in G. L. Lewis, 
Turkey, London 1955, 197-210. The reports of the 
parliamentary debates on the constitution were 
published by A. S. Goziibiiyuk and Z. Sezgin, 
1924 anayasast hakkmdaki meclis goriismeleri, Ankara 
1957; documents and debates will also be found in 
K. Anburnu, Milli miicadele ve inhtldplarla ilgili 
kanunlar, i, Ankara 1957; cf. E. C. Smith, Debates 
on the Turkish Constitution of 1924, in Ankara Univ. 
Siyasal BilgilerFak. Derg., xiii (1958), 82-105. On the 
constitution and its antecedents see further E. 
Pritsch, Die tilrkische Verfassung vom 20 April 1924, 
in MSOS, xxvi-xxvii/II (1924), 164-251; for a lexical 
study of the 'pure' Turkish text of 1945, M. Colombe, 
Le nouveau texte de la constitution turque, in COC, iv 
(1946), 771-808 ; on the two main parties operating in 
this period see demokrat part! and djCmhOriyyet 

KHALK FiRKASl). 

The second Republic 

At the beginning of June i960 the National Unity 
Committee which had taken over the government 
of the country a few days previously resolved, as a 
matter of urgency, to set up a provisional constitution 
for the transitional period until a new constitution 
was established. The new law, prepared with the 
help of a small group of jurists, was published on 
12 June, and entitled "Provisional law for the 
abolition and amendment of certain articles of con- 
stitutional law no. 491 of 20 April 1924" (translation 
in COC, xliii (i960), 266-70). The law begins with a 
general statement giving the legal and constitutional 
justification for the army's action in overthrowing 
the previous regime, which had "violated the con- 
stitution . . . suppressed individual rights and 
liberties . . . made it impossible for the opposition to 
function . . . and established the dictatorship of a 
single party". The Turkish army, in conformity 
with its duty to "safeguard and protect the Turkish 
homeland and the Turkish Republic established by 
the constitution", as entrusted to it by article 34 of 
the army internal service code, took action, in the 
name of the Turkish nation, to carry out this sacred 
lawful duty against the former administration . . . 
and to reestablish a state of legality. The army 
theiefore dissolved the Assembly and entrusted 



power, provisionally, to the National Unity Comittee. 
The law itself consists of 4 sections, with 27 
articles. The first of these lays down that the com- 
mittee "exercises sovereignty in the name of the 
Turkish nation until the day when it shall transfer 
power to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, 
resulting from general elections to be held as soon 
as possible after the approval of the new constitution 
and the new electoral law in conformity with demo- 
cratic rules". When this happens, the Committee will 
"lose its juridical existence and be automatically 
dissolved" (article 8). Until then all the rights and 
powers given by the constitution to the Assembly 
will be exercised by the Committee. The Committee 
will exercise the legislative power directly, the 
executive power through a council of ministers 
appointed by the head of state and approved by the 
Committee (article 3). Article 6 establishes a high 
court of justice to try the men of the old regime. 
Article 9 defines the membership of the Committee; 
article 17 lays down that the chairman of the Com- 
mittee is at the same time head of state and Prime 
Minister. The provisional laws adopted by the Com- 
mittee will remain in force as long as they are not 
repealed by the Assembly created in accordance with 
the new constitution (article 17). 

The first step towards the new, permanent con- 
stitution envisaged in this law was taken immediately 
after the coup d'etat. On 28th May Gen. Giirsel, 
chairman of the Committee, announced in his first 
press conference that he had appointed a com- 
mission of constitutional lawyers to prepare a new 
constitution. It would provide for a bi-cameral 
legislature and a constitutional court. On 18 October 
the commission, after some differences and the 
dismissal and replacement of two of its members, 
presented a draft constitution to the National 
Unity Committee. It was decided not to publish 
the text, but to refer it to a Constituent Assem- 
bly (Kurucu Meclis). A committee headed by Prof. 
Turhan Feyzioglu was given the task of drafting 
a constitution for such an Assembly. Their draft 
was completed on 2 1 November and finally adopted 
by the National Unity Committee, after some 
emendation, on 14 December. It provided for a 
constituent assembly of two chambers, one of them 
the National Unity Committee, the other a chamber 
of representatives (temsilciler meclisi) "which will 
represent the Turkish people in the broadest sense 
of the word" (article 1). It was to consist of 272 
members, some nominated and some elected by 
various interests and bodies. Elections and nomina- 
tions took place in December and early January, and 
the Constituent Assembly met on 6 January 1961. 
Its members included persons nominated by the 
head of state and the National Unity Committee, 
representatives of the provinces, of the Republican 
People's Party and the Republican National Peasant 
Party, as well as of such bodies and professions as 
the universities, the bar, the press, secondary school 
teachers, trade-unions, trade associations, chambers 
of commerce and industry, ex-servicemen's organi- 
zations, and youth. The ministers in the provisional 
government were members ex officio. 

On 9 January the Constituent Assembly elected 
two committees, one, of 20 members, to deal with 
the constitution, the other with the electoral law. 
On 9 March the constitutional commission presented 
its draft, which was then considered by both the 
Chamber of Representatives and the National Unity 
Committee. The latter proposed some changes, and a 
set up to reconcile their views. 



lew the 



It completed its work on 26 May, and on the following 
day, the first anniversary of the revolution, Gen. 
Giirsel announced that the draft had been accepted 
by an overwhelming majority of the Assembly. The 
text was published in the official gazette of 31 May. 
On 28 March, the Assembly had already passed a law 
requiring that the draft constitution be submitted 
to the nation by a referendum, conducted along lines 
specified in the law. The referendum was held on 
9 July, and resulted in the acceptance of the new 
constitution; 61% of the voters voted yes, 39% 
voted no, and some 2'/ 2 million, out of a total 
qualified electorate of i2 3 / 4 million, abstained. 

The constitution provides for a Grand National 
Assembly of two chambers, the Senate and National 
Assembly. The former consists of 15 members 
nominated by the President, and 150 members 
elected for a term of six years, one third every two 
years, by a straight majority vote. The National 
Assembly, of 450 members, is to be elected every 
four years by a system of proportional representation. 
The President is elected by the Grand National 
Assembly in plenary session from among its own 
members, by a two-thirds majority, for a term of 
seven years. He appoints the Prime Minister, who 
chooses the other ministers. The government is 
responsible to the Grand National Assembly. A 
noteworthy innovation is the establishmi 
constitutional court (articles 145-52), to re 
legality of legislation, with power also to act as a 
high council for the impeachment of Presidents, 
ministers and certain high officials "for offences 
connected with their duties". The constitution 
contains explicit guarantees of freedom of thought, 
expression, association and publication, immunity 
of domicile, and other democratic liberties (section 2, 
articles 14-34). I n addition, it contains a section on 
social and economic rights, with provision both for 
the right of the State to plan economic development 
so as to achieve social justice, and the right of the 
individual to the ownership and inheritance of 
property, and to freedom of work and enterprise 
(section 3, articles 35-53)- The ri S ht to strike is in 
principle recognized, within limits to be determined 
by subsequent legislation. Other clauses in the con- 
stitution seek to safeguard the secularist Kemalist 
reforms from reaction, and the democratic basis of 
government from a new dictatorship. The con- 
stitution was promulgated as law no. 334 of 9 July, 
in the official gazette of 20 July 1961, and entered 
into effect immediately. (An official English trans- 
lation of the constitution was published in Ankara 
in 1962 and reprinted in OM, xliii/1 (1963), 1-28, and 
in ME], xvi (1962), 215-38, with a commentary by 
K. K. Key; for an analysis of the constitution, see 
Ismet Giritli, Some aspects of the new Turkish con- 
stitution, ibid., 1-17; on the constituent assembly see 
R. Devereux, Turkey and the corporative state, in 
SAIS Review, (Spring 1962), 16-24. A useful sum- 
mary of constitutional developments in i960 will be 
found in Middle East Record, i, i960, London [1962], 
452-4. See also surveys of events in COC, OM, etc. 
Bibliography: in addition to leferences in 
the article: Ali Fuad Basgil and others, Turquie 
(vol. vii of La vie juridique des peuples, edd. 
H. Levy-Ullmann and B. Mirkine-Guetzevitch), 
Paris 1939; Siddik Sami Onar, Idare hukukunun 
umumi esaslan, Istanbul 1952; Recai G. Okandan, 
Umumt (Lmme hukukumuzun ana hatlan, Istanbul 
1948; Ali Fuad Basgil, Turkiye siyasi rejimi ve 
anayasa prensipleri, i/i, Istanbul 1957; I A, 
article Kanun-i Esasi, by Huseyin Nail Kubah 



(where further references are given); G. Franco, 
Developpements constitutionals en Turquie, Paris 
1925; A. Mary-Rousseliere, La Turquie constitu- 
tionnelle, Rennes 1935; T. Z. Tunaya, Tiirkiyede 
siyasi partiler, iSsg-igjz (on political parties), 
Istanbul 1952; K. H. Karpat, Turkey's politics. The 
transition to a multi-party system, Princeton 1959; 
B. Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey 1 , 
London 1962. Documents in A. Seref Gozubuyuk 
and Suna Kili, Turk anayasa metinleri, Ankara 
1957. Further references in Bibliografiya Turtsii 
(igiy-ig58), Moscow 1959, 123-4; Pearson, 138- 
141; idem, Supplement igs6-ig6o, 45-7. 

(B. Lewis) 

Exposed to European influence earlier than 
other Arab lands, Egypt followed an independent 
course of constitutional development, although 
her constitutional experiments were by no means 
entirely unrelated to those of the Ottoman Empire. 
The first elaborate constitutional charter, it is true, 
was not promulgated until 1882, but a number of 
constitutional instruments, providing either for the 
establishment . of representative assemblies or 
responsible cabinets, had been issued since the 
beginning of the nineteenth century. Bonaparte, 
after his capture of Cairo in 1798, issued several 
orders establishing diwdns (councils), composed of 
Egyptian and French members. The significance of 
those diwdns, though they were purely consultative 
in nature, lies in the recognition of the principle that 
the people's representatives should be consulted on 
public affairs. Muhammad c Ali (1805-48) revived 
Bonaparte's diwdn in 1829 in the form of a Madjlis 
al-Mashwara, a consultative council which assisted 
him in the administration of the country. These 
councils, lacking the support of public opinion, 
were of brief duration. 

It was not until the reign of the Khedive Isma'il 
that further constitutional instruments were issued. 
One of them (i860) created a council of representa- 
tives, called Madilis Shurd al-Nuwwab; another 
(1878) established a responsible Cabinet, called 
Madjlis al-Nuzzdr. Isma c Il's immediate purpose in 
issuing such decrees was not necessarily to introduce 
constitutional reform, but to resolve financial diffi- 
culties, which could lead to foreign intervention 
and with it to the curbing of the Khedive's powers. 
On 22 October 1866 Isma'il issued two decrees 
creating a representative assembly composed of 75 
members, elected for a three-year term, called 
Madjlis Shurd al-Nuwwdb (Chamber of Deputies). 
One of them embodied a fundamental law (IdHha 
asdsiyya) made up of 18 articles stating the functions 
of the Chamber and the procedure for electing it. 
The other, made up of 61 articles, called the law of 
internal regulations (IdHha nizdmiyya, or nizdmndme), 
providing rules for the debates and internal procedure 
of the Chamber. The Khedive retained complete 
control over the Chamber by his final approval of 
its decisions. The meetings of the Chamber began 
on 25 November 1866, but it was suspended in 1879. 
It resumed its activities during the c Urabi Revolt 
and played a significant role in drawing up an 
elaborate constitutional instrument. The Chamber, 
however, proved ineffective and its functions merely 
consultative, since its resolutions were not binding 
on the Government. 

On 28 August 1878 Isma'il issued another decree 
dealing with the establishment of a Council of 
Ministers [Madilis al-Nuzzdr), by virtue of which he 



entrusted power in its hands. This executive body, 
the first in the history of modern Egypt, was 
responsible, relieving the Khedive of responsibility, 
with the consequential limitation of his absolute 
powers. However, the decree was revised by Tawfik 
Pasha, who succeeded Isma'Il in 1879, making the 
Cabinet responsible to him. Tawfik often held the 
meetings of the Cabinet under his chairmanship. 

Before Tawfik could bring the Cabinet under his 
full control and abolish the Chamber of Deputies, 
the latter took the drastic step of drawing up an 
elaborate constitutional charter. It was during the 
'UrabI revolt that this Chamber, meeting as a 
National Constituent Assembly in 1882, prepared 
and promulgated Egypt's first written constitution, 
called al-LdHha al-Asdsiyya. The Chamber began to 
discuss the draft in January 1882; it was promul- 
gated on 7 February 1882. 

The Constitution of 1882 provided for the estab- 
lishment of a parliamentary system and a responsible 
Cabinet, appointed by the Khedive. The Chamber 
of Deputies was to be an elective body for a period 
of five years, its meetings open to the public, and its 
members inviolable. Its President was to be ap- 
pointed by the Khedive, chosen from three candidates 
nominated by the Chamber. The Chamber was to 
have the right to interrogate the Ministers, ask 
questions of information, and supervise "the acts 
of all public functionaries during the session, and 
through the President of the Chamber they may 
report to the Ministers concerning all abuses, irregu- 
larities or negligences charged against a public 
official in the exercise of his functions" (Article 20). 
Legislation could be initiated either by the Cabinet 
or the Chamber and had to be confirmed and issued 
by the Khedive. No new taxes were to be imposed 
without the approval of the Chamber. The budget 
was to be presented to the Chamber for discussion 
and approval, except for matters relating to the 
annual tribute to the Porte and the Public Debt. No 
treaty or contract between the Government and a 
foreign country was to be binding until approved by 
the Chamber, save those relating to matters where 
sums of money had already been approved in the 
budget. The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved 
after the collapse of the c Urabi Revolt and the 
constitution of 1882 was abrogated. 

In 1883, a year after the British occupation, 
Tawfik Pasha issued an Organic Law reorganizing 
Egypt's constitutional framework which lasted from 
the British occupation to World War I. This law 
provided for the establishment of the following 

First, a Provincial Council, composed of from 3 to 8 
members, according to the size of the province, 
established in each province (mudiriyya), presided 
over by the mudir. The functions of the Council were 
to deal with purely local matters. The total number 
of the Provincial Councillors was 70. 

Secondly, the Legislative Council, composed of 
30 members. Of these, 14 (including the President) 
were appointed by the Government and 16 elected 
by the provincial councils from among their members. 
No law or decree relating to general administrative 
matters was to be issued without prior submission 
to the Council, but the Government was under no 
obligation to carry out the resolutions of the Council. 
However, if the Council's resolutions were not 
carried out, the reasons for rejection had to be com- 
municated to the Council. The budget was to be 
submitted to the Council for discussion, but the 
Government was not obliged to adopt the views of 



the Council, nor could the Council discuss any 
financial matters touching on Egypt's obligations 
under an international agreement. 

Thirdly, the Legislative Assembly, composed of 
82 members, included the six Ministers, the 30 
members of the Legislative Council, and 46 delegates 
elected by the people. Candidates eligible for election 
had to be not less than 30 years old, able to read and 
write, and paying direct taxes of not less than 30 
Egyptian pounds a year. No new direct taxes could 
be imposed by the Government without the approval 
of the Assembly. Moreover, the Assembly was 
consulted on every public loan and on all public 
matters relating to canals, railways, lands and land 
taxes. It also expressed an opinion on other financial, 
economic and administrative matters. As in the case 
of the Legislative Council, the Government was 
under no obligation to adopt the Assembly's views 
on any question discussed, for the functions of the 
Legislative Assembly were purely consultative; but 
the reasons for not adopting them had to be stated. 
The Assembly met at least once in two years and its 
meetings were not open to the public. An electoral 
law was issued on 1 May 1883 and the first elections 
for the Legislative Assembly were held in November 
1883. The Assembly continued to function until 
World War I. 

In 1913, the Assembly's functions and powers 
were increased under a new law issued in 1913, 
revising the Organic Law of 1883. The new Legis- 
lative Assembly replaced both the Legislative 
Council and Assembly. This Assembly, composed of 
17 nominated members and 66 elected by indirect 
suffrage, had the power to veto proposals for the 
increase of direct taxes, but in all other matters its 
functions remained consultative and deliberative. Its 
proceedings were open to the public, since criticism 
had been levelled at its predecessor for holding 
closed sessions. It could delay legislation, compel 
Ministers to justify their proposals, interrogate them 
and call for information. The Legislative Assembly 
was intended to represent more closely the mass of 
the Egyptian people, but it could hardly satisfy the 
political aspirations of the small educated class. It 
met for a short period during 1914 until its sessions 
were suspended in 1915, never to be resumed again. 

After World War I, Egypt passed quickly from 
a dependent to an independent status, having 
achieved remarkable political and social progress. 
The British occupation was terminated and the 
country was declared independent on 28 February 
1922, subject to four reserved points (relating to the 
defence of Egypt, security of British imperial com- 
munications, protection of foreigners, and the Sudan). 
The Sultan of Egypt assumed the title of King on 
15 March 1922, and a constitutional committee, 
composed of 32 members, was appointed on 3 April 
1922 to draw up a draft constitution. The con- 
stitution, though communicated by the Committee 
to the Government on 21 October 1922, was not 
promulgated until 19 April 1923. Based on Belgian 
and Ottoman models, it provided for a mon- 
archy endowed with many powers, which reflected 
the traditional pattern of administration. The King 
not only enjoyed the right of selecting and ap- 
pointing the Prime Minister (and upon the latter's 
recommendation, the ministers), but also the right 
to dismiss the Cabinet and dissolve Parliament. He 
also appointed the President of the Senate and half 
of the Senators, presumably upon the recommen- 
dation of the Cabinet. The Cabinet was fully 
responsible, for its members were derived from 



both houses of Parliament and were collectively 
responsible to the Lower House. Its life was formally 
dependent on a vote of confidence of the Lower 
House, but the King could dismiss it by a decree at 
any moment. Legislative power was vested in 
Parliament and the King. The Lower House was an 
elected body on the basis of universal manhood 
suffrage, but the Senate was half elected and half 
appointed. Legislation could be initiated in either 
House, but it had to be confirmed by the King. 
The latter had the power to return draft laws for 
reconsideration by Parliament. 

From the establishment of the Sultanate (1914) to 
the Declaration of Independence (1922), Egypt had 
8 cabinets; and from the Declaration of Independence 
to the end of the monarchy, Egypt had 32 cabinets. 
Thus the average life of a cabinet was less than one 
year. Parliament met on the whole regularly since 
the first general election of 1924, although in almost 
all cases the Lower House was dissolved before it 
completed its regular term of four years. There had 
been ten general elections held from 1924 to 
1952. These were the elections of 1924, 1925, 1926, 
1929, 1931, 1936, 1938, 1942, 1945 and 1950. Only 
the ninth Parliament completed its term of four 
years, while the second held only a single meeting. 

The constitution of 1923 was partially suspended 
by a royal decree in 1928 and replaced by another 
on 22 October 1930. The new constitution made no 
important change in the structure of government, 
but restricted the powers of Parliament, especially 
its right to withdraw confidence in the cabinet, and 
increased the powers of the executive. It also pro- 
vided for elections in two stages, regulated by a new 
Electoral Law issued in 1930. These restrictions 
prompted opposition parties to attack the new 
constitution and boycott elections. However, the 
Government firmly enforced the provisions of the 
new constitution until 1936. 

In 1936 a national coalition government was 
formed and a treaty of alliance between Britain and 
Egypt was signed. The nationalists had already 
demanded the restoration of the constitution of 1923 
as a condition for their participation in the treaty 
negotiation, and the King formally restored it on 
22 December 1935. It remained in force until it was 
abolished by the Revolutionary Government on 
10 December 1952. Before the intervention of the 
army in politics, the parliamentary system had 
deteriorated, because of the intense competition 
among political parties, the rise of rival ideological 
groups, and the failure of the ruling class to make 
concessions to the rapidly increasing oppressed 
masses. The inability of civil government to maintain 
public order invited the army to intervene and put 
an end to internal conflict and instability. 

The Revolutionary Government appointed a 
constitutional committee, composed of fifty members 
of various shades of opinion, to draft a new con- 
stitution. The new draft constitution, reputed to 
have included a progressive and truly parliamentary 
system, was never officially promulgated. Instead a 
provisional constitutional charter was issued on 10 
February 1953, entrusting virtually full power to a 
Revolutionary Council, to be exercised by its chief, 
who presided over the Council of Ministers. The 
monarchy was maintained, but owing to the minority 
of the deposed King FSruk's successor, its powers 
were exercised by a Council of Regency. On 18 June 
1953 the monarchy was abolished and a republic, 
headed by Muhammad Nadjib (Neguib), was pro- 
I claimed. It was not until 16 January 1956 that a 



new constitutional charter, which proved to be of 
short duration, was issued, entrusting full executive 
powers to the hands of President Djamal c Abd al- 
Nasir. This constitution, embodying several innova- 
tions, declared Egypt to be an Arab nation, and 
introduced the presidential system, replacing the 
parliamentary form of government. The President 
was elected by a plebiscite. He possessed the power 
to appoint a Cabinet responsible to him and to 
nominate the members of Parliament, subject to 
the approval of the nation by a popular plebiscite. 
The constitution was confirmed by a plebiscite on 
23 June 1956. 

The union between Syria and Egypt in 1958 called 
for another change in the constitutional framework 
of the two countries. This union, regarded as the first 
step toward a more complete Arab unity, was called 
the United Arab Republic. A provisional constitution 
of 73 articles was issued on 5 March 1958, providing 
for a central executive and a central legislature; but 
all essential local affairs remained in the hands of 
local executive councils. Before agreement could be 
reached on its internal constitutional structure, the 
union was dissolved in October 1961, following 

The name of- the United Arab Republic, though 
applied only to Egypt, was not changed; but 
Egypt's rulers began to concentrate on the internal 
social and economic reorganization of the country on 
a socialistic basis. A National Charter, embodying 
the principles of nationalism and socialism, became 
the subject of discussion in a National Convention 
held during the autumn of 1962; but no new con- 
stitutional instrument has yet been issued. After the 
dissolution of the Union with Syria President c Abd 
al-Nasir made several references to 
of 1956, which indicated that this 
still in force, pending the promulgation of a new 
constitution. Egypt's rulers are inclined to defer the 
formulation of a new constitution, pending the 
emergence of new patterns of government, hoping 
that the emerging constitutional structure will con- 
form to Arab aspirations to unity. (For the United 
Arab States, see below, xviii). 

Bibliography : A. Giannini, La costituzione 
egiziana, in OM, iii (1923), 1-22; G. Douin, Histoire 
du regne du Khedive Ismail, Rome 1933-41; <Abd 
al-Rahman al-Rafi% <Asr Ismd'iP, Cairo 1948, 
2 vols; idem, al-Thawra al- l Urdbiyya a , Cairo 1949; 
idem, Fi a*kdb al-thawra al-Misriyya, Cairo 1947- 
51, 3 vols.; W. S. Blunt, Secret history of the 
English occupation of Egypt, London 1907; M. 
Rashid Rida, Ta'rikh al-ustddh al-imdm, Cairo 
1931, ii; M. Sadek, La constitution de I'Egypte, 
Paris 1908; White Ibrahim, La constitution 
egyptienne du 19 Avril 1923, Paris 1924; idem, 
La nouvelle constitution de I'Egypte, Paris 1925; 
Amin Osman, Le mouvement constitutional en 
Egypte et la constitution de 1923, Paris 1924; Sir 
William Hayter, Recent constitutional development 
in Egypt, Cambridge 1925; El-Sayed Sabry, Le 
pouvoir Ugislatif et le pouvoir exicutif en Egypte, 
itude critique de la constitution du 19 Avril 1923, 
Paris 1930; Hilmy Makram, Problemes soulevis 
par la constitution igyptienne, Dijon 1927; V. A. 
O'Rourke, The juristic status of Egypt, Baltimore 
'935; Diaeddine Saleh, Les pouvoirs du roi dans 
la constitution igyptienne, itude de droit compari, 
Paris 1939; J. M. Landau, Parliaments and parties 
in Egypt, Tel-Aviv 1953; M. Colombe, V evo- 
lution de I'Egypte, 1924-1950, Paris 1951; C. F. 
Jones, The new Egyptian constitution, in ME J, x 



( I 956), 300-6; R. Monaco, La nuova c 
egiziana, in OM, xxxvi (1956), 281-8. 

(M. Khadduri) 

The Persian constitutional movement of the 
early 20th century was the result of a process which 
had been going on in Persia, largely silently, through- 
out the 19th century. Up to this time the basic 
theories of the state and of life generally were set in 
the frame of Islam. The intrusion of the West into 
Persia in the 19th century perhaps more than any 
other single event led Persian thinkers to question 
the old theories and bases cf the state and to seek 
some new or additional base for it. The disastrous 
wars with Russia in the early part of the century 
concluded by the Treaty of Turkomancay in 1828 
convinced Persians of the need for reform, military 
and otherwise. Further it was through the various 
military missions which came to Persia from 1807 
onwards that Persians had first become acquainted 
with modern military and scientific techniques and 
with the political changes which were taking place 
in Europe. Mirza Salih, the first Persian known to 
have written an account of British parliamentary 
institutions, was sent to England in 1815 in pursuance 
of plans for military reform. He also visited Turkey 
and Russia. Writing in his diary of the tanzimdt he 
castigates obscurantist mullas who opposed them. 
He gives in his diary what is probably the first 
account by a Persian of the French revolution. 
Diplomatic travel also played an important r61e in 
the dissemination of knowledge of western institu- 
tions. Abu '1-Hasan Shlrazi, who was sent on a 
mission to England by Fath c Ali Shah, wrote in his 
Hayrat-ndma an account of the justice and security 
which he found in England, comparing it with the 
tyranny which prevailed in his own country. Nasir 
al-Din himself made three journeys to Europe, the 
first in 1873. The Persian merchant communities, 
both inside and outside Persia, were another im- 
portant channel through which modern ideas spread. 
The Persian press published by members of the 
Persian communities in Istanbul, Calcutta and else- 
where also did much in the latter part of the 19th 
century to encourage reform. 

The first attempts at administrative, as distinct 
from military, reform were made by Mirza Taki 
Khan Amir Nizam, the first prime minister of 
Nasir al-Din, but proved largely abortive. He, too, 
had visited Russia and Turkey and seen the tanzimdt 
in operation. The next minister to attempt funda- 
mental reforms was Mirza Husayn Khan Sipahsalar 
Mushir al-Dawla, who had studied in France, and 
served in Tiflis, Bombay, and Turkey, where he was 
Persian minister from 1859 to 187 1. He subsequently 
held various offices in Persia, including that of prime 
minister. While in Turkey he wrote numerous letters, 
official and otherwise, in which he discussed, inter 
alia, European politics, civilization, education, the 
need for reform in Persia, the desirability of a 
popular assembly, freedom, the rights of the people, 
and equality before the law. He maintained that 
foreign intervention in a country was brought about 
by the backwardness of that country. The main 
object of both Amir Nizam and Mushir al-Dawla 
in their advocacy of reform and modernization was 
to prevent foreign intervention ; and in this they were 
the precursors of the constitutio 
which, though it was provoked in the first ir, 
by the tyranny and injustice of the regimi 



Pleas for reform were put forward by various 
writers in the latter half of the 19th century. The 
most important figure among them in the intellectual 
awakening of Persia was, perhaps, Malkam Khan 
NSzim al-Dawla, a Persian Armenian of Diulfa 
(Isfahan), educated in Paris, who became minister 
to the Court of St. James in 1872. He profoundly 
believed in the need for Persia to westernize and 
repeatedly emphasised the need for the supremacy 
of the law. In an essay entitled Daftar-i tanzimtit, 
apparently written between 1858 and i860, he drew 
attention to the internal woes of Persia, the threat of 
encroachmen+s upon Persia from St. Petersburg and 
Calcutta, anv. the technical advances being made in 
Europe. He pointed out that the progress which 
had been made in Europe and the orderly regulation 
of affairs which prevailed there were not contrary 
to the shari'a. After discussing various types of 
government and stating (perhaps in order not to 
frighten Nasir al-DIn Shah) that constitutional 
government was in no way suitable to Persia, he 
examines how an orderly regulation of affairs 
could be established under an absolute monarchy, 
advocates the separation of the "executive" and 
the "legislature", and lays down a series of tanzimtit 
for the administration of the kingdom. In later 
essays written after 1882, and especially in the 
Persian paper Kanun, which he founded in London 
in 1890, Malkam Khan advocates constitutional 
monarchy for Persia and a national consultative 
assembly. 

Towards the end of the reign of Nasir al-Din, and 
under his successor, Muzaffar al-DIn, internal con- 
ditions in Persia and her position vis-a-vis foreign 
powers, rapidly deteriorated. The financial state of 
the government became ever more acute. The 
abortive Reuter concession was granted in 1872 and 
subsequently cancelled under pressure from Russia. 
A secret railway agreement was made in 1887 and 
followed by the Russo-Persian agreement of 1890, 
which placed a prohibition on railway construction 
in Peisia for ten years. Popular discontent at mis- 
government, the growth of foreign influence, and 
the squandering of Persia's assets grew; it received 
open expression in 1890. The occasion was the grant 
of a monopoly for the sale and export of Persian 
tobacco and control over its production by a British 
subject, Major Gerald Talbot. Russian opposition 
to the Tobacco Regie was immediate, and was soon 
followed by a movement of popular protest. This 
was a dual movement, directed on the one hand 
against internal corruption and misgovernment and 
on the other against foreign influence; it rapidly 
became nationalist and Islamic. It owed a good deal 
to the support of MIrza Malkam Khan, who at that 
time was in London, and Djamal al-Din Afghani [q.v.] 
and was led by the religious classes. Although it was 
merely a movement of protest and had no positive 
programme of reform, nevertheless, it was important 
in that it showed the religious classes and the people 
their power once they united; and was, in some 
measure, a forerunner of the constitutional move- 
ment. It was successful in its object; and in January 
1892 the tobacco monopoly was rescinded. This 
victory against the government was not, however, 
followed by any material lessening of the pressure to 
which the people were subjected or limitation on the 
arbitrary rule of the Shah. Those who advocated 
modernization had still to work cautiously. 



The r 
despotisr 



t phase in the struggle against the 
was marked by the spread of secret or 
societies, which began to be formed by 
those who were dissatisfied with the existing state 
of affairs (see djam'iyya. Persia). Their purpose 
was to spread the new learning and awaken the 
people to the evils of the despotism and the benefits 
of freedom. After the assassination of Nasir al-Din 
in 1896 they became more active. Discontent con- 
tinued to be rife and was heightened by the growing 
intervention of Russia and the contraction of foreign 
loans, including one from the Imperial Bank of 
Persia in 1892 to pay the Tobacco Corporation 
compensation for the cancellation of their monopoly, 
and Russian loans in 1900 and 1902. In January 
1904 £ Ayn al-Dawla became prime minister. By the 
end of 1905 conditions were felt to be intolerable. 
The Shah was in the hands of a corrupt ring of 
courtiers. He had had recourse to foreign loans, the 
proceeds of which he had spent on foreign travel and 
his court. The annual deficit grew. Oppression of 
every sort was carried out and countenanced by the 
Prime Minister. Finally discontent came to a head 
on 19 Safar 1323/26 April 1905 when a group of 
merchants took bast in Shah c Abd al- £ Azim, the 
immediate cause being dissatisfaction with the 
Belgian Director of Customs Administration, M. 
Naus. Muhammad £ A1I, who was acting as regent 
during the absence of his father, Muzaffar al-DIn, 
in Europe, promised that Naus would be dismissed on 
the Shah's return; and the bastis dispersed. Shortly 
afterwards, on 3 Rabl c I 1323/8 May 1905, an open 
address to the prime minister, £ Ayn al-Dawla, who 
was extremely unpopular, was published by one of 
the leading secret societies. The address, after 
calling his attention to the decay and disorder of the 
country's affairs and protesting at the lack of 
security and the corruption of officials, demanded 
(i) a code of justice and the creation of a ministry 
of justice, (ii) a land survey, the delimitation and 
registration of estates, (iii) a fair adjustment of 
taxation, (iv) a reform of the army, (v) the laying down 
of principles for the choice of governors and their 
rights and the rights of those they governed, (vi) the 
reform and encouragement of internal trade, (vii) a 
cleaning up of the customs administration, (viii) an 
improvement in the supply of foodstuffs and goods, 
(ix) the adoption of general principles for the founda- 
tion of technical schools and the setting up of 
factories and concerns for the exploitation of miner- 
als, (x) a clarification of the duty of the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs, (xi) a reform in the payment of 
salaries and pensions by the government, and (xii) 
a limitation of the powers of ministers, ministries, and 
mullas according to the sharV-a. Various events 
meanwhile fanned the growing discontent. Even- 
tually a large number of mullas, merchants, and 
members of the craft guilds took bast in Shah c Abd 
al- £ Azim ; and finally Muzaffar al-DIn acceded to their 
demands, which included the dismissal of the 
governor of Tehran and M. Naus from the Customs, 
and the setting up of a Ministry of Justice. In Dhu 
'1-Ka £ da, 1323/January, 1906, he issued an auto- 
graph letter (dast khaft), to £ Ayn al-Dawla, giving 
orders for the setting up of an c addlat kh&na-i 
dawlatt for the execution of the decrees of the 
shari'a throughout Persia in such a way that all 
the subjects of the country should be regarded as 
equal before the law. With this in mind a code 
(kitabla) in accordance with the shart'a was to be 
drawn up and put into operation throughout the 
country. This temporarily satisfied the bastis in 



.Shah <Abd al- c Azim; and they returned- to the city. 
No steps, however, were taken to implement the 
promises given; these had in effect amounted to a 
promise of equality before the law for the different 
classes but had in no way limited the absolute power 
of the Shah. Towards the end of April a petition was 
presented to the Shah praying him to give effect to 
his promises. This proved fruitless as also did 
remonstrances to c Ayn al-Dawla. Public opinion, 
stirred up by denunciations of the despotism and 
tyranny from the minbars of the mosques by Aka 
Sayyid Pjamal and others, and the efforts of secret 
and semi-secret societies, which attacked the despo- 
tism and endeavoured to spread modernist ideas, 
became increasingly roused. c Ayn al-Dawla expelled 
Aka Sayyid Djamal and another preacher, Shaykh 
Muhammad, from the city. In the riots which 
attended the attempted removal of the latter on 
28 Rabi' II 1324/21 June 1906 a sayyid was killed. 
Further riots ensued and after some days a large 
number of the religious classes, merchants, artisans 
and others took refuge in Kumm, this exodus being 
known as the hidjrat-i kubrd, 'the great exodus'. 
Meanwhile the bazars were closed and about 19 July 
a number of merchants, members of the guilds, and 
others took refuge in the British Legation. Their 
numbers rapidly increased and by the beginning of 
August had reached 12,000 or 14,000. They demanded 
the dismissal of c Ayn al-Dawla, the promulgation of 
a code of laws, and the recall of the religious leaders 
from Kumm. The Shah did not yield to their demands 
until the end of the month, when he dismissed 'Ayn 
al-Dawla. 

On 14 Pjumada II/5 August, an imperial rescript 
was issued to the new sadr-i a'zam ordering the setting 
up of a national consultative assembly (madjlis-i 
shawrd-yi tnilli), composed of representatives 
of the princes, 'ulamd'', members of the Kadjar 
family, notables, landowners, merchants, and 
members of the guilds, to consult on matters of 
state, to give help to the council of ministers in 
the reforms "which would be made for the happiness 
of Persia", and, "in complete security and confidence, 
to submit through the sadr-i a'zam to the Shah their 
views on the wellbeing of the state and nation, 
the public welfare, and the needs of all the people of 
the country, so that these might be embellished by 
the royal signature and duly put into operation". 
Regulations for the assembly were to be prepared 
and signed by the elected representatives and 
ratified by the Shah, and "by the help of God Most 
High, the aforesaid consultative assembly, which is 
the guardian of our justice, will be opened and begin 
the necessary reforms in the affairs of the kingdom 
and the execution of the laws of the holy shari'a". 
By this time, however, the popular party had been 
further provoked by the intransigence of the Shah 
and the court party. Profoundly mistrustful, they 
demanded a guarantee of the Shah's good faith. 
Accordingly a second rescript addressed to the 
sadr-i a'-zam, supplementing the rescript of 14 
Pjumada II, was issued. This stated: "In completion 
of our earlier autograph, dated 14 Pjumada II 1324, 
in which we explicitly ordered and commanded the 
founding of an assembly of elected representatives 
of the peoples, in order that the generality of people 
and [all] the individuals of the nation shall be aware 
of our full royal care, we again command and lay 
down that you should set up the aforesaid assembly 
in accordance with the description explicitly laid 
down in the former autograph, and, after the election 
of the members of the assembly, you should draw up 



the sections and provisions of the regulations of the 
Islamic consultative assembly in accordance with 
the approval and signature of the elected represen- 
tatives, as is worthy of the nation and country and 
the laws of the holy shari'a, so that having been 
submitted to us and adorned by our auspicious 
signature and in accordance with the aforementioned 
regulations, this holy intention may take shape and 
be put into operation". On the issue of this rescript 
the bastis returned from Kumm and the British 
Legation respectively. 

After the official opening of "the House of 
Parliament" on 28 Pjumada II 1324/19 August 1906 
disputes arose between the popular party and the 
sadr-i a'-zam over the ordinances for the assembly 
which the latter had drawn up. The bazars were 
again closed and the people once more prepared to 
take bast. The Shah gave way and on 17 September 
accepted the proposed ordinance as to the constitu- 
tion of the assembly, which was to consist of 156 
members, 60 from Tehran and 96 from the provinces, 
elections to take place every two years and the 
deputies to be inviolable. The immunity of the 
deputies was subsequently affirmed in article 12 of 
the Fundamental Law. The voting in Tehran was to be 
direct, in the provinces by colleges of electors. Elec- 
tions began and on 18 Sha'ban 1324/7 October 1906 
the assembly was opened by Muzaffar al-Pin without 
waiting for the arrival of the provincial deputies. 
The assembly proceeded to elect the president of the 
assembly and other officers, and passed on 18 
October rules of procedure. On 23 November a 
proposal for an Anglo-Russian loan was submitted 
to it by the Minister of Finance; this was rejected and 
an alternative plan for an internal loan approved a 
week later. A committee was meanwhile set up to 
draft the Fundamental Law of the constitution 
(Hnun-i asdsi). This was ready by the end of 
October; but the Shah procrastinated and did not 
sign it until 14 Dhu '1-Ka c da 1324/30 Pecember 1906. 
Subsequently a supplementary Fundamental Law 
(Mutammim-i Kdnun-i Asdsi) was passed by the 
Assembly and ratified on 29 Sha'ban 1325/7 October 
1907 by Muhammad C A1I Shah, who had meanwhile 
succeeded Muzaffar al-PIn. The Fundamental Law 
consists of fifty-one articles relating to the con- 
stitution and duties of the National Consultative 
Assembly and the Senate. The Supplementary Funda- 
mental Law contains 107 articles concerning the 
rights of the Persian people, the powers of the realm, 
the rights of members of the assembly, the rights of 
the Persian throne, the powers of ministers, tribunals 
of justice, public finance, and the army. 

Muzaffar al-DIn died in January 1907, and with 
his death the first phase of the constitutional 
revolution came to an end. The movement, which 
had begun as a popular demonstration against the 
deplorable state of the administration and country, 
foreign loans and concessions which were thought to 
be leading or contributing to national bankruptcy 
and foreign control, had thus ended in the grant of 
a constitution and the setting up of a National 
Consultative Assembly, a result which had been 
achieved virtually without bloodshed. It had been 
a sense of intolerable injustice or tyranny (zulm) 
which had eventually provoked the nationalists to 
action and the aims of the movement had never been 
clearly formulated. The general aim was simply the 
establishment of the rule of justice ('addlat), which, 
in the tradition of mediaeval Islam, they saw to be 
the basis of good government, rather than the 
establishment 



6 5 2 

representative institutions. The second phi 
constitutional revolution began with the 
on 8 January 1907 of Muhammad 'All, who, with 
his ministers, was from the first bitterly opposed to 
the constitution. Neither the Assembly nor the 
ministers had had any experience of constitutional 
government; they were, moreover, hampered in 
their conduct of affairs by lack of money and military 
forces and by the Shah's intrigues against the consti- 
tution. The Assembly was determined to prevent 
fresh foreign loans, and to get rid of the Belgians 
from the Customs. In these aims it was successful. 
It also passed various measures of financial reform; 
and a law for the resumption by the state of all land 
held as tiyul [q.v.]. Numerous political societies or 
andjumans had meanwhile been formed in Tehran 
and the provinces to defend the constitution. On 
2 May 1907 Mirza 'All Asghar Khan Amin al-Sultan 
was appointed Prime Minister and with his appoint- 
ment the struggle between the Shah and the nation- 
alists was intensified. Disorders, in many cases in- 
stigated and fomented by the Shah and the court 
party, broke out in the provinces. Turkey invaded 
north-west Persia in August. Russia was suspected, 
not without reascn, of aiding and abetting the Shah 
against the National Assembly. The belief grew that 
there was secret collusion between the Shah, Amin 
al-Sultan, and the Russians to sell the country to 
Russia. This second phase of the constitutional 
revolution was to a greater extent than the first 
phase anti-foreign in the sense that it was primarily 
concerned to check the growth of foreign control in 
Persia, especially Russian. On 31 August Amin al- 
Sultan was murdered by a member of one of the 
popular andjumans. On the same day the Anglo- 
Russian Convention was signed, which, when it was 
communicated to the Assembly a month later, 
aroused profound misgiving. Meanwhile the authority 
of the central government in the provinces had been 
reduced to almost nothing. Provincial councils 
(andjumanhd-yi aydlati wa wilayati) had sprung up in 
many parts of the country ; these had destroyed the 
moral authority of the old regime, and the framework 
of such elementary administration as had once 
existed had virtually disappeared. On 7 October 1907 
the Shah promulgated the Supplementary Funda- 
mental Law (see below); and on 12 November he 
visited the Assembly and swore loyalty to the con- 
stitution for the fourth time. Nevertheless on 15 
December he attempted a coup d'itat, arresting the 
prime minister Nasir al-Mulk and other ministers. 
The popular andjumans both in the capital and in 
the provinces rallied to the defence of the Assembly. 
The Shah was momentarily worsted, but the truce 
was temporary and hope of reconciliation between 
the Shah and the nationalists was finally dashed by 
an attempt made on the Shah's life in February 1908. 
In the following months tension increased and 
eventually on 23 June fighting broke out between 
the royalist forces and the nationalists. The assembly 
and the neighbourhood were cleared by the Shah's 
forces. Thirty of the most prominent nationalist 
leaders were arrested and two of them strangled 
without trial the following day, 24 June 1908; 
on 27 June the Shah declared the Assembly dissolved 
and the constitution abolished as being contrary to 
Islamic law. Thus ended the second phase of the 
constitutional revolution, with the temporary 
closure of the Assembly. 

Fighting broke out simultaneously in Tabriz which, 
after Tehran, had been the main centre of the 
t movement, and the Shah's forces were 



expelled. Resistance lasted until April 1909 when the 
siege was raised by the entry of Russian troops to 
protect foreign life and property. The action of 
Tabriz gave the nationalists time to reorganize their 
forces; and eventually jin 1909 a Bakhtiyari force 
under Sardar As'ad and another force from Rasht 
under the Sipahdar-i A c zam, Muhammad Wall 
Khan, advanced on Tehran which they entered in 
July. The Shah fled and took refuge in the Russian 
Legation. A council was then held which voted his 
deposition and the succession of his son, Sultan 
Ahmad, a minor, with a regency. On 9 September 
the ex-Shah left for Kiev. Elections were subse- 
quently held and on 2 Dh u '1-Ka c da 1327/5 December 
1909 the second legislative session of the National 
Assembly was opened. The tasks facing the new 
assembly were such as might have daunted a more 
experienced body than they. The treasury was 
empty; the provincial administration was in a state 
of chaos; and Russian intervention threatened. 
Cabinet crises were frequent and the Assembly, 
divided into numerous small groups, was split by 
dissension. Russian troops, which had been intro- 
duced into Northern Persia ostensibly for a temporary 
occupation to defend foreign life and property, were 
not withdrawn. The anti-Russian feeling engendered 
among the nationalists by this and other actions 
produced a state of friction with Russia which cul- 
minated in 1911. In 1910 a proposal for a joint 
Russo-British loan to Persia was rejected on the 
grounds that its terms were incompatible with 
Persian independence. The possibility of the engage- 
ment of foreign advisers to reorganize the admini- 
stration was meanwhile under consideration by 
Persia; and in 19 n Americans were engaged for the 
finances and Swedes for the police and gendarmerie. 
Russia was from the outset displeased at the in- 
vitation to the Americans. In May 191 1 Mr. Morgan 
Shuster, an American citizen, engaged on a private 
contract with Persia as Treasurer-General, reached 
Tehran, with a small staff. On 13 June the Assembly 
passed a law giving him very wide powers. On 17 June 
the ex-Shah suddenly landed on Persian soil in an 
abortive attempt to regain the throne. Simultaneously 
his brother, Salar al-Dawla, raised the standard of 
revolt in Kurdistan. Friction meanwhile increased 
with Russia over the Treasurer-General's indepen- 
dent attitude in working for Persian financial reform 
and refusal to consult Russian wishes. Finally 
Russia seized on an incident arising from the con- 
fiscation of the estates of Shu'S' al-Saltana, a younger 
brother of the ex-Shah, as a punishment for the part 
he had taken in the latter's rebellion, to demand an 
apology from the Persian Government; this was 
followed by a 48 hours' ultimatum on 25 November 
to dismiss Shuster and Lecoffre, an Englishman of 
French extraction serving in the Ministry of Finance, 
from Persian government service, to engage no 
foreigners without the consent of Russia and Great 
Britain, and to defray the cost of the military 
expedition which Russia had sent to Enzeli to 
enforce this ultimatum. In the event of non-compli- 
ance Persia was threatened with an advance of 
Russian troops from Rasht and an increase in the 
indemnity. British diplomatic protests at St. 
Petersburg were overridden and Russia persisted in 
her demands. The Assembly refused to comply. 
Russian troops advanced to Kazwin. Skirmishes 
took place between Persians and Russian troops in 
Rasht, Enzeli and Tabriz. Anti-Russian feeling ran 
high in Tehran; and finally to avoid disasters by 
impotent resistance to Russia, the regent, Nasir al- 



Mulk, and the cabinet forcibly dissolved the obdurate 
assembly on 3 Muharram 1330/24 December 1911. 
On the following day Shuster was dismissed. The 
third and final phase of the constitutional revolution 
thus ended leaving Persia once more in a state of 
virtual chaos. The constitution remained suspended 
until 7 July 1914, when the third legislative session 
was opened. 

The later history of the National Consultative 
Assembly was not dominated, as it had been during 
the period of the revolution, by the struggle between 
the despotism and the nationalists. It became 
accepted as part of the institutions of the country, 
even if in the Pahlawi period its power was restricted. 
During the Great War of 1914-8 Persia was a cockpit 
for the intrigues and operations of the belligerent 
powers. The resentment entertained by the Persians 
against Russia and Great Britain as her ally was 
fanned by German intrigue and the majority of the 
deputies of the assembly were either neutral or pro- 
Central Powers. On 15 November 1915 when Russian 
troops advanced from Kazwin the Assembly broke 
up, and most of the members evacuated Tehran with 
the Turks and Germans and left for Kumm. The 
constitution was, thus, again suspended; the fourth 
legislative assembly was not convened until 1921; 
since when, apart from a brief period in 1953 when 
Dr. Musaddik dissolved the assembly, successive 
assemblies have sat until 1961, when the reigning 
Shah, Muhammad Rida Pahlawi, dissolved the 
Assembly and Senate by decree. 

The nationalist movement had been supported by 
many of the leading members of the religious classes ; 
and in the writing of many of those who had advo- 
cated reform, and 'the rule of law', the 'law' had 
been equated with Islam. Deference to this point 
of view is found in the preamble to the Fundamental 
Law, which states that the purpose of the National 
Council to be set up under the farman of 14 Djumada 
II 1324/5 August 1906 was "to promote the progress 
and happiness of our kingdom and people, strengthen 
the foundations of our government, and give effect 
to the enactments of the sacred law of His Holiness 
the Prophet". Article 1 of the Supplementary 
Fundamental Law further lays down that the official 
religion of Persia is Islam of the Ithna 'ashari sect, 
which faith the Shah must profess. Article 2 states 
that "At no time must any legal enactment of the 
sacred National Consultative Assembly, established 
by the favour and assistance of His Holiness the 
Imam of the Age (may God hasten His glad advent), 
the favour of His Majesty the Shahinshah of Islam 
(may God immortalize his reign), the care of the 
Proofs of Islam (may God multiply the likes of 
them), and the whole people of the Persian nation, 
be at variance with the sacred principles of Islam, 
or the laws established by His Holiness the Best of 
Mankindjon Whom and on Whose household be the 
blessings of God and His peace)". The same article 
lays down that a committee of not less than five 
muditahids shall be set up "so that they may carefully 
discuss and consider all matters proposed in the 
Assembly, and reject and repudiate, wholly or in 
part, any such proposal which is at variance with 
the sacred laws of Islam, so that it shall not obtain 
the title of legality. In such matters the decision of 
this committee of '■ulama' shall be followed and 
obeyed, and this article shall continue unchanged 
until the appearance of His Holiness the Proof of the 
Age (may God hasten His glad advent)". This 
article became inoperative during the reign of Rida 
Shah, and up to the time of writing has not been 



TOR 653 

revived. Article 27 of the Supplementary Funda- 
mental Laws states that the judicial power "belongs 
to the sharH courts in matters pertaining to the 
sharPa (§harHyydt) and to civil courts (ma^dkim-i 
c adliyya) in matters pertaining to customary law 
( c urfiyydt)" . This, while contrary to the conception 
of Islam, was a recognition of existing practice. 

The drafters of the constitution, although they 
made concessions to Islam, were also considerably 
influenced by the example of Belgian Constitutional 
Law and French law; and the conceptions under- 
lying the constitution were in many respects funda- 
mentally new to Persia. Thus, Article 26 of the 
Supplementary Fundamental Law states "that the 
powers of the realm are all derived from the people"; 
and the Fundamental Law regulates the employment 
of those powers. Similarly Article 35 states "sover- 
eignty is a trust, as a divine gift, confided by the 
people to the Shah" which implies a radical change 
in the conception of the ruler. The main concern of 
the drafters was probably to limit the arbitrary 
nature of the Shah's rule and to give the people some 
defence against the arbitrary actions of government 
officials. A number of the articles of the Fundamental 
Law clearly derive from the unhappy experiences of 
Persia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when 
the reigning Shah recklessly contracted foreign loans 
and gave concessions to foreign concerns. Article 24 
states "the conclusion of treaties and covenants, the 
granting of commercial, industrial, agricultural and 
other concessions, irrespective of whether they be 
to Persian or foreign subjects, shall be subject to 
the approval of the National Consultative Assembly, 
with the exception of treaties, which for reasons of 
state and the public advantage, must be kept 
secret". Similarly Article 22 lays down that "any 
proposal to transfer or sell any portion of the 
[national] resources, or of the control exercised by 
the Government or the Throne, or to effect any 
change in the boundaries and frontiers of the king- 
dom, shall be subject to the approval of the National 
Consultative Assembly". Further Article 23 states 
that "without the approval of the National Con- 
sultative Assembly, no concession for the formation 
of any public company of any sort shall, under any 
plea soever, be granted by the state". The Assembly 
has shown itself jealous of the rights accorded to it 
under these articles, as is shown by its refusal to 
ratify the oil agreement concluded by Prime 
Minister Kawam and the Russian government in 
1949. Articles 25 and 26 respectively lay down that 
state loans under whatever title, internal or external, 
and the construction of railroads and roads depend 
upon the approval of the Assembly. The latter of 
these two articles was included, presumably because 
of the experience of the Russo- Persian railway 
agreement of 12 November 1890, by which the 
Persian Government engaged for the space of ten 
years "neither itself to construct a railway in 
Persian territory, nor to permit nor grant a concession 
for the construction of railways to a company or 
other persons". Article 27 of the Supplementary 
Fundamental Law states that the legislative power 
is derived from the Shah, the National Consultative 
Assembly and the Senate, each of which has the 
right to introduce laws "provided that the con- 
tinuance thereof be dependent on their not being at 
variance with the standards of the sharpa, and on 
their approval by the two Assemblies (i.e., the 
National Consultative Assembly and the Senate), 
and the royal ratification; but the enactment and 
approval of laws concerning the revenue and 



expenditure of the kingdom are among the special 
functions of the National Consultative Assembly". 
The executive power, which belongs to the Shah, 
"is carried out by the ministers and officials of the 
state in the name of His Imperial Majesty in such 
manner as the law defines". Article 28, reflecting the 
influence of Montesquieu, lays down that these three 
powers shall always be separate from one another, 
a principle which has been much cherished by 
Persian constitutionalists. Article 39 states that no 
Shah can ascend the throne unless, before his 
coronation, he appeared before the Assembly in the 
presence of its members and those of the Senate and 
the Council of Ministers and undertook by oath to 
defend the independence of Persia, the frontiers of 
the kingdom, and the rights of the people, to observe 
the Fundamental Law and promote ShI'ism of the 
Dja'farl rite. Similarly, by Article 40, a regent 
cannot enter upon his functions unless he repeats the 
above oath. Article 44 lays down that "the person 
of the Shah is exempted from responsibility and in 
all matters the ministers are responsible to the 
National Consultative Assembly and the Senate". The 
appointment and dismissal of ministers, however, lies 
with the Shah (Art. 46) ; but not of other officials save 
where this is explicitly provided by the law (Art. 48). 
Article 49 states that the issue of decrees and orders 
for giving effect to the laws is the Shah's right, 
provided that he shall under no circumstances 
postpone or suspend the carrying out of such laws. 
The supreme command of all military forces is vested 
in the Shah (Art. 50); as also is the declaration of 
war and conclusion of peace (Art. 51). Article 27 
of the Supplementary Fundamental Law and 
Articles 15, 17 and 47 of the Fundamental Law 
mention the ratification of laws by the Shah, but 
he is not explicitly given the right of veto by the 
constitution. At a joint meeting of the National 
Consultative Assembly and Senate convened under 
the additional Article of 1949 (see below) to emend 
the constitution, Article 49 of the Supplementary 
Fundamental Law was supplemented to the effect 
that the Shah, should he consider it necessary that 
any financial bill having been passed by the National 
Consultative Assembly should be revised, can refer 
it back to that body for revision; but if it confirms 
its former decision by a majority of at least three- 
quarters of those present in the capital, he must 
grant his assent. Judges and the public prosecutor 
are appointed by royal decree (Arts. 80 and 83 of the 
Supplementary Fundamental Law) ; but by Article 81 
judges are declared irremovable save with their own 
consent. The Shah was also given certain rights 
with regard to the Senate, which was to consist of 
sixty members, to "be chosen from amongst well- 
informed, discerning, pious, and respected persons of 
the realm". Thirty were to be nominated by the 
Shah, fifteen from Tehran and fifteen from the 
provinces; and fifteen were to be elected from 
Tehran and fifteen from the provinces (Art. 45)- Its 
sessions were to be "complementary to the sessions 
of the National Consultative Assembly" (Art. 43 of 
the Fundamental Law). Partly, perhaps, because it 
was felt that the principle of nomination was un- 
democratic the Senate was, in fact, never convened 
until 1950. 

In 1921 Rida Khan (later Rida Shah Pahlawi) 
became Minister of War and shortly afterwards the 
de facto ruler of the country. In 1925 a constituent 
assembly (madjlis-i mu'assisdn) was convened. On 
31 October it declared the rule of the Kadjar dynasty 
terminated and that another Constituent Assembly 



was to be convened, to make the necessary changes 
in the laws; and on December 12 a single act sup- 
pressed Articles 36 (which had vested the monarchy 
in Muhammad C A1I Shah and his heirs), 37, and 38 
of the Supplementary Fundamental Law, substi- 
tuting for these three others. The new Article 36 
entrusted the sovereignty of Persia to Rida Shah 
Pahlawi and his male descendants. Article 37 states 
"the heir apparent shall be the eldest son of the 
Shah whose mother shall be of Persian origin. If the 
Shah has no male issue the heir apparent shall be 
proposed by him and approved by the National 
Consultative Assembly provided the said heir shall 
not belong to the Kadjar family. But whenever a 
son is born to the Shah he will become heir apparent 
by right". Meanwhile a marriage was about to be 
arranged between the heir apparent and Princess 
Fawziyya of Egypt. Presumably with a view to the 
possibility of issue by this marriage the law of 14 
Aban 1317 defined the expression "of Persian origin" 
to include a child born of a mother who before the 
marriage contract with the Shah or the heir apparent 
should, in accordance with the high interests of the 
country, on the proposal of the government and the 
approval by the National Consultative Assembly, 
have been given, by a farman of the reigning Shah, 
the quality (sifat) of a Persian". Princess Fawziyya 
was in due course declared an honorary Persian. The 
new Article 38 provided for a regency but excluded 
members of the Kadjar family from holding this 

No further changes were made in the Constitution 
by Rida Shah, who kept the National Consultative 
Assembly in being but reduced it to a mere cypher. 
In the early years after the Second World War 
Muhammad Rida Shah, who had succeeded to the 
throne in 1941, and his advisers apparently believed 
that the National Consultative Assembly had 
become too powerful vis-a-vis the executive. In any 
case, it was decided to convene, for the first time, the 
Senate and to make certain changes in the Con- 
stitution. A Constituent Assembly was duly convened 
on 21 April 1949. An additional article (asl-i 
ilhdfii) made provision in certain cases for revision 
of the Fundamental Law. The drafters of the 
Fundamental Law and Supplementary Fundamental 
Law had presumably included no provision of this 
sort in the Law (except Article 21 of the Fundamental 
Law, which permits the modification or abrogation 
of any article regulating the functions of the 
ministries with the approval of the Assembly), not 
because they were unaware of the fact that most 
western constitutions contained such provisions, 
but because they did not wish to give any opportu- 
nity to the court party to alter the constitution. 
Article 48 of the Fundamental Law, which gave the 
Senate the right in certain circumstances to dissolve 
the National Consultative Assembly, as emended 
by the Constituent Assembly of April 1949 enables 
the Shah to dissolve the two chambers separately or 
together, subject to his stating the reason and 
simultaneously ordering new elections so that the 
new chamber or chambers may convene within a 
period of three months; dissolution may not be 
ordered twice for the same reason. On 9 May 1961 
the Shah used the powers thus granted to him and 
dissolved the National Consultative Assembly. 

On 8 May 1957 a joint meeting of the National 
Assembly and Senate was convened under the 
additional Article of 1949 to emend the constitution, 
and in due course Article 4 of the Fundamental Law 
was revised, raising the number of deputies to the 



i figure of 200; Article 5 was emended, 
inter alia, to extend the legislative term of the 
National Consultative Assembly from two years to 
four. Article 7 concerning the quorum for debates 
and voting was also emended. Lastly Article 49 of 
the Supplementary Fundamental Law was supple- 
mented as stated above. 

Article 46 of the Fundamental Law lays down that 
after the constitution of the Senate all proposals must 
be approved by both Assemblies. Article 34 of the 
Supplementary Fundamental Law, however, states 
that "the deliberations of the Senate are ineffective 
when the National Consultative Assembly is not in 
session". Proposals may originate in either assembly, 
except that financial matters "belonged exclusively 
to the National Consultative Assembly. The decision 
of the Assembly in respect to the aforesaid proposals, 
shall be made known to the Senate, so that it in 
turn may communicate its observations to the 
National Consultative Assembly, but the latter, after 
due discussion, is free to accept or reject these 
observations of the Senate". The responsibility of 
the National Consultative Assembly for financial 
matters is reaffirmed by Article 27 of the Supple- 
mentary Fundamental Law, which, as stated above, 
lays down that the enactment and approval of laws 
concerning the revenue and expenditure of the 
kingdom are among the special functions of the 
National Consultative Assembly. Article 27 also lays 
down that "the explanation and interpretation of the 
laws is among the special duties of the National 
Consultative Assembly". The debates of the Assembly 
are normally public (Art. 13 of the Fundamental 
Law); though Article 34 makes provision for secret 
sessions. Bills other than those on financial matters, 
which originate with the government, must first be 
laid before the Senate by the responsible ministers 
or the Prime Minister, and after acceptance there by 
a majority of votes must then be approved by the 
National Consultative Assembly; when any measure 
is proposed by a member of the Assembly it can only 
be discussed when at least fifteen members shall 
approve the discussion (Art. 39 of the Fundamental 



e Rules of Procedure of 
Assembly and Article 82 of 
of the Senate lay down that 
1 the Senate or the National 
t be signed by at least 



Law); Article 13 of 
National Consultative A 
the Rules of Procedure c 
Bills which originate in 
Consultative Assembly r 
fifteen members, except 
signed by less than fifteen Senators may be voted on 
after reference to a committee. By Articles 1, 2 and 
3 of the Civil Code bills passed by the two houses are 
published within three days of receiving the royal 
assent in the Official Gazette and become law ten 
days thereafter in Tehran and ten days plus one 
day for every six farsakhs in the provinces, unless 
special arrangements are laid down in the law itself. 
One of the most important functions of the 
National Consultative Assembly is the fixing and 
approving of the budget, which power it is accorded 
by Articles 18 of the Fundamental Law and 96 of the 
Supplementary Fundamental Law. The Minister of 
Finance according to Articles 12-17 of the Law for 
the General Finances {Kanun-i mufidsabdt-i '■umumi) 
of 10 Isfand 1312/1 March 1934 must submit this to 
the Assembly annually by 1 Day (23-4 December) 
and they must pass the budget by 15 Isfand (6-7 
March). During and after the Second World War 
this provision was often contravened in that the 
Assembly refused to pass the budget as a whole and 
merely authorized the payment of a proportion of 
the budget at intervals throughout the financial 



■OR 655 

year. Under Articles 101 and 102 of the Supple- 
mentary Fundamental Law the National Consul- 
tative Assembly is given power to appoint a Financial 
Commission which shall be "appointed to inspect 
and analyse the accounts of the Department of 
Finance and to liquidate the accounts of all debtors 
and creditors of the Treasury. It is especially deputed 
to see that no item of expenditure fixed in the Budget 
exceeds the amount specified, or is changed or 
altered, and that each item is expended in the 
proper manner. It shall likewise inspect and analyse 
the different accounts of all the departments of 
state, collect the documentary proofs of the ex- 
penditure indicated in such accounts, and submit 
to the National Consultative Assembly a complete 
statement of the accounts of the kingdom, accom- 
panied by its own observations". Article 94 further 
states that "no tax shall be established save in 
accordance with the law;" and Article 99 that "Save 
in such cases as are explicitly excepted by the law, 
nothing can on any pretext be demanded from the 
people save under the categories of state, provincial 
and municipal taxes". These provisions reflect the 
anxiety of the drafters of the Constitution to bring 
order into the financial affairs of the country and to 
relieve the population of the burden of extra- 
ordinary and irregular levies to which they had 
formerly been subject. 

Article 33 of the Supplementary Fundamental 
Law gives both Assemblies the right to investigate 
and examine every affair of state. Ministers may be 
questioned by members of both houses, provided 
that the speaker gives the responsible minister prior 
information of the question; an answer must be 
given within one week. The government and indivi- 
dual ministers may be interpellated by members of 
both houses, provided a written request is made to 
the speaker. Article 67 of the Supplementary Fun- 
damental Law states "If the National Consultative 
Assembly or the Senate shall, by an absolute 
majority, declare itself dissatisfied with the cabinet, 
or with one particular minister, that cabinet or 
minister shall resign their or his ministerial functions". 

Ministers may not accept a salaried office other 
than their own (Art. 68 of the Supplementary 
Fundamental Law). Their number is to be laid down 
by law according to the requirement of the time 
(Art. 62). No one may become a minister unless he 
is a Muslim by religion, a Persian by birth, and a 
Persian subject (Art. 58). Sons, brothers, and uncles 
of the Shah may not become ministers (Art. 59). 
Ministers are responsible, individually and collec- 
tively, to the National Consultative Assembly and 
the Senate (Article 61) and may be called to account 
or brought to trial by them (Art. 29 of the Funda- 
mental Law and Arts. 65 and 69 of the Supplemen- 
tary Fundamental Law). Article 64 states that 
Ministers cannot divest themselves of their respon- 
sibility by pleading verbal or written orders from 
the Shah. A tendency to do so nevertheless emerged 
during the reign of Rida Shah and has again appeared 
in recent years. The internal organization of the 
Assembly is not based on political parties; the 
deputies are divided into groups or "fractions". 
Moreover, since the government is not composed of 
members of the Assembly there is no clear-cut 
division into a pro-government party and an 
opposition. In the second and third legislative 
sessions the majority of deputies belonged either to 
the IHidaliyyun Party or the Democrat Party. An 
attempt was made in the abortive elections of i960 
to conduct them on a two-party basis, two parties 



656 DU< 

having been formed under the inspiration of the 
court, the Milli and the Mardum parties, whose 
functions were to be respectively that of His 
Majesty's Government and His Majesty's Opposition. 
The experiment was not successful. 

The regulations governing the election to the first 
National Assembly were laid down in the Electoral 
Law of 20 Radjab 1324/9 September 1906. The 
electors were divided into six classes: (i) princes and 
the Kadjar tribe, (ii) notables (a'ydn wa ashrdf), 
(iii) '■vlama' and students of the religious schools, 
(iv) merchants, (v) landowners and peasants, and 
(vi) members of the trade-guilds. Each elector had 
one vote and could vote in one class only, but the 
classes were not compelled to elect a deputy from 
their own class or guild. The persons so elected then 
assembled in the chief town of the province and 
elected members for the National Consultative 
Assembly according to the number specified in the 
law for each province. In Tehran elections were direct, 
the number of deputies to be as follows : Princes and 
members of the Kadjar family, four; '■vlama' and 
students of religious schools, four; merchants, ten; 
landowners and peasants, ten; and trade-guilds, 
thirty-two. Women were debarred from being 
elected and from voting. The minimum age of an 
elector, who had to be a Persian subject, was to be 
twenty-five years; and certain minimum property 
qualifications were also laid down. Deputies were 
to be elected for two years. Those elected had, inter 
alia, also to be Persian subjects of Persian extraction; 
be able to read and write Persian; be locally known; 
not be in government employ; and their age not less 
than thirty or more than seventy. The law also set 
up temporary councils to supervise the elections, 
and laid down regulations for the conduct of the 
elections, which were to be carried out in each 
locality on a date specified by the local governor. 

This law was superseded by the Electoral Law of 
12 Djumada II 1327/1 July 1909. This fixed the 
number of deputies at 120; and provided for one 
representative each of the Shahsavan, Kashkal, 
Khamsa (of Fars), Turkoman, and Bakhtiyarl 
tribes, and the Armenians, Chaldeans (Nestorian 
Christians), Zoroastrians, and Jews. The minimum 
age of electors was reduced to twenty but a property 
qualification was introduced. Voting was to be 
secret. Elections were to be in two stages. A necessary 
qualification for election, except in the case of 
deputies representing the Christian, Zoroastrian or 
Jewish communities, was profession of Islam. 
Princes, i.e., the sons, brothers and uncles of the 
reigning Shah, were debarred from being deputies. 
This law was in due course superseded by the Law of 
28 Shawwal 1329/21 November 1911, which fixed 
the number of deputies at 136, to be elected from 
eighty-two electoral districts, some of which were, 
therefore, plural constituencies. This law abolished 
the property qualification for electors but laid down 
that they must be local persons or have lived for at 
least the six months preceding the election in the 
district in which they would vote. All elections were 
to be direct. This law forms the basis of later electoral 
laws, one of which, that of 10 Mihr 1313/2 October 
1934, abolished the special tribal constituencies. 
Further an amendment to Article 4 of the Con- 
stitution made in 1957 raised the number of deputies 
to two hundred (see above). Five months before the 
legislative period of the National Consultative 
Assembly comes to an end a farmdn is issued by the 
Shah for new elections, after which preliminary 
s for the holding of elections including the 



setting up of supervisory councils in the electoral 
districts are taken. 

The law for the execution of the regulations for 
the election of the Senate passed by the National 
Consultative Assembly on 14 Urdlbihisht 1328/4 May 
1949 laid down inter alia that senators were to 
be elected "by two degrees" by male suffrage. The 
term of the Senate was fixed by this law at six 
years (whereas Article 50 of the Fundamental Law 
had fixed it at two years). The Senate is opened by 
the Shah as soon as two thirds of the members have 
assembled in Tehran. On 23 October 1952 a bill was 
passed limiting the Senate's term to two years. 
According to this bill electors must be at least 
twenty-five years old and have lived in or have 
dwelt for at least the preceding six months in the 
constituency where they vote. Members of the armed 
forces may not vote. Senators must be at least forty 
years old; they must be Muslims, and live in or be 
known in the district for which they are elected. 
They must be chosen from (i) the religious classes of 
the first rank; (ii) persons who have been deputies 
for at least three legislative sessions; (iii) persons 
who have the position of minister, ambassador, 
governor-general, public prosecutor, head of a 
tribunal of the Court of Cassation, or had at least 
twenty years' service in the Ministry of Justice; 
(iv) retired officers of the rank of field-marshal 
(sipahbud), general (sarlaskkar) , or major-general 
(sartip) ; (v) university professors who have held such 
office for at least ten years; (vi) landowners and 
merchants who pay at least 500,000 rs. in direct 
taxes; and (vii) certain classes of attorneys. Senators 
are precluded from accepting government appoint- 
ments and must resign if they accept such offices. 

The Supplementary Fundamental Law in Articles 
90-93 makes provision for the establishment of 
provincial councils (andjuman-i aydlati wa wildyati) 
to be elected by the people to "exercise complete 
supervision over all reforms connected with the 
public interest, always provided that they observe 
the limitations prescribed by the law". In the early 
period of the constitution provincial councils were 
set up in many areas but the practice fell into 
abeyance after the restoration of the constitution in 
1909. Since the Second World War there has been 
from time to time talk of the setting up of some form 
of provincial councils. 

Those who had prepared the way for constitutional 
reform in their published works and in the discussions 
of the secret societies which preceded the consti- 
tutional revolution had emphasized the need for 
equality before the law. This was provided for in 
the section of the Supplementary Fundamental Law 
which concerns the rights of the people (Arts. 8-25). 
Article 8 lays down that the people shall enjoy equal 
rights before the law. Article 9 that "All individuals 
are protected and safeguarded in respect to their lives, 
property, homes, and honour, from every kind of 
interference, and none shall molest them save in such 
way as the laws of the land shall determine". Article 
10 lays down that "No one can be summarily 
arrested, save flagrante delicto in the commission of 
some crime or misdemeanour, except on the written 
authority of the president of a tribunal of justice 
given in conformity with the law. Even in such case 
the accused must immediately, or at latest in the 
course of the next twenty-four hours, be informed 
and notified of the nature of his offence". Further, 
Article 14 provides that "No Persian can be exiled 
from the country, or prevented from residing in any 
part thereof, save in such cases as the law may 



explicitly determine". It was, perhaps, a major 
advance that such principles should be clearly 
formulated and written into the constitution, even 
though, like various other provisions of the consti- 
tution, they should be from time to time ignored. 
Bibliography: E. G. Browne, The Persian 
Revolution of igo5-g, Cambridge 1910; idem, 
The Persian constitutional movement, in Proc. Brit. 
Acad., viii; L. Lockhart, The constitutional laws of 
Persia, in ME J, 1959; A. K. S. Lambton, Secret 
societies and the Persian revolution, in St. Antony's 
Papers, iv, 1958; Persian political societies 1906-11, 
in St. Antony's Papers, xvi, 1963; N. R. Keddie, 
Religion and irreligion in early Iranian nationalism, 
in Comparative Studies in Society and History, 
iv/3 April 1962; W. Morgan Shuster, The 
strangling of Persia, London 1912; E. Aubin, La 
Perse d'aujourd'hui, Paris 1908; Kazimzada, 
Hukuk-i Asdsi, Tehran 1952-3; Nazim al-Islam 
KirmanI, Ta'rikh-i biddri-i Irdniydn, Tehran n.d.; 
Firaydun Adamiyyat, Fikr-i Azddi, Tehran 1961; 
Sayyid Hasan Taklzada, Ta'rikh-i awd'il-i inkildb 
wa mashrutiyyat, Tehran 1959; Ta'rikh-i madjlis-i 
milli-i Iran, supplement no. 5 to Kama, Berlin 
1919-20; Mahmfld Farhad Mu'tamid, Ta'rikh-i 
siydsi-i dawra-i saddrat-i Mirzd Husayn Khan 
Mushir al-Dawla, Tehran 1947; Muhammad 
Muhit Tabataba'i, Madimu'a-i dthdr-i Mirzd 
Malkam Khan. Tehran 1948-9; MIrza Muhammad 
Khan Madid al-Mulk, Risdla-i Mad±diyya, Tehran 
1942; Aka MIrza Aka Fursat, Makdldt-i Hlmi wa 
siydsi, Tehran n.d.; Mushir al-Dawla, Yak kalima, 
Rasht 1909; Shaykh Muhammad Husayn Nalni, 
Tanbih al-umma wa tanzih al-milla dar asds wa 
usul-i mashrutiyyat yd fiukumat, ed. Sayyid 
Mahmud TalikanI, Tehran n.d.; MIrza Salih, 
[Narrative of a journey to England from A. H. 
1230 to 1235], B.M., Add. 24,034; MIrza Khanlar 
Khan I'tisam al-Mulk, Dimokrdsi-i Inglistdn in 
Sukhan, Bahman 1323/1944; Malik al-Shu c ara 
Bahar, Ta'rikh-i mukhtasar-i ahzdb-i siydsi, Tehran 
1944-5; Ahmad Kasrawl, Ta'rikh-i mashruta-i 
Iran, Tehran; idem, Ta'rikh-i hidjdahsdla-i Adhar- 
baydjdn, 6 vols., Tehran 1933-41; Mahdi Malik- 
zada, Ta'rikh-i inkildb-i mashrutiyyat-i Iran, 
7 vols., Tehran 1949-53; idem, Zindagi-i Malik 
al-Mutakallimin, Tehran 1946; Ismail Amir 
Khlzl. Kiydm-i Adharbdydidn wa Sattdr Khan, 
Tabriz i960; Nurullah Danishvar 'Alawl, Ta'rikh-i 
mashrutiyyat-i Iran wa djunbish-i watan-parastdn-i 
Isfahan wa Bakhtiydri, Tehran 1956; Karim 
Tahirzada Bihzad, Kiydm-i Adharbdydidn dar 
inkildb-i mashrutiyyat-i Iran, Tehran n.d.; C A1I 
Dlwsalar, Yddddshthd-yi ta'rikhi radii' ba fath-i 
Tehran wa urdu-yi bark, Tehran 1957; Yahya 
DawlatabadI, Haydt-i Yahya, 3 vols., Tehran n.d.; 
<Abd Allah Mustawfl, Sharh-i zindagi-i man, 3 
vols., Tehran 1945-6; Abu '1-Hasan Buzurg Umid, 
Az mast kih bar mast, Tehran 1955; Khan Malik 
Sasan, Siydsatgardn-i dawra-i Kddidr, Tehran i960; 
Husayn Saml'i (Adlb al-Saltana), Awwalin kiydm-i 
mukaddas-i milli dar djang-i bayn al-milali-i awwal, 
Tehran 1954; M. Khodayar-Mohebbi, L'influence 
religieuse sur le droit constitutional de Vlran, 
Sorbonne thesis 1957 (unpublished). 

(A. K. S. Lambton) 

The independence of Afghanistan having been 
recognized by the Treaty of Rawalpindi (8 August 
1919), Aman Allah concluded agreements with his 
neighbours and other powers confirming the inter- 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



OR 657 

national status of his country, in the intention of 
endowing the state with stable and modern in- 
stitutions, in the first place a Constitution. The first 
step in this direction was, in 1921, the Law of 
Fundamental Organizations (nizdm-ndma-i tash- 
kildt-i asdsiyya-i Afghanistan), which established 
the general organization of the State (see L. Bouvat, 
apud J. Castagne, Notes sur la politique extirieure de 
V Afghanistan, in RMM, lviii (1921), 26 ff.) and was 
to serve as the basis of the Fundamental Law which, 
drawn up under the inspiration of the Turk Kadri 
Bey, former chief of police in Istanbul who had 
settled in Kabul in 1921 and died there in 1924, was 
unanimously approved by the members of a Loya 
Diirga (Popular Assembly) of the eastern provinces 
and by the ministers in April 1923; articles 2, 9 and 
24 were revised in June- July 1924 by another Ldya 
Diirga including representatives of the entire country. 

Drawn up no doubt in Pashto, but published in 
Persian, this Fundamental Law (nizdm-ndma-i 
asdsi-yi dawlat-i 'aliyya-i Afghanistan) comprises 
73 articles divided as follows: general principles 
(arts. 1-7), rights of citizens (arts. 8-24), provisions 
relating to ministers (arts. 25-35) and officials 
(arts. 36-8), to councils (arts. 39-49), tribunals 
(arts. 50-5), to the Supreme Court (arts. 56-7), to 
finance (arts. 58-62), to provincial administration 
(arts. 63-7), and miscellaneous (arts. 68-73). 

Article 1 affirms the independence and unity of 
the national territory, whose capital is Kabul, 
according to art. 3 which also provides that all the 
inhabitants of the country are equal before the 
government without distinction of religion and sect 
(art. 8) ; art. 2 specifies, however, that the religion of 
Afghanistan is Islam, and that only "the other 
religions of Hindus and of Jews" living within the 
territory are protected on condition that public 
order be not disturbed; it is interesting to note that 
the Loya Djirga, composed of 'ulamd', sayyids and 
shaykhs and convened in June-July 1924, brought 
in an amendment to this article providing that the 
official system should be that of the HanafI school, 
and, moreover, that Hindus and Jews were compelled 
to pay the djizya [q.v.] and to wear the distinguishing 
emblems ('aldmat-i mumayyiza) of dhimmis. Slavery 
was abolished and individual liberty guaranteed 
to all citizens (arts. 9-10), the amendment of 1924 
adding, however, that they were restricted concerning 
religious matters. All Afghans are equal before the 
shari'-a and the laws of the State (arts. 16-8); torture 
and similar punishments were abolished, and none 
could be subjected to a punishment not provided for 
in the shari'-a or in laws enacted in conformity with 
the provisions of the latter (art. 24, modified). 
Freedom of the press (art. 11) is subject to regulation 
and limited for the foreign press, while freedom of 
association (art. 12) is recognized only for business, 
industrial and agricultural concerns. Freedom of 
education is guaranteed to Afghans (arts. 14-5), and 
compulsory elementary education is provided for 
(art. 68), but foreigners are not authorized to open 
schools, although systems of instruction connected 
with the beliefs and rites of the non-Muslim subjects 
{dhimmis) or protected foreigners (musta'min) may 
be tolerated. Right of ownership (art. 19) and the 
inviolability of domicile (art. 20) are guaranteed, as 
well as the secrecy of the mails (art. 73), but the 
wording of this article could be interpreted restrict- 
ively. Citizens may make a complaint against any 
infringement of the shari'-a or of the laws committed 
by an official or another person, and may in this 
case even appeal to the sovereign (art. 13). 



H.M. the Padshah (also called amir, etc.) is the 
servant and protector of Islam and the sovereign of 
all subjects of Afghanistan (art. 5) ; in consideration 
of his services, a hereditary monarchy is created, the 
nation agreeing to raise to the sultanate his male 
heirs in the male line (art. 4). The sovereign's 
prerogatives are as follows: his name is mentioned 
in the Friday khufba, the coinage bears his portrait, 
he confers decorations, approves laws and announces 
their effective date, nominates and dismisses 
ministers, nominates to public office, is responsible 
for the exercise of the laws, commands the armed 
forces, declares war and concludes peace, and signs 
all treaties; he possesses the right of amnesty and 
pardon (art. 7). 

The ministers are responsible to the sovereign 
(art. 31) and may be arraigned before the Supreme 
Court (arts. 33-4). They give a public account, at 
the audience which takes place before the inde- 
pendence festival, of work accomplished during the 
year (arts. 25-7). 

For the details of ministerial organization the 
Fundamental Law refers to the Law of Fundamental 
Organizations, which provided for ten ministries 
including a Council of State and two autonomous 
administrations (Posts and Telegraphs, and Public 
Health) ; the Council of State is in charge of reform, 
services to the state, and tribunals. 

The Fundamental Law makes no provisions for a 
parliament, but for a Consultative Council of State 
(hay^at-i shurd-i dawlat) at Kabul and Councils of 
Consultation (madjlis-i mashwara or mushdwara) 
with representatives of the government in the 
provinces, at all stages up to district level (art. 39) ; 
these latter Councils consist of officials set up by the 
Law of Fundamental Organizations and elected 
members in equal number, while the Council with 
its headquarters at Kabul is composed half of 
members nominated by the sovereign, the other half 
being also elected by the people (arts. 40-1). Art. 42 
stipulates the functions of these councils: matters 
submitted to the government representatives are 
examined and, if necessary, transmitted to the 
ministry concerned; if the government represen- 
tatives do not reply, the Councils of Consultation 
may apply to the Consultative Council who examine 
the matters and transmit them, with their comments, 
to the competent ministry. 

Laws, in the drafting of which it is necessary to 
take into consideration the practices, needs and 
provisions of the shari'a, are examined by the Con- 
sultative Council, sent to the Council of Ministers, 
and put in operation after they have received the 
approval of the ministers and the sovereign (art. 46). 
The Consultative Council studies the budget prepared 
by the Finance Ministry, as well as foreign contracts 
and obligations (arts. 48-9). 

As regards the judiciary power, the Fundamental 
Law confines itself to establishing certain guarantees 
(publicity of proceedings, the rights of the defence, 
the independence of the judges who are not to allow 
proceedings to be delayed, arts. 50-3), 'the com- 
petence of tribunals (art. 54) being established by 
the Law of Fundamental Organizations, which 
provides for: justices of the peace, tribunals of first 
instance, courts of appeal and a Court of Cassation. 
Extraordinary jurisdictions are forbidden (art. 55), 
but a Supreme Court is instituted for the trial of 
ministers (arts. 56-7). 

Provisions relating to finance (arts. 58-62) and the 
institution of an Audit Office (art. 61) are followed by 
details on the administration of the provinces (arts. 



63-7). The following articles treat of the revision of the 
Fundamental Law, which must receive two-thirds 
of the votes in the National Consultative Council 
(art. 70), and of the interpretation and drafting of 
laws (art. 71). 

It is obvious that the constitutional work under- 
taken under the reign of Aman Allah represented a 
considerable progress towards the modernization 
and democratization of the country. The people 
began to participate modestly in political life by the 
election of representatives to various councils, 
whose role was, it is true, merely consultative; on 
the legislative and executive sides the government 
and the sovereign exercised a preponderant power, 
and the judiciary itself, although more independent, 
was not free from governmental authority, since 
the Court of Appeal was presided over by the 
minister of justice and the chief %ddi was an ex 
officio member of it. One may notice that this 
Constitution is not exactly a slavish imitation of 
western models, and has a certain originality; there 
is, indeed, no provision for assuring the Islamic 
nature of the laws, but the duty of conforming to the 
shari'-a is underlined at several places, and the 
provisions concerning the Hanafi practice are 
striking; even more striking is the xenophobia and 
the sort of rigorism which appear in the retention 
of the djizya and the wearing of the zunndr imposed 
on some non-Muslims resident on Afghan territory. 

To what extent this Constitution was applied is 
not exactly known, since many incidents followed 
in the country's internal affairs. In the summer of 
1928 after Aman Allah's return from a visit to 
Europe Afghanistan was troubled by a serious 
movement of revolt on the part of tribes instigated 
by mullds hostile to certain forms of westernization, 
though not, indeed, to the provisions of the Con- 
stitution. The revolt soon spread to the eastern and 
northern provinces, and Kabul fell into the hands of 
Ba6ca-i Sakaw who proclaimed himself amir and 
took the name of Habib Allah. Aman Allah having 
given up resistance and his throne, Nadir Khan, 
who was related to the royal family, continued the 
struggle against the usurper and succeeded in 
recapturing Kabul in October 1929; proclaimed 
sovereign under the title of Nadir Shah, he made 
great efforts to govern the country with wisdom and 
prudence and, two years later, on 31 October 1931, 
promulgated a new Constitution (in Pashto and in 
Persian: usul-i asdsi-yi dawlat-i '■aliyya-i Afghani- 
stan), which reiterated the greater part of the 
provisions of the Fundamental Law of 1923, but 
differed substantially from it by the creation of a 
Senate (madjlis-i a'-yan) and the definitive institu- 
tion of a National Consultative Assembly (madjlis-i 
shurd-yi milli), already created by a Dprga in August- 
September 1928, confirmed by another Djirga in 
1930, and inaugurated by the Shah in October 1930. 

The new Constitution comprises no articles 
(instead of 73) arranged in the following way: 
general provisions (arts. 1-4), rights and duties of the 
sovereign (arts. 5-8), rights of citizens (arts. 9-26), 
organization of the National Consultative Assembly 
(arts. 27-66), of the Senate (arts. 67-70), of the 
Councils of Consultation in the provinces (arts. 71-2), 
rights and duties of ministers (arts. 73-83), and of 
officials (arts. 84-6), tribunals (arts. 87-94), the 
Supreme Court (arts. 95-6), finance (arts. 97-101), 
provincial administration (arts. 102-5), the army 
(arts. 106-8), and miscellaneous provisions (arts. 
109-10). 

On the whole the Constitutional matters are 



better arranged than in the Fundamental Law of 
1923, but many articles are retained almost entirely. 
The general provisions differ little; however, art. 1 
(old art. 2) imposes the obligation on the sovereign 
to follow the Hanafi school, and no longer speaks of 
diizya and the distinguishing emblems of dhimmis. The 
wording of art. 5 (old art. 4) is slightly modified: 
the monarchy is hereditary in the family of Nadir 
Shah, and it is he who nominates his successor; he 
must now take the oath (art. 6) according to a 
solemn formula, and a civil list is allotted to him 
(art. 8). Art. 23 (old art. n) is more liberal towards the 
foreign press, although art. 21 (old art. 14) provides 
that the teaching only of Islamic sciences is free. 

The National Consultative Assembly is composed 
of 106 deputies elected for three years; they must 
take an oath and enjoy parliamentary immunity. The 
Assembly is charged with approving laws and 
regulations, financial laws, grants and concessions 
of all kinds, the construction of railways, etc. 
Members of the Senate (arts. 67-70) are nominated 
by the sovereign; they are a counterbalance to the 
Assembly in the approval of laws either before or 
after that body; this Senate was inaugurated in 
November 1931. The Councils of Consultation 
persist in the provinces, but they are now elected 
(art. 71). Provisions regarding ministers are slightly 
different (arts. 73-83) in that they are chosen by the 
prime minister with the sovereign's approval, and 
are responsible to the Assembly and not to the 
Shah; in addition, they no longer have to give 
public reports on their work. On the judicial side 
a distinction is made between civil tribunals 
(mahakim-i '■adliyya) and religious tribunals (mahd- 
kim-i sharHyya). The Audit Office (art. ioo, old 
art. 61) is not expressly provided for; on the other 
hand three articles (106-8) are devoted to the army; it 
is there laid down that foreigners are not admitted to 
it except in the capacities of surgeons or instructors. 
In general the second Afghan Constitution marks 
a noticeable progress from the former; it appears 
not only more liberal but also more democratic in 
that the people have their elected representatives 
in the assemblies which, indeed, have especially a 
consultative part to play but participate more 
intimately in the political life of the nation. 

Bibliography: Constitution of 1923: resume 
in OM, iv (1924), 196-9; A. Giannini, La costitu- 
zione afghdna, in OM, xi/6 (1931), 265-74 with 
Ital. trans, of text, ibid. 276-83; idem, Le costi- 
tuzioni degli Stati del Vicino Oriente, Rome 1931, 
13-41; Joseph Schwager, Die Entwicklung Afgha- 
nistan als Staat und seine zwischenstaatlichen 
Beziehungen, Leipzig 1932 (text and commentary). 
— Constitution of 1930: E. Rossi, La costituzione 
afghana del 31 octobre 1930, in OM, xiii/i (1933), 
1-6 with Ital. trans, of the text, ibid. 7-15, electoral 
law 15-9, and resume of the regulations of the 
Assembly 19-20; Engl, trans, in Muhammad b. 
Ahmad, Constitutions of Eastern countries, in 
Select constitutions of the world 1 , Karachi 195 1, i, 
48-59; Fr. trans, in Documentation Francaise, 
L' Afghanistan moderne, no. 1112, 3-39. — See also 
S. Beck, Das afghanische Strafgesetzbuch votn 
Jahre 1924 mit dem Zusatz votn Jahre 1925, in 
WI, xi (1928), 67-157; L. Massignon, Annuaire du 
monde musulman', Paris 1955; for information on 
constitutional developments, D. N. Wilber (ed.), 
Afghanistan. Human Relations Area Files, New 
Haven (Conn.) 1956. See also the bibl. given 
by A. Giannini and by E. Rossi, and the art. 



OR 659 

Next to Egypt, c Irak may be regarded as the 
first Arab state to be organized along modern 
constitutional lines after World War I. Her parlia- 
mentary system was consciously modelled, at least 
in form, after the British system. The draft consti- 
tution was prepared (1922-3) by a mixed committee 
of 'Iraki and British members, drawing its provisions 
from the constitutions of the Ottoman Empire, 
Australia, New Zealand and others. The draft was 
submitted to a Constituent Assembly for approval 
and, with some minor modifications, was passed and 
promulgated on 21 March 1925. It was formally 
called the Organic Law (al-Kanun al-Asdsi) of 'Irak. 

The constitution provided for a monarchical 
system, although the monarchy was instituted 
before the constitution was drafted. The King was 
not responsible. He enjoyed wide powers, such as the 
selection and dismissal of the Prime Minister (the 
latter power was given to him in the amendment of 
1943), he confirmed laws, ordered their promulgation, 
and supervised their execution. He could also 
proclaim martial law, order general elections, 
appoint senators and diplomatic representatives, 
and convoke Parliament, presumably upon the 
lation of the Cabinet. When Parliament 
the King issued decrees with the 
; Cabinet for the maintenance of 
public order and the expenditure of public money 
not provided by the budget. These decrees had the 
force of laws, provided they were not contrary to 
the provisions of the constitution, and were laid 
before Parliament at its first session 

The Cabinet was made up of the Prime Minister 
and a number of other ministers (the number was 
not to exceed seven before the amendment of 1943). 
All members of the Cabinet were members of Par- 
liament (if a person appointed minister was not 
already a member of Parliament, he either had to 
become a member of Parliament within six months 
or resign). The Cabinet was responsible to the Lower 
House; if that House passed a vote of no confidence 

Legislative power was vested in Parliament and 
the King. Parliament was composed of two houses — 
an appointed Senate (Madilis al-A'ydn) whose 
membership should not exceed one-fourth of the 
total number of the Lower House, and an elected 
Chamber of Deputies (Madilis al-Nuwwdb). The term 
of the Lower House was four years, including four 
ordinary sessions, the duration of each session being 
six months. Legislation was initiated in Parliament 
or proposed by the Government (in the case of the 
annual budget, it was always proposed by the 
Government). Draft laws, when passed by both 
Houses, became laws only after being confirmed by 
the King. The King could confirm or reject legisla- 
tion, stating reasons for so doing, within a period 
of three months. Members of Parliament were 
immune and had the right to interrogate Ministers 
and ask for information. The meetings of Parliament 
were open to the public, unless sessions in camera 
were decided upon by the Government or the 
members of Parliament (on a request by four 
senators or ten deputies). 

From the establishment of the 'Iraki government 



} the a 



a of t: 






ional 



c Irak had 62 cabinets, including 
government in 1920 and the present (April 1963) 
cabinet. Parliament has met regularly since the 
general election of 1925. There had been some 



fifteen general elections held till the abolition of 
the Parliamentary system. 

The revolution of 14 July 1958, produced by a 
growing dissatisfaction with the monarchy and the 
Parliamentary system, abrogated the Constitution 
of 1925. The newly established Council of Sovereignty, 
composed of three members, issued a decree establish- 
ing a republican regime for 'Irak and promising the 
calling of a constituent assembly to draw up a new 
constitution for the country. In the meantime there 
is no parliament. Decrees, having the force of laws, 
are issued by the Cabinet and approved by the 
Council of Sovereignty. (On the Arab Union, see 



below, 



tviii). 



Bibliography.'N.G. Davison, The Constitution 
of Iraq, in Journal of Comparative Legislation and 
International Law, 3rd series, vii (1925), 41-52; 
C. H. Hooper, The Constitutional Law of Iraq, 
Baghdad 1929; A. Giannini, La costituzione 
dell'Iraq, in OM, x (1930), 525-46; P. W. Ireland, 
Iraq, London 1937; S. H. Longrigg, Iraq: iooo- 
J950, London 1953; Muhammad 'Aziz, al-Nizdm 
al-siydsi fi 'l-'Irdk, Baghdad 1954; M. Khadduri, 
Independent Iraq', London 1958; G. Grassmuck, 
The electoral process in Iraq, J952-J95*, in ME J, 
xiv (i960), 397-415; c Abd al-Razzak al-Hasani, 
Ta'rikh al-wizdrat al-'irdkiyya, i-x, Sayda 1933-61. 
(M. Khadduri) 

vii. — Sa'udi Arabia 
As early as 31 August 1926 the kingdom of the 
Hidjaz provided itself with a "Constitution" com- 
prising 9 sections and 79 articles, but this has few 
points in common with the constitutions of Arab 
countries studied in this article. By virtue of this 
text the Arab State of the Hidjaz was "a constitu- 
tional Muslim monarchy" (art. 2) in which "all the 
administration is in the hands of H.M. King c Abd 
al- c Aziz I", but the latter is "bound by the laws of 
the shari'a" (art. 5). The judicial norms must conform 
to the Book of God, to the Sunna of His Prophet, and 
the conduct of the Companions and of the early pious 
generations (art. 6). The king employs at his own 
expense a viceroy (nd'ib c dmm) and as many directors 
and service chiefs as he judges necessary (art. 7). 
The viceroy represents the supreme authority and 
is responsible to the king (art. 8). Section III deals 
with the affairs of the kingdom, which are divided 
into 6 groups: shari'a affairs, internal affairs, 
foreign affairs, financial affairs, public instruction, 
military affairs (art. 9). Shari'a affairs include 
everything which pertains to religious jurisdiction 
(al-hadd? al-shar'i), the two Holy Cities, wakfs, 
mosques and all religious establishments (art. 10). 
As regards internal affairs, art. 14 provides for a 
commission for the control of the pilgrimage. Arts. 
17 ff., on foreign affairs, were modified on 19 
December 1930 when the directorate of foreign 
affairs was transformed into a ministry. Section IV 
institutes a consultative council (madjlis shurd) 
nominated by the king (arts. 28 ff.), the admini- 
strative councils of Djudda and Medina (art. 32 ff.) 
which comprise officials and notables nominated by 
the king, village and tribal councils (art. 41 ff-)- 
A department of audit is provided for (art. 43) as 
well as a general inspectorate of officials (art. 46 ff.). 
Section VII deals with employees of the State, 
section VIII with municipal councils, and the last 
section with administrative committees of munici- 

A royal decree of 29 January 1927 raised Nadjd 
to the status of a kingdom and unified it with the 



Hidjaz. A further royal decree of 18 September 1932 
created the kingdom of Sa'udi Arabia, changing 
nothing in the previous administration, although 
art. 6 of this decree provides that the council of 
ministers shall immediately draft a new constitution; 
it seems, however, that this provision has remained 
a dead letter. 

In practice the king retained direct control over 
religious, military and diplomatic affairs, and 
partially delegated some of his powers to members 
of his family or his entourage. The consultative 
council remained purely theoretical, although the 
assembly of tribal chiefs met yearly at al-Riyad. On 
9 October 1953 king <Abd al- c AzIz Ibn Sa c ud in- 
stituted for the first time a true council of ministers 
presided over by the amir Sa'ud, who ascended the 
throne on 9 November, after the death of his father. 
At the time of the first meeting of the council of 
ministers, 8 March 1954, the king expressed the wish 
that "the government would manage the affairs of the 
country taking account of the Kur'anic teachings", 
and on the following 17 March two royal edicts 
established the status of this council of ministers and 
of connected offices; no movement developed towards 
the drafting of a constitution of a modern type. 
However, on 30 December i960, prince Talal 
declared that the government of Sa c udi Arabia had 
the intention of providing the country with a Con- 
stitution and of creating a National Assembly, and 
two days later Mecca Radio announced that King 
Sa c ud had promulgated a constitution comprising a 
preamble and 200 articles; a text was put out by 
wireless and the press, but on 28 December a com- 
munique categorically denied this information. 

Bibliography: C. A. Nallino, Raccolta di 
scritti, i, Rome 1939, 233-46; Documentation 
francaise, Notes et iiudes documentaires, no. 1529 
of 10 September 1951; J. E. Godchot, Les con- 
stitutions du Proche et du Moyen-Orient, Paris 1957, 
28-42; Helen M. Davis, Constitutions, etc., 248-58; 
A. Giannini, Le constituzioni degli Stati del vicino 
Oriente, Rome 1931, 130-5; COC, OM, ME J, 
ME A, etc., of the relevant years. 



The Imamate of the Yemen produced no written 
constitution; there exist, however, a number of texts 
regulating the powers of the Imam and the succession 
to the throne. The imam was to be elected by the 
'ulamd' summoned to a consultative assembly, the 
Madjlis, before whom the sovereign was to take the 
oath. The latter, as spiritual head of the country, 
was to hold absolute power, but with the aid of a 
prime minister and other ministers belonging to his 
family. After the revolution of September 1962, a 
constitutional document was issued by the revolu- 
tionary council (madjlis al-thawra) setting forth the 
aims of the revolution and laying down general 
principles of government. The former begin with 
the restoration of the 'true Shari'-a', the abolition of 
communal discrimination and the equality of all 
Yemenites before the law, the removal of conflicts 
between Zaydis and Shafi'is, followed by a series of 
national, political and social objectives. The princi- 
ples, in addition to the usual constitutional assurances, 
include the statements that the Yemenite people is 
the source of all authority (art. 3) and that all laws 
derive their validity from the Shari'-a of Islam, which 
is the official religion of the state (art. 6). The text 
of the document was published in Fatal al-Djazira, 
Aden, issue of 8 November 1962. (Ed.) 



ix. — Syria and Lebanon 
Like 'Irak, Syria and Lebanon began their con- 
stitutional life after their separation from the 
Ottoman Empire after World War I, although 
some of their leaders had taken an active part in 
Ottoman constitutional experiments. The first con- 
stitutional step undertaken by Syria took place 
after the capture of Damascus by Amir Faysal in 
1918 with the avowed intention of establishing an 
Arab constitutional state. Faysal called a Syrian 
Congress in 1920, representing the whole of geo- 
graphical Syria (later known as Greater Syria), 
including Lebanon and Palestine, on the basis of 
the Ottoman Electoral Law. This Congress, function- 
ing as a legislative and a constituent assembly, laid 
down a draft constitution of 148 articles which, 
though no formal vote was taken, had been accepted 
in principle. The Congress was still considering the 
draft when the French army entered Damascus and 
it adjourned on 19 July 1920, never to meet again. 
The constitution provided for a limited monarchy, 
a bi-cameral legislature, and a responsible Cabinet. 
Syria (i.e., Greater Syria) was to be an indivisible 
political entity, but its boundaries were left undefined. 
The Syrian Government was to be an Arab Govern- 
ment, its capital Damascus, and its religion Islam. 
The constitution included a Bill of Rights guaranteeing 
civil liberties and freedom of thought and of religion. 
Both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies were 
to be elected bodies: the deputies by secret ballot 
in two degrees, and the Senators by the Chamber of 
Deputies of each province. The administration of the 
country was to be on a decentralized basis; each 
province was to have its own local administration 
with a single legislative body called the Chamber of 
Deputies. The judiciary was to be independent, with 
a High Court appointed by the King as the supreme 
judicial organ. 

Syria remained under direct French control 






1930 



nother a 






taken. While Syria was still in the midst of the 
revolt of 1925-7, the French came to an under- 
standing with Lebanon and promulgated a con- 
stitution in 1926, thus providing a constitutional 
model for Syria. 



The Lebanese constitution provided for a repu- 
blican regime — the first to be proclaimed in the 
Arab East in modern times — and a bi-cameral 
Parliament, to be elected by a two-stage universal 
manhood suffrage. The Cabinet was to be individually 
and collectively responsible to Parliament. The 
President, elected by the two Houses of Parliament 
in a joint session, was given the right to appoint the 
Prime Minister and, with a vote of three-quarters of 
the Senate, to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies. 
This elaborate structure for a small state called for 
a revision in 1927, which increased the powers of the 
President, especially in expediting financial bills; it 
abolished the Senate and established a unicameral 
Parliament. The Chamber of Deputies, whose 
membership was 30, was increased by 15, appointed 
by the President. The members of the Cabinet were 
chosen from Parliament, and the members remained 
individually and collectively responsible to Parli- 

This constitution, continuing to function during 
the Mandate period, was suspended when war broke 
out in 1939. It was restored in 1943, when the in- 
dependence of the country was formally declared, 
and was purged of the Mandate clauses by an act 



of Parliament on 8 November 1943. This precipitated 
a crisis with the French authorities, who maintained 
that the amendment of the constitution had been 
carried out before the Mandate was formally termi- 
nated, but France finally agreed to the amendment 
and the Mandate system itself was formally termi- 
nated in 1946 at a meeting of the Council of the 
League of Nations in Geneva. 



Syria 



The 









up 



framework for Lebanon prompted 
the Syrians to come to an understanding with the 
French on the need for establishing a constitutional 
government. Elections for a Constituent Assembly 
were held in 1928. A drafting committee of 27 mem- 
bers was appointed and a draft constitution was 
ready in August before the Assembly. The draft 
stipulated that Syria within its "natural boundaries" 
{i.e., Greater Syria) would be an indivisible political 
unit and an independent sovereign state, its form 
of government republican, and the religion of its head 
Islam. The constitution also provided for a Bill of 
Rights, in which the principles of liberty, equality, 
private property, etc. were guaranteed. The head 
of the executive power was the President of the 
Republic, elected by Parliament for a period of 
five years, but he was not eligible for re-election until 
the lapse of five years from the expiration of his 
term. The President selected the Prime Minister and 
appointed the Ministers upon the latter's recom- 
mendation. The President was not responsible, since 
his decisions were countersigned by the Prime 
Minister and the Ministers concerned. The Cabinet 

responsible to Parliament. The Ministers were not 
all members of Parliament, but they could attend and 
take part in discussion. Parliament was made up of 
one House (Madflis, or Chamber of Deputies), which 
was freely elected every four years. Every male Syrian 
who had attained his twentieth year was eligible 
to vote. The constitution provided also for a 
High Court composed of 15 members chosen from 
Parliament and from the judges of the courts. The 
constitution was ordinarily amended by two-thirds 
of Parliament upon the request of either the Govern- 
ment or Parliament. The draft constitution, ignoring 
the terms of the Mandate, promted France to inform 
the Constituent Assembly that certain articles, such 
as the one dealing with the "natural boundaries" of 
Syria, which included Lebanon, and others which con- 
tradicted France's international obligations, must 
be revised. Upon the Assembly's refusal, the French 
dissolved the Assembly in 1928 and promulgated the 
Constitution in 1930, having revised the articles 
to which they had objected The Syrians, tacitly 
accepting the situation, participated in the elections 
for Parliament in 1932. The first President of the 
Republic was elected in 1933. However, the Syrians 
and the French could not agree on a treaty regulating 
the relations between France and Syria after in- 
dependence. Thus, when the war broke out in 1939, 
the French suspended the Constitution and governed 
the country through a "Council of Directors". 

The circumstances of World War II gave Syria an 
opportunity to achieve independence and resume 
constitutional life. In 1941, Syria and Lebanon were 
declared independent and elections for the resump- 
tion of parliamentary life were held in 1943, although 
the legal termination of the Mandate did not take 
place until 1946. The constitution of 1930, revised by 
deleting the articles referring to the Mandate, was 



restored and a new President was elected. This consti- 
tution remained in force until 1948, when a military 
coup d'etat was led by Husni al-Za c Im, who overthrew 
the Government and suspended the constitution. A 
new draft constitution, reputed to embody progressive 
principles, was not promulgated, since Za'Im himself 
was overthrown by the army in August 1949. 
Elections for a Constituent Assembly were held in a 
relatively free atmosphere, although the army 
remained in control of authority. The assembly 
issued a new draft constitution, prepared by a com- 
mittee of 33 members under the chairmanship of 
Nazim al-KudsI, on 5 September 1950, and promul- 
gated on the same day by the President of the 
Republic. 

The Constitution of 1950 made no fundamental 
changes in the form or structure of the government 

tions were to be found in the general articles ex- 
pressing the hopes of the Syrian people. Syria was 
declared to be "an indivisible political unity" and 
to form "a part of the Arab nation". The Bill 
of Rights, composed of 28 articles, defined in 
detail the fundamental principles of freedom and the 
social and economic rights of the citizens. The 
articles relating to land stated that "a maximum 
limit for land ownership shall be prescribed by law", 
but no such law was ever issued until Syria was united 
with Egypt in 1958. The constitution also provided 
that "the state shall distribute state lands to peasants 
to whom land is not available sufficient for their sup- 
port, against small rents to be repaid in instalments" 
(Article 22). Labour was regarded as "the most basic 
factor in social life" and "the right of all citizens". 
"The state shall provide work to citizens and shall 
guarantee it by directing and promoting the national 
economy" (Article 26). Education was also declared 
a right of every citizen. Elementary education was 
compulsory and free in all government schools. 
Secondary and professional education, though not 
compulsory, was also free in all government schools. 
Military service was compulsory, and the family, 
regarded as the basis of society, was to be protected 
by the state. The state was also to encourage marriage 
and endeavour to remove the material and social 
obstacles which hinder it. These principles, then 
regarded as the most progressive in Arab lands, 
were overshadowed by Egypt's more radical social- 
istic measures when Syria joined Egypt in a union 
in 1958. However, before Syria joined that union, 
she had yet to experiment with a new constitutional 
charter, issued under the Shishakll regime in 1954, 
by virtue of which the presidential system of govern- 
ment was introduced for the first time in Arab lands. 
This short-lived constitution was abrogated soon 
after the collapse of the Shishakll regime and the 
Constitution of 1950 was restored. The latter con- 
stitution may well be regarded as still (1963) in 
force after Syria's secession from the United Arab 
Republic, as Syria's rulers seem to have implied in 
several public declarations, pending the promulgation 
of a revised version or perhaps a completely new 
constitutional charter. (See below, xviii). 

Bibliography: A. Giannini, La costituzione 
della Siria e del Liba.no, in OM, x (1930), 
589-615 ; Philippe David, Un gouvernement arabe a 
Damas, Paris 1923; A. J. Toynbee, Survey of 
international affairs, 1930, London 1931, 304-14; 
A. Hourani, Syria and Lebanon, London 1946; 
P. Rondot, Les institutions politiques du Liban, 
Paris 1947; N. A. Ziadeh, Syria and Lebanon, 
London 1957; S. H. Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon 



under French Mandate, London 1958; M. Khadduri, 
The Franco-Lebanese Dispute and the crisis of 
November, 1943, in American Journal of Inter- 
national Law, xxxviii (1944), 601-20; Wadjlh al- 
HaffSr, al-Dustur wa 'l-hukm, Damascus 1948; 
c Abd al-Wahhab Hawmad, ffawl al-dustur al- 
djadid, Damascus 1950; M. Khadduri, Constitutional 
development in Syria, in MEJ, v (1951), 137-60; 
N. A. Ziadeh, The Lebanese elections, in MEJ, 
xiv (i960), 367-81; J. M. Landau, Elections in 
Lebanon, in Western Political Quarterly, xiv (1961), 
120-47; Documentation francaise, Notes et etudes 
documentaires, no. 1413 of 20 Dec. 1950 and no. 
1785 of 22 Sept. 1953. (M. Khadduri) 



Even before his country became independent, 
Amir c Abd Allah of Transjordan promulgated a 
constitution {bdnun asdsi) on 16 April 1928, 
providing for a Legislative Assembly (Madjlis 
TashriH) and an Executive Council responsible to 
him. This constitutional charter, though giving the 
Amir extensive powers, became the basis of the new 
constitutional framework when Transjordan became 
independent. On 15 May 1946 Amir c Abd Allah was 
proclaimed King of the Hashimite Kingdom of 
Transjordan, and the constitution of 1928, revised 
to fit the new independent life of the country in 1946, 
was replaced by a new constitution on 1 February 
1947. This constitution provided for a bi-cameral 
Parliament and a responsible Cabinet, but the King 
retained extensive powers, including a veto over 
legislation. The incorporation of Arab Palestine 
with Transjordan called for another constitutional 
change, first in the formal act of incorporation, 
creating the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan, on 24 
April 1950; and then the revision of the constitution, 
following King c Abd Allah's assassination in 1952. 
The new constitution provided clearly for the 
responsibility of the Cabinet to the Chamber of 
Deputies, the establishment of a Supreme Court, the 
responsibility of the State for the protection of the 
right of workers, and compulsory education in 
primary schools. This constitution was revised several 
times later, liberalizing its provisions; but in practice 
the King continued to exercise effective control over 
the Cabinet and Parliament. 

Bibliography: A. Giannini, La costituzione 
della Transgiordania, in OM, xi (1931), 117-31; P- 
R. Graves (tr.), Memoirs of King Abdullah, London 
1950; Ann Dearden, Jordan, London 1958; R. 
Patai, The Kingdom of Jordan, Princeton 1958; 
Munlb al-Madl and Suiayman Musa, TaMkh al- 
Urdun, "Amman 1959; Documentation francaise, 
Notes et etudes documentaires, no. 1613 of 14 May 
1952. (M. Khadduri) 

xi. — Indonesia 

Little progress towards self-government had been 

made in Indonesia (or the Netherlands East Indies 

as it then was) before the Japanese invasion in 1942. 

In 1918 an advisory Volksraad (People's Council) had 

its first meeting, having been mooted in 1916. It was 

intended as a safety valve for Indonesian nationalism 

which had been gaining strength rapidly, especially 

in view of the special circumstances of the war in 

Europe, which tied down so much Dutch military 

power. However, the existence of appointed as well 

as elected members, the extremely limited franchise 

and the indirectness of the elections guaranteed that 

I the Europeans formed a majority. In any case, its 

I powers were restricted to the giving to the Govern- 



ment, in the person of the Governor-General, of 
advice which he could ignore. 

Reforms in the composition and powers of the 
Volksraad in 1920, 1922, 1925 and 1927 did little to 
transform the body into an effective legislature. 
After 1927 it had co-legislative powers with the 
Governor-General, but he retained a veto. The 
system of election remained indirect, and the fran- 

When the Japanese sensed that their defeat was 
inevitable they acted to hasten Indonesian indepen- 
dence. On 1 March 1945 they appointed a joint 
committee, the majority on which was Indonesian, 
to discuss plans for independence. Meetings held 
from 28 May to 1 June and from 10 to 17 July 
reached general agreement on the basic political 
principles which should guide the future Indonesian 
nation. Sukarno, a prominent nationalist leader 
since the 1920s, and subsequently Indonesia's first 
President, played a major part in the discussions. 
It was his speech on 1 June, expounding his Panta 
iila ("five foundations", five basic principles) which 
made possible a workable measure of compromise 
between those who wanted a theocratic Islamic state 
(the Indonesian population is 90% Muslim) and those 
who, though nominally Muslim themselves, feared 
extreme Muslim orthodoxy. It is significant that over 
90% of the Mite from whom the leaders of the 
national movement were drawn had had western as 
opposed to strictly Islamic educations (Soelaeman 
Soemardi, Some aspects of the social origins of the 
Indonesian political decision-makers, in Trans. 3rd 
World Congr. Sociology, London 1956). 

Sukarno's panta iila were: nationalism (kebang- 
saan); internationalism, or humanitarianism (peri- 
kemanusiaan) ; democracy, or representation (kerak- 
jatan) ; social justice (keadilan sosial) ; and faith in 
one God {ke-Tuhanan, or pengakuan ke-Tuhanan 
Jang Maha-Esa). His exposition of the principles 
was subtle and persuasive, reassuring, for example, 
the strongest supporters of the concept of an Islamic 
state that their best guarantee of influence was by 
working through the elective and democratic in- 
stitutions which were going to be formed. (The 
text of the speech is to be found in Kemenkerian 
Penerangan, Lahirnya Pantjasila, 2nd Engl. edn. 
Djakarta 1952). The Djakarta Charter, signed by 
nine leading nationalists on 22 June 1945, is identical 
in wording with the Preamble to the 1945 Consti- 
tution, with the exception of the words italicized 
in the following extract: "The Republic is founded 
upon the belief in God, with the obligation for those 
professing the Islamic faith to abide by the laws of 
Islam, in accordance with the principle of a righteous 
and moral humanity . . .". Even this gesture towards 
Islam had dropped out when the 1945 Constitution 
appeared. 

On 7 August 1945, the Japanese authorized the 
establishment of an all-Indonesian Independence 
Preparatory Committee (Panitya Persiapan Kemer- 
dekaan Indonesia— PPK I), with Sukarno as Chairman 
and Hatta as Vice-Chairman, and entrusted with the 
task of arranging to take over government. When 
the Japanese surrendered a week later, Sukarno and 
Hatta proclaimed independence within three days, 
on 17 August 1945. 

At the first meeting of the PPKI, on 18 August, 
Sukarno was elected President and Hatta Vice- 
President, in accordance with Article III of the 
Transitional Provisions appended to the 1945 
Constitution, and they, with five others, completed 
work, begun during the last weeks of the Japanese 



occupation, on this document. Although considered 
at the time as provisional, it in fact remained in 
force until the end of 1949, though not without 
modification, and was restored in the middle of 1959. 

The Preamble paraphrases the panta iila, the 
concluding part reading: "We believe in an all- 
embracing God; in righteous and moral humanity; 
in the unity of Indonesia. We believe in democracy, 
wisely guided and led by close contact with the 
people through consultation, so that there shall 
result social justice for the whole Indonesian 
people". 

Art. 1 lays down that Indonesia is a unitary state 
with a republican form of government. Sovereignty 
lies with the people, and is exercised through a 
People's Consultative Assembly (Madjelis Permus- 
jawaratan Rakjat). Art. 2 stipulates that the Con- 
sultative Assembly is to consist of the members of 
the Chamber of Representatives (Dewan Perwakilan 
Rakjat), together with representatives of regions and 
groups. It is to meet at least once every five years, 
and to take its decisions by simple majority vote. 
Art. 3 entrusts it with the responsibility for 
enacting the permanent constitution and the main 
guiding lines of state policy. Art. 4 gives the President 
the power of Government, to be exercised in accor- 
dance with the provisions of the Constitution, and a 
Vice-President to assist him, and art. 5 empowers 
him to enact laws in agreement with (persetudjuan 
dengan) the Chamber of Representatives, and to 
issue ordinances for the proper execution of laws. 
Art. 6 stipulates that the President is to be an 
autochthonous Indonesian, and that he and the 
Vice-President should be elected by the People's 
Consultative Assembly by a majority vote; art. 7 
lays down his term of office at five years, with the 
possibility of re-election; art. 10 gives him supreme 
command of the armed forces ; art. n empowers him 
to declare war, conclude peace, and to make treaties 
with foreign powers, all with the sanction of the 
Chamber of Representatives, while art. 12 gives him 
the right of proclaiming a state of emergency, the 
conditions and consequences of which are to be 
regulated by law. 

Art. 16 provides for a Supreme Advisory Council 
(Dewan Pertimbangan Agung), which is obliged to 
answer questions submitted by the President, and 
has the right to make proposals to the Government. 
Art. 17 provides for Ministers of State, whose 
function it is to take charge of Government Depart- 
ments, and who are appointed and dismissed by the 
President. 

Arts. 19-22 govern the Chamber of Representa- 
tives. It is to assemble at least once a year, and its 
sanction is required for all laws. If a bill fails to 
receive this sanction, it is -not to be submitted again 
during the same session. Members of the Chamber 
have the right to initiate laws; if the President does 
not ratify these, they are not to be submitted again 
during the same session of the Chamber. Presidential 
ordinances during states of emergency require the 
sanction of the Chamber of Representatives in its 
next session, and if this is not obtained, the ordi- 
nances lapse. Art. 23 governs the financial arrange- 
ments. The annual budget is regulated by law. 
Arts. 24-8 govern the judicature, and guarantee the 
basic human rights — freedom of speech, equality 
before the law, and the right to work. The remaining 
arts, deal with religion, national defence, social 
welfare, the flag and language, and amendments to 
the Constitution. The last is effected by a two- 
thirds majority of the People's Consultative Assembly 



when at least two-thirds of its members are in 
attendance (art. 37). 

Four transitional and two additional provisions 
complete the document. Of these, nos. 2 and 4 of the 
transitional provisions provide for the perpetuation 
of arrangements existing at the time the Consti- 
tution was drafted until the new ones proposed in 
it could be brought into being, and arrange for the 
President, assisted by a National Committee 
(Komite Nasional Indonesia Pusat — KNIP), to 
exercise the powers of the People's Consultative 
Assembly, the Chamber of Representatives, and 
the Supreme Advisory Council until such time as 
they can be established. 

The Constitution reflects a variety of influences. 
The American Presidential system has obviously 
been more attractive than the western European 
parliamentary system, even though the former 
operates in a federal nation and the latter mainly 
in unitary ones. Despite the determination of the 
nationalists to owe as little as possible to the Dutch, 
several features of the 1945 Constitution are remi- 
niscent of the Constitution of the Kingdom of the 
Netherlands. The Supreme Advisory Council, for 
example, is not unlike the Dutch Council of State. 
The President and the Chamber of Representatives 
exercise legislative power under the Indonesian 
Constitution, the King and the States-General 
under the Dutch. Other influences suggested by 
commentators include that of the draft Chinese 
Constitution of 1936 (M. Yamin, Proklamasi dan 
Konstitusi Republik Indonesia, Djakarta and Amster- 
dam 1952, 139), the constitution of the former 
Netherlands Indies (J. H. A. Logemann, Hei Stoats- 
recht van Indonesia, 's-Gravenhage and Bandung 
1954, 34), and the Chinese Organic Law of 1931 
(H. Feith, The decline of constitutional democracy in 
Indonesia, Ithaca, N.Y., 1962, 43). 

The first Cabinet under the Constitution was 
appointed by President Sukarno on 31 August 1945. 
The chosen ministers were responsible to the 
President and not to the KNIP, which had been 
formed on 29 August. It consisted of the members 
of the dissolved PPK1, plus a further selection of 
outstanding nationalist leaders, and representatives 
of the main economic, ethnic, religious and social 
groups in Indonesia. Its functions were advisory, not 
legislative. 

However, following a meeting of the KNIP on 
16 October 1945, the Vice-President, Hatta, announ- 
ced that, pending the formation of the Consultative 
Assembly and the Chamber of Representatives, the 
KNIP itself was to be vested with legislative powers, 
and was to participate in the working out of the 
general orientation of state policy. The functions of 
the KNIP were normally to be assumed by a smaller 
component of it, known as the Working Committee, 
whose size permitted of more rapid decision taking. 
The term "Working Committee" seems to have been 
taken from the Indian National Congress (G. McT. 
Kahin (ed.), Major governments of Asia, Ithaca, N.Y., 
1958, 504 n. 6). 

At the instigation of the Working Committee, the 
President decreed on 14 November 1945 that 
Ministers should in future be responsible to the 
KNIP. Since the Working Committee met a good deal 
more frequently than the parent body, in effect 
Ministers were now responsible to it. The old Cabinet 
was dismissed, and a new one, under Sjahrir as 
Premier, formed. 

The change was the result of unease, in the first 
months of the new state, on the part of those 



nationalists who had served with the anti-Japanese 
underground, at the power and influence of nation- 
alists who had worked with the Japanese during 
the war. Sjahrir was a spokesman for this group of 
ex-resistance nationalists. The consequence of the 
change was to substitute for a Presidential system 
a western European type parliamentary one. It is 
noteworthy that 94% of the cabinet ministers in 
Indonesia from 1945 to 1955 had been educated in 
Western schools and universities (Soemardi, op. cit.). 

In the following four years the President assumed 
emergency powers on three occasions (29 June to 
2 October 1946; 27 June to 3 July 1947; 15 September 
to 15 December 1948), for the terms of which he 
exercised full personal control. On the third occasion, 
however, he did so, not on his own decree, but after 
an Act passed with the concurrence of the Working 
Committee and countersigned by the Ministers of 
Defence, Internal Affairs, and Justice. 

Apart from the period before the modification of 
the Constitution in November 1945, there were two 
other Presidential Cabinets (29 January 1948 to 
4 August 1949; and 4 August to 20 December 1949). 
In these, the Vice-President was premier, composition 
was not based on party political bargaining, and 
". . . it was generally considered that a Cabinet so 
established could not be forced to resign by the 
Working Committee" (A. K. Pringgodigdo, The 
office of President in Indonesia as defined in the three 
constitutions in theory and practice, Ithaca, N.Y., 
1957, 17). 

At the time the KNIP was formed, the PPKI 
also decided on the formation of an Indonesian 
National Party (Partai National Indonesia), which 
was to be the sole Indonesian political organization. 
However, government announcements of 3 and 14 
November 1945 made it clear that all trends of 
democratic opinion were entitled to political 
existence and organized expression. Once again the 
defeat and discrediting of the former Axis powers 
was probably a consideration. 

There were two abortive agreements with the 
Dutch before Indonesia's independence was finally 
recognized. The Linggadjati Agreement (signed 
25 March 1947) granted the Republic of Indonesia 
de facto recognition in Java, Madura and Sumatra, 
and provided for a "United States of Indonesia" 
to be formed with Dutch co-operation. The Renville 
Agreement (17 January 1948), which was concluded 
at the instigation of the United Nations, gave the 
Dutch the temporary right to hold the territory they 
had seized in the interim, on condition that they 
would hold plebiscites in these areas to determine 
the wishes of the inhabitants. The Dutch realized 
that the overwhelming majority of the people under 
them would opt for the Republic of Indonesia, so 
they ignored this condition, and instead set about 
fostering local states like the ones they had created 
and sustained in Borneo and the eastern islands. 
Throughout this period the Dutch worked unceas- 
ingly to create a viable federal structure in the 
areas they controlled, in contrast with their pre-war 
policy of maintaining a unitary structure in their 
colony, and rejecting federal proposals (see A. A. 
Schiller, The formation of federal Indonesia, 1945-49, 
The Hague-Bandung 1955, 14-25 et passim). 

In mid-1949 delegates of the Dutch-fostered 
federal states and of the Republic of Indonesia met 
at an Inter-Indonesia Conference (Konperensi Inter- 
Indonesia), to begin planning the institutions of the 
state which would take over from the Dutch. In 
general the proposals which emerged from this, and 



from the work of a technical 
complete a draft constitution, were embodied in the 
1949 draft Constitution of the Republic of the United 
States of Indonesia (RUSI). This was issued as an 
Annex to the agreements reached during the Round 
Table Conference at the Hague (23 August to 2 
November 1949), granting Indonesia "unconditionally 
and irrevocably" sovereignty over the whole 
territory of the former Netherlands East Indies. 
The Constitution was entirely the work of the two 
Indonesian factions, republican and federalist, but 
the Dutch expressed their approval. It was an 
unbalanced, and, as it was to transpire almost at 
once, an unworkable structure that the new Con- 
stitution envisaged. Since Indonesia had won un- 
conditional independence, it was not of course in 
any way binding on her. 

The main provisions were as follows. There was 
to be a President, who would act as Head of State, 
and had to be "an Indonesian" (art. 69). The 
President was "inviolable" and his Ministers 
responsible, jointly for the entire Government policy, 
and each individually for his part of it (art. 118). 
The Government consisted of the President and his 
Ministers by the provisions of art. 68. All Presidential 
decrees, with the exception of those nominating 
three cabinet formateurs, required the counter- 
signature of the relevant Minister or Ministers or 
formateurs (arts. 74 and 119). The President 
remained in supreme command of the armed forces, 
but if necessary these were to be placed under the 
command of a Commander-in-Chief (art. 182). 
There was no provision for a Vice-President, but 
the Cabinet had to include a Prime Minister (art. 74). 

There was to be a bicameral legislature. The 
Senate was to have two representatives, appointed 
by their respective governments, from each of the 
16 component states, while there were to be 150 
members of the House of Representatives (or more if 
that number did not include at least the minimum 
numbers of representatives of minority ethnic 
groups stipulated) (arts. 80, 81, 100). The first 
House of Representatives was to be appointed 
(arts. 109-10), but elections were to be held within 
a year for an elected House (art. m). The first 
House had no power to force the resignation of the 
Cabinet or individual Ministers (art. 122). 

Legislation could originate from the Government, 
the Senate, or the House of Representatives (art. 128). 
Provision was made for amendment, delay, quest- 
ioning, and Ministerial intervention (arts. 105, 120, 
128, 129, 132, 134, 136, 138). Emergency laws with 
the same force as normal legislation could be enacted 
by the President alone (art. 139), but these had to 
be submitted to the Chamber within one month of 
enactment, and if rejected automatically lapsed 
(art. 140). The Constitution could be amended by 
two-thirds majorities in both chambers (art. 190). 

This Constitution was in operation only from 
27 December 1949 to 17 August 1950. Its defects 
were obvious. The state of Riau, with about 100,000 
inhabitants, had the same Senate representation as 
the Republic of Indonesia, with 300 times the 
population. In the House of Representatives the 
Republic had fewer seats than she would have been 
entitled to if members had been allocated in pro- 
portion to population. Nationalists, especially from 
the Republic, saw it as an attempt by the Dutch to 
perpetuate their hegemony by tactics of divide and 



["OR 665 

art. 69, on 16 December 1949, and on 20 December 
the new Cabinet was sworn in, with Hatta as Prime 
Minister. In the following months the federal system 
rapidly fell into decay as member state after member 
state opted to merge with the Republic of Indonesia. 
The momentum of the movement was sustained by 
the known unitary preferences of the President, the 
Prime Minister, the majority of the Cabinet, and 
many leaders even of the "federalist" states. 

On 19 May 1950, leaders of the Federal Govern- 
ment (acting for the only two remaining Dutch- 
sponsored states) and leaders of the Republic of 
Indonesia agreed on the essentials of a new unitary 
state to replace the existing structure. It was also 
agreed that Sukarno should be President of the new 
state. The House of Representatives of RUSI and 
the Working Committee of KNIP were to draw up 
a new Constitution, on the basis of the 1949 document, 
but incorporating the basic provisions of the Con- 
stitution of 1945. For the following two months 
delegates worked on the detail of a new provisional 
Constitution, a task completed by 20 July 1950. 
Once ratified by the respective legislatures, this 
document was signed for the two parties on 15 
August, and came into operation on the fifth anni- 
versary of the proclamation of independence in 1945, 
17 August. 

It differed in important respects from the federal 
Constitution which had preceded it. It was uni- 
cameral, sovereignty being exercised by the Govern- 
ment and the Chamber of Representatives (art. 1). 
There was to be a Vice-President, appointed on the 
first occasion by the President on the recommen- 
dation of the Chamber of Representatives (art. 45). 
The President was specifically given the power to 
dissolve the Chamber of Representatives (art. 84), 
which he had lacked under the 1949 dispensations, 
but this power was circumscribed by the additional 
provision that his decree of dissolution had also to 
order the holding of elections for a new Chamber 
within 30 days. The Presidential supreme authority 
over the armed forces, reiterated in art. 127, was 
limited by art. 85 which made it imperative for 
military decrees to be counter-signed by the respon- 
sible Minister. 

The Chamber of Representatives in the first place 
was to be made up of the RUSI House and Senate, 
plus the members of the Working Comittee of KNIP 
and the Supreme Advisory Council (art. 77). Sub- 
sequently, at general elections, there was to be one 
representative for each 300,000 Indonesians (arts. 
56-7), and the provisions allowing for a minimum 
representation of minority ethnic groups (nine 
Chinese, six Europeans, three Arabs) were retained 
from the 1949 document. 

Generally speaking, the provisions governing the 
legislative procedure were very much as in the 
Constitution of 1949, with the necessary modifica- 
tions to allow for the disappearance of the Senate 
(arts. 64, 89-92, 94-5). The Chamber of Representa- 
tives was not specifically barred from forcing the 
Cabinet or any member of it to resign. This was 
generally taken as tacit under-writing of full 
Cabinet responsibility in the western European 
manner. The usual guarantees of individual liberties 
and welfare were incorporated. The Preamble, as 
with that of 1949, echoed Sukarno's pania iila. 

The 1950 Constitution was, as originally envisaged, 
intended to be simply provisional, like its predeces- 
sors, pending the election of a Constituent Assembly 
to devise the permanent Constitution. But in fact 
it remained in operation until suspended in 1959. 



An important source of operational friction lay in 
the disproportion between the duties of the President 
according to the Constitution and the personality, 
calibre and standing of its holder. As Head of State, 
Sukarno was theoretically confined to the kinds of 
activities open to a constitutional monarch in 
western Europe. But he was also undisputed leader 
of a long and arduous national revolution, invested 
thereby with tremendous prestige and capable of 
quite unique command of the loyalty of the mass 
of the people. It was impossible to keep him out of 
the political process to the extent that the Con- 
stitution assumed. His frequent policy speeches, 
critical of other parts of the state machine, were 
often taken as governmental pronouncements, and 
could seriously embarrass the Cabinet, who need 
not have been apprised in advance of their contents. 
If conflict developed between Cabinet and President 
it was the Cabinet that had to go. The President was 
in permanent occupation, inviolable by the terms 
of the Constitution (art. 83), had the power to 
dissolve the Chamber of Representatives, and was 
secure in the knowledge that nowhere in the Con- 
stitution (unlike that of 1949) was there any defini- 
tion of "government". 

Another serious impediment to the smooth 
working of the institutions devised was the increasing 
development of personal strains among the dramatis 
personae. The 1945-9 Government had functioned as 
well as it had done partly because of the intense 
pressure to which it was unremittingly subjected. 
Personal differences were secondary to the overall I 
objective of independence. With the unifying factor 
of Dutch persecution gone, divergences of viewpoint 
and incompatibilities revealed themselves. 

Another weakness lay in the great number and 
frequent irresponsibility of the political parties. 
Before the elections of 1955, of the 236 seats in the 
Chamber of Representatives, no party ever held more 
than 52. Party discipline was almost completely 
lacking. The views of party members in a Cabinet 
and their colleagues in the national organization 
often diverged. Parties not represented in the Cabinet 
did not function as a restrained, constructive, 
responsible opposition, but in their actions suggested 
that habits of obstruction acquired in the long and 
bitter fight against the Dutch had become ingrained. 
The Cabinet time and again found itself under the 
necessity of acting by emergency decree in order to 
clear arrears of legislation over the heads of the 
Chamber (which had, of course, to ratify in its next 
session, but this it usually did). 

In this kind of situation, a great deal depended 
on personalities, their mutual compatibility, and in 
particular their relations with the one permanent 
feature of the political landscape — President Sukarno. 
No cabinet lasted longer than two years, and most a 
good deal less than that. 

It is noteworthy that in his speeches and writings 
over many years Sukarno had made plain that his 
view of democracy did not coincide with western 
parliamentary, or even with American presidential, 
democracy. In 1949, Sukarno was talking about 
"Eastern democracy . . . Indonesian democracy . . . 
a democracy with leadership" (cited in Feith, op. cit., 
38-9). On 10 November 1956, when he saw that not 
even the elections of the previous year had produced 
a stable Chamber of Representatives, he first 
broached his concept of "guided democracy". Early 
the following year, on 21 February 1957, he made 
public in greater detail his proposals for radically 
reforming Indonesian political 



However, Sukarno's major concern in mooting 
guided democracy was that western democracy, with 
its counting of heads and statistical majorities, 
was not in accordance with traditional Indonesian 
patterns of decision making, expressed in the terms 
musjawarah (deliberation, discussion), mufakat 
(agreement, deliberation), and gotong tojong (mutual 
aid, co-operation). The first implies that the leader 
should act only after consultation with those led, 
and that his leadership should consist of guidance 
rather than dictation. The second has the connota- 
tion of decision reached not through majority, but 
by final arrival at the general will, the greatest 
attainable degree of consensus. The third emphasizes 
the co-operative aspects of economic and social life, 
and is implicitly critical of arrangements which 
encourage or condone the clash of vested interests, 
the spirit of competition, and the thrust of indivi- 
dualism. 

Sukarno's political role, so circumscribed by the 
letter of the 1950 Constitution, as compared with 
that of 1945, grew progressively more significant 
and direct. The essence of his proposals was that 
the Cabinet should represent a broad cross-section 
of the parties, including the communists, and that 
it should work with a National Council, which would 
include key ministers, and representatives of different 
interest groups in Indonesian society — trade unions, 
youth movements, religions, artists, farmers and 
peasants, journalists, women, veterans of the revo- 
lution, foreign-born citizens, Indonesian business 
circles, the armed forces, and the outer islands. It 
would be the task of the National Council to advise 
the President and the Cabinet and to make recom- 
mendations. 

His suggestions met with resistance, and regional 
rebellions, which had since Independence fitfully 
erupted and subsided, now flared. A state of War 
and Siege was declared, giving recognition to the 
exercise of civil authority by regional military 
commanders. As Sukarno was unable to find a 
politician who could form a Cabinet on his principles, 
he himself stepped in and established a "National 
Caretaker Cabinet" under a respected non-party 
man, Dr. Djuanda Kartawidjaja. Two of the members 
of the Cabinet. were reputed to be sympathetic to the 
Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). The National 
Council, nominated by the President, further 
strengthened his hand. Although Djuanda told the 
Chamber of Representatives that the Cabinet, as 
before, would continue to be responsible to it, 
clearly a major change in the role and power of the 
Presidency had taken place. 

In 1958 a revolt in Sumatra offered the most 
serious challenge yet to Sukarno, and an alter- 
native Cabinet and Government were formed. The 
legitimate Government succeeded in crushing this 
revolt, and in the process effectively cleared its path 
of the individuals and parties hostile to it who had 
been unwise enough to become implicated. The 
Army, under the leadership of General Nasution, 
confirmed its growing authority and influence. The 
PKI, on the other hand, had shown in regional 
elections in Java that its strength, too, was increasing. 

Sukarno now favoured a return to the Constitu- 
tion of 1945, with its basically presidential pattern. 
After considerable discussion and pressure, the 
Cabinet accepted his demand in December 1958. 
When the elected Consultative Assembly, whose 
function was the enactment of a permanent Con- 
to replace that of 1950, failed to endorse the 
that of 1945, it was dissolved. The President 



re-introduced the 1945 Constitution by decree on 
5 July 1959- 

In March i960 the elected Chamber of Represen- 
tatives was dissolved, and an appointed gotong 
rojong (mutual co-operation) one took its place. 
President Sukarno formed a new Cabinet, with a 
Chief Minister, Dr. Djuanda, but he himself added 
the Premiership to his other roles as President, 
Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Chairman 
of the Supreme Advisory Council (the name by 
which the National Council came to be styled), and 
Chairman of the National Planning Council. Parties 
which could not accept the new circumstances were 
banned. Civil servants were forbidden to join political 
parties. The formation of a National Front was 
announced. 

The present (February 1963) Indonesian Con- 
stitution is, therefore, the one with which Indonesia 
embarked in August 1945. The personal primacy of 
Sukarno has been recognized and endorsed by 
making of the Presidency the key political institu- 
tion, wielding executive and legislative power, the 
former with the assistance of Ministers appointed by 
and responsible to the President, the latter with the 
consent of the Chamber of Representatives. The 
President and Vice-President are responsible to the 
Consultative Assembly, which elects them, and in 
which resides the sovereignty of the people. Func- 
tional group elements are included in the Chamber 
of Representatives, the Consultative Assembly, and 
the Supreme Advisory Council. Ten political parties, 
including the PKI, have been accorded recognition. 
General elections, due to be held in 1962, were 
postponed until "after the return of Irian Barat". 
These would be the first elections under the 1945 
Constitution. 

text: G. McT. Kahin, Nationalism and revolution 
in Indonesia, Ithaca, N.Y., 1952; J. H. A. Loge- 
mann, Nieuwe Gegevens over het Ontstaan van de 
Indonesische Grondwet van 1945 {Mededelingen der 
Koninklijke Nederlandse Ahademie Wetenschappen, 
Afd.Letterkunde Nieuwe Reeks, xxv/14 (1962), 
691-712; R. Abdulgani, Indonesia's national 
council: the first year, in Far Eastern Survey, 
xxvii (July 1958), 97-104; M. Yamin (ed.), Naskah 
Persiapan Undang-Undang Dasar 1945, Djakarta 
1959; B. R. O'G. Anderson, Some aspects of 
Indonesian politics under the Japanese occupation, 
1944-1945, Ithaca, N.Y., 1961; Partij en parlement; 
markante punten in de ontwikkeling van de demo- 
cratic in Indonesia, in Indonesisch Bulletin iv/3 
(March 1953), Indonesische Voorlichtingsdienst, 
's-Gravenhage; Het Parlement van de Republiek 
Indonesia en zijn geschiedenis in Indonesisch 
Bulletin, iii/3 (February 1952) ; Soekarno, Sususan 
Negara Kita, Amsterdam 195 1; F. M. Pareja, 
V evoluzione poiitica dell' Indonesia, in OM, xxxv/12 
(December 1955) and xxxvii (January 1956); 
C. A. 0. Van Nieuwenhuijze, Aspects of Islam in 
Post-Colonial Indonesia, The Hague-Bandung 1958 ; 
text of the Constitution in OM, xl/9 (Sept. i960), 
552-5- (J. A. M. Caldwell) 

Libya proved to be the first North African 
country west of Egypt to be emancipated from 
foreign control and organized, despite her relative 
backwardness, as a modern constitutional state 
following World War II. 

On 21 November 1949, the General Assembly of 
the United Nations passed a resolution declaring 



Libya, comprising the three provinces of Cyrenaica, 
Tripolitania and Fazzan, to be established as a 
united and independent state. The resolution 
provided likewise that Libya should have a consti- 
tution to be laid down by her people's representa- 
tives, meeting in a national assembly. The General 
Assembly appointed a United Nations Commissioner, 
Adrian Pelt, to advise Libya's national assembly in 
the drawing up of her constitution. 

The national assembly met on 25 November 1950 
and appointed a constitutional committee composed 
of 18 members (each province was represented by 
six members). The actual drafting was entrusted to 
a working group of six. The national assembly began 
its debate over the draft as soon as the constitutional 
committee had completed the first chapter. The 
assembly formally completed its work on 7 October 
195 1 and the constitution was promulgated on that 
day. A draft electoral law, based on several Arab 
electoral laws, was submitted to the assembly on 
21 October and was adopted on 6 November 1951. 

The Libyan Constitution provided the innovation 
of a federal system by virtue of which the three 
provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania, and Fazzan 
agreed to join in a union under a single monarchy 
entrusted to King Idris I. This union proved to be a 
happy compromise, capable of development into a 
more intimate unity, as the amendment of 1962 
demonstrated. Under the federal system, Libya 
possessed one national (federal) government and 
three state (provincial) governments. The powers 
of the national government, such as foreign affairs, 
defence, and matters relating jointly to the three 
provinces, were specifically stated; the residuary 
powers remained in the provinces. The national 
government is composed of a bi-cameral parliament, 
a Cabinet responsible to the Lower House, a supreme 
court to decide the constitutionality of laws, and a 
federal administrative system. Each state (provin- 
cial) government was composed of a wall (governor), 
an executive council, a legislative assembly, provin- 
cial courts, and a provincial administrative system. 
The wall was responsible to the King and the chief 
of the executive council was responsible to the 
provincial legislative assembly. The first amendment 
to the constitution, enacted in 1962, simplified this 
elaborate system of government by making the wall 
responsible to the federal government and abolishing 
the head of the provincial executive council, making 
the council responsible to the wall. The progress 
achieved under the Libyan federal system justified 
the steps undertaken by the national assembly to 
provide such an elaborate constitutional framework, 
without which the three provinces would, perhaps, 
have been unable to unite into one state, governed 
by one monarchical system. This system has proved 
to be fairly stable, for Libya has had only one 
sovereign since 195 1, six Cabinets, and three 
Parliaments (1952, 1956, i960). The Lower House 
proved to be quite vocal in its criticism of govern- 
mental measures and was capable of withdrawing 
confidence in one of the governments (i960), although 
Libya's parliamentary system, in the absence of a 
party system, was on the whole subservient to the 

Bibliography: United Nations, Annual Report 
of the United Nations Commissioner in Libya, New 
York 1950; idem, Second Annual Report of the 
United Nations Commissioner in Libya, Paris 195 1 ; 
idem, Supplementary Report to the Second Report 
of the United Nations Commissioner in Libya, 
Paris 1952; Documentation francaise : Notes et 



etudes documentaires, no. 1606 of 28 April 1952; 
Government of Libya, Proceedings of the National 
Assembly, Cairo n.d.; I. R. Khalidi, Constitutional 
development in Libya, Beirut 1956; M. Khadduri, 
Modern Libya: a study in political development, 
Baltimore 1963, Chapters 6, 7, and 11; constitu- 
tional texts in Nikula Ziyada, Muhddarat ft 
ta'rikh Libya, Cairo 1958, 193-266. 

(M. Khadduri) 

xiii. — Sudan 

The convention of 19 January 1899 between 
Great Britain and Egypt, confirmed by the treaty 
of 26 August 1936, made the Sudan an Anglo- 
Egyptian condominium, but the British authorities 
tended, after the second world war, to lead the 
country towards autonomy and independence. 
Negotiations between Britain and Egypt were broken 
off on 27 January 1947, the Egyptian government 
making known its desire to submit "the cause of the 
Nile Valley in its entirety" to the Security Council. 

From 1944, however, a Consultative Council of 
the Northern Sudan comprising 8 members nominated 
by the governor-general and 18 elected by the 
provincial councils established in the same year had 
been instituted. On 9 March 1948 the Consultative 
Council of the Northern Sudan had adopted an 
organic law providing for the creation of an Execu- 
tive Council and a Legislative Assembly; this text, 
promulgated on 19 June by the governor-general, 
aroused protests from Egypt and the Sudanese 
protagonists of the unity of the Nile Valley, who 
refused to take part, on 15 November 1948, in the 
elections to the Legislative Assembly; the latter was 
to have included 52 elected members (for the North), 
13 appointed by the provincial councils of the South, 
and 10 nominated by the governor-general. 

In March 1951, at the request of the Assembly 
which had been constituted, the governor-general 
charged a commission of 13 members, all Sudanese, 
with the drafting of a Constitution, which was 
adopted by the Assembly on 23 April 1952 under 
the name of "Ordinance on Autonomy". This text 
was composed of a preamble and 11 chapters con- 
taining 103 articles. Chapter III deals with the 
governor-general and the executive, Chapter V 
institutes a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies; 
legislation is dealt with in Chap. VI, finance in 
Chap. VII; the following deals with the Controller- 
general, Chap. IX with the judicial power; a 
judicature administering the shari'-a (art. 79) is 
maintained under the presidency of the Chief kadi; 
conflicts of jurisdiction are decided by a court of 
jurisdiction of which the Chief kadi and a judge of 
the High Court of the shari'-a are members (art. 80). 
Chap. X creates a commission of public administra- 
tion, while the last section deals with interim 

This text should have become effective on 9 
November 1952, but the Egyptian revolution had 
broken out in the meantime; on 29 October the 
Egyptian government had, however, published a 
memorandum recognizing the right of the Sudanese 
to self-determination, and finally the ordinance on 
autonomy was promulgated on 21 March 1953 after 
the signature of the Anglo-Egyptian agreements of 
12 February envisaging amendments to be added. 
The Chamber of Deputies was to consist of 97 
elected members, and the Senate of 30 elected and 
20 appointed members; elections were therefore 
arranged for November-December 1953, and on 
6 January 1954 the Chamber elected the president 



of the council who formed the first government. 

After a period of transition, independence was 

officially proclaimed before the Senate and the 

Chamber of Deputies in joint plenary session on 

I January 1956. On the same date a provisional 
Constitution was brought into operation comprising 

II chapters and 121 articles; it largely repeats the 
Ordinance on Autonomy, but Chap. Ill is completely 
modified, since it now provides for the election by 
parliament of a supreme commission of 5 persons 
which is to be the highest authority in the State 
(art. 10-1). Chap. IV deals with the executive power 
of the Prime Minister, appointed by the supreme 
commission, which also appoints ministers. The 
Council of Ministers is responsible to parliament 
(art. 27). The legislative body (Chap. V) continues 
to consist of the Senate (20 members appointed by 
the supreme commission, 30 elected) and the 
Chamber of Representatives. Chap. VI deals with 
legislative procedure, the following chapter with 
finance, property, contracts and lawsuits. Chap. VIII 
provides for the appointment of a Controller-general 
of accounts by the supreme commission. Chap. IX 
deals with the judicial power, comprising a civil 
division and a shari'-a division presided over by the 
chief kadi (art. 93). Art. 95 provides that the 
shari'-a division shall consist of tribunals and shall 
exercise the powers provided by the ordinance of 
1902 on tribunals of Sudanese Muslim law, and by 
modificatory laws. Chap. X treats of public offices, 
and the last chapter contains interim provisions. 

On 22 May 1958 both chambers of parliament 
joined in a Constituent Assembly to examine the 
definitive form of the Constitution, and in spite of 
the opposition of the Southerners, appointed 40 
members charged with preparing a new draft. The 
text presented did not obtain the approval of the 
Southerners since it provided for a unitary and not 
a federal State, and also because it provided that 
Islam should be the state religion and Arabic the 
official language. Finally the Constituent Assembly 
voted for a motion recommending that the constitu- 
tional committee should take note of the demands 
of the Southerners. It had however, no time to bring 
its deliberations to a satisfactory conclusion, since 
on 17 November 1958 a coup d'etat put the govern- 
ment of the country in the hands of the army. The 
following day the high command of the armed 
forces published decrees by the terms of which the 
Sudan was a democratic republic whose supreme 
constitutional organ was the high command which 
delegated its legislative, executive and judiciary 
powers to General 'AbbOd. The constitution is 
suspended. 

Bibliography : See the accounts of the events 
of the dates indicated in COC, OM, ME J, ME A, 
etc.; J. E. Godchot, Les constitutions du Proche et 
du Moyen Orient, Paris 1957, 345-72, and bibl. 
cited; P. M. Holt, A modern history of the Sudan, 
London 1961. (Ed.) 



xiv. — Pakistan 



Pakist 



coming into existence on 15 August 
1947, was governed by the Government of India Act 
1935, as amended by the Indian Independence Act 
1947, which repealed all provisions of the former 
statute authorizing control from England and the 
reserved powers of the Governors and Governor- 
General. The Constituent Assembly, summoned in 
July 1947, was not only to make new constitutional 
laws but also to exercise the powers of the Federal 
Legislature under the Act of 1935. Pakistan com- 



menced as a federal state; in addition to the former 
British Indian territory, within the territory of 
Pakistan were the princely states of Bahawalpur 
and Khairpur (Bahawalpur, Khayrpur [qq.v.]), the 
Balucistan states, and the N.W. Frontier states. 
The Independence Act had broken the link between 
these states and the Crown but they executed in- 
struments of accession to Pakistan, surrendering 
powers over defence, foreign affairs and communi- 
cations. 

Legislative subject-matter was distributed between 
the centre and the Governor's provinces by three 
lists, one enumerating matters within the exclusive 
competence of the Constituent Assembly, another 
matters exclusively assigned to the provincial 
legislatures, and a third matters over which power 
was concurrent, though central legislation would 
prevail in case of repugnancy, unless assented to by 
the Governor-General. Administrative power gener- 
ally covered the same field as legislative power, 
though most matters on the concurrent list were 
within the provincial power and the centre could 
direct a province to act as the instrumentality for 
s laws and to take prescribed steps 



r the 






e of 



At the centre the Governor-General, though 
appointed by the Crown, was nominated by the 
Government. The Governor-General appointed the 
Provincial Governors. Ministers were appointed by 
the Governor-General aud Governors; they could 
hold office for 10 months without being members 
of the appropriate Assembly. The Governor-General 
and the Governors could legislate by Ordinance when 
the appropriate legislature was not in session. The 
Governor-General could proclaim an emergency, if 
faced with a threat of war, rebellion, or mass- 
movement of population, which would have the 
effect of extending the federal power to all provincial 
matters; he could also, if he thought the security of 
Pakistan in danger or the provincial constitution 
could not be worked, direct the Governor to assume, 
as his deputy, all the executive and legislative powers 

The High Court at Lahore, the Chief Court at 
Karachi and the Judicial Commissioner in N. W. 
Frontier and Balucistan were, when Pakistan 
became independent, the highest tribunals in the 
provinces in which they were situated. A High 
Court at Dacca (Dhaka) for East Bengal and a new 
Federal Court were created. To the powers of the 
latter under the Government of India Act 1935 were 
transferred the appellate jurisdiction of the Privy 
Council by statutes passed in 1949 and 1950. 

In 1952 a draft constitution was presented to the 
Constituent Assembly but discussion was postponed 
until September 1953 in the hope of reconciling con- 
flicting views regarding it. 

Before this constitution could be finalized, the 
Governor-General dismissed the Constituent Assem- 
bly on 25 October 1954 and litigation followed, 
resulting in this action being upheld. A fresh Con- 
stituent Assembly was summoned and first met on 
5 July 1955. On 30 September it enacted the 
Establishment of West Pakistan Act which came 
into force on 14 October, integrating the territories 
of the west wing into a single province and amal- 
gamating the High Court of Lahore, the Chief Court 
of Sind and the judicial commissioners in N. W. 
Frontier and Balucistan into a single High Court. 



The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of 
Pakistan came into force on 2 March 1956. It was 
federal, in so far as relations between the centre and 
the two provinces were concerned. Legislative and 
administrative powers were distributed as before, 
save that the provincial power was to some degree 
enhanced by the transfer of some powers to the 
provincial list and by giving the provinces power 
over matters not enumerated in any list. The centre 
had exclusive power to impose certain taxes. All 
other taxing powers were assigned to the provinces, 
which were also entitled to a share in the proceeds of 
income tax, purchase tax and some export and excise 
duties, all imposed by the centre. Grants to 
provinces were also contemplated. These and the 
provincial shares in distributable taxes were appro- 
priated on the advice of a National Finance Com- 
mission, consisting of the finance ministers of the 
Federation and the Provinces sitting with other 
members appointed by the President in consultation 
with the Governors. 

The head of the state was styled "President"; 
he was to be elected by the members of the central 
and provincial legislatures; it was necessary that he 
should be a Muslim and not less than 40 years of age. 
His term of office was five years and he could not be 
elected more than twice. He was liable t o impeachment 
by a resolution supported by three-quarters of the 
members of the National Assembly. The Constitution 
contemplated that he would generally act on the 
advice of his ministers. He was obliged to appoint as 
Prime Minister the person most likely to command 
the confidence of a majority of the members of the 
National Assembly. Though he held office at the 
pleasure of the President, he could not be dismissed 
unless the President was satisfied that he had lost 
that confidence. Other ministers were appointed and 
removed by the President, but any minister who for 

National Assembly ceased to be a minister. The 
Prime Minister was obliged to communicate to the 
President all administrative decisions of the minister, 
all proposals for legislation and any further infor- 
mation called for by the President, who could insist 
on a decision by an individual minister being 
reviewed by the whole cabinet. The purpose was to 
ensure collective responsibility of the ministers to 
the National Assembly. 

All legislatures were unicameral. The National 
Assembly was composed of 150 members from each 
wing and, for the first ten years, five seats in each 
wing were to be reserved for women. A candidate for 
election had to be 25 or older and qualified for the 
franchise, i.e., he had to be a citizen of Pakistan, of 
sound mind, not subject to any disqualification and 
resident in the constituency for which he was 
enrolled. The National Assembly had a maximum 
life of five years; it was summoned, prorogued and 
dismissed by the President; two sessions in each 
year with a maximum of six months between 
sessions were obligatory. The Assembly elected a 
speaker and deputy speaker and was empowered to 
make its own rules of procedure. Ordinary legislation 
was passed by a simple majority, bills being presented 
to the President, who could assent, veto or return a 
bill for reconsideration. The veto could be overruled 
by a two-thirds majority and the President was 
obliged to assent to a reconsidered bill, passed by 
a simple majority, with or without amendment. 
The initiative in all financial matters was vested in 
the Executive. No bill or amendment dealing with 
taxation or appropriation or involving expenditure 



from the revenues of the Federation could be moved 
except on the President's recommendation. 

The President could legislate by Ordinance in 
emergencies, if the National Assembly was not in 
session; such legislation was subject to the same 
constitutional limitations as Acts of the National 
Assembly but would expire six weeks after the 
commencement of the next session of the National 
Assembly or earlier if disapproved by the National 
Assembly. 

The powers to declare a national emergency and 
suspend a provincial constitution were retained but 
proclamations for that purpose had to be approved 
by the National Assembly. A new emergency power 
was created, to proclaim a financial emergency if 
the President was satisfied that financial stability 
was endangered; this also required the approval of 
the National Assembly. The effect of the first two 
powers was the same as before. The effect of the 
third was to empower the centre to control financial 

The pattern of the central executive and legislature 
was reproduced in the Provinces with slight differ- 
ences. The Governor occupied a position comparable 
to the President but was appointed by the President, 
holding office at his pleasure but normally continuing 
for five years. It was essential that he should have 
attained the age of 40 but not that he should be a 
Muslim. Corresponding to the Prime Minister was a 
Chief Minister. Each Provincial Assembly had 300 
members with 10 extra seats for women for the first 
10 years. Nobody could be a member of the National 
Assembly and a Provincial Assembly. 

There was no distribution of judicial power. The 
Federal Court became the Supreme Court. It had 
original jurisdiction in disputes between Provinces 
and between the Federation and a Province. Appeals 
lay from the High Courts on constitutional matters, 
in civil cases involving property worth Rs. 15,000 or 
certified to involve an important legal point and in 
criminal cases where a sentence of death or trans- 
portation for life had been passed in appeal from an 
acquittal to a High Court or by a High Court in the 
exercise of its extraordinary original jurisdiction, or 
when a High Court certified it fit for appeal, or from 
commitments for contempt. The Supreme Court 
could also grant special leave to appeal from any 
order of any judicial or quasi-judicial tribunal other 
than a court martial. It also had an advisory jurisdic- 
tion to give an opinion on any point of law referred 
to it by the President. The High Courts' previous 
powers and jurisdiction were continued and they 
were empowered to issue writs for the protection of 
a Fundamental Right and "for any other purpose", 
which, as interpreted, meant in any matter where 
justice called for action and the petitioner had no 
adequate alternative remedy. The Supreme Court 
was also empowered to issue writs but only to 
protect a Fundamental Right. A Supreme Court 
Judge was only removable on an address supported 
by two-thirds of the members voting in the National 
Assembly; a High Court Judge could be removed 
on a report of the Supreme Court after enquiry. 

A feature of the 1956 Constitution was its chapter 
on Fundamental Rights, which included a guaranteed 
legal remedy against any law infringing a Funda- 
mental Right. This chapter demanded equality 
before the law and prohibited discrimination in 
respect of access to places of public resort and in 
appointment to government service on grounds of 
religion, caste, sex, place of birth or residence. No 
person could be deprived of life or liberty save by 



authority of law, and punishment under 
law was forbidden. A person arrested on a criminal 
charge had a right to be informed of the grounds 
of his arrest, a right to production before a magistrate 
within 24 hours and a right to consult and be defended 
by a pleader of his own choice. A person preventively 
detained had a right to the grounds of detention, a 
right to make a representation and, in case of 
prolonged detention, a right of recourse to an 
advisory board. Citizens were, subject to conditions, 
entitled to freedom of speech, assembly, association, 
movement, residence, religion and freedom to follow 
a profession and deal with property. Expropriation 
of agricultural land or any interest in a commercial 
undertaking, except for public purposes, under a 
statute providing fair compensation, was forbidden. 
Religious denominations could maintain religious 
institutions and provide religious instruction in their 
educational institutions. No person could be denied 
admission to an educational institution on grounds 
of race, religion, caste or place of birth but no 
student could be obliged to participate in activities 
connected with any religion but his own. 

There was also a chapter of Directive Principles, 
not enforceable in the courts, but intended to be 
followed by the executives and legislatures. They 
enjoined the promotion of social uplift and the 
promotion of economic well-being. Steps were to be 
taken to strengthen the bonds between Muslim 
countries, to promote international peace, to enable 
Muslims to lead their lives in accordance with 
Islamic principles, to see that Islamic institutions 
were properly managed, and to provide facilities for 
instruction in the religion of Islam. 

Another chapter forbade the enactment of any 
law repugnant to the injuctions of Islam and the 
revision of the existing law to bring it into conformity 
with those injunctions. To effect these purposes a 
Commission was to be appointed to define the 
injunctions of Islam and to recommend measures 
for their enforcement, but an Act of the National 
Assembly would be necessary to implement any 
recommendation made. Nothing effective appears 
to have been accomplished in the exercise of these 



On 7 October 1958 the Constitution of 1956 was 
abrogated by the President, who placed the country 
under martial law. All legislatures were dismissed 
and political parties dissolved. The President 
exercised the federal executive and legislative 
functions, assisted by ministers appointed by him 
and responsible to him alone. Provincial Governors 
exercised the powers they would have had under 
the Constitution of 1956 on the suspension of a 
provincial constitution, but subject to control by 
the Martial Law Authorities. At first the distribution 
of powers was continued but in 1959 all matters on 
the provincial list were transferred to the con- 
current list. The statute law previously in force was 
continued and protected from attack as repugnant 
to a Fundamental Right. The acts of the Martial 
Law Authorities were protected from review by the 
courts, whose powers, except to the extent indicated, 
remained intact. 

It was not intended that the Martial Law ex- 
perience was to continue indefinitely. In 1959 the 
Basic Democracies Order was promulgated, creating 
a hierarchy of local government boards, town and 
union committees, district committees and divisional 
councils. In the lowest tier at least two-thirds of 
the members were elected by persons formerly 
entitled to vote at elections to the legislatures, but 



the Sub-divisional Officer was chairman of the thana 
or tatisil committee, and in the higher tiers the 
elected element would be diluted. 

In January i960 the members of local councils 
elected under the Basic Democracies Order were 
required to declare by secret ballot whether or not 
they had confidence in the President. If the majority 
showed confidence, the President would take steps 
for the promulgation of a new constitution under 
which he would be deemed to have been elected 
President for the first term. 

The election having gone in the President's favour, 
he appointed a commission to make recommendations 
for the new Constitution. It was promulgated on 
1 March 1962. There are at the centre the President, 
Ministers and a National Assembly and a Governor, 
Ministers and a Provincial Assembly in each 
province but it would be difficult to maintain that 
the Constitution is federal in fact. There is a list of 
central subjects. All other matters are within the 
provincial power, but the National Assembly may 
encroach on the provincial field on the grounds that 
the security of Pakistan demands it or that uniformity 
is necessary throughout Pakistan. It is no longer 
possible to impugn a law as ultra vires the enacting 
legislature, and the rule that, in case of conflict, a 
central law prevails over a provincial law is of 
universal application. 

After the expiry of Field-Marshal Ayyub Khan's 
term of office, the President, who must be a Muslim 
and have attained 35 years, will be elected by an 
Electoral College, composed of one Elector chosen 
by each electoral unit, of which there are 40,000 in 
each Province. The President's term is five years; 
he is liable to be impeached for violation of the 
Constitution or gross misconduct, or removed for 
incapacity, by a resolution supported by three- 
quarters of all members of the National Assembly. 
But any such motion is discouraged by the threat 
that, if half the members do not support the resolu- 
tion, those who gave notice of the motion will cease 
to be members of the Assembly. 

The executive capital is Islamabad and the 
legislative capital Dacca (Dhaka). Presidential 
government replaces parliamentary government, 
for the President appoints the Ministers, and may 
remove them without assigning reasons ; they cease 
to hold office on a change of President. The original 
intention was that they should not be members of 
the National Assembly, but this is no longer com- 
pulsory. 

The National Assembly, elected by members of 
the Electoral College, will consist of 156 mem- 
bers, half from each wing, from which three seats 
will be reserved for women. It has a maximum life 
of 5 years. It can be summoned not only by the 
President but also by the Speaker at the request of 
one-third of all the members. If summoned by the 
President, it is prorogued by the President; if the 
Speaker summons it, he prorogues. 

The President dismisses the National Assembly, 
but he may not do so if the unexpired portion of its 
term is less than 120 days or before a vote on a 
motion to impeach or remove him. The President 
ceases to hold office 126 days after the dissolution 
of the Assembly, unless his successor has earlier 
entered on his office. In case of disagreement 
between the President and the National Assembly, 
the President may refer the matter to the Electoral 
College. As under the 1956 Constitution, the President 
may assent to or veto a Bill or return it for recon- 
sideration; if he takes either the second or third 



TUR 671 

course and the Bill is again passed by a two-thirds 
majority of all members, he may refer the matter to 
the Electoral College, where he may be overruled by 
a simple majority of the total membership. 

The President retains the power to legislate by 
Ordinance when the National Assembly is not in 
session. If the Ordinance is approved by the National 
Assembly, it is deemed to become an Act of the 
Assembly; in any other case it expires 180 days after 
promulgation or 42 days after the Assembly next 
meets, whichever is less. The President is also 
empowered to issue a proclamation of general 
emergency in the same circumstance as previously 
and it must be laid before the Assembly, which has 
no power to disapprove. While this proclamation is 
in force, the President may legislate by Ordinance, 
whether the Assembly is sitting or not. The Ordinance, 
must be laid before the Assembly, which has no power 
to disapprove. If it approves, the Ordinance is deemed 
to be an Act of the Assembly; in any other case it 
ceases to have affect when the President withdraws 

Under the 1956 Constitution the power of the 
National Assembly to refuse demands for grants, 
except to meet expenditure charged on the revenues 
of Pakistan, was a powerful instrument whereby 
the legislature could control the executive, but under 
the 1962 Constitution the Assembly cannot refuse a 
demand for recurring expenditure, including an 
increase up to 10% of the expenditure incurred in 
the previous year. 

As before, the pattern of the executive and legisla- 
ture in a province is similar to that at the centre, 
but the Governor is appointed by the President and 
is subject to his directions; he may be removed at 
any time without reasons being assigned. Provincial 
ministers hold office at the Governor's pleasure but 
cannot be removed without the President's con- 



Each Provincial Assembly, elected by members of 
the Electoral College, consists of 150 members, 
five seats being reserved for women. Its maximum 
term is five years. In case of conflict with the 
Governor, he or the Speaker may request a reference 
to the National Assembly; if the National Assembly 
decides in favour of the Governor, then and only 
then can the Governor dismiss the Provincial 
Assembly. The Governor's powers to legislate by 
Ordinance can only be exercised when the Provincial 
Assembly is not in session and, mutatis mutandis, 
resemble the powers of the President. 

The Supreme Court no longer has powers to issue 
writs, and its appellate jurisdiction is limited to 
appeals from a High Court; while it still may grant 
special leave to appeal, an appeal only lies as of right 
against a sentence of death or transportation for life 
imposed by a High Court, a committal for contempt 
by such court, or on its certificate that a substantial 
question of constitutional law is involved. The High 
Courts have also lost their writ jurisdiction, but, 
where there is no adequate remedy, they may 
declare an act of a public authority illegal and direct 
such authority to act in conformity with law. A 
High Court may also satisfy itself as to the legality 
of the custody in which any person is held and the 
right of an incumbent to hold public office. 

The old Fundamental Rights, revised and restated, 
appear in the guise of Principles of Law Making 
and the Directive Principles as Principles of 
Policy, but they are only binding on the con- 
sciences of legislators and public officials; no law 
can be impugned as violative of the Principles of 



Law Making and no official act can be declared 
invalid as violating a Principle of Policy. 

One Principle of Law Making is that no law shall 
be repugnant to Islam, and it is provided that any 
legislature, the President or a Governor may refer a 
proposed law to the Advisory Council of Islamic 
Ideology for opinion as to whether it violates any 
of the Principles. The members of this Council are 
appointed by the President, having regard to their 
understanding and appreciation of Islam and the 
economic, legal and administrative problems of 
Pakistan; they hold office for three years. Apart 
from the function indicated above, they may make 
recommendations to the Governments on means of 
encouraging Muslims to live in accordance with 
Islamic principles. When a question of repugnancy 
of a proposed law to a Principle of Law Making is 
referred to the Council by the President or a Gover- 
nor, he must inform the Assembly of the date on 
which the advice is expected, but, if the Assembly, 
the President or the Governor thinks immediate 
action necessary in the public interest, the law may 
be enacted before the advice is furnished. 

Bibliography : K. Callard, Pakistan, a political 
study, London 1957; Report of the Constitution 
Commission, Pakistan, Karachi 1962 ; A. K. Brohi, 
Fundamental Law of Pakistan, Karachi 1958; 
A. Gledhill, Pakistan : the development of its laws 
and constitution, London 1957; K. J. Newman, 
Essays on the Constitution of Pakistan, Dacca 
[1956], gives a survey of the constitutional move- 
ment, the text of the draft and the text adopted 
in 1956, with authoritative comments and an 
extensive bibliography; see also A. Chapy, 
L'Islam dans la Constitution du Pakistan, in 
Orient, iii (July 1957), 120-7. On the Constitution 
of 1962, see A. Guimbretiere, La nouvelle Con- 
stitution du Pakistan, in Orient, xxiv (1962/4), 
29-47 and the bibl. there given. Text of the new 
Constitution: The Constitution of the Republic 
of Pakistan, Karachi 1962, 134 pp. 

(A. Gledhill) 

xv. — Mauretania 
On 28 September 1958 the Mauretanian people 
approved the French draft Constitution submitted 
to referendum, and chose adherence to the Com- 
munauti; on 28 November of the same year the 
Territorial Assembly opted for the status of Member 
State of the Communauti, proclaimed the Islamic 
Republic of Mauretania, and transformed itself into 
a Constituent Assembly. A committee prepared a 
draft which was adopted by the Assembly on 22 
March 1959. This first Constitution comprised a 
preamble and 9 chapters, containing 53 articles. In 
the preamble the Mauretanian people proclaims its 
attachment to its religion, its traditions, to the rights 
of man and the principles of democracy. Art. 2 
declares that Islam is the religion of the Mauretanian 
people, but guarantees to everyone freedom of con- 
science. National sovereignty belongs to the people, 
who exercise it through their representatives and by 
way of referendum. Chap. II treats of the govern- 
ment, which is composed of the Prime Minister and 
other ministers. The Prime Minister decides and 
carries out the policy of the State, exercises the power 
of making regulations, ensures the execution of the 
laws, appoints to offices of the state, negotiates and 
concludes agreements with the Communauti (art. 12), 
appoints the members of the government and 
dismisses them (art. 13). Before entering into office 
members of the government must take an oath 



according to a formula designed only for Muslims. 
Chap. Ill relates to the National Assembly, which 
holds the legislative power (art. 17) and is elected 
for five years (art. 18). The deputies enjoy parliamen- 
tary immunity (art. 19) and take the oath in a 
prescribed form, although the text only defines 
these forms in the case of Muslim deputies (art. 21). 
Chapter IV deals with the relations between the 
government and the Assembly; chap. V treats of 
the constitutional commission, chap. VI with justice: 
provisionally, the control of justice is in the domain 
of the competence of the Communauti (art. 43), but 
the civil courts of Muslim law are to conduct 
enquiries and dispense justice according to this law 
in all civil and commercial matters. The organization 
of these courts is to be determined by law. Laws 
shall be introduced to codify the rules of Muslim 
law applicable in the Islamic Republic of Mauretania 
(art. 44). A High Court is provided for by art. 45. 
Chap. VII deals with territorial entities, which are 
the district and the parish; chap. VIII provides for 
the procedure to be followed for the revision of the 
Constitution, and chap. IX contains interim 
provisions. 

The National Assembly elected on 17 May 1959 
took office and prepared a new constitutional text 
necessitated by the accession of Mauretania to 
independence. This text was promulgated on 20 May 
1961. It consists of a preamble and nine chapters 
including 61 articles. In comparison with the Con- 
stitution of 22 March 1959 it presents noticeable 
differences especially in the new provisions which 
relate to the President of the Republic, who is 
endowed with very extensive powers. He must be of 
the Muslim religion (art. 10); elected for five years 
by direct universal suffrage (art. 13), he takes the 
oath before the National Assembly in a prescribed 
form (art. 16). As holder of the executive power 
(art. 12) he decides the general policies of the nation 
and selects the ministers, who are responsible to 
him (art. 17); he possesses, moreover, the power of 
enacting regulations (art. 18), commands the armed 
forces (art. 20), signs and ratifies treaties (art. 22), 
and exercises the right of pardon (art. 23). In case of 
imminent danger he takes the exceptional steps 
required by the circumstances (art. 25). It is he also 
who declares a state of war or a stal 



42). 



Chap. Ill is devoted to the National Assembly, 
elected for five years and invested with the legislative 
power (arts. 26-7). Deputies enjoy parliamentary 
immunity (art. 29). Chap. IV deals with the relations 
between the President of the Republic and the 
Assembly, especially on matters which fall within 
the orbit of the law (art. 33) and those which refer 
to the power of regulation (art. 35). The President 
of the Republic may, with the authority of the 
Assembly, take measures by decree which are 
normally within the purview of the law (art. 36). 
The initiation of laws belongs to the President of the 
Republic and the members of the Assembly (art. 37). 
The President promulgates the laws and arranges 
for their publication in the Official Gazette within 
15 days, during which time he has the power to refer 
back the draft or the proposal to the Assembly for a 
second reading. According to chap. V, international 
treaties and agreements can only be ratified by 
virtue of a law (art. 44). Chap. VI establishes the 
independence of the judiciary (art. 47), which dispenses 
justice in the name of the people. The superior 
council of the magistracy assists the president of the 
Republic (art. 50). The Supreme Court receives the 



declarations of candidates for the presidency of the 
Republic (art. 13), declares when the Presidency is 
vacant (art. 24), and decides in case of dispute on the 
regularity of the election of deputies (art. 28), and 
scrutinizes the constitutionality of laws (arts. 41, 45); 
it also scrutinizes the correct functioning of the 
referendum and publishes its results. Its other 
powers, its composition, its rules of procedure and 
the procedure which are applicable before it are 
fixed by law (art. 51). In the case of high treason the 
President of the Republic and the ministers may be 
impeached by the National Assembly and sent 
before the High Court. Chapter VII concerns parishes, 
administered by elected councils. The following 
chapter provides for the procedure of revising 
the Constitution, and the last contains interim 

Bibliography : Documentation francaise, 
Notes et itudes documentaires, no. 2687 of 29 July 
i960. (Ch. Pellat) 

xvi. — Kuwayt 

On 16 November 1962 the amir of Kuwayt 
published the first Constitution of the amirate, 
voted by a Constituent Assembly who had spent the 
previous two months examining a draft prepared by 
specialists. Discussion had been lively, and many 
articles had been accepted only after long discussion. 
The discussion which holds most interest for Islamic 
scholars is that which arose on art. 2, which provides 
that "the State religion is Islam, and the shari'a an 
essential source of legislation"; some members 
wished to say the essential source, and their opponents 
had to struggle to make them admit the impossi- 
bility of applying Islamic law to the letter (which 
for example provides that the thief is to have his 
hands cut off) and its incompatability with the 
needs of a modern State as regards banks, insurance 
and other financial institutions. 

This Constitution thus declares in its first articles 
that Kuwayt is an independent and sovereign Arab 
State, that its people are part of the Arab nation, 
that Islam is the State religion and that the sharV-a 
is an essential source of legislation, but that all 
religions are protected provided that they do not 
disturb public order and morals. Art. 6, which 
declared that "property, capital and labour are 
fundamental elements of the social structure of the 
State" also gave rise to an acrimonious discussion, 
and the individual right of ownership was finally 
guaranteed. The nation is the source of all power, 
and the head of the State is a prince descended from 
the amir Mubarak Al Sabbah. Freedom of opinion and 
expression is recognized completely. Art. 31, which 
stipulates that "no one may be arrested, imprisoned, 
subjected to search or to house arrest, deprived of 
his right to choose his residence or to move about 
freely, except in conformity with the law, and 
no one may be subjected to torture or any treatment 
contrary to human dignity", 
some wishing to allow tort 
society. Art. 43 recognizes 

join parties and allows the formation of trade 
unions. The State aids aged and sick citizens and 
those incapable of work. 

Arts. 54-8, dealing with the head of State, provide 
for an intermediate stage between presidential rule 
and parliamentary rule. The amir exercises executive 
power through the intermediacy 
with the approval of a third of its members he 
dissolve the National Assembly, which is inv< 
with the legislative power. (Ei 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



is also fiercely debated, 

e in order to protect 

right of " 



TOR 673 

xvii. — Morocco 

The latest of the Constitutions of Muslim countries 
to come into being is that of Morocco, made public 
by the king on 18 November 1962 and approved by 
referendum on 7 December of the same year. It 
represented the fruition of the "Charter of Public 
Liberties" which, promulgated on 8 May 1958 by 
king Muhammad V, announced the setting up of a 
constitutional monarchy, and of the "Fundamental 
Law" issued on 2 June 1961 by his son and successor 
Hasan II, which prepared the way for the promul- 
gation of a Constitution. This consists of a preamble 
and twelve sections divided into no articles. 

The preamble declares that the Kingdom of 
Morocco is a Muslim State the language of which 
is Arabic, that it constitutes a part of the Great 
Maghrib, and is an African State. 

Section I defines Morocco as "a constitutional, 
democratic and social monarchy" in which "sover- 
eignty belongs to the nation, which exercises it 
directly by referendum and indirectly through the 
medium of constitutional institutions", i.e., the 
King, Parliament and the government. Article 3 
envisages the existence of political parties and 
declares that "there cannot be a sole party in 
Morocco". The equality of all Moroccans before the 
law is assured (art. 5), as well as freedom of worship 
for all, Islam being, however, the State religion 
(art. 6). The Constitution accords equal political 
rights to men and women (art. 8), and guarantees to 
all citizens freedom of movement, opinion, expres- 
sion, association, meeting, membership of a trade 
union and a political party (art. 9) as well as the 
basic rights, including the right to strike and the 
right to own property (arts. 14-5). 

Section II, devoted to the King, accords him a 
preponderant place and lays down that his person is 
inviolable and sacrosanct (art. 23); as the "symbol 
of the unity of the nation" he bears the title of amir 
al-mu'minin and is the guardian of Islam and of the 
Constitution (art. 19). Succession to the crown is 
assured to "male descendents in the direct line and 
by primogeniture" (art. 20) ; the King presides over 
all councils of State (arts. 25, 32, 33, 86, 96), appoints 
to civil and military offices, commands the armed 
forces (art. 30), accredits ambassadors and ratifies 
treaties (art. 31), has the right to pardon (art. 34) and 
possesses four essential prerogatives : he appoints and 
dismisses the Prime Minister and members of the 
government (art. 24), has the right to submit to a 
referendum any bill or draft law after discussion in 
parliament (arts. 26, 72-4), can dissolve the chamber 
of representatives (arts. 27, 77, 79), and finally, in 
case of grave danger, has the right to proclaim a 
state of emergency (art. 35). 

Section III deals with Parliament, which consists 
of the Chamber of Representatives, elected for four 
years by direct universal suffrage (art. 44), and the 
Chamber of Councillors, elected for six years and 
renewable by halves every three years; two-thirds of 
this chamber consist of members elected, in each 
prefecture and province, by a college composed of 
members of the prefectoral and provincial assemblies 
and of communal councils, the remaining third being 
elected by the chambers of agriculture, commerce, 
industry and handicrafts, and by the trade unions 
(art. 45). The list of matters reserved for parliamen- 
tary legislation is relatively restricted (art. 48), 
while the range of administrative regulation is 
extensive (art. 49). The right to initiate laws belongs 
to the prime minister and to members of parliament 
(art. 55). 



674 DL 

Section IV deals with the government, which is 
responsible to the King and to the Chamber of 
Representatives (art. 65); it is responsible for the 
execution of laws, controls the administration 
(art. 66), and exercises a regulatory power over 
matters which are not the concern of the law 
(art. 68). 

Section V regulates the relations between King and 
Parliament and between the latter and the govern- 
ment. The Chamber of Representatives can over- 
throw the government either by a motion of no 
confidence (art. 80) or by a vote of censure (art. 81). 

Section VI lays down the principle of the indepen- 
dence of the judicial power and sets up a High 
Council of Judiciary. According to the provisions of 
Section VII members of the government can be 
impeached by the Chamber of Representatives and 
sent before the High Court of Justice. Section VIII 
deals with provincial and local government, and 
Section IX with the Higher Council for national 
development and planning. Section X treats of the 
constitutional chamber and the Supreme Court. 
Section XI provides for the possibility of revising the 
Constitution, but art. 108 declares that "the 
monarchic form of the State and the provisions 
relating to the Muslim religion cannot be the object 
of any constitutional revision". Finally, Section XII 
contains transitional provisions. 

Bibliography: La Pens&e, Rabat, i/2 (1962); 

Italian version in OM, xlii/12 (1962), 909-16. 

(Ch. Pellat) 

xviii. — Federal constitutions 
The year 1958 was marked by three attempts to 
create unions or federations of Arab states : on 
1 February, the United Arab Republic (al-Qium- 
huriyya al-'-arabiyya al-muttahida) of Egypt and 
Syria; on 8 March, the United Arab States {al-Duwal 
al-'-arabiyya al-muttahida), of the United Arab 
Republic (but more particularly the former Egypt) 
and the Yemen; on 14 February, the Arab Union 
{al-Ittihdd al- c arabi), of 'Irak and Jordan. All three 
were ephemeral, but they lasted a sufficiently long 
time for them to provide themselves with federal 
constitutions, drafted within a remarkably short time. 
Reference has already been made {supra, iii, 
Egypt) to the constitution of the UAR, to which a 
little must be added here. As early as 5 February 1958 
detailed provisions on the future status of the new 
republic were presented to the Syrian Chamber of 
Deputies and the National Assembly of Egypt by 
the heads of the two states; on 21 February the 
populations of both countries were asked to approve 
by referendum the creation of the UAR and the 
choice of Djamal c Abd al-Nasir as President of this 
republic: about 99.99% of the voters replied in the 
affirmative to both questions; on 5 March the 
provisional Constitution of the UAR was promul- 
gated, providing for an executive council in each of 
the two provinces and a central government, in 
addition to the already elected President. This 
Constitution reproduced almost verbatim in its 73 
articles the essential provisions of the Egyptian 
Constitution of 16 January 1956. It differed from 
the latter, however, by not declaring that Islam was 
the State religion and that Arabic was the official 
language, and moreover did not specify whether 
sovereignty belonged to the nation. Certain articles 
also were modified in a sense generally favourable to 
the executive power; thus, the representatives to the 
legislative assembly were not elected by universal 
suffrage, but nominated by the president of the 



republic; the rights of the latter concerning the 
dissolution of the assembly were more extensive 
than in the Egyptian constitution; the Chief of State 
not only retained the right of direct government 'in 
case of necessity' by decrees 'having the force of law', 
but all the restrictive conditions imposed on him in 
this respect in the Egyptian constitution disappeared 
in this provisional constitution; the President was 
not even obliged, when proclaiming a state of 
emergency, to refer this to the Assembly. The 
remaining provisions were in general similar at all 
points to those of the Egyptian constitution. The 
Syrian coup d'etat of 28 September 1961 made an 
end of the Union and abolished the federal consti- 
tution on 29 September. 

The very day after the proclamation of the UAR 
at Cairo, delegates of Egypt and the Yemen began 
talks which culminated, on 8 March, in the signature 
at Damascus of the charter of the United Arab 
States by the president of the UAR and the crown 
prince of the Yemen, the amir Sayf al-Islam Badr. 
By the terms of this charter, which consisted of 
32 articles divided into three chapters, each State 
was to preserve its international personality and its 
own government; no reference was made to the 
religion or language of the union. All citizens were 
to be equal and have equal right of work; they were 
guaranteed freedom of movement. The unification 
and co-ordination of external policies, of diplomatic 
representation, of the armed forces, of economic 
activities, of the currency and of education were 
treated in chapter I. A supreme council, composed 
of the heads of member States, was to be assisted by 
a Council of the Union composed of an equal number 
of representatives of the member States. Presidency 
of this Council of the Union was to be assumed for 
a year at a time by the member States in turn. The 
supreme Council was charged with establishing the 
higher policy of the Union in matters of defence, 
economy and culture; it was to promulgate the laws, 
appoint the commander in chief of the armed forces, 
and draw up the budget of the union; the Council of 
the Union was to be its permanent organ; it would 
establish the annual programme, which it would sub- 
mit for ratification to the Supreme Council. A council 
of defence, an economic council and a cultural council 
were also instituted. Chapter III contained general 
and provisional regulations on the seat of the 
Council of the Union, the entry into force of the 
laws, the suppression of diplomatic representation 
between the member States, and customs regulations. 
The federation having been broken on 26 December 
1961, the constitution lapsed on that date. 

As an answer to these regroupings within the Arab 
world the Hashimite sovereigns Faysal of 'Irak and 
Husayn of Jordan announced, on 14 February 1958, 
the creation of a union between their kingdoms, and 
on 19 March following, the Constitution of the Arab 
Union, drawn up by a mixed 'Iraki- Jordanian 
vas promulgated simultaneously at 
: Amman. It comprised 80 articles in 

chapters. "Membership of the Union is open to 
any Arab State desirous of joining", but each State 
would retain its independent identity and its own 
system of government; any treaties previously con- 
cluded would affect only the States which had signed 
them. Here again there is no provision on the religion 
or language of the Union. The seat of government 
was to be at Baghdad and 'Amman alternately; a 
common emblem was envisaged, but each state was 
to retain its own flag. Legislative power would 
belong to the president of the Union (the king of 



'Irak) and to an Assembly of forty members (20 from 
each State), who were to be elected for four years by 
the Chambers of Deputies of 'Irak and Jordan. 
Chapter II dealt in some detail with the prerogatives 
of the President and the role of the Assembly; the 
following chapter with the executive power, which 
belonged to the President of the Union assisted by 
a council of ministers. The President would nominate, 
dismiss and accept the resignation of the Prime 
Minister and conclude treaties, and would be the 
Supreme chief of the army. The ministers were to 
be collectively and individually responsible to the 
Assembly of the Union; each ministry had, within 
a month of its formation, to define its policy in a 
declaration made to the assembly. In case of 
urgency, during the interval between sessions of the 
assembly, the president could promulgate federal 
decrees having the force of law, provided that he 
submitted them to the next meeting of the Council 
of the Union. Chapter IV, which deals with the 
judicial power, is almost exclusively concerned with 
the institution of a Supreme Court charged with the 
task of judging the members of the Assembly and the 
ministers, of settling any disputes which might arise, 
of giving its advice on legal questions submitted to 
it by the Prime Minister, of interpreting the con- 
stitution, of determining the constitutionality of laws, 
and of hearing appeals on sentences of the federal 
courts. Chapter V deals with the powers of the 
Union as regards foreign affairs, security, customs, 
economic questions, and education. The finances of 
the union (chapter 6) were to be furnished by the 
member states in defined proportions. The Assembly 
would discuss the budget, and a Court of Audit was 
to be instituted. Chapter VII envisages the conditions 
under which the Constitution could be amended. 
Finally chapter VIII contains various provisions on 
the state of emergency, the first assembly, the first 
budget, the necessity of member States revising their 
s to bring them into line with that 



of tl 



Uni. 



On 26 March the Jordanian and 'Iraki parliaments 
ratified the Constitution of the Union. At Baghdad 
the Chamber of Deputies decided to amend the 
'Iraki Constitution of 1925, and was then dissolved 
to allow the vote on the amendment to be taken by 
a new assembly; on 10 May the latter voted the 
amendment, and on 12 May approved the text of the 
Constitution of the Union. On 18 May the first 
federal government was formed. On 14 July 1958 
the 'Iraki Revolution put an end to the Union and 
in consequence to the federal Constitution. 

Bibliography: Institutions de la Ripublique 

Arabe Unie, in Orient, v (1958), 181-95; Constitution 

des "Etats Arabes Unis", ibid., vi (1958), 183-6; 

Formation et institution de I' Union Arabe, ibid., vi 

(1958), 167-82; COC, xxxvii-xxxviii (1958); 

Documentation francaise, Notes et itudes documen- 

taires, no. 2420 of 4 June 1958; relevant dates in 

ME A, ME J, OM, etc. (Ch. Pellat) 

Amirates of southern Arabia. In the course 

of the year 1958 discussions were undertaken with a 

view to drafting a constitution of federation of a 

certain number of Arab principalities of the Aden 

Protectorate. On 20 June 1958 the general 

of the Arab League sent to all member co 

memoir drawing their attention to the 

intention to create a federal union of all the 

protectorates, allegedly in order to bring the 

and sultanates under the British governor of Aden. 

The federation was not, however, constituted before 

3 February 1959, receiving the allegiance of the 



TOR 675 

following six small states: the amirate of Bayhan 
[see bayhan al-kasab], the sultanates of 'Awdhall 
[q.v.], Fadll [q.v.] and Pali' ([q.v.] in Supplement), 
the Shaykhdom of Upper 'AwlakI [q.v.] and the 
sultanate of Lower Yafa' [q.v.]; at the beginning of 
April 1959 the sultanate of Lahidj [q.v.], the amirate 
of Lower 'Awlaki and the republic of Dathlna [q.v.] 
asked in their turn to participate. On 29 September 
1959 the foundation stone of the capital of the 
Federation (al-Ittikdd) was even laid, erected at Bi J r 
Ahmad by the sultan of Lahidj, who began to take 
an important part; other states also demanded 
admission, and on 29 October 1961 the British 
government even transferred to the Federation its 
powers over the forces of public order. 

From n February 1959 this Islamic Arab Fede- 
ration provided itself with an elaborate Constitution 
consisting of a preamble and ten chapters divided into 
47 articles. Chap. Ill (arts. 5-11) institutes a Supreme 
Council of the Federal Government which wields 
the executive power; it is composed of six ministers 
at the maximum, elected for five years by a Federal 
Council endowed with legislative power (Chap. IV, 
arts. 12-9); this Council is composed of six represen- 
tatives of each member State and legislates by 
regulation (Chap. V, 20-2). Legislation may be 
carried out by provisional orders of the Supreme 
Council when the Federal Council is not in session 
(arts. 23-6) or by decrees of the Supreme Council 
when a state of emergency has been declared (arts. 
27-8). The following chapters deal with the finances 
of the Federation (arts. 29-35), federal officials 
(arts. 36-7), responsibilities and powers of the 
Federation and of the member States (arts. 38-42), 
the procedure for revision of the Constitution (art. 43), 
and end with interim provisions (arts. 44-7). 

Bibliography: See the account of the events 
in OM, COC, ME J, ME A, on the dates noted, 
especially COC, xxxix (1959), 127-38. (Ed.) 

xix. — Conclusion 

The authors who have shared in the composition 
of the article dustur have made it their chief 
endeavour to trace the history of the constitutional 
movement in the countries concerned and to analyse 
more or less briefly the promulgated texts. This has 
the advantage of presenting the reader with a fairly 
complete synthesis, but also the occasional drawback 
of obscuring to some extent those points which must 
be of primary interest to students of Islam, namely 
the place accorded to Islam in the constitutions of 
the Muslim countries. We shall therefore set ourselves 
here to group together the common elements and to 
note the points of divergence, taking into account 
only those texts at present (beginning of 1963) in 
force (or suspended without being replaced), and 
disregarding constitutions that are too archaic 
(Sa'udl Arabia), rigorously secular (Turkey), Soviet, 
or of a special local character (Lebanon, Indonesia). 
Thus we shall confine our attention to the consti- 
tutions of eight Arabic-speaking states (Egypt, 
'Irak, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Mauretania, Syria 
and Tunisia) and three non-Arab Muslim countries 
(Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan). 

The chronological order in which these eleven 
constitutions were promulgated is of no more than 
secondary interest, for all of them (except that of 
Afghanistan) can be regarded as recent and on the 
modern pattern, the oldest (Iran) having been 
revised and, so to speak, brought up to date. Both in 
the monarchies: Afghanistan (with qualifications), 
Iran, Jordan, Libya and Morocco, and in the repu- 



676 DU: 

blics, the uni- or bi-cameral parliamentary system 
has been universally adopted, though the sovereign 
or head of state enjoys powers that are generally 
very extensive and participates actively in the 
country's political life (we cannot fail to notice, 
moreover, that at the present moment (January 
1963) three out of seven republics — not counting the 
Sudan — are headed by officers brought to power 
by the army in order to put an end to the abuses of a 
misconstrued liberal regime). 

To the parliamentarianism of democratic tendency 
is added the solemn proclamation of the Rights of 
Man and the principles of liberty and equality, 
painstakingly included in the texts; the functioning 
of the institutions is minutely regulated, with the 
result that these constitutions, while far from being 
identical, are absolutely comparable to those of the 
Western countries which have more or less served 
as their models. The difference lies, on the one hand 
in the fact that the Eastern Arab countries declare 
themselves to be "an integral part of the Arab 
nation" and that Tunisia and Morocco proclaim 
that they belong to the "Greater Maghrib", on the 
other hand, and above all, in the provisions relating 
to Islam which they all contain. 

To begin with, Islam is expressly declared to be 
the state religion in all the constitutions enumerated 
below, with the exception of that of Syria. Morocco 
takes the precaution (art. 108) of excluding from any 
future revision the provisions relating to the Muslim 
religion, i.e., the second half of art. 6 (which addi- 
tionally guarantees to all the freedom of worship). 
It goes without saying that in these countries the 
head of state could not belong to any religion but 
Islam; four constitutions make express provision to 
this effect: those of Syria (art. 3), of Pakistan (art. 
io a ), of Tunisia (art. 37) and of Mauretania (art. 10). 
Art. 120 of the Egyptian Constitution of 1956 is 
silent about the religion of the head of state, but 
there can be no doubt as to the will of the framers of 
the constitution; in the monarchies it is evident that 
the sovereign must be a Muslim; in Iran (art. 1) the 
state religion is Twelver Shi'ism to which the 
sovereign must necessarily belong; in Afghanistan 
(art. 1) the King must belong to the Hanafi school; 
in Morocco the King is Commander of the Faithful 
(amir al-mu'minln); in Libya (art. 51) the represen- 
tative of the throne, regent or member of the regency 
council, must be a Muslim. 

Syria (but see also the Sudan) is thus the only 
Muslim country not to have declared that Islam is 
the state religion, but in this regard art. 3 of the 
constitution voted on 5 September 1950 (retained 
in that of 22 September 1953) is instructive; in effect, 
the original draft, which actually made Islam the 
state religion, has been modified by the Constituent 
Assembly in the following manner: 

1. the religion of the President of the Republic is 

2. Islamic fikh is the principal source of legislation; 

3. freedom of belief is guaranteed. The State respects 
all revealed religions and assures them complete 
freedom of worship on condition that they do not 
disturb the public order ; 

4. the personal status of the religious communities 
is safeguarded and respected. 

This notion of respect for revealed religions only 
is unique in the constitutional system of the Muslim 
countries and has no parallel except in the clause of 
the Afghan constitution on the protection of Hindus 
and Jews alone, happily replacing the obligation of 
the dhimmis to pay the djizya and wear dis- 



tinguishing emblems (see above v). The Syrian con- 
stitution has sought to take account of the peculiar 
conditions prevailing in a country where Christians 
of every sect and Jews live side by side with Muslims ; 
it shows itself liberal in reserving to the religious 
communities their personal status, but in a sense less 
tolerant than the other constitutions which guarantee 
(theoretically at least) to all religions the freedom of 
worship, on condition that they do not disturb 
public order. In restricting this freedom to the reveal- 
ed religions only, the framers of the Syrian consti- 
tution have evidently sought to make a concession 
to the tenets of the sharl'a [q.v.], without perhaps 
devoting any great attention to the problem posed 
by the definition of ahl al-kitab; they have made 
another such concession in manifesting the desire, 
expressed in the text, of deriving all legislation from 
Islamic fikh, without however specifying the madhhab 
followed, and perhaps with the ulterior motive of 
neglecting this provision, for they must certainly have 
realized how difficult it is to reconcile the rules of the 
shari'a with the exigencies of a modern state. 

This harmonization of Islamic law and modern 
legislation was, in fact, one of the major concerns of 
the first constitution-makers. The constitution of 
Afghanistan lays down that the laws must be in 
accordance with the sharl'-a, and the Iranian Funda- 
mental Law goes even further, since art. 2 lays down 
that a committee of mudjtahids shall be named to 
watch over the "Islamicity" of the laws; in practice 
this provision does not seem to have been puncti- 
liously applied (see above, Iran). Indeed, in nearly 
all the countries which had not been subject to 
foreign domination and which had been able fairly 
early to enjoy a constitutional life of their own, the 
elaboration and promulgation of a constitution 
represented a victory for the partisans of progress 
over the conservatives entrenched behind the 
sharl'-a; in the other countries, which have gained 
their independent status more or less recently, the 
constitution-makers tried to fight against the 
'ulama', who were too much attached to legal rules 
felt to be out-of-date and incompatible with the 
harmonious development of a modern State, and 
have elaborated texts that show a progress in the 
direction of de-Islamization, despite some concessions 
of principle to the conservatives. The sole, and 
logically necessary, exception to this rule is Pakistan, 
whose very raison d'etre is precisely to allow Muslims 
to lead a life in total conformity with the teachings 
of Islam in a State built on a purely Islamic basis. 
The experiment was interesting, but we know that 
it has run up against countless difficulties. The 
preparation of the first constitution bristled with 
difficulties, although each successive draft of the 
project marked a set-back for the claims of the 
'ulama' and a victory for the modernists (see K. J. 
Newman, Essays on the Constitution 0/ Pakistan, 
Dacca 1956; A. Chapy, L' I slam dans la Constitution 
du Pakistan, in Orient, iii (1957), 120-7). The com- 
mittee for the scrutiny of laws, on which the '■ulama' 
were to be represented, was finally replaced by a kind 
of manual which the members of the Assembly were 
supposed to follow, so as to promulgate only such 
laws as are in conformity with the prescriptions of 
Islam. The constitution of 1962 has returned to a 
consultative council on Islamic ideology; but the 
members of this council, named by the President, 
must not only know Islam, but also be aware of 
the economic, legal and administrative problems 
which Pakistan has to solve; in other words, the 
'ulama' are virtually excluded from it. Moreover, this 



- DUYON-I 'UMUMIYYE 



council is charged with giving its opinion on the 
"Islamicity" of the laws at the request of the Presi- 
dent of the Republic or of a governor ; and the Head of 
State, though he may respect the '■ulama', knows that 
he can hardly count on them, and does not fail to 
invite them to become better informed of the require- 
ments of the modern world. Their incapacity has been 
shown up clearly by the so-called Munlr report, 
presented by the commission of enquiry into the 
disturbances in the Pandjab in 1953 (Report of the 
Court of Inquiry constituted under Punjab Act II of 
1954 to enquire into Punjab disturbances of 1953, 
Lahore 1954, 200-32, especially 218-9), °f which 
W. C. Smith (Islam in Modern History, 233) says 
that it "publicized further the fact that the '■ulama', 
the traditional leaders of traditional Islam, were not 
only unfitted to run a modern state, but were deplo- 
rably unable under cross-questioning even to give 
realistic guidance on elementary matters of Islam. 
The court of inquiry, and subsequently the world, 
was presented with the sorry spectacle of Muslim 
divines no two of whom agreed on the definition of 
a Muslim, and who were yet practically unanimous 
that all who disagreed should be put to death". 

The application of Islamic law may be studied in 
the article sharI'a (see meanwhile G.-H. Bousquet, 
Du droit musulman et de son application effective dans 
le monde, Algiers 1949; J. N. D. Anderson, Islamic 
law in the modern world, London 1959), but we must 
notice here that the general tendency of the con- 
stitutions, even in Pakistan, is to institute civil 
courts charged with giving judgement, in matters 
of personal status and succession, on the basis 
of codes established according to the require- 
ments of Islamic law. It is worth emphasizing, 
then, that of all the modern constitutions that 
of Jordan is unique, in the judicial sphere, in 
providing expressly for the maintenance of religious 
jurisdictions (art. 104) consisting in skar'i courts and 
in councils for the other religious communities. The 
competence of these latter councils in matters of 
personal status and mortmain property is fixed by 
the law (art. 109), while the sharH courts are con- 
stitutionally declared competent (art. 105) in the 
following matters: personal status of Muslims; 
claims for payment of diya [q.v.] between Muslims 
or parties consenting to this mode of settlement; 
questions concerning wakf [q.v.] property. In other 
countries the kadis have been retained, but their 
existence is more or less precarious. 

Bibliography: General: A. Giannini, Le 
costituzioni degli Stati del Vicino Oriente, Rome 
1931; Helen M. Davis, Constitutions, electoral laws, 
treaties of the States in the Near and Middle East*, 
Durham, N.C., 1953; J. C. Hurewitz, Diplomacy 
in the Near and Middle East, Princeton 1956, 
2 vols.; Muhammad Khalil, The Arab States and 
the Arab League, Beirut 1962; G. Lenczowski, 
Political institutions, apud R. N. Anshen (ed.), 
Mid-East: World-Center, New York 1956, 118-72; 
M. Khadduri, Governments of the Arab East, in 
Journal of International Affairs, vi (1952), 37-50; 
J. E. Godchot, Les constitutions du Proche et du 
Moyen-Orient, Paris 1957; M. Harari, Government 
and politics of the Middle East, Englewood Cliffs, 
N.J. 1962; H. B. Sharabi, Governments and 
politics of the Middle East in the twentieth century, 
Princeton N.J. 1962. 

DUYtJN-I 'UMClMIYYE, the Ottoman public 
debt, more particularly the debt administration set 
up in 1881. The Ottoman goveinment had made its 
first attempts to raise money by internal loans in 



the late 18th and early 19th centuries (see asham 
and ka'ime). The needs and opportunities of the 
Crimean War brought a new type of loan, floated 
on the money markets of Europe. The first such 
foreign loan was raised in London in 1854, the 
second in the following year. They were for 
£ 3,000,000 at 6% and £ 5,000,000 at 4% respectively. 
Between 1854 and 1874 foreign loans were raised 
almost every year, reaching a nominal total of about 
£ 200 million. Usually, since Turkey was regarded 
as a poor risk, the loans were granted on very 
disadvantageous terms; the money received was for 
the most part used to cover regular budgetary 
expenditure, or else spent on projects unconnected 
with economic development. The end came on 
6 October 1875, when the Ottoman government 
defaulted on its payments of interest and amortiza- 
tion. A period of negotiations followed, and agreement 
was finally reached between the government and 
representatives of the European bondholders. This 
agreement was given legal effect in the so-called 
Muharram Decree, issued on 28 Muharram 1299/20 
December 1881, setting up an "Administration of 
the Public Debt" (Duyun-i '■umumiyye — in French 
Administration de la dette publique ottomane), directly 
controlled by and answerable to the foreign creditors. 
Its primary duty was to ensure the service of the 
Ottoman public debt, which was consolidated at a 
total of £ 106,409,920, or £T. 117,050,912, at the 
prevailing rate of no piastres to the pound sterling. 
For this purpose, the Ottoman government ceded 
certain revenues to the Council "absolutely and 
irrevocably . . . until the complete liquidation of the 
debt". These consisted of the revenues from the 
salt and tobacco monopolies, stamp-duties, and the 
taxes on spirits, silk, and fisheries, together known 
as the rusum-i sitte, six taxes. In addition to these 
taxes, which it collected directly through its own 
agents, the Council was to receive tribute from the 
Balkan principalities, and, if necessary, a share of 
customs receipts. The executive committee, or 
Council, consisted of six delegates, representing 
British and Dutch, French, German, Italian, Austro- 
Hungarian and Ottoman bondholders, together 
with a seventh representing a group of priority 
bonds, most of which were held by the Imperial 
Ottoman Bank. Already in 1881 the Council had over 
3000 revenue collectors at its disposal. By 191 1 its 
total staff stood at 8,931 — more than that of the 
Ottoman Ministry of Finance. The Council of the 
Debt had become a very powerful body, with far- 
reaching influence on the financial and economic 
life of the Ottoman Empire, and even, to an extent 
that has been variously assessed, on its politics. 

The Debt Administration continued to function 
during the First World War and under the Allied 
occupation, in spite of the withdrawal of the British, 
French and Italian delegates during the war and 
of the German and Austrian delegates after the 
armistice. The work was carried on under the 
authority of the remaining delegates, and amounts 
due to enemy creditors deposited for future payment. 
It came to an end with the victory of the nationalists 
under Mustafa Kemal, and the creation of the 
republic. The treaty of Lausanne determined the 
share of the new Turkey in the debt of the defunct 
Empire. Negotiations followed, and agreements 
regarding liability and payment were signed in 1928 
and 1933. The debt was finally liquidated in 1944. 
Bibliography: F. A. Belin, Essai sur Vhistoire 
iconomique de la Turquie, in J A, 1885 ;C. Morawitz, 
Les finances de Turquie, Paris 1902; A. du Velay, 



DUY0N-I 'UMUMIYYE — DWIN 



la dette publique ottomane, Paris 

D. G. Blaisdell, European financial control in the 

Ottoman Empire, New York 1929; Z. Y. Hershlag, 

Turkey, an economy in transition, The Hague, n.d. 

[? i960]; B. Lewis, The emergence of modern 

Turkey', London 1962; Ahmed Rasim, '■Othmanli 

ta'rikhi, iv, Istanbul 1326-30, 2028-47 Wide); 

Refii Sukrii Suvla, Tanzimat devrinde istikrazlar, 

in Tanzimat, i, Istanbul 1940, 263-88; Pakalin, i, 

487-91; Ziya Karamursal, Osmanh malt tarihi 

hakktnda letkikler, Istanbul 1940. (B. Lewis) 

DCZA&H [see djahannam]. 

DUZME MUSTAFA, [see mustafa dOzme]. 

DWARKA, a town in the Okhamandal district in 

the north-west of the Kaihiawad peninsula of 

Gudjarat, India, associated in Hindu legend with 

the god Krishna and hence considered to be of 

special sanctity by Hindus. It is known also by the 

names of DwarawatI and Djagat, and was notorious 

for its pirates until the 19th century. Under the name 

Baruwi ( < dwarawati) it is referred to by al-BIrunl 

(K. Ta'rikh al-Hind, tr. E. Sachau, London 1888, 

ii, 105 ff.). 

It was sacked by the Gudjarat sultan Mahmud I 

"Begda" in 877/1473 as a reprisal for an attack by 

pirates on the scholar-merchant Mawlana Mahmud 

Samarkandl: the city was plundered, its temples 

destroyed, and its idols broken {Firishta, tr. Briggs, 

iv, 59-60, and note). It figures again in the Muslim 

history of Gudjarat at the time of the pursuit of the 

deposed sultan, Muzaffar III, by Mughal imperial 

troops in 1000-1/1592-3, although the various 

accounts differ considerably among themselves. 

Bibliography: J. Burton-Page, "Aziz" and 

the sack of Dvdrkd: a seventeenth century Hindi 

version, in BSOAS, xx (1957), 145-57, with full 

bibliography and discussion of the second incident . 

(J. Burton-Page) 
DWIN (pronounced Dvin) was formerly an 
important town in Armenia and was the capital at 
the time of the Arab domination. The name of the 
town, to which Asoghik, ii, ch. I, trans. Gelzer and 
Burckhardt, 47, gives the meaning "hill", is probably, 
as was shown by Minorsky, Le nom de Dvin, in Rev. 
des it. arm., x (1930), 119 ft. and Transcaucasica, 
in JA, ccxvii/i (1930), 41 ff., of pre-Iranian origin 
and said to have been imported by the Armenian 
Arsacids from their original dwelling-place, the 
present Turkoman steppe. In the Arab authors it 
occurs in the forms Dawin or Duwin (Yakut, ii, 632; 
Ibn Khallikan, Bulak ed., i, 105) and Dabil (Yakut, 
ii, 548) which is the most usual form. Neither Yakut 
nor Abu '1-Fida' (ii, 2, 150-1), nor the author of the 
Mukhtasar of Ibn Hawkal (240; 2nd ed., 337), seems 
to realise that Dabil and Dawin denote one and the 
same town. The Greek name is sometimes A6u|3i.o<; 
(Procopius), sometimes to T'tplov, to Ti|}7), to Tlfit 
(Constantine Porphyrogenitus). The forms Dovin or 
Tovin, Duin, Douin are found in many European 
authors. 

The town was founded by the Armenian Arsacid 
king Khusraw II the Young (330-8 A.D.) in a plain, 
near the river Azat (Garni Cay), a tributary on the 
left bank of the Araxes, to replace the ancient 
Artashat (Artaxata), which was situated in the same 
region of Ararat but a little further south. After the 
partition of Armenia between the Persians and the 
Romans in about 387 or 390, Dwin was included in 
the Persian sector (Persarmenia) and was the 



capital of Persarmenia after the deposition in 426 
of the last Armenian Arsacid. 

Besides being the capital and administrative 
centre, and the residence of the Persian marzpan 
(marzuban), Dwin was also, from the 5th century, 
the seat of the Catholicos: several synods were held 
there, notably the one in 554 which made a final 
break with the Greek Church and established the 
Armenian era, beginning on 1 July 552. But its im- 
portance also came from the fact that it was a centre 
of transit trade between Byzantine Anatolia, Persia 
and the countries of the Caucasus. Together with 
Nisibis and Callinicos (Rakka) it was one of the 
customs-posts where a tithe was levied on the 
Romans' and Persians' merchandise (Menander in 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Excerpta de legati- 
onibus, ed. C. de Boor, i, 180 and Guterbock, Byzanz 
und Persien, 75, in W. Heffening, Das islamische 
Fremdenrecht, 109-10). 

Dwin was destroyed, Asoghik tells us (ii, ch. Ill, 
trans. 84-5), by Heradius during his famous cam- 
paign against Persia. The Arabs, advancing from 
Mesopotamia which they had already conquered, 
captured the town on 6 October 640 (the date fixed 
in Manandean's work); it was pillaged, 12,000 
Armenians were massacred and 35,000 were carried 
off as prisoners. Other invasions followed but did 
not reach Dwin; on the other hand, the invasion by 
Habib b. Maslama, which Arab sources place either 
in 24-5/645-6 or in 31/651-2, and the historian 
Sebeos in 652-3, ended in the surrender and capture 
of Dwin and a treaty, the text of which has been 
preserved by al-Baladhuri, and in which Habib 
granted "the Christians, Zoroastrians and Jews" of 
Dwin the amdn and security for their persons, goods, 
synagogues and churches, in return for payment of 
dfizya and kharddj. The Armenian authors do not 
seem to have preserved any recollection of the 
agreement concluded with Dwin and the other 
towns (Nakhcawan, Tiflis, Shamkur) and only 
mention the general treaty concluded between 
Theodore Reshtuni and Mu'awiya. The capture of 
Dwin did not signify a lasting occupation of the 
town by the Arabs; for some time it was subjected 
alternately to Byzantine and Arab domination. The 
emperor Constans II was able to have a synod held 
in Dwin in 645 (or 648-9), and even after the agree- 
ment between Mu c 5wiya and Theodore Reshtuni, 
this same Constans II penetrated as far as Dwin 
where he summoned another synod. After this, the 
town was reoccupied by the Arabs, and then once 
again by the Byzantine general Maurianos; in 657-8, 
it was with the help of a new and temporary Byzan- 
tine domination that the Catholicos Nerses, who had 
left Dwin, returned there. Arab sovereignty was only 
finally established in Dwin and in Armenia when the 
authority of the new caliph Mu c awiya was fully 
affirmed by the Arabs (41/661). Nevertheless, it is 
from the time of Habib b. Maslama's expedition 
that Arab sources mark the start of the admini- 
stration of Armenia by Muslim governors. Dwin 
became the residence of these governors, and when, 
in addition to Armenia, they also had to rule the 
Djazira and Adharbavdian and were not residing in 
Dwin, they had a deputy there. Thanks to the 
establishment of an Arab administration whose 
main task was the collection of taxes, and of a 
garrison, an Arab population settled in the town and 
grew constantly bigger. In fact, according to an 
observation of Markwart (Sudarmenien, 115), tne 
Arabs, unlike the Persians, caused whole quarters 
of the towns to be evacuated for their own use, 



transforming them little by little into Arab towns. 
Dwin was given a governmental palace (ddr al-imara), 
a mosque, a State prison and a mint. The operation 
of the mint at Dwin is attested from the beginning 
of the 2nd/8th century, and it was one of the first 
to function in the caliph's territories. The place of 
origin, given on the coins as Arminiyya, is Dwin 
(see Minorsky, Studies on Caucasian History, 117 
and Kh. Mushegian, Contribution to the history of 
monetary circulation in Dwin, according to finds of 
coins, in Bull. Ac. Sc. Armenian S.S.R., xi (1956), 
84 (in Russian)). 

Dwin was the scene of various events of greater 
or lesser importance during the Arab domination; 
it seems to have been a period of decadence for the 
town which was abandoned by part of its Christian 
population, especially the nobility, until the end of 
the 3rd/<)th century and the establishment of the 
monarchy. In the Umayyad period, under the 
reign of c Abd al-Malik, the governor c Abd Allah b. 
Hatim b. al-Nu c man al-Bahili caused the martyrdom 
at Dwin of a holy man named David and exiled 
several Armenian princes to Damascus (Asoghik, ii, 
ch. II, tr., 73; see other references in Grousset, 
Histoire de VArminie, 309 ff.). His brother c Abd al- 
c Aziz who was governor from 86-97/705-15, in the 
reign of al-Walid, restored Dwin, fortified it and 
surrounded it with a ditch, and enlarged the mosque 
(al-Baladhuri, 204; cf. Asoghik, ii, ch. IV, tr. 92; 
Ghevond, vi, 34-5; Grousset, 314). During the Umay- 
yad period, the Mamikonians were pre-eminent 
among the great families of the country; with the 
'Abbasid period the Bagratunis took the lead. 
However, the rise of the Bagratunis did not affect 
the position of Dwin which, with Bardha'a, remained 
one of the two bulwarks of Arab power in Ar- 
menia and Arran, and where the governors and 
their deputies remained firmly established. In the 
reign of al-Mansur (136-58/754-75) and the rule of 
Hasan b. Kahtaba a revolt of Armenian nobles 
broke out. It began with an attack on a tax-collector 
by Artavazd Mamikonian who had taken up arms 
in Dwin under the very eyes of the governor; it was 
carried further by Mushegh Mamikonian who, after 
seizing Dwin, was defeated and killed in the battle 
of Bagrevand in 775 (see Grousset, 324 ff.). 

During the civil war between al-Amln and al- 
Ma'mun, the Arab amir in command at Manazgerd, 
al-Djahhaf, of the family of the Kaisikk c (Kaysites), 
and who was married to an Armenian princess, 
took possession of Dwin for himself, and his son 
c Abd al-Malik remained there until he was killed by 
the actual inhabitants of Dwin in 823-4 (Grousset, 
345 ff-', Laurent, VArminie, 322). In the time of 
the caliph al-Wathik (227-32/842-7), Khalid b. Yazid 
b. Mazyad al-Shaybanl, governor of Armenia, died, 
possibly by assassination, during an expedition 
against the rebellious governor of Georgia; his body 
was brought back and buried in Dwin in 230/844-5 
(Laurent, 345). After the assassination of the governor 
of Armenia Yusuf b. Abi Sa'id Muhammad in Mush 
in 237/852, the caliph al-Mutawakkil (232-47/847-61) 
sent into Armenia Bugha al-Sharabi who wintered 
at Dwin and there, as elsewhere, indulged in numerous 
massacres (Grousset, 355 ft.; Laurent, 120, n. 5 
345-6)- 

After the recognition of Bagratuni Ashot (Ashut) 
as prince of princes (batrik al-batdrika) in 862, and 
then as king in 886 (or 887: Asoghik, iii, ch. II, 
tr. 115; cf. Laurent, 267, 287 ff.; Grousset, 372, 394), 
Dwin was in theory included in his possession for 
which he regarded himself as the caliph's vassal; but 



N 679 

in fact it was independent of him, and he did not 
establish his capital there. At the beginning of the 
reign of Ashot's son Sembat (Sanbat) the Martyr 
(890-914), two Muslim amirs, Mahmat (Muhammad) 
and Umay (Umayya), brothers of unknown origin, 
took up position in Dwin, and Sembat had to struggle 
for two years to subdue them ; he captured them and 
sent them to the emperor Leo VI. But this situation 
disturbed the ambitious amir of Adharbaydjan, 
Afshin Muhammad b. Abi '1-Sadj, who was in theory 
still governor of Armenia. In spite of the agreement 
he had concluded with Sembat, he intervened in 
Armenia. This was after the terrible earthquake 
which ravaged Dwin in 280/893 and destroyed the 
Catholicos's palace (the latter consequently decided 
to move to Ecmiadzin). Afshin came and occupied 
Dwin. War with Sembat followed, in the course of 
which the wives of both Sembat and his son Mushegh 
were sent as prisoners to Dwin, only being released 
in 898-9 (see Grousset, 402 ff., 413 ff.). Afshin was 
succeeded by his brother Yusuf who captured 
Sembat, tortured him to death and exposed his 
crucified body in Dwin, where many Armenians 
were martyred. The Catholicos Ter Yohannes fled to 
Greek territory (Asoghik, iii, ch. V, tr. 123); for these 
events, see Grousset, 435 ff-)- In opposition to 
Sembat's lawful successor Ashot II, Yusuf gave his 
support to his cousin Ashot son of Shapuh whom he 
established in Dwin and recognized as king. In 
addition, in the canton of Goghthn, situated on the 
left bank of the Araxa below Dwin, he set up an 
Arab amir whose successors were subsequently to 
play a part in the history of Dwin. 

Yusuf revolted against the caliph and was taken 
prisoner in 307/919. During his captivity one of his 
officers, Sbuk (Subuk), governed Adharbaydjan and 
Armenia; he re-established good relations with 
Ashot II, whose rival was compelled to give up Dwin, 
though it did not, however, return to Ashot's 
possession. In 921 the emperor Romanus Lecapenus 
sent an expedition against Dwin under the command 
of the Domesticos (Demeslikos). According to 
Asoghik (iii, ch. VI, 124), Subuk (Spkhi) drove him 
back with the aid of Ashot whom he had called upon 
for assistance. When Yusuf returned to Adharbay- 
djan in 310/922, Dwin was at first governed by Nasr 
Subuki, ghuldm to Subuk who had just died, and 
then, after Nasr's recall, by Bishr (or Bashir) who 
started hostilities with Ashot but was defeated by 
him. In 314/926 Yusuf left Adharbaydjan, the caliph 
having entrusted him with the conduct of the war 
against the Karmatians, in the course of which he met 
his death in the following year. It was at this point, 
in 315/927-8, that a new Byzantine expedition took 
place, commanded by the Domesticos John Corcuas, 
against Dwin which was defended by Nasr Subuki. 
It fell: the Greeks, with the help of siege-engines, 
breached the walls and succeeded in making their 
way into the town, but were driven out as a result 
of the assistance given to the defenders by the 
inhabitants. This is what Ibn al-Athlr relates (viii, 
129-30). It may be questioned whether, in spite of 
the differences of names and dates, the two expedi- 
tions under discussion were not in fact one and the 

The dynasty of the Sadjids in Adharbaydjan came 
to an end in 317/929, though for a time it was con- 
tinued by Sadjid officers. We then enter a confused 
period in the history of Dwin. We do not know which 
amir was in command of Dwin when king Abas 
(929-53) secured from him the release of the Christian 
prisoners, nor who was the Muslim personage who, 



in about 937, came as far as Dwin and inflicted a 
defeat on Abas, but was then defeated by king 
Gagik of Vaspurakan, who compelled the Muslim 
population of Dwin to pay tribute and give hostages. 
It is possible that at this time Dwin was more or 
less subject to the authority of Daysam b. Ibrahim 
al-Kurdi, a temporary ruler of Adharbaydjan who 
was thus successor to the Sadjids and heir to their 
rights over Armenia; we possess a coin of his, struck 
at Dwin in 330/941-2. But at about that date, 
Daysam was driven out by Marzuban b. Muhammad 
b. Musafir, of the family of the Kangarids of Tarom, 
who founded the dynasty of the Sallarids or Musa- 
firids [?.«.]. Then, Marzuban having been captured 
by the Buwayhid Rukn al-Dawla in 337/948-9, 
Daysam succeeded in reconquering Adharbaydjan 
and made himself master of Dwin, expelling two 
adventurers, Fadl b. Dja'far al-Hamdani and 
Ibrahim al-Dabbi, who had seized the town. But 
already a new power had appeared at Dwin, that 
of Muhammad b. Shaddad, founder of the Kurdish 
dynasty of the Shaddadids which was to rule over 
the territory between the Kur and the Araxes. 
Muhammad gained control of Dwin in about 340/951, 
by what means we do not know. Ibrahim b. al- 
Marzuban, acting in the name of his father who was 
still held prisoner, tried to drive him out of Dwin; 
the first attempt failed, and Muhammad built a 
fortress at the gates of Dwin. A second attempt 
by Ibrahim compelled Muhammad to flee, and a 
Daylamite garrison was installed in Dwin itself. But 
soon the townspeople recalled Muhammad who 
triumphantly resisted an attack by king Ashot III 
the Charitable of Ani. Marzuban, however, had 
managed to escape from prison in 341 or 342/952 or 
953-4 (for the date, see M. Canard, Hist, de la dynastie 
des H'amdanides, i, 533). He disposed of Daysam in 
Adharbaydjan and came to attack Dwin. Muhammad 
b. Shaddad, caught between Marzuban's army and 
the Daylamite garrison still in the town, and deserted 
by the inhabitants, took refuge in Vaspurakan and 
then in Byzantine territory where he tried in vain 
to enlist help to reconquer Dwin. He died in 344/955, 
leaving three sons, one of whom we shall see again 
later at Dwin. 

From the time of Marzuban's reconquest, Dwin 
seems to have remained in the hands of the Sallarids, 
although it does not occur in the list of regions 
paying tribute to the Sallarid, given by Ibn Hawkal 
for the year 344, perhaps because it was administered 
directly by a deputy. Ibrahim b. al-Marzuban was 
deprived of Adharbaydjan in about 368/979 and died 
four years later. It is no doubt his son Abu '1-Haydja 5 , 
the Aplhai of Delmastan in Asoghik, iii, ch. xii, 
whom we find still in possession of Dwin in 982-3, 
but shortly afterwards the town was taken by the 
amir of Goghthn, Abu Dulaf al-Shaybani (Aputluph 
in Asoghik). In 377/987, Abu '1-Haydja 5 al-Rawwadi 
al-Kurdi, the Arabo-Kurdish amir of Adharbaydjan 
and successor to the Sallarids, took it from him, but 
Abu Dulaf reconquered the town from Mamlan, 
successor to Abu '1-Haydja 5 . The Bagratuni king 
Gagik I (990-1020) overcame the amir of Goghthn, 
and no doubt took Dwin from him. 

However, the sons of Muhammad b. Shaddad after 
many adventures had set up an amirate at Gandja 
(Djanza), north-west of Bardha'a, in 360/971, the 
territory having been taken from the Sallarids, and 
they extended their rule between the Kiir and the 
Araxes. One of them, Fadl I (375-422/985-1031), also 
captured Dwin and took tribute from the Armenians. 
The date of the capture of Dwin is without doubt 



to Dwin. 
already i 



413/1022, for it was then that Fadl's youngest son 
Abu '1-Aswar Shawur became governor, after which 
he ruled over the whole block of Shaddadid posses- 
sions, with his residence at Gandja, from 440/1049 
until 459/1067. For the relations between Abu 
'1-Aswar and his Armenian neighbours, see Minorsky, 
op. cit., 51 ff. It was Abu '1-Aswar, amir of Dwin, the 
'A7rXT)<7<pdtpT)<; of the Byzantines, whom the emperor 
Constantine Monomachos (1042-54) engaged to attack 
Gagik II of Ani in order to compel him to give his 
kingdom to the empire, promising to allow him 
to have the territories he conquered from Gagik. 
When Gagik finally abdicated (1045), the emperor 
wanted Abu '1-Aswar to restore to him the regions 
taken from Gagik. He sent an army against Dwin, 
but it was defeated. Another expedition followed in 
1046-7, commanded by the eunuch Constantine and 
a general of Armenian origin, Kekaumenos, grand- 
father of the historian Kekaumenos and, according 
to that writer, formerly "toparch" of Dwin (for the 
difficulties raised by this point, see Markwart, 
Siidarmenien. 562 ff.). A further expedition was 
dispatched against Abu '1-Aswar in 1048 or 1049 
(rather than in 1055-6, see Minorsky, 55, 59 ff., as 
opposed to Honigmann, Ostgrenze, 182). In both 
; alike, the Byzantines failed to lay siege 
However, by this time the Turks were 
lvading Armenia. When, in 446/1054, 
Tughril Beg arrived in Adharbaydjan and Arran, 
Abu '1-Aswar submitted to him and, in agreement 
with the Turks, made a raid on Ani, returning laden 
with booty. He died in 1067. 

Dwin then passed into the hands of a branch of 
the Shaddadids which settled at Ani, after the capture 
of that town by Alp Arslan (1064) in 1072. This 
situation lasted until 552/1105, when a Turkish amir 
seized the town. It then fell to Tughan Arslan, lord 
of Bitlis and Arzan and vassal of an Artukid. As a 
result of the struggle between Mahmud and Tughril, 
it was recovered by the Shaddadid Fadlun III, who 
died in n 30, but was recaptured at that date by a 
son of Tughan Arslan. According to Minorsky {op. 
cit., 131), it was at that moment that Saladin's 
grandfather Shadi, a Kurd born in a village near 
Dwin, is said to have left the country and gone to 
Takrit. (We know, as Ibn Khallikan relates, i, 105, 
that Saladin's family were natives of Dwin). 

In 557/1162 the Georgians sacked the town and 
destroyed the mosque. But despite repeated attacks 
they were not able to gain possession, since the town 
was taken by the atabeks of Adharbaydjan who were 
descended from Eldiguz (Ildegiz, vizier of Sultan 
Mahmud). In 1203 Dwin was captured by the 
Georgians, from whom it was taken by the Kh"arizm- 
shah Djalal al-Din in 1225. Then came the Mongols, 
who destroyed the town between 1236 and 1239. 

It will be seen from this sketch that, from the end 
of the 9th century, Dwin suffered ceaselessly from 
all the repercussions to the upheavals that took place 
in Adharbaydjan, that all the powers which had been 
built up in the neighbouring countries tried to get 
possession of it on account of its position and com- 
mercial importance, and that it was only in the 
hands of the Armenians in exceptional circum- 
stances, despite the large Armenian population 
which no doubt formed the majority. However, 
several of the Muslim overlords were related by 
marriage to Armenian princely families, for example, 
even Abu '1-Asw5r, as son-in-law of king Ashot. 

The Arab geographers have left us certain 
descriptions of Dwin. It was, Ibn Hawkal tells us, a 
larger town than Ardabil, surrounded by walls, 



DWIN — D2ABIC 



inhabited by many Christians, and its cathedral 
mosque stood beside the church, as was the case at 
Hims. Fabrics of goats-hair, called mirHzza, and 
wool were woven there; carpets, hangings, cushions, 
coverlets, mattresses, etc., of what were known as 
"Armenian" (armanl) textiles, dyed vermilion with 
kermes (kirmiz), patterned silk materials called 
buzyun comparable and even superior to those from 
the Byzantine countries. One speciality much prized 
in Muslim countries was the trouser-lacings (tikka, 
pi. tihah). All these products formed the basis of a 
flourishing export trade. Ibn Hawkal's Epitome 
boasts of the gardens, fruit, and the cultivation of 
cereals, rice and cotton in the locality of Dwin, the 
springs and flowing waters; and his account also 
mentions the destruction of the town by the Geor- 
gians. Al-MukaddasI says that Dwin is a very cold 
region, and speaks of its textile products, its gardens, 
the citadel built of stone and clay, and the markets 
"in the shape of a cross"; he gives the names of the 
gates of the town, specifies that the mosque stands 
high up on an eminence and that in his day the 
fortress was falling into ruin. According to him, the 
number of inhabitants, the majority of whom were 
Christian, was declining. He mentions the rite which 
was used by the Muslims, that of Abu Hanifa, and 
says that there was a convent of Sufis in Dwin. 

Excavations have been carried out on the site of 
Dwin, now occupied by villages. The results will be 
found in a work of K. Kafadarian, La ville de Dwin 
et ses fouilles, Erevan 1952, in Armenian with a 
resume in Russian (see also BSE, xiii (1952), 467). 
In the upper part of the town remains have been 
found of the governors' palace, built after the 
earthquake of 893 and, below the ruins, traces of a 
palace of the same sort but dating from an earlier 
period. In the centre of the town have been found 
the remains of the palace of the Catholicos, built in 
461 or 485, and also of a church of basilican design 
with a single nave, dating from the 6th century A.D. 
But the most important building discovered at 
Dwin is the cathedral whose complicated history 
can be retraced: originally a pagan temple with 
three aisles, built in the 3rd century, converted into 
a church at the beginning of the 4th century when 
an apse was added, and in the middle of the 5th 
century refashioned as a basilica with three aisles, 
and also possessing an external gallery; then, in the 
7th century, with the building of lateral apses and 
a central cupola resting on four large pillars, it 
became a cruciform church with a cupola. This great 
church was destroyed in the earthquake of 893. 
Remains have also been found of dwellings, work- 
shops for weaving, jewellery etc., cellars, warehouses, 
tools (ploughshares, iron shovels, etc.), gold and 
silver articles, pottery, china, architectural fragments 
decorated with sculptures of secular subjects (grape- 
gathering) etc. The discoveries have shown that the 
economic life of Dwin was active particularly from 
the end of the 3rd/9th century until the 5th/nth 
century inclusive, that is to say until the rise of the 
Armenian kingdom. 

Bibliography: The history of Dwin is described 
in detail in Markwart, Sudarmenien und die 
Tigrisquellen, see index and in particular 562 ff. 
(cf. also, by the same author, Streifzuge, 404-5), 
but the outstanding work is V. Minorsky, Studies 
on Caucasian history, London 1952, in which for 
the first time a study is made of the important 
historical source of Munedjdjim Bashl, collated 
with the Armenian sources: see particularly 116 ff., 
Vicissitudes of Dwin; it is upon Minorsky's work 



that the present article has been based; it has 
been used in two studies of Ter ievondian entitled 
Dvin under the Sallarids and Chronology of Dwin 
in the gth and 10th centuries published in Armenian 
in the Bull. Ac. Sc. Armenian S.S.R. of 1956 
and 1957 and of which H. Berberian is now 
preparing a French translation. For the capture 
of Dwin by the Arabs, see H. Manandean, Les 
invasions arabes en Arminie, in Armenian, Fr. tr. 
H. Berberian in Byzantion, xviii (1948); the Arab 
historians for the dates indicated above, the 
chapter of Baladhuri entitled Futuh Arminiyya, 
ed. Cairo, 202 ff. For the description of Dwin, see 
Istakhrl, 191 ff.; Ibn Hawkal, ed. Kramers, 337, 
342-3; Mukaddasi, 257, 379; Le Strange, 182-4. 
In addition to their accounts of the conquest, the 
Arab historians also mention Dwin in connexion 
with events in Armenia, revolts, etc.: see e.g. 
Tabari, iii, 1409, 1410, 1414. Details concerning 
Dwin will be found in Tournebize, Hist. pol. et rel. 
de V Arminie (index s.v. Tovin); Ghazarian, Arme- 
nien unter der arab. Herrschaft, reprinted from Z. 
fiir arm. Philologie, 21 ff., 71; Thopdschian, Die 
inneren Zustande von Armenien unter Aschot I, in 
MSOS, vii/2 (1904), and Politische und Kirchen- 
geschichte Armeniens unter Aschot I und Sembat I, 
in MSOS, viii/2 (1905), passim; J. Laurent, V Ar- 
minie entreByzance et I'Islam . . . jusqu'en 886, Paris 
1919, index; idem, Byzance et les Turcs Seljoucides, 
Paris 1913-4, index; R. Vasmer, Chronologic der 
arabischen Statthalter in Armenien (750-887), Vienna 
1931 and Zur Chronologie der Gastaniden und Salla- 
riden, in Islamicaj iii, 170 ff.; Vasiliev, Byz. et les 
Arabes. Dynastie macidonienne, Russian ed., 219, 
230, 231; idem, Justin the First, Cambridge, Mass. 
I 95o, 357-8 ; E. Honigmann, Die Ostgrenze des byz. 
Reiches von 363 bis 1071, 19, 29, 158, 174, 167-7, 
182; see also De Morgan, Hist, du peuple arminien 
(1919), 105, 116, 118, 123, 134, 135-6, 138, 244- 
References to the Armenian historians will be 
found in Grousset, Histoire de V Arminie, Paris 
1947, passim, and also in the works of Laurent and 
Minorsky given above. See also G. H. Sarkisian, 
Tigranakert (Tigranocerta) , Hist, of the urban 
communities of ancient Armenia, Erevan i960, in 
Russian, 19, 106, 135. Further to the articles of 
Ter ievondian cited above, see idem, The emirate 
of Dvin in Armenia in the gth-ioth centuries, 
(dissertation of the University of Leningrad, 1958), 
and On the question of the origin of the emirate of 
Dvin in Armenia, in the volume in honour of 
I. A. Orbeli, Researches on the history of the culture 
of the peoples of the Orient, Moscow- Leningrad i960 
(in Russian). (M. Canard) 

DYEING [see sabbagh]. 

DZABIC, Ali Fehmi, b. Mostar 1853, d. Istanbul 
1918, from 1884 muf'i in Mostar (Herzegovina). The 
Austro-Hungarian provincial government of Bosnia 
and Herzegovina re-organized Muslim religious insti- 
tutions in order to keep them under its control. As 
early as 1886 the Muslims of Sarajevo aspired to 
religious autonomy, and the dissatisfaction of the 
Muslims in Herzegovina, under Dzabic's leadership, 
steadily increased. Dzabic sought religious autonomy 
at the conference of Bosnia-Herzegovina Muslim 
leaders in Sarajevo in 1893, but he remained in the 
minority. From the year 1899 onwards, the movement 
for the religious autonomy of the Muslims in Herze- 
govina, under Dzabic's leadership, entered an acute 
phase. The movement had linked up with the 
struggle of the orthodox Serbs for religious autonomy. 
The Austro-Hungarian authorities persecuted 



D2ABIC — EBOZZtYA TEVFtK 



Diabii's group so that D2abi<! was removed from 
his position of mufti (1900). In the meantime the 
movement had also begun to spread in Bosnia, so 
that the Austro-Hungarian authorities were com- 
pelled to enter into negotiations. No agreement was 
reached, because the Austro-Hungarian authorities 
were unwilling to accept certain paragraphs in the 
draft statute which related to the choice of organs of 
religious administration and to the attestation of 
the re'is al-Uilemd' on behalf of the shaykh al-Islam 
in Istanbul. In 1902, when Dzabic with five of his 
friends went .to Istanbul for consultations, he was 
forbidden to return to his country, and stayed in 
Istanbul until his death. He lectured on Arabic 
language and literature at the university, and 
contributed to many journals. On the occasion of 
the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1908) 
he wrote a pamphlet in Arabic to the parliamentary 



deputies of the Arab countries, in which he attacked 
Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina 
and the Turkish government because of its indul- 
gence. As a result, he was removed from the uni- 
versity. He made an anthology of poems by the 
Companions of Muhammad, which he wanted to 
publish in three volumes with his commentary, but 
he published only one of them: tfusn al-sahdba /* 
shark ash l dr al-sahdba; he also wrote a commentary 
on Abu TSlib's poem in defence of Muhammad 
(printed in Istanbul 1327 A.H.). 

Bibliography: V. Skaric, Osman Nuri Hadzic 
and N. Stojanovic, Bosna i Hercegovina pod austro- 
ugarskom upravom, Srpski narod u XIX veku, 
Belgrade 1938; M. Handzic, Knjiievni rad 
bosansko-hercegovalkih muslimana, Sarajevo 1934. 

(Branislav Djurdjev) 
DZAMBUL DZABAEV [see djambul djabaev]. 



EAST AFRICA [se( 

ZANDJ, DAR-ES-SALAAM, 



<A, ZANDJ1BAR, etc.]. 

EBtfZZIYA TEVFIK (Ebu '1-Diya> Tewfik) 
(1848-1913), a well-known Ottoman journalist. Born 
in Istanbul, he had only a sketchy education, and 
was largely self taught. At the age of sixteen or 
seventeen he met Namik Kemal, and, through him, 
Shinasi, and became a frequent caller at the offices 
of the newspaper Taswir-i Efkdr, where the literary 
avant-garde used to meet; he claimed to have been 
the sixth to register as a member of the Society of 
New Ottomans (Yeni '■Othmanlilar DjemHyyeti), 
founded in 1865, but this claim is questionable. 

Tewfik started his journalistic career in 1868-9 
by writing articles in Terakki. When Shinasi died, 
Tewfik and Kemal (who soon gave up his rights in 
the venture) bought the piinting presses on behalf 
of the Egyptian prince Mustafa Fadil Pasha [?.k.]. 
The first three products of the newly-acquired press 
were a collection of the political writings of Reshld 
Pasha, Namik Kemal's Saldh al-Din-i Eyyubi, and 
Tewfik's own first work, the play Edjel-i Kada. In 
his preface to this play, which was well received, 
Tewfik defends the realist thesis that a writer must 
describe the morals and customs of his age without 
projecting his own personality. Tewfik was also a 
regular contributor to Kemal's '■Ibret, which appeared 
in 1872. He then took over the editorship of Ifadika, 
as from its issue dated 9 November 1872. When the 
latter was suspended for two months following its 
56th issue, he issued the Sirddj,, for which he had 
earlier taken out a licence as a precaution. 25 issues 
of Sirdaj were published, the venture finally collapsing 
when Tewfik was exiled to Rhodes in April 1873. 
It was in Rhodes that Tewfik composed his anthology, 
Numune-i Edebiydt-i '■Othmdniyye, and a collection 
of encyclopaedic articles, entitled Mdhiydt, of which 
the historical portions were later printed in the 
magazine Muharrir (vii-viii; 1295/1878). After the 
accession of Murad on 31 May 1876, Tewfik returned 
to Istanbul and resumed his journalistic activity 
which continued under the new reign of c Abd al- 
Hamld. When the latter had Kemal exiled to 



Midilli and Diya 5 Pasha to Adana, Tewfik sought 
release from official pressure by making a joumey 
to Vienna in 1877 on publishing business. In 1880 
he obtained from the Minister of Education Munif 
Pasha the licence to publish the magazine Meajmu'a-i 
Ebu 'l-Diya', which soon became an organ of the 
Tanzimdt "progressives". His annual calendars, 
called first Rebi'-i Ma'-rifet, then Newsdl-i Ma'-rifet, 
had a brisk sale. In 1882 he regained control of his 
printing-press and named it Matba'a-i Ebu 'l-Diya'. 
A flood of publications followed, the printing-press 
producing on an average one fascicule every five days. 
There included a series of short biographies, entitled 
Kutiibkhdne-i meshdhir and modelled on the French 
La vie des hommes illustres, the hundred or so thicker 
volumes of the Kutubkhdne-i Ebu 'l-Diya'', modelled 
this time on the German Universal Bibliothek and 
written either by Tewfik himself or by other Tanzimdt 
intellectuals, as well as various magazines. Before 
long, however, the authorities began to interfere: 
in 1888 the publication of Namik Kemal's '■Othmanli 
ta'rikhi was stopped after the first fascicule had 
sold 6,000 copies. When the authorities demanded 
that pamphlets and magazines should be submitted 
for censorship before publicaton, Tewfik closed down 
his Med[mu c a-i Ebu 'l-Diya'. He was arrested twice, 
in 1891 when he was Director of the School of Arts 
and Crafts, and in 1893 when he was a member of 
the Court of First Instance of the Council of State, 
each time on trumped-up charges. Book censorship 
was relaxed in 1897 when Ziihdi Pasha became 
Minister of Education, and Tewfik once again 
brought out his Medjmu'a, which survived until 
1900 when Tewfik was arrested and exiled to Konya, 
where he stayed for almost nine years, returning 
only after the Young Turk Revolution as parlia- 
mentary deputy for Antalya. In 1909 he brought 
out the new Taswir-i Efkdr in which he described 
himself as an "independent and moderate progres- 
sive". He spent the remaining four years of his life 
in political discussions and polemics both in that 
I newspaper and in the Medjmu'a-i Ebu 'l-Diya', 
I which he also republished. The Taswir-i Efkdr was 
closed down for a time, but allowed to re-appear on 
I 25 January 1913 when Mahmud Shewket Pasha 



EBOZZtYA TEVFlK — EDIRNE 



683 



succeeded Kamil Pasha as Grand Vizier. Tewfik died 
two days later having just delivered to his news- 
paper office an article entitled "New Arrests" on 
the Government's latest measures. 

The importance of Ebu '1-Diya Tewfik lies not so 
much in the literary quality of his writings (although 
he was a good stylist and helped in the development 
of simple and clear Turkish prose) and not so much 
in his ideas, which were often confused and con- 
tradictory, as in his tireless work as a popularizer, 
journalist and above all publisher and printer. He 
himself was proud of having produced the first 
illustrated printed texts in Turkey. He was also the 
first to use Kufic type face. His memoirs about his 
famous contemporaries are also important and there 
is much of interest in his Shindsi ile muldkdt, 
Zamdnimiz ta'rikhine e d'id khdtlrdt, Ridjdl-i mensiye, 
Yeni '■Othmanlilar ta'rihhi and Kemdl Beyin ter- 
djiime-i hdli, Istanbul 1326/1908), as well as in his 
autobiographical articles Ruzndme-i haydtimdan 
ba'-di $ahdHf and Makdme-i tewkifiyye (in Medimu'a-i 
Ebu 'l-Diyd', Nos. 109-27). 

Bibliography: The best biography is that by 
Ihsan Sungir in Ayhk Ansiklopedi, ix, 266-9, see 
also Merhum Diya? Tewfik Bey, in "Therwet-i Funun, 
no. 28; articles in Bursal! Tahir, <Otkmdnlt mWel- 
lifleri and I. Alaeddin, Meshur Adamlar Ansi- 
hlopedisi and references in Ahmed Midhat, Menfd, 
Istanbul 1293/1876, 72 ff.; Bereket-zade I. Hakkl, 
Ydd-l Mddi, Istanbul 1332/1914, 55, 73 ft., 141; 
Ali Ekrem, Ndmik Kemal, Istanbul 1930, 58, 78; 
Halid Ziya Usakhgil, Kirk Yil, Istanbul 1936, ii, 
35, 74, 119; Fu 3 5d Kopriilu, Ebu '1-DiydTewfik 
Bey: blumu mundsebeti ile in Therwet-i Funun 
(No. 1140, 28 March 1911); tA, s.v. 

(Fevziye Abdullah) 
ECIJA [see istidja']. 
ECONOMY [see tadbir al-manzil] 
ECSTASY [see shath, also darwIsh, dhikr]. 
EDEBIYYAT-I EJEDlDE, "new literature", 
the name given to a Turkish literary movement 
associated with the review Therwet-i Funun [q.v.] 
during the years 1895-1901 — that is, during the 
editorship of Tewfik Fikret [q.v.]. See further turks, 
literature, and the articles on the individual authors. 
(Ed.) 
EDESSA [see al-ruha]. 
EDHEM, CERKES [see Cerkes, edhem]. 
EDHEM, KHALlL [see eldem, khalIl edhem]. 
EDIRNE, Adrianople — a city lying at the con- 
fluence of the Tundja and Arda with the Meric 
(Maritsa); the capital of the Ottomans after Bursa 
(Brusa), and now the administrative centre of the 
vildyet (province) of the same name and, traditionally, 
the centre of Turkish (now Eastern) Thrace (Trakya 
or Pasha-eli). Its historical importance derives from 
the fact that it lies on the main road from Asia 
Minor to the Balkans, where it is the first important 
staging point after Istanbul. It guards the eastern 
entrance to the natural corridor between the Rhodope 
mountains to the south-west and the Istrandja 
mountains to the north-east. It also dominates 
traffic down the valleys of the Tundja and the 
Meric and used to be the starting point of important 
river traffic down the Meric to the Aegean. In later 
times the main weight of traffic was transferred to 
the railway passing through Edirne on its way to 
Istanbul. Edirne is particularly rich in Ottoman 
architectural monuments. Its importance, diminished 
by the transfer of the Ottoman capital to Istanbul, 
received a great blow when the city was captured 
by the Russians in 1829. Since the Balkan Wars it 



has been a Turkish frontier city, which fell briefly 
under Bulgarian occupation in 1913 and was occupied 
by the Greeks between 1920 and 1922. The popu- 
lation of Edirne, which exceeded 100,000 in the 
middle of the 19th century, fell to 87,000 at the 
beginning of the present century (of whom 47,000 
are Turks, some 20,000 Greeks, some 15,000 Jews, 
4,000 Armenians and 2,000 Bulgarians), then again 
to 34,528 at the census of 1927 and, finally, to 
29,400 in 1945, since when it has been rising. The 
population is now largely Turkish, with a small 
Jewish community. 

The city is built inside a bend of the Tundja, just 
before its junction with the Meric, on gently rising 
ground reaching a height of 75 metres on the hillock 
on which the great Sellmiyye mosque is built, and 
some 100 metres further to the east. The part of 
the city built on the lower slopes has often been 
flooded, sometimes catastrophically. The city con- 
sists of two main parts, Kal c e-idi, in the western 
part of the river curve, the district surrounded by 
the walls, which have now almost completely dis- 
appeared, and rebuilt on a geometric pattern after 
being devastated by fire at the end of the last 
century, and Kal'e-dtsht to the east. It is the latter 
which is the centre of the modern city. 

The name of the city is given in old Ottoman 
sources as Edrinus, Edrune, Edrinaboli, Endriye, 
as well as Edirne. or Edrine, the latter form being 
used in the fethndme sent by Murad I to the Ilkhanid 
sultan Uways Khan. Historical documents also use 
honorific names, such as Dar al-Nasr wa '1-Maymana 
(Abode of Divinely- Aided Victory and of Felicity), 
Dar al-Saltana (Abode of the Sultanate) etc. 

The city is believed to have been first settled by 
Thracian tribes, from whom it was captured by the 
Macedonians and named Oresteia (or Orestias). It 
was rebuilt by the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd 
century and named after him Hadrianopolis, 
Adrianople. Adrianople witnessed the victory of 
Constantine over Licinius in 323, the defeat of 
Valens by the Goths in 378; it was besieged by the 
Avars in 586, captured by the Bulgars in 914, 
besieged again by the Pedenegs in 1049 and 1078. 
At the battle of Adrianople in 1205 the Latin 
Emperor of Byzantium Baldwin was defeated and 
captured by the Bulgars who joined with the Greeks 
in resisting Catholic encroachment. The Byzantine 
Greeks then held the city against the Bulgarians. 
Turks from Asia Minor appeared on the scene in 
1342-3 when Aydtn-oghlu Umur Bey fought as an ally 
of Cantacuzenus against John Palaeologus, defended 
Dimetoka [q.v.] against the "prince" (tehfur) of Edirne 
and is said to have killed the latter (see Miikrimin 
Halil, Dustumdme-i Enveri, Istanbul 1929, introduc- 
tion 43-6). In 754/1353 the Ottoman prince Siileyman 
Pasha joined the forces of Cantacuzenus in Edirne 
after defeating an army of Bulgars and Serbians. 
Three years before the final conquest of Edirne, the 
Ottoman Orkhan Bey advised Siileyman Pasha to 
keep a close eye on the castle of Edirne. The con- 
quest was accomplished under Murad I by Lala 
Shahin Pasha, who defeated the tekfur of Edirne 
at Sazlt-Dere, to the south-east of the city. The 
latter then fled secretly by boat from his palace on 
the banks of the Tundja and in Ramadan 763/July 
1362 the inhabitants of the town surrendered on 
condition of being allowed to live there freely. 
Although Murad I left the administration of Edirne 
to Lala Shahin Pasha, preferring for a time to hold 
his court at Bursa or Dimetoka, the city of Edirne 
became almost immediately the forward base of 



Ottoman expansion in Europe. It was from Edirne, 
furthermore that Yildlrlm Bayezid set out to 
besiege Constantinople. After Bayezid's later defeat 
in the battle of Ankara, the elder prince Suleyman 
transferred the treasury from Bursa to Edirne where 
he ascended the throne. He later lost the city to 
Musa Celebi, who also ruled from Edirne and minted 
money there in his name. After his defeat and death, 
Sultan Mehemmed I spent most of his eight-year 
rule in Edirne and died there, being buried like his 
predecessors in Bursa. It was in Edirne in 825/1422 
that the Pretender Mustafa was executed after his 
defeat by Murad II. The latter's reign saw an in- 
crease in the prosperity of Edirne and its environs 
and the building of the town of Uzun-Koprii (Djisr-i 
Ergene). 

It was at Edirne that Murad II received foreign 
ambassadors, it is from there that he directed his 
conquests, and it was also on the island on the 
Tundja that the circumcision-feasts of his sons c Ala J 
al-DIn and Mehemmed were celebrated with magnifi- 
cent pomp. His reign witnessed also a mutiny of the 
Janissaries at Edirne on the pretext of the fire in 
the city, a mutiny which was pacified by an increase 
in the soldiers' pay. Murad II died in Edirne and was 
succeeded by Mehemmed II who, however, did not 
return to the city until he decided to lay siege to 
Constantinople. The plans of the siege were worked 
out in Edirne and the siege guns tested in its environs. 
After the conquest Meljemmed II again held court 
in Edirne where he organized in the spring of 861/1457 
magnificent circumcision celebrations, lasting two 
months, for the princes Bayezid and Mustafa. 
Selim I also held court in Edirne, the city being left 
to the care of princes when the Sultan campaigned. 
The prosperity of Edirne continued to grow in the 
ioth/i6th century: Suleyman the Magnificent often 
stayed there, while the city's greatest mosque was 
built under his successor. The tranquillity of the city 
was, however, disturbed by mutinies in 994/1586 
and 1003/1595. From the time of Ahmed I, Edirne 
became famous for its royal hunting parties, royal 
celebrations and entertainments in and around the 
city, attaining particular brilliance under Mehem- 
med IV (Avdfi = the Hunter). Later the life of the 
city began to be affected by the successive defeats 
suffered by Ottoman arms. In 1115/1703, at the 
famous "Edirne incident", Mustafa II who held his 
court in Edirne was deposed in favour of Ahmed III 
by malcontents coming from Istanbul. The sub- 
sequent decline of the city was hastened by the fire 
of 1158/1745 in which some 60 quarters were burnt 
down and by the earthquake of 1164/1751. In 1801 
Edirne witnessed a mutiny of Albanian troops against 
Selim Ill's reforms. A second "Edirne incident" 
occurred in 1806 for the same reasons. On the other 
hands the abolition of the Janissaries occasioned 
only minor difficulties in Edirne. In the Russian- 
Ottoman war of 1828-9 Edirne was occupied by the 
Russians and this occupation deeply affected the 
local Muslim population. Muslims started emigrating 
from Edirne, their place being taken by Christians 
coming in from the surrounding villages. To raise the 
Muslims' morale MahmOd II visited Edirne for some 
ten days, ordered a large bridge to be built on the 
Meric (this, however, was only completed in 1842 in 
the reign of c Abd al-Medjid) and had commemorative 
coins struck. More devastations were caused by the 
Russian occupation of Edirne in 1878-9, and by the 
hostilities in the Balkan wars and following the First 
World War. 

Monuments: Of the castle of Edirne, four of 



whose towers and nine of whose gates we know by 
name, only one tower, the Sa'at Kulesi (Clock Tower), 
originally Biiyiik Kule (the Great Tower), remains 
in existence, the clock itself being a late 19th century 
addition. Greek inscriptions in the names of John V 
and Michael Palaeologus have disappeared. 

Palaces: 1. Eski Saray (the Old Palace). After 
the conquest of Edirne, Murad I found the Tekfur's 
palace in the castle inadequate, and built a new 
palace outside the castle, where he moved in 767/ 
1365-6. Ewliya Celebi says that this was near the 
Sultan Selim mosque in the quarter of Kavak 
Meydan(i) and that it was later used as a barracks 
for 'adjemi-oghlans. During the Hungarian expedi- 
tions of Suleyman the Magnificent the old palace 
could accommodate 6,000 pages, while accommo- 
dation for 40,000 Janissaries was provided near by. 
Ewliya Celebi (iii, 456) says that the palace did not 
have its own gardens, that it was surrounded by 
high walls, measuring some 5,000 paces in circum- 
ference, that it was rectangular in shape and that it 
had a gate known as bdb-l humayun. Although the 
importance of the old palace diminished after the 
building of the Sultan Selim mosque, it was still used 
for the education of i(-oghlans, the palace organization 
remaining unchanged from before the conquest of 
Istanbul. In 1086/1675 Sultan Mehemmed IV 
allocated the old palace to his daughter Khadidja 
who married Musahib Mustafa Pasha, hence the 
later name of Palace of Khadidja Sultan. In the later 
19th century a military lycee was built on the site 
of the old palace. 

2. Saray-i Djedid-i 'Amire (the New Imperial 
Palace), built on an island on the Tundja and on 
adjoining meadows by Murad II in 854/1450, partly 
with marble brought from some ruins near Salonica. 
Construction of the palace was continued the follow- 
ing year by Mehemmed II who also had thousands of 
trees planted on the island, which he joined by a 
bridge to the main palace buildings to the west. 
Another bridge, this time between the palace and 
the main city, was built by Siileyman the Magnifi- 
cent, under whose direction important additions 
were made to the palace. More pavilions were added 
in subsequent reigns until the palace grew to twice 
its size under Mehemmed II. At the end of the nth/ 
17th century it contained 18 pavilions, 8 mesdjids, 
17 large gates, 14 baths and 5 courts. Some six to 
ten thousand people lived within the confines of the 
palace. Dissolution was gradual: there were many 
attempts at restoration in the 18th century, but in 
1827 an official survey said that most buildings were 
either completely in ruins or half-ruined. Much 
damage was caused to the palace by the Russian 
occupation of 1829, Russian troops camping in the 
palace gardens. More attempts at restoration fol- 
lowed, but the second Russian occupation sounded 
the death knell of the palace. The Ottomans them- 
selves set fire to ammunition dumps in the palace 
before evacuating the city, and after returning they 
quarried the remaining buildings for stone. 

Mosques: The first Friday prayers were said in 
Edirne in a converted church inside the castle, 
known afterwards as the Halabiye, after its first 
miiderris, Siradj al-Din Muhammed b. 'Umar 
Halabi, a teacher of Mehemmed the Conqueror, and 
also as Celebi Djami c i. Ruined in an earthquake in 
the 18th century and later repaired, it survived 
until the end of the 19th century. Another church 
in the castle was converted into a mosque under the 
name of Kilise Djami'i, but this was pulled down 
by Mehemmed II and replaced by one with six 



domes which disappeared in the second half of the 
18th century. The oldest surviving mosque is that 
of Yildlrlm, built in 801/1399, on the foundations of 
a church ruined in the Fourth Crusade, so that 
the mihrdb is built into a side wall. During their 
occupation of 1878 the Russians stripped the inside 
of the mosque of its tiles and of the two linked 
marble rings which had given the mosqv. 



i Djam 



sque). , 



:r old 



mosque, the Eski Djami' (or Old Mosque par 
excellence) was started in 804/1402 by Emir Siileyman 
(hence the name of Siileymaniye given it by 
Mehemmed I, a name which was later changed into 
>r Great Mosque, before the present 



: of Est 



Djam 



Djam 



Atik 



finally adopted) and completed 
Mehemmed I (PI. X). The interior is square, 9 
domes being supported by four columns. An 
inscription on the western gate, gives the 
name of the architect as HadjdjI 'Ala 5 al-Din 
of Konya. A stone from a corner of the Ka'ba was 
placed at the time of building in the window to the 
right of the mihrdb, and has been venerated ever 
since. In the 18th century the mosque suffered in a 
fire and an earthquake and was restored by Mahmud 
I. Another mosque, the Muradiye, was built by 
Murad II first as a house of Mewlewi dervishes, a 
smaller mewlewi- khdne being built next to it when 
the main building was turned into a mosque. This 
mosque is distinguished by the excellent tiles 






mihrdb i 



jf the w 






ioth/i6th century thi 
and other adjuncts, was in receipt of very large 
revenues. Another formerly rich mosque, the Dar 
al-Hadlth (which had at the beginning of the nth/ 
17th century a revenue of over half a million aspers), 
was originally a medrese, completed in 839/1435. The 
minaret of this mosque was destroyed in the siege of 
1912. Several princes and princesses are buried in 

Another building going back to Murad II is the 
Oc-sherefeli Djami' (Three-Balconied Mosque) 
started in 841/1437-8 and finished in 851/1447-8 
(PI. X). Ewliya Celebi says that it was built at the 
cost of 7,000 purses, being the proceeds of the booty 
captured at the conquest of Izmir. This mosque has 
also been known as the Muradiye, Yeni Djami' 
(New Mosque) and Djami c -i Kebir (Great Mosque). 
The building is rectangular, a great dome being held 
up by six columns, there being four medium-sized and 
four other small domes at the sides of the main one. 
Four of the columns (at either side of the main gate 
and the mihrdb) are built into the walls. The harem 
(sacred enclosure, i.e., court-yard), paved with 
marble, is regarded as the first harem of a mosque 
built by the Ottomans. The cloisters on the four 
sides of the liar em are made up of 21 domed vaults, 
supported by 18 columns. The three-balconied 
minaret is known as the first Ottoman minaret of 
this kind. There is also one minaret with two balco- 
nies and others with one balcony. Murad II first 
allocated for the upkeep of this mosque the revenues 
of the silver mines at Karatova in Serbia. Later 
Riistem Pasha transferred these mines to the 
Treasury, allowing the mosque to draw money 
instead from the wakf of Bayezld II. An important 
event in the history of the mosque was the public 
condemnation in it by Fakhr al-Din 'Adjemi of the 
hurilfi followers of Fadl Allah Tabriz!, who were 
believed to enjoy the sympathy of Sultan Mehemmed 
the Conqueror. Bayezld II built on the banks of the 
Tundja a mosque, baths, a hospital, a medrese and 



an almshouse (PI. XI). A chronogram on the mosque 
gate yields the date 893/1488. The building was 
financed with the booty captured at Ak-Kerman. 

The mosque is a simple structure, without arches 
or pillars, the dome being supported by the four 
walls. Baths (tdb-khdne), surmounted by nine domes 
and consisting of four rooms each, adjoin on either 
side and lead onto the two slender minarets. The 
marble minbar of the mosque is particularly elegant. 
The mosque contains also the first private gallery 
(mahfil) built in an Edirne mosque ; this is supported 
by porphyry columns, brought probably from the 
ruins of some temple. The hospital {dar al-shifa?) 
built to the west of the mosque is a hexagonal 
building, six further rooms for the isolation and 
treatment of patients standing in the hospital 
gardens (where, Ewliya Celebi tells us, the patients 
were regularly made to listen to music). The medrese 
stands in front of the hospital, while the almshouse 
and a bakery lie to the east of the mosque. Bayezld II 
had a quay made on the bank of the Tundja, in 
front of the mifirab of the mosque, and also widened 
the course of the river. The most beautiful monu- 
ments built in Edirne in the ioth/i6th century are 
the work of the architect Sinan. One of these mosques 
(the Tashllk Djami'i, converted by Sinan from 
the zawiya of Mahmud Pasha) is no longer in 
existence. Three still stand: the Defterdar 
Djami'i, the mosque of Shaykhi Celebi, and finally 
the mosque of Sultan Sellm (Selimiye Djami'i), 
which is the glory of Edirne and the last royal 
mosque in the city (PI. XI). Built between 972/ 
1564-5 and 982/1574-5 according to the chronogram 
on the gate of the harem, it cost, Ewliya 
Celebi tells us, 27,760 purses obtained from the 
booty captured in Cyprus. The great dome of 
the mosque, which rests on 8 columns, is 6 cubits 
(dhird c ) higher than that of Saint Sophia in Istanbul. 
The mu'adhdhin's gallery under the great dome is 
supported by 12 marble columns, two metres high; 
under it there is a small fountain. The mosque 
library is on the right, and the royal gallery on the 
left. This mahfil, which rests on four marble pillars, 
used to be decorated by tiles, which were taken 
away by the Russians in 1878. The harem court-yard 
is surrounded by cloisters, in which 18 domes are 
supported by 16 large pillars brought from the 
Kapl-Dagh peninsula and from ruins in Syria 
(according to Ewliya Celebi, also from Athens). 
Four three-balconied minarets stand at the four 
corners of the mosque, which have often been 
repaired. As for the mosque itself, it was repaired 
after the earthquake of 1752 and also in 1808, 1884 
and in recent years. The Sultan Sellm mosque forms 
an architectural whole with the adjacent medrese, 
dar al-kurrd' (Kur'dn reciters' quarters), school and 
clock-house. The miiderris of the Selimiye medrese 
was considered the chief miiderris of the city. The 
medrese was subsequently used as a military deten- 
tion centre and is now a museum of antiquities, 
while the dar al-kurrd'' houses an ethnographic 
museum. The library was later enriched by many 
wakf books, but some valuable books were lost 
during the Bulgarian occupation. 

Edirne was an important centre of Islamic learning, 
which was allowed an independent course, as in 
Istanbul and Bursa. Apart from those already 
mentioned, there were important medreses in the 
court-yard of the UC-sherefeli Djami' (founded 
by Murad II) and the Peykler Medresesi, 
founded in the same place by Mehemmed II. These 
medreses, built in the classical Ottoman style, are 



today ruined, but could still be restored. Many 
markets were also built in Edirne, largely as a 
source of revenue for the upkeep of the pious 
foundations in the city. The first of these is the 
covered market of Mehemmed I (14 domes, 4 gates), 
which was a wakf of the Eski Pjami c . The 
covered market built by Murad II, known as the Old 
Market, fell into ruin in the second half of the nth/ 
17th century. Murad III had a market built by 
Sinan, and known as Arasta (73 arches, 124 shops), 
to provide revenue for the Selimiye mosque. Sinan 
also built a market with six gates for Semiz C AH 
Pasha. The city contained also a large number of 
khans. Of these Sinan built the Large and the Small 
khans of Rustem Pasha and also the T ash -khan 
built for Sokollu. Another khan which is still in 
existence is that built in the beginning of the nth/ 
17th century by Ekmekci-zade Ahmed Pasha. At 
the beginning of the ioth/i6th century there were in 
all 16 khans and markets in Edirne. Later the 
number increased, French and English merchants 
also having their places of work. The trades practised 
in Edirne included dyeing, tanning, soap-making, 
distillation of attar of roses, carriage-building etc. 
Edirne was also famous for its own style of book- 
binding. The city's water supply was ensured by the 
Khasseki Sultan aqueduct built in 937/1530. There 
were also some 300 public fountains, most of which 
have now disappeared. Apart from the palace 
bridges, there were in Edirne four bridges over the 
Tundja and one over the Meric, the oldest being the 
bridge of GhazI Mlkhal, built in 823/1420. 

At first the administration of Edirne was in the 
hands of a kadi and of a su-bashi (who was probably 
the same person as the dghd of Janissaries mentioned 
by Pococke). After the conquest of Istanbul the 
bostdndji-bashl was made responsible for the ad- 
ministration. The kadi of Edirne, who had a daily 
allowance of 300 aspers at the beginning of the 10th/ 
1 6th century, could expect promotion to Istanbul, 
and had, according to Ewliya Celebi, 45 deputies 
{ndHb). He was appointed and dismissed by the 
central government. One interesting local official 
was the Chief Gardener (ketkhudd-yi bdghbdniydn), 
responsible for the care of private gardens and 
orchards on the banks of the three rivers (HibrI 
gives their number as 450, suggesting that it had 
been larger before, Enis al-miisdmirin, f. 26). The 
city of Edirne was a crown domain {khdss) of 
the Sultans, producing a revenue of nearly two 
million aspers at the beginning of the ioth/i6th 
century. Money was sometimes sent from the Edirne 
Treasury to help meet the requirements of Istanbul. 
Edirne used also to be the seat of a Greek Orthodox 
Metropolitan and of a Chief Rabbi. 

With more than 50 zdwiyas and tekkes, Edirne 
bred many famous dervish sheykhs. Among the most 
famous were the Mewlewls Djelal al-DIn and Diemal 
al-DIn in the reign of Murad II, and Sezal Hasan 
Dede (d. 1151/1738), considered the second pir of 
the Gulsheni tarika. The beauties of Edirne have been 
described in many poems, including the Humdyun- 
ndme of c Ala 5 al-DIn 'All and the Tabakat al-mamdlik 
of Kodja Nishandjl. A local poet, Khavall. wrote a 
poem ending in the refrain Edrine, and this has often 
been imitated. Finally, Edirne is graphically described 
in Nef'i's kasida to the Sultan. 

Bibliography: A detailed monograph on 
Edirne, with a history of the years 760-1043/ 
1359-1633, was written by HibrI [q.v.] of Edirne in 
1046/1636 under the title Enis al-miisdmirin; it is 
still unpublished, but is extracted in HadidjI 



Khalifa's Rumeli und Bosna, tr. v. Hammer, 
Vienna 1812, 1-15, and in the so-called Chronicle 
of Djewrl (Istanbul 1291-2), cf. Hammer- 
Purgstall, GOR, x, 691 ff., and Babinger, 213; 
there is a continuation, called Riydd-i belde-i 
Edirne, by Badl Ahmed Efendi (1255-1326/1839- 
1908). Besides the long section in Ewliya Celebi, 
Seydhatndme, iii, there are descriptions by 
European travellers in the 17th and 18th centuries 
(John Covel, in Th. Bent, Early voyages and 
travels in the Levant, London 1893; Antoine 
Galland, Journal, ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris 1881; 
E. Chishull, Travels in Turkey, London 1747; 
Letters of Lady Wortley Montague, letters 25-34). 
The decay of the city in the beginning of the 19th 
century is described by George Keppel, Narrative 
of a journey across the Balcans, London 1831, i, 
and by Moltke, Briefe iiber Zustdnde und Begeben- 
heiten in der Turkei', 150 ff.; Nicolas de Nicolay, 
Navigations . . ., gives types of the inhabitants in 
the ioth/i6th century. Views and plans of the 
mosques and other buildings are given by C. 
Sayger and A. Desarnod, Album d'un voyage en 
Turquie en 1820-1830, Paris n.d., fol., Thomas 
Allom and Robert Walsh, Constantinople, ii, 73, 
77, and notably by C. Gurlitt, Die Bauten Adria- 
nopels, in Orientalisches Archiv, i, p. i and ii (cf. 
G. Jacob in Isl., iii (1912), 358-68). Works 
in Turkish include : the Sdlndmes of the vilayet of 
Edirne; Rif'at 'Othman, Edirne Rehnumdsi, 
Edirne 1 335/1920; Oktay Aslanapa, Edirnede 
Osmanh devri abideleri, Istanbul 1949; M. Tayyib 
Gokbilgin, XV -XV I asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa 
livdsi, Istanbul 1952; idem, "Edirne" in I A. 

(M. Tayyib Gokbilgin) 
EDREMIT, town of western Turkey, situated 
8 km. from the head of the Gulf of Edremit (on the 
site of Homer's Thebe) on the lower slopes of Pasha- 
dagh (a spur of Mt. Ida) overlooking the fertile 
alluvial plain to the south (39 35' N., 27° 02' E.). 
The ancient Adramyttion was on the coast at 
Karatash (4 km. west of Burhaniye [formerly 
Kemer] and 13 km. south-west of Edremit), where 
remains of quays, etc., are to be found. The evidence 
of coins indicates that the city was transferred to 
its present site not (as Kiepert suggested) under the 
Comnenes but much earlier, perhaps in the 2nd 
century A.D. (W. Ruge, in Pauly-Wissowa, art. 
Thebe, col. 1597). Turkish attacks began at the end 
of the nth century: in 1093 Adramyttion was 
entirely destroyed by Tzachas (Caka), operating 
from his base at Smyrna, and re-built by Alexius' 
general Philokales (AUxiade, ed. B. Leib, iii, 143); 
and towards 1160 Manuel I strengthened its fortifi- 
cations against the Turkish danger (Nicetas Choni- 
ates, Bonn ed., 194). When in 1261 Michael Palae- 
ologus ceded Smyrna to the Genoese, he granted them 
also extensive privileges in Adramyttion (W. Heyd, 
Hist, du commerce du Levant, i, 429), and early in 
the next century a Genoese garrison was defending 
the city against the Turks (Pachymeres, Bonn ed., 
ii, 558). Soon afterwards Edremit fell into the hands 
of the Karasl [q.v.] dynasty, to be occupied, along 
with their other territories, by the Ottomans in the 
reign of Orkhan ('Ashlkpashazade, ed. Giese, 41; 
'Ashlkpashazade's date, 735/1334-5, is too early, by 
ten years or more). For five centuries Edremit was 
administered as a kadd of the sandjak of Karasi (for 
administrative changes 1841-1923 see IA, vi, 334). 
Now the centre of a kaza of the vilayet of Balikesir, 
it has a thriving olive-oil industry (population [1950] 
12,700). 




Uc-sherefeli Djami', entree et cour. 
(B. Onsal, Turkish Islamic Architecture, Londres 1959-) 



PLATE XI 




EDREMIT — EFLAK 



Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s.vv. Adra- 
mitteion, Thebe (5); H. Kiepert, Die alien Orts- 
lagen am Siidfusse des Idagebirges, in ZGErdk.Berl., 
xxiv (1889), 290-303 (with map); W. Tomaschek, 
Zur historischen Topographie von Kleinasien im 
Mittelalter, i, 1891 (= SBAk.Wien, cxxiv/8), 
23-4; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, 1890-5, iv, 
273-6; A. Philippson, Reisen und Forschungen im 
Westlichen Kleinasien, i (= Pet. Mitt, Ergan- 
zungsheft 167), 1910, 30-3; I A s.v. (= Mordt- 
mann's article in EI 1 , with additions by the 
Turkish editors). 

(J. H. M0RDTMANN-[V. L. MENAGE]) 

EDUCATION [see tadrIs, also DiAMi c A, ma'arif, 






rx]. 



EFE (s. 

EFENDI, an Ottoman title of Greek origin, 
from au0£vnr]<;, Lord, Master, (cf. authentic), 
probably via a Byzantine colloquial vocative form, 
afendi (G. Meyer, Tiirkische Studien, i, in SBAk. 
Wien (1893), 37; K. Foy in MSOS, 1/2 (1898), 44 n. 3 ; 
Psichari, 408). The term was already in use in Turkish 
Anatolia in the 13th and 14th centuries. Eflaki 
indicates that the daughter of Djalal al-Din Rumi 
was known as Efendipoulo — the master's daughter 
(CI. Huart, Les saints des derviches tourneurs, Paris 
1922, ii, 429; on the later Karaite family name 
Afendopoulo or Efendipoulo see Z. Ankori, Karaites 
in Byzantium, New York- Jerusalem 1959, 199-200). 
Ibn Battuta found that the brother of the ruler of 
Kastamonu was called Efendi (Voyages, ii, 345; Eng. 
trans. Sir Hamilton Gibb, The travels of Ibn Battuta, ii, 
Cambridge 1962, 463). This title was also used under 
the Ottomans (see, for example, c AshIkpashazade, 
chapter 46, where Kara Rustem addresses the 
Kadi'asker Djandarll Khalil as Efendi), and in a 
number of fermans issued in Greek from the chancery 
of Mehemmed the Conqueror the Sultan himself is 
called 6 (xeyai; au0EVTT)i; — perhaps the original 
of Grand Signor (Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire, ii, 
523; F. Babinger-F. Dolger, Mehmed's II. fruhester 
Staatsvertrag (1446), in Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 
xv (1949), 234; A. Bombaci, Nuovi firmani greci di 
Maometto II, in BZ, xlvii (1954), 298-319; cf. Deny, 
Sommaire, 561). From the late 15th century onwards 
the title Efendi was used of various dignitaries, in 
Turkish as well as in Greek. In the 16th century there 
still seem to have been doubts of its propriety. A 
fatwd of Abu '1-Su c ud [q.v.], cited by Pakalin, con- 
siders the origin and meaning of the word, and the 
propriety of applying it to Muslims or to God. The 
word, he says, is common to Turkish and Greek 
(kef ere lughatl), and means the owner of slaves and 
slave-girls. It is wrong to call God Efendi; whether 
one may call a Muslim Efendi is an open question. 
In fact, the word became increasingly common in 
Ottoman usage, as a designation of members of the 
scribal and religious, as opposed to the military 
classes (cf. Celebi). It was in particular used of 
certain important functionaries. Thus, the ReHs al- 
kuttdb [q.v.] was known as the Reis Efendi, the kadi 
of Istanbul as Istanbul Efendisi, and the chief 
secretary of the janissaries as Yefli Ceri [q.v.] Efendisi; 
the latter's department was called Efendi Kapls! or 
Efendi Da'iresi. The chief secretaries of the diwdn 
in Istanbul or of provincial governors-general were 
known as diwdn efendisi (in Egypt diwdn efendi — 
Deny, n 1-2. For other efendis in Ottoman Egypt 
see Gibb-Bowen, i/2, 46-7, 65-6; S. J. Shaw, The 
financial and administrative organization and develop- 
ment of Ottoman Egypt 1517-1798, Princeton 1962, 
index). At the same time, it remained the practice 



to speak of the Sultan as Efendimiz — our mast 
in the 19th century an Arabicized form of the sa: 
;xpression — Efendina — was used in Egypt 



Muha 



mad < 






for Muslims to speak of the Prophet as 
Efendimiz — our lord, or for Turkish-speaking 
Christians to use the same expression of Jesus Christ. 
During the 19th century the Ottoman government 
made attempts to regulate the use of Efendi, as of 
other titles and designations, by law. It was given, 
for example, to princes of the ruling house; to the 
wives of the Sultans (kadln [q.v.] efendi); to the 
Shaykh al-Isldm, the i Ulemd > , and other, non- 
Muslim, religious heads; to functionaries up to the 
rank of Bald [q.v.] or, in the armed forces, of binbashi 
[q.v.]. In fact, however, it was used, following the 
personal name, as a form of address or reference 
for persons possessing a certain standard of literacy, 
and not styled Bey (see beg) or Pasha; it thus came 
to be an approximate equivalent of the English 
Mister or French Monsieur. In the records of the 
first Ottoman parliament of 1877, the deputies are 
nearly all designated as Efendi or Bey, and the 
speaker addresses the house as Efendiler — gentlemen. 
The distinction between efendi and bey in Turkey 
finally came to be one between religious and secular, 
the former term being used primarily for men of 
religion or of religious education, the latter for 
military and then also for civilian laymen. The title 
efendi was finally abolished in Turkey, together with 
other Ottoman ranks and titles, in 1934. In the form 
efendim (also Beyefendim and Hammefendim) — sir, 



madam — 
address for both m 
In the Arab coi 
rule, where the title 
the 19th century, i 



i form of 






ntries formerly under Ottoman 
Efendi came into general use in 
: followed a somewhat different 
development, and came to designate the 
secular, literate townspeople, usually dressed in 
European style, as against the lower classes on the 
one hand, and the men of religion on the other. This 
was in contrast with the Turkish practice, which 
tended to apply the title more especially to men of 
religion. After becoming a rough equivalent of Mr. or 
Esquire, the title Efendi is now disappearing in the 
Arab lands, being replaced for the most part by 

Bibliography: J. Psichari, Efendi, in Philo- 
logie et linguistique. Melanges offerts a Louis Havet, 
Paris 1909, 387-427; J. Deny, Sommaire des 
archives turques du Caire, Cairo 1930, 61-2 and 
index; Kopruluzade Mehmet Fuat (= M. F. 
Kopriilii), Bizans miiesseselerinin Osmanh miies- 
seselerine te'siri . ., in Turk Hukuk ve Iktisat 
Tarihi Mecmuasi, i (1931), 277-8 (Ital. trans., 
Alcune osservazioni intorno all' influenza delle 
istituzioni bizantine sulle istituzioni ottomane, 
Rome 1953, 130-1); S. Kekule, Ober Titel, Amter, 
Rangstufen und Anreden in der offiziellen osmani- 
schen Sprache, Halle 1892, 8; Pakalin, i, 505; I A 
s.v. (Orhan Kopriilii); brief entries also in E. 
Littmann, Morgenldndische Worter im Deutschen', 
Tubingen 1924, 107; K. Lokotsch, Etymologisches 
Worterbuch der europaischen . . Worter orientalischen 
Ursprungs, Heidelberg 1927, 44, and the standard 
dictionaries. (B. Lewis) 

EFLAK, the Turkish form of the word Wallach, 
originally applied by Germanic tribes to Latin 
populations. The Slavs, the Byzantines and, later, 
the Ottomans used it to denote the Balkan Rumani- 
ans and those north of the Danube. It is probable 
that it lost its ethnic meaning in certain parts of 



the peninsula, and was applied simply to a pastoral 
population. Under the Turks, the Wallachians who 
were incorporated in the organization of the voynul} 
[?.o.] provided light cavalry units. 

The first mention of Rumanian political insti- 
tutions south of the Carpathians occurs in the 
diploma granted by the king of Hungary to the 
Knights Hospitallers (1247}. In 1330, Basarab 
reigned over the whole territory lying between the 
Danube and the Carpathians (Tara Romaneasca) as 
an independent sovereign, after the victory over the 
Hungarian king Charles Robert. The dynasty 
founded by Basarab bore his name, which is of Kuman 
origin. Under his sou Nicolae Alexandra, the orthodox 
Rumanian Church was raised to metropolitan 
status. The first contact of Wallachia with the 
Ottomans took place in 1368 in the reign of Vladislav 
{1364-74 or 5). The reign of Mircea the Old (1388- 
1418) is memorable for a long series of struggles 
against Bayezid I. In 1391 FlrQz Beg attacked Vidin 
and crossed the Danube into Wallachia. Enough 
booty was taken to provide endowments for charit- 
able institutions in Bursa. In 1393 Mircea the Old 
lost Silistria. In the years that followed, war was 
waged between Wallachia and the Ottomans, and 
the monarch was temporarily replaced by a certain 
Vlad who recognized Ottoman suzerainty and, in 
1394, paid tribute for the first time. After the battle 
of Ankara, Mircea intervened in the struggle between 
the sons of Bayezid I over the succession to the 
throne. The entry of Wallachia into the Turkish orbit 
gave rise to two political currents. In the struggle 
against Islam, some of the Boyars sought aid from 
the Magyar kingdom, and later from the royal 
houses of Austria or Russia; but rather than endure 
the wars which this policy provoked, the others 
preferred to recognize Ottoman suzerainty. The 
whole course of Rumanian history was profoundly 
influenced by this conflict. In the 15th century Vlad 
the Devil (1436-46) struggled against the Turks, but 
in the end accepted their authority, thereby pro- 
voking a Hungarian campaign in the course of which 
he met his death. His son Vlad the Impaler (1456-62, 
1476) fought against Mehemmed II without success. 
In the 16th century Radu dela Afumati (1522-9) 
resisted the Turks but was compelled to recognize 
their suzerainty and in the end was assassinated by 
the Boyars. It was only in the closing years of the 
1 6th century that Rumanian resistance became at 
all effective. Michael the Brave (1593-1601), in 
alliance with the Christian League, started a cam- 
paign against the Ottoman Empire and defied its 
armies. By making forays south of the Danube he 
harassed the Turks who were at that time fighting 
against Austria. Attacked by Sinan Pasha (1595), 
he saved his country with the help of Transylvania 
and Moldavia. The necessities of war and the hesitant 
policies of the two countries finally led Michael the 
Brave to conquer them (1599, 1600). His reign over 
the three principalities was of short duration. He 
came into conflict with the interests of the throne 
of Austria, and also those of Poland and the Ottomans. 
Michael finally lost his conquests and his life as well, 
being assassinated on the order of general Basta, 
Commander in Chief of the Imperial forces. In the 
17th century the princes Matei Basarab (1633-54) and 
Serban Cantacuzino (1678-88) succeeded in limiting 
Turkish interventions in the country's affairs. 
Constantin Brancoveanu (1688-1714) continued 
Serban's policy of keeping a balance between Austria 
and the Ottomans, but the appearance of Russia did 
not make his task easier. His relations with Peter the 



Great made him an object of suspicion to the Turks. 
Lured to Constantinople, he was there executed. The 
new prince Stefan Cantacuzino (1714-15) perished 
in similar circumstances. The Ottomans, no longer 
having confidence in the Rumanian princes who 
were so ready to take up arms against them, 
preferred to choose their rulers from the Greek 
families of the Phanar who had distinguished 
themselves in the sultan's service. During this 
period, the wars waged by the House of Austria, 
and even more by Russia, against Turkey 
brought constant bloodshed. Wallachia was oc- 
cupied by the Austrians and Russians in turn. By 
the treaty of Kticuk Kaynardja, Russia confirmed 
her right to intervene with the Porte on behalf of 
Wallachia and Moldavia. The Phanariot regime came 
to an end in 182 1 as a result of the revolt of Tudor 
Vladimirescu. Acting at first in agreement with the 
Hetaira, he later turned against the Greeks, the 
instruments of Ottoman domination. In 1829 the 
Treaty of Andrianople marked a new stage in the 
Russian penetration into the Balkans, but it also 
brought Wallachia complete freedom of trade, the 
beginning of a period of vigorous economic growth. 
The country received its first constitution in 1834; 
and this was replaced by a more liberal fundamental 
law in the anti-Russian revolutionary outburst of 
1848. The Porte, urged on by St. Petersburg, quen- 
ched the revolution in blood. The Treaty of Paris 
(1856) was the origin of the union of Wallachia and 
Moldavia in a single state under prince Alexandra 
Ion Cuza (1859). As a result of the Peace of Berlin 
(1878), Rumania was recognized as an independent 

The entry of Wallachia into the Ottoman system 
brought profound changes in its social and economic 
structure. The country lost the right to maintain 
commercial relations with other countries, and was 
compelled to provide Constantinople with a part of 
its supplies of cereals and live-stock. It must be 
emphasized that, despite the bonds of suzerainty, 
the Turks never had the right to establish them- 
selves in Wallachia. This country played an impor- 
tant part in upholding eastern Christianity by large 
donations to the Orthodox monasteries in the 
Ottoman empire, as well as by printing religious 
books. It was at Bucharest that one of the oldest 
books in the Turkish language was printed in 1701. 
Bibliography: F. Babinger, Beitrage zur Fruh- 
geschichte der Tttrkenherrschaft in Rumelien, Briinn- 
Munich-Vienna 1944, 1-21 ; 5. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, 
Istanbul 1943, 289, 321, 324-5, 394; N. Beldiceanu, 
La rigion de Timok-Morava dans les documents de 
Mehmed II et de Selim I, in Revue des Etudes 
Roumaines, iii-iv, Paris 1957, 111-29; M. Berza, 
Haraciul Moldovei si Tdrii Romdnesti in sec. XV- 
XIX, in Studii si Materiale de Istorie Medie, ii, 
Bucharest 1957, 27; G. I. Bratianu, Etudes byzan- 
tines d'kistoire iconomique et sociale, Paris 1938, 
127-81, 241-64; idem, Origines et formation de 
I 'unite roumaine, Bucharest 1943; V. Costachel, 
P. P. Panaitescu, A. Cazacu, Viafa feudala in 
Jara Romdneascd si Moldova, Bucharest 1957, 
413-44; N. Draganu, Romdnii in veacurile IX-XIV, 
Bucharest 1933; S. Dragomir, Vlahii din nordul 
peninsulei balcanice In evul mediu, Bucharest 1959; 
F. Giese, Die altosmaniscke Chronik des c ASyk- 
paSazdde, Leipzig 1929; C. C. Giurescu,. Istoria 
Romdnilor, Bucharest 1944-6, 5 vols.; C. C. 
Giurescu, Livres turcs imprimis a Bucarest, in 
Revista istorica romdna, xv/3, Bucharest 1945, 
275-86; Ibn Kemal, Tevdrih-i dl-i Osman, Ankara 



eflAk — eGri 



1954-7, 2 vols.; Ionnescu Gion, Istoria Bucurestiu- 
lui, Bucharest 1899; I. Minea, "Reforma" /«» 
Conslantin Mavrocordat, Iassy 1927; A. Otetea, 
T. Vladimirescu si miscarea eteristd tn fdrile 
Romdnesti, Bucharest 1945; P. P. Panaitescu, 
Interpretdri romdnesti, Bucharest 1947; P. P. 
Panaitescu, Mihai Viteazul, Bucharest 1936; 
P. P. Panaitescu, Mircea eel Batrdn, Bucharest 
1944; G. Paris, Romani, in Romania, i, Paris 1872, 
1-22; P. Pelliot, Notes sur Vhistoite de la Horde 
d'Or, Paris 1950, 145; L. Rasonyi, Contributions 
a I'histoire des premihes cristallisations d'Etat des 
Roumains, in Archivum Europae centro-orientalis, 
i, Budapest 1935, 251; Ta'rlkh-i Pelewi, ii, 
Istanbul 1283, 152 if.; Ta'rlkh-i Seldniki, Bib!. 
Nat. Paris, ms. fonds turcsuppl. 1060, fol. 2i5r° ff.; 
Urudj, Tewdrlkh-i dl-i "Othmdn, Hanover 1925; 
St. Zeletin, Burghezia romdnd. Origina si rolul ei 
istoric, Bucharest 1925 ; G. Weigand, Die A r omunen, 
Leipzig 1895. (N. Beldiceanu) 

EGER [see egri]. 
EGERDIR [see egridir]. 

EGIN, now known as Kemaliye, a town in 
E. Anatolia on the right (west) bank of the Euphrates 
(Kara-Su), 40 kms. from c Arapkir [q.v.], 130 kms. 
from El- c AzIz and Malatya via c Arapkir, and 150 kms. 
from Erzindjan [q.v.] (under which it comes admini- 
stratively as the centre of a kadd) via the station of 
Ilic on the Sivas [q.v.]— Erzurum [q.v.] railway. It is 
near Egin that the valley of the Euphrates narrows, 
pressed in by the outposts of the Monzur mountains 
of Dersim to the east and the Sari-Cicek mountains 
to the west. The valley which is situated here, at an 
altitude of 825 m. above sea level, is overlooked on 
the eastern side by a precipitous slope rising above 
it like a wall. The western slope is more gradual, 
rising like an amphitheatre round a small valley. It 
is here that Egin is built at an altitude of from 900 
to 1000 metres. A spring higher up, known as Kadi 
Golii, waters the town's gardens, feeds its fountains 
and turns its mills. It is said that the name Egin is 
derived from the Armenian word agn (akn), meaning 
"spring", and that the town was founded in the nth 
century by a group of Vaspurakan Armenians (see 
J. Saint Martin, Memoire sur VArminie, Paris 1818, 
i, 189). In ancient times this district was ruled by 
local lords or changed hands in the wars between 
Rome and Persia (remains of Roman roads can still 
be seen). In Islamic times it was for short periods of 
time autonomous, before the foundation of the 
Saldjukid State and also after that State had become 

annexed to the Ottoman Empire in the reign of 
Sultan Mehemmed I [q.v.]. It was for a long time 
attached to the liwa of 'Arapkir in the eydlet of 
Sivas [q.v.]. In the 19th century it passed into the 
vilayet of Kharput [q.v.] and then into that of 
Ma'muret ul-'Aziz. After the foundation of the 
Turkish Republic the name of Egin was changed 
into Kemaliye after Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Ataturk). 
The kadd of Kemaliye formed part successively of the 
vilayets of El-'Aziz, Malatya and Erzindjan. 

The Djihdn-numd, the Seydhatndme of Ewliya 
Celebi [q.v.] and other 17th century sources mention 
Egin as a place of gardens and orchards producing 
an abundance of fruit. Ewliya Celebi says that 
although Egin formed a kadd of the eydlat of Sivas, 
its taxes were collected by the muhassil of Malatya. 
He adds that the castle of Egin had been surrendered 
to Sultan Mehemmed I under a treaty and that the 
300 Christians living there were immune from 
taxation. According to him, there were in Egin 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



some 10,000 well-buill 
Sources in the first half 
beauty of the town, w 
by greenery. Moll 
describes it as < 






luses with earth roofs, 
le 19th century praise the 
houses were surrounded 
isited Egin in April 1839, 
t beautiful towns 



in Asia which he had seen, comparable 
[q.v.]. Although he found Amasya a more pleasant 
and original place, he thought Egin more impressive 
and beautiful and its river more important. Although 
Moltke mentions Egin as a largely Armenian 
centre, Texier, as well as sources belonging to the 
second half of the 19th century, state that the 
Armenians were never in the majority there. Ac- 
cording to Texier there were 2,000 Muslim house- 
holds and only some 700 Armenian households in 
the town. Towards the end of the 19th century 
Yorke estimated the population of Egin at 15,000 
and Cuinet at 19,000, of whom some 12,000 were 
Turks and 7,000 Armenians. 

The Muslims of Egin were engaged in agriculture 
and particularly in cattle-breeding, as is the case 
today, while the Armenians were engaged in com- 
merce and crafts. According to Ewliya Celebi, the 
town was famous for its bows, bow-makers oc- 
cupying most of the bazaar. In more recent times 
the town produced fine cotton goods, embroidered 
silks, embroidered head-cloths, handkerchiefs and 
towels. Moltke mentions that many citizens of Egin 
settled in Istanbul, where they found employment as 
butchers, porters, grocers, builders, merchants and 
money-changers, returning to their birth-place in 
their old age and building fine houses there. Some 
citizens of Egin reached high rank in the service of 
the State, including that of Minister. This custom 
of seeking employment outside their birth-place was 
also shared by the citizens of c Arapkir, as well as by 
people from neighbouring villages. Some Armenians 
from Egin emigrated to America, returning oc- 
casionally to their town in their old age. Cuinet 
writing in 1890 says that while some such Armenians 
returned rich and made fine houses for themselves 
their descendants wasted the money they inherited. 
Local industry declined as a result of European 
competition and the town lost its prosperity. Egin 
was badly affected by the First World War. According 
to the first results of the 1945 census the population 
of Egin amounted to 3,300 while the whole kadd, 
which covered an area of 1333 sq. kms. and included 
34 villages, numbered 16,900 people. 

Bibliography: Katib Celebi, Djihan-numd, 

624; Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme (Istanbul A.H. 

1314), hi, 214 ff.; H. von Moltke, Briefe uber 

Zustdnde und Begebenheiten in der Tiirkei (1835- 

i839), 378 ff.; Charles Texier, Asie Mineure, 591; 

J. Taylor, Journal of a Tour in Armenia ...in 

1898 (JRGS, xxxviii), London 1898; E. Rectus, 

Nouvelle geographie universelle (1884) ix, 363; 

Ritter, Erdkunde, x, 790 ff. ; Hommaire de Hell, 

Voyage en Turquie et en Perse, Paris 1855; V. W. 

Yorke, A Journey in the Valley 0/ the Upper 

Euphrates (Geographical Journal, 1896, II), viii, 

333 ff.; Lehmann-Haupt, Armenien einst und 

jetzt (Berlin,i9io), i, 496. (Besim Darkot) 

EGRI (Turk., Egri; Hung., Eger; Ger., Erlau; 

Lat. and Ital., Agria), an old Hungarian town, 

no km. to the north-east of Buda, situated close 

to the massif of Biikk, i.e., to the eastern foot-hills 

of the Matra mountains, and on the river Eger, 

which flows into the Tisza (Theiss). Egri was subject 

to Ottoman rule from 1005/1596 to 1099/1687. 

The Ottomans, in 959/1552, captured Temesvar 
and Szolnok (important in the future as a base for 



6 9 



i of the men and supplies needed 
for the conquest and thereafter for the retention of 
Egri) and then laid siege to Egri itself, but in vain, 
all their assaults failing before the desperate resis- 
tance of the Christian garrison under Stephen Dobd 
(Ramadan-Shawwal 959/September-October 1552). 
Egri was not in fact to come into Muslim hands 
until the long war of 1001-15/1593-1606 between the 
Austrian Habsburgs and the Ottomans. The first 
years of this war brought such disaster to the Ottoman 
cause that Sultan Mehemmed 111(1003-12/1595-1603) 
was induced to take the field in person for the 
campaign of 1004-5/1596. Near Szalankemen the 
Sultan held a council of war, at which the decision 
was reached to make the capture of Egri the main 
objective of the campaign (one of the Christian 
sources — Decsi, Commentarii, 252 — notes that the 
"Begus Szolnokiensis", i.e., the Sandjak Beg of 
Szolnok, in the spring of 1004/1596 ("sub idem 
ferme veris initium"), had reconnoitred and raided 
in force the lands around Egri — a foretoken of the 
fate soon to befall the town). The decision of the 
Sultan and of the council of war rested on two con- 
siderations: that possession of Egri would enable 
the Ottomans to threaten the narrow corridor of 
land through which ran the lines of communication 
between Austria and Transylvania, then in alliance 
with the Emperor against the Sultan, and that 
control of Egri might bring under Ottoman domi- 
nation the mines located in the mountainous region 
to the north of the town (cf. Pecewl, ii, 191; Na'ima, 
i, 146; Hadjdji Khalifa, i, 71; Decsi, Commentarii, 
267; Hurmuzaki, iii/2, 216. Marsigli, Danubius 
Pannonico-Mysicus, iii/2, Amsterdam 1726, 19 ff. 
contains a "Mappa Mineralogica", which shows the 
mines existing in his own time to the north of Egri). 
Egri fell to the Ottomans after a siege of three weeks 
(28 Muharram-19 Safar 1005/21 September-12 
October 1596). Once the fortress was in their hands, 
the Ottomans began to repair forthwith the damage 
that it had suffered in the course of the siege, but 
their continued possession of Egri was in fact 
ensured to them only by their defeat of the Imperi- 
alists in the great battle of Hac Ovasl (Mez6- 
Keresztes) fought not far from Egri in Rabl c I 
1005/October 1596. Egri, at first a sandjak in the 
eyalet of Budin (Buda), was later raised to the 
status of a beglerbeglik comprising (with Egri 
itself) six sandjaks, amongst them Szegedin and 
Szolnok (cf. Tischendorf, 69 and also Gokbilgin in I A). 
The Christians recaptured Egri in 1099/1687 during 
the course of the war waged between Austria and the 
Ottoman Empire from 1094/1683 to mo/1699. As a 
result of the campaigns of 1096/1685 and 1097/1686 
the Imperialists won Budin and a number of 
additional fortresses, including Szolnok and Szegedin 
on the Tisza. Egri was now more or less isolated. The 
Ottomans, in order to retain it, would have had to 
undertake a major — and highly successful — counter- 
offensive. All prospect of such an offensive ended 
with the defeat of the Ottoman forces under the 
command of Suleyman Pasha at the second battle 
of Mohacs in Shawwal 1098/ August 1687. The fall 
of Egri had been foreshadowed in the summer of 
1097/1686, when the Imperialists, eager to deprive 
the fortress even of local sources of men and food, 
compelled the inhabitants of the villages in the 
region to leave their homes and to settle elsewhere. 
Egri withstood the ensuing blockade until Safar 
1099/December 1687, the garrison capitulating in 
that month to the Imperialist general Antonio 



Bibliography: Pecewi, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 
1281-3, i, 295 ff. and ii, 190 ff.; Hadjdji Khalifa, 
Fedhleke, Istanbul 1286-7, i, 69 ff.; Na'Ima, 
Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1281-3, i, 144 ff. (cf. C. Fraser, 
Annals of the Turkish empire, London 1832, i, 
73 «•); Slllhdar FIndlkllli Mehemmed Agha, 
Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1928, ii, 315 ff.; Rashid, 
Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1153, i, 141V ff. (= Istanbul 
1282, ii, 32 ff.); Solakzade, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1298, 
517 ft. and 630 ff.; Munedjdjlm Bashi, Saha'if 
al-akhbdr, Istanbul 1285, 501, 588; Ewliya Celebi, 
Seydhatndme, vii, Istanbul 1928, 160 ff.; Tinddi 
Sebesteytn Osszes Miivei 1540-1555 (= XVI. 
Szazadbeli Magyar Koltok Miivei, Kot. 2, ed. 
A. Szilady), Budapest 1881, 105 ff., 435 ff.; Gr. 
Illishdzy Istvdn Nddor Fbljegyzisei 1502-1603 
(= Magyar Tortenelmi Emlekek, Oszt. 2: Irok, 
Kot. 7, ed. G. Kazinczy), Pest 1863, 30 ff.; 
Rerum Memorabilium in Pannonia Exegeses 

Recensente Nicolao Reusnero Frankfurt am 

Main 1603, 82 ff. ("Rerum ad Agriam M.D.LII. 
gestarum Narratio, Auctore Ioanne Sambuco" — 
also to be found in earlier publications, e.g., 
S. Schardius, Historicum Opus, Basle 1574; N. 
Honigerus, Solymanni XII. et Selymi XIII. 
. ... res gestae . . . ., Basle 1577; and A. Bonfinius, 

Rerum Ungaricarum Decades Frankfurt am 

Main 1581) and 273 ff. ("De Expugnatione Agriae, 
et Praelio ibidem ad Kerestam .... Narratio 
Historica, auctore M. Iansonio") ; Nicolai Isthvanfi 
Pannoni Historiarum De Rebus Ungaricis Libri 
xxxiv, Cologne 1622, 337 ff. and 693 ft.; Joh: 
Baptistae Vici De Rebus Gestis Antonij Caraphaei 
Libri iv, Naples 1716, ii, 178 ff., 218 ff., 244 ff. 
(cf. also Giambattista Vico, Scritti storici, ed. 
F. Nicolini, Bari 1939, index: 454); Francisci 
Forgachii de Ghymes Pannonii .... Rerum 
Hungaricarum Sui Temporis Commentarii, Possoni 
et Cassoviae 1788, 69 ff.; S. Katona, Historia 
Critica Regum Hungariae, Stirpis Austriacae, 
xxii, Buda 1798, 311 ff. and xxvii, Buda 1794, 
307 ff. ; Baronyai Decsi Jdnos Magyar Historidja 
1592-1598 (= Magyar Tortenelmi Emlekek, Oszt. 
2: Ir6k, Kot. 17, ed. F. Toldy), Pest 1866, 252, 
267 ff. ; Ascanio Centorio degli Hortensii, Com- 
mentarii delta Guerra di Transilvania, Venice 1566, 
221 ff. (= Commentarii, ed. L. Galdi, Budapest 
1940, 221 ff.); G. Fantuzzi, Memorie delta Vita 
del Generate Co: Luigi Ferdinando Marsigli, 
Bologna 1770, 64 ff.; Autobiografia di Luigi 
Ferdinando Marsili, ed. E. Lovarini, Bologna 
1930, 84 ff.; H. Marczali, A Parisi Nemzeti 
Konyvtdrbbl, in Magyar Tertinelmi Tdr (A Magyar 
Tudomanyos Akademia Tortenelmi Bizottsaga), 
Folyam 2, Kot. 11, Budapest 1877, 83 ff. (op. 
cit., 113-22 = Narrazione de capitano Claudio 
Cogonara de Parma della perdita d'Agria .... 
alii 13. ottobre 1596); Hieronymus Ortelius, 
Chronologia oder Historische beschreibung aller 
Kriegs emporungen . . . in Ober und Under Vngern 
auck Sibenbiirgen. . . ., Nurnberg 1602, 22V ff. and 
ioivff.; Shakespeare's Europe. Unpublished chap- 
ters of Fynes Moryson's Itinerary, ed. C. Hughes, 
London 1903, 44 ff.; Purchas His Pilgrimes, viii, 
Glasgow 1905, 304 ff., passim; Feridun Beg, 
Munsha'dt al-Saldtin, Istanbul 1264-5, ii, 2 ff. (a 
fethndme on the Ottoman conquest of Egri in 
1005/1596. British Museum Cotton Ms. Nero B.XI, 
225r ff. contains an Ital. trans, of the fethndme. 
English translation (from the Italian) in Sir 
Henry Ellis, Original letters illustrative of English 
history, 3rd Series, iii, London 1846, 140 ff.) ; 



EGRI — EGRIDIR 



L. Fekete, Die Siydqat-Schrift in der turkischen 
Finanzverwaltung, Budapest 1955, i, 868 (index); 

E. de Hurmuzaki, Documente privitore la Istoria 
Romdnilor, iii/2 (1576-1600), Bucharest 1888, 214 ff. 
(nos. 237-40, passim); L. Fekete, A Verlini es 
Drezdai Gyujteminyek Torok Leveltdri anyaga, in 
Leviltiri Kozleminyeh, vi, Budapest 1929, 259 ff., 
passim and vii, Budapest 1930, 55 ff., passim; 
idem (ed.), Tiirkische Schriften aus dem Archive 
des Palatins Nikolaus Esterhdzy 1606-1645, 
Budapest 1932, 478 (index); idem, Gyongybs Vdros 
Leveltdrdnak Torok Iratai, in Leviltdri Kozleminyeh, 
x, Budapest 1932, 287 ff., passim and xi, Budapest 
1933. 93 ff-, passim; F. Balassy, Az Egri Vdr 
ib&j-diki Feladdsdnak Alkupontjai is A Torbkbk 
Maradekai Egerben, Budapest 1875; I. Gyarfas, 
Dobo Istvan Egerben, Budapest 1879; N. Szeder- 
kenyi, Heves Vdrmegye Tbrtenete, ii (1526-96) and 
iii (1596-1687), Eger 1890, 1891; G. Gomory, Eger 
Ostroma 1552-ben, in Hadtbrtenelmi Kozleminyeh, 
iii, Budapest 1890, 613 ff.; V. Pataki, A XVI. 
Szdzadi Vdripites Magyarorszdgon, in Jahrbuch 
des Wiener Ung. Hist. Inst., Erster Jahrgang, 
Budapest 1931, 98 ff., passim; P. A. von Tischen- 
dorf, Das Lehnswesen in den moslemischen Staaten 
insbesondere im osmanischen Reiche, Leipzig 1872, 
69; A. S. Levend, Oazavdt-ndmeler ve Mihaloglu 
Ali BeyHn Gazavdt-ndmesi, Ankara 1956, 94 ff.; 

F. E. Karatay, Topkapi Sarayi Mtizesi Kutiipha- 
nesi Turkce Yazmalar Katalogu, i, Istanbul 1961, 
236 (no. 713), 244 (no. 741); G. Bascape, Le 
Relazioni fra V Italia e la Transilvania nel secolo 
XVI., Rome 1931, 197-8, passim; K. A. Kertbeny, 
Ungarn betreffende deutsche Erstlings-Drucke 1454- 
1600, Budapest 1880, 296 (no. 1221 ff.); J. Pohler, 
Bibliotheca Historico-Militaris, i, Cassel 1887, 
169ft., passim, 303 ff., passim, 517 ff., passim; 
Hammer-Purgstall, Histoire, vi, 43 ff., vii, 322 ff., 
xii, 252; A. Huber and O. Redlich, Geschichte 
Osterreichs, iv, Gotha 1892, 176, 396-7 and vi, 
Gotha 192 1, 361, 387-8, 396-7, 523; I A, s.v. Egri 
(M. Tayyib Gokbilgin). (V. J. Parry) 
EGRIBOZ (also Ighribos/z, Aghribos/z, Egri- 

bos), Turkish name for the island of Euboea and its 
chief town, the classical Chalkis. Originally the name 
of the narrow strait separating Chalkis from the 
mainland, Eupmo? (vulg. "Eypinoc,) was already 
by the 12th century currently used for the town; a 
supposed connexion with the bridge over the strait 
produced from the ace. [el? to]v "EypiTOv 'Negro- 
ponte', the regular Western name for both town and 
island. In Byzantine times Euboea formed part of 
the theme of Hellas. At the partition of the Empire 
in 1204 it fell to a triarchy of Veronese, but the 
Venetians, reserving trading rights and appointing 
a bailo to supervise their settlements, gradually made 
themselves the effective masters of the island; the 
town of Negroponte, strongly fortified in 1304, 
became their principal naval base in the Aegean. 
The Turkish danger first appeared with the raids 
of Umur Pasha of Aydin (see P. Lemerle, L'emirat 
d'Aydin, 1957), and by the beginning of the Ottoman- 
Venetian war of 867-83/1463-79 practically all 
mainland Greece was in Ottoman hands. In Dhu 
'l-Hidjdja 874/June 1470 the fleet under Mahmud 
Pasha [q.v.], then Kapudan, cast anchor in Vurko 
Bay, south of the town, while Mehemmed II with 
the army advanced overland via Thebes to the 
mainland shore; the army crossed by a bridge of 
boats made south of the heavily defended Euripos 
bridge, and ships were dragged overland to prevent 
relief approaching from the north. The walls, 



defended on three sides by the sea and on the fourth 
by a deep fosse, were finally carried on Thursday 
13 Muharram 875/12 July 1470, the garrison was 
massacred and 15,000 prisoners (so Kemalpashazade) 
were taken (Western sources on the siege are listed 
by Miller [see Bibl.], 478; the fullest Turkish account 
is that of Kemalpashazade, ed. §. Turan, facs. 301-11 
= transcription 284-92, with refs. to the other 
sources; a fethndme was published by A. S. Erzi in 
Fatih ve Istanbul, i/3-6 (1954), 300 ff.). 

Thereafter until its cession to Greece in 1833 
Euboea, with parts of the mainland, was a sandjak 
belonging to the jurisdiction of the Kapudan Pasha, 
who frequently resided in the town. Ewliya Celebi, 
visiting Euboea in 1081/1670 (S eydhatndme , viii, 
236-48) describes the strongly-fortified town — it was 
to resist a siege of over three months during Moro- 

and 5 Christian wards, the drawbridge linking it to the 
Venetian fortress (destroyed when the present swing- 
bridge was built in 1896) in mid-strait and the second 
bridge to the mainland, with watermills worked by 
the freakish currents. 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Chalkis 
(Oberhummer) ; W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce 
du Levant, 1885-6; W. Miller, The Latins in the 
Levant, 1908; Piri Rels, Kitabi Bahriye, Istanbul 
1935. 119-29; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Ostnanh devletinin 
merkez ve bahriye teskildh, Ankara 1948; Hadjdji 
Khalfa, Djihdn-numd = J. von Hammer, Rumeli 
und Bosna, Vienna 1812, 105-n; J. C. Hobhouse, 
A journey through Albania . . . , 1813, 445-59; 
M. F. Thielen, Die europaische Turkey, Vienna 
1828, 72-5; W. M. Leake, Travels in Northern 
Greece. 1835, ii, 253-66; D. Kalogeropulo, Con- 
tribution a la bibliographic de Vile d'Euboea . . . 
(1471-1937), Athens 1937 (not seen); Hachette's 
Greece, Paris 1955, 314 ff. (V. L. Manage) 

EGRI DAGH [see aghr! dagh]. 
EGRIDIR, earlier spellings Egirdir or Egerdir 
inlbnBattuta.ii, 267, and Ibn Fadl Allah al- c Umarf, 
Masdlik al-Absdr, report on Anatolia, ed. Taeschner, 
Leipzig 1929, 39 1. 5, (middle of the 14th century), 
Akridur, Greek Akrotiri, possibly — though there is 
no proof for this — from the name 'AxpcoTTjpiov; a 

sula at the southern end of the Egridir lake, which 
has no visible outlet but which may have a 
subterranean outlet to the Mediterranean, thus 
keeping its water fresh. This is the Limnai of anti- 
quity (924 m. (= 3034 ft.) above sea-level, concerning 
which cf. F. Loewe, Beobachtungen wdhrend einer 
Durchquerung Zentralanatoliens im Jahre 1927, in 
Geografiska Annaler 1935); its geographical position 
is 37° 50' north, 30° 53' east, and it is the capital 
of a kaza of the vilayet of Isparta. It has 5,766 
inhabitants, the kaza has 26,820 (1950), and it is the 

There are two islands, Can-adasi and Yesil-ada, 
facing the peninsula on which Egridir is built. On 
the second of these (formerly called Nis [Nrjci] 
Adasi), there was a monastery with some 1000 
Turkish-speaking Greeks up to the end of the First 
World War. 

According to W. M. Ramsay, The historical geo- 
graphy of Asia Minor, London 1890, 407 and 417, 
the episcopal see of Prostanna was located in or near 
Egridir. It is assumed that the town, together 
with the region of Isparta, which was conquered 
by Kilidj-Arslan III (600-1/1204, see Houtsma, 
Recueil etc., iii, 62 ; iv, 24 ; H. W. Duda, Die Sel- 
tschukengeschichte des Ibn Bibl, Copenhagen 1959, 30), 



6 9 2 



EGRIDIR — EKREM BEY 



fell into the hands of the Saldjuks. After the dissolu- 
tion of the Rum Saldjuk Empire, Egridir became 
the capital of the Turkish principality of the Hamld- 
oghlu. One of the first rulers of this dynasty, 
Falak al-DIn Dtindar (at the end of the 13th century), 
gave the town the name Felekbar or Felekabad (Abu 
'1-Fida 5 , Takwim, 379; translation ii, 2, 134). In 
783 or 784/towards 1 38 1 A.D., the last Hamld- 
oghlu, Hiiseyn Beg, sold his rights to the Ottoman 
Murad I. Timur conquered both the town and the 
fortified island NIs-AdasI on his march through 
Anatolia (according to Sa'd al-DIn on 17 Sha'ban 
805/11 March 1403, according to Sharaf al-DIn on 
17 Radjab/10 February). He left them to the Kara- 
manids, whom he had restored, but they, in turn, 
had to cede them, together with the region of 
Hamid-eli, to the Ottomans in 1425. It now became 
a liwa? in the eydlet of Anadolu. Later on, in the 19th 
century, Hamid-eli, or Isbarta, as it was temporarily 
known, became a sandiak of the wildyet of Konya. 
The most notable building is the citadel, probably 
built by Keykubad I, at the tip of the peninsula of 
Egridir. It is separated from the town itself by a 
wall, and there is an inner wall protecting the 
innermost part of the citadel, which lies on the tip 
of the peninsula (where there are further fortifi- 
cations, including two towers which lean against 
the rocks). These fortifications, which are now 
destroyed, were still intact in the 18th century (see 
Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas jait en 1714 . . . ., 

There is a mosque, the Ulu Djami', with wooden 
buttresses, near the gate of the citadel in the outer 
town; its minaret stands on the actual gate of the 
citadel. Opposite the mosque, there is the Tash 
Madrasa, a court madrasa with an aywdn and a 
beautiful Saldjuk doorway dated Shawwal 635/May- 
June 1238 (RCEA, xi, 96, no. 4148); the aywdn is 
dated 701/1 301-2 (ibid., xiii, 227, no. 5138). 

Bibliography: Katib Celebi, Diihdnnumd, 

640; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Anadolu beylikleri, 15; 

F. Sarre, Reise in Kleinasien, 1895, 142 ff.; I A, 

iv, 199-201 (Besim Darkot). 

(J. H. Mordtmann-[Fr. Taeschner]) 

EGYPT [see misr]. 

EKREM BEY, Redja'Izade MahmOd (1847- 

of the leading personalities in the victory of the 
modern school of poetry over traditional diwdn- 
poetry. Born in Vanikoy, a suburb of Istanbul on 
the Bosphorus, he was the son of Redjal Efendi, 
director of the Government Press, a poet and scholar 
of some distinction. He attended various schools 
until the age of fifteen and, like most of his con- 
temporaries, continued his education as an apprentice 
clerk in the chancellery of the Foreign Ministry 
(where he met Namlk Kemal) and various other 
government offices. Subsequently he became a senior 
official of the Council of State (Shurd-yi Dewlet) and 
taught literature at the Galatasaray Lycee and the 
Imperial School of Political Science (Miilkiye), two 
of the few leading institutions where the Turkish 
intelligentsia and ruling classes were educated, and 
exercised immense influence on the formation of the 
literary taste of the young generation. After the 
restoration of the Constitution in 1908 he became, 
for a short time, Minister of Wakfs and later Minister 
of Education in the Kamil Pasha cabinet, but soon 
resigned as he disagreed with the policy of massive 
purges in the civil service. He was made a senator 
in December 1908 and remained so until his death. 
Ekrem Bey began by writing poems in the diwdn 



tradition until he came under the influence of the 
modernist Tanzlmat school, particularly of Namlk 
Kemal and 'Abd al-Hakk Hamid. Then gradually 
he developed a personality of his own and influenced 
even HSmid's later work. His poetry is romantic, 
often over-sentimental and melancholy bordering 
sometimes on the funebre, constantly elaborating one 
of the three themes: nature, love and particularly 
death, helped in this by tragic circumstances in his 
life (he lost three children at a young age). 

Although himself a poet of limited inspiration and 
not a very skilful versifier, he sincerely believed in a 
thorough revolution in the form and content of the 
Turkish ars poetica, and became the pioneer fighter 
of modern Turkish poetry against the traditionalists 
hea'ded by Mu'allim Nadji. He was thus a link 
between the early modernists (ShinasI, Ziya (Piya 3 ) 
Pasha, Namlk Kemal, c Abd al-Hakk Hamid) and 
radical reformists of the Fikret school. The long and 
often bitter struggle, continued by the generation 
of Tewflk Fikret (in the literary magazine '[herwet-i 
Fiinun where many young talents gathered first 
round Ekrem Bey), ended with the triumph of 
modernism during his lifetime, and Ekrem Bey's role 
in this, perhaps more as a critic and movement- 
leader than as a poet, is decisive. Hence the name 
Ustad-i Ekrem given to him by his students and 
admirers. The individualism and Art for Art's sake 
tendency of the Therwet-i Fiinun school are also 
partly to be traced to Ekrem who was not as social- 
or history-conscious as his predecessors. 

Apart from articles and poems published in various 
reviews of the period and some booklets of minor 
importance, he is the author of: Verse : (I) Naghme-i 
seher (1871) and (II) Yadghdr-i shebdb (1873); (III) 
Zemzeme in three parts (1885), the third of which 
contains his celebrated poem Yakadiikda bir 
mezdrlik '■dlemi, considered his masterpiece; (IV) 
Ndciz (1886) a collection of verse translations from 
the French romantics and La Fontaine ; ( V) Pejmiirde 
(1894). Prose: (I) Muntekhabdt medjmu c asi (1873) 
a collection of his early writings, articles and trans- 
lations, in the tradition of the old flowery style; 
(II) Mes Prisons Terdiumesi (1874), translation from 
the French of Silvio Pellico's Le mie prigioni, equally 
in the old fashioned ornate prose which was severely 
criticized by Namik Kemal; (III) Nidjdd Ekrem 
(1900), in two volumes, interspersed with verse, 
some in syllabic metre. Into this book dedicated to 
his beloved son Nidjad, who died very young, the 
unhappy father put, in all detail, everything he 
remembered about him. It is on the whole written in a 
spontaneous and unadorned style and contains some of 
his best prose; (IV) Tefekkur (1888) contains his later, 
simpler and more personal prose; (V) A tola (1872), a 
translation, in bombastic and old fashioned style, of 
Chateaubriand's novel; (VI) Muhsin Bey (1889), a 
rather mediocre sentimental novel; (VII) '■Araba 
sevddsi (1889, published 1896 and 1940), a much 
appreciated novel of social satire, in the manner of 
Turkish novels which attack and ridicule the aping 
of Western customs by snobs (cf. Ahmed Midhat's 
Feldtun Bey He Rdkim Efendi (1875), Hiiseyn Rahmi's 
Shik (1897) and SUpsevdi (1900)); (VIII) Shemsd 
(1896), a short narrative about the life and sudden 
death of a four year old peasant girl, adopted by 
the poet's family; (IX) TaTtm-i Edebiyydt (1882), 
a book of ars poetica with examples, composed of 
his lectures at the Miilkiye and first mimeographed 
in 1879, is his most important work, which revolu- 
tionized taste and literary theories and standards of 
the time. Contrary to tradition he gave in this book 



EKREM BEY - 



693 



many examples from contemporary writers and poets 
and made the new school popular among the majority 
of the educated youth; (X) Takdir-i elhdn (1886), 
literary criticism. Drama: (I) 'Afife Anjelik (1870), 

(II) Atala (1872), a theatrical adaptation of the 
Chateaubriand novel he had already translated; 

(III) Wuslat (1874) inspired by Namtk Kemal's 
Zavdlli Codjuk, (IV) Cok bilen Cok yailUir, a comedy 
adapted from a tale of the A If nahdr wa-nahdr, 
published posthumously (1914 and 1941). 

Bibliography: Rushen Eshref, Diyorlar ki, 

Istanbul 1918 passim; Isma'Il Hablb, Tiirk 

tedjeddud edebiyydti ta'rikhi, Istanbul 1924; c Ali 

Ekrem, RedjaHzade Ekrem, Istanbul 1924; Ismail 

Hikmet, Recaizade Ekrem, Istanbul 1932 ; Erciiment 

Ekrem Talu (Ekrem Bey's son), Recaizade 

Mahmud Ekrem, in Ayhk Ansiklopedi, T ~*anbul 

1945, i, 269; Ibniilemin Mahmud Kemal Inal, Son 

asir Tiirk sairleri, 274-85 ; Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar 

in I A, s.v. ; Kenan Akyiiz, Bah tesirinde Tiirk 

siiri antolojisi, Ankara 1953, 69-105. (Fahir tz) 

ELAZI6 [see ma'murat al- c aziz]. 

ELBASAN (T. il-basan '[fortress] which subdues 

the land'), town of central Albania (41° 06' N., 

20 06' E.) on the site of the ancient Scampis on the 

Via Egnatia, a strategic position controlling the 

fertile valley of the Shkumbi (anc. Genysos), which 

here emerges from the mountains. The fortress, 

round which the town grew up, was built with great 

speed at the command of Mehemmed II while 

Kruje (Kroya [q.v.]) was being unsuccessfully 

besieged in the summer of 1466, as a base for future 

operations against Iskandar Beg [q.v.]; it resisted a 

siege in the following spring. At first administered 

as part of the sandjak of Okhri (Tursun, TOEM 

Hldwe, 135), within a few years Elbasan was made 

the chef-lieu of a separate sandjak of Rumili, having 

(ca. 926/1520) four kadas: Elbasan, Cermenika, 

Ishbat and' Drac (Durazzo). In the later years of the 

Empire it formed part of the wilayet of Yanya, and 

finally of Ishkodra. 

With the consolidation of the Ottoman hold on 
N. Albania and the Adriatic coast, the fortress 
rapidly lost its military importance (it was dismantled 
in 1832 by Reshid Pasha and further damaged by 
earthquake in 1920, so that now only the south side 
survives) ; but the town, always and still predominant- 
ly Muslim, remained a flourishing trade-centre: 
Ewliya describes a prosperous and attractive town 
(the fortress ungarrisoned), with 18 Muslim and 10 
Christian mahalles, 46 mosques, 11 tekkes, 11 khans, 
and a very frequented market. Now linked by rail 
with Durazzo and Tirana, it is, after Tirana, the 
chief town of central Albania, with some 15,000 
inhabitants. 

Bibliography : F. Babinger, Die Griindung von 
Elbasan, in MSOS, xxxiv (1931), 94-103 (plan, 
photograph, inscriptions); H. Inalcik. Hicri 835 
tarihli Suret-i defter-i sancak-i Arvanid, Ankara 
1954, introd. ; 0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, Istanbul 
1943, 293; Hadjdji Khalfa. Dphdn-numd = J. von 
Hammer, Rumeli und Bosna, Vienna 1812, 134-6; 
Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, viii, 716-30 = F. 
Babinger's abridged trans, and comm., in MSOS, 
xxxiii (1930), 169-76; M. F. Thielen, Die europdische 
Tiirkey, Vienna 1828, 114 f.; Baedeker's Dalma- 
tien und die Adria, 1929, 245 (F. Babinger); Guide 
d'Albanie ('Albturist'), Tirana 1958, 255-9; art. 
arnawutluk, above. (V. L. Menage) 

ELBISTAN, Abulustayn or Ablistayn in the 
ancient Arabic writers, Ablistan in the Persian, 
Ablasta in the Armenian, Plasta in the Byzantine, 



I and Albistan or Elbistan in more recent times: 
a town in south-eastern Anatolia, 38° 15' N., 
37° 11' E., at an altitude of 1150 m., on the 
Sogutlii Dere, one of the sources of the Ceyhan, the 
Pyramos of antiquity. It is situated in a wide plain 
which is rich in water and enclosed by high moun- 
tains of the eastern Taurus, at the foot of the Shar 
DagM (1300 m. = 4265 ft.). It is the capital of a 
kaza in the vildyet of Marash. In 1950, it had 7,477 
inhabitants, and the kaza had 55,668. 

In antiquity, Arabissos (whence the Arabic 
c Arabsus, Afsus, the early Turkish Yarpuz — later 
Efsus — and, as capital of the kadd', Afshin) was the 
capital of the Elbistan plain, which belonged to the 
Syrian Marches (Thughur al-Sham), much fought 
over by the Muslims and Byzantines. Around 333/944 
or 340/951, Arabissos was destroyed by the Hamdanid 
Sayf al-Dawla, but as the supposed place of rest of 
the Seven Sleepers {ashdb al-kahf) it was also revered 
as a place of pilgrimage by the Muslims (see F. 
Babinger, Die Ortlichkeit der Siebenschldferlegende in 
muslimischer Schau, in Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Kl. 
der Osterr. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Year 1957, 
no. 6, 1-9). Elbistan, however, developed as the 
political centre. 

In the years between 1097 and 1105, Elbistan 
(Plastantia) was in the hand of the Crusaders. 
Subsequently it changed hands several times, 
belonging in turn to the Crusaders of Antioch, the 
Danishmandids of Siwas and the Saldjukids of 
Konya, finally remaining in the hands of these last 
in 1201. During the Anatolian (Kayseri) campaign 
in 675/1277, the Mamluk Sultan al-Zahir Baybars 
gained a great victory near Elbistan over the 
Mongol army of the Ilkhan Abaka on 10 or 
13 Dhu 'l-Ka c da/i5 or 18 April. From 740/ 
1339 onwards, Elbistan became the capital of 
the Turcoman principality of Dhulkadir, but in 
1400 it was destroyed by Timur, and in 1507 by 
the Safawid Shah Isma'il; in 921/1515 Selim I 
brought it under Ottoman suzerainty, but it was 
not incorporated into the Ottoman Empire as an 
independent (musellem) kadd' in the liwa' and 
eydlet of Dhu '1-kadriyye (capital Mar'ash) until the 
time of Sultan Suleyman. In 1264/1847, it was 
assigned to the sandjak of Mar'ash in the wilayet of 
Aleppo as an ordinary kadd?. 

The most notable monument in Elbistan is the 

Ulu Djami c , which, according to an inscription over 

the gateway, was built in 639/1241 (RCEA, xi, 132, 

no. 4199) by the amir Mubariz al-DIn Cawll, but was 

later restored in the Ottoman style. On the way to 

Hurman, the same amir built a khan, later destroyed, 

on whose site now stands the village of Cawh-Han. 

On the way to Behisni, there is the ruin of a large 

khan of the Saldjuk amir Kamar al-Din; there is 

also a mosque, known as the Himmet-Baba-Djami', 

a small building with one cupola, dating from 

Ottoman times. It is of special interest because one 

enters the octagonal tiirbe on the kibla wall through 

a door in the mihrdb (reported by K. Erdmann). 

Bibliography: V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, 

ii, 240; Katib Celebi, Djihdnniimd, 599; Yakut, i, 

93; d'Ohsson, Hist, des Mongols, iii, 480, 488; 

Hammer- Purgstall, Geschichte der Ilchane, 293-311 ; 

E. Reclus, Nouv. geogr. univ., ix, 657; Ritter, 

Erdkunde, xix, 15 f.; Ziya Giiner, Elbistan, Istanbul 

1936; IA, article £76tsta»(MiikriminHalil Yinanc), 

where further bibliography can be found. 

(Fr. Taeschner) 
ELBURZ [see alburz]. 
ELCHE [see alsh). 



6g 4 



ELCl — ELMA DAGHl 



ELCl, a Turkish word meaning envoy, from el 
or il, country, people, or state, with the occupational 
suffix H (= dji). In some eastern Turkish texts the 
word appears to denote the ruler of a land or people ; 
its normal meaning, however, since early times, has 
been that of envoy or messenger, usually in a 
diplomatic, sometimes, in mystical literature, in a 
figurative religious sense. In Ottoman Turkish it 
became the normal word for an ambassador, together 
with the more formal Arabic term seflr. From* an 
early date the Ottoman sultans exchanged occasional 
diplomatic missions, for courtesy or negotiation, 
with other Muslim rulers (in Anatolia, Egypt, 
Morocco, Persia, India, Central Asia, etc.) and also 
sent a number of missions to various European 
capitals. From the 16th century, in accordance with 
the growing European practice of continuous diplo- 
macy through resident embassies, European states 
established permanent missions in Istanbul. The 
Ottoman government, however, made no attempt 
to respond to this practice until the end of the 18th 
century, preferring to rely, for contact with the 
European powers, on the foreign missions in Istanbul, 
and on occasional special embassies despatched to 
one or another European capital for some immediate 
and limited purpose. It was the custom for such 
envoys, in addition to their official reports, to write 
a general account, known as sefdretndme, of their 
travels and experiences. A number of these accounts 
have survived in part or in full, and some of them 
have been published. In 1792 Selim III decided to 
establish permanent resident embassies in Europe. 
The first was opened in London in 1793 (on the 
reasons for this choice see Djewdet, Ta'rikh 2 , vi, 
257-60), and was followed by others in Vienna, 
Berlin, and Paris. This first experiment gradually 
petered out, the embassies, left in charge of 
Greek officials, being finally closed on the out- 
break of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. 
A new start was made in the eighteen-thirties 
with the opening of permanent embassies in London, 
Paris and Vienna and a legation in Berlin, and the 
despatch of envoys extraordinary (fawk al- c ada) to 
Tehran and St. Petersburg. These were followed by 
further resident missions in Europe, Asia (Tehran 
embassy 1849) and America (Washington legation 
1867), and the organization of a foreign ministry. 
In earlier times envoys were usually chosen from 
the palace corps of pursuivants (see £aush); later 
from among the bureaucratic and '■ulemS? classes. 
At first there was some uncertainty about grades 
and ranks; in the 19th century the European 
terminology of ambassador, minister plenipotentiary, 
and ckargd d'affaires for heads of missions, was 
adopted. The first was rendered biiyuk elti or sefir-i 
hebir, the second orta elci or simply seflr, the third 
maslahatguzdr . 

Bibliography : Djewdet, Ta'rikh*, vi, 
85-9, 128-30, 231-2; IA, article Elci (Mecdud 
Mansuroglu); J. C. Hurewitz, Ottoman diplomacy 
and the European state system, in ME], (1961), 
141-52 (reprinted in Belleten, xxv (1961), 455-66). 
On European diplomats in Istanbul see B. Spuler, 
Die europ&ische Diplomatie in Konstantinopel bis 
zum Frieden von Beograd (1739), m Jahrb. f. Kultur 
u. Gesch. d. Slaven, n.s. xi (1935) and Jahrbucher 
fur Geschichte Osteuropas, i (1936), and Zarif Orgun, 
Osmanh Imparatorlugunda ndme ve hediye getiren 
elcilere yapilan merasim, in Tarih vesikalari, i/6 
(1942), 407-13. For lists of envoys sent to and 
from Istanbul until 1774, see Hammer-Purgstall, 
GOR, ix, 303-34 (Histoire, xvii, 134-68); Ottoman 



ambassadors from 1250/1834 onwards are listed in 
the Ottoman Foreign Office yearbooks (Sdlndme-i 
nezdret-i kharidj,iyye, 1302 A.H., 178-95, and later 
editions). On the sefdretndmes see Bursal! Mehmed 
Tahir, '■Othmdnll mu'ellifleri, iii, 189-90; F. 
Taeschner in ZDMG, txxvii (1923), 75-8; Babinger, 
GOW, 323-32; B. Lewis, The Muslim discovery of 
Europe, in preparation. See further kasid, ter- 
djuman, valavac, and, for a general survey of 
Muslim diplomacy and diplomatic practice, safIr. 

(B. Lewis) 
ELDEM, KHALlL EDHEM, Turkish archeo- 
logist and historian, was born on 24 (?) June 1861 
in Istanbul. He was the youngest son of the grand 
vizier Ibrahim Edhem Pasha [q.v.]. After completing 
his primary school course in Istanbul, he continued, 
from 1876, his secondary education in Berlin, and 
later studied chemistry and natural sciences in the 
University of Zurich and at the Polytechnic School 
of Vienna. In 1885 he received the Ph. D. degree 
from the University of Berne. Back in Istanbul he was 
appointed to an office in the Ministry of War and 
transferred later to the General Staff Administration 
of the Ottoman Empire. He found his vocation when 
he was nominated in 1892 as deputy administrator 
of the Imperial Museum, where his eldest brother 
c Othman Hamdi Bey [q.v.] occupied the post of 
administrator-general. Upon the death of his brother, 
he was charged on 28 February 1910 with the 
administration of the Imperial Museum, an im- 
portant post which he held until his retirement, on 
28 February 1931. His ability as administrator and 
scholar is shown in the organization of the Imperial 
Museum. He enlarged and classified the collections 
of the main Archeological Museum and founded in 
1918, in a separate building, the Ancient Near 
Eastern Section of the Museum. He also organized 
the Topkapi Sarayi [q.v.] upon the opening of this 
palace as a museum under his administration. His 
publications cover the fields of archaeology, numis- 
matics, sigillography, epigraphy and history (for his 
bibliography see Halil Edhem Hdhra Kitabi, i, 299- 
302). His works on sigillography and epigraphy are 
the first studies in these ancillary disciplines of history 
published in Turkey. The book entitled Diiwel-i 
Isldmiyye, Istanbul 1927, a revised and enlarged 
translation of S. Lane-Poole's Mohammedan dynas- 
ties, attests his wide knowledge of Islamic history. 
His scholarship won him a world-wide reputation: 
he was a member of national and foreign academies, 
honorary doctor of the Universities of Basle and 
Leipzig, and honorary professor of the University of 
Istanbul. He died 16 November 1938 in Istanbul, 
being a member of the Turkish Parliament. 

Bibliography: Halil Edhem Hdtira Kitabi, ii, 
Ankara 1948; Arif Mflfit Mansel, Halil Edhem 
Eldem, in Olkii, xii, 383-6; Aziz Ogan, Bay Halil 
Ethem, in Yeni Turk, no. 73, 4-8; Ibrahim 
Alaettin G6vsa, Turk meshurlari ansiklopedisi, 
Istanbul 1946, 163-4. (E. Kuran) 

ELEGY [see marthiya]. 
ELEPHANT [see fIl]. 
ELICPUR [see gawilgarh]. 
ELIJAH [see ilyas], 
ELISHA [see alIsa 1 ]. 
ELITE [see al-khassa wa'l- c amma]. 
ELIXIR [see al-iksir]. 
ELKASS MIRZA [see alkas mirza]. 
ELMA DAGHJ. name of several ranges of 
mountains in Anatolia: 1) south-east of Ankara, 
2) north-west of Elmali (2505 m. [= 8,218 ft.]). 
(Fr. Taeschner) 



ELMALi, earlier spelling Elmalu (Turkish = 
"Appletown"), a small town in south-western 
Anatolia, 36 45' N., 29° 55' E., altitude 1150 m. 
(= 3.772 ft.), on a small plain, surrounded by 
high mountains (Elma Daghl 2505 m. (= 8,218 ft.) 
in the north, Bey Daghlarl 3086 m. (= 10,124 ft.) 
in the south-east), in the vicinity of the small lake 
Kara-Gol. This lake flows into a cave, Elmall 
Diideni. Elmall is capital of a kaza in the vildyet of 
Antalya, and has 4,967 inhabitants (1950); the 
kaza has 23,993 inhabitants. 

Elmall, in the ancient region of Lycia, is a pretty 
and neat town with a healthy climate. It has a 
fairly new bazaar, and a classical Ottoman mosque 
(the c Omer-Pasha Djami'i) of the year 1016/1607. 
The mosque itself has one cupola and the entrance- 
hall has five. Outside, there is a minaret on the right 
face, and at the back, to the left, a turbe. There are 
fourteen tympana of tiles of quite good quality 
within the mosque itself, and five more in the 
entrance hall (reported by K. Erdmann). 

Elmall was the capital of the Turcoman princi- 
pality of Tekke [q.v.], which was acquired in 830/ 
1426-7 by Murad II, and henceforth became a 
liwa' of the eydlet of Anadolu. The main centre of the 
liwa' of Tekke shifted to Antalya, and Elmall 
became a kadd'. In the 19th century, it was a kadd? 
of the sandiak of Antalya (Adalia) in the wildyet of 

The so-called Takhtadji, woodcutters suspected 
of being Shi'is, have settled in the wooded sur- 
roundings of Elmall and they sell their wood in the 
town. Some 60 km. (37 m.) south of Elmali is the 
harbour of Finike (earlier spelling Fineka, 1,382 
inhabitants) which once formed part of the kadd' 
of Elmall, but today forms a kaza of its own. Nearby 
there are the Lycian graves and one Phoenician 

There are three other villages in Anatolia called 
Elmall: one is in the kaza of Ordu, in the vilayet of 
the same name; the second is on the shores of lake 
Van; and the third in the kaza Besni (Behesni) in 
the vildyet of Malatya. 

Bibliography : Ewliya Celebi, Seydkatndme, 

ix, 277 ff.; E. Reclus, Nouvelle geographic uni- 

verselle, ix, 649, 660; E. Banse, Die Ttirkei, 156; 

Sami Bey Fraschery, Ramus al-A'ldm, ii, 1025; 

V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, i, 864; ii, 377; 

Cemal Arif Alagoz, Tiirkiye Karst olaylari, 47; 

IA, s.v. (Besim Darkot). 

(Fr. Taeschner) 

ELOQUENCE [see balagha, bayan and fasaha]. 

ELURA. The Elura (Ellora) caves, near Dawlat- 
abad [q.v.], appear in the history of Muslim India 
only as the scene of the capture of the Gudjarat 
princess Deval Devi, the future bride of Khidr 
Kian [q.v.], for <Ala> al-DIn Khaldji by Alp Khan, 
who had given his forces leave to visit the cave 
temples (Firishta, Lucknow lith., i, 117). These 
caves were justly famous and were described by 
some early travellers, e.g., Mas'udi, iv, 95, copied 
with much distortion of names by Kazwlni, cf. 
Gildemeister, Scriptorum Arabum de rebus Indicis, 
text 79, trans. 221; Muslim descriptions of more 
recent times in Rafi< al-DIn Shirazi, Tadhkirat al- 
muluk, ms. Bombay I96a-i98b, and in Muhammad 
Saki Musta'idd Khan, Ma'dthir-i '■Alamgiri, 238; 
tr. Sarkar, Calcutta 1947, 145. The technique of 
scarping the solid rock here is strikingly similar to 
that of the great scarp on which the citadel of 
Dawlatabad stands. (J. Burton-Page) 

ELVIRA [see ilbira]. 



— EMIN 695 

ELWEND [see alwand]. 

EMANET [see emin]. 

EMANET-I MUtfADDESE, aTurkicized Arabic 
expression meaning sacred trust or deposit, the name 
given to a collection of relics preserved in the treasury 
of the Topkapi palace in Istanbul. The most impor- 
tant are a group of objects said to have belonged to 
the Prophet; they included his cloak (khirka-i sherif 
[q.v.]), a prayer-rug, a flag, a bow, a staff, a pair of 
horseshoes, as well as a tooth, some hairs (see lihya), 
and a stone bearing the Prophet's footprint. In 
addition there are weapons, utensils and garments 
said to have belonged to the ancient prophets, to the 
early Caliphs, and to various Companions, a key of 
the Ka'ba, and Kur'ans said to have been written 
by the Caliphs c Uthm5n and C A1I. Under the Sultans 
these relics were honoured in the annual ceremony of 
the Khirka-i sa'-adet, held on 15 Ramadan. 

Bibliography: For a detailed description, 

with illustrations, see Tahsin Oz, Hirka-i Saadet 

dairesi ve Emanet-i Muhaddese, Istanbul 1953; 

on the Muslim attitude to relics in general, see 

I. Goldziher, Muh. St., ii, 356-68, and the article 

EMBALMING [see hinata]. 

EMBLEM [see shi'ar]. 

EMESA [see hims]. 

EMIGRATION [see djaliya, hidjra and 
muhadjirCn]. 

EMlN, from Arabic amin [q.v.], faithful, trustwor- 
thy, an Ottoman administrative title usually trans- 
lated intendant or commissioner. His function or office 
was called emanet. The primary meaning of emin, 
in Ottoman official usage, was a salaried officer 
appointed by or in the name of the Sultan, usually 
by berdt, to administer, supervise or control a depart- 
ment, function or source of revenue. There were thus 
emins of various kinds of stores and supplies, of 
mints, of mines, of customs, customs-houses and 
other revenues, and of the tahrir [q.v.], the preparation 
of the registers of land, tenure, population and 
revenue of the provinces and the distribution of 
fiefs (see daftar-i khakanI and tImar). In the 
words of Prof. Inalcik, "the emanet of tahrir required 
great experience and knowledge, carried great 
responsibility, and at the same time was susceptible 
to corruption and abuse ; usually influential beys and 
kadis were appointed to it". In principle, the emin 
was a salaried government commissioner, and not a 
tax-farmer, grantee, or lessee of any kind. His duty 
might be to represent the government in dealings 
with such persons, or himself to arrange for the 
collection of the revenues in question. When con- 
cerned with revenues,, he was to have no financial 
interest in the proceeds, which he was required to 
remit in full to the treasury. The term emin is also 
used of agents and commissioners appointed by 
authorities other than the Sultan — by the kadis, 
for example, and even by the tax-farmers them- 
selves, who appointed their own agents to look after 
their interests. At times, by abuse, the emins them- 
selves appear as tax-farmers. 

In the capital, the title emin was borne by a 
number of high-ranking officers, in charge of certain 
departments and services. Such for example were 
the commissioners of the powder magazines (bdrut- 
khdne emini), of the arsenal (tersdne [q.v.] emini), and 
of the daftar-i khdkdni (defter emini or defter-i 
khdkdni emini). The highest ranking holders of this 
title were the four emins attached to the external 
services (birun [q.v.]) of the palace: the city com- 
(Shehr emini [q.v.]), concerned with palace 



EMlN — EMlN PASHA 



finances and supplies and with 
palaces and other royal and governmental buildings 
in the city; the kitchen commissioner (Matbakh 
emlni) and barley commissioner (Arpa emini), con- 
cerned respectively with food and fodder for the 
imperial kitchens (see matbakh) and stables (see 
istabl; the commissioner of the mint (Darbkhdne 
emini), in charge of the mint in the palace grounds 
(see DAR al-darb, ii). 

Bibliography : Halil Inalcik, Hicri 835 tarihli 
suret-i defter-i sancak-i Arvanid, Ankara 1954, 
XIX; R. Anhegger, Beitraege zur Geschichte des 
Bergbaus im osmanischen Reich, i/I, Istanbul 1943, 
22-3, 32-5, 104-7; R. Anhegger and Halil Inalcik, 
Kdnunndme-i sultdni ber muceb-i c orf-i <Osmani, 
Ankara 1956, index; N. Beldiceanu, Les actes des 
premiers Sultans, Paris-The Hague i960, index; 
Barkan, Kanunlar, index ; L. Fekete, Die Siyaqat- 
Schrift in der turkischen Finanzverwaltung, i, 
Budapest 1955, 86, and index; U. Heyd, Ottoman 
documents on Palestine 1552-1615, Oxford i960, 
59-60, 93, and index; S. J. Shaw, The financial 
and administrative organization and development of 
Ottoman Egypt 1517-1798, Princeton 1962, 26-7, 
31, and index; c Abd al- Rahman Wefik, Tekdlif 
kawd'idi, i, Istanbul 1328, 176-84; I. H. Uzun- 
carsili, Osmanh devletinin Saray teskildti, Ankara 
1945, 375-87; idem, Osmanh devletinin merhez ve 
bahriye teskildti, Ankara 1948, index; Gibb-Bowen, 
i/i 84-5, 132-3, 150, i/2 21; Pakahn, i, 525-6. 

(B. Lewis) 
EMIN, MEHMED, [see yurdakul, mehmed 

EMlN PASHA (Eduard Carl Oscar Theodor 
Schnitzer) was born on 28 March 1840 at Oppeln in 
Prussian Silesia. He graduated in medicine at 
Berlin in 1864. He entered the Ottoman service as a 
medical officer in Albania in 1865, and assumed the 
name of Khayr Allah ; later, in the Sudan, he became 
known as Mehmed Emin (Muhammad Amin, not 
al-A.). He went to Egypt in October 1875, whence 
he proceeded to Khartoum, and (in May 1876) to 
Lado, the capital of the Equatorial Provinces, where 
he was appointed medical officer by C. G. Gordon 
Pasha, the then governor. He was entrusted with 
political missions to Uganda and Unyoro. In June 
1878, Gordon, now governor-general of the Egyptian 
Sudan, appointed him governor of the Equatorial 
Provinces, henceforward amalgamated as the 
Equatorial Province (Mudiriyyat Khatt al-Istiwd'). 
During the first years of his governorship, Emin 
continued Gordon's task of extending and pacifying 
the Egyptian territories in the southern Sudan, and 
of exploiting their natural resources, the chief of 
which was ivory. The administrative problems 






n the v 



extent and poor communications of his province, 
the disaffection of the tribes, and his enforced 
dependence on unreliable and incompetent troops 
and officials. Many of these were northern Sudanese 
(Danakla) who had originally entered the region in 
the retinues of predatory traders in ivory and slaves, 
others were exiles from Egypt. Emin was indefati- 
gable in touring the province, and made important 
studies in its natural history. By 1881 he had 
attained a fair measure of success in establishing 
administrative order. Reviving prosperity was 
reflected in increasing revenue; at the start of his 
governorship, the province had a deficit of £ 30,000; 
three years later it showed a surplus of £ 1,200. 
After the outbreak of the Mahdist revolt in 1881, 
Emin's position deteriorated. His communications 



with Khartoum were cut after April 1883. The 
defeat of an Egyptian expeditionary force at Shaykan 
(5 November 1883) was followed by the Mahdist 
conquest of the Bahr al-Ghazal [q.v.], the neigh- 
bouring province to Emin's. In May 1884, Emin 
received a letter from Karam Allah Kurkusawi, the 
Mahdist military governor of the Bahr al-Ghazal. 
demanding the surrender of his province. Emin's 
officers advised capitulation, and to gain time he 
sent a delegation to Karam Allah, and moved his 
headquarters to Wadelai (Walad Lay) in April 1885. 
However, the Mahdist forces withdrew from the 
Equatorial Province. For over two years, Emin 
remained undisturbed, although with diminished and 
precarious authority. In March 1886, he received a 
despatch from Nubar Pasha, the Egyptian prime 
minister, dated 13 Shaman 1302/27 May 1885, in- 
forming him of the abandonment of the Sudan, and 
authorizing him to withdraw with his men to 
Zanzibar. Meanwhile projects for relieving Emin 
were being mooted in Europe. An expedition was 
organized and partly financed by a British committee 
including persons interested in East African com- 
merce. The Egyptian government also subsidized 
the project. The expedition was headed by H. M. 
Stanley, who was an agent of Leopold II of the 
Belgians. Taking the Congo route, Stanley met Emin 
by Lake Albert on 29 April 1888. Emin was most 
unwilling to leave his post, and Stanley put before 
him alternative proposals: that he should continue 
to administer the Equatorial Province on behalf of 
the Congo Free State, or that he should establish a 
station by Lake Victoria for the British East Africa 
Company. Emin rejected these proposals, and 
Stanley left to bring up the rest of his expedition. 
During his absence, mutiny broke out among some 
of Emin's troops, who were suspicious of recent 
developments, and unwilling to go to Egypt. Emin 
was held by the mutineers at Dufile. Meanwhile, on 
11 June 1888, a Mahdist expeditionary force under 
c Umar Salih had left Omdurman in steamers. This 
reached Lado on 11 October, and summoned Emin 
to surrender. The mutineers resisted the Mahdist 
forces, and on 16 November Emin was released. 
He withdrew to Lake Albert, where he was rejoined 
in January 1889 by Stanley. In April, Stanley began 
his march to the coast, unwillingly accompanied by 
Emin. Emin then entered the German service in 
East Africa. He led an expedition in what is now 
Tanganyika. Thence he entered tl 






; forrr 



followers. With his expedition reduced to desperate 
straits by smallpox, he endeavoured to reach the 
Congo, but was murdered by a tribal chief on or 
shortly after 23 October 1892. 

Bibliography: Georg Schweitzer, Emin Pasha: 
his life and work, London 1898, 2 vols.; G. Schwein- 
furth and others (edd.), Emin Pasha in Central 
Africa, London 1888; A. J. Mounteney-Jephson, 
Emin Pasha and the rebellion at the Equator, 
London 1890. For the role of the relief expedition 
in Leopold II's policy, see P. Ceulemans, La 
question arabe et le Congo (i883-i8g2), Brussels 
1959, 86-117. For further bibliographical material, 
see R. L. Hill, A bibliography of the Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan, London 1939, 126, 145-6 and 
Index ; also Biography Catalogue of the library of the 
Royal Commonwealth Society, London 1961, 114b- 
115b; Abdel Rahman el-Nasri, A bibliography of 
the Sudan, 1938-1958, London 1962, index. A copy 
of Emin's despatch of 1 September 1885 to the 
Egyptian minister of the Interior is in the Sudan 



EMIN PASHA - 



Government archives (Cairint 3/14, 236); photostat 

in the School of Oriental and African Studies, 

London. (P. M. Holt) 

EMIR [see amir]. 

EMlR SULTAN, Sayyid Shams al-DIk Mehem- 
med b. c AlI al-HCseyni al-Buhjari, popularly 
known as Emir Seyyid, or Emir Sultan, the patron 
saint of Bursa (Brusa). He is supposed to have been 
a descendant of the 12th Imam, Muhammad al- 
Mahdl, and hence a Sayyid. His father, Sayyid 'All, 
known under the name of Emir Kiilal, was a Sufi 
in Bukhara. He himself, born in Bukhara (in 770/ 
1368), joined the Nurbakhshiyya branch of the 
Kubrawiyya in his early youth. Some mendkib- 
ndmes assert that he was a follower of the Imamiyya. 

After his hadjdj, Emir Sultan spent some time in 
Medina, and then went to Anatolia via Karaman, 
Hamid-eli, Kutahya and Ine-Gol. Finally he reached 
Bursa, where he dwelt in a cell (sawma'a) and led 
a life of good works. Within a short time, he gained 
great fame, gathered disciples around him, and 
entered into contact with the 'ulemd* and shaykhs 
of Bursa. He was highly esteemed by Sultan 
Bayazid I Yildirim, and married his daughter, 
Khundl Sultan, by whom he had three children 
(a son and two daughters). He was asked to invest 
the sultan with his sword when the latter went into 
battle, and his admonitions decided the sultan to 
refrain from excessive drinking (cf. the anecdote in 
Ewliya Celebi, Narrative of Travels, ii, 25 = Ta'rikh-i 
Sdf, i, 32 f.; missing in the edition of Seydhatndme, 
ii, 48); it is also said that Emir Sultan successfully 
restrained Bayezid from the illegal execution of 
Timur's ambassadors ('All, KUnh, v, 83 f.). Emir 
Sultan was captured when Bursa was taken by one 
of Timur's scouting parties in 805/1402, and brought 
before Timur, who gave him the choice of accom- 
panying him to Samarkand, but Emir Sultan 
preferred to return to Bursa (Sa'd al-Din, i, 188 f.). 
Legend does not mention this incident; it does, on 
the other hand, report that the departure of Timur's 
troops from Bursa was a miracle worked by the 
saint (Sa'd al-Din, ii, 427). When Murad II began 
his reign in 824/1421, he asked Emir Sultan to 
invest him with his sword, and the saint is also said 
to have accelerated the defeat of the 'False Mustafa' 
(Mustafa Diizme [q.v.]), who contested Murad IPs 
right to the throne, by the force of his prayers ('Ali, 
195 f.; Leunclavius, Hist. Mus., 493 f.). In the next 
year, he, and a following of 500 dervishes, took part 
in the siege of Constantinople. The fall of the city, 
which he prophesied, did not, however, occur. 
Kananos, a Byzantine who took part in the siege, 
gives a detailed and vivid description of the appear- 
ance of the Mir-Sayyid (MrjpaaiTT)? Bej(ap), the 
'Patriarch of the Turks', as he calls Emir Sultan 
(ed. Bonn, 466 ff., 477 f.) ; the Ottoman historians, 
on the other hand, do not mention this lack of 
success. Emir Sultan died in 833/1429 in Bursa, as 
a result of the plague. Soon afterwards legends told 
of miracles (mendkib) wrought by the saint. 

A splendid mausoleum (which became one of the 
most visited places of pilgrimage in Turkey) was 
erected over the grave of Emir Sultan at the eastern 
end of the town. The mosque attached to it was 
built in its present form by Selim III (inscription 
of 1219/1804). 

Bibliography : Tashkopriizade, i, 76 f. (transl. 

O. Rescher, 30 f.); Sa'd al-Din, ii, 425-7; 'Ali, 

KUnh, v, 112; GUldeste-i riydd-i Hrfdn, 69-79; 

Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, ii, 47 ff. ; Le Beau, 
Histoire du Bas-Empire, Paris 1836, xxi, 104 if. ; 



Hammer-Purgstall, i, 234 f., 431, 643 (references 

of the last two chiefly concern the role played 

by Emir Sultan in the siege of Constantinople) ; 

further bibliography, especially hagiographic, 

from the Mendkibndmes, see I A, iv, 261-3 

(M. Cavid Baysun). 

(J. H. Mordtmakn-[Fr. Taeschker]) 

EMPEDOCLES [see anbaduklIs]. 

EMRELI ('EmralI, Imr'alI or Imrali), a semi- 
sedentary Turkmen tribe which since the ioth/i6th 
century has dwelt in Khurasan, in the region of 
Giirgen. Driven back at the end of the I2th/i8th 
century by the Tekkes (Tekins), the tribe emigrated 
northwards and, in two successive waves, settled 
down in Kh w arizm (region of Hudjayll on the Aman 
Kuli canal), the first in 1803-4 and the second in 
1827 when they submitted to the Khans of Khiva. In 
1873 (I. Ibragimov, Nekotorie zametki Khivinskikh 
Turkmenakh i Kirgizakh, in Voenniy Sbornik, 
xcviii (1874), no. 9, 133-63), they owned nearly 
10,000 tents. At the present time the Emrelis inhabit 
the Ilyali region, west of Tashawz, between the 
Yomuds in the south and the Goklens and Cowdors 
in the north. An isolated settlement exists in the 
Ashkabad region (district of Kaakhka). 

Since the Russian conquest the Emrelis have been 
sedentary, and are engaged in agriculture and 
sheep-rearing. 

Detailed information on the history of the tribe in 
the 19th century is contained in the recent work by 
Yu. E. Bregel, Khorezmskie Turkmeni v XIX veke, 
Moscow (Acad, of Sc, Institute of Asian Peoples) 
1961. (A. Bennigsen) 

ENAMEL [see mIna]. 

ENDERCN (pers. Andarun, "inside"; turk. 
Enderun). The term Enderun (or Enderun-i Huma- 
yun) was used to designate the "Inside" Service (as 
opposed to Birun [q.v.], the "Outside" Service) of the 
Imperial Household of the Ottoman Sultan: i.e., to 
denote the complex of officials engaged in the per- 
sonal and private service of the Sultan — included 
therein was the system of Palace Schools — and 
placed under the control of the Chief of the White 
Eunuchs, the Bab al-Sa'adet Aghast (the Agha of 
the Gate of Felicity— i.e., the gate leading from the 
second into the third court, proceeding inward, of 
the Imperial Palace— the Topkapi Sarayi) or, more 
simply, the Kapl Aghasi (the Agha of the Gate). 
Further information will be found in the article 

Bibliography: KhMr Hyas Efendi, LatdHf-i 
Enderun, Istanbul A.H. 1276; Tayyarzade Ahmed 
<Ata, Ta'rikh, Istanbul A.H. 1291-3; Quanto di 
piu curioso . ... ha potato raccorre Cornelio Magni 
. . . .in viaggi, e ditnore per la Turchia, Parma 1679, 
Parte Prima, 502 ff. (= the "Serrai Enderum" of 
'All Beg, i.e., of Alberto Bobovi (Bobowski), 
"Polacco da Leopoli"); N. Barozzi and G. Berchet, 
Le Relazioni degli Stati Europei lette al Senato dagli 
Ambasciatori Veneziani nel secolo decimosettimo, 
Serie V: Turchia, fasc. I, Venice 1866, 59 ft. 
(= Descrizione del Serraglio del Gransignore fatta 
dal Bailo Ottaviano Bon. Cf . also the English version 
of Robert Withers: A Description of the Grand 
Signor's Seraglio, or Turkish Emperours Court, ed. 
J. Greaves, London 1650 and 1653); M. Baudier, 
Histoire Generalle du Serrail, et de la Cour du Grand 
Seigneur Empereur des Turcs, Paris 1624, 1631 
(English translation: E. Grimeston, The History 
of the Imperiall Estate of the Grand Seigneurs, 
London 1635); I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmank Devle- 
tinin Saray Teskildh {Turk Tarih Kurumu Yaym- 



larindan, viii Seri, no. 15), Ankara 1945, 297 ff., 
passim; I. H. Baykal, Enderun Mektebi Tarihi 
(Istanbul Fethi Dernegi Nesriyati: no. 20), 
Istanbul 1953; B. Miller, Beyond the Sublime 
Porte, New York 1931, 47 ff., passim and 205 ff., 
passim; idem, The Curriculum of the Palace 
School of the Turkish Sultans, in The Macdonald 
Presentation Volume, Princeton, New Jersey 1933, 
303 ff. ; idem, The Palace School of Muhammad 
the Conqueror (Harvard Historical Monographs, 
no. 17), Cambridge, Mass., 1941; N. M. Penzer, 
The Harem, London 1936, 27 ff. (listing various 
European accounts of the Seraglio); Gibb-Bowen, 
i/I, 72, 77 ff-, 33i U.; B. Lewis, Istanbul and the 
civilization of the Ottoman Empire, Norman 1963, 
65 ff. (V. J. Parry) 

ENDjOMEN [see andjuman, djam'iyya]. 
ENGt)Rt) [see Ankara]. 

ENGt)Rt)S [see madjaristan and ungurus]. 
ENIF [see nubIum]. 
ENNAYER [see tnnayer]. 
ENOCH [see idrIs]. 

ENOS (also Inos/z), Ottoman name for the 
classical Ainos, now Enez, town on the Aegean coast 
of Thrace (40 43' N., 26°03' E.) on the east bank 
of the estuary of the Meri£ ([q.v.], anc. Hebros). From 
classical times until the last century it was a pros- 
perous harbour, on an important trade route from 
the upper Meri£ valley and across the isthmus from 
the Black Sea, with valuable and much-coveted 
saltpans. With Lesbos (T. Midilli, [q.v.]) it passed 
in 1355 to Francesco Gattilusio, as the dowry of 
Maria, the sister of John V Palaeologus. On the 
death of Palamede Gattilusio in 1455, family quarrels 
and the complaints of neighbouring Muslims that the 
citizens sheltered runaway slaves ('Ashikpashazade, 
ed. Giese, § 125; Tursun, TOE M Hldwe, 68) provided 
Mehemmed II with the pretext to intervene: at his 
approach in Safar 860/January 1456 the citizens 
submitted, and the region was thenceforth a kada 
of the sandjak of Gallipoli. The silting of the river 
(now barely navigable), the construction of the rail- 
way to Dede-aghac [q.v.] and the re-drawing of the 
frontier in 191 3 have reduced Enos to a small fishing- 
village, now 4 km. from the sea among marshy 
lagoons. 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Ainos 
(G. Hirschfeld) ; F. W. Hasluck, Monuments of the 
Gattelusi, in Annual of the British School at Athens, 
xv (1908-9), 248 ff. (sketch-map and references to 
travellers' descriptions, etc.); S. Casson, Mace- 
donia, Thrace and Illyria, 1926, 255 ft.; F. 
Babinger, Mehmed. der Eroberer und seine Zeit, 
Munich 1953, 141 ff.; 0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, 
Istanbul 1943, 255-6; Pirl Rels, Kitabt Bahriye, 
Istanbul 1935, 98-9; Hadjdji Khalifa, Djihdn-numd 
= J. von Hammer, Rumeli und Bosna, Vienna 
1812, 68; M. F. Thielen, Die europaische Turkey, 
Vienna 1828, 76; Turkey (Naval Intelligence geog. 
handbook), 1943, ii, 79. (V. L. Manage) 

ENWER PASHA, Young Turk soldier and 
statesman (1881-1922). Enwer was born in the 
Diwanyolu quarter of Istanbul, on 22 November 1881, 
the eldest of six children of Ahmed bey, then a 
minor civil servant, and his wife 'A'ishe. The family 
was from Manastir (Bitolj) in Macedonia, and moved 
there again when Enwer was a boy. After com- 
pleting his secondary schooling there, Enwer entered 
the military academy (Mekteb-i Harbiyye) in 
Istanbul, completing both the regular officers' 
training course and the advanced general staff 
course. He graduated second in his class on 5 



- ENWER PASHA 

December 1902 (the first was his close friend and 
life-long associate HaHz Isma'il Hakki Pasha, 1879- 
1915; see Muharrem Mazlum [Iskora], Erkdniharbiye 
mektebi . . . tarihi, Istanbul 1930, 246) as a general 
staff captain and was posted to the Third Army in 
Macedonia. He spent the next three years in military 
operations against Macedonian guerrillas. In Septem- 
ber 1906, he was assigned with the rank of major to 
Third Army headquarters in Manastir. There he 
joined, as member no. 12, the c Othmanli Ittihad 
we Terakki Djem'iyyeti, the conspiratorial nucleus 
of the Young Turk movement, and in the following 
years helped to spread its organization.When 
the Istanbul authorities launched an investi- 
gation into these secret activities, Enwer, who with 
a group of soldiers had ambushed one of the in- 
vestigating officers, deemed it wise to refuse a call 
for promotion and reassignment to Istanbul; instead, 
in late June, 1908, he escaped with a group of 
followers into the Macedonian hills, an example 
soon followed by kolaghasi (senior captain) Ahmed 
NiyazI of Resne and Eyyub Sabri [AkgoTj of Ohri. 
Their action proved to be the prelude to the Young 
Turk revolution of 24 July, 1908. At only 26 years 
of age, Enwer was widely acclaimed as the foremost 
hero of revolution and liberty. 

While on liaison service with Austrian officers in 
Macedonia Enwer had studied German and military 
tactics. In 1909 he was posted as military attache 
to Berlin where he deepened his lifelong admiration 
for German military power and efficiency. In 1909 
he briefly returned to Turkey to participate in the 
action of the Hareket Ordusu in suppressing the 
Istanbul mutiny of 13 April 1909 (the so-called 
Otuzbir Mart wak'-asi). In the autumn of 1911, he 
resigned his post in Berlin to volunteer for service 
in the Libyan war, where he fought with distinction. 
On 5 June 191 2 he earned a double promotion to 
lieutenant-colonel. In September he also was 
appointed mutasarrif of the sandjak of Benghazi. 
Back in Istanbul, he participated actively in the 
politics of the Society for Union and Progress 
(Ittihad we Terakki Djem'iyyeti [q.v.]) and at 
its 191 2 congress helped secure the post of secretary 
general for his friend Tal'at [q.v.]. On 23 January 
1913 he led a raid on the Sublime Porte by a group 
of Unionist officers and soldiers who forced at gun 
point the resignation of the aging Grand Wezir 
Kamil Pasha (through the excessive zeal of one of 
the group, Mustafa Nedjib, the war minister Nazim 
Pasha and two other persons were killed). The 
major aim of the participants in this «Sublime Porte 
Incident* (Bdb-i '■All wak'*asi) was the energetic 
resumption of the First Balkan War after the truce 
at Cataldja (3 December 1912 to 30 January 1913), 
but instead the campaign of the late winter of 1913 
resulted in the complete evacuation of Macedonia 
and most of Thrace. The coup brought to power a 
Unionist party cabinet under Mahmud Shewket 
Pasha and its long-range effect was the conversion 
of the constitutional monarchy of 1908 into a 
partisan and military dictatorship, with only a 
semblance of parliamentary institutions, which was 
to last until the defeat of 1918. In the Second Balkan 
War Enwer was the chief of staff of the left wing, 
and as such was in the vanguard of the troops 
re-entering Edirne on 22 July 1913. 

On 4 January 1914 Enwer was promoted two 
more ranks to brigadier-general and appointed 
minister of war in the Unionist cabinet of Sa c id 
Halim Pasha, and with the impending outbreak of 
war on 21 October 1914, deputy commander-in-chief 



ENWER PASHA 



(under the Sultan's nominal authority). He became 
a lieutenant-general in 1915 and a general (birindji 
ferik) in 1917. After the accession of Mehmed VI 
Wahid al-DIn his title was changed, on 8 August 1918, 

General Staff (erkdn-i harbiyye reHsi). His nearly 
five years in the War Office and at General 
Headquarters were characterized by intensive 
efforts to increase the efficiency of the armed 
forces. In his first few months in office, he 
presided over a purge in which the aging generals 
of the c Abd al-Hamid period, who were held respon- 
sible for the disastrous Balkan War defeat, were put 
on the inactive list and replaced by energetic younger 
officers. Enwer is credited with introducing the 
practice of appointing officers to temporary higher 
rank so as to test their ability. He also personally 
designed a new military cap (known as the Enweriyye) 
and invented a simplified Arabic script, based on 
disconnected letters, which, however, found no wide 
acceptance. On 5 March 1914, Enwer married Eruine 
Nadjiye Sultan, a niece of the reigning monarch. 

In the Ottoman diplomatic moves of the spring 
and summer of 1914, Enwer was the most consistent 
advocate of a close alliance with Germany and the 
Central Powers. After fruitless negotiations by 
Djemal Pasha in Paris and Tal'at in Bucharest, 
Enwer on 22 July approached the German Ambas- 
sador, Baron von Wangenheim, with the proposal 
of a secret offensive and defensive alliance. On the 
Ottoman side the ensuing negotiations were con- 
ducted mainly by Enwer himself and the Grand 
Vizier Sa'id Hallm Pasha with the knowledge of only 
a few of their colleagues ; they were kept secret from 
the other ministers and also from the francophile 
Ottoman Ambassador to Berlin, Mal.imOd Mukhtar 
Pasha. The result was a defensive alliance against 
Russia dated 2 August 1914. In the following weeks, 
Enwer assiduously worked for early Ottoman entry 
into the World War, although others in the cabinet 
and General Staff urged caution in view of the 
German setback on the Marne. The German admiral 
Souchon, who in mid-August had entered Ottoman 
waters and service with his ships Goeben and Breslau, 
received Enwer's authorization on 14 September to 
sail into the Black Sea with freedom of action against 
Russia; but Enwer was promptly forced by his 
cabinet colleagues to countermand these instructions. 
A compromise solution on 20 September authorized 
Souchon's sailing but disclaimed Ottoman responsi- 
bility for any belligerent acts. By October several 
cabinet members had been won over to the war 
faction and on 22 October Enwer once more in- 
structed Souchon: "The Turkish fleet must win 
maritime supremacy in the Black Sea. Seek out the 
Russian fleet and attack it without declaration of 
war" (Miihlmann, Deutschland und die Tiirkei, 102). 
On 29 October Souchon's Ottoman fleet attacked 
Russian ports and ships and the Empire was at war 
with the Allied powers. 

Enwer's conduct of the Ottoman War effort was 
characterized by close co-operation with German 
strategy and German officers, by a readiness to 
attack so as to produce, if possible, early and decisive 
results, and by extensive use of ideological propa- 
ganda and of secret guerrilla operations to reinforce 
the efforts of the field armies. As many as two or 
three of the six to nine Ottoman armies and army 
groups were commanded by German generals; most 
of the rest had Ottoman commanders with German 
chiefs of staff — this binational command structure 
being carried through consistently from General 



Headquarters down to division and even regiment 
level. Enwer's own chief of staff throughout most of 
the war was General Walter Bronsart von Schellen- 
dorf, replaced in 1918 by General Hans von Seeckt. 
By late 1916, as many as seven Turkish divisions 
were assigned to reinforce the fronts in Galicia, in 
Rumania, and in Macedonia. 

Shortly before the Empire's entry into the World 
War, on 5 August 1914, Enwer ordered the creation 
of a Special Organization (Teshkilat-i Makhsiisa) 
under Siileyman 'Askeri, "a combination ... of 
secret service and guerrilla organization" (Rustow 
in World Politics, xi, 518), which engaged in irreden- 
tist struggles in Macedonia, Libya, the Caucasus, 
and Iran. Prominent members of the Ittihad we 
Terakki inner circle, such as Dr. Baha J al-DIn Shakir 
and Midhat Shiikrii [Bleda], formed part of the 
Organization's political bureau. The proclamations 
from Enwer's headquarters relied at first mainly 
on Islamic or Pan-Islamic themes, later increasingly 
on Pan-Turkish ones. The 1915 offensive against the 
Suez Canal was known as the "Islamic" strategy. 
Even when the Arab Revolt in 1916 cut off the 
Hidjaz railroad, Enwer refused to withdraw the 
army corps stationed in the Holy City of Medina. 
(The commander c Omer Fakhr al-DIn [Turkkan] 
Pasha was so thoroughly isolated by the end of the 
war that he did not learn of the 



i half r, 



January igi( 



rendered with 
) The 



eof 



ni9i8w 






le crumbling Czarist 
: "Turanic" strategy, 
although a guerrilla force created there by the Special 
Organization was called the "Army of Islam". 

In December 1914 Enwer took personal command 
of the Third Army on the Russian front in the 
Armenian mountains since the previous commander, 
Hasan c Izzet Pasha, had proved reluctant to carry 
out an encirclement manoeuvre against the advancing 
Russians in the Sarikamish region, which had been 
planned in advance. As a result of local reconnaissance 
under Hafiz Hakkl it was decided to enlarge the 
pincer movement further — a plan that did not take 
into account terrain and weather conditions in the 
steep, icy, and windswept mountains. Hunger and 
cold destroyed most of the Third Army before it 
could reach, let alone encircle, the Russian forces; of 
a total strength of 90,000, casualties have been 
estimated at 80,000. In mid-January Enwer turned 
the command of the remaining Third Army units 
over to Hafiz Hakkl Pasha and returned to G.H.Q. 
in Istanbul. Enwer did not again take personal 
command of battlefield units. 

The following years brought some striking Otto- 
man military successes, notably the defeat of the 
Allied landing expedition at Gallipoli (April 1915- 
January 1916) which prevented the loss of the 
capital, Istanbul, and the opening of communications 
between the Western Allies and the retreating 
Russian fronts; the victory at Kut (see below) ; and 
the advance against the Russians in 1917-18. 
Beginning in the spring of 1917, however, vastly 
outnumbered Ottoman armies retreated steadily 
before the British offensives in Palestine, Iraq, and 
Syria. By the autumn of 1918, the military situation 
had become untenable, and on 14 October, the 
Grand Vizier Tal'at Pasha resigned with his Unionist 
cabinet so as to facilitate the impending a 
negotiations. On 2 November 1918, Enwer, Tal' 
Djemal [qq.v.], Dr. Nazim and other promim 
Unionists assembled at night in the house of Enw< 
aide-de-camp Kazim [Orbay] in Arnavutkoy on 



ENWER PASHA 



Bosphorus, and boarded a German naval vessel that 
brought them to Odessa. Although Enwer had plans 
to go to the Caucasus (Ziya §akir, 156 f.), he later 
joined the others in Berlin, where they arrived in 
December. In Istanbul, court martial proceedings 
against the fugitive Unionists began 26 November 

1918, and on 5 July 1919 resulted in death sentences 
in absentia for Enwer, Tal'at, Djemal, and Dr. 
Nazlm. 

Enwer spent the winter of 1918-9 in Berlin. Since 
the Entente powers were demanding the extradition 
of the Young Turks, they lived semi-legally ; Enwer 
himself adopted the name "(Professor) C A1I Bey", 
which he later also used in Russia. Whereas Tal'at and 
other civilian leaders centered their political acti- 
vities on Berlin and Munich, Enwer and Djemal 
proceeded at different times to Russia and then 
Central Asia, where they were joined by Enwer's 
uncle Khalil (see below) and other former associates 
in a complex web of political manoeuvres. In April 

1919, Enwer secured the services of a pilot and 
airplane and with false Russian identity papers set 
out for Moscow. When mechanical trouble forced 
the plane to land in Lithuania, Enwer was detained 
for several weeks until his friends in Berlin established 
his identity and secured his release. After several 
months in Berlin, where he visited the Bolshevik 
leader Karl Radek in his jail in August 1919, 
Enwer on second try did make his way to Moscow 
where he arrived early in 1920. He took up 
contact with the Soviet Foreign Office, with Lenin, 
with a Turkish nationalist delegation under Bekir 
Sami which was then in Moscow, and, by corres- 
pondence, with Mustafa Kemal. With the encourage- 
ment of the Soviet authorities, he proclaimed the 
formation of a "Union of Islamic Revolutionary 
Societies" (Islam Ikhtilal Djem'iyyetleri Ittihad!) 
and of an affiliated People's Councils Party (Khalk 
ShOralar Flrkasi), the former intended as a Muslim 
revolutionary international, the latter as its Turkish 
affiliate. On 1-9 September 1920 he attended the 
Soviet-sponsored Congress of the Peoples of the 
East at Baku with the title of Delegate of the 
Revolutionaries of Libya, Tunis, Algeria, and 
Morocco (chosen perhaps because of his war record 
in Cyrenaica in 1911-2); a Kemalist Turkish delega- 
tion under Ibrahim Tali' [Ongoren] also was present. 

In October 1920, Enwer was back in Berlin where he 
lived in a villa in the fashionable Grunewald section. 
He was confident that the Soviets would support 
nationalist movements in Turkey and other border 
states. To this end he asked Khalil to secure approval 
from the Soviet Foreign Office for a plan whereby 
two cavalry divisions, to be formed among Ottoman 
war prisoners and Muslim residents of the Caucasian 
region, would, under Enwer's command, join the 
Anatolian resistance movement. Enwer himself, 
meanwhile, was trying to purchase arms in Berlin. 
That he had hopes of taking over the supreme 
command in Anatolia is indicated by Khalil's state- 
ment to Karakhan, Soviet Deputy Commissar for 
Foreign Affairs, that "Mustafa Kemal Pasha would 
not be in favour of creating divisiveness and is 
accustomed to obeying you [i.e., Enwer]" — an 
interpretation rather strikingly at variance with 
Kemal's record of near-insubordination to Enwer 
during the World War. (From Khalil's letter to 
Enwer, 4 November 1920, quoted by Cebesoy, 165). 
Enwer's plans, however, were rejected by Karakhan. 

After Tal'at Pasha's assassination (15 March 1921), 
Enwer was the most prominent surviving Union and 
Progress leader in exile. At its 192 1 annual meetings 



held in Berlin and Rome, the Union of Islamic 
Revolutionary Societies adopted a set of resolutions 
according to which the affiliated People's Councils 
Party was to be the legatee of the Union and Progress 
Society in Turkey; the Revolutionary Union itself 
was to work in close conjunction with the Third 
International and to secure further Soviet aid for 
the Nationalist struggle in Anatolia. (See Cebesoy, 
224 f., who does not, however, give any exact date 
for the meetings). In Moscow, Enwer had several con- 
versations with c Ali Fu'ad [Cebesoy], the newly 
appointed Kemalist ambassador (their first meeting 
occurred on 26 February 1921) and with ticerin, 
both of whom tried to dissuade him from interfering 
with the Anatolian movement; a protocol to this 
effect was drawn up by c Ali Fu'ad, Enwer, and 
Dr. Nazim at one of these meetings. On 16 July 1921 
Enwer sent a lengthy letter to Mustafa Kemal 
complaining of groundless suspicions and assuring 
Kemal that he (Enwer) was content to support the 
Anatolian movement from outside. But the moves 
of Major Na'im Djewad, whom Enwer sent from 
Russia to Anatolia with quantities of propaganda 
material for the People's Councils Party and who 
was arrested by the Kemalists at the Black Sea 
indicated that he was pursuing his 



form. 



plan 



July, at a time when the Greek offensive 
toward Ankara was in full ^ jgress, Enwer proceeded 
from Moscow to Batumi where he gathered with 
other Unionists awaiting an opportunity to enter 
Anatolia. Close by, the Trabzon Defence of Rights 
Society was openly supporting Enwer, and in the 
Ankara Assembly a group of about forty ex-Unionists 
are said to have been working secretly to replace 
Kemal with Enwer. On 5 September, a congress of 
the "Union and Progress (People's Councils) Party" 
was held at Batumi which issued an appeal to the 
Ankara Assembly to abandon its hostility toward 
the Union and Progress exiles. Meanwhile, however, 
Kemal's victory at the Sakarya (2-13 September) 
consolidated his political position and by November 
his authority was restored in Trabzon. 

Abandoning his Anatolian plans, Enwer left 
Batumi by way of Tbilisi, Baku, 'Ashkabad, and 
Merv, and arrived in Bukhara in October 192 1 
accompanied by Kushdjubashizade Hadjdji Sami of 
the former Special Organization and others. He 
seems to have given the impression to Soviet 
authorities that he would rally Muslims of various 
parts of Central Asia in a struggle against the 
British; yet he soon was engaged in efforts to 
mobilize various Ozbek factions into common 
resistance against Soviet rule and penetration of 
Tiirkistan. The major political groupings that he 
encountered in Ozbekistan were (1) the Young 
Bukhara party under 'Othman Khodja, which in a 
revolution with Soviet support in September 1920 
had deposed the Emir of Bukhara, c Abd al-Sa'id 
Mir c Alim forcing him into exile in Kabul and (2) the 
tribesmen of the area who were generally loyal to 
the Emir, formed armed bands known as Basmadjis, 
[i.e., Raiders), and fought both the Republicans and 
the Soviets. Enwer was v. ^corned in Bukhara by 
'Othman Khodja's representatives, and took up 
close contact with Ahmed Zeki Welidi [Togan], 
the exiled Bashkir leader, who was then trying 
to rally various Ozbek factions against the 
Soviets. On 8 November Enwer left Bukhara 
with thirty armed followers on the pretext of a 
hunting trip but actually so as to join the Basmadjis. 
He proceeded to Shirabad and thence eastward 



ENWER PASHA 



along the Afghan frontier, being joined by local 
armed groups along the way. In the vicinity of 
Korgantepe, south-west of Diishenbe (later Stali- 
nabad) he made contact with Ibrahim Lakay, known 
as the Basmadji leader most staunchly loyal to the 
Emir. Lakay, who disapproved of Young Turk 
revolutionaries as much as he did of Young Bukhar- 
ans, interned Enwer and his men for six weeks 
(i December 1921 to 15 January 1922). Released 
through the intervention of another Basmadji group 
under Ishan Sultan, Enwer assembled more than 
200 armed Tadjik tribesmen and invested the 
Russian garrison at Diishenbe, which evacuated the 
town on 14 February. On 19 February Enwer was 
wounded in his arm in an engagement fought in 
pursuit. Enwer's proclamations of this period were 
signed "Deputy of the Emir of Bukhara, Son-in-Law 
of the Caliph of the Muslims, Seyyid Enwer" (Togan, 
449) and his initial success rallied other armed men 
to his headquarters, while some of his associates 
went to Afghanistan in quest of further reinforce- 
ments. On 15 May he sent an ultimatum to the 
Russians which he signed as "Commander-in-Chief 



of t 



, Khiw; 



which he demanded 
n of those areas (Togan, 451). But 
Enwer's forces lost a major engagement at Kafiran on 
28 June. As his troops melted away, he was obliged 
to join forces with the Basmadji leader, Dewlet- 
niand Bek, at Beldjuwan south-east of Diishenbe. 

Enwer was killed on 4 August 1922 (Togan, 452 f.; 
Baysun, 109-11, gives the date as Friday, 5 August, 
but that day was a Saturday), by a machine-gun 
bullet while leading a cavalry counter-charge against 
a superior Russian force at the near-by village of 
Ceken. Dewletmand also was killed while coming to 
his rescue, and both were buried at Ceken by their 
men on the following day. 

Enwer was short of stature and slender of waist, 
with wide-set fiery eyes and an up-pointed, well- 
groomed moustache. He had great personal courage, 
boundless energy, and a keen sense of drama — at 
times melodrama (cf. C. R. Buxton, Turkey in 
Revolution, London 1909, 16 ff.). Soldiers of an older 
generation such as Liman or c Izzet Pasha [q.v.] 
were likely to see in him a brusque, restless upstart. 
But among his friends and close associates he in- 
stilled profound and lasting loyalty, and the masses 
idolized him. His financial integrity and sincere 
patriotism are attested even by his rivals and 
enemies. Despite the Sarlkamish disaster, his 
popularity remained unimpaired throughout the 
World War. In judging his total performance as 
supreme commander, it should be recalled that only 
in I9T2 the Ottoman Empire had been roundly 
beaten by four small Balkan states. The trans- 

that through four fateful years withstood the com- 
bined onslaught of Russia, Britain, and their Allies 
must be regarded above all as the achievement of 
Enwer and of the German officers with whom he so 
closely and consistently co-operated. 

Enwer's flight in November 1918 was a turning 
point that did severe and lasting damage to his 
reputation. His subsequent efforts to redeem him- 
self by resuming a military role in Anatolia — or 
failing that, in Central Asia — remain the most obscure 
and controversial part of his career. A full and 
balanced account of this period must await more 
complete publication of his correspondance of those 
years with Khalil, Djemal, Tal'at, Mustafa Kemal, 
and others. 



tical affairs. His father, Ahmed Bey (1864-1947), 
rose in the civil service to the position of siirre 
emini (i.e., official in charge of delivering the 
Sultan's annual gift to Mecca) with the (civilian) 
rank of pasha. 

Khalil Pasha (Halil Kut) (1881-1957), the son 
by another marriage of Enwer's paternal grand- 
mother, was a career officer who graduated from 
the military academy as "distinguished captain" 
(miimtaz yiizbashi) in 1904. He fought in the Libyan, 
Balkan and World Wars becoming a Lieutenant- 
Colonel of the general staff in 1913. In April 1916, 
with the rank of Brigadier General (mirliwa) and 
later Lieutenant General he assumed command of the 
Sixth Army in 'Iraq, and in one of the more specta- 
cular Ottoman victories, at Ctesiphon (or Kut al- 
c Amara), captured General Townshend with an 
entire British army of 13,000 men. But he had to 
retreat before a renewed British offensive, aban- 
doning Baghdad in March 1917. In June 1918 he 
became commander of the Eastern Army Group 
which undertook the Turkish advance into the 
Caucasus area and occupied Baku in September. 

Following the armistice, he was interned at 
Batumi but escaped early in 1919 (see Taswir-i 
Efkdr, Istanbul, 4 February 1919). After only a few 
weeks in Istanbul he was again arrested and jailed 
in the Bekiragha prison on charges of matreatment 
of Armenians and others during the war. Once again 
he escaped (8 August 1919) making his way to 
Anatolia. Tentative plans to have him take a part in 
military operation in Anatolia (e.g., command of the 
Izmir front) were abandoned because of the political 
strain they would have placed on relations between 
Anatolia and Istanbul. He saw Mustafa Kemal in 
Sivas in mid-September 1919 and accepted from him 
the assignment to try to secure military and financial 
aid for Anatolia from the Bolsheviki. He made his 
way to Russia by slow stages, arriving in Baku in 
December and in Moscow before 24 May 1920. On 
1 June he delivered a letter from Kemal to Cicerin, 
Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs. In negotia- 
tions with Cicerin and Karakhan he obtained 

Turkish pounds in gold bullion. (The latter he later 
delivered in person to Colonel Djawid [Erdelhun], 
division commander in Karakose). In the winter of 
1920-1 he was back in Moscow, where he participated 
intensively in the political negotiations between 
Enwer and the Bolsheviks. In February 1921 he was 
in Trabzon to try to build up the Peoples' Councils 
Party, Enwer's political organization in Anatolia. 
In r922 he was expelled from Trabzon by the Kema- 
lists and went to Berlin. After the nationalist victory 

decreed by the Istanbul authorities on 18 February 
1920, was set aside; instead he was retired in 1923 
and took no further part in political and military 
affairs. Under the law of 1934 lie took the family 
name of Kut after his victory at Ctesiphon. 

Enwer's surviving brothers and sisters after 1934 
took the family name Killigil. Nuri Killigil (1890- 
1949), the second son of Ahmed Pasha and 'A'ishe, 
also was a career officer. In 1914, with the rank of 
major, he was assigned to the Special Organization. 
From 1915 to 1918, with the honorary rank of major 
general, he served in Libya "where he was organizing 
a rather successful resistance to Italian penetration 
of the hinterland" (Allen and Muratoff, 468, who 
state erroneously, however, that he was Enwer's 



702 



ENWER PASHA - 



half-brother). Toward the end of the World War 1 
was in charge of guerrilla operations of the "Army 
of Islam" in the Caucasus. He hesitated to heed I 
Istanbul authorities' call for his return and instead 
stopped in Erzurum early in 1919. By January 192 
he was organizing guerrilla forces in Daghestan. Lik 
Khalll, he returned eventually to private life ij 
Istanbul. He was killed in an explosion of hi 
munitions factory in Sutliidje on 2 March 1949. 

Enwer's younger sister Mediha Killigil (b. 1899) 
was married (1919-1963) to Colonel (later General) 
Kazim [Orbay], Enwer's aide-de-camp : 
who in 1961 was the presiding officer of the Turkish 
Constituent Assembly and subsequently became ; 
appointed senator under the Second Republic. H 
younger brother Kamil Killigil ( -1962) married 
Enwer's widow, Nadjiye Sultan, (1898-1957) on 
30 October 1923. Enwer was survived by two 
daughters, of whom the younger, Tiirkan, was 
married to Huveyda Mayatepek, a Turkish career 
diplomat and currently (May 1963) Ambassador to 
Copenhagen; and one son, Ali Enver. 

Bibliography: Ziya Sakir [Soku], YaHn 
tarihin iif bilyiik adami: Taldt, Enver, Cental 1 , 
Istanbul 1944, is a popular and not always accurate 
account. Kurt Okay, Enver Pascha, der grosse 
Freund Deutschlands, Berlin 1935, combines fact 
and fiction. The memoirs of Enwer's widow 
appeared in the Istanbul newspaper Vatan, 15 
December 1952-21 January 1953. 

On his political-military career to 1914: A. D. 
Alderson, Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty, 
Oxford 1956, table xlvii; Tevfik Biyikhoglu, 
Trakya'da Milli Mucadele, Ankara 1955-6, esp. i, 
88 ff. ; [Resneli Ahmed Niyazi], Khatirdt-i Niyazi, 
Istanbul 1326 A.H.; E. E. Ramsaur, The Young 
Turks, Princeton 1957; Ali Fuad Turkgeldi, 
Gorttp Isittiklerim 1 , Ankara 1951. 

On the German alliance and entry into World 
War One: ibnulemin Mahmud Kemal inal, 
Osmanh devrinde son sadriazamlar , Istanbul 
1940-53, esp. 1896 ff.; Harp kabinelerinin isticvabi, 
Istanbul 1933 (testimony by war cabinet members 
before parliamentary inquiry of 1919); Carl 
Muhlmann, Deutschland und die Turkei, igi3-igi4, 
Berlin 1929. 

On his military leadership in 1914-8: W. E. D. 
Allen and Paul Muratoff, Caucasian Battlefields, 
Cambridge 1953; [Ahmed Cemal], Memories of a 
Turkish Statesman, by Djemal Pasha, London 
1922; M. Larcher, La guerre turque dans la guerre 
mondiale, Paris 1926; Carl Muhlmann, Das 
deutsch-tiirkische Waffenbundnis im Weltkrieg, 
Leipzig 1940; Joseph Pomiankowski, Der Zusam- 
menbruch des ottomanischen Reiches, Leipzig 1928. 
On the activities in exile of Enwer, Khalll, and 
Nuri: Samet Agaoglu, Babamm arkadaslari, 
Istanbul 1959, 30-34 (sketch of Nuri); Abdullah 
Receb Baysun, Turkistan Milli hareketleri, Istan- 
bul 1945; Tevfik Biyikhoglu, Atatiirk Anadoluda, 
Ankara 1959, 35, 68 ff.; Wipert von Bliicher, 
Deutschlands Weg nach Rapallo, Wiesbaden 195 1, 
132-5; Olaf Caroe, Soviet Empire, London 1953, 
114-30; Joseph Castagne, Les Basmatchis (1917- 
1924), Paris 1928; Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Moskova 
hatiralan, Istanbul 1955, esp. 128-37, 157-88, 
220-39, 3!3- 2 7; Baymirza Hayit, Turkestan im 
XX. Jahrhundert, Darmstadt 1956; Gotthard 
Jaschke in WI, x (1929), 146, n.s. v (1957), 



von Rabenau, Seeckt: Aus seinem Leben 1918-1936, 
Leipzig 1940, 95, 356 f.; D. A. Rustow in World 
Politics, xi (1959), 513-52; Otto-Ernst Schiidde- 
kopf, Karl Radek in Berlin, in Archiv fur Sozial- 
geschichte, ii (1962), 87-166 (including German 
translation of Radek's Berlin memoirs entitled 
November, first published in Krasnaya nov>, 
October 1926), esp. 97 (where there is some con- 
fusion between Enwer's first and second attempts 
to get from Berlin to Moscow) and 152 f.; Ahmed 
Zeki Velidi Togan, Bugunkti Turkili (Turkistan) 
ve yakxn mazisi, Istanbul 1947, 434-53. A copy 
of Enwer's letter to Mustafa Kemal of 16 July 
1920 is in the Turk Inkilap Tarihi Enstitusii, 
Ankara. 

I have supplemented the above sources with 

information obtained in personal interviews 

kindly granted by General Kazim Orbay (Ankara, 

30 and 31 January 1963) and Bay Ali Enver 

(Istanbul, 4 February 1963) ; additional data have 

been generously supplied by Bay Faik Resit 

Unat, Ankara. (D. A. Rustow)' 

ENWERl, HAaiail Sa c d Allah Efendi (1733 ?- 

1794), minor Ottoman historian. He was born 

at Trebizond (Trabzon), going to Istanbul as a 

young man. After completing his studies he found 

employment with the Sublime Porte. 

Enweri was appointed official historian in 1182/ 
1769 and retained that function, except for four 
short intervals, under three Sultans, Mustafa III, 
c Abd al-Hamid I and Selim III. He also undertook 
additional duties. 

From 1184/1771 onwards he was Teshrifdtdji, 
Djebedjiler Kdtibi, Mewkutatdji, Buyiik Tedhkiredji 
and, four times, Anadolu Muhasebedjisi. Four times 
he either replaced or was replaced by Wasif as 
official historian. 

His history, known as TaMkh-i Enweri, has 
never been published. It consists of three volumes, 
of which the first deals with the military and political 
events concerning the war against Russia which 
started in 1 182/1769. In his introduction the author 
explains that "he has avoided an elaborate style, 
endeavouring not to omit any important events and 
trying to relate them in a clear and precise language" 
(MS Istanbul University Library, no. T.Y. 2437, 
fol. 2"). Wasif altered this volume in some important 
particulars and then called it the first of his history. 
Djewdet Pasha made considerable use of Enweri's 
second volume, which deals with the period 1167- 
97/1754-83. 

Enweri also wrote poetry, although his work in 
this field does not deserve much attention. He could 
write Arabic and Persian, made the pilgrimage to 
Mecca and was known as a man of excellent character 
(v. Djemal al-DIn, AHna-i Z.uraja, Istanbul 1314, 
57 — the author's manuscript is at the Istanbul 
University Library, no. T.Y. 372, Fatin, Tedhkira, 
20). 

Bibliography: For the main MSS. of Enweri, 
apart from those in the libraries of Istanbul 
University, Inkilab and Topkapisarayi, see Istan- 
bul KiUUphaneleri Tarih-Cograjya Yazmalan Kata- 
loglari, Istanbul 1944, ii, 143-46; Babinger, 320; 
Mehmed Thiireyya, Sidjill-i 'Othmdni, Istanbul, 
1308, i, 440; Mehmed Tahir, c Othmdnli Mii'ellifleri, 
Istanbul 1342, iii, 22; Sadeddin Niizhet Ergun, 
Turk Sairleri, iii, 1303; Nail Tuman, Katalog, 
author's MS in 1st. Univ. Lib., 271. 



i (19 



185-2: 



Mi9 



Kars 



2), 35-4: 



ii Sabit 



ENZELl [see b 
EPHESUS [see 



(Abi 



kN) 



EPIC — ERDEL 



703 



EPIC [see hamasa]. 

EPIGONI [see al-salaf wa 'l-khalaf]. 

EPIGRAM [see hidja']. 

EPIGRAPHY [see kitabat, also khatt, naksh]. 

EQUATOR [see al-istiwa 5 , khatt]. 

EQUITY [see insaf]. 

ERBlL [see irbIl]. 

ERDEL, ErdIl or Erdelistan, from the 
Hungarian Erdely (erdii elve = beyond the forest) ; 
Ardeal in Rumanian; Siebenbiirgen in German; the 
Latin name Terra Ultrasilvas and later Transsilvania 
being a translation of the Hungarian — the province 
of Transylvania which now constitutes the western 
portion of Rumania. In Ottoman sources the name 
of Erdel occurs first in the Ruzndme-i Siileytndni in 
the course of a description of the reception into the 
Ottoman army of King Yanosh of the wildyet of 
Engurus {i.e., of the Hungarians), who is described 
as having been formerly the Bey of Erdel (cf. 
Feridun Bey, Munshd'dt, 2nd ed., Istanbul 1275, 
ii, 275). The variant Erdelistan occurs also in later 
sources (Na'ima, i, loc. var.; Ewliya Celebi, Seyahat- 
ndme, i, 181; Mustafa Nun Pasha, Natd'idj al- 
wuku'dt, ii, 72). Geographically speaking, Erdel 
borders on Bpghdan (Moldavia) in the east, Eflak 
(Wallachia) in the south, the Banat (from which it 
is separated by the Iron Gates — Demir [Temir, etc.]- 
Kapi) in the south-west, and the province of 
Marmarosh (Maramures) in the north. Thus delimited, 
Erdel is a basin surrounded by the Carpathians and 
the Transylvanian Alps on three sides, and separated 
from the Hungarian plain by the Erchegyseg (Rom. 
Muntii Apuseni) mountains. Ottoman Erdel often 
exceeded, however, these geographical limits at the 
expense of neighbouring countries. Erdel can be 
subdivided into three main areas: the Erdel plain, 
higher and more broken than the Hungarian plain 
and crossed by the river Muresh and its tributaries; 
the country of the Sekels in the east, and, finally, 
the area of the southern Carpathians. 

The first contact of the Ottomans with Erdel 
occurred in the middle of the Sth/i4th century. 
In 769/1367, Denes (Dennis), who had become 
voyvoda (prince) of Erdel after being ban (lord) of 
Vidin, fought the Bulgarians supported by Murad I. 
The first Ottoman campaign against Hungary and, 
therefore, Erdel is put by 'Ashlkpasha-zade (ed. 
Giese, 60) in 793/1391. The large raid which occurred 
in 823/1420 under Mehemmed I must have been the 
work of the frontier guards from Vidin. The following 
year the frontier bey of the Danube, encouraged by 
the voyvoda of Eflak, captured and burnt down the 
city of Brashov. There were other raids in 829/1426 
and 836/1432, the latter being ledby Evrenos-zade 'All 
Bey, acting in conjunction with the Bey of Eflak. 
Turkish historians speak of another raid by 'All Bey 
(sent by Murad II) in 841/1437 ('Ashlkpasha-zade, 
op. cit., no; Neshri, Tewdrikh-i dl-i c Othmdn, Well 
al-Din Efendi MS, no. 2351, f. 177). The following 
year, the Sultan himself entered the territory of 
Erdel for the first time, accompanied by Vlad 
Dracul, the Bey of Eflak, and advanced as far as 
Sibin (Sa'd al-Din, i, 321). An interesting account 
of Ottoman customs and organization has been left 
by one of the Saxon prisoners taken during this 
campaign (Cronica Abconterfayung der Tiirkei . . ., 
Augsburg 1531). Resistance against the Ottomans 
stiffened with the appearance on the scene of Yanku 
Hunyades (in Hung. Hunyadi Janos), "the White 
Knight of Wallachia", who after engaging the 
Ottomans at Semendere in 841/1437 and near 
Belgrade in 845/1441, defeated and killed the Ottoman 



commander Mezid Bey in 846/1442. The same year 
Hunyadi, supported this time by Vlad Dracul, 
defeated in Wallachia Khadim Shihab al-Din Pasha, 
the Beylerbeyi of Rum-ili (Rumeli) and thus seized 
the initiative in the Balkans, preserving it until the 
fateful battle of Varna. Ottoman raids were resumed 
under Mehemmed II: there was a raid in 879/1474 
against Hunyadi's son, Matthias; a force of 30,000 
troops entered Erdel in 884/1479, but was defeated; 
and there was yet another raid in 898/1493. During 
the temporary cessation of Ottoman raids which 
then followed, the Hungarian and Wallachian 
peasants of Erdel revolted (in 920/1514), but were 
suppressed by the feudal lords, an important part 
being played by the voyvoda of Erdel, John Zapolyai 
("Sapolyayi Yanosh" in Pecewi, i, 108), who, after 
the battle of Mohacz, proclaimed himself King of 
Hungary at Istolni Belgrad [q.v.] (Hung. Szekes- 
fehervar, Ger. Stuhlweissenburg) in 1526. Challenged, 
however, by the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, 
Zapolyai fled to Poland, sending an ambassador to 
Istanbul to obtain the Sultan's support. This was 
granted in change for a recognition of Ottoman 
suzerainty, Zapolyai swearing allegiance to the 
Sultan in person during the Vienna campaign 
(Feridun Bey, ii, 570; 'All, Kunh al-akhbdr, 1st. 
Univ. Lib., no. 5959/32, f. 293). ^936/1530, Mehmed 
Pasha, the sandjak-beyi of Silistre (Silistria), sup- 
ported by Vlad, voyvoda of Eflak, captured Brashov 
and handed it over to Zapolyai, who appointed 
Stephen Bathory voyvoda of Erdel. 

Ottoman supremacy in Erdel (948/1541-11 10/1699) : 
a few days before his death in 1540, Zapolyai 
secured the Sultan's agreement to the succession of 
his son John Sigismund (Pecewi, "Simon Yanosh" 
and "Yanosh Jigmon", i, 228 and 434 passim; but 
in other Ottoman sources he is generally called 
Istefan), this time against payment of a tribute 
(kharddj). During the Budin campaign, the boy was 
shown to Suleyman the Magnificent who granted 
him a sandjak in the wildyet of Erdel, with the 
promise of a kingdom later (cf. 'Ali, Kunh al-akhbdr, 
f. 277). Ottoman supremacy was confirmed in the 
treaty of 948/1541, which provides for Ottoman 
protection against payment of a tribute, which was 
first fixed at 10,000 ducats, was raised to 15,000 
between 983/1575 and 1010/1601, was then remitted 
for ten years and later still fixed again at 10,000. 
In the second half of the nth/i7th century it was 
again raised first to 15,000 and then to 40,000 gold 
coins (altin, altun). It was also customary to give an 
annual present (pishkesh) of 10,000 to 60,000 coins. 
The prince of Erdel was nominated by the local Diet, 
the Sultan confirming the choice by sending him a 
caparisoned horse, a standard, a sword and a robe of 
honour (for the order of precedence as between the 
prince of Erdel and the voyvodas of Eflak and 
Boghdan, see NatdHdj al-wuku c dt, i, 137). There were 
also cases of the Porte rejecting a nomination or 
dismissing a prince, as in 1022/1613 with Gabor 
Bathory and in 1067/1657 with George Rak6czi II. 
The princes' foreign policy had to conform to the 
Porte's wishes, but they were free in their internal 
affairs. They were represented at the Porte first by 
special envoys, the first permanent agent (kapu 
kakhyasi — kedkhuddsl (in Erdel documents kapi- 
tiha), being appointed in 967/1560. This agent 
represented both the Bey of Erdel and the three 
local millets (Hungarians, Germans and Sekels, the 
Wallachians being denied legal existence). His 
residence was in the Balat quarter of Istanbul, in a 
street known today as Macarlar Yokusu ("Hunga- 



tians' Rise") near the residences of the agents of 
Boghdan and Eflak. 

During John Sigismund's minority, the Diet 
appointed as regent the Croatian Catholic friar 
George Martinuzzi-Utyeszenicz (Utesenic) (in 'All, 
f. 287 "brata", i.e., "brother"), who, however, 
handed over Erdel to the Habsburgs in 1551. The 
beylerbeyi of Rum-ili Mehmed Pasha Sokollu 
thereupon led an army into Erdel ('All, f. 287). 
Martinuzzi made his peace with the Ottomans, but 
was then attacked by the Austrian General Castaldo 
and killed in 1552. A second army was sent to the 
Banat under Kara Ahmed Pasha who captured 
Temesvar (Timisoara). Castaldo withdrew from Erdel 
in 1553, the country being for a time ruled by 
voyvodas on behalf of the Habsburgs, until in 1556 
the Diet invited back the Queen Mother Isabella 
and John Sigismund, who, coming from Poland, 
established their seat of government in the Belgrade 
of Erdel (Erdel Belgradi, Rum. Alba Julia, Hung. 
Gyulafehervar, Ger. Karlsburg). John Sigismund 
ruled alone from 1559 to 1571 both over Erdel and 
over the northern districts of Hungary in constant 
competition with the Habsburgs. Although by the 
agreement of Satmar in 1564 he recognized Emperor 
Ferdinand as King of Hungary, peace was not long 
preserved, John appealing to the Sultan for help 
(cf. Pecewl, i, 412), and the latter responding by 
undertaking the Szigetvar expedition in 1566. 
John's reign witnessed also the revolt of the Sekels 
and the suppression of their traditional privileges 
in 1562 and the proclamation of religious toleration 
in Erdel by the Diet's decisions of 1564 and 1571. 
His successor Stephen Bathory (1571-6) managed to 
preserve a precarious balance between the Habs- 
burgs and the Ottomans, by recognizing the Emperor 
Maximilian as King of Hungary and thus becoming 
his vassal by the treaty of Speyer in 1571, while 
continuing payment of tribute to the Porte. In 1576 
he was elected King of Poland by the efforts of the 
Porte and of the Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed 
Pasha (see Ahmed Refik, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha ve 
Lehistdn intikhdbdtl, in TOEM, 6th year, 664 if.), 
Erdel being governed until 1581 by his brother Christ- 
opher Bathory and then until 1602 (although with 
intervals) by his son Sigismund Bathory. The latter 
wavered in his loyalty to the Porte, entering the 
Holy League in 1593 and executing the leaders of 
the pro-Turkish party in 1594 at a time when he 
pretended to be getting ready to join the Ottoman 
army under Kodja Sinan Pasha. He incited the 
voyvodas of Boghdan and Eflak against the Ottomans 
and defeated in 1003/1595 the Ottoman army sent to 
suppress their rebellion. After the severe defeat 
suffered by the Imperialist forces at the battle of Mezo- 
Keresztes in the following year, he withdrew from 
Erdel, relinquishing the rule to his cousin Cardinal 
Andreas Bathory, who had been brought up at the 
Polish court and was, therefore, pro-Ottoman. The 
latter was, however, defeated by the rebellious 
voyvoda of Eflak, Mikhal (Michael), who was in 
turn killed by the Austrians. The latter then occupied 
the country, foiling an attempt by Sigismund Bathory 
to re-establish his rule. In 1603 a Sekel nobleman, 
Szekely Mozes, made an unsuccessful attempt to 
oust the Austrians with Ottoman support. An Erdel 
nobleman, Stephen Bocskay, who had fled to the 
Ottomans (see Na'ima, i, 386) was more successful, 
and by the treaty of Vienna in 1606, the Emperor 
Rudolf recognized him as prince of Erdel. His death 
was followed by a period of instability which included 
the tyrannical rule of Gabor Bathory (1608-13), 



known in Ottoman sources as "the mad king". The 
beylerbeyi of Kanije, Iskender Pasha, succeeded in 
deposing him and in getting the diet at Kolojvar to 
elect in his place Gabor Bethlen, whose rule marks 
the golden age of the principality of Erdel. His death 
in 1629 was followed by a short interregnum, his 
policy of safeguarding local autonomy through co- 
operation with the Ottomans being re-established 
by George Rakoczi I (1630-48). In 1046/1636 the 
Ottomans made an unsuccessful attempt to unseat 
him in favour of Gabor Bethlen's brother, Stephen 
Bethlen. George Rakoczi I was succeeded by his son 
George II (1648-57, 1658, 1659-60), whose unsuccess- 
ful attempt to gain the crown of Poland against the 
wishes of the Porte led eventually to his death, 
Erdel being occupied by Ottoman troops. One of 
the prisoners taken by the Ottomans in Kolojvar 
was the young Hungarian who later embraced 
Islam and became known as Ibrahim Muteferrika 
[q.v.~\. Ottoman supremacy in Erdel was re-esta- 
blished in the Koprulu period, the principality being 
governed from 1072-3/1662 to 1101/1690 by the 
Ottoman nominee Michael Apafiy. The fate of Erdel 
autonomy was, however, sealed when Austria gained 
the upper hand in her wars with the Ottomans, 
Michael Apafiy himself allowing Habsburg troops to 
enter his country. In 1102/1691 the famous Diploma 
Leopoldinum fixed the status of Erdel as a Habsburg 
crown land, the local Diet being, however, kept in 
existence. Austrian sovereignty was legally recognized 
by the treaty of Karlowitz (Karlofca) in mo/1699. 
Francis Rakoczi II tried in 1703 to put the clock 
back: after a local revolution he was chosen prince 
in 1704, but was defeated in 1710 and fled to France 
the following year. An attempt was made by the 
Ottomans to make use of him in their war with 
Austria in 1127/1715, but, after the treaty of Passa- 
rowitz he and his Hungarian companions had to 
withdraw and were settled at Tekirdagh (Rodosto 
in Thrace) (cf. Rashid, iv, v, passim; Ahmed Refik, 
Memdlik-i '■Othmdniyyede Rakoczi ve tewdbi'-i, 
Istanbul 1338; M. Tayyib Gokbilgin, Rakoczi Ferenc 
II ve tevdbiine dair yeni vesikalar, in Belleten, v/20, 
1941). A similarly unsuccessful attempt was made 
by the Ottomans to make use of the latter's son 
Jozsef, all Ottoman designs on Erdel being finally 
abandoned with the peace of Belgrade in 1 152/1739. 
The main events in the post-Ottoman history of 
Erdel are the submission of a large number of local 
Rumanian Orthodox to the Pope (the Union of 
1700), the Rumanian peasant rising of 1784, the 
decision of the Diet in 1848 to merge with Hungary 
and finally the accession of Erdel to Rumania under 
the treaty of Trianon in 1920. 

Bibliography : A. Centorio degli Hortensi, 
Commentarii della guerra di Transilvania, Venice 
1566; C. Spontone, Historia della Transilvania, 
Venice 1638; Regni Hungarici Historia ...a 
Nicolao Isthuanffio, Coloniae Agrippinae 1724; 
G. Kraus, Siebenbiirgische Chronik (Osterr. Akad. 
d. Wiss., Fontes Rerum Austriacorum, Abh. I, 
Bde iii-iv), Vienna 1862-4; ed. S. Szilagyi, 
Monumenta comitalia regni Transylvaniae. Erdilyi 
orszaggulisi emlikek, i-xxi, Budapest 1876-98 
(MCRT); idem, Transylvania et bellum boreo- 
orientale, Budapest 1890-1; Hurmuzaki, Documente 
privitoare la istoria Romdnilor, i-xxxii, Bucharest, 
from 1887 with supplements; A. Szilady and Al. 
Szilagyi, Tbrokmagyarkori dllamokmdnytdr, Buda- 
pest 1868-72, i-vii; Monumenta Hungariae historica. 
Sect, ii, "Scriptores" ; ed. A. Veress, Basta Gyorgy 
hadvezir Sevelezise is Iratai (1597-1607) [Monu- 



ERDEL — ERETNA 



705 



menta Hungariae historica. Diplomataria, vols, 
xxxiv and xxxvii], Budapest 1909-14; ed. idem, 
Fontcs rerum Transylvanicarum, i-iii, Budapest 
1913; idem, Documente privitoare la istoria Ardea- 
lului, Moldovei si Tdrii Romdnesti, Bucharest 
1929-38, i-xii; R. Goos, Osterreichische Staats- 
vertrage. Fiirstentum Siebenbiirgen (1526-1690), 
Vienna 191 1; G. E. Miiller, Die Turkenherrschaft 
in Siebenbiirgen [Siidosteuropaisches Forschungs- 
Institut, Sekt. Hermannstadt, Deutsche Abteilung 
ii], Hermannstadt 1923; G. Bascape, Le relazioni 
fra I' Italia e la Transilvania nel secolo XVI, Rome 
1931. Other sources have been cited in the course 
of the article. For further studies see bibliography 
inL4,s.v. 

(A. Decei and M. Tayyib GoKBiLGiN) 
EPDjlSH [see arszIsh]. 

EREilYAS (or Ersziyes) DAGHI (modern 
spelling Erciyas), the Argaeus Mons of antiquity, 
referred to by Hamd Allah Mustawfi (Nuzha, 98, 181) 
as Ardjast-kuh, the highest mountain in Central 
Anatolia. It is an extinct volcano, with a height of 
3,916 m. (= 12,847 ft.), which rises rather suddenly 
from the surrounding plain of an average height of 
1000 m. (= 3,280 ft.). It is some 20 km. (12V* m.) 
to the south of the town of Kayseri, almost precisely 
38° 30' N., 35 30' E., and covers an area of 
roughly 45 km. (28 m.) from east to west and 35 km. 
(2iV 2 m.) from north to south. Certain early sources 
say it was still active in antiquity. Today, the 
Erciyas-Dag is completely bare and permanently 
covered with snow. In it there rises the Deli-Su, 
which flows into the Kara-Su, a tributary of the 
Klzil-Irmak. 

A route, in use since antiquity, leads from Kayseri 
to Everek and Develi in the south, over the pastures 
of Tekir Yaylasi (at a height of 2000 m. (6,561 ft.)) 
between the eastern slope of the Erciyas Dag and 
its eastern neighbour Koc-Dagi (2500 m. (= 8,202ft.)). 
The main route to the south, however (also since 
antiquity), skirts round Erciyas towards the west, 
leading via Incesu to Nigde and Bor, the ancient 

Erciyas Dag was first climbed by W. J. Hamilton 
(1837), and then again by Tchihatcheff (1848), 
Tozer (1879), and Cooper (1879). After these, the 
most important ascent was that of Penther and his 
group in 1902. There were several ascents after 1905 
(those up to 1928 are listed by E. J. Ritter, Erdjias 
Dag, Innsbruck 1931, 135 ff.). The area has recently 
been used for ski-ing. 

Bibliography : Pauly-Wissowa, ii, 684 (Hirsch- 
feld) ; Le Strange, 146; Ewliya Celebi, Seydliatndme, 
iii, Istanbul 1314, 176 ft.; Katib Celebi, Djihdn- 
niimd, 620; H. v. Moltke, Brief e iiber Zustande und 
Begebenheiten in der Tiirkei, Berlin 1911, especially 
330; more recent bibliography of works concerning 
Erciyas Dag (since Hamilton), compiled by Besim 
Darkot in his article Erciyas-Dagi in I A, iv, 
286-8, to which must be added a most important 
contribution, Gerhart Bartsch, Das Gebiet des 
Erciyes Dagi und die Stadt Kayseri in Mittel- 
Anatolien, in Jahrbuch der Geographischen Gesell- 
schaft zu Hannover fiir 1934 und 1935, Hanover 
1935, 87-202. (Fr. Taeschner) 

EREGLI, Turkish adaptation of the place-name 
Heraclea, given to a number of places in Turkey, of 
which the most important are: 

1) Karadeniz Ereglisi (Eregli on the Black 
Sea), Heraclea Pontica, hence formerly (as in 
Djihdnniimd, 653) known as Benderegli: a small 
town on the coast of the Black Sea, 41° 17' N., 



Encyclopaedia 



if Islan 



II 



31° 25' E., in the region of the coalfields formerly 
named after it, but now called after Zonguldak. 
The kaza, now in the vilayet of Zonguldak, was 
once in the sandjak (or liwd>) of Bolu. This used to 
belong to the eyalet of Anadolu, and in the 19th 
century to the wildyet of Kastamonu. The place has 
8,815 inhabitants (i960) and the district 67,661. 
Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, 8, 433; V. 
Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, iv, 512. 
2) Konya (formerly Karaman) Ereglisi, t6 
'HpaxXeoj? KaaTpov in Theophanes, i, 482 (ed. de 
Boor), r) tou 'HpaxXeo? Koj^TOXti; of Michael 
Attaliata, 136 (ed. Bonn), the Hirakla of the Arabs, 
Erakliya of Ibn Bibi (transl. Duda, 19, 238 f.), in 
Turkish occasionally in the more archaic form 
Hirakla or Hirakliya, Reclei or Reachia to the 
Crusaders (Tomaschek, Zur historischen Topographic 
von Kleinasien, 84, 88, 92), Araclie in Bertrandon de 
la Broquiere (ed. Ch. Schefer, 104 f.) : a town in 
south-western Anatolia, near the central chain of the 
Taurus, from which rivers flow in a northerly 
direction into the Eregli plain. These rivers make 
the town an oasis of vegetation, but disappear 
further on into marshy ground. The position of the 
town is 37 30' N., 34 5' E. It is the capital 
of a kaza in the vilayet of Konya and has 32,057 
inhabitants; the district has 46,324 (i960). 

South of Eregli, where the river emerges from a 
ravine in the Taurus, near Ivriz, there is a famous 
late Hittite rock carving, depicting the river-god 
dispensing corn and grapes, and being worshipped 
by the king of Tyana (Assyr. Urballa, HItt. Varpal- 
lawa, ca. 730 B. C), the modern Bor. 

In Byzantine times, Eregli was a frontier fortifi- 
cation on the way from Iconium to Cilicia. It was 
conquered several times by the Arabs, most notably 
by Harfln al-Rashid in Dhu '1-Ka'da 190/Sept.- 
Oct. 806 (Tabari, iii, 709 ff. = Theophanes, loc. 
tit.), but remained Byzantine until the Saldjuk 
Turks conquered it (supposedly in 484/1091, see 
Ewliya Celebi, iii, 28). After the collapse of the 
Rum-Saldjuk empire, the town came under the rule 
of the Karamanids, and finally, together with the 
other Karaman regions, it came under Ottoman 
rule in 871/1466. 

The Ulu Djami' is a rather remarkable mosque 
with a flat roof. The Djihdnniimd claims that it 
was founded by the Karaman-oghlu Ibrahim (but 
the Mendsik al-hadjdj attributes its foundation to 
the Saldjuk Kilidj-Arslan). The Tiirbe Djami'i 
(a small mosque with an estrade built onto it, con- 
taining the grave of Shihab al-DIn Suhrawardi 
Maktul which is also mentioned in the Djihdnniimd) 
is also worthy of note. There is also a large khan 
in the town, supposed to have been built by Sinan 
for Rustem Pasha in the 15th century. 

Eregli was a halt on the pilgrim route, and since 
1908 it has become an important station on the 
Baghdad Railway from Konya. 

Bibliography: Katib Celebi, Djihdnnumd, 

616 f.; Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, iii, 28 f. ; 

Mehmed Edib, Mendsik al-hadjdj, 37 f.; Ritter, 

Kleinasien, ii, 268; Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, i, 

818; I A, iv, 307-9 (Besim Darkot). Concerning 

Ivriz, cf. H. Th. Bossert, Altanatolien, Berlin 1942, 

plate 796; Gelb, Hittite Hiergl. Monum., 1939, 15; 

Maurice Vieyra, Hittite Art, London 1955, plate 

70, 76. (J. H. Mordtmann-[Fr. Taeschner]) 

ERETNA (Aratna, Ardani ?), name of a chief 

of Uyghur origin, who made his fortune in Asia 

Minor as an heir of the Ilkhanid regime. The name 

is perhaps to be explained by Sanskrit ratna 'jewel', 

45 



common among the Oyghur after the spread of 
Buddhism (communication from L. Bazin); this was 
of course no bar to the family becoming Muslim, 
like all the Mongols and Turks in the Ilkhanid state. 
Eretna, who was probably an officer in the service 
vt Cuban/Coban [see cubanids], settled in Asia 
Minor as a follower of the latter's son, Timurtash, 
was appointed governor by the Ilkhan Abu Sa'id, 
and went into hiding during his master's revolt; 
after Timurtash had been compelled to flee to 
Egypt, where he was to meet his death (727/1326), 
Eretna was invested with the succession to the rebel, 
under the general suzerainty of Hasan the Elder, the 
master of Adharbaydjan. When, after the disorders 
which followed the death of Abu Sa'id, this Hasan 
was defeated by Hasan the Younger, son of Timur- 
tash, Eretna sought and obtained the protection of 
the Mamluk sultan al-Nasir Muhammad (738/1337), 
and in 744/1343 defeated Hasan the Younger who 
had become master of Adharbaydjan, which cer- 
tainly helped his prestige. After this he appears as an 
independent sovereign over all those territories of 
central Asia Minor which the Turkoman principalities 
that arose after the breakdown of the Saldjukid- 
Mongol regime had not divided among themselves; 
that is, in a more or less stable form, the provinces 
of Nigde, Aksaray, Ankara, Develi Karahisar, 
Derende, Amasya, Tokat, Merzifun, Samsun, 
Erzindjan, Shark! Karaljisar, with first Siwas and 
later Kayseri as capital. He called himself sultan, 
with the lakab 'Ala' al-Din, and struck coins in his 
own name. He knew Arabic, scholars call him a 
scholar, and his people, appreciative of an admini- 
stration which maintained some order in a troubled 
world, called him, it is said, Rose Peyghamber, "the 
Prophet with the Scanty Beard". He died in 753/1352, 
leaving his principality to his son Ghiyath al-DIn 
Muhammad (Mehmed) who, maintaining the Mamluk 
alliance, successfully withstood the revolt of his 
brother Dja'far. 

The begs, however, were here as everywhere un- 
disciplined, and in 766/1365 Mehmed fell victim to 
an attack fomented by them; under his son 'Ala 5 
al-DIn 'All Beg, who is said to have cared only for 
pleasure, the begs of Amasya, Tokat, Shark! Kara- 
hisar, even Siwas, and especially Tahartan the beg 
of Erzindjan, acted like autonomous or rebel lords, 
while the Karamanids and the Ottomans stripped 
the Eretnid principality of its western possessions, 
and the Ak-koyunlu of some of its eastern depen- 
dencies. In effect, government was now exercised by 
the kddi Burhan al-DIn [q.v.], son and grandson of 
the kadis of Kayseri, who had already been influen- 
tial under the previous princes. 'All was killed in 782/ 
1380 in a campaign against the rebel begs; Burhan 
al-DIn, during a struggle by rival claimants, elimi- 
nated the young heir Muhammad (Mehmed) II, 
and proclaimed himself sultan directly, thus putting 
an end to the dynasty. 

It is unfortunate that the state of the documen- 
tation allows us to form no precise idea of the 
Eretnid regime. At the most some inferences can be 
drawn from comparisons between descriptions (Ibn 
Battuta, al-'Umari) dating from the dawn of the 
dynasty, and a chronicle (the Bezm u Rezm) and 
travellers' accounts (Schiltberger, Clavijo) of ten 
or twenty years after its end. The originality of the 
system of government, the effective reality of which 
requires examination, lies in the fact that here, 
from the Mongol regime to the Ottoman conquest, 
there was no interlude of government by Turkoman 
dynasties as in all the surrounding territories. The 



Turkoman element in the central provinces was 
apparently less strong than the surviving Mongol 
tribes, and the towns seem to have enjoyed a certain 
prosperity. The culture of the aristocracy, and 
commerce also, were perhaps directed more than in 
the previous period towards the Arabic-speaking 
Syro-Egyptian domain, without however destroying 
the interest in Persian culture. The contrasts must 
not, however, be made too much of; in the Eretnid 
domain, as in the neighbouring small states, there 
developed the institution and power of the urban 
akhis, the influence of the aristocratic (Mewlewi) 
and popular religious orders, literature in Turkish 
in the form of translations from Persian (Yusuf 
Meddah of Siwas), learned poetry (that of Burhan 
al-Din, with which in part the Eretnid period must 
be credited), and popular heroic romances (the 
second Ddnishmendndma, at Tokat, an adaptation 
of a Saldjukid original); the few extant specimens 
of art in the Eretnid regions call for no particular 
remark. It does not appear that the reign of Burhan 
al-Din, who was himself of Turkish birth, broke with 
the Eretnid traditions. 

Bibliography : The only mediaeval author to 
give a general resume of the history of the Eretnid 
dynasty is Ibn Khaldun. v, 558 ff., whose in- 
formation on their relations with the Mamluks is 
confirmed by the Mamluk historians down to al- 
'Ayni. On the beginnings of the regime, valuable 
details are given by Ibn Battuta, ii, 286 ff. (Gibb, 
ii, 433 ff-), and by Shihab al-DIn al-'Umari, ed. 
Taeschner, 28 et passim, and Eflaki, ed. T. Yazici, 
Ankara 1959-61, ii, 978, = tr. Huart, ii, 415 (last 
chapter), and by the Shafi'i Tabakdt of al-Subkl. 
For the end of the regime, from the point of view 
of Burhan al-Din, see the history of the latter, 
under the title Bezm u rezm, by 'Aziz b. Ardashir 
Astarabadi, [ed. Kilisli Rifat], Istanbul 1928 
(analysis and commentary by H. H. Giesecke, Das 
Werk des . . ., 1940), and, for the eastern frontier, 
the history of the Ak-Koyunlu expansion com- 
posed under the title of Kitdb-i Diydrbakriyya. 
by Abu Bakr Tihrani (2nd half of the 9th/i5th 
century) and recently published by Faruk Sumer 
(i, Ankara 1962); see also the Persian (Hafiz 
Abru, etc.) and Ottoman (Munedjdjim Bashi, 
in the Arabic manuscript text) general histories; 
there are many mentions of the Eretnids in the 
historical romance of Shikari (ed. M. Mes'ud Koman, 
1946), devoted to the Karamanids; the Trebizond, 
Genoese and Armenian sources should also be 
examined. — A good inventory of the coins appears 
in the catalogue of the numismatic collections of 
the Istanbul Museum by Ahmed Tewhid, iv, 
346 ff . ; the epigraphic material of the Eretnid 
regions is collected in vol. xv of RCEA, based 
especially on the researches of Isma'Il Hakki 
[UzuncarsihJ (Siwds Shehri, Kayseri Shehri, etc.), 
and Max van Berchem and KhalU Edhem, CIA, 
iii, 40 ff. For the archaeology see also A. Gabriel, 
Monuments turcs d'Anatolie, 2 vols. — Here as 
elsewhere there is the possibility of extracting 
further information from later Ottoman texts, 
where traces of earlier institutions may be 
preserved; there are also wakfiyyes which might 
be published and exploited. Besides the tables of 
Khalil Edhem, Diiwel-i Isldmiyye, and Zambaur, 
155, the only modern general expose is that of 
I. H. Uzuncarsili, Anadolu beylikleri, chap, xv, 
based largely on Ahmed Tewhid, Beni Eretna, in 
TOEM, v (1330), 13-22, and reappearing in the 
same author's resumes in IA and in Osmanh 



- ERGENEKON 



tarihi, i; see also Mustafa Akdag, Tilrkiye'nin 
iktisadt ve ictimat tarihi, i, 1959, index; Z. Velidi 
Togan, Umumi Turk tarihine giris, i, 232-6, 448; 
Spuler, Mongolen, esp. 355, and the works cited 
above of van Berchem, Khalil Edhem, Giesecke 
and Gabriel, and also the histories of literature, 
to be completed by the recent book of I. Melikoff, 
La geste de Melik Ddnismend, 2 vols, i960, Preface. 

(Cl. Cahen) 
ERGANI (ArghanI, sometimes Argani, in 
European sources Arghana until recent times), 
centre of a kaza in the vilayet of Diyar-Bakr [q.v.], 
called for a time 'Othmaniyya (Osmaniye), situated 
on the highroad from Diyar-Bakr to Harput. 
18 kms. to the north-west, on the river Tigris, lies 
the mining town of Erghani-Ma c den(i), which is the 
centre of a kaza of the vildyel of Elazigh (El- c Aziz) 
called after Erghani. Although the two towns lie 
apart, they are confused in some sources. 

The name 'Othmaniyya given to Erghani had to 
be abandoned because it gave rise to confusion with 
the town of 'Othmaniyya (Osmaniye) in Djebel 
Bereket to the east of Adana [q.v.]. The town of 

the steep south-east slope, overlooking a deep gully 
(Hushut Deresi), in a limestone mountain rising to 
a height of 1526 metres, 10 kilometres from the right 
bank of the Tigris. Below the town lie fields and 
gardens, while above on the slope overlooking 
Erghani lies the old town. A near-by hill is called 
after Nabi Dhu '1-Kifl [q.v.], who is reported to be 
buried there. The station of Erghani on the Diyar- 
Bakr — Malatya railway line lies in a valley, 6.5 kms. 
south of the present town of Erghani. 

The town of Erghani, called Argani in Armenian 
sources, may have inherited the site of Arkania 
mentioned in cuneiform writings. It is also not 
impossible that this was also the site of one of the 
cities of Arsinia mentioned in the Peutinger Table. 
In Islamic times the fate of Erghani was linked with 
that of Diyar-Bakr (for history, see diyar-bakr). 
After the victory of Caldiran [q.v.] won by Selim I 
in 920/1514, and through the services of Idris 
Bidllsl, Erghani became a sandjak attached to the 
eydlet of Diyar-Bakr, the district of Diyar-Bakr 
having been conquered for the Ottomans by Biyikli 
Mehmed Pasha. Cuinet, writing towards the end of 
the 19th century, gives the population of the town 
of Erghani as more than 6,000. It was at that time 
that the centre of the sandjak of Erghani was 
transferred to the township of Ma'den, in view of 
the importance of the copper mines there. After the 
foundation of the Turkish Republic, the kadd of 
Ma c den was attached to the wildyet of El-'Aziz, and 
that of Erghani (Osmaniye) was left in the wildyet 
of Diyar-Bakr. The kaza of Erghani covers an area 
of 1595 sq. kms. and includes 68 villages. According 
to the results of the i960 census, the population 
of the district amounted to 28,095 and that of the 
town of Erghani to 8,542. 

The township of Erghani-Ma'den (known now 
usually simply as Ma c den) is situated on the lower 
slopes of Mihrab Daghl overlooking the right bank 
of the Tigris (Didjla, known here as Erghani-Suyu). 
Its fortunes have always depended on that of the 
rich copper vein situated in the vicinity. The 
existence of the mine was known in ancient times, 



but i 



with 






first exploited. It s 
the beginning of the 12th century, since 
exploited at irregular intervals. Cons 
there is no mention of the mine eithc 



Celebi's Seydhat-ndme or in the Qiihdn-numd, 

middle of the 17th century. At the beginning of the 
19th century, the traveller Olivier mentions that 
part of the ore mined in a place called Hapur was 
sent to Baghdad. In 1837 Brant states that the local 
population, which was engaged largely in mining, 
amounted to 3,500 people. According to Cuinet, at 
the end of the. century the mine was worked by the 
State, the ore being smelted locally with firewood 
and refined into black copper and then sent by camel 
or mule to Tokat where it was further refined into 
red copper, or exported via Iskenderun. At the 
beginning of the 20th century, the fall in the world 
price of copper, the absence of roads between the 
mining area and ports of export and the destruction 
of local forests led to the abandonment of the mine. 
A resumption of exploitation became possible only 
after the foundation of the Turkish Republic, when 
after the completion of the Diyar-Bakr railway in 

area and to export the copper easily. 8,103 tons of 
copper were produced in 1941. Exploitation has also 
started of the rich chromium deposits at Ghuleman, 
north-east of the Erghani copper mine. The kaza of 
(Erghani) Ma'den covers an area of 1,040 sq. kms. 
and includes 54 villages. According to the results of 
the i960 census, there were 19,399 inhabitants of the 
district and 8,011 of the township. 

Bibliography: W. Ainsworth, Researches 
in Assyria, Babylonia and Chaldea, London 1838, 
270 ff.; On the mines: Year-book (Sdlndme) 
of the vildyel of Diyar-Bakr for A.H. 1319, 19; 
Ewliya Celebi, Seydhalndme, Istanbul A.H. 1314, 
iv, 22; K. Ritter, Erdkunde, x, 701, 801, 913; xi, 
14 ff.; E. Reclus, Nouvelle ge'ographie universelle, 
ix, 418; Olivier, Voyage en Perse fait dans les 
annies 1807, 1808 et 1809; H. von Moltke, Brieje 
iiber Zustdnde und Begebenheiten in der Turkei, 
index; J. Brant in JRGS, London 1836; C. Sand- 
reczki, Reise nach Musul und dutch Kurdistan und 
Urmia, Stuttgart 1857, i, 181 ff.; H. F. B. Lynch, 
Armenia. Travels and studies, London I90i,ii, 388, 
396; G. L. Bell, Amurath to Amurath, London 1911, 
328 ff. ; Vital Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, Paris 1891, 
ii, 475 ff.; Vivien de Saint Martin, Nouv. Diet, de 
Geogr. Universelle, suppl. I; E. Banse, Die Turkei, 
Brunswick 1915, 226; H. Hubschmann, Indoger- 
manische Forschungen, xvi, 193 ff. ; Streck, ZA , 
xii, 97; W. W. Smyth, Geological features of the 
country round the mines of the Taurus, in Quarterly 
Journal (1844), 330-40; E. Coulant, Notes sur les 

nth series, ii, 1912, 281-93;^. Pilz, Bcitrag zur 
Kenntnis der Kupjererzlagers'tdtten in der Gegend 
von Argana Maden, in Zeitschr. jiir prakt. Geologic, 
xi-xii (1917); F. Behrend, Die Kupjererzlager- 
stdtte Argana Maden in Kurdistan, ibid., xxxiii 
(1925), 1-12; E. Chaput, Voyages d'etudes geologi- 
ques et geomorphogeniques en Turquie, Paris 1936, 
142 ft.; V. Kovenko, Guleman-Ergani madeni 
metallojenik bolgesi, in Maden Tethik ve Arama 
Enstiliisu Mecmuasi, 1944, 1-31, 29 ft.; Sh. Sami, 
Kdmus al-aHdm, s.v. (Besim Darkot) 

ERGENEKON, the name of a plain surrounded 
by mountains, mentioned in the legend of the origin 
of the Mongols. 

An associated legend in the Chinese Chronicle of 
Pei-shih (ed. in about 629) explains the origins of the 
T'u-chiieh as follows. This people lived on the shores 
of the Western Sea, Hsi-hai. They were massacred by 
a neighbouring people. Only a young boy survived, 






ERGENEKON - 



although wounded. A she-wolf who protected and 
fed him became pregnant by him. She led him through 
a grotto to a plain surrounded by mountains. There 
she gave birth to ten boys who were the ancestors 
of the ten clans. The founder of the A-shih-na clan, 
who was the most intelligent, became the sovereign 
of the T'u-chiieh After some generations, under 
A-hsien-shih, the T'u-chiieh left the interior of the 
mountains and submitted to the Juan-juan. 

Rashld al-Din, and after him Abu '1-Ghazi 
Bahadur Khan, relate the same legend, with certain 
variations, and attribute it to the Mongols; the 
Tatars conquered and wiped out the Mongols. Two 
princes and their wives were the only survivors of 
the massacre and, following a narrow track, they took 
refuge in a plain surrounded by mountains, called 
Ergenekon. There they multiplied and when, four 
hundred years later, Ergenekon became too small 
for them, they contrived to make their way out 
by causing part of a mountain-side to crumble away 
by means of a huge fire, on the advice of a black- 

The day consequently became a festival and its 
anniversary was celebrated by the Mongol sovereigns. 
Bibliography : Pei-shih, chap. 99; Abu '1-Ghazi 
Bahadur Khan, Shedjere-i Turk, ed. Rida Nur, 
Istanbul 1925, 34-8; Fuad Koprulu, Turk edebiydti 
ta'rikhi, Istanbul 1926, 65-7. (P. N. Boratav) 
ERGIN, OSMAN (<Othman NOrI) Turkish 
scholar and publicist, was born in 1883 in Imrin, a 
village (now a district centre) in the wilayet of 
Malatya. His father Hadjdji 'All, of a family of 
humble farmers, tried his fortune in trade and after 
many journeys, including one in Rumania, settled in 
Istanbul, where he opened a coffee-house. The little 
Osman, who had memorized the Kur'an in the 
village, was brought to Istanbul in 1892 where, after 
attending various modern schools, he entered the 
Dar iil-Shafaka, a leading private school of high 
standard, and graduated second of his class in 1901. 
The same year he was appointed an official in the 
Municipality of Istanbul. Spurred by a love of 
learning, for three years he attended, in his spare 
time, the courses of traditional sciences of a khodia at 
the Shehzade mosque. This type of training, which 
he was later bitterly to criticize, did not satisfy him, 
and he registered at the Faculty of Letters of Istanbul 
University whence he graduated in 1907 with a first 
class degree. Osman Ergin continued as a municipal 
official until his retirement in 1947, rising in his 
career from a simple clerk to be a mektubdju, the 
office he held for twenty-two years. He was also 
a successful teacher and taught until 1956 in various 
secondary and professional schools of Istanbul, 
including his own Dar iil-Shafaka and the American 
College for Girls. He died in 1961 in Istanbul. 

Osman Ergin had a lively and inquisitive mind and 
was very erudite. His life-long research in the 
archives and libraries of Istanbul soon made him a 
leading authority on the history of municipal and 
educational institutions of Istanbul. Unbending in 
his principles, loyal in his friendships, "the Mektvbd±u 
Osman Bey" was one of the most remarkable 
characters among scholars of his generation, liked 
and respected by everyone. 

Apart from his very numerous books on various 
subjects and his biographical and bibliographical 
monographs, some still unpublished, he was the 
author of the following major works: 

1) Medjelle-i Umur-i Belediyye, 5 volumes, 
Istanbul 1330-8, the first of which is a richly docu- 
mented historical introduction to municipal in- 



stitutions in Islam and in Turkey, particularly the 
city of Istanbul, a standard reference book on the 
subject; the other volumes contain a collection of 
laws, bye-laws, regulations, Council of State decisions, 
etc. concerning municipal administration. 

2) Turkiye maarif tarihi, 5 volumes, Istanbul 
1939-43 (a promised sixth volume did not appear). 
Originally planned as a "History of schools and other 
educational and scholarly institutions of Istanbul", 
it was developed later into a history of education 
in Turkey. This pioneer work, which is a mine of 
information, remains, in spite of some technical 
shortcomings, the only comprehensive work of 
reference on the subject. The history and development 
of all types of schools in Turkey are elaborately dis- 
cussed: medreses, the palace school, military schools, 
old and new style technical and professional schools, 
semi-educational institutions and their auxiliaries in 
the Ottoman Empire, European types of schools of 
all grades, private, foreign and minority schools, 
universities and various institutions of higher edu- 
cation, etc., are amply treated. Special emphasis is 
given to the detailed and comparative analysis of the 
evolution of syllabuses in the many types of school. 
Many of the controversial educational problems 
arising from social change in Turkey are discussed at 
length and the book abounds in anecdotes and 
personal notes which make it extremely interesting 
reading. 

3) Istanbul sehri rehberi, Istanbul 1934, is the 
outcome of his long research preparatory to the first 
modern census of the city of Istanbul in 1927 (as 
part of the first general census in Turkey). This is 
the best detailed topographical study of Istanbul 
with street names and thirty-eight maps. 

4) Turkiye'de sehirciligin tarihi inkisafi, Istanbul 
1936, a survey of most of the problems discussed in 
the Medielle-i Umur-i Belediyye. 

Bibliography: A. Suheyl Unver, Osman 

Ergin, calisma hayatt ve eserleri, in Belleten, xxvi/ 

101 (1962), 163-79, with a bibliography including 

his unpublished works and a list of his articles in 

the journal of the municipality of Istanbul {Istanbul 

Sehremaneti (Belediye) Mecmuasi) from 1924 to 

1936; Orhan Durusoy, Osman Ergin bibliyo- 

grafyasi, in Tip ve ilimler tarihimizde portreUr, I, 

Osman Ergin (Istanbul Universitesi Tip Tarihi 

Enstitusti nesriyatindan, sayi 52), Istanbul 1958; 

Bedi N. Sehsuvaroglu, Osman Ergin'in biyografyasi, 

in the same publication. (FahIr iz) 

ERGIRI (Argiri, Erc-eri), Ottoman name of 

Argyrokastro, Alb. Gjinokaster, principal town of 

Albanian Epirus (40 13' N., 20° 13' E.) near the foot 

of the eastern slopes of the Mali Gjere; overlooking 

the wide and fertile valley of the Drin, a tributary 

of the Voyutsa (Vijose), it controls the route from 

Valona into Northern Greece. The town, near the 

site of the ancient Hadrianopolis, probably takes its 

name from that of an Illyrian tribe. The district 

came under Ottoman control in the reign of Bayezid 

I. In the defter of 835/1431 'Argiri-kasri' (its district 

being called wilayet-i Zenebish, i.e., of the Zenebissi 

family) appears as the chef-lieu of the sandjak of 

'Arvanya'; later (certainly by 912/1506) it formed 

part of the sandjak of Avlonya; in the last years of 

the Empire it was again a sandjak, belonging to the 

wilayet of Yanya. Ewliya (1670) describes a thriving, 

solidly-built town, with a predominantly Muslim 

population. Gjinokaster, now extending into the 

valley (present pop. ca. 12,000), is dominated by the 

mediaeval (Venetian?) castle, reconstructed by 

C AH Pasha of Tepedelen [q.v.] ; many of its old houses 



ERGIRI — ERITREA 



which impressed Ewliya. 

Bibliography: H. Inalcik, Arnavutluk'ta 
Osmanh hdkimiyetinin yerlesmesi . . . , in Fatih ve 
Istanbul, il 2 (1953), 153-75; idem, Hicri 835 tarihli 
Suret-i defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid, Ankara 1954, 
introd. ; idem, art. arnawutluk above; Ewliya 
Celebi, Seyahatndme, viii, 674-81 = F. Babinger's 
abridged trans, and comm., in MSOS, xxxiii (1930), 
148-50; J. C. Hobhouse, A journey through 
Albania ..., 1813, 92-7; Baedeker's Dalmatien 
und die Adria, 1929, 250 (F. Babinger); Enc. It., 
s.v. Argirocastro; S. Skendi (ed.), Albania, 1957; 
Guide d'Albanie ('Albturist'), Tirana 1958, 310-5. 

(V. L. Menage) 
ERITREA, a territory with a sizeable Muslim 
population in North-East Africa, bordering on the 
Red Sea, since 1952 federated with Ethiopia, since 
1962 fully integrated in the Ethiopian Empire. 
(i) Geographically, historically, and ethnically 
Eritrea has generally formed part of a larger unit 
which will be treated under al-habash. In the 
following, special emphasis will be placed on such 
features and Islamic manifestations as are peculiar 
to Eritrea in the narrow sense. 'Eritrea' (from Mare 
Erythraeum) was so named by the Italians in 1890 
to describe their growing possessions (initiated in 
1869 by the purchase of the port of Assab [q.v.]) on 
the Red Sea coast, the Bahrmeder ('sea country') or 
Mareb Mellash ('beyond the river Mareb') of the 

In the north and west Eritrea's triangular shape 
(enclosing nearly 50,000 square miles of extremely 
variegated country) borders upon the Sudan, in the 
east on the Red Sea, in the south-east corner upon 
French Somaliland whence the old frontier with 
Ethiopia proceeds in a north-westerly direction 
along the Dankali [q.v.] depression and then following 
the Mareb-Belesa line. The physical configuration 
of the country is marked by the vast central mountain 
massif (6500-8000 feet above sea-level) extending 
southwards into Ethiopia and surrounded by the 
torrid plains in the east, west, and north. 

(ii) Population: With the exception of the 
Djabart [q.v.], the vast majority of Muslim Eritreans 
live in those hot regions of the east, west, and north. 
Their number reaches about half a million in a total 
population of approx. 1,100,000, among whom the 
monophysite Christian element wields most of the 
political power. While the Christians and Djabart, 
concentrated in the densely populated central 
highlands, speak Tigrinya (see below), the vast 
majority of the Muslims, sedentary or nomadic in 
the sparsely inhabited lowlands, use Tigre (see 
below) and, to a very limited extent, Arabic. They 
are the descendants of Bedja [q.v.] or other Cushitic 
tribes and early South-Arabian immigrants. The 
Banfl c Amir [q.v.] or Beni Amer are the largest tribal 
federation, numbering about 60,000 (with an addi- 
tional 30,000 in the Sudan) and occupying a con- 
siderable portion of Western Eritrea. They owe 
allegiance to a paramount chief, the Diglal [q.v.], and 
acknowledge the religious leadership of the Mirghani 
family. In the northern hills the Habab, Ad Tekles, 
and Ad Temariam form the tribal federation of Bet 
Asgede. The Ad Shaykh have their encampments 
between the Habab and the Ad Tekles; they claim 
descent from a Meccan family, but most of these 
tribal memories are incapable of proof. The Bilen 
(or Bogos) in the Keren area consist of two large 
tribes (Bet Tarke and Bet Takwe). The Saho live 
along the eastern escarpment and the foothills 



leading to the tribal confederacy of the Danakil who 
inhabit the vast arid depression behind the Red Sea 
coast, one of the hottest and most barren regions in 
the world. The population of the port of Massawa 
(and to a much lesser extent of Arkiko and Assab) 
is cosmopolitan and includes tribesmen from the 
hills, Danakil, Sudanese, Arabs, Indians and groups 
of Turkish descent. The unifying factor is Islam. 
The people of the barren Dahlak [q.v.] islands off 
the Massawa coast were among the first in East 
Africa to be converted to Islam, and many tombstones 
in Kufic characters bear witness to this early Muslim 

(iii) Eritrea's history is so entwined with that of 
Ethiopia and South Arabia, on the one hand, and the 
Sudan, on the other, that it is difficult to disentangle 
the few independent facets of its past. South Arabian 
immigrants settled along that part of the western 
Red Sea coast which is now Eritrea. From here they 
subsequently penetrated into the interior and 
established the Aksumite Kingdom which has left 
so many traces within the soil of Eritrea. Later, 
Eritrea became the base from which the Aksumite 
hegemony over a large strip of the coast of south- 
inched. Here also w 



rough w 



well a 



cultural 



Meroe and its civilization flowed. As Ethiopia's 
traditional maritime province and only outlet to the 
sea, Eritrea became the spring-board of both Muslim 
assault, leading to centuries of struggle, and Portu- 
guese rescue from that domination. In the 10th/ 
16th century Massawa and Arkiko were the base 
from which the Turks attempted their invasion of 
the Christian plateau (an event perpetuated in the 
title of the na'ib of Arkiko, the representative of the 
Ottoman power), and in the nineteenth the Egyptians 
repeatedly fought to gain a permanent foothold in 
Eritrea until they were decisively defeated by the 
Emperor John near Gura (1876). Sir Robert Napier 
launched his successful campaign against Theodore 
(1867-8) from the Bay of Zula, and the Italians 
carved out their Eritrean colony from those parts 
of the maritime province for which the Shoan 
Emperor Menelik II (in contrast to his Tigrean 
predecessor John) was either unable or unwilling to 
fight. Twice within 40 years the Italians despatched 
their armies from Eritrea into Ethiopia until they 
were finally dislodged during the Second World War. 
From 1941 to 1952 a British Military Administration 
had charge of Eritrea, a period during which both 
Muslim and Christian political ambitions first 
asserted themselves. A plan to do away with Eritrea 
as an artificial political entity (by incorporating the 
Muslim West with the Sudan and the Christian 
centre with Ethiopia) finally came to grief when the 
United Nations decided (1950) to constitute Eritrea 
as an autonomous federal unit under the sovereignty 
of the Ethiopian crown. This uneasy arrangement 
gradually led to Eritrea's full absorption, for no 
constitutional safeguards could make the territory 
economically or politically viable. The large Muslim 
minority enjoys reasonable religious and political 
expression in the Christian Empire. 

(iv) Languages: Tigrinya and Tigre are both 
successor languages of Semitic Ethiopic (Ge'ez); 
the former is spoken by the Djabart of the highlands, 
while the latter is the principal tongue of the Muslims 
in the western and eastern lowlands and the 
northern hills. In the Kassala province of the Sudan 
Tigre is called al-Khassiya. Dialectal distinctions 
within Tigre have not yet been fully v 









- ERTOGHUL 



losing some ground in favour of Arabic, which among 
Muslims and traders enjoys a cachet which Tigre 
does not possess. The decision of the Eritrean 
government, in 1952, declaring Tigrinya and Arabic 
the official languages of Eritrea (although most 
Tigre-speakers know little or no Arabic) was a 
political and prestige resolution — not a linguistic 
judgement. The two main non-Semitic languages 
spoken by the Muslims of Eritrea are Bedawiye and 
Bilin. 

(v) Religion: Islam has been a force in Eritrea- 
Abyssinia ever since Muhammad sent some of his 
earliest followers to seek refuge with the Negus. 
Throughout the Middle Ages Muslim pressure from 
the Red Sea compelled Abyssinians to fight for their 
own form of Christianity. But in Eritrea as well as 
Ethiopia, though nearly half the population are 
Muslims, Islam has not succeeded in piercing the 
defensive armour of monophysitism and in trans- 
forming its essential fabric. On the contrary, the 
Djabart have been so completely assimilated to the 
cultural, linguistic, and national pattern of traditional 
Abyssinia that their religion seems strangely disem- 
bodied. Islam is, however, still making progress 
among the Cushitic and Nilotic peoples in the lowland 
areas, but none among the highland population. The 
universal call of Islam has a special attraction in all 
those regions where the particularistic and national 
message of monophysite Christianity has no genuine 
application. 

The Kadiriyya became firmly entrenched in the 
coastal areas of Eritrea, especially at Massawa and 
its hinterland. But the most influential order in 
Eritrea is undoubtedly the MIrghaniyya or Khat- 
miyya, based on Kassala, which is predominant in 
the western regions, especially among the Beni Amer, 
Habab, and other Muslim tribes. According to the 
last Italian census (1931) the relative strength of the 
madhdhib in Eritrea is as follows : Malikites : 65 % ; 
tfanafites: 26%; Shafi'ites: 9%. While the sharPa 
is generally subordinate to customary law among 
many of the tribes, it still prevails in urban areas. 
The secular government, both European and Ethi- 
opian, has encouraged the development of Muslim 
civil law and the establishment of Kadi's courts. 
Bibliography: Africa Orientate (Reale Societa 
Geogr. Ital.), Bologna 1936; Brit. Mil. Admin., 
Races and tribes of Eritrea, Asmara 1943 ; Chamber 
of Commerce, Guide booh of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa 
1954; Chi e? dell'Eritrea, Asmara 1952; C. Conti 
Rossini, Principi di diritto consuetudinario dell' 
Eritrea, Rome 1916; Eritrea, in Enciclopedia 
Italiana; Guida dell'Africa Orientate, Milan 1938; 
S. H. Longrigg, A short history of Eritrea, Oxford 
1945 ; N. Marein, The Ethiopian Empire-federation 
and laws, Rotterdam 1954; L. M. Nesbitt, Desert 
and forest (Exploration of the Danakil), Penguin 
Books 1955; A. Pollera, Le popolazioni indigene 
dell'Eritrea, Bologna 1935; Rennell of Rodd, 
British military administration of occupied terri- 
tories in Africa, J94J-7, London 1948; Tensa'e 
Eritrea Ityopyawit (Restoration of Eritrea), Addis 
Ababa 1952; G. K. N. Trevaskis, Eritrea, 1041-52, 
London i960; J. S. Trimingham, Islam in 
Ethiopia, Oxford 1952; E. Ullendorff, The 
Ethiopians, London i960. (E. Ullendorff) 

ERIWAN [see rewan]. 

ERMENAK or ERMENEK, the ancient Ger- 
manikopolis in Isauria (see Pauly-Wissowa, vii, 
1258), a small town in southern Anatolia, 36° 35' 
N., 32° 50' E., in the western Taurus mountains, 
at an altitude of ca. 1200 m. (3937 ft.), above the 



confluence of two of the source-rivers of the Goksu, 
the Kalykadnos of antiquity. It is the capital of a 
Aa-sainthe vilayet of Konya, formerly in the sand±ah 
of Icel in the wilayet of Adana. In i960, it had 
7,536 inhabitants and the flistrict 36,380. Mediaeval 
Oriental writers put Ermenak two days' journey 
south of Larende (the modern Karaman), and three 
days' journey east of c A15 5 iyya (the modern Alanya). 
Its grotto with a spring was particularly famous. 
Ermenak originally belonged to the kingdom of 
Lesser Armenia. It was conquered by the Rum- 
Saldjuk Sultan <Ala' al-DIn Keykubad I in '625/1228. 
Later it became the seat of the Turcoman dynasty 
of Karaman. After the collapse of the Rum-Saldjiik 
empire, the Karamanids set out from there to take 
possession of the southern part, with Larende (sub- 
sequently Karaman) and Konya. Under Mehemmed 
II, Ermenak and the principality of Karaman came 
under Ottoman rule. 

There are some remarkable buildings in Ermenak, 

dating from Karamanid times. Of these, the most 

important is the Ulu Djami c , which was built by 

Mahmud Beg b. Karaman in 702/1302-3 (cf. RCEA, 

xiii, Cairo 1944, 239, no. 5154). It is a simple 

building with three parallel naves, thus built on 

the plan of the Umayyad mosque in Damascus. 

Bibliography: Katib Celebi, Djihdnnumd, 

Istanbul 1145, 611 f.; Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme 

ix, 304 f. ; Shihab al-DIn al- c Umari, Masdlik al- 

absdr fi mamdlik al-amsdr, ed. Taeschner, i, 

Leipzig 1929, 23 and 48; Le Strange, 148; 

Tomaschek, i, 60, 89, 105; Ritter, Erdkunde, xix, 

307; Ramsay, The historical geography of Asia 

Minor, London 1890, 363 f. ; V. Cuinet, La 

Turquie d'Asie, ii, 77; Ch. Samy-Bey Fraschery, 

Kdmus al-aHdm, ii, Istanbul 1306, 839 f.; E. Diez, 

Oktay Aslanapa, and Mahmut Mesut Koman, 

Karaman devrisanati, Istanbul 1950, 5-30; IA, s. v. 

(M. C. Sihabeddin Tekindag). (Fr. Taeschner) 

ERSOY [see mehmet akif ersoy]. 

ERTOfiHRUL (T. er 'male', toghril 'kite').— 

1. According to tradition, the name of the father of 

c Othman I [q.v.], the founder of the Ottoman 

dynasty; but it appears in no source, Byzantine or 

Islamic, before the end of the 14th century, when it 

is mentioned in a letter (authentic?) of Bayazld I to 

Timur (Feridun, Munsha'dt 1 , i, 127) and in the Dhdt 

al-shifd' (sub anno 699) of al-Djazarl [q.v.]. The 

traditions presented in the gth/i5th century Ottoman 

works, largely legendary in tone, fall into two main 

groups: (a) Ertoghrul, together with Gundiiz Alp 

and Gok Alp, accompanied Sultan c Ala> al-Din of 

Konya to Sultan Oyugu (near Eskishehir), performed 

great feats of arms thereabouts and, after 'Ala' 

al-Din had returned to deal with a Tatar attack, 

conquered the district around Sogiid [q.v.] (Ahmedl, 

Iskender-ndme, ed. N. S. Banarh, in Tttrkiyat 

Mecmuasi, vi (1936-9), 113 f. and cf. 75-7): echoes of 

this tradition are given by Yazldjl-oghlu C A1I (M. T. 

Houtsma, Recueil, iii, 217-8), with the addition of 

the claim that Ertoghrul and his associates belonged 

to the clan of the Kayi [q.v.]. The related fuller 

version in Shiikrullah's Bahdjat al-tawdrikh (ed. 

Th. Seif, in MOG, ii (1923-6), 76-8) adds that 

Ertoghrul had come into Rum from the east with 

340 followers after the Mongol invasions and settled 

first at Karadja-dagh (south of Ankara), that he 

captured Karadja-hisar (10 km. south-west of 

Eskishehir), and died at the age of 93; Karamani 

Mehemmed Pasha gives a similar account (tr. M. 

Khalil [Yinanc], TOEM, no. 79, 87 f.). In one version 

of this tradition Gundiiz is said to be not the asso- 



ERTOGHRUL — ERZINDJAN 



7« 



ciate but the father of Ertoghrul (K. Mehemmed 
Pasha, and cf. Neshrl, ed. Taeschner, i, 21-2, and 
Enweri, ed. M. Khalil, 81). (b) Ertoghrul, Sonkur- 
tegin and GQn-doghdl, the three sons of Sflleyman- 
shah, came to Pasin-ovasl (east of Erzurum) after 
their father was drowned in the Euphrates near 
Kal'at Dja'bar; his brothers returned to the east, 
but Ertoghrul, remaining with 400 households, was 
granted by Sultan C A15 J al-DIn the region around 
Sogud as winter pastures and the hills of Domanlc 
and Ermeni-beli (to the west) as summer pastures. 
He died in 687/1288, after ruling his folk for 52 years 
(Anonymous chronicles, ed. Giese, 5 f. [recension of 
MS W 3 etc.] = Leunclavius, Annates; cf. Urudj, ed. 
Babinger, 6-7, 'Ashtkpashazade, ed. Giese, § 2). 
Neshrl succeeds in harmonizing these traditions, 
adding, on the authority of MewlanS Ayas (for whom 
see Tashkopriizade, ShakdHk, tr. Medjdl, 189 f.), 
the story that Ertoghrul and his followers had 
rescued c Ala J al-DIn in a skirmish with a Mongol 
force. A turbe just outside Sogiid on the Biledjik road 
(much restored, no early inscription) is revered as 
that of Ertoghrul (R. Hartmann, Im neuen Anatolien, 
Leipzig 1928, 50, and Tafel 14). 

In the later years of the Ottoman Empire, Ertogh- 
rul was the name given to a sandjak of the wildyet 
of Bursa (V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, iv, 160 ff.). 
Bibliography: P. Wittek, The rise of the 

Ottoman Empire, London 1938, 6-13; M. F. 

Kopriilii, Osmanh imparatorlugu'nun etnik mensei 

mes'eleleri, in Belleten, vii (1943), 219-313; IA, 

s.v. Ertugrul Gazi, by M. Halil Yinanc (summaries 

of all the early Ottoman, and of other, accounts) ; 

for references to Byzantine sources see G. Moravcsik, 

Byzantinoturcica*, ii, 125. 

2. The eldest son of Bayazld I, born, according to 
Isma'Il Beligh (Guldeste, 40), in 778/1376-7. Appointed 
governor of a district of Western Anatolia (Sarukhan 
and Karasi, according to 'Ashlkpashazade, § 59, and 
hence Neshrl; Aydln, according to Idris, and hence 
Sa'd al-DIn, i, 128) after his father's campaign of 
792/1389-90, he was killed in 794/1392 in the battle 
of Klrk-Dilim near Corum (for which see c AzIz b. 
Ardashlr, Bezm u rezm, Istanbul 1928, 403-5) and 
buried by the mosque which he had founded at 
Bursa (Kazim Baykal, Bursa ve anitlari, Bursa 1950, 
107). (V. L. Menage) 

ERTOGHRUL, ii [see biledjik]. 

ERZEN [see arzan]. 

ERZERUM [see erzurum]. 

ERZINDJAN, modern spelling Erzincan, older 
forms Arzingan, Arzandjan, a town in eastern Ana- 
tolia, 39° 45' N., 39° 30' E., on the northern bank of 
the Karasu (the northern tributary of the Euphrates). 
It is situated in a fertile plain which is surrounded by 
high mountain ranges (the Kesis Dagi, 3,537 m. 
{11,604 ft.), in the north-east, the Sipikor Dagi, 3,010 
m. (9,875 ft.), in the north, and the Mercan Dagi, 
3,449 m. (11,315 ft.), which is part of the Monzur 
range, in the south). It has an altitude of 1200 m. 
(3,937 ft.), and was once the capital of a sandjak in 
the wildyet of Erzurum. Today it is the capital of 
the vilayet itself, with the kazas Erzincan, Ilice, 
Kemah, Kemaliye (Egin), Refahiye, and Tercan. In 
i960, the town had 36,465 inhabitants, the district 
had 51,721, and the vildyet 243,837. According to 
Cuinet, Erzincan had 23,000 inhabitants towards 
the end of the last century. Of these, 15,000 were 
Muslims. Erzincan has always been an important 
meeting point for the caravan routes between Sivas 
and Erzurum. Since 1938, it has been the main 
station on the railway line between these two towns ; 



it is 337 km. (248 m.) from Sivas, and 245 km. 
(133 m.) from Erzurum. 

According to Armenian sources, Erzincan dates 
back to before the Christian era, though detailed 
information- does not appear before Saldjuk 
times. The town was in the region over which 
Muslims and Byzantines fought, and had changed 
hands several times prior to the battle of Malazkirt 
(1071). After this, it came under the rule of the 
Saldjuk am!r Mengiidjek, and remained in the hands 
of his successors until 625/1228, when the ROm- 
Saldjiik Sultan 'Ala 5 al-DIn Keykubad I forced the 
last of the Mengiidjekids 'Ala 5 al-DIn Dawudshah, 
to hand it over. Keykubad rebuilt the town and its 
walls (Hamdallah Mustawfi, Nuzha, 95, top). On 
28 Ramadan 627/10 August 1230 the Kh"arizmshah 
Pjalal al-DIn suffered a defeat at the hands of the 
Rum-Saldjuk 'A15 5 al-DIn Keykubad I, an ally of 
the Ayyiibid al-Ashraf, near Yasi-Cimen in the 
vicinity of Erzincan {Die Seltschukengeschichte des 
Ibn Bibi, transl. H. W. Duda, Copenhagen 1959, 
166 ff., in particular 171). In 640/1243, Erzincan 
was taken by the Mongols, who broke into Anatolia 
from the ( direction of Erzurum. Thenceforth it 
belonged to that part of Anatolia which was admi- 
nistered by the Ilkhanid governors. According to 
Ibn Battiita (ii, 293 f.; Eng. tr. H.A.R. Gibb, ii, 
436 f. ), the town was largely populated by Arme- 
nians in his day, though there were also some 
Turkish-speaking Muslims. He also mentions the 
industriousness of the inhabitants of the town 
(engaged in textiles and copperwork). There was 
also a branch of the Akhl [q.v.] order. 

After the collapse of the Mongol Empire of the 
Ilkhans, Erzincan first belonged to the amir Eretna 
[q.v.], then to the kadi Burhan al-DIn; subsequently, 
Bayazld I incorporated it into the Ottoman Empire 
for a short time. After his defeat by TImur 
near Ankara in 804/1402, the town passed to the 
Karakoyunlu and the Ak-koyunlu. There are two 
funerary monuments in the shape of rams (as they 
are frequently found in cemeteries of eastern Ana- 
tolia) which bear witness to their rule. These have 
been erected in an attractive way near the main 
road (concerning this, cf. Strzygowski's work on 
Armenia, and also Hamit ,Kosay, Les statues de 
biliers et de moutons dans les cimetieres historiques de 
I'Anatolie orientale, I er Congres international des 
arts turcs, Ankara 1959, 58-60). After the victory 
of Mehemmed II over Uzun Hasan near Tercan 
(Otluk Beli), the town belonged to local rulers for 
a time. During Sellm I's campaign against Shah 
Isma'Il in 920/1514, Erzincan and its district were 
finally incorporated in the Ottoman Empire as a 
linos' (sandjak) of the eydlet (later wildyet) of Erzurum. 
In the 17th century, Erzincan played a part in the 
Pjalall [q.v. in Supplement] rising. During the 19th 
century it was the seat of a lodge of the reformed 
Nakshbandl order, headed by Fehml Efendi [?.».]. 
In the First World War, Erzincan was occupied by 
Russian forces on 24 July 1916, but evacuated 
again after 18 months, on 26 February 1918. 

Erzincan has frequently suffered destruction by 
earthquakes; the last of these was in 1939. Con- 
sequently, nothing remains of its historical buildings. 
The Ulu pjami', which dated from Saldjuk times, 
and the Kurshunlu Djami' and the Tash Khan, 
which dated from the time of Sultan Siileyman, 
used to be noteworthy. Thanks to the fertility of the 
surrounding country, the town has always been 
able to recover. Today its main exports are 
horticultural. From a military point of view, it is 



ERZINDJAN — ES'AD EFENDI, AHMED 



a main centre of the defence of Turkey's eastern 
frontier. 

Bibliography: in addition to references in 
the text: Yakut, Mu'djam, i, 205; Abu '1-Fida', 
Takwim, 392 f.; Dimashki, 228; Ewliya Celebi, 
Seydhatname, ii, 379 (Travels, ii, 202); Katib 
Celebi, Diihdnnumd. 423 f.; Le Strange, 118; K. 
Ritter, Erdkunde, x, 770-4; V. Cuinet, La Turquie 
d'Asie, i, 210 f.; Samy Bey Fraschery, Ramus al- 
aHam, ii, 827; Ali Kemali, Erzincan, Istanbul 
1932; I A, s.v. (Besim Darkot). 

(R. Hartmann-[Fr. Taeschner]) 
ERZURUM. one of the principal cities in 
eastern Turkey, today the chief town of the 
province of Erzurum with a population of 91,196 
(i960 census). 

Situated between the Karasu and Aras valleys 
which formed the main thoroughfare between 
Turkey and Iran for caravans and armies, Erzurum 
has been an important commercial and military 
centre in the area since antiquity. It was the 
ancient Karin, also called Karnoi Kal(gh)ak in 
Armenian, from which Kalikala or Kali in the 
Arabic sources (cf. Ibn Hawkal, i, 343; Ibn al- 
Fakih, Akhbdr al-buldan, Leiden 1885, 295) must 
have been derived. Under the Romans it was 
fortified and called Theodosiopolis in 415 A.D. The 
name of Erzurum comes from Arzan al-Rum, 
Arzan-i Rum or Arz-i Rum (see the Saldjukid coins 
in I. Ghalib, Takwim-i meskiikdt-i Seldpikiyye, 
Istanbul 1309H., nos. 10, 147, 152). Arzan (Erzen) 
was a nearby commercial centre, the population of 
which took refuge in Kalikala upon its destruction 
by the Saldjukids in 440/1048 or 441/1049 (see 

First taken by the Arabs under Caliph c Uthman 
after 33/653, its possession fluctuated between 
Byzantines and Arabs (Byzantine in 66/686, Arab 
in 81/700, Byzantine again in 137/754 for a short 
time and then Arab again until 338/949 when the 
Byzantines took it, to hold it until the Saldjukid 
conquest). The native Armenian princes in the area 
played an important part in all these changes. With 
its strong walls, Kali made a base for the Arabs from 
which to control the area and organize ghazd raids 
into Byzantine Anatolia. In 153-5/770-2 the local 
Armenian dynasts organized a large-scale insurrection 
against the Arabs and came to lay siege to Kali 
(Ghevond, Hist, des guerres et des conquetes des Arabes 
en Arminie, trans. Chahnazaryan, Paris 1856, 136-43; 
Ya'kubl, ii, 447). 

Under the Byzantines the chief city of the 
'theme' of Theodosiopolis, it withstood the Saldjukid 
onslaught until 473/1080 when Amir Ahmad took it, 
and it was then made the capital of the Turkish 
principality of the Saltukids (see saltuk-oghlu). 
In 597/1201 it came under the Saldjukids of Anatolia 
and was made the seat of a malik, prince, possessing 
the province as his appanage. The city under its new 



! of I 



i Rum 



3 of t 



prosperous commercial centres in Anatolia (cf. 
Yakut, Mu'djam al-buldan, s.v. Arzan) and its 
important monuments belong to this period: the 
Ulu-djami' built in 575/1179, the Medrese of Khundi 
KhatQn (Cifte-minare) built in 651/1253, and the 
mausoleums of the Saltukids. 

In 639/1242 the Mongols under Baydju took it. 
Remaining a part of Seldjukid territory under 
Mongol suzerainty, the province of Arzan-i Rum paid a 
large annual tribute to the Mongol treasury, 222,000 
dinar in 736/1335 (Z. V. Togan, Mogollar dewinde 
Anadolu'nun iktisadt vaziyeti, inlTHITM, i (1931), 



22). After the dissolution of the Ilkhanid empire in 
Iran, Erzurum was occupied by the rival Mongol 
amirs successively, the Cobanid Shaykh Hasan in 
741/1340, Muhammad b. Eretna about 761/1360. 
Then the city became part of the rising Turkmen 
states in eastern Anatolia, first of the Kara-koyunlu 
[q.v.] from 787/1385, and then of the Ak-koyunlu 
[q.v.) from 869/1465. Taken by Shah Isma'il from the 
latter in 908/1502, it was conquered by the Ottoman 
Sultan Selim I following his victory at Caldiran in 
920/1514. It was made in 941/1534 the chief city of a 
nev/Beglerbegilik comprising the sandjaks of Erzurum, 
Shebin Kara-hisar, Kighi, Khinis, Yukari-Pasin, 
Malazgird, Tekman, Kizucan, Ispir, Tortum, Namer- 
van and Medjinkerd. 

The tax regulations of the time of Uzun Hasan 
[q.v.], preserved after the Ottoman conquest, were 
later in 926/1520 and in 947/1540 modified and 
replaced by the typical Ottoman kdnun (cf. O. L. 
Barkan, Kanunlar, 63; W. Hinz, Das Steuerwesen 
Ostanatoliens im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, in ZDMG, 
c (1950), 177-201). 

Under the Ottomans the city benefited from the 
active caravan trade between Iran and Bursa (for 
a description of it in 1050/1640 see Ewliya Celebi, 
Seydhatname, ii, Istanbul 1314/1896, 203-19). Erzurum 
became also the chief Ottoman military base during 
the wars against Iran and Georgia in the ioth/i6th 
and nth/i7th centuries. In 1031/1622, upon the 
murder of c Othman II, Abaza Mehmed Pasha, 
beglerbegi of Erzurum, supported by the population 
and the Djalali [q.v. in Supplement] groups, rose up 
against the central government then under Janissary 
control. Entrenched in Erzurum, Mehmed defied 
imperial armies sent against him until Muharram 
1038/September 1628. 

During the Ottoman- Russian wars the Russians 
occupied Erzurum temporarily in September 1829, 
in 1878 and in February 1916. On 23 July 1919 the 
first national congress under Mustafa Kemal 
(Ataturk) was held in Erzurum. Today it is the most 
important city in eastern Turkey with the head- 
quarters of the Third Army and the Ataturk Univer- 
sity which was opened on 17 November 1958. The 
city was linked with the country's railway system 
in 1939. 

Bibliography: Le Strange, 117-8; E. Honig- 
mann, Die Ostgrenze des byzantinischen Reiches von 
363 bis xoyi, (Corpus Bruxellense Hist. Byz. iii), 
Brussels 1935; A. A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les 
Arabes, French ed. H. Gregoire and M. Canard, 
2 vols. (Corpus Bruxellense Hist. Byz. i, ii/2), 
Brussels 1935-50; St. Martin, Memoires sur 
VArminie, Paris 1818; Serif Beygu, Erzurum 
tarihi, anitlari ve kitdbeleri, Istanbul 1936; M. 
Nusret, Ta'rlkhce-i Erzurum, Istanbul 1338 A. H.; 
Vehbi Kocaguney, Erzurum kalesi ve savaslart, 
Istanbul 1942; C. Dursunoglu, Milli Mucadelede 
Erzurum, Ankara 1946; E. Z. Karal, Zarif 
Pasamn Hatirati, inBelleten, iv/16 (1940), 473-94; 
Salndmes of the wildyet of Erzurum; Erzurum 
Halkevi Mecmuast ; I A , Erzurum (by Besim Darkot, 
M. Halil Yinanc, H. Inalcik). (Halil Inalcik) 
ES'AD EFENDI, AfJMED (1153/1740-1230/ 
1814), Ottoman Shaykh al-Isldm, son of the Shaykh al- 
Isldm Mehemmed Salih Efendi [q.v.]. After being kadi 
successively of Izmir (from 1184/1770), Bursa (from 
1192/1778) and Istanbul (1201/1787), he held office 
for a short time (1204/1790-1206/1791) as kddi'asker 
of Anadolu. One of the prominent personalities con- 
sulted by Selim III (q.v.] on the reforms necessary in 
state affairs, he made proposals particularly for the 



ES'AD EFENDI, AHMED — ES'AD EFENDI, MEHEMMED 



jr his own protection 



improvement of military efficiency. As a known 
advocate of reform, he twice held office as kddi'asker 
of Rumeli (from Radjab 1208/February 1794 and 
Radjab 1213/December 1798), and on 29 Muharram 
1218/21 May 1803 was made Shaykh al-Isldm. When 
in 1221/1806 the attempt was made to apply the 
Nizdm-i djedid [q.v.] in Rumeli, Es'ad Efendi issued 
a fatwd condemning those who resisted it, but upon 
the Sultan's abandoning the attempt to enforce re- 
form he was relieved of office at his own request 
(1 Radjab 1221/14 September 1806). The influence 
of the Shaykh al-Isldm 'Ata'ullah Efendi and the 
l ulemd' saved his life during the rebellion of Kabakil 
Mustafa [q.v.]. When Mustafa Pasha Bayrakdar [q.v.] 
came to power, Es'ad Efendi was again appointed 
Shaykh al-Isldm (22 Djumada II 1223/15 August 
1808) and took part in the discussions which bore 
fruit in the Sened-i ittifdk (see art. dustue, ii). 
When Mustafa Pasha fell, Es c ad Efendi was again 
saved by the '■ulema''; dismissed ■ 
November 1808, he was sent f 
to his arpallk at Ma'nisa. He 
to return to Istanbul and died, on 10 Muharram 
1230/23 December 1814, in his yali at Kanlidja. 
Bibliography: Wasif, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1219, 
ii, 151; 'Asim, Ta'rikh, Istanbul n.d., i, 119, ii, 257; 
Shanl-zade, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1290, i, 45, 72, 139- 
46; Djewdet, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1309, iv-ix (index); 
Mehemmed Miinib, Dawha-i mashd'ikh-i kibdr 
dhayli (MS) ; Suleyman Fa'ik, Dawha-i mashd'ikh-i 
kibdr dhayli (MS); Ahmed Rif'at, Dawhat al- 
mashd'ikh, Istanbul (lith., n.d.), 100, 119; Huseyn 
Aywansarayi, ffadikat al-djawdmi', Istanbul 1281, 
i, 123; 'Ilmiyye sdlndmesi, Istanbul 1334, 570; 
I A, s.v. (of which the above is an abridgement). 

(M. MONiR Aktepe) 
ES C AD EFENDI, MEIJMED (978/1570-1034/ 
1625), Ottoman Shaykh al-Isldm, was the second 
son of the celebrated Sa'd al-DIn [q.v.]. Thanks to 
the influence of his father, he advanced rapidly in 
the theological career, to become in Muharram 1007/ 
August 1598 kadi of Istanbul. During his elder 
brother Mehemmed's first period in office as Shaykh 
al-Isldm (1010/1601-1011/1603) he was for a time 
kddi'-asker of Anadolu ; and after two short periods as 
kddi'-asker of Rumeli he was himself appointed 
Shaykh al-Isldm on 5 Djumada II 1024/2 July 1615 
in succession to his brother. During his seven years 
in office he played a prominent part in the turbulent 
events of the time, but incurred the enmity of 
'Othman II {[q.v.], ruled 1027/1618-1031/1622) for 
having procured the accession of Mustafa I upon 
the death of Ahmed I in 1026/1617. This enmity, 
increased by Es'ad Efendi's refusal to issue a fatwd 
sanctioning the execution of 'Othman's brother 
Mehemmed, was not allayed by the Sultan's marrying 
Es'ad Efendi's daughter; 'Othman took the dis- 
position of theological appointments from the 
Shaykh al-Isldm and gave it to his khodja 'Omer 
Efendi. When in 1031/1622 'Othman proposed to 
make the Pilgrimage, Es'ad Efendi declared that 
it was not obligatory on the Sultan to do so; and on 
the outbreak of the Janissary mutiny that culmi- 
nated in the Sultan's murder issued a fatwd con- 
demning the Palace-favourites against whom the 
mutineers had risen. He protested, however, against 
the recognition of Mustafa I as sultan while 'Othman 
was still alive, and by abstaining from attending 
'Othman's funeral was deemed to have resigned office. 
He was re-appointed Shaykh al-Isldm in Dhu'l- 
Hidjdja 1032/October 1623, but soon fell out with 
his supporter Kemankesh 'All Pasha, the Grand 



er. He died in office, on 14 Sha'ban 1034/22 
' 1625, and was buried at Eyyub beside his 
father. 

Es'ad Efendi is the author of a translation of the 
Gulistdn of Sa'di, entitled Giil-i khanddn (printed 
Istanbul, n.d.), a Persian diwdn (Bagdath Ismail 
Pasa, Kesf-el-zunun zeyli, Istanbul 1945, i, 489, and 
other works (for details see I A). 

Bibliography: 'Ata'i, Dhayl al-Shakd'ik, 
Istanbul 1268, 690-2; Solak-zade, Ta'rikh, Istan- 
bul 1297, 705 ff., 719, 737 ff.; Pecewi, Ta'rikh, 
Istanbul 1283, ii, 346, 356 ff., 370; Na'ima, Ta'rikh, 
Istanbul 1280, ii, 214, 232, 294; Katib Celebi, 
Fedhleke, Istanbul 1287, ii, 12 ff.; Kara Celebizade 
c Abdal- c AzIz,ftK0da«a/-a&rar,Bulak 1248, 481, 529, 
541 ; the tedhkires of Kinali-zade Hasan Celebi and 
Riyadl (in MS) and of Rida, Istanbul 1316, 10; 
Huseyn Aywansarayi, Badikat al-djawdmi c , Istan- 
bul 1281, 271 ff.; Mustakim-zade, Tuhfe-i khattdtin, 
Istanbul 1928, 445; c Ilmiyye sdlndmesi, Istanbul 
1334, 437; IA, s.v. (of which the above is an 
abridgement). (M. MCNiR Aktepe) 

ES'AD EFENDI, MEIJMED (1096/1685-1166/ 
753), Ottoman Shaykh al-Isldm, son of the 
Shaykh al-Isldm Abu Ishak Isma'il Efendi and 
brother of the Shaykh al-Isldm Ishak Efendi, after 
holding various posts as muderris was appointed 
idi of Selanik and later (Muharram 1147/June 1734) 
: Mecca. As kadi of the army from n 50/1 737 he 
distinguished himself in the operations against 
Austria and was one of the Ottoman negotiators of 
the Treaty of Belgrade. Appointed kddi'-asker of 
Rumeli for two short periods from Muharram 1157/ 
March 1744 and Shawwal 1159/October 1746, on 
24 Radjab 1 161/20 July 1748 he became Shaykh 
al-Isldm, but was dismissed little more than a year 
later and banished, first to Sinop and then to Geli- 
bolu. Pardoned in Rabi' II 1165/March 1752, he 
returned to Istanbul but died the next year (10 
Shawwal 1166/9 August 1753)- 

Es'ad Efendi's son Sherif Efendi twice held office 
is Shaykh al-Isldm, and the poetess Fitnat [q.v.) 
was his daughter. He himself was a minor poet and 
i distinguished musician. His best-known works are 
'1) Lahdjat al-lughat, a dictionary of Turkish (printed 
Istanbul 1216), and (2) Atrab al-dthdr Ji tadhkirat 
•afd' al-adwdr (also called Tedhkire-i kVdnende- 
gdn), containing the biographies of 100 musicians 
(poor edition in Mekteb, 3rd year, Istanbul 1311, 
10s. 1-7 and 10). For details of his other works 
poems, tafsir) see I A. 

Bibliography : Salim, Tedhkire, Istanbul 1315, 

72-6; Wasif, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1219, i, 17; Sami- 

Shakir-Subhi, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1198, 53b, 121b, 

r6ob, 187a, 201b; 'Izzi, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1199, 

3b, 154b, 175b, 206a, 262a; Ahmed Rif'at, Dawhat 

al-mashd'ikh, Istanbul (lith., n.d.), 86; Sadeddin 

Nuzhet Ergun, Turk sairleri, iii, 1329 ff.; Bursal! 

Mehmed Tahir, 'Othmdnli mu'ellifleri, i, 238-9; 

I A, s.v. (of which the above is an abridgement). 

(M. Cavid Baysun) 

ES'AD EFENDI, MEIJMED (1119/1707-1192/ 

1778), Ottoman Shaykh al-Isldm, was the son 

of the Shaykh al-Isldm Wassaf 'Abd Allah Efendi 

(in office 1168/1755). After rising to be kadi of Galata 

(1163/1749-50), he was long out of office because of 

the influence of his father's opponents. He became 

kddV-asker of Anadolu in 1 182/1768 and of Rumeli 

n 1186/1773. Appointed Shaykh al-Isldm in Shawwal 

190/December 1776, ill-health brought about his 

dismissal in Djumada II 1192/July 1778, and he died 



714 



ES'AD EFENDI. MEHEMMED — ESHKINDJI 



Bibliography: Wasif, IjakdHk al-akhbdr, 
Istanbul 1219, i, 199; Djewdet, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 
1309, ii, 48, 100; Mustaljlm-zade, Dawha-i mashd 3 - 
ikh-i kibdr (MS) ; idem, Tuhfe-i khaftdtin, Istanbul 
1928, 711; Ahmed Rif'at, Dawhat al-mashdHkh, 
Istanbul (lith., n.d.), 98, 106; 'Ilmiyye sdlndmesi, 
Istanbul 1334, 545-7; I A, s.v. (of which the above 
is an abridgement). (M. MtiNiR Aktepe) 

ES C AD EFENDI, Sahhaflar-sheykhi-zade sey- 
yid MEHMED (1204/1789-1264/1848), Ottoman 
official historiographer (wak'a-niiwis) and scholar, 
was left in straitened circumstances by his father's 
accidental death (December 1804) while on his way 
to take up the duties of kddl of Medina. After holding 
various clerical posts, in Safar 1241/October 1825 he 
succeeded Shani-zade c Ata'ulIah Efendi [q.v.] as 
wak'a-niiwis, a post he held until his death. His work 
Oss-i zafer attracted the favour of Mahmud II: he 
was kadi of the army in 1828, then kadi of Oskudar, 
and was appointed editor of the official gazette 
Takwlm al-wakd'i* (see art. djarida, col. 465b) 
when it first appeared in 1247/1831. In September 
1834 he was appointed kadi of Istanbul, and in 1835-6 
went as special envoy to Persia, to congratulate 
Muhammad Shah on his accession. A long illness in- 
terrupted his career, but after the Tanzimdt [q.v.] he 
was for two years a member of the Medjlis-i ahkdm-i 
'adliyye (Council for Judicial Ordinances), on 6 Au- 
gust 1841 he was appointed Nakib al-ashrdf, and from 
30 May 1843 to 13 October 1844 he was kddi'asker 
of RQmeli. In 1845 he was a member of the com- 
mission set up to reform primary education, and in 
1846 became a member of the Council for Education 
(Medjlis-i ma'drif-i 'umumiyye) ; appointed its pre- 
sident on 1st January 1848, he died almost imme- 
diately afterwards (3 Safar 1264/10 January 1848) 
and was buried in the garden of the library he had 
founded in the Yerebatan quarter of Istanbul. 

His collection of books, over 4000 in number (3719 
of them manuscripts), he deposited in a library which 
he endowed in 1262/1846: now housed in the Siiley- 
maniye Public Library, they remain one of the most 
important collections in Turkey. His principal works 
are: (1) his official history (unpublished) in two volu- 
mes, covering the events of the years 1237-41/1821-6: 
it begins as a continuation of the work of his prede- 
cessor as wak'a-nuwis, and his drafts for later years 
were used by his successor, Lutfi Efendi [q.v.] (for the 
MSS see Babinger, 355; Istanbul kiUupaneleri tarih- 
cografya yazmalari kataloglart, i/2, Istanbul 1944, 
174-6; I A, iv, 364b); (2) Oss-i zafer (chronogram for 
1241), an account of the suppression of the Janis- 
saries (the so-called WaW-a-i khayriyye, see art. 
yeni ceri) in 1241/1826; MS Esad Ef. 2071 is said 
to be the autograph; twice printed in Turkish 
(Istanbul 1243, 1293), it was translated into French 
(A. P. Caussin de Perceval, Precis historique de la des- 
truction . . . , Paris 1833), Greek, and in part into 
Russian; (3) Teshrifdt-i kadime, on the court-cere- 
monial and protocol of the Empire (edition : Istanbul 
[1287]); (4) Zibd-i tawdrikh, an uncompleted trans- 
lation of the Mir'dt al-adwdr, in Persian, of Lari 
[q.v.] (autograph draft: MS Esad Ef. 2410); (5) 
Sefer-ndme-i khayr (chronogram for 1247), an account 
of Mahmud IPs tour of Eastern Thrace (autograph : 
Istanbul, Eski Eserler Miizesi library, MS Recaizade 
Ekrem 157); (6) Aydt al-khayr, on Mahmud II's 
tour of the Danube province in 1253; (7) Bahle-i 
safd-enduz (chronogram for 1351), a tedhkire of poets 
living between 1135/1723 and 1251/1836 (autograph 
draft: MS Esad Ef./Esad Arif Bey 4040); (8) Munsha- 
>dt: two autograph notebooks (MSS Esad Ef. 3847, 



3851) contain letters etc. written on various occa- 
sions; (9) Shdhid al-mu'arrikhin (chronogram for 
1247), a tedhkire of writers of chronograms (auto- 
graph: Fatih-Millet library, MSS Ali Emiri, tarih, 
362-3). Es c ad Efendi left also a large number of poems 
and various risdles (for details see I A, and Bursal! 
Mehmed Tahir, '■Othmdnll mWellifleri, iii, 24-6). 
Bibliography: Shani-zade c Ata>ullah, TaMkh, 
Istanbul 1292, iv; Djewdet, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1309, 
i and xii; Ahmed Lutfi, Ta'rikJi, Istanbul 1290- 
1306, i-vii; Ta'rikh-i Lutfi, viii, ed. c Abd al-Rahman 
Sheref, Istanbul 1328, Rif'at, Dawhat al-nukabd', 
Istanbul 1283, 57 ff.; Fatin, Tedhkire, Istanbul 
1271, 13; Djemal al-Din, Ayine-i zurefd, Istanbul 
1314, 79 ff.; Ibniilemin Maljmud Kemal, Son c aslr 
tiirk shdHrleri, Istanbul 1314, ii, 321 ff.; Sadeddin 
Nuzhet Ergun, Tiirk sairleri, Istanbul 1944, iii, 
1335; Takwim-i wakdV, years 1247-64; Babinger, 
354-5 ; U. Heyd, The Ottoman 'ulemd and westerni- 
zation in the time of Selim III and Mahmud II, 
in Scripta Hierosolymitana, ix, Studies in Islamic 
history and civilization, Jerusalem 1961, 63 ff. ; 
I A, s.v. (of which the above is an abridgement). 

(M. MOnIr Aktepe) 
ESAME [see yeni Ceri]. 
ESCHATOLOGY [see iciyama]. 
ESHAM [see asham]. 

ESHKINDji, also eshkundji, means in Turkish 
'one who rushes, goes on an expedition' (eshkin is 
defined by Mahmud Kashgharl [Diwdn lughdt al- 
Tiirk, i, 100; = Besim Atalay's T. tr., i, 109] as 
'long journey', and eshkindji as 'galloping courier' ; cf. 
also Tamklariyle tarama sozlugu, ed. Tiirk Dil Kuru- 
mu, i-iv, s.v. ; the verb eskmek, to go on an exped- 
ition, was later replaced in Ottoman Turkish by 
miildzemet, Ar. muldzama). 

As a term in the Ottoman army eshkindji meant in 
general a soldier who joined the army on an expedi- 
tion. Thus eshkindji timariots (see tImar) who joined 
the army were distinguished from kal c a-eri or 
mustahfiz, those who stayed in the fortresses as 
garrison (cf. Suret-i Defter-i Sancak-i Arvanid, ed. 
H. Inalcik, Ankara 1954, 108, 109). 

As a special term eshkindji designated auxiliary 
soldiers whose expenses were provided by the people 
of re c dyd [q.v.] status as against djebelii equipped by 
the c askari [q.v.]. The obligation was in return for 
the tax exemptions made on agricultural lands 
which were considered in principle as under state 
proprietorship (cf. H. Inalcik, Stefan Duian'dan 
Osmanh imparatorluguna, in Fuat Kopriilii Armagam, 
Istanbul 1953, 134, note 121). In the organizations 
of yiiruk, djdnbdz, yaya, musellem, Tatar and the 
like, each group of 10, 24, 25, or 30 persons was to 
furnish the expenses of an eshkindji each year. 
Three or five among them were appointed eshkindjis, 
and the rest yamaks, assistants. Each year an 
eshkindji collected in turn, be-newbet, a certain sum 
called khardjlik (usually 50 akje per person (from the 
yamaks and joined the Sultan's army on an expedi- 
tion (under Bayezld II khardjlik was collected only 
when an expedition occurred). In return the eshkindjis 
and the yamaks were exempted from taxes and dues 
on their liftliks [q.v.] entirely or partly (cf. Kdnun- 
name Sultan Mehmeds des Eroberers, ed. Fr. Kraelitz, 
in MOG, i (1921-2), 25,28; T. Gokbilgin, Rumeli'de 
Yiirukler, Tatarlar ve Evldd-% Fdtihdn, Istanbul 
1957, 244-6). The voynuks and Eflaks can be con- 
sidered also as eshkindji organizations (cf. H. Inalcik, 
ibid. 241). Even the doghandjis [q.v.] in some areas, 
who were organized in the same manner, were to 
furnish eskkindjis. 



ESHKINDJl — TiSZEK 



Another category of eshkindjis was provided by 
the possessors of wakfs and mulks. Increasingly in 
need of new troops, Mehemmed the Conqueror ordered 
in Ramadan 88i/December 1476 that the wakfs and 
mulks of certain types were to furnish eshkindjis 
for the army (cf. Fatih devrinde Karaman Eydleti 
vakiflan fihristi, ed. F. N. Uzluk, Ankara 1958, 
facsimile 3). The measure was applied extensively 
in the empire, especially in central and northern 
Anatolia, and resulted in the widespread discontent 
in the last years of his reign (cf. IA, s.v. Mehmed II; 
O. L. Barkan, M alikdne-Divani sistemi, in THITM, 
ii (1932-9), 119-84). It was assumed that such 
wakfs and mulks, mostly of pre-Ottoman times, were 
valid only by the approval of the Ottoman Sultan. 
In most cases he did not confirm them, on the 
grounds that they did not meet the conditions 
required; he then made most of them state-owned 
lands granted as tlmdr [q.v.] or else required their 
possessors, in return for the taxes and dues, to 
equip eshkindiis for the army. Such wakfs and mulks 
were known as eshkindjilu. Under Bayezid II, who 
followed a more tolerant policy, tlmdrs of this kind 
too were made eshkindjilu mulk. But later records 
in the defters [see daftar-i khakan!] show that 
these were again made timdrs. 

An eshkindji of the Yiiriik organization was 
equipped with a lance, bow and arrows, a sword and 
a shield, and every ten eshkindjis had one horse for 
joint use and a tent (cf. Kdnunndme Sultan 
Mehmeds des Eroberers, 28). 

Eshkindjis from the different groups made up a 
large part of the Ottoman army in the 9th/i5th 
century, especially under Mehemmed II. But from 

had to consist mainly of infantry with fire-arms, the 
eshkindjis and the various organizations to which 
they belonged lost their importance and gradually 
disappeared. (Haul Inalcik) 

ESHREFOGHLU RCMl [see Supplement]. 

ESKI BABA [see eaba eskij. 

ESKI SARAY [see sarayj. 

ESKISHEHIR (modern spelling Eskisehir), a 
town in the western part of Central Anatolia, 
39° 47' N., 30 33' E., altitude 792 m. (= 2,597ft.) 
(railway station) to 810 m. (=2,657 ft.), on the 
river Porsuk, a tributary of the Sakarya; it is the 
capital of at) ildyet of 389,129 inhabitants, the district 
has 56,077, and the town itself 153,190 (all figures 
for i960). Eskisehir is famous for its hot springs, 
and for the meerschaum found nearby (see Rein- 
hardt, in Pet. Mitt. 1911, ii, 251 ff.); it is also 
important as a junction of the Istanbul — Ankara 
and Istanbul — Konya railways. 

Eskisehir has replaced the ancient Dorylaion 
(Daruliyya of the Arabs), which was situated near the 
modern Shar-Uyiik, 3 km. to the north. In Byzantine 
times, the wide plain of Dorylaion was the place where 
the emperor's armies assembled for their eastern 
campaigns against the Arabs and the Saldjuk Turks 
cf. Ibn Khurradadhbih, 109). In the year 89/708, 
al- c Abbas b. al-Walld conquered Dorylaion (Tabari, 
ii, 1197; cf. Theophanes, i, 376, ed. de Boer), and 
Hasan b. Kahtaba advanced as far as this point in 
162/778 (Tabari, iii, 493; Theophanes, i, 452). Near 
Dorylaion, on 1 July 1097, the Crusaders won the 
battle enabling them to pass through the Rum Saldjuk 
Empire (Konya), but the crusaders under Conrad III 
suffered such a defeat on 26 October 1147 that further 
passage through this territory was barred. In 1175 
the emperor Manuel Comnenos fortified the town 
again, after it had been laid waste by the Saldjflkids, 



and he drove away the nomadic Yiiriiks (Kinnamos, 
294, 297; Niketas, 236 ff., 246); but only one year 
later (after the unsuccessful war against Kilidj 
Arslan II) he had to undertake to pull down the 
fortifications, and it was probably shortly after 
this that the town finally passed into Saldjuk 
possession. 

In the 13th century, Ertoghrul settled in the area of 
Sogiit near Eskisehir, in the region of Sultan Uyiigi 
(Sultan Onii) (Neshri, ed. Unat and Koymen, i, 72). 
In the apocryphal document (menshur) of 'Ala' al- 
Din b. Faramarz, of early Shawwal 688/October 1289, 
in favour of his son 'Othman (Feridfln 2 , i, 56), the 
region of Eskisehir was given to 'Othman as a sandjak 
(cf. Leunclavius, Hist. Mus., 125, 126 f.). The fortress 
of Karadja-Hisar [q.v.] south-west of Eskisehir is 
considered the first Ottoman conquest (cf. Neshri, 64). 

Later on, Eskisehir became the chef-lieu of the 
sandjak (liwd > ) of Inonu in the eydlet of Anadolu, 
and a halt on the pilgrim route. In the 19th century, 
it became the capital of a kadd' in the sandjak of 
Kiitahya, wildyet of Bursa, and according to Cuinet 
it had 19,023 inhabitants at the turn of this century. 
During the Greco-Turkish war of 1922, the town was 
almost completely destroyed, but it was rebuilt as 
an industrial centre after the war. It has the most 
important railway repair workshops in Turkey. 

The Kurshunlu Djami' (921/1515) was erected by 
a certain Mustafa Pasha, and is the most notable 
building of the town. Beside it there is an extensive 
khan, laid out in two parts (khan and bedestan). The 
'Ala' al-DIn mosque, which dates from Saldjuk 
times, has been completely renovated; but on the 
base of its minaret there is an inscription by Djadja 
Beg of the year 666(?)/i268 {RCEA, xii, Cairo 
1943, 131, no. 4596) which refers to its erection. In 
1927 there was still a small bridge, which apparently 
dated from Saldjuk times, over the San Su, which 
flows into the Porsuk. This bridge could, however, 
no longer be found in 1955. It is probable that it 
was removed when the industrial buildings were 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, v, 1577 f. 

(concerning Dorylaion) ; Ewliya Celebi, Seydhat- 

ndme, iii, 12; Katib Celebi, Djihdnnumd, 641 f.; 

Mehemmed Edib, Mendsik al-hadjdj. 28 f . ; Ch. 

Texier, A sie Mineure, 408 ff.; Sami Bey Fraschery, 

Ramus al-aHdm, ii, 938; IA, s.v. (Besim Darkot), 

where further bibliography can be found. 

J. H. Mordtmann-[Fr. Taeschner]) 

ESNE [see isna]. 

ESOTERICS [see zahir]. 

ESPIONAGE [see djasus], 

ESSENCE [see dhat and djawhar]. 

ESZEK (Esseg), until 1919 a town in Hungary 
(Slavonia) on the right bank of the Drave, not far 
from its junction with the Danube, and since 1919 in 
Yugoslavia. The name of the town is in Serbo-Croat 
Osijek, in Hungarian Eszek and in German Esseg; 
in Turkish it was written as >iJL,l (Osek). 

During the first decisive phase of the Turkish- 
Hungarian wars the town is mentioned for the first 
time in connexion with events relating to Turkish 
history. After the Turks had overrun Sirmium 
(Hung. Szeremseg), the then commander of the 
Hungarian army, Paul Tomori, wanted to bring 
the Turks to a halt on the Drave. The forces of 
Sultan Siileyman, however, gained possession of 
Eszek easily, built a bridge over the Drave, crossed 
the river and advanced on Mohacs (932/1526). 

The passage over the Drave near Eszek was, for 



ESZEfc — ESZTERGOM 



a century and a half, an important halting-place for 
Turkish armies on the march into Hungary. 

In the course of his later campaigns (1529, 1532, 
1541, 1543) Sultan Suleyman, time and again, caused 
a bridge of boats to be built nearby (cf. J. Thury, 
Tbrbk TMenetirdk [Turkish historians], i, 329, 331, 
351 and ii, 103, 107). He had a permanent bridge 
erected over the Drave only on the occasion of his 
last campaign against Sigeth (Szigetvar) in 974/1566. 

As we know from later accounts in particular, the 
permanent bridge over the Drave itself rested on 
boats, while its prolongation on the left bank of the 
Drave spanned a marshland some 8000 paces broad 
and was laid on piles (Ewliya Celebi, vi, 187). On 
both sides of the bridge there were parapets 
(korkuluk); in the middle, 'lay-bys', i.e. towers 
(kasr), had been constructed, so that here the 
pedestrian might rest without impeding the flow of 
traffic. There was room for two waggons side by side 
on the main road of the bridge. A horseman needed 
one and a half hours to cross the bridge. In 
western sources, too, the bridge at Eszek is mentioned 
as a remarkable piece of construction work. H. Otten- 
dorff (Vienna, Heeres-archiv, Kartenabteilung K. 
VII, K. I) offers a description similar to the one given 
above. A portion of his travel narrative From Buda 
to Belgrade in the year 1663 has been published in 
Hungarian translation (Buddrol Belgrddba 1663, 
Pecs 1943). There is available a comprehensive study 
of the bridge: P. Z. Szab6, Az eszeki hid [The bridge 
of Eszek], Majorossy Imre-Muzeum ertesitoje, Pecs 
1941. 

Bridgeheads were built on both banks of the river 
to protect the bridge, on the northern bank beyond 
the marshland near Darda and on the southern bank 
not far from the Drave near Eszek. The defences 
at Darda consisted only of palisades; the defences 
near Eszek were constructed of brick, but were, 
however, only weakly fortified. The Turks feared no 
attack on these defences, for they lay 200-300 km. 
inside the Ottoman frontiers. All the greater, there- 
fore, was their surprise at the onslaught of Nicholas 
Zrinyi, the poet, who in the winter of 1664, avoiding 
the Turkish frontier fortresses, pushed forward as 
far as Eszek and on 1 February set the bridge in 
flames. It was, however, rebuilt by the Turks. The 
bridge at Eszek was once more burnt down in 1685 
by General Lesley and in 1687 was seized definitively 
from the Turks by the Imperialists. 

From the diffuse information of Ewliya Celebi (vi, 
178 ff.) the following data can be gathered: Osek, a 
voyvodalik in the sandjak of PoZega, a kadd with a 
stipend of 150 akce. The defences consist of an inner 
and an outer fortress (ii! kal c a and orta hisdr) ; outside 
the outer fortifications lies the town (varosh). Ewliya 
Celebi does not mention the fortress as being an espe- 
cially strong one; on the other hand he writes appreci- 
atively of the religious buildings (above all the djdmih 
of Kasim Pasha and Mustafa Pasha) and of the tekke 
and the other khayrdt {mcdrese, sebll, and hamdm). He 
draws particular attention to the much frequented 
trade fair (panayir) held once a year and to the 
covered market built by Ibrahim Pasha of Kanizsa. 
The speech of the inhabitants, according to Ewliya 
Celebi, was Hungarian, but according to Ottendorff 
it was Turkish. (L. Fekete) 

ESZTERGOM (Gran), a fortress town in Hun- 
gary situated on the right bank of the Danube about 
80 km. to the north-east of Budapest, in the Turkish 
period the name and chief town of a sandjak. 

The place-name Esztergom is said to be of Frankish 
origin (osterringun = eastern fortress). The site, 



named Gran in German, is called Strigonium in 
Latin, Ostrihom in Slovenian and Esztergom or 
Esztergon in Hungarian, while in Turkish such 
forms as by-j±-\ , by-j^-j\ , ?y-_f^j\ etc. are known. 

Gran, in the time of the Arpad dynasty, was on a 
number of occasions the royal residence — here the 
founder of the Hungarian Kingdom, Stephen I 
(St. Stephen), was born — and it was at the same time 
the seat of the Archbishop of Hungary (the head of 
the ten bishoprics established by Stephen I) and 
from about 1200 A.D. his own exclusive possession. 

After the conquest of Buda (948/1541) Gran entered 
the pages of Turkish history. In order to safeguard 
Buda, now a frontier fortress, Sultan Suleyman 
ordered his forces to conquer Gran, which fell into 
Turkish hands after a siege lasting barely two weeks 
(950/1543). Detailed Turkish sources on this siege are 
Djalalzade Mustafa (translated, from the Vienna Ms., 
by J. Thury in Tbrbk Tbrtenetirok [Turkish Histo- 
rians], Budapest 1896, ii, 244 ff.) and Sinan Cawush 

A fruitless attempt was made in 1002/1594 to 
wrest Gran from the Turks (in this fighting there 
fell, on the Hungarian side, the distinguished 
Hungarian lyric poet B. Balassi). The assault on 
Gran in 1003/1595 was, however, successful; after 
the food and water of the defenders of the fortress 
had become exhausted, the Turkish garrison mutinied 
and the commander of the besieging troops, Nicholas 
Palffy (called Miklosh [Hung. Miklos] in Ewliya 
Celebi, vi, 258) was able to gain possession of the 
fortress by capitulation. The Turks tried on several 
occasions to win back the fortress; eventually the 
Grand Vizier Lala Mehemmed Pasha, who ten years 
before "had given over the fortress into the keeping 
of Miklosh" (Ewliya Celebi, vi, 259), recovered it in 
1605, likewise by capitulation. The history of these 
sieges is recorded, on the Turkish side, in Pecewl 
(ii, 175 it- and 301 ff.), who was present on both 



: the 1 



the 



o-fold 



surrender of the fortress, and — leaving out of account 
some statements of little value— in Ewliya Celebi (vi, 
257 ff.); and on the Hungarian side, in M. Istvanffy 
(Historiarum de Rebus Ungaricis libri xxxiv, Cologne 
1622). More modern studies by J. Thury and 
G. Gomory are in Hadtbrtenelmi Kbzleminyeh [Com- 
munications on Military History], 1891 and 1892. 
Thereafter the Turks remained until 1094/ 168 3 
undisturbed in their possession of the fortress. Gran, 
in the autumn of 1683, passed without serious 
fighting and by agreement into the hands of the 
Imperialists; Turkish attempts to reconquer it were 
unsuccessful. Gran, i.e. Esztergom, has in Turkish 
a proverbial fame (the newspaper Yeni Sabah, on 
19 April 1956, cairied on the front page a picture of 
a fortress with the superscription "Estergon kalesi" 
and near it, in a caption, the words referring to the 
still firmly established Menderes regime: Menderes 
Estergon kalesidir — "Menderes is [strong as] the 
fortress of Estergon"), but it is difficult to state 
on what events connected with Gran this fame is 

The mukdta'-a defters of Gran for some ten years 
between the dates 973/1565 and 991/1582 are extant 
(Vienna, Fliigel Catalogue, no. 1359); in them are 
recorded the following topographical names relating 
to the town of Gran: Kal c a-i Bala, Kal'a-i ZIr, 
Iskele-i Bala, Iskele-i Zir, Ilidja, Varosh-i Kebir and 
Varosh-i Saghir (or Varosh-i Buzurg and Varosh-i 
Kucek); these defters, moreover, record the 
personnel of three Muslim mosques in the upper 
fortress, in the main town and in the suburb Djiger- 



ESZTERGOM — EWLIYA CELEBI 



delen as receiving salaries from the state. Ewliya 
Celebi (vi, 271-2), in connexion with his visit to 
Gran in 1074/1663, offers information about several 
Muslim places of worship and also tells us in some 
cases who founded them. 

To the fortress of Gran belonged, on the left bank 
of the Danube, the bridge-head of Djigerdelen. 
Djigerdelen Parkani ("Liver-piercer", "Liver-piercing 
Fort" — whence the later Hungarian name of the 
place: Parkany), the point of departure for the 
subsequent geographical extension of this sandjak. 

According to Ewliya Celebi (vi, 273) it was Lala 
Mehemmed Pasha who ordered the building of the 
outer defence work of Gran on the right bank of the 
Danube, i.e., of the mountain fort of Szenttamas; 
he is also said to have given to it the name of 
Tepedelen, "Head-piercer" (a locality of this name 
existed in Albania: cf. Tepedelenli C A1I Pasha). 

There is extant also a Turkish survey of the 
houses in Gran, dating from about 1570 (Vienna, 
Krafft Catalogue, ccxc). In this survey Muslims 
and, in lesser number, Orthodox (Pravoslav) are 
shown as house-holders; there are no Hungarians 
amongst them. It seems that Hungarians, at that 
time, cannot have been living in Gran. 

The sandjak of Estergom was established after 
the conquest of the fortress in 95°/i543- At 
first it consisted essentially of some 30 villages 
on the right bank of the Danube, but, growing 
outward from the bridge-head of Djigerdelen on 
the left bank of the river, it became extended 
later, thanks to the unwearying expansionist acti- 
vities of the Sandjak Begs, far to the west and north, 
so that the chief town of the sandjak, Gran, came 
to be situated on the inner border of the actual 
administrative area (other examples exist in 
Hungary of such an expansion, as, for example, the 
sandjaks of Szolnok (Solnok), Istulni Belghrad and 
Szigetvar (Sigeth), in each of which the chief place, 
after which the sandjak was named, found itself 
eventually on the inner border of the actual area 
administered from it). The "financial frontier" and 
territorial administration thus brought into being 
did not receive recognition from the Austrians, now 
growing stronger, or from the Hungarian kingdom, 
with the result that numerous villages paid taxes 
to two masters — a situation which, from the end 
of the 1 6th century, gave occasion for countless 
disputes. 

Several tax registers (tahtit) of the sandjak are 
preserved at Istanbul and one also, dating from 1570, 
at Berlin (Berlin, Prussian State Library, Pet. II, 
Nachtr. I). The tax register preserved at Berlin is 
available in Hungarian (L. Fekete, Az Esztergomi 
szandzsdk 1570. evi adobsszeirdsa [The tax register 
of the sandjak of Gran for 1570], Budapest 1943). 
According to this register there belonged to the 
sandjak 12 "varosh", i.e., towns, 365 villages (karye) 
and 93 abandoned farms, i.e., puszta (mezra'-a) with 
a total of 4206 households (khdne). A number of 
the villages paid taxes to two masters and so it 
came about that Nikolaus Olah, the Archbishop of 
Gran, caused to be built, around 1580 and near the 
locality known as Nyarhid, with a view to the 
hindering of the further advance of the Turks, a 
fortress (Ujvar, later Ersekujvar, Germ. Neuhausel), 
the site of which lay more or less in the centre of the 
Turkish sandjak. After the capture of Neuhausel by 
the Turks in 1074/1663 most of the villages of the 
sandjak of Gran were incorporated in the then 
established Beglerbeglik of Neuhausel/Ujvar. With 
the definitive reconquest of Gran by the Imperialists 



in 1 093/1 68 3 the sandjak of Gran fell into dissolution. 
(L. Fekete) 
ETAWAH [see itawa]. 
ETERNITY [see abad]. 

ETERNITY of the world [see abad, kidam]. 
ETHICS [see akhlakJ. 
ETHIOPIA [see al-habash]. 
ET-MEYDANI [see Istanbul]. 
EUCLID [see uklIdish]. 
EULOGY [see madSh]. 

EUNUCH [see khadjm, khasI, kIzlar aghasI]. 
EUPHRATES [see al-furat]. 
EUTYCHIUS [see sa'id b. bitrIk]. 
EVE [see hawwa']. 
EVIDENCE [see bayyina]. 
EVORA [see yabura]. 

ewliyA Celebi b. derwIsh mehmed Zilli, 

b. 10 Muharram 1020/25 March 161 1 in the Unkapan 
quarter of Istanbul, seems to have died not before 
the last third of 1095/1684 (cf. WZKM, li (1948-52), 
226, Anm. 137, and TM, xii (1955), 261). For a 
period of almost forty years (from 1050/1640, 
perhaps even earlier, to 1087/1676), after he had 
already started his wanderings in Istanbul in the 
year 1040/1630-1, he described a series of long 
journeys within the Ottoman Empire and in 
the neighbouring lands, undertaken (or allegedly 
undertaken) sometimes as a private individual, 
sometimes in an official capacity, either when 
taken along in the retinue of the Ottoman digni- 
taries or on his own responsibility, in his work 
of ten parts generally known as the Seydhatndme 
("Travels") or according to the Vienna Ms (Fliigel, 
no. 1281) as the Ta'rikh-i Seyydh ("Traveller's 
chronicle"). For his life and experiences we are 
dependent solely on his own accounts in the Seydhat- 
ndme, which are not always trustworthy (see below). 
His personal name is unknown; Ewliya is his pen- 
name, which he adopted in veneration of his teacher 
the court-imam Ewliya Mehmed Efendi. His father 
was the chief jeweller to the court (Sardy-i 'dmire 
bashkuyumdjusu, sar-zargardn), Derwish Mehmed 
Zilli (cf. i, 218 [here and below the Istanbul edition 
is referred to; see below]), who died Djumada II 
1058/June-July 1648 (cf. ii, 458), according to 
Ewliya's assertion aged 117 (lunar) years; he is said 
to have taken part in the (last) campaigns of the 
sultan Siileyman Kanunl and to have served and 
undertaken works of craftsmanship for the later 
sultans also (cf. i, 218; iv, 102; vi, 267; x, 298). 
Ewliya's father must have been a merry and also a 
poetically talented man, since on this account he 
was allowed to enjoy the favour of the court. The 
family tree which Ewliya claims on his father's side 
is contradictory and improbable (cf. i, 424-5; iii, 444; 
vi, 226; x, 915). His paternal ancestors probably 
came from Kiitahya; the family seems to have 
removed to Istanbul after the conquest of Con- 
stantinople in 857/1453, but to have retained the 
house in Kiitahya and to have had also a house in 
Bursa, in the Ine Bey quarter, and at Manisa, an 
estate in Sandikh, four shops in the Unkapan 
quarter of Istanbul as well as two houses there, and 
a vineyard in Kadikoy near Istanbul (cf. i, 471; "i, 
146; ix, 81). This gives some idea of Ewliya's 
economic circumstances, which — in addition to his 
shrewdness in making himself useful to the digni- 
taries — made it possible for him to follow his 
Wanderlust. Ewliya's mother was from the Caucasus; 
she came to the sardy in the time of Sultan Ahmed I 
(1012-26/1603-17), and was there married to the 
court jeweller, Ewliya's father. Ewliya says that his 



EWLIYA celebi 



mother was related to Melek Ahmed Pasha (cf. 
Mehmed Thiireyya, Sidiill-i '■Othmdni, iv, 509), who 
was indeed himself of Caucasian origin. Ewliya's 
accounts of the degree of this relationship are, 
however, contradictory; either Ewliya's and Melek 
Ahmed Pasha's mothers were sisters, or Ewliya's 
mother was the daughter of Melek Ahmed Pasha's 
mother's sister. Ewliya was also related on his 
mother's side, according to his story, to Defterdar- 
zade Mehmed Pasha (cf. Sidiill-i '■Othmdni, iv, 168) 
and to Ibshir Mustafa Pasha (cf. ibid., i, 166; i. 
H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh tarihi, Ankara 1947 ff., iii/2, 
408; cf. Seydhatndme, ii, 370, 453; v, 168). Ewliya 
declares that he had also one brother and one sister 
(cf. ix, 81). — After the end of his elementary 
schooling Ewliya was for seven years a pupil at 
the medrese of the Shaykh al-Islim Hamid Efendi in 
Istanbul, and attended a Kur'an school for eleven 
years where he was trained as a Kur'an reciter (cf. 
i, 360); he also learnt many manual skills from his 
father (cf. i, 243, 404; ii, 467; vi, 381). In the laylat 
al-kadr of the year 1045/1636 Ewliya distinguished 
himself by an especially good recitation of the 
Kur'an, and through this fortunate circumstance 
he was presented by the then silifiddr Melek Ahmed 
Agha to Sultan Murad IV, on whose command he was 
admitted to the palace, where he received a more 
extensive training in calligraphy, music, Arabic 
grammar, and tadiwld. He was often summoned to 
the Sultan's presence on account of his lively disposi- 
tion, his common-sense, and his skill as a narrator. 
Shortly before Murad IV's expedition to Baghdad 
(1048/1638) Ewliya was appointed a sipdhi of the 
Porte (cf. i, 258). 

In his ten-volume Seydhatndme Ewliya describes 
in vol. i: the capital city of Istanbul and its environs; 
in ii: Bursa, izmid, Batum, Trabzon, Abkhazia. 
Crete, Erzurum, Adharbaydjan, Georgia, etc.; in iii: 
Damascus, Syria, Palestine, Urumiyya, Sivas, 
Kurdistan, Armenia, Rumelia (Bulgaria, Dobrudja), 
etc. ; in iv : Van, Tabriz, Baghdad, Basra, etc. ; in v : 
Van, Basra, Oczakov, Hungary, Russia, Anatolia, 
Bursa, the Dardanelles, Adrianople, Moldavia, 
Transylvania, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Sofia; in vi: 
Transylvania, Albania, Hungary, Ujvar (Neuhausel. 
Here is interpolated the expedition, which is un- 
questionably only fantasy on Ewliya's part, of 
10,000 Tatars through Austria, Germany and 
Holland, to the North Sea), Belgrade, Herzegovina, 
Ragusa (Dubrovnik), Montenegro, Kanizsa, Croatia; 
in vii : Hungary, Buda, Erlau (here is also described 
the journey to Vienna, which he undertook in the 
retinue of the embassy of Kara Mehmed Pasha in 
1075/1665, and his alleged residence in Vienna; here 
also a fictitious journey of Ewliya's in the regions 
of the "country of the seven kings" — perhaps the 
seven electorates are meant here — which, however, 
is not described in greater detail: blank passage in 
text), Temesvar (Banat, Rum. Timisoara), Transyl- 
vania, Wallachia, Moldavia, the Crimea, Kazak, 
South Russia, the Caucasus, Daghestan, Azak; in 
viii: Azak, Kafa, Baghcesaray (Crimea), Istanbul, 
Crete, Macedonia, Greece, Athens, the Dodecanese, 
Peloponnesus, Albania, Valona, Elbasan, Ochrida, 
Adrianople, Istanbul; in ix: (Pilgrimage to Mecca) 
south-west Anatolia, Smyrna, Ephesus, Rhodes, 
south Anatolia, Syria, Aleppo, Damascus, Medina, 
Mecca, Suez; in x: Egypt (with historical excursus), 
Cairo, Upper Egypt, Sudan, Abyssinia. 

Ewliya seems to have stayed for eight or nine 
years in Egypt, where he perhaps also completed the 
last, tenth, part of the Seydhatndme. The last date 



: Djumada I 1087/12 July 1676, 
although he knows of events which took place in 
1093/1682 (cf. x, 1048) and later (cf. biographical 
details discussed above). He seems to have spent 
the last year of his life in Istanbul editing his book, 
which had probably been written down piecemeal 
at various times and required a final redaction 
which Ewliya, as the mss show, never fully accom- 
plished. 

Ewliya Celebi is an imaginative writer with a 
marked penchant for the wonderful and the adven- 
turous. He prefers legend to bare historical fact, 
indulges freely in exaggeration, and at times does 
not eschew bragging or anecdotes designed for comic 
effect. His Seydhatndme thus appears in the first 
place as a work of 17th century light literature, 
isfied the need of the Turkish intellectuals 



of h 



e for e: 



and ii 






which, thanks to the use at times of a traditional 
Turkish narrative technique and of the colloquial 
Turkish of the 17th century, with occasional bor- 
rowings of phrases and turns of expression from the 
ornate style, was intelligible to a wide circle; 
this obvious purpose of the work explains Ewliya's 
lack of concern for historical truth. He also occasion- 
ally describes journeys which he himself manifestly 
cannot have undertaken. His literary ambition often 
drives him to record things and occurrences as though 
he had seen or experienced them himself, whereas a 
close examination reveals that he knows of them only 
from hearsay or that he is indebted to literary 
sources which he does not cite. 

In spite of these reservations, the Seydhatndme 
offers a wealth of information on cultural history, 
folklore and geography, which will be especially 
valuable once the philological groundwork is done 
and the necessary criticism of content applied. The 
charm of the work lies not least in the fact that it 
reflects the mental approach of the 17th century 
Ottoman Turkish intellectuals in their attitudes to 
the non-Muslim Occident, and throws some light on 
the administration and internal organization of the 
Ottoman empire of that time. 

Cavid Baysun, to whom we owe the most com- 
prehensive study to date of Ewliya Celebi's life and 
work (see below), has declared that one of the most 
pressing needs is the preparation of a new critical 
edition of the Seydhatndme, and that only this 
would make possible the effective use of the in- 
formation that it contains. Baysun's suggestions 
have been in part taken up in the admirable detailed 
researches of Meskure Eren (see below), limited to 
the first book of the Seydhatndme. On the basis of 
her findings from the mss, Dr. Eren demonstrates 
Ewliya's method of working, and points to the many 
blank and unfinished passages in the Seydhatndme, 
which suggest that the author intended to expand 
the work further and to give it a final redaction 
which he did not however complete; she also 
proves that Ewliya made abundant use of literary 
sources for his descriptions and even for the 
chronograms which he quotes. Dr. Eren classifies 
these literary sources (all with reference to book 
i of the Seydhatndme) as: (1) those named and used 
by Ewliya; (2) those which Ewliya has used but 
not cited. In this group fall: 'All, Kunh al-akhbdr 
(cf. Babinger, GOW, 126 ff.); Ibrahim Pecewi, 
TaMkh (cf. Babinger, 192 ff.); New'izade c Ata'i, Ha- 
daHk al-hakdHkfl takmilat al-ShakaHk (cf. Babinger, 
171 ff.); Sa% Taihkirat al-bunydn (cf. Babinger, 
137 ff.); c Awfi, Diawdmi' al-hikdydt, in the Turkish 
translation of Djelalzade Salih (cf. Ms Istanbul 



EWLIYA Celebi 



Topkapisaray, Revan Koskii no. 1085, 693a) ; Basin, 
LatdHf (quoted in the Tedhkire of Kinalizade 
Hasan Celebi, Ms Istanbul, Universite Kiitiiphan 
T.Y. 2525, 74a) ; and chronogram verses from vari 
poets cited by Eren (100-14); (3) those which EwliyS 
has cited, but not used. 

Mss of the Seydhatndme. 

Istanbul: Pertev Pasa collection nos. 458-62; 
Topkapisaray, Bagdat Koskii nos. 300-4; Besir Aga 
nos. 448-52 (copy of 1158 [= 1745])- These mss 
include all ten books of the work. Also Topkapisaray, 
Bagdat Koskii nos. 304 (i, ii), 305 (iii. iv), 306 (ix), 
307 (v), 308 (vii, viii); Topkapisaray, Revan Koskii 
nos. 366/1457-369/1460 (vi, vii, viii, ix); Hamidiye 
no. 963 (x); Halis Efendi no. 2750 (i), ibid. 2750 
miikerrer (iii, iv); Universite Kiitiiphanesi no. 2371 
(i, copy of 1170 [= I756-7]), 5939 (i, ii, copy of 1155 
[= 1742-3]); Yildiz, Tarih Kisrm, no. 48 (x). 
Vienna: Nationalbibliothek H.O. 193 (iv), cf. G. 
Fliigel, Die arabischen, persischen und tiirkischen 
Handschriften der kaiserlich-kbniglichen Hofbibliothek 
zu Wien, Vienna 1865-7, ii, 433, no. 1281; Cod. 
mixt 1382 (i). London: Royal Asiatic Society nos. 
22-3 (i, ii, iii, iv). Manchester: Univ. Libr., 
Lindsay collection no. 142 (iii, iv). Basle : R. 
Tschudi collection (i, ii, iii). Munich: Bayr. Staats- 
bibliothek (?), Th. Menzel collection (i, ii, iii, iv, v). 

Printed versions of the Seydhatndme. 

Poor edition of extracts from Bk. i, with foreword, 
under the title of Miintekhabdt-i Ewliyd Celebi, 
Istanbul 1258 (150 pp.), 1262 (143 pp.); Bulak 1264 
(140 pp.); Istanbul, ca. 1890 (104 pp., quarto). 
Integral edition : i-vi, Istanbul 1314-8 (Ikdam Press); 
i-vi under the editorship of Ahmed Djewdet and 
Nedjib 'Asirn, vi with Karacson also. The value 
of this edition is much diminished by misprints, 
omissions and censored passages. Books vii and v 
appeared as a publication of the Turk Ta'rikh 
Endjiimeni, utilizing several mss, ed. Kilisli Rif c 
Bilge, Istanbul 1928 (Dewlet and Orkhaniyye ; 
Presses). Books ix, Istanbul 1935 (Devlet Matbaasi), ; 
and x, Istanbul 1938 (Devlet Matbaasi) \ 
published by the Turkish Ministry of Education, 
but unfortunately are in the new official Turkish 
orthography and are hence of limited use. A critical 
scholarly edition of the complete Seydhatndme 
the original Arabic script, of course, is an urgent 
necessity. 

Bibliography (arranged chronologically) : 
Hammer-Purgstall, Staatsverfassung, i, 455-70 
(detailed table of contents of books i-iv); idem, 
Narrative of travels in Europe, Asia and A J ' 
by Ewliya Efendi, London 1834-50 (trans, of be 
i and ii ; M. Bittner, Der Kurdengau Uschnuje und 
die Stadt Urumlje, Vienna 1895; A. Sopov, Evlija 
Celebi, in Periodiiesho spisanie na Bulgarskoto 
Knizovno DruSestvo v Sofija, lxii (1902); I. 
Karacson, Evlia Cselebi torbk vildgutazo Magyaror- 
szdgi utazdsai 1660-1664, Budapest 1904 (trans, of 
the greater part of v and vi); D. S. Cohadzic, 
Putopis Evlije Celebije v srpskim zemljama v XVII 
v., in Spomenik Srpske Kraljevske Akademije, xlii 
(1905); G. Germanus, Evlija Cselebi a XVII szdzad- 
beli Tcrbkorszdgi czehekrbl, in Keleti Szemle, viii 
(1907); I. Karacson, Evlija Cselebi torbk vildgutazo 
Magyarorszdgi utazdsai 1664-66, Budapest 1908 
(trans, of vii to p. 446 of the Istanbul edition); 
D. G. Gadzanov, PMuvane na Evlija Celebi 
bulgarskite zemi prez sredata na XVII v., 
Periodiiesho Spisanie na Bulgarskoto Knizov. 



Druiestvo v Sofija, Ixx (1909); A. H. Lybyer, 
The travels of Evliya Effendi, in JAOS, xxxvii 
(1917), 224-39; G. I. Cialicoff, Din calatoria 
lui Evliya Celebi, in Arhiva Dobrogei, ii (1919); 
R. Hartmann, Zu Ewlija Tschelebi's Reisen im 
oberen Euphrat- und Tigrisgebiet, in Isl., ix (1919), 
184-244; W. Bjorkman, Of en zur Turkenzeit, 
Hamburg 1920; Carra de Vaux, Les penseurs de 
I' Islam, Paris 192 1, i; F. Taeschner, Die geogra- 
phische Literatur der Osmanen, in ZDMG, lxx 
(1923), 31-80, 144; "Othmdnli mWellifleri, iii; 
F. Taeschner, Das anatolische Wegenetz, Leipzig 
1924-6; Babinger, GO W; P. Pelliot, Le pritendu voca- 
bulaire mongol des Kaitak du Daghestan, in J A, 
ccx (1927); W. Kohler, Die Kurdenstadt Bitlis 
nach dem tiirkischen Reisewerh des Ewlija Tsche- 
lebi, Munich 1928; F. Taeschner, Die neue Stam- 
buler Ausgabe von Evlija Tschelebis Reisewerk, in 
Isl., xviii (1929), 299-310; F. Babinger, Ewlija 
Tschelebi's Reisewege in Albanien, in MSOS As., 
xxxiii (1930), 138-78; S. Khudaverd6glou, 'O 
'E(3Xta TasXsfATri) ava xa; sXXTjvixa; x^P a S> 
in 'EXX7]vlxa, iv (1931); D. Tzortz6glou, Ta rcspl 
'A{b)vcov xe<paXaia tou 'E(3Xia TasXsfAirii, in 
'EXXrjvtxa, iv (1931); P. Pelliot, Les formes 
turques et mongoles dans la nomenclature zoologique 
du Nuzhatu-'l-Kulub, in BSOS, vi (1930-2), 
555-80; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Kutahya Sehri, Istanbul 
1932 ; A. Antalffy, Calatoria lui Evlia Celebi prin 
Moldava in anul i6$g, in Buletinul Comisiei 
Istorice a Romdniei, xii (1933); J. Deny, Les 
peregrinations du muezzin Evliya Tchelebi en 
Roumanie (XVII" siecle), in Melanges offerts a M. 
Nicolas lorga, Paris 1933; Mehmed Halid, Evliya 
Celebi'ye gore Azerbaycan sehirleri, in Azerbaycan 
Yurt Bilgisi (Istanbul), ii (1933); I- Spathares, *H 
Auxix-J) ©pdixY) xaxa xov 'E(3Xiyia ToeXeTCYjv, 
nspiTjYTjTrjv tou XVII ai&vo;, in ©paxixa, iv 
(1933); R. Bleichsteiner, Die kaukasischen Sprach- 
proben in Evliya Celebi 's Seyahetname, in Caucasica, 
xi (1934), 84-126; P. Wittek, Das Fiirstentum 
Mentesche, Istanbul 1934; H. G. Farmer, Turkish 
instruments of music in the seventeenth century, in 
JRAS 1936, 1-43; H. Wilhelmy, Hochbulgarien, 
Kiel 1935-6; A. Sakisian, Abdal Khan, Seigneur 
kurde de Bitlis au XV IP s. et ses tresors, in J A, 
ccxiix (1937), 253-70; I. Spathares, (MsTa<ppa<Jii;) 
'H 'AvaxoAix-rj ©paxY) xara tov Toupxov 
TOptT)YT)TT)v tou XVII aieovoi; 'EpXiyw Tae- 
XefXTCTjv, in ©paxixa, vii (1937); F. Babinger, 
Rumelische Streifen (Albania), Berlin 1938; H. J. 
Kissling, Einige deutsche Sprachproben bei Evliya 
Celebi, in Leipziger Vierteljahrsschrift fur Siid- 
osteuropa, ii (1938); V. Garbouzova, Evliya 
Tchelebi stir les joaillers turcs au XVII' s., in 
Travaux du Dipartement Oriental, Musee de 
I'Ermitage, Leningrad, iii (1940); F. Bajraktarevic, 
Turk-Yugoslav kultiir miinasebetleri, in Ikinci Turk 
Tarih Kongresi 1937, Istanbul 1943; A. Bombaci, 
// viaggio in Abissinia di Evliya Celebi (1673), m 
AIUON, n.s. ii (1943), 259"75; P. Darvingov, Un 
grand voyageur turc, in LaBulgarie of 16 May 1943; 
F. Babinger, Beitrage zur Fruhgeschichte der Turken- 
herrschaft in Rumelien, Briinn 1944; I A, art. 
Evliya Celebi (M. Cavid Baysun); H. W. Duda, 
Balkanturkische Studien (Oskiib), Vienna 1949; 
R. F. Kreutel, Ewlija Celebis Bericht uber die 
turkische Grossbotschaft des Jahres 166$ in Wien, 
in WZKM, li (1948-52), 188-242; M. Cavid Baysun, 
Evliya Celebi'ye ddir notlar, in TM, xii (1955); 
A. Bombaci, Storia delta letteratura turca, Milan 
1956; H. J. Kissling, Beitrage zur Kenntnis 



EWLIYA CELEBI — EWRENOS OGHULLARl 



Thrakiens im 17. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden 1956; 
R. F. Kreutel, Im Seiche des goldenen Apfels 
(Vienna), Graz 1957; M. Eren, Evliya Celebi Seya- 
hatnamesi birinci cildinin kaynaklari iizerinde bit 
arashrma, Istanbul i960; C. B. Ashurbeyli, Seydl 
name EvliyaCelebi kak istocnik po izuceniyu sotsi 
no-ekonomiceskoi i politUeskoi istorii gorodov A . 
baydfana v pervoy polovine XVII veka (The Seyahat- 
ndme of Evliyd Celebi as a source for the study of 
the social-economic and political history of the towns 
of Azerbaydjdnin the first half of the 17th century), 
Papers of the Soviet delegation to the XXV Inter- 
national Congress of Orientalists, Moscow i960; 
Ewliya Celebi, Kniga puteshestviya: perevod i kom- 
mentarii, i, Zemli Moldavii i Ukraini, Moscow 
1961. Other references in Pearson, p. 277, and 

Supp., p. 84. (J. H. M0RDTMANN-[H. W. DUDAJ) 

EWRENOS, (GhazI Evrenos) makes his appear- 
ance in history after the emirate of Karast had been 
occupied by the Ottomans (after 735/1334-5), and 
given by sultan Orkhan as timar to his eldest son 
Suleyman Pasha, into whose service came the begs 
of the amirs of Karast, HadjdjI il-Begi, Edje Beg, 
GhazI FSdil and Evrenos. According to the genealo- 
gical tree of the family, confirmed by a deed of 
wakf (published by O. L. Barkan, in Vakiflar Dergisi, 
ii, Ankara 1942, 342-3), the father of Evrenos is said 
to have been c Isa Beg, later called Prangi because 
he died in the village of that name; his son had a 
mausoleum built there and established a wakf. The 
name of Evrenos can be found listed among the 
reinforcements sent by Orkhan under the command 
of his son to Cantacuzenus, to support him in his 
struggle against John V Palaeologus. But it is 
particularly from the moment when Suleyman 
Pasha (d. 759/1359) crossed the Dardanelles that one 
can follow continuously the history of Ghazi 
Evrenos in the accounts of the Ottoman historians. 
Installed in the fortress of Konur Hisarl, near 
Gallipoli, beside HadjdjI ll-Begi, Evrenos took part 
with the latter in raids on the region of Dimetoka 
[q.v.] and distinguished himself personally by 
occupying Keshan and laying waste Ipsala. Hence- 
forward his name was to be associated with the 
history of the conquest of Rumeli, where he made 
himself famous by his raids. After Orkhan's death 
Evrenos tookpart, with HadjdjI Il-Begi, in the capture 
of Edirne by Murad I (763/1362), who next sent him 
to occupy the towns of Ipsala and Gumuldjina 
(Komotini) in Thrace, and appointed him udj-begi 
of the conquered territories. He was present at the 
battle of Sirp-Sindighl, and later, in 772/1371, at 
that of Tchernomen (Cirmen) or of the Maritza, 
which brought disaster to the Serbs and their allies 
and opened the gates of Macedonia to the Turks. 
As a result, Evrenos was sent to conquer Feredjik 
(Pherrai) in 1372, and then, while the Turks took 
Kavala, Drama, Zichna, Series and Karaferya 
(Yenidje-i Vardar), he himself occupied the regions 
of Pori (Peritheorion), Iskedje (Xanthi), Maronea 
( c Awret Hisarl) from which he levied kharddj (1373). 
As a reward, the sultan gave him the region of Serres 
which he had subjected and of which he became 
udj-begi (in 784/1382 or 787/1385)- He then took part 
in the occupation of Greater Macedonia, capturing 
Yenidje-i Vardar and Monastir and, under the 
command of the vizier Candarll Khayr al-DIn Pasha, 
assisted in the campaign against king Balsha II of 
Albania, which came to an end with the death of 
that prince (1385)- Evrenos next went on the 
Pilgrimage, and on his return was granted an 
important fief by the sultan; the fermdn bestowed 



on him by Murad I on this occasion was for a long 
time erroneously considered to be apocryphal; it has 
been the subject of various publications (Diez, 
Denkwiirdigkeiten von Asien, ii, Berlin 1815, 101-32; 
cf. Ferldun, Munshd'at al-saldtin', i, 87-8). During 
the last campaign of Murad I, Evrenos was the 
sultan's adviser. He distinguished himself by oc- 
cupying Oskiib (Skoplje), and then, before the 
Kossovo campaign, by crushing the enemy in a pass, 
thereby allowing the Turkish army to cross the 
Morava. On his accession Bayezld I (1389-1402), by 
a berdt dated Muharram 793/December 1390, con- 
firmed Evrenos in the possession of the fief previously 
granted him by his father. On behalf of the new 
sultan, Evrenos occupied Vodena and Kitros and led 
several incursions into Albania. In 1391 he took part 
in the Morea campaign. In 1396 he was present at 
the battle of Nicopolis (Nigbolu), where he was head 
of the akindjis. Afterwards, as a result of the victory 
of Nicopolis, he made further raids into Albania and 
took part in the invasions of Hungary and Wallachia, 
where Bayezld sent him to parley with the enemy; 
next, with Ya c kub Beg, he made his way into the 
Morea and captured Corinth and the fortress of 
Argos (1397). He was present at the battle of Ankara 
and then, during the interregnum, went into the 
service of Suleyman Celebi, assisting him in his 
campaign against the Karaman-oghlu, whom he 
besieged in Aksaray. On Siileyman's death, fearing 
reprisals from Musa Celebi, he retired to Yenidje-i 
Vardar and feigned blindness. In the fratricidal 
struggle between Musa and Mehemmed, Evrenos 
and the begs of Rumeli who were discontented with 
the former took sides with Mehemmed and helped 
him to overcome his brother. Evrenos died in 820/ 
1417 at a very great age at Yenidje-i Vardar, which 
had become his family's residence (Yenidje-i Vardar 
was called "Evrenos Beg yoresi" : cf. Ewliya Celebi, 
ix, 47). In the time of Murad I, Evrenos had already 
become one of the greatest feudatories of the Ottoman 
empire. The extent of the lands belonging to him 
had become legendary ( c Ali, Kiinh, v, 75 ; Beausejour, 
Tableau du commerce de la Grece, i, m ff.). The 
Ottoman historians also refer to his great generosity; 
he devoted a large part of his wealth to charitable 
foundations. Together with the MIkhal-oghullari, the 
Malkodj-oghullari and the Turakhan-oghullari. [qq.v.], 
the descendants of Evrenos constitute the four 
ancient families of the Ottoman warrior nobility. 
Bibliography (in addition to works quoted 
above); 'Ashlkpashazade, ed. c AlI, 51, 53, 54, 57, 
58, 60, 61, 63 (= Osmanh Tarihleri, i, Istanbul 
1946, 125-8, 130-2, 135); Neshrl, edd. Unat and 
Koymen, i and ii, passim; Die altosmanischen 
anonymen Chroniken, tr. F. Giese, 25, 30, 31, 34, 
35, 68, 70; Chalcocondyles, Bonn ed., 79-80, 97-9, 
175, 181; Ducas, Bonned., 50; Phrantzes, Bonn 
ed., 62-3, 83; Epirotica, Bonn ed., 234, 236; 
Hamld Wehbl, Ghazi Evrenos Beg, Meshdhir-i 
Islam, Istanbul 1301-2, 801-40; c Othman Ferld, 
Evrenos Beg Khdneddnina 'dHd temlikndme-i 
humdyun, in TOEM, vi (1915), 432-8; N. Joiga, 
GOR, i, Gotha 1908; I. H. Danismend, Izahh Os- 
manh tarihi kronolojisi, i, Istanbul 1947, 12, 27, 
39-40, 47, 56, 64, 77, 95, 108, 112, 156, 160, 163, 
165; IA, s.v. Evrenos (by I. H. Uzuncarsili); 
T. Gokbilgin, XV -XV I asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa 
livdsi, Istanbul 1952, 23, 69, 155, 220, 269, 271, 364. 

(I. MSlikoff) 
EWRENOS OGHULLARl. Ghazi Evrenos had 

and the wakf deeds, and several daughters, one of 



EWRENOS OGHULLARl — EYALET 



721 



whom married the Grand Vizier Candarli Khalil 
Pasha and became the mother of Bayezid II's 
Grand Vizier, Candarli Ibrahim Pasha. Two of his 
sons became famous in history, c Ali and c Isa. c Ali 
was at first head of the akindjis under the command 
of his father, then sandjak begi. During the inter- 
regnum he adopted the cause of Musa Celebi, and 
was sent by him to join his father who was living in 
retirement at Yenidje-i Vardar; but on the advice of 
Evrenos he went into the service of Mehemmed 
Celebi. When Mehemmed died, the sons of Evrenos, 
like the other begs of Rumeli, joined the cause of 
the pretender known as Mustafa Diizme [q.v.]; but 
at Ulubad they forsook him and went over to 
Murad II. They were pardoned, and the sultan 
confirmed their possession of the fief granted to 
Evrenos by Murad I. In 833/1430, when Murad II 
was storming Salonika, c Ali Beg won distinction by 
inciting the assailants with promises of booty. In 
838/1434-5 he headed a raid into Albania and 
returned laden with booty. In 1437 he was sent with 
the akindjis to make a reconnaissance raid in 
Hungary; he came back after a month, loaded with 
spoils, and advised the sultan to invade the country. 
In 845/1441 he laid siege to Belgrade, but the 
akindjis were defeated by the Hungarians and the 
Turks had to withdraw. During the revolt of the 
Albanians under the leadership of George Castriotes 
Iskender Beg (1443-68) [q.v.], he several times 
commanded the Turkish forces sent against the rebel. 
In 866/1462 he took part with his two sons Ahmed 
and Evrenos in the campaign in Wallachia, in which 
he was leader of the akindjis. He died after this date ; 
his tomb is at Yenidje-i Vardar. 

His brother c Isa Beg was, like him, leader of the 
akindjis. In 826/1423 he was sent on a reconnais- 
sance raid into Albania by Murad II, who was just 
about to undertake his campaign in Albania and the 
Morea; he headed several other raids into Albania, 
one in 841/1438 and another in 846/1442. In 847/1443 
he was at the battle of Jalovats which saw the defeat 
of the Turks by John Hunyadi. During the reign 
of Mehemmed II, he took part in the Serbian 
campaign in 858/1454 and occupied the small fort 
of Tirebdje. In the following year he was sent into 
Albania and won a victory over Iskender Beg at 



on the campaign in Wallachia in 866/1462; Evrenos 
was sent on a raid to the frontier of Moldavia; the 
former, whose name occurs in numerous archive- 
documents, was in 870/1466 beg of the sandjak of 
Trikkaia, and then of Semendria; in 883/1478 he 
took part in the siege of Shkodra in Albania and was 
afterwards appointed head of the garrison left in 
the fort. A year before his death (903/1498), he 
established a wakf of which his son Musa was put 
in trust; his other two sons, 'Isa and Siileyman, had 
died in 893/1488 at the battle of Agha-Cayirl, against 
the Mamluks. 

Other descendants of Evrenos are recorded at the 
beginning of the 9th/i6th century, notably Mehem- 
med, son of c Isa b. Evrenos, sandjak-begi of Elbasan, 
who captured Durazzo in 907/1502; and Yflsuf, 
grandson of Khidr-Shah b. Evrenos, who was present 
on Selim I's Egyptian campaign. The Evrenos 
family, who won their fame by their raids in Rumeli, 
lost their importance as military leaders after the 
middle of the ioth/i6th century. This family, which 
played a great part in the rise of the Ottoman 
empire, remained, throughout the course of history, 
one of the most prominent by reason both of its 
territorial possessions and also of the statesmen to 
which it gave birth. 

Bibliography: 'Ashikpashazade, ed. 'All, 84, 
106, 118, 123-4, 162, 224 (= Osmanh Tarihleri, i, 
Istanbul 1946, 148, 157-8, 160, 164, 173, 176-7, 
196); Neshri, edd. Unat and Koymen, ii, 557, 
561, 563, 567, 579, 611, 621-3; Die altosmanischen 
anonymen Chroniken, trans. F. Giese, 75, 79, 88-9; 
Ibn Kemal, Tewdrikh-i Al-i 'Othmdn, VII. defter, 
ed. S. Turan, Ankara 1954, 215, 219, 608-9; 
Dursun Beg, Ta'rikh-i Abu 'l-Fath, TOEM supp., 
Istanbul 1330, 105; Chalcocondyles, Bonn, 181, 
217-9, 247, 250-1, 257, 308, 432, 448-50; Ducas, 
Bonn, 197; Hamid Wehbi, Evrenoszdde l All Beg, 
Meshdhir-i Islam, Istanbul 1301-2, 945-6; N. Jorga, 
GOR, i and ii, Gotha 1908-9; A. Gegaj, VAlbanie 
et I'invasion turque au XV siicle, Paris 1937; 
I. H. Danismend, Izahh Osmanh Tarihi Kronolojisi, 
i, Istanbul 1947, 189, 190, 203, 204, 206, 209, 
220, 275, 279, 281, 302, 341, 343, 410; Evrenos 
ogullari, in IA (by I. H. Uzuncarsih). 

(I. Melikoff) 



r~ 



"IT 



Khidr-shah c Isa Siileyman 

I I 

1 Mehemmed 

Celebi Mehemn 



YQsuf 



i 1 1 

Evrenos Shems al-DIn Ahmed Hiiseyn 



i 

Siileyman 



Berat. In 867/1463 he was involved in the incidents 
in the Morea which led to the Turco- Venetian war. 
In 884/1479, together with C A1I and Iskender Mikhal- 
oghlu and Bali Malkodj-oghlu, he led the raid into 
Transylvania which ended in the massacre of the 
Turks who, too avid for loot, allowed themselves to 
be taken unawares and were crushed by the volvode 
Stephen Bathori. He died after this date; his tomb 
is at Yenidje-i Vardar, and also a mosque and an 
Hmdret founded by him. 

The two sons of c Ali Evrenos-oghlu, Shems al-DIn 
Ahmed and Evrenos, were present with their father 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



EXEGESIS [see tafsir]. 

EXISTENCE [see wudjud'J. 

EXORCISM [see rukya]. 

EXPENDITURE [see nafaka]. 

EXPIATION [see kaffara]. 

EXTRA-TERRITORIALITY [see 11 

EYALET, from the Arabic iydla, "management, 
administration, exercise of power" (cf. Turkish trans- 
lation of Firuzabadl's Kdmus by c Asim, Istanbul 1250/ 
1834, iii, 135); in the Ottoman empire the largest ad- 
ministrative division under a beglerbegi [q.v.], gover- 
nor-general. In this sense it was officially used after 
46 



1000/1591. The assumption that under Murad III 
the empire was divided up into eydlets (M. d'Ohsson, 
Tableau general de Vempire ottoman, vii, 277) must be 
an error since the term does not occur in the docu- 
ments of the period. Instead we always find begler- 
begilik and wildyet (wildya). Beglerbegilik was then 
the proper term for this administrative division, 
while wildyet designated any governorship, large or 
small (cf. Suret-i Defter-i Sancdk-i Arvanid, ed. H. 
Inalcik, Ankara 1954, index; U. Heyd, Ottoman 
documents on Palestine, Oxford i960, 50). As a term 
designating the territory of a beglerbegilik, eydlet 
must have been adopted by 1000/1591, while begler- 
begilik continued to be used rather for the office of 
a beglerbegi. 

In early Ottoman history the beglerbegi was the 
commander-in-chief of the provincial forces, in 
particular timariots, and as such the institution was 
directly connected with that of the beglerbegi, 
commander-in-chief, found with the Seldjukids and 
Ilkhanids (cf. F. Koprulii, Bizans muesseselerinin Os- 
manh miiesseselerine tesiri, in THITM, i (1931), 
190-5 [Ital. tr. Alcune osservazioni . . ., Rome 1944]; 
I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanli devleti teskildtina medhal, 
Istanbul 1941, 59-60, 108). Orkhan during his 
father's reign, 'Ala' al-Din Pasha his brother and 
Siileyman Pasha his son during Or khan's reign, 
were considered as beglerbegi (cf. Sa c d al-Din, Tddj al- 
tawdrikh, i, Istanbul 1279/1862, 69). But Murad I 
[q.v.] made Shahln. his laid [q.v.], beglerbegi (under 
the Seldjukids some beglerbegis bore the title of 
laid, or the synonymous atabeg. In a passage in 
ROM's chronicle laid etmek means to appoint begler- 
begi), and set out for his historic conquests in 
Thrace. The conquered lands there were put under 
L515 Shahin's military responsibility while Ewrenos 
[q.v.] was made udi [q.v.] begi over the irregular ghdzi 
forces on the marches (Neshrl, Gihdnnumd, i, ed. 
Fr. Taeschner, Leipzig 1951, 54; Orudj, Tewdrikh-i 
Al-i '■Othmdn, ed. Fr. Babinger, Hanover 1925, 20, 
92). Thus the Ottoman beglerbegi became beglerbegi 
of Rumeli, and the rivalry between him and the 
udi-begis became an important factor of Ottoman 
history down to Mehemmed IPs time (cf. H. 
Inalcik, Fatih Devri, i, Ankara 1954, 57-8). But the 
beglerbegi of Rumeli was still the only beglerbegi, 
the actual commander-in-chief of the Ottoman army. 
In the period between 787/1385 and 789/1387 the 
vizier Candarll Khayr al-Din was made at the same 
time the commander-in-chief, with the title of pasha, 
of all the forces in Rumeli [q.v.] while the Sultan 
himself had to stay in Anatolia. Thus the growing 
responsibilities in Rumeli and Anatolia, the two 
parts of the empire divided by the Straits (of 
which the Ottomans were not in complete control 
until the time of Mehemmed II), led to the creation 
of the two beglerbegiliks of Rumeli and Anadolu 
(Anatolia), which thereafter formed the backbone 
of the empire. In 795/1393 when Bayazid I had to 
leave Anatolia for Rumeli he appointed Kara 
Timurtash beglerbegi of Anadolu in Ankara (Neshrl, 
86). In his father's time Bayazid himself had been 
a governor on this udj area in Kiitahya. But the 
beglerbegi of Rumeli preserved his position of 
primacy in the state by being always considered as 
the first among the beglerbegis, having the exclusive 
right to sit with the viziers at Diwan [q.v.] meetings 
etc. (cf. Kdnunndme-i Al-i 'Othmdn, Mehemmed the 
Conqueror's code of laws, ed. M. 'Arif, suppl. of 
TOEM, 1330/1912, 13; Siileyman I confirmed these 
prerogatives in Muharram 942/July 1535, see Ferldun, 
Munsha'dt al-Sald(in, Istanbul 1274, 595; cf. also 



gdnun-i Mir-i Mirdn, in MTM, i (1331), 527). 
Mahmud Pasha under Mehemmed II and Ibrahim 
Pasha under Siileyman I both held the offices of 
Grand Vizier andbeglerbegi of Rumeli at the same time. 

It appears that further beglerbegiliks in Anatolia 
were founded subsequently according to the tradi- 
tional pattern. 

The farthest udi wildyets in Anatolia, which 
became the nuclei of the new beglerbegiliks, con- 
tinued to be assigned to the Ottoman royal princes. 
The third beglerbegilik, that of Rum in the Amasya- 
Tokat region, developed from an udi under the 
royal princes whose Idlds, responsible for the actual 
administration, bore the title of pasha and beglerbegi 
from Bayazid I's time (cf. H. Hiisam el-Din, Amasya 
ta'rikhi, iii, Istanbul 1927, 157-91). Timur's invasion 
and later on Shahrukh's threats (cf. article Murad II, 
in I A) made this region vitally important for the 
Ottomans, and the new conquests in Djanik and 
Trebizond were incorporated into it. Also put under 
a royal prince with his Idlds after its conquest in 
873/1468 (cf. article Mehmed II in I A) the 'wildyet 
of Karaman' (cf. Fatih devrinde Karaman eydleti 
vakiflan fihristi, ed. F. N. Uzluk, Ankara 1958, 
fac. 2) developed into a beglerbegilik later on 
(in 922/1516 Khiisrew Pasha was the beglerbegi). 
The development of the udi wildyet of Bosna into a 
beglerbegilik in Rumeli took more than a century 
from 867/1463 to 988/1580 (the process is examined 
in detail in the monograph by H. Sabanovic, Bosanski 
Palaluk, Sarajevo 1959). With some variation depen- 
dent on the particular conditions of the udi sandjaks 
and further conquests (cf. L. Fekete, Osmanh Tur- 
kleri ve Macarlar, in Belleten, xiii/52 (1949), 679- 
85), the Ottomans maintained the pre-conquest 
boundaries, especially in the first 'wildyet' stage 
(cf. H. Sabanovic, op. cit., 1-95; H. Inalcik, Suret-i 
Defter . . ., 33, 55, 75). Later on in reorganizing them 
as sandiaks [q.v.] and beglerbegiliks they acted more 
freely and fixed the boundaries according to the 



The conquests under Selim I were organized first 
as the wildyet of 'Ala' al-Dawla (conquered in 921/ 
1515), the wildyet of 'Arab which included Syria, 
Palestine, Egypt and the Hidjaz, and the wildyet of 
Diyar-Bakr (conquered in 923/1517, first survey in 
924/1518, cf. Barkan, Kanunlar, 145 and article Diyar- 
bekir in IA). In an Ottoman record of 926/1520 
(cf. 0. L. Barkan, H. 933-934 malt yilma ait bir 
butce drnegi, in 1st. Univ. Iktisat Fakiiltesi Mecmuasi, 
xv/1-4 (1953-4), 303-7) we then find the wildyets 
of Rumeli with 30 sandjaks, Anadolu with 20 
sandjaks, Karaman with 8 sandjaks, Rum (Amasya- 
Tokat) with 5 sandjaks, 'Arab with 15 sandjaks, 
Diyar-Bakr with 9 sandjaks (the names of the 
sandjaks are given). In addition 28 Kurdish diemd t ats 
in south-eastern Anatolia were mentioned as liwds 
(sandjaks). 

In the first years of the reign of Siileyman I events 
forced him to reorganize the wildyet of 'Arab into the 
beglerbegiliks of Haleb (Aleppo), Sham (Damascus) 
and Egypt (cf. Gibb-Bowen, i/i, 200-34; B. Lewis, 
Notes and documents from the Turkish Archives, 
Jerusalem 1952; S. J. Shaw, The financial and 
administrative organization and development of 
Ottoman Egypt, Princeton 1962, 1-19). The wildyet 
of 'Ala' al-Dawla too was put under an Ottoman 
beglerbegi in 928/1522 (cf. article Dulkadirhlar, in 
IA). In 940/1533 Siileyman I also created the 
beglerbegilik of Djeza'ir (Algeria) with the appoint- 
ment of Khayr al-Din Kapudan Pasha [q.v.]. The 
development of the sea udi into a beglerbegilik was 



precipitated by Andrea Doria's capture of Koron and 
the crusading activities of Charles V in the Medi- 
terranean. In the western reports of about 941/1534 
(Ramberti, A. Gritti in A. H. Lybyer, The govern- 
ment of the Ottoman Empire in the time of Suleiman the 
Magnificent, Cambridge, Mass., 1913, 255-61, 270-4) 
the beglerbegiliks in the Ottoman empire are listed as 
follows : Djeza'ir under the name of the beglerbegilik of 
the sea, Rumeli, Anadolu, Karaman, Amasya-Tokat, 
c Ala 3 al-Dawla, Diyar Bakr, Sham and Egypt. 

Further conquests under Siileyman I gave rise to 
the new beglerbegiliks: Adharbaydjan and Baghdad 
in 941/1534, Van in Radjab 955/August 1548, 
Erzurum in 941/1534, Ak6a-kal c a in Georgia in 
Sha'ban 956/September 1549 (cf. Feridun, op. cit., 
i, 586, 604, 606) in Asia; Budin in Djumada II 948/ 
August 1541, Temeshvar in 959/1552 in Europe (cf. 
Fekete, op. cit.). Thus in appointing beglerbegis on 
the spot immediately after the conquest Siileyman I 

In 976/1568 when a large scale expedition was 
planned in the Volga basin the sandjak of Kefe 
(Caffa) in the beglerbegilik of Rumeli was raised to a 
beglerbegilik (cf. H. Inalcik, Osmanh-Rus rekabetinin 
mensei, in Belleten, xii/46 (1948), 375 = The origin 
of the Ottoman-Russian rivalry . . ., in Ann. de VUn. 
d'Ankara, i (1946-7), 75). As, after its conquest, 
Cyprus had to be protected by large forces, Lefkosha 
(Nicosia) was made the centre of a beglerbegilik in 
979/1571, and, the sandjaks of 'Ala'iyye, Tarsus, 
Icel, Sis and Tarabulus-Sham (Syrian Tripoli) were 
attached to it. 

Of many beglerbegiliks created during the occupa- 
tion of the Caucasian lands between 986/1578 and 
999/1590 (cf. B. Kutiikoglu, Osmanh-Iran siydsi 
munasebetleri, Istanbul 1962) only those of Clldlr 
and Kars (created in 988/1580) remained after the 
Persian reaction under c Abbas I [q.v.]. 

In the list of c Ayn-i c Ali of 1018/1609 (Kawdnin-i 
Al-i 'Othmdn, Istanbul 1280) are mentioned thirty- 
two eydlets in the empire. Twenty-three of them were 
regular Ottoman eydlets subjected to the timar 
system. These were: Rumeli, Anadolu, Karaman, 
Budin, Temeshvar, Bosna, Djeza'ir-i Bahr-i Sefid 
[q.v.], Kibris, Dhulkadriyye (formerly 'Ala 1 al-Dawla 
or Mar'ash), Diyarbakr, Rum (Amasya-Tokat or 
Sivas), Erzurum, Sham, Tarabulus-Sham. Haleb, 
Rakka, Kars, Cildlr, Trabzon, Kefe, Mosul, Van, 
Shehrizur. Nine eydlets were with sdlydne [q.v.], that is 
to say the tax revenues were not distributed as 
tlmars but collected directly for the Sultan's treasury; 
the beglerbegi, soldiers and all the other func- 
tionaries were assigned salaries from the annual 
tax collection of the eydlet. The eydlets with sdlydne 
were: Misr (Egypt), Baghdad, Yemen, Habesh 
(Eritrea), Basra, Lahsa, Djeza'ir-i Gharb (Algeria), 
Tarabulus-Gharb (Tripolitania), Tunus (Tunis). (See 
further mustethna eyaletler). 

In the list given by Koci Beg about 1640 (Risdle, 
ed. A. K. Aksut, Istanbul 1939, 99-103) the only 
difference is the addition of the eydlet of Ozii which 
had been created by then primarily with the purpose 
of stopping the continuing Cossack attacks on the 
Black Sea coasts. It included the sandjaks on the 
western coasts of the Black Sea and the Danube. 
In both lists the eydlets of Kanizha (Kanizsa) and 
Egri (Eger) are missing though these were created 
after their conquest in 1004/1596 (cf. Fekete, op. cit., 
681). In Katib Celebi's Djihdnniimd (ed. Ibrahim 
Muteferrika, Istanbul 1145/1732, and trans. J. von 
Hammer, Rumeli und Bosna, Vienna 1812) we find 
the same eydlets with the differences that Mar'ash 



-ET 723 

for Dhulkadriyye, Sivas for Rum, Konya for Karaman 
are mentioned, and the eydlet of Adana is added. 

The term of eydlet for beglerbegilik appeared by the 
end of the ioth/i6th century. We find it in the pre- 
vious documents in its general meaning (cf . Feridun, 
i, 614). Also in the new period the important eydlets 
were assigned to beglerbegis of the rank of vizier, 
with three tughs (cf. Gibb-Bowen, i/i, 139-41), who 
had some authority over the neighbouring begler- 
begis of two tughs. Also now the general tendency was 
to create smaller beglerbegiliks which were required 
to cope with certain military situations. Such was 
the case with the small beglerbegiliks set up in 
Georgia and Adharbaydjan after 986/1578. In Syria 
a fourth eydlet, that of Sayda', was created in 1023/ 
1614 for the better control of the area (cf. U. Heyd, 
op. cit., 45-8). 

An eydlet was composed of sandjaks (Hands) under 
sandjak-begis and, as a sandjak was always the basic 
administrative unit, the beglerbegi himself was at 
the head of a sandjak called pasha sandiaghi. It 
included certain centrally located towns and districts 
in each sandjak as his khdss (see timar). 

The main responsibilities of a beglerbegi were 
summarized in berdts (diplomas) of assignment (see 
for example the berat of c Isa Beg in Feridun, i, 269; 
for its date cf. H. Inalcik, Fatih devri, Ankara 1954, 
77; also see Kdnun-i mir-i mirdn, in MTM, i, 
527-8). Representing the executive power of the 
sultan on all matters (umur-i siydset) in the 
eydlet and called in this capacity wall of it, he 
enforced the kadi's decisions and the Sultan's orders. 
He was also entitled to give decisions in the 
diwan under him (beglerbegilik diwdni) on matters 
concerning the persons of '■askeri [see c askarI] 
status. But the beglerbegis with the rank of vizier 
had larger and more absolute powers (cf. MTM, i, 
528). The beglerbegi's main administrative respon- 
sibility was to maintain public security, and pursue 
those who broke the law and opposed the Sultan's 
orders (for their ceremonial privileges see MTM, 
i, 527-8). It should be emphasized that the kddi and 
mdl defterddri [see daftardar] in an eydlet were 
independent of the beglerbegis in their decisions, and, 
could apply directly to the central government. 
Also the aghas of the Janissary garrisons in the 
main cities were independent of the beglerbegis, who 
could never enter the fortresses under the Janissaries' 
guardianship. These restrictions and frequent 
changes of their posts were obviously designed to 
prevent beglerbegis from becoming too independent. 

The Beglerbegilik-eydlet was essentially based on 
the timdr system and a beglerbegi was responsible 
primarily for the army of timariot sipdhis in his 
eydlet. Under his command it was the largest military 
unit in the imperial army. It was the beglerbegi's 
responsibility to bring it to the Sultan's army in 
perfect condition. The appointment and promotions 
of the sipdhis depended on him. He was entitled to 
grant timdrs up to a certain amount (cf. c Ayn-i 'All, 
op. cit., 61-81). Two high officials, the defter-ketkhu- 
ddsi and timdr-defterddri under him, were responsible 
for these affairs. The copies of the idjmdl and mufassal 
defters, basic record-books of timdrs drawn up for 
each sandjak, were sent by the Sultan to the eydlets 
(H. Inalcik, Suret-i Defter, xxi; Heyd, op. cit., 48). 

But in the period of decline when the central 
authority weakened the whole system deteriorated. 
In some distant eydlets the Janissaries obtained 
effective control and constituted ruling castes, as was 
the case in the North African provinces and Baghdad. 
In Egypt, however, it was the Mamluk begs who 



EYALET — EZRA 



finally seized the actual control (cf. Shaw, op. cit., 184- 
5,316). In the eydlets of Eastern Anatolia the Janis- 
saries' attempt to seize power failed before the violent 
reaction of the provincial forces and the Djaldlis 
(see Supplement, s.v.) under Abaza Mehmed Pasha 
[q.v.]. But it was the disorganization of the timar 
system that brought about fundamental changes 
in the eydlets. Now an important part of the tax 
revenues was not distributed as timdrs, but reserved 
directly for the Sultan's treasury, and farmed out 
to the tax-farmers; it then became a widespread 
practice to assign governorships with the governor 
himself farming the taxes, a practice applied previous- 
ly in some distant eydlets like Egypt. Thus on his 
appointment the governor guaranteed to deliver to the 
treasury a certain amount of money as the province's 
tax revenue. Also governors in general were encour- 
aged by the Sultan to maintain forces at their own 
expense. It was principally these developments that 
prepared the way for the emergence of autonomous 
eydlets in the I2th/i8th century. In the same period 
local magnates called a'ydn [q.v.] acquired power in 
the eydlets, since the governors were actually power- 
less without their cooperation. Despite the Sultan's 
efforts to reserve the rank of pasha for his own 
men, some of these a'-ydn managed to obtain gover- 
norships and even to found real provincial dynasties 
not only in the remoter provinces but also in 
Anatolia and Rumeli [see derebey]. 

In 1227/1812 Mahmud II [q.v.] opened war against 
the pashas and a'-ydn of this type to re-establish the 
authority of the central government in the provinces, 
and after 1241/1826 reorganized them as miishiriyyet 
(mushiriyya) giving the miishirs large powers in 
military as well as financial affairs with a view to 
organizing the new army (cf. Lutfi, Ta'rikh, v, 107, 
172). With the proclamation of the Tanzimdt [q.v.] in 
1255/1839 financial affairs in the eydlets were made 
the exclusive responsibility of the muhassils, and 
later on important changes under Western influence 
were introduced in the provincial administration: 
administrative councils were set up in the pro- 
vinces sharing the governors' responsibilities, and 
most of the eydlets were reduced in size (see especi- 
ally the sdlndmes (state year books) published since 
1263/1847). The eydlet system was finally replaced 
by that of wildyet [q.v.] in 1281/1864. 

(Halil Inalcik) 

EYLCL [see ta'rikh]. 

EYMIR (EymOr), name of an Oghuz tribe 
(boy). They are mentioned in a legendary account 
of the pagan Oghuz as being the only tribe of the 
Ui-ok group from whom sprang ruleis, but the 
historical references to them so far known go back 
only to the ioth/i6th century, when they formed 
part of Turkmen confederations in the Ottoman 
Empire, in Persia, and south-east of the Caspian Sea. 

(1) The Eymir of the Ottoman domains were in 
two main branches, the one living among the Turk- 
men of Aleppo, the other with the Dulkadirll con- 
federation (ulus). The former consisted, in the reign 



of Suleyman I, of four clans (oymak); later in the 
ioth/i6th century their numbers increased, to form 
11 clans. At this period another c'an of this branch 
was found among the Yeni-il tribesfolk south of 
Sivas. After the second siege of Vienna (1683), the 
Eymir, like other Tiiikmen groups, were required 
to seive in the war with Austria. A little later an 
unsuccessful attempt was made to settle a large 
group of the Turkmen of Aleppo, the Eymir among 
them, in the Hama-riims region; their populstion 
is recoided in the I2th/i8th century as 500 tents. 
The Eymir living among the Dulkadirll were much 
more numerous, those of the Mar'ash region alone 
comprising, in the third decade of the ioth/i6th 
century, 49 clans. Like the other groups constituting 
the Dulkadirll confederation, these Eymir were 
half-settled, engaging in agriculture in theii winter 
camping-grounds and growing lice. During the nth/ 
17th century they became completely settled in the 
Mar c ash- c Ayntab region. Some scattered clans of 
this group were then living in other areas occupied 
by the Dulkadirll confederation — in the sandjaks of 
Kars (Kadirli) and Bozok, among the Boz-ulus, and 

Small communities named Eyrmirlu and Eymiirler 
were found in the regions of Sogiit, Aydln and 
Adana, but they took their name probably not from 
the tribe but from individuals (Eymir/Imir was a 
common personal name in the 9th/i5th and ioth/i6th 
centuries). 'Eymir' or 'Eymtir' is a common village- 
name in central and western Turkey, particularly 
around Sivas, whence it appears that this tribe 
formed an important element among the Turkish 
immigrants into Anatolia. 

(2) The Eymir of Persia belonged to the Dhu 
'1-Kadr confederation, dwelling in Ears, which was 
one of the seven great Kizil-bash tribes upon which 
depended the power of the Safawid dynasty. The 
Dhu '1-Kadr tribe was a branch of the .Dhu '1-Kadr/ 
Dulkadirll confederation of Anatolia, from whence 
it had migrated to Persia. 

(3) Eymir were found in the ioth/i6th century 
also among the Sayin Khanlu Turkmen dwelling 
along the rivers Atrak and Diurdian north of 
Astarabad. Upon their submission to Shah c Abbas, 
their chief C A1I Yar was appointed governor of 
Astarabad, with the title of Khan; after his death 
in about 1005/1596, his son Muhammad Yar suc- 
ceeded him. A remnant of these Eymir, numbering 
some 200 households, is still living in this region. 

Bibliography: V. V. Barthold (tr. V. and 
T. Minorsky), Four studies on the history of Central 
Asia, iii, Leiden 1962, index (s.v. Eymiir); F. 
Stimer, Anadolu'da yasayan bazt Vfoklu Oguz 
boylarma mensup tesekkuller, in Istanbul Un. 
Iktisat Fak. Mecm., xi (1949-50), 459-66. 

(Faruk SttMER) 
EYYCB [see Istanbul]. 
EZEKIEL [see jnzulL]. 
EZELI [see azali]. 
EZRA [see idris, c uzayr]. 



FA' — FADAK 



FA 3 , 20th letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed 
/; numerical value 80, as in the Syriac (and Canaanite) 
alphabet [see abdjad]. 

Definition: fricative, labio-dental, unvoiced; ac- 
cording to the Arabic grammatical tradition: 
rikhwa, shafawiyya (or shafahiyya), mahmusa; f is a 
continuation of a p in ancient Semitic and common 
Semitic. For the phonological oppositions of the 
phoneme /, see J. Cantineau, Esquisse, in BSL 
(no. 126), 94, i°; for the incompatibilities, ibid., 134. 

Modifications: some examples exist of the 
passage of / to th, as in the doublet: nukaf and 
nukdth "tumour on a camel's jaw" (a less frequent 
passage than the reverse: th>f); see al-Kall, 
Amdli 1 , ii, 34-5, Ibn Djinni's critique, Sirr sind'a, 
i, 250-1. This passage probably explains the existence 
of thumm "mouth" (nomad) > Umm (sedentary), in 
modern Syro-Lebanese dialects, side by side with 
fumm (the expected form) in central Syria (see 
A. Barthelemy, Diet. Ar.-Fr., 93 and 622). 

(H. Fleisch) 

FABLE [see ijikaya, sissa, mathal]. 

FAPA'IL [see fapila] 

FADAK, an ancient small town in the northern 
Hidjaz, near Khaybar and, according to Yakut, 
two or three days' journey from Medina. This 
place-name having disappeared, Hafiz Wahba in 
his Diazirat al-'Arab (Cairo 1956, 15) identified 
the ancient Fadak with the modern village of 
al-Huwayyit (pron. Howeyat), situated on the edge 
of the harra of Khaybar. Inhabited, like Khaybar. 
by a colony of Jewish agriculturists, Fadak produced 
dates and cereals; handicrafts also flourished, with 
the weaving of blankets with palm-leaf borders. 

Fadak owes its fame in the history of Islam to the 
fact that it was the object of an agreement and a 
particular decision by the Prophet, and that it gave 
rise to a disagreement between Fatima [q.v .] and the 
caliph Abu Bakr, the consequences of which were 
to last more than two centuries. When, in 5/627, 
Muhammad took his well-known measures against the 
Banu Kurayza [q.v.], the Jews of Khaybar and the 
neighbourhood became alarmed and secretly at- 
tempted to form a league in the expectation of an 
attack; a hayy of the Banu Sa'd living in the vicinity 
then offered them help, but Muhammad sent about 
a hundred men commanded by C A1I against this 
hayy in Sha c ban 6/December 627-January 628; the 
expedition was reduced to a raid. In the following 
year, Muhammad marched against Khaybar, and the 
Jews of Fadak, frightened by the news of his 
victories, agreed to hold discussions with a view to 
concluding an agreement with the Prophet's envoy, 
Muhayyisa b. Mas c ud al-Ansari, even going so far 
as to propose giving up all their possessions provided 
that Muhammad allowed them to depart. An initial 
agreement was followed by a second pact granted by 
Muhammad, sometimes overlooked by the sources 
(e.g. the K. al-Kharddj): they were to remain in 
Fadak while giving up half their lands and half 
the produce of the oasis; on this point al-Baladhuri 
(Futuh, 29) is explicit: 'aid nisf al-ard bi-turbatihd 
(the emendation suggested in the Glossary, bi- 



thamaratihd, should be rejected). On the subject of 
the agreement with the Jews of Khaybar, the same 
author (Futuh, 23) uses a quite different expression: 
"'dmalahum [Muhammad] 'aid 'l-shatr min al-thamar 
wa 'l-habb", that is to say that he concluded an 
agreement with them for share-cropping, and sub- 
sequently confirms this condition in other khabars 
(ibid., 24, 25, 27; cf. 29; on the difference between 
the two agreements see also al-Bukharl, ed. Krehl, 
iii, 74; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, Cairo 1959, i, 58; al- 
Tabari, i, 1825 ; Ibn Abi '1-Hadid, Shark. Cairo 1959, 
vi, 46; al-Halabl, al-Sira al-halabiyya, Alexandria 
1280, iii, 172). Unlike the decision reached for 
Khaybar, where the produce, assigned to the Muslims, 
was shared annually, Fadak was allocated to Mu- 
hammad (khalifa lahu), who devoted the revenues 
from it to needy travellers (abnd> al-sabtt) and also 
for the maintenance of the least rich (saghir) of the 
Banu Hashim; the reason invoked to justify this 
measure was that Fadak had been acquired by treaty 
(sulh an ). Two other expeditions of limited impor- 
tance, in Sha c b5n 7/end of 628-beginning of 629, took 
place against the tribe of the Banu Murra who in 
summer lived near Fadak. 

It was after the Prophet's death that the disagree- 
ment between Fatima and Abu Bakr started. Fatima 
maintained that Fadak, like Muhammad's share of 
the produce from Khaybar, should come to her as 
her father's heiress; Abu Bakr, on the other hand, 
maintained that their attribution should remain 
exactly as Muhammad had settled it, since it was a 
question of sadakas (that is to say public property 
used for benevolent purposes, like the zakdt). The 
Prophet, he said, had stated that he would have no 
heirs (Id nurathu); what he left would be sadaka 
(ma taraknd, sadakaf"). C A1I supported his wife, and 
this question of inheritance aggravated his opposition 
to Abu Bakr. The caliph used a fatherly tone in his 
conversation with Fatima, but remained firm; he 
invited her to produce witnesses to testify to the 
donation which she claimed to have been made by 
her father ; but, as she could only produce her husband 
and a woman named Umm Ayman, he considered 
their evidence inadequate [see shahada], nevertheless 
admitting that an appropriate income must be 
guaranteed for the Prophet's family. The rejection 
of Fatima's claim appeared to be an injustice in the 
eyes of the ShI'a (see al-Sira al-halabiyya, iii, 607-9 
for their grounds for this belief and for a criticism of 
their arguments). After the failure of her claim, 
Fatima was unwilling to meet Abu Bakr again, and 
it was only after her death, some months after that 
of the Prophet, that c Ali consented to recognise the 
election of Abu Bakr and renounced the claims to 
Fadak. 

In the time of c Umar, the Jews living in the 
northern Hidjaz suffered a very severe blow: the 
caliph decided to expel them, since by this time 
the great number of slaves at the disposal of the 
Muslims allowed them to exploit all the fertile land 
in Arabia. While the Jews of Khaybar had to leave 
the oasis and emigrate to Syria without receiving 
any indemnity, those from Fadak were granted one, 



based on the valuation of their property. This fact 
confirms that the former were regarded simply as 
usufructuaries, so that the share-cropping agreement 
with them could thus be broken without compen- 
sation, whereas the rights of ownership of the latter 
to one half of the oasis were recognised. Even after 
the expulsion of the Jews, 'Umar used different 
methods for Khaybar and for Fadak: to the Muslims 
who had received from Muhammad a share in the 
produce from Khaybar (or to their heirs), he gave 
ownership of the land (rakabat al-ard, says al- 
Baladhuri, ibid., 26) in proportion; as regards Fadak, 
he did not change the system, and his immediate 
followed his example. However, this 
n by the majority of the sources is explained 
by a note which Yakut has preserved for us and 
Ibn Kathir has clarified with some details: when 
the Muslims, thanks to their conquests, had attained 
widespread prosperity, c Umar, guided by his idjtihdd, 
assigned Fadak to al-'Abbas and C A1I; these two 
men quarrelled bitterly, each maintaining his own 
right of possession, and c Umar left them to sort 
out the matter themselves; it seems that they parti- 
tioned the oasis — subsequently, however, there is 
no further mention of the rights of al- 'Abbas and 
his descendants to Fadak — and that one condition had 
been imposed by 'Umar, namely that Fadak had to 
remain a sadaka; consequently, in the caliph's view, 
c Ali and al-'Abbas had merely been the administrators 
of a charitable foundation. It is to be assumed, 
however, that since the Prophet had used the reve- 
nues of Fadak also to meet the needs of his family, 
'All, and the 'Alids after him, put the same inter- 
pretation upon the way in which the sadaka should 
be administered; thus is to be explained their per- 
sistence in claiming possession of the oasis, and the 
promptness with which the caliphs dispossessed them 
of it as soon as they went into opposition (see below). 
In later times it was not clearly understood what 
had happened; the uncertainty of the information is 
well explained by Yakut, according to whom the dis- 
agreement over the question of Fadak sprang from 
political passions ; and further evidence of this is to 
be found in the Kitdb al-'Abbasiyya of al-Diahiz 
(see Ibn Abi '1-Hadid, Sharh Nahaj al-baldgha, iv, 
98; RasdHl, ed. Sandubi, 300). Ibn Kathir {Biddya, 
iv, 203) confirms and explains the above account. 
According to some hadiths (e.g. al-Bukhari, ed. 
Krehl, ii, 271 f.), 'Umar assigned to 'All and to 
al-'Abbas the sadaka which the Prophet possessed 
at Medina, but retained Fadak and Khaybar. In 
any case, the change in the situation at Fadak 
took place after the expulsion of the Jews, for 
the government then had to look for the most 
convenient means of exploiting the land thus 
vacated. It was Mu'awiya who brought the oasis 
under private ownership by giving it as an iktd c 
to Marwan b. al-Hakam; however, he took it 
away from him during the years when he was in 
disgrace (from about 48/668 to 54/674), and then 
others vainly coveted it, since it produced an annual 
revenue of approximately 10,000 dinars (Ibn Sa'd, 
v, 286). Marwan, in his turn, gave it to his sons 'Abd 
al-'Aziz and c Abd al-Malik. When 'Umar II came 
to the throne, the whole property of Fadak was in 
his possession, since a share of it had been given him 
by his father 'Abd al-'Aziz, and he had gained 
possession of the shares belonging to al-Walid and 
Sulayman, c Abd al-Malik's heirs. He was thus able 
to proclaim in a speech in the mosque that he had 
restored Fadak to its original purpose, and he also 
told his hearers that the Prophet had refused to 



make a gift of Fadak to Fatima when she had asked 
him for it (this shows that he was acquainted with 
a hadith which described this incident). But he 
entrusted Fadak to Fatima's descendants, and it 
was they who administered it (Ibn al-Athlr, ii, 173, 
states this positively: fa-waliyahd awldd Fatima; 
Ibn Sa'd (v, 287) leaves matters vague; the other 
writers, perhaps being afraid to venture onto 
dangerous ground, say nothing about it). It is 
probable that 'Umar II had re-imposed the solu- 
tion adopted by 'Umar I for the Fadak ques- 
tion. It might be supposed that information on 
this point had been confused and that, instead of 
two decisions taken by the two 'Umars, there was 
in fact only one single decision, taken by one or 
other of them; but the sources are too specific with 
regard to the first decision, while the second fits 
well into the general picture of the measures adopted 
by 'Umar II for the purpose of ending the injustices 
inflicted on the 'Alids. 

This decision did not put an end to the vicissitudes 
of Fadak. Yazid b. 'Abd al-Malik took possession 
of the oasis, and it was the first of the 'Abbasids, al- 
Saffah, who restored Fadak to Fatima's descendants. 
The change was short-lived, for al-Mansur confiscated 
Fadak after the rebellion of Muhammad al-Nafs al- 
Zakiyya [q.v.] and Ibrahim [q.v.] ; the oasis reverted to 
the 'Alids in the caliphate of al-Mahdi, only to be once 
again seized by al-Hadl after the revolt of the 
'Alids with its tragic conclusion at al-Fakhkh [q.v.]. 
Finally, in 210/826, al-Ma'miin consented that it 
should be granted to Fatima's descendants who had 
come to make this request in the name of the family; 
he even caused his decree to be recorded in his 
diwdns. The long letter which he sent to his c dmil 
in Medina, preserved by al-Balatlhuri, shows us that 
the caliph imposed his decision while at the same 
time he attempted to support it by arguments for 
which, we can see clearly, he brought pressure to 
bear on the fakihs (al-Ya'kubi, ii, 573); however, he 
was so fully cognisant of the weakness of these 
arguments that, at the beginning of the letter, he 
boasted of his position in regard to the religion of 
Allah, his responsibility as the Prophet's representa- 
tive, his relationship with him, his fitness for applying 
the sunna, etc. But al-Ma'mun's third successor, al- 
Mutawakkil, did not respect his decree and once 
again devoted Fadak to its original purpose which 
Abu Bakr had sanctioned; we must conclude that, 
under the influence of the '■ulama', he renounced the 
arguments put forward by al-Ma'mun. Finally, al- 
Mas'udi (viii, 303) and Ibn al-Athlr (vii, 75) add a 
further point about the fate of Fadak: they tell us 
that the caliph al-Muntasir, son of al-Mutawakkil, 
once again restored Fadak to the 'Alids. 

To conclude, the question of Fadak' is interesting 
from the legal point of view (it proves that, from the 
earliest times of Islam, there was a very precise con- 
ception regarding the difference between private and 
collective property and an awareness of the duties and 
rights relating to each) ; it is moreover an example of 
the difficulties encountered by the rulers who 
respected the shari'-a when, for political motives, they 
proposed to modify a situation established by the 
Prophet and his immediate successors. 

Bibliography: Ibn Sa'd, i/i, 18, 65, i/ii, 183, 
Il/i, 65, 80, 82, 86, 91, Il/ii, 85-7, IH/i, 14, Hl/ii, 
83f.,V, 286 f., VIII, 18; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 
Cairo i373/i954,i, 9, 14, 25. 55, 58, 60, 78, 
etc. Baladhuri, Futiih, 20, 29-33; idem, Ansdb, 
ed. M. Hamid Allah, Cairo 1959, i, 519; Abu 
Yusuf, K. al- l£harddi, trans. Fagnan, 78 f. ; 



FADAK — FAPIL BEY 



m 



Yahya b. Adam, K. al-Kharddi, ed. Juynboll, 21, 

22, 27; Ibn Hisham, ed. Wiistenfeld, 764, 776, 779 

(English trans. A. Guillaume, 515-6, 523-5) ; Wakidi, 

Maghazi (Wellhausen) , 237, 291, 292, 296, 297; 

Tabari, i, 1556, 1583, 1589-92. 1825, 25941., ii, 

85; Ya'kubi, Historiae, ed. Houtsma, i, 296, ii, 78, 

142,265, 366, 573; Mas'udl, Murudj, iv, 158, v, 

66, vi, 55 f., vii, 303; idem, Tanbik, BGA, viii, 

247, 253, 258, 262, 264, 287 ft.; Ibn al-Athlr, ii, 

160, 169, 171-3, "i, 381, 413. v, 46, vii, 75; 

al-l<adl al-Nu c man. DaVim al-isldm, ed. Fyzee, 

Cairo 1370/1951, 4491.; Ibn Abi '1-Hadld, Shark 

Nahdj al-baldgha, iv, 88-106 (ed. Abu '1-Fadl 

Ibrahim, Cairo 1959, vi, 46-52 ff.). whose source 

on Fadak is the K. al-Sakifa of al-Djawhari; Ibn 

Kathir, Biddya, Cairo 1348-55, iv, 203; HalabI, al- 

Sira al-halabiyya, Alexandria 1280, iii, 607 f.; 

Bakri, Mu^am, ed. Wiistenfeld, 333, 706; Yakut, 

Mu'djam, iii, 855-8; Bukhari, ed. Krehl, ii, 271 f., 

iii, 131 , iv, 282 ; A. Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre 

des Muhammad, 2nd. ed., Berlin 1869, iii, 232 n. 2, 

277 n. 1; L. Caetani, Annali, 1 A.H., § 65, 5 A.H., 

§ 55, 6 A.H., § 17, 7 A.H., §§ 33, 46 n. 1, 47 and 

nn. 2 and 3, 48, 63, 64 and n. i, 8 A.H., § 32, 

9 A.H., § 51, 10 A.H., § 103, 11 A.H., §§ 202 and 

n. 1 (where the dates are incorrect) 203, 208, 20 

A.H., §§ 234, 235, 236, 237 n. 2, 239 and n. 1; 

I. Hrbek, Muhammads Nachlass und die Aliden, 

in ArO (1950), 43-9. On the way the question was 

developed in legend and hence in the ta'ziyas, 

see E. Rossi and A. Bombaci, Elenco dei drammi 

religiosi persiani {fondo mss vaticani Cerulli), 

Citta del Vaticano 1961, 45, 268, 316, 356, 678, 

802, 803, 996. (L. Veccia Vaglieri) 

FAPALA, town and port on the Atlantic coast 

of Morocco, 25 km. to the north-east of Casablanca, 

in the lands of the Zanata tribe. The origin of the 

name is unknown; the etymology given by Graberg 

de Hemso and by Godard (fayd Allah = "bounty of 

God") is obviously fanciful. The name is perhaps to 

be compared with that of a section of the neighbouring 

Ziyayda tribe, the Faddala. The toponym appears 

as early as al-Idrisi and the Genoese and Venetian 

portulans. It appears that Christian merchants 

visited the anchorage in the 14th and 15th centuries. 

— Sidi Muhammad b. <Abd Allah in 1186-7/1773, 

wishing to make Fadala a grain depot for the 

province of Tamasna, granted export privileges to 

the European merchants, but withdrew them the 

following year. He then accorded them to the 

Spanish company of "los cinco gremios mayores", 

who also held the monopoly of the trade of al-Dar 

al-Bayda 3 . The port was again abandoned in the 

19th century. It had only one basaba which, like the 

neighbouring kasaba of al-Mansuriyya, was used 

as a staging-post on the route from Rabat to 

Casablanca. 

The concession to build a small port was granted 
in 1914 to the French company Hersent freres. 
Today the port of Fadala, as an auxiliary to that of 
Casablanca, is principally a petrol port. The tonnage 
loaded was 90,000 tons in 1955, 36,000 in 1958; 
the tonnage unloaded was 331,000 tons in 1955, 
233,000 in 1958. 

The proximity of Casablanca has encouraged the 
introduction of a fair number of industries, and the 
population, mostly composed of workers who have 
migrated from the neighbouring countryside, has 
increased rapidly: in 1952 it was 25,189, of which 
20,880 were Muslim Moroccans, 449 Jewish Moroc- 
cans, and 3,860 were foreigners. In i960 (provisional 
census reports) it was 35,000, with 31,750 Muslims, 



150 Jews and 3,100 foreigners. The town has the 
status of a municipality. In 1379/1959 its name was 
changed by decree to al-Muhammadiyya, in honour 
of the reigning sovereign, Muhammad V. 

Bibliography: Idrisi, al-Maghrib, 81; E. de 
la Primaudaie, Les villes maritimes du Maroc, in 
R.Afr., xvii (1873), 285-6; Budgett Meakin, The 
land of the Moors, London 1901, 230; Villes et 
tribus du Maroc, Casablanca et les Chaouia, Paris 
1915, ii, 34 ff.; M. Lamidey, Fedala, in Bull. Ec. 
et Soc. du Maroc, xiv (1950), 27-36. (A. Adam) 
al-FAPAlI, Muhammad b. Muhammad al- 

teacher of al-Badjuri [q.v.], d. 1236/1821. Both of his 
works, Kifdyat al- c Awdmm fimd yadjib '■alayhim min 
Him al-kaldm, and a commentary on the profession 
of monotheism, Risdla '■aid la ildha ilia 'lldh, have 
been commented upon by al-Badjuri and have been 
often printed together with the commentaries. 

Bibliography : Brockelmann, II, 641 ;S II, 744 ; 
D. B. Macdonald, in EI 1 , s.v.; translations of his 
Kifdya by Macdonald, Development of Muslim 
theology, etc., 1903, 315 ff., and by M. Horten, 
Muhammedanische Glaubenslehre, Bonn 1916, 5-45. 

(J. Schacht) 
FADDAN [see misaha]. 

FADHLAKA. sum, total, from the Arabic fa 
dhdlika, "and that [is]", placed at the bottom of an 
addition to introduce the result. Besides its arith- 
metical use, the term was also employed for the 
summing up of a petition, report, or other document, 
as for example for the summarized statements of 
complaints presented at the Diwdn-i humdyun [q.v.]. 
By extension it acquired the meaning of compendium 
and is used, in this sense, in the titles of two well- 
known works on Ottoman history, written in the 
17th century by Katib Celebi and in the 19th by 
Ahmad Wefik Pasha [qq.v.]. (Ed.) 

FApiL BEY, Huseyn (ca. 1170/1757-1225/1810) 
also known as Fadil-i Enderuni, Ottoman poet 
celebrated for his erotic works, was a grandson of 
ZShir Al 'Umar [q.v.] of 'Akka, who rebelled against 
the Porte in the seventies of the 18th century. Taken 
to Istanbul in 1 190/1776 by the ftaptiddn pasha 
GhazI Hasan after his grandfather and father had 
been slain in battle, he was brought up in the 
Palace. An amatory intrigue led to his expulsion 
in 1198/1783-4, and for twelve years he led a vaga- 
bond life in poverty in Istanbul. Kasides addressed 
to Selim III and the statesmen of the day imploring 
their patronage eventually won him employment, 
but in 1214/1799 he was banished to Rhodes. There 
he lost his sight, and was permitted to return to 
Istanbul, where he died in Dhu'l-Hidjdja 1225/ 
December 1810. His works are (1) a diwdn, printed at 
Bulak 1258/1842 together with (2) Defter-i "-ashh 
('Journal of love'), a long methnewi mainly recounting 
his love-affairs but with some interesting descriptions 
of life in the Palace School (see saray) ; (3) Khabdn- 
ndme ('Book of beautiful youths'), a methnewi 
describing the attractions of young men of various 
nationalities (both from within the Empire and from 
Europe and the 'New World'!) and (4) Zendn-ndtne 
('Book of women'), a similar work on girls (these two 
were lithographed at Istanbul in 1838, but the Mi- 
nister of the Exterior Mustafa Rashid had the edition 
confiscated for its indecent subject-matter; new 
edition 1286/1870; Fazil Bey, Le livre des femmes 
(Zenan-nameh), trad, du turcpar J. Decourdemanche, 
Paris 1879); (5) Cengi-ndme, a series of stanzas in the 
tradition of the Shehr-engiz [q.v.], on the dancing- 
boys of Istanbul. 



FADIL BEY — FADlLA 



Bibliography: Shanl-zade, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 
1292, i, 407; Djewdet, Ta'rikh, i, 105, ix, 219; 
Tayyar-zade c Ata>, Ta'rikh ('Enderun ta'rikhi'), 
Istanbul 1292-3, iv, 242-61; Fatin, Tedhkere, 
321 ff.; Hammer-Purgstall, GOD, iv, 428-53; 
Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, iv, 220-42; F. Edhem and 
I. Stchoukine, Les manuscrits orientaux illustris 
de la Bibliothique de VUniversiti de Siamboul, 
Paris 1933, no. 17; IA, iv, 529-31, by Ali Canib 
Yontem. (J. H. Mordtmann*) 

Mustafa FApiL PASHA, Misirli, Ottoman 
statesman, was born 2 February 1830 in Cairo, 
the youngest son of Ibrahim Pasha and grandson 
of Muhammad 'All Pasha, wall of Egypt. After his 
education in Cairo, he went in 1262/1846 to Istanbul, 
where he was attached to the office of the Grand 
Vizier. He advanced in government service and was 
nominated vizier in Sha'ban 1274/March-April 1858. 
On 19 November 1862 he became Minister of Edu- 
cation and was transferred on 12 January 1863 to 
the ministry of Finance, a post he held until March 
1864, when he resigned. On 5 November 1865 he was 
appointed president of the Medjlis-i khazdHn, from 
which he was dismissed on 16 February 1866. Being 
exiled from the Ottoman Empire, he left Istanbul, 
4 April 1866, and went to Paris. His exile was proba- 
bly due to his criticism of the policy of Fu'ad 
Pasha [q.v.], who favoured Isma'il Pasha, the wall 
of Egypt. Isma'il Pasha sought to restrict the 
succession to the hereditary governorship to his own 
descendants, thus depriving his brother Mustafa 
Fadil Pasha of his right to succeed. Mustafa 
Fadil Pasha took the leadership of Ottoman 
liberalism by publishing on 24 March 1867 in the 
French newspaper Libertd a letter addressed to the 
Sultan c Abd al-'Aziz, in which he advised the Sultan 
to accept a Constitution for the Empire (for the text 
of this letter see Orient, no. 5 [i cr Trimestre 1958], 
29-38). He invited the Young Ottomans [see yeni 
c othmanlIlar] to join him in Europe and helped 
them in their press campaign against the autocratic 
government in Turkey. But he profited from the 
official visit of the Sultan to Western capitals to 
regain favour and returned on 20 September 1867 to 
Istanbul. He was nominated, on 25 July 1869, a 
member of the Medjlis-i Wdld and became for the 
second time, in Muharram 1287/April 1870, Minister 
of Finance. He was dismissed from this post on 
18 December. He occupied from October 1871 to 
January 1872 the ministry of Justice. He died on 
2 December 1875 in Istanbul and was buried at 
Eyyub, the holy quarter of the city. His remains 
were moved to Egypt on 25 June 1929. He was an 
intelligent and able statesman and succeeded in 
negotiating the sixth foreign Joan of the Ottoman 
Empire in 1863 during his first term as Minister of 
Finance. The conditions of this loan were reasonable. 
His ambition caused him to behave in an opportun- 
ist way: he used the Young Ottomans as a tool in 
his intrigues to become wall of Egypt. He spent un- 
successfully extraordinary sums in this aim. Never- 
theless he patronized such writers as ShinasI [q.v.] 
and artists as Zekal Dede [q.v.]. He founded in 
1870 the first club in Istanbul: this Endjiimen-i 
Vlfet lasted just over a year. 

Bibliography: Mehmed Zeki Pakalin, Tanzi- 
mat maliye nazirlan, Istanbul 1939-40, ii, 3-65; 
Marcel Colombe, Une lettre d'un prince igyptien 
du XIX' siicU au sultan ottoman Abd al-Aziz, in 
Orient, no. 5 (i« Trimestre 1958), 23-38; Serif 
Mardin, The Genesis of Young Ottoman thought, 
Princeton, N.J. 1962, passim; Sidjill-i '■Othmdni, 



iv, 481 ; Ibrahim Alaettin Govsa, Turk meshurlart 

ansiklopedisi, Istanbul 1946, 132. (E. Kuran) 

FAplLA (Arab., pi. faddHl) an excellence or 
excellent quality, a high degree in (or of) excellence. 
The plural faddHl indicates a definite category of 
literature, related to but distinct from the so-called 
"disputes for precedence". FaddHl literature exposes 
the excellences of things, individuals, groups, 
places, regions and such for the purpose of a laudatio. 
The polemical comparison or dialogue, characteristic 
of the "disputes for precedence", is lacking. 

FaddHl literature, the opposite to which is 
mathdlib literature, may be divided into various 
branches : 

Kur'an. FaddHl literature takes its point of 
departure from the Kur'an. The praise of the Kur'an 
preserves, modified for the conditions of Islam, the 
custom of the pre-islamic Arabs to boast (mufdkhara) 
of the nobility and exalted rank of their tribes (see 
Goldziher, Muh. St. i, 51, 54 ff.). A comparison of 
its faddHl with others, despite the Arab fondness 
for comparison, was impossible, for the Kur'an, 
as the direct and unadulterated word of God, was 
immeasurable, even in polemic against the Ahl al- 
Kitdb (see Goldziher, ZDMG, xxxii(i878), 344 ff.; 
M. Schreiner, ZDMG, xlii (1888), 593 f.). An enu- 
meration of its excellences was furthermore to win 
back to the study of the incomparable holy book 
those Muslims who had occupied themselves all too 
exclusively with profane science, such as that of the 
maghdzi and the amthdl (see Goldziher, Muh. St., ii, 
155; Abu c Ubayd, K. al-Amthdl, beginning). The 
nucleus of the faddHl al-Kur'dn consists of sayings 
derived from the Prophet, his Companions and their 
descendents (sahdba, tdbV-un etc.) concerning the 
excellences of the individual suras and verses and the 
reward for those who occupy themselves with them. 
There are also accounts providing information as to 
when separate revelations were granted to Muham- 
mad. Questions of Kur'anic readings are treated in 
special chapters. The oldest preserved K. FaddHl al- 
Kur'dn is very likely that of Abu c Ubayd (died 224/ 
837; see Brockelmann, I, 106, and SI, 166 ff.), see 
Ahlwardt no. 45 1 ; A. Spitaler, in Documenta Islamica 
Inedita (Festschrift R. Hartmann), Berlin 1952, 1-24. 
The list in Hadjdji Khalifa (under Him FaddHl al- 
Kur'dn) is incomplete (see Yakut, Irshdd, indexes; 
Ibn Khayr, Fihrist, index; Brockelmann, index). 
The large collections of traditions, such as Bukhari's 
(died 256/870) Sahih (book 66), have a separate 
chapter on the FaddHl al-Kur'dn. 

Companions of the Prophet. Among others 
Wahb b. Wahb (d. 200/815) had already written a 
K. FaddHl al-Ansdr (Irshdd, vii, 233, 7), al-Shafi c i 
(d. 204/820) a K. FaddHl Kuraysh wa 'l-Ansdr 
(Irshdd, vi, 397, 17), and Ahmad b. Hanbal's (d. 241/ 
855) K. FaddHl al-Sahdba has been preserved 
(Brockelmann, S I, 310, 312). The 62nd chapter of 
Bukhari's Sahih contains faddHl ashdb al-nabi. The 
"excellences" of the Companions of the Prophet 
are for the most part concerned with the ex- 
periences which they shared with the Prophet. 
Historically confirmed traditions, such as that 
concerning Muhammad's hidjra in the company of 
Abu Bakr, stand beside fantastic prophecies by 
Muhammad about the destiny and future of his 
Companions, and so forth. 

Individuals. Al-Mada^ini (d. 225/840) wrote a 
book about the faddHl of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya, 
Dja'far b. Abl Talib and al-Harith b. c Abd al- 
Muttalib (Irshdd, v, 313, 9 ff.), and al-Tabari (d. 310/ 
923) one about those of Abu Bakr, c Umar, al- c Abbas 



FADlLA — FADL, BA 



and c Ali (Irshdd, vi, 452, i8f„ 16). Ibn al-'Usharl's 
(d. 441/1029) K. FaddHl Abi Bakr al-Siddik has 
been preserved (Brockelmann, S I, 601); Ibn 
c Asakir (d. 571/1176) dreamed of the faddHl of Abu 
Bakr (for this and others of his various faddHl books, 
seelrshdd, v, 143 ff.),etc. Aworksuchas that of Ibn 
al-Djawzi (d. 597/1200) about the faddHl of Hasan 
al-Basri (Brockelmann, S I, 917) belongs properly 
to mandlfib [q.v.] literature (see also al-Kifti, Inbdk, 
1,219; Brockelmann, S III, 1228; Storey, index). 

Cities and provinces. Among faddHl works 
those concerning the faddHl of particular cities and 
provinces occupy a special place. H. Ritter (liber 
die Bilderspracke Nizdmis, Berlin 1927, 20) has 
already pointed out certain similarities to the genos 
epideiktikon. But the yield of a genuine panegyric of 
the city, such as G. E. von Grunebaum has sketched 
(Zum Lob der Stadt in der arabischen Prosa, 
Kritik und Dichtkunst, Wiesbaden 1955, 80-6), 
comparatively small, apart from the Islamic West 
(see below). For these faddHl books too consist 
largely of sayings put into the mouths of Muhammad 
and his Companions in which political and regional 
aims are primarily pursued (see Goldziher, Muh. St., 
ii, 128 ff.; al-Aghdni l , v, 157, 3 vi, 54 ff.; al-Marzu- 
bani, al-Muktabas, Ms. Nur. Osm. 3391, fol. 22b ff., 
90b). These hadiths may be divided into three groups: 
1) IsrdHliyydt, traditions about the pre-islamic 
period, in particular about the holy places of 
prophets, etc., 2) invented hadiths which originated in 
the rivalries between Umayyads, Shi'Is, 'Abbasids 
etc., or between the Hidjaz, Syria and c Irak, etc., 
3) a few genuine hadiths able to withstand even an 
internal criticism (see Salah al-DIn al-Munadjdjid's 
preface to his edition of al-Raba c I's (d. 444/1052) 
K. FaddHl al-Shdm wa-Dimashk, Damascus 1950). 
The faddHl of Basra were collected by <Umar b. 
Shabba (d. 264/878) (Hadjdji Khalifa), those of 
Kufa by Ibrahim b. Muhammad (d. 283/896; 
Irskdd, i, 295, 13), those of Baghdad by al-Sarakhsi 
(d. 286/899; Hadjdji Khalifa). Probably the oldest 
surviving work of this nature is the K. FaddHl Misr 
of 'Umar b. Muhammad al-Kindi (d. after 350/961; 
Brockelmann I, 155; SI, 230; ed. and tr. by J. 
0strup, Copenhagen 1896). For a manuscript of an 
early book about the FaddHl al-Kufa in the 
Zahiriyya Library, see H. Ritter in Oriens, iii (1950), 
82 (for the FaddHl-i Balkh, see Storey, i, 1296 ft.; 
also Irshdd, ii, 143, 9). Quite different is al-Shakundi's 
(d. 629/1231; Brockelmann, S I, 483) R. fi Fadl al- 
Andalus (tr. E. G. Gomez according to al-Makkari, 
Analectes, ii, 126-50: Elogio del Islam Espanol, 
Madrid-Granada 1934, 123). This small Risdla 
represents indeed an encomium of Andalusia, 
freed of the fetters of eastern hadith science: the 
praise of the power of the state (Umayyad caliphs), 
of knowledge (famous Andalusian scholars), of 
poetry, of cities such as Seville, Cordova, etc. 

Peoples and Tribes. Abu c Ubayda's (d. ca. 
210/825) K. FaddHl al-Furs {Fihrist, 54, 10; Irshdd, 
vii, 170, 5;Subh al-A c sha,iv, 92, 8: read Abu 'Ubayda 
instead of Abu 'Ubayd; Brockelmann, S I, 167 also 
to be corrected thus) might owe its origin to the 
author's inclinations towards the Shu'ubiyya. For 
Djahiz's K. FaddHl al-Atrdk, see Ch. Pellat (Ara- 
bica, iii (1956), 177), and F. Gabrieli (RSO, xxxii 
(1957), 477-483), for his K. Fadl al-Furs, see Irshdd 
(vi, 77, 19). Djahiz's K. Fadilat al-kaldm and Fadilat 
al-MuHazila (see Pellat in Arabica, iii (1956), 163 and 
168) do not actually belong to the faddHl literature, 
but rather are similar to the apologetic nature of the 
K. FaddHl al-Imdm al-ShdfiH by Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi 



(d. 606/1209; see Brockelmann, S I, 921). Ibn 'Abd 
Rabbih (d. 328/940) devoted a special chapter of his 
Hhd al-Farid (vol. iii, Cairo 1372/1952, 312-418) to the 
faddHl al- c Arab. Ibn al-Kalbl (d. 204/819) collected 
the faddHl of Kays c Aylan (Irshdd, vii, 251, 1), and 
al-Shu c ubi (ca. 200/815) those of Kinana and Rabi'a 
(Fihrist 105, 15 ft.; Irshdd, v, 66, 16 ff.), etc. To 
what extent anti-Shu c ubi tendencies play a part in 
these works, as senilis to have been the case with 
Ahmad b. Abi Tahir Tayfur's (d. 280/893) K. Fadl 
aW-Arab c ala 'W-Adjam (Irshdd, i, 155, 6), has not 
been clarified. 

Various. The faddHl of the holy months (Ibn 
Abi Dunya, d. 281/894, Brockelmann, I, 160, S I, 
247, and others) have been the subject of treatises, 
as have been those of prayers (Ahmad b. al-Husayn 
al-Bayhaki, d. 458/1066, Brockelmann I, 446 f., 
S I, 619, and others), of the basmala (al-Buni, d. 622^ 
1225, Brockelmann I, 655, and others), of the djihdd 
(Ibn Shaddad, d. 632/1234, Brockelmann, S I, 550, 
and others), as well as the "excellences" of quite 
profane things which have been particularly 
collected: for example, shaving of the head (al- 
Saymari, d. 275/888: Irshdd, vi, 402 and 403), the 
days of the week (al-Sirafi, d. 368/979; poem, 
Irshdd, iii, 89, 5-1 1), the herb basil (Muhammad b. 
Ahmad al-Nukatl, d. 382/992; Irshdd, vi, 324, 16), 
archery (al-Karrab, d. 429/1037; Brockelmann, S I, 
619; IC, xxxiv (i960), 195-218) and coffee (al-Udjhuri, 
d. 967/1559; Brockelmann II, 414 no. 9). 

Bibliography: in the article. For "disputes 
for precedence" see M. Steinschneider, Rang- 
streit-Literatur, Bin Beitrag zur vergleichenden 
Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte, SB AW Vienna, 
civ/4 (1908), 87 pp.; also O. Rescher, Zu Moritz 
Steinschneider s " Rangstreitliteratur" , in Isl., xiv 
(1925), 397-40i; W. Bacher, Zur Rangstreit- 
Literatur, Aus der arabischen Poesie der Juden 
Jemens, in Melanges H. Derenbourg, Paris 1909, 
131-47; C. Brockelmann, Fabel und Tiermdrchen 
in der dlteren arabischen Literatur, in Islamica, ii 
(1926), 96-128, esp. 118, 120, 128; E. Littmann, 
Neuarabische Streitgedichte, transcr., ed. and tr., 
in Festschrift zur Feier des 200-jahrigen Bestehens 
der Akad. d. Wissensch. Gbttingen, ii, 195 1, 36-66; 
H. Ethe, Ober persische Tenzonen, in Abhand- 
lungen und Vortrage des Funften Internationalen 
Orientalisten-Congt -esses, Erste Halfte, Berlin 1882, 
48-135; E. Littmann, Ein tiirhisches Streitgedicht 
iiber die Ehe, in A Volume of Oriental Studies 
presented to Edward G. Browne, Cambridge 1922, 
269-84; H. Walther, Das Streitgedicht in der 
lateinischen Literatur des Mittelalters, Miinchen 
1920, 254 pp. (Quellen und Untersuchungen zur 
latein. Philologie des Mittelalters, v, 2); F. Focke, 
Synkrisis, in Hermes, lviii (1923), 327-68 ; O. Hense, 
Die Synkrisis in der antiken Literatur, Prorec- 
toratsrede, Freiburg i. Br. 1893, 41 pp.; L. Rade- 
macher, Aristophanes' 'Frbsche', SB AW Vienna 
cxcviii/4 (1922), esp. 26 ft.; F. de )a Granja, Dos 
epistolas de Ahmad ibn Burd al-Asgar, in Al- 
Andalus, xxv (i960), 383-418. (R. Sellheim) 
FA&IlEJ [see figuig]. 
FAJJJR [see salat]. 
FAJ2JR-I ATI [see fedjr-i At!]. 
FAOL, BA, a family of mashdyikh of Tarim 
in Hadramawt claiming descent from the Sa c d al- 
c ashira clan of Madhhidj. The name Ba Fadl seems 
to derive from an ancestor called al-fakih Fadl b. 
Muhammad b. c Abd al-Karim b. Muhammad, whose 
genealogy cannot be traced beyond that. They seem 
to have had supreme authority in religious matters in 



730 FADL, BA — AL 

Tarim until superseded by the Ba c AlawI sayyids 
around the gth/isth century. They have long been 
prominent as sufis andfaftihs, jurists. In the io-nth/ 
i6th-i7th centuries one branch existed in Aden. The 
most famous of this branch, and probably the founder, 
was Djamal al-DIn Muhammad b. Ahmad b. c Abd 
Allah, born in Tarim, who attained prominence in 
Aden as teacher and mufti and was favoured by 
Sultan c Amir b. <Abd al-Wahhab, the Tahirid ruler 
of al-Yaman. He died in Aden in 903/1498. 

Another branch, known as Bal Hadjdj, existed in 
al-Shihr, of which the probable founder was c Abd 
Allah b. c Abd al-Rahman b. Abi Bakr (d. 918/1513), 
the author of a number of manuals on fikh and 
sufism some of which gained circulation beyond his 
land and were commented upon by other authors 
(cf. Brockelmann II 389 and S II 528). He also acted 
as arbitrator between the rulers of the region and 
excercised some public authority. He was succeded 
by his son Ahmad, known as al-shahid, the martyr, 
because he was killed in al-Shihr in a battle with the 
Portuguese in 929/1523. The family might then have 
moved back to Tarim, for a brother of Ahmad al- 
shahid, Husayn (d. 979/1572), was a prominent sufi 
in Tarim and had inclinations towards the Shadhili 
tarika. A son of this Husayn, called Zayn al-DIn 
(d. 1026/1617), was also a sufi and jurist in Tarim. 
Another Husayn, a descendent of Ahmad al-shahid, 
was born in al-Shihr in 1019/1610, travelled as a 
student to Aden, Zabld, Mecca and Medina and back 
to al-Shihr and then to India and then back to 
Mecca, where he settled and traded in coffee and 
cloth between al-Mukha and Mecca. He became a 
prominent and rather controversial sufi and wrote 
some sufi poetry. He died in Mecca in 1087/1677. 
Of the Tarim branch Muhammad b. Isma'Il 
(d. 1006/1597) was a prominent teacher, and Ahmad 
b. c Abd Allah b. Salim, called al-Sudl (d. 1044/1634) 
was a linguist and grammarian of some merit. 

Shaykh Muhammad c Awad Ba Fadl (d. ca. 1953) 

is the author of a book of biographies called Silat 

al-ahl fi tardajim Al Ba Fail, still in manuscript. 

Bibliography: Ibn al- c Aydarus, al-Nur al- 

safir min akhbar al-ttarn al-'-ashir. Baghdad 1934, 

23-6, 44, 98-100, 135-7, 207 f., 344-8; al-Muhibbl, 

Khulasat al-athar fi a'-ydn al-harn al-hddi '■ashar, 

Cairo 1869, 4 vols. ; F. Wiistenfeld, Die Cufiten in 

Sud-Arabien im XI (XVII) Jahrhundert, Gottingen 

1883, 86-90; R. B. Serjeant, The Saiyids of 

Hadramawt, London 1957, 12, 14; idem, Historians 

and historiography of Hadramawt, in BSOAS, 

xxv (1962), 256; idem, The Portuguese off the South 

Arabian Coast, Oxford 1963, 52-4. (M. A. Ghul) 

al-FAPL b. AJJMAD al-ISFARA'INI Abu'l- 

'Abbas, the first wazir of Sultan Mahmud of 

Ghazna, was formerly the sdhib-i barid (see 

barId) of Marw under the Samanids. At the 

request of Subuktigin, Amir Nuh b. Mansur the 

Samanid sent Fadl to Nishapur in 385/995 as the 

wazir of Mahmud, who had been appointed to the 

command of the troops in Khurasan the previous 

year. Fadl managed the affairs of the expanding 

empire of Sultan Mahmud with great tact and 

ability until 404/1013, when he was accused of 

extorting money from the subjects of the Sultan. 

Instead of answering the charge when he was called 

upon to do so, he voluntarily placed himself in the 

custody of the commander of the fort of Ghazna. The 

Sultan was annoyed at his conduct and allowed him 

to remain there. Fadl died in 404/1013-4, during the 

absence of Sultan Mahmud on one of his Indian 



Bibliography: c Utbi, Kitdb al-Yamini (Lahore 
ed.), 265-71; Athdr al-wuzard' (India Office Ms. 
no. 1569), fol. 88a-8ga; Muhammad Nazim, The 
life and times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, 
Cambridge 1931, 48, 135, 146; C. E. Bosworth, 
The Ghaznavids: their empire in Afghanistan and 
Eastern Iran, 994-1040, Edinburgh 1963. 

(M. Nazim) 
al-FAPL b. MARWAN, vizier to the 'Abbasid 
al-Mu'tasim, and an J Iraki of Christian origin. He 
began his career modestly as a retainer of Harthama, 
the commander of Harfln al-Rashld's guard. Later, 
as a result of his particular talents, he became a 
secretary in the Land Tax office under the same 
caliph and subsequently he retired to J Irak to the 
estates he had acquired during the civil war. It 
was there, in the region of al-Baradan, that he 
had an opportunity, during the reign of al-Ma'mun, 
to gain the attention of the future al-Mu c tasim, 
who admitted him into his service, took him to 
Egypt in 212-3/827-8, and then had him put in 
charge of the Land Tax office. It was he who, 
acting as the caliph's deputy in Baghdad, had the 
oath of loyalty to al-MuHasim administered. Ap- 
pointed vizier in Ramadan 218/September 833, he 
enjoyed wide powers, maintained a firm control 
over the treasury and attempted to restrict the 
sovereign's expenditure. This policy was the main 
cause of his disgrace, which occurred in Safar 211/ 
February 836, at the moment when the caliph decided 
to move his residence to Samarra. 

Al-Fadl b. Marwan was the first example of the 
c Iraki secretaries of Christian origin who, during the 
3rd/gth century, were to become numerous. He was 
held to have little education in religious knowledge, 
but to be highly competent in the exploitation of 
landed property. As an expert in land taxes, he also 
played a part under the succeeding caliphs, parti- 
cularly al-Wathik and al-Musta c In. He died in 250/ 
864, about 90 years old. 

Bibliography: Tabarl, index; D. Sourdel, 
Le vizirat '■abbaside, Damascus 1959-60, i, 246-53 
and index. (D. Sourdel) 

al-FADL b. al-RABIS vizier to the 'Abbasid 
caliphs al-Rashld and al-Amln, was the son of al- 
Mansur's chamberlain al-RabI c b. Yunus [?.».]. Born 
in 138/757-8, he very soon won the esteem of Harun 
al-Rashid, who in 173/789-90 placed him in charge of 
the Expenditure Office and then in 179/795-6 made 
him chamberlain. After the disgrace of the Baramika 
[?.».] in 187/803, he succeeded Yahya as vizier, 
though without being granted such wide powers; 
his part was confined to keeping check on public 
expenditure and in presenting letters and petitions 
C-ard), while another secretary directed the financial 
administration. On the death of al-Rashld, which 
took place at Tus in 193/809, it was al-Fadl who 
caused the oath of loyalty to al-Amln to be taken 
and who led back to Baghdad the whole of the 
expeditionary force which had been gathered together 
by the caliph to fight against the rebel Rafi c b. al- 
Layth. The second heir al-Ma 5 mun, who, under the 
terms of al-Rashld's testament, was to govern the 
province of Khurasan, held al-Fadl responsible for 
this withdrawal of the army and tried in vain to 
make him reverse his decision. Shortly afterwards, 
it was the advice given by al-Fadl which encouraged 
al-Amln to deprive his brother of his rights to the 
confer them on his own son. This 
ve rise to a civil war and ended in 
the siege of Baghdad and the final triumph of al- 
Ma'mun. 



AL-FADL B 



;ahl b. zadhanfarukh 



During the short reign of al-Amin (193-8/809-14), 
al-Fadl remained as before the caliph's most intimate 
adviser, playing a particularly important part in the 
episodes of the struggle with al-Ma'mfln. But he 
did not exercise any general control over the admi- 
nistration, nor was he responsible for the jurisdiction 
of the mazdlim. 

On the arrival of al-Ma'mfln's troops he went into 
hiding, reappearing when the inhabitants of Baghdad, 
in revolt against the rule of the caliph in Marw who 
had chosen an 'Alid as his heir, brought Ibrahim b. 
al-Mahdl (201/816-7) to power. He subsequently 
gained al-Ma 5 mfln's pardon when the latter returned 
to Baghdad, and died in 207/822-3 or 208/823-4. 

Al-Fadl b. al-RabI c thus seems to have been an 
intriguer of mediocre personality and limited ability. 
As chamberlain he succeeded by means of adroit 
manoeuvres in replacing the Baramika and. in 
exalting himself to the highest government office, 
the vizierate. He then adopted the cause of al-Amin, 
a weak character over whom he planned to exert 
great influence, but he was unsuccessful in meeting 
the situation created by the forceful opposition of 
al-Ma'mfln. 

Bibliography: Tabari, index; Djahshiyari, 

K. al-Wuzard>, index; D. Sourdel, Le vizirat 

c abbdside, Damascus 1959-60, i, 183-94 and index. 
(D. Sourdel) 

al-FAPL B. SAHL B. ZADHANFARUKH, 
vizier to the 'Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mfln, had origi- 
nally been in the service of the Baramika [q.v.]. His 
father, of Iranian origin and Zoroastrian by religion, 
had been converted to Islam and had entrusted the 
Baramika with his two sons, al-Fadl and al-Hasan 
[q.v.]. Al-Fadl, who immediately attracted attention 
on account of his intelligence, was taken into the 
service of Dja'far al-Barmaki, then tutor to prince 
al-Ma'mfln, and took over this position from him 
after the fall of the Baramika; it was in the presence 
of al-Ma'mfln that he is said to have been converted, 
in 190/806, at a time when the prince was holding 
power, deputising for his father who had gone to 
Anatolia. 

From the end of the reign of al-Rashid, al-Fadl 
was to demonstrate the influence that he held over 
al-Ma'mfln's mind and to give his pupil certain 
advice of great political significance, namely that he 
should accompany the caliph on the expedition which 
he had launched in 192/808 in the eastern provinces. 
On the death of al-Rashid, which took place at TQs 
in 193/809, al-Ma'mfln thus found himself in the 
centre of the province of which, under the terms of 
his father's will, he became autonomous governor. 
While his brother on being proclaimed caliph in 
Baghdad had the whole of the expeditionary force 
brought back, he himself stayed on in Khurasan, 
though not without being exasperated by al-Amln's 
decision, which he held to be contrary to the last 
wishes of the dead sovereign. His adviser al-Fadl, 
urging patience, restored his equanimity. 

Relations between the two brothers thus being 
strained and the situation having deteriorated to 
the point of civil war, al-Fadl, who had at his com- 
mand a well-organized intelligence service in 'Irak, 
continued to give al-Ma'mfln helpful advice, promis- 
ing to secure him the caliphate in the near future. 
In fact al-Ma'mfln was soon to overcome his brother 
after the siege of Baghdad and to succeed him, 
without being the first to infringe the will of al- 
Rashid, which al-Amin had violated by putting 
forward his own son as heir. As soon as the first 
victory had been gained by al-Ma'mfln's forces over 



those of al-Amin, al-Ma'mfln was proclaimed caliph 
in the eastern provinces (196/812) and al-Fadl was 
made officially responsible for civil and military 
administration in the occupied territories from 
Hamadhan to Tibet, while at the same time the 
honorific title of Dk u '1-rPdsatayn "the man with 
two commands" was conferred on him, a title which 
appeared on the coinage either together with or in 
place of the name al-Fadl, which was already linked 
with the sovereign's name. Being both wazir and 
amir, al-Fadl directed military expeditions in the 
countries lying beyond the Oxus and secured the 
conversion of the king of Kabul whose throne and 
crown were sent to the caliph and then put on view 
at the Ka'ba, where al-Rashid's will and the decla- 
rations of the two heirs apparent had been affixed. 

Al-Fadl did not let matters rest with this man- 
oeuvre, which was intended to enhance the prestige 
of the new caliph. In addition, he defined the main 
outlines of the new policy of fidelity to the Book and 
the Sunna, an attitude of pietist reformism such as 
would rally not only the former adherents of the 
fallen caliph, who was accused in particular of having 
violated the most sacred pacts, but also the men of 
religion who had at that time been won over by 
Shi'ite propaganda based on the same themes. 
Al-Fadl probably came to terms with Mu'tazilite 
circles, who were influential in al-Ma'mfln's entourage, 
to encourage the new caliph to act as imam, a title 
which appeared on the coinage. On the other hand, 
there is nothing to prove that he took part in 
elaborating the plan conceived by al-Ma'mfln to 
bequeath the caliphate to an c Alid, 'All al-Rida, but 
he was nevertheless associated with this reckless 
attempt which eventually was to compromise him. 

Meanwhile al-Fadl exercised a dictatorial control 
which, especially in 'Irak where the nomination of 
c Ali al-Rida provoked an actual revolt, aroused 
violent opposition, even among elements favourable 
to the caliph. In certain cases he did not hesitate 
to dispose of his enemies by violence. 

Learning by chance of the situation in 'Irak, al- 
Ma'mfln decided to return to Baghdad, and it was 
in the course of this long journey that his vizier was 
assassinated, at Sarakhs, in Sha'ban 202/February 
818, by members of the caliphal guard. The caliph 
had the murderers put to death at once, but persistent 
rumours, which are echoed by the < 



f had b 



1 the i 



stigator of the murder. 

After the death of al-Fadl, al-Ma'mfln apparently 
entrusted the vizierate to his brother al-Hasan, who 
was already governor of 'Irak. While continuing to 
be a prominent member of the court, since al- 
Ma'mun had married his daughter Buran {q.v.], al- 
Hasan did not in fact exercise his position, and 
withdrew from political life. Incidentally, it was at 
this time that the caliph gave up granting too 
extensive powers to his officials. 

In the course of his brief career, al-Fadl appears 
to have been a person of unusual energy, highly 
dictatorial, often violent, but devoid of ambition 
and as severe to others as he was to himself. He 
exercised a dominating influence over the mind of 
al-Ma'mfln, who nevertheless succeeded in releasing 
himself from his control. It was certainly unjustly 
that he was accused of wishing to restore the former 
Iranian rule and of having had 'All al-Rida 
nominated as heir with this intention, but it is 
unquestionable that he was the most Iranian of the 
viziers of the 'Abbasid caliphs: imbued with very 
ancient traditions which he set out to promote in 



L-FADL b. SAHL b. ZADHANFAROKH — FADL ALLAH 



the cultural field, he was particularly in favour o 
orientation of policy by the caliph which would r 
pleased many of the Iranian mawdli, and it was 
doubt for that reason that he was soon stopped by 
the Arab and 'Iraki aristocracy. 

Bibliography: Djahshiyari, K. al-Wuzara*, 
index; Tabari, index; D. Sourdel, Le vizirat 
'abbaside, Damascus 1959-60, i, 195-217 and index; 
idem, La politique religieuse du calife 'abbaside al- 
Ma^mun, in REI, 1962, 27-48. (D. Sourdel) 
al-FAPL b. YAHYA al-BARMAKI, the eldest 
son of Yahya al-Barmaki, played an important part 
during the reign of Harun al-Rashid, in the first 
years of the domination of the Baramika [q.v.~\. As 
tutor to the crown prince al-Amln, on whose behalf 
he caused the customary oath of loyalty to be sworn 
by the notables, he was particularly distinguished by 
the benevolence he showed towards the inhabitants 
of the eastern provinces and by his policy of con- 
ciliation with regard to the c Alids, perhaps going so 
far as to support the establishment of an independent 
Zaydl State in Daylam. His ambiguous attitude 
won him public execration by the caliph in 183/799 
and partly explains the disgrace of the family. 
Imprisoned at the same time as his father in 187/803, 
he died at al-Rakka in 193/808, at the age of 45. 

Bibliography: Tabari, index; Djahshiyari, 
K. al-Wuzard?, index; D. Sourdel, Le vizirat 
'abbaside, Damascus 1959-60, i, 134-81 and index; 
idem, Le politique religieuse du calife '■abbaside al- 
Ma>mun, in REI, 1962, 27-48. (D. Sourdel) 
FAPL ALLA.H, a family of Mamluk state officials 
who traced their descent from the Caliph HJmar I, 
hence their nisba al- c Umari, al-'Adawi al-Kurashi. 
The family received its name from its founder Fadl 
Allah b. Mudjalli b. Da'djan, who was living in al- 
Karak (Transjordan) in 645/1247. Sharaf al-DIn c Abd 
al-Wahhab, a son of Fadl Allah, held office as kdtib 
al-sirr (head of the chancery) in Damascus, and was 
transferred to the same office in Cairo by the Sultan 
al-Ashraf Khali! in 692/1293. c Abd al-Wahhab con- 
tinued to head the central chancery of the Mamluk 



his brother <Abd al-Wahhab, served for a time in 
Hims, then returned to Damascus. Summoned to 
Cairo in 697/1298 to act for his brother who had 
fallen ill, he returned to Damascus as kdtib al-sirr, 
and remained in that office until he was replaced by 
his brother in 711/1311. After staying out of office 
for some years, he re-entered the public service in 
Damascus as a court clerk (muwakki' ji H-dast) and 
rose again to be kdtib al-sirr in 727/1327 or 728/1328. 
In 729/1329 he was appointed to head the central 
chancery in Cairo, and he died in this office. 

Nothing is known about the progeny of Badr al- 
Din Muhammad I, if he had any. <Abd al-Wahhab's 
son Salah al-DIn <Abd Allah (d. 719/1319) served as 
a Mamluk djundi (soldier), and his grandson Nasir 
al-Din Muhammad b. <Abd Allah (704-64/1304-63) 
also entered the Mamluk military service in Damascus 
and rose to be an amir of 40 (amir tablakhdnd). 
Nasir al-Din Muhammad sired the undistinguished 
Abu Bakr. It was the progeny of Muhyi al-DIn 
Yahya which maintained a position of distinction 
for the family for two more generations. 

Of Yahya's three known sons, the most distin- 
guished by far was Shihab al-DIn Ahmad I (700-49/ 
1301-49) [q.v.l, author of Masdlik al-absdr fi 
mamdlik al-amsdr and al-Ta'rif bi 'l-mustalah al- 
sharif, and perhaps the most outstanding of all the 
Fadl Allah. Ahmad assisted his father in the Cairo 
chancery, and was later kdtib al-sirr in Damascus. 
His brother 'Ala' al-Din 'All (712-69/1312-68), 
who also assisted his father in the Cairo chancery, 
succeeded his father as kdtib al-sirr of Cairo (738-42, 
743-69/1337-42, 1342-68) and died in that office, 
to be succeeded in turn by his son Badr al-Din 
Muhammad III (d. 796/1394). Badr al-DIn Muham- 
mad II (710-46/1310-45), a third son of Yahya 
and brother of Shihab al-DIn Ahmad, also served as 
kdtib al-sirr in Cairo (where he replaced his brother 

(743-6/1342-5). 

Apart from Badr al-DIn Muhammad III, 'Ala' 
al-Din 'AH had three sons. Shihab al-DIn Ahmad II 



Salah al-Din <Abd A 

I 
Nasir al-DIn Muham 



Muhyi al-DIn Yahya 



Abu B 



1 1 r - 

Djamal al-DIn Shihab al-Din Badr al-1 
<Abd Allah Ahmad II Muhamma. 



Ill 



state until 711/1311, when he was transferred back 
to Damascus. There he died in office in 717/1317. 
<Abd al-Wahhab b. Fadl Allah was the first 
member of his family to hold a high position in the 
Mamluk civil service. During his lifetime, and for 
nearly a century after his death, other members of 
his family distinguished themselves as Mamluk state 
officials. Badr al-DIn Muhammad I, a younger 
brother of c Abd al-Wahhab, who died in 706/1306, 
was a chancery official in Damascus. A still younger 
brother, Muhyi al-Din Yahya (645-738/1247-1337), 
began his career in the Damascus chancery under 



(d. 777/1375) acted as deputy kdtib al-sirr for his 
father in Cairo, and died a young man. His brother 
Djamal al-DIn <Abd Allah (d. 821/1418) was an 
impoverished djundi. Equally undistinguished was 
his brother Hamza (d. 796/1394), of whose career 
nothing is known. 

The family of Fadl Allah had a family home in 
Cairo; but they regarded Damascus as their home 
town, and there had a family cemetery in which 
most of them were buried. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, S II, 141; al- 

Dhahabi, Duwal al-lsldm, Haydarabad Deccan, 



FADL ALLAH — FADL ALLAH HURUFI 



1364; Ibn Hadjar, al-Durar al-kdmina fi a'-ydn 
al-mPa al-thdmina, Haydarabad Deccan, 1348- 
50; Ibn al-'Imad al-Hanbali, Shadhardt; Ibn 
Iyas, Ta?rlkh Misr . . ., Bulak 1311 ; Ibn Kathir, 
al-Biddya wa 'l-nihdya ji 'l-ta'rikh, Cairo 1348- 
58; al-Kutubi, Fawdt; Ibn Kadi Shuhba, 
Tabakdt al-ShdfiHyya, A.U.B. MS 920.02: 1131; 
Ibn Taghrlbirdi; al-Laknawi, al-FawdHd al- 
bahiyya ji tarddjim al-Hanajiyya, Cairo 1324; 
al-Makrizi, Khitat, Cairo 1324-6; al-Makrizi, al- 
Suluk li ma'riiat duwal al-muluk, Cairo 1934-58; 
Kalkashandi, Subh al-a c shd, Cairo 191 3-9; al- 
SuyOti, ifusn al-muhddara fi akhbdr Misr wa 
'l-Kdhira, Cairo 1321; Gaston Wiet, Les bio- 
graphies du Manhal Safi, Cairo 1932; D. S. Rice, 
A miniature in an autograph of Shihdb al-Din Ibn 
Fadlalldh al- c Umari, in BSOAS, xiii (1951), 856- 
67; R. Hartmann, Die politische Geographie des 
Mamluhenreiches, in ZDMG, lxx (1916), 1 if. 

(K. S. Salibi) 

FAPL ALLAH [see rashId al-Din]. 

FAPL ALLAH DJAMALl [see djamalI]. 

FAPL ALLAH HURUFt, the founder of the sect, 

or more properly, the religion of the Huruflyya [q.v.]. 

The information given about Fadl Allah in the 

histories closest to his period in no way conforms to 

the information about him given by those who 

belonged to his sect and were contemporary with 

him and those who were inspired by his teachings. 

While the sources are agreed that he lived in the 

8th/i4th century, the reports that his name was 

Djalal al-Din, that he was put to death in 804/ 

1401-2, and especially the statement of later sources 

like the Riydd al- c drifin of Rida Kulikhan Hidayat 

(d. 1288/1872) that he was a native of Meshhed are 

totally erroneous. A study of the life of Fadl Allah 

should thus be based on the books of those personally 

One of the most important of these is the Istiwd- 
ndma of Amir Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad b. Husayn 
b. Muhammad al-Astarabadi, one of the disciples 
(khalife [q.v.]) of Fadl Allah, according to which 
Fadl Allah was born in 740/1339-40, began to spread 
his doctrines in 788/1386, and was put to death in 
796/1394 (Istanbul, Millet Library, MS Ali Emiri 
farsca 269, f. ia). These dates are confirmed in one of 
the Hurufi books. Both these sources, in addition, 
call Miran Shah, the man who ordered Fadl Allah's 
execution, "Dadidjal", record his name as "Maran 
Shah", and give the date of his death as 803/1400 
(same library, MS 1052, f. 7a). Abu '1-Hasan, the 
foremost disciple of Fadl Allah and the one who 
turned his Djdwiddn into verse in 802/1400, states 
that Fadl Allah was put to death in 796/1393-4 and 
that Miran Shah was slain seven years later, that is, 
in 803/1400-1 (Sadik Kiya, VVdzha-ndme-i Gurgdni, 
Tehran 1330, 26. In this source the date of the death 
of Miran Shah is given as 810/1407-8 ; cf. the genealogy 
in Khalil Edhem, Duwel-i Isldmiyye, Istanbul 1345/ 
1927, 429). The Khdb-ndma of Sayyid Ishak (fre- 
quently mentioned in the Istiwd-ndma as one of the 
intimates of Fadl Allah) states that in 772/1370-1 
Fadl Allah entered into a period of retirement 
(tile) in Isfahan, being then thirty-two years of age 
(MS Ali Emiri, Farsca 1042, 25a-b). According to 
this reckoning the date of his birth is 740/1339-40. 
Sayyid Sharif, a contemporary of Fadl Allah (as one 
understands from the eulogies in his Diwdn, cf. 
Istanbul University Library, MS Farsca 152, 16a- 
18b) mentions in his Risdla-i ma'-ddiyya that Fadl 
Allah was a Sayyid and also records his genealogy, 
according to which there is a line of twenty persons 



between Fadl Allah and <A1I (1st. Univ. Lib., MS 
Farsca 1043, 51a). The fact that the ninth ancestor 
in one list, the eight in the other, is Muhammad al- 
Yamanl deserves attention in view of the fact that 
the Yemen is known to have been one of the most 
important centres of the Batinis from the latter 
part of the 3rd/gth century onwards (Muhammad b. 
al-Hasan al-Daylami, KawdHd c akdHd dl Muhammad, 
ed. R. Strothmann: Die Geheimlehre der Batiniten: 
Dogmatik des Hauses Muhammad, Bibliotheca Is- 
lamica II, Istanbul 1938, Introduction vi-ix, 24-5, 

95, 96). 

One also finds scattered throughout both the 
Istiwd-ndma and the Khdb-ndma information re- 
lating to the life of Fadl Allah and the places which 
he visited. According to the Istiwd-ndma (82b), 
being at one point — the date is not known — in 
Isfahan, he rejected the notion that the human soul 
becomes non-existent after death and the assertions 
of the Hurufis who denied the existence of the after- 



e Khdb 



(10b) h 






rejected such a claim in Isfahan. Again 
to this latter book Fadl Allah embraced Sufism at 
the age of eighteen. He was inspired with the ability 
to interpret dreams in 756/1355 (19a), in which year 
he was in a place named Tokdji in Isfahan; later he 
went to Tabriz, where the Djala'irid Sultan Uways 
b. Hasan (d. 776/1374-5), Wazir Zakariyya, and 
Sahib Sadr Shaykh Khwadja accepted his teachings 
(iga-b). In Tabriz he married a girl from Astarabad 
on the recommendation of his disciple Kamal al-Din 
Hashimi. He wrote a book on fifth for c Izz al-Din 
Shah Shudja 1 (d. 786/1384) (24a). He was again in 
Isfahan in 772/1370-1, at the age of thirty-two, and 
there went into retreat (35a-b). He also spent some 
time in Damghan (38b) and Bakuye (47a). While 
in Shamakhi interpreting a dream of Kadi Bayazid, 
he foretold his own martyrdom (49b). When he left 
the house of this kadi and was returning to his cell 
(hiidire), he was arrested on the strength of a decree 
from Astarabad and taken to the fortress of Alindjak 
(50a). He was imprisoned on the order of Miran Shah 
(55 a). Among those believing in him were important 
men; he even sent a dervish cap (dervish kuldhi), 
conveying his blessing, to Sultan Uways (55t>-56a). 
His followers are known as Darwishdn-i haldl-khor 
ve rdst-guy (48a). A bayt in the Tawhid-ndma 
of C A1I al-A'la, called by the Hurufis "Khalifat 
Allah" and "Was! Allah", states that Fadl Allah 
was born in Astarabad (1st. Univ. Lib., MS Farspa 
1158, 5b. 

There exist three chronograms giving the date of 
the death of Fadl Aliah-i Hurufi. In one of these his 
name is recorded as Shihab al-Din Fadl Allah and 
his death as having occurred on a Friday in Dh u 
'1-Ka c da 796/October-November 1394, when he was 
fifty-six years of age (Millet Library, MS Ali Emiri, 
Farsca 1043, at the beginning). The second chrono- 
gram is in a 16th cent, madjmu'a belonging to the 
book-dealer Raif Yelkenci. Though the chronogram- 
matic misra'- is known to all Hurufis and to all those 
connected in any way with the Hurufis (see, for 
example, Ahmad Rif'at, Mir^dt al-makasid fi dap- 
al-mafdsid, Istanbul 1293, lithograph, 133, where 
there is also the genealogy of Fadl Allah, taken from 
a risdta), I have seen the whole of the chronogram 
only in this madjmu'-a. The author of this chronogram 
is unknown, as is that of the first chronogram. In the 
first bayt Timur is mocked, in the fourth bayt the name 
of Miran Shah is mentioned, and in the fifth bayt 
it is stated that Fadl Allah was put to death on 
"Thursday, the eve of Friday" the sixth of Dh u 



734 



FADL ALLAH HURUFl 



'1-Ka'da. In the first poem, which contains seven 
bayts, it is also stated that he died in Dhu '1-Ka c da, 
but on a Friday. It is clear, however, form the specific 
method of recording the date in the second chrono- 
gram, that he was put to death after the afternoon 
prayer on Thursday, since, according to the custom 
of the holy law, Friday begins after that time. 
The year is stated in the sixth and last bayt in the 
form dhdl « sad « wdw, that is, 796 (according to 
the conversion-tables, the first day of Dhu '1-Ka c da 
796 corresponds to Friday, 28 August 1394. But the 
new moon of the month must have been confirmed 
the day before by observation, in which case the 
sixth day of Dhu '1-Ka c da would coincide with 
Thursday, 3 September 1394). The third chronogram 
is in a madjmu'-a containing the poems of Fadl Allah, 
along with those of Sharif and 'All al-A c la. In the 
fourth of the seven bayts in this chronogram it is stated 
that Fadl Allah was fifty-six {Bist u Car u si u du) 
when he was put to death. The place of his martyr- 
dom is specified in the last bayt as "Alindja" while 
the date is conveyed by the phrase Shahid-i Hshk-i u 
(Millet Library, MS Kenan Bey, Farsca 186, f. 194b). 
In a risdla of Mir Fadill is found the note: "The 
honoured resting-place of that most excellent Prophet 
(Sahib baydn) is at a town called Alindja, by Astara- 
bad on the far side of Tabriz. C A1I al-A'la is also 
buried there, and there is yet another grave. The 
covering of (Fadl Allah's) tomb is black, that of C A1I 
al-A c la's green, and of the other's red" (MS Ali 
Emiri, Farsca 1039, f. 92b). In his risdla entitled 
Saldt-ndma Shaykh Muhammad, who is known by 
the name Ishkurt Dede and who is known to have 
met some of the disciples of Fadl Allah, writes 
while discussing the rules governing the hadjdj that 
during the days of the Tashrik sixty-three stones 
are thrown, twenty-one each day, at the Tower of 
Miran Shah, opposite the Alindjak fortress, which is 
also called Sandjariyye, and that the Tawdf proces- 
sion occurs in a place called "Maktal-gdh"; during 
the course of this discussion he states that Fadl 
Allah was put to death in Alindjak and that his 
grave is there (Millet Library, MS Kenan Bey, 
Farsca 1043, 35b-36a). 

To regard certain numbers as sacred and to assign 
various meanings to certain letters are ancient, 
magical practices; examples occur in both the Old 
and the New Testaments. Similarly various meanings 
have been assigned from time to time to the letters 
occurring at the beginning of twenty-nine suras 
of the Kur'an. In both the Diwdn of Husayn b. 
Mansur al-Halladj (d. 309/922) (see L. Massignon, 
Le Diwdn, d'al-Hallaj, JA (1931), 63, 83, 94) and his 
Kitdb al-Tawasin (ed. L. Massignon, Paris 1913, 13-4, 
2 9> 3ii 56-60, 63, 65-67) there are frequent references 
to letters and numbers and to the correspondence 
of letters to numbers. His statements relative to 
points, lines, andlettersare transmitted in the Akhbdr 
al-IJallddi (ed. L. Massignon, Paris 1936, 16, 25-6, 
59-60, 71, 95-6); and one finds that he even discusses 
the equator (khatt-i istiwd') (ibid., 53), which is one 
of the basic elements in the system of Fadl Allah. 
The Batini belief in these matters is well-known 
(see for example Nasir-i Khusraw, Khan al-Ikhwdn, 
ed. Yahya al-Khashshab, Cairo 1359/1940, 66-7; 
and also his Waajh-i Din, Berlin 1343, 76-7). Even in 
the Futuhdt al-Makkiyya of Ibn 'ArabI (d. 635/1240) 
great importance is given to letters, and particular 
emphasis is laid upon this idea (Bulak 1272, i, 56-92; 
section 2, 92-101; ch. 5, 112-30; ii, ch. 79, 135-7- 
For the sections which explain the Batini ideas in 
connection with the Khatm al-awliya ' together with 



the complete Batini system, see iv, ch. 557, 215). 

Fadl Allah was certainly acquainted with the 
Batini methods. The tarika which he joined while 
young was one which had adopted the Batini beliefs. 
He occupied himself with the meanings given to 
letters and with numerical relationships. Perhaps 
he also studied Ibn c ArabI. Conclusions drawn from 
the Old and New-Testaments in appropriate places 
in the Djdwiddn make it clear that he had read these 
books (Ali Emiri, MS Kenan Bey 920, 144b). From 
his Diwdn it is evident that he knew Arabic, Persian, 
and his native language, the Gurgan dialect, that 
he was well-versed in Persian literaure, and that he 
was capable of composing poetry in the classical 
style. 

That an Him al-huruf was among those branches 
of knowledge known as HJlum ghariba or HJlum 
khdfiya and that it was used for the most part for 
divination of the occult is well-known (see, for 
example, Mandkib al-'arifin, begun in 718/1318; 
ed. Tahsin Yazici, Ankara 1959, 421). Fadl Allah 
thus took over, among other features of Batini 
ta'wil, in particular the importance given to letters, 
and, wherever necessary, the relationships of letters 
and numbers. He adopted the method of referring all 
religious commands to the twenty-eight letters of the 
Arabic alphabet and the thirty-two of the Persian. 
To the Him al-huruf, which was old and not com- 
pletely systematized, he gave a form truly original 
for his period; and, by proclaiming himself Messiah, 
Mahdi, and Manifestation (mazhar) of God, he 
founded the Hurufl religion. His disciples and those 
who came later adapted the obligations of ablution, 
prayer, and the pilgrimage completely to this reli- 
gion. Although it is reported that Fadl Allah rejected 
the claims of those who denied the existence of the 
after-life and the continued existence of the soul, 
it is known that Hurufis in a number of places like 
Isfahan, Tabriz, and Geylan considered life to be 
merely material and denied the continued existence 
of the soul. In view of this, it seems likely that the 
rejection of such claims by him and some of his 
disciples was no more than an instance of takiyya 
[q.v.], a concealment of their true views, so as not to 
put off new converts to the religion. 

His disciples (khalifa). Sayyid Sharif, in his 
Risdla-i ma'-ddiyya (properly entitled Baydn al- 
waki') lists the disciples of Fadl Allah, with the 
note "whom I remember", as follows: Amir Sayyid 
C A1I, Husayn Kiya b. Thakib. Madjd al-DIn, Mahmud, 
Kamal al-DIn Hashiml, Kh'adja Hafiz Hasan, 
Shaykh 'AH Maghzayish, Bayazid, Tawakkul b. 
Dara, Abu '1-Hasan, Sayyid Ishak, Sayyid Nasimi, 
Hasan b. Haydar, Husayn GhazI, Sulayman. 

Later he records that all of them, four hundred in 
number, were Sayyids, that they were in Fadl Allah's 
company day and night, and that they went with him 
wherever he went (5ib-52a). 'Sayyid 'All' is the 'All 
al-A'la who, in the Istiwd-ndma, is called Khalifat 
Allah and Wasi Allah, and who is known to have 
been Fadl Allah's favourite disciple (2a, na, 29b, 
37a). The names of Madjd al-DIn, Ishak, and Nasimi 
occur in the same book (29a, 37a). One meets in the 
same risdla such names as Darwlsh Baha' al-DIn, 
Darwish 'AH, Muhammad Nayini, <Isa BitlisI, 
Muhammad TIr-ger, Tadj tl-DIn, Sayyid Muzaffar, 
and Husam al-DIn Yazddjurdl (i2a-b, 37a, 4oa-b, 
43a-b, 80a). Of these, the names of 'All al-A'la, 
Nasimi, and Ishak are found in the Saldt-ndma of 
Ishkurt Dede, as are those of the author of the 
Ma'-ddiyya, Sayyid Sharif, and Djawidl. Besides 
these, the name of Mir Fadill is mentioned, and he 



FADL ALLAH HURUFl — FADL-I HAKK 



735 



is reported to have been the disciple (khalifa) of 
'Ali al-A'la. It is also reported that Amir Ghiyath 
al-DIn was the son of 'All al-A'la's sister, and that, 
in addition to the Istiwd-ndma, he was the author 
of a risdla named Turdb-ndma (5a). DjawidI, in a 
risdla which he wrote in Shawwal 1000/July-August 
1592, reveals that his personal name was 'All (Millet 
Library, MS Farisi 437). In view of the date in which 
he wrote his risdla, this person must have been 
connected with one of the disciples of Fadl Allah. 
In the Muharram-ndma of Sayyid Ishak one finds 
the following names: Sayyid Tadj al-Din Kehna-yi 
BayhakI, one of the intimates of Fadl Allah and 
known to the Hurufls as Sahib Ta'wil (see C. Huart, 
Textes persans relatifs a la secte des Houroufis, 
Leiden and London 1909, Gibb Memorial Series, 42); 
Mawlana Kamal al-Din Hashimi; 'AH DamghanI, 
who, it is reported, had formerly been one of the 
intimates of Sultan Uways and had been Wall 
of Khurasan; and Pir Hasan Damghani {ibid., 43). 
Both in this book and in the Nawm-ndma, which is 
attributed to Fadl Allah, other names are mentioned 
in a section devoted to statesmen; but it is impossible 
to determine definitely the degree of their relation- 
ships with Fadl Allah (Wdzha-ndma-i Gurgdni, 36; 
examples from the text and translations into Persian, 
236-46). Mir Fadill writes in a risdla the names of the 
disciples 'All al-A'la, Sayyid Abu '1-Hasan, Kamal 
al-Din Hashimi Rumi {i.e., from Anatolia) and 
Kamal al-Din Hashimi Isfahanl, and says that they 
are "the four friends of the felicitous one" ("Sahib 
Devletun car ydridur"), thus testifying to a belief 
that Fadl Allah had "four friends" corresponding 
to the "four friends" of the Prophet Muhammad 
(Millet Library, MS Farsca 990, last folio). 

The names of the sons, daughters, and grandchild- 
ren of Fadl Allah are written in a different hand 
on the last folio of the Risdla-i ma'ddiyya (61b). 
Among these is the name of Amir Nur Allah, who 
was arrested and put to the question along with 
the author of the Istiwd-ndma, Ghiyath al-Din 
Muhammad, after the attempt on the life of Shah 
Rukh. Among his sons there is one Salam Allah, 
who is not to be confused with his elder sister who was 
appointed by Fadl Allah in the last will and testa- 
ment which he wrote before his arrest as the trustee 
and guardian for all his children. (Abdiilbaki G61- 
pinarh, Fazl-Alldh-i Hurufi'nin Wasiyya-Ndma'si 
veya Wasdyd'si, in Sarkiyat mecmuast, ii (1958), 
54-62. There is a copy of this will also in Millet 
Library, MS Farsca 1009, ib-9a, as well as an in- 
complete copy in the same section of the library, 
MS 933, io4a-b). 

Works. Fadl Allah's most famous work is the 
Didwiddn-ndma. From the Khdb-ndma one learns 
that this work became famous after Fadl Allah's 
death (43a). The Istiwd-ndma reveals that the 
Didwiddn-ndma begins with the word "ibtidd*" re- 
peated six times (29b). There is a copy beginning 
with this word and written in the Gurgan dialect in 
Millet Library, Farsca, MS Kenan Bey 920. The 
Didwiddn-ndma written in normal Persian and 
common in both public and private libraries must 
be a new redaction, separated into sections, and 
arranged by Fadl Allah personally or by one of his 
disciples, made on the basis of this text. For a copy 
belonging to the period of Fadl Allah but without a 
colophon see MS Fatih (Siileymaniye) 3728; an- 
other copy, written by Darwish 'AH Sarkhani in 
Dhu 'l-Hidjdja 845/1442, Millet Library, MS Kenan 
Bey 1000. MS 1st. Univ. Lib., Farsca 869 (written 
n 1049/1639) is in the hand of Darwish Murtada 



BaktashI who translated the second version of the 
Didwiddn-Ndma under the title Durr-i yatim. 
Among the manuscripts which I gave to the Mevlana 
Museum Library in Konya is one written by this 
same man in the previous year (a rather free and 
expanded translation). In the Khdb-ndma two 
other works by Fadl Allah are mentioned: the 
Mahabbat-ndma and the 'Arsh-ndma. 'AH al-A'la 
also mentions these two works in his Tawhid- 
ndma (34b). 

Fadl Allah also composed poetry, mostly in 
Persian but some in Arabic, under the makhlas 
Na'Imi. His poems form a small diwdn. In the 
medjmu'a which contains the chronogram relative 
to the death of Fadl Allah there are thirty-three 
ghazals, seven kit'as, nine rubdHs, four bayts, and 
two tardji's. In the diwdn in Millet Library, MS 
Kenan Bey 989, there are seventy-two poems: 
thirty-six ghazals, two kit'as, twenty-four rubdHs, 
eight bayts, and the two tardji's in the madimu'a 
previously mentioned. 

Bibliography: in the article. 

(AbdOlbAkI Golpinarli) 
FAPL-i IJA&& al-'UmarI, al-Hanafi, al- 
MaturidI, al-CIsht! (not al-Habashl as misread by 
Brockelmann, S II, 458), al-KhavrabadI b. Fadl-i 
Imam [q.v.] was born at Khayrabad [q.v.] in 1211/ 
1796-7. Having studied first at home with his father, 
he Jater studied hadith with Shah 'Abd al-Kadir al- 
Dihlawi [q.v.] and at the age of thirteen completed 
his studies. He entered service as a pishkdr to the 
Commissioner of Delhi under the East India Company 
and later served with the Chiefs of Dihadjdjar, 
Alwar, Tonk and Rampur. He was a leading scholar 
of his day, well-versed in logic, philosophy, belles- 
lettres, kaldm, usul al-fikh and poetics, and a great 
teacher and logician who attracted students from 
far and near. He was often seen teaching al-Ufk al- 
mubin of al-Damad [q.v.], a rather involved text on 
logic, while engaged in playing chess. On the doctrine 
of imtina' al-nazir he entered into a lengthy con- 
troversy with Muhammad Isma'il Shahid [q.v.] in 
refutation of whose teachings he composed a number 
of treatises. This controversy greatly agitated the 
people of Dihli, and even the reigning monarch 
Bahadur Shah Zafar and the egalitarian poet 
Ghalib were involved in it. The controversy later 
took an ugly turn, and he misused his official position 
by persuading the koiwdl of Delhi, Mirza Khani, a 
bigoted Shi'i, to take preventive measures against 
Isma'il Shahid. who was prohibited from delivering 
public sermons in the congregational mosque. He 
took a leading part in the military uprising of 1857, 
was charged with high treason, arrested, tried and 
sentenced to transportation for life. He died in exile 
in the Andamans (Kdld Pdni), where he was interred, 
in 1862. 

Among his works are : (i) al-Djins al-ghdli fi shark 
al-Diawhar al-'dli (a treatise on theology); (ii) al- 
Hadiyya al-sa'idiyya fi 'l-hikma al-tabi'iyya, a 
treatise on physics begun by Fadl-i Hakk but com- 
pleted by his son 'Abd al-Hakk, Kanpur 1283/1866; 
(iii) al-Rawd al-mudjud fi tahkik hakikat al-wudjud; 
(iv) al-Hdshiya 'aid Talkhis al-Shifa'; (v) al-fldshiya 
'aid al-Ufk al-mubin; (vi) al-ffdshiya 'aid Shark 
Sullam al-'ulum by Kadi Mubarak Gopamawl 
(Delhi 1899); (vii) Risdla fi 'l-tashkik wafi 'l-mdhiyydt; 
(viii) al-Risdla al-ghadriyya (or al-Thawra al-Hin- 
diyya), a doleful and moving account of the untold 
sufferings that he underwent in the Andamans as a 
dangerous political prisoner; published with Urdu 
transl. and notes as Bdghi Hindustan (see Biblio- 



FADL-i HAKK — FADLAWAYH 



graph y); (ix) al-Risdla fl tahkik al-Hlm wa '1-maHum; 

and (x) al-Risdla fi tahkik al-adjsdm. 

Bibliography: Fakir Muhammad DjhelamI, 
Hadd'ik al-Hanafiyya, Lucknow 1906, 480; 
Rahman C A1I, Tadhkira-i 'ulama'-i Hind, Lucknow 
1914, 164-5; Altai Husayn Hall, Yddgdr-i Ghalib, 
Lahore 1932, 71; Amir Ahmad Mlna^I, Intikkdb-i 
Yddgdr, Lucknow 1279/1862, 281-95; c Abd al- 
Kadir Rampurl, Riiz-nama {WakdV-i <Abd al- 
Kadir Khdni), Urdu transl. 'Ilm-o c Amal, Karachi 
i960, i, 258 ; Siddlk Hasan Khan, 'Abdjad al-'-ulum, 
Bhopal 1296/1878, 915; Muhammad Muhsin al- 
Tirhutl, al-Yani'- al-d±ani fi asdnid al-Shaykh c Abd 
al-Ghani (on the margin of Kaskf al-astdr 'an 
ridjdl ma'dni 'l-dtkdr), Delhi 1349/1930, 75; 
Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Athdr al-sanddid (ch. IV, 
reprinted separately as Tadhkira-i Ahl-i Dihli), 
Karachi 1955, 86-96; <Abd al-Shahid Khan Shir- 
wanl, Bdghi Hindustan, Bijnor 1947, 11-176; 
Nadjm al-Ghani Rampurl, Ta'rikh-i Awadh, 
Lucknow 1919, v, 232; Gul Hasan Shah Panipati, 
Ghawthiyya, Lahore n.d., 124-5; M. G. Zubaid 
Ahmad, Contribution of India to Arabic literature, 
Allahabad 1946, index; c Abd al-Hayy Lakhnawl, 
Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad 1377/1958-9, vii, 
374-7; Brockelmann, S II, 458-9; Muhammad 
Baha> Allah Gopamawl, Siyar al-'ulamd', Kanpur 
1346, 22-3; c Abd al-Hayy, Dihll awr uske atraf, 
Dihli 1958, 30-1, 39-40, 54-5, 61-2, 113; monthly 
Tahrik, Dihli, Aug. 1957-June i960; Intizam 
Allah Shihabi, Mainland Fadl-i Hakk wa "-Abd al- 
Hakk, Bada'un, n.d. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
FAPL-i IMAM b. Muhammad Arshad al- 



<Um, 



l-Haf 



. Mui 



Wadjid b. c Abd al-Mabjid b. Kadi Sadr al-DIn 
al-HanafI, was a contemporary of Shah c Abd al- 
*Aziz al-Dihlawi, and the first Indian Muslim scholar 
to have accepted the post of mufti and sadr al-sudur 
of Delhi under the East India Company, the highest 
office, equivalent to the modern sub-judge in the 
Indo-Pakistan sub-continent, which the Company 
could confer on its native employees. His duties, as 
sadr al-sudur, included examining candidates for the 
posts of kadis, scrutiny of requests for financial aid 
or the grant of atnldk (fiefs), aHmma lands or madad 
ma'-dsh from scholars, divines and needy and learned 
persons. Born at Khayrabad [q.v.], a flourishing 
centre of learning in the Purb (Eastern districts) 
which Shahdjahan described as "the Shlraz of 
India", in the last quarter of the I2th/i8th century 
he completed his studies with c Abd al-Wadjid 
KirmanI, a learned scholar of Khayrabad (cf. 
Rahman C A1I, Jadhkira-i '■ulamd-i Hind, Lucknow 
1914, 136). One of his maternal uncles Mulla Abu 
'1-Wa c iz Hargami was one of the compilers of al- 
Fatdwd al-'-Alamgiriyya [q.v.]. Specially interested in 
rational sciences, he devoted his leisure hours to the 
teaching of logic and philosophy. He was so fond of 
his pupils that once he strongly upbraided his son 
Fadl-i Hakk for misbehaving towards a dull student. 
He seems to have been relieved of his post at Delhi 
in ca. 1827 when he was succeeded by Sadr al-Din 
Azurda [q.v.1, one of his pupils. He then entered 
the service of the chief of Paiiala as a minister but 
soon retired to his hometown where he died in 
1244/1829. He left behind three sons of whom 
Fadl-i Hakk [q.v.] gained great distinction. 

His works are: (i) al-Mirkdt al-mizdniyya (ed. 
Dihli 1886, 1888), a text-book on logic based mainly 
on al-Shamsiyya by Nadjm al-DIn c Umar b. 'All al- 
Kazwinl (d. 613/1216) and Tahdhib al-mantik of al- 
Taftazanl (d. 729/1389). It was commented upon by 



his grandson c Abd al-Hakk b. Fadl-i Hakk and has 
since been translated into Urdu; (ii) Tashhidh al- 
adhhdn fi Shark al-Mizdn (MSS I.O.; Delhi-Arabic 
no. 1529; Asafiyya, ii, 1566); (hi) Hdskiya <-ald al- 
Hdshiya al-zahidiyya al-kutbiyya (MS Bankipore 
no. 2273) ! (iv) Hdskiya 'aid al-Hdshiya al-zahidiyya 
al-djalaliyya (MS I.O. Delhi-Arabic no. 1513); (v) 
Talkhis al-Skifd' (MSS Aligarh Subhan-Allah Col- 
lection, no. 80, Rampur, no. 381); (vi) Amad-ndma, 
a very useful booklet on Persian infinitives for 
beginners of which chapter v, comprising short 
biographical notices of some of the leading 'ulamd' 
and scholars of Awadh, has been published at 
Karachi under the title Tarddjim al-fudald y (1956), 
with English translation and notes by me; (vii) 
Tardjama-i TaMkh-i Yamini (MS Aumer 241). 

Bibliography: Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Athdr 
al-sanddid, Ch. iv (reprinted as Tadhkira-i Ahl-i 
Dihli), Karachi 1955, 97-8; Rahman c Ali, Tadh- 
kira-i 'ulamd^-i Hind, Lucknow 1914, 162 (Urdu 
transl. with additions, Karachi 1961, 376-8); M. 
G. Zubaid Ahmad, Contribution of India to Arabic 
literature, Allahabad 1946, s.v.; c Abd al-Hayy 
Lakhnawl, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad 1378/ 
1958, vii, 374; <Abd al-Shahid Khan Shir- 
wanl, Bdghi Hindustan, Bijnor 1947, 16-35; 
Bashir al-Din Ahmad, Waki'dt-i Ddr al-Hukumat-i 
Dihli, Agra 1919, 414-5; Fadl-i Imam Khayrabadl, 
Tarddiim al-judala>, Persian text with Eng. transl. 
and notes, A. S. Bazmee Ansari, Karachi 1956, 
i-iii, 35-6; c Abd al-Kadir RSmpuri, Ruz-ndma 
(WaWi'-i <Abd al-Kadir Khdni), Urdu transl. 
under the title 'Ilm-o 'Atrial, Karachi i960, i, 
257; Muhammad Baha 1 Allah Gopamawl, Siyar 
al- c ulamd y , Kanpur 1346 A.H., 21-2; Gul Hasan 
Shah Panipati, Tadhkira-i Ghawthiyya. Lahore 
n.d., 125; Wahid Allah Bada'Gnl, Mukhtasar sayr-i 
Hindustan, Muradjbad 1273/1857, 60; Ghalib, 
Kulliydt-i nathr-i Ghalib, Lucknow 1871, 42-3; 
Storey, i/I, 252; Ellis, ii, 329-30. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
FAPLAWAYH, Baku, a Kurdish dynasty which 
ruled in Shabankara [q.v.] from 448/1056 to 718/ 
1318-9. Very little is known about them except for 
the founder of the dynasty Fadlawayh (in Ibn al- 
Athlr, x, 48 : Fadlun) and for members of the family 
during the Ilkhan period [q.v.]. 

Fadlawayh, son of the chief 'All b. al-Hasan b. 
Ayyub of the Kurdish tribe Raman! in Shabankara, 
was originally a general (Sipah-Salar) under the 
Buwayhids [q.v.] and closely connected with their 
vizier Sahib c Adil. When the latter was executed 
after a change of government, Fadlawayh eliminated 
the last Buwayhid in 447/1055 and placed himself 
under the authority of the Saldjuks [q.v.]. Later, 
however, he fell out with Alp Arslan [q.v.], was 
defeated by Nizam al-Mulk [q.v.] and finally taken 
prisoner and executed in 464/1071. 

Reports of the Banu Fadlawayh until the beginning 
of the 7th/i3th century are vague. After 626/1227-8 
Muzaffar al-DIn Muhammad b. al-Mubariz expanded 
his rule in the direction of Fars and the coast 
opposite Hormuz. He asserted himself against the 
atabeg of Fars, but fell during a siege of his own 
capital Idj by Hulagu [q.v.] in 658/1260. Until 664/ 
1266 three rulers followed one another in rapid 
succession: Kutb al-DIn, the brother (according to 
Zambaur the son) of Muzaffar al-DIn (murdered 
10 Dhu 'l-Hidjdja 659/5 November 1261); Nizam 
al-DIn II Hasanwayh who fell in Rabl c II 662/ 
February 1264; Nusrat al-DIn Ibrahim, the brother 
of the latter, deposed Rabl c II 664/Jan.-Feb. 1266, 



FADLAWAYH — FADLl 



after which more peaceful conditions obtained. The 
brother of the last named, Djalal al-DIn TayyibshSh, 
een years under Mongol suz 



intil h 



o Djumi 



LUgUSt 



brother Baha : 
natural death in 688/1289-90. The cousins who 
succeeded, Ghiyath al-DIn b. Djalal al-Din and 
Nizam al-Din III b. Baha' al-DIn, were quite power- 
less. In the year following the suppression of a revolt 
in 712/1312-3 a certain Ardashlr, whose lineage is 
uncertain, succeeded to power. As early as Dh u 
T-Ka c da/February-March 1314 he was eliminated 
by the founder of the Muzaffarid dynasty, Mubariz 
al-Din Muhammad, and thus the dynasty of the 
Banu Fadlawayh came to an end. 

Bibliography: On Fadlawayh: (Ibn al-) 
Balkhl, Fdrs-ndma, ed. G. Le Strange and R. A. 
Nicholson, London 1921, 164 ft. (GMS, N.S. i). 
On the 13th century: Wassaf, lith. Bombay, 1269/ 
1852-3, 423-5 ; Mustawfl Kazwlnl, Ta'rlkh-i guzida, 
i, 613 ff. (GMS, xiv); B. Spuler, Die Mongolen 
in Iran 2 , Berlin 1955, 146 ff.; E. de Zambaur, 
Manuel 1 , Pyrmont 1955, 233 (genealogical table 
with considerable differences from Wassaf, whose 
version is the basis for the above article). See 
also shabankara and its bibliography. 



(B. 



m) 



FADLl (commonly written Fadhli), 
territory now one of the states of the Federation 
of South Arabia, area about 1600 square miles with 
an estimated population of 55,000. Its western 
bounds touch on the Aden Colony and then run 
northwest bordering on Lahdj ('Abdali), HawshabI 
and Lower Yafi c territories; in the northeast it is 
bounded by 'Awdhall and Dathlna, in the east by 
the Lower 'Awlaki, and on the south by the Arabian 
Sea. The country consists of two main parts: the 
lowlands of Abyan in the west, partly desert but 
containing the only fertile soil, with a mainly settled 
population; and the steppes and hilly parts in the 
east, with a mainly tribal population. 

The territory was originally a confederation of 
tribes whose chieftain, a sultan by title, of the Fadll 
tribe, lived in Shukra, the capital and a seaport. 
After the British occupied Aden the Fadll remained 
hostile to them until in 1865, after the Fadlis had 
attacked a caravan near Aden, the British attacked 
them by land and sea. In 1888 the Fadll sultan 
Ahmad b. Husayn signed a treaty accepting British 
protection; and in 1944 the Fadll sultan c Abd Allah 
b. c Uthman signed a treaty with the British whereby 
he accepted advice on the administration of his 
country and the expenditure of his revenue. An 
executive acted for him in all matters in close 
cooperation with the British Political Officer in 
Abyan, and Zandjibar (also written Zandjubar) in 
Abyan became the administrative seat. In December 
1962 Sultan c Abd Allah b. 'Uthman was replaced 
as ruler by his na'ib in Abyan the de facto ruler, 
Sultan Ahmad b. c Abd Allah. The sultan is aided by 
a State Council, recently constituted, made up of 
thirteen members representing the tribes, the 
fishermen, the farmers and the traders. In June 1963 
the State Council passed an ordinance providing for 
the election of 12 members, four from the settled 
areas in the west and eight from the tribal areas in 
the east, who, with five ex officio members and the 
members of the existing State Council will make a 
legislative body. In 1959 the Fadll sultanate or state 
was among the first territories of the Western Aden 
Protectorate to join in forming the Federation of 
Arab Amirates of the South, later called the Federa- 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



tion of South Arabia when Aden Colony joined it 
in 1962. The present Fadll Sultan is a member of the 
Federal Supreme Council and holds a Federal 
ministerial post. 

The economy depends chiefly on agriculture, 
which is centred in the Abyan delta formed by WadI 
Bana and WadI Hasan whose irrigation waters are 
shared by Fadll and Lower Yafi c growers under the 
control of the joint Abyan Board. The formation of 
the Board marked the settlement of the long 
standing dispute between the two territories over the 
leading channel, ndzi'-a, which the Fadlis had con- 
structed in the last century to divert water to then- 
land from WadI Bana in Lower Yafi c territory. 
Cotton is the main cash crop, with the Fadll pro- 
duction in 1963 nearing 5,000 tons. Other products 
are fruit and vegetables, to supply nearby Aden 
Colony, crops other than cotton, especially sorghum, 
and animal husbandry. There is also a fishing 
industry with good potential. The revenue of the 
state has reached £ 250,000 a year. 

The state has two systems of courts, shari'a and 
Customary Law ( c urf) ; a Justice of the Peace system 
has also been introduced. There is also a State High 
Court with powers of appeal and with jurisdiction 
over some constitutional matters. 

Education has progressed recently and there are 
20 primary schools including two for girls, the first 
in the Federation outside Aden Colony. 

Bibliography: F. M. Hunter and C. W. H. 
Sealy, An account of the Arab tribes in the vicinity 
of Aden, Bombay 1909, 32-43; G. Wyman Bury, 
The Land of Uz, London 1911, 4-8; W. H. Ingrams, 
Arabia and the Isles, London 1942, 113-34; D. van 
der Meulen, Aden to the Hadhramaut, London 1947, 
20-31; Belhaven (A. Hamilton), The Kingdom of 
Melchior, London 1949, 73-84; idem, The uneven 
road, London 1955, 146-57; D. Ingrams, A survey 
of social and economic conditions in the Aden 
Protectorate, Eritrea 1949, passim; T. Hickin- 
botham, Aden, London 1958, 147-53; Aden 1957 
and 1958, administrative report issued by 
H.M.S.O., London 1961. (M. A. Ghul) 

FAPLI, Mehmed, better known as Kara FadlT 
(? -971/1563-4), Turkish poet, born in Istanbul, 
son of a saddler. Little is known of his early life. He 
does not seem to have had a regular education, but 
acquired knowledge in the company of learned 
people, particularly the poet Dhati [}.».], whose shop 
of geomancy had become a sort of a literary club for 
men of letters, where the old poet helped and 
encouraged young talents. On Dhati's suggestion he 
composed a Itasida on the occasion of the circum- 
cision festivities of prince Mehmed. When Dhati had 
finished reading his poem on the same subject, he 
introduced to the Sultan, Siileyman the Magnificent, 
his young disciple who then recited his, which won 
him the favour of the court. Fadll was made diwdn 
secretary to prince Mehmed and, upon his death, to 
prince Mustafa. On the latter's tragic end (960/1552) 
he wrote a long remembered elegy. He then entered 
the service of the crown prince Selim who, upon 
succeeding to the throne, made him his chief secre- 
fief. The poet died in Kiitahya 



the fc 






Fadll was a master of classical formal prose 
(inshd'), but he is better known as a poet. Unlike 
most poets of the classical age, he does not seem to 
have collected his poems into a diwdn and his 
known poems are scattered in various medjmu c as. 
Some of his works, mentioned and praised in tedhkires 
(the mathnawis Humd we Humdyun and Lehdjet ul- 



FADLI — FAHD 



esrdr, and a collection of stories in prose, Nakhlistdn) 
have not come down to us. Apart from his kasidas, 
ghazals, natsammafc and rubd'is, Fadli owes his 
fame, among minor poets of the ioth/i6th century, 
to his mathnawi GUI we Biilbiil written in 960/1552-3 
and dedicated to prince Mustafa. This is an allegorical 
romance of the love of the Nightingale for the Rose 
which, unlike most of its contemporaries, does not 
follow any particular Persian model. In spite of the 
fluent and simple style of some passages, the work 
is on the whole written in an over-elaborated style 
laden with the conventional sufi vocabulary which 
was in vogue during the period. Hammer's edition 
and translation of this work (see Bibl.) revived, for a 
time, the fading interest in this romance. 

Bibliography: The tedhkires of Latifi, c AhdI, 
'Ashik Celebi, KInali-zade Hasan Celebi, RiyadI 
and the biographical section in 'All's Kunh al- 
akhbar, s.v.; Hammer-Purgstall, GUI u BUlbUl, das 
ist: Rose und Nachtigall, von Fasli, Pest and 
Leipzig 1834; Gibb, iii, 108; M. Fuad Koprulti in 
I A, s.v. Fazli. (FAHiR iz) 

FAfiHFUR or Baghbur, title of the Emperor 
of China in the Muslim sources. The Sanskrit 
*bhagaputra and the Old Iranian *baghaputhra, 
with which attempts have been made to connect 
this compound, are not attested, but a form bghpwhr 
(= *baghpuhr), signifying etymologically "son of 
God", is attested in Parthian Pahlavl to designate 
Jesus, whence Sogdian baghpur, Arabicized as 
baghbur and faghfur; these forms were felt by the 
Arab authors as the translation of the Chinese 
Tien tzii "son of heaven" (cf. Relation de la Chine et 
de I'Inde, ed. and tr. J. Sauvaget, Paris 1948, 20; 
al-Mas'Gdi, Murudj, i, 306 (tr. Pellat, § 334); 
Fihrist, 350 (Cairo ed., 491) : baghbur = son of 
heaven, that is to say descended from the heavens; 
Ibn al-Athir, vii, 221). The form faghfur (facfur in 
Marco Polo, ed. Yule-Cordier, ii, 145, ed. L. Hambis, 
Paris 1955, 194, to refer to the last emperor of the 
Sung dynasty), which has been borrowed by Persian 
(cf. Ferrand, in JA, 1924/1, 243; idem, in BSOS, vi 
(1931), 329-39; S. Levi, in JA, 1934/1, 19), seems to 
be a more eastern form, although it is attested in 
al-Mas'udl (Murudj, ii, 200, = tr. Pellat § 622) ; 
it appears notably in the Hudud al-'dlam, 84, and in 
an Arabic inscription in the cemetery of Zaytun 
(Ts'iuan-cheou) dated 723/1323 (cf. G. Arnaiz and 
M. van Berchem, Mimoire sur les antiquiUs musul- 
manes de Ts'iuan-cheou, in T'oung-Pao, xii, 724). In 
the Arabic texts it appears less frequently than 
baghbur (the Arabic dictionaries give the vocalization 
bughbur), the earliest attestations of which go back 
at least to the 3rd/9th century (Ibn Khurradadhbih, 
16; al-Djahiz, Ifayawan, vii, 180); later authors use 
it frequently (al-Mas'iidi, Fihrist, Ibn al-Athir, see 
above; al-Kh w arizmi, Mafdtih, Cairo 1342, 71, 73! 
al-BIruni, Chronology, 109; Abrigt des merveilles, 118; 
etc.). According to the author of the Relation de la 
Chine et de I'Inde (20), a form maghbur was used, 
perhaps punningly, by navigators. Al-Mas'udl, loo. 
cit., also indicates the title which one gave to the 
emperor of China when addressing him, and it 
seems that the reading Tamghat khan, "Khan of the 
Tamghac", must be adopted; this refers to the 
Chinese (cf. Abu '1-Fida', ii/2, 123), Tamghac 
(Tabghad) designating the Chinese and China (see 
P. Pelliot, Notes on Marco Polo, i, 274). 

The derived forms faghfuri (Persian) and faghfur 
(Turkish) have become synonyms of lini "Chinese 
[porcelain]", but later authors who try to explain 
this word make faghfur a region of China (cf. P. 



Pelliot, in T'oung-Pao, 1931, 458). This term has 
entered Modern Greek (ipapcpoupi.) in the sense of 
"porcelain", and also Slav languages, through the 
Russian farfor (see Berneker, Slav, etymol. WdrUr- 
buch, i, 279; Laufer, Beginnings of porcelain, 126). 
Bibliography : in addition to the references 
in the text: E. Blochet, Introduction a I'histoire 
des Mongols, GMS XII, 76 n. 1; H. Cordier, in 
Milanges H. Derembourg, 434; H. Yule and A. C. 
Burnell, Hobson-Jobson 2 , London 1903, s.v. 
Faghfur; G. Ferrand, Relations de voyages et 
textes giographiques, Paris 1913-4, 2; Maspero, La 
Chine antique, Paris 1927, 144; P. Pelliot, Notes 
on Marco Polo, ii, Paris 1963, s.v. facfur, devotes a 
well-developed and documented study to this 
term. (Ed.) 

FAfiHFUR, in the sense of 'porcelain' [see siNij. 
FAHD (Ar.), (fem. fahda, pi. fuhud, afhad, afhud, 
fuhuda), is the name of the Cheetah (Urdu (ltd 
< Sanskrit (itraka, "spotted"), Acinonyx jubatus, 
also called "Hunting-leopard and Hunting-cat", 
(French: "guepard", Persian: "yuz"), the sub- 
species Acin. jub. vcnaticus being found from 
Balucistan to 'Irak and Jordan and the subspecies 
Acin. jub. hecki or guttatus in northern Africa, 
from the borders of the Sahara. The noun fahd, the 
form to be preferred to fahid which was recommended 
by al-Kalkashandi (Subh al-a'-sha, ii, 39 ff.), is 
connected with the root FHD which contains the 
idea of being "soporific by nature and with a 
tendency to negligence" in speaking of a man who 
could thus be compared with the cheetah; it is, 
however, difficult to know if the animal has taken 
its name from the earlier root bearing this sense, the 
cheetah being well-known for its natural sleepiness, 
or if, on the contrary, the root is derived from the 
word fahd which can equally well be supposed to 
be an Arabic corruption of the Greco-Latin term 
niip8o$lpardus, "panther". 

From remotest antiquity travellers in regions 
inhabited by cheetahs have not failed to observe 
this slender wild beast, asleep all day in the shade of 
a bush, hunting only at dawn or dusk, and, though 
with the tabby coat of a feline, claiming relationship 
with the canine family. Modern mammalogists in 
fact recognize it as a greyhound with the fur of a 
big cat from the form of the cranium, teeth like 
those of the canidae, non-retractile claws, its habit 
of running in strides, each step being a leap of five 
to six yards, and its peaceful nature; the cheetah 
does not experience the blind atavistic ferocity 
shown by the big felines at the sight of blood. It is 
not therefore surprising that the Mongols, Persians 
and Hindus who hunted because they needed food and 
consequently were close observers of wild animals 
should at a very early time have had the idea of 
taming the yards, and making use of its predatory 
instinct for catching hares and various ungulates 
with edible flesh; by so doing they gained the 
services of the swiftest of all quadrupeds, the cheetah 
having a speed of about eighty miles an hour for 
a distance of five or six hundred yards. It is 
probable that the Lakhmid princes, vassals of the 
Sasanids, tamed the cheetah in east Syria and 
'Irak, the animal being fairly widespread in those 
countries; the strain from the Samawa had the 
reputation, according to al-Mangli, of being superior 
to any other in the 14th century. 

Although Arab tradition attributes to Kulayb 
Wa'il of the Nadjd (second half of the 5th century 
A.D.) the distinction of first hunting with the cheetah, 
the animal does not appear to have been commonly 



employed in hunting by the Arabs before the Islamic 
conquests. Pre-Islamic poets, to judge by such of 
their writings as survive, make no mention of them; 
instead, it must have been regarded, like the panther, 
as a dangerous wild animal best avoided. Although 
extant in the Hidjaz and the Yemen, the cheetah 

biotope hardly going beyond the tropic of Cancer 
and being pre-eminently the dry Mediterranean 
steppe of grass- and bush-land found between the 
25th and 35th parallels. The absence in ancient 
Arabic of any "collective noun" in maf'ala among 
derivatives from the root FHD may to some measure 
corroborate, if not the ignorance of the Bedouins of 
pre-Islamic Arabia in respect of the cheetah, at least 
their confusion of this animal with the panther 
Leopard, Panthera pardus, (namir, nimr, arkat). 
This confusion, incidentally, has been perpetuated 
unfailingly even up to our own time in the works of 
many western writers since the introduction by the 
Crusaders in the 14th century of the cheetah to the 
courts of Sicily and Italy, and subsequently from 
there to the courts of France, Germany and England. 
The French name "guepard", after the names 
"gapard" and "chat-pard" derived from the Italian 
"gatto-pardo", has only lately, and correctly, been 
substituted for the incorrect mediaeval old-French 
appellations "lyepard", "leupart", "leopard", "leo- 
pard-chasseur", just as the anglicized term "cheetah" 
has taken the place of the archaic Middle-English 
forms of "leopart", "leparde", "lebarde", "libbard", 
and "hunting-leopard". Many also continue to make 
a serious error in confusing the cheetah with the 
Ounce or "Mountain Panther", also called "Snow- 
leopard", Felis uncia, a species of panther confined 
to the high mountains of central Asia, which only 
certain Mongolo-Altaic clans ventured to tame for 
hunting cervidae, and without any great success. 
The word Ounce, used for "Lonce" (from the Low 
Latin lyncea, lynx), applied to the "Snow-Leopard" 
revealed the confusion existing between the panther 
and the lynx which is called in French "Loup- 
cervier", i.e., Stag-eating wolf, and was in fact 
trained. Moreover it is an actual fact that the 
orthodox Muslim has never included a panther of 
any species, any more than the tiger (babr pi. bubur) 
or lion, in the list of "beasts of prey" {al-djatearih) 
recognised as "lawful instruments" of hunting (alat 
al-sayd); justifying this position of the Islamic law, 
UsSma b. Munkidh, the illustrious Syrian hunter- 
knight of the 6th/i2th century, was certainly the 
first to expound with precision the well-known 
anatomical distinctions between the cheetah and the 
panther, especially in the structure of the cranium, 
and to insist upon the ineradicable brutality of the 
second (see K. al-lHibdr, 11 1-2). In this connexion, 
it is to be regretted that L. Mercier (74-5), misled 
by erroneous sources of later date, failed to realize 
that the yuz of the Persians was actually the cheetah, 
and not an "unidentified" panther. 

However that may be, it was not until the Muslim 
expansion towards the north-east took place in the 
ist/7th century that the Arabs could be seen to 
have familiarized themselves with this new auxiliary 
in their hunting expeditions, afterwards taking to it 
with passionate enthusiasm. Their interest in the 
cheetah was to be revealed by their concise aphorisms 
in which the animal served as an example for some 
of its characteristic features; they said, among other 
things, "sleepier than a cheetah" (anwam* minfahd), 
"heavier-headed than the cheetah" (athkal" ra's'" 
min al-fahd), "a better purveyor than a cheetah" 



ID 739 

(aksab" min fahd), "quicker off the mark than a 
cheetah" (athwab" min fahd), "angrier than a cheetah" 
(aghdab" min fahd) ; all these axioms are to be found 
in collections devoted to this literary genre, such as 
that of al-Maydani (d. 518/1124). 

To be of service in hare and gazelle hunting, the 
cheetah has to receive a certain training and, for this 
reason, the Muslims ranked it, like the greyhound 
and the sporting-bird [see bayzara] as one of the 
"credited carnivora" (al-dawdri) the use of which in 
hunting was recognized as lawful on the strength of 
the Kur'anic ruling (V, 6/4) : ". . Reply [to them] : 
lawful for you are foodstuffs good to eat and any 
[game] that, at your wish, is captured by beasts of 
prey which you have trained as you do dogs, accord- 
ing to the method which Allah has taught you, after 
you have spoken the name of Allah over it . . .". 
It is in imposing this necessary condition of training, 
{idjdba, darawa\dara>a, taHim, taHib), and in con- 
sidering the "bleeding bite" {'■akr) made by the beast 
of prey at the take as a ritual slaughter (dhabh, 
tadhkiya) of the victim, that the doctors of the Law 
also admit certain other carnivora (kdsib, pi. kawdsib) 
whose training for hunting is identical with that of 
the cheetah. 

First comes the Lynx Caracal ( c andk al-ard, '■unfut, 
ghundjul, c undjul, kundjul, fundjul, hundjul, hand±al, 
furanik al-asad, shib, bawwak; Hidjaz: tumayla; 
Sudan: umm rlshat; Maghrib: (a)bu sbula, udanj 
awddn for adhan; Persian siyah-gush; Turkish 
karakulak whence "caracal"); the number of its 
names is proof that the Caracal was well-known in 
the countries of Islam, all the more since this large 
russet-coloured cat, with "ears tufted with black", 
less heavy to carry than the cheetah and less 
exacting in its requirements, in addition to its 
aptitude for "fur hunting" (sayd li 'l-wabar) was 
equally adept with feathered creatures (sayd li 
'l-rish), partridges, wild geese, bustards and cranes. 
After the cheetah and the caracal, they trained, 
with equal success, the Jungle Cat (Fr. Lynx des 
marais, i.e., Marsh lynx), Felis chaus (tuffa, tufah, 
Ufa, tifawa) as well as the Serval or Tiger-Cat, 
Leptailurus serval (washak, wishk, wishk, kitt-namir); 
as for the Ferret, Mustela putorius furo (ibn Hrs, 
nitns), it was used on rare occasions to flush game 
from dense coverts and for digging out fox, badger 
(zabzab) and porcupine (dirbdn) (Kushadjim, 227-8; 
Ibn Munkidh, 213). 

Under the Umayyad dynasty, the cheetah became 
an indispensable element in the caliphs' diversions; 
in Yazid b. Mu'awiya (680-3) the passion for "hunting 
with cheetahs" was quite as fervent as his love of 
hawking, so much so that he was traditionally the 
first (of the Muslims) to carry on his crupper the 
noble animal which the ordinary people, with their 
grey-hounds, looked upon as impossible to tame (dhu 
shakima). To name all the caliphs and distinguished 
personages in Islam who kept packs of cheetahs 
would be lengthy and of little value, since very few 
of them failed to respond to the powerful fascination 
exerted by the swift and inexorable hunt to the death 
as seen in the cheetah's headlong attack. The c Ab- 
basids, following the example of their illustrious 
general Abu Muslim al-Khurasani (718-55), and later 
the Fatimids and the Mamluks, took such a great 
interest in this proud beast, forcibly tamed by man, 
that they delighted in making it take part in their 
official processions; it may even be thought that 
they looked upon it as an external mark of their 
prestige and opulence. The vast expense entailed 
by the upkeep of a hunt with cheetahs, for which 



740 F^ 

a paid staff of experts was essential, precluded all 
but the rich from the privilege of this luxurious 
diversion; the less affluent contented themselves 
with flying and coursing sports. It is however sur- 
prising to note that the Maghrib and Muslim Spain 
took no interest in the cheetah and never trained it ; 
no reference to it occurs in any of the great number 
of documents, both Arabic and European, from which 
we draw our knowledge of Western Islam. The 
cheetah is known throughout the pre-Saharan zone 
of the Maghrib, from Tunisia to the Moroccan 
borders, although it is becoming rare there, and the 
nomads of the region have always regarded it 
simply as a permanent danger to their flocks (see 
L. Lavauden, Les vertebras du Sahara, Tunis 1926, 
39-40; idem, Les grands animaux de chasse de 
VAfrique franfaise, in Faune des Colonies francaises, 
Paris 1934, no. 30, 366-7; idem, La chasse et la faune 
cynigitique en Tunisie, Tunis 1920, 9-10). The 
Touaregs for their part are pleased, when they 
capture the beast, either to sell it to Europeans or 
else to make beautiful saddle-cloths and food-bags 
(mizwad, pi. mazawid) from its skin, but they have 
never thought of training it; they are, however, aware 
of its elegance and power, often giving its name (in 
Tamashak amayas) to their children as a first-name 
(H. Lhote, La chasse chez les Touaregs, Paris 1951, 
129-30). 

In contrast to the indifference shown by the 
Muslim West towards hunting with cheetahs, the 
East for its part has until our own time kept this 
ancient practice very much alive in 'Irak, Iran and 
India; Persian tradition ascribes it to Chosroes 
Anushirwan (531-79 A.D.), but in fact it goes back 
to remotest antiquity. The renowned poet Firdawsi 
is somewhat nearer the truth when, in his Shah 
Ndma he names Tahmuras, prince of the legendary 
dynasty of the Pishdadians, as the inventor of the 
training of beasts of prey, in these lines: Siydh-gush 
yuz dar miydn bargozid / Bd iara bidwurdash az 
dasht kuh ("He [Tahmuras] chooses from them 
[the wild beasts] the Caracal and the Cheetah. By 
artifice he took them from the desert and the 

Muslim writers in the Middle Ages, naturalists like 
al-Kazwinl (599-682/1203-83) in his K. 'Adjd'ib al- 
makhlukdt and al-Damlri (742-807/1341-1405) in his 
K. Haydt al-hayawdn, encyclopaedists like al- 
Djahiz (d. 255/868) in his K. al-Hayawdn and al- 
Kalkashandi (d. 821/1418, op. cit. supra), philologists 
like the Andalusian Ibn SIda in his K . al-Mukhassas, 
all spoke of the cheetah, not as connoisseurs but as 
recorders of the sayings of the Ancients; in this way 
they perpetuated certain naive and fabulous beliefs 
which originated in part in the imagination of the 
Greeks. From the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty 
a team of anonymous translators, possibly bilingual 
Ghassanids, had put into Arabic some of Aristotle's 
writings, in particular his "History of the animals". 
Al-Diahiz made use of this work, and tried to 
complete it; on occasion he in his turn repeated the 
old fallacies which had been accepted without 
verification; people will never cease to believe, for 
example, that the cheetah is a hybrid from the union 
of a female panther and a lion. Still more typical is 
the case of the variety of Aconite (Doronicum par- 
dalianches) which Greek hunters ground to a paste 
and used as a poison for wild animals (see Aristotle, 
History of Animals, new Fr. trans. J. Tricot, Paris 
1957, ii, 600 [Eng. tr. of Works, edd. J. A. Smith 
and W. D. Ross, iv, 612a]; Xenophon, Cynegeticus, 
Fr. trans. E. Talbot, Paris 1873, i, chap. VI, 338 



[Loeb ed. of Scripta minora, 1956, 440-1]) and which, 
from a literal translation of its Greek name "pardalian- 
ches" i.e., "that chokes the panther" (which is the 
actual "Wolf's-bane", with the same meaning ; cf. Old- 
French: "etrangle-loup", "tue-loup"), is called in 
Arabic khdnik al-fuhud or khdnik al-namir; then, by 
metonymy, this name has been extended, in al- 
Djahiz and those who repeated what he wrote (see 
K. al-Hayawdn, iv, 228), to mean the effects of 
poisoning induced by this plant and considered as a 
malady peculiar to wild carnivores. 

In the last resort we have to turn to writers on 
hunting to find more realistic information about the 
cheetah's nature, capture and training. Of the 
numerous Arabic treatises on venery and falconry 
recorded by lexicographers, very few have survived 
[see bayzara]; the oldest which has come down to 
us seems, at present, to be the K. al-Masdyid wa 
'l-mafdrid, attributed to the poet Kushadjim (d. 961 
or 971): in reality, this is no more than a work at 
second-hand which, thanks to the compiler, contains 
long fragments from a much earlier, possibly Umay- 
yad, work; and the treatises in Old-French of 
"Moamin and Ghatrif" (see the excellent critical 
edition by H. Tjerneld, Stockholm-Paris 1945) are a 
complete translation. However that may be, the 
K. al-Masdyid wa 'l-matdrid (very careless edition 
by A. Talas, Baghdad 1954) contains in the Bab 
al-fahd (183-201) a useful documentation on the 
animal's treatment. This chapter is reproduced 
word for word in the K. al-Bayzara (ed. Kurd 'All, 
Damascus 1953), the work of the hawker (al-Hasan 
b. al-Husayn?) of the Fatimid caliph al- c Aziz 
bi'llah (975-96); however, the anonymous author, 
in the Bab sayd al-fahd (118 ff.), puts forward his 
own personal remarks which are not lacking in 
interest. As for Usama b. Munkidh (d. 1188), he 
recalls his childhood days when at his father's house 
there was a she-cheetah of unusual docility, living 
in freedom (musayyaba) and on perfectly good terms 
with the fowls and the numerous tame gazelles 
belonging to the house, although when hunting she 
displayed a relentless ferocity towards her quarry. 
From his "Hunting memories" it emerges that he 
himself took almost no interest in this method of 
hunting. It was a very different matter with al- 
Mangli, a famous Mamluk hunter, who in his treatise 
dated 773/1371 gives us the fruit of his great ex- 
perience in the matter of cheetahs ; it is certainly the 
most thorough study on this subject in Arabic that 
we possess. The works of al-Ash'ari (848/1444) and 
al-Fakihl (d. 948/1541) of which L. Mercier made use 
(mss. Paris, B.N., no. 2831 and 2834) are merely 
repetitions of the earlier writings. 

In the light of these texts it is easy to formulate 
an exact idea of the difficulties which mediaeval 
Islamic huntsmen had to overcome before being 
able to experience to the full the excitement engen- 
dered by the cheetah's "career" (talk, pi. atldk). First 
it was necessary to find an animal in the prime of life 
(musinn), for the cheetah does not breed in captivity 
and the cheetah's whelp {'awbar, hawbar), if deprived 
of the tutelage of its wild parents, never acquires by 
itself the instinct of rapine. In fact, the master of a 
hunt with cheetahs was no more than a spectator on 
the spot, watching the exploits of the beasts in his 
menagerie, all the work and the results being the 
responsibility of the "cheetah-keeper" (fahhdd, Fr. 
guipardier), a difficult and very restricted occupation 
for which the rewards had to be lavish. The cheetah- 
keeper had, in fact, to be "trailer" (dhdnib), tamer 
(rd'id, pi. ruwwdd) and trainer (mudarr in , mudr in ). 



Certain tribes had specialized in this activity, like 
the Banu Kurra and the Banu Sulaym in Egypt, and 
made a profit from selling the animals they captured. 
The tactics most usually employed in catching the 
animal that was required, a female for preference, 
were "to recognize it by its footprints" (hifz al- 
dthdr), to "stalk its lair" (takrib al-'arin) with two 
or three men on horseback, in the heat of the day, 
to "start it" and to "trail its slot" {nadjdsha) slowly, 
without pressing it too hard; soon the indolent 
creature lies down to resume its interrupted nap, 
but is started once again. This manoeuvre is repeated 
three or four times until the animal is forced by 
fatigue to "wait steady" (mukawama) and to "face" 
(mu'drada) its pursuers, if it is not falling asleep from 
exhaustion. One of the trackers (nadjdjdshun) then 
dismounts, throws his burnous over it with a rapid 
and deft movement to blind it by covering it, and 
immobilizes the animal by holding down its flank 
with the whole weight of his body. It is at this 
moment that the cheetah-keeper has to employ all 
his skill to slip a halter (maras) under the garment 
round the animal's neck and to bind its jaws with a 
solid "muzzle" (kimdma, sayr) while an assistant 
securely ties together its forelegs and hindlegs two 
by two, above the pasterns in order not to bruise the 
muscles, wrapping its feet in pieces of cloth to avoid 
any injury from the claws; for greater safety its 
forequarters and hindquarters are made fast to two 
posts. The animal is left for some time in this painful 
position; and so fatigue, grief, terror and hunger 
soon get the better of its savagery. In addition to 
these natural aids to taming the cheetah-keeper also 
makes use of the human eye's mastery over the 
beast's, staring at it at frequent intervals and for 
longer and longer periods; when the animal closes 
its eyes or turns away its head, it is humbled and no 
further reaction of ferocity is to be feared from it. 
The hobbles from the posts are gradually loosened 
until the cheetah can raise itself on its fore quarters 
and can accept from the tamer's hand some pieces 
of cheese and then meat. With each morsel that is 
offered the cheetah-keeper utters a cry, as it were in- 
viting his pupil to respond; this is the real start of 
the "reclaiming" {idjdba, istidjdba). In this connexion, 
Muslim authors have not failed to stress the simi- 
larity of the procedures for reclaiming the goshawk 
and training the cheetah, as well as the technical 
terminology relating to both; incidentally al-Mangli 
states: ". . . idjdbat al-fahd ka-idjdbat al-bdzi . . .", 
"the cheetah's reclamation is like that of the 
goshawk . . .". After about ten days the prisoner's 
fetters {withdk, pi. wuthuk) are replaced by hobbles 
[Hkdl, pi. 'ukul) binding together the four feet in 
pairs, following the method used for camels and 
beasts of burden. Henceforward the cheetah can 
stand upright and stretch itself; everyone speaks to 
it, its keeper watches over it ceaselessly and feeds 
it, but only sparingly so that it still remains hungry 
{tadjwi'); at this point it is possible to think about 
transporting it to its future domicile. 

The Indians use a different technique for catching 
cheetahs; they spread nets round the edges of trees 
on whose trunks can be seen marks of scratching, 
where the animal has abraded its claws; sooner or 
later it is caught in the nets. On the other hand it is 
difficult to believe the statement, taken from the 
Greeks, that the cheetah allows itself to be appro- 
ached without difficulty when it is made to hear a 
"beautiful voice" (sawt iiasan); but it is possible, in 
spite of everything, that like many wild animals it 
is responsive to music and singing. 



To convey the cheetah to the room set aside for 
it by its owner is a delicate operation to which the 
cheetah-keeper devotes particular care: he has to 
avoid any accident which might impair the animal's 
fine condition. To do this, he puts it into a "strait- 
jacket" {wi'd 7 , ghirdra, kays), a large bag, allowing 
it to pass its head through the opening and, to 
prevent it being frightened by anything nearby, he 
accustoms it to wear on its head a hood (humma), a 
leather visor shaped like a baby's bonnet and tying 
under the chin; two porters then si 



safely to its destinatic 
(mughattd 'l-wadjh). 

On reaching its nev 
sporting-birds, has to rei 
Of), training that will 
{tadjrid) completely. For 



thus 



"hooded" 



home the cheetah, like 
ive some "manning" (uns, 
ake it lose its savageness 
this purpose the cheetah- 



keeper, leaving the hobbles on its feet, tethers it 
outside a house facing on to a busy street; the din, 
the constant movement and the teasing by the 
children soon result in making it absolutely harmless. 
They even go so far as to make it walk through the 
markets, held firmly on a lead and carefully sur- 
rounded. In the evening it is taken to its room, a 
dark stable where it is fastened to a long chain 
(midjarr) which leaves its movements entirely free. 
For the first nights an ostler (sdHs) watches it by the 
light of a lamp and prevents it from sleeping in 
order not to interrupt the process of training; it is 
only later that it is given a thick carpet {tinfisa) to 

All this time and for the rest of its life it receives 
food only from the hand of its keeper, for it is by 
means of the daily feed (tu c m) that he begins the 
education (tahdf) of his pupil. The art is not in 
teaching it to hunt, for it already has the instinct to 
do so, but instead in accustoming it to jump and 
ride pillion (irtiddf) on its trainer's horse at any 
speed. The Indians avoid this difficult initiation by 
conveying their cheetahs to the hunting-grounds in 
small, individual vehicles, shaped like cages and 
drawn by horses or oxen. 

To train it to ride pillion the cheetah-master 
installs in his pupil's room a wooden vaulting- 
horse (mithdl al-ddbba) or a small platform (dakka, 
markab) on trestles of adjustable height, and then 
having fastened a solid leather collar (kildda), fitted 
with a ring with swivel-pin (midwar), round the 
cheetah's neck, he releases it from the chain and 
holds it by the leash with one hand; with the other 
he shakes the bowl with rings (kas'a) from which 
the animal feeds and places it on the raised platform, 
to start with a cubit and a half above the ground. 
Repeating this manoeuvre several times, he ends by 
ostentatiously throwing a piece of raw meat into the 
bowl standing on the platform, at the same time 
inviting the animal to jump up by pulling lightly at 
the leash. Egged on by hunger, the cheetah quickly 
understands that the rattle of rings on the bowl is 
the announcement of something good for it to eat 
and that it has to go up onto the platform to get it. 
In this way the copper or bronze bowl, with rings 
attached, now continually plays the part of the 
cheetah's "reclaim", like the sporting-bird's lure. 
For this same purpose the Indians use a large iron 
ladle which is easier to handle on horseback than a 
bowl. By repeating this routine several times a day, 
each time increasing the height by several centi- 
metres, the keeper accustoms the animal, in less 
than ten days, to come and look for its food at a 
height of more than three cubits above the ground, 
the average height of the crupper on a saddled 



742 FA 

horse ; he does not fail, each time, to give it confidence 
by patting its flanks. Finally he replaces the platform 
by a table suspended from the ceiling, like the old 
breadshelf of former times, and puts on it not only 
the bowl but also the cheetah's carpet, thereby 
compelling it to balance itself on an unsteady seat 
where it is/ rocked about in exactly the same way 
as on its trainer's crupper. 

Again, it is by using the bowl that the keeper 
starts teaching the cheetah to mount. He selects a 
calm, good-natured horse and gets an ostler to hold 
the bridle; he then goes to fetch the cheetah and 
brings it on a leash close to the horse; to begin with, 
he is careful to hood the cheetah before taking it 
outside, to prevent it being at all alarmed by the 
sight of the horse. As soon as he is in the saddle he 
pulls the leash with one hand and with the other 
makes a clinking sound with the bowl which is 
placed behind him on the pillion (rifdda) or "crupper- 
seat", fixed to the cantle of the saddle. The animal is 
attracted and nimbly jumps up to eat the meat in 
the bowl; intent on its food, it pays no attention to 
the movement of the seat, the rider having mean- 
while made his mount start to move. Patient and 
frequent repetitions of this manoeuvre quite soon 
allow the cheetah-keeper to ride at a trot, and then 
at a gallop, without disturbing his passenger which, 
being "well-credited" (rablb), sits firmly on its 
pillion, untied except for its slip which is knotted 
to the saddle-bow. 

The "slipping on live" (irsdl 'aid 'l-sayd) of the 
cheetah is fairly rapid: some train-deer (kasira, pi. 
kasdHr), hares or gazelle fawns (khishf, pi- khushuf) 
which are easy to catch and are slaughtered under 
the cheetah's feet so that it may lap the blood, 
quickly bring out its hunting instincts. The skilful 
cheetah-keeper can even ensure that his beast only 
"sets upon" the gazelle bucks (fahl, pi. fufiiil), the 
does ( c anz, pi. c unuz) in venery in East and West 
alike being always left free for breeding; whenever 
a doe is seized, the cheetah is deprived of its "right" 
by being immediately removed from its take, whilst 
it is allowed to "take its pleasure" (ishbd'-) on the 
bucks it has caught. 

When a cheetah is judged to be "well-tried" 
(muhkatn), three ways of hunting are possible. The 
first, a princely prerogative, is "hunting at force" 
(al-mukdbara, al-muwddjaha) : the huntsmen, having 
reconnoitred the herd (sirb) from a distance, dislodge 
a buck and run it down until the "finish"; at the 
same time the cheetah is cast on the exhausted 
quarry and lays it low without difficulty or fatigue. 
These tactics entail long rides at random and require 
great endurance from riders and mounts alike. The 
second way is greatly relished for the thrilling 
spectacle that it offers, for it depends on the action 
of the cheetah alone: it is "stalking" (al-dasis); the 
cheetah which has been unhooded (makshuf aUwadjh) 
"reconnoitres" (tashawwuf) from a distance the 
gazelle as it is browsing and, at a sign from its 
keeper who has put it down on the ground, it sets 
off to try to take its quarry by surprise without 
being betrayed by its scent. The huntsmen take 
cover in order to see without being seen, and tremble 
with delight at the cheetah's manoeuvres as, having 
made its way upwind (mustakbil al-rih), it steals on 
and creeps up (da'aldn, tasallul) to the quarry, 
crouches down, remaining stock-still at the first 
alarm, and starts off again, one foot after another, 
taking advantage of every undulation of the ground, 
and so comes up quite close to the gazelle without 
having put it on its guard; the final charge is a 



matter of only a few seconds. As for the third way, 
it is by far the most commonly used by cheetah- 
keepers and gentlemen farmers (dihkdn, pi. dahdkln) 
for the small amount of difficulty and fatigue that 
it entails: it is "trailing" (al-mudhdnaba, al-idhndb); 
the huntsmen recognize a herd by its footprints and 
trail it upwind as far as its cover without alerting it. 
The cheetah, unhooded and "cast on the fur" 
unawares, is able to lay low several beasts before 
they have time to escape. 

Whichever method of attack is adopted in the 
course of hunting, the cheetah-keeper cannot call 
for more than five or six "careers" {talk, pi. atldk) 
from his cheetah since it makes the maximum effort 
in each career and thus rapidly becomes exhausted; 
for the same reason, it is only allowed to hunt on 
alternate days. Furthermore the cheetah-keeper 
must always cut the quarry's throat while the 
cheetah is still lying on it {tamahhud), biting it hard 
in the nape of the neck or the throat, and must let 
it lap the blood caught in the bowl in order to remove 
it from its quarry and to take away the body. Nor 
will he neglect to hood the cheetah again as soon as 
it has remounted the pillion, so that it is not tempted 
to dash off after some game not intended for it, 
since it is only lawful to eat the flesh of a wild beast 
caught in this manner if the cheetah-keeper has 
pronounced the formula invoking the name of 
Allah (tastniya) at the moment when the beast of 
prey is deliberately let slip (irsdl bi 'l-niyya). The 
cheetah, being subject to laws of nature, becomes 
vexed and angry when it misses its quarry and 
turns a deaf ear when its master calls it in; only the 
clinking of its bowl makes it decide to go back. 
Although sensitive to reprimands, it is doubtful if 
this animal goes so far as to learn a lesson, as the 
legend has it, from a rebuke addressed in its presence 
but vicariously, to a dog that is in fact blameless. 
The excitement of watching coursing with the 
cheetah has not escaped the inspiration of those 
Muslim poets who were responsive to subjects 
provided by the chase (taradiyydt). Some accom- 
plished masters of the urdjuza have left superb 
descriptions of the animal and its lightning charges, 
stressing the beauty of its tabby coat (mudannar), 
the terrifying aspect given by its "tear-streaks" (al- 
madma'dn') or "moustaches" (al-sufatdn' , al- 
shdhiddn'), the two dark stripes like two alifs, 
stretching from the eyes to the corners of the mouth, 
its suppleness when creeping, its unparalleled speed 
and irresistible assault. Of the writings devoted to 
the cheetah, which are rarer than those describing 
hounds and sporting-birds, only those by poets of 
the 'Abbasid period have survived; we need note 
only such famous names as Abu Nuwas, al-Fadl al- 
Rakashi the rival of Abu Nuwas, Ibn al-Mu c tazz, 
al-Nashi 5 , Ibn Abl Karima the contemporary of al- 
Djahiz, Ibn al-Mu'adhdhal and Ibn al-Husayn al- 
Hafiz. The sport of hunting with cheetahs having 
remained a diversion for the rich in Islam, it is not 
surprising to find that only the court poets of 
caliphs and wealthy patrons have celebrated it in 
verse; popular poetry and Bedouin songs have 
scarcely touched on the subject. 

Sasanid Persia gave the cheetah a certain place 
in its works of art; miniaturists represented it either 
realistically or else symbolically, by pair affronted 
or addorsed, on either side of the "tree of life" {horn). 
The West eagerly borrowed this last motif in the 
illuminations of the main Middle Ages, as we see 
in a frontispiece of the IXth century Evangeliary of 
I Lothair (Latin ms. Paris, B.N., no. 226, f° 75 v °. 



FAHD — FAHRASA 



743 



according to A. Michel, Histoire de I' Art, Paris 1905, 
I, 1st part, 400-4). The cheetah is also to be seen as 
an element of animal decoration in ceramics, tap- 
estries, drawings, carving and jewellery; in the 
Bucharest Museum there are two openwork clois- 
onne^ vessels which were discovered in ancient 
Petrossa and are therefore known as the "Petrossa 
treasure" ; each handle on these vases is made in the 
form of a cheetah supporting the vessel, the body 
made of gold and studded with garnets and turquoises 
(see A. Michel, op. cit., 413-4). Throughout Islam, 
the dominating influence of Sasanid inspiration in 
the minor arts swept through all the Muslim terri- 
tories and remained effective for several centuries; 
thus one frequently finds the "cheetah motif" in 
the works of art in metal or stone left by the artists 
of Fatimid Egypt and Muslim Spain. In this con- 
nexion one may wonder if the historians of Muslim 
art have occasionally been mistaken in regard to 
some of these decorations with animal figures, and 
have identified as lions what the artist intended as 
cheetahs. Finally, we may note that despite the 
renown it enjoyed among the great in the East, the 
cheetah never attained the heraldic eminence in 
Mamlflk heraldry that it reached in the Christian 
West during the Middle Ages. 

Bibliography: In addition to the references 
given in the article: Usama Ibn Munkidh, K. al- 
IHibdr, ed. Ph. Hitti, Princeton 1930, chap, i, in; 
iii, 206-9; Muhammad al-Mangli, K. Uns al-maW 
bi-wahsh al-fald', Arabic ms. Paris, B.N., no. 2832, 
fol. i8v° ff. and ed. F. Pharaon, Paris 1880, 60 f. 
with mediocre trans., 61 f.; 'Umari, K. al-Tahlf 
bi 'l-mustalah al-sharif, Cairo 1312; Ibn Rushd- 
Averroes, Le lime de la chasse, extr. from the 
Biddyat al-mudjtahid, text and trans, annotated by 

F. Vire, in Revue Tunisienne de Droit, iii-iv, Tunis 
1954; Marco Polo, Le Devisement du Monde, ed. A. 
t'Serstevens, Paris i960, 168, 201; L. Mercier, La 
chasse et les sports chez les Arabes, Paris 1927, 
ch. iv; A. Boyer and M. Planiol, Traitt de faucon- 
nerie et autourserie, Paris 1948, 170-81 ; L. Blancou, 
Geographic cynigitique du monde, Paris 1959; 

G. Migeon, Manuel d'art musulman 2 , Paris 1927, 
ii, 403 f f . and passim ; A. V. Pope, A survey of 
Persian art, Oxford 1939; Mayer, Saracenic 
heraldry, Oxford 1932. For an account of cheetah- 
hunting in Mughal India and the emperor Akbar's 
personal interest therein, see Abu 'I-Fadl C A1- 
lami, AHn-i Akbari, ii, A'in 27; food allowed to 
cheetahs, the wages of their keepers, and methods 
of hunting with cheetahs, ibid., A 'in 28. On the 
caracal, ibid., A 'in 28. See also Mu'tamid Khan, 
Ikbdl-ndma, ed. Bibl. Ind., 70. (F. Viwt) 
FAHL or Fihl, an ancient town in Trans- 

jordania situated 12 km. south-east of Baysan [q.v.], 
was known in earliest antiquity, at the time of el- 
Amarna, under the name Bikhil, corresponding to a 
Semitic phi. Macedonian colonists settled there in 
about 310 B.C., giving it the name of the Macedonian 
town of Pella, which resembled the native name. 
After the Roman conquest, Pella was one of the 
towns of the Decapolis, and the Christians took refuge 
there during the disturbances which followed the 
destruction of Jerusalem. Later it belonged to the 
Second Palestine and was the seat of a bishopric. 
About six months after the battle of Adjnadayn 
[q.v.], in Dhu '1-Ka c da 13/January 635, it was near 
Fahl that the Muslim armies attacked the Byzantines 
who had mustered to the east of the Jordan and cut 
the dikes at Baysan in order to turn the district into 
a marsh; during the battle, known as the "battle of 



Fahl" or "battle of the marsh (yawm al-radagha)" , 
the Arab invaders succeeded in crossing the Jordan 
and taking the town. 

In the 3rd/gth century the population of Fahl, 
according to al-Ya'kubi, was still half Greek and the 
town, which formed part of the province of al- 
Urdunn, seems then to have declined rapidly, for the 
writers of the 4th/ioth century do not mention it. 
Today the name Fahl merely denotes a collection of 
ruins, mostly Roman and Byzantine. 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s.v. Pella (4); 
F.-M. Abel, Giographie de la Palestine, ii, Paris 1938, 
especially 405-6; Caetani, Annali, iii, 187-219; 
G. Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, 
London 1890, especially 439; A.-S. Marmardji, 
Textes giographiques arabes sur la Palestine, Paris 
1951, 159; Baladhurl, Futuh, 115; Tabarl, i, 2146, 
2155; Ibn al-Fakih, 116; Ibn Khurradadhbih, 78; 
Ya'kObl, Buldan, 327 (trans. Wiet, 175); Yakut, 
Bulddn, iii, 853. (Fr. Buhl-[D. Sourdel]) 

FAHRASA, the name given in Muslim Spain to 
kinds of catalogues in which scholars enumerated, 
in one form or another, their masters and the subjects 
or works studied under their direction. The word 
fahrasa is an Arabicization of the Persian fihrist 
by means of a double vocalization -a- and the 
closing of the final UP, a fairly frequent modification. 
In al-Andalus, it is completely synonymous with 
barndmadi, which is also Persian, while in the east 
it corresponds with thabat, mashikha (mashyakha) or 
mu'djam (this last word is also used in the west). 
In the east, the best known of these works is al- 
Mu'-djam al-mufahras of Ibn Hadjar al- c Askalani 
(d. 852/1449), still in manuscript (see Brockelmann, 
S II, 73), who adopts the same classification as 
Ibn Khayr (see infra). In the west, the fahrasas 
appear to be more numerous (Ibn Khayr and al- 
Ru'ayni [see below] give quite a long list) and some 
still survive; three of them have already been 
published: a. Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili (502-70/1108-76 
[q.v.]), Fahrasat ma rawdh '■an shuyilkhih min al- 
dawdwin al-musannaf fi durub al-Hlm wa-anwd c al- 
ma'-drif: Index librorum de diversis scientiarum or- 
dinibus quos a magistris didicit, ed. J. Ribera 
Tarrag6, BAH, ix-x, Saragossa 1894-5. — b. Ibn 
Abi '1-Rabi c (599-688/1203-89; see Brockelmann, 
S I, 547), Barndmadi, ed. c Abd al- c Aziz al-Ahwanl, 
in RIMA, i/2 (1955), 252-71. — c. al-Ru c ayni al- 
Ishbili (592-666/1195-1268), Barndmadi or K. al- 
Irdd li-nubdhat al-mustafad min al-riwdya wa'l- 
isndd bi-likd' hamalat al-Hlm fi 'l-bildd c ald tarik al- 
iktisdr wa'l-iktisdd, ed. Ibrahim Shabbuh, Damas- 
cus 1361/1962. 

c Abd al- c Aziz al-Ahwani has examined the mss. 
still extant and incorporated the results of his 
research in an extremely well documented article, 
Kutub bardmidj al-'-ulamd? fi 'l-Andalus, in RIMA, 
i/I (1955), 91-120. According to this writer, it is 
possible to distinguish four categories of fahrasa or 
barndmadi: — I. Catalogue of writings, classified 
according to the branch of study to which they 
belong. Ibn Khayr observes the following order: 
Kur'anic studies, hadith, siyar and genealogy, fikh, 
grammar, lexicography, adab, poetry; he does no 
more than give the names of his masters, without any 
further observations. To this category belongs the 
Barndmadi of Ibn Mas'fld al-Khushanl (d. 544/1149) 
of which only a few pages survive (al-Ahwani, 99). 
— 2. A list of masters, with a note of the works 
studied under their direction. The Ghunya of kadi 
c Iy5d (476-544/1083-1149 [q.v.]) who adopts an 
alphabetical classification, belongs to this category, 



744 



FAHRASA — FAKHKH 



as does the Fahrasa of Ibn 'Atiyya al-Muharibi 
(d. 541/1146; see Pons Boigues, Ensayo bio-biblio- 
grdfico sobre los historiadores y geografos ardbigo- 
espanoles, Madrid 1898, 207; Brockelmann, S I, 
732; ms. Escorial 1733; he recounts the biography 
of his father and his other masters; al-Ahwanl, 
101-2), and the Barndmadi of al-Ru c ayni who 
classifies his masters according to the subjects in 
which they specialized: I£ur 3 an, hadith, grammar, 
adab, poetry. — 3. A combination of the two 
classifications, as in the Barndmadi of Ibn Abi 
'1-Rabi c (see supra) and that of Muhammad b. 
Djabir al-Wadiyashi (d. 749/1348; see Brockelmann, 
S II, 371, and correct the date and place [Tunis 
instead of Granada] of his death; ms. Escorial 1726), 
who first gives the names and biographies of his 
masters, then the list of subjects and works studied 
under their direction. — 4. The addition of personal 
observations, narratives etc. by the author to the 
above lists. 

This genre, which appears to be a particular spe- 
ciality of the Andalusians, should be associated with 
the transmission of hadith, and indeed it was the 
traditionists and fukahd' who considered it helpful 
to leave for posterity a list of their masters (or to 
entrust it to one of their disciples, as in the case of 
Ibn Abi '1-Rabl c ), sometimes not without indicating 
the isndd of the hadith learnt under their direction. 
But a well composed fahrasa such as that of Ibn 
Khayr possesses an interest of quite a different sort 
by revealing what studies could be undertaken by a 
young scholar at some given period, and by providing 
an inventory of the works favoured by cultivated 
circles (cf. H. Peres, Poisie andalouse, 28 ff.). 
Bibliography: in the article. 

(Ch. Pellat) 

FAH$ ai-BALLCT, "Plain of the oaktrees" or, 
more accurately, "of the acorns" (ballut) whose 
present name Los Pedroches is applied to the wide 
valley situated to the south-west of Oreto, three 
days' journey north of Cordova. It stretches as far 
as the mountains of Almaden and has always been 
characterized by the great mass of evergreen oaks 
covering the mountains and the high plateau. 
Pedroche is synonymous with pedregal, the designa- 
tion of the whole region, and the Latin name pelra, 
transcribed into Arabic as bilra, has, with the suffix 
che, given Bitrawsh. In common with al-Idrisi, the 
Muslim geographers praised the quality of the 
acorns which, according to al-Razi, were sweeter 
than quantas ha en Espanya, and added that the 
local inhabitants cultivated these trees with great 
care and that in years of poor harvest and famine 
they lived on the crop, for with this species the 
acorns can be eaten by human beings, not merely by 
animals. It was a high, mountainous region, inhabited 
mostly by Berbers, and the principal town Ghafik was 
so called from the name of the MaghribI tribe which 
had settled there. The castle, strongly fortified and 
well situated on the road leading from DSr al-bakar 
to Toledo via Pedroche, was remarkable for the 
vigour with which its occupants repulsed the Casti- 
lians during the raids they made in the time of 
Alfonso VII and Alfonso VIII. The old fortress of 
Ghafik, towering above a little peninsula like an 
island, was put to new use in the 15th century and 
transformed into a barbican, on which was built the 
castle of Belalcazar; its identification with Ghafik 
has been finally established and there are no longer 
any grounds for uncertainty. 

The Kiira of al-Balalita, the plural of ballut, included 
among its castles, in addition to Ghafik, Pedroche 



— Bitrawsh [q.v.] — Sadfura on the Djabal c Afur, 
Hisn Harun, identified with the castle of Aznaron 
and the castle of Cuzna, alongside the river which 
bears its name and the port, later called Puerto 
Calatraveiio. Al-Ghafiki and al-Balluti are the ethnic 
names of important personages of the district, among 
them the great kadi of Cordova, Abu '1-Hakam 
Mundhir b. Sa c id, famous for his rectitude and 
learning in the time of <Abd al-Rahman III. Abu 
Hafs c Umar al-Balluti, leader of the emigres from 
the outskirts of Cordova who had occupied Alexan- 
dria, seized Crete and founded a dynasty which 
remained there until 309/921. 

During the Almoravid period, in 528/1134, the 
Castilians crossed through the region of the Pedroches 
and reached the castle of al-Bakar, where they were 
routed by Tashfin b. C A1I and compelled to retreat 
along the valley of the Guadiato. In the summer of 
549/1155 Alfonso VII took Pedroche and Santa 
Euphemia, but Pedroche was immediately recaptured 
by the new Almohad governor of Cordova, c Ibn 
Igit who defeated the count left in command of 
Pedroche by Alfonso VII, took him prisoner when 
capturing the castle by storm, and sent him to 
Marrakush. For a considerable time Ghafik-Belal- 
cazar remained in the hands of the Almohads for, 
although we do not know the date when the Fahs al- 
ballut passed completely into the power of Castile, 
it is certain that in 580/1184 the caliph Yusuf b. <Abd 
al-Mu 3 min, on his arrival at Seville to start the 
Santarem campaign, sent his general Muhammad b. 
Wanudin into exile at Ghafik, his conduct in action 
against the Castilians and Portuguese having been 
somewhat discreditable. 

The counts of Sotomayor, when building their 
castle on the site of the abandoned fortress of 
Ghafik, erected a grand tower of extremely pictu- 
resque appearance which, standing out prominently 
in the restricted setting that it commanded, merited 
the name of Belalcazar; the old name of Ghafik 
fell into oblivion, although later it was felt desirable 
to give it a more Arabic etymology with the tortuous 
invention of Belalcazar. 

Bibliography: Idrisi, Descript., text 214, 
trans. 263-4; Himyari, al-Rawd al-miHar, ed. 
Levi-Provencal, text i39-43> trans. 167-71; 
Cronica del moro Rasis, ed. Gayangos in Mem. de 
la R. Academia de Historia, viii (1850); Khushani, 
Los cadies de Cordoba, ed. Ribera, 256-7 in the 
trans. ; Hernandez Jimenez, Estudios de Geog. hist, 
esp. Gdfiq, Gahet, Gahete = Belalcazar, in al- 
Andalus, ix/i (1944), 71-105; Levi-Provencal, 
Hist. Esp. mus., i, 172 and 384-5; Ibn c Idhari, al- 
Baydn al-mughrib, trans. Huici, in Cr6n. drabes de 
la Reconquista, ii, 68; A. Huici, Un nuevo manu- 
scrito de al-Baydn al-mugrib, in al-Andalus, xxiv/i 
(1959), 63-84. (A. Huici Miranda) 

FA C IL [see <illa). 
FA c IL [see naiiw]. 
FAIR [see panayir, suk]. 
FAITH [see Iman]. 

FAKHBH. FAKHIDH [see c ash!ra, kabIla]. 
FAKHKH, a locality near Mecca which is 
now called al-Shuhada' "the Martyrs". A very 
ancient tradition relates that certain Companions of 
the Prophet, in particular c Abd Allah the son of the 
caliph c Umar, were buried there. It is in honour of 
this famous person, regarded as the local saint, that 
on 14 Safar a ceremony is held there every year, and 
not because about a hundred 'Alids and their 
partisans met their deaths at Fa khkh in a battle 
{yawm Fakhkh) on 8 Dhu 'l-HidMa 169/n June 786. 



FAKHKH — FAKHKHAR 



The la 



i, howe 



r, the "Martyrs" 



Al-Ya'kut 
al-Hadi t 
hostiliti 
Medina t< 



in the time of Snouck Hui 
only to cultivated Meccans but of which the Shi'a 
have preserved vivid recollections, was the dramatic 
conclusion of an c Alid revolt which began in Medina 
and which, though lasting less than forty days, was 
regarded, because of the final massacre, as the most 
sericus of the revolts after that which culminated in 
Karbala 3 . This revolt sprang from more or less long- 
auses in addition to its immediate cause. 
I tells us that, after the elevation of 
) the caliphate, there was a renewal of 
s against the Shl c a, some of whom went to 
o complain to the c Alids in the town of the 
which had been suffered. But so short a 
time elapsed between that event and the revolt 
that, even if the information given by this author can 
be accepted, it is necessary to go further back to find 
the real causes of the occurrence. The revolt had con- 
nexions with that of Muhammad b. <Abd Allah 
al-Nafs al-Zakiyya [q.v.] and his brother Ibrahim 
[q.v.] in 145/762-3, for the 'Alids who revolted in 
169 were closely related to the victims of 145; on the 
other hand, if we examine word by word the speech 
which the leader made to his followers, we see that 
it must have been the culmination of one of those 
movements of a social character to which the 
Talibids so often gave their support. For the 
leader of the movement, the cause and the course 
of the insurrection, see al-husayn b. 'alI sahib 
fakhkh ; here we mention only that after resisting 
for eleven days at Medina Husayn set out with his 
followers for Mecca, and the clash with the c Abbasid 
forces took place on the day of the tarwiya (8 Dh u 
'l-Hidjdja 169/11 June 786) at the foot of the 
mountain of al-Burud at Fakhkh. Al-Husayn, the 
Sahib Fakhkh as he is often called, having refused to 
accept a safe-conduct, fell in battle along with other 
c Alids. For three days their bodies were left unburied, 
an incident which provided the poets with a moving 
theme for their elegies. The 'Alid Idris b. c Abd 
Allah b. al-Hasan succeeded in escaping; he took 
refuge in Egypt, and from there went to the far 
Maghrib where he founded the state and dynasty of 
the Idrisids [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: Yakut, iii, 854 ft.; Chr. 

Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka. The Hague 1888, i, 41, 

ii, 55 if.; Abu '1-Faradj al-Isfahanl, Makdtil al- 

Talibiyyin, ed. Ahmad Sakr, Cairo 1365/ 1946, 

431-58; Tabari, ijj ( 551-68; Mas'udi, Muritdj,, 

vi, 266-8; Ya'kubi, Historiae, ed. Houtsma, ii, 

488; F. Wustenfeld, Die Chroniken der Stadt 

Mekka, Leipzig 1857-9, i. 435. 501 f., ii, 185 and 

index; M. J. De Goeje, Fragmenta historicorum 

arabicorum, i, 284 f.; Ibn al-Athir, vi, 60-4.; Ibn 

al-Tiktaka, Fakhri, ed. Derenbourg, Paris 1895, 

260 f. (= Eng. tr., C. E. J. Whitting, London 

1947, 187 ff.) (inaccurate); Ibn Kathir, Biddya, 

x, 157; Muhsin Amin, A'-yan al-Shi<a, s.v. al- 

Husayn b. c Ali b. al-Hasan; G. Weil, Gesch. der 

Chalijen, ii, 123-5; S. Moscati, he califat d'al- 

Hddi, in Studia Or. ed. Soc. orient. Fennica, xiii/4 

(1946), 9-15. (L. Veccia Vaglieri) 

FAKHKHAR, earthenware vase, pottery, 

ceramics. Pottery is one of the glories of Islamic 

art and is produced by practically every country in 

the Islamic world. Ceramic wares have a place in 

architecture as inlays or as faience tiles, and they 

hold an important place in the field of the applied 

arts. In order to make a necessarily brief study of 

this vast subject clear, it would seem appropriate to 

give some idea of the different techniques employed, 



perio 



e principal 
Is of their 



before proceeding to the naming c 
centres of manufacture and the p 

The basic material for ceramic wares is baked 
clay, which is termed silicious or plastic according 
to the element predominant in its composition. The 
clay may be left bare, thus retaining a brick-like 
appearance, or be covered with slip (a much paler 
and thinner clay), which conceals the true colour. 
Various kinds of decoration may be applied to a 
vessel while the clay is still soft. A vase thrown on 
the wheel may be incised with grooves while still 
being turned on the wheel, ornamented with reliefs 
luted on with slip (a thin watery clay), impressed 
with motives laid side by side in a mould, or stamped 
with independent dies. A pot dried and fired in 
the kiln may be glazed by covering it with a glaze 
fluxed with lead, which gives it a glossy appearance 
and renders it impermeable; this glaze may be co- 
loured or uncoloured. There are various means 
available to the potter for enriching his work with 
polychrome effects. A great number of different 
coloured glazes may be obtained by combining 
metallic oxides with a colourless fusible material. 
Apart from tin oxide which gives white, the palette 
includes cobalt oxide for blue, copper oxide for 
green and turquoise blue, and manganese oxide for 
brown and aubergine purple. The decoration may 
be painted with a brush on a slip-dressed body and 
appear under the glaze; this is the method used with 
silicious wares; or the decoration may be painted 
on a glaze made opaque with tin oxide; this is the 
method used with tin-glazed wares (i.e., Majolica 
and Delft). 

Western Asia was the birth place of Islamic 
pottery. Its ultimate ancestors were undoubtedly the 
glazed bricks of the Achaemenid palaces, and its 
more recent forerunners the Parthian and Sasanid 
wares. Islamic pottery, however, is not known to 
us until the beginning of the 'Abbasid period (3rd/9th 
century). It is to the excavations at Samarra, the 
residence of the caliphs from 223 to 269/838-83, that 
we owe our earliest and in any way precise knowledge 
of the wares. They seem already very varied and 
skilfully executed, so that we are led to believe that 
there had been earlier developments of which we 
know nothing. In addition to pottery with or without 
glaze, incised or stamped, there are three main types 
of wares represented at Samarra; there is a white 
earthenware decorated with spots or pseudo-calli- 
graphic motives in cobalt blue, an earthenware 
decorated in polychrome, obviously inspired by 
Chinese stonewares of the T'ang period (7th-8th 
centuries) ; and finally there is an earthenware known 
as lustre, characterized by its metallic lights. The 
decoration of this last type is achieved by means of 
an ochre mixed with powdered silver, or copper, 
which separates out in the firing and is deposited as 
a thin film on the surface of the tin glaze; the colour 
varies from pale gold to ruby red and the iridescence 
of these tones varies according to the fall of light. 
Other analogous and doubtless contemporary pieces 
have been found at Susa. At Baghdad, or at other 
centres in the c Abbasid empire, this ware, which in 
appearance rivalled the vessels in precious metals 
but was never hit by the same interdiction on the 
part of strict Muslims, seems to have been an item 
in the lively export trade across the Islamic world. 
Thus is it that a number of fragments have been 
dug up at Madinat al-Zahra', the royal city of the 
caliph of Cordova, thus also that the finest collection 
to come down to us (nearly 150 tiles sent from 



Baghdad or manufactured there) appear in the 
surround of the miftrdb in the Great Mosque at 
Kayrawan. In Egypt the workshops of Fustat were 
initiated into the technique of lustre decoration, 
where we shall meet this ware again. 

Persia played a remarkable part in the develop- 
ment of ceramic wares at a very early date. She 
seems to have profited from foreign as well as from 
pre-Islamic traditions, as is evidenced by the ware 
called gabrl, after the name of "Guebres", adherents 
of Zoroastrianism, which Islam had not completely 
stamped out. The ornamentation of this ware, produc- 
ed by means of larger or smaller scratches in the slip 
that covers the body under the transparent partly 
coloured glaze, consists of schematic representations, 
recalling the ancient culture of Persia, notably of fire 
altars, as well as figures of men and beasts, birds, 
lions and dragons depicted in a curiously stylized 

Of all the centres of ceramic production in Iran, 
the now ruined city of Rayy, in the vicinity of 
Tehran, seems the most ancient. It was extremely 
active until the 7th/i3th century and, under the 
name of Rhages, is the best known to collectors. 
The wares show great diversity of both form and 
technique. Lustre wares, often of a greenish gold 
tone, are frequently represented. Apart from tiles, 
for facing wall surfaces, cut in eight-pointed stars 
and in crosses with arms of equal length, Rayy also 
produced bottles and vases in the form of animals, 
or ornamented with wild beasts modelled in relief. 
The predilection displayed by the potters for the 
representation of living beings, and even their inter- 
pretation in the round, is a pronounced characteristic 
of Persian taste. Inside and on the rims of plates, on 
the swelling walls of bottles, as well as on wall tiles, 
mounted soldiers and hunters ride along, rulers and 
stumpy, doll-faced musicians sit, all bringing to mind 
the figures depicted in the miniatures of the period. 
These little figures, standing out against a white or 
pale blue ground, are dressed in delicately coloured 
cloths heightened with gold. Inscriptions in golden 
letters tell of the Iranian legends illustrated in this 
type of decoration. 

Rayy was sacked by Cingiz Khan's Mongols in 
624/1227; yet although appallingly impoverished, 
her potters continued production, using the techni- 
ques with which they were familiar. Attributed to 
them, and regarded as of this period, are a number 
of pieces decorated in black silhouette against a 
green ground. 

The arrival of the Mongols appears to have some 
connexion with the establishment of stores that were 
found in the ruins of Gurgan. The pieces, which were 
found intact, had been packed in large jars, or had 
been buried at the time of the invasion. The wares 
are dateable to the end of the 5th-6th/nth-i2th 
century; some of them might be earlier. They include 
copper lustre wares with a cream or turquoise ground; 
there are some, too, that may have been imported 
from Sava. 

Under Mongol domination, the ceramic industry 
remained vigorous, especially in the Persian area, 
at Amul and even more so at Sava and Kashan, as 
well as in the north-east at Samarkand. Wares with 
geometric, floral and highly stylized animal deco- 
ration, cut through a slip dressing and tinged with 
green and manganese purple are believed to have 
been made at Amul in the 5th-7th/nth-i3th 
centuries. 

In the Mongol period we find new centres of 
production, such as that at Sultanabad, springing 



up. Chinese influence asserts itself and is favoured 
by the new rulers of Iran, who brought in Chinese 
potters, just as they had introduced miniature 
painters into the occupied territory. Chinese fashions 
were to persist into the Safawid period, which 
followed that of the Mongols. The fabulous beasts 
of the Far East enliven the wares attributed to 
Kirman in the time of Shah 'Abbas 995-1037/ 
1587-1628. 

The excavations carried out by the Americans 
before and during the second World War have 
brought to light the existence of ceramic activity in 
NIshapur in Transoxiana, which must have achieved 
its apogee in the 2nd-5th/8th-nth centuries under 
the Samanids. The wares produced seem to be the 
earliest ones covered with a very thin dull glaze 
stained lemon yellow, green or brick red; they 
display a disorderly grouping of geometric motives, 
pseudo- calligraphic elements, florets, animals and 
figures, perhaps derived from ancient Persia, 
enclosed by black lines. 

In the wares of Daghistan to the south-west of 
the Caspian, and in the dishes, somewhat arbitrarily 
attributed to the small town of Kubaca, we find not 
only late survivals of Chinese influence, but also 
characteristics that foreshadow the Turkish pottery 
of Asia Minor. The painted decoration under the 
glaze, which is colourless or stained green or blue 
and is often crackled, consists of stylized flowers, 
animals, usually in silhouette, or turbaned person- 
ages against a floral ground. 

Apart from pieces of such forms as vases and 
dishes, Persia produced an abundance of ceramics 
for architectural purposes, which make a glittering 
and colourful addition of great charm to the ele- 
gantly proportioned buildings. Combinations of 
brick and glazed tile, and ceramic insets, formed by 
setting mosaics in monochrome surfaces, make up 
geometric, calligraphic and floral decorations that 
have a place both on the inside and on the outside of 
architectural structures. On the outside these 
ceramics encase domes, tall minarets and porches, 
the colours most frequently occurring being dark and 
light blue; on the inside one is struck by the faience 
mikrdbs, especially those made at Kashan, with 
their flat central panels flanked by pilasters and 
crowned with a Persian arch with straight members. 

The settlement of the Saldjuk Turks in Asia 
Minor at first resulted in a considerable spread of 
Persian art. Konya, which became the capital of the 
Turkish kingdom of Rum, and where the sultans 
established many foundations, had an influx of 
craftsmen, particularly of potters, from Khurasan 
as the consequence of the Mongol invasion of their 
country. Dating from the 6th/i2th and 7th/i3th 
centuries are some fine wall facings for interiors made 
from bricks glazed on one side, or of tile mosaics, be- 
sides polychrome tiles. 

The collapse of the sultanate of Konya at the 
beginning of the 8th/i4th century brought the 
ceramic production of Anatolia to a standstill. But 
it was to have brilliant revival, thanks to the Ottoman 
Turks, who in 726/1326 made Bursa their capital. 
They endowed the city with fine buildings of which 
ceramic ornament is the most prominent feature, 
and of which the mosque and the turba are the most 
justly celebrated. Nevertheless Bursa was not the 
real centre of the industry; this was at Iznik, a town 
not far from the capital. It was to remain a flourishing 
centre for two centuries (from the end of the 8th/ 
14th to the end of the ioth/i6th century), in the 
course of which different stages in style and techni- 



FAKHKHAR 



747 



que are distinguishable. At the beginning of the 
ioth/i6th century Persian influence was still very 
marked, but at the end of this century, which saw 
the polychrome wares of Iznik reach their apogee, 
the potters freed themselves from Iranian tradition 
and the wares began to acquire specifically Turkish 
characteristics. The decoration is painted on slip, 
and to the colours already in use (cobalt blue, 
turquoise and green from copper), are added a black 
to outline the coloured areas, and a splendid tomato 
red in low relief. The composition of the panels, made 
up from rectangular tiles, is almost entirely based on 
floral motives. Four flowers traditionally appearing 
on them are the rose, jasmine, poppy and tulip. 

During the nth/i7th century Iznik ceased pro- 
duction and was replaced by Kutahya, which copied 
the techniques and styles of Iznik but without 
equalling them in mastery. The posthumous glory of 
Iznik reached even Istanbul, where the kilns known 
as Tekffir came into operation at the beginning of 
the I2th/i8th century. 

Attributed to Damascus are some very fine dishes, 
related to the Anatolian wares, but distinguished 
from them as much by the colours (lacking tomato 
red and using manganese purple and a green from 
chromium oxide), as by the drawing of the designs, 
which are less naturalistic, less sensitive and which 
give greater weight to the background. 

The skills of the kiln and the crucible are very 
ancient in Egypt and it is known that making of 
glass was first practised there. In the lands of the 
Pharaohs the people also made pottery and under- 
stood the use of glaze. If lustre ware was not first 
invented there, as some people believe, at least it 
was made there at a very early date in imitation of 
that of 'Irak. There are some pieces of lustre very 
similar to those from Samarra, dated to the 3rd/9th 
century, that is the period of the TOlunids, or even 
earlier. The decoration, drawn very boldly, intro- 
duces somewhat uncouth human figures and pseudo- 
calligraphic elements. These wares underwent a 
remarkable development in the course of the 5th-6th/ 
nth-i2th centuries under the Fatimids. The diversity 
of the pieces, dishes, lamps and figurines, attests, 
alongside a very free attitude to the orthodox 
prescriptions concerning images, a striving after 
that elegance which imbues all the arts of the 
Fatimid era. The surfaces, covered with a fine gold 
lustre, are enriched by the details within the field 
of the lustre itself being delicately traced out with 
a fine point. The repertory of ornament includes 
four-footed beasts, birds or fish, and also the human 
figure, the men wearing turbans and the women 
with their hair hanging down. The crucifix and 
representations of Christ with a halo lead one to 
believe in the existence of Coptic craftsmen. 

The same period saw the flowering of a ware with 
carved decoration under a monochrome glaze, 
especially a greyish green Chinese celadon colour. 
The quantity of sherds thrown on the refuse heaps 
by the potters reveals the extent of activity at the 
kilns at Fustat. In the 7th/i3th century a new 
technique appears of painting decoration on the body 
under the glaze. The glaze, often crackled, is thick 
and glossy; the decoration, neatly painted with a 
brush, frequently consists of animals in silhouette in 
a good tone of black. 

In order to complete this short survey of the 
ceramic art of Egypt, it is fitting to say something of 
the pottery with sgraffiato decoration under a yel- 
lowish or green lead glaze. This was primarily a ware 
for domestic use, bearing inscriptions and blazons of 



dignitaries at the Mamlflk court for whom it was 
made. Syria and Palestine produced the same type 
of ware during the same period. 

North Africa, and particularly eastern Barbary, 
at least until the 6th/i2th century, appears to have 
been an artistic off-shoot of the Near East and 
Egypt. We have seen that Kayrawan got lustre 
tiles in the 3rd/9th century from Baghdad; ceramic 
craftsmen recruited locally may have completed the 
collection. In the 5th/nth century palace in the 
Kal'a of the Banu Hammad (see hammadids), a 
pavement has been found made from lustre tiles, 
in the forms of stars and crosses, which conform to 
Persian type, but were very probably of local 
manufacture. Yet the very large amount of pottery 
of the Hammadids of the Kal'a and that of the 
Zirids of Kayrawan present characteristics that are 
highly individual. Apart from architectural elements 
such as inlays for wall surfaces, claustra, and stalactite 
pendentive elements, and in addition to green glazed 
wares with incised or stamped decoration, excava- 
tions have revealed lead glazed polychromes of 
wares with painting on slip. The decorations are 
very diverse and summary in treatment with 
silhouettes and fillers; there are such motives as 
triangles, ellipses, strap-work, trellis patterns used 
as fillers, and figures of men and beasts, which are 
clearly distinguishable from the more easterly 
examples. The palette comprises only manganese 
brown, copper green and, more rarely, a yellow from 
chromium oxide. Cobalt blue appears rather later, 
in the 6th/i2th century, when it occurs in the poly- 
chromes produced at Bougie (Bidjaya), to which city 
the craftsmen of Kayrawan and the Kal'a had to 
retire as the result of the nomadic Arab invasions. 
Bougie, a maritime city, benefited in other respects 
from imports from Andalusia. 

Moorish Spain was, indeed, a producer of fine 
ceramic wares. The excavations at Madinat al- 
Zahra', the caliphate city near Cordova, have 
yielded a great quantity of pottery with decoration 
consisting of manganese brown painted lines and 
copper green for the coloured surfaces. These wares, 
dating like the city from the 4th/ioth century, have 
parallels among the eastern Barbary examples of an 
appreciably later date. The Islamic ceramics of 
Sicily (6th/i2th century) suggest further parallels of 
a similar kind. This appearance of family grouping 
and the relative homogeneity of the wares of Western 
Islam raises a problem that warrants some attention. 

The excavations of Madinat al-Zahra 5 show that 
Spain was aware in the 4th/ioth century of the 
lustre wares imported from the east; yet the Iberian 
peninsula had its own centres of production also. 
Malaga from the 7th/i3th to 9th/i5th century was 
just such a centre, at which were produced gold 
lustre dishes and large jars of the type of which the 
one known as the "Alhambra Jar" is the most 

The noble grace of form of these great pottery 
jars is echoed in the large vases, with impressed 
decoration, that seem to have the same origin and 
may perhaps be attributed to the same period. The 
paste is left unglazed, or is covered with a green 
enamel-glaze; the decoration, arranged in registers 
one above another, comprises blind arcading, calli- 
graphic forms, interlacing elements and sometimes 
animal forms. The same technique and a similar 
decor is found in the linings for wells and tanks 
such as those preserved in Andalusia and also in 
the Maghrib. A fine collection of these stoutly-made 
ceramic shafts, by which to draw water, has been 



FAKHKHAR — FAKHR al-DAWLA 



found at SidI Bu 'Uthman to the north of Marrakush 
and perhaps dating from the 6th/i2th century. 

At the beginning of the 6th/i2th century Moorish 
Spain and the Maghrib gave ceramics an important 
rdle in architectural ornament. Glazed earthenware 
tiles, which we first encountered in Persia and then 
in eastern Barbary , are associated with the adornment 
of minarets and make up panels in rooms. The 
facility of the craftsmen, specialists in zallidi [g.v.], in 
cutting out shapes in monochrome tiles and assem- 
bling them to make geometric, calligraphic and 
floral decorations, is astonishing. They are equally 
skilled in a k'nd ot ceramic champlevi. which consists 
of chiselling out the glaze with a graving tool, thus 
leaving the elements of decoration in reserve. 
Finally there is recourse to a cloisonni treatment, 
called in Spanish cuerda seca, which, using similar 
interlacing geometrical motives, gives from a distance 
an impression as of inlay work. It is a very ancient 
technique, not without analogy with the glazed 
bricks of the Achaemenid palace at Susa. Each 
surface is enclosed by a black line, which has an 
important place in the composition and which serves 
to prevent contiguous colours spilling over into each 
other. Neither the potters of Samarra nor those of 
Madinat al-Zahra 5 passed over this technique; and 
it was practised in North Africa in the 5th-6th/ 
nth-i2th centuries. The cuerda seca and the techni- 
que termed cuenca, in which the black line is replaced 
by a thin line incised in the paste to separate the 
colours, was to become a special skill of the Spanish 
centres of production, notably of Seville. At the 
beginning of the nth/i7th century (1019/1610) the 
Spanish Moors took the technique with them when 
they were expelled to Tunisia. 

Just as the azulejos method of wall revetment 
prolonged the tradition of ceramic inlay, so the 
mudejar period saw the manufactories of Manises 
take over the making of lustre ware from Malaga. 
In the same way the green and brown decorated 
wares of Paterna, in the region of Valencia, seem, 
in the 8th/i4th and oth/i5th centuries, a late legacy 
of the Andalusian Caliphate. 

Ceramic art was still to survive, not without 
renown, in North Africa. Morocco still has her cutters 
and assemblers of tile mosaics {zallidi), and the potters 
of Fez knew, until quite recent times, how to produce 
vessels with blue or polychrome decoration as well 
as dishes of an original kind. 

Turkish Algeria used to have a remarkable quan- 
tity of earthernware tiles, but they were almost 
entirely imports from Europe. 

Tunisia, and especially Tunis, has not wholly 
forgotten the mediaeval ceramic arts. It is indeed 
likely that tin-glazed wares have never ceased to be 
made while there has been a use for them. The last 
few centuries have seen the production of vases 
which preserve quite well the older colours, and 
panels decorated with blind arcading, vases and 
covers, in which local traditions merge with con- 
tributions from the Levant. 

Bibliography: M. Migeon, Manuel d'art 
musulman, Arts plas*iques et industrielles, 1927, ii, 
158-78; A. Lane, Early Islamic pottery; idem, 
Later Islamic pottery; F. Sarre, Die Keramik von 
Samarra (Die Ausgrabungen von Samarra II), 
Berlin 1925; M. Pezard, La ciramique archalque 
de Vlslam, 2 vols., 1920; H. Wallis, Persian lustre 
vases, London 1899; A. U. Pope, The ceramic art 
in Islamic times (A survey of Persian art, ii, v), 
Oxford 1938-9; R. Koechelin, Les ciramiques de 
Suze au Musie du Louvre, in MM A P, 1928 ; idem, 



La ciramique (L'Art de Vlslam, Musie des arts 
dlcoratifs), n.d.; Dimand, Handbook of Muham- 
medan art 1 , 1958, 158-229; Walter Hauser, J. H. 
Upton and C. K. Wilkinson, The Iranian expedi- 
tion, in Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of 
Art, xxxii (1937), xxxiii (1938), xxxviii (1943); J. 
Lacam, Cahiers de la ciramique et des arts du feu, 
xx (i960), 244-93; Mehdi Bahrami, Gurzan faiences, 
Cairo; Ch. Kiefer, Les ciramiques musulmanes 
d' Anatolic, in Cahiers de la ciramique, iv (1956); 
H. Riviere, La ciramique dans I'art musulman, 
1914; D. Fouquet, Contribution a V etude de la 
ciramique orientate, Cairo 1900; Butler, Islamic 
pottery, London 1926; Aly bey Bahgat and F. 
Massoul, La ciramique musulmane de l'£gypte, 
Cairo 1930; A. Abel, Gaibi et les grands faienciers 
igyptiens d'ipoque mamlouke, Cairo 1930; E. 
Kuhnel, Islamitische Kleinkunst, Berlin 1925; G. 
Marcais, Les faiences a reflets metalliques de la 
grande mosquie de Kairouan, 1927; idem, Les 
poteries et faiences de la Qal'a des Beni Hammdd, 
Constantine 1913; idem, Les poteries et faiences 
de Bougie, Constantine 1916; M. Gomez Moreno, 
El arte espanol hasta los Almohades, in Ars His- 
paniae, iii, 310; L. Torres Balbas, Arte almohade, 
arte nazari, arte mudejar, in Ars Hispaniae, iv; 
Gonzalez Marti, Ceramica del Levante espanol, 
3 vols; A. Wilson Frothingham, Lustre ware of 
Spain, New York 1951; J. Giacomotti, Carreaux 
espagnols de revitement, in Cahiers de la ciramique, 
xi, 113; Folch i Torres, Notice sobre la ceramica de 
Paterna, Barcelona 1919; A. Bel, Les industries de la 
ciramique a Fes, Alger-ParisigiS. (G. Marcais) 
FAKHR [see mufakhara] 

FAKHR al-DAWLA, Abu 'l-Hasan 'AlI b. al- 
Hasan, born in about 341/952, third son of the 
Buwayhid Rukn al-Dawla [q.v.] and of a daughter 
of the Daylami chief al-Hasan b. Fayzuran, a 
cousin of Makan b. Kaki [q.v.], received his lakab in 
364/975 and was summoned in 365/976, with his 
brothers c Adud al-Dawla [q.v.], the eldest, and 
Mu'ayyid al-Dawla, to his father's sick-bed, in order 
to agree what share each would receive of their 
father's possessions, under the suzerainty of c Adud 
al-Dawla; as his portion, Fakhr al-Dawla received 
the provinces of Hamadhan and DInawar, that is 
to say the Kurdish Djabal, partly under the auto- 
nomous domination of the Kurd Hasanwayh, situated 
around the Iran-Baghdad route. When Rukn al- 
Dawla died (366/977), Fakhr al-Dawla was not 
content with these territories and, with the object 
of depriving Mu'ayyid al-Dawla, who remained 
faithful to c Adud al-Dawla, of his share, consisting 
of the provinces of Rayy and Isfahan, he negotiated 
with c Izz al-Dawla Bakhtiyar [q.v.], the opponent of 
c Adud al-Dawla, with Hasanwayh, and finally and 
most important with Kabus b. Washmagir [q.v.], of 
the Ziyarid dynasty of Djurdjan, the original rivals 
of the Buwayhids. After first defeating Bakhtiyar in 
366, and then the Hamdanids of Mosul, and after 
Hasanwayh's death, c Adud al-Dawla in 369/979 
drove out Fakhr al-Dawla, who finally took refuge 
with Kabus in Khurasan, under the protection of 
the Samanid governor Husam al-Dawla Tash, 
while Mu'ayyid was invested with his territories. 
From then onwards, Fakhr al-Dawla's attempts to 
regain his principality are merely one aspect of the 
long struggle between the Samanids and the Buway- 
hids; in 371/981 the allied army was defeated by 
Mu'ayyid al-Dawla, and the following campaigns, 
although more successful, achieved no better results 
[see <adud al-dawla]. 



L-DAWLA — FAKHR AL-DlN 



On the death of c Adud al-Dawla (372/982), 
Mu'ayyid al-Dawla tried unsuccessfully to initiate 
a reconciliation with his brother, and died in his turn 
in 373. His vizier Ibn c Abbad [q.v.] seems to have 
calculated that no adequate opposition would be 
put up against Fakhr al-Dawla, now the eldest 
member of the family, or that the sons of c Adud al- 
Dawla, the masters of c Irak and Fars, already had 
viziers of their own and would not retain him (Ibn 
c Abbad) in his present position; he appealed boldly 
to Fakhr al-Dawla, the very man whom hitherto he 
had always opposed and who, travelling to Rayy 
with all haste, assumed power without difficulty, 
while the son of Mu'ayyid al-Dawla, the governor of 
Isfahan, submitted to him; naturally enough he 
retained the all-powerful Ibn c Abbad as vizier. 
Despite the difference in temperament of these 
princes, this fact ensured a certain continuity in 
policy, and in particular Fakhr al-Dawla, despite 
the debt he owed to Kabus, retained Djurdjan which 
Mu'ayyid al-Dawla had annexed; in Khurasan, the 
struggles between Tash, whom he supported and 
welcomed, and Ibn SimdjOr, his successor, allowed 
him on the other hand to combine gratitude with the 
continuation of an anti-Samanid course of action. 
However, Mu'ayyid al-Dawla had become a vassal, 
and Fakhr al-Dawla, the head of the family, was an 
independent prince. Within his dominions and on 
the frontiers he seems to have had a more aggressive 
policy than his brother, to the cost of the local lords, 
annexing Kurdish or Daylami fortresses such as 
Shamiran (Yakut, iii, 150, according to a letter of 
IbT c Abbad), but also provoking revolts (Hasanwayh- 
id Kurds from the district of Kumm in 373/983, 
Tabaristan and Kazwin in 377/987, the prince's 
maternal cousin Nasr b. al-Hasan b. Fayzuran at 
Damghan in 378). Whether from greed or as a matter 
of policy, with the object of confiscating his possess- 
ions he arrested the commander of Mu'ayyid al- 
Dawla's army, c Ali b. Kama, who died as a result. 
With Samsam al-Dawla, his nephew in Baghdad, he 
maintained good relations but, when this prince had 
been driven out by another son of c Adud al-Dawla, 
Baha J al-Dawla, with the help of Badr b. Hasanwayh 
Fakhr al-Dawla tried to attack the victor through 
Khuzistan; the inadequacy of the rewards he offered 
to the troops and unexpected floods disorganized 
his army, whereupon he withdrew (379/989) ; and 
in 384/994 he allied himself with Baha' al-Dawla 
against Samsam al-Dawla, the latter in the mean- 
while having become master of Fars and now 
appearing to him to be the more dangerous. Towards 
the vizier Ibn c Abbad, who had shown some irreso- 
lution during the Khuzistan campaign, Fakhr al- 
Dawla had become somewhat cold, although there 
was no positive action against him; but when death 
finally removed him (385) he confiscated his possess- 
ions and, as c Adud al-Dawla had done, divided the 
vizierate between two candidates, selling it to the 
highest bidder. 

From our sources, the personality of Fakhr al- 
Dawla appears less clearly than that of other 
members of his family. Naturally he maintained his 
poets, certain of whose works are named in the 
Yatima of al-Tha c alibt, but intellectually he did not 
have the reputation of certain other Buwayhids or 
of his own vizier. In his administration he was 
considered avaricious, and at his death left behind a 
considerable fortune, augmented by his confiscations; 
his refusal to increase the pay and iktd's of his forces 
may have been based on sound reasons, but in fact 
this decision was not consistent with his over-ruling 



ambition. In general, his internal administration must 
have resembled his predecessor's, since it was directed 
by the same man, Ibn 'Abbad; but we do not 
possess any documents from his period comparable 
with those which we have for the preceding reign. 
We know that the methods of adjudication of fiscal 
districts, in use at Rayy, helped to make Ibn c Abbad 
unpopular when he tried to introduce them in 
Khuzistan; there can be no doubt as to the general 
vigilance and regularity of the administration under 
this vizier, and certain minor innovations made by 
him are recorded in the Ta'rikh-i Kumm, written 
in the days of Fakhr al-Dawla, and later the Siydsat- 
ndma of Nizam al-Mulk, chap. 41. The geographer al- 
Mukaddasi, who also wrote during this reign (see 
especially 399-400), gives an impression of the 
prosperity of the country; apart from a mosque, 
Rayy is also indebted to him for a new citadel 
(perhaps Tabarak) (Yakut, iii, 855). 

Fakhr al-Dawla died in Sha'ban 387/August 997 
and, it is said, the Treasury key being in the possess- 
ion of his son who was absent, there were no funds 
available to provide for a decent burial. Some weeks 
after his death Kabus returned to Djurdjan. 

Bibliography : for the sources, see buwayhids, 
ijabOs, samanids; and in particular for the whole 
subject Miskawayh-Rudhrawari, completed by 
Ibn al-Athir viii-ix and (especially the years 376, 
385, 387) Sibt Ibn al-Djawzi (MS.); and then, for 
the period of c Adud al-Dawla, the three collections 
of correspondence referred to in buwayhids, and, 
for relations with the Samanids, the sources for 
their history, Gardizi, c UtbI, and also Ibn Isfan- 
diyar for Kabus; and the sources given in the 
article supra. — Modern works, see buwayhids, in 
particular B. Spuler and G. Wiet. (Cl. Cahen) 
FAKHR al-DIN, name of two Lebanese amirs of 
the Druze house of Ma c n [q.v.]. Fakhr al-DIn I, amir 
of the Shuf (north-east of Sidon) at the time of the 
Ottoman conquest of Syria, was among the chieftains 
who offered submission to the conquering Sultan 
Selim I in Damascus in 922/1516. The Sultan, im- 
pressed by his eloquence, is said to have sent him 
back with the title amir al-barr (lord of the land), 
recognizing him as overlord of the chieftains of the 
Druze Mountain (the Gharb, the Djurd, and the 
Shuf). Fakhr al-DIn I was assassinated in c. 951/1544 
under obscure circumstances on the orders of the 
Pasha of Damascus, and was succeeded by his son 
Korkmaz. 

Fakhr al-Din II, son and successor of Korkmaz, 
was born in c. 980/1572, and was only a boy when his 
father died in 993/1585. In the previous year a 
convoy bearing the annual tribute from Egypt was 
ambushed and robbed at the bay of c Akkar, to the 
north of Tripoli; and the enemies of the Ma c ns in 
Lebanon, jealous of their rising power, accused 
Korkmaz of responsibility for the misdeed before the 
Ottomans. Consequently, Ottoman troops attacked 
and ravaged the Shuf, and Korkmaz died in flight. 
His fall was followed by civil war in the Druze 
Mountain between the Kaysi faction who supported 
the Ma c ns, and the opposing Yamanis led by the 
house of c Alam al-Din. By 1000/1591 the Kaysis 
had clearly gained the upper hand, and Fakhr 
al-Din II could effectively take over his father's 
position. 

The first aim of the young amir was vengeance 
against Yusuf Sayfa, the powerful Kurdish chieftain 
of the Tripoli region in northern Lebanon who had 
been the chief instigator of the Ottoman attack on 
the Shuf in 1585. Shortly after Fakhr al-DIn's 



750 



FAKHR al-DIN 



, in 1593, YQsuf Sayfa had considerably 
expanded his domain by absorbing the Maronite 
districts of Bsharri, Batrun, Djubayl and Kisrawan, 
and extending his hold southwards to include 
Beirut. Master of the whole of northern Lebanon 
and of c Akkar, YQsuf Sayfa became the most power- 
ful figure of the time in Syria, and his territory 
extended northwards to Lattakia and Haraa. 
However, in his struggle against the Sayfa, Fakhr al- 
Din had for allies the Maronites who, smarting under 
Sayfa oppression, looked towards the young Druze 
amir as a possible deliverer. Fakhr al-DIn encouraged 
the Maronites in this attitude, surrounded himself 
with Maronite advisers, and was soon dreaming of 
unkng the Druzes and the Maronites of Lebanon 
under his own dynasty. 

Fakhr al-DIn's first step was to make friends with 
Murad Pasha of Damascus, paying him a formal 
visit and obtaining from him possession of the port 
of Sidon, which he made his capital. While in Damas- 
cus Fakhr al-DIn also started an intrigue against his 
enemies 'All Harfush of Baalbek and Djabal 'Amil 
and Mansur Furaykh of the Bika c , both potential 
allies of YQsuf Sayfa. As a result both chieftains 
were seized and executed by Murad in the following 
year. Fakhr al-DIn thereupon invaded and seized 
the Bik4 c , making peace with MQsa Harfush, 'All's 
successor, who became the Druze amir's virtual 
vassal in Baalbek and Djabal c Amil. 

Beirut and the coastal plain as far north as Nahr 
al-Kalb had traditionally been under the control of 
the Druze Amirs, and in 1007/1598 Fakhr al-DIn 
secured from Damascus the permission to occupy 
them. He then proceeded to expel YQsuf Sayfa from 
the territory and to chase him beyond the Nahr al- 
Kalb. Next he turned his attention to the south, and 
with the additional wealth accruing from the trade of 
Sidon and Beirut he purchased the tenure of the 
Sandjak of Safad which bordered on the Shuf. The 
fortresses of Arnun (Beaufort) and Subayba, which 
belonged to the sandjak, were occupied and restored, 
securing the Druze Mountain against Beduin attack 
from the south. Fakhr al-DIn then crossed Nahr al- 
Kalb again in 1014/1605, defeated YQsuf Sayfa at 
Djuniya, and permanently occupied Kisrawan. 

Meanwhile, in northern Syria, a Kurdish adventurer 
called 'All Djanbulad had made himself master of the 
Sandjaks of Aleppo, A c zaz, and Killls. His southern 
boundaries touched the northern boundaries of 
Yusuf Sayfa; and in 1015/1606 Djanbulad marched 
into Sayfa's territory, defeated him near Hama, and 
advanced towards Tripoli. Anxious to stake a claim to 
Sayfa's southern territories, Fakhr al-DIn quickly 
allied himself with Djanbulad, and hurried forces to 
Baalbek to prevent reinforcements sent by Kurd 
Hamza, the commander of the Janissaries in 
Damascus, from reaching Tripoli. Unable to resist 
Djanbulad, Yusuf Sayfa fled by sea to Palestine, 
then joined Kurd Hamza in Damascus. Djanbulad 
meanwhile entered and sacked Tripoli, then advanced 
with Fakhr al-DIn against Damascus. 

Fakhr al-DIn's earlier friendship with Murad 
Pasha, now Grand Vizier, saved him from the fate 
of Djanbulad. Defeated in battle by the resolute 
Nasuh Pasha of Aleppo, Djanbulad was executed in 
1016/1607. But in that same year Murad Pasha 
arrived in Aleppo to settle the affairs of Syria in 
person, and Fakhr al-DIn managed to effect a quick 
return to Ottoman grace by sending a delegation to 
greet the Grand Vizier with a large present of gold. 
Murad Pasha, accordingly, confirmed Fakhr al-DIn 
in the possession of Beirut, Sidon, and Kisrawan, 



Fakhr al-DIn, however, realized that Murad 
Pasha would not remain Grand Vizier for ever, and 
that some other form of support was needed in case 
of another clash with the Porte. The Tuscans, who 
had dreams of establishing a Medici kingdom in the 
Levant, had as early as 1012/1603 approached Fakhr 
al-DIn and tried to arouse his interest in the plan. 
A second approach after 1016/1607 found Fakhr al-DIn 
willing to listen; and in 1017/1608 a treaty was con- 
cluded whereby, in return for his help in an eventual 
Tuscan attempt to conquer Damascus and Jerusalem, 
Fakhr al-DIn was to receive Tuscan military aid, and 
the Medici were to use their influence with the Pope 
so that the Maronite patriarch would support Fakhr 
al-DIn against the Sayfa. Indeed, Pope Paul V in 
1610 wrote to the Maronite patriarch commending 
him and his flock to the protection of Fakhr al-DIn; 
and in the following year a Maronite bishop was 
sent to Italy to represent the Druze amir at the 
court of Tuscany and at the Holy See. 

Murad Pasha died in 1020/1611 and was succeeded 
by Fakhr al-DIn's bitter enemy Nasuh Pasha. 
Meanwhile, the growing relations between Fakhr 
al-DIn and Tuscany had greatly increased the 
suspicions of the Porte. Nasuh Pasha's suspicions 
were particularly aroused when Fakhr al-DIn began 
to employ a standing army of mercenaries (the 
sukman — see segban) instead of depending on the 
usual peasant levies, and when he began to show a 
keen interest in the sandjaks of Nablus and 'Adjlun, 
in Palestine and Transjordan, which controlled the 
road to Jerusalem. Attempts to appease the Grand 
Vizier with gifts proved useless. When Fakhr al-DIn 
clashed with Ahmad Hafiz Pasha of Damascus over 
the two sandjaks, Nasuh Pasha mobilized a powerful 
army for the command of Hafiz. Expecting defeat, 
Fakhr al-DIn handed over affairs to his brother 
Yunus with instructions to move the capital to Dayr 
al-Kamar in the Shuf, and himself took ship from 
Sidon and fled to Tuscany. 

The self-imposed exile of Fakhr al-DIn was a 
temporary retreat after a temporary reverse. In 
1023/1614 Nasuh Pasha died. Hafiz Pasha was 
shortly after recalled from Damascus, and Yunus 
Ma'n made peace with his successor on the payment 
on a large sum of money and a promise to dismantle 
the fortresses of Arnun and Subayba. Fakhr al-DIn 
could now return to Lebanon, arriving back at Acre 
in 1027/1618. 

In 1024/1615, during Fakhr al-DIn's absence, 
Yusuf Sayfa had sacked Dayr al-Kamar. This gave 
Fakhr al-DIn an excuse, upon his return, to ally 
himself with 'Umar Pasha of Tripoli, who wanted 
Sayfa to pay arrears of tribute. Fakhr al-DIn success- 
fully intervened against Sayfa on behalf of the Pasha, 
and in return received the districts of Djubayl and 
Batrun. A formal peace between the two chieftains 
was arranged in 1028/1619, Fakhr al-DIn taking 
Sayfa's daughter in marriage. In the same year 
Fakhr al-DIn procured the tenure of the sandjaks 
of Djabala and Lattakia, which had previously 
belonged to Sayfa. During the next five years 
fighting between the amir and his father-in-law 
continued, Fakhr al-DIn meanwhile seizing the 
districts of Bsharri and c Akkar, until Yusuf Sayfa 
died in 1033/1624. Three years later Fakhr al-DIn 
completed his triumph by obtaining the governorship 
of Tripoli for his infant son Husayn, a Sayfa on his 



FAKHR al-DIN — FAKHR al-DIN al-RAZI 



In the meantime, Fakhr al-Din had also obtained 
the titles to the sandjaks of Nablus and 'Adjhin, and 
it was left to him to evict the occupants of these 
sandjaks. As he campaigned in Palestine for the 
purpose, Mustafa Pasha of Damascus, incited by 
Kurd Hamza, formed a coalition against the amir 
and advanced into the Bika c in 1032/1623. Fakhr al- 
Din rushed back and met him at c Andjar, where 
Mustafa Pasha was defeated in battle and taken 
prisoner, then honourably released. During the years 
that followed this victory Fakhr al-Din reached the 
height of his power; and by 1040/1631 his territory 
had come to extend westwards to Palmyra, and 
northwards almost to the borders of Anatolia. 

Following 1040/1631, however, troubles began to 
come upon Fakhr al-DIn thick and fast. While he 
campaigned in northern Syria Beduin chieftains 
revolted against him in Palestine and Transjordan; 
while in the Shuf the Yamani 'Alam al-Gins, in 
alliance with the sons of Yusuf Sayfa, were creating 
unrest. By 1042/1633 civil war broke out in the Druze 
Mountain, and Fakhr al-DIn's firm allies the Kaysi 
Tanukhs [q.v.] were massacred to a man by the c Alam 
al-DIns. Meanwhile the Ottoman Government, under 
the vigorous Sultan Murad IV, was becoming con- 
cerned about Fakhr al-DIn's activities in northern 
Syria and the fortresses that were going up near the 
Anatolian border. Accordingly, the Grand Vizier 
KhalU Pasha instructed Kuciik Ahmad Pasha of 
Damascus in 1042/1633 to proceed against Fakhr al- 
DIn with full support from Istanbul. The amir's 
troops, commanded by his son 'All, were defeated at 
Subayba, and 'All himself was killed. Before the 
resolute Ottoman attack Fakhr al-Din's precariously 
balanced power collapsed within a few weeks. The 
amir himself fled to a cave in the cliffs of Djazzin, 
where he was discovered and captured by Kuciik 
Ahmad, then sent in chains to Istanbul. There Fakhr 
al-DIn was executed by strangling in 1045/1635, 
along with his sons. Only his youngest son, Husayn, 
was spared, to become a prominent Ottoman courtier 
and an ambassador of the sultan to India. He was 
a friend of the historian Sharih al-Manarzade [q.v.], 
and is cited frequently as a source in those parts of 
Na'Ima's history that are based on Sharih al- 
Manarzade's lost work. In Lebanon Fakhr al-DIn 
was succeeded by his nephew Mulhim, son of Yunus. 

Fakhr al-Din was a rapacious tyrant who weighed 
his subjects down with taxes, but he was enlightened 
enough to realize that the better the condition of a 
people the more they can pay. His policy revolved 
around the collection of enough revenue to satisfy 
the rapacity of the Ottoman government and buy the 
friendship of influential Pashas. Accordingly, to 
raise the revenue of Lebanon, he introduced a 
number of innovations to the country, particularly 
improved agricultural methods, and encouraged 
commerce. His religious tolerance made him highly 
popular with his Christian subjects, and was an 
important factor in promoting the political union 
between the Maronites and Druzes which was to be 
of great importance in the subsequent history of 
Lebanon. Fakhr al-DIn II, indeed, is regarded by 
the Lebanese today as the father of modern Lebanon, 
for it was under his rule that the Druze and Maronite 
districts of the Mountain became united for the first 
time, with the adjacent coastlands and the Bika c , 
under a single authority. 

Bibliography: J. M. Collard, Fakhr-ed-Din al- 

Ma'-ni, a biography (typescript in my possession) ; 

Adel Ismail, Histoire du Liban du XV IV siecle a 

nos jours ; tome V : Le Liban au temps de Fakhr-ed- 



Din II, 1590-1633, Paris 1955; F. Wiistenfeld, 
Fakhr ed-din der Drusenfiirst und seine Zeitgenossen : 
die Aufstdnde in Syrien und Anatolien gegen die 
TUrhen in der ersten Hdlfte XI. Jahrhunderts, 
Gottingen 1886; Paolo Carali, Fakhr ad-Din II e 
la corte di Toscana, Rome 1936; Bfllus Kara'U, 
Fakhr al-Din al-Ma'-ni al-thdni amir Lubndn, 
iddratuhu wa siydsaluhu 1590-163$, Harisa 1937-8; 
Hammer- Purgstall, index; Ahmad b. Muhammad 
al-Khalidl, Ta'rikh al-amir Fakhr al-Din, edd. 
Rustum and BustanI, Beirut 1936; Muhammad 
b. Fadl-AUah al-Muhibbi, Khuldsat al-athar fi 
a'-yan al-karn al-h&di c ashar, Cairo 1284 A.H., 
iii, 266 ff.; Na'Ima 4 , ii, 119-23 (s.a. 1023), iii, 
242 (s.a. 1044). (Kamal Salibi) 

FAKHR AL-DIN MUBARAKSHAH, originally 
known by the short name of Fakhra and posted at 
Sonargawn in East Bengal as a Sildhddr of Bahrain 
Khan, the local governor in the time of the Dihll 
Sultan Muhammad b. Tughluk. After the governor's 
death Fakhra revolted, assumed sovereignty at 
Sonargawn and maintained his position by defeating 
the imperial forces led by the eastern governors of 
the Tughluk Sultan. He established the first in- 
dependent dynasty in Bengal in 739/1338, conquered 
up to Catgawn in the south and made a bid for 
Lakhnawti in the north-west, but failed in the latter 
venture. From 739/1338 to 750/1349 he ruled un- 
disputedly at Sonargawn, issued silver currency and 
assumed the titles of Yamin-i Khalilal-AUdh and 
Ndsir-i Amir al-Mu'minin. In 751/1350 he was 
succeeded at Sonargawn by his son Ikhtiyar al-DIn 
GhazI Shah, who in 753/1352 lost his kingdom to 
Shams al-DIn Ilyas Shah, the ruler of Lakhnawti; 
the latter united the whole of Bengal under his 
authority. Ibn Battuta visited Sonargawn when 
Fakhr al-DIn was the ruler. He pays tribute to the 
king's generosity towards pirs, and speaks of the 
cheapness of commodities within the kingdom. 
Bibliography: Yahya Sirhindl, Ta'rikh-i 
Mubdrakshdhi, Eng. tr. K. K. Basu, Baroda 1932, 
106-7; Ibn Battuta, iv, 212-6 (= H. von Mzik, 
Die Reise . . ., Hamburg 1911, 384-5); N. K. 
Bhattasali, Coins and chronology of the early 
independent sultans oj Bengal, Dacca 1922; J. N. 
Sarkar, History 0/ Bengal, ii, ed. Dacca, 1948. 
(A. H. Dani) 
FAKHR AL-DlN al-RAzI, Abu <Abd Allah 
Muhammad b. c Umar b. al-Husayn, one of the 
most celebrated theologians and exegetists of Islam, 
born in 543/1149 (or perhaps 544) at Rayy. His 
father, Diya 3 al-DIn Abu '1-Kasim, was a preacher 
(kha(ib) in his native town, from whose name comes 
his son's appellation, Ibn al-Khatlb. He was also 
conversant with kaldm and, among other works, 
wrote the Ghdyat al-mardm, in which he showed 
himself a warm partisan of al-Ash c ari. Al-Subki who 
gives him a brief review (Tabakdt al-ShdfiHyya, iv, 
285-6) names among the list of his masters, Abu 
'1-K5sim al-Ansari, pupil of the Imam al-Haramayn, 
as well as the author of the Tahdhib. In addition to 
his father, the young Fakhr al-DIn had al-Madjd 
al-DjIli (al-Djabali?), whom he followed to Maragha, 
as his master in philosophy, and al-Kamal al- 
Sumnani for fikh. 

After finishing studies both literary and religious 
in Rayy, and, according to al-Kiftl, after having 
failed in some researches into alchemy, Fakhr al-Din 
went to Kh w arizm where he was engaged in relentless 
controversies with the Mu'tazills who forced him to 
leave the countiy. In Transoxania (Md ward'' al- 
Nahr), he encountered the same opposition. Return- 



FAKHR A 



ing to Rayy, he entered into relations with Shihab 
al-DIn al-Ghuri, Sultan of Ghazna, who heaped 
money and honours upon him. The same thing 
occurred later with c Ala' al-DIn Kh'arizmshah 
Muhammad b. Takash, with whom he lived for some 
time in Khurasan. This prince showed him the 
greatest consideration and caused a madrasa to be 
built for him. 

In 580/1184, while on his way to Transoxania in 
order to reach Bukhara, he stopped for some time 
at Sarakhs where he was received with honour by 
the doctor c Abd al-Rahman b. <Abd al-Karim al- 
Sarakhsi. As a mark of his gratitude he dedicated to 
him his commentary on the Kulliyydt of Avicenna's 
Canon. As he did not find the protection on which 
he had counted in Bukhara, he went on to Heiat, 
where the Ghurid Sultan of Ghazna, Ghiyath al-DIn, 
allowed him to open a school foi the general public 
within the royal palace. 

After a certain number of journeys which took him 
to Samarkand and as far as India (where perhaps he 
was sent on a mission), he settled down finally in 
Herat where he passed the greater part of his life. 
He was known theie by the title of shaykh al-Isldm. 
It is said that at this period, at the height of his 
glory, more than three hundied of his disciples or 
followers accompanied him when he moved from one 
place to another. 

He was so poor at the outset of his career that his 
compatriots in Bukhara were obliged to make a 
collection in order to help him when he fell ill there; 
but later on he came into a vast fortune. He married 
his two sons to the two daughteis of an immensely 
rich doctor from Rayy and, on this man's death, 
inherited part of his money. 

His lively and penetrating intelligence, his prodi- 
gious memory (he is said to have learned the Shdmil 
of al-Djuwaynl by heart in his youth), his methodical 
and clear mind, caused him to become a teacher 
celebrated throughout the whole region of Central 
As.a, from all parts of which people came to consult 
him on the most diverse questions. He was, moreover, 
an excellent preacher. Of medium height, well-built, 
heavy-beaided, endowed with a voice both powerful 
and warm, he inspired and enflamed his listeners 
to the point of tears and was himself deeply moved 
by emotion when he was preaching. His preaching 
converted many Karramls to Sunnism. Despite his 
strong grounding in philosophy and numeious con- 
troversies he was extremely pious (hana min ahl al- 
din wa 'l-tasawwuf). In many of his treatises, he 
ended on a religious note, emphasizing the practical 
applications that could be made of the subject with 
which he had dealt. Towards the end of his life, he 
often meditated upon death and, according to Ibn 
al-Salah, he reproached himself for having devoted 
himself so much to the abstract sciences (philosophy 
and haldm) which, as he thought, were not capable 
of leading to certain truth. He was to write in his 
"Testament": "I have had experience of all the 
methods of kalam and of all the paths of philosophy, 
but I have not found in them either satisfaction or 
comfort to equal that which I have found in reading 
the Kur'an" (Ibr Abl Usaybi'a, ii, 27). 

Al-Razfs zeal in the defence of Sunnism was 
always ardent and caused him to make many bitter 
enemies. Apart from the Mu'tazilis, he had to strive 
with the Karramls, adherents of an anthropo- 
morphic type of exegesis [see karramiyya], who 
did not hesitate to use any calumny to discredit 
their adversary. In 599/1202, while he was staying 
at Ferukiih, an actual riot was set off against him by 



these last, who accused him of corrupting Islam by 
preferring to its teaching that of Aristotle, Farabi 
and Avicenna. He was also reproached for reporting 
so much of the arguments of the adversaries of 
Islam, without being capable of refuting them con- 
vincingly. 

In 606/1209, seriously ill and feeling the approach 
of death, he dictated his "Testament" to his disciple, 
Ibrahim b. Abl Bakr al-Isfahanl, on Sunday, 21 
Muharram/26 July. The text of this has been 
preserved by, among otheis, al-Subki and Ibn Abi 
Usaybi'a. It is a true profession of SunnI faith and 
a beautiful example of total resignation to the will 
of God. He commends his children to the Sultan 
and asks him, as well as his disciples, to bury him 
according to all the ordinances of Muslim law on the 
mountain of Mazdakhan near Herat. Certain bio- 
graphers of al-Razi have held that he was poisoned 
by the Karramls. In addition, Ibn al- c Ibii (Barhe- 
braeus) and Ibn Abi Usaybi'a pass on a rumour accor- 
ding to which he was buried secretly within his 
house to prevent the crowd from ill-treating his 
remains. It is unlikely that either of these reports 
is true: al-Razi's tomb is still venerated at Herat. 

Although he was a convinced follower of al- 
Ash'arl, al-Razi showed himself, at least in his 
youthful works, to be an opponent of atomism 
(cf. K. al-Mabdfrith al-mashrihiyya, ii, n). It is true 
that later on (cf. Mafdtih al-ghayb, z, i, 5 and K. 
Lawdmi' al-bayyindt, 229; K. al-ArbaHn fi usul ai- 
din) he seems to have changed his views or at any 
rate to have shown less severity in his criticism of 
atomism. He dedicated his K. al-Djawhar al-fard 
(Ibn Abl Usaybi'a, ii, 30) to this subject and al- 
TusI gives a short analysis of it in his Shark al- 
Ishdrdt (ed. of Istanbul, 4). According to Kh"ansarl 
(Rawddt al-djanndt, 730), he also criticized Ash'aa's 
doctrine of the divine attributes. 

His profound knowledge of falsa/a (he had studied 
al-Farabl and composed a commentary on the 
Ishdrdt and the '■Vyun al-akhbdr of Ibn SIna), allowed 
him to make use of considei able portions of it in his 
dogmatic synthesis (cf., for example, the greater part 
of the Mabdhith). But in doing this, he preserved his 
freedom of mind, criticizing Avicenna strongly, 
where he did not wish to follow his opinions. Kraus, 
who was clearly much impressed by the originality 
of al-Razi, thinks that "the reconciliation of philo- 
sophy with theology is achieved, in his view, at the 
level of a Platonistic system which in the last 
resort derives from the interpretation of the Timaeus" 
(Les "Controverses" de Fakhr al-Din Rdzl, in Bl£, 
xix (1937), 190). He points out Razi's frequent 
references to the K. al-MuHabar of Abu '1-Barakat 
b. Malka al-Baghdadi (cf., for example, al-Mabdhith, 
ii, 286, 392, 398, 475, etc.; Lawdmi'- al-bayyindt, 
71-3, where a long fragment of al-Baghdadi on 
al-ism al-aHam is quoted; cf. also Kh"ansarl, 730). 

Finally, Goldziher has shown that while al-Razi 
was an opponent of the Mu c tazi]Is, he was never- 
theless influenced by them in certain respects, for 
example concerning the problem of the Hsma of the 
Prophet, and the validity of dhdd traditions in 
theological argument (cf. Aus der Theologie des 
Fachr al-Din al-Rdzi, in Isl., iii (1912), 213-47). 

For the influence of al-Razi's ideas on a mind as 
uncompromising as that of Ibn Taymiyya, see the 
remarkable thesis of H. Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines 
sociales et politiques de Taki-d-din Ahmad b. Taimiya, 
Cairo 1939 (cf. index s.v. RazI). Ibn Taymiyya made 
use of al-Razi's principal works, the Mufrassal, the 
Ma'dlim usul al-din, and the K. al-ArbaHn, and "on 



FAKHR al-DIN al-RAZI 



753 



many points he was led to make s 
his doctrine of the Prophets. Furthermore, his 
political sociology remains incomprehensible enough 
unless we see in it, to some degree, a reaction against 
the conception of sovereignty and the theory of the 
Caliphate defended by al-Razi. In short, it cannot 
be denied that Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi led Ibn Taymiyya 
on towards a deeper personal understanding of 
philosophy and heresiography" (85). Ibn Taymiyya 
himself passed a severe enough judgment on al-Razi 
(cf. Bughyat al-murtdd, Cairo 1329, 107-8). 

Wo rks. — The works of Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi are 
huge in number; they are encyclopaedic but the 
great majority of them are concerned with kalam, 
philosophy 01 exegesis. A list of those works whose 
manuscripts have come down to us is to be found in 
Brockelmann (S I, 920-4; I*, 666-9) who has sub- 
divided them under thirteen headings: I. History; 
II. Fikh; III. Kur'an; IV. Dogmatics; V. Philosophy; 
VI. Astrology; VII. Cheiromancy; VIII. Rhetoric; 
IX. Encyclopaedia; X. Medicine; XL Physiognomy; 
XII. Alchemy; XIII. Mineralogy. c Ali Sami al- 
Nashshar has endeavoured to collect all the infor- 
mation provided by his biographers with regard to 
his literary output and has classed his works in the 
following manner: Kur'an (exegesis) (5 works), 
Kalam (40), ffikma and Philosophy (26), Arabic 
language and literature (7), Fifth and usul al-fikh (5), 
Medicine (7), Talismans and Geometry (5), History 
{2) (see the introduction to his edition of al-Razi's 
little treatise, IHilfdddt firalf al-Muslimin wa 'l-mush- 
rikin, Cairo 1 356/1938, 26-34). But this list is by no 
means a critical one. A profound study of al-Razi's 
work still remains to be achieved. 

There follows here a list of the main Arabic works 
of al-Razi which exist in print, with a brief glimpse 
of the contents of each book: 

1. — Asds al-takdis fi Him al-kaldm (Cairo 1354/ 
1935. ! 97 PP-)- This work, dedicated to the Sultan 
Abu Bakr b. Ayyub, sets out to study the via 
remotionis applied to the knowledge of God. It 
consists of four parts: the fitst studies the proofs 
that God is incorporeal and does not exist in space; 
the second shows how to apply the ta?wil (intei- 
pretation) of ambiguous terms {mutashdbih) men- 
tioned in the Kur'an; the third part establishes the 
doctrine of the Ancients (madhhab al-salaf), especially 
in matters concerning both the clear verses of the 
Kur'an and the obscure ones; finally the fourth part 
follows up this account, dealing chiefly with those 
verses which are ambiguous. 

2. — Lawami 1 al-bayyindt fi 'l-asma' wa 'l-sifdt 
(ed. Amin al-Khandji, Cairo 1323/1905, 270 pp.), a 
treatise on the Divine Names, one of the most sub- 
stantial in Muslim theology. It consists of three 
parts: the prolegomena (3-73), under the title 
mabddi* wa-mukaddimdt. In ten chapters, al-Razi 
studies the problems posed by the subject of the 
name in general, and in the cases where it is applied 
to God, the nature of name and appellation, the 
distinction between the name and the attribute, the 
origin of the Divine Names, their subdivision, etc. 
Here are to be found excellent developments on the 
dhikr (ch. 6) and on prayers of request (ch. 9). The 
second and longest part (73-259) studies systemat- 
ically the ninety-nine Divine Names. Al-Razi 
mentions and discusses the various applications of 
each of them. The chapter dealing with the name of 
Allah consists of more than thirty pages. Generally 
al-Razi finishes his exposition with practical spiritual 
advice. Finally, the third part, entitled al-lawdhik 
wa 'l-muiammimdt (256-67), gives some precise 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



details on a number of names other than those 
previously studied. 

3. — Shark al-Ishdrdt (Constantinople 1290/1873, 
with commentary by al-Tusi). It is a commentary on 
the physics and metaphysics in the Kitdb al-Ishdrdt 
wa 'l-tanbihdt of Ibn Sina, that is to say from the 
beginning of the first namat (ed. Froget, 90). Firstly, 
al-Razi reproduces in full a paragraph of Avicenna's 
text, then comments on it, pointing out carefully 
the plan which the author follows as well as its 
several component parts. 

4. — Lubdb al-Ishdrdt (Cairo 1326/1908; 2nd ed. 
Cairo 1355/1936, 136 pp.). A summary of Avicenna's 
celebrated work, written after the commentary 
referred to last. It is concerned not with extracts 
from the work, but with a true digest of Avicenna's 
thought. Al-Razi follows thus each nahdi of the 
logic and each namat of the physics and metaphysics. 

5. — Muhassal afkdr al-mutakaddimin wa 'l-mula?- 
akhkhirin min al-'ulamd* wa 'l-hukamii? wa 'l-muta- 
kallimin (a precis of ideas, scholars, philosophers and 
mutakallimun, ancient and modern). Although at the 
beginning al-Razi indicates the plan which he 
intends to follow, in the course of the book's develop- 
ment this design is almost lost. Kalam, he says, is 
divided into four parts which he calls "corner- 
stones" (arkdn). He begins immediately with the 
first, the preliminaries, without mentioning the 
others which are as follows: 2) being and its several 
modes; 3) rational theology (ildhiyydt); 4) the 
traditional questions (al-samHyydt). The prelimina- 
ries (1-32) go far beyond those of al-Djuwayni (in the 
Irshdd) and of al-Ghazall (in the Iktisdd). Three 
important questions are: a) the first ideas, where 
al-Razi speaks of perception, of judgment, and 
where he examines the divers theories concerning the 
innate or acquired character of the judgments; 
b) the characters of reasoning (ahkdm al-nazar), 
including the setting out and proving of a dozen 
"theses"; c) apodeictic proof (al-dalil). It is in the 
second part that the sections are distinguished with 
less clarity. Al-Razi begins by speaking of the 
maHumdt (things known) where we can distinguish 
with some difficulty three divisions: 1) characters 
of existing beings; 2) the non-being {fi 'l-ma c dum); 
3) the negation of modes {ahwdl) which are inter- 
mediary between being and non-being. Al-Razi 
next divides created beings into necessary and 
possible and goes on to examine the various argu- 
ments concerning these two categories, expounding 
and discussing in turn the theory of the mutakallimun 
and that of the faldsifa. There follow thirty or so 
paragraphs whose contents are oddly enough 
assorted (on cold, softness, weight, movement, death, 
science, the senses, etc.), badly arranged paragraphs 
which are meant to link up probably with what 
immediately follows concerning the kinds and 
properties of accidents. Next the author studies 
bodies (adjsdm), their constitution, properties and 
kinds. Finally, the last section of this part is dedicated 
to the general characteristics of being, the One and 
the Many, cause and effect, etc. The two last rukns 
deal directly with kalam. The third study, the 
Ildhiyydt, is a demonstration of the existence of the 
Necessary Being, of its attributes both positive and 
negative, of its acts, and of the relationship between 
divine and created acts. Then come some brief lines 
on the Divine Names. The fourth part, which is 
exclusively based on "Scripture", comprises four 
sections: doctrine of the Prophets, eschatology, the 
"Statutes and Names" (the problem of faith), and 
finally, the imamate. 



FAKHR al-DIN al-RAZ1 



The Cairo edition (the only one 
printed at al-Husayniyya, n.d.) has at the bottom 
of the pages the Talkhis al-Muhassal of Naslr al-DIn 
al-Tfisi, in which criticism of al-Razi is not spared. 
This commentator remarks that in his time it was 
the only famous work on dogmatics, but according 
to him without justification (3). The Cairo edition 
also contains on the margins the Ma'dlim usul al-din 
of al-Razi. The Muhassal has been commentated 
often (see Brockelmann). Horten has made an 
abridged edition in two volumes (Die Philosophischen 
Ansichten von Razi und Tusi, Bonn 1910, and Die 
spekulative und positive Theologie des Islams nach 
Razi und ihre Kritik nach Tusi, Leipzig 191 2), but 
"their value is diminished, if not indeed made 
doubtful, by the great number of errors in translation 
and arbitrary interpretations" (P. Kraus). 

6. — al-Ma c dlim fi usul al-din. In his introduction 
to this work, al-Razi writes: "This is a compendium 
which deals with five kinds of sciences: dogmatics 
(Him usul al-din), the methodology of law (usul al- 
fikh), fi£h, the principles on which differences of 
opinion are based (al-usul al-mu'-tabara fi 'l-khild- 
fiyydt), the rules of controversy and of dialectics". 

Only the first of these five parts has been printed 
(on the margin of the Muhassal, see above, no. 5). 

7. — Mafdtih al-gkayb or K. al-Tafsir al-kabir (ed. 
Bulak 1279-89, 6 vols.; Cairo 1310, 8 vols, (reprinted 
in 1924-27); 1327, 8 vols., with the Irshdd al-'-akl of 
Abu '1-Su c ud al- c lmadl on the margin. The most 
recent and careful edition is that of Muhammad 
Muhyi '1-DIn, Cairo 1352/1933, in 32 djuz'', each 
comprising on the average 225 pp.). This is certainly 
al-Razi's most important work. It belongs to the 
class of commentaries at the same time philosophical 
and bi 'l-rd'y, and al-Razi put into this all his know- 
ledge both of philosophy and of religion. Whenever 
the opportunity presents itself, he takes the oppor- 
tunity of expounding what he wishes to say in the 
form of a "question" (mas^ala). He often tries to link 
the verses logically one to anomer, and, according 
to his habit, sets forth in answer to each question 
asked the various opinions with their arguments. 
The work consists of no less than eight volumes in- 
quarto, each containing about 600 pages of closely 
printed text. The commentary opens with a 
great dissertation (forming the whole of the first 
volume in the new edition) on the isti'ddha and then 
on the basmala. Appreciation of this commentary 
has varied from author to author. Certain detractors 
of philosophy and of kaldm, such as Ibn Taymiyya 
for example, speak with disdain of this commentary 
on the Kur'an where everything is to be found 
except a commentary. To this, admirers of al-Razi 
reply that in addition to the commentary on the 
Kur'an everything else is to be found there (cf. al- 
Safadi, Wdfi 'l-wafaydt, iv, 254). The influence of al- 
Razi's commentary has made itself felt amongst 
those who would like to modernize certain aspects of 
traditional exegesis. Thus a modern author, who 
helped to introduce the concept of "literary style" 
into the study of the Kur'an, has remarked: "As far 
as the ideas contained in the Kur'an are concerned, 
Razi is unique . . . attitudes which are considered 
new and daring in the commentary of the Mandr or 
in modern works have already been mentioned by 
Razi" (cf. J. Jomiei, Quelques positions actuelles de 
t'extgise coranique en ligypte revilies par une polimique 
ricente, in MIDEO, i (1954), 5')- 

8. — al-Mundzardt (the controversies) (ed. Hayd- 
arabad 1354/1935). This is a kind of autobiography 
in which the author reports in detail sixteen con- 



troversies which occurred at different places during 
his travels. Al-Razi disputes with Shafi'I and 
Hanafi, Ash'arl and Maturldi scholars who cannot 
always be identified by name. The contents of the 
Mundzardt are varied. Almost half of the chapters 
are given up to subtle questions of canon law. Al- 
Razi makes fun here of the juridical work of al- 
Ghazall. The rest deals with matters of philosophy 
and theology, such as the problem of the Divine 
Attributes, the origin of our perceptions, a refutation 
of astrology (ninth controversy), etc. In the tenth 
controversy, he gives interesting details od the 
sources of the Milal wa 'l-nihal of al-Shahrastanl. 
This short work has been analysed by Kraus (who 
seems to have believed that it had never been 
published): Les controverses de Fakhr al-Din Razi, 
in BIE, xix (1937), 187-214. The full title, added by 
a later hand, is: "The controversies of Fakhr al-Din 
al-Razi which took place during his journey to 
Samarkand and then to India". 

9- — IHikdd firak al-Muslimin wa 'l-Mushrikin. 
In this little treatise, edited in 1938 by c Ali Sami al- 
Nashshar, al-Razi refers, in a manner very concise 
but at the same time precise and objective, to the 
majority of Muslim sects and to a number of the 
"sects" of the Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians. 
A special chapter is reserved to the philosophers. Al- 
RazI points out that he is the only one to regard the 
Sufis as a sect. 

10. — al-Mabahith al-mashriltiyya (Haydarabad 
1342, 2 vols, of 726 and 550 pp. respectively). This 
is a work on "metaphysics and physics" (fi Him al- 
ildhiyydt wa '1-tabiHyydt) which, however, does not 
refer at all to the samHyydt. The author does not 
fail to point out that he is the first to have conceived 
a work of this sort. At the beginning, he explains 
clearly the plan which he intends to follow in this 
work which consists of three "books". Knowledge 
being the more perfect as its object is moie geneial, 
the author will dedicate the first book to the study 
of being and its properties, then to its correlative, 
non-being, then to essence, unity, and multiplicity. 
Having defined these general principles (al-umur al- 
'■ammo), the author studies a certain number of 
problems connected with them, such as division of 
being into necessary and possible (12 chapters), 
eternity and beginning in being (5 chapters). The 
second book is dedicated to the great divisions of 
the possible, substance and accident. An introduction 
studies them in a general manner (15 chapteis), 
then a first djumla consisting of five /«»«« is con- 
cerned with accident as follows: 1) quantity; 2) qual- 
ity; 3) relative categories (al-ma^uldt al-nisbiyya); 
4) causes and effects; 5) movement and time (72 
chapters). The second djumla is concerned with 
substance as follows: 1) bodies; 2) soul (Him al-nafs); 
3) intelligence. Finally, the third book (ii, 448-524) 
deals with "pure metaphysics" (fi 'l-ildhiyydt al- 
mahda) and comprises four sections: 1) proof of the 
existence of the Necessary Being and of its tran- 
scendence; 2) its attributes; 3) its acts; 4) prophecy. 
This work is divided carefully into funun, abwdb and 
fusill, which call to mind Avicenna's Shifd*. From 
him, whom he calls simply al-raHs, and to whom 
he refers very frequently and sometimes quotes 
verbally, he borrows much important material, 
above all drawn from the Shifd* (physics, metaphy- 
sics, de Coelo et Mundo), the Nadjdt, and occasionally 
the Ishdrdt (cf. ii, 342). He often accepts his data, 
but he does not hesitate to dispute freely certain of 
his principles, pointing out, sometimes with astonish- 
ment, what he calls contradictions in him. On the 



FAKHR al-DIN al-RAZI — FAKHRI 



subject of necessary emanation ("from one can come 
forth only one") and the theory of the active intellect 
(cf. ii), he disagiees completely with Avicenna. He 
reports many opinions, usually unfortunately not 
naming their authors, and discusses them; never- 
theless he does refer by name to Aristotle, Plato, al- 
Farabl, Empedocles, Galen, and Thabit b. Kurra. 
ii. — Kitab al-Firdsa. This book on physiognomy 
has been edited (from the three manuscripts of 
Cambiidge, the British Museum, and the Aya Sofya) 
by Youssouf Mourad (La physiognomonie arabe et le 
Kitab al-firasa de Fakhr al-Din al-Rdzi, Paris 1939), 
with a long introduction and a French translation, 
notes and commentary. The work consists of three 
dissertations (makdldt). The first deals with the 
general principles of this science, the second is made 
up of four sections as follows: t) the signs of the 
temperaments; 2) the conditions special to the four 
ages; 3) the conditions special to the several states; 
4) differences of character arising from the differences 
of countries, hot and cold climates, etc. Finally, the 
third dissertation is given up to the significance of 
numbers. 

12. — Kitab al-ArbaHn ft usul al-din (Haydarabad 
1353/1934, 500 pp.). This treatise on theology was 
written by al-Razi for his eldest son Muhammad. 
The plan of the questions with which it deals is not 
indicated by the author. It is nevertheless possible 
to classify the forty questions as follows: A. Begin- 
ning of the world in time (q. 1); the non-being is 
not a thing (q. 2). B. Existence of God (q. 3). C. At- 
tributes of God (q. 4-40) : God is eternal (q. 4), unlike 
everything which exists (q. 5), His essence is identical 
with His existence (q. 6), He does not exist in space 
(q. 7 and 8), it is impossible for His essence to enter 
anything (q. 9), it is impossible that He should be 
subject to accident (q. 10); He is all-powerful (q. 11)', 
all-knowing (q. 12), possessed of will (q. 13), living 
(q. 14), He has knowledge and will (q. 15), He is 
hearing and seeing (q. 16), speaking (q. 17), everlast- 
ing (q. 18), visible (q. 19); His essence can be known 
by man (q. 20); He is one (q. 21), creator of the acts 
of man (q. 22), and of all which exists (q. 23), He 
wills all things (q. 24) ; good and evil are determined 
by religious Law (q. 25) ; the actions of God are not 
caused (q. 26); the existence of atoms (q. 27), reality 
of the soul (q. 28), existence of the void (q. 29), 
resurrection (q. 30), prophecy of Muhammad (q. 31), 
impeccability of the Prophets (q. 32), comparison 
of angels and messengers (q. 33), the miracles of the 
saints (q. 34); reward and punishment (q. 35), non- 
eternal nature of the punishment of Muslim sinners 
(q. 36), the intercession of the Prophet (q. 37); 
whether proofs based on tradition produce certainty 
(q. 38), the imamate (q. 39), methodology concerning 
rational proofs (q. 40). What is so striking in this 
treatise is the attitude of al-Razi towards atomism 
which here he seems to approve, whereas in the 
Mabdhith al-mashrikiyya he refutes it. 

Bibliography : in addition to the works 
mentioned in the text: Ibn Abi Usaybi c a, 'Uyun al- 
anbd', ii, 23-30; Ibn al-Kifti, TaMkh al-hukamd?, 
Cairo 1326/1908, 190-2; Ibn Khallikan, Cairo 1299/ 
1881, i, 600-2; SafadI, Wdfi, ed. Dedering, iv, 
248-58; Dhahabi, Ta'rikh al-Isldm, ms. Paris 1582, 
ff. I53b-6a; Subki, Tabakdt al-ShdfiHyya, Cairo 
1324/1906, iv, 285, v, 33-40; Ibn al-Sa% al-Qidmi'- 
al-mukhtasar, ix, ed. Mustafa Djawad, Baghdad 
I353/ I 934> 4-6, 171-2, 306-8; Ibn al- c Ibri, Mukh- 
tasar al-duwal, 419; Ibn Hadjar, Lisdn al-mizdn, iv, 
426-9; Tashkoprii-zade, Miftdh al-sa'dda, Hayd- 
arabad 1328/1910, i, 445-51; Kh'ansarl, Rawddt al- 



dianndt, lith. Tehran, 729-31; Ibn D5% Tabsirat 
al- c awdmm, ed. c Abbas Ikbal, Tehran 1333/1914, 
120; Abu '1-Falah c Abd al-Hayy al-Hanball, 
Shadhardt al-dhahab, Cairo 1350/1931, v, 21-2; 
I. Goldziher, Aus der Theologie des Fachr al-Din 
al-Rdzi, in Isl., iii (19 12), 213-47; M. Horten, Die 
philosophischen Ansichten von Razi und Tusi, 
Bonn 1912; idem, Die spekulative und positive 
Theologie des I slams nach Razi und ihre Kritik 
durch Tusi, Leipzig 1912; G. Gabrieli, Fachr- 
al-Din al-Razi, in Isis, 1925, 9-13; McNeile, 
An index to the Commentary of Fakhr al-Rdzi, 
London 1933; P. Kraus, Les controverses de Fakhr 
al-Din al-Rdzi, in BIE, xix (1937), 187-214 (= The 
controversies of Fakhr al-Din Razi, in Islamic 
Culture, xii (1938), 131-53); Shorter Encyclopedia 
of Islam, article on Razi by Kramers ; R. Arnaldez, 
L'ceuvre de Fakhr al-Din al-Rdzi commentateur du 
Coran et philosophe, in Cahiers de Civilisation 
midiivale, iii (i960), 307-23; idem, Apories sur la 
pridestination et le libre-arbitre dans le Commentaire 
de Razi, in MIDEO, vi (1959-60), 123-36; G. C. 
Anawati, Fakhr al-Din al-Rdzi: tamhid li-dirdsat 
haydtih wa-mu'allafdtih, in Milanges Taha Hussein, 
Cairo 1962, 193-234; idem, Fakhr al-Din al-Rdzi: 
ilements de biographic, in Melanges Massi, Tehran 
(forthcoming). (G. C. Anawati) 

FAKHR al-MULK [see 'ammar, banuj. 
FAKHR al-MULK b. nizam al-mulk [see 

NIZAMIDS]. 

FAKHRI (d. ca. 1027/1618), a native of Bursa, 
the most celebrated silhouette-cutter in Turkey. 
This art (san c at-i kat c ) was brought from Persia to 
Turkey in the ioth/i6th century, and to the west 
in the nth/i7th century, where at first, as in the 
east, light paper on a dark ground was always used. 
There are specimens of Fakhri's work — he cut prin- 
cipally examples of calligraphy, flowers and gardens — 
in the album prepared for Murad III, now in the 
Vienna Hofbibliothek; for Ahmed I he cut out a 
Gulistan, which did not, however, survive his criticism ; 
Murad IV on the other hand thought very highly 
of the artist. He is buried in Istanbul near the 



Edirr 






Bibliography: Isma'il Beligh, Guldeste, Bursa 

1302, 532-4; Habib, Khatt u khattdtdn, Istanbul 

1305, 261; J. von Karabacek, Zur orientalischen 

Altertumskunde, iv, 46 f., in SBAk. Wien, clxxii; 

G. Jacob, Die Herkunft der Silhouettenkunst aus 

Persien, Berlin 1913. (G. Jacob) 

FAKHRI. Shams al-DIn Muhammad b. Fakhr 

al-Din Sa c id Isfahan!, an Iranian philologist, 

author of the Mi c ydr-i Diamdli va-miftdh-i Bu 

Ishdki ("The bird-trap offered to Djamal and the 

key entrusted to Abu Ishak"), written in Isfahan, 

after residing in Shiraz, and dedicated in 745/1344 to 

Djamal al-Din Abu Ishak Muhammad, the last 

prince of the Indjii dynasty [?.».]. The work consists 

of four sections: prosody ( c arild), knowledge of 

rhyme (kawdfi), rhetorical devices (baddH t al- 

sandH'), a lexicon intermingled with verses in praise 

of the prince (Persian words arranged according to 

their final letter : they will be found in recent western 

dictionaries). Salemann, the editor of this lexicon, 

also adds a poem of 150 lines of verse, Marghub al- 

kulub ("Hearts' desire"), moral and mystical in 

content, its attribution to Fakhri being questionable 

(the manuscript of the B.N., Paris, Cat. Blochet 

no. 158, 3 , used by Salemann, puts it only under the 

name Shams). In the preface to the Mi'ydr, writing 

in a very careful and elaborate style, the author 

states that in 713/1313, while still a youth, he lived 



FAKHRI — FAKlH, BAL 



in Luristan in the company of writers and scholars 
and there composed a manual on versification which 
he dedicated to Nusrat al-DIn Ahmad, the seventh 
and last atabek of the Lur-i Buzurg (cf. Gantin, 581); 
he adds that he was intending to revise this manual 
and to transform it into a basic work — which he 
intended to achieve by writing the Mi'ydr (additional 
details in Blochet, Catalogue, nos. 971 and 2423; 
Pajuh, Fihrist, 432-3). 

Bibliography: Shams i Fachrii Ispahanensis 
lexicon Persicum id est libri Mi c jar Gamdli pars 
quarta quant . . . edidit Carolus Salemann, Fasc. 
prior textum et indices continens, Casani 1887; 
E. Blochet, Catalogue des mss. persans de la 
Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris; Pajuh (Muham- 
mad TakI Danish), Fihrist-i nuskhahd-yi khattl-i 
kitdbkhdna-yi ddnishkada-yi adabiyydt (catalogue 
of mss. of the Faculty of Letters), Review of the 
Faculty of Letters, University of Tehran, viii/I 
(1339 p. /1960) ; Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Ta'rikh-i 
Guzida, the Persian dynasties, ed. and Fr. tr. Jules 
Gantin, Paris 1903. (H. Mass£) 

FAIflH (a.), plur. fukahd 7 , in its non-technical 
meaning (denotes anyone possessing knowledge 
{fikh) of a thing (syn. l dlim, plur. < ulama' [q.v.]). 
Then, as fikh passed from denoting any branch of 
knowledge and became a technical term for the 
science of religious law (sharPa [q.v.]) and in partic- 
ular for the science of its derivative details (furu 1 ), 
fakih became the technical term for a specialist 
in religious law and in particular its fura 1 . This 
development is parallel to that of the term (iuris) 
prudens in Roman law. In older terminology, 
however, fakih as opposed to l dlim denotes the 
speculative, systematic lawyer as opposed to the 
specialist in the traditional elements of religious law. 
(See on all this the art. fikh). A more modest 
synonym of fakih is mutafakkih "a student of fikh", 
whereas a person possessing the highest degree of 
competence in fikh is called muajtahid [see idjtihad]. 
In several Arabic dialects the word, in forms like 
fikl etc., has come to mean a schoolmaster in a 
kuttdb [q.v.'] or a professional reciter of the Kur'an. 
Bibliography : Lane, s.v.; LA,s.v.; Tahanawi, 
Dictionary of Technical Terms, 30-3, 198 ff., 1157; 
E. W. Lane, Modem Egyptians, chap. 2; W. 
Marcais, Textes arabes de Tanger, 415 (with further 
references). (D. B. Macdonald*) 

FA$lH, BA, a family of Ba c Alawi sayyids 
of Tarim in Hadramawt descended from Muhammad 
b. <A1I (d. 862/1458), called mawld c Aydld or sahib 
1 Ay did, after c Aydid, now a suburb of Tarim, to 
which he moved from Tarim. His father, <A1I b. 
Muhammad (d. 838/1434) was called sdhib al-hawta, 
after an estate he had near Tarim which he developed 
as a plantation and which became a sacrosanct 
enclosure (hiwta). The name Ba Fakih apparently 
refers to sdhib al-haw(a's great-grandfather, al-Fakih 
Ahmad b. «Abd al-Rahman b. 'All b. Muhammad 
(d. 726/1326), whose great-grandfather was Muham- 
mad sdhib Mirbd} (d. 556/1162), after the town of 
Mirbat, then a prosperous town on the coast of 
Zufar, where he moved from Tarim and where he 
later died and was buried. From sdhib Mirbdf are 
descended all the Ba c Alawi sayyids of Hadramawt. 
Muhammad b. c Ali, mawld C A ydld, the ancestor of 
the Ba Fakih, is described in sayyid literature as a 
great saint, a description, however, which is lavishly 
used by sayyid writers about their ancestors. His 
descendants known to us were mainly sufls, teachers 
and jurists. They are descended through his sons (a) 



c Abd al-Rahman, (b) c Abd Allah, (c) c Ali, (d) c Alawi 
and (e) Zayn. 

Through (a) c Abd al-Rahman were descended his 
son Zayn (died in al-Shihr) and the latter's son c Abd 
al-Rahman (d. 950/1543)- Through (b) <Abd Allah 
were descended, from his great-grandson Muhammad, 
Abu Bakr b. Muhammad (d. 1005/1596), a prominent 
teacher and jurist, called sdhib liaydun, after the 
town near Daw'an to which he moved and where he 
died, and his brother Husayn b. Muhammad (d. 1040/ 
1630) who was kadi in Tarim and got involved in 
disputes between members of the influential 
<Aydarus [q.v.] family. Husayn had two sons: 
Ahmad (d. 1052/1642 in Mecca) and c Abd Allah, 
who travelled to India in his youth and settled in 
Kunur, where he married the daughter of its governor 
c Abd al-Wahhab and gained public importance, 
although he mainly occupied himself with teaching. 
He seems to have studied mathematics while there 
and to have applied himself to the pursuit of alchemy. 
He died in Kunur. A nephew of Abu Bakr and 
Husayn, called Muhammad b. 'Umar b. Muhammad, 
settled in Kunur where he married the daughter of 
its governor c Abd al-Madjid and acquired some 
prominence, which he retained in the days of c Abd 
al-Madjid's brother and successor <Abd al-Wahhab; 
but he fell upon bad days after the latter's death 
and moved to Haydarabad, where he died. 

From (c) c Ali was descended his great-grandson 
Ahmad b. 'Umar b. <Abd al-Rahman b. c Ali (d. nth/ 
17th century), whose studies took him to Mecca, 
Medina and Cairo; then he went back to Tarim 
where towards the end of his life he was twice kddl. 
From (d) 'Alawi were descended his son Muhammad 
b. c Alawi (d. 924/1519 in Aden) and his great- 
grandson c Abd al-Rahman b. 'Alawi b. Ahmad b. 
'Alawi (d. 1047/ 1637), a prominent sufl, jurist and 
teacher. From (e) Zayn was descended c Abd Allah 
b. Zayn b. Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Rahman b. Zayn, 
a teacher of al-Shilli, author of al-Mashra'- al-rawi, 
who later moved to India, studying and teaching, 
until he settled in Bidjapur, where he died. 

A chronicler called Muhammad b. 'Umar al- 
Tayyib Ba Fakih Ba c Alawi al-Shihri, about whom 
no biographical details can be traced, was the author 
of a chronicle commonly referred to as Tdrlkh Bd 
Fakih al-Shihrl (covering the ioth/i6th century); 
cf. R. B. Serjeant in BSOAS, xiii (1950), 292-5; xxv 
(1962), 245 f. 

Bibliography: Ibn al-'Aydarus, al-Nur al- 

sdfir min akhbdr al-karn al-'-ashir, Baghdad 1934; 

Muhammad b. Abu Bakr al-Shilli, al-Mashra'- al- 

rawl fl mandkib al-sdda al-kirdm dl Abl i Alawl, 

Cairo 1319/1901; al-Muhibbi, Khuldsat al-athar fl 

a c ydn al-karn al-hddi 'ashar, Cairo 1869, 4 vols.; 

F. Wustenfeld, Die Qufiten in Sud-Arabien im XI 

{XVII) Jahrhundert, Gottingen 1883, 57-64! 

R. B. Serjeant, Materials for South Arabian history, 

in BSOAS, xiii (1950), 292-5, and xxv (1962), 

245 f.; idem, The Portuguese off the South Arabian 

Coast, Oxford 1963, passim. (M. A. GhOl) 

FA$lH, BAL, a family of Ba c Alawi sayyids of 

Tarim in Hadramawt descended from al-Fakih 

Muhammad b. c Abd al-Rahman, called al-aska c , a 

prominent scholar who, after studying in his native 

Tarim, Aden, Zabid, Mecca and Medina, settled in 

Tarim, where he died in 917/1512. A kind of historical 

work by him was used as a source of the Td'rlkh of Ba 

Fakih al-Shihri, where it is referred to as Khatt; cf. 

R. B. Serjeant iaBSOAS, xxv (1962), 246. His great 

ancestor was Muhammad b. C A1I b. Muhammad 



FAKlH, BAL — FAKIR 



sahib Mirbdt, commonly called al-ustddh al-af-zam wa 
'l-fakih al-mukaddam (d. 653/1255). 

The Bal Fakih sayyids of whom we know were 
mainly sufis, and in some cases teachers and jurists 
as well. They were descended from al-Fakih Muham- 
mad b. c Abd al-Rahman al-aska c through his three 
sons (a) c Abd Allah, (b) c Abd al-Rahman and (c) 
Ahmad. 

The first son c Abd Allah is also called al-'Aydarfls 
and is known as sahib al-Shubayka, after the cemetery 
in Mecca where he was buried. He was born in 
Tarim, which he left for Shihr, Aden, Mecca, Medina 
and Zabld in search of learning, and then went back 
to it where he became a prominent teacher. He left 
it later for Mecca, where he lived the last 14 years of 
his life and where he died in 974/1567. His son C A1I, 
a sup, died in Mecca in 1021/1612. The latter had two 
sons, Muhammad, who attained wealth and public 
importance in Mecca, where he died in 1066/1656, 
and c Abd Allah, a silfi, who died in Mecca in 1050/ 

From (b) c Abd al-Rahman were descended his son 
Muhammad (d. 1007/1598) and his two grandsons by 
his son Husayn, Ahmad b. Husayn b. <Abd al- 
Rahman (d. 1048/1638), who was twice kadi of 
Tarim and got involved together with Husayn b. 
Muhammad Ba Fakih in disputes between members 
of the influential 'Aydarfis [q.v.] family; and Abii 
Bakr b. Husayn b. c Abd al-Rahman, who travelled 
to India where he finally settled in Badjapur enjoying 
the patronage of its ruler Mahmud c Adil Shah until 
his death there in 1074/1663. 

Of (c) Ahmad's descendants we know of a grandson 
called Ahmad b. c Abd al-Rahman b. Ahmad who 
was born in Tarim, where he studied and then 
became a teacher and jurist. He was a contemporary 
and friend of al-Shilli, author of al-Mashra 1 al-Rawi. 
Bibliography: as for faijih, ba; add R. B. 
Serjeant, The Saiyids of Hadramawt, London 1957, 
14, 19 and 25. (M. A. GhOl) 

al-FAKIHI, Abu c Abd Allah Muhammad b. 
Ishaij b. al- c Abbas, 3rd/gth-century historian of 
Mecca. No information on him was available to later 
Muslim scholars, or is to us, except what can be 
learned from his History of Mecca, of which the 
second half is preserved in a single manuscript in 
Leiden (cod. or. 463). A small portion of the work has 
been edited by F. Wiistenfeld, Die Chroniken der 
Stadt Mekka, Leipzig 1857-61, ii, 3-51. Al-Fakihi was 
alive and, it seems, quite young during the judgeship 
of c Abd al-Rahman b. Yazid b. Muhammad b. 
Hanzala b. Muhammad which came to an end in or 
shortly before 238/852-3 (Wiistenfeld, ii, 43 f-; 
Waki c , Akhbdr al-Kuddt, i, 268 f.); his birth may 
thus be placed around 225/839, and this agrees with 
the fact that some of his authorities died in the 
early 240 s. He was in contact with the leading 
scholars of Mecca. He completed his work between 
272/885-86, a date he himself mentions, and the end 
of 275/April-May 889 when c Abd al- c Aziz b. c Abd 
Allah al-Hashimi, who is referred to as being still 
alive, died (Wiistenfeld, ii, 12 ; Ta'rihh Baghdad, x, 
451 f.; or, if the passages cited refer to different men, 
at the latest 279/892). He left a son, Abu Muhammad 
c Abd Allah, who is briefly noticed in al-Fasi, <Ikd. 
His work is referred to as A khbdr Makka or (in the 
Leiden ms.) Ta'rikh Makka, but Fikrist 159 calls it 
Kitdb Makka wa-akhbdrihd fi 'l-Didhilivva wa 
'l-Isldm. Its size was more than twice that of the 
earlier History of Mecca by al-Azraki [q.v.]. It shares 
with the latter the arrangement and, to a large 
degree, the material but must be considered an 



757 



independent scholarly achievement. The isndds 
prove that al-Fakihi collected his material on his 
own; certain historical statements and descriptions 
of architectural features and the like not introduced 
by isndds agree literally with al-Azraki and, there- 
fore, may have been taken over from his work 
without acknowledgement. The fact that al-Fakihi 
makes no mention of al-Azraki and even appears to 
suppress references to his family may have its 
reason in some personal enmity between him and the 
Azrakis and their circle, or the latter may have 
refused him permission to make use of the material 
in their possession; at any rate, it does not mean 
that al-Fakihi was out to conceal an alleged im- 
proper use of al-Azraki's work, which would, 
anyhow, have been impossible. 

Bibliography: Wiistenfeld, op. cit., i, xxiv- 

xxix; Brockelmann, I, 143. (F. Rosenthal) 

FAKIR. The word fakir has four different con- 
notations — etymological, Kur'anic, mystical and 
popular. Etymologically it means (a) one whose 
backbone is broken (see Kur'an, lxxvii, 25); 
(6) poor or destitute; (c) canal, aqueduct or mouth of 
a canal; (d) hollow dug for planting or watering 
palm-trees. When used in the sense of a pauper its 
plural form is fukard', but when used in the sense 
of an aqueduct, fukur is its plural form. 

The word fakir (or fukard 3 ) occurs 12 times in the 
Kur'an. It is sometimes used as opposed to ghani 
(one who is self-sufficient and independent, see 
xxxv, 16) and is sometimes conjoined with the 
term miskin to indicate two distinct types of needy 
persons (ix, 60). According to Imam al-Shafi% a 
fakir is one who neither owns anything nor engages 
himself in any avocation ; a miskin, on the contrary, 
is one who owns something though it is barely 
sufficient for his immediate needs. He cites in support 
of his view the parable of Khidr and Moses in which 
the sailor of a boat is called a miskin (xviii, 79). 
Imam Abu Hanifa held the other view. According 
to him a fakir is one who owns something while a 
miskin is one who owns nothing. The supporters of 
this view say that the sailor in the parable was not 
the owner of the boat but had it on hire. Reconciling 
all these differences Ibn al- c Arabi says that these 
terms are interchangeable and synonymous. Ac- 
cording to some commentators the word fukard 3 in 
ii, 273 refers to the ahl al-suffa [q.v.] who lived in the 
mosque of the Prophet and devoted all their time 
to prayers and meditation. 

In mystic terminology fakir means a person who 
'lives for the Lord alone'. As Shibli says: Al-fakir 
man la yastaghni bi-shay*" dun Allah {a fakir does 
not rest content with anything except God.) Total 
rejection of private property ( c adam tamalluk) and 
resignation to the will of God (tawakkul) were con- 
sidered essential for a fakir who aspired for gnosis 
(ma'rifa). 

In popular parlance the term fakir is used for a 
poor man, a pauper or a beggar. Its use in the 
English language dates from 1608; see Oxford 
English Dictionary, s.v. Fakir, and H. Yule and 
A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson 1 , London 1903, s.v. 

Bibliography: Zamakhsharl, Kitdb al-FdHk, 
Haydarabad, ii, 143-4; LA, vi, 366: TA, iii, 473-5J 
Shams al-DIn Ahmad, Istildhdt-i Sufiyya, Lucknow 
1904, 32-3; c Abd al-Baki, Al-Minah al-Madaniyya 
fi mukhtdrdt al-Sufiyya, Madina 1330, 37-8; c Izz 
al-DIn Mahmud, Misbdh al-hiddya wa miftdh al- 
kifdya, ed. Djalal al-Din Huma'i, 1365, 375"9J 
Shihab al-Din Suhrawardi, 'Awdrif al-ma'-drif, 



FAKIR — FA'L 



1292, 105-6; Kushayri, Risdla, 'Uthmaniya Press 

1304, 159-64; al-Hudjwiri, Kashf al-Mahdjub, tr. 

Nicholson, 19-29, 60; Turab C A1I Kalandar, 

Mafdlib-i Rashidi, Nawal Kishore edn., 302. 

(K. A. Nizami) 

FAKlR MUUAMMAD KHAN, an Urdu writer 
(Fakir is a takhallus, nom de plume). He is chiefly 
known as the author of a translation of the Anwdr-i 
Suhayll of Husayn Wa'iz Kashifi [g.v.], an adapta- 
tion in elaborate Persian prose of the stories 
from Kalila wa-Dimna [q.v.]. The title of the Urdu 
translation by Fakir Muhammad Khan, for which 
he appears to have been helped by the cele- 
brated Urdu poet Mir Hasan (d. 1200/1786), is 
Bustdn-i hikmat (Garden of wisdom). The 1 first 
edition is a lithograph, Lucknow 1845. As a lyric 
poet, Fakir belongs to the Lucknow school and to the 
silsila (poetic school) of the famous Nasikh (d. 1254/ 
1838). 

Bibliography: Garcin de Tassy, Hist, de la 

litt. Hindoue et Hindonstanie 2 , Paris 1870, i, 443. 
(A. Bausani) 

FASlRI, Kalkandelenli, Turkish poet of the 
mid-ioth/i6th century. Very little is known about 
his life. From the scanty information provided by 
tedhkire-writeis, we learn only that he was from 
Kalkandelen (Tatova) near Uskiib (Skopje); of a 
modest family, cheerful and easy-going, he was 
unambitious and died young, while still a student. 

Fakiri is the author of a shehrengiz, a sdki-ndme 
and a number of ghazels scattered in medjmu'-as and 
nazire collections, all of which are of rather mediocre 
quality. He owes his reputation to his original 
Risdle-i ta'rifdt (Book of Definitions) written in 
941/1534 in the tradition and style of shehrengiz. This 
is a collection of short descriptions (in 159 fash) of 
various officials, artisans and types of the Ottoman 
Empire, and one of the rare examples of social satire 
in Turkish literature. In every "definition" of three 
couplets, the characteristics of the type are given in 
a concise, often colourful description, a vivid and 
informative parade of the famous and infamous. 

After the customary introduction in praise of God, 
the Prophet and the first four Caliphs and homage to 
the reigning Sultan, Suleyman the Magnificent, 
Fakiri begins his definitions with the highest ranking 
official, the vizier, and proceeds to other ranks and 
classes. The vizier is "the aid of religion and the 
State, he is the orderer of the country". The 
kddi'askers are not liked by the kadis as "they give 
life to some by distributing largesse and take the life 
of others", the defter ddrs turn some people's business 
into gold, and dismiss and deceive others, the beys and 
aghas "lead always a pleasant life, they stage stately 
diwdns where notables foregather; some, by their 
justice, make the country prosperous, some, by their 
tyranny, destroy the world". 

Further he describes in short but accurate terms 
the functions of the solak, silihddr, tdwush, ulak, 
yeniceri, mewdli, etc., and passes critical judgment 
on members of various professions: muderris "the 
heirs to the science of the Prophet", the "insatiable" 
muHd, the "corrupt" ndHb, etc. The joy of the 
mansub (the newly-appointed official) and the 
sorrow of the ma'-zul (the dismissed one), the pangs 
of expectation of the miildzim (the probationary), 
the difference between the true devout skaykh and 
the hypocritical false one, the insincere preacher, 
wdHz, with an eye to profit are concisely portrayed. 
The parade continues with the imam, mii'edhdhin, 
hdfiz, kdtib, the poet, the lover, the gentleman, the 
beauty, the lady's man, the rival, etc. The arts, 



crafts and professions are represented by the porter, 
physician, barber, acrobat, musician, dancer, 
merchant, tailor, town-crier, cobbler, saddler, 
butcher, blacksmith, etc. Then come characters: 
the hypocrite, intriguer, liar, idiot, etc. Further come 
definitions of some national types: Persian, Arab, 
Fellah. Fakiri's uncomplimentary definition of 
"Turk" (fasl 80) "with a fur on his shoulder and a 
bSrk on his head, ignorant of religion and sect" 
confirms the fact that in the period of the Empire 
this term meant "uneducated peasant, country boor" 
as opposed to the town-dwelling Ottomans (Rumi), 
who are "refined and educated, but some think of 
themselves as writers, some as poets, yet when they 
gather to talk they do nothing but backbite one 

Fakiri is strongly critical in his definition of 
sipdhi, 'azab, subashi, 'ases, muhtesib, ketkhudd, 
'■ummdl, mUtewelli, etc., and popular complaints 
about bribery, abuses, tyranny, cruelty, injustices 
of the times are reflected in these definitions. An 
edition of the Risdle-i ta'-rifdt is in preparation. 

Bibliography: The tedhkires of Latifi, Kinall- 
zade Hasan Celebi, c Ashik Celebi, Beyani and the 
biographical section in 'All's Kiinh al-Akhbdr, s.v.; 
Kopriilu-zade Mehmed Fu'ad, Milli edebiyydt 
dfereydmnin ilk mubeshshirUri, Istanbul 1928, 62-3; 
idem, Onundju c asir haydtina '■d'id wethikalar, in 
Haydt, i, 22-3; I. Ulcugiir, Fakiri ve Risale-i 
Tarifat'i, (unpublished thesis in Tiirkiyat Library 
no. 220): M. Izzet, $ehrengizler (unpublished 
thesis in Tiirkiyat Library no. 76). (Fahir Iz) 
FA'L, tira and zadjr are terms which merge into 
one another and together correspond to and express 
adequately the concept of "omen" and of oitovo?. 
Fa'l, a term peculiar to Arabic and equivalent to 
the Hebrew nehashim and the Syriac nehshe, originally 
meant natural omen, cledonism. It appears in very 
varied forms, ranging from simple sneezing (al- 
Ibshihi, Mustafraf, trans. Rat, ii 182), certain pe- 
culiarities of persons and things that one encounters 
(al-Nuwayri, Nihdya, 133 ff., trans, in Arabica, viii/i 
(1961), 34-7), to the interpretation of the names of 
persons and things which present themselves spon- 
taneously to the sight, hearing and mind of man. 
On this last point, the sira, tradition (hadith) and 
Muslim chronicles give ample evidence depicting 
this tendency of the Arab mind to draw omens from 
all kinds of physical movement, all kinds of chance 
happenings, from all kinds of words heard and all 
attitudes observed. "After all, the whole of good 
manners has grown out of fa'l" (Doutte, Magie et 
religion, 364). To this must be added the predominant 
>ng all Semites, and the Arabs in particular, 






antiphra 



infra). 



This tendency of the Arab mind reveals itself 
clearly in the conduct, practice and recommenda- 
tions of the Prophet. The sira is full of incidents 
where the Prophet "drew omens from the names 
of the regions and tribes through which he travelled 
on hi; raids" (Ibn Hisham, 434). Furthermore, he 
made a considerable number of changes in proper 
names, with the double design of effacing all traces 
of Arab paganism from Muslim terminology (cf. 
Wellhausen, Reste', 8 f.), and even more of removing 
from any shocking or unsuitable names of followers 
which he must hear around him, all baleful in- 
fluences which might emanate from their meanings. 
It was for this reason that he changed Kalil into 
Kathir, <Asi into Muti< (Ibn al-Athir, Usd, iv, 232); 
and thus also that he gave the future Medina the 
name of Tayyiba in place of Yathrib, whose root 



contained the idea of "calumny" (Mardsid al-ittild*, 
ed. Juynboll, i, 2). He changed the name of Zayd 
al-Khayl into Zayd al-Khayr (Aghani 1 , xvii, 49). 
"In the Djahiliyya, Sulayman b. Surad was called 
Yasar (as a euphemism for 'left') ; the Prophet called 
him Sulayman" (Ibn al-Athir, Usd, ii, 351); "Sahl 
used to be called Hazn but the Prophet renamed him 
Sahl" (ibid. 380; cf. Ibn c Abd Rabbih, </£<*, i, 226), 
and so on (cf. ibid, ii, 301; al-Bakri, Mu'djam, ed. 
Wustenfeld, 313, 559; Goldziher, in ZDMG, li (1897), 
256 ff.). "Fur Muhammad wurde ja jedes Nomen, 
besonders aber jedes Nomen proprium, zum omen" 
(Fischer in ZDMG, lxi (1907), 753, cf. 427). The 
Prophet was imitated in this respect by his Compa- 
nions, especially c Umar b. al-Khattab (cf. Ibn Ku- 
tayba, l Uyun, ed. Brockelmann, ii, 148 f.; Ibn 
<Abd Rabbih, </£<*, i, 225; al-Tabari, xv, 2609, etc.). 
On the other hand, omens were not only drawn from 
the individual's name but also from his appearance. 
The Prophet wrote to his officials: "When you send 
me a courier, see that he has a beautiful name and a 
handsome face" (Ibn Kutayba, I.e.; Ibn c Abd Rabbih, 
l.c; cf. Aghdni 1 , ii, 20; xviii, 35). In North Africa, 
even a man's social position could become a factor 
from which omens could be drawn ; thus to encounter 
a sharif was a matter of happy omen, while to meet 
a Jew or a blacksmith was unlucky (Doutte, op. cit., 
361). A whole family might be considered as having a 
baleful influence (cf. the family of Basbas, who gave 
bad advice to the Taghlib, Ifamdsa, 254, I- 5, in 
Freytag, Einleitnng, 162). Certain individuals are 
referred to as mastfum (cf. al-Djahiz, Ifayawdn, vii, 
150 f.); their company augured ill. 

Because of this, choice of names was important 
to parents for their children and to masters for their 
slaves. With regard to this, the Arabs followed a 
definite ruling. "Someone asked a Bedouin: 'Why do 
you give your children the worst of names such as 
Kalb and Dhi'b, and to your slaves the best such as 
Marzuk and Rabah?' He replied: 'It is because the 
names of our children are destined for our enemies, 
and those of our slaves for ourselves'. He meant to 
say that the children are a shield against the enemy 
and arrows in their bosoms; it is for this reason that 
they give them this kind of name" (al-Diyarbakri, 
Khamis. ii, 153; cf. Ibn Durayd, Ishtifrdfr, ed. Wiisten- 
feld, 4 f.; Ibn al-Attilr, v, 247; cf. al-Djahiz, Ifaya- 
wdn, vi, 65 and i, 158 f., where the author sets out 
the various motives underlying the choice of names 
among Arabs). 

This process of interpretation was expanded from 
personal names to the names of precious stones, of 
fruits and flowers, and even to the words of songs. 
Thus gold (dhahab) means 'departure', onyx (djaz') 
sadness and melancholy (al-Tifashi. in Reinaud, 
Monumens, i, 14) ; a lemon (utrudj) presages hypocrisy 
because of the fact that the exterior of the fruit does 
not resemble the interior (al-Djahiz, Ifayawdn, iii, 
142; Ibn c Abd Rabbih, Hhd, i, 226); the quince 
(safardjal) signifies a journey because its name con- 
tains the word safar (Ibn c Abd Rabbih, loc. cit.; cf. 
ZDMG, lxvii (1913), 273 ff., and lxviii (1914), 275 ff.). 
Lilac (susan) brings misfortune because its name 
contains the word su' (Ibn c Abd Rabbih, loc. cit.), 
and misfortune which will last for a year because its 
name is made up of s« 3 and sana (cf. Fliigel, Loos- 
biicher, 27); basil (rihdn) is at the same time of good 
and evil omen because on the one hand its name 
includes the word ruh, and on the other hand it has 
a bitter taste, even though it pleases the eye and the 
nose (al-Djahiz, Ifayawdn, iii, 142). As for the evil 
presentiments aroused by the contents of a phrase or 



L 759 

a song, there are many examples of these in the Arab 
chronicles (cf. al-Djahiz, loc. cit., 139; al-Mas'Odl, 
Murudi, iv, 426 ff.; vii, 269 ff.; al-Ibshlhi, ii, 154). 
These facts are generally classified under the name 
of fira. 

According to HadjdjI Khalifa, Kashf, ed. Fliigel, 
iv, 646 f., faH is an approval of a man's intentions 
and thence an encouragement to his carrying them 
out, while tira (or tayara or turn, cf. Kdmus, i, 93) 
is a disapproval and in consequence an obstruction, 
a postponement until later. This opposition which 
in the end established itself between two concepts 
which were originally complementary, seems to have 
developed from the attitude which Tradition ascribed 
to the Prophet concerning this predominant variety 
of faH. Tira (8pvi;) is in effect a technique whose 
origin is pastoral and nomadic; Arabia was therefore 
a very propitious region for its development, as 
Cicero had already commented: "Arabes (et Phryges 
et Cilices), quod pastu pecudum maxime utuntur, 
campos et montes hieme et aestate peragrantes, 
propterea facilius cantus avium et volatus notave- 
runt" (De divinatione, i, 41; cf. i, 1 and ii, 93-5). 
Its technical character made it the prerogative of a 
privileged class of men, which in an organized and 
developed society enjoyed the status of priesthood. In 
the short-lived and nomadic civilizations of Bedouin 
Arabia, the existence of a priestly class which specia- 
lized in the interpretation of the flight and cries of 
birds was as yet hardly perceptible (see kihana: 
'■dHf, hdzi, zddjir). It is only by means of com- 
parison between the brief and obscure data of Is- 
lamic literature and those of Semitic antiquity, that 
it is possible to affirm the religious character of 
tira as it was practised in the Diahiliyya. 

It is from this, it would seem, that the hostility 
displayed by the Prophet towards tira arose, even 
while he was practising and recommending faH. 
This also explains the baleful character which was 
assigned to it later. In fact, certain examples de- 
monstrate that tira could be a good omen. "HJbayd 
Allah b. Ziyad painted a dog, a ram and a lion in the 
entrance-hall of his house. He said of them: 'a 
barking dog, a fighting ram and an angry lion'. He 
drew a good omen (fatatayyara) from these and this 
was repeated after him" (Ifayawdn, i, 158). And 
from the same author (ibid. 159) : "When 'ass', 'dog', 
'bull' were names borne by honourable men, the 
Arabs did not hesitate after this to use them, seeing 
a good omen in them (tatayyur" 1 )" . One hadith even 
seems to give tira a wider meaning, including faH 
itself which is regarded as that part of it which comes 
true: "asdali" 'l-tirat* al-faH"" (Ibn Kutayba, 'Uyun, 
ii, 146). Another hadith includes the subject-matter 
of tira in faH: "There is nothing in the ham (the owl 
regarded as the spirit of a dead man), but the evil 
eye is true and birds give true omens (wa-asdaka 
'i-(ayr u al-faH")" (Ibn al-Athir, Usd, i, 314 and ii, 78). 
In the same way, there are examples which give faH 
the meaning of evil omen (cf. al-Nuwayri, Nihdya, 
iii, 138; Ibn Durayd, Ishtikdk, 4). 

This confusion reveals the existence of a primitive 
foundation which was not entirely submerged by the 
powerful wave of puritanism which swept over Arabia 
in the first two centuries of the Hidjra. 

It appears from all this that tira, which was origin- 
ally no more than the observation and interpre- 
tation of the flight, cries and perching activities of 
certain birds used in divination, became the equi- 
valent of the male ominari of the Latins and the 
pXa(J9T)|xeiv and 8u<j<pT]u,£iv of the Greeks. 

From this was derived a whole li' 



FA'L — FAL-NAMA 



tially of poetry and proverbs, created to dissuade 
man from following the ideas inspired in him by 
tlra, and to which all men are subject. The Prophet 
is reported to have said: "There are three dangers 
which no-one escapes : tlra, suspicion and jealousy". 
When asked what remedy there is for this, he replied: 
"If (on your way) you think you have seen an evil 
omen (tatayyarta), do not turn back; if you suspect, 
do not execute ; if you are envious, do not commit an 
injustice" (Ibn Kutayba, ^Uyun, ii, 8; Ibn c Abd 
Rabbih, STfcd, i, 226). Quotations from poetry on this 
subject are very numerous (cf. especially al-Buhturi, 
Ifamdsa, ed. Cheikho, nos. 599, 860-7, n 32; al-Bay- 
hakl, Mahdsin, 368 and Ps.-Djahiz, Mahdsin, 68 f . ; al- 
Djahiz, Ifayawdn, iii, 138, 139, 160; Ibn Kutayba, 
< Uyun, ed. Cairo, ii, 145 f.). 

It is worth remarking that when it means presaging 
evil, tlra does not strictly apply only to signa ex 
avibus but also to all other kinds of evil omen 
(cf. Ibn Kutayba, c Uyiln, ii, 147; al-Djahiz, Ifayawdn, 
iii, 140; al-Mas'udi, Murudj, vi, 426 ff., 433 f., 
vii, 269 ff.; Agkdnl, i, 184; al-Tabari, i/3, 1089; etc.). 

But the primitive meaning of tlra seems to be better 
preserved in zadjr, which is often used as its equi- 
valent, although originally this term designated a 
technique belonging to tlra. Indeed, if tlra is the ob- 
servation and interpretation of the spontaneous flight 
and cries of birds, zadjr consists on the contrary of the 
deliberate instigation of these flights and cries; 
it belongs to the category of auspicia impetrita, in 
contrast to auspicia oblativa. Apart from the meaning 
of zadjara (to arouse, chase someone with cries, make 
fly, draw omens, practise divination), Arab tradition 
still preserves some accounts of the existence ot this 
practice (cf. Arabica, viii/i (1961), 50 f.). 

But in the same way as faH and tlra, zadjr soon 
began to lose its primitive meaning and specific char- 
acter and came to stand for evil omen or divination 
in general. Indeed sometimes there is a kind of zadjr 
which is confused with kihdna (cf. al-Nuwayrl, 
Nihdya, iii, 135-9). This leads us to believe that 
zadjr was, as in Assyria and Babylonia, the prero- 
gative of the soothsayer who, especially in Arabia, 
combined various functions and acted as a guardian 
of institutions in a nomadic society which lacked 
the focal points necessary to fix and safeguard them. 

Thus in a passage from Ps.-Djahiz, Arab zadjr in- 
cludes the interpretation of the cooing of doves, the 
cries of birds, the sudden appearance of an animal 
crossing from right to left or from left to right, the 
rustling of leaves, the sigh of the wind and other 
similar portents (Hrdfa, ed. Inostrantseff, 23). 

Zadjr is also referred to a Hyafa [q.v.] which applies 
to various procedures of divination. As for the birds 
whose flight and cries form the object of faH, tlra 
and zadjr, they are of many kinds, but the bird of 
divination most regarded by the Arabs is the crow 
(Corvus capensis Lichtenst., Corvus umbrinus 
Riippell, and perhaps also Corvus agricola Tristram 
which exists in Palestine). Nevertheless, these three 
procedures do not limit themselves to birds, for any 
animal is capable of furnishing ail omen (on the crow 
and other birds, animals and insects of divination, 
cf. Arabica, viii/i (1961), 30-58). 

The direction of a bird's flight, or an animal's steps, 
plays a very important part in the application of the 
three procedures. Technical terms designate the 
various directions: sdnih (that which travels from 
right to left), bdrili (that which travels from left to 
right), djdbih (that which comes from in front), 
liaHd or khaflf (that which comes from behind). 
As a general rule, the left is of evil omen (al-Tibrizi, 



in Abu Tammam, Ifamdsa, ed. Freytag, i, 165), 
therefore "al-sdnih is desired by the Arabs and al- 
bdrih is dreaded" (al-Mas'udi, Murudj, iii, 340). 
Thus it is by way of euphemism that Arabs call the 
left side al-yasdr and the left hand al-yusrd (comp. 
the Greek eutovuptoi;), whereas in fact they signify 
"difficulty" to them, whence comes the name of al- 
'usrd, also used for the left hand (cf. al-Djaljiz, 
Ifayawdn, v, 150). 

In other respects too, euphemism and antiphrasis 
play an important part in faH. "The desire to hear 
from the mouth of others a word of happy omen, the 
fear of hearing some unlucky expression, is moreover 
found in Islam in all ages and all countries" (W. 
Marcais, Euphemisms, 431). A whole vocabulary has 
been created in order to avoid certain expressions 
whose meanings suggest evil omens. Hence the blind 
is called "seeing", basir (cf. other euphemisms for 
blind and ref. in Fischer, in ZDMG, lxi (1907), 
425 sqq.), smallpox is described as "blessed", 
mubarak, as also are syphilis, plague and insanity 
(cf. Greek iepa, the Italian il benedetto). It is because 
of tlra, al-Djahiz tells us (Hayawdn, iii, 136), that the 
Arabs call someone who has been bitten by a snake 
"safe and sound" (sallm), call the desert the "refuge" 
{mafdza); it is for the same reason that they name 
the blind, for kunya, Abu Basir and the negro Abu 
'1-Bayda 5 (white). Such examples are innumerable 
(cf. W. Marcais and Fischer, op. cit., Wellhausen, 
Reste 1 , 200 ff.). 

For astrological faH, see nudjum, and for the faH 
by drawing lots, see kur'a. For books of divination, 

See FAL-NAMA. 

Bibliography : Ibn Kutayba, c Uyun al-akhbdr, 
Cairo, ii, 144-151; Djahiz, Ifayawdn, passim; 
Mas'udi, Murudj, iii, 334 f.; Nuwayri, Nihdyat 
al-arab, Cairo, iii, 134ft.; Ibshihi, Mustatraf, tr. 
Rat, 177 ff.; Hadjdji Khalifa, iv, 646 f., 174; 
G. Fliigel, Die Loosbiicher der Muhammadaner, 
in B(K)SGW, phil.-hist. Kl. XII-XIII, 1860-1, 
24-74; E. Doutte, Magie et religion, 363 ft.; W. 
Marcais, L ' euphemisme et Vantiphrase dans les 
dialectes arabes d'Algerie, in Or. St. Th. Noldeke, 
i, 425-38; A. Fischer, Arab, basir ' scharfsichtig' 
per antiphrasim = 'blind', in ZDMG, lxi (1907), 
425-34; cf. ibid., 751-3 and 849; cf. also lxii (1908), 
151-4, 568, 789; J. Wellhausen, Reste', 200 ff.; T. 
Fahd, Les presages par le corbeau, in Arabica, 
viii/i (1961), 30-58. (T. Fahd) 

FAL-NAMA, book of divination. In the 
Muslim East (especially in Iranian and Turkish 
countries), in order to know if not the future, at least 
the signs or circumstances that are auspicious for 
some decision, recourse is still sometimes made to 
certain procedures (cf. Masse, Croyances, ch. XI: 
divination), among others to two kinds of books: 
1. collections of poems (dlwdn of Hafiz); 2. special 
works (fdl-ndma). Consulting the dlwdn, an act within 
the reach of everyone, consists in opening the book 
at random and interpreting the text which first 
strikes the eye (for details, see Masse, op. cit., 244-5; 
and in particular E. G. Browne, iii, 315-9; also 
Binning, i, 220). As for the fdl-ndma, some are tables 
of divination, used in the manner of the above-named 
dlwdn (cf. the sortes Virgilianae; and for the dlwdn 
of Hafiz, the description of this table in Browne, 
iii, 312-5); others are booklets containing quad- 
rangular or circular tables (dd'ira), preceded by an 
explanatory text, in which the divisions of the 
page (burdj) contain letters and words arranged in 
eastern abdjad [q.v.] order. The fdl-nama which has 
always been the most authoritative (taking prece- 



FAL-NAMA — FALAK 



761 



dence even over the one attributed to C A1I) is that 
of Dja'far which is attributed to the imam Dia'far 
al-Sadik ([q.v.], see also siafr) (c£. D. M. Donaldson, 
The ShiHte religion, ch. XII). The essence of this 
booklet is as follows (according to the manuscript in 
the B.N., Paris, Suppl. persan, no. 77): "Fdl-ndma 
of his holiness the imam Dja'far Sadik. If anyone 
wishes to consult the omens, he must make his 
ablutions, recite the fdtiha once, the sura of the 
Ikhlds three times, the Ku'ranic Throne verse once, 
and then place his finger inside the table . . ." 
(fol. 40), while keeping his eyes closed, on one of the 
page divisions containing the letters (for example, 
the letter nun); each division of the second table 
contains one of these letters accompanied by a word 
[e.g., nun — al-kayl) ; then follows a list of these 
words, each incorporated in a phrase linking it to a 
sign of the zodiac (e.g., "Al-kayl: your fdl is fortunate; 
but refer to the Ram (hamal) which will elucidate 
it", etc.); next comes a list of these signs with 
reference to the planets (e.g., "Sun: good tidings, O 
ye who seek fall God has opened the gates of his 
clemency for you ; He will give you your daily bread, 
multiply your powers, watch over your concerns; 
your children shall repay you; it will be propitious 
for you to build, to buy horses and arms, to marry 
and to travel ; in the event of a parent or friend being 
absent, imprisoned or ill, you must be patient and 
perform your almsgiving; then God will certainly 
provide"; these replies, which are all of the same 
order, justify the Persian proverb "It is the fdl of 
the imam Dja'far which cannot do harm" (Dehkhoda, 
Amthal u-hikam, s.v. Fdl, and the following proverbs). 
Sometimes the first table of the fdl-ndma is composed 
not of letters of the alphabet but of figures; in this 
case the procedure is as follows (beginning of the 
Fdl-ndma manuscript in the B.N., Paris, Suppl. 
persan 1872, fol. 62 v°): "Hear ye, this is the fdl-ndma 
which his holiness Dja'far Sadik has learnt from the 
august divine Word. Whoever has a transaction, 
dispute or a certain desire and wishes to know what 
is good, what is evil and what the outcome, must 
stand face to face with a partner who must act 
exactly as he does, and place his hand under his arm; 
then, bringing out their hands, both must show what 
number of fingers each has chosen ; the man concerned 
must add up the total, and then consult whichever 
page division contains this number; he must read 
the sacred verse of the Ru'ran inscribed in the 
circular table of the fdl-ndma; having thus recognized 
the good and evil features of his plan, let him not 
deviate from it" (after which he will proceed as 
above). Another fdl-ndma, less well-known and more 
literary, the versified answers of which are often of 
a disturbing precision, is that of Shaykh Bahal 
(d. 1030/1621; see al-'amili) ; it is composed of 48 
tables (12 lines each containing 18 letters selected for 
their numerical values); at the head of the table is 
the question set (e.g., "Is this news true or false?"; 
"what will happen to our invalid?"; etc.), para- 
phrased in two lines of verse; a letter is selected at 
random; the letters are counted in sixes from the 
chosen letter; on reaching the foot of the table the 
six is made up by adding letters from the first line 
of the table, then continuing in sixes to the chosen 
letter; two lists of letters are drawn up (one of even 
letters, the other of odd) starting with those of the 
first line of the table; thus one obtains the two 
hemistichs of a verse whose sense then has to be in- 
terpreted (example of a precise answer: "Will this as- 
sociation be favourable for me ? — This bond will bring 
you troubles; flee it as one flees an arrow" (table 27). 



In addition to these methods, Chardin and 
other travellers (cf. Masse, op. cit., 247) noted 
three others based on dice (this practice has not 
entirely disappeared): in these cases, recourse is 
made to a specialist known as fdl-bin or fdl-glr 
(augur) who shakes and then throws the dice (in 
Persian, rami, divination by dice, practised by the 
rammdl; Arabic words distorted from their original 
meaning) ; this rami is related to the sortes of classical 
antiquity (cf. Fontenelle, Histoire des oracles, ch. 
XVIII). 

The fdl-ndma of Dja'far was translated into 
Turkish; also there exists in this language (and in 
Persian) a series of minor works dealing with divi- 
nation by the lines of the hand, coffee-grounds, 
beans and chick-peas, stars, molten lead, omopla- 
toscopy, omens drawn from the quivering of parts 
of the body, bruises and wounds. 

Bibliography: H. Masse, Croyances et coutumes 
persanes, Paris 1938; D. M. Donaldson, The wild 
rue, 196; Binning, A journal of two years of travel 
in Persia, London 1857; E. Blochet, Catalogue des 
manuscrits persans de la Bibliotheque Nationale de 
Paris (index: fa'l-ndma, in particular no. 909 in 
verse) ; idem, Catalogue des manuscrits turcs de la 
Bibliotheque Nationale de Paris (index: fa'l-ndmi, 
in particular no. 809 "fdl li Muhiy al-din al- 
c Arabi"); Fal-namah, a table of the alphabet for 
divination, professedly from works of Nasir ul-Din 
Tusi, in Khvab namah, a tract on dream inter- 
pretation, lith. Lahore 1870 and 1882; Dehkhoda, 
Kitdb-i amthdl u-hikam, Tehran 1310/1932, s.v. fdl; 
Fdl-ndma-yi Qia'fari (Turkish tr., lith. Istanbul 
1270/1854); Ismail Hikmet Ertaylan, Falname, 
Istanbul 195 1 (University Publications, 3rd series, 
no. 4); Tashkbpriizade, Mawdil c dt al- c ulum, 
Istanbul 121 1, 378; Katib Celebi, Kashf al-zunun, 
Istanbul 1311, i, 133; A. von Gabain, Alttiirkische 
Grammatik, Leipzig 1950, 262-6; Abdiilkadir Inan, 
Tarihte ve bugiin samanizm, Ankara' 1954, 151-9. 

(H. Masse) 
FALAK, Sphere, in particular the Celestial 
Sphere. 

a. Etymology and semantic evolution. 
The word falak (pi. afldk) occurs already in the 
Kur'dn with the specific significance "celestial 
sphere" (xxi, 34 "it is He who has created night and 
day, the Sun and the Moon, each of which moves in 
its own sphere"; similarly xxxvi, 40). Etymologically 
and semantically it has a long history: it can be 
traced back to Sumerian origins, where the stem 
bala (^ *pilak) already has the meaning "to be 
round" or also "to turn around". In Akk. it appears 
as pilakku, which denotes the whorl of the spindle 
as well as the double-edged axe (to be distinguished 
from the single-edged axe, Akk. pdsu, paitu > 
Syr. pustd, Aram. passd> probably Ar. fa's; cf. 
H. Zimmern, Akkadische FremdwSrter als Beweis fiir 
babylonischen Kultureinfluss, Leipzig 1914, 12). The 
double significance is readily explained by the 
resemblance of the whorl with the head of the double- 
axe, both being round and pierced so as to be 
mounted on the spindle, or else on the handle. The 
Akk. word is found again in Syr. pelkd, "(double-) 
axe" and, with its other meaning, in Heb. ^VS, 
"spindle". The original Sumero-Akk. form is best 
preserved in the Talmudic HD^D, "whorl" (also 
"spindle") used apparently indiscriminately with 
"J7D andrD^D = Ar. falaka,ot which the abstract 
technical term falak, "(celestial) sphere" is of course 
a later derivative. The question may be left open 
whether also Ar. falaka and faladja, which have both 



the meaning "to cleave", are derived from the s; 



On the other hand, the occurrence of the stem 
*pl-ek (^ *pl-et, cf. E. Boisacq, Dictionnaire itymo- 
logique de la langue grecque', Heidelberg and Paris, 
1923.793. s.v. 7tX£xio)in a great many (Eastern and 
Western) Indo-European languages, in all cases with 
the meaning "to plait", "to pleat", "to coil", "to 
twist", "to fold", etc., strongly supports the 
assumption of a common origin of the Sumero-Akk. 
and the Indo-Europ. words, but seems to exclude 
(with the exception of Gr. 7riXexu? and Skr. paracu-h, 
see below) the possibility of a direct loan. Thus we 
have the various genuine Greek words for (hair-) curl, 
coil and similar round objects: 7tXexTT], 7tXexTOV7), 
7rX6xo?, 7tX6xa(J.o?, 7rXey|jta etc., while the represen- 
tative of the second significance: 7reXexu?, "double- 
axe", alone clearly betrays its Akk. origin. (Against 
this, cf. Walther Wiist, Idg. •p'Pleku—"Axt, Beil". 
Eine pal&ographische Siudie, in Suomalaisen Tiede- 
akatemian Toimituksia, Helsinki 1956). 

In Greek texts dealing with astronomical subjects, 
derivatives of 7tXexio are not too common, though 
they do occur occasionally, e.g., Timaeus 36 D: 7] Se 
t'WX')] ^ x . fieaou tpo? -r&v £ox<xtov oupavov navr/) 
8ia7tXaxeTaa xuxXtp -re aurov £5<o6ev 7tepixa- 
Xut]/ouaa, au-rr) ev auxfl OTpecpo|jiev7), though 
here the idea of roundness inheres in the word 
OTpecpo|ji£VT] rather than in 8ta7tXaxeioa ("twisted" 
or "plaited through"). In the Myth of Er, however, 
{Republic X, 616B-617D), which adumbrates the 
later elaborate theory of material spheres revolving 
inside one another, the word used for the (hollow) 
whorls, acpovSuXoi; (= aroSvSuXoi;, "vertebra") is 
of course not derived from the stem *pl-ek, but 
clearly betrays its kinship with mod. Engl, "spindle", 
"to spin", etc. Its original meaning, though, is the 
same: the whorl as the "spinning object" giving 
momentum to the turning axis (now called "spindle") 
is evidently primary, and the application of the term 
to human and animal anatomy, secondary. A glance 
at the two first cervical vertebrae (cmovSuXoi) of 
larger mammals suffices to show that they are the 
ideal prototype of the pierced whorl. Lat. vertebra, 
Engl, whorl (or whirl), Ger. Wirtel and Wirbel, all 
stress the idea of turning or whirling round (vertere, 
wirbeln, etc.); conversely, the Arabic word for the 
vertebra, fikra, emphasizes the other characteristic 
of the object, viz., its being pierced (mafkilr or 
mufakkar). 

The Gr. word ocpatpa, finally, which later 
(Eudoxus, Aristotle, Ptolemy, etc.) became the 
generally accepted technical term, equally reflects 
the idea of "turning round", since it is obviously 
akin to oratpa (*a7tep-ia), "coiling", "spiral". It is 
this word which we find generally rendered by the 
Ar. falak. 

b. Definitions, falak thus corresponds with 
Gr. ocpatpa and Lat. sphaera or orbis, while ddHra 
can be equated with Gr. xtixXoi; and Lat. circulus. 
Authors writing in any one of the three languages, 
however, seldom aim at a perfect consistency in the 
use of these terms. According to al-BIrunl (Al- 
Kanun al-Mas'udi, i, Hyderabad-Dn. 1954, 54-5), 
"ddHra and falak are two terms that denote the same 
thing and are interchangeable; but sometimes falak 
refers to the globe (kura), in particular when it is 
moveable (mutaharrik) ; falak, thus, does not apply 
to the motionless [globe]; and it is called "falak" 
only on account of its similarity with the whorl of 
the rotating spindle ('aid wadjh al-tashbih bi-falakat 
al-mighzal al-daHr)". According to Ibn al-Haytham's 



Fi hay'at al-'alam (Ms. Kastamonu no. 2298, fol. 6r 
11 ff.), the term falak "applies to any round quantity 
of a globular body or surface or of the surface (area) 
or the circumference of a circle; the body surrounding 
the world, which turns about the centre (viz., of 
the Earth), is called in particular falak, and this 
falak is divided into many parts, but first and 
foremost into seven parts, which are spherical bodies 
(i.e., shells) contiguous with one another in such a 
way that each one of them surrounds the next one, 
the concave surface of the surrounding [spherical 
shell] touching the convex surface of the one sur- 
rounded by it. The centre of all of these spheres is 
the centre of the world, and each one of them individ- 
ually is also called falak". 

Of the manifold applications of the term falak in 
Arabic astronomical literature, the following may 
be mentioned with their Greek and Latin equivalents 
(cf. C. A. Nallino in Al-Battdni Op. Astr., ii, Milan 
1907, 348) : /. al-burudj = mintakat al-b., 6 Xo56? 
xuxXo?, 6 Sia (jieacov Ttov £io8iiov xiixXo?, ecliptica; 
f. al-tadwir (pi. afldk al-taddwlr) = emxuxXo?, 
epicyclus; al-f. al-hdmil (pi. al-hawdmil) = 6 cpepiov 
t6v etcixuxXov Sxxevrpo?, deferens {— "levador" 
= mod. Span. Uevador in the Alphonsine Libros del 
Saber) ; al-f. al-khdridj al-markaz = /. al-awdi = 
SxxevTpoi;, excentricus ; al-f. al-mdHl = 6 Xo^oi; 
xiixXo? (T7js oeXr|VT]<;), 6 eyxexXi|jtevoi; (-rtov 
7tXavto|jtev(ov), circulus obliquus (or deflectens); al-f. 
al-mumaththal li-f. al-burudj = 6 6|i6xevrpo; Tiji 
£co8iaxiji xiixXo;. circulus pareclipticus ; moreover, in 
spherical astronomy:/, mu'-addil al-nahdr = 6 i(J7)|jt£- 
pivoi;, circulus aequinoctialis (the celestial equator, 
not the terrestrial, which is called khatt al-htiwd?) ; 
al-aflak al-maHla 'an f. mu'-addil al-nahdr = o£ 
7tapaXXr)Xoi (the circles parallel to the equator); 
al-f. al-mustakim = y] 6p6r] 09atpa. sphaera recta 
(the celestial sphere as appearing to the inhabi- 
tants of the equatorial region, where the celestial 
equator passes through the zenith). 

c. History. There can hardly be a doubt that the 
conception of a universe consisting of concentric 
spheres, in which the celestial bodies are carried 
around at various distances from the Earth, is very 
old. The earliest document susceptible of such an 
interpretation is a tablet in the Hilprecht Collection 
at Jena, dating from the Cassite period, but copied 
probably from a much older original (1st Babylonian 
Dynasty), see F. Thureau-Dangin, La tablette 
astronomique de Nippur, in Revue d'Ass., xxviii, 
85-8. According to O. Neugebauer, The exact sciences 
in antiquity*, Copenhagen 1957, 100, "This text and 
a few similar fragments seem to indicate something 
like a universe of 8 different spheres, beginning with 
the sphere of the moon. This model obviously belongs 
to a rather early stage of development of which no 
traces have been found preserved in the later mathe- 
matical astronomy, which seems to operate without 
any underlying physical model. It must be empha- 
sized, however, that the interpretation of this 
Nippur text and its parallels is far from secure". 

While later Babylonian (Seleucid) astronomy thus 
no longer shows any trace of such a conception, it 
reappears, in Greece, in the astronomical and cosmo- 
logical speculations of Plato (Myth of Er, see above, 
and Tim. 36 C-D) and of the late Pythagoreans 
(Philolaos). The former of these two "models" (the 
Platonic "whorls") leaves out of account the planets' 
standstills and retrogradations; the latter, which 
places the hypothetical "central fire" in the centre 
of circular motion, is capable of explaining them at 
least in part, owing to the fact that the Earth, too, is 



FALAK — FALAKA 



763 



regarded as a planet revolving about the central fire. 
The first elaborate geometrical model, operating, for 
each one of the planets, with a set of homocentric 
(geocentric) spheres revolving about different poles 
inside one another, was devised by Eudoxus. His 
model, improved by Callippus, was wrought into a 
comprehensive (physical) system by Aristotle 
(Metkaph. 8, 1073 b 38-1074 a 17), whose aim was to 
represent and to explain the celestial motions as a 
whole, from the fixed stars down to the Moon, by 
the combination of acting and reacting ("unrolling") 
spheres. This physical model, because of its in- 
capability to account for the varying brilliancy of 
the planets (above all Venus and Mars, see Simplicius, 
Comm. on De caelo, ed. Heiberg (Berlin, 1894), 504) 
was later replaced by a new purely geometrical 
model, based mainly on two theorems of Apollonius 
(ca. 200 B.C.), in which an eccentric deferent carries 
around the centre of an epicycle in the circum- 
ference of which the planet revolves. This device, 
which is the governing principle of planetary motion 
in Ptolemy's Almagest, takes into account only the 
planes (inclined to one another as well as to the 
ecliptic) of the deferent and of the epicycle, expressly 
renouncing any attempt at a physical interpretation. 
In the HypoPieses, however, composed after the 
completion of the Almagest, Ptolemy interprets the 
circles mentioned as sections through solid globes or 
spherical shells contiguous with one another in such 
a way that the outer limit of one planetary sphere 
coincides, without leaving any void, with the inner 
limit of the next one, counting from the Earth 
outwards (see Hypotheses, Book II, 6, in CI. Ptolemaei 
Opera II, Opera astron. minora, ed. Heiberg, Leipzig 
1907; the text of Book II, preserved only in Arabic, 
is not complete and contains errors). In II, 4, Ptolemy 
states that it is not necessary to assume complete 
spheres since it suffices (in accordance with the 
Creator's principle of economy) to postulate, for each 
one of the planets, the existence of "sawn pieces" or 
"disks" (Ar. manshurdt, prob. = Gr. 7ipta^aTa) 
comprised between two circles parallel to and 
equidistant from the equator of a sphere, in which 
the whole complicated mechanism of planetary 
motion is contained. For this reason, Ptolemy's 
Hypotheses, otherwise called K. al-Iktisds, are often 
quoted by Islamic authors under the title A', al- 
Manshurdt (see W. Hartner, Mediaeval views on 
cosmic dimensions and Ptolemy's Kitdb al-Manshurdt, 
in Melanges Alexandre Koyri, Paris, to appear in 
1963 or 1964). 

It is, however, the complete, contiguous, spheres, 
not the spherical prisms (manshurdt) that prevail in 
Islamic astronomy, starting at the latest by the time 
of, and with, al-Farghani (fl. ca. 830 A.D.), whose 
Elements of Astrology were among the first works 

Greek and Islamic views on the structure and the 

dimensions of the universe to the Latin Middle Ages 

(Dante, Regiomontanus, etc.). It was not before the 

end ot the 16th century that Tycho Brahe, on the 

basis of new observations, demonstrated the 

untenability of the system of contiguous solid 

spheres (see W. Hartner, Tycho Brahe et Albumasar, 

in La science au seizieme siecle, Paris i960, 135-67). 

Bibliography (apart from the references given 

above): K. Kohl, Ober den Aufbau der Welt nach 

Ibn al Haitam, in Sitzungsberichle d. Physik. Med. 

Sozietat in Erlangen, liv-lv (1922-3), Erlangen 1925, 

140-79; W. Hartner, The Mercury Horoscope of 

Marcantonio Michiel of Venice, in Vistas in 

Astronomy (ed. A. Beer), i, 86-138, see in particular 



Part II, 105 ff.; Abu Yahya Zakariyya al- 
Kazwlnl, '■Adjd'ib al-makhlukdt wa-ghardHb al- 
mawdjuddt, Ar. text ed. F. Wiistenfeld (2 vols., 
Gottingen, 1848/9, see in particular Vol. I), Vol I, 
transl. into German by H. Ethe: Die W under der 
Schopfung, Leipzig 1868; G. Rudloff and A. 
Hochheim, Die Astronomie des Gagmtnl, in ZDMG, 
xlvii (1893), 213-75. (W. Hartner) 

FALAIJA (Ar.), Turkish: falaka, falaka, falak; 
Persian: jalaka, falak; Byzantine Greek: cpaXay- 
ya.q; Moroccan: karma, arma. 

One of the favourite punishments of the masters 
in the Kur'anic schools (see kuttab) was to give 
the pupil a bastinado on the soles of the feet, more 
or less severe according to the offence. (There exist 
detailed scales; see Ibn Sahnun, op. cit. infra). One 
or more assistants ( c arif) immobilized the victim's 
feet with the help of an apparatus sometimes called 
miktara, but more often falaka. It existed in three 
different forms: 1) a plank with two holes in it, of 
the pillory type; 2) two poles joined at one end; it 
was possible to confine the ankles by holding the 
other end tightly; 3) a single, fairly stout pole with 
a cord fixed at the two ends ; the feet were inserted 
between the pole and the cord and the pole thenturned. 
Evidence of the existence of the falaka in the 
Arab world dates back to the 4th/ioth century, but 
it is quite possible that it was already in use in the 
eastern half of the Mediterranean area, perhaps 
under other names, in times of remote antiquity. 
While in the East, especially among the Turks, it 
appears that the falaka was used as an instrument 
of torture by all kinds of different authorities, in 
North Africa its use was confined to the school- 
master. This usage is still very much alive in the 
Maghrib, not only among Muslims but also in the 
Talmudic schools. 

It is interesting to record that the Byzantines 
possessed an identical apparatus known by the name 
of 9aXayya?, the use of which was only forbidden in 
1829. It seems to have been in common use in Greek 
elementary schools, whose methods, curricula and 
customs in other respects also curiously resemble 
those of the kuttdb. 

The etymology of the word clearly poses a problem. 
An Arabic derivation from the root FLK, which 
means to cleave or split, suggests itself at first. The 
classical Arabic dictionaries (LA, TA, etc,) all 
give falakjfalaka as meaning khashaba, a piece of 
squared wood (i.e., not unworked wood). 

Certain Greek scholars have also considered a 
Greek etymology (MeyaXT) 'EXXtjvixt] 'EyxuxXo- 
7iat8eta, Athens 1933, s.v.). This etymology seems 
to be ruled out by the fact that there is no evidence 
either of the object or the word before the time of 
the Turkish conquest. 

On the other hand, the form <paXaYY a ?> despite 
its close resemblance to 9aX<XY5> as much in form as 
in meaning, is not the only one in existence. The 
dialect forms cpaXaxaq, cpiaXaxa?, cpaXaxa, cpeXexou; 
(gender and number uncertain), which are difficult 
to connect with (paXayS* a re a l s0 to be found. 

It seems then more probable to regard it as a 
Greek borrowing of a Turco-Arabic word which 
remained almost unaltered in certain Greek dialects, 
but which, in the written language, was contaminated 
by cpaXayS to give cpaXayYaq. 

If the word appears, pending further information, 
well and truly of Arabic origin, it still remains 
possible to regard it as part of a stock common to 
divers linguistic communities of the Near East. 
This possibility should be examined not only from 



FALAKA — FALASIFA 



the Semitic, but also from the Turkish and Iranian 

Bibliography; Ibn Sahnun, Kitab Addb al- 
mu'allimin, Tunis 1931; tr. G. Lecomte, Le 
livre des rigles de conduite des mattres d'icole, in 
REI, xxi (1953), 77-105; R. Guilland, La vie 
scolaire a Byzance, in Bulletin de V Association 
Guillaume Budl, March 1953, 63-83; 'EXeo0£- 
pooSaxi) 'E-pcoxXoTtaiSix&v Ae^ixov {Encyclo- 
paedic Dictionary) , Athens 1931 ; D. Dimitriacos, 
Miya Ae?ix6v rrj? 'EXXkivixtj? rXcooorji; {Great 
Dictionary of the Greek Language), Athens 195 1; 
see further H. and R. Kahane and A. Tietze, 
Lingua franca in the Levant, 866. 

See especially in Arabica, 1954, 324-36, Sur la 

vie scolaire a Byzance et dans I'Islam: I. — G. 

Lecomte, V enseignement primaire a Byzance et 

le Kuttdb; II. — M. Canard, Falaqa = ipaXaYY*?. 

where the notes give the complete bibliography 

of this question. (G. Lecomte) 

al-FALAKI, Mahmud Pasha, was born in 1230/ 

1815 at al-Hissa (province of al-Gharbiyya), and 

received his early schooling in Alexandria. He 

subsequently attended, firstly as a pupil, and then 

as an officer-instructor, the polytechnic school at 

BQlak (Muhandiskhane) founded by Muhammad 

C A1I. In 1850-1 he was sent to Paris, to specialize in 

astronomy under Arago. He returned to Cairo in 

1859. Afterwards he directed the team which, on 

the orders of the Khedive Sa'id, mapped Egypt. He 

lived long enough to see the whole work almost 

completed, and the section on Lower Egypt in print. 

He left many writings in Arabic and French, which 

are enumerated by his biographers. He represented 

the Egyptian government at the Geographical 

Congresses in Paris (1875) and Venice (1881). A high 

dignitary of Freemasonry, and a member of the 

Egyptian Institute, he was also a member, and later 

president, of the Geographical Society in Cairo. For 

two months Minister of Public Works, but removed 

from this post as a result of the events of 1882, he 

was subsequently Wakil, and then Minister o) 

Education (al-Ma'-arif al-'umumiyya). He died in 

1303/November 1885. 

Bibliography: Isma'Il Bey Mustafa, Notice 
nlcrologique de S. E. Mahmoud Pacha, I'astronome, 
Cairo 1886 (in French with Arabic trans.) ; Brockel- 
mann, II, 642-3 (490-1); G. Zaydan, Mashdhir al- 
Shark, ii, 132 ff.; Zirikll, al-A^ldm", viii, Cairo 1956, 
39-40; Gamal el-Din El-Shay yal, A history of 
Egyptian historiography in the nineteenth century, 
Alexandria 1962, 54-7. (J. Jomier) 

FALAKl SHIRWANl. Muhammad FalakI, poet- 
astronomer of Shirwan and pupil of Khakani, is the 
author of a lost diwdn of Persian poetry, of which 
1 5 12 verses have been recovered and published. 
FalakI lived 49 years, ca. 501/1108-ca. 550/1155 
and like Abu 'l- c Ala 5 and Khakani was a court- 
poet of the Shirwanshah Abu '1-Haydja Fakhr al-DIn 
Minucihr II, who succeeded his father Faridun I on 
the throne of Shirwan in 514/1120 and ruled for 37 
years until c. 551/1156. The statement of his con- 
temporary Khakani. that Falaki's life was short-lived 
and that Manucihr II ruled for 30 years is not 
precise, for one of Falaki's odes can be dated 521/ 
1127, and in another Falaki offers condolences to 
Manucihr II when his brother-in-law, ex-king Dimitri 
of Georgia, died between 549 and 551/ 1154-1156. 
Nowhere does Falaki mention the death of Manucihr 
II; he would have done so, if he had survived Manu- 
cihr II; but he describes how Manucihr II defeated 
the Alans and 'Khazars' (in fact Kipcaks); how 



with the help of Mir Tughan Arslan (ruler of Arzan 
and Bidlis, d. 532/1138) Manucihr II took (some 
part of) Arran from (Nusrat al-Din) Arslan Abihi 
(ruler of Maragha 530-570/1136-1175); how Manuiihr 
II built the cities of Kardman and Sa'dun; and how 
Manucihr II rebuilt (in 532/1138) the flood-destroyed 
Bakilani dam (Band-i-BakilanI) by removing Ian, 
leaving band bdkl = "the dam remained". And as 
for the flood it "went into what remained" (dar 
bdki shud), i.e., went into the chains which remained, 
for band also means chains. Such being Falaki's 
poetry, "how can I reply to his ode ?" confesses the 
well-known poet c Ismat of Bukhara. FalakI once 
suffered imprisonment; otherwise he spent a quiet 
life with astronomy as his hobby; "because of his 
proficiency in ten sciences, he knew the mystery of 
the nine heavens", says Khakani. 

Bibliography: Had! Hasan, Falaki: His life, 
times and works, pub. RAS, 1929; idem, Diwdn-i- 
Falaki, pub. RAS, 1930; idem, Researches in 
Persian literature, 12-94, Haydarabad/Dn. 1958; 
M. Brosset, Histoire de la Glorgie, pt. i, 364, St. 
Petersburg 1849; W. E. D. Allen, A History of the 
Georgian people, 101, London 1 



(Hai 



Has 



FALASIFA, pi. of faylasuf, formed f 
Greek 91X60090?. By its origin this word primarily 
denotes the Greek thinkers. Al-Shahrastani gives a 
list of them: the seven Sages who are "the fount of 
philosophy (falsafa) and the beginning of wisdom 
(hikma)", then Thales, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, 
Empedocles, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Plutarch, 
Xenophanes, Zeno the elder, Democritus, the philo- 
sophers of the Academy, Heraclitus, Epicurus, 
Homer (the poet whose wisdom inspired Greece for, 
with the Greeks, poetry preceded philosophy), 
Hippocrates, Euclid, Ptolemy, Chrysippus and Zeno, 
Aristotle (whose philosophy is described according to 
Themistius), Porphyry, Plotinus (al-shaykh al- 
yundni), Theophrastus, Proclus and Alexander of 
Aphrodisias. The doctrines attributed to these 
thinkers are often incorrect or anachronistic, perhaps 
under the influence of the systemization of Aristotle 
and the Eclectics. Then the faldsifat al-Islam are 
named. The list is somewhat long; we may mention 
al-Kindi, Hunayn b. Ishak, Abu '1-Faradj al-Mufassir, 
Thabit b. Kurra, al-Nisaburi, Ibn Miskawayh, al- 
Farabi, etc. But, he writes, the true representative 
of the falasifa {'aldmat al-kawm) is Ibn Sina, and it 
is his philosophy alone that he expounds. From this 
point of view the Muslim falasifa appeared merely as 
the successors of the Greeks: "They followed 
Aristotle in all he thought . . . except for unimportant 
expressions on which they adopted the views of 
Plato and the earlier philosophers". This judgment 
needs to be radically revised. 

a). The word falasija has retained in Arabic the 
general sense of the Greek equivalent. It is thus 
synonymous with hukama' or Htlama'. This is the 
meaning it has in al-Djahiz (K. al-Hayawan, introd.) 
where faldsifat '■ulama? al-bashar is compared with 
hudhdhdk rididl al-rd'y, in a passage in which human 
reason and skill, which in the signs of nature discern 
the wisdom of God, are compared with animals' 
instinct, the immediate expression of this wisdom. 

b). If the general idea of wisdom (which occurs 
both in the Kur'an and in the Greek philosophical 
tradition) remains attached to the terra falsafa, 
there is justification for describing as falasija those 
Muslim theologians who gave a place to human 
reason and ra'y. Indeed, from the very start of 
Mu'tazili thinking there can be discerned, in the 



exposition of problems and in methods of reasoning, 
a Greek influence, transmitted indirectly by the 
Christian philosophers of Syria (John of Damascus, 
Theodore Abu Rurra). Later, when the logic of 
Aristotle (the pre-eminent Master and organizer of 
this branch of learning in the Arabs' eyes) was known 
directly, it was utilized by the mutahallimun, but less 
as an instrument of constructive analysis than as a 
means of exposition and refutation. In this form it 
quite soon became general throughout Islam, 
despite the opposition of the strictly orthodox. An 
instance of this purely dialectical use of logic can be 
found in the £ahiri Ibn Hazm (5th/nth century) 
at the beginning of his Fisal, to refute certain 
philosophically inspired ideas about the eternity of 
the world. In the thinking of such Ash'aris as al- 
Bakillani and al-Djuwayni, and especially in al- 
Ghazali, despite his opposition to the faldsifa, the 
influence of Greece is even more positive. Al- 
Bakillani's theory of simple substances (atoms) and 
accidents, the Mu c tazill doctrines concerning essence 
and existence or the knowledge that God has of 
created things before and after their creation, derive 
among other things from pure philosophy. Moreover 
the faldsifa properly speaking are acquainted with 
these theological schools and sometimes refer to 
them in order to determine their own situation. An 
absolute distinction between them cannot be made. 

c). As for the faldsifa in the restricted sense of the 
word, it is not possible to give a clear-cut, exclusive 
definition. In general, they are the successors of 
Neo-Platonism, which is itself an eclecticism in which 
are combined Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic, Pytha- 
gorean and many other kinds of ideas. This Neo- 
Platonism had been sufficiently flexible to integrate 
Alexandrian learning, as P. Duhem has shown. In 
this multiplicity of influences, that of Aristotle is 
distinguished by the part played by his logic. Seen 
from this point of view, falsafa was a consequence of 
the translation of Greek writings, and certain 
translators were themselves the first faldsifa. 
Orientalists, following Renan, have regarded falsafa 
as a sect, and this is the opinion of Muslims in general. 
But if there is a common body of doctrine and strong 
resemblances, the originality of each thinker and the 
existence of different tendencies must not be denied. 

The sources of the faldsifa are no doubt essentially 
Greek— Plato, Aristotle and the commentators, 
especially Alexander and Themistius. But we must 
also observe the influence of scientific thought, 
particularly of Galen, the scholar and philosopher, 
and also that of an intellectualist mysticism deriving 
from Plotinus, and combining theological and 
cosmological ideas of gnostic type, the theology 
and angelology of Proclus, the Theology of the 
pseudo- Aristotle, doctrines of Hermetic origin. All 
the gnoses of the Alexandrian period, which even then 
were tinged with Iranism, find an echo in Arabo- 
Muslim thought. The Sabaeans, with their astrology 
that was at once scientific and religious, and with 
their conception of an intermediate world of spirits 
(cf. the expose of al-Shahrastani), played a large 
part. In this situation, Persian-inspired dualism was 
able to infiltrate without difficulty, either directly 
or through the Shi'I sects, especially Isma'ilism. 
From the theoretical aspect, it is difficult entirely 
to isolate from falsafa esoteric mystics such as Suhra- 
wardi whose speculative thinking is Peripatetic and 
who speaks of light as Aristotle speaks of substance. 
The thinking of the faldsifa is thus very complex ; Ibn 
Sina, a scholar and the disciple of Galen, a logician 
and follower of Aristotle, a Neo-Platonist, exponent 



of a mysticism that gave rise to that of SuhrawardI, 
illustrates in a single harmonious entity the com- 
plexity of falsafa. 

But this description is only entirely true of the 
first faldsifa, al-Kindi and, in particular, al-Farabi 
and Ibn Sina. What characterizes them is their 
belief, deriving from Greek electicism, in the harmony 
between the "two sages", Plato and Aristotle (cf. the 
treatise of al-Farabi on this subject). Reason, the 
instrument of truth, can produce only a single 
system. Insofar as the faldsifa concentrated on 
defining and developing this single system which 
came to them from Greece, they do indeed form a 
single school or sect. But al-Ghazali, under the in- 
spiration of al-Djuwaynl, denounces this mistake: 
reason is not the supreme arbiter (hakam) ; there are 
as many divergencies (ikhtildf) between philosophers 
as between theologians. He thus marks the beginning 
of a second period which is characterized by a better 
knowledge of Aristotle's works and exemplified 
in the West by Ibn Badjdja and, more particularly, 
by Ibn Rushd upon whom al-Ghazali was not without 
influence in spite of their obvious differences, and 
who reacted against Arab Neo-Platonism. In the 
East, Fakhr al-DIn and Nasir al-DIn al-Tusi returned 
to Ibn Sina's doctrine on various important points, 
while also integrating elements of Ash c arl theology 
with it, in the case of the former, or of mystical 
esoterism in the case of the latter. 

Finally, side by side with this main stream (Ibn 
Sina, al-Ghazali, and then Ibn Rushd in the West, 
al-Razi in the East), a further, and Neo-Pythagorean, 
stream must be pointed out, represented by the 
Ikhwan al-Safa 5 whose esoteric and mystical character 
is more clearly marked. They accuse other philo- 
sophers or theologians of having only partially 
observed the rhythms of the universe. It is not 
consonant with Wisdom that beings should go only 
in multiples of two (matter and form, substance and 
accident, etc.), or of three (the three dimensions, the 
three modes of existence — necessary, possible and 
impossible, etc.), or of four, five, six, seven (doctrine 
of the septimanians), etc. The Pythagoreans (al- 
fiukamd' al-fithaghuriyyun) "accept the right of 
everything which has a right"; since the number 
includes everything, measures and balances every- 
thing, so their thought takes everthing exactly into 
account. In their eyes, Pythagoras was a sage 
adoring the single God; they connected him with 
the philosophers of Harran. 

How are the faldsifa as a whole to be character - 

a). By their vocabulary. It is composed of 
isfildhdt, words that are Arabic or caiques from the 
Greek which have assumed a technical meaning. 
For the expression of the truth, strictly orthodox 
theology only allows words of divine origin (texts 
from the ^ur'an and from Tradition). However, a 
large proportion of this vocabulary has been accepted 
by the mutakillimun. The distinguishing feature of 
the faldsifa is therefore merely the more systematic 
and independent use which they make of this 
conventional vocabulary. 

b). By logic. As with Aristotle, logic became a 
true organon (dla). It shows from what known 
starting-point one can reach a certain unknown 
point, and by what course. It is based on the study 
of concepts and categories, judgment, syllogism and 
induction. This analytical and constructive use of 
logic to discover the structure of truth is not 
accepted by strict theologians. Al-Ghazali, however, 
recognizes that it has a certain value, although not 



absolute. On the other hand the faldsifa, indirectly 
following Aristotle, have taken account, in their 
studies of concept and judgment, of principles 
enunciated by the Arab grammarians. With logic can 
be connected the division of the sciences, inspired by 
the Greeks but varying according to the authors 
(Ikhwan al-Safa 5 ; al-Farabl: /fed 5 al-'ulilm; Ibn 
Sina: Aksdm al- c ulum al- c akliyya). Its basis is the 
tripartite division into sciences theoretical, practical 

c). By their study of natural science. The 
faldsifa were all scholars, sometimes of originality. 
They integrated astronomy, physics, chemistry and 
medicine with their general metaphysics which was 
the source of their fundamental concepts. Nevertheless 
a spirit of experiment, not unrelated to the Muslim 
tendency to attach value to the experience of the 
senses, is clearly revealed. 

d). By metaphysics. Here the divergences 
between authors are more marked. But for all of 
them, metaphysics is a theory of being, built up on 
the distinction between the necessary and the possible 
(being necessary in itself, being necessary through 
another or possible) or the eternal and the contingent. 
The pure being of all matter is at once the intellect, 
the agent which intellectualizes, and intelligible. The 
interplay of these ideas explains the constitution of 
the world. For the Neo-Platonists and Arab Pytha- 
goreans, from the One only one can emerge, that is 
to say the first intellect. Ibn Rushd does not accept 
this postulate. The first intellect on the one hand 
intellectualizes the being necessary in itself, thus 
producing a second intellect; on the other hand, it 
intellectualizes its own essence, either as being 
necessary through another and thereby producing 
the form or soul of the sphere, or else as being possible 
in itself and so producing the body of the sphere 
(djirm al-falak). Upon this general principle of 
emanation, many variations are to be found in 
the expositions by the different authors. This pro- 
cess continues up to the last intellect, that is to 
say the active intellect. Beneath it are placed the 
sentient beings of the sublunary world. The active 
intellect plays an important part in human knowledge, 
but upon this point the faldsifa differ considerably. 
Emanation is of a different character for the Ikhwan 
al-Safa J . From the Creator (al-Bdrp) is emanated 
Intellect, which is the immediate expression of his 
powers and virtues (cf. Philo of Alexandria). From 
the intellect is emanated the universal Soul which at 
once receives the forms of all beings. From this 
universal matter, a simple intelligible 
like the foregoing, which eventually 
receives the forms. The first form received is the 
corporeal form in the three dimensions which con- 
stitute a sort of intelligible scale, and in this way the 
absolute body (al-djism al-mutlak) is attained, where 
emanation is halted. After this comes the diversity of 
sentient objects, the universal bodies of the spheres 
and the elements, the individual and composite 
bodies of our world. 

e). By theology. The faldsifa here are in agree- 
ment with the mutakallimun and the problem of the 
attributes of God. They are close to the Mu'tazila in 
that they seek not to multiply the divine essence. 
But they differ in that, for them, God is at once the 
source of existences and essences. Their central 
problem is that of divine knowledge. God, knowing 
Himself sufficiently, knows Himself as the cause of 
everything that is; of all kinds, of all species, of all 
possibilities that enter into existence, that is to say 
possibilities which are necessary by their cause, and 



finally of all individual beings, not by a knowledge 
which would vary with them, but through a universal 
species (bi-naw'- kulli). Providence leads to the 
necessary universal order. The faldsifa have a theory 
as to the Prophet: in general, he is a man so gifted 
that the active intellect acts on his imagination 
(while it acts on the intelligence of the wise man). 
/). By psychology and morality. Morality is 
a practical science: moral natures, virtues and 
characters exist, whose value one can learn by reason 
in order to gain from it a system of life that conforms 
with the good. These values are in relation to the 
human soul. In regard to the metaphysical nature 
of the soul, theories are diverse and reflect the uncer- 
tainties of Plato and Aristotle. But gnostic beliefs are 
intermixed with them: in the cosmos, the soul has 
an itinerary to follow, stages of purification to 
traverse, to regain its place of origin (cf. Theology of 
Pseudo- Aristotle). The Aristotelians such as Ibn 
Rushd do not accept these ideas. Moreover, in all 
the faldsifa we find a morality based on the Greek 
psychology of the three souls or powers (rational, 
irascible and concupiscible) and on the doctrine of 

two moralities, juxtaposed and co-existent for some 
(Ibn Sina), the one a humanist morality (Ibn Rushd), 
the other mystical (Suhrawardi). Both are at variance 
with strict orthodoxy which regards the revelation 
of the Law as the single source of knowledge of both 
ethical and religious values. But, in their classifi- 
cation of the virtues within the Greek philosophical 
systems, the faldsifa introduced a considerable 
number of Islamized Arab virtues, for example Jiilm 
(cf. Ibn Sina, Risdlat al-akhldk). 

Thus the faldsifa often break away from orthodox 
Islam, but thanks to ta'wil they could still believe 
that they were in harmony with the Kur'an, from 
which they quoted unfailingly. But they quoted it 
purely as evidence, without incorporating it in the 
body of their argumentation. Thus the theologians, so 
far as they depart from the revealed texts, are 
opposed to them. This is how Abu Hayyan al- 
Tawhidi speaks of the Ikhwan al-Safa J (K. al-Imtd 1 , 
17th Night). According to them, the Law has been 
profaned by foolish ignorance and confounded by 
error. It must be purified by philosophy. By harmo- 
nizing Greek philosophy and Arab law, perfection 
is reached. But their Epistles are no more than 
"ramblings" consisting of "scraps strung together 
in a kind of patch-work". They have "woven a 
philosophy in secret" out of the science of the stars 
and spheres, the Almagest, the knowledge of the 
greatness and works of nature, music, logic. Now 
there is no question of these sciences in the Revela- 
tion. The Muslim community is divided into sects, 
but none of them has had recourse to the faldsifa. 
"What is the relation between religion and philo- 
sophy? (ayna 'l-din min al-falsafa?)" , between what 
is derived from a heavenborn revelation and what 
is derived from fallible personal opinion? The 
prophet is superior to the philosopher. As for reason, 
it does not pertain in its entirety to any one man, but 
to mankind as a whole. And al-Tawhidi proclaims 
the ambition of philosophers: their wish is, not to 
cure men of their maladies, the task to which the 
prophets confine themselves, but rather to preserve 
the health of those who possess it. They aspire to the 
most exalted happiness and to a dignity, thanks to 
which man becomes worthy of the divine life. But 
in that case what purpose would the Revelation 



For al-Ghazali (Munltidh; Maltdsid), ( 






FALASIFA — FALLATA 



7&7 



of philosophy are without danger to the faith, 
provided that good is made of them: these are 
mathematics and logic. Physics is also admissible, 
on condition that it is never forgotten that the only 
causality is that of God. The useful sciences such as 
medicine are the c ulum al-dunyd, and ought to be 
studied, at least by some (fard kifdya) for the general 
good, since life in this world contains the germ of the 
future life and it must not be neglected (cf. Ifiyd' 
c ulum al-din, ch. on Science). Certain sciences are 
harmful, like magic and the science of talismans 
(which still come into Ibn SIna's classification) ; they 
must be rejected. As for the theology of the faldsifa, 
this is frankly bad, since it teaches that bodies are 
not resurrected, that it is disembodied spirits that 
are rewarded or punished, and that penalties are 
spiritual, not bodily. Moreover, the theories of the 
eternity of the world and of the knowledge of God 
who knows only the universals are complete heresies 
(kufr). On the other hand, the doctrine which 
reduces the divine attributes to essence is not kufr 
in the eyes of al-Ghazali since the Mu'tazila, who 
cannot be charged with infidelity, adhered to it. 
Finally, the political theory of the faldsifa is taken 
from the ancient prophets (salaf al-anbiya?), a very 
ancient idea which Philo of Alexandria had already 
rejected; and their moral philosophy is inspired by 
the mystics. From the end of the period of antiquity 
the opinion was widespread that Plato was an 
initiate and inspired. 

For al-Shahrastani (6th/i2th century), philoso- 
phers are men of passions (akl al-ahwd'), that is to 
say men who follow their own judgment and who 
must be distinguished from those who follow a 
revelation (arbdb al-diydna), to whom they are 
diametrically opposed [takdbul al-tadddd). Later, Ibn 
Taymiyya (7th-8th/i3th-i4th centuries), in the K. al- 
Radd 'aid 'l-man(ikiyyin, denounces the uselessness 
and inconsequence of the logic of the faldsifa. 
Finally we may mention Ibn Khaldun (8th/i 4 th 
century) who attacked philosophy in his Mukaddima 
(Ibtdl al-falsafa). Philosophers think that it is reason, 
not tradition, which confirms the truth of the 
foundations of the faith. They proceed by successive 
abstractions, reach the first intelligibles and then 
integrate them to establish sciences in the manner 
of second intelligibles. The soul which, in purifying 
itself, comes to the sciences, experiences joy and has 
no need of the illumination of the Law. The soul that 
is ignorant is in affliction. Such is the meaning of 
the rewards and punishments of the other world. 
But this opinion is false: when they relate all beings 
to the first intellect and find this a satisfactory means 
of reaching the necessary, they reveal a lack of vision 
in regard to the actual organization of the divine 
Creation, which surpasses any representations of it 
that they give. Existence is too vast for man to be 
able to embrace it in its entirety. 

These criticisms make it possible to place the 
faldsifa in relation to orthodox Muslim ideals. But 
they give too sharp a definition of outline to 
falsafa. In reality, the philosophers of Islam remain 
truly Muslim, in touch with the theologians and with 
the mystical elements which have not tried to break 
away from the teaching of the Kur'an. As for the 
legacy of Greece, this was first acquired by the 
Muslim world as a whole, in spite of the opposition 
raised by strict orthodoxy. If it appears to be syste- 
matized in their doctrines, its influence is far from 
being limited to the faldsifa alone. It is therefore 
impossible to regard falsafa as a sect sharply differen- 
tiated from the general cultural and spiritual move- 



ment which is the pride of Muslim civilization. 
(R. Arnaldez) 
FALCONRY [see bayzara, cakIrdjI-bashI, 

DOGHANDjl] 

FALLAH [see filaha] 

FALLABIYA [see dawrak] 

FALLAL, an Arabic word used particularly in the 
Beduin dialect form plldg, pi. fdllaga (in the western 
press principally in the pi., with the spelling : fellaga, 
fellagah, fellagha), and denoting in the first place the 
brigands and subsequently the rebels who- 
appeared in Tunisia and Algeria. 

A connexion with falaka [q.v.] "instrument of 
torture", of which the etymology is, in any case, 
obscure (see Arabica, 1954/3, 325-36), is certainly to 
be ruled out. On the other hand, the Arabic root 
FLK (comp. FLDJ, FLH, etc.) seems worthy of 
retention; Tunisian rural and nomadic dialects make 
use of flug "deflower, violate", fsllsg "split, cleave 
(wood), split in two (skull)", etc. (M. Beaussier, who 
gives felleg "split" as well as the 5th and 7th forms and 
other derivatives of the root, is acquainted with a 
felldg in the Algerian South meaning "of which the 
stone is easily detached (peach)", while G. Boris, 
Lexique du parlcr arabe des Marazig, Paris 1958, has 
only recorded the 7th form, and it is to this root 
that the Tunisians (who have coined a 10th form 
staflag "to take to the hills") generally relate the 
intensifying adjective fvllag). Originally the term was 
applied to individuals who wished to escape punish- 
ment, to deserters, and to fugitive offenders, who 
eventually formed bands supporting themselves by 
brigandage. The first lexicographer to have noted 
falldk is E. Bocthor, who may well have created it 
himself in order to translate the French v/ordpour- 
fendeur; H. Wehr, Worterbuch, on the other hand, 
lists it with the sense of "bandit, highwayman", 
but this is obviously a recent usage of the Arabic 
press, which, moreover, finds the term too pejorative 
to use it as freely as does the European press. 

The real popularity of the word, however, dates 
from the beginning of the first world war, and the 
uprising brought about by Khalifa b. c Askar [q.v.] 
in southern Tunisia; these rebels were in fact desig- 
nated by the name of fellaga, less perhaps by the 
Tunisians themselves, than by the French troops. 
Somewhat forgotten between the wars, the term was 
resurrected on the occasion of the incidents which 
occurred in Tunisia between 1952 and 1954: the 
whole of the western press used it to describe the 
rebels who, for political reasons, formed armed 
groups fighting against the French army. When the 
Algerian rebellion broke out in 1954, the term was 
quite naturally applied to the outlaws, and then to 
the combatants of the rebel army. It is thus that a 
Tunisian colloquialism was borrowed by the French 
army and then by the French press, subsequently 
spread into western newspapers and the Algerian 
dialect of Arabic, and made its appearance in the 
Arabic press in the classicizing form falldk. 

(Ch. Pellat) 

FALLATA, although strictly signifying the 
Fulani [q.v.], is used in the Nilotic Sudan generally 
for Muslim immigrants from the western Bildd al- 
Suddn, and in particular for those from northern 
Nigeria. The term has largely superseded the older 
Takdrir or Takarna (which had a similarly loose 
application), presumably after the Fulani conquests 
under c Uthman dan Fodio. The Takarir/Fallata 
immigrants are primarily pilgrims en route to 
Mecca: their first appearance in the Nilotic Sudan 
can hardly have been before the establishment of 



768 



FALLATA — FALS 



Muslim sultanates in Dar Fur [q.v.] and Waddal 
during the nth/i7th century. Many have bed 
domiciled in the territories which now compose the 
Republic of the Sudan. Takarir founded a border 
state in the Rallabat (Sudanese-Abyssinian marches) 
in the 18th century; its ruler, Shaykh MM, sub- 
mitted to the Turco-Egyptian governor of SinnSr 
in 1245/1829-30. A Fallata settlement exists at the 
southern end of Diabal Marra in Dar Fur. Some Fal- 
lata/Takarir settlers in Dar Fur and Kurdufan have 
intermarried with local Bakkara, become arabized, 
and now constitute tribal sections. More recent 
immigrants form an important element in the labour- 
force of the Republic of the Sudan, as domestic 
servants, and as labourers employed by the ten; 
of the Gezira (cotton-growing) Scheme; see Saad Ed 
Din Fawzi, The Labour Movement in the Sudan, 
London 1957, 5-8. 

Bibliography: An important account of the 
Takarir pilgrims in the early 19th century is given 
by J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in Nubia, London 
1819, 406-14; more generally, see under Fellata 
(and also Takarir) in the Indexes of H. A. Mac- 
Michael, TheTribes of northern and central Kordofat 
Cambridge 1912; and idem, A History of the Arabs 
in the Sudan, Cambridge 1922. (P. M. Holt) 
FALLCnjA, name of two districts {fassudi) of 
'Irak, Upper and Lower Falludja, which occupied 
the angle formed by the two arms of the lower 
Euphrates which flow finally into the Batiha [q.v.], 
the Euphrates proper to the west (this arm is given 
various names by the geographers and is now called 
Shatt al-Hindiyya) and the nahr Sura (now Shatt 
al-Hilla) to the east. 

Bibliography: Suhrab, K. '■Adi&Hb al-akdlim 

al-sab c a, ed. H. von Mzik, Leipzig 1930, 124-5; 

Tabari, index; Balaclhurl, Futuh, 245, 254, 265, 

457; Bakri, index; Yakut, s.v.; Ya'kQbl-Wiet, 

140; Mas c udi, Murudj., v, 337; A. Musil, The 

middle Euphrates, 125; Le Strange, 74; Caetani, 

Annali, ii, 942-3, iii, 259-60; M. Canard, H'am- 

ddnides, 148. (Ed.) 

al-FALLCDJA, name of an ancient locality, 

still existing, of c Irak ; it is situated on the Euphrates 

down-stream from al-Anbar [q.v.] and near Dimmima, 

from where the nahr c Isa branched off towards 

Baghdad. At al-Falludja nowadays the main road 

from Baghdad crosses the Euphrates. 

Bibliography: Mukaddasi, 115; Suhrab, 1 

Istakhri, 84; Ibn Hawkal, 165; Musil, The middle 

Euphrates, 269-71; Le Strange, 66, 68 (dis 

guishing two villages of the same name, the second 

at the point where the nahr al-Malik branches 

off; but there seems to be some confusion here); 

M. Canard, H'amd&nides, 147. (Ed.) 

FALS (pi. fulus), the designation of the copper c 

bronze coin current in the early centuries of th 

Islamic era. The term fals for copper coinage, like 

those of dinar and dirham for gold and silver, i 

Greek origin, deriving from 96XX1;, the name of the 

Byzantine copper coin. Fals denotes any and 

copper or bronze coins, regardless of size or wei 

The system of varying denominations in which 

Byzantine copper coinage was originally issued 

seems already to have disintegrated prior to the 

Arab conquests. By the time the Arabs arrived i 

Syria, there was little, if anything, left of the 

graduated monetary system of copper coinage (cf. 

Ph. Grierson, Coinage and Money in the Byzantine 

Empire, in Settimane di studio de centro italiano di 

studi sull'alto medioevo, viii, Moneta e Scambi nell'aUo 

Medioevo, Spoleto 1961, 437). This point deserves 



special emphasis, because it explains why the Arabs 
issued only one standard copper coin without any 
denominational differentiations. They imitated the 
system they found prevalent in the former Byzantine 
territories, and the pattern established in the early 
years of their rule continued throughout the Umay- 
yad and 'Abbasid Caliphates. The glass fals weights 
issued in Egypt during most of the eighth century in 
denominations of from nine to thirty-six kharrubas 
may indicate a possible exception. However, the 
exact use of these glass coin weights is a problem 
that remains yet to be solved (cf. G. C. Miles, On 
the varieties and accuracy of eighth century coin 
weights, in the forthcoming memorial volume for 
Leo A. Mayer). 

The copper coins previous to the monetary reform 
of c Abd al-Malik (ca. 77/696) fall into three broad 
categories. 

Arab-Byzantine: Immediately following the 
conquests the Arabs continued to strike copper 
coins almost exactly as they found them — religious 
formulae, obsolete dates and all. These imitations, 
frequently barbarized, are probably the earliest 
extant Islamic coins. While the basic Byzantine 
types were maintained until c Abd al-Malik's 
reform, various modifications of an Arabicizing 
nature were introduced before that date. Among 
the most important of these are the addition in the 
margin of short religious formulae, indication of the 
mint in Arabic characters, the addition of words such 
as baraka, tayyib, etc., as well as the occasional 
mention of the governor or local l dmil under whose 
authority the coin was issued. The most interesting 
departure from the Byzantine style is to be found in 
the "Standing Caliph" type, on the obverse of which 
the sword-girt figure of the Caliph dressed in typical 
Bedouin garb displaces the likeness of the Emperor 
with his cross, crown and orb, while maintaining a 
modified form of the reverse Byzantine type. The 
stance of the Caliph appears to be an attempt to 
portray him in the posture of leading the prayer 
service. The fact that all five extant dinars of this 
type, as well as most of the fulus, date from the 
early part of c Abd al-Malik's reign, and immediately 
precede his monetary reforms, is an indication that 
these coins are to be considered as a transitional type 
through which the emerging Islamic state was 
attempting to find an appropriate iconographic form 
for its coinage (cf. John Walker, A Catalogue of 
Muhamtnadan coins in the British Museum, ii, 
London 1956, pp. xxviii-xxxii, 22-43). 

Arab-Sasanian : These copper coins are very 
rare. They have the regular Sasanian bust on the 
obverse, and some modification of the fire altar and 
attendants on the reverse. (For examples cf. Walker, 
Catalogue, i, 73, 125, 161, 170-2, and G. C. Miles, 
Excavation coins from the Persepolis region, New 
York 1959). 

Byzantine-Pahlavi: This type exists only in 
copper. These coins represent a unique combination 
of Byzantine and Sasanian elements, with the 
obverse usually following the Byzantine model, and 
the reverse the Sasanian one (cf. Walker, Catalogue, 
ii, pp. li-liii, 81-3). 

The purely epigraphic, non-pictorial coin which 
resulted from c Abd al-Malik's reforms appeared in 
copper somewhat later than in gold and silver. The 
earliest preserved dated epigraphic fals is of the year 
87/705-6 struck at Damascus. The effect of the reform 
on the copper coinage was purely epigraphic with 
no metrological aspects as in the case of gold and 
silver (cf. Ph. Grierson, The monetary reforms of 



FALS — FALSAFA 



769 



<Abd id-Malik, in JESHO, iii, 246-7). Neither the 
size, weight or epigraphic content of the copper coins 
was uniform. They all contained some religious 
formula, and sometimes the mint, date and names 
of the issuing official or officials. 

Unlike the centralized system of copper minting 
in Byzantium, its emission in Islam was highly 
proliferated and decentralized. In the period im- 
mediately preceding the conquests there were 
twelve known copper mints in the entire Byzantine 
Empire, only three of which were in Syria, Egypt 
and Africa. Under the Umayyads there were fifty- 
three known copper mints, thirty-three of them in 
the former Byzantine provinces. The number of 
mints increases to eighty-three under the c Abbasids, 
with most of the new mints in the eastern part of 
the Empire. 

Copper coinage was a token currency issued to 
fill the need for petty commercial transactions, and 
passed by tale and not by weight. Its emission was 
left to the discretion of governors and local author- 
ities, without any centralized control. As a result, 
the fals varied greatly in weight, size, and probably 
value from one district to another. The weight 
variation was sometimes as much as five grams 
between contemporary fulus from different mints 
(e.g., a fals from al-Mawsil dated 157 weighs 10.63 
grams, while one of Baghdad from the same year 
weighs 5.42 grams). It is for these reasons that the 
circulation of the fals, unlike that of the dinar or 
dirham, was limited to the near vicinity of its 

This may help to explain why small sums of money 
are so infrequently expressed in the written sources 
in terms of fulus, but rather in terms of minute 
weights of gold and silver. Such small sums as 
i/i44th or i/288th of a dinar mentioned in the 
Arabic papyri, or the fractional division of the 
dirham into kirat, ddnik and habba have no counter- 
part in actual gold or silver coins. These are rather 
monies of account pegged to the fluctuating and 
diversified value of the fals, and were the only 
standard way to express small sums of money. 

The simultaneous circulation of coins in gold, 
silver and copper implies a fixed and known rate 
of exchange between them. We possess occasional 
references to the established ratio between dinars 
and dirhams and its periodic modifications, but our 
knowledge of the ratio between these denominations 
and fulus is poorly documented. That such a ratio 
existed in Umayyad and 'Abbasid times is known 
from various anecdotes (e.g., Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, 
<Uyun, i, 185; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat, tr. de Slane, 
ii, 125), from legal discussions related to the problems 
of converting dirhams into fulUs and vice versa (cf. 
material collected by H. Sauvaire, in J A, vii/15, 
262-6), and from al-Tabari's rendering of the 
amount in dirhams spent on the construction of 
Baghdad into its equivalent in fulus (Ta^rikh, ed. 
de Goeje, iii, 326). For Mamlflk Egypt al-MakrizI 
(TraiU des Famines, in JESHO, v, 68-9), and others 
(cf. references in Grohmann, Einfiihrung, 218) 
provide us with some information on the dirham: 
fals ratio. All these sources indicate a ratio fluctuating 
between twenty-four and forty-eight fulus to the 
dirham. 

During the first half of the 3rd/9th century there 
was a sudden cessation of copper minting throughout 
the Islamic world. This scarcity of copper coinage 
lasted for several centuries. That the absence in our 
collections of fulus for this period is not a mere 
coincidence is confirmed by the results of excavations 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



at such important Islamic sites as Rayy, Persepolis 
(Istakhr) and Antioch. From among the large number 
of copper coins found at these sites only one dates 
after 207/822. The only exception to this general 
pattern are the mints of Transoxania. The mints of 
Bukhara and Samarkand have a continuous series of 
copper coins throughout the late ninth and tenth 
centuries. The absence of copper coinage in western 
Europe during most of the Middle Ages is ascribed 
to the self-sufficient nature of the feudal system and 
to the negligible volume of petty trade, an explana- 
tion which is eminently unsuitable for the Islamic 
world of the 3rd/9th to 6th/i2th centuries. An 
explanation of this phenomenon may be connected 
with the inflationary trend created by the greatly 
increased production of silver and gold which 
occurred at this period, and which would have made 
the production of copper coins more expensive and 
less necessary. 

The plural form fulus persisted in use as the 
designation of the autonomous copper coins of 
Persian localities in the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries (e.g., R. S. Poole, The coins of the Shdhs 
of Persia, London 1887, 212-61). To the present day 
fils designates the petty coin of 'Irak and Jordan, 
and the plural fulus (flus) is a general term for 
money in colloquial Arabic in Egypt, Morocco and 
elsewhere. 

Bibliography: For the coins see the standard 
catalogues of various collections, especially: 
Berlin (H. Nutzel), British Museum (S. Lane- 
Poole, J. Walker), Istanbul (Isma'il Ghalib), 
Paris (H. Lavoix) and St. Petersburg (W. Tiesen- 
hausen). See also A. Grohmann, Einfiihrung und 
Chrestomathie zur arabischen Papyruskunde, Prague 
1955, 214-9; al-MakrizI, TraiU des monnaies 
musulmanes, tr. de Sacy, Paris 1797, 44-8; G. C. 
Miles, The early Islamic bronze coinage of Egypt, 
in Centennial Volume of the A merican Numismatic 
Society, New York 1958, 471-502 ; H. Sauvaire, in 
J A, vii/15 (1880), 257-70. See also sikka. 

(A. L. Udovitch) 
FALSAFA, 1. — Origins. — The origins of 
falsafa are purely Greek; the activity of the faldsija 
[q.v.] begins with Arabic translations of the Greek 
philosophical texts (whether direct or through a 
Syriac intermediary). Thus /a/sa/a\appears first as 
the continuation of 91X0009(0 in Muslim surround- 
ings. But this definition leads at once to a more 
precise formulation: since strictly orthodox SunnI 
Islam has never welcomed philosophic thought, 
falsafa developed from the first especially among 
thinkers influenced by the sects, and particularly 
by the Shl c a; and this arose from a certain prior 
sympathy, such sects having absorbed gnostic 
ideas, some related to Hellenistic types of gnosis, 
others to Iranian types — for Persia is known in any 
case to have been an influence on religious and 
philosophical speculation throughout the Eastern 
Mediterranean since the Alexandrian epoch. 

But it is more difficult to give precise significance 
to the concept of a Greek legacy; Greek thought is 
far from unified. Though falsafa may be called a 
continuation of Greek thought there is no perfect 
continuity, since the Arabic-speaking Muslims were 
not part of the movement in which <p0.oao<pla was 
developing. They were forced to integrate themselves 
into it as if foreign bodies: they could not simply 
follow on; they had to learn everything, from the 
pre-Socratic teachings to the writings and commen- 
taries of Proclus and John Philoponus. They started 
therefore from an acquired knowledge of a con- 



770 FAI 

spectus of Greek thought, comprehensive and 
abstract, which they envisaged as a separate culture 
lacking any historical dimension. They were not 
unaware that thought had a history but this know- 
ledge came almost exclusively from their reading of 
Aristotle, and in practice, for them, he seems the 
culmination of this movement; after him, they only 
see commentators or works written under his direct 
inspiration. Even Neoplatonism itself is not viewed 
as an original system but in the light of a 
generalized Aristotelian influence. 

It would be an easy solution of this difficulty to 
describe falsa/a as having assumed one particular 
form of post-classical Greek thought: eclecticism, 
which had already appeared in the middle period 
of Stoicism and exercised considerable influence in 
the development of Neoplatonism. Certainly this 
school, in spite of its internal diversity, favoured the 
development of falsa/a and contributed to the spread 
of the belief that Greek philosophy was unified. A 
text such as the Theology of the pseudo-Aristotle 
would confirm this belief. Nevertheless it is difficult 
to suppose that the faldsifa failed to notice the 
differences, not only between Aristotle and Plato, 
but also between the commentators, or that they i 
passively took over eclecticism, which is itself a I 
synthesis and in any case necessarily varies from one 
writer to another. Primitive falsa/a could not 
establish itself as a "sect" (to use the term employed 
by Renan) except insofar as it borrowed from Helle- 
nistic and post-Hellenistic philosophy a common form, 
a general concept of the world, a comprehensive 
theory of the spirit, the soul, man and human know- 
ledge, with a technical vocabulary to become the 
familiar jargon of the schools. In detail, beyond the 
structural uniformity, each faylasuf made his own 
choice, and the first falsa/a is much more original 
than one would suppose if it were described as 
nothing but Arab Neoplatonism. 

2. — Utilization of Greek sources. — Ibn 
al-Kiftl (568-646/1172-1248), though remote from 
the beginnings and later than al-Ghazali, provides 
some interesting information. He enumerates seven 
sects of Greek philosophy, adding that the two 
principal ones are that of Pythagoras and that of 
Plato and Aristotle. He considers in fact two great 
sections of Greek philosophy: natural philosophy, 
which is that of the ancients, exemplified by 
Pythagoras, Thales of Miletus, the Sabaeans and the 
Egyptians; and "political" philosophy, which 
characterizes the moderns, with Socrates, Plato and 
Aristotle. He explains that this division comes from 
Aristotle. But he does not separate them absolutely, 
since he goes so far as to say that Plato achieved the 
level of Pythagoras in the study of intelligible 
realities (/* 'l-umur al- c a(sliyya) and the level of 
Socrates in the questions of the constitution of the 
perfect city (fi siydsat al-madina al-fddila). Thus in 
the eyes of the Muslims philosophy, culminating in 
Aristotle, the disciple of Plato, is a synthesis which 
studies the universe in relation to human life, which 
views man in the whole and which conceives of the 
whole as the medium in which man by knowledge and 
virtue realises his ultimate goal in re-discovering the 
principle of his being. The philosophy of nature opens 
out into a mystical cosmology in which the central 
concept is the Stoic cosmopolis. It is comprehensible 
that in this light Neoplatonism, which embodies all 
these viewpoints in one system, should have appeared 
to them as the final formulation of a philosophic 
ideal in harmony with the religious ideal put forward 
by a more or less heterodox form of Islam. It is clear 



that the primary motive for the choice of falsa/a is 
religious by nature, since the faldsifa always rejected 
with horror that type of thought also offered by 
ancient Greece, known as that of the dahriyya [q.v.j, 
of whom Ibn al-Kiftl also says: "This is a sect of 
ancient philosophers who deny the Creator, the 
director of the Universe. They assert that the world 
has not ceased to be what it is in itself, that it has 
no creator who made it and freely chose to do so; 
that the circling motion has no beginning, that man 
comes from a drop of sperm, and the sperm from 
man, the plant from the seed and the seed from the 
plant. The most famous philosopher of this sect is 
Thales of Miletus; those who follow him are called 
zanddifra". 

Since Thales was classed among the "phy- 
sicists" (tabiSyyun), it is clear that there are in fact 
two kinds of physicists: those who are purely mate- 
rialist and rejected, and those who may be taken 
over by the "metaphysicists" (ildhiyyun) as Pytha- 
goras is by Plato. It may be argued that Aristotle, in 
spite of his metaphysics, does not lend himself to use 
by religious thought : God, viijai? voifjae&x;, is not the 
efficient cause of the world; He is the end, but not 
the principle. In reply it could be said that the 
Uthiilughiyd intervened here most aptly, "since it 
seemed to present the theodicy absent from the 
Metaphysics, though itself brief on the divine 
attributes and silent on the creation" (A. M. Goichon, 
La Philosophie d'Avicenne et son influence en Europe 
midiivale, Paris 1951, 12). But it should not be 
forgotten that Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, 
had steeped himself in Aristotelian thought and saw 
no opposition in it to that of Plato. Equally, the 
Neoplatonic commentator Simplicius (6th century), 
educated both in Alexandria and Athens, had 
already attempted to harmonize the systems of 
Plato and Aristotle (as al-Farabi was to do). Now 
Simplicius, who had emigrated to Persia upon the 
closure of the School of Athens by Justinian in 529, 
was well known to the Muslims (cf. Ibn al-Kiftl: art. 
Samlis). Syrianus also (ibid., art. Surydnus) was as 
frequently quoted by the specialists; and he, though 
he did not believe that the two sages of antiquity 
were in agreement, at least saw the study of Aristotle 
as a preliminary to the understanding of Plato. The 
Muslims therefore did not lack precedents authorizing 
them not to make too great a gulf between the two 
great masters of Greek thought. 

Nevertheless it would appear that the 'Plotinus 
source', as F. Rosenthal calls it [AS-Sayh al-Yundni 
and the Arabic Plotinus source, in Orientalia, xxi 
(1952), xxii (1953), xxiv (1955), played very much a 
major r61e, together with the Uthulughiyd which is 
related to it. On this point P. Kraus, Plotin chez 
les Arabes, Remarques sur un nouveau fragment de 
la paraphrase des Enniades, in BIE, xxiii (1940), 41, 
may also be consulted. 

Thus everything combined to give a Neoplatonic 
form to the meeting of Plato and Aristotle in Muslim 
thought. P. Duhem (Le systeme du monde, iv, 322) 
observes that Neoplatonism permitted the conser- 
vation in a single harmonious whole of what could be 
saved of the Aristotelian theory of the universe 
together with what theology claimed. 

At the same time certain elements of the Greek 
inheritance could not be absorbed with comfort in 
this synthesis. On the one hand, the whole Gnostic, 
or, rather, theurgic tradition as it developed from 
Iamblichus to Proclus, becoming burdened with 
Egyptian and Hermetic ideas, preoccupied with 
every religion and every god, developing a fantastic 



angelology, was ready to fuse with the mystic 
concepts of Persia and India and revivify that 
esoteric cult which is still alive. These tendencies, 
subjugated to the discipline of falsafa by Avicenna, 
were to flourish freely in the philosophy of 
Ishrdh. On the other hand, an Aristotelianism which 
had remained more faithful to Aristotle, confining 
itself to the correction of those points where he 
displayed weaknesses, difficulties, obscurities or 
incoherence, had never ceased to be represented in 
the post-Hellenistic period up to the 6th century. 
Alexander of Aphrodisias (2nd century) tries to 
explain Aristotle and defend him against the doctrines 
of other schools. In doing so, he insists on the natural- 
ist aspect of his teaching and professes a nominalism. 
The universal exists only in human thought; "separ- 
ated from the intellect which thinks it, it is destroyed." 
Thus it neither preexists particular things nor is 
drawn from them; it appears only as a consequence 
of the experience which thought has of these things : 
thus the soul is a form of the body and cannot 
subsist without it. As for the doctrine of the intellect, 
a distinction must be drawn between the vou? 
<pu<nx6<; or uXtx6? (natural or material, which is 
potential), the vou? £tt£xty)TO<; or xa9' &?,i\> 
(acquired and possessing the habitus of intelligible 
thought), and the vou? irotT)Tixo<; which makes the 
transition from the potentiality of the former to the 
habitus of the latter but which does not belong to the 
human soul, coming to it from outside (6>ipa6ev). 
This theory of the intellect was to be the constant 
subject of consideration in the falsafa of every age. 
But the Aristotelianism of Alexander was especially 
to characterize the Western philosophers: Ibn 
Badjdja (Avempace) and particularly Ibn Rushd 
(Averroes) and to exercise some influence in the 
East on the thought of Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi. It is 
thus associated with a transformation of primitive 
falsafa which takes place in consequence of al- 
Ghazall's criticism of the faldsifa. We should also 
refer to Themistius (4th century), a late Peripatetic: 
he uses Plato, believing him in agreement with 
Aristotle, but "prefers to the novelties of Neopla- 
tonism that more ancient Platonic-Aristotelian 
philosophy" (W. Stegemann, Real Encyclopddie, art. 
Themistios). He was above all interested in ethics, to 
which he regarded logic and physics as merely 
ancillary. This idea passed into falsafa. His aim was 
practical; he wished to render Aristotle more easily 
accessible, in "paraphrases" in which he gathered 
together the ideas of the master clearly and concisely. 
This is why the Muslims turned frequently to him; 
some indeed adopted his method of exposition by 
means of paraphrase. 

Falsafa, as an encyclopaedic system of knowledge, 
also owes much to the physician Galen (2nd century). 
He again is the author of an original and very wide 
electicism. He made explicit the idea that medicine is 
founded on a philosophical basis, an idea which was 
to dominate the activity of the faldsifa, who were 
nearly all savants and physicians. In logic, physics, 
and metaphysics Galen bases himself on Aristotle, 
but his eclecticism is touched with Stoic ideas and it 
is in part through him that Islam made the ac- 
quaintance of the Stoa. In psychology, he follows the 
Platonic teaching of the tripartite division of the 
soul. Though concentrating on the study of positive 
reality as accessible to experience, he believes in the 
existence of God and in Providence, which is mani- 
fested in the harmony of the parts of the universe 
and the bodily organs. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi depends 
on him, at the beginning of his commentary on the 



Kur'an, in order to demonstrate the sympathy of all 
beings in the universe, from which it follows that the 
slightest search is linked with every other. Neverthe- 
less, though Galen integrated philosophy with 
science and thus laid the foundations for a system 
to be found in every Muslim philosopher, he did not 
distract falsafa from its Neoplatonic preference, for 
he nourished a philosophical literature "which, 
starting from the Timaeus of Plato and passing 
through the commentary of Posidonius on the 
Timaeus, ended in Neoplatonism" (Ueberweg, 
Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic des Alter- 
tums, Berlin 1920, 576). At the same time Galen 
represents above all to the Muslims, if we may 
believe Ibn al-Kiftl, a physical philosopher (favlasuf 
tabiH) who understood the method of demonstrative 
proof C-alim bi-(arik al-burhdn) and applied it to all 
sciences. He concerned himself with the problem of 
distinguishing causes (the question of the asbdb al- 
mdsika to which Ibn al-Kifti draws attention), an 
important problem which is equally central in 
Proclus and over which falsafa and kaldtn were to 

Another commentator of Aristotle familiar to the 
Muslims is John Philoponus (Yahya al-Nahwi). He 
was a Christian, who contested with Proclus the 
doctrine of the eternity of the world, basing himself 
primarily on considerations of physics. In this 
manner he demonstrated that the scientific spirit, 
freed from the extremist metaphysics of the Athenian 
Neoplatonists, could have room for the fundamental 
dogma of revealed monotheism. 

The Greek heritage is therefore a very varied body 
of doctrines and trends of whose multiplicity the 
Muslims were not unaware. Thus falsafa had to make 
a choice, and this explains the varied forms it 
assumed from time to time, reflecting no doubt 
different philosophical temperaments but also 
religious attitudes to dogma and theology and to 
the history of the sects and of kaldm. 

3. — The establishment of falsafa. — The 
influence of translations is of prime importance. But 
that falsafa was born at all is due to the fact that 
most of the translators were also original thinkers. 
Original work was often linked to the translation by 
the intermediary of commentary. Thus Kusta b. 
Lflka made use of technical language gleaned from 
translations to produce individual work, as shown 
in the Book of characters (ed. P. Sbath, in BIE, 
xxiii (1940-1)). Ibn al-Nadim (d. 386/996) appreciated 
his value as a philosopher. Kusta reveals great 
subtlety in analysis, and a spirit of synthesis which 
enables him to borrow from the different sciences 
whatever material he needs to deal with his subject. 
It is important to note that a thinker like al-Kindi, 
who is revered by posterity as a philosopher and 
savant, is also a translator. Moreover, all the great 
faldsifa applied themselves to commentaries on 
Greek texts. Thus,/a/sa/a does not follow from works 
of translation and commentary; it is born amongst 
them and continues them; its lexicon (is(ildkdt) was 
not written as a purely philological exercise unrelated 
to it; falsafa gained definition by an undertaking 
which combined translations, commentaries, personal 
reflections and practical examples. 

4. — The first period of falsafa. — This 
could be called Avicennan. It takes shape in the 
East between the 3rd/gth and the 5th/nth centuries, 
with al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Ibn Sina (Avicenna). 
It is a synthesis of Neoplatonic metaphysics, 
natural science and mysticism: Plotinus enriched by 
Galen and Proclus. 



772 FAL: 

This first falsafa is quite distinct from the kalam 
which preceded it (Mu'tazili kalam); although it 
takes pleasure in the rediscovery of Ivur'anic texts 
or ideas, it does not make them a starting point, but 
is presented as a method of research independent of 
dogma, without, however, rejecting the dogma or 
ignoring it in its sources. Nevertheless, its problems 
are not unrelated to those of theology. The Mu c ta- 
zila, in order to preserve the absolute transcend- 
ence of the divine unity, had distinguished essence 
from existence in created beings. For them, there 
was in God no paradigm (mathal) for the essence of 
the creature, and creation consisted simply in 
bestowing existence on essences which were in "a 
state of nothingness". The creative act was con- 
ceived in a positive sense as what causes essences to 
pass from non-existence to existence (lam yakun 
fayakunu). God, Whom nothing resembles, was 
therefore beyond the essence and the existence of 
creatures here below. The first falsafa is based on an 
ontology which also makes a distinction between 
essence and existence. But it did not find the idea of 
creation ex nihilo in the Greeks. It preserved the 
absolute transcendence and unity of God by intro- 
ducing precisely this distinction between essence 
and existence in all beings other than the Godhead. 
For God alone, existence is identical with essence. 
But for this reason He is the unifying and unique 
mainspring of the two orders of being. Thus this 
falsafa unites seemingly contradictory concepts of 
the universe; on the one hand there is a First 
Principle in whose unity are rooted both the essences 
and the existences of all beings, and in consequence 
a continuity is postulated between the Being and 
beings, which is not interrupted by any creative 
act; on the other hand, there is an absolute 
discontinuity between the modes of being of the 
Principle and of that which proceeds from the 
Principle. Thus it is possible to speak of a cosmolo- 
gical continuity between the universe and its source 
(theory of emanation), tending to a form of monism, 
and of an ontological discontinuity between the 
necessary and the possible, tending to re-establish 
the absolute transcendence of God. Furthermore, 
the possible beings, in whom essence is distinct from 
existence, are only possible if considered in them- 
selves. But they are necessary if considered in relation 
to the Principle: granted a Being necessary on its 
own account, everything else is necessary because of 
it. As was to be the case with Spinoza and Hegel, the 
possible is always real. Hence we return to monism. 
Is that a reason for considering that this falsafa is 
incoherent ? Up to now we have considered only the 
cosmology and the ontology of the first falsafa, which 
means that this falsafa needed to be completed by 
a third attitude to Being; the mystical. Falsafa 
of the Avicennan type may be analysed as regards 
its system in the following manner: a first upward 
movement going from beings to the Being, which 
seeks an ontological foundation for given reality; 
this is human intelligence in search of a principle of 
intelligibility in the universe; then a second, down- 
ward movement, an attempt to explain the universe 
on the basis of a declared principle, which should 
provide a total explanation of it; these two move- 
ments involve only human thought; but in the first, 
the principle is attained so to speak in perspecti 
as the limit where conditions of intelligibility c 
verge; thus there may well be some lack of coi 
nuity of thought, since it is logically impossible for 
thought to reach this limit; whilst in the second 
thought starts from the idea which 



corresponds in it to this Principle, and tries to 
produce from it the world from which it came 
itself; this is a difficult task, since it is beyond the 
scope of logical deduction, and recourse must be 
made to images (metaphors of light) through which 
the continuity which is postulated but not demon- 
strated can be re-established. Then comes the third 
movement, which is a second ascent, but this time 
no longer a simple discursive procedure, since it is 
by intelligible intuitions of the spiritual realities 
themselves, already identified, that progress is made. 
Man first sees himself in his contingency, separated 
from his Principle, endowed with a precarious 
existence. But ontology has taught him that his 
whole being is rooted in God, and cosmology supplies 
him with a spiritual itinerary, whose postulated 
continuity will be verified by mystical experience. 
The last word therefore is with this experience. 

A second theme which Greek philosophy had 
touched on, and which Mu'tazili kalam had studied 
very closely, is that of the knowledge God has of 
particular things. The first falsafa, in its theory of 
the possible, considerably simplified the problem 
posed by the theologians who believed that con- 
tingent things could be or not be. However, there 
still remained the difficulty of the knowledge of the 
particular as such: God could not make contact 
with this in itself in its materiality, but only in His 
universal knowledge of that which is. Falsafa was 
thus obliged to interpret the verses of the Kur'an 
where God declares that nothing, not even a grain 
of mustard seed (Kur'an, xxi, \y), escapes Him. This 
question is, moreover, closely linked with the 
concept of creation held by the first falsafa. There 
is no doubt that it rejects the dogmatic idea of 
creation ex nihilo, but it aggravates its case by 
adopting the principle that from the One only the 
one can proceed, which led it into complicated 
theories on the successive procession of the Intellects 
and of their spheres, from the first Intellect onward; 
this procession plays a part not only in cosmology, 
but in the theory of knowledge, of prophetic revela- 
tion and of mystical experience. In this context must 
be placed the doctrine of the intellect as agent and 
its role in man's intellection. On this point explana- 
tions vary slightly from one philosopher to another. 
In conclusion we may note that the problem of the 
immortality of the soul is closely related to this 

Such are the fundamental themes of the first 
falsafa. Each philosopher of this school, and above 
all Avicenna, has been the object of varying inter- 
pretations, according to whether emphasis was laid 
on his scientific works, on the relationship of his 
metaphysics with Western scholasticism, on his 
fidelity to Greek thought, or on his mystical ideas. 
In fact, all these points of view must be considered 
together, not forgetting moreover that falsafa 
penetrates into the Muslim environment and that even 
if it was rejected by strict orthodoxy it was none the 
less steeped in Islamic thought considered as a whole; 
we have seen that it was not ignorant of kalam; even 
in its logic, where the Aristotelian inspiration is 
clearest (for example in the Shifa' of Avicenna), 
allusions to the concepts of the Arab grammarians 
are easily discernible. Finally, falsafa interested 
itself in political problems, not only by preserving 
Greek works on politeia, but in relation to the 
political, and therefore religious, problems of the 
Muslim world of that time. The temporal organi- 
zation of a city has the double purpose of achieving 
the well-being of men and of preparing them for the 



future life. The union of members of the earthly 
community foreshadows the union of souls with 
souls, and of souls with God, in the after life. 
Political theory thus itself embraces mysticism; 
these ideas are so strong that they will be respected 
by al-Ghazali and will reappear in another context 
as late as Ibn Khaldun. It may be said that falsafa 
wished to support shari c a,fikh, and ahkdm sul(dniyya, 
and that it is thus opposed to the spirit of the 
Kur'an. This is true as far as rigorously orthodox 
Islam is concerned. But falsafa developed in more 
liberal surroundings, where there was a desire for a 
less legalistic view of religion and for an Islam which 
would be cultural and universal in character. 



-The 



i of ; 



-Ghai 



-If t 



a much discussed figure, al-Ghazall is dis- 
cussed much more. Some see him as a reactionary 
who brought to an end the blossoming of the rational 
thought of the philosophers, and made supreme a 
theology which was itself the slave of dogma. For 
others he clipped the wings of mystical thought 
by fighting the Batiniyya, whose teachings were in 
harmony with the great spiritual constructions of 
falsafa. Whatever value one may place on the 
thought of al-Ghazali, the historical significance of 
his work demands recognition. Even if he conceived 
his religious system only for political ends associated 
with the passing circumstances of the disturbed 
period in which he was living, yet he introduced 
Greek philosophy into the realm of Sunni thought, 
through the way he developed Ash'arism and 
criticized the faldsifa. In falsafa, as in esoteric 
mysticism, he denounced Gnostic trends opposed 
to the Kur 5 anic spirit. No doubt he remained a 
mutakallim; it would be an abuse of language to say 
that he created a Sunni falsafa. He simply allowed 
falsafa, and mysticism too, to detach itself from 
Shi'I heterodoxy and to become acclimatized in an 
orthodox environment. 

The principal points of his criticism (which were 
to be taken up again by Ibn al-Kifti) may be brought 
together under three headings: against falsafa he 
maintains (a) the resurrection of the body and the 
materiality of the rewards and punishments of the 
after life; (b) the creation of the world in the proper 
sense and its real contingency; (c) God's knowledge 
of particular things. As for the other philosophical 
sciences — mathematics, logic, physics — they are 
harmless provided that their methods are not 
generalized rashly and that they are not allowed to 
exceed their proper limits. The metaphysics of the 
Greeks and their imitators is on the other hand a 
privileged place for innovations and impieties since 
in this field logical reasoning is not infallibly applied. 
Al-Ghazali, like his master al-Djuwaynl, was struck 
by the differences which rule between metaphy- 
sicians in spite of their common appeal to reason. 
There is a level of reality where human reason 
cannot grasp truth by its own efforts; it needs the 
help of revelation which alone provides certitude in 
these questions. These ideas, put forward by Ghazall 
in a dogmatic and theological context, reappear in 
a philosophical context in his successors. 

6. — The second period of falsafa. — This 
may be called post-Ghazall. It is distinguished 
geographically by having one centre in the East 
with Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi and another in the West 
with Avempace (Ibn Badjdja), Ibn Tufayl and 
Averroes (Ibn Rushd). The period is characterized 
in part by its diversity, the teachings no longer 
displaying that unity of approach which the preceding 
period showed; and in part by the fact that this 



AFA 773 

falsafa is much more integrated in the whole in- 
tellectual and spiritual culture acquired by Islam 
over the formative centuries: theology, law, tafsir, 
mysticism, constitute disciplines which from now on 
are established and rich in content and influence, 
whereas the first falsafa found itself taking shape 
at a time when all mental activities were seeking an 
appropriate way for themselves, and only MuHazilism 
so far had taken up fixed positions. 

Of the three who most adorned Western falsafa, 
Avempace displayed the least religious spirit. His 
Rule of the solitary (Tadbir al-mutawahhid) has as 
its ideal isolation from the mass of mankind in a 
purely intellectual contemplation of the intelligible. 
In his Risdlat al-Ittisdl he shows how it is possible to 
unite with the agent Intellect, by studying the 
development of the human individual from his 
embryonic life to the speculative life. This is a philo- 
sophical psychology of knowledge. 

This "evolutive" aspect of Avempace's thought 
recurs in Ibn Tufayl, where some influence of the 
Ikhwan al-Saf5 5 may also be discerned. The mysticism 
of Ibn Tufayl tries to go further than the purely 
speculative mysticism of Avempace, being inspired 
both by Avicenna and al-Ghazali. 

Averroes, in his refutation of the Tahdfut al- 
faldsifa, was led to take up again the problems with 
which Avicenna's philosophy had faced Sunni 
orthodoxy. He replies to al-Ghazali, not in order to 
defend Ibn Sina but in order to set out his own 
teaching, more directly inspired by Aristotle and the 
Peripatetic commentators than the first falsafa had 
been. The meaning of Averroism has been much 
discussed. Some, with Renan, view him as a pure 
rationalist. According to L. Gauthier, Ibn Rushd 
only rejects the kind of theology which encloses 
itself in the revealed texts and desires to comprehend 
them dialectically; but he allows literal belief to 
the uneducated, who react to the rhetoric of images, 
while philosophers should submit everything to 
apodictic proof. It appears that this explanation by 
means of the theory of the three classes of spirit 
(apodictic, dialectic, rhetorical) does not entirely 
cover the thought of Averroes. In fact, he was 
responsive to the warning of al-Ghazali: rigorous 
proof is only superior where the object is accessible 
to human intelligence. When this is not so and 
obscurities remain, as in the questions of creation, 
the attributes of God, and the nature of the after 
life, philosophy has no real privilege, and risks 
indeed encouraging doubt, while revealed knowledge, 
though in itself inferior, gains the advantage since 
it brings assurance. To the fundamental problems 
of the first falsafa as criticised by al-Ghazali, 
Averroes replies like a mutakallim: he gives up the 
postulate that from the One nothing but the one 
can emerge; God moves the world by His amr which 
permits Him to act while remaining unmoved (cf . the 
unmoved prime mover of Aristotle) ; God has no will 
resembling the human will, since He has nothing to 
desire, having all; but the idea of a voluntary act 
better represents what creation is than the idea of 
an involuntary emanation (a viewpoint to be found 
in al-Razi in his commentaries on the divine attribute 
of life, haydt); God does not know particular things 
in a sentient manner; but the knowledge He has of 
them resembles the sentient knowledge by which man 
grasps them rather than our abstract and general 
knowledge. These few observations suffice to show 
that Averroes took note of the theological ci ' " 
of al-Ghazali. 

In the East, Fakhr al-Din al-Razi i: 



774 FAI 

like al-Ghazali, whom he takes for guide, while 
remaining attached to the thought of Avicenna. He 
criticizes the MuHazila but he borrows from them 
what he can use. He attacks the extremist sects but 
without breaking down the bridges to them. 
Irenic in outlook, in spite of his polemical vigour, he is 
endowed with great powers of synthesis and it is 
perhaps in him that the richest, widest and most 
open system is to be found. He explains Avicenna 
while correcting him. He achieves a profound union 
of kalam and falsa/a. Thus, like his adversary al-Tusi, 
he studies the Mu'tazili notion of mode (hdl) in 
relation to the problem of the divine attributes. For 
him, philosophical reason may well collect ideas into 
coherent systems, but it is for revelation to pronounce 
upon their truth. Finally, the sacred text is a stimulus 
for philosophical thought. Al-RazI therefore clearly 
differs from Averroes in his approach; he does not 
limit recourse to dogma and kalam to certain difficult 
cases: with him philosophy and theology are co- 
extensive and interpenetrating. 

philosophy of ishrak. — The work of al- 
Ghazall was not accepted by the whole of Islam; 
in particular those circles, of ShI'I tendencies, who 
resisted his criticism developed the most mystical 
aspects of Avicenna's thought in order to produce a 
union of Avicennian type falsa/a with a mystical 
kalam of Gnostic inspiration. 

Here we must mention the philosophical corpus 
of Abu '1-Barakat al-Baghdadi (d. 550/1155), which 
develops into an angelology. But the great represen- 
tative of Ishrak is al-Suhrawardi (d. 578/1191), 
who was influenced philosophically by Avicenna but 
gives an important position to Aristotelian concepts 
in the exposition of his mystical ideas. On the 
philosophical plane, it was Naslr al-DIn al-Tusi 
(d. 672/1273) who was to undertake the Shi'I defence 
of Avicenna's thought against al-Razi, a defence 
which is not, however, accompanied by absolute 
fidelity: the real distinction between essence and 
existence is denied, and one finds in the end an 
explicit monism in al-Suhrawardi, al-Tusi and Sadr 
al-Din al-Shirazi (d. 1050/1640). This monist philo- 
sophy developed above all in the Iranian areas and 
is often expressed in Persian. It remained alive and 
flourishing for a long period. 

S.—Falsafa as scholasticism. — In spite of 
the great names which adorn even the last period of 
falsafa, it must be recognized that from now on 
thinkers are in possession of received ideas and that 
they develop them in variations which offer interest 
but without real invention. The union of falsafa and 
kalam was completed: the stages of this process are 
marked by Tustari, Kutb al-Din al-Razi (d. 765/1364) 
and al-Idji (d. 756/1355), for whom kalam includes 
metaphysical questions and logical procedures while 
offering the greater security of reason founded on 
tradition. Al-Idji appears in this period as the leader 
of a school whose disciples were to diverge in different 
directions, some attaching themselves to Ash'ari 
orthodoxy, such as al-Djurdjam (d. 816/1413), others 
remaining more faithful to Avicenna, like Sayf al-Din 
al-Abharl (8th/i4th century), al-Fanari (d. 886/1481), 
al-Siyalakuti (d. 1069/1659). Thus the earlier discuss- 
ions over the opposition of Avicenna and Ghazali 
are taken up again: in these the partisans and 
continuers of Avicenna are Djamal al-Din al-Hilli 
(d. 726/1326), a leading theologian of the imamiyya, 
and Kushdji (d. 749/1348) ; while those who attacked 
s school in the spirit of Ash'ari kalam 
1 the tradition of al-Ghazall included al- 



Isfahanl (d. 749/1348) and al-Taftazanl (d. 791/1389). 
The "scholastic" character of this falsafa is basically 
what unites it in spite of the diversity of trends. It 
is clearly indicated by the flourishing of commen- 
taries, no longer on Greek, but on Arabic and 
Persian works. Thus, al-Pjurdjani writes a commen- 
tary on the Mawdkif of al-Idji; al-Dawwani on 
SuhrawardI and on the 'Akd'id, also of al-Idji; while 
al-Fanari comments on al-Farabi. 

This falsafa is also scholastic in its method of 
exposition, which multiplies divisions and sub- 
divisions. This method was not, of course, new, 
but it becomes more and more formal. 

9.— Supplementary and conclusion. — To 
enumerate here all the theological philosophers of 
the last period would be tedious. We ought rather to 
mention those works of previous centuries which, 
though philosophical, do not exactly fit into the 
categories we have outlined. We should first recall 
that theologians like the Ash'aris al-Bakillanl and 
al-Djuwaynl or the Zahiri Ibn Hazm, wrote of purely 
philosophical questions from a point of view which 
was properly that of kalam (e.g., al-Bakillanl's 
theory of causality and atomism). On the other hand, 
the RasaHl of the Ikhwan al-Safa 3 deserve mention; 
these develop Pythagorean ideas, frequently with 
remarkable originality, on the fringes of the school 
of Avicenna but in an analogous spirit, in spite of 
the popularizing character of these writings. Ibn 
Masarra, who has been studied by Asin Palacios, 
was influenced by the philosophy of Empedocles and 
BatinI mysticism (cf. Ibn al-Kiftl, art. Abidhaklis). 

Further, it should be noted that in order to study 
not falsafa as such but the philosophical ideas 
current in Islam one should also consider the use 
of Greek concepts by sages such as c Ali b. Rabban 
al-Tabari and above all Abu Bakr Muhammad b. 
Zakariyya al-Razi and many others. The corpus of 
Djabir also, in the analysis of it by P. Kraus, should 
not be neglected by those seeking to establish the 
function of Pythagoreanism in the alchemical 
concepts of Islamic scholars. In another field, the 
examination of the theories of the grammarians, 
particularly Ibn Djinnl, would supply very interesting 
information on the influence of Greek ideas in 
Arabic grammar. In special philosophical disciplines 
such as ethics, Ibn Miskawayh should be mentioned, 
whose thought extensively overlaps pure questions 
of morals and reflects the life of his age. The literary 
circle of Baghdad made known to us by Abu Hayyan 
al-Tawhidi, is very representative of philosophical 
culture in the Muslim East of the 4th/ioth century. 

To sum up, falsafa was a focus of reflection on the 
legacy of Greek thought. It was not at the beginning 
a matter of Muslim apologetics utilizing Hellenic 
philosophy to explain and justify the faith. Falsafa 
began as a search by Muslims with Shi'i leanings for 
a coherence in their intellectual and spiritual life, 
that is, the quest for a religious humanism, with 
all that humanism implies in freedom of spirit. 
Later it evolved, grew closer to orthodox kalam and 
ended by fusing with it. Only then did falsafa begin 
to burden itself with apologetic elements: fides 
quaerens intellectum or, conversely, faith illuminating 
and fortifying knowledge. Only the mysticism of 
ishrak retained the primitive humanism of Avicenna 
(cf. al-Insdn al-hamil). In the course of its develop- 
ment, falsafa spread Greek ideas in every realm of 
thought. But it concluded by becoming a school 
activity. It is perhaps this decline which inspired 
the disillusioned observations of Ibn Khaldun on the 
pernicious effects of education in the Muslim world. 



This great thinker of the 8th/i4th century, who 
spared nothing and no-one in his scientific criticism 
of societies, appears at least in his Mukaddima as 
the most profoundly rationalist of all Muslim philo- 
sophers. The interest in political philosophy which 
animates the first falasifa reappears in him, but 
purged of all Neoplatonic metaphysics. Ibn Khaldun 
indeed saw in these great systems concepts inspired 
by the characteristics of social life. In this sense one 
can say that he destroyed falsafa in accomplishing 
his ideal. For the universality which it assumed for 
itself, because it claimed to achieve a self-sufficing 
intelligible, he substituted the actual universality 
of a positive all-embracing science, the science of 

Bibliography: <A. Badawi, Aristu Hnd al- 
c Arab, Cairo 1947; idem, Neoplatonici apud Arabes, 
Cairo 1955; idem, Mantik Aristu, Cairo 1947-52, 
3vols.; idem, Al-Usul al-Yuniniyya li 'l-nazariyyat 
al-siyasiyya fi 'l-Isldm, 1954; T. J. de Boer, 
Geschichte der Philosophic im Islam, Stuttgart 1901 ; 
Carra de Vaux, Les penseurs de I'Islam, iv, Paris 
1923; P. Duhem, Le systeme du monde, iv, Paris 
1916; Gardet and Anawati, Introduction a la 
thiologie musulmane, Paris 1948; Hanna al- 
Fakhuri and Khalil Djurr (Georr), Ta>rikh al- 
Jalsaja al- c arabiyya, Beirut; S. Horowitz, Ober den 
Einfluss d. griech. Philosophic auf die Entwicklung 
d. KaUnn^ (Jahresber. d. jud.-theol. Seminars, 
Breslau 1909); M. Horten, Die Philosophic des 
Islams, Munich 1924; M. Klamroth, Vber die 
Ausziige aus griechischen Schriftstellern bei al- 
Ya'-hubi, iii: Philosophen, in ZDMG, xli (1887); 
I. Madkour, L'Organon d'Aristote dans le monde 
arabe, Paris 1934; idem, La place d'al-Fdrdbi dans 
I'e'cole philosophique musulmane, Paris 1934; 
S. Munk, Melanges de philosophic juive et arabe, 
Paris 1859, republ. 1927; W. Kutsch and S. Marrow, 
Alfarabi's commentary on Aristotle's De Inter- 
pretatione, Beirut 1962; M. Mahdi, Al-Farabi's 
Philosophy of Aristotle, Beirut 1961; idem, Al- 
Farabi's Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, New 
York 1962; A. Schmolders, Essai sur les ecoles 
philosophiques chez les Arabes, Paris 1842 ; M. Stein- 
schneider, Die arab. Ubersetzungen aus dem 
Griechischen, (Beih. z. Centralbl. fur Bibliothekw., 
xii), Leipzig 1893; R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic, 
Essays on Islamic philosophy, Oxford 1962 ; W. M. 
Watt, Islamic philosophy and theology, London 
1962. — For a bibliography of each philosopher, 
see the appropriate article. In the context of this 
article we would nevertheless refer to the works 
of A. M. Goichon, Henri Corbin, and Louis Gardet 
on Avicenna. Cf. also Averroes' Tahdfut al- 
Tahdfttt, English trans, with notes (very impor- 
tant) by S. van den Berg, GMS, N.S. xix, London 
1954. On Razi, Tusi and questions concerning 
kaldm, see M. Horten, Die Modus Theorie des Abu 
Haschim, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philo- 
sophic im Islam, in ZDMG, lxiii (1909). For a 
general bibliography, see J. de Menasce, Ara- 
bische Philosophic, Berne 1948. (R. Arnaldez) 
FAMAGUSTA [see maghosha]. 
FAMILY [see <a>ila]. 
FAN [see mirwaha]. 
FANA' [see baka']. 

FANAK (pi. afndk; from Pers. fanakjfanadi) may 
refer, at different times and with different authors, 
to various animals of different orders or families. In 
the Muslim west fanak is commonly applied to the 
fennec-fox, Fennecus zerda, a small wild member of 
the genus Vulpes of the Canidae with very large 



ears, a pale dun coat, and a spreading bushy tail. 
The nocturnal habits of this puny carnivore, and its 
essentially desert distribution from the Sahara to 
Arabia, have caused it to be practically ignored by 
Arabic writers, naturalists, encyclopaedists and 
poets; al-Djahiz, for example, frankly confesses his 
ignorance of the real fanak (Ifayawdn, vi, 32). For 
a better knowledge of the fennec it is necessary to 
turn to the desert tribes; one finds, for example, six 
terms at least in the various dialects of Tamahak 
which refer to this animal (see Ch. de Foucauld, 
Dictionnaire Touareg-Francais, Paris 1952, ii, 962, s.v. 
akhbrhi; H. Lhote, La chasse chez les Touaregs, Paris 
1951, 133)- In the eastern countries which do not know 
the fennec proper of the Sahara fauna, fanak is used 
for the Corsac or Karagan Fox, Vulpes corsac (from 
Turk, kursdk), found from Turkestan to Mongolia; 
this little animal when domesticated enjoyed a 
great vogue as a lady's pet in Europe in the 16th 
century, when it was known as "adive". 

However, neither of these two foxes is meant by 
the term fanak in the imagination of all the authors 
who have used the word ; all mean a member of the 
Mustelidae whose pelt was greatly esteemed in the 
luxury fur-trade and which ranked with such fur- 
bearing animals (dhawdt al-wabr wa 'l-fird') as the 
ermine (kdkum), sable (sammur), Siberian squirrel 
(sindidb) and otter (kalb al-ma>). The skins of the 
fanak were imported, at great expense, from central 
Europe and Asia (min ard Kh"arizm, min bildd al- 
Saltdliba). Although the identification of this animal 
has troubled many translators, there is no doubt 
that it must be the mink, Mustela lutreola; sufficient 
proof of this is given by Ibn al-Baytar (tr. L. 
Leclerc, Traite des simples, Paris 1877-83, iii, no. 
1708), who says of the fanak ". . . this is a species 
of marten, and its fur is brought from the land of the 
Slavonians, or from the lands of the Turks and 
Russians". It is difficult to understand how the 
fanak, worn in cloaks (farwa) by the young Anda- 
lusian dandies and poets of the 4th-5th/ioth-nth 
centuries, could have been identified with the 
weasel (see H. Peres, La poesie andalouse ... au 
XI im€ siecle', Paris 1953, 320 and notes) which, 
common in Spain, has never been used by furriers, 
its pelt being too small and of mediocre quality; 
moreover the weasel, Mustela nivalis, has never 
been known in Arabic by any name other than 
ibn c irs. Finally, it is of interest to note that the 
flesh of the fanak is recognized, according to al- 
Damlrl (Haydt al-hayawan, ii, 225), as legitimate for 
human consumption among Muslims, which indicates 
that in the eyes of the legists the fanak cannot 
belong to the Canidae, the canine species, domestic 
01 wild, being absolutely impure, on the authority 
of many traditions of the Prophet. 

Bibliography : in addition to references in the 
text:Ps.-Djahiz, K. al-Tabassur bi 'l-tidjdra, ed. 
H. H. Abdul Wahab, Cairo 1935, 28, and Fr. tr. Ch. 
Pellat in Arabica, 1954, 159; Djahiz, Hayawan, 
v, 484; vi, 27, 32, 305; Kalkashandi, Subh, ii, 49; 
L. Blancou, Glographie cynlgltique du monde, 
Paris 1959, passim; L. Lavauden, Les vertibres du 
Sahara, Tunis 1926, 34; P. Bourgoin, Animaux de 
chasse d'AJrique, Paris 1955, 179 ; V. Monteil, Faune 
du Sahara occidental, Paris 1951, 57. (F. Vire) 
FANAR [see feker and manar]. 
al-FANARI [see fenarI-zade]. 
FANN, the (modern) Arabic name for art. 
Individual treatment of aspects of the art of Islam 
will be found in articles under the following headings; 



i. Tec 
(building), fakhkhar (the potter's craft), 
(mosaic), kali (carpets), khatt (calligraphy), 
kumash (textiles), metal work, taswir (painting), etc. 

2. Materials,«.g., 'adj (ivory), billawr (crystal), 
pjiss (plaster), khazaf (pottery and ceramics), 
'irk al-lu'lu' (mother-of-pearl), libas (costume), 
etc., as well as description of materials in the 
articles on techniques. 

3. Objects, types of buildings, artistic 
features, e.g., kalamdan (pencases); bab (gates), 
ba'oli (step-wells), burdj (towers), bustan (gardens), 
ijammam (baths), hisn (fortification), kantara 
(bridges), makbara (tombs), manara (minarets), 
masdjid (mosques), sabil (fountains), etc.; 'amud 
(capitals), arabesque, Iwan (arcades), mukarnas 
(stalactites), etc. 

4. Artists, e.g., bihzad, mansur, sin an, etc. 

5. Music, theatre, etc., e.g., musIkI; articles 
on individual musical instruments, e.g., duff, 
tanbur; cinema; masraiuyya (drama); la'b (games). 

6. Countries and cities, passim. 

7. Dynasties, and 






(Ed.; 



The idea of a specifically Islamic art can hardly 
be conceived without preliminary reference 
idea of an Islamic civilization which alloi 
bringing together, across the apparent 1 
dictions of form, style and material, of 
widely separated in time and space and objects 
produced according to widely different techniques. If 
it be indeed commonly admitted that a new faith and 
a new spirit may invoke a similar renaissance in the 
domain of aesthetics, it must as readily be con- 
ceded that the perpetuation of certain modes of life 
and thought, in a society dominated by a rigid 
legalism of a religious character and faithful until the 
dawn of the modern era to the principles established 
in the Middle Ages, has produced a similar fixedness 
of artistic traditions, as seen in the most diverse 
natural surroundings from the moment when they 
were first incorporated in the world of Islam ; thus 
we may group under a common heading, in spite 
of all the exterior reasons for differentiation, works 
which derive, over more than thirteen centuries of 
history, from the most diverse countries and peoples. 

In this sense one can speak of the unity of Islamic 
art, the principal factor of which was without doubt 
the constitution, in the first centuries of Islam, of 
that immense empire of the Caliphate, Umayyad 
and later 'Abbasid, which brought together under a 
single authority many regions formerly independent 
of one another; it thus provided an environment 
favouring the elaboration of a primitive "classicism" 
which was to serve as a point of reference for the 
later developments, and to bring into being, accord- 
ing to clearly discernible lines of affiliation, local or 
national flowerings which could not fail to develop 
individually in the years that followed. 

Sprung therefore from the conjunction of several 
inheritances, in the first rank of which were a Helle- 
nistic heritage from the southern provinces of the 
Byzantine empire and an Iranian heritage which 
shortly before had been crystallized under the aegis 
of the powerful Sasanid dynasty, this first Islamic art 
deserves primarily to be described as profoundly 
eclectic, through its having gathered and mingled 
without restraint, while the conquerors were will- 
ingly susceptible to the atmosphere of the arts 
around them, structural or decorative elements bor- 



rowed from the practices of the conquered countries, 
with the one proviso that these elements be adapted, 
in conformity with the observance of certain rules, 
to the needs of the new Muslim society. 

This practice was to be perpetuated in the ensuing 
periods, and although the first phenomena of 
absorption and transformation, particularly noti- 
ceable in the Near Eastern regions which might be 
called the heart of the empire, marked Islamic art 
as such with Syro-Mesopotamian features, it must 
not be forgotten that other influences, sometimes 
transmitted throughout the Muslim world, more 
often integrated in lands on the periphery whence 
they could have but a weak diffusion— this is 
exemplified in North Africa or Spain just as in 
Khurasan or in India — , continually influenced here 
and there the traditional modes which had gradually 
spread from the active capitals of Damascus or 
Baghdad. The receptivity, demonstrated very early, 
to trends coming from the East, which brought into 
'Iraki sculpture the characteristic rhythms and 
scrolls of that Asian art known as "Steppic", was 
thus soon to be surpassed by the facility with which, 
from the Saldjuk era onwards, modifications of taste 
and feeling directly attributable to the Turkish 
invaders were to be imposed. Similarly the reception 
by Persia of a decorative repertoire of Chinese origin, 
which had been carried across the Mongol empire and 
was to stimulate the imagination of its miniaturists, 
was to have as a counterpart that extraordinary 
perfection of architectural techniques accomplished 
in ioth/i6th century Ottoman Turkey by artists who 
applied themselves to the school of the Byzantine 
masters and who were to succeed in equalling, if not 
surpassing, Byzantine chefs-d'oeuvre by erecting 
the great series of imperial mosques in Istanbul. 

One may also understand in this perspective the 
multiplication of regional styles [see articles on the 
relevant countries or dynasties] within an art whose 
faculty of assimilation remains its dominant charac- 
teristic and whose various stages develop within 
varying ethnic groups and as a result of borrowings 
which are undisguised; these borrowings have, 
however, in the course of their transmission 
undergone a subtle transformation which makes it 
impossible — even in a creative milieu as clearly indi- 
vidualized as that of Iran, for example — to confuse 
works anterior to Islam and those which belong, 
after the lasting triumph of the new religion, to a 
differently orientated cycle of aesthetic experience. 

Indeed, whatever be the type of monuments or 
objects under consideration, it would appear that 
the artistic production of Muslim countries has 
always conformed to a double set of requirements ; 
the one imposed by the material organization of a 
society in which artistic patronage was bestowed 
principally by princes and sovereigns, impressing 
on the art an aulic, sumptuary and dynastic 
character whereby the taste for richness and brilliant 
ornament was necessarily developed; the other, and 
more important, inspired by the particular form 
of intellectual and religious outlook which came 
into being in the 7th century with the preaching of 
Muhammad and which, far from becoming more 
tractable, became more and more rigid in its claims 
to model the life of the Muslim community according 
to the dictates of the holy law and the opinions of 
its practitioners, providing the dominant themes of 
architecture and encouraging the increasingly syste- 
matic employment of decoration in accordance 
with stereotyped formulas, remote from all realism 
and spontaneity. 



Indeed, it is this deliberate impoverishment of 
plastic imagination, with its aniconic tendency, 
which most frequently comes to mind when one 
attempts to define the basic originality of Islamic 
art, whether the emphasis is put only on the abstract 
character of the surface ornamentation which it uses 
in such profusion, or whether this characteristic is 
more precisely related with the religious prohibitions 
peculiar to Islamic doctrine or with a system of 
theologico-philosophic opinions which dwells on the 
illusory and precarious character of the visible world 
as contrasted with God Who alone endures. This may 
be a somewhat simplified view of a very complex 
problem, all the more since the exclusion of 
images was not observed with the same rigour 
in every region or period; to deny this would 
be to ignore some of the most beautiful Muslim 
achievements, starting with those of the schools 
of illuminators who were well able to portray or 
transpose with delicate touch the scenes which 
surrounded them. Yet one should not disregard the 
large share of truth which such an axiom contains. 

As a general rule, indeed, artists working in the 
Muslim milieu have remained unaffected by a 
concern to reproduce faithfully the forms of the 
living world, forms which certainly served them as 
sources of inspiration, but which became relegated 
to second place through the treatment to which 
they were subjected: either they were reduced to 
filling an accessory role in larger compositions — an 
effort is necessary to discover, for example, the 
medallions with human or animal representations 
which are on so many objects enmeshed by networks 
of arabesques, and the miniatures themselves 
were conceived solely as an appendage to the 
manuscript page which they were to enrich — or 
else recourse was had to them merely for the 
guiding lines of stylizations which were to be 
repeated, divorced from all direct contact with 
nature. This is not unrelated to the lack of favour 
with which work in high relief was regarded, a 
technique which more than any other was likely to 
disturb the rigorists by producing from its medium 
an inanimate copy too close to its original; it is 
connected also with the growing disregard, which 
visibly asserts itself, for the feeling for the third 
dimension: it disappears in the interplay of flat 
colours with which the surfaces of monuments were 
covered, as in the productions of the artistic work- 
shops or in the grisaille of moulded interlacing work 
which filled the previously compartmented borders 
and panels. 

Thus it is justifiable to define Islamic art as a 
whole as an art of decorators and ornamenters, 
concerned to decorate every surface with a multi- 
plicity of figures springing from their own imagina- 
tion in accordance with a repertoire of motifs which 
had long passed to the stage of studio prescriptions, 
motifs often executed in relief or in shallow patterns 
which were vibrant with light and shade effects, but 
to which was frequently added the refinement of 
notes of colour, obtained from very different media 
according to the period or the region. This art of the 
ornamenters thus corresponded to a peculiar regard 
for agreements and harmonies, founded, not without 
some aridity, on the observation of rules such as the 
horror of the void and the continuation of the line, 
in a climate which produced also the melodic line of 
Arab music and the cadences of its poetry. 

It is also true to say, however, that this precious 
art was first and foremost a scholarly and intellectual 
art, which grew from a continual recourse to geome- 



StN 777 

trical design and to complicated calculations, 
permitting decorative forms which were sometimes 
of a rudimentary nature to be used effectively. This 
is admirably illustrated by the use of stalactite 
corbelling, with straightlined or curvilinear cells 
[see mukarnas], which were ultimately used in the 
adornment of domes or semi-domes (for example in 
the coping of portals) according to extremely com- 
plex constructional schemes, and which demanded 
a very specialized technique from the artisans who 
carried them out, empirical though this may have 
been. This is revealed also by the study of the basic 
lines of so many opulent arabesques [q.v.], whose 
value lies in the convolutions of their stylized vegetal 
stems which are in other respects rather poor; or by 
analysis of the innumerable combinations of star- 
shaped polygons on which are based systems of 
interlacing which often serve as the starting-point 
for further stylizations. This is also expressed by the 
variations developed from the angular or cursive 
letters of the Arabic script, letters which had the 
double advantage of offering continually fresh 
themes to the invention of artists, and of being in 
themselves shapes with an inherent meaning and 
embodying the results of a long development [see 
khatt]- The growing development of ornamental 
compositions of this genre, apparently without regard 
for calligraphic exactitude or legibility, is certainly 
to be included among the most typical aspects of 
art in Islamic countries. 

It goes without saying, however, that such 
siderations alone do not suffice to characterize the 
creative vigour of an art which was not cc 
merely to impress its sign manual on certain i 
of aesthetic expression, notably in the field of 
ment, but was also able to demonstrate, in the field 
of architecture, its ability to respond, with new pro- 
grammes, to the situation resulting from the develop- 
ment of Islam and its establishment in regions where 
there was an older civilization — regions already so 
enriched with past monumental glory as to prevent 
the conquerors from being content with the primitive 
constructions of Mecca or Medina. In this connexion 
it is necessary to emphasize once more the importance 
as a model of what was always the Muslim building 
par excellence — the great mosque or djdmi' [see 
masdjid], created as a whole to meet the needs of the 
khutba ceremonial in the Umayyad period, and later 
reflecting, in a progressive conversion of its various 
parts to more purely religious purposes, the transfor- 
mations which the corresponding institutions had 
similarly undergone. To these transformations of a 
functional order are to be added also the effects of 
different architectural fashions, inducing new steps 
in an evolution which one often underrates by 
taking account, in archaeological definitions, only 
of monuments which can truly be called Mediter- 
ranean, but which in fact reveals, for anyone who 
attempts to view Muslim art as a whole, successive 
adaptations of a structure which was, above all, living. 

This is only one example among many, for the 
origin and the conditions of evolution of other 
Muslim buildings of a more or less religious character 
can be viewed in the same light, e.g., the madrasa, 
[q.v.] with its variants in the dar al-fiadtth and the 
zdwiya; the convent illustrated by the forms of the 
ribat, the khanfrah and the tekke [qq.v.]; and 
finally the mashhad [q.v.] and the kubba [q.v.] or turba 
[q.v.], whose particular characteristics, linked with 
the development of certain hardly orthodox ways 
of worship, were also influenced by regional funerary 
customs and by the growing extravagance of gover- 



nors or other rich persons in building tombs designed 
to glorify their memory. 

It is no less significant to notice, on a different 
level, the various interpretations taken, from the 
beginning of Islam to the present day, by royal 
palaces [see i?asr], for which there has been a con- 
tinuous need since the early conquests, and the 
building of which has been the principal care of 
each Muslim dynast. Nor are the less grandiose 
aspects of civil and military architecture to be 
overlooked, as illustrated by, for example, works of 
public utility such as waterworks, fountains [see 
sabil], baths [see hammam], warehouses [see (jaysa- 
riyya] and covered markets[see suk], simple private 
houses, or the various types of fortification [see 
burdj, hisnI represented as much by town walls as 
by the defence systems of isolated strongholds. Here 
also one may see the preservation of constant 
traditions, which it is difficult to separate from the 
strictly mediaeval historical conditions within which 
they have been perpetuated, but which nevertheless 
deserve to be described as Islamic inasmuch as the 
limits of the geographical region in which they 
appear correspond exactly with those of the 
territories characterized by adhesion to Islam. 

Bibliography: A complete bibliography is 
provided by K. A. C. Creswell, A bibliography of 
the architecture, arts and crafts of Islam, to I Jan. 
i960, London 1962. To general works which have 
appeared recently on Islamic art (among which 
must be mentioned G. Marcais, L'art de I'Islam, 
Paris 1946, republished as L'art musulman, Paris 
1962; G. Wiet, V Islam et l'art musulman, apud 
R. Huyghe, L'art et I'homme, ii, Paris 1958, 133-48, 
and iii, Paris 1961, 206-9; J. Sourdel-Thomine, 
L'art de I'Islam, in Encyclopedic de la PlHade, 
Histoire de l'art, i, Paris 1961, 932-1087; E. 
Kiihnel, Die Kunst des Islam, Stuttgart 1962) 
should be added various studies: L. Massig- 
non, Les mithodes de realisation artisiique des 
peuples de I'Islam, in Syria, ii (1921); E. 
Kuhnel, Die Arabeske, Wiesbaden 1949; idem, 
Kunst und Volkstum im Islam, in Die Welt des 
Islams,N.S., i (1951), 247-82; B. Fares, Essai sur 
I'esprit de la dicoration islamique, Cairo 1952; 
R. Ettinghausen, Interaction and integration in 
Islamic art, in Unity and variety in Muslim 
civilization, Chicago 1955, 107-31; F. Gabrieli, 
Corrdlations entre la littdrature et l'art dans la civi- 
lisation musulmane, in Classicisme et diclin culturel 
dans I'histoire de I'Islam, Paris 1957, 53-7o; 
H. Terrasse, Classicisme et decadence dans les arts 
musulmans, ibid., 71-80; J. Sourdel-Thomine, Art 
et sociite dans le monde de I'Islam, in XXIII' 
Semaine de Synthese (Paris), in the press. 

(J. Sourdel-Thomine) 
FAO [see al-fa'u]. 

FARAB, a small district on both sides of the 
middle Jaxartes at the mouth of its tributary, the 
Aris, which flows from Isfldjab. It is also the name 
of the principal settlement in this district. The 
older Persian form Parab occurs in }}udnd al-'-alam, 
(72, 118 ff., 122), the form Barab in Istakhri (346) 
and Mukaddasi (273; but also Farab) as well as in 
the later Persian sources. The extent of the district 
in both length and breadth was less than a day's 
journey (Ibn Hawkal, 390 ff.). According to Mas'udi 
(Tanbih, 366) the region was flooded annually at the 
end of January, and traffic between the settlements 
was possible only by boat. (In fact the Jaxartes is 
usually frozen at that season.) 
The principal settlement of the district was 



originally apparently Kadar (Kadir?), with a Friday 
mosque and lying about half a parasang east of the 
Jaxartes (Istakhri, 346). Near there but of later 
origin (according to Barthold) was a new centre, 
called after the district Farab, and first mentioned 
by Mukaddasi (262, 273). According to the latter it 
was an extensive fortified city of 70,000 ( ?) inhabi- 
tants (mostly Shafi'is, according to Sam'anI, GMS, 
xx, fol. 415b), with a Friday mosque, a citadel and a 
marketplace. Kadar and Farab fought for pre- 
eminence in the area. Also worthy of mention in the 
district of Farab is Wasidj, a small village on the 
left bank of the river somewhat below the mouth of 
the Aris and, according to Ibn Hawkal, the birth- 
place of the philosopher al-Farabi [q.v.], who got his 
name from the district where he was born. 

Farab is rarely mentioned in historical sources. 
In 121/738 for example the prince of Cac (Tashkent), 
owing to the pressure of the Arabic provincial 
government, had to banish to Farab an Arab who 
had taken refuge with him (Tabari, ii, 1694: the only 
mention of Farab by this historian). Islam did not 
penetrate Farab apparently until the Samauid 
period [q.v.], after the conquest of Isfidjab [q.v.] in 
225/839-40 (see Baladhuri, Futuh, 422; Sam'ani, 
fol. 286b, lines 11-13, s.v. Samani). Wasidj was 
mentioned as late as the 12 th century as a 
fortress. For a long time Farab lay on the north- 
east border of Islamic territory, until 349/960 when 
the neighbouring Turks were also converted to 
Islam. One of the overland routes which led to the 
land of the Kimak Turks had its point of departure 
in Farab (GardizI, 83). 

According to the common view of the Islamic 
sources the city of Farab corresponds to the later 
Otrar (for evidence see that article) which, according 
to Sharaf al-DIn <A1I Yazdl (Zajarnama, Calcutta 
edition, ii, 668), lay two parasangs from the right 
bank of the Jaxartes. For the further development 
of the town see otrar. (The ruins of Otrar are in 
fact about 10 km. from the river). 

Bibliography: Le Strange, 484 ff-; Bar- 
thold, Turkestan, 176-9; Ifudiid al-'-alam, index, 
and 358. See also the bibliography to otrar. 
(W. Barthold-[B. Spuler]) 
al FARABi, Abu Nasr Muhammad b. Muhammad 
b. Tarkhan b. Awzalagh(uzlugh ?), referred to as 
Alfarabius or Avennasar in medieval Latin texts. 
One of the most outstanding and renowned Muslim 
philosophers, he became known as the "second 
teacher", the first being Aristotle. 

Very little is known of al-Farabi's life. There 
neither exists an autobiography nor do we have any 
report by contemporaries. Al-Farabi was of Turkish 
origin. He was born in Turkestan at Wasidj in the 
district of the city of Farab [q.v.] and is said to have 
died at the age of eighty or more in 339/950 in 
Damascus. His father, described as an officer {kd'id 
M a V?i)> ma y have belonged to the Turkish body- 
guard of the Caliph, and al-Farabi may have come 
to Baghdad with him early in life. He settled down 
there for many years as a private individual; he did 
not belong to the society of the court nor was he a 
member of the secretarial class. For reasons unknown 
he accepted in 330/942 an invitation of the Shi'i 
Hamdanid ruler Sayf al-Dawla [q.v.] and lived in his 
entourage, mainly in Aleppo, together with other 
men of letters, until his death. 

His teacher in philosophy was a Christian, the 
Nestorian Yubanna b. Haylan. Al-Farabi himself 



(Ibn Abl Usaybi'a, ii, 135, 8ff.) and al-Mas'udl 
(Tanbih, 122 ff.) connect him ultimately with a 
branch of the Greek philosophical school of Alexan- 
dria, which somehow continued to exist after the 
Arab conquest; some of its representatives are 
•supposed to have come to Antioch, and the 
school subsequently spread to Marw and Harran 
and from there to Baghdad. Yuhanna is reported 
to have come from Marw to Baghdad after 
295/908. The possibility that he had taught al- 
Farabl in Marw cannot be ruled out. Apart from 
this, we learn that al-Farabl was somehow in touch 
with the great translator and commentator Abu 
Bishr Matta b. Yunus (d. 329/940), a prominent 
figure in the Baghdad school of Christian Aristote- 
lians, and that he had a great influence on Yahya b. 
<AdI (d. 362/972), its main representative in the next 
generation. Al-Farabl's extant philosophical works 
bear out his dependence on the 10th century syllabus 
of Christian Aristotelian teaching in Baghdad and 
the impact of the late Alexandrian interpretation of 
■Greek philosophy on his thought (cf. M. Meyerhof, 
Von Alexcmdrien nach Baghdad, in Sitzungsber. d. 
Preuss. Akd., Phil. hist. Klasse, 1930, xxiii). 

ii. — Thought 

Al-Farabi was convinced that philosophy had 
■come to an end everywhere else and that it had found 
a new home and a new life within the world of Islam. 
He believed that human reason is superior to 
religious faith, and hence assigned only a secondary 
place to the different revealed religions which 
provide, in his view, an approach to truth for non- 
philosophers through symbols. Philosophical truth 
is universally valid whereas these symbols vary from 
nation to nation; they are the work of philosopher- 
prophets, of whom Muhammad was one. Al-Farabi 
thus went beyond al-Kindi [q.v.], who naturalized 
philosophy as a kind of appropriate handmaiden of 
revealed truth; on the other hand, he differs from 
al-Razi [q.v.] by not condemning the prophets as 
impostors but allotting, like his master Plato, an 
important and indispensable function to organized 
religion. There is some evidence to suggest that al- 
Farabi reached this view gradually. 

Al-Farabi set out to explain how Greek philo- 
sophy — which had reached him as an almost closed 
system of truth and an established method of 
reaching felicity — could provide valid explanations of 
all the important issues raised in contemporary 
Islamic discussion. Greek natural theology shows 
the truth about God as the first cause of emanation, 
about divine inspiration (wahy) as the outcome of 
the supreme perfection of the human mind, about 
the true nature of creation and divine providence as 
it manifests itself in the hierarchic order of the 
•universe and about immortality, which is by no means 
granted to every human being. As magistra vitae, 
philosophy gives the right views about the freedom of 
moral choice and of the good life altogether. The 
perfect man, the philosopher, ought also to be the 
sovereign ruler; philosophy alone shows the right 
path to the urgent reform of the caliphate. Al- 
Farabi envisages a perfect city state as well as a 
perfect nation (umma) and a perfect world state. 

Apart from building up a philosophical syllabus 
for different levels of study, al-Farabl had to rethink 
the existing Islamic sciences and to give them a new 
meaning and a new function in his novel theistic 
philosophy: a grammar adaptable to every language 
(cf. P. Kraus, Jdbir et la science grecque, Cairo 1942, 
251, n. 2); a dialectical theology (kaldm) and a 



*ABI 779 

jurisprudence {fikh) restricted to the service of a 
particular religion, its "legal theology", and using 
the forms explained in Aristotle's Topics and 
Sophistici Elenchi (cf. Gardet-Anawati, Introduction 
a la thlologie musulmane, Paris 1948, 102 ff.) ; the 
metaphysician is also the true lawgiver, as Plato has 
shown in his Laws, which were translated into 
Arabic a second time by al-Farabl's contemporary 
Yahya b. c Adi [see aflatun]. Rhetoric and Poetic 
provide the best method for bringing home the truth 
to non-philosophers, i.e., the majority of men, by 
working on their imagination ; no Greek philosopher 
would ever have envisaged that Rhetoric and 
Poetic could be applied to Muslim scripture, and to 
the Muslim creed (cf. R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic, 
Oxford 1962, 129 ff.). 

Only a few characteristic tenets of al-Farabl 
can be mentioned here. Like many later Greek 
thinkers, he believed in the ultimate identity of 
Plato's and Aristotle's views. He based himself 
on Aristotle, as understood by the Greek com- 
mentators of late antiquity, in logic, natural 
science, psychology, metaphysics (these metaphysics 
however understood and developed on moderate 
Neopla tonic lines). In political science he preferred 
to follow Plato's Republic and Laws, as understood 
by middle Platonic thinkers, convinced that Plato's 
theoretical philosophy had been superseded by 
Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, but that his 
analysis of the imperfect states and his solution of 
the problems of politics remained valid and compa- 
tible with the changed political conditions. The 
Greek antecedents of this particular branch of later 
Platonism — which also appealed strongly to Ibn 
Rushd [q.v.] — are lost and can be reconstructed only 
from al-Farabl and other Arabic writers (cf. R. 
Walzer, Aspects of Islamic political thought, in 
Oriens, 1963). 

According to al-Farabl, the first cause is at the 
same time the Plotinian one, the eternal creator of 
an eternal world, and the Aristotelian Divine Mind, 
a conception which is probably of middle-Platonic 
origin. Aristotle's vou? Troi7]Tix6? is for al-Farabl 
neither identical with the first cause nor situated 
within the human soul but has become a transcen- 
dental entity mediating between the higher and the 
sublunar world and the human mind — probably 
another later Greek interpretation of the difficult 
Aristotelian chapter Dean., Ill 5. Very remarkable 
is the theory of imagination and prophecy adopted 
by al-Farabi; it may also derive from some otherwise 
lost Greek original (cf. R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic, 
206 ff.). Prophecy, though being an indispensable 
ingredient in man's perfection, is auxiliary to his 
rational faculty, being confined to the inferior 
faculty of representation. It is neither described as 
a state of possession by supernatural powers nor 
understood as a mystic 'state'. Divine inspiration 
may be granted to the perfect man who has reached 
the highest philosophical level together with the 
highest form of prophecy. 

The Christian-Arabic Aristotelian teaching in 
4th/ioth century Baghdad is the immediate back- 
ground of al-Farabi's thought. His proximate 
ancient sources are within the orbit of the Greek 
philosophical schools in 6th century Alexandria. To a 
large extent, he appears to continue a tradition which 
became extinct during the later centuries of Byzan- 
tine civilization and whose original form may now be 
reconstructed from Arabic versions and imitations 
only. His particular variation of Neoplatonic 
metaphysics and his full acknowledgment of the 



political aspects of Plato's thought distinguish him 
from Proclus and his followers. Much more of 
Porphyry's thought may be preserved in al-Farabi's 
work than is apparent to us today. His ultimate roots 
seem to lie in a pre-Plotinian platonizing tradition. 

Al Farabl's importance for subsequent Islamic 
philosophers is considerable, and would well deserve 
to be described in detail. His impact on the writings 
of 4th/ioth century authors such as the Ikhwan 
al-Safa', al-Mas c udI, Miskawayh, and Abu '1-Hasan 
Muljammad al-Amirl is undeniable. Ibn Sina seems 
to have known his works intimately and Ibn Rushd 
follows him in the essentials of his thought. Maimo- 
nides appreciated him highly. His political ideas had 
a belated and lasting success from the 13th century 
onwards (cf. T. W. Arnold, The Caliphate, Oxford 
1924, 125 ff.). A few of his treatises became known 
to the Latin Schoolmen; more were translated into 
mediaeval Hebrew. 

More than one hundred works of varying size 
are attributed by the Arab bibliographers to al- 
Farabi, not all of them genuine. One, the Risdld 
known as al-Fusils fi 'l-hikma, is most probably 
by Ibn Sina (cf. S. Pines, in REI, 1951, 121 ff.), 
and its wrong attribution to al-Farabi has made it 
unnecessarily difficult to realise how fundamental 
the differences between these two most influential 
Islamic philosophers are, in spite of many obvious 
similarities. 

a. First to be mentioned among the genuine 
works are the great scholarly commentaries on a 
number of Aristotle's lecture courses; they continue 
the tradition of the late Greek schools without a 
gap (cf. the twenty-two volumes of the Commentaria 
in Aristotelem graeca published by the Berlin 
Academy); they seem to have been used by Ibn 
Badjdja [q.v.] and especially by Ibn Rushd [q.v.] and 
have to a large extent been superseded by their 
commentaries. One of them, on the Ilepl £pnit]vetas, 
has just been edited for the first time, with valuable 
and copious indexes, by W. Kutsch and S. Marrow 
(Beirut i960) ; it is based on a Greek original different 
both from the 6th century A.D. commentary by 
Ammonius (Comm. in Arist. graeca, iv, 5) and the 
Greek work used by his Latin contemporary 
Boethius; all three seem somehow to depend on a 
lost commentary by Porphyry. We learn about 
similar commentaries on all the remaining parts of 
the Organon, including the Rhetorics (widely, I think, 
used by Ibn Rushd), on the Physics (which al- 
Farabi read more than forty times), the De caelo, 
the Meteorology and parts of the Nicomachean 
Ethics (depending probably on a lost commentary 
by Porphyry). There may well have been more. 
A commentary on Alexander of Aphrodisias' Deanima 
is mentioned. A commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge 
attributed to al-Farabi is in fact by Abu '1 Faradj 
b. al-Tayyib (cf. S. M. Stern, inBSOAS, xix(ig57), 
119 ff.). I assume that Ibn Rushd's Commentary 
on Plato's Republic (ed. E. I. J. Rosenthal, Cam- 
bridge 1956) depends on a similar work by al-Farabi. 

b. A number of relatively small introductory 
monographs 'toi? elaayon^voi?'. 

A. Logic. Al-tawfi'a fi 'Imantik, ed. M. Tiirker, 
with Turkish translation, Ankara 1958; Introductory 
sections on logic, ed. D. M. Dunlop, with English 
translation, in IQ, 1955; ed. M. Tiirker, with Turkish 
translation, Ankara 1958; Paraphrase of Porphyry's 
Isagoge, ed. D. M. Dunlop, with English translation, 
in I Q, 1956; Paraphrase of Aristotle's Categories, ed. 



D. M. Dunlop, with English translation, in / Q, 
1958; Paraphrase of Aristotle's Prior Analytics, ed. 
M. Tiirker, with Turkish translation, Ankara 1958, 
with a very interesting opening chapter; English 
translation prepared by N. Rescher; Treatise on the 
canons of the art of poetry, ed. A. J. Arberry, with 
English translation, in RSO, 1938 (Arabic text 
reprinted by A. Badawi, Cairo 1953). 

B. Physics. On vacuum, ed. Necati Lugal and 
Aydin Sayili with Turkish and English trans., 
Ankara 1951 (see further A. Sayili in Belleten, xv/57 
(1951), 151-74); Against Astrology, ed. F. Dieterici, 
Alfarabi's Philosophische Abhandlungen, Leiden 1890, 
with German translation, 1892; cf. C. A. Nallino, 
Raccolta di scritti, vi, 1944, 23 ff.; De Intellectu (fi 
'I 'akl), critical edition by M. Bouyges, Beirut 
1938; medieval Latin translation ed. E. Gilson 
(with translation by himself), in Archives d'histoire 
doctrinale et litUraire du moyen dge, iv (1929), 113 ff. 

C. Metaphysics. About the scope of Aristotle's 
Metaphysics, ed. F. Dieterici, op. cit., with German 
translation; On the One (fi 'l-Wdhid wa 'l-wahda), 
critical edition and English translation by H. 
Mushtaq (in preparation). 

D. Ethics and Politics. Reminder of the Way 
of Happiness (al-tanbih 'aid sabil al-sa'dda), ed. 
Hyderabad 1326/1908; mediaeval Latin trans- 
lation ed. H. Salman, in Recherches de thiologit 
ancienne et midUvale, xii (1940), 33 ff.; Aphorisms oj 
the statesman (Fusul al-madani), ed. D. M. Dunlop, 
with English translation and notes, Cambridge 1961; 
Compendium Legum Platonis, ed. F. Gabrieli, with 
Latin translation and notes, Plato Arabus III, 
London 1952; On the best religion (fi 'l-milla al- 
fddila), an important but still unedited treatise. 

E. Miscellanea. Harmony between the views of 
Plato and Aristotle (al-djam c bayna ra'yay al-Hakim 
Afldtun al-ildhi wa-Aristutalis), ed. F. Dieterici, op. 
cit., with German translation; ed. Nader, Beyrouth 
i960. Answers to questions (Djawdb masdHl suHla 
'anhd), ed. F. Dieterici, op. cit., with German 
translation; ed. Hyderabad 1344/1925. Main ques- 
tions C-Uyun al-masdHl) , ed. F. Dieterici, op. cit., 
with German translation. 

The very titles of three not yet traced refutations 
of philosophical adversaries help to circumscribe 
Al-Farabi's position among the philosophers of his 
time. One is against Galen (Djalinus) — known 
to the Arabs not only as a physician but as a philo- 
sopher as well — and rejects Galen's attacks against 
Aristotle's first cause, most probably in the wake of 
Alexander of Aphrodisias' refutation of Galen [see 
djalInus]. Another is against John Philoponus 
(again in defence of Aristotle) and, by implication, 
al-Kindl [q.v.], who both adhere to the creation of 
the world from nothing (cf. R. Walzer, Greek into 
Arabic, 193 ff.). In a third treatise al-Farabi set out 
to refute Muhammad b. Zakariyya al-Razi [q.v.], 
presumably because of his belief in atoms and the 
creation of the world in time. A treatise against Ibn 
al-Rawandi may have been concerned with his 
radical rejection of prophecy altogether (cf. P. Kraus, 
Beitrage zur islamischen Ketzergeschichte, in RSO, 
1932). 

d. There is finally a group of important major 
works which sum up the results of philosophical 
research and al-Farabi's further reaching intentions. 
They all are concerned with the sovereign position 
to be given to philosophy within the realm of 
thinking and with the organization of the perfect 
society and the philosopher-king. Their right under- 
standing provides, in my view, the key to al-Farabi's 



l-FARABI — FARADJ 



781 



thought; this, however, is made particularly difficult 
for us, since he is, from the very outset, determined 
to let the reader find out the application for himself 
(cf. the first page of Pluto Arabus III). 

I. Survey of the Sciences (K. Ihsd> al-'-ulum). Best 
edition by 'Uthman Amin, Cairo 1931-48. Mediaeval 
Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona, printed by 
A. Gonzales Palencia, Madrid 1932 (together with an 
edition of the Arabic text and a Spanish translation). 

II. A work in three books, in contents very 
similar to III and IV, but perhaps earlier. (1) On 
attaining felicity (fi tahsil al-sa'-dda), ed. Hyderabad 
1 345/1926. Critical edition and English translation 
prepared by M. Mahdi. (2) On the philosophy of 
Plato, ed. with Latin translation and notes by 
F. Rosenthal and R. Walzer, Plato Arabus II, 
London 1943. New ed. and Eng. trans, prepared by 
M. Mahdi. (3) On the philosophy of Aristotle, ed. 
M. Mahdi, Beirut 1961. English translation prepared 
by the same author. | 

III. On the principles of the views of the inhabitants 
of the excellent state (fi mabddP ard'- ahl al-madina 
al-fddila). Editions by F. Dieterici, Leiden 1895, and 
A. Nader, Beirut 1959. Ger. trans. (Der Musterstaat) 
F. Dieterici, Leiden 1900; Fr. trans. R. P. Jaussen 
and others, Cairo 1949; Span, trans. M. Alonso 
Alonso, in al-And., xxvi-xxvii (1961-62). A critical 
edition, with English translation and commentary, 
is being prepared by R. Walzer. 

IV. On political government (al-siydsa al-mada- 
niyya), a similar survey of the whole of philosophy, 
written with the same definite political purpose in 
mind. Edited Hyderabad 1346/1927. Ger. trans. 
(Die Staatsleitung), by F. Dieterici, Leiden 1904. 
A critical edition and an English translation are 
being prepared in Chicago. 

Bibliography: C. Brockelmann, P, 232 ff.; 
SI, 375 ff., 957 ff-; Pearson, nos. 4713-50 and 
Supplement, 1342-58 ; A. Ates, Farabinin eserlerinin 
bibliyografyasi, in Belleten, xv/57 (1951), 175-92; 
N. Rescher, Al-Farabi. An annotated bibliography, 
Pittsburg 1962 ; M. Steinschneider, Die Hebrdischen 
Vbersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als 
Dolmetscher, reprint, Graz 1956, 158 ft.; idem, 
Al-Farabi, in Mimoires de VAcadimie Imperiale 
des Sciences de Saint-Peter sbourg, 1869; Ibrahim 
Madkour, La place d'Al-Fdrdbl dans Vecole philo- 
sophique musulmane, Paris 1934; P. Kraus, 
Plotinchez les Arabes, in B/£,xxiii (1940), 263 ff.; 
idem, Jdbir et la science grecque, Cairo 1942, 
passim; Leo Strauss, Farabi's Plato, in Ginsberg 
Jubilee Volume, New York 1945; idem, How 
Farabi read Plato's Laws, in Milanges Massignon, 
iii, Damascus 1957; E. I. J. Rosenthal, Political 
thought in medieval Islam', Cambridge 1962, 122 ff. ; 
Sa'id Zayid, al-Fdrdbi (Nawabigh al-fikr al-'arabi, 
31), Cairo 1962; IA (art. Farabi by Abdiilhak 
Adnan [Adivar]). (R. Walzer) 

FARADJ, al-Malik al-Nasir Zayn al-DIn Abc 
'l-Sa'adat, 26th Mamluk Sultan of Egypt and 
second of the Circassians [see cerkes ii and 
burdjiyya]. The son of Sultan Barkuk [q.v.] and a 
Greek mother, Shirin. Faradj was born in Cairo in 
791/1389 and succeeded to the Sultanate upon the 
death of his father on 15 Shawwal 801/20 June 1399. 
Owing to his youth Faradj began his reign under the 
guardianship of two of his father's amirs: Taghrl 
Birdi al-Bashbughawi (father of the historian) and 
Aytimish al-Badjasi, but disagreements among the 
amirs and their factions soon led to an early pro- 
clamation of his majority, in Rabi c I 802/November 
1399. The first reign of Faradj lasted six years, 



until he was deposed at Cairo in favour of his 
younger brother c Abd al- c Aziz, who took the regnal 
name al-Malik al-Mansur, on 25 Rabi c I 808/20 
September 1405. Seventy days later, on 5 Djumada II 
808/28 November 1405, Faradj was restored to power 
for a second reign, which lasted until his deposition 
at Damascus on 25 Muharram 815/7 May 1412. A few 
weeks later, on 16 Safar 815/28 May 1412, after 
having been succeeded unwillingly by the c Abbasid 
Caliph al-Musta c in bi'llah [q.v.], Faradj was publicly 
humiliated and killed in Damascus. 

Neither of the reigns of Faradj represents a partic- 
ularly constructive period in Mamluk history, a 
result of the continual strife of high-ranking amirs, 
aggravated by the consequences of Barkuk's policy 
of introducing large numbers of Circassians into 
Egypt and Syria and of favouring them over the 
hitherto predominant Turkish mamluks. Both 
factions found leaders among the anyway quarrel- 
some amirs, and the resulting clashes, usually based 
on rival headquarters in Egypt and Syria, account 
for most of Faradj's movements in both his reigns, 
during which he made no less than seven expeditions 
to Syria. The major protagonists in these internal 
Mamluk struggles included the amirs Yashbak al- 
Sha'bani, favoured at first by Faradj and supported 
by Circassians, and Aytimish al-Badjasi, who led the 
Turkish faction and was supported by Tanam, 
viceroy (ndHb) of Damascus. After the defeat and 
execution of Aytimish by Faradj at Gaza and Damas- 
cus (3 Sha'ban 802/30 March 1400), a fresh conflict 
broke out between Yashbak and Nawruz al-Hafizi at 
Cairo, in which the former fell from power and 
favour. The struggle was further confused by 
the complicity of the amirs Djakam, Shavkh 
al-Mahmudi, now viceroy of Damascus, Baybars 
(later atabeg [see atabak al- c asakir]), and Taghrl 
Birdi al-Bashbughawi. On 25 Rabi 1 I 808/20 
September 1405, upon report that Faradj had fled 
in the company of Taghri Birdi to Syria, it was 
Yashbak and Baybars who arranged the accession 
of c Abd al- c Aziz. After the restoration of Faradj, 
Djakam and Nawruz revolted in Syria, the former 
proclaiming himself Sultan, with the regnal name 
al-Malik al-<Adil (n Shawwal 809/21 March 1407), 
but was killed soon after in his siege of Amid. Syria, 
however, remained in the hands of Nawruz, who 
succeeded in winning over Shaykh al-Mahmudi, the 
amir sent by Faradj to replace him. Despite three 
expeditions against them Faradj was unable to 
break the power of these two amirs, who defeated 
him finally at Ladjdjun (Dhu '1-Hidjdja 814/March- 
April 1412), and forced his deposition at Damascus 
whither he had fled. After a brief reign of six months 
by his puppet, the Caliph al-Musta c in, Shaykh 
himself became Sultan, taking the regnal name al- 
Mu'ayyad [q.v.]. 

The only exception to the bleak rule of amirs' 
rivalries in this period is provided by the appearance 
in Syria of Timur [q.v.]. Although Faradj, after some 
hesitation and refusals of aid to the Djala'irid and 
Ottoman rulers against the threat from the East, did 
make a stand at Damascus against Timur, it would 
not be true to assert either that the external challenge 
provoked any real degree of internal consolidation 
within the Mamluk Sultanate, or that fear of defeat 
at the hands of Faradj made Timur turn north to 
Anatolia and Bayazid I rather than south to Egypt, 
after plundering Damascus (Radjab 803/March 1401). 
The chronicler Abu '1-Mahasin b. Taghri Birdi [q.v ] 
does, however, report Timur's respect for the Egyptian 
army, whose effectiveness he considered reduced 



FARADJ — FARAH ANTON 



only owing to the youth of the Sultan and the lack 
of unity among its commanders (Nudium, vi, 46). 
The brief encounter between the two rulers at 
Damascus also provided the occasion for an interest- 
ing if inconclusive meeting between Tlmur and Ibn 
Khaldun who, though out of office, had been prevailed 
upon to accompany Faradj to Syria. 

With regard to the role of Faradj in Mamlflk 
history the two Egyptian chroniclers al-Makrizi and 
Ibn Taghri Bird! represent diametrically opposed 
opinions. Whereas the former ascribes to him the 
ruin of Egypt and Syria because of poor admini- 
stration, debased coinage, corrupt officials, and 
oppressive taxation (Khitat. cited Nudium, vi, 27: ; 
the latter gives Faradj a most favourable obituary 
despite his observation that the Sultan had brought 
about the financial ruin of his family and indirectly 
the death of his father (Nudium, vi, 270-4). In ' 
the remarks of Ibn Taghri BirdI must be considered 
with the greatest care, owing to the involvement of 
his family's affairs with those of Faradj, who had 
married a sister of his and, during an acute crisis, 
appointed his father atabeg (810/1407-8). His son's 
portrait of Taghri Bird! as a loyal and self-sacrificing 
subject of the Sultan may not be inaccurate, bi 
is bound to have affected the chronicler's viev 
the recipient of such loyalty and sacrifice. Such 
observations as are found among the commercial 
records of Western powers then active in Egypt and 
Syria would suggest that al-Makrizi's evaluation of 
Faradj as one addicted to arbitrary fiscal policies 
and indifferent to the importance of a sound and 
consistent administration, is not unfounded. 

Bibliography: Ibn Taghri Bird!, Nudium, vi, 

1-300; idem, Manhal sdfi, fol. 507 (no. 1789; see 

Wiet, in Mlm. Inst, igypte, xix, 265, for further 

bibliography, including inscriptions); Ibn Iyas, 

BaddH 1 al-zuhur, i, index; al-Kalkashandi, Subh 

al-a c shd, iii, 439; vii, 305-25, 407-n; Weil, Ge- 

schichte der Chalifen, v, 72-105, 108-25; W. Heyd, 

Histoire du commerce du Levant, ii, 471-2; Gaude- 

froy-Demombynes, La Syrie i Vlpoque des Mame- 

louks, xxiv-xxvii, cvii; W. J. Fischel, Ibn Khaldun 

and Tamerlane, passim; Mayer, Mamluk costume, 

index. (J. Wansbrough) 

al-FARADJ BA C D al-SHIDDA [see nadira]. 

al-FARAFRA, an oasis in the eastern Libyan 

desert, in Egypt, situated approximately on lat. 27 N. 

and long. 28 E., equidistant from the Nile and the 

Libyan frontier. It is a halting stage between the oases 

of al-Dakhla 170 km. to the south-west and those of 

al-Bahriyya 160 km. to the north-north-east; the 

routes are motorable only with difficulty. Al-Farafra 

is a single village of about 1,000 inhabitants. Its mud 

huts surround a slightly raised fortification. Village 

and oasis are situated in a vast plain 70 to 90 m. 

high, partially covered with sand and surrounded 

by an immense barren plateau of Lower Eocene 

limestone extending all round, some 300 m. in 

height; the depression includes a score of wells and 

springs, the most abundant of which are 'Ayn al- 

Bellad and c Ayn Ebsay. They provide the irrigation 

for a plantation of palms with a few olive-trees, 

pomegranates, and some barley, wheat, sorghum and 

onions. Groups of wild palms mark other areas with 

water. The inhabitants sell dates and a few olives, 

and buy in particular grain. 

Al-Farafra is said to be the TS-ihw (land of 
oxen) of Pharaonic times and the Trinytheos of 
Graeco-Roman antiquity. Al-Bakri (37) describes the 
alum and vitriol mines (the latter including iron or 
copper sulphate) in the vicinity, he extols its im- 



portance, and attributes to it a Coptic population. 
It is now Muslim. It appears to have suffered much, 
in the course of time from the razzias of the nomads 
of Egypt and Cyrenaica (Barka), and more recently, 
since i860, from the seizure of its estates by the 
Sanusiyya. 

Bibliography: al-Bakri, L'Afrique septen- 

trionale, tr. de Slane, 2nd ed. Algiers 1913; G. 

Rohlfs, Drei Monate in der libischen Wuste, Cassel 

1871, and map in Pet. Mitt., 1875; H. J. L. Beadnel, 

Farafra, its topology and geology, Geological Survey 

of Egypt, 1889. (J. Despois) 

FAR AH, town in south-western Afghanistan, 

capital of the district ( c ald-hukumat) of the same 

name. The town is located on the Farah river 62 5' E. 

32 23' N., alt. 1738 m. 

Farah is located where trade routes from Harat, 
Kandahar and Seistan join and the site has been 
occupied from ancient times. The name of the river 
is probably found in Avestan FradaOa {Yasht, xix, 67). 
The town is mentioned by many classical authors 
under various names; Prophthasia, Propasta, and 
Phrada (see Bibliography). 

Farah is not mentioned in Arabic works dealing 
with the conquests, but it is mentioned (as Farah) by 
the geographers Istakhri (247), Ibn Hawkal (420), 
and al-Mukaddasi (306). The bridge over the river, 
and Kharidjis in the town are both noted. Although 
the town is mentioned by later geographies (Hudud 
al-'-alam, Yakut, etc.) it never had any historical 
importance. It was abandoned in the time of the 
Mongols, rebuilt, and sacked by Nadir Shah, and 
today has ca. 15,000 inhabitants. 

Bibliography: Classical sources are discussed 
in Pauly-Wissowa, xx, 738; xxiii, 817. Arabic 
sources are summarized in Le Strange, 341. On 
the present town see E. Caspani and E. Cagnacci, 
Afghanistan crocevia dell Asia, Milan 1951, 256. 

(R. N. Frye) 
FARAH ANTON, (An tun being the family name; 
1874-1922), Arab author and journalist. 
Trained in a Greek-Orthodox school near Tripoli 
(now in Lebanon), he migrated to Egypt, and 
published a journal in Alexandria. He then migrated 
to the U.S.A. but, following the Turkish revolution 
of 1908, went back to Egypt and became active in 
the national movement. 

Well versed in French literature (and translations) 
he was attracted mostly by social-political-ethical 
and philosophical-religious themes, but he lacked 
method, system, and consistency. His adherence to 
Westernism in the spirit of the French Revolution, 
as well as his lucid exposition, felicity of expression 
and a ceaseless search for new ideas and the 'latest 
word' marked him as a representative of enlighten- 
ment. He was essentially a gifted eclectic, translator 
and excerpter, exponent of Western ideas and of 
their conflicts in his mind. Thus he brought to the 
Arab reader Renan's ideas on the origins of Christ- 
ianity and on Ibn Rushd ; discussions of Nietzsche and 
Tolstoy, of socialist theories. A proclivity for pole- 
mics caused him to clash with literary and public 
figures (notably with Muh. 'Abduh, on Ibn Rushd). 
His New Jerusalem (1904) is a novel set in the time 
of the Arab conquest, and, though it suffers from 
lengthy ideological monologues, has a place in the 
history of the novel in Arabic. He was also a play- 
wright. 

His influence was considerable and he used to be 
studied in schools as a classical author, mainly on 
account of scope and style. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann S III, 192-4; 



FARAH ANTON — FARA'ipiYYA 



Y. Dagher, Masddir al-dirdsa al-adabiyya, ii, 
Beirut 1956, 147-52; I. Yu. Krackovskiy, Izbr. 
Soi., iii, 40-2. (M. Perlmann) 

FARAHABAD, the name of a place in Mazan- 
daran, situated 36° 50' N., 53° 2' 38" E., 17 m. north of 
Sari and 26 m. north-west of Ashraf [?.«.], near the 
mouth of the Tidjin (or Tidjan, or Tidjina) river. 
Formerly known as Tahan, the site was renamed 
Farahabad by Shah c Abb5s I, who in 1020/1611-2 
or 1021/1612-3 ordered the construction of a royal 
palace there. Around the palace were built residences, 
gardens, baths, bazaars, mosques and caravanserais. 
The new town, according to Pietro della Valle, was 
peopled by Shah c Abbas with colonies of different 
nationalities — including many Christians from Georgia 
— transplanted from territories overrun by Safawid 
forces. Farahabad was linked to Sari by Shah 
'Abbas's famous causeway (completed in 1031/ 
1621), and until his death in 1038/1629 Shah 
c Abbas regularly spent the winter either at Farahabad 
or Ashraf, usually not returning to his capital 
Isfahan until after Naw-rflz. The Ta'rikh-i c Alam- 
drd-yi l Abbdsi uses the terms ddr al-saltana and ddr 
al-mulk with reference to Farahabad; this suggests 
that it had become virtually a second capital (cf. 
also A Chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia, London 
1939, i. 282}. 

Pietro della Valle, who visited Farahabad in 1618, 
declared that the circuit of the walls was equal to, 
if not greater than, that of Rome or Constantinople, 
and that the town contained streets of more than a 
league in length, and Chardin, who saw it forty years 
later, stated that the palace housed a vast treasure 
ot dishes and basins of porcelain or china, cornaline, 
agate, coral, amber, cups of rock-crystal, and other 
varieties without number. In 1668, however, Farah- 
abad was sacked by the Cossacks under Stenka 
Razin, and it suffered further destruction during the 
period of anarchy which followed the collapse of the 
§afawid dynasty in the 18th century. Hanway, who 
passed through Farahabad in 1744, stated that the 
place had been abandoned, only a few Persian and 
Armenian inhabitants remaining there, and Fraser, 
who was there in 1822, described the ruins as 
"vastly inferior to those of Ashraf". 

At the present day Farahabad is only a small 
village; it gives its name to a district (buliik) of 
Mazandaran (see Rabino, 119-20). 

Bibliography : Iskandar Beg, Ta'rikh-i 'Alam- 

drd-yi c Abbdsi, ii, Tehran 1335S./1956, index; 

Pietro della Valle, Viaggi, quoted in J. de Morgan, 

Mission scientifique en Perse, ii, Paris 1894, 223, 

228; J. Hanway, An historical account of the 

British trade over the Caspian Sea etc., London 

1753, i, 209; Sir John Chardin, Voyages ...en 

Perse (ed. Langles), Paris 1811, iii, 454"9! J. B. 

Fraser, Travels and adventures etc. on the southern 

banks of theCaspian Sea, London 1826, 70-4; G.N. 

Curzon, Persia and the Persian question, London 

1892, i, 378; H. L. Rabino, Mazandaran and 

Astardbdd, London 1928, 49, 63. (R. M. Savory) 

FARA'IP (a.), plural of farida [see fard], literally 

"appointed or obligatory portions", is the technical 

term for the fixed shares in an estate ('/„, '/j, 

Vs. 1 U, '/s and Vi.) which are given to certain heirs, who 

are called dhawu '1-fardHd or ashdb al-fardHd, on the 

basis of Kur'an, IV, 11-2 and 176. These Kur'anic 

enactments aim at modifying a system of purely 

agnatic succession, under which only men can 

inherit, in favour of the nearest female relatives 

(including half-brothers on the mother's side), the 

spouse, and also the father (who is protected against 



being excluded by existing male descendants). It is 
rare that the concurrence of several shares leads to 
the exclusion of near male relatives; this can never 
happen to the descendants and ascendants. Islamic 
law, by some consequential extensions and distinc- 
tions, has systematically completed the rules 
given in the Kur 3 5n; it has also provided solutions 
for those exceptional cases in which the aggregate of 
the shares amounts to more than one unit, or the 
mechanical application of the rules would lead to a 
solution which is considered unjust. For the details 
of all this see mIrath, 'awl and akdariyya. 

The rules concerning fard'id are the most typical 
feature of the Islamic law of inheritance, and are 
rather complicated in detail; because of their 
importance the whole of the Islamic law of inheri- 
tance is called Him al-fardHd, and it has often been 
treated in separate works. A person skilled in the 
science of fard'id is called {arid or faradi. 

Bibliography: F. Peltier and G.-H. Bousquet, 
Les successions agnatiques mitigies, Paris 1935; 
Juynboll, Handbuch, 247-55; idem, Handleiding, 
253-60; Santillana, Istituzioni, ii, 505-14; L. 
Milliot, Introduction, 461-71; A. A. A. Fyzee, 
Outlines, 2nd ed., 336-8, 341-56; J. Schacht, 
Introduction to Islamic Law (forthcoming), chap. 23 
(with bibliography); L. Hirsch, Der Uberfliessende 
Strom in der Wissenschaft des Erbrechts, Leipzig 
1891 (Arabic text and translation); idem, The 
overflowing river, etc., 2nd ed., Aden 1899. 



(Th.V 



FARA'ipiYYA, a Muslim sect in Bengal 
established at the beginning of the 19th century by 
Hadjdji Shari c at Allah. The setting in which the sect 
was born and developed was eastern Bengal in the 
period immediately following the British conquest. 
Peasant life in that State, perhaps more than in 
other parts of India, was influenced by Hindu 
customs and practices. At that time the virtual loss 
of political supremacy by a section of the governing 
Muslim class, the support which the British some- 
times gave to the Hindu elements, the unbridled 
power of the zaminddrs [q.v.], rich landed proprietors 
both Hindu and Muslim, over the peasant masses the 
majority of whom were Muslim, British "liberalism" 
which in the end actually increased this power, all 
these factors helped to form a religio-social reaction 
which found particular expression in the fardHdiyya 
(local Indo-Persian pronunciation fardHziyya). Hadj- 
dji Shari'at Allah was born at an uncertain date in 
a humble family in the pargana of Bandarkhola, a 
district of Farldpur (eastern Bengal); when hardly 
18 years old he went to Mecca, where he remained 
for a long time (about twenty years apparently) and 
is said to have been the pupil of Shaykh Tahir al- 
Sunbul al-Makkl, a Shafi'i scholar. The date of his 
return to Bengal varies in the different sources, 
which give it as 1807, 1822 or 1828, while certain 
writers affirm that he made two journeys to Mecca, 
returning home to his country in the interval. If we 
accept the latest date, it is unquestionable that 
Sharl'at Allah was in touch with the Wahhabi re- 
formers in Mecca. A specific Wahhabi influence is 
in no sense indispensable for an understanding of 
the orientation of Shari'at Allah's activities in 
Bengal, which are to be explained above all by the 
contrast he so vehemently resented between a 
certain type of Islam in his own country and the 
"Arab" Islam of the Prophet's native land; mutatis 
mutandis, other Muslim reformers in India (beginning 
with Shah Wali Allah of Delhi himself) had had the 
same experience. On returning to his native country, 



78 4 



FARA'IDIYYA — FARAS 



Sharl'at Allah launched a reform movement which 
mainly attracted the lower classes of Muslims in 
Bengal, and in substance of a legal rather than 
mystical nature, aiming at the widespread appli- 
cation of the shari'a so often spoken of in Islam, but 
so laxly applied. The very name of the movement 
(from fard'id "religious duties") underlines this 
aspect. To Western observers today, some of the 
reforms envisaged by Shari'at Allah might seem to 
be of little interest ; thus, besides various para-Hindu 
customs, he rejected the celebration, with funerary 
lamentations and special ceremonies, of the martyr- 
dom of Husayn at Karbala', the pomp and cere- 
monial that had been introduced into the very 
simple, austere rites of Muslim marriage and burial, 
the offering of fruit and flowers at tombs, etc.; 
moreover, he prohibited the use of the mystical 
terms pir and murid ("master" and "disciple"), 
which at that time conveyed an almost Brahmin-like 
implication of total devotion of the disciple to his 
spiritual master, out of keeping with the sturdy 
Islamic tradition, and instead proposing the two 
terms ustddh and shdgird (also Persian, but more 
"secular"); the initiation ceremony common to the 
various Muslim confraternities, the bay'a, was also 
prohibited and replaced by a simple statement of 
repentance (tawba) and a changed life made by the 
murid (or shdgird). Another significant precept of 
Shari'at Allah was the prohibition of communal 
prayers on Fridays or feastdays, based on the ex- 
clusion of British India from the dar al-Isldm. But 
Shari'at Allah does not seem to have gone so far as 
to preach the djihdd, the holy war. His preoccupations, 
more concretely, were with the wretched condition 
of the oppressed Bengal peasants (especially as their 
lack of financial means prevented them from turning 
to the courts, which in certain cases could have given 
them justice). He tried to alleviate their miserable 
state by living among poor peasants as one of them 
and by making efforts to organize them to escape 
from the unjust demands of the land-owners, whom 
he revealed as transgressors of the pure holy law of 

Shari'at Allah's son Muhammad Muhsin, known 
as Dudhu Miyan (1819-60), had a more vigorous 
temperament, a talent for organizing and a natural 
authority; under his direction the Fara'idiyya 
became a homogeneous and disciplined organization 
with Dudhu Miyan himself at its head; by a curious 
violation of the founder's precept he was called pir. 
The territory of eastern Bengal (especially the region 
of Bakargandj, Dacca, Faridpur and Pabna where 
the sect was most active) was divided into districts 
entrusted to special agents whose duty it was to 
make converts and to organize resistance to the 
rich proprietors. An especially effective and im- 
portant measure was the prohibition made by 
Dudhu Miyan of recourse to the ordinary courts; 
disputes between the Fara'idiyya themselves had to 
be settled by him personally. Since in many cases 
the impossibility of the poor peasants securing 
justice sprang from their individual lack of resources, 
as has been said, "collections" were organized in 
order to indict the mminddrs in the courts in cases 
of injustice to peasants unable to defend themselves 
without help. In other words, the Fara'idiyya did 
not restrict themselves to upholding the beauty of 
the theoretical principles of "ancient" Islam, like 
■"The earth is God's" (as Dudhu Miyan in fact used 
to proclaim), but they had found quite effective 
ways of putting them into practice. Since the taxes 
and forced labour imposed by landlords on peasants 



were illegal from the point of view of the sharV-a, 
Dudhu Miyan advised landless peasants to leave the 
privately-owned estates and settle on the kkdss 
mahall, that is, State property, thus avoiding all 
taxes other than those owed to the government. It 
is certain that, faced by a movement so efficiently 
organized, the rich zaminddrs and indigo planters 
united and tried to destroy it. As in similar cases, 
two methods were used; firstly, they tried violence, 
both privately and officially (Dudhu Miyan was even 
prosecuted on charges, which were more or less 
proved, of rapine, etc. Numerous disturbances broke 
out in the areas controlled by the Fara'idiyya and 
the landowners resorted to barbarous tortures); 
secondly, on the strength of certain religious juridical 
statements by the Fara'idiyya, they tried to demon- 
strate their "heterodoxy" and at the same time, 
placing the discussions on a theoretical-religious 
basis, they tried to turn the Fara'idiyya aside from 
practical action. To a certain extent this second 
method became effective, while the Fara'idiyya lost 
the sympathy of some neutral Muslims of the neigh- 
bourhood (easily persuaded by the Muslim land- 
owners) on account of the mistakes made by them 
and by Dudhu Miyan who, from Bahadurpur where 
he generally lived, "excommunicated" by declaring 
"non-Muslim" those who were not willing to accept 
all the doctrines of the sect. Disturbances became 
more and more serious and frequent and, in 1836, 
the enemies of the Fara'idiyya succeeded in having 
Dudhu Miyan sent to prison in c AHpur. The move- 
ment continued to vegetate under the direction 
of Dudhu Miyan's sons, who were lacking in energy 
and whose qualities of organization were very 
inferior to those of their father. Dudhu Miyan died 
in i860 and was buried in Bahadurpur, but a sub- 
sequent flood has left no trace of his tomb. The sect 
dwindled, to become one of the very many purely 
religious communities in India, while its social 
effectiveness was lost. 

Bibliography: Abdul Bari, The reform 
movement in Bengal, in A history of the freedom 
movement (being the story of Muslim struggle for 
the freedom of Hindo- Pakistan, IJOJ-194J), i, 
Karachi 1957, 542 ff. (with copious bibliography). 

(A. Bausani) 
FARAS (a.) (pi. afrds, furus, fursdn) denotes the 
Horse (Equus caballus), in the sense of saddle-horse; 
philologists further restrict the meaning of the word 
to "saddle-horse of the Arabian breed". This original 
name is applied to both sexes without distinction, 
and serves as a noun of unity for the collective of the 
species hhayl (Equidae) ; hence this term is found in 
agreement with either gender, the feminine, however, 
seeming the more usual, in ancient Arabic (see Ch. 
Pellat, Sur quelques noms d'animaux en arabe classi- 
que, in GLECS, viii, 95-9). The word faras, pro- 
nounced fras, pi. frdsdt, with the meaning "thorough- 
bred horse", has survived in the Bedouin dialects on 
the borders of the Sahara, whereas the Maghrib 
dialects only really recognise hisdn (Tunisia) and 
'awd (Algeria, Morocco) to denote the horse (for the 
etymology of '■awd, see Ph. Marcais, Document de 
dialectologie maghrlbine, in AIEO-Alger, vi (1947), 
206-7). The immense interest taken by the Arabs in 
their breed of horses, both before and after Islam, 
and the considerable part which this animal played 
in Muslim expansion have endowed the language 
with a great number of terms, many of them quali- 
fying words, to complete all that faras left unspecified 
as to sex, age, origin, external peculiarities and 
temperament; from it sprang the philology of the 



horse which, in amplitude, is in no way inferior to 
that of the camel. For example, to distinguish the 
sex, the pure-bred stallion (fahl) will be called hifan, 
that is to say "one who reserves his seed jealously", 
and the pedigree brood-mare (farasa) will be hidjr, 
that is "forbidden to all comers", while the mare of 
mixed breed will be merely ramaka, that is "the 
offspring of misalliance". The age of an animal is 
determined by the stage of development of the 
teeth, as is the present practice; at birth the foal is 
called muhr, then, up to one year of age film 
(= weaned), up to two years hawli, to three thani, 
to four raba c< ", to five kdrifi, after which it becomes 
mudhakk*" for the rest of its life. 

The origin of the so-called "Arabian" breed of 
horses has been the subject, in the written document- 
ation of the Arabs, of a multitude of traditions, 
from which we must exclude those of a purely 
religious character as well as works of natural 
history strongly influenced by Greek thought. Pre- 
islamic poetry alone can provide some information 
on this subject, for it represents the least distorting 
medium for the oldest Arab traditions. Without 
hoping to find in these archaic poems any precise 
expositions on the subject, we can nevertheless 
glean from them the names of celebrated horses and 
great horsemen which can be tolerably well placed in 
history, and so reconstruct a chronology in the 
genealogy of ancient families of Arabian horses. The 
first of these is said to have sprung up among the 
Azd in the Yemen and the Taghlib in Bahrayn, 
descended from Zad al-Rakib ( = "the horseman's 
viaticum"), a famous stallion given by king Solomon 
to the Azdi delegation on the occasion of their visit to 
that illustrious monarch and his celebrated stud 
(hima). Of the same descent was the sire al-A c wadj, 
owned by Hudjr, king of Kinda who had emigrated 
from the Hadramawt in the 5th century B.C. to the 
borders of the Syrian desert. The son of this liudjr 
is none other than the great poet Imru' al-Kays 
whose lines giving a description of his steed "with 
its fine-haired coat" (mundjarid) in his classic 
Mu'-allaha (lines 51 ff.) have remained unequalled, 
though very often subsequently imitated. Of the 
seven other families of horses known to tradition, 
four are also connected with Zad al-Rakib. To one 
of these strains was attributed the stallion Dahis, 
the fruit of an accidental mating of the noble pure- 
bred Dhu 'l- c ukkal. This degrading origin caused 
Dahis, as the outcome of a race, to become the cause 
of the famous war of Ghatafan which lasted for forty 
years; consequently his strain soon became extinct 
since it was thought to bring bad luck. Of the three 
remaining strains, one is purely Persian and the 
other two of forgotten origin. The story of Dahis 
demonstrates the importance which the Arabs 
originally used to attach in the pedigree to the 
stallion, whilst after Islam the genealogy was traced 
through the mares; there is here a curious contra- 
diction. 

With Islam, a new version of the facts comes to 
light; we now go back to Isma'H, to whom is attri- 
buted the domestication of the horse, the special 
gift of Allah, though without omitting the episode of 
Solomon's stallion. Then we leap over the centuries 
of the Qidhiliyya and start again with an authentic 
historical event, the breaching of the dam of Ma'rib, 
in the Yemen, which occurred in the middle of the 
6th century A.D., to explain the origin of the Arabian 
breed. The flooding of the country is said to have 
driven the horse population into the desert where 
they became wild; five mares from these wandering 



tAS 785 

herds were seen by the people of Nadjd and captured 
in a curious manner. Five lines of descent sprang 
from these five mares and one of their descendants, 
taken to Syria, in her turn began five thoroughbred 
strains. From one of these the celebrated mare 
Kuhaylat al-'Adjuz became the eponym for every 
pure-blooded creature; the term huhayldn, with its 
variations kafildni, kafiayl, and kahil, even now 
still denotes the thoroughbred Arab. 

In reality, the greatest confusion reigns among the 
horse-breeders of Arabia and Syria on the matter of 
these "five strains" {al-kafid'U al-khams), in which 
they take such pride and to which they claim that 
their own stock is related. Inquiries undertaken in 
the interests of historical and scientific truth by 
trustworthy travellers like Niebuhr (1779), Burkhardt 
(1836), Blunt (1882), von Oppenheim (1900) and in 
particular Major Upton (1881) (see Bibl.) have not 
succeeded in establishing logical connexions between 
the statements of the various parties consulted; nor 
could it be otherwise, as the Bedouins have never 
kept any written pedigrees and entrust the recol- 
lection of their prized lines of descent to memory 

After the Kur'anic revelation, the victorious 
Muslims created a corpus of mythical traditions 
making the horse the chosen mount of Allah, of 
supernatural origin; this was justified by the fact 
that they owed their victorious expansion to that 
animal. Together with the angels' winged horses and 
those of king Solomon, and al-Burak, the Prophet's 
celestial steed, the charger (djawdd) of the warrior 
for the Faith (al-mudjahid) became, on earth, a 
powerful agent for ensuring the final reward in the 
hereafter; that explains what solicitude and care the 
Muslim rider had to devote to his beast, which in 
times of shortage was often given precedence over 
his wife and family. Among certain tribes in Morocco, 
popular superstition even went so far as to make the 
horse a mascot and bringer of luck. On the other 
hand, the time has now long passed when the horse 
received so much attention from its master in Arabia; 
the indignant testimony of all the investigators (see 
above) bears this out. 

In the countries of the Near East we can still 
today find pedigrees (fiudjdja) drawn up when there 
is a sale of horses, in the form of official deeds and 
attesting the animal's highly aristocratic origins: 
these are merely the inventions of horse-copers. But, 
like the mediaeval treatises on hippology, they 
betray a preoccupation with the classification of 
horses, according to the purity of their breeding, in 
four degrees; thus we have — (a) al- c arabi or al- c atik, 
the "thoroughbred", well-proportioned, of moderate 
size, and with a flat forehead; its parents are noble, 
and the belief is that the devil will not approach its 
owner; (b) al-hadjin or al-shihrl, the "mixed breed", 
whose sire is better bred than the dam; (c) al- 
mukrif, the "approacher", whose dam is of better 
breeding than the sire; (d) al-birdhawn, of common 
parentage: this is the draught-horse or pack-horse. 
According to the etymologists, it is from this term 
that the French have derived the words "bardot" or 
"bardeau" to describe the offspring of the union of 
the she-ass and the horse. The horse, other than the 
saddle-horse, is still called kadish (in Persian ikdish), 
or khardji, "bastard". A gelding (khasi) can be a 
thoroughbred, but its sterility deprives it of all esti- 
mation in the eyes of the Muslims, the Prophet 
having disapproved of castration. 

Leaving aside those Arab traditions which do not 
stand up to historical criticism, the origin of the 



Encyclopaedia 



f Islan 



786 f; 

Arabian breed of horses has been the subject of 
extensive research by such discerning historians and 
mammalogists as Pietrement, Ridgeway, von 
Oppenheim and S. Reinach (see Bibl.), whose con- 
clusions prove irrefutably the very recent character 
of this breed. Assyria and the Caspian region, long 
before Arabia, possessed horses very closely resem- 
bling the Egyptian and the Barb, and very clearly 
distinguished from the type of the steppes of 
central Asia and the Przewalski. Syria first of all 
became acquainted with this source, which must 
have been crossed with certain Libyan horses 
imported during the reigns of David and Solomon, 
while northern and central Arabia for many centuries 
remained unaware of the existence of this noble 
beast. Strabo, writing at the start of the Christian 
era, testified (Geography, XVI, 768, 784) to the 
absence of the horse from Arabia in his day. It was 
only later, in the 4th century, that the large migra- 
tions of tribes from southern Arabia towards Syria 
and c Irak brought a new reinforcement to the horse 
population of those countries with the Dongola 
breed; the Yemen had for some centuries had the 
benefit of Ethiopian exports from this Egypto- 
Libyan source. From the contact of the two existing 
stocks, that of Syria-Palestine in the north and that 
of Nadjd- Yemen in the south, both of them of 
Libyan origin, the Arabian type began to become 
fixed; the nomadic element, and in particular the 
tribe of c Anaza, by their seasonal migrations for 
pasturage in effect created a permanent link between 
the two centres. The great Islamic conquests in the 
1st and 2nd/7th-8th centuries further increased the 
infusion of new blood, first Assyrian, later Caspian, 
into Arab breeding, horses being one of the forms of 
booty most highly prized by the Muslim warriors. 
Furthermore, their rapid advance in the west, with 
the occupation of the Maghrib, made them appre- 
ciate the excellence of the Barb horse and Berber 
cavalry, the inheritors of the reputation of the 
ancient Numidian cavalry; in them they found an 
inexhaustible source of supply for remounting their 
squadrons; in fact, in the view of Ibn Khallikan 
(Wafdydt, trans. M. G. de Slane, Paris-London 
1843-71, Hi, 476), we know that, in the twelve 
thousand Berber cavalry who disembarked in Spain 
under the command of Tarik, there were only 
twelve Arab horses. The theory of the introduction 
of the Arab horse into the West by Islam is therefore 
no longer tenable since, on the contrary, it was on 
the Barb stock, of Libyan breed and perfectly 
unified, that the Muslims drew so constantly; they 
hastened to introduce a number of fine stallions to 
Arabian studs, and these newcomers succeeded in 
giving the Arabian type its perfect form. From the 
7th/i3th century Arabia ceased to be at the head of 
the Islamic world and became isolated; conse- 
quently she no longer received any regenerating 
assistance from abroad in the matter of breeding, 
which, for good or ill, took place in enclosed condi- 
tions, among the Bedouins of the Nufud. The 
important nomadic c Anazi breeders, for their part, 
left the Nadjd for Syria, so condemning the stocks 
of horses in Arabia to a decline which has 
inevitably become more and more marked until the 
present time. Today, only the very largest fortunes 
derived from oil can bid for the extremely rare pure- 
bred Arab stallions, and it has to be admitted that 
this noble race is on the way to extinction. 

Having been one of the principal factors in 
securing the victories of Islam, the horse was the 
inspiration of many literary works in Arabic in both 



verse and prose, especially during the first five 
Muslim centuries. In poetry, there were scarcely any 
poets who did not try to describe the horse, but 
always in an occasional way, the wasf al-faras 
never having constituted a true theme. It is among 
the great masters of verse that we must seek the 
most beautiful expressions of this kind, although 
none of them, not even Abu Tammam, al-Buhturl, 
al-Mutanabbi, Ibn al-Mu c tazz and others, abstained 
from using ready-made metaphors collected together 
in the pre-islamic fyasidas or from resorting pedanti- 
cally to rare archaic terms (gharib) ; in Muslim Spain, 
the Andalusian poets revealed no greater originality 
and, like their masters in the East, merely applied 
themselves to an external description of the animal 
with all the conventionalism imposed by their 
concern with philological erudition (see H. Peres, 
La poisie andalouse, en arabe classique, au Xle 
sticle* Paris 1953, 235-6). In prose, the number of 
works dealing with the horse would be well over a 
hundred had they all survived; there are frequent 
mentions of titles such as K. al-Faras, K. al-Khayl, 
K. Khallf al-faras, and K. Sifdt al-khayl in the 
lexicographers and encyclopaedists devoted to adab ; 
Ibn al-Nadim, in his Fihrist, gives quite a long list 
of them. Of the various manuscripts of this sort 
preserved in the libraries, very few have been publish- 
ed, in view of their striking similarity in form and 
substance. In all periods, the chief preoccupation of 
the writers of these treatises was to reproduce the 
terminology relating to the horse, very often at the 
cost of scientific reality. Moreover, the large place 
given in these works to superstitious interpretations 
of the physiognomy of the faras deprives them of 
what technical value one might wish to find in 
them; every anatomical detail, when considered 
from this angle, implies consequences either good or 
ill for the animal's owner; in this attitude we can 
see the mark of the nomad, with his excessive 
credulity, and similarly in the curious nomenclature 
of the horse borrowed from the names of desert 
birds. It is sufficient to consult the classic K. Ifilyat 
al-fursdn wa-shi'-dr al-shudfdn of the Andalusian Ibn 
Hudhayl, of the 8th/i4th century (see Brockelmann, 
S II, 379 and the excellent translation, with full 
comments, by L. Mercier under the title La parure 
des cavaliers et Vinsigne des preux, Paris 1924) to 
establish that the Arabs have always relied solely 
on the external features of the horse to determine 
its qualities of temperament. Thus their criterion of 
appreciation was founded on the interpretation of 
the particular features of the colour of the coat (lawn) 
and the "signs" (shiydt) constituted by the "blaze" 
(ghurar), light patches on the head, the "stockings" 
(tahdj.il), white markings at the foot of the legs, and 
the dawdHr, tufts of hairs growing in different 
directions; other points to be considered are the 
shape of the "upper parts" (al-a c dli, al-sama?), and 
the "under side" (al-asdfil, al-ard), and of the "fore- 
hand" (al-mafrddim) and"hindquarters"(ai-ma 3 aftft»V), 
the animal's attitude in repose, its walk and trot, its 
bad habits both natural and acquired, its speed and 
staying-power. In their writings, these authors have 
never made a distinction between equitation, 
hippology and the veterinary art, and these three 
ideas are fused, in their works, in the synonyms 
fardsa, furusa and furilsiyya [q.v.]. It is interesting to 
note that firdsa, from the same root, means "phy- 
siognomy". 

The principles of rearing, teaching and training 
(tadmir, idmdr) specified in these writings and in 
general use among the Muslims are very often 



FARAS — FARASAN 



787 



completely contrary to the nature of the horse and 
differ sharply from modern scientific methods; the 
same is true of veterinary treatment, when not taken 
directly from ancient Greek practice. For equitation, 
see FURUSIYYA. 

There is another category of works which are 
fairly numerous, mostly written by non-Arab Muslims, 
on subjects concerning the horse regarded from the 
viewpoint of military usefulness; they served as 
"manuals of instruction" for the use of the warriors 
of the Caliph's cavalry squadrons [see : 
Arabia gradually lost the passion for the 
in proportion as the number of horses declined. The 
other Muslim countries have remained quite inter- 
ested in racing, but the sport is at present governed 
by rules imported from the west, and the Anglo- Arab 
thoroughbred is everywhere supplanting its illus- 

To sum up, we may say that the horse reached its 
apogee, in the Near East, between the 5th and 15th 
centuries A.D., and that Arab horsemanship was in 
no respect inferior to that of European chivalry. 
But the lack of rational methods in breeding, on the 
one hand, and the replacement of steel by fire-arms 
on the other, condemned the Arab cavalry to an 
inevitable decline. Those Bedouins who still ride 
horses today use only violent and cruel methods to 
break in an animal that by nature is good-tempered 
and gifted with rare qualities of intelligence; it must 
be realised that these horsemen are not and never 
will be as close to the faras as were their mediaeval 
ancestors. We may add that, but for the judicious 
and praiseworthy intervention of English horse- 
lovers and breeders, the breed of the pure-bred 
Arabian would long since have been extinct. 

Bibliography: In addition to the works 
referred to in the text: Sources in Arabic (in 
addition to the exhaustive bibliographies of 
Hammer-Purgstall, Das Pferd bei den Arabern, in 
Denkschr. d. K. Akad. d. Wiss. zu Wien, vi, 1855-6 
and of L. Mercier, op. cit.) : Ibn SIduh, Mukhassas, 
Alexandria 1904, vi, 135-98; Ibn al- c Awwam, 
K. al-Fildha, trans. Clement-Mullet, Le livre de 
I' agriculture, Paris 1864-7; Khuri Nadjib, al- 
Khayl wa-fursdnuhd, Baabda (Lebanon) 1916; 
Damiri, Cairo 1356, i, 309 ff., ii, 209 ft.; Sa'Idi, 
al-Ifsdh fi fikh al-lugha, Cairo 1929, 322-44; Sa c di 
Rashid, K. Ghdyat al-murdd fi 'l-khayl al-djiydd, 
Bayan Press, 1896; Kazwini, 'AdjdHb, Cairo 1356, 
ii, 190 ff. ; HasibanI, K. Sirddj al-layl fi surudj al- 
khayl, Beirut 1881; Ibn al-Kalbi and Ibn al- 
A'rabl, K. Asma' khayl al-'Arab wa fursdnihim, 
ed. G. Levi Delia Vida, Les "Livres de chevaux", 
Leiden 1928 ; Mas'udl, Murudi, iii 59, iv 23, viii 359 
(on racing) ; Rasd'il Ikhwdn al-Safd', ed. Bombay, 
ii 145; Djahiz, Hayawdn (see index s.vv. khayl 
and faras). References to numerous manuscript 
works on faras and furusiyya preserved in the 
great European libraries are to be found in Ham- 
mer-Purgstall and L. Mercier, op. cit. — European 
sources (in alphabetical order) : — H. d'AUemagne, 
Du Khorassan au pays des Backhtiaris, Paris 1911, 
4 vol. (passim) ; E. Aureggio, Les chevaux du Nord 
de I'Afrique, Algiers 1893; L. Azpeitia de Moros, 
En busca del caballo drabe, Madrid 1915; Lady Anne 
Blunt, Bedouin tribes of the Euphra'es, London 
1879; eadem, A pilgrimage to Nejd, London 1881; 
Boucault, The Arab horse, the thoroughbred and the 
turf, London 1912; J. L. Burkhardt, Travels in 
Arabia, 1829; Chevalier Chatelain, Mimoire sur 
les chevaux arabes, Paris 1816; A. Le Clercq, De 
I'origine commune des chevaux arabes et des chevaux 



barbes, 1854; Gen. Daumas, Les Chevaux du Sahara 
et les mceurs dudisert avec les observations de I' Emir 
Abdelkader, Paris 1864; idem, Principes ginlraux du 
cavalier arabe, Paris 1854; Gen. Descoins, L'iqui- 
tation arabe: ses principes, sa pratique, Paris 1924; 
H. R. P. Dickson, The Arab of the desert, 
London 1949, ch. xxx; C. Doughty, Travels in 
Arabia Deserta, 1888; Cdt. Duhousset, Notices et 
documents sur les chevaux orientaux, in Journal de 
medectne vetirinaire militaire, vii (Dec. 1862); 
R. Dussaud, Les Arabes en Syrie avant I'Islam, 
Paris 1907; idem, Les rigions disertiques de la 
Syrie et le cheval arabe, in Bull. Soc. Anthropologic, 
series V, vol. iv; A. Haffner, Das Kitdb Al Chail 
von Al AsmaH, Vienna 1895; Hammer-Purgstall, 
Sur la Chevalerie des Arabes antirieure a celle de 
I'Europe, in J A, 1849; Hamont, Des races chevalines 
orientates, in Revue de I'Orient, 1843; Hommel, Die 
Namen der Saeugethiere bei den Siidsemitischen 
Voelkern, Leipzig 1879; A. Jaeger, Das orientalische 
Pferd und das Privat-Gestute des Koenigs von 
Wurtemberg, 1846; H. Lammens, Le Berceau de 
I'Islam, Rome 1914; Gen. Margueritte, Chasses de 
VAlgirie et notes sur les Arabes du Sud, Paris 1869; 
J. Mazoiller, Les chevaux arabes de la Syrie, Paris 
1854; Ch. de Meffray, Des chevaux Nedjdis 
Keuheylans et de la possibiliti de fonder en A Igirie 
un haras de Keuheylans, Grenoble 1866; Gen. 
Mennessier de la Lance, Essai de bibliographic 
hippique, Paris 1915; L. Mercier, La chasse et les 
sports chez les Arabes, Paris 1927; Prince Moham- 
med Ali, Notes prises dans I'ouvrage du Cheikh El 
Hafez Siradj ed Din Ibn Baslan . . . sur le sport 
arabe (Xlle si'ecle), Paris n.d.; C. Niebuhr, 
Description de VArabie, Paris 1779; Von Oppen- 
heim, Von Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf, Berlin 
1900; W. G. Palgrave, Personal narrative of a 
year's journey through central and eastern Arabia, 
London 1865; Dr. Perron, Le Ndceri ou la Perfec- 
tion des deux arts, trad, du K. Kdmil al-sind'-atayn 
d'Abu Bakr b. Badr al-Ndsiri, Traiti complet 
d'hippologie et d'hippiatrique arabes, Paris 1852-60, 
3 vols.; idem, Nobiliaire des chevaux arabes, Paris 
n.d.; D. C. Phillot, Faras Nama e Rangin, or the 
Book of the Horse by Rangin (translated from 
Hindustani), London 191 1; Pietrement, Les 
chevaux dans les temps prihistoriques et historiques, 
Paris n.d.; Prisse d'Avennes, Des divers races 
chevalines de I'Orient, in Revue contemporaine, 
Paris 1854; S. Reinach, Analyse d'un ouvrage de 
Ridgeway sur I'origine et I'influence du pur-sang, 
in V Anthropologic, Paris xiv (1903), 200-3, 270; 
Reinaud, De I'art militaire chez les Arabes au 
moyen-dge, in J A, 1848; Ridgeway, Origin and 
influence of the Thoroughbred Horse, Biological 
Series, University Press, Cambridge, n.d.; W. 
Rzewuski, Sur V introduction du sang oriental des 
chevaux en Europe, Paris n.d.; idem, Notice sur les 
chevaux arabes, Paris n.d. (reproduced in Mines 
d'Orient of Hammer-Purgstall, v); W. O. Sproull, 
An Extract of Ibn Kutaiba's A dab A I Kdtib, 
Leipzig 1 877 ; E. Sue, Histoire de A rabian Godolphin, 
in Revue du Cheval de Selle, Paris 1921; Col. 
Tweedie, The Arabian Horse, n.p., n.d.; Major 
R. D. Upton, Gleanings from the Desert of Arabia, 
London 1881 ; Vallee de Loncey, Le cheval algirien, 
Paris 1889; F. Vatin, Le cheval arabe dans le Nord 
de I'Afrique, 1911. (F. Vir£) 

FARASAN (Farsan), a group of islands in the 
Red Sea opposite Abu 'Arish. They are not mentioned 
in the Periplus. In the Martyrdom of St Arethas the 
Oapaav islands are said to have contributed seven 



L-FARAZDAK 



hips to the Christian expedition against the Yaman. 
The name is tribal. According to HaindanI, the Banu 
Farasan, though claimed as Himyari by the Himyari 
genealogists, belonged to Taghlib and had once been 
Christian; there were ruined churches on the islands. 
They were at war with the Banu Madjid and traded 
with Abyssinia. They were also found in the Tihama. 
The islands had some strategic value in the naval 
wars of the 16th century. The Egyptians landed 
there in 912/1506. Albuquerque considered occupying 
them. The Sharif Abu Numayy II seized them but 
was ejected by the Turks. According to Ovington 
'Fersham' exported corn to Arabia and the inhabi- 
tants were employed by Banians in pearling. Despite 
Yamani claims the islands became part of Idrisi, and 
later, Sa'udl territory. Philby found a few troops 
there. They were visited by Ehrenberg and Hemprich 
(1825), by Bove (1830-1), and later by oil geologists. 
Bibliography: J. Boissonade, Anecdota graeca, 
v, 44; Hamdani, Djazira, 53, 119; Yakut, iii, 
873-4; Albuquerque, Cartas, i, 280; W. Foster, 
The Red Sea and adjacent countries, 178; Philby, 
Arabian Highlands, index. (C. F. Beckingiia.m) 
al-FARAZDAK, "the lump of dough", properly 
Tammam b. Ghalib (Abu Firas), famous Arab 
satirist and panegyrist, died at Basra about 
no/728 or 112/730. 

Born in Yamama (Eastern Arabia) on a date 
which is uncertain (probably after 20/640), this 
poet was descended from the sub-tribe of Mudjashi 1 , 
of the Darim group of the Tamim. His father, Ghalib 
[q.v.], is said to have played some part, in the Basra 
area, in the conflict between 'All and Mu'awiya; 
to this fact must be attributed the later idea that 
al-Farazdak entertained pro-'Alid sympathies which, 
however, are not very apparent in his works. The 
talent for verse does not seem to have been wide- 
spread in his family; however al-Farazdak, endowed 
with a prodigious memory and precocious talent, 
seems very soon to have made himself known in his 
tribe by laudatory and epigrammatic compositions in 
the Bedouin style. The accession of the Umayyad 
dynasty must have been a decisive factor in the 
career of the young poet, because of the choices to 
which it limited him. By the bonds of affinity as 
much as by obligation, al-Farazdak was first led to 
choose himself protectors in Yamama, then at 
Basra, amongst people more or less bound to the 
fortunes of the family ruling in Syria. This attitude is 
particularly noticeable in the relations he maintained, 
for example, with the Banu Bakra, who were secretly 
flirting with the 'Alids, though supporting the 
Umayyads. 

The satire attributed to al-Farazdak against the 
caliph Mu'awiya, contrary to what Nallino main- 
tains, is far from being definitely authentic. 

Nevertheless circumstances, fortuitous or con- 
trived, must have affected his behaviour occasionally : 
it is known, for example, that al-Farazdak, as a 
result of some rather obscure proceedings, had to flee 
from 'Irak and seek refuge in Medina to escape the 
threat that Ziyad, the governor of Basra, laid upon 
his life (in 49/669). At Medina the poet was welcomed 
most warmly by the local authorities, and he remained 
in this town till 56/675-6; he then returned to 'Irak 
immediately after the death of Ziyad to attach him- 
self to the latter's son, c Ubayd Allah. In 67/686, the 
panegyrist confirmed his attachment to the Umayyad 
branch of the Marwanids which was in power, by 
celebrating prince Bishr, who had come to 'Irak, 
and his brother 'Abd al-'AzIz, whose praises he sang 
in a threnody in 85/704 (Diwdn, ed. Sawi, 225 ff.). 



There is no doubt that under the governorship of 
al-Hadjdjadi [q.v.], probably because of the intrigues 
of his enemy Djarir, who was in the good graces of 
this powerful personage, al-Farazdak was more or 
less in disgrace. Nevertheless he dedicated a number 
of laudatory poems to al-Hadidjadi and to some 
members of his family. Perhaps his delicate position 
in relation to the governor of 'Irak prevented al- 
Farazdak from obtaining the protection of the caliph 
'Abd al-Malik and it is to be noted that no ode was 
addressed by him to this ruler. On the other hand, 
under Walid I, al-Farazdak became the official poet 
of the caliph, as witness numerous panegyrics dedi- 
cated to him and to his two sons. Under Sulayman 
he enjoyed the same favour. It was otherwise on the 
accession of 'Umar II in 99/717, when al-Farazdak 
was rather in the shade. However, the insurrection 
of Yazid b. al-Muhallab gave the poet the chance 
to recover favour and, under the caliph Yazid II, 
he violently attacked the rebel whom he had cele- 
brated several years before, at the time of his power 
(see the panegyrics to Yazid II and to Maslama, dated 
101/720 and 102/720-1 in Diwdn, 262-7 and 201). 
At this time, al-Farazdak, who was eighty years old, 
hardly ever left Basra. Caught up in the whirlwind 
of conflicts between the "Yemeni" and Kaysi 
factions, he experienced many difficulties with 
governors of 'Irak belonging to one or other of them. 
Twice he was thrown into prison because of this, 
but succeeded in getting out thanks to local support. 
In his career, struggles against rivals occupied a 
prominent place. Political attitudes, notably attach- 
ment to the "Yemeni" or the Kaysi faction, provoked 
or aggravated these enmities. In the background one 
can also sense some tribal partisanship. This is the 
reason for the implacable hostility nursed by al- 
Farazdak for pjarir, also a Tamimi, but of another 
branch. There is no doubt that the contentions 
between these two rivals have been a fruitful source 
for anecdotal literature (as one can ascertain from 
Kitdb al-Aghdni 3 , viii, 32-7). Moreover, it is certain 
that this opposition inspired al-Farazdak— and his 
enemy likewise — with the poems which most clearly 
characterize their work. These diatribes should not 
however, allow us to forget those other relationships, 
of a different kind, maintained with al-Ahwas 
[q.v.] at Medina, with the "reader"-grammarian Abu 
'Amr ibn al-'Ala' [q.v.], or with al-Hasan al-Basri 
(cf. Aghdni\ xix, 14). 

Al-Farazdak seems to have been too unusual a 
figure not to have stimulated the imagination of the 
"logographers" who interested themselves in him. 
In the biographical facts we have, there often comes 
to light a tendency to exaggerate the eccentricities 
of his personality, to accentuate his cowardice, 
bawdiness, drunkenness, and venality. This harsh 
approach is in fact of little concern because it does 
not touch on the essentials. What is important in 
reality is to discover in al-Farazdak the traits which 
are of relevance for the panegyrist, the satirist, 
and the representative of a generation torn between 
bedouin culture and the new ethics. On these lines 
might be explained certain traits of his character, 
his recantations and his final impenitence, all to be 
found echoed in his poetry. 

The greater part of his poetry has survived, because 
of Tamimi particularism on the one hand, and also 
because of the favour al-Farazdak still retained in 
learned circles in Basra. After an oral transmission 
about which we have few facts, his poetry was equally 
well received at KAfa (see Aghdni 1 , xix, 2, n f.) 
There is no doubt that it is from this time that al- 



L-FARAZDAK — FARD 



789 



Farazdak, along with Djarir and al-Akhtal [q.v.], be- 
comes one of a trio who for several centuries furnished 
a theme for discussion among the cultivated. In 
his own lifetime, al-Farazdak did not hesitate to 
appropriate the verses of his contemporaries (cf. 
Ibn Sallam, 126 and Aghdni 3 , ii, 266-7, "viii, 96); 
there is also reason to doubt the authenticity of many 
of the poems which appear in al-Sukkari's recension in 
the 3th/9th century. The Diwdn, in Sawl's edition, 
numbers about 7,630 verses, which is the largest 
total that is known in the whole of Arabic poetry. 
His work is presented in the form of fragments or 
of complete poems of 20 to 30 verses, rarely more. 
Many poems are in kasida form. With al-Farazdak 
this form had a tripartite structure with a short nasib 
(e.g., Diwdn, ed. Saw!, 7, 8, 74-6, etc.), but usually— 
and this is remarkable — this elegiac prelude is omit- 
ted (so ibid., 84-7, 99 f., 228-33 etc.), and very fre- 
quently the kasida is reduced to the laudatory ele- 
ments alone (so ibid., 57-9, 63-7, 70-1, 99-101, 309-14, 
etc.). The thematic sequence in the kasida with nasib 
often anticipates the sequence which imposed itself 
on the "classical" theoreticians (so ibid., 219-24, 
302-8 etc.). Too often the threnodic form is difficult 
to find in this poet, but we have a good specimen in 
the threnody composed on Bishr {ibid., 268-70). 
The various types of poem are unequally represented 
in al-Farazdak. First and foremost come the lauda- 
tory themes made up of the traditional sterotypes, 
among which should be pointed out the traditional 
theme of the greatness as caliph and the religious 
value of the Caliph-Imam (so ibid., 63-7, 89-92 lines 
12 ff., 219-24 lines 18 ff. etc.). Naturally enough, 
tribal and personal fakhr is frequent in this poet. 
Like his contemporaries, al-Farazdak treated the 
epigram in short impromptus or developed it as a 
thematic element in a kasida. In this latter case he 
obtains an effect of contrast with the laudatory 
elements (so ibid., 115-23 where the glories of the 
Darim are contrasted with the "shames" of the 
Kulayb, Djarlr's tribe). In al-Farazdak, more than 
in his contemporaries, the satirical genre has a rare 
vigour and obscenity (e.g., the piece directed against 
al-Tirimmah, in Diwdn, 135-7). The traditional 
wisdom, poorly represented in the work of this 
panegyrist and satirist, is of a distressing banality, 
and the Islamic ethic has in no way enriched in depth 
a spirit completely impregnated with Bedouin 
culture. Sometimes, however, the poet seems to 
have been able to strike a moving tone, in lamenting, 
for example, the death of a child (so Diwdn, 764 and 
Aghdni 1 , xix, 12-3). It is worth noting that, dissolute 
as al-Farazdak is supposed to have been, he did not 
to all intents and purposes write in the Bacchic genre 
(cf. Ibn Kutayba, 294). Likewise this epicurean 
hardly felt the need to celebrate his loves, and the 
ode composed on a gallant adventure confirms this 
deficiency in his sensibility (ibid., 255-62). Similarly 
in the fragments, in any case suspect, on his separa- 
tion from his wife Nawar, the poet is without deep 
emotion and reduced to repeating banal formulas 
(see Aghhdni 1 , xix, 9). 

The language and style of the works ascribed to 
al-Farazdak are of a remarkable homogeneity: very 
rarely does one find a laboured effect due to the use 
of rare terms or hapax legomena. In this poet as in 
his contemporaries of the 'Iraki circle, only the five 
current metres are employed ; radjaz is employed only 
sporadically. From this point of view, his work is 
well worth attention, in the sense that it enables 
us to assess the prosodic resources available in this 
epoch to a poet dependent on the Tamimi tradition. 



I Put beside the poetry of Djarir, it is thoroughly 
representative of the poetry of the great nomads of 
Eastern Arabia at its height, at the very moment 
when, in contact with the big 'Iraki cities, it was 
to yield before new influences. 

Bibliography: Ibn Sallam, Tabakdt, index; 
Ibn Kutayba, Shi'r, index; Aghdni 3 , i, 116, 148-9, 
viii, index and especially 33-8, 44-5, xv, 441-7, 
and Aghdni 1 , xix, 1-61; Amidi, 166 and index; 
Marzubani, Mu'djam, ed. Krenkow, 272, 477, 
486-7; idem, Muwashshah, index; Ibn Khallikan. 
Wafaydt, Cairo 1310, ii, 196-202; Baghdadl, 
Khizdna, Cairo 1347, i, 202-7 (summarizes or 
quotes Ibn Kutayba and Aghdni). The 'Iraki 
anthologists and others have frequently quoted 
or mentioned al-Farazdak, see esp.: Djahiz, 
Bay an, index; Ibn Kutayba, 'Uyun, index; Ibn 
'Abd Rabbih, '■Ikd, Cairo 1359/1940, index (72 
mentions and quotations); Kurashi, Diamhara. 
336-44. Edition of the Diwdn by Sukkarl (see 
Fihrist, 158, 1. 27-8); for the manuscripts of the 
Diwdn, see Brockelmann, I, 56, S I, 85; Muh. b. 
Hablb, NakdHd Djarir wa'l-Farazdak, ed. Bevan, 
passim; editions of the Diwdn by R. Boucher, 
Divan de Ferazdaq, recti de Muh. b. liabib, Paris 
1870 (1st part, 270 nos.) and by J. Hell, photo- 
lithographic ed., Munich-Leipzig 1900-1 (2nd 
part) ; note also other editions, Beirut (n.d. and 
I 937)> Cairo (1293, very defective) ; another edition 
by Sawl, Sharh Diwdn al-Farazdak, Cairo 1354/ 
1936 (782 poems and fragments, amounting to 
about 7630 verses; besides the fragments and short 
pieces, it includes about 80 long satires, 94 pane- 
gyrics, 24 threnodies, often brief; it is an un- 
critical and mediocre edition, with glosses often 
of slight importance; there is no indication how 
the known mss. were utilised ; it seems to reproduce 
Boucher and Hell, but it has the advantage that 
it adds the text of the Nakd'id); a partial French 
translation by Boucher (Paris 1870-5); and by 
Hell (Leipzig 1902: trans, of the panegyric to 
Walid II), also idem, in ZDMG, lix (1905), 595-600 
and lx, 1-35; on the Muhallabids, cf. Rosen in 
Zapiski, xvii (1906), 931-48; Schwarz in ZDMG, 
lxxiii (1919), 80-5 and Krenkow in Islamica, ii, 
344-54. Notes and studies: Caussin de Perceval, 
Notice stir ... al-Farazdaq, in JA, xiii (1834), 
507-52; Hell, Einleitung iiber das Leben des 
Farazdak, Leipzig 1902; Lammens, Etudes sur le 
regne du Calife omaiyade Mo'awia I", in MFOB, 
iii (1908), 145 ff. (=281-448 of the offprint); 
Nallino, Litterature arabe, index; Blachere, Litt., 
Ill, 3rd part, chap. I, section C. 

(R. Blachere) 
FARD (adj., can be taken as a subst.), pi. afrdd, 
used of the individual, and so with the meanings 
of only, solitary, unique, incomparable; the half, that 
is to say one of a pair or couple (pi. firdd, Kdmus 
root f.r.d); and other derivative meanings. The 
word has been used to denote Allah, as the single 
Being who has no parallel: al-fard fi sifdt Allah (al- 
Layth, Lisdn, iv, 327/iii, 331a), but it does not occur 
in the Kur'an or in hadiths as an epithet of Allah. It 
is for that reason that al-Azharl (ibid.) found fault 
with this usage. There is every reason for believing' 
that al-fard was at that time simply used as an 
equivalent of ahad, in accordance with the verse 
huwa'lldhu ahad (Kur'an, CXII, 1) "oil se resume le 
dogme de l'unicite divine", as R. Blachere said (Le 
Coran, Paris 1949, ii, 123). In addition, al-fard 
serves as a technical term in different sciences : (a) in 
poetry it denotes a line of verse taken in isolation 



(intact or reduced to a single hemistich); (b) in 
lexicography, the afrdd are the words handed down 
by one single lexicographer (see al-Suyuti, Muzhir 3 , i, 
ch. 5), distinct from dfrad (ibid., i, 114, lines 8-12) 
and mafdrid (ibid., ch. 15); (c) in grammar, al-fard 
has been said to signify "the singular" by de Sacy 
(Gr. Ar.*, i, 149), Fleischer (Kleinere Schriften, i, 97), 
Wright (At. Gr.\ i, 52B). This can only be a recent 
or exceptional meaning of the word, which should 
be dropped and replaced by the traditional terms 
al-wdhid or (more often used today) al-mufrad; 
(A) in the science of hadith,fard is synonymous with 
gharib mutlak : a tradition in which the second link 
of the chain of those who have transmitted it is only 
represented by a single tdbiH; (e) in astronomy, al- 
fard denotes the star alpha in Hydra (al-shudja'-) , 
and hence the most brilliant (idea of isolation); 

(f) in arithmetic, al-'-adad al-fard is "the odd 
number" (from 3 upwards, inclusive), as opposed to 
al-'-adad al-zawdj "even number" (al-Kh w arizmi, 
Mafdtih al-'ulum, ed. van Vloten, 184), other uses 
of fard in the divisibility of numbers, ibid., 184-5; 

(g) for theologians and philosophers, ai-fard denotes 
the species, as restricted by the bond of individuation. 

Bibliography: in the text; see also Tahanawl, 
Dictionary of technical terms, ii, 1087, 1107. 1178 
foot and 1179; Lane, Lexicon, s.v. 

(H. Fleisch) 
al-FARD [see nusium] 

FARP (a.), also farida, literally "something which 
has been apportioned, or made obligatory", and as 
a technical term, a religious duty or obliga- 
tion, the omission of which will be punished and the 
performance of which will be rewarded. It is one of 
the so-called al-ahkdm al-khamsa, the "five qualifi- 
cations" by which every act of man is qualified in 
religious law [see ahkam]. A synonym is wddjib. The 
HanafI school makes a distinction between fard and 
wddjib, applying the first term to those religious 
duties which are explicitly mentioned in the proof 
texts (Kur'an and sunna) as such, or based on 
idjma'-, and the second to those the obligatory 
character of which has been deduced by reasoning. 
This distinction is not made by the other schools, 
and as a norm for action fard and wddjib are equally 
binding. Islamic law distinguishes the individual 
duty (fard <ayn), such as ritual prayer, fasting, etc., 
and the collective duty (fard kifdya), the fulfilment 
of which by a sufficient number of individuals 
excuses the other individuals from fulfilling it, such 
as funeral prayer, holy war, etc. 

Bibliography : Tahanawl, Dictionary of tech- 
nical terms, 1 124-6, 1444-8; N. P. Aghnides, 
Mohammedan theories of finance, New York 1916, 
112 ff.; Santillana, Istituzioni, i, 57 ff. See also 

FURDA. (TH. W. JUYNBOLL') 

FARGHANA. Ferghana, a valley on the middle 
Jaxartes (Sir-Darya), approximately 300 km. long 
and 70 km. wide, surrounded by parts of the Tian- 
shan mountains: the Catkal range (Ar. Djadghal, up 
to 3,000 m. high) on the north, the Ferghana 
mountains (up to 4,000 m.) on the east, and the Alai 
mountains (up to 6,000 m.) on the south. The only 
approach (7 km. wide) accessible in all seasons is 
in the west, at the point where the Jaxartes leaves 
the valley and where the trade-route (and since 
1899 the railway from Samarkand to Osh) enters it. 
The Farghana valley covers approximately 23,000 
km. 2 ; the irrigated land (9,000 km. 2 ) has increased 
during the last decades, owing to the constant 
extension of irrigation. The interior of the area 
consists of a desert. 



The Farghana valley has always been fairly 
densely populated since the earliest irruption ot 
Islam, and even in pre-Islamic times, according to 
Chinese sources. As a consequence, the indigenous 
population has been able to withstand the Turks, 
who have pressed in repeatedly ever since early 
Islamic times; thus the Turks have only settled in 
one part of the district (cf. the present political 
distribution below). Since the end of the nineteenth 
century the Russians have also settled almost 
exclusively in the towns, leaving the agricultural 
areas in the hands of the indigenous population. 

Evidently Farghana became known to the Chinese 
in 128 B.C., from the description of an envoy who 
had travelled through it. But the connexion of the 
Chinese accounts with individual areas or persons 
cannot be established with any certainty. After the 
spread of the second (western) Kok-Turkish kingdom 
Farghana was exposed to Turkish attacks and, 
after continued fighting between 627 and 649 A.D., 
came under Turkish dominion. A Turkish prince 
took up residence in Kasan (Chinese K c o-sai), the 
capital of that time. After the overthrow of the first 
west-Turkish kingdom by the Chinese, in 657, the 
whole district was governed from Kasan by a 
Chinese governor. The indigenous Iranian dynasty, 
whose influence had for some time been weakened 
by a succession of local princes (as reported by the 
Chinese envoy Hiian-tsang in 630), was evidently 
supplanted by a Turkish ruling family, after the 
elimination of Chinese rule in about 680. In 739 
Arslan Khan is mentioned as ruler of Farghana. 

An Arab-Muslim advance into Farghana, alleged 
to have taken place in the time of the Caliph 
'Uthman under the leadership of Muhammad b. 
Pjarir, who is said to have fallen at Safld Bulan at 
the head of 2700 warriors (according to Djamal 
Karshl apud Barthold, Turkestan, 160), certainly 
belongs to the realm of legend. The legend formed 
the basis for a Persian folk-tale (said to have been 
translated from Arabic) which later spread through- 
out Central Asia, and was finally translated into 
Turkish (cf. Protokoli Turkest. Kruzka Lyubiteley 
Arkheologii, iv, 149 f.). 

In fact the Muslim invasion of Farghana is con- 
nected with the occupation of Transoxania by 
Kutayba b. Muslim [?.».]. He first advanced into the 
country in 94/712-3 and attempted a revolt from 
there against the Caliph in 96/715, but was killed by 
his own soldiers (Tabari, ii, 1256 f., 1275-81; S. G. 
Klyashtorniy, Iz istorii bor'M narodov Sredney Azii 
protiv arabov [Remarks on the history of the struggle of the 
peoples of Central Asia against the Arabs],in tpigrafika 
Vostoka, ix (1954), 55-64: this treats mainly of the 
events of 712). Kutayba's grave is still pointed out 
today close to the village of Djalal Kuduk, near 
Andldjan (Protokoli, iii, 4). This revolt and the 
battles which followed in Persia in the next decades, 
finally leading to the downfall of the Umayyads in 
749-50, prevented for some time the consolidation 
of Arab-Islamic rule over Farghana. The Muslims 
apparently had to leave the country again and in 
103/72 1-2 the indigenous Sogdian prince was able to 
recall and resettle in part of his country those 
Sogdians who had migrated further eastwards to 
avoid the summons to adopt Islam (Spuler, Iran, 37, 
254 f.). At that time the local nobility (gentry: Dihkdns 
[q.v.]) played the leading rdle in Farghana, as in 
the rest of Transoxania. The local prince also bore 
this title beside that of Ikhshedh (cf. ikhshIdids, 
and Ol'ga I. Smirnova, Sogdiyskie moneti kak novly 
istolnik dlya istorii Sredney Azii [Sogdian coins as a 



new source for the history of Central Asia], in Sovetskoe 
Vostokovedenie, vi (1949), 356-67; further, A. Yu 
Yakubovskiy [ed.] : Trudi sogdiysho-tadHkshoy ikspe- 
ditsii . . . [Works of the Sogdian-Tddjik expedition . . .], 
i, Moscow-Leningrad 1950, 224-31 ; further as sources: 
al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 420; al-Tabari, ii, 1442, 2142; 
Hudud al-'-dlam, ed. Minorsky, 115-17, 355; idem in 
BSOAS, xvii/2 (1955), 265).— In the year 121/739 
the Arabs were once more able to send a governor to 
Farghana (al-Tabari, ii, 1694), but there was still 
continued opposition to Islam, especially as the 
permanence of Arab rule had again been put in 
doubt by the advance of Chinese armies into Western 
Central Asia as far as Transoxania, between 745 and 
751 (cf. Spuler, Iran, 302 and the sources and 
studies given there). An envoy sent to the Caliph al- 
Mansur by the local prince, who had evidently fled 
to Kashghar, was held prisoner for a long time owing 
to his refusal to adopt Islam (Ya'kubi, ii, 645). The 
Caliphs al-Mahdl, Harun al-Rashld (175-6/791-3) 
and al-Ma 3 mun were also forced to send troops to 
Farghana to overcome the opposition to Islam and 
Arab rule (Ya'kubl, ii, 465 f., 478; GardezI, 19; 
further Spuler, Iran, 51 f.). Only the inclusion of 
Farghana in the dominions of the Samanids [q.v.] in 
approximately 205/820-1, under the administration 
of the governor NOh b. Asad (d. 227/841-2), opened the 
last doors to Islam, both in Kasan (al-Ya c kubI, 
Geogr., 294, al-Ya'kubi, ii, 478; al-Tabari, ii, 1257), 
the centre of administration, and Crast. The 
indigenous dynasty had in the meantime disappeared. 
From then on, the inhabitants of Farghana supplied 
soldiers for the guards of the Caliph al-Mu'tasim 
(218-27/833-42: al-Baladhuri, 431; Spuler, Iran, 137, 
185, fn. 8). They thereby strengthened the influence 
of the Iranian element in Mesopotamia, which 
moreover increased continually under the Samanids. 
Farghana in the time of the Samanids has been 
amply described by Arab geographers. At that time 
a change in the economic importance of the several 
parts of the country appears to have taken place. 
According to Ibn Khurradadhbih, 30, the road 
leading into the country from the west crossed the 
Jaxartes at Khodiand ([q.v.]; now Leninabad), and 
continued to Akhsikath [q.v.], along the right bank, 
then to Kuba, Osh and Ozkand (Ozgand) along the 
left bank. Al-Istakhrl, 335, on the other hand con- 
siders the road running south of the river to be the 
main one and lists several populated places along it; 
only a secondary road led to Akhslkath at that time. 
The Farghana valley then formed the frontier 
district against the (still unconverted) Turks, who 
had recently been driven back north-eastwards in 
several places. There were strong garrisons in Osh 
and some neighbouring forts, used as observation 
posts against them. Akhsikath (al-Istakhri, 333) was 
the capital at that time, a position it held as early as 
the middle of the seventh century, according to 
Chinese reports and al-Baladhuri (Futuh, ed. de 
Goeje, 420). On the other hand Kuba is designated as 
larger, and as the actual capital of the country by 
al-Mukaddasl, 272, though its period of prosperity 
was certainly short. — In the tenth century Farghana 
was divided into three provinces and many admini- 
strative districts, which are listed by the geographers. 
They stress the fact that the villages of the country 
were bigger than elsewhere in Transoxania and 
occasionally extended as much as a day's journey. 
Islam (of the Hanafi school of law) had asserted itself 
successfully in the meantime, and convents (Khanhah) 
of the Karramiyya [q.v.] are also mentioned by al- 
Mukaddasi, 323. Nothing else is reported about 



1HANA 791 

adherents of other religions, such as Christians, 
Manichaeans and Zoroastrians. Nevertheless an 
Arabic inscription dating from 433/1041-2 was 
discovered in the gorge at Warukh (in the south), 
showing a Sassanian and Christian (rumi) date 
beside the Muslim one (Protokoll, viii, 46 f.). A 
further Arabic inscription (without this peculiarity 
in the dating) from the year 329/940-1 was found in 
Osh in 1885 (Otiet Imp. Arkheol. Kommissii za 1882- 
1888 godi, p. LXXIII). Buildings from Samanid 
times, on the other hand, have evidently not been 
preserved. 

The mountain ranges surrounding the valley 
supplied gold, silver and coal (already then used for 
heating, al-Istakhri, 334), and furthermore petroleum, 
iron, copper, lead, turquoises, sal ammoniac and a 
medicament called Ku/ilkan (cf. BGA, iv, 344; parti- 
culars in Spuler, Iran, 387, 389, 399, with sources, 
especially al-Mukaddasi, 326; Ibn Hawkal 8 , 384). 
Turkish slaves, iron and copper, swords and armour 
as well as textiles were exported from Farghana and 
Isfidjab (Hudud al-'-alam, 116; Spuler, Iran, 407 f.). 
Judging by the growth in revenue the country's 
prosperity increased greatly in Samanid times. 
According to Ibn Khurradadhbih, 38, it amounted to 
280,000 dirhems; Ibn Hawkal 2 , 470, writing about 
130 years later, in 977, puts it already at one million 
(Spuler, Iran, 476). 

After the collapse of the Samanid state in 389/999, 
Farghana came under the dominion of the Karluks 
[q.v.] and thus of the ruling dynasty of the Ilig- Khans 
or Karakhanids [q.v.]. Ozkand [q.v.], where twelfth- 
century buildings and tomb-stones are still preserved, 
now became the centre of administration. It was 
there that most coins were minted (often bearing the 
province name Farghana as the place of coinage), 
but other minting-places also occur. The whole of 
Transoxania was originally administered from 
Ozkand. After the divisions which soon took place 
within the Karakhanid dynasty (cf. O. Pritsak, in 
Isl., xxxi/i (1953), 17-68), the princes of Farghana 
settled in Ozkand, where they withstood a Saldjuk 
advance in the years 482-3/1089-90. In 536/1 141 
Farghana came under the dominion of the Gurkhans 
[q.v.] of the Karakhitay [q.v.], but the indigenous 
dynasty was still tolerated, as elsewhere within this 
state. Until 560-74/1165-79, this dynasty seems also 
to have ruled over Samarkand, which later again 
came under the rule of a separate branch of the 
Karakhanids. From 1212 to 1218 Farghana was 
disputed between the Kh w arizmshah Muhammad II 
[q.v.] and first the Nayman prince Kuiliig, who had 
fled westwards, then the Mongols; with the sub- 
jection of the prince of Akhsikath and Kasan, the 
province subsequently fell to the Mongols (Ulus of 
Caghatay, cf. the article Cinoizids, above) for 
whom it was long administered by Mahmud and 
his son Mas c ud YalavaC in the thirteenth century. 
Local princes in Farghana were tolerated for a long 
time; the sheltered position of the valley induced 
Barak Khan, the Mongol governor, and the 
Karakhitay before him, to keep the treasury there 
(Wassaf, Bombay ed., 67 bottom; DiuwavnI. i, 48). 
The newly founded town of Andidjan [q.v.] (known 
to the Arab geographers only as the village Andukan) 
was the capital of the Farghana valley at the end 
of the thirteenth century. Marghinan now also gained 
in importance. 

After the Ulus of Caghatay split into two opposing 
sections in the fourteenth century, both the western 
kingdom (Transoxania) and the eastern kingdom 
(then called Mogholistan) contended for Farghana 



792 



at different times, up to the time of Tlmur. As 
Farghana belonged to MogholistSn during the greater 
part of this struggle, its administration shared certain 
aspects of the administration of the Tarim valley: 
the tax districts in both countries were called Urcin, 
not Tuman (Mongolian tiimen: unit of ten thousand) 
as in the rest of Transoxania. 

Under the Timurids [q.v.] Farghana mostly belonged 
to Khurasan (i.e., to the dominion of Shahrukh 
[q.v.] and his son Ulugh Beg [q.v.]) and from 873-99/ 
1469-94 had its own ruler in c Umar Shavkh [q.v.], 
a great-great-grandson of Tlmur. He was succeeded 
by his son Babur, who from Farghana moved against 
the intruding Shaybanids [q.v.] and advanced as 
far as Samarkand; but in 909/1504, after eventful 
battles he saw himself forced to surrender Farghana, 
and finally fled altogether to India (for details 
see babur). It is to him that we owe a more 
exact description of Farghana at a time when 
power-relationships in Central Asia were undergoing 
a decisive change, through the fall of the Timurids, 
the advance of the Shaybanids at the head of 
the Ozbegs [q.v.], as well as the establishment of the 
Shi'i Safavids [q.v.] in Persia. At that time there 
were nine larger towns in Farghana, to which Babur 
also adds Khodjand. Khokand, the later capital, was 
only a village at the time. The capital was 
Andidjan, which was already completely turkicized. 
(According to Babur, it was here that taghatay, raised 
to a literary language by C A1I Shir Nawa'i, was 
spoken). Marghinan was then still Iranian. — At the 
time of Babur there were numerous orchards and 
gardens in Farghana and various kinds of wood used 
for making quivers, bird-cages and similar articles; 
also a reddish-white stone, discovered in about 
1492 and used for making knife-handles and articles 
of that kind. Iron and turquoise were obtained 
from the mines; but Babur makes no mention of 
coal-mining or the manufacture of weapons, two 
formerly important branches of the economy. 
According to his estimate the country was only 
sufficiently rich to support an army of 3-4000 men. 

After the final expulsion of the Timurids, Farghana 
belonged to the Ozbeg state of the Shaybanids; 
Andidjan was then the seat of a local dynasty and 
gave its name to the whole valley (cf. Mahmud ibn 
Wall, Bahr al-asrdr, MS India Office 575, fol. 102b). 
After the collapse of the Shaybanid state in 1598-9, 
several Khodia families divided the country up 
among themselves. They lived under the nominal 
dependency of Bukhara, in Cadak, north of the 
Jaxartes, and had to submit to a number of arrange- 
ments with the Kazakhs and Kirgiz, who repeatedly 
pressed into the valleys of the mountains surrounding 
Farghana. In 1121/1709-10 the Farghana valley be- 
came a separate Ozbeg Khanate under Shahrukh Bi 
(Mulla Niyaz Muhammad, TaMkh-i Shdhrukhi, ed. 
N. N. Pantusov, Kazan 1885, 21; cf. Ivanov, 178- 
214). From then until 1876 the Farghana valley was 
the centre of the Khanate of Khokand (q.v. for details 
about the name and history of the town). 

In 1876 the Khanate was annexed by the Russians 
and became the centre of the "Farghana district" 
(Ferganskaya Oblast'), an area of 160,141 km.' 
(according to Brockhaus-Efron) with 1,560,411 
inhabitants (in 1897). The seat of the military govern- 
ment was the town New Margelan, founded by the 
Russians, called Skobelev from 1907-24, and sub- 
sequently Farghana (pop., 1951, approx. 50,000) 
and still today the centre of administration of the 
"Farghana district" in Uzbekistan (8029 km." with 
approximately 720,000 inhabitants [in 1951]). The 



towns of Khokand and Namangan were, however, 
considerably larger and of greater economic impor- 
tance (Khokand had approximately 113,000 in- 
habitants in 1912, and Namangan 70,000; in 1951, 
in contrast, approximately 93,000 and 115,000 
respectively). 

The Russians forthwith raised FarghanS's cotton- 
production considerably, introduced new American 
kinds of cotton and made Farghana (as Central Asia 
generally) one of their main providers of cotton and 
silk. The most important source of uranium of the 
Soviet Union is also situated in the Farghana valley 
(especially near Tuya-Muyun) ; petroleum and coal 
are also extracted. — The ancient system of irrigation 
has been expanded and improved and, as the "Far- 
ghana system", it has gained significance for the 
entire irrigation economy of the USSR: construction 
of the great Farghana canal in 1939; Farhat dam on 
the Jaxartes. — The sudden economic advance caused 
an inflation which led to a revolt in 1898. From 1916 
to 1922 Farghana was involved in the fighting 
between the indigenous Turkish Basmaci associa- 
tions and the Russians, and later the Bolsheviks. 
After the October revolution the Farghana valley 
was no longer a single administrative unit. Instead 
the central and eastern areas — essentially according 
to the nature of the majority of the population — 
were handed over to the Uzbekistan republic, and 
the west to Tadjikistan. The mountains surrounding 
the Farghana valley belong for the most part, how- 
ever, to Kirgizistan: this division demonstrates the 
result of the gradual advance of Turkish tribes into 
this area and, since the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, into the mountains, as well as the retreat 
of the Iranians. This political organization has had 
no significance for the development of the valley's 
economy or system of communication. The know- 
ledge of Russian has increased greatly in the last 
decades among the indigenous population, but 
without supplanting the indigenous languages. 

Bibliography: Chinese and Kokturks: 
Edouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue 
(Turcs) occidentaux, St. Petersburg 1903, especial- 
ly 148 ff.; Hsuan-Tschuang (Hiouen-Tshang), Mi- 
moires sur les contries occidentals, ed. Stanislas 
Julien, 2 vols., Paris 1857-8; Yu. A. Zadneprovs- 
kiy, DrevnezemledePc~eskaya kul'tura Fergani (The 
ancient agrarian culture oj Farghana), Moscow 
and Leningrad 1962 (Material! i issledovaniyj po 
arkheologii SSSR, cxviii). 

Islamic period: Barthold, Turkestan, 155-65, 
186-202 and index; idem, Zwolj Vorlesungen iiber 
die Geschichte der Turkm Mittelasiens, Berlin 1935 
idem, Four Studies, ed. V. Minorsky, i, Leiden 1956; 
Bertold Spuler, Iran in fruh-islamischer Zeit, Wies- 
baden 1952, index; P. P. Ivanov, Olerki po 
Sredney Azii [Sketches in the history of Central 
Asia], Moscow 1958, passim, especially 178-213. 
Geography: Le Strange, 476-80; A. von 
Middendorff, Einblicke in das Farghana-Tal, St. 
Petersburg 1881 (Mem. de l'Acad., vol. xxix); 
W. Busse, Bewasserungswirtschaft in Turan, 1915; 
W. Leimbach, Die Sowjetunion, Stuttgart 1950, 
42 ff., 147, 526; Th. Shabad, Geography of the 
USSR, New York 1951, 388-99 and index; V. 
Masal'skiy in Brockhaus-Efron, intsiklopedileskiy 
Slovar' xxxv A (70), St. Petersburg 1902, 560-4; 
BoPshaya Sovetskaya tlntsiklopediya?, xliv (1956), 
617-20 (both articles are geographical-statistical). 
Maps: 7th cent.: A. Herrmann, Atlas of China, 
Cambridge Mass. 1935, 37; 10th cent.: Spuler, 
op. cit., end; modern: BoPshaya Sovetskaya, £»<s»- 



FARGHANA — FARHAD wa-SHIRIN 



klopediya*, xliv, facing p. 618 (with illus.) ; Diercke, 
Weltatlas, 91st ed., 1957, p. 93; Leimbach, 340; 
Shabad, 395. (W. Barthold-[B. Spuler]) 

at.-FARGHAnL the mediaeval astronomer 
Alfraganus. His full name is Abu 'l-'Abbas Ahmad 
b. Muhammad b. Kathir al-Farghani, that is to say, 
a native of Farghana in Transoxania; not everyone, 
however, is agreed upon his name: the Fihrist only 
speaks of Muhammad b. Kathir, and Abu '1-Faradj 
of Ahmad b. Kathir, while Ibn al-Kifti distinguishes 
between two persons, Muhammad and Ahmad b. 
Muhammad, in other words father and son ; however 
it is very probable that all the references are to the 
same personage, an astronomer who lived in the 
time of the Caliph al-Ma'mun (d. 833) and until the 
death of al-Mutawakkil (861), for Abu '1-Mahasin 
and Ibn Abi Usaybi'a refer to a certain Ahmad b. 
Kathir al-Farghani who, in 247/861, is said to have 
been sent by al-Mutawakkil to Fustat to supervise 
the construction of a Nilometer. 

His principal work, which still survives in Arabic 
at Oxford, Paris, Cairo and the library of Princeton 
University, bears different titles: Djawami'- Him al- 
nudjum wa 'l-harakdt al-samdwiyya, Usui Him al- 
nudjum, al-Madkhal ila Him hay'at al-afldk, and 
Kitdb al-jusul al-thaldthin. It was translated into 
Latin by John of Seville and Gerard of Cremona. 
According to Steinschneider, a translation into 
Hebrew by Jacob Anatoli also exists at Berlin, 
Munich, Vienna, Oxford, etc. The Latin translation 
by John of Seville was printed at Farrara in 1493, 
Nuremberg in 1537, Paris in 1546, Berkeley (F. J. 
Carmody) in 1943; the translation by Gerard of 
Cremona was published by R. Campani (Citta di 
Castello, 1910). From Jacob Anatoli's translation 
into Hebrew Jacob Christmann made a Latin 
translation which appeared in 1590 at Frankfurt- 
am-Main. In 1669, at Amsterdam, Jacob Golius 
edited the Arabic text with a translation and a 
copious commentary, under the title: Muhammedis 
fil. Ketiri Ferganensis, qui vulgo Alfraganus dicitur, 
Elementa astronomica, Arabice et Latine. Apart from 
this work which, before Regiomontanus, was more 
widely circulated in the west than that of any other 
Arabic astronomer, since it was fairly short and 
easily understood, al-Farghani also wrote two books 
on the astrolabe, al-Kamil fi 'l-asturldb and Fi sarfat 
al-asturldb (the Arabic text of which is extant in 
Berlin and Paris) and certain other works, references 
to which are given in Brockelmann and Carmody. 
Bibliography: Fihrist, i, 279; Ibn al-Kifti, ed. 
Lippert, 78 and 286; Abu '1-Faradi (ed. Salhani), 
236; Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, i, 207; Ibn Taghribirdi, i, 
742; M. Steinschneider, Die europdischen Uber- 
setzungen aus dem Arabischen bis Mitte des XVII 
Jahr., SBAk. Wien, phil.-hist. Klasse, cxlix, 
22 and 44; Brockelmann, I, 221 SI, 392-3; 
Suter, Abhandlungen zur Gesch. der mathem. 
Wissensch., x, 18 and xiv, 160; Sarton, Intro- 
duction, i, 567; P. Duhem, Systeme du monde, ii, 
204-14; F. J. Carmody, Arabic astronomical and 
astrological sciences in Latin translation, Berkeley 
1956, 113-6. (H. Suter-[J. Vernet]) 

al-FARGHAnI. the name of two tenth-century 
historians, Abu Muhammad c Abd Allah b. Ahmad b. 
Dia'far(b. 282/895-6, d. 362/972-3) and his son, Abu 
Mansur Ahmad b. 'Abd Allah (327/939-398/1007). 
c Abd Allah's great-grandfather had been brought 
to the 'Irak from Farghana and had become a 
Muslim under al-Mu'tasim. 'Abd Allah himself was 
a student of the great Tabarl, whose works he 
transmitted, and he achieved high rank in the army. 



793 

He went to Egypt where his son, it seems, was born, 
and he and his family remained there. He wrote a 
continuation of al-Tabari's historical work, entitled 
al-Sila or al-Mudhayyal, and his son wrote a further 
continuation, entitled Silat al-Sila. Both works are 
known only from quotations in the works of other 
historians, though it has been suggested that a 
papyrus leaf containing the account of a battle from 
the reign of al-Muktadir may derive from the Sila; 
they were probably much more widely used than 
citations under their names indicate. The younger 
Farghani also wrote biographies of Kafur al-Ikhshidi 
and the Fatimid al-'Aziz, both of which, unfortunate- 
ly, have been lost along with most of the historical 
literature written under the Fatimids. 

Bibliography: Ta'rikh Baghdad, ix, 389-, 
Ta'rikh Dimashfr, vii, 277; Yakut, Udabd', i, 
161 f.; Safadi, Wdji, under Ahmad (who follows 
Yakut); intro. to Tabarl, xx; R. Guest, in A 
volume of Oriental studies presented to E. G. 
Browne, Cambridge 1922, 173; F. Rosenthal, A 
history of Muslim historiography, Leiden 1952, 73; 
N. Abbott, Studies in Arabic literary papyri, i, 
Chicago 1957, 109 ff. (F. Rosenthal) 

FARHAD PASHA [see ferhad pasha]. 
FARHAD wa-SHIR!N. A. Christensen (Sassa- 
nides, 469 and index) has collected together the in- 
formation relating to Shirin (Pehlavi Shirin "the 
sweet"; cf. TXux^pa, Glycera), a Christian favourite 
of the Sasanid king of Iran, Khusraw II Parviz 
(Pehlavi Abharvez "the victorious", 590-628). 
According to Sebeos, she was a native of Khuzistan; 
Khusraw married her at the beginning of his 
reign and she maintained her influence over him 
although inferior in status to Maria the Byzantine 
whom he had married mainly for reasons of policy; 
she protected the Christian clergy, probably lived for 
a time in the palace, the ruins of which still survive 
at Ka?r-i Shirin [q.v.], and she did not forsake the 
king in the last hours immediately before his assas- 
sination; their son, Mardanshah, was put to death 
when Sheroe, Maria's son, overthrew him and 
ascended the throne. Legends concerning the love of 
the king and Shirin soon came into being, and some 
of the details were collected by al-Tha'alibl (691) 
and Firdawsl (Shdh-ndma, trans. Mohl, vii), in 
particular Shirin's suicide over the body of Khusraw ; 
this romantic episode, together with that of Shirin 
and Farhad (Pehlavi Frahddh), became the subject of 
a series of romances in verse, in Persian, Turkish 
(see below) and Kurdish (Duda, 3, n. 7 and 8). 
Moreover Christensen (Gestes, 116-9) has noted 
certain features in the Persica of Ctesias in which he 
sees elements which helped to form the legend of 
Farhad and Shirin — Semiramis creating a garden 
near Mount Bagistanon (BIsutun), having a way cut 
through the Zagros mountains to allow for the 
passage of a canal, and having a royal castle built 

After the occupation of Iran by the Arabs, the 
first text in their language to mention Shirin and 
her lovers is the Chronicle of al-Tabarl; in its Persian 
adaptation by Bal'amI, we read: "Shirin was loved 
by Farhad whom Parviz punished by sending him to 
the quarries of BIsutun" (trans. Zotenberg, ii, 304 
and index, s.v. Ferhad, Schirin). The Arab geogra- 
phers mention them; thus Yakut claims to see 
Shirin's image among the sculptures of Tak-i 
Bustan, according to poems which he quotes (Bulddn, 
iii, 252-3) and records a narrative (iv, 112; and 
Barbier de Meynard, Dictionnaire de la Perse, 347-8 
and 448-9) explaining how the king had a castle 



FARHAD wa-SHIRIN 



built for her, named Kasr-i Shirin [q.v.]. In the Persian 
language Firdawsl, when writing the history in verse 
of the reign of Khusraw, tells briefly at the appro- 
priate place of his relations with Shirin, though 
■without giving them in his epic the importance 
which they were later to assume in the eyes of other 
poets: Parviz had parted from this childhood friend; 
meeting her again while hunting, he took her to the 
palace and decided to marry her, in spite of powerful 
opposition; then Shirin poisoned her rival Maryam 
whose son Shiruya was cast into prison; some time 
afterwards, the troops mutinied, released him and 
proclaimed him king, while Parviz was held prisoner 
in his palace, only accepting food prepared by 
Shirin; the leaders had him stabbed to death. Later, 
Firdawsl gave reign to his imagination: Shirin. on 
Shiruya's orders, consented to appear before an 
assembly of the nobility; she justified herself in 
respect of all the accusations brought against her, 
returned to her palace, made her final dispositions, 
asked Shiruya for permission to see Khusraw once 
more, in his tomb, and there she took a violent 
poison and died at his side. 

It was NIzamI who, in his Khusraw wa-Shirin 
(completed in 576/1180), created the romance of 
Farhad and Shirin, a notable part of this vast poem, 
from which it can be detached to form a complete 
work in itself. It would be superfluous to analyse the 
contents of this and the following poems, which have 
been studied by H. W. Duda; but a brief analysis of 
this romance, from which all the others are derived, 
is indispensable (leaving aside the first part) : Shirin 
wishes to construct a canal; Farhad is assigned to 
her for this purpose and begins work; Shirin comes 
to inspect the project, and they fall in love with 
each other; Khusraw. being apprised of this, has 
Farhad brought before him and, finding his passion 
unshaken, gives him orders to cut a way through 
Mount BIsutun and to renounce his association with 
Shirin; but she comes back to see him; the king has 
false news of Shirin's death given to Farhad who 
hurls himself from the mountain top and kills him- 
self ; the king has been left a widower by the death of 
Maryam and is on the point of marrying again; 
Shirin lives alone, in despair; but one day, visiting 
Kasr-i Shirin on the pretext of hunting, the king 
meets Shirin again; after a long discussion, reminis- 
cent of that between Wis and RamIn[seecuRCANl], 
they are reconciled and marry; the end of the reign 
and Khusraw's assassination correspond, in essenti- 
als, with the records of the historians; after his death 
Shirin, scorning Shiruya's attentions, kills herself in 
Khusraw's tomb. 

The poet Amir Khusraw Dihlawl is the author of 
a Shirin and Khusraw in which the narration is more 
lively and the style simpler than in Nizami's 
romance; his account of the reign and the amorous 
exploits of Khusraw (apart from the romance with 
Shirin) is different from Nizami's; Farhad is no 
longer a simple engineer but is a son of the emperor 
of China, an exile who has become an artist; after 
his tragic death, Shirin takes revenge by having her 
rival, a favourite of the king, poisoned (just as she 
poisoned Maryam in the Shdh-ndma). c ArifI (who 
lived in Adharbaydjan in about 770/1368-9: not to 
be confused with the author of Guy u-tugdn, d. 853/ 
1449), desiring to use the same theme once again, 
succeeded merely in producing an involved work 
with a complicated and protracted plot, even to 
analyse which would be tedious; in brief, prince 
Farhad became a sculptor and architect in order to 
win the hand of a girl named Gulistan; later, when 



a widower, he met Shirin and fell in love with her; 
then c Arifi follows his predecessors quite closely, 
until Farhad dies, poisoned by the mother of a 
young man whom Gulistan had spurned. Hatifl 
(about 1520) for the most part kept to the traditional 
account, but he added various episodes: for example, 
Khusraw had Farhad imprisoned in a pit in the 
mountains to keep him away from Shirin; but when 
digging a tunnel, Farhad came across a vein of 
precious stones; he managed to escape and was then 
recaptured. The inspiration of Wahshl, in his Farhad 
and Shirin (966/1558-9, completed by Wisal, 1265/ 
1848-9), some details of which were taken from 
Amir Khusraw Dihlawl, is lyrical rather than 
narrative: the sentimental incidents are in some 
respects reminiscent of the inspirations of Western 
poets of love and chivalry. In the short Farhad and 
Shirin (about 400 lines of verse) of c UrfI (d. about 
1590), which is even more lyrical than the work of 
Wahshi, the hymn to the beauty of nature and the 
meditation on the diverse emotions of love form the 
essential parts of this poem in which sentiment is 
personified by Shirin, the author refraining from 
repeating the legend itself which he assumes will 
already be familiar to the reader. Finally, in 1920 
Dhablh Behruz published the script of a film "The 
king of Iran and the Armenian princess". 

Bibliography: Faruk K. Timurtas, Iran 
edebiyahnda Husrev ii Sirin ve Ferhad ii Sirin 
yazan sairler, in Sarkiyat Mecmuasi, iv (1961), 
73-86; A. Christensen, L'Iran sous Us Sassanides, 
1936 ; H. W. Duda, Ferhad und Schirin, Prague 1933 
(essential); Schwarz, Iran, index, s.v. Farhad, 
Sirin; Tha'alibi. Histoire des rois des Perses, 
ed.-trans. Zotenberg, 1900; Firdawsl, Shdh-ndma, 
ed.-trans. Mohl in-fol., or trans, in-12, vii and 
index; A. Christensen, Les gestes des rois dans 
les traditions de VIran antique, Paris i936;Nizami, 
Khusraw wa-Shirin, ed. Wahid DastgardI, vol. 
ii of the complete works, Tehran 1333-55; on the 
poetae minores who have treated this subject in 
Persian from the 17th to the 20th centuries, 
Timurtas, loc. cit., Duda, op. cit., 116 ff., andGr. I. 
Ph., ii, 246 and 247. Schirin, ein persisches roman- 
tisches Gedicht nach Morgenldndischen Quellen, by 
Hammer-Purgstall, Leipzig 1809, is based on an 
amalgam of extracts from NizamI, Amir Khusraw 
Dihlawl, Hatifl and the Turkish writers Ahl and 
Shaykhl , freely translated (cf. Duda, op. cit., 12; 
Gr. I. Ph., ii 242-3 and Rieu, CPM, 566b). 

(H. MASSft) 
This theme penetrates very early into Turkish 
literatures. There exist two very old versions of the 
poem Khusraw and Shirin. dating back to the first 
half of the 8th/i4th century : one adapted by Kutb 
(ca. 741/1341) in the territories of the Golden Horde 
(ed. A. Zajaczkowski, Najstarsza wersja Turecka 
&usrav u Sirin Qufba, Warsaw 1958), another written 
by Fakhr al-DIn Ya'kiib in Western Anatolia, in the 
principality of the Aydln Oghullarl (ca. 767/1366; 
Ms: Marburg, Westdeutsche Bibl., Or. Qu. 1069). 
There is also a fairly close Turkish translation of 
Nizami's poem by Sheykhi [q.v.], made early in the 
gth/i5th century. 

In Eastern Turkish literature the theme was first 
treated by Nawal, who gave first place to the person 
of Farhad; Farhad, possessed with love for Shirin, 
pierces a mountain and dies on hearing the false news 
of Shirin's death. Many subsequent Turkish poets 
elaborated this topic, for example: Khusraw and 
Shirin: Ahmed Ridwan, Sadrl, Hayati, Ahl, Dielill; 
Farhad and Shirin or Farhdd-ndme: Harlml (Prince 



FARHAD wa-SHIRIN — FARHAT 



Korkud), Lami'I, Shani, Nakam, etc. (see Faruk 
K. Timurtas, Turk edebiyatinda Husrev ii Sirin ve 
Ferhad ii Sirin hikdyesi, in 1st. On. Turk Dili ve 
Edebiyah Dergisi, ix (1959), 65-88). 

There exist alsc some versions presenting the story 
in the form of a dramatic play, e.g., the Farhdd wa 
Shirin by the Azerbaydjan poet Samed Vurgun 
(d. 1956) and that by the modern Turkish poet 
Nazim Hikmet Ran (d. 1963), translated into Russian 
as "A Legend of Love". 

Bibliography: (further to that given above) 
Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, i, 321 ff. and index ii, 
s.vv. Ferhdd-Ndme, Khusrev u Shirin; G. Aliyev, 
Iz istorii voznikoveniya obraza Farhada v lite- 
raturakh narodov Vostoka, in Kratkiya soob- 
shceniya Inst, vostok., xxvii (1958), 50-7; idem, 
Legenda Khosrove i Shirin v literaturakh narodov 
Vostoka, Moscow i960; A. Zajaczkowski, La 
traduction turque-osmanlie du Husrdv u Sirin de 
Seykhi, Warsaw 1963; Fevziye Abdullah, in IA, 
s.v. Ferhad ile Sirin; Muharrem Ergin, in Turkoloji 
boliimii cahsmalan, Istanbul 1962, 113-39. 

(A. Zajaczkowski) 
FARHANG fsee kamus and ma'arif] . 
FARHANGISTAN [see madjma']. 
FARIjAT, Djarmanus, Arabic philologist 
and poet, forerunner of the nineteenth century 
literary renaissance in the Arab countries, born at 
Aleppo 20 November 1670, and died there 10 June 
1732. He was Maronite archbishop of his native 
town from 1725 to 1732, but we are not concerned 
here with his activity as an organizer, which was of 
the greatest importance to the Maronite church, nor 
with the majority of his dogmatic and polemic 
writings and his works of edification and history; he 
must however be mentioned in the history of Arabic 
literature as a lexicographer, grammarian and poet. 
Aleppo was one of the few Arab towns which after 
the Ottoman conquest had retained and to a certain 
extent developed a literary tradition. This tradition 
had been fortified by certain European influences, 
particularly among the Arabic-speaking Christians. 
The establishment of the Maronite college at Rome 
in 1584 and the presence at Aleppo of a large colony 
of European merchants played an important part in 
this; it must not be forgotten that J. Golius (1625-6) 
and E. Pococke (1630-6) both spent some time there. 
Some literary activity flourished in all the Christian 
communities, and the Orthodox patriarch Makarius 
b. al-Za'im al-Halabi (d. 1672) is only one example 
out of many. 

Born of a prosperous Maronite family, the Matar, 
Farhat received an excellent education from the 
Christian and Muslim scholars of Aleppo: Butrus 
al-TulawI, a pupil of the Maronite college of Rome 
(d. 1745; cf Manash in Machriq, vi (1903), 769-77; 
idem, Mustatrafdt, 7; Cheikho, Catalogue, 76-8, no. 
270; Mas c ad, Dhikrd, 9-11), Ya'kub al-Dibsi, a 
great authority on rhetoric (cf. Cheikho, op. cit., 97, 
no. 344), and the famous Muslim scholar Shaykh 
Sulayman al-Nahwi al-Halabi. Besides his native 
languages, Syriac and Arabic, he learnt in his youth 
Latin and Italian. After having taken monastic vows 
in 1693, with the name of Djibratl, he undertook a 
journey to Jerusalem (cf. Diwdn, 131) and then 
settled in Lebanon where he sat at the feet of the 
famous Maronite patriarch Istifan al-Duwayhi 
(1630-1704). Ordained priest in 1697, he became in 
1698 abbot of the monastery of Mart Mura at Ihdin; 
in 1711-2, as a result of certain complications (see 
Diwdn, 403, 469), he went on a journey to Rome, 
which made a deep impression on him (see Diwdn, 87, 



131, 146, 294, 434, 438, 448), to Spain, Sicily (op. cit., 
220, 404) and Malta (op. cit., 229). As archbishop of 
Aleppo (from 1725) he formed an important collection 
of manuscripts which still exists (cf. Zaydan, Ta'rikh 
dddb al-lugha al-'arabiyya, iv, Cairo 1914, 135) and he 
gathered round him a circle of poets and scholars. 
Among the friends whom he names in his Diwdn the 
following especially deserve mention: Nikula al- 
Sa'igh (1692-1756), of Greek descent, who shares with 
him the glory of being the most popular poet (Diwdn, 
150; Cheikho in Machriq, vi (1903), 97-111, with 
portrait; idem, Catalogue, 131, no. 484; idem, 
Shu'ard\ 503-11); Mikirdidj al-Kasih, an Armenian 
by birth (Diwdn, 239, 466; Cheikho, Catalogue, 195-6, 
no. 751; idem, Shu'-ard*, 498-501); the poet Ni'mat 
Allah al-Halabi (d. c. 1700; see Diwdn, 64; Manash 
in Machriq, v (1902), 396-405; Cheikho, Catalogue, 
205-6, no. 796; idem, Shu'ard'', 396-405); c Abd Allah 
Zakhir (1680-1748), who applied himself with 
enthusiasm and success to printing (Diwdn, 158; 
Cheikho, Catalogue, 108-9, no. 386; idem, Shu'-ard'', 
501-3; Zaydan, Ta'rikh, iv, 45); the theologian 
Ilyas b. al-Fakhr (d. c. 1740; see Diwdn, 214; Cheikho, 
Catalogue, 39-40, no. 122), etc. 

As a philologist, Farhat understood above all the 
need to make available to his fellow countrymen 
textbooks which would facilitate for them the study 
of Arabic. In almost all fields — lexicography, 
grammar, rhetoric — he wrote such textbooks, some 
of which have remained until recently in common use 
among Syrian Christians. Although they are based 
mainly on Arabic tradition, here and there, partic- 
ularly in grammar, can be detected traces of 
European influence, especially of the Roman 
Maronites and of the school of Erpenius. Among his 
works of lexicography we have al-Muthallathdt al- 
durriya (famish (Lebanon) 1867, and Diwdn, 92-106), 
an imitation in verse, composed in 1705, of the 
famous Muthallathdt of Kutrub [q.v.], and provided 
later with a commentary (manuscripts of it are not 
uncommon: one, of 1712, is in the Asiatic Museum in 
Leningrad ; see v. Rosen, Les manuscrits ar. de I' Inst, 
des Langues Or., St. Petersburg 1877, 71, no. 156). 
His dictionary, Ihkdm bab al-i'rdb min lughat al-A ''rib, 
completed in 1718, is of greater importance; it is 
based for the most part on the Kdmus of al-Firuzabadl 
[q.v.'], but contains many modern words and terms 
used by Christian Arabs; the Maronite patron of 
learning, the emigre Rushayd al-Dahdah (1813-89), 
collated five manuscripts of it with the Ramus and 
published the resulting dictionary under the title 
Dictionnaire arabe par Germanos Farhat, maronite, 
iveque d'Alep. Revu, corrige" et considirablement 
augmenU sur le manuscrit de I'auteur par Rochaid de 
Dahdah, scheick maronite, Marseilles 1849, vvith 
portrait of the author (Arabic title: Ihkdm bab al- 
i'rdb) ; as an appendix to the dictionary is printed the 
treatise al-Fasl al-ma'kud fi 'awdmil al-i'rdb. Among 
Farhat's grammatical works, the Bahth al-matdlib 
(cf. Manash in Machriq, iii (1900), 1077-83; Mas'ad, 
Dhikrd, 1 1 1-2) was particularly successful ; written on 
a very large scale, in 1705, and provided the following 
year with notes, it was abridged in 1707 by the 
author himself, and it is this abridged form which 
has been published in many editions with commen- 
taries by Faris al-Shidyak [q.v.], Malta 1836; by 
Butrus al-Bustani, Beirut 1854; by Sa c id al-Shartuni, 
Beirut, 1865, 1883, 1891, 1896, 1899, I9i3etc). 
As the zealous pupil of Ya'kub al-Dibsi, Farhat 
compiled also a manual of rhetoric and poetics 
under the title: Bulugh al-arab fi Him al-adab 
(only in manuscript ; see P. Sbath, "L'arrivie au but 



796 



FARHAT — FARID al-DIN MAS'OD "GANDJ-I-SHAKAR" 



dans I'art de la littirature" : Ouvrage sur la rhitorique 
par Germanos Farhat, in Bl£, xiv (1932) 275-9 with 
portrait; cf. Diwdn, 89; Cheikho, Catalogue, 151, 
no. 6). In the field of prosody two small treatises of 
his are known: al-Tadhkira fi 'l-kawdfi (printed with 
the Diwdn, 13-22) and a Risdlat al-fawdHd fi 'l- c arud 
(cf. Cheikho, Catalogue, 161, no. 7). 

Farhat is famous not only as a scholar but also as 
a poet. He himself collected the poems of his Diwdn 
under the title of al-Tadhkira, and it is in this form 
that the Diwdn has been published three times 
(Beirut 1850 — lithogr. 1866, 1894 — with the com- 
mentary of Sa'id al-Shartuni, based on three manu- 
scripts; on the last edition cf. C. F. S[eybold], in 
Litterarisches Zentralblatt, 1895, col. 1447). This 
collection does not contain all his poetic works, many 
of which were later printed separately (cf. for example 
Cheikho, Shu'ara*, 463-8, and also in Machriq, vii 
(1904), 288, xxiv (1926), 397 and passim). His work 
is interesting from the point of view of literary 
history as representing a systematic effort to 
apply the forms of Arabic poetry to specifically 
Christian themes: the form of the ghazal to hymns 
to the Virgin, the khamriyydt to the Eucharist, etc. 
Farhat was of course not the first to do this: as 
early as the 8th/i4th century we have the Diwdn of 
a certain Sulayman al-GhazzI (cf. Cheikho, Shu'ard', 
404-24) devoted to the same religious themes, but his 
name and his works are almost forgotten, and he did 
not found a school. The Christian element is largely 
predominant in the Diwdn of Farhat, although it 
cannot be denied that he possessed a fairly deep 
knowledge of Arabic poetry in general ; we find in it 
vigorous polemics directed against Abu 'l- c Ala 5 al- 
Ma'arri (248, 420, 439), many traces of the influence 
of Ibn al-Rumi (257), Ibn al-Farid (295), al-Suhra- 
wardl (310), an imitation of Avicenna's famous 
kasida on the soul (274-7) etc. The form of his poems 
is in general classical, but he used also different 
types of muwashshah, takhmis and tasmit. His 
language is not always faultless and he has been 
rightly accused of too free recourse to poetic licence. 
The bicentenary of Djarmanus Farhat was cele- 
brated at Aleppo in 1932, and in 1934 a monument 
was erected to him in the palace of the Maronite 
archbishop (Machriq, xxix (1931), 949; xxxii (1934), 
300; cf. also the article by F. A. al-Bustani in 
Machriq, xxx (1932), 49-53; on the volume published 
in his honour, cf. ibid., xxxi (1933), 789-90). 

Bibliography: G. Manache (Manash), Histor- 
ical note on the bishop Diarmdnus Farhat (in 
Arabic), in Machriq, vii (1904), 49-56, 105-n, 
210-9 (with portrait); idem, The works of the 
bishop Djarmdnus Farhat, ibid., 354-61 (a list of 104 
works, of which 37 are original, the rest being the 
works of other authors annotated, translated and 
edited by Farhat) ; idem, al-Mustatrafat fi haydt 
al-Savvid Diarmdnus Farhat, 1904; B. Mas'ad. al- 
Dhikrd fi haydt al-Matrdn Diarmdnus Farhat, 
Diuniva 1934; MarQn 'AbbQd, Ruwwdd al-nahda al- 
haditha, Beirut 1952 ; F. Taoutel, Mgr . Diarmdnus 
Farhat, spiritual director, in Machriq, xxxii (1934), 
261-72 (with portrait and autograph) ; Butrus al- 
Bustani, DdHrat al-ma'-drif, Beirut 1882, vi, 437-8; 
A. Baumgartner, Geschichte der Weltliteratur, i/2, 
Freiburg 1897, 413-4; CI. Huart, Littirature arabe', 
Paris 1912, 41-2; K. T. Khairallah, La Syrie, Paris 
1912, 41-2; DjirdjI Zaydan, Ta'rikh dddb al-lugha 
al-'arabiyya, Cairo 1914, iv, 13-4 (with portrait); 
L. Cheikho, Catalogue of the Christian Arabic 
authors since Islam (in Arabic), Beirut 1924, 
160-2, no. 609 and p. 240 (additions from the 



libraries of Leningrad by I. Yu Krackovskiy, in 

Machriq, xxiii (1925), 681); idem, Kitdb Shu'ard' 

al-nasrdniyya ba'd al-Isldm, Beirut 1927, 459-68 ; 

J. E. Sarkis, col. 1441-2. 

(I. Kratschkowsky-[A. G. Karam]) 

FARlD PASHA [see damad ferId pasha]. 

FARlD al-DIN [see 'attar]. 

FARlD al-DIN MAS C CD "GANBJ-I- 
SHAKAR", one of the most distinguished of Indian 
Muslim mystics, was born some time in 571/1175 at 
Kahtwal, a town near Multan, in a family which 
traced its descent from the caliph c Umar. His grand- 
father, Kadi Shu'ayb, who belonged to a ruling house 
of Kabul, migrated to India under the stress of 
the Ghuzz invasions. Shaykh Farld's first teacher, 
who exerted a lasting influence on him, was his 
mother, who kindled that spark of Divine Love in 
him which later dominated his entire being, and 
moulded his thought and action. Shaykh Farid 
received his education in a madrasa attached to 
the mosque of one Mawlana Minhadj al-DIn Tirmidhl 
at Multan where, later, he met Shaykh Kutb al-Din 
Bakhtiyar Kaki [q.v.], khalifa of Shaykh Mu'In al- 
Din Cishti [q.v.], and got himself admitted into the 
Cishti order. According to Ghawthi Shattarl, Shaykh 
Farid excelled all other saints in his devotions and 
penitences. At Ucch he performed the saldt-i ma'kus 
by hanging head downwards in a well, suspended 
from the boughs of a tree. He observed fasts of all 
types, the most difficult of them being Sawm-i 
Dd?udi and Tayy. He had committed to memory the 
entire text of the Kur'an and used to recite it once 
in twenty-four hours. Accounts of his visits to 
foreign lands by later writers are hardly reliable 
because no early authority refers to them. Besides 
Shaykh Kutb al-Din Bakhtiyar Kaki, he received 
spiritual benedictions from Shaykh Mu'in al-DIn 
Cishti also. For nearly 20 years he lived and worked 
at Hansi, in the Hisar district. Later on he moved 
to Adjodhan (now called Pak Pattan on his account) 
from where his fame spread far and wide. He died 
at Adjodhan on 5 Muharram 664/17 October 1265. 
During the last 700 years his tomb has been one of the 
most venerated centres of pilgrimage for the people 
of the sub-continent. Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs 
alike hold him in high esteem. Numerous rulers, 
including TImur and Akbar, have visited his grave 
for spiritual blessings. The town of Farldkoi was 
named after him. He left a big family which spread 
in the country and many of his descendants (e.g. 
Shaykh Baha' al-DIn of Radjabpur, near Amroha, 
and Shaykh Salim Cishti of Fatehpur Sikri) set up 
important mystic centres. 

To Shaykh Farid belongs the credit of giving an 
all-India status to the Cishti silsila and training a 
number of eminent disciples — like Shaykh Diamal 
al-Din of Hansi, Shaykh Nizam al-Din Awliya 5 of 
Dihli and Shaykh c Ala> al-Din Sabir of Kalyar— 
who disseminated its teachings far and wide. By 
establishing close personal contact with people, he 
transformed the Cishti order — which was, till then, 
limited in its sphere of influence — into a powerful 
movement for the spiritual culture of the masses. 
He attracted towards Islam many of the Hindu 
tribes of the Pandjab. The impact of his teachings is 
discernible in the sacred book of the Sikhs, the Guru 
Granth, where his sayings are respectfully quoted. 
His knowledge of tafsir, kird'dt and fikh, besides 
his mastery of Arabic grammar, impressed even the 
specialists. He introduced the 'Awdrif al-ma'-drif 
into the mystic syllabus of those days, taught it to 
his disciples and himself prepared a summary of it. 



FARlD al-DIN MASHJD "GANDJ-I-SHAKAR 



Since all sorts of people — djogis and kdfirdn-i siydh 
posh, Hindus and Muslims, villagers and townsfolk — 
came to him, his djamd'at khdna grew into a veritable 
centre for cultural intercourse between different 
social groups. Some of the earliest sentences of 
Hinduwl (the earliest form of Urdu) were uttered in 
his dwelling. He also helped in the development of 
some local dialects of the Pandjab by recommending 
religious exercises in the Pandjabl language (Shah 
Kallm Allah, Kashkol-i Kalimi, Dihll 1308, 25). 

Bibliography: The following three works are 
the earliest and the most reliable sources for his 
life: Amir Hasan Sidjzi, FawdHd al-ju'dd, Luck- 
now 1302; Hamid Kalandar, Khayr al-madxdlis, 
ed. Nizami, 'Aligarh; Amir Khurd, Siyar al- 
awliyd', Dihll 1302. The following collections of 
malfuzdt — FawdHd al-sdlikin, Asrdr al-awliyd', 
Rahat al-kulub — are apocryphal (see Nizami, The 
life and times of Shaikh Faridu'd-Din Ganj-i 
Shakar, 'Aligarh 1955, 118-20). Among later 
sources, the following Persian tadhkiras may 
be mentioned: Sayyid Muh. Akbar Husayni, 
Djawdmi' al-kalim, Kanpur 1356, 230-1, 151, etc.; 
Djamali, Siyar al- c drifin, Dihll 1311, 31-59; c Abd 
al-Hakk, Akhbdr al-akhhydr, Dihll 1309, 51-9; 
Muh. GhawthI Shattari, Gulzdr-i abrdr, As. Soc. 
Bengal Ms. 259, f. 13-13V; c Abd al-Samad, Akhbdr 
al-asfiyd", Ms. Ethe 64; c Abd al-Rahman Cishti, 
Mir'dt al-asrdr, Ms. personal collection; Mir 'All 
Akbar Ardistanl, Madj-ma' al-awliyd', Ms. Ethe 
645; Allah Diya Cishti, Siyar al-aktdb, Nawal 
Kishore 1881, 161-77; 'All Asghar Cishti, Djawa- 
hir-i Faridi, Lahore 1301; Para Shukoh. Safinat al- 
awliyd', Nawal Kishore 1900, 96-7; Ghulam Mu c in 
al-DIn 'Abd Allah, Ma c dridj al-wildydt, Ms. personal 
collection; Muh. Bulak Cishti, Matlub al-tdlibin, 
Ms., personal collection ; Rawda-i aktdb, Dihll, Mu- 
hibb-i-Hind Press, 58-61; Muh. Akram Baraswi, 
Iktibds al-anwdr, Lahore 1895, 160-75; Rahim 
Bakhsh Fakhrl, Shadjarat al-anwdr, Ms., personal 
collection; Muh. Husayn Muradabadl, Anwar al- 
c drifin, Lucknow 1876; Nadjm al-DIn, Manakib al- 
maAfiwfitn, Luckhow 1873; Kadi Sher Muh., Risdla 
Faridiyya bihishtiyya, Lahore 1300; Ghulam Sar- 
war, Khazinat al-asfiyd', Lucknow 1872,1, 287-305. 
References are found in the following historical 
works: c Afif, Td'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, Bibl. Indica, 
198; Ibn Battuta, iii, 135-6 = H. von Mzik, Die 
Reise. . ., 52-4; Muh. Bihamid Khanl, Ta'rikh-i Mu- 
hammadi, Brit. Museum MS Or. 137, ff. 144-6; Abu 
'1-Fadl, A'in-i Akbari, Sir Sayyid edition, ii, 208; 
Abu '1-Kasim Hindu Shah, Ta'rikh-i Ferishta, Nawal 
Kishore 1865, ii, 383-91; Sujjan Rai Bhandarl, 
Khuldsat al-tawdrikh, Dihll 1918, 33, 35, 61-3. See 
also, c Abd al-Wahid, Saba c sandbil, Kanpur 1299, 
58; Faydl, Diwdn-i Faydi, Dihll 1268, 183. Urdu 
and English accounts: PIr Muh. Husayn, WakdV 
Hadrat Bdbd Farid Gandj Shakar (Urdu), Lahore 
131 2; Ghulam Sarwar, Hadikdt al-awliyd' (Urdu), 
Lahore 1293, 36-8; Mirza Muh. Akhtar, Tadhkira 
awliyd'-i Hind (Urdu), Dihll 1928, i, 43-6; Muh. 
Nazlr Ahmad Deobandi, Tadhkirat al-'dbidin, 
c Allgarh 1901, 22-8; Mushtak Ahmad, Anwar al- 
'dshikin, Haydarabad-Deccan 1332, 34-6; Rashld 
Ahmad Ridwl, IHdn-i siyddat-i Faridi, Amroha 
1332; c Abd al-Hakk, The Sufis' work in the early 
development of the Urdu Language (Urdu), Dihll 1939, 
5-7; Imperial Gazetteer of India, x, 532; Punjab 
Gazetteer, ii; Report on a tour in the Punjab 
{1878-9), in AS I, xiv; Ibbetson, Panjab castes, 
Lahore 1916; M. Irving, in Jour. Punj. Hist. Soc, 
i (1911-2), 70-6; F. Mackeson, Journal 0/ Captain 



C. M. Wade's voyage from Lodiana to Mithankot . . ., 
in JASB, vi (1837), 190-3; Oriental College M aga- 
zine, Lahore, xiv, xv, xvii; Munshi Mahan Lai, 
A brief account of Masud, known by the name of 
Farid Shakar ganj or Shakarbar, in JASB, v (1836), 
635-8 ; K. A. Nizami, The life and times of Shaikh 
Farid-u'd-Din Ganj-i Shakar, 'Aligarh 1955. 



l. Niz 



FARlPA [see fara'id, fard]. 
FARlDKOf, formerly a small feudatory 
princely s t a t e in the Pandjab, now merged with the 
FIruzpur Division of the Indian Pandjab, and lying 
between 30° 13' and 30 50' N. and 74° 31' and 75 5' 
E. with an area of 642 sq. miles. Both the State and 
the principal town of the same name are unimportant. 
The town, lying in 30 40' N. and 74° 49' E., 20 miles 
south of FIruzpur [a.v.], has a fort built by Radja 
Mokulsi, a native Radjput chief, in the time of Farid 
al-DIn Gandj-Shakar [q.v.], popularly known as Bawa 
(Baba) Farid, after whom the fort was named 
Faridkot (koi = fort). The founder was apparently 
an admirer and devotee of the saint, who was 
equally popular with the Muslims and the non- 
Muslims. The former ruling family belonging to the 
Siddhu-Brar clan of the Djats [q.v.], who later 
embraced Sikhism, occupied the town and the neigh- 
bouring territory during the time of Akbar [q.v.]. 
They were, however, involved in several petty 
quarrels with the surrounding Sikh states belonging 
to their kinsmen. Offended at the hostility of their 
neighbours, the ruling family sided with the British 
during the Sikh Wars, being rewarded with the 
restoration of certain lost territory. Again during the 
military uprising of 1857 the ruler, Wazlr Singh, 
remained loyal and actively assisted the British, 
receiving a further handsome reward. Faridkot, along 
with the other Phulkian States ruled by the Sikh 
Radjas of the same common family, was badly 
disturbed during the communal riots of 1947 which 
followed in the wake of Partition, and is now without 
any Muslims, who have all migrated to Pakistan. 
Bibliography : Aitchison, Engagements and 
Sanads . . ., s.v.; Imperial Gazetteer of India, 
Oxford 1908, xii, 51-2. (A.S. Bazmee Ansari) 
FARlDPUR, head-quarters of a district bearing 
the same name in East Pakistan. The district was 
created in 1807 out of the older division of Dacca- 
Pjalalpur. It embraces an area of 2,371 square miles 
and has a population of 2,709,711 (1951 census). The 
city (pop. 25,287), which is named after that of the 
local pir Shaykh Farid, is situated on an old channel 
of the Padma, called the Mara (dead) Padmd. It is 
generally identified with the Fathabad of the 
Muslim period. The A'in-i Akbari mentions Sarkar 
Fathabad, and this name is believed to originate from 
that of Djalal al-DIn Fath Shah, the Bengal Sultan 
(886-92/1481-6). But Fathabad as a mint town is 
known to have been first started by Djalal al-Din 
Muhammad (818-31/1415-35) after his conquest of 
the Hindu Radja of south Bengal. Since then 
Fathabad maintained its integrity, rising to an almost 
independent status in the time of the Dihll emperor 
Akbar under the local zaminddr Madjlis Kutub, 
who was finally subjugated in about 1013/1609 by 
Islam Khan, the Mughal subaddr of Bengal. It is 
in this district that the Fara'idiyya [q.v.] movement 
was started by HadjdjI Sharl c at Allah in the early 
19th century, which was of a rural character and 
hence spread far and wide in the riparian districts of 
lower Bengal. 

Bibliography: Mirza Nathan, Bahdristdn-i 
Ghaybi, Eng. tr. M. I. Borah, Gawhati 1936, 



FARlDPUR — FARIGHONIDS 



45-60; L. S. S. O'Malley, Bengal district gazetteers: 
Faridpur, Calcutta 1925; A. H. Dani, House of 
R&dja Ganeia of Bengal, in JASB, 1952; Mu'In al- 
Din Aljmad Khan. History of the Fard'idi move- 
ment in Bengal, to be published by the Asiatic 
Society of Pakistan, Dacca. (A. H. Dani) 

FARlDCN (Pahlavi, Fredun; ancient Iranian, 
Thraetaona), the son of Abtiyan or Abtin, one of the 
early kings of Iran. The most complete text on the 
subject is the account of his reign by Firdawsl, in 
verse; some of the sources for it will be found in pre- 
Islamic texts. §§ 130-8 of the Yashts of the Avesta 
reveal the names of the first kings of Iran in their 
original order (the first being Yima [see djamshid]), 
whose conqueror and murderer, Azhl-Dahaka, was 
overthrown in his turn and put to death by 
Thraetaona; the latter was rewarded by a share of 
the aureole of glory (hvareno) which, from the throne 
of Ahura-Mazda, descends upon the heads of saints 
and heroes, and which as the result of a grave 
transgression had forsaken Yima (Yasht 19); 
Thraetona the son of Athwya, the priest responsible 
for preparing the sacred potion known as haoma, 
saved the world from the domination of the mon- 
strous demon Azhl-Dahaka, liberated Arnavak and 
Sahavak (Firdawsl: Arnawaz and Shahrnaz), the 
daughters of the dead Yima, became king of Iran 
and then, in old age, divided his empire between his 
three sons, one of whom, Iradj, was assassinated by 
the other two, leaving a daughter; Thraetona 
married her, with the object of procreating an 
avenger for his son (J. Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta, i, 
131, n. 15, sees in this consanguineous union, sub- 
sequently transformed by national tradition, an 
early instance of hhetuk-das; cf. the same author, 
£tudes iraniennes, ii, 217 ff., and al-Mas'Qdl, Murudj, 
ii, 145). According to religious tradition, ThraStaona 
fought against the demons of Mazandaran (national 
tradition describes him as an expert in magic). In 
the national tradition, handed down by the Shdh- 
nama of Firdawsl, Azhl-Dahaka (Persian: Zahhak) 
retains only one feature of his monstrous appearance 
— two serpents which sprang from his shoulders at 
the kiss of the devil, and which he has to feed by 
demanding the daily sacrifice of a group of his 
subjects; one night, in a dream, he sees the young 
warrior who overthrows him; he consults his 
soothsayers and learns that Farldun will be born and 
will overthrow him; he orders the execution of the 
father of Farldun, for whom he has a vigorous search 
made from the time of his birth, though in vain; 
aided by partisans led by the blacksmith Kavah, 
Farldun defeats Zahhak's troops and imprisons him, 
in a cave on Mount Damawand [q.v.]; being pro- 
claimed king of Iran, he established justice and 
peace in the land; three sons were born to him and, 
in due time, he divided his empire between them; 
the two eldest, jealous of their younger brother, put 
him to death — a murder which gave rise to inter- 
minable wars; from the union of Iradj and a slave- 
girl married to a nephew of Farldun was born 
Manucihr who succeeded his father on the throne of 
Iran, overthrew and put to death his two uncles 
whose heads he sent to Farldun; the latter ended his 
life in solitude, mourning his sons, his eyes fixed on 
their three skulls. — To this narrative, Arab and 
Iranian authors add little. According to Ibn Isfan- 
dyar, (History of Tabaristan, trans. E. G. Browne, 
15; ed. Ikbal, Tehran, index), Farldun was born in 
the village of Warka, a dependency of Laridjan ; Ibn 
al-Balkhi (Fdrs-ndma, ed. Le Strange, index) credits 
him with a fantastic genealogy (12), the stature and 



corpulence of a giant, a very wide field of knowledge, 
the inauguration of the autumn feast of mihrgdn 
[q.v.], the re-establishment of justice, the use of 
simples and magic practices to cure illnesses of both 
humans and animals, the creation of the mule(36); 
Bal'ami (Chronique, trans. Zotenberg, index s.v. 
Afridun) speaks of Faridun's knowledge of astronomy 
and fancifully attributes the Kh'arizmian Tables to 
him; al-Tha'alibi (Histoire des rois des Perses, ed.- 
trans. Zotenberg) relates, according to the Pahlavi 
Ayin-ndmagh (Book of institutions) that, in his 
reign, men were classed according to merit and to 
services performed (15); furthermore, he records 
sentences and proverbs ascribed to Farldun (40); 
al-Shahrastanl (Milal, trans. Haarbrucker, i, 298) 
credits him with the construction of a pyraeus; 
al-BIrunl (Chronology, trans. Sachau, 213 and index 
s.v. Fredun) indirectly attributes to him the intro- 
duction of the Sada, a periodic bonfire, whilst 
Firdawsi connects him with the invention of fire by 
king Hushang (Shdh-ndma, trans. Mohl, i, 26) and 



, the < 



. of 



Farldun (i, 8 

Bibliography : in addition to the sources 
quoted above, see also : Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch 
(Thraetaona) ; Tabarl, index, s.v. Afridun ;Schwarz, 
Iran (index, s.v. Afridun); Mas'udi, Murudj, 
index; idem, Avertissement, trans. Carra de Vaux, 
index (in particular 126, n. 1, quotation from Abu 
Tammam); Hamza Isfahan! (ed. Gottwald, i, 13, 
brief mention); Yakut, index, s.v. Afridun (his 
enthronement, his sons) and Barbier de Meynard, 
Dictionnaire de la Perse, 5, n. 2; MakdisI, Creation 
et histoire, ed.-trans. CI. Huart, iii, 8, 149; 
Mudjmil al-tawdrikh, in J A, xi (1841), 157 (short 
resume of the reign, following Firdawsi); c Ulamd-i 
Islam, trans. Blochet, in RHR, xxxvii (1898), 
45 (mention only); A. Christensen, Heltedigtning 
og Fortaellingslitteratur hos Iranerne i Oldtiden, 
Copenhagen 1935; M. Mole, Le partage du monde 
dans la tradition iranienne, in J A, ccxl (1952), 
455 ff. (H. Masse) 

FARlDCN [see feridOn beg]. 
FARifiHCNIDS (Al-i FarIghOn, Banu Fari- 
ghun), ruling dynasty of Guzgan (Guzganan, Guzga- 
nyan, Arabic al-DJuzdjan [q.v.]) in east Khurasan, now 
in north-west Afghanistan. In the 4th/ioth century 
they appear among the principal vassals of the 
SamSnids [q.v.]. The name is perhaps to be connected 
with that of the legendary Afridhun (Farldun), cf. 
Hudud al- c dlam, § 23, 46, or somewhat more probably 
with that of Afrigh (Farigh), who is said to have ruled 
in Kh'arizm in pre-Islamic times (see al-BIrum, 
Chronology, 35, transl. 41). There is no evidence, 
though this remains a possibility, that tbe Farighun- 
ids were descended from the pre-Islamic rulers of 
Guzgan, the Guzgan Khudahs. on whom Tabarl has 
some details (ii, 1206, 1569, 1609-n, 1694, cf. Ibn 
Khurradadhbih, 40, trans. 29). 

The names and number of the Farighunid rulers 
have never been determined with certainty, owing 
principally to contradictory statements in the text 
of the Ta'rikh-i Yamini of e Utbi [q.v.], a contem- 
porary authority, who has been followed by the later 
historians (Ibn al-Athir, Rashid al-DIn, Ibn Khaldun, 
etc.). The list as usually given includes: 

(a) Ahmad b. Farighun, amir of Guzgan about 287/ 
900. He was a prince of importance, who according 
to Narshakhl refused the friendship of the amir of 
Marw, whereupon the latter turned to Isma c H, the 
Samanid ruler of Transoxiana. Aljmad b. Farighun 
subsequently did homage to "Amr b. Layth, the 



FARIGHONIDS 



799 



Saffarid (Narshakhl, ed. Schefer, 85, transl. R. N. 
Frye, History of Bukhara, Cambridge, Mass., 1954, 87) . 

(b) Abu '1-Harith Muhammad b. Ahmad b. 
Farighun. He is first mentioned apparently as Abu 
'1-Harith b. Farighun (in connexion with his secretary 
Dja'far b. Sahl b. al-Marzuban, who was famous for his 
hospitality and the most popular man in Khurasan) 
by al-Istakhri (148), and later by Ibn Hawkal (ed. 
De Goeje, 208, ed. Kramers, 292). Al-Istakhri wrote 
according to De Goeje not later than 933 (Barthold, 
Preface to Hudud al-'&lam, 6, 19), but the date 951 
is often given (cf. Minorsky, Hudud al-'dlam, 176). 
Abu '1-Harith Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Farighun 
evidently gave his daughter in marriage to the young 
Samanid sovereign Nuh b. Mansiir, some time after 
the latter's accession in 365/976 (Gardizi, ed. M. 
Nazim, 48), and in 372/982 he received the dedication 
of the geographical work Hudud al-'-dlam, possibly 
written by another Ibn Farighun (see Minorsky in 
A Locust's Leg, 189-96). 

After 380/990 Abu '1-Harith as Samanid amir of 
Guzgan was ordered to oppose Fa'ik, the amir of 
Harat, who was then in rebellion. He assembled a 
large force and advanced from Guzgan against 
Fa'ik, last heard of at al-Tirmidh across the Oxus. 
F5"ik sent a cavalry force of 500 men, Turks and 
Arabs, who routed the army of the Farighunid and 
returned thereafter to Balkh ( c UtbI-ManInI, i, 166, 
cf. Ibn al-Athir, sub anno 383). In 383/993 Nuh b. 
Mansur, on the way to chastise rebellious subjects in 
Khurasan, crossed the Oxus into Guzgan and met its 
governor, the amir Abu '1-Harith al-Farighuni, 
remaining there till all his forces arrived ( c UtbI- 
Maninl, i, 184). Sabuktakin [q.v.] was at this time in 
command of the Samanid forces, and in 385/995 he 
and his son Mahmud requested Abu '1-Harith al- 
Farighunl to join them in Harat, which he did 
( c Utbi-ManinI, i, 209; Gardizi, 56). At some time a 
double marriage alliance united the two families, 
Mahmud marrying a daughter of Abu '1-Harith and 
Mahmud's sister being given to the son of Abu 
'1-Harith, Abu Nasr ('Utbl-Manlni, ii, 101, cf. Ibn 
al-Athir, sub anno 401, Ibn Khaldun, ed. Lebanon 
1958, iv, 790). Later, when Sabuktakin died (387/997) 
Abu '1-Harith al-Farighuni attempted to mediate 
between his sons Mahmud and Ismail ( c UtbI Manlru, 
i, 275), and Mahmud, when about to march on 
Ghazna, wrote a letter to inform him (ibid., i, 277). 
Eventually, towards 389/999, Mahmud committed 
Isma'il to the safe keeping of the governor of Guzgan, 
Abu '1-Harith {ibid., i, 316). 

It is somewhat striking that Abu '1-Harith Muham- 
mad b. Ahmad b. Farighun is apparently never 
named by c UtbI. In his formal account of the 
Farlghunids ( c UtbI-ManInI, ii, 101-5) he states that 
Abu '1-Harith Ahmad b. Muhammad was the father 
of Abu Nasr, who in the sequel appears as the head 
of the family (below, (c)). It seems feasible that some 
time after 372/982 Abu '1-Harith Muhammad, who 
had already enjoyed a career of perhaps as long as 
50 years, was succeeded by a son with the same 
kunya, Abu '1-Harith Ahmad, who would then be 
the Farighunid who engaged in the various campaigns 
mentioned by c UtbI between 990 and 995. But the 
texts of the passage vary: Minorsky has already 
pointed out that in c UtbI-ManinI (ii, 101) Abu 
'1-Harith Ahmad b. Muhammad is succeeded by his 
son Abu Nasr Ahmad b. Muhammad, which is 
impossible, from which he concludes that Abu 
'1-Harith Ahmad b. Muhammad never existed 
(Hudud al-'-dlam, 176), and although in the same 
passage the Delhi (1847, p. 283) and Lahore (1300/ 



1882, p. 227) editions of c UtbI give, as the son of 
Abu '1-Harith Ahmad b. Muhammad, Abu Nasr 
Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Muhammad, no positive 
conclusion is afforded. Elsewhere c Utbi names Abu 
Nasr Ahmad b. Muhammad al-Farlghuru ( c Utbi- 
Manlnl, ii, 84, also Delhi, 271, Lahore, 218). The 
successor of b. Abu '1-Harith Muhammad b. Ahmad 
is usually said to be 

(c) Abu Nasr Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Farighun. 
In 389/999, when Mahmud destroyed the Samanid 
power in Khurasan and established himself at 
Balkh, the local rulers who had previously acknow- 
ledged the Samanids, submitted to him, including 
Al-i Farighun, rulers of Guzgan ( c UtbI-ManinI, 
i, 316, cf. Ibn al-Atihlr, sub anno 389). Thus 
when the Ilek Khan crossed the Oxus to attack 
Mahmud, Abu Nasr al-Farighuni the governor of 
Guzgan fought in the centre with the Sultan's 
brother Nasr against the Kara-Khanids at the battle 
of Carkhiyan in 398/January 1008 ( c UtbI-MamnI, ii, 
84, cf. Ibn Khaldun, iv, 788). Later in the same year, 
or in the following year, Maljmud invaded India. His 
brother-in-law Abu Nasr al-Farighuni accompanied 
him, and played a prominent part ('Utbl-Manlni, ii 
98, cf. Ibn Khaldun, iv, 789). Abu Nasr had been 
confirmed in the possession of Guzgan at his father's 
death, and continued to enjoy all his rights there 
till his own death in 401/1010-1 ('Utbl-Manlni, ii, 
102, cf. Ibn al-Athir, sub anno, Ibn Khaldun, iv, 790). 

(d) Hasan b. Farighun, once mentioned by BayhakI 
(Ta'rikh, ed. Morley, 125, cited Minorsky, Hudud, 
1-77), apparently did not succeed to, or did not retain, 
the governorship of Guzgan, which was ruled from 
408/1017-8 as a Ghaznawid fief by Abu Ahmad 
Muhammad b. Mahmud (married to a daughter of 
Abu Nasr al-Farighuni) ('Utbl-Manlni, ii, 236). 

Nothing can be gleaned concerning the Farlghunids 
from the portion of the Tabakdt-i Ndsiri of al- 
Pjuzdjanl translated by H. G. Raverty, who in 
his notes mentions a Ma'mun b. Muhammad 
FarlghunI, i.e., Ma'mun b. Muhammad [q.v.] of 
Kh w arizm. This man is called FarlghunI also by the 
late (1 6th century) writer Ghaffari (Gifiarl) (cf. 
Hudud al-'-dlam, 174; Cahdr mahdla, ed. MIrza 
Muhammad Kazwlnl, GMS, 1910, 243), and this 
is usually reckoned a mistake. It is possible, however, 
that Ma'mun b. Muhammad (whose genealogy is 
still unknown) belonged to a collateral branch of the 
family of the Kh w arizm Shahs whom he dispossessed 
in 386/996, in which case he might claim descent 
from the Afrlgh or Farigh of Kh'arizm mentioned 
earlier in this article. 

In the 10th century under the Farlghunids Guzgan 

appears to have possessed greater importance than 

at other times in its history. Apart from their political 

activity, the Farlghunids were also patrons of learned 

men and poets, including Badl c al-Zaman al- 

Hamadhanl and Abu '1-Fath al-Bustl ('Utbl-Manlni, 

ii, 102-5, cf. Ibn al-Athir, sub anno 401 ; Ibn Khaldun^ 

iv, 790) and of course the author of Hudud al-'-dlam. 

Bibliography: V. V. Barthold, Preface to- 

Hudud al-'-dlam, 4-7; V. Minorsky, ibid., 173-8 

(the best and most complete account); idem, Ibn 

Farighun and the Hudud al-'Alam, in A Locust's 

Leg, Studies in honour of S. H. Taqizadeh, London 

1962, 189-96; E. Sachau, Ein Verzeichnis muham- 

medanischer Dynastien, in Abhandlungen der 

preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil.- 

hist. Klasse, 1923, i/5, p. 5 (based on the 17th 

century author Munedidjim-Basht) ; D. M. Dunlop, 

The Jawdmi 1 al-'Ulum of Ibn Farighun, in Z. V. 

Togan'a arma^an, Istanbul 1955, 348-53; Muham- 



FARlGHONIDS — FARIS al-SHIDYAK 



mad Nazim, Life and times of Sultan Mahtnud of 
Ghazna, Cambridge 1931, Appendix C, The 
Farighunids, 179-80; C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaz- 
navids . . ., Edinburgh 1963, index; Zambaur, 205. 

(D. M. Dunlop) 
FARIS (A., pi. fursdn and also fawdris, probably 
for the sake of expressiveness) denotes the rider 
on horseback, and in principle cannot be applied 
to the man riding a donkey or mule. The horse 
was considered in the article faras, equitation 
will be discussed in furusiyya, and in the present 
article we shall not dwell on subjects relating to the 
horse, but rather concentrate on the rider. It will be 
noticed immediately that, in Arabic, to 'ride a horse' 
is rendered by rakiba, with the result that the active 
participle rdkib has the general sense "horseman", 
while fdris has the form of an active participle of 
farusa "to be an expert on horses" and, with the root 
/. r. s. implying an idea of capacity for judging at a 
single glance and guessing hidden qualities by 
external inspection [see firasa], there is a curious 
semantic convergence which has not received any 
satisfactory explanation. D. J. Wiseman, consulted 
on Semitic parallels, writes as follows; "The Hebrew 
SHE (probably parrai) is used of a '(warrior) rider' in 
44 passages. I do not agree with S. Mowinckel, 
Vetus Testamentum XII/3 (July 1962), p. 290, that 
the meaning 'horse' (which is considered probable 
in 7 passages) should apply in all these passages. 
The word does not occur in Akkadian (the verb 
pardiu means 'to fly along') where rdkib (as also 
in Hebrew) is used of the horseman". 

However that may be, during the Djahiliyya and 
the first centuries of Islam fdris appears in texts 
with the sense of simple horseman, which in itself 
indicated membership of a well-to-do class, but also, 
though the nuance is not always apparent, to denote, 
in conjunction with the more explicit batal and fahl, 
the valiant, the champion, the intrepid warrior, to 
such an extent that one is sometimes tempted to 
translate this term by "cavalier", "knight", though 
not without the risk of leading the reader into error, 
for during the period in question no social institution 
existed among the Arabs comparable with the 
chivalry of mediaeval Europe. 

Nevertheless the fact remains that the translation 
of fdris by "knight" is not in itself an error, for 
chivalry was nascent even in the pre-Islamic period 
and the first centuries of Islam, and the practices, 
customs and sentiments of "chivalry" were widely 
disseminated in at least one section of Arab society; 
by force of arms, the fdris defended first his "country" 
in the shape of the tribal patrimony, and then 
his religion; he protected the weak, the widows 
and orphans either in an entirely disinterested 
way or to increase his prestige; he addressed 
verses somewhat in the "courtly" tradition [see 
nasIb] to his Lady, eschewed force in dealing 
with a conquered enemy, was to the highest possible 
degree conscious of his dignity [see hilm], despised 
riches and was content with provision merely for 
subsistence, occasionally making use of practices 
which morality would condemn. In the more or less 
idealized portrait of the fursdn we can thus discern 
the noble features of chivalry, but in this case it is a 
personal chivalry, so to speak, without any precise 
code, initiation ceremonies, investiture or accolade. 
To be a fdris, all that was in fact needed was to 
own a horse, an attribute which secured for the 
mounted warrior a rate of pay and share of the booty 
twice as large as those of the plain foot-soldier [see 
'ata', ghanima], but to rank among the true fursdn 



it was necessary to have performed deeds of prowess 
on the battle-field and, in single combat, to have 
shown courage above the ordinary. When warring 
armies came face to face, the fdris stepped forward 
from the ranks and, after certain preliminaries, 
issued a challenge to the foe: "Is there a champion 
(mubdriz) [ready to prove himself against me] ?". In 
the wars waged by the Arabs, single combats often 
formed the first phase of the battle; historians give 
the names of the fursdn and describe with satisfaction 
the deeds that they accomplished, a notable feature 
being that they did not always belong to the military 
aristocracy and often held only a very subordinate 
rank; their feats of arms nevertheless won them 
generous rewards. In battle, the fdris remained 
composed, encouraged his comrades in arms, 
hastened to the rescue of those who were hard 
pressed, was ready to give up his mount for an 
unhorsed officer and to continue the combat on foot, 
etc. When the army was put to flight, he stayed on 
until the end to fight a delaying action, once again 
brought solace to his companions, gave aid to the 
footsore, and finally sacrificed himself to minimize 
the results of the defeat. The fdris wore a light coat 
of mail and carried a sabre, a javelin and also a lasso 
(wahak) which, in single combat, was used to unhorse 
his adversary and make him bite the dust (for later 
developments, see djaysh and harb). 

Works of adab and history enumerate the fursdn 
of the various tribes, some of whom have become 
proverbial ; in particular, there is the saying afras min 
Summ al-fursdn "a better fdris than Summ al-fursan" 
[= 'Utayba b. al-Harith of the Tamim], afras min 
Muld'ib al-asinna [= c Amir b. Malik of the Kays], 
afras min 'Amir [b. al-Tufayl\, afras min Bist'dm [b. 
Kays al-Shaybdni], etc. Hamza b. c Abd al-Muttalib 
is regarded as the fdris par excellence of Kuraysh, 
c Umayr b. al-Hubab al-Sulami as the fdris of Islam; 
'Antara is called 'Antarat al-fawdris, etc. Some of 
these fursdn have become the heroes of "romances 
of chivalry" which in Arabic bear the name Sira 

[See C ANTAR, BATTAL, DHU 'L-HIMMA, SIRA]. 

Bibliography: Maydani, Amthdl, Cairo 1352, 
ii, 32 ff.; Ibn c Abd Rabbih, <-Ikd, Cairo 1346/1928, 
i, 60 ff.; Ibshlhi, Mustatraf, babs 40-1; Wacyf 
Boutros Ghali, La tradition chevaleresque des 
Arabes, Paris 1919, passim; Bichr Fares, L'honneur 
chez les Arabes avant V Islam, Paris 1932, 22 ff.; 
see also futuwwa, sipah!, suvar. (Ed.) 

FARIS b. MUIJAMMAD, alias husam al-din 
abu 'l-shawk [see c annazids]. 

FARIS al-SHIDYAK. Lebanese writer, lexi- 
cographer, journalist and poet, born at 
'Ashkut in 1804 (B. al-Bustani, DdHra, x,428;T. al- 
Shidyak, Akhbdr al-a c ydn, 194; Zaydan, Mashdhir, 
ii, 74; al-Dibs, al-Djdmi* al-mufassal, 534; Tarrazi, 
TaMkh al-sihdfa, i, 96), and not at Beirut (as 
Brockelmann, II, 505), nor in 1805 (as Mas c ad, 
Fdris al-Shidydk, 16; Y. Yazbik, in al-Makshuf, no. 
172, 8). In 1809 his parents moved to Hadath 
(15 km. from Beirut, Harat al-Butm), where Faris 
received his early education, later going on to the 
seminary of c Ayn Waraka (Kisrwan, Lebanon: see 
al-Sdk, 14-7; DdHra, x, 428; Mas c ad, op. cit., 17). 
As the result of a political clash and the death of his 
father (in 1820: Mas'ad, 17; al-Sdk, 31-2), he em- 
barked on the profession of his brother Tannus 
(1791-1861), the copying of manuscripts {Akhbdr, 
193, 197; al-Sdk, 31-2, 45-8, 68), finding the necessary 
materials in his father's library. It is in 1830 that 
there occurred the dramatic event which profoundly 
affected his life, his character and the direction of 



FARIS al-SHIDYAK 



his talents — the passion and martyrdom of his 
brother As c ad (1798-1830), who, because of his 
conversion to Protestantism, was arbitrarily im- 
prisoned and tortured to death by the Maronite 
Patriarch Yusuf Hubaysh (d. 1845, see Khabariyyat 
As'ad al-Shidyak, in B. al-Bustanl, Kissat As'ad al- 
Shidydk, 31-59, 93-i°4, 106, 109, 120-1). Faris's 
conversion to Protestantism is to be dated towards 
the end of 1825 (Cheikho, Addb, ii, 79. TarrazI, 
Sihdfa, i, 96, and Mas c ad, 18, who allege that he was 
converted in Malta, i.e., between 1834 and 1848, are 
to be rejected: see al-Sdk*, 377-8 and the dispute 
between KhardjI and SukI; pages 130-2 confirm that 
he attached himself to the Protestant Evangelical 
Mission before his departure for Egypt). 

His stay in Egypt (1825-34) was marked by his 
first marriage (his wife, a Maronite born at al-Suli, 
was the mother of his two sons Salim, 1826-1906, 
and Fayiz, 1828-56), and by his coming under the 
influence of men of learning and of letters such as 
Nasr Allah al-Tarabulusi (1770-1840) and Shihab 
al-DIn Muhammad b. Isma'il al-Malikl (1803-57). 
He found there an environment conducive to the 
study of Arabic, of logic, of theology, of kaldm and 
of prosody. Winning the favour of Muhammad 'All, 
he was appointed Arabic editor of the official 
gazette, al-WakdH'- al-Misriyya, in place of Rifa'a 
al-Tahtawi [q.v.] (see al-A c ydn, 198; DdHra, x, 428; 
Mas'ad, 18; Makshuf, no. 170, 1938, 12; 'Abbfld, 
Sakr, 135-6; Daghir, Masddir, ii, 472-3). 

At the request of the head of the Protestant 
Evangelical Mission, he moved to Malta, where he 
spent several years (1834-48: see Wdsita, 3) teaching 
Arabic, writing text-books and correcting manu- 
scripts; he interrupted this austere existence only 
twice (al-Sdk, 436, 474-7, 478-82; Wdsita, 14; c Abbud, 
171), to return secretly to Lebanon in 1837 and to 
visit England in 1845 (see Najm, Thesis, 61). 

In 1848 he was invited to London {Kashf al- 
mukhabbd, 67) to assist in the translation of the 
Bible (Kanz al-raghdHb, i, 168-70); there, divorcing 
his first wife, he married an Englishwoman, obtained 
British protection (Kashf, 280, on the oath) and lost 
his third child (al-Sdk, 613-7). When the translation 
of the Bible was completed (in less than 20 months), 
he took up residence in Paris [ibid., 633-41). Two 
panegyrics, the one addressed to Ahmad Pasha, Bey 
of Tunis (zdrat Su'dd, 1851: see ZDMG, v, 249 ft-; 
H. Peres, in al-Makshuf, no. 314, 2), the other to 
Sultan c Abd al-Madjid in 1854 (see al-Sdk, 665-72), 
were to change the course of his life. He received a 
warm welcome at Tunis (1857), where he embraced 
Islam, adopting the personal name Ahmad and 
abandoning the patronymic al-Shidyak (see Cheikho, 
Addb, ii, 80; DaHra, x, 429, § 1); his wife and son 
did likewise {DdHra, loc. cit.). According to TarrazI 
he had no part, as has been claimed, in the establish- 
ment of al-RdHd al-Tunisi {Sihdfa, i, 66). 

But it was in Istanbul (end of 1857) that Faris 
was to reach the summit of his fame. In favour with 
the Sultan, who had summoned him officially, and 
loaded with honours, he established (yet only after 
many reverses: see Diwdn, 24-6, 28-9) the weekly 
paper al-DjawdHb (2 July 1861 until 1884: the 
statement of Cheikho, Addb, ii, 80, TarrazI, Sihdfa, 
i, 61, DdHra, x, 429, § 2, that publication began in 
i860 is to be rejected: see Kanz al-raghdHb, vii, no-i, 
Mas'ad, 21, Najm, Thesis, 247-75), thus inaugurating 
a new era in Arab journalism ('AbbQd, Sakr, 157-62 



Encyclopaedia of Islan 



(26 May 1887: al-Ahrdm, issue of that day), where 
he died a few months later, on 20 September 1887, 
in his summer residence at Kadikoy. The assertion 
that he finally returned to Catholicism is completely 
baseless (the hypothesis of Cheikho, Catal., 123, 
no. 447 and of Yazbik, in al-Djumhur , no. 99 (1938), 
8, 104, is to be rejected: see c Abbud, ibid., no. 102, 
15, Najm, Thesis, 69-73). On Wednesday 5 October 
1887 his body was received at Beirut (see Mas'ad, 
25-42; Lisdn al-hdl, no. 997 (6 October 1887); Asaf, 
Huwa 'l-Bdki, Cairo 1888) and buried at Hazmiyya 
(a suburb of Beirut). 

Of his numerous works [DdHra, x, 430, §§ 1-2; 
Sarkis, §§ 1104-8; Daghir, Masddir, ii, 474-6), only 
the most characteristic will be mentioned here. 
K. al-Sdk c ala 'l-Sdk fimd huwa 'l-Fdrydk 'an ayydm 
wa shuhiir wa a c wdm fi c udjm al- c Arab wa 'l-'Adjam 
(1st edition Paris 1855, for details see Kashf al- 
mukhabbd, 285, 289; 2nd and 3rd editions Cairo 1919 
and 1920) is certainly the most basic, and one of the 
most distinguished Arabic works of the 19th century. 
The noun Faryak is made up from the first syllable 
of his personal name (Faris) and the second syllable 
of his family name (al-Shidyak). In this autobio- 
graphical miscellany, packed with memories of 
childhood and youth, are combined narrative skill, 
observation, and social, moral and religious criticism. 

Al-Wdsita fi ma'-rifat ahwdl Malta (1st ed. Malta 
1836, 2nd ed., together with al-Kashf, in al-DjawdHb. 
1299/1881) is written in the style of the mediaeval 
Arab travellers; the author recounts the observations 
made during his stay in Malta, dealing with its 
physical geography (6-11), demography and climate 
(11-8, 27), ethnology and sociology (21, 29, 30, 31-44, 
55), politics (44-50), philology (23-5, 56-66), art, and 
notably music, singing (50-4) and architecture (25, 
churches), illustrated sometimes by statistics and 
sometimes by comparative analyses. 

According to the author, the Kashf al-mukhabbd 
c an funun Urubbd (1st ed. Tunis 1866, 2nd ed. 
Istanbul 1881) forms the second part of al-Wdsita, 
consisting of his travel-notes in Europe. In it are 
found recorded historical facts (Napoleon, 260; 
Joan of Arc, 262; other famous figures, 258), thoughts 
on civilizations (London: 290-306, 313-36; Paris: 
238, 247, specially 271, 276-7) and different systems 
of government (279 ff.), reflections on religion (189, 
256), and some tales in the manner of theGillistdn (285, 
289). The digressions and the tales are recounted in 
a precise and direct style. Apart from a few extra- 
vagances, the two works are not without order and 
clarity. 

As a linguist, al-Shidyak is to be remembered for 
his debates with his chief followers; Y. al-Asir 
(1815-90) and I. al-Ahdab (1826-91) on the one hand, 
and then N. al-Yazidji, his son Ibrahim (1847-1906), 
Butrus al-Bustani (1819-83), Adlb Ishak (1856-86) 
on the other (see al-Diindn. 1871; al-Diyd', iv, 190; 
Shibli, passim and texts, 62-349; 'AbbQd, Sakr, 
74-84, 162-7). In al-Djasus 'ala 'l-Kdmus (Istanbul 
1299/1881) he points out, in the course of a long 
introduction (2-90), the shortcomings of the Arabic 
dictionaries, establishes the reason for this (3-5), and 
demonstrates the principal errors committed by their 
various authors (10-45, with biographical notes 22-4, 
71-2, 77-9). He then draws up an extended and 
passionate criticism of al-Firuzabadl, and probably 
al-Bustani, his imitator, analysing the 24 weak- 
nesses which he finds in al-FIruzabadl's Kdmus 
(90-519). In spite of its importance, this work 
occupies only a secondary position in comparison 
with Sirr al-'.aydl fi 'l-kalb wa 'l-ibddl (i, Istanbul 

51 



FARIS al-SHIDYAK - 



1884; vol. ii appears to exist in MS in private hands, 
see Najm, Thesis, 196), in which the author under- 
takes the study of the verbs and nouns in current 
use, which he arranges according to their pronun- 
ciation in order to demonstrate the links connecting 
them, their origin and the nuances distinguishing 
them, as well as of permutation, inversion and 
synonyms; he also supplies some of the omissions of 
al-Firuzabadi {Sirr, 6). 

The author of a text-book of grammar (Ghunvat 
al-tdlib, 1288/1871), he laughed at the extravagant 
exponents of the subject (Fdrydk, 68-9, 238) and 
wrote two text-books of Arabic grammar, in French 
(with G. Dugat, Paris 1854) and in English {Practical 
Arabic grammar, 2nd ed. London 1866). Drawing on 
the old lexicons, he undertook the translation of a 
work on the nature of animals (Malta 1841), assisted 
in the translation of the Bible, borrowed extensively 
from Western journals, and composed a trilingual 
(Persian-Turkish-Arabic) dictionary (Beirut 1876). 
Extensive though it is, al-Shidyak's poetical 
production (Diwdn of 22,000 lines: Mashdhir, ii, 82; 
DdHra, x, 430; selections published Istanbul 1291/ 
1874; various poems in al-Sdk, al-Wdsita, Kashf; 
see especially Kanz al-raghdHb, iii and introduction 
to the Diwdn) remains 011 the whole linked with the 
classical tradition. Besides the quatrains in which 
he expresses his misfortunes, there are some satirical 
effusions and some lyrical outbursts (Kanz, iii, 
e.g. 8, 11, 56-7, 80, 85, 87 and passim; Diwdn, 11, 
12, 15, 16, 22, 30, 33, 43, 80, 84, 88, 89). The rest is 
a more or less servile imitation of the older writers, 
most of it occasional verse. 

The Kanz al-raghdHb (7 vols.), selections from al- 
DiawdHb. reflects the results of his reading, his 
travels, his translations and his personal contacts. It 
is a mixture of ethics, sociology, politics (i and ii), 
history (v-vii), literature and linguistic discussions, 
composed of numerous diverse elements and assorted 
pieces of information which have aroused interest in 
both Oriental and European circles (al-Muktabas, vi). 
In the religious sphere no faith satisfied him, and 
he remained a sceptic, a cynic, a realist, a materialist 
in search of honours and pleasures. Yet he rebelled, 
and, though joining the pan-Islamic movement, 
extolled the principles of the French Revolution. In 
revolt against feudalism and all forms of slavery, a 
supporter of the equality of man and the emanci- 
pation of women, a political and a social critic 
(Kanz, i, 101-3, 226-8; Kashf, 128 ff.), yet he lived 
and wrote in accordance with the behests of the 
Sultan or the Khedive. 

Despite this ambivalence of culture and outlook 
we can discern in his works some of the features which 
characterize the writings of his contemporaries, and 
the seeds of a literature of innovation which blossom- 
ed after him. Concerned with the everyday problems 
of the century, he is the creator of the genre of the 
Makala, the newspaper article [see maijala], and the 
forerunner, if not actually the first, of the progressive 
reformers. Conservative and radical, traveller, 
linguist, man of learning and journalist, this huma- 
nist is undoubtedly one of the chief representatives 
of 19th century Arabic literature. 

Bibliography: M. c Abbud, Sakr Luindn, 
Beirut 1950; B. al-Bustanl, Dd'irat al-ma'drif, x, 
1898; idem, KissatAs'ad al-Shidydk*, Beirut 1878; 
Brockelmann, II, 505-6, S II, 867-8; Cheikho, al- 
Addb al-'arabiyya fi 'l-karn al-tdsi' 'ashar, Beirut 
1908-26; idem, Catalogue, Beirut 1924, no. 447, 
123; Daghir, Masddir al-dirdsa al-adabiyya, ii, 
Beirut 1956; Kurd 'All, Nahdat al-'-arabiyya al- 



akhira, in al-Muktabas, vi, 1908; al-Makshuf, nos. 
170 (17 October 1938), 314, 3*5, 316 (1941); B. 
Mas'ad, Fdris al-Shidydk, Beirut 1934; M. Najm, 
Ahmad Fdris al-Shidydk, M.A. thesis of the 
American University of Beirut, 1948; H. Peres, in 
al-Makshuf, 314-6 (1941); Sarkls, vi, 1104-7; M. 
Sawaya, Ahmad Fdris al-Shidydk, Beirut 1962; 
A. Shibll, al-Shidydk wa 'l-Ydzidfi, Djunyeh 1950; 
T. al-Shidyak, Akhbdr al-a'ydn fi Djabal Lubndn, 
Beirut 1859 (see other editions; al-Makshuf, no. 
170, 12); F. TarrazI, Ta'rikh al-sihdfa al-'-arabiyya, 
i, Beirut 1913; I. al-Yazidji, in al-Djindn, 1871, 
al-Diyd', iv, 1902 ; Dj. Zaydan, Mashdhir al-Shark, 
ii, Cairo 1922; idem, Ta'rikhal-adab, iv, Cairo 1957; 
Sami Frasheri, Kdmus al-aHdm, v, 3326-7; H. 
Ewald and H. L. Fleischer, Eine neuarabische 
Qastde, in ZDMG, v, 249-57; Brockelmann, G II 
505, S II 867; Albert Hourani, Arabic thought 
in the liberal age J79.S-J939, London 1962, 97-9 
and index; H. Peres, Les premieres manifestations 
de la renaissance littiraire arabe en Orient au XIX' 
siecle. Ndsif al-Ydzigi et Fdris aS-Sidydk, in AIEO 
Alger, i (1934-5), 240 ff.; A. J. Arberry, Fresh light 
on Ahmed Faris al-Shidyaq, in IC (1952), 155-68 
(A. G. Karam) 
al-FARISI, Abu c Ali al-Hasan b. 'Al!, one of 
the outstanding grammarians of the 4th/ioth 
century. Born 288/900 at Fasa [q.v.], he studied at 
Baghdad under Ibn al-Sarradj, al-Zadjdjadi, and 
others. In 341/952 he joined the court of Sayf al- 
Dawla at Aleppo, where he consorted with Mutanabbi. 
He transferred himself to the service of the Biiyid 
Adud al-Dawla sometime before the latter's conquest 
of Baghdad in 319/979 (cf. the story in Yakut, 
Irshdd, iii, 11). He died at Baghdad in 377/987. 
Amongst his numerous pupils were Ibn Djinni (who 
attended him for 40 years and became his successor) 
and his nephew Abu '1-Husayn al-Farisi, who 
became the teacher of c Abd al-Kahir al-Diurdianl. 
Farisi was suspected of Mu c tazilism, and indeed 
commented upon the exegesis of the Mu'tazili 
Muhammad al-Djubbal in a (lost) work called al- 
Tatabbu'. Among his other works the chief one s 
al-lddh ii 'l-nahw, an advanced grammar, with a 
more difficult appendix, al-Takmila. The popularity 
of this work in his time is proved by the numerous 
MSS preserved and by the five extant commentaries 
and two shawdhid commentaries. A large part 
is printed in Girgas-Rosen, Arabskaya Khrestom., 
378-434. Further works (extant items marked *) : 
al-lddh al-shi'ri, perhaps identical with *K. al- 
shi'r or al-'Adudi, MS. Berl. 6465 (a part printed in 
Io. Roediger, De nominibus verborum arabicis 
commentatio, Halle 1870), and with Shark abydt 
al-lddh mentioned Fihrist 646 ; a commentary on al- 
Zadjdjadi's Ma'dnl al-Kur>dn called *al-Ighfdl 
(confused in Fihrist) ; perhaps on the same work 
(or identical) Abydt al-Ma'dni; a commentary on 
Ibn Mudjahid's al-Kird^dt al-sab'a called *al- 
Ifudidia (wa 'l-ighfdl}); al-Tadhkira, on difficult 
verses; *Diawdhir al-nahw; Mukhtasar 'awdmil al- 
i'rdb (called by Ibn Khallikan al-' Awdmil al-mi'a); 
al-Maksiir wa 'l-mamdud; Abydt al-i'rdb; a comm. 
on Kur'an, V, 8; and a number of collections of 
*Masd'il, named after various localities (where 
Farisi taught?); it is not clear what was the 
nature of his Nakd al-hddhiir ("The Babbler Con- 
founded"). 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, I, 116; S. I, 
175; Flugel, no; Fihrist, 64; Ibn Khallikan. 
no. 155; Yakut, Udabd\ iii, 9-22; al-Anbari, 
Nuzha, 387-9; Ta'rikh, Baghdad, vii, 275; Ibn al- 



Athlr, ix, 36; Ibn Taghribirdl, 533-4; Ibn al- 

'Irnad, Shadhardt, iv, 88-9; Suy\it\,Bughya, 216. 
(C. Rabin) 

FARISIYYA [see Iran]. 

al-FARISIYYA, DjazIrat, island in the Persian 
Gulf in Lat. 27 59' N., Long. 50 10' E., about 
midway between the shores of Saudi Arabia and Iran. 
Like Djazlrat al- c Arabiyya, 14 statute miles to 
the south, al-Farisiyya is low and less than one 
square mile in area. The island is administered by 
Iran which maintains a meteorological station there 
(although Kuwayt and Saudi Arabia have also 
advanced claims on it), and the Persian Gulf 
Lighting Service maintains a navigation light. 

(W. E. Mulligan) 

FAR& [see fasl]. 

al-FARSADAN* [see nullum]. 

FARMAN, basic meanings: 1. Command, 2. 
(preparation in writing of a command) Edict, 

Ancient Persian framdnd (fra = "fore", Greek 
repo), modern Persian farmdn through dropping the 
ending a and insertion of a vowel owing to the 
initial double consonant (still fra- in Pahlavi). In 
the derived verb farmudan the 5 of the stem became 
u (after the third century: far-mudan, analogous to 
" d try", pay-mudan "to measure", mi- 






le). 



In Firdawsi farmdn is found with the following 
meanings: command, authority, will, wish, per- 
mission; and farmudan accordingly: to command, to 
regulate, to have something done, to say, to announce, 
as well as "to permit"; in those meanings mentioned 
first it is construed with (1) the content of the com- 
mand as direct object, (2) a following infinitive, 
(3) with td "that", or (4) hi "that", and (5) with ki 
introducing direct address. In addition the forms 
farmdn dddan (or kardan) "to command" and 
farmdn burdan "to obey" are also found in Firdawsi. 
Among composite forms Firdawsi has farmdndih 
"commander", "master", farmdnrawa "one whose 
commands are accepted", "commanding", "power- 
ful", and farmdnbar "servant", "slave", as well as 
farmdnpadhir "submissive", "yielding". In the 
Farhang-i Nafisi on the other hand nine composite 
forms occur, which are to a degree identical with 
those mentioned above and which may be divided 
into the same two groups according to meaning: 
f.-dik, f.-rawd, f.-farmd, f.-godhdr (to command), and 
f.-bar, f.-barddr, f.-padhir, f.-shenu, f.-niyush (to 
obey). There are in Firdawsi isolated examples of the 
Arabic equivalents of farmdn: hukm (sentence, 
decision, command) and amr (command), although 
the "Command of God" is called farmdn-i yazddn. 

Farmdn in the sense of "document" does not, 
however, occur in Firdawsi, who uses only the three 
Arabic (!) expressions rakam (sign, script, writing, 
decree), manshur (diploma, decree, investiture) 
and bardt (diploma, assignment). Firdawsi also uses 
the word nishdn only in the sense of "sign", "em- 
blem", "trace", "target", etc., though in the '■Atabat 
al-kataba (mid 12th century) nishdn is already a 
common term for edicts and diplomas in the 
broadest sense of the word. But farmdn as a 
designation for the writing itself came only very 
slowly into usage and became part of the official 
language of administration at a very late date. Thus 
we find in the earlier period farmdn in the sense of 
"document" in examples of language which is not 
quite official, such as the Siydsat-ndma of Nizam 
al-Mulk, where farmdn is employed occasionally as a 
parallel to mithdl (ed. Hubert Darke, Tehran 1962, 



90), clearly designating two different kinds of 
document, one of which (farmdn) was issued by the 
ruler himself, and the other (mithdl) by authorities of 
lower rank (ct.Isl., xxxviii (1962), 195-8). A diploma, 
which would later be called officially farmdn or 
nishdn, is designated by Nizam al-Mulk (ed. Darke, 
191), still dependent upon Arabic usage, '■ahd-ndma, 
a term which more accurately applies to treaties in 

treaty is (now) called c akd-ndma. Farmdn in the 
strict sense of "document" cannot be unquestionably 
established before the 15 th century, when it occurs 
as ". . . dar fardmin (here in the Arabic broken 
plural) mastiir ast", ". . . (as is) written in the docu- 
ments" (Busse, Vntersuchungen, Document No. 3). 
Until well into modern times expressions such as 
hukm, manshur, nishdn, etc. are used beside farmdn 
with very little difference, occasionally in the 
combination hukm-i farmdn or hukm-i mithdl, and 
it is not always possible to establish without reser- 
vation whether by farmdn the actual command or 
the writing of it is meant. In this double application 
of the term farmdn an echo of an older juridical 
concept is perceptible, according to which the 
document was only the writing down of an originally 
oral (which alone was authoritative) decree. During 
the Safawid period the edicts of subordinate authori- 
ties were called mithdl or rakam (pi. arkdm), and in 
the Kadjar period the terminology had become 
consolidated to the extent that farmdn was reserved 
for the ruler's edicts, while those of governors were 
called according to their rank either rakam or hukm 
(cf. diplomatic, iii, Persian, 309). 

Like rulers' titles the various designations for 
edict and document are distinguished by epithets: 
nishdn (farmdn, hukm)-i humdyun "royal edict" 
(Firdawsi: dirafsh-i humdyun "felicitous, glorious, 
royal banner"); ahkdm-i muta l -i humdyun "royal 
edicts, which are obeyed"; arkdm wa-ahkdm-i 
mutd'-dt ■ fardmin-i mutd'-dt lazim al-ifd'at-i humdyun 
"royal edicts which are and must be obeyed"; 
hukm diahdnmutd' wa-dftdb-shu'd "edict, obeyed by 
the world and shining (like) the sun's rays" ; farmdn-i 
a'ld khuddHgani-yi a'zami-yi shdhinshdhi "most 
high, lordly, most noble, imperial edict"; rakam-i 
mubdrak-i ashraf "blessed and most honoured 
edict". In comparison to the elatives are the basic 
forms '■all and sharif, which were employed for 
edicts not originating from the ruler himself in the 
highly developed nomenclature of the Kadjar 
period, and to some extent even earlier. A formula of 
benediction likewise follows mention of the edict or 
command: aHdhu'lldh ta'dld wa-khallada nifddhahu 
"May God elevate it and make abiding its effect"; 
Id zdla munfadh"' fi H-aktd' wa 'l-arbd'- "may it be 
always effective in the regions and quarters of the 
earth", and other formulae of the kind. 

In the Dispositio, that part of the document con- 
taining the resolution of the ruler, firmly established 
formulae are employed: (1) Substantive plus far- 
mudan: hukm f., mithdl f., manshur f., hawdlat f. (to 
make an assignment), mahmadat f. (to proclaim 
praise); (2) Arabic verbal noun II plus farmudan: 
takrir /., tafwid /., etc.; (3) Arabic passive participle 
II plus farmudan : mukarrar /., etc. In the first group 
of formulae farmudan can be replaced by dddan, in 
those of the second and third groups by kardan or 
ddshtan and garddnidan. Very frequently two 
formulae are combined: mahramat farmudim wa- 
arzdnl ddshtim "we have shown and conceded favour" 
(in Firdawsi arzdni means "worthy" or "poor"; 
in Vullers arzdni ddshtan is 'dignum putare, tanquam 



yaft "a . . 
and the e; 
the equally o 



digno largiri, concedere, conferre'; thus also in 
Steingass). In the Dispositio impersonal formulae 
are also favoured: hukm . . . ba-nafddh andjdmid 
"a . . . command has been issued"; hukm . . . samt-i 
isddr yaft "a ... command has found the path of 
issue"; hukm . . . Hzz-i isddr wa-sharaf-i nafddh 
mmand has found the honour of issue 
n of promulgation". Out of these and 
rrent formulae with shud (hukm shud, 
mukarrar shud) the introductory formulae (tughra) 
developed, which predominated in the early Safawid 
period for particular kinds of documents: farmdn-i 
humdyun shud, farmdn-i humdyun sharaf-i nafddh 
yaft, and hukm-i djahdnmutd'- shud, with the later 
distinction also here between a l ld and c dli as ad- 
jectives for farmdn and hukm. The issuing authorities 
and the rank of the originator can be determined 
by the various introductory formulae, which to some 
extent, however, depend upon the content of the 
document or the addressee. Directly related to the 
introductory formulae are the seals affixed and parts 
of the protocol (invocation) sometimes used. 

The designations for edict and command can in 
addition be made more precise for various purposes 
by a following substantive or adjective, thus: 
according to content (nishdn-i saddrat, diploma for 
a sadr, manshur-i taklid (or tafwid), diploma of 
investiture; hukm-i mudjammali, a general edict 
addressed to everyone); according to the promul- 
gating authority (mithdl-i diwdn al-saddra); for an 
original document or a confirmation (rakam-i 
muthannd, mudjaddad, hukm-i imdd or tadjdid-i 
nishdn) ; and for further processing of the document 
by the authorities (rakam-i daftari and bayddi, that 
is, documents which were registered and those 
which were not). For seals, script, registration, etc., 

We also find Farmdn as the pen-name (takhallus) 
of a poet (cf. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, s.v.), and 
in the form Farmdn-farmd as the nick-name of the 
Kadjar prince Husayn 'All, the son of Fath c Ali 
Shah (d. 1834). 

Bibliography : in addition to that given in 
the article diplomatic, iii, Persia: Fritz Wolff, 
Glossar zu Firdosis Schahname, Berlin 1935. To 
be added to the bibliography in Diplomatic iii. — 
Persia: M. R. Arunova, Firman Nadir-Shakha, in 
SO, ii (1958), 116-20; P. I. Petrov, Ferman 
Shakha Sultan Huseyna Vakhtangu VI, in SO, iv 
(!957)> 127-8 (both with facsimile reproductions). 
A. D. Papazyan, Dva novootkrytykh iPkhanskikh 
yarlyka, in Banber M atenadarani, vi (1962), 379- 
401 ; idem, K voptosu tekhniieskom znaUnii 
nalogovogo termina "malodiakhat", in IzvesHy 
Akademii nauk Armyanskoy SSR, 1961, No. 2, 
61-82 (both with facsimile reproductions). 

(H. Busse) 

ii.— Ottoman Empire 
Ferman, in Turkish, denotes any order or edict of 
the Ottoman sultan. In a more limited sense it 
means a decree of the sultan headed by his cypher 
(tughra) and composed in a certain form which 
generally differs from that of the berdt {nishdn, 
yasakndme) and name [qq.v.]. Synonymous terms are, 
particularly in the early Ottoman Empire, biti, 
yarligh, mithdl, hitdjajet (for a certain type), menshur, 
tewkV and, in most periods, emr, hukm (and, in 
Arabic, mar sum). All these terms are usually 
followed by epithets, such as sherif, humdyun, refi c , 
'dli[-shdn], djihdn-mutd', etc. Imperial princes 
serving as provincial governors sometimes issued 



fermdns under their own tughras (so far one has been 
published: Belleten, v (1941), 108-9, 126-7). In late 
Ottoman Egypt an edict of the wali also used to be 
called faramdn. 

Preparation. Most fermdns were not issued by 
order of the sultan himself. According to the 
kdnunndme of Mehemmed II (TOEM, 1330, suppl., 
16), three high officials were authorized to give 
orders (buyuruldi) to issue a ferman in the sultan's 
name and under his tughra : the Grand Vizier on 
general subjects, the defterddrs on fiscal matters and 
the kddi-'-ashers on questions of shari'-a law. In many 
cases they did so after the affair had been discussed 
and decided upon in the imperial council (diwdn-i 
humdyun [q.v.]) or the Grand Vizier's council (ikindi 
diwdni), with or without the sultan's subsequent 
express approval. Later kdnunndmes (e.g., MTM, i 
(1331), 5°o, 523) extended this authority to the 
Deputy Grand Vizier (kaHm-makdm) during the 
Grand Vizier's absence from the capital and to 
viziers appointed commanders-in-chief (serddr). 

Most fermdns were prepared in the imperial 
chancery (diwdn-i humdyun kalemi). A draft made 
by a junior clerk (see Feridun, Munsha'dt al-saldtin 1 , 
i, 20) was corrected and approved by the miimeyyiz, 
the beylikdji, the reHs al-kiittdb [q.v.] (for his resid see 
MTM, i, 516-7) and, exceptionally, the sultan 
himself. Fermdns on fiscal matters, which were 
prepared in the Finance Department (mdliyye), 
passed through other stages (see L. Fekete, Die 
Siydqat-Schrift, Budapest 1955, i, 68, n. 2). On the 
fair copy the tughra [q.v.] was drawn by the nishdndji 



of the v: 
:ases, the Grand Vizier 
509, 515). The right of 
n frontier provinces to 
fermdns drawn up by 



[q.v.] (or the tughra-kesk), 
the diwan or, in certair 
himself (see MTM, i, 49 
governors of vizier rank 
affix the sultan's tughra 

them was abolished by the Grand Vizier Kemankesh 
Mustafa Pasha (1638-44) (Ta'rikh-i NaHmd, 1147, 
ii, 11). The Grand Vizier and certain other viziers 
when away from the capital and the Deputy Grand 
Vizier in Istanbul were often provided with blank 
papers on which the tughra had been drawn before- 
hand to enable them to issue fermdns on the spot. 
The completed ferman was put in a small bag 
(kise, kese) and used to be conveyed to its destination 
either by government couriers (ulak [q.v.]) or by the 
permanent representative of the addressee (provin- 
cial governors, etc.) in Istanbul (kapi ketkhuddsi) or 
the person who had submitted a petition and asked 
for the decree. The latter is frequently referred to 
in the document as its 'bearer' (ddrende, hdmil, 
rdfi c , etc.). The persons in whose favour a ferman 
was issued were often explicitly allowed to keep it 
after it had been shown to its addressee (and copied 
into the local kadi's register), so that they could 
present it in case of a violation of their rights in 

changed surprisingly little over the centuries, the 
ferman bears much similarity to certain occidental 
documents. It opens with an invocatio (da'-wet, 
tahmid) of God, the shortest form of which is huwa. 
Beneath a considerable blank space, a sign of respect, 
there follows the tughra, which, particularly in later 
periods, is sometimes richly decorated. The text 
begins with the address (inscriptio) which mentions 
the office, and often also the name and rank, of the 
addressee preceded by his honorific titles (elkdb) and 
followed by a short benediction (du'd) (see TOEM, 
1330, suppl., 30-2; Feridun, Munsha'dV-, i, 2-13). 
The addressee is not a private citizen but mostly a 



government official in the capital or the provinces, 
a dependent Christian ruler, and the like. Many 
fermdns are addressed jointly to two or more such 
persons, others to a class of officials in a certain 
province, along a given road or in the whole Empire. 

Following an introductory formula, such as 
tewki'-i refi'-i humdyiin wdsil olidjak maHum ola hi 
('when the exalted imperial cipher arrives, be it 
known that . . .'), most fermdns then relate the facts 
that caused the order to be issued (narratio, ibldgh). 
Usually this section is a summary, partly verbatim, 
of an incoming report or petition. 

Thereupon follows the main part of the fermdn, 
the dispositio (hiikm, emr), which may open with 
the words 6yle olsa, imdi (gerehdir hi), etc. In many 
fermdns it consists of two parts. The first, ending in 
emr ediib, fermdnim (sddlr) olmushdir, and the like, 
states the sultan's decision in the form of a short, 
impersonal order. This clause seems to be the 
'documentary commission' which, as mentioned 
above, was generally written by a high official or the 
sultan himself in the upper margin of the incoming 
communication or on a separate piece of paper and 
was sometimes reproduced verbatim in the fermdn. 
The second (or only) part of the dispositio, which 
sets forth the sultan's command to the addressee in 
greater detail, mostly begins buyurdum hi. The 
space left empty after these words in many fermdns 
was originally reserved for the name of the official 
who was to convey the document to its destination. 
In some fermdns this space is filled with the much 
elongated words hiihm-i sherifimle (vardihda). 

Numerous fermdns add a sanctio or comminatio 
(te'kid), which emphasizes the importance of the 
order, exhorts the addressee to carry it out without 
delay and threatens him with punishment for any 
disobedience. The subsequent corroborate refers to 
the tughra ( c aldmet-i sherif) as attestation to the 
authenticity of the document. Neither a signature 
nor, with few exceptions (e.g., in certain fiscal 
fermdns), a seal is affixed. At the end, the (Hidira) 
date and, mostly in the lower left corner, the place 
of issue are given. In fermdns issued by the Finance 
Department these were generally added by a special 
bureau in smaller letters and a different hand- 
On the back, various annotations may be found, 
such as sahh denoting that the document has been 
examined and approved, the peculiar signature 
(kuyrukU imdd) of the defterddr, registration com- 
ments, the address, a short reference to the contents, 
etc. 

To give a fermdn greater weight or confer distinct- 
ion upon its recipient, the sultan often added a few 
words in his own hand near the tughra. The later 
standard formula is mudjebindje '■amel oluna, but 
sometimes the note is more elaborate (cf. Babinger, 
Archiv, 50; TM, vi (1936-9), 228, 234). Such docu- 
ments are called khatt-i humdyiin or khatt-i sherif 
[q.v.], a term also used in other meanings (see I A, 
s.v. Hatt-i Humdyiin). 

Contents and external form. Fermdns deal 
with a wide range of subjects — administration, 
military affairs, finance, judicial decisions, etc. 
Some are communiques on Ottoman victories, travel 
permits, safe-conducts, permits for foreign ships to 
pass through the Straits, courier orders, etc. Many 
fermdns which contained rules of general applicability 
became 'regulations' (kdnun) and were incorporated 
in kdnunndmes [q.v.] , the codes of Ottoman secular law. 

Generally, fermdns are written in Ottoman 
Turkish. Exceptions are some early Ottoman 



HAN 805 

yarlighs written, in a different form, in Central 
Asian Turkish and Uyghur characters (with inter- 
linear text in Arabic letters) (see R. Rahmeti Arat in 
TM, vi, 285-322 and Ann. del R. 1st. Sup. Orient, di 
Napoli, N.S., i (1940), 25-68). Until the 16th century 
fermdns were also issued in other languages (Greek, 
Slavonic, Arabic, etc.). 

The script used in fermdns is some kind of tewkl 1 
or diwdni. Frequently gold dust (altln rig) was 
sprinkled on the writing before it had dried. Like 
other Ottoman documents, fermdns are usually 
written on long and relatively narrow sheets of paper 
with the lines slightly rising towards the left. While 
a margin is left on the right, the last word in a line 
is often lengthened to prevent interpolations. 
Forgers of fermdns incurred capital punishment (see 
Hammer, GOR 1 , vii, 375; Stephan Gerlach, Tage- 
Buch, Frankfurt a.M. 1674, 376). 

The composition and form of the Ottoman fermdn 
were certainly influenced by oriental (Saldjuk, 
Mamluk, etc.) and, possibly, occidental models, but 
this question has not yet been adequately studied. 
Originals and copies. Original fermdns are 
preserved in the archives and libraries of Turkey, 
other parts of the former Ottoman Empire and many 
European countries. A number of them have been 
published (see Bibl). Other fermdns have survived 
in the form of individual copies, often legalized by a 
kadi (see MOG, ii, 138 ff.). Innumerable fermdn texts, 
generally without the 'protocol' at the beginning and 
the end, are found in various registers, such as the 
Muhimme Defteri [q.v.], Shikdyet Defteri, Atikdm 
Defteri and a few others, most of which are kept 
today in the Basvekdlet Arsivi [q.v.] in Istanbul. 
Collections of such copies have been published by 
Ahmed Refik (especially for Istanbul), H. T. 
Daghoglu (for Bursa), D. Sopova (for Macedonia), 
U. Heyd (for Palestine), I. H. Uzuncarsih (for 
Ottoman history and institutions in general), and 
others. The registers (sidiill [q.v.]) of the shari'a 
courts also contain a large number of fermdn copies 
(see publications by J. Grzegorzewski, H. Inalcik, 
M. C. Ulucay, H. Ongan, J. Kabrda, H. W. Duda- 
G. D. Galabov, etc.). Finally, many copies of fermdns, 
including early ones, are found in inshd works by 
Feridun and others, collectanea {medjmu'a) and 
chronicles. 

Bibliography: D'Ohsson, Tableau giniral de 
I'empire othoman, iii, Paris 1820, 339-40; Fr. 
Kraelitz, Osmanische Urhunden in tiirkischer 
Sprache, Wien 192 1; L. Fekete, Einfuhrung in die 
osmanisch-tiirkische Diplomatik, Budapest 1926; 
J. Deny, Sommaire des archives turques du Caire, 
Cairo 1930, esp. 145-9; !• H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh 
devletinin saray teskildh, Ankara 1945, 279-87; 
A. Zajaczkowski-J. Reychman, Zarys dyplomatyki 
Osmansko-Tureckiej, Warsaw 1955 (English trans- 
lation in the press) ; M. Guboglu, Paleografia si 
diplomatica turco-osmana, Bucarest 1958 (with 
extensive bibliogr.); U. Heyd, Ottoman documents 
on Palestine 1552-1615, a study of the firman 
according to the Muhimme Defteri, Oxford i960. 
For texts and photostats of fermdn originals see: 
Kraelitz, op. cit.; Guboglu, op. cit.; Fr. Babinger, 
Das Archiv des Bosniaken Osman Pascha, Berlin 
1931; I. H. Uzuncarsih, in Belleten, v/17-8 (1941), 
101-31; P. Lemerle-P. Wittek, in Arch, d'hist. du 
droit oriental, iii (1947), 420 ft.; Gl. Elezovic, 
Turshi spomenici, i-ii, Belgrade 1940, 1952; £ 
Truhelka, in Glasnik zem. Muzeja, xxiii (1911); 

Ottoman Empire; irade. (U. Heyd) 



The authentic texts of many formal written 
royal orders have survived from the Mughal period, 
in originals located in the archives of former prince- 
ly states, of the descendents of great merchants 
or of religious communities. From the references 
collected in I. H. Qureshi, The administration o< the 
sultanate of Dekli, Lahore 1942, 86, it would seem 
that the procedures of Mughal times designed to 
ensure that farmdns were intentional, authentic and 
effective were founded on long-established Indo- 
Muslim precedent, though in the absence of extant 
texts from the sultanate period, many details are 
lacking. 

The formalizing of the discourse of the Mughal 
pddshdh into a state document could, the A'in-i 
Akbari suggests, be stately and elaborate. First, the 
speech and actions of the pddshdh were recorded 
daily by two wdki'-nawis, the record being confirmed 
by the pddshdh before a ydd-dasht or memorandum 
of actual orders was prepared therefrom and counter- 
signed by the mir "-ard, the parwdnli and the officer 
who had placed it before the pddshdh for a second 
approval. Farmdns, which were distinguished from 
parwdnias in point of force and generality of appli- 
cation by the attachment of a royal seal, were often, 
but not always, prepared from a taHika or abridg- 
ment of the ydd-ddsht, particularly in the granting 
of money or of an office entailing the grant of 
money. Although the pddshdh was bound by no 
invariable rule, farmdns, were usually issued for 
appointments as wakll, wazir, sadr, mir bakhshi or 
ndzim or for the grant of a mansab, didgir or sayurghdl. 
They were also sent to tributary princes, to foreign 
rulers and used to grant privileges to religious 
communities and trading organisations. 

The procedure for a farmdn appointing to a 
didgir or mansab involved many checks against 
inaccuracy, fraud and caprice. The farmdn was 
drafted both on the basis of a sarkhat or certificate 
specifying the salary being granted (the details of 
which were copied in the bakhshi's department from 
the taHika), and on the basis of a taHika-yi tan or 
certificate of salary which went to the diwdn or 
finance minister. These preliminary documents went 
before the pddshdh for continuing approval at 
various stages and were signed and sealed by such 
officials as the mir bakhshi, the mustawfi-i diwdn 
and the sdhib-i tawdjih (accountant in the bakhshi's 
department). The farmdn of grant or appointment 
called farmdn-i thabti received the seals of the 
bakhshis, the diwdn and the wakil before receiving 
a royal seal. Confidential and important farmdns, 
not involving sums of money, received only a royal 
seal and were folded and dispatched in such a way 
that their contents remained private to the recipient. 
They were called farmdn-i bayddi. 

The two most important royal seals were the uzuk 
seal (a 'privy' seal), kept often either by one of the 
royal ladies or by a trusted official, and a large linear 
seal (a 'great' seal), the muhr-i mukaddas-i kaldn, 
on which was engraved the name of the pddshdh and 
of his ruling ancestors from Timur. This was parti- 
cularly but not exclusively used for farmdns to 
foreign rulers and to tributary princes. Besides the 
seal, a tughra or 'sign manual', giving the full name 
and titles of the pddshdh himself, written in naskh, 
was superscribed. 

The pddshdh might favour the addressee of a 
farmdn by adding his own signature to the seal, or 
by writing a few lines in his own hand, or by im- 
pressing the mark of the royal hand (pandia-yi 



mubdrak) upon the farmdn. Shah Djahan sometimes 
wrote out the entire farmdn himself. 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Fadl, A'in-i Akbari, 
i,_ Calcutta 1872, 192-6; Muhammad Kazim, 
c Alamgir-ndma, Calcutta 1868, 1101; Fr. Felix, 
Mughal farmdns, parwdnahs and sanads issued 
in favour of the Jesuit missionaries, in JPHS, v/ 1 
(1916), 1-53; idem, The Mughal Seals, in /P#S,v/ 2 
(1916), 100-25; M. S. Commissariat, Imperial 
Mughal farmans in Gujarat, in Journal of the Uni- 
versity of Bombay, ix/ 1 (July 1940), 1-56; S. M. 
Jaffar, Mughal farmans in Peshawar, in Proceedings 
of the Indian Historical Records Commission, 
xviii (1942), 236-45; idem, An important farman of 
Aurangzeb, in Proc. IHRC, xxii (1945); A. Halim, 
A farman of Emperor Shah Jahan, in Proc. IHRC, 
xix (1943), 56-60; idem, A farman of Emperor 
Akbar, in Proc. IHRC, xxii (1945), 33-5; B. N. Reu, 
Some imperial farmans addressed to Ratho and 
Durgadas, in Proc. IHRC, xxv/2 (1945), 186-9; idem, 
Some Imperial Farmans addressed to the rulers of 
Jodhpur, in Proc. Ind. Hist. Congress, 1947, 350-7; 
M. L. Roy Chaudhuri, Jahangir's farman of 1613 
A.D., in Proc. IHRC, xix (1943), 56-60; P. Saran, 
A farman of Farrukhsiyar, in Proc. IHRC, xix 
(i943)» 74-9; Jadunath Sarkar, Studies in Mughal 
Administration, Calcutta 1924, 230-5; Ibn Hasan, 
The central structure of the Mughal empire, 
London 1936, 93-106. (P. Hardy) 

FARMAsCN [see masuniyya]. 
FARMING [see filaha]. 

FARMING OF TAXES [see bayt al-mal, 
dariba, iltizam, mukata c a]. 

FARMCL (also Farmul). A town east of Ghazna 
in Afghanistan near Gardez. It is mentioned by al- 
Mukaddasi (296), and the Hudud al-'-dlam (251). The 
exact location of the town is unknown and it no 
longer exists. (R. N. Frye) 

al-FARRA', the sobriquet of the grammarian of 
al-Kufa, Abu Zakariyya' Yahya b. Ziyad, who died 
in 207/822; according to al-Sam'anl, Ansdb, f° 420a 
(quoted by Ibn Khallikan. ii, 229, 1. 34), al-Farra' 
appears to signify, not "the Furrier" but "one who 
skins, i.e., scrutinises language". He was born at al- 
Kufa in about 144/761, of a family that were natives 
of Daylam (see Yakut, Udabd\ xx, 9), and he 
remained as a dependent of an Arab clan, either the 
Asad or the Minkar (see Fihrist, 66 and TaMkh 
Baghdad, xiv, 149); he received an education in 
hadith that went back to the well-known traditionists 
'{Ta'rikh Baghdad, al-Sam'ani, loc. cit.); naturally, 
it is on the subject of his grammatical education that 
we possess the fullest particulars, but these must, 
however, be used with discretion; on the authority 
of the "Kufan" Thalab (d. 291/904) [q.v.], it has 
been customary to regard al-Farra' as one of the 
masters and indeed one of the founders of the 
"grammatical school of al-Kufa"; the fact is that 
al-Farra J holds a place in the list of Kufans who 
were influenced by al-Ru J 5si [q.v.] and al-Kisa'i 
[q.v.] (see anecdotal material in Fihrist, 64, 1. 16, 
repeated by al-Anbari, 65, in which amyazu must 
be read, not asannu) ; in any event, al-Farra 3 would 
only have met al-Kisa J I in Baghdad when in his 
years of maturity, and what is more, it is not 
admissable to accept that at that time the division 
between the "School of al-Kufa" and that of al- 
Basra had already assumed the intensity which it 
later attained during the grammarians' polemics at 
the end of the 3rd/9th century and in the following 
century (cf. Fleisch, 14 and al-Makhzumi, who refer 
to Weil, Insdf, Introduction) ; like his contemporaries, 



al-Farra' seems in fact to have made wide use of 
direct inquiry among Bedouin informants; to some 
degree he was influenced by Basran scholars such as 
Yunus al-Thakafi, perhaps also al-Asma c i, Abu 
Zayd al-Ansari and Abu 'Ubayda (cf. Abu '1-Tayyib 
al-Lughawi ( ?) apud al-Suyuti, Muzhir, ii, 403) ; like 
most if not all the Kufans, al-Farra' had an intimate 
knowledge of the Book of Sibawayh (cf. the in- 
formation going back to al-Djahiz, in Ibn Khallikan, 
i, 385, 1. 21, where the polygraph says a gift was made 
to the vizier Ibn al-Zayyat of a copy of this work, 
originating from the library of al-Farra' and executed 
by the latter himself); in fact the problem of the 
Basran influences on al-Farra' remains partly 
obscure since the evidence is contradictory (cf. 
Yakut, Udabd', xx, 10 and al-Suyuti, Bughya, 411 
and also the summary by al-Makhzumi, 146 ff.); in 
any case, he does not seem to have undergone direct 
influences of master on disciple. By his personality, 
the austerity of his habits, his disinterestedness, and 
also as a result of his position in relation to the 
caliph al-Rashid (see Zubaydi, 143; Ibn Khallikan. 
ii, 228, 1. 12) and especially al-Ma'mQn who appointed 
him tutor to his two sons (see Ta'rikh Baghdad, 
xiv, 150, repeated by al-Anbari, 130-1), al-Farra' 
appears to have largely deserved the renown which 
his erudition had won. His knowledge was encyclo- 
paedic and derived simulnaneously from hadith, 
fikh, astrology, medicine, the "Days of the Arabs", 
and, naturally, from grammar (see Td'rikh Baghdad, 
xiv, 151, condensed in Yakut, Udaba', xx, 11 and 
al-Anbari, 132-3); his Mu'tazili leanings are certain 
but, according to al-Djahiz, al-Farra' had no real 
gift for kaldm (see Ibn Khallikan, ii, 229, 1. 13; cf. 
Yakut, loc. cit.). It is above all as a grammarian of 
the "School of al-Kufa" that the reputation of al- 
Farra 5 has been perpetuated; his immediate disciples 
like Salama b. c Asim, Abu c Ubayd Ibn Sallam, 
Muhammad b. Djahm al-Simmari were of importance 
in that respect (cf. Fihrist, 67, 71; Ta'rikh Baghdad, 
xiv, 149; Yakut, xx, 10; Zubaydi, 150); but it is 
mainly due to Tha'lab that he came to be recognised 
as the leader of the "School of al-Kufa" (cf. Fihrist, 
74 and Td'rikh Baghdad, loc. cit.) ; it is worth noting 
that his authority extended as far as Spain (see 
Zubaydi, 163 and the statement by his uncle; see 
also ibid., 278 and al-Suyuti, Bughya, 213 ff. on what 
Djudi of Toledo owes to al-Farra' and the Kufans). 
The writings of al-Farra' are known to us from the 
list of works given in the Fihrist, 67, enumerating 13 
titles (cf. Ma'-ani al-Kur'dn, Introd. by the editors, 
10-1, who include 17 titles; this initial list serves as 
the basis for those given by Yakut, Ibn Khallikan, 
and al-Suyuti, Bughya, which includes only 11 
titles); a number of these works appear to be lost; 
note also that certain titles appear to apply to 
chapters of the IJudud. His work consists of: (a) 
writings on grammar such as — 1. K. Muldzim (?) 
(see Yakut, xx, 14; Ibn Khallikan, ii, 229, 1. 30; the 
Fihrist, 67, gives a Hadd muldzamat radjul (sic) 
among the chapters of the IJudud) ; — 2. K. al- 
Ijudud, "Definitiones grammaticae", thought by 
some to have been dictated at the instance of al- 
Ma'mfln, after 204/819 (cf. Ta'rikh Baghdad, xiv, 149) 
or, more probably, before that date (see Cairo ed., i; 
cf. al-Makhzumi, 151); according to the Fihrist, 67, 
we possess the list of 45 chap., but al-Suyuti, Bughya, 
gave it as 46 and al-Zubaydi, 150, speaks of 60; the 
work was imitated by the Kufan Ibn Sa'dan (d. 231/ 
845; cf. Fihrist, 70, 1. 5); — 3. K.Fa'ala(l) wa-apala 
(see Fihrist, 67) ; the K. al-Hudud contains a chapter 
with the same title ; a small work possibly quoted by 



al-Suyuti, Muzhir, ii, 95; — 4. K. al-Maksur wa 
'l-mamdud (Fihrist, 67) ; quoted by al-Suyuti, Muzhir, 
ii, 255 ff. and by Ibn al-Sikkit, ibid., ii, 106; for the 
MSS, see Brockelmann, SI, 179; — 5- K. al- 
Mudhakkar wa 'l-mu'annath (Fihrist, 67) ; the K. al- 
Ifudud contains a chapter with the same title; ed. 
Mustafa Zara'i, Beirut/ Aleppo 1345 in Madjmu'a 
lughawiyya; — 6. K. al-Wdw (see Yakut, Udabd', 
xx, 14 and Ibn Khallikan. ii, 229). — (6) writings on 
lexicography such as 7. K. al-Ayydm wa 'l-laydli 
[wa H-shuhur] (al-Suyuti, Muzhir, i, 219 and ii, 76-7, 
158 1. 3, 248: 3 quotations); ed. Ibr. al-Ibyari, Cairo 
1956, 1 vol. in 8°, 64 pp.; perhaps composed on the 
basis of "current dictations" going back to al-Farra' 
and certain other Kufans; — 8. K. al-Fdkhir (Fihrist, 
67 and Yakut, xx, i4;not al-mafdkhir as in Ibn Khalli- 
kan, ii, 229, 1. 29) ; for the MSS, see Brockelmann, S I, 
179; deals with proverbs; it should be noted that 
Mufaddal b. Salama, son of al-Farra"s disciple, in his 
turn also later wrote a work on proverbial sayings with 
the same title; — 9. K. al-Nawddir (Fihrist, 67), 
handed down by Salama and two other disciples of 
the author (ibid., 88, 1. 8 ; cf. Yakut, xx, 14) ; note that 
the Kufan al-Kisa'i had himself composed a work on 
this subject in three versions (Fihrist, loc. cit.) ; — 
10. K. Aldt al-kuttdb (Fihrist, 67); — 11. K. Mushkil 
al-lugha (Ta'rikh Baghdad, xiv, 150; Yakut, xx, 14 
and Ibn Khallikan, ii, 229, 1. 24, in two editions, the one 
major, the other minor) ; — 12. K. Ydfi'- wa-yafa c a ( ?) 
(Yakut, xx, 14, giving the variant wa-ydfi c a; Ibn 
Khallikan, ii, 229, 1. 31), which comprised 50 f°" 
with the K. Muldzim); — 13. K. al-Baha 1 (so given 
in Ibn Khallikan, ii, 229; not al-bahi, as in Fihrist, 
67 and in Yakut, xx, 13; the full title in al-Suyuti, 
Bughya, 41 1 , is K. al-Bahd' fi md talhanu fi-hi 'l-'dm- 
ma) ; written for c Abd Allah b. Tahir (Fihrist, loc. 
cit.); repeated with certain additions by Tha c lab in 
his K. al-Fasih (Ibn Khallikan, loc. cit.). — (c) works 
on the Kur'dn such as — 14. K. al-Masddir fi 
'l-Kur'dn (Fihrist, 67); — 15. K. al-Qiam' wa'l-tath- 
niya fi 'l-Kur'dn (ibid.); — 16. K. Lughdt al-Kur'dn 
(ibid., 35, 1. 10 and 67); — 17. K. al-Wahj wa 
•l-ibtidd' fi 'l-Kur'dn (ibid., 36, 1. 2 and 67); — 18. K. 
Ikhtildf ahl al-Kufa wa 'l-Basra wa 'l-Sha'm fi 
•l-masdhif (Yakut, xx, 13); — 19. K. Ma c dni 
al-Kur^dn, written in about 204/819, whether 
before or after the K. al-Budud (see above), at the 
request of c Umar b. Bukayr the "logograph" and 
genealogist in the entourage of the vizier al-Hasan 
b. Sahl (Fihrist, 67, 1. 5 and 107); the well-known 
copy belonging to Ibn al-Nadim consisted of four 
volumes; the work is in process of being edited 
(i, Cairo 1374/1955) by Ahmad Nadjati and Muh. 
Nadjdjar (for the MSS see introd., 3-6 and Brockel- 
mann, SI, 173); other Kufans had written works 
bearing the same title, among them al-Ru'asI, al- 
Kisa'i and Kutrub (see Fihrist, 34) ; in the same way, 
the Basran al-Hasan al-Akhfash had written a 
K. Ma'-ani al-Kur'dn which had served as a model 
for al-Kisa'i and al-Farra' (see Zubaydi, 71); a 
refutation by Ibn Durustawayh mentioned in 
Fihrist, 63, 1. 16; an abridgement of it was made by 
al-Dinawari (see Zubaydi, 234). The Cairo ed. 
reproduces the version of Muh. b. al-Djahm al- 
Simmarl, probably following the "current dictations" 
of al-Farra' (cf. i/i); in places, however, al-Farra' 
seems to be quoted textually(i, 21, 1. 10 and 351,1.11). 
At present we can really only judge al-Farra' by 
the published part of the K. Ma'dni al-Kur'dn. The 
work is highly disappointing and without any general 
theme, being confined for the most part to argumen- 
tation on casual syntax; if here and there certain 



l-FARRA' — FARRUKHABAD 



interpretations of a Mu'tazili character are to be 
observed (as in i, 353: niir-imdn) or lexicographical 
remarks which are not devoid of subtlety (i, 385 on 
fataha "to judge"), on the other hand the comments 
on the "lectures" are curious rather than convincing 
(i> 455). Bearing in mind that this work has not come 
down to us in the form which the master gave to it, 
we reach the conclusion that al-Farra 5 mainly owes 
his importance to the influence which he exerted 
over his pupils, either through writings received 
from him or through his personal authority. In 
general his followers have, without exception, been 
distinguished by the same grammatical anomalism, 
of which so many instances are to be found in the 
K. Ma'-dni al-Kur^dn, based upon respect for usage 
particularly when aberrant (see the discussions on 
certain "readings", op. tit., i, 353. 355, 357-8, 363, 
375, 460). 

Bibliography: Fihrist, 30, 34ft., 36, 41, 63, 
66-7, 70, 7i, 74, 75, 88, 107; TaMkh Baghdad, 
xiv, 149-55; al-Anbari, Nuzha, 65 ff., 126-37, ed. 
Samarral (Baghdad 1959), 34, 65-8 (repeating the 
previous work without acknowledgement) ; Yakut, 
Vdabd?, ii, 276-8 = ed. Rifa'i, Cairo 1936 onwards, 
xx, 9-14; Ibn al- c Imad al-Isfahani, Shadhardt al- 
dhahab, ii, 19 ff. and Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt, 
Cairo 1310, ii, 228-30 (all three going back to or 
summarizing the Td'rikh Baghdad); Suyuti, 
Bughya, 411 (probably summarizes Yakut or Ibn 
Khallikan); Abu '1-Tayyib al-Lughawi, Mardtib 
al-nahwiyyin, ed. Muh. Ibrahim, Cairo 1375/1955, 
88 and passim; Zubaydi, Tabakdt al-nahwiyyin, 
69 ff., 143-6, passim; Sam'anI, Ansdb, f° 420a; 
Suyuti, Muzhir, Cairo 1942, i, 19 quotations or 
mentions, ii, 33 quotations or mentions, particu- 
larly p. 410. Articles or studies by Ahmad Amln, 
Duhd 'l-Isldm, ii, 307-8 (biographical synthesis); 
MakhzumI, Madrasat al-Kufa, Baghdad 1374/1955, 
99 ff., 144-71 (important); H. Ritter, in Isl., xvii 
(1928), 249-57; Pretzl, in Islamica, vi (1933), '6; 
H. Fleisch, Traiti de philologie arabe, Beirut 1961, 
*3-5i 3°, 48 and index; Brockelmann, I, 46 and 
S I, 178. (R. Blachere) 

FARRUKHABAD, name of a town and 
district in the Uttar Pradesh state of India; situated 
between the Ganges and the Yamuna (Djamna) 
between 26° 46' and 27 43' N. and 78 8' and 
8o° 1' E., with an area of 1,685 sq. miles. Before the 
establishment of Pakistan the Muslims were in a 
majority but many of them later migrated to Pakistan. 
While the district can boast of an ancient past, the 
town itself is of comparatively recent growth, having 
been founded in 11 26/1714 by Muhammad Khan 
Bangash (b. c. 1076/1665), an Afghan military 
adventurer belonging to Ma'ii-Rashldabad (now a 
mere name), a village near Ka'imgandj, where his 
father c Ayn Khan was employed as a trooper by one 
*Ayn Khan Sarwani. A dashing soldier, Muhammad 
Khan had collected about him a band of Afghan 
mercenaries. When Farrukh-Siyar [q.v.] contested the 
title to the throne of Dihli, he joined him and helped 
him to win the throne by providing a force of 12,000 
men on the battle-field of Samugafh (1124/1713), 
nine miles east of Agra [q.v.]. Soon afterwards Kasim 
Khan Bangash, father-in-law of Muhammad Khan, 
was killed in a clash with the local Radjputs, and the 
king, as a token of gratitude, granted his daughter 
(Muhammad Khan's wife) five mahdlls by way of 
blood-money. He also ordered the building of a town, 
named after him, in memory of the slain Bangash 
chieftain. Thus was founded the town of Farrukhabad, 
which soon grew in prosperity: and an Imperial mint 



was established there at which coins (mostly silver 
rupees) continued to be minted even for the later 
Mughal emperors. The coins of 'Alamgir II, Shah 
Djahan III and Shah 'Alam II also carry the second 
name of the town — Ahmadnagar — derived from 
Nawwab Ahmad Khan, younger son of Muhammad 
Khan, who had defeated the forces of Safdar-Djang, 
the Nawwab-Wazir of Awadh, in 1 163/1750 and 
recovered from him his lost patrimony, Farrukhabad. 
which had been captured by the Awadh forces in 
1161/1748. This second name appears for the first 
time on coins minted at Farrukhabad in 1170/1756. 
Even after the British occupation of the town in 
1191/1777 the Farrukhabad mint continued to 
function for the East India Company, who used it 
up to 1835, minting silver rupees in the name of 
Shah c Alam II, although he had died years earlier in 
1221/1806. These rupees bore the legend (sikka) of 
Shah c Alam II in Persian and were known as the 
Farrukhabadi Sicca rupee. 

The earliest account of the district is that of the 
Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsiang, who mentions some 
of its ancient sites including that of Sankisa. The 
historic Kanawdj, capital of the empire of Harsha 
Vardhana in the 7th century A.D., which was 
plundered and sacked by Mahmiid of Ghazna in 
409/1018, captured by the Ghuri Sultan Shihab al- 
Din Muhammad b. Sam in 580/1193, and gave 
shelter to the fugitive Delhi monarch Mahmiid 
Tughluk in 805/1402, is also situated in this district. 
However, the real history of Farrukhabad begins 
with its foundation early in the I2th/i8th century 
by the first of the Bangash Nawwabs, Muhammad 
Khan Karlani. In addition to being the chief (raHs) 
of Farrukhabad and several other parganas granted 
to him by Farrukh-Siyar, Muhammad Khan was also 
the governor of the province of Allahabad for a time 
and later of that of Malwa. On his death in 1 156/1743 
he was succeeded by his eldest son Ka'im Khan, who 
as a result of the machinations of Safdar-Djang of 
Awadh, the old enemy of his house, got embroiled 
with the Rohillas and consequently lost his life in a 
clash with them in 1161/1748-9 near Bada'un. After 
his death Farrukhabad was annexed to the kingdom of 
Awadh and ceased to exist as an independent 
territory. However, the very next year Ahmad 
Khan, younger brother of Ka'im Khan, defeated and 
slew the Awadh governor and recovered his lost 
patrimony. Safdar-Djang appealed for help to the 
Marathas, who besieged Ahmad Khan in the fort of 
Fathgafh near Farrukhabad, and successfully beat 
off his confederates, the Rohillas. Ahmad Khan 
suffered a virtual defeat, escaped to the Himalayan 
jungles and was allowed to return only on ceding a 
large portion of his territory. He bided his time, 
however, and by rendering good service to the 
invaders when Ahmad Shah Durrani fought the 
Marathas in 1175/1761 on the battle-field of Panipat, 
was able to regain, through Imperial favour, much 
of his lost possessions. The fortunes of Farrukhabad, 
however, still hung in the balance and in 1185/1771 
the Marathas again made good their loss. Before the 
dispossessed ailing Nawwab (Ahmad Khan) could 
do anything he died. At this time the state virtually 
became a vassal of the Awadh durbar. In 1191/1777, 
in response to an appeal by the ruler of Awadh, with 
whom the Marathas had fallen out, British troops 
were stationed at Fathgafh (3 miles from Farrukh- 
abad) to guard against Maratha inroads, and in 1194/ 
1780 a British Resident was posted there. In 1802, 
Imdad Husayn Khan Nasir Djang (1796-1813), the 
fifth Nawwab of Farrukjjhabad, virtually ceded the 



FARRUKHABAD — FARRUKHl 



809 



territory to the British, although he continued to 
be recognised as a "native prince". His grandson 
Tadjammul Husayn Khan Zafar Djang was addicted 
to a life of luxury and ease; the Persian- Urdu poet 
MIrza Ghalib makes a very delightful reference to 
it in one of his Urdu ghazals. The last of the line, 
Tafaddul Husayn Khan, who had succeeded to the 
title in December 1846, considering the Mutiny an 
opportune moment to proclaim independence, sided 
with the mutinous Bengal Army with his 30,000 
troops and recovered Farrukhabad, which he held 
till January 1858. During these seven months the 
Nawwab enjoyed the active support of the great rebel 
leader Bakht Khan [q.v.] of the Bareilly Brigade and 
the Mughal fugitive prince Firuz Shah. After the 
disturbances had been quelled, the Nawwab was 
secured, his territory confiscated and for his com- 
plicity in the Mutiny he was exiled to Mecca in 1859. 
There are numerous sites of historical importance 
in the district, but they all belong to the pre- 
Muslim era. The tombs of the Nawwabs to the west 
of the town are the only buildings of note of the 
later Muslim period. These are, however, in a sad 
state of disrepair and neglect. The tomb of Muham- 
mad Khan was used as late as 1940 as a godown for 
storing tobacco (cf. al-'-Ilm (Urdu quarterly), 
Karachi, xii/2 (Jan.-March 1963), 12-3). For a 
description of the city see JASB, xlvii (1878), 276-80. 
Bibliography: (Mufti) S. Muh. Wall Allah 
Farrukhhabadi, Ta'rikh-i Farrukhabad (MS), 
Subhan Allah Collection, Muslim University 
Aligarh; Mir Husam al-DIn Gawaliyari, Muham- 
mad Khdni, (MS in Persian), 1.0. 3896; Elliot and 
Dowson, History of India . . ., viii, 44; Imperial 
Gazetteer of India, Oxford 1908, xii, 62-73; W. 
Irvine, Later Mughals, Calcutta 1922, index s.v. 
Muhammad Khan Bangash; idem, The Bangash 
Nawdbs of Farrukhabad, JASB, xlvii (1878), 259- 
383, xlviii (1879), 49-170; H. N. Wright, Catalogue, 
coins of the Indian Museum, Oxford 1908, iii/xlvi; 
W. Crooke, N.W. Provinces of India, London 1897, 
116, 722; S. Lane- Poole, Catalogue of Moghul coins 
in the British Museum; Storey, i, 693-4; Muhammad 
c Ali Khan Ansari, Ta'rikh-i Muzaffari, sub anno 
1156 A.H. (biography of Muhammad Khan): 
Ghulam Husayn Khan Tabataba'i, Siyar al- 
muta'akhkhirin, Lucknow 1314/1897, 422, 433, 
437-9, 443, 451, 456. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
FARRUKHAN GIlan-shah, ispahbad of Taba- 
ristan, known as the Great (buzurg) and the Virtuous 
(dhu 'l-mandkib), son of Dabuya, conquered Mazan- 
daran and restored peace to the frontiers. When 
defeated by the Daylamls in their revolt, he fled to 
Amul and entrenched himself in the castle of 
FirQzabad; he saved himself by the ruse of making 
his besiegers believe that he had enormous stocks of 
bread. He gave asylum to the Kharidiis when they 
were being pursued by al-Hadjdjadj, but fought 
against them and put their chiefs to death on the 
approach of an army commanded by Sufyan b. 
Abi '1-Abrad al-Kalbl. Yazid b. al-Muhallab, 
governor of Khurasan under Sulayman b. 'Abd al- 
Malik, tried in vain to conquer the country and could 
count himself fortunate to be able to withdraw in 
return for a sum of money, as compensation for 
the depredations that had been committed. Farru- 
khan died a year or two later, after reigning for 
seventy years. He was the maternal grandfather of 
al-Mansur, the son of the caliph al-Mahdi. His 
capital was Sari, which he had rebuilt and embellished. 
His son Dadh-Mihr succeeded him. 

Bibliography: Ibn Isfandiyar, History of 



Tabaristan (tr. Browne), 99 ff . ; Zahir al-Din, 
Ta'rlkh Tabaristan, ed. Dorn, 45 ff.; J. L. Rabino 
di Borgomale, Mdzanderdn and Astardbdd, 1928, 
index. See also ispahbad and mAzandaran. 

(Cl. Huart) 
FARRUKHl SIstanI, Abu 'l-Hasan c AlI b. 
Djulugh. the celebrated Iranian poet, a native 
of the town of Sistan (cf. Yakut, s.v.; Kazwinl, 
Nuzhat, s.v.), as he says in a hemistich: "I place 
(other towns) after Sistan, because it is my (native) 
town". The takhallus Farrukhl unites the ideas of 
happiness and physical beauty. His father, Djulugh 
(according to c Awfi and Dawlatshah) or Kulugh 
(according to Adhar and Hidayat) was in the service 
of the governor of the province of Sistan. According 
to Nizaml-i 'Arudi, who gives the most reliable in- 
formation, Farrukhl very soon revealed his talents 
for poetry and music; being in the service of a dihkdn 
[q.v.] and wishing to marry, he asked for an increase 
in salary which was refused; Nizami relates in detail 
how two of his most beautiful poems (Diwdn, ill 
and 331) which he recited in the presence of the amir 
governor of Saghaniyan (Barthold, Turkestan, 
index s.v.) won him the favour of that prince, 
Fakhr al-Dawla Abu '1-Muzaffar, the last of his 
line (cf. Nizaml-i 'Arudi, Cahar makdla, trans. 
E. G. Browne, 122-3; ed. Mu'in, Tehran, 178-88), 
and then after 377/987-8, the date of his predecessor's 
tragic death, he took the place of the poet Daklkl, as 
he states at the end of the poem (181). In 389/999 
Mahmud, Abu '1-Muzaffar's suzerain, ascended the 
throne of Ghazna; some time later, Farrukhl became 
one of the poets attached to his court; singing his 
poems to his own accompaniment on the lute {riid) r 
he lived in Ghazna for the rest of his life, loaded with 
honours by sultan Mahmud, his brothers and the 
sultan's first two successors, whose praises he 
celebrated without fulsomeness, mentioning their 
bounty in several of his kasidas ; he also wrote poems 
in honour of leading court dignitaries. On several 
occasions he accompanied the sultan on his expedi- 
tions against India (witness these lines: "Three 
times was I with you on the immense sea . . .", 
"the trials and fatigues of the journey from Kanawdj 
have broken me"). The collected edition of his 
poems (diwdn) contains more than 9,500 lines of 
verse; while the treatise on rhetoric Tardjumdn al- 
baldgha, often attributed to him, is in reality the 
work of Muhammad b. c Umar al-Raduyanl (end 
of 5th/nth and beginning of 6th/i2th centuries; ed. 
Ahmed Ates, Istanbul 1949 — important introduc- 
tion). He died probably in 429/1037-8, while still 
young, according to the lines of his contemporary 
Lablbi (quoted by Raduyani): "If Farrukhl died, 
why did not c UnsurI die? The old man lingered on; 
the young man went so soon" {Tardjumdn, 32). His 
kasidas, which are panegyrics, are characterized by 
the ease and vigour of their style; uncomplicated 
ideas and sentiments are expressed in sober, clear 
and fluent language which gives his poetry a parti- 
cular charm. According to Rashid-i Watwat (HaddHk 
al-sihr), his talent is reminiscent of that of the Arab 
poet Abu Firas. His shorter poems (a small number 
only: kif-a, ghazal, rubdH) are remarkable for their 
freshness and spontaneity of feeling, and for the 
occasionally ironical and pungent subtlety of thought 
which sometimes transforms a kif-a into an excellent 
epigram; in short, the delicacy he shows in the 
ghazal is just as great as the rhetorical force in the 
kasUa. His mastery was universally acclaimed, and 
poets imitated his manner. 
Bibliography: Diwdn, ed. c Ali c Abd al- 



FARRUKHl — FARRUKH-SIYAR 



Rasuli, Tehran 1331/1953; Nizami-i 'Arudi, Cahdr 
makdla, tr. E. G. Browne and ed. Mu'In (index); 
Muhammad 'Awfi, Tadhkirat al-shu c ard', ed. 
Browne, ii, 47; Djaml, Bahdristdn, trans. H. Masse, 
168 (short notice and kif-a, the text of which 
is in Diwdn, 435); Dawlat-Shah, Tadhkirat al- 
shu'ard', ed. Browne, 55;. Rida Kuli Khan. MaAjma? 
al-fu$ahd\ i, 439 ff.; Safa (Dhablh Allah), TaMkh-i 
adabiydt dar Iran, i, 534 ff.; H. Masse, Anthologie 
persane, 38 ff. ; I A (art. Ferruhi, by H. Ritter). 

(Cl. Huart-[H. MassS]) 
FARRUKH-SIYAR, Abu 'l-Muzaffar Muham- 
mad Mu c In al-DIn, the second son of Muhammad 
'Azim ('Azim al-Shan), the third son of Bahadur 
Shah [q.v.], reigned as Mughal Emperor from 13 
Dh u '1-Hidjdja 1124/10 January 1713 to 7 Rabi c II 
1131/27 February 1719. Born at Awrangabad in the 
Deccan, apparently in 1094/1683, in his tenth year 
he accompanied his father to Agra, and in 1 108/1697 
to Bengal, when that province was added to his 
charge. In 11 19/1707, when c Azim al-Shan was 
summoned to the court from Bengal by Awrangzlb, 
Farrukh-Siyar was nominated his father's deputy 
there, which post he held till his recall by c AzIm al- 
Shan in 1123/1711. However, during this period he 
exercised no real power, the affairs of the province 
being dominated by the diwdn, Murshid Kuli Khan 

When Bahadur Shah died at Lahore on 19 Muhar- 
ram 1124/27 February 1712, Farrukh-Siyar was at 
Palna, having tarried there since the previous rainy 
season. Following the defeat and death of his father 
in the contest at Lahore, Farrukh-Siyar proclaimed 
himself king at Patna on 29 Safar 1124/6 March 1712 
(the official beginning of the reign), having won over 
to his side the deputy-governor, Sayyid Husayn c Ali 
Khan Barha [q.v.], with whom he had had many 
differences earlier. Farrukh-Siyar now marched on 
Delhi, being joined on the way by the elder Sayyid 
brother, c Abd Allah Khan, who was the deputy- 
governor of fiiba Ilahabad, and by many nobles from 
the eastern parts. He defeated Djahandar Shah [q.v.] 
on 13 Dh u '1-Hidjdja 1124/10 January 1713 after a 
hard-fought battle at Samugafh near Agra. Farrukh- 
Siyar's part in the victory was, however, slight, the 
chief credit undoubtedly belonging to the two Sayyid 
brothers, who were aided by division and demorali- 
sation in Djahandar Shah's camp. c Abd Allah Khan 
was now appointed the wazir, and Husayn c Ali the 
chief bakhshi. Djahandar Shah and his wazir, Dhu 
'1-Fikar Khan were executed by Farrukh-Sivar's 
order, and many others suffered confiscation of 
property and imprisonment. 

The internal history of Farrukh-Siyar's reign 
consists of a series of contests between Farrukh- 
Siyar and his two leading ministers, the Sayyid 
brothers. The Sayyid brothers were clearly deter- 
mined not to relinquish voluntarily their offices, 
which they considered theirs by right, and to domi- 
nate the affairs of the state as far as possible. Their 
claims were resented by the youthful monarch, and 
even more by his personal favourites who had been 
accorded important posts at the court. The Sayyids 
were also accused, not without some justification, of 
being negligent in matters of administration and of 
leaving it in the hands of corrupt underlings. Farrukh- 
Siyar and his favourites gave little proof of capacity 
to rule, and, moreover, they lacked the courage and 
resources to challenge the Sayyids openly, and dared 
not apply to any of the old nobles for fear of ex- 
changing one set of masters for a worse. Farrukh- 
Siyar, therefore, had recourse to hatching plots 



against his ministers, and inciting the nobles and 
elements outside the court against them. As a result, 
the court became divided into two opposing factions, 
the administration suffered, and the prestige of the 
central government was undermined. However, it 
does not seem correct to identify the court factions 
as "Mughals" and "Hindustanis", with the Sayyids 
acting as the leaders of the latter. A close study 
shows that the factions were not based on any 
religious or ethnic groups in the Mughal nobility, 
personal and family attachments and considerations 
being the main factor. Taking advantage of dissatis- 
faction at Farrukh-Siyar's patronage of unworthy 
favourites, the Sayyids gradually succeeded in 
winning over to their side or in neutralizing most of 
the important nobles — Radja Djay Singh KaMwaha 
of Amber remaining a notable exception. Matters 
rapidly came to a head. In February 1719, Husayn 
C A1I, who had assumed personal charge of the Deccan 
in May 1715, re-entered Delhi at the head of a large 
army, which included a force of 15,000 Maratha 
horsemen under the command of the Peshwa, 
BaladjI Wishwanath. After a proffered compromise 
had been rejected by Farrukh-Siyar, he was deposed 
and blinded on 9 Rabi c II 1131/28 February 1719, 
and a new prince, Rail* al-Dardjat, was proclaimed. 
Soon afterwards, in the night of 9 Djumada II 1131/ 
27-28 April 1719, Farrukh-Siyar was strangled. 

The chief importance of Farrukh-Siyar's reign lies 
in a clear breach with Awrangzlb's policies in a 
number of spheres. The djizya was abolished even 
while Farrukh-Siyar was in Bihar. After his victory, 
an effort was made to conciliate the leading RadjpOt 
Radjahs by granting them high manfabs and ap- 
pointing them to important posts. The marriage of 
Farrukh-Siyar to the daughter of Maharadja Adjlt 
Singh of Djodhpur, which was celebrated with great 
pomp and ceremony in December 1715, was intended 
as a symbol of the reconciliation. Under the stress 
of the factional struggle at the court, the Sayyids 
also befriended the Djat Radja, Curaman, acquiescing 
in his usurpation of many areas in the neighbourhood 
of Agra, and made far-reaching concessions to the 
Marathas, recognising Radja Shahu's right to levy 
cauth and sardeskmukki — contributions amounting 
to 35% of the revenue, in the six subas of the Deccan. 
Farrukh-Siyar actively opposed the concessions to 
the Djats and the Marathas. He also sought, belated- 
ly, to rally the othodox elements to his side by reviv- 
ing djizya in 1129/1717. The impost was again 
abolished by the Sayyids after his deposition. 

Another development, which marked an important 
phase in the growth of the English East India 
Company, was the grant to it in 1129/1717 otfarmdns 
securing the right to carry on trade free of duties in 
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, and at Surat and Madras, 
besides sundry other privileges. There is, however, 
little justification for the view that these grants 
were made by Farrukh-Siyar out of gratitude to the 
English surgeon, Dr. William Hamilton, who had 
successfully treated him. Dr. Hamilton's services 
were rewarded by the grant of a robe, a horse, five 
thousand rupees and other costly gifts. But it was 
not within the power of Farrukh-Siyar to make 
grants of the nature desired by the English without 
the agreement of c Abd Allah Khan, the wazir , whose 
domination over the affairs of the state was almost 
complete at this time. The English realized this only 
when two successive applications made by them 
through the King's favourite, Khan-i-Dawran, 
proved fruitless. Finally, they approached c Abd 
Allah Khan, and he sanctioned their petition, over- 



FARRUKH-SIYAR — FARS 



ruling the objections advanced by the officials of 
the revenue ministry (Early annals of the English in 
Bengal, ed. C. R. Wilson, ii/i, 235, ii/2, p. xxiv-xxvii, 
48-173). c Abd Allah Khan accepted no personal 
gratification, and his motives in approving the grants 
can only be guessed at. 

Though Farrukh-Siyar possessed none of the 
qualities of greatness, his deposition and death made 
him a martyr in popular eyes, and contributed to 
the subsequent downfall of the Sayyid brothers. He 
was apparently survived by only one daughter who 
married the emperor Muhammad Shah [q.v.] in 1131/ 

Bibliography: Documents as well as contem- 
porary and secondary works for the reign of 
Farrukh-Siyar are very numerous. For details, see 
Later Mughals, by W. Irvine, ed. J. Sarkar, 
Calcutta and London 1921; Satish Chandra, 
Parties and politics at the Mughal court, 1707-1740, 
Aligarh 1959; from detailed personal enquiries I 
have learnt that no ms. of the type described in the 
Oriental College Magazine, ii/4 (Aug. 1926), p. 58, 
no. 70, and referred to by Storey (sec. II, no. 767) 
exists in the Punjab Univ. Lib. See also M. 
Mu'min b. Muhammad Kasim al-Djaza'iri al- 
Shirazi, Khizanat al-khaydl, J.R. Lib., ff. 182a- 
197a (summarized by A. Mingana, in Bull. J.R.Lib., 
viii (1924), 150-65); Mihakk al-suluk wa miskat al- 
nafiis, I.O. no. 1012, ff. 52oa-542b, 647-8; IHimad 
Khan, Mir'dt al-hakdHk, Bod. Lib., Fraser no. 124, 
ff. I29a-i48b (contents summarized by R. Sinh, 
in Procs. IHRC, xvii (1941) 356-62); Early annals 
of the English in Bengal, ed. C. R. Wilson, 3 vols., 
London 1895-1917; Home Misc. Series, lxix; 
Satish Chandra, Jizyah in the post-Aurangzib 
period, in Proc. Ind. Hist. Cong., 1946, 320-6; idem, 
Early relations of Farrukh Siyar and the Saiyid 
brothers, in Med. Ind. Quart., Aligarh 1957, 135-46; 
B. N. Reu, Letter of Maharaja Ajit Singh relating 
to the death of Farrukh Siyar, in Proc. gth A.I. Or. 
Con}., 1937, 839-42; A. G. Pawar, Some documents 
bearing on imperial Mughal grants to Raja Shahu, 
in Procs. IHRC, xvii (1941), 204-15; S. H. Askari, 
Bihar in the first quarter of the iSth century, in 
Proc. Ind. Hist. Cong., 1941, 394-405; Balkrishna, 
The Magna Carta and after, in Procs. IHRC, vii 
(1925), 79-87. For works dealing with the revenue 
and administrative history of the period, see 
N. A. Siddiqi, Mughal land revenue system in 
Northern India in the first half of the eighteenth 
century, (unpublished thesis, Aligarh University). 

(Satish Chandra) 
FARS, the arabicized form of Pars, which itself 
was derived from Parsa, the Persis of the Greeks. 
The province of Fars, which has now become 
the seventh Ustdn, extends from long. 50 to 55° E. 
(Greenwich) and from lat. 27 to 31° 45' N. Its 
greatest length, from Linga in the south to Yazdi- 
kh w ast in the north, is 680 km. while its maximum 
breadth, from Bandar Dilam in the west to Abadeh in 
the east is 520 km. The total area of the province, 
including the islands off the coast, is approximately 
200,000 sq. km. In 195 1 the estimated population was 
1,290,000 (Razmara and Nav/tksh, Farhang-i Djughrd- 
fiya-yi Iran, vii, 120). Fars is bounded on the north- 
west by the sixth Ustdn (Khuzistan), on the north- 
east by the tenth Ustdn (Isfahan, formerly known suc- 
cessively as al-Pjibal [q.v.] and 'Irak 'Adjami), on the 
east by the eighth Ustdn (Kirman) and on the west 
and south-west by the Persian Gulf. The province is 
divided into 8 shahristdns (districts), namely, Shiraz 
[q.v.], Bushahr [q.v.], Lar, Fasa [q.v.], Kazarun, 



Djahram, Firuzabad [q.v.] and Abadah. Much of the 
province is mountainous, and there are some difficult 
passes, particularly on the route connecting Shlraz 
with Bushahr. Fars is watered by a number of rivers 
most of which flow into the Persian Gulf; some, 
such as the Kurr, flow into lakes on the further side 
of the watershed. 

In the 7th century B. C, Teispes, the son of 
Achaemenes and king of Anshan, threw off the 
yoke of the Medes and added Parsa to his realm. 
In the oldest Achaemenian tablet known, in cunei- 
form Old Persian, Ariaramnes states: 'This land of 
the Persians which I possess, provided with good 
horses and good men, it is the great god Ahuramazda 
who has given it to me. I am lord of this land' 
(R. Ghirshman, Iran, 1954, 120). It was from Pars, 
Herodotus's 'scant and rugged land', that Cyrus the 
Great (559-530 B.C.) started on his phenomenal 
career of conquest which culminated in the establish- 
ment of the greatest empire of the ancient world. 
Two centuries later, Pars, together with the rest of 
Persia, was overrun by Alexander the Great. Little 
is known of the province in Seleucid and Parthian 
times save that it was ruled by a series of jratarakas 
or jratadaras (governors). Ardashir, the son of Papak 
and grandson of Sasan, was, like Cyrus the Great, a 
native of Pars of which he became king in 228 A.D. 
His grandfather and father had both been tenders 
of the sacred fire in the temple of Anahit (Venus) 
at Istakhr (A. Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassa- 
nides 1 , Copenhagen 1944, 86). In 224 A.D. Ardashir 
revolted, killed Artavan, the last Arsacid, in battle, 
and thus threw off the Parthian yoke. In this way 
the Sasanian dynasty and empire were founded. 
Not without reason did E. C. Browne (ii, 92) describe 
Pars as the 'cradle of Persian greatness'. 

In Sasanian times Pars was divided into 5 districts, 
namely, Ardashir- Khurra. Shapur-Khurra, Arradjan, 
Istakhr and Darabgird. 

It was during the caliphate of 'Umar that the 
Muslim Arabs made their first attempt to conquer 
Pars (or Fars, as they called it), when al- c Ala> b. al- 
Hadrami, the governor of Bahrayn, sent 'Arfadja b. 
Harthama al-Bariki to attack it from the sea, but the 
enterprise proved unsuccessful. When c Uthman b. Abi 
'l- c As succeeded c Ala> b. al-Hadrami as governor of 
Baljrayn, he sent his brother al-Hakam to effect the 
conquest of the province. Al-Hakam, after seizing 
some islands off the coast, landed on the mainland, 
but was unable to penetrate far into the interior. 
During the caliphate of <Uthman [q.v.] the Arabs made 
a further attempt to overrun Fars. At Tawwadj (or 
Tawwaz), near Rishahr, 'Uthman b. Abi '1-As and 
his men fought a desperate battle with the Sasanian 
forces under the command of the marzbdn Shahrak: 
victory at length went to the Arabs after Shahrak 
and many of his men had fallen (Baladhuri, 386). 
Simultaneously, another Arab army, under the 
command of Abu Musa al-Ash c ari, set out from Basra 
and invaded Fars from the west. The two generals, 
having joined forces, penetrated deeply into Fars, 
capturing Shiraz ; in the north the town of Siniz 
(the ruins of which are near Ganafa (Djannaba)) also 
fell into their hands. 'Uthman then detached his 
forces and captured Darabgird (which then became 
arabicized as Darabdjird), Pasa (Fasa [q.v.]) and 
ShapOr (Sabur). In 28/648-9 the army under c Abd 
Allah b. 'Amir besieged and captured the city 
of Istakhr; he then marched southwards and took 
Firuzabad [q.v.], thus completing the subjugation of 
Fars. The land-tax (kharddi) was fixed first at 
33 million dirhams; later, in the reign of al-Mutawak- 



FARS — FARSAKH 



kil, it was raised to 35 million. The poll-tax (djizya) 
brought in a revenue of 18 million dirhams. 

Under the Caliphate Fars was appreciably larger 
than it had been before, as the district of Istakhr was 
extended north-eastwards to include Yazd and other 
towns in proximity to the great desert; moreover, 
in the north the boundary lay between Kumlsha and 
Isfahan. After the Mongol conquest, however, these 
additional territories were detached (Le Strange, 



248, 2 



), 275). 



With the decline in the temporal authority of the 
Caliphate in the 3rd/gth century, Fars came under 
the sway of Ya'kub b. Layth, the founder of the 
Saffarid dynasty. He made Shiraz his capital city, 
where his brother c Amr b. Layth built the great 
cathedral mosque on the site of which the present 
Masdjid-i Djami' stands. The Buwayhids later 
obtained possession of Fars, one of whom, c Adud 
al-Dawla, extended his power over most of Persia 
and part of Mesopotamia; one of his notable 
achievements was the construction of the great 
barrage over the river Kurr which was called the 
Band-i Amir or the Band-i c AdudI after him. The 
Buwayhids were succeeded as rulers of Fars by the 
Saldjuks [q.v.] ; when the power of the latter was on the 
wane, Sunkur, the first of the Salghurid Atabegs, 
gained possession of the province in 543/1 148-9 and 
refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of the 
Saldjuks. The Salghurid Atabegs maintained them- 
selves as rulers of Fars until that remarkable 
woman Abish Khatun, after ruling for a year, 
married Mangu Timur, a son of the II- Khan Hulagu 
Khan, in 667/1268 (Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Ta>rikh-i 
Guzida, 509) ; thenceforward her authority was only 

Mubariz al-DIn Muhammad, the founder of the 
Muzaffarid dynasty, added Fars to his dominions in 
754/ I 353- The Muzaffarids ruled over Fars until 
Mubariz al-DIn's grandson Shah Mansur was defeated 
and killed outside Shiraz in a fierce encounter with 
the forces of Timur in 795/1 393. 

Shah Isma'il I, the first of the Safawid line of 
rulers, who was enthroned at Tabriz in Muharram 
907/July 1501, established his authority in Fars 
two years later. Under him and his successors both 
Fars and its capital Shiraz prospered. During the 
reign of Shah 'Abbas I [q.v.] Imam Kull Khan, the 
great Governor-General of Fars, maintained almost 
regal state in Shiraz where, in March 1628, he 
sumptuously entertained the English envoy, Sir 
Dodmore Cotton, and his suite (see Sir Thomas 
Herbert, Travels in Persia, 1627-1629, edited by 
E. Denison Ross, London 1928, 74-83). 

Shiraz, in common with many other places in 
Fars, suffered severely in the fighting between the 
Persian forces under Nadr Kull Beg (Tahmasp Kull 
Khan, the future Nadir Shah) and the Ghalzay 
Afghans under Ashraf. This fighting ended with the 
complete defeat and virtual annihilation of the 
Afghans in 1730 (see L. Lockhart, The fall 0) the 
Safavi Dynasty and the Afghan occupation of Persia, 
Cambridge 1958, 336-9). Fars suffered again in 
the disturbances which occurred after the 
tion of Nadir Shah in 1 160/1747, but 
power of the beneficent Karlm Khan Zand [q.v.] who 
made Shiraz his capital, soon resulted in a return of 
peace and prosperity. After Karim Khan's death in 
1193/1779 Fars suffered once more during the 
struggle for supremacy between various members of 
the Zand family and, subsequently, between the 
gallant Lutf C AH Khan Zand and his relentless foe 
Agha Muhammad Khan Kadjar. 



In more recent times the history of Fars has been 
comparatively uneventful except on the following 
occasions: In 1250/1834, following upon the death 
of Fath c Ali Shah, his brother Husayn 'All Mirza, 
the Governor-General of Fars, had himself enthroned 
in Shiraz, but was soon after defeated and forced to 
relinquish his claims by his nephew Muhammad Shah 
(for details of the battle, which was fought near 
Kumlsha, see Baron de Bode, Travels in Luristan 
and Arabistan, London 1845,1, 61-2; see also HadjdjI 
Mirza Hasan 'FasaT, Fars-Ndma-yi Ndsiri, Tehran 
1313/1895-6, 288). Four years later, in consequence 
of Muhammad Shah's insistence on maintaining the 
siege of Herat despite protests by Great Britain, that 
power occupied the island of Kharg, 35 miles north- 
west of Bushahr, and threatened to declare war on 
Persia. The Shah thereupon gave way, and the troops 
were subsequently withdrawn from Kharg. On 
5 DjumSda I 1260/23 May 1844 Sayyid 'All Muham- 
mad announced in Shiraz that he was the Bab or 
'Gateway' (to the divine Truth), a development 
which led to very serious disturbances not only in 
Fars but throughout the country (see bab, babis). 
In 1 273-4/1856, when the seizure by Persia of Herat 
involved her in war with Great Britain, the latter 
power again occupied Kharg and then landed a force 
on the coast of Fars. This force, after taking Bushahr, 
advanced some distance inland; the conclusion of 
peace prevented any further military operations. An 
interesting event at the present time (i960) is the 
inauguration of the crude oil loading terminal on 
Kharg island, where oil-tankers of even the largest 
size can berth. The crude oil is brought by a pipe-line 
99 miles (160 km.) long from the Gac Saran oilfield 
on the mainland; for 23 miles (37 km.) of its length 
this pipe-line is beneath the waters of the Persian 
Gulf. 

Bibliography: In addition to references in 
the text: Ifudud al-'dlam, 6, 19, 25, 34, 36,40, 
52-55, 65, 66, 74, 80, 83, 123, 125-31, 163, 212; 
Ibn al-Balkhi, Fdrs-ndma, edited by G. Le Strange 
and R. A. Nicholson, London 1921, passim; 
Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Nuzha, Eng. tr. by Le 
Strange, London 1919, 11 1-36; HadjdjI Mirza 
Hasan 'Fasa'i', Fdrs-ndma-yi Ndsiri, passim; 
F. Spiegel, Eranische Alterthumskunde, i, 214; 
Le Strange, 248-98 ; Barbier de Meynard, Diction- 
naire giographique de la Perse, 410-3; G. N. Curzon, 
Persia and the Persian Question, London 1892, 
ii, 64-236 ; Sir Arnold Wilson, The Persian Gulf, 
Oxford 1928, 60, 61, 71-5, 85, 86, 94, 96, 172, 
175. (L. Lockhart) 

FARSAKH. Persian measure of distance on 
a time basis, from the Parthian word *frasakh, which 
came into Armenian as hrasakh, into Syrian as 
pars'hd, to continue in both Arabic and modern 
Persian as farsakh- Beside this, there is also the 
modern Persian farsang, derived from the Middle 
Persian frasang, the Old Persian *pardthanga, to be 
found in Herodotus and Xenophon as Ttapaoayyi)?. 
Originally the distance which could be covered on 
foot in an hour, or 'marching mile', this developed 
(presumably as early as Sasanid times) into a 
standard measure of distance. Herodotus takes the 
parasang to be 30 stadia, though it must be borne 
in mind that he refers not to the Attic, but to the 
Babylonian-Persian stadium of 198 m. Thus the 
Old Persian parasang would be a distance of 5.94 km. ; 
this, however, only for the cavalry. The foot- 
soldiers' parasang (or hour's march) was — as 
Xenophon's data prove — only about 4 km. In Islam, 
the jarsakh-i sharH was officially fixed at 3 Arab 



mil ('miles'), each of iooo bd c ('fathoms'), each of 
4 canonical ells (cf. al-dhird 1 al-sharHyya), each of 
49.875 cm., = 5.985 km. Both terms, farsakh and 
farsang, continue to be used in Iran today, but 
farsakh is the more usual. It has now been fixed at 
precisely 6 km. 

Bibliography: W. Hinz, Islamische Masse 
und Gewichte, Leiden 1955, 62-3; P. Horn, in 
Grund. Iran. Phil., i/2, 127; H. S. Nyberg, 
Hilfsbuch des Pehlevi, ii, 73! F. Segl, Vom Kentrites 
bis Trapezus, Erlangen 1925, 12; F. Lehmann- 
Haupt, in Gnomon, 1928, 339-40; H. Roemer, 
Shams al-Ifusn, Wiesbaden 1956, 126. 

(W. Hinz) 
FARgH [see ijalI]. 
FARSi [see Iran]. 
al-FArC? [see 'um 
AL-FARO&t, 'Abd 
official, born in Mosul i 



his a 



VR B. AL-JOJATTAB]. 

u,-Bak1, an 'Iraki poet and 
1 1 204/ 1790, who traced back 
r b. al-Khattab, whence his 
al-'Umari. While still very 
ssistant of the wall of Mosul 



il-Fariikl 
young, he became an assistai 
and was later appointed governor of the town by 
Dawud Pasha [q.v.]; when the Porte decided to 
restrict the independence which Dawud had until 
then enjoyed in Baghdad, c Abd al-Baki at first 
accompanied his uncle Kasim Pasha, who failed in 
his mission, and then 'All Rida Pasha who made 
him his deputy, he remained in office in Baghdad 
until his death, which took place in 1278/1862. 

'Abd al-Baki composed an adab work, Ahillat al- 
afkdr fl maghdni al-ibtikar which appears to be lost ; 
a biographical collection, Nuzhat al-dahr fl tarddjim 
fudald' al-'asr (unpublished) ; a short diwdn, religious 
in character, al-Bdkiyydt al-Sdlihdt which he 
published in 1270; another diwdn, which also in- 
cludes pieces not written by himself, published in 
Cairo in 1316 under the title al-Tirydk al-fdrilki min 
munsha'dt al-Fdruki. 

His secular poetry returns to the classical themes 



of v 









(e.g., the 



telegraph) and a number ot allusions to contem- 
porary political events. 'Abd al-Baki's religious 
poetry is copious but devoid of originality; in 
particular it includes panegyrics and elegies of the 
great figures of Islam (the Prophet, 'Ali, the Ahl 
al-Bayt, Ibn 'Arabi, etc.). 

Bibliography : Dj. Zaydan, Tarddjitn mashdhir 
al-Shark, ii, 193 ff. ; L. Cheikho, La Litterature arabe 
au XIX siecle*, 1924-6, index; 'Abbas al-'Azzawi, 
Ta'rikhal-'-Irdk bayn ihtildlayn, v, Baghdad 1955, 
139-40 and index (s.v. 'Abd al-Baki al-'Umari); 
M. M. al-Basir, Nahdat aW-Irdk al-adabiyya, 
Baghdad 1365/1946, 89-113. (Ch. Pellat) 

al-FArOICI, Mui.la Mahmud b. Muhammad b. 
Shah Muhammad al-Djawnpuri, one of the greatest 
scholars and logicians of India, was born at 
Djawnpur [q.v.] in 993/1585. This date is, however, 
doubtful as the Mulla died in 1062/1652 when he 
was, according to his family tradition, less than 
forty years of age (cf. Mullah [sic] Mahtnood's 
Determinism and Freewill (ed. Ali Mahdi Khan), 
Allahabad 1934, 19-22). He received his early 
education from his grandfather and later from 
Ustadh al-Mulk Muhammad Afdal b. Hamza al- 
'Uthmani al-Djawnpurl. A brilliant student, he com- 
pleted his education at the comparatively early age 
of 17, specializing in logic and philosophy, and then 
became a teacher in his home-town. His fame soon 
spread and even reached the Emperor Shahdjahan. 
who summoned him to Agra and ordered his chief 



minister Sa'd Allah Khan 'Allami to receive him with 
full honours on arrival in the city. His name was 
subsequently included in the list of the Court 'ulamd' 
and he was given the mansab of sih sadi (commander 
of three-hundred). He invariably accompanied the 
emperor on his journeys as a member of his entourage. 
On one Imperial visit to Lahore he was severely 
reprimanded by Mulla Shah Mir Badakhshi, the 
spiritual guide of Shahdjahan, for having become 
too much engrossed in worldly affairs, and advised 
to give up the service of the emperor. Deeply affected, 
the Mulla resigned and went back to teach in his 
home-town. His project for an observatory at Agra 
with financial help from the state failed to win the 
support of the chief minister Asaf Khan [q.v.] and 
was consequently turned down by the emperor on 
the ground that money was urgently required for the 
Balkh campaigns (1055-8/1645-8), which ultimately 
proved disastrous. Disappointed, he returned to 
Djawnpur and engaged himself in academic activities. 
In the meantime he was invited to Dacca by Shah 
Shudja', second son of Shahdjahan and the then 
governor of Bengal, who read with him books on 
philosophy and logic. This must have happened before 
1052/1642, when Mulla Mahmud contracted his bay'-a 
with Ni'mat Allah b. 'Ata> Allah al-FIruzpurl and 
compiled a tract containing the obiter dicta and the 
esoteric prayers of his shaykh (cf. Muhammad 
Yahya b. Muhammad Amin al-'Abbasi al-Allahabadi, 
Wafaydt al-aHdm). A great authority on philosophy 
and rhetoric, he is rated very high as a scholar. He 
is said to have never uttered a word which he had 
to withdraw later or contradicted a statement once 
solemnly made. Contrary to the views of the 
majority of Sunni scholars and writers, Shah 'Abd 
al-'Aziz al-Dihlawi [q.v.], counts him among the 
veteran Shi'i theologians (cf. Tuhfa Ithnd'-ashari, 
Lucknow 1295/1878, ch. iii, 166). His death in 1062/ 
1652 was deeply mourned by his teacher Ustadh 
al-Mulk Muhammad Afdal, who followed his pupil to 
the grave within forty days. His tomb outside the 
town still exists and is well known to the inhabitants. 
He is the author of: (i) Al-Shams al-bdzigha, his 
magnum opus, a commentary on his own philoso- 
phical text entitled al-Ijikma al-bdligha (litho. 
Delhi 1278/1861, Ludhiana 1280/1863, Lucknow 
1288/1871). Unlike other works on philosophy, it 
follows the pattern 'kulf akul"', i.e., 'I said and 
now I say'. Equally famous glosses on this work are 
by (a) Mulla Nizam al-Din Sihall, (b) Hamd Allah 
Sandili, (c) Mulla Hasan Lakhnawi, and (d) 'Abd al- 
Halim Ansari Farangi = Mahalli, all being prescribed 
as final courses of study in religious institutions in 
India and Pakistan; (ii) al-Fard'id fl shark al-Fawd'id 
(ed. Cawnpore 1331/1913), a commentary on 'Adud 
al-DIn al-Idji's al-Fawd'id al-Ghiydthiyya, a work on 
rhetoric; (iii) al-FardHd al-Mahmudiyya, his glosses 
on (ii) above (most probably prepared for Nawwab 
Sha'istah Khan, governor of Bengal, who read them 
with the author during his stay at Agra); (iv) 
Ifdshiya '■ala 'l-Addb al-Bdkiyya, a super-commentary 
on 'Abd al-Baki b. Ghawth al-Islam al-Siddiki's 
commentary on Sayyid Sharif al-Djurdjani's al- 
Risdla al-Sharifiyya fl Him al-mundzara (MS Farangi 
Mahall Lib.) ; (v) Risdla fl Ithbdt al-hayuld, as the 
name indicates a treatise on hayula (matter), a 
popular subject with Muslim logicians in India; 
same as no. (vii) below; (vi) Risdlat Uirz al-imdn 
(or Ifirz al-amdni) in refutation of al-Taswiya 
by Muhibb Allah Allahabad!; (vii) Al-Dawha al- 
mayydda fl tahkik al-sura wa 'l-mddda (litho. 1308/ 
1890); and (viii) Risdla Djabr u ikhtiydr (Deter- 



814 



l-FARUKI — FARUKIDS 



minism and Free-will), ed. with Eng. transl. and notes 
by C A1I Mahdi Khan, Allahabad 1934- A treatise on 
the kinds of women and a diwdn of Persian poems is 
also attributed to him. 

Bibliography: Azad Bilgraml, Subhat al- 
mardidn fi dthdr Hindustan, Bombay 1303 A.H., 
53-66; idem, Mahathir al-kirdm, Agra 1910, 202-3; 
Siddik Hasan KannawdjI, Abd^ad al-'ulum, 
Bhopal 1296/1878, 901-2; Nur al-Din Zaydl 
ZafarabadI, Tadjalli-yi nur (or Shigraf Bay an), 
Djawnpur 1900, 48; Rahman c Ali, Tadhkira-i 
'■ulama'-i Hind, Lucknow 1332/1914, 221; M. G. 
Zubaid Ahmad, Contribution of India to Arabic 
literature, Allahabad 1946, 125 ff.; Fakir Muham- 
mad Lahorl, HadaHk al-Hanafiyya, Lucknow 
1308/1891, 412-3; al-Zirikli, al-A'ldm, viii, 62; 
c Abd al-Hayy Lakhnawi, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, 
Haydarabadflnd.), 1375/1955. vi, 397-9; Brockel- 
mann, II, 420, S II, 621; Sadik Isfahan!, Subh-i 
§ddik (MS), mudiallad siwum, mafia' 12; Muham- 
mad YahyS b. Muhammad Amin al- c AbbasI al- 
Allahabadl, Wafaydt al-a c ldm (MS Dar al-Musan- 
nifln, A'zamgaf h) ; Muh. Salih Kamboh, <Amal-i 
Sdlih, Calcutta 1939, iii, 391. 441; Khayr al-Din 
Muh. Djawnpuri, Tadhkirat al-'ulama*, ed. with 
Engl, transl. and notes by Muhammad Sana 
Ullah, Calcutta 1934, 45"8 (Persian text), 51-5 
(Eng. transl.). A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

FAROKIDS, the Faruki dynasty (so-called 
because of claimed descent from the khalifa c Umar 
al-Faruk) established and ruled the semi-independent 
Muslim principality of Khandesh between the rivers 
TaptI and Narbada for two centuries, until, in 1009/ 
1600-1, Akbar captured most of the surviving 
members of the Farukid family, forced them to 
become Mughal pensioners, and converted Khandesh 
into the Mughal suba of Dandesh. The founder of the 
dynasty, Malik Radja (or Radja Ahmad) was 
probably a younger son of Kh'adja Djahan, wazir to 
C A15 5 al-Din Bahman Shah the first Bahmani sultan 
and his successor Muhammad I. Becoming wazir in 
succession to his father, Radja Ahmad was involved 
(c. 767/1365-6) in a rebellion against Muhammad I 
led by the latter's nephew Bahram Khan MSzan- 
darani, and fled to Dawlatabad. Thence he made 
his way to the court of Firuz Shah Tughluk of Dihli, 
possibly as a member of the embassy from Bahram 
Khan which waited on Firuz, in an effort to persuade 
him to intervene, when the latter was engaged in the 
expedition against Thaiiha in the period 767-8/1366-7 
{Am.Ta'rikh-iFiruzShdhi, Calcutta 1890, 224). (Haig, 
The Fdruqi dynasty of Khandesh {seeBibl.), 114-5. has 
wrongly placed the Thaiiha expedition in 765/1363 
and spoken of two embassies from Bahram Khan to 
Firuz Shah; the alleged second embassy was in fact 
from Ma'bar, see c Aflf, 261). For services on the 
hunting field Radja Ahmad was rewarded at his own 
request with the village of Karwand near Thalner 
by Firuz Shah Tughluk. He proceeded there in 772/ 
1370, enlarging his hold locally and increasing the 
surrounding area under cultivation. (Tradition 
recorded in the AHn-i Ahbarl and Gulzar-i abrdr 
speaks of an earlier association of the Farukids with 
the district). Forcing the neighbouring Rathor 
Radja of Baglana to submit and raiding Gondwana, 
Radja Aljmad acquired resources sufficient to act 
independently of Dihli after c. 784/1382. He died in 
Shaman 801/April 1399- (The above account of the 
origins of the Farukids has been deduced from 
Firishta, gafar al-Wdlih and the AHn, sources which 
are considered to offer different but not wholly 



contradictory or wholly independent accounts of the 
same events). The maintenance of'the independence 
of the Farukids depended until Akbar's time upon 
adroit management of relations with the rulers of 
the more powerful neighbouring Muslim successor 
kingdoms to the Dihli sultanate, namely Malwa, 
Gudjarat, the Bahmani sultanate and its contiguous 
heir, Ahmadnagar. These rulers did not recognize 
the Farukids as equals; the Gudjarat, Bahmani and 
Aijmadnagai sources usually refer to the ruler of 
Asir and Burhanpur [q.v.] as hakim or wdli. Radja 
Ahmad married a daughter to Hushang, son of the 
founder of the Malwa sultanate, Dilawar Khan, but 
Radja Ahmad's successor in eastern Khandesh. 
Nasir Khan, was forced to abandon this alliance for 
the overlordship of Gudjarat after Hushang Shah of 
Malwa had proved (820/1417) incapable of protecting 
him from the Gudjarat sultan Ahmad I who had 
intervened in Khandesh to support Naslr's brother 
Hasan against the former's attempts to prevent 
Hasan from exercising any authority at Thalner. 
Unreconciled, however, to the supremacy of Gudjarat, 
in 833/1429 Nasir concluded a marriage alliance 
between his daughter and c Ala 5 al-Din Ahmad, son 
of Ahmad Shah Bahmani, but this move did not 
save Khandesh from being overrun in the following 
year by Gudjarat troops, replying to an attack by 
the Bahmani and Khandesh forces on the Gudjarat 
border district of Nandurbar. In 839/1435, disillu- 
sioned with the connexion with the Bahmanls, Nasir 
Khan attacked BerSr with the approval of Ahmad 
Shah of Gudjarat but was twice severely defeated 
by the Bahmani general Malik al-Tudjdjar, suffering 
the plunder of his capital Burhanpur before the 
threatened intervention of Ahmad Shah's forces 
persuaded Malik al-Tudjdjar to withdraw. Nasir 
Khan died in RabI' I 841/ August-September 1437. 
Nasir Khan's immediate successors, c Adil Khan 
(died Dhu '1-Hidjdja 844/April 1441) and Mubarak 
Khan (died Djumada II or Radjab 861/May or June 
1457) accepted Gudjarat's overlordship without 
apparent stir, but c Adil Khan II (died Rabi' I 907/ 
September 1501), successful in forays against the 
radios of Gondwana and Djharkand and against the 
predatory Kolls and Bhils, delayed paying the 
customary tribute until, in 904/1498, Mahmud 
Baykara, advancing to the TaptI, obliged him to 
make amends. The story, unlikely as it stands, in 
the Burhdn-i ma'dthir (220-5) of the intervention at 
this time of Ahmadnagar in Khandesh in support of 
a mythical Mahmud Shah Faruki against Mahmud 
Baykara, is probably a garbled version of efforts by 
c Adil Khan II to loosen the ties with Gudjarat, 
garbled, as Haig (op. cit., 120) suggests, to disguise 
the discomfiture of Ahmad Nizam Shah. 

Following the death of c Adil Khan II, the political 
life of Khandesh was torn by dynastic rivalries which 
invited the intervention of the stronger neighbouring 
powers. First, a struggle occurred between Dawud 
Khan, brother of c Adil Khan, who had succeeded to 
the throne (though not without first having to 
overcome opposition by some of the amirs), and an 
unspecified relation, c Alam Khan Faruki, a protigl 
of the ruler of Ahmadnagar, Ahmad Nizam Shah. 
Dawud successfully sought aid from Malwa rather 
than provide Mahmud Baykara with further 
oppurtunity for intervention in Khandesh. and the 
Ahmadnagar forces were forced to withdraw (910/ 
1504). Then, the death of Dawud Khan (Djumada I 
914/August 1508) precipitated a further open clash 
between Gudjarat and Ahmadnagar over Khandesh, 
with Mahmud Baykara supporting another c Alam 



Khan, a descendant of Hasan Khan the brother of 
Nasir Khan (see above), against the Nizam Shah's 
FarGkl client, the previously-named 'Alam Khan. 
Invading Khandesh in Sha'ban 914/November- 
December 1508, Mahmud captured Thalner and 
BurhSnpur from the forces of the Nizam Shah and 
his supporters and in Dhu '1-Hidjdja 914/ April 1509 
installed the Gudjarat candidate as c Adil Khan III of 
Khandesh. The latter married the daughter of the 
later Muzaffar II of Gudjarat. 'Adil Khan Ill's son 
Muhammad I (regnabat Ramadan 926/August 1520 
to Dhu '1-Ka'da 943/ April 1537 [following the 
Mir^at-i Sikandari]) remained faithful to Gudjarat, 
acting in concert with his uncle Bahadur Shah 
Gudjarati [q.v.~\ against Ahmadnagar in 935-6/1528-9 
and 939/1533, and against MSndu and Citor in 938-9/ 
1532-3. Bahadur Shah rewarded him by granting 
him the title of shah and by designating him heir- 
presumptive to the sultanate of Gudjarat. Muham- 
mad I died, however, before he could consolidate the 
Farukid claim to succeed Bahadur Shah in Gudjarat. 

The reign of Muhammad I's successor in Khandesh. 
Mubarak Shah II (died Djumada II 974/December 
1566) witnessed the first encounter of the Farukids 
with the Mughals. In 962/1562, Akbar's general Pir 
Muhammad followed Baz Bahadur [q.v.] into 
Khandesh burning and killing before being defeated 
by a combination of the forces of Mubarak, Baz 
Bahadur and Tufal Khan of Berar and drowned in 
the Narbada. In 972/1564, Akbar himself marched 
to Malwa and compelled Mubarak to accept Mughal 
overlordship and a marriage alliance. At first Mughal 
overlordship did not prove any more restrictive than 
that of Gudjarat and the Farukids remained free to 
pursue their rivalries with their neighbours, sub- 
ject to the obligation to give military and other 
support to the Mughals in their enterprises. In 
975-6/1568-9 Miran Muhammad II (died 984/1576) 
invaded Gudjarat to take advantage of the dissen- 
sions of its amirs under the puppet Muzaffar III, 
but after some initial success was obliged to retire 
rebuffed. In 982/1574 Muhammad II in collusion 
with the sultans of Bidjapur and Golkond'a attempted 
to win Berar, newly annexed by Murtada Nizam 
Shah I, but the forces of the Nizam Shah over- 
matched those of the Farukid ruler and the latter 
was obliged to buy off a siege of Aslr for 900,000 or 
1,000,000 muzaffaris. 

From c. 993/1585, however, with Akbar rounding 
out his empire in the north, Mughal pressure to the 
south began seriously to be felt and in 994/early 1586, 
Radja C A1I Khan (or c Adil Shah IV, killed Djumada II 
1005/February 1597), the last Farukid with any 
ability for successful diplomatic manoeuvre, was 
desired to give passage and aid to a Mughal army 
appointed to intervene in Ahmadnagar. Overtly 
complaisant, Radja 'All Khan covertly engaged the 
support of the Berar forces against which the Mughals 
wished to move, and Mirza 'Aziz Koka, Khan-i 
A'zam, Mughal governor of Malwa, retired from the 
Deccan discomfited. In 999/1591, however, Radja 
'All Khan actively furthered Akbar's policy of aiding 
Burhan Nizam Shah (II) to become ruler of Ahmad- 
nagar, being mainly responsible for the victory of 
Rohankhed, Djumada II or Radjab 999/Apiil or 
May, 1591. Radja 'All Khan now probably assisted 
indirect Mughal intervention in the Deccan in hope of 
staving off direct Mughal intervention, but the death 
(Sha'ban 1003/April 1595) of Burhan Nizam Shah II, 
followed by appeals from one of the Ahmadnagar 
factions for Mughal aid, precipitated the direct 
Mughal military interference which Radja 'All had 



tried to head off. Radja 'AH, bending with good 
grace before the wind, joined Akbar's forces in the 
siege of Ahmadnagar (RabI' II to Radjab 1004/ 
December 1595 to March 1596) which ended in the 
negotiation of the cession of Berar to Akbar. An 
uneasy peace was soon broken by disputes over the 
limits of the ceded area and in Djumada II 1005/ 
February 1597 Radja 'All Khan, supporting the 
Mughals against the forces of Ahmadnagar, Bidjapur 
and Golkonda, was killed at the battle of Ashtl. 
Unfortunately for friendship between his son and 
successor Bahadur Shah and Akbar, Mughal troops, 
in ignorance of his death but from his absence 
suspecting Radja 'Ali Khan's loyalty, plundered his 
camp, an action which appears to have embittered 
Bahadur Shah's attitude towards the Mughals and 
to have led him into a maladroitly-managed opposi- 
tion to them which Akbar, inbued by contemporary 
ideas of the duties of locally autonomous piinces 
towards their overlord, was so strongly to resent 
that he encompassed the fall of the Farukid dynasty 
by actions which for Vincent Smith, Akbar the 
Great Mogul iS42-i6os x , Oxford 1917, constituted 
'perfidy' (281) and 'base personal treachery" (285). 
At the beginning of his reign, Bahadur accepted 
the proposal of Sultan Murad, who was commanding 
the Mughal forces in Berar, for a marriage alliance. 
But in Djumada II-Radjab 1008/January 1600, 
Bahadur slighted Sultan Daniyal, Akbar's youngest 
son, while on his way to replace Sultan Murad in 
Berar. Akbar sent Abu '1-Fadl to persuade Bahadur 
to make amends by presenting himself at Akbar's 
court, but to no avail, and in Ramadan 1008/April 
1600 Akbar himself arrived at Burhanpur and 
ordered the siege of Aslr where Bahadur had taken 
refuge. The fact that Akbar did not have a siege 
train ready suggests that he had expected Bahadur 
to submit on terms tantamount to a restoration of 
the previous Mughal-Farukid relationship; Bahadur 
too, once the Mughals began the siege in earnest, 
thought he could and should still obtain similar 
terms, while being prepared to use the threat of 
continued resistance by the fortress if Akbar appeared 
unwilling. That Akbar cut the diplomatic knot by 
inveigling Bahadur out of Aslr by a promise to 
maintain him in his possession of Khandesh. provided 
that Asir was surrendered, and then detaining him 
by force, may, it is argued, be explained by Akbar's 
knowledge that Bahadur intended to prolong the 
siege as a diplomatic bargaining counter and had 
instructed the garrison commander accordingly 
(knowledge gained from the defecting Khandesh 
amir, Sadat Khan). Moreover, Akbar desired to deal 
a further blow at the already waning morale of the 
garrison by forcing Bahadur Shah to order it to 
capitulate, whereupon refusal to obey, despite his 
secret instructions to ignore such an order, could be 
interpreted as rebellion against Bahadur Shah and 
treated as such. It is possible that Akbar decided not 
to restore Khandesh to Bahadur after the fall of 
Asir (22 Radjab 1009/27 January 1601 N.S.) because 
he may have thought the continued resistance of the 
garrison after Bahadur's detention (in Djumada 11/ 
December 1600) was further evidence that Bahadur 
was both false and irreconcilable and because he 
needed the warlike stores of Aslr (and Aslr itself) 
under immediate Mughal control for further un- 
hampered operations in the Dekkan. Furthermore 
the Farukid practice of imprisoning the other male 
members of the ruler's family under Habshi guard 
enabled Akbar, following their capture in Asir, 
easily to send the entire dynasty into exile, without 



FARUKIDS — FARW 



fear of subsequent local opposition finding a focus in 
a Farukid claimant. (According to Firishta, ii, 568, 
Bahadur died at Agra in 1033/1623-4). 

The extant evidence for the history of the Farukids 
mainly displays them in their dealings with outside 
powers and not with their own servants and subjects. 
From the references given in hagiological literature 
(e.g., Gulzdr-i abrdr, available to me only in the 
Urdu translation Adhkdr-i abrdr) it appears that 
Burhanpur [q.v.], the Farukid capital, was a favourite 
burial place for sufis, and that the Farukids provided 
madad-i maHsh lands for the disciples of Shaykh 
Burhan al-DIn Gharib, said to have foretold the 
foundation of the later Burhanpur and the 
rule of the Farukids there. The details and the 
significance of this apparent association between 
Farukids and the mashdHkh have yet to be critically 
established. C. F. Beckingham, Amba Gehn and 
Asirgarh, in JSS, ii (ig57), 182-8, has noted the 
parallels between Ethiopian and Khandesh cus 
in keeping imprisoned the male members of the 
ruling dynasty in an attempt to avoid dynastic 
quarrels. Habshis became prominent in Gudjarat 
under Bahadur Shah and his successors and it may 
be suggested that Habshl prominence in Khandesh 
as amirs and as guardians of imprisoned relative 
the ruler also dates from this period of close a 
Nation between Bahadur Shah Gudjarat! 
Muhammad I and of the involvement of Mubarak 
Shah II of Khandesh in the domestic politics of 
Gudjarat under Sultan Ahmad Shah III (961-8/ 
I554-6I). 

The survival of the Farukids as autonomous rulers 
of a principality weak, compared with its neighbours, 
in men and resources, may be attributed in part to 
the geographical situation of Khandesh as a march- 
land occupying the area between the Tapti and the 
Narbada and protected by the difficult terrain of 
■Gondwana to the east. So long as a balance of power 
was maintained between Malwa, Gudjarat and the 
Bahmani sultanate and later Ahmadnagar, Khandesh 
was free of all but a loose tie with Gudjarat; t 
chaos in Gudjarat after the death of Bahadur Shah 
Gudjarati, the Mughal take-over in Malwa in 
time of Baz Bahadur, and the growing involvement 
of Ahmadnagar in hostilities with Bidjapur and 
Golkonda destroyed the power equilibrium on which 
Farukid autonomy depended, while a bungling 
diplomacy made it impossible for the dynasty to lay 
claim to that honourable mediatized status wf " ' 
the Mughal system which Akbar had been prepared 
to concede to the Radjput chiefs. 

Bibliography: Firishta, ii, 541-68; c Abd 
Allah Muhammad b. c Umar al-Makkl, gafar al- 
wdlih bi muzaffar wa dlih, three vols., ed. E. 
Denison Ross as An Arabic history of Gujarat, 
1910-28, i, 51-87; other references given under 
individual Farukids in index, iii; Shaykh Sikandar 
b. Muhammad Mandjhu, Mif'dl-i Sikandari, ed. 
S. C. Misra and M. L. Rahman, Baroda 1961, 17, 
46-8, 59, 147-9 passim, 268, 272-3, 281, 286, 289, 
294, 319, 323, 326-8, 332, 390-97, 414-7 passim, 
439-40; Abu Turab Wall, Ta>rikh-i Gujarat, ed. 
E. Denison Ross, Calcutta 1909,15, 38-9; A 
(see Storey, 725-6), TaMkh-i Muzaffar S^afti, India 
Office Persian MS 3842, fols. 39b-4oa, 55; Anon., 
Damina-yi ma'dthir-i Mahmud Shdhi, (Ta'Hkh-i 
Mahmud Shdhi?) L.O. MS 3841, fols. 37a-59a; 
c Ali b. Mahmud al-Kirmanl, Ma'dthir-i Mahmud 
Shdhi, King's College, Cambridge, Persian MS 
no. 67, fols. 275a-276b; 'All b. 'Aziz Allah Taba- 
taba, Burhdn-i ma'dthir, Haydarabad (Delhi 



printed) 1355/1936. 55, 77-8, 124, 220-5, 276, 357, 
457, 466-7 passim, 475-82, 488, 490, 547-8, 550, 
583, 585, 587-9 passim, 595, 608, 610, 612-3, 627; 
Nizam al-Din Ahmad, Jabakdt-i Akbari, ii, 
Calcutta 1931, 156-7, 330, 333, 336, 340, 384, 
393-4, 412; iii, Calcutta 1935, 21, 26-7, 66, 75-7 
passim, 102-3, 104, 115-7, 222, 223, 226, 235-7 
passim, 252, 290, 336-7; Abu '1-Fadl, A kbar -ndma, 
Calcutta 1873-87, ii, index s.v. Radja c Ali Khan, 
Bahadur Khan marzubdn-i Khandesh. Khandesh, 
Asir and Burhanpur; idem, A'in-i Akbari, 
Calcutta 1867-77, index s.v. Khandesh and 
Dandesh; idem, Mukdtabdt, Lucknow 1863, 68-75; 
Ilah-dad Faydl Sirhindi, Akbar-ndma, British 
Museum Or. 169, fols. 2528-2753; Adhkdr-i 
abrdr, (Urdu translation of Muhammad GhawthI 
Shattari, Gulzar-i abrdr), Agra 1326/1908, 90; see 
also under those saints and scholars listed in the 
index as having their madfan at Burhanpur or 
Asir; T. W. Haig, The Fdruqi dynasty of Khandesh, 
in Indian Antiquary, xlvii (1918), 113-24, 141-9, 
178-86; Cambridge History of India, 1928; the 
account of Khandesh in (ed.) R. C. Majumdar, 
The Delhi Sultanate, Bombay i960, 169-73, 238, 
has been written in apparent ignorance of much 
contemporary or near-contemporary evidence and 
of important modern studies; C. P. Singhal, 
Coins of Ndsir Shah Faruqi of Khandesh, in Journal 
of the Numismatic Society of India, vi (1944), 
46-7; idem, A copper coin of Bahadur Shdh Fdruqi 
of Khandesh, in JNSI, xii (1950), 154-6; M. K. 
Thakore, Coins doubtfully assigned to Qddir Shdh 
of Malwa, in JNSI, ix (1947), 36-44; M. Hamid 
Kuraishi, Some Persian, Arabic and Sanskrit in- 
scriptions from Asirgarh in Numdr District, 
Central Provinces, in EIM, 1925-6, 1-6. For the 
controversy over Akbar's detention of Bahadur 
Khan FarukI and the fall of Asirgarh (inadequately 
referenced in the article Asirgarh) see also Vincent 
A. Smith, Akbar, the Great Mogul 1542-1605, 
Oxford 1917, 272-86, 297-300; Fernao Guerreiro, 
Relacam annual das cousas que fizeram os 
Padres da Companhia de Jesus na India & Japao, 
i, Evora 1603, fols. 7b-9a, trans. H. Heras, The 
siege and conquest of the fort of Asirgarh by the 
Emperor Akbar, in Indian Antiquary, liii (1924), 
33-41 ; C. H. Payne, Akbar and the Jesuits, London 
1926, 102-9, 251-8; Cambridge History of India, 
iv, 1937, 147-8; E. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the 
Great Mogul, London 1932, 58, 372; John Correia- 
Afonso, Jesuit letters and Indian history, Bombay 
1955, 86-7; Shahpurshah Hormasji Hodivala, 
Studies in Indo-Muslim history, i, Bombay 1939, 
589-90, Supplement = vol. ii, Bombay 1957, 
289-91. For valuable remarks on the historical 
geography of Khandesh see O. H. K. Spate, 
India and Pakistan: a general and regional geo- 
graphy', London 1957, index s.v. Khandesh. 

(P. Hardy) 
FARW (a.) or Farwa (pl./tra 5 ), 'a fur; a garment 
made of, or trimmed with, fur.' Although farwa can 
mean also a cloak of camel-hair, it is likely that 
when this term is encountered in ancient poetry it 
refers to sheepskins with the wool left on (what in 
Morocco are called haydura), used as carpets, to 
cover seats, or for protection against the cold; the 
farwa which Abu Bakr had with him and which he 
spread on the ground in the cave for the Prophet to 
rest on (al-Bukhari, v, 82) was presumably a sheep- 
skin. The wearing of costly furs was introduced only 
after the Arabs had reached a fairly advanced stage 
of civilization, at which time the name farrd* 



FARW — FARYAB 



{'furrier'), borne by certain individuals well-known 
in other connexions, was applied no longer only to 
the maker of sheepskin cloaks but also to the dealer 
in costly furs. 

The furs most often mentioned are grey squirrel 
{sindjdb), sable (sammur), ermine (kdkum), fox 
(tha'lab), beaver (ftunduz or fundus, khazz), mink 
t? see fanak'J, lynx (washatt) and weasel (ibn Hrs). 
The geographers and travellers provide information 
on the origins of these furs: they came chiefly from 
the lands of the Bulghar [q.v.] of the Volga (Ibn 
Fadlan; al-Mukaddasi, BGA, iii, 324-5; Ibn Rusta- 
Wiet, 159), and of the Burtas [q.v.] (al-Mas'udi, 
Murudi, ii, 14-5), but also from other regions, in- 
cluding the Slav lands, the Turkish lands in Central 
and Eastern Asia, and Tibet (Ifudud al-'dlam, 92, 
94 ff.). Kabala in Adharbaydjan supplied many 
beaver skins (Ifudud, 144); Tudela in Spain was 
famous for its sables (al-Mukaddasi, BGA, iii, 239-40 
= Desc. de VOcc. Mus., Algiers 1950, 51; Ifudud, 155, 
cf. ibid., 417). The Bulghars and their neighbours 
obtained furs from remoter peoples by tribute, 
trade, and dumb barter (Ibn Fadlan, ed. Dahan, 
129, 135, 145, tr. Canard in AIEO Alger, 1958, 101, 
106-7, 115; Marwazi, ed. Minorsky, 20, tr. 32-4; 
Abu Hamid-Dubler 14, tr. 56-7, comm. 300-3; Abu 
n-Fida, Tafrwim, ed. Reinaud, i, 284; Ibn Battuta, 
ii, 400-2 = Gibb, ii, 491-2 etc.). Furs were sent from 
Bulghar to Kh'arizm (al-Mukaddasi, BGA, iii, 324-5), 
where there were establishments for their manu- 
facture (Ya'kubi-Wiet, 83). Ibn Khumidadhbih 
{BGA, vi, 92, tr. 67, and 151-3, tr. 114 = Descr. du 
Maghreb et de VEurope, Algiers 1949, 21-3) gives some 
information on the routes followed by the European 
Jewish merchants called Radhaniyya [q.v.] and the 
Russian merchants, who carried their wares, in- 
cluding furs, to Egypt and the lands of the eastern 
Caliphate. Furs were sent to Spain across Europe, 
both by sea from the Baltic ports (Ibn Hawkal, ii, 
392 on the export of beaver -skins from the Baltic; 
cf. T. Lewicki in Isl., xxxv, 33) and across the lands 
of the Slavs and Franks (al-Mas c udi, Tanbih, 63; 
French tr., 94). The travellers occasionally mention 
fur garments which they wore in cold countries: Ibn 
Fadlan (tr. M. Canard, in AIEO Alger, 1958, 63-4) 
wrapped himself in a sheepskin cloak and other furs; 
Ibn Battuta (ii, 445; tr. Gibb, ii, 514) had with him 
three fur coats when he left Constantinople; etc. 

Al-Mas'udi (loc. cit.) esteemed highly the pelts of 
black and red foxes which the Burtas exported to all 
countries, and particularly to the 'Arab kings', who 
preferred them to sable, fanak and other furs. The 
Ps.-Djahiz (in Arabica, 1954/2, 157), expressing the 
view of the dealers, places highest the back of the 
ermine, together with the squirrel of the Caspian and 
of Kh"arizm; he notes that the black fox of the 
Caspian is more highly prized than the red and the 
grey, and considers the sable of China superior to 
that of the Caspian. This passage indicates that trade 
in furs must have been fairly brisk, and that the 
wealthy could acquire them without difficulty; it 
shows also that rabbit-fur was already being used by 
dishonest furriers to hide defects in a pelt and that 
dye was used to increase the value of light-coloured 
furs. Andalusian authors of works of hisba battled 
against the frauds and malpractices engaged in by 
dealers in furs and pelts who used the skins of sheep 
and rabbits (see E. Levi-Provencal, Seville musulmane, 
Paris 1947, 131; R- Arie, in Hespiris-Tamuda, 1960/3, 



Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



legal problem except in connexion with the validity 
of prayer: indeed both Sunnls (see, e.g., al-Kayra- 
wani, Risdla, ed. and tr. Bercher, 297) and Shl'is 
(see, e.g., the Isma'ill (tddi al-Nu c man, K. al-Ifttisdr, 
ed. Muh. Wahid Mirza, Damascus 1376/1957, 100) 
permit the wearing of garments made from the skin 
of prohibited animals or animals not ritually 
slaughtered, except during the prayer. 

On the use of fur in robes of honour and other 
garments see jojil'a, libas. On furs in the Ottoman 
Empire see sammur. 

Bibliography: in addition to that given in 
the article: B. Schier, Wege und Fortnen des 
aliesten Pelzhandels in Europa, Frankfurt 1951, 
21-45; Th. Lewicki, II commercio arabo con la 
Russia e con i paesi slavi d'Occidente nei secoli 
IX-XI, in AIUON, n.s. viii (1958), 57-8; cf. ibid. 
47-8, where other writings on Arab trade with 
Eastern Europe are cited; C. E. Dubler, Abu 
If amid el Granadino . . ., Madrid 1953, index and 
glossary, s.vv. sammur, sindjdb, ftdftum, etc.; 
L. A. Mayer, Mamluk costume, Geneva 1952, 23, 
25, and index, under the names of the individual 
furs; Makrizi, Khitat. ii, 103 (on the furriers' 
market: cf. Dozy, Dictionnaire . . . des noms des 
vltements chez les Arabes, Amsterdam 1845, 357). 

(Ed.) 
FARWAN (also Parwan), ancient town in the 
Hindu- Kush mountains and a modern administrative 
district of Afghanistan, the capital of which is 
Charikar. 

The modern town of Pjabal al-Siradj (alt. 3751 m.) 
is located near the site of the ancient Farwan, ca. 
69° 15' E., 35 7' N. by the Pandjshir river near its 
junction with the Ghiirband river. 

Farwan may have occupied the ancient site 
of Alexander's Alexandria of the Caucasus or 
Alexandria-Kapisa. It was conquered by the Arabs 
ca. 176/792 (Ibn Rusta, 289) and included in the 
province of Bamiyan. Coins were struck in Farwan 
by the Ghaznawid rulers, and it was the centre for 
silver mining of the Pandjshir valley. Many geo- 
graphers mention the town, but it achieved promi- 
nence only under Djalal al-DIn Kh'arizmshah when 
he defeated the Mongols there in 618/1221. The site 
of the battle, however, may be another Farwan 
(Ifudud al-'dlam, 348). The site was the scene 
of a battle in the first British- Afghan war in 1840, 
but there is no indication of a settlement. In 1937, 
with the construction of a textile factory in the new 
town of Pjabal al-Siradj, the area began a new 
history. 

Bibliography: Lane Poole, Cat., 1i 128; 
H. Raverty (trans.), Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, Calcutta 
188 1, 288; W. Erskine, Memoirs o/Bdbur, London 
1826, 139; Diuwavni, ii, 138; K. Rishtiya, 
Afghanistan dar karn-i nuzdahum, Kabul 1951 
(Russian trans., Moscow 1958, 174). 

(R. N. Frye) 
FARWARDlN [see ta'rIkh]. 
FARYAB (also Fariyab and Paryab), name of 
several towns in Iran: 

1. A town in northern Afghanistan, now called 
Dawlatabad, formerly in the province of Djuzdjan. 

It was conquered by al-Ahnaf b. Kays in 65/685 
(al-Baladhurl, 407). Many geographers mention the 
town as large and flourishing until the Mongol con- 
quest when it was destroyed. It never regained its 
former importance. 

2. A small town in southern Fars province (Le 
Strange, 257, 296). 

3. A village in Kirman (Le Strange, 317). 



4. A village in Sughd (Barthold, 138; Frye, The 
History of Bukhara, 1954, 152). 

Bibliography: Barthold, Turkestan, 79; 

Hudud al-'-alam, 335; Le Strange, 425. 

(R. N. Frye) 

FAS (Fes, Fez), a town of Northern Morocco 
situated at 4 54' W., 34 6' N. It stands at the north- 
east extremity of the plain of the Sa'is, at the exact 
place where the waters of the eastern side of this 
plain go down into the valley of Sebou via the valley 
of the Wadi Fas. It is therefore on the easiest 
route between the Atlantic coast of Morocco and 
the central Maghrib. Furthermore, one of the 
least difficult roads across the Middle Atlas to the 
south passes by way of Sefrou, 30 kms. south of Fas, 
and the communications between this last town 
whether with the Mediterranean coast (Badis or 
Velez) or with the Straits of Gibraltar (Tangier) are 
relatively easy, too. It might be said that Fas is 
clearly situated at the point of intersection of two 
great axes of communication, indicated by the 
general contours of the country: one axis north- 
south between the Mediterranean or the Straits of 
Gibraltar and the Tafilalt and so beyond to the 
negro countries; the other west-east between the 
Atlantic coast and central Maghrib. 

Moreover, the site of Fas is rich in water; apart 
from the river itself and its tributaries, which it has 
been easy to canalize and turn to urban use, 
numerous springs rise from the steep banks of the 
water-courses, especially from the left bank, which 
is actually inside the town. In the immediate 
vicinity there are quarries which provide building 
stone, sand and lime, while the cedar and oak 
forests of the Middle Atlas are not far away and 
offer wood of very good quality. Finally, for con- 
siderable distances around, the neighbouring country 
is favourable to all types of farming. Cereals, vines, 
olives and various kinds or fruit-trees grow here, 
while not only sheep and goats but cows also can be 
raised here. 

Nevertheless it seems that no urban centre existed 
on this privileged site before the Muslim town came 
into being. Archaeology has not confirmed the vague 
legendary tradition of the Rawd al-Kirtas, according 
to which a very ancient town existed long ago on the 
site of Fas. It can therefore be regarded as likely 
that Fas came into being at the end of the 2nd/8th 
century at the desire of the Idrlsids [q.v.']. It 
has even long been believed, on the strength of 
the Rawd al-Kirtas, supported by numerous other 
authors, that Fas was founded by Idrls b. Idris on 
I Rabl c I, 192/4 January 808. The young king was 
thought to have then founded his town on the right 
bank of the Wadi Fas, and a lunar year later to the 
day, that is to say on 22 December 808, to have 
founded a second town on the left bank. Intrigued 
by this double foundation for which no explanation 
has been given, E. Levi-Provencal studied the 
question very thoroughly and showed (La Fondation 
de Fes, in AIEO Algers, iv (1938), 23-52), that there 
existed another tradition less well-known but older 
on the founding of Fas; this took it back to Idris b. 
c Abd Allah, father of Idris b. Idris. He is said to 
have founded the town on the right bank in 172/789 
under the name of Madlnat Fas. Death intervened 
before he had time to develop it and twenty years 
later his son is believed to have founded a town for 
himself on the left bank, which was given the name 
of al- c Aliya. This tradition seems much more likely. 

In any case, it is certain that for several 
two cities, barely separated by the trickle of 



in the Wadi Fas but frequently ranged against each 
other in bitter rivalry, co-existed and developed witli 
difficulty, each hindering the other. During the 
whole time of the Idrisids, that is to say until the 
beginning of the 4th/ioth century, dynastic quarrels 
disturbed the life of the double city; then, during 
the first third of that century, it became one of the 
stakes in the struggle between the Umayyads of 
Spain and the Fatimids of Ifrikiya, which was 
frequently staged in the north of Morocco. During 
the thirty years between 980 and 1012, it lived under 
the protection of the Umayyads and seems then to 
have enjoyed a certain prosperity. When the 
Caliphate of Cordova began to be in jeopardy, it 
came under the authority of the Zenata Berbers who, 
far from always agreeing among themselves, revived 
the ancient rivalries between the twin towns up to 
the time of the coming of the Almoravids [see al- 
murabitun]. 

The traditional date of the conquest of Fas by the 
Almoravid, Yusuf b. Tashufln, is 461/1069, but in 
a posthumous article (La fondation de Marrakech, in 
Mil. d'Hist. et d'Archtlol. de I'Occ. Mus., Algiers 1957, 
ii, 117-120) E. Levi-Provencal, following al-Bakri, 
showed that the traditional chronology should be 
treated with caution and that the foundation of 
Marrakush and consequently the conquest of Fas, 
which occurred after this, ought probably to be 
dated a few years later. Whatever the case, the 
Almoravid conquest marks a very important date in 
the history of Fas, since Yusuf b. Tashufln combined 
the two towns into one and made it his essential 
military base in northern Morocco. There is therefore 
good right to consider the Almoravid conqueror as 
the second founder of Fas: it was he who did away 
with the duality which had for so long prejudiced 
the city's development; it was he also who marked 
out for it the direction in which it was to develop in 
the future by building to the west of the two original 
towns and on the very edge of the plain of the Sa'is, 
an important fortress, now disappeared, which 
stimulated the growth of more new quarters between 
it and the original ones. The Almoravids were also 
responsible for the growth in importance of the 
principal sanctuary of the left bank area, the 
Karawiyyln mosque (Djami c al-Karawiyyln [q.v.]). 
This sanctuary had been built of modest size, it 
seems, in the 4th/ioth century. The Almoravid, 'All 
b. Yusuf, had it destroyed with the exception of the 
minaret which still stands (PI. XV) and in its place 
built a mosque of vast dimensions, sumptuously orna- 
mented by Andalusian artisans. It is also probable 
that the principal works in the Wadi Fas, thanks to 
which the city has possessed a system of running 
water from a very early date, go back to the Almo- 
ravid epoch. Fas lived thus under the Almoravids for 
almost three-quarters of a century (467 ?-54o/io75 ?- 
1 1 45), one of the most prosperous periods of its 
existence, but a period about which unfortunately 
we have all too little detailed information. 

The Almohad conquest [see al-muwahhidun] 
marks a brief pause in the history of Fas. When c Abd 
al-Mu'min [q.v.] attacked it in 540/1145, the city, 
which had every good reason for remaining faithful 
to the Almoravids, put up a violent resistance. The 
Almohad only conquered it after a hard siege, and 
punished the town by razing the Almoravid kasaba 
and the city ramparts. But like the Almoravids, 
the Almohads had need of Fas and the town grew 
afresh in proportions of which al-Idrisi's account 
gives a fair idea. It is a city in full development and 
at the height of economic progress that he describes 



in his work, The fourth Almohad Caliph, al-Nasir, 
even ordered on the very day after the defeat of 
Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), that the ramparts of 
Fas should be reconstructed. The general outline of 
these and a good part of their masonry date from this 
period (PI. XIII). Thus the old city of Fas attained the 
proportions that we now know. Its surrounding wall 
is pierced by eight huge gates, four on each bank, and 
it seems certain that empty spaces, gardens and 
orchards, once existed within this enclosure. 

A century later, Fas changed masters anew and 
came under the authority of the Marinids [q.v.]. 
Though badly received at first, the new masters 
succeeded in raising the city's prosperity to a height 
as yet unknown. Unlike the Almoravids and the 
Almohads, they did not come from the south but 
from the east, and Fas was the first large town which 
they had succeeded in conquering; hence they made 
it their capital and relegated Marrakush to second 
place. Because of this the fortunes of Fas were 
assured for several centuries. The new court lived at 
first in the kasaba which the Almohads had recon- 
structed on the site of the ancient Almoravid kasaba, 
in the district now called BO Djulud (probably a 
popular corruption of Abu '1-Djunud). They soon 
found themselves cramped for space here; hence the 
Marinid sovereign Abu Yusuf (1258-1286) decided 
to found a royal and administrative town to the 
west of the ancient one, on the extreme borders of 
the plain of the Sa'is, and the foundations were laid 
out on 3 Shawwal 674/21 March 1276. This new 
urban centre was at first named al-Madinat al- 
Bayda? (the white city), but has been known for a 
very long time and still is known as Fas al-Djadid 
(New Fas). It consisted essentially of the palace, 
various administrative buildings, a great mosque 
to which were added little by little various other 
sanctuaries, Darracks, the homes of various im- 
portant Marinid dignitaries, and later, in the gth/i5th 
century, a special quarter in which the Jews were 
compelled to live. From the beginning, this town 
was surrounded by a double city wall, broken by 
only a few gates. In the ioth/i6th century, these 
were reinforced by a number of bastions capable of 
supporting cannon. 

Thus Fas became again a double urban centre, 
with a middle-class and commercial town, Fas al-Ball 
(Ancient Fas), known locally as 'al-Madina' (i.e. the 
'town' proper) and an administrative and military 
centre which complemented rather than entered 
into competition with the first. The description which 
Leo Africanus gives of Fas at the beginning of the 
1 6th century gives the impression of an active and 
heavily populated city, so heavily populated indeed 
that several areas of lightly constructed buildings 
had been established outside the ramparts, especially 
to the north-west of the ancient city. It was a com- 
mercial and industrial city (notable for its textiles 
and leather-goods), but also a city of religion and 
learning, where around the Karawiyyln Mosque 
flourished what J. Berque has called 'the School of 
Fas' (Ville et University. Aperfu sur I'histoire de 
V&cole de Fas, in Rev. hist, de Droit fr. et itr., 1949), 
and finally a centre of art, thanks to the country 
palaces built by the Marinids on the hills which 
dominate Fas to the north, thanks above all to the 
colleges (madrasas) built mainly in the 8th/i4th 
century by various Marinid princes around the 
Karawiyyln Mosque, the Mosque of the Andalusians 
in the upper part of the old town, and in Fas al- 
Djadld. These colleges are almost all ornamented with 
good taste and variety and form one of the greatest 



adornments of Fas. This favourable situation lasted 
for three centuries during which Fas enjoyed 
political, economic and intellectual priority through- 
out Morocco as well as in the western regions of what 
is now Algeria, and was in economic and cultural 
relations with the western Sahara as far as the loop 
of the Niger. In 870-1/1465, the city was the scene 
of an attempt to restore the Idrisids, which hung fire; 
the Wattasids, successors of the Marinids, do not 
seem to have been very hard in their treatment 
of those concerned, as is shown by the description 
of Leo Africanus who describes an active and 
flourishing city. 

Nevertheless the Sa'di [q.v.] sharifs, masters of 
Marrakush since 931/1524 (R. Le Tourneau, Les 
dtbuts de la dynastie sa'dienne, Algiers 1954) gradually 
extended their influence over the rest of Morocco, 
threatened Fas from 954/1547 on, and thanks to 
inside intrigues, managed to get hold of it on 28 Dh u 
'l-Hidjdja 955/28 January 1549. This change of 
dynasty was not a good thinff for the city, for the 
Sa'dls, a southern people, had already made Marra- 
kush their capital. Fas became once again the 
second city of the Sharifian empire. At first it 
accepted this situation very unwillingly and wel- 
comed the Wattasid pretender, Abu Hassun, when 
he put the Sa'dis to flight on 2 Safar 96i/7th January 
1554 with the help of a small Turkish force which 
had accompanied him from Algiers. But this venture 
was not to be successful for long ; the Sa'dls returned 
in force in Shawwal 968/September 1554. Abu 
Hassun, who had been forced to discharge his over- 
enterprising Turkish allies, was killed in battle 
beneath the walls of Fas, and the city came back 
into the possession of the conquerors. These did not 
long continue to treat the opposition harshly, 
reinforced its defences, perhaps in order to hold it 
more strongly, and put in hand works of improve- 
ment and embellishment at the liarawiyyln Mosque. 
A diminished but still prosperous situation was the 
lot of Fas in the second half of the ioth/i6th century. 

When the Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur [q.v.] died at 
Fas on 16 Rabi c I 1012/25 August 1603, his sons 
fought savagely over the succession and brought 
about a state of anarchy in Morocco which lasted 
more than sixty years (R. Le Tourneau, La dicadence 
sa'dienne et Vanarchie matocaine au XVII' siecle, in 
Ann. de la Fac. des Lettres d'Aix, xxxii (1958), 187- 
225). Fas was caught up in this whirlwind of violence, 
conquered by naked force, and despoiled in various 
reconquests; very grave internal disputes added to 
its misfortunes and for more than fifty years it 
suffered the darkest period of its history. It was an 
exhausted city of which the 'Alawid pretender, 
Mawlay al-Rashid, took possession in 1076/1666. 

Under the power of this energetic prince, the 
wounds of Fas began to heal and it began to come 
to life again with the help of a sovereign who was 
putting in hand great works of public utility (con- 
struction of a bridge over the neighbouring Sebou, 
of two fortresses to the west of the ancient town, 
restoration of a bridge over the WadI Fas, creation of 
a new madrasa in addition to those built by the 
Marinids) when he was killed accidentally in 1082/ 
1672. His brother, Mawlay Isma'Il [q.v.], who 
replaced him, was also a remarkable man but he 
detested Fas; he had a new capital constructed at 
Meknes and continued to insult and offend the 
people of Fas throughout his long reign of fifty-five 
years, to such a degree that the city was becoming 
depopulated. On the death of Mawlay Isma'Il (1139/ 
1727) matters became even worse ; several of his sons 



fought over the succession and, just as in the 
preceding century, Morocco fell back into a grave 
state of anarchy. Once again, for a period of thirty 
years, Fas was delivered up to the caprices of 
ephemeral rulers, among them Mawlay 'Abd Allah 
who detested its people, and to the pillaging of the 
soldiery, especially that of the military tribe of 
Odaya. At last, when Sayyidi Muhammad (1171- 
1204/ 1 75 7- 1 790) succeeded his father, 'Abd Allah, 
Fas was granted a long period of respite, which was 
disturbed only briefly by the disorders which 
darkened the end of Mawlay Sulayman's reign (1207- 
1230/1792-1824). Its position as capital was restored 
and it shared this with Marrakush up to the beginning 
of the 20th century. Then Mawlay 'Abd al-'Aziz 
[q.v.], freed from the tutelage of his Vizier, B5 
Ahmad, adopted a policy of modernization which 
raised a large part of the Moroccan population 
against him. 

In the course of the second half of the 19th 
century, many Fas merchants had entered into 
contact with various European or African countries 
(England, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, French 
West Africa) and the city was gradually being drawn 
into international trade. Moreover a number of Euro- 
peans and Americans (soldiers, diplomats, clergy, 
doctors, businessmen) came and settled in the city of 
Idrls. The destiny of Fas, like that of the rest of 
Morocco, was beginning to take a new turn. Further- 
more the Sultan Mawlay al-Hasan (1290-1311/1873- 
1894) [q.v.] had undertaken important public works 
in this city where he normally lived when he was not 
travelling around the country at the head of his 
army: he set up a small-arms factory near his palace, 
the Makina; he connected by long walls the two 
urban areas of Fas al-Djadid and the Madina, 
which had remained separated so far, and had a 
new palace built at Bu Djulud, on the edge of the 
Madina. 

From 1901 on, Fas once again faced disturbed 
conditions; it was threatened in 1903 by the pre- 
tender, Bu Hmara [q.v.]; then when Mawlay 'Abd 
al-'Aziz was forced to abdicate in 1908, Fas put 
into power a descendant of its founder Idris, the 
Sharif Muhammad al-Kattani; but he did not 
succeed in raising an army and could not prevent 
the Sultan proclaimed in Marrakush., Mawlay c Abd 
al-Hafiz, from installing himself in the city. Unrest 
continued, however, and the new sovereign, threat- 
ened in his capital by Berber tribes from the Middle 
Atlas, finally appealed to the French army for help 
in 1911. A column commanded by General Moinier 
came and encamped under the walls of Fas, the first 
time that a European army had been in contact with 
the city; the troops established themselves south of 
Fas al-Djadid, at Dar al-Dubaybagh (colloquial 
pronunciation: Dar ad-Dbibagh), a country house 
built by Mawlay c Abd Allah in the 18th century. On 
30 March 1912, in the following year, the Protec- 
torate treaty between France and Morocco was 
signed in a room of the palace of Bu Djulud. A few 
days later (16 and 17 April 19 12), Moroccan troops 
revolted and massacred a number of Europeans, 
while at the same time others were rescued by the 
people of Fas. A little later, General Lyautey, the 
first French Resident-General of Morocco, was 
besieged in Fas by revolting Berber tribes ; the town 
was set free by a column under General Gouraud 
(end of May - beginning of June, 1912). From that 
time on Fas was able to live in peace and organize 
itself for a new type of life. 

A European town soon began to rise on a vast 



flat area in the region of Dar ad-Dbibagh; it was 
called Dar ad-Dbibagh. in Arabic and the 'Ville 
Nouvelle' in French. The palace of Bu Djulud 
became the seat of the Resident-General, and the 
Bu Djulud district began to fill up with many 
Europeans. Behind the city walls of Mawlay al- 
rjasan, there arose administrative buildings adapted 
to their mediaeval style. The merchants of Fas 
quickly accommodated themselves to the new 
economic conditions of the country. Very early on, 
some of them went and established themselves at 
Casablanca, without however breaking off all 
contact with their ancestral city. A system of modern 
education was organized alongside the traditional 
religious teaching. 

Perhaps startled by so many novelties, the city 
of Fas retired into its shell for a few years, but soon 
began to take an attitude of discreet opposition to 
the new regime. The Rif war and the first successes 
of 'Abd al-Karim (1925) raised fear of pillage and 
hopes of liberation. Little by little, a young people's 
party turned towards political action hostile to the 
Protectorate, and led the opposition against the 
zahir on the organization of justice in Berber regions 
(16 May 1930). In 1937 and 1944, at the time of 
political crises which ended finally in the demand 
for independence of 11 January 1944, Fas was the 
scene of important demonstrations. Nevertheless the 
political centre of gravity of Morocco was shifting 
towards Rabat and Casablanca, and Fas played no 
more than a secondary part in the events which, 
between 1953 and 1956, led to the proclamation of 
Morocco's independence. At present, Fas is the 
capital of a province and ranks as the third city of 
Morocco after Casablanca and Marrakush. 

The city, whose population is 179,400 (census of 
1952) of whom 15,800 are Europeans, is made up 
of four main centres: (1) the Madina, in which 
empty spaces have almost disappeared, but where 
certain areas on the outskirts have been opened to 
motor traffic; (2) Fas al-Djadid, itself composed of 
three elements: a little Muslim town of rather 
humble people which is called Fas al-Djadid; the 
palace and its dependencies; the Jewish quarter or 
Mellah; (3) the New City (Ville Nouvelle), where 
many Jews and some Muslim families live ; (4) a new 
Muslim town situated to the north-west of the 
palace and created since 1950 according to modern 
standards. Around these urban areas, general areas 
of lightly constructed buildings have sprung up, 
inhabited by poor people recently come from the 
country, and these are generally nicknamed 'bidon- 
villes'. 

Fas is connected with the outer world by excellent 
roads and by a railway which connects the Atlantic 
coast and Tangier with Oujda on the Algerian 
frontier. It has also an aerodrome of moderate 
importance. 

Its economic life is founded above all, just as in 
the past, on its relations with the neighbouring 
countryside. Its industry has to a great extent 
remained traditional (textiles, leather-goods, in- 
dustries connected with food) and has been only 
partly modernized; the adaptation of its artisans to 
modern economic conditions is one of its principal 
problems. By contrast, its agricultural hinterland 
has grown considerably into a wide belt around the 
city. The main business city of Morocco at the 
beginning of the century, it has been dethroned by 
Casablanca where, however, a good number of its 
inhabitants have settled. 

Not less than as the economic metropolis, Fas has 



long been the intellectual metropolis of Morocco, 
thanks to its great centre of traditional learning, 
the Djami' al-Karawiyyin. In modern Morocco it 
seems to be having some difficulty in keeping this 
priority, since the modern Moroccan University 
created after independence is situated in Rabat. Fas 
continues nevertheless to be an important centre 
both of traditional and modern learning and of 
intellectual life. 

AU in all, it seems questionable whether Fas, 
despite remaining one of the principal cities of 
Morocco, has succeeded in taking up again the r61e 
of outstanding importance which it has played so 
many times in its long history. At the moment, the 
population seems stationary or has perhaps even 
slightly diminished since independence, following 
the departure of many French and Jews. In the 
political arena it seems to have been overtaken by 
Rabat, the capital, as well as Casablanca. In brief, 
events in Morocco since the beginning of the 20th 
century do not appear to have been favourable to 
Fas. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hawkal (10th cent.), 
Descr. de VAjr. Sept., ed. Kramers, 90; trans, de 
Slane, in J A, 1842, 236 if.; Bakri (nth cent.), 
Descr. de I'Ajr. Sept., ed. and trans, de Slane, text 
1 15-8, trans. 262-8; IdrisI (12th cent.), Descript., 
text 75-6, trans. 86-7; Abu '1-Hasan c Ali al- 
Djaznal (14th cent.), Zahrat al-As, ed. and trans. 
A. Bel, Algiers 1923; Ibn Fadl Allah al- c Umari 
14th cent.), Masdlik al-absdr, i, L'Afrique mains 
1'E.gypte, trans. M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris 
1927; Ibn Abi Zar c al-Fasi (14th cent.), Rawd 
al-Kirfds, ed. and Latin trans. Tornberg, 2 vols., 
Upsala 1843 an d 1846, French trans. Beaumier, 
Paris i860; Leo Africanus (16th cent.), De- 
scription de I'Afrique, trans. A. Epaulard, Paris 
1956, i, 179-241; Marmol (16th cent.), De I'Afri- 
que, trans. Perrot d'Ablancourt, Paris 1667, ii, 
157-95; Ibn al-Kadi (17th cent.), Diadhwat al- 
iktibds, lith., Fas 1309; Muhammad b. Dja'far 
al-Kattani (19th cent.), Salwat al-anfds, 3 vols, 
lith., Fas 1316; H. Gaillard, Une ville d'Islam: 
Fez, Paris 1905; A. Moulieras, Fez, Paris 1902; 
G. Lucas, Fes dans le Maroc moderne, Paris 1937; 
R. Le Tourneau, Fes avant le Protectorat, Casa- 
blanca 1949 (with bibliography); idem, Fez in 
the age of the Marinids, Oklahoma University 
Press, Norman Okla., 1961; F. Charles- Roux and 
J. Cailli, Missions diplomatiques francaises d Fes, 
Paris 1955. (R. Le Tourneau) 



Under the Idrlsids. — We know of the two 
places of prayer which formed the origins of the two 
great sanctuaries of the city only from brief accounts. 
The mosque of Fatima in the quarter of the Kara- 
wiyyln (242/857) and the mosque of the Andalusians 
in the quarter of the same name (245/859-60) were 
buildings of medium size, with naves parallel to the 
kibla wall, with sahns planted with trees, and 
minarets of very modest height. 

Some rubble remains of the surrounding wall 
exist in the quarter of the Karawiyyin but, in the 
absence of all traces of doors or towers, these are not 
sufficient to allow us to plot the main lines of this 
first rampart. 

The settlements founded by the two Idris attained 
urban status only very gradually, and there can 
have been few monuments built during this period. 

Under the Zenata Emirs. — After a troubled 
period, the city began to develop a certain amount 



of artistic activity under the Zenata Emirs, who were 
allies and vassals of the Umayyads of Cordova. After 
a Fatimid incursion, the mosque of Fatima, from 
that time on called the Karawiyyin, and that of the 
Andalusians became the cathedral-mosques of the 
two quarters (321/933). The two structures were 
rebuilt and enlarged under the Maghrawa Emirs: 
their naves, still parallel to the wall of the kibla, 
were made of rows of horseshoe brick arches; the 
axial naves were bordered with bastions of stone 
with a four-leaved plan. The two minarets, built in 
349/956, still exist. That of the Karawiyyin (PI. XV) 
was built on the orders and at the expense of 
Sultan c Abd al-Rahman III of Cordova. In their 
proportions and their square plan with staircases 
surrounding a central newel, the two stone towers 
resemble the Andalusian type of minaret, but their 
copings of projecting string-courses and cupolas 
belong to the Ifrikiya type. Andalusian influences 
were only beginning to be added to the African and 
oriental elements which had come from Aghlabid 
Tunisia. 

The actions of the Umayyads in the Maghrib were 
hardly ever concerned with the spread of artistic 
influence: the ancient minbar of the mosque of the 
Andalusians, detached from a more recent one in the 
course of a restoration of the sanctuary, bears 
witness to the persistence of oriental influences. 
Made in 369/980 at the time of the occupation of 
Fas by the ZIrid, Bulukkin, this pulpit of turned and 
carved wood is of a completely Fatimid style. When 
in 375/986 an Umayyad expedition retook the town, 
they began by destroying this Shi c I pulpit; but 
once this pious fury had passed, they saw that the 
ancient minbar, repaired and provided with a new 
seat-back to the greater glory of orthodoxy, could very 
well continue to be used, and an artist was found to 
make the repairs and additions in the original style. 
This pulpit, after that of Kayrawan the oldest of all 
the minbars which have come down to us, is the only 
monument which remains as a witness of the 
struggles between the Fatimids and the Umayyads 
in Morocco. 

Thus Fas awakened little by little to artistic life 
under the prevailing influence of Kayrawan, and in 
the middle of the 4th/ioth century had also received 
some influences from Andalusian sources. 

Under the Almoravids. — The period of the 
Almoravids was a decisive one in the architectural 
history of Fas. Although the Sanhadji Emirs took 
Marrakush, the city which they had founded, as 
their capital, they nevertheless did not forget the 
great city of the north. YQsuf b. Tashufin united the 
two quarters of the Karawiyyin and the Andalusians 
and at their highest point built the Kasba (kasaba) 
of Bu Jlud (Abu '1-Djulud). He was soon to become 
master of Muslim Spain, the whole of whose artistic 
resources were put at the service of the African emirs. 
Hispano-Moorish art, which became the dominant 
factor in Fas as in Marrakush, eliminated the Ifrikiyan 
influences under which the city had lived up to this 
time. In becoming attached to the artistic tradition 
under which it was to continue up to our own times, 
Fas became an artistic metropolis. 

The second Almoravid sultan, C A1I b. YQsuf, gave 
the Karawiyyin mosque its present dimensions and 
form by enlarging it on the kibla side and on the side 
of the sahn, and by working over all the earlier parts. 
The work was executed between 529/1135 and 536/ 
1 142. The arrangement of naves parallel to the wall 
of the chevet was retained, but a higher axial nave 
leading to the mihrdb was inserted between the ancient 



and new naves of the hall of prayer. A row of rich 
cupolas — above all domes with stalactites — covered it. 

The Almoravid enlargements were made of glazed 
or bonded brick, which on the outer wall of the 
mifrrdb formed a very beautiful interlacing design. 
Inside the building, in the great axial nave, rich 
sculptured decorations, heightened with colour, had 
been covered with plaster by the Almohads in the 
period of their rigorous puritanism. These magnifi- 
cent ornaments, mainly epigraphic and floral, were 
uncovered in the course of a restoration of the whole 
of the building directed by the author of this article. 
The whole art of Muslim Spain, as it had been 
elaborated in the 5th/nth century, with its profuse 
richness, its erudite composition and its nervous 
elegance, is revealed in this Moroccan mosque. 

The al-Karawiyyin mosque preserves the minbar 
of carved wood and marquetry which was given to 
it by c Ali b. Yusuf. Second in Morocco only to the 
one at present in the Kutubiyya at Marrakush, the 
work of the same ruler, it is one of the most beautiful 
in all Islam. The great mosque of Fas, long unknown 
in detail, has become once again the greatest witness 
to Hispano-Moorish art in the time of the Almoravids. 

Under the Almohads. — The Almohads, who 
kept Marrakush as their capital, were slower to 
interest themselves in Fas. They gave a cathedral- 
mosque to the IJasba of BO Jlud. Under Muhammad 
al-Nasir, the mosque of the Andalusians was recon- 
structed, with the exception of its minaret. The 
ancient ZIrid and Amirid minbar was covered, except 
for its seat-back, with a new sculptured decoration. At 
the Karawiyyin, which was given a great ornamental 
chandelier and a room for ritual ablutions, some 
works of detail were carried out. But the greatest 
work of the Almohads was the reconstruction of the 
great city wall (PI. XIII) which still to-day surrounds 
Fas al-Ball. Bab GIsa (Djisa) and Bab Mahruk, 
more or less repaired or altered, date for the main 
part from this period. 

During the whole time of the Almohads, Fas was 
very prosperous, and Andalusian influences continued 
to prevail there without rival. 

Under the Marinids. — Under the Marinids, Fas 
became the capital of Morocco. In 674/1276, a little 
while after his victory over the last of the Almohads, 
Abu Yusuf Ya'kub founded, at a short distance 
to the west of the old town, a new administrative 
city, Fas al-Djadid. Here he built his palaces, which 
he endowed with a great mosque (Pis. XIV, XVII) 
and here he installed his guard and the administrative 
services of the state. Fas al-Djadid was surrounded 
by a mighty rampart with inner and outer walls and 
furnished with monumental gates. Three of these 
gates, Bab al-Sammarln, Bab al-Bakakin, and Bab 
al-Makhzan still exist to-day, very little altered. 
The palaces of the Marinids have been replaced by 
more modern buildings, but some of their vaulted 
store-houses are still to be seen there. 

Other sanctuaries were built latT on at Fas al- 
Pjadid: the al-Hamra' mosque, doubtless in the 
reign of Abu Said (710-31/1310-31), the little 
sanctuary of Lalla Zhar (Zahr, 759/1357) built by 
Abu c In5n, and finally the mosque of Lalla Ghariba 
(810/1408), whose minaret alone has been preserved. 
The great mosque of al-Hamra' and Lalla Zhar are 
beautiful buildings of harmonious proportions and 
quiet luxury. In 720/1320, Abu Sa c Id had a madrasa 
constructed, which to-day is in a very damaged 
condition. 

The Marinids did not forget Fas al-Bali. There they 
built several small mosques such as the Sharabliyyin 



and Abu '1-Hasan, whose sanctuaries have been 
rebuilt but which still preserve some carved wood 
from this period and, even more important, their 
graceful minarets. All the Marlnid minarets of Fas 
al-Djadid and Fas al-Ball consist of square towers 
with turrets. Their facades are decorated with inter- 
laced designs in brick enclosing backgrounds of mosaic 
faience. Other azulejos in the form of polygonal stars 
cover the wide string-course at the top of the tower. 
They are perfect examples of the classic type of 
Hispano-Moorish minaret. 

But the old town was indebted above all to the 
Marinids for the glorious beauty of the madrasas of 
this period. These are students' colleges arranged 
around luxurious court-yards at the back of which are 
situated halls of prayer. As early as 670/1271, the 
founder ot the dynasty, Abu Yusuf Ya'kub, built the 
madrasa of the Saffarin. The Sahridj (720/1321), (PI. 
XVIII), Sba'iyyin (723/1323) and'Attarin (743/1346) 
madrasas were built in the time of Abu Sa'id. Abu 
'1-Hasan founded the Misbahiyya (743/1346), and Abu 
c Inan the one which bears his name, the Bu- c Inaniyya 
(Pis. XII, XVI). Outwardly each of different appea- 
rance, all the madrasas built in this last great epoch of 
Hispano-Moorish art are extremely beautiful. The 
decorations which cover them are admirably arranged 
and the detail of the ornament is worthy of the 
harmony of the whole. The latest in date and the 
largest, the Bfl 'Inaniyya, which is the only one to 
possess a minbar and a minaret, is the last great 
masterpiece of the classic period of Hispano-Moorish 
art to be found in Morocco. 

The Almoravid and Almohad monuments were 
planned and decorated by artists who came from 
Spain, but towards the end of the 7th/i3th century 
Fas had its own workshops, closely linked with those 
of Granada. From the beginning of the 8th/i4th 
century on, beautiful houses were erected both in 
Fas al-Djadid and Fas al-Ball, which, like the 
madrasas, were adorned with floors and facings oi 
faience mosaic, plaster and carved wood. The same 
decorative style prevailed in sanctuaries, palaces and 
rich homes. 

The masonry, also very homogeneous in style, is 
less beautiful but almost as delicate as the ornament. 
In the walls, stone gives place to bonded or glazed 
brick, and often also to cobwork. Cedar wood plays 
a large part in all the architecture of Fas. Whether 
in beams, lintels, corbelling, ceilings or artesonados 
domes, it provides both roof beams and cover for 
all types of buildings. In the framework of doors 
and openings and in joinery, it is moulded, decorated 
with pieces of applied ornament, or carved. At the 
tops of walls and court-yards, it is worked into 
friezes and projecting porches resting upon carved 
and painted corbels. This wide use of wood, the 
frequency of pillars and the rarety of columns, are 
the only characteristics which distinguish the 
Marlnid monuments from contemporary Nasrid 
buildings. 

Vaulted architecture is to be found only in the 
great store-houses of Fas al-Djadid and in the 
ftammdms which follow the very simple plans of the 
Andalusian baths. 

Thus under the Marinids Fas received not only 
its shape as two distinct agglomerations, but also its 
architectural appearance. From then on it was, 
second only to Granada, the most active centre of 
Hispano-Moorish art. Once Muslim Spain had 
disappeared, all the processes of masonry, techniques 
and ornamental forms inherited from the 14th 
century continued to be used in Fas up to our own 



times, in a slow decline and with a touching fidelity. 

Under the Sa c dls. — The end of the Marinid 
dynasty and the reign of the Banu WattSs produced 
no great monuments in Fas. Nevertheless, its 
buildings maintained the same architectural and 
decorative traditions as those of the art which 
preceded this period. Relations with Granada had 
become more rare, and from the end of the 8th/i4th 
century onwards, the latest innovations in ornament 
of the Alhambra of Muhammad V had not been 
passed on to Fas. And in 896/1492, Granada was 
reconquered. In the victorious thrust of Renaissance 
art in Spain, Hispano-Moorish art became confined 
by the ioth/i6th century to its African domain. 

Under the Sa'dis, who struggled for a long time 
against the Banu Wattas for the possession of Fas, 
the city went through difficult times. Marrakush 
once again became the capital of Morocco and the 
sultans distrusted the metropolis of the North. 
They reinforced the ramparts of Fas al-Djadid, 
which remained the headquarters of government, 
with bastions for the use of cannon. Two works of 
the same kind but even more powerful, the northern 
burdi and the southern burdi, dominated and over- 
looked Fas al-Bali. The Karawiyyin was enriched 
with two fountain kiosks, jutting out of the 
shorter sides of the safm (PI. XV). In the anarchy in 
which the Sa c di dynasty went down, Fas passed 
through terrible times and in such a troubled 
period no monuments could be constructed 

Under the 'Alawis. — The founder of the 
dynasty, Mawlay al-Rashid, hastened to give Fas 
al-Bali a new madrasa, that of the Sharratin (1081/ 
1670). His successor, Mawlay Isma c Il, transferred his 
capital to Miknas. Nevertheless, he had the mauso- 
leum and sanctuary of Mawlay Idris rebuilt. 

At the beginning of the 18th century, Fas once 
again became the customary residence of the sultan 
and the central government. Almost all the sove- 
reigns, from Sidi Muhammad b. c Abd al-Allah on, 
had work done on the palaces of Fas al-Djadid. The 
most important groups of buildings which still exist 
to-day date mainly from Mawlay c Abd al-Rahman 
(1237-75/1822-59) and Mawlay al-Hasan (1289-1311/ 
1873-94). The ramparts were repaired many times 
and one of the great gates, Bab al-Futuh, was 
entirely rebuilt by Mawlay Sulayman. 

Numerous sanctuaries, whether cathedral-mosques 
or simple places of prayer, were built in Fas under 
the c AlawI sovereigns and very often through their 
initiative. The most important of these were the 
mosques of Bab Gisa (Djisa), of al-Rasif and of al- 
Siyadj at Fas al-Bali, and the mosque of Mawlay 
c Abd Allah at Fas al-Djadid. Local mosques, places of 
prayer dedicated to saints, headquarters of brother- 
hoods, were built in great numbers. Sanctuaries of 
reasonably large dimensions consisted according to 
local tradition of naves parallel to the wall of the 
Ifibla. The minarets were square towers surmounted 
by turrets but the decoration of a network of inter- 
lacing and faience was almost always omitted and the 
walls of brick, glazed or not, were ornamented with 
simple blind arcades. Some little sanctuaries still 
keep their 'platform' minarets of a very archaic type. 
An occasional madrasa was built: those of Bab Gisa 
and al-Wad preserve very nearly the traditional 
arrangement. 

Most of the houses of Fas date from the c AlawI 
period but continue the Marinid tradition. The walls 
are made either of cobwork or more commonly of 
brick, and sometimes of coated rubble. In the old 
town, the houses rise vertically, mostly on two floors 



FASA 823 

around narrow court-yards. These houses, though 
poor in light and ventilation, are nevertheless some- 
times sumptuous; the pillars of the court-yard and 
the bases of the walls are panelled in faience mosaics ; 
carved plaster often ornaments the door and window 
frames and the tympanums of the openings, and 
sometimes even the walls themselves. A cornice of 
moulded or even carved cedar-wood crowns the 
whole. The ceilings and the joinery — also of cedar- 
wood — are worked with care. In the less dense 
outlying districts, there are lower houses around 
vast court-yards and even gardens. 

The funduks, with several storeys and galleries, 
follow the same arrangement as that of the Marinid 
hostelries, and are, in this city of commerce, very 
often beautiful buildings. 

Thus in the work of these last centuries there is 
nothing new, but a remarkable fidelity to a great 
architectural and decorative tradition. Despite the 
baldness of the ornamental detail, both the civil and 
the religious architecture of Fas preserves, sometimes 
not without grandeur, a sense of balance which does 
not exclude the picturesque. Above all, a perfect 
unity of style, maintained by guilds of artisans, 
knowing and loving their work, has given Fas al- 
Bali and even more, Fas al-Djadid. an astonishing 
harmony. Regulations concerning matters of art 
have succeeded in preserving in Fas, as in other 
ancient cities in Morocco, their originality and 
beauty. In Fas, more than elsewhere, there has been 
preserved the architectural and decorative climate 
of Muslim Andalusia. 

Bibliography: H. Gaillard, Une ville de 
V Islam: Fes, Paris 1905; G. Marcais, L' architecture 
musulmane d'Occident, Paris 1950; H. Terrasse, 
L'art hispano-mauresque des origines au XIII' 
siicle, Paris 1932; idem, Les vittes impiriales du 
Maroc, Grenoble 1937; idem, La mosquie des 
Andalous a Fes, Paris 1949; R. le Tourneau, Fes 
avant le Protectorat, Casablanca 1949; D. Maslow, 
Les mosquies de Fes et du Nord du Maroc, Paris 
1937. (H. Terrasse) 

FASA (formerly Pasa), is situated in 28 56' N. 
Lat. and 53-39' E. Long. (Greenwich); it is 1,561 
metres above sea level. Fasa is 164 km. from Shiraz, 
55 from Darabdjird and 70 from Djahrum. The 
district {shahristdn) of which Fasa is the capital 
forms part of the seventh Ustdn (Fars). The Muslim 
Arabs under 'Uthman b. Abi 'l- c As captured Fasa in 
23/644. According to Ha md Allah Mustawfl (Nuzha, 
124), it was originally called Sasan and was triangular 
in shape. Ibn al-Balkhi (Fdrs-ndma, 130) stated that 
Fasa was as large as Isfahan; it had been destroyed 
by the Shabankara tribes, but was rebuilt by the 
Atabeg Cawli. The climate was temperate and the 
surrounding district produced the fruits of both the 
cold and hot regions. The abundant water supply 
was entirely from kandts, there being no wells. The 
cathedral mosque was of burnt brick and rivalled 
that of Madina for splendour (Mukaddasi, 431). Fasa 
was famous for its carpets and brocades and also 
(according to the Hudud al-'-dlam, 127) for its rose- 
water. In 195 1 the population was 8,300. 4 km. to 
the south of the town is the ancient mound known 
as the Tell-i Dahak. 

Bibliography: in the text, and: Yakut, iii, 
891; J. Karabacek, Die persische Nadelmalerei 
Susandschird, Leipzig 1881, 107; HadjdjI Mirza 
Hasan Fasa'i, Fdrs-ndma-yi Ndsiri, ii, 228ff.; 
Flandin and Coste, Voyage en Perse, vol. i (text), 
28-30, vols, i and ii (plates), 30; Oliver St. John, 
Narrative oj a journey through Baluchistan and 




Fas Bali — General view from the n 



PLATE XIV 





Fas Bali — Satin of the Karawiyyin mosque: Zenata minaret and Sa'did pavilion. 

(Service des Monuments Historiques du Maroc, photograph by Jean Latour) 




Fas Bali — Madrasa of Abu c Inan: mihrab of the prayer-hall. 

(Service des Motut.i >ts H isi'iriques du Maroc, photograph by Jean Latour) 



PLATE XVII 




Fas Djadid — The Great Mosque : mihrab.- 
(Service des Monuments Historiques du Maroc, photograph by Jean Latour) 




Fas Bali — The Sahridj madrasa: north-w 



t facade of the courtyard. 



(Service des Monuments Historiques du Mat 



nques du Mane, photograph by Jean Latour) 




Fas Bali — Madrasa of the Sharratln: courtyard. 

{Service des Monuments Historiques du Maroc, photograph by Jean Latour) 



82 4 



FASA — FASAHA 



Southern Persia, in Eastern Persia, i, 109; Le 

Strange, 290, 293, 294; Rdhnamd-yi Iran, 176 

(with plan on 177). (L. Lockhart) 

FASAD [see fasid, kawn]. 

FA§AflA, an Arabic word, properly "clarity, 
purity", abstract noun from fasih, "clear, pure". 
To summarize the definitive analysis of the concept 
as it was achieved in the work of Djalal al-Din al- 
Kazwinl, the Khatib Dimashk (666-739/1267-1338), 
and his commentator, Sa'd al-Din al-Taftazani 
(722-91/1322-89), in Arabic rhetoric fasih is applied 
to: (1) a single word when it is not difficult 
to pronounce, is not a foreign or rare word and its 
form is not an exception to the usual; (2) a whole 
sentence, when it does not contain an objectionable 
construction, a discord, an obscurity (through a 
confusion in the arrangement of the words) or a 
metaphor too far-fetched and therefore incomprehen- 
sible. The first kind of fasdha is called fasdhat al- 
mufrad, the latter fasdhat al-kaldm. There is also 
(3) a fasdhat al-mutakallim. This is peculiar to a 
person whose style conforms to the above conditions 
(Kazwini, Talkhis al-Miftah, Cairo 1342/1923, i, 
70-6, with Taftazani's Mukhtasar). The adjective 
fasih denotes a word or a sentence only when free 
from objection in itself; it is distinguished from 
baligh, which also implies that the expression is 
relevant in its context. 

From its inception Arabic theory gravitated 
towards a strict separation between the stylistic 
areas where the ideal accomplishment is represented 
by fasdha and baldgha respectively; in practice, the 
dividing line between the two concepts was not always 
clearly drawn. A number of critics tended to enlarge 
the scope of fasdha at the expense, as it were, of 
baldgha, and the general public, as Nuwayri 
(d. 732/1332), Nihdya, vii, 7, observes, was inclined 
to use the two terms indiscriminately. (Similarly, 
Kazwini, Iddh, i, 136-7. Cf. Ibn Kayyim al-Djawziyya 
(d. 751/1350), Fawd'id, Cairo 1327/1909, 9, where 
the opinion of some authorities is noted that fasdha 
and baldgha are alternative terms for the same 
concept). 

Without attempting to develop an integrated 
concept, al-Djahiz (d. 255/869) collects a great deal 
of the materials and states a number of the value 
judgments that later theorists were to work into a 
system. Every language has certain sounds that are 
characteristic for it, such as the 's' in Greek. Among 
its sounds there will be some that do not agreeably 
fit together; in Arabic, e.g., the harf 'dj' cannot 
stand side by side with z, k, t, gh; and the 'z' with 
z, s, d and dh (Baydn, Cairo 1932, i, 69-72). The 
best kaldm in all the world is the mode of speech, 
or narrative, of the fasih among the 'Arab; but the 
common people, too, sometimes achieve pertinence 
in their speech (i, 133). Solecism, lahn, endangers 
fasdha but does not necessarily destroy it. For in 
the view of Abu 'Ami b. al- c Ala 3 (d. c. 153/770), al- 
Hasan al-Basri (d. 110/728) and al-Hadjdjadj (d. 
95/714) were afsah of all, yet not entirely free from 
lahn (i, 146; a list of the most disturbing alhdn is 
given, i, 134; the worst is the manner of speaking 
of Bedouins whose speech has been affected by that 
of the town mob; cf. also i, 146 on the deteriorating 
influence of the language of the city on that of the 
Bedouin. In the 5th/nth century KhafadjI, Sirr, 53, 
was to note that the Bedouin had become dependent 
on the townsman for linguistic perfection). Alto- 
gether kaldm must be graded in various (abakdt 
(djazl, sakhif, malih, hasan, kabih, khafif and thakif) 
precisely as the people themselves. Since the speaker, 



khatib, should adapt his speech to both his ideas and 
his audience he must ordinarily refrain from using 
the vocabulary of the mutakallimin (here: scholars 
in the technical sense) even if he should himself be 
one of them. In scientific discussion, on the other 
hand, the employment of the terminology of the 
mutakallimin is indicated. It is they who developed 
(takhayyaru, ishtakku, istalahu) a scientific language 
in regard to which they are salaf" li-kull khalaf, 
(authoritative) ancestors to all posterity. While the 
khatib must use their terms only when common 
expressions fail to convey his thoughts, their insertion 
into poems is allowable as a piece of witticism, 'aid 
djihat al-tazarruf wa 'l-tamalluh (i, 128-31). 

The clever though disjointed remarks of Diahiz 
are interesting in themselves but significant mainly 
as a foil to the rapid consolidation of the theorists' 
ideas on fasdha, spurred as it was by the need to 
document the uniqueness, i'djdz, of the Kur'an from 
the formal point of view. Abu Hilal al- c Askari 
(d. after 395/1005) makes the (often repeated) 
statement that after theology the science most 
worthy to engage our study is Him al-baldgha wa- 
ma'rifat al-fasdha, by means of which the i'djdz is 
recognised (Kitdb al-sind'atayn, Constantinople 
1320, 2). To <Askari fasdha is the perfect tool, dla, 
of clear exposition, baydn; the scope is confined to 
the wording because the idea of tool bears only on 
the wording and not on the idea, ma'nd. Hence a 
parrot could be called fasih, but never baligh. An 
isolated kaldm, however, may be described as fasih 
baligh provided it is clear in concept and smoothly 
fluent, sahl, in style (ibid., 7; some authorities 
require in addition a certain stateliness, fakhdma, 
without which a discourse may qualify as baligh but 
not fasih; this reversal of the usual terminology 
deserves to be noted). 

«Abd al-Kahir al-Djurdjani (d. 1078 or 1081; cf. 
Ritter, Asrdr, German translation, Wiesbaden 1959, 
5*) clearly felt dissatisfied with the treatment 
accorded fasdha. The more he studied what scholars 
had to say about it the more did he realise that their 
statements failed because of their all too general 
character. After all, nothing much is gained from 
explanations where fasdha is merely described as a 
peculiar trait in the putting together of words, 
khusiisiyya fi nazm al-kalim {DaldHl al-i'didz, 
Cairo 1331/1913, 30). Specifically, he is critical of 
those who maintain that fasdha has no meaning 
beyond the "harmony within the words and the 
adjustment of the sequence of the letters so the 
meeting in pronunciation of letters that are difficult 
for the tongue will be avoided", al-tald'um al-lafzi 
wa-ta'dil mizddj al-huriif h<*ttd Id yataldkd fi 'l-nutk 
huruf tathkulu <ala 'l-lisdn. This view would lead to 
separating fasdha from baldgha (as a separate science 
or approach) and would constitute euphony the only 
criterion of rhetorical perfection and the i'djdz al- 
Kur*dn, or at least lend it too much importance 
against such virtues as husn al-tartib, good organi- 
zation. The reason why the ancients, al-kudamd*, 
maintained the strict division between lafz and 
ma'nd and stressed the function and merits of the 
lafz is that the ma'dni are manifested by words only. 
Hence the custom of attributing to the word what 
in fact belongs to the ma'nd and to speak, e.g., of 
lafz mutamakkin, solid wording, when actually the 
ideas expressed are intended by this characterization 
(ibid., 45-51)- 

From these remarks one is led to conclude that 
Djurdjani did not know al-Khafadji's (d. 465/1073) 
Sirr al-fasdha (completed 2 Sha'ban 454/" August 



1062; cf. Sirr, Cairo 1932, 276), perhaps the most 
thorough examination of the concept. KhafadjI, too, 
was, ostensibly at least, motivated by a desire to 
investigate the i'-di&z al-Kur'dn whose fasdha "broke 
the custom", in other words, was miraculous, ibid., 4. 
The special excellence which KhafadjI claims for his 
work consists in its comprehensiveness — the muta- 
kallimun neglect the study of phonetics; the gram- 
marians that of the principles, al-asl wa 'l-uss; the 
critics, ahl nakd al-kaldm, do not rise above the 
aperfu, ibid., 5. KhafadjI is deeply concerned with the 
phonetic aspect. He observes that Arabic disposes 
of 29 (or according to al-Mubarrad, who does not 
count the hamza, 28) huruf; actually, the language 
has 14 more for which there does not exist any 
graphic representation. Of these, six add to the 
fasih (e.g., the imdla, the z for s in the pronunciation 
'mazdar' in lieu of masdar), whereas eight detract 
from it (e.g., the sh for d± in the pronunciation 
'kharashat' for kharadjat; 19, 21-2). Other languages 
have in part different tturuf; thus Armenian has 36 
against the Arabs' 29 (53). The putting together of 
huruf into words is guided by aesthetic principles; 
three consonants of the same phonetic category are 
avoided in the formation of any given word. The 
best procedure is to combine sounds with distant 
bases of articulation (53-4). 

Fasdha then, as a property confined to individual 
words (55), can be attributed to the alfdz if certain 
requirements, shurut, are met. (A) Some of these are 
manifest in the isolated word, (B) others when the 
words are connected one with the other (60). The 
shurut of the first type (A) are the following: (1) the 
words must be composed of sounds whose bases of 
articulation are varied; (2) over and above this 
condition their sequence must be acoustically 
pleasing; (3) the words must be neither 'raw' nor 
barbarous, mutawa"ir and wahshi (SuyutI, Muzhir, 
Cairo 1282, i, 114-15, offers a definition of the 
wahshi and a listing of [near-]synonyms of this 
term) ; (4) nor must they be low and vulgar, sdkit and 
'■ammi (both these requirements are to be found in 
Diahiz, KhafadjI observes); (5) the words must 
conform to correct Arabic usage, c urf ; here objections 
may arise from fourteen causes, such as (a) the un- 
Arabic origin of a word; (b) the wrong use of an 
Arabic word; (c) the unwarranted shortening or 
(d) lengthening of a word; (e) the extreme rarity of 
a word or the particular form of a common word as, 
e.g., an unusual plural; etc. Trespasses of this kind 
do not impair fasdha very badly yet had better 
be avoided. (6) The word must not have a second 
meaning which brings to mind something one does 
not wish the hearer to think of; (7) the word should 
be "well-balanced" and not composed of (too) many 
huruf; (8) if the word is a diminutive it should be 
used only where a diminutive is directly appropriate: 
KhafadjI dislikes the tasghir bi-ma'nd al-ta'zim. 

Of these shurut, nos. 1 to 6 apply also to (B) al- 
alfdz al-mu^allafa, i.e., they constitute requirements 
for a sequence of words exactly as for a sequence of 
huruf within the individual word; in fact, nos. 2 to 4 
depend in taHif entirely on their occurrence in the 
lafza mufrada. Ay and A8 do not bear on B. To be 
fasih, taHif must instead fulfil these additional 
shurut: (1) the words must be placed exactly where 
they belong; no unjustified changes of the customary 
word order are allowable (thus takdim and ta'khir 
as well as the kalb al-kaldm are to be avoided); 
(2) they must exhibit husn al-isW-ara, appropriate 
metaphors; (3) be free from hashw, padding; in 
opposition, however, to both the Mu'tazili al- 



IHA 825 

Djubbal (d. 303/915) and his orthodox critic al- 
Rummanl (d. 387/994), Khafadji admits (140-1) 
that some hashw enriches the meaning and adds 
lustre to the discourse; (4) there must not be any 
unnecessary repetitions; (5) the words must be 
properly selected according to the purpose; this 
includes the use of hindya, metonymy, where 
tasrih, plain speech, would be out of place; (6) tech- 
nical terms are inadmissible (60-161). 

There is another set of properties of fasdha which 
Khafadji treats separately (162 ff.) even though 
they could be subsumed under the requirements of 
(B). These are: (1) mundsaba or tandsub, correspon- 
dence between words in regard either (i) to their 
pattern or (ii) to their meaning. It is under (i) that 
KhafadjI deals with sadi c and izdiwadi, kawdfi, 
luzum ma lam yalzam and tasri' (internal rhyme), 
torsi 1 , hand al-lafz <ala 'l-lafz fi'l-tartib (an unusual 
name for al-laff wa 'l-nashr; plohi), al-tandsub ft 
'l-mikddr (requirements concerning the relative 
length of the various cola in a sadj<- passage), al- 
mudjdnas (covering both figura etymologica and 
paronomasia) and, as the lowest form of tandsub, 
al-tashif (paronomasia based on modifications of 
the graphic representations of two wprds and not 
on sound). 

By introducing category (ii) of tandsub, which is 
concerned with closeness and contrast of the meaning 
of two lafza, KhafadjI leaves definitely the area 
which Arabic theory is generally willing to assign to 
fasdha. Considering that tibdk, antithesis, for in- 
stance, clearly derives from meaning and not from 
the word pattern or its huruf, it can hardly be 
viewed as a component of fasdha which, after all, 
KhafadjI himself had explicitly tied to the word 
while leaving the meaning to baldgha. KhafadjI 
goes on to consider idjdz, concision, as a shart of 
both fasdha and baldgha. The same applies to 
clarity, an yahuna ma c nd al-kaldm wddih"" zdhir"" 
dialiyy'*. KhafadjI justifies its connexion with 
fasdha by pointing to six reasons for obscurity of 
discourse (210), two each inherent in (a) the isolated 
word: the unusual expression; the use of homonyms; 
(b) the composition of words, taHif al-alfdz ba l $a-hd 
ma'-a ba'-d: excessive concision; confusion ; and (c) the 
ma'nd as such: over-subtlety; too much advance 
knowledge required for understanding. In this con- 
text KhafadjI (212-5) takes sides in a controversial 
issue by asserting that some parts of the Kur'an 
are more afsah than others. Since everybody agrees 
that Torah, Gospels and Psalms although kaldm 
Allah are less fasih than the Kur'an there is no 
reason why all of the Book should be on the same 
level of fasdha. Additional characteristics, nu c iit, of 
baldgha and fasdha (not integrated in any classifi- 
cation by KhafadjI) are (1) the designation of an 
idea not by its usual name but by an expression 
implying it, and (2) the rendering of an idea through 
a simile, tamthil. Only at this point does KhafadjI 
definitely turn to the examination of the ma'dni 
and their properties such as (224 ff.) soundness, 
sihha (eight sub-categories), completeness, or em- 
phatic presentation. 

Fakhr al-DIn al-Razi's (d. 606/1209) motivation 
in discussing fasdha is the same as Khafadji's : its 
fasdha makes the Kur'an mu'djiz (Nihdyat al- 
ididz, Cairo 1317, 5). This fact makes its investigation 
research into the noblest of all religious subjects, viz. 
the manner in which the Holy Book indicates the 
veracity of Muhammad (7). But although RazI 
follows his predecessor in overextending the content 
of fasdha his presentation is much more orderly 

52* 



and shows the progress of scholastic disciplining of 
scientific thinking in the intervening century. 

Fasdha is defined (9) as khulus al-kaldm min al- 
ta'kid, the freedom of the discourse from obscurity, 
or confusion, from anything that "ties" tongue and 
mind. (This definition recurs, e.g., in Ibn Kayyim, 
Faw&Hd, 9; the concept of ta'kid is discussed by 
Kazwini and Taftazani, Talkhis, i, 102-108). The 
purpose of kaldm, the conveying of meaning, is 
achieved on the verbal and the intellectual level. 
Neither fasdha nor baldgha can be predicated of the 
connexion, established 0£aei, between word and 
meaning, the signifier and the signified. Were it 
otherwise, fasdha would have to inhere in the 
individual huruf or in their agglomeration which, 
however, could not possess any sifa lacking in the 
individual fiarf. Also in this case, a person ignorant 
of the Arabic tongue would have to be able to 
recognize al-kaldm al-'arabi al-fasih. Besides, fasdha 
is a "plus" achieved by the free choice of the speaker; 
the qualities of the individual words, on the other 
hands, are due to the wad* al-wddi', not to the 
speaker. Furthermore, a word will be fasih in one, 
rakik, "weak", in another context. The Prophet 
challenged the Arabs to match the fasdha of the 
Book; had this fasdha rested on the individual words 
the challenge could easily have been met. Metaphor, 
metonymy and simile are for Razi as for Khafadii 
abwdb al-fasdha; since these figures of speech have 
reference to the ma c nd, not to the lafz, fasdfia cannot, 
in its entirety, be word-bound (12-4). The objection 
(15-6) that everybody speaks of lafz fasih and 
nobody of ma'nd fasih is countered by the obser- 
vation that the attribution of fasdha to the lafz 
refers to its daldla ma'nawiyya (not its daldla 
lafziyya). In disposing of the criticism that since the 
same ma'nd may often be expressed by two lafz, 
one fasih, the other rakik, fasdha cannot refer to the 
ma'-nd — nor would if it did the tafsir al-mufassir be 
inferior in beauty to the poetic passage which it 
explains — , Razi gropes for the concept of the 
emotive etc. associations surrounding the different 
words and phrases without quite piercing through 
to an adequate terminology. Razi insists correctly 
that the fasdha of a kindya (against ifsdh, RazT's 
term for tasrih; 18) has to do with the intellectual 
rather than the phonetic and lexicographical 
structure of the phrase, an insight which, inciden- 
tally, al-Djurdjani had acquired before him without 
tying it so closely to the concept of fasdha. 

piya' al-DIn Ibn al-Athir (d. 631/1234), who veers 
away sharply from the blurring between the areas 
of fasdha and baldgha which is characteristic of 
Khafadji's and Razi's position, is concerned with 
reducing the subjective element in ascribing fasdha 
to a given expression. The frequently proposed 
definition of the fasih as al-zdhir al-bayyin is 
inadequate. For it is open to three objections: 
(1) a lafz would be judged fasih when clearly under- 
stood and non-fasih when not clearly understood 
by the hearer; thereby a subjective element would 
become decisive; (2) consequently an expression 
would become fasih to Zayd and ghayr fasih to 
c Amr, whereas the fasih is uncontrovertibly so for 
everybody; (3) an ugly word would be fasih as long 
as it was zahir and bayyin, evident and clear; yet 
fasdha is wasf husn al-lafz la wasf kubh, i.e., it indicates 
the properties which make a word beautiful, not 
those that make it ugly. Unfortunately, Ibn al- 
Athir's amendment to the definition fails of its 
objective when it explains understandability by 
familiarity in prose and poetry and 



familiarity by the beauty of the particular expressions 
which induces the writers to seek them out. The 
criterion is phonetic attraction, which proves that 
fasdha is not connected with the ma'-nd but merely 
with the acoustics of the expression (26) — a position 
which Ibn al-Hadid (d. 655/1257), al-Falak al-ddHr 
'ala 'l-mathal al-sdHr, Bombay 1308, 39-40, was 
seriously to question. If it is argued that to equate 
the fasih with the mafhum would raise the problem 
that many Kur'anic verses even though necessarily 
fasih require a commentary, the answer (which 
applies to many a poem and other literary document 
as well) is that the individual words are all clear and 
fasih; a tafsir is needed because of the profundity 
of the ma'nd (al-Mathal al-sdHr, Cairo 1312, 27). 
Ibn al-Athlr notes that every language has its own 
fasdha (and baldgha) but Arabic is superior to all 
other tongues because of its amplitude, tawassu'dt 
(28). (On 73 Ibn al-Athir reports the opinion of an 
unidentified Jew that Arabic is the most beautiful 
language because it was the last to be created and 
the Wddi' improved on the defects of those created 
earlier. Nuwayri, vii, 6, was to reserve fasdha, defined 
as freedom from al-lukna al-a'd[amiyya, exclusively 
for the Arabs; by contrast, Ibn Kayyim, FawdHd, 
9, states expressly that neither fasdha nor baldgha 
are peculiar to al-alfdz al-'arabiyya; the concepts 
apply to any phrase whose wording is unusual and 
which is yet easily understood, lafzu-hu gharib wa- 
fahmu-hu karib). It is foolish to maintain as some 
do that every word is hasan because the Wddi' has 
not coined any ugly word. In (unstated) agreement 
with the principles of legal idjma 1 , Ibn al-Athir con- 
siders hasan and kabih what has always been so 
considered by the Arabs. In doing so personal 
preferences are eliminated (59-60). It must be realised 
that the class of beautiful words comprises such 
words as have always been in use and others that 
were in use formerly but are no longer {e.g., many 
expressions occurring in Kur'an and hadith) — this 
fact restricts the use of 'urf as a criterion of beauty 
(62, 61). On the whole, Ibn al-Athir makes his own 
the criteria for the beauty of a lafza which Khafadii 
had developed. (Ibn al-Athir's eight requirements 
correspond to Khafadii's A 1, 5, 8, 4, 3, 6, 7, 2; in 2 
the agreement is slightest; in regard to 7 he differs, 
72-3, with Khafadji on detail and is, in turn, attacked 
by Ibn al-Hadid, 85-6, who (83-4) also finds fault 
with his position on 1 . Ibn al-Athir's description of 
the effect of phonetic tandfur, 60-1, is deser- 
vedly referred to by Taftazani, Mukhtasar, i, 80). 

Ibn al-Athir's treatment of "composition", sind'at 
taHif al-alfdz, is superior to Khafadii's in clarity. He 
lists eight "parts" (74), the first five of which are 
traceable in Khafadji: musadjdia' (— sadj' and 
izdiwddf), tasri', tadjnis (= mudjdnas), tarsi' and 
luziim ma lam yalzam ; a sixth, muwdzana, corresponds 
to Khafadii's tandsub fi 'l-mikddr; for the seventh, 
ikhtildf siyagh al-alfdz, the variation of the aesthetic 
effect when the same root appears in different 
moulds, Ibn al-Athir claims originality (no); the 
eighth, takrir al-huruf, is in the actual discussion 
replaced by two: al-mu'dzala al-lafziyya, the 
"crowding of one part of kaldm upon another" (cf. 
Lane, 2086a), and, again presented as an original 
contribution, al-mundfara bayn al-alfdz fi 'l-sabk 
(118-9), the juxtaposition of words that do not fit 
together in the particular context. 

To carry the presentation to the conventional 
limits of the Middle Ages reference may be made to 
al-Suyflti (d. 911/1505) who, Muzhir, i, 91-2, adopts 
Kazwini's concept except for the tacit omission of 



FASAHA — al-FASHIR 






the fasdha pertaining to a whole sentence. Usage 
would appear to be for SuyutI the decisive factor 
constituting an expression tasty. Fasdha allows of 
gradation. Some words are more afsah than others; 
thus burr in relation to kamh and frinfa (i, 105 ; cf. 
Ibn al-Athlr, 26-7 and 59-60 with Ibn al-Hadid, 40, 
on muzna and dima as afsah than bu'-dk); so of 
course are some speakers, and the Prophet is afsafi 
of all (103). 

To be fully understood, the distinction between 
fasdha and baldgha must be seen, on the one hand, 
in the context of the dualism of form and content 
that dominates the critical thought of the Arab- 
Muslim theorist and, on the other, in the context 
of the dualism which the Muslim philosophy of 
language predicates of its subject. When the activity 
which results in language is analysed into its two 
components, fasdha emerges as the "virtue" co-ordi- 
nated with man's physiological, phonetic effort and 
baldgha as the "virtue" registering the realization of 
his mental endeavour (for the Ikhwan al-Safa 5 as 
representatives of this "dualism of language" cf. 
J. Lecerf, Stud. Is!., xii (i960), 22-3). 

Bibliography: In the article; in addition: 

F. A. Mehreri, Die Rhetorik der A raber, Copenhagen 

and Vienna, 1853, 15-8. 

(G. E. von Grunebaum) 

FASANEJUS (Ban©), the name of one of the 
families which hereditarily shared among themselves 
the high administrative offices under the Buwayhid 
regime. The founder of this family's fortune was 
Abu '1-Fadl al- c Abb5s b. Fasandjus, a rich notable 
of Shiraz who, after being fined 600,000 dirhams by 
c Ali b. Buwayh ( c Imad al-Dawla), had taken a part 
in the farming of taxes for that prince (322/934), and 
then, in 338/949, had entered the service of Mu'izz 
al-Dawla, for whom he administered the finances of 
Basra. It was there that he died in 342/953, at the 
age of 77, leaving his son Abu '1-Faradj Muhammad 
to inherit his position; the latter, on the death of 
the vizier al-Muhallabi, succeeded him, though 
without the title, at the head of the administration 
of 'Irak (352/963). In 355/966 Mu'izz al-Dawla sent 
him to conquer c Um5n (a letter from al-Sabi has 
been preserved, replying to his report of the victory, 
Paris MS arabe 6195, 167 v°); he returned on the 
death of that ruler in the following year. Under c Izz 
al-Dawla Bakhtiyar he shared the vizierate and then 
came into conflict with Abu '1-Fadl al- c Abbas al- 
ShirazI, and finally lived in retirement from 360 
until 370 (971-81) when he died. However, his death 
did not bring about the ruin of his family, which 
apparently remained strongly established in Fars. 
Abu Muhammad C A1I, brother of Abu '1-Faradj, was 
vizier to Sharaf al-Dawla in 373-4/984-5, and Abu 
'1-Faradj's son Abu '1-Kasim Dja'far (355-419/966- 
1029) also vizier to Sultan al-Dawla, in Fars and 
then for a time in Baghdad (408-9/1017-8). The son 
of Abu '1-Kasim, named like his grandfather Abu 
'1-Faradj Muhammad, with the additional name 
Dhu '1-Sa e adat, was vizier to Djalal al-Dawla in 
'Irak from 421/1030 at the latest until that ruler's 
death in 435/1044; he was retained in the same office 
by Abu Kalldjar, who however had him arrested in 
439/1047 and put to death in the following year, at 
the age of 51 (Ibn al-Athlr gives the name of Djalal 
al-Dawla's vizier in 428/1037 as Abu '1-Fadl al- 
c Abbas b. al-Hasan b. Dja'far, another member of 
this family, who in any case cannot have held this 
office for any length of time). Abu '1-Faradj's son, 
c Ala> al-DIn Abu '1-Ghana 5 im Sa c d, seems to have 
been vizier to the last Buwayhid in Baghdad, al- 



Malik al-Rahim, at the time of Tughrll-Beg's entry 
into the city; the Saldjukid vizier al-Kundurl had 
him made governor of Wasit, perhaps because in his 
father's lifetime he had successfully fought against the 
lord of Batlha there; but, feeling his position to be 
insecure, he had the town fortified, an action which 
resulted in making him suspect. Attacked by a 
Saldjuk force, he openly allied himself with al- 
Basasiri [q.v.] and proclaimed the Fatimid khufba in 
Wasit (the Fatimid envoy al-Mu'ayyad al-ShirazI 
who alludes to this event in his Sira, 136-7, gives the 
governor's name as Ibn Ka'id b. Rahma). Defeated 
and taken prisoner at the beginning of 449/March- 
April 1057 with his brother, he was crucified and 
dismembered, and from that time nothing further is 
heard of the family. 

Bibliography: The chronicles of Miskawayh, 
Abu Shudja' Rudhrawarl, al-Hamadhani, and 
then of Ibn al-Djawzi, Ibn al-Athlr and Sibt Ibn 
al-Djawzi referred to in buwayhids, and also the 
two texts mentioned in the article. The genealo- 
gical table of Zambaur is entirely invalidated as 
a result of the division of Abu '1-Kasim into two 
homonyms, and the untenable identification of 
Abu '1-Faradj II with al-Mahalban of Takrit 
(because each had a son named Abu '1-Ghana'im). 

(Cl. Cahen) 
al-FASHIR (El Fasher), the capital of Dar Fur 
[a.v.], formerly a sultanate, now a province of the 
Republic of the Sudan. The term fdshir, meaning a 
royal residence, more precisely signified an open 
space, serving for public audience by a sultan, or as 
a market-place, and was also used in Sinnar under 
the Fundj [q.v.], and in Waddai, where wara appears 
as a synonym (see J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in 
Nubia, London 1819, 486). The fdshir of the Furawi 
sultan was established in 1206/1791-2 at Wadi 
Tandalti, on a sandy ridge, overlooking a seasonal 
lake. Around this royal residence, the town developed. 
It was visited between 1793-6 by W. G. Browne, who 
has left a plan and description of the palace area, 
but says nothing of the town. Fuller information, 
and an elaborate but schematized plan of the palace 
area, were given by al-Tunusi, who spent eight years 
in Dar Fur from 1218/1803. Outside the palace area, 
which was surrounded by a triple thorn-fence 
(zariba), were the houses of royal officials, holy men 
[fukard') and others. The inhabitants were divided 
into two groups, the people of Warradayd (the Men's 
Gate of the palace), and those of Warrabayd (the 
Ifarim Gate). The houses of the poor were built of 
millet straw, those of the ruler and notables of mud. 
Al-Fashir remained the capital of the sultanate until 
the annexation of Dar Fur to the Egyptian Sudan in 
1291/1874. Sporadic Furawi resistance continued, 
and on one occasion al-Fashir nearly fell to the troops 
of the shadow-sultan Harun. In January 1884, the 
khedivial garrison surrendered to Muhammad 
Khalid Zukal, the first Mahdist governor of Dar Fur. 
When the Mahdist state was overthrown in 1898, al- 
Fashir became the capital of the revived Furawi 
sultanate of c Ali Dinar. In 1916 Dar Fur was 
annexed to the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and al- 
Fashir became again a provincial capital. Although 
al-Fashir has long superseded Kubbayh (Cobbe), 
which in Browne's time was the trade-centre of Dar 
Fur, its difficulty of access from the east has led in 
recent years to a shift of road-traffic southwards to 
Nyala, to which town a railway-line was opened in 
1959. The population of al-Fashir, of varied origins, 
was estimated at c. 2,650 in 1875, and c. 10,000 in 
1905. In 1959 it was 26,161. 



828 



l-FASHIR - 



Bibliography: for the following principal 
sources, see under dar fur: Browne, al-Tunusi, 
Nachtigal, Slatin, Shukayr. Also K. M. Barbour, 
The republic of the Sudan, London [1961], 155-6. 

(R. Capot-Rey and P. M. Holt) 
FASHODA proper, the royal village of the 
Shilluk, lies near the west bank of the White Nile at 
9° 50' N., 31 58' E. It is the principal site of the 
elaborate ceremonies by which a Reth of the Shilluk 
is invested with his 'divine' attributes. 

An Egyptian expedition under the Hukmddr C A1I 
Khurshid reached Fashoda in 1830. In 1855 a 
government post was founded on the river some 
18 kms. downstream, at 9 53' N., 32 07' E., and 
was named after Fashoda as the nearest place of 
importance. In 1863 this post became the head- 
quarters of the newly-created mudiriyya of the 
White Nile. Its garrison contributed to the sup- 
pression of the riverain slave-trade, but Fashoda 
acquired an evil reputation as an unhealthy 'punish- 
ment station' for criminal and political exiles. 
Heavy taxation and forced recruiting led to conflict 
with the Shilluk. Although the Egyptians were 
sometimes able to procure the election of friendly 
Reths, in 1866 and again in 1875 the post was almost 
overwhelmed by Shilluk risings. 

On 9 December 1881, near Djabal Kadir in south- 
eastern Kordofan, Muhammad Ahmad al-Mahdl 
[q.v.] annihilated a force from Fashoda under the 
mudir Rashid Ayman. The rout of this strong, but 
ill-planned and unauthorized, expedition greatly 
increased the Mahdi's prestige and influence. 
Further Mahdist successes in Kordofan, culminating 
in the total defeat of Hicks at Shaykan (5 November 
1883), threatened communications with Fashoda and 
enforced its evacuation early in 1884. 

In 1891, the Shilluk having refused to pay zakdt, 
Fashoda was occupied and the Shilluk country 
harried by a Mahdist force under al-Zaki Tamal. 
Late in 1892 the Mahdists withdrew, leaving the 
JfrfAship in the hands of their nominee, Kur Galdwan 
alias c Abd al-Fadil. Reth Kur maintained Fashoda 
as a staging-post in the Mahdist communications 
with Equatoria and paid occasional tribute in grain; 
the Mahdists supported him against rival claimants 
and disaffected Shilluk sections. 

On 10 July 1898 J.-B. Marchand, with about 
100 men, occupied the former Egyptian fort at 
Fashoda. On 25 August he repelled an attack by a 
Mahdist flotilla under Sa'id al-Sughayyar. On 3 
September, by treaty with Reth Kur, he placed the 
Shilluk country under French protection. On 19 
September Kitchener arrived from Omdurman with 
five steamers and a mainly Egyptian force of over 
1,000 men. Marchand's presence and status were 
referred to Europe for diplomatic solution; but 
Kitchener hoisted the Egyptian flag and installed 
H. W. Jackson as Egyptian mudir of Fashoda. The 
ensuing Anglo-French crisis was resolved on 3 
November, when the French Cabinet, under an 
implicit British threat of war, agreed to withdraw 
Marchand from Fashoda unconditionally. This news, 
unnecessarily delayed by Cromer, did not however 
reach Fashoda until 4 December; meanwhile, rela- 
tions between the rival commanders had deteriorated 
almost to the point of armed conflict. Marchand 
evacuated Fashoda on 11 December 1898. 

From 1898 until 1902, when Bahr al-Ghazal was 
constituted as a separate province, the entire 
southern Sudan was administered from Fashoda. In 
1903 the 'administrative' Fashoda was re-named 
Kodok (after the nearest Shilluk hamlet), and the 



Fashoda Province was henceforth termed Upper 
Nile Province. Its equatorial regions became a 
separate province (Mongalla) in 1906. In 1914 
the headquarters of the truncated Upper Nile 
Province were transferred to Malakal: Kodok has 
since been merely the headquarters of Shilluk 

Bibliography: W. Hofmayr, Die Schilluk, 
Venna 1925; P. P. Howell and W. P. G. 
Thomson, The death of a Reth of the Shilluk and 
the installation of his successor, in S[udan] N[otes 
and] Records], xxvii (1946), 5-85; P. P. Howell, 
The election and installation of Reth Kur wad 
Fafiti of the Shilluk, ibid., xxxiv/2 (1953), 189-204; 
R. L. Hill, Egypt in the Sudan, London 1959; 
J. R. Gray, A history of the Southern Sudan, 
London 1961; P. M. Holt, The Mahdist State in 
the Sudan, Oxford 1958; H. W. Jackson, Fashoda 
1898, in SNR, iii/i (1920), 1-9; J. Emily, Mission 
Marchand, Paris 1913; [A.-E.-A.] Baratier, Souve- 
nirs de la Mission Marchand: Fachoda, Paris 1941; 
W. L. Langer, The diplomacy of Imperialism*, New 
York 1951 ; P. Renouvin, Les origines de Vexpidition 
de Fachoda, in Revue Historique, cc/408 (1948), 
180-97; G. N. Sanderson, The European Powers 
and the Sudan in the later nineteenth century, in 
SNR, xl (1959), 79-ioo; R. Robinson and 
J. Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, London 
1961. (G. N. Sanderson) 

al-FAsI, Taki al-DIn Muhammad b. Ahmad b. 
c AlI al-Makki al-HasanI al-MalikI (775-832/ 
1373-1429), historian of Mecca, was, through 
family connexions and upbringing, eminently quali- 
fied for his lifework as the outstanding historian of 
his native city. His father Ahmad (754-819/1353-1416) 
had received an excellent scholarly education and 
was married to a daughter of the Meccan chief judge 
Abu '1-Fadl Muhammad b. Ahmad b. c Abd-al- c Aziz 
al-Nuwayri; a daughter of his, and half-sister of the 
historian, was, in her first marriage, married briefly 
to the amir of Mecca, Hasan b. c Adjlan. Among al- 
Fasi's teachers we find the author of Maliki bio- 
graphies, Ibn Farhun, with whom he studied al- 
Matari's History of Medina in Medina (where he 
had already lived for a few years as a young boy) in 
796/1393-4. In Damascus, he studied with Abu 
Hurayra, the son of al-Dhahabl, and of Ibn Khaldun, 
whom he may have met in Egypt, he speaks as "our 
shaykh". Thus, the interest in historical studies, 
which was characteristic of his times, came to him 

His professional life followed the usual pattern. 
He travelled much as a student and in later life. His 
first visit to Egypt took place in 797/1 394-5, 
followed by a trip to Damascus and the scholarly 
centres of Palestine in the next year and, in 805/ 
1402-3, by a first trip to South Arabia, where he 
spent much time later on; his remarks on the 
history of the composition of his works, which he 
conscientiously appended to them, permit us to 
follow his travels in some detail. He was appointed 
Maliki judge of Mecca in 807/1405 and remained in 
this position, with brief interruptions in 817/ 
December 1414-January 1415 and 819-20/January- 
May 1417, until he became blind four years before 
his death. He managed to obtain a fatwd from 
Maliki authorities in Cairo permitting him to remain 
in office for a while, but soon he had to retire 
permanently; during his blindness, he continued his 
scholarly work. His learning, character, and social 
bearing were highly praised, but there must have 
been some latent discontent stored up in him since 



L-FASl — FASID wa BATIL 






the wakf deed for his works contained the stipulation 
that they be not lent to a Meccan. 

His numerous works included an abridgment of 
the ffaydt al-htayawan of his teacher, al-Damlrl, 
and a number of writings on fiadith and other 
religious subjects, of which two are preserved, 
Djawdhir al-usul fi 'l-hadith and al-Arba c un al- 
badith al-mutabdyindt al-isndd. Biographical works 
on religious scholars included his Supplement to 
Ibn Nukta's Takyid (which also contained an 
autobiography of his) and a negative appreciation 
of Ibn c Arabi. Of general historical titles, we may 
mention the Muntakhab al-Mukhtdr, an abridgment 
of Ibn Rafi"s supplement to Ibn al-Nadjdjar's 
supplement to the Ta'rikh Baghdad (Baghdad 1357/ 
1938; another old ms. in Mecca, cf. Shifd', ii, 432, 
n. 2) ; a partly preserved supplement to al-Dhahabl's 
Nubala' (Berlin 9873); a supplement to the same 
author's Ishara and a History of the Rasulids (not 
preserved). 

Al-Fasi's fame, however, rests upon his works on 
the history of Mecca, a subject which had been 
strangely neglected practically since the times of 
al-Azraki and al-Fakihi [q.v.]. His basic works are 
Shifd' al-gharam bi-akhbar al-balad al-hardm (Mecca- 
Cairo 1956; some chapters in Wustenfeld, Die 
Chroniken der Stadt Mekka, Leipzig 1857-61, ii, 
55 ff.) and al-'lkd al-thamin fi ta'rikh al-balad al- 
amin (Cairo 1289-90; Mecca 131 4; additional mss. 
Cairo Taymur, ta'rikh 849; Yale L-305 [Cat. Nemoy 
1 179]; KattanI, cf. Revue Inst. Mss. ar., v [1959], 
184; Istanbul Feyzullah [not Fatih] 1482; al-Azhar, 
cf. Fihris al-makhtutdt al-musawwara, ii/i, 181 f., 
ii/2, 106, etc.). TheSA»/<»' 3 contains (1) the description 
and history of the physical features, both natural 
and man-made, of Mecca and environs, including a 
discussion of the holy places and the rituals connected 
with them; (2) the ancient pre-Islamic history of the 
city; (3) a chronological list of its governors and 
rulers; and (4) a selection of historical events 
connected with it. The l Ikd, on the other hand, 
although it starts out with the holy topography of 
the city (abridged from the Shifd' and entitled al- 
Zuhur al-muktatafa min ta'rikh Makka al-musharrafa) , 
is a collection of biographies of persons connected in 
some way with the city, beginning with a biography 
of the Prophet (entitled al-Djawdhir al-saniyya fi 
'l-sira al-nabawiyya) and biographies of the other 
Mubammads and Ahmads, including a lengthy 
autobiography of the author in the third person, and 
then using an alphabetic arrangement. Of the Shifd', 
al-Fasi produced five or six successive abridgments, 
among them Tuhfat al-kiram bi-akhbar al-balad al- 
hardm and, as an abridgment of the Tuhfa, Tahsil 
al-mardm min ta'rikh al-balad al-hardm (additional 
mss. in Princeton 594 [393B]; Bursa, Hiiseyin Celebi 
794). An abridged edition of the c Ikd is preserved in 
"■Vdidlat al-kird li 'l-ghdrib /» ta'rikh Umm al-Kurd. 
A work entitled al-Mukni' fi akhbdr al-muluk wa 
'l-khulafd' wa-wuldt Makka al-musharrafa was 
published by F. Erdmann (Kazan 1822), and a work 
on Medina, al-Ridd wa 'l-kabul fi fadd'il al-Madina 
wa-ziydrat al-RasUl, appears in the margin of the 
Meccan edition of the 'I kd (neither of them seen by 
this writer). 

Biography: Wustenfeld, op. cit., ii, vi-xvi; 
Brockelmann, II, 221 f., S II, 221 f. In addition 
to the autobiography in the <Ikd, cf., for instance, 
Muhammad Ibn Fahd, Lahz al-alhdz, Damascus 
1347, 291-7; Sakhawl, Daw', vii, 18-20; idem, 
IHan, in F. Rosenthal, A history of Muslim 
historiography, Leiden 1952, 404, 408, 414 f. (and 



ibid., 524, for al-Sakhawi, al-Djawdhir wa 'l-durar) ; 
Ibn al- c Imad, Shadhardt, vii, 199. According to 
Daw', al-Fasi also has biographies in works of 
younger contemporaries such as Ibn Hadjar, Inbd y 
and Mu'-diam; al-MakrizI, 'Ukud; c Umar b. 
Muhammad Ibn Fahd (who also wrote mono- 
graphs on the Meccan families of the FSsIs and 
Nuwayrls [paw', vi, 128 f.] as well as a conti- 
nuation of the c lkd), Mu'-diam of his father. 

(F. Rosenthal) 
FASID wa BATIL, In the terminology of the 
Hanafi jurists, bdtil denotes the act which lacks one 
of the elements essential for the existence of any 
legal activity. Butldn embodies the notion of non- 
existence, and the act which lacks one of these 
elements which are considered fundamental is, in 
effect, deemed non-existent. 

If, while fulfilling the necessary conditions for its 
formation, a legal act does not observe the conditions 
of validity stricto sensu required for its perfection 
(awsdf, sing, wasf, quality), it is then said to be 
fdsid, or vitiated and therefore null. But this nullity 
(fasdd) is of a fundamental nature, and therefore has 
nothing in common with the relative nullity familiar 
to the Western jurist, who sees only in this latter 
concept a means of protecting those of defective 
legal capacity and all those whose agreement has 
been tainted by duress, error or deceit. Although 
it sometimes happens — by negligence or inadvertence 
— that fdsid and bdtil are used interchangeably, even 
by Hanafi authors who have a reputation for the 
scientific rigidity of their definitions, it is none the 
less true that the distinction between bd(il and fdsid 
is the principal characteristic of the Hanafi theory 
of nullity. 

The three other orthodox schools, as well as the 
former Zahiri school, reject this distinction. Ac- 
cording to their writers, there cannot be two degrees 
of invalidity based upon the nature of the rules whose 
non-observance is the subject of legal sanction. Thus 
they use the terms fdsid or bdtil indifferently to 
describe the legal act which is not valid in the eyes 
of the law. In the doctrine of these schools, the two 
terms are synonymous, the synonymity reflecting 
their notion of a single sanction. However, we must 
state at the outset that for the Shafi'Is and the 
Hanballs this uniform nullity corresponds to the 
bdtil form of nullity in Hanafi law, while for the 
Malikis its incidents coincide almost exactly with 
those of the fdsid type of nullity as expounded by 
Hanafi law. 

If the practical application of the principles we 
have just expounded does not present serious diffi- 
culties, even in Hanafi law, when it is only a question 
of dealings with property (sale, hire, pledge, etc.), 
it appears, on the contrary, singularly complicated 
in relation to the contract of marriage. In this 
sphere, the fluctuations of the classical doctrine, as 
it grappled with a contract arbitrarily classified in 
the same category as sale or hire (tamlikdt), but 
which, in fact, is radically distinct from them, have 
reverberated down the course of the centuries in 
the works of authors and have reappeared at the 
present time — always on the same point — in the 
codes and laws of personal status recently promul- 
gated in numerous Arab countries. It is therefore 
necessary to study the theory of nullity in the sphere 
of marriage separately in a third section. 

I. Hanafi doctrine. (A). Non-existence, al- 
bufldn. This, as has just been explained, is the 
sanction for the lack of any of the essential elements 
of a legal act, e.g., free will of the two parties (in 



830 



FASID wa BATIL 



contracts), which, furthermore, must be expressed 
by the use of a verb in the past tense and which 
must be declared in those conditions of time and 
place which together constitute what is called the 
session of the contract or the madjlis. Free will is 
presumed impossible (thence occasioning the non- 
existence of the act) in the case of a mentally defective 
person, a minor of tender years, and even in the case 
of a minor who has reached the age of discretion, 
when this latter performs an act, such as gift, which 
must necessarily cause him a material loss. Further 
elements considered fundamental are the actual 
existence of the object, its quality of legal property 
and the possibility of its delivery (the sale of fish 
in the sea and birds in the air is batil). 

The batil act, since it is considered non-existent, 
cannot have any legal effect, whether there has been 
delivery or not. Reasoning on the classical hypothesis 
of sale — the same rules applying mutatis mutandis 
to all legal acts — it follows that the purchaser, who 
has not become the owner, cannot constrain the 
vendor to deliver to him the sale object, no more 
than the vendor can require the purchaser to pay 
him the agreed price. If, in fact, there has been a 
performance of the agreement reached between 
them (which is no more than the semblance of a sale) 
the status quo must be restored, i.e., the vendor must 
return the price received and the purchaser the 
object delivered, without any need of recourse to 
law, at least to establish the non-existence of the act. 
Suppose, now, that after a batil sale followed by 
delivery the transferee in turn alienates the object, 
either for a consideration or gratuitously, or that he 
subjects it to some kind of lien, or that he hires it 
out or constitutes it as a wakf. In either event, the 
original vendor will not be deprived of the right to 
regain his property from the hands of a third party, 
whether this latter be a purchaser for value, a lessee, 
or the beneficiary of a wakf. The property, in fact, 
has never left his ownership because the sale con- 
cluded by him was legally non-existent — so much 
so, the Hanafl authors state, that his heirs will 
succeed to his right and will be able, after his death, 
to reclaim from the third party the object of which 
they are now the owners. 

There is one case where the application of the 
principles outlined above may possibly result in 
injustice. This is where the object sold has perished 
when in the possession of the transferee. 

Strict logic would require that the risks should 
lie with the vendor: he has remained the owner, 
since, by reason of the bdfil character of the sale, 
transfer of ownership has not been effected. The 
transferee, after having taken possession of the 
object, can only be considered, at most, as a trustee ; 
and risks, in the case of a trust, lie with the owner. 
There exists on this point some uncertainty in the 
doctrine. In general, authors confine themselves — 
without taking one side or the other — to expounding 
two applicable arguments: (a) the transferee is 
simply a trustee {amin), and the loss of the object 
releases him; (b) the transferee is a guarantor of the 
object, for this has been delivered to him not in the 
interests of the owner, but in his own interests. His 
taking of possession more closely resembles gkasb 
(usurpation) than a trust (amana). 

It would seem that this latter argument prevailed. 
In the bdfil sale, therefore, the risks will lie with 
the purchaser, when this latter has taken possession 
of the sale object which has then perished in his 
possession. He becomes liable for its value if it is 
a specific object, and where it is a fungible commod- 



ity, he will be bound to restore its equivalent (mithl). 

(B). Fundamental nullity, fasad, is the sanction 
for the infringement of conditions of validity which 
do not have the character of constituent elements 
of a legal act. Such are held to be the precise deter- 
mination of the object, as regards both its nature 
and its value, the absence of any illicit gain (ribd) 
and of the majority of accompanying conditions, and 
the exclusion of any prejudice which would be occa- 
sioned by the delivery of possession. As for the 
act obtained by duress, this also is regarded as fdsid 
in Hanafl law; but this kind of fdsid nullity is 
regulated in a particular fashion which distinguishes 
it from the fdsid nullity of common law. 

As a general proposition, we may say that the 
great majority of fdsid acts derive their character, 
in Hanafl law, from the fact that they contain 
accompanying conditions: an uncertain term or a 
suspensive condition (in the majority of the tamlikdt), 
immoral or illegal stipulations, or simply conditions 
which are not in harmony with the nature of the act 
to which they are attached. This extends consid- 
erably the sphere of fdsid nullity, which can thus be 
regarded as parallel with the nullity of common law, 
as opposed to the batil nullity whose r61e is most 
often confined to those theoretical arguments of a 
school which have no real practical interest. 

The effects of fdsid nullity are less extreme than 
those attached to batil nullity. This is easily explained 
inasmuch as the fdsid act, although void, is never- 
theless constituted; juridically speaking, it exists, 
although it is vitiated and therefore needs to be 
negated. The difference between the two kinds of 
nullity is especially apparent after the delivery of 
possession or voluntary performance, (a) Before 
delivery of possession (or, for certain contracts, 
voluntary performance) the fdsid act is not greatly 
distinct from the batil act. As is the case with the 
latter it does not give any of the parties the power 
to compel performance from the other. Each of them 
has the right, and the duty, to avail himself of the 
nullity. A judicial decree is not at all necessary, and 
the nullity will be established by the declaration of 
one of the parties or even by the simple act, of the 
vendor, for example, in alienating the object for the 
benefit of a third party. The judge who has know- 
ledge of such an act, must, by virtue of his office, 
pronounce its nullity. It is self-evident that fdsid 
nullity cannot be removed by confirmation. The act 
must be performed again in its entirety. However, if 
the nullity does not stem from a defect in the sale 
object, but results from the presence of a prohibited 
condition, the elimination of the offending condition 
will validate the act, which, thenceforth, will 
produce its normal effects. A usurious sale, from 
which the parties, by common agreement, have 
eliminated the clauses which gave it this character, 
will transfer ownership from the moment that the 
forbidden clause disappeared, (b) After the taking 
of possession authorized by the vendor (reasoning 
always on the basis of a sale), the fdsid act will 
produce certain effects which the bdfil act can never 
have. It is not that the taking of possession trans- 
forms it into a valid act {saftifi): this is certainly 
not so. It continues to be tainted with an absolute 
nullity, although the vendor has authorized the 
purchaser to take possession; and this latter is bound 
to restore the object received and to take back the 
price he has paid. Delivery of possession, then, 
following upon a fdsid sale, does not transfer owner- 
ship in Hanafl law, although such a 
often made without the necessary i 



FASID wa bAtil 



According to the opinion which prevails in the 
school, delivery of possession does not in reality 
transfer ownership, or at least ownership in the 
normal sense, since the vendor can always reclaim 
his property as long as it is in the possession of the 
transferee. Furthermore, this transferee cannot enjoy 
or use the thing which he has received (with the 
agreement of the vendor). "He cannot eat it, nor 
wear it (if it is a garment), nor ride it (if it is a beast 
of burden), nor live in the house (which he has 
bought), nor avail himself of the services of the slave 
girl that he has acquired" (al-Kasanl). What does 
result from delivery of possession following a fdsid 
sale is solely the transferee's power validly to 
dispose of the object delivered to him, either gratu- 
itously or for a consideration — e.g., he may sell it, 
give it away, constitute it as a wahf, or, if it is a slave, 
set him free. This fiction of ownership, albeit an 
odd ownership (khabitha, bad, defective) in that it 
confers upon the one in whom it vests the abusus, 
but not the usus or the fructus, is quite obviously 
designed to protect subsequent transferees against 
a claim for restitution by the original vendor, in 
so far as their title cannot be impugned on the 
ground that they acquired the property from one 
who was not the owner. It is this HanafI system, 
perhaps, which appears the least complicated. 

Apart from this result, vital for the protection 
of future transferees, delivery of possession or per- 
formance following a fdsid contract operates to 
produce two other effects, less important but not 
altogether devoid of interest. In the first place, 
where fdsid nullity is solely the result of the in- 
corporation of a prohibited term within the trans- 
action (an uncertain period, for example), the party 
in whose interests the term was stipulated has the 
option of relying upon the nullity or, on the other 
hand, validating the transaction by renouncing the 
benefit of the term; whereas, prior to delivery of 
possession, confirmation of the transaction by 
repudiation of the offending term could only have 
been effected by the mutual agreement of the two 
parties. The second result of the fdsid character of 
a legal transaction comes into play where the trans- 
feree has in fact utilised the property delivered to 

services have been performed, or, of course, where 
the first transferee has alienated the property sold. 
In this case, in order that nullity may not result 
in unjust enrichment, the price, rent or wages which 
become due will not be the agreed price, rent or 
wages (since the contract is null), but will be the 
market value of the property, or the rent custo- 
marily payable, or the usual wages. 

II. The doctrine of the other schools. The 
three other schools refuse to admit degrees of in- 
validity. To fail to observe the conditions required 
by the Shari'a for the validity of an act is equally 
serious whether it is a question of a fundamental 
condition or of an attribute (wasf), which, although 
it does not have an essential character, is never- 
theless imposed by the law. In both cases there is 
"disobedience" to the rules of the Shari'a which 
must be sanctioned by the same nullity. 

For the Shafi'is and the Hanballs, this single 
nullity corresponds with the bdtil nullity of HanafI 
law, at least as far as concerns the invalidity of acts 
of disposition effected by the transferee in a void 
sale: subsequent transferees are not protected 
against the claim of the original vendor. On this 
point the texts are explicit. However, outside con- 
tracts which operate to transfer ownership, the 



Shafi'is and the Hanballs sometimes accept the 
distinction between bdfil and fdsid in order to avoid, 
as far as possible, the injustice which would be 
entailed by the voluntary performance of a void 
contract if the status quo ante was purely and simply 
restored as the principle of butldn would require. 
Finally, the possibility, admitted by both these 
schools, of the partial annulment of a composite 
contract concluded by a single legal transaction 
(safka), which contains both valid and invalid com- 
ponents (the sale, at the same time, of a free man 
and a slave), fortunately serves to relax, to some 
degree, the rigidity of their principles. 

The Malikis, on their part, regulate the single 
nullity which sanctions invalid acts (termed fdsid or 
bdtil) in a different way, with the result that their 
system is closely parallel to the system of fdsid 
nullity in HanafI law, at least as far as concerns sale, 
the prototype contract of Islamic law. Recovery by 
the original vendor in a void sale is impossible, 
state the Maliki authors, when the purchaser has 
disposed of the property to the profit of a third 
party, whether by way of sale for a consideration or 
by gift, or when he has set free a slave, or even when 
he has merely made the property a pledge or has 
transferred it to a bailee. In these last two cases the 
original vendor is bound by the pledge or the bail- 
ment for their full duration. Equally, recovery by 
the original vendor is inadmissible when the form 
{sura) of the sale-object has been changed, by 
"increase or decrease", while in the possession of 
the first transferee. In this case the vendor will have 
to be satisfied with monetary compensation. 

III. Nullity of marriage. Certain HanafI 
authors of authority assert that the distinction 
between bdtil and fdsid which, for reasons readily 
understandable, does not apply to ritual obligations 
(Hbdddt), is equally alien to the contract of marriage, 
where all defects, whether they attach to the essence 
of the contract or to its external conditions of 
validity, are sanctioned by the same single nullity 
which is neither exactly a fdsid nullity nor exactly a 
bdtil nullity. In point of fact, the thought of the 
classical authors is difficult to follow on this matter, 
and the question of nullity in marriage presents one 
of the most difficult problems of HanafI law. For the 
other schools the problem is hardly more simple, and 
the solutions which appear to have prevailed with 
them seem, paradoxically enough, to establish the 
distinction between bdtil and fdsid which they 
rejected in other spheres of the law. 

Difficulties and uncertainties stem from the fact 
that the question is bound up with a problem 
peculiar to Islamic penal law — that of shubha, or 
semblance, which is one of the grounds for avoidance 
of the fixed penalties. The doctrine of each school 
— and, in the HanafI school, the two doctrines there 
adopted concerning nullity in marriage — are directly 
influenced by the position taken by the jurists in 
regard to this theory of shubha. Indeed, it must not 
be forgotten that the annulment of a marriage, with 
its retrospective effect, results in the assumption 
that the spouses have never in fact been married ; if, 
therefore, there has been consummation, this will, 
in principle, be held to be fornication, punishable by 
the severe fixed penalty {hadd) presciibed in cases of 
zind. This penalty, like all the other fixed penalties 
(hudud), is avoided whenever there exists a shubha, 
or semblance, between the deed with which the 
accused is charged and another deed of the same 
nature which is indisputably not criminal. According 
to Abu Hanlfa, such a semblance is found in three 



FASID wa BATIL 



sets of circumstances : firstly, when the action with 
which the accused is charged resembles an action 
which is normally permissible {shubha fi 'l-fi c l), 
although here the accused must have acted in good 
faith and in ignorance of the criminal character of 
the act — a husband, for example, has had sexual 
relations with his wife, believing them to be permis- 
sible, during the period of retirement which follows 
an irrevocable repudiation; secondly, when the 
illegality founded upon a proof text may appear 
•dubious because of the existence of another, ambi- 
guous text {shubha fi H-mahall) which precludes 
any unanimity of juristic opinion on the point con- 
cerned, — a Hanafi, for example, could believe 
that the presence of witnesses at the moment 
of the conclusion of a marriage is not indispensible 
since they are not required, at that moment, 
by the Malikis; finally, when the act has been 
•done as the result of a contract which observed 
merely the conditions of formation {shubhat al-'akd). 
This third category of shubha is admitted by Abu 
Hanifa alone, and is rejected by his two pupils (Abu 
Yusuf and al-Shaybanl) and by the three other 
Imams: its result is the avoidance of the hadd for 
fornication in every case where the dissolution of a 
marriage has taken place for any reason what- 

vitiated in its essence. Accordingly, in the opinion 
of Abu Hanifa — and in his opinion alone — if the 
contract of marriage is ostensibly valid because 
it fulfills all the necessary conditions of formation, 
but its nullity is nevertheless manifest because 
there exists an impediment to marriage between 
these two spouses (too close a blood-relation- 
ship, foster relationship, the husband already having 
four wives, the wife already being married to 
another man who has not repudiated her, etc.) then, 
in these cases, the penalty for fornication will not be 
applied after the separation of the couple; and this 
will be so whether or not the spouses acted in good 
faith, i.e., whether they knew, or did not know, of 
the prohibition they were infringing. The two 
pupils of Abu Hanifa, and all the jurists of the three 
other schools, did not admit the shubhat al- c altd, and 
accordingly decided that in such a case the penalty 
for fornication would lapse only if one, at least, of 
the two spouses believed that the law was not being 
broken by their contract of marriage — this, by 
applying the shubha fi '1-fiH. In other words, the 
dissolution of a marriage on the ground that there 
existed a legal impediment between the spouses will 
entail the application of the hadd only where the two 
spouses acted in bad faith, knowing that they were 
being married in contravention of a legal prohibition. 
In seeking to reconcile the preceding solutions, 
•which are of a penal nature and are strictly concerned 
only with the offence of fornication, with the rules 
relating to the conditions of formation and validity of 
a mairiage, the authors arrived at two systems of 
nullity. The Hanafi school always hesitated between 
the two, while the three other schools adopted the 
second. It is necessary, at the beginning, to stress 
that if the ground for nullity is established before 
consummation, the marriage is deemed, purely and 
simply, never to have existed: there is no dower, no 
maintenance and no rights of succession should one 
of the spouses die before the declaration of nullity. 
Any Muslim has the right to invoke such a declaration 
"by the couit, if the spouses themselves have not made 
it: this, in fact, they are obliged to do and, moreover, 
no formalities are required. On this point there is a 
s of opinion. When nullity is established 



after consummation, Abu Hanifa distinguishes 
between the fact that it results from the absence of 
a condition of the existence of marriage (legal 
capacity of the spouses, mutual agreement in the 
course of the same contractual session) and the fact 
that it results from any other cause external to the 
formation of the contract. In the first case the 
marriage does not exist. It is b&til and it pro- 
duces no eftect, neither entitlement to succession, 
nor legitimacy of children, nor the obligation of the 
wife to observe the 'waiting period' (Hdda). However, 
because of the shubhat al-'a%d which results from 
the semblance of a contract the spouses are not 
liable for the hadd penalty, and, because there is 
no hadd, the wife is entitled to the dower, by 
virtue of the maxim : 'Sexual relations with a woman 
entail either a payment ( c «£r) or a penalty fakr). 
In the second case, there exists a marriage which, 
as a matter of form, is ostensibly valid although the 
violation of a legal prohibition renders it null {fdsid) : 
Abu Hanifa accordingly ascribes to the union certain 
of the effects which flow from a valid marriage, even 
though the two spouses should be aware of the 
illicit nature of their union: (a) firstly, there is no 
longer any question of the hadd, the spouses 
being relieved therefrom by shubhat aW-ahd: (b) 
because the penalty is avoided, the woman has 
the right to a dower — the proper (customary) or 
stipulated dower, whichever is less; (c) the woman 
will be bound to observe the period of retirement, 
which will last until the completion of three menstrual 
periods {kuru'); (d) the issue born of this sexual 
relationship will be the legitimate children of then- 
father ; (e) finally, the fdsid marriage will raise a bar 
to marriage between the relatives of the spouses 
whose union has been terminated. 

According to the two pupils of Abu Hanifa and 
the three other Imams (al-Shafi c I, Malik and Ibn 
Hanbal), when nullity is incurred on the ground 
that the marriage has been concluded in defiance 
of some prohibition concerning blood relationship, 
affinity, fosterage, religion, or the fact that the 
woman was already married or in her period of 
retirement, or that the husband already had four 
wives etc., in all cases enquiry must first be made 
as to whether the ground of nullity is or is not 
disputed. Where there is no unanimity of the 
jurists that an impediment in fact exists, the 
spouses wiil benefit from the shubha which arises 
from such disagreement. And even when it is 
admitted that the idjmd c condemns the union, still 
enquiry must be made as to whether the spouses 
were acting, at the moment of the conclusion 
of the marriage, in good or in bad faith. Where 
they acted in good faith, the marriage, although 
naturally null or fdsid, will nevertheless give rise 
to the limited effects which, in Abu Hanlfa's 
view, follow the dissolution of a fdsid marriage — 
although certain schools hold that the wife is 
necessarily entitled to the proper dower, even if 
this exceeds the agreed dower. 

Where the two spouses acted in bad faith, they 
are liable to the h<*dd for fornication, and none of the 
normal effects of marriage follows the dissolution of 
their union (except the istibra 1 of one menstrual 
period in Maliki law). 

One cannot help drawing a parallel between this 
system and the institution of putative marriage in 
Christian canon law. In any event, those who adopt 
it are returning, without acknowledging it and, 
indeed, without mentioning it, to the distinction 
between fdsid and bdfil. 



FASID wa-BATIL — FASIK 



833 



The contemporary Codes of Personal Status or 
laws on the status of the family, which have been 
recently promulgated (Ottoman Law of 1917, arts. 
52-8 and 75-6; Jordanian Law of 1951, arts. 28-9, 
37-8; Syrian Code ot 1953, arts. 47-51; Tunisian 
Code of 1956, arts. 21-2; Moroccan Code of 1958, 
art. 37), although freed from the concern of having 
to avoid the hadd for fornication, which is no longer 
anywhere applied, have adopted the thesis of Abu 
Hanlfa in its broad outlines. However, the Ottoman 
Law and the Syrian Code consider as bdfil the 
marriage of a Muslim woman with a non-Muslim, and 
the Jordanian Law attributes the same character to 
a marriage between persons within the prohibited 
degrees, neither of which rules agrees with the 
principles of Abu Hanlfa. The criterion of good faith 
appears only in a single Code — the Moroccan Code, 
where art. 37, sec. 5, provides that "where good 
faith is established, a void marriage will result in a 
legal connexion between the children born of such 
a union and their parents". 

Bibliography: I. Kasani, BaddH 1 al-sandV, 
Cairo 1327, v, 299 ff.; Ibn al-Humam, Fath al- 
Kadir, and other commentaries of the Hiddya, v, 
227 ff.; Ibn Nudjaym, al-Bahr al-rd'ik, vi, 90 ff.; 
Modern authors: Chafik T. Chehata, Thiorie 
genital de t'obtigation en droit musulman, Cairo 
1936, 127 ff. ; Sanhiiri, Masddir al-hakk, Cairo 
1957. iv, 142 ff. ; 0. Spies, Das System der Nichtig- 
keit im islamischen Recht, in Deutsche Landes- 
referate zum VI. International Kongress fur 
Rechtsvergleichung 1962, Berlin and Tubingen 1962, 
87-99- 

II. Shafi'i law: Zakariyya' al-Ansari, Sharh al- 
bahdia '■ala'l-minhddi, ii, ^^;Suy\it\,al-Ashbdh wa 
'1-nazdHr, ed. Mustafa Muhammad, Cairo 1359, 
233. Maliki law: Dasukl-Dardir, al-Sharh al-kabir, 
iii, 70 ff . ; Ibn Rushd, Biddyat al-mudjtahid, ed. 
al-Istikdma, ii, 191 ff. Hanbali law: Ibn Kudama, 
Mughni*, iv, 231, 232. 

III. Ibn Nudjaym, op. cit., iii, 184, v, 16 ff.; 
Ibn c Abidin, Radd al-Muhtdr 3 , Bulak, ii, 835; Ibn 
al-Humam, op. cit., ii, 382, 468 ff.; Ibn Kudama, 
op. cit., vi, 455 ff. Among contemporary writers: 
Abu Zahra, al-Zawddj 1 , Cairo 1950, 142 ft.; c Umar 
<Abd Allah, al-Ahwdl al-shakhsiyya*, Cairo 1958, 
103 ff.; J. N. D. Anderson, Invalid and void 
marriages in Hanafi Law, in BSOAS, xiii/2 (1950), 

357 ff. (Y. LlNANT DE BELLEFONDS) 

FASlfl [see fasaha]. 

FA$Im DEDE, Ahmed (d. mi/1699), Turkish 
poet of the Mewlewi order, born in Istanbul. He 
was the son of Mehmed, of the Dukakinzade family. 
After a thorough grounding in oriental literatures he 
•entered the service of the grand vizier Kbpriiliizade 
Ahmed Pasha, but soon abandoned this easy life to 
enter the order of the Mewlewis, and became a 
disciple of Ghawthi Dede, the sheykh of the famous 
Galata convent. 

Apart from a diwdn he is the author of many 
poems in Persian and Arabic and several mathnawis, 
strongly mystic in nature and terminology. 

Bibliography: The tedhkires of Salim, Safari, 
Beligh, Esrar Dede, s.v.; Abdulbaki Golpinarli, 
Mevldnd'dan sonra Mevlevilik, Istanbul 1953. 
index; Sidfill-i '■Othmdni, iv, 21; Bursal! Tahir, 
( Othmanli mU'ellifleri, ii, 366; Istanbul kutupha- 
neleri tiirkfc yazma divanlar katalogu, ii, 494. 

(Fahir tz) 
FASI$, unjust man, guilty of fish,— that is to 
say, one who has committed one or several "great 
sins" (kabdHr). Most of the authors of Him al-kaldm 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



avoid extending the term fdsik to the believer who 
is guilty only of "lesser sins" (saghd'ir). 

The "name and status" {al-ism wa 'l-hukm) of the 
fdsik is one of the cardinal points discussed by the 
kaldm. Its origin goes back to the battle of Siffin 
and to the question which believers then raised, as 
to the destiny on earth and the future destiny of the 
Muslim leader, and hence of all Muslims who sinned. 

Two initial trains of thought: a) the Kharidils 
purely and simply condemned the unrepentant 
fdsik to eternal hell and, on earth, denied his right 
to stand at the head of the Community. To commit 
an act of fisk rendered the imam unable to hold 
his office. (N.B.: for the Shi'a, the lawful imam 
is inherently sinless), b) The Murdji^Is made the 
unjust man subject, on earth, to the fixed legal 
penalties (hudud) ; but once this debt to the Commu- 












fuU e 



believer, and, for the life to come, every 
believer is saved in hope. 

These extreme solutions were to undergo certain 
modifications in the course of scholastic controver- 
sies, but were also to be a source of inspiration for 
them. It was on this theme that the MuHazila 
elaborated the thesis of the so-called "intermediary 
status", one of their particular characteristics which 
is attributed to Wasil ibn c Ata>. The fdsik is not 
entirely a believer (mu'min) nor entirely an infidel 
(kdfir), but "in a position between the two", 
fi manzilat in bayna 'l-manzilatayn. On earth, he is 
answerable to the laws of the Muslim Community; 
but if he does not repent, he will be punished with 
eternal hell (e.g. Kur'dn, XXXII, 20)— though his 
punishment, it is true, will be less severe than that 
of the kdfir. This reply is entirely dependent on the 
conception of faith (imdn) which is involved. In the 
eyes of the Mu c tazila indeed, to be a believer signifies 
at once adhering in one's heart, professing with 
the tongue, and witnessing "with the limbs" by 
performing the actions prescribed by the Law. 
Whoever does not fulfil the third condition cannot 
truly be a believer, and so cannot be saved. 

In the Ibdna (Cairo 1348, ii) and the Makdldf 
(ed. Ritter, i, 293) Abu '1-Hasan al-Ash'ari defines 
the faith as "words and deeds", kawl and a'-mdl, 
thereby appearing to integrate the "witness of the 
limbs" with it, like the MuHazila. But his Kitdb al- 
Luma c (ed. McCarthy, Beirut 1953, 75/104) states: 
"faith in God is ta$dik- (adherence) to God". And he 
taught clearly that it was impossible for a fdsik to 
be neither a believer nor an unbeliever ; if he was a 
believer before becoming a sinner, he said, the "great 
sin" committed will not invalidate his standing as a 
believer (Luma'-, 75-6/104-6). And al-Ash c ari upholds 
this opinion with the tradition of the ahl al- 
istikdma ("people of Rectitude", in R. J. McCarthy's 
translation). The later Ash'arites were to maintain the 
same principle even more forcibly since, for them, faith 
came to be identified solely with tasdik, adherence, 
inner judgement. — The same solution appears in the 
Hanafi-Maturidi line of thought which defines faith 
as tasdik and its avowal in the spoken word (thus 
Fikh Akbar I, 1; Wasiyyat AM Hanlfa, 4; Fikh 
Akbar II, 14). The fdsik is a sinner, but a believer. 

In its apparent sense, verse XXXII, 18 of the 
Kur'an certainly seemed to open the way to the 
MuHazila solution: "Is then the man who is a 
believer like him who is fdsik ? (No), they are in no 
way the same". But from the 4th/ioth century, the 
dominant tendencies of Him al-kaldm taught that 
the fdsik would be saved in the Hereafter. He can 
be punished by a certain time in the (eternal) hell: 

53 



FASIK — FASILA 



Ash c aris; or he will certainly be punished in that 
way: Maturidis (Ft** A kbar II, 14). But finally God 
will make him enter Paradise. "Those whose heart 
contains only an atom of faith", says the hadith, "will 
leave hell" (al-Bukhari, Imdn, 33). According to the 
opinion which became generally accepted, good deeds 
enhance faith, but cease to form an integral part of 
its expression; to fail in a prescribed duty does not 
therefore render faith invalid. — Abu Hamid al- 
Ghazzali, who accepted as equally legitimate both the 
definition which identifies faith with internal 
adherence alone, and also that which adds verbal 
profession and bodily actions (cf. Ihyd', Cairo 1352/ 
1933, i, 104-5), defended the same thesis. He 
defines the fdsik as the Muslim who adhered to the 
faith in his heart, professed it in his words, performed 
certain prescribed actions, but who committed 
"great sins". 

The Ash'ari solution is, in short, that of the ahl 
al-sunna taken as a whole, including the Hanbalis, 
the opponents of kaldm. It will be found for 
example in Ibn Taymiyya, and subsequently it 
became one of the articles of the Wahhabi profession 
of faith (cf. H. Laoust, Doctrines sociales et politiques 
de Taki-d-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya, Cairo 1939, 621). 

Two problems. — 1) Can a prophet be said to 
be fdsik ? Literalists (called hashwiyya by then- 
adversaries) have admitted this; but it is a question 
of purely material or unintentional sins, some will 
point out. The majority of Sunnis will consider it 
blasphemous to attribute the name of fdsik to a 
prophet. In his case they will admit, at most, 
only "minor sins", and that only insofar as neither the 
transmission of the message received from God (cf. 
al-Badjuri, Ijdshiya . . . '■aid Djawharat al-tawhid, 
Cairo 1352/1934, 71-3), nor even the personal obser- 
vance of the Law by the prophet is concerned. 
Moreover, certain acts which appear to be sins have 
been performed by prophets merely "by way of 
teaching". The ShI'a (e.g., Nasir al-DIn al-Tusi, Hill!) 
were to teach the absolute sinlessness (Hsma) of the 
prophet, and their doctrine was to influence their 
adversaries themselves. Thus the "modern" Fakhr 
al-DIn Razi [q.v.], who nevertheless maintains the 
possibility of trifling errors arising from involuntary 
forgetfulness or from obscurities in the regulations; 
but still more the Hanbali Ibn Taymiyya who 
adopts the Shi'a thesis in its entirety, though 
making the Hsma a gratuitous (and no longer "obliga- 
tory") favour of God (cf. Laoust, op. cit., 191). 

2) Is it lawful to rise against an imam who is fdsik ? 
Yes, answered the Kharidjis and Mu'tazila, who even 
regarded insurrection as a duty in that event. The 
same attitude is found with the Zaydis (moderate 
ShI'a) and various Shi'a trends, but the dogma 
of the imam's sinlessness widely prevailed among 
the ShI'a. — Certain jurists make a distinction: no 
revolt against the imam who is fdsik, but refusal to 
obey the agents who are enforcing the injustice. 
Common Sunni doctrine calls for obedience to the 
imam (and his agents), even if he be fdsik in his 
private life, so long as he orders nothing contrary to 
Kur 3 anic law. But if a command of his runs counter 
to a precise Kur'anic or traditional precept, disobe- 
dience is permitted and even obligatory; if there is 
a guarantee of success, he must be deposed, if 
necessary by force. 

In legal terminology, fdsik is the opposite of 
<adl [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: in the article; and all the 

treatises on Him al-kaldm under the heading al- 

ahkam wa 'l-asmd* (e.g. Bakillanl, Djuwaynl, 



DjurdjanI, Badjuri, etc.); A. J. Wensinck, The 
Muslim Creed, Cambridge 1932, index s.v.; L. 
Gardet, Les noms et les statuts, in Stud. Isl., iii, 
Paris 1956. (L. Gardet) 

FA$ILA in its original usage indicates a sepa- 
rative : "a pearl (kharaza) which effects a separation 
between two other pearls in the stringing of the 
latter" when a necklace or piece of jewellery is 
being made (see Lane s.v.) ; fdsila, with this sense 
of separative, has received two technical usages, one 
in Arabic prosody, the other in Kur'anic terminology. 
In Arabic prosody ('arud [q.v.]), fdsila denotes a 
division in the primitive feet, meaning three huruf 
mutaharrika followed by one harf sdhin, e.g. : hatalat 
(al- fdsila al-sughrd), or else four A«r«/ mutaharrika 
followed by one harf sdhin, e.g.: katala-hum (al- 
fdsila al-kubrd). Al-Khalil (according to LA, xiv, 
38, 1. 21-2/xi, 523b, 1. 27 ff.) used fdsila for the first 
group and fddila for the second. The first denotes 
the series two short syllables + one long syllable, 
the anapaest of Graeco- Latin prosody; the second 
denotes the series three short syllables + one long 
syllable, the fourth paeon in the said prosody. But 
there is an important difference: the anapaest and 
the fourth paeon denote rhythmic units, whilst 
fdsila sughrd or kubrd relate to divisions, groups, 
within primary rhythmic units (the tafdHl), in 
order to explain the composition of the latter. 

The Kur'anic text carries rhymes. The question 
was raised in the Muslim world, by what technical 
term are these rhymes to be designated ? There was 
no hesitation in rejecting the kdfiya of shi c r, for the 
Kur'an is not a work of shi'r (poetry). Was the 
Kur'an sadi' [q.v.] ? Many of those who did not 
profess Ash'arism (this must refer to the Mu'tazila) 
adopted and defended this point of view. But after 
al-Ash'arl and al-Bakillani it was abandoned: in 
fact, on the one hand the verses of the Kur'an, in 
general, are not balanced according to the rules of 
sadf and the rhymes are given a freedom not 
permitted by the latter (see Th. Noldeke, Geschichte 
des Qorans 1 , i, 37-41); on the other hand, Muslim 
religious sentiment was reluctant to apply to the 
Kur'an, kaldm Allah, a designation not derived from 
Him, and which was moreover taken from a human 
source, namely the sadf of the soothsayers, whom 
Muhammad disliked. The solution was to consider 
the Kur'anic text as prose of a particular kind and 
to designate its rhymes by a special term, fdsila, pi. 
fawdsil, which could be compared with the Kur'anic 
expression fassalnd 'l-dydt (VI, 97, 98, 126). Ibn 
Khaldun rep eats the opinion which for long had been 
common, when he writes on the subject of the 
Kur'an: wa-in kdna min al-manthur Hid annahu . . . 
laysa yusammd mursal"" itldk"" wa-ld musadidja'-'"', 
"although it is prose, it is however not free prose, 
nor rhymed prose (sadf-)" and he expounds its 
particular character (Mukaddima, iii, 322 ; Eng. tr., 
Rosenthal, iii, 368). 

The technical designation of rhyme is thus 
established according to a triple division: kdfiya 
for shi'-r (poetry), fdsila for Kur'anic prose, and 
harlna for sadf, and the Kur'anic fdsila was ex- 
plained by comparison with its partners: al-fdsila 
halimat dkhir al-dya ka-kdfiyat al-shi'-r wa-karinat 
al-sadi c , "al-fdsila is the word at the end of the verse, 
like the kdfiya in poetry and the karina in sad?" 
(al-Suyuti, Itkdn, beginning of Ch. 59); see also 
Kdmils, root f s I. 

Bibliography: in addition to the references 
in the text, for fdsila of '■arud, LA, xiv, 38/xi, 
523b; writers on Arabic prosody, D. Vernier, 



FASILA — al-FASIYYON 



835 



Gr. Ar., ii, 515; S. de Sacy, Gr. Ar.', ii, 619, etc. 
For the Kur'anic fasila, see particularly ch. 59 
of the man of SuyutI; for both, the Diet, of 
techn. terms, ed. A. Sprenger, ii, 1140-1 (cf. i, 
672-3). (H. Fleisch) 

FA$lLA, verbal adjective of the faHl type in the 
passive sense, as the Arab lexicographers record, 
denoting an object which is "separated", like the 
young animal when weaned (young camel or calf), 
in the feminine fasila; and the same feminine form 
is used for a palmtree sucker when transplanted. 
It is no doubt the same semantic derivation which 
explains the meaning of the smallest "section" of a 
tribe, the closest relatives: thus c Abbas, according 
to the LA, is called fasilat al-Nabi "close kinship 
with the Prophet". However, Arabic philological 
doctrine advances one meaning of fasila "fragment 
of the flesh of the thigh" by virtue of the principle 
which makes every term of this tribal nomenclature 
correspond with the name of one part of the body. 
Robertson Smith has, not without probability, 
claimed to discern in the origin of this series various 
allusions to the female organs such as bain "belly" 
(starting with hayy which seems to be connected), 
upon which the denominations of male organs would 
be superimposed when the patriarchal organization 
was substituted for the matriarchy. (J. Lecerf) 

al-FASIYYCN or ahl Fas, a name given to the 
inhabitants of Fas. In the local dialect this name does 
not apply to all those who live in Fas, but to those 
who were born there and have right of citizenship 
through having adopted the ways and customs of 
the city and its code of good manners. 

The population of Fas was formed little by little 
of many diverse elements. The original basis was 
certainly made up of Berbers and some Arab 
companions of the Idrisids. From the beginning of 
the 3rd/gth century on, the population grew through 
the coming of political refugees from Cordova and 
Kayrawan, who brought the traditions and tech- 
niques of long-rooted urban peoples to the new town. 
Even though the people of Kayrawan did not 
continue to swarm into Fas, the Muslims of Andalusia 
came time after time to establish themselves there, 
at any rate up to the conquest of Granada by the 
Catholic Kings (1492). 

In addition, various groups were added to the 
original kernel of the population through the circum- 
stances of Morocco's dynastic history: Berbers from 
South Morocco under the Almoravids and the 
Almohads ; Berbers from East Morocco and members 
of Arab tribes under the Marinids ; Berbers from the 
oases of the Sahara and negroes under the Sa'dis; 
Filalls and negroes under the 'Alawids. At different 
periods, the Muslim population of the town was 
augmented by a number of families of Jewish 
converts to Islam of whom several, the Cohens for 
example, have preserved their original names. It 
must also not be forgotten that, at any rate in the 
19th century, groups of Muslims came to Fas from 
outside for the purpose of practising various speci- 
alized trades, Berbers of the High Guir, for instance, 
who are porters, the people of Tuwat who handle 
fatty substances, those from the Dra c who are 
gardeners, those of Sus who are dealers in fatty 
substances, and those of the Rif who take part in 
the pressing of the olives. It is interesting that the 
Middle Atlas, although so near, has provided Fas 
with very few immigrants. 

Since the French conquest of Algeria, Fas has 
formed a refuge for a number of families from the 
Oran area, notably Tlemcen, who preferred emi- 



gration to foreign domination. This was the case 
especially first in 1835 and then in 1911. 

Before the 20th century the population scarcely 
ever seems to have passed the 100,000 mark, if it 
was as high, but no reliable document exists on this 
subject. Since the Protectorate, the number of 
Muslim inhabitants has grown, but in modest 
proportions compared with many other Moroccan 
towns: 163,000 in the 1952 census. This relative 
stagnation means that the traditional citizens have 
not been swamped in an enormous mass of new 
arrivals but preserve their personality and pre- 
eminence. This personality is characterized by a 
happy balance between economic activity, intel- 
lectual activity, and the religious life of the city, 
and by the existence of an etiquette {k&Hda) which 
rules most stringently the relationships of the people 
of Fas amongst themselves. Only those whose 
roots are truly in the city follow this etiquette, and 
they alone have a right to the name of Fasiyyun. 
They can be divided into several social strata which 
complement rather than compete with each other: 
at the top of the social ladder are the big merchants, 
the high functionaries and the religious leaders who 
form the middle-classes; then come the small 
tradesmen and the artisans; finally there are the 
workmen settled in the city or about to become a 
part of it. The mass of labourers originally from the 
country who live miserably in their 'bidonvilles', 
form a quite separate society entirely different from 
the people of Fas. The strong personality of these 
people has caused them to preserve almost up to 
the present time a great number of legal and social 
customs inherited from their ancestors; the rules and 
ceremonies of marriage are an example. This state 
of things is in the course of being modified owing to 
European influence, which was most marked during 
the Protectorate. The behaviour of the Europeans 
living in Fas, and even more the ideas which they 
spread, the contact which they helped to establish 
between the society of Fas and the outside world, 
introduced the seeds of transformation into the city, 
not only in matters to do with the habits of daily 
life but also in matters concerning family and social 
structure and behaviour. It is still too early to judge 
how far this evolution will go. 

There is every right to consider the Jews as 
Fasiyyun because they were to be found in Fas 
from the time of its foundation and for centuries 
lived in the Madina side by side with the Muslims. 
It was only in the gth/i5th century that they were 
compelled to live in a special quarter, the Mellah. 
Apart from those Jews installed there since the city's 
beginnings, whose exact origin it is impossible to 
discover, it is well known that the Jewish community 
has been enriched on a number of occasions by 
families or individuals emigrating from Spain; in the 
19th century Spanish was still the daily language 
of more than a few families. In general, the relation- 
ship between the Jews and the Muslim middle 
classes has been correct and sometimes cordial. On 
the other hand, it has happened that the people of 
Fas al-Djadid have broken out against the Mellah, 
as was the case in April 1912, at the time of the 
revolt of the Moroccan troops. More rarely, the 
government has persecuted the Jewish community, 
notably during the short reign of Mawlay al-Yazid 
(1790-1792)- Even more than the Muslims, the Jews 
of Fas have been affected by European influences 
since the beginning of the 20th century; many have 
left the Mellah for the New Town (Ville Nouvelle) . 
Bibliography: Leo Africanus, Descr. de 



836 



al-FASIYYON — FASL 



I'Afrique, trans. A. Epaulard, i, 179-233; J. and 
J. Tharaud, Fez ou les bourgeois de I'lslam, Paris 
1930; F. Bonjean, Les confidences d'une li'le de la 
nuit, Paris 1939; R. Le Tourneau. Fes avant le 
protectorat, Casablanca 1949, Books iii and viii. 
See also the bibliography to tlio art. fas. 

(R. Le Tourneau) 
FASKH— The term faskh, in the language of the 
Islamic jurists, has a very wide meaning. It serves in 
a general way to designate the dissolution of any 
contractual bond whatever (Ibn Nudjaym, al- 
Ashbdh, ii, 114). Whether or not the contract was 
validly formed, the intervention of faskh will reduce 
it to nought. But faskh presupposes a contract which 
at least fulfils all the conditions necessary to its 
formation, i.e., a mun < akid contract. A non-existent 
contract cannot be the object of faskh. On the 
other hand, a formed contract which happens to 
be vitiated by some irregularity (fdsid) can be 
dissolved only by means of faskh, even though in 
the meantime it does not produce any of its legal 
effects. Faskh, in this case, is equivalent to an- 
nulment. In cases of error or injurious misrepre- 
sentation Islamic doctrine does not regard the 
contract as fdsid. It is nevertheless subject to 
faskh, under certain conditions. Faskh in this case 
constitutes the sanction of an express or implied 
condition included in the contract. Generally speak- 
ing, faskh is admitted whenever one of the con- 
tracting parties fails to fulfil one of the express 
or implied conditions stipulated in the contract. 
It is by the application of this principle that a sale 
is annulled in cases of redhibitory defect or eviction. 
In this sense faskh can be identified with rescission. 
But the domain of rescission is singularly restricted 
in Islamic law. In effect, in the absence of an 
express or implied rescissory clause, it is impossible 
in Islamic law to obtain the rescission of a contract 
by reason of the failure of the other party to dis- 
charge his obligation. The only remedy available 
is compulsory performance (Chafik Chehata, Thiorie 
de Vobligation en droit musulman, 147, 204). 

Faskh is not only annulment or rescission. The 
revocation of a gift, or of any other contract revocable 
by its nature, takes place equally by way of faskh. 
Likewise, a contract by nature irrevocable becomes 
susceptible of faskh, or revocable, whenever it in- 
cludes a right of option (khiydr). 

Finally, an irrevocable contract can be dissolved 
by mutuus dissensus (ikdla). This dissolution effected 
by a mutual agreement is equally termed faskh by 
the jurists — at least with regard to relations inter 
partes. 

Thus the term faskh comes to embrace also the 
cases of revocation and cancellation. 

In every case faskh is effected, as a rule, by means 
of a declaration of intention pronounced in the 
presence of the other contracting party. This 
faskh is regarded by the jurists as a juridical 
its own right. However, in certain cases faskh must 
be obtained by judicial process. This is so in the 
case of redhibitory defects discovered after the 
delivery of the object sold. Likewise, the revocation 
of a gift must, as a rule, be pronounced by the judge. 
It should be mentioned here that the judge can 
pronounce officially the faskh of a vitiated contract 
when one or other of the parties has not requested it. 
Moreover, faskh is clearly distinguished in the 
texts from infisdkh, which comes about without the 
need of any declaration or judicial decree. An example 
is provided by the case of impossibility of perfor- 
mance. If the object sold perishes before delivery to 






the buyer, the contract is dissolved by the normal 
operation of the law. Here the authors are fond of 
the term nullity or hutldn (Sarakhsi, xii, Mabsut, xii, 
174). Likewise in the case where proof of the contract 
is held impossible by reason of the conflicting oaths 
sworn by either side, the contract is dissolved by 
the normal operation of the law: infisdkh (Kasani, 
BadaH 1 , v, 238). 

Once faskh is effected the contract stands dissolved, 
and things must be restored to their former condi- 
tion : the status quo ante. This is why faskh becomes 
impossible if the thing representing the object of a 
contract has happened to perish in the meantime As a 
rule, faskh has a retro-active effect (Kasani, v, 239): 
the contract is held never to have existed. The effects 
of the contract disappear as from the day it was 
formed. However, with a view to protecting the 
rights of third parties, the mutuus dissensus (ikdla) 
is considered a new alienation with respect to third 
parties. As far as they are concerned it does not have 
a retroactive effect. Likewise the alienation of a 
thing to the profit of a third party prevents the 
operation of faskh. Thus the right to dissolve the 
contract is destroyed, and the thing is established 
in the ownership of the third party who has acquir- 
ed it. 

We must notice, finally, that in family law faskh is 
distinguished from taldk. Taldk, which is the ex- 
clusive right of the man, brings about the dissolution 
of the marriage by a simple unilateral declaration. 
It always presupposes a validly formed contract. 
Dissolution of marriage by way of faskh takes place 
at the instance of the wife or her relatives. It 
generally comes about by judicial process. Like any 
other faskh, this dissolution embraces cases of failure 
to fulfil an express or implied condition, as well as 
those cases where the contract is vitiated by some 
irregularity. The grounds for dissolution of marriage 
by way of faskh are defined by the law, and faskh 
constitutes the legal means open to the wife of 
dissolving the conjugal tie in case of serious cruelty 
(Egyptian laws, no. 25 of 1920, no. 25 of 1929). 
Bibliography: Chafik Chehata, Thiorie geni- 
rale de Vobligation en droit musulman, Cairo 1936; 
Hasan c Ali al-Zanun, al-Nazariyya al-'dmma li 
'l-faskhfi 'l-fikh al-isldmi wa 'l-kdnun al-mukdran, 
Cairo 1946; C A1I al-Khafif, Furak al-zawddf fi 
'l-madhdhib al-isldmiyya, Cairo 1958; M. Morand, 
Quelques particularity du droit musulman des 
obligations, in Bulletin de Legislation Comparie, 
1929, 305-69; al-Sanhurl, Masddir al-hakk fi 
'l-fikh al-isldmi, vi, Cairo 1959. 

(Chafik Chehata) 
FA§L etymologically, like fark, expresses the 
general meaning of separation or disjunction (for the 
various meanings, see LA, xiv, 35-9 for fasl; xii, 174- 
82 for /arA; Abu '1-Baka 3 , K . al-Kulliyydt, 275). In 
logic, fasl signifies "difference" and especially 
"specific difference", the Stacpopa of the five 
predicables of Porphyry (1. ye\>6<;, djins, genus; 
2. elSo;, naw c , species; 3. Siacpopa, fasl, difference; 
4. tSiov, khdssa, property; 5. au|i|k|JY)x6<;, c arad, 
accident. The Ikhwan al-Safa 3 add, in the tenth 
risdla, shakhs, person). For the logicians, fasl has two 
meanings: the first covers every attribute by which 
one thing is distinguished from another, whether it 
be individual or universal, the second, in trans- 
position {'aid nakl), covering that by which a thing 
is essentially distinguished. In transposition in this 
way, fasl is used, per prius et posterius (bi-hasab al- 
takdim wa 'l-ta'khir) to designate three ideas; common 
dif erence (al-fasl al-'-amm), particular difference (al- 



FASL - 



L-FATH b. KHAKAN 



837 



fast al-khdss), and the particular of the particular 
(khdss al-khdss). Common difference (al-fasl aW-dmm) 
is what allows a thing to differ from another and 
that other to differ from the former; equally it is 
what allows a thing to differ from itself at another 
time. This is the case of separable accidents. Particular 
difference (al-fasl al-khdss) is the predicate which is 
necessarily associated {Idzim, comitans) with accidents, 
e.g., the difference between a horse and a man con- 
stituted by the whiteness of the latter's skin Finally, 
specific difference or the particular of the particular 
(khdss al-khdss) is what constitutes the species. It is 
the simple universal attributed to the species in reply 
to the question: what is it (in quale quid) in its 
essence in relation to its genus (ft djawdb ayyu shay' 
huwafi dhdtihi min djinsihi), e.g., rationality for man. 
The Platonic method of analysis or division 
(Statpeot?) is distinguished by the name of tarik al- 
kisma from the Aristotelian tarik al-kiyds (ouXXo- 
yia\j.6<;) (al-Farabl, Abhandlungen, ed. Dieterici, 2). 
For the metaphysical difference between the 
incorporeal and the body, fark (x<»pto-|i6s) is used. 
God is mufdrak, that is, separated, free of all that 
is material or corporeal. In the essence of God, there 
is neither fark nor fast {Theology of Aristotle, ed. 
Dieterici, 40). Purely spiritual beings fukul), the 
intelligences of the spheres and the heavenly bodies 
are mufdrakdt (syn. mudjarraddt). 

Bibliography: I. Pollak, Die Hermeneutik des 
Aristoteles, Leipzig 1913, glossary; the major text 
loifasl is that of Ibn SIna, Shifd*, al-Madkhal, pub. 
Cairo 1952, ch. XIII, 72-82; the Latin translation 
of this text was used by Prantl, Geschichte der 
Logik, ii, 345-8; cf. also A. M. Goichon, Lexique de 
la langue philosophique d'Ibn Sind, no. 504, and 
Madkour, L'Organon d'Aristote dans le monde 
arabe, Paris 1934, 70-133; see also djins and hadd. 

(Tj. de Boer-[G. C. Ana w ati]) 
FASL [see filaha, mafsul]. 
FASTS [see sawm], 

FATA, pi. fitydn, strictly "young man", has 
assumed a certain number of meanings in Arabic 
[see futuwwa]: here we confine ourselves to one 
exclusively Andalusian usage. In Muslim Spain the 
slaves, whether eunuchs or not, employed in the 
service of the prince and his household, and then of 
the hadjib [q.v.] at the time when the latter was in 
practice taking over the reins of power, were in fact 
called ghilmdn (sing, ghuldm [q.v.]), whilst those who 
held an elevated rank in the palace hierarchy bore 
the title fata, the entire management of the household 
being placed under the control of two majordomos 
or "high officers", al-fatayan* al-kabirdn*. In the 
course of the history of al-Andalus a certain number 
of these slaves, generally of European origin [see 
saicAliba], after obtaining the status of free men, 
were promoted to the highest positions in the social 
hierarchy and played an outstanding political part, 
even succeeding in creating independent principalities 
for themselves, like the c Amirid fata Mudjahid [q.v.] 
of Denia. Their elevation inevitably gave rise to 
disputes with the aristocratic Arab families, with 
whom they came to blows, not without sometimes 
resorting to arguments of a Shu'ubi character (see 
I. Goldziher, in ZDMG, 1898). 

Bibliography: E. Levi-Provencal, X' siecle, 
index; idem, Hist. Esp. Mus., index. (Ed.) 

FATALISM [see al-sada 5 wa'l-kadar]. 
al-FATAwA al-'ALAMGIRIYYA, a com- 
pendium of Hanafi law, in India ranking 
second only to al-Marghinanl's Hiddya, compiled by 
order of Awrangzib during the years 1075/1664- 



108 3/1672. The intention was to arrange in systematic 
order the most authoritative decisions by earlier 
legists which were scattered in a number of fikh 
books, and thus provide a convenient work of 
reference. The board in charge of the compilation 
was presided over by Shaykh Nizam of Burhanpur 
(d. 1090/1679), who had four superintendents under 
him: Shaykh Wadjih al-Din of Gopamaw, Shaykh 
Djalal al-DIn Muljammad of Maihllshahr ; Kadi 
Muhammad Husayn and Mulla Hamid, both of 
Pjawnpur; each of them was assisted by a team of 
ten or more '■ulamd?. The book has repeatedly been 
printed (see Brockelmann). 

Bibliography: Muhammad Kazim, '■Alamgit- 
ndma (Bibl. Ind.), 1072; Muhammad Saki 
Musta'idd Khan, Ma'dthir-i 'Alamgiri (Bibl. Ind.), 
529; Mir'dt al- c dlam, in Oriental College Magazine 
(Supplement), Lahore Aug.-Nov. 1953; Kh'afi 
Khan, Muniakhab al-Lubdb (Bibl. Ind.), ii, 251; 
Nur al-Din Zaydl Zafarabadi, Tadialli-i nur, 
Pjawnpur 1900, ii, 77-89, 93, 119-20; Shah Wall 
Allah, Anfds al- l dri)in, 24; c Abd al-Hayy 
Lakhnawi, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad 1375, 
v, 18, 34, 149, 281, 364, 420, 430; Ma'drif 
(Urdu monthly), A'zamgafh, Dec. 1946, Jan., 
Feb., Oct. 1947, Jan. 1948; Fadl-i Imam 
Khayrabadi, Tarddjim al-fudald* (trans. Bazmee 
Ansari), Karachi 1956, 12-3, 27-8; Khub Allah 
Allahabad!, Wafaydt al-aHdm (Ms.); Athar-i 
sharaf (Ms.), fol. 94; Muhammad c Ali Haydar, 
Tadhkira mashdhir-i kdkawri, Lucknow 1927, 
354-6; A. S. Bazmee Ansari in al-Isldm, Karachi 
July-Dec. 1953, Jan. 1954; Sabah al-Din c Abd 
al-Rahman, Bazm-i Timuriyya, A'zamgafh 1948, 
236-43; Brockelmann, II, 549, S II, 604. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
FATU [see haraka]. 

AL-FATfl b. KHAKAN was the son of Khakan 
b. c Urtudj (or Ghurtudi) of the Turkish ruling 
family at Farghana and chief of the Turkish soldiers 
from Central Asia who formed part of the troops 
of the guard of the caliph al-Mu c tasim. Biographical 
information concerning him is scarce: he must have 
been born ca. 200/817-8, because he was probably the 
same age as al-Mutawakkil, son of al-Mu c tasim, 
with whom he was educated since infancy at the court 
of the caliph, who had adopted him at the age of 
seven. Hardly had al-Mutawakkil been elected 
caliph in 232/846-7 when he made him his secretary 
(kdtib, and not wazir as incorrectly stated in some 
sources), and later, in 235/848-9 or 236/849-50, 
appointed him superintendent of works at Samarra; 
in 242/855-6 governor of Egypt for a short time in 
place of his son al-Muntasir; and in 244/857-8 as his 
lieutenant at Damascus. He was a member of the 
caliph's literary circle, and was a great patron of 
young and little-known authors, a friend of many 
writers and poets such as al-Djahiz and al-Buhturi, 
of historians like al-Tha c labI, etc. He was himself a 
writer and poet, but of his works {K. Akhldk al- 
muluk, K. al-Sayd wa 'l-djawdrih, K. al-Rawda wa 
'l-zuhr) none has come down to us, and only 1 3 verses 
of his poetry are known (cf. Yakut, Udabd', vi, 118). 
In his palace at Samarra he had collected a very 
valuable library (consisting in particular of philo- 
sophical works), which was much visited by many 
students of Basra and Kufa. On the night of 4 
Shawwal 247/n December 861, at the caliph's palace 
in the new capital al-Mutawakkiliyya (or al-Dja'fa- 
riyya) he was murdered with his caliph and friend 
defending him with his own bodv against the hired 
assassins sent by al-Muntasir, son of al-Mutawakkil. 



838 



L-FATH b. KHAKAN — FATH-'ALl SHAH 



Bibliography: O. Pinto, al-Fath b. gdqdn, 
favorito di al-Mutawakkil, in RSO, xiii (1932), 
1 33-49; D. Sourdel, Le vizirat 'abbdside de 749 a 
936 . . . , Damascus 1959, i, 282-3; Fihrist, 116-7; 
Yakut, Udabd\ vi, 116-24. (O. Pinto) 

al-FATP B. Muhammad b. HJbayd Allah b. 
KHAKAN, Abu Nasr al-Kays! al-Ishb!l!, an 
Andalusian anthologist whose history is some- 
what obscure. We do, however, know that he studied 
seriously under well-known teachers and that he led 
an adventurous life, travelling through much of 
Muslim Spain and enjoying to the full pleasures 
strictly forbidden by the laws of Islam. Despite this, 
he obtained a position as secretary to the governor 
of Granada, Abu Yflsuf Tashfin b. £ AH, but did not 
keep it and went to Marrakush where, at the in- 
stigation of an Almoravid prince or even perhaps of 
Sultan 'All b. Yusuf b. Tashfin, he was assassinated 
in a funduk at a date which, in various sources, 
varies between 528/1134 and 555/1160, the year 
529/1134 being the most probable. 

When he decided to compile the first of his antho- 
logies, dedicated to the brother of the above-mention- 
ed sultan, Abu Ishak Ibrahim b. YQsuf b. Tashfin, 
he wrote to a certain number of prominent persona- 
lities who were reputed to be also men of letters, 
informing them of his project and asking them to 
send him some of their own documents; those who 
accepted and included gifts as well as documents 
were made the subject of panegyrics, while the 
others were passed over in silence or criticised 
adversely. This was the treatment accorded to Ibn 
Badjdja [q.v.] in particular, except that it was his 
privilege to have two notices, one of blame, the other 
of praise (text in Yakut). For the earlier writers, Ibn 
Khakan had no hesitation in ransacking the antholo- 
gies and, it is said, even involved himself in a law- 
suit with his contemporary Ibn Bassam [q.v.]. 

He is the author of two anthologies. The first, 
entitled JialdHd al-Hkydn ft (var. wa-) mahdsin al- 
a'ydn, was published in Marseilles- Paris in 1277/1860 
in the journal al-Bardfis and as an independent 
volume, later at Bulak in 1283-1284; R. Dozy 
included some chapters from it in his history of 
the 'Abbadids, and H. Peres published extracts 
from it in Algiers in 1946; it is divided into 
four parts: princes, viziers, kddis and jurists, poets 
and men of letters. A commentary, FardHd al-tibydn 
aid KaWid al-Hkydn, was written by Muh. b. Kasim 
Ibn Zakur al-FasI (d. 1120/1708); H. Peres (see 
Poisie andalouse', xxxii) has a manuscript of it in 
his possession; but the French translation announced 
by E. Bourgade has still to appear. — The second 
anthology, Mafmah al-anfus wa-masrah al-ta'annus ft 
mulah ahl al-Andalus, seems to have been made in 
three versions, large, medium and small, but only the 
last of the three has survived (published in Istanbul in 
1302 at the al-QxawaHb press [see djarIda] and in 
Cairo in 1325; cf. also Dozy, Abbadides); it is in some 
way complementary to the preceding work, in three 
parts: viziers, kddis and jurists, men of letters. — To 
these anthologies we should add a biography of one 
of the author's teachers, al-Batalyawsi [q.v.], followed 
by a short anthology (see Derenbourg, Mss. at. de 
I'Escurial, 448), and a makdma on his teacher 
(Derenbourg, op. cit., 538), as well as a Biddyat al- 
mahdsin wa-ghdyat al-muhdsin and a collection of 
his letters which is lost. 

In the two published anthologies, the articles 
contain biographical and historical information 
(cf. A. Cour, De Vopinion d'Ibn al-gattb sur les 
ouvragesd'Ibng&qdn considiris comme source histori- 



que, in Mil. R. Basset, ii, Paris 1925, 17-32), but 
it requires the application and long experience of 
H. Peres (see Bibl.) to understand and interpret 
them, for the rhyming prose, which is made up of 
short clauses and used exclusively, holds the reader 
spell-bound and prevents him from paying attention 
to the meaning, in the opinion even of a modern 
critic, Ahmad Dayf. This prose, which can be 
regarded as vers libres, eventually becomes wearisome, 
but it is acknowledged to possess a rare elegance, 
and anthologists show unconcealed pleasure in 
reproducing long extracts from it (see especially al- 
Makkari, Analectes, index). The principal interest 
of the IfaWid and the Mafmah rests, however, in the 
poetical works which Ibn Khakan has saved from 
oblivion and which form fundamental sources for 
the study of Arabic literature in Spain, principally 
in the 5th/nth century. 

Bibliography: Ibn al-Abbar, Mu'djam, ed. 
Codera, Madrid 1898, no. 285; Ibn Khallikan, ed. 
Cairo 1310, ii, 407; Yakut, Mu'djam al-udabd*, 
xvi, 186-92; Makkari, Analectes, index; Weyers, 
Specimen criticum exhibens locos Ibn Khacanis de 
Ibn Zeiduno, Leiden 1831; R. Dozy, Scriptorum 
arabum loci de Abbadidis, Leyden 1846, i, 1-10; idem, 
Recherches', passim; Wustenfeld, Geschichtschreiber, 
238; Pons Boigues, Ensayo, no. 162; Nasiri 
Salawl, Zahr al-afndn min hadikat Abi 'l-Wanndn, 
Fas 1314, ii, 356; M. Ben Cheneb, Etude sur les 
personnages de Vidjdza de Sidi '■Abd al-Qddir al- 
Fdsy, Paris 1907, no. 241; A. Dayf, Baldghat al- 
c Arab fi 'l-Andalus, Cairo 1342/1924, 211-5; A. 
Gonzalez Palencia, Literatura', Barcelona 1945, 
204, 206-8; H. Peres, Poisie andalouse 1 , Paris 
1953, index; idem, Glanes historiques . . . dans les 
QaWid al-Hqydn, in Mil. d'hist. et d'archeol. de 
I'Occ. mus., ii, Algiers 1957, 147-52. 

(M. Ben Cheneb-[Ch. Pellat]) 
FATS c ALl AKHUND-ZADA [see akhund 
zAda, mirza fath c ali], 

FATtf-'ALl SHAH, the second ruler of the 
Kadjar [q.v.] dynasty, was born in 1185/1771 and 
bore the name Baba Khan. He was made governor of 
Fars, Kirman, and Yazd by his uncle, Aka Muham- 
mad Khan, and heir apparent in 1211/1796-7. He 
succeeded to the throne in 1212/1797. He died in 
1250/1834 and was buried at Kumm. Much of his 
reign of 38 years and 5 months was spent in military 
expeditions against internal rebels and external foes. 
On the assassination of Aka Muhammad Khan in 
1212/1797 Baba Khan hastened from Shiraz to 
Tehran, where Mirza Muhammad Khan Kadjar had 
closed the gates pending his arrival. On reaching 
Tehran he ascended the throne as Fath 'Alt on 
4 Safar 1212/30 July 1797, but was not crowned 
until 1 Shawwal 1212/21 March 1798. Sadik Khan 
Shakaki, who opposed his succession, was defeated 
near Kazwin. Various attempts at rebellion by Fath 
'All's brother, Husayn Kuli Mirza, Sadik Khan 
Shakaki, and Muhammad Khan b. Zaki Khan were 
defeated; and in a series of expeditions to Khurasan 
Fath c Ali succeeded in establishing his nominal 
authority over most of that province. Relations 
with Europe were actively joined. In 1798 Lord 
Wellesley, the Governor General of India, sent 
Mihdi C A1I Khan, the East India Company's resident 
at Bushire, to the Persian Court to induce it to take 
measures to keep the Afghan ruler, Zaman Khan 
Durrani, in check. A subsequent mission sent under 
Captain (later Sir) John Malcolm resulted in a 
political and commercial treaty concluded in 1801. 
In 1802 France made unsuccessful < 



FATH-'ALl SHAH — FATHNAME 



839 



Persia for a Franco-Persian alliance against Russia. 
In 1804 the Perso-Russian war was resumed. Fath 
C AU sent an envoy to India to seek aid under the 
British alliance but his request was coldly received. 
In 1805 a French envoy, Romieux, reached Tehran 
and urged Persia to repudiate the British alliance. 
Disappointed of British help, Fath c Ali sent Mirza 
Muhammad Rida to treat with Napoleon. A treaty 
was signed at Finkenstein (1807), but was nullified 
almost immediately by the Franco- Russian treaty 
of Tilsit. Renewed French activities and the possi- 
bility of Franco-Russian activities in Persia induced 
the British Government to send a mission under Sir 
Harford Jones to the court of Fath 'AH. In March 
1809 a Preliminary Treaty was concluded. This was 
followed by a Definitive Treaty in March 1812, 
which was superseded in 1814 by the Treaty of 
Tehran. Under this treaty Persia undertook not to 
allow any European army to advance on India 
through Persia and Britain undertook in the case of 
a European nation invading Persia to send a military 
force or in lieu thereof to pay an annual subsidy. 
The subsidy articles were abrogated in 1828. The 
long war with Russia was concluded by the peace of 
Gulistan [q.v.] (1813), by which Georgia and a number 
of other districts were acknowledged as belonging to 
Russia, Russian vessels of war were given the exclusive 
right of navigation of the Caspian Sea, and a 5% 
ad valorem duty on Russian imports into Persia was 
fixed. A rebellion in Khurasan fomented by Mahmud 
Shah of Afghanistan gave Fath 'All an opportunity 
to seize Herat (1813), but he failed to keep it. A war 
with the Porte (1821-3) was concluded by the Treaty 
of Erzurum (1813). In 1826 war broke out again with 
Russia and ended disastrously for Persia. In addition 
to the territory going to Russia under the Treaty of 
Gulistan, Persia lost Erivan and Nakhdjivan; and 
the exclusive right of Russian vessels of war to 
navigate the Caspian was reaffirmed. A commercial 
treaty signed on the same day gave Russian subjects 
extra-territorial privileges and established 
pattern of the capitulations enjoyed by 
in Persia under the Kadjar dynasty. Fath C A1I died 
in 1834. He was survived by fifty-seven sons and 
forty-six daughters. His favourite son 'Abbas Mirza 
[q.v.], who had been declared wall c ahd, died in 1833. 
c Abb5s Mirza's son, Muhammad Mirza, was pro- 
claimed wall c ahd and succeeded to the throne on 
Fath 'All's death. 

The rule of Fath 'All was arbitrary and autocratic. 
Pomp and ceremony distinguished his public 
audiences, but much of his time was spent in camp 
on military expeditions. Military reform was begun 
during his reign, first under French officers accom- 
panying General Gardane, who came to Persia as 
envoy in 1806, and later under British officers, when 
an attempt was made to introduce European 
methods and discipline into the army in Adharbav- 
djan commanded by 'Abbas Mirza. Fath c Ali is 
described by some European travellers as being 
intelligent and having a lively and curious mind, by 
others as being ignorant and vain. Like many of the 
Kadjar princes he had a great love of hunting. His 
besetting sin was avarice. He made, or repaired, a 
number of buildings in Tehran, Kumm, Kazimayn, 
Karbala' and elsewhere. 

Bibliography: 'Abd al-Razzak b. Nadjaf- 
kull, Ma'dthir-i sultdniyya, Tabriz , 1241/1826 
(translated by H. T. Brydges, The Dynasty of the 
Kajars, London 1833) ; Mirza Taki Sipihr, Ta'rikh-i 
Kadjariyya (being the ninth volume of the Ndsikh 
al-tawdrikh), Tabriz 1319/1901-2; Hadjdji Mirza 



Hasan Fasal, Fdrs-ndma-i Ndsiri; Sa c id Naflsi, 
Ta'rikh-i idJtimdH wa siydsi-i Iran, Tehran 1335 
(solar) ; R. G. Watson, A history of Persia, London 
1866; Amedee Jaubert, Voyage en Armdnie et 
en Perse, Paris 1821; J. B. Fraser, Narrative of a 
journey into Khorasan, London 1825; Fonton, La 
Russie dans I'Asie Mineure, 231 f.; L. Dubeux, 
Perse, 376 f. (portrait, pi. 58 and pi. 84) ; Grundr. d 
Iran. Phil., ii, 596 f.; M. E. Yapp, The control of 
the Persian Mission, 1822-1836, in University of 
Birmingham Historical Journal, vii (i960), 162-79. 

(A. K. S. Lambton) 
FATHNAME, an official announcement of a 
victory. This definition excludes large numbers of 
'fathndmes' written by private persons as literary 
exercises, such as the Mahruse-i Istanbul' Fath- 
ndmesi of Tadjizade Dja'far Celebi [q.v.], which was 
composed at least a generation after the conquest 
(TOEM, nos. 20-1) and works such as Muradl's 
Fathndme-i Khayr al-Din Pasha (A. S. Levend, 
(j/azavdt-ndmeler, Ankara 1956, 70-3), a versified 
narrative of the exploits of Barbarossa and his 
brother Oruc. According to Uzuncarsili (Osmanh 
devletinin saray tesHUti, Ankara 1945, 288), a 
fathndme consists of 15 elements: (1) praise to God, 
(2) encomia on the Prophet, (3) the sovereign's 
duty to relieve oppression, (4) reasons for ending the 
wrong-doing of the tyrant in question, (5) the 
Sultan's departure, (6) the multitude of his troops, 
(7) the position of the enemy, (8) the boldness of the 
enemy, (9) description of the battle, (10) the Sultan's 
victory, (11) thanks to God, (12) occupation of the 
enemy's territory, (13) this success to be proclaimed 
by land and sea (only in fathndmes addressed to the 
Sultan's own dominions), (14) the names of the place 
to which the fathndme is sent and of the bearer, 
(15) the Sultan's joy at the victory, his commun- 
ication of the good tidings to the recipient and his 
request for prayers. Although this scheme may 
well have served as a model to literary men, there 
is some reason to suppose that it was not closely 
followed by the official (usually the nishdndii?) 
entrusted with composing the fathndme after a 
battle. It is difficult to be precise on this subject 
because of the dearth of original fathndmes available 
for study. Of the dozens of examples in Feridun 
there is none of whose genuineness we can be sure, 
nor do they seem to bear out Pakalm's statement 
(s.v. Fetihname) that fathndmes are of great historical 
importance as being short histories of battles. What 
Feridun describes as the fathndme on the conquest 
of Eger in 1005/1596, for instance (Madimu c a-i 
munsha'dt al-saldfin, Istanbul 1265, ii, 2-3), contains 
no mention of the massacre of the garrison (see 
G. L. Lewis, The Utility of Ottoman Fethnames, in 
Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt, Historians of the 
Middle East, Oxford 1962, and cf. Na'ima, TaMkh, 
Istanbul 1281, i, 151). Nor does Feridun's text bear 
any relation to Na'ima's statement (ibid., 173) that 
the Nishandji LSm 'All Celebi was dismissed for 
exaggerating, in this same fathndme, the part played 
in the conquest by Djighalazade Sinan Pasha. On 
the other hand, we do have one published fathndme 
which appears to be the genuine article and not a 
literary exercise: the Uygur account of Mehemmed 
II's victory in 878/1473 over Uzun Hasan (R. 
Rahmeti Arat, Fatih Sultan Mehmed'in yarhg%, in 
TM, vi (1939), 285-322; cf. idem, Un yarhk de 
Mehmed II, le Conquirant, in Annali del R. 1st. Sup. 
Orientate di Napoli, n.s. i (1940), 25-68). It is laconic 
in style and full of information, including a complete 
order of battle with the names of the principal 



FATHNAME — FATHPUR SlKRl 



commanders on both sides. There is none of the 
verbosity and sanctimonious self-justification which 
we see in the literary fathndmes; the occasion for 
the campaign is refreshingly stated thus: 'Uzun 
Hasan having burned the city of Tokat, we came 
to fight him'. The most suggestive feature of the 
document is its conclusion: the Sultan is coming 
to winter in Istanbul and adjures various officials 
there to be steadfast in their work and not to neglect 
the business of the diwdn; the chief men of all towns 
are to keep the mosques in a flourishing state, to 
perform the five daily prayers in congregation and 
to fulfil the ordinances of the shari'a and the com- 
mandments of God. Yet the fact that the document 
is in Uygur shows that it was intended only for the 
eastern territories. The inference is that for this 
victory, at any rate, there was only one fathndme, of 
which copies and, in this special case, a translation 
were sent to all parts of the Sultan's dominions. 
Feridfin (op. cit., i, 283-6) gives the texts of three 
accounts of the victory: a hukm-i sherif to Prince 
Diem, a letter (ndme-i humdyun) to Husayn Baykara 
and a fathndme 'to the Guarded Dominions'. None 
contains any useful details of the campaign; com- 
pared with the Uygur yarllk their historical value is 
negligible. For the victory of Caldiran, 41 years 
later, Ferldun gives no fewer than ten different 
fathndmes, none of them giving a full account of the 
battle (for a partial analysis see Lewis's article cited 
above). A working hypothesis is that there was only 
one true fathndme for each victory, which would add 
greatly to our knowledge of Ottoman military 
history if only we could lay hands on it. Other so- 
called fathndmes are merely elegant variations on a 
theme, their value being mainly literary, though 
they may be of some interest as early specimens of 
war-propaganda. The last word cannot be said on 
this subject until more work has been done in the 
Ottoman archives, particularly perhaps on the ordu 
miihimmesi registers (see Uriel Heyd, Ottoman 
documents on Palestine, Oxford i960, 5). 

Bibliography: Works cited in text. Pakahn's 
article consists mainly in a lengthy quotation from 
M. F. Kopriilu, Bizans muesseselerinin . . . tesiri, 
in Turk Hukuk ve Iktisat Tarihi Mecmuast, i 
(1931) [Italian translation, Alcune osservazioni 
. . . ., Pubblicazioni dell'Inst. per l'Oriente di 
Roma, 1944], rejecting the theory of a connexion 
between the fathndme and the Roman litterae 
laureatae. For some examples see G. Vajda, Un 
bulletin de victoire de Bajazet II, in J A, 236 (1948), 
87-102; L. Fekete, A fethndmerdl, in A Magyar 
Tudomdnyos Akadimia Nyelv — is Irodalomtudo- 
m&nyi Osztdlydnak Kdzleminyei, xix/1-4 (1963), 
65-101 (a fathndme of Uzun Hasan) ; Adnan Sadik 
Erzi, Turkiye Kutuphanelerinden notlar ve vesikalar, 
ii, in Belleten, xiv/56 (1950), 612 ff. 

(G. L. Lewis) 
FATHPCR-SiKRl, a deserted city, 23 miles 
from Agra, situated in 27° 5' N. and 77 40' E., on 
a ridge of sandstone rocks near the ancient village 
of Sikrl. In 1569 when Akbar visited Shaykh Sallm 
Cishti, who was living in a cave on the Sikrl ridge, 
the saint foretold the birth of a son to the childless 
monarch, and in 1570 Sultan Sallm, afterwards 
known as the Emperor Djahangir [q.v.] was born 
there. Akbar then commenced building a city, 
covering an area of about i*/ t sq. m. and enclosed 
by a wall (still standing) 3 5 / 4 m. long. On his return 
from his campaign in Gudjarat in 1574, he found his 
new capital ready for occupation and named it 
Fathpur (the City of Victory); he resided here until 



1586, when he abandoned it as a capital, probably 
on account of the brackish nature of the water 
obtainable there, and shortly after his death it 
began to fall into ruin. Many of the buildings, 
however, still remain in an excellent state of preser- 
vation; among these may be mentioned the official 
buildings, such as the mint, the treasury, the record 
office, and the hall of public audience, and the royal 
palace, including the private apartments of the 
Emperor and the residences of several of his wives. 
The house of the Turki Sultana is remarkable for the 
elaborate carving with which it is covered, both 
within and without; the interior is decorated with 
a dado, 4 ft. high, divided into eight oblong panels, 
richly decorated with carvings representing forest 
and garden scenes. The two-storeyed building, 
known as Blrbal's house (though it was undoubtedly 
the palace of one of Akbar's queens), is similarly 
covered with carving exhibiting a profuse variety of 
patterns executed in minute detail. In close proximity 
to the royal apartments are some curious buildings, of 
a unique design, e.g., the Pan£ Mahall, a five-storeyed 
pavilion, each storey of which is smaller than the 
one on which it rests, and the so-called Dlwan-i- 
Khass (or private audience hall), a building con- 
sisting of one room only, in the centre of which rises 
an octagonal column surmounted by an enormous 
circular capital, from the top of which radiate four 
narrow causeways, each about 10 ft. long, to the 
corners of the building; the top of this capital is thus 
connected with a gallery, running round the upper 
part of the room and communicating by staircases 
(made in the thickness of the wall) both with the 
roof and the courtyard below. It is not possible to 
enumerate here the many other buildings connected 
with the emperor and his court, but special mention 
must be made of the great mosque, which is one of the 
finest monuments of Mughal architecture. It covers 
an area of 438 ft. by 542 ft., having a central court 
(360 ft. by 439 ft.) enclosed by cloisters, except at 
the three gateways, of which the Buland Darwaza 
(facing the south), erected by Akbar in 1602 to 
commemorate his victories in the Dakkan, ranks as 
one of the noblest gateways in India. In the court of 
the mosque stands the tomb of Shaykh Sallm Cishti, 
a single-storeyed building, encased in white marble 
and surmounted by a dome; the marble lattice 
screens which enclose the veranda of this building 
are of extraordinary delicacy and intricacy of geo- 
metrical pattern; over the cenotaph is a wooden 
canopy inlaid with mother-of-pearl arranged in 
beautiful geometrical designs. 

Among the noteworthy features of the buildings 
at Fathpflr-SIkrl are the evidences of the influence 
of Hindu architecture, in construction and decora- 
tion, and the frescoes painted on the walls of the 
Kh'abgah and the Sonahra Makan, and the colour 
decoration of the Hammam and other buildings. 
Bibliography: Tuzuk-i-Qiahdngiri, Aligarh 
1864, 2; E. W. Smith, The Moghul Architecture of 
Fathpur-Sikri, in Archaeological Survey of India, 
Allahabad 1894-8; Keene's Handbook for visitors 
to Agra and its neighbourhood, re-written by E. A. 
Duncan, 7th ed. Calcutta 1909, 222-57; E. W. 
Smith, Wall paintings recently found in the 
khwabgah, Fathpur Sikri, near Agra, in Journal of 
Indian Art, vi (1894); Muhammad Ashraf Husain, 
A guide to Fatehpur Sikri, Delhi 1937; P. Brown, 
Indian architecture {the Islamic period), Bombay 
1942; Pearson, nos. 6734-5, 6737-8, 6788, and 
Supplement (7956-60), nos. 1779, 1796. See further 
hind — Architecture. 



FATIHA — fAtima 



FATIIJA. "the opening (Sura)", or, more exactly, 
Fdtihat al-Kitdb "(the Sura) which opens the 
scripture (of revelation)", designation of the first 
SOra of the Kur'an. Occasionally the terms umm al- 
kitdb (according to Sura III, 7; XIII, 39; XLIII, 4) 
and al-sab' al-mathdni (according to Sura XV, 87) 
are also found. With reference to the last-named 
term one must count the Basmala which comes 
before the Sura as a verse on its own, to make up 
the total of seven verses (= mathani). 

While the other Suras are arranged fairly accu- 
rately according to length (that is to say, the longer 
they are the nearer the beginning they are to be 
found, the shorter they are, the nearer the end) the 
Fatiha, despite its shortness, is prefaced to the 
Kur'an as a sort of introductory prayer. Like the 
last two Suras (al-mu c awwidhatdn), it is said not to 
have been preserved originally in the Codex of Ibn 
Mas'ud. It is markedly liturgical in character, as is 
also shown by the use of the first person plural 
(verses 5 and 6). Its chronological position (within the 
Mecca period) cannot be established more precisely. 

The Fatiha is an indispensible component of the 
prayer-ritual. It must be recited at the beginning of 
every rak'a, that is to say at least seventeen times a 
day (twice at the morning saldt, three times at the 
sunset saldt, and four times at each of the other 
e hours of prayer). It is often said at other times 
"With this recitation a seal is put on almost all 
important resolutions, almost all prayer formulae at 
:he holy places are closed, and all joyful news is 
welcomed: while tradesmen who cannot come to 
the price of goods seek in the united 
the fatihah new strength for a decision" 
(Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, 1931, 29). On many 
tombs there is an inscription asking the traveller 
visiting the spot to pray a fatiha for the soul of the 
dead man (H. Ritter, Meet der Seek, 1955, 317). In 
some respects, therefore, the fatiha may be compared 
with the Lord's Prayer in Christian practice. 
However, H. Winkler's attempt to show that the 
one is derived from the other must be said to have 
failed (ZS, vi, 1928, 238-46). M. Gaster's guess that 
the Fatiha is an imitation of the Samaritan Ensira 
(EI 1 , iv, art. Samaritans) is equally unconvincing. 

Bukhari and Muslim tell of a sick man who was 
cured by exorcism with the umm al-kitdb. There are 
numerous examples of the fatiha being used as a 
powerful prayer in the making of amulets. The 
sawdkit al-fdtiha, that is, the seven letters which are 
significant by their absence from the fatiha, play an 
important part in this. Al-Bflni gives the requisite 
instructions in his book of magic Shams al-ma'-drif. 

In certain Arab countries, particularly in North 
Africa, the term fatiha (or fatha) is used to mean a 
prayer ceremony in which the arms are stretched out 
with the palms upwards, but without any recitation 
of the first Sura (Snouck Hurgronje, Mekka, 1931, 
29, note; E. Westermarck, Ritual and belief in 
Morocco, 1926, i, 186, note). Philipp Vassel gives as 
a translation "prayer with open hands" (MSOS, v, 
1902, ii, 188). But it seems probable that even this 
prayer-ceremony is called after the first Sura, and 
that originally it involved a recitation of the fatiha 
which only subsequently and as a result of much 
repetition disappeared to be replaced by a silent 

Bibliography: Bukhari, Ididra, 16; Tafsir al- 
Kur'dn, 1; Fadd'il al-Kur'dn, 9; Tibb, 33 f.; 
Muslim, Saldt, 34-44; Saidm, 65 f.; Tabari, Tafsir, 
1321. i, 35-66; Zamakhshari, Kashshdf, Cairo 1373/ 
1953, i, 1-15; SuyutI, Itkdn, Cairo 1317, i, 54 f.; ii, 



152; Gesch. des Qor., i a , 1909, 110-7; Blachere, Le 

Coran, i, 1949, 125-7; A. Jeffery, A variant text 

of the Fatiha, in MW, xxix (1939), 158-62; al-Buni, 

Shams al-ma'-drif, Cairo 1319, 68 f., 71, 95-9; 

E. Doutte, Magie et religion dans I'Afrique du 

Nord, Algiers 1909, 159, 211 ff.; Snouck Hurgronje, 

Mekka in the latter part of the 19th century, 193 1, 

passim; E. Westermarck, Ritual and belief in 

Morocco, i and ii, 1926, passim; J. Jomier, La 

place du Coran dans la vie quotidienne en £gypte, 

in IBLA, xv (1952), 131-65, 149; H. Winkler, 

Fatiha und Vaierunser, in ZS, vi (1928), 238-46. 

(R. Paret) 

al-FATIK [see nadjah, ban©]. 

FATIMA, daughter of Muhammad and 

Khadidja, wife of 'All b. Abl Talib, mother of 

al-Hasan and al-Husayn, was the only one of the 

Prophet's daughters to enjoy great renown. She 

became the object of great veneration by all Muslims. 

This may be because she lived closest to her father, 

live;.; longest, and gave him numerous descendants, 

who spread throughout the Muslim world (the other 

sons and daughters of Muhammad either died 

young or, if they had descendants, these soon died 

out) ; or it may be because there was reflected upon 

her, besides the greatness of her father, the historical 

importance of her husband and her sons ; or because, 

as time went on, the Muslims attributed to her 

extraordinary qualities. Throughout the Muslim 

world, as is well known, it is customary to add to her 

name the honorific title al-Zahra', "the Shining One", 

and she is always spoken of with the greatest respect; 

but it was above all the Shi'Is who surrounded her 

with a halo of beliefs and glorified her some centuries 

after her death. That Fatima— a woman who, unlike 

other women associated with the Prophet, remained 

on the fringe of the great events of the early years 

of Islam and hence receives little attention in the 

historical sources — should be exalted to the level of 

legend, presents no problem to the believer: Western 

scholars, on the other hand, have set themselves to 

recover the real Fatima from the haze which envelops 

her. Did she really possess merits so special as to 

explain her posthumous fame, or is this fame to be 

attributed to a complex of circumstances which 

includes the human tendency to render extreme 

veneration to Woman ? Two eminent European 

orientalists, Father Henri Lammens and Louis 

Massignon, have presented diametrically opposed 

judgements of Fatima. 

The former, in Fatima et les filles de Mahomet, has 
sketched, in sparkling and lively style, ingeniously 
but not without malice, a thoroughly gloomy portrait 
of the daughter of the Prophet: as he describes her, 
Fatima becomes a woman devoid of attraction, of 
mediocre intelligence, completely insignificant, little 
esteemed by her father, ill-treated by her husband, 
"caractere chagrin et perpetuellement voile de deuil", 
"ombre gemissante de femme", anaemic, often ill, 
prone to tears, who died perhaps of consumption. It 
is profitable to read the criticism of this thesis by 
G. Levi Delia Vida, in RSO, vi (1913), 536-47 and 
C. H. Becker, Grundsdtzliches zur Leben-Muhammed- 
Forschung, in Islamstudien, i, 520-7 = Prinzipielles 
zu Lammens' Sirastudien, in Isl., iv (1913), 263-9. 

Massignon, on the other hand, has made Fatima 
sublime, elevating her to a position often reminiscent 
of that which the Virgin Mary holds among Christ- 
ians. He accuses Lammens of having contented 
himself with putting together isolated fragments of 
anecdotes without attempting to arrange them in 
plausible patterns so as to bring them to life. "Yet it 



842 FA" 

is only this method", he says, "which allows us to 
understand how Fatima's intuitive actions (hardly 
consciously performed) have, throughout the col- 
lective history of Islam, penetrated the tangle of 
deceptions, accommodations and theories". Fatima, 
as he conceives her, is the Woman whose soul was 
unappreciated during her lifetime, who enjoyed 
privileges (khasdHf) accorded her by her father; she 
is Mistress of the Tent of hospitality, the Hostess of 
the Prophet's freedmen and of the non-Arab converts, 
and, as such, she represents the beginnings of 
universal Islam (La notion, 118 f.). To avoid any 
misrepresentation of Massignon's conception, we 
reproduce verbatim some of the concluding sentences 
of his Mubdhala. According to him, Fatima had a 
"vie secrete . . . voilee bien au dela de la jalousie de 
'Ayisha, par une autre Jalousie, celle de Dieu. Vie de 
compassion interieure, de larmes, prieres pour les 
morts (a Uhud) et dans les cimetieres, voeux de 
jeune, choses de peu de poids pour des theologiens 
philosophes ou canonistes. Vie qui les survole et les 
surplombe en Islam, comme une menace, de plus en 
plus imminente, de la Grace de Dieu: du Voeu secret 
de la Femme, Vierge ou Mere qui transcende tous 
les axiomes et serments des hommes. L'hyperdulie 
des ames en douleur, en Islam, pour Fatima, n'est 
selon le Coran lui-meme qu'une figure de l'hyperdulie 
mariale . . .". This interpretation of the figure of 
Fatima will doubtless satisfy the mystic who lives in 
a world of extraordinary religious experiences and, 
perhaps, the scholar concerned with religious pro- 
blems, because it gives a psychologico-religious ex- 
planation for the origin and development of the 
legend of the daughter of the Prophet and bridges the 
gap between legend and reality, as Lammens's book 
fails to do; but it cannot escape the objections of 
the historian, who will consider that the author 
subordinates the facts to beliefs about Fatima which 
appeared only later. 

In the following survey will be found, placed in 
chronological order, arranged schematically, and 
accompanied sometimes by a commentary, the 
references to Fatima which can be collected from the 
sources belonging to the 2nd/8th and 3rd/oth cen- 
turies and the first half of the 4th/ioth century 
(particularly al-Baladhuri, Ansdb, Ibn Sa'd and 
collections of ftadiths regarded as canonical by the 
Sunnis, for Ibn Hisham and the historians had little 
occasion to concern themselves with Fatima, so 
obscure was the life that she led; later sources such 
as Ibn 'Abd al-Barr's IsW-db, Ibn al-Athlr's Usd 
al-ghdba, Ibn Hadjar's Ifdba, the Sira al-IJalabiyya 
and the Td'rikh al-khamis, have purposely been 
ignored, the aim being to get as near as possible, if 
not to the reality, at least to the time when 
Fatima lived). In the survey some apparently 
trivial facts have been mentioned: this is because 
they had, particularly among the Shi'is, unforeseen 
developments; Fatima's trousseau, for example, 
became the subject of Persian religious dramas, 
the famous ta'ziyas. 

The Historical Fatima 
Birth and childhood. The date of Fatima's 
birth is uncertain; however that indicated as most 
probable is the year of the re-building of the Ka'ba, 
i.e., five years before the beginning of the Prophet's 
mission. This implies, as will appear, that the girl was 
married when she was over 18, a rather unusual age 
for an Arab bride. But if we take her birth as being 
a few years later (see al-Ya'kflbi, ii, 19) we encounter 
another difficulty — that when she was born her 



mother Khadldja would have been over fifty. The 
question of Fatima's age is treated at some length in 
Lammens's book (8-14). There is also some uncer- 
tainty as to Fatima's place in the sequence of 
Muhammad's daughters, who are generally listed in 
the order: Zaynab, Rukayya, Umm Kulthum, 
Fatima. Of her childhood and her life at Mecca two 
episodes only are related: (1) she was overcome by 
grief at her mother's death, and the Prophet consoled 
her by saying that Djibril had come down to tell him 
that God had built for Khadldja in Paradise a pavilion 
of brilliant pearls (kasab; see Lane, s.v., 2529 f.), 
free of weariness and noise (al-Ya c kubi, ii, 35); (2) 
she removed the refuse which 'Ukba b. Abi Mu'ayt, 
one of the Kuraysh most hostile to Islam, had flung 
over the Prophet while he was at prayer, and her 
indignation led her to curse the offender (al-Bukhari, 
ed. Krehl, ii, 300). 

Journey from Mecca to Medina and 
betrothal. After the Hidjra, Muhammad moved 
his daughters Fatima and Umm Kulthum and his 
wife Sawda bint Zama'a from Mecca to Medina, 
charging his adopted son Zayd b. Harittia [q.v.] and 
Abu Rafi' to go and fetch them, giving them two 
camels and a sum of money. There is however a 
completely different version of this: al-'Abbas 
escorted these women to Medina and the departure 
was not a peaceful one, for al-Huwayrith b. Nukay? 
b. Wahb prodded their camels, causing them to be 
thrown to the ground, for which act, it is said, he 
was killed after the occupation of Mecca. On the 
betrothal of Fatima and 'All the sources give much 
information, but, as usual, they do not completely 
agree. Both Abu Bakr and 'Umar had asked for 
Fatima's hand, but Muhammad had refused, saying 
that he was waiting for the moment fixed by destiny 
(kaia?: Ibn Sa'd, viii, n). 'All did not dare to put 
forward his proposal because of his poverty, and it 
was Muhammad who made his task easier; he 
reminded him that he owned a breast-plate which, if 
sold, would provide him with enough money for the 
bridal gift (mahr). 'All, adding to the breast-plate 
some other objects and a camel or a ewe, raised the 
very modest sum of 480 dirhams or thereabouts. Of 
this money he spent, on Muhammad's advice, one- 
third or two-thirds on perfumes, and the rest on 
objects necessary for the household. When Muham- 
mad informed his daughter of the promise which he 
had made to 'All, Fatima (according to Ibn Sa'd) 
said nothing, and her silence was interpreted by the 
Prophet as consent (according to other sources, she 
protested and her father had to console her by saying 
that he had married her to that member of the 
family who was the most learned and wise, and who 
had been the first to embrace Islam). 

Marriage. The accounts are at variance concern- 
ing the year and the month of the marriage and its 
the first or second year of the Hidjra, 
likely the latter. According to some sources the 
postponed for a few days or for 
a few months, and some say that it did not take place 
until 'All's return from the expedition of Badr. To 
celebrate their marriage, the bridegroom prepared a 
feast, Muhammad having told him that this was 
necessary; the Ansar gave their contributions in 
dhura, and 'All killed a sheep. Two wives of the Pro- 
phet, 'A'isha and Umm Salama, arranged the house 
and prepared the wedding-feast. It is said that at 
this time 'Ali was 25 and Fatima between 15 and 21. 
The sources give a rather long account of a rite 
inaugurated by the Prophet: having warned the 
bridal pair to expect him, Muhammad went to their 



house on the wedding-night, asked for water in a jar, 
washed his hands in it (or spat in it, or spat back into 
it the water he had used to rinse his mouth) and 
sprinkled with it the breast (the shoulders and the 
forearms) of 'All and of Fatima; finally he invoked 
God's blessing on them. 

Poverty of the household. At night the 
newly-married pair lay on the fleece of an 
untanned sheepskin, which contained camel fodder 
during the day; for a covering they used an old 
piece of striped Yemeni cloth, which was not large 
enough to cover both feet and head. The pillow was 
of leather stuffed with /{/ (palm fibres) ; the trousseau 
was indeed meagre: a goatskin bottle, a sieve, a 
duster, a cup. Muhammad had made some wedding- 
gifts: a velvet garment (khamla or khamil), two 
pitchers, a leather bottle, a pillow and some bunches 
of fragrant herbs. Fatima, having no maid-servants, 
ground the corn herself, which gave her blisters', C A1I, 
to earn a little money, drew water from the wells and 
watered other people's land; because of this hard 
work he complained of pains in the chest. One day, 
the Prophet having received some slaves, C A1I sent 
Fatima to ask for one, and, as his wife lacked the 
courage to make this request, he went with her 
himself but met with a refusal. "I cannot allow the 
ahl al-suffa [q.v.] to be tormented with hunger", 
exclaimed the Prophet, "I shall sell the slaves and 
spend the money to help them". To console his 
daughter and son-in-law, Muhammad went later to 
their house and taught them some litanies (so many 
repetitions of Allah akbar, so many of al-hamdu 
U'lldh, so many of subhdn Allah), and 'All did not 
fail to repeat them every night before going to sleep. 

There seems no reason to reject the hadiths which 
speak of the poverty of the household of 'All and 
Fatima; only its duration must be limited to the 
first years of their marriage; many members of the 
community were just as poor and it was only after 
the occupation of Khaybar that the situation 
improved for 'All and Fatima, as for a good number 
of Muslims, for they then received shares in the 
produce of the rich oasis and 'A'isha could exclaim: 
"Now we shall eat our fill of dates". 

built a dwelling not far from that of the Prophet but, 
as Fatima wanted to live nearer to her father, the 
Medinan al-Haritha b. al-Nu'man gave up his own 

Sons of 'All and Fatima. Al-Hasan was born 
in 2/624 (but in this case the consummation of the 
marriage cannot have taken place after Badr!) or in 
3/625, in Ramadan; al-Husayn was conceived 50 days 
after the birth of al-Hasan and born in 4/626, in 
the first days of Sha'ban. Besides these two sons 
and a third, Muhassin (or Muhsin), still-born, 
Fatima had two daughters, who were called by the 
names of two of their aunts: Umm Kulthum and 
Zaynab [see further c alids]. 

Disputes between 'All and Fatima, and 
Muhammad's intervention. 'All and Fatima 
did not always live in harmony. 'All treated his wife 
with too much harshness (shidda, ghildz), and 
Fatima went to complain to her father. There are 
some hadiths which are real vignettes of family life, 
describing in a vivid and fresh manner how the 
Prophet intervened and how his face shone with 
satisfaction after the reconciliation of those dear to 
him. The most serious disputes between the pair 
arose when the Banu Hisham b. al-Mughira of the 
Kuraysh suggested to 'All that he should marry one 
of their women. 'All did not reject the proposal, but 



Muhammad, when some of the tribe came to sound 
him on the matter, came to the defence of his 
daughter. "Fatima", he said, "is a part of me 
{bad'a minni) and whoever offends her offends me" 
(al-Baladhurl, Ansdb, i, 403; al-Tirmidhl, ii, 319, 
etc.) or "what angers her angers me also" (this 
hadith has many variants which, however, do not 
much change the meaning). It seems that at the same 
time 'All was asking in marriage a daughter of Abu 
Djahl nicknamed al-'Awra 3 (the One-eyed). Muham- 
mad protested from the minbar against 'All, who 
proposed to shelter under one roof the daughter of 
the Apostle of God and the daughter of the enemy of 
God {i.e., Abu Djahl). On this occasion also the 
Prophet pronounced the phrase: Innahd bad'a 
minni ("she is indeed a part of me"), and added that 
if 'All wanted to accomplish his project he must 
first divorce Fatima (Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, 
Cairo 1313, iv, 326; al-Bukharl, ed. Krehl, ii, 440, 
etc.). Some authors have deduced from this that 
monogamy was one of the khafdHs of the daughter 
of the Prophet. 

The name Abu Turab, "the man of dust", given to 
'Ali has, among other explanations, one connecting 
it with the disputes between 'Ali and Fatima: 
instead of answering his wife in anger, 'All would go 
out of the house and put dust on his head; Muham- 
mad, seeing him do this, gave him the famous 
nickname. 

Historical events in which Fatima was 
involved during the life of Muhammad. 
The following is all that can be collected: (1) After 
the battle of Uhud Fatima tended Muhammad's 
wounds and was charged by him and by 'Ali to 
clean their bloodstained swords ; after this it became 
her custom to go to pray on the graves of those killed 
in this battle; (2) Abu Sufyan, foreseeing the occu- 
pation of Mecca, sought her and 'All's intercession 
with Muhammad (al-Tabari, i, 1623); (3) she received 
a share of the products of Khaybar and 'All another, 
separate, share; (4) she went to Mecca while the 
town was being occupied, and on this occasion Abu 
Sufyan begged her to give him her protection, but she 
refused and refused also to allow her child to do so, 
the Prophet having prohibited this (al-Wakidi, 324) ; 
in 10/632 she performed the l umra; (5) with her 
husband and her sons, Fatima played an important 
part in the mubahala, an episode which had strong 
repercussions among the Shi'a [see mubahala]. 

Fatima as one of the five members of the 
Ahl al-bayt. A verse of the Kur'an (XXXIII, 33) 
says: "God wishes only to remove from you the 
uncleanness, O People of the House" (Ahl al-bayt 
[q.v.]). The preceding verses contain instructions to 
the wives of the Prophet, and there the verbs and 
pronouns are in the feminine plural; but in this 
verse, addressed to the People of the House, the 
pronouns are in the masculine plural. Thus, it has 
been said, it is no longer a question of the Prophet's 
wives, or of them alone. To whom then does it refer ? 
The expression Ahl al-bayt can only mean "Family 
of the Prophet". The privilege accorded by God to 
the latter (originally entirely spiritual, but later not 
merely so) naturally led all the relatives of Muham- 
mad — those nearest to him, those belonging to the 
collateral branches of the family, and beyond this 
such groups of the community as the Ansar, or 
indeed the whole of the community — to claim a 
place in the Ahl al-bayt. But there is a story given 
in many traditions according to which Muhammad 
sheltered under his cloak (or under a covering or 
under a sort of tent), in varying circumstances 



(including the occasion when he was preparing for 
the mubdhala), his grandchildren al- Hasan and al- 
Husayn, his daughter Fatima and his son-in-law 
C A1I; and so it is these five who are given the title 
AM al-kisa' [g.v.] or "People of the Mantle". Efforts 
have been made to include among the latter Muham- 
mad's wives; in general however the number of the 
privileged is limited to these five. Now according to 
the Shi'a, without exception, but also according to 
the pro- c Alid Sunnls, the AM al-bayt are identical 
with the AM al-kisd 1 . The verse quoted above 
(XXXIII, 33) is associated with Fatima and C A1I on 
one other occasion: it is related that Muhammad, 
rising early in the morning to perform the 5«i£, was 
in the habit of knocking on their door and using 
this verse to remind them of the duty of prayer. 

During the Prophet's illness. Fatima, who 
loved her father greatly, was much grieved by his 
illness and wept and lamented. During this period 
she received a confidence from Muhammad. It is 
'A'isha who relates the episode in many fiadiths: she 
saw Fatima weep when her father spoke to her in 
secret and then smile. After the Prophet's death, 
she asked her what her father had said to her on 
that occasion; Fatima replied that Muhammad had 
told her that Djibrll came down once a year to bring 
him the Kur'an, but that, as he had recently come 
down twice, he deduced that the end of his life was 
near, then he had added that she, Fatima, would be 
the first member of the family to join him in the 
next world. Then Fatima had wept. But Muhammad 
had said to her: "Are you not pleased to be the 
sayyida of the women of this people?" (or "of the 
women of the Believers", or "of the women of the 
world", or "of the women of Paradise" — all these 
variants are found in the (tadiths). Then Fatima had 
smiled. As will be seen, this story is interesting 
because of the developments it underwent among 
the ShI'a. 

After the death of the Prophet. Fatima, a 
timid woman who had never taken part in political 
matters, found herself indirectly involved in some 
of the events which followed the death of the Prophet. 
After his election, Abu Bakr made his way with some 
companions towards Fatima's house, where a 
number of Ansar and of 'All's supporters had 
assembled. The newly-elected Khalifa wanted to 
obtain the homage of these dissidents also, but c Ali 
went forward to meet him with sword drawn, and 
Fatima, when her husband had been disarmed by 
c Umar and the party was preparing to enter the 
house, raised such cries and threatened so boldly to 
uncover her hair that Abu Bakr preferred to with- 
draw (al-Ya c kubi, ii, 141). There are other accounts 
of the same episode : Fatima saw in 'Umar's hand a 
brand, and asked him if he intended to set fire to 
her door because of his hostility to her (al-Baladhuri, 
Ansdb, i, 586). In one book, al-Imdma wa 'l-siydsa 
(which is certainly very early, even though the 
attribution to Ibn Kutayba is wrong), the episode is 
related with more serious details: c Umar really had 
evil intentions; he had wood brought and threatened 
to burn the house with everything in it. When he was 
asked, "Even if Fatima is there ?", he replied in the 
affirmative. Then those who were in the house came 
out and rendered the homage demanded — except for 
'AH. Fatima, appearing at the door, reproached 
them: "You have left the body of the Apostle of God 
with us and you have decided among yourselves 
without consulting us, without respecting our rights!" 
When Abu Bakr and 'Umar repeated their attempts 
to make 'All comply, she is said to have cried out. 



"O father! O Apostle of God! What evils we have 
suffered at the hands of c Umar and Abu Bakr after 
your death!" When they came back to her house and 
asked permission to enter, she again refused, and it 
was c Ali who let them in. Fatima turned her face to 
the wall. If one is to believe another account preserved 
in the same book (12), Fatima played an active part 
at the time when the decision was being made on the 
choice of a successor to the Prophet in the capacity 
of head of the community: she went on horseback 
with 'All to the meeting-places of the Ansar to ask 
them to support her husband; but the Ansar replied 
that C A1I had come to them too late, when they were 
already committed to Abu Bakr. We have spent 
some time on these episodes because (1) even if they 
have been expanded by invented details, they are 
based on fact; (2) they represent Fatima's only 
political action; (3) to the motives for the hatred 
felt by the Shi'a for c Umar they add one more, true 
or false: his treatment of the daughter of the 
Prophet. 

Fatima's claim to Muhammad's estate. 
After the death of her father, Fatima asked Abu 
Bakr to hand over the possessions of Muhammad 
which he was holding. It is not clear whether these 
possessions included the property which Mukhayrik, 
the Jew converted to Islam, had given to the Prophet 
at Medina on the land of the Banu '1-Nadir; probably 
there was no dispute about this. It was over the land 
of Fadak [q.v.] and over the share of Khavbar [q.v.] 
that Abu Bakr met Fatima's claims with a flat 
refusal, asserting that he had heard the Prophet say 
that he had no heirs and that everything that he 
left would be sadaka [q.v.]. Nor is it known whether 
the claim to the inheritance was put forward by 
Fatima alone or together with al- c Abbas; the 
examination of many Jfadiths leads us to believe that 
the attempt to gain possession of this property was 
made twice and with different arguments, on the 
first occasion probably by both of them, on the 
second by Fatima alone. This dispute between such 
a prominent person as Abu Bakr and the daughter 
of the Prophet has always been disagreeable to 
Muslims; consequently they have tried to minimize 
its gravity by maintaining, for example, that Fatima 
claimed Fadak intending to give the rents of it to the 
poor (Shi'i sources add: to the mawali); they like to 
depict Abu Bakr as grieved by the duty of refusing 
a request of the daughter of the Prophet, but forced 
to act thus by the conduct of Muhammad himself. 
The Shi c a naturally do not forgive the Caliph for 
having disbelieved Fatima, who maintained that 
she had received Fadak as a gift from her father, 
and have continued for centuries to argue about this 
question. 

Illness and death of Fatima. Fatima fell ill 
soon after her father's death. According to some 
sources she was reconciled during her illness with 
Abu Bakr, who had asked to visit her, but, according 
to the majority she remained angry to the end. There is 
an oft-repeated story about the last moments of her 
life : she prepared for death by washing herself, putting 
on coarse garments and rubbing herself with balm, 
and she charged her sister-in-law, Asma 5 b. c Umays, 
the widow of Dja'far b. Abi Talib, who was helping 
her with these tasks, that no-one should uncover her 
after her death ; then she lay down on a clean bed in 
the middle of the room and awaited the end. As she 
had complained about the custom of covering the 
dead with a material which revealed their forms, 
Asma' prepared for her a bier made, in the manner 
of the Abyssinians, of wood and fresh palm-leaves. 



Fatima was content with this. Unfortunately these 
accounts which would allow us to assume that 
Fatima was gentle, modest, and calm in the face of 
death are contradicted by others: according to al- 
Ya'lfubi (ii, 128-30), she rebuked severely the Pro- 
phet's wives and the women of the Kuraysh who came 
to visit her during her illness; through Asma' she 
prevented 'A'isha from entering; her anxiety to hide 
her form from people's gaze was prompted by shame at 
her extreme thinness (al-Tabari, iii, 2436); it was 
<Ali who washed the body, or it was she herself who 
begged her husband to perform this task. It is 
difficult, if not impossible, to choose among these 
different accounts. 

There is the same uncertainty over the date of her 
death as surrounds other events of her private life: it 
was certainly the year n, but the month is doubtful; 
the commonest report is that she died six months after 
the Prophet. Her death was kept secret and her 
burial took place by night. According to most 
versions, neither Abu Bakr nor c Umar was informed; 
but there are accounts which relate that Abu Bakr 
recited the ritual prayers over Fatima's grave. 
Nearly all the sources agree that Fatima was buried 
in the Bakl c , and some specify the place of her grave : 
near the mosque called, from the name of the woman 
who built it, Masdjid Rukayya, at the corner of the 
dar of 'Akil ('All's brother), seven cubits from the 
road etc., but according to other sources, either 
immediately after the burial or some time later, the 
exact position of the grave was no longer known. 
Al-Mas c udi {Murudi, vi, 165) asserts that there was 
a tomb which bore an inscription giving as the 
names of those buried there Fatima and three c Alids 
(he is however the only one to give this detail), but 
al-Mukaddasi (BGA, iii, 46) includes the tomb of the 
daughter of the Prophet in the list of places on which 
there is disagreement, for it was also possible that 
Fatima had been buried "in the room" (fi 'l-hudira). 
Nowadays Shi'i pilgrims, to pay homage to the 
sayyidat al-nisa', visit three places: her house, the 
Baki c and the space in the Great Mosque between 
the rawda and the tomb of the Prophet. For a small 
makfura which may mark her place of burial and 
"Fatima's Garden", also in the Great Mosque, see 
EI 1 , art. al-Madina, 90 f. 

Physical and moral attributes. Fatima had 
a very strange kunya: Umm Abiha, "mother of her 
father". The explanations given for this name make 
us suspect that it originated among the Shi'a, all 
the more so that it is apparently mentioned only in 
the more recent sources, e.g., the Usd al-ghaba. An 
Imami source says that she was called "mother of 
her father" because she learned through a revelation 
that the name of her very last descendant would be 
Muhammad, like that of her father. There are other 
explanations, for which see below, sections on The 
celestial apple and Fatima's names. Given the 
connexions between the cult of Mary among 
Christians and that of Fatima among Muslims (to 
which Massignon has drawn attention), it is possible 
lhat the title arose as a counterpart to that of 
"Mother of God". 

Fatima was certainly not a beautiful woman, for 
the sources are silent about her appearance, whereas 
they mention the beauty of her sister Rukayya; 
they confine themselves to reporting that she 
resembled the Prophet in her gait. In any case 
she cannot have appeared the weak and sickly 
woman which Lammens took her to be on the 
strength of two badiths, which may refer to purely 
temporary situations, for there are other facts (her 



MA 845 

bearing five children; her discharge of arduous 
household tasks, her two journeys to Mecca) which 
prove that Fatima enjoyed fairly good health. 

In attempting to form a judgement on the moral 
qualities of Fatima we encounter many obstacles. 
When some accounts permit us to attribute to her 
a certain characteristic, there are others which 
contradict it. It seems certain that she was hard- 
working, content to perform her domestic work 
diligently and patiently. She appears to have taken 
pleasure in helping others, and the Prophet's wives 
used her as a spokesman to express their resentment 
over the preference which he showed for 'Alsha; we 
can easily imagine, however, that she performed this 
service willingly, for she herself had no great fond- 
ness for 'A'isha. On this occasion she proved incapable 
of defending the case for which she had approached 
her father, for when he asked her: "Do you not love 
what I love?" (meaning c A'isha), she quickly agreed 
that she too loved her; so the Prophet's wives had to 
choose a less timorous advocate from among their 
number to maintain their rights. Are we then to 
conclude from this and other accounts that Fatima 
was timid ? On the day of her marriage she stumbled 
on the hem of her garment, but we see her support her 
husband so boldly against Abu Bakr that there is no 
question of timidity, and she appears as a woman of 
quite different calibre. There is no doubt that she was 
meek and submissive towards the Prophet, but what 
was her attitude to her husband? It was really she 
who prevented c Ali from taking a second wife, and 
in the affair of the inheritance, when it was a 
question of defending the interests of the family, 
although she was obliged to yield to the wishes of the 
head of the State, she did it unwillingly, refusing to 
acknowledge the validity of Abu Bakr's decision. 

The Fatima of Legend 

As no systematic study of this subject exists, we 
have limited ourselves to selecting the main themes 
of the Fatima legend from three early Shi'I works 
(see Bibl.) in which some chapters are devoted to the 
daughter of the Prophet. The authors are: (1) Ibn 
Rustam al-Tabari who, according to the editor of his 
DalaHl al-imama, lived in the 4th/ioth century 
(siglum: IRT); (2) Husayn b. <Abd al-Wahhab, who 
began to write in 448/1056-7 the work which we have 
used and which was one of the sources of al-Madjlisi's 
Biftdr al-anwdr and of al-Bahrani's Madinat al- 
ma'-adiiz; he presents some stories about Fatima 
which differ strikingly from those of the other 
sources (siglum: H'AW); (3) Ibn Shahrashub, who 
died in 588/1192. Of the three works, his Mcmdlfib 
A I Abi Tdlib yields the most information and quotes 
form the largest number of sources (siglum: ISh). 

Khadldja's pregnancy and accouchement. 
Khadidja was despised by the Kuraysh because of 
her marriage with a poor man from a social class 
lower than her own (IRT, 8). On going in to her, 
Muhammad told her that Djibril had informed him 
that she would bear a daughter, a pure and blessed 
soul, and that from this daughter would spring his 
posterity and the imams destined to be the rulers on 
earth when his own inspiration ended (IRT, 8). Fati- 
ma, while still in her mother's womb, conversed with 
her(lRT,8;H<AW,48, 5 i; ISh, 119). Because of their 
contempt for Khadidja, the women of the Kuraysh 
refused to help her during her confinement. So four 
women came down from Paradise to assist her : Sara, 
Asiya, Mary and Safura', daughter of Shu'ayb and 
wife of Mflsa. Ten houris came with a bowl and a jug 
filled with water from the Kawthar, and the first of 



846 fa: 

them washed the new-born child, wrapped her in 
perfumed fine linen, and handed her, pure, purified, 
fortunate, blessed also in her posterity, to Khadldja, 
who suckled her (IRT, 9; H'AW, 48; ISh, 119). 
Fatima grew as much in a month as other children 
in a year (IRT, 9; ISh, 119). The women who had 
come to assist her mother departed as soon as they 
had completed their task, but before they went 
the new-born child greeted them by their names 
(H'AW, 48). At the moment of Fatima's birth, light 
spread over the sky and the earth, to the West and 
to the East (hence her title al-Zahra 5 ) (IRT, 9; 
ISh. 119). Immediately after her birth Fatima 
uttered the profession of faith, praised God, recog- 
nized the imamate of C A1I, recited the Rur'an and 
predicted future events (IRT, 9; H'AW, 48, 51; 
ISh, 119). 

Betrothal. c Abd al-Rahman b. 'Awf wished to 
marry Fatima and offered an enormous mahr (100 
camels loaded with Coptic cloth, and 10,000 dinars). 
'Uthman then offered the same mahr, and advanced 
the argument that he had embraced Islam earlier 
than c Abd al-Rahman. This flaunting of wealth 
angered Muhammad, who threw at c Abd al-Rahman 
(or placed on the hem of his garment) pebbles which 
turned into pearls (a single one of them worth all 
the riches of c Abd al-Rahman). Djibrll descended 
from heaven to announce that 'All was to be the 
husband of Fatima, for God had already commanded 
the angel Ridwan to adorn the four Paradises and 
another angel to built a minbar of light (IRT, 12; 
ISh, 123). 

Marriage of Fatima and c Ali. The Kuraysh 
women criticized Fatima's marrying C A1I, a poor man, 
but Muhammad had destined her for him because he 
had learned through Diibril (or through an angel named 
Mahmud) not only that this was the will of God but 
that the marriage had already taken place in heaven, 
with God as wall, Diibril as khatlb and the angels as 
witnesses. The mahr had been half of the earth (or a 
fifth, or a quarter) and, in addition, Paradise and 
Hell (hence Fatima enables her supporters to enter 
the one and consigns her enemies to the other). The 
mahr on earth was only about 500 dir hams because 
it was to serve as surma for the community. Perhaps 
in order to leave the mahr at this low figure, there 
are some references to a nihla from 'All, consisting of 
a fifth of the earth, two-thirds of Paradise, and 
four rivers: the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Nile 
and the Oxus. The tree Tuba or the Sidrat al- 
muntahd, at God's command, covered itself with 
robes, pearls and precious stones, and scattered 
them in vast quantities; the houris gathered these 
jewels and will keep them until the Day of Resur- 
rection, for they are Fatima's nithdr. The same 
tree, according to some accounts, let fall also missives 
written in light, which the angels gathered up 
because they are the safe-conducts of the supporters 
of the 'Alids (IRT, 12 f., cf. also 14, 18, 19 f., 23 f.; 
H'AW, 48 f.; ISh, 109, 123, 128, 134 1.). When 
Muhammad learned this, he called to him 'Ammar b. 
Yasir, Salman, and al-'Abbas and in their presence 
told 'All what God's will was; on his advice, 'All 
sold his breast-plate to Dihya [q.v.], who then made 
him a present of it (Dihya = Djibrll: IRT, 14). The 
marriage in heaven, according to two of our sources, 
took place forty days before the marriage on earth 
(or on the night of the isrd'). The angel Mahmud 
revealed also the reason for the union : light must be 
joined to light (ibid.). 

Trousseau. Muhammad charged Asma' bint 
'Umays, Umm Salama and a freedwoman, 'Ammar, 



Abu Bakr and Bilal to make the purchases necessary 
for the household of Fatima and 'All. The list of 
their purchases is recorded, in some cases with the 
prices (ISh, 123). Umm Salama bought the mattress- 
cover of Egyptian cloth which was to be filled with 
lif; Bilal or 'Ammar saw to the perfumes (IRT, 
i 4 f.,26). 

The marriage ceremony. During the marriage 
ceremony on earth, Djibrll cried from heaven 
"Alldhu akbar"; Muhammad heard him, and he too, 
with his Companions, cried "Alldhu akbar". This was 
the first takblr to be called during a wedding pro- 
cession (zifdf) and from that day onwards it became 
sunna (H'AW, 51). But there is another and stranger 
story concerning this takbir: Muhammad mounted 
Fatima on his mule and pushed the animal, while 
Salman led it; suddenly there was great confusion 
in the street: Djibril and Mikha^Il, each at the head 
of 70,000 angels, had come down for the ceremony 
and raised with Muhammad the cry "Alldhu akbarl" 
(IRT, 23, 25). 

Gifts from heaven. Djibril brought to Muham- 
mad a clove and an ear of corn from Paradise, 
announcing that God had commanded him to adorn 
Paradise for the marriage of Fatima and 'All (IRT, 
14, 20). 'All, told by Muhammad to look up into the 
sky, saw richly-clad maidens bringing presents: 
these were his own and Fatima's future servants in 
Paradise (IRT, 26). When 'Ammar brought to 
Fatima the perfume which Muhammad had sent him 
to buy for her, Fatima announced that the angel 
Ridwan had sent her some from heaven, brought by 
houris each of whom had in her right hand a fruit and 
in her left some basil; these gifts were intended for 
the people of her House and for her supporters 
(IRT, 26). Like Mary who, according to the Rur'Sn 
(III, 32/37), received a necessary provision (rizk), 
Fatima received pomegranates, grapes, apples, 
quinces, etc., and ate besides things which other 
creatures had never tasted since the fall of Adam 
and Eve (ISh, 135). One day Muljammad entered 
Fatima's house while she was at prayer, and saw 
behind her a steaming cauldron; he asked what this 
was and she replied: "Divine Providence" (ISh, 
135). Another day 'All invited Salman to the house 
because Fatima had received a gift from heaven and 
wished to share it with him. Three houris had brought 
it to her, with a message of sympathy from God while 
she was weeping for the death of her father. These 
three houris were called Dharra, Mikdada and Salma, 
because they had been created for Abu Dharr [q.v.], 
Mikdad [q.v.] and Salman [q.v.] respectively. The 
gift was a dish of white dates, cooled and so 
fragrant that Salman was asked, as he was taking 
five of them home, whether he had perfumed himself 
with musk. The dates had no stones; God had 
created them for Fatima beneath His throne from the 
prayers which Muhammad had taught her (IRT, 29). 
Fatima wished for a ring, and asked it of God during 
the night-prayer, Muhammad having taught her that 
she should make her requests at those times. A 
mysterious voice informed her that the ring was 
under the prayer-rug. In a dream Fatima saw castles 
destined for her in Paradise and noticed that the ring 
had been made from the foot of a bed which was in 
one of these castles and which had only three feet; 
but next day Muhammad told her that the family of 
'Abd al-Muttalib should set their attention on the 
next world and not on earthly things, and ordered 
her to put the ring back under the rug. In a dream 
Fatima saw the bed, which now again had four feet 
(ISh, 118). After the death of her father, Fatima 



received from heaven a book with covers of red 
chrysolite and pages of white pearl, which contained 
nothing from the fCur'an, but instruction on all that 
had been and would be until the Day of Resurrection 
(in IRT, 27, the source which speaks of this book, 
there is a summary of the information contained in 
it: it ranged from the numbers of the angels, the 
Prophets, etc. to the names of places on the earth, 
statistics of the believers, the events which would 
take place during 50,000 years, etc.). This book was 
brought to Fatima while she was at prayer, and the 
angels waited until she had completed her devotions 
before giving it to her and returning to heaven. 
Fatima read the book, and all — men, djinns, birds, 
beasts, prophets and angels — are bound to obey her. 
Later the book was handed on to C A1I, and after that 
to the imams (IRT, 227 f.). 

Physical privileges. Having been born pure 
and purified (she was a houri from heaven: H'AW, 
50), Fatima was exempt from the physiological 
troubles of women: she did not menstruate, and lost 
no blood during her confinements. She gave birth 
through the left thigh, while Mary gave birth through 
the right thigh (H'AW, 48, 51). Her pregnancies 
lasted only nine hours. 

Miracles. Several miracles were worked by 
Fatima: the stone for grinding corn turned without 
anyone moving it, an angel (fCukabil or Djibril) 
rocked her baby's cradle. One of her garments, 
given as a pledge to a Jew by the wife of Zayd b. 
Haritha, gave forth light, and the Jew and eighty 
other people, astonished at this miracle, embraced 
Islam (ISh, 16 f.). When, after the election of Abu 
Bakr, those who wanted to compel 'All to offer the 
bay'-a made him leave the house, Fatima went to the 
mosque and, standing near her father's tomb, 
threatened to uncover her head; at that moment 
Salman saw the walls of the mosque rise up: "My 
mistress and my patroness", he cried, "God sent your 
father in His mercy: you should not bring us 
misfortune!" The walls then returned to their place 
(ISh. 118). When Fatima was weeping for her 
father's death, it was Djibril himself who consoled 
her. The miracles continued even after Fatima's 
death, benefiting one of her servants and the descen- 
dant of one of her servants (ISh, 16 f.). 

Fatima in Paradise. Fatima will be the first 
person to enter Paradise after the Resurrection 
(ISh, no). All will have to lower their gaze when 
she crosses the Bridge (sirdt) which leads across Hell 
to Paradise. She will be escorted by seventy houris. 
In Paradise she will proceed, mounted on a wondrous 
camel with legs of emerald, eyes of ruby, etc., under 
a dome of light. It will be Djibril who leads the camel 
up to the throne of God. There she will descend and 
ask God to mete out justice to those who were guilty 
of the deaths of al-Hasan and al-Husayn. Then God 
will say to her, "My beloved, daughter of my beloved, 
ask of me what you will and I will grant it to you". 
Fatima will procure entry into Paradise for all her 
own people and all her supporters (ISh, 107-9). 
She is called al-Zahra 1 because of the dome of rubies 
which hangs over her in Paradise — a wonderful 
dome of immense height (a whole year's journey), 
upheld in the sky neither suspended from above nor 
supported from below, with 10,000 doors and 100 
angels at each one (ISh, hi). In Paradise Fatima 
will have a privilege: she will be the sole wife of 
'Ali, while other men will have as many houris as 
they please (ISh, 106) ; it was the houris who told 
her this (IRT, 26; ISh, 106), and it is out of respect 
for Fatima that there is no mention of houris in 



Sura LXXVI, where Paradise is described (ISh, 
106). 

The celestial apple. An early story, which goes 
back at least as far as al-Ghullabi (d. 298/910) runs 
as follows: Muhammad, on being reproached for 
embracing Fatima but not his other daughters, told 
how Djibril had presented him with an apple of 
Paradise, which he had eaten and which had become 
water in his loins; he then placed it within Khadldia. 
who conceived Fatima. He finished by saying that 
he smelled in Fatima the fragrance of Paradise. 
Other similar accounts are given in the same source 
(H'AW, 49 f.), with slight variants: Muhammad ate 
the apple and a date in Paradise during the mi'rddi 
[?.».]; both were transformed into water in his loins, 
etc. In ISh (135) Djibril gives Muhammad a 
celestial date instead of an apple; the story then 
continues as above. A notable difference appears 
when there is introduced into the story the Light 
which forms the central point of other accounts; 
the themes then become interwoven: God created the 
light of Fatima and Fatima uttered His praises; then 
He placed the light of Fatima in a tree of Paradise, 
which shone with the splendour of it; Muhammad, 
ascending to Paradise, was advised by God to pick 
the fruit of this tree. God caused its juice to pass into 
the throat of 'All, and then placed Fatima in the 
loins of Muhammad, who deposited her in Khadidja; 
the latter bore Fatima, who was of that light: she 
knew what was, what would be and what was not 
(H'AW, 47). This last account (the Light of Fatima 
lodged in the loins of Muhammad) would explain 
her kunya Umm Abiha. 

The Light and Fatima. Muhammad explained 
thus the reason for the preference accorded to the 
People of the House: God, he said, created me and 
'AH as light, and separated off from our light that 
of my descendants; then He separated from our light 
the light of the Throne, and from that of my descend- 
ants the light of the sun and of the moon. We teach 
the angels the lasbih, the tahlil and the tahmld {i.e., 
the formulas for the praise of God). God then said to 
the angels: "By My power, My majesty, My generos- 
ity, My eminence, I will act", and He created the 
light of Fatima like a lamp, and it is through her 
that the heavens were illuminated. Fatima was called 
al-Zahra 5 because the horizon took its light from her 
(H'AW, 46). This story is of particular interest 
because, with its description of successive divine 
emanations, it contains some features characteristic 
of Isma'ili beliefs. Another story collected by ISh 
(106) also speaks of light, but in a different way: God 
created Paradise from the light of His countenance; 
He took this light, and threw it; with a third of it He 
struck Muhammad, with another third Fatima, and 
with the remaining third 'Ali and the People of the 
House. Whoever is thus struck recognizes the 
walaya [q.v.] of the family of Muhammad. 

Fatima's names. Attempts have been made to 
see a significance in the name Fatima. As the root 
has the meaning of "weaning a child", "breaking 
someone of a habit", she has been said to be so 
called because she, and her descendants and sup- 
porters, will be spared from Hell, or because she 
was exempt from evil (ISh, no, cf. 107), or because 
she was removed from polytheism (IRT, 10). The 
list of her names in IRT (10 f.) consists of nine: 
Fatima, al-Siddika, al-Mubaraka, al-Tahira, al- 
Zakiyya, al-Radiyya, al-Radiya, al-Muhaddatha, 
al-Zahra'. She was called al-Muhaddatha because the 
angels spoke to her as to Mary, and she to them; they 
told her "God has chosen you and purified you; He 



8 4 8 

has chosen you from among the women of the world". 
According to H'AW (46), her names on earth are: 
Fatim (sic, in the masculine), Fatir, al-Zahra', al- 
Batul, al-Hasan, al-Hawra', al-Sayyida, al-Siddika, 
and Maryam al-Kubra. Ibn Babuya (d. 381/991) 
knew of 16 names for Fatima on earth and three in 
heaven, and Ibn Shahrashub (133) who records 
them appends a list of 69 names and attributes 
which must have served as a litany, for they are 
linked by the rhymes in groups, usually of three. 
Among the names listed by H'AW should be noted 
Fatir, i.e., Creator, for not only is it masculine, but 
it carried with it a glorification of Fatima which 
seems to be characteristic of the extreme Isma'ilis 
and of aberrant sects such as the Nusayris (Bausani, 
189) rather than of the Imamis. Have we here a 
borrowing by the latter from the former? The 
belief that Fatima is Fatir, Creator, would also 
explain her kunya Umm Abiha. 

References to Fatima in the Kur'Sn; 
her other merits. The Kur'an too is made to 
contribute to the glorification of Fatima, thanks to 
the exegesis of ShI'I writers, who maintain that many 
verses allude to 'Ali and his wife. When the Book 
speaks of women in general, a hidden reference to 
Fatima is intended: thus in III, 193/195, "I shall 
not permit to be lost the work of one who works 
[well] among you, male or female", the "male" is 
'All and the "female" Fatima at the time of the 
hidjra. Similarly they identify with 'All and Fatima 
the reference to the creation of man and woman in 
XCII, 3. 

Twelve women are alluded to in the Kur'an 
without their names being mentioned (e.g., Eve, 
Sarah, Pharaoh's wife, etc.). There is such an allusion 
to Fatima in LV, 19, which speaks of two seas which 
God has caused to flow together: this confluence is 
the reconciliation of 'AH and Fatima after a dispute, 
for he is the sea of knowledge and Fatima the sea of 
prophecy; the barrier between them, mentioned in 
the following verse, is the Apostle of God, who 
prevents 'All from distressing himself over the life 
of this world and Fatima from quarrelling with her 
husband over earthly things; the pearls and the 
coral of verse 22 are, since they come from these seas, 
allusions to al-Hasan and al-Husayn (ISh, 101, 
102 f.). Each of the women of the Kur'an has 
a particular quality which is apparent from a 
phrase in the Book, e.g., Eve has repentance (cf. 
Kur'an, VII, 22/23), Pharaoh's wife desire (LXVI, 
n), Fatima Hsma (because of the mubdhala, III, 
54/61). Ten of these women received a gift from God, 
Fatima's being knowledge. Support for all these, and 
other, assertions is found in verses of the Kur'an 
(ISh, 102-4). The best women of Paradise are 
Fatima, Khadidja, Asiya bint Muzahim, Pharaoh's 
wife, and Maryam bint 'Imran (= Mary), but 
Fatima is the sayyida par excellence (an angel had 
announced this to Muhammad: H'AW, 51; ISh, 
104 f.). Fatima is often compared with Mary. On one 
occasion she asked the angels, "Is not Mary the 
chosen one ?", to which the reply was "Mary is the 
sayyida of her world ; God has made you the sayyida 
of the women of this world and the next" (IRT, 10) ; 
further, Fatima had the privilege of being married 
to a great man in this life and the next (ISh, 105), 
and thus is superior. And although Mary preserved 
her virginity, so did Fatima, whence her title al- 
Batul (also explained, however, as meaning that no 
woman comparable with her ever existed) (ISh. 
134 f.). Fatima is numbered among the four best 
known "returners to God" (tawwdb [q.v.]): Adam, 



Yunus, Dawud and Fatima, and it is to her that the 
Kur'an refers in III, 188/191; the best known 
"weepers" (bakkd' [q.v.]) number seven: Adam, 
Nuh, Ya'kub, Yusuf, Shu'ayb, Dawud, Zayn al- 
'Abidiu, and she is the eighth; she had become so 
accustomed to weep at all times for the death of her 
father that the people of Medina urged her to devote 
herself to weeping either by night or by day (ISh, 
104). 

Fatima in the ta'ziyas. The rich collection of 
ta'ziyas presented by Enrico Cerulli to the Vatican 
Library (of which E. Rossi and A. Bombaci have 
published the Index, and the latter proposes to 
publish resumes) presents several texts based on 
episodes of the Fatima legend, e.g., her trousseau 
(Salman and Abu Dharr are commissioned to make 
the purchases); her invitation to the wedding of a 
woman of the Kuraysh, which led to the conversion 
of those present; her hard work to support herself; 
the misappropriation of Fadak and the violence 
shown by 'Umar to her and 'All; the visit of Abu 
Bakr and 'Umar during her last illness; her will; her 
death (a pomegranate is brought to her from heaven) ; 
her arrival at the camp of al-Husayn on the 10th 
Muharram to visit the People of the Tent, and on the 
day following the massacre to see her son's body; 
various of her miracles, etc. In the introduction to 
the work mentioned above will be found references 
to other collections of these Persian sacred dramas, 
where too, very probably, Fatima plays the principal 
or a leading role. 

The cult of Fatima today. Popular sympathy 
for Fatima among the ShI'a has caused several 
feasts to be dedicated to her: that of the mubdhala 
(21, 24 or 25 Dhu 'l-Hidjdja) is the only canonical 
one; others, held in private, celebrate her birth 
(20 Ramadan) or her death (3 Diumada II and 2 
Ramadan) or an episode of her life: the marriage 
to which she was invited and for which, she having 
no suitable garments, Djibril clad her in a sumptuous 
robe and put on her two ear-rings, the one green, 
foreshowing the poisoning of al-Hasan, the other 
red, a symbol of the martyrdom of al-Husayn; on 
seeing her so beautiful the bride died of jealousy, but 
was at once restored to life by Fatima (on these 
feasts see Massignon, La notion, 107-n; on prayers 
to her, ibid., 102-6). In his book The wild rue, Donald- 
son has introduced some popular tales which do not 
differ substantially from the accounts preserved in 
the Arabic and Persian texts. Only that on page 77 
seems to offer some new details : after the Resurrec- 
tion the earth will become a desert; Muhammad, 
Fatima and the Imams will appear, and Fatima will 
tell the women that all those who have wept for al- 
Husayn and preserved iheir tears, thus acquiring 
great merit, will go to Paradise. Fatima will be clad 
in a garment with a magnificent fringe, the women 
will cling to it and pass over the Bridge with her in 
the twinkling of an eye. One further belief may be 
noted: the Shi'a believe that the "Five" are present 
at difficult moments of their lives and hear their 

Fatima in the beliefs of the Isma'ilis. 
The study of the development of the Fatima legend 
among the Isma'ilis and the deviant sects of Islam 
is more difficult than among the Imamis because 
of their esotericism and because they are split up 
into numerous groups, each holding varying beliefs; 
and what is known of these beliefs has not yet been 
systematically assembled in any one study embracing 
all the material. Some information on Fatima can be 
drawn from the works of Massignon, and some more 



from the writings of Ivanow and of Corbin. Here 
some general observations may be made : Among the 
Imamis the Fatima of legend preserves almost 
always links with the Fatima of history, even in the 
more fantastic accounts (whose texts, furthermore, 
contain an admixture of fiadiths having nothing of 
the fantastic about them, whether they are from 
Sunni or from other collections). In the more extra- 
vagant exaltation accorded to Fatima by the 
Isma'IHs these links are often preserved; but in 
their systems of cosmogony she becomes a secondary 
element among a host of other gnostic or semi- 
gnostic elements, and she is then to some extent 
overshadowed by these and all links with her 
historical self are generally lost. Among the Isma'IHs 
and the deviant sects there appear other beliefs, of 
which we have found no trace in the ImamI sources, 
e.g., the identification of Fatima with al-Masdjid 
al-Aksa in Jerusalem, with the Cave of the Seven 
Sleepers, with the rock of Moses which gushed forth 
miraculous water (the ancestral motif of Water), and 
the idea that she conceived through the ear and gave 
birth through the navel, etc. Among the Isma'IHs 
and the deviant sects there has been a more extensive 
assimilation of the themes of the Christian devotion 
to Mary, the Mother of God. There is also, according 
to Massignon {La notion . . ., 113 f.), a tendency to 
identify the figures of Mary and Fatima in the style 
of depicting them in icons (Fatima enthroned in 
heaven, with a diadem, a sword, and ear-pendants). 

Although the Umm al-kitdb, the curious holy book 
of groups of Isma'IHs of Central Asia (published and 
analysed by Ivanow, REI, 1932, 419-82; Isl., xxiii 
(1936), 1-132), is of limited importance — it is 
almost unknown to the other Isma'IHs — we may 
summarize here its account of the Creation, noting 
that it bears a certain resemblance to that of Husayn 
b. 'Abd al-Wahhab summarized above. God, a 
being of light (shakhs nurdni) before the Creation, 
with five limbs: hearing, sight, the senses of smell and 
taste, and speech (which on earth were to become 
Muhammad, 'AH, Fatima, al-Hasan and al-Husayn), 
manifested Himself when the world began in 'AH, 
and then in successive theophanies ; that of Fatima 
took place in Paradise after the creation of primordial 
men as a figure adorned with thousands of colours 
and seated on a throne with a crown on her head 
(Muhammad), two ear-rings in her ears (al-Hasan 
and al-Husayn), and a sword carried in a shoulder- 
belt ('AH) ; all the garden of Paradise shone upon the 
appearance of this radiant figure. 

Conclusion. In preparing this article we have 
taken note of the gaps left unfilled, and therefore 
indicate here the course that should be followed by 
future students of the legend of Fatima. It would be 
advisable to collect all the references to the daughter 
of the Prophet in the Shi'I 2>ad«A-coUections [e.g., 
that of al-Kulaynl) and in the ahhbdr Fatima, which 
Agha Buzurg has listed in his Dhari'a (i, 243 f., 331) 
and, if they no longer survive, to reconstruct them, at 
least in part, from the numerous quotations from 
them in later texts; it will be necessary to establish, 
from al-Madjlisi, the beliefs accepted by the Safawids, 
to coUect together the ideas of the Isma'IHs, and 
finally, with the help of al-Kadi al-Nu'man or other 
authors, to establish the esoteric beliefs of the 
Fatimids. Use should be made of the Persian 
lithographs (excluded from this study as being 
confused and difficult to consult) as a source for 
other legendary themes, for it is very probable that 
the themes developed as time went on. Parallels in 
Sufi anecdotes should also be studied. Finally, the 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



:MA 849 

investigator will have also to interpret the themes, 

and to trace what connexion they have either with 

beUefs which existed long before Islam, of which they 

could be a recrudescence, or with ideas which, 

although incompatible with Islam, survived in the 

countries conquered by the Muslims, or with details 

preserved in fiadiths and with genuinely Islamic ideas. 

In our view the last is likely in most cases to prove to 

be the real connexion, even when the themes have 

expanded into stories which are completely fantastic. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hisham, Sira, 121, 776 

(Cairo ed. 1937, i, 206; iii, 407); Wakidl, ed. 

Wellhausen, 118 f., 143, 287, 324, 421, and index; 

Ibn Sa'd, viii, 11-20; Baladhuri, Ansab, i, ed. 

Muhammad Hamldullah, Cairo 1959, 125, 269, 

324, 390, 400, 402, 403, 404, 405, 414, 415. 559, 

583, 586; idem, Futuh, 30-2; Ibn Habib, K. al- 

Muhabbar, Haydarabad 1361/1942, 18 (Fatima's 

female ancestors) and index; Tabari, i, 1128, 1140 

1272, 1273, 1367, 1426, 1431, 1623, 1624, 1751, 

1825, 1869, 3470, iii, 2302 f., 2423, 2434-6, 2440, 

2463; Ya'kubi, ii, 19, 35, 42, 91, 128 f., 141, 

142; Ibn Kutayba (attrib.), al-Imdma wa 'l-siy- 

dsa, ed. Rafi'I, Cairo 1322/1904, 20-4 (2nded., Cairo 

1377/ 1957, 12, 13 f.);idem, c Uyun al-ahhbdr, Cairo 

1 343-9/1925-30, iv, 70; Ibn 'Abd Rabbihi, '/fcd, 

Cairo 1293, ii, 3 f. For hadiths, numerous citations 

in A. J. Wensinck, A handbook of early Muham- 

madan tradition, Leiden 1927, s.v. Fatima and 

also s.v. 'All (the collections with the richest 

notices on Fatima are those of al-Tirmidhl and of 

Ahmad b. Hanbal; the former devotes a chapter 

to Fadl Fatima bint al-nabi: Didmi c . fCairol 1292, 

ii, 319-21; in Bukharl the following references 

are to be consulted: 56, 85, 163, 57, 1, 62, 12, 

16, 29, 64, 24, 38, 83, 67, 123, 6g, 6, 7, 76, 27, 79, 

43, So, ii, S5, 3); Mas'udi, Murudj, iv, 146, 156, 

157, 161, vi, 55, 56, 165; Ibn 'Abd al-Barr, Kitab 

al-IsW-db, Haydarabad 1318-9, 770-3 = no. 3406; 

Ibn al-Athlr, Usd, s.v. Fatima bint Rasiil Allah = v, 

519-25, for al-'Awra' v, 419; Ibn Hadjar, Isaba, 

iv, 724-31 = no. 823, for al-'Awra' iv, 715 = 

no. 791; DiyarbakrI, Ta'rikh al-khamis, [Cairo] 

1302, i, 313-5, 407 f., 462-4; HalabI, al-Sira al- 

Ifalabiyya, Alexandria 1280, iii, 529, 607-9. 

For the mubdhala: Tabari, Tafsir, Cairo 
1958- , vi, 478-82; Zamakhshari, Kashshdf, 
Cairo 1308, i, 308 f., and the other tafsirs; a short 
modern work: 'Umar Abu '1-Nasr, Fatima bint 
Muhammad umm al-shuhadd' wa Sayyidat al-nisd', 
Cairo 1366/1947 (al-shi c a al-uld Ji 'l-Isldm), 22- 
70; other citations in Zirikll, A c ldm, v, 329. 
Shi'I imaml works: Kulaynl (Muhammad b. 
Ya'kub), al-Kdfifi Him al-din, Tehran 1313/1895-6, 
185-7; Ibn Rustam al-Tabari, DaldHl al-imdma, 
Nadjaf 1 369/1949, 1-58; Husayn b. 'Abd al- 
Wahhab, c Uyiin al-mu c djizdt, Nadjaf 1 369/1950, 
46-51; Ibn Shahrashub, Mand^ib Al Abi Tdlib, 
Nadjaf 1956, iii, 101-40; Muhammad Bakir 
Madjlisi, Bihar al-anwdr, x-xiii, lith. Tehran 
1305 (the notices on Fatima collected officially 
by the Safawids are in vol. x, bdbs 1-6, pp. 2-65 : 
(1) birth, (2) virtues and miracles, (3) habits, 
including domestic habits, (4) marriage, and 
relations with 'AH, (5) end of her life, (6) revenge 
and eschatological events. The popular version 
in Persian of these notices, regarded as canonical, 
is in: idem, Dpld* aW-uyun, Tehran 1332/1953, 
bdb 2, 82-166 — birth, virtues, life and miracles, 
habits, marriage, relations with 'AH, death, 
revenge); Muhsin Fayd al-IJashanl, (= al-Kashi), 
al-Wdfi, Tehran 1376/1957, 172 f. For the cano- 



FATIMA — FATIMIDS 



nical prayers of the Imamls in honour of 
Fatima: Shaykh c Abb5s Kumml, Kulliyydt-i 
mafdtih al-diindn, Tehran i3i6(s.)/i937-8, 41 f., 
57i 301, 318, 322-4 (commentary: 244, 428, 
429, 488). An Isma'Ili work: al-Kadl al- 
Nu'man, Da'dHm al-Isldm, ed. A. A. A. Fyzee, 
i, Cairo 1370/1951, 203 {tasbih of Fatima), 285, and 
index). Modern authors: Abu '1-Hasan 
Marandi, Madima* al-nurayn wa multakd al- 
bahrayn ft ahwdl bad'at Sayyid al-thakalayn wa 
umm al-sibtayn al-siddika al-kubrd al-batM al- 
c adhrd' al-Sayyida Fatima al-Zahra', Tehran 
1328/1907, chaps. 1-23, 26-30, 35-7, 43-59 (cited 
by Massignon); c Imad al-Din Husayn al-Isfahanl, 
MadjmU'-a-i zindigdni-i (ahdrdah ma'sum, Tehran 
1330 (solar), i, 221-358; Muhsin al-Amin, A'ydn 
al-shi c a, ii, 535-&39; Ndma-i Fdfimi, MS (Rieu, ii, 
708: 'a ShI'ite poem on the life of Fatimah'); 
A. Sprenger, Das Leben und die Lehre des Moham- 
mad, i, 199, 203, ii, 462; L. Caetani, Annali, 
Intr. 160, 1 A.H., § 53, 2 A.H., §§ 17, 102, 3 A.H., 
§ 11, 7 A.H., §§ 42, 47 no. 3, 8 A.H., §§ 80, 203, 
11 A.H., §§ 19 n. 1, 37 n. 3, 59, 202-3, 203 n. 1, 
205-8, 238; H. Lammens, Fdfima et les filles de 
Mahomet. Notes critiques pour Vitude de la Sira, 
Rome 1912 (Scripta Pontificii Instituti Biblici); 
L. Massignon, Der gnostische Kultus der Fatima 
im schiitischen Islam, in Eranos Jahrbiicher, 
1938, i67ff.; idem, La Mub&hala de Mddine et 
Vhyperdulie de Fatima, Paris 1955; idem, La 
notion du voeu et la divotion musulmane a Fatima, 
in Studi orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi 
Delia Vida, Rome 1956, ii, 102-26; B. A. Donald- 
son, The wild rue: a study of Muhammadan magic 
and folklore in Iran, London 1938, 39, 55, 69, 109, 
119; A. Bausani, Persia religiosa, Milan 1959, 188, 
384-6, 390. For the ta'ziyas: E. Rossi and 
A. Bombaci, Elenco di drammi religiosi persiani 
(fondo Mss. Vaticani Cerulli), Vatican 1961 
(Studi e testi 209), index s.v. Fatima. 

(L. Veccia Vaglieri) 
FATIMIDS, dynasty which reigned in North 
Africa, and later in Egypt, from 297/909 until 
567/1 171. 

'Ubayd Allah (al-Mahdl), 297-322/909-34. 
Al-Ka 3 im, 322-34/934-46. 
Al-Mansur, 334-41/946-53. 
Al-Mu c izz, 341-65/953-75. 
Al- c Aziz, 365-86/975-96. 
Al-Hakim, 386-411/996-1021. 
Al-Zahir, 411-27/1021-36. 
Al-Mustansir, 427-87/1036-94. 
Al-Musta c ll, 487-95/1094-1101. 
Al-Amir, 495-525/1101-30. 
Al-Hafiz, 525-44/1130-49- 
Al-Zafir, 544-9/1149-54. 
Al-Fa 5 iz, 549-55/1154-60. 
Al- c Adid, 555-67/1160-71. 

The dynasty takes its name from Fatima, for the 
Fatimid caliphs traced their origin to 'All and 
Fatima. It is also possible that another Fatima, the 
daughter of Husayn, who transmitted some hadiths 
of her grandmother and had foreknowledge of the 
Mahdi, played a part in the attribution of this name 
(see L. Massignon, Fatima bint al-Ifusayn et Vorigine 
du nom dynastique "Fdtimites", in Akten des XXIV. 
intern. Orientalisten-Kongresses, Munich 1957, 368). 
It should also be mentioned that the mother of c Ali 
was a Hashimite called Fatima bint Asad (Ibn 
Hadjar, Isdba, Cairo 1328, iv, 380) and that among 
the Ahl-i Hakk she is connected with the legend of 
Salman (see al-Mokri, Le "secret indicible . . .", 



in J A, ccl (1962), 375), who plays an important part 
in Fatimid tradition. 

According to W. Ivanow (Ismaili traditions con- 
cerning the rise of the Fatimids, Bombay 1942, Isl. 
Res. Ass. Series, no. 10, 80), the name Fatimiyyun, 
which, according to al-Tabarl (iii, 2219, sub anno 289), 
had been adopted by the Bedouin Banu '1-Asbagh 
of the Syrian desert whose leader was the Karmato- 
Isma'IU Yahya b. Zikrawayh, was the first name of 
the Isma'ilis. But Massignon (op. cit.) reminds us 
that the name is already found in Bashshar b. Burd, 
used in a pejorative sense. The origin of the Fatimid 
movement, which in North Africa brought the 
Fatimids to power in the person of c Ubayd Allah 
al-Mahdi, must be sought in Isma'ilism [see isma'Il- 
liyya], a Shi'i doctrine which was at the same time 
political and religious, philosophical and social, 
and whose adherents expected the appearance of a 
Mahdi descended from the Prophet through 'All 
and Fatima, in the line of Isma'il, son of Dja'far 
al-Sadik. 



Genealogy 01 



E FATIMIDS 



The Fatimids trace their origin to Isma'il, but as 
they did not announce their genealogy publicly 
and officially for some time, and as, during the 
period of the Hidden Imams, the satr [q.v.], the names 
of the imams between Muhammad b. Isma'il and 
c Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi were intentionally left in 
the dark, several different genealogies became 
current; with the result that, even today, the origin 
of the Fatimids is still wrapped in obscurity. The 
enemies of the Fatimids denied their descent from 
c Ali and declared that they were impostors. Fol- 
lowing the ancient Arab habit of giving a Jewish 
origin to people they hate (Goldziher, Muh. St., 
i, 204), c Ubayd Allah has even been presented as the 
son of a Jew. 

According to the traditional Fatimid genealogy, 
'Ubayd Allah was the son of Husayn b. Ahmad b. 
c Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Isma'il b. Dja'far 
al-Sadik. The general anti-Fatimid tradition has it 
that he was the son of Husayn b. Ahmad b. Muham- 
mad b. c Abd Allah b. Maymun al-Kaddah, that he was 
really called Sa'id, and that it was only in North 
Africa that he took the name of c Ubayd Allah (or 
c Abd Allah) and claimed to be of c Alid descent and 
to be the Mahdi (on Maymun al-Kaddah and his 
son c Abd Allah and their relations with Dja'far 
al-Sadik and his grandson Muhammad b. Isma'il, 

See C ABD ALLAH B. MAYMUN). 

On the genealogy of the Fatimids, the different 
forms, both anti-Fatimid and Isma'ili, in which it 
has been presented, and the complex problems which 
it raises and which seem to defy a satisfactory 
solution, information is to be found in various works : 
S. de Sacy, Exposi de la religion des Druzes, Paris 
1838; Wiistenfeld, Gesch. der Fatimiden-Chalifen, 
Gottingen 1881; C. H. Becker, Beitrage zur Geschichte 
Agyptens, Strasbourg 1902-3; De Goeje, Mimoire 
sur les Carmathes, Leiden 1886; P. H. Mamour, 
Polemics on the origin of the Fatimi Caliphs, London 
1924. The question has been studied afresh in more 
recent works: W. Ivanow, Ismaili traditions con- 
cerning the rise of the Fatimids, 1942, 154 f., 223 f.; 
idem, Ismailis and Qarmatians, in JBRAS, 1940, 
70 f.; idem, The alleged founder of Ismailism, Bombay 
1946, 169 f. (Ism. Soc. Series, no. 1); B. Lewis, The 
origins of IsmdHlism, Cambridge 1940 (Arabic 
translation, Baghdad 1947). Still more recently have 
appeared: Husayn F. al-Hamdani, On the genealogy 
of Fatimid Caliphs, Cairo 1958, and W. Madelung, 



Das Imamat in der friihen ismailitischen Lehre, in 
Isl., xxxvii (1961), an article which is a continuation 
of Fatimiden und Bahrainqarmaten, in Isl., xxxiv 
(1959). 

We can do no more here than glance at the ques- 
tions which are discussed in these works and the dif- 
ficulties which are encountered in studying the 
origin of the Fatimids, considering the many diver- 
gences which are found in the sources and the very 
different standpoints taken by the authors who con- 
cern themselves with these questions — even by the 
Isma'ili writers, in considering whose works we must 
take into account the very different treatment they 
give to a question according to whether the work is 

Here are a few of the difficulties which arise: 

In the Isma'ili sources the series of imams preceding 
'Ubayd Allah is not everywhere the same and the 
names do not always agree (see Ivanow, Rise, 46 f.). 
Even the name of the father of 'Ubayd Allah varies; 
there is one tradition which presents him as the son 
not of Husayn but of one Ahmad. 'Ubayd Allah 
appears sometimes as e Ali b. al-Husayn, but on the 
other hand an 'Ali b. al-Husayn is considered as a 
fourth Hidden Imam, not found in the list given 
above. Was Husayn, the father of 'Ubayd Allah, 
the regular imam or was the imam not rather 
Muhammad b. Ahmad, uncle of 'Ubayd Allah ? 
In that case the uncle would not have been able to 
hand down the imamate to 'Ubayd Allah, since the 
doctrine decrees that, apart from the case of Hasan 
and Husayn, it is transmitted only from father to son. 
This Muhammad b. Ahmad bears also the name of 
Abu 'Ali al-Hakim with the kunya Abu '1-Shala'la' 
(or Shalaghlagh) and the surname Sa'id al-Khayr. 
He is also presented as the father of 'Ubayd Allah. 
As 'Ubayd Allah is also Sa'id, it can be seen what a 
source of confusion these different names must have 
been (see Rise, 31, Madelung, Imamat, 56, 71, 75, 
and similarly S. de Sacy and De Goeje). 

'Ubayd Allah himself gave other versions of his 
origin than that of the Fatimid tradition mentioned 
above. In a letter to the Isma'ili community of the 
Yemen (see Madelung, 70), he claims to be descended 
not from Isma'il b. Dja'far, but from another son 
of Dja'far, 'Abd Allah. In the interview which he had 
with 'Abdan, the emissary of Hamdan Karmat, as 
it is reported by Akhu Muhsin (admittedly a strongly 
anti-Fa timid sharif), 'Ubayd Allah claimed a Kaddahl 
descent (Madelung, 60). 

A further uncertainty lies in the relationship 
between 'Ubayd Allah and the second Fatimid 
caliph, Muhammad Abu '1-Kasim al-Ka'im bi-amr 
Allah. The latter bears the name attributed by 
tradition to the expected Mahdl who must have the 
same name as the Prophet; the Ka'im is strictly the 
Mahdi (the two names are used interchangeably). 
'Ubayd Allah took the title of al-Mahdi, but did he 
really in his heart consider himself as the expected 
Mahdi, given that he did not have the necessary 
characteristics? Al-Ka'im may not have been the 
son of 'Ubayd Allah, although the latter always 
considered him officially as his son. According to the 
Ghdyat al-mawdlid of al-Khattab b. al-Hasan (6th/ 
12th century), he was the son of that fourth Hidden 
Imam 'AH mentioned above (see Ivanow, Rise, 
texts, 37, and Madelung, 77). 'Ubayd Allah's attitude 
to Abu '1-Kasim al-Ka'im in conferring on him when 
he entered Rakkada a rank apparently superior to 
his own (see the facts in Madelung, 66, and see also 
72) seems to imply that he considered Abu '1-Kasim 
as the awaited Mahdi. Similar doubts are raised by 



various other details concerning al-Ka'im (see 
Ivanow, Rise, 50, 204 and the Sirat Dia'far al- 
Hddjib, 304, tr. in Hespiris, 1952, 120). However it 
is difficult to be definite on this subject. 

Another difficulty is that arising from the contra- 
diction between the official genealogy and that which 
links the Fatimids with Maymun al-Kaddah. Even 
in the reign of al-Mu'izz, the fourth Fatimid caliph, 
an attempt was made in certain heterodox Isma'ili 
circles to reconcile the two genealogies by identifying 
'Abd Allah b. Maymun al-Kaddah with the 'Abd 
Allah b. Muhammad b. Isma'il b. Dja'far of the 
Fatimid genealogy and thus introducing a non-'Alid 
into the family (see Ivanow, Rise, 140; S. M. Stern, 
Heterodox IsmaHlism at the time of al-MuHzz, in 
BSOAS, xvii/i (1955), 12 f.). B. Lewis resolves the 
contradiction by showing, on the evidence of Isma'ili 
and Druze works, how it was possible to consider the 
Kaddahls as Fatimid imams, as the result of a 
spiritual adoption. Among the Isma'ills spiritual 
paternity holds an important place beside physical 
paternity. (It may be recalled that in his letter to 
the community of the Yemen, 'Ubayd Allah, who 
included in the list of the imams his uncle Muham- 
mad b. Ahmad, stated that he himself was called 
'Abd Allah b. Muhammad because he was fi'l-bdfin 
the son of this Muhammad b. Ahmad, who trans- 
mitted the imamate to him: see Husayn F. Hamdani, 
in Madelung, 71-2). 

Apart from the real, true imams, descended from 
'Ali and Fatima, and called mustakarr (literally 
'permanent'), there were, says B. Lewis, imams 
called mustawda', trustees or guardians of the ima- 
mate (on these two terms see Stern, op. cit., 16), 
whose function was to "veil" the true imam in order 
to protect him, and who acted by right of an assign- 
ment (tafwid) which so to speak allowed them to 
enter the family of the true imams. Maymun al-Kad- 
dah, who had received from Dja'far al-Sadik the 
charge of his grandson Muhammad b. Isma'il, said 
that his own son 'Abd Allah was the spiritual son 
of Muhammad b. Isma'il and his heir, and it is by 
virtue of this that he proclaimed him imam. Thus a 
series of Kaddahi imams is found side by side with 
a series of 'Alid imams. The last Kaddahl of the 
series was 'Ubayd Allah Sa'id, the mustawda 1 imam 
of al-Ka'im, the 'Alid and mustakarr imam. Thus, in 
the person of al-Ka 5 im, the imamate returned to the 
'Alid family. 

For all the questions which arise and which cannot 
be dealt with here, reference should be made to the 
very detailed and fully documented article of 
Madelung on the imamate in early Isma'ili doctrine, 
to which we shall return when discussing the religious 
policy of the Fatimids. 

From the historical point of view, that which 
concerns us directly in this question of the genealogy 
is the attitude of the 'Abbasids, who naturally con- 
tested the 'Alid origin of their rivals the Fatimids, 
to whom it gave great prestige. 'Arib [sub anno 302, 
51 f.), following al-SOli, reveals that at Baghdad 
at this time it was said that the master of the Maghrib 
was descended from a freedman of Ziyad b. Abihi's 
[q.v.] chief of police. All the same, it was not until 
later that official documents appeared, signed by 
jurists and 'Alids, one of 402/101 1 and the other of 
444/1052, which denied that they were of 'Alid origin 
(see Ibn al-Djawzi, Muntazam, vii, 255; Ibn al- 
Athir, subannis 402, 444! Ibn Khaldun, Proleg., tr. 
de Slane, i, 39, tr. Rosenthal, i, 45, and Hist, des 
Berberes, tr. ii, 55; al-Makrizi, Itti'dz, Cairo ed., 58 f.; 
Abu '1-Mah5sin, Cairo ed., iv, 229, v, 53 ; cf. Goldziher, 



8 5 2 FA1 

Die Streitschrift des Gazdli gegen die Bdtinijja-Sekte, 
Leiden 1915, 15). 

The Sunni historians are in general not well disposed 
towards the Fatimids. Hardly any of them except 
al-MakrizI and Ibn Khaldun pronounce their 'Alid 
descent to be authentic. Moreover, the argument 
advanced by these two writers that 'Ubayd Allah 
would not have been persecuted by the 'Abbasids if 
they had not been convinced of the 'Alid descent of 
the Fatimids is not very convincing, for, c Alid or not, 
he represented ideas which were dangerous to those 
in power and it was natural that the authorities 
should harry him. While the supporters of the 
Fatimids refer to their dynasty as 'Alid {al-dawla 
al-'alawiyya: see e.g. al-Mu'ayyad fi '1-DIn, Sira, 
passim), several Sunni historians speak of them only 
as c Ubaydids and as the 'Ubaydid dynasty. Ibn 
Hamado (Hammad [q.v.]) calls them muluk Bani 
'■Ubayd. Similarly Abu '1-Mahasin speaks of al-Mu'izz 
al-'Ubaydl, al-'Aziz al-'Ubaydl. 

Foundation of the Dynasty 
Whoever c Ubayd Allah-Sa'Id may have been, he 
laid the foundations of the dynasty in North Africa. 
He lived at Salamiyya in Syria, a centre of Isma'IH 
propaganda. The way had been prepared for him by 
the ddHs [q.v.], the Isma'IH missionaries. Ibn Hawshab 
Mansur al-Yaman, the ddH of the Yemen, where he 
was firmly established, had sent missionaries into 
North Africa, the last and most important of whom 
was Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shi'I [q.v.]. When 'Ubayd 
Allah decided to leave Salamiyya, either to escape 
'Abbasid investigations, or as the result of the obscure 
affair of a conspiracy against him within the Isma'ili 
movement (that of the "three Karmati brothers" as 
Ivanow puts it in Rise, 75 f.), he could have gone 
either to the Yemen, or to North Africa, where the 
missionary Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shi'I had been working 
successfully among the Kutama Berbers since 280/ 
893. He went first to Ramla in Palestine, thence to 
Egypt, probably in 291/903; then when he was 
harassed by the 'Abbasid governor, and when his 
followers expected him to set off for the Yemen, he 
decided to go to North Africa where Abu 'Abd Allah 
al-Shi'I was occupied in undermining the Aghlabi 
domination. Being unable to join the missionary at 
once, he went to Sidjilmasa where he was put under 
house arrest, if not actually imprisoned, by the amir 
of the country. It was there that Abu 'Abd Allah, 
after having made himself master of the Aghlabi 
capital Rakkada and expelling Ziyadat Allah in 
Radjab 296/March 909, came to seek him to lead him 
in triumph, on 29 Rabi' II 297/15 January 910, to 
Rakkada where he publicly took the titles of Mahdi 
and of Amir al-Mu 3 minIn (on all this, see, besides 
the historians, the Sirat Dja'far al-Hadjib, one of 
the faithful companions of 'Ubayd Allah, mentioned 






e Fatimid Caliphate 



The first four Fatimid caliphs, 'Ubayd Allah al- 
Mahdi, al-Ka'im, al-Mansur and al-Mu'izz, lived in 
North Africa, the last until, in 362/973, he left for 
Egypt, which had been conquered by his general 
Djawhar [q.v.]. 

During the African period, the Fatimid caliphs 
encountered many difficulties. In North Africa, split 
between Sunnism, mainly in its Maliki form, and 
Kharidjism, in its IbadI and Sufri forms, the new 
doctrine could not fail to bring trouble. The existence 
in the Maghrib of two rival Berber groups, the Zenata 
in the west and the Sanhadja (who included the 



Kutama) in the east, was a further disrupting factor. 
Settled in the centre and the west of the country were 
two dynasties of eastern origin, the KharidjI Rusta- 
mids of Tahert and the ('Alid) Idrlsids of Fez, which 
the new dynasty could not allow to remain independ- 
ent. The Umayyads of Spain were in possession of a 
part of the MaghribI territory lying nearest to the 
Iberian peninsula. Finally, if we consider that, from 
the very beginning, the new masters of Ifrikiya had 
considered it only as a base from which to move on, 
that they intended one day to move to the East, 
to supplant the 'Abbasids there, that in order to do 
this they had to keep up a powerful and expensive 
army and a navy of some consequence, and that apart 
from this they were to come into a troubled in- 
heritance in Sicily, the full scope of the difficulties 
with which they were faced becomes clear. To solve 
all the problems which the situation presented to 
them, Fatimid caliphs could rely only on a fairly 
restricted number of supporters, apart from the 
Kutama, who were not always tractable, and on 
their own political skill and their energy. It is a wonder 
that they succeeded. 

Within his own party, 'Ubayd Allah was not long 
in coming into conflict with the ddH Abu 'Abd Allah, 
either because the latter had doubts of his really 
being the Mahdi, or because his master had limited 
his power. 'Ubayd Allah had Abu 'Abd Allah and 
his brother assassinated, and this provoked a revolt 
of the Kutama, who proclaimed a new Mahdi, a 
child. The revolt was suppressed with much blood- 
shed. Later, in the reigns of al-Mansur and al-Mu'izz, 
there were discords within the Fatimid family itself, 
hints of which are revealed in the Sirat al-ustddh 
Djawhar (see the translation of this work by M. 
Canard, 19, 91 f., 147, 150, 174, 181); the revocation 
of the investiture of Tamim, the son of al-Mu'izz, 
as wali al-'ahd is compatible with this {op. cit., 
213 and n., 339 and 467). In addition, it was ne- 
cessary to combat extremist opinions within the 
sect (see below). 

In the religious and politico-religious field, the 
Fatimids had to struggle in North Africa against 
both Sunni and KharidjI opposition. The Maliki 
Sunni opposition has been well explained by G. 
Marcais in his work La Berberie musulmane et VOrient 
au Moyen Age, Paris 1946, in the chapter Les causes 
du divorce, 136 f., which, although based on prejudiced 
Sunni sources, gives a striking picture of the mani- 
festations of this opposition, which was sometimes 
sternly quelled and at other times extinguished by 
bribery. In M. Bencheneb, Classes des savants de 



I'Ifrif 



:, 288-3< 



d the ci 



of a doctrinal controversy between some jurists and 
the brother of the Da'I. This opposition, however, 
seriously troubled those in power only when Kay- 
rawan, although very orthodox, made a temporary 
alliance with the KharidjI Abu Yazid [q.v.]. Indeed, 
on the KharidjI side, the opposition took a very 
dangerous form with the revolt of this curious per- 
sonality, who took possession of several important 
towns, laid siege for a year to Mahdiyya, and was not 
defeated until 336/947- The revolt, which began in 
332/943-4, exhausted al-Ka 3 im, who succumbed to 
the fatigues of war at SQs, and it did not end until 
the reign of al-Mansur. Abu Yazid, supported by the 
Umayyad ruler of Cordova, brought the Fatimid 
dynasty to the brink of ruin. 

The Zenata of the west were another source of 
difficulty. The KharidjI Rustamids of Tahert had 
been expelled in 296/909 by Abu 'Abd Allah al-Shi'I. 
but a revolt broke out and the place had to be re- 



taken in 299/911 by Matala b. Habus who next, 
subjugating the Idrlsid, took possession of Fez in 
308/920, then of Sidjilmasa in 309/921. After the 
death of Masala, his lieutenant and successor, Mflsa 
b. Abi '1 c Afiya, effectively subdued the Maghrib, 
taking Fez from the Idrisids, but he ended by de- 
fecting to the Umayyad ruler in 320/932. Also al- 
Ka'im, who had already conducted campaigns in 
the Maghrib during his father's lifetime and founded 
the fortress town of Masila (Muhammadiyya) in the 
Zab, was obliged, after his accession, to send an ex- 
pedition to reconquer Fez and all the western 
Maghrib from Ibn al- c Afiya, as well as Tahert. He 
re-established the Idrisids in their domains, but under 
Fatimid authority. It was only al-Mu c izz who, 
through his wise and prudent behaviour and the 
military skill of his general Djawhar, subdued all the 
west and re-established peace there, as the result of 
a great campaign by Djawhar, extending as far as 
the Atlantic. The same caliph had also pacified 
the Aures and defeated the maritime offensive of 
the Umayyad c Abd al-Rahman III in 344/955. 

In order to have a window open onto the East, 
c Ubayd Allah founded on the eastern coast of Ifrikiya 
the town of al-Mahdiyya, which he made his capital 
in 308/920. A few years after his accession he tried 
to establish himself in Egypt. But the two expeditions 
which his son al-Ka'im made in 301-2/913-5 and 
307-9/919-2 1 were unsuccessful and, after initial 



*hich 1( 



s the 



gates of al-Fustat and at another time to Fayyum, 
they ended in heavy defeats. In the second expedition, 
the Fatimid fleet was destroyed. Barka, however, 
remained in Fatimid hands. After his accession, al- 
Ka'im tried a third time in 323/925 to conquer Egypt, 
but again without success. 

In none of these operations does the Fatimid ruler 
seem to have been helped by any campaign undertaken 
on their side by the Karmatls of Bahrain; this is 
contrary to the opinion advanced by De Goeje (on 
this subject see W. Madelung, Fatimiden undBahrain- 
qarmaten, in Isl., xxxiv (1959), 46 (■, who denies that 
there was a collaboration between Fatimids and 
Karmatls and maintains that the letter of c Ubayd 
Allah to Abu Tahir after the taking of the Black 
Stone — for which see the historians sub anno 317 — 
is no proof of an alliance between Fatimids and 
Karmatls). 

The new power, as successor of the Aghlabids, 
could not be indifferent to Sicily. But two successive 
governors sent to Sicily had to withdraw, and the 
inhabitants elected a governor of their own, Ibn 
Kurhub. He declared for the c Abbasid caliph and 
twice sent a fleet against Ifrikiya, but the second 
time the fleet suffered a serious defeat; finally the 
Sicilians rid themselves of Ibn Kurhub by giving 
him up to 'Ubayd Allah, who had him put to death 
in 304/916. It was only after this that a new Fatimid 
governor was able to take possession of the island. 
But Sicily was later to suffer disturbances. In 336/948 
al-Mansur sent as governor al-Hasan b. c Ali b. al- 
Kalbl, and from then on it was from this family that 
the governors of Sicily were taken, tending more and 
more towards autonomy. 

The Fatimid caliphs of North Africa were naturally 
driven to fight against the Byzantines who were 
settled in Sicily and to exchange embassies with them. 
Several times armies and fleets were sent from 
Ifrikiya against the Byzantines in Italy and in 
Sicily. During the time of c Ubayd Allah, at a date 
which is uncertain (between 914 and 918) the Byzan- 
tine emperor concluded a treaty with the governor 



of Sicily, by which he undertook to pay annually 
a tribute of 22,000 gold pieces; some years later the 
caliph reduced this to 11,000, to thank the emperor 
Romanus Lecapenus for having freed the African 
ambassadors whose ship had been captured when they 
were travelling to the court of the king of the Bul- 
gars, in the company of Bulgar emissaries who had 
come to Africa to propose to the Fatimid ruler an 
alliance against Byzantium. Because of this the 
projected alliance between Fatimids and Bulgars 
fell through. At about the same time an expedition 
was sent from Africa against Genoa, Corsica and 
Sardinia. In the time of al-Ka'im, during the revolt 
of Girgenti (see fiTiRijrENT and Amari, Storia, ii, 
218 f.; Vasiliev, Byz. et les Arabes, ii, 261), the 
Emperor tried to support the rebels. Al-Mansur, 
at the height of his struggle against Abu Yazid, 
received in 335/946 a Byzantine embassy, which 
had come to apprise itself of the situation. In 
the time of al-Mu c izz, during the hostilities with 
the Umayyads, the Umayyad caliph having in 
344/955-6 asked and obtained from the Emperor 
help against the Fatimid caliph, the Emperor 
proposed to al-Mu c izz that he would withdraw 
his troops if he was willing to grant him a long- 
term truce. Al-Mu c izz refused, and sent in 345/956-7 
a fleet under the command of 'Ammar (of the Kalbl 
family) and Djawhar, which gained a great success 
over the Byzantines and disembarked troops in 
Italy, but was scattered by a storm on the return 
voyage. It was after this that in 346/957-8 a Byzantine 
ambassador came to bring tribute and obtained a 
truce of five years. This truce was broken by al- 
Mu'izz when the Cretans appealed to him for help 
against Byzantium. Al-Mu c izz's help to the Cretans, 
if it was sent, was of no use (see M. Canard, Les 
sources arabes de Vhistoire byzantine, in Revue des 
Etudes Byzantines, xix (1961), 284 f., and on the 
embassy of 346 and related events, S. M. Stern, An 
embassy of the Byzantine Emperor to the Fatimid 
Caliph al-MuHzz, in Byzantion, xx (1950), 239-58; 
on other Byzantine embassies, see Amari, Storia, 

Some years later, in the time of Nicephorus Phocas, 
who had refused to continue to pay the tribute and 
had resumed hostilities in Sicily, the Fatimid army 
and fleet inflicted two defeats on the Byzantines 
(Battle of Rametta and Battle of the Straits) at the 
beginning of 965. The resulting negotiations ended 
in a peace treaty in 356/967, and this treaty was 
concluded all the more easily as al-Mu c izz was engaged 
at the time in preparing his Egyptian expedition. 

The Conquest of Egypt) 
The success of al-Mu c izz in North Africa had al- 
lowed him to devote himself to the pursuit of an 
eastern policy, and to undertake the conquest of 
Egypt in which c Ubayd Allah and al-Ka'im had failed. 
The conquest, carefully planned in its practical 
aspects, and psychologically by skilful political 
propaganda (see G. Wiet, L'Sgypte arabe, vol. iv 
of Hist, de la Nat. £gypt., 147 f., and M. Canard, 
L'imperialisme des Fdtimides et leur propagande, 
in AIEO-Alger, vi, 167 f.) in a country which was in 
a state of internal chaos and ravaged by famine, was 
achieved without much difficulty by Djawhar, who 
entered al-Fustat on 12 Sha'ban 358/ist July 969. 
Egypt then became for two centuries a Shi c I country, 
at least superficially. Djawhar had the name of the 
c Abbasid caliph suppressed in the khulba, but in- 
troduced ShI'i formulae only very gradually. He 
concentrated at first on taking measures against 



the famine and on restoring order, and acted with 
considerable generosity. To house his troops he built 
a new town — Cairo — and laid the first stone of the 
al-Azhar mosque on 24 Djumada I 359/4 April 970. 

The Fatimids in Egypt 

1. Territorial expansion: its vicissitudes. 
Djawhar made great efforts to extend Fatimid 
domination beyond the frontiers of Egypt over the 
countries which were dependencies of the Ikhshidid 
emirate. The two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, 
where the gold liberally distributed by al-MuHzz 
had achieved its propagandist purpose, surrendered 
readily in 359/970-1, and remained under Fatimid 
suzerainty, apart from a few interruptions over 
questions of money, until the reign of al-Mustansir. 
It was more difficult to establish a foothold in Syria, 
for there the Ikhshidid governor had made a pact 
with the Karmatis of Bahrayn, who in turn had 
the support of the Buwayhid ruler of Baghdad. 
Djawhar's lieutenant, Dja'far al-Falah, was able to 
seize Damascus, but he was killed in a battle against 
the leader of the Karmatis, al-Hasan al-ASam, at 
the end of 360/August 971 (on the attitude of the 
Karmatis to the Fatimids see al-Makrlzi, ItW-dz, 
248 f.; De Goeje, op. cit., 183 f.; Hasan Ibrahim 
Hasan and Taha Sharaf, al-MuHzz, 115 f.; Madelung, 
Fat. und Bahrainqarm., 62 f. and al-hasan al-a'sam). 
The KarmatI intended to proceed without delay as 
far as Egypt, but he encountered a successful defence 
by Djawhar (end of 361/December 971) and fled. 
AU the same Djawhar was able to re-occupy only a 
part of Palestine. Al-Hasan al-A'sam returned to 
attack Cairo in 363/ beginning of 974, while al- 
Mu c izz, who had left Ifrikiya on 21 Shawwal 361/ 
5 August 972, entrusting the government of the 
Maghrib to the Sanhadji Berber chief Bulukkin, 
was already in Cairo, which he had entered on 7 
Ramadan 362/1 1 June 973. But the Bedouin auxili- 
aries of al-Hasan al-A c sam, won over by Fatimid gold, 
abandoned him and he was routed. Following this 
the Fatimid army was able to reoccupy Damascus, 
but shortly afterwards Damascus fell into the hands 
of a Turkish adventurer, Alptekln, against whom 
al-Mu c izz, on the eve of his death in 365/975, was 
proposing to march. 

The new caliph al- c Aziz succeeded in re-taking 
Damascus in 368/978, but in order to procure the 
withdrawal of the Karmatis, who supported Alptekln, 
he was obliged to pay them tribute. Possession of 
Palestine and Syria was necessary to al-'AzIz, whose 
ultimate plans also required the seizure of Aleppo, 
but there was continued trouble in Palestine and 
Syria, fomented either by rebels like the powerful 
Jayyi family of Palestine, the Djarrahids [q.v.], or 
by dissident governors or generals. The attempts 
of al- c Aziz failed in 373/983. 382/992-3 and 384/994-5, 
and his power barely extended as far as Tripoli. 
Nevertheless it was then that Fatimid sovereignty 
was recognized from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, in 
the Hidjaz, in the Yemen (by the Ya'furid c Abd 
Allah b. Kahtan in 377/987 [see san c a>]), in Syria 
and even for a time as far as Mosul, in the time of 
the 'Ukaylid Abu '1-Dawadh b. al-Musayyib. But 
they were unable to reach any understanding with 
the Buwayhid of Baghdad, although he was a Shi c I. 

The troubles in Syria continued, and it is possible 
to say that this country was never a solidly Fatimid 
possession. In the time of al-Hakim the amirate of 
Aleppo fell under Fatimid rule in 406/1015, and in 
408/1017 received a Fatimid governor; but he was 
revolt. In Palestine the Djarrahid 



Mufarridj b. Daghfal was able to have an anti- 
caliph proclaimed in the person of a sharif of Mecca, 
and it was only by buying Mufarridj off that al-Hakim 
could rid himself of the danger which he had stirred 
up. Under al-Zahir, Fatimid domination in Syria was 
endangered by the alliance between the Djarrahids, 
the Kalbis of central Syria and the Kilabls of northern 
Syria. Aleppo fell into the hands of the Kilabi Salih 
b. Mirdas [q.v.] in 415/1025. The fact that the Kalbis 
changed sides allowed the Fatimid general Anush tekln 
al-Duzbari to win the battle of al-Ukhuwana in 
Palestine, to re-occupy Damascus and to re-take 
Aleppo from the Mirdasids in 429/1038 (in the reign 
of al-Mustansir). Thanks to Anushtekln, Fatimid 
domination extended as far as Harran, Sarudj and 
Rakka, but he fell a victim to the intrigues of the 
vizier al-Djardjaral; his successor was a descendant 
of the Hamdanids, Nasir al-Dawla [q.v.], and Aleppo 
fell again to a Mirdasid in 433/1041. In spite of two 
attempts to re-take it in 440/1048 and 441/1049 and 
its surrender to the Fatimids in 449/1057-450/1058, 
it returned into Mirdasid hands in 452 and was then 
irrevocably lost to the Fatimids, for it surrendered 
to the caliph of Baghdad and to the Saldjuk sultan 
Alp Arslan in 462/1069-70, and had a Saldjuk 
governor from 479/1086-7. 

Nor did Syria and Palestine remain for long under 
Fatimid domination in the 5th/nth century. There 
was continual unrest there. The Armenian general 
Badr al-Diamali [q.v.] tried vainly in 455/1063- 
456/1064 and again in 458/1066-460/1068 to maintain 
Fatimid sovereignty in Damascus. In 461/1069, in 
the course of fighting between Maghrib! and Eastern 
elements of the army, the Umayyad mosque was 
burned. In 468/1076 Damascus was occupied by a 
former Fatimid officer, the Turcoman Atslz, who 
threatened even Cairo in 469/1077, and Damascus 
had a Saldjuk amir from 471/1079. In 463/1071 
Atslz had taken Jerusalem, which later passed 
into the hands of Sukman b. Artuk. In Palestine 
there remained in Fatimid hands only 'Askalan, 
which was to be occupied by the Crusaders in 548/ 
1153, and a few coastal towns — Beirut, Tyre, Sidon 
and Acre. None of the attempts of Badr al-Djamali 
to recover Syria and Damascus was successful. 

2. Relations with North Africa and 
Sicily. Already in the reign of al-'AzIz North Africa 
began to loosen its links with the Fatimid caliphate 
under the governorship of Mansur b. Bulukkin 
(373/984-386/996). In the time of al-Hakim difficulties 
arose over Barka and Tripoli. With Mu'izz b. Badls 
(406/1016-454/1062), after he had taken several 
measures which were hostile to the Fatimid caliphate, 
there came about a complete rupture in 443/1051; 
the Sanhadji amir threw off Fatimid suzerainty and 
obtained investiture from the caliph of Baghdad. 
The invasion of Ifrikiya by the BanO Hilal is attri- 
buted to the desire of the Fatimid vizier al-Yazuri 
for reprisals. Tamim b. al-Mu c izz (454/1062-501/1108) 
returned temporarily to Fatimid allegiance in the 
first years of his reign. Similarly in 51 7/1 123 we find 
the amir Hasan b. C A1I (515/1121-543/1148) paying 
homage to the Fatimid caliph al-Amir and asking 
him to intervene with Roger II of Sicily to stop 
him from attacking Ifrikiya. But it can be said that 
in fact the rupture lasted for more that half a century. 

Sicily also became virtually independent of the 
Fatimid caliphate. The Kalbid governors limited 
themselves to accepting retrospective investiture 
from Cairo. They had far more contacts with the 
ZIrids of Ifrikiya, whose suzerainty the Sicilians 
recognized in about 427/1036 (see Amari, Storia, 



ii, 435), than with Cairo. All the same, until the time 
of al-Zahir and even under his successor, their coins 
still bore the name of the caliph (Amari, ii, 276-7). 
It is not impossible that the attacks which the 
Sicilians launched on the Byzantine coasts were 
supported by Cairo, for, in his negotiations with the 
Fatimid al-Zahir in 1032, the emperor Romanus 
Argyrus expressly demanded that the Fatimid 
government should not aid Sdfiib Sifrilliyya in his 
campaigns against the Byzantines, and promised 
for his part to observe the same neutrality. In prac- 
tice, Cairo had no longer any power over Sicily and 
seems to have lost interest in it. The Norman con- 
quest was tacitly accepted, and contacts with Roger 
II were frequent and friendly (see above for the 
caliph al-Amir). Al-Hafiz also maintained excellent 
relations with him: there was correspondence in 
531/1137 (see M. Canard, Une lettre du caliphe 
fatimite al-Hdfiz .... a Roger II, in AM del Convegno 
Intern, di Studi Ruggeriani, Palermo 1955, 125-46); 
in 537/1142 he sent an embassy to Roger, and in 
about 537/1143 he concluded a commercial treaty 
with him. But later, in 1153, 1155, 1169 and 1174, 
there were Norman attacks by sea against Tinms, 
Damietta and Alexandria (see Amari, index). 

3. Relations with the Byzantine Empire. 
In their propaganda already in their African period 
the Fatimids proclaimed aloud that universal 
sovereignty was given to them by divine decree and 
that they were called to displace the Umayyads of 
Spain as well as the 'Abbasids of Baghdad and the 
Byzantine emperors (see M. Canard, V impirialis- 

me passim). We have seen above what their 

relations with Byzantium had been during the African 
period. Al-Mu'izz received several Byzantine em- 
bassies. In Egypt, in the very year of his death in 
365/975, he received an embassy from John Tzimisces. 
Al-'Aziz, in this attempt to take Aleppo, clashed 
with the Greeks as protectors of the Hamdanid 
amirate of Aleppo, who each time prevented him 
from achieving his object. Although al-'Aziz did 
not succeed in his attempts, he nevertheless obtained 
in 377/987-8 from the emperor Basil II, who was 
threatened by the renewal of the revolt of Bardas 
Skleros, an advantageous treaty stipulating that the 
Byzantine commercial prohibitions should be lifted 
and that the prayer should be said in his name in the 
mosque of Constantinople (Abu '1-Mahasin, Cairo 
ed., iv, 151-2). Immediately before his death, this 
caliph was preparing a great expedition against 
Byzantine territory, and he died while setting off 
on this campaign. 

Hostilities continued in northern Syria during the 
reign of al-Hakim, for his aim, like his predecessor's, 
was to seize Aleppo, and rebels in Syria against 
Fatimid authority often appealed to the Emperor. 
The Byzantines helped al- c Allaka at Tyre, whereas 
in 387/997 they had refused to help the Fatimid 
general Mangutekln. They were defeated at sea off 
Tyre and again in the same year when they were 
besieging Apamea, a Fatimid enclave in northern 
Syria (388/998), and the emperor Basil then made 
proposals for peace. But it was not until 391/1001 that 
a ten-year truce was signed, and in the interval 
Basil had conducted a victorious campaign in 
northern Syria, though he had failed to take Tripoli. 
The destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
on the orders of al-Hakim was probably one of the 
causes of the breaking off of commercial relations 
ordered by Basil in 406/1015-6. Attempts at re- 
conciliation were made in 412/1021, just before the 
death of al-Hakim. 



IDS 855 

At the beginning of the reign of al-Zahir, in 414/ 
1023, the 'regent Sitt al-Mulk (fa.t/J, d. 415/1024-5) 
had re-opened negotiations but without success. 
They were not resumed until 423/1032, and were 
soon broken off because of the caliph's refusal to 
accept the return of Hassan b. al-Mufarridj [see 
BIARRAfliDs], when agreement had been reached 
on the rebuilding of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 
It was not until 429/1038 that a peace of thirty years 
could be signed, at the beginning of the reign of al- 
Mustansir: the Byzantines obtained permission to 
rebuild the church, and sent architects and money 
for this purpose. 

From this time on begins a period of friendly 
relations between Fatimids and Byzantines. Although 
Byzantium had agreed to support a rebel Sicilian 
amir and had given him the title of magister in 1035-6 
(Amari, ii, 434), yet when in 443/1051-2 the Zirid 
Mu'izz b. Badis had recognized 'Abbasid suzerainty, 
his ambassador returning from Baghdad was arrested 
in Byzantine territory and sent to al-Mustansir. 
In 439/1048 the treaty of 1038 had been renewed. 

Constantine Monomachus (1042-54) maintained 
excellent relations with al-Mustansir, who asked 
him to supply Egypt with wheat after the famine 
of 446/1054. But the death of the Emperor and the 
demands of his successor, the empress Zoe, who 
wanted in return a treaty of military aid (against 
the Saldjuks), led to a cooling of relations and even a 
resumption of hostilities. The rupture was aggravated 
when a Fatimid ambassador, al-Kuda c I, noticed at 
Constantinople that the prayer was said in the mosque 
no longer in the name of the Fatimid, but for the 
Saldjuk sultan Toghrll Beg, for the Emperor had 
entered into relations with the latter in 441/1049 
in gratitude for his having freed the king of the 
Abkhaz, and it seems, to judge from the Sira of the 
Fatimid missionary al-Mu'ayyad fi '1-DIn (p. 95), 
that there had been a project for an alliance between 
the two against the Fatimid ruler. Relations were 
resumed however and the Byzantine writer Psellus 
states that they were excellent in the reign of Con- 
stantine Monomachus (ed. Renault, ii, 64) and were 
still so between 1057 and 1059, during the reign of 
Isaac Comnenus {op. cit., ii, 122). 

The exchange of embassies continued, the more so 
because the same danger, the Saldjuks, was threaten- 
ing both Egypt and Byzantium. There was for exam- 
ple a Fatimid embassy during the reign of Romanus 
Diogenes in 461/1069, a letter from Alexis Comnenus 
to the vizier al-Afdal in about 1098, after Antioch 
had been taken by the Crusaders, and an embassy 
from the same emperor to al-Afdal in 1105 to nego- 
tiate the ransom of Frankish prisoners. Manuel 
Comnenus also maintained good relations with Egypt 
and in 553/1158 requested the help of a Fatimid 
fleet against Sicily. In the same year, the vizier 
Tal5 3 i c b. Ruzzlk sent to Manuel the brother of the 
Count of Cyprus whom he had taken prisoner. 
Some years later however, in 1168, Manuel concluded 
a pact with king Amalric of Jerusalem for an attack 
against Egypt, which took place the following year, 
but failed. 

4. Relations with the 'Abbasid East. Ibn 
Hani 5 al-Andalusi, the eulogist of al-Mu c izz, tempts 
his master with the prospect of a Fatimid entry into 
Baghdad, and shows him, wide open, the old im- 
perial Persian highway, the road to Khurasan. One 
tradition has it that al-Mu c izz declared to a Byzantine 
ambassador in Cairo that on his next visit he would 
find him in Baghdad. Al- c Aziz set himself to achieve 
this goal, but by means of negotiations, trying to 



8 5 6 fat: 

get himself recognized by the Buwayhid 'Adud 
al-Dawla. An exchange of embassies took place in 
369/979-80, but without result. Like the 'Abbasid 
caliph later, the Buwayhid contested the authenticity 
of the 'Alid genealogy of the Fatimids. Al-Hakim 
was no more successful with the Ghaznawid ruler in 
403/1012-3, nor was al-Zahir in 415/1024. The 
khiW- sent were despatched to Baghdad and burnt. 
Al-Zahir did not give up, and in 425/1034 sent mis- 
sionaries to the 'Abbasid capital to take advantage 
of the disturbances caused by the Turkish soldiery 
during the reign of the Buwayhid Djalal al-Dawla 
[q.v.], and they made vigorous propaganda there. 
Al-Mustansir [q.v.] cemented relations with several 
governments in the East. The activities of his mis- 
sionaries spread as far as Sind (see S. M. Stern, 
IsmaHli propaganda and Fatimid rule in Sind, in 
IC, xxiii (1949), 298-307; B. Lewis, The Fatimids 
and the route to India, in Rev. de la Fac. des Sc. 
iconom. de I' Univ. d' Istanbul, 1953). For a time 
al-Mustansir could believe that the Fatimid dream 
was about to become reality. In 'Irak the Turkish 
amir al-Basasiri [q.v.] caused the sovereignty of the 
Fatimid ruler to be recognized in various places, at 
Mosul in 448/1057, then in Baghdad for a year in 
451/1059. This extension of Fatimid sovereignty 
had been prepared in particular by the propaganda 
of the missionary al-Mu'ayyad fi '1-DIn [q.v.], who 
had even converted the Buwayhid Abu Kalidjar 
[q.v.] at Shiraz to Isma'ilism. The Saldjuks, as Sunnis, 
naturally had no sympathy for the Fatimids. In 447/ 
1055, Toghrll Beg had announced his intention of 
marching on Syria and Egypt and of putting an end 
to the reign of al-Mustansir. The affair of al-Basasiri 
strengthened the determination of the Saldjuks to 
direct their policy towards Syria and the Mediter- 
ranean, especially as the vizier al-Yazuri [q.v.], who 
decided to abandon his support of al-Basasiri, had 
entered into correspondence with Toghrll Beg (so at 
least certain sources allege). The fact remains that 
from then on the Saldjuks did nothing but gain 
territory from the Fatimids : at Mecca the name of the 
Fatimid ruler was omitted from the khutba, tem- 
porarily in 462/1069-70 and finally in 473/1088. 
In his rebellion against al-Mustansir, the amir Nasir 
al-Dawla appealed for help, in 462/1069-70, to the 
Saldjuk sultan Alp Arslan, asking him to send an 
army to help him to re-establish the 'Abbasid 
khutba. The Saldjuk sultan got as far as Aleppo the 
following year, and the Mirdasid ruler abandoned the 
Fatimid khutba. Alp Arslan was unable to proceed 
further, because of the invasion of Armenia by the 
Byzantine emperor. Apart from this, we have already 
noticed the Saldjuk penetration into Syria and 
Palestine. 

In the Yemen, the Fatimids found fervent support- 
ers in the dynasty of the Sulayhids of San'a 3 , which 
ruled from 429/1038 to 534/1139. The founder was 
a dd'i who established Fatimid domination in the 
Yemen. This dynasty included a remarkable ruler 
in the person of Sayyida Hurra, and maintained 
uninterrupted relations with Cairo: the letters from 
the chancery of al-Mustansir to the Sulayhids 
have survived (Al-Sidjilldt al-Mustansiriyya, ed. 
A. M. Magued, Cairo 1954). 

5. The Fatimids and the Crusades. At the 
time when the Crusaders arrived in northern Syria 
the Fatimids no longer held any territory in Syria, 
and in Palestine they retained only 'Askalan and a 
few coastal towns. They were less interested in the 
struggle against the Franks than were the Turkish 
amirs of Syria. Ibn al-Athir, sub anno 491/1097-8, 



relates a tradition according to which the Fatimids, 
being uneasy over the plans of the Saldjuks and their 
intentions against Egypt (for the amir Atslz had 
already, in 469/1077, launched an unsuccessful attack 
against Cairo), requested the intervention of the 
Franks in the East. This does not seem very likely. 
Be that as it may, the Franks received a Fatimid 
embassy outside Antioch at the beginning of 1098 
and sent delegates to Cairo, who set off with the 
Egyptian ambassadors. But the project for an alliance 
against the Turks, giving Syria to the Franks and 
Palestine to the Fatimids, did not come to anything, 
although the Fatimids were better disposed towards 
the Franks than towards the Turks, and in spite of 
the good intentions of the Franks, who were able 
to learn through Alexis Comnenus what was the 
Fatimid attitude to the Turks. In these circum- 
stances the vizier al-Afdal decided to take Jerusalem 
from Sukman, succeeded in 491/August 1098 after 
a siege of forty days, and continued his advance to 
beyond Beirut. It is difficult in these circumstances 
to see why — for presumably he re-took Jerusalem 
in order to hold it — he did nothing to prevent the 
Crusaders from seizing it on 15 July 1099, and allowed 
himself to be surprised and beaten in August outside 
'Askalan in a battle which had been preceded by 
the capture of several places, including Yafa (Jaffa). 

Following this, in 494/1 100-1, the Crusaders took 
in Palestine Hayfa, Arsuf and Caesarea, and then 
Acre ( c Akka) in 497/1104. The Egyptians took part 
in the struggle against the Crusaders but were unable 
to prevent the fall of Tripoli, which had called on 
them for help at the end of 503/1109, nor the fall of 
Beirut and Sidon (Sayda) in 504/1 no, nor the fall 
of Tyre in 518/1124: it is true that the Fatimid 
governor of Tyre had signed an agreement with the 
amir of Damascus. The Franks were even able, at the 
end of 517/1118, to advance as far as Farama. Yet 
it was not until much later that they turned their 
attention to Egypt and actively prepared to attack 
'Askalan [q.v.]. The Egyptian vizier, Ibn al-Sallar, 
entered into negotiations with Nur al-Din [q.v.], 
master of Aleppo, in 545/1150, and the Egyptian 
fleet launched a great offensive against the Frankish 
ports. In 548/1153, the Franks seized 'Askalan after 
bloody fighting. 

Next the vizier Tala'i' b. Ruzzik carried out some 
operations against the Crusaders and gained a 
victory near Ghazza, then at Hebron (al-Khalil) in 
553/1158; but this had little result because Nur 
al-Din, master of Damascus since 549/1154, when he 
was approached again, was still not willing to be- 
come involved because of the internal unrest in 

Talari' was assassinated at the instigation of the 
caliph al-'Adid in 356/1161; his son succeeded him 
and met the same fate in 558/1163. From then on, 
the relations of Fatimid Egypt with the Crusaders 
on the one hand and with Nur al-DIn on the other 
were influenced by the rivalry between Shawar, 
who succeeded Tala 5 i"s son, Ruzzik, and Dirgham 
[qq.v.], and by the versatile and personal policy of 
Shawar. The latter, when expelled by Dirgham, 
had taken refuge with Nur al-Din and persuaded him 
to intervene in Egypt, particularly as the king of 
Jerusalem, Amalric I, had made a first incursion 
into Egypt in 1161 and exacted a payment of tribute 
from Tala'i', had returned in 1162, but had had to 
retreat before the deliberate flooding of the Nile 
Delta. Nur al-Din sent an army with Shirkuh [q.v.] 
and his nephew, Saladin (Salah al-Din). Dirgham 
was killed in Ramadan 559/August 1164, and 



857 



Shawar resumed the vizierate. There is no room here 
to trace in detail the events which ensued, and the 
confused tangle of the successive interventions by 
Shirkuh and Amalric. The main details will be found 
in the articles shawar and shirkuh. The result 
was that Shirkuh, finally answering a joint appeal 
by the caliph and Shawar, procured the evacuation 
of the country by the Franks in 564/1169, rid himself 
of Shawar by assassination, and was granted the 
post of vizier to the Fatimid caliph. He died soon 
after; Saladin succeeded, and put an end to the Fati- 
mid caliphate in 567/1171, re-establishing Sunnism 
and 'Abbasid sovereignty in Egypt. 

Internal Policy op the Fatimids 
1. Caliphs and viziers. In the Sunni system, 
the appointment of the caliph is the result of an 
election or of a nomination by the predecessor 
ratified by a pseudo-election. In the Isma c ill system, 
the caliph is the successor of him who, by virtue of a 
Divine decree and nomination, has been chosen to 
be the heir [wasi) of the Prophet, namely C A1I, and 
the imamate is transmitted from father to son (with 
the exception of the case of Hasan and Husayn) 
within the family of c Ali. In these circumstances 
there could be no question of an election, nor of the 
conditions demanded by Sunnism for holding the 
office of imam. The imam is chosen by the personal 
nomination of his predecessor, by the nass [q.v.], a 
manifestation of the Divine will (on this subject see al- 
Nu'man, Da'-dHm al-Islam, i, 48 f.; the Tddj al- 
'■afid'id of c Ali b. Muhammad b. al-Walid, d. 612/ 
1215, in Ivanow, A creed of the Fatimids, Bombay 
1936, paras. 30-3: ' 



of tl 



The 
by the nass. This nomination could be hidden 
the people and known only to certain trusted persons 
and revealed only when desired (see examples in the 
Sirat al-ustddh Diawdhar). It was possible tor the 
elder son not to be chosen. Already Dja'far al-Sadik 
had nominated Isma'il, who was not the eldest of 
his sons. Similarly c Abd Allah was preferred to Ta- 
mim, the eldest son of al-Mu c izz, mainly for moral 
reasons (see the same Sir a). When <Abd Allah died 
in 364/974-5, the successor nominated was his brother 
Nizar (al- c Aziz). So far everything had been quite 
regular. But, after the disappearance of al-Hakim, 
the nominated heir, the caliph's nephew c Abd al- 
Rahman b. Ilyas, was arrested and imprisoned on 
the orders of Sitt al-Mulk, who had the young son 
of al-Hakim, 'All, proclaimed imam under the name 
of al-Zahir. He was only 16, but there was no stipu- 
lation regarding age: al-Hakim himself had mounted 
the throne at 11 years of age. The throne often fell 
to a child, as in the cases of al-Mustansir, aged 7, 
of al-Musta c li, who was only 8, al-Amir, who was 5, 
al-Zafir, who was 17, al-Fa J iz, who was 5, and 
al- c Adid, who was 9 years of age. The result was that 
power was often in the hands of a regent (or a female 
regent like Sitt al-Mulk, or of a queen-mother, like 
the mother of al-Mustansir), and that on various 
occasions it was generals or viziers who held the real 
authority, even after the new caliph had reached 
maturity, and that the caliphs were often powerless 
against their viziers and their generals. 

The succession proceeded regularly without any 
serious objections until al-Musta c li, the first caliph 
whose nomination was violently contested and gave 
rise to disturbances. The vizier al-Afdal had caused 
the elder son of al-Mustansir, Nizar, who had been 
nominated in the regular manner, to be passed over 
in favour of the younger son, al-Musta c li. As a result 



Nizar led a revolt, which ended in his death and 
produced a schism which still exists today in the 
Isma'ill community [see nizar]. After the death of 
al-Amir, the victim of a Nizarl plot in 524/1130, the 
succession was assured by completely irregular means. 
No nomination had been made, and al-Hafiz [q.v.], 
the cousin of al-Amir, was at first only regent before 
he proclaimed himself caliph, following the precedent 
of C A1I, who was the cousin of the Prophet. With his 
reign began a tremendous crisis, with bloody periods 
of revolution and treachery, and with struggles of 
rival factions in the midst of military and civil 
disturbances in the capital and in the provinces. 

The weakness of the caliphs showed itself as early 
as the reign of al-Mustansir, who was reduced to 
penury and forced to sell his treasures to satisfy the 
demands of Nasir al-Dawla and of the Turkish guard 
which he commanded, and who only once showed a 
spark of energy. From the time of al-Musta c li, the 
real masters were the "Viziers of the Sword". It 
could happen that the caliph was thrust aside by the 
vizier, and avenged himself by having the vizier 
assassinated when opportunity arose: it was thus 
that al-Amir had al-Afdal assassinated. 

After a certain period, even the idea of the legiti- 
macy of the Fatimids was less generally accepted. 
Already during the reign of al-Mustansir there had 
been an attempt to restore c Abbasid suzerainty. 
In 462/1070, Nasir al-Dawla, at Alexandria, had the 
khutba said in the name of the c Abbasid caliph, and 
in 464/1072, when he was temporarily master of 
Cairo, he entered into relations with him. Al-Hafiz 
had a vizier, Kutayfat, who was openly ImamI; 
then followed a Sunni vizier, Ibn al-Sallar. We cannot 
give in detail here all the vicissitudes through which 
the Fatimid caliphate passed, but refer the reader 
to the articles on the individual caliphs. The Fatimid 
caliphate, beset by troubles, declined rapidly to its 
end, which was finally hastened by its inability to 
resist the Crusaders, and not only by internal dis- 

The evolution of the vizierate. In the 
history of the Fatimid dynasty, the viziers occupied 
a place of gradually increasing importance. During 
the North African period there had been no ministers 
bearing the title of. vizier. In Egypt, the first to 
receive this title, from the caliph al- c AzIz, was 
Ya'kub b. Killis [?.».], the organizer of the admini- 

caliphs. Thereafter the caliphs sometimes governed 
without the help of a vizier; sometimes they had a 
minister to whom they gave neither the title nor the 
office of vizier, but only the duty of acting as 
intermediary between them and their officials and 
subjects {safdra, wasata, the one who fulfilled this 
function bearing the title of wdsita); sometimes 
they had a minister who did in fact bear the title of 
vizier. Up to a certain time these viziers, whatever 
their power and their influence over the caliphs may 
have been, were considered as agents for the exe- 
cution of the sovereign's will (called by al-Mawardi 
wazir al-tanfidh) , but from the second period of the 
reign of al-Mustansir, when, in order to restore 
order and remedy a catastrophic situation, he 
appealed for help to the commander of the troops 
of Syria, Badr al-Djamall, the latter obtained from 
him full powers: that is to say he was the equivalent 
of what al-Mawardi calls wazir al-tajwid, vizier with 
delegated powers; and as he was of military status 
he was called "Vizier of the Pen and of the Sword", 
or simply "Vizier of the Sword". From this time on 
all the viziers who followed, whether they were nom- 



858 FAT 

inated by the caliph or whether they had seized 
the position for themselves by force, had full powers 
and were Viziers of the Sword. The Vizier of the 
Sword was not only head of the armies, with the title 
of amir al-HuyUsh, but the head of all the civil, the 
judicial and even the religious administration, for 
among his titles were those of chief kddi and of chief 
missionary. We have seen that the vizier often left 
no power to the caliph and even thrust him aside; 
from the time of Ridwan, the vizier of al-Hafiz in 
531/1171, it was made still clearer that the vizier 
had full powers by his taking the title of al-Malik, 
accompanied by a varying epithet, analogous to that 
which the last Buwayhid amir of Baghdad had adopted 
in 440/1048. The importance of this event is that 
the title passed via Shirkuh, who assumed the 
vizierate in 564/1169, to his nephew Saladin and 
hence to all the members of the Ayyubid dynasty. 

One remarkable fact concerning the Fatimid 
vizierate is that several viziers, whether they possessed 
the title or not, were Christians. An example is 
c Isa b. Nasturus, vizier of al- c Aziz, and similarly 
Zur'a b. c Isa b. Nasturus, who succeeded yet an- 
other Christian, Mansur b. c AbdOn. We do not know 
whether the Armenian Yanis, who was for some 
months in 562/1132 the vizier of al-Hafiz and who 
was a freedman of al-Afdal, had remained Christian. 
But there is the very curious case of another vizier 
of al-Hafiz, an Armenian who remained Christian, 
and nevertheless was Vizier of the Sword with full 
powers and surnamed Sayf al-Islam [see bahram]. 
On the other hand, it does not seem that Jews, al- 
though they often held important posts, ever became 
viziers without embracing Islam. Ibn Killis, the vizier 
of al- c AzIz, was a convert, as was Hasan b. Ibrahim 
b. Sahl al-Tustari, vizier for a short time of al- 
Mustansir, and also Ibn al-Fallahi. 

The career of a vizier in the Fatimid period was a 
dangerous one, as in fact was that of officials of every 
rank. Disgrace, confiscation of goods, imprisonment 
and the punishment of the bastinado were events of 
frequent occurrence. The execution or the assassina- 
tion of a vizier on the orders of the caliph or by a 
rival became more and more common. As early as 
390/1000 the wdsita Bardjawan [q.v.] was assassinated 
by order of al-Hakim, and six of his successors suffered 
the same fate; al-Yazurl was executed in 450/1058 
during the reign of al-Mustansir; then al-Afdal was 
assassinated in 515/1121 by order of the caliph al- 
Amir. The same caliph, in 519/1125, imprisoned 
al-Ma 5 mun al-Bata'ihl, who was hanged three years 
later. Al-Hafiz in 526/1131 had Kutayfat put to 
death, and then in the next year Yanis. Tala'i' b. 
Ruzzik was assassinated in 556/1 161 on the orders of 
one of the aunts of the young caliph al- c Adid. 

Broadly speaking, the main characteristic of the 
vizierate of the Fatimids is the insecurity of the 
viziers. While al- c Aziz had eight viziers in a reign 
of twenty years, and al-Hakim eight in nineteen 
years, under al-Mustansir there were five viziers 
between 452/1060 and 454/1062, and between 
454/1062 and 466/1074 there was a continual coming 
and going of viziers. Ibn Muyassar reckons that this 
caliph had twenty-four viziers, some of whom held 
office three times. 

2. Disturbances, rebellions and revolu- 
tions. Given the progressive decline of the caliphs 
from power to impotence, the insecurity of the vi- 
ziers, and the prevailing anarchy, it is not surprising 
that the Fatimid caliphate went through periods 
of serious disturbances, resulting from various causes 
— political, military, religious, economic and social. 



Under al-Hakim there was the revolt of Abu 
Rakwa, who claimed to be related to the Umayyads 
of Spain and whose aim was to re-establish the Umay- 
yad dynasty. At the beginning of the reign of al- 
Mustansir, an impostor, al-Sikkin, claiming to be 
al-Hakim, gathered supporters and marched with 
them as far as the gates of the palace: they were all 
captured, brought to the gallows and riddled with 
arrows (434/1043). The revolt of Nizar, the heir 
nominated by al-Mustansir and ousted from the 
succession by the all-powerful vizier al-Afdal in 
favour of al-Musta c li, had tremendous consequences, 
for the famous Hasan-i Sabbah [q.v.] had taken his 
side and started a movement which led to the 
foundation of the sect of the Assassins [see hashI- 
shiyya, nizarIs]. In 524/1130, the caliph al-Amir, 
assassinated by a follower of Nizar, died without 
male issue. But some declared that he had a son, 
al-Tayyib, and a new schism occurred (see Ivanow, 
Rise, 20, and S. M. Stern, The succession of the 
Fatimid imam al-Amir, the claims of the later Fatimids 
to the imdmate and the rise of Tayyibi IsmaHlism, 
in Oriens, 1951, 193 ff.). In 543/1148 yet another 
rebellion was stirred up, by one who claimed to be 
the son of Nizar. 

There were numerous military disturbances, 
especially when the dynasty was declining, when 
factions of the army made and unmade ministers 
and fought continually among themselves. But long 
before this the very composition of the army provoked 
disturbances which sometimes took the form of racial 
rivalry. Berbers {Magkdriba), Turks (who had been 
enrolled since the reign of al-'Aziz), Daylamis 
{Mashdrika), and also black Sudanese slaves bought 
for the army {'abid al-shird') and numerous since the 
regency of the mother of al-Mustansir, herself a 
former black slave — all were jealous of and hated one 
another. These corps were generally undisciplined 
and they or their leaders either stirred up rebellions 
themselves or readily allowed themselves to become 
involved in them. Thus in the struggle between the 
Kutami Ibn 'Ammar and Bardjawan at the begin- 
ning of the reign of al-Hakim, there were the Berbers 
on one side and on the other the Turks, the Daylamis 
and the black slaves. The hatred between the Turks 
and the black slaves, stirred up by al-Mustansir's 
mother, provoked murderous battles in 454/1062 and 
459/1067, in which the Berbers sided with the Turks. 
Nasir al-Dawla, the commander of the Turks and 
victor over the black slaves, wrested all power from 
the caliph al-Mustansir, who had to sell his treasures 
in order to pay the Turks with their ever-increasing 
demands. The disturbances provoked by the tyranny 
of Nasir al-Dawla and aggravated by the famine 
(see below) lasted until the dictatorship of Badr 
al-Djamali. From the reign of al-Hafiz onwards, the 
various corps of the army distributed their loyalties 
among the various claimants to the vizierate, some 
of whom, to forward their cause, raised special corps 
(e.g. the Barkiyya of Tala'i' b. Ruzzik) or recruited 
Bedouins (as did Ibn Masai and Shawar [qq.v.]). 

Disturbances of religious origin arose when a 
certain group of missionaries wanted to have the 
divinity of al-Hakim recognized: in 411/1020 the 
mob massacred the missionaries, and this resulted 
in uproar and the burning of al-Fustat on the 
caliph's orders. In 53i/"37. Ridwan had no difficulty 
in rousing the Muslim mob against the vizier Bahram, 
an Armenian Christian. 

But it was the economic crises and famines (which 
Egypt has always suffered periodically when the Nile 
rises insufficiently) which in the Fatimid period 



caused most disorders: shortage of food, looting, 
crimes, acts of cannibalism, and horrors of every 
description. In 414/1024-415/1025, under al-Zahir, 
there was a famine which obliged the populace to 
eat all the domestic animals, so that the caliph had 
to forbid the slaughter of plough-oxen. This famine 
was accompanied by looting by the black troops, 
who carried off the dishes set out for the banquet of 
the Feast of Sacrifices in 415 (12 February 1025). 
But the worst crisis of all was the great famine in the 
reign of al-Mustansir. In 446/1054-5 the caliph was 
obliged to ask Constantine Monomachus to supply 
food for Egypt (see above). The dearth, followed by 
disease, was worse in the following year. For seven 
years from 457/1065 to 464/1072 there persisted a 
famine so terrible that people were reduced to eating 
dogs and cats, and even human flesh (see al-Makrizi, 
Khitat, i, 337). Looting, and the kidnapping of men 
and women in order to kill and eat them, led to a 
general breakdown of order which was aggravated 
by the struggles between the Turkish and the Negro 
regiments of the army. The economic situation im- 
proved in the vizierate of Badr al-Diamali and his 
son al-Afdal. 

3. Religious policy. The religious policy of the 
Fatimids, so far as it is concerned with Isma'ili 
doctrine and its evolution, cannot be treated here 
in detail. For this subject the reader is referred 
to the article isma'Iliyya and to W. Madelung's 
work (cited above), in which are studied the 
'reforms' introduced into the doctrine by 'Ubayd 
Allah, and then al-Mu c izz, the theories of the Persian 
Isma'ilis, the schism under al-Hakim, and the doc- 
trine in the time of al-Mustansir. The first Fatimid 
caliphs had to justify themselves to the different 
Isma'ili communities with their different emphases, 
and to combat heterodox or extremist opinions 
which might constitute a danger to them. They were 
confronted with the fact that the hopes which the 
Isma'ili community has placed in the appearance 
of the Mahdi had not been realized: the law of 
Muhammad had not been abrogated, the hidden 
meaning of the religious duties and of the Kur'an 
had not been revealed, a more perfect law, in which 
there was no longer any distinction between the 
bdtin and the zdhir, had not been promulgated, 
Fatimid rule had not spread throughout the world, 
but had, on the contrary, encountered unsurmount- 
able obstacles. Policy and reason of state had obliged 
them to retain the fundamental duties of Islam, and 
the zdhir continued to exist beside the bdtin. It had 
to be admitted that the complete reversal of positions 
and the victory over the Infidels which the Mahdi 
was expected to bring about had been postponed 
to the end of time, that the Mahdi had done no more 
than to restore fully the rights of the family of the 
Prophet, and that the mission would be continued 
by his successors until God should fulfil this promise 
through the Ka'im. The system elaborated by the 
great Fatimi jurist al-Nu'man in his Da l 6?im al-isldm 
did not differ fundamentally, on numerous points, 
from Sunnism, and in his esoteric treatises he too 
postponed the awaited changes to the end of time. 
In general, the Fatimid caliphate showed itself 
opportunist and moderate, and it could not be other- 
wise in seeking to establish a state religion. 

But this religion was not universally accepted, 
and it was necessary to embark on a struggle with the 
Sunnism to which a large part of the population of 
Egypt and Syria remained loyal. The observance of 
the Sunna continued, as is testified by c Abd al-Kahir 
al-Baghdadi, al-Fark bayn al-firak (275; cf. Gold- 



ziher, Streitschrift des Gazdti . . . , 7), and there were 
numerous reactions against Shi'I practices (Khitat. 
ii, 340; Kindi-Guest, 594). Propaganda [see da'I 
and da'wa] and the teaching of Fatimi fikh were 
organized. The kadi al-Nu'man, later his sons, and 
also the vizier Ibn Killis exerted all their efforts to 
implant the new doctrine (see Khitat, ii, 341, 363; 
Yahya b. Sa'id, P.O., xxiii/3, 434). The Ddr al-hikma 
[q.v.] of al-Hakim was also a centre of religious and 
legal teaching. At first Sunni shaykhs were admitted, 
but al-Hakim soon had them executed (Abu '1- 
Mabasin, iv, 178, 222-3). The establishment was 
closed in the time of al-Afdal because it was attended 
by people holding heretical opinions and it was 
feared that it would become a centre of Nizari 
propaganda. After al-Afdal's death, it was re-opened 
by the vizier al-Ma'mun al-Bata'ihi, but at some 
distance from the palace and under the supervision 
of the DdH. 

Policy towards the Sunnis fluctuated. Sunni 
practices were in general forbidden, but there were 
some periods of tolerance and some of strictness. In 
307/919-20, a mu'adhdhin of Kayrawan was executed 
for not having pronounced in the call to prayer 
"Come to the best of works" (on the differences 
between the Isma'ili system and Sunnism, see the 
Tddj at-'aka'id of 'All b. Muhammad b. al-Walid 
in Ivanow, A creed of the Fatimids, Bombay 1936; 
al-Nu c man, Da'd'im al-isldm; al-Mukaddasi, 237-8; 
cf. R. Brunschvig, Fiqh fatimide et histoire de V 
Ifriqiya, in Melanges d'hist. et d'arch. de I'Occident 
musulman, Algiers 1957, ii, 13-20). The tarawih [q.v.] 
prayer in Ramadan had been forbidden in North 
Africa, as it was in Egypt in 372/982-3 by al- c Aziz, 
but it was allowed again in 399/1009 by al-Hakim 
(see al-Makrizi's chapter, Khitat, ii, 341 f., on the 
Madhdhib ahl Misr). Al-'Aziz was very strict towards 
the Malikis; al-Hakim sometimes tolerated them, 
sometimes persecuted them. Al-Zahir expelled the 
Maliki/aWfts from Egypt in 416/1025-6. In 525/1131, 
on the other hand, the vizier Kutayfat, an Imami, 
showed great tolerance : there were, besides an Is- 
ma'ili and an Imami kadi, also a MalikI kadi and a 
Shafi'i. Al-Kalkashandl could say (Subh, iii, 524) 
that the Fatimids were tolerant to the Sunnis, 
with the exception of Hanafis. 

As for the Christians and the Jews, they held a 
relatively favourable position throughout the Fatimid 
period. We have noticed that several caliphs had 
Christian viziers: al-'Aziz, al-Hakim, who had three 
(Fahd b. Ibrahim, Mansiir b. 'Abdun and Zur'a b. 
Nasturus), al-Hafiz, with Bahram. In spite of the 
discontent, sometimes openly expressed, of the Mus- 
lim population, Christians could always hold the 
highest offices. Throughout the period of the dynasty, 
non-Muslims continued to occupy numerous posts in 
the administration, especially in the finance depart- 
ments. In the time of al- c Aziz the Jews rose to hold 
important offices and were sometimes very powerful, 
as they were at the court of al-Mustansir during the 
regency of his mother. Tolerance to Christians and 
Jews is one of the characteristics of the dynasty. 
The Armenian Abu Salih testifies to the tolerance 
of the Fatimid caliphs in the matter of the building 
of churches and their benevolence towards Christian 
establishments (see The Churches and monasteries of 
Egypt, ed. and tr. Evetts, Oxford 1895). For the 
Jews, see J. Mann, The Jews under the Fatimid 
Caliphs, Oxford 1920-2; R. J. H. Gottheil, A decree 
in favour of the Karaites of Cairo dated 1024, in 
Festschrift A. Harkavy, St. Petersburg 1908, 115 ff.; 
S. D. Goitein, A Caliph's decree in favour of the 



Sabbinite Jews of Palestine, in Journ. of Jew. stud., 
1954; id., The Muslim government, as seen by its 
non-Muslim subjects, in /. Pak. Hist. Soc, 1964; id., 
Evidence on the Muslim poll tax from non-Muslim 
sources, in JESHO, 1964; see further CI. Cahen, 
Histoires coptes d'un cadi medieval, in BIFAO, lix 
(i960), 133 ff. 

4. Organization of the State. The Fatimid 
state in North Africa, although it already surrounded 
itself by some ceremonial, was not yet a complex 
organization. But from the very beginning of the 
Egyptian period the caliphs al-Mu c izz and al- c Aziz 
laid the solid foundations of the power of the dynasty. 
The strict organization which they introduced in the 
administration and the finances, and which Djawhar 
had prepared together with Ibn Killis and Usludj, 
was the basis for a complex system of institutions 
which progressively developed, became modified, or 
were transformed, and whose functions have been 
studied in various works: Ibn al-Sayrafl, Kdnun 
diwdn al-rasdHl, ed. Ali Bahgat, Cairo 1905, tr. 
Masse, in BIFAO, xi (1914); al-Makrizi, KUW, U 
al-Kalkashandl, Subh, iii (reproduced in Les Institu- 
tions des Fatimides en Egypte, Bibl. de l'Inst. d'Et. 
Super. Isl. d' Alger, xii (1957)) ; trans, by Wustenfeld, 
Calcaschandi's Geographie und Verwaltung von Aegyp- 
ten, AKGWG, xxv, Gottingen 1879. Some modern 
works also have been devoted to these questions: 
Dr. <Abd al-Mun c im Madjid (Magued), Institutions 
et cirimonial des Fatimides en Egypte, 2 vols., Cairo 
1953-5; Dr. 'Atiya Mustafa Musharrafa, Nuzum al- 
hukm bi-Misr fi c asr al-Fdtimiyyin, Cairo, 2nd ed., 
no date. Again, one special chapter (ix) deals with 
the organs of the administration and another (xii) 
with ceremonial in Hasan Ibrahim Hasan's Ta'rlkh 
al-dawla al-Jdtimiyya, Cairo 1958 (revised version 
of Al-Fdfimiyyun fi Misr, 1932), 264-325, 628-73. 

Fatimid administration was a strongly centralized 
system, having at its head the caliph and the vizier, 
either with executive or with delegated powers 
(from Badr al-Djamall onwards, the vizier is a Vizier 
of the Sword). Everything was under the control of 
the central administration, the provincial organs of 
government having no real autonomy although some 
governors, such as the govenor of Kus for example, 
were able at time to attain great power. Administra- 
tion was carried on through the diwdns (offices or 
ministries), which were assembled sometimes at the 
palace of the vizier (as for example under Ibn Killis 
and al-Afdal), sometimes at the palace of the caliph 
[see diwan ii]. 

Officials, both civil and military (arbdb al-akldm 
and arbdb al-suyuf), both in the personal service of 
the caliph [khawdss al-khalifa) and in the public 
service (military, administrative, financial, judicial, 
religious), were strictly organized in a hierarchy, 
the degrees of which were marked not only by 
differences of pay but also by the insignia peculiar 
to each rank and the places occupied in receptions 
held at the palace and in public processions. Some 
of the military officers belonged to the public service, 
like the Vizier of the Sword, the Grand Chamber- 
lain, the Isfahsaldr, the Bearer of the Umbrella, 
the Sword-bearer, the Grooms, etc., others belonged 
to the private service: these were eunuchs, those 
most exalted in dignity being the muhannak eunuchs, 
distinguished by a special style of turban, among 
whom were the Master of the Audience-chamber, the 
Message-Bearer, the Major- Domo, the eunuch respon- 
sible for arranging the caliph's headgear (shddd al-tddj) 
etc. The officers of the pen included the Vizier of the 
Pen (when there was no Vizier of the Sword), the 



heads of the chancellery and the various diwdns, 
the Administrator of the Public Treasury, some reli- 
gious officials like the Chief Kddi, the Chief Mission- 
nary, the Muhtasib, the Kur'an-reciters and other 
court-officials, like the palace physicians and poets. 
All these officials resided in the capital, this list 
not including those of the provinces. See the article 
misr, and for more details the descriptions of al- 
Makrizi, al-Kalkashandl, and the works cited above; 
also M. Canard, Le cirimonial fdtimite et le cirimonial 
byzantin: essai de comparaison, in Byzantion, xxi 
(1951) fasc. 2, 355-420. For Fatimid ceremonial, see 
tashrifat; for the processions, see mawakib; 
for the insignia and emblems of sovereignty, see 

5. Economic activity during the Fatimid 
period. c Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi had found North 
Africa in a flourishing condition, thanks to the 
development of town life. This prosperity permitted 
the first Fatimids to dispose of valuable resources 
and to set about the establishment of a powerful 
fleet and army. 

In spite of disturbances, rebellions and disorders, 
Fatimid Egypt in general enjoyed great prosperity, 
thanks to the stability of its administrative and 
financial apparatus, its rich revenues arising from 
taxes and dues, the income from state-owned shops, 
trade and custom-dues, and the influx of gold from 
he mines of Nubia. The annual rise of the Nile 
enriched its soil and sustained its agriculture, so that 
numerous different crops were produced, and, except 
when the river failed to rise high enough or when 
the dams and canals were neglected, agricultural 
productivity was sufficient. The crops are listed in 
Hasan Ibrahim Hasan, op. cit., 576 f . : wheat, barley, 
various vegetables, sugar-cane, dye-plants, animal- 
fodder; yet wheat had to be imported. The chief 
industrial crops were flax, sugar-cane, and, to a 
lesser degree, cotton. Production of wood — and that 
only soft-wood (sycamore, acacia) — was inadequate. 
For this subject see the geographers, c Abd al-Latif 
al-Baghdadi, Al-Ifdda wa '1-iHibdr bi-md fi Misr 
min al-dthdr, tr. S. de Sacy, Relation de VEgypte par 
Abd al-Latif; D. Muller-Wodarg, Die Landwirtschaft 
Aegyptens in der friihen Abbasidenzeit, in Isl., xxxii 
(1955); Ali Bahgat, Lesforlts en Egypte et leur admini- 
stration au Moyen Age, in Bull, de l'Inst. d' Egypte, 
4e serie, i (1901), 141-58. 

Industry flourished. The first place was occupied 
by weaving, encouraged by the cultivation of flax 
and carried on in the region of Tinnis, Damietta, 
Dabik [?.».]. At Cairo also were manufactured silk- 
stuffs, with various names: it was into a 'kurkubi 
tustari' silk, blue in colour, that al-Mu'izz had had 
the map of the various regions woven (Khitat, i, 417). 
For the textile industry in Egypt see Serjeant, 
Islamic Textiles, in Ars Islamica, xiii-xiv (1948), 
noff.; Ali Bahgat, Les manufactures d'itoffes en 
Egypte au Moyen Age, in Mim. de l'Inst. Egyptien, 
1903; H. Zayyat, Thiydb al-sharb, in Machriq, 
xli/i, 137-41. Among the other industries, should 
be noted the wood-industry (for ship-building: on 
the arsenals see Khitat. i, 193 f.), glass and crystal 
at al-Fustat and Alexandria, pottery, ceramics, 
mosaic; metalwork (iron and copper: making of 
knives and scissors at Tinnis), work in ivory and 
leather, paper-making, sugar, oil. For further details 
see H. Ibrahim Hasan's chapter al-Sind c a. 

In general, industry benefited from the luxury 
and pomp of the court, the liberal distribution of 
gifts and garments by the caliphs, and by the extra- 
vagance of viziers like al-Yazurl and al-Afdal. 



Trade, both internal and external, thrived, and 
Egypt carried on commercial relations with many 
countries. An important role in trade was played by 
the Jews, for the Fatimids do not seem to have 
imposed discriminatory customs tariffs, varying 
according to whether the traders were Jewish, 
Christian or Muslim. Trade with India was carried 
on through Kus and Aydhab on the Red Sea, from 
whence the merchant-ships embarked. Cairo was in 
commercial relations with Abyssinia, Nubia, Con- 
stantinople (reached in twenty days' sailing), Italy — 
Amalfi, trade with which was particularly brisk 
(see Yahya b. Sa'id, PO, xxiii, 447; Rosen, The 
Emperor Basil Bulgaroctonus (in Russian), 293-6; 
Gay, L'ltalie miridionale . . ., 585-6; Heyd, Com- 
merce du Levant, i, 99, 104-6), Pisa, Genoa, Venice 
(which sent wood for ship-building, to the profound 
displeasure of the Byzantine Emperor) — , Sicily 
(twenty days' sailing), North Africa, Spain, and 
Europe, particularly via Sicily. These countries 
bought spices, clothes, etc., and sent in return the 
commodities which Egypt lacked or could not 
produce in sufficient quantities: wheat, iron, wood, 
silk (Fayyum produced only a little), wool, and cheese 
(which the Jews consumed in large quantities). 

Details on trade will be found in al-Idrisi, in Nasir-i 
Khusraw, in the articles by B. Lewis and S. M. Stern 
noted above for India, and in S. M. Stern, An original 
document from the Fatimid Chancery concerning 
Italian merchants, in Mel. Levi Delia Vida, ii, Rome 
1956, 529-38. The studies of S. D. Goitein are parti- 
cularly important in this connexion: Records from 
the Cairo Geniza, in Exhibition Amer. Or. Society, 
April 1961; From the Mediterranean to India: Docu- 
ments on the trade to India, South Arabia and East 
Africa from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, in 
Speculum, xxix; The Jewish India merchants of the 
Middle Ages, in India and Israel, 1953; New light on 
the beginnings of the Karimi merchants, in JESHO, i 
(1958) ; The main industries of the Mediterranean area 
as reflected in the records of the Cairo Geniza, ibid., 
iv/2 (1961); The Cairo Geniza as a source for the 
history of Moslem civilisation, in Studia Islamica, iii 
(1955), 75-91 J The Documents of the Cairo Geniza as a 
source for Mediterranean social history, in J A OS, 
lxxx/2 (i960), 91-100; Petitions to Fatimid Caliphs 
from the Cairo Geniza, in Jew. Quart. Rev., xi (1954), 
30 ff. ; L'itat actuel de la recherche sur les documents 
de la Geniza du Caire, in RE J, 3e serie, 1959-60, i; 
La Tunisie du Xle siicle a la lumiere des documents 
de la Geniza du Caire, in Etudes d'Orientalisme didiees 
a la mimoire de Levi-Provencal, ii, 1962, 559 ff. 
This author has promised a comprehensive work on 
the whole question. See also his Jews and Arabs, their 
contact through the ages, New York 1955 (French 
edition, Juifs et Arabes, Paris 1957). For Fatimid 
trade see also H. Ibr. Hasan, op. cit., 595 ff. ; Rashid 
Muh. al-Barrawi, Hdlat Misr al-iktisddiyya fi c ahd 
al-Fdtimiyyin, Cairo 1948; G. Wiet, Hist, de la Nat. 
igypt., L'Egypte arabe, 303-8; idem, Les communica- 
tions en Egypte au Moyen Age, in Rev. de la Soc. 
Royale d'Economie politique, de statistique et de legis- 
lation, xxiv, Cairo 1933; R. Idris, Commerce maritime 
et kirdd en Berblrie orientate, in JESHO, 1961, 

Contemporary sources of the Fatimid period give 
a picture of the economic activity of Cairo and al- 
Fustat, for example the Persian traveller, Nasir-i 
Khusraw in his Safar-ndma (on whom see, besides 
Schefer, who edited and translated the work, Yahya 
el-Khachab, Ndsir e Hosraw, Cairo 1940). Similarly 
it is after contemporary sources that al-Makrizi 



described the extraordinary wealth of the treasuries 
(khazd'in) of the caliphs, and thus indicates how 
flourishing were luxury industries (Khitat. i, 408 f.; 
cf. al-Kalkashandi, Subh, iii, 475 f-)j following the 
K. al-DhakhdHr wa 'l-tuhaf of the Kadi al-Rashid 
b. al-Zubayr, he lists all the contents of al-Mustansir's 
treasury of garments and his treasury of jewels, 
perfumes and valuables (see the edition by M. 
Hamldullah, Kuwait 1959, 249 f. These treasuries, 
described also in Magued, op. cit., ii, had earlier 
been studied by Cjuatremere, Mem. geogr. et hist, 
sur I'Egypte, ii, 366 ff., by Inostrantsev, Toriest- 
venniy veid fatimidskikh Khalifov, St. Petersburg 
1905, 92 ff. andby Kahle, Die Schdtze der Fdtimiden, in 
ZDMG, xiv (1935), 329 «. with trans, of KkM, i, 
414-6. The inventory of the treasures of the palace 
of al-Afdal (Ibn Muyassar, 57 f.), which it took al- 
Amir and his secretaries forty days to make, also 
testifies to the same luxury and economic prosperity. 

6. Cultural activity in the Fatimid pe- 
riod. In the Fatimid period an intense intellectual, 
literary and artistic activity developed. 

In North Africa court-poets flourished, one of 
whom, Ibn Hani 5 [q.v.], was a fervent Isma'ili. On 
al-Iyadi and other poets, see H. H. 'Abdal-Wahhab, 
Al-muntakhab al-madrasi min al-adab al-tunisi, 
Tunis 1944. The caliphs themselves composed verses 
(see the Sirat Djawdhar). The diwdn of Tamim, the 
son of al-Mu'izz, has been published. Verses by 
him, and by various Fatimid caliphs, will be found 
in Muhammad Hasan al-A'zami, '■Abkariyyat al- 
Fdtimiyyin, Cairo 1960, 133 f., 235 f. In North 
Africa too the kadi Abu Hanlfa al-Nu c man [q.v.] 
composed his historical, juridical and esoteric works, 
as did Dja'far b. Mansur al-Yaman [q.v.], who left 
the Yemen for North Africa after the death of his 
father. The caliphs al-Mansur and al-Mu c izz took 
part in these activities: some works of al-Nu'man, 
it is known, owe much to the collaboration of al- 
Mu'izz. 

c Ubayd Allah was responsible for the foundation 
of the town of al-Mahdiyya, with its mosque, palace, 
and various public buildings; al-Mansur founded 
Sabra (al-Mansuriyya) with its sumptuous palaces. 
On this subject see G. Marcais, V architecture musul- 
mane d'Occident, Paris 1954, 65-6, 69-70, 78-81, 
89-92, 93-118; S. M. Zbiss, Mahdia et Sabra-Mansou- 
riya, nouveaux documents d'art fdtimite d'Occident, 
in J A, ccxliv (1956), 79-93; H. Ibr. Hasan, op. cit., 
524-6. On these two towns see also the Sirat Djawdhar 
(index). 

In Egypt, cultural activity was still more vigorous. 
Poetry was cultivated by the caliphs themselves, 
and their court welcomed even non-Isma'Ili poets, 
such as 'Umara al-Yamanl [q.v.]. There was vigorous 
encouragement of works on religion, on the exposition 
of Isma'ili doctrines, on the allegorical commentary 
of the Kur'an, on philosophy, and on the populari- 
zation of scientific learning. The Fatimid period 
is characterized by a burst of intellectual curiosity 
analogous to that of the 18th century in Europe. 
See H. Ibr. Hasan, ch. xi; Muhammad Kamil Husayn, 
Fi adab Misr al-fdtimiyya, Cairo 1950; Brockelmann, 
S I, 323 f., 714 f.; Ivanow, Rise; and the articles 
on the philosophers Abu Hatim al-Razi, Hamld 
al-DIn al-Kirmani, Ahmad b. Ibrahim al-NIsaburl, 
al-Mu'ayyad fi '1-DIn al-Shirazi, Hatim b. Ibrahim 
al-Hamidi, etc., and on the Encyclopaedia of the 
Ikhwan al-Safa'. 

The Fatimid period was also distinguished by men 
of learning: the mathematician Ibn Haytham al- 
Basri, invited to Egypt by al-Hakim ; t" 



862 



FATIMIDS — FATIMID ART 



<A1I b. Yfinus al-Sadafi, author of al-Zidi al-Hdhimi; 
the physicians Ibn Sa c id al-Tamimi, in the entourage 
of Ibn Killis, Musa b. Al'azar al-Isralll and his sons 
Ishak and Isma'U, in the reigns of al-Mu c izz and 
al-'Aziz, the famous Ibn Ridwan, whose dispute 
with Ibn Butlan has been studied by J. Schacht and 
M. Meyerhof, The medical controversy between Ibn 
Butlan of Baghdad and Ibn Ridwdn of Cairo (pu- 
blication no. 13 of the Faculty of Arts of the Egyp- 
tian University), Cairo 1937 (cf. J. Schacht, Ueber den 
Hellenismus in Baghdad und Cairo, in ZDMG, xc/xv 
(1936), 526 ff.), Mansur b. Sahlan b. Mukashshir, 
al-Hakim's Christian physician (cf. Yahya b. Sa'id, 
PO, xxiii, 464). 

The Fatimid period was also rich in authors on 
various subjects; the historians Ibn Zulak, al-Mu- 
sabbihi, al-Kuda 3 !, the author of K. al-Diydrdt, 
al-Shabushtl, the librarian of al- c Aziz, al-Muhallabi, 
the author of a geographical work composed for al- 
c AzIz, Ibn al-Ma'mun al-Bata'ihi, son of the vizier, 
an important source of al-Makrizi, the frddi al- 
Rashid b. al-Zubayr, author of the K. al-Dhakhd'ir 
wa 'l-tuhaf, Ibn al-Sayrafl, al-Kurti, who composed 
his history in the reign of the last Fatimid caliph, 
etc. [«.».]. 

The Fatimid period, as G. Wiet has also said, is 
"une des plus passionantes de l'histoire de l'Egypte 
musulmane". The dynasty, born of an original 
ideological movement within ShI'ism which developed 
to a degree hitherto unknown and aroused extra- 
ordinary devotion for the triumph of the cause, 
established itself by force of arms in North Africa 
and formed a powerful empire in Egypt. To them were 
turned the eyes and aspirations of the Isma'ills 
throughout the Muslim world and their sympathizers. 
The history of this dynasty dominates the history 
of the Mediterranean Near East for two centuries. 
Having suffered from the prejudices and hostility of 
the Sunnis, it has not always been described by 
Sunn! writers with understanding; but for some years 
now it had enjoyed a renewal of interest. 

The Fatimid dynasty had periods of greatness, 
thanks to its administrative and financial organiza- 
tion, its economic development, the flourishing in- 
tellectual and artistic activity, the pomp of court 
and palace, which was, as William of Tyre testifies, 
maintained up to the end, the ceremonial and osten- 
tatious feasts, which immediately provoke comparison 
with Constantinople and far surpass what had pre- 
viously been known at Baghdad. But it suffered also 
periods of misery and famine, bloody struggles 
between military factions, and a disastrous end, 
among the intrigues of rival viziers appealing for the 
intervention of foreign powers. Its history is full of 
contrasts. Both its greatness and its decadence offer 
attractive material to the historian and confer upon 
the dynasty a niche of its own in history. 

Bibliography: To the Arab historians who 
are listed by M. c Abd Allah 'Inan in his Misr al- 
isldmiyya, Cairo 1931, 34 ff. and by Hasan Ibrahim 
Hasan add: Ibn Zafir, Ms. Br. Mus. Or. 3685, ff. 
41 f.; Ibn al-Dawadarl, Die Chronik des Ibn ad- 
Dawdddrl, Sechster Teil: Der Bericht tiber die 
Fatimiden, ed. Salah ad-Din al-Munaggid, Cairo 
1961 (Deutsches Arch. Inst. Kairo, Quellen zur 
Gesch. des isl. Aegyptens 1 f.), reviewed by B. 
Lewis in BSOAS, xxvi (1963), 429-31- For Sibt Ibn 
al-Djawzi, add MS Paris 5866, year 358/969 on- 
wards. Several sources are discussed in the preface 
to Wustenfeld, Gesch. der Fatimiden-Chalifen and in 
C. H. Becker, Beitrdge zur Gesch. Aegyptens unter 
dent Islam, with, in particular, a study on a 



fragment of al-Musabbihi. CI. Cahen, Quelques 
chroniques anciennes relatives aux derniers Fati- 
mides, in Bull, de VIFAO, xxxvii (1937), has 
examined a certain number of sources used by 
Ibn al-Furat and drawn attention to the value as a 
source of the Shi'i Ibn Abi Tayyi 5 . For North 
Africa, the chronicle of Abu Zakariyya 5 is now 
accessible in a new French translation by R. Le 
Tourneau and R. Idris, in Revue Africaine, 1960-2. 
On Fatimid coins, besides the standard coin 
catalogues and numismatic handbooks, see: 
H. Sauvaire, Matiriaux pour servir d I'hist. de la 
numismatique . . ., in J A, xv (1880), xix (1882); 
J. Farrugia de Candia, Monnaies fatimites du 
Musie du Bardo, in RT, xxvii-xxviii (1936) and 
xxix (1937); M. Troussel, Les monnaies d'or 
musulmanes du Cabinet des Midailles du Musie de 
Constantine, in Rec. des Not. et Mim. de la Soc. 
Arch, de Constantine, lxv (1942); G. C. Miles, 
Fatimid coins in the collection of the Univ. Museum 
Philadelphia and the American Numismatic 
Society, New York, Amer. Num. Soc, lii (1951); 
A. S. Ehrenkreutz, Studies in the Monetary history 
of the Near East in the Middle Ages, in JESHO, 
I 959> 1963, 1964; id., Contribution to the monetary 
history of Egypt in the Middle Ages, in BSOAS, xvi 
(1954). — To works mentioned in the course of the 
article add Hodgson, The Order of Assassins, The 
Hague 1955; S. M. Stern, Three petitions of the 
Fatimid period, in Oriens, 1962, 172-209 and A Fati- 
mid decree of the year 524/1130, in BSOAS, i960, 
439 ff . ; A. Grohmann and P. Labib, Ein Fatimiden- 
erlass vom Jahre 415 AH {1024 AD), in RSO, 
1957, 641 ff. ; G. Levi Delia Vida, A marriage 
contract on parchment from Fatimite Egypt, in Eretz- 
Israel, xii (1963). — For a general survey of the 
history of the Fatimids, besides the works of S. 
Lane- Poole, A history of Egypt in the Middle Ages', 
London 1914, and The Mohammedan dynasties, 
London 1894, of Wustenfeld, and of De Lacy 
O'Leary, A short history of the Fatimid Khalifate, 
London 1923, see G. Wiet, Pricis de l'histoire de 
l'Egypte and Histoire de la Nation igyptienne, 
L'Egypte arabe, cited above. 

(M. Canard) 
FATIMID ART. The political history of the 
Fatimids forms an indispensable background to an 
understanding of the development of their art. It 
allows us to distinguish two successive periods in it: 
one Ifrikiyan period, which extends from 308/908, 
the date of the installation of the Mahdi in Kayrawan 
and of the foundation of al-Mahdiyya, until 362/973, 
which saw the departure of al-Mu c izz and the 
establishment of Cairo as the city of the Caliphs; then 
an Egyptian period, which lasts from 362/973 up to 
the collapse of the Caliphate in 567/1171. To this 
division in time a geographical division must be 
added. The art which the Fatimids transplanted 
into Egypt continued to flourish in eastern 'Barbary', 
thanks to the ZIrids and the Hammadids, vassals of 
Cairo, and it extended its influence over both 
Muslim and Norman Sicily. 

Al-Mahdiyya, the city of the Mahdi on the 
Tunisian coast, preserves, apart from the ruins of 
its Fatimid fortifications, a mosque and traces of the 
palace of al-Ka'im. The mosque, very much altered, 
has a porch projecting in front whose central bay 
is framed on either side by two storeys of niches. 
This motif, which reminds us of Roman triumphal 
arches, was to pass into the Fatimid style of 
Egypt. The palace of al-Ka 5 im (322-34/934-46) 
which stood opposite the palace of the Mahdi, 



his father, still keeps its beautifully constructed 
walls, with an entrance jutting out from the facade, 
and a hall of state whose floor is covered with a 
stone mosaic, the last North African use of this 
kind of pavement. A palace of Sabra Mansuriyya 
at the gates of Kayrawan seems to date from the 
time of the Fatimid Caliph al-Mansur (334-41/ 
946-53). Here we see a large hall, a kind of ante-room 
from which, side by side, open three deep rooms, the 
central one of which, having no front wall, appears 
in the shape of an iwdn. A similar arrangement 
relates this palace of Sabra, which is presumed 
Fatimid, to the Tulunid houses of Fustat. It reveals 
connexions between Egypt and Ifrikiya prior to 
the departure of the Caliph al-MuSzz. 

Even before this departure took place, the Fatimid 
general, al-Diawhar. had undertaken the con- 
struction in Cairo of the mosque of al-Azhar, which 
was to be considerably enlarged later on and to 
become the Muslim university which we know to-day. 
The original sanctuary shows by its plan and deco- 
rations the survival of the Tulunid tradition; but 
the influence of Ifrikiya, whence the new masters of 
the country came, is also to be found. The five 
transversal aisles which make up the hall of prayer, 
as in the mosque of Ibn Tulun, are interrupted in the 
middle by a perpendicular aisle which is wider, 
bordered with columns joined in pairs and having a 
cupola at each end, probably influenced by the 
Great Mosque of Kayrawan. 

The mosque of al-Hakim (384-94/990-1003) com- 
bines in the same way elements imported from 
Ifrikiya and elements preserved from Tulunid 
architecture. The porch, projecting from the front 
of the building and covered by a vault giving 
entrance to the vast court-yard, seems Ifrikiyan, 
inspired by the mosque of Mahdiyya. The influence 
of the mosque of Ibn Tulun shows itself in the hall 
of prayer with its five transversal aisles, whose 
arcs brisis rest on brick pillars cantoned with small 
false columns. The two minarets which rise at the 
front angles of the mosque have a cylindrical core 
enveloped in a solid mass of square design. Like 
that of the porch, the ornamentation of these towers 
in very low relief employing geometrical and vegetal 
designs marks a decisive step in the elaboration of 
Muslim decorative art. One hundred and twenty- 
two years later than the mosque of al-Hakim, the 
little al-Akmar mosque (519/1125) is worth notice 
also for the ornamentation on its facade. The 
entrance in the projecting forepart of the building 
is ornamented with a great high-relief flanked by 
two storeys of niches. 

The mosque of al-Salih Tala J i c is the latest in date 
of the Fatimid mosques (555/1 160). Built above 
shops, its facade is made up of two projecting fore- 
parts joined by a portico. The sanctuary has three 
transversal aisles, the central passage which leads 
up to the mihrdb being distinguished only by a 
wider separation of the pillars. 

Apart from these mosques, the Fatimid period 
saw the construction of a great number of mauso- 
leums such as those of al-Dja'fari, Sayyida 'Atika, 
al-Hasawati and Shaykh Yunus. They consist tradi- 
tionally of a square chamber with a cupola. This 
cupola is supported by squinches at the four corners. 
In the 6th/i2th century these squinches multiplied 
and were superimposed upon each other, producing 
corbels of mukarnas (= stalactites), whose original 
model seems likely to have come from Persia. 

A tomb constitutes at any rate the essential 
element of the mashhad of al-Djuyushi, built in 478/ 



D ART 863 

1085 on the Mukattam Hill by the wazir Badr al- 
Djamall to hold his sepulchre. This building consists 
of four parts: a front portion, surmounted by the 
minaret, where the door is situated ; a middle portion 
with a court flanked by two chambers with wagons- 
vaulted roofs; at the back there is a sanctuary of 
three aisles covered with herring-bone vaulting and 
a great cupola in front of the mihrdb; finally there 
is the chamber of the tomb itself which is joined 
laterally to the sanctuary. Certain peculiarities may 
be observed in this monument which were to per- 
petuate themselves in Egyptian art: the minaret 
formed of three towers one on top of the other, two 
square in design and one octagonal which surmounts 
a cornice of mukarnas and is capped by a dome, a 
possible prototype of the future minarets of Cairo. 
Equally worth noticing is the importance given to 
the cupola in the sanctuary, the sharp-angled profile 
of this cupola, and the outline analogous with the 
so-called "Persian" arches whose two vertical sides 
are bent to form a right-angle at the summit. 

Between 480/1087 and 484/1091, the same all- 
powerful wazir, Badr al-Djamali, gave Cairo a new 
city wall. Armenian by birth and surrounding 
himself with Armenian troops, he brought from his 
country architects to whom the Fatimid capital owes 
three of its most beautiful buildings, the three gates 
called Bab Zuwayla, Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Futuh. 
Construction and ornamentation, the magnificence 
of the walls, the outline of the vaults and semi- 
circular arches, everything in these majestic entrances 
to the city springs from Hellenistic tradition. 

Whereas the palaces known from manuscripts to 
have been built by Fatimid Caliphs in the centre of 
Cairo have disappeared, those of the Kal'a of the 
Banu Hammad preserve, perhaps, the record of their 
civil foundations. This Berber capital was built 
among the mountains of eastern Algeria at the 
beginning of the 5th/nth century, but it profited 
greatly by the ruin of Kayrawan, victim of the 
invasion of the Banu Hilal, and at the end of this 
same century knew a brief period of splendour. A 
mosque whose minaret dominates the vast field of 
ruins, traces of palaces of which two, the keep of 
Kasr al-Manar (the Castle of the Lighthouse) and the 
Dar al-Bahr (the Palace of the Lake), were excavated 
in 1908 and a third is now being excavated, give us 
knowledge of this North African architecture 
nourished by oriental influences, inspired not only 
by Egypt but also by 'Irak and Persia. It suffices 
to remember the long niches which decorate the 
front of the minaret and those of the palaces, a theme 
deeply imprinted in the architecture of the Sasanids, 
the mirror of water in the court-yard of Dar al-Bahr, 
the inlaid ceramic work paving and lining the great 
halls where faience with metallic reflections is used, 
and finally the mukarnas (stalactites), proved to be 
an Iranian invention, whose first use in the Islamic 
west is to be found at the Kal'a. 

The excavations of the Kal'a have filled an 
important gap in our knowledge. Bougie, to which 
the Banu Hammad moved at the beginning of the 
6th/i2th century, does not provide a similar store of 
riches. Only some parts of the city wall and the great 
stone arch, which formed the entry to the harbour 
and its boats, have survived out of the buildings of 
the second Hammadid capital. 

Nevertheless we are inclined to regard Bougie as 
an important step on the road taken by Fatimid art 
in its penetration of Sicily; many indications 
authorize this belief. It was from Bougie undoubt- 
edly as well as from al-Mahdiyya, refuge of the last 



FATIMID ART — FATlN 



ZIrids, or from the Tunis of the Banu Khurasan, 
rather than from Cairo, that Palermo received the 
ground-plan of the pavilions on its outskirts. The 
Hammadid palaces help us to understand better the 
Ziza and Cuba of the Norman kings. 

Within the Maghrib and as far as Andalusia, there 
is no place that has not to some extent been in- 
fluenced by Fatimid art. To this distant influence can 
be attributed the adoption by the Islamic west of 
mukarnas (stalactites) and inlays of enamelled clay 
in the Almohad period. 

The propagation of these art forms can be explained 
by the journeys of artisans (the ruin of the cities of 
eastern 'Barbary' following on the invasion of the 
nomad Arabs must have provoked numerous 
departures among them) and also by the export of 
objets d'art from one place to another. 

Fatimid Egypt produced indeed a remarkable 
amount of activity in the decorative arts and an 
amazing development of luxury. The opulence of 
the Caliphs and the high functionaries is vouched 
for by Arab authors such as al-Makrizi who describes 
the treasure of the Caliph al-Mustansir, or Ibn 
Muyassar enumerating the riches of the wazlr al- 
Afdal, son of Badr al-Djamali. The artistic creations 
of the Fatimid epoch above all in Egypt but some- 
times also in Spain (the kinship between the works 
of the two countries leaves us sometimes in doubt 
of their origin) are the glory of European museums 
and church treasures. 

In the nth and 12th centuries techniques con- 
cerned with bronze, faience, glass and cut crystal, 
jewels and textiles were the most flourishing and 
show an extremely refined artistic taste. The same 
decorative elements were used as in monumental 
sculpture: lettering, interlacing, either star-shaped 
and geometrical or based on plant and occasionally 
animal motifs. Indeed, notwithstanding strict ortho- 
doxy, there were many representations of living 
creatures both human and animal. Such in the Cairo 
Museum are the friezes in carved wood from a 
Fatimid palace displaying musicians, dancers and 
hunters, or the ewers and fountain motifs in bronze 
of which the most celebrated is the griffin in the 
Campo Santo at Pisa, or the gilded faiences with 
representations of persons, or the brocades decorated 
with animals confronting each other. The freedom 
of the Shi'i masters with regard to the surma un- 
doubtedly explains the attitude of the artisans in the 
matter of iconography, but certainly another factor 
was the personality of these artisans and the traditions 
which they continued. Fatimid art is a cross-roads of 
influences, as will have been made clear by what has 
been said so far. To architectural elements from 
Ifrikiya, to the Tfllunid and Mesopotamian heritage, 
to the Syrian contribution which shows itself in 
military construction, is added, above all in ornamen- 
tation and the decorative arts, the legacy of Persia 
which the common faith united with the masters of 
Egypt, and, no less important, the Hellenistic legacy 
handed down by the Copts. It is impossible to 
exaggerate the part played by the Christians of 
Egypt in the formation of the Fatimid style and of 
that which we designate by the rather vague but 
traditional name of arabesque. 

Bibliography: G. Wiet and L. Hautecoeur, 
Les Mosquies du Caire, 2 vols., Cairo 1932; G. Wiet, 
L' exposition d'art persan a Londres, in Syria, 1932; 
Arnold, Painting in Islam, Oxford 1928, 22; The 
mosques of Egypt, Publ. of Ministry of Wakfs, 
chap. 3; K. A. C. Creswell, The Muslim architecture 
of Egypt, Oxford 1952; idem, The great salients of 



the mosque of al-Hdkim, in JRAS, 1923; idem, 
A bibliography of painting in Islam, Publ. of 
IFAO, Cairo, Art Islamique, I, Cairo 1953; idem, 
A bibliography of glass and rock crystal, in Bull, of 
the Fac. of Arts, xiv, Cairo 1952; M. S. Briggs, 
M uhammedan architecture in Egypt and Palestine, 
Oxford 1924; M. van Berchem, Matiriaux pour 
un Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum, Egypte, I; 
idem, Notes d'archiologie arabe, in J A, xvii (1891), 
429 ff.; idem, Une mosquie du temps des Fdtimides, 
in MIE, ii (1889); S. Flury, Die Ornamente der 
Hakkim und Azhar Moschee, Heidelberg 191 2; 
idem, Islamische Schri/tbdnder, Bale-Paris 1920; 
V. Monneret de Villard, La necropoli musulmana 
di Aswan, Cairo 1930; idem Le pitture musulmane 
al sofitto delta Capella Palatina in Palermo, Rome 
1950; L. de Beylie, La Kalaa des Beni Hammad, 
Paris 1909; G. Marcais, L' architecture musulmane 
d'Occident, Paris 1954; idem, Les figures d'hommes 
et de bites d'ipoque fatimite, in Melanges Maspiro, 
ii; idem, Les Poteries et faiences de la Qal'a des 
Beni Hammad, Constantine 1913; G. Migeon, 
Manuel d'art musulman, 2 vols., Paris 1927; 
Pauty and Wiet, Les bois sculptis jusqu'd I'ipoque 
ayyoubide, Cairo 1931; Panty, Bois sculptis 
d'iglises coptes, Cairo 1930; J. David- Weill, Les 
bois a ipigraphes jusqu'd I'ipoque mamlouke, Cairo 
1931 ; A. Bahgat Bey and F. Massoul, La ciramique 
musulmane d'tgypte, Cairo 1930; E. Kiihnel, 
Islamische Stoffe aus Agyptischen Grdbern, Berlin 
1927; idem, The textile Museum. Catal. of dated 
Tiraz Fabrics, Washington 1953, 59 sq.; R. Etting- 
hausen, Painting in the Fatimid period; A recon- 
struction, in Ars Islamica, ix (1942), 112-24; Lane- 
Poole, The art of the Saracens in Egypt, London 
1886; R. Pfister, Toiles a inscriptions abbasides et 
fatimides, in Bull. d'Et. Or., Damascus xi (1948), 
47-90; ZakI Muhammad Hasan, al-Fann al-isldmi 
fi Misr, 1935; idem, Zakhdrif al-mansudidt al- 
kibtiyya, in Rev. de la Fac. des Let. de I' Univ. du 
Caire, xii/i (1950); D. S. Rice, A drawing of the 
Fatimid period, in BSOAS, xxi/i (1958). See also 
the bibl. given by H. Ibr. Hasan, and for a com- 
prehensive survey, G. Wiet, Pricis de I'Hist. de 
1'E.gypte, Cairo 1932, 199-216. For the Fatimid in- 
scriptions, see the Corpus inscriptionum arabicarum 
and G. Wiet, Nouvelles inscriptions fdtimides, in 
Bull, de I'Inst. Egypt., xxiv (1941-2), 145-58 and 
Une nouvelle inscription fdtimide au Caire, in J A , 
1961, 13-20. For G. Wiet's other works relating to 
the Fatimid period, see the Bibliographic de I'oeuvre 
scientifique de G. Wiet, by A. Raymond, in Bull, de 
I'IFAO, Cairo, xlix (i960), ix-xxiv. The reader 
should consult also Ars Islamica. (G. Marcais) 
FATlN, pseudonym of DAwCD, (1229-83/1814- 
67), Turkish biographer and poet, the last of 
the Ottoman tedhkire-vfiiters. He was born in Drama, 
in Western Thrace, the son of the local notable 
Hadjdji Khalid Bey. After spending several years in 
Egypt, wheie his uncle lived, he returned to Istanbul 
and occupied various minor posts in government 

His diwdn, published posthumously by his son, 
shows him as a mediocre poet. His main work, the 
Khdtimat al-ash'dr, is the continuation of the 
tedhkire of Safa 5 ! (completed in 1132/1720) and that 
of Salim (completed 1134/1721) and contains the 
biographies of poets from 1135/1722 to his own day. 

Completed in 1269/1852 and printed lithographi- 
cally in Istanbul in 1 271/1855, Fatin's Tedhkire is 
of particular use for the biographies of his own 
contemporaries. 



FATIN — FATTAHI 



865 



Bibliography: Fatin, Diwdn, Istanbul 1288 
(with an introduction on Fatin's life); Babinger, 
359; Ibniilemin Mahmud Kemal Inal, Son astr 
tiirk fairleri, Istanbul 1930, i, 8; ii, 367; Orhan 
F. Kopriilii, in I A, s.v. An incomplete revised 
edition of the Khdtimat al-ash c dr, made by Shinasl. 
has now been found by 0. F. Akiin: see Tiirk 
Dili ve Edebiyatt Dergisi, xi (1961), 66-98. 



(FAHt 



U) 



FATRA (Ar.), which in general means a relaxing, 
and then an interval of time (e.g., the modern 
fatrat al-intikdl "period of transition"), is applied 
more particularly to the period separating two 
prophets or two successive messengers (rasiil); al- 
Djahiz (RasdHl, ed. Sandubl, Cairo 1352/1933, 133-4), 
in his exposition of prophetic history, uses the term 
fatra for the end of the period separating two 
prophets, making it clear that the "slackening" (of 
observance of the earlier prophet's teachings) is not 
a "break" (kafa). Al-Mas'udi (Murudi, "i, 85) for 
example uses this term to denote the lapse of time 
that intervened between Hud [?.i>.] and Salih [q.v.], 
but in its more current usage (see LA, s.v.) it is 
applied to the period without prophets from the 
time of Jesus Christ to Muhammad. It seems that 
the Muslims who had heard of a considerable number 
of pre-Christian" prophets did not take long to remark 
the gap of six centuries which was revealed 
between Jesus and Muhammad; and so they 
attempted, if not to fill this gap, at least to discover 
personages who had rejected the worship of idols 
without necessarily adopting Judaism or Christi- 
anity, lived a more or less ascetic life and, in some 
instances, had announced the coming of the Prophet. 
Ibn Kutayba, probably on the basis of sources of 
the 2nd/8th century, is the first, it seems, to enume- 
rate (Ma'-drif, ed. 'Ukasha, Cairo i960, 58) "the men 
who had a religion before the mission of the Prophet"; 
in this way he names Ri'ab al-Shanni, Waraka b. 
Nawfal, Zayd b. c Amr b. Nufayl, Umayya b. Abi 
'1-Salt, As'ad Abu Karib, Kuss b. Sa'ida, Sirma b. 
Abi Anas, Khalid b. Sinan. But he does not use the 
word fatra, whilst in the following century al- 
Mas'iidl, who clearly relies on the Ma'-drif, describes 
as ahl al-fatra (Murudi, i, 124-48) the personages 
named by Ibn Kutayba, to whom he adds some 
others who, he states, "have believed in a single 
God and in the resurrection". He even asserts that 
two of them, Hanzala b. Safwan [q.v.] and Khalid 
b. Sinan, are regarded as prophets by part of the 
Muslim community. 

In later times the term fatra was also applied, by 
analogy, to periods of political interregnum, as for 
example in Spain after the collapse of the Caliphate 
and in the Ottoman Empire after the capture and 
death of Bayazld I. (Ch. Pellat) 

FATTAtfl, Persian poet of the TImurid 
period, born at Nishapflr at an unspecified date, died 
in 852 or 853/1448-9. His name was in fact Muham- 
mad Yahya b. Sibak, and the takhallu? "Fattahi" 
is simply derived from the anagram of the Arabic 
translation of his Persian name Sibak ("little apple", 
Ar. tuffdh "apple"). His most famous work is the 
mathnawi of about 5,000 distichs in hazadj metre 

(^ j^j y u j_ entitled Dastur-i 'ushshdk 

(The rule of lovers) and known also by the title Jfusn 
■u-Dil (Beauty and Heart), from the names of its two 
allegorical protagonists. It was completed in 840/ 
1436-7; as, towards the end, the author mentions 
the plague of 838/1434-5, its composition must have 
been spread over several years. It is impossible in a 
few lines to summarize the contents of this poem in 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



which all the "concepts" of the unique but varkd 
"drama of love" of the classical Persian ghazal 
appear in the form of persons: Heart (dil), son of 
King Intellect ( c akl), Beauty (husn), daughter of 
King Love (Hshk), Glance (nazar), Mouth (dahdn), 
Eyelash (muzha), Body (badan), Tresses (zulf), Rival 
(rakib), etc., so much so that the poem has justly 
been called an "Index der Bildersprache der orien- 
talischen Erotik". The style is overloaded with 
rhetorical embellishments (particularly in the letters 
exchanged between the two lovers), and, despite its 
undoubted interest from the point of view of know- 
ledge of the metaphorical language of Persian lyrics, 
the general effect of the poem finally becomes 
somewhat tedious as a result of the perpetual use of 
allegory. However, it is not accurate to speak of 
"decadence", as certain contemporary Persian 
critics have done. It was a question of searching for 
new ways to excape from the "perfect" world of 
HSfizian symbolism. The living symbol is here 
replaced by allegory by means of the personification 
of abstract concepts, a device also used by other 
poets of the period {e.g., Katibi), which became one of 
the basic elements of what is called the "Indian 
style". Another element of this style which was 
already in existence at that period and even occurs 
in Fattahi is the marked tendency to use hyperbole 
(in the description of a perfectly smooth castle wall, 
he writes "the stones of its wall were so limpid that 
they reflected a hair several farsangs away"); 
moreover, the sophistication of the psychological 
study of the characters (a matter in which Nizami 
excelled, but here carried to extremes), the use of 
bookish terms in metaphors (the letters of the 
alphabet, for example) or of words denoting objects 
in current use, are all elements which appeared in 
the "Indian style", though functioning in a new way. 
More readable (and an excellent example of Persian 
prose intermingled with verse), but perhaps less 
interesting from the point of view of style, is the 
summary in prose of the same poem which Fattahi 
made under the title ffusn u-dil. In addition, the 
poet also wrote a Shabistdn-i khaydl (Bedroom of 
Fantasy), again in verse and prose (completed in 
843/1439-40), a short poem entitled Ta'bir-ndma 
(Book of interpretation of dreams), a Kitdb-i Asrdri 
wa-khumdri (unpublished, and of which only very 
few mss. exist ; perhaps a discussion between a wine 
drinker and a hashish smoker, with tadmin (in- 
sertion of lines from famous poets). The titles alone 
suffice to show the new orientations for widening 
the content of poetry in this period which, far from 
being decadent, lays the foundations for possible new 
stylistic developments. But these developments 
continued along these lines perhaps more in "outer 
Iran" (meaning India, Central Asia and Ottoman 
Turkey) than in Iran proper. In fact, if it is true that 
Fattahi's secluded life as a dervish left him com- 
paratively little known in Iran, the success of his 
narrative, in which personified concepts took a 
dramatic part (this seems to be an invention and 
he himself was aware of its originality, as he was to 
state in his own poem) was very great: he was 
imitated in verse and prose in various Islamic 
literatures. For India, besides the Sab-ras of Wadjhl 
(1044/1635), in Deccan Urdu prose, we should 
mention Kh'adja Muhammad Bidil who, in 1094/ 
1683, attempted an adaptation of it into elaborate 
Persian prose, while an unpublished mathnawi, also 
in Persian, is the work of a certain Dawud Elci 
(1054/1644) and is preserved in the Bombay Uni- 
versity Library. In addition, Dhawkl (1 108/1697), 
55 



FATTAHl — FATWA 



Mudjrimi (1086/1675), Sayyid Muhammad Wall 
Allah Kadirl (about 1180/1766) imitated him in 
Deccan Urdu, and Kh w 5dja (1264/1848) wrote on 
the same subject in northern Urdu. In Ottoman 
Turkish he was imitated by Lami c i (d. 937/1531), 
Ahi (d. 923/1517) and Wall Sidki. 

Bibliography: Dawlat Shah, Tadhkirai al- 
shu'ard', 417-8; <Ali Shir Nawa'i, Madidlis al- 
nafdHs, 13, 135; Kh w andamir, ffabib al-siyar, 
iii/3, 108, 133; Yar-i Shatir, Shi c r-i fdrsl dar c ahd-i 
Shdhriikh, Tehran 1334 ff., 180-4 and passim; 
J. Rypka, Iranische Literaturgeschichte, Leipzig 
1959. 2 75; A. Bausani, Storia delle letterature del 
Pakistan, Milan 1958, n 1-7 (with a detailed 
resume of the poem). The ffusn u-dil in prose has 
been translated into English (A. Browne, Dublin 
1801; W. Price, 1828) and German (Dvorak, 
Vienna 1889, with the Persian text, an introduction 
and important notes). The Dastur-i c ushshdk has 
been published by Greenshields (Berlin 1926). 
Part of the Shabistdn-i khaydl (ch. I) has been 
translated by Ethe (Leipzig 1865, 1868). 

(A. Bausani) 
FATWA, opinion on a point of law, the term 
"law" applying, in Islam, to all civil or religious 
matters. The act of giving a fatwd is a futyd or iftd'; 
— the same term is used to denote the profession of 
the adviser; — the person who gives a fatwd, or is 
engaged in that profession, is a mufti; — the person 
who asks for a fatwd is a mustafti. 

The institution of the futyd corresponds with the 
Roman institution of jus respondendi and is compar- 
able with it in many respects. 

The need for legal advice was soon felt in Islam. 
The ever-increasing number of the adheients of the 
new religion, which governed, through its totalitarian 
character, the temporal as well as the spiritual 
aspects of daily life, and the survival of the laws and 
customs of the conquered territories, which had to be 
harmonized, in some way or another, with novel 
piecepts and integrated within the nascent Muslim 
corpus juris, necessitated a continual recouise to 
the opinions of competent persons. 

Furthermore, the muftis, like the prudentes of 
Roman law, played a considerable part in building 
up the structure of Islamic law. Compilations of 
"responsa" by muftis of repute count among the 
most important legal manuals. 

The conditions required by the classical doctrine 
for the exercise of the profession, or even for the 
delivery of a fatwd, are: Islam, integrity or c addla 
[see c adl], legal knowledge (idjtihdd), or the ability 
to reach, by personal reasoning, the solution of a 
problem. Accordingly, authors observe that, in those 
times when there exist no jurists having this ability 
but only those who report the opinion of their 
predecessors, their opinions do not constitute fatwds 
properly so-called but simple 'reports of opinion'. 
As opposed to a judge, a mufti can be a woman, 
a slave, a blind or dumb person (except in the case 
of a mufti who is a public official). 

The afore-mentioned conditions are equally 
required whether it is a case of an individual and 
isolated fatwd being given or of futyd being exer- 
cised in a professional capacity. 

Fatwds may be given to private individuals, to 
magistrates in the exercise of their profession, and to 
any other authorities. The law, indeed, particularly 
urges magistrates to seek opinions ; and in those coun- 
tries, like Muslim Spain, where the institution of the 
shurd [q.v.] developed, permanent muftis were attached 
to the courts of magistrates as advisers (mushawir). 



In principle futyd was an independent profession, 
but became associated with public authority in a 
variety of ways. The State contiolled the exercise 
of the profession, such control normally being one of 
the functions of the magistrate, who could, in neces- 
sary cases, subject a mufti to "interdiction". From 
the ist/7th century, the State itself undertook the 
designation of jurists qualified to act as muftis in 
order to influence the choice made by private in- 
dividuals. Later, official posts of futyd were created, 
and it thus became a public office, ranking, like the 
judicial magistracy, in the category of religious 
functions. Holders of these posts, however, remained 
at the service of private individuals; but they weie 
more dLectly attached to the public seivice. Thus 
in the Mamluk State, these muftis formed part of the 
Council of Justice (madilis al-mazdlim) of the Sultan 
and the provincial governors. 

At certain periods and in ceitain areas, as in the 
Ottoman Empiie, the function of mufti could be 
combined with that of magistrate; the holder of the 
office was merely f 01 bidden to give fatwds in relation 
to a legal action which was brought in his court. 
The public function of futyd is without prejudice 
to the private exercise of the profession. However, 
with the introduction of codes and their provisions 
borrowed from European systems in almost all the 
branches of law, the profession has fallen into 
disuse; even in those matters which, like personal 
status and wahfs, are still generally governed by the 
principles of Islamic law, the practice of fatwds 
seems to be becoming obsolescent. 

It remains only as a public office, rather in the 
manner of a historical survival, stamped with the 
Islamic character of the State. Furthermore, Islamic 
states with a modern political structure no longer 
have recourse to the holders of this office in order to 
establish the legitimacy of their legislative activities. 
In States where the Islamic community forms only 
a part of the total population — Lebanon, for 
example — the function of futyd has undergone a 
remarkable transformation: the "Mufti of the Repu- 
blic" has become "the religious leader of the com- 
munity and its representative, in this respect, with 
the authorities"; he is the head of all the officials 
of the Muslim cult and the service of wafts; he is 
elected for life by a college composed of qualified 
members of the community (Legislative Decree 18, 
of 13 January 1955). There remain, however, 
muftis in the traditional sense, under the authority 
of the "Mufti of the Republic". 

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun. Mukaddima, ed. 
Imprimerie Belles-Lettres, Beyrouth, 220 (Eng. tr., 
Rosenthal, i, 451 ff.); Tyan, Histoire de V organi- 
sation judiciaire en pays d' Islam, in Ann. Univer. 
de Lyon, i, 1938, first ed., 323 ff. and the references 
there indicated ; Juynboll, Handbuch des isldmischen 
Gesetzes, Leiden 1910, 55 ff.; Ibn Nudjaym, al-Bahr 
al-rdHh, Cairo n.d. , 265 ff . ; Damas Efendi, Madjma c 
al-anhur, Istanbul 1328/1910, 154 ff. (E. Tyan) 

ii. — Ottoman Empire 
Among the early Ottomans the function of iftd* 
appears to have been of the same casual nature it 
had hitherto exhibited in all other regions of Islamic 
domination: anyone prominent for his learning and 
piety could be asked to act as a mutually acceptable 
arbiter in a dispute involving a point of law and his 
opinion was allowed to be decisive. However, as the 
orderly administration of the rapidly expanding 
empire was seen to demand a more unified system 
of legal practice, such authority was gradually con- 



FATWA — FA'W 



867 



fined to a few individuals of public position (the 
kadi 'l-'askers, the preceptors of the Sultans, the 
kddis of great cities like Bursa and Edirne, etc.) to 
whom appeal could be made against the decisions of 
lesser muftis. But this, too, was unsatisfactory as it 
seemed to secularize the divine law and make it an 
instrument of the ruler's will; sometime, therefore, 
in the reign of Murad II (824-55/1421-51) the right 
to issue fetwds was vested exclusively in an individual 
known as the shaykh al-isldm [q.v.], who, although 
appointed by the Sultan, had no part in the councils 
of the state, received no fees for the decisions he 
delivered, and was held to be above worldly con- 
siderations. He had no contact with the litigants or 
their advocates; every matter to be put before him 
was drafted in hypothetical terms by a clerk of the 
fetwa odast known as the miisweddedji and examined 
as to correctness of presentation by another clerk of 
the same office, the mumeyyiz, so that ultimately it 
was only a pure question of law on which he had to 
decide. These decisions were recorded and preserved 
by the fetwa emlni in a special records office (fet- 
wdkhdne) where they could be referred to did the 
occasion arise. It was these three individuals who 
shared the fee charged for a fetwa, which in the middle 
of the 17th century was eight akie (Paul Rycaut, The 
Present State of the Ottoman Empire, London 1670, 
109). Although in the course of time the office of the 
shaykh al-isldm expanded greatly to include 
numerous other departments and officials (cf. 
its organization under Mustafa Khayri Ef. in 
1914-6 as given in the Hlmiyye sdlndmesi, Istanbul 
1334, 140 tf.), the section concerned with the fetwa 
remained substantially as described. Selections from 
the fetwds of certain distinguished shaykhs were 
occasionally collected into book form, but neither 
these nor any of the decisions preserved in the 
fetwdkhdne were of value as legal precedents; case-law 
as such is unknown. 

Individuals with the title of mufti are to be found 
acting along with the kadis throughout all the 
provinces but they have no connexion with fetwa 
other than in etymology. While in theory the mufti 
should be a man deeply versed in the canonical 
works of his madhhab and of an unimpeachable 
character, in practice it was only the latter quality 
that was demanded in these provincials. For as the 
kadi was usually a transient and a stranger to the 
district to which he was appointed, and was felt, 
moreover, to be the agent and the voice of the 
secular power, his judgments only achieved the 
authority of religion when they had the implicit 
sanction of some elderly person locally respected 
for his piety and somewhat above the very low 
average level of education. Occasionally a kadi who 
had retired from office might serve in this capacity 
in his place of residence, as might a member of one 
of the local learned families in the larger cities, but 
otherwise the muftis were not of the '■ulemd class and 
their presence in the provinces was only necessary to 
satisfy the legalistic distinction between kadd', 
"case judgment", and ifta', "interpretative judg- 
ment" (cf. 0. N. Bilmen, Hukukx Isldmiyye ve 
ishlahati fikhiyye hamusu, Istanbul 1948-52, i, 258; 
vi, 487) and to avoid the expense and delay of con- 
stantly having to refer to Istanbul for rulings from 
the shaykh al-isldm. Though these muftis would 
hold a document of appointment from the latter, 
they were in no sense part of a centralized organi- 
zation and their only income from the office was 
a share in the kadi's fee for cases in which they 
participated. Such was the position in the "home- 



lands" of the Ottoman Empire (Rumili and Anatolia) 
where the Hanafi madhhab was followed exclusively. 
However, in the Arab provinces (Egypt, Syria, 
North Africa) where kadis were appointed from 
Istanbul only to a few prominent cities (Cairo, 
Damascus, Aleppo, Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina) — 
and these merely as sinecures on the road to higher 
office — earlier traditions and practices were allowed 
to remain in force; here the mUftis of the various 
other madhhabs were frequently the chief religious 
and judicial dignitaries and were recognized as such 
by the shaykh al-isldm who (for a price) issued their 
patents of office and by the civil authority who 
enforced their judgments. 

The fetwa document was of a conventional form 
and varied little over the centuries. It was headed 
by a pious invocation in Arabic, often written in a 
very involved and stylized manner and varying 
from period to period according to the preferences 
of the drafting clerk; after the middle of the 12th/ 
18th century, however, the formula al-tawfik minhu, 
"guidance is from Him", became invariable. The 
remainder of the document was in Turkish and was 
introduced by the words; bu mes'ele (or khusus) 
beydninda e'imme-i hanefiyyeden dfewdb ne wedjhledir 
ki . . ., "in what way is this problem answered by the 
Hanafi imams . . .", and there followed an exposition 
of the matter in dispute couched in hypothetical terms 
with the identity of the parties involved concealed 
behind aliases (Zayd, c Amr; Hind, Zaynab). The 
exposition concluded, the single point at issue was 
presented as a direct interrogative, and this was 
followed by some variation of the formula of petition : 
beydn buyurulup methab ve me'djur oluna, "may this be 
explained, and may it (the explanation) be rewarded 
in the Hereafter", which later was always abbreviated 
to beydn buyurula. The decision was written on the 
same page in the shaykh's own hand; introduced by 
the word al-djawdb, "answer", the characters of which 
were extended so as to mark a division between what 
preceded and what followed, the fallibility of all 
human judgement is immediately acknowledged by 
the phrase Alldhu a c lam, "God knows best", written 
on the same line. The answer is always very brief, 
frequently a mere "yes" or "no">{olur, olmaz), never 
supported by reasons or citations from authority, 
and the document concludes with the signature of 
the shaykh (the use of a seal was prohibited unless 
his physical condition made writing impossible). 

The office of Shaykh al-Islam was abolished in 
1924, at the same time as the Ottoman Caliphate. It 
was replaced by a department for religious affairs, 
attached to the office of the Prime Minister, with a 
head appointed by him. 

Bibliography: see shaykh al-:sla.m. 

(J. R. Walsh) 

FA'W (Karyat al-, Wad! al-)— At approxi- 
mately 45 10' E and 19° 15' N, some 70 km. south 
of the Wadi al-Dawasir gap, the bed of Wadi 
al-Fa'w cuts across the prominent Central Arabian 
escarpment of Djabal Tuwayk. At the widest 
point the banks of the gap are about 18 km. 
apart. The wadi is generally dry, and in the rare 
floods drains north-eastward to join Wadi al- 
Dawasir. Near the southern edge of the Wadi al- 
Fa'w gap, approximately two km. from the scarp 
itself, are three wells and the extensive remains of 
the ancient settlement of Karyat al-Fa'w. The 
wells are still being used, but permanent habitation 
ceased a number of centuries ago. The ruins of the 
large settlement consist of remains of a number of 
houses, tombs, and a few mound 



FA J W — FAWDJDAR 



nature. Construction is of brick and stone masonry 
with lavish use of the locally available gypsum. 
Present indications, based on pottery, are that this 
settlement was in existence during the 2nd century 
B.C., and from other surface remains as well as from 
inscriptions in the vicinity it seems likely that it 
was once a Sabaean outpost. Surface finds also 
indicate that the settlement was, at least during a 
part of its existence, contemporaneous with that of 
al-Ukhdud in Wad! Nadjran. 

Bibliography: H. St. J. B. Philby, Two 
notes from Central Arabia, in GJ, cxiii, Jan.- June 
1949, map; P. Lippens, Expedition en Arabie 
Centrale, Paris 1956. (F. S. Vidal) 

FAWDJ [see ijarb, vu— India]. 
FAWDJDAR, as described by Abu' 1-Fadl (cf. 
AHn-i Akbari, Eng. transl. by Jarrett, Calcutta 1949, 
41-2) was both an executive and military officer, the 
administrative head of a sarkdr (district) under the 
Mughals. However, during the Sultanate period the 
kolwdls [q.v.], who were stationed in newly-built fort- 
resses at strategic points to police the roads, came later 
to be called fawdiddrs; but the kolwdls also continued 
to exist and perform the duties of modern prefects 
of city police. While the responsibility for the general 
administration and civil affairs rested with the 
shikkddrs, the fawdiddrs were charged with the 
maintenance of law and order within their respective 
jurisdictions. BaranI [q.v.] speaks of both shikkddrs 
and fawdjddrs during the reign of Firuz Shah Tughluk 
(752-90/1351-88). He speaks of their being jointly 
detailed to quell agrarian disturbances in the Doab 
(cf. Ta'rikh-i Firuzshdhi, Calcutta 1862, 479). The 
fawdiddrs in the pre-Mughal period were akin to the 
modern zone-commanders under Martial Law, 
collaborating with the civil authorities but having 
different areas under their control. The fawdjddrs 
under Sher Shah Sur (945-52/1538-45) performed 
two kinds of functions: they acted both as reguiar 
heads of the sarkdrs and in cases of emergency or for 
military purposes acted as kal'addrs (commandants) 
of frontier forts or outposts. The back-bone of the 
central administration, they could be deputed to 
perform any kinds of duties throughout the empire. 
Normally one fawdiddr was appointed in every sarkdr 
but two could also be appointed when necessary. 
The shikkddrs of the Sultanate were replaced by 
fawdiddrs under the Mughals. They combined in 
themselves the dual functions of both the executive 
and the military head of the district administration 
corresponding to the District Magistrate-c«m- 
Superintendent of Police (but not the Collector) of 
British India. In importance and status the fawdiddrs 
ranked next to the subaddrs (provincial governors). 
Their main function, apart from police duties, was 
to assist the 'amalguzdr (revenue-collector) or the 
amin (revenue assessor) in the collection of land- 
revenue. It was the primary duty of a fawdiddr to 
ensure that the local zaminddrs paid the revenue regu- 
larly. The fawdiddr was required to guard the roads 
and should any merchant or traveller be robbed in 
daylight he was obliged to pay compensation to the 
victim. It was also his duty to protect the ryots, and 
to assist and provide armed escort to the gumdshtas 
(agents) of the didgirddrs and the assignees of 
Crown-lands in the collection of land-revenue. His 
other duties included the prevention of unauthorized 
arms manufacture, cutting of jungles, suppression of 
agrarian unrest and minor uprisings, forcible 
dispersal of robber-gangs and bandits, and taking 
cognizance of major crimes committed within his 
jurisdiction. 



Although subordinate to the provincial governor, 
the fawdiddr was a very important official. In all 
probability he was appointed directly by the 
emperor through a farmdn-i thabati; the border 
(nahiya) fawdiddr or the commandant of a frontier 
outpost, consisting of several thdnds, had direct 
dealings with the central government, and could call 
for help on the provincial government in cases of 
emergency. The duties of a border-fawdiddr were 
to keep watch over the frontiers falling within his 
jurisdiction, suppress turbulent and rebellious chiefs, 
punish aggressors, collect tribute from the local 
radios and when possible to conquer or subjugate 
enemy territory. A class of border fawdiddrs was 
known as ghdlwdls; but their posts were semi- 
military in character. They existed as late as the 
later part of the I2th/i8th century when they were 
replaced by the new police force organized by Lord 
Cornwallis, the Governor-General of Fort William, 
Calcutta (1786-93). Although the district fawdiddr 
was a central official, yet the provincial governor 
had powers to appoint the fawdiddr-i gird («'.«., the 
fawdiddr of the environs) for the protection of the 
suburbs of the city. This officer in his turn appointed 
the fawdiddrs of the ndkds and the thdnd-ddrs. An 
echo of their official designation is heard in the 
former province of Sind in Pakistan where the city 
police-station is still known as the fawdiddri. 

Apart from his police and administrative duties 
the fawdiddr also exercized judicial powers under the 
Sultans. He could try petty offences and take 
"security" proceedings, i.e., the binding over of 
potential or suspected criminals. In the early Mughal 
period he was frequently transferred from one place 
to another and was, like the modern Martial Law 
Administrators, sometimes deputed to conduct 
purely military operations (cf. Khafi Khan, Mun- 
takhab al-Lubdb, i, 505). His judicial powers in 
criminal cases were enhanced by the later Mughals, 
who empowered him to try non-capital offences (cf. 
M. B. Ahmad, The Administration of justice in 
medieval India, Aligarh 1941, 165). The criminal 
courts in Pakistan and India are still known as 
c Addlathd-yi Fawdiddri and criminal cases as 
fawdiddri mukaddimdt. Sometimes fawdiddrs were 
also appointed in certain parganas, as a purely 
temporary measure, and they enjoyed the same 
powers as the fawdiddr-i sarkdr. In a few districts 
(sarkdrs) there were no separate fawdiddrs ; the same 
person performed the duties of the amin (controller 
of expenses and revenue assessor) as well as of the 
fawdiddr in addition to his own duties (cf. Shah- 
nawaz Khan, Ma'dthir al-umard* (Bibl. Ind.), ii, 37, 
which mentions Diyanat Khan being appointed both 
as the amin and the fawdiddr of Sirhind on the 
reversion of Ray Kashi Das); while in certain cases 
the duties of the fawdiddr were performed either by 
the local shikkddr or the kslwdl. 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Fadl, AHn-i Akbari,' 
Eng. transl. by Jarret, Calcutta 1949, 41-2; 
Barani, Ta'rikh-i Firuzshdhi (Bibl. Indica), 479-80; 
Jadu Nath Sarkar, Mughal administration', Cal- 
cutta 1935, 63-6; P. Saran, Provincial government 
of the Mughals, Allahabad 1941, 189 ff. (contains 
the best discussion on the subject) ; Ishtiaq Husain 
Qureshi, The Administration of the Sultanate of 
Delhi, 1 Karachi 1958, 201, 214; M. B. Ahmad, The 
Administration of justice in medieval India, 
Aligarh 1941, 121, 123, 164-5, 167, 171. !74, 179, 
183, 194, 200, 209, 2I 4, 245 ; 'All Muhammad 
Khan, Mir'dt-i Ahmadi (Supplement), Baroda 
1930, 174; S. A. Q. Husaini, Administration under 



FAWDJDAR — FAY 5 



the Mughals, Dacca 1952, 203, 214-5, 224; Ibne 
Hasan, The central structure of the Mughal Empire, 
Oxford 1936, index; S. M. Jafar, Some cultural 
aspects of the Muslim rule in India, Peshawar 1950, 
28; N. Manucci, Storia do Mogor, transl. W. Irvi 
London 1907, ii, 450-1; W. H. Moreland, 
Journal of Indian History, vi/2 (1927); R. 
Tripathi, Some aspects of Muslim administrate 
Allahabad 1936, index; Anon., Dastur al- c At 
{Manual of officers' duties drawn up in Awrai 
zib's reign), Ethe (I.O.L.) MS. no. 307, s.v . fawdidar ; 
S. R. Sharma, Mughal government and admini- 
stration, Bombay 1951, 105, 217; Bahdr-i 'Adjam 
(Persian dictionary), s.v. fawdidar; W. W. Hunter, 
Annals of rural Bengal 2 , New York 1868, i, 123 f. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
FAWRl (FevrI), Ahmad b. c Abd Allah, a 16th 
century Ottoman poet and scholar, was born 
a Christian. After his conversion to Islam he was 
called, in accordance with contemporary custom, 
<Abd Allah-oghlu in the tadhkiras (v. Latifl, Istanbul 
1314, 269; Hasan Celebi, Istanbul University 
Library, T.Y. 304, 253b). 

Fawri was deeply influenced by Nakkash 'All 
Bey, the father of his master Lami% and also by the 
muderris Dursun Efendi. Fawn's profound knowledge 
of theology and of Arabic, a language in which he 
wrote poetry (MashaHr al-shu c ara', 1st. Univ. Lib., 
T.Y. 2406, 253 et seq.; Hadd'ik al-hakdHk, Istanbul 
1268, 142 et seq.), are mentioned by his friends 
'Ashik Celebi and New'i-zade 'Atal. 

A muderris himself, Fawri Ahmad Efendi was 
both a notable scholar and a teacher. He visited 
Mecca and later, in 960/1553, he took part in the 
expedition against Nakhciwan under Sultan Siiley- 
man, whose patronage he secured by means of numer- 
ous panegyrics. Fawri died in Damascus where he 
had filled the post of Mufti, in Dhu '1-Ka c da 978/April 
I57i. 

He is the author of the following works: Diwdn, 
which is preceded by the Terdjeme-i Hadith-i 
ArbaHn (v. Abdiilkadir Karahan, Isldm-Turk 
edebiyatmda Kirk Hadis, Istanbul 1954, 320-1; 
MSS. 1st. Univ. Lib., T.Y. 2873; Topkapi-Revan 
763, Murad Molla Lala Ismail, 473); a marginal 
commentary on the Durar wa Ghurar, a risdla on 
calligraphy, a Persian dictionary in Turkish and, 
finally, the Akhldk-i Siileymdni. 

Fawri is the editor of the poems of Sultan 
Siileyman (1520-1566). According to Riyadi, Fawri 
was the first Ottoman poet to compose takhmis 
and tasdis (Riydd al-shu'-ara*, 1st. Univ. Lib , T.Y. 
761, 108). 

Bibliography: 'All, Kunh al-akhbar, un- 
published part, 1st. Univ. Lib., T.Y. 5959, 492; 
Beyani, Tadhkira, same lib., T.Y. 2568, 68 b -69"; 
Fa'izI, Zubdat al-asV-dr, same lib., T.Y. 2472, 
87"; Mustaklm-zade Sa c d al-DIn, Tuhfat al- 
khattatin, Istanbul 1928, 98; Esrar Dede, Tadhkira, 
1st. Univ. Lib., T.Y. 3894, 161; Sabri Kalkandelen, 
Catalogue of Istanbul University Library MSS. 

(AbdClkadir Karahan) 
FAWZl al-MA'LCF [see ma'luf]. 
FAY 1 , in pre-Islamic times used for chattels 
taken as booty, like ghanima [q.v.], to be divided 
between victors, either in fifths (e.g., Mufaddaliyydt, 
ed. Lyall, 599, 1) or in fourths (Hamds<t, ed. Freytag, 
458, 18, Cairo 1335, i, 428; G.Jacob, Altarabisches 
Beduinenleben, Berlin 1897, 215), the leader being 
entitled to one of the parts. This custom was upheld 
by the Prophet after the battle of Badr, and Sura 
VIII, 42 mentions five employments for the Prophet's 



one fifth [khums), to figure in future budgets. The 
old use of the word lay* never became completely 
obliterated. But when territorial conquests began 
and political responsibility grew on the Prophet's 
mind, procedure had to be changed. So the con- 
quests of the Banu '1-Nadir, Khaybar, and FadaK 
led to a new precedent. The Banu '1-Nadir sur- 
rendered after a siege, and Sura LIX, 7-10 maintains 
that this result was not due to the assailants' having 
prevailed, but to God's interposition in favour of 
His Apostle, so that it was fay* to him exclusively to 
the ultimate benefit of Muslim society. In fact the 
same incumbents are mentioned as for the khums, 
but those actually held in view were the destitute 
muhadiirun (Ibn Hisham, Cairo ed. 1937, iii, 193 ult.). 
Traditions about Khaybar and Fadak are at variance, 
but it is certain that Muhammad also on these 
occasions followed his own equity (al-Baladhuri, 
Futuh, 23-33). 

The theocratic explanation based on the meaning 
of afd'a, "to bring back", as by right belonging to 
God and consequently to Muslim society (al-Baydawt 
ad Sura LIX, 7) cannot be supported by another 
Kur'anic passage, Sura XXXIII, 49. Kudama 
derives the word in the same way, but understands 
it to connote annual return, namely of revenue. 
Otherwise, too, theorists found it difficult to define 
the content of fay*. The longevity of bedouin custom 
left the possibility that the four-fifths could be 
divided among the conquering troops instead of being 
kept as state land. Another opinion was that 
the revenue {fay') of such lands should be subjected 
to the khums for the canonical purposes, while the 
rest went to state expenses for the army and to 
public services of different kinds (masdlih). It seems, 
however, that already 'Umar I had made it one 
budget, and that fay' early began to be classed with 
wakf or hubs (mortmain) for the benefit of all 
Muslims. Support for this is the identical em- 
ployment of both categories mentioned in the 
Kur'an. This cancelling of the freer dispos al or" the 
khums of the leader in fact made for centralized 

According to theory fay'' lands arise from un- 
conditional surrender (conquests made <-anwat° n , 
kasr", or kahr" n ), even if this does not wholly square 
with the Prophet's precedent, as negotiations had 
taken place then. The theoretical alternatives are 
division among Muslims, in which case it would 
become '■ushr land [q.v.], while its inhabitants became 
serfs, or that it should be left in statu quo for the 
exploitation of the Muslim community, the inhabi- 
tants remaining free, but liable to kharddf on the 
land, in which case the kharddj is regarded as a 
sort of tenure to the state. Thus it would seem that 
the jay* notion is intended to support the right of 
the state to heavy taxation, the inhabitants holding 
the usufruct, manfa'a, while their ownership is held 
precarious. This, however, does not exclude the right 
of inheritance. On the other hand sulh lands, origi- 
nally paying a stipulated tribute, shay* musammd, 
or other more favourable dues, increasingly came 
to pay kharddj, so, apart from the actual ownership, 
it became difficult in theory to uphold a strict 
division between the two, as the economic result 
tended tc become identical. On the problems of 
kharddi lands, see kharadj. 

From of old the leader of a foray had a right to 
reserve for himself — apart from the fifth — any 
special object of the booty which attracted him, the 
safiyya (pi. safdyd). Likely enough this right was very 
limited, or it could have been used by the Prophet 



FAY 3 — FAYDl 



in the Banu 'l-Nadlr case. The term, however, stuck 
to state domains as sawdfi [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: Abu Yusuf, Kitdb al-Kharddi, 
Bulak 1885, 10 if.; al-Mawardl, Kitdb al-Ahkdm 
al-sultdniyya, ed. Enger, 1853, 217 ft, 237 ft., 
293 ff. ; Kudama, Kitdb \al-Kharddi wa-]san c at 
al-kitdba, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, ms. no. 
5907, fols. 91 ff. (the section specially handled by 
Ibn al-Djawzir); al-ghlrazl, Kitdb al-Tanblh, ed. 
JuynboFl, 1879, 292 ff.;M.Hartmann, in OtZ, 1904, 
413-25, 462-68; D. C. Dennett, Conversion and the 
poll tax in early Islam, 1950, 20 ff.; H. A. R. 
Gibb, in Arabica. 1955, 1-16; CI. Cahen, in Arabica, 
1954, 136 ff.; and the references to authorities in 
F. Lokkegaard, Islamic taxation in the classic 
period, 1950, 38-72. (F. Lbkkegaard) 

FAYP [see Supplement]. 

al-FAYP b. ABl SALIH ShIrawayh, Abu 
Pja c far, vizier (?) of the c Abbasid caliph al-Mahdl. 
Born at Nlshapur of a Christian father, al-Fayd 
seems to have been one of the ghilman of Ibn 
al-Mukaffa c [q.v.]; he attracted attention by his 
talent and culture and, according to al-Diahshivari 
(Wuzard>, 164-6), followed by Ibn Khallikan (vi, 25; 
tr. de Slane, iv, 358) and al-Fakhri (ed. Derenbourg, 
255-7; tr. Fagnan, 314-8; tr. C. E. J. Whitting, 183), 
he was appointed wazir by al-Mahdl after the dis- 
missal of Ya'kub b. Dawud [q.v.] in 166/782; he 
remained in office until the caliphate of al-Hadi 
(169/785), but was then removed from the admini- 
stration. However, al-Tabari mentions him (ii, 841) 
only in the list of secretaries of al-Mahdl, and al- 
Ya c kubi (ii, 483) makes Muhammad b. al-Layth the 
successor of Ya'kub. Al-Fayd appears again under 
al-Rashld, where he acted as agent (waktt) in a 
matter concerning some land and where the poet Abu 
'1-Asad Nubata praises his exceptional generosity. 
He was also famous for his pride and his arrogance. 
He died in 173/789-90. 

Bibliography: Besides the sources quoted, 
see: Ibn c Abd Rabbih, Httd, v, 116; Waki c , 
Akhbdr al-kuddt, ii, 145; Tanukhi, Faradj, i, 103; 
al-Makln, Leiden 1625, 109; De Goeje and De 
Jong, Fragmenta historicorum arabicorum, Leiden 
1869, i, 281 (al-Fayd b. Sahl); Aghdni, xii, 176 
(in the biog. of Abu '1-Asad) ; Ibn al-DjawzI, in 
JRAS, 1907, 26; S. D. Goitein, The vizierate, 383; 
S. Moscati, Nuovi studi storici sul califfato di al- 
Mahdl, in Orientalia, xv/1-2 (1946), 167; D. 
Sourdel, Vizirat, in and index. 

(L. Veccia Vagliert) 
FAYpABAD, (Fyzabad), a town in the district 
of the same name in India, situated in 26 47' N. and 
82 10' E., 4 miles from the ancient town of Ayodhya, 
which gave its name to the province of Awadh (Oudh) 
and the Shi'I kingdom founded by Sa'adat Khan 
Burhan al-Mulk [q.v.]. The town grew up around a 
wooden lodge {bangla), surrounded by a large and 
expansive compound, which Burhan al-Mulk had 
built for himself on his appointment in 1132/1719-20 
as the NdHb Ndzim of Awadh. Other buildings, 
mostly of mud, for the harem and barracks for the 
troops sprang up all around converting the humble 
habitation into a respectable settlement. Even after 
his assumption of power as the Nawwab-Wazir, 
Burhan al-Mulk continued to stay in the same 
wooden lodge. On the accession of his nephew Abu 
'1-Mansur Safdar Djang [q.v.] to the masnad in 1152/ 
1739 more buildings were added to the growing 
township which was given the name of Faydabad. 
(To the people of Awadh Faydabad is still known 
by its earlier name Bangla). Gardens were laid out 



and bazars sprang up all around, resulting in the 
decline of Ayodhya which suffered both in population 
and prosperity. Shudja' al-Dawla, the third Nawwab 
(1170-88/1756-75), stayed chiefly at Lucknow but 
after his defeat by the British at Buxar in 1764 he 
moved to Faydabad and made it his head-quarters. 
He added many new buildings, and in order to 
strengthen the defences of the town dug a moat 
around the citadel and also built two mud-forts. 
Before the end of 1189/1775 Asaf al-Dawla, the fourth 
Nawwab, abandoned Faydabad and moved per- 
manently to Lucknow, which thenceforward became 
the seat of government of the Nawwabs of Awadh. 
However, both the mother and the widow (Bahu 
Begum) of Shudja c al-Dawla continued to live at 
Faydabad which soon declined in importance. It was 
his alleged maltreatment of these two Begums which 
led to the impeachment of Warren Hastings. After 
the death of Bahu Begum in 1232/1816 Faydabad 
lost further in importance and glory. It continued 
to decay till the British annexation of Awadh in 1847 
when an era of development opened and the general 
deterioration was arrested. The Urdu poet Mir 
Hasan in his mathnawi, Gulzdr-i Iram praises Fay- 
dabad for its well-kept streets and wide roads 

Shudja c al-Dawla was responsible for constructing 
many of the historic brick buildings and monuments 
of the city. He lies buried in a beautiful tall mauso- 
leum, which he himself erected during his life-time in 
the centre of a charming rosegarden, the Guldb-bdH, 
laid out by Safdar Djang. The tomb of Bahu Begum, 
mother of Asaf al-Dawla, on the south of the town 
is a fine domed building which cost Rs. 300,000 to 
build. The entire amount was paid out of the queen 
mother's personal property. The fortress constructed 
by Shudja c al-Dawla is now in ruins, and so are the 
palaces built by the Nawwabs and the nobles. The 
town was badly disturbed during the military 
uprising (Mutiny) of 1857 when Mawlawi Ahmad 
Allah gained prominence for the deeds of valour 
performed by him. He came to be known and dreaded 
as the 'Mawlawi of Faydabad'. 

Bibliography: Muhammad Fayd Bakhsh, 
Farah-bakhsh, (En?, transl., Memoirs of Delhi and 
Faizdbdd, being a translation of the "Tdrikh Farah- 

baksh" by W. Hoey, 2 vols., Allahabad 

1888-9); Ghulam Husayn Nakawi, '■Imdd ah 
Sa c ddat', Lucknow 1897; Nadjm al-Ghani Ram- 
purl, Ta'rikh-i Awadh, Lucknow 1919, i, 36-8; R 
Carnegie, A History of Fyzabad, (not seen); Im- 
perial Gazetteer of India, Oxford 1908, xii, 110-1, 
1 17-8; Mir Hasan, Gulzdr-i Iram (Urdu mathnawi 
still in MS.); MunshI Lal-djI, Sultan al-Hikdydt 
(MS. in Persian); Storey, i/II, 706-8; S.N. Sen, 
Eighteen Fifty-seven, Calcutta 1958, 154, 186-7, 
355, 402. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

FAYPl (later FayyadI), Abu 'l-Fayd b. Shaykh 
Mubarak al-Mahdawi, Persian poet, commentator 
of the Kur'an, one of the nine jewels (nam ratan) of 
the court of Akbar, younger brother of the historian 
Abu '1-Fadl 'AllamI [q.v.], was of Yamani extraction; 
one of his ancestors Shaykh Musa had migrated to 
Sind and settled at Rel, a small place near Siwastan 
(modern Sehwan). His grandfather Shaykh Khidr 
came down to Nagcr [q.v.], where Faydl's father 
Mubarak was born. In 950/1543-4 Shaykh Mubarak 
migrated to Agra, where he married and his first 
child Faydl was born in 954/1547. He soon aroused 
the hostility of the HUamd' on account of his un- 
orthodox ideas and heretical beliefs as a Mahdawi (see 
A. S. Bazmee Ansari, Sayyid Muhammad Jawnpuri 
' ^slamic Studies, ii/i (1963), 68, 



73, and al-djawnpurI). The Shaykh along with his 
grown-up sons, Faydi and Abu '1-Fadl, had a very 
hard time for several years. Unable to bear any 
longer the rigours of an outlaw's life Faydi persuaded 
his father to surrender himself to the emperor. In 
974/156^ Shaykh Mubarak was granted an audience 
at Agra and Faydi, welcoming the opportunity, 
greatly impressed the emperor with his extra- 
ordinary ability and achievements (cf. Faydl's 
Kasida in AHn-i Akbari, Eng. transl. by Bloch- 
mann, 620 ff.). This marked the beginning of a long 
and brilliant career as a court-poet, statesman and a 
mansabddr, which brought him several honours and 
distinctions. In 984/1576 he was created Malik al- 
Shu'ard* by Akbar. In order to vindicate his claim 
to this high-sounding title he planned to compose a 
khamsa in 987/1579, after the famous khamsa of 
Nizami [?.».]. The five poems to be included were: 
(i) Markaz-i Adwdr, mostly composed in Fathpur 
Sikri; (ii) Sulayman u Bilkis, commenced in Lahore 
but never completed; (iii) Nal-Daman, his best 
known poem (ed. Calcutta 183 1); (iv) Haft kishwar 
and (v) Akbar-nama on the lines of the Sikandar- 
ndma. Of these only (i) and (iii) were completed 
several years later at the persistent urging of Akbar 
while the remaining three, in spite of Abu '1-Fadl's 
assertion to the contrary (cf. Akbar-nama, sub anno 
39 regnal) remained incomplete. 

An accomplished scholar, physician, and poet, he 
was appointed in 987/1579 tutor to prince Daniyal; 
he also claims to have instructed Djahanglr, and 
Murad (cf. Akbar-nama, Bibl. Ind., ii, 311). Of these 
Daniyal was also a poet in Bradj-bhaka, suggesting 
that his tutor was a master of that dialect as well as 
of classical Arabic and Persian. In 993/1585 he was 
sent on an expedition against the Yusufzals of 
Peshawar. Treated as a close companion, he was 
included in the royal entourage during Akbar's 
visit to Kashmir in 997/1588. In 999/1590-1 he was 
sent as an envoy to the courts of Radja 'AH Khan, 
ruler of Khandesh, and Burhan Nizam Shah, the 
king of Ahmadnagar. After the completion of his 
mission he returned to Fathpur Sikri, the capital, 
in 1001/1592. 

Generous and hospitable by nature, he even 
helped his enemies. When his worst critic al- 
Bada'unl [q.v.] fell from imperial favour in 1000/1591, 
Faydi, who was then on a mission to Gudjarat, wrote 
a letter to Akbar strongly pleading the case of the 
disgraced historian (see al-Bada'unl, iii, 303-5). Yet 
he received very harsh treatment at the hands of 
Bada'uni, who attributes to him every possible vice 
and depravity and even accuses him of open enmity 
towards the Muslims and making fun of Islam; he 
also holds him responsible for Akbar's anti-Islamic 
activities and practices. But most of these charges 
are ill-founded and seem to be the result of some 
personal grudge, as there are in Faydl's diwdn poems 
in praise of the Prophet and his Companions. He 
died of asthma at Agra on 10 Safar 1044/5 October 
J 595- He was buried at Agra alongside his father, 
who had died in Lahore in 1001/1592. Al-Bada'uni 
quotes several uncomplimentary chronograms of his 
death composed by orthodox poets. On his own 
showing he had accepted the "Divine Faith", in- 
stituted by Akbar (cf. Akbar-nama, Bibl. Ind., ii, 
311), which was denounced by the 'ulamd' as an 
unwarranted innovation. 

A great lover of books, he had in his library more 
than 4,600 volumes on such varied subjects as 
medicine, astrology, music, philosophy, tasawwuf, 
trigonometry, arithmetic, exegesis, hadith, fikh etc. 



On his death many of these books, mostly autographs 
or copied during the lifetimes of their authors, were 
transferred to the imperial library by order of Akbar, 
in all probability under the law of escheat. 

He is said to be the author of 101 books (apparently 
an exaggeration), of which very few are now extant. 
In addition to the incomplete khamsa, he compiled a 
diwdn of poems in Persian (ed. Dihli, 1261/1845). 
There are, however, conflicting opinions about his 
poetical achievements, on which his fame chiefly 
rests. Shibli Nu'mani [q.v.~] regards him as one of 
those non-Iranian poets "whose verse would pass as 
the work of a genuine Persian". E. J. W. Gibb 
believes that after DjamI [q.v.~\, 'Urfi and Faydi were 
the chief Persian poets to influence Turkish poetry 
{Ottoman Poetry, i, 5, 127, 129). Al-Bad5 3 unl, on the 
other hand, says that he was not so popular in his day 
as were his contemporaries 'UrfJ and Thanal [q.v.]. 
A master of the Arabic language, he composed two 
books in the san c at ihmal, i.e., employing no dotted 
letter, simply to display his lexicographical abilities" 
One of these, the Mawdrid al-kilam on ethics (ed - 
Calcutta 1241/1825), which contains pithy and 
laconic sentences defining terms like Islam, Him al- 
Kaldm, Adam, Kaldm Allah, ahl Allah was intended 
to be a preliminary to the writing of the Sawdti 1 
al-ilhdm, a voluminous commentary on the Kur'Sn 
without any dotted letter, characterised by critics 
to be almost a "useless piece of Arabic writing", 
finished in 1002/1593 (ed. Lucknow 1306/1889). Al- 
Bada'uni bitingly remarks that he composed this 
book in a state of drunkenness and ritual impurity 
(al-diandba). In view of this the claim of the Mudjad- 
didis that Ahmad Sirhindi [q.v.] collaborated in the 
composition of a part of this work seems wholly 
untenable (see Bibliography). 

He also translated Lilavati, a Sanskrit work on 
arithmetic (ed. Calcutta 1826), and some portions 
of the epic poem Mahdbhdrata into Persian at the 
express command of Akbar, in collaboration with 
al-Bada'uni and Mulla Shiri. Latifa-i Faydi, a 
posthumous collection of his letters, was compiled 
by his nephew Nur al-DIn Muhammad c Abd Allah 
b. c Ayn al-Mulk (MSS, Rieu 792, 984). According to 
Shibli these are couched in a simple unornate 
language, in contradistinction to the high-flown 
bombastic style then in vogue in Persian letter- 
writing (inshd*), of which his younger brother, the 
celebrated Abu '1-Fadl was a great master (cf. his 
letters to Faydi in the second daftar of his Inshd'). 
Bibliography: Abu '1-Fadl 'Allami, Akbar- 
nama, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1873-87, iii, index; 
idem, Har sih daftar Abu 'l-Fadl, Lucknow 1292/ 
1875, 138 ff., 202-14; idem, AHn-i Akbari*, Eng. 
trans, by Blochmann, Calcutta 1939, 490-1, 548-50, 
618 ff., 112-3 (where several rubdHs of Faydi which 
were stamped on the royal coinage are quoted); 
Samsam al-Dawla Shah-Nawaz Khan, Mahathir 
al-umard?, Eng. transl. by H. Beveridge, Calcutta 
1941, 513 ff.; al-Bada'uni, Muntakhab al-tawdrikh, 
Bibl. Ind., ii, 393-4, 405-6; iii, 299-310; Azad 
Bilgrami, Subhat al-mardfdn, Bombay 1303/1885, 
45-6; idem, Ma'dthir al-kirdm, Agra 1910, 198-200; 
idem, Khizana-i 'dmira, Cawnpore 1871, 318; 
Nizam al-DIn Ahmad, Tabakat-i Akbari, Bibl. 
Ind., ii, 486-8; Browne, iv, 242-5; Sh. Farid 
Bhakkari, Dhakhirat al-Khawdnin, Karachi 1961, 
i, 64-7; Siddik Hasan Khan KannawdjI, Abdjad 
al-'-ulum, Bhopal 1295/1878, 897-8; c Abd al-Hayy 
Lakhnawl, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Hyderabad 1375/ 
1955, v, 26-31; Shibli Nu'manl, Shi'r al-'Adfam, 
Lahore 1924, iii, 28-72; Shir Khan Lodhi, Mir>at 



al-khaydl, Bombay 1324/1906, 79-81 (where his 
kunya is given as Abu '1-Fayd and his title as 
Fayyadi, which are both erroneous); M. Kudrat 
Allah Gopamawi, Tadhkira natd'idj al-afkdr, 
Bombay 1334 solar, 533-7; Muh. Husayn Azad, 
Darbdr-i Akbari* (in Urdu), Lahore 1927, 359-418; 
Storey, i/II, 540; Brockelmann, II, 417, S II 610; 
Sarkls, col. 1472 (where his name is given as Fayd 
Allah and his kunya as Abu '1-Fadl, obviously 
wrong); JASB (1869), 137, 142; Agha Ahmad 
C A1I, Haft Asmdn, Calcutta 1873; Taki Kashl, 
KAwMsa* al-asV-ar wa zubdat al-afkdr (MS); 
Khan-i Arzfl, Madima* al-nafd'is (MS Bankipur, 
viii, 695-16); Walih Daghistani, Riydd al-shu'ard' 
(MS Bankipur, viii, 693); Rieu, 450; M. G. Zubaid 
Ahmad, Contribution of India to Arabic literature, 
Allahabad/Jullunder 1946, index; A. Sprenger, 
Oudh Catalogue, 401-2; Ibrahim Khan Khaffl. 
Khuldsat al-kaldm (MS Bankipur); Bindraban Das 
Kh w ushgu, Safina-i Kh w ushgu (MS Bankipur); 
Kamal al-DIn Muh. Ihsan, Rawdat al-Kayyumiyya 
(MS in Persian), Urdu transl., Lahore n.d., i, 6o, 
62-3; Badr al-Din Sirhindi, Hadardt al-Kuds (MS 
in Persian), Urdu transl., Lahore 1341/1922, ii, 
9-10; S. Muh. Ikram, Rud-i Kawthar, Karachi 
n.d., 87-98 (to be used with care) ; Z. A. Desai, Life 
and works ofFaidi, in Indo-Iranica, Calcutta, xvi/3 
1963). (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

FAYCJ [see fuyuei]. 

FAYLASUF, philosopher: he who studies 
falsafa [q.v.], thence frequently used as an epithet 
for deep thinkers. The Arab philologists know the 
literal meaning of this word as mufribb al-hikma 
(lover of wisdom). Al-Kindl {q.v.} was known for prefe- 
rence as the faylasuf al-'Arab (philosopher of the 
Arabs), presumably because he was a philosopher of 
genuine Arab origin in contrast to most Muslim 
philosophers who belonged to non-Arab nations 
(cf. the correct explanation of this name given to 
al-Kindi by T. J. de Boer in the Archiv fur Gesch. der 
Philos., 1899, xiii, 154 ff.). 

In popular language faylasuf is applied in an 
uncomplimentary sense to freethinkers or unbe- 
lievers. Even the Jewish king Jeroboam is called 
faylasuf in this sense (Revue des Etudes Juives, 
xxx, 23 ult.). An idea of contempt is associated with 
the forms faylafus, fulfils (also falafsun, Syr.), plur. 
faldfis, current in the popular language; this is 
applied to frivolous, imprudent people, good-for- 
nothings and charlatans (examples in ZDMG, 
xxxviii, 681); Vollers, (ibid. Ii, 300, 4) gives fulfils. 
The verbal form yufalfis (Bdsim le forgeron, ed. 
Landberg, 38, 5) is also connected with this: "he 
could not wriggle out". See falasifa and falsafa, 
(I. Goldziher) 
FAYSAL [see sa'Od, al]. 

FAY$AL I, of 'Irak, was born at Ta'if in 1301/ 
r883, third son of the Sharif (later king) Husayn b. 
'All. After a boyhood of desert and oasis life, he 
accompanied his father to Istanbul in 1309/189^ 
there to pass 18 years. He married his cousin, 
Hazlma, in 1323/1905. Returning to Mecca with 
Sharif Husayn in 1327/1909, he took part in ex- 
peditions against the IdrisI of 'Asir in 1331-2/ 
1912-3, and was elected to the Turkish parliament. 
Resentful of Turkish severity against Arab dissidents 
in Syria in 1915, and admitted to knowledge of the 
Arab political secret societies, Faysal in r9i6 joined, 
and was for two years to command with distinction, 
the armies of the Mecca-based Sharifian "Arab 
Revolt". His two-year effort thereafter to consolidate 



an Arab monarchy in Syria (1337-9/^8-20) failed 
in the face of French opposition; he was expelled 
from Damascus in July ^39/1920. But British 
favour and 'Iraki election secured him a throne in 
Baghdad (August i34o/r92r), and he could for the 
twelve years following play a conspicuous, indeed 
indispensable, part in the foundation, consolidation 
and ultimate liberation from the British Mandate 
of the young and aspiring kingdom. Faysal, holding 
a balance between British requirements and local 
patriotism, showed admirable qualities of patient 
leadership. 'Irak was admitted to the League of 
Nations in 1351/1932. Faysal died suddenly in 
Switzerland in September 1352/1933, succeeded by 
his son, Ghazi. 

Bibliography : The Arabic and European 
literature of the 1914-8 war, the Mandates, and 
Arab and 'Iraki affairs between 1914 and 1933 
is very extensive. For British and Arab views of 
Faysal see T. E. Lawrence, The seven pillars of wis- 
dom, London r935 ; Amin Rihani, Faysal al-Awwal, 
Beirut i353/i934! Sati' al-Husri, Yawm Maysa- 
lun, Beirut 1945. For German and Turkish views 
of his war-time role see Liman von Sanders, Fiinf 
Jahre Tiirkei, Berlin r920 (Eng. tr. Five years in 
Turkey, Annapolis 1927; Fr. tr. Cinq ans de 
Turquie, Paris 1923) and Ali Fuad Erden, 
Birinci Dilnya Harbinde Suriye Hattralari, i, 
Istanbul ^54. For French views, see L. Jovelet, 
L 'evolution sociale et politique des tpays arabesi, 
in RE1, vii (1933), 473-81; R. de Gontaut-Biron, 
Comment la France s'est installee en Syrie, Paris 
1922, 232 sqq.; M. Pernot, L'inquietude de 
I'Orient: II, En Asie musulmane, Paris 1927, 147. 
In general, see S. H. Longrigg, Syria and 
Lebanon under French Mandate, Oxford 1958; 
idem, 'Iraq 1900 to 1950, Oxford 1953. 

(S. H. Longrigg) 
FAYJJAL II, of 'Irak, son of King Ghazi and 
grandson of Faysal I [q.v.], was born in Baghdad 
May 1354/1935, and, aged four, became King under 
the Regency of his uncle the Amir £ Abd al-Ilah 
on the accidental death of his father in 1358/ 
1939. Educated by an English governess and at 
Harrow, he passed an uneventful childhood, suffering 
intermittently from asthma. He assumed his royal 
functions in May 1953, and during his five-year 
effective reign showed excellent intentions, accepting 
guidance from his veteran statesman Nuri al-Sa'Id 
[q.v.] and from his uncle. He appeared generally 
popular and travelled widely. Recently engaged to 
be married to a Turkish-Egyptian princess, Faysal 
was, with his uncle and most of his immediate 
family, shot by insurgent troops during the revolu- 
tionary coup of 14 July 1958. (S. H. Longrigg) 

al-FAYYCM, a geographical region of Egypt, 
which today, as usually in the past, forms an 
administrative province. The Fayyum, which 
derives its name from the Coptic, Phiom ("the Sea"), 
is a roughly triangular depression, about 35 miles 
from north to south, and about 49 miles from east 
to west. It is in Middle Egypt, lying in the Libyan 
Desert, east of the Nile valley. The cliffs separating 
it from the river valley are breached at one point, 
thereby admitting a stream which branches off from 
the Nile near Asyut. Now known as Bahr Yusuf, this 
stream was called by medieval writers Khalldj al- 
Manha. Its entry into the depression of the Fayyum 
has been controlled since Pharaonic times by sluices 
at Illahun. On entering the Fayyum, the waters are 
canalized for irrigation, the surplus escaping to 



l-FAYYOM — FAZAZ 



form a permanent lake, now known as Birkat Karun. 
The principal town and provincial capital is Madinat 
al-Fayyum. The Fayyum plays an important part 
in the Judaeo-Islamic legend of Joseph, who is said 
to have constructed the canal of al-Manha (hence 
the modern name), the sluices of Illahun, and the 
canals which drained the great marsh (al-djawba) 
formerly covering the region. Two variants of this 
legend are given by Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, and it also 
appears in al-Malfrizi's Khitat and other sources. 
With it is connected a folk-etymology of the name, 
al-Fayyum: the Egyptian king, on seeing Joseph's 
achievements, said, "This is the work of a thousand 
days [alf yawm]". Abu Salih derives the name also 
from an eponym. The intimate association of the 
Fayyum with the Joseph legend is perhaps due to 
the presence there of an ancient Jewish settlement, of 
which documentary evidence exists as early as the 
3rd century B.C. Jewish influence may perhaps also 
be traced in the assertion, recorded by C A1I Mubarak, 
that Shaykh al-Rubi, the wall of Madinat al-Fayyum, 
was a descendant of Reuben ; a possible indication of 
an islamized Jewish shrine. During the Arab invasion 
of Egypt, the Fayyum was occupied without diffi- 
culty, although- it lay off the main routes of the 
conquerors: Ibn c Abd al-Hakam gives three variant 
traditions of its discovery and capture. It continued 
for some centuries to be an important centre of 
Coptic Christianity: Abu Salih, writing in the opening 
years of the 7th/i3th century, says that there were 
(by implication, before his time) 35 monasteries, and 
he devotes some space to those still surviving. At the 
opening of the Muslim period, the Fayyum seems to 
have been a fertile and prosperous region, as is 
indicated by the legend of its 360 villages, each of 
which could provision the whole of Egypt for one 
day. Rice and flax were among its chief products. It 
suffered a gradual decline in the succeeding centuries. 
Its remoteness, and the difficulty of access to it 
during the Nile flood, laid it open to the raids of 
Arab and Berber tribes. The associated phenomenon 
of the sedentarization of nomads in the Fayyum has 
been recurrent down to modern times. Like other 
parts of Egypt, the Fayyum was affected by the 
administrative reorganization and economic develop- 
ment which took place under Muhammad 'All Pasha 
and his successors of the Albanian dynasty. The 
establishment of a railway link with the Nile valley 
(1874) ended the isolation of the province, while the 
area under cultivation was extended, cotton being 
developed as a cash-crop. 

Bibliography: For a general bibliography, 
see Maspero-Wiet, MaUriaux, 142-3. Al-Makrizi, 
Khitat (Bulak edn.), i, 241-50; 'All Mubarak, al- 
Kkitat al-diadida. xvi, 84-94; Ibn c Abd al-Hakam, 
Futuh Misr (ed. Torrey), 14-6; B. T. A. Evetts 
and A. J. Butler, The churches and monasteries of 
Egypt, Oxford 1895, 49-56, 202-10; H. Lorin, 
L'Egypte d'aujourd'hui, Cairo 1926, 53-60. 

(P. M. Holt) 
FAZARA, a North Arabian tribe, reckoned part 
of Dhubyan, which was itself included in Ghatafan 
[q.v.]. Its main pasture-grounds were in Wadi 
'1-Rumma in Nadjd, and the names of many loca- 
lities associated with it have been preserved (cf. 
Yakut, index, s.v. Fazara). In the Djahiliyya the 
famous war of Dahis between Abs and Dhubyan 
arose out of a wager between Kays b. Zuhayr, chief 
of Abs, and Hudhayfa b. Badr of Fazara about their 
respective horses Dahis and Ghabra. The latter won 
because of underhand acts by some men of Fazara, 
and this led to the killing of a brother of Hudhayfa. 



In the long war which followed Dhubyan was led by 
Hudhayfa, and then by his son Hisn (A. P. Caussin 
de Perceval, Essai sur I'histoire des Arabes avant 
VIslamisme, Paris 1847, ii, 424-43, etc.). After peace 
was made with Abs, Fazara became involved in 
fighting with c Amir b. Sa c sa c a, Djusham and other 
tribes, the command being latterly in the hands of 
'Uyayna b. Hisn b. Hudhayfa. In Muhammad's 
period at Medina 'Uyayna was the leader of Fazara 
and joined in the siege of Medina (affair of the 
Khandak) in 5/627 with 1000 men. Some months 
later part of Fazara ambushed a Muslim trading 
expedition led by Zayd b. Haritha, and in 6/628 Zayd 
made severe reprisals on Fazara. At the siege of 
Medina, Muhammad had tried to bribe c Uyayna to 
abandon his allies, and made similar offers during 
the expedition to Khaybar in 7/628, where 'Uyayna 
with a large force of Ghatafan was supporting the 
Jews. Though furious at the eventual failure of these 
intrigues c Uyayna came to terms with Muhammad, 
joined the expeditions to Mecca and Hunayn (in 
8/630), and received a hundred camels at al-Dji'rana 
along with "those whose hearts are to be reconciled"; 
this seems to have been the share of the leader of a 
non-Muslim contingent, though 'Uyayna is not said 
to have had any following. Shortly afterwards he led 
a Muslim expedition against Tamim, but he was not 
a member of the deputation (wafd) from Fazara. 
After Muhammad's death most of Fazara joined the 
ridda under Tulayha, but eventually had to submit 
(cf. W. Hoenerbach, in Abhandlungen der Akademie 
der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Geistes- und 
sozialwissenschaftliche Klasse, no. 4, 1951, 242-6. 
They are later heard of in North Africa (al-Kalka- 
shandi, Nihdyat al-arab, Cairo 1959, 392 f.). 
Bibliography: in addition to the r 
in the article: Mufaddaliyydt,ed. Lyall.i, 3 
ii, 288-90; etc.; al-Hamdani, see Index h 
al-Bakri, Mu c djam, Cairo, index; Aghdni, Tables; 
al-Tabari, ii, 1381-90 (Fazarl in revolt of 101); iii, 
1342 f., 2008 (in Arabia in 231, 267); Montgomery 
Watt, Muhammad at Medina, Oxford 1956, 91-5, 
etc. (W. Montgomery Watt) 

FAZAZ, name borne in mediaeval times by the 
north-western extremity of the Moroccan 
Middle Atlas. This territory lay to the south of 
Fez and Meknes. It was bounded to the east by the 
upper course of the WSdi Subu ( = W5dI Gigu); 
westwards, it extended as far as the upper course of 
the Wadi Umm-Rabi' (=Wadi Wansifan); its 
southern boundary was the so-called Tighanimin 
pass, where the Malwiyya rises. It coincided with the 
territory now occupied by the Berber -speaking tribes 
called in Arabic: Bni Mtir, Bni Mgild, Gerwan, 
Zemmur and Zayan. It is a high plateau, with an 
average altitude of 1500 m./50oo ft., from which 
some mountains rise. Geologically, it is of the 
'causse' type (karst, limestone plateau), here and 
there volcanic, and cut by numerous canyons; it is 
covered by forests of oaks, thujas (arbor vitae) and 
cedars, where are found monkeys and panthers (and, 
as late as the end of the 19th century, lions). 

Northwards and westwards this high plateau 
shades off into lower foothills (peneplains). The 
abundant rain and snow give rise to many copious 
springs: here rise the three most important rivers 
of Morocco, the Malwiyya, the Subu and the Umm 
Rabi c , and many left tributaries of the last two. 
As in the rest of central Morocco, the oldest known 
population consisted of Sanhadja [q.v.], or, more 
strictly, Zanaga, the Arabic adaptation of the Berber 
plural Izndgen, sing. Aznag. Some Arabic authors 



FAZAZ — FAZOGHLl 



call them also 'Banu Fazaz', as though the second 
element were the name of an eponymous ancestor; 
but this name must arise from a careless translation 
of the Berber 'Ayt Fazaz'=A. ahl Fazaz, 'the people 
of the Fazaz'. 

The geographers describe them as pastoral moun- 
tain-folk, raising cattle, sheep, and also very sturdy 
horses. They practised transhumance : they spent 
the summers on the high plateaus, but the snows of 
winter obliged them to move to the valleys of the 
Lower Atlas: to the north, those of Tagragra (the 
Guraigura of Leo Africanus, modern Tigrlgra) and 
Asais (between Fez and Meknes), to the west, that 
of Adekhsan, on the upper Umm Rabi'. 

In 173/789, Idris I took possession of the Fazaz 
and applied himself to converting the population 
to Islam, for they had, for the most part, remained 
loyal to Judaism or Christianity. From the reign 
of his successor Idris II (188-213/804-28) there survive 
numerous dirhams, struck at Wazakkur. This mint 
must have been located on the present BO-Uzekkur, 
a small tributary of the Umm Rabi c , some 3 km/2 
miles south of Khnifra. When in 213/828 the domains 
of Idris II were shared out between his sons, the 
Fazaz was divided: the northern part was annexed 
to the principality of Fez whose amir , the eldest son 
Muhammad, struck dirhams at Tagragra; the south- 
ern part fell to c Isa, whose principality included also 
the northern Tamasna with the city of Shalla. 
Shortly afterwards c Isa rose in revolt against his 
elder brother Muhammad, who entrusted to another 
brother, c Umar, the task of subduing the rebel. 
c Isa was defeated and left the Fazaz; he died in the 
Tadla, where his tomb is still venerated among the 
Ayt c It5b as that of Mulay c Isa ben Drls. 

During the second half of the 4th/ioth century, 
the Zenata of the central Maghrib were pushed 
westwards by the Sanhadja of Buluggin, who was 
governing Ifrikiya in the name of the FStimids of 
Cairo; it is at this period that the Maghrawa and the 
Banu Yafran settled in Morocco. The latter carved 
out for themselves a principality whose boundaries 
corresponded to those of the principality of c Is5 b. 
Idris, with its capital at Shalla. One clan, the Banu 
Yadjfash, occupied the Fazaz; their chief, Tawala, 
built there a fsal'a— the famous Kal'at Mahdl b. 
Tawala — which was inherited by his son Mahdl. 

In 452/1060 the Almoravid amir Abu Bakr b. 
c Umar conquered the mountain district of the Fazaz, 
except for the Kal'a, which his successor Yusuf b. 
Tashufin was able to occupy, on terms, only after 
a nine-year investment (456-65/1063-72). For some 
months the luckless al-Mu c tamid [q.v.] was held 
prisoner in the Kal'a before being finally interned 
at Aghmat. 

Thereafter the Fazaz was conquered in turn by the 
Almohads and the Marinids. This district controlled 
the most direct route from Fez to Marrakush, that 
passing through the Tadla; it had also two silver- 
mines, at c Awwam and Warknas. 

From the 9th/i5th century onwards the name 
Fazaz seems to have fallen out of use. Leo Africanus, 
who crossed the district in 1515, does not mention 
it. Indeed in the course of the ioth/i6th century the 
land was overrun by new waves of Berbers (also 
belonging to the Sanhadja group) who had come 
from the upper valley of the Malwiyya, following 
in the wake of the Arab tribes, the Banu Hasan 
( = Bni Hsen) and the Zu'ayr (=Z c er) as they 
migrated towards the north-west of Morocco. 

Thenceforward the history of the Fazaz is the 
history of the marabouts of the zdwiya of al-Dila 5 



and their Berber fellow-tribesmen the Ayt Idrasen 
(to the north) and the Ayt Umalu (to the west), 
and their struggles against the c Alawi sultans 
(especially al-Rashid, Isma'il and Sulayman) and 
later against the troops of the French Protectorate. 
Two Idrisid mints in the Fazaz, Wazakkur and 
Tagragra, are (as has been noted) easily identified, 
but this is not true of the two other famous place- 
names of the district. As regards the silver-mine 
called Ma'din 'Awwam, there exists nowadays a 
Djabal 'Awwam, some 10 km/6 miles west of Mrirt, 
and thus 120 km/75 miles south-west of Fez, where 
there is a mine of silver-bearing lead; but Leo Afri- 
canus, who passed that way, speaks of an iron-mine 
on the Bu Ragrag. Still more difficult is the case 
of the famous Kal'a. Al-Bakri does not mention it: 
indeed his route from Aghmat to Fez via the Tadla 
passed some way to the west of the Fazaz; while 
al-Idrisi locates it, on the same route, between 
Sufruy [q.v.] and the town of Tadla, two stages 
(some 100 km/60 miles) from each, on a very high 
mountain. The anonymous author of the Kitdb al- 
Istibsdr notes that when Al-Mu c tamid was a prisoner 
there it was built of wood and the majority of its 
population consisted of Jewish merchants. But Leo 
Africanus, who saw it when it was ruined and calls 
it Mahdiyya, says that it was built almost on the 
plain. He might be referring to a township built 
below a mountain-fortress, but he locates it 'ten 
miles' (15 km) from c Ayn al-Asnam (the present 
Anoceur), i.e. 35 km/22 miles (barely one stage) 
from Sufruy. It seems that the site of the Kal'a of 
Mahdl b. Tawala is to be sought for in the area 
between Timahdit and Mrirt, perhaps at Timahdit 
itself. 

The Fazaz has produced few famous men apart 
from the founder of the Kal c a, but the following 
may be mentioned: (1) the secretary of state and 
religious poet c Abd al-Rahman b. Yakhlaftan al- 
Fazazi, who died in 627/1230 (see Brockelmann, I, 
273, where he is called in error al-Fazdri; S I, 482) ; (2) 
the great historian al-Zayam, who died in 1230/1815 
(see Levi- Provencal, Les hisioriens des Chorfa, 142). 
Bibliography: See the indexes of al-Idrisi, 
the Kitdb al-Istibsdr, the Extraits inidits relatifs 
au Maghreb (tr. Fagnan), Ibn Khaldun (Histoire 
des Berberes, tr. de Slane), and Leo Africanus (tr. 
Epaulard), under the toponyms mentioned in the 
article. (G. S. Colin) 

FAZIL IJUSAYN BEY [see fadil bey]. 
FAZL [see fa.pl]. 
FAZLl [see fadli]. 
FAZLULLAH [see fadl allah]. 
FAzCfiHLl, a region of the upper Blue Nile, 
within the modern Republic of the Sudan, and near 
to the Ethiopian border. Its historical importance 
is solely due to the presence of alluvial gold. The 
ruler (makk) of Fazughll was a vassal of the Fundi 
[q.v.] sultan of Sinnar, and wore the horned cap 
(takiyya umm Jtarnayn) as his insignia of office. This 
usage long survived the downfall of the Fundi 
sultanate (see A. W. M. Disney, The coronation 
of the Fung king of Fazoghli, in Sudan Notes and 
Records, xxvi/i, Khartoum 1945, 37-42, describing 
the investiture of a makk in 1944). In 1237/1821-22 
Fazughll was conquered by Isma'Il Kamil Pasha, 
ser'asker of Muhammad 'All Pasha's invading forces, 
and a levy of gold was laid on its merchants. Muham- 
mad c Ali endeavoured, with the aid of European 
technicians, to exploit the gold of Fazughll, but had 
little success. Under 'Abbas I Fazughll became a 
place of banishment. Thereafter it lost all importance. 



FAZOGHLl — FAZZAN 



875 



Bibliography: Count Gleichen, The Anglo- 
Egyptian Sudan, London 1905, i, 123-6; O. G. S. 
Crawford, The Fung Kingdom oj Sennar, Glou- 
cester 1951, 82-3; Richard Hill, Egypt in the Sudan 
1820-1881, London 1959, Index. 

(P. M. Holt) 
FAZZAN (Fezzan), one of the three provinces, 
with Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, of the United 
Kingdom of Libya which dates from 1951. An 
entirely desert region of 551,000 sq. km., it extends 
as far as 600 km. to the south of the Mediterranean, 
between latitudes 24 and 28°, at the longitude of 
Tripolitania and Chad. The most direct 



the Sudan to the Mediterrar 
The climate is very arid, 
an average rainfall of only 5 



ind k 



a. lie a 



the si 






t, but i 



it among the n 



Fezzan consists of a number of depressions 
enclosed by plateaux of an altitude of from 400 to 
600 m., the surface of which is rocky (hamdda) or 
covered with gravel (serlr) : calcareous and sandstone 
plateaux, cretaceous and tertiary, in the north and 
east (llamada al-liamriP, Gargaf and Harudj), 
sometimes covered with black basalt deposits 
(Djabal al-S6da, Harudj al-Aswad); tertiary sand- 
stone plateaux in the south, rising to the Djabal Ben 
Guenema and the vast primary and volcanic massif 
of Tibesti. West of the primary sandstones lie the 
slopes of the Messak and Tadrart {1,000 to 1,200 m.), 
on the edge of the Tassili. 

The two Fezzanese depressions, separated by the 
Hamada of Murzuk and the Serlr al-Gattusa, are made 
up of two ramlas (erg or edeien) encircled by 
depressions of 300 to 450 m. in depth, where under- 
ground water is present near the surface and which 
are inhabited: the ramla of Ubari with the oases of 
Shati, al-Bwanis and Wadi '1-Adjal, the ramla of 
Murzuk, al-Hofra, al-Shergiyya and, in the south- 
east, Gatrun (Ghatrum). The sparse rainwater which 
soaks through into the sandstone, limestone and sand 
supplies the underground water- table in the depres- 
sions, and sometimes the deeper artesian water- 
channels. 

The word Fezzan which goes back to antiquity 
(Phasania) is applied to the oases as a whole, 
excluding those in the Ghat and Ghadames regions. 
The Fezzanese (Fazdzna, sing. Fazzdni) are the 
cultivators of these oases. They have often been 
menaced and robbed by the nomadic shepherds of the 
neighbourhood, "Arabs" from the Gibla (plateaux in 
south Tripolitania), connected with Shati, the 
Touareg Ajjer whose home is in Ghat and south of 

Fezzan, and the Tebou, who are few in number, in 
the south-east. The Fezzanese, who are strongly 
interbred with negroes, are, like the nomads in the 
north who have remained much whiter, all Arabic 
speakers: their dialects "are related to the general 
type of Maghribi Arabic. But with them the 
Maghribi type is already assuming an oriental tinge" 
(W. Marcais), as regards both the sedentary inhabi- 
tants and also the nomads whose dialects "differ 
phonetically, and often grammatically as well". The 
Touareg Ajjer, who are tall but often of mixed 
breeding, are Berber-speaking (but many are 
bilingual) ; the Tebou, who are few in number and also 
partly of mixed breeding, are somewhat tall and 
slender, black but of a non-negroid type, and speak 
a Sudanic dialect. All the inhabitants of Fezzan, both 
the settled population and the herdsmen, are Sunni 
Muslims of the Maliki rite; there are no Jews. 



Fezzan has been inhabited, even in what are now 
the most desert regions such as the hamddas, since 
the old palaeolithic age. Worked stones from the 
mid-palaeolithic age, which are much more numerous, 
are already concentrated in the depressions; this is 
even more the case with the plentiful and fine stone 
relics of the age of polished stone. Fezzan shared in 
the great Saharan civilization of the neolithic age, 
to which we must certainly attribute a notable part 
of the rock paintings, those of the "pre-camel" 
period which represent, in a naturalistic style, 
elephants, giraffes, rhinoceroses, bovines, and men 
armed with bows. The most recent and diagrammatic 
of the rock paintings, which depict camels (drome- 
daries), horses, various domestic animals and men 
armed with shields and lances, are thought to date 
from the end of the neolithic period and prehistory, 
perhaps even from the beginning of our own era. The 
Garamantes who are mentioned by Herodotus and 
with whom the Romans were in contact, were already 
a mixed race composed of white Berbers like the 
Touareg today, half-castes and negroes, as is shown 
in the great number of tombs that have been ex- 
cavated, particularly by Italian scholars, and whose 
funerary furnishings include Roman ceramics and 
glassware from the 2nd to the 6th centuries A.D. 

The Garamantes, living over 500 km. south of the 
Tripolitanian limes but often allied with the turbulent 
Getuli, had to endure several "punitive" expeditions 
by the Romans under Cornelius Balbus in 20-19 B.C. 
and Valerius Festus in 69-70. However, they collab- 
orated with Roman troops in two expeditions against 
the "Ethiopians", their southern neighbours, and 
carried produce from their country and from Sudan 
to the Tripolitanian ports (Leptis Magna, Oea and 
Sabratha). Draught oxen, donkeys, horses, and carts 
drawn by two horses were the forerunners of camels, 
the use of which spread only slowly, over the desert 
tracks. But only dromedaries had the ability to 

precious stones, ostrich feathers, ivory and, no doubt, 
some black slaves from the Sahara and Sudan. From 
the end of the 3rd century the Garamantes came on 
several occasions to plunder Tripolitania. The only 
Roman monument in Fezzan is a mausoleum at 
Djerma (Garama), surrounded by cremation tombs 
(probably of Roman or Romanized merchants). It 
is likely that the technique of foggdras (underground 
conduits for collecting water), possibly of Iranian 
origin, spread towards the end of the Roman period. 

Being independent and ignored by the Vandal and 
Byzantine Maghrib, Fezzan long remained outside 
the sphere of Arab expansion, though conquered by 
<Ukba b. Nafi c in 46/666-7. We know only that the 
town of Zawlla was founded in 306/918 in the 
Shergiyya by a Berber, Ibn Khattab al-Hawwari; 
it was a flourishing caravan centre, particularly for 
the slave trade, a small open city with a mosque and 
baths, and from it the Banu Khattab ruled Fezzan. 
The country was then prosperous, irrigated by wells 
and numerous foggdras; Djerma (Garama), Sebha, 
Tsawa, and Tmessa were the principal centres. But 
as early as the 12th century "the Arabs spread 
through the countryside, doing as much damage as 
possible" (al-Idrisi, trans. 158); Zawlla was sur- 
rounded by walls which are now falling into ruin. In 
1 190 the dynasty of the Band Khattab fell before 
the attacks of Karakush al-GhuzzI, a Turcoman 
adventurer from Armenia who had the support 
of the Arab tribes of Sulaym and was already master 
of Tripolitania. 

Fezzan then passed under the domination of the 



negro kings of Kanem (i3th-i5th centuries); they 
were represented by a governor (mat) who lived in 
the new capital, Traghen (70 km. east of Zawila); 
as a result there followed a widespread immigration 
of negroes (not slaves) and, no doubt, closer con- 
nexions with the Sudan; but the abandonment of 
the foggdras appears to date from this period. 

The negro domination finally declined at the 
beginning of the 16th century as a result of the wars 
of Kanem against the Bornu and the long struggles 
with the Awlad Muhammad dynasty, the founders 
of Murzuk and of Moroccan and Sharifian origin. The 
Awlad Muhammad, when finally they became 
masters of Fezzan, certainly contributed to its 
Islamization and Arabization; Murzuk was made the 
capital of the country, remaining so until the 20th 
century, while it was also a busy caravan centre and 
a stopping-place for pilgrims from the west on their 
way to Mecca. 

The Turks, who occupied Tripoli in 1551, attemp- 
ted to establish their authority in Fezzan only in 
1577-8. At times they had governors there, several 
of whom were assassinated; they sent punitive 
expeditions such as that of 1679 during which Murzuk 
was completely sacked. But for the most part they 
were compelled to recognize Fezzan's de facto in- 
dependence, in return for payment of tribute in gold 
and negro slaves by the Awlad Muhammad. 

The Karamanli dynasty which ruled over Tripoli 
from 1710 until 1835 was unable to keep control over 
Fezzan, in spite of armed intervention in 1716, 1718, 
I73i-2andi8n. In the second half of the 18th century 
the country was, however, reasonably peaceful, under 
what was in practice a ruling family that paid 
tribute. But in 1831 Fezzan fell into the hands of the 
dreaded nomads, the Awlad Sleman, under their chief 
c Abd al-pjalil Sif al-Nasr. 

The Turks, returning to Tripoli in 1835, made 
themselves masters of Fezzan in 1842, after killing 
Sif al-Nasr and driving back the Awlad Sleman into 
Kanem. They remained there until 191 1. The 
country became a sand±ak subordinate to the 
mildyet of Tripoli and was divided into districts 
[%add) and sub-districts (nahtiya) with Ghat in Touareg 
country. The Ottoman Government found Fezzan a 
convenient place of exile for the Young Turks, 
both civilians and military, whom it was anxious to 
keep at a distance; the tombs of several of them can 
be seen at Murzuk. 

The principal halting place for trans-Saharan 
trade was Zawila, Traghen and then Murzuk- But 
the story was only known in detail long after, from 
the correspondence of the French Consuls in Tripoli 
and explorations at the end of the 18th and in the 
ies. On their way from Sudan to Tripoli 
r chief merchandise being black 
slaves numbering from 500 to 2,000 a year, and also 
gold (either dust or in ingots); less important were 
ivory, ostrich feathers, copper (from Bornu) and 
hides. Fezzan exported only dates and natron 
(carbonate of soda). In the opposite direction the 
caravans carried various manufactured articles from 
Europe or the East; Venetian glassware, brocades 
and brass, coarse cloth from Naples and Marseilles, 
cottons from England and silks from Lyons (19th 
century), arms, ironmongery and pharmaceuticals 
from Italy and France, oriental fabrics, carpets and 
spices. The Fezzanese had some share in this traffic, 
which was mainly financed by the merchants from 
the oases in the north, in Tripoli and Ghadames, the 
Tebou of Bilma and the Bornu negroes; and the 
government of Murzuk levied duties on camel-loads 



and slaves. The suppression of slavery, progressively 
observed, and the occupation of the Guinea Coast by 
the European Powers brought about first the 
decline and then the almost total disappearance of 
trans-Saharan trade. In addition, the Fezzan suffered 
greatly from the banditry of nomads during the 
ten years of the Awlad Sleman's domination and, 
much more recently, between the two Italian 
conquests. 

The Italians actually disembarked in Tripoli on 
5 October 191 1— taking over from the Turks in 
Libya as a result of the Treaty of Ouchy (19 October 
1912) — but were able to occupy Fezzan only between 
January and August 1914. The Miani force, coming 
from Syrte through Sokna, and outflanking Gibla 
which was occupied by hostile nomads, took Brak, 
Sebha, Murzuk, Ubaii and Ghat in succession. But 
owing to the opposition of the nomads who were 
spurred on by the propaganda of the Sanusiyya 
fraternity, and also to the outbreak of the first world 
war, into which Italy was to make her entry, the 
Italian troops were withdrawn, though not without 
difficulty, in December 1914 and January 1915, 
leaving the country unprotected against the brig- 
andage of the nomads for fifteen years. In fact, the 
Italians only returned in December 1929; in a 
combined advance of three columns, under the 
command of General Graziani, they passed through 
Derdj, al-Gueriat and Hun (Djofra) and had no great 
difficulty in reoccupying Fezzan, including Ghat 
and the Gatrun region (February 1930). 

It was a ruined country which had to be organized 
and equipped. Fezzan became a military command 
dependent on the Governor General of Libya; later 
(1936) it was transferred to the South Libya Com- 
mand, set up at Hun. The Italians started to link 
up the different parts of the Fezzan and Ghat with 
Tripoli and MisrSta by motor roads; they set up a 
number of schools and hospitals, and regularized 
and controlled the traditional administration of the 
mudirs. Fezzan enjoyed a period of peace that was 
sorely needed. 

The peaceful atmosphere was scarcely disturbed 
by the arrival of the Free French troops under the 
command of General Leclerc who, coming from the 
south in December 1942, easily occupied Murzuk 
on 7 January 1943, and then Sebha and the rest of 
the country before linking up with the British 8th 
Army in the advance on Tunisia. As a result of the 
Franco-British Agreement of January 1943, Fezzan 
and Ghadames formed a territory placed under the 
direct authority of the Direction des Territoires du 
Sud de l'Algerie, while Ghat was annexed to the 
territory of Djanet (Fort-Charley). The French 
divided Fezzan into 3 subdivisions (Shati, Sebha- 
Ubari, Murzuk), maintained the administration by 
mudirs and continued the educational, medical and 
economic work undertaken by the Italians; in addi- 
tion, they dug several artesian wells. 

Since 24 December 1951, the date of the creation 
of the United Kingdom of Libya under the sover- 
eignty of Muhammad Idrlsi al-Sanusi, Fezzan has 
been one of the three autonomous provinces of this 
now independent country. The French forces provi- 
sionally maintained in Fezzan evacuated it, together 
with Ghat and Ghadames, by the terms of the 
Franco- Libyan Treaty of 10 August 1955; Ghadames 
has subsequently been added to Tripolitania. The 
wait, the governor who represents the king at 
Sebha, the chief town of Fezzan, is assisted by an 
executive council composed of minor ministers 
[ndzir) and a legislative council, three-quarters of 



FAZZAN — FEDJR-1 ATI 



877 



whose members are elected and whose chairman 
shares authority with the wdli. 

The census of 1954 recorded 54,400 inhabitants in 
Fezzan province, three-quarters of whom are 
sedentary. Agriculture is in fact the main source of 
livelihood, in particular the cultivation of date- 
palms of which there are between eight and nine 
hundred thousand. To be accurate, the date-palms 
are, for the most part, neither cultivated nor even 
irrigated, but merely fertilized. The underground 
water-table is sufficiently close to the surface tor the 
palm trees' roots to reach the level of moisture; but 
the annual production of dates is hardly more than 
4 to 6 kg. per tree, whilst with irrigation it reaches 
from 30 to 50 kg., particularly in Shati. Another 
characteristic: outside the palm-groves cultivation 
is for the most part practised by means of a balance- 
well (kheftdra), especially in the south, and in parti- 
cular by means of a well operated by an animal 
[see bi'r] in which the goatskin water-container 
(dalw) is drawn up by a donkey helped by a man. 
Cereals — wheat and barley in winter, millet (gsob) 
and sorghum (gafiiH) in summer — are almost the 
only form of cultivation : they are grown in succession 
on the same piece of land which is then left fallow; 
the rotation of crops near the wells is thus carried 
out in from 2 "to 5 successive crops. The cultivated 
strips are protected by temporary hedges of palm 
leaves. Trees (pomegranates, vines) are very rare 
and are always planted at the side of the wells (or 
springs). Fertilization of the date-palms, drawing of 
water and irrigation are undertaken by the pro- 
prietors themselves or by hired labourers, serfs by 
origin, former negro slaves or tribes of very mixed 
antecedents, the Shwashna (sing. Shushdni): these 
are the Har&tin of other parts of the Sahara. The 
sedentary inhabitants possess only a few sheep and 
goats; donkeys and dromedaries are used for wells 
and for transport. The workers are very poor. 
Emigration, both temporary and permanent, is by 
tradition made mainly to Tripolitania, but also to 

The villages are generally of wretched appearance. 
The huddled buildings, partly or wholly in ruins, 
testify to a state of insecurity either formerly or 
recently. The houseb, built of dry stone or baked 
bricks, with flat roofs and opening onto a court 
which is also sometimes covered (kawdi), are 
built close together in barely two-thirds of the 
villages. It is only in the chief centres like Brak 
(Shati), Murzuk or the oases of Sebha and al-Bwanis 
that they assume a somewhat more comfortable and 
urban aspect. There are numerous hamlets. In the 
poorest regions habitations are merely huts of palm 
leaves (zariba), and are widely spaced for fear of fire. 
The placing of houses, either adjoining one another or 
at a distance, is the result of the degree of social 
cohesion of the villagers and of the types of dwel- 
lings, not of economic differences. Stockbreeding is 
almost the sole activity of the more or less nomadic 
shepherds in the outlying regions of the Fezzan. 
The Tebou in the south-east wander in small scat- 
tered groups, from the Tibesti to the Djabal Ben 
Guenema and the neighbourhood of Gatrun; they 
have temporary oblong huts made of the ribs of 
palmleaves and matting (bushi). The Touareg Ajjer 
(Imanghassaten and Uraghen), from the neigh- 
bourhood of Ghadames and the Messak, drive their 
flocks as far as the approaches to Shati, on the edge 
of the Wadi '1-Adjal, and the Murzuk region. They 
live in tents of hides or in little round temporary huts 
made of matting. The shepherds from the north, the 



"Arabs", are far more numerous. The Gdadfa, the 
Urfella, the Awlad Buslf and the Zintan from 
Gibla, and also part of the Megarha, come to Shati 
at the end of the summer at the time of the date 
harvest. But most of the Megarha and the IJasawna 
own date-palms and land which they have cultivated 
by the Shwashna: they are semi-nomadic, living 
alternately in houses and tents: the Potman, 
Zwayd and Gwayda, formerly semi-nomadic, are 
today almost completely settled in western Shati. 
All the Arabs' tents are of the "black tent" type 
which is to be found from Afghanistan to the 
Atlantic. 

Fezzan sells part of its dates to all the neigh- 
bouring shepherds, and part of its cereals to the 
Tebou and Touareg. The nomads in the north, who 
grow cereals in the Gibla depressions, are the largest 
purchasers of dates, consuming a good part of them 
themselves, while by tradition they take the rest 
to markets in Tripolitania, to be exchanged for 
manufactured goods landed at Tripoli; some 
caravans go to south Tunisia. 

But the dates and cereals, and also the natron 
taken by the Dawada from the small lakes south of 
the ramla of UbSri, are now almost always carried by 
lorry along the roads linking Misrata and Tripoli. It 
is also by lorry that the manufactured goods that 
are increasingly needed are brought from Tripoli. 
New roads lead to the oil-drilling centres recently 
opened in west and north-west Fezzan; but they are 
on the fringe of the country. Sebha, the capital of 
Fezzan, which includes a certain number of admini- 
strative and modern business buildings, has on the 
other hand become an important aerodrome. 

Bibliography: BakrI, Description de I'Afrique 
septentrionale, tr. de Slane, 2nd ed. Algiers 1911; 
Idrisi, Description de I'Afr. et de I'Esp., trans. 
Dozy and De Goeje, Leiden 1866; Ibn Khaldun. 
Histoire des Berberes, tr. de Slane, 2nd ed. Paris 
1925-56; P. Masson, Histoire des itablissements et 
du commerce francais dans I'Afrique barbaresque, 
Paris 1903; H. Barth, Reisen und Entdeckungen in 
Nord und Central Afrika, i, Gotha 1858; H. 
Duveyrier, Les Touareg du Nord, Paris 1854; 
G. Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, i, Berlin 1879; 
E. Scarin, Le oasi del Fezzan, Bologna 1924; Soc. 
Geogr. Italiana, // Sahara italiano, i, Fezzan e 
oasi del Gat, Rome 1937; J. Despois, Mission 
scientifique du Fezzan, iii, Giogr. Humaine, Paris 
1946; J. Lethielleux, Le Fezzan, ses jardins, ses 
palmiers, in IBLA, 1948; P. Bellair, etc., Mission 
au Fezzan (1949), Publ. Inst, des Hautes Et. de 
Tunis, i, Tunis 1953; Ct Cauneille, Le noma- 
disme des Mgarha, in Travaux de I'Institut de 
recherches sahariennes, Paris 1954; idem, Le 
nomadisme des Zentan, ibid., 1957; idem, Les 
Hassaouna, in Bull, de liaison saharienne, Algiers 
'955) xix; idem, Lenomadisme des Guedadfa , ibid., 
xxxii (1958); idem, Les Gouneyda d'Ouenzerik, 
ibid., xxxviii (i960); W. Meckelein, Der Fezzan 
heute, Stuttgarter Geogr. Studien 1957; L. Richter, 
Inseln der Sahara. Durch die Oasien Libyens, 
Leipzig 1957; B. Vernier, Histoire d'un pays 
saharien. Le Fezzan, in Orient, xiv (i960). See 
further libya. (J. Despois) 

FEDALA [see fapala]. 

FEJJJR-I ATI, the coming dawn, a Turkish 
literary group active in the period following the 
Young Turk Revolution of 1908, and associated 
with the review Therwet-i Funun [q.v.], where its 
initial manifesto was published. See further Turks, 



878 



FEDJR-I ATI — FEHMI 



literature, and the articles on the individual authors. 
(Ed.) 
FEHlM, SULEYMAN (1203-62/1789-1846), a 
minor Ottoman poet who wrote in the first half 
of the 19th century, during the declining decades 
of the classical school. A government official in 
Istanbul and in the Balkans, he soon retired and 
devoted his life to study and writing, teaching 
Persian occasionally. 

His little diwdn (Istanbul 1262) contains poems 
inspired by the "Indian style" of Persian poetry. He 
is also the author of Sefinet al-shu'-ara' (Istanbul 1259), 
an expanded translation of Dawlatshah's Tadhkirat 
al-shu'ard*. 

Bibliography: Djewdet, Ta'rikh?, xii, 184; 
Fatin, Tedhkire, 336; Ibniilemin Mahmud Kemal, 
Son astr Titrk sairleri, 379-81; A. C. Yontem, 
in I A, s.v. (Fahir tz) 

FEHlM, UN&ZUZADE MUSTAFA known 
as FehIm-i KadIm (? -1058/1648), Turkish poet, one 
of the most appreciated of the minor poets of the 
17th century. According to scattered information 
found in various tedhkires and in Ewliya Celebi, he 
was born in Istanbul, the son of an Egyptian 
pastrycook. Without a regular education or settled 
position, stricken by poverty he left Istanbul, 
joining the suite of Eyyub Pasha, governor of Egypt. 
Because of a colleague's intrigue, he lost the favour 
of the Pasha and decided to leave Egypt, where he 
does not seem to have been very happy or prosperous. 
Thanks to the mediation of Newali Bey, the 
commander of the Janissaries in Egypt, he was 
allowed to join the caravan conveying the yearly 
tribute from Egypt to the Capital, but he died on the 
way at Ilghin in 1058/1648, apparently in his eaily 

His diwdn, his only work, which according to 
tedhkires he completed at the age of eighteen, shows 
that he was an unconventional poet of great promise 
and although fascinated by the work of the Persian 
poet c Urfi, in his lyrics he did not always follow the 
latter's precious and bombastic style, but succeeded 
in developing, at that early age, a personality of his 
own. Especially in his ghazals, in the middle of hack- 
neyed cliches, characteristic of the school, it is not 
rare to come across sincere personal notes and 
glimpses of his ambiance. During the attempt at a 
classical revival in the second half of the 19th 
century, many latter-day diwdn poets, headed by 
Leskofdjall Ghalib, started a vogue of Fehim and 
wrote many naziras to his poems. Even the modernist 
Namik Kemal joined this admiration of Fehim and 
rebuked Ziya (Diya) Pasha (Takhrib-i khardbdt, 
Istanbul 1291, 76) for not having included him in 
the Khardbdt. his classical anthology of diwdn verse. 
Bibliography: The tedhkires of Safa'I, Rida 
and Sheykhi's WakdH'- al-tudald, s.v.; Ewliya 
Celebi, Seydhatndme, iii, 17; Gibb, iii, 290; 
Sadettin Niizhet Ergun, Fehim Divam, Istanbul 
1934 (not a critical edition as he uses only a few 
of nearly 30 MSS); Ali Canib Yontem in IA, s.v. 

(Fahir Iz) 
FEHlM PASHA, chief of the secret police under 
the Ottoman sultan c Abd al-Hamid II. He was born 
in Istanbul in 1873 (?). Being the eldest son of the 
ethwdbdiibashl c Ismet Bey, foster-brother of the 
sultan, he was educated in the special class of the 
Mekteb-i Ifarbiyye from where he was gazetted 
captain in 1894. Two years later he became yaver-i 
shehriydri and received the title of pasha in 1898. 
Fehim Pasha was appointed director of the secret 
police of the sultan, a post he held for many years. 



He maintained the trust of c Abd al-Hamid II by 
enlarging the network of khafiye (secret agents) 
throughout the capital. He was feared by the people, 
especially by the native and foreign merchants whom 
he taxed unlawfully. He was dismissed from his 
position and sent to Bursa on 17 February 1907; his 
banishment was due to the intervention of the German 
ambassador von Bieberstein, supporting the claims 
of a German merchant against Fehim. He was lynched 
at Yenishehir, near Bursa, after the revolution of 
1908. 

Bibliography : Mahmud Kemal Inal, Os- 

manh devrinde son sadrtazamlar, Istanbul 1940-53, 

1608-11, 1613-5; P- Fesch, Constantinople aux 

derniers jours d'Abdul-Hamid, Paris 1907, 116-22; 

'Otiiman Nuri, c Abd al-Ifamid-i thani we dewr-i 

saltanati, Istanbul 1327, ii, 554-61 ; de la Jonquiere, 

Histoire de I'Empire ottoman', Paris 1914, ii, 679-80; 

Ibrahim Alaettin Govsa, Turk meshurlari ansiklo- 

pedisi, Istanbul 1946, 133. (E. Kuran) 

FEHMl, Sheykh, Nakshbandi-Khalidi Sheykh of 

Erzindjan. Mustafa Fehmi succeeded PIr Mehmed 

Wehbi Khayyat after the latter's death in 1264/1848 

(see Isma c il Pasha, Hadiyyat al-'drifin, i, 643) as 

Sheykh of the Khalidi order in Erzindjan; Pir Wehbi 

had introduced the order in Erzindjan after making 

there the acquaintance of c Abd Allah Efendl, the 

pupil of Mewlana Khalid in Damascus. Fehmi died 

on his third pilgrimage on 21 Muharram 1299/14 

December 1881, in Mecca, and was buried at the 

foot of Khadldja's grave. 

His position as head of the order does not seem to 
have been always unopposed; close beside him was 
<Abd al-Hamid Efendi, the son-in-law of Pir Wehbi, 
whom in the early days he often consulted when 
taking decisions, and who after a quarrel made it 
impossible for him to remain in his own convent 
for a considerable time. In spite of this, Fehmi was 
greatly esteemed. When he made his first two 
pilgrimages (winter 1276/1859-60 to 1277/1861, and 
Shawwal 1282/February 1866 to Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1283/ 
April 1867) the population of Erzindjan took a lively 
interest, saw him off, and gave him a musical welcome 
on his return with the band of the local garrison. Not 
only did he have connexions with the merchants and 
officials of the area, but he was on terms of particular 
trust with members of the military aristocracy, such 
as Cerkes Isma'Il Pasha (1805-61), the Turkish 
general in the wars with Croatia and Russia (see 
Ibrahim Alaettin Govsa, Turk meshurlan ansiklope- 
disi, 1945, 193) and Derwish Pasha (1812-96, see IA, 
s.v.). The latter looked after him in his illness, and re- 
ceived "spiritual support" from him for the war 
against Russia (1877-8); in Djumadall 1282/October- 
November 1865, he took him with him to Istanbul, 
where Fehmi made a speech before the General 
Assembly (medjlis-i 'umumi) of the Sublime Porte. 
The building of the Dergah in Erzindjan (opened 
12 Rabi c I 1284/14 July 1867, having taken two 
years to build) was financed by contributions from 
numerous important persons. 

In his demeanour, Fehmi combined outward 
modesty with extreme self-confidence. He avoided os- 
tentatious piety and asceticism; though never wearing 
European dress, he did not criticize its use by others ; 
in his house the daily dhikr was combined with the for- 
bidden playing of the flute. At the same time, he 
kept jealous watch over the loyalty of his followers 
and interfered in their private lives, and was not 
averse to being considered the Sulidn-i 'ulamd' 
bi'lldh, that "spiritual Khalifa" who manifests 
himself once in every generation, now in one tarika, 



FEHMI — FENER 



879 



now in another, and who was then believed to be 
appearing in the Nakshbandiyya. His piety contains 
national elements, especially the belief in the erenler, 
the "men of God" (marddn-i Khudd; for meaning 
and etymology see Schaeder in OLZ, xxxi (1928), 
734, n.); the "superstructure" of his thought is 
strongly influenced by Ibn c ArabI. 

Bibliography: The most important source for 
his life and thought is the three volume autobio- 
graphy of Ashci Dede Ibrahim Khalil b. Mehmed 
c Ali (preserved in the Istanbul manuscripts, 
Oniversite Kiitiiphanesi T 3222 and T 78-80) 
who was his pupil from 1273/1856 onwards; see 
also M. L. Bremer, Die Memoiren des tiirkischen 
Derwischs Asci Dede Ibrahim, Waldorf-Hessen 
1959 (Beitrage z. Sprach- u. Kutturgesch. des Or., 
Heft 12). (M. L. van Ess-Bremer) 

FELLAGHA [see fallak]. 
FELLATA [see fallata]. 
FELT [see kece, libad]. 
FEMALE CIRCUMCISION [see khifad]. 
FENARl-ZADE, prominent family of Otto- 

which, Shems al-DIn Mehemmed Fenari, is regarded 
in native tradition as the first supreme mufti (shaykh 
al-islam) of the Empire. He was born in Bursa in 
75 1/1 350-1, the son of a certain Shaykh Hamza who, 
despite the impossibility of the dating, is said to have 
been a pupil of the famous sufi scholar Sadr al-DIn 
Konewl (d. 672/1273-4; Brockelmann, I, 449). 
Having studied under some of the most distinguished 
scholars of his age in Anatolia and Egypt, in 770/ 
1368-9 he was appointed teacher at the Manastir 
medrese in Bursa and the following year made kadi 
of this capital city. What the political influence was 
which could manoeuvre a youth of twenty into such 
an important position remains unknown, but that 
there was a special connexion with the dynasty is to 
be inferred from the great wealth he was able to 
amass, the distinction he was accorded among the 
statesmen and the special privileges granted to his 
children and his grandchildren by Murad II and 
Mehemmed II. The sources give no specific date for 
his appointment as mufti, but it would seem that he 
retained this office even after relinquishing the kadi- 
ship of Bursa to Molla Yegan in 822/1419-20 in 
order to go on the pilgrimage, for we hear of no other 
individual with this title until after his death in 
Radjab 834/15 March-13 April 1431), when Fakhr 
al-DIn c AdjemI was appointed. He was buried in the 
courtyard of the mosque which he built in Bursa. 
The most famous of his numerous works is the Fusul 
al-baddV, a compilation on the usul al-fikh (Brockel- 
mann, II, 233, to whose biographical sources should 
be added Isma'U Bellgh, GiUdeste-i riydd-i Hrfdn, 
Bursa 1302, 239-44; Mustafa c AlI, Kiinh al-akhbdr, 
4th rukn, Istanbul 1285, 108-10; Tashkopriizade, 
ShakdHk al-nu c mdniyya (trans. Medjdi), Istanbul 
1269, 47-53; '■Othmdnli mii'ellifleri, i, 390; i. H. 
Uzuncarsih, Osmanh tarihi, ii, Ankara 1949, 644; 
'■Ilmiyye sdlndmesi, Istanbul 1334, 322-6; Miistaklm- 
zade Siileyman Efendi, Dawhat al-mashdHkh, litho., 
Istanbul n.d., 3). 

Although Nishandjt Mehemmed Pasha {Ta'rikh-i 
Nishdndji, Istanbul 1290, 123) is probably in error 
in saying that he was also a wazir, one of his sons, 
Ahmed Celebi (later Pasha), did follow a secular 
career, and after having been defterddr for a period 
and served in the campaign of 878/1473 against Uzun 
Hasan Akkoyunlu (in which he was taken captive), 
in 884/1479 he was appointed laid (mentor) to Prince 
Bayezid (later Bayezid II) in his governorship of 



Amasya; afterwards, he held the appointment of 
nishdndji on two occasions (885/1480-81 and 887/ 
1482-83; for a discussion of these dates, cf. Ismail 
Hami Danismend, Izahh Osmanh tarihi kronohjisi, 
i, Istanbul 1947, 462-3). On being dismissed from 
office in 890/1485-6, he retired to Bursa where he 
died in 893/1487-8 (cf. Nishandjl Mehemmed Pasha, 
163). 

The next member of the family to achieve high 
office was Shems al-Din's grandson, 'Ala* al-DIn 
'All b. Yusuf Bali, who, after having been kadi of 
Bursa from 872/1467-8 to 877/1472-3, was appointed 
kadi 'l- c asker the following year, in which post he 
remained until 881/1476-7. Towards the end of the 
reign of Mehemmed II this office was divided into 
two, and in 894/1488-9 he was appointed kadi 
'l- c asker of Rumili, holding this charge until 900/ 
1494-5, when he was made chief kddi of Anatolia. 
He died in 903/1497-8 and was buried in his grand- 
father's mosque in Bursa (Tashkopriizade, 199; 
Bellgh, 245). His son, [Muhyi '1-DIn] Shah Mehem- 
med, also had a distinguished career. From the time 
of his birth (ca. 883/1478-9) he was the recipient of a 
stipend from the Sultan, and after having been kddi 
of Bursa (919/1513-4), Istanbul and Edirne (the dates 
in the sources are confused), in 925/1519 he was 
appointed kddi 'l-'-asker of Anatolia and in 926/ 
1519-20 of Rumili. He died in 929/1522-3 at the age 
ot forty-six while in this latter office, and was buried 
in the family graveyard in Bursa (Tashkopriizade, 
386; Bellgh, 248; Sehl, Hesht Bihisht, Istanbul 1325, 
28). 

His younger brother (and not his son, as stated in 
Tashkopriizade, 387, and the sources which derive 
therefrom), Muhyi '1-DIn Mehemmed, attained even 
greater dignity. Having been kddi of Edirne (925/ 
1519) and Istanbul, in 929/1522-3 he was made kadi 
'l-'-asker of Anatolia and, in the following year, of 
Rumili. Having held this post for fourteen or fifteen 
years, he was retired on pension in 944/1537-8, but 
in 949/1542-3 was recalled to office by appointment 
as shaykh al-islam in succession to c Abd al-Kadir 
Efendi. Retiring at his own request in 952/1545, he 
died on 24 Dhu '1-Ka c da 954/5 January 1548 and 
was buried in Eyyub. He is mentioned (as Muhyi) 
among the poets of his age, and is said to have 
built a mosque in the Topkhane quarter of Galata. 
(The sources often confuse him with his brother 
and should be used with caution: Mustaklm-zade, 
22; '■Urn. sal., 361; Danismend, ii, 432; Sehl, 29; 
Latlfl, Tedhkere-i shu'ard, Istanbul 1314, 307; 
Huseyn Ayvansarayl, Ifadikat al-djewdmi'-, Istanbul 
1281, ii, 66, 131). Although descendants of this line 
appear as teachers and kadis down to the I2th/i8th 
century, none achieved outstanding prominence. 
(Cf. for example, Tashkopriizade, 400 (Zeyn al-DIn 
Mehemmed), 486 (PIr Mehmed); c Ata% Dheyl-i 
ShakdHk, Istanbul 1268, 13 (Hasan b. Zeyn al-DIn), 
35 ( c Abd al-Bakl Efendi and Yusuf Efendi), 418 
(Mahmud Efendi)). (J. R. Walsh) 

FENER, the name of a quarter of Istanbul 
which, according to tradition, was allotted to the 
Greeks by Mehemmed II after the conquest in 857/ 
1453; for the topography, monuments, etc. see 
Istanbul. After the conquest the seat of the Greek 
Patriarch was transferred from St. Sophia to the 
Church of the Holy Apostles, and three years later 
to the nearby Church of the Pammakaristos. In 
994/1586, when this church was converted into a 
mosque (Fethiye Djami'i), the Patriarch moved 
down into the Fener quarter, to establish himself 
finally in 1011/1603 at the Church of St. George 



FENER — FERHAD PASHA 



(re-built in 1720), still the seat of the Orthodox j 

Patriarchate. At quite an early period there settled 

in the neighbourhood, in addition to the ecclesiastical 

and secular officials of the Patriarchate, the few old I 

Byzantine families that had remained in Istanbul 

and other distinguished and wealthy members of the 

community; in the school of the Patriarchate, 

conducted by the clergy, the ancient classical studies 

were cultivated. The prominent Greek families 

resident around the Patriarchate were known 

collectively as the 'Phanariots' (T. Fenerliler). 

Thanks to their links with and knowledge of the 

Christian world (many of them were educated in 

Italy), the Porte, particularly in the I2th/i8th and 

early I3th/i<)th centuries, drew on them to fill 

various influential employments. Members of these 

families acted as dragomans of the Porte and of the 

Arsenal [see tardjuman], and as contractors for 

the supply of furs and meat to the Saray, etc.. 

Since they were regarded as more reliable than the 

native princes, for some of whom they had earlier 

acted as 'agents at the Porte' (kapl keikhuddsl), it 

was from the Phanariots that were appointed, for 

over a century, the voyvodas (hospodars) of Moldavia 

(from 1123/1711, see boghdan) and Wallachia (from 

1128/1716, see eflak). The best-known names 

were Kantakouzenos, Skarlatos, Maurokordatos, 

Gkikas, Karatzas, Soutsos, Khantzeres (Handjeri), 

Maurogenes, Hypsilantes, Mourouzes, Kallimakhes, 

Mousouros, Aristarkhes, etc. In the second half of 

the I2th/i8th century the Phanariot families began 

to move from Fener to the more salubrious villages 

along the Bosphorus — Kurujeshme, Arnawutkoy, 

Tarabya; after the Greek War of Independence 

many of them migrated to Greece. Descendants of 

Phanariot families are still found in modern Rumania. 

Bibliography: M. Crusius, Turcograecia, Basle 

1578, 91, 497; de la Croix, £tat prisent de la Nation 

et de l'£.glise grecque, 3 ff . ; W. Eton, A survey . . . , 

London 1798, 331 ff.; J. Dallaway, Constantinople 

ancient and modern, London 1797, 98 ff. ; Le livre 

d'or de la noblesse phanariote . . . , par un Phanariote 

[ = Eugene Rizo-Rhavgabe], Athens 1892; Epa- 

minondas I. Stamatiadis, Bioypatpiai Ttov 

'EXX^vov Mc-y-aXcov Atep(jtT)v£cov tou 'O8co(xa- 

vixou KpdtTOU?, Athens 1865; I A, s.v. Fenerliler 

(by A. Decei), with numerous further references. 

(J. H. Mordtmann*) 
FERDl, makhlas (nom-de-plume) of some minor 
Ottoman poets, one of whom died young early in the 
reign of Suleyman I (Latifi, 263; the tedhkires [in MS] 
of c Ashik Celebi and Hasan Celebi; 'All, Kunh 
al-akhbar, Ankara Un. DTCF Lib. MS, f. 210a); 
another, Araytdjtzade Hiiseyn, died in 1121/1709 
(SSlim, 525; for MSS of his works see F. E. Karatay, 
Topkapt Sarayt . . . tiirkce yazmalar hatalo&u, 
Istanbul 1961, nos. 2449, 2697); a third, 'Derwish' 
Ferdi, died in 1125/1713 (Salim, 527); a 'Katib' 
Ferdi is also known (Babinger, 83, n.). 

A detailed history in Turkish of the reign of 
Suleyman I from his accession in 926/1520 to 949/ 
1542 was long attributed to a 'Ferdi' (Hammer- 
Purgstall, hi, intr. v, 710; Fliigel, Die ... Hand- 
schriften der Kais.-kon. Hofbibl. zu Wien, ii, 222 f.; 
J. Thury, TSrbk tdrUnetirdk, ii, Budapest 1896, 39; 
cf. Babinger, 83), while von Karabacek, taking the 
name of the copyist of the Vienna MS, 'Mustafa al-i 
£ Othman' as that also of the author, attributed the 
work to Suleyman's son Prince Mustafa (see J. von 
Karabacek, Geschichte Suleimans des Grossen, verfasst 
und eigenhdndig geschrieben von seinem Sohne Mustafa, 
Zur orientalischen Altertumskunde, vii, Vienna 1917). 



These attributions are without foundation. The 
word 'ferdi', appearing in a Persian poem in the 
work, is not a proper name but bears its ordinary 
lexicographical meaning, 'one person'; the author's 
makhlas in fact appears, in a poem at the end of the 
work, as 'Bustan', and hence reveals him to be 
Mustafa Bustan b. Mehemmed, 'Bustan Efendi', 

kddi'asker under Suleyman I, b. 904/1498, d. 



977/1! 



o[see 



3iblio 



Hiiseyin G. Yurdaydin, Fer- 
dl'nin Suleymanndmesinin yeni bir nushast, in 
Ank. On. DTCFD, viii (1950), 201-23; idem, 
Bostan'm Suleymanndmesi (Ferdi' ye atfedilen eser), 
in Belleten, xix (1955), 137-202. 

(Huseyin G. Yurdaydin) 
FERHAD PASHA (? — 1004/1595), Ottoman 
Grand Vizier. One Venetian relazione of 1585 gives 
his then age as about 50 years, while other Venetian 
relazioni of 1590-4 describe him as a man of about 65 
or 70 years. Ferhad Pasha was of Albanian origin 
(some of the Venetian accounts refer to him as "di 
nazion schiavone", "di nazione schiava") and, 
according to Lazaro Soranzo, a native of "Andronici 
Castello dell'Albania". After he had gone out from 
the enderiin-i humdyun towards the end of the reign 
of Sultan Suleyman KanunI (d. 974/1566), his career 
embraced the offices of Mir Akhor-i Kebir, i.e. 
Grand Master of the Imperial Horse (while holding 
this appointment he was sent in 986/1578 to Budin 
(Buda) with orders to execute the Beglerbeg of 
Budin, Mustafa Pasha, the nephew of the then Grand 
Vizier Mehemmed Sokollu) and also of YefiiJeri 
Aghasl, i.e., Agha of the Janissaries (an office that 
he lost in 990/1582). Ferhad Pasha became Beglerbeg 
of Rumili late in 990/1582 and not long thereafter 
was raised, with the rank of vizier, to the eminence 
of serddr, i.e., commander-in-chief, of the Ottoman 
forces engaged in the war which had broken out 
against Persia in 986/1578. During the campaigns of 
991/1583-992/1584 he relieved with new supplies and 
reinforcements the Ottoman garrison at Tiflis in 
Georgia and in addition fortified Eriwan, together 
with a number of strong positions on the routes 
leading into Georgia. The supreme command on the 
eastern front was assigned, for the year 1585, to the 
famous 'Othman Pasha, then at the height of his 
renown as a soldier in view of the brilliant campaigns 
that he had waged in the Caucasus during the 
earlier phases of the war. After the death of 'Othman 
Pasha in Dhu '1-Ka'da 993/October 1585 the appoint- 
ment as serddr was given once more to Ferhad Pasha, 
who now retained it until the end of the long conflict 
with Persia in 998/1590. His solid achievement as a 
soldier was crowned in 996/1588, when he conquered 
Gandja and the region of Karabagh in Persian 
Adharbaydjan. Ferhad Pasha became Grand Vizier 
in Shawwal 999/August 1591, but a revolt amongst 
the Janissaries brought about his dismissal from 
office in Djumada II 1000/March-April 1592. As 
second vizier, and during the first years of the 
long war of 1001/1593-1015/1606 between the 
Ottoman Empire and Austria, he was kdHm-maham 
at Istanbul in the absence of the Grand Vizier 
Kodja Sinan Pasha on the Hungarian front. Soon 
after the accession to the throne of Sultan Mehemmed 
III in 1003/1595 Ferhad Pasha became Grand Vizier 
for the second time (Djumada II 1003/February 
1595). His renewed tenure of the office was destined, 
however, to be brief — as he was preparing for a 
campaign against Wallachia (at that time aligned 
on the side of Austria), the intrigues of his bitter 
rival Kodja Sinan led to his dismissal in Shawwal 



FERHAD PASHA — FERlDON BEG 



1003/July 1595 and not long afterwards to his 
execution, on the order of the Sultan, in Safer 1004/ 
October 1595. Some of the sources describe Ferhad 
Pasha ("detto Charailam, cioe, nero serpente" 
(= Kara Yllan), in the words of Lazaro Soranzo) as 
a rough and ignorant man, overbearing and avari- 
cious in his conduct. None the less, on the evidence 
of a career not devoid of notable achievements, 
above all in the war against Persia, he has some 
claim to be regarded as one of the most able viziers 

Bibliography: Selanikl, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 
A.H. 1281, 67, 169, 172, 202, 204, 212 ff., passim, 
220 ff., passim, 232 ff., passim, 243 ff., passim, 
259-60, 268, 285-6, 295, 302, 308, 310-2, 320; 
Pecewi, Ta'rikh, Istanbul A.H. 1281-1283, i, 423 
and ii, 19, 73, 86 ff., passim, 107 ff., passim, 
122 ff., passim, 164 ff., passim; Hadjdji Khalifa, 
Fedhleke, Istanbul A.H. 1286-1287, i, 3, 46 ff., 
passim, 76; Na'ima, Ta'rikh, Istanbul A.H. 1281- 
1283, i, 66 ff., passim, no, 117 ff-, passim; Solak- 
zade, Ta'rikh, Istanbul A.H. 1298, 605 ff., passim; 
I. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh Tarihi, Ankara 1954, 
iii, Pt. 2, 347-9 and 608 (index); A. S. Levend, 
dazavdt-ndmeler, Ankara 1956, 89 ff. (information 
on the Persian campaigns of Ferhad Pasha can 
also be found in Iskandar Beg Munshl, Ta'rikh-i 
'■dlam-drd-yi '■Abbdsi, Tehran 1955, passim); G. T. 
Minadoi, Historia delta Guerra fra Turchi et 
Persiani, Venice 1594, 216 ff., passim, 345 ff., 
passim; L. Soranzo, L'Ottomanno, Ferrara 1599, 
82; E. Alberi, Relazioni degli ambasciatori Veneti 
al Senato, ser. iii, Florence 1840-1855, ii, 283 ff., 
353 ff. and iii, 290 ff., 371, 416 ff-; Calendar of 
State Papers, Venetian, {1581-1591), 591 (index) 
and (1592-1603), 597 (index); Hammer-Purgstall, 
Histoire, vii, 62, 107 ff., 123, 148, 209, 214 ff., 241, 
296 ff. (V. J. Parry) 

FERHAD u-SHIRIN [see farhad wa-shirIn]. 
FERlDON BEG (d. 991/1583), private secretary 
of Mehemmed Pasha Sokollu [?.».], head of the 
Ottoman chancery and compiler of the Munsha'dt 
al-saldtin. Nothing is known of his origins; his 
personal name was Ahmed, and his wakfiye (see Bibl.) 
refers to him as 'ibn c Abd al-Kadir'. Educated in the 
household of the defterddr Ciwi-zade 'Abdi Celebi, in 
the year of the latter's death (960/1553) he entered the 
service of Mehemmed Pasha Sokollu, then beglerbegi 
of Rumeli, as secretary. As Sokollu rose to supreme 
power, so Feridun played an increasingly important 
part in state affairs, notably in the negotiations for 
the extradition of the fugitive prince Bayezld from 
Persia and in the crisis of Siileyman's death at 
Szigetvar (974/1566); his personal bravery during 
this siege was rewarded with a zi'dmet and promotion 
to mutafarrika. On 8 Muharram 978/12 June 1570 
he was appointed Re'is al-kiittdb (for his berdt see 
Munsha'dt', ii, 572) and on 3 Ramadan 981/27 
December 1573 promoted to nishdndjl. When, on the 
death of Selim II, Murad III was hastening from 
Ma'nisa to Istanbul, he had a stormy crossing from 
Mudanya in a small boat belonging to Feridun which 
happened to be available (Munsha'dt 1 , i, 17, cf. 
Pecewi, i, 26-7). A month later, on 9 Shawwal 982/ 
22 January 1575, Feridun presented his Munsha'dt 
al-saldtin to the new Sultan, but received scant 
thanks for it (Selanikl, 137): as the protege^ of 
Sokollu he was regarded coldly by Murad III, and 
his dismissal from the post of nishdndjl and banish- 
ment from the capital on n Muharram 984/10 April 
1576 (S. Gerlach, Tagebuch, 175-6) was the first of 
several measures aimed at weakening Sokollu's 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



position (Pecewi, i, 26; ii, 7). In Djumada II 985/ 
August 1577 he was appointed sandjak-begi of 
Semendre (Smederevo), arriving at Belgrade, the 
chef-lieu of the sanajak, four months later (Gerlach, 
375; S. Schweigger, Reyssbeschreibung, 39); before 
long (by 988/1580, see Hammer-Purgstall, iv, 82, 
note e) he was transferred to K6stendil. In Muharram 
(>89/February 1581 (a year after Sokollu's assassina- 
tion) he was recalled to Istanbul and re-appointed 
nishdndjl; and on 12 Rabl c I 990/6 April 1582 he was 
given in marriage c Ayshe Sultan, the daughter of 
Rustem Pasha [q.v.] and Siileyman's daughter 
Mihrimah (Selanikl, 162-3; the tradition that he was 
married to Sokollu's widow is baseless, see Hammer- 
Purgstall, iv, 104, note b). He died in office, of a 
haemorrhage, on Wednesday 21 Safar 991/16 March 
1583 (Selanikl, 172), and is buried in a tiirbe at EyyOb 
(Ewliya, i, 405; cf. C 0M, ii, 363-4). 

Feridun's Munsha'dt al-saldtin (chronogram for 
982, the year of its completion) is a collection of state- 
papers — imperial letters, fermdns, fethndmes, berdts, 
treaties, with some campaign-diaries. According to 
Selaniki (137), the presentation volume, of over 250 
gatherings (djuz') and divided into eleven sections 
for the eleven Ottoman sultans to Selim II, contained 
1880 documents, but no known MS approaches this 
length. The work has been printed twice (1) Istanbul 
1264-5/1848-9, containing 735 documents, of which 
41 relate to the early period of Islam; and (2) 
Istanbul 1274-5/1858 (the standard edition), con- 
taining 840 documents, many of which, however, are 
later than the date of presentation. From the exami- 
nation of MSS in European libraries (the Istanbul 
MSS remain to be investigated) K. Holier concludes 
that Munsha'dt' i and ii, 1-100 (528 documents) and 
perhaps also ii, 536-74 (30 docs.) belong to Feridun's 
original collection, while ii, 100-536 (282 docs, of the 
late 16th and the 17th centuries) reproduce a single 
separate collection, similar in scope to that repre- 
sented in MS Gottingen Univ.-bibl. turc. 29. 
Miikrimin Khalil's demonstration that several of 
the documents purporting to belong to the reigns of 
c Othman Ghazi and Orkhan are spurious, being 
modelled on documents in a collection of correspon- 
dence of the Kh w arizm-shahs entitled al-Tawassul 
ila 'l-tarassul (Hadjdji Khalifa, ed. Fliigel, no. 3730), 
prompted grave doubts on the authenticity of the 
whole collection (see J. H. Mordtmann in Isl., xiv 
(1925), 362n.); but recent studies suggest that these 
were exaggerated: it is for the most part a highly 
reliable source. 

The Munsha'dt is introduced (i, 24-8) by a short 
treatise on ethics, Miftdh al-Diannat (chronogram 
for 982/1574) and followed (ii, 574-600) by an essay, 
written early in the reign of Murad III, on the 
measures needed to restore order in Egypt. Feridun 
composed also Nuzhat al-akhbdr dar safar-i Sigetwdr, 
a history of the Szigetvar campaign (974/1566) and 
the events of the two years following; MSS: Leiden, 
Univ.-bibl. Warn. 277; Istanbul, Millet-Ali Emiri 
330; Istanbul, Hazine 1339 (this, dated 976 and 
containing 20 miniatures [Karatay, no. 692], is 
presumably the presentation-copy). In 980/1572, as 
re'is al-kiittdb, he caused to be translated, from 
French, a history of France down to the year 
1563; MS: Dresden (H. O. Fleischer, Catalogus, 

Bibliography: Feridun's introduction to his 
work, Munsha'dt', i, 14-23; 'Atal, Hadd'ik al- 
hakd'ik, 336-7; J. H. Mordtmann, s.v., in EI 1 
(= IA, s.v.), followed by Babinger, 106-8 (with 
further references); Miikrimin Khalil [Yinanc], 
56 



FERlDUN BEG — FIDA'IYYAN-I ISLAM 



Feridun Beg Munshe'dti, in TOEMj no. 77, 
pp. 161-8, no. 78, pp. 37-46, no. 79, PP- 95-104, 
no. 81, pp. 216-26; J. Rypka, Biiefwechsel der 
Hohen P forte mit den Krimchanen . . ., in Fest- 
schrift Georg Jacob, Leipzig 1932, 241-69; K. 
Holter, Studien zu Ahmed Fertdun's MiinSe'dt es- 
seldttn, in Mitt. d. Osterreichischen Inst. f. Ge- 
schichtsforschung, Erg.-Bd. xiv, Innsbruck 1939, 
429-51 (with further references). Two copies of his 
wakfiye (providing for the support of a mosque in 
Istanbul, etc.) are recorded in 1st. kiit. tarih- 
cografya yazmalari kataloglart, i/n, Istanbul 1962, 

846 f. (J. H. M0RDTMANN-[V. L. MANAGE]) 

FERMAN [see farman]. 

FEROZ [see firuz]. 

FErOZKOH [see fIruzkuh]. 

FESTIVAL [see bayram, «Id], 

FETWA [see fatwa]. 

FEUDALISM [see ikt a c ]. 

FEZ [see fas, and (for the head-gear) libas]. 

FEZZAN [see fazzan]. 

FIDA' [(i) see hadjdj; (2) see harb— i]. 

FIDA'I (or, more often, fiddwi), one who 
offers up his life for another, a name used of 
special devotees in several religious and political 
groups. Among the Nizari Isma'ais it was used 
of those members who risked their lives to assassinate 
the enemies of the sect. They acted also on behalf 
of political allies of the Nizaris, sometimes at a price. 
At Alamut they may have become, in later years, a 
special corps; but normally tasks of assassination 
seem to have been assigned to anyone who was fit. 
The mediaeval Western tradition developed an 
elaborate account of them as highly trained speci- 
alists, evidently based partly on Muslim tales, 
partly on imaginative deduction. Mediaeval Muslim 
legends gave rise later to the idea that hashish was 
used in motivating the fidd'is, but there is no 
evidence for this (see M. G. S. Hodgson, The Order 
of Assassins, The Hague 1955). 

In Algeria, fiddwi means a narrator of heroic 
deeds, and fiddwiyya a tale or song of heroic deeds. 
During the Persian revolution fiddwi was applied 
in the first place to the adherents of the republican 
party, later to the defenders of liberal ideas and the 



Fidal was also the pen-name of Shaykhzada 

LahidjI, who was sent by the Safawi Shah Isma'il as 

ambassador to Muhammad Khan Shaybani and 

afterwards retired to Shlraz where he died (RidS 

Kuli Khan, Madpna 1 al-fusaha', ii, 27)- It was also 

the pen-name of Sayyid MIrza Sa c id of Ardistan, 

who lived at Isfahan and was the favourite poet of 

Muhammad Shah Kadjar (Rids Kuli Khan, ii, 383). 

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun-de Slane, i, 122, 

5; Lane, Modern Egyptians, ii, 147; H. d'Alle- 

magne, Du Khorassan au pays des Backtiaris, 

Paris 1911, iv, 304 (photographs, 294, 299); 

Browne, ii, 206 ff. ; idem, Persian Revolution, 127, 

151; RMM, i, 495 iv, 176; v, 361; xii, 217. 

(Cl. Huart-[M. G. S. Hodgson]) 
FIDA'IYYAN-I ISLAM, a small politico-religious 
terrorist group based in Tehran which during its 
twelve years of activity (1943-55) became notorious 
for its responsibility for numerous political murders. 
The Fida'iyyan were organized secretly, but held 
open rallies and announced their aims publicly. 
Their goals included strict enforcement of the 
shari'a and the ending of irreligiousness. They 
combined fundamentalism with violent xenophobia, 
and considered attacks on foreigners and politicians 
with foreign connexions a defence of the Ddr al-Isldm. 



The Fida'iyyan proclaimed the government of 
"xenophiles" illegitimate, and called such men 
enemy spies whose blood must be shed. They demand- 
ed the revocation of all laws which they considered 
inconsistent with ShI'i law, and tried to re-establish 
the veiling of women and other traditional Islamic 
practices. 

The notoriety of the Fida'iyyan began with the 
abortive attempt by their young founder, Sayyid 
Mudjtaba Mirlawhl, later called Nawab-i Safawi, on 
the life of the famous scholar and religious reformer, 
Ahmad Kasrawi [see kasrawi], in March 1945. In 
February 1946 the Fida'iyyan assassinated Kasrawi 
during open court proceedings in the Palace of Justice 
in Tehran. Safawi and a few associates were arrested, 
but none of those who had been present would testify 
against them and they were acquitted. Ayat Allah 
Kashani's protection of the Fida'iyyan and their influ 
ence in the Tehran bazar playeda part in the acquittal, 
as did the fear of reprisals, which now grew. In October 
1949 the Fida'iyyan assassinated the Minister of 
Court, c Abd al-Husayn Hazhir, whom they accused 
of having foreign connexions and of interfering in 
elections to the Madjlis. This murder was a factor in 
the annulment of the Tehran elections to the 16th 
session of the Madjlis, and in the new elections the 
National Front led by Dr. Muhammad Musaddik 
made gains. The hostility of the Prime Minister, Gen. 
HadjdjI 'All Razmara, to the National Front's 
proposal to nationalize oil brought about his assassi- 
nation in March 195 1 by a fanatical Fidal, Khalil 
Tahmasbi. Threats from the Fida'iyyan soon led to 
the resignation of the next prime minister, Husayn 
C A15, after which Musaddik became prime minister. 
Nawab-i Safawi was arrested in June 195 1 and 
Musaddik and his government faced threats to their 
lives from the Fida'iyyan unless Tahmasbi and 
Safawi were released. Husayn Fatimi, a member of 
the government, was shot and wounded by a Fidal 
in February 1952. Influenced by fear and by the 
claim of KashanI and his followers that Razmara's 
assassin was a hero, the Madjlis voted to pardon 
Tahmasbi in August 1952. As threats from the 
Fida'iyyan continued, however, the Musaddik govern- 
ment moved against them and banished some of 
their members to Bandar 'Abbas, an insalubrious 
port on the Persian Gulf. 

After the overthrow of Musaddik the activity of 
the Fida'iyyan decreased, and for a time they 
restricted themselves to issuing occasional harsh 
statements against the new government. Then an 
abortive attempt on the life of the prime minister 
Husayn 'Ala in October 1955 gave the government 
a basis for prosecuting them. The arrested Fida'iyyan, 
among whom were NawaD-i Safawi, Wahid! and 
Tahmasbi, were executed and no more was heard 
from the group. 

The Fida'iyyan had ties with the Ikhwan al-Mus- 
limln [q.v.] in 'Irak and Egypt, and like the Ikhwan 
as well as many politico-religious groups of the past 
they called each other "brethren". In the Arab- 
Israeli dispute they gave vocal support to the Arab 
cause. Their members appear to have been primarily 
very young men with a limited and traditional 
education. They drew on traditional ideas of the 
sacredness of self-sacrifice and of using force in 
combating irreligion. Their programme was chimer- 
ical, but in appealing to real resentments and 
frustrations they had an influence beyond their small 
numbers, while the fear they instilled influenced the 
acts even of their opponents, particularly in the 
years 1951-3. Although defended and protected by 



FIDA'IYYAN-I islam — fidjAr 



KashanI, they were not directly led by him and at 
least once differed with him publicly. 

Bibliography: The Fida'iyyan issued their 
programme in a booklet, al-Isldm yaHu wa la 
yuHd l alayh, Tehran, 1951. There is as yet (1963) 
no published study of the group in either Persian 
or a Western language. Their activities are covered 
in newspapers like the New York Times, which 
carried an interview with Nawab-i Safawi on 
May 6, 1951. See also the remarks in Leonard 
Binder, Iran, California 1962, and D. N. Wilber, 
Contemporary Iran, New York 1963. More can be 
found in Persian newspapers and periodicals, 
including Tarakki, Dunyd, Wazifa, and Parcam-i 
Islam, in the years 1949-55. Particularly interesting 
is a series of articles which appeared in KWanda- 
nihd, vols. 16-7, which was discontinued because 
of the arrest and execution of their author. See 
also OM, COC, etc. 

(N. R. Keddie and A. H. Zarrinkub) 
FIPPA, silver, because of the variety of its 
application was in great demand in Muslim society. 
Its abusive accumulation, however, was to be 
avoided, since, according to the Kur'an, "those who 
treasure up gold and silver and do not expend them 
in the way of Allah" would meet with a painful 
punishment (Sura ix, 34). Functionally the signi- 
ficance of silver resembled that of gold (see dhahab). 
Its economic importance arose from the fact that 
silver, along with gold, constituted the basis for the 
official Muslim coinage (see dirham). Under normal 
economic circumstances the value of silver, as 
against gold, was established at 10 : 1, which ratio 
underlay the legal principle of the exchange rate 
between the silver and gold coinage (cf. C. Cahen, 
ProbUmes iconomiques de I' Iraq Buyide, in AIEO, 
x l^ 2 ). 338). During the mediaeval period the needs 
of Near Eastern markets were adequately met by 
silver supplies of local provenance. Although 
mediaeval sources refer to many mining areas, the 
argentiferous districts of Khurasan and Trans- 
oxania were particularly famous for an intensive 
exploitation of silver ore (cf. D. M. Dunlop, Sources 
of gold and silver in Islam according to al-Hamdani, 
10th Century A.D.,inStud. Isl., viii (1957), 29-49; 
S. Bolin, Mohammed, Charlemagne and Ruric, in 
Scandinavian Economic History Review, i/i (1953), 
19-23). Near Eastern silver resources seem to have 
been rich enough to afford an export of this metal 
to Europe. This was particularly true in the course 
of the 4th/ioth century, when large quantities of 
Near Eastern silver in the shape of Muslim dirhams 
were absorbed by trading regions of Eastern and 
Northern Europe. (For different viewpoints on the 
significance of the circulation of Near Eastern silver 
in the Middle Ages, see S. Bolin, op. cit. ; R. P. Blake, 
The circulation of silver in the Moslem East down to 
the Mongol epoch, in Harvard Journal of Asiatic 
Studies, ii (1937), 291-328; F. J. Himly, Y a-t-il 
emprise musulmane sur Viconomie des itats europiens 
du VIII' au X' siecle?, in Schweizerische Zeitschrift 
fur Oeschichte, v/3 (1955), 31-81). 

As in the pre-Islamic period, silver was used in 
jewellery, metalwork and decorative incrustation 
(R. Harari, Metalwork after the early Islamic period, 
in Survey of Persian Art, iii, 2476-529). Luxurious 
silver vessels were also in demand, particularly 
during the Buwayhid regime (cf. E. Kuhnel, Die 
Kunst Persiens unter den Buyiden, ZDMG, cvi, 1 
(N. F. xxxi) (1956), 83 ff.), although their use for 
eating purposes was condemned by Muslim tradition. 
Silver attracted the attention of Muslim alche- 



mists who referred to it by a number of different 
names, e.g., the moon, mother, servant (cf. E. 
Wiedemann, Beitrdge zur Oeschichte der Natur- 
wissenschaften, xxiv, 82; A. Siggel, Decknamen in der 
arabischen alchemistischen Literatur, Berlin 1951). 
Albeit accepting the theory of transmutation of 
metals (cf. G. Sarton, Introduction to the history of 
science, ii, 2, 1045) Muslim alchemists were well 
acquainted with various chemical processes aiming 
at the extraction and refining of silver (E. J. 
Holmyard, The makers of chemistry, Oxford 1931, 77; 
D. M. Dunlop, op. cit., 46-8; A. S. Ehrenkreutz, 
Extracts from the technical manual on the Ayyubid 
mint in Cairo, in BSOAS, xv (1953), 429). 

Finally, silver was used in Muslim medicine. It 
was applied in the form of filings which, when mixed 
with drugs, were effective against melancholy, 
palpitation of the heart, and similar afflictions (cf. 
Ibn al-Baytar, ed. Leclerc, Notices el extraits, iii, 36). 
See also dar al-darb; metalwork; sikka. 

(A. S. Ehrenkreutz) 

FI&ZAR "sacrilege"; harb al-fidjar "the sacrile- 
gious war" is the name of a war waged towards the 
end of the 6th century A.D. during the holy months 
between the Kuraysh and Kinana on the one side 
and the Kays-'Aylan (without the Ghatafan) on 
the other. Our sources mention eight days on which 
fighting took place. The first tbree of them — usually 
put together as the first war but sometimes counted 
as the first three wars — were mere brawls. Of real 
importance was only the second (or, according to 
the second reckoning, fourth) war which lasted four 
years. It started when during the holy season £ Urwa 
al-Rahhal of the Banu c Amir b. Sa'sa'a, whilst 
escorting a caravan of al-Nu c man III fieigned 
580-602 A.D.) from al-Hira to the fair of c UkSz, was 
treacherously murdered by al-Barrad b. Kays al- 
Damii al-Kinani. The patron of al-Barrad, Harb b. 
Umayya, was at that time together with other 
chieftains of the Kuraysh at c Ukaz. As soon as they 
heard of this misdeed, the Kuraysh and Kinana 
started for Mecca; they were overtaken by the 
pursuing Hawazin and attacked at Nakhla, but the 
night enabled them to reach the sacred territory. 
This yawm Nakhla is generally counted as the first 
battle-day of the second Fidjar war, but sometimes 
added as the fourth day to the first war. A year later 
both parties— but without the Banu Ka'b and 
Kilab of the 'Amir b. Sa c sa c a— met again at Shamta 
(v.l. Shamza) near c Uk5z and the Hawazin were 
victorious (yawm Shamta). The same happened next 
year at c Ukaz (yawm al- c Abld'). It was only in the 
following year that the Kuraysh and Kinana carried 
the day (yawm 'Ukdz or yawmSharab). A fifth engage- 
ment on the Harra near c Ukaz (yawm al-Hurayra) 
resulted again in the victory of the Hawazin. After 
this there were only some skirmishes and then peace 
was restored. Of the many poems which according to 
Wakidi (apud Ibn Sa c d i/i, 82, 1) were composed 
about this war only a few verses have come down 

Whilst it is admitted that the Prophet was present 
at the Fidjar war, there is much controversy about 
the particulars. Some say that he took part in the 
fighting, and that at Shamta, where the Kuraysh 
were defeated, he was praised for his courage 
(Aghdni, xix, 78, 2). Others maintained that he only 
supplied his uncles with arrows (e.g., Ibn Hisham, 
117 pu; 119,1); but experts on the ayydm al-'Arab 
knew that none of his uncles except al-Zubayr took 
part (Aghdni, xix, 81 f.). In support of these con- 
flicting views alleged sayings of the Prophet are 



FIDJAR — FIGHANI 



adduced. Also the years given for his age range from 
14 to 28 (Aghani, xix, 75, 1-3). 

The Fidjar war was waged for four years in the 
holy season, when in normal times trade was flour- 
ishing unhampered by tribal feuds; it involved two 
great confederations including townsfolk of Mecca 
and al-Ta'if, and it even gave its name to an era. 
The real aim of it was the control of the trade 
routes in the Nadjd and consequently the benefit of 
the great gains which this trade offered. In this great 
contest the Kuraysh were leading; they procured the 
weapons for their confederates and defrayed all 
expenses. Amongst their opponents the Thakif 
together with the Banu Nasr b. Mu'awiya offered 
the hardest resistance but had finally to give in and, 
worn out by years of war, left the victory to the 
Kuraysh. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hisham, 1 17-9; Ibn Sa'd, 

i/i, 80-2; Ibn c Abd Rabbih, <Ikd (1316 H.), iii, 

77-80; Aghani 1 , xix, 73-82; Ya'kubi, i, 14-6; 

Mas'udi, Murud±, iv, 120-2, 125, 150 ff.; idem, 

Tanbih, 208 f.; Bakri, Mu'diam s.v. 'Ukaz; 

Suhayli, al-Rawd al-unuf, i, 120; Yakut, iii, 579 

s.v. Zallal; Ibn al-Athlr, i, 439-45; Diyarbakri, 

Ta'rikh al-Khamis (1302 H.j, i, 288 f., 293; 

Halabi, Insdn al-'uyiin (1308 H.), i, 137 ff. (with 

Zayni Dahlan's Sira on the margin p. 105) ; 

Birflni, Chronologic, 34, 12; Sachau; Ch. Lyall, 

The Mufaddaliydt, ii, 302-5; H. Lammens, La 

citi arabe de TaHf a la veille de VHigire (= MUB 

viii, 4) 240/98; idem, La Mecque a la veille de 

VHigire (= MUB ix, 3) 326/230; A. M. Watt, 

Muhammad at Mecca, 14 f. (J- W. Fuck) 

FIDYA, (which becomes, according to the area 

concerned, fedu, fadu, fadwa and even fdiya) is a 

general designation among Syro-Palestinians for a 

blood sacrifice made for purposes of atonement. 

From this point of view, its meaning is close to that 

of dahiyya. Indeed, in the Negeb and other parts of 

former Palestine, these two terms are sometimes 

used to designate one and the same thing. In fact, 

however, while the dahiyya is essentially an offering 

to the dead made on the occasion of 'id al-adhd, 

the fidya, on the other hand, is practised in the 

interests of the living, without any limitation of time. 

It is offered up before Allah for the delivery of a man, 

his family, his cattle and his goods, from some 

imminent misfortune, such as an epidemic. See 

Bibliography: S. Curtiss, Primitive Semitic 
religion to-day, ch. XVI, London 1902; Jaussen, 
Coutumes des Arabes aupays de Moab, 361-2, 372; 
T. Canaan, Mohammedan saints and sanctuaries in 
Palestine, 164-6; H. Granqvist, Child problems 
among the Arabs, Helsingfors 1950, 131-2. 

((J. Chelhod) 
FIEF [see djAgir, ikta c , tImar]. 
FIGHANl (baba), pseudonym of a celebrated 
Persian poet whose patronymic, like his first name, 
is unknown. He was a native of Shiraz where he 
started by helping his brother, a cutler by trade, and 
it was on that account that he first took the pseu- 
donym Sakkaki when he began to write poetry. In 
his youth, which was spent at Shiraz, he lived a life 
of debauchery, and then made a journey to Herat 
where he became acquainted with the great poet 
Djami, but his poetry was not appreciated by the 
poets of Khurasan. From there he went to Adhar- 
baydjan, to the court of sultan Ya'kiib (884-96/ 
1479-91), of the Ak-Koyunlu dynasty, one of the 
greatest patrons of the age. At this prince's court in 
Tabriz he received every favour, and his protector 



called him Bdbd-yi shu'ard (father of poets). There 
he continued with his life of debauchery, recklessly 
spending everything that he earned. While he was 
accompanying his patron on one of his campaigns, 
the manuscript of his diwdn together with his 
baggage was looted. He wrote to his brother and 
asked him for a copy of the poems which he had left 
in his native town, and made a new selection. On 
sultan Ya'kub's death he left Tabriz, after spending 
more than seventeen years there; he went to Shiraz 
and then to Khurasan, living in the towns of Nasa 
and Ablward and following the same life. At the end 
of his life he repented and went to live in Mashhad, 
where he took to a life of devotion and died in 
925/1519. Fighanl is one of the best lyric poets of his 
time and his ghazals were highly esteemed by poets, 
who continued to imitate him until the 17th century. 
His diwdn includes in particular some ghazals and 
certain kasidas specially dedicated to the Shl'I 
imams. Ten of his ghazals have been published by 
Bland in his "Century" (34-37). The Iranian scholar 
Husayn Azad published a French translation of 
some of his poems under the title Les perles de la 
couronne, choix de poesies de Baba Fighani, traduites 
pour la premiere fois du persan avec une introduction 
et des notes par Hociyne-Azad, Paris 1903. There are 
two editions of the Persian text of his ghazals: 

(1) Diwdn-i Fighdni with an introduction in Urdu by 
Manmohan Lai Mathur of Dihll, Lahore n.d.; 

(2) Diwdn-i Baba Fighdni-yi Shirdzi with emendations 
by Suhayli Khunsari. Tehran 1316 s. 

Bibliography :Rieu,Cat. Pers. man., 651; Ethe 

in Gr.I.Ph., ii, 307-10; Browne, iv, 164, 229-30, 

342; The Tuhfa i Sami of Sam Mirza Safawi, 

edited ... by Mawlawi Iqbal Husain, Patna 1934, 

36-8, 53, 95, 171; idem, Tehran edition 1314 s., 

102-3, 130; Lutf 'All Adhar. Atashhadeh, Bombay 

edition 1299, 306; Said Naficy, Ta'rikhce-yi 

Adabiyyat-i Iran, in Sdl-Ndma-yi Pars, Tehran 

1326 s., 18. (Said Naficy) 

FIGHANl. pseudonym of RAMApAN (?-938/ 

1532), Ottoman poet. Very little is known of his 

early life, except that he was a native of Trabzon and 

that after a summary education he became a minor 

clerk in government offices in Istanbul, where 

together with his fellow-poets and boon-companions 

he frequented taverns and places of amusement, 

leading an irregular and dissolute life. He seems to 

have lived in near poverty and without proper 

patronage, in spite of the poems which he dedicated 

to the great. We are told of his extraordinary memory 

where he stored enormous amounts of Arabic and 

Persian verse and all his own compositions. At the 

start of a very promising poetic career he met a 

sudden and tragic end : a Persian epigram which he 

wrote (or which was attributed to him) subtly 

attacked the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha for the 

statues which he had brought from Budin and had 

erected in front of his palace in the Hippodrome: 

"Two Ibrahims came to this world: one destroyed 

idols (meaning the patriarch Abraham), and the 

other erected them", and the unfortunate poet was 

hanged after an ignominious parade. 

His ghazels and ^asides are scattered in various 
medimu'-as and unmistakably show a great talent 
that was liberating itself from the influence of 
Persian models and his Ottoman predecessors. 
Most tedpire-writers agree that his kasides in 
particular are outstanding. 

Bibliography: The tedhkires of Sehl, Latlfi, 
'Ashik Celebi, Riyadi, Kinalizade Hasan Celebi, 
Kaf-zade, s.v.; Gibb. Ottoman Poetry, iii, 34 ff-; 



al-FIHRI 



885 



M. Fuad Kopriilii, in I A, s.v.; A. Karahan, 
Figani ve siirleri, in Turk Dili ve Edebiyah Dergisi, 
iii/3-4 (1949), 389-410; Istanbul Kitaphklan 
TUrkfe yazma divanlar katalogu, i, 100-1 ; Topkapi 
Sarayi Muzesi Kutuphanesi TUrkfe yazmalar 
katahgu, Istanbul 1962, Index. (FahIr Iz) 

FIGUIG (Ar. Fadjidj), a group of seven ksur 
isolated in the south-east of Morocco and surrounded 
on three sides by the Algerian frontier. It is situated 
to the east of the djabal Griiz at the meeting point 
of the Sahara Atlas and the Sahara plateau, in a broad 
hollow 850-900 metres in altitude (long. 1° 15' W., 
lat. 32 5'). The seven ksur fall into three groups: 
al-Odaghir, al- c Abid, Awlad Sliman and al-Maizz 
to the north-west, the two Hammam (Fukani and 
Tahtani) to the north-east, and Zenaga, the most 
important, two kilometres to the south. Zenaga, 
which has 7,000 inhabitants out of a total population 
of 15,000, is situated at the foot of the high sinter 
plateau of al-Djorf, on which the other ksur stand; 
the new administrative centre is situated on the 
plateau half-way between these and Zenaga. The 
houses of the ksur, made of unfired brick {tub) on a 
sub-foundation of dry stone, are almost always two 
or three storeys high and give a distinctly urban 
impression; at al-Maizz, the rooms which give on to 
the terraces are open on the south side. The streets, 
partly covered, are relatively broad at al-Odaghir 
and Zenaga. Each ksar is surrounded by walls. Al- 
Odaghir and Zenaga have a small melldh inhabited 
by a few Jewish families, and Zenaga has many 
hardtin among its population. The whole of the 
population, which is of very varied origin, is Berber- 
speaking, but the men know Arabic as well; the few 
families of Shorfa and the Marabouts, Awlad Sidl 
ghaykh, are Arabic-speaking. 

The ksur to the north and their gardens are supplied 
with water from thermal springs (31. 5° C.) situated 
along a fault in the Jurassic limestone, and Zenaga 
gets its water from foggdras. The 200,000 palm-trees 
cultivated here suffer from the altitude and attacks 
of bayud (a cryptogamic disease); other crops 
(apricots, peaches, pears, turnips, onions, red 
peppers or pimentos) are of secondary importance. 
The amount of time allowed for irrigation is measured 
by means of a floating copper container pierced with 
a small hole, which sinks when it is full. Some of the 
palm trees belong to the nomads who camp around 
them and deposit their stores there: Beni Guil, 
'Amur of the west and Awlad Sidi Shaykh Ghraba. 
The artisan class (burnous, carpets, painted and 
embroidered leather goods, jewellery made by the 
Jews) is declining in number. A great many men 
emigrate to Algeria and other parts of Morocco as 
labourers or masons; smuggling is rife. 

Although the region has certainly been inhabited 
for a long time, as is proved by the rock engravings, 
the name Fadjldj appears only in the 8th/i4th 
century. Ibn Khaldun (Hist., i, 240) speaks of its being 
active and ruled by the Banu Sid al-Muluk, a family 
of the Matghara of the group of Banu Faten: these 
used to form the greater part of the population of 
Sidjilmasa, a caravaneers' market and capital of 
Tafilalet, then already waning in importance, and 
to whose position as a meeting-point of caravan 
tracks Figuig perhaps succeeded. In the 16th century, 
Leo Africanus (435) praises the fineness of the woollen 
stuffs woven by its women, the intelligence, com- 
mercial vigour and culture of its men; in the seven- 
teenth century, al- c Ayyashi draws attention to the 
flourishing condition and richness of its libraries 
(Voyage, tr. Berbrugger, 159). Figuig seems always 



to have been an independent territory, thanks to its 
isolated position. The expedition which Mawlay 
Sulayman undertook in 1807, like that of the powerful 
Mawlay Isma'il at the end of the seventeenth century, 
was never followed up. Nevertheless, when the 
French began the conquest of Algeria, the Convention 
of Lalla-Maghnya (18 March 1845) left Figuig to 
Morocco. It was the refuge of the Awlad Sidi Shaykh 
who rose against France from 1864 on, of the adven- 
turer, BO 'Amana, and the pillaging Zegdu. In 1883, 
the Sultan, Mawlay Hasan, installed a representative 
there, who had, however, no authority. Even after 
the Franco-Moroccan agreement of 1902 the Sultan 
was unable to command obedience in this region, and 
a column of French soldiers accompanying Jonnart, 
the governor-general of Algeria, to Beni-Ounif was 
attacked on 30 May 1903; a military counter-action 
forced the djemd'a of Zenaga to surrender the cri- 
minals and hostages. There were no more outbreaks 
and Figuig came with Morocco under the French 
Protectorate and was incorporated into the admini- 
stration of the Makhzen. 

The disappearance of the slave-trade aud of com- 
merce across the Sahara and the arrival of the railway 
between Oran and Colomb-Bechar, which had reached 
Beni-Ounif by 1903, contributed to the economic 
decline of Figuig. Moreover the region was often 
weakened by internal quarrels, especially those which 
set the two principal ksur, al-Odaghir and Zenaga, 
against each other over the possession of c Ayn 
Thaddert, and also those which divided the two 
Hammam. The walls of the ksur were for protection 
against neighbours as much as nomads, and watch- 
towers still overlook the gardens. The Marabout fa- 
milies have continually done their utmost to keep or 
restore the peace. 

Although so isolated and cut up into ksur, Figuig 
does not ever appear to have enjoyed political unity. 
Each ksar has traditionally its diemd'as of admini- 
strative subdivisions which bring together the heads 
of families, and also its own djema'a made up of 
elected notables which judges according to its 
kdnuns (not very differently from one ksar to an- 
other). In matters of civil law, the kadi judged 
according to the shar 1 and also the ( urf. Since Figuig 
has been re-united with Morocco, the meetings of 
the diemd'a of the ksar are presided over by the re- 
presentative of the king of Morocco and the kadi 
is nominated by the Makhzen. The people are at the 
same time pious and superstitious and are fervent 
adepts of brotherhoods (Tayyibiyya, Kerzaziyya, 
Zayyaniyya, Nasiriyya, etc.). Habous (wakf) proper- 
ties are numerous but their purpose is above all to 
deprive women of the right of succession. Sidi c Abd 
al-Kadir Muhammad, patron saint of Figuig, has his 
kubba to the north-east of al-Hammam. 

Bibliography : Ibn Khaldun, Hist. desBerberes, 
tr. de Slane, 2nd ed., Paris 1925-56; Leo Africanus, 
Description de VAfrique, tr. Epaulard, Paris 1956; 
de Castries, Notes sur Figuig, in Bull, de la SocilU 
de giogr., Paris 1882; de La Martiniere and La- 
croix, Documents pour servir a Vitude du N.-O. 
africain, ii, Algiers 1896; E. Doutte, Figuig, in 
La Giogr., Paris 1903 ; E. F. Gautier, La source de 
Thaddert a Figuig, in Annates de giogr., Paris 1917; 
M. Bonnefous, La palmeraie de Figuig, Rabat 1952. 

(J. Despois) 
FIHL [see fahl]. 

al-FIHRI, Abu Ishak Ibrahim b. Abi 'l-Hasan 
c AlI b. Ahmad, composed in 632/1234 an anthology 
of the works of Spanish stylists and poets of the 
5th/nth and 6th/i2th centuries entitled Kanz al- 



kuttdb wa-muntahhab al-dddb (see H. Krafft, Die ar., 
pers. und tiirk. Hdss. der k. k. orient. Akademie zu 
Wien, Vienna 1824, no. 147). (C. Brockelmann) 
FIHRIST [see bibliography, fahrasa, ibn al- 

NADlM, TUSl]. 

FIJCH (a.), originally "understanding, knowledge, 
intelligence", and applied to any branch of know- 
ledge (as in/»ft* al-lugha, the science of lexicography), 
has become the technical term for jurisprudence, 
the science of religious law in Islam. It is, 
like the iurisprudentia of the Romans, rerum 
divinarum atque humanarum notitia and in its widest 
sense covers all aspects of religious, political and 
civil life. In addition to the laws regulating ritual and 
religious observances (Hbdddt), containing orders and 
prohibitions, it includes the whole field of family law, 
the law of inheritance, of property and of contracts 
and obligations, in a word provisions for all the legal 
questions that arise in social life (mu c dmaldt) ; it also 
includes criminal law and procedure, and finally con- 
stitutional law and laws regulating the administration 
of the state and the conduct of war. 

All aspects of public and private life and business 
should be regulated by laws based on religion; the 
science of these laws is fikh. 

In older theological language the word did not have 
this comprehensive meaning; it was rather used in 
opposition to Him. While the latter denotes, beside 
the Kur'an and its interpretation, the accurate 
knowledge of the legal decisions handed down from 
the Prophet and his Companions (Ibn Sa c d, ii/2, 
127, ": al-riwdydt wa 'l-Hlm, as synonyms), the term 
fikh is applied to the independent exercise of 



the 



ligenc 



of 1< 



1 judgment in the absence or igno- 
rance of a traditional ruling bearing on the case in 
question. The result of such independent considera- 
tion is ra'y (opinion, opinio prudentium), with which 
it is also sometimes used synonymously. In this sense 
Him and fikh are regarded as distinct qualities of the 
theologian (Nawawl, Tahdhib, ed. Wustenfeld, 703. 2 ) ; 
also fikh wa-riwdya (Ibn Sa c d, v, 327, «). The sum 
total of all wisdom is defined by Mudjahid (in ex- 
planation of Sura ii, 269: man yu'ta 'l-kikma) as 
composed of the following elements: al-Kur'dn wa 
•l-Hlm wa 'l-fikh (Tabari, Tafsir, iii, 56, »),' and, 
similarly, the Jewish Karaitic expositor of the Bible, 
Jepheth b. 'All (910-80 a.d.), translates tiftdye in 
Daniel, iii, 2 (ed. D. S. Margoliouth, Anecdota 
Oxoniensa, 1889, 33, ') by ahl al-Hlm wa 'l-fikh. 
Harun al-Rashid instructs his governor Harthama 
to consult the uli 'l-fikh fi din Allah and the uli 
'l-Hlm bi-kitdb Allah in doubtful cases (Tabari, iii, 
717, ,0 ). Further passages are quoted in Goldziher, 
Muh. Stud., ii, 176, n. 6. 

In this sense, e dlim (plur. c ulamd') is distinguished 
from fakih (plur./wftaAa 5 ), or the combination of both 
sciences in one individual is expressed by the com- 
bination of these two ephitets or their synonyms. 
Ibn c Umar was djayyid al-hadith but not djayyid al- 
fikh (Ibn Sa c d, ii/2, 125, "); on the other hand Ibn 
'Abbas was a l lam with reference to decisions handed 
down by Tradition and at the same time afkah (or 
athkafu ra'y ,n ) in new cases that arose, for which no 
precedent could be found in Tradition and in which 
it was necessary to use one's own judgment (ibid., 
122, 124); the same is true of Zayd b. Thabit [ibid., 
116); cf. fakih fi 'l-din l alim fi 'l-sunna (ibid., iii/i, 
no). Sa c id b. al-Musayyib is fakih al-fukahd' on the 
one hand and '■Slim al-Htlamd' (ibid., ii/2, 129, 130; 
v, 90) on the other. Among the tdbiHin there were 
fukahd' wa-Hdamd', i.e., those who were authorities 



on the transmission of hadith and dthdr as well as 
those who were authorities on fikh and compe- 
tent to give (independent) decisions, fatwd (ibid., 
ii/2, 128). Abu Thawr was ahad a'immat al-dunyd 
fikh" wa-Hlm an (Dhahabi, T«bakdt al-huffdz, viii, 
106). 

In the earliest period of the development of Islam 
the authorities entrusted with the administration 
of justice and the control of religious life had in 
most cases to fall back on the exercise of their own 
ra'y owing to the scarcity of legislative material 
in the liur'an and the dearth of ancient precedents. 
This was regarded as a matter of course by every- 
one, although they were naturally very pleased if 
the verdict could as far as possible be based on Him. 
When c Ata> b. Abi Rabah (d. 114/732) was giving 
a judgment, he was asked: "Is this Him or ra'y?" 
Ii it was founded on a precedent (athar), he said it 
was Him (Ibn Sa c d, v, 345). The ra'y was not, 
however, thereby discredited. It was considered an 
equally legitimate factor in the decision of a point 
of law and its results were destined in the near 
future to be regarded as the decisions of old author- 
ities and in later times to be actually considered an 
element of Him. From the very beginning one could 
have recourse to it as soon as Him failed. According 
to an old story which certainly reflects the conditions 
of the Umayyad period, although it does not actually 
date from the time in which its scene is laid, Mu'awiya 
finally applied to Zayd b. Thabit on a legal question, 
on which neither he nor other Companions to whom 
he propounded it could quote any ancient evidence 
(falam yudjad Hndahu — or Hndahum—fihd Him) ; the 
latter gave a verdict based on this own independent 
ra'y (Tabari, Tafsir, ii, 250 ult., on Sura II, 228). 
The kadi of Egypt asked the advice of the Caliph 
'Umar II on a point not provided for in Tradition; 
the latter wrote to him: Nothing has reached me on 
this matter, therefore I leave the verdict to you to be 
given according to your opinion (bi-ra'yik) (Kindl, 
Governors and Judges of Egypt, ed. Guest, 334; ed. 
Gottheil, 29) [cf. id,ztihad]. 

This recognition of ra'y [q.v.] as an approved 
source of law found expression in the instructions 
attributed to the Prophet and the early Caliphs, 
which they gave to the officials sent to administer 
justice in the conquered provinces, and in their 
alleged approval of the principles of their decisions 
which the judges whom they had sent out submitted 
to them (Goldziher, gdhiriten, 8 ff.; cf. Ibn al-Athir, 
Usd al-ghdba, i, 314; Mubarrad, Kdmil, 9 ff . ; Ibn 
Kutayba, 'Uyun al-akhbdr, 87). In the more elaborate 
versions of these reports which were developed from 
their original, rudimentary forms we find already 
mentioned explicitly the principle of deduction from 
decisions of similar cases (ashbah, nazd'ir; cf. 'Uyun 
al-akkbdr, 72), i.e., the use of analogy (kiyds, [q.v.]) 
as a methodological regulator of ra'y. In the in- 
vestigation of the Hllat al-shar'-, the motive of law 
(ratio legis), and the resulting reduction of doubtful 
cases to a rational point of view, we find this 
principle given systematic validity. At the same 
time — there is evidence of it at a very early period — 
a kind of popular element entered the number of 
constitutive sources for the deduction of laws: the 
conception of the general usage of the com- 
munity (sunna, [q.v.]) which had been established 
by general agreement or consensus (idfmd 1 , [q.v.]) 
in wider circles of believers, independent of written 
(i.e., Kur'anic), traditional, or inferred law. 

This usage contained an appreciable amount of 
foreign elements. It was only natural that the 



legal, commercial, and administrative practices 
which prevailed in the conquered provinces should 
have survived under Islam, just as ancient Arab 
legal and commercial practices had survived, and 
should have been adopted by the Muslims as far as 
they were compatible with the demands of the new 
religious ideas. That the retention of pre-Islamic 
legal institutions was the normal procedure is shown 
by a passage in Baladhurl: "Abu Yusuf held that if 
there exists in a country an ancient, non-Arab sunna 
which Islam has neither changed nor abolished, and 
people complain to the Caliph that it causes them 
hardship, he is not entitled to change it; but Malik 
and Shafi'i held that he may change it even if it be 
ancient, because he ought to prohibit (in similar 
circumstances) any valid sunna which has been 
introduced by a Muslim, let alone those introduced 
by unbelievers" (Futiih, 448). In this way, elements 
from Roman Byzantine (including Roman provincial) 
law, Talmudic law, the canon law of the Eastern 
churches, and Persian Sasanian law entered Islamic 
law during its formative period. The influence of 
Talmudic law manifested itself above all in matters 
of ritual and worship. Influences of Persian Sasanian 
law (and of the canon law of the Eastern churches) 
have been established in a few individual cases, but 
their full extent remains to be investigated. In the 
case of Roman and of Talmudic law, these influences 
extended not only to rules and institutions of positive 
law, but to legal concepts and maxims, to methods 
of reasoning (fjiyds, and conclusions a maiore ad 
minus and a minore ad maius), and even to funda- 
mental ideas of legal science; for instance, the 
highly organized concept of the consensus of the 
scholars as formulated by the ancient schools of 
Islamic law (see below), seems to have been modelled 
on the concept of the opinio prudentium of Roman law 
(cf. Digest, i, 3, 38: In ambiguitatibus quae ex legibus 
proficiscunter, consuetudinem aut rerum perpetuo 
similiter iudicatarum auctoritatem vim legis obtinere 
debere; Institutes, i, 2, 9: Nam diutumi mores consensu 
utentium comprobati legem imitantur). Goldziher has 
repeatedly drawn attention to this and to the fact 
that parallels between Roman and Islamic law in the 
field of legal science are usually doubled by parallels 
in Talmudic law. (Goldziher has even suggested that 
the terms fifth and fuftahd?, in their special technical 
reference to the sacred law and its practitioners, as 
well as the corresponding Jewish terms hofthmd and 
b'khdmim, may have been influenced by the Latin 
terms (iuris)prudentia and (iuris)prudentes ; in Die 
Kultur der Gegenwart*"', I/iii/i, 103). Some of the 
borrowings from Roman law may, in fact, have been 
made through the medium of the Jews, as was 
first suggested by von Kremer (Culturgeschichte des 
Orients, i, 535). This adoption of Roman (and other) 
legal concepts and maxims occurred not through 
direct influence of one legal system on another at 
the technical level, but through the medium of the 
cultured non-Arab converts to Islam, whose educa- 
tion in Hellenistic rhetoric had made them acquainted 
with the rudiments of law and who brought their 
familiar ideas with them into their new religion. 
When Islamic legal science came into being towards 
the end of the first century of Islam (early 8th 
century A.D.), the door of Islamic civilization had 
been opened wide to these potential transmitters. 
That the early jurists of Islam should consciously 
have adopted any principle of foreign law is out of 
the question. The subject remains, in the words of 
Goldziher, "one of the most attractive problems of 
this branch of Islamic studies". 



H 887 

With the gradual recognition of Kur 5 5n, sunna, 
idjmd 1 and f}iyds as the four official "roots" or 
sources of legal knowledge, methodological principles 
from which legal rules might be legitimately derived 
[see usC'l], the terms fifth and fuftahd? gradually lost 
their original limitation to deductions not based on 
tradition. Fifth came to mean the science which co- 
ordinated and included all the branches of knowledge 
derived from the four roots; similarly those who were 
masters of this science were called fuftahd', i.e., 
jurists. Or fifth was used for the result of deduction 
from the sources of positive law, the sum total of the 
deductions derived from them, e.g., wa-fi hddha 
'l-hadith durub min al-fifth (Mubarrad, Kdmil, 529, 
cf. WZKM, iii, 84). The Arabic sources contain 
numerous reports about scholars who arranged the 
Him or sunan in chapters and thence deduced the 
fm inferences (Muh. Stud., ii, 211). Of c Abd Allah b. 
al-Mubarak it is said : dawwan al-Hlm fi 'l-abwab wa 
'l-fifth (Dhahabi, Tadhftirat al-huffdz, i, 250); of Abu 
Thawr: sannaf al-ftutub wa-farra c l ala 'l-sunan (ibid., 
ii, 95). Little value can be attached to the statement 
ascribed to Hisham b. 'Urwa that many ftutub fifth 
of his father's perished in the flames on the day of 
the battle of the Harra (Biographien, ed. Fischer, 41). 
At that ancient period ('Urwa died in 94/712, the so- 
called "year of the fukahd?", when many fuftahd' 
died; Ibn Sa c d, vi, 135) there could be no real ftutub 
in existence; the report can therefore refer, at the 
utmost, to rough notes only. We might also mention 
the statement that Zuhrl's fatwds were collected in 
three, Hasan al-Basri's in seven books (asfdr) ar- 
ranged in the order of the abwdb al-fifth (Ibn Kayyim 
al-Djawziyya, I'ldm, i, 26). 

In a still wider meaning, fifth was used for relig- 
ious science in general (al-Kur'dn wa 'l-fifth in 
opposition to the study of poetry: Aghdni, vii, 55, "; 
laysa bihim raghba fi H-din wa-ld raghba fi 'l-fifth: 
Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal, i, 155; cf. also the 
titles al-Fikh al-Akbar and al-Fifth al-Absat and the 
text of these treatises, on which see abu hanJfa). 
Fuftahd' was correspondingly applied to students 
of religion, theologians (not only students of 
law) e.g., Tabari, Tafsir, xii, 73, 13 ; fuftahd'und wa- 
mashdHkhund; ibid., 112, 8 , where AbO c Ubayd al- 
Kasim b. Sallam says with reference to an explana- 
tion by Abu 'Ubayda Ma'mar of a word in the 
Kui'an contrary to the traditional explanation: 
al-fukaha? aHam bi 'l-ta'wil minhu, "the fuftahd' are 
more conversant with exegesis than he" (who is not 
a theologian but only a philologist) ; cf . also gdhiritcn, 

19. (I. G0LDZIHER-[J. SCHACHT]) 

The traditional opinion of the Muslim 
scholars projects the origins of Islamic jurisprudence 
back into the generation of the Companions of the 
Prophet. According to it, the Caliphs of Medina and 
a few specialists in religious law among the Compan- 
ions started to draw conclusions from the Kur 5 5n 
and the words and acts of the Prophet as they 
remembered them or as they had been reported to 
them, by independent reasoning; their conclusions 
were approved, explicitly or silently, by the other 
Companions and became thereby binding on the 
community; their Successors continued this activity 
and the generation following the Successors saw the 
foundation of the schools of religious law. 

Recent historical research, howevei, has 
shown that Islamic jurisprudence came into being 
towards the end of the first century of the hidjra 
(early 8th century A.D.). During the greater part of 
the ist/7th century, Islamic law, in the technical 
meaning of the term, and therefore Islamic juris- 






tot as yet exist. As had been the 
e of the Prophet, law as such fell 
outside the sphere of religion, and so far as there 
were no religious or moral objections to specific 
transactions or modes of behaviour, the technical 
aspects of law were a matter of indifference to the 
Muslims. Not only did Arab customary law, as 
modified and completed by the Kur'an, survive to a 
considerable extent, but the Muslims did not hesitate 
to adopt the legal, commercial and administrative 
institutions and practices of the conquered territories, 
and even legal concepts and maxims, as far as they 
were compatible with the demands of the new 
religious ideas (see above). As supreme rulers and 
administrators, the Caliphs of Medina acted to a 
great extent as the lawgivers of the community, and 
they were followed in this by the Umayyad Caliphs 
and their governors; during the whole of the first 
century of Islam, the administrative and legislative 
activities of the Islamic government cannot be 
separated. The Umayyad governors also appointed 
the first kadis who by their decisions laid the foun- 
dations of what was to become Islamic law. They 
gave judgment according to their own discretion or 
"sound opinion" (ra'y), basing themselves on 
customary practice and on administrative regula- 
tions, and taking the letter and the spirit of the 
Kui'an and other recognized Islamic religious 
norms into account. Subsequent developments 
brought it about that the part played by the earliest 
kadis in laying the foundations of Islamic law was 
not recognized by Islamic jurisprudence. 

Towards the end of the first century of the hidjra 
(early 8th century A.D.) only we encounter the first 
specialists in religious law whose activity can be 
regarded as historical, such as Ibrahim al-Nakha'1 
in Kufa, and Sa'Id b. al-Musayyib and his contem- 
poraries in Medina. They were pious persons whose 
interest in religion caused them to survey, either 
individually or in discussion with like-minded friends, 
all fields of contemporary activities, including the 
field of law, from an Islamic angle, to impregnate 
the sphere of law with religious and ethical ideas, 
and to elaborate, by individual reasoning (ra'y, 
istihsdn, idjUhdd [qq.v.]), an Islamic way of life. 
Their reasoning represents the beginnings of an 
Islamic jurisprudence. Islamic jurisprudence did not 
grow out of an existing Islamic law; it created 
Islamic law by endorsing, modifying or rejecting the 
popular and administrative practice of the Umayyad 
period. Members of this group, such as Radja' and 
Abu Kilaba, were among the familiars of the 
Umayyad Caliphs from the last decades of the 
ist/7th century onwards, and the kadis came in- 
creasingly to be recruited from them. 

As the groups of pioiis specialists grew in numbers 
and in cohesion, they developed, in the first few 
decades of the 2nd/8th century, into the "ancient 
schools of law" of which those of Kufa, of 
Medina and of Syria are known to us in some detail. 
The differences between them were caused in the 
first place by geographical factors, such as local 
variations in social conditions, customary law and 
practice, but they were not based on any noticeable 
disagreement on principles or methods. The great 
centre of nascent Islamic jurisprudence at the end 
of the ist/7th and during the 2nd/8th century was 
'Irak; influences of the doctrine of one school on that 
of another almost invariably proceeded from 'Irak 
to Hidjaz, and the doctrinal development of the 
school of Madlna often lagged behind that of the 
school of Kufa. The ancient schools shared not only 



a considerable body of common doctrine but the 
essentials of a legal theory the central idea of which 
was that of the "living tradition of the 
school". This idea dominated the development of 
Islamic jurisprudence during the whole of the 2nd/ 
8th century. Retrospectively, it appears as sunna or 
"practice" famal), i.e., the ideal practice, the 
practice as it ought to be, or "well-established 
precedent" (sunna mddiya) or "ancient practice" 
(ana kadim). Synchronously, it is represented by the 
consensus (idjmd c , al-amr al-mudjtama l l alayh), the 
common doctrine of the majority of the representa- 
tive religious scholars of each centre (cf. above). 
Originally, the living tradition of the ancient schools 
was anonymous; it was the average opinion of their 
representatives that counted, and not the individual 
doctrines of the most prominent scholars. From the 
first decades of the 2nd/8th century onwards, 
however, it began to be projected backwards and to 
be ascribed to some of the great figures of the past. 
The earliest specialists, such as Ibrahim al-Nakha'1, 
had not done more than give opinions on questions 
of ritual and perhaps on kindred problems of directly 
religious concern, cases of conscience concerning 
alms-tax, marriage, divorce, and the like, and 
technical points of law appeared only at the stage of 
doctrine represented by the teaching of rlammad b. 
Abi Sulayman (d. 120/738). By a literary convention 
which found particular favour in 'Irak, scholars used 
to put their own doctrines under the aegis of their 
masteis. In this way, the main contents of the 
K.itab al-Athdr of Abu Yusuf and of the Kitdb al- 
Athdr of ShaybanI represent themselves as having 
been derived from Abu Hanifa, "from" ( c an) 
Hammad, "from" Ibrahim. The Medinese followed 
suit and projected their own teaching back to a 
number of ancient authorities who had died in the 
last years of the first or in the very first years of 
the second century, seven of whom were later singled 
out to form the group of the so-called "seven 
lawyers of Medina" (fukahd* al-Madina al-sab'a: 
Sa'id b. al-Musayyib, 'Urwa b. al-Zubayr, Abfl Bakr 
b. 'Abd al-Rahman, 'Ubayd Allah b. 'Abd Allah b. 
'Utba, Kharidja b. Zayd b. Jhabit, Sulayman b. 
Yasar, and al-Kasim b. Muhammad b. Abi Bakr). 
The transmission of legal doctrine in rlidjaz becomes 
ascertainable at about the same time as in 'Irak, 
with Zuhri ([q.v.]; d. 124/742) and his younger 
contemporary Rabi'a b. Abi 'Abd al-Rahman for 
Medina, and with 'Ata' b. Abi Rabah for Mecca. At 
the same time at which the doctrine of the school of 
Kufa was retrospectively attributed to Ibrahim al- 
Nakha'I, a similar body of doctrine was directly 
connected with the very beginnings of Islam in 
Kufa by being attributed to Ibn Mas'ud [q.v.], a 
Companion of the Prophet who had come to live 
in that city, and Ibrahim al-Nakha'i became the 
main transmitter of that body of doctrine, too. In 
the same way, another Companion of the Prophet, 
Ibn 'Abbas [q.v.], became the eponym of the school of 
Mecca, and the school of Medina claimed as its main 
authorities among the Companions of the Prophet 
the caliph 'Umar [q.v.] and his son, 'Abd Allah 
b. 'Umar. One further step in the search for a solid 
theoretical foundation of the doctrine of the ancient 
schools was taken in 'Irak, very early in the second 
century of Islam, by transferring the term "sunna 
of the Prophet" from its political and theological 
into a legal context and identifying it with the sunna, 
the ideal practice of the local community and the 
corresponding doctrine of its scholars. This term, 
which was taken over by the school of Syria, 



expressed the axiom that the practice of the Muslims 
continued the practice of the Prophet, but did not 
yet imply the existence of positive information in 
the form of "traditions" (hadith) that the Prophet by 
his words or acts had in fact originated or approved 
that practice. 

It was not long before there arose movements 
of opposition to the opinions held by the major- 
ities in the ancient schools. In Kufa, where Ibn 
Mas'ud had become the eponym of the school, the 
doctrines which were put forward in opposition to it 
and which do not embody the coherent teaching of 
any one group were regularly attributed to the 
caliph C A1I [q.v.], who had made Kufa his head- 
quarters, not indeed on account of any Shi'i bias, 
which is absent from them, but because the name of 
c Ali represented an authority equal to and possibly 
even higher than that of Ibn Mas'ud. These opinions 
generally did not prevail in the school of Kufa, but 
in Medina the corresponding doctrines succeeded in 
gaining recognition to a considerable extent. In 
contrast with the opposition in Kufa, the opposition 
in Medina already reflected the activity of the 
Traditionists. -The movement of the Tradi- 
tionists (ahl al-hadith, [q.v.]) is the most important 
single event in the history of Islamic jurisprudence 
in the second century of the hidjra; it opposed to the 
"living tradition" of the ancient schools, which was 
to a great extent based on tcCy, the authority of 
individual traditions (hadith, [q.v.]) from the Prophet 
which its adherents put into circulation in ever in- 
creasing numbers. According to the traditionists, 
fifth had to be based exclusively on traditions from 
the Prophet, whom they reported as having said: 
"Luck to the man who hears my words, remembers 
them, guards them and hands them on; many a 
transmitter of fifth is no faftih himself, and many a 
one transmits fifth to a person who is a better faftih 
than he is" (Shafi% Risdla, 55, 65). Traditionists 
existed in all great centres of Islam, where they 
formed groups in opposition to, but nevertheless in 
contact with, the local schools of law, and the 
polemics between them and the ancient schools 
occupied most of the second century. But the 
ancient schools had no real defence against the 
rising tide of traditions; they had to express their 
own doctrines in traditions which allegedly went 
back to the Prophet and to take increasing notice of 
the traditions produced by their opponents, and 
finally the outlines and many details of Islamic 
jurisprudence were cast into the form of traditions 
from the Prophet. Later Muslim scholars, who in the 
nature of things were unable to acknowledge such 
a fundamental change in the bases of Islamic legal 
thought, represented this struggle as a struggle 
between the ahl al-hadith and the imaginary group 
of the ashdb al-ra?y [q.v.]. The Traditionists of the 
3rd/9th century attacked the c Irakians and the 
school of Abu Hanifa with particular venom, and 
castigated their use of the formula ara'ayta "what 
do you think of . . ., supposing . . ." as typical of the 
casuistry of the ashdb al-ra?y. 

The literary productions of Islamic juris- 
prudence begin soon after the middle of the 2nd/8th 
century (the Madjmu'- al-fifth attributed to the 
Shi'i pretender Zayd b. c Ali [q.v.], who died in 122/740, 
though of an early date, is not authentic; cf. Berg- 
strasser,in OLZ, 1922, 114-24; Strothmann, in Isl., xiii 
(1923), 27-40, 49), and from then onwards its 
development can be followed step by step from 
scholar to scholar. For 'Irak, and Kufa in particular, 
successive stages are represented, after Hammad 



(d. 120/738; see above), by the doctrines of Ibn Abl 
Layla {[q.v.] d. 148/765), of Abu Hanifa ([q.v.];d. 150/ 
767), of Abu Yusuf {[q.v.] ; d. 182/798), and of Shaybanl 
{[q.v.]; d. 189/805) respectively. Outside the line of 
doctrine represented by the isndd Abu Hanifa — 
Hammad — Ibrahim stands another scholar of 
Kufa, Sufyan al-Thawri {[q.v.]; d. 161/778); his 
doctrines are known to us through the Kitdb 
Ikhtildf al-fukahd> of Tabari {[q.v.]; d. 310/923), 
which also contains information on other early 
lawyers. The Syrian Awz5 c i {[q.v.]; d. 157/774) 
represents an archaic type of doctrine, which takes 
us very near to the beginnings of Islamic juris- 
prudence. Malik b. Anas {[q.v.]; d. 179/795) in his 
Muwatta? aimed at expounding the average doctrine 
of the school of Medina in his time. Much information 
on the opinions of Malik himself, of his disciple Ibn 
al-Kasim {[q.v.]; d. 191/806), and of the older 
authorities of Medina is contained in the Mudawwana 
of Sahnun {[q.v.]; d. 240/854). 

Shafi'i ([q.v.]; d. 204/820) belonged originally to 
the school of Medina, but he accepted the thesis of 
the Traditionists on the overriding authority of the 
traditions from the Prophet, identifying their 
contents with the sunna, defended it in vigorous 
polemics with the followers of the ancient schools, 
elaborated on its basis a new body of doctrine by 
which he cut himself off from the continuity of 
doctrine in the ancient schools, and composed in his 
Risdla the first treatise on the method of legal 
reasoning, becoming thereby the founder of the 
science of usul al-fikh [see usul]. (In contrast with 
the usul, the "roots" or sources of legal knowledge, 
the body of positive rules derived from them is called 
furu', plural of far 1 , "branches"; the earliest existing 
work of pure furu 1 , presented in a didactic manner, 
isShaybani's Kitdb al-Asl.) Shaft's writings, which 
to a great extent are cast in the form of dialogues 
with unnamed opponents and most of which were 
brought together by his disciples in a collection 
which received the name of Kitdb al-Utnm, are an 
important source for the history of Islamic juris- 
prudence in the second century. Shafi'i was not a 
mere Traditionist ; on the contrary, he deplored 
their faulty reasoning, and himself accompanied his 
reliance on traditions from the Prophet by systematic 
legal thought ('akl, ma'-kul) of exceptionally high 
quality, excluding ra'y and istihsdn and insisting 
on strict kiyds. It happened, however, that some of 
his disciples, and in particular Ahmad b. Hanbal 
{[q.v.]; d. 241/855), emphasized the traditionist 
element in his doctrine and derived their legal 
teaching exclusively from traditions, avoiding 
human reasoning as far as possible. This avoidance 
of drawing conclusions was erected into a principle 
by Dawud b. Khalaf ([q.v.]; d. 270/884), called al- 
Zahiri because he relied exclusively on the literal 
meaning (zdhir) of Kur'an and hadith and rejected 
not only ra'y and istihsdn but reasoning by kiyds 
as well. 

About the middle of the 2nd/8th century, groups 
or circles within the ancient schools of law began to 
form themselves round individual masters, such as 
the "followers of Abu Hanifa" within the school of 
Kufa, and the "followers of Malik" within the 
school of Medina. Several factors favoured this 
process, and by the middle of the 3rd/9th cen- 
tury the ancient schools of law had transformed 
themselves into "personal" schools, which perpetu- 
ated not the living tradition of a city but the doctrine 
of a master and of his disciples. In this way, the bulk 
of the ancient school of Kiifa transformed itself 



8go FI 

into the school of the IJanafls, another group of 
scholars into the school of Sufyan al-Thawri, the 
ancient school of Medina into the school of the 
Malikls, and the ancient school of Syria into that 
of Awza'I. Although Shafi'I had disclaimed any 
intention of founding a school, his disciples, being 
neither mere Traditionists nor members of another 
school, became his personal followers, and the 
doctrinal movement started by him has always been 
known as the Shafi'i school. The school of legal 
thought originated by Ahmad b. Hanbal, too, 
became known as the school of the Hanballs; this 
school never absorbed its parent movement, that of 
the Traditionists, as completely as the Ilanafl and 
Malik! schools absorbed theirs. The followers of 
Dawud b. Khalaf al-Zahirl formed the only school 
of law whose name, Zahiriyya [q.v.], is derived from 
a principle of legal theory. These and some other 
later schools of law (such as a short-lived one 
founded by Tabarl) are called madhdhib (pi. of 
madhhab, "way of thinking, persuasion"). Since 
about 700/1300 four of them only have survived in 
orthodox Islam, the Hanafl, Malikl, Shafi'I and 
rjanbali schools (cf. hanabila, ijanafiyya, mali- 
kiyya, shafi'iyya); they are regarded, and regard 
one another, as alternative and equally valid inter- 
pretations of the religious law of Islam. Notwith- 
standing their divergent doctrinal roots, the orthodox 
schools of law share a common legal theory (cf. usul) 
which asserted itself in the 3rd/gth century, and 
which accepted Shafi'i's (and the Traditionists') 
principle of the overriding authority of the traditions 
from the Prophet as the only evidence of surma but 
subordinated its practical application to the con- 
sensus of the scholars. The theory of the usul al- 
fikh is therefore of little direct importance for the 
positive doctrines of the schools of law. From the 
middle of the 3rd/oth century, too, the idea began 
to gain ground that only the great scholars of the 
past had the right to independent reasoning in law 
(iditihdd [q.v.]), and in the 4th/ioth century a con- 
sensus gradually established itself in orthodox Islam 
to the effect that all future activity would have to be 
confined to the explanation, application, and, at the 
fiiost, interpretation of the doctrine as it had been laid 
down once and for all (taklid [q.v.]). This implied the 
obligation to join one of the existing schools. Even 
under the rule of taklid, Islamic jurisprudence did 
not lack manifestations of original thought in which 
the several schools competed with and influenced one 
another. But this original thought could express 
itself freely in nothing more than abstract systematic 
constructions which affected neither the established 
doctrine of positive law nor the theory of the usul 
al-fikh. New sets of facts, too, constantly arose in 
life, and they had to be decided by the specialists 
with the traditional tools of legal science; such a 
decision is called fatwa [q.v.], and the scholar who 
gives a fatwa is called mufti. Once- recognized as 
correct by the common opinion of the scholars, the 
decisions of the muftis became part of the doctrine 
of each school. The activity of the muftis is essentially 
of the same kind, though carried out against a dif- 
ferent background, as that of the first specialists in 
religious law. 

The legal doctrines of the Kharidjis [q.v.] and 
of the Shi'a [q.v.], which split from the orthodox or 
SunnI majority on political grounds about the 
middle of the first century of Islam (ca. 660 A.D.), 
differ from those of the Sunnis on the question of 
the leadership of the community [see imam] and 
consequential questions of usul, but on other 



questions they do not differ from those of the ortho- 
dox schools of law more widely than these last differ 
from one another. From this, it must not be con- 
cluded that the features common to Kharidii. 
Shi c a, and SunnI law are older than the schisms 
which split the Islamic community within its first 
century. For a considerable period, and during the 
2nd/8th and 3rd/gth centuries in particular, these 
ancient sects remained in a sufficiently close contact 
with the Sunnis for them to adopt the doctrines which 
were being developed in the orthodox schools of law, 
introducing only such superficial modifications as 
were required by their particular political and 
dogmatic tenets. Certain doctrines which in them- 
selves were not necessarily either Shl c i or SunnI 
became adventitiously distinctive for ShI'a as 
against SunnI law. 

When the Umayyads were overthrown by the 
'Abbasids in 132/750, Islamic jurisprudence, though 
still in its formative period, had acquired its essential 
features. For reasons of dynastic policy, and in 
order to differentiate themselves from their prede- 
cessors, the c Abbasids posed as the protagonists of 
Islam, recognized Islamic law as it was being taught 
by the pious specialists as the only legitimate norm 
in Islam, and set out to translate their doctrines into 
practice. They regularly attracted specialists in 
religious law to their court and made a point of 
consulting them on problems that might come 
within their competence. At the request of the 
Caliph Harun al-Rashld, Abu Yusuf wrote his 
Kitdb al-Kharddi. a long treatise on public finance, 
taxation, criminal justice, and connected subjects. 
The kadis, who under the Umayyads had been 
appointed by the governors, were now appointed by 
the caliph, they had to be specialists in religious law, 
and they had to apply nothing but the sacred Law, 
without interference from the government [see 
icadI]. But this effort to translate into practice the 
ideal doctrine which was being elaborated by the 
specialists, was short-lived. The early specialists who 
had formulated their doctrine not on the basis of 
but in a certain opposition to Umayyad popular and 
administrative practice had been ahead of realities, 
and now the early 'Abbasids and their religious 
advisers were unable to carry the whole of society 
with them. The kadis, theoretically independent 
though they were, had to rely on the political 
authorities for the execution of their judgments, and, 
being bound by the formal rules of the Islamic law 
of evidence, their inability to deal with criminal 
cases became apparent, so that the administration of 
the greater part of criminal justice was taken over 
by the police (shurta [q.v.]). The administrative 
"investigation of complaints" [see mazalim] very 
soon led to formal Courts of Complaints being set up, 
which by their very existence show the breakdown 
of a considerable part of the administration of civil 
justice by the kadis as well. [See also siyasa]. In this 
way, a double administration of justice came into 
being, and it has prevailed in most Islamic countries, 
the competence of the kadis' tribunals being restricted 
to matters of family law, inheiitance, and wakf. 
[See mahkama]. 

This is one aspect of the tension between theory and 
practice {'ada, c urf [qq.v.]), between jurisprudence 
and customary law, which existed in Islamic law 
from its very beginnings. The most remarkable and, 
for a time, the most successful effort on the part of 
a state of high material civilization to bridge this 
gulf, was made in the Ottoman Empire [see abu 
'l-su c ud, uanun-name, SHAYim al-islam]. Islamic 



jurisprudence, too, took notice of the practice which 
it could not overcome, and tried at least to control 
and regulate it in the works on c amal, on hiyal, and 
on shurut [??•«•], which form an important branch of 
its literary productions. 

Until the early 'Abbasid period, Islamic juris- 
prudence had been adaptable and growing, but from 
then onwards it became increasingly rigid and set 
in its final mould. This essential rigidity helped it to 
maintain its stability over the centuries which saw 
the decay of the political institutions of Islam. Taken 
as a whole, it reflects and fits the social and economic 
conditions of the early 'Abbasid period. If it grew 
more and more out of touch with later developments 
of state and society, in the long run it gained more 
in power over the minds than it lost in control over 
the bodies of the Muslims. The fikh is, in the words 
of Snouck Hurgronje, a "doctrine of duties", 
the interpretation of a religious ideal not by legislators 
but by scholars, and the recognized handbooks of the 
several schools are not "codes" in the Western 
meaning of the term. Islamic law is a "jurists' law" 
par excellence: Islamic jurisprudence did not grow 
out of an existing law, it itself created it. [See also 

In British India and in French Algeria, Islamic 
jurisprudence, being fused with Western legal 
thought and affected by Western legislation, gave 
birth, respectively, to Anglo-Muhammadan law 
[see hind] and to the droit musulman alghien 
[see al-djaza'ir] both of which became independent 
legal systems. Only in the 20th century, Islamic 
Modernism, whilst accepting the postulate that 
Islam as a religion ought to regulate the sphere of 
law as well, has denied the validity of traditional 
Islamic jurisprudence. Under the influence of 
modern constitutional and social ideas, many 
institutions of Islamic law have been reshaped, 
and sometimes changed out of recognition, by 
secular legislation in a number of Islamic countries. 
Once again, jurists prepared, provoked, and guided 
a new legislation. On the other hand, the programme 
was formulated of deriving a new, modern law from 
the general formal principles which were elaborated 
by the early Islamic jurists. Both tendencies are 
inspired by the desire to put a new Islamic juris- 
prudence in the place of the old one. [See kanun]. 
Bibliography: Lane, s.v.; LA, s.v.; Taha- 
nawl, Dictionary of technical terms, 30-3. — Tradi- 
tional accounts: Muhammad b. al-Hasan al- 
Hadjwi, al-Fikr al-sdmi fi ta'rikh al-fikh al- 
isldmi, 4 vols., Rabat-Fes-Tunis 1345-9/1926- 
31; Muhammad Yusuf Musa, Muhddardt fi 
ta'rikh al-fikh al-isldmi, 3 vols., Cairo 1954-6. — 
Modern historical studies: I. Goldziher, Die 
Zdhiriten, Leipzig 1884; idem, Muh. St., ii, 66-87 
(Fr. transl. L. Bercher, Etudes sur la tradition 
islamique, Paris 1952, 79-105); idem, Vorlesungen, 
35-79 ( a 30-70, 309-21); Selected works of C. Snouck 
Hurgronje, ed. G.-H. Bousquet and J. Schacht, 
Leiden 1957; D. S. Margoliouth, The early develop- 
ment of Mohammedanism, London 1914, 65-98; 
Juynboll, Handbuch, 22-38 (Handleiding 3 * M ', 
16-32); F. Koprulu, art. Fikih, in I A (1947); 
R. Brunschvig, Polemiques meiiivales autour du 
rite de Malik, in Al-Andalus, 1950, 377-435; 
J. Schacht, The origins of Muhammadan jurispru- 
dence 3 , Oxford 1959; idem, Introduction to Islamic 
law, Oxford 1964, with detailed bibliography. — 
On foreign elements: J. Schacht, in Mimoires de 
I'Acadimie Internationale de Droit Compare - , iii/4, 
Rome 1955, 127-41, and in XII Convegno "Volta", 



Rome 1957, 197-218; on influences of Jewish law 
and ritual in particular: I. Goldziher, in RE J, 
xxviii, 78, xliii, 4; A. J. Wensinck, in Isl., i (1910), 
101 f.; E. Mittwoch, Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des 
islamischen Gebets und Kultus (Abh. Pr. Ak. W.), 
Berlin 1913. — On the literature of fikh: 
Juynboll, Handbuch, 360-3 (Handleiding, 373- 
8); N. P. Aghnides, Mohammedan theories of 
finance, New York 1916, 177-94; J. Schacht, 
Introduction, chap. 16 and bibliography. 

(J. Schacht) 
FIKR, pi. afkdr, thought, reflection. The 
Kur'an employs the 2nd and 5th forms of the root 
fkr, to urge men "to reflect". In the vocabulary of 
falsafa and Him al-kaldm, the mas dar fikr denotes the 
intellectual faculty in the act of thought, reflecting 
upon an object of intellection. It is distinguished 
from idrdk, the intellectual faculty of grasping, of 
perception. The result of the operation of fikr is 
expressed by the noun of unity fikra. 

In tasawwuf, fikr is used habitually in contrast to 
dhikr [q.v.], recollection. Fikr can thus be translated 
by reflection or meditation. In the performance of 
fikr the Sufi, concentrating upon a religious subject, 
meditates according to a certain progression of ideas 
or a series of evocations which he assimilates and ex- 
periences; in dhikr, concentrating on the object 
recollected — generally a Divine Name — , he allows 
his field of consciousness to lose itself in this object : 
hence the importance granted to the technique of 
repetition, at first verbal, later unspoken. The 
"meditations" of al-Halladj on the "night-journey" 
and "ascension" (mi'rddi) of the Prophet, or on the 
meeting of Moses and Iblis, can be taken as examples 
of fikr. Another instance of it will be found in the 
"scrutiny of conscience" (hisdb) advocated by al- 
Muhasibi. 

The problem of the respective merits of fikr and 
dhikr confronted the Sufis of the first centuries. Al- 
Hasan al-Basri insisted upon fikr. It is, he said, "the 
mirror which makes you see what good there is in 
you, and what evil". The Mu'tazila, the Karramiyya 
and the Imamiyya taught that reflection must 
precede recourse to sam'-, scriptural or traditional 
authority; hence, in their view, the superiority of 
fikr to dhikr. Al-Halladj, notes L. Massignon, "does 
not make a decision" : he considers both methods to 
be legitimate, since both must lead to the Goal, but 
only on the condition that the "initiate" ( c an/) should 
not cling to his approach as an end in itself. In 
a celebrated passage of his meditation on the mi'-rddi, 
he speaks of the "garden of dhikr" which Muhammad 
visited "without deviating", and of the "process of 
fikr" which he followed without "passing beyond". 

However, al-Halladj also seems to have given his 
preference to fikr rather than dhikr. Some of his 
texts follow this trend. But it is evident that in 
these texts fikr must not be rendered solely by 
"discursive meditation", the effort of the spirit 
following the human method of procedure, as 
distinct from the "passive" state of recollection in 
prayer. Fikr is clearly distinguished from hads, just 
as reflection is distinguished from an intellectual flash 
of illumination or intuition. But in the reply of Iblis 
to Moses, the Kitdb al-Tawdsin contrasts al-fikra 
("pure thought", following Massignon's trans- 
lation) with dhikr: "O Moses, pure thought (fikra) 
has no need of recollection (dhikr)". The fact is, al- 
Kalabadhi explains in commenting on a phrase of 
Halladj, the fruits of dhikr are refreshment for the 
soul, while meditations (afkdr) guide the initiate 
towards the single divine majesty, the reverential 



892 FIKR 

fear of God, His favours and His gifts. Dhikr appeals 
to the organs of the senses (the tongue, the physical 
heart), fikr purely to intellectual concentration. By 
means of dhikr and its rhythmical use of oral prayers 
the Sufi is almost certain to succeed in attaining 
subjective spiritual "states" {ahwdl); fikr tends to 
put him within the possibility of experiencing 
transcendant truths. 

But in the event, it was the superiority of dhikr to 
fikr which was to be most generally affirmed. There 
was distrust of the illusions which the practice of 
fikr could engender: as early as the 3rd/9th century, 
Khashish Nisa 5 ! said that, "some, by force of 
"meditation", claim to enjoy in this world the 
spiritual life of God, the angels and the prophets, 
and to feast with the huris" (quoted and trans. 
Massignon) ; whilst dhikr, though appealing as it 
does to the organs of the senses, at least has the 
merit of depriving the spirit of everything other than 
the object recollected. Monographs were written on 
dhikr, its techniques and achievements, but not on 
fikr and its methods. 

There remains the fact that the gnostic soarings 
of those who profess wahdat al-wud[ud ("Unity of 
Being") can be regarded as deriving from a fikr in 
which the use of typified symbols replaced the 
"process" of discursive reasoning. 

Bibliography: Halladj, Kitdb al-Tawdsin, ed. 

Massignon, Paris 191 3, 33, 46-7; Kalabadhl. 

Kitdb al-Ta c arruf, ed. Arberry, Cairo 1352/1934, 

74-5; L. Massignon, Lexique technique de la 

mystique musulman, Paris 1954, 114, 192; idem, 

Passion d'al-Halldj, Paris 1922, index s.v. 

(L. Gardet) 

FIKRET, TEVFIK [see tewfik fikret]. 

FIKRi, c Abd Allah Pasha, an Egyptian 
statesman, poet and prose-writer, regarded 
as one of the authors who have helped to give a 
simpler, more modern character to Arabic literary 
style. Born in 1250/1834 in Mecca where his father, 
an Egyptian officer, was serving, and later brought 
up in Cairo, he studied at al-Azhar and consorted 
with the Sufis. From 1267/1851 he was an admini- 
strative official and attracted the attention of 
Khedive Isma c Il who, in 1284/1866, chose him to 
teach Arabic, Turkish and Persian to his sons 
Tawfik, Hasan and Husayn. His biographers reveal 
him as a man of integrity, with sincere religious 
beliefs, and distinguished by his family's piety (his 
paternal grandfather c Ahd Allah taught at al- 
Azhar). He often visited Istanbul on official missions. 
In 1870 he took part in founding the Khedivial 
library, as the subordinate of c Ali Pasha Mubarak 
[q.v.] with whom subsequently he often worked. In 
1878 he was wakil of the Minister of Public Instruc- 
tion, at that time c Ali Pasha Mubarak. In 1882, for 
four months, he was himself Minister of Public 
Instruction in the ministry of al-Barudl, a follower 
of the movement of c Urabi Pasha [q.v.]. Imprisoned 
for that reason and then released, he remained 
thenceforth in obscurity. He made the pilgrimage to 
Mecca in 1302/1885, and attended the Stockholm 
Congress of Orientalists in 1889 as an official 
Egyptian delegate. He died on 11 Dhu 'l-Hidjdja 
1307/27 July 1890. 

After his death, his son Amin Pasha Fikri published 
a collection of his father's poems, letters, etc. 
under the title al-Athdr al-Fikriyya, Cairo 1315, and 
a description of his father's travels under the title 
Irshdd al-alibbd? ild mahdsin Urubbd, Cairo 1892. 
The list of his other writings is given in Brockelmann, 
II, 474 ff. and Suppl., and also in his biographies. 



Bibliography: C A1I Pasha Mubarak, Khitaf 
diadida, ii, 46 ft.; Muhammad c Abd al-Ghanl 
Hasan, c Abd Allah Fikri, 'asruhu, haydtuhu, 
adabuhu, Cairo 1946; Sayyid c InanI, c Abd Allah 
Bdshd Fikri, haydtuhu wa-dtharuhu wa-makdnatuhu 
'l-adabiyya, Cairo 1946; Zirikll, al-AHdm, k&mus 
tarddjim . . ., iv, 252-3, giving additional biblio- 
graphical information. (J. Jomier) 
FlL (At.; from Persian pil), elephant. The word 
appears in the title and first verse of Sura CV, which 
alludes to the expedition of Abraha [q.v.], but the 
Arabs were barely acquainted with this animal 
which is a native of India and Africa; consequently 
when, towards the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 
8th century, a troop of elephants arrived in Basra, 
it was a matter of curiosity for the population (see 
al-NawawI, Tahdhib, 738). The subject had already 
come up in the Kallla wa-Dimna (trans. A. Miquel, 
Paris 1957, 53), but the first Arab author truly to 
concern himself and to undertake a personal in- 
vestigation was al-Djahiz (Hayawdn, in particular 
vii, passim) who, on the basis also of the poems of 
a certain Harun b. Musa who had lived in Multan, 
collected together most of the known facts and 
beliefs relating to this huge and curious creature, 
for which the name zandabil was also used, although 
it was not really known whether that term denoted 
the male or the female. 

The outcome of a metamorphosis, it is the father 
of the pig which has a vague resemblance to it. The 
points that attract most attention, apart from its 
size, are its trunk, which serves as both nose and hand 
and is used for work and as a weapon, and its tusks 
which, some say, are hollow at the base and attain 
a weight of from 2 to 300 manns. Equally striking 
are its ugliness and its over-short neck, its huge ears 
and small eyes. The tongue is reversed, that is to 
say the tip points inwards, and were it not for this 
fault it would be able to learn to speak. In spite of 
its massive body it has a feeble cry; it runs swiftly 
and can move with agility and dexterity. As its only 
joints are in the shoulder and thigh, it is unable to 
lie down and has to sleep standing up, against a 
tree or wall; if it falls down on its side, its companions 
haul it up again by means of their trunks. It can 
swim, keeping its trunk above water in order to 
breathe. The thick secretion from its forehead is 
sweeter then musk, and is collected with the utmost 
care; the dung is a remedy to prevent conception, 
and various parts of the body are used in medicine. 
Elephants do not breed in 'Irak, and the birth of 
an elephant calf at the court of a king of Persia is 
referred to as a curiosity. In its fifth year the animal, 
whose testicles are inside the body, near the kidneys, 
is capable of reproduction. In the rutting season the 
male is endowed with extraordinary strength and 
reverts to a state of savagery, while the female 
becomes intractable and bad-tempered; once she is 
pregnant she is no longer touched by the males; she 
calves every seven years, and to find the calf it is 
necessary to search in the jungle, near to a river, 
where the mother deposits it to save it from a 
dangerous fall. The elephant calf, which is born with 
teeth, is entrusted to the care of a fayydl responsible 
for its training. In captivity, the elephant lives from 
80 to 100 years, but in the wild state its longevity is 
much greater, and certain individuals live to the age 

The elephant is very intelligent, patient and 
docile; it is able to recognize its master and under- 
stands orders given by its fayydl who, seated on its 
back, touches its forehead with a curved stick and 



talks to it in an Indian language. It possesses a 
curious gift for imitation and becomes very friendly; 
normally of a playful disposition, and in fact 
addicted to jokes, it is terribly vindictive and has the 
ability to choose the best moment to wreak its 
vengeance. It takes to flight at the approach of the 
rhinoceros, which is thought to be able to lift it up 
with its horn; similarly, the lion utterly terrifies it, 
and the cat profits from its resemblance to the king 
of beasts, so much so that one way of effectively 
dealing with a force containing war-elephants is, 
on their approach, to release a quantity of cats which 
have been kept in readiness in sacks. Its worst 
enemy is, however, a small creature called the zabrafr, 
which kills it by spraying it with its urine. 

The Arab authors are aware that the elephant 
lives in Africa also, but in the wild state, and al- 
Mas'udi (Murudi, iii, 5-7) relates how the Zand] set 
about killing it and taking its tusks. Al-Dimashki, 
for his part, gives details of the way in which a wild 
elephant is captured by trapping it in a pit; men 
wearing brightly coloured clothes maltreat it and 
strike it, but a trainer, dressed in white, drives them 
away and starts to tame the animal by giving it 
food; after a certain time the hunters return, and 
the same manoeuvre is repeated until the elephant 
has enough trust in the fayydl to allow Itself to be 
ridden away. 

To judge by the tales of travellers, geographers 
and historians, the various Indian sovereigns used 
by tradition to keep a varying but very large number 
of elephants for ceremonial use and for war. With the 
body shielded by bands of iron and cork, and the 
trunk protected by a curved sabre (hartal), each war- 
elephant was accompanied by 500 men who in turn 
preceded 5,000 horsemen. Ibn Battuta says that he 
had seen some trained for executions. 

The existence of certain elephants in 'Irak is 
attested by the texts ; thus, it was on a grey elephant 
offered by an Indian king to al-Ma'mfln that al- 
Mu'tasim in 223/838 had his prisoner Babak [q.v.] 
carried to Samarra, before handing him over to the 
executioner; similarly, at about the same period, al- 
Djahiz was able to see some for himself and to take 
part in conversations in which the respective merits 
of the camel and the elephant were debated. In 
general, however, this animal remained purely an 
object of curiosity throughout the Muslim world 
west of India, with the possible exception of East 
and West Africa. On the other hand, ivory was well 
known and was used in the making of various 
articles [see c adj]. 

When seen in a dream, the elephant generally 
presages some important business, but it is capable 
of more varied and subtle interpretations. 

Bibliography: Djahiz, Ifawaydn, index; 

Mas'udI, Murudi, index; Damiri, Uaydt al- 

hayawdn, s.v.; Kazwini, ed. Wiistenfeld, i, 400; 

Dimashkl, ed. Mehren, 156; Ibn Battuta, ed. 

Defremery and Sanguinetti, iii, 330, 354, iv, 45; 

Ibn al-Baytar, Traiti des simples, ed. Leclerc, iii, 

51; M. Perron, Ndcirt, ii, 404-17, 465-74; R. 

Mauny, Tableau giographique de I'Ouest africain 

au moyen dge, Dakar 1961, 264-5. 

(J. Ruska-[Ch. Pellat]) 

As beasts of war. The use in western Asia of 
elephants for war stems from India. They were used 
in the warfare described in the Mahdbhdrata and their 
tactical use is discussed in Kautilya's Arthaidstra. 
From this treatise we learn certain facts which 
remain valid in the Indo-Persian world of the Islamic 
period: that elephants were regarded as a royal 



monopoly and private possession of them was for- 
bidden, and that they might be provided with 
armour plating and have mounted on their backs 
archers, swordsmen and mace-bearers (cf. B. P. Sinha, 
The art of war in ancient India 600 B.C.-300 A.D., in 
Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale, iv, 1957, 132-6, and 
S. H. Hodivala, Studies in Indo-Muslim history, 
Bombay 1939, 139-40). From India, their use passed 
to Achaemenid Persia. Alexander the Great first 
met Persian elephants when he defeated Darius III 
at Arbela in 331 B.C.; the Greek rulers in Bactria 
used them; Seleucus I introduced them to Syria, 
and the later Seleucids used them against Rome. 

The Sasanids regularly used war elephants (Mas- 
'udI, Murudi, ii, 230; Christensen, L'Iran sous les 
Sassanides 1 , 208). At Kadisiyya in 14/635, the Persian 
general Rustum deployed thirty of them in his 
centre and on his wings, and their appearance spread 
terror amongst the Bedouins; the Arabs finally 
stopped them by cutting their girths and dislodging 
the troop-laden howdahs, and also by attacking 
vulnerable parts like the eyes and trunks (Sir W. 
Muir, The Caliphate, its rise, decline and fall 1 , Edin- 
burgh 1915, 102 ff.). Despite new contacts with the 
Persian world, the military use of elephants did not 
spread during the Umayyad and early 'Abbasid 
periods. They were imported into the Caliphal lands 
from the fringes of the Indian world, scil. Kabul, 
Makran and Sind (cf. Tabari, i, 2708, and Ibn al- 
Athlr, vii, 89), but they were mainly used as stately 
mounts on ceremonial occasions; the Caliph al- 
Mansur is said to have favoured them for this 
(Murudi, iii, 18-20). The Buwayhid <Adud al-Dawla 
had a number of war elephants, fuyul mukdtila, 
which he used in battle, but it is not recorded that 
they played any significant part in the fighting 
(Miskawayh, Eclipse of the 'Abbasid Caliphate, ii, 



368, t 



', 402). 



fas the Ghaznavids, the first Islamic dynasty 
whose empire spanned both the Persian and northern 
Indian worlds, who first used elephants in large 
numbers for military purposes and who first assigned 
them a definite place in their tactical theory. The 
next two centuries, the 5th/nth and the 6th/i2th, 
were the heyday of the elephant as a military weapon 
in the Islamic world. Sebiiktigln and Mahmud of 
Ghazna captured elephants in hundreds from the 
Indian princes. These beasts fell within the Sultan's 
fifth of plunder. Their use was jealously guarded by 
the Sultans and by their successors in northern India, 
the Ghurids and the Slave Kings of Delhi, and only 
as an exceptional mark of favour were they bestowed 
on great men of state. Armour plating was often 
placed over their heads and faces. In battle, they 
were usually placed in the front line; their metal 
accoutrements and ornaments were jangled to make 
a terrifying din, and they were then stampeded 
towards the enemy. This tactic was used with de- 
moralizing effect on the Karakhanids in 398/1008 
and 416/1025 (cf. C. E. Bosworth, Ghaznevid military 
organisation, in Der Islam, xxxvi (i960), 61-4, and 
M. Nazim, The life and times of Sulfan Mahmud 
of Ghazna, Cambridge 1931, 139). 

Influenced by Ghaznavid practice, the sporadic 
use of elephants is recorded in the empire of the 
Great Saldjuks from the time of Berk-yaruk onwards, 
especially in Khurasan and the east. At the battle 
outside Ghazna in 510/1116-17, Sandjar's Saldjuk 
troops were initially thrown into confusion at the 
sight of the fifty elephants of the Ghaznavid Arslan 
Shah, but they dealt with the beasts by ripping open 
the soft under-belly of the leading elephant and 



8 94 1 

stampeding it back into its own camp (Bosworth, 
op. cit., 64). When Sandjar defeated his nephew 
MahmOd b. Muhammad at S5wa in 513/1119, he had 
in his forces forty elephants with troops mounted 
on them (Ibn al-Djawzi, al-Muntazam, ix, 205; Ibn 
al-Athir, x, 387). The Ghurids used elephants in their 
warfare with the Kh w arizm Shahs, and beasts captured 
from the Ghurids were used by 'Ala 5 al-DIn Muham- 
mad for the defence of Samarkand against the Mon- 
gols in 617/1220 (Djuwayni, tr. Boyle, i, 117, 322-3). 
Although the Kara Khitay used elephants captured 
from the Kh'arizm Shah for their assault on Balasa- 
ghun, the use in war of these slow-moving and cum- 
bersome beasts did not commend itself to the swift- 
moving Mongol cavalrymen. After he had taken 
Samarkand, Cingiz Khan refused to allot fodder for 
the elephants captured there, and they were turned 
out in the steppe to die of hunger (Djuwayni, tr. 
Boyle, i, 120, 360). 

Outside Muslim India, elephants never thereafter 
regained their popularity as tactical weapons of war, 
although they were still used in the Persian world 
for ceremonial occasions. 

Bibliography (in addition to the references 
given above) : B. Spuler, Iran in friih-islamischer 
Zeit, 492-3; C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: their 
empire in Afghanistan and eastern Iran 004-1040, 
Edinburgh 1963, 1 15-18. (C. E. Bosworth) 

Iconography. The earliest known representa- 
tion of an elephant in Islamic art is the so-called 
Elephant Silk, perhaps from Khurasan, which was 
originally in the church at St. Josse-sur-Mer, Pas-de- 
Calais, and is now in the Louvre. In company with 
other decorative motifs, it shows elephants in yellow 
confronting each other which have been reproduced 
in terms of inlay. The colours are a deep purple for 
the ground, with clear blue and tan which may have 
once been red. Each elephant bears elaborate trap- 
pings and a saddle-cloth. Although the colours are 
sumptuous enough, the design of this piece of silk 
is rather crude. The Kufic inscription in yellow below 
the two elephants mentions the name of Abu '1- 
Mansur Bakht-tegin, an Amir of Khurasan whose 
death took place in 349/960. Part of a similar elephant 
pattern is found on a fragment of silk at Siegburg 
which is of uncertain date. The treatment is again 
very stylised, the elephant having an excessively 
thin trunk and jointed legs. Mez {Renaissance, 437; 
English trans., 465) mentions that elephant designs 
were used in the decoration of carpets made at Hira. 
In this connexion some fragments of a carpet bearing 
an elephant's head are now in the Musee des Arts 
Decoratifs at Paris. 

Elephants appear only very rarely in Islamic 
metal work. Some bronze incense-burners, supported 
by small figures of elephants, are known. In the 
Pennsylvania Museum of Art is a panel from Rayy 
showing a king seated on a throne which rests on 
the backs of elephants. This may possibly represent 
Toghru II (d. 590/H93-4). 

Several early examples are known of the elephant 
in its role as one of the pieces in the game of chess. 
These ivory chessmen can be paralleled by a small 
black Sasanid elephant which may have formed part 
of a set. According to Kuhnel, one of these, in the 
Bargello Museum at Florence, is Mesopotamian 
work of the 3rd/gth century. Another, in which 
the elephant is shown picking up a smaller animal 
with its trunk, was in the possession of Dr. F. R. 
Martin, who states that it is Timurid. Two ivory 
caskets from Cordova are in the Victoria and Albert 
Museum. A panel on one of these represents a person 



of rank travelling in state upon an elephant. This 
bears the date 359/969-70. Another, which is prob- 
ably early 5th/nth century, has a number of circular 
panels each bearing a pair of different animals facing 
each other. One panel contains elephants with bushy 
tails upon the backs of which peacocks are resting. 

In contrast to most of the elephants mentioned 
above, those depicted on Islamic pottery are more 
faithfully drawn. Examples are fairly numerous, the 
majority showing a king with two or more attendants 
riding in an elaborate howdah. This may represent 
Bahram GOr's return from Sind. One plate in the 
Possession Moussa is dated 616/1219-20. Others, 
with the same scene, are in the Freer Gallery at 
Washington, the Possession Rabenou and the 
Collection Allan Balch. These are mostly min&H 
ware from Rayy, belonging to the first half of the 
7th/i3th century. A spotted elephant with rich 
caparison appears on a star-shaped basin in a 
Kashan lustre ware. Other ceramic objects of 
artistic merit with elephants are a basin from Amul 
with some Chinese characteristics now in the Art 
Institute of Chicago, a bowl and a pitcher in the 
Louvre, and a plate in the Kelekian Collection 
which was formerly on exhibition at the Victoria 
and Albert Museum. 

Copies of the Mana.fi'- al-hayawdn of Ibn 
Bukhtishu' with their wealth of animal paintings 
provide us with several pictures of elephants in which 
an attempt has been made to show every detail. 
The older copies were made and illustrated in the 
7th/i3th century. A bluish elephant with gilded 
saddle and a trunk composed of a series of loops 
(PI. xx) appears in a British Museum manuscript of this 
work (OR. 2784, f. I36r°). Another, better known, is the 
famous Elefantenpaar in a manuscript illustrated 
towards the end of the 7th/i3th century for Ghazan 
Khan at Maragha which is now in the Morgan 
Library at New York. The two elephants, each 
adorned with gold circlets bearing bells around 
foreheads and ankles, are embracing each other with 
their trunks against a background of foliage. The 
smaller elephant is blue with darker stripes; the larger 
is grey-brown with lighter stripes. Elephants' heads 
in gold occasionally appear among the very varied 
marginal decorations of some 9th/i5th century 
manuscripts, notably the pocket encyclopaedia in 
the British Museum (ADD. 27261) which is dated 
814/1410-11, an anthology of approximately the 
same date, and a Shdh-ndma in the Gulbenkian 
Foundation at Lisbon (Nos. 117 and 121 in Arte do 
Oriente Isldmico, Lisbon, 1963). These are very finely 
drawn and, for the first time, an accurate 
representation of an elephant is encountered. 

The best sources of elephant miniatures are illustrat- 
ed copies of the Shdh-ndma of Firdawsl. Scenes 
like Rustam killing the White Elephant or lassoing 
the Khakan of Cin, the death of Talhand (Pl.xxii), 
and Iskandar's battle with Fur have all provided 
much scope for the portrayal of elephants, ranging 
from exact drawings to figures of somewhat bizarre 
appearance, like those in mediaeval bestiaries {e.g. 
B.M. MS. Harl. 3244 t 39r°). In some Shdh-ndma 
illustrations the heroes bear the device of an elephant 
on their banners. Other literary themes in which 
elephants appear — but rather less frequently — are 
the story in the Mathnawi of RumI of the elephant 
who trampled to death the travellers who had eaten 
her calf (PI. xxi), the 'AdjdHb al-makhlukdt of 
Kazwini, and the Court of Solomon (Sulayman) where 
an elephant sometimes appears among the animals 
grouped around the throne with angels and djinn. 



The earliest appearance of an elephant in the 
Islamic art of India is probably an ivory chessman 
bearing an Arabic inscription on its base in the 
Cabinet des Medailles of the Bibliotheque Nationale. 
This piece was reputed to have been sent by Harfln 
al-Rashld to Charlemagne, and certainly formed part 
of the Treasure of St. Denis as early as 1505. The 
elephant is shown in battle, unhorsing an enemy 
rider. On its back a king sits in a howdah, the 
exterior of which is fashioned in the form of a wall, 
guarded by soldiers with swords and round bucklers. 
Although some authorities have dated it much 
earlier, the latest study suggests that it was made 
in Gudjarat in the 8th/i4th or 9th/i5th century. 
Two stone elephants which were discovered in the 
Red Fort of Dihli now flank one of the doorways. 
It is thought that they were made in the reign of 

With the flowering of Mughal painting which began 
during this period, elephants appear with increasing 
frequency. Several of the finest examples from the 
artistic point of view are in the Akbar-ndma at the 
Victoria and Albert Museum. One shows Akbar cross- 
ing a river mounted on an elephant. A painting of the 
reign of Djahangir depicts elephants fighting and is 
in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. 

Even though" elephant heads are found in one of 
the Fatih Albums at Istanbul, these have been 
proved by Ettinghausen to be Timurid work of the 
9th/i5th century. One example is known of a very 
life-like elephant's head as a gold marginal ornament 
in a British Museum manuscript (OR. 2708) which 
was apparently painted during the third quarter 
of the ioth/i6th century. Otherwise most of the 
relatively few Ottoman drawings of elephants 
resemble more or less that upon which Sitt Khatun. 
the wife of Mehemmed (Muhammad) II, is seated 
in a Byzantine miniature now in the Bibliotheca 
Marciana at Venice. This elephant is closely akin to 
those depicted in mediaeval Western manuscripts. 
A very similar elephant is to be seen in the Humdyun- 
ndme of c Ali Celebi (B.M. ADD. 15153, f. 388r°, dated 
997/1589) illustrating the story of King Hilar of India. 
In the field of sculpture, there is a stone slab at 
Konya showing an elephant being pursued by a 
griffin. This was built into the wall of the Saldjukid 
citadel, dating from the early part of the 7th/i3th 
century. 

Bibliography: Survey of Persian Art, iii, 
2002-3; pl. 186, 604a, 663, 671, 692a-b, 758b; 
G. Wiet, L'exposition d'art persan, Cairo 1935, 
pl. 28; E. Kuhnel, Islamische Kleinhunst, Berlin 
1925, 194; J. Beckwith, Caskets from Cordoba, 
London, H.M.S.O., i960, 29, pl. 19. See the article 
c A2i, pl. 2, fig. 2; B. Gray and D. Barrett, The 
painting of India, Lausanne 1963, pl. 91; Ajit 
Ghosh, Some old Indian ivories, in Rupam, No. 32 
(Oct. 1927) ; Oriental Art (New Series) i/2 (1955), 51 ; 
T. Arnold and A. Guillaume (edd.), The legacy of 
Islam, Oxford 1931, 134 and fig. 43. 

(G. M. Meredith-Owens) 
al-FIL, is the title of the early Meccan Sura cv 
which deals with God's judgment on the "men of the 
Elephant". This is an allusion to a story which must 
have been very familiar to the Meccan contempora- 
ries of the Prophet; the background of the allusion 
is explained by the commentators and historians as 
follows. The Yemenite king Abraha [q.v.], bent on a 
policy of destroying the power of the Meccan 
sanctuary, led an expedition against Mecca, hoping 
to destroy the Ka'ba, and the expeditionary troops 
were supported by an elephant (some versions say, 



more than one). But on arriving at the frontier of 
Meccan territory, the elephant kneeled down and 
refused to advance further towards Mecca, although 
when his head was turned in any other direction he 
moved. Flights of birds then came and dropped 
stones on the invading troops, who all died. The 
authority of 'Ikrima [q.v.] is given for the rationaliz- 
ing explanation that they were in fact smitten by an 
epidemic of smallpox. Abraha himself is said to have 
been afflicted with a loathsome disease and carried 
back to Yemen to die. For the student of Islam, the 
main relevance of the episode is that the birth of the 
Prophet is said to have taken place at this time, in 
the "year of the Elephant". And according to the 
commonly accepted chronology of the Prophet's life, 
this event would have to be dated in or around 

Not unnaturally, the South Arabian inscriptions 
contain no direct reference to this disaster. The 
possibilities involved are, however, illustrated by 
an earlier occasion described in the Murayghan 
inscription, Ryckmans 506. This records that while 
Abraha was campaigning in central Arabia against 
Ma'add, who were subject to the suzerainty of the 
kingdom of Hira, another part of the South Arabian 
army was operating in the Hidjaz and inflicted a 
defeat on a tribal confederation of the 'Amir b. 
Sa'sa'a [q.v.] at the oasis of Turaba (approximately 
100 km. due east of Ta'if). This is dated in 662 of 
the Sabaean era, i.e., the late forties or early fifties 
of the sixth century A.D.; in any case it cannot be 
later than 554 A.D., since it mentions al-Mundhir 
(who was assassinated in that year) as king of Hira. 
How much later than this we can reasonably date 
the "year of the Elephant" is problematical. But the 
fairly substantial cluster of texts from the decade 
or so preceding the Murayghan inscription, coupled 
with the complete cessation of South Arabian 
records from shortly thereafter (our latest being a 
private text of 665 of the Sabaean era), tend to 
suggest that it is somewhat unlikely that Abraha 
and his kingdom continued so to flourish as to be 
able to stage a full scale attack on Mecca, until so 
late as 570 A.D. 

A striking proposal advanced by C. Conti Rossini 
(JA, xi ser., xviii, 30-2) deserves a passing mention, 
although it has not been endorsed by general appro- 
val. This is that the story as we know it is a con- 
tamination of two records of South Arabian attacks 
on Mecca: that by Abraha, and a much earlier one 
led by the Aksumite king Afilas, whom numismatic 
evidence assigns to around 300 A.D. It was at or 
shortly after this time that the kingdom of Aksum 
did in fact exercise a short-lived hegemony over 
South Arabia, and a military enterprise further north 
is not impossible. Conti Rossini appeals to this event 
in order to suggest that a conflated story of this 
nature was the one known to the Prophet's con- 
temporaries, and that al-fil in this context is a later 
corruption of the name Afilas. 

Bibliography: See the bibliography cited 

under abraha. (A. F. L. Beeston) 

FI C L, "action", is regarded as a noun derived 
from the verb fa'ala yaf-al inf. faH, "to do" (Lane, 
vi, 2420a, b). This noun is the technical term in 
Arabic grammar for denoting the verb. Where tra- 
ditional English grammar distinguishes between eight 
"parts of speech", the grammar of the Arabs estab- 
lished only three principal divisions: ism, fiH, harf. 
This tripartite division into noun, verb and particle 
came to the Arabs from Aristotelian logic and not 
from the grammar of the Greeks; this fact seems 




Elephant, 7th/i3th century. British Museum, OR. 2784, fol. 1 




The elephant killing the travellers who had eaten her calf. Miniature in the Mathnawl of Djalal al-Din 
Rumi, written c. 937/153°- 

British Museum, ADD. 27262, fol. 



PLATE XXII 




Gav being shown the body of Talhand. Minia 



)f Firdawsi's She 
British Mus 



dma, dated 994/1586. 
a, ADD. 27302, foi. 51. 



PLATE XXIII 




1 
H 

m 
\ 

& 

>. 

f 

4 
t 



Miniature from the Persian translation of the Bdbur-ndma by c Abd Al-Rahim Khan, 
about the close of the ioth/i6th century. British Museum, OR. 3714, fol. 352. 



896 F 

sufficiently established (see Arabica, iv, 14-5 and 
Traite, 23-4). Acquaintance with the latter would 
have given Arabic grammar a different organization, 
something like the parts of speech referred to above, 
which in essence derive precisely from this Greek 
grammar through the intermediary of the Latin 
grammarians. Besides, a division which establishes 
the noun and the verb as the principal categories 
finds its justification in general linguistics (see 
Traiti, § 53). 

The Kitdb of Sibawayh (i, ch. I) starts with the 
enunciation of this main division: ism, fiH, fiarf. Its 
definition of the verb (a) on the one hand stresses 
the origin of the personal forms of the verb: amma 
'1-fiH fa-amthilat ukhidhat min lafy ahddth al-asma? : 
these are the 'forms taken from the word expressing 
the "happenings" of nouns' [the infinitives]; this is 
already the Basri theory of the infinitive-masdar, 
that is, the 'origin' of the verb ; hadath, pi. ahddth (inf. 
of hadatha («) "to happen, take place") can be 
well translated by "happening", a meaning very 
close to the idea of "process", used in modern 
general linguistics to define the verb; (6) on the 
other hand expresses the temporal value of the 
verb: buniyat (they have been constructed) li-md 
madd (past), wa-li-md yakun wa-lam yaka c (future), 
wa-md huwa kd'in lam yankati 1 (present). 

Thus, from the very start, so far as can be traced, 
a temporal value is attributed to the verb as some- 
thing self-evident, requiring no justification. We 
have here the indication that this was an accepted 
doctrine, accepted as something established, and not 
the fruit of the personal investigations of the Arab 
grammarian; for the latter, always so ready to 
explain or legitimize everything, would have advanced 
reasons or reasonings in support of any basic defini- 
tion which he had drawn up. The same holds 
good for the tripartite division, simply stated. Like 
the latter, in fact, the temporal values of the verb 
came to the Arabs from Aristotelian logic (as has 
been said above), but this fact does in no way 
impair the originality of their construction of gram- 
mar (see Arabica, iv, 16 and Traiti, 25). 

The theory of the infinitive-masdar has been 
challenged by grammarians of the Kufa tradition 
(Ibn al-Anbari, K. al-Insdf, disputed question no. 28, 
ed. Weil). But the whole grammatical tradition 
teaches the temporal value of the verb, regarding 
this as the feature that distinguishes it from the noun 
(ism) (likewise Ibn Ya c Ish, according to 26, 1. 10-1, 
in spite of what is said later). 

The definition given by the Mufassal of al- 
Zamakhsharl is clear: al-fiH ma dalla '■ala 'ktirdn 
fiadath bi-zamdn [muhassal] (§ 402) "the verb is that 
which indicates the connexion of an event with a [de- 
termined] time" : for the noun (ism), the contrary (§ 2). 

Ibn Ya'ish blames the vagueness of ma: for a 
strict definition by closest genus and specific diffe- 
rence, he requires a more precise word, halima or 
lafza (912, 1. 2). As for mufiassal, put by us in 
brackets as a reminder of the insistence of certain 
writers (according to 911, 1. 6), on the need to 
distinguish the infinitive from the personal forms 
of the verb, Ibn Ya'ish states that this is needless: 
the masdar is clearly enough distinguished in itself; 
it too is verb but it expresses time in another way 
(min khdridj, min lawdzimih); see 911, 1. 8-13. 

He also finds fault, in the definition, with the 
predominance allowed to the connexion with time 
in regard to hadath. The verb in itself indicates both 
things, the hadath and the time of its existence 
(911, 1. 9), but the verb was not established 



to indicate this very connexion: it indicates a 
hadath in connexion, the latter comes secondarily, 
wa'l-iktirdnwudjida taba'an (912, 1. 5-6). However, 
Ibn al-Hadjib (Kdfiya, in the Sharif, al-Kdfiya, 
ii, 207, 1. 23) had said: al-fiH ma dalla '■old 
ma'nd fi nafsih muktarin bi-ahad al-azmina al- 
thaldtha, without mentioning hadath; and al- 
Astarabadhi repeats: kull ism fa-huwa ghayr 
muktarin, kull fiH fa-huwa muktarin (ibid., 1. 26 and 
30), "a noun of any kind has no connexion [with 
time]"; "a verb of any kind connotes the connexion 
[with time]". Remark: al-Sirafi, in his Sharh of the 
Kitdb (ms. Cairo 2 , II, 134) professes, for the definition 
of the verb, the doctrine of the hadath muktarin bi- 
zamdn mufiassal (Part 1, p. 8). 

As to the definition of the Kitdb, related in the 
beginning of this article, al-Sirafi explains amthila 
and ahddth al-asma' as follows: amthila: ardda 
abniya because the abniyat al-af c dl are various 
(mukhtalifa), i.e. fa'-ala, faHla ja'ula, etc. (p. 8 at 
the end). The ahddth are al-masddir allati tuhdi- 
thuha 'l-asmd' and the asmd* are the ashdb al-asmd' 
wa-hum al-fdHlun (p. 9, lines 3-4). Afterwards he 
expresses the Basri theory of the masdar origin of 
the verb, contained in amthila ukhidhat min lafz 
ahddth al-asmd'. 

This shows clearly enough how essential the Arabs 
considered the temporal value to be, in the definition 
of the verb. They ignored the aspect. In ancient 
Greek, an important part devolved upon aspect in 
verbal value; at the same time the Greeks did 
not recognize it as such (it is an acquisition of 
modern linguistics). The Arabs' notions of gram- 
matical tenses being derived from Aristotelian logic, 
they were led along a false trail, under conditions most 
unfavourable for considering their aspect-governed 
verb from the point of view of time: immediately 
came the difficulty of differentiating three tenses, 
past, present and future, under a system which only 
contrasts two forms. They called the one modi. Ibn 
al-Kfltiyya (d. 367) said mustakbal "future" for the 
other (K. al-Afdl, 1 1. 18, 2 1. 18, 3 1. 3, etc., ed. Ign. 
Guidi). He was logically contrasting two terms of 
the same order, but the present was left aside. 
Grammatical tradition habitually uses muddri' 
"resembling (the agent noun)", but formally the 
term is no longer opposed to mddi; it enters into 
the grammatical speculations on the system of 
kiyds (Traite', 6). 

For better or worse, the Arab grammarians were 
only able to systemati2e the value of the verb in 
respect of time by incorporating with the verb 
certain external elements: sa-, sawfa, had, which 
they call its khasd'is "its properties" (Muf., § 402). 
Now it is important to understand the true position : 
aspect characterizes the verb in classical Arabic; 
the latter makes a contrast between an accomplished 
(conjugated by suffixes), and an unaccomplished form 
(conjugated by prefixes and suffixes), which are thus 
designated by an important but not exclusive 
nuance of aspect. The tense emerges from the phrase, 
without any established system (for the past, see 
below). 

With an unaccomplished form, the future requires 
a mark : the verbal indicators sa-, sawfa, for exam- 
ple: kalld sa-yaHamuna thumma kalld sa-yaHa- 
muna (Kur'an, LXXVIII, 4-5), "No! they will know 
[it]. No! No! they will know [it]!", or else a temporal 
adverb, a temporal adverbial complement, etc., or 
simply the situation. The present results spontane- 
ously from the absence of this mark, e.g. : li-ma 
tabki "Why are you weeping?" 



For the past, a distinction must be made: the 
accomplished gives the tense of the narrative for 
historical accounts; the verb then expresses the past 
tense, corresponding to the French passi simple. 
But this mddi is also the accomplished form, and the 
language possesses only this one single form for 
historic narrative and conversation, according to the 
distinction formulated by E. Benveniste (Les 
relations de temps dans le verbe francais, in BSL, 
liv/i (1959), 69-82). It often indicates something 
resulting, it may be merely a resultative or a simple 
accomplished form without any temporal value. It 
therefore cannot be called purely and simply a tense, 
a mddi (see Esquisse, 85-8; Etudes, 3: Temps et 
aspect, 170-7). The examples quoted can be examined 
in the light of the above distinction (published only 
in 1959), and the part played by the phrase and the 
verbal indicators will be noted. 

As to the division of the verb, Arab grammarians 
teach: maHumlmadjhul = known\unknown; this re- 
ferring to the agent. In fact, the Arabic verb falls into 
two divisions: the verb with agent (the subject being 
considered as the agent) and the verb of quality (the 
subject being simply the thing qualified). The verb 
with agent is subdivided: 

a) agent pure and simple: fa c ala yafHjulu, like 
daraba (i) "to strike", talaba (u) "to ask". 

b) agent with an interest: faHla yafalu, like 
rabiha (a) "to gain", sakira (a) "to get drunk". This 
category includes part of faHla. 

c) agent unknown: fuHla yuf-alu, like duriba, 
rubiha. 

Agentive is a good term for the first two as opposed 
to the third: the madjhul, to turn to the Arabic 
designation for lack of an appropriate English term. 
When wishing to denote the second specifically, one 
can use the term "verb with interested agent". 

The verb of quality (or qualitative verb) includes 
the whole form of fa'ula yafulu (with two excep- 
tions), e.g. : karuma (u) "to become generous" and 
the other part of faHla yaf-alu, which is thus divided 
into two: the verb with interested agent, described 
above, and the verb of quality, e.g.: kabira (a) "to 
become old". 

The verb of quality is not static. It signifies: "to 
acquire a quality", or "to become such and such" 
(according to the quality in question), karuma "to 
become karim (generous)"; or else as a consequence 
of the acquisition: "to have a quality", or "to be 
such and such", it is a resultative, karuma "to be 
karim (generous)". 

The madjhul is the verb whose agent is not known 
or, if known, remains unexpressed and cannot be ex- 
pressed: it is the fiH ma lam yusamma fdHluh, accord- 
ing to the expression of Muf. (116, 1. 5). If it is used 
with a person as the subject, e.g., duriba Zayd, from the 
fact that Zayd is the subject of the verb, attention is 
concentrated on him, the idea of enduring takes shape 
to some extent, it may predominate and in that case 
we are led to translate by a passive: "Zayd was 
beaten", instead of "One has beaten Zayd", which 
would have revealed that the agent was unknown. 
This is to be judged according to the context. But none 
the less the Arabic verb remains the madjhul. It 
cannot be coupled with "a complement of a passive 
verb", contrarily to its morphological character. 
One sees how deceptive it is to call fuHla "passive". 

The impersonal verb exists in classical Arabic, al- 
though the Arab grammarians have not spoken of it; 
it exists, it can be constructed on any transitive 
indirect verb with agent (this being very widely 
interpreted, see the examples, Esquisse, 160), giving 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



L 897 

it the form of madjhul which remains invariable in 
the 3rd person singular. This is the impersonal 
madjhul, which provides the perfect example of the 
"verb whose agent is unknown". With the personal 
verb we can say: kharadjtu min al-ddr "I left the 
house", nazaltu 'aid 'Amr "I went down to 'Amr's"; 
in the impersonal, khuridja min al-ddr , nuzila 'aid 
'Amr: "they went out of the house", "they went 
down to "Amr". These verbs are often difficult to 
translate exactly, because for each of them we 
need to find the corresponding impersonal expression; 
in its absence "they" is used, as in the preceding 
examples. 

Some verbs have come to the point of acquiring an 
impersonal usage without taking the form of the 
madjhul: kafd, badd, rd'a, habba (see Brockelmann, 
Grundriss, ii, 124-5; A. Spitaler, ma ra c a-hu ilia bi- 
und verwandtes, in Serta Monacensia, Leiden 1952, 
171-83); an example: wa-kafd bi 'lldhi shahid"* 
(Kur'an, IV, 81/79), "it suffices with Allah as 

Arab grammarians have recognized a djdmid or 
ghayr mutasarrif verb, like 'asd, ni'ma, laysa, as 
opposed to the mutasarrif verb which possesses all 
its verbal forms: mddi, etc. or nomino-verbal forms: 
n. ag., etc. (Diet, of T. T., 1143, 1. 7-9). But they 
have not recognized the impersonal verb. They 
judged the impersonal madjhul (e.g.: nuzila '■aid 
'Amr), as if it were the madjhul of a direct transitive, 
acting on the meaning of maful bih (see Etudes, 
167-8; on their kind of conception of al-fiH al- 
muta'addi, the transitive verb, Muf. §§ 432-3, Ibn 
Ya c Ish 966-71, especially 970 1. 11-8). This lacuna 
is the logical consequence of their ignorance of the 
idea of subject and its role in grammar, for the 
impersonal verb is based throughout on this notion 
of the subject. The impersonal verb must, however, 
find a place in any accurate account of the morpho- 
logy of the classical Arabic verb. 

The Arabic verb presents contrasts: on the one 
side, great simplicity, on the other side complexity. 
Simplicity: in personal moods only two verbal forms, 
one acomplished, one unaccomplished, which are suf- 
ficient to give an opposition of aspect, and one impe- 
rative (2nd person) ; one conjugation, "the common 
conjugation" (Esquisse, 80-5), which employs the same 
prefixes or suffixes for verbs of all kinds, triliteral and 
derived forms, quadriliteral and derived forms, 
variations resulting from phonetic accidents arising 
from the combination of these prefixes or suffixes 
with the verbal root. The simplicity of the internal 
flexion of vowels which, by an interplay of 
contrasts between the three vowels a, i, u, charac- 
terizes the verb in its divisions agentive\madjhul, 
not only in the simple triliteral or quadriliteral 
verb but in all derived forms for every agent 
verb; moreover, the simplicity of the external 
flexion of vowels which determines the moods: 
yaful-u (indicative), yaful-a (subjunctive), yaful 
(jussive). Complexity: the multitude of derived 
forms: 14 for the triliteral verb, 3 for the quadriliteral 
verb ; the multitude of forms of the infinitive or noun 
of action for the simple triliteral verb: Wright (Ar. 
Gr.', 1 10-2) lists 44 of them, either rare or common. 

But these numerous derived forms have one 
advantage : they allow one to express synthetically 
notions which, in French, must be enunciated 
separately in accordance with its analytical character, 
e.g.: farasa (») "to devour" (a prey, wild beast), 
farrasa "to cause to be devoured" (a prey), afrasa 
"to allow his flock to be devoured" (shepherd), 
taddrabu "they fought each other", etc. They con- 

57 



898 F: 

tribute considerably to the synthetic character of 
the Arabic language. 

Affective language expresses itself through the 
Arabic verb. Briefly, we may mention the 2nd 
fa"ala intensive form and the 5th tafa"ala which is 
correlative to it; the so-called "rare" forms, with 
gemination (14th form) or repetition (12th and 
13th forms), a procedure that was abandoned; 
quadriliteral formations, especially by repetition of 
a biliteral element (type 1212) (Esquisse, 102-3). In 
addition, the energetic. 

The energetic forms a part of the "common 
conjugation". It is formed by the suffix -anna or 
-nna, most often used, added to the unaccomplished 
in its jussive (or apocopated) form and to the impera- 
tive. It gives a vigorous expression to a personal 
feeling: conviction in an affirmation or negation, 
astonishment or impatience in interrogation. It is 
used especially to emphasize an expression of an act 
of will: an order, prohibition, threat, promise, wish. 
After an oath the energetic always occurs (if one 
uses the unaccomplished form), and in addition 
the corroborative lam (examples, Wright, ii, 42A). 
Bibliography: Muh. A c la, Dictionary of 
Technical Terms, (ed. A. Sprenger), i, 707 foot and 
708, 711 1. 13-712 1. 3; ii, 1 142-3; Zamakhshari, 
al-Mufassal, 2nd ed. J. P. Broch, §§ 1, 2, 402, 403; 
Ibn Ya'ish, Sharh K. al-Mufassal, ed. G. Jahn, 
20-9, 911-5; Radi al-DIn al-Astarabadhi, Sharh al- 
Kdfiya, Istanbul ed. 1275, i, 8 1. 14 ff., 5 1. 21 ff.; 
ii, 207 1. 23 ff. ; M. S. Howell, Grammar of the 
Classical Arabic Language, ii, Allahabad 1880, 
1-3 (§ 402); i, Allahabad 1883, 1-3 (§ 2); H. 
Fleisch, L'arabe classique, Esquisse d'une structure 
linguistique, Beirut 1956 (Recherches, vol. v), 
80-104 (quoted as Esquisse); idem, Etudes sur le 
verbe arabe, in Milanges Louis Massignon, 1957, 
ii, 153-81 (quoted as Etudes): 1. La I" forme du 
verbe et ses divisions, 153-9; 2- La question du 
madfhul, 160-1701; 3. Temps et aspect, 170-7; 
idem, Traite de philologie arabe, i, Beirut 1961 
(quoted as Traiti). Other references in the 

(H. Fleisch) 
FIT,, pi. afdl, actuation, act, and sometimes the 
result of an act, that is to say effectuation, effect. 
From its current usage in Arabic, this word very 
quickly became a technical term (istildh), not only 
in grammar but also in falsafa and in Him al-haldm. 
If c amal [q.v.] designates the realms of 'doing' and 
'acting' (whence 'work', human acts, and moral 
action), and thus has at least in its last meaning an 
ethical connotation, fiH refers above all to noetic and 
ontological values: the fact of actuating, of passing 
(or causing to pass) to the performance of an act. 
Hence the translation by R. Blachere of Kur'dn, 
xxi, 73: 'et Nous leur revelames la realisation des 
bonnes ceuvres' {fiH al-khayrdt). It should be noted 
that the distinction between c amal and fiH often 
becomes less marked: akhldk wa-afdl, '(human) 
mores and actions', says Ibn SinS, for instance, 
(Aksdm, 107), in order to define ethics. 

Falsafa. 
FiH belongs to the language of logic and noetics. 
(a) In logic it is one of the ten categories, actio 
opposed to passio, infi'dl. It is worth mentioning 
here that the suppleness of its verbal forms allows 
Arabic to emphasize the connexion, at the same time 
opposed and complementary, of the mukdbal pair, 
actio and passio, by using the same root, f-l, in the 
first form active and in the seventh passive. In 



consequence, the active element is al-fdHl and the 
passive element, al-munfaHl. This use of f-l and its 
derivations may be found over and over again in all 
treatises on logic, both in the philosophical intro- 
ductions of the Him al-kaldm and also in falsafa. 
(b). In noetics and metaphysics, the com- 
plementary opposition is no longer fiH-infi c dl, but 
fiH-fcuwwa, act-potentiality (faculty, in posse). 
Potentiality, in so far as it is the principle of change 
and becoming, may be in its turn either 'active' 
(JiHiyya) if it resides in the agent (fdHl), or passive 
(infi'dliyya) if it resides in the passive element 
(munfaHl). The expression bi '1-fiH, 'actually', which 
is used for every faculty of the human spirit, is of 
especially wide and well-known usage in noetics, 
where it is used to designate one of the states of the 
intellect, al-'akl bi '1-fiH, the intellect in action or the 
active intellect, as distinguished from al- c akl bi 
'l-huwwa, the intellect in posse, or potential intellect. 
Moreover, al- c akl bi '1-fiH must be distinguished from 
al- c akl al-fa"dl, the acting intelligence, i.e., conti- 
nually in action, which is the last of the separate 
Intelligences and the same for all men. The c akl bi 
'1-fiH, in becoming more and more actual, receives 
the illumination of the c akl fa"dl and becomes 
similar to it. The hierarchy of the intellects according 
to al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Ibn SIna and Ibn Rushd, and 
the differences of meanings applied to these terms 
by the several authors, are well-known. For the 'akl 
bi 'l-fi'l according to al-Farabi and Ibn SIna, see 'akl; 
contrary to what is suggested by the Latin trans- 
lations referred to by F. Rahman in this last 
article, it does not seem necessary to translate 
differently the meaning of al-'ahl bi'l-fiH according 
to al-Farabi (in effectu) and Ibn SIna (in actu). The 
real differences of thought between the two philo- 
sophers can perhaps best be expressed, whether in 
translation or in Arabic, by the use of an identical 
terminology. The ancient Latin translations, in fact, 
often prefer effectus for fiH, while the modern ones 
(such as that of Mgr. N. Carame) are more in favour 
of actus. The difference which can be noted between 
act (or action) and effect diminishes when we go back 
to the more specifically appropriate technical terms 
'actuation' and 'effectuation'. 

The mutahallimun use fiH and bi 'l-fi'l in the 

speak of the subjects of logic, noetics and metaphy- 
sics. But the term, above all in its plural form, afdl, 
comes up frequently when they discuss 'questions 
concerning God' (ildhiyydt). FiH then designates the 
action of God ad extra, 'what it is possible (not 
necessary) for God to do'. Thus al-Ash c arI writes in 
his Kitdb al-Luma c : 'the fact that God wills a thing, 
signifies that He does it' fa'alahu; ed. McCarthy, 
Beirut 1953, 15-6; cf. English translation, 21). 

Later on, the subject of the treatise concerning the 
effects of Divine Omnipotence ad extra is thus called 
afdluhu ta'dld, 'the Acts of God, the Most High'. It 
is essentially the problem of secondary causes 
(asbdb), the relations of God with mankind, the 
divine pre-determining decree (kadar and kadd?), and 
human free-will (ikhtiydr). For the details of the 
problems dealt with, and the solutions of the various 
schools, see allah, 412 ff. 

The treatise on afdluhu ta'dld is preceded by a 
treatise on the divine attributes, sifdt Allah. One of 
the subdivisions of this last is concerned with the 
sifdt al-apdl, which may be translated as the 
'attributes of action' and which refer to what God 



may or may not do: visibility, creation, command- 
ment, decree (loc. cit., 411). 

These discussions of the 'actions of God' do not 
supersede the normal usage of fi'l and afdl to 
designate the act or acts of man, sometimes almost 
as synonyms of 'amal and a'mdl, more often with 
the psychological and legal background meaning 
'an act which must be performed', leaving to '■amal 
the wider background meaning of 'human behaviour 
in general'. Thus fi'l is distinguished from tarh, lack 
of action, action to be avoided. It is thus also that 
at the beginning of the Ihyd* 'ulum al-din (Cairo 
1352/1933, i, 13-5), al-Ghazzall teaches that man 
under Law is, in order to guide his conduct ('amal), 
under the obligation of knowing: the creed of the 
faith (i'tikdd), the act (al-fi'l) which must be per- 
formed at a given moment {e.g., the times of prayer), 
and what it is obligatory not to perform (tarh). 
These terms, moreover, are reminiscent of the 
vocabulary of kaditk, since the text of a hadlth 
relates a saying or an action or the absence of an 
action on the part of the Prophet. 

Bibliography: apart from the references 
given in this article, reference should be made to 
the well-known treatises and chapters of the great 
philosophers (a) on the categories, (b) on 'ahl; 
also the various treatises of 'Urn al-haldm (e.g., 
Fakhr al-DIn al-RazI, Muhassal, Djurdjanl, 
Shark al-Mawdkif, etc.), in the chapters Sifdt 
Allah and Afdluhu ta'dld. (L. Gardet) 

FILAtIA, agriculture. 

Falh, the act of cleaving and cutting, when applied 
to the soil has the meaning of "to break up in order 
to cultivate", or "to plough". Falldh "ploughman", 
fildha "ploughing". But from pre-Islamic times the 
word fildha has assumed a wider meaning to denote 
the occupation of husbandry, agriculture. In this 
sense it is synonymous with zird'a, to which the 
ancients preferred fildha (all the earlier writers called 
their works on agriculture Kitdb al-Fildha). At the 
present time this latter word is very widely used in 
North Africa, both in official language and in every- 
day speech. Thus, in Morocco, the Ministry of Agri- 
culture is called wizdrat al-fildha, whilst in Egypt, 
Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and 'Irak it is called wizdrat 
al-zird'a. It is only since the last century that the 
word zird'a has taken precedence in official and 
literary circles in the Arab East; but the word 
fildha is still very widely used in the language of 
agricultural workers. The following articles will 
deal primarily with agricultural methods and 
techniques. [See further, for settlement and seden- 
tarization, iskan; for irrigation, kanat, ma 1 ; for 
land-tenure, ikta c , tenure of land, and the articles 
listed under ard]. 



— Middle East 



;chnic 



irvey. 



Agriculture in the Arab countries is under the 
fluence of two different types of climate: in the south 
of the Arabian peninsula (Yemen, Hadramawt and 
c Uman), and also in the Sudan, the Indian monsoon 
brings abundant rainfall in summer which enables 
various tropical plants to be cultivated (coffee, 
datepalms, custard-apples, mangoes, pawpaws, 
bananas, catha edulis, tamarinds etc.). Throughout 
the rest of the Arab world the mediterranean climate 
prevails. This climate is characterized by a cold wet 
winter season, followed by a long summer period 
which is hot and without rain. The further one goes 
from the Mediterranean coast the more the rainfall 
diminishes, until it ceases entirely in certain hot 



TLAHA 899 

deserts in Arabia and the African Sahara. This basic 
climatic system divides the zones of Arab countries 
into two distinct categories; in the first, the extent 
and distribution of the rainfall favour the economic 
cultivation of various crops. In the second category 
the winter rains, though not sufficient to allow of 
economic cultivation, nevertheless permit the natural 
growth of certain grasses and various succulent, 
bulbous and halophytic plants which constitute the 
pasturages of the desert steppes. In order to make 
use both of their agricultural land and of the steppes, 
the Arabs have at all times led two sorts of lives — 
as a rural or urban sedentary population, and as 
pastoral nomads. 

Nomadism is a necessity in the desert steppes 
where the winter rainfall varies in extent between 50 
and 150 mm., but the Bedouin tribes are not opposed 
to a sedentary existence. It is in this way that the 
Yemeni tribes, long before Islam, founded their 
civilization on irrigation and intensive cultivation 
of the land. After the Islamic conquests, the Arab 
tribes soon intermingled with Aramaeans from Syria 
and 'Irak, Copts from Egypt and Berbers from north 
Africa, and with the Ibero-Latins of the Spanish 
peninsula, in order to exploit together the vast 
territories of the present Arab countries and of former 
Muslim Andalusia. 

The mediterranean climatic system being every- 
where the same, we find throughout these territories 
three agricultural climates. Firstly, in most of the 
coastal plains (the coasts of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, 
Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco), thanks to a mild 
winter temperature and an annual rainfall of from 
500 to 1,000 mm., it is possible without irrigation to 
cultivate cereals, annual leguminous plants, various 
vegetables, tobacco, olives in particular, and even 
cotton. With the help of irrigation, a vast number of 
annual or perennial agricultural crops can be 
successfully grown — citrus fruits, bananas, pome- 
granates, loquats, early vegetables, aromatic or 
ornamental plants, etc. 

Secondly, in the plains, hills and inland plateaus 
of Syria, Upper Mesopotamia and North Africa, 
where the density of rainfall varies between 250 and 
500 mm., dry-farming is the dominant system of 
cultivation for vast areas of non-irrigated land. Of 
the chief annual plants cultivated in these regions 
we may mention wheat, barley, sorghum, lentils, 
chick-peas, vetch, gherkins, melons, watermelons 
and sesame, while the principal fruiting trees and 
shrubs are olives, vines, figs, hazelnuts and pistachios. 

In these regions, irrigation is indispensable for the 
cultivation of most fruit trees, ornamental trees, 
vegetables, leguminous and industrial plants — apples, 
pears, apricots, peaches, eggplant, tomatoes, gumbo, 
artichokes, potatoes, lucerne, clover, cotton, hemp, 
groundnuts, poppies, roses, jasmine, etc. 

Thirdly, in regions with a desert climate (Lower 
Mesopotamia, central Arabia, Egypt, inland regions 
of Libya and North Africa) where rain is rare and the 
average annual temperature reaches or exceeds 21 C. 
it is only by means of irrigation that such plants as 
date-palms, mangoes, orange trees, cotton, rice, 
sugar-cane and others can be successfully cultivated. 

During the Middle Ages, the Arabs were familiar 
with and cultivated most of the agricultural plants 
now known to the Arab world. It was they who 
introduced Seville oranges and lemons from India 
to c Uman, and thence to Basra, Egypt and the 
coast of Syria and Palestine (cf. al-Mas c udI, Murud±, 
ii, 438, viii, 336). From Andalusia and Sicily they 
disseminated throughout the Mediterranean basin 



900 FIL. 

the cultivation of cotton, sugar-cane, apricots, 
peaches, rice, carobs, water melons, eggplant, etc. 
(cf. De Candolle, L'Origine des plantes cultivtes*, 
Paris 19 1 2). Moreover, the European names of many 
cultivated plants are of Arabic origin, that is to say 
borrowed directly or indirectly from words either 
purely Arabic or long Arabicized. 

2. — Works on agriculture. —The oldest 
Arabic work on agriculture which we know is al- 
Fildlia al-nabatiyya (Nabataean agriculture) of Ibn 
Wahshiyya [q.v.], written (or translated from the 
Nabataean!) in 291/904. A little later there appeared 
a work entitled al-Fildha al-rumiyya (Greek or 
Byzantine agriculture). This book, published in 
Cairo in 1293/1876, bears the names of Kustus al- 
Rumi as author and of Sardjis b. Hilya al-Ruml as 
translator from Greek into Arabic. According to 
Hadjdji Khalifa (Rash) al-zunun, ii, 1447), the 
author's full name was Kustus b. Askuraskina, and 
we think that this is the name of Cassianus Bassus to 
whom agronomic works collected from Greek and 
Latin authors are attributed. Hadjdji Khalifa names 
three other translators of this book, one of them 
being said to be Kusta b. Luka [q.v.]. From another 
source we know that the agronomic work of Anatolius 
of Berytos (4th century A.D.) had been translated 
into Syriac by Sardjis Rasa'ni (d. 536 A.D.), and 
there is reason to believe that this text was also 
translated subsequently into Arabic and that no 
manuscripts of it have survived (cf. BIE, xiii, 47). 
In any case, in the two Arabic works that we know 
{al-Fildha al-nabatiyya and al-Fildha al-rumiyya), 
we find a reasonable knowledge of agricultural 
practice, side by side with superstitious advice. 

In Egypt, the best presentation of agricultural 
questions at the time of the Ayyubids is to be found 
in a work of Ibn Mammati (d. 606/1209), entitled 
Kawdnin al-dawdwin, published in Cairo in 1943 
by the Royal Agricultural Society (cf. MMIA, 
xxxiii, 556). In the following century Djamal al-DIn 
al-Watwat (d. 718/1318) wrote in Cairo the (un- 
published) book entitled Mabdhidj al-fikar wa- 
mandhidj al-Hbar, the fourth volume of which is 
devoted to plants and agriculture. In the ioth/i6th 
century, a Damascene author named Riyad al-Din 
al-Ghazzi al- c Amiri (935/1529) wrote a large book on 
agriculture which has not survived; but later c Abd 
al-Ghani al-Nabulusi (d. 1143/1731) gave a summary 
of it in a work entitled 'Alam al-mildha fi Him al- 
fildha published in Damascus in 1299/1882. 

In general, the writers of ancient Arabic works 
on agriculture dealt with the following subjects: 
types of agricultural land and choice of land ; manure 
and other fertilizers; tools and work of cultivation; 
wells, springs, and irrigation channels; plants and 
nurseries; planting, prunung and grafting of fruit 
trees; cultivation of cereals, legumes, vegetables, 
flowers, bulbs and tubers, and plants for perfume; 
noxious plants and animals; preserving of fruit; and 
sometimes zootechny. 

It may be noted that the writers of these works 
used several non-classical agricultural terms (muwal- 
lad; cf. MMIA, ii, 193 and xxxiii, 560), and made a 
distinction between plants which fertilize (legumes) 
and those which exhaust the soil (cereals and others). 

The chief principles of dry-farming were not 
unknown to them, and similarly the principles of 
variation and rotation of crops. Certain Arab 
agronomists in Andalusia had at their disposal 
botanical gardens and trial grounds where they 
experimented with native and exotic plants, practised 
methods of grafting and tried to create new varieties 



of fiuit and flowers. We should also note that several 
ancient Arabic dictionaries, encyclopaedic works 
and Arabic treatises en agriculture and botany 
contain the names of numerous varieties of fruit, 
cereals, flowers and other cultivated plants. Thus al- 
Badri (gth/i5th century) in his Nuzhat al-andm fi 
mahdsin al-Shdm gives the names, in Syria, of 21 
varieties of apricots, 50 varieties of grapes, 6 varieties 
of roses, etc. 

All the early Arabic (or other) works on agriculture, 
being based on observation alone, are only of histo 
rical and terminological value. It was only in the 
19th century that, in Egypt, there appeared the 
first Arabic agricultural work based on modern 
science; it was produced by Ahmad Nada who, after 
being sent to France on an educational mission, 
wrote the two- volume fiusn al-sind'-afl Him al-zird c a, 
published in Cairo in 1291/1874- At the present time, 
text books in the Arabic language exist in all 
branches of agriculture, written by the teachers of 
the faculties and practical schools of agriculture. 



-Terr 



logy a 






Arabic terminology of agronomic sci< 
exists a dictionary compiled by the wri 
article (Dictionnaire franfais-arabe des termes agri- 
coles, Damascus 1943, Cairo 1957), containing about 
ten thousand terms concisely defined in Arabic. 

The Arabic language is rich in agricultural terms, 
particularly in relation to date-palms, vines, cereals 
and desert plants (cf. the Mukhassas of Ibn Sida), 
and the imagination of the poets of antiquity has 
endowed it with a vast and original literature 011 the 
nature of plants and their connexions with human 
beings. Not only flowers (roses, narcissi, jasmine, 
violets, pinks, irises, anemones, etc.) and fruit (dates, 
apricots, apples, pears, pomegranates, jububes, 
Neapolitan medlars, quinces, Seville oranges, lemons, 
etc.) but also a great quantity of cereals, legumes, 
vegetables and wild plants of the fields , pasturages 
and prairies are mentioned or described in v 



relat 



-The 



code on landed property (Kdnun al-arddi) and the 
civil code (al-Madjalla), which were in force in the 
Arab countries that were separated from the Ottoman 
Empire after the 1914-8 war, are based on Muslim law 
(shari'a) and Muslim jurisprudence (fikh). The 
Madjalla divides land into five categories: ard 
mamluka, land to which there is a right of ownership; 
ard amiriyya, land to which the original title 
(rakaba) belongs to the State, while its exploitation 
(tasarruf) can be conceded to individuals (this is the 
case with most agricultural land) ; ard mawliufa, land 
set aside for the benefit of a religious endowment; 
ard matruha, land placed at the disposal of corporate 
bodies; and lastly ard mawdt, waste land, defined as 
free land, situated away from inhabited areas and 
out of ear-shot of houses. For details see tenure of 

The Madialla also defines and codifies questions 
relating to metayage (muzdra'a), leases for orchard- 
planting (musdfrdt), the repair and clearing of com- 
munal watercourses used for irrigation, reclamation 
of waste land (ihyd* al-mawdt), the enclosure (harim) 
of wells and subterranean watercourses (kanawdt), 



At the present time, the land laws of most of the 
Arab States, while incorporating substantial im- 
provements, still uphold the principles respecting 
either the distinction between categories (and sub- 
categories) of land, or else their legal status and the 
rights based on them. 

According to Muslim jurisprudence, it is the duty 



of the State to construct and maintain dams, and 
also to excavate and clear the main irrigation chan- 
nels. In former times, this work was carried out 
either directly by the governors of provinces or by 
holders of fiefs. The history of the Umayyads and 
the first 'Abbasid caliphs provides examples of the 
execution of several large-scale irrigation schemes, 
and also of the repairing of several ancient dams on 
the Tigris, Euphrates, Khabur, Orontes and Barada. 
Bibliography: In addition to the sources 
quoted above: J.-J. Ctement-Mullet, Le Livre de 
I' Agriculture d'Ibn al-'-Awwdm, Fr. trans., 
Paris 1864-7, 2 vols, in 3; Don J. A. Banqueri, 
Libro de Agricultura, su autor el doctor excellente 
A.Z.J.B.M.B. el-'-Awam, Ar. text and Span, trans. 
Madrid 1802, 2 vols.; B. Lewin, The Book of plants 
of Abu tfanifa al-Dinawari, Part of the alphabetical 
section ( J — I ), Leiden 1953; A. Risso and 
A. Poiteau, Histoire naturelle des orangers, Paris 
1819, 7-10; G. Schweinfurth, Arabische Pflanzen- 
namen aus Aegypten, Algerien und Iemen, Berlin 
1912; E. Sauvaigo, Les cultures sur le littoral de la 
Miditerranie, Paris 1913; Ch. Riviere and H. Lecq, 
Culture du Midi, de VAlgirie et de la Tunisie, 
Paris 1915. (Mustafa al-Shihabi) 

ii. — Muslim West 

So far as we know at piesent, it was exclusively 
in the Iberian peninsula, the home of the celebrated 
Latin agronomist Junius Columella of Gades/Cadiz, 
that an agricultural literature in the Arabic language 
was created and developed, particularly during the 
5ih/nth and 6th/i2th centuries , in the brilliant 
period of the satraps (muluh al-tawdHf) and the 
Almoravid governors who followed. 

The principal centres of this literature were 
Cordova, Toledo, Seville, Granada and, to a lesser 
extent, Almeria. In Cordova the great doctor Abu 
'1-K5sim al-ZahrawI, who died in 404/1010, known 
as Albucasis in the Middle Ages, is reputed to be the 
author of a Compendium on agronomy (Mukhtasar 
kitdb al-fildha) which Professoi H. Peres has recently 
discovered and intends to publish. 

In Toledo, at the court of the renowned al-Ma'mun 
[?.».], the great "garden lover", lived the celebrated 
doctor Ibn Wafid (d. 467/1075) known as Aben- 
guefith in the Middle Ages. He was appointed by al- 
Ma'mun to create his royal botanical garden 
(Djannat al-sultdn). Among other works, he wrote 
a treatise {madjmu'-) on agronomy which was trans- 
lated into Castilian in the Middle Ages. Another 
inhabitant of Toledo, Muhammad b. Ibrahim Ibn 
Bassal, devoted himself exclusively to agronomy. 
He performed the regular pilgrimage, travelling via 
Sicily and Egypt, and brought back many botanical 
and agronomic notes from the East. He also was in 
the service of al-Ma'mun, for whom he wrote a 
lengthy treatise on agronomy (diwdn al-fildha); this 
work was subsequently abridged into one volume 
with sixteen chapters (bdb), with the title Kitdb al- 
Kasd wa 'l-baydn "Concision and clarity". This work, 
which was translated into Castilian in the Middle 
Ages, was published in 1955 with a modern 
Castilian introduction. The treatise by Ibn Bassal is 
singular in that it contains no reference to earlier 
agronomists; it appears to be based exclusively on 
the personal experiences of the author, who is revealed 
as the most original and objective of all the Hispano- 
Arabic specialists. 

The name of this writer's father has not been 
established conclusively. Writers who quote from 



HA 901 

him give the name with or without the definite 
article; the initial £>a 5 is sometimes replaced by fd* 
(subpunctuated in Maghrib! orthography), or the 
sad by fa\ Nevertheless the form Basal/Bassal seems 
to be the most piobable, but it is not certain that 
it is a name with any etymological connection with 
basal "onions". It might be a Romance diminutive 
in -il of the adjective baso/basso (Castilian bazo), 
"brown", a name borne by several Muslims in Spain; 
and Bas(s)il would then be synonymous with the 
well-attested name of Mauril. 

After the capture of Toledo by Alfonso VI of 
Castile (478/1085), Ibn Bassal withdrew to Seville, 
to the court of al-Mu c tamid [q.v.] for whom he created 
a new royal garden. 

In Seville Ibn Bassal again met 'All Ibn al-Lunkuh 
of Toledo, a doctor and disciple of Ibn Wafid, and 
like him interested in botany and agronomy. He had 
left his native town shortly before its capture and 
settled in Seville in 487/1094. He died at Cordova in 
499/1105. 

He also encountered Abu c Umar Ahmad b. 
Muhammad b. Hadjdjadj al-Ishbili, the author of 
several works on agronomy, among them al-Muhni'-, 
written in 466/1073. This writer is distinguished 
from others by his scorn for "the inadmissible tales 
of stupid yokels" (ahl al-ghabawa min ahl al-bardri 
wa-akwdluhum al-sdhita) and his almost exclusive use 
of ancient agronomists, especially Yuniyfis. However, 
he also recounts his personal experiences in al- 
Sharaf. There he became acquainted with the 
agronomist Abu '1-Khayr al-Ishbili [q.v.] whose work, 
with title unknown, is often quoted by Ibn al- 
c Awwam. All that we know about him is that in 
494/1100 he was studying with the Seville doctor 
Abu '1-Hasan Shihab al-Mu c ayti. 

In Seville, Ibn Bassal and Ibn al-Lunkuh were the 
masters of the mysterious "anonymous botanist of 
Seville", the author of the '■Umdat al-fabib fl ma c rifat 
al-nabdt li-kull labib, a botanical dictionary of con- 
siderable merit and far superior to that by Ibn al- 
Baytar. He seems to have been a certain Ibn c Abdun, 
to be distinguished from the doctor (Al-Djabali) and 
the literary writer (al-Yaburl). The only fact about 
him in our possession is that he was a member of the 
diplomatic mission which went to the Almohad court 
of Marrakush in 542/1147 and that he wrote his 
c Umda after that date. 

In Granada, the principal agricultural writer was 
Muhammad b. Malik al-Tighnarl (from the name of a 
village now known as Tignar, a few kilometres north 
of Granada). He worked in succession in the service 
of the Sanhadji princeling c Abd Allah b. Buluggin 
(466/83/1073-90) and then of the Almoravid prince 
Tamim, son of Yusuf b. Tashfln, at the time when 
that prince was governor of the province of Granada 
(501-12/1 107-18). It was for the latter that he wrote 
a treatise on agronomy in twelve books (makdla) 
entitled Zuhrat al-bustdn wa-nuzhat al-adhhdn. Al- 
Tighnari also went on pilgrimage to the East. 
Probably while staying in Seville he came into 
contact with Ibn Bassal and was able to profit from 
his experiences. It is probably with al-Tighnarl that 
we should identify the anonymous agronomist whom 
Ibn al-'Awwam frequently quotes under the name 
al-Hadjdj al-Gharnati. It should be noted that 
several manuscripts of the Zuhrat al-bustdn are 
attributed to a certain Hamdun al-Ishbfli, who 
is otherwise unknown. 

Towards the end of the 6th/i2th century or in the 
first half of the 7th/i3th century (the capture of 
Seville by the Christians took place in 646/1248), 



Abu Zakariyya Yahya b. Muhammad Ibn al- 
■Awwam of Seville wrote a lengthy Kitab al-Fil&ha in 
35 books (bib). We know nothing of his life. To 
orientalists, however, he is celebrated since he was 
the first to be published and also translated, into 
Spanish by J. A. Banqueri, Madrid 1802, then 
into French by Clement-Mullet, Paris 1864-7, and 
finally into Urdu. He is also the only agronomist 
whom Ibn Khaldun (second half of the 8th/i4th 
century) thought worthy of quoting in his Mufraddi- 
ma (tr. de Slane, iii, 166; he regards the K. al- 
Fildha as an abridged version of al-Fildfta al- 
nabatiyya [see ibn wahshiyya]. He is, however, far 
from being the most important of the Arabo- 
Hispanic agronomists. His work is essentially an 
extensive and useful compilation of quotations 
from ancient writers and from his Hispanic prede- 
cessors, Ibn Bassal, Ibn Hadjdjadj, Abu '1-Khayr 
and al-Hadjdj al-Gharnatl. It is only occasionally 
at the end of a chapter that he records his own 
personal observations (introduced by the word 
Li "this is my own"), made in the neighbourhood 
of Seville, especially in the district of al-Sharaf. 
For Ibn al-'Awwam, see C.C. Moncada in Actes du 
8' Congres des Orient., Stockholm 1889, ii, 215-57; E. 
Meyer, Gesch. der Botanik, iii, 260-6; Brockelmann, 
S I, 9°3)- 

Finally, towards the middle of the 8th/i4th 
century, a scholar of Almeria, Abu 'Uthman Sa c d b. 
Abu Dja'far Ahmad Ibn Luyun al-Tudjibi (d. 750/ 
1349) wrote his Kitab Ibdd' al-malaha wa-inhd* al- 
radjdha fl usul sind'at al-fildfra. The work of an 
amateur, it is an abridgement in verse (urdxiiza), 
based essentially on Ibn Bassal and al-Tighnari; 
but it also contains certain valuable information 
which the author recorded in the words of local 
practitioners (mimmd shdfahahu bih ahl al-tadjriba 
wa 'l-imtifrdn). 

These treatises on filafta contain far more than 
their titles would indicate; in fact, they are true 
encyclopaedias of rural economy, based on a plan 
closely in line with that followed by Columella in his 
De re rustica. Naturally, the essential feature is of 
course agronomy (fildhat al-aradin): the study of 
types of soil, water, manure; field cultivation of 
cereals and legumes; but arboriculture is also dealt 
with at length (particularly vines, olives and figs), 
with additional matter on pruning, layering and 
grafting; and also horticulture and floriculture. 
Zootechny (fildttat at-fiayawdndt) also takes a leading 
place: the rearing of livestock, beasts of burden, 
fowls and bees; veterinary practice (bayfara). All 
these fundamental questions are completed by 
chapters on domestic economy: farm management, 
the choice of agricultural workers, storage of produce 
after harvest, etc. Some writers also provide in- 
formation on measurement of land (taksir) and the 
seasonal agricultural calendar. 

We may imagine that specialists of many sorts 
were led to contribute to such encyclopaedic works. 
To start with, there were practitioners and profes- 
sional workers: farmers (faUdlfun), fruit-growers 
(shadididrun), horticulturists (djanndnun); but 
there were also "scientific workers" — herbalists 
('askshdbun), botanists (nabdtiyyun), doctors in- 
terested in medicinal plants (mufraddt) and dietetics; 
and there were also pure theoreticians (tmkama', 
mutakallimun). 

On the other hand, Hispano-Arab treatises on 
fildha were often the work of many-sided writers 
(mushdrikiin, mutafanniniin). Beside Ibn Bassal who 
was essentially an agronomist, Ibn Wafid was 



primarily a doctor. Ibn Hadjdjadi was described by 
Ibn al- c Awwam as imam and khatib. Al-Tighnari and 
Ibn Luyun are well-known poets. Finally, the 
enigmatical Seville botanist Ibn c Abdun could well 
be the same as his contemporary Ibn 'Abdun of 
Seville, the author of a treatise on hisba [q.v.], 
published and later translated by E. Levi-Provencal. 
In this connexion one is reminded of Aristotle, 
both philosopher and naturalist and creator of a 
botanical garden, and Virgil, author of the Georgics. 
The Hispano-Arab agronomists were familiar 
with and made wide use of ancient writers. A list 
of them (in which the names are often inaccurate) 
will be found at the beginning of the translation 
edition of Ibn al- c Awwam by Banqueri. Among the 
Arab sources, they made use of Kitab al-Nabdt of 
the polygraph al-Dinawari [q.v.] and, in particular, 
the Fildha naba(iyya of Ibn Wahshiyya [q.v.], though 
for the most part leaving out his farrago of magic 
recipes. However, in this branch of instruction they 
have not confined themselves to repeating their 
precursors' writings. They made their own personal 
observations and experiments, in order to adapt 
their works to the realities of the Spanish soil and 
climate. They also introduced original chapters on 
the cultivation of new plants — rice, sugar-cane, date 
palms, citrus fruits, cotton, flax, madder, apricots, 
peaches, pears, watermelons, eggplant, pistachios, 
saffron, etc. 

As we have seen, two Arabo-Hispanic treatises 
on agronomy were translated into Castilian. In this 
way, Ibn Wafid's work was widely used by the 
Spanish agronomist Alonso de Herrera in his famous 
Agricultura General (1513). 

Finally we should note that it was in Muslim 
Spain, during the 5th/nth century, in Toledo and la- 
ter in Seville, that the first "royal botanical gardens" 
of Europe made their appearance, both pleasure 
gardens and also trial grounds for the acclimatization 
of plants brought back from the Near and Middle 
East. In the Christian world we have to wait until 
the middle of the 16th century to see the establish- 
ment of gardens of this sort, in the university towns 
of Italy. 

Bibliography: The essentials will be found in 
the introduction to Kitab al-Fildlfa of Ibn Bassal, 
edited with Spanish translation by Millas Vallicrosa 
and 'Aziman (Tetuan 1955). See also: Garcia 
G6mez, Sobre agricultura arabigoandaluza, in 
Andalus, x (1945), 127; Millas Vallicrosa, Him 
al-fildha Hnd al-mu'allifin al-'Arab bi'l-Andalus, 
At. trans. c Abd al-Latif al-Khatib, Tetuan 1957; 
Ibn al-Kadi, Durrat al-Ifidial, ed. Allouche, Rabat 
1936 (no. 1352 = biography of Ibn Luyfln); Ibn 
Khaldun. Mukaddima, fasl vi, no. 20 = trans, 
de Slane, iii, 165 = tr. Rosenthal, iii, 151; 
S. M. Imamuddin, Al-Filahah (Farming) in Muslim 
Spain, in Islamic Studies, i/4 (1962), 51-89- 

(G. S. Colin) 

Agriculture in Persia was from earliest times 
regarded as the fundamental basis of the prosperity 
of the country. From early times also there has been 
a dichotomy between the agricultural and the 
pastoral elements of the population. The Avesta 
was unequivocal in its approval of the settled life 
of the peasant and of the practice of agriculture. 
Agricultural prosperity, which was also in Islamic 
times traditionally regarded as the basis upon which 
stable government rested, was closely connected 
with irrigation [see ma 5 ], security, and taxation. 



Rulers were urged by mediaeval Islamic theorists to 
foster agriculture in order to ensure a full treasury 
and thus prevent the decay of the kingdom. To this 
end irrigation works were to be carried out, security 
established, and extortion against the peasantry 
prevented. The philosophers and encyclopaedists 
similarly regarded agriculture as the basic industry, 
upon which the good order of the world and the 
perpetuation of the human race depended (cf . Mahmud 
Amull, NafaHs al-funun, Tehran, ii, 159). 

Invasion and dynastic struggles have been the 
cause of frequent interruption in, not to say decay of, 
agriculture. For example in Khuzistan, where there 
had been considerable development under the 
Sasanians, the agricultural economy failed to return 
quickly to its previous level after the Arab invasion 
in the first half of the seventh century A.D. and 
there was until modern times a cumulative, though 
not uninterrupted, decline (R. A. Adams, Agriculture 
and urban life in early south-western Iran, in Science, 
vol. 136, no. 3511, 13 April 1962). The quartering 
of soldiers on the population in Buyid times appears 
to have materially contributed to agricultural decline 
(cf. Ibn Miskawayh, Eclipse, ii, 96, and Ibn al-Athir 
Ta'rikh, viii, 342). It has always been the practice 
of government officials, civil and military, to live 
upon the country, a custom highly detrimental to 
agriculture. At no time, perhaps, did the evils of the 
system reach greater heights than under the Ilkhans 
(cf. Rashld al-DIn, Gesch. Gdzdn Han's, ed. K. Jahn, 
passim). In the Kadjar period the evil was also 
widespread. In times of war, continuous or inter- 
mittent, it was sometimes the practice deliberately 
to lay waste frontier areas. Thus the Turco-Persian 
frontier area in Safawid times was reduced to a 
desert (A chronicle of the Carmelites in Persia, London 
1939, i, 140). Many examples at different periods of 
Persian history could be cited of local officials 
imposing such severe contributions on the cultivators 
of the soil as to cause their dispersal and thus lead 

Tribal warfare and raiding was another major 
cause of agricultural decay. Such raiding was com- 
mon whenever the central government weakened; 
further, when the tribal population and its flocks 
rose above the level which could be maintained by 
the limited pasture available, either because of a 
period of drought or because of natural increase, 
there would be a movement, violent or otherwise, 
into the settled areas. The balance between the settled 
and semi-settled elements of the population was 
extremely precarious, and inevitably adversely 
affected agriculture on the borders of the tribal 
regions. Various tribal groups, notably in Fars, 
during the course of the late nineteenth and early 
twentieth centuries became settled and practised 
agriculture. Rida Shah made an abortive attempt to 
settle the nomadic population of the country, 
notably in Fars, the Bakhtiyari, and parts of Kurdi- 
stan. Since about 1956 there has been a movement by 
Turkomans and others to reclaim the Gurgan steppe. 

Another factor militating against agricultural 
development has been insecurity of tenure both as 
regards the peasant and the landowner [see tenure 

Agriculture is also subject to interruption by the 
capricious nature of the climate. Drought, due to 
insufficient spring or winter rain, causing partial 
or complete crop failures, and floods, with the 
accompanying destruction of irrigation channels and 
frandts, are of common occurrence. Earthquakes 
have also been a contributory factor causing local 



HA 903 

and temporary dislocation. Ravages by pests, notably 
the sunn pest and locusts, not infrequently cause 
heavy losses. High winds in many areas and violent 
hailstorms are other detrimental factors. Deteriora- 
tion of the soil because of a change in the water table 
due to over-lavish irrigation or inadequate drainage, 
or both, is a major problem in some parts of the coun- 
try, especially Khuzistan and Sistan; and in some 
places on the central plateau the soil is salty and the 
water too saline to be used for irrigation. On the 
south and south-east borders of the central desert 
there is a marked tendency for the desert to encroach 
upon the surrounding area (cf. Hamd Allah Mustawfi, 
Nuzhat, 142, Ta'rikh-i Sistan, ed. Bahar, Tehran 
1936-8, 21). Soil erosion is widespread, notably in 
Adharbaydjan. Its primary causes are climatic and 
geological, but uncontrolled grazing by goats and the 
destruction of forests for fuel have steadily increased 
the tendency towards erosion. Little attention has 
been given to its control or reduction by modifying 
existing practices of arable and animal husbandry, 
or by contour ploughing, which is made difficult by 
the relatively small size of the holdings. Terracing in 
mountain valleys, however, is often carried out with 
considerable skill. 

Irrigated and dry farming are both practised, the 
latter in large areas of Adharbaydjan and Kurdistan, 
and to a lesser extent in Khurasan and Fars, and on 
the Caspian littoral for crops other than rice. Every- 
where with the exception of the Caspian littoral 
rainfall is the main limiting factor on agriculture. 
Gllan and Mazandaran have a relatively heavy 
rainfall, well distributed throughout the year with 
a maximum in early autumn, varying from 50-60 
inches in the west to 20 inches in the east and rising 
to over 100 inches on the northern slopes of the 
Elburz. The natural vegetation is thick deciduous 
forest, found up to a height of 7,000-8,000 ft.; where 
this is cleared fruit, rice, cotton, and other crops 
thrive. The eastern end of the Persian Gulf littoral 
comes under the influence of the south-west monsoon. 
The average rainfall in the coastal district of Persian 
Balucistan is 3-4 inches; Bushire has an average 
rainfall of about 10 inches; and Khuzistan 12-15 
inches, with a maximum in December. The plateau, 
the average elevation of which varies between 3,000- 
5,000 ft., is ringed by mountain ranges, the general 
trend of which is from north-west to south-east. 
The seasons on the plateau are regular but consider- 
of climate are found. Within the 
the plateau lies in the rain shadow. In 
general the 10 inch rainfall line follows the inner 
foothills of the Zagros-Elburz-Kopet Dagh ring of 
mountains and marks the boundary between areas 
where cereals can be cultivated extensively without 
irrigation and areas dependent upon irrigation. The 
summer grazing of the nomadic tribes also lies in or 
near the 10 inch line. Rain begins in November and 
continues intermittently to the end of March and, 
in the south and north-east, to the end of April. 
Heavy snowfalls are common in winter. Vegetation 
is limited but some forest is found in Kurdistan and 
Luristan; and a narrow belt of oak forest in Fars. 
Considerable areas, notably in Adharbaydjan, 
Kurdistan, and northern Fars consist of mountain 
pasture. South-east of Tehran are two great salt 
deserts, the Dasht-i Kavlr and the Dasht-i Lut, 
which together with Sistan have a relatively low 
elevation. The climate of Sistan is one of extremes 
and the average annual rainfall only 2 1 /, inches. It is 
estimated that only 10-14 per cent of the total area 
of the whole country is under cultivation. Some 30 



to 35 per cent is desert and waste. The remainder is 
grazing-land and forest. 

Grain crops. Wheat and barley are the staple 
crops and are grown as irrigated (obi) and unirrigated 
(daymi) crops up to an elevation of about 10,000 ft. 
Maize and millet have also been widely grown through- 
out the country since early times (cf. B. Spuler, Iran 
in friih-islamischer Zeit, Wiesbaden 1952, 387). 
Wheat is mainly grown as a winter crop; but in the 
high valleys of the Zagros and Elburz it is also grown 
as a spring crop. The regions with the greatest pro- 
duction of wheat are the neighbourhood of Mashhad 
in Khurasan, western Adharbaydjan, Hamadan, 
Kirmanshah, and Isfahan. In south Persia wheat and 
barley are sown between the first week in November 
and the first week in January, and in central Persia 
between the end of October and the end of November; 
and spring wheat between the end of February and 
the end of April. Wheat is harvested in the south 
about the end of April or the beginning of May; in 
the upland areas of Fars about a month later, and 
on the plateau some two to two and a half months 
later. Barley is harvested about three to four weeks 
earlier than wheat (cf. MIrza Husayn Khan, Qiughrd- 
fiyd-yi Isfahan, ed. M. Sutudeh, Tehran I953"4,55 if-)- 
The yield on wheat varies greatly in different parts of 
the country. In general it is low. The peasant normally 
saves part of his crop for the following year's seed. 

Rice. The main rice-growing area is in the Caspian 
provinces. Some rice is also grown in the Lindjan and 
Alindjan districts of Isfahan {Diughrdfiyd-yi Isfahan, 
55 ff.) and, on a small scale, in Fars, Khuzistan, 
Kurdistan and other districts (Spuler, op. cit., 387, 
Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Nuzhat, 162, 163, Sanl c 
al-Dawla, Mahathir al-dthdr, Tehran, lith. 1888-9, 
115). According to tradition rice was originally 
imported from India (Kitdb-i '■Ilm-i fildhat wa zird'at 
dor c ahd-i Ghdzdn Khan, ed. <Abd al-Ghaffar Nadjm 
al-Dawla, Tehran 1905-6, 86). In some areas rice is 
sown broadcast, but in the main rice-growing areas 
such as Mazandaran and Isfahan it is sown in 
nurseries {khazdna) and transplantation (nishd*) 
takes place after a month. In Mazandaran the land 
is ploughed in April, flooded and then ploughed twice 
more. A fortnight after transplanting weeding 
(vidjin) begins, the weeds being trampled into the 
mud. The rice fields are kept permanently under 
water for two to three months. Rice is reaped in 
September. The main varieties are known as sadri, 
girda, dum-i siydh and 'ambarbu (see also J. B. 
Fraser, Travels and adventures in the Persian provinces, 
London 1826, 119-20). 

Sugar cane. This was mainly grown in Khuzistan 
in early Islamic times and in the middle ages (cf. 
Spuler, op. cit., 388, Kitdb-i Hlm-i fildhat wa zird'at, 
102) ; and to a minor extent in Mazandaran. In the 
later middle ages its cultivation in Khuzistan died out. 
An attempt was made in Kadjar times to revive it 
(Walfdyi'--i ittifdkiyya, Tehran.no. 55), and also to cul- 
tivate sugar cane in Gilan (Ma'dthir al-dthdr, 118) and 
Isfahan {Diughrdfiyd-yi Isfahan, 58). In recent years 
the cultivation of sugar cane in Khuzistan has begun 
on a more extensive scale as a result of new irrigation 
developments. Planting takes place in March 
April and the cane is cut in November. 

Sugar beet. An abortive attempt was made to 
introduce sugar beet by a Belgian company at 
Kahrizak near Tehran in 1886-7. Under Rida Shah 
the cultivation of sugar beet was encouraged and 
it is widely cultivated at the present day especially 
in the Tehran, Tabriz, Kirmanshah, Shlraz, Kirman, 
and Mashhad areas. 



Cotton. This appears to have been widely grown 
on the plateau in early Islamic times (Spuler, op. cit., 
389; Hamd Allah Mustawfi, Nuzhat, 52, and passim). 
American sea island cotton was first introduced into 
the Urumiyya region about the year 1852 from whence 
its cultivation spread (Letters from Persia written 
by Charles and Edward Burgess 1828-185$, ed. B. 
Schwarz, New York 1942, 117). During the reign of 
Rida Shah a long stapled variety was introduced and 
came to be known locally asfilistdni (from the village 
where it was first cultivated). This variety is grown 
in Adharbaydjan, Kirmanshah, Fars, and Khuzistan. 
A shorter stapled American variety is grown in the 
Caspian provinces, including Gurgan, and a native 
short stapled variety of inferior quality but hardy 
growth is grown in marginal areas. Cotton is grown 
as an irrigated crop up to an elevation of about 
5,000 ft. It is sown in April or May and reaped in 
the autumn. The land is normally watered once 
before sowing and the crop is irrigated several times 
during the period of vegetation. Cotton is the main 
cash crop of Persia. It is also grown extensively for 
its seed, which yields an edible oil (cf. Diughrdfiyd-yi 
Isfahan, 56). 

Tobacco. This is grown in many districts for 
local use and especially in the north-west and south- 
east Zagros and in the Caspian provinces. It appears 
to have been first cultivated in Persia in the nth/ 17th 
century, having been introduced by the Portuguese 
in the early part of that century. It began to be 
cultivated in Gilan in 1875-6 (Taki Bahraml, Ta'rikh-i 
kishdvarzi-i Iran, Tehran 1951-2). 

Opium. It is difficult to establish when the opium 
poppy was first cultivated in Persia. Muhammad b. 
Zakariya (Rhazes) refers to the wild and cultivated 
poppy. By the end of the nth/i7th century opium 
cultivation was well established (cf. Kaempfer, 
Amoenitas Exoticae). It spread in the nineteenth 
century as an alternative to the declining silk 
industry. It was first introduced into Fars in 1868-9 
(Mirza Hasan Fasa'I, Fdrs ndma-i Ndsiri, Tehran 
1894-6, ii, 3). The main opium-growing areas, until 
the prohibition of the cultivation of the opium 
poppy, which was first made in 1953 and became 
effective in 1956, were Isfahan, Fars, and Khurasan ; 
it was also grown in Hamadan and Kirmanshah. The 
best opium came from Abada, Kirman, Yazd, Buru- 
djird, and Varamin. The seed is sown from October 
to December, or more rarely in spring. The crop is 
weeded and thinned in spring; and irrigated during 
May and June. The collection of the sap begins in 
May, or a month earlier in the hotter districts of the 
south, and continues until August. A vertical or 
diagonal incision is made in the seed capsule in the 
evening; the sap oozes from the incisions during the 
night, partially dries, and is scraped off with a blunt 
knife the next morning. This operation is performed 
twice or, if the crop is exceptionally good, three 
times at an interval of several days (A. R. Neligan, 
The opium question with special reference to Persia, 
London 1927). 

Tea. An abortive attempt was made by Sani c 
al-Dawla to introduce the cultivation of tea into 
Mazandaran in the late nineteenth century. Sub- 
sequently there was some cultivation on a small 
scale; in 1928-9 seed was imported from the Far 
East, since when there has been a great expansion 
in tea cultivation in western Mazandaran. 

Silk. This is a traditional product of Persia. In 
the 7th/i3th century the silk trade was important; 
the high water mark in the production of silk was 
reached in the nth/i7th century. In the nineteenth 



century production declined because of a disease 
among the silk worms, which began in 1864. New 
strains were subsequently introduced (Taki Bahrami, 
op. cit., 99 ff.). Mulberry trees, on the leaves of which 
the silk worms feed, are widespread throughout the 
country, especially in the north. In northern Persia 
a curious custom exists for the hatching of the eggs 
of the silk worm. These are attached to a piece of 
paper and exposed to the warmth of the human body 
by being worn next to the skin (Hanway, An historical 
account of the British trade over the Caspian Sea, 
London 1762, i, 189 ft.; Curzon, Persia, i, 369; see 
also HARlR). 

Minor crops. Pulses and oil seeds are widely 
cultivated; and some fodder crops, such as lucerne 
and clover. A great variety of vegetables is grown 
especially near urban centres. Potatoes were intro- 
duced into Persia by Sir John Malcolm during the 
reign of Fath c Ali Shah (Ma'dthir al-dthdr, 112; 
Kaye, Life and correspondence of Major-General Sir 
John Malcolm, ii, 47-8). Dye-plants, mainly in the 
central Zagros region and Kirman, and other plants 
used in industry such as saffron, hemp, flax and, in 
the Dizful and Shustar areas, indigo (which was 
introduced by the Bflyid, c Adud al-Dawla, see Ibn 
al-Athlr, Ta'rikh, viii, 513), madder, and, round 
Yazd and Kirman, henna, and, in Mazandaran, jute, 
have been cultivated since early times (cf. Spuler, 
op. cit., 389). Vegetable gums, including gum tra- 
gacanth and asafoetida, are cropped mainly for 
export. The latter was known in early Islamic times 
(cf. IJudud aW-dlam, 108-10). Oak-gall is produced 
mainly in Kurdistan. A variety of flowers and a kind 
of willow were cultivated for scent (Spuler, op. cit., 
389-90) ; the former also contributed to bee-keeping. 

Fruit. Persia has been famous for fruit-growing 
since early times (cf. Spuler, op. cit., 388). Many 
varieties of vine are cultivated and found up to an 
altitude of 4,500 ft. Vine cultivation is mainly by 
irrigation, except in some areas of Kurdistan. On the 
plateau the vines are covered with earth in the winter. 
Apricots, peaches, nectarines, figs, melons, pome- 
granates, plums, cherries, pears, and apples are 
widely grown. Citrus fruits are important in the 
Caspian provinces and south Persia, especially in 
KhOzistan and southern Fars. Recently citrus 
cultivation has been extended to Bam. Dates are 
widely cultivated in south Persia and on the coastal 
plains bordering the Persian Gulf. The female plant 
is impregnated by the male in March or April, some 
two males going to a plantation of fifty (cf. Nasir 
al-DIn TOsI, who was aware of this peculiarity of the 
date palm, Akhldk-i Ndsiri, Tehran n.d., 25-6). Nut 
trees, especially almonds and pistachios, are of 
importance. Olives were cultivated in early Islamic 
times in NishapOr, Gurgan, Daylam, and Fars 
(Spuler, op. cit., 387). The main area of cultivation 
at the present day is Rudbar in Mazandaran, where 
cultivation increased after the decline of silk pro- 
duction in the middle of the nineteenth century 
(T. E. Gordon, Persia revisited, London 1896, 163; 
Curzon, Persia, i, 368). The grafting of vines and 
other fruit trees has long been practised (cf. Fakhr 
al-DIn RazI, Qidmi 1 aW-ulum, B.M., OR. 2972, 
ff. I32a-i33b and Cahdrdah risdla, ed. Sayyid Mu- 
hammad Bakir Sabzawari, Tehran 1962, 146-51). At 
the present day in Kirman and Fars almonds and 
pistachios are grafted on to the wild almond tree {bdna). 

Although large landownership has been the domi- 
nant form of land tenure, large-scale farming was not 
(and is not) practised, except exceptionally. The 
agricultural unit was the ploughland (djuft, khish, 



zawdfl and agriculture was carried on mainly as 
subsistence agriculture; this is still predominantly 
the case. Broadly the ploughland consists of an area 
which a pair of oxen can cultivate annually; but it 
varies in size according to the nature of the soil, 
the type of agriculture practised (dry or irrigated), 
practices with regard to fallow, the kind of crops 
grown, the draught animals used, and the pressure 
or otherwise on the land. The average ploughland 
ranges from some 60 to 20 acres; but in some areas 
holdings are much smaller, as for example in Marbln, 
one of the districts of Isfahan, where cultivation is 
mainly carried on by spade. The relation between the 
peasant and the landowner was formerly usually 
regulated, and to some extent still is, by a crop- 
sharing agreement (muzdra'-a [q.v.]). The ploughland 
or peasant-holding is usually run as a family concern 
by the peasant and his sons or other members of the 
family; extra labour may be required at harvest time 
and at certain other seasons of the year. In some 
areas three or four ploughlands are run together as a 
unit (buna). Periodical redistribution of the plough- 
lands among the peasants of a village used to take 
place, usually by lot, in some districts. 

The main draught animal used on the plateau is the 
ox. Donkeys and, especially in KhOzistan, mules, 
and in the Persian Gulf littoral, Miyandoab (in 
Adharbaydjan), and Mahabad (in Kurdistan), 
buffaloes, and in Persian Balucistan, the camel, 
are also used. In some areas, notably SIstan, oxen 
are hired for ploughing to the cultivators by graziers. 
Where the soil is stiff more than one pair of draught 
animals may be required (cf . Morier, Second journey 
through Persia, Armenia and Asia Minor to Constan- 
tinople in the year 1810 and 1816, London 1818, 304). 
Donkeys and camels are the main pack-animals. 
Small bullock carts are found in western Adharbay- 
djan and some of the Armenian villages in Firaydan. 

The plough (khish) used is of the hook type having 
a large or small steel share. The plough beam is 
linked to the yoke by means of a rope sling. There is 
no mould board and the soil is ripped open leaving 
an open, coarse, cloddy tilth. There are slight differ- 
ences between the plough used in (i) Fars, Kirman, 
and SIstan, (ii) Isfahan, Hamadan, Tehran, and 
Adharbaydjan, and (iii) Gllan and Mazandaran. Seed 
is sown broadcast. 

In addition to the plough, a kind of harrow (mala) 
is used; it differs slightly in shape in south and central 
Persia on the one hand and north-west Persia on the 
other. Two kinds of levelling board are in use, a 
relatively large board drawn by a draught animal, 
and a smaller board (known in central Persia as 
katar), which is used for the preparation of irrigation 
check banks, and operated by two men, one pulling 
and the other pushing. Three types of spade are 
used, one in Fars, which has a wooden cross bar, 
the second in central Persia, which has a turned 
footrest, and the third in Adharbaydjan, which has 
a rolled edge. 

Grain is cut with a sickle (das) which has a plain 
cutting edge; scythes are used in northern Adharbay- 
djan, where they were introduced from Russia at the 
end of the nineteenth century. A small toothed sickle 
is used for cutting grass and lucerne, etc. Corn is tied 
into sheaves and left to dry or carried straight to the 
threshing floor (kharmangdh). Pod crops, such as 
peas, beans, linseed, and carraway seed, are mainly 
threshed by beating with rods ; and in those parts of 
the country where draught animals are scarce, 
corn is also threshed in this way. A threshing board, 
the bottom surface of which is studded with sharp 



pieces of flint stone held in position by wooden 
wedges, is used to thresh grain. It is attached by a 
rope to a yoke and drawn, while a man stands on 
it, in a circle by an ox or oxen or other animal 
over the threshing floor. A threshing wheel or wain 
{(tin, Kdn) is used, especially in north-eastern, 
central and south Persia. This is a sledge-like carriage, 
usually drawn by two oxen with two sets of rollers, 
which turn round as the sledge beams slide over the 
sheaves. The rollers carry sharp-edged steel discs, 
sometimes with fine saw teeth, or have steel knives 
or prongs with sharp edges, one roller having the 
edges parallel to the axis, and the other having them 
at right angles. In some parts of Adharbaydjan the 
wain has wooden spokes. The third method of thresh- 
ing is for the grain to be trodden out by strings of 
oxen, donkeys, or horses driven round the threshing 
floor. Winnowing is done by wooden forks, the grain 
being thrown six or seven feet into the air. The grain 
drops straight down while the chaff is carried by the 
wind and settles on a separate heap. A second win- 
nowing done by wooden shovels is sometimes 
necessary. Finally the grain is sifted to separate it 
from the stones and earth with which it may have 
become mixed during threshing and winnowing. 
Two men can winnow and sift 20-25 cwt. of corn a day. 
Donkeys and other pack animals take the grain in 
sacks to the granaries. The chaff is removed in nets 
and used as fodder for horses, donkeys and oxen 
(H. E. Wulff, Agricultural implements in Persia, in 
Power farming and better farming digest, Sidney, Oct. 
1958). 

Sheep and goats are commonly grazed on stubble 
fields, which thus receive a slight benefit from their 
manure. For the most part, however, animal dung ' 
used as fuel. In some dry farming areas there 
insufficient rainfall to rot the manure even if it were 
used. Household sewage mixed with earth is used 
as fertilizer in some areas, especially round urban 
centres. Earth from old walls and ruined buildings 
is also broken down and spread on the fields (cf. J. B. 
Fraser, Winter's journey, London 1838, ii, 65). 
Gardens tend to be manured more regularly than 
fields and to be cultivated annually. Pigeon lime, 
collected in pigeon towers, is used in the Isfahan 
district for the cultivation of melons and pear trees 
(cf. Chardin, Voyages, Amsterdam 171 1, ii, 75). 
Fakhr al-DIn RazI mentions the use of bird lime and 
weed-killers (Dfamj' aW-ulum, f. 132a). Fish manure is 
used in Kirman for pistachio trees. Chemical fertili- 
zers have been introduced in recent years but their 
use is comparatively rare. 

Practices in fallow, during which the land may or 
may not be ploughed, and crop rotation vary very 
widely. Unirrigated land tends to be left fallow for 
long periods. Irrigation is usually by inundation. 
In vineyards, melon land, and market gardens the 
water is let into the land by irrigation trenches. 
In land watered by kandts the tendency is to cultivate 
more intensively the land nearest the mouth of the 
kandt to avoid water loss while that at the end of the 
kandt is less frequently cultivated. 

In many parts of Persia the crops have to be 
guarded, especially at night, to prevent depredations 
by wild pig and other animals. Scarecrows (matarsak) 
are erected in some districts (cf. C. E. Yate, Khurasan 
and Sistan, London 1900, 168, 283). 

In recent years there has been some development 
in mechanization. An increasing number of tractors 
and combine harvesters have been in use especially 
since 1952, but the numbers are still relatively small 
except in Dasht-i Gurgan, where cultivation in the 



grain-growing areas has been wholly, and in the 
cotton-growing areas, partially mechanized. 

The state did not interest itself in the conduct of 
agriculture except so far as crown lands [khalisa) 
were concerned; though it was interested in the 
prosperity or otherwise of agriculture from the point 
of view of taxation. A Ministry of Agriculture, Com- 
merce and Public Welfare, was first founded in 1879; 
at the same time an Agricultural Council was set up. 
In 1891-2 the department of agriculture and com- 
merce was transferred to the Ministry of National 
Economy and Roads. The following year departments 
general of agriculture, commerce, and industry 
were set up. In 1893-4 agriculture and industry were 
once more united in one department, but were sub- 
sequently again divided. In 1897-8 the Ministry of 
Crown Lands (wiz&rat-i khdlisad±at wa rakabdt-i ddr 
al-khildfa) became the Ministry of Crown Lands and 
Agriculture. Subsequently crown lands (khalisa) 
were transferred to the Ministry of Finance. During 
the constitutional period agriculture suffered various 
vicissitudes administratively. The first agricultural 
magazine to be published was a fortnightly journal 
of agriculture and commerce issued in 1880 by the 
Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce. 

The first agricultural school in Persia was the 
Madrasa-i Muzaffari at Tehran which was opened in 
1901-2. It closed after six years. The next attempt to 
open an agricultural school was at Karadj near 
Tehran in 1919. This became a high school in 1933-4 
and a college in 1943-4. In 1948-9 it was transferred 
from the Ministry of Agriculture to Tehran University 
and in 1952-3 separated into two colleges, the college 
of agriculture and the college of veterinary science, 
which were fully incorporated into the university. 
Experimental work is done in government agricul- 
tural stations, notably at Karadj. 

Bibliography: (In addition to the works 
mentioned in the text) : A. K. S. Lambton, Landlord 
and Peasant in Persia, Oxford 1953; Taki Bahrain!, 
Diughrdfivd-vi Kishdvarzl-i Iran, Tehran 1954-5 ; 
Farhang-i RustaH, 3 vols., Tehran 1927-38; W. B. 
Fisher, The Middle East, London 1950; The Middle 
East, A political and economic survey, 3rd edition, 
Oxford 1958; <Abd al-Rahlm Zarrabi, TaMkh-i 
Kdshdn, ed. Iradj Afshar, Tehran 1956-7, 144 ff.; 
Macdonald Kinneir, A geographical memoir of the 
Persian Empire, London 1813; P. H. T. Beckett, 
The soils of Kertnan, South Persia, in The Journal 
of Soil Science, ix (1 March 1958) ; idem, Agriculture 
in Central Persia, in Tropical Agriculture, xxxiv 
(1 January 1957); H. L. Rabino, Report on the 
production of rice in the provinces of Gilan, Mazan- 
daran and Astarabad, in Board of Trade Journal, 
25 April 1907; idem, Silk culture in Persia, in 
ibid., 6 June 1907; H. L. Rabino and D. F. Lafont, 
La culture du riz en Gilan, in Annates de I'Ecole 
Nationale d' Agriculture deMontpelier, 1911, Culture 
du tabac en Guilan, in Progris viticole, Montpelier 
191 1, Culture de la gourde a Ghalian en Gilan et en 
Mazandaran, in RMM, xxviii (1914), Culture de 
la canne a Sucre en Mazandaran, in ibid; Mohamed 
Hossein Danechi, Vocabulaires agricoles en langue 
persane, thesis, Paris 1963 (not published). — Scat- 
tered references to agriculture are also to be found 
in the works of the Arab and Persian geographers 
and in local histories. (A. K. S. Lambton) 

iv. — Ottoman Empire 

During the period between the 8th/i4th and nth/ 

17th centuries, when the timdr [q.v.] system prevailed 

in the Ottoman Empire, the rakabe, i.e., the freehold 



ownership of agricultural lands was regarded as 
vested in the State. The tenure of lands held as wakf 
and miilk in the pre-Ottoman Muslim states of 
Anatolia was in part confirmed, but Mehemmed II 
converted some of them to min-land (see I A, s.v. 
Mehmed II, 533), as he did the land belonging to 
Christian monasteries in the territories of Trebizond 
(Basvekalet Arsivi, Maliye defter no. 828) : generally 
speaking the central authority, when it was powerful, 
attempted to increase the extent of mtri-land. 

According to the typical c 6rfi kdnilns promulgated 
in these centuries [see ?anun], land was granted on 
lease to farmers in parcels usually termed lift or 
Ciftlik [q.v.]. The peasant could not transfer these 
raSyyetlik lands as miilk or as wakf or as a gift. If 
he wished to sell them or give them up he was 
obliged to obtain the permission of the sipdhi and 
pay a fixed charge, the hakk-i kardr (in the nth/i7th 
century, 3% of the selling price). Thus the peasant 
possessed merely the right of usufruct (istighldl) ; 
and this right could pass directly only to his sons 
(for the later recognized rights of daughters and other 
relatives, see 6. L. Barkan, Turk toprak hukuku . . ., 
in Tanzimat, i, Istanbul 1940, 358-421). The lift unit 
of land could not be divided: if more than one son 
inherited they enjoyed the usufruct jointly. In 
principle, the peasant could not leave this land: if he 
did, he was obliged to pay the lift bozan resmi 
(50 akte [q.v.] in the gth/isth, 75 akce in the ioth/i6th 
century; as the number of peasants leaving the land 
increased so the lift bozan resmi was increased, with 
the fall in the value of the akce, to 300 akles). If the 
peasant left the land unworked for more than three 
years, the timariot could grant it to another. The 
use to which the land was put could not be changed: 
agricultural land, for example, could not be converted 
to pasture, vegetable-growing or fruit-growing. 
Agricultural land turned over to vine- or vegetable- 
growing without the sipdhi's permission could, if 
less than ten years had passed, be restored to its 
former use. The State expected the peasant to sow 
a definite quantity of seed on land of a given area. 
Vineyards and vegetable-gardens near towns or 
around houses were exempt from these regulations, 
being subject to the shar'i rules of ownership. The 
status of the land and the farmer was confirmed by 
the tahrir [q.v.] carried out at fixed intervals. 

The problem in the Ottoman Empire was not 
shortage of land but shortage of labour; and it is 
probably for this reason that the peasant was bound 
to the soil. On the timdrs there were several areas of 
untenanted land, known as mezra'a and ekinlik. The 
State was concerned above all to prevent the peasants 
abandoning the land and moving away: the sipdhi 
who provoked this was severely punished, while 
those who could persuade farmers to settle on vacant 
land were rewarded. The tahrir registers of the time 
of Suleyman I, however, show that new land, 
referred to as ifrdzdt, had then been brought under 
cultivation, for at this period the population had 
increased considerably and the State encouraged the 
cultivation of mawdt lands, heretofore left unused; 
such lands were exempt from tapu resmi until the 
next tahrir was carried out. 

A further degree in State control of the land and 
of agriculture is found in the active participation by 
the State, exemplified particularly in rice-growing. 
Under this system, applied with the object of 
ensuring supplies for the army, rice-growing was 
carried out under the supervision of emins, respon- 
sible for the administrative and financial organiza- 
tion, and of leltik re'isleri, responsible for the actual 



.HA 907 

cultivation. Every tettikdji was obliged to sow a 
definite amount of seed on a definite area, both 
prescribed by the State. The irrigation-canals were 
kept in repair under the supervision of the re'is. 
From the harvested rice, after seed had been set 
aside, the State took one-half (in some areas two- 
thirds). As compensation for this, the leltikdiiler so 
organized were exempt from certain taxes (mainly 
the resm-i lift, resm-i ghanem, c awdrid; for the 
celtikdjiler see Barkan, K anunlar, 54, 202-3, 20 5', 'or 
a leUik kdnunu see Ankara Un., DTCF library, 
Ismail Saip collection MS 5 1 20, 1 30-9) . The cultivation 
of rice was introduced into Rumeli by the Ottomans, 
and extensive rice-fields under State control ap- 
peared in the valleys of the Meric (Maritsa), Karasu, 
Vardar and Salambria (see M. T. Gokbilgin, Edirne 
ve Pasa Livdsi, Istanbul 1952, 125-50). A similar 
system of State participation prevailed in the 
villages which, in order to ensure the food-supply of 
Istanbul, were created in the vicinity of the city by 
the settlement of prisoners of war, 'ortakdji kullar' 
(see Barkan, Kanunlar, 86-109, and idem, XV ve XVI. 
asirlarda Osmanh imperatorlugunda toprak isciliginin 
organizasyonu sekilleri, in Iktisat Fak. Mecm., i 
(1939), 29-74, 198-245, 397-447- On the food supply 
of the capital see further W. Hahn, Die verpflegung 
Konstantinopels durch staatliche Zwangswirtschaft, 
Stuttgart 1926; R. Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde 
moitii du XVII' siecle, Paris 1962, 179-213). 

Thus the principal characteristic of the classical 
Ottoman land-system was direct State control of 
the peasant and the soil, a system which had grown 
up to meet the military and financial needs of an 
absolutist administration, and in which the state's 
main concern was to ensure the revenues of the 
timdrs. This timdr organization and the Ottoman 
land-system broke up in the period of anarchy which 
began at the end of the ioth/i6th century (see 
ICoCi Beg, Risdle, ed. A. K. Aksiit, Istanbul 1939, 
24-56). Lack of settled conditions and heavy taxes 
caused the peasantry to abandon the soil in droves: 
in the first half of the nth/ 17th century this move- 
ment from the land reached disastrous proportions 
and was called 'the great flight', 'biiyiik kackun' 
(see M. Akdag, Turkiyenin iktisadi vaziyeti, in 
Belleten, xiii/51 (1949), 537-64, xiv/55 (1950), 319- 
405). In many districts local dignitaries and Janis- 
saries turned the abandoned agricultural land into 
pastures for their flocks of sheep (M. Akdag, Belleten, 
xiv, 374, 394). The new kdnilns concerning the use 
of land and the ra'dyd which were promulgated in 
the early nth/i7th century (they are found together 
in MTM, i (1331), 49-112, 305-48) are the result of 
efforts to solve this problem. 

In the nth/i7th and I2th/i8th centuries the most 
important change in agricultural conditions was 
brought about by the spread of the systems of 
mukdfa'a and iltizdm [qq.v.]. There arose a new class 
of aghas, a'-ydn and derebeys [qq.v.] in Rumeli and 
Anatolia who, holding possession of the land for 
life, became in practice great land-owners (for 
Western Anatolia see C. Ulucay, i8.ve 19. yiizytllarda 
Saruhan'da eskiyahk ve halk hareketleri, Istanbul 1955 ; 
see further A. F. Miller, Mustafa Pasha Bayraktar, 
Moscow 1947). Although Mahmud II succeeded, 
after 1227/1812, in putting down the great a'ydns 
and derebeys, the village aghas and the lesser a'ydn 
maintained themselves as the ruling class in the 
social sphere. In many areas the peasant had now 
sunk to the position of tenant or share-cropper on 
the lands held as mukdta'a by the aghas : in this state 
of affairs is to be found the basic reason for the 



peasant risings in the Balkans in the 19th century 
(see H. Inalcik, Tanzimat nedir?, in Tarih arastir- 
malari, Ankara 1941, 237-63). 

Difficulties of communication meant that agri- 
cultural products were in general disposed of 
in local markets. Cereals were distributed further 
afield only in areas near the coasts or in 
vicinity of cities or along the great military rov 
In the 8th/i4th and 9th/i5th centuries Venice 
bought large quantities of cereals from Western 
Anatolia, Thrace and Thessaly (see F. Thiriet, 
Rigestes des dilibirations du Senat de Venise concer- 
nant la Romanie, i-iii, Paris 1958-60). In the same 
period cotton and dried fruits were exported from 
Western Anatolia to countries in the north (this 
appears particularly from the customs-registers of 
Akkerman and Kili, Basvekalet Arsivi, Maliye no. 6). 
From the 9th/i6th century onwards increased trade 
with Western Europe led to an increase in the export 
of the cotton and cotton goods of Western Anatolia 
(P. Masson, Hist, du commerce francais dans le 
Levant, Paris 1896-1911, appendix VIII; E. Arup, 
Studier i Engelsk og Tysk Handelshistorie, Copenhagen 
1907, 109 ff., 191 ff.). In the the 19th century, as was 
observed by P. de Tchichatchef (Asie Mineure, 
3 vols., Paris 1867), G. Perrot (Souvenirs d'un voyage 
en Asie Mineure, Paris 1867) and A. Ubicini (Lettres 
sur la Turquie, Paris 1851, 244-65), the agricultural 
methods of the peasantry were dictated entirely by 
tradition. In this field ethnographical observations 
(e.g. Hamit Z. Kosay, Tiirkiye halkimn maddl 
kulturiine dair arastirmalar , in Tilrk Etnografya 
Dergisi, i (1956), 7-55; Contribution a Vitude de la 
culture matirielle des Bulgares, in Bulletin du Musie 
Nat. d'Ethnographie a Sofia, viii, 55-109, x-xi, 130-65, 
xii, 62-85) can be supplemented from the kdnuns for 
sandjaks and notes in the registers concerning 
agriculture and irrigation (see, e.g., Barkan, Kanunlar, 
and Monumenta Turcica, i, Sarajevo 1957). The 
mufassal defterler [see daftar-i khakanI] contain 
much material — as yet unstudied — on the crops 
grown in various areas and their productivity; the 
various agricultural implements are to be found 
listed in the kadis' registers of effects (metrukdt). The 
Anatolian peasant divided his land into three or two 
sections, and followed the principle of leaving each 
fallow for two years or one year (nadas, see Barkan, 
Kanunlar, s.v.). Important details on the irrigation 
methods employed in the Ilkhanid period in Anatolia 
are found in the letters of Rashld al-DIn (see Z. V. 
Togan, Resideddin'in mekt&plarmda Andadolu'nun 
iktisadi ve medenl hayatina ait kayitlar, in 1st. On. 
Iktisat Fak. Mecm., xv (1953-4), 33-5°; Kh'adia 
Rashid al-DIn Fadl Allah, Kitdb-i Mukdtabdt-i 
Rashidi, ed. M. Shafi, Lahore 1363/1935, 220-30, 
234-6). In the Ottoman period, in arid districts like 
Central Anatolia and Diyarbakr there was a special 
regime for irrigation (for this mirdblik see Barkan, 
Kanunlar, 42, 46; Kdnunndme of Siileyman, TOEM 
Supplement, 65-6). 

The Ottomans were naturally acquainted with 
Muslim works on Him al-fildha. The K. al-Fildha of 
Shaykh Abu Zakariyya' Yahya b. al- c Awwam was 
translated into Turkish in 998/1599 by Mustafa b. 
Lutf Allah (MSS: Bayezid Lib., Veliyeddin 2534, 
Bursa miizesi E 32; 1st. Univ. Lib.). Two works by 
Ottoman authors were well-known: Rawnak-i 
bustdn by al-Hadjdj Ibrahim b. Mehemmed (MS: 
Suleymaniye, Esad Ef. 1019; editions: Istanbul 1260; 
Konya 1285; and ed. Hadiye Tuncer [in modern 
script, unsatisfactory], Ankara 1961), and Ghars- 
ndme by KemanI, composed in 1047/1637 (see Turk 



ziraat tarihine bir bakis [I. Koy ve Ziraat Kalkmma 
Kongresi yayini], Istanbul 1938, 43). Both these 
works are concerned with the growing of fruit trees, 
and contain chapters on the soil, planting, pruning, 
grafting, the diseases of trees and their treatment. 
The author of the Rawnak-i bustdn discussed in a 
final section the gathering and keeping of fruit; he 
had himself, he says, made an orchard near Edirne 
and added to the data of books on fildfta what he 
had learned from experience. 

In the history of horticulture, the Ottomans hold 
an especial position as cultivators of flowers, parti- 
cularly tulips, in the I2th/i8th century (see Djewad 
Rushdl, in Edebiyydt-i c Umumiyye Medjmu'-asl, 
nos. 29, 35, 36). At the Palace, there was a separate 
corps of flower-gardeners controlled by the shilkufe- 
bashl (c~ic"ekti-basht) (see Feridun, Munsha'dt al- 
salaiin*, ii, 224-5). There was overt competition 
among great men to raise new varieties, a successful 
grower receiving the title sdftib-i tukhm. In that 
century the Ottomans are said to have produced 839 
types of tulip (A. Refik, Ldle devri, 46-7). Ottoman 
authors wrote many works on flower-growing (the 
best-known being Mehemmed Remzi's Ldlezdr-i 
bdgh-i kadim, 'All Celebi's Shukufe-ndme, Fethl 
Celebi's Tuhfat al-ikhwdn, Lalezari Mehemmed's 
Mizdn al-azhdr, 'Othman Efendi's K. al-Nabdt, c Abd 
Allah Efendi's Shukufe-ndme, HadjdjI Ahmed's 
NatdHdi al-azhdr, etc., see Pjewad Rushdl, op. cit.). 
The biographies of prominent growers were also 
collected in such works as c Abd Allah Efendi's and 
Rushdi-zade Remzi's Tedhkire-i shukufediiydn (MSS: 
Halis Ef. and Ali Emiri collections). 

In the period of the Tanzimat [q.v.] attempts were 
made, under European influence, to improve agri- 
cultural methods. The issue of the Takwim al-wakdV 
of 14 RabI' II 1254/7 July 1838 reports the setting-up 
of a Zird'at ve SandV Medjlisi; and in 1259/1843 a 
Medflis-i Zird'-at was founded, attached to the 
Ministry of Finance. Directors of Agriculture were 
sent to the provinces (13 Radjab 1260/29 July 1844) 
and on 23 Rabi c II 1261/1 May 1845 an Agricultural 
Congress of delegates from the provinces was held 
in Istanbul. The chief matters raised by the parti- 
cipants were the need to reduce the taxes on agri- 
culture, to provide agricultural credits, to control 
rivers and to build roads (A. Ubicini, Letters sur la 
Turquie, 244-65, dwells on the same points). Finally 
in Safar 1262/February 1846 there was constituted 
a Ministry of Agriculture, which was later united 
with the Ministry of Commerce, and in 1310/1892 
reconstituted as the Ministry of Forests, Mines and 
Agriculture (Orman, Ma'ddin ve Zird'-at Nezdreti). 
The first School of Agriculture and model farm was 
founded on the Aya-Mama estate near Istanbul, but 
did not last long. The promotion of scientific agri- 
culture in Turkey is the work of the Halkali College 
of Agriculture and Veterinary Science, founded in 
1308/1890. 

Various attempts were made in the Tanzimat 
period to improve the lot of the peasant. In some 
regions proposals were made — but not put into 
effect — to transfer mukdta'a-\and from the aghas to 
the peasants (see H. Inalcik, Tanzimat ve Bulgar 
meselesi, Ankara 1943). Measures taken to promote 
the ownership of land with the right of inheritance 
were inadequate (see 0. L. Barkan, Tilrk toprak 
hukuku, in Tanzimat, i, 399-341), and favoured 
rather the holders of large estates. The land law of 
1274/1858 contains some new European ideas, but 
is basically merely a codification of the old Ottoman 
land-regulations. To protect the peasant from money- 



lenders, the maximum interest was fixed by law at 
15% (Basvekalet Arsivi, Miihimme def. no. 253, 
8-io), and the sum of 20 million kurush per annum 
was set aside to provide credits to peasants. The 
measures taken to improve agriculture in the 
Dobrudja [q.v.] deserve particular mention. A French 
expert was called in to survey the agricultural 
situation and make recommendations (see A. Gaudry, 
Recherches scientifiques en Orient, Paris i860). The 
distribution of good varieties of seed to the peasants, 
tax-exemption granted to promote the culture of 
olives and mulberries, encouragement to use modern 
implements — all these sprang from the adoption of 
the new outlook, whose effects are best exemplified 
in the activities of Midhat Pasha [q.v.} in the Danube 
province (northern Bulgaria): he was the first to 
import from Europe reaping- and threshing-machines, 
he founded a model farm, and set up 'Menafi'- 
sandlklari' to supply credit on easy terms to farmers 
(see c Ali Haydar Midhat, Midhat Pasha, haydt-i 
siydsiyyesi. . ., Istanbul 1325/1909, 29). In this 
period the export of agricultural products to Europe, 
especially to Great Britain, increased greatly (see 
F. E. Bailey, British policy and the Turkish reform 
movement, Cambridge, Mass. 1942, 76, and tables 
8-14). Cotton-growing expanded considerably, with 
British encouragement, during the American Civil 
War (see Turk ziraat tarihine bir bakis, 127-36). 
Bibliography : in the article. (H. Inalcik) 



This section offers a survey of agriculture in India 
during the mediaeval period, i.e., from the time 
of the arrival of the Muslims to the British 
conquest. 

1. Agriculture. The natural setting of agricul- 
ture in India, despite various important variations, 
displays a surprising degree of uniformity. The 
larger part of the country consists of plains: the 
great Indus and Gangetic Plains of the north and 
the broad river valleys of the south. Except for the 
extreme tip of the southern peninsula, where there 
is a significant winter monsoon as well, the rainfall 
received is mainly from the summer monsoons. These 
are so bountiful that nearly half of the area of the 
Union of India has an average annual rainfall of 
over 100 cm. Some mediaeval writers could, therefore, 
be excused for their exaggeration when they said, as 
Abu '1-Fadl {AHn-i Akbari, Bibl. Ind., ii, 5-6), that 
the whole of the land of India was cultivable or, as 
Babur {Bdbumdma, tr. A. S. Beveridge, ii, 488), that 
its crops needed no artificial irrigation. Nature has 
also made possible another phenomenon, regarded in 
mediaeval times as the special characteristic of Indian 
agriculture, viz., the sowing and reaping of two 
harvests in the year — one (kharif) collected after the 
end of the rains, and the other {rabi c ) at the end of 
the winter. 

A comparison of nth/i7th century area statistics 
(preserved in the AHn-i Akbari, c. 1595, and in 
certain documents from Awrangzeb's reign) with 
modern returns suggests that the cultivated area 
during the nth/i7th century was about half of the 
area cultivated at the beginning of this century in 
such large regions as Bihar, eastern and central 
Uttar Pradesh, Berar and Western Pakistan. In 
western Uttar Pradesh, eastern Pandjab and 
Gudjarat, the area cultivated was smaller by one- 
third to one-fifth. (See Irfan Habib, Agrarian 
system of Mughal India, 1-22 ; Moreland, India at the 
death of Akbar, 20-2, offers a still lower estimate of 
the extent of cultivation under Akbar). The great 



HA 909 

extent of forest in mediaeval times is also indicated 
by the information we possess about particular 
localities. We know, for example, from the chroniclers' 
accounts of campaigns in Kaiehr (now Rohilkhand) 
that extensive forests existed in this region in the 
13th and 14th centuries. While these were largely 
cleared during the following three or four centuries, 
the Tara'I forest still covered, further to the east, 
most of north-eastern Uttar Pradesh (now a densely 
populated area), down to the end of the 18th century 
(cf. Rennell's Atlas of Bengal, 1781, Map X). 

All descriptions of mediaeval agricultural practice 
apply equally well to the traditional practice in 
Indian villages today. There existed the same 
combination of simple and crude tools with certain 
ingenious methods and devices. While the fitting 
of the "iron point" to the wooden plough is referred 
to in a work as old as the Manusmriti (x, 84), Fryer 
(1672-81) found that in fact the "coulters" of Indian 
ploughs were "unarmed mostly, Iron being scarce", 
and that hard wood was being used instead. Yet 
on the other hand, Aman Allah Husayni (early 17th 
century) notices the use of dibbling in sowing cotton, 
and Th6venot in Gudjarat observed the use of fish 
manure in planting sugar-cane. 

Rainfall was generally supplemented by artificial 
irrigation, from wells, tanks and canals. Babur has 
described for us the two most common methods of 
lifting water out of wells. One involves lifting water 
in a leathern bucket (iaras) pulled out of the well by 
yoked oxen drawing a rope passed over a wooden 
wheel, "a laborious and filthy method". The other 
(the raha't or arhat), which deeply interested Babur, is 
called in English the Persian wheel (Bdbumdma, tr. 
Beveridge, i, 388; ii, 486). The dhenkli, based on the 
use of weights, has been described by Fryer. Large 
tanks for irrigation purposes were usually constructed 
by damming streams and rivulets. Flruz Shah 
(752-90/1351-88) is said to have built several 
tanks by means of such dams {bands) ( c Afif, Ta'rikh-i 
Firuz-shdhi, Bibl. Ind., 330). The Udaypur lake, 
created by a massive dam in the 16th century, was 
originally about 40 miles in circumference (AHn, i, 
509). Abandoned channels of rivers, which became 
active during the inundations, served as natural 
canals and were important sources of irrigation in 
the Indus basin. Human effort was often needed to 
keep them in use by clearing silted sections. In 
addition there were some big man-made canals. The 
best known of these was Flruz Shah's West Jamuna 
Canal, re-excavated and re-aligned by Shahdjahan. 
Among other important mediaeval works were the 
East Jamuna Canal (early 18th century), a long canal 
drawn from the Sutledj by Flruz Shah, a network of 
Mughal canals drawn from the Ravi near its entry 
into the plains, the Sidhnai (which the Ravi took as 
its main bed in or before the 16th century), the 
Begariwah in upper Sind (17th or 18th century) and 
the Khanwah in the Indus delta (early 16th century). 

Most of the major crops raised today were also 
raised in mediaeval times. A few new crops were 
introduced during the mediaeval period itself. 
Tobacco cultivation became well established through- 
out the country during the earlier part of the 17th 
century. Coffee cultivation had its beginnings late 
in the same century, while the cultivation of capsicum 
spread rapidly in the earlier part of the next. Among 
the purely modern crops may be counted maize, 
potatoes, tea and groundnuts. 

The geographical distribution of the crops in the 
17th century (and so presumably earlier) was 
different in some important respects from that 



FILAHA — FILASTlN 



prevailing today. There was the same broad division 
into rice and wheat zones marked by the 40- or 
50-inch isohyets. But the cultivation of cash crops, 
notably cotton and sugar-cane, was far more 
widespread in mediaeval times, the conditions of 
transport prohibiting concentration. Indigo claimed 
a large area, in mediaeval times as well as till late 
in the 19th century; but its cultivation has now 
practically disappeared. Similarly, opium and hemp 
were more widely cultivated than now. On the 
other hand, jute, though known to have been culti- 
vated in certain localities in Bengal, was far from 
being an important cash crop during mediaeval times. 
Sericulture, which has undergone a great decline 
since, flourished mainly in Bengal and Kashmir. 
Among fruits the most prominent were the mango 
and the coco-nut. The pine-apple was introduced 
during the 16th century through the agency of the 
Portuguese, and was rapidly acclimatized. The 
practice of grafting seems to have been widely 
applied in Mughal times. Djahangir describes its 
application to cherries and apricots in Kashmir 
{Tuzuk, ed. Sayyid Ahmad, 299). Aman Allah 
notices its use in planting mangoes, and a history of 
Shahdjahan's reign declares that great improvement 
in citrus fruits resulted from grafting (British 
Museum MS, Or. 174, f. 102a). The Emperors and 
their nobles were generally fond of laying out 
orchards. Firflz Shah is said to have planted 1200 
orchards around Delhi ('Afif, 295). The Mughals 
have given their name to a particular type of garden, 
laid out in squares and criss-crossed by channels of 
flowing water obtained by various devices (see 
bustan II). 

2. Mediaeval Works on Agriculture. Very 
few works seem to have been written on agriculture 
in mediaeval India, to judge from their extreme 
paucity in modern collections. There exists in some 
MSS, e.g., India Office Library I.O. 4702, Aligarh 
Lytton Farsiya c Ulum 51, and Brit. Mus. Or. 1741, 
ff. 25a-48a, a tract on agriculture which is really 
Chapter XI of an encyclopaedic work, the Gandi-i 
Bad-award, of Aman Allah Husaynl, Khan Zaman, 
d. 1046/1637. This tract embodies, with acknow- 
ledgment, the whole of the Kitdb Shadjarat al-nihdl, 
a work mainly concerned with horticulture and 
written in Persia or Central Asia in the 15th century 
(Brit. Mus. Add. 1771, ff. I57b-269b, etc.). But 
Aman Allah has introduced considerable additions, 
including detailed descriptions of the cultivation of 
Indian fruits and notices of various crops grown in 
India. Yet, despite certain interesting statements, 
Aman Allah's work is much too superficial, and he 
follows the Kitdb Shadjarat al-nihdl in recommending 
a number of quack-practices. Abu'1-Fadl in his 
famous work on Akbar's administration, the A Hn-i 
Akbari (ed. Blochmann, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta, 1867- 
77), gives much information relating to agriculture. 
In its detailed accounts of the provinces of Akbar's 
Empire, the book contains lists of prices of agricul- 
tural products, tables of revenue-rates on the 
various crops, and area statistics and sundry infor- 
mation on cultivation and irrigation. 

Bibliography: Modern works only. More- 
land's India at the death of Akbar, London 1920, 
also contains a description of the system of 
agriculture. On Mughal gardens there is a charming 
book by C. M. Villiers Stuart, Gardens of the Great 
Mughals, London 1913. Irfan Habib's Agrarian 
system of Mughal India, Bombay 1963, may be 
consulted for a fuller treatment of several points 
touched upon in this article. 



Watt's Dictionary of economic products of India, 
6 vols., is a monumental work of reference, giving 
detailed historical, technical and other information 
on almost everything produced in India. For an 
examination of Indian agricultural practice see 
J. A. Voelcker, Report on the improvement of Indian 
agriculture, London 1893; see also the Royal 
Commission on Indian Agriculture, Report, 
London 1928. Modern agricultural statistics, given 
by districts, are available in the volumes of The 
agricultural statistics of India, issued by the 
Department of Revenue, etc., Government of 
India, at irregular intervals since 1884-5. 



(Irf 



IB) 



FILALl [see tafilalt]. 

FILASTlN, colloquially also Falastin, an Arabic 
adaptation of the classical Palestine (Greek IlaXai- 
otIvy), Latin Palaestina), the land of the Philistines. 
The name was used by Herodotus (i, 105; ii, 106; 
iii, 91; iv, 39) and other Greek and Latin authors to 
designate the Philistine coastlands and sometimes 
also the territory east of it as far as the Arabian 
desert. After the suppression of the Jewish revolts 
in 70 and 132-5 A.D. and the consequent reduction 
in the Jewish population the name Syria Palaestina, 
later Palaestina, was adopted by the Romans in 
place of Judaea. The Roman province of Palestine 
was later extended by the annexation to it of other, 
adjoining territories. By the 5th century there were 
three provinces of Palestine, Palaestina Prima, with 
its capital at Caesarea, including Judaea, Idumaea, 
Samaria, and part of Peraea, Palaestina Secunda, 
with its capital at Scythopolis (Baysan), including 
the valley of Esdraelon, Galilee, and parts of the 
Decapolis and of Gaulanitis, and Palaestina Tertia 
or Salutaris, with its capital at Petra, including the 
Negev, Nabataea and part of the Sinai peninsula. 
(Ed.) 



— Palestine v 



r Islamic r 



of Filastin was applied first to the ad- 
and military district (djund [q.v.]) 
established by the Arab conquerors on the territory 
of the ancient Byzantine province known as Palaestina 
prima. The latter comprised roughly Samaria and 
Judaea with the coastal area stretching from Mt. 
Carmel in the north to Ghazza in the south. This 
corresponded with a fairly varied region from the 
geographical point of view, the largest part of which 
was made up of a mountainous chain of medium 
height, with summits rarely exceeding 1,000 metres 
(mountains of Samaria in the north, with Mt. 
Gerizim, the mountains of Judaea in the centre, and 
the mountain of Hebron in the south), extending 
to the west in a series of hills bordering the coastal 
plain and to the east in expanses of steppe, of which 
the most important was the desert of Judah. 

It is difficult to reconstruct with accuracy the 
story of the conquest of Palestine by the Arabs. 
The expedition sent out by Abu Bakr and commanded 
by 'Amr b. al- c As invaded the region of Ghazza in 
Dhu'l-Hidjdja 12 or Muharram 13/February or March 
634. After the fall of Ghazza, 'Amr marched on 
Kaysariyya (Caesarea by the sea) and began to 
besiege it in Djumada I 13/July 634, but he was 
forced to retreat on the approach of a new Byzantine 
army, which he was ready to confront only after 
uniting his troops with those brought by Khalid 
from Syria. After the victory over the Byzantines 
of Adjnadayn [q.v.] in Djumada I or II/July-August 
634, 'Amr occupied most of the towns of Palestine: 
Sabastiya (Samaria), Nabulus, Ludd (Lydda), Yubna, 



'Amwas (Emmaus), Bayt Djibrln and Yafa (Jaffa). 
It was only after the battle of the Yarmflk [q.v.] that 
he was able to pursue the siege of lliya (Jerusalem, 
see al-kuds), whose inhabitants are said to have 
refused to submit to anyone but the Khalifa himself. 
<Umar b. al-Khattab then visited Syria for this 
purpose (16/637). As for the town of Kaysariyya, 'Amr 
took up the siege again, but left it shortly afterwards 
to go to Egypt, leaving as his successor Yazld b. 
Abi Sufyan, who, soon dying, was succeeded by his 
brother Mu c 3wiya. It was Mu c awiya who obtained 
possession of the town by betrayal in 19 or 20/640 
or 641 and completed the conquest of Palestine by 
occupying c Askalan (Ashkelon). 

The Arab conquerors permitted the previous ad- 
ministrative organization to continue, transforming 
the former Palaestina prima into d±uni Filastln; 
they set up the capital first at Ludd, and then at 
al-Ramla, a new town which was founded by Sulay- 
man b. c Abd al-Malik when he was governor of 
Palestine and in which he continued to reside after 
he had become caliph in 96/715. The djund Filasfin, 
still mentioned as such by Ibn Shaddad. survived 
until the Mongol invasion as an administrative 
district, but its territory appears to have been ex- 
tended from the 4th/ioth century onwards, both 
towards the east, and to the south and south-east. 
The geographer al-Mukaddasi in fact counts Ariha 
(Jericho) and 'Amman (the ancient Philadelphia) 
among the towns of this district, and is followed in 
this by Yakut. Al-Istakhri and Ibn Hawkal, for 
their part, join to Palestine the south of the Ghawr 
[q.v.], al-Djibal [q.v.] and al-Sharat [q.v.], that is to 
say, on the one hand the lands situated to the north 
of the Dead Sea, and on the other those to the south 
of it on the other side of the rift-valley which extends 
as far as the gulf of al- c Akaba. Further, the vast 
area called al-Tih, covering the present day Negev 
and Mt. Sinai, was also in practice attached to 
Palestine. Under the Mamluk sultans, Palestine 
received a new administrative organization. It was 
attached more or less directly to the niydba of 
Damascus, and comprised six districts, those of 
Ghazza, Ludd and Kakiin on the one hand (these 
three districts being sometimes considered as forming 
a separate mamlaka) and those of al-Kuds (Jerusalem), 
al-Khalil (Hebron) and Nabulus on the other. 

Palestine was particularly honoured in the Umay- 
yad period. Mu'awiya is reported to have had himself 
proclaimed caliph at Jerusalem and it was under one 
of his successors that the ancient court of the Temple, 
called the haram, received its two principal monu- 
ments, Kubbat al-Sahhra and al-Masdjid al-Afisd, 
both built by <Abd al-Malik (65-86/684-705). This 
caliph had the interior of the Dome of the Rock 
decorated with mosaics evoking the superiority of 
Islam over Christianity and the domination of the 
world by the Muslim rulers. In the 'Abbasid period 
Palestine reverted, with Syria, to the rank of a mere 
province; its official capital continued to be al- 
Ramla, but the monuments of Jerusalem maintained 
sufficient renown for the caliph al-Ma'mun, inspired 
by hostility for the Umayyads' memory, to feel 
the need to substitute his own name for that of 
c Abd al-Malik in all the inscriptions commemorating 
the latter's foundations. 

Palestine was occupied by the Fatimids immediate- 
ly after Egypt (359/969) and thus broke free for some 
time from the authority of the caliphs of Baghdad, 
which had already become nominal under the 
Tfllunids [q.v.] and then under the Ikhshldids [q.v.]. 
But Fatimid rule was never firmly established there, 



if IN 911 

and brief revolts ensued, of which the most specta- 
cular was the one which led to the installation of a 
new 'Alid caliph at al-Ramla by a Bedouin amir of 
the Banu '1-Djarralj [see djarrahids], Jerusalem, 
on the other hand, was the victim of the violent 
measures adopted against the Christians by al- 
Hakim, and at his command the Holy Sepulchre was 
destroyed. In the late 5th/nth century, Palestine 
was briefly occupied by the Turcoman chief Atsiz 
b. Uvak [q.v.]; shortly afterwards a minor Turkish 
dynasty, founded by Artuk [see artuijids], occupied 
Jerusalem, but it was soon expelled by a Fatimid 
counter-attack (479-90/1086-98). This Fatimid success 
was nullified by the arrival of the First Crusade, which 
achieved the foundation of the Latin Kingdom of 
Jerusalem and led to the Crusaders' occupation of the 
Holy Places for nearly a century (492-587/1099-1187). 
The Arab geographers provide some scattered in- 
formation on conditions in Palestine during the 
period between the Arab conquest and the arrival 
of the Crusaders. In the 3rd/9th century Palestine 
was occupied by a numerous population of Arab 
origin (belonging to various tribes). There was, how- 
ever, also a certain proportion of non-Muslims, 
Christians, Jews and Samaritans, the size of which 



urally c; 



il-Ya'k 



the presence of "non-Arabs" in the town of al- 
Ramla. At this period the region was crossed by the 
pilgrimage route from Damascus; at Ayla, near the 
gulf of al- c Akaba, this met the route followed by 
pilgrims from Egypt and the Maghrib; it was also 
a trade-route used long since for traffic with Egypt 
or Arabia. There was also a route connecting Jeru- 
salem with 'Amman via Jericho. In the 4th/ioth 
century Palestine was one of the most fertile regions 
of the province of al-Sham, since it was well watered 
with rain and, in the Nabulus region, boasted abun- 
dant streams. Al-Mukaddasi informs us of its prin- 
cipal products, among which agricultural produce 
was particularly copious and prized: fruit of every 
kind (olives, figs, grapes, quinces, plums, apples, 
dates, walnuts, almonds, jujubes and bananas), some 
of which were exported, and crops for processing 
(sugar-cane, indigo and sumac). But the mineral 
resources were equally important: chalk earth 
(al-hawwdra) , marble from Bayt Djibrln, and sulphur 
mined in the Ghawr, not to mention the salt and 
bitumen of the Dead Sea. Stone, which was common 
in the country, was the most generally used building- 
material for towns of any importance. Al-Mukad- 
dasi also gives us brief indications of the main Muslim 
religious trends; there were some Shi'is at Nabulus, 
no Mu c tazilis openly confessing their beliefs, and 
some well organized Karramis at Jerusalem; at the 
end of the 4th/ioth century the juridical schools 
followed were the Shafi'I and the Fatiml. The 
mediaeval geographers also notice briefly the places 
of pilgrimage, which were especially numerous in 
Jerusalem and Hebron (the town of Abraham 
al-Khp.Ul). 

During the period of the Crusades, Palestine was 
the scene of battles and ambushes, periodically in- 
terrupted by the truces which were from time to time 
established by treaties; such a treaty is that of 
626/1229 by which the Ayyubid al-Kamil restored the 
demilitarized city of Jerusalem to the Franks of 
Acre for ten years. This situation, which in any case 
became more settled after the recapture of Jerusalem 
by Salah al-DIn, did not, however, prevent the con- 
tinuation of economic interchange between Egypt 
and Syria; the caravans were merely subject to 
"transit tolls" imposed by the Franks or, in certain 



re the victims of hostile raids. 
Nor did it prevent the establishment of fruitful 
commerce, particularly under the successors of 
Salah al-DIn, between the European merchants 
{Italian, French or English), living mainly at Acre, 
and the Muslim towns of the interior. It was also 
at this time that Palestine was celebrated by certain 
Muslim writers as the especial land of Prophets, 
and the places of pilgrimage experienced their greatest 
popularity; whether at Jerusalem or at Nabulus or 
Hebron relics of the Biblical prophets venerated by 
the Muslims were not scarce, and to these were added 
the monument at 'Askalan, reputed to contain the 
head of al-Husayn b. c Ali [q.v.], and the tomb at 
Ghazza of Hashim, grandfather of the Prophet. 

At the end of the 7th/i3th century (690/1291), 
the Franks, from whom the Mamluk sultan Baybars 
had already taken the stronghold of 'Askalan in 
668/1270, were expelled by al-Ashraf Khalil from 
their last possessions, Caesarea and Acre; thus all 
Palestine and the neighbouring provinces were again 
under Muslim rule. The territories west of the Jordan 
continued thus during the Mamluk period to play 
an important part as a trunk route, followed as 
much by the merchants as by the official couriers 
who linked Cairo with Damascus and Aleppo along 
a post-road adopted and improved to permit greater 
despatch. 

In 922/1516, after the battle of Dabik, the region 
fell under Ottoman rule, which was to last almost 
without interruption until 1917-18. During the 16th 
century Palestine consisted of the sandjaks of 
Ghazza, Jerusalem, Nabulus, Ladjdjun and Safad, 
all forming part of the eyalet of _ Damascus. The 
sandjak of Ladjdjun was not under an Ottoman 
governor but was held by the local Bedouin clan of 
Turabay, who revolted on more than one occasion. 
From the late 16th century there is a noticeable 
decline, due to falling standards in the administra- 
tion, frequent changes of governors, attempts by 
local chieftains to gain independence, and the cam- 
paigns carried out on the soil of Palestine originating 
in neighbouring regions. As early as the end of the 
ioth/i6th century, indeed, the little Druze state of 
Fakhr al-DIn [q.v.], which controlled the districts 
stretching from Beirut to Mt. Carmel, attempted, 
between 1595 and 1634, to make itself independent 
of the Sublime Porte; following this episode, in 
about 1660 a new province distinct from that of 
Sham was created, named Sayda and including the 
liwds of Safad and al-Ladjdjun. This measure did not 
prevent the continued activities of local chieftains 
the most notable of whom, Zahir Al 'Umar [q.v.], 
a chief of bedouin origin, established himself round 
<Akka between 1750 and 1775. Shortly thereafter 
it was the turn of Ahmad al-Djazzar to attempt 
to emancipate himself from Ottoman tutelage in the 
same region, though not without vigorously resisting 
the attacks of Napoleon Bonaparte who, although 
he had captured Yafa in 1213/1799, was unable to 
make himself master of 'Akka. In the 19th century, 
the son of Muhammad C A1I, Ibrahim Pasha [q.v.], 
was another who desired to take Palestine and Syria 
from the Ottomans and thus assure his mastery over 
the lands of the Arabs. He captured c Akka and 
Damascus in 1832, but in 1840 Palestine was re- 
turned to the sultan c Abd al-MadjId in consequence 
of the intervention of Britain and Austria. 

During the later Ottoman period Palestine be- 
came a subject of increasing interest to the Great 
Powers of Europe, on economic as much as religious 
grounds. The custody of the Holy Places there had 



been acknowledged as in the hands of the Orthodox 
Patriarchate of Jerusalem in the 16th century and 
was reaffirmed at the request of Russia by firmans 
of 1853; the Latin clergy there also had, since the 
16th century, been under the protection of France. 
This situation was the occasion for frequent inter- 
vention by the European States in the affairs of the 
Ottoman Empire. But Palestine also had European 
commercial factories, mainly French, such as those 
of Acre and Ramla, and here, as well as at Jerusalem, 
there resided Consuls charged with protecting their 
nationals by virtue of the agreements known as 
Capitulations [see imtiyazat]. 

From the 18th century onwards, European econo- 
mic penetration increased in Palestine as elsewhere 
in the Arab East. European products were sold there 
either by European merchants themselves or by 
Christians or Jews native to the area who sometimes, 
by taking a European nationality, succeeded in 
enjoying the advantages conferred by the Capitula- 
tions, avoiding part of the 'avanias' to which those 
merchants who were Ottoman subjects were exposed 
and thus obtaining practically a monopoly of impor- 
tant trade [see beratli]. In the 19th century, 
Christian missions, both Catholic and Protestant, 
contributed in Palestine as in the Lebanon to the 
raising of the general level of education, while with 
European help modern technology began to spread; 
thus a French company completed the building of 
the first railway line, that connecting Jaffa with 
Jerusalem, in 1892. 

Palestine had some Jewish inhabitants throughout 
the period of Islamic rule, though their numbers were 
much reduced during the Crusades. They were from 
time to time reinforced by immigration from other 
countries, notably in the 16th century. A new type 
of immigration began in the late 19th century, with 
the establishment of the first Zionist agricultural 
settlements in the eighteen eighties. Despite attempts 
by the Ottoman government to restrain it, this 
movement gained force. It found its ideology in 
Zionism, whose official beginnings may be dated 
1897, when the congress inspired by Th. Herzl was 
held at Basle; at the beginning of the 20th century 
it became ever more marked, so much so that the 
number of Jews resident in Palestine rose from 

Bibliography :>F.-M. Abel, Giographie de la 
Palestine, Paris 1933-38, especially ii, 171-4; 
Le Strange, Palestine; A.-S. Marmardji, Textes 
geographiques arabes sur la Palestine, Paris 195 1, 
especially 95-1 11; N. A. Mednikov, Palestina, 
St. Petersburg 1897-1902; De Goeje, Mimoire sur 
la conqulte de la Syne, Leiden 1864; Ibn Khur- 
radadhbih. 56-9; Ibn al-Fakih, 92-103; Ya'kubl, 
Buldan, 328-30; Ibn Hawkal, 111-3; Mukad- 
dasl, 154-5, 175. 180. 184; Baladhurl, Futuh, 
138-44; Tabarl, indices; Ibn Shaddad, al-A c ldk 
al-khatira, Liban, Jordanie, Palestine, ed. Dahan, 
Damascus 1963; Ibn Djubayr, Rihla, ed. De Goeje, 
300-3; J- Richard, Le royaume latin de Jerusalem, 
Paris 1953; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie 
a I'ipoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923; W. Popper, 
Egypt and Syria under the Circassian Sultans, 
Berkeley- Los Angeles, 1955; J. Sauvaget, La poste 
aux chevaux dans Vempire des Mamelouks, Paris 
1941; U. Heyd, Ottoman documents on Palestine 
(j552-.r6.r5), Oxford i960; R. Mantran and J. 
Sauvaget, Reglements fiscaux ottomans, Paris 195 1; 
B. Lewis, Studies in the Ottoman archives - I, in 
BSOAS, xvi/3 (1954), 469-501; idem, The Ottoman 
archives as a source for the history of the Arab lands, 



in JRAS, (1951). 139-55; I. Ben-Zvi, Eres-Yisrael 
ve-yishuvah biyeme ha-shilton ha- c Othmdni, Jeru- 
salem 1955", Gibb-Bowen, i/i, particularly 221-4; 
G. Young, Corps de droit ottoman, Oxford 1905; 
Guerin, Description gdographique, historique et 
arcMologique de la Palestine, Paris 1868-81; The 
survey of Western Palestine, London 1884; The 
survey of Eastern Palestine, London 1889; Parkes, 
The emergence of the Jewish Problem (i8g8-ig3g), 
London 1946; L. A. Mayer, Some principal reli- 
gious buildings in Israel, Jerusalem 1950; A. L. 
Tibawi, British interests in Palestine, 1800-igoi, 
London 1961. 

(D. Sourdel) 

2. — The British Mandate 
Turkish rule in Palestine ended with the First 
World War, which led to the dismemberment of the 
Ottoman Empire, ratified in 1920 by the abortive 
Treaty of Sevres, and again in the Treaty of Lausanne 
of 1923. Great Britain, who had occupied Palestine 
during the war (General Allenby entered Jerusalem 
on 9 December 1917), had asked the League of 
Nations as early as 1919 to entrust her with the 
administration of the territory under the form of an 
international Mandate. The British proposal, which 
was amended in 1920, was approved by the Council 
of the League in July 1922, and the Mandate entered 
into force in September 1923, after the conclusion 
(July 1923) but before the entry into force (August 
1924) of the Treaty of Lausanne, which regulated 
the future of the territories split off from the Ottoman 
Empire. Although the Mandate covered the areas on 
both sides of the Jordan, direct British administration 
was established only in the region to the west of the 
river. That to the east formed the Amirate of Trans- 
jordan, with an autonomous government, whose 
powers were limited by a treaty with Britain. 

The policy of the British mandatory government 
in Palestine was from the beginning influenced by the 
promises made by Britain to the Jews to establish 
a Jewish National Home in Palestine. In August 
1897 the Basle Congress had defined Zionism in the 
following formula: "the object of Zionism is the 
establishment for the Jewish people of a home in 
Palestine secured by public law". The execution of 
this programme was undertaken by a "Zionist 
Organization", which committed itself to political 
action, with especial encouragement from Great 
Britain, and which achieved a great success in 1917, 
when the latter declared officially that "His Majesty's 
Government view with favour the establishment in 
Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish people, 
and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the 
achievement of this object, it being clearly understood 
that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the 
civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish 
communities in Palestine" (Balfour Declaration, 
2 November 1917); France, Italy and the U.S.A. 
subsequently accepted the policy set out in the 
British declaration. 

Parallel with the obligations Great Britain had 
assumed towards the Zionist Organization, she was 
bound by the promises of independence she had made 
to the Sherif Husayn to encourage him to revolt 
against the Turks (Husayn-McMahon correspondence, 
1915). The British Government subsequently de- 
clared that Palestine was excluded from the territo- 
ries promised to the Arabs for their independent 
State; in the Churchill Memorandum of June 1922, 
accepted by the Zionist Organization, it further stated 
that "the terms of the Declaration referred to do not 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



contemplate that Palestine as a whole should be 
converted into a Jewish National Home, but that 
such a Home should be founded in Palestine", and 

mous government would be established in Palestine. 
But the Arabs, disappointed in their hopes and 
disturbed by the massive immigration of Jews, who 
in 1939 already numbered 400,000, refused to 
cooperate with the Palestine administration and, 
under the inspiration of the Arab Higher Committee 
for Palestine, directed by al-Hadjdj Amln al-Husayni, 
mufti of Jerusalem, reacted with violence: in 1928, 
1929, 1933, 1936 and 1939 bloody disturbances broke 
out in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa. 

In spite of the Arab reaction, the Zionists pursued 
their efforts with success; they consolidated their 
international position by the creation (Zurich 
Congress 1929) of the "Jewish Agency", which 
included also representatives of non-Zionist Jews. 
The situation in Palestine disturbed the League of 
Nations Permanent Mandates Commission, which 
in 1930 severely condemned the British administra- 
tion for failing to meet and reconcile Arab and Jewish 
needs. The British Government gave assurances that 
no more land would be put at the disposal of Jewish 
immigrants; this measure was, however, mitigated 
by an assurance given to the Zionists that there was 
no question of an absolute prohibition but rather of 
the imposition of controls on land purchase. Never- 
theless, faced with unshakeable opposition from the 
Arabs, and obliged continually to reinforce the gar- 
rison in order to put down the disturbances, Britain 
was forced to give an ever more restricted interpre- 
tation to the Balfour Declaration. After a fruitless 
attempt to bring Arab and Jewish delegates together 
to settle their differences (the Round Table Confer- 
ence, London, February-March 1939), the British 
Government published a White Paper (May 1939) 
which restricted Jewish land purchases and immigra- 
tion and envisaged the establishment after ten years 
of a Palestinian State in which Arabs and Jews would 
share the government. The solution proposed by 
the British Government excluded the establishment 
of the Jewish National Home, and the publication 
of the White Paper was followed by an outburst of 
Jewish violence. The situation grew steadily worse 
during the Second World War. The Jews surviving 
the holocausts gazed with hope towards Palestine; 
the British authorities began to force the immigrants 
back; and the Jewish secret organizations entered 
on a campaign of terror against the British, who in 
1946 proclaimed martial law. 

Great Britain's efforts at conciliation had failed 
and she therefore referred the question to the United 
Nations Organisation. The U.N. General Assembly 
appointed a ten-member Special Committee in 1947. 
Its report was then considered by the Palestine 
Committee of the whole Assembly, which produced 
a partition plan, adopted by the Assembly on 29 
November 1947, and envisaging the creation of two 
independent States, Arab and Jewish, and of an 
international zone covering the Jerusalem area under 
U.N. control. 

The plan was accepted by the Jews but rejected 
by the Arabs. Arab volunteers attacked the Jewish 
forces, who were making efforts to occupy the areas 
assigned to them by the partition plan. Fighting 
broke out in the Jerusalem area, in which the Jewish 
forces gained some success; Arab opinion was moved 
by this to call for the intervention of the Arab 
regular armies; but divergencies of opinion arose in 
the Arab League and between the Arab governments. 



FILASTIN — FILORI 



On giving up the Mandate on 15 May 1948, Britain 
withdrew her troops from Palestine. The day before, 
David Ben Gurion had proclaimed the birth of the 
State of Israel. The Arab armies advanced, but the 
Jews confronted them everywhere. The Security 
Council imposed a truce, accepted by both Arabs and 
Jews, but the United Nations' efforts at conciliation 
ended in failure. In December 1948, the battle re- 
commenced, but Egypt was the only Arab State 
fighting, for 'Irak, Syria and Transjordan withheld 
their troops from the operations. Despite their 
numerical superiority the Egyptian forces withdrew 
before the Jews, whom the ceasefire imposed by the 
Security Council halted 20 km. beyond their borders. 
The armistice between Israel and Egypt, signed at 
Rhodes on 24 February 1949, and those signed suc- 
cessively thereafter between Israel and Lebanon, 
Jordan, and Syria, put an end to the fighting between 
the Arabs and the Jews and established the partition 
of Palestine. (P. Minganti) 

FILIBE, Ottoman name for the town of Plovdiv 
in Bulgaria, situated on and around six syenite hills 
in the Thracian plain along the Maritsa. Called 
Pulpudeva by the Thracians, Philippopolis by the 
Greeks, Trimontium by the Romans, and Pludin 
by the Slavs, it was an important fortress throughout 
antiquity and the Middle Ages, being held successively 
by Byzantines, Bulgarians and Latins between the 
6th and 14th centuries A.D. At the time of the Otto- 
man invasion of the Balkans it was in the hands of 
the Bulgarians. The Ottoman chroniclers record the 
conquest of Filibe immediately after the fall of 
Edirne, i.e., in about 765/1363-4. According to Sa'd 
al-DIn the governor of the town attempted to resist 
but, not risking an open battle, was obliged to retreat 
to the fortress; the besiegers made a fierce onslaught 
and the governor was compelled to cede the town 
to Lala Shahin. According to Ewliya Celebi, Filibe 
was besieged at seven points, bridges having been 
built across the Maritsa, and was taken by assault 
after heavy fighting. There is no doubt that the town 
offered stubborn resistance, but it was probably 
taken on terms (cf. Chalcocondyles, Bonn ed., 32). 
It was made the chef-lieu of the eydlet of Rflm-ili, 
with Lala Shahin as the first bcglerbegi. In registers 
dating from the end of the 9th/i5th century, Filibe 
is referred to as the chef-lieu of a wildyet and a 
ndhiye, while during the first half of the ioth/i6th 
century it figures among the nine kddlliks (ndhiyes) 
of the pasha liwasi. In the early ioth/i6th century the 
town belonged partly to the hhdss of the Sultan and 
partly to the hhdss of Ayas Pasha. The large revenues 
arising from the rice-fields (leltik) in the surrounding 
region were farmed out as mukdta'-as. 

The colonization of Filibe and its district by Turks 
and Tatars was begun by Murad I. Bayazld I trans- 
ported here nomads from Sarukhan, and Mehemmed I 
Tatars from Anatolia; one of the sons of Isfendiyar 
was settled here by Mehemmed II. According to de la 
Broquiere, the population was predominantly Bul- 
garian in 1433. Turkish sources show that in the 
early ioth/i6th century Filibe had 29 Muslim and 
4 Christian mahalles, and a Jewish and a Gypsy 
community, while in the nth/i7th century it had 
23 Muslim mahalles and 7 mahalles inhabited by 
Bulgarians, Serbians, Jews, Greeks, etc. The sur- 
rounding region was mainly inhabited by Bulgarians. 
The town was the seat of a Greek metropolitan. 

Situated on a large river on the main road between 
Belgrade and Istanbul, Filibe became, during the 
ioth/i6th and nth/i7th centuries, an important 
centre of trade and industry. Rice growing flourished 



in the district, and the town was famous for the fine 
wool of the neighbourhood and for the manufacture of 
fine woollen cloth (aba). The guild of clothmakers 
was active and influential : its code of regulations, of 
the nth/i7th century, has been preserved. Merchants 
from all over the Ottoman Empire came to the Filibe 
fair; hides were bought by the merchants of Ragusa 
(Dubrovnik), the cloth was sold as far away as Syria 
and Germany, and the raw wool was taken by Venice. 
The appearance of Filibe changed greatly during 
the period of Ottoman domination. The old fortress 
on the Trimontium was used by the Turks until the 
beginning of the 9th/i5th century, but thereafter 
fell into ruin. The centre of the town shifted towards 
the north-west. New mosques, public buildings and 
palaces were built, notably the Ulu pjami', the 
'Imaret Djami 1 (of 848/1444-5, founded by Shihab 
al-DIn Pasha), the Kurshun Khan, and an extensive 
bazaar (9th/i5th century), and the Khunkar Ham- 
mami; a dock-tower was erected on one of the hills 
of the town (early nth/i7th century); a new wooden 
bridge spanned the Maritsa, and near the town ex- 
tensive stabling was built for the Imperial camels. 
Besides Muslim buildings, Filibe possessed a number 
of old churches (St. Marina, St. Constantine, St. 
Demetrius) and a mansion for the Metropolitan. 
During the 18th and 19th centuries the town flourish- 
ed and acquired its predominantly Bulgarian ap- 
pearance. 

Bibliography: Fr. Giese, Die altosmanische 
Chronik des c AsikpaSazdde, Leipzig 1929, 50, 66 f., 
80 f., 154; Neshri, Djihdn-numd (ed. Taeschner, i, 
index); F. Babinger, Die fruhosmanischen Jahr- 
biicher des Urudsch, Hanover 1925, 21, no; 
Sa c d al-DIn, Tddf al-tawdrikh, i, 76 f . ; Leunclavius, 
Hist. Mus., Frankfurt 1591, cols. 337 f.; Chal- 
cocondyles, Bonn ed., 32, 101; Ewliya Celebi, 
Seydhat-ndme, iii, 381-7; J. von Hammer, 
Rumeh und Bosna, Vienna 1812; M. T. Gok- 
bilgin, XV -XV I asirlarda Edirne ve Pasa 
Livdsi, Istanbul 1952, index; idem, Kanuni Sultan 
Suleyman devri baslannda Rumeli eyaleti . . . , in 
Belleten xx (1956), 247-94; F. Babinger, Beitrage 
zur Friihgeschichte der Tiirkenherrschafl in Rumelien, 
Vienna-Munich 1944, 49; St. Siskov, Plovdiv v 
svoeto minalo i nastojaite, i, Plovdiv 1926; V. Peev, 
Grad Plovdiv, minalo i nastojaite, i, Plovdiv 1941 ; 
G. Rudolf-Hile and O. Rudolf, Grad Plovdiv i 
negovite zgradi, in Izvestia na Bdlgarskija arckeologi- 
ieski Inst., viii; C. Jirecek, Die Heerstrasse von 
Belgrad nach Constantinopel . . . , Prague 1877, 
94 f . ; B. Cvetkova, Matiriel documentaire relalif 
aux agglomirations et aux constructions en Bulgarie 
aux XV e et XV I e siecles, in Bull, de I' Inst, d'urba- 
nisme et d' architecture, Sofia, vii-viii (1955), 
459-518; H. J. Kissling, Beitrdge zur Kenntnis 
Thrakiens im ly. Jh., Wiesbaden 1956, 29-33. 
Among the descriptions of travellers (i5th-i9th 
centuries) may be mentioned: B. de la Broquiere, 
ed. Schefer, Paris 1892, 200; K. Zen-Starine, 
Jugoslavenska Akademija znanosti i unijetnosti, x, 
Zagreb 1878, 213; H. Dernschwam, Tagebuch 
ed. Fr. Babinger, Munich-Leipzig 1923, 20 f., 249 f.; 
Pigafetta-Starine, Jug. Ah. znanosti i unijetnosti, 
xxii, Zagreb 1890, 175; S. Gerlach, TUrkisches 
Tag-Buch, Frankfurt 1674, 515-7. Many documents 
concerning the history of Filibe in Ottoman times 
are preserved in the Oriental Section of the Natio- 
nal Library, Sofia. (B. Cvetkova) 
FILORI, Ottoman name for the standard gold 
coins of Europe (see H. Sahillioglu, Bir mttltezim 
zimem deflerine gore XV. yiizyxl sonunda Osmanh 



FILORI — FIRABR 



915 



darphane mukataalart, in 1st. Vn. Iktisat Fak. Mecm., 
xxiii (1962-3), 145-218); also a tax amounting 
to one filori, in which sense it is usually referred 
to as resm-i filori. The tax, paid especially by the 
Eflak (i.e. the semi-nomadic Vlachs of the Balkans, 
and especially of Serbia), was, together with other 
supplementary imposts, also called Efldkiyye c ddeti. 

According to the oldest surviving Ottoman Kdnun 
for the Eflak (see H. Inalcik, Stefan Dusaridan 
Osmanli Imperatorluguna, in Fuat Kbprulu armagam, 
Istanbul 1953, 222), the Eflak subject to the resm-i 
filori paid one filori per household or family per year. 
Each household also paid two sheep (one ram and 
one ewe). According to the same Kdnun, twenty 
households formed one katun or katuna, and each 
katuna was obliged to supply annually one tent 
(lerge), one cheese, three ropes (urghan), six halters 
{yular), one skin-bag of butter and one sheep; but 
according to the taftrir-register of 873/1468 for Bosna 
(Istanbul Belediye Library, Cevdet collection, O 76), 
one katun consisted of 50 households, and each katun 
paid one tent, or 100 akle as its equivalent, and two 
rams, or 60 akle (for other later changes see Kanun i 
Kanun-name (Mon. Turc. Hist. Slav. Merid. Illust., i), 
Sarajevo 1957, 12-7; Sultan Suleymdn Kdnun-ndmesi, 
TOEM, Hldve, 64; O.L. Barkan, Kanunlar, i, Istanbul 
1943, 324-5)- 

The resm-i filori was a local tax older than the 
Ottoman occupation. According to the code of 
Stefan Dushan, each household paid to the ruler 
one hyperpyron (careva perpera) (at Zeta one Vene- 
tian ducat; see G. Ostrogorskij, Pour I'histoire de la 
fiodaliti byzantine, trans. H. Gregoire and P. Lemerle, 
Brussels 1954, 200, 240, 255). The Ottomans continued 
this taxation-system for the Eflak, who had from of 
old been subject to a special ordinance (jus valachi- 
cum) ; but as rulers of a Muslim state they interpreted 
the resm-i filori as being equivalent to the djizya 
[q.v.] prescribed by the shari'a and to the 'urfi 
raHyyet riisumu, from both of which the Eflak were 
consequently exempt. 

Similarly the tax of one filori per household which 
the Ottomans exacted in Hungary was nothing but 
the continuance of a tax formerly paid to the kings 
of Hungary (see the Kdnun for Lipve, of 961/1554, 
in Barkan, 322) ; this tax too was regarded as the 
equivalent of the djizya (ibid., 304, 316). 

The resm-i filori was usually paid in akces, so that 
the number of akles which it represented increased 
with the increase in the relative value of gold (45 
akles in 873/1468, 50 under Suleyman I, 70 in 974/ 
1566, 80 in 976/1568). 

In view of the lightness of this tax the Ottomans 
imposed military service on the Eflak (cf. in this 
connexion the Yiiriik [q.v.]), every five households 
supplying one voynuk (from Slavonic voynik, 'sol- 
dier'). 

The Ottomans imposed the filori tax, sometimes 
under the name of Efldk c ddeti, on other groups who 
rendered services to the state. Thus the ra'-dya miners 
in the Rudnik district paid one filori per household 
instead of kharddi (i.e., djizya) and ispendje [q.v.] 
(Kanun i Kanun-name, 15-6; for the Eflak employed 
as guardians of passes (derbenddji) , ibid., 62) ; towards 
936/1530 the Cingene in the sandjak of Semendire 
(Smederevo) also paid 80 akce per household under 
the name of resm-i filori (Barkan, 250); but these 
groups may have some connexion with the Eflak. 

In general the resm-i filori was collected by an 
official called filoridii (Kanun i Kanun-name, 78, 
130, 147), to be paid direct into the treasury of the 
Sultan, although sometimes it was allocated to the 



sandjak-begi. In the nth/i7th century those subject 
to the filori tax were called filoridii ta'ifesi, or 
filoridjiydn; in Kanuns of this period (Kanun-name, 
Ankara On. DTC Fakiiltesi Library, I. Saip collection, 
MS 5120, 141) the filoridii is defined as a person who 
is exempt from the c 6shiir [see <ushr] and the raHyyet 
riisumu [q.v.] and pays only a fixed sum annually. 
The resm-i filori was paid (in akces) in two instalments, 
on the day of Khidr-Ilyas [q.v.] (23 April, O.S.) and 
on Kdslm gtinti [q.v.] (26 October, O.S.). 
Bibliography: in the article. 

(H. 1NALCIK) 

FILS [see fals]. 

FINANCE [see bayt al-mai., daftardar, mal, 

FINDIfcLI [see Istanbul, and sikka]. 

FINDIIjCLILI MEHMED [see silahdar]. 

FINE [see pjurm]. 

FINE ARTS [see fann]. 

FINYANA, Sp. Finana, a small town of some 
5,000 inhabitants engaged in agriculture. It is 
situated in the province of Almeria, about 30 km. 
from Guadix, in the partido judicial of Gergal. It lies 
on the southern slope of the Sierra de Baza, which 
joins the Sierra Nevada on the west. It is over- 
looked by an ancient fortress of which only ruins 
remain. Within the town there was a mosque, now 
converted into a church where services are held. The 
Muslim inhabitants were muladies of Hispano- 
Roman origin and had nobody of Arab descent among 
them. They lived peacefully occupied in agriculture, 
preferably the cultivation of mulberry trees and the 
rearing of silkworms. An industry grew up of which 
the products were highly esteemed: the manufacture 
of turuz — handkerchiefs and shawls of silk and 
brocade. These were exported even to Christian 
territory and were much sought after in Le6n, where 
they were known as alfiniane from their mark of 
origin. But already in the 14th century this industry 
and the culture on which it was based had disappeared 
and today no trace of it remains. During the rebellion 
of Ibn Hafsfln the inhabitants of Finyana showed a 
disposition to join him but c Abd al-Rahman III, 
when he occupied the kura of Baza during his 
campaign of 300/913 against eastern Andalusia, 
made a diversion against Finyana and there, on 
4 Shawwal 300/14 May 913, captured the emissaries 
whom Ibn Hafsun had sent to them. No more 
details of its mediaeval history until it was taken by 
the Catholic Monarchs when they won Baza are 

Bibliography : Idrlsl, Descr., text 201, tr. 246; 

Himyarl, al-Rawd al-miHdr, ed. Levi-Provencal, 

text 143-4, tr. 172; Levi-Provencal, Histoire de 

I'Espagne musulmane, ii, 10; iii, 311; Sanchez 

Albornoz, Estampas de la vida en Ledn durante el 

sigloX,n-4. (A. Huici Miranda) 

FIRABR, early (e.g., Hudud al-'dlam, 113) 

named also Firab (Farab), in Kudama (BGA vi, 203) 

as well as Yakut (iii, 867) also called Karyat C A1I or 

Ribat Tahir ibn C A1I, is a town opposite Amul 

[q.v., 2]. It lay a parasang north of the Oxus (Amu 

Darya, [q.v.]) on the road to Bukhara and was the 

centre of a fertile region with many villages as well 

as the seat of an inspector for water-control (Mir-i 

rudh: ffudud, see above). The city was protected by a 

fortress and possessed a Friday-mosque and an open 

space for public worship (musalld) with a hostel lor 

travellers who were also boarded there (Mukaddasi, 

291 ; Ibn Fadlan, ed. Z. V. Togan, 1939, 4, § 4 : written 

Af.rb.r ; cf. trans. Canard, in AEIO Alger, xvi (1958), 

54). According to a presumably legendary account by 



9i6 



FIRABR — FIRASA 



Abu '1-Hasan <Abd al-Rahman ibn Muljammad al- 
Naysaburi (NIshapurl) in his KhazdHn al-Htlum 
(continuator and editor of Narshakhi's description 
of Bukhara, ed. Ch. Schefer, 6, also in his Chresto- 
mathie persane, 13; tr. R. N. Frye, 1954, 8 and 119, 
note 97) the founding of Firabr followed the con- 
quest of Paykand by the Kok Turks towards the 
end of the 6th century (conjectures regarding 
this report in J. Markwart, Wehrot und Arang, 
Leiden 1938, 145-8; and Franz Altheim-Ruth Stiehl, 
Finanzgeschichte der Spdtantike, Frankfurt 1957, 
257-62, who object to an interpretation of Naysaburl, 
unconfirmed by sources, in S. P. Tolstow, Auf den 
Spuren der altchoresmischen Kultur, Berlin 1953, 
235 f., and other works of Tolstow mentioned there). 
Bibliography : Istakhri, 314; Ibn Hawkal, 2nd 
ed., 489; Ibn Khurradadhbih. 25, 173; Yakut, 
Beirut 1957, iv, 245 ff. (with the index of the 
scholars of this town) ; Le Strange, 403 ff., 443. 

(B. Spuler) 
FIRASA, a technique of inductive divination 
which permits the foretelling of moral conditions 
and psychological behaviour from external indica- 
tions and physical states: al-istidldl bi'l-khalk al- 
zdhir '■ala'l-khulk al-bd(in (cf. al-Razi, Firdsa, ed. 
Mourad, 4; Hadjdji Khalifa, ii, p. VIII; iv, 388 ff.; 
al-KazwInl, i, 318; cf. Ps.-Djahiz, 'Irdfa, ed. Ino- 
strantsev, 17 ff.). These indications are provided 
by colours, forms and limbs; they reveal to ex- 
perts the secrets of characters and minds. "Peculia- 
rities of character cannot be concealed even if a man 
does his utmost to keep silence about them and to 
hide them; for nature unveils them and lets them 
show through. Sooner or later, God reveals them 
through the actions, movements and gestures of the 
man. Indeed the Kur'an (XLVII, 30) says: 'And if 
We wish it, We shall make thee see them (= the false 
Muslims) ; thou shalt recognize them by their physio- 
gnomy (simd-hum); thou shalt recognize them by 
their lapsus linguae (lahn al-kawl) " (Ps.-Djahiz, 
op. cit. 17). 'All is related to have said: "No-one 
considers something within his conscience without 
its being revealed by the slips of his tongue or the 
expression of his face" (al-Ibshihi, Mustatraf, tr. 
Rat, ii, 187). It has even been said that "the eyes of 
servants unveil the conscience of their masters" 
(al-Djina% al-Daradja al-Htlyd fl tafsir al-ru'yd, 
ms. ar. Strasbourg 4212, f° 97). 

Firdsa is an Islamic science whose Arab ancestor 
is kiydfa (sometimes confused with Hydfa which is 
essentially concerned with portents drawn from the 
behaviour of birds). 

The classification of the sciences which are in- 
cluded under the name of firdsa bears witness to the 
breadth of territory which this technique of divination 
covers. In fact, it includes (Hadjdji Khalifa, i, 34; 
cf. al-Razi, op. cit. 10 ff.; al-Djahiz, Hayawdn, v, 93; 
Ps.-Djahiz, 'Irdfa, 16): birth-marks and beauty 
spots (al-shamdt and al-khayaldn) , palmistry {Him 
al-asdrir or Him al-kaff), character as revealed 
from shoulder-blades {Him al-aktdf), examination of 
foot-prints (Him Hydfat al-athar), examination of 
morphoscopic or genealogical lines {Him kiydfat al- 
bashar), finding one's bearings in deserts (Him al- 
ihtidd* fi 'l-bardri wa'l-kifdr), dowsing (riydfa), 
detection of precious metals (Him istinbdt al-ma'-ddin), 
signs foretelling rain (Him nuzul al-ghayth), the un- 
ravelling of secret analogies between present and 
future events (Him al-Hrdfa), divination by means of 
palm-trees (palmomancy) (Him al-ikhtilddj). 

To this divinatory meaning of firdsa regarded as a 
technique of observation of external signs betraying 



qualities, defects, courage, intelligence 
and thoughts (cf. Ps.-Djahiz, loc. cit., 12-14; al- 
Nuwayrl, Nihdya, iii, 149 ff.; al-Ibshlhl, op. cit., 
188 ff.), must be added a psychological meaning 
which gives it an intuitive and almost prophetic 
character. This meaning is peculiar to religious and 
mystical literature. It is derived from verses of the 
Kur'an (XV, 75; XLVII, 30; XLVIII, 29) in which 
the term simd' is equivalent to firdsa. There appears 
already in these texts the idea of a divine influx 
which assists certain privileged persons to an intui- 
tive understanding of the secrets of men's conscien- 
ces. Tradition only enriches and develops this idea 
while applying it to firdsa. This last is then defined 
as "a light which God causes to penetrate the heart" 
or "a thing which God causes to penetrate their hearts 
and their tongues"; and the Prophet is made to say: 
"Fear the intuitive eye of the true believer, for he 
sees with the light of God." These definitions of 
firdsa derived from the collections of hadiths, are 
widely commented on and developed in mystical 
writings (cf. al-Kushayrl, al-Risdla al-Kushayriyya, 
ed. Bulak 1284/1867, Bab al-firdsa, 137-43)- "If you 
converse with truthful persons," recommends Ahmad 
b. <Asim al-Antaki, "speak the truth to them, for 
such persons are spies (djawdsis) of hearts; they pe- 
netrate into your heart and out again before you 
have realized it" (ibid., 139). Firdsa becomes one 
of the distinguishing qualities (khawass) of faith, to 
which a close bond unites it: "He who has the 
deepest faith has also the most penetrating firdsa" 
(ibid., 137). 

Hadiih has another term even more expressive 
which regards firdsa as the fruit of inspiration (ilhdm). 
The Prophet is made to say: "The nations which 
came before you had their inspired ones (muhad- 
dathun); if there is one to be found in my nation it 
can only be 'Umar (b. al-KhaUab)" (Tashkopruzade, 
Miftdh al-sa c dda wa-misbdh al-siydda, i, 272; see 
also Ibn al-Athlr, Nihdya, 1, 240; Ibn Khaldun, 
Mukaddima, i, 200, tr. de Slane, i, 228, tr. Rosen- 
thal, i, 223; Hariri, Makdmdt, ed. de Sacy, 601). 

Finally, firdsa preserves the main meaning of 
Arab kiydfa, the recognition of signs of paternity. 
The KdHf was called in to settle genealogical disputes 
(al-Razi, Firdsa, 12 ff.; Ibn Kayyim al-Djawziyya, 
al-Turuk al-hukmiyya, Cairo 1323, 195-213, 208; 
Goldziher, Muh. St., i, 185). Speaking of physiognomy 
for the use of princes, Ibn Kayyim al-Djawziyya 
proves that the law is not based only on objective 
criteria but also on subjective impressions such as 
the deductions drawn from firdsa (on the controversy 
concerning the legal value of firdsa, cf. Mourad, 
La physiognomie arabe, 135 ff.). 

The far-reaching development which separates 
firdsa from kiydfa is due on the one hand to the psy- 
chological and religious elements introduced by 
Kur'an and Tradition, and on the other hand to the 
translation of Greek treatises on physiognomy whose 
characteristics strongly influenced firdsa. The most 
important of these were the treatise of Pseudo- 
Aristotle called Sirr al-osrdr, used by al-Razi and 
al-Dimashkl (cf. M. Steinschneider, Die arabischen 
Vbersetzungen aus dem Griechischen, Leipzig 1897, 
79 ff.), that of Polemon (al-Djahiz, Hayawdn, iii, 46, 
83, 87 ff.; likewise Hadjdji Khalifa, iv, 388 ft.; cf. 
Steinschneider, op. cit., 107 ff. ; a Kitdb al-Firdsa 
under the name of Fillmun was edited at Aleppo in 
1929; on this person and his work, see the excellent 
article by Willy Stegemann in Pauly-Wissowa, xxi, 
2 (1952), col. 1320-57 (cf. col. 134511-)) and that of 
Menas (Mlnas— Mt|v<x?) al-Rumi(?), Kitdb al 



FIRASA — FIR'AWN 



917 



Khayaldn and Kiidb al-Shdmdt {Fihrist, 314). In an- 
other connexion, Ps.-Djahiz {'Irdfa, 120) quotes 
Djawbar al-Hindi as the author of a treatise on 

Bibliography: A great number of treatises on 
physiognomy (in Arabic, Turkish and Persian) are 
to be found in the different catalogues of MSS. 
Among the best-known should be mentioned: K. 
al-Firdsa of Shams al-DIn Abu c Abd Allah Muham- 
mad b. Ibr. b. Abi TSlib al-Ansarl al-Sufl al- 
Dimashkl (d. 727/1327) sometimes called al- 
Siydsa /» Him al-firdsa or al-Firdsa li-adjl al-siydsa 
or again Ahkam al-firdsa (cf. ZDMG, xxi, 384). 
Several copies of it are known, especially Bursa, 
Husayn Celebi 33, I (the second part of the 
manuscript contains the Risdla fi'l-firdsa of 
Ya'kub b. Ishak al-Kindl; cf. O. Rescher, in 
ZDMG, lxviii (1914), 53), Aya Sofya 3782, Paris 
2759. 5928, etc. The work was edited in Cairo in 
1300/1882. No less famous is the treatise of Fakhr 
al-DIn al-Razi (d. 606/1209), Risdla fi Hint al- 
firdsa or Diurnal ahkam al-firdsa (cf. MS. Aya 
Sofya 2457, 2, containing also the K. al-Firdsa 
of Filimun). The work was edited at Aleppo in 
1929 by Muh. Raghib al-Tabbakh, then re-edited, 
translated and annotated, with an introduction 
and a bibliography, by Yousef Mourad in his 
complementary thesis, La Physiognomonie arabe 
et le 'Kitdb al-firdsa' de Fakhr al-D'm al-Rdzi, 
Paris 1939. Cf. also the treatise attributed to 
Pjahiz called Bdb al-'Irdfa wa'l-zadjr wa'l-firdsa 
'aid madhhab al-Furs, edited, translated into 
Russian and annotated by K. Inostrantsev, 
Materyali iz arabskikh istoinikov dlya kuPturnoy 
istorii Sasanidskoy Persii, in Zapiski Vostotnago 
Ofdeleniya Imperalorskago Russkago Arkheologi- 
ceskago Obshcestva, xviii (1907-8), 113-232. 

(T. Fahd) 
FIR'AWN (pi. Fara'ina), Pharaoh. The 
Arabic form of the name may derive from the 
Syriac or the Ethiopic. Commentators on the 
Kur'an (II, 46-49) explain the word as the permanent 
title (lakab) of the Amalekite kings [see c amalIk], 
on the analogy of Kisra, title of the sovereigns of 
Persia, and Kaysar of the emperors of Byzantium. 
As the designation of the typical haughty and 
insolent tyrant, the name Fir'awn gave rise to a verb 
tafar'ana "to behave like a hardened tyrant". — If 
one disregards certain verses of Umayya which are 
probably not authentic, it was in fact the Kur'an 
which, at the time of the first Meccan period, in- 
troduced the figure of Pharaoh (only that of Exodus) 
into Arabic literature. Broadly speaking, the narrative 
in the Kur'an, so far as one can synthesize it artifi- 
cially by the help of texts extending almost from the 
beginning of the revelation to the third year of the 
Medina period, covers the first fourteen chapters of 
the book of Exodus : the oppression of the children 
of Israel, the birth of Moses [see musa], the mission 
of Moses and Aaron [see harOn], the hardening of 
Pharaoh's heart, Moses' miracles, the plagues, the 
Exodus, the crossing of the Red Sea and the drowning 
of Pharaoh; like all narrative elements of this sort in 
the Kur'an, the history of Pharaoh is seen in relation 
to Muhammad's own mission — the determined 
rejection of the divine message by the unbelievers 
who in the end are severely punished, while the 
believers among them are saved. In the fragmentary 
accounts given in the Kur'an, certain non-biblical 
elements may be detected, the chief ones being the 
following. Fir'awn is given the name (LXXXIX, 
9/10 and XXXVIII, 11/12) dhu 'l-awtdd "master of 



the stakes (posts)" perhaps on account of his build- 
ings (cf. XXVIII, 38), but this interpretation 
(J. Horovitz) is scarcely less uncertain than those 
which have been put forward by Muslim commenta- 
tors. The place of Pharaoh's daughter is taken 
by his wife, to whom commentators give the 
name of Asiya [q.v.]. As Pharaoh's counsellor 
there appears a certain Haman who is respon- 
sible in particular for building a tower which 
will enable Pharaoh to reach the God of Moses 
(XXVIII, 38 and XL, 38/36): the narrative in 
Exodus is thus modified in two respects, by misplaced 
recollections of both the book of Esther and the story 
of the tower of Babel (Genesis, xi) to which no other 
reference occurs in the Kur'an. The unnamed 
believer in Pharaoh's entourage who pleaded for 
Musa (XL, 29/28 ff.) cannot be connected with any 
known Jewish or Christian legend, unless it be 
related to a vague recollection of the Aggada which 
makes Jethro one of Pharaoh's advisers.— The 
conversion of the magicians who were in consequence 
threatened with cruel punishments by their master 
is an innovation of the Kur'an (cf. however Exodus, 
viii, 15 and x, 7), whilst Fir'awn's aspiration to 
divinity (XXVIII, 38) is Aggadic, as is also his 
conversion in extremis, which God rejects (X, 
90-2). 

Muslim tradition (both exegesis and historio- 
graphy) does not confine itself to commenting on 
and amplifying the Kur'anic version, particularly 
with the aid of Aggada elements. Its field of interest 
extends beyond that of the inspired book, and it 
deals with the kings of Egypt both before and after 
the Fir'awn of Musa, connecting them with the 
"Amalekites" and also, later, drawing on the stock 
of local legends. Thus the Fir'awn of Ibrahim [q.v.] 
and Yusuf [q.v.] is discussed; he is given the name al- 
Rayyan b. al-Walid (or al-Walid or even Darim b. 
al-Rayyan) and his successor Kabus b. Mus c ab (al- 
Mas'tidl, Murudf, i, 92, but written al-Walid b. 
Mus c ab). Isolated traditions, regarded with utter 
disdain by the author of al-Bad' wa 'l-ta'rikh, 
attribute an Iranian origin to Fir'awn and Haman 
(al-Tabarl, Tafsir, xx, 28: Fir'awn was a native of 
Istakhr; Bad', iii, 8iff./84: Fir'awn a native of 
Balkh and Haman of Sarakhs). 

The New Testament theme of the massacre of the 
innocents is introduced into the account of the birth 
of Moses, and the Midrashic legend of the proving 
of Moses by the crown and burning coals came into 
the account of the education of the future liberator 
of Israel who was brought up at Pharaoh's court. 

Similarly, it was with the Jewish Aggada (Aboth 
of Rabbi Nathan, recension A, ch. XXVII and 
Pirkey Rabbi Eli'ezer, ch. XLII) and through it 
possibly to an ancient Egyptian related form that 
is connected the legend of the mare ridden by 
Gabriel which led Fir'awn's army into the abyss, 
the vanguard of the army being commanded by 
Haman. After the drowning of Fir'awn, whom 
Gabriel prevented from making his profession of 
faith until the very end by cramming his mouth 
with sea slime, Musa sent to Egypt a military 
expedition commanded by Joshua and Caleb. The 
Bad' wa 'l-ta'rikh (iv, 37/36) is aware that the Jews 
celebrate the feast of unleavened bread in memory 
of their delivery from the hands of Fir'awn (cf. also 
al-BIrunl, Athdr, ed. Sachau, 281, Chronology, 275). 
but certain traditions also exist which give the same 
motive for the celebration of the fast of c Ashurd by 
the Jews (texts quoted from G. Vajda, Hebrew 
Union College Annual, xii-xiii (1937-8), 374, but 



FIR'AWN — FIRDAWSI 



whose authenticity is rejected by al-BIrunl, ibid., 
330 tt.1327 ff.)- 

A later Fir'awn bears the name A c radj "the 
lame"; this, no doubt, is Necho (Neko, II Chron. 
xxxv and xxxvi), whose name is thus interpreted 
by the Jewish Aggada (Targum, also Peshitta, 
Leviticus- Rabba xx/i, ed. M. Margulies, 442); al- 
Mas'udl, Murudi, ii, 410, however, calls him Biliinah. 
— The theological problem of the "hardening of 
heart" of Fir'awn did not fail to occupy the 
attention of the Mu'tazila (see Bad', i, 106/97 ff.). 
The Mystics and in particular al-Halladj medi- 
tated in their fashion on the revolt and the 
conversion in extremis of Fir c awn (see L. Massignon, 
La Passion d'al-Halldj, 357, 416, n. 1, 615, 935-9 
and H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, 74 and 272), but 
with them also he remains one of the prototypes of 
pride, concupiscence and refusal to renounce self 
(see, e.g., al-Muhasibl, Ri'dya, 236 ff. and H. Ritter, 
ibid., 51, 98 ff., 114, 577; a more favourable view, 
320). 

Bibliography: Kur'an, index to R. Blachere's 
translation, s.vv. Pharaon, Plaies d'Egypte, 
Haman; Tabari, Tafsir on these passages; idem, 
Annates, i, 378-9, 442-89; Ya'kubi, Historiae, ed. 
Houtsma, i, 30 ff. (G. Smit, Bijbel en Legende, 
39-44); Mas'udi, Murudi, i, 92-3; ii, 368-9, 397-8, 
410-4; iii, 273; al-Bad' wa 'l-ta'rikh, ed. C. Huart, 
passages quoted in the article and i, 106/97-8; 
ii, 209/180; iii, 27-29, 93-6/95-8; iv, 72/68; Kisa'i, 
ed. Eisenberg, 195-218; Tha'labl, '■AraHs al- 
madidlis, Cairo 1370/1951, 102-20; Ibn Kathlr, 
Biddya, i, 202, 237-74. — Harawi, Guide des lieux 
de pelerinage, ed. J. Sourdel-Thomine, index, s.v. 
Fir'awn; J. Horowitz, Koranische Untersuchungen, 
130 ff.; A. Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of 
the Qur'an, 225; D. Sidersky, Les origines des Ugen- 
des musulmanes, 73-87 ; H. Speyer, Die biblischer, Er- 
zdhlungen im Qoran, 1931, 224-92; Ch. G. Torrey, 
The Jewish foundation of Islam, New York 1933, 
109 ff., 117 ff.; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Ma- 
homet, Paris 1957, 393-7; Grunbaum, Neue 
Beitrage z. sem. Sagenkunde, 152 ff.; B. Heller, 
Egyptian elements in the Aggada (in Hungarian), 
in Magyar Zsido Szemle, liv (1937), 280; G. Wiet, 
L'Egypte de Murtadi, Paris 1953, especially the 
Introduction, 16-47. 

(A. J. Wensinck-[G. Vajda]) 
FIRDA [see furda]. 
FIRDAWS[ see djanna]. 

FIRDAWSI (Ferdosi), Persian poet, one of 
the greatest writers of epic, author of the Shdhndma 
(Shdhndme, the Book of Kings). His personal name 
and that of his father are variously reported (Mansur 
b. Hasan, according to al-Bundari [q.v.]) ; it is agreed 
that his kunya [q.v.] and his pen-name were 
Abu '1-Kasim Firdawsl. According to Nizaml 
'Arudi, the oldest source (Cahdr makdla, tr. 
E. G. Browne, 54), he was born at Bazh, a village 
in the Tabaran quarter of TQs [q.v.]. The date of his 
birth (ca. 329-30/940-1) is reliably deduced from his 
statement that in the year of the accession of Sultan 
Mahmfld (387/997) he was 58 years old (Shdhndma, 
ed. Mohl, iv, 8). Sprung from a family of dihkdns 
[q.v.], he was, according to Nizami c Arudi, a man of 
influence in his village, of independent means thanks 
to the revenues from his lands. Numerous passages 
of his work reveal his love for Iran. He was certainly 
acquainted with Arabic ; and early in life had acquired 
a deep knowledge of the history and the legends 
concerning Iran, to which his family environment 
had predisposed him. Until he had exhausted his 



by devoting them to his work, he made no 
approach to the rulers of his day. The writing of the 
Shdhndma was undertaken no doubt after the 
assassination of DakikI (ca. 370/980); before this 
he had tried out his talents in composing some epic 
passages and some lyric poems, of which a few have 
survived. At the beginning of his epic he speaks of 
how DakikI had begun to put into verse an ancient 
book, of how this work was prematurely interrupted 
by Dakikl's death, and how a friend had procured 
the book for him (ed. Mohl, i, 16-20). For several 
episodes he had other sources, for the story of Bijen 
and Manija, for example (for which he followed a 
manuscript which a woman-friend read to him, ed. 
Mohl, iii, 293-4), and for the death of the hero Rustam 
(following a redaction by Azad Sarw, ed. Mohl, iv, 
701). In spite of great political upheavals, recounted 
by the historians, his Shdhndma was undertaken by 
370-1/980-1 at the latest. 

In the course of the 4th/ioth century, the Iranians, 
reviving a pre-Islamic custom, had applied themselves 
to gathering the historical facts and the legends con- 
cerning their national history. Collections were made 
in imitation of the Pahlavi Kh a atdy-ndmak (Book of 
Rulers) composed towards the end of the Sasanid 
period (Christensen, L'Iran sous les Sassanides, 54), 
which is lost, as are Arabic translations of it. Ancient 
tales were assembled in other collections. The oldest 
and most famous of the prose works of the 4th/ioth 
century is theShdhndma of Abu '1-Mu'ayyad Balkhi, a 
collection of heroic traditions which is echoed here 
and there in Firdawsi's epic and in some historical 
works (notably a fragment in the Ta'rikh-i Sistdn, 
Tehran ed., 35). Another Shdhndma is that of Abu 
c Ali Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Balkhi, praised by 
al-Biruni (al-Athdr al-bdfriya, Leipzig ed., 99), which 
derives particularly from written sources, translated 
from Pahlavi into Arabic, but lost. The third impor- 
tant Shdhndma known to us is that to which Firdawsi 
refers in his introduction (ed. Mohl, i, 17-8): the 
pahlavdn of whom he there speaks was probably 
Abu Mansur Muhammad b. c Abd al-Razzak, governor 
of Tus in about 335/946; he gathered together men 
who knew the history and the ancient legends and 
ordered them to compose a Shdhndma under the 
supervision of his vizier, Abu Mansur Muhammad 
al-Ma c mari (preface to Abu Mansflr's Shdhndma, 
dated 346/957, published by Muhammad Kazwlni in 
Bist mafrdla, ii, Tehran 1313/1935, 24-25); their 
work was used by Daklki (about a thousand of 
whose verses were incorporated by Firdawsi in his 
Shdhndma), then by Firdawsi, then by al-Tha'alibl 
(d. 429/1038). Besides these, there existed other 
documents and traditions which were treated by 
epic poets who came after Firdawsi (notably on the 
heroes Garshasp, Barzfl, Sam [see hamasa]). 

At TOs, various persons whom Firdawsi names 
had supported him in his work, but he was looking 
for a more powerful protector to whom to dedicate 
his work. Finally he chose the greatest monarch of 
the age, Sultan Mahmfld of Ghazna; this was prob- 
ably when he was about 65 years old (ed. Mohl, iv, 
8), in 394/1004, when he found himself in straitened 
circumstances (ed. Mohl, loc. cit., and vii, 500). 

The Arabic translation of the Shdhndma by al- 
Bundari and the Ghurar akhbdr muluk al-Furs of 
al-Tha c alibI (which uses sources identical with, or 
at least very close to, those of Firdawsi) omit several 
episodes found in Firdawsi's work; it may therefore 
be agreed that the final redaction of the Shdhndma 
was preceded by a less complete redaction; further- 
more, al-Bundari's translation and some manuscripts 



give on the last leaf the date 384/994, and not that 
of the final completion (400/1010). 

Mahmud was a man of little erudition, but gathered 
at his court, even by force, men of learning and 
letters and particularly panegyrists. His attention 
was perhaps first drawn to Firdawsl by Abu 'l- c Abbas 
Fadl b. Ahmad al-Isfarayini, who was his first 
vizier (from 384/994 until 401/1010) and whose 
kindness is praised in the Shdhndma (ed. Mohl, iv, 
7-8). No doubt Firdawsl had composed various 
sections of his work, not in a systematic order but 
as inspiration came to him and inclination prompted ; 
afterwards he linked them together by passages of 
transition; he then, as his fame spread, set about 
revising and polishing his epic. At the end of his 
poem (ed. Mohl, vii, 500) he states: "When I had 
passed the age of 65 years, the care of my sufferings 
increased; I was occupied always with the history 
of the kings"; great men were having copies of his 
epic made, "but I received in return only praise". 
(He adds that three noble inhabitants of Tus provided 
him with material help and encouragement). In the 
course of this revision, followed by the making of a 
fair-copy by a copyist, he probably inserted or 
amplified the passages in which Mahmfld is praised 
(one of these eulogies, for example, was inserted after 
the composition of the account of the death of Rustam, 
for the poet speaks in it of his old age and his in- 
firmities: ed. Mohl, iv, 702). At this point his pro- 
tector, the vizier Fadl b. Ahmad al-Isfarayini, was 
dismissed; the poet was left without a supporter and 
his work was ill-received when he presented it to the 
sultan. Various stories have been handed down 
concerning his journey to Ghazna and the presenta- 
tion of the poem, but they are not reliable: all that 
is to be accepted is that the journey took place, 
and that it resulted in a disappointment, expressed 
by Firdawsl in the words: "Such a monarch, so 
generous, shining among the sovereigns, did not cast 
a glance at my poem: the fault lies with slanderers 
and with ill-fortune" (ed. Mohl, vii, 294). According 
to a tradition frequently repeated (it is given by 
NizamI c Arudi), Mahmud had promised one dinar 
for each verse, but gave only a dirham. Firdawsl, 
offended at the contrast between this reward and 
those heaped on the panegyrists living at the court, 
divided the sum he received among three persons 
before abruptly leaving Ghazna. One of his bio- 
graphers claims that he worked on his epic for some 
months at the court of Mahmud, who loaded him 
with honours; this report, like other similar ones, 
is not to be accepted: Firdawsl travelled to Ghazna 
simply to present his work. On reading the biogra- 
phers, one is led to presume that the chief cause of 
Firdawsl's dissatisfaction was the inadequacy of 
his reward. But the causes of misunderstanding 
between the sultan and the poet were more serious. 
In the first place, Firdawsl was a Shi'I and Mahmud 
a Sunn! — each enthusiastically; according to NizamI 
'Arudi, the poet was accused of being a MuHazili 
and a Rdfidi (a 'rejecter' of Sunnism), and he quotes 
in support some verses of Firdawsl (op. cit., 56) ; as 
for his Shi'ism, Firdawsl does not announce it 
directly but allows it to be inferred in the intro- 
duction of his poem (ed. Mohl, i, 14-6). Futhermore, 
he had in his poem praised a vizier who had fallen 
out of favour, thus laying himself open to misrepre- 
sentation by his detractors. Finally, and most im- 
portant, the poet could not tolerate the sultan's 
lack of interest ("Such a monarch . . . did not cast 
a glance at my poem"): Mahmud appreciated only 
lyric poems, and particularly those devoted to his 



praise — slight and frivolous works in comparison 
with a vast and powerful epic. 

According to Nizami c ArudI (p. 57), Firdawsi, on 
leaving Ghazna, spent six months at Herat, returned 
to Tus, and then went to Tabaristan to the court of 
the prince Shahriyar. It is impossible to confirm 
the truth of this. Moreover a legend gradually grew 
up on the relations between Mahmud and Firdawsl, 
but it is impossible to give credence to its account of 
how the poet, loaded with honours, stayed for a long 
time at the court of Mahmud, and of the sultan's 
belated change of heart. This very romantic legend, 
given authority by the preface to the Shdhndma 
written by the Timurid prince Baysunghur (829/1426), 
was used by Macan and Mohl in the prefaces to their 
editions. Firdawsl is said to have written a satire 
against Mahmud (published in the editions and 
translated by Mohl, i, introd.) ; it is said that Shahri- 
yar pacified him and advised him to leave intact the 
passages of the Shdhndma composed in praise of 
Mahmud, and that of his satire there remain only 
six authentic verses, quoted by NizamI 'Arfldi; 
but the text of it as given in the manuscripts varies 
in length up to as many as a hundred verses, in- 
cluding some borrowed here and there from the 
Shdhndma. These satirical verses, examined as a 
whole, show the same qualities of style and composi- 
tion as the Shdhndma, so that it would be rash to 
affirm that they are not authentic (cf. Noldeke, Gr. 
I. Ph., ii, 155 U-). 

The date when he finally completed his epic is 
recorded on its last page: "When I was 71 years of 
age the heavens paid homage to my poem; for 35 
years, in this transient world, I composed my work 
in the hope of a reward; as my efforts were spent 
for nothing, these 35 years were without result; 
now I am nearly 80 and all my hope has gone with 
the wind. The last episode of my epic was completed 
on the day of ard of the month of isfendarmadh, five 
times 80 years of the Hidjra having elapsed" (there- 
fore in 400/25 February 1010). In other words, he 
had completed his poem at the age of 71 (in 400 A.H.), 
and when he was nearly 80 he added to it a note of the 
date of completion. He spent his last years at Tus. 
According to Dawlatshah, he died in 411/1020. 
Perhaps, as Noldeke assumes (loc. cit.), the satire 
against Mahmfld was found among his papers and 
communicated to various people who spread copies 
of it around. According to Nizami c ArudI, he was re- 
fused burial in a Muslim cemetary because he was a Rd- 
fidi; he was buried in a garden which belonged to him 
(on his grave and on his present mausoleum, see tus). 

In a manuscript in the British Museum (text and 
tr. in Nasir-i Khusraw, Safar-ndma, ed. and tr. Ch. 
Schefer; text reproduced with emendations in Fir- 
dawsi, Shdhndma, Tehran 1935, vii, 3019), it is 
related that Firdawsl made in 384/994 a journey to 
Isfahan and Baghdad, and that he offered to the amir 
of 'Irak his poem Yusuf u-Zalikhd [q.v.y. Noldeke 
(Gr. I. Ph., ii, 229 ff.) and S. H. Takizada (in the 
review Kdveh, 1921, no. 10) have praised this poem, 
whose attribution to Firdawsi is now questioned 
(Z. Safa, Td'rikh, ii, 477) for several reasons, notably 
the presence of many more Arabic words than are 
found in the Shdhndma, apart from peculiarities of 
style. In any case this journey to 'Irak seems doubt- 
ful. The death of a son at the age of 37 (the poet being 
then 65) inspired some sublime verses (ed. Mohl, 
vii, 190). NizamI c ArfldI says that he had a devoted 
daughter, of whom however he makes no mention. 
Such are the generally accepted facts and dates of the 
life of Firdawsi. 



It is impossible to give more than a brief outline 
of the vast Shahnama (amounting in several ma- 
nuscripts to some 60,000 verses). It begins with the 
creation of the universe; some time later the first 
kings of Iran were reigning, benefactors of humanity 
for which they established the various elements of 
social life, at the same time struggling against the 
demons which infest the world. For more than a 
thousand years these good and evil powers con- 
fronted each other in an unremitting duel full of 
dramatic episodes. At last one of these mythical 
kings established a general peace for half a century; 
but after his death his three sons, among whom he 
had shared out the civilized world, could not agree, 
and one of them, who ruled over Iran, was treacher- 
ously assassinated by his brothers. This murder begins 
an endless cycle of revenge : a merciless war is waged 
for several centuries between the settled Iranians 
and the nomadic Turanians of Central Asia. Whether 
he is describing pitched battles, skirmishes or single 
combats, the poet exhibits an unequalled skill in 
varying the situations, and in maintaining a note of 
the most ardent patriotism, which does not how- 
ever lead him to belittle the bravery of the enemy: 
throughout the poem the adversaries are worthy of 
each other. This cycle of wars is divided into 
several "gestes", corresponding to the exploits of 
the heroes who dominate the action — heroes of super- 
human proportions and strength, among whom the 
famous Rustam stands out. This epic, while dealing 
mainly with war, contains some splendid love-stories, 
by which Firdawsi, the incomparable creator of the 
national epic, became at the same time the founder 
of the romantic narrative poem which was to have 
such a brilliant future in Persia. His sensibility, as 
lively as it is deep, shows itself in a series of sentimental 
episodes where paroxysms of passion alternate with 
those of despair. While two-thirds of the poem are 
essentially heroic and legendary, the last part is more 
historical and recounts poetically the reigns of the 
Sasanid kings; this part is the product of the poet's 
old age, whence the numerous moral reflexions and the 
digressions on politics and metaphysics. Firdawsi's 
ideas would demand a lengthy study. His view of 
the universe is entirely pessimistic; an implacable 
fate, the sister of that which dominates Greek tra- 
gedy, hangs over the principal actors of the epic 
until the final catastrophe in which ancient Iran 
perishes. Yet man must ceaselessly struggle against 
fate: Firdawsi's moral philosophy (which corre- 
sponds, though not deliberately, with that of the 
Avesta) vehemently preaches action and the love of 
good, which uphold in man reason — his unique 
privilege and his true claim to superiority over all 
other beings. Reason must always guide us: it teaches 
us to accept the (sometimes only apparent) injustice 
of fate and enables man to retain that feeling of 
tender sympathy which Firdawsi himself so often 
shows for luckless heroes and for suffering animals; 
for the character of this poet as a man is in harmony 
with his exceptional gifts as an artist — nobility and 
purity of heart, family affection, complete self- 
sacrifice for the sake of his work, love of glory, 
kindness to the weak and the defeated, ardent 
patriotism, religious tolerance and a profound sense 
of the Divine. In short, he combines harmoniously 
what he drew from his sources with what he owed 
to personal inspiration and he made magnificent 
use of the gifts which he possessed. As for his style, 
whether in the fantastic elements demanded by the 
epic of the supernatural or in the gracefulness of 
descriptions of the countryside or in heroic episodes, 



he excels at describing and explaining the facts 
and at expressing sentiments and ideas in a clear and 
simple language, firm but eloquent, and remarkable 
for the aptness of the terms used and the nobility 
of the thoughts. The level of expression is always 
equal to that of the ideas, which does not preclude 
the generous use of images ; he varies his expressions 
according to the type and rank of the characters; 
he sometimes uses the different rhetorical figures 
common in the East, but not to excess, and his style 
remains sober even among the exaggerations proper 
to the epic genre. There are very few Arabic words 
in the poem: he wanted to revive the ancient Iran, 
but to do it in the Iranian tongue, remaining faithful 
to his sources; it is in the story of Alexander the 
Great that most Arabic words are to be found (for 
he was using a non-Iranian source, translated into 
Pahlavi [see iskandar nama]). His influence on 
Persian literature and indeed on the spirit of the 
people of Iran has been as profound as it has been 
lasting, and in itself would merit a serious study; 
in particular it led to the writing of numerous epics 
which, though not the equal of his own, are of real 
(and still insufficiently recognized) interest from 
the points of view both of literature and of folklore 
[see hamasa]. 

Bibliography: A full bibliography would 
itself constitute a detailed study. Complete 
editions of the Shahnama: Turner Macan, The 
Shah-Nama . . . , Calcutta 1829, 4 vols.; J. Mohl, 
Le Livre des Rois . . . , text and French trans- 
lation, Paris 1838-78, 7 vols., and translation alone, 
Paris 1876-8, 7 vols.; J. A. Vullers and Landauer, 
Liber Regum . . . , Leyden 1877-84, 3 vols, (in- 
complete). These three editions were used for the 
Firdawsi Millenary edition (with notes and va- 
riants, Tehran, Beroukhim, 1934-5, 9 vols.), which 
is now the most easily accessible (it gives the pagi- 
nation of the Calcutta and Paris editions at the 
head of each page). Parts i and ii of a critical text 
prepared under the editorship of E. E. Bertels 
appeared in Moscow in i960 and 1961. Besides 
Mohl's translation, it has been translated into 
Italian verse by Pizzi (Turin 1886-8), into German 
by F. Ruckert (Berlin 1890-5), into Gudjarati by 
J. J. Modi (Bombay 1897-1904), into English by 
A. G. and E. Warner (London 1905-12), into Danish 
(selections) by Arthur Christensen (Copenhagen 
1931); many sections have been translated into 
various languages. An Arabic prose version was 
made by al-bundari [q.v.]. The essential study on 
the poet and his work (still of value although out of 
date on certain points) is Noldeke, Das Iranische 
Nationalepos, in Gr. I. Ph., ii, Persian translation, 
IJamasa-i milli-i Iran, Tehran 1327), to which is 
to be added Ethe, Firdausi als Lyriker, in Munchen. 
Sitzungsberichte, 1872, 275-304, and 1873, 623-53. 
In Persian there are the notable works of Z. A. 
Safa, Uamasa-sarayi dar Iran and Ta'rikh-i 
adabiyyat dar Iran, ii. Finally, numerous articles 
and studies assembled in volumes or dispersed in 
periodicals, published in Iran and other countries. 
See further IA (Firdevsi, by H. Ritter), and Pear- 
son 774-5. (Cl. Huart-[H. MassS]) 
There are three principal translations of the 
Shahnama in Ottoman Turkish: (1) a prose version, 
completed by an unidentified writer in 854/1450-1 
(Fliigel, Die . . . Handschriften des Kais.-kdn. Hojbibl. 
zu Wien, i, 495 ; F. E. Karatay, Topkapi Sarayi . . . 
tiirkfe yazmalar kataloiu, Istanbul 1961, no. 2154; 
cf. Blochet, Cat. des manuscrits turcs, ii, 220) ; (2) a 
verse translation (in hazadj metre) made in Egypt 



FIRDAWSl — FIRISHTA 



921 



by a certain Sherlf or Sherifi, a member of the 
entourage of Prince Diem, who spent ten years on 
the task before presenting his work to Sultan Kansuh 
Ghuri (see Rieu, CTM, 152; W. D. Smirnow, Manus- 
crits turcs . .., St. Petersburg 1897, 78-82; the 
presentation-copy, completed in 916/1510, is in the 
Topkapi Sarayi at Istanbul, MS Hazine 15 19, see 
Karatay, no. 2155); (3) another prose version made 
early in the nth/i7th century for c Othman II by 
Derwlsh Hasan, Medhi [q.v.] (see Blochet, i, 314; 
Smirnow, 82-7). There is a translation into modern 
Turkish (in the series 'Diinya edebiyattndan terciime- 
let') by N. Lugal and K. Akyiiz, 3 vols., Istanbul 
1945. There are at least two translations into Ozbek 
Turkish (see Blochet, ii, I2g; FirdausiCelebration . . . , 
ed. D. E. Smith, New York 1936, 93 f.). For the 
influence of the Shdhndma upon Turkish popular 
literature see Irene M&ikoff, Abu Muslim..., 
Paris 1962, ch. 1. 

To compose 'Shdhndmes' in praise of the Ottoman 
sultan became the vogue under Mehemmed II, and 
in the second half of the ioth/i6th century the 
official historiographer-panegyrists of the court 
were known as 'shehndme-kh u dn' [see lokman, 
sayyid]. (V. L. Menage) 

FIRDEWSI, called RumI also Uzun or TawIl 
(857/1453- ?). Turkish poet and polymath, 
author of the voluminous Siileymanndme (the Book 
of Solomon). He was probably born in Aydlndjik, 
where he spent his childhood, and educated at 
Bursa, where he had as master the poet Mellhl, and 
lived for a while at Balikesir. According to infor- 
mation in the introduction of a Siileymanndme copy, 
seen by M. Fuad Kopriilii (see Bibl.) but now 
unavailable, his ancestors were all illustrious men of 
arms who served the Empire from c Othman I onwards, 
and his father HadjdjI Genek Bey was given the fief 
of Aydlndjik for his services at the conquest of 
Istanbul. He is the author and translator of many 
books of very diverse subjects of which only some 
have come down to us. But he is particularly known 
for his Siileymanndme, an encyclopaedic work in 
verse and prose which includes all contemporary 
knowledge on history, genealogy, philosophy, 
geometry, medicine, etc., and all the tales and 
anecdotes, found in religious literature, concerning 
Solomon. In its 81st volume he himself tells how he 
came to write the book: in the year 876/1472 he 
translated a portion of Firdawsi's Shdhndma into 
Turkish verse and presented it to Mehemmed II 
through Mahmud Pasha, the Grand-Vizier. The 
Sultan, remarking that the Shdhndma was widely 
known and that it was unnecessary to repeat it, 
encouraged the poet to write a book on Solomon. 
Firdewsl searched for sources in the Imperial 
Library and toured Anatolia. He based his first three 
volumes on the biblical David legend and the next 
three on a Persian book of Solomon which he had 
bought from an Arab at Niksar. He presented the 
first six volumes of his work to Mehemmed II, who 
promised a reward when the work was completed. 
The Sultan however died while Firdewsl was writing 
the seventh volume. Eventually Bayezid II came to 
hear of this and asked for a copy. The first 82 volumes 
were submitted to the Imperial Library except for 
this 81st volume which somehow, owing to the 
copyist's error, was not. It was eventually sub- 
mitted to Sellm I (Siileymanndme, 81st volume, 
Millet Kiitiiphanesi, Tarih-Cografa Yazmalan no. 317, 






states at the end of certain early volumes (see for 
instance Topkapi Sarayi, Hazine K. no. 1525, 287b), 
and asked God for health and long life to be able to 
complete the work. Upon completion each volume 
was duly presented to the Imperial Library. Uzun 
Firdewsl continued to write at Bayezid II's order 
(whom incidentally he refers to as Ildirim) and 
speaks of himself as an aged man (pir). He says that 
he has devoted 40-50 years of his life to the com- 
pilation of the book, writing most of it at Balikesir 
(Topkapi Sarayi, Koguslar K. 892, 83a). From these 
circumstances no doubt arises Latifi's tradition, 
later repeated by most sources, that Bayezid II 
chose only 80 parts and had the rest destroyed. 

At the end of the 79th volume Firdewsl reduces 
his plan to 99 volumes from the original 366 (Topkapi 
Sarayi, Hazine K., no. 1537, 387a). This revised plan 
is repeated at the end of volumes 80 and 81. There 
is also reference to intrigues and rivals. We have 
no indication whether he was able to write the re- 
maining 17 volumes. No library possesses a complete 
set. The best set is at the Topkapi Sarayi Library. 
The style of the Siileymdnndme is very much like 
that of popular story books of the period though 
more repetitive and less vivid. 

Bibliography: Latifi, Tedhkire s.v.; Bursal! 
Tahir, 'Othmanll Mii'ellifleri, ii/2, 357; Babinger, 
GOW, 32; Istanbul Kiitiiphaneleri Tarih-Cografya 
yazmalan Katalogu, Istanbul 1944, II, 147; 
M. Fuad Kopriilu in I A , s.v. (with critical biblio- 
graphy and list of works) ; Fehmi Edhem Karatay, 
Topkapi Sarayi Miizesi Kiituphanesi Tiirkce 
yazmalar katalogu, Istanbul 1961, ii, 290-2. 

(FAHiR tz) 
FIRE [see nar], greek fire [see barud and naft]. 
FIREWORKS [see shenlik]. 
FIRISHTA [see mal'ak]. 

FIRISHTA, by-name of Muhammad Kasim 
Hindu Shah AstarabadI, Indo-Muslim historian, 
writer on Indian medicine and servant of the 
Ahmadnagar and Bidjapuri sultanates. As Storey 
(whose account of Firishta's biography is followed 
here) states, the date and place of his birth remain 
conjectural but the context of Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, 
Bombay ed., ii, 288, suggests that Firishta was 
probably born a few years before 980/1572. His 
father was one Ghulam c Ali Hindu-Shah. That 
Firishta was to be found among the gharibdn and 
gharib-zddahd the 'foreigners' and their descendants 
who migrated for safety to Bidjapur in 997/1589 
(Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, ii, 295) suggests that his family 
was of recent domicile in Ahmadnagar. He was a 
Shi'i (Gulshan, i, 27). Entering the service of Murtada 
Nizam Shah (972-96/1565-88) [q.v.] Firishta was 
employed as a member of the royal guard. Com- 
missioned by Murtada Nizam Shah to discover why 
an army, gathered by the wakil and peshwa MIrza 
Khan ostensibly to resist invasion by Bidjapur, had 
remained immobile, Firishta discovered a plot 
between MIrza Khan and the Bidjapuri 'regent' 
Dilawar Khan to depose Murtada Nizam Shah in 
favour of his son Miran Husayn. Firishta warned 
Murtada but was unable to save him from assassi- 
nation. Firishta himself only escaped death through 
Miran Husayn recognizing his claims as a former 
school-fellow. A forced migration of gharibdn from 
Ahmadnagar to Bidjapur in 997/1589 followed the 
murder of Miran Husayn and on 19 Safar 998/28 
December 1589 Firishta was presented at the 
Bidjapuri court and on 1 Rabl c I 998/8 January 
1590 took service under Ibrahim c Adil Shah. Later 
that year Firishta acted as a go-between for Burhan 



Nizam Shah who was seeking Bidjapurl support for 
the deposition of his son Isma'il. In the subsequent 
struggle between the forces of Bldjapur and Ahmad- 
nagar, Firishta was wounded and captured, but 
escaped. In Radjab 998/May-June 1590 he accom- 
panied Ibrahim c Adil Shah on his night excursion 
to remove the 'regent' Dilawar Khan. In Safar 1013/ 
July 1604 Firishta accompanied Begam Sultan, 
daughter of Ibrahim c Adil Shah, upon her journey 
to marry Akbar's son Daniyal. At the beginning of 
Djahanglr's reign, Firishta was sent upon some 
unspecified mission to Lahore. Unless the reference 
to the death of Bahadur Khan Faruki at Agra in 
1033/1623-4 was inserted by a later hand, Firishta 
was still alive in that year. 

Firishta's reputation rests upon his well-known 
history the Gulshan-i Ibrahimi, extant in two 
recensions, the first dated 1015/1606-7 and the 
second, with a new title, TaMkh-i Nawras-ndma, 
dated 1018/1609-10. The Gulshan-i Ibrahimi sets out 
(i, 4) to narrate the annals of the pddshdhdn-i Islam 
and the biographies of the mashdHkh who have been 
connected with the ordering (nizdm) of the countries 
of Hindustan (mamdlik-i Hindustan) from Sebiik- 
tigin of Ghazna onward. The annals (wdki'-dt) are 
prefaced by a mukaddima giving an abstract of 
Hindu history and are followed with a khdfima on 
the geography of Hindustan, on Hindu chronometry 
and on the great Hindu rddjds of Firishta's time 
who keep their territories, Firishta says (ii, 788), 
on payment of tribute. 

The typical genres of Indo-Muslim historiography 
in Firishta's day were the general history of Muslim 
rulers from the time of the Prophet and the regional 
history of the significant behaviour of Muslim 
rulers and saints in Hindustan since the Ghaznavid 
invasions. 9th/i5th century Persian models appear 
to have been important in the universal histories 
that were written under the Mughals and under the 
sultanate of Gudjarat, with lines of influence running 
from the Rawdat al-safd through Kh w 5nd Amir's 
Khuldsat al-akhbdr (905/1500) and Habib al-siyar 
(c. 930/1524) to the Ta'rikh-i alfi, commissioned by 
Akbar in 993/1585, and from the Rawdat al-safd 
through <Abd al-Karim b. Muhammad al-Namldlhl's 
(?) al-Jabahdt al-Mahmud Shdhiyya (c. 905/1490- 
1500) and Fayd Allah Banbanl's Ta'rikh-i Sadr-i 
Dfahdn (c. 907/1501-2) (both authors being in the 
service of Mahmud Shah Begfa). Akbar had stimu- 
lated the production of regional histories both by 
sponsoring the writing of those which might serve 
to link his rule psychologically with that of pre- 
Mughal Muslim sultans in India, e.g., 'Abbas Khan 
Sarwani's Tuhfa-yi Akbar-Shdhi (c. 987/1579) and 
Abu '1-Fadl's Akbar-ndma, and by re-creating a great 
regional empire which needed to be matched by a 
great regional history — e.g., Nizam al-Din Ahmad's 
Tabakdt-i Akbari (1001/1592-3). Firishta himself, 
acquainted with both al-Namidihl's and Banbanl's 
work, states (ii, 153-4) that Ibrahim c Adil Shah gave 
him a copy of Rawdat al-safd and encouraged him 
to write the annals of the countries of Hind and to 
include more data on the sultans of the Deccan than 
Nizam al-Din Ahmad had done in his Tabakdt. 

The Gulshan-i Ibrahimi is an annalistic compilation 
from earlier histories, oral tradition and Firishta's 
own eyewitness, intended for the edification of 
Muslims. It is an adaptation and extension of the 
Tabakdt-i Akbari, an imitation rather than a copy. 
Thus Firishta's abstract of pre-Muslim Hindu 
history and his account of early Arab movements 
towards Hindustan, of the origin of the Afghans and 



of their deeds between Arab penetration of the 
Kabul valley and the reign of Sebuktigln of Ghazna, 
supplement Nizam al-Din. In his use of data, 
Firishta follows no consistent principle. Thus 
(i, 104) he corrupts the late tradition in Ta>rikh-i 
Alfi and in Tabakdt-i Akbari by calling the assassins 
of Muhammad b. Sam of Ghor at Damyak in 602/1206 
(Hindu) 'Ghakkars' and does not assess the state- 
ments in the near-contemporary Tddf al-ma'athir 
and the rather later Tabakdt-i Ndsiri (listed by 
Firishta as among his sources) that they were 
muldhida. (See H. G. Raverty, trans. Tabakdt-i 
Ndsiri, i, London 1881, 485 n. 3). Firishta sometimes 
behaves as a mere copyist of the Tabakdt-i Akbari; 
thus he copies (i, 122) Nizam al-DIn's misstatement, 
Tabakdt-i Akbari, i, Calcutta 1927, 72, (probably 
derived from a faulty MS of the Tabakdt-i Ndsiri) 
that in 642/4 Cingiz Khan invaded Lakhnawti. 
(See Raverty, op. cit. 665 n. 8). In going behind 
Nizam al-Din to their common sources Firishta is 
often arbitrary. He follows Yahya b. Ahmad 
Sirhindl's Ta'rikh-i Mubarak Shdhi, Calcutta 1931, 
92, in dating the accession of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluk 
in 721/1321, in preference to Baranl's 720/1320 
(Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, Calcutta 1862, 425), the date 
followed by the Tabakdt-i Akbari (92) and which is 
supported by the numismatic evidence. Firishta 
appears to have seen the sources of the Tabakdt-i 
Akbari independently. His account (i, 183) of the 
dialogue between the kolwdl of Dihll and Sultan 
<Ala> al-Din Khaldji (i, 183) is textually closer to 
that of BaranI (264-5) than to that of the Tabakdt 
(145). Firishta glosses his sources without explana- 
tion. Thus he speaks (i, 240) of Muhammad b. 
Tughluk's intention to conquer the wildyat-i Cin 
when Barani (477), and following him Nizam al-Din 
(102), refer to an expedition to conquer the mountain 
of Karadil between India and China. Occasionally, 
in handling his data, Firishta shows independence 
of mind. He imputes (i, 238) Baranl's silence about 
a reported invasion of Muhammad b. Tughluk's 
territories by Tarmashirln of Transoxania to his 
position in the reign of Muhammad's successor, 
Firuz Shah (an imputation which, in the light of 
Baranl's strong criticism of Muhammad, seems 
invalid). He attempts (i, 235) to assess the truth 
behind the conflicting accounts of the death of 
Ghiyath al-DIn Tughluk in 725/1325, before conclu- 
ding that the real truth is with God. To supplement 
his written data, Firishta draws upon oral tradition 
personally ascertained. His account (i, 230-1) of the 
origin of Ghiyath al-DIn Tughluk is based on personal 
inquiries at Lahore during his visit there at the 
beginning of Djahangir's reign. 

Firishta evinces the same characteristics as an 
annalist of the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan. The 
story of the Ottoman origin of Yusuf c Adil Shah of 
Bldjapur is given as 'the best of tales' (ii, 1) but 
without a personal affirmation of its authenticity. 
[See bIjuapur]. His report (ii, 6) that Yusuf c Adil 
Shah assumed the title of c Adil Shah and had the 
khufba read in his name in 895/1489 is not consistent 
with the evidence of Rafi c al-DIn Shlrazl, Tadhkirat 
al-muluk, B.M. Add. 23,883, fols. 32a-33b, a work 
contemporary with Gulshan-i Ibrahimi or with 
such inscriptional evidence as is now extant (see 
EIM, 1939-40, 14-6). Firishta's evidence for the 
assumption of royal titles by Sultan Kull Kutb al- 
Mulk of Golkonda has similarly been shown to be 
doubtful testimony (see Journal of the Hyderabad 
Archaeological Society, 1918, 89-94). As a historian 
of the BahmanI sultanate, Firishta is no less suspect. 



FIRISHTA — FIRISHTE-OGHLU 



He states (i, 575) that the fifth BahmanI sultan was 
MahmOd and not Muhammad as the coinage 
(O. Codrington, Coins of the Bahmani dynasty, in 
Numismatic Chronicle, 3rd series, xviii (1898), 259-73), 
and c Ali b. c Aziz Allah Tabataba, Burhdn-i md'dthir 
(1003/1594), Haydarabad 1355/1936, 36-8, and 
Shirazi's Tadhkirat al-muluk, fol. i6a-b, suggest. On 
the discrepancies between the Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi 
and the Burhdn-i ma'dthir in other respects see Sir 
Wolseley Haig, The history of the Nizam Shdhi kings 
of Ahmadnagar, in Indian Antiquary, xlix-lii, 
1920-3. The differences between the accounts of 
Deccan and Gudjarat history by Nizam al-DIn 
Ahmad and Firishta have been exhaustively noticed 
in the translation of the Tabakdt-i Akbari by 
Brajendranath De, iii/i, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1939. 

Criticism of Firishta as a historian, often by 
anachronistic criteria (e.g., S. H. Hodivala, Studies 
in Indo-Muslim history, i, Bombay 1939, 594-5), 
has perhaps been the more severe by reason of the 
reputation and status of an 'authority' which he 
enjoyed among European writers on Indo-Muslim 
history from the middle of the 18 th century. Alexan- 
der Dow, The history of Hindostan, 2 vols., London 
1768, introduced the Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, (makdlas 
i and ii only), to a European public in the form of 
an interpretation in which there is little to distinguish 
a very free translation from Dow's own glosses. As 
a general annalist of Muslim rule in Hindustan 
Firishta provided a basis for that general history of 
India before the attainment of political authority 
by the East India Company for which Dow hoped 
his countrymen were, by reason of their growing 
involvement in India, ready. A translation of the 
eleventh makdla on Mallbar in the Asiatick miscel- 
lany, ii, Calcutta 1786, and of the third makdla by 
Jonathan Scott, Ferishta's history of Dekkan, 2 vols., 
Shrewsbury 1794, further established Firishta as 
an 'authority' and Thomas Maurice, History of 
Hindostan, 2 vols, and 2 parts, London 1802-10, 
David Price, Chronological retrospect, 3 vols., London 
1811-21, and James Mill, History of British India, 
3 vols., London 18 17, drew more or less heavily 
upon him. In 1829, Lt. Col. John Briggs published a 
translation of all the Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi except the 
part containing the biographies of the mashdHkh 
and, in 1831-2, the Bombay two-volume edition of 
the entire Persian text. Both translation and text 
are based upon a collation of unspecified MSS but 
without an indication of variant readings or other 
critical apparatus. Later editions of the Gulshan-i 
Ibrdhimi (see Storey, 448) cannot be said to have 
established a definitive text. Mountstuart Elphin- 
stone in his History of India, 2 vols., London 1841, 
gave a powerful impetus to the process of change 
from treating the Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi as an historical 
'authority' to treating it as historical data, when 
he went behind Firishta to many of Firishta's own 
sources. Sir Henry Elliot and John Dowson took the 
process further with (Elliot's) Bibliographical index 
to the historians of Muhammedan India, Calcutta 1849, 
and The history of India as told by its own historians, 
10 vols., London 1867-77. Now that subsequent 
publication of literary, numismatic, inscriptional and 
other material on Indo-Muslim history and subse- 
quent development of a more critical technique have 
destroyed dependence on Firishta (and the concept 
of dependence upon 'authorities'), the time is ripe 
for a new assessment of his character and achieve- 
ment as a historical writer. 

Bibliography: In addition to references in the 

text; Storey, 442-50; Baini Prashad, Preface to 



vol. iii of Brajendranath De's translation of the 
Tabakdt-i Akbari, Calcutta 1939, xxxii-xxxiii; 
S. H. Hodivala, Studies in Indo-Muslim History, 
2 vols., Bombay 1939, 1957, in the course of his 
commentary on Elliot and Dowson's History of 
India, gives incidentally an indispensable critique 
of Firishta's work; Jagtar Singh Grewal, British 
historical writing (from Alexander Dow to Mount- 
stuart Elphinstone) on Muslim India, unpublished 
doctoral thesis, University of London, 1963. 

(P. Hardy) 
FIRISHTE-OGHLU (Firishte-zade, Ibn Fi- 
rishte, also Ibn Malak), patronymic of two Turkish 
writers, brothers, who flourished in Anatolia in 
the gth/i5th century. 

1. c Abd al-Latlf b. Firishte c Izz al-DIn b. Amin 
al-DIn, known particularly as Ibn Malak, lived at 
Tire first in the period of the Aydln-oghullarl and 
later under Ottoman rule (so that he is listed in 
biographical works among the '■ulamd? of the reign 
of Bayezld I), and won enduring fame as the author 
of works in the fields of fikh and hadith. The chrono- 
logically impossible statement in the ShakdHk that 
he was active in the reign of Mehemmed b. Aydln 
(d. 733/1333) arises from a confusion of him with his 
father, the kadi of Birgi whom Ibn Battuta met in 
that year (Ibn Battuta, ii, 296, 300= Eng. tr. H. A. R. 
Gibb, ii, 438, 440). According to Ewliya Celebi 
(Seydhatndme, ix, 74) he was educated at Maghnlsa. 
He taught for many years in Tire at the medrese 
founded by Mehemmed Beg (to which later his own 
name was attached), and lies buried beside it. The 
date of his death is differently reported: the grave- 
stone dated 797/1394-5, which Bursal! Mehmed 
Tahir [see Bibl.] thought to be his, in fact commemora- 
tes someone else; the year 801/1398-9 is reported by 
Isma'il Pasha, 820/1417 by Mehmed Thiireyya, and 
821/1418 by Faik Tokluoglu (Tire, n.p., 1957, 12); 
all these dates seem to be too early, since one of his 
works was composed in 824/1421. 

Of his works (reported by Ewliya to be 700 in 
number) the chief are (in Arabic): (1) Mabdrik 
al-azhdr fi sharh Mashdrik al-anwdr; (2) Sharh Mandr 
al-anwdr (autograph, dated 824, in Necip Pasa 
Kutiiphanesi, Tire) — these two works, long regarded 
as classics, were printed in several editions in the 
19th century ; (3) Sharh Madjma'- al-bahrayn; 
(4) Sharh al-Wikaya; (5) Mandfi c al-Kur'dn; (6) 
al-Ashbdh wa '1-nazdHr; (7) Munyat al-sayyddin fi 
taHim al-istiydd wa-ahkdmih (on hunting); (in 
Persian): (8) K. al-Mazdhir. His best-known work 
is his rhyming Arabic-Turkish dictionary of certain 
words found in the Kur'an known as Firishte-oghlu 
lughatl: this was the model for the later rhyming 
dictionaries of Ottoman literature. The Badr al- 
waHzin wa-zuhr aW-dbidin and the Sharh Tuhfat 
al-mulilk, sometimes attributed to him, are in fact 
by his son Mehemmed, and the Lughat-i Kdnun-i 
ildhi by another son c Abd al-Madjid. 

Bibliography: Tashkopriizade, ShakdHk, tr. 
Medjdi, 66-7; c AlI, Kunh al-akhbdr, 1st. Un. Lib., 
MS T 5459, f. 36r.; Taki al-DIn b. al-Tamlml, 
al-Tabakdt al-saniyya fi tardd[im al-hanafiyya, 
Suleymaniye Lib., MS 829, f. 26ov.; HadjdjI 
Khalifa, ed. Fliigel, ii, 29, 240=ed. Yaltkaya and 
Bilge, i, 231, 275; Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, ix, 
74, 166; Mustaklm-zade, MaHallat al-nisab, 
Suleymaniye Lib., MS Halet Ef. 628, f. 53^.; 
Ahmed Haslb, Silk al-la'dlP, 1st. Un. Lib., MS 
T 104, f. 80; Mehmed Thiireyya, Sidjill-i "-Othmdni, 
iii, 454; Bursal! Mehmed Tahir, Aydin wildyetine 
mensub meshdHkh, '■xdema?, shu'ard'', muwerrikhin 



924 



FIRISHTE-OGHLU — FlROZ SHAH TUGHLUK 



ve etibbdnln terddfim-i ahwdli, Izmir 1324, 36-8; 

idem, c Othmdnll mWellifleri, i, 219-20; Sarkis, 

Mu'djam, Cairo 1346, i, 252-3; al-Shawkam. 

al-Badr al-tdW-, Cairo 1348, i, 374; Brockelmann, 

S II, 315-6; Ismail Pasa, Asma? al-mu'allifin, 

Istanbul 1951, i, 617; Faik Sisik, Abdullatlf Ibn-i 

Melek, in Kiiciik Menderes Mecmuasi, nos. 10 and 

11 (Izmir 1942); idem, Ibn-i Melek-zdde Mehmel 

Efendi, ibid., no. 12 (1942). 

2. c Abd al-Madjid b. Firishte c Izz al-DIn b. Amin 

al-Din, known usually simply as Firishte-oghlu, was 

one of the chief disciples of Fadl Allah [?.».], founder 

of the Hurflfi sect [see hurufiyya] in the line: 

Fadl Allah— Sayyid Shams al-Din— Mewlana Baya- 

zid — £ Abd al-Madjid. (Medjdi in his translation of the 

ShakdHk denies his connexion with the Hurufiyya, 

from the desire to avoid compromising his honoured 

and orthodox brother). Little is known of his life; 

he is reported to have died in 864/1469. His c Ishk- 

n&me remained for centuries, with Fadl Allah's 

Didwiddn-ndme. one of the principal books of the 

sect. Works (all in Turkish): (1) HsKk-ndme (lith., 

Istanbul 1288/1871 and n.d.), begun in 833/1430, 

is partly an abridged translation of Fadl Allah's 

Didwiddn-i kabir, partly original; it formed the 

basis for Ishak Efendi's refutation of the Hurufiyya 

{Kdshif al-asrdr, 31 ff.); (2) Hiddyet-ndme, composed 

833/1434; (3) Kh" db-ndme, translation from Shaykh 

Abu '1-Hasan Isfahan!; (4) Akhiret-ndme (the last 

three are preserved in 1st. Un. Lib., MS T 9685)- The 

dictionary to the Kur'an sometimes attributed to him 

is the work of his nephew c Abd al-Madjid,see above. 

Bibliography: Tashkopriizade, ShaltdHk, tr. 

Medjdi, 67; Ishak Efendi, Kdshif al-asrdr, Istanbul 

1291, 157; J. K. Birge, The Bektashi order of 

dervishes, London 1937, 152-4. 

(Omer Faruk Akun) 
FIRIf A [see hizb (on political parties), al-milal 
wa'l-nihal, jarIka]. 
FIRMAN [see farman]. 

FIRRlSH (Sp. Castillo del Hierro), in the 
province of Seville, north of the Guadalquivir valley 
between Cazalla de la Sierra and Hornachuelos, in 
the neighbourhood of Constantina. The kura (or 
region) of Firrish, adjacent to that of Fahs al-Balliit 
[?.».], lay two stages distant to the north-west of 
Cordova. There were and still are chestnuts and 
cork-oaks in its region, but its forests were composed 
then as now chiefly of evergreen oaks as in Fahs al- 
Ballut. Its principal wealth lay in the exploitation 
of its iron, which gave it its names of 
Castillo del Hierro and Constantina del Hierro, 
and which was used throughout al-Andalus on 
account of its excellent quality. The deposits, 
however, must soon have been exhausted for no 
trace of this industry now remains. According to the 
Rawd al-miHdr Constantina was a great Roman town, 
and indeed ruins of Roman origin have been found 
there in the Cerro del Almendro, as also ruins of a 
Muslim fortress. Remains of another fortification, 
which might be Almoravid, have been encountered 
in the Cerro del Castillo. There are also prehistoric 
remains as yet unexplored. 

In the listing of the regions of al-Andalus all the 
geographers place Firrish adjacent to Fahs al- 
Balliit and in the levy of troops which Muhammad I 
made in 249/863 for the expedition against Galicia 
Firrish appears with 342 horsemen alongside Fahs 
al-Ballut which provides 400. Both Firrish and 
Constantina lie to the west of Cordova, not the 
north-west as stated in the Rawd al-mi<(dr. Between 
them and the district of Los Pedroches lies the wide 



band of uninhabited and uncultivated land con- 
stituted by the Sierra Morena which must be crossed 
before the descent of the deep valley of the Guadiato 
with its castle of al-Bakar. In 230/844 the Normans, 
temporarily masters of Seville, launched raids in all 
directions and thus reached not only Mor6n and 
Cordova but also Firrish, which at that time was 
working, besides its iron mine, a quarry of highly 
esteemed pure white marble. 

Bibliography : Himyari, al-Rawd al-mi'-tdr, 
ed. Levi-Provencal, text 143, tr. 171-2; IdrisI, 
Descr., text 207, tr. 256; Dozy, Recherches*, ii, 
294; Levi-Provencal, Histoire de I'Espagne musul- 
mane,i, 218; idem, L'Espagne musulmane au X' 
siecle, 117; Yakut, Mu'gjam, iii, 889-90. 

(A. Huici Miranda) 
FlRCZ SHAH KHALDJl [see dihlI, sulta- 

FlRtJZ SHAH TUfiHLUK (b. 707/1307-8) was 
the son of Sipahsdldr Radjab, younger brother of 
Ghiyath al-Din Tughluk Shah, and BibI Na'ila, 
daughter of a Hindu zaminddr of the Bhatti tribe of 
southern Pandjab. (No contemporary or later 
Persian source uses 'Tughluk' with Firuz Shah's 
name. The addition of 'Tughluk' after his name is a 
modern innovation, convenient but inaccurate.) 
During the reign of Muhammad b. Tughluk, Firuz 
occupied the high position of Na'ib Amir Hadjib and 
played an important part in the affairs of state. On 
the death of Muhammad b. Tughluk near f hatiha in 
Sind in Muharram 752/March 1351, Firuz was 
elected to the throne by the nobles and notables 
(including several influential religious leaders) present 
in the imperial camp. He had no difficulty in over- 
coming the opposition of Khwadja Djahan Ahmad 
Ayaz, the wazir of the late Sultan, at Dehli. 

Despite his pacific temperament, Firuz Shah was 
not without imperial ambitions. He had a keen 
desire to regain the provinces lost during the previous 
reign. The two successive campaigns he led to 
Bengal (754"5/i353-4 and 760-2/1359-61) gained 
practically nothing. His prolonged and costly ex- 
pedition against the Samma chiefs of Thaiiha (767-8/ 
1366-7) resulted only in the extension of his suzerainty 
to the distant province, as did his invasion of Kangfa 
(764/1363). As a general Firuz Shah was thoroughly 
incompetent: his conduct of war suffered from his 
professed desire to avoid all bloodshed and his 
vacillating judgment. It was therefore fortunate that 
he did not go ahead with a projected invasion of 
the Deccan (prob. 764/1363) and that sometime 
later, on the advice of his wazir, Khan Djahan, he 
resolved not to undertake any further expeditions. 

Firuz Shah ordered a new revenue survey of the 
empire. He followed a liberal agrarian policy, 
levying only one-fifth of the produce as revenue. 
He issued orders to his revenue staff to deal leniently 
with the peasants. He dug several canals and 
numerous irrigation wells. The resulting extension of 
cultivation, apart from benefiting the peasantry, 
contributed to a cheaper and more plentiful supply 
of food-grains in the urban areas. Firuz Shah abol- 
ished twenty-nine taxes, most of which were urban 
cesses : the measure benefited the small shop-keeper, 
the artisan and the craftsman. 

Firuz Shah humanized the government and 
softened the code of punishment. But his benevolence 
often bordered upon weakness. He granted big 
iktdH to his nobles, leaving them practically free to 
manage these estates as they chose. The measure 
enriched the nobles and impoverished the state. 
Firuz Shah failed to check corruption in the admini- 



FlRUZ SHAH TUGHLUK — FIRUZABAD 



925 



stration. Indeed, someof his own measurescontributed 
to corruption and inefficiency. The Sultan's weakness 
was to some extent balanced by the wisdom and 
firmness of his wazlr, Khan Djahan Makbul (a 
convert, from Telingana in South India), whom 
he trusted implicitly and who served him with rare 
loyalty. Another buttress which Firuz Shah built 
up to offset his weakness was the large body of per- 
sonal slaves he acquired and maintained. These 
slaves, known as the bandagdn-i Firiiz Shdhi, though 
loyal to their master, created much trouble towards 
the end of the Sultan's reign and after his death. 

In religious matters Firuz Shah was strongly 
orthodox. He suppressed extremist sectarian mani- 
festations and outbreaks of what he considered 
heretical movements in his kingdom. On the advice 
of the 'ulamd' (whom he frequently consulted), 
he extended djizya to the Brahmans, who had so far 
been exempt from the tax, though he allowed them 
to pay it at the lowest rate. Firuz Shah was the last 
Sultan of Dehli to receive investiture from the 
'Abbasid caliph, himself by now a powerless pen- 

FirOz Shah was a prolific builder. He founded 
several towns, including a new city of Dehli named 
Firuzabad, and Djawnpur, named after his late 
imperial cousin Djawna Khan alias Muhammad b. 
Tughluk. He built many mosques, madrasas and 
other royal and public edifices. Architecturally his 
buildings, though possessing a conspicuous style, 
were not of a high order. He also showed interest in 
preserving old monuments and repaired many of 
these, including the Kutb Minar. His transplanting 
of two Asokan pillars from their original sites to 
the city of Dehli was a creditable feat of mediaeval 
engineering. The operation in all its phases — the 
uprooting of the pillars, transporting them across 
the river Djamuna and refixing them in the sites 
where they stand to this day — is described in elab- 
orate detail in the Sirat-i Firuz Shahi (see AS I 
Memoirs, no. 52, cited in Bibl. below). The many 
gardens Firuz Shah laid out around Dehli sub- 
stantially increased the supply of flowers and fruits 
to the city. 

Firuz Shah died in Ramadan 790/September 1388 
and lies buried in a simple and dignified mausoleum 
at the Hawd Khass outside Delhi. The ease and 
plenty of his reign, the widespread distribution of 
charity, the corruption in the civil as well as the 
military administration, and the very peace and 
tranquillity which made the people "forget the 
profession of arms" ( c Afif), sapped the vigour of the 
ruling community and thereby contributed to the 
rapid decline of the Sultanate after nim. The invasion 
of Timur a decade after the Sultan's death only 
hastened the process of decay which had already 
begun. 

Bibliography: Among the Persian sources, 
c Afif's Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shahi gives the fullest 
account of the reign. Though professedly favourable 
to Firuz Shah, 'Afif seldom slurs over his faults. 
Firuz Shah's own brochure, the Futuhdt-i Firuz 
Shahi (inscribed in a dome, no longer extant, in the 
Masdjid-i Firuz Shahi in Firuzabad) is a revealing 
document. See Elliot and Dowson, iii, 265-388, 
for translations of excerpts from Persian accounts. 
For modern writings, see articles by Riazul Islam, 
B. N. Roy, K. K. Basu and others listed in Pearson, 
Index Islamicus, pp. 631-2, Supplement, p. 203. 
The more important articles are given below. 
Original sources: Diya 5 al-DIn Barani, 
Ta'rikh-i FiruzShdhi (Bibl. Indica), Calcutta 1862; 



<Ayn al-Mulk Mahru Multani, Munsha'dt-i Mdhru, 
Asiatic Society of Bengal MS, Cat. No. 338, Ivanow, 
pp. 145-48; Anon., Sirat-i Firuz Shahi, Oriental 
Public Library, Bankipore, Catalogue, vii, 28-33, 
MS No. 547; Firuz Shah, Futuhdt-i Firuz Shahi, (i) 
B.M. MS Or. 2039, see Rieu, Cat. Pers. Mss., iii, 
920 (ii) text with translation and introduction by 
Sh. Abdur Rashid, Aligarh 1943; Shams Siradj 
'Afif, Ta'rikh-i Firiiz Shahi (Bibl. Indica), Calcutta 
1890; Muhammad Bihamid Khani, Ta'rikh-i 
Muhammadi, B.M. MS Or. 137. 

Modern authorities: Riazul Islam, The rise 
of the Sammas in Sind, in IC, xxii (1948), 359-82; 
idem, A review of the reign of Firiiz Shah, in IC, 
xxiii (1949), 281-97; idem, The age of Firoz Shah, 
in Med. India Qly., Aligarh, i/i (1950), 25-41; 
idem, Firiiz Shah Tughluq's relations with the 
Deccan, in IC, xxvi/3 (1952), 8-12; idem, Firuz 
Shah's invasion of Bengal, in JPak. H.S., iii (1955), 
35-9; Sh. A. Rashid, Firuz Shah's investiture by 
the Caliph, in Med. India Qly., Aligarh, i/i (1950), 
66-71 ; N. B. Roy, Futuhdt-i Firuz Shahi, in JASB, 
ser. iii, viii (1941), 61-89; Syed Hasan 'Askari, 
Side-lights on Firuz Shah and his times, in Ind. 
Hist. Cong. Proc, xxi (1958), 33-37; K. K. Basu, 
Firuz Shah Tughluq as a Ruler, in IHQ, xvii, 386-93 ; 
Memoirs of the Archaeological survey of India, no. 
52: A Memoir on Kotla Firoz Shah, Delhi, by 
J. A. Page, Delhi 1937. (Riazul Islam) 

FIRCZAbAD (formerly Piruzabad, 'the town of 
victory', and originally known as Gur or Cur) is 
situated in 28 50' N. Lat. and 52 34' E. Long. 
(Greenwich); it is 1356 m. above sea level. The 
present town, which had 4,340 inhabitants in 195 1, 
is 3 km. to the south-east of the ancient site. Firu- 
zabad, besides being one of the chief centres of the 
Kash-ka'i tribe [q.v.], is the chief administrative 
centre of the district (shahristdn) of the same name 
in the seventh Ustdn (Fars). The surrounding country 
is very fertile and well-watered and the climate is 

The ancient town is said to have been built by 
Ardashir on the site of his great victory over 
Artabanus V. It was circular in shape and had four 
gates, one at each cardinal point; these gates were 
called Mithra (the Sun), Bahrain (Mars), Hormuz 
(Jupiter) and Ardashir. In the centre of the town 
was a lofty tower (now in ruins) on the top of which 






ir-by v 



mple. 



North of the town are the remains of the palace 
which Ardashir built shortly before his successful 
revolt; it is thus the oldest Sasanid building in 
existence (see F. Sarre and E. Herzfeld, Iranische 
Felsreliefs, Berlin 1910, 128). Gur became the 
capital of the province of Ardashir-khurra ("Glory 
of Ardashir"). According to al-Baladhuri (315 and 
389), Gur and Istakhr were the last two towns in 
Fars to surrender to the Muslim Arabs. In the 
3rd/9th century Gur was as large as Istakhr, but 
was smaller than Shiraz (Istakhri, 97). The district 
produced excellent rose-water which was exported 
far and wide; it was also celebrated for its fruit. The 
Buwayhid ruler 'Adud al-Dawla [q.v.] used to 
frequent Gur; his courtiers, disliking the name 
(which means 'grave' in Persian), persuaded him to 
change it to Piruzabad 'the town of victory'. Hamd 
Allah Mustawfi (Nuzha, 137) stated that the inha- 
bitants were noted for their piety and honesty. 
Bibliography : in addition to the references in 
the text, see Mukaddasi, 432 ; Ibn al-Balkhi, Fdrs- 
ndma (ed. Le Strange and Nicholson), 137-139; 
Yakut, iii, 146; Barbier de Meynard, Dictionnaire 



L-FIROZABADI 



de la Perse, 174-176; T. Noldeke, Araber und 

Perser, 11, note 3; Flandin and Coste, Voyage en 

Perse, vol. i, 36-45 and plates xxxv to xliv; 

Oscar Reuther, Sasanian Architecture, in A Survey 

of Persian Art, vol. i, 493; A. Christensen, L'Iran 

sous les Sassanides, 87, 93, 94, 114 and 168; R. 

Ghirshman, Iran from the earliest times to the 

Islamic Conquest, 320-21, 323-24, 328; Rahnama-yi 

Iran, 180 (with town plan on 181); Razmara and 

Nawtash, Farhang-i Djughrdfiyd-vi Iran, vol. vii, 

168. (L. Lockhart) 

al-FIROzAbAdI, Abu 'l-Tahir Muhammad b. 

Ya c kub b. Muhammad b. Ibrahim Madjd al-DIn 

al-Shafi'I al-ShIrazI, from his father's town 

FIruzabad, was born at Kazariin, a town near 

Shiraz (Iran) in Rabi e II or Djumada II 729/February 

or April 1329. From the age of eight he was educated 

in Shiraz, then in Wasit and, in 745/1344, in Baghdad. 

In 750/1349 he was attending the classes of Taki 

al-DIn al-Subkl in Damascus (Brockelmann, II, 106). 

His long life can be divided into three main 

periods, spent in Jerusalem, Mecca and in the 

In the same year 750 he accompanied al-Subki to 
Jerusalem where he stayed for ten years as a teacher 
and then, while still a young man, became a master. 
Subsequent travels took him to Cairo and Asia 

The information to be found in his biographers 
in regard to his journeys varies very greatly (see 
Brockelmann, II, 232 n.). We have here followed, 
like Brockelmann, ibid., the account given in the 
K. al-Rawd al-'dtir of al-Nu c mani, which seems to be 
the most trustworthy. According to al-SakhawI's 
account (Daw, x, 85 foot), a long biography of al- 
Firuzabadi is given in the c Ukud of al-MakrizI; this 
must be the Durar aW-ukud al-farida fi tarddjim al- 
a c ydn al-mufida; the MS Gotha 1771 cannot include 
it, but perhaps it is contained in MS Mawsil 1264, 
no. 5 (Brockelmann, S II, 37), which should correctly 
bo, 264, no. 5. From al-MakrizI interesting details 
might be expected. The ms. is at the present time in 
Baghdad, in the possession of the al-Djallli family 
who do not allow it to be consulted. 

In 770/1368 he went to live in Mecca, breaking his 
stay there to travel to India and spending five years 
in Dihli; after that came more travelling. 

In 794/1392 he went to Baghdad at the invitation 
of Sultan Ahmad b. Uways, and afterwards to 
Persia. TImur Lang, after taking Shiraz (795/1393), 
greeted him with the greatest respect. But his native 
land, ravaged by the Mongol invasion, could no 
longer keep him: from Hormuz he set sail for 

In Rabi e I 796/January 1394 he reached the Yemen 
and lived in Ta'izz for 14 months in the house of 
Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Isma'il b. <Abbas, who 
appointed him chief kadi of the Yemen on 6 Dh u 
'1-Hidjdja 797l 22 September 1395 (with residence in 
Zabid) and gave him his daughter in marriage. In 
802/1400 he once again made the pilgrimage and in 
his house in Mecca set up a modest MalikI madrasa 
with three teachers. He was in Medina in 803/1401 
when he heard of the death of his father-in-law al- 
Malik al-Ashraf. In Ramadan 805/April 1403 he made 
another journey to Mecca, but returned to Zabid 
without delay. He died there on 20 Shawwal 817/ 
3 January 1415- 

An active man with a thirst for knowledge, he is 
said when travelling to have taken with him 
quantities of books which he used to read at the halts. 
He bought many books, the necessary equipment 



for the work of compilation, as practised in his time. 
A spendthrift (but see Daw, x, 81 1. 23), he used to 
sell during a famine and buy back when times of 
plenty returned. His works were concerned with 
tafsir, hadith and history, but lexicography remained 
the branch in which he excelled. 

He had certain pretensions: born near Shiraz, he 
claimed to be a descendant of the celebrated Shafi c I 
Abu Ishak al-Shlrazi (Brockelmann, 1,484) who had, 
however, died without issue. After achieving his 
brilliant position in the Yemen, he called himself and 
wrote by the name of Muhammad al-Siddlki, as 
though a descendant of the caliph Abu Bakr al- 
Siddlk {Daw, x, 85 1. 12-3; al-Nu c manI, Rawd, 2i8r.), 
no doubt the eccentricity of a man who enjoyed 
great renown. He had more serious ambitions: he 
wished to compile a dictionary in 60 (Kdmus, 
Preface, 3 1. 13) or, it is even said, in 100 volumes: 
al-LdrnV- al-mu'-allam al-'udjab al-didmi' bayn al- 
Muhkam wa 'l-'Ubdb, which only reached the 5th 
volume (Ibn al- c Imad, Shadhardt, vii, 128; TA, 
Preface, 14, 1. 10). He made a summary of it, his 
Kdmus, its full title being al-Kdmus al-muhit wa 
'l-kdbus al-wasit al-didmi'- li-md dhahaba min al-'arab 
shamatit. But then he set himself up as the rival, to 
use no stronger a term, of al-Djawhari in his Sihdh. 
The often unjustified criticism that he made of the 
latter (e.g., Kdmus, Preface, 3 1. 20-1, 4 1. 18-20) will 
come as no surprise. 

Of his numerous works the following are printed : 
1. the Tahbir al-muwashshin fi-md yukdl bi "l-sin wa 
'l-shin, vocabulary of Arabic words written indiscrimi- 
nately with either s or sh, Algiers 1909 (also published 
Beirut 1330/1912); 2. narratives derived from the 
life of the Prophet, Sufar al-sa'dda or else al-Sirdt 
al-mustakim, written in Persian, translated into 
Arabic by Abu '1-Djud Muh. b. Mahmud al-Makh- 
zumi in the margin of al-Fawz al-kabir ma'a fath 
al-hablr fi usul al-tafsir of Wall Allah b. <Abd al- 
Rahim (Cairo or Jerusalem 1307, 1346), and in the 
margin of Kashf al-ghumma (Cairo 1317, 1332) of al- 
Sha'rani; see Brockelmann, S II, 235, no. 10; 3. the 
Tanwir al-mikbds min (Tanwir al-mihyds fi, HadjdjI 
Khalifa, Kashf al-zunun, no. 3706) tafsir Ibn 'Abbas, 
Cairo 1290, 1316 (in the margin of al-Ndsikh wa 
'l-mansiikh of Ibn Hazm), 1345/1926. 18 works are 
extant in manuscript, see Brockelmann, II, 233-4 
and S II, 235-6; of these, we may single out al- 
Bulgha fi ta'rikh aHmmat al-lugha (Suppl. ibid., 
no. 7), perhaps the most important; and, a unique 
manuscript, al-Mirkdt al-wafiyya fi tabakdt al- 
Ilanafiyya, Medina, Library of Shaykh al-Islam 
c Arif Hikmet Bey, register Sulayman Nadwi, no. 128, 
see O. Spies, in ZDMG, xc (1936), 99 and 117; cf. 
HadjdjI Khalifa, op. cit., no. 7895, "830; the work 
derives from the Tabakdt of e Abd al-Kadir al- 
Hanafi (Daw, x, 82). 

The Preface to the TA (i, 13-4) provides a bio- 
graphy of al-FIruzabadi and a list (incomplete) of 
45 works; Brockelmann (S II, 236) must have 
referred to it, for the Preface to the Kdmus does not 
include a comparable list. 49 works, according to 
Daw (x, 81-3): tafsir 6, hadith and history 27, 
lexicography et alia 16, but 61 in the 'Ukud al- 
dfawhar of Djamil Bey al- c Azm (i, 302-6), lists, 
however, that are open to criticism. 

Al-FIruzabadi is "the author of the Kdmus", his 
name remains connected with this famous book. 
The work is preeminently a compilation of the 
Muhkam of Ibn Sida and of the <-Ubdb of al-Saghani. 

He venerated al-Saghani as a model (Daw, x, 
83). But from whom did he take the ziydddf! It 



l-FIROZABAdI — FlROZADJ 



927 



would be helpful to discover if he is indebted for 
certain elements to the Shams al-'ulum of Nashwan 
al-Himyari (a first vol. published by K. V. Zetter- 
stein, Leiden 1951). The Kdmus was completed in 
Mecca in his house c ato 'l-safd (end of K., iv, 415) 
during the second main period described above (cf. 
Daw, x, 83 and 85), before his stay in the Yemen. 
But it is hardly likely that such an expert lexico- 
grapher as he was would have been unacquainted 
with this dictionary which incidentally devotes so 
much space to matters concerning the Yemen. 

Very brief definitions or explanations allowed him 
to present an extremely rich vocabulary in a volume 
of modest size. This brevity has given rise to in- 
numerable misapprehensions (see Lane, Lexicon, 
Preface, XVII 1. 14-6 and ZDMG, iii (1849), 95 ff.). 
It was the subject of numerous glosses and criticisms, 
and commentaries of every sort, both by admirers, 
in particular the Tadi al-'arus of al-Sayyid Murtada 
al-ZabidI(d. 1205/1791), 10 vols., Bulak 1306-7, who in 
this commentary incorporates the work of his master 
Abu <Abd Allah al-FasI, the Idd>at al-rdmus, and 
by detractors, defending the Sihdh of al-Djaw- 
hari; see I. Goldziher, Beitrdge zur Geschichte der 
Sprachgelehrsamkeit bei den Arabern, Vienna 1872, 
ii, 602 ff. and the judgement of al-Suyuti, Muzkir 3 , i, 
101 and 103. In the last century we may also quote 
the criticisms of Ahmad Faris al-Shidyak (d. 1305/ 
1887), al-Didsiis c ala 'l-Kdmus, Istanbul 1299 and, 
more recently, the Tashih al-Kdmus (Cairo 1343/1925) 
of Ahmad Taymur Pasha. 

The Kdmus was published for the first time in 
Calcutta (1230-2) and Uskiidar (1230), and on very 
many occasions subsequently. The 4th edition (Cairo 
1357/1938) in 4 vols., of the Matba'at Dar al-Ma'miin 
(cited in this article), is well presented typogra- 
phically. 

The Kdmus has been translated into Persian (see 
Brockelmann, S II, 234), and also into Turkish by 
c Asim Efendi (d. 1235/1819 or 1248/1832): al-Okiy- 
dnus al-basit fi tardfamat al-Kdmus al-muhit, pu- 
blished in Bulak i25o,Istanbul 1305, etc. This Tur- 
kish edition was favoured by nineteenth century 
orientalists and is often quoted, e.g., by Fleischer 
and Goldziher. 

In the West the Thesaurus linguae Arabicae of 
A. Giggeius (Milan 1632, 4 vols.) was based on the 
Kdmus. For his Lexicon (Leiden 1653), J. Golius 
added to it the Sihdh. Freytag (Kazimirski) and 
Belot did the same. The two rivals were associated 
together to provide a dictionary for European 
orientalism; and Lane took as the basis of his great 
Lexicon the Tadi al-'-arus, the commentary on the 
Kdmus referred to above. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, II, 181-3; II 2 
(angepasst) 231-4; S II, 234-6; J. Kraemer, in 
Studien zur altarabischen Lexikographie, in Oriens, 
vi ( I 953), 232-4, particularly on the subject of the 
Kdmus, and also Husayn Nassar, al-Mu'-dfam al- 
'arabi, ii (Cairo 1956), 540-603. F. Wiistenfeld, 
Die Geschichtsschreiber der Araber und ihre Werke 
(Gottingen 1882), no. 464, made use of the Tabakdt 
al-ShdfiHyya of Taki al-Din Ibn Kadi Shuhba, MS 
Gotha 1763; Sharaf al-Din b. Ayyub al-Nu c mani, 
al-Rawd al-'dtir, MS Wetzstein II 289 (Ahlwardt 
9886), fols. 217V-219V (cited as Rated). Shams 
al-Din Muh. al-Sakhawi, al-Daw al-ldmi 1 li-ahl al- 
karn al-tdsi l , x, 79-86 (Cairo 1355), detailed in- 
formation but with confused chronology (cited 
as Daw); Suyuti, Bughyat al-wu'-dt, n 7-8 (Cairo 
1326); <A1I b. al-Hasan al-Khazradji, al-'Ukud al- 
luHuHyya, trans. Redhouse, GMS, III/2, 248-9 



and note 1557 (IN/3, 212); <Abd al-Hayy Ibn al- 
c Imad, Shadhardt al-dhahab, vii, 126-31 (Cairo 
1351); Ibn Taghribirdi, al-Nudium al-zdhira (ed. 
Popper), vi, 446-8; Tashkopriizade, al-ShakdHb 
al-nu c mdniyya, in the margin of Wafaydt al-a'-ydn 
of Ibn Khallikan (BQlak 1299), i, 92-3. Other 
references, Brockelmann, S II, 234. 

(H. Fleisch) 
FlROZADJ. the turquoise, a well-known 
precious stone of a bright green or "mountain green" 
to sky-blue colour with a gloss like wax ; in composi- 
tion it is a hydrated clay phosphate with a small but 
essential proportion of copper and iron. The colour 
is not permanent in all stones, and is said to be 
particularly affected by perspiration. It is almost 
always cut as an ornament en cabochon, i.e., with a 
convex upper surface; only stones with an in- 
scription are given a flat upper surface. The pro- 
venance of serviceable stones is limited to a few 
places whose history may be traced back for thous- 
ands of years. Turquoise mines were worked by 
the kings of Egypt in the peninsula of Sinai. Major 
Macdonald discovered them again in 1845 in the 
WadI Maghara and its neighbourhood and worked 
them again for a number of years. No mention of 
the stone or the mines has survived from the 
Hellenistic period; on the other hand in addition 
to marvellous details of the method of procuring the 
pale green callais in Carmania (east of Persis), Pliny 
knows a good deal about its properties, and his 
description can only refer to our turquoise; for the 
statement that the callais loses its colour when 
affected by oil or ointment is found in al-Kindi on 
the firuzadi and in all later mineralogical works. It 
can hardly be doubted that the turquoise was 
obtained in the Sasanid period and even earlier 
in the mines around Nlshapur. Al-TIfashl (d. 651/ 
1253) says of the kings of Persia that they adorned 
their hands and necks with turquoises, because they 
averted danger of death by land or water; but we 
often meet with the assertion that the turquoise de- 
tracts from the majesty of kings. It was consid- 
ered to contain copper and to be formed in the 
vicinity of copper mines. Different kinds are dis- 
tinguished according to the different colours (sky- 
blue, milk-blue, green, spotted) ; the best kind is 
considered to be the biishdki (i.e., Abu Ishdki) 
and the finest variety of this is the sky-blue az- 
hari. Large pieces are very rare and are corre- 
spondingly costly, small pieces on the other hand 
are very common. The best specimens retain their 
colour, apart from the influences detailed below; 
after 10-12 years many lose their colour entire- 
ly and the stone is then said to be dead. All stones, 
however, show a certain variation in colour. They 
are brilliant in a clear sky and dim when the sky is 
clouded; they alter their colour with the state of 
health of the wearer, and when affected by sweat, 
oil or musk; fat is believed to restore the colour 

Taken internally it is a poison, but in collyrium it 
is useful for clearing the sight, also if it is stared at 
for some time. Gold takes away its beauty (unlike 
lapis lazuli), i.e., probably, the greenish blue colour 
does not harmonize as well with the yellow of the 
gold as the dark blue of the lapis lazuli. 

Ibn al-Akfani (d. 749/1348) explains the name 
firuzadi as "stone of victory"; whence it is also 
called hadiar al-ghalaba. The word firuzadi is found 
in many corrupt forms in the Latin translations of 
the middle ages (farasquin, febrognug, peruzegi etc.), 
but none of these can be considered the original of 



928 FlRUZADJ - 

the word turquoise; for as early as the 13th 
century we find the form turcoys, turquesa and 
turquesia, and it may safely be assumed that this 
was a new name given to the stone from the land of 
its origin, the ancient home of the Turks. 

The edition of al-BIrunl's al-Diamdhir fi ma'-rifat 
al-djawdhir (1355/1937) has revealed that almost all 
particulars mentioned above are already to be found 
there and that the essential contents of his short 
article (169-71) were practically quoted in full. 

The use of the turquoise for magical purposes is 
remarkably limited. Ibn al-Akfani quotes on the 
authority of Hermes a talisman made of it. In the 
great magical work Ghdyat al-fiakim the turquoise 
appears in the list of stones among those belonging 
to Saturn; but only one single talisman engraved on 
turquoise is mentioned. 

General Sir A. Houtum-Schindler who was governor 
of the mining area and director of operations at the 
mines in the "eighties" of last century has given a 
detailed account of the Persian turquoise mines at 
Mashhad in Khurasan, which is quoted in Bauer's 
Edelsteinkunde (2nd ed., 490 et seq.). 

Bibliography: Das Steinbuch des Aristoteles 
(ed. Ruska), 151; al-Kindl, in E. Wiedemann, 
Zur Mineralogie bei den Arabern, in Arch. f. d. 
Oesch. d. Naturw., i (1909), 210; al-Tifashi, Azhdr 
al-afkdr, trans. Reineri Biscia, 2nd ed., 70 f. ; Ibn 
al-Akfani, Nukhab al-dhakhd'ir, ed. P. Anastase- 
Marie, 1939, 55-62 (Wiedemann's trans, in 
Beitrage, xxx (1912), 225 f. is to be corrected 
accordingly); Kazwini (ed. Wustenfeld), i, 232; 
Dimishki (ed. Mehren), 68; Ibn al-Baytar, trans, 
by Leclerc in Notices et extr., xxvi, 50; Clement- 
Mullet, Essai sur la min. arabe, in J A, ser. vi, 
vol. xi, 150 f.; Ghdyat al-hakim, ed. H. Ritter, 
1933, 106, 120 = trans. H. Ritter and M. Plessner, 
1962, 113, 127; H. Brugsch, Wanderung nach den 
Turkis-Minen und der Sinai-Halbinsel, 1866, 66 f. ; 
W. Flinders Petrie, Researches in Sinai, 1906, 41, 
etc.; Bauer, Edelsteinkunde 2 , 386-495; H. Fiihner, 
Lithotherapie, 1902, 138-40. 

(J. Ruska-[M. Plessner]) 
FiRCzANIDS, BanO FIrOzan (Perozan), a 
Persian tribe which in the 4th/ioth century had con- 
siderable influence in the district of Shukur (Taba- 
ristan). The only member of the tribe of real signi- 
ficance was Makan b. Kali (KakI ?) who started as 
an officer in the service of the 'Alids of Tabaristan, 
and later held various official positions; in 329/940 
he died in battle (for details see makan). After his 
death one of his relatives (his cousin, according to 
Ibn Miskawayh, ii, 3-7; his uncle, according to 
Zambaur), al-Hasan b. Firuzan, succeeded in gaining 
control of the neighbourhood of Kumis for a short 
time. One of his daughters (name unknown) married 
the Buyid Rukn al-Dawla [q.v.]. The last member 
of the family to be mentioned was Hasan's grandson, 
Kanar b. Firuzan, in 388/998. 

Bibliography: B. Spuler, Iran, 91-4 (with 
references to sources); Zambaur, 216 (with genea- 
logical table). See also bibl. to makan. 

(B. Spuler) 
FIRCZKCH (Ferozkoh). The name of several 
localities. 

1. The capital of the Ghurid [q.v.] kings, in the 
mountains east of Herat on the upper Hari-rud ca. 
64°22' E. Long. (Green.) and ca. 34 23' N. Lat. 
The site has been identified with the present Djam 
[q.v.] where a large minaret still exists. 

The town of Firuzkuh was built by Kutb al-DIn 
Muhammad as the capital of the district of Warshada 



in Ghiir which he ruled. When Kutb al-DIn was 
poisoned in Ghazna, his brother Baha al-DIn moved 
from his appanage, Mandesh in the east, to Firuzkuh. 
Baha al-DIn became ruler of Ghur in 544/1149 and 
thus founded the Ghurid kingdom. For more than 
sixty years Firuzkuh was the capital of the Ghurid 
state and to it were brought the spoils of the conquests 
of the Ghurids. It was a cultural centre where 
writers and poets flourished. After the death of 
Ghiyath al-DIn in 599/1202 the empire fell to pieces 
and Firuzkuh lost its importance. Ghiyath al-DIn 
built the minaret which still stands. 

The town was conquered by 'Ala al-DIn Kh'arizm 
Shah in 607/1210, and it was finally destroyed by 
Ogodei son of Cingiz Khan in 619/1222. The 
Firuzkuh nomads probably derived their name from 
this site. 

2. The name of a castle in Tabaristan near Mt. 
Damawand in a district called WImah. We do not 
know when the castle or town of Firuzkuh was built 
and Casanova's attempt to identify it with Firim, 
capital of a dynasty of Ispahbads in the 4th/ioth 
century, was refuted by Kazwini (Djuwaynl, iii, 381). 
Firuzkuh is mentioned as an important stronghold 
under the Kh w arizmshahs and especially under the 
Mongols. It was taken by the Mongols in 624/1227 
(Djuwaynl, ii, 210). Afterwards the Isma'UIs of 
Alamut obtained possession of it. It fell again to the 
Mongols under Hulegii in 654/1256. The area was a 
summer resort for the Il-Khans, and the name 
appears in accounts of TImur's conquests. The town 
is now linked to Tehran by rail (202 km.); it has 
over 5,000 inhabitants and is the centre of a district 
of the same name. 

Bibliography: 1. A. Maricq and G. Wiet, Le 
Minaret de Djam, Paris 1959, with references to 
all Islamic sources; 'Awfi, Lubdb, passim, for 
literary references; on the Firuzkuh! tribe see 
H. F. Schurmann, The Mongols of Afghanistan, 
The Hague 1962, 54-6. 

2. Le Strange, 371-2; P. Casanova, Les Ispehbeds 
de Firim, in A Volume of Oriental Studies presented 
to E. G. Browne, ed. T. W. Arnold, Cambridge 1922, 
1 17-9; Farhang-i Djughrdfiyd-yi Iran, i, Teheran 
1950, 153; I A, s.v., by M. Fuad Koprulu. 

(R. N. Frye) 
FlROZPUR (FerozpOr). A district in the 
Pandjab which takes its name from the prin- 
cipal town. It forms part of the Djalandhar divi- 
sion, lying between 29 55" and 31 9' N. and 73 52' 
and 75 26' E. Area 3202 sq. m. Until 1947, the 
principal Muslim tribes of the district were Radjputs, 
Arains, Dogars and Wattus, and also an ascetic tribe 
known as Bodla, believed to possess powers of in- 
cantation. The ancient site of Djaner, supposed to 
be the Hadjnir of BayhakI, was the capital of the 
Punwar Radjputs. Soon after the Muslim invasion 
the Bhatii Radjputs adopted Islam and invaded 
the district from the south. The Gil, Dhallwal and 
other Djat tribes entered it later. The Dogars, a 
wild and predatory tribe, were more recent immi- 
grants. The town of FIruzpur was reputedly founded 
in the time of Sultan Firuz Shah III of Dihli and 
named after him. In Akbar's time it was part of 
the Suba of Multan and not of Sirhind, and probably 
lay on the right bank of the river Satladj, and not 
on the left as at present. The Sidhu Dials appear 
towards the end of Akbar's reign and soon adopted 
the Sikh religion. It was in this tract that Guru 
Govind was defeated after a three days fight by 
Awrangzib's army; the site was held sacred and the 
tank (Mukat-sar=Tank of Salvation) became a place 



FlROZPOR — FITHAGHORAS 



929 



of pilgrimage, where a 3 days' festival was held in 
January. Round it the important town of Mukatsar 
has grown up. The Sikhs got possession of the 
country after the retirement of Ahmad Shah Durrani : 
the BhangI Misl under Gudjar Singh took the princi- 
pal part in the conquest. Randjit Singh threatened 
this country with the minor Sikh states, and this 
move (1808) led to British intervention. Firuzpur 
was occupied, and annexed in 1835, thus interposing 
between Randjit Singh's kingdom and the minor 
states. The Muslim Nawwabs of Kasur also found a re- 
fuge at their estate of Mamdot near Firuzpur in 1807, 
and were recognized as ruling chiefs. Their territory 
was annexed in 1855, but was afterwards restored 
to the Nawwabs, who held it until 1947. It was a 
large and wealthy estate. 

The first Sikh war between the British and the 
Khalsa army was fought in this tract. The Sikh 
army crossed the Satladj in December 1845. The 
battles of Mudki and Pheru-shahr (often wrongly 
called Firuz-shahr or Firuz-shah) were fought soon 
after. The Sikh army was repulsed but not crushed, 
and recrossed the Satladj, only to invade British 
territory again higher up the river near Ludhiana. 
The decisive battle of Aliwal was fought outside the 
district of Firuzpur, but the desperate struggle of 
Subrawan (Sobraon) which ended the war, was 
fought within its limits. 

In more recent times the district was enlarged 
by the addition of the Tahsil of Fazilka in the south 
from the former district of Sirsa (1884). The sandy 
tracts to the east and south of the district have been 
rendered fertile by irrigation from the Sirhind canal, 
and the inundation-canals constructed by Col. Grey 
in the riverain tract also added greatly to its pro- 
ductiveness. The Sikh Djats are excellent farmers and 
take full advantage of these conditions. There is 
a large export of wheat from the Firuzpur district. 
The Muslim population of the city, and of the district, 
emigrated to Pakistan during the Partition Riots 
of 1947. 

Bibliography: Various provincial and district 
Gazetteers and settlement reports issued by Pan- 
djab Govt. Press Lahore; Cunningham, History of 
the Sikhs, London 1849; Ibbetson, Outlines of Pun- 
jab Ethnography, Calcutta 1883. 

(M. Longworth Dames) 
FISCAL SYSTEMS [see bavt al-mal, dariba, 
etc.]. 

FISH [see samak]. 
FISHEK [see shenlik]. 
FIS£ [see fasikI. 

FTTHAGHCRAS. or FOthaghOras (rarely Butha- 
ghuras or other individual transliterations), Pytha- 
goras, the Greek philosopher of the sixth century 
B.C., as celebrated and as elusive a figure in Islam 
as in the West. The distinction between the man and 
the school, or schools, bearing his name was occasion- 
ally sensed but, of course, not really understood, and 
no true distinction was made between the two. 

The partly historical and mostly legendary circum- 
stances of his life were known in considerable detail 
through a lengthy summary of his biography from 
Porphyry's Philosophos Historia, preserved in al- 
Mubashshir 52 ff. and Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, i, 38 ff. (cf. 
F. Rosenthal, in Orientalia, N.S. vi (1937), 43 ff-)- 
His lifetime was assumed, on the basis of various 
synchronisms, to have spanned the reigns of Cyrus 
and Cambyses (Mubashshir, Ibn Abi Usaybi'a), to 
have been fixed by his position as the second in a 
chain of five philosophers (between Empedocles 
[who, in fact, lived later than Pythagoras] and 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



Socrates) (see anbadukus), or to have fallen in the 
reign of an Artaxerxes (Sa'id [Eutychios], Annals, i, 
77). The customary dating "in the time of Sulayman" 
used for men and events of great antiquity is 
occasionally mentioned (ShahrastanI), as he was also 
supposed to have been in touch in Egypt with 
followers [ashdb) of Sulayman. His claim to being the 
founder of philosophy was recognized as disputed by 
other theories concerning the history of philosophy 
(Fihrist, 245; Sidjistanl, Siwdn, according to Ms. 
Murad Molla 1408, 2a), but, following Flwtrkhs 
(Plutarch ?), it was constantly repeated that he had 
coined the word "philosophy", and, following the 
introductions to the Aristotelian Logic, that he had 
given his name to the philosophical school of the 
Pythagoreans. He was sometimes believed to have 
elaborated on the doctrines of Empedocles (Sa'id al- 
AndalusI, trans. Blachere, 60; KiftI, 258 f.), or to 
have been a forerunner of the Platonic theory of 
ideas (Picatrix, trans. Ritter and Plessner, 154). In 
addition to his role in the history of philosophy, his 
main achievements were the invention of the science 
of music and the propagation among the Greeks of 
arithmetic and geometry (Ya'kubi, i, 134; or the 
introduction of geometry, physics, and metaphysics 
from the East: Abu '1- Hasan al-'Amirl, Amad, Ms. 
Servili 179, 80b; Sa'id; KiftI; Ibn Abi Usaybi'a). The 
Harranian Sabians are said to have adopted him as 
one of their prophets (BIruni, Chronology, 205; 
Ikhwan al-Safa>, cf. P. Kraus, Jdbir, Cairo 1942-3, 
ii, 223 n. 1), and his mystico-religious character was 
noted (Mas'udI, Murudj, iii, 348; Ibn Abi Usaybi'a). 
In addition to his own contacts with the East, we 
hear about students of his who went east and in- 
fluenced Zoroastrianism and Indian religious philos- 
ophy (from the doxographical work of Ammonios, 
Ms. Aya Sofya 2450, cited by BIruni, Chronology 
[cf. H. S. Taqizadeh, in BSOS, viii (1935-7), 947 ff.], 
and ShahrastanI, 277 f. and 455 ff.). 

Of the works ascribed to him, the Golden Words 
(Chrysd epe) enjoyed extraordinary fame and a wide 
circulation in their Arabic translation, which, in the 
course of transmission, underwent slight but at 
times meaningful variations. They are usually 
referred to as al-Risdla (al-RasdHl) al-dhahabiyya or 
Wasdyd (Wasiyya); once they are also referred to as 
the "Golden Epistle and Exhortation for Diogenes" 
(Ras. Ikhwdn al-Safd', Cairo 1347/1928, iv, 100 to be 
connected with i, 92 f.). The appellation "golden" is 
said to go back to Galen who read the poem daily and 
copied it with gold letters, a statement for which 
the Greek authority remains to be found. Separate 
editions by J. Elichmann, Tabula Cebetis (1640, from 
Miskawayh); L. Cheikho, Traitis inidits, 2nd ed. 
(1911); M. Ullmann (Diss. Munich 1959, not yet 
published); cf. also F. Rosenthal, in Orientalia, 
N.S., x (1941), 104 ff., and M. Plessner, in Eshkolot, 
iv (1962), 68. The Muslims knew of various commen- 
taries on the work. One is ascribed to Proclus [Fihrist, 
252; KiftI, 89) and listed as extant in a summary 
made by c Abd Allah b. al-Tayyib (d. 435/1043) in 
Ms. Escurial 888 (8) ; its relationship, if any, to the 
commentary of Hierocles has not yet been investi- 
gated. A recension of Sidjistanl, Siwdn (Murad 
Molla 1408, 13a) introduces its (uncommented) 
quotation of the work as being "a summary of the 
book of Iamblichus in explanation of the 'Golden' 
Exhortations". A manuscript of this commentary 
appears to be preserved in Princeton (J. Kritzek, in 
MIDEO, iii (1956), 380). The existence of a commen- 
tary by Ahmad b. al-Tayyib al-Sarakhsi (p. 55, 
Rosenthal) is poorly attested (a confusion with the 



930 



FiTHAGCRAS — FITNA 



afore-mentioned c Abd Allah b. al-Tayyib ?). c Ali b. 
Ridwan's Commentary on Pythagoras on Virtue (Ibn 
Abl Usaybi'a, ii, 104) may have dealt with the 
Golden Words. 

The famous Pythagorean symbola were known 
and often cited (cf. B. R. Sanguinetti, in J A, v/8 
(1856), 188; G. Levi Delia Vida, in RSO, iii (1910), 
595 ff.; Picatrix, trans. Ritter and Plessner, 422). 
A good deal of doxographical material was available 
in the translations of philosophical texts, e.g., that 
of Ps.-Plutarch's Placita Philosophorum. Excerpts 
on the intellect and emanation ascribed to Pythag- 
oras appear in al-Tabari, Firdaws, 70 f., 72 f. 
Siddiqi, a passage on the connexion between the 
soul and physical perfection in al-Tawhldl, Ris. al- 
Ijayat, 68 f. (Trots Epttres, ed. Keilani). A valuable 
exposition of Pythagorean cosmology has been pre- 
served by al-Shahrastanl, 265 ff. (cf. D. Kovendi, in 
F. Altheim, Gesch. der Hunnen, v,32-7i). A large num- 
ber of wise sayings was ascribed to Pythagoras; Hun- 
ayn's chapter on Pythagoras in the Nawddir is restrict- 
ed to the Golden Words, but extensive collections are 
found in the Siwdn, Ibn Hindu, Mubashshir, Ibn 
Abi Usaybi'a, aud Anon. Ms. Aya Sofya 2469. 
Although of Greek origin, they can rarely be traced 
to sayings connected with the name of Pythagoras 
in Greek tradition (cf., e.g., F. Rosenthal, in Orien- 
talia, N.S. xxvii (1958), 29 ff.). We cannot, however, 
be certain in all cases as to whether their attribution 
to Pythagoras was effected in the Greek or, rather, 
the Oriental tradition. 

Many other Pythagorean writings are mentioned 
by the sources. It was known that Plato had asked 
Dion to buy three books by Pythagoras (Kifti, 20, 
as in Iamblichus). According to another statement 
of Greek origin quoted in the name of Porphyry but 
not contained in Porphyry's Greek text (Ibn Abi 
Usaybi'a, i, 42), Archytas collected eighty works by 
himself and 200 more from other members of the 
Pythagorean school; thus, there once existed 280 
genuine works (Mubashshir, Ibn Abi Usaybi'a), and, 
in addition, a number of works on a .great variety of 
subjects, mentioned by title, that were not genuine. 
The Muslims knew three treatises with a commentary 
by Iamblichus (On Spiritual Polity, To the Tyrant of 
Sicily, and To Sifan.s on the Discovery of Ideas) 
(Fihrist). The general references to "works on 
arithmetic and music" do not seem to aim at any 
specific work, but Ibn Abi Usaybi'a attributes to 
Pythagoras a Book on Arithmetic and five further 
titles. A Treatise on the Natural Numbers (al-a'ddd 
al-tabiHyya) is cited by a writer on alchemy (Kraus, 
Jdbir, ii, 45 n. 5; ibid, ii, 289 n. 9, on the Miftah 
al-hikma known as Nuzhat al-nufus). Some surviving 
works may be described as Neo-Pythagorean 
products, such as the Oikonomikos of Bryson (ed. 
M. Plessner, Heidelberg 1928), the excerpts on 
domestic life by a certain female philosopher named 
Pythagoras ( ?) (Abu '1-Hasan [al- c Amiri], al-Sa'dda 
wa 'l-is c dd, 389 ff. Minovi), or a brief treatise on the 
Education of the Young ascribed to Plato (F. Rosen- 
thal, in Orientalia, N.S. x (1941), 383 ff-)- 

Like other great names of Antiquity, that of 
Pythagoras served to give greater prestige to alchem- 
ical teachings, and the Djabir-Corpus contained a 
Musahhahdt F. (Kraus, Jdbir, i, 94; ii, 45 n. 5). 
There also existed a Kitdb al-Kur'-a on divination in 
his name [Fihrist, 314) (= P. Tannery, in Notices 
et Extraits, xxxi/2 (1886), 231 ff. ?). 

An authority on materia medica named Badighuras 
is cited numerous times in al-Razi's Hdwi and other 
authors on the subject. The form of the name is not 



easily reconciled with Pythagoras, and such an 
identification went probably unnoticed by al-Razi; 
it is not impossible, but other Greek names may be 
involved (such as Diagoras). The pre-Hippocratic 
physician Pythagoras (Buthaghuras), in the sketch 
of the ancient history of medicine going back to 
Yahya al-NahwI, appears to be a figment of the 
imagination inspired by the figure of Pythagoras 
(Siwdn, 8b, where he is distinguished from the 
contemporary philosopher Futhaghuras; Ibn Abi 
Usaybi'a, i, 23). 

The influence of Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism 
on Muslim civilization must be rated rather high. 
Greco-Arabic theories of music and numbers go 
back ultimately to them (Nicomachus of Gerasa, 
the author of the ArithmUikt EisagSgl, was even 
thought to have been identical with the father of 
Aristotle). The Ikhwan al-Safa 3 may not have been 
entirely unaware of the organizational precedent of 
Pythagoreanism, and al-Razi, among others, is 
stated to have been inspired by the Pythagoreans 
and to have written in their defence (Mas'Odi, 
Tanbih, 162; Sa c id, trans. Blachere, 75). However, 
the name of Pythagoras must often be considered 
a mere label, as in his alleged appearance, together 
with Plato and Aristotle, in Isma'ilism (Makrizi, 
Khitat, BQlak 1270, i, 394). 

Bibliography : In the article, supplementary 
to M. Steinschneider, Die arabischen Vbersetzungen 
(1889), repr. Graz i960, 4-8. (F. Rosenthal) 
FITNA, the primary meaning is "putting to the 
proof, discriminatory test", as gold, al-Diurdiani 
says in his Ta c rifdt (ed. Fliigel, Leipzig 1845, 171), 
is tested by fire. Hence the idea of a temptation per- 
mitted or sent by God to test the believer's faith, 
which, for the man wedded to his desires, would have 
the appearance of an invitation to abandon the 
faith. "Your goods and children are fitna" (Kur'an, 
VIII, 28; LXIV, 15). The term fitna occurs many 
times in the Kur 3 5n with the sense of temptation 
or trial of faith ("tentation d'abjurer", according to 
R. Blachere's translation); and most frequently as 
a test which is in itself a punishment inflicted by God 
upon the sinful, the unrighteous. "Taste your fitna" 
(LI, 14); this saying is addressed to those who are 
"tried by the Fire" (of Gehenna)". It is not a matter 
of an inner, secret temptation, but of external cir- 
cumstances in which faith succumbs or may succumb. 
"O Lord, do not place us in fitna before those who are 
unfaithful!" (Kur'an, LX, 5). The idea of scandal 
is associated with it (VII, 3), to such an extent that 
to take a part in this putting to the test is for man 
a very grave fault: "the fitna of believers is worse 
than murder" (ibid., II, 191; cf. II, 217). 

On the one hand, fitna will thus be employed in 
the sense of the "trial of the grave", or even 
the torments of hell ; but on the other hand fitna will 
be essentially a state of rebellion against the divine 
Law in which the weak always run the risk of being 
trapped. The idea which is to become dominant is 
that of "revolt", "disturbances", "civil war", but 
a civil war that breeds schism and in which the 
believers' purity of faith is in grave danger. There 
are numerous hadiths which proclaim the troubles 
to come, which will destroy the Community and 
from which the believer must flee. For example: 
"after me there shall break forth such troubles 
(fitna) that the believer of one morning shall, by 
evening, be an infidel, while the believer of the 
evening shall, next day, be an infidel — save only for 
those whom God will strengthen through knowledge" 
(quoted in the "Profession of Faith" of Ibn Batta, 



FITNA — FITRA 



931 



in H. Laoust's translation). — In view of the fusion 
of spiritual and temporal characteristic of Islam, the 
great struggles of the early period of Muslim history 
are fitna (pi. fitan), inasmuch as the questions con- 
tested regarding the legitimacy of the Imams or 
caliphs and the armed conflicts that they aroused 
have a direct bearing on the values of faith. 

The series of events which includes the murder of 
'Uthman, the designation of C A1I as Imam, the battle 
of Siffin and the development of both the shi'at C AH 
[q.v.] and the khawdridj [q.v.] schisms, and the seizing 
of power by Mu'awiya, is often called "the first 
fitna", and also "the fitna" par excellence or "the 
great fitna". On account of the struggles that 
marked Mu'awiya's advent, the term fitna was later 
applied to any period of disturbances inspired by 
schools or sects that broke away from the majority of 
believers (al-diumla). We read of the fitna of the Mur- 
dji'a, which Ibn al-Nakha c i apparently described as 
"graver" than that of the Azarika Kharidjis. And 
every "innovator", every man guilty of bid'-a, is 
potentially an instigator of fitna. Reversing the 
terms, al-Hasan al-Basri gives this definition: "all 
those who foment disturbances (fitna) are innovators 
(muhdith)". The "men of Tradition and the Com- 
munity", ahl al-sunna wa 'l-djamd'a have the 
strict duty to obey the legitimate sovereign so long 
as his orders do not run counter to the Kur'an, and 
to shun all fitna. It is in this spirit that the first 
SunnI professions of faith (e.g., Fifth Akbar, i, 5) 
"rely upon God" in the dispute between 'Uthman 
and C A1I, and regard the successive proclamation to 
the Imdma of both of them as equally valid. 

Although the struggle between C A1I and Mu'awiya 
and its consequences institutes the era of fitna par 
excellence, during which schisms came into being 
which were never to be resolved, the term fitna was 
none the less applied, in the course of history, to 
other and more localized disturbances. It is in this 
way, for example, that some chronicles, denouncing 
the struggles and seditions which more than once 
pitted Ash'aris and Hanbalis against each other, 
are apt to speak of fitna, as is the case at Baghdad, 
shortly after the death of al-Ash'arl, when his grave- 
stone was overturned, or at Damascus in 835/1432, 
when the majority of the '■ulamd' anathematized Ibn 
Taymiyya. — On the other hand, to denote the perse- 
cution of the followers of the "righteous Ancients", 
which also affected Ibn Hanbal under al-Ma'mun, at 
the time of the triumph of the Mu c tazila, the annalists 
are more inclined to speak of mihna [q.v.]. The chroni- 
clers concerned are those who came after al-Mutawak- 
kil's reaction and were opposed to muHazili tendencies ; 
according to this point of view, there was no element 
of "rebellion" under al-Ma J mun, since it was the 
central power which protected the bid'-a. The ahl 
al-diamd'-a thus underwent a "testing" (mihna) 
for the sake of their faith, there was no fitna (that 
is to say armed revolt led by "innovators" and 
"agitators") whatsoever. 

It is in the chapter on the imdma that the treatises 
of Him al-haldm raise the question of fitna. It is 
taught that the nomination of an imam is "obligato- 
ry" (wddiib) for the Community, an obligation justified 
'rationally" ('a^ ") according to the Mu'tazilis, 
'"legally" (shar can ) or "traditionally" (sam"") ac- 
cording to the Ash'aris. And one of the arguments 
most readily put forward is that only an imam can 
prevent the disturbances of fitna, or restore peace 
if they have already broken out. Indeed, certain 
schools with KharidjI tendencies teach that it is 
obligatory to nominate an imam in the event of fitna, 



but not if peace is prevailing; others, on the contrary, 
hold that he should only be nominated in a period of 
peace, never in a time of unrest, for fear that the 
nomination should give rise to fresh revolts. The 
Ash'aris, for their part, require the imam to lead the 
Community during fitna and in times of peace alike, 
and consider as the authority in favour of their 
opinion the history of the early years of Islam. 

All these discussions relate implicitly to a notion 
of fitna defined as disturbances, or even civil 
war, involving the adoption of doctrinal attitudes 
which endanger the purity of the Muslim faith; 
and every mention of fitna evokes "the great fitna 
of Islam" which culminated at Siffin. We may say 
in fact that somewhat later summaries of the 
question — or more accurately, the nomenclatures of 
the schools in which they result — are closer or more 
distant echoes of the attitudes and opinions which 
the "great fitna" had caused' to be adopted. At 
that time (early 2nd/7th cent.), certain tradition- 
ists of Basra and the first Mu'tazilis declared that 
"the era of the fitna" having opened, every mud±- 
tahid, every man capable of "making an effort", 
was entitled to seek for the solution ; the Karramiyya, 
for their part, upheld the concomitant legitimacy 
of the two imams in dispute; the Shi'a maintained 
the sole legitimacy of 'All; while the majority of the 
Sunnis maintained that it was better to obey the 
established power and refrain from taking sides, in 
order to have no part in civil war, and thereby to 
hasten the return to peace. It is on this last attitude 
that the Ash'aris and Maturidls were later to base 
their views. For the Htna in Muslim Spain, see 



Bibliography: the various treatises of Him 
al-haldm, e.g., Djurdjanl, Sharh al-Mawdkif, ed. 
Cairo 1325/1907, viii, 344 ff.; A. J. Wensinck, The 
Muslim Creed, Cambridge 1932, 104, 109-10; 
H. Laoust, Essai sur les doctrines sociales et poli- 
tiques de Taki-d-Din Ahmad b. Taimiya, Cairo 
1939, index, s.v.; idem, La Profession de Foi d'Ibn 
Bafta, Damascus 1958, index, s.v. 

((L. Gardet) 
FITNAT, pseudonym of ZObeyde ( ? -1194/1780), a 
Turkish poetess. Little is known of her early life. 
She was the daughter of the Shaykh al-Islam 
Mehmed Es'ad Efendi (d. 1 166/1753) the well known 
scholar of the reign of Mehemmed IV, whose father 
Abu Ishak Isma'il had also been a Shaykh al-Islam. 
She was married to Derwish Mehmed Efendi who 
became kadi'asker of Rumeli under Selim III. 

Her short diwdn contains all the usual conventional 
poems written for various occasions and ghazals 
which do not vary in style or content from those of 
her contemporary male poets. She tends on the 
whole to follow the Nabi— Kodja Raghib Pasha school 
of "wisdom-poetry", full of aphorisms and fatalistic 
statements. But occasionally she is inspired by the 
carefree and joyful style of Nedlm (see her musaddas 
in Gibb, vi, 395). She writes with great ease in a 
polished and fluent style. 

Bibliography: Fatln, Tedhkire, s.v.; Gibb, 
Ottoman Poetry, iv, 150 ff.; A. C. Yontem, in lA, 
(Fakir Iz) 



R[se< 



'Ida: 



rR]. 



FITRA is a "noun of kind" (Wright, Grammar,' i, 
123 d ) to the infinitive fafr and means (an Ethiopic 
loan-meaning, see Schwally, in ZDMG, liii, 199 f.; 
Noldeke, Neue Beitrage, 49), "a kind or way of 
creating or of being created". It occurs in Kur'an, 
XXX, 29 (khillta, Baydawi) and other forms of its 
verb in the same meaning occur 14 times. But though 



932 



FITRA — FITRAT 



Muhammad uses derived forms freely, it was obscure 
to his hearers. Ibn 'Abbas did not understand it 
until he heard a Bedouin use it of digging a well, 
and then the Bedouin probably meant the genuinely 
Arab sense of shakfr (Lisdn, vi, 362, 1. 20). Its 
theologically important usage is in the saying of 
Muhammad, "Every infant is born according to the 
}i\ra C-ala 'l-fifra; i.e., Allah's kind or way of creating; 
"on God's plan", cf. Macdonald, Religious attitude in 
Islam, 243) ; then his parents make him a Jew or a 
Christian or a Magian". This is one of several 
contradictory traditions on the salvability of the 
infants of unbelievers. On the whole question the 
theologians were uncertain and in disagreement. 
This text evidently means that every child is born 
naturally a Muslim; but is perverted after birth by 
his environment. But in this interpretation — that of 
the Mu'tazills (cf. Kashshdf, ed. Lees, ii, 1094) — 
there were found serious theological and legal 
difficulties, (i.) It interferes with the sovereign 
will (mashPa) and guidance (hiddya) of Allah. 
Orthodox Islam, therefore, holds that the parents 
could be only a secondary cause {sabab) and that 
the guiding aright and leading astray must come 
from Allah himself, (ii.) This view, and indeed 
almost any view of the tradition, would involve 
that such an infant, if his parents died before he 
reached years of discretion, could not inherit from 
them, and that if he died before years of discretion, 
his parents could not inherit from him. For this 
presupposes that he is a Muslim up to years of 
discretion, and canon law lays down that a Muslim 
cannot inherit from a non-Muslim or vice versa 
{Hdshiya of al-Badjuri on the shark of Ibn Kasim 
on the main of Abu Shudia 1 . ed. Cairo 1307, ii, 74 f. 
and Sachau, Muhammedanisches Recht, 186, 204, 206 
— a favourite subject for hair-splitting). Two 
attempts have been made to escape this, (i.) This 
statement of Muhammad is to be regarded as a 
decision (hukm) and was abrogated by the later 
decision as to inheritance. But it is pointed out that 
it is not really a decision, but a narrative (khabar) 
and that narratives are not abrogated, (ii). The being 
made a Jew, Christian or Magian is to be regarded 
as not actual, but figurative, and takes place in this 
figurative sense from the point of birth; the legal 
religion of the infant is automatically that of his 
parents, although he comes actually to embrace 
that religion only with maturity of mind. Another 
view was that being created according to the fitra 
meant only being created in a healthy condition, 
like a sound animal, with a capacity of either belief 
or unbelief when the time should come. Another was 
that fitra meant only "beginning" (bad'a). Still 
another was that it referred to Allah's creating man 
with a capacity of either belief or unbelief and then 
laying on them the covenant of the "Day of Alastu" 
(Kur J 5n, VII, 171). Finally that it was that to w! ' " 
Allah turns round the hearts of men. 

Bibliography: Malik b. Anas, Muwafta (ed. 
Cairo 1279-80 with Zurkani), ii, 35; Diet, of tech. 
terms, 1117 f. ; Lisdn, vi, 362 f. ; Risdla on Imdn by 
Abu Mansur Muhammad al-Samarkandl prefixed 
to the Haydarabad ed. of the Fikh al-akbar of Abu 
Hanifa, 25 f.; Misbdh of al-Fayyumi s.v.; Krehl, 
Beitrdge z. muh. Dogm., 235; Hughes, Diet, of 
Islam under Infants; Razi, Mafdtih al-ghayb, iv, 
16; vi, 480 of ed. of Cairo 1308; Tabari, Tafsir, 
xxi, 24. (D. B. Macdonald) 

FITRAT (Fitra), c Abd al-Ra'uf, inspireran 
theorist of the reform movement i 
Turkestan. Very little is known of his life: born 



at the end of the 19th century into a family of small 
traders in Bukhara, he was at first a teacher, and 
then devoted all his time to his activities as a writer, 
poet and journalist. Fitrat was active from 1908-9 
in the reform movement of Bukhara (the Djadids, 
who were originally concerned with educational 
reform, but from 1917 were to form themselves into 
a political party, the 'Young Bukharians'), of which 
he soon became the ideological leader. From 1910 
to 1914 he took part in the creation of a reformed 
system of teaching in Bukhara and in Turkestan, 
and actively promoted the sending of students to 
Turkey. In 1920, after the inauguration of the 
People's Republic, he held office in the government 
at first as Minister of Education, then as Minister of 
Foreign Affairs. After the suppression of the republic 
in 1924, he took no part in the government of the 
Uzbekistan Republic (unlike some of his comrades in 
arms, such as Fayd Allah Hozaev [see khodjaev]), 
and taught at the University of Samarkand until his 
arrest in 1937. His fate after that is unknown. 

Like Djamal al-Din al-Afghani, with whom he has 
much in common (though he himself does not claim 
it), c Abd al-Ra'uf Fitrat studies in all his works the 
causes of the spiritual and temporal decay of the 
Muslim world, examines the external signs of it, and 
seeks a means of salvation from it. Fitrat studied 
this crisis as seen in the example of Bukhara, which, 
perhaps more than any other Muslim country, 
showed the full extent of it: one of the chief centres 
of Islam delivered over to the Russian conqueror, 
the madrasas deserted, the formerly powerful state 
sunk into anarchy, the Muslim faith reduced on the 
one hand to a fossilized religion, fettered by all the 
weight of an obsolete legalism, on the other, to the 
superstition and the fetishism of the masses (Muna- 
zara). 

Fitrat saw for it only one possible salvation: the 
return to a dynamic religion freed from a rigorism 
which was completely foreign to the fundamental 
rules of Islam, and freed first of all from servile 
respect for talflid. 

But although criticism forms a considerable part 
of Fitrat's work, it is not merely critical and destruc- 
tive. He gave much thought to the means by which 
his country and all the Islamic community could 
overcome this crisis. In this search for its salvation, 
Fitrat seems to represent the two fundamental 
aspects of Muslim renewal. He was a reformer, an 
educator and a politician whose thought was mainly 
revolutionary. He considered that all reform must 
start with assiduous work among the people. True 
to his first vocation as an educator, he held that no 
regeneration of the Muslim community was possible 
without the preparation and education of individ- 
uals, and a consequent rebirth in each of an under- 
standing and grasp of the meaning of Islam. Fitrat 
stressed continually the importance of the individ- 
ual and the part which he must play, maintaining 
that personal reform was an absolute condition of the 
whole of Islam. He gives a considerable place in his 
works to the problem of reformed methods of 
teaching (Mundzara, 26, 35-6, 43, 48, 52; Baydndt, 
29). Traditional education having proved incapable 
of developing, even of recognizing the necessity for 
change, he regarded the reformation of the maktabs 
as the only road to salvation. An important feature 
of Fitrat's thought is his pragmatic conception of 
knowledge. He considers that the only learning 
which is worthy of human effort is learning which is 
of value not only to man's ultimate salvation but 
also to his earthly existence; it is also a learnii g 



FITRAT — FRAXINETUM 



which can be acquired within a reasonable period, 
leaving man time to put it to use for the good of 
humanity. Thus he opposed the preservation of 
scholasticism, which 'is of no help to man in the 
modern world' (Mundzara, 28), and insisted that all 
knowledge should be submitted to the criticism of the 
intellect and not accepted blindly. 

In this field Fitrat, while recognizing that 'one 
must seek knowledge where it is to be found', denied 
that Islam needed to borrow anything from the 
West or to seek inspiration from it or to imitate it, 
for, he maintained, everything that has contributed 
to the temporal greatness of the West derives from 
Islam {Baydndt, 32-3). But Fitrat did not consider 
that the salvation of the Muslim community would 
come only from below, through a regeneration of 
all Muslims; he held that there was another task to 
be accomplished, the transformation of Muslim 
society from above, and it is here that we see in him 
the political thinker. No institution is spared in 
Fitrat's political programme; he insists throughout 
his works on the importance of the individual and of 
individual initiative, and on man's ability to dominate 
everything around him, from Nature to his own 
destiny. Analysing the economic and social bases of 
power, he clearly distinguishes spiritual demands 
from physical, considering that men's conduct is 
ruled primarily by natural conditions. Without 
arriving at any definite separation of the spiritual 
and the temporal, Fitrat indicated that the solutions 
to the problems of the adaption of Islam to the 
modern world were to be sought along these lines. 
Similarly, he considered that a complete revision of 
social relations, leading to a more equitable distri- 
bution of wealth, was indispensable and in no way 
contrary to the teaching of Islam. In his view, one 
of the causes of the decadence of Islam was that it 
had become the ideology of the wealthy classes, and 
thus its salvation lay in the destruction of this 
ideology. Another equally important course to be 
followed was the introduction of a new kind of 
relationship within society. 'A'ile ('The Family') is 
devoted to a study of the reform necessary in family 
relationships. And the reform enunciated by Fitrat 
was not a compromise between the structure of 
Islamic society and that of Western society, but a 
radical choice, a break with the past, the complete 
re-making of family relationships, in which Fitrat 
gave a very important place to the raising of the 
status of women. For Fitrat, the internal renewal 
of the Muslim community could be brought about 
only by a double process: a spiritual renewal, 
involving the education of each individual, and a 
political and social revolution which would leave 
remaining nothing of the ideas, the institutions and 
the human relations of the period of stagnation, and 
which would give birth to a modern society and a 
modern state. This internal regeneration was in- 
dispensable in order to achieve external liberation. 
The salvation of Islam would imply the end of foreign 
domination, which was a consequence of the degra- 
dation of Islam : and the struggle for liberty does not 
come after the work of internal regeneration, but is 
one of the aspects of it. Fitrat constantly reminds his 
readers that 'the djihdd is an obligation for every 
Muslim'. For Fitrat, this internal regeneration and 
the resultant progress would contribute to the Holy 
War, and in a very direct fashion: 'Learn at the same 
time the traditional learning and the new learning, 
and thus you will be able to prepare the material 
means which are indispensable for the defence of 
Islam, the djihdd, which is obligatory for all' 



933 

(Mundzara, 48). Thus Fitrat's thought develops into 
the ideas of the unity of Islam and of Pan-Islamism. 
Like Djamal al-Din al-Afghani, Fitrat thought that 
the renaissance of Islam had to come from the 
Muslims themselves. The incitement to action, the 
rejection of passivity, of quietism and of reluctance 
to accept responsibility, which are such noticeable 
features of the works of Djamal al-Din, are similarly 
prominent in those of Fitrat. Fitrat followed Djamal 
al-Din along the path which he had opened up by 
stressing the temporal history of Islam, and it is 
probably for this reason that his works are more 
concerned with defining the means of achieving a 
new vitality than with re-defining the content, or 
more simply the methods, of the Faith. The origi- 
nality of Fitrat's work lies in the fact that to re- 
formism and Pan-Islamism there is added a call to 
social justice and to a revolt against the rich and 
those in power. 

His principal works are (1) Mundzara, first 
published in Istanbul in 1908, and re-published in 
Persian at Tashkent in 1913; Russian trans, by Col. 
Yagello, Tashkent 1911, under the title Spor 
Bukharskogo mudarrisa s evropeytsem v Indii 
novometodnihh shholahh. (Istinniy resultat obmena 
mlsley) pervoye izdanie socmeniy Bukhara, Fitrat; 
(2) Baydndt-i sayydh-i hindl, first publ. at Istanbul 
(n.d.), then by Behbudi in a Russian trans, at 
Tashkent in 1913 as : Abd ur Rauf, Rasskazl indiyskogo 
puteshestvennika {Bukhara kak ona 'est') ; (3) SdHha, 
Istanbul 1910; (4) Rahbar-i nadjdt, n.p. 1915; (5) 
'A'ile, n.p., n.d. 

He published also various novels (notably Kiydmat, 
Tashkent 1961) and poems in Millt Edebiyat, Berlin, 
i (1943). 

Bibliography: Veli Kajum Khan, intro- 
ductory article to the review Millt Edebiyat, i 
(1943), 4-5; A. Zavqi and I. Tolqun, $air 
Colpan, in Milli Turkestan, lxxvi (1952), 17-23; 
Erturk, Abdur Rauf Fitrat, in Millt Turkestan, 
lxxx-lxxxi (1952), 9-16; F. Khodjaev, mlado 
Buhartsah,iaIstorikMarksist,i(ig26), 123-41 ;idem, 
K istorii revo lyuts ii v Bukhare, Tashkent 1926; 
S. Aini, Buhoro inqilobi ta'rihi ulun materiallar, 
Moscow 1926. (H. CARRERE d'Encausse) 

FLAG [see liwa']. 
FLOOD [see tufan]. 
FLORI [see filori]. 
FLOWER [see nawriyya]. 
FOGGARA [see kanat]. 
FOLKLORE [see hikaya, takalId]. 
FOOD [see ghidha']. 

FOREIGN AFFAIRS [see kharidjiyya]. 
FORESTS [see ghaba]. 
FORNICATION [see zina']. 
FORTIFICATION [see burdj, hisar, hisn, 

KAL c A, SUR]. 

FOUNTAIN [see sabil]. 

FRAGA [see ifragha]. 

FRANKS [see al-ifrandj]. 

FRAXINETUM was in the middle ages the name 
of the village now called La-Garde-Freinet , lying 
in a gap in the Mt. des Maures (departement of Var, 
France). This locality only finds a place in this 
Encyclopaedia because it was occupied for 80 years 
by Muslim pirates who had come from Spain 
between 278-81/891-4. Having gained a footing in 
the gulf of Saint-Tropez, they occupied a natural 
fortress (Fraxinet, Freinet) near the modern village 
of La-Garde-Freinet; "soon reinforced by new 
groups from the Iberian peninsula, the invaders 
visited the county of Frejus with fire and the sword, 



934 



FRAXINETUM — FU'AD PASHA 



and sacked the chief town". They then infiltrated 
westwards, ascended the Rh6ne, and extended their 
influence as far as the Alps and Piedmont. About 
321/933 "light columns, very mobile, held — at least 
during the summer — all the country under a reign 
of terror, while the bulk of the Muslim forces was 
entrenched in the mountainous canton of Fraxi- 
netum, in the immediate vicinity of the sea". The 
States concerned reacted slowly, and only in 361 or 
362/972 or 973, after several unsuccessful attempts, 
did the vassals of Otto the Great "arrive to free 
Provence and the transalpine regions from the 
Muslim peril and to drive away for ever these pirates 
from their lair in the gulf of Saint-Tropez". Thus 
ended this "strange Islamic State encapsulated 
within a wholly Christian land" (J. Calmette, 
L'effondrement d'un empire et la naissance d'une 
Europe, 117). 

Bibliography: No Arabic chronicle refers to 
these events, for which the Antapodosis of Liut- 
prand, ed. Becker, Hanover-Leipzig 191 5 , is the prin- 
cipal source; J. T. Reinaud, Invasions des Sarrazins 
en France, Paris 1836 (Eng. tr., Lahore 1956), gives 
the history of these corsairs in detail, for which see 
also : R. Poupardin, Le royaume de Provence sous les 
Carolingiens, Paris 1901, 243-73; idem, Le royaume 
de Bourgogne, Paris 1907, 87-107; G. Pinet deMan- 
teyer, La Provence du I" au XIV siecle, Paris 
1908, 238 ff.; E. Levi-Provencal, Hist. Esp. Mus„ 
ii, 154-60 (which has been taken as the basis of 
this entry) supplies a more detailed bibliography. 

(Ed.) 
FREE WILL [see ikhtiyar, kadar]. 
FREEMASONRY [see masCniyya]. 
FRONTIER [see 'awasim, ghazi, murabit, ribat, 
thughur]. 

FRUNZE [see picpek]. 

FU'AD al-AWWAL, king of Egypt. Ahmad 
Fu'ad was born in the Gizeh palace on 26 March 
1868, of a Circassian mother. In 1879 his father, the 
Khedive Isma'il, who had been deposed by the 
Sublime Porte, took him with him into exile. He 
studied in Geneva and Turin, and in 1885 entered 
the Italian military academy. At Rome in 1887, as 
a second-lieutenant in the artillery, he frequently 
visited the Italian royal family. Having been Ottoman 
military attache at Vienna, he finally returned 
(1892) to Egypt after a stay at Istanbul. As prince 
he accepted the first Rectorship of the Free Univer- 
sity of Cairo (1908-13). On the death of his brother 
Husayn (9 October 1917) he succeeded him as sultan 
of Egypt. The British considered him as not at all 
Anglophobe, though regretting that he enjoyed 
neither great popularity nor much influence among 
the Egyptians (Lord Lloyd). He assumed the title 
of king of Egypt from 15 March 1922, and d. 28 April 
1936. He had a respect for decorum and tradition, 
and during his lifetime the queen and the princesses, 
excepting his own daughters, remained veiled. 

The age in which he reigned is significant in the 
history of the Egyptian awakening. The nationalist 
movement, then embodied in the person of Sa c d 
Zaghlul and the Wafd, launched the open struggle 
against the British occupation immediately after the 
armistice of 11 November 1918. A campaign of 
signed petitions, demonstrations in Cairo, and 
strikes (1919, again in 1921) forced Great Britain 
to recognize Egypt as a "sovereign and independent 
state" (1922). While profiting by the action of the 
Wafd, which helped him to counteract British in- 
fluence, king Fu'ad dreamed of an authority too 
absolute for him not to fear the nationalist leaders. 



A constitution envisaging two chambers was promul- 
gated on 19 April 1923. The 1924 elections were a 
triumph for the Wafd. But the assassination of the 
Sirdar (November 1924), the difficulties in the 
negotiations, several times broken off and then 
resumed, with the British with a view to drawing 
up a treaty, the intervention of the British in Egypt 
and their Sudanese policy, all added to the crises. 
Parliament was dissolved four times, and the 
elections always returned a Wafdist majority (1925, 
1926, 1929), except that of 1931 which the Wafd 
boycotted. In spite of this, there were only three 
rather brief periods of Wafdist ministry (Sa c d 
Zaghlul in 1924, Mustafa al-Nahhas in 1928 and 
1930). That is to say, the king did as he pleased with 
the constitution, which was abrogated in 1930, 
immediately superseded, then re-established in 1935. 
He relied on minority parties or on unattached 
politicians; he appealed to, among others, Ahmad 
Ziwar (1924-6), Muhammad Mahmud (1928-9), and 
Isma'il Sidkl (1930-3). At the end of his reign the 
Italian menace (Abyssinian war) demonstrated the 
urgency of an agreement with Britain. The treaty 
was signed in London on 26 August 1936, four 
months after his death. 

From the economic point of view, the foundation 
of the Misr bank marked the first step in his reign 
towards economic independence. He had no share 
in it, nor did he deposit his private fortune there, 
which, however, he did not neglect. On the other hand, 
he took a lively interest in the intellectual develop- 
ment of the country. He founded schools, encouraged 
the new university at Gizeh (Fu'ad al-Awwal 
University, 1925) and the reform of al-Azhar [q.v.], 
an establishment on which his internal policies 
greatlyrelied. He promoted the creation and rejuvena- 
tion of numerous cultural institutions (Royal 
Society of Political Economy, of Geography, etc.). 
He insisted that Cairo should be the venue of great 
international congresses. He was however accused 
of mistrusting Egyptians and confiding in foreigners. 
He always patronized, without any fanaticism, all 
those who, outside politics, could contribute to the 
development of modern Egypt, especially in the 
cultural sphere. He was a true Maecenas, visiting 
schools and institutions. The personal prestige 
which he enjoyed abroad and the historical studies 
which he patronized enlarged the world reputation 
of Egypt. 

Bibliography: G. Hanotaux, Histoire de la 
nation egyptienne, vii, specially pp. iii-xxxii (by 
Henri Deherain); M. Colombe, Vivolution de 
I'Egypte (ig24-igso), Paris 1951, with detailed 
bibliography; Karim Thabit, al-Malik Fu'dd, 
malik al-Nahda, Cairo 1944. (J- Jomier) 

FU'AD PASHA, KeCedji-zade Mehmed, five 
times Ottoman Foreign Minister and twice Grand 
Vizier, was born in Istanbul in 1815, the son of the 
poet c Izzet Molla [q.v.]. Upon his father's exile to 
Sivas in 1829 Fu'ad switched from the usual theo- 
logical curriculum to the new medical school, where 
he learned French, the key to his future career. 
From 1834-5 he spent three years as an army doctor 
in Tripoli in Africa; but since the Porte's diplomatic 
business was rapidly increasing, his French gained 
Fu'ad appointment to the Translation Bureau in 
November 1837. Like his life-long colleague Mehmed 
Emin C A1I [see c alI pasha muhammad amIn] he be- 
came a protege of Mustafa Reshid Pasha [q.v.]. 

During the next decade Fu'ad advanced rapidly 
as interpreter and diplomat through the ranks of the 
Ottoman bureaucracy and gained firsthand expe- 



FU'AD pasha 



935 



rience of Europe. In 1839 he became dragoman of 
the Porte; in 1840 he was dragoman, and from 1841 to 

1844 first secretary, of the Ottoman embassy in Lon- 
don; in 1844 he went on special mission to Spain when 
Isabella II was declared of age to rule. In March 

1845 Fu'ad was appointed member of an ad hoc 
commission on education whose report of August 

1846 recommended a new state school system. He 
became dragoman of the imperial Diwan in June- 
July 1845, and on 18 February 1847 dmeddji [q.v.]. 
Late in 1848 Fu'ad was sent to Bucharest to ensure 
smooth relations with the Russian forces which had 
entered the Principalities to suppress the revolution. 
When in 1849 Magyar and Polish refugees sought 
asylum in Ottoman territory Fu'ad was dispatched 
to St. Petersburg to uphold Reshid's policy of no 
extraditions. Nicholas I received Fu'ad on 16 
October. Fu'ad's mission was successful. In reward 
he was advanced to sadaret musteshdrl, in effect 
Minister of the Interior. After returning via Jassy 
and Bucharest to Istanbul on 11 April 1850 he sat 
on a special commission of the medjlis-i wdld to deal 
with Christian complaints from Vidin. 

Fu'ad went to Bursa in mid-September 1850 to 
take baths for his rheumatism. There he wrote with 
Ahmad Diewdet [q.v.] the first modern Ottoman 
grammar published in the empire, KawdHd-i 
'Othmdniyye, 1851. In that year, on the founding of 
the Endjiimen-i Danish [see andjuman], Fu'ad was 
appointed a member. In Bursa Fu'ad and Djewdet 
also drafted a proposal for the Bosporus ferry-boat 
company, which became the first joint-stock company 
in the empire. From April to July 1852 Fu'ad was in 
Egypt on a special mission to see to the application of 
Tanzlmat [q.v.] decrees and solve questions of railway 
building, inheritance, and the Egyptian tribute. That 
year Fu'ad advocated a European loan to help the 
finances of the empire, but Sultan c Abd al-MedjId 

On 9 August 1852 Fu'ad was appointed Foreign 
Minister, three days after c Ali succeeded Reshid as 
Grand Vizier. This marks the first time Reshid's two 
disciples had worked together in the highest offices, 
and the beginning of their involuntary estrangement 
from their master. This turbulent period brought the 
Leiningen mission with Austria's ultimatum on 
Montenegro. Fu'ad was also involved in the pro- Latin 
decision on the Holy Places. Prince Menshikov, 
Russia's special envoy, consequently deliberately 
snubbed Fu'ad, causing his resignation in early 
March 1853. For a year from March 1854 Fu'ad was 
special commissioner with military authority in 
Epirus and Thessaly, successfully repressing Greek 
insurgents who sought to profit from the Crimean 
War situation. Thereafter he was appointed to the 
new Tanzlmat Council, and in early May 1855, when 
c Ali again succeeded Reshid as Grand Vizier, again 
became Foreign Minister, with the rank of vezir and 
miishir. Fu'ad had a major share in elaborating the 
Khatt-i Humdyun [q.v.] of 18 February 1856. He did 
not, however, attend the Paris peace congress; c Ali 
was the Ottoman plenipotentiary. Owing to Strat- 
ford's pressure concerning the Principalities Fu'ad 
resigned in early November 1856. In early August 
1857 he was again President of the Tanzlmat Council. 

Fu'ad again became Foreign Minister, and c Ali 
Grand Vizier, on 11 January 1858, four days after 
Reshid's death. As Foreign Minister he represented 
the empire at the Paris conference on the Princi- 
palities, 22 May to 19 August 1858; Couza's double 
election the next year, however, sabotaged the plan 
adopted for separate administrations. When Druze 



attacks on Maronites provoked intervention by the 
great powers, Fu'ad was sent on 12 July i860 to 
Beirut with full civil and military powers. News of 
massacres in Syria took him to Damascus, where he 
had over 700 persons tried and 167 executed, in- 
cluding the wall Ahmed Pasha. This severity, 
earning Fu'ad the local nickname "father of the 
cord", successfully forestalled further penetration by 
French troops. Back in the Lebanon, Fu'ad punished 
some guilty Druze, though the French claimed he 
let most escape. He was chairman of the inter- 
national commission that sat there from 5 October 
i860 to 4 May 1861, although missing the first five 
sessions. The new Lebanese administrative statute 
of 9 June 1861 resulted. 

On 6 August 1861, while still in Syria, Fu'ad was 
appointed Foreign Minister for the fourth time, and 
on 22 November Grand Vizier, which post he took 
up on arriving in Istanbul on 21 December. His first 
job was to deal vigorously with a financial crisis of 
panic proportions; he withdrew the kdHme [q.v.], 
drew up a budget, and negotiated the successful loan 
of 1862. A Montenegrin campaign was successfully 
concluded, but the Belgrade incident of 1862 forced 
Turkish evacuation of two Serbian fortresses. Fu'ad 
helped secure new millet constitutions for the Greeks, 
Armenians, and Jews. He resigned on 2 January 1863. 
His famous letter of resignation to c Abd al- c Aziz 
pointed out financial difficulties and the danger of 
Balkan nationalisms; it was evidently also an effort, 
though vain, to present a united ministerial front. On 
13 January Fu'ad was president of the medjlis-i wild, 
and on 14 February ser < asker. In this capacity he 
accompanied c Abd al- c Aziz to Egypt in April, and 
regained the imperial favour. On 1 June 1863 he was 
again appointed Grand Vizier, keeping the war 
ministry also. 

Fu'ad's three-year term was marked by the wildyet 
law, prepared by Fu'ad and Midhat [q.v.] in 1864 for 
the new provincial administration experiment in 
Bulgaria; by the final authorization of the construc- 
tion of the Suez Canal ; by the necessity of recognizing 
Karl of Hohenzollern as the new prince of Roumania ; 
by the firman of 27 May 1866 granting Khedive 
Ismail's heirs direct succession from father to eldest 
son; and by Fu'ad's growing feud with Mustafa 
Fadil Pasha [q.v.] over finances. Fu'ad was dismissed 
on 5 June 1866 because he opposed c Abd al- c Aziz's 
taking a daughter of Isma'il as wife. 

When 'All once more became Grand Vizier, on 
11 February 1867, Fu'ad became Foreign Minister 
again. His masterly memorandum of 15 May for the 
Powers delineated Ottoman progress under the 
Tanzlmat, but, with c Ali, Fu'ad was subject to 
increasing attacks from New Ottoman writers, 
especially over the Cretan rebellion and the final 
Turkish military evacuation of Serbia. From 21 June 
to 7 August 1867 Fu'ad accompanied c Abd al- c AzIz 
on his trip to Paris, London, and Vienna; Fu'ad kept 
the sultan from blunders, and the trip succeeded in 
diminishing the likelihood of serious foreign inter- 
vention in Crete, as well as interesting the sultan in 
western material progress. Fu'ad returned exhausted. 
Nevertheless he also was acting Grand Vizier in the 
autumn of 1867 when c Alt went to Crete. He helped 
develop plans for the Council of State (Shurd-yi 
Dewlet [q.v.]) and the Galatasaray lycee, both in- 
augurated in 1868. On medical advice, for his heart 
condition, Fu'ad travelled via Italy to Nice for a 
rest in the winter of 1868-69. There he died on 12 
February 1869. His body was brought to Istanbul 
by the French dispatch-boat Renard. 



936 



FU'AD PASHA - 



Fu'ad was a convinced westernizer. He worked on 
many of the reforms of the later Tanzimat period. 
He may have favoured representative government, 
though he was in no hurry to achieve it. His main 
objective was preservation of the Ottoman Empire 
through diplomacy and reform. He loved high office, 
but was not so jealous and grudging as 'All, and 
rather bolder in innovation. His honesty has been 
impugned, especially as regards gifts from IsmS'il, 
but his objectives remained constant. Fu'ad was a 
brilliant conversationalist. He was completely at 
home in French. His witticisms are famous; some 
imputed to him are apocryphal. He also wrote well, 
although sometimes carelessly, and helped to clarify 
Ottoman Turkish by having vowel marks put in the 
1858/59 sdlndme and in his grammar. His so-called 
political testament is not proven genuine; it does, 
however, reflect his known views. 

Bibliography: Contemporary accounts 
and documents include Djewdet, Tezdkir, i 
(1-12), ii (13-20), iii (21-39), ed. C. Baysun, Ankara 
*951> i960, 1963; Challemel-Lacour, Les hommes 
d'itat de la Turquie, in Revue des deux mondes, 73 (15 
Feb. 1868), 917-23; Fatima 'Aliyye, A timed Qiewdet 
Pasha wezamdni, Istanbul 1332, 85-90, 109; Mehmed 
Memdflh, Mir'dt-i Shu'undt, Izmir 1328, 127-33; 
Melek-Hanum, Six years in Europe, London 1873, 
199-203; 'All Haydar Midhat, Tabsire-i Hbret, 
Istanbul 1325, 23-4; Frederick Millingen, La 
Turquie sous le regne d'Abdul Aziz, Paris 1868, 
272-84, 324-6; Charles Mismer, Souvenirs du 
monde musulman, Paris 1892, 13-6, no; [A. D. 
Mordtmann], Stambul und das moderne Tiirken- 
thum, Leipzig 1877-8, i, 25-6, and ii, 143-50, 175-6; 
J. F. Scheltema, ed., The Lebanon in turmoil, New 
Haven 1920, 38, 143-58; I. de Testa, Recueil des 
traiUs de la Porte ottomane, Paris 1884-1911, vi, 
90-285, and vii, passim; J. H. Abdolonyme 
Ubicini, La Turquie actuelle, Paris 1855, 177-84; 
Franz von Werner (Murad Efendi), Turkische 
Skizzen, Leipzig 1877, 166-71. 

Of later studies, Orhan Kopriilii's in IA, iv, 
672-81, is the best, with many references, often to 
unpublished materials. See also 'Abd al-Rahman 
Sheref, Ta'rikh musdhabeleri, Istanbul 1339, 98- 
104, 108; 'All Fu'ad, Rididl-i mUhimme-i siydsiye, 
Istanbul 1928, 59, 141-74; I. H. Danismend, 
Izahh osmanh tarihi kronolojisi, iv, Istanbul 1955, 
index; R. H. Davison, The question of Fuad Pasa's 
'Political Testament', in Belleten, xxiii/89 (1959). 
119-36; R. H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman 
Empire, 1856-1876, Princeton 1963, chap. 3 and 
index ; A. Du Velay, Essai sur I'histoire financiere 
de la Turquie, Paris 1903, 174-96, 260-75; Ibnule- 
min Mahmud Kemal Inal, Osmanh devrinde son 
sadnazamlar, Istanbul 1940-53, 149-95; M. 
Jouplain, La question du Liban, Paris 1908, 414-82; 
Adel Ismail, Histoire du Liban du XVIP siecle a 
nos jours, iv, Redressement et diclin du feodalisme 
libanais, Beirut 1958, 352-75; E. Z. Karal, Osmanh 
tarihi, vi and vii, Ankara 1954-6, index; B. Lewis, 
The emergence of modem Turkey 2 , London 1962, 
1 15-21, index; T. W. Riker, The making of Rouma- 
nia, London 1931, 55-9, 75, 155-80, index; Harold 
Temperley, England and the Near East, London 
1936, 262, 267-8, 306-10; idem, The Last Phase of 
Stratford de Redcliffe, 1855-1858, in English 
Historical Review, xlvii (1932), 237-55. See also the 
biographical dictionaries: Sami, Ramus al-aHdm, 
v, 3440; Siajill-i 'Othmdni, iv, 26. 

(R. H. Davison) 
al-FUPAYL b. 'IYAp, Abu 'All al-Talakanl, of 



al-FUDJAYRA 

the tribe of TamimI, an early Sufi, disciple of 
Sufyan al-Thawri, was born in Samarkand, grew up 
in Abiward, and in his youth was a highway robber. 
After his conversion, he betook himself to the study 
of Hadith at Kflfa. He was summoned to give 
ascetic addresses to Harun al-Rashid, who called 
him "The chief of the Muslims". He settled in 
Mecca and died there 187/803. 

Mentioned frequently as a transmitter of Tradit- 
ions, he was also a noted ascetic and advocate of 
other- worldliness, known as one who lived with God. 
"The servant's fear of God", he said, "is in pro- 
portion to his knowledge of Him and his renun- 
ciation of this world is in proportion to his desire for 
the next", and again, "Satisfaction (ridd) with God 
is the stage of those who are close to Him, who find 
in Him joy and happiness". Asked what he thought 
of the condition of mankind, Fudayl replied, "For- 
given, but for my presence among them". It was 
said that when Fudayl left the world, sadness 
disappeared. 

Bibliography: Ibn Sa'd, v, 366; al-Sulami, 

Tabakdt al-Sufiyya, Cairo 1953, 6-14; Abu 

Nu'aym, Hilyat al-awliyd', viii, 84-139; al- 

Hudjwiri, Rash) al-mahdiub, (tr. Nicholson), 

97 ff.; 'Attar, Tadhkirdt al-awliya' , (ed. Nicholson), 

i, 74 ff.; Ibn Khallikan, No. 542; Sha'rani, Tabakdt, 

i, 58. 59- (M. Smith) 

al-FUDJAYRA, (officially, al-Fujairah), one of 

the seven Trucial Shavkhdoms in Arabia and the 

only one lying in its entirety on the eastern side of 

the peninsula separating the Gulf of 'Uman from the 

Persian Gulf. The tiny state is wedged between the 

Sultan of Muscat's territory of Rus al-Djibal, to the 

north, and the once independent territory of Kalba 

(Kalba in Yakut, TA, and the Ramus of al-Firuza- 

badi), to the south. Kalba, since 1371/1952 a part 

of the Trucial Shaykhdom of al-Sharika (Sharjah), 

lies between al-Fudjayra and the central part of the 

Sultan of Muscat's domains. From Kalba north to 

Rus al-Djibal, the narrow littoral and steep eastern 

watershed of the mountains of al-Hadjar behind 

the coast constitute the region known as al- 

Shamalivva. 

The little town of al-Fudjayra is at the mouth of 
Wadi Ham and about two miles from the sea. 
Most of the inhabitants of the town and wadi are 
members of the tribe of al-Sharkiyyun. Strung along 
the coast to the north are other villages of the state: 
Sakamkam, al-Kurayya, Murbih, Dadna and a 
part of Daba. Between Murbih and Dadna is the 
enclave of Khawr Fakkan (Fukkan in Yakut, TA , 
and the Ramus of al-FTruzabadi) belonging to 
al-Sharika. 

Al-Fudjayra has long been under the influence of 
al-Kawasim of Ra's al-Khayma and al-Sharika. 
who were occupying Khawr Fakkan as early as 
1188/1775. Al-Fudjayra, however, became virtually 
independent in 1321/1902 and was recognized as such 
by Great Britain in 1371/1952, when the Ruler, 
Shaykh Muhammad b. Hamad al-Sharki, subscribed 
to the agreements in force between Britain and the 
Trucial Shaykhdoms. 

Bibliography: Admiralty, A Handbook of 
Arabia, London 1916-7; C. Aitchison, ed., A 
Collection of Treaties*, xi, Calcutta 1933; al-'Arabi, 
Nov. i960 (Kuwait periodical) ; Ahmad al-Burlnl, 
al-Imdrdt al-Sab<, Beirut 1957; Selections from the 
records of the Bombay Government, n.s., xxiv, 
Bombay 1856; R. Hay, The Persian Gulf states, 
Washington 1959; J. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the 
Persian Gulf, ''Oman, and Central A rabia, Calcutta 



l-FUDJAYRA — FUDOLI 



937 



1908-15; Reference Division, Central Office of 
Information, The Arab states of the Persian Gulf 
and South-East Arabia, London 1959. 

( c Abd al-Hafez Kamal) 
FUPULl, Muhammad b. Sulayman (885 ?-963/ 
14807-1556), (in Turkish Fuzuli) one of the most 
illustrious authors of Classical Turkish literature. 
He was born in 'Irak at the time of the Ak-Koyunlu 
(White Sheep Dynasty) domination, probably at 
Karbala, although Bagdad, Hilla, Nadjaf, Kirkflk, 
Manzil and Hit are also mentioned as his birth- 
place. It is reported on uncertain authority that his 
father was mufti of Hilla, that he was taught by one 
Rahmat Allah, that he first took to poetry when 
he fell in love with this teacher's daughter and that 
his literary taste was formed by the Adhari poet 
Hablbl. It can, however, be said with certainty that 
Fuduli came from an educated family and was 
himself fully trained in all the learning of the age. 
His learning is also attested by the titles of Molla 
and, later, Mawldnd which are given to him. It 
appears that his education commenced at Karbala 
and was continued at Hilla and Baghdad. 

Mehmed b. Sulayman (v. Hadjdji Khalifa, 255, 
645, 805, 914, 1075, 1571, 1719) invariably used the 
makhlas (pen-name) Fudull in all his verse and prose 
works and is, therefore, mentioned among poets 
known by their takhallus (Sam Mirza, Tuhfa, 
Tehran 1314, 136). He explained the choice of this 
original pseudonym, meaning both "inappropriate" 
and even "improper" and also, if taken as the 
plural of fadl, "of great value", in the preface to his 
Persian Diwan (Br. Mus. Or. 491 1; Fa'ik Reshad, 
Fuduli'nin ghayr-i matbu 1 eshHirl, Istanbul 1314, 43; 
Suleyman Nazlf, Fuduli (1925), 13-14)- In the 
preface to his Turkish Diwan he speaks of his innate 
artistic temperament and mentions that he started 
writing poetry at a very early age (Tiirk(e Divan, 
Ankara 1958, 4 ff.). His first known poem is a 
kasida in praise of Elvend Bey (904-8/1498-1502), 
a grandson of the Ak-Koyunlu Uzun Hasan 
(Madjmu'-a-i nafisa, in the author's possession, 
I78a-b). When the Safawl Shah Isma'il captured 
Baghdad in 914/1508, Fudull was already quite well 
known as a young man of literary and religious 
learning. He dedicated to this Shl c i Shah (Fudull 
being himself a ShI c I) his first mathnawi, Beng-ii- 
Bdde. He enjoyed the patronage of the Safawid 
Wall of Baghdad, Ibrahim Khan Mawsillu, and 
dedicated kasidas to him (Turkce Divan, 87, 89; 
Beng-u-Bdde, Istanbul 1956, 3-4; Sadikl, Madpna 1 
al-khawdss, 1st. Oniv. Kutiiph. T.Y. 408, 533b, 34b 
— for a Persian translation of this see Khayyampur, 
Tabriz 1327). 

When Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent conquered 
'Irak in 941/1534, Fudull addressed kasidas to him 
too, feeling no embarrassment at the change of 
administration and hastening to sing the praises in 
madhiyyas of members of the entourage of the new 
conqueror. These included the Grand Vizier Ibrahim 
Pasha, the Kddi'asker Kadir Celebi, the Nishdndii 
Djalal-zade Mustafa Ceiebi (cf. Turkfe Divan, 85, 
98, 101; see also c AlI, Kunh al-akhbdr, unpublished 
part, 1st. Univ. T.Y. 5959, 38sa-b; <Ashik Celebi, 
MashdHr al-shuhird?, Istanbul Ali Emiri Lib. No. 
772, 528; Hasan Celebi, Tadhkira, same lib. No. 761, 
22ia-222a). Fuduli met also two poets who partici- 
pated in the campaign, Khayali (d. 964/1557) and 
Tashlldjali Yahya (d. 990/1582). While the Sultan 
was in Baghdad, Fudull was promised a pension 
payable from wakf funds. Difficulties arose, however, 
when a later berdt stipulated the payment of nine 



aspers a day from zewd'id funds. These difficulties 
are the subject of the letter known as the Shikdyet- 
name (Abdulkadir Karahan, FuzWnin mektuplart, 
Istanbul 1948, 31-8). Fudull entered also into 
correspondence with Ahmed Bey, the Mir-i liwd of 
Mawsil, Ayas Pasha, the Kadi C A15 al-DIn (cf. 
Karahan, op. cit., 38-41, 42-4, 44-6) and the Shehzdde 
Bayezld (Hasibe Catbas, Fuz&li'nin bir mektubu, in 
AODTCFD, iv (1948), 139-46. 

Fudull composed kasidas praising the Pashas 
Uways, Djafar, Ayas and Mehmed, when they were 
Wdlis of Baghdad, and also the Kadi of Baghdad 
Fudayl Efendi. He also wrote some of his most 
important works, including Hadikat aUsu'-ada? and 
Layli wa Madjnun, under the Ottomans. Although 
he spoke with longing of travel in his poems, and 
although in his youth he hoped to visit Tabriz and 
in his mature age to go to India and Asia Minor, 
Fudull never left the confines of 'Irak. He seems to 
have spent a large portion of his long life in em- 
ployment at the c Atabdt-i 'Aliya in Nadjaf (cf. 
the Persian kasidas in praise of the Imam C A1I in the 
MadjmuHi, in the author's possession, fols. 166 ff.). 
He died and was buried at Karbala in 963/1556 
during a plague ((d'un) epidemic ( c AhdI, Gulshen-i 
shu'ard'; Ali Emiri Lib. No. 774. 155a; RiyadI, Riydd 
al-shu'-ard", 1st. Univ. T.Y. 3250, 46 etc.). The year 
970/1562 is sometimes given in error as the date of 
his death (Hasan Celebi, loc. cit.; Hadjdji Khalifa, 
loc. cit., gives both dates). 

The only known member of Fuduli's family is the 
poet's son Fadli Celebi. In his religion the poet can 
be described as a moderate Ithnd '■ashari Shi c i. 
In spite of traditions to the contrary, it was unlikely 
that he was a Bektashi (<A1I Su<ad, Seydhatlerim, 
Istanbul 1330, 100-7), a Hurufi ( c Abbas al- c AzzawI, 
Ta'rikh al- c Irdk, Baghdad 1939, iii, 246) or a Batinl 
(A. Golpinarh, Fuzull'nin Bdtmiliie temayul . . ., in 
Azerbaycan Yurt Bilgisi Mecmuasi, no. 8-9, 265 ff. ; 
for objections cf. Sadeddin Niizhet Ergun, Turk 
musikisi antolojisi, ii, 640). Nevertheless it is right to 
consider Fudull as standing above sects and schools 
in his sufi approach (cf. Karahan, Fuzult-Muhiti, 
hayati ve sahsiyeti, Istanbul 1949, 144 ff.). 

Fudull wrote some fifteen works in Arabic, 
Persian and Turkish, as follows: {a) Arabic: (1) 
Diwan; (2) Mafia' al-iHikdd; [b) Persian; (3) Diwan; 
(4) Haft-Ham (or Sdki-ndma); (5) Anis al-kalb; 
(6) Risdla-yi mu'-ammaydt (he also wrote riddles in 
Turkish); (7) Rind wa zdhid; (8) Husn wa Hshk (or 
Sihhat wa marad); (c) Turkish: (9) Diwan; (10) 
Beng-u-bdde; (n) Leyli vu Medinun; (12) Kirk 
hadith terdiemesi; (13) Shdh-u-gedd; (14) Hadikat al- 
su'-add?; (15) Letters. 

Four other works are attributed to him on 
doubtful grounds. These are: Suhbat al-athmdr, 
Diumdiume-ndme, a Turkish-Persian rhyming dic- 
tionary and the Konya Risdlesi (Miize Ktph. 2617). 

The known manuscript of Fuduli's Arabic poems 
and of the tract entitled Matla 1 al-iHikdd is to be 
found in a Kulliydt-i Fuduli, preserved in the Asian 
Museum in Leningrad (see E. Bertels, Arabskie 
stikhi Fuzuli, in Zapiski Kollegii Vostokovedov, v, 
Leningrad 1930; idem, Novaya rukopis 'Kulliyata 
Fuzuli', in Izvestya Ak. Nauk, iv, 1935). Matla 1 al- 
iHikdd, together with the Arabic kasidas, was pub- 
lished in Baku in 1958. Another edition is being 
printed in Turkey. There are many manuscripts in 
existence of the poet's works in Persian, many of 
which have also been printed (for details see Abdul- 
kadir Karahan, Fuzuli; Mujgan Cunbur, Fuzuli 
hakkmda bir bibliografya denemesi, Istanbul 1956) 



938 FUI 

There is a Turkish translation of the Persian Diwan 
(which is also about to be published), with the 
exception of the kasidas (Ali Nihad Tarlan, FuzA- 
li'nin Farsfa divani, Istanbul 1950). Haft-djam has 
been printed several times under the title of Sdfri- 
nama as part of Fuduli's collected works (a Turkish 
translation was added at the end of the translation 
of the Persian Diwan). Other published works are 
as follows; Anis al-kalb, ed. Suleyman Cafer Erkihc, 
Istanbul 1944; Risdle-i mu'ammaydt, ed. Kemal 
Edib Kurkciioglu, Ankara 1949; Rind wa zdhid, 
same ed., Ankara 1956; Husn wa 'ishk as Safar-ndma-i 
Ruh, ed. Muh. c Ali Nasih, in Armaghdn (Tehran), 
xi, 418-24, 505-17) ;the same work as Sihhat wa 
marad, ed. Necati Hiisnii Lugal and O. Reser, 
Istanbul 1943 — for the latest Turkish translation 
and a summary in French, see Fuzuli, Sihhat ve 
maraz, Istanbul 1940. 

Critical editions of most of Fuduli's Turkish 
works have appeared recently. Of the Diwan 26 
printed editions and more than a hundred MSS are 
known to exist (cf. op. cit., by Karahan and Cunbur, 
also Istanbul hitaphhlari Ttirkfe yazmalar katalogu, 
Istanbul 1947, 124-37; a MS copied during the poet's 
lifetime is in the author's possession). The latest 
edition of the Beng ii bade is that by K. E. Kurk- 
ciioglu, Istanbul 1956. An interleaved edition of 
Leyli vii Medjnun by Necmettin Halil Onan has 
been published by the Turkish Ministry of Education 
(Istanbul 1950) (for a German translation of this 
famous work see N. Lugal and O. Reser, Des Turki- 
schen Dichters Fuzulis Poem "Layld-Megnun" und 
die Gereimte Erzdhlung "Benk u Bdde" (Hasis und 
Wein), Istanbul 1943; Engl. tr. by Sofi Huri, Leyla 
and Mejnun, in Fuzuli ve Leyla ve Mecnun, published 
by the Turkish National UNESCO Committee, 
Istanbul 1959). The author has edited the first 
published version of the Kirk hadith terdjemesi 
(A. Karahan, Fuzuli' nin tetkik edilmemis bir eseri: 
Kirk hadis tercemesi, in Seldmet Mecmuasi, Istanbul 
1948, nos. 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, 66). It was later pub- 
lished by Kurkciioglu, Istanbul 1951. Shah u gedd 
is known only through a reference in SadikI, op. cit. 
A critical edition of the Hadikat al-su'-add' is in 
preparation; MSS of this work are numerous (in 
addition to the works cited above, cf. catalogues by 
Rieu, Fliigel, Pertsch, Blochet and Rossi). Five 
letters by Fuduli are known: the author of this 
article has published four (Fuzuli'nin mektuplari, 
Istanbul 1948), while the fifth was published by 
Hasibe Catbas (FuziUfnin bir mektubu, Ankara 1948). 

Both Fuduli's artistry and his wide learning are 
reflected in almost every one of his works. The 
penetrating quality of his thought and his scholar- 
ship in many fields are made clear in many passages, 
chief amongst them being the tawhid (praise of 
Divine unity) in the form of a hasida at the beginning 
of his Turkish Diwan. Fuduli's notions on medicine, 
material and spiritual welfare, love and beauty can 
be gathered from his tract Husn wa Hshk; his suji 
philosophy and the advice which he had to give are 
made clear in Rind wa zdhid; Haft-didm is full of the 
suf'i symbolism in which mystic love and wine are 
equated; mystic love and sufism inspire also Leyli 
vii Medjnun and the ghazah; stories about the 
prophets and the poet's feelings about the tragedy 
at Karbala can be found in the Hadikat al-su'add'; 
the Diwdns (especially in the brief kit'as) and Anis 
al-kalb reflect the poet's philosophy of life in general. 

Fuduli was a brilliant linguist. No fault can be 
found with the language and technique of his Arabic 
poetry. Nevertheless in feeling they are overshadowed 



by his work in Persian and Turkish. It is true that 
in spite of their technical brilliance and richness 
of content his poems in Persian cannot compete 
with the great masters of Persian literature, in which 
Fuduli is ranked as a better than average second 
class writer. In Turkish literature, however, he 
ranks with the greatest. Fuduli does not owe this 
reputation to the originality of his subject-matter, 
which he drew from earlier Persian writers. Thus, 
the subject of the Hadikat al-su'-ada?, which can be 
classed as a maktal (a description of the tragedy at 
Karbala) is drawn from the Rawdat al-shuhadd* of 
Husayn Wa'iz Kashifi; the desert story narrated in 
Leyli vii Medjnun had been told many times before, 
particularly in the poems of the same name by 
NizamI and Hatifl; the forty traditions of the 
Prophet in Kirk hadith terdjemesi are drawn from 
Djami's Tardjama-i arbaHn hadith (cf. A. Karahan, 
Isldm-Tiirk edebiyatmda kirk hadis, Istanbul 1954, 
100-6, 167-72). Fuduli succeeded, however, in im- 
pressing the particular stamp of his personality on 
his treatment of this common subject-matter. His 
treatment of the themes of love, suffering, the 
impermanence of this world, the emptiness of 
worldly favours and riches and of the theme of 
death attain to a lyricism and directness which no 
other Turkish poet has reached. He is the Turkish 
poet who has expressed with the greatest effect a 
feeling of pity for the unfortunate, of patience in 
the face of adversity and of separation. 

Fuduli's Turkish has the characteristics of literary 
Adharl. This is true both of his grammar and of his 
vocabulary. The works of his age of maturity reflect, 
however, some Ottoman influences which followed 
naturally the Ottoman conquest of 'Irak in 941/1534. 
Fuduli's fame and influence, marked already in his 
lifetime, have not ceased to grow in the Muslim 
Turkish world. He has always been the most popular 
poet in all the countries inhabited by Turks. He has 
influenced many classical Turkish writers, such 
as Ruhi, New c I-zade c Ata'i, Na'ill, NabI, Sheykh 
Ghalib and Nigarl. Such writers wrote imitations 
(naziras) of his poems, or takhmis and tasdis to 
his ghazah. 

Traces of Fuduli's influence occur also in post- 
Tanzimdt modern Turkish literature, as well as in 
poems written specially for musical settings (sdz). 
Many of his own poems have also been set to music, 
starting from the 17th century. Even today, some 
of his ghazals are sung by kh w dnendes and are 
occasionally recorded. 

Bibliography: In addition to the works cited 
in the article see: Latlfi, Tadhkira, Istanbul 1314, 
265-6; Sam MiTZi,Tuhfa, Tehran 1314, 136; BeyanI, 
Tadhkira (Ali Emiri Lib. no. 757), 148; Amln 
Ahmad RazI, Haft iklim, Calcutta 1358, 122-3; 
Fa'idI, Zubdat al-ash'-dr (1st. Univ. Lib. no. 1646), 
84a-86a; MIrza Muh. Tahir, Tadhkira-i Nasr- 
dbddi, Tehran 1317, 519; Khoshgu, Safina 
{Daftar-i thdni) (Bodleian, Elliot 395), 3i6b-i7a; 
Gibb, Ottoman poetry, iii, 70-107; Ibrahim c AshkI, 
Fuduli, Istanbul 1338; Muh. C A1I Tarbiyat, 
Danishmanddn-i Adharbaydjdn, Tehran 1314, 3°o; 
Kevork Terzibashyan, Nimush Arewelyan mistih 
panasdeghdzutyan gam Fuzuli megnapanvadz, i-ii, 
Istanbul 1928-9; Tahir Olgun, Fuzullye dair, 
Istanbul 1936; Mehmed Mihri, Fuzdli'nin serh ve 
tefsirli divani, Istanbul 1937; Muh. 'All TabrizI, 
Rayhdnat al-adab, Tehran 1328, iii, 222-3; Celil 
Ozulus, Fuzuli, Nigde 1948; Ahmed Ates, Fu- 
zuli'nin el yazisi, in Turk Dili, v (1956), 545-63! 
Hasibe Mazioglu, Fuzuli-Hdfiz, Ankara 1956; 



FUDOLl — FULBE 



Zeynep Korkmaz and Selahettin Olcay, Fuzuli'nin 
dili hakkmda notlar, Ankara 1956; Ali Hiiseynzade, 
Doktor Abdulkadir Karahan FuzMt hakkmda, in 
Ilmi-Tedkikt Meseleler Medjmuasi, Baku 1958, 
315-33; Hamid Arasli, Boyiik Azerbayd^an shairi 
Fiizuli, Baku 1958; Husayn C A1I Mahfuz, Fuduli 
al-Baghdadi, Baghdad 1378. For detailed biblio- 
graphy see A. Karahan's monograph on Fuduli. 

(ABDOLKADiR KARAHAN) 

FULANI [see fulbe]. 

FULBE, pi. of Pullo (called Fula(s) in Gambia and 
Sierra Leone; usual French name: Peuls; usual 
English name: Fulani; their language is variously 
called Fula, Fulani, Peul (French usage), Ful (German 
usage), their own name for it being variously Pular, 
in Senegal, Gambia and Sierra Leone, and Fulftilde, 
in Mali and territories further east), a pastoral 
people — the only people of white (or red) stock in 
negro Africa — the 'cattle-men' who for more than a 
thousand years have been moving in groups across 
Africa at its greatest width. Wearing their would-be 
white rags with unfailing pride, they look at you with 
a glance of aristocratic nonchalance. They are one of 
the few nomadic societies of negro Africa, and 
G. Vieillard, who professed a brotherly affection for 
them, spoke of the Fulani as "parasites on the 
bovine species". Living amongst groups of stalwart 
negro farmers, the Fulani seem relatively frail, 
their frailty offset, according to Gautier (Afrique 
noire occidentale, 167) by a certain intellectual 
superiority. 

According to Barth, Peul means "light-brown, 
red", in contrast to Olof (black), while according to 
Gaden the term Fulbe means "the scattered ones". 
Peul being the Wolof name which was adopted by 
the French, coming from the coast of Senegal, it is 
more correct to speak of Pul or Ful, or in the plural 
Fulbe, the name by which the Fulani call themselves. 

Al-Makrizi (765-845/1364-1442) was probably the 
first to speak of the Fulaniyya, a term which was 
used again by al-Sa'di in the Ta'rlkh al-Sudan (1667). 
Joao de Barros speaks of them at length in his Asia, 
as do the various explorers who travelled through 
Africa from the 18th century onwards (Moore, Rene 
Caille, d'Avezac (1829), Clapperton (1825), the 
Lander brothers (1830), d'Eichtal (1842), Barth 
(1850-55). Substantial studies have been devoted to 
them by De Crozals (1883), Gaden, Delafosse (1912), 
Mischlich (1931), and finally Tauxier (1937) who 
during his official career was for more than ten years 
in charge of districts containing many Fulani 
groups, and who produced an excellent comprehen- 
sive study. Vieillard (1938), Lhote (1951) and de 
Lavergne de Tressan must also be mentioned, as 
must Colonel Figaret, who settled at Bamako on 
his retirement, and died there in 1943. 

Reference must also be made to the monographs 
by the British writers, East (on Adamawa), Stenning 
and Hopen, by the Germans Passarge and Strum- 
pell, and by the Frenchmen Lacroix, Richet and 
Froelich, and also the works of Wolf and Ahmadou 
Hampate Ba on Macina and Senegambia. 

Origin of the Fulani. The problem of the 
origin of the Fulani is one that is the subject of hot 
dispute among Africanists. In fact it seems vital to 
know whence came these pastoralists, often turned 
warriors, who have played such an important part 
in the establishment of various African kingdoms, 
from Senegal to central Cameroon. Racial resem- 
blances, or reminders of some passage in the Bible 
or the Kur'an, have often led well-meaning authors 
along innumerable false trails which it is pointless 



939 

to follow, now that considerable light has been shed 
on the existence in neolithic times of a humid 
Sahara, which for several millennia sheltered cattle- 
owning pastoralists who came from the east of 
Africa and are most probably the ancestors of the 
Fulani. Until quite recently, ignorance of the 
Sahara's climatic changes obliged authors to search, 
far or near, for peoples bearing a physical resem- 
blance to the Fulani, and to conjure out of nothing 
a migration route which would have led them to 
Futa Toro in Senegal, the place where they are first 
mentioned in history. The various theories, many of 
which read like pure fiction, can be grouped under 
two headings; non-African origins, and African 



It has been maintained in all seriousness that the 
Fulani were descended from the Tziganes, from the 
Pelasgians, primitive inhabitants of Greece and 
Italy, or from Gauls or Romans who vanished in the 
sands of the desert. In support of the Judaeo-Syrian 
theory, supported as early as the end of the 18th 
century by Winterbottom and Matthews, the 
explorers of Sierra Leone, M. Delafosse in his Haut- 
Stntgal-Niger put forward plausible arguments 
which for long were generally accepted. On this view 
the Fulani would have been the descendants of 
Jews from Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, a party of 
whom are known to have fled into the desert after 
the great Roman persecution of 115 A.D. Travelling 
by way of Fezzan, Air and Macina they would have 
reached the region between upper Senegal and the 
Niger, occupied by the ancient kingdom of Ghana. 
Tauxier, writing with merciless accuracy, has 
disproved this theory. 

The supposed Indian origin of the Fulani has been 
upheld by many writers, including Faidherbe and 
Binger. It has been reinforced by the linguistic 
theories of which Mile. Homburger has made herself 
the ardent propagandist, arguing as she does a 
relationship between the Dravidian languages and 
certain African languages such as "Serer-Peul", a 
relationship rejected by most writers. Finally 
Etienne Richet, in a lengthy study entitled Peuls de 
I' A damaoua, has adduced evidence of anthropological 
and sociological similarities between the Fulani and 
the ancient Iranians. 

Two original African stocks have been invoked as 
representing the ancestors of the Fulani. The closest, 
geographically speaking, is the most difficult to 
defend. It seems clear that the Fulani are not Arabo- 
Berbers, as Cortambert, F. Dubois and C. Monteil 
have maintained — Monteil claiming that the Fulani 
are the descendants of the Honainen, mentioned by 
al-Bakrl as the grandchildren of the soldiers sent in 
734 by the Umayyads against the kingdom of 
Ghana. The Nubian-Ethiopian origin seems much 
more worthy of consideration. It has moreover been 
supported by the greatest number of authors. 
Mollien, the first of these, in his Voyage dans I'in- 
terieur de I'Afnque aux sources du Senegal et de la 
Gambie, 1818, sees a resemblance between the 
features, character and customs of the Fulani and 
those of the Barabra of Nubia; he makes them a 
race of red Ethiopians. Barth (1855) is inclined to 
admit that the Fulani occupied western Africa prior 
to the expansion of the Berber people; he likens the 
Fulani to the Pyrrhi Aethiopes of Ptolemy, Ethiopians 
burnt to a copper-red colour. Coming from the east 
of Africa, the Fulani would have passed by southern 
Morocco (approximately 150 B.C.) and then, under 
pressure from the Arabs (from about 132/750), 
would have reached Senegal, occupying the region 



of Futa Toro. This theory was supported (1868) by 
F. Mfiller, who connects Fulfulde, the language of 
the Fulani, with Nuba in Kordofan, relates the 
Fulani to the Nuba or Nuba-Fula people, and 
supposes that the Fulani occupied North Africa, 
displacing the Berbers. Two years later Schweinfurth 
associated the Mangbutu (Mombutu) with the 
Pyrrhi Aethiopes, and found in them a resemblance 
to the Fulani, whose origin he too placed in eastern 
Africa. This theory was to be revived some years 
later (1881) by O. Lenz in his book on Timbuctoo; 
he makes the Fula and Nuba halfway between 
negroes and Mediterranean Hamites. About the 
same time E. H. Haeckel (1868-75), in his Natiir- 
liche Schopfungsgeschichte, takes the hair as a fun- 
damental criterion, and this leads him to group 
together the Nubians and Fulani who are euplo- 
comes (soft curly hair) like the Dravidians and 
Mediterranean peoples. He states: "the Nubians, 
properly so-called, inhabit the regions of the Upper 
Nile (Dongola, Changalla, Barabra, Kordofan), from 
there the Fula or Fellata migrated towards the west 
and at present occupy a large zone in the western 
Sahara between the Sudan in the north and the 
negro peoples in the south". Haeckel, then, makes 
the Nubians and Fulani a race half-way between 
whites and negroes. He includes in these groups 
some lower Hamites or Cushites (Beja, Galla, Somali, 
Danakil), some elements of which have more negro 
features than the Fulani, who resemble rather the 
upper Hamites (Egyptians and Berbers) and Semites 
(Jews, Arabs, Indo-Europeans). Topinard (1879) says 
that the Fulani are a red people; he connects them 
with the Barabra and with the Ahmar described by 
Caillaud in the course of his explorations in Upper 
Egypt (1823). 

Hartmann (1876) makes the Fulani some kind of 
sub-Ethiopians, a kind of cross between Berbers and 
Nigritians. Quatrefages and Hamy, in their Crania 
Ethnica, indicate a close connexion between Fulani 
and Egyptians, at the same time suggesting that 
there are fairly clear signs of admixture with negro 
peoples. Machat, in 1906, revives the theory of 
Dr. Tautain (1895) and of Dr. Verneau showing the 
relationship of the Fulani to the peoples of Upper 
Egypt and Nubia, which was supported by the 
Fulani traditions collected by Olivier de Sanderval 
and Hecquard. Verneau's view was confirmed by 
Dr. Lasnet, who however connects the Fulani with 
the 240,000 soldiers of Psammetichus who in the 
6th century B.C. left Egypt for Nubia; reaching the 
south of Morocco they would have become the leuco- 
Ethiopians and would then have moved down 
towards the Senegal. Deniker, in Les races et les 
peuples de la terre, after studying the Ethiopians or 
Cushito-Hamites, points to a Fula-Sande group 
derived from a mixture of Ethiopian and Nigritian 
stock. He makes the Fulani essentially Ethiopians 
with Berber or negro admixture. Montandon, in his 
Ologonese humaine, places the Fulani among the 
pan-Ethiopian races (which include also Barabra- 
Danakil-Somali, Abyssinians-Galla-Masai, Badima), 
while Chantre, in his contribution to the study of the 
human races in western Sudan, connects the Fulani 
with the Beja in view of the following common 
features: colour of skin, which is not black but 
reddish; texture of hair, which is not woolly; the 
principal indices, which often differ only by a few 
millimetres; numerous common ethnographic fea- 
tures. Seligman, in his book The races of Africa 
(1936), attempts to show that the Fulani are really 
Hamites and not Semites or Judaeo-Syrians, that 



the Fula language is an ancient Hamitic language, 
sister of the language whose impact on the previously 
Sudanic-like negro languages produced the Bantu 
languages. 

On the other hand it can now be said that the 
Fulani are not the very tall men which the statistics 
of Verneau (1.74 m./5 ft. 8'/ t ins.) and Deniker 
(1.75 m.) seem to suggest. Although they are taller 
than the average of negro peoples, they are shorter 
than the Wolofs. The height of the Fulani varies 
according to the region, and the samples taken give 
from 1.67 to 1.71 m. (5 ft. 5 3 /r7'/j ins.) for men and 
1.54 to 1.62 m. (5 ft. o»/ 2 -3 3 /. ins.) for women. 

The Fulani are distinctly dolichocephalic (average 
horizontal cephalic index 74) and platyrrhine 
(average nasal index 96). These anthropological data 
enabled Dr. Verneau (1897-99), Deniker (1926) and 
Seligman to confirm the theory according to which 
the Fulani would be lower Hamites, Ethiopians. 
Tauxier, to whom we are indebted for the most 
complete study of the Fulani which has so far 
appeared, notes in this connection that they have 
always given the name Phouta or Fouta (Futa) to the 
countries where they have settled — Futa Toro, 
Futa Djallon, Futa Damga (west of Nioro Circle) — 
and he underlines the similarity of these names to 
the country of Phout (Fui) in Nubia. A. Berthelot 
accepts that the Fulani are Ethiopians, and 'red'- 
skinned, and relates them to the Barabra and the 
Bakkara, and makes their language a negro language. 
Recently Sheykh Anta Diop has supported this 
Nilotic origin by identifying the only two typical 
totemic proper names of the Fulani with two equally 
typical concepts in Egyptian metaphysical beliefs, 
Ka and Ba. On the other hand he supports the close 
connexion existing between the Fula language, 
Wolof and Serer. 

The Fulani have no firm national tradition about 
their origin. They regard themselves sometimes as 
Arabs, sometimes as a cross between Jews and 
Arabs, sometimes as a cross between Arabs and 
negroes, or between Moors and negroes. In actual 
fact the legends most often date from the time of 
islamization, and on that account lack any kind of 
validity. 

Saharan route of the Fulani. Although a 
number of authors have found little difficulty in de- 
monstrating the relationship of the Fulani to the Nu- 
bians and the Masai, the difficulty of crossing the Sa- 
hara seems to have caused a diversion of the Fulanis' 
supposed migration routes, so that almost all are 
made to pass by the northern fringe of the desert, 
in fact all over the Maghrib. It is only quite recently 
that the explorsr H. Lhote has thrown light on a 
probable travel route across the present desert, a 
route possible in the climatological conditions of the 
3rd millenium B.C. when the terrain of the Sahara 
resembled the present-day Sudan zone. More than a 
thousand rock engravings and paintings are found 
at intervals across the desert from Egypt to the 
Atlantic, depicting cattle and their herdsmen. The 
cattle portrayed belong to two types — longhorns, 
and the short-horned cattle, long ago domesticated 
in Egypt, which are indigenous to Africa. The style 
recalls that of Egypt — in the way the animal is 
depicted in profile and full face, and in the presence 
of a spherical object or appendage between the 
horns, suggestive of a cult identical with or related 
to the cults of Egypt; the human figures, with the 
hair fashioned into a crest, are identical with those 
of present-day Fulani women. 

The tools (polished axes, grinding stones) which 



have been recovered near these engravings, particu- 
larly at Mertutek (Hoggar) date from the neolithic 
period (perhaps the 3rd millennium B.C.). It was 
probably around this period that these pastoralists 
left the Upper Nile and moved into a pastoral zone 
covering the presentday Sahara. They reached the 
Djebel Wenat, where some very beautiful paintings 
of cattle have been found, then reached the Fezzan, 
travelled along the high plateaus of Tassili, passed by 
way of the deep canyons to the Hoggar uplands, and 
then followed the valleys of the Hoggar and of Wadi 
Tamanrasset. They passed to the north of Adrar 
of the Ifoghas, and were unknown in Mauretania 
until quite recently (their art, probably learnt in 
Egypt, had been lost). These movements are ex- 
plained by the search for new pastures and the need 
for continual change of habitat that is typical of 
nomadic peoples, and also no doubt by the gradual 
encroachment of desert conditions through changes 
of climate; a contributory factor may also have been 
the importance which the Fulani attach to their 
cattle. 

The vexed question of the origin of the Fulani is 
as hotly disputed by Africanists today as it has been 
in the past. Various branches of science — anthropo- 
logy, ethnology, linguistics and prehistory — have made 
their contribution towards the solution of the pro- 
blem. The type of the hair (Haeckel, Chantre), 
cranial indices (Tautain, Verneau, Deniker, Chantre), 
linguistic relationships (Mile. Homburger, F. Miiller, 
Seligman), and the ethnographic context (Lhote, 
Tauxier) constitute a body of important presump- 
tions concerning the common origin of these light- 
skinned peoples who set out from the vicinity of 
Ethiopia with their cattle, one group going west, 
the other south, peacefully driving their cattle 
before them. Often superior to the tribes they 
encountered, they became their advisers and their 
suppliers of meat — a luxury commodity — and then, 
when circumstances were favourable, they seized 
power, assisted by the fact that they were also 
skilled horsemen, and that in the open country of 
the savannah regions cavalry is always at an 
advantage, especially when the opposing infantry is 
equipped only with bows and featherless arrows, 
which make it impossible to shoot any distance. 

Spread of the Fulani. Futa Toro plays an 
important role as the centre of the dispersal of the 
Fulani elite. It is nevertheless probable that where 
these elite have succeeded in establishing their 
authority, it is to a large extent due to the presence 
on the spot of other Fulani elements. It was probably 
in the nth century that the Fulani established 
themselves at Futa Toro, and from there, at the time 
of the fall of the empire of Ghana, they spread 
towards the east by way of Dhombogo and Kaarta, 
where several clans remained. Others mingled with 
the settled Mandinka population to produce the 
Fulanke. A fairly large group remained up to the 
end of the 14th century at Kaniagan (south of 
Bagana), whence Maga Djallo and his companions 
were to set out at the beginning of the 15th century 
in the direction of Macina. Another section was to 
settle at Bakunu. Another contingent from Futa 
Toro was to reach the northern shore of Lake Debo 
and then, after crossing the Niger at Say, was to 
settle first in the Sokoto area and then in Adamawa. 
From Macina were to come the Fulani of the Dogon 
country and of Liptako, as well as those of Futa 
Diallon. By intermarriage with the local negro 
population the Fulani were to produce six groups 
which were to be of considerable importance in the 



evolution of the African continent. The alliance of 
Fulani with Serer was to produce the Tukulors, the 
Futanke and the Toronke, important groups in the 
valley of the Senegal. Crossed with the Mandinkas 
they formed the groups of Fulanke who number 
more than 100,000 in the vicinity of Bafoulabe, 
Kita, Bougouni and Sikasso. The Khassonke and 
Wassulonke, who evolved during the 18th century 
at Wassulu, were to distinguish themselves during 
the struggle against the Fulani of Futa Djallon (1760). 

The supremacy of the Fulani. The Fulani 
are normally regarded as fierce Muslims. Although 
this is true in general, nevertheless numerous pagan 
customs still persist, and their influence made itself 
felt at first in a pagan reaction against Islam. 

The details of the spread of the Fulani have often 
been described. At first, as guardians of the cattle 
which farmers entrusted to them, they played an 
important economic role, and were fully conscious of 
their intellectual superiority. As a second step, the 
owner was reduced to slavery and his land and cattle 
appropriated. The extraordinary spate of Fulani con- 
quests of the 18th and 19th centuries is then readily 
understandable. The extent of the Fulani dispersion 
from Chad to Senegal made it possible for them to 
rely on the support of one or other of the various 
Fulani communities. Moreover their herds constitu- 
ted a reserve of food which gave them great mobi- 
lity. Richard Mollard has rightly observed that the two 
most important Fulani empires, Adamawa and Futa 
Diallon [qq.v.], were also two mountain massifs — 
"two well-watered castles, the two Fulani bastions; 
it was certainly the mountains which provided this 
race with the ideal base for establishing a solid 
empire, thanks to the nature of the terrain, the 
climate, the suitability of its soil for pasture as well 
as for agriculture, and the miserable standard of 
living of the pagans, who were powerless to resist, 
having nothing to offer in opposition, and who were 
often quite ready to admire, to submit and to serve". 
From Futa Toro the Fulani, or at least their ruling 
classes, set out towards the east, establishing king- 
doms as they went, first Macina, then Futa Djallon, 
and the Fulani empires of Nigeria and of Adamawa. 

The Fulani empire of Macina was created by 
one Maga Djallo at the end of the 14th century. 
The Ardos resisted the assaults of the Songhai of the 
Sonni Ali Ber, and then came under the control of 
the Moroccans of Gao before finding themselves, at 
the end of the 18th century, caught between the 
Bambara invasions and the Tuareg expansion. It was 
left to Seku (Sheku) Hamadu (1810-44) to carry the 
Fulani empire of Macina to the peak of its power, 
thanks to the rise of Usman ( c Uthman) dan Fodio. 
He established his capital at Hamdallahi ("Praise to 
God" ) in 1 8 1 5 , and organized his states into provinces, 
with governors, judges, and fiscal and military 
systems. Seku Hamadu succeeded in converting to 
Islam almost all the Fulani and a considerable 
number of Bambara. After Hamadu Seku (1844-52), 
who established his suzerainty over Timbuctoo, his 
son Hamadu Hamadu (1852-62) saw his army of 
50,000 warriors defeated at Sayewal at the hands of 
Al-Hadjdj 'Umar's 30,000 Tukulors. Hamdallahi 
was conquered and Hamadu Hamadu put to death. 
Two years later his brother Ba Lobbo was to succeed 
in defeating the Tukulor army while Al-Hadjdj 
c Umar was to escape into the cave at Degembere 
with his reserves of ammunition. But Tidjani, 
nephew of Al-Hadjdj c Umar, soon took his revenge. 
From that time on, the Tukulors were to be in control 
of Macina. 



The Fulani (Fulas) of Futa Djallon came from 
Macina around 1694, led by a certain Sa c Idi. As soon 
as the Fulani felt themselves strong enough, they 
were to seize power and wage a succession of holy 
wars against the pagans. The position of Almamy 
was to be held alternately by the Sorya and Alfaya 
families; the most famous of the Almamys was 
Ibrahim Sori Maudo (1751-84). 

The Fulani of Nigeria are among the best 
known of the Fulani groups, owing to the many 
written documents which have survived. Here, as 
elsewhere, a distinction is made between the Fulanin 
Gida, who took up a sedentary life and often inter- 
married with the local inhabitants, and the Bororo, 
who still faithfully tend their herds of cattle. In 
contrast to many of the Filanin Gida, the Bororo are 
tall and slim, with a proud carriage, light skin, 
aquiline nose and thin lips. According to the Kano 
Chronicle, it was in the 18th century that the Fulani 
came from Futa Toro to establish themselves in the 
kingdom of Gobir, one of the Seven Hausa States. 

Usman dan Fodio (born 1754) set himself up in 
opposition to the Emir of Gobir, declared a holy 
war, defeated the Emir's troops (21 June 1804), 
and had himself proclaimed Sarkin Musulmi ("Com- 
mander of the Faithful"). Thereafter he extended his 
authority over Kano, where he established his base 
while his armies overthrew the Hausa states of 
Katsina, Kebbi, Nupe, Zaria and Liptako. Usman 
attacked Bornu (1808), although its people too were 
Muslims, but was repulsed by El-Kanemi (1810) and 
died some time afterwards in a fit of religious 
frenzy. Abdullahi, brother of Usman, received the 
western provinces (with their capital at Gwandu) 
while Muhammadu Bello, son of Usman, was given 
the recently-conquered eastern provinces and 
established himself at Sokoto. Under Muhammadu 
Bello the Fulani empire of Nigeria reached its 
zenith, and included the emirates of Katsina, Kano, 
Zaria, Hadejia, Adamawa, Gombe, Katagum, Nupe, 
Ilorin, Daura, and Bauchi. In spite of his many 
campaigns, Muhammadu Bello found time to write 
works of history, geography and theology. Unfortu- 
nately, he had the papers and documents of the 
Hausa kingdoms destroyed. In 1824 and 1826 he 
received the British explorer, Lieutenant Clapperton, 
and sent a friendly letter to the King of England. 

Usman dan Fodio and Muhammadu Bello 
established an administration based on the Kur'anic 
law. The nature and value of a person's property 
determined the tax (zakat) he was to pay. The ruler 
was assisted by a Waziri (chief minister), a Ma'aji 
or Ajiya (treasurer) and a Sarkin Dogarai (chief of 
police). The corruption in this administration at 
the end of the 19th century was to be a factor 
favourable to the establishment of British rule. 

The Fulani empire of Usman dan Fodio was to 
give rise to two important chiefdoms, those of 
Liptako and of Adamawa. 

The Fulani influence at Liptako had started with 
the Ferobe ("those who have abandoned their land"), 
who came from Macina under the leadership of 
Birmali Sala Pate. The latter established himself at 
a place called Bayel near Wendu, and began to win 
over to Islam the Fulani who had been in the 
country for a long time. The success of Usman dan 
Fodio enabled the Fulani to rise against the Gurma 
chiefs. The battle of Dori (April 1810), which resulted 
in seven deaths among the Gurmas, established the 
authority of Brahima bi Saidu, grandson of Birmali. 
Salifu bi Hama, who succeeded him in 1817, founded 
Dori. He overcame the Gurmas in the south, but had 



to abandon the north (Udalam) under pressure from 
the Tuaregs. The reign of Sori (1832-61) was to be a 
glorious one, but was marred in 1840 by the bloody 
battle of Kassirga (1900 dead). After Lieutenant 
Monteil had passed through Liptako (1891), and the 
Tukulor troops of Ali Bori had been wiped out by 
Capt. Blachere at Duentza (1894), Bubakar Sori 
signed a protectorate treaty with Capt. Destenave 
(4 October 1895). 

The Fulani of Adamawa entered the plateau 
areas during the 18th century in search of pasture. 
They settled peacefully among the Bata, Fali, 
Mundang, and Masa tribes in the neighbourhood of 
the Mandara mountains and the Benue, Mayo Kebbi 
and Logone rivers. 

At the call of Usman dan Fodio the Fulani seized 
power. Summoning the influential malams (those 
learned in the Kur'an) to Kano, Usman dan Fodio 
appointed Adama of the Ba clan to carry his 
standard. Adama installed himself at Yola and 
conducted a campaign against the pagans of the 
north "for the faith, not to capture slaves and fill 
his harem". Meanwhile he attacked the chief of 
Mandara before carrying the war against the hill 
tribes of the Fali, Mufu and Daba. He overcame the 
Mundang of Mayo Kebbi, and to the south he fought 
the Vere, Chamba, Namchi and Doni. After the 
wars of liberation were to come the wars of domi- 
nation. The captives made a plentiful labour force 
for tilling the soil. The Fulani themselves settled in 
the best-situated villages abandoned by the pagans. 
On the death of Adama (1847) the conquest was 
practically complete. The country which had up to 
then been called Fombina ("the South") in the Fula 
language became Adamawa ("country of Adama"), 
subdivided into several chiefdoms (such as Banyo, 
Garua, Ngaundere, Rai and Tibati), whose incum- 
bents received their appointments from Yola. 
After the death of Adama the chiefdoms of Ngaun- 
dere, Tibati and Bindere became independent, 
while the southern areas remained vassals of Yola. 
The half-century between the death of Adama and 
the arrival of the Germans saw the gradual attrition 
of Yola's authority. The emirs were much more pre- 
occupied with possible profitable raids and the sale 
of slaves to the Kanuri, the Arabs and the Hausas, 
than with converting the infidels. 

Society and language. Fulani society is 
marked by a caste system consisting of nobles 
(rimbe, plural of dimo), serfs (rimaibe), traders and 
herdsmen (jawambe), singers and weavers (mabube), 
leatherworkers (sakebe or gargassabe), woodworkers 
(laobe or sakaebe) and smiths (wailbe). 

The language of the Fulani (Fula, Fulani, Pular, 
or Fulfulde) has been the subject of a great many 
studies. Once considered a Hamitic language related 
to the Berber dialects, Fula is generally grouped 
with the languages of Senegal and Guinea. It is a 
language with characteristic noun classes, marked 
by sets of suffixes and a pronominal system of an 
alliterative type. The roots are mainly monosyllabic 
roots consisting of closed syllables (consonant + 
vowel + consonant) like those of the other languages 
in the area. The verbal system is very rich, and 
includes three voices — active, middle and passive — 
and various moods and aspects. 

Bibliography: Crozals, Les Peuhls, Paris 1883; 
Lhote, Les Peuls, in Enc. col. et mar., mars 1951, 
66-9; Mischlich Adam, Vber die Herkunft der 
Fulbe, in MSOS, 1931; Tauxier, Moeurs et histoire 
des Peuls, Paris 1937; Vieillard, Les Peuls dans 
notre Afrique, in Monde colonial illustri, no. 174 



FULBE — FUNDJ 



(1937), 288-9. — Futa Toro: Kane Issa, Histoire 
et origine des families du Fouta Toro, in Ann. et 
mimoires du GEHSAOF, 1916, 325-44; K. Wolff, 
Die Entstehung der friihen Ful Staeten in Senegam- 
bien, Beitrage zur Gesellungs und Vblkerwissenschaft, 
in Festschrift Thumwald, Berlin 1950, 435-45. — 
Macina : Amadou Hampate Ba and Jacques Daget, 
L'empire peul du Macina, 1955. — O. Durand, 
Mcsurs et institutions d'une famille Peule du cercle 
de Pita, in BSCHSAOF, 1929, 1-85; G. Vieillard, 
Notes sur les Peuls du Fouta Djalon, in Bull. 
IFAN, Janv.-av. 1940, 85-210.— Futa Djallon: 
Demougeot, Notes sur V organisation politique et 
administrative du Labi, Paris 1944; Bouche and 
Mauny, Sources ecrites relatives a I'histoire des 
Peuls et des Toucouleurs, in Notes africaines, July 
1946, 7-9; Monteil, Reflexions sur le probUme des 
Peuls, in Journal de la Soc. des africanistes, 20-2- 
1950, 153-92. — Niger: M. Dupire, La place du 
commerce et des marchis dans I'iconomie des Bororo 
nomaies du Niger, IFAN 1962. — Nigeria: 
Palmer, An early conception of Islam (tambiku'l 
Ikhwan), in J AS, xiii (1913), 407, xiv, 53, Western 
Sudan history, The Raudhatu'l Afkari, xv (1915), 
251; Brass, Eine neue Quelle zur Geschichte des 
Fubreiches Sokoto, in Isl., x; Meek, The Northern 
Tribes of Nigeria, i (esp. 23, 28, 94) and ii, Oxford 
1925; E. Arnett, The rise of the Sokoto Gulani, 
Kano 1930; C. N. Reed, Notes on some Fulani 
Tribes and Customs, in Africa, v (1932), 422 ft.; 
D. J. Stenning, Savannah nomads, London and 
Oxford 1959. — Adamawa: S. Passarge, Adama- 
wa, Berlin 1895; A. H. M. Kirk Greene, Adamawa 
past and present, London 1958; K. Strumpell, Die 
Geschichte Adamauas, in Mitt, der geog. Gesellschaft, 
Hamburg 1912; E. Richet, Les Peuls de I'Ada- 
maoua, Paris 1922; R. M. East, Stories of old 
Adamawa, Lagos and London 1934; Pfeffer, Die 
Djafun Bororo (thesis), Berlin 1936; P. F. Lacroix, 
Matiriaux pour servir a I'histoire des Peuls de 
VAdamawa, in £tudes camerounaises, sept.-dec. 
1952, 361, mars-juillet 1953, 340; J. C. Froelich, 
Le commandement et V organisation sociale chez Us 
Foulbi de I'Adamaoua, in £tudes camerounaises, 
sept.-dec. 1954, 91. — Language: Faidherbe, 
Essai sur la langue poul, Paris 1875; Reichardt, 
Grammar of the fulbe language, London 1876; 
Grimal de Guiraudon, Manuel de la langue Foule, 
Paris-Leipzig 1894; Westermann, Handbuch der 
Fulsprache, London 1909; Meinhof, Das Ful in 
seiner Bedeutung fiir die Sprachen der Hamiten, 
Semiten und Bantu, in ZDMG, 1911; Gaden, Le 
Poular, dialecte peul du Fouta sinigalais, Paris 1912; 
idem, Proverbes et maximes peuls et toucouleurs, 
Paris 1932; Klingenheben, Die Prdfixklassen der 
Ful, in Zeits. fiir eingeborenen Sprachen, xiv 
(1923-4), 189-222, 290-315; idem, Die Permutation 
des Biafada und des Ful, ibid., xv (1924-5), 180-213, 
266-72; F. W. Taylor, Fnlani-Hausa readings, 
Oxford 1929; idem, Fulani-English dictionary, 
Oxford 1932; L. Homburger, Elements dravidiens 
en peul, in J A, 1948, 135-43; idem, Les reprisen- 
tants de quelques hiiroglyphes igyptiens en peul, in 
MSLP, xxiii/5, 277-312; Lavergne de Tressan, Du 
langage descriptif en peul, in Bull. IFAN, xiv/2 
(1952), 636-59; H. Labouret, La langue des Peuls 
ou Foulbi, Dakar 1952; F. W. Taylor, A grammar 
of the Adamawa dialect of the Fulani language, 
Oxford 1953; Engestrbm Tor, Apport a la thiorie 
du peuple et de la langue peule, Stockholm (Statens 
Etnografiska Museum) 1954; Labouret, La langue 
des Peuls ou Fulbe, Lexique francais-peul, Mim. 



IFAN, Dakar 1955; D. W. Arnott, The middle 
voice in Fula, in BSOAS, xviii (1956), 130-44; 
idem, Some features of the nominal class system of 
Fula . . ., in Afrika und Ubersee, xliii (i960); 

A. Klingenheben, Die Sprache der Ful, Hamburg 
1963 ; M. Dupine, Peuls nomades. Etude descriptive 
des WoSaabe du Sahel Nigirien, Macon 1963. 

(R. Cornevin) 
FCMAN (FOmin), the centre of a region 
(kasaba) in Gilan [q.v.], with (in 1914) about 27,000 
inhabitants (mostly ShI'i Persians: Gflak) whose 
main crops are rice and some cereals, and who also 
produce silk. The town of Fuman is 21 km. W.S.W. 
of Rasht [q.v.] on the right bank of the Gazrudbar 
and it contains some four hundred houses. Before 
the advent of Islam in the 7th-8th century it was 
the seat of the DSbuya dynasty [q.v.] and for part 
of the middle ages it was considered the most 
important town in Gilan. After the country's 
surrender to the Mongols in 1307, the prince of 
Fuman, said to be a descendant of the Sasanids and 
the only Shafi'i of the country, was, after the ruler 
of Lahidjan [q.v.], the Ilkhan's confidant in Gilan. 
Fuman was then the centre of a fertile agricultural 
area and an important market for trading, and was 
considered the focal point of the Daylam [q.v.] 
district. (The assertions of al- c UmarI, in Notices et 
extraits des mss. de la Bibliotheque du Roi, ed. M. E. 
Quatremere, xiii, Paris 1838, 298, and Hamd Allah 
Mustawfi, Nuzha, i (text), 162 = ii (trans.), 159, 
contradict each other in many respects). Thereafter, 
until 980/1572-3, Fuman remained the capital of the 
Biya-pas ("beyond the river") region (see gilan) 
which was then transferred to Rasht. After that 
Fuman was the centre for two important clans, one 
of which migrated to Rasht in the nineteenth 
century. Today Fuman is a small country town of 
little significance. 

Bibliography : H. Louis Rabino di Borgomale, 
Les provinces caspiennes de la Perse: le Gutldn, 
Paris 1917, 160-81 (history, geography, statistics, 
list of place-names); idem, Rulers of Ldhijdn and 
Fuman in Gildn, in JRAS, 1918, 85-100 (for the 
period from 1349 to 1628); Le Strange, 174; 

B. Spuler, Mongolen", 109, 166, 545. 

(B. Spuler) 
FUMANl [see c abd al-fattah fumanI]. 
FUNBI Origins : The Fundi appear in the early 
ioth/i6th century as a nomadic cattle-herding 
people, gradually extending their range down the 
Blue Nile from Lul (or Lulu), an unidentified district, 
to Sinnar. The foundation of Sinnar, subsequently 
the dynastic capital, is ascribed to 'AmSra Dunkas 
in 910/1504-5. Hypotheses of remoter Fundi origins 
among the Shilluk, in Abyssinia, or among the 
Bulala, are unsubstantiated, while the Sudanese 
tradition of their Umayyad descent is a typical 
device for the legitimation of a parvenu Muslim 
dynasty. 

Fundi kings to the establishment of the 
Regency. (Dates from the list obtained by James 
Bruce at Sinnar in 1772: Bodleian Library, Oxford, 
MS Bruce 18(2), ff. 54b-57a). 

1. 'Amara I (Dunkas) b. c Adlan, d. 940/1533-4. 

2. Nayil b. 'Amara, d. 957/1550-1. 

3. c Abd al-Kadir I b. c Amara, d. 965/1557-8. 

4. c Amara II (Abu Sikaykin) b. Nayil, deposed 976/ 
1568-9. 

5. Dakin b. Nayil, d. 994/1585-6. 

6. Dura b. Dakin, deposed 996/1587-8. 

7. Tayyib b. c Abd al-Kadir, d. 1000/1591-2. 

8. Onsa I b. ?, deposed 1012/1603-4. 



944 FU 

9. c Abd al-Kadir II b. Onsa, deposed Radjab 1015/ 
November 1606. 

10. c Adlan b. Onsa, deposed 1020/1611-2. 

11. BadI I (Sid al-Kawm) b. <Abd al-Kadir, d. 1025/ 
1616-7. 

12. Rubat b. BadI, d. 1054/1644-5. 

13. BadI II (Abu Dikan) b. Rubat, d. 6 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 
1091/28 December 1680. 

14. Onsa II b. Nasir b. Rubat, d. 21 Ramadan 110.3/ 

15. BadI III (al-Ahmar) b. Onsa, d. 20 Rabl c II 1128/ 

16. Onsa III b. BadI, deposed 1 Sha'ban 1132/8 June 

17. Nul, d. 16 Shawwal 1136/8 July 1724*. 

18. BadI IV (Abu Shulukh) b. Nul, deposed 2 Rama- 
dan 1175/27 March 1762. 

* Date of accession of the next king. 



The early monarchy : The northward expan- 
sion of the Fundi coincided with a southward Arab 
expansion under the hegemony of the 'Abdallab 
dynasty, connected with the overthrow of the 
Christian Nubian metropolis of Suba. The two 
migrations clashed near Arbadji, the southernmost 
'AbdallabI town, on the Blue Nile, in the Gezira 
(Djazlrat Sinnar, Dj. al-H6i, Dj. al-Fundj). The 
victorious Fundi chief became the high-king in a 
partnership with the 'AbdallabI skaykh, whose own 
authority extended over the nomads and sedentaries 
northwards as far as the Third Cataract. The tra- 
dition that 'Amara Dunkas and the 'AbdallabI 
eponym, c Abd Allah Djamma', combined to over- 
throw Suba is probably a face-saving legend. The 
Fundi rulers were early converted to Islam. 'Amara 
had Muslims in his retinue, and his second successor, 
c Abd al-Kadir I, bore a Muslim name, and one which 
furthermore indicates the predominant role of the 
Kadiriyya tarifra in the Fundi territories. Our prin- 
cipal source of information on the islamization of the 
region, the Taba^dt of Wad Dayf Allah, says little 
about the true Fundi lands, but is almost wholly 
concerned with the 'AbdallabI districts further north. 
The dual hegemony was subjected to severe strain, 
when the c Abdallabi chief, 'Adjib al-Mandjilak (i.e., 
"the Viceroy"), revolted against 'Adblan b. Onsa, 
and was killed in the battle of Karkudj (1016/1607-8). 
Peace was restored, and the 'Abdallabi dynasty 
re-established, through the mediation of an influen- 
tial Kadirl shaykh, Idrls b. Muhammad al-Arbab 
(d. 1060/1650). 

The heyday of the monarchy: Fundi power 
expanded across the southern Gezira into Kordofan, 
west of the White Nile. The first stages were the 
conquest of the isolated hills of Sakadi and Muya, 
ascribed to c Abd al-Kadir I, c. 1554, and the securing 
of the crossing of the White Nile, at this time domi- 
nated by the Shilluk, a pagan tribe, celebrated for 
their canoe raids. BadI II defeated the Shilluk, 
and raided the Muslim hill-state of Takali, south of 
Kordofan, which he laid under tribute. The command 
of al-Ays, the Fundi bridge-head on the White Nile, 
was always held by a member of the royal clan. The 
plains of Kordofan proper, ruled by the Musabba'at, 
kinsmen of the Kayra dynasty of Dar Fur [?.«.], 
were not conquered until the reign of BadI IV. Fundi 
expansion eastwards was barred by Abyssinia. Two 
Fundj-Abyssinian wars are recorded: the first 
(known only from Abyssinian sources) in 1618-9, 
and the second in the reign of BadI IV, culminating 
in a Fundi victory (Safar 1157/March-April 1744). 
The auriferous district of Fazughll [q.v.] on the upper 



Blue Nile, under a tributary chief, formed the 
southern limit of the Fundi dominions. 

The monarchy in decline: On several oc- 
casions the dynasty showed signs of internal weak- 
ness, as indicated by the deposition of monarchs. 
Bruce's statement that there was a custom of 
regicide (Travels, vi, 372) seems, however, to be a 
gratuitous generalization. A development of great 
importance was the creation of a slave-army by 
BadI II, as a consequence of his successful raid in 
the west. These slaves, augmented by natural 
increase, purchase and further raiding, were settled 
in villages around Sinnar. Their existence created 
tensions between the dynasty and the Fundi warrior 
aristocrary. BadI III overcame a revolt of the Fundi 
of Sinnar and al-Ays, who were supported by the 
c Abdallab, but his son, Onsa III, was deposed after 
the "troops of Lulu" had marched northwards on 
the capital. This marked the end of the direct male 
line. The next king, Nul, was connected through his 
mother with the former royal clan, the Onsab; there 
are other traces of matrilineal customs. Under Nul 
and his son, BadI IV, the monarchy temporarily 
regained strength. BadI was, however, overthrown 
by his victorious commander and viceroy in Kordo- 
fan, Muhammad Abu Likaylik, who profited from 
the renewal of dissensions between the king and the 
Fundi aristocracy to march on Sinnar and depose 
BadI. Although the succession of Fundi monarchs 
continued, power now passed to Abu Likaylik and 
his clan as hereditary regents. This indicated the 
revival of a submerged element in the population, 
which had been overwhelmed by the Arab and 
Fundi migrations: Abu Likaylik is described as 
belonging to the Hamadj (i.e., autochthons), or as a 
Dia'ali (i.e., an arabized Nubian; see pja'aliyyun). 
After his death, the Hamadj wasted their power in 
struggles over the regency. Simultaneously with the 
Fundi, the c Abdallab were in decline. Their old 
capital, Karri, was abandoned for Halfayat al-Muluk 
in the eighteenth century, while Arbadji was 
devastated in 1198/1783-4. The arabized Nubians 
along the main Nile revived, notably the Sa c adab 
Dia'aliwun. whose capital, Shandi. was the commer- 
cial metropolis of the Nilotic Sudan in the early 
nineteenth century. A dynasty of religious teachers, 
the Madjadhlb, made al-Damir into a centre of 
learning and devotion. The Shaykiyya, who had 
revolted against the c Abdallab in the reign of BadI I, 
formed an independent and predatory confederacy. 
At the time of the Turco-Egyptian invasion of 182 1, 
neither the c AbdallabI chief, Shaykh Nasir, nor the 
last Fundj ki n g» Bad! VI, offered any resistance to 
the forces of Muhammad 'All. 

Bibliography: R. L. Hill, Bibliography of the 
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . . . to 1937, London 1939; 
Abdel Rahman el Nasri, Bibliography of the Sudan 
1938-1958, London 1962; Makkl Shibayka (ed.), 
TaMkh muluk al-Suddn, Khartoum 1947; al- 
Shatir Busayll c Abd al-Djalil, Makh(utat kdtib al- 
shuna fi ta'rikh al-saltana al-sinndriyya wa 'l-iddra 
al-misriyya, n.p., n.d. [? Cairo 1961]; Muhammad 
[wad] Dayf Allah b. Muhammad al-Dja'all al- 
Fadli, K. al-Tababat, (a) ed. Ibrahim Siddik 
Ahmad, Cairo 1348/1930, (b) ed. Sulayman ba'ud 
Mandll, Cairo 1349/1930; H. A. MacMichael, 
History of the Arabs in the Sudan, Cambridge 1922, 
especially ii, 217-323, 354"438; S. Hillelson, Sudan 
Arabic texts, Cambridge 1935, 172-203; idem, 
Tabaqdt Wad Dayf Allah, in Sudan Notes and 
Records, vi/2 (1923), 191-230; idem, David 
Reubeni, an early visitor to Sennar, ibid., xvi/i 



FUNDJ — 

(i933). 55 _ 66; Ewliya Celebi, Sey&hatname, x, 
Istanbul 1938; James Bruce, Travels to discover the 
source of the Nile', Edinburgh 1805, vi; J. L. Burck- 
hardt, Travels in Nubia, London 18 19; Na'um 
Shukayr, Ta'rikh al-Suddn, Cairo [1903], ii, 71-107; 
J. S. Trimingham, Islam in the Sudan, London 
1949; O. G. S. Crawford, The Fung kingdom of 
Sennar, Gloucester 1951; al-Shatir Busayli 'Abd 
al-Djalll, Ma'dlim ta'rikh Sudan wddi al-Nil, Cairo 
1955; Sadik Nur, Land tenure during the time of 
the Fung, in Kush, iv (1956), 48-53; P. M. Holt, 
A Sudanese historical legend: the Fun] conquest of 
Suba, in BSOAS, xxiii/i (i960), 1-12; idem, Funj 
origins: a critique and new evidence, in Journal of 
African History, iv/i (1963), 39-55. 

(P. M. Holt) 
FUNDUS, a term of Greek origin (TravSoxetov) 
used, particularly in North Africa, to denote hostel- 
ries at which animals and humans can lodge, on the 
lines of the caravanserais or khans of the Muslim 
East. These hostelries consist of a court-yard sur- 
rounded by buildings on all four sides. The ground 
floors are generally used to house animals from 
caravans or owned by passing country-dwellers and 
also, when necessary, any merchandise stored there 
until such time as the consignee takes delivery of it. 
On the upper floor (usually there is only one), small 
rooms give onto a gallery which encircles the entire 
building; it is here that people are housed. The gate 
to the street is large enough to allow fully laden 
animals to pass through. In the Middle Ages it often 
happened that in towns open to international trade 
funduks were placed at the disposal of European 
traders on a "national" basis. Thus in Tunis there 
was a funduk for the French, in Cairo a funduk for 
the Venetians, etc. These hostelries were patronized 
almost exclusively by the poor; others went out of 
their way to avoid the discomfort, the contiguity 
with the animals, and in many cases the presence 
of prostitutes who often occupied several rooms 
where they entertained travellers. 

In Morocco the same type of building is often used 
by a group of merchants to store their goods. The 
court-yard is shared, and each participant hires one 
or more rooms; in this type of funduk there is no 
stabling for animals. It also happens that groups of 
artisans, often of the same trade, hire the various 
rooms in a funduk and use them as a collective 
workshop, each member remaining fully independent. 
In general, funduks belong to the administration 
of religious estates (hubus or awkaf) which let them 
out to the various occupants, in the case of traders 



1 the c; 



e of a 



hostelry. 

Some of these buildings are of artistic merit, such 
as the funduk al-nadjdidrin and the funduk al- 
Ti((awniyyin in Fez. Funduks for storage or work- 
shops are found in the industrial or trading quart rs, 
while funduks in the sense of hostelries are usu lly 
situated near the main gates of the town. 

Bibliography : No work exists dealing sp ci- 

fically with funduks. Information relating to l'ez 

will be found in R. Le Tourneau, Fls avant le 

Protectorat, Casablanca-Paris 1949, in particular 

190-1 and 317-8. See also joUn. 

(R. Le Tourneau) 

FUNFKIRCHEN [see pecs]. 

FUNG [see fun£i]. 

FUR [see farw]. 

al-FURAT is the Arabic name of the Euphrates, 
called in Sumerian bu-ra-nu-nu, Assyr. Purdtu, 
Hebrew JT1B, Syriac 1.^9; in Old Persian it was 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



L-FURAT 945 

called Ufrdtu, whence Middle Persian Frat, modern 
Turkish Ftrat. On the name and the notices by 
authors in antiquity see Pauly-Wissowa, art. 
Euphrates (by Weissbach). The main stream of the 
Euphrates is formed by the junction of two principal 
arms, now called the Karasu (length 450 km./28o 
miles) and the Murad-suyu (650 km./4oo miles). The 
former, though the shorter, long bore (and in its 
lower course still bears) the name Furat/Firat, and is 
regarded by all the sources as the true Euphrates. Its 
headwaters are the numerous streams flowing down 
from the high mountains (Gavur-dagi [see gawur 
daghlari], Dumlu-dagi, Karga-Pazari-dagi) north of 
the plain of Erzurum. According to the Arab geo- 
graphers, it rises in the district of Kalikala [see 
erzurum] in a mountain called 'frdkhs or some such 
name, in which we may probably recognise the 
IlapuiiSpT)? opo? of Ptolemy, and the Mons Paruer- 
des of the Tabula Peutingeriana. For the upper course 
of the river we have the very important description 
by Ibn Serapion, whose text has been published with 
translation by G. Le Strange in JRAS, 1895; his 
statements were discussed by Tomaschek in a 
valuable paper in the Festschrift fur H. Kieperl, 1898, 
137-49- 

After leaving the marshy plain of Erzurum, the 
river flows westward through narrow gorges, ac- 
companied by the line of the Erzurum-Erzincan- 
Sivas railway; the Erzurum-Trabzon road turns off 
north-west at Askale. Twisting south, between the 
ranges of the Cemal and Kesis daglan, it is joined by 
the Tuzla cayi flowing from Tercan [see terdjan], and 
then turns west again to emerge into the plain of 
Erzincan [see erzindjan] (altitude 1200 m./4000 ft.). 
From there it proceeds through very steep and 
narrow gorges along the foot of the northern slopes 
of the Monzor range. Turning sharply south-east, it 
receives the Caltisuyu (the Nahr Abrik of Ibn 
Serapion), which flows from Divrigi [see diwrI6I] to 
meet it, passes by Egin [q.v.] /Kemaliye, receives the 
Arabkir-suyu (the Nahr Andja of Ibn Serapion), and 
some 12 km./8 miles north of Keban, at an altitude 
of 680 m./2230 ft., is joined by the other main arm, 
the Murad-suyu. 

The Murad-suyu rises in the volcanic Aladag and 
Tenduriik mountains north of Lake Van, and flows 
westwards to traverse the Kara-kbse plain. Alter- 
nately passing through steep gorges and across 
broad plains [see malazgerd, tutak], it enters from 
the north the extensive plain of Mus [see mush], 
where it is joined by the Kara-su, flowing westward 
across the plain from the Nemrut-dagi. Now ac- 
companied by the recently constructed railway to 
Elazig, it again flows westward, receiving from the 
left the Harinket-deresi, which drains the plain of 
Elazig, and from the right the Peri-suyu, before 
uniting with the Kara-su. 

The name of the Murad-su in antiquity was 
Arsanias, whence the Nahr Arsanas of the Arab 
geographers, who describe it as rising in Tarun 
(Taraunitis) and being joined near Shimshat 
(Arsamosata) by the Nahr al-Dhi'b and the Nahr 
Salkit (identified by Tomaschek with the Peri-suyu 
and the Sungut-suyu respectively). The origin of the 
name Murad is not clear; the hypotheses of Belck 
(Beitrdge zu alien Geographic, i, 45), that it may be a 
popular etymology for Purat, and of Tomaschek 
(Sasun, 17), that it rises in a mountain region once 
called Murad, should be mentioned. Although some 
European maps and text-books refer to the Murad-su 
as the 'Eastern' and the Kara-su as the 'Western' 
Euphrates, such a distinction is not known in the 



946 



region itself (and indeed the 'Western' Euphrates 
is in fact the northern arm). 

The united stream flows, first south-west and then 
south, past Hisn al-Minshar (the modern Musar; 
Khalll al-Zahiri, Zubda, 52: Mflshar), receives on the 
west bank the Kuru-cay or Hekimhan suyu (probably 
the Nahr Diardiarivva of the mediaeval geographers, 
reported as flowing from the neighbourhood of 
Kharshana) and the Tohma-cayi. The latter (the 
mediaeval Nahr Kubakib), into which flow the Nahr 
Kurakis = Sultan-su and the Nahr al-Zarnflk, which 
irrigates by a branch Malatya, is crossed by the 
celebrated Kantarat Kubakib, the modern Kirk- 
gozkoprii (see Yorke in the Geogr. Journ., viii (1896), 
328 f.; Lehmann-Haupt, Armenien, i, 486). On the 
east bank the Euphrates receives the Nahr Henzit 
(Biiyiik cay) which still preserves the name of the 
capital of the old district of Anzitene and then, 
breaking through the south-east Taurus, enters the 
cataract district, which it does not leave till it 
reaches Gerger (see von Moltke, Briefe uber Zustdnde 

in der Tiirkei", 305-10; E. Huntington in 

Zeitschr. fiir Ethnol., 1901, 183-204; idem, in Geog. 
Journ., xx (1902), 175-200). 

Leaving the mountainous country the Euphrates 
divides the flat tableland into two, and forms the 
boundary between Syria and al-Djazira below 
Samsat (Sumaysat [q.v.]). At first the river continues 
as before to receive important tributaries from the 
west only. Of these the most important is the Nahr 
Sandja or Nahr al-Azrak crossed by the famous 
Kantarat Sandja, which, like the Singas of the 
ancients (cf. R. Kiepert, Formae Orbis Antiqui, text 
to sheet 5, p. i"), is certainly to be identified with 
the Goksu. Below the rocky citadel of Kal'at al-Rum 
and the crossing of al-Bira, of particular importance 
since the Crusading period [see bIredjik], there is 
still the Nahr Sadjur (modern Turkish Sacur) to be 
mentioned. Immediately after being crossed by the 
bridge of the Aleppo-Baghdad railway, the river 
crosses the frontier into Syria. 

In the early middle ages Djisr Manbidj (the later 
Kal'at al-Nadjm) and al-Rakka [q.v.] were the main 
places where the Euphrates could be crossed. After 
Meskene [see balis], where it swings eastwards, the 
river is navigable. It passes the battlefield of Siffln 
[q.v.], near which is the ruined citadel of Dia'bar 
[q.v.] with the reputed tomb of Suleyman-shah 
[q.v.]. Below al-Rakka the al-Ballkh, rising in the 
neighbourhood of Harran, joins the mainstream at 
al-Rakka al-Sawda', the modern ruins of al-Samra' 
(see Sarre and Herzfeld, Archdol. Reise im Euphrat- 
und Tigris-Gebiet, i, 160). The now very important 
crossing at Dayr al-Z6r has only become of any con- 
siderable importance in modern times. The place 
held by Dayr al-Zor at the present day was held in 
ancient times by Circesium, the Karkisiya of the 
Arabs, at the mouth of the Khabur; this river 
flowing from Ra's al-'Ayn formed, according to the 
repeated statements of the Arab authors, with its 
tributary the Hirmas from Tur c Abdin, a navigable 
connection between the Euphrates and the Tigris in 
the Nahr al-Tharthar, but, according to the in- 
vestigations of Sarre and Herzfeld, op. tit., i, 193, 
this must be regarded as more than doubtful. The 
r61e of the ancient Circesium and of the modern 
Dayr al-Z6r was filled, particularly in the later 
middle ages, by the double village of Rahba, or the 
Daliya of Malik b. Tawk, a little south of the former, 
the lands of which were watered by the Nahr Sa'id 
canal, which began before Karkisiya, and was called 
after Sa'id b. <Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (see Peters, 



Nippur, i, 127, 129-30; A. Musil, In Nordweslarabien 
und Sudmesopotamien, p. 10 of the reprint from 
the Anzeiger der phil.-hist. Kl. der Wiener Akad., 
1913,1). 

While modern geographers make Southern Meso- 
potamia begin at 'Ana [q.v.], already celebrated in 
the Middle Ages for its palms, where the cultivation 
of the datepalm in the Euphrates valley begins, the 
writers of the Middle Ages as a rule place the 
boundary between al-DjazIra and al-'Irak much 
farther south on the Euphrates. The Ceri Sa c de, 
which was led out of the Euphrates downwards from 
Hit, the course of which can be traced almost as 
far as Nadjaf (see Peters, Nippur, i, 166 and 313; 
ii, 327; Meissner, Von Babylon nach den Ruinen von 
Ijtra und guarnaq, 15), has unfortunately not been 
sufficiently explored to establish its real importance 
and relation to Khandak Sabur (see Noldeke, 
Sasaniden, 57; Le Strange, 65) and to the Wadi c Ayn 
al-Tamr (see Musil, op. cit., n), which, according 
to Ibn Serapion, flowed into the Euphrates at 
Hit. According to Ibn Serapion a canal, called Nahr 
Dudjayl, flowed from the Euphrates at al-Rabb 
(7 farsakh from al-Anbar, 12 from Hit; possibly the 
Umm al-Ru'us in Peters, Nippur, ii, 45) to the 
Tigris near 'Ukbara (see Streck, Die alte Landschaft 
Babylonien, 24), but it seems soon to have been 
silted up, as the later geographers give this name 
only to a Tigris-canal perhaps originally connected 
with the ancient Dudjayl (see Streck, op. cit., 33 






f.). 



Only a little farther down, at al-Anbar [q.v.] 
begins the great network of the Babylonian canal 
system, which dates back into remote antiquity, 
although only the remains survive today. The usual 
identification of the four main canals, Nahr c Isa, 
Nahr Sarsar, Nahr al-Malik and Nahr Kutha, led 
from the Euphrates, is given in the article didjla 
(for details see Streck, op. cit., 25 f.), but in the 
present state of our knowledge of the country it can 
only be regarded as highly hypothetical. Shortly 
after they branch off, the Euphrates divides into two 
arms. The western arm, according to the Arabs the 
river proper, which flows past Kiifa and is finally 
lost in the Batiha [q.v.] west of Wasit, is also called 
al- c Alkami, which Musil (op. cit., 13) has found east- 
north-east of Karbala 1 as the name of an ancient 
canal, perhaps forming the northern continuation of 
the modern Hindiyya arm. The eastern arm of the 
Euphrates, which even in Ibn Serapion's time held 
a greater stream of water, for the first part of it 
corresponded to the bed of the modern Euphrates 
proper until, since about 1889, the river began to 
pour the greater part of its waters into the Hindiyya 
arm (see Peters, Nippur, ii, 335; Sachau, Am 
Euphrat und Tigris, 38 and 57), again divides near 
Babil. Its eastern arm, which flows to the Tigris 
under the names Nahr Sura al-A<la, Sarat al-Kabira, 
Nahr al-NIl, or Nahr Sabus via the town of al-Nil 
(the modern Niliyya), has been thoroughly explored 
by Sarre and Herzfeld (Arch. Reise, i, 234-47) except 
for its eastern extremity. How far the western 
branch, the Nahr Sura al-Asfal, corresponds to the 
modern course of the Euphrates or the canals Shatt 
al-Nil, Shatt al-Kar, which flow to the southeast, 
cannot yet be exactly determined. This arm likewise 
ends in the great swampy area of the Batiha, the 
outflow from which, Nahr Abi '1-Asad, which runs 
into the Didjlat al- c Awra J , may in a way be described 
as the lower course of the Euphrates. 

This is in its main outlines the picture drawn by 
the Arab geographers, particularly Ibn Serapion. 



That the details which they give us are not always 
intelligible is not remarkable, considering the defi- 
ciencies in our knowledge of the country; that 
contradictions seem to be found in them need not 
cause surprise, when we consider how much the river 
has changed its course, of which the shifting to the 
south in quite recent times of its confluence with the 
Tigris is a striking example (see Geogr. Journ., xxxv, 
ii with map). The Arabs themselves knew of con- 
siderable changes in the course of the Euphrates; for 
example, Mas'udi (Murudi, i, 216) says that in the 
period of Hira's prosperity sea-going ships came up 
as far as Nadjaf in the old riverbed (aW-atlk). A 
detailed account has been given above (s.v.) of the 
Arabs' knowledge of the history of the Batiha, which 
is at the same time the history of the Lower Euphrates. 
It is perhaps evidence of the gradual alteration in 
this area of swamps that, according to certain 
authors (see BGA, iii, 20, note 1; cf. also 
Yakut, iii, 860 f.), an arm of the Euphrates — it can 
only be the Nahr Sura al-Asfal — entered the Tigris 
at Wasit. Not only is the history of the Euphrates in 
antiquity and the middle ages still very obscure, but 
we have only very meagre information regarding the 

Bibliography: The Arab geographers and the 

more important western works are given under 

di djla ; we may here mention as a cartographical 

aid R. Kiepert's excellent Karte von Kleinasien 

(1:400,000). For further details see the separate 

articles. For the course, tributaries, etc. of the 

Euphrates in the modern Turkish Republic, see 

I A, s.v. Firat (by Besim Darkot) and Naval 

Intelligence Handbook, Turkey, 2 vols., 1942-3, 

index. (R. Hartmann*) 

The Euphrates measures 2333 km./i48o miles from 

the confluence of the Karasu and the Murad-suyu to 

Basra. It drains an enormous basin, which is made 

up as follows: Karasu, 21,500 sq. km./8400sq. miles; 

Murad-suyu, 39,700 sq. km./i5,50o sq. miles; the 

Euphrates as far as Djarablus (where it enters Syria), 

96,000 sq. km./37,50osq. miles; as far as c Ana 

(where it enters 'Irak), 229,000 sq. km./89,300 sq. 

miles ; to the point where it enters the Gulf, 444,000 sq. 

km./i73,ooo sq. miles. It must however be realized 

that the greater part of this area is complete desert 

and contributes no water at all to the river. 

The area from which the Euphrates is fed is 
virtually confined to the mountainous area to the 
North, which consists of 82,330 sq. km./32,no sq. 
miles, only some 20% of the total area of the basin, 
80% of which is made up of steppe and desert. 
After it has left the mountains the Euphrates is 
nothing more than an artery for carrying away the 
rains and snows which have fallen in Eastern Turkey. 
Consequently, very soon — from Djarablus, on the 
Turco-Syrian frontier, 1980 km./i230 miles from the 
Persian Gulf — the river begins to dwindle. At Hit, 
its average annual flow is 838 cubic metres/29,595 
cubic feet per second; at Hindiyya, 629 cu. m./ 
22,213 cu. ft.; at Shinafiyya, 573 cu. m./20,236 cu. ft.; 
at Nasiriyya, 458 cu. m./i6,i74 cu. ft. (for com- 
parison, the figure for the Rhine is 2200 cu. m./ 
77,696 cu. ft. per sec; for the Loire, 935 cu. m./ 
33,020 cu. ft.; for the Oder, 510 cu. m./i8,on cu. ft.; 
for the Seine, 485 cu. m./i7,i27 cu. ft.). Between Hit 
and Nasiriyya (680 km./420 miles) the Euphrates 
loses 46% of its water. 

Similarly wide variations are found between 
different years. Although the average annual flow 
at Hit is 838 cu m./29,595 cu. ft. per sec, in 1941, a 
very high year, it rose there to 1140 cu. m./40,26o cu. 



very low year, it fell to 382 c 



ft., while in 1930, 
13,489 cu. ft. 

There are also fairly wide variations between the 
different months of the year. During the hot season 
the flow decreases: (at Hit), August, 354 cu. m./ 
12,501 cu. ft.; September, 293 cu. m./io,347 cu. ft. 
In the autumn it begins to rise again with the first 
rains: November, 433 cu. m./i5,29i cu. ft.; Decem- 
ber, 547 cu. m./i9,3i7 cu. ft.; January, 587 cu. m./ 
20,730 cu. ft., and rises still further during the winter: 
February, 668 cu. 1^/23,590 cu. ft.; March, 962 cu. 
m./33.973 cu. ft.; April, 1880 cu. m./66,394 cu. ft.; 
May, 2230 cu. m./78,755 cu. ft.; June, 1210 cu. m./ 
42,732 cu. ft. Thus 63% of the water carried by the 
Euphrates flows during March, April, May and June 
only, and in May there flows 77s times as much water 
(2230 cu. m./78,755 cu. ft.) as in September (293 cu. 
m./io,347 cu. ft.). 

Especially striking is the rapidity with which the 
average flow declines in the space of two months — 
June and July — and also how late the annual 
maximum flow is reached (in May), whereas in the 
Tigris it appears a month earlier (in April). This is 
explained by the fact that the Euphrates is supplied 
to a large extent by snow which, on the high plateaus, 
does not melt until very late spring. 

In addition to its extreme seasonal variations in 
rate of flow, the floods of the Euphrates are also 
extreme, though much less so that those of the 
Tigris. At Hit on 6 September 1938 a flow of 5200 cu. 
m./i83,645 cu. ft. per sec. was recorded. On such 
occasions the Euphrates would burst its banks and 
spread eastwards as far as the eye could see, reaching 
as far as the suburbs of Baghdad. 

The countries through which the Euphrates flows 
are very varied : the mountains of Turkey, where the 
river is more or less torrential; the Syrian steppes 
of al-Diazira. where it is slightly sunk below the level 
of the surrounding plateau and where the slope 
averages 30 cm. per km. between Djarablus and Hit ; 
Mesopotamia proper, where the slope falls to 10 cm. 
per km. between Hit and Shinafiyya. After Shina- 
fiyya and Nasiriyya the slope practically disappears : 

A very important feature of the geography of 
Mesopotamia is the fact that the Euphrates between 
Hit and Shinafiyya flows at a slightly higher level 
than the section of the Tigris between Baghdad and 
Kut. The northern part of Mesopotamia is thus 
irrigated by canals which lead off from the Euphrates 
to the east and the south-east, and this has been so 
since remotest antiquity (no canal can lead off to the 
west because of the edge of the Syrian plateau), 
while the southern part on the other hand is irrigated 
by canals leading off from the Tigris, the main one — 
practically the only one — being the Gharraf, in 
whose bed the Tigris itself at one time flowed. 

From Samawa to the Shaft al- c Arab, the Euphrates 
clings to the desert plateau, the slope is very slight, 
and the area was formerly filled by the great marsh 
which, according to some sources, appeared in the 
5th century A.D., while others say that it appeared 
at the time of the great flood of 629 A.D. The last 
traces of it are now represented by the no km./ 
70 miles of lake Hammar. 

At all periods embankments have been built to 
combat the floods. Since the building of the Ramadi 
barrage in 1955-6, it has been possible when the 
water level is very high to divert 2800 cu. m./ 
98,900 cu. ft. per sec. in the direction of Lake 
Habbaniyya along a canal 8.5 km./5 miles long and 
210 metres/230 yards wide. In the same year there 



l-FURAT — FURFORIYOS 



was completed on the Tigris at Samarra a similar 
barrage, which is capable of diverting 9000 cu. m./ 
318,000 cu. ft. per sec. towards the depression of the 
WadI Tharthar along a canal 65 km./4o miles long. 
Now, and for the first time in history, Mesopotamia 
is protected from the catastrophe of floods. 

Bibliography: E. de Vaumas, £tudes irakien- 
nes, in Bulletin de la Sociiti de Giographie d'Egypte, 
xxviii (1955), 125-94; idem, Etudes irakiennes 
(2e serie), Le contrdle et I 'utilisation des eaux du 
Tigre et de I'Euphrate, in Revue de giographie 
alpine, xlvi (1958), 235-331; idem, Structure et 
morphologie du Proche-Orient, ibid., xlix (1961), 
226-74, 433-509, 645-739. In these works will be 
found a complete description of the climatology, 
hydrology, structure and relief of the Middle East, 
as well as the relevant bibliographies. 

(E. de Vaumas) 
al-FURAT, BANC [see ibn al-furat]. 
FURPA, a term used interchangeably in Ottoman 
documents and Arabic texts with firda, in reference 
to personal taxes. Attested in Ottoman Egypt after 
about 1775 as one of the many illegal charges im- 
posed on peasants by soldiers of the provincial gover- 
nors, in 1792 this tax was legalized under the name 
Firdat al-tahrir, as a comprehensive levy to replace 
all the previous illegal charges. It was not a regular 
imposition, nor was it applied everywhere at the same 
time, but only where and when local authorities 
needed money for special purposes. The total amount 
levied on each village and individual varied according 
to ability to pay and the amount of money needed. 
It was one of the mukhrididt revenues of the Treasury, 
i.e., those collected and spent locally, without being 
sent to Cairo, although they were included in the 
accounts of revenues and expenditures of the central 
treasury. It was also considered to be one of the 
Kushufiyye-i djedid taxes. In 1798, 7,096,194 paras 
were collected in this way, approximately five per 
cent of the total Treasury revenues. In March 1801 
it was abolished by the French, along with most of 
the other taxes inherited from Ottoman times. 

After the departure of the French, Muhammad 
'All restored the firda and changed it into a general 
personal tax, theoretically an income tax (called 
Firdat al-ru'us). This was levied annually on Muslim 
and non-Muslim males alike, with only European 
subjects and natives in the employ of foreign con- 
sulates being exempted. In the large cities, it was 
levied on individuals at a rate of about eight per 
cent of their incomes or salaries, but no one had to 
pay more than five hundred piastres. The tax was 
deducted directly from the salaries of government 
employees and was a major cause of their discontent. 
In the villages and smaller towns, it was levied on 
households, which were divided into three classes 
according to ability to pay. It provided about one- 
sixth of the Treasury's revenues, and was used prin- 
cipally to pay for the expenses of the rapidly ex- 
panding armed forces. The firda was also collected 
in Syria during the period of Egyptian occupation. 
Bibliography: S. J. Shaw, The financial and 
administrative organization and development of 
Ottoman Egypt, 1517-1798, Princeton N.J. 1962, 
92-93 ; idem, Ottoman Egypt in the age of the French 
Revolution, Cambridge Mass. 1964, 124, 146; 
Helen A. B. Rivlin, The agricultural policy of 
Muhammad 'All in Egypt, Cambridge Mass. 1961, 
133; e Abd ■ al-Rahman b. Hasan al-Djabarti, 
'■AQaHb al-dthdr, 4 vols., Cairo 1888-94, ii» 82, 104; 
M. R. X. Esteve, Mimoires sur Us finances de 
VEgypte depuis la conqulte de ce pays par le Sultan 



Selim Ier jusqu'd celle du giniral en chef Bonaparte, 
in Description de VEgypte 1 , Paris 182 1-9, xii, 59, 
61-62, 92, 98; Michel-Ange Lancret, Mimoires 
sur le systeme d'imposition territorial et sur Vad- 
ministration des provinces de VEgypte dans les 
dernieres annies du gouvernement des Mamlouks, 
op. cit., xi, 491; E. W. Lane, Manners and customs 
of the modern Egyptians, London 1954 (Everyman 
ed.), 134, 388, 547-8; A. B. Clot-Bey, Apercu 
giniral sur VEgypte, 2 vols., Bruxelles 1840, ii, 
191-2; c Abd al-Rahman al-Rafi'i, 'Asr Muhammad 
'■AW, Cairo 1951, 629; W. R. Polk, The opening 
of South Lebanon 1788-1840, Cambridge Mass. 
1963, 38, 154-7. (S. J. Shaw) 

FURFCRIYOS, i.e., Ilopipupto?, Porphyry (A.D 
234-about 305) of Tyre, amanuensis, biographer and 
editor of Plotinus, and outstanding as the founder of 
Neoplatonism as a scholastic tradition. The philo- 
sophical syllabus common in Arabic philosophy is 
ultimately due to him: since his days it became 
customary to use the lecture courses of Aristotle as 
set-books in the Neoplatonic schools of late antiquity 
and to start with the Categories. He himself wrote 
commentaries on Aristotle and Plotinus, which 
seem to have reached the Arabs either in their 
original or in some diluted form. It is not impossible 
that his conviction that Plato's and Aristotle's views 
were basically identical — he wrote a lost work, in 
seven parts, Ilepl tou (xtccv clvai -rt)v IIXaTwvo? 
xal ' ApKmniXou? a'lpcaiv (Suda, s.v. Ilopfpupto?) 
— became of some importance for Muslim philo- 
sophers like Al-Farabi [q.v.] or Ibn Sina {q.v.}. Most 
of his very numerous Greek works are not preserved. 
A long and careful survey of his life and his huge 
literary output, by R. Beutler, is to be found in 
Pauly-Wissowa,Kroll, xliii, 1953, cols. 275-313; it is, 
however, still indispensable to consult in addition 
J. Bidez, Vie de Porpkyre le philosophe nioplatonicien, 
Gand-Leipzig 1914, reprinted Hildesheim 1964, and 
E. Zeller, Philosophic der Griechen, iii/2 4 , 693 ff. For 
a brilliant sketch of the man cf. R. Harder, Kleine 
Schriften, Munich i960, 260 ff. 

A very sketchy Arabic account of Porphyry's 
works is to be found in Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, 253 
(= Cairo ed., 354), cf. Ibn al-Kifti, Ta'rikh al- 
hukanuV, 256 (ed. Lippert); cf. Bidez, op. cit., 54 ff.; 
also F. Rosenthal, Ishdk b. Ifunayn's Ta'rikh al- 
atibbd', in Oriens, vii (1954), 69-79, and F. Gabrieli, 
Plotino e Porfirio in un eresiografo musulmano, in La 
parola del Passato, i, 1946, 338 ff. 

(1) Only one of Porphyry's surviving Greek works 
is preserved in a complete Arabic version as well, the 
Isagoge (cf. Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, IV, 1), 
a rather elementary treatise on logic, which had 
become the first philosophical book to be studied in 
the schools. It became as popular in the Islamic 
world as it had been in Greek and Latin (cf. W. and 
M. Kneale, The Development of Logic, Oxford 1962, 
187 ff.). The translator is Abu 'Uthman al-Dimashki 
(flor. A.D. 900); it can be read in two Egyptian 
editions, both published 1952, by Ahmad Fu'ad al- 
Ahwani, and by c Abd al-Rahman Badawi (Mantik 
Aristu, 1021-68), together with the corrections given 
in S. M. Stern's article on Ibn al-Tayyib's commentary 
on the Isagoge, BSOAS, xix (1957) 419 ff- The 
Isagoge was well known to all the Arabic philosophers, 
from the days of Al- Hindi's [q.v.] First Philosophy. 
Ibn Sina's [q.v.] treatment of its subject matter is 
now available in a critical edition by Dr. Ibrahim 
Madkour and others: Al-Shifd'', La Logique. I. 
L'Isagoge, Cairo 1952. The commentary of Por- 
phyry's work by Ibn Sina's contemporary Ibn al- 



FURFORIYOS — FURKAN 



Tayyib (434/1043) is preserved in the Bodleian MS 
Marsh 28. The 7th/i3th century commentary by 
Al-Abhari (cf. Brockelmann, I s , 609, SI, 841) 
became most popular in later centuries, was in its 
turn frequently commented upon and eventually 
completely replaced the original work. 

(2) Commentaries on Aristotle, (a) The 
Fihrist, 252, 2 (= Cairo ed. 351, 21), refers to a lost 
commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, in twelve 
books (translated by Ishak b. Hunayn), which is 
not mentioned in the Greek tradition but was 
obviously used by Arabic writers. Al-Farabi [q.v.], 
for example, mentions it in the essay on the identity 
of Plato's and Aristotle's views, al-Djam l bayna 
ra'yay al-hakimayn Afldfun wa-Aristu (ed. Dieterici, 
17; ed. Nader, 95, 17): "As Porphyry and many 
commentators after him say". We are not in a posi- 
tion to decide whether he made much use of it in his 
other writings but it is obviously likely. Abu '1-Hasan 
Muhammad al- c AmirI (d. 382/992) refers to Porphyry 
four times by name in his very interesting ethical 
work Fi'l-sa'-dda wa'l-is'-dd (ed. M. Minovi, Wiesbaden 
1957-8); once, p. 53, he mentions the commentary 
expressly while discussing Aristotle's treatment of 
pleasure. The definition of felicity (p. 5) is given 
according to Porphyry; the other references occur 
on pp. 192 and 353, but much more in that 
book may ultimately be derived from this commen- 
tary or from other ethical works by Porphyry. 
Porphyry as an interpreter of Aristotle's ethical 
doctrines is again referred to in the beginning of the 
third chapter of Miskawayh's Tahdhib al-akhldk; 
moreover, chapters 3-5 of the treatise reproduce 
selections from a Neoplatonic commentary on the 
Nicomachean Ethics, and it is an obvious guess to 
think of Porphyry as its author (cf. R. Walzer, Greek 
into Arabic, Oxford 1962, 224 ff.). The possibility 
that the late Greek ethical treatise tentatively 
attributed to Nicolaus of Laodicea and discussed in 
Oriens, xiii-xiv (1960-1), 34 ff. by M. C. Lyons may 
be connected with Porphyry's commentary deserves 
certainly to be considered, (b) A reference to the 
second book of Porphyry's Commentary on Aristotle's 
Physics I-IV (translated by Basil) occurs in Muham- 
mad b. Zakariyya al-Razi [q.v.], Opera philosophica, 
i, 121 (ed. P. Kraus, Cairo 1939). (c) It is very likely 
that Al-Farabi used Porphyry's commentary on the 
LTepl epfi7]veia?; a comparison of his commentary 
(ed. W. Kutsch-Stanley Marrow, Beyrouth i960) 
with the commentaries by Boethius and Ammonius 
and Stephanus may yield interesting results. 

(3) Porphyry's History of Philosophy in four books 
(Greek remnants of it were edited by A. Nauck, 
Porphyrii Opuscula, Leipzig 1886, 3-52) was known 
in Syriac (Fihrist, 245, 12 = Cairo ed., 355) and in 
Arabic (the Fihrist (i, 245) mentions a translation 
of two books by Abu '1-Khayr al-Hasan ibn Suwar). 
The Arabic text of the Life of Pythagoras (Nauck, 
11-52) is accessible in Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, c Uyun al- 
anbd?, ed. A. Mueller, 38, 18-41, 4, and is discussed 
by F. Rosenthal, Arabische Nachrichten ueber Zeno 
den Eleaten, in Orientalia, vi (1937), 43 ff.; F. Rosen- 
thal edited from al-Mubashshir a section of Porphy- 
ry's life of Solon (ibid., 40 f.), and an unknown 
biography of Zeno of Elea (ibid., 30 ff.), which is 
most likely derived from Porphyry's work. Al- 
Biruni, Hind (Sachau, 21-43), seems to refer to this 
book. R. Beutler (op. cit., 287) does not mention the 
Arabic tradition at all. 

(4) The so-called Theology of Aristotle [see 
aristutaus and al-shaykh al-yunanI], a running 
paraphrase of Plotinus, IV 3, IV 4, IV 7, IV 8, V 1, 



949 

V 2, V 8, VI 7, arranged in a systematic order, is 
introduced in its Arabic text as 'the interpretation 
(tafsir) of Porphyry of Tyre'. There is, in my view, 
every likelihood that it must ultimately somehow be 
connected with Porphyry's explanations of the 
Enneads (67to(iv^(jiaTa and xe<pi4Xaia) which he 
mentions in § 26 (1. 29 ft.) of his biography of 
Plotinus. An English translation of the work by 
G. Lewis, arranged in the order of Plotinus' Enneads, 
is to be found in the second volume of P. Henry and 
H.-R. Schwyzer's monumental critical edition of 
Plotinus, Paris-Bruxelles 1959, cf. particularly 
p. XXVI ff. Whether the Epistula de Scientia 
Divina (cf. P. Kraus, Plotin chez les Arabes, in BIE, 
xxiii (1941), 263 ff.) which contains similar extracts 
from Enneads V3, V 4, V 5, V 9 (also translated by 
G. Lewis in the same volume) goes back to the same 
source, is uncertain but it is quite probable. 

(5) A fragment from a treatise On soul was 
published and translated into German by W. 
Kutsch S.J.; Ein arabisches Bruchstueck aus Por- 
phyrias (?) Ilepl ijnjxijs «nd die Frage des Verfassers 
der Theologie des Aristoteles, in Milanges de I' Univer- 
sity St. Joseph, xxxi (1954), 265 ff.; cf. S. M. Stern, 
Ibn Hasday's Neoplatonist, in Oriens, xiii-xiv (1960-1), 
92 and n. 1; P. Merlan, Monopsychism, mysticism, 
metaconsciousness, The Hague 1963, 25 f. It looks as 
if Ibn Sina, Shifa? v, 6 (ed. Rahman, 240, 3 ff. ; ed. 
Bakos, 236) and Ishdrdt (ed. Forget, 180) has either 
this treatise in mind or the 3 A<pop(ial 7tp6<; ra voY]Ta 
(which he seems to quote as the treatise Fi 'l- c akl 
wa'l-ma'-kul in the Ishdrdt) while voicing his 
dissatisfaction with Porphyry's view of the unio my- 
stica (cf. F. Rahman, Prophecy in Islam, London 
1958, 15 ff.). As one 'who is not among the most 
subtle of philosophers' Porphyry is blamed by Ibn 
Rushd, Tahdfut al-Tahdfut, ed. Bouyges 250, 10 ff. 
(cf. van den Bergh, Incoherence . . ., i, 154, ii, 100) 
for his explanation of the cause of plurality. Porphyry's 
view on matter is rejected in the Epitome of Aristotle's 
Metaphysics (Amln, 73), cf. S. van den Bergh, Die 
Epitome der Metaphysik des Averroes, Leiden 1924, 

(6) The Letter to Anebo (recent edition of the Greek 
and Latin fragments by A. R. Sodano, Naples 1958) 
is referred to by al-Mas c udi, Kitdb al-Tanbih wa 
'l-ishrdf, 162, 6 (p. 222 of Carra de Vaux's French 
translation). A rather long fragment of it is quoted 
by al-Shahrastani K. al-Milal wa 'l-nihal, ed. Cureton, 
345 , 8-347 ; German translation by Th. Haarbruecker, 
Religionspartheien, Halle 1850-1, ii, 208 ff.; Italian 
translation by F.Gabrieli, La parola del passato, i, 1946, 
344 ff. Muh. b. Zak. al-Razi wrote a refutation of the 
book. Cf. P. Kraus, Jdbir ibn Hayydn II, in MIE, 
xlv (1942), 128, n. 5. These passages are notmentioned 
by Sodano. 

(7) The great corpus of Alchemy attributed to 
Diabir ibn Hayyan refers to a most probably 
spurious work of Porphyry entitled 'The book of 
Generation', a book in which the creation of artificial 
human beings was discussed at some length. It is 
mentioned neither in Greek nor in Arabic lists of 
Porphyry's works. It is described by P. Kraus, op. cit., 
114 ff., 122 n. 3; cf. E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the 
irrational, Los Angeles 1951,295. (R. Walzer) 

FURGAC [see 'izzet pasha, ahmed]. 

FURKAN, soteriological expression used in the 
Kur'an. The word occurs in various connexions in 
the Kur'an and is usually translated as "discrim- 
ination", "criterion", "separation", "deliverance", 
or "salvation", where it is translated at all. The 
Aramaic word purkdn on which it is modelled, 



means "deliverance", "redemption", and (in the 
Christian sense) "salvation". The Arabic root 
faraka, which must be considered as another element 
in the furkdn of the Kur'an, means "to separate", 
"to divide", "to distinguish". 

Sura VIII, 29 runs: "O believers, if you fear God, 
He will assign you a furkdn and acquit you of your 
evil deeds, and forgive you". In Sura VIII, 41 "the 
day on which the two hosts met" (which must refer 
to the battle at Badr) is described as "the day of the 
furkdn". At the same time it is said that on that 
day something which must be believed in was "sent 
down" to the Prophet. On the five other 
where the word is used it is always in 
with the giving of divine revelation; twice Moses, 
or Moses and Aaron, are named as those who receive 
the revelation (II, 53; XXI, 48); on three occasions 
it is mentioned in connexion with Muhammad and 
the Kur'an (II, 185; III, 4; XXV, 1). 

The difficulty of interpreting these passages 
springs chiefly from the fact that the relationship 
between revelation- writings and f urban is not always 
defined in the same way. In Sura XXV, 1 the 
furkdn seems to be identified with the Kur'an 
(tabdraka 'Uadhi nazzala 'l-furkdna aid '■abdihi li- 
yakuna li'l-'dlamina nadhir an ). Again, furkdn may 
perhaps be identified with the Kur'an in III, 4. 
The phrase wa-anzala 'l-furkdna must then be a 
repetition, since the "sending-down" of the Kur'an 
(and the Torah and the IndjU) have already been 
mentioned in the previous verse (nazzala 'alayka 
'l-kitdba bi 'l-hakki musaddik'" li-md bayna yadayhi 
wa-anzala 'l-tawrdta wa 'l-indjila min kablu hudan 
li'l-ndsi). In XXI, 48 furkdn could mean the Torah 
(wa-la-kad dtaynd Musd wa-Hdruna 'l-furkdna wa- 
diya"" > wa-dhikr°" li'l-muttakU.a). But in II, 53 this 
is hardly possible, for here "the scriptures" are 
named first and then afterwards, in the same 
connexion, the furkdn (wa-idh dtaynd Musd 'l-kitdba 
wa 'l-furkdna la'allakum tahtaduna). The terms used 
in Sura II, 185 are noteworthy (shahru Ramaddna 
'lladhi unzila fihi 'l-kur'dnu hudan li'l-ndsi wa- 
bayyindt'* mina 'l-hudd wa 'l-furkdni). This means 
that the giving of the Kur'an (especially in Ramadan) 
should serve man as moral guidance and as "proof 
of moral guidance and the furkdn". 

Even the early commentators made some effort to 
interpret the term satisfactorily. Since the time of 
Abraham Geiger western orientalists have made 
renewed attempts at interpretation but without 
ever reaching any certain conclusions. See the 
review of the whole question in A. Jeffery, The 
foreign vocabulary of the Qur'dn, Baroda 1938, 225-9. 
W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina, 1956, 
16, is in general agreement with the conclusion first 
reached by Richard Bell in The origin of Islam in its 
Christian environment, 1926, 118-25, and adds: "In 
VIII, 41 'the day of the furqdn, the day the two 
parties met" must be the day of Badr; and furqdn, in 
virtue of its connexion with the Syriac word purqdnd, 
'salvation', must mean something like 'deliverance 
from the judgement'. This being so the furqdn which 
was given to Moses (II, 53; XXI, 48) is doubtless 
his deliverance when he led his people out of Egypt, 
and Pharaoh and his hosts were overwhelmed. Simi- 
larly, Muhammad's furqdn will be the deliverance 
given at Badr when the Calamity came upon the 
Meccans. That was the 'sign' which confirmed his 
prophethood. Perhaps there is also a reference to 
the experience, analogous to the receiving of 
revelation, which Muhammad apparently had 
during the heat of the battle, and as a result of which 



he became assured that the Muslims had invincible 
Divine assistance". 

In his Introduction to the Qur'dn, 1953, published 
posthumously, Richard Bell again tackled the 
question (136 ff., Note on al-Furqdn), and put 
forward an interpretation of the whole subject which 
is both well-considered and complete in itself. 
According to Bell, "it was from Christian sources 
that the word was derived, but Muhammad must 
have associated it with the Arabic root faraqa to 
separate, and taken it to imply the separation of an 
accepted religious community from the unbelievers". 
To explain the places where the furkdn is said to 
have been given to Moses (and Aaron) he adduces 
Sura V, 25, in which Moses, referring to his people's 
hesitation to enter the Holy Land, prays to God: 
"I control no one but myself and my brother: make 
a separation (fa-'fruk) between us and the reprobate 
people". And he accounts for the passages referring 
to Muhammad's own period by reference to the 
situation at (and before) the battle of Badr. "The 
victory at Badr was not only a "deliverance" of the 
small band of Moslems who had gone out with 
Muhammad expecting to intercept a caravan and 
had found themselves face to face with an army. It 
was a final separation between Muhammad's 
followers and the unbelieving Meccans". "Here [in 
the Kur'an passages referred to] then, we have the 
appearance of the Qur'an as the distinctive Scripture 
of an independent Moslem religious community, 
linked with the furqdn, the separation of believers 
from unbelievers, and the assurance of forgiveness 
and acceptance with God; and both linked with the 
day of Badr". 

Bibliography: A. Geiger, Was hat Mohammed 
aus dem Judentum aufgenommen, 1902, 55 f.; 
H. Hirschfeld, New researches into the composition 
and exegesis of the Qoran, 1902, 68; Noldeke, Neue 
Beitrage zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, 1910, 
23 f.; Gesch. des Qor., i, 34, note; A. J. Wensinck, 
Furkdn in EI 1 ; M. Lidzbarski, inZ5,i (1922), 90-2; 
J. Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen, 1926, 
76 f . ; idem, Jewish proper names and derivatives 
in the Koran, in Hebrew Union College Annual, ii 
(1925), 145-227, 216-8; R. Bell, The origin of Islam 
in its Christian environment, 1926, 118-25; A. 
Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of the Qur'an, 
Baroda 1938, 225-9; W. Montgomery Watt, 
Muhammad at Medina, 1956, 16; R. Bell, Intro- 
duction to the Qur'an, 1953, 136-8. (R. Paret) 
al-FURS, one of the two terms used by the Arabs 
to denote the Persians, the other being al-'Adjam 
[q.v.]. In the following lines we shall attempt to show 
in precisely what way the Arabs were acquainted 
with the Persians and their civilization; for other 
aspects, see Iran. 

From remotest antiquity, the Arabian peninsula 
had maintained relations with Persia; shortly before 
Islam, these connexions were established, in the 
north-east, through the Lakhmids [q.v.] of al-HIra, 
and, in the south, through the medium of the Yemen, 
a vassal of Persia, and the Abna? [q.v.] who were 
settled in the country. The word Furs does not appear 
in the Kur'an, which, however, contains a certain 
number of words of Persian origin, but among the 
Prophet's entourage there was in particular one 
Salman al-Farisi [q.v.], whom legend has made a 
figure of outstanding importance. Already in the 
ist/7th century, relations between Arabs and Per- 
sians were strengthened as a result of the Islamic 
conquests, and some elements of Iranian civilization 
penetrated to Mecca and Medina through prizoners 



al-FURS — FUROGH 



951 



who became mawdli [q.v.] and played an essential 
part in the history of the first centuries of Islam. 
However, it was only in the 2nd/8th century, and 
especially through the efforts of Ibn al-Mukaffa c 
[q.v.], that there first began to circulate Arabic 
translations of Pahlavi works such as the Kh"atdy- 
ndmak (K. Siyar muluk al-'Adfam or al-Furs), the 
AHn-ndmak, the Tddj-ndma, etc., which helped to 
nourish the growing adab [q.v.] and Arabic historio- 
graphy, and later served as a source for Firdawsi 
(see F. Gabrieli, L'opera di Ibn al-Muqaffa c , in RSO, 
xiii/3 (1932), 197-247)- 

The dissemination of these translations and of the 
works they inspired coincided with the accession and 
rise of the c Abbasid dynasty, which drew closer to 
Persia and, through its officials, increased Iranian 
influence to the point when it sometimes gives the 
impression of being heir to the Sasanids (cf. D. 
Sourdel, Vizirat, passim). It is unnecessary to dwell 
here on the considerable importance of the kuttdb 
who, while attempting to acquire Arab culture, 
perceptibly followed the Iranian tradition, nor upon 
the rdle played by the Shu'ubiyya [q.v.] in the shaping 
of Islamic civilization. 

What must be noted is the introduction into Arabic 
historiography, from the end of the 2nd/8th century 
or beginning of the 3rd/9th, of the history of Persia 
in the form of monographs (al-Haytham b. c Adi, 
Abu c Ubayda, etc.) which, together with the trans- 
lated sources, were to serve as the basis for "univer- 
sal" history. From then onwards historians writing 
in Arabic, among whom Iranians are not uncommon, 
were able to plan and write universal history, to 
include first the Biblical data and the legends trans- 
mitted by non-Muslims, representing a kind of 
scriptural history from Adam to Jesus Christ and 
then to Muhammad; then a summary of the actual 
or legendary events that had occurred since the 
earliest times in non-Arab countries now under 
Muslim rule; and finally the history of Islam up to 
the writer's own period. Muslim Spain and the 
Maghrib are somewhat neglected by the eastern 
historians, who on the other hand are better informed 
on the subject of Egypt, and in particular Persia. 
Basing themselves in this way on translations from 
Pahlavi, on previously published monographs and 
occasionally on traditional accounts transmitted 
orally, authors such as al-Tabari, al-DInawari, 
al-Ya'kflbi, Ibn Kutayba, al-Mas c udI, al-Tha c alibI 
and Hamza al-Isfahani devoted one or several 
chapters of their works to the ancient history of 
Persia, from Kayumarth to the last Sasanid sovereigns 
who were conquered by the Arabs, though not with- 
out falling into various errors which derive from the 
state of the sources used, or from accepting legends 
and myths handed down by tradition as authentic 
historical facts. Thus al-MasSidl, for example 
(Murudf, trans. PeUat, i, 197 ff.), enumerates the 
mythical Kayanids, and then passes immediately 
to Alexander and Darius (Dara [q.v.]), ignoring the 
Achaemenids who preceded him or, rather, confusing 
them with the "kings of Babylon", deals cursorily 
with the Arsacids (Muluk al-tawdHf [q.v.]), but is 
happier to dwell on the Sasanids, with whom he is 
obviously more at his ease. 

It is very natural that the Sasanids should be the 
most familiar to the Arabs, and Arab sources have 
provided the historian of the dynasty, A. Christensen, 
with a large part of his documentation (see L'Iran 
sous les Sassanides*, Copenhagen 1944, 59-74); this 
work deals partly with the historical facts properly 
speaking, and partly with Persian society, especially 



with the religions of Persia, which seem to have been 
fairly well known. While the glories of the Sasanids 
provided the Shu'ubiyya with something to boast 
about without fear of contradiction, those who up- 
held the supremacy of the Arab element found in 
Mazdaism and Manicheism arguments against this 
same Sku'-ubiyya. In fact, the Persian religions were 
known only rather superficially, but we do know that 
the system of the kishwdrs which inspired the division 
of the world made by the Arab geographers [see 
djughrafiya] was familiar to al-Djahiz (see TarW, 
ed. Pellat, index) who, what is more, was acquainted 
with certain other details of Mazdaism and Maniche- 
ism. Incidentally, for him there were only four civi- 
lized nations on earth — the Arabs, the Indians, the 
Byzantines and the Furs (al-Akhbdr, in Lughat 
al- ( Arab, ix, 174 ff.) and it is a matter of surprise to 
him that these last, so brilliant in other respects, 
should have accepted certain religious practices, 
allowed incestuous unions, worshipped fire, etc. 
We may feel sure that, in private conversations, these 
questions must have given rise to passionate dis- 
cussions. A little later S5 c id al-Andalusi, who acknow- 
ledged that eight nations "were distinguished for 
their taste for things of the mind", the Indians, 
Persians, Chaldeans, Greeks, Rum, Egyptians, Arabs 
and Israelites, attributed to the Persians "a marked 
taste for the art of medicine and a profound knowledge 
of astrology and the influence of the stars on the 
sublunary world" (K. Tabakdt al-umam, tr. R. 
Blachere, Paris 1935, 49-52). Ibn al-Nadim, in the 
Fihrist, gives some particulars concerning the re- 
ligions of Persia, but the Arabic author best ac- 
quainted with these questions certainly seems to be 
al-Shahrastanl, who drew upon the early sources and 
gave a comparatively objective account. 

It must not be forgotten that the Arabic translation 
of Kalila wa-Dimna [q.v.] can be regarded as one of 
the first monuments — if not the first — of simple 
prose, and that adab, which is the core of secular 
prose literature, is a product of Iranian influence. 
The early authors who sought to achieve a balance 
between the component elements of Arabic culture 
took pains to restrict borrowings from Iranian 
civilization, but they were unable to prevent the 
Arabs from adopting and handing down with 
marked pleasure those traditions that had most 
impressed them. The names of emperors like Ardashir 
or Anushirwan, even though obscured in the mists of 
legend, were well known to the authors who delighted 
in reproducing passages from the testaments [ ( ahd) 
of Persian sovereigns, and, thanks to the adab which 
popularized the figure of Buzurgmihr [q.v.], gave 
the whole nation a reputation for wisdom and po- 
litical adroitness, at least at a time when the Shu'ubl 
threat had been removed. 

Bibliography: it is hardly feasible to give a 
restricted bibliography of the subject dealt with 
in the above article, since it would mean listing 
all ancient works which mentioned the Persians. 
.We confine ourselves therefore to referring to the 
articles 'ad^am, Iran and shu'ubiyya, and also 
to the works of M. Inostranzev, Iranian influence 
on Moslem Literature, i, trans. G. K. Nariman, 
Bombay 1918 and R. N. Frye, The heritage of 
Persia, London 1962, 234 ff. (Ch. Pellat) 
FtiRSTENSPIEGEL [see siyasa]. 
FURC c [see fikh, usul]. 

FURt? GH . the pseudonym of two Persian poets : 
(1) Abu '1-Kasim Khan, younger son of Fath C AH 
Khan Saba, poet laureate at the court of Fath C A1I 
Shah Kadjar, was regarded as one of the scholars of 



FUROGH — FUROSIYYA 



his time and had been well educated. He spent some 
time in Mashhad in the civil service and, after the 
crown prince 'Abbas Mirza had visited the region, he 
entered his service, principally as a poet. Later he 
returned to Tehran where he retired from public life 
and lived until the end of the 19th century. 
(2) Muhammad Mahdi ibn Muhammad Baghir 
IsfahanI lived until the time of Muhammad Shah 
Kadjar (1250-64/1834-48) and wrote a most interesting 
work on the Siydk numerals, mathematics, calli- 
graphy, weights and measures, contemporary cur- 
rencies and accountancy, entitled Furughistdn, 
dedicated to the Grand Vizier Hadjdji Mirza Akasi. 
The author of the Madjma'- al-Jusahd' (ii, 396-9), 
who included some of his poems, referred to him 
incorrectly as Furugh al-Din, and said that he was 
born in Tabriz in 1223/1808, had a good education 
from the age of seven, entered the service of the 
crown prince 'Abbas Mirza and his eldest son 
Farldun Mirza, travelled in Adharbaydjan and Fars, 
finally settled in Tehran where he entered the 
finance department, and wrote various works in- 
cluding the SafidHf al- c dlam and the Tadhkirut al- 
shabdb ("Recollections of youth"), a kind of auto- 
biography in which he included poems in Arabic and 
Persian. He also must have lived until the end of the 
19th century. 

Bibliography: Rida-Kuli Khan, Madjma' 
al-jusahd 2 ', ii, 370-82 and 396-9; Furughistdn, 
contemporary manuscript dating from the month 
of Rabi c II 1259/May 1843, in the author's 
possession. (Said Naficy) 

FURCfiH AL-DlN [see furugh 2]. 
FUROGH!. the pseudonym of three Persian 
poets: 1) Mirza Muhammad Isfahan!, a scholar and 
native of that town. During his travels in the middle 
of his life he attached himself to Timur Shah, amir 
of Afghanistan (1187-1207/1773-93) and became his 
court poet. 2) Mirza 'Abbas, son of Aka Musa 
Bistami, born in 1213/1798 in 'Irak, where his 
father was travelling. As a youth he travelled in 
Mazanderan and Karman where he started his 
career as a poet, at first using the pseudonym 
"Miskin". After taking the name "Furughi" he 
came and settled in Tehran, living under the pro- 
tection of his paternal uncle Dust 'AH Khan, the 
court treasurer. After joining the circle of the 
Cishti Sufis, he led a retiring life of devotion and 
died in 1274/1858. Furughi ranks among the best 
modern lyric poets and his ghazals are very popular, 
seven editions of them having been published in 
Tehran. He is regarded as one of the best followers 
of the school of Sa'dl. 3) Mirza Muhammad Husayn, 
son of Aka Muhammad Mahdi Arbab-i IsfahanI, born 
in 1255/1839 in Isfahan where he was educated. As 
a youth he went with his father to India where he 
was engaged in trade. Later he lived in 'Irak, and 
finally went to Tehran where he later served in the 
Ministry of the Press, under the direction of the 
celebrated publicist Muhammad Hasan Khan SanI' 
al-Dawla, later I'timad al-Saltana. He collaborated in 
the publication of both official and unofficial news- 
papers of the time, as well as in some of his director's 
publications. At the end of his life he received the 
honorary title of Dhaka' al-Mulk, a title which was 
granted to his eldest son Mirza Muhammad 'All 
Khan who chose the family name Furughi. The 
father was later appointed head of the translation 
department at court and director of the School of 
Political Science. He died in Tehran in 1908. 
He was very active as poet, writer, translator, 
publicist and journalist. On 11 Radjab 1314/ 



16 December 1896 he started publication in Tehran 
of the weekly Tarbiyat which was influential in 
introducing modern ideas into Iran and which 
appeared until his death. His chief activity was the 
editing of works which his eldest son translated from 
European languages, including La Chaumiere 
Indietme by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Le Tour du 
Monde en 80 Jours by Jules Verne, The Seventh 
Great Oriental Monarchy by George Rawlinson, etc. 
His eldest son started his career by teaching in 
secondary schools in Tehran, was then elected 
Deputy and Leader of the Chamber of Deputies 
during the second legislature. He was nominated 
several times as ambassador, president of the Court 
of Cassation, Minister and Prime Minister. He died 
in Tehran on 5 Adhar 1321 s/27 November 1943. 
From the time of the founding of the Iranian 
Academy (Farhangistdn-i Iran) he was elected a 
member, and ranked among the best writers and 
translators of his day. He translated other works 
into Persian without his father's collaboration, in 
particular Plato's Dialogues, the Discours sur la 
Mithode of Descartes and the Kitdb al-Shifd' of 
Ibn SIna. 

Bibliography: Rida-Kuli Khan, Madjma' al- 
lusahd', ii, 383, 394-6; Diwdn-i Dhaka'' al-Mulk 
Mirza Muhammad }}usayn Khan mutakhallis bi- 
Furughi, Tehran 1325. (Said Naficy) 

FURCSIYYA, (A.), the whole field of equestrian 
knowledge, both theoretical and practical, including 
the principles of hippology (khalk al-khayl), the care 
of horses and farriery (baytara), and siydsat al-khayl, 
a more exact rendering of the concept of "equita- 
tion" in European languages, which can be defined 
as the art of training and using correctly a saddle- 
horse. The words fardsa and jurusa, more rarely 
used, embrace the same group of ideas. If we consult 
the indexes of the classical catalogues, such as the 
Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim or the exhaustive biblio- 
graphies on this subject compiled in the 19th century 
by Hammer-Purgstall, we gain the quite erroneous 
impression that a great number of works still exist 
from which a detailed study of riding could be made. 
However, this excess of material must not deceive 
us, and a critical study of these works reveals little 
material of any use. The Arabic sources can be 
divided according to the following principle of 
classification: works of lexicography and adab, and 
treatises on furusiyya. 

The lexicographical works do not present any great 
interest for those who wish to study riding under the 
Arabs, since they are the work of philologists, not 
horsemen. The earliest, the Kitdb al-Khayl of al- 
Asma'I (ed. Haffner, Vienna 1875), has been widely 
used and drawn upon by later authors; we may also 
mention Hisham al-Kalbi and Ibn al-A'rabl, whose 
works have been partly edited by G. Levi Delia 
Vida (Leiden 1928) and Abu 'Ubayda, said to be the 
author of three works entitled Kitdb al-Sardj, K. al- 
Khayl and K. al-Lidjdm, mentioned in the Fihrist, 
the only parts of which to have survived are certain 
fragments incorporated by al-Dimyatl in his K. Fadl 
al-khayl. The Kitdb al-Ijayawdn of al-Djahiz quotes 
from works no longer extant. It is mainly in texts 
not dealing specifically with horses, like the Risdla 
fi mandkib al-Atrdk of al-Djahiz, that valuable in- 
formation about riding is to be found. 

Treatises on furusiyya appeared at a late stage in 
Arabic literature. The writers of these treatises were 
horsemen, veterinary surgeons or riders who in their 
writings rehashed or quoted passages wholly or in 
part from works of lexicography, as proof of their 



erudition. Very fortunately, they also added some 
pages on riding, in which they describe various 
methods of schooling or the principles to be inculcated 
in the young rider. 

It is essential to make a fundamental distinction 
between two types of riding which co-existed in the 
Muslim world, that practised by the Arabs in the 
desert, and, at a later stage, high school riding. With 
regard to the former, we possess few documents 
which allow us to build up a detailed picture of it. 
It occurred in two basic forms, for war and for racing. 
The tribal warriors, basing their riding on the tactics 
of al-karr wa 'l-farr (attack and flight), practised it 
in small bands of combatants (katlba) using the 
sabre and lance in preference to the bow, their 
handling of the latter being decidedly clumsy in 
the eyes of al-Djahiz, according to whom "the 
KharidjI when fighting at close quarters relies solely 
on his lance. Neither the Kharidjls nor the Bedouins 
are renowned for their skill as archers when mounted". 
The problem of harness is also difficult to solve for 
this period. The poems do not help us to decide what 
sort of saddle was used by the tribal horsemen. 

The question of the bit also arises. From the ac- 
counts of 19th century travellers we know that the 
curb bit was very seldom used by Arab horsemen in 
the East, their preference being for the bozal (rasan). 
We may question whether the word lidi&m, in passages 
of ancient poetry, in fact represents the curb bit. 
Perhaps bits were used for horses only at the time 
of an action, to make it possible to perform sudden 
halts and swift half-turns. We possess fuller docu- 
mentation on the subject of horse-racing (sabk, 
sibdk). Though with certain discrepancies in points 
of detail, writers have described the conditions of 
training (tadmir, idmdr). This lasted from 40 to 60 
days and had the effect of bringing the horses into 
good condition by a suitable system of feeding, while 
excessive weight was sweated off under blankets. 
Horses thinned down in this way were called hindd, 
and the sweat they lost sirdh. In pre-Islamic Arabia, 
races covering very great distances and over varied 
terrain were organized between the horses of the 
different tribes; they were often the source of long 
and bloody wars [see faras], although even at that 
time they were governed by rules. The field (halba) 
consisted of 10 horses; seven tokens were placed on 
lances, in an enclosure into which the first eight 
horses of the field made their way; seven received a 
prize proportionate with their placing, and only 
the eighth received no prize, its admission being purely 
a matter of honour. Each horse was given a name, 
according to the order of finishing, but the list of 
these names varies in the different authors. According 
to al-Mas'fldi, they were: 1st - sdbik, 2nd - muta- 
barriz, 3rd - mudialli, 4th - mufalli, 5th - musalli, 
6th -tali, 7th - murtdh; al-Tha c alibI, following al- 
Djahiz, gives a slightly different list, in which the 
3rd is called mukaffi and the 5th c dtif; the 9th and 
10th have the same names in the two traditions, 
latlm (knocked out of the enclosure by a blow) and 
sukkayt (silenced by shame at finishing last). 

The Prophet did not forbid racing, which fostered 
rivalry between breeders and encouraged the pre- 
servation and increase of the stock of horses so much 
reduced by the wars. During his lifetime he made 
regulations for them, and by his advice tried to 
establish what were for the most part open compe- 
titions by making the size of the field uniform and 
fixing the distance to be covered according to the age 
of the horses taking part. The traditionists relate 
that he organized races at Medina, from Hafya to 



IYYA 953 

Thaniyyat al-Wada c (60 ghalwa) for mature horses 
and from Thaniyyat al-Wada c to Banu Zurayk 
(10 ghalwa) for young horses. He himself presented 
substantial prizes for these competitions and entered 
his own horses. A ruling on the subject of betting 
(rihdn) had been made earlier by the hukamd* of 
the large tribes. As Islam forbade the maysir, the 
ancient custom was slightly modified to include the 
entry, among the other runners, of a horse called 
muhallil or ddkhil, whose owner made no wager and 
gained the whole amount staked by all the other 
entrants if his horse won. 

The wars of conquest waged by the Arabs under 
the first caliphs brought them into contact with 
foreign equestrian traditions and led them to organize 
new tactics for warfare on horseback. Three foreign 
traditions contributed, Iranian, Turkish and Greek. 
The arabized names of the Iranian or Turkish riders 
referred to by the writers of treatises on riding are 
an indication of the part placed by foreigners in the 
elaboration of the new equestrian art. This influence 
made itself felt at a very early period; even in the 
ist/7th century the fata Kanbar, a freedman of C A1I, 
had, according to the traditionists, tamed an un- 
ridable horse belonging to that caliph (see TA, iii, 
507). To make a chronological study would be of 
little interest; indeed, in riding, two series of factors 
alone can determine any radical evolution — the type 
of horse used, and the use of new arms. The first of 
these factors cannot enter into it, even though the 
Arab stock was very largely interbred with the stock 
owned by the conquered peoples [see faras]; the 
resulting progeny was still of the eastern type. The 
second of these factors, which is closely concerned 
with the art of war, had a decisive influence on the 
Islamic equestrian art which sprang up in the 2nd/8th 
century, and whose apogee can be placed in the 
6th/i2th and 7th/i3th centuries in Spain and Egypt. 

Principles of schooling. — Treatises on the 
first steps of dressage for the young colt, started at 
about the age of three, might bear the signature of 
modern riders, but the principles of the more elabo- 
rate schooling are somewhat obscure. The terminology 
is often Turkish or Iranian: the term mayddn must 
represent the "track" and the ndward kazan the 
circular show-ring where the horse is made supple 
(istikhradf al-khayl fi 'l-ndward). The expression 
tartib al-mayddn can no doubt be interpreted in the 
sense of organized movements of groups of horsemen; 
they doubtless served the same purpose as our show- 
ring movements. The riders also alluded to the 
balance between front-quarters and hind-quarters 
(ta'-dll) and to the flexibility of the jaw (<-alk al- 
lididm, lawk al-lididm). The advice given to aspiring 
riders is very simple : the secret of riding rests in the 
firmness of the seat {thabdt) and the evenness of the 
reins (taswiyat al-Hndn). This firmness is acquired by 
riding bare-back {'■ala 'l-'drf), the rider being held 
in position by the grip of his thighs. As soon as he 
has some measure of experience, the young rider 
uses a saddle and fork seat. It will be seen how dif- 
ferent such methods of riding are from that practised 
today in North Africa and Andalusia under the name 
a la jinete. This style is difficult to date and no doubt 
corresponds to the appearance of the cross-bow and 
gun. Writers have drawn up long lists of vices both 
natural and acquired, from which we can give a 
typical list: hariln, a horse that refuses to walk 
forward; rawwdgh, a horse that shies; dxamilh, that 
checks its head to escape from control by the hands ; 
mundzi'-, that takes the bit in its teeth and jerks the 
hands; ramilh, a horse that kicks; khabuf, that 



stamps its fore-feet; shabub, that rears; shamus, 
difficult to mount; kaluk, a horse of uncertain 
temper; nafur, that swerves and shies; finally, the 
(amuh is regarded as impossible to ride. In this list 
the writers have classed faults in carriage of the head 
and withers; the horse with bad head carriage is 
called munahkis. The remedies suggested for dealing 
with these defects are often brutal and 



Harness. — The treatises define with considerable 
precision the nomenclature of the harness (lididm) 
which includes the reins (Hndn), the cheek straps 
(idhdr) and the browband (Hsdb). Three types of 
bits were used— the iwdn, a light bit, the fakk 
a snaffle bit ( ?) and the ndziki, which must be the 
equivalent of the modern bit used by the Spahis. 
The bit is composed of branches (shdkima), mouth- 
piece and port (/a's) and curb-chain (hakma); in 
other cases, this term also denotes the bozal or 
martingale. The saddle used, the so-called saddle of 
Kh w arizm, was flat and wide, the pommel (karbus) 
and cantle (mu'akhkhara) being only slightly raised. 
It rested on a pad (mirshaka), held in position by one 
or two girths (hizdm) and a breast-strap (labab). 
The horse was provided with collars (kildda) and 
cloths {kabush and shalil, the terms tashdhir and 
dfulla being confined to stable-cloths). The war-horse 
wore bardsim (carapaces) and bardki 1 (helmets). 

Throughout the whole of this period (6th-7th/ 
I2th-i3th centuries) equestrian sports were regularly 
practised. Horsemen took part in djertd [q.v.] or 
burdids, a chivalrous duel with lances, in polo [see 
6awgan], venery ((ard) and hunting by means of a 
closed drive (halka), a favourite sport of the MamlOks. 
All these sports provided men and horses alike with 
excellent training for the djihdd. Various works, 
with abundant illustrations, deal with the technique 
of fighting with the sabre and lance, giving detailed 
descriptions of lunges and parries (al-bunud wa 
'l-tabtil); they also describe training in archery with 
a small target (kabak) or with the long bow (niddl). 
All these activities were abandoned in turn, and in 
the modern Muslim world where racing is governed 
by western rules, only the "fantasia" (la'b al-bdrud, 
la c b al-khayl) remains as a last vestige of the eques- 
trian displays of bygone ages. 

Bibliography: see faras. (G. Douillet) 



Int 



e Mamluk State 



Mamluk historical sources contain exceptionally 
ample data on furusiyya exercises. By far the most 
important of these sources is Abu '1-Mah5sin Yusuf 
b. Taghribirdi [?.».], who was the son of a high- 
ranking Mamluk amir and had close links with some 
of the great furusiyya masters of his time. It should, 
however, be stressed that full use of the data fur- 
nished by the historical sources will only be possible 
after a very much more extensive study of Muslim 
military technical literature. 

According to Ibn Taghribirdi, "Furusiyya is 
something different from bravery and intrepidity 
(al-shadja'a wa 'l-ikddm), for the brave man over- 
throws his adversary by sheer courage, while the 
horseman {fdris al-khayl) is one who handles his 
horse well in the charge (karr) and the retreat 
(farr) , and who knows all that he needs to know about 
his horse and his weapons and about how to handle 
them in accordance with the rules known and 
established among the masters of this art" (Nudjum, 
ed. Popper, vi, 445). This is undoubtedly an excellent 
definition of the strict technical meaning of the term 
furusiyya. In everyday use, however, the distinction 



between furusiyya and shadid'-a (or ikddm) had be- 
come blurred, and Mamluk historians confuse them 
frequently. Sometimes, though very rarely, furusiyya 
was even used in the meaning of 'high moral charac- 

In most cases the term furusiyya does not appear 
independently, but in conjunction with another word. 
The most common combinations are funun al-furu- 
siyya and anted 1 al-furusiyya, i.e., the 'branches' 
or 'kinds' or 'arts' of the military exercises. Sometimes 
the word funun appears alone in the sense of funun 
al-furusiyya. The expression funun al-Atrdk in the 
same sense is rather rare. The expression fann al- 
furusiyya (in the singular) is not very common. 
The term Him ('science') al-furusiyya is rare in 
Mamluk historical sources, but frequently found in 
some of the technical military treatises. The combi- 
nation anwd' al-maldHb or anwd' al-maldHb (the 
'branches of games') in the meaning of anwd'- al- 
furusiyya is quite common. Mastery of the furusiyya 
exercises constituted a prerequisite for the Mamluk 
horseman. These exercises (or high proficiency in 
them) were sometimes called kamdldt ('perfections', 
'accomplishments') or faddHl ('excellent qualities' 
or 'virtues'). 

In any study of the furusiyya training, special 
attention must be paid to the condition of the 'hippo- 
dromes' (mayddin, sing, mayddn). No intensive 
cavalry training is possible for any length of time 
in dilapidated hippodromes. Their number and state 
of repair are, therefore, useful indications of the 
level of training reached. During the Bahri period 
(648/1250-784/1382) there was a considerable number 
of hippodromes in Cairo and its immediate vicinity, 
where furusiyya exercises were carried out system- 
atically and intensively, especially under Sultan 
Baybars (658/1260-676/1277) and to a lesser degree 
under Sultans Kalaun (678/1279-689/1290) and al- 
Nasir Muhammad (693/1293-741/1340, with interrup- 
tions). After al-Nasir Muhammad's death the dis- 
integration of the Kalaunid dynasty set in; and it 
seems that the accompanying disturbances also had 
an adverse effect on Mamluk training. Sultan al- 
Ashraf Sha'ban (764/1363-778/1376) attempted to 
arrest the deterioration of furusiyya training, but 
in vain. The decline continued at an accelerated pace 
during the Circassian period (784/1382-923/1517), 
with a short interruption during the reign of Sultan 
Kansuh al-Ghawri (905/1500-922/1516). 

The standard of the furusiyya training is clearly 
reflected in the state of the hippodromes. In the 
Bahri period there were the following hippodromes, 
most of which did not remain in use throughout 
that period: a) al-Maydan al-Salihl, built in 641/1243 
by Sultan al-Salih Nadjm al-DIn Ayyiib, the founder 
of the Bahriyya regiment; b) al-Maydan al-Zahirl, 
built by Sultan Baybars; c) Maydan al-Kabak, 
built by the same sultan in 665/1267; d) Maydan 
Birkat al-FIl built by Sultan al- c Adil Kitbugha 
(694/1294-696/1296); e) al-Maydan al-Nasiri or al- 
Maydan al-Kabir al-Nasiri, built by Sultan al- 
Nasir Muhammad in 712/1312-3; f) Maydan Siryakus, 
built by the same sultan in 724-5/1323-5; g) Maydan 
al-Mahari, built by the same sultan in 720/1320. 

From the end of the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad 
and up to that of Kansuh al-Ghawrl no sultan is 
reported to have built a hippodrome. The remaining 
Bahri hippodromes were abandoned in the first 
years of Circassian rule. Towards the middle of the 
9th/i5th century, exercises were performed on a 
limited scale in the Royal Courtyard (al-Hawsh al- 
Sultani) in the Citadel. The performance of such 



FUROSIYYA — FUSAYFISA 5 



tear Birkat al-Habash is also mentioned in 
the sources from time to time, but no source refers 
to the existence of a hippodrome there. 

Kansuh al-Ghawrl was the only Circassian sultan 
who constructed (in 909/1503) a hippodrome in 
Egypt. But his attempt to revive furusiyya training 
came too late, for the decline of traditional military 
training in the Mamluk Sultanate coincided with the 
slow but steady rise of fire-arms, which revolution- 
ized the whole art of war and, necessarily, of 
training for it (for a discussion of this aspect of 
furusiyya see my Gunpowder and firearms in the 
Mamluk Kingdom, London 1956, 46-140, and art. 
barud above). 

Furusiyya included the following 'branches': 
a) the lance game (la c b al-rumh, thakafat al-rumh, 
thakdfa or thikdf); b) the polo game (la'b al-kura, 
al-darb bi 'l-kura, la'b al-sawladidn); c) the kabak 
(or 'gourd' game); d) archery (ramy al-nushshdb, 
al-ramy bi 'l-nushshdb); e) fencing {al-darb bi 'l-sayf 
or darb al-sayf) ; f ) the birdjds game (sawk al-birdfas) ; 
g) the mace game (fann al-dabbus); h) wrestling 
(sird*); i) the games accompanying the mahmil 
procession {sawk al-mahmil); j) hunting (sayd); 
k) shooting with the crossbow (al-ramy bi 'l-bunduk) ; 
1) horse racing (sibdk al-khayl). 

The information furnished by the sources on the 
first three 'branches', as well as on the games ac- 
companying the mahmil procession, is considerably 
richer than that supplied on the other 'branches'. 
The mace game is mentioned rarely in the sources. 
Fencing is mentioned quite frequently in the enu- 
meration of funun al-furusiyya, but is rarely referred 
to independently. The birdjds game is often men- 
tioned; but without any details. Though the sources 
frequently speak of the games of archery, they 
furnish no details regarding them. This is particu- 
larly disappointing, seeing that the bow was the main 
weapon of the MamlOks and was far more important 
in battle than the lance. The game of chess (shitrandi) 
was very popular among the Mamluks. Though it 
cannot be included among the furusiyya games in 
the strict sense of the word, the mastery of chess 
was considered an accomplishment deserving of 
mention side by side with the Mamluk's accom- 
plishments in the field of furusiyya. 

The furusiyya master (or expert or instructor) 
was called mu'-allim. If he was an expert in the 
handling of the lance, he was called mu'allim al-rumh 
(or rammdh). If he was an expert in the handling of 
the bow and arrows he was called mu'-allim al- 
nushshdb, and so on. The name ustddh in the same 
sense is also mentioned from time to time in the 
Mamluk sources, but it is much more frequent in 
technical military literature. We know the names 
of a considerable number of such masters, especially 
from the Circassian period. 

Bibliography: D. Ayalon, Notes on the 
Furusiyya exercises and games in the Mamluk 
Sultanate, in Scripta Hierosolymitana, ix (Studies 
in Islamic History and Civilization), Jerusalem 
1961, 31-62 (see the literature cited there). 

(D. Avalon) 
FUSAYFISA 5 mosaic. The fact that the Arabic 
word for the mosaic itself is ultimately derived from 
the Greek ^7)90?, perhaps through Aramaic OB'OD, 
and the word /ass, used for the little coloured cubes 
which are arranged according to a pre-designed 
cartoon, derives from the Greek Tisaa6c„ leads us to 
consider this form of architectural decoration as a 
borrowing by Muslim art from Byzantine art. This 
borrowing is undeniable and we shall examine it 



955 

later. All the same, apart from this importation from 
abroad, Muslim art of the early centuries seems to 
have included a form of mosaic which was rather 
different from any whose technique could have been 
learned from Constantinople and which the Islamic 
peoples must have found still flourishing in the 
countries which they conquered. The Byzantine 
mosaic is characterized by the use made in it of 
cubes of glass, called smalts, and by its use to cover 
walls, arches and domes. The pavement mosaic which 
derives from the Roman tradition is quite different, 
being composed almost exclusively of cubes of stone 
of various colours, mostly cut from pieces of marble. 
Being limited to these mineral components, the 
colouring of these pavements is usually confined to 
a few warm tones: creamy white, black, red, bistre 
and grey-green; the cartoons are often composed of 
large areas of geometrical motifs, chequered designs 
and polygonal figures, interlaced plant forms, and 
plaits, which, in state rooms, frame a central picture 
(embUma). 

This type of decoration, appearing first in the 
Greek lands of the Near East, spread across the 
Mediterranean world with the Roman conquest. Not 
only in Italy, but in Syria and in North Africa and 
southern Gaul it enjoyed great popularity. The 
triumph of Christianity extended its domain and 
increased the uses to which it was put. The mosaics 
which had covered the floors of villas and baths now, 
in a rougher style and with a less elaborate technique, 
adorned the apses and naves of churches. Pagan 
forms now represented Christian symbols. Never- 
theless, these survivals from antiquity became 
suspect to the strict : fear of profanation caused these 
pictures to be banished from the chancels, while long 
inscriptions and geometrical patterns, often of 
improverished invention, covered vast areas. Paving 
mosaic underwent a great decadence, yet it did not 
disappear completely from Christian buildings: in 
the form of ornamented pavements it is still found 
in basilicas of the 8th and 9th centuries A.D. 

Fairly recent discoveries allow us to state that at 
about the same period, and even later, Islam 
preserved the taste for mosaics and the technique 
for making them. 

North of Jericho, excavation has revealed the 
ruins of an Umayyad palace, called Khirbat al-Mafdjar 
[q.v.]. To this princely residence is attached a magni- 
ficent bath. A vast columned hall, 30 metres long, 
with a central dome and with walls containing 
scooped-out apses, has a pavement consisting of 
thirty-eight mosaic panels, all different. The geo- 
metrical decoration consists of rectilinear and cur- 
vilinear interlacing patterns, chevrons and imbri- 
cations, splendidly executed and with a harmonious 
colouring produced solely by cubes of stone. In one 
corner of this monumental frigidarium is a small 
apsidal hall whose floor is adorned with a particu- 
larly elaborate decoration. A leafy tree rears itself 
along the axis, separating two groups of animals very 
realistically drawn: on one side two gazelles, on the 
other a third gazelle attacked by a lion. The very 
recent excavations of Khirbat al-Miniya [q.v.], 
another Umayyad building, have revealed halls and 
courtyards paved with mosaic. The exclusively 
geometrical ornament consists of strapwork, lattice 
work, Greek key patterns and other related themes. 

Although less well represented in the West, the 
tradition inherited from pagan and Christian mosaic- 
artists is attested by remains found in eastern 
Barbary. Five miles from al-Kayrawan there has 
been identified the site of al-Rakkada which was, 



956 FUS^ 

at the end of the 3rd/gth and the beginning of the 
4th/ioth centuries, the seat of the Aghlabid amirs, 
vassals of the Baghdad caliph. Cubes of mosaic are 
found there, either at ground level or buried in the 
masonry. Beside an enormous pool there had been 
erected palaces, of which very little remains. All the 
same, some rooms paved with mosaic are still to be 
found. The very simple decoration, of black on a 
white background, consisted of scatterings of geo- 
metrical figures, square, lozenge-shaped and hexa- 
gonal, and of compartments adorned with knots and 
of spirals arranged in crosses. These pavements of 
Ifrikiya, executed in about 290/900 and so similar to 
Christian mosaics, betray themselves as being the 
work of local craftsmen who put at the disposal of 
Arab amirs a technique and a style of decoration 
which had been entirely inherited from their Roman- 
ized Berber ancestors. 

Some forty years later was executed a mosaic 
revealed by the excavations of Mr. Sliman Zbiss at 
Mahdiyya (in Tunisia), among the ruins of the 
palace of the Fatimid caliph al-Ka'im (322/934-334/ 
946). This fine pavement covered the floor of a room 
of state 13 yards long and 4 yards wide. It consisted 
of a central panel adorned with quatrefoils interlaced 
like the rings of a coat of mail and a wide border 
containing pelta-ornaments, quatrefoil squares and 
circles. The colours represented are black and white, 
with ochre and bistre. Neither the colours nor the 
polygonal shapes are foreign to what is attested in 
Roman work. Yet the theme of interlacing patterns 
gives the decorative scheme an oriental character 
(for interlacing polygonals are hardly ever found in 
Roman pavements); the compact plant themes 
enclosed by these polygons belong still more obvious- 
ly to the flora of c Abbasid 'Irak or Tulflnid Egypt. 
The craftsmen working at Mahdiyya would seem to 
have been using cartoons imported from the East ; just 
as the contemporary architecture of Ifrikiya bears 
the stamp of the same foreign influences. 

This pavement mosaic, whose survival in the first 
centuries of Islam is attested only by excavation, 
is to be distinguished from mural mosaic, of which 
East and West alike have preserved magnificent 
examples. In the East, they are to be found at the 
Kubbat al-Sakhra [q.v.] in Jerusalem, built in 72/691 
by c Abd al-Malik, and at the Great Mosque of 
Damascus, built in 86/705 by al-Walid; in the West, 
at the Great Mosque of Cordova, in the superb kibla 
of the caliph al-Hakam I [q.v.], of 350/961. As is 
evident, these are the three most important religious 
buildings of the Umayyads owing their adornment 
to mosaics. The interior of the Kubbat al-Sakhra is 
largely covered with mosaic, which adorns the 
peripheral arcades, the drum surmounting them, and 
the dome. As for the Great Mosque of Damascus, 
only fragments survive of the pictures representing 
a great gilded vine and whole towns, the most striking 
of them adorning some surfaces of the arcade sur- 
rounding the courtyard. As for the Great Mosque of 
Cordova, in it are preserved, more or less worked 
over, the frame of the mihrdb and of the doors 
flanking it, and also the dome in front of the mihrdb. 
These three examples, from East and West, have 
many features in common, but are distinguished one 
from another by more than one characteristic. The 
materials used show clearly their interrelation. 
White and black cubes of marble and red or pink 
stones are to be found, as in the mosaic pavements; 
but much more numerous (85% at Damascus) are 
the cubes of glass paste coloured throughout, and 
particularly such cubes consisting of a brown, base 



of glass paste upon which is applied gold leaf, which 
in turn is covered with a protecting layer of glass. 
It is the use of gold which creates the richness and the 
harmony of the Byzantine mosaic. The varied 
positions of the cubes, stuck in either vertically or 
slightly inclined towards the spectator, diversify the 
tones and, in particular, relieve the monotony of the 
areas of gold and bring life to these shining surfaces. 
The subjects of the decorations vary from one 
monument to another. That of the Kubbat al- 
Sakhra is the richest, and in it floral designs pre- 
dominate. The most frequent theme is that of 
acanthus leaves or vine leaves with grapes, the main 
stem emerging from a cluster of leaves, a bowl or 
a cornucopia. Narrow panels are provided with 
vertical supports reminiscent of the antique candela- 
bras on which are placed trays, foliage or fruit. The 
plant themes, arranged in bands placed side by side, 
alternate with motifs of jewellery, ribbons, bandeaus, 
and pendants inspired by necklaces and diadems; 
plaques cut from mother-of-pearl add their lustre to 
these themes of adornment. This ornamentation 
derives almost entirely from Hellenistic tradition ; the 
jewellery motifs seem to be inspired by the imperial 
decoration of Byzantium ; some palm-branches in the 
form of wings and some flowers derived from the 
lotus are probable borrowings from the Sasanid flora 
and were familiar also to Syrian sculpture of the same 

Quite different are the very beautiful mosaics of 
the Great Mosque of Damascus, at any rate those 
which the removal of the layer of plaster has 
revealed in the courtyard. They contain large green 
trees rising up among groups of buildings: fortresses 
whose walls border on the terraces alternate with 
balconied houses with pitched roofs and wide 
cornices, pavilions with colonnades and conical 
roofs, and exedras; lower down, more modest houses 
overlook the shore lapped by lively waves. The 
Pompeian character of the architecture has been 
remarked. The waters which form the foreground of 
the decoration have been thought to be the Barada, 
the river which flows through the oasis of Damascus. 
This realistic interpretation, which associates a 
familiar and not very highly esteemed landscape 
with the adornment of a great mosque, does not 
seem compatible with Muslim aesthetic. Perhaps we 
should rather consider this decoration of the court- 
yard as the complement of the geographical pictures 
which spread across the walls of the prayer hall, and 
identify the tumultuous waters on the shore with 
those of the surrounding Ocean (al-bahr al-muhit) 
which, according to the Arab geographers, encircles 
all the inhabited lands of the world. 

According to the traditions which Ibn Idhari has 
transmitted and which we shall examine, the Umay- 
yad caliph al-Hakam II, following the example set 
by his ancestor al-Walid, the builder of the mosque 
of Damascus, obtained from the emperor of Con- 
stantinople the despatch of a mosaicist and the 
necessary materials to decorate the Great Mosque of 
Cordova, which he was providing with a new kibla. 
In fact the mosaics of the mihrdb of Cordova and the 
parts which frame it or lead to it scarcely recall the 
picturesque decoration of Damascus. This is not 
surprising, for two and a half centuries separate the 
Syrian from the Andalusian work. The latter presents 
a simplified and schematic flora with its central 
stems rigid or slightly curving, regularly bent into 
foliated scroll-patterns or doubled and forming wide 
symmetrical interlacings. These stems bear palm 
leaves with two or three incurved fronds, flowers, or 



bunches of grapes, each separate. The inscriptions 
play an important part here and their Kufic script is 
sober and elegant. One seeks in vain Christian 
mosaics of the same period analagous to these Muslim 
mosaics; on the contrary, analysis reveals the 
relation between this flat and coloured decoration 
and the sculptured decoration which surrounds it. 
We find the same floral themes portrayed by the two 
techniques, sculpture and mosaic, but both belong 
to the same Islamic art. 

Nevertheless the historical conditions make it 
probable that mosaics were sent from Byzantium to 
Cordova. Relations between the two powers, 
interrupted for over a century, had been resumed 
since 346/958, and at the end of the reign of <Abd al- 
Rahman III they were active and cordial. The 
sending of gifts — notably of Byzantine mosaics — 
served for the embellishment of the Madinat al- 
Zahra 5 . The continuation of these relations between 
al-Hakam II and Nicephorus Phocas is therefore 
not surprising and we have no difficulty in accepting 
the tradition, albeit three hundred years old, related 
by Ibn 'Idhari (Baydn, ii, 253, tr. ii, 392). At the 
request of al-Hakam, a mosaicist came from Con- 
stantinople with 320 quintals of mosaic cubes. The 
caliph assigned to him a certain number of slaves 
(some of whom had already begun to learn the craft 
at Madinat al-Zahra 5 ). They worked under the 
direction of the Greek and were not long in surpassing 
their master in skill. When the latter left Cordova, 
where he had been lodged magnificently, he received 
from the caliph gifts and robes of honour; his pupils 
continued the work alone and completed it. The 
story seems to be historically possible. 

However, we have seen that (according to Ibn 
'Idharl) al-Hakam, in requesting the Byzantine 
emperor to send a mosaicist, was following the 
example of al-Walid, the founder of the Damascus 
mosque. Now it seems that this is a legend which 
was unknown to the earliest sources and which does 
not appear until the 6th/i2th century. According to 
Ibn 'Asakir (d. 571/1176) al-Walid accompanied his 
request with the threat to overrun the territory of 
Byzantium and destroy the churches on his own 
lands if the Basileus refused; and the Basileus 
complied. The attribution of such an attitude to the 
two rulers is doubtful. But although the story cannot 
be applied to the Damascus mosque it may be 
possible to associate it with the mosque of Medina. 
According to al-Ya'kubi, al-Wakidi and al-Tabari, 
for the re-building of this mosque, a request for a 
mosaicist was made to the emperor of Byzantium 
and was granted. This is nevertheless rather sur- 
prising. Al-Baladhuri (d. 279/892), speaking of the 
work on the mosque of Medina, gives a more likely 
report. Al-Walid, he says, wishing to embellish the 
Mosque of the Prophet, obtained the collaboration of 
mosaicists and other craftsmen of Rum recruited in 
Syria and in Egypt. This supposes the existence in 
these countries of ateliers or individual artists, 
presumably of Greek origin, continuing in the 2nd/ 
8th century the technique of Byzantine mosaic. The 
tradition of this fine craft, which had formed the 
glory of Antioch, could have survived in Syria from 
Christian times, which saw the building of the 
Church of the Ascension in Jerusalem, the Basilica 
of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the churches of 
Edessa and of Lydda. It seems very possible that for 
the first religious foundations of Islam local mosai- 
cists as well as builders were recruited, and probably 
they were still available during the following cen- 
turies to complete and restore the decorations of 



the sanctuaries of Syria. In Jerusalem there are the 
mosaics of the Fatimid al-Zahir (411-27/1021-36), 
of the Ayyubid Salah al-DIn (570-89/1174-93), and of 
the Mamluk Tankiz (729/1329), and at Damas- 
cus those of Baybars. The date of the mosaics of 
the Ka'ba of Mecca described by Ibn Djubayr is 
not known. 

In Egypt, which, as we have seen, had possessed, 
like Syria, artists from 'Rum', who practised the art 
of Byzantine mosaic, only a few and late examples of 
this work remain. In Cairo, the tomb of Shadjar al- 
Durr (648/1250) retains a mihrdb the lower part of 
which is decorated with cubes of blue, green, red and 
gilded glass with the addition of mother-of pearl. Of 
the same type are the decoration of the midrib which 
the sultan Ladjln gave to the mosque of Ibn Tuliin 
in 696/1296, and the mihrdbs of the madrasas of 
Taybars (709/1309) and of Akbugha (740/1339), 
dependencies of the Al-Azhar mosque. 

Bibliography : P. Gauckler, Musivum opus, in 
Dictionnaire des Antiquitis; Max van Berchem, 
Matiriaux pour un corpus inscriptionum arabicarum, 
Jerusalem-Haram, 274 ff . ; Marguerite van Berchem, 
in K. A. C. Cresswell, Early Muslim architecture, i, 
277 ff.; eadem, in Monuments Piot, 1930; E. de 
Lorey, Les mosaiques de la mosquie des Omeyades 
de Damas, in Syria, xii (1931), 326 ft.; H. Zayat, 
Les mosaiques de la mosquie des Omayades de Damas 
furent-elles I'oeuvre des Grecs de Byzance ou des 
Grecs melkites de Damas?, in al-Khizdna al- 
Sharkiyya, ii, Beirut 1937; R. W. Hamilton, 



Khirl 



nafjar, 



Jordan Valley, Oxford 1959, 327-42; idem, A 
mosaic carpet of Umayyad date at Khirbat al- 
Mafjar, in Quarterly of the Department of Anti- 
quities of Palestine, xiv (1950), 120; J. Sauvaget, 
Monuments historiques de Damas, 1932, 67-8; 
Selim Abdul-Hak, in Annates archiologiques de 
Syrie, 1958-9, 5; G. Wiet and Hautecoeur, Mos- 
quies du Caire, 116 and passim; G. Marcais, 
Architecture musulmane d'Occident, 28, 45, 98; 
J. M. Solignac, Recherches sur les installations 
hydrauliques en Ifriqiya, in AIEO-Alger, x (1952). 

(G. Marcais) 
al-FUSTAT. the first city to be founded in 
Egypt by the Muslim conquerors and the first place 
of residence of the Arab governors. It was built on 
the east bank of the Nile, alongside the Greco-Coptic 
township of Babylon or Babalyun lq.v.~\, traces of 
which are still preserved in the ramparts of the 
I£asr al-Sham c . A bridge of boats, interrupted by the 
island of al-Rawda [q.v.], linked the Kasr with the 
city of Giza (al-Djiza) on the other bank of the Nile. 
Al-Fustat was partly built beside the river, which 
at that time followed a more easterly course, and 
partly on high desert ground, shaped in the form 
of a saddle and extending for more than four km. 
from north to south. The hills to the south of Sharaf 
were called al-Rasad after 513/1119; those to the 
north were called Djabal Yashkur. It was not far 
from Djabal Yashkur that the Khalidj started, the 
Pharaohs' canal connecting the Nile with the Red 
Sea, which was restored on the orders of <Amr b. 
al-'As. 

In former times the name al-Fustat was written in 
various ways, enumerated by the Arab authors, 
which betray uncertainty as to the true origin of the 
word. One of the meanings suggested is that of 
"tent" ; for the town was founded on the spot where 
'Ami b. al-'As had pitched his tent {jusfdfl 
during the siege of Babylon. It seems likely that this 
name was merely the arabization of the word 



958 al-FI 

Ooaaarov, camp, encampment, used by the bi- 
lingual papyri to denote the town. The chroniclers 
also use the expression Fustat-Misr or even simply 
Misr, colloquially pronounced Masr. The quarter of 
modern Cairo, which contains the remains of al- 
Fustat and Babylon, is called Masr al-'Atika, Old 

When 'Amr b. al-'As returned from the first siege 
of Alexandria, probably early in 22/643, he established 
the foundations of a permanent encampment at 
al-Fustat which was gradually transformed into a 
town. The proximity of Babylon made it easy for 
the Arabs to employ and control Coptic officials. 
Later came the distribution of the land and the 
building of the mosque (Diami' 'Amr or al-Diami' 
al-'Atik). This mosque, the first to be built in Egypt, 
originally measured 50 by 30 cubits. It is possible 
that it had a minbar from the start; but the mihrdb, 
in the form of a niche, seems to have been built only 
in 92/711. Reconstructed and enlarged several times, 
it attained its present dimensions in 212/827. It 
served simultaneously as a place of prayer, council 
chamber, court room, post (office) and as lodgings 
for travellers. It was there that the main grants of 
leases of land were made. Not far away was 'Amr's 
house and the army stores. There was also a musalld, 
an immense place of prayer in the open air, where, 
on the 'id al-Fitr 43/January 664, prayers were 
offered over the body of 'Amr b. al-'As, who had 
died the previous night. Each tribe was allotted a 
certain fixed zone (khitta which, in Fustat, is the 
equivalent of the hdra in Cairo, that is to say quarter 
or ward) . Certain khitat included inhabitants belonging 
to different tribes, for example, the khittat ahl al-rdya 
surrounding 'Ami's mosque, the khitat al-Lofif just 
to the north of it, and the khitat ahl al-gdhir, the 
last-named being reserved for new arrivals who had 
been unable to settle with their own respective 
tribes (cf. Guest, in JRAS, 1907, 63 f.). Each khitta 
had its own mosque. In 53/673, for the first time, 
minarets were built for 'Amr's mosque and for those 
in the khitat, with two exceptions. The Arab army of 
conquest included a very large proportion of Yamanis. 
Christians and Jews from Syria with political affili- 
ations with the Muslims had accompanied the 
invading armies; they were settled in three different 
quarters near the river, named respectively, going 
north from 'Amr's mosque, al-lfamra? al-dunyd, 
al-ljamrd? al-wustd, and al-tfamra? al-kuswd. Other 
dhimmis settled with them. 

The original encampment was gradually trans- 
formed. The different quarters were separated by 
open spaces. Whole zones, particularly to the north 
in the desert, were then abandoned, only to be 
reoccupied later. Permanent structures multiplied. 
The treasury, bayt al-mdl, was built (Becker, Beitrage 
zur Geschichte Agypten, ii, 162). Al-Fustat was not 
fortified and, in 64-5/684, the Khaiidjis of Egypt 
who had seized power had a ditch built on the east 
side to defend the town against the caliph Marwan 
and his forces. The governor 'Abd al-'Aziz b. Marwan, 
who founded or developed Hulwan, where he had 
taken refuge from the plague (70/689-90), also built 
houses, covered markets and baths in Fustat. The 
Copts imperceptibly became intermingled with the 
conquerors. Coptic was spoken in Fustat in the 
2nd/8th century. Some churches also were built, and 
are occasionally mentioned by the chroniclers. 
Warehouses were set up along the Nile for water- 
borne merchandise. When the last Umayyad caliph 
Marwan II, in flight before the 'Abbasids, went 
through Fustat (132/750) he caused the stores of 



grain, cotton, chopped straw and barley, and indeed 
the whole town, to be set on fire, according to 
Severus of Ashmunayn (Pair. Orient., v, 168). 
Further east, between Fustat and the cliffs of 
Mukattam was the cemetery of al-Karafa [q.v.]. The 
'Abbasid governors did not reside in the centre of 
Fustat; they chose instead the old al-Hamrd 3 al- 
kuswd, in the open spaces of the original encampment, 
to found the suburb of al-'Askar. Al-MakrizI explains 
in this connexion that the actual town of Fustat 
was divided into two districts — the Wi fak or 
upper district with its western section (the high 
ground in the south as far as the Nile) and eastern 
section (the rest of the desert as far as al-'Askar), and 
the 'amal asfal or lower district, including the re- 
mainder. The 'Abbasids tried a new and short-lived 
settlement on the Djabal Yashkur, as a refuge from 
an epidemic, in 133/751- Later they settled at al- 
'Askar where a "Palace of the Amirate" (ddr al- 
Imdra) was built and then in 169/785-6, just beside 
it, a large mosque (diami 1 al-'Askar, also called 
djami'- Sdhil al-Ghalla). All around there grew up a 
real town, with shops, markets and fine houses. 
Nothing now remains of it. 

In the 3rd/gth century Ahmad b. TOlun also 
created his own capital called al-Kata'i', between 
the north-east tip of the Djabal Yashkur (where he 
had a large and striking mosque built) and the 
mashhad of Sayyida Nafisa and the future Rumayla 
square. The mosque (djdmi' Ibn Tulun), the oldest 
in Greater Cairo still existing in its original form, was 
completed in 265/879. The architect, a Christian and 
probably of Mesopotamian origin, took his inspi- 
ration from the buildings of Samarra. He had 
previously built an aqueduct, the ruins of which 
still stand to the north-west of Basatin, leading 
towards 'Ayn al-SIra. Besides the mosque and a 
number of houses, al-Kata'i' also included a palace, 
a ddr al-Imdra and some magnificent gardens. It was 
all to vanish very swiftly. On the fall of the Tuliinids 
(292/905), the 'Abbasids demolished the palace. 
They did not touch the mosque, which was later 
restored by sultan Ladjin (696/1297) (cf. Salmon, 
Etudes sur la topographic du Caire, in MIFAO, 1902, 
where also all necessary details on the later history 
of the district are given). 

The founding of al-Kahira (358/969) did not put 
an end to the prosperity of Fustat which, in the 
Fatimid period, was one of the wealthiest towns of 
the Muslim world, with its lofty houses of from five 
to seven stories (Nasir-i Khusraw, in the Safar 
Ndma, trans. Schefer, 146, even speaks of fourteen 
stories), the crowded souks round 'Amr's mosque and 
the network of narrow streets recently excavated on 
the desert plateau. Al-Kahira, where the houses were 
lower and furnished with gardens, was then the city 
of the caliphs and the military aristocracy; Fustat, 
more populous, remained the home of commerce and 
industry, as is testified by very fine ceramics and 
pieces of glassware discovered during excavations, 
as will as texts on papyrus and paper. In the 7th/i3th 
century the town still manufactured steel, copper, 
soap, glass and paper (Ibn Dukmak, iv, 108), not 
to mention its production of sugar and textiles. In 
513/1119 the town was able to produce a massive 
ring of polished copper, graduated, and measuring 
more than ten cubits in diameter, weighing several 
tons and intended to act as a support for an appa- 
ratus for astronomic observations. However, during 
the anarchic reign of the caliph al-Mustansir, over a 
period of eighteen years (from 446/1054 to 464/1072) 
the town suffered sixteen years of severe famine, 



L-FUSTAT — FOTA DJALLON 



959 



accompanied by epidemics. Al- c Askar, al-Kata 5 i' 
and whole zones of the desert quarters of Fustat 
were consequently abandoned. The vizier Badr al- 
Djamali then caused the materials of the ruined 
buildings to be removed for re-use in Cairo. A second 
operation of this kind took place between 495/1 101 
and 524/1130; it was concerned with those buildings 
which the owners, despite a general warning, had 
failed to put into a state of repair. The year 564/ 
1 1 68-9 was catastrophic. The Frankish armies of 
Amalric were encamped just to the south of al- 
Rasad, at Birkat al-tlabash; Shawar. their former 
ally, had summoned them four years earlier, and he 
himself was now attacked by them. Fearing that 
they would occupy Fustat, which had no ramparts 
to defend it and which might be used by them as a 
base against Cairo, he had the town evacuated and 
his men systematically set it on fire. The conflagration 
lasted for fifty-four days. After all these cataclysms 
life began once again; the place was rebuilt. All the 
same, to prevent the recurrence of such incidents 
Salah al-DIn built a city wall enclosing Cairo, the 
citadel and Fustat. The remains of this wall can be 
seen to the south of the citadel, and also 900 metres 
to the east as 'well as to the south-east of 'Amr's 
mosque. New quarters were built on the abandoned 
land by the Nile, while the notables erected pleasure 
pavilions alongside the water. The eastern districts 
were increasingly neglected, while 'Aim's mosque 
remained a flourishing centre of religious instruction 
until the great plague of 749/1348. Under the Mamluk 
sultans, however, Cairo attracted great commerce; 
it was the souks of Cairo, not of Misr, that the 
astonished European travellers described. Fustat 
(which name disappears, being replaced by Misr) 
fell into obscurity. It remained merely the admini- 
strative capital of Upper Egypt whose produce was 
constantly brought by ship to its river banks. At the 
time of Napoleon's expedition, Old Cairo contained 
10,000 inhabitants, 600 of whom were Copts. 

Bibliography: MakrizI, Khitat; Ibn Dukmak, 
Kitdb al-Intisdr; C A1I Mubarak, al-Khitat al- 
djadida. Besides the works mentioned earlier, 
A. F. Mehren, Cdhira og Kerdfat, Copenhagen 1870; 
S. Lane Poole, The story of Cairo, London 1906; 
idem, A history of Egypt in the Middle Ages 2 , London 
1914; Casanova, Essai de reconstitution topographi- 
que de la ville d'al-Foustdt ou Misr, in MIFAO, xxxv 
(1919); U. Monneret de Villard, Ricerche sulla 
topografia di Qasr e$-Sam c , in Bull. Soc. Giog. 
Egypte, xii (1923-4), 205-32, xiii (1924-5), 73-94; 
M. Clerget, Le Caire, £tude de giographie urbaine et 
d'histoire iconomique, 2 vols., Cairo 1934, with very 
abundant references; C A1I Bahgat Bey and A. 
Gabriel, Fouilles d'al-Foustdt, Paris 1921; eidem, 
Kitdb Uafriyydt al-Fustdt, 1 vol., with an album 
of photographs, Cairo 1928; Maspero and Wiet, 
Matiriaux pour servir a la giographie de V&gypie, 
in MIFAO, xxxvi (1919); K. A. C. Creswell, The 
Muslim architecture of Egypt, i, Oxford 1952; Van 
Berchem, CIA ; Gabriel Hanotaux, Histoire de la 
Nation Egyptienne, vol. iv, L'Egypte arabe (642- 
1517) by G. Wiet; Guest, Misr in the Fifteenth 
Century, in JRAS, 1903, 791-816 [see further al- 

IJAHIRA]. (J. JOMIER) 

FCTA fiJALLON (accepted French spelling 
Fouta), principal massif of tropical West Africa, 
situated at the north-east of the Republic of Guinea. 
This group of mountains has been thoroughly studied 
by J. Richard Molard (1913-51). It is twice thesizeof 
Switzerland and of very varied character. Its eastern 
section has a crystalline base which rises to about 



700 m./3000 ft., with some peaks of over 1000 m./ 
3,300 ft. The Tinkisso, a tributary of the Niger, rises 
there. The central Fouta is an internal "Tassili" 
divided into three masses : in the north the massif of 
Mali (with its highest point at Mount Tennsira, 
1515 m./4,97o ft), in the centre the plateau of Timbi, 
Labe and Popodara, with an average height of 
1000 m./3,3oo ft., which is divided by numerous 
canyons with impressive waterfalls (Ditinu, Kinkon, 
Kambadaga, the Sala, etc.), and finally in the south 
the massif of Dalaba (1425 m./4,675 ft. at Mount 
Tinka). From these massifs with their sheer cliffs 
(those of Massi reach 800 m./2,6oo ft.) rise the Bafing, 
the principal feature of Senegal, the Upper Gambia, 
the Rio Grande of Portuguese Guinea and many 
mountain rivers, which together form the water 
tower of the western region of Africa. Because of 
its altitude the Fouta enjoys a favourable climate. 
It has a high rainfall in summer and its winter is 
a healthy dry season, the effect of which is further 
increased from December to February by the 
'harmattan'; the rainy season is from July to 
September. The scorching heat of the Sahara attracts 
the Atlantic clouds and each year Dalaba has a 
rainfall of 2035 mm./8o ins., Pita 1882 mm./73 ins., 
Labe 1764 mm./70 ins. and Mali 1893 mm./76 ins. 
Three types of vegetation are found in the Fouta: 

(a) bush, either brushwood (bururhe) or trees (fitare) ; 

(b) sparse grassland, sometimes on the shores of a 
small lake (dunkere) on the clay covering a plateau 
(hollande), sometimes on sand which fills a depression 
(dantari); (c) the bowal, which covers three quarters 
of the surface of the Fouta and which is "in the dry 
season a vast and torrid surface of desert, marked at 
intervals by mushroom-shaped white-ant-heaps" 
(Richard Molard). 

Population. The Fouta is a mountain district 
suitable for the rearing of livestock. As Vieillard 
says: "half-way between the Sahelian steppe and 
the dense forest: the former stretches over the 
endless barren plains of the high plateaus, the latter 
clothes the sides of the mountains in the form of tall 
riverside forests. This hybrid environment has 
favoured the formation of a composite society, a 
mixture of settled forest-dwellers and of shepherds 
and cowherds". The Baga and Landuman, probably 
autochthonous, were driven out in the 13th century 
by the Susu-Dialonke expelled by the Mandinkas 
of Sundjata. In 1534, the Fulakunda of Koli Ten- 
guela came from the Fouta Toro to settle to the west 
of this group of mountains. Finally, in 1694, Fulani 
who had come from Macina formed an empire which 
was to last for two centuries. Apart from these 
great movements, there were small migrations from 
the plains of the north. The Fulani replaced the 
hump-backed cattle by the ndama which was more or 
less immunized against trypanosomiasis. They 
enslaved or drove out the former negro inhabitants 
of the forests, borrowing features of their material 
civilization. According to Vieillard they "brought 
with them their language, their faith which permitted 
the foundation of a Muslim fraternity, and a harsh 
exploitation mitigated by intermarriage. 

Of the 750,000 inhabitants of the Fouta, two- 
thirds are Fulani and the others are former slaves 
who have adopted the Fulani language and belonged 
to the feudal system of the Fouta. These vassals, 
rimaibe (singular dimadio), cultivate the ground for 
their Fulani masters. They live in rundes near the 
country house of the master (marga). 

The administrative organization consists of the 
missidi (village mosque) at the bottom, then the 



FUTA DJALLON 



teku, a group of missidis with the lamdo-teku at the 
head. When the system of alternative government 
came into operation the chief of a diwal (province) 
was changed every second year, at the same time as 
the almamy. 

The fiscal laws were very carefully worked out. 
The tax on inheritance consisted of the homidia 
(assigning to the marabout a quarter of the possessions 
of the deceased) and the kombabete, collected by the 
chief of the diwal or the lamdo-teku five months after 
the death. The assaka (or saka or fariba) was due to 
the chief of the missidi for the poor. The ussuru was 
a tithe on manufactured goods. In addition the ruler 
of the Fouta received a fifth of the booty of war and 
the tributes (sakkale) paid by the vassal peoples of 
the coast. 

History. A large contingent of the Fulani of the 
Fouta came from Macina at the end of the 17th 
century, led by Seri or Sidi. After Muhammadu 
Sai'di, elected chief in 1700, they chose the pious 
Kikala, then his son Sambigu, whose two sons 
disputed the succession (1720-26). So the Fulani 
called on Ibrahima Mussu, called also Karamoko 
Alfa, a man of immense piety, who was invited to 
wage war against the pagans. Karamoko Alfa in- 
augurated that permanent state of Holy War which 
was to become one of the characteristic political 
features of the Fouta. In the Fouta Djallon Islam 
served as a justification for the seizure of power. 
A committee of insurrection consisting of Karamoko 
Alfa and six other members was formed and the 
movement was supported by young Islamized 
Dialonkes and Malinkes. The fetishist Dialonke were 
conquered and Timbo and Fukumba occupied. But 
some years later, Puli Garme, chief of the pagan 
Dialonke, re-took Timbo. Karamoko Alfa died insane 
in 1751, Ibrahima Sori (= early-rising) took his 
place; he was given the by-name of Mawdo (= the 
great) and his reign was marked by military cam- 
paigns against the Wassulonke and the Sulima. 
Tradition has it that he exterminated 174 kings 
(who were probably nothing more than village 
chiefs), he subdued the Fulani chief of Labe, seized 
the Mandingo province of Niokolo (Upper Gambia) 
and forced Maka, the king of the Bundu, to become a 
Muslim. But these military successes disturbed the 
council of the elders, and particularly its president 
Modi Maka, who caused Abdulay Ba Demba, son of 
Karamoko Alfa, to be appointed in place of Ibrahima 
Sori Mawdo. But the latter was soon recalled because 
of dangers which threatened from outside. Ibrahima 
Sori then transferred his capital from Fukumba to 
Timbo. On the death of Ibrahima Sori Mawdo (1784) 
the principle was adopted of rule alternating every 
two years between the Alfaya and Sorya families; 
but it was put into practice only with difficulty. The 
19th century was dominated by the reign of the 
Almani Omar (1837-72) who had to suppress the 
rising of the fanatical Hubbus. These, won over 
by the Modi Mamadu Djoue, took the name of 
Hubbu rasul Altai (one who loves the Messenger of 
God). These Hubbu, fighting in the name of an 
intransigeant Islam, took Timbo (1859) before being 
beaten at Kuni and Kusogogya. Mamadu Djoue died 
after taking refuge in the mountains between Bafing 
and Tinkisso. His son, Mamadu Abal (= the wild), 
was to be defeated. Umaw died during the campaign 
undertaken in the Rio Grande. In 1887-8, an extra- 
ordinary nobleman, Aime Olivier, Count (?) of 
Sanderval, got himself recognized by the Almami as 
a citizen of the Fouta pjallon, and obtained the 
grant of the uplands of Kahel and the right to mint 



coins. He played an important part in helping the 
chief of Labe to fight Bokar Biro. The latter, put 
on to the throne by French authority, signed the 
treaty of the protectorate with Bissimilahi (bi- 
'smi "llah) instead of his own name. Then Captain 
Miiller marched on Timbo and Bokar Biro and his 
1500 warriors were defeated at Poredaka. This was 
the end of the independence of the Fouta, which was 
divided by the French administration into districts. 
The Fulani chiefdoms, which had been retained 
throughout the colonial period, were suppressed by 
the Council of Government set up during the summer 
of 1957. But by then they were already of very little 
significance. The Fouta Djallon had ceased to be an 
independent fortress and had become fully inte- 
grated into the political and economic life of Guinea. 
Bibliography: General works, travellers' 
accounts: Mollien, Voyage dans I'inUrieur de 
I'Afrique, aux sources du Sinigal et de la Gambie, 
Paris 1820; Hecquard, Voyage sur la cdte et dans 
I'intirieur de I'Afrique occidentale, Paris 1853; 
Lambert, Voyage dans le Fouta Djallon, Tour du 
Monde, 1862 ; Olivier (de Sanderval), De VAtlantique 
au Niger par le Fouta Djallon, Paris 1883; Dblter, 
Vber die Cap Verden nach dem Rio Grande und 
Futah Djallon, Leipzig 1884; Dr. Bayol, Voyage en 
Sinigambie, Paris 1888; Noirot, A travers le Fouta 
Djallon et le Bambouc, Paris 1889; Madrolle, Notes 
d'un voyage en Afrique occidentale, Paris 1893; 
Dr. Maclaud, A travers la Guinde et le Fouta Djallon, 
in Bull. Com. Afr. Franc., 1899; Manchat, Les 
rivieres du Sud et le Fouta Djallon, Paris 1909; — 
Physical structure : Fras, Les rdsultats scientifi- 
ques de la mission du Fouta Djallon, in Bull. Soc. 
Gdog. commercial, Bordeaux 1891 ; J. Chautard, 
Etude gdographique et gdophysique sur le Fouta 
Djallon, Paris 1905; Chevalier, Les hauls plateaux 
du Fouta Djallon, in Annates de gdographie, 1909; 
J. Richard Molard, Les traits d'ensemble du Fouta 
Djallon, in Revue de gdographie alpine, xxxi/2 
(1943) ; G. Sautter, Le Fouta Djallon, in Bull, de 
la Soc. languedocienne de gdog., Montpellier, 2 C serie, 
xv/i (1944), 3-76; J. Tricart, Digradation du 
milieu naturel et problemes d'amdnagement au Fouta 
Djalon (Guinde), in Revue de gdographie alpine, 
1956/1, 7-36; J. Pouquet, Aspects morphologiques 
du Fouta Djallon, in Revue de gdographie alpine, 
1956/2, 215-46; idem, Le plateau de Labd (Guinde 
Francaise, AOF), in Bulletin de I' IF AN, xviii-B/i 
(1956), 1-24. — Peoples: Berenger Feraud, Les 
peuples de la Sindgambie, Paris 1878; L. Guebhard, 
La religion, la famille, la propridte et le rdgime 
fancier au Fouta Djallon, in Revue coloniale 
nouvelle, sdrie IX, 1909; idem, Les Peuls du Fouta 
Djallon, in Revue des dtudes ethnographiques, ii 
(1909); G. Vieillard, Notes sur les Peuls du Fouta 
Djalon, in Bull, de I'IFAN, Jan.-April 1940, 
85-210; J. Richard Molard, Les densitds des 
populations au Fouta Djalon et dans les rdgions 
environnantes, in XV V Congres Intern, de gdog., 
Lisbon 1949; idem, Essai sur la vie paysanne au 
Fouta Djalon. Le cadre physique, Vdconomie rurale, 
Vhabitat, in Revue de gdographie alpine, xxxii/2 
(1944), 135-240; idem, Notes ddmographiques sur 
la rdgion de Labd. Hommage a Jacques Richard 
Molard, in Presence africaine, xv, 83-94; idem, 
Islam ou colonisation au Fouta Djalon, in Bulletin 
des missions ivangdliques, xvi (Oct. 1953); Salkhou 
Balde, Les associations d'dge chez les Foulbi du 
Fouta Djalon, in Bull, de I'IFAN, 1959/1. 89-109; 
— History: Hecquard, Coup d'ceil sur V organi- 
sation politique, Vhistoire, les mceurs des Peuls du 



FOTA DJALLON - 

Fouta Djallon, Paris n.d. ; Olivier (de Sanderval), La 
conquite du Fouta Djallon, Paris 1890; J. Guebhard, 
Histoire du Fouta Djallon et des Almamys, in Bull, 
du Com. de I'Afr. Fr. ,1909; A. Arcin, Histoire de la 
Guinie Francaise, Paris 1911; P. Marty, L'Islam 
en Guinie, Paris 192 1; Ch. Le Cceur, Le culte de la 
giniration et Involution religieuse et sociale en Guinie, 
Paris 1932; L. Tauxier, Histoire des Peuls du Fouta 
Djallon, in Moeurs et histoire des Peuls, Paris 1937, 
218-382; Demougeot, Notes sur I' organisation 
politique et administrative du Labi, Paris 1944; 
F. Rouget, La Guinie francaise; A. Teixeira da 
Mota, Nota sobre a historia dos Fulas. Coli Tengvela 
e a chega da dos primeiros Fulas a Futa Jalom, 
2 e CIAO, Bissao 1947, Lisbon 1950, v, 53-70; 
Schnell, Vestiges archiologiques et agriculture 
ancienne dans le nord du Fouta Djalon, in Bull, de 
I'IFAN, B-xix/1-2 (1957), 295-301. 

(R. Cornevin) 
FOTHAGHORAS [see fithaghuras]. 
FUTCflAT [see tarabulus (al-sha'm)]. 
FUTUWWA, a term invented in about the 2nd/8th 
century as the counterpart of muruwwa [q.v.], the 
qualities of the mature man, to signify that which 
is regarded as characteristic of the fata, pi. fityan, 
literally "young man"; by this term it has become 
customary to denote various movements and 
organizations which until the beginning of the 
modern era were wide-spread throughout all the 
urban communities of the Muslim East. The study 
of these movements is made difficult by the fact 
that, in the course of history, they have assumed very 
diverse forms, corresponding with which are two 
fundamental categories of documentation, the in- 
formation from which often appears for that reason 
to be irreconcilable. Thus, from the time when, over 
a century ago, Hammer-Purgstall drew attention to 
them, many representations of them have been given 
and, despite the advance that has been made in our 
knowledge of them, it cannot be said that even now 
we really know exactly what they were. Hammer- 
Purgstall for his part regarded the futuwwa as a 
form of chivalry, and one finds this interpretation 
repeated up to our own time; but, for the past fifty 
years, particular attention has been given to the 
connexions maintained by the futuwwa at a late 
period on the one hand with Sufism, and on the other 
with the professional groupings; however, even in 
the latter case the nature of the treatises specifically 
devoted to it has resulted in its being approached 
from the doctrinal or psychological angle rather than 
being integrated within the social structure, of which 
nevertheless it constitutes an important element. It is 
to this last aspect that I wish to give especial em- 
phasis. 

In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods, the 
Arabic language does not use the term futuwwa, but 
only fata, itself used in the singular rather than in the 
plural, in that the word denoted individuals, not 
groups. At that time the fata was a man still young 
and vigorous, valiant in warfare, noble and chival- 
rous: an essentially personal attitude and, though 
obviously linked with tribal society and its combats, 
one not dependent on any collective activity or 
explicit religious belief; and indeed it so happens 
that a modern work will still extol this type of 
character under the name futuwwa. The semi- 
legendary model for it in ancient Arabian society 
was prince Hatim al-TaT [q.v.]; but, in Islam, the 
gradual growth of the figure of c Ali has resulted 
in his being regarded as the fata par excellence, as is 
expressed in the old saying Id fata ilia C AH. 
Encyclopaedia of Islam II 



FUTUWWA 961 

Quite soon, however, in the complex society of 
the Arabo-Islamic Empire new fityan (now in the 
plural) made their appearance; it is however im- 
possible to trace their origin back exclusively to the 
ancient Arab . tradition. Indeed, these new fityan 
themselves are presented to us in two categories of 
portraits which are at first sight incompatible. 

A first group of texts, consisting for the most part 
of relatively late accounts of mystics, but also of 
earlier narrations of the lives of poets, presents the 
fityan as young adults living in small communities, 
coming from varied social, ethnic (and, to start 
with, religious ?) circles and, free from any sort of 
attachment to family (they were frequently bache- 
lors), profession (even if they had one) or tribe, 
associating together to lead in common the most 
comfortable possible life in an atmosphere of soli- 
darity, mutual devotion and comradeship (with joint 
ownership of goods), without which such an aim 
could obviously not be achieved. The setting was 
more extensive than that of a single town, in the 
sense that a fraternity existed between the fityan of 
each town and others elsewhere by whom they were 
received when travelling, like the old "companions" 
in Europe. It seems that they wore a special costume. 
It was still largely under this aspect that Ibn Battuta, 
the famous traveller of the 8th/i4th century, was to 
see them when he encountered them among the 
common people in Turkish Asia Minor ; but among the 
Persian aristocracy also, where futuwwa was trans- 
lated by djavdnmardi , the life of the fityan appeared 
to a prince such as the author of the Kdbusnama 
(5th/nth century) to be a desirable vocation, indeed 

In contrast, however, to these peaceful impressions 
the ancient chroniclers record many others which are 
far less so. In this connexion the name fityan is not 
in fact the one that occurs most frequently; since 
they were discussing elements of disorder, the writers, 
who belonged to the official classes, gave them names 
suggestive of the mob or rabble; the most general 
term, which the recipients adopted with just as much 
pride as did other men of the people in revolutionary 
France the term sans-culotte, is c ayydr{un) "va- 
grant, outlaw"; other quite common terms were 
awbdsh "riff-raff", skdtir, pi. shuttdr "artful [ones]" 
and, from the time of the Saldjukids, rind [q.v.], pi. 
runiid "scamp". It is with their condition in Baghdad 
that we are through the documentation most familiar, 
but it must not be forgotten that the special character 
of that town may mean that they did not occur there 
in their widely-spread form, and it is important to 
study them also in any other place where it is possible 
to do so. 

In Baghdad, we see the 'ayydrun emerging from 
obscurity in the periods when authority was relaxed. 
Well-known pages of al-Tabari and al-Mas c udi evoke 
them for us, armed with stones and staves and with 
no protection other than helmets made of palm- 
leaves, standing together in defence of the caliph 
al-Amin against the attacks of the Khurasanis who 
supported his brother al-Ma'mfln, or, half a century 
later, in the cause of al-Musta c In against the troops of 
al-Mu'tazz. The three centuries from the 4th/ioth 
to the 6th/i2th are full of tales of disturbances fo- 
mented by them or in which they took part, their 
exploits only ceasing at exceptional times under 
strong rulers (the Biiyid { Adud al-Dawla, the three 
great Saldjukids). During the civil wars of the last 
years of the independent caliphate, numerous leaders 
sought their help and enrolled them in their police 
forces. In 361-2/972, when arms had been distributed 
61 



962 FUTl 

to those who had declared themselves ready to set 
off for the Holy War against the Byzantine in- 
vaders, disorders ensued which were ended only by 
burning down a quarter of the town. In about 420-5/ 
1028-33 two of their leaders, Ibn al-Mawsili and 
al-Burdjami, were the real masters of the capital and 
forced the appointment as head of police of Muham- 
mad al-Nasawi who was regarded as one of their 
friends and who in any case treated them with 
consideration and relied on them. If we are to believe 
later traditions, it is possible that the Buyid Abu 
Kalidjar was in league with them. In the following 
century the head of the fitydn in Baghdad in about 
530/1135 and the succeeding years included the 
governor and members of the vizier's and the sultan's 
families among his followers. These are only a few 
instances out of a multitude of other less striking 
ones. When they were strong, they succeeded in 
plundering, but the chief complaint of the merchants 
in the sufrs was in general less of their "thefts" than 
of the "protection" khifdra, himdya [qq.v.] which, 
following the example of certain great men, they 
extended over the suits for the sake of the spoils 
that fell to them. They were particularly powerful 
in the outlying districts, but also in certain quarters 
of Karkh, inhabited by artisans, on the left bank of 
the Tigris and, later, at Bab al-Azadj on the right 
bank, at the gates of the capital which provided 
their livelihood. 

Who were they, what were their aims ? In the first 
place they were clearly humble people, often without 
any established or definite profession; but more 
exalted persons readily mingled with them, either 
being attracted by them or, from ambition, desiring 
to have followers. They certainly had no 'programme' 
in the sense that a modern popular party would have, 
and often an inclination towards plunder and the 
rewards derived from it seem to have been their sole 
motivation; however, at the same time they had a 
more specific ambition, which may cause some 
surprise: they wanted to be enrolled in the police 
{shur(a), partly of course for the sake of the regular 
pay, but also and primarily because to join the police 
ray of avoiding trouble with them. 



This 



the r 






s reformed 'ayydrun who, acting as volunteers 
(muffawi'un) , helped the government against their 
former companions. Among the masses, the true 
'ayydrun enjoyed the popularity of thieves who 
attack the rich, an elementary form of class re- 
possession to which no moral stigma was attached. 
Their leaders claimed official recognition for the title 
of Wid which they assumed and which, besides 
gratifying their self-esteem, gave them a secure 
place in the social hierarchy. Finally, as regards 
religion, they included Shi'Is and Sunnis; the Is- 
ma'ills may have attempted to penetrate their 
groupings in order to organize political activities 
there (as in the case of the "plot" which a pious 
organization denounced in 473/1080 to the govern- 
ment of the Caliph under the Saldjukid protecto- 
rate) ; and the Hanbalis certainly had their social 
"base" among some of them: but these diverse 
movements co-existed, and the futuwwa, in its 
general character common to all, owes nothing to 
them and is not more specifically affected by any 
one of them than by any other. 

What we have just said applies, we repeat, more 
particularly to Baghdad, where the importance of the 
forces of the government and the aristocracy in 
general thrust back Hydra (i.e., the quality and 
posture of the 'ayydrun) into a role of extra-legal op- 



position. But the picture suggested by the documen- 
tation relating to other towns is, despite its deficien- 
cies, somewhat different. There was not a single 
town in the Iranian and peri- Iranian world, from 
Central Asia to Mesopotamia, which did not have 
its 'ayydrun, and although they appear to be some- 
what similar to what we have just seen in the 
capital of the Caliphate they nevertheless seem to be 
more closely linked with the local bourgeoisie, even 
in the functioning of official political institutions. 
Sometimes they joined forces with the bourgeoisie 
in support of a native prince, as in the Samanid ter- 
ritory; sometimes the bourgeoisie relied on them in 
resisting the authorities whom it resented as for- 
eigners, particularly during the Turkish period. 
Their greatest success, in Sistan, was the elevation 
to princely authority of a dynasty that had sprung 
up from themselves, that of the Saffarids, which had 
started out by superseding the inadequate forces of 
the Caliph during the struggle against the bedouin 
Kharidjls; and without going as far as that, there 
were many occasions when they made and unmade 
princes. More usually, in the majority of towns 
which had no skurfa, they formed an indispensable 
local militia, whose quality was enhanced by their 
active traditions of sporting and military training 
and upon whom the raHs of the city relied, whether 
or not he was their actual leader (see the case of 
Bukhara, where the K. al- DhakhdHr clearly shows 
the official standing of their battalions alongside 
the army and the ghdzis). 

It will naturally be asked what connexion there is 
between the fitydn whom we described at the be- 
ginning of this article and the 'ayyariin of whom we 
are now speaking. The texts, however, make it clear 
beyond question that many of the fitydn of the first 
sort called themselves or were called 'ayyariin or 
some equivalent name, while many of the 'ayydrun 
on the other hand called themselves fitydn or fol- 
lowers of the futuwwa. An at least partial equivalence 
is therefore indisputable, and the only question is to 
know if this is or is not absolute and, insofar as it is 
confirmed, to understand its significance. To find 
the answer, we have to remember the existence of 
the urban 'asabiyydt. In eastern towns certain kinds 
of factions existed almost everywhere under this 
name, feuding in the name of some particular doc- 
trine or eponym; but they are more profoundly 
characteristic of a certain type of urban society. 
Now the texts also leave no doubt that the concepts 
of 'asabiyya and futuwwa were, at least in part, 
inter-related. In the moral sense, 'asabiyya is the 
principle of solidarity of a group, futuwwa the indi- 
vidual qualities by which it can be achieved. This 
being said, it is evidently as impossible to attribute 
any great numerical strength to the sodalities 
of fitydn of the mystico-literary texts as it is to 
deny it to the 'ayydrun belonging to the 'asa- 
biyydt who inspired the accounts in the historical 
and related works; but we see very clearly that, in a 
sense that is materially elastic but morally no less 
strong, the members of the 'asabiyydt could have 
regarded themselves as true adherents of the futuwwa 
and that, among the fitydn in the apparent idyllic 
sense, many individuals or groups may in fact have 
been steeped in the 'asabiyydt and the disturbances 
that they engendered. Consequently the futuwwa 
must apparently be considered neither as an inte- 
resting but marginal socio-ideological institution, as 
most of the ancient descriptions imply, nor even 
solely or precisely as a form of reaction by the desti- 
tute classes, but as a general and fundamental 



structural element of urban society in the mediaeval 
East. 

Within which frontiers, in the East? Though at- 
tested throughout the whole Irano-Mesopotamian 
territory, the Hydra-futuwwa is not recorded, at 
least under those names, in Syria or Egypt. There 
were militias there, it is true, the ahddth [q.v.], a name 
which, like filydn, evokes "youth"; they are found 
first in the 4th/ioth century, ranged against the 
authorities while simultaneously entrusted with the 
functions of the shurta; later, towards the end of the 
following century, they became an officially accepted 
institution, their raHs then being raHs for the town, 
sometimes almost by inheritance; however, they 
progressively declined in face of the organization 
of new powers relying on military garrisons. The 
resemblance to the fitydn, both in the facts and the 
meaning of the name, is evident ; and yet the analogy 
is not absolute. The status of the ahddth became more 
systematically official than that of the fitydn, their 
recruitment was perhaps more bourgeois, and 
above all there is no indication that their organiza- 
tion was in any way concerned with the communal 
life, the rites of initiation and the ideological elabora- 
tion which, as we shall see, characterize the futuwwa ; 
if we add to this that the latter's domain was that of 
Sasanid tradition, while the ahddth only existed in 
the former Syro-Byzantine territories, we shall con- 
cede that, in spite of a certain parallelism in condition- 
ing and evolution, there may be differences in their 
historical origins. But in Damascus the ordinary 
ahddth were sometimes opposed by more popular 
ahddth who were accused of Hydra; in Egypt, at 
Tinnls, there was in the 4th/ioth century a large 
organization of shabdb shudf-dn "young heroes", 
who combined communal life with violent anti- 
aristocratic activities; though Muslims, they were 
denounced by the Christian notables to the Fatimid 
caliph al-Mu c izz who had them exterminated, like 
others in Damascus {Histoire des Patriarches d'A lexan- 
drie, ed. Soc. d'Arch. Copte, ii/2, 88-9) ; and later, in 
Cairo, there were popular groups then called fiardfish 
who reveal an undeniable relationship with the 
"■ayydrun, if not explicitly with the futuwwa in the 
strict sense of the term, with whom they do not 
appear to have claimed kinship (see W. Brinner, 
The significance of the hardfish and their Sultan, 
in JESHO, vi/2 (1963)). Nothing comparable seems 
to have been recorded in western Islam. 

The futuwwa is often represented as being linked 
with the guild organizations, and it has even been 
suggested that, through the initiation rites to which 
we shall return later, both of these were influenced 
by the Isma'ills, who were credited with particular 
interest in the world of labour. We have already said 
what we think about this last point. More generally, 
it is important to make a careful chronological dis- 
tinction. In the later Middle Ages (v. infra) a certain 
kind of interpenetration between the trade guilds 
in the Irano-Turkish territories and the futuwwa is 
undeniable; but until the 7th/i3th century, when 
guild life remained very much under State control, 
the most that could be said is that the futuwwa 
clientele was evidently recruited for the most part at a 
popular level. On the one hand, it was apparently not 
the well-established masters of regular trades who 
constituted the chief recruits; on the other hand there 
is in any case nothing to indicate that the corporate 
groups of futuwwa were set up and marked off from 
one other on an occupational basis. No doubt re- 
lationships in respect of their work can be traced; 
but if a European parallel may be cited, it is that of 



VWA 963 

the inter-professional Companies and not the trade 
guilds, and the term 'corporation' must not be taken 
implicitly as the equivalent of 'profession'. 

The point remains that the futuwwa, as we have 
noted, is strictly speaking an urban phenomenon. 
Naturally it happened that, in the course of their 
activities, the fitydn went beyond urban boundaries 
and mingled with other social categories, and the 
diversity of the groups and the uncertainties of 
terminology in the various writers perhaps permit 
us to admit the existence of some intermediate cases 
between the true futuwwa and other corporate 
organizations. But it seems necessary to make a 
distinction in principle between the urban fata and 
the suHuk [q.v.], the knight-errant of the desert 
(even if he derives from the proto-Arab fata or the 
diavdnmard of Persian tradition); and although, in 
the frontier zone, the fata may be replaced by the 
ghdzi, for the rest he is a phenomenon of wider oc- 
currence, and even there generally coexisted with 
the other without confusion. 

These remarks on the 'ayydrun apply particularly 
to the period up to the 5th/nth century ; at that time 
there occurred an evolution, both among them and 
in the surrounding society, which in itself is of great 
historical importance, but which furthermore, as we 
shall see, is at the origin of the appearance of that 
form of literature on futuwwa which, when compared 
with the reality, is at first sight so misleading. The 
growing importance of the fitydn-'ayydriln, attracting 
persons of high social rank and an increasing number 
of men of erudition, provoked a tendency among 
them to clarify and scrutinize the values that the 
futuwwa in fact implied; in the second place, and 
simultaneously with this process, another movement 
came into being within Sufism which, for long 
restricted to individual forms of asceticism and 
mysticism, became organized into communities 
where, very naturally, the problems of collective 
life brought them into touch with the experience 
of futuwwa ; it was perhaps the extra-legal aspect of 
the futuwwa which formed the attraction for some 
Sufis like the Malamatiyya. It was in these circles, 
from the 5th/nth century, that a specific literature 
on futuwwa made its appearance, the characteristic 
feature of which is that it provides us with a spiritual 
elaboration of the subject, with the addition of 
certain pseudo-historical traditions and a selective 
and idealized portrayal of the ancient fitydn (such as 
we described earlier, partly from this source), without 
any other allusion being made to the real organiza- 
tions of fitydn and the use of violence, of which 
nevertheless the chroniclers continue to provide such 
irrefutable evidence — to such an extent that we might 
well wonder if we really are dealing with the same 
people, were it not that we know that at least from 
the 7th/i3th century some of the writers of the 
treatises of this type were well-known as leaders of 
authentic groups of real fitydn. 

The attitude of the governments and aristocracy 
towards the futuwwa was consequently modified. 
It is true that they continued their struggle against 
those who fomented disturbances or who were sus- 
pected of heterodoxy, but, far from being opposed 
to the concept of the futuwwa, they were hostile only 
to what they called distortions, or deviations from 
what it should in fact be. Nizam al-Mulk, the great 
Saldjukid vizier, in whose lifetime a vizier of the 
Caliph persecuted the group of fitydn suspected of 
Isma'ilism to whom we have already referred, was 
at the same time the man to whom one of the first 
treatises of muruwwa and futuwwa was dedicated. 



964 FUTl 

Again, during the following century, in the well- 
known pages where the Hanbali Ibn al-Djawzi 
attacked the fitydn of his day and their conception 
of sexual honour, their acts of violence, etc., what 
he preaches is not so much their destruction as the 
taking over of the futuwwa, in its anarchic condition, 
by a superior authority capable of guiding it towards 

It was this reform that the caliph al-Nasir (577/ 
1181-620/1223) was to accomplish. The dominating 
preoccupation of this remarkable man was his attempt 
to regroup under the aegis of the Caliphate all 
spiritual families and all organizations claiming 
kinship with Islam. At a very early date (578/1182 
according to Ibn Abi '1-Damm and al-Sakhawi 
quoted in Must. Djawad, see Bibl.) he had himself 
initiated into the Baghdad futuwwa by its grand 
master, shaykh c Abd al-Djabbar. As we have seen, 
the futuwwa was to a greater or lesser degree diver- 
sified, and in the time of al-Nasir in Baghdad there 
were five branches of it, one of which, the Nabawiyya, 
whose existence is attested as early as the 4th/ioth 
century and which was also known elsewhere in the 
6th/i2th century by Ibn Djubayr, devoted itself 
to fighting against the heretic and the infidel, while 
another was the Rahfrdsiyya, <Abd al-Djabbar's 
branch. Al-Nasir cannot have been a simple, ordinary 
devotee of the futuwwa. Legislating in this domain 
as in others, he tried to unify, discipline and co- 
ordinate the futuwwa of Baghdad while at the same 
time encouraging the ruling circles of religious, 
military and administrative society to belong to it, 
with the aim of converting into an instrument of 
social education and general solidarity what had 
previously been a source of disturbance and discord, 
and also to reconcile the Sufi-influenced shari'-a of 
his conception with a corpus of regulations and cus- 
toms that had grown up independently of it. After- 
wards he exhorted the princes of the whole Muslim 
East to adhere to this new futuwwa, to develop its 
organization in their respective States, to associate 
themselves generally with him in the establishment, 
under his aegis, of a pan-Islamic futuwwa. For the 
aristocratic clientele, privileges had to be found; 
hence the emphasis placed on the monopoly of per- 
formance of certain sports to which the fitydn 
had long devoted themselves with enthusiasm. Indeed 
in Syria and Egypt the futuwwa, in this form, re- 
mained aristocratic. But it so happens that it was 
with this form that Hammer-Purgstall was ac- 
quainted, with the result that he looked upon it as 
an order of chivalry; we can see to what extent this 
view is, if not misdirected, at least restricted in fact 
to a single tardy excrescence, destined not to last 
and in no way representative of the real futuwwa. 
In Baghdad society the caliph's efforts were nullified, 
after his death, by the Mongol conquest. Strangely 
enough, it was in Anatolian-Turkish society, during 
its first phase of organization, that the great caliph's 
initiative was to rouse the strongest echoes; the 
futuwwa that developed there in the original form 
of the akhis [q.v.] never ceased to be ascribed to the 
patronage of al-Nasir (see below). 

It is through the writings on futuwwa that resulted 
from al-Nasir's policy that we are best acquainted 
with the organization of the fitydn, without of course 
being able always to specify exactly which elements 
of the description given would also have been valid 
in the preceding centuries, and which were al-Nasir's 
innovations. The treatises of Ibn al-Mi c mar, who is 
the most factual, al-Khartaburti who is more imbued 
with the spirit of Sufism, and al-Suhrawardi, the 



first of a series of writers in Persian, inaugurated a 
literary category which, in Irano-Turkish territories 
(and also in Egypt during the Ottoman period), was 
to continue until the beginning of modern times. 
The r61e of communal initiatory groups which they 
ascribed to the futuwwa organizations is certainly 
applicable, though not uniformly, in the "classical" 
periods of Islam. Membership, preceded by a period 
of probation, was accompanied by a ceremonial which 
entailed in particular the drinking of a cup of salt 
water during a communal meeting at which a belt 
was buckled round the new devotee ; he also adopted 
the distinctive clothing of the futuwwa, the trousers 
being especially significant. He was introduced by a 
sponsor to whom he was bound as by the inflexible 
duty of the son (ibn) or junior, inferior man (saghir) 
to the father (abu) or senior (kabir). In al-Nasir's 
futuwwa, an interval of time separated the first 
ceremony of adoption of the novice (murid) from the 
presentation of the trousers, the action which alone 
conferred the rank of full member, comrade (rafik). 
The Futuwwatndma of Suhrawardi adds a hierarchy 
between the simple adepts by the spoken word only 
(kawK) and those who had girded on the sword 
{say ft), but we do not know how far this corresponded 
to reality; at the end of the century an intermediate 
stage was still spoken of, that of those who had 
drunk the cup (shurbi). Solidarity between comrades 
had to be absolute. The general organization, in 
which the Grand Master was the caliph assisted by a 
nakib, was divided into a certain number of sub- 
groups (ahzdb, pi. of Ifizb), each of which consisted 
of several buyilt; and a kind of autonomous internal 
jurisdiction settled their disputes by a procedure in 
which the oath of honour of the futuwwa played a 
great part. The books on futuwwa do not mention any 
sporting privileges; but we know that these did apply 
to the rearing and flying of homing pigeons, an 
ancient occupation of the fitydn but despised by the 
aristocracy, and the sport of the bunduk [see ijaws] 
(accompanied by the shooting of birds), the rules for 
which were then officially promulgated, and which 

Turkish military caste; we may suppose that this 
aspect of the futuwwa did not interest the writers 
who were considering the futuwwa in its moral and 
religious aspects. 

There is no doubt, however, that from then onwards 
there was a certain convergence between the popular 
futuwwa and the futuwwa of the Sufis. One of the 
most ardent disseminators of the reformed institution 
was the same Suhrawardi, general theological adviser 
to al-Nasir and founder of an order of Sufis, and one 
who commanded extraordinary respect, especially 
in Asia Minor. A certain reciprocal penetration took 
place between the combative spirit of the fitydn 
and the spiritual ideal of the Sufis. One manifestation 
of this was the adoption for the futuwwa of isndds 
inspired by Sufi models, by means of which each 
group claimed attachment to ancestors, whether true 
or suppositious, whose patronage was morally 
significant: generally, in the end, to 'All, on account 
of the ambivalence of the word fata, and very often 
after him to Salman, the patron of the Irano- 
Mesopotamian artisans. In more general terms, we 
thus see the futuwwa demonstrating in its own 
particular way the method of absorption of popular 
movements by Sufi organizations which from the 
end of the Middle Ages to our own time has charac- 
terized such large sectors of social evolution in Muslim 
countries. It is merely necessary to repeat that the 
literature that resulted from this evolution cannot 



be taken as a guarantee of what the classical futuwwa 

had been in earlier times. 

Bibliography: It is impossible to enumerate 
here all the historical, literary, religious etc. works 
which provide occasional and sometimes valuable 
documentation on futuwwa; references will be found 
in the articles listed below, particularly those of Fr. 
Taeschner and CI. Cahen ; we shall confine ourselves 
to adding two works which have more recently be- 
come known, the K. al- DhakhdHr wa 'l-tuhaf of 
al-Rashid b. al-Zubayr, ed. Hamldullah, Kuwait 
1959 (on Bukhara, 153), and the Ta'rikh of Ibn 
Abi '1-Damm, unpublished, passage quoted by 
Mustafa Djawad in the work listed infra, 52. In 
the section following we shall consider only those 
treatises which, either wholly or in part, are 
devoted specifically and explicitly to the futuwwa, 
with the reservations noted in the article. The 
earliest is that of SulamI (about 400/1010), ed. Fr. 
Taeschner, As-Sutami's Kitab al-Futuwwa, in 
Studia Orientalia Joanni Petersen . . . dicata, 
Copenhagen 1953, which is followed by some special 
sections on the futuwwa in the larger works of 
mysticism or muruwwa of Tha'alibi (Brockelmann, 
I, 286), of c Abd Allah al-Ansari (Abdiilbaki Golpi- 
narh, op. cit., infra, 10), of Ibn Djadawayh (ed. 
Taeschner in Documenta Islamica Inedita [Fest- 
schrift R. Hartmann], 1952) and of Kushayri 
{Risdla, see R. Hartmann, al-Kuschairis Darstellung 
des Sufitums, Turk. Bibl. XVIII, Berlin 1914). 
In the following century appeared the critical 
chapter of Ibn al-Djawzi in his Talbis Iblis, 
ed. Cairo 1340, 421-2. But it was naturally around 
the caliph al-Nasir that works on futuwwa es- 
pecially developed. The most notable of these is 
the Bast madad al-tawfik of the Hanball Ibn al- 
Mi'mar (and not 'Ammar, as has been read until 
recently), which was studied by Thorning (see 
infra) as early as 1913, though its attribution to 
al-Nasir's circle was only established by P. Kahle 
in his article Die Futuwwa-Bundnisse des Kalifen 
al-Nasir, in Festschrift Georg Jacob, 1932 ; the last- 
named writer has now, under the same title, 
produced a German translation of the work in his 
Opera Minora, 1956; the same text has been pub- 
lished with a scholarly introduction, under the 
title K. al-Futuwwa, by Mustafa Djawad and 
Muhammad al-Hilali (with two other collaborators), 
Baghdad 1958, who have established the true 
name of the author. To the writings of al-Nasir's 
circle belong also the Tuhfat al-Wasdya of Ilyas 
al-Khartaburti analysed by Taeschner in Islamica, 
v (1932), and published in facsimile with Turkish 
translation by Abdiilbaki Golpinarh in his Islam 
ve Turk illerinde futiivvet teskilati ve kaynaklari, 
in Istanbul Vniversitesi Iktisat Fakultesi Mecmuasi, 
xi (1952) (the French edition of the same review, 
Revue d'Histoire Economique, reproduces the in- 
troduction), and a treatise, the precursor of a series 
in Persian, by al-Nasir's spiritual adviser, Shihab 
al-DIn 'Umar Suhrawardi, analysed by Fr. 
Taeschner in Oriens, xv (1962), in which he refers 
to another treatise by the same author. Moreover, 
P. Kahle has extracted from the Chronicle of Ibn 
al-Sa% ed. Must. Djawad, 227 ff., and translated 
and studied the text of the caliph's decree of 
604/1207 on the reorganization of the futuwwa, 
Der Futuwwa-Erlass des Kalifen al-Nasir, in 
Festschrift Oppenheim (=Beiheft I zum Archiv f. 
Orientforschung, 1932). For subsequent works 
after al-Nasir's time, see the second part of this 



As has been said, the first European writer to 
have noted — in however fortuitous and digressive 
a manner— the existence of the futuwwa was 
J. v. Hammer-Purgstall, in his article Sur la 
chevalerie des Arabes, in J A, 1849 (mainly fol- 
lowing Ibn al-Furat). After him, however, it 
was in fact H. Thorning who, from an entirely 
different approach, inaugurated the study of 
the futuwwa, to which P. Kahle in the articles 
enumerated above made decisive contributions; 
but the principal specialist, to whom we are 
indebted for a mass of information and ideas, 
has for over thirty years been Franz Taeschner. 
This scholar has from time to time undertaken 
various restatements of the problem, the last 
general one being his Futuwwa, eine gemein- 
schaftbildende Idee itn mittelalterlichen Orient und 
ihre verschiedene Erscheinungsformen, in Schweize- 
risches Archiv fur Volhskunde, lii (1956), 122-58; 
nevertheless, although in this article the author 
has on certain points completed and modified his 
earlier expositions, the latter should still be con- 
sulted for detailed information, particularly his 
principal works : Die islamischen Futuwwabunde, das 
Problem ihrer Entstehung und die Grundlinien ihrer 
Geschichte, in ZDMG, lxxxvii (1933); Futuwwa- 
studien, in Islamica, v (1932); Der Anteil des 
Sufismus an der Formung des Futuwwaideals, in 
Isl., xxiv (1937); Islamisches Ordensrittertum zur 
Zeit der Kreuzziige, in Die Welt als Geschichte, iv 
(1938); Das Futuwwarittertum des islamischen 
Mittelalters, in Beitrage zur Arabistik, Semitistik 
und Islamwissenschaft, Leipzig 1944 (not to men- 
tion his contributions on the later Turkish futuwwa 
and the akhis, for which see below). More recently, 
critical views of varying validity have been ex- 
pressed by G. Salinger, Was the Futuwwa an 
oriental form of Chivalry?, in Proceedings of the 
American Philosophical Society, xciv (1950). 
A valuable and illuminating study of social 
psychology has been made by L. Massignon, 
La futuwwa ou pacte d'honneur entre les travailleurs 
musulmans au Moyen Age, in La Nouvelle Clio, 
1952. After bringing to light certain details con- 
cerning Les Debuts de la futuwwa d'al-Nasir, in 
Oriens, 1953, CI. Cahen has attempted, by a more 
complete use of historical information, to further 
our knowledge of the futuwwa organizations as an 
organic part of oriental urban society, in his 
Mouvements populaires et autonomisme urbain dans 
I'Asie Musulmane du Moyen Age, in Arabica, 
1958-9 (also printed separately, 1959; abridged 
German version: Zur Geschichte der stadtischen 
Gesellschaft im islamischen Orient des Mittelalters, 
in Saeculum, ix (1958), 59-76), and quite re- 
cently the fitydn of Khurasan have attracted the 
attention of C. E. Bosworth in The Ghaznevids, 
Edinburgh 1963, chap. VI. Of the Arab scholars, 
besides the contributions of Mustafa Djawad re- 
produced in the introduction to his edition of 
Ibn al-Mi c mar, we should add S. 'Afifi, al-Mald- 
matiyya wa 'l-Sufiyya wa ahl al-futuwwa, Cairo 
1364/1945. For the Turkish scholars, who for the 
most part have concerned themselves with the 
Turkish period of the futuwwa, see below. 

The fata, in its ancient Arab form, has been the 
subject of expositions, for example in Bishr Fares, 
L'honneur chez les Arabes avant V Islam, Paris 1932, 
c Umar al-Dasuki, al-Futuwwa Hnd al- c Arab, 
Cairo 1953, and M. Bravmann, On the spiritual 
background of Early Islam, in Museon, lxiv (1951). 
(Cl. Cahen) 



Post-Monc 
of the c 



. Period 
urtly fui 



(i) Surviv; 
the Mongol 

When Hulegii, the grandson of Cingiz Khan, con- 
quered Baghdad in 1258, putting a bloody end to the 
'Abbasid Caliphate, he also dealt a blow to the 
futuwwa organization, which the Caliph al-Nasir 
li-DIn Allah had reformed and brought to new great- 
ness by introducing it into courtly life. Futuwwa 
writings, which had come into being under al-Nasir, 
survived for a time to the extent of entries in the 
great encyclopaedias (here I would mention the 
Persian encyclopaedia Nafd'is al-funiin fi masdHl 
al-'-uyun of Amuli, and the Tuhfat al-ikhwdn of 
'Abd al-Razzak Kashani), which have a chapter on 
futuwwa, giving extracts from the Kitdb al-Futuwwa 
of the Hanball fakih Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad 
al-Sharim (?), known as Ibn al-Mi'mar, which was 
written for the futuwwa circles of the caliph al-Nasir. 
But it is doubtful whether this literary survival was 
matched by any actual survival of the organiza- 
tional futuwwa in its courtly form. 

For some time, however, the courtly futuwwa did 
in fact persist in Egypt. This was connected with the 
move of the 'Abbasid Caliphate to that country 
under the Mamluk sultan al-Zahir Baybars (658-676/ 
1260-1277). Before he left for Damascus on 19 
Ramadan 659/18 August 1261, the 'Abbasid prince 
who had fled to him, and whom he recognized as 
Caliph al-Mustansir II, clothed him with the 
"garment of the futuwwa" (libds al-futuwwa). After 
Mustansir II had been killed on his unsuccessful 
campaign against the Mongols, a second supposed 
'Abbasid descendant arrived in Cairo, and was in 
turn recognized by Baybars as the Caliph al-Hakim 
bi-amr Allah, and Baybars in his turn now bestowed 
on him the "garment of the futuwwa". Baybars's 
successors maintained the investiture with the 
"garment of the futuwwa" for some time. They 
invested Mamluk amirs, and foreign princes with it, 
issuing the relevant documents, e.g., that made out 
for the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalll in 691/1292 
in respect of the Kurdish prince 'Ala 5 al-DIn al- 
Hakkarl. Mamluk amirs who had received the 
futuwwa showed this in their coat of arms. As time 
went on, however, interest in the futuwwa seems to 
have waned. During the 8th/i4th century, or at the 
latest during the 9th/i5th, courtly futuwwa appears 
to have become extinct even in Egypt — at least, no 
more is heard of it. Only Kalkashandi, in his work 
Subh al-a c shd, makes brief mention of the ceremony 
of admission, the girding (shadd). There are also a 
few documents opposing the futuwwa, written by 
members of the '■ulamd', such as the one by 
the famous Hanball reformer Ibn Taymiyya (died 
728/1328), but otherwise no further evidence has 
come to light. 

Bibliography: Concerning the Egyptian fu- 
tuwwa: E. Blochet, Moufazzal ibn Abilfazail, His- 
toire des Sultans Mamlouks (Patrologia Orientalis, 
xii, treatise hi), Paris 1919, 426 [84]; Chronicle of 
Ahmed ibn "Alt al-Makrizi, entitled Kitdb al-Suluk 
ft ma'rifat duwal al-muluk, ed. by M. Mustafa 
Ziada, vol. I, Part 2, Cairo 1936, 459, note 5 
(reproduction of MufaddaFs report) ; Fr. Taeschner, 
Eine Futuwwa-Urkunde des Mamlukensultans al- 
Aschraf Chaltt von 1292, in Aus der Geschichte des 
islamischen Orients (Philosophie und Geschichte 69), 
Tubingen 1949, 1-15; al- Kalkashandi, Subh al- 
a'shd, Cairo 1336/1918, 274-9 (reproduction of 
the above-mentioned futuwwa document, and a 



further one with an introduction); I. Goldziher, 
Eine Fetwd gegen die Futuwwa, in ZDMG, lxxiii 
(1919), 127 f.; J. Schacht, Zwei neue Quellen zur 
Kenntnis der Futuwwa, in Festschrift Georg Jacob, 
Leipzig 1932, 276-87. 

(ii) Popular futuwwa. The Turkish Akhilik. 
Wherever futuwwa once existed, it continued in a 
different form, by becoming linked with the crafts, 
and thus, in time, it became the rule of the guilds. 
This process, occurring in all the countries of the 
Islamic Orient, is by no means clear, but we know 
more about its history in Turkey than in most other 
places. This is due to the fact that here (i.e., in 
Saldjuk Anatolia), it took on a rather interesting 
form among the urban craftsmen, noticeable because 
the bearer of the futuwwa (Turkish futuwwet), the 
futuwwetddr, was referred to as Akhi; hence the 
Turkish name Akhilik (see akhi) for this particular 
Anatolian form of futuwwa. 

We know from the historian Ibn BibI that courtly 
futuwwa did exist in Anatolia. He reports that the 
Rum-Saldjuk Sultan 'Izz al-DIn Kaykawus I had 
requested and received the "garment of the futuwwa" 
from the Caliph al-Nasir (c. 611/1214). In the time of 
his successor 'Ala 1 al-DIn Kaykubad I (616-634/ 
1219-1236), the great Shaykh Abu Hafs 'Umar al- 
Suhrawardl — al-NSsir's theological adviser — came to 
Konya as ambassador and, amongst other duties, 
performed the futuwwa rituals. One might be 
justified in assuming that this contributed to the 
spread of futuwwa in Anatolia, yet this impetus 
from courtly futuwwa does not seem to be solely 
resonsible for the development of Akhilik. 

The existence of this form of futuwwa in Iran can 
be proved even before that in Anatolia, and every- 
thing points to the fact that it must have reached 
Anatolia from there. This theory is also supported 
by the cult of Abu Muslim [q.v.] — the propagator of 
the 'Abbasid revolt against the Umayyads— who 
(rather like Sayyid Battal [q.v.]) became a sort of 
national hero, first for the Persians and later also 
for the Turks. However, whilst Sayyid Battal was 
regarded as the model of fighters for the faith — the 
Ghazls — Abu Muslim was the model for the artisans 
and the lesser people, who formed a corporate body 
under the name of Akhi- According to a widespread 
tale which was responsible for shaping the picture 
of Abu Muslim in the imagination of the people, the 
Akhis led by him — especially those of Marw and 
Khurasan — were the ones chiefly concerned with 
the 'Abbasid rising. Even if one regards this as a 
mythical elaboration of the figure of Abu Muslim, 
one may still assume that the institution as a popular 
element in the social structure of Iran dates quite a 
long way back. 

Although there is clearly a connexion between the 
futuwwa and the Akhilik, there is some question 
about the earlier Islamic and Iranian antecedents of 
the futuwwa (see above). Akhi Faradj Zindjani (died 
457/1065), one of the most famous saints in Iran, is the 
earliest personality on Iranian soil who is mentioned 
as an Akhi, and he is also revered by the Anatolian 
Akhis (whose adherence to the futuwwa is beyond 
doubt) as one of their own shaykhs, appearing in 
their rolls of honour (silsila). Akhi Faradj Zindjani 
is held to be the master of the great Persian poet 
Nizami, but as the latter was born only in 535/"4i 
(that is to say 80 years after Zindjani's death), one 
can only regard Nizami as a spiritual disciple of the 
great master. 

In the 7th/i3th and 8th/i 4 th centuries, when 
Akhilik flourished in Anatolia (as is borne out by 



numerous documents) it also flourished in Iran. 
There were a number of Akhis in the time of .Shaykh 
SafI al-Din Ardabili (1252-1334), the ancestor 
of the Safawid Shahs, and some of them must 
be numbered among his own companions and 
followers. Notable amongst these is Akhi Sul ay- 
man of Gilkh w aran, the father-in-law of the Shaykh. 
In connexion with these, one should probably also 

mention a certain Akhi Ahmad al-Muhibb 

al-Ardabili, by whom we have a Kitdb al-Futuwwa 
in Arabic (which contains, however, only quo- 
tations from the Kur'an and hadith, and sayings 
concerning generosity). The Safawid Akhi tradition 
may also be the basis of the fact that we find the 
word Akhi (with reduced significance) several times 
in the Diwdn of Khata'I (».<,., ghah Isma'il), as a 
name for followers of the Safawiyya. 

Further evidence for the existence of the Iranian 
institution is to be found in the work of the great 
Persian Sufi Shaykh and saint Amir Sayyid 'AH b. 
Shihab al-DIn Hamadani, called C A1I II (714-786/ 
1313-1384), entitled Risdla-i Futuwwatiyya, in 
which he not only equates futuwwa and tasawwuf 
(and where the 'possessor of the futuwwa', the 
futuwwatddr, is. referred to by the name of Akhi), 
but where there is also clear reference to the institution 

Like the Anatolian Akhis, the Iranian ones oc- 
casionally intervened in politics. This can be seen 
from the example of Akhidiuk [q.v.] who gained 
power in Tabriz and Adharbaydjan for three years 
(758-760/1357-59), until the Djala'irid Shaykh Uways 
conquered Tabriz. 

Bibliography: Concerning Akhi writing see 
[besides the works mentioned in the article akhi 
(Nasiri, Giilshehri)] the following: Gulsehri, 
Mantiku't-tayr, a facsimile edition with an in- 
troduction by Agah Sirn Levend, Ankara 1957 
(the relevant futuwwet chapter at 180 ff.) ; Abd- 
ulbaki Golpinarh, Burgdzi ve "Futuvvet-Ndme" si, 
in Iktisat Fakultesi Mecmuast, xv (1953), 76- 
153, transliterated edition with an introduction. 
Concerning Abu Muslim: I. Melikoff-Sayar, Abu 
Muslim, patron des Akhis (in Akten des xxiv. 
intern. Orientalisten-Kongresses, Miinchen, Munich 
1957, 419-21)- Concerning the institution in Iran: 
Fr. Taeschner, Spuren fur das Vorkommen des 
Achitums ausserhalb von Anatolien, in Proceedings 
of the Twenty-second Congress of Orientalists, held 
in Istanbul Sept. 15th to 22nd 1951, vol. II, Leiden 
1957, 273-77; H. W. Duda, 'Imdduddin Faqih und 
die Futuwwa, in ArO, vi (1933), 112-24; B. Niki- 
tine, Essai d' Analyse du Safvat-us-Safd [of Ibn 
Bazzaz, died 773/i37i-72], in JA, 1957, 385-94 
(particularly 393, Akhis in the entourage of 
Shaykh Safi); concerning Akhi Ahmad al- 
Muhibb al-Ardablll cf. Islamica, v (1932), 314, 
under no. 5; A. K. Borovkov, K istorii bratstva 
"Achi" v Sredney Azii (Concerning the history of 
the Akhi constitution in Central Asia), in Aka- 
demiku V. A. Gordlevskomu . . . sbornik statey, 
Moscow 1953, 87 ft.; Fr. Taeschner, Der Achid- 
schuk von Tebriz und seine Erwdhnung im Iskender- 
ndme des Ahmedi, in Charisteria Orientalia (Fest- 
schrift Jan Rypka), Prague 1956, 338-44. 
(iii) Futuwwa as a system of guilds. 
There have probably always been guilds (sinf, 
[q.v.], pi. asndf, Turkish esnaf) in the towns of the 
Islamic Orient. This is also indicated by the fact 
that whereas individual trades are scattered all 
over the town in the Occident, those in the Orient 
are grouped around the market area in streets 



VWA 967 

bearing their name. In the absence of clear evidence, 

nization of the guilds was like in the Middle Ages, 
and whether there has always been a link with the 
futuwwa. The few guild documents which we do 
possess are of a relatively more recent date (at the 
earliest of the 9th/i5th century): that is to say, 
dating from the era of the great Ottoman expansion 
which grew until its rule extended over three conti- 
nents. In the documents of the guild records, there 
is a corresponding prominence of Turkish writings 
with evidence of their having influenced the Arabic. 

These guild documents, now generally referred 
to as Futiiwwet-ndmes, primarily — not to say 
exclusively — deal with the organization of the 
guilds. The numerous catechisms which survive, 
collections of questions put to the apprentice who 
was being examined and their answers, are exclu- 
sively concerned with matters of organization and 
ritual and not with questions of training in the 
trades. From these, it appears that it is not only the 
Akhilik, as we know it from its writings, which is 
responsible for the organization of guilds as a futuwwa 
union; the documents differ in several respects, so 
that it appears probable that other futuwwa groups 
also exerted their influence over the guilds. 

The so-called "Great futiiwwetndma" (futuwwet- 
ndme-i kebir) of Sayyid Mehmed b. Sayyid 'Ala' al- 
DIn al-Huseyni al-RadawI, dated 931/1524, the full 
title of which is Miftah al-dakd'ik, is the most 
important of these documents. It describes the 
futuwwet customs of the guilds in full detail, and 
from this it appears that the futuwwet of the guilds 
had nine grades (whereas that of the Akhilik had 
three). The first three of these, ndzil, nim-farik, and 
meydn-beste, may be taken to correspond to the 
three grades of a trade: apprentice (terbiye, or (Irak), 
journeyman (kalfa), and master (usta), which do not, 
however, appear under these names in the futiiwwet- 
ndme. The next three grades (that is to say, 4 to 6), 
are those of the master of ceremonies, the nakib: 
bishrewish (i.e., the assistant of the nakib), nakib, 
and head nakib (nakib al-nukabd') ; the three top 
grades (7 to 9), are those of the Shaykh: the represen- 
tative (khalife) of the shaykh, also known as Akhi, 
the Shaykh, and the Supreme Shaykh (shaykh al- 
shuyukh). The Akhi, therefore, is the seventh grade 
in the hierarchy of this particular guild futuwwet. 

There is a further difference: whereas the Akhilik 
shows a division into two classes, the futiiwwetnames 
of the guilds give evidence of a division into three: 
Kawli, Shurbi and Seyfi. Thus there is an inter- 
mediate class between the lowest members — those 
who are committed by their word only — and the 
full members — those who have received the accolade; 
this is the class of those who have partaken of the 

A further interesting custom of the guild-futiiwwet 
is the one by which the novice, or apprentice — the 
ndzil— chooses not only a master as "Patron of the 
Journey" (yol atasi), but at the same time he has 
to chose two "Brothers of the Journey" (yol kar- 
deshleri) — apparently from among the older ap- 
prentices — who are to assist him along the path of 
the futiiwwet. 

A further thing which emerges clearly from 
almost every page of the "Great futiiwwetndme" of 
Sayyid Mehmed b. Sayyid c Ala' al-Din, is its de- 
cidedly Shi'i (and more specifically "Twelver" Shi'I, 
Imami) character. Doubtless this is because at the 
time when it was written, at the beginning of the 
ioth/i6th century, the "Twelver" Shi c a enjoyed a 



time of expansion because of the Safawiyya, and this 
led to the foundation of the new Persian Empire. 
It threatened to spread also to Ottoman territory, 
until Sultan Selim I put an end to the threat of the 
new ShI'i Persians by his campaign against Shah 
Isma'Il, over whom he won the victory of Galdiran 
[q.v.] in 1514. This was also the time when the Shi'I 
order of the Bektashiyya [q.v.] was organized by Balim 
Sultan. There are, in fact, some points of contact 
between the "Great fUtuwwetndme" of Sayyid 
Mehmed, and the Bektashiyya: a number of the 
terdiiimdn — the short verses mentioned there which 
were recited or sung at the celebrations of the guilds 
— can also be found in the book Mir^at al-makdsid 
fi daf- al-mafdsid of Sayyid Ahmad Rif c at, which 
describes the Bektashi ceremonies. 

There appear to be only a few complete manuscripts 
of the "Great fUtuwwetndme" of Sayyid Mehmed. 
There are, however, shorter guild extracts in all 
libraries, and these are usually also called "fUtuwwet- 
ndme". They are generally excerpts from the "Great 
fUtuwwetndme". One may therefore assume that 
every guild compiled its own little futUwwetndme 
from that source. It is worth noting that the ShI'i 
character of the original no longer emerges in these. 
This fact reflects a trend in the history of religion 
of the Ottoman Empire where — after earlier inde- 
cision between SunnI and ShI'i— the Sunni creed 
progressively gained ground from the days of 
Selim I onwards. Arabic futuwwa writings (discussed 
by Thorning in a study which has become an in- 
dispensable basis for all work on futuwwa) also seem 
to be based on the Turkish "Great fUtuwwetndme" 
of Sayyid Mehmed, and to represent Arabic trans- 
lations of excerpts from this work. 

Whilst there were other futuwwa traditions besides 
Akhilik in most of the guilds whose rule was Sayyid 
Mehmed's "Great fUtuwwetndme" , there was also a 
group of guilds which must be regarded as the direct 
continuation of Akhilik, namely the tanners and all 
trades concerned with the treatment of leather, such 
as saddlers and cobblers. All these paid homage to 
their pir Akhi Ewran [q.v.], properly Evren, an Akhi 
saint of Ktrshehir in Central Anatolia (south-east of 
Ankara), who is himself said to have been a tanner. 
They did not use Sayyid Mehmed's "Great fUtuwwet- 
ndme" as their rule, but the original fUtuwwetndme 
of the Akhis, which is that of Yahya b. Khalll al- 
Burghazi. There is, however, in most of these 
manuscripts which come from tanner circles, an 
appendix informing the reader of the more modern 
terms, and these are the terms familiar to us from 
Sayyid Mehmed's "Great futUwwetndme" . Thus 
there is evidence that influence was exerted by the 
fUtUwwet tradition represented by the latter over 
the Akhi tradition kept up by the tanners. 

For their part, the tanners, thanks to their Akhi 
tradition, could exert their own influence over the 
other guilds, particularly as they had a firm and 
centralized organisation which had its centre at the 
grave of their patron saint Akhi Evren in KIrshehir. 
At this place there was a tekye whose guardian, 
called Akhi Baba [q.v.], was taken to be a descendant 
of Akhi Evren, and regarded (admittedly only in 
the Turkish provinces of the Ottoman Empire, 
Anatolia, Rumelia, Bosnia and even the Crimea, 
but not in the Arab provinces) as the head of all 
the tanners in the Ottoman Empire. This Akhi Baba, 
or his representative, travelled through the provinces 
every year, receiving the apprentices into the guild. 
The main part of this ceremony was their girding with 
the belt (kushak kushatmasl). Naturally, such cere- 



monies brought a certain income, and this formed the 
financial basis of the organization. The Akhi Babas 
succeeded in gaining the privilege of girding the 
apprentices of other guilds as well, and thus they 
gained a position of considerable power among the 
craftsmen of the ancient Ottoman Empire. Akhi 
Evren thus became pir not only of the tanners but 
of the whole of the Turkish guilds. This position of 
the Akhi Babas of Kirshehir was repeatedly confirm- 
ed by edict and, on the whole, the Ottoman sultans 
protected the guilds and their organizations. These 
were useful to them on several counts: firstly, they 
supplied not only the general populace, but in 
particular the armies on their campaigns, and 
secondly they were a reserve of men — some of the 
guilds were bound to do military service; in the 
earliest days, the guilds were also the only means 
of reaching the whole population of the Empire. 
This was the purpose of the occasional processions 
of the guilds. Ewliya Celebi describes one which 
took place under Murad IV in 1048/1638. Such 
gatherings gave the ruler a picture of the military 
and economic strength of his country. 

There were, however, some protests from 'ulemd* 
circles, both against the ShI'i leanings of the "Great 
fUtuwwetndme" by Sayyid Mehmed, and against the 
Akhi Evren cult of the tanners. A learned man by 
name of Muniri (Ibrahim b. Iskandar) BelghradI 
wrote a book entitled Nisdb al-intisdb wa-dddb al- 
iktisdb, attacking these things and presenting the 
crafts from the strictly SunnI point of view. The 
book was of no avail; probably it never even reached 
the hands of those for whom it was intended. 

There is a great amount of important documen- 
tation concerning the guilds (including their rules 
and regulations) in Turkish archives, the major part 
of which has not been studied. 

The European provinces, including those inhabited 
by other races, like Bosnia, took part in the general 
development of the Turkish guilds ; they also relied 
on the same writings. 

As has already been mentioned, the "Great 
fUtuwwetndme" of Sayyid Mehmed b. Sayyid 'Ala' 
al-Din was also the accepted authority in the Arabic 
provinces of the Ottoman Empire. There, the 
guilds used extracts, written in Arabic, and adapted 
them to their special needs. This is the material on 
which H. Thorning based his epoch-making work. 
There is a description of the guilds in Damascus in 
1883 by Elia Qoudsi, from which it becomes clear 
that the organization at that time was still essentially 
the same as that which we know to have existed 
among the Turkish guilds. 

A valuable document concerning the futUwwet as 
an organization of the guilds comes from Persia. 
This is the FUtUwwetndme-i sultdni of the well known 
writer Kamal al-DIn Husayn Wa'iz Kashifi (died 
910/1505), a nephew of the famous poet Djaml. 
Unfortunately only one manuscript has so far come 
to light; it is in the British Museum, but is in- 
complete and still awaits an editor. One may hope, 
though, that further manuscripts of this important 
work, and of others concerning the futuwwa and 
the guild organizations, will emerge from the still 
largely unexplored libraries of Iran. 

In Turkestan also it can be shown that futuwwa 
is at the basis of the guild organizations. The 
eastern Turkish guild treatises (of which there was 
quite a number in the collection of the Berlin 
orientalist Martin Hartmann), are generally called 
risdla. It has recently been shown that there is even 
a reference to the Anatolian saint of the guild, 



FUTUWWA — FUYODJ 



969 



Akhl Evren. Thus the effects of his cult stretched 
as far as Turkestan. 

In the course of the 19th century, with the influx 
of European goods and the expansion of the European 
type of commerce, the guild-organizations fell into 
decay in all states of the Islamic Orient. For this 
reason it has been gradually abolished in all countries 
of the Islamic world. In Turkey, it was discontinued 
in Young Turk times, and replaced by chambers 
of commerce (by a law of 13 February 1325 mdK/26 
Feb. 1910; chambers of commerce were instituted 
in 1943). A few surviving features were abolished in 
the time of the Turkish Republic. With this, there- 
fore, the organization of the futuwwa also came 

In the Arabic dialect of Egypt, futuwwa means 
"ruffian"; cf. the Mudhakkirdt futuwwa, 2nd ed., 
Cairo 1927, written in colloquial Arabic. 

Bibliography: On Turkish guilds in general: 
c Othman Nun [Ergun], MedfeUe-i umur-i belediye, 
Istanbul 1338/1922, ch. VI: Esndf teshkildtl ve 
tidjdret usilllari; Fr. Taeschner, Das Zunftwesen 
in der Tiirkei, in Leipziger Vierteljahresschrift fur 
Sudosteuropa, v (1941), 172-188. Concerning the 
"Great futiiw'wetndme" of Seyyid Mehmed b. 
Seyyid c Ala J al-DIn al-Huseyni al-Radavi of the 
year 931/1524: A complete copy of this was in the 
possession of Prof. Tschudi, Basle, excerpts from 
it in Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, i, 487 ff., as an 
introduction to his description of the great 
procession of the guilds in 1638 (translated by 
J. v. Hammer, Narrative of Travels ...by Evliyd 
Ejendi, i, 2, London 1834, 90 ff.). Concerning 
Akhl Evren: Fr. Taeschner, Gulschehris Mesnevi 
auf Achi Evran, den Heiligen von Kirschehir und 
Patron der turkischen Zunfte, Wiesbaden 1955. 
Guild documents: Fr. Taeschner, Ein Icdzetndme 
aus dem Kreise der Achis (dated Muh. 876/July 
1471), in Jean Deny Armagam, Ankara 1958, 
249-254; idem, Eine Urkunde fur den Stijtungs- 
inhaber der Zaviye des Ahi Evran in Kirsehir von 
1238/1822-23, in Vaktflar Dergisi, iii, Ankara 1957, 
309-313; idem, Ein Zunft-Fermdn Sultan Mus- 
tafa's III von 1773, in Westostliche Abhandlungen 
(Festschrift Rudolf Tschudi), Wiesbaden 1954, 
33 I- 337 (a similar document of 1 197/1783 is 
reproduced in Afet Inan, Apercu gineral sur 
VHistoire economique de VEmpire Turc-Ottoman, 
Istanbul 1941, pi. XVIII; table of contents pi. 
XIX); further guild documents in M. Djewdet, 
V Education aux foyers des gens des mitiers (Arabic), 
Istanbul 1350/1932; there is a reproduction of a 
17th century miniature depicting the ceremony of 
accepting an apprentice into the guild in Taeschner, 
Alt-Stambuler Hof- und Volksleben, Hanover 1925, 
plate 24; also Isl., vi (1916), 169-172. The pro- 
cession of the guilds in 1048/1638, described 
by Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, i, Istanbul 1314/ 
1896-97, 506 ff. (partially and not faithfully 
translated from a defective manuscript by J. v. 

Hammer, Narrative of Travels , vol. i, 

part 2, London 1834, 104 ff.). Concerning Ibrahim 
b. Iskender Belghradi, cf. Bursal! Mehmed Tahir, 
'■OthrmnU miPellifleri, ii, 25 f. Concerning the 
guilds in Bosnia cf. studies by Hamdija Krese- 
vljakovic, Esnafi i Obrti u Bosni i Hercegovini 
(1463-1878) ("Guilds and Companies in Bosnia 
and Herzegovina"), i Sarajevo, Zagreb 1935 
(expanded new edition, Sarajevo 1958), ii Mostar, 
Zagreb 1951; Fr. Taeschner, Das bosnische Zunft- 
wesen zur Turhenzeit, in BZ, xliv (1951), 531- 
559- The guilds in the Crimea: VI. Gordlevskiy, 



Organizatsiya tsekhqv u krimskikh tatar ("The 
organization of guilds among the Tatars of the 
Crimea") in Trudi Etnografo-Archeologiieskogo 
Muzea, Moscow 1928, 56-65. Concerning the guilds 
in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire: 
H. Thorning, Beitrdge zur Kenntnis des islamischen 
Vereinswesens auf Grund von Bastt Madad et-Taufiq 
{Turk. Bibl. 16), Berlin 1913; Carlo Landberg, 
Notice sur les corporations de Damas par Elia 
Qoudsi, fils de c Abdo Qoudsi, Leiden 1884 (German 
translation by O. Rescher as appendix II, Ober 
die Zunfte in Damaskus, in Die "Nawddir" von 
el-Qaljubi, Stuttgart 1920, 280-309). The futuwwet- 
ndme-i sultani is part of a manuscript in the 
British Museum, Ms. Add. 22,705 (Rieu, 44). 
Concerning the guilds in Turkestan: M. Hartmann, 
Die osttiirkischen Handschriften der Sammlung 
Hartmann, in MSOS, vii/2 (1904), 16, no. 9 
(artisan Risdles) ; M. Gavrilov, Les corps de mitiers 
en Asie Centrale et leur status (Rissala), tr. from 
the Russian by J. Castagne in REI, 1928, 202- 
230; A. K. Borovkov, K istorii bratstva "Achi" 
v Sredney Azii ("Concerning the history of the 
Akhl union in Central Asia"), in Akademiku VI. 
A. Gordlevshomu . . . , Moscow 1953, 83 ft.; 
Pearson, 281-2. (Fr. Taeschner) 

al-FUWATI [see ibn al-fuwati]. 
FUYCDJ, pi. of faydj, (from Persian payk), is 
the name not only of the couriers of the government 
Barid [q.v.], but also of the commercial mail serving 

over North Africa and Egypt during the 5th/nth and 
6th/i2th centuries, while on the Egypt-Syria route 
the word kutubi, letter-bearer, was used. Occasionally, 
rasul appears in the same sense, although the latter 
is more regularly applied to special messengers (see 

Since only a few letters written in Arabic script on 
paper have been published, for the time being our 
information about the fuyudi is derived exclusively 
from the letters of the Geniza [q.v.], which are 
written in the Arabic language but in Hebrew script. 

In addition to carrying letters between the cities 
of a country, the fuyudi provided the international 



s durir 



the « 



n the si 



closed, and in midsummer, since the ships used to 
sail in convoys in spring time and in the autumn. As 
with the Barid, one and the same man would carry 
the dispatches entrusted to him from the starting 
point to the final destination, e.g., from al-Kayrawan 
to Cairo, or even from Almeria, Spain, to Alexandria. 
For the task of the fuyudi wa s of a confidential 
nature. The names of the fuyudi (mostly Muslim, 
some Jewish) are often referred to in a way which 
indicates that they must have been personally 
known to the addressee, albeit coming from a distant 
country. 

No traces of any guild organization of the fuyudi 
have been found thus far, but the times for their 
departures and arrivals must have been more or 
less fixed. The Geniza letters suppose that there was 
a weekly service between Cairo and Tyre (and 
presumably also other Syro-Lebanese-Palestinian 
cities, see below), while that between Cairo and al- 
Kayrawan also was regular, but dependent on the 
caravans, which, in normal years, seem to have made 
the double journey three times during one winter. 

As to the speed of this service, the way between 
Cairo and Alexandria required four days approxim- 
ately. A letter from the Egyptian capital to Ascalon, 
Palestine, took twelve days, while those carried 
between Tunisia and Egypt required from one to 



97o 



FUYODJ — GABR 



two and a half months, depending on the length 
of the stay of the caravans in each of the localities 
visited by them (which stay was used by the fuyudi 
for collecting additional mail). 

The cost of the forwarding of a letter from 
Jerusalem to Ramie was half a dirham, that from 
Alexandria to Cairo one dirham exactly, that from 
Almeria to Alexandria, referred to above, one and a 
half dirhams, four letters being sent to the same 
address. These prices are indicated in the letters 
preserved because payment was to be made after 
delivery. The prices were certainly not fixed, but 
probably customary. 

The payments to special messengers, called rasul, 
of which three cases have been traced thus far, were 
up to fifty times as high as those made to fuyudi. 
A service midway between the latter, who moved 



too slowly, and the special messengers, who were too 
expensive, was provided by the faydj (ayydr, or 
express courier. The request tu(ayyir li kitdbak, "fly 
your letter to me", most probably refers not to 
carrier pigeons, but to this express service. Carrier 
pigeons might have been intended in another letter, 
in which the addressee is asked to send a bard 3 , or 
release, ma c a'l-(ayr, "with the birds", possibly a 
technical term, parallel to the usual request to send 
a letter either bi 'l-mardkib, "by boat" or ma'a 
'l-fuyudi, "with the mail couriers". 

Bibliography: S. D. Goitein, The commercial 
mail service in medieval Islam, in JAOS, lxxxiv 
(1964) ; idem, A Mediterranean society, chapter IV, 
section 3 (in the press). (S. D. Goitein) 

FU?CLl [see fudulI]. 
FYZABAD [see faypabad]. 



GABAN, properly Gabnopert (cf. Abu '1-Faradj, 
Chron. Syr., ed. Bruns, 329 and Kairvtoxepxt 
ippoupiov, Cinnamus, i, 8), an Armenian moun- 
tain stronghold on the Tekir-Su, a tributary of 
the Djayhan, now called Geben and belonging to 
the ilce of Enderin in the il of Maras. Here the kings 
of Armenia kept their treasures and retired in 
case of need; the last king Leon VI de Lusignan 
entrenched himself here in 776/1374, for example, 
but had to surrender after a siege of nine months to 
the Mamluk Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Sha'ban. 

Bibliography: Ritter, Erdkunde, ix/2, 36, 
157; Defremery, in Documents arminiens, Recueil 
des historiens des crois., s. Index; Cuinet, La 

GABfiS [see ijabis]. 

GABON, one of the few African countries into 
which Islam was introduced in the colonizer's 
baggage-train. It was in 1843 that the first Senegalese 
soldiers (Wolofs or Tukulors) were stationed with the 
garrison of Fort d'Aumale and then in the camp 
on the plateau at Libreville; some of these soldiers, 
on the completion of their service, chose to settle 
in Gabon where for the most part they went into 
trade along the Ogoue, the Ngounie or the Fernan 
Vaz lagoon. They married Gabon women who 
remained Christian, and their children generally 
attended the Catholic school of the St. Mary mission. 

A garrison of colonial infantry mainly composed 
of riflemen who were natives of Senegal and French 
Sudan meant the constant introduction of new 
Muslim contingents, but they stayed two or three 
years and then returned to their country. Hausa 
and Dyula pedlars and shopkeepers had to replace 
these soldiers. Some of these Muslims acted as 
professional fortune-tellers or witch-doctors, taking 
advantage of the credulity of the peasants in the 

It is not possible to speak of autochthonous Islam; 
the total number of converts in Gabon does not exceed 

The statistics for 1959, given in the year-book of 
missions in the apostolic prefecture of Dakar, arrived 
at a total (probably an under-estimate) of 2,000 
Muslims (1090 in the prefecture of the estuary, 266 
in the Woleu Ntem, 175 in maritime Ogoue, 80 in 



Ogoue Ivindo, 31 in the Ngounie, 21 in the Ogoue- 
Lolo, 10 in the Nyanga and 4 in Upper Ogoue). 

The paucity of Muslims is matched by the small 
number of mosques, one at Port Gentil, one at 
Lambarene, two at Libreville, the biggest of which 
was built at the expense of the French Government. 
The Muslims in Gabon, representing 0.4% of the 
population, were of importance only during the 
colonial period in the capacity of subordinates in 
the administration. They still play a certain part as a 
commercial bourgeoisie. 

Bibliography: Some lines in the various works 
relating to Gabon. The Abb6 Raponda-Walker 
has very kindly furnished the essential features 
of the information contained in the above article. 

(R. Cornevin) 
GABR, term generally used in Persian literature — 
with rather depreciative implications — to indicate 
Zoroastrians. Philologists have not yet reached 
agreement on its etymology. Several suggestions have 
been made, e.g., (a) from Hebrew habher ("com- 
panion") in the sense of Kiddushin 72a; (b) from 
Aramaeo-Pahlavi gabra (read mart), especially in 
the compounds mog-martan ("the Magi") (written 
mog-gabra-an) ; (c) from a Persian corruption of Arabic 
kdfir ("unbeliever"). The first two etymologies are 
very improbable, so that the derivation from A. 
kdfir seems the most acceptable. In Persian literature 
the word takes often the depreciative suffix -ah 
(gabrak, pi. gabrahdn). Persian knows also the form 
gawrjgaur, Kurdish the forms gebir (applied to 
Armenians), gawr (Zoroastrians), gdvir (applied to 
Europeans, especially Russians), Turkish the well- 
known word g&vur (unbeliever). In Persian literature 
the word is applied only secondarily to "unbelievers" 
in general, the oldest texts using it especially and 
technically for Zoroastrians. This, together with the 
iranization of the Arabic word which probably lies 
behind it, points to a very old origin — purely "oral" — 
of the loan, certainly at a period preceding that when 
Arabic words were introduced in abundance into new- 
Persian, at the birth of new-Persian written literature. 
Bibliography: Gr. I. Ph., ii, 697; Burhdn-i 
fidti', ed. M. Mu c in 2 , Tehran 1342s., iii, I773"4. 
1850; M. Mu c in, Mazdayasnd wa taHhir-i an dar 
adabiyydt-i Pdrsi, Tehran 1326, 395-6 (and new 



GABR — GAGAUZ 



ed. in 2 vols., Tehran 1338); A. Akbar Dihkhuda, 

Lugkat-ndma, fasc. 30, Tehran 1335S./1956, 94-100. 
(A. Bausani) 

GABRIEL [see biabrAIl]. 

GAFSA [see kajsa]. 

GAFURI [see ghafuri, masiId]. 

GAGAUZ, a small Turkic tribe speaking a 
Turkic language but Orthodox Christian in religion. 
At the present time they are settled in the south of 
the Moldavian S.S.R. (Bessarabia) in the district of 
Komrat, Cadlr-Lunga, Kangaz, Tarakliya, Vul- 
kaneSti; in the south of the Ukrainian S.S.R. in the 
district of Zaporoze and Odessa (Izmail) and in the 
district of Rostov in the Russian S.S.R. There are 
also small Gagauz settlements in Central Asia — in 
the districts of Kokpekti, Zarma, Carskiy, Aksuat 
and Urdz ar in the region of Semipalatinsk and in the 
eastern Kazakh and Pavlodar region of the Kazakh 
S.S.R. The Gagauz also live in the region of Frunze in 
the Kirghiz S.S.R. and in the district of Tashkent in 
the Uzbek S.S.R. The total number of Gagauz in the 
U.S.S.R. is 124,000 (1959)- In Bulgaria the Gagauz 
occupy the villages in the district of Varna, near 
Provadya, in the Dobrudja near Kavarna and in the 
south of Bulgaria in the district of Yambol and 
Topolovgrad. In Rumania there are only a few 
Gagauz villages left — and those in the Dobrudja. 

The ancestry and origin of the Gagauz are not 
clear. According to one hypothesis the Gagauz 
originate from the Kumans or Polovtsians who 
played an active role in the history of the south 
Russian steppes until 1237. According to another 
theory the Gagauz are possibly the descendants of 
the Torks or Uzes who were related to the Kumans 
and who are well known to the old Russian chronicles 
under the name of Black Caps (lorniye klobuki) (nth 
century). These Karakalpaks seem to have been a 
very mixed tribe; with Russian rule they also 
adopted the Russian religion (Greek Orthodoxy). 
Since the Gagauz too are Christian and Orthodox, 
it is possible to equate them with the Karakalpaks. 

Bulgarian scholars, however, consider the Gagauz 
to be descendants of the Bulgars who were turkicized 
in the I5th-igth centuries but who retained Orthodox 
belief. 

The most probable hypothesis seems to be the one 
which regards the Gagauz as descendants of the 
Turkish-Oghuz tribes (and of the Seldjuks). The area 
which was later named the Dobrudja was inhabited 
in the first half of the 13th century by Turkish 
tribes and bore the name of Karvuna-land after its 
capital Karvuna (later Balcik). The Byzantines 
obtained their troops from among the population of 
that area, especially from among the Uzes. The 
Oghuz tribes often threatened the security of the 
Byzantine empire as they joined forces with other 
tribes during their raids. Byzantium, therefore, had 
always to beware of them and strove to subject them 
in order to utilize their forces for itself. In 1261 there 
appeared at the court of Michael VIII Palaeologus the 
Seldjuk Sultan c Izz al-DIn Kay Ka'us, who had fled 
before the Mongols from Anatolia. The Byzantine 
Emperor enfeoffed him with the possession of land 
in the Dobrudja, where he established an independent 
Oghuz state with the capital Karvuna (Balcik). The 
ethnic appelation Gagauz seems to stem from the 
name Kay Ka'us. Greek Orthodoxy was recognized 
as the dominant religion. Ecclesiastical authority was 
exercised by the Patriarch of Constantinople through 
the agency of the exarch in Karvuna. The newly 
founded state was strengthened by the incorporation 
of Seldjuk Turks and created its own army and fleet. 



As a 



a result of the struggles between the tribes, Balik 
ie to the fore and, at the head of the Oghuz tribes, 
chosen to be ruler of the state. In 1346 Balik took 
part in the disorders in Constantinople where he sent 
1,000 horsemen to the aid of the Regent Anne of 
Savoy. After the death of Balik, Dobrotii came to 
the throne (i357)- In his reign the state was streng- 
thened considerably. Dobrotii increased his fleet. 
The name Karvuna-land was changed to Dobroti6- 
land. The form 'Dobrudja' became current at a later 
date. Dobrotic was followed by Yanko (1386)— ac- 
cording to other sources I vanko — the last Oghuz ruler. 
In 1398 he was obliged to acknowledge the suzerainty 
of the Ottoman Turks. After the fall of the Oghuz state 
some of the population accepted Islam but the rest 
remained true to Christianity. With the conquest of 
Constantinople the Ottoman Sultan recognized the 
Greek Patriarch of Constantinople as head of all the 
Christians without reference to their nationality. 
Although the sources are silent for many years con- 
cerning the Gagauz, it must be assumed that they 
too came under the authority of the Patriarch. There 
is evidence relevant to this from the year 1652 con- 
cerning the decision of the Patriarch to give autho- 
rity over all towns and villages to the local bishop 
instead of to the exarch in Karvyna. 

From 1750 until 1846 there occurred a migration 
of the Gagauz of the Balkan peninsula — in connexion 
with a similar movement by the Bulgars — over the 
Danube to Russia (until 1769 into the province of 
New Russia; between 1787 and 1791 and most 
strongly between 1801 and 1812 to Bessarabia). 
Initially this went on without any apparent inter- 
ference from the Russian government, which only 
later introduced order into the management of the 
land and the administration. This migration was 
apparently caused by the oppression of the robber 
bands (the Daghll and Kirdjali) of Pasvand-oghlu 
'Othman [q.v.], the notorious Pasha of Vidin, and 
of Kara Feydl). 

Since 1940 the territory of the Bessarabian Gagauz 
has belonged to the U.S.S.R. In 1949 all the Gagauz 
villages in the Moldavian and Ukranian S.S.R. were 
collectivized together with those in Bulgaria and 
Rumania. The Gagauz work mainly in agriculture, 
cattle-raising, wine growing and, on the coast, fishing. 
As a result of being the long-standing neighbours of 
the Bulgarians, the Gagauz have borrowed much 
from their way of life, their customs and their 
domestic activity. The most salient characteristics 
of the Gagauz are diligence, hospitality, cheerfulness 
and contentment. 

The language of the Gagauz belongs to the southern 
group of Turkic languages, i.e., it is closest to the 
Turkish of Turkey, of Adharbaydjan and of Turk- 
menistan. Several phonetic features, almost the whole 
syntax and phraseology as well as most of the 
morphology and vocabulary of the Gagauz are not 
Turkish. The following points may be enumerated 

(1) the softening of consonants before front vowels; 

(2) the appearance of the gender suffixes -ka, -yka; 
(4) syntactically the Gagauz language is completely 

Slavicized and un-Turkish; 
(4) the strong foreign element in the vocabulary 

(Greek, Rumanian and Slavonic). 
For a long time the Gagauz possessed no literature 
of their own. For ecclesiastical purposes the Greek 
Church used 'Karamanll' books written in the 
Turkish language and in the Greek alphabet. These 
books contain lives of the saints and prayers. By 
contrast a rich folk poetry has developed, together 



GAGAUZ — GAKKHAR 



with riddles (bilmeydia), proverbs (soleiS), folk-songs 
(tiirktt, mani), stories (masal), anecdotes (fikra) etc. 
The Gagauz alphabet, based on the Russian with 
additional letters, was created in the Moldavian 
S.S.R. in 1957- Since 1958 elementary education in 
the Gagauz language has been introduced. For this 
purpose text books are being compiled. Work is 
gradually going on towards the development of a 
Gagauz literary language. In Kishinev a Gagauz 
newspaper is published twice a month as a supplement 
to the Moldova Socialistd. 

Bibliography: C. Jirecek, Das Furstentum 
Bulgarien, Vienna 1891; V. MoSkov, Gagauzi 
Benderskogo uyezda, in Etnograficeskoye Oboz- 
renye, 1900-2, xliv, xlviii, xlix, li, liv, lv; idem, 
Mundarten der bessarabischen Gagauzen, i-ii, in 
Proben dcr Volksliteratur der tiirkischen Stdmme, x, 
St. Petersburg 1904.; T. Kowalski, Les Turcs et 
la langue turque de la Bulgarie du Nord-Est, 
Krak6w 1933; E. M. Hoppe, / Gagauzi, popolazione 
turco-cristiana della Bulgaria, in OM, xiv (1934.); 
M. Caki'r, Besarabieald Gagauzlardn istorieasd, 
Chisinau 1934.; A. I. Manov, Potekloto na gagauzite 
i tekhnite obicai i nravi, Varna 1938 (Turkish 
translation by Tiirker Acaroglu, Gagauzlar, 
Ankara 1940); P. Wittek, Yazijioghlu "-All on the 
Christian Turks of the Dobruja, in BSOAS, xiv 
(1952); idem, Les Gagaouzes — les gens de Kaykaus, 
in RO, xvii (1953); V. Marinov, Prinos k'm 
izuiavaneto na bita i kulturata na turcite i gagauzite 
v Severoiztolna Bulgariya, Sofia 1956; I. I. 
MeSceruk, Antikrepostniceskaya bor'ba gagauzov i 
bolgar Bessarabiyi v 1S12-1820 gg., Chisinau 1957; 
N. K. Dmitriyev, Gagausische Lautlehre, in Ar 0, 
iv (1932) and v (1933); idem, Stroy tyurkskikh 
yazikov, Moscow 1962; G. Doerfer, Das Gagausi- 
sche, in Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta, i, 1959; 
L. A. Pokrovskaya, Osnovniye certi fonetiki 
sovremennogo gagauzskogo yazika, in Voprosi 
dialektologii tyurkskikh yazikov, ii, Baku i960; 
Budiaktan sesldr, Chisinau 1959; R. I. Bigayev, 
P. A. Danilov, M. U. Umarev, gagauzakh 
Sredney Azii, in RO, xxv (1961); V. Drimba, 
Remarques sur les parlers gagaouzes de la Bulgarie 
du Nord Est, in RO, xxvi (1963) ; W. Zajaczkowski, 
Przyczynki do etnografii Gagauzow, in RO, xx 
(1956); idem, Gagauskie teksty forklorystyczne, in 
Yezikovedsko-etnografski izsledvaniya v pamet na 
akad. St. Romanski, Sofia i960; idem, Sostoyaniye 
i bliiayUye zadaci izuceniya gagauzov, in Folia 
Orientalia, ii (i960). 



(Wl< 



Zajac 



ci.) 



GAKKHAR, a war-like Muslim tribe, inhabiting 
mostly the Hazara district and parts of the districts 
of Rawalpindi, Attock and Djehlam (Jhelum) of 
West Pakistan and that part of the Indian-held 
territory of Djammu which lies to the west of the 
Cinab; it is of indigenous origin. Agriculturists by 
profession, the Gakkhars are considered socially high 
and stand apart from the local tribes of RadjpQt 
descent who resent their arrogance and racial pride. 
Many of the religious and social ceremonies observed 
by them reflect Hindu influences. They do not permit 
remarriage of widows and observe very strict pardah. 
According to their own legends they are descended 
from Anushirwan and Yezdegird and claim the title 
of Kayani; their eponym is said to have been one 
Sultan Kaygawhar (later corrupted into Gakkhaf), 
a native of Kayan in Isfahan. Cunningham's opinion 
that they are Kushans seems nearer the truth, as the 
territory inhabited by them up to this day (described 
by Djahangir, Tuzuk, tr. Rogers, i, 99, ending at 



the Marghala pass between Rawalpindi and Hasan 
Abdal) was once the stronghold of Buddhism. 
Buddhism flourished in northern India during the 
rule of the Kushan dynasty, who were mostly 
Buddhists. The claim of the Gakkhars that they 
entered India in the train of Mahmud of Ghazna 
{reg. 388-421/998-1030) and that they once ruled 
Tibet as vassals of the Chinese, is evidently fictitious. 
According to Firishta (Lucknow ed., 26), it was the 
Gakkhars (and not the orthographically similar 
Khokhars) who joined the confederacy of the local 
Hindu rdd[ds against Mahmud of Ghazna in 399/1008. 
No less than 30,000 Gakkhafs "with their heads and 
feet bare, and armed with various weapons" stormed 
the camp of the Sultan at Peshawar but had to suffer 
badly for their audacity as did the Meds and the 
Djais [q.v.] of Sind who had harrassed and attacked 
Mahmud's rear on his return from Somnath in 417/ 
1026. 

In 601/1204-5 they rose in revolt against the rule 
of the Ghurid Sultan Mu'izz al-DIn Muhammad b. 
Sam, who took strong measures against them and 
quelled the rebellion with an iron hand. After this 
crushing defeat they were so thoroughly demoralized 
that their chief, simply because a Muslim captive had 
initiated him into the tenets of Islam, willingly 
became a convert, followed en masse by the whole of 
the tribe soon afterwards. However, this mass con- 
version was a mere act of expediency as these very 
Gakkhafs, only the next year (602/1205), treacher- 
ously fell upon the retreating Sultan en route to 
Ghazna, while he was encamped at Damyak, a small 
place on the bank of the Djehlam, three-quarters of 
a mile from modern Sohawa, and murdered him. The 
place where he was murdered is still known to the 
local population as "Ghuran da phaf", i.e., passage 
of the Ghurids. Raverty's lengthy discussion 
(Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, tr. i, 485 n) on the identification 
of the tribe to which the Sultan's assassins belonged 
leaves the question open as Ibn al-Athlr (sub anno 
602 A.H.) and the Tdd± al-ma'dthir of Hasan 
Nizami, a contemporary source, describe them 
as maldhida and fiddHs (i.e., agents of the Alamut 
Isma'IHs), which is somewhat curious in view 
of the recent conversion of the Gakkhafs to Islam. 
There is, therefore, reason to suppose that the 
assassins of Muhammad Ghuri were most probably 
Khokhars, who might have turned Isma'ili under 
the influence of the Carmathians of Multan, their 
close neighbours. On the other hand since the 
murder took place in the territory of the Gakkhafs 
there is equally strong reason to suspect them 
of the crime or of complicity in it, for no strangers 
to the place could be bold enough to break into 
the royal camp and murder a powerful Sultan 
who had not only ravaged their territory and in- 
flicted a crushing defeat on them but was also in- 
strumental in their conversion to Islam. It is also 
possible that some disgruntled members of the tribe, 
who had unwillingly abandoned the faith of their 
forefathers, might have nurtured a grudge against 
the Sultan and, finding a suitable opportunity, 
wreaked their vengeance. Here again we are con- 
fronted with a difficulty in that history does not 
record any large-scale defections on the part of the 
Gakkhafs. The Tabakdt-i Ndsiri (Raverty, i, 485) 
also says that the Sultan "attained martyrdom at 
the hand of a disciple of the Mulahidah (sic)", who 
was apparently a Muslim, and not a Hindu as stated 
by Hamd Allah Mustawfi (Ta'rikh-i Guzida, i, 412), 
and al-Djuwayni (tr. Boyle, i, 326; where 'Hindu' 
has been wrongly translated as 'Indian'), as he was 



found on capture to have been circumcised. He 
could not, therefore, have been a Khokhar as there 
is no evidence to prove that the Khokhars had 
embraced Islam long before the assassination of 
Mu'izz al-DIn Muhammad Ghuri. Piecing all the 
recorded evidence together one is led to believe that 
the assassin was a Gakkhaf, smarting under the 
insult and humility suffered by his tribe. It was the 
result of a personal vendetta and had no political or 
religious implications as has been suggested by 
Rashld al-Din (Di&mi 1 al-tawdrikh, ed. Smirnova, 
i, 58) and Ibn al-Athir {sub anno 602 A.H.) involving 
even Fakhr al-Din al-Razi [q.v.] in the conspiracy. 
The Gakkhafs continued to harry the Delhi 
Sultans and in 645/1247 even a peace-loving prince 
like Nasir al-DIn Mahmud had to take measures 
against them. He appointed Balban, who reduced 
their country, took revenge on them for their con- 
tinued incursions, chastised them for having allowed 
passage to the Mongols through their territory and 
made thousands of them captives. Malik Altuniya, 
who had forcibly married Radiyya Sultana, most 
probably had pressed these very Gakkhafs, along 
with the Djats and other tribes, into an army with 
which he opposed the forces of the slave king 
Mu'izz al-Din Bahram Shah but was defeated. 
Almost a century later they invaded the Pandjab in 
743/1342, during the reign of Muhammad b. Tughluk, 
killed Tatar Khan, the viceroy of Lahore and 
"completed the ruin of the province". Taking 
advantage of the disturbed conditions in the wake 
of Timur's invasion of India (802/1399), they tried to 
harrass the great conqueror but had to pay dearly for 
their audacity. They again gave trouble to Babur 
[q.v.] during his victorious march (932/1525) against 
the Delhi Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. Babur seized their 
fort Pafhalah (now called Phafwala, but mostly in 
ruins, about 12 miles east of Rawalpindi), ruled by 
Hati Khan, their chief, who had to flee before the 
onslaught of the Mughals. At the end of 933/1526 
Hati Khan waited on the emperor during his return 
to the Pandjab and assisted greatly in procuring 
supplies for the Mughal army. Babur fully recognized 
his services, made him a handsome present and 
conferred on him the title of Sultan (proudly retained 
by the Gakkhafs till the middle of the 18th century 
when they were subjugated and reduced by the Sikh 
generals Gudjdjar Singh Bhangi and Sahib Singh). 
During the reign of Humayun, the Gakkhaf chief 
Sultan Sarang gained much prominence. He became 
so powerful that he struck his own money, included 
his name in the khutba and refused to recognise Sher 
Shah Sur, on the defeat of Humayun, as the new 
sovereign of India. He even obstructed by all the 
means at his disposal the construction in 948/1541 
of the historic Rohtas fort by Sher Shah. This act 
of open hostility coupled with his contumacious 
behaviour enraged Sher Shah who personally led an 
expedition against him resulting in the rout of the 
Gakkhafs, the capture of Sultan Sarang and his 
subsequent execution. His tomb still exists at 
Rawat, near Rawalpindi. He was succeeded by his 
brother Sultan Adam, who had several skirmishes 
with the troops of Islam Shah Sur. Adam was so 
powerful that in 959/1552 prince Kamran, the rebel 
brother of Humayun, who had been refused shelter 
by Islam Shah, sought refuge with him. He was, 
however, betrayed and given up to Humayun who 
had him blinded, Adam receiving robes of honour, 
kettle-drums and other insignia of nobility as a 
reward for his treachery (cf. Djawhar AftabacI, 
Tadhkirat al-wdki l dt, Urdu transl., Karachi 1955, 



973 



1 Adam 



151-7). Following a family scandal, Suli 
had to suffer disgrace at the hands of his own 
nephew Kamal Khan, a son of Sultan Sarang, who 
confined him in the fort of Phafwala, where he sub- 
sequently died, and hanged his son Lashkar Khan, 
who had been guilty of an illicit love-affair with the 
wife of Kamal Khan's brother. Abu '1-Fadl gives a 
different version omitting all reference to the love- 
affair and asserting that on a petition from Kamal 
Khan, Akbar ordered the division of the Gakkhaf 
territory between him and his uncle Adam; this 
resulted in a dispute which culminated in a pitched 
battle in which Adam was utterly defeated and 
captured. This was clearly a stratagem which Akbar 
employed in order to punish the refractory chief by 
pitting his own kinsmen against him and to implant 
his suzerainty firmly in the territory of the Gakkhafs 
(cf. Akbarndma, Bibl. Indica, hi, 560 ft.). In order 
further to cement his relations with the Gakkhafs 
and to use them as an ally against the turbulent 
Afghans, Akbar, in accordance with his well-known 
policy, contracted matrimonial alliances with them. 
Prince Salim (sc. Djahangir) was married to a 
daughter of Sayd (Sayyid ?) Khan, a brother of 
Kamal Khan. Sayd Khan had fought under the 
Mughal general Zayn Khan Kokah against the 
Afghans in Swat and Badjawf [qq.v.]. Later Awrangzib 
also honoured the Gakkhaf chief, Allah Kuli Khan 
(1093-1117/1681-1705), by marrying one of his 
daughters to his son, Prince Muhammad Akbar. 
Thus two Gakkhaf ladies, apart from several Radjput 
princesses, found their way into the Imperial harem. 
Akbar's policy of pacification and reconciliation had 
its desired effects and we find the Gakkhafs leading 
a peaceful, uneventful life during the major part of 
the Mughal rule. They seem, however, to have 
reluctantly accepted the Timurids as their overlords, 
inasmuch as a celebrated Gakkhaf warrior-chief, 
Mukarrab Khan, sided with Nadir Shah Afshar 
[q.v.] and took part in the battle of Karnal (1152/ 
r739)> which showed up the cracks in the crumbling 
fabric of the Mughal empire. As a reward for his 
services he was confirmed in his possession of the 
fort of Phafwala and on return to Kabul, Nadir 
Shah conferred upon him, as a mark of further 
favour, the title of Nawwab. (This seems to have 
been a personal title as no later Gakkhaf chief ever 
used it). He was defeated by the Sikhs at Gudjrat 
[q.v.] in 1 179/1765 and had to surrender the whole 
of his possessions up to the Djehlam to the victors. 
Four years later he was treacherously captured and 
put to death by a rival chief, Himmat Khan. The 
Sikhs, finding it a suitable opportunity, annexed the 
entire Gakkhaf territory to the Sikh kingdom of the 
Pandjab. Mukarrab Khan's two elder sons were, 
however, allowed to retain the Phafwala fort as a 
djdgir; this too was confiscated in 1234/1818 by the 
Sikh governor of the area. Chafing under successive 
insults and acts of expropriation, the Gakkhafs 
revolted in 1835 but were crushed by the Sikhs who 
put their chieftains— Shadman Khan and Muddu 
Khan — along with their families in confinement, 
where both of them died. On the annexation of the 
Pandjab in 1849, the British conferred a pension of 
Rs. 1200 per annum on Hayat Allah Khan, a son 
of Shadman Khan, he and the other members of his 
family having been released from captivity by the 
British two years earlier. In 1853 Nadir Khan, the 
Gakkhaf chief of Mandla, joined a Sikh conspiracy 
against the British. The rising, which might have 
been serious, was promptly quelled and Nadir Khan 
was captured and hanged. Apart from this incident 



974 GAKKHAF 

the Gakkhafs remained loyal and peaceful; they 
joined the army and served the British well, who 
honoured one of their chiefs, Radja Djahandad 
Khan (d. 1906) of Hazara (Khanpur), by conferring 
upon him the order of CLE. The present chief of 
the tribe is Sultan Iradj Zaman Khan, an 18-year 
old youth, who succeeded to the title in October 1963 
after the accidental death of his father, a grandson of 
Djahandad Khan. 

The Gakkhafs are divided into several clans, the 
leading being: the Bugiyal, Iskandaral, Firuzal, 
Sarangal and Adamal. Of these the last two are more 
influential and powerful; they are the descendants 
of Sarang and Adam respectively, the two chiefs who 
gained prominence during the reigns of Humayun 
and Akbar. While the Sarangals are found in Hazara 
and Attock, the Adamals inhabit the districts of 
Rawalpindi and Djehlam. As compared with the 
Gakkhafs of Hazara and Djehlam those of the 
Rawalpindi district are generally considered the 
senior and most important branch of the tribe (for 
details see Rawalpindi District Gazetteer, 63 ff.). 

Bibliography: In addition to the authorities 
cited in the text: J. G. Delmerick, A History of the 
Gak'khars, in JASB, 1871, Pt. I, 67-101; Gazetteer 
of the Rawalpindi District, Lahore 1909, 35, 38-44, 
62-6; Gazetteer of the Hazara District {1883-84), 
Lahore n.d., 20-22, 29, 32; al-Djuzdjanl, Tabaltdt-i 
Ndsiri, tr. Raverty, i, 481 ff.; Lepel Griffin, 
Panjab Chiefs, Lahore 1872, 574 ft.; Ibbetson, 
Outlines of Panjab ethnography, Calcutta 1883, 
255 ; H. A. Rose, A glossary of the tribes and castes 
of the Punjab . . ., Lahore 1911-14, s.v. Gakhars; 
The Tuzuk-i Jahdngiri, tr. Rogers and Beveridge, 
London 1909, i, 96-9; Cunningham, Later Indo- 
Scythians, in Numis. Chron., 1893, 94; Baber's 
Memoirs, tr. Erskine, London 1826, 259; Storey, 
ii, 675-6: Cambridge History of India, iii, under 
"Khokhars" (makes no mention of the Gakkhafs 
and confuses them with the Khokhars) • Elliot and 
Dowson, History of India . . ., ii, appendix, 444; 
Massy, Chiefs and families of the Panjab, Allahabad 
1890, 424; Firishta, Lucknow 1284 A.H., 26-58 
(= Brigg's tr., i, 146-82); Archaeological Survey of 
India (Report for 1863-64), see "Rohtas — the 
fortress of—"; Abu '1-Fadl, AHn-i Akbari, tr. 
Blochmann, Calcutta 1873, i, 486. On the confusion 
between Gakkhafs and Khokars, see Rose, 
Khokars and Gakkhars in Panjab history, in Ind. 
Antiquary, 1907. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

GALATA [see Istanbul]. 
GALATA-SARAY [see ghalata-saray!]. 
GALEN [see djalInOs]. 
GALICIA [see djilliijiya]. 

GALLA (own name Oromo, 'the people'). A people 
widespread in the modern state of Ethiopia, speaking 
a language belonging to the Eastern (or Low) 
Kushitic group which includes c Afar-Saho and 
Somali). They irrupted from the region south of the 
Webi during the first half of the 16th century, almost 
contemporaneously with the campaigns of Ahmad 
Gran [?.i>.] and spread fanwise, penetrating deeply 
into the Abyssinian highlands. For long they were a 
menace to the existence of the Ethiopian state but 
were finally subjected by Menelik II between 1872 
and 1888. 

When their expansion began they were all nomadic 
herdsmen with an elaborate political system based 
on a cycle of generation-sets (gada), but in conse- 
quence of their tribal movements and settlement 
in different environments many groups underwent 
profound changes. When they first expanded they 



came into contact first with Islam and then with 
Ethiopian Christianity. Their gradual and qualified 
adoption of the one or the other religion was slow, 
piecemeal, and tribal or regional. Although all the 
other Hamitic nomads of north-east Africa (Bedja, 
Saho, c Afar and Somali) had long been Muslim, and 
although the important Muslim city of Harar [q.v.] 
and the southern Muslim states of Bali and Dawaro 
lay in their path, the Galla remained impervious to 
religious change so long as they remained nomads 
and their gada system intact. But when they settled 
in contact with Amhara and Sidama they became 
either Christian or Muslim. 

The vast number of tribes forbids any formal 
classification here, whilst the syncretistic character 
of their religion, whatever they call themselves, 
also prevents any clear-cut religious classification. 
The southernmost Galla, small groups of Warday or 
Orma of Tanaland in Kenya, detached from the rest 
by Somali expansion, have adopted Islam in this cen- 
tury. So have many Boran of northern Kenya. 
But the nomadic Boran of southern Ethiopia, 
occupying a vast territory between the Lake Ste- 
phanie region and the River Djuba, and those Arsi 
(Arusi in Amharic), living to the north of the Boran 
between the Somali of Ogaden and the Sidama, who 
continue to maintain a pastoral nomadic life, remain 
pagan. Some Arsi are Muslim and in their territory 
lies the famous Muslim-pagan pilgrimage sanctuary 
of Shaykh Husayn. Muslims are the northernmost 
Galla of the highlands (Yedju and Raya or Azebo), 
who inhabit a region once occupied by a Muslim 
population known as Dob'a, and the Wallo, covering 
a wide area of the eastern highlands north of the 
Tulama, who played an important part in the history 
of the empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, during 
which many embraced Christianity. Among the 
Shoan Galla (collectively known as Tulama) Christian- 
ity prevails. The Galla who penetrated the Gibe 
region of south-west Ethiopia, where they mingled 
with Sidama, were transformed in form of govern- 
ment, forming a group of five monarchical-type 
states (Djimma, Limmu, Gera, Gomma and Guma), 
and became Muslim between 1820 and 1870. Many of 
the Macha tribes (e.g., Nonno) to the north of these 
states have Muslim minorities. In the west the Leqa 
Galla of the Waleqa region are pagan, very few being 
influenced by Islam, whilst the chiefs are generally 
Christian. In the south-east the sections who live 
in the Harar region became Muslim during the last 
century: Nole and Djaso north of Harar, Ala around 
the city, Itu to the west, and Ania (Ennia) to the south. 
Bibliography : C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. 
Huntingford, Some records of Ethiopia: 1593-1646, 
Hakluyt, 1954; E. Cerulli, The Folk-Literature of 
the Galla of Southern Abyssinia, in Harvard African 
Studies, iii (1922), 9-228; idem, Etiopia Occidental, 
1929-33; E. Haberland, Galla Sud-Athiopiens, 
Stuttgart 1963; G. W. B. Huntingford, The Galla 
of Ethiopia, 1955; P. Paulitschke, Ethnographic 
Nordost-Afrikas, Berlin 1896; J. S. Trimingham, 
Islam in Ethiopia, 1952. (J. S. Trimingham) 
GALLIPOLI [see gelibolu]. 
GAMBIA, British Colony < 



' N., 



' W.; 4 



square miles in extent with a population of about 
260,000. It forms a narrow enclave in the surrounding 
territory of Senegal, occupying both banks of the 
Gambia river to a distance of 200 miles from the 
coast and being nowhere more than 39 miles broad. 
The principal tribal groups are Mandingo, Fula and 
Wollof. 



GAMBIA — GANDJA 



The country is entirely agricultural, millet and 
rice providing the staple food of the people. The 
main economic crop is groundnuts, which accounts 
for nine-tenths of the revenue in an average year. 
There is no mining and apparently no mineral 
wealth. The only town is the capital Bathurst 
(population, 20,000). Under the constitution in- 
troduced in May 1962, the country has attained 
full internal self-government, the prime minister 
being Mr. D. Jawara the leader of the People's 
Progressive Party. A measure of union with Senegal 
is under active consideration (1964). 

The British trading interest in the Gambia dates 
from early in the seventeenth century, and from 1662, 
when the fort on James Island was seized from the 
Duke of Courland, the succession of British African 
Companies maintained permanent occupation of 
one or more trading posts. The eighteenth century 
was a period of intense commercial rivalry with the 
French, who had established a factory at Albreda on 
the north bank and were not finally excluded from 
the river until 1857. Bathurst was founded in 1816 to 
provide an additional base for the campaign against 
the slave trade. 

At least four-fifths of the indigenous population 
are Muslim. "Islam was first introduced in the 
period from the 5th/nth to the 8th/i4th century but 
conversion remained very superficial until towards 
the close of the eighteenth century, and the present 
strength of orthodoxy dates only from the period 
of the "marabout" wars, about a hundred years ago. 
All Gambia Muslims follow the Maliki school of law 
and most of them are attached to one of two Sufi 
orders, the Radiriyya or the Tidjaniyya, the latter 
being dominant, at least on the lower river. In some 
areas literacy in Arabic is not uncommon. Protestant 
and Catholic missions have been at work for more 
than a century, but there are very few Christians 
outside Bathurst. 

Bibliography: J. M. Gray, History of the 
Gambia, London 1940; J. N. D. Anderson, 
Islamic Law in Africa, London 1945; D. P. 
Gamble, The Wollof of Senegambia, London 
1957; Gambia Annual Reports; A. Gouilly, L'Islam 
dans I'Afrique Occidentale Francaise, Paris 1952. 

(D. H. Jones) 
GAMES [see la'b]. 
GANAFA [see djannaba]. 

GANDAPUR, the name of a Pathan tribe which 
lives in the Daman area of the Dera Isma c Il Khan 
district of Pakistan. The tribe is now, for the most 
part, absorbed in the population of the area. 

The tribe descended from the Afghan highlands 
to the plains of Daman during the 17th century. The 
centre of their winter quarters developed into a town 
in the 19th century, probably because of the trading 
activities of the tribesmen between Khurasan and 
India. This town is at present called Kulaci. 

The Gandapur tribe took part in Pathan tribal 

wars during the 18th century but under British 

rule the tribe became settled and peaceful, mixing 

with other Pashto-speaking settlers. The origin of 

the name is unknown, as is the history of the people. 

Bibliography: Gazeteer of the Dera Ismail 

Khan District, Lahore 1884, 53, 109, 202; 

M. Elphinstone, An account of the Kingdom of 

Caubul, London 1839, ii, 67; I. M. Reisner, 

Razvitie feodalizma i obrazovanie gosudarstva u 

Afgantsev, Moscow 1954, passim. (R. N. Frye) 

GANDJA, Arab. Djanza, the former El 

now Kirovabad, the second largest town 

Azerbaijan S.S.R. 



975 

The town was first founded under Arab rule, in 
245/859 according to the Ta'rikh Bab al-abwab 
(V. Minorsky, A History of Sharvan and Darband, 
Cambridge 1958, 25 and 57). It is not mentioned by 
the oldest Arabic geographers like Ibn Khurradadh- 
bih and Ya'kubi; it seems to have taken its name 
from the pre-Muslim capital of Adharbavdjan (now 
the ruins of Takht-i-Sulayman). Istakhri, 187 and 193, 
mentions Gandja only as a small town on the road 
from Bardha'a [q.v.] to Tiflis; according to him 
the distance between Bardha'a and Gandja was 
9 farsakh, according to Yakut (ii, 132) 16 farsakh. 
After the decline of Bardha'a Gandja became 
the capital of Arran; the Shaddadid dynasty ruled 
here from ca. 340/951-2; after it had been overthrown 
by Sultan Malik Shah, the latter's son Muhammad 
was granted Gandja in fief. In 533/"38-9 the town 
was destroyed by an earthquake in which, according 
to c Imad al-DIn al-Isfahani, there perished some 
300,000 persons (130,000 according to Ibn al- 
Athir), including the wife and children of Kara- 
Sonkur, amir of Adharbaydjan and Arran, who was 
absent at the time; Demetrius, king of Georgia, 
sacked the ruined town and carried off one of its 
gates. c Imad al-Din says that the Georgians built a 
new town in their country, gave it the name Djanza 
and set up the gate they had carried off there; soon 
afterwards Kara-Sonkur destroyed the new town and 
brought the gate back to Gandja. The latter statement 
does not agree with the facts; the gate that was 
carried off still exists in the Gelathi monastery in 
Kutais; a Georgian inscription gives an account of 
its removal; and there has also survived on the gate 
itself an Arabic inscription of the year 455/1063 (the 
year of its erection) which has been deciphered by 
Frahn (Mem. de l'Acad., 6th Ser., Sciences politiques, 
iii, 53i«-)- 

Kara-Sonkur died in 535/1140-1, his successor 
Cavil in Djumada I 541/9 October-7 November 1146; 
Rawadi is next mentioned as ruler of Arran; but a 
few years later we find Arran reunited with Adhar- 
baydjan under the rule of the Ildegizids. The town of 
Gandja is said to have been rebuilt by Kara-Sonkur 
"in all its splendour"; in the 7th/i3th century it was 
considered one of the most beautiful cities of 
Western Asia (cf. the verses in the Nuzhat al-kulub, 
GMS, 91); the poet NizamI Gandjawi [q.v.] belongs to 
this period; Ibn al-Athlr (xii, 251) calls Gandja 
"mother of the cities of Arran". When the Mongols 
appeared before Gandja in 618/1221, they did not 
dare to attack the strongly fortified town, the 
inhabitants of which had proved their courage in 
frequent battles with the Georgians; but the retreat 
of the enemy had to be purchased with money and 
clothstuffs. In 622/1225 Gandja, whither the last 
Ildegizid, Oz-Beg [q.v.], had fled from Tabriz, was 
taken by Sultan Djalal al-Din Kh"arizmshah [q.v.] ; 
a few years later all the Kh'arizmis were massacred 
in a rebellion of the inhabitants; nevertheless, after 
suppressing this rising Djalal al-Din refused to allow 
his troops to sack the town and only had the ring- 
leaders, 30 in all, executed (618/1231). Four years 
later (1235) the town was captured and burned by 
the Mongols. On this occasion also it was soon rebuilt 
but does not seem to have attained great importance 
again. Under the Il-Khans Arran with Gandja as its 
capital was one of their provinces; the land after- 
wards usually shared the lot of Adharbavdjan and 
Isma'il Shah Safawl [q.v.] onwards 
formed part of the Persian kingdom; under Persian 
he governor of Gandja bore the title of Khan. 
11/1583 Khan Imam Kuli was defeated by 



GANDJA — GAO 



the Turks, who in 996/1588 captured the town 
itself; invested in Shawwal 1014/February-March 
1606 by Shah c Abbas I it was recovered for the 
Persians after a six months' siege. Shah c Abbas 
transferred the town to another site about 1 farsakh 
"higher", i.e., to the south-west. The new Gandja 
was captured by the Turks in 1 135/1723; regained 
by Nadir Shah in 1 148/1735 it remained after his death 
under the rule of Khans who were practically in- 
dependent, passed at the end of the 18th century 
into the power of the Kadjars and was stormed on 
the 3rd (15th) January 1804 by the Russians under 
Prince Tsitsianov to be definitely ceded to Russia 
by the treaty of Gulistan [q.v.]. On the 13th (25th) 
September 1826 Paskevic defeated a Persian army 
under c Abbas MIrza in the immediate neighbourhood 
of the town. Called Elizavetpol by the Russians, 
Gandja resumed its old name in 1924, to change it 
again in 1935 to Kirovabad in honour of the Soviet 
statesman S. M. Kirov. 

The modern town with a population (1959) of 
1 16,000 inhabitants, lies on both banks of the Gandja 
Cay, a tributary of the Kura. In the older western 
half of the town, fortifications and the so-called 
"Tatar" mosque have survived from the time of 
Shah 'Abbas; the "Persian" mosque belongs to a 
later period. The climate is unhealthy and malarial 
but favourable to the growth of vegetation. Vines, 
fruit trees, vegetables and tobacco are cultivated in 
the surrounding countryside; it is also a centre of 
sericulture. 

Bibliography: In addition to the works 
mentioned above: The history of the Caucasian 
Albanians by Movses Dasxuranci, transl. C. J. F. 
Dowsett, London 1961; V. Minorsky, A history of 
Sharvan and, Darband in the loth-nth centuries, 
Cambridge 1958; idem, Studies in Caucasian 
history, London 1953; A. A. Ali-zade, Sotsial'no- 
ekonomiieskaya i politiieskaya istoriya Azerbaid- 
zhana XIII-XIV vv.,^ Baku 1956; B. Lewis, 
Registers on Iran and Adharbdyjdn in the Ottoman 
Defter-i Khaqani, in Milanges Masse, Tehran 
1963, 259 ff. (on registers dating from the first 
and second Ottoman occupations); I A, s.v. 
Gence, by Mirza Bala, with further bibliography. 

(W. Barthold-[J. A. Boyle]) 
GANDO [see fulbe], 

GANGA, the Ganges (also Gang i£S, ^S in 
the Muslim historians of India), the principal 
river of Upper India [see hind] which rises in the 
snows of the Himalaya in the district of Gafhwal at 
an altitude of some 3100 m., flows through the 
present provinces of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and 
Bengal, and falls in the Bay of Bengal after a course 
of about 2500 km., the last 500 km. through the 
Bengal delta. Above the delta it receives successively 
the waters of the Ramganga, Yamuna (Djamna, 
[q.v.]), Gomati, Gogra, Son, Gandak and KosI; above 
the Djamna confluence at Prayag (Allahabad, [q.v.]) 
it is fordable. The delta commences south of the 
ruins of Gawf [see lakhnawtI], the westernmost 
channel which passes close to Murshidabad [q.v.] 
being known in its upper reaches as the Bhagi- 
rathl and in its lower as the Hugll [q.v.]. The main 
(eastern) channel, known also as the Padma, runs 
south-east to Goalanda where it joins the (Bengal) 
Djamna, i.e., the lower reaches of the Brahma- 
putra. The confluence forms a broad estuary, 
now called the Meghna, which enters the Bay 
of Bengal near Noakhali as the most easternly 
of a number of channels. The delta is fertile in the 



north, and the swampy Sundarbans (salt, timber for 
boat-building) form its southern base; the Hugll is 
its main commercial channel. Until the construction 
of the railways the Ganges formed, with its tribu- 
taries, a most important traffic artery (J. Rennell, 
Memoir of a map of Hindoostan . . *, London 1793, 
335 ff.), its major towns {e.g., Kanawdj, Allahabad, 
Faydabad, Banaras, Patna, Munger, Radjmahall 
[qq.v.]) having in many cases stone or brick landing 
stages. Its irrigation waters are extended by the 
Upper and Lower Ganges canals, with headworks at 
Hardwar. 

In its lower reaches the fall is no more than from 
1 to 3 cm. per kilometre, and hence its course is very 
liable to change under the weight of monsoon rain- 
fall; for example, before the Muslim conquest of 
Bengal the main stream instead of turning south at 
its present point ran eastwards to Malda and then 
turned south along the present course of the Maha- 
nada, running east of Gawf (cf. E. V. Westmacott in 
JASB, 1875, 7 ff.); the transfer of the Bengal capital 
from Gawf to Pandua in 739/U38-9 was evidently 
occasioned by such a change, as was a subsequent 
removal of the court from Gawf to Tanda about 
850/1446. The differences between the present 
courses of the Ganges and its deltaic tributaries and 
those shown on Rennell's map (op. cit., facing 
p. 364; cf. ibid., 345 ff.) are striking. For further 
details of change of course see hugli. 

To the Hindus the Ganges is a sacred river, having 
its source in paradise whence it is precipitated on to 
the earth as the centre of sev 
represented in Sanskrit sourci 
Vdyupurdna, Ramdyana, et> 
Biruni's K. al-Hind, Eng. 1 
'ater has 



; ; this legend, 
:s in the Matsyapurdna, 
;., is recounted in al- 
:r. E. Sachau, London 
a special ritual purity, 



either for bathing at the confluences, especially 
at Allahabad when the sun is in Aquarius, or for 
drinking (for the express courier which took Ganges 
water to Muhammad b. Tughluk's court in Daw- 
latabad see Ibn Battuta, iii, 96, tr. Gibb, 
184; for Akbar's use of Ganges water see Abu 
'1-Fadl, AHn-i Akbari, i, 55; and cf. Tavernier's 
observation (Voyages, Eng. tr. ed. W. Crooke, 
London 1925, i, 95) that the emperor (Shahdjahan) 
and his court drink no other). For the Hindu practice 
of self-immolation in its waters, and casting the 
ashes of the dead therein, see Ibn Battuta, i, 79, 
iii, 141 f., tr. v. Mzik, 57; tr. Gibb, 193; V. Minorsky, 
Gardizi on India, in BSOAS, xii (1947-8), 639 f. 
Bibliography: in addition to the references 

in the text, see Imperial Gazetteer of India, ed. 

1908, s.v. Ganges. (J. Burton-Page) 

GANZA [see gandja]. 

GAO, a town in the republic of Mali, situated on 
the left bank of the Niger (10,000 inhabitants), is one 
of the oldest commercial centres in West Africa, 
standing at the point where the caravan route from 
Tilemsi reaches the Niger. In older writers, Gao is 
referred to under the names Kaukau, Kawkaw, 
Kookou, Kankou and Kounkou. Two etymologies 
are suggested: according to al-Bakri (Description de 
I'Afrique, 399), the name Kaukau derives from the 
sound of tom-toms; Houdas (Ta'rikh al-Suddn, 6, 
n. 3) suggests that it is an abbreviation of kokoy 
Korya (the king's town). 

Probably founded in about 690 A.D. by the Sorko 
Faran fishermen expelled from Kukia by the Songhai 
Gao became an important commercial centre. It is 
probably the town referred to by al-Kh'Srizmi 
(before 218/833) and, in about 258/872, by al- 
Ya c kubl as "Kawkaw, the greatest and most power- 



ful of the kingdoms of the Sudan", which would 
anticipate by some twenty years the date 890 given 
by Barth as marking the extension of the authority 
of the Songhai rulers of Kukia over Gao. 

Gao was then very much frequented by traders 
from the Maghrib. Hence it happened that, according 
to Ibn Khaldun (Berberes, trans, de Slane, iii, 201), 
it was at Gao, during one of his father's business 
journeys, in about 271/885, that Abu Yazid [q.v.], 
"the man on the donkey", was born. 

Al-Muhallabi tells us: "The king of this people sets 
his subjects the example of the faith of Islam, and 
the majority of them follow his example. It has a 
town on the east bank of the Nile (Niger) named 
Sarna; this town contains markets and merchandise 
and is regularly frequented by people from all 
countries. The king also has a town on the west of 
the Nile where he lives with his nobles and intimates. 
He has a mosque where he prays, while the people 
have their own musalla between the two madrasas. 
In his town the king has a palace which no-one 
lives in except himself and which now harbours 
only a single eunuch. They are all Muslims. The king 
and his principal companions wear tunics and 
turbans and ride horses bareback". These lines, 
quoted by Y.- Kamal [Monumenta Cartographica 
Africae et Aegypti, iii/2, 683), were written in about 
385/996, that is to say 15 years before the date given 
for the conversion to Islam and the settling at Gao 
of Dia Kossol (1009-10). 

Al-Bakri (459/1067) describes the division of the 
town into two quarters: "(Kawkaw) consists of two 
towns, one is the residence of the king and the other 
is inhabited by the Muslims. Their king bears the 
title of Kanda. Like other negroes, they wear a loin- 
cloth and a jacket of skins or other material, the 
quality of which varies according to the wealth of 
the individual. Like the negroes, they worship idols . . . 
When a new king mounts the throne, he is given a 
seal, a sword and a Kur'an . . . Their king professes 
the faith of Islam, they never entrust the supreme 
authority to anyone other than a Muslim" (Descr. 
de I'Afr. sept., trans, de Slane 1859, Algiers 1913, 
342-3). 

In 1939, royal steles of the 12th century were dis- 
covered at Sane (9 km. east of Gao). Al-Zuhrl (before 
545/1150) noted a greater volume of trade came 
from Egypt and Wargla than through the Tafilelt. 

Gao was captured by Sagamandia, one of the 
generals of Kango Musa (Mansa Musa), at the time 
of the return from pilgrimage of the emperor of Mali 
(724/1324) who had a mosque with mihrab built, 
perhaps on the plans of the poet al-Sahili. Dia Assibai, 
a vassal of Mali, had to surrender his two sons as 
hostages. One of them, C A1I Kolen (the cricket), 
managed to escape and restored the Songhai empire 
by deposing the dia Bada who was governing Gao on 
behalf of the Mali. He was called Sonni (the liberator) 
and founded the second dynasty which ruled from 
739/1339 until 898/1493- 

Gao, however, remained a highly prosperous 
capital and, after his visit in 753/1352, Ibn Battuta 
stated that it was one of the most beautiful and 
extensive cities in the Negroes' country, and most 
abundantly supplied with foodstuffs. But during the 
8th/i4th century the Songhai were driven back to 
the former capital of Kukia. It was only in 802/1400 
that the Sonni Ma Daou (or Ma Dogo, that is, the 
Giant) passed to the attack and sacked the town of 
Mali. The last ruler Sonni c Ali (868/1464-898/1493) 
or C A1I Ber (the Great) brought the Songhai empire 
to its apogee when he captured Timbuctoo (872/1468) 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



3 977 

and Djenne (877/1473). But it was a period of pagan 
resurgence and of persecution of the Muslims. 

When nominated chief of the Songhai on 21 
January 1493, the Sonni Barou refused to adopt 
Islam; he was compelled to fight against c Ali Ber's 
best commander, the Sarakole (Soninke) Muhammad 
Toure who won a victory (12 April 1493) and took the 
name Askia (signifying usurper or it is not he). 
Muhammad Askia (898/1493-934/1528) made the 
pilgrimage to Mecca (1497-8), and then extended and 
organized his conquests. He received a visit (907/1502- 
909/1504) from the reformer al-Maghili who had just 
had the Jewish colonies at Touat (Tuat) massacred. 
The 16th century represents the great period of 
the empire of Gao. The Ta'rikh al-Fattash enumerates 
7626 houses, which represents a large town. Leo 
Africanus, who probably visited Gao at the beginning 
of the 16th century, related: "Gao is a very large city 
without walls . . ., the greater part of the houses are 
ugly in appearance; however, there are some quite 
handsome and commodious buildings in which the 
king lives with his court". In 999/1591, the army of 
the pasha Djawdhar captured Gao. But, accustomed 
to the splendours of Morocco, Djawdhar was dis- 
appointed: "the head donkey-driver's house in 
Marrakush is better than the Askia's palace" 
(Ta'rikh al-Suddn, 221). 

But dependence on Morocco was soon no more than 
nominal. In any case, it merely took the form of 
plundering the educated and bourgeois classes, which 
explains the utter collapse of Islamic culture. After 
1021/1612, the pashas commanding the Moroccan 
army no longer came from Morocco, but were ap- 
pointed on the spot by the soldiers. The Arma, 
half-breed descendants of Moroccans, had difficulty 
in fighting against the Tuareg who occupied Gao 
for the first time in 1091/1680, but were driven 
from it in 1099/1688 by the pasha Mansur Seneber, 
who however left no further garrisons there. 

Thereafter, decline set in, and in 1184/1770 Gao, 
following Timbuctoo, was under Tuareg control. 

At the time of Barth's visit in 1854, Gao was no 
more than a wretched village with from three to four 
hundred huts, where only a single partly ruined 
monument was to be seen, the tomb of the great 
Askia Muhammad. Although they reached Timbuctoo 
in 1893, the French military authorities established 
a base there only in 1899 (Lt.-Col. Klobb). On 
their arrival, the French found merely a small 
group of sharifs called Sherifikalo in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Askia tomb. 

The peace brought by French rule permitted the 
intermingling of the various races which nevertheless 
retained some degree of specialization, with Songhai 
farmers, Arma artisans, Moorish shopkeepers, Hausa 
traders and Bambara fishermen and tailors. 

Bibliography: R. Basset, Essai sur I'histoire 
et la langue de Tombouctou et des royaumes de 
Songhay et Melli, Louvain 1889; Beraud-Villars, 
V Empire de Gao, Paris 1943; Boulnois and 
Boubou Hama, VEmpire de Gao, Paris 1954; 
Delafosse, Haut-Sinigal-N 'iger , Paris 1912; Dubois, 
Tombouctou la mysUrieuse, Paris 1897; idem, La 
Region de Gao, berceau de VEmpire Songhay, in 
BCAF, 1909, 47 ff. ; Dutel, Comparaison entre une 
genialogie Sonrai de tradition arabe et la genealogie 
des Askia de Gao donnie par les sources historiques, 
in Notes africaines, xxv (January 1945), 22-3; 
R. Mauny, Notes d'archiologie au sujet de Gao, in 
BIFAN, 1951, 837-52; idem, La tour et la Mosquie 
de I'Askia Mohammed a Gao, in Notes Africaines, 
xlvii (July 1950); Capt. Pefontan, Les Armes, in 



978 



GAO — GARSlF 



BCHSAOF, 1926, 153-79; J. Rouch, Les Songhay, 
Memoire IFAN, Dakar 1952; J. Sauvaget, Notes 
priliminaires sur les ipitaphes royales de Gao, in 
REI, 1948, 5-12; idem, Les ipitaphes royales de 
Gao, in Andalus, xiv/i (1949); J- Spencer Tri- 
mingham, A History of Islam in West Africa, 
Oxford 1962. (R. Cornevin) 

GARDEN [see bustan]. 

GARDlZ, town of modern Afghanistan, head- 
quarters of Paktiya Province (originally called 'The 
Southern Province'), situated 65 km. east of Ghazni 
in the direct line, though further by road, in 69 6' E. 
33 36' N. Gardiz stands on the route from Ghazni 
towards the Kurram Valley, which there joins the 
route passing south-eastwards from Kabul through 
the Logar Valley. The town stands at an altitude of 
2289 metres amid extensive orchards in the Zurmatt 
plain, surrounded except to the south-west by 
substantial mountains. It is dominated by an 
artificial fortress-mound, the Bala Hisar, which is 
crowned by an elegant fortress apparently dating 
from the 19th century. Within these fortifications 
are contained a barracks, and a ziydrat which 
occupies the remains of an ancient mud-brick 
bastion. Local tradition attributes the foundation of 
the city to a certain Zamar, who is apparently not 
otherwise documented. None the less, the discovery 
in 1947 at Mir Zakah, 53 km. east-north-east of the 
town, of a sacred spring containing an important 
treasure of Indo-Bactrian and Indo-Scythian coins, 
suggests that Gardiz was a place of consequence 
already in the second century B.C. Preserved at 
Kabul is an image of the elephant-headed god 
Ganesa, bearing a Sanskrit inscription of the eighth 
year of the Hflna king Khingala (Khingila). The 
image is reputed to have been brought to Kabul 
from Gardiz, and this if true would attest the im- 
portance of the place in the 6th century A.D. 
According to the Ta'rikh-i Sistdn (p. 24) Gardiz was 
founded (or re-founded) by the KharidjI leader 
Hamza b. c Abd Allah in about 181/797. The con- 
nexion of the Kharidjls with this town is confirmed 
in the Hudud al-'-alam, but the later history of its 
KharidjI amirs, is little known. A bilingual Arabic- 
Sanskrit inscription from the Tochi Valley now in 
the Peshawar Museum dated 243/857 contains the 
words fi barr' 'Umdn 'in the land of 'Uman', which 
appears to refer to the well-known KharidjI con- 
nexions beyond the Persian Gulf. The ruler's name 
has not been read, but the early date suggests that 
he must have been one of the princes of Gardiz. The 
historian GardizI [q.v.] (Zayn al-akhbdr, ed. Nazim, 
11) reports an attack by the Saffarid Ya'kub b. al- 
Layth on the amir of Gardiz, Abu Mansur Aflah b. 
Muhammad b. Khakan in 256/869. In 3^4/974 
Bilgetegin, one of the predecessors of Mahmud of 
Ghazni, died whilst he was undertaking a siege of 
Gardiz. However, the town soon fell into the hands 
of the Ghaznawids, for during the reign of Sebuktigln, 
in 385/995 according to Barthold, the former was 
housing political prisoners in the fortress of Gardiz. 
With the loss of its independence, the historical 
importance of the town began to diminish. During 
the Mongol invasion it was the scene of a counter- 
attack by the Sultan Djalal al-Din upon the Mongol 
vanguard. The Emperor Babur, in his Memoirs, 
mentions it as a strong fortress, and the scene of a 
skirmish with the "Abd al-Rahman Afghans'. 
Modern research has devoted little attention to 
Gardiz, and it is remarkable that its earlier rulers are 
apparently unknown to numismatics. 

Bibliography: R. Curiel and D. Schlumberger, 



Le tresor de Mir Zakah pres de Gardiz, in Trisors 
monitaires d' Afghanistan (Memoires de la Delega- 
tion archeologique Francaise en Afghanistan, 
Tome XIV), Paris 1953, 67-99; D- C. Sarcar, 
Three early medieval inscriptions, in Epigraphia 
Indica, xxxv (1963), 45-7; Malik al-Shu c ara Bahar 
(ed.), Td'rikh-i Sistdn, 24; Hudud al-'dlam, 91, 251; 
Muhammad Hamid Qureshi, A Kufic Sarada in- 
scription from the Peshawar Museum, in Epigraphia 
Indo-Moslemica, 1925-6, 27; Barthold, Turkestan*, 
264, 445; Sir Lucas King (ed.), Memoirs of Zahir- 
ed-din Muhammed Babur, London 1921, i, 241; ii, 
122 ff.; Muhammad Nazim, The life and times of 
Sul(dn Mahmud of Ghazna, Cambridge 1931, 27. 

(A. D. H. Bivar) 
GARDlZl, Abu Sa'Id c Abd al-Hayy b. al- 
Dahhak b. Mahmud, Persian historian who 
flourished in the middle of the 5th/nth century. 
Nothing is known of his life. His nisba shows that he 
came from Gardiz [q.v.] ; since he says that he received 
information about Indian festivals from al-BIruni 
[q.v.], he may have been his pupil. His work, entitled 
Zayn al-akhbdr, was written in the reign of the 
Ghaznawid Sultan c Abd al-Rashld (440/1049-443/ 
1052). It contains a history of the pre-Islamic kings 
of Persia, of Muhammad and the Caliphs to the year 
423/1032, and a detailed history of Khurasan from 
the Arab conquest to 432/1041 : no sources are named, 
but for the history of Khurasan GardizI must have 
been mainly following al-Sallaml [q.v.]; the work 
includes also a valuable chapter on the Turks, based 
on the works of Ibn Khurradadhbih. al-Djayhanl and 
Ibn al-Mukaffa c [qq.v.] (ed. with Russian tr. by 
W. Barthold, in Ottet poezdke v Srednuyu Aziyu 
(Zap. Imp. Akad. Nauk po Ist.-Phil. Otd., i, no. 4), 
St Petersburg 1897, 78 ft"., and with Hungarian tr. 
by G. Kuun in Keleti Kutfok, 1898, 5 ff. and KS, 
1903, 17 ff.), a chapter on India (see E. Sachau, 
Alberuni's India, London 1888, ii, 360, 397 and 
V. Minorsky, GardizI on India, in BSOAS, xii (1948), 
625-40), and essays on Greek sciences, chronology, 
the religious festivals of various peoples, and genealo- 
gy. Only two incomplete manuscripts are known: 
Bodleian, Ouseley 240, dated 1196/1782, which is a 
transcript of Cambridge, King's College 213, dated 
( ?)93o/i524. The contents, so far as they survive, are 
listed by E. Sachau and H. Ethe (Catalogue .... 
Bodleian Library, i, 9 ff.). Historical sections on the 
Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids and Ghaznawids have 
been edited by Muhammad Nazim, Kitab Zainu 
'l-akhbar, Berlin-London 1928 (E. G. Browne Memo- 
rial Series, i). 

Bibliography: Introduction to M. Nazim's 
edition and Barthold, Turkestan 1 , 20-1, and 
references there given; Hudud al-'-alam, index. 

(W. Barthold*) 
GAREBEG [see 'Id and Indonesia— v]. 
GARMSlR [see kIshlak]. 

GARSlF (in the Marlnid period Agarsif occurs 
quite as frequently; the occlusive Berber g is some 
times transcribed in Arabic characters as djim, 
sometimes as kdf, each distinguished by three 
diacritical points), the Guercif of French maps, 
a small place in eastern Morocco 60 km. east of 
Taza, in the middle of the immense Tafrata steppe. 
It is situated on the spit of land between the Mu- 
lullu and Moulouya rivers at their confluence; 
hence its name (Berber ger- "between" and dsif 

Marmol wished to identify Guercif with Ptolemy's 
Galapha; but this is scarcely likely, since the Greek 
geographer clearly put the latter place east of Molo- 



GARSlF — GASPRALI (GASPRINSKI), ISMA'lL 



probable 



chat (= Moulouya): Tawrirt seer 
identification. 

Guercif was founded towards the middle of the 
3rd/9th century by the Banu Abi 'l- c Afiya, one of 
the tribes of the Miknasa, a Berber people who 
led a nomadic life in the Moulouya valley. It became 
the centre of the lands of Musa b. Abi 'l- c Afiya 
(d. 327/938) and then of his sons who were renowned 
for their wars with the Idrisids and Fatimids. 

Its commercial and strategic importance was due 
to its situation at the intersection of two important 
routes, one from Fez to TIemcen, the other from 
Sidjilmasa to Melilla. In the middle of the 5th/nth 
century al-Bakri described it as an important 
village with a considerable population (karya 
'dmira). But after being captured and destroyed by 
the Almoravid Yusuf b. Tashfin in 473/1080 it lost 
its former importance; and al-ldrisl (middle of the 
5th/nth century) did not know it. 

At the beginning of the 7th/i3th century, the site of 
Guercif was frequented by the Banu Marin, nomadic 
Berber tribes belonging to the Zanata group. In 
summer they came down from the high plateaus of 
the pre-Saharan zone and spent the summer in the 
lower Moulouya valley. It was at Guercif that they 
stored their stocks of grain; it was also there that, 
at the approach of autumn, their tribes met before 
returning to their grazing-lands in the Sahara. In 
610/1213, taking advantage of the enfeebled state into 
which the Almohad empire had fallen as a result 
of the disaster at al- c Ukab, the Banu Marin settled 
down along the lower Moulouya and occupied 
Guercif. It was there that, in 646/1248, they lay in 
wait for the Almohad army in its retreat from 
TIemcen to Fez, and then defeated and routed it. In 
about 1275 the Marinids became masters of the whole 
of Morocco. However, on the eastern borders of their 
empire the Zayyanid kings of TIemcen constituted 
a dangerous enemy. Along with the neighbouring 
localities of Tawrirt and Dubdu [q.v.] Guercif formed 
a march (thaghr), barring access to the interior of 
Morocco. In 721/1321 the Marinid Abu Sa'Id had the 
walls rebuilt. Later, after a revolt by the inhabitants, 
Guercif was sacked and part of the fortifications 
were destroyed by Abu 'Inan. 

After his death (759/1358) Guercif, together with 
the fortified castle of Murada (15 km. to the north- 
west, on the Moulouya) became a fief of the cele- 
brated Wanzammar b. 'Arlf, chief of the Suwayd 
Arabs, who was in command of all the Bedouin 
tribes supporting the Marinids, and the mentor of 
the kings of that dynasty. Numerous attacks were 
made against it by Abu Hammu, king of TIemcen, 
and the two fortified places were on several occasions 
captured and sacked. 

Later, Guercif lost its military importance when 
the boundary between Morocco and Turkish Algeria 
was moved east of Oujda; the Sa'dids and 'Alawids 
preferred Tawrirt. 

From 1912 Guercif was occupied by France and 
acquired a measure of importance through being 
at the head of the railway from Oujda. After the line 
had been extended, first to Taza, then to Fez, the 
village declined rapidly. With Msoun, it is one of 
the two centres of the Hawwara, an important 
tribe who move with their flocks to summer 
pasturages and who devote themselves to sheep- 

Bibliography: Bakri, index; Ibn Khaldun, 
Histoire des Berber es, index; Leo Africanus, ed. 
Schefer, ii, 329, tr. Epaulard, 299. (G. S. Colin) 
GASPRALI (GASPRINSKI), ISMA'lL, promi- 



nent ideological writer of the Turks, more particu- 
larly of the Russian Turks, was born in 1851 in the 
village of Av6I, near Baghcesaray. His father, Mustafa 
Agha, was one of the notables of the village of Gaspra, 
between Yalta and Alupka (whence their family name 
Gasprall, later Gasprinski), and a graduate of the 
Military Lycee in Odessa. At the time of the Battle 
of Sevastopol in 1854 Mustafa Agha settled in Bagh- 
cesaray and sent his son Isma'il first to the Zindjirli 
Medrese in Baghiesaray and later, at the age of ten, to 
the Simferopol Gymnasium. Two years later Isma'il 
went to the Voronezh Military Lycee and was then 
transferred to the Moscow Military Lycee. Together 
with Mustafa Mlrza Davidovic, a Lithuanian Tatar 
in origin, he attracted the attention of their principal 
teacher, Ivan Katkov, the famous Pan-Slavist and 
editor of the newspaper Moskovskiya Vedomosti, who 
invited them every week to his house. At the time 
of the rebellion in Crete in 1867 the hostility which 
Katkov showed toward Turkey produced a reaction 
in these two youths, and they went to Odessa with 
the intention of serving in Crete as volunteers on the 
Turkish side. As they had no passports, however, they 
were arrested and sent back to their homes in the 
Crimea. Isma'il Bey was appointed a teacher in 
Russian, the study of which was compulsory, in the 
Zindjirli Medrese in Baghcesaray. He constantly 
thought of going to Turkey and becoming an officer ; 
and when he discovered that it was necessary to 
learn French to do this, he learned French during 
his four-year appointment at Baghcesaray. He had, 
in fact, acquired some knowledge of this language 
while at the Military Lycee in Moscow. In 1871 he 
resolved to go to Istanbul; but, seeking to perfect 
his French, went by way of Vienna to Paris. The 
results of his observations in Paris were reflected in 
works which he later published in Russia — especially 
in his work named Rilsyd Isldmlighi {'The Muslim 
Community in Russia') — and also in a work named 
Avritpd medeniyetine bir nazar-i muvdzene ('A ba- 
lanced view of European civilization') which he wrote 
while still in Paris. 

While in Paris he earned his living by working as 
at ranslator in an advertizing agency. Since his aim 
was to go to Turkey, he did not mix much with the 
Young Ottoman circles in Paris. Finally in 1874 
he went to Istanbul and stayed with his paternal 
uncle, Suleyman Efendi, who had settled there 
earlier. He made great efforts to enter the Turkish 
War College, but when the Russian Ambassador 
Ignatiev learned of this he brought influence to bear 
on the Grand Vizier Mahmud Nedim Pasha and pre- 
vented it. After vainly waiting a year, Isma'il 
returned to the Crimea. While in Istanbul he pub- 
lished non-political articles describing Eastern life 
for some Russian newspapers appearing in St. 
Petersburg and Moscow. 

Between the years 1874 and 1878 he became 
familiar with the village life of the Crimean Turks, 
and described this period of his life in his story Giin 
Doghdu, published in 1906. In this he refers to him- 
self under the name "Daniyal Bey". While becoming 
familiar with the needs of his nation, with education 
and village life, this Daniyal Bey sees the vital need 
of bringing out a newspaper and making his nation 
aware of the world. In 1878 Isma'il Bey was elected 
mayor of Baghcesaray, and in 1879 he applied to the 
Czar's government for permission to bring out a 
newspaper, but was refused. He thereupon wrote in 
the Russian-language newspaper Tavrida, published 
in Simferopol, serious political articles pertaining to 
the Muslims of the Russia Empire. He also published 



GASPRALI (GASPRINSKI), ISMA c lL 



occasional collections of articles : Tungui (lithograph, 
Simferopol); Shefek and Lafd'if (Unsizadeler Press, 
Tiflis); and, later, Ay, Yildiz and Giinesh. These 
writings were mostly in the Crimean dialect. In the 
next year (1882) Isma'il Bey expanded a little the 
articles he had published in Russian in the news- 
paper Tavrida and published them in the form of a 
fifty-four page work with the title Russkoye Musul- 
manstvo ('Russian Islam'). This work was a pioneer 
work relative to the political and cultural problems 
of the Muslim subject-peoples of the Russian Empire. 
Although Isma'il Bey presented himself in this work 
as a loyal Russian subject, even speaking approvingly 
of the salvation of the Russians from Tatar domin- 
tion, Russian circles believed this to be a device and 
regarded this work with suspicion. In it he considered 
the "Turco-Tatars" under Russian rule as a single 
Russian Muslim community and showed the road by 
which they might join Western civilization. In the 
pamphlets which he published in Turkish he pointed 
out that if the Turco-Tatar group were to remain 
dispersed the result would be calamitous: he tried to 
explain that the sole road of salvation for them was 
to work together to join the new Western civilization 
by means of their own languages. In the year 1883 
he received permission to publish a newspaper 
named Terdiumdn. The Russian title of the news- 
paper was Perevodiik; and in the first issues the 
Russian-language section was more important. It 
explained that it was to perform the role of translator 
in the matter of spreading Western civilization 
among the Russian Muslim community. The Turkish- 
language section gradually expanded and became 
more serious and later, in 1890, Terdiumdn became 
"the national newspaper concerning politics, edu- 
cation, and literature". After 1905, it took the name 
Terdiumdn-i Ahwdl-i Zamdn, and at the head of the 
newspaper was the slogan: "Unity in language, 
work, and thought". Finally the part in Russian was 
abandoned altogether, and the newspaper became 
the interpreter of the thoughts and aims of the 
Muslim community in the Russian Empire. All the 
Turks living in the regions of Kazan, the Caucasus, 
Turkistan, and Siberia recognized this newspaper as 
being the disseminator of their national ideas. The 
deep influence of this newspaper on Turkish intel- 
lectuals may be judged from the first novel in the 
Tatar language, entitled Molla Husdm al-Dln by 
Musa Akyegitzade, published in 1886, from the 
speeches and gifts of the delegates who came from 
every part of the Russian Empire on the occasion of 
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the appearance of 
Terdiumdn in 1908, and from the increased numbers 
of newspapers that year. 

Isma'il Bey married Zehra Khanim, a member of 
the Akcura (Akcurin) manufacturing family, one of 
the noble Kazan families. Through this marriage his 
ties with the Kazan Tatars became close. He was in 
constant touch with Azerbaijan Turkish writers, 
Hasan bek Melikov, Unsizade, Topcibashi and others. 
Mustafa Davidovic, the Lithuanian Muslim who had 
studied with him at the Moscow Military Lycee, 
settled in Baghcesaray, where he was mayor for 
twenty years, helping Isma'il Bey in all his enter- 



prises. The work w 
occupied was to creat 
Russian Muslims and 1 
He also wanted to ei 
struction by opening te 
and other places, ; 



which Isma' 

e modern primary schools for 
:o publish textbooks for these, 
nsure modern methods of in- 
achers' courses in Baghcesaray 
to assure the opening of this 
type of school throughout the Muslim community 
of Russia. He himself visited every part of that 



community, including Tashkent, Bukhara, and 
Siberia. He set up and printed personally on his own 
press Kh"ddie-i sibydn, MaHumdt-i ndfi'a and other 
works which he brought out for the primary schools. 
Together with his wife, Zehra Khanim, and the 
mayor, Mustafa Davidovic, he opened a handicrafts 
institute for girls on the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
the appearance of Terdiumdn, an idea which spread 
to other provinces as well. He brought out the first 
magazine for women, entitled <Alem-i niswdn, and 
placed his daughter Shefika at the head of it. He also 
published a work concerning women's rights, 
entitled Kadinlar ulkesi. Inspired by Shams al-DIn 
Sami's Kdmus al-aHdm, he began to publish an 
encyclopaedia for Russian Muslims, but was unable 
to complete it. He became occupied with problems 
of language and literature. After the 1905 Revolution 
he planned a programme especially designed to deal 
with the problems of instruction and "literary 
language". It envisaged that in the first three years 
of primary school instruction would be carried out 
in the local Turkish dialects; afterwards, the "com- 
mon literary language" would become the general 
language of instruction. His original idea of the 
"common literary language" was some addition of 
Ottoman to a language which was mainly Tatar; 
but the Ottoman influence increased under the 
influence of those who were working with him, and 
the result was a simple Ottoman which could be 
understood by the Muslims of Russia. National 
Turkish literature, according to Isma'il Bey, would 
consist of novels which would reflect the life of the 
regions in which the Turks lived and which would 
inculcate in them new thoughts and ideals. The 
supplements named Damime-i Terdiumdn, which he 
published as additions to Terdiumdn in the years 
1892-4, and his novel Ddr al-Rdhat Musliimdnlari 
are important in this respect. In language, Isma'il 
Bey earnestly opposed the domination of Arabic and 
Persian in Ottoman and also the tendency among 
the Kazan Tatars to take words from Russian, and 
he put forward the idea of drawing on popular 
literature for the literary language. His stories 
Arslan Kiz and Guldjemdl Bikec telling of the 18th 
century Chinese occupation of Kashghar, and his 
writings entitled Baghcesardydan Tashkende, which 
included the memoirs of his travels, were serialized 
in many issues of the Damime. In 1893 he published 
stories about Baghdad Khatun [q.v.], who played an 
important role in the history of the Ilkhanids. He 
also published an expanded version of the treatise 
Turklerde Hlim ve funun of Bursal! Tahir, publishing 
some of it— the discussions of Sa'd al-DIn Taftazani, 
for example — in the Damime. 

At first Isma'il Bey valued Islam as being useful 
in preserving for the Turks their national identities 
but, aside from the "pocket Kur'an", he did not 
devote much space to religious publications. After 
the 1905 Revolution he saw the adverse results of 
Socialism and Communism, which were beginning to 
appear in those years in Kazan and Baku, and 
became frightened of those movements, especially 
in the face of publications which, opposing the 
separate political institutions of the Russian Muslims, 
claimed allegiance solely to the Russian socialist 
parties, and which made haphazard efforts to 
impose Russian as the literary language. In the 
series of articles which he published in Terdiumdn 
under the title "Ishtirdkiyyiln", he moved noticeably 
to the right and began to think of bringing about a 
cultural unity among Islamic nations. With this aim 
in mind he wanted to convene a general Muslim 



GASPRALI (GASPRINSKI), ISMA'lL — GAWUR 



981 



congress in Egypt in 1907, and, having gone there 
himself, even began to publish an Arabic newspaper 
named Al-Nahda with <Abd Allah Taymas. He also 
made a journey to India to further this endeavour; 
but when these efforts did not give the results he had 
hoped for, he resumed his old activities in Baghce- 

Among the other publications of Isma'il Bey are 
the MebddP-i temeddiin-i I sldmiyydn-i Rus, published 
in 1901, and the twenty-page work Rus ve Shark 
anlashmasi, published in Russian (Russko-vostocnoye 
soglashenye) in 1896. Isma'il Bey, having seen the 
positive results of his efforts, fought in the last 
years of his life against the excessive bias which 
viewed Westernization as a form of spiritual suicide 
for Turks and other Muslims in Russia. Isma'il Bey, 
carried away with new hopes at the time of the 
beginning of the First World War, died on 11 
September 1914, in his house in Baghcesaray and was 
buried there. His son and daughters carried on for a 
period after his death the publication of the news- 
paper Terdjiimdn which had continued for thirty-one 

Bibliography : The biography of Isma'il Bey 
has been written by Yusuf Akcura in Turk Yxh, 
1928, 338-46. Cafer Seydahmet also published a 
fairly large work entitled Gasprah Ismail Bey in 
1934. A complete set of Terdjiimdn is preserved in 
the Leningrad Public Library; outside Russia, 
some copies of this newspaper may be found in the 
Helsinki University Library, the Inkilap Library 
in Istanbul, the British Museum, the Ankara 
National Library, and in various private libraries. 
The Centre Russe de l'Ecole Pratique des Hautes 
Etudes in the Sorbonne is now collecting micro- 
films of all the years of publication of this news- 
paper. (Z. V. Togan) 
GATE, GATEWAY [see bab]. 
GAUR [see lakhnawtI]. 
GAVUR [see kafir]. 

GAWAN, MAHMUD [see mahmud gawan]. 
GAWILGARH, in the histories also Gawil, 
GawIlgarh, a fortress "of almost matchless 
strength" (Abu '1-Fadl, AHn-i Akbari, Eng. tr. 
Jarrett, ii, 237) in Berar, Central India, lat. 21 20' N., 
long. 77 18' E., seven kos (about 25 km.) north-west 
of Elicpur (Uicpur [q.v.]). According to Firishta the 
fortress was built by Ahmad Shah Wall [see bah- 
manis] in 829/1425-6; but from its name it appears 
to have been a former stronghold of the Gawali 
chiefs, and it is more likely that Ahmad Shah merely 
strengthened the fortifications during the year he 
spent at Elicpur in the consolidation of his northern 
frontiers before proceeding to his attacks on the 
Vidjayanagar kingdom on his south. A Brahman 
captured in an earlier Vidjayanagar campaign who 
was received into Islam under the name Fath Allah 
was sent for service under the governor of Berar; 
later, under the Bahmani minister Mahmud Gawan, 
this Fath Allah, with the title 'Imad'al-Mulk, was 
himself made governor in 876/1471. The increasing 
loss of power by the Bahmani sultans to their Barldi 
ministers in the capital, Bidar, had led Fath Allah 
to prepare against possible opposition by streng- 
thening the defences of Gawilgafh in 893/1488 
(inscription on Fath Darwaza), from which time also 
dates the rebuilding of the Djami' Masdjid "with the 
old stones" and Fath Allah's use of the Vidjayanagar 
emblems on the gates (see below, Monuments). Two 
years later Fath Allah assumed independence [see 
'imad shahi] with headquarters at Elicpur and the 
fortresses of Gawilgafh and Narnala as his strong- 



holds, and these remained 'Imad Shahi possessions 
until the extinction of the dynasty in 982/1574 when 
Berar became a province of the Nizam Shahi [q.v.] 
dynasty of Ahmadnagar. After the cession of Berar 
to the Mughals in 1004/1596 Gawilgafh was still held 
by amirs of Ahmadnagar, and Akbar's son Prince 
Murad, reluctant to besiege it, made Balapur his 
principal stronghold; two years later, however, it 
fell to Abu '1-Fadl. The description of the suba of 
Berar was added to the AHn-i Akbari immediately 
after the cession of Berar, obviously before the 
Mughals had had time to reorganize the province, 
and thus the place given to Gawil as the largest and 
richest of the thirteen sarkdrs must reflect the pre- 
Mughal administrative division. This division was 
substantially unchanged in the great scheme of 
reorganization of the Deccan provinces under 
Awrangzib as viceroy in 1046/1636. In the Maratha 
troubles in the Deccan in the early I2th/i8th century 
the province was held together by Asaf Djah Nizam 
al-Mulk, but on his absence in Dihli in 1151/1738 
Berar with its great fortresses of Gawilgafh and 
Narnala was taken by the Bhonsla Marathas. In 
1803 Gawilgafh fell to Wellesley, but was retained 
by the Bhonsla in the treaty which followed; in 
1822, however, it was restored to the Nizam. In 1853 
it was assigned to the East India Company, and the 
fortifications were dismantled five years later. 

Monuments. Much of the walling of the fort still 
remains, with gates and bastions. One fine tall 
bastion on the west wall, the Burdj-i Bahram, gives 
its date of repair (985/1577 by chronogram) by 
Bahram Khan, governor of Gawilgafh under the 
Nizam Shahis at a time when it was expected that 
Akbar's forces would advance. The Dihli Darwaza is 
most interesting for its sculptured symbols: the 
lions with elephants beneath their paws, level with 
the top of the arch, are devices of the Gond kings, 
but the two-headed eagles holding elephants in each 
beak, which lie over the lions, are the ganda- 
bherunda symbols of the Vidjayanagar empire; this is 
the northern gate, which leads to the outer fort built 
in the I2th/i8th century by the Maratha Bhonslas of 
Nagpur. The Djami' Masdjid stands on the highest 
point within the fort, and in its present form doubt- 
less represents the rebuilding by Fath Allah recorded 
in the inscription on the Fath (south-west) Darwaza; 
the western liwdn was three bays deep behind the 
seven-arched facade, on which was some blue tile 
decoration in addition to fine stonework, and bore a 
rich chadidjd on carved brackets; the mihrdb wall 
has fallen. The most interesting feature, character- 
istic of the local style, is the pylon standing at each 
end of the liwdn facade, which bears not a mindr as 
l the other Deccan styles but a square chatri with 
projecting eaves, rich brackets, and d±dli screens in 
each side. A large walled sahn stands in front of the 
liwdn, with a great eastern gateway. To the north- 
of the great mosque stands a smaller unnamed 
mosque, similar but supported on octagonal columns. 
Few other buildings re 



iblio 



aphy: 






history of Berar is Muhammad Kasim b. Hindu 
Shah Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, passim. See 
also T. W. Haig, Inscriptions of Berar, in EIM, 
1907-8, 10-21; Archaeological Survey of India, 
Annual Report 1920-1, Plate Villa; ibid., Report 
1922-3, 56-8 and Plate XXIc; ibid., Report 1926-7, 
36-8; Dispatches of . . . the Duke of Wellington . . ., 
London 1838, ii, 560 ff. (J. Burton-Page) 

GAWR [see lakhnawtI]. 
GAWUR [see kafir]. 



GAWUR DAGHLARt — GEBZE 



GAWUR DAGHLARI. literally "the 
of the unbelievers", the name given by the Turks to 
several mountainous massifs, notably to (i) 
that where the Euphrates has its source to the north 
of Erzurum, and especially to (2) the Amanos, an 
arc of mountains which forms the south-western 
extremity of the eastern Taurus. It consists of a vast 
anticline rising to 7,411 ft/2,262 metres, orien- 
tated north-north-east/south-south-west, changing to 
north-east/south-west in its southern section after 
the col of Belen, with a structure of palaeozoic 
strata, accompanied by chalk and greenstone, 
which forms a fragment of the north-western edge 
of the Syrian plateau, rising, then descending below 
the level of it along the great fracture of the lower 
Orontes. The Amanos is very well watered and on it 
at a high level is found an isolated region of humid 
forest, where Fagus orientalis mingles with evergreen 
oaks and Pinus nigra, with peaty soils. The popu- 
lation consists of Turks and 'Alawis. Apart from 
the permanent villages (which are found up to a 
height of about 3,000 ft./goo metres) there are yaylas 
(Belen, Sorkun) which in summer are occupied 
especially by the inhabitants of the coastal towns 
and villages. The official Turkish name is now 
Amanos. For the other names, which are very varied, 
see Streck, art. alma dagh, in EI 1 . The most 
important is the Arabic: Djabal al-Ukkam = 
Turkish Kara dag, "the black mountain", very 
probably the origin of the name Akma daghl used 
by several European travellers, owing to a confusion 
with Alma (or Elma) daghl. 

Bibliography: see in general lA, s.v. Gavur 
daglan (B. Darkot); on (2) for structure: E. de 
Vaumas, Structure et morphologie du Proche-Orient, 
in Revue de Giographie Alpine, 1961, 469-72; 
idem, VAmanus et le Dj. Ansarieh, itude morpho- 
mitrique, in Revue de Giographie Alpine, 1954, 
633-64; for vegetation: H. Louis, Das naturliche 
Pflanzenkleid Anatoliens, Stuttgart 1939, 98; 
among the travel accounts see also Th. Kotschy, 
Reise in den Amanus, in Petermanns Mitteilungen, 



off. 



(X.i 



PLANf 



GAYKUAtC, ilkhan [q.v.] from 1291 until 1295, 
the younger son of Abaka, was raised to power by 
the leaders of his country after the death of his 
brother Arghun [q.v.']. He ascended the throne on 
23 Radjab 690/22 July 1291, when he also adopted 
the Buddhist (Tibetan) names Rin-Jhen rDc-rje 
"precious jewel"; he was, however, in no way 
hostile to the Muslims, and he was the only Ilkhan 
who did not carry out any executions. Earlier, as an 
official in Asia Minor, he had been renowned for his 
unbounded liberality; now he squandered the State 
Treasury within a short space of time, devoted 
himself to drunkenness and pederasty and — apart 
from an attack against Asia Minor in 1292 — paid 
no attention to State affairs. In order to prevent 
financial disaster, Sadr al-DIn Ahmad b. c Abd al- 
Razzak Khalidl (also called Zandjanl), his Finance 
Minister (Sahib diwan) since 1292, advised him to 
introduce paper money on the Chinese pattern; the 
name taw (from Chinese tf-au) was retained in Persia 
[see cao]. Since the population was not familiar 
with this type of currency and since it was not 
covered by treasury resources, the State finances 
collapsed in the autumn of 1294 (under circum- 
stances described most dramatically by Rashld al- 
DIn). Gaykhatu was consequently deserted by his 
amirs and troops when Prince Baydu of Baghdad 
advanced against him. Three days after his defeat 
at Hamadan (3 Djumada I 694/21 March 1295) he 



was taken prisoner and executed. The paper money 
was again withdrawn. — After six months of civil war, 
his nephew Ghazan [q.v.] succeeded him. 

Bibliography: Rashld al-DIn, Geschichte der 

Ilhdne Abdgd bis Gaihdtu, ed. K. Jahn, Prague 

1941 ("The Hague 1957), 81-90; Wassaf, lith. 

Bombay 1852, iii, 259-84; K. Jahn, Das iranische 

Papiergeld, in ArO, x (1938), 308-40; B. Spuler, 

Mongolen', 86-9, 541 (with further data on 

sources and bibliography). (B. Spuler) 

GAYOS [see atjeh]. 

GAZA [see ghazza]. 

GAZELLE [see ghazal]. 

GAZI ANTEP [see 'ayntabj. 

GAZOLA [see djazOla]. 

GAZCH [see djazOlI]. 

GEBER [see gabr and madjOs]. 

GEBER [see djabirJ. 

GEBZE (formerly Gegbize, Gegibuze), the ancient 
Dakibyza, a small town in north-west Anatolia, 
40 48' N., 29 26' E., situated in undulating country 
not far from the mouth of the Gulf of Izmit in the 
Sea of Marmara; at one time a hadd in the liwd 
(sandjah) of Kodja Eli (chief town Iznikmid/Izmit, 
Eydlet of Djeza'ir [islands]), later (in the 19th century) 
in the vildyet of Istanbul, today in the vildyet of 
Kocaeli; population, in i960, of the town 8,018, and 
of the hadd 30,442. 

At the time of Orkhan Gegibuze seems to have 
been already occupied by the Ottomans ; in any case, 
the town was from the time of Mehemmed I certainly 
Ottoman. The kadi of the town, by name Fadl Allah, 
who played a certain part under Mehemmed I, was 
a descendant of Akca Kodja, the conqueror of this 
region under Orkhan. 

Buildings in the town that are worthy of note are 
the Orkhan-Djami c , a simple construction with a 
single cupola and an entrance hall, and, in particular, 
the mosque of Coban Mustafa Pasha with tiirbe, 
Hmdret and medrese. The builder was an official from 
Egypt who had the decoration of his mosque carried 
out in the Egyptian Mamluk style (925/1519, but 
according to Ewliya Celebi 930/1525-6). The tiirbe is 
in the high Ottoman style. 

The plain near Gebze bears the name Tekfur 
Cayrt or Khunkar Cayrl in ancient sources. It was a 
halting-place on the route followed by the imperial 
armies on their campaigns in the east and south-east. 
It was here that sultan Mehemmed II died on 4 Rabi' 
I 886/3 May 1481. Not far from Gebze can be seen 
the grave of Hannibal who met his death nearby, 
at Libyssa, when his protector king Prusias of 
Bithynia was planning to hand him over to the 
Romans. — Beyond Gebze, on the shores of the Gulf 
of Izmit, stand the picturesque ruins of a castle, 
Eskihisar. 

Gebze is situated on the great military and caravan 
routes that lead across Anatolia from Istanbul to 
the east and south-east. The imperial armies followed 
these along the north shore of the gulf as far as 
Izmit, where they curve southwards towards Iznik; 
the pilgrim caravans, on the other hand, continued 
south-eastwards from Gebze for about 10 km. to 
Dil Iskelesi, a port situated at the narrowest point 
of the gulf, where they crossed to Hersek in order to 
go on to Iznik. Since 1873 Gebze has been connected 
with Haydarpasha by a railway. 

Bibliography: Katib Celebi, Djihannumd, 
Istanbul 1145, 662; Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, 
ii, Istanbul 1314, 168-70; Ch. Samy Bey Fraschery, 
Kdmus al-a i ldm, Istanbul 1314, v, 3870; V. Cuinet, 



GEBZE — GELIBOLU 



La Turquie d'Asie, iv, 687; C. Frh. v. d. Goltz, 
Anatolische Ausfliige, Berlin 1896, 74 ff. 

(Fr. Taeschner) 
GEDIorGEDE, a late mediaeval Arab-African 
town, built on a coral ridge four miles from the sea 
and ten miles south of Malindi on the Kenya Coast 

Portuguese maps as Quelman, a rendering for the 
Swahili Kilimani, meaning "on the hill". Gedi is a 
Galla word meaning "precious", the name which the 
site acquired in the seventeenth century. 

The ruins, excavated during the years 1948-58 
and maintained as a National Park, cover an area 
of forty-five acres, and are surrounded by a town 
wall. They include a dfdmi', seven other mosques, 
a palace, a number of private houses and three pillar 
tombs. The excavations have produced large quan- 
tities of Chinese porcelain and Islamic faience, and 
also glass beads. 

The single dated monument is a tomb with date 
802/1399-1400. The original settlement may go back 
to the 7th/i3th century, but the majority of the 
structures remaining are unlikely to be older than 
the gth/i5th century. It may have been destroyed 
in the early ioth/i6th century, but was re-occupied 
at the end of the century. In the early 17th century 
it was abandoned as a result of the southern advance 
of the Galla from Somalia. 

Bibliography: J. S. Kirkman, Gedi the Great 

Mosque: Architecture and Finds, Oxford 1954; 

idem, Historical Archaeology in Kenya 1948-1956, 

in Ant. J., xxxvii (1957); idem, The Tomb oj the 

Dated Inscription at Gedi, Roy. Anthropological 

Inst. Occ. Paper 14, 1959; idem, Gedi, the Palace, 

The Hague 1963. (J. S. Kirkman) 

GEDIK [see sinf]. 

GEDIZ CAYi, a river in west Anatolia, the 
former Hermos; it takes its modern name from 
Gediz, a place (39 3' N., 29 29' E.) near its source. 
It rises on Murat Dagi (2312 m.) and in its upper 
reaches flows through the Lydian mountains. 

In its central section the Gediz Cay traverses the 
broad plain which is bounded on the south by 
Mount Sipylos (Manisa Dagi), at the foot of which 
ties the town of Manisa [q.v.] (formerly Maghnisa, 
the ancient Magnesia). Further along on the southern 
extremity of this plain lie the towns of Turgutlu 
(Kasaba) and Salihli which have been connected 
with Izmir by a railway since 1863. In this plain 
are also to be found the remains of the ancient 
Sardes, near Sartkoy. 

After forcing its way through a ridge of mountains 
the Gediz Cay flows past Menemen in the plain near 
to its mouth in the Gulf of Smyrna (Izmir). And 
indeed in ancient times and in the Middle Ages the 
river-mouth was dangerously near to the old port 
of Smyrna. Since the land round the river-mouth 
was continually being enlarged by deposits from the 
river and Izmir was in danger of being cut off from 
the sea, in 1886 the mouth was removed above 
Menemen, so that it now flows into the more open 
part of the Gulf. (Fr. Taeschner) 

GEG [see arnawutluk]. 

GELIBOLU, in English Gallipoli, town on the 
European coast and at the Marmara end of the 
Dardanelles (Turkish: Canak-kal'e BoghazI [q.v.]), 
in the Ottoman period a naval base and the seat 
of the kapudan-pasha [q.v.], now an ilce belonging 
to the il of Canakkale; the name derives from the 
Greek Kalliopolis, Kallioupolis, also Kallipolis (for 
the various forms see E. Oberhummer, in Pauly- 
Wissowa, x, 1659-60). 



When, towards 700/1300, the Turks of Anatolia 
first concerned themselves with the town, it was 
one of the greatest and strongest Byzantine fortresses 
in Thrace (P. Lemerle, Vimirat d' Ay din, Byzance et 
I'Occident, Paris 1957, 69-70), the base, towards 720/ 
1320, for all the crews of the Byzantine fleet. In the 
winter of 704/1304-5, the Catalans in the service of 
Byzantium were stationed there, and when their 
leader Roger de Flor was killed in the following year 
they seized and fortified this strategic position 
(L. Nicolau d'Olwer, L'expansid de Catalunya en la 
Mediterrania oriental, Barcelona 1926, passim). Some 
500 Turks, led by Edje Khalil, came from Karasi 
[q.v.] to join them. When these Turks, returning from 
the raids they had made with the Catalans in Thrace, 
wished to cross back from the Gallipoli peninsula into 
Anatolia, they were attacked by the Byzantines (709/ 
1309) and obliged to stay there two years longer 
(P. Wittek, Yazijioghlu C AH on the Christian Turks 
of the Dobruja, in BSOAS, xiv (1952), 639-68, at 
662-7). In 73i/i33i or 732/1332 Umur Beg [q.v.] of 
Aydin made an unsuccessful attack on Gelibolu with 
his fleet, but was able to seize and sack the fortress 
of 'Lazgol' (Lazu ?) (Lemerle, op. cit., 70). Enweri 
(Dusturname, ed. M. Khalil [Yinanc], Istanbul 1928, 
256; ed. and tr. I. Melikoff-Sayar, he Destan d'Umur 
Pacha, Paris 1954, 62) states explicitly that this 
fortress was on the harbour, but Lemerle thinks it 
might be a small fort in the neighbourhood. 

The Ottomans, under the command of Suleyman 
Pasha [q.v.] and as allies of John Cantacuzenus, in 
753/1352 occupied the fortress of Tzympe (in the 
Ottoman registers and in the wakfiye of Suleyman 
Pasha, 'Djinbi'), north of Gelibolu, and, occupying 
the whole of the hinterland, cut Gelibolu off from 
Thrace. In order to maintain pressure on the strong 
fortress, the Ottomans made an udj here, under 
the command of Ya c kub Edje and Ghazi Fadil 
CAshikpashazade, ed. Giese, 45; tr. R. Kreutel, 77). 
While the Byzantines were trying to buy them 
off (Cantacuzenus, Bonn ed., iii, 278-81; Fr. tr. 
Cousin, Hist, de Constantinople, viii, Paris 1774, 
230-1), a violent earthquake, on 7 Safar 755/2 March 
1354, destroyed the walls of Gelibolu {Dusturname, 
82; P. Wittek, in Byzantion, xii (1937), 320; P. 
Charanis, in Byzantion, xiii (1938), 347-9; idem in 
Byzantinoslavica, xvi (1955), 113-7). The Ottomans 
immediately occupied Gelibolu, and other neigh- 
bouring fortresses whose walls had been thrown down. 
Suleyman Pasha crossed from Anatolia, repaired the 
citadel, and settled there Turks brought over from 
Anatolia (Cantacuzenus, loc. cit.). This occupation of 
Gelibolu made it possible for the Ottomans to install 
themselves in Europe: Suleyman Pasha made 
Gelibolu the base for the conquests in Thrace 
CAshikpashazade, ed. Giese, 47; tr. Kreutel, 80), 
and Gelibolu became the first centre of the Pasha 
sandiaghi in Rumeli. After Suleyman's death (758/ 
1357), he was succeeded at Gelibolu by Prince Murad 
(later Murad I): the tahrir-registers mention his 
palace at Gelibolu (Tapu def. no. 67 [see Bibl.], 428). 
On 15 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 767/23 August 1366, the Duke 
of Savoy, Amadeo VI, attacked Gelibolu with a 
Crusader fleet and captured it. The Crusaders 
handed it over to the Byzantines on 15 Shawwal 
768/14 June 1367 (N. Jorga, GOR, i, 226; idem, 
Philippe de Miziires, Paris 1896, 334-5). In a speech 
made in the summer of 773/1371, N. Cydones was 
urging that Gelibolu must not be returned to the 
Turks (Oratio de reddenda Gallipoli, in Migne, PG, 
cliv, 1009; R. J. Loenertz, Les recueils de lettres de 
Demetrius Cydones, Vatican 1947, 112), but finally 



Andronicus IV yielded to the Sultan' 
returned the fortress to the Ottomans on 14 Rabl c II 
778/3 September 1376 (G. Ostrogorsky, History of 
the Byzantine State, tr. J. Hussey, Oxford 1956, 483). 

During the reign of Murad I Gelibolu was the 
regular crossing-point for Ottoman armies, and 
became also the principal base for the Ottoman fleet. 
In 791/1389 Murad I transported the army to Rumeli 
under the protection of the fleet stationed here, and 
left Yanldj Beg at Gelibolu to protect his line of 
communications with Anatolia (Neshrl, ed. Taesch- 
ner, i, 68). In 790/1388 Venice had sent her fleet to 
make a threatening demonstration off Gelibolu 
(N. Iorga, La politique vinitienne dans les eaux de la 
Mer Noire, in Bull, de la sec. d'histoire de I' Acad. 
Roumaine, no. 2-4 (1914), 14-5). Indeed, during the 
8th/i 4 th and gth/isth centuries, to blockade the 
Strait and destroy the Ottoman fleet at Gelibolu were 
always two main objectives in the plans of the 
Crusaders (such a plan had been mooted even before 
767/1366: O. Halecki, Un empereur de Byzance a 
Rome, Warsaw 1930, 63-144; for the plan of 798/1396 
see M. Silberschmidt, Das orientalische Problem zur 
Zeit der Entstehung des tiirkischen Reiches, Berlin 
1923, 145; for the plan of 848/1444 see H. Inalcik, 
Fatih devri . . ., i, Ankara 1954, 12, 30); G. de Lannoy 
wrote in 825/1422: "Et qui auroit dit chastel et port 
les Turcs n'auroient nul sceur passage plus de l'un 
a l'autre et seroit leur pays qu'ilz ont en Grece 
comme perdu et deffect" (Voyages et ambassades de 
Messire G. de Lannoy 1399-1450, Mons 1840, 117-8). 

Bayezid I well understood the vital importance of 
Gelibolu for his imperial policy. He rebuilt completely 
the ruined citadel and fortified with a strong tower 
the harbour, which was capable of accommodating 
large galleys. His aim was to control the Strait 
(Ducas, ed. Grecu, 41 = Turkish tr. by V. Mir- 
miroglu, Istanbul 1956, 9; Silberschmidt, 115). In 
806/1403, Clavijo saw a great arsenal and docks at 
Gelibolu and reported that the fortress was full of 
troops and that there were about 40 ships in the 
harbour; between the inner and the outer basins 
there was a bridge with a three-storey tower (pre- 
sumably that which Ducas mentions) at one end of 
it to protect the inner harbour. G. de Lannoy, who 
visited Gelibolu in 825/1422, speaks of a "ville tres 
grande" outside the wall; there was a citadel with 
eight towers, and a fine large square tower to protect 
the harbour. The harbour was protected on the 
seaward side by a wall (for a 16th century engraving 
see F. Kurtoglu, Gelibolu ve yoresi tarihi, Istanbul 
1938, 17), with a small gateway in it by which 
galleys entered the harbour; there was no chain. In 
the Gelibolu defter of 879/1475 (Cevdet O. 79 [see 
Bibl.], 154-62) this tower, 'Birghoz-i Gelibolu' 
(Greek 7riipYOS, reproduced with various spellings in 
Turkish), is mentioned separately from 'Kal c e-i 
Gelibolu': it had a garrison of 42, 9 of them timdr- 
holders and 33 on stipend ( c ulufeli). The upper part 
of this tower was destroyed in 1920 (Kurtoglu, op. 
cit., pi. 32). In 1069/1659 Ewliya Celebi described 
Gelibolu as a strong fortress, hexagonal in shape, 
with 70 ( ?) towers of hewn stone (Seydhatndme, v, 
315). 

By thus making Gelibolu into a powerful fortress 
and naval base and by strengthening the fleet 
(Silberschmidt, 159), Bayezid I hoped to establish 
complete control over the Strait, and compel foreign 
ships to halt off Gelibolu, undergo inspection and 
pay a due for the right of passage. But Venice 
decided to fight for the right of free passage through 
the Strait. In alliance with Hungary she planned 



to destroy both the naval base and 
fleet (Silberschmidt, op. cit., 11 1-2, 145; F. Thiriet, 
Rigestes des diliblrations du Sinat de Venise concer- 
nant la Romanic, i, Paris 1958, docs. 881, 896). The 
Ottoman fleet was not in fact very powerful (Bayezid 
had 17 galleys); it would emerge from the shelter of 
the strong base at Gelibolu and attack Venetian 
territory and merchant ships in the Aegean, but only 
when the Venetian fleet was not at sea; and it could 
not prevent Marshal Boucicaut from sailing past 
Gelibolu in 1399, although it seriously hindered 
Venetian attempts to bring relief to Constantinople, 
then under investment by Bayezid (see Thiriet, op. 
cit., ii, Paris 1959, doc. 1023). After the Ottoman 
defeat at Ankara (804/1402), the Venetian fleet was 
ordered to seize Gelibolu (Thiriet, op. cit., ii, docs. 
1070, 1078), but the plan was not carried out, and 
the Ottoman threat continued in the reign of Emir 
Suleyman, so that Venice was obliged to send war- 
ships to protect her merchant ships in their passage 
through the Strait (Thiriet, op. cit., ii, docs. 1283, 
1431). In 812/1409 Emir Suleyman built another 
fortress (the so-called 'Emir Suleyman Burkozl') at 
Lapseki on the Anatolian coast, primarily as a 
protection against his rivals in Anatolia. While the 
struggle among the Ottoman princes continued, 
Venice encouraged the Byzantines in their hopes of 
recovering Gelibolu (Thiriet, op. cit., ii, doc. 1415) 
and came to an agreement with Musa Celebi by 
which he granted her free passage through the 
Strait. In 817/1414 she was unable to renew this 
agreement with Mehemmed I (Thiriet, op. cit., ii, 
doc. 1538), so that Gelibolu became the main object 
of dispute in Venetian-Ottoman relations. When, in 
818/1415, an Ottoman fleet based on Gelibolu 
attacked Venetian territory in the Aegean, the 
Venetian fleet, under Pietro Loredano, appeared off 
Gelibolu and, when the Ottoman fleet rashly emerged 
from the well-protected harbour, destroyed it (1 Rabi* 
II 819/29 May 1416; see Jorga, GOR, i, 372). Makrizi 
(al-Suluk li-ma'-rifat duwal al-muluk, MS. Istanbul, 
Fatih 4380, fol. 66a) mentions that the Venetians 
captured 12 ships (Venetian sources say 14, Ducas 
says 27) and killed 4000 Muslims. In spite of this 
victory, Venice was unable to achieve complete 
control of the Strait and remained obliged to convoy 
her merchant ships (see Thiriet, op. cit., ii, docs. 1667, 
1708, 1749, 1783, 1896). During the peace negotia- 
tions of 822/1419 Venice endeavoured above all to 
obtain freedom of passage past Gelibolu and 
exemption from tolls (Thiriet, ii, doc. 1750). In the 
Venetian-Ottoman war of 826/1423-834/1430 ( f °r 
possession of Salonica/Selanik [q.v.]), Venetian 
attacks were mainly aimed at Gelibolu (see Thiriet, 
ii, docs. 1931, 1949; Jorga, GOR, i, 401; idem, Notes 
et extraits . . ., 2nd series, i, Paris 1899, 374). When 
her merchant ships were seized, the Venetian fleet 
under Silvestro Mocenigo launched an attack on the 
inner harbour: Mocenigo broke through the 'palissade' 
of the bridge and penetrated the inner harbour, but 
was obliged to retire (Iorga, Notes et extraits . . ., i, 
505-6; Tarihi takvimler, ed. O. Turan, Ankara 1954, 
?.(>); the aim of the Venetians was to destroy once 
more tbe Ottoman fleet (Thiriet, ii, docs. 2189, 2212; 
Jorga, GOR, i, 409)- At about this time the Emir 
Suleyman Burkozi at Lapseki was destroyed on the 
orders of Murad II, for fear that it should be occupied 
by the enemy (Tarihi takvimler, 26; according to 
Ducas, 149 = Turkish tr., 67, this occurred in 1417)- 
In 824/1421 the authorities at Constantinople 
hoped that the struggle for the throne between 
Murad II and his uncle Mustafa would enable them 



to recover Gelibolu by negotiation, but neither of 
the rivals was willing to relinquish control of this 
important base (see IA, art. Murad II, 599-601). In 
the reign of Mehemmed II, when the long war with 
Venice broke out (winter of 868/1463-4), two strong 
fortresses, named Killd al-bahr and Kal c e-i sulta- 
niyye, were built on opposite sides of the Strait 
towards the Aegean end, and an arsenal and harbour 
were constructed in Istanbul at Kadirgha Limani 
(see IA, art. Mehmed II, 523); nevertheless Gelibolu 
remained the principal harbour and naval base of 
the Empire (Iorga, Notes et extraits, iv, Bucharest 
1915, 339) until superseded by the great arsenal and 
base constructed on the Golden Horn in 921/1515 (F. 
Kurtoglu, op. cit., 57-8). When the Venetian fleet 
attempted to gain control of the Strait during the 
war for Crete, two more fortresses were built at the 
Aegean entrance to the Strait, Seddu '1-bahr (Sadd 
al-bahr) and Kum-kal'esi, also called Khakanivve 
and Sultaniyye (Na'Ima, iv, 420; Silahdar, i, 168). 
By this time, according to Ewliya (v, 317), Gelibolu 
had lost its former military importance and counted 

When the Ottomans first occupied Gelibolu, the 
upper class of the Greek population fled by ship to 
Constantinople (Dusturndme, 83). Those that remain- 
ed settled in the area known as Eski Gelibolu and 
the nearby village of Kozlu-Dere. The iaftrir-register 
of 879/1474 (Cevdet O 79, see Bibl.) shows the Greeks 
of Gelibolu organized into two principal djemd'-at, 
the kurekciydn (rowers) and the zenberekciydn 
(arbalesters) ; of the latter, a group of 35 served in 
the citadel and a group of 22 in the 'tower'. A further 
95 Greeks were organized into various diemd'-ats for 
ship-building and repair, and for the maintenance of 
the base. Some of these were paid a daily wage, 
others were recompensed by exemption from 
kkarddi, ispendje and 'awdrid-i diwdniyye. The 
register of 925/1519, however, shows that all the 
members of these d±emd'ats were by then Muslims. 
It shows the Greeks living in six mahalles, and 
records also 80 Greeks as 'khaymdne', organized in 
five diemd'ats: these are presumably migrants who 
had come to settle at Gelibolu. 

After the occupation, Gelibolu developed as a 
typical Ottoman city. The population at various 
dates, as revealed by the taArir-registers, was: 
879/1474 39 mahalles comprising 

1095 households (khdne) 
924/1518 55 mahalles comprising 

1305 households 
1009/1600 58 mahalles (four of them 



Chris 






ijev 



sh). 



Each mahalle was usually named after the founder 
of the mosque which served it : most of these founders 
belonged to the military or to the theological class 
(e.g., Hasan Pasha, Sarudja Pasha, Ahmed Beg, 
Kapudan, Hadjdji Dizdar, Shaykh Mehmed, c Ali 
Fakih, Miitewelli Khoshkadem, e tc); some were 
merchants (Kecedji Hadjdji, Weled-i Kilabdandji, 
Kh'adja Hamza) ; the founder of the Hadjdji KhWr 
mosque (Tapu def. 67, 509) was presumably the 
Hadjdji Khldr who had accompanied Siileyman 
Pasha into Rumeli. According to Ewliya Celebi 
there were in his day some 300 two-storeyed houses 
in the fortress; outside the walls the city, with most 
of the principal buildings to the west, contained seven 
or eight hundred fine two-storeyed houses. The 
population in the middle years of the 19th century 
was 12-17,000 (N. V. Michoff, La population de la 
Turquie et de la Bulgarie, iv, Sofia 1935, 58, 94, 
112, 128). 



30LU 985 

According to a register (Tapu def. 12), at the end 
of the reign of Mehemmed II the principal buildings 
were: (1) the mosque of Ghazi Khudawendgar 
(Murad I), also known as Eski Djami c , with a bath 
(hammdm) and a shop (dttkkdn) among its wakf- 
properties; (2) the zdwiye and mosque of Karadja Beg, 
built by the close associate of Emir Siileyman, who 
was killed with him (Hammer-Purgstall, i, 349; on 
his grave-stone at Gelibolu he is called Ghazi Karadja 
b. c Abd Allah and the date of his death is given as 
first decade of Shawwal 813/end of February 1411); 
(3) the Hmdret (with inscription dated 840/1436) and 
medrese of Sarudja Pasha, who was beglerbegi of 
Rumeli until 840/1436, when he was dismissed and 
banished to Gelibolu (see H. Inalcik, Fatih devri . . ., 
i, 86; Sa'd al-DIn, i, 374): he appears as sandjak-begi 
of Gelibolu until the winter of 847/1443; the wakf- 
properties of his foundations were, at Gelibolu, a 
bezzdzistdn, a kdrbdnsardy, 96 shops, a bath and two 
abattoirs (see M. T. Gokbilgin, Edirne ve Pasa 
Livdsi, Istanbul 1952, 248); (4) the zdwiye and 
mosque of Khass Ahmed Beg (b. c Abd Allah), an 
officer of Murad II; his wakfiye (reproduced in 
M. T. Golkbilgin, op. cit., 257-61) is dated Shawwal 
863/August 1459; among the endowments he made 
are several shops and fields and a kdrbdnsardy 
beside the quay at Gelibolu; for the property-grants 
(temlik) made by Murad II there are deeds of con- 
firmation (mukarrer-name) issued by Mehemmed II 
in 856/1452 and by Bayezid II in 886/1481; (5) the 
medrese of Balaban Pasha; the wakfiye (Gokbilgin, 
op. cit., 223), dated 846/1442, endows the medrese 
with a bath and some shops; (6) the zdwiye and 
tiirbe of Giiyegu (Guvey = Damad) Sinan Pasha, 
the husband of Bayezid II's daughter 'Ayshe 
( c A'isha) Khatun; as beglerbegi of Anatolia he played 
a part in bringing Bayezid II to the throne; in 907/ 
1 501 he was beglerbegi of Rumeli, and from then until 
his death in 909/1503 was governor of Gelibolu and 
Kapudan (Sa'd al-DIn, ii, 220-1) ; the zdwiye, of which 
the ruins survive, was built in 896/1491; ihe tiirbe 
was, in Ewliya's day, a place of pilgrimage. 

These and several other similar religious found- 
ations, and the khans, markets, baths and shops, 
whose revenues supported them, promoted the 
development of Gelibolu as one of the chief cities of 
the Ottoman Empire. This development was most 
pronounced during the reign of Murad II, but 
important buildings were added in later years, such 
as the mosques of Meslh Pasha [q.v.] and of Ahmed 
Pasha (941/1534). Ewliya Celebi credits Gelibolu 
with 164 mosques, zdwiyes and tekkes, 14 Hmdrets, 
900 shops and 8 baths. The tekkes of Yazidjizade 
Mehmed [q.v.] and of the Mewlewl order (detailed 
description in Ewliya, v, 318) were especially famous. 

Gelibolu, known as 'Dar al-mudjahidin', remained 
the principal naval base and arsenal of the Empire 
until the ioth/i6th century, so that a high proportion 
of its population consisted of fighting men. The 
register of 879/1474 shows the sailors organized in 
4 diemd'ats: captains (reHs) and 'azebs of (1) the 
galleys (kadirgha), (2) the galleots (galyata), (3) the 
'kayiks' (at this period a kayik was a transport big 
enough to take 14 horses), and (4) the horse-trans- 
ports (at gemileri). Each d±emd'at was divided (like 
the diemd'-ats of the Janissaries [see yeni ceri]) into 
a number of bbliiks [q.v.]. The djema'at of the galleys 
comprised 92 boliiks: the first, that of the Kapudan, 
contained also, in two separate diema'-at, 7 mehter [see 
mihter] and 5 non-Muslim 'kiimi' (from Latin comes, 
Greek xojiT)?, officer in charge of the galley-slaves, 
see Tietze and Kahane, The Lingua Franca in the 



986 GEL] 

Levant, Urbana 1958, no. 789; these were mostly non- 
Muslims, Greeks or Genoese) ; it was headed by the 
kapudan and a ser-oda, the rest being c azebs, i.e., 
seamen. Each of the other boliiks was similarly 
composed of a reHs (captain), a ser-oda, a kiimi, and 
a number of 'azebs. The captains and c azebs were all 
Muslims (a captain named 'Frenk Ilyas' is presum- 
ably a convert). The djemd'-at of the galleys com- 
prised 1 1 12 men, and the division into 92 boliiks 
shows that the strength of the fleet at that time was 
92 galleys. There were 5 boliiks in the djemd'-at of the 
galleots (hence 5 in number) and 11 in that of the 
kayiks. In the register of 925/1519 we find 93 boliiks 
in the djemd'-at of the galleys, and very little change 
in the organization. At the time of the Malta 
campaign of 973/1565, the construction of a new 
arsenal was begun (Miihimme register no. 5, p. 183; 
I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh devletinin merkez ve 
bahriye teskildti, Ankara 1948, 395, n. 3). 

Of the 59 captains making up the djemd'-at of 
horse-transports, nine were holders of liftliks [q.v.] 
in the neighbourhood, the rest drew stipends 
C-uliife); they served only on campaigns. In 925/1519 
they were all stipendiary, i.e., more closely bound to 
the service of the state. 181 khdne (households) of 
'azebs were registered as living in various mahalles of 
the town, liable to be called to serve when necessary. 
In the town and in the nearby Greek villages of 
Maydos and Kirte there were living Christian 
kureklis (rowers) who served in the fleet in return 
for exemption from taxes. 

Besides these naval crews, there were the garrisons 
of the citadel (kal'e), consisting in 879/1474 of 56 men 
(27 with timdrs, 29 with c ulufe), and of the 'tower', 
consisting of 42 men (9 with timdrs, 33 with <ulufe). 
The djemd'ats of Christians who rendered service as 
arbalesters or in the upkeep of these fortresses 
numbered 60-65 men. 

The first odjak of 'adjami oghlans [q.v.] was 
established at Gelibolu. In the ioth/i6th century 
they numbered between four and five hundred, and 
served on the transports plying between Gelibolu 
and Cardak. 

Particularly in the gth/i5th century, Gelibolu was 
the most important point on the great trade-route 
between Bursa (via Mikhalii — Bigha — Lapseki or 
Cardak) and Rumeli (see H. Inalcik, in Belleten, 
xxiv/93 (1960), 55). From Gelibolu the Florentines 
carried the silk which they had bought in Bursa 
overland, via Edirne, Fo£a and Ragusa; at Gelibolu, 
Italian ships took on cotton and nut-gall (W. Heyd, 
Hist, du commerce du Levant, ii, Leipzig 1936, 300, 
337. 665). The register of 879/1474 records five 
families of 'Franks' at Gelibolu, that of 925/1519, 
eight. At about this time 15 Jewish families had come 
from Istanbul to settle here as merchants. In the 
reign of Mehemmed II there were also Venetian 
trading-houses (Heyd, op. cit., ii, 328). 

Before the capture of Constantinople, Gelibolu was 
one of the principal customs-houses of the Ottoman 
Empire. Under Mehemmed II the mukdta'a ([q.v.] 
tax-farm) of the Gelibolu customs was included in 
that of the customs of Istanbul. The customs levied 
at all harbours from Edje-ovas! to Tekfur-daghl 
(Rodosto) were farmed out as a separate mukdta'a ; 
in about 880/1475 the 'Gelibolu customs' brought 
in some 9000 gold ducats (about 400,000 aklas) a 
year (F. Babinger, Die Aufzeichnungen des Genuesen 
Iacopo de Promontorio-de Campis . . ., Munich 1957 
(SBBayr.Ak., 1956/8), 63); in 1009/1600 it brought in 
766,663 aklas {Mufassal register 141 [see Bibl.]); 
Ewliya Celebi (v, 316) gives a similar figure — 700,000 



aklas— for 1069/1658-9. But by this time the port 
was declining, and the French consulate there was 
closed in 1 100/1689. Customs dues (for the rates see 
maks) were levied at Istanbul or Gelibolu on all 
cargoes, and it was also the practice that a 'gift' 
(armaghan) should be given to the sandjak-begi and 
the emin {[q.v.], 'intendant') (R. Anhegger and H. 
Inalcik, Kdnunndme-i sultdni ber miiceb-i 'orf-i 
'Osmdni, Ankara 1956, 48, 63, 79; cf. N. Beldiceanu, 
Les actes des premiers sultans . . ., Paris-The Hague 
i960, 112 ff, 133 ff., 151-2). Every foreign ship, 
after being inspected at Istanbul, was inspected 
again at Gelibolu before passing out into the 
Mediterranean and issued with an idjdzet ledhkiresi 
('clearance'); in about 1091/1680 the charge for this 
'idhn-i sefine' was about 100 kurush; the revenue 
from these charges amounted in 1009/1600 to 610,000 
aklas. By article 27 of the French capitulation of 
1 153/1740, ships inspected at Istanbul were relieved 
from the obligation to be inspected again at Gelibolu. 

Gelibolu served also as the principal control-point 
for traffic between Rumeli and Anatolia. A traveller 
going in either direction was obliged to obtain from 
the kadi of his starting-point a 'chit' {tedhkire) 
attesting the purpose of his journey and produce it 
to the authorities at Gelibolu. The 'pendjik resmi' 
[see pendjik], levied on enslaved prisoners-of-war 
being transported from Rumeli to Anatolia, was 
collected at Gelibolu by the 'pendjik emini'. Gelibolu 
was also a centre for the slave-trade. Here too a tax 
of four aklas a head was levied on sheep and goats 
being taken from Rumeli to Anatolia; this tax 
brought in 66,499 aklas in 1009/1600. There was an 
additional levy of 80 aklas per thousand sheep, which 
was assigned to the khdss of the sandjak begi. 

The chief exports from Gelibolu were wheat (see 
A. Refik, Onalhnci asirda Istanbul hayah, Istanbul 
1935, 82), cotton, fish, wine and arrack (idem, 
Hicri onikinci asirda Istanbul hayati, Istanbul 1930, 
119), bows and arrows, and naval stores such as 
cables and sails. In 1009/1600 the 'municipal' 
taxes, which were assigned to the khdss of the 
sandjak-begi, amounted to 15,000 aklas from ihtisdb 
[see hisba] dues, 12,000 aklas from niydbet [q.v.] 
dues, and 3,500 aklas from the shem'khdne [see sham 1 ]. 

Until 940/1533 Gelibolu was the chef-lieu of a 
sandjak belonging to the beglerbegilik of Rumeli (see 
M. T. Gbkbilgin, in Belleten, xx/78 (1956), 252). As 
commander of the fleet, the sandjak-begi of Gelibolu 
held a position of especial eminence among the other 
sandjak-begis: his khdss approached in value the 
khdss of a beglerbegi (500,000 aklas early in the 
reign of Suleyman I, 605,000 later in that reign). 
The post of sandjak-begi was often given to pro- 
minent statesmen — dismissed viziers or begler- 
begis, or pashas with the rank of beglerbegi. When 
in 940/1533 Khayr al-DIn Pasha [q.v.] ('Barba- 
rossa') was appointed both beglerbegi of Algiers 
and Kapudan Pasha [q.v.], Gelibolu was incor- 
porated in this beglerbegilik; later it became the 
chef-lieu of the eydlet of DjazdHr-i Bahr-i Safid [q.v.], 
i.e., the 'Pasha-sandjaghV of the Kapudan Pasha [see 
eyalet, sandjak]. According to the register of 1009/ 
1600, the ndhiyes of the sandjak were: Gelibolu and 
Evreshe (together), Lemnos, Tashoz (Thasos), Mighal- 
kara (Malkara) and Harala (together), Abri, Keshan, 
Ipsala, Gumuldjine. In the time of c Ayn-i c Ali 
(Kawdnin, Istanbul 1280, 20 = German tr. by P. A. 
von Tischendorf, Das Lehnwesen . . ., Leipzig 1872, 
70 f.) it contained 14 ze'dmets and 85 timdrs, in 
the time of Ewliya Celebi (v, 316), 6 ze'dmets and 



GELIBOLU — GENIZA 



During the confinement there of the pseudo- 
Messiah Shabbetay Sebi [q.v.] in 1666, Gelibolu 
briefly became a place of pilgrimage for his Jewish 

By the new provincial law of 1281/1864, Gelibolu 
became a sandjak (liwd') of the wildyet of Edirne, 
containing in 1287/1870 six kadds: Gelibolu, Sharkoy, 
Firedjik, Keshan, Malkara and Enoz (Edirne sdlnd- 
mesi, 1271). The sandjak was later reduced in size, 
to comprise only the three kadds of Keshan, Murefte 
and Sharkoy (Edirne sdlndmesi, 1309). The town is 
now the centre of an ilfe, population (i960) 12,945. 
Bibliography: I. Archive material: (1) 
Defter-i esdmi-i sandjak-i Gelibolu (awa'il Shawwal 
879/February 1475), Istanbul, Belediye Library, 
Cevdet collection no. 79 (a mufassal register, 
lacking at the end the section on Malkara); (2) 
Gelibolu sandjaghi musellemdn ve piyddegdn 
defteri (the tahrir of 879/1475), Istanbul, Basvekalet 
Arsivi, Tapu defteri no. 12; (3) Gelibolu sandjaghi 
musellemdn ve piyddegdn defteri (Dhu '1-Ka c da 
925/November 1519), Istanbul, Basvekalet Arsivi, 
Tapu defteri no. 67 (the kdnun-ndme at the 
beginning of this register has been published by 
0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, Istanbul 1943, 240-2); 
(4) Gelibolu sandjaghi mufassal tahrir defteri (Dhu 
'1-Ka c da 925/November 1519), Istanbul, Basve- 
kalet Arsivi, Tapu defteri no. 75 (its kdnun-ndme 
published by Barkan, op. cit., 235-6); (5) Gelibolu 
sandjaghi mufassal tahrir defteri, Ankara, Tapu ve 
Kadastro Umum Mudurliigu, Eski Kayitlar 
dairesi, mufassal def. no. 141 (with a kdnun-ndme 
at the beginning) ; (6) Defter-i idjmdl-i Gelibolu, as 
(5), no. 293 (defective at the end). 

II. Travellers: Ewliya Celebi, Seydhat-ndme, 
v, 320-9 (description used by A. D. Mordtmann, 
Ein Ausflug nach Gallipoli, in Das Ausland, xxxii 
(1859), 166, and J. H. Kissling, Beitrage zur 
Kenntnis Thrakiens im 17. Jh., Wiesbaden 1956, 
49-53); Katib Celebi (HadjdjI Khalifa), Djihdn- 
niimd, tr. Hammer, Rumeli und Bosna, 59 ff. (the 
Diihdnnumd-i Avrupa attributed to Sheykh 
Mehmed [Istanbul, Svileymaniye Lib., MS Hamidiye 
932 , fols. 1 1-1 2] is more detailed) ; Samuel Yemshel, 
in B. Lewis, A Karaite itinerary through Turkey in 
1641-2, in Vahiflar Dergisi, iii (1957), 317-8; G. de 
Lannoy, Voyages et ambassades de Messire 
Guillebert de Lannoy, i3gg-i4$o, Mons 1840, 117-8; 
Pierre Belon, Les observations de plusieurs singu- 
lariUz. . . , Paris 1553, 76 V.; F. de la Boullaye- 
le-Gouz, Les voyages et observations, Paris 1653, 
24-5; V. Stochove, Voyage du Levant, Rouen 
1687, 25. 

III. Studies: Fevzi Kurtoglu, Gelibolu ve 
yoresi tarihi, Istanbul 1938; idem, XVI met asrtn 
ilk yarimtnda Gelibolu, in Turkiyat Mecmuast, v 
(1935), 291-306; H. Hogg, Turkenburgen an 
Bosporus und Hellespont, Dresden 1932; C A1I 
RidS Seyfi, Cannakkal'e Boghazi ve djiwdri, 
Istanbul 1327. (Halil Inalcik) 
GEMLIK, the ancient Kios, a small port in 

north-west Anatolia, 40 25' N., 29 9' E., on the 
Gulf of Gemlik, an inlet on the Sea of Marmara, at 
the end of a depression through which flows a stream 
(Gardak Su, formerly the Askanios) and which after 
15 km. leads to the Iznik Golii, the Lake of Iznik/ 
Nikaia (formerly Askanie limne, 80 m. above sea- 
level), between the mountains of the Samanli Daghl 
in the north and the Katlrll Daghl in the south, and 
situated on the road leading from Bursa to the port 
of Yalova; a kadd in the vilayet of Bursa, at one time 
in the liwd of Khudawendkar (Bursa) of the eydlet of 



987 

Anadolu. Population in i960: the town, 12,640, the 
ilfe 30,673, before the first world war mostly Greeks 
(the modern Greek name of the town is Kio). 

By the time of c Othman, probably towards the end 
of his life, Gemlik had apparently already come 
under his sway, being the last of his conquests. 
Bibliography: Katib Celebi, Djihdnnumd, 

Istanbul 1145, 658; V. Cuinet, La Turquie d'Asie, 

iv, 141; Ch. Samy Fraschery, Kdmus al-aHdm, v, 

Istanbul 1314, 3888 f. (Fr. Taeschner) 

GENEALOGY [see nasab]. 

GENEROSITY [see karam]. 

GENIE [see djinn]. 

GENIL [see shanil]. 

GENIZA, a Hebrew word of the same Persian 
origin as Arabic djandza, designates a place where 
Hebrew writings were deposited in order to 
prevent the desecration of the name of God which 
might be found in them. As a term of scholarship, 
Geniza, or Cairo Geniza, refers to writings coming 
from the store-room of the "Synagogue of the 
Palestinians" in Fustat [q.v.] and, to a small extent, 
from the cemetery al-Basatin near that ancient city. 
When the synagogue was pulled down and rebuilt 
in 1889-90, a good deal of the manuscripts preserved 
in its Geniza were dispersed and acquired by various 
libraries in Europe and the United States, until, in 
1897, Solomon Schechter brought the bulk of what 
remained to the University Library, Cambridge, 
England, where it forms the famous Taylor-Schechter 
Collection. 

Naturally, it was mostly Hebrew literature which 
gained from these treasures. Paul E. Kahle's book 
with the somewhat misleading title The Cairo 
Geniza (second edition, New York i960) deals 
exclusively with this aspect. For Islamic studies, 
it is mainly the documentary material, such as 
letters, accounts, court records, contracts etc., which 
is of immediate interest. Most of these documents 
come from Fa timid and Ayyubid times; there is 
little from the Mamluk period; but from the 10th/ 
16th century onwards, the Geniza was again used 
somewhat more frequently, albeit in a sporadic way. 
This article is concerned with "the classical Geniza", 
the three hundred years between 354/965 and 663/ 
1265 approximately. 

The major part of the documentary material of 
the Cairo Geniza is written in Arabic language, 
though in Hebrew characters. Business letters were 
invariably and family letters generally written in 
Arabic, and the same applies to court records and 
other legal documents with the exception of writs 
of divorce, deeds of manumission and the formal — 
but not the substantial — parts of marriage contracts. 
Only subjects related to religion or the life of the 
Jewish community were largely, but by no means 
exclusively, transacted in Hebrew. As to the number 
of the Geniza documents preserved, if we disregard 
mere scraps and confine ourselves to complete 
pieces and fragments which are self-contained, 
meaningful units, we arrive at a total of about ten 
thousand items. 

In addition to Egypt itself, Tunisia and Sicily are 
conspicuously represented in the Geniza. This has 
its reason in their prominence in Mediterranean trade 
during the first half of the 5th/nth century and the 
migration of many Maghribis to Egypt in the second 
half (see S. D. Goitein, La Tunisie du XI' siecle d la 
lumiere des documents de la Geniza du Caire, in 
Etudes d'Orientalisme . . . Livi Provencal, 1962, 559- 
79). Most of the Geniza letters dealing with the India 
trade come from the 6th/i2th century, but here 



again we find that the majority of the 
merchants active in South Arabia and India were 
Maghribis (see idem, Letters and documents on the 
India trade in medieval times, in IC, xxvii (1963), 
188-205). Spain is only sparsely represented during 
the 5th/nth century (see E. Ashtor, Documentos 
espanoles de laGenizah, in Sefarad, xxiv (1964), 41-80), 
and somewhat more generously during the 6th/i2th, 
but Spanish products loom large in the Geniza papers 
and so do persons called 'AndalusP, although many 
of these seem to have originated in countries other 
than Spain. There is much correspondence from 
Palestine and the cities on the coast of Lebanon and 
Syria, but very little from Damascus and other 
Syrian and Mesopotamian cities and next to nothing 
from Baghdad. On the other hand, thousands of 
responsa (fatwds) and a number of letters of the 
heads of the two Jewish academies of Baghdad have 
been found in the Geniza. Most of them were address- 
ed to places in Tunisia and Morocco, but were 
preserved in Fustat, partly because they were copied 
there before being sent on to the West and partly 
because they were brought back by immigrants from 
the Maghrib. Still, the discrepancy between the 
abundance of official correspondence with Baghdad 
and the almost complete absence of business and 
private letters is not easily explained. A few Persian 
items (see D. S. Margoliouth, A Jewish Persian law- 
report, in JQR xi (1898-9), 671-5 (there are more)), 
and one or two beautifully written Arabic letters 
from Iran have also been found. 

Material in Arabic characters also made its way 
into the Geniza, either because blank reverse sides 
of Arabic documents were used for Hebrew writings, 
or because the persons concerned were Jewish, or 
for no apparent reason. Much of this material is 
dispersed all over the various Geniza collections. In 
the Cambridge University Library some of it was 
put aside in boxes labelled 'Mohammedan', which is, 
however, somewhat inaccurate, since most of the 
documents contained in them concerned Jews. There 
are a number of pieces from the Fatimid chanceries 
(see Bibl.) as well as a variety of material on widely 
different topics: thus, two Christians lease from a 
Muslim two-thirds of his vegetable garden (the 
vegetables to be grown are specified) on the out- 
skirts of Alexandria; an archer (ahad al-rumdt) in 
prison requests his commander to work for his 
release; a fundukdni, or proprietor of a caravanserai, 
undertakes to transport to the sind'a, the customs 
station on the Nile at Fustat, all consignments for 
which no customs had been paid, whether brought 
to his own funduk or to any other in the city; a 
tax-farmer makes a contract with a representative 
of the caliph al-Mustansir ; the al-sdda al-fukahd 3 are 
requested to give a fatwd in a disputed case of 
inheritance, etc. Jews also corresponded sometimes 
with each other in Arabic characters. When a 
schoolmaster writes a complaint to a father about 
his son in this way, he certainly did so because he did 
not want the boy, who thus far had learned only the 
Hebrew letters, to read it. When a scholar boasting 
of his Jewish learning asks a notable for financial 
help in a letter written in Arabic characters, he 
followed that course because he knew that the 
addressee was more fluent in Arabic than in Hebrew 
(there is an express statement to this effect). 
However, even a letter addressed to the Gaon, or 
head of the Jewish academy of Jerusalem, and dealing 
exclusively with communal affairs, is written in 

Research on the Geniza documents began imme- 



diately after their discovery in the eighteen-nineties. 
A survey of the widely scattered publications is 
contained in S. Shaked (see Bibl.). Jacob Mann's 
work, although intended to serve Jewish history, is 
important for Islamic studies as well, and so are the 
publications of S. Assaf and D. H. Baneth, which 
are, however, all in Hebrew. The importance of 
the Geniza documents for the economic, social and 
cultural history of mediaeval Islam, as well as for 
the history of the Arabic language, is being more and 
more recognized. Joshua Blau, A Grammar of 
mediaeval J 'udaeo- Arabic, Jerusalem 1961, is a mine 
of linguistic information, and, albeit in Hebrew, can 
be used with profit also by scholars not familiar with 
that language, since each paragraph has also a name 
in English and consists mainly of examples culied 
from the Geniza and similar sources. E. Ashtor is 
completing a book on prices in mediaeval Islam, 
based largely on the Geniza. N. Golb has prepared 
an edition of the magnificent series 18 J of the 
Taylor-Schechter Collection with an English trans- 
lation and commentary. S. D. Goitein has written 
two volumes containing a general survey of the 
Geniza material under the title A Mediterranean 
society: The Jewish communities of the Arab world as 
portrayed in the Cairo Geniza, accompanied by a 
volume of selected translations in English, called 
Readings in Mediterranean social history. His col- 
lection of Geniza papers dealing with the India trade 
amounts now to 315 items. M. Michael is preparing 
an edition of letters emanating from or addressed to 
Nahray ben Nissim, a prominent Kayrawani merchant 
scholar and public figure who was active in Egypt in 
the second half of the 5th/ nth century. Muhammad 
El-Garh of Cairo University is preparing a selection 
in Arabic characters of Geniza documents written 
in Hebrew script. 

The Geniza contains also a considerable number 
of fragments of Judaeo- Arabic literature (see, e.g., 
the series of articles The Arabic portion of the Cairo 
Genizah at Cambridge, in JQR, xv-xvi (1902-4), by 
H. Hirschfeld), and some items from Islamic Arabic 
literature, which might not have been preserved 
otherwise, e.g., a manual of correspondence prepared 
for Muhadhdhab al-Dawla 'All b. Nasr (cf. D. S. 
Margoliouth, Eclipse, Index 93), publ. by Richard 
Gottheil in BIFAO, xxxiv (1933), 103-28, under the 
title Fragments from an Arabic Commonplace book, 
or A Muhammedan book of augury in Hebrew 
characters, publ. I. Friedlaender, in JQR, xix (1907-8), 
84-102. Cf. also H. Hirschfeld, A Hebraeo-Sufic poem, 
in JAOS, xlix (1929), 168-73, and the literature on 
the subject noted by S. M. Stern, in JQR, 1 (i960), 
356, n. 21. 

Bibliography: S. Shaked, A tentative biblio- 
graphy of Geniza documents, Paris-The Hague 1964; 
S. D. Goitein, The Documents of the Cairo Geniza as 
a source for Mediterranean social history, in JAOS, 
lxxx (i960), 91-100; idem, Studies in Islamic 
history and institutions, Leiden 1965, chapters XII- 
XVIII ; Jacob Mann, Texts and studies, Philadelphia 
1935; R. Gottheil and W. H. Worrell, Fragments 
from the Cairo Genizah in the Freer Collection, New 
York 1927; A. Merx, Documents de paliographie 
hebraique et arabe, Leiden 1894; David Kaufmann, 
Beitrdge zur Geschichte Aegyptens aus jiidischen 
Quellen, in ZDMG, li (1897), 436-52; idem, Letter 
sent to Constantinople by Alafdhal's ex-minister of 
finance, in JQR, x (1897-8), 430-44; J- H. Green- 
stone, The Turkoman defeat at Cairo, by Solomon 
ben Joseph ha-Kohen, in AJSLL, xxii (1905-6), 
144-75; E. J. Worman, Forms of address in 



GENIZA — GERMIYAN-OGHULLARl 



989 



Genizah letters, in JQR, xix (1907-8); I. Goldziher, 

Formules dans les lettres de "Gueniza", in REJ, lv 

(1908), 54-7; E. Ashtor, Le cout de la vie dans 

I'Egypte midiivale, in JESHO, iii (1960), 56-77; 

idem, Matiriaux pour I'histoire des prix dans 

I'Egypte midiivale, in JESHO, vi (1963), 158-89; 

idem, Le cout de la vie en Palestine au moyen dge, 

in Eretz Israel, vii (1964), 154-64; S. D. Goitein, 

The main industries of the Mediterranean area as 

reflected in the records of the Cairo Geniza, in 

JESHO, iv (1961), 168-97; idem, Slaves and 

slavegirls in the Cairo Geniza records, in Arabica, ix 

(1962), 1-20; idem, Evidence on the Muslim poll 

tax from non-Muslim sources: a Geniza study, in 

JESHO, vi (1963), 278-95; idem, The commercial 

mail service in medieval Islam, in JAOS, lxxxiv 

(1964); N. Golb, Legal documents from the Cairo 

Geniza, in Jewish Social Studies, xx (1958), 17-46; 

S. M. Stern, An original document from the Fatimid 

chancery concerning Italian merchants, in Studi 

. . . Levi Delia Vida, ii, Rome 1956, 529-38 ; idem, 

Three petitions of the Fatimid period, in Oriens, 

xv (1962), 172-209; idem, Studies in Ibn Quzman 

IV, in Andalus, xvi (1951), 411-21; Sophie Walzer, 

An illustrated leaf from a lost Mamluk Kalilah 

wa-Dimnah, in Ars Orientalis, ii (1957), 503-5; 

Abdul-Jalil Badria Abdul-Kader, Arabic Epistolary 

Art in the twelfth century (M. A. thesis, Univ. of 

Pennsylvania, 1962). (S. D. Goitein) 

GEOGRAPHY [see biughrafiya]. 

GEOMANCY [see rami.] . 

GEOMETRY [see handasa]. 

GEORGIA [see kurdj]. 

GERDEK RESMI [see c arus resmi]. 

GERMIYAN-OfiHULLARi. Germiyan, at first 

the name of a Turkoman tribe, was afterwards 

applied to a family, then to an amirate. Mentioned 

from the 6th/i2th century in the history of the 

Anatolian Turks, the Germiyan appeared for the 

first time in 636-7/1239 in the reign of the Saldjukid 

Ghiyath al-Din Kaykhusraw II; at this time the 

Germiyan Muzaffar al-Din b. c Ali Shir, installed in 

the region of Malatya, was sent at the head of a 

troop of Kurds and Germiyan against the Turkoman 

rebel Baba Ishak (cf. Ibn Bibi, ed. Houtsma, 229, 

232). It was, however, in western Anatolia, in the 

region of Kiitahya, that the Germiyan were in 

675-6/1277 when, under the leadership of Husam 

al-Din b. 'All Shir, they took part in the punitive 

expedition against Djimrl and his ally Mehmed the 

Karamanid (cf. Ibn Bibi, 326-7, 332). After the 

execution of Ghiyath al-DIn Kaykhusraw III by the 

Mongols in 682/1283, and the accession of Mas'ud II, 

it seems that the Germiyan sought to break their 

bonds of vassalage towards the Saldjukids and to 

proclaim their independence. The downfall of 

Mas'ud, however, put an end to the hostilities 

between the Germiyan and the Saldjukids, as is 

revealed by an inscription in the mosque of Kizll 

Beg at Ankara, dated 699/1299, according to which 

Ya'kub b. C A1I Shir, whose possessions at that time 

extended up to this town, declared himself a vassal 

of 'Ala' al-Din Kaykobad III. This Ya'kub b. 'All 

Shir was the founder of the amirate of Germiyan, 

under the nominal suzerainty of the Saldjuk sultan 

and the Mongol Ilkhan; the breakdown of the central 

power was progressively to give him complete 

independence. According to al-'Umarl he was the 

most powerful of the Turkish amirs ; he led a princely 

life and exercised a suzerain's authority over the 

neighbouring amirs, many of whom, such as his 

former subashi Mehmed Beg Aydln-oghlu, had at I 



first waged war in his name before becoming in- 
dependent; the Byzantine emperor paid him an 
annual tribute of 100,000 pieces of gold. The amir of 
Germiyan, whose capital was Kiitahya, occupied 
the greater part of the ancient Phrygia, according 
to Gregoras (i, 214); his sovereignty extended to the 
region of Tonuzlu-Ladlk, which was governed by a 
member of his family, and to that of Karahisar, 
where his son-in-law was amir; Pachymeres (ii, 426, 
433) 435) attributes to him possession of Tripoli on 
the Menderes, and al-'Umarl that of Gumush-Shar 
(not to be confused with the town of the same name 
in northern Cappadocia) where there were important 
silver and alum mines, and of Sivri-K6y, a rice- 
producing region; the conquest of the regions of 
SImav and Kula, regained by the Catalans and then 
reconquered by his son Mehmed, is attested by the 
inscription of the madrasa of Ya'kub II at Kiitahya; 
Ya'kub b. 'AH Shir also coveted Philadelphia 
(Alashehir), to which he laid siege but which was 
liberated by the Catalans in the spring of 703/1304 
(cf. Pachymeres, ii, 421, 427-8); we learn, however, 
from an inscription in the Wadjidiyya madrasa in 
Kiitahya that in 714/1314 the town of Alashehir, 
the only Byzantine possession in Turkish territory, 
had been forced by him to pay the djizya. In the 
reign of Ya'kub I the amirate of Germiyan was 
prosperous; it was famous for its breeding of horses, 
the best in all Anatolia, and for its cloths and 
brocades; thanks to the Menderes it maintained an 
active commerce, transporting goods by this water- 
way as far as the Aegean Sea ports. The date of the 
death of Ya'kub I is not known; it took place after 
720/1320. His successor was his son Mehmed Beg, 
on whom there is little information; a court romance 
composed for his elder son, Suleyman Shah, relates 
that Mehmed Beg was surnamed Cakhshadan (cf. 
Khurshidndme, B.M. ms. Or. 11408, fol. 14 v°). We 
also know, from the inscription of his grandson 
mentioned above, that he reconquered the regions 
of SImav and Kula which the Catalans had retaken 
from his father. The date of his death is not known; 
but, from the inscriptions of his son Suleyman 
Shah, it is known that the latter was reigning by 
764/1363. In Suleyman's time the Germiyan amirate 
was no longer the prosperous state described by al- 
'Umarl: separated from the sea by the coastal 
principalities founded by his former vassals, Aydln- 
oghlu, Sarukhan, Karesi, the Germiyan amirate 
was reduced to the situation of an inland state 
confined by the states of two rival powers, the 
Karaman-oghlu and the 'Othmanll. Before the 
increasing threats towards him by the amir of 
Karaman, Suleyman Shah decided, forgetting the 
hostilities which had opposed his family to that of 
the 'Othmanll, to align himself with the latter and 
to consolidate their friendly relations by matrimonial 
ties: in 783/1381 he gave his daughter Dewlet 
Khatun in marriage to the prince Yildirim Bayazid, 
with the towns of Kiitahya, SImav, Egrigoz (Emed) 
and Tawshanll as dowry, and himself withdrew to 
Kula (cf. 'Ashikpashazade in Osmanh tarihleri, i, 
129-31; Neshri, Turk Tarih Kurumu ed., i, 203-9). 
Suleyman Shah was a generous and benevolent 
prince and a patron of men of letters; many works 
were written for him: at his request Baba 'AH b. 
Salih b. Kutb al-DIn translated the Kabus-name and 
the Marzbdn-ndme from Persian; Shaykh-oghlu 
Mustafa, who filled the offices of nishdndji, defterddr 
and treasurer at his court, composed for him a 
work in prose entitled Kanz al-kubard' and, in 
particular, the Khurshidndme, a verse romance 



GERMIYAN-OGHULLARl - 



990 



> of which exist in Istanbul, London 
and Paris, and which is a valuable source of in- 
formation; from this work we learn that Suleyman 
died in 789/1387- His son Ya'kub II, called 
Ya'kub Celebi in his inscriptions, succeeded him. 
In 791/1389, on the death of Murad I, Ya'kub 
Celebi, in connivance with the Anatolian amirs, 
turned against the sultan Bayazid I, and tried to 
regain the towns given to his sister as dowry; but 
Bayazid I, free from the affairs of Rumeli, chastised 
the Anatolian begs in 792/1390, imprisoned Ya'kub 
in the fortress of Ipsala, and annexed the whole of 
the Germiyan amirate (cf. 'Ashikpashazade, 139-40; 
Neshri, i, 315). After nine years in captivity Ya'kub 
succeeded in making his escape and, in disguise, 
reached Syria by sea, where he joined TImurleng. 
During the battle of Ankara he contributed to the cap- 
ture of Bayazid I by pointing him out to Timurleng 
on the battlefield (cf. 'Ashikpashazade, 142-4; Neshri, 
i» 343) 353)- After his victory Timur restored the 
Germiyan amirate to Ya'kub, together with the 
towns which had been given to his sister as dowry 
(804/1402). In the dynastic struggle which involved 
the sons of Bayazid I, Ya'kub aligned himself with 
his sister's son Mehmed Celebi. Robbed once more 
of his principality in 814/1411 by the amir of 
Karaman, who took the opportunity in this troubled 
period to enlarge his territories, he had his amirate 
restored to him, after two and a half years of exile, 
by Mehemmed I, who had triumphed first over his 
brothers and then over the amir of Karaman. 
Ya'kub II was thereafter able to reign under the 
protection of the 'Othmanlis. In 824/1421, however, 
on the death of Mehemmed I, he upheld, with the 
amir of Karaman, the claim to the throne of the 
young brother of Murad II, Kiiciik Mustafa (cf. 
'Ashikpashazade, 160-1; Neshri, ii, 567-71). After 
the tragic end of this unfortunate prince relations 
between Ya'kub II and Murad II became more and 
more friendly. In 831/1428 the amir of Germiyan, 
at the end of his life and without male heirs, decided 
to bequeath by will his principality to Murad II; on 
this occasion the sultan offered him a sumptuous 
reception at Edirne. Ya'kub II was to die a 
year after this event, at Kutahya, and, in accordance 
with his last wishes, Murad II annexed the princi- 
pality of Germiyan (cf. 'Ashikpashazade, 171-2; 
Neshri, ii, 605-7). Like his father, Ya'kub II had 
been a learned prince, renowned for his generosity, 
and a great patron of men of letters; his court was 
adorned with scholars like Ishak Fakih, and with 
poets like Ahmedl, his brother Hamzawl, Ahmed-i 
Da'i, and above all Shaykhi, known as Shaykh al- 
shu'ard', who in his kasidas celebrated the virtues of 
his patron. All these poets and scholars were to 
move on to the court of the 'Othmanlt sultans and 
there contribute to the development of classical 

Bibliography: in addition to the references 
in the text: 'Umari, ed. Taeschner, 22, 30, 32-40, 
42, 47, 50; I. H. Uzuncarsih, Kutahya sehri, 
Istanbul 1932; idem, Anadolu beylikleri, Ankara 
1937; idem, Osmanh tarihi, i, Ankara 1947, 14-5". 
idem, in I A, art. Germiyan-Ogullan ; CI. Cahen, 
L'origine des Germyan, in J A, ccxxxix (1951), 
349-54. (I. Melikoff) 

GERONA [see qiarunda]. 

GEVHERl, mehmed, Turkish folk poet, a con- 
temporary of 'Ashik 'Omer with whom he shared 
a wide-spread and lasting popularity among both 
the educated classes and the ordinary people. He 
flourished during the second half of the nth/i7th 



1 the f 



little i 



If of the I2th/i8th century. Very 
about his life. From scanty and 
scattered information in available sources and in his 
own works, we learn that he probably came from 
the Crimea or had some connection with that area, 
he travelled in Syria, Arabia and the Balkans, was 
at one time secretary to Mehmed Bahri Pasha 
(d. 1112/1700), wrote at Eger an elegy on the death 
of Ahmed Agha, an officer of the Fort and grand- 
father of Ibrahim Na'Im al-DIn of Temeshvar, 
author of the ffadikat al-shuhedd, who gives us this 
information, and wrote a poem in honour of Sellm 
Giray I, Khan of the Crimea, on the occasion of his 
visit to Istanbul in 1 100/1689. 

Apart from his koshmas, turkus, tiirkmanis, etc., 
in the popular tradition, Gevheri also wrote, like 
most folk poets, many poems in the classical style. 
He was better educated than most folk-poets. This 
made him a better imitator of the classical form and 
style, but at the same time adversely influenced the 
language of his more spontaneous folk-poems, where 
the use of the vocabulary and mannerisms of "upper 
class literature" is sometimes overdone. In his poems 
in the diwan tradition he is repetitive and achieves 
nothing but an awkward and uninspired imitation 
of classical poets, particularly of Fudull. In his poems 
in the folk tradition, which revolve on themes of love, 
separation, nostalgia and epic exploits, he proves to 
be a most original and spontaneous poet, one of the 
strongest representatives of the 'Ashik [q.v.] litera- 
ture. Some of his poems have been set to music and 
are still sung. 

Gevheri seems to have died after 1150/1737 (see 
H. Dizdaroglu in Fikirler, no. 262 and 263, Izmir 
1944)- 

Bibliography: Kopruluzade M. Fuad, Turk 
saz?airlerine ait metinler ve tetkikler, i, Gevheri, 
Istanbul 1929; idem, Turk sazfairleri 2 , ii, Istanbul 
1962, 191-249; M. Halit Bayn, Asik Gevheri, 
Istanbul 1958 (with detailed bibliography). 

(FAHiR Iz) 
al-GHAB, name of the foundered trough, 
about 200 m./650 ft. above sea-level, crossed by the 
Orontes half-way along its course, between the plain 
of Hamat and the narrow valley of Djisr al-Shughr 
[q.v.] , characterized by unhealthy swampland. The 
faulted rock ledges of the Djabal Ansariyya in the 
west and the Djabal Zawiya in the east stand out in 
sharp relief against the absolute flatness of the sedi- 
mentary levels where the river stretches out and 
receives yet more waters rising from many springs. 
Thus is presented the strange landscape which 



n Syria 



s of t( 



rift-valleys marking the western edge of tf 
plateau and which is situated exactly on the axis of 
the plains of al-Bukay'a [q.v.] and al-Bika c [q.v.]. 
This region, today semi-desert, was remarkably 
prosperous in antiquity, when the Seleucids raised 
here their horses and elephants near the city of 
Apamea which they had founded, an important 
town and the centre of their military power. There 
is no doubt that at that time a drainage system 
was in existence, about which we have little in- 
formation but which continued to function well 
into the Middle Ages. Arabic geographers of the 
time of the Crusades did in fact know about the two 
lakes of Afamiya [q.v.], which must have collected 
the overflow of stagnant water, and a certain amount 
of activity seems to have continued in this valley, 
which the Franks occupied until its reconquest by 
Nur al-Din in 544/1149, at the time of the victory of 
Inab. It is known also that up to the Ottoman 



.l-GHAB — GHADAMES 



period a north-south traffic was carried 
borne out by the ruins of Ottoman 
one of them that of Kal'at al-Mudlk, near the site of 
the ancient Apamea/Afamiya. The gradual spread 
of reed-covered lagoons and the ravages of malaria 
explain the increasing abandonment of this area, 
where there soon remained no more than some few 
poor villages, almost surrounded by lakes, living by 
buffalo-breeding and chiefly by fishing for catfish, 
carried on every winter on a very big scale. However, 
important modern land improvement works have 
already been started; besides the control of the 
course of the Orontes by damming, they provide for 
the drainage of the swamps and the installation of 
a new system of irrigation. 

Bibliography: R. Dussaud, Topographic 
historique de la Syrie, Paris 1927, 196-8; Le Strange, 
Palestine, 70, 384-5, 473; M. Canard, Histoire de la 
dynastie des Wamdanides de Jazira et de Syrie, 
Paris 1951, especially 209-10; CI. Cahen, La Syrie 
du Nord d I'ipoque des Croisades, Paris 1940, esp. 
163-4, 383, 474; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La 
Syrie a I'ipoque des Mamlouks, Paris 1923, 21-2; 
J. Weulersse, L'Oronte, itude dufleuve, Tours 1940, 
71-7 and passim; idem, Le pays des Alaouites, 
Tours 1940, especially 347-54 and 372-5. 

(J. Sourdel-Thomine) 
GJjABA, forest. The territory of Islam, lying for 
the most part within the arid and semi-arid districts 
of the Old World, includes comparatively few areas 
of dense and continuous forest. The mohsoonal 
forests of parts of East Pakistan, Malaysia and 
Indonesia are of course exceptional. The hazel 
woods of the coastal mountains of north-east Turkey 
and the adjacent parts of the Caucasus, the forests of 
plane and alder which overlook the Caspian shores of 
Iran, and the stands of deodar and pine in the 
district of Chitral in north-west Pakistan all occupy 
those limited areas of the Middle East where the 
rainfall is copious and virtually perennial. But there 
is abundant evidence that forests were much more 
extensive in south-west Asia during the Ice Ages, 
when conditions were both cooler and wetter than at 
present, and these regions formed a refuge for the 
flora of the glaciated parts of Central and Northern 
Europe. After the retreat of the ice, this flora reco- 
lonized Europe and within the Middle East, which 
was becoming progressively drier, withdrew to those 
mountains and seaward slopes where the drought of 
summer was less extreme. The rich variety of species 
which can still be found even in small and isolated 
areas of woodland, such as those on the slopes of 
Mount Erciyas [see erdjiyas daghI], bears witness 
to the more extensive nature of the forests of earlier 
Quaternary times, of which these are the few 
remaining outliers. 

In view of the anxiety of many modern Islamic 
states to replant their forests, it is of practical as 
well as academic interest to know when and why the 
natural vegetation deteriorated, and in particular to 
understand how far this degeneration has been due 
to natural causes and how far to human intervention. 
The Chicago expedition to Kurdistan, for example, 
has made abundantly clear the degree to which the 
vegetation has declined since neolithic times. But 
from the accounts of classical authors, notably 
Strabo, it would seem that the forests of the Eastern 
Mediterranean lands and the Middle East were as 
recently as 2000 years ago much more abundant and 
widespread than at present. There is evidence from 
the study of mountain moraines that there has been 
no significant decline in rainfall in this region since 



991 

that time, and the main cause of the devastation of 
the forests would appear to have been their reckless 
exploitation during Hellenistic times for ships' 
timbers, resin, and fuel for smelting metals. The 
rapid rate of silting of many harbours of the Levant 
between the third century B.C. and the third 
century A.D. was a direct result of the widespread 
destruction of forests and loosening of topsoil at this 
time. By comparison with the devastation wrought 
during this period, the injury done to the natural 
vegetation by the nomadic incursions of the Middle 
Ages was much less serious. Yuruk, Kurdish and Arab 
tribes have been guilty of tapping pines for turpen- 
tine, cutting wood for charcoal, lopping branches for 
fodder, digging up roots for tannin, and allowing 
their animals to crop the seedlings. The general 
effect of their economy, however, has been not so 
much to destroy trees as to prevent their regeneration. 
But there are signs of serious encroachment on the 
few remaining forests of the Middle East during the 
twentieth century. Timber has often been cut for 
railway fuel, and the woods about Shaubak in 
Jordan, for example, were felled to feed the engines 
of the Hejaz line. The soil scientist, John Nowland, 
has remarked the recession of the forests of Pam- 
phylia since Tchihatcheff described them in the last 
century, and Professor Orhan Yamanlar has lately 
studied in detail the encroachment of farmers and 
herdsmen on woodland in various parts of Turkey, a 
consequence, doubtless, of growing numbers and 
pressure on the means of subsistence. Replanting has 
as yet been only local and experimental, and may in 
turn give rise to new problems, as when the affore- 
station of high valleys in Cyprus led to the desiccation 
of wells downstream. 

Bibliography : R. J. Braidwood and B. Howe, 
Prehistoric investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan, 
Chicago (Oriental Inst.) i960; W. C. Brice, The his- 
tory of forestry in Turkey, in Istanbul Vniv. Orman 
Fak. Dergisi, v (1955), 19-38; Government of 
Cyprus, Land use in a Mediterranean environment, 
Nicosia 1947; P. de Tchihatcheff, Asie Mineure, 
4 vols., Paris 1853; idem, Une page sur VOrient, 
Paris 1877; Ali Bahgat, Les forlts en Egypte 
in BIE, 1901, 141-58; W. B. Turrill, The plant- 
life of the Balkan Peninsula, Oxford 1929; O. 
Yamanlar, Marmara havzasx ve bilhassa Yalova 
mmtakasi icin arazi tasnifinin erozyon kontrolu 
iizerine yapacagi tesirler, Istanbul (I. t). Orman 
Fakultesi) 1956. (W. C. Brice) 

GHADAMfiS (Ghdams), a little oasis in the 
Lybian Sahara, situated approximately on the 30th 
parallel and the 10th meridian east of Greenwich 
(at almost the same longitude as Ghat, Gabes and 
Tunis). It lies at an altitude of 350 m. between the 
great oriental erg and the arid plateaus of al- 
Hamada al-Hamra 5 , almost at the meeting-place of 
the Libyan, Algerian and Tunisian frontiers. It owes 
its very ancient existence and its continuance to the 
artesian spring called c Ayn al-Fres (faras) (tempera- 
ture 30 C, 2-3 grammes per litre of sodium 
and magnesium chloride), and also to its situation, 
almost equidistant from Gabes, Tripoli, Ouargla, 
the heart of the Fezzan and Ghat. Far more than its 
very limited agriculture, it was trans-Sahara trade 
which made its fortune over the course of the cen- 
turies and it is the disappearance of this trade which 
explains its decline. 

Paleolithic and Neolithic implements have been 
discovered in the neighbourhood. In 19 B.C. Cornelius 
Balbus camped in this Libyan centre, which was to 
become Cydamus, and, under Septimus Severus, 



992 GHA] 

an advance post with a garrison of the 3rd Augusta 
legion, 200 km. to the south-west of the limes. In 
Byzantine times, it had a church and a bishop; the 
"idols" (al-asnam) which stand nearby are ancient 
ruins, Byzantine mausolea or perhaps even more 
ancient remains. The Arab conqueror, c Ukba b. 
Nafi c , occupied it with a detachment of cavalry 
between his conquest of Fezzan and his march on 
Gafsa in 47/667. It was IbadI between the 2nd/8th 
and the 4th/ioth centuries. Ibn Khaldun (Berberes, 
iii, 303), far more than al-Bakri (340), dwells on the 
prosperity and importance of this "port" of the 
desert, both for traders and pilgrims. In the 10th/ 
1 6th century again, Ghadames seems to have con- 
sisted of several ltsur. Then it seems to have become 
concentrated into a single village which has preserved 
its appearance and its sharply graded society. Ghada- 
mes, on the boundaries of Ifrikiya, was able to safe- 
guard, both for its trade and for itself, an indepen- 
dence which was, however, always limited by its 
obligatory association with the Touareg Ajjer, and 
the no less compulsory good relations with Tunis 
and Tripoli. It suffered several attacks by Hafsid 
and Turkish troops but always managed to free 
itself rapidly from the taxes imposed by Tunis. It was 
nevertheless obliged to recognize the authority of 
the Turks of Tripoli in i860. It then became a seat 
of a lid'immalidm and after 1874 was given a little 
garrison; it continued none the less to administer 
itself with a shaykh and a djamd'a formed from the 
heads of noble families. 

The Italians, who disembarked at Tripoli in 
1911, did not at first occupy Ghadames, but did 
so later from April 1913 to November 1914, then 
from February to July 1915, and finally and more 
permanently from 15 February 1924 on. They 
left it before the arrival of General Leclerc's troops 
on 27 January 1943. First of all attached to the Ter- 
ritory of Fezzan [q.v.], it was provisionally adminis- 
tered by the Tunisian Protectorate from January 
1948 until 1 July 1951; but following the proclama- 
tion of independence of the United Kingdom of Libya 
on 24 December 1951, and then of the Franco-Libyan 
treaty of 10 August 1955, Ghadames was evacuated 
by the French authorities. It was attached to the 
province of Tripoli in the spring of 1957. 

All the texts are in agreement to show that trans- 
Sahara trade was the essential activity of Ghadames. 
They dwell on the comings and goings of the caravans, 
on the remarkable aptitude of its traders who were 
to be encountered in the Sudan as far away as Tim- 
buktu, as well as at Tunis and Tripoli, and who made 
large profits under the protection, for which they 
paid tribute, assured to their caravans by the Touareg 
Ajjer, at the extreme limit of whose territory Ghada- 
mes was situated. Caravans coming from the south 
brought above all slaves, as well as gold, leather 
and hides, ostrich feathers, ivory and incense. On the 
return journey, they carried cotton goods and cloth, 
sugar, and various products manufactured in Europe. 
The extreme points of their journeys were Tunis and 
Tripoli in the north, Agades, Kano and, more rarely, 
Timbuktu (for which Ghat was the first halt) in the 
south. 

Trade profited above all the nobles (ahrdr), who 
also possessed gardens and sometimes herds; they had 
many black slaves (agnaw) whom they sometimes 
allowed to become free men (atdra); the humrdn 
formed a small and not very numerous middle class 
of artisans and shopkeepers; mostly, no doubt, of 
foreign origin, they formed the retainers of the 
principal noble families. 



In the middle of the 19th century, Duveyrier notes 
the beginning of the decline in trade, following the 
abolition of the slave trade, for the most part still 
little enough respected. In 1910, Pervinquiere, the 
geologist, described the stagnation of a much 
diminished cross-Sahara trade which had turned 
away from Ghadames. To-day it is practically dead, 
the towns of the Mediterranean coast no longer 
needing the produce of the Sudan region, which in its 
turn is provisioned by sea. At the same time, the 
artisans, once extremely prosperous, many-sided, and 
since the 5th/nth century famous for their hides, 
have almost ceased to exist, lacking raw materials. 
The people of modern Ghadames are almost all 
reduced to cultivating their little oasis, and the 
Touareg to the raising of camels, sheep and goats. 
The palm-grove has barely 20,000 palms and the 
whole area of the gardens is only 75 hectares. It 
seems that the flow of c Ayn al-Fres has become 
less since 1872-7. The Italians opened an artesian 
well in 1932 and another was sunk by the French but 
their flow also tends to diminish. The departure of 
a great number of atdra and former slaves, now 
become free men, provoked a man-power crisis 
which brought about the ruin of most of the nobles, 
only a few of whom were willing to apply themselves 
to agriculture. 

The population of Ghadames, estimated at 7,000 
by Duveyrier round about 1850, had fallen to 1,900 
by 1952. Most of the people have emigrated to Tripo- 
litania or Tunisia; nearly 2,000 live in Tunis, the 
town to which the young people used to go in former 
times to get their initiation into the business world, 
which led to a local proverb saying: 'Ghadames gives 
birth and Tunis brings up'. 

Ghadames is a pretty little oasis which attracted 
some tourists in Italian times. The palm-grove and 
gardens are surrounded by crumbling mud walls, 
and the village, all of unfired brick, is in the interior, 
a little to the south-east, beside the attractive pool 
of c Ayn al-Fres. Most of the houses are very unusual 
with their urban appearance, rooms placed in uneven 
storeys or spanning the streets, often transforming 
them into dark tunnels. The inhabitants, Berbers of 
the Beni Wazit and Beni Ulid, and the Awlad Bellil 
who consider themselves of Arab origin, used to live 
as enemies, one group against another, shut up in 
seven districts isolated from one another by walls 
whose gates were shut at night. Despite these divi- 
sions, hard to understand for people travelling 
between the Mediterranean and the Sudan, the little 
urban centre of Ghadames has been able to maintain 
across the centuries its personality as a city of 
caravaneers, its own Berber dialect (a little different 
from that of the Touareg), its social castes, its original 
houses and, for a long time, its independence. 

Three kms. west of Ghadames, Tounin is no more 
than a hamlet with a few palm-trees. The poor oases 
of Derdj and Sinawan are situated on the trail 
which goes via Nalout to Tripoli. Oil research has 
been going on in this area since 1956. 

Bibliography: Descr. de I'Afr. sept., trans, de 
Slane, 2nd ed., Algiers 191 1 ; Ibn Khaldun, Histoire 
des Berberes, trans, de Slane, 2nd ed., Paris 1925-56; 
Leo Africanus, Description de I'Afrique, trans. 
Epaulard, Paris 1956; P. Masson, Histoire des 
itablissements et du commerce franfais dans I'Afrique 
barbaresque, Paris 1903; Mircher, Polignac, Vaton- 
ne, Hoffmann, Mission a Ghadames, Algiers 1863; 
H. Duveyrier, Les Touareg du Nord, Paris 1864; 
V. Largeau, Le Sahara, Paris 1877; A. de Moty- 
linski, Le dialecte berbere de R'edames, Paris 1904; 



GHADAMES — GHADlR KHUMM 



L. Pervinquiere, La Tripolitaine interdite, Ghada- 
mis, Paris 1912; A. Piccioli, La porta magica del 
Sahara, Tripoli 1931; J- Aymo, Notes de sociologie 
et de linguistique sur Ghadames, in Bull, de liaison 
saharienne, Algiers 1959, n° 34; idem, La maison 
Ghadamsie, in Trav. de I' Inst, de Rech. sahariennes, 
Algiers 1958. (J- Despois) 

al-GHADANFAR [see hamdAnids]. 
GHAPANFER AfiHA [see kap! aghas!]. 
fiHADAR [see khazaf]. 

fiHADlR KHUMM, name of a pool (or a marsh) 
situated in an area called Khumm, between Mecca 
and Medina, about 3 miles from al-Djuhfa. The 
waters from which it was formed came from a 
spring which rises in a wddi, and from it they flowed 
to the sea about six miles away, along a valley which 
was also called Khumm; the name is no longer in 
use. As the place was frequently watered by rain, 
there were there bushes and thorn trees which 
provided large shady areas around the pool and the 
mosque built in honour of the Prophet between the 
pond and the spring. The climate there was very hot 
and unhealthy, and the inhabitants, belonging to 
the Khuza'a and Kinana tribes, who in any case 
were not numerous, finally abandoned the region 
because of the "fevers which afflicted them and the 
lack of pasturage. 

Ghadir Khumm is famous in the history of Islam 
because of a sentence (or some sentences) in favour 
of 'All which the Prophet uttered there during a 
discourse, the circumstances of which, according to 
the most detailed accounts which are preserved in 
some hadiths, were as follows. On his return from 
the Farewell Pilgrimage, Muhammad stopped at 
Ghadir Khumm on 18 Dhu '1-Hidjdja 10/16 March 
632. As he wanted to make an announcement to the 
pilgrims who accompanied him before they dispersed, 
and as it was very hot, they constructed for him a 
dais shaded with branches. Taking 'All by the hand, 
he asked of his faithful followers whether he, 
Muhammad, was not closer (awld) to the Believers 
than they were to themselves; the crowd cried out: 
"It is so, O Apostle of God!"; he then declared: "He 
of whom I am the mawld (the patron?), of him 'All 
is also the mawld (man kuntu mawldhu fa-' AH 
mawldhu)". Nothing which can explain the inner 
meaning of the main sentence is added either by the 
additions supplied by several hadiths, e.g., "O God, 
be the friend of him who is his friend, and be the 
enemy of him who is his enemy (Alldhumma wdli 

(the most interesting of which is the substitution of 
the word wall for mawld, which proves that the 
meaning of the latter word, at least in its meta- 
phorical sense, was not very precise). Most of those 
sources which form the basis of our knowledge of the 
life of the Prophet (Ibn Hisham, al-Tabarl, Ibn Sa'd, 
etc.) pass in silence over Muhammad's stop at 
Ghadir Khumm, or, if they mention it, say nothing 
of his discourse (the writers evidently feared to 
attract the hostility of the Sunnis, who were in 
power, by providing material for the polemic of the 
Shi'Is who used these words to support their thesis of 
'All's right to the caliphate). Consequently, the 
western biographers of Muhammad, whose work is 

what happened at Ghadir Khumm. It is, however, 
certain that Muhammad did speak in this place and 
utter the famous sentence, for the account of this 
event has been preserved, either in a concise form or 
in detail, not only by al-Ya'kiibi, whose sympathy 
for the 'Alid cause is well known, but also in the 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



collections of traditions which are considered as 
canonical, especially in the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal; 
and the hadiths are so numerous and so well attested 
by the different isndds that it does not seem possible 
to reject them. Several of these hadiths are cited in 
the bibliography, but it does not include the hadiths 
which, although reporting the sentence, omit to 
name Ghadir Khumm, or those which state that the 
sentence was pronounced at al-Hudaybiya. The 
complete documentation will be facilitated when the 
Concordances of Wensinck have been completely 
published. In order to have an idea of how numerous 
these hadiths are, it is enough to glance at the pages 
in which Ibn Kathlr has collected a great number of 
them with their isndds. This author informs us that 
al-Tabarl, in a two-volume work (probably the 
unfinished work mentioned by Yakut, Irshdd, vi, 
452, the title of which was K. al-FaddHl) in which he 
reported the Prophet's discourse at Ghadir Khumm. 
had collected, he says, "the fat and the thin, the 
strong and the weak". Abu '1-Kasim Ibn 'Asakir 
(d. 571/1176) also reproduces many hadiths on the 
same subject and it is from his collection that Ibn 
Kathlr has chosen the principal traditions, which 
however, he adds, supply no basis for the ShI'I 

The beliefs of the latter concerning the affair 
of Ghadir Khumm are as follows: Muhammad had 
already known through divine inspiration (or by 
revelation on the night of the Mi'rddj) that 'All was 
to become his successor as leader of the Muslim 
community, but he had kept this divine decision 
secret, waiting for the moment when there should be 
no more opposition to 'All among the Muslims. At 
Ghadir Khumm he received the revelation: "O 
Apostle, communicate that which was revealed to 
you by your Lord" (Kur'an, V, 71/67). Then, in 
the presence of the Companions, taking 'All's hand 
in his own, he pronounced the sentence man kuntu 
mawldhu etc., which is thus a nass [q.v.] nominating 
'Ali as imam of the Muslims after the death of their 
Prophet. On the same occasion, Muhammad an- 
nounced his impending death and charged the 
Believers to remain attached to the Book of God 
and to his family. After the communal prayer he 
went into his tent and, on his orders, 'AH received, 
in his tent, the congratulations of the Muslim men 
and women, who greeted him with the title of amir 
al-mu'minin. Among them was 'Umar b. al-Khattab. 
Hassan b. Thabit recited, with Muhammad's ap- 
probation, some verses in honour of 'AH (some 
verses by him, affirming that 'All was named as the 
successor of the Prophet on the day of Ghadir 
Khumm, are quoted by Ibn Shahrashub (ii, 230) 
and, if they are authentic, they are, apart from the 
hadiths, the earliest attestation of the event at 
Ghadir Khumm, and not, as Goldziher has suggested, 
the verse of al-Kumayt). It is said that the same day 
Muhammad received at Ghadir Khumm the revelat- 
ion of Kur'an, V, 5/3 ("Today I have perfected your 
religion for you, and I have completed my blessing 
upon you, and I have approved Islam for your 
religion"), which is generally accepted to have been 
revealed at 'Arafat a few days earlier. 

The Sunnis do not deny that Muhammad may have 
expressed himself in the above manner concerning 
'AH, but they consider that in the sentence in 
question he was simply exhorting his hearers to hold 
his cousin and son-in-law in high esteem and affection. 
On this point, Ibn Kathlr shows himself yet again to 
be a percipient historian: he connects the affair of 
Ghadir Khumm with episodes which took place 

63 



994 



GHADlR KHUMM — GHAFFARl 



during the expedition to the Yemen, which was led 
by C A1I in 10/631-2, and which had returned to 
Mecca just in time to meet the Prophet there during 
his Farewell Pilgrimage. C A1I had been very strict in 
the sharing out of the booty and his behaviour had 
aroused protests; doubt was cast on his rectitude, 
he was reproached with avarice and accused of 
misuse of authority. Thus it is quite possible that, 
in order to put an end to all these accusations, 
Muhammad wished to demonstrate publicly his 
esteem and love for C A1I. Ibn Kathlr must have 
arrived at the same conclusion, for he does not 
forget to add that the Prophet's words put an end 
to the murmurings against 'All. 

Because of the importance in their eyes of Muham- 
mad's discourse at Ghadir Khumm, the Shi'is have 
considered 18 Dhu '1-Hidjdja as an anniversary 
to be celebrated with solemnity. In 'Irak, the id 
Ghadir Khumm was introduced by Mu'izz al-Dawla 
Ahmad b. Buy a in 352/964 and in Egypt by al-Mu'izz 
in 362/973; under the Fatimids, with the exception 
of some years of the reign of al-Hakim, it was one of 
the most important religious feasts. In Persia today 
it is celebrated by making for the occasion three 
pastry figures filled with honey, which represent the 
caliphs AbO Bakr, 'Umar and c Uthman, and by 
stabbing them with knives: the honey which comes 
out symbolizes the blood of the three hated usurpers. 
This feast also holds an important place among the 
Nusayrls. 

Bibliography: Description of the place: 
Ya'kubi, Bulddn, BGA, vii, 314; Bakri, 232, 311, 
318; Yakut, Mtfdjam, ii, 35f., 471; L- Caetani, 
Annali dell'Isldm, 1 a.H., §§ 76 n. 4, 78 n. 3; 
Mosque erected in the place: F. Wustenfeld, Die 
von Medina auslaufenden Hauptstrassen, 37 f. 
Hadiths where Muhammad's sentence concerning 
<Ali is linked with Ghadir Khumm: Ibn Hanbal, 
Musnad, i, 84, 118, 119, 152, iv, 281, 370, 372, v, 
419 (cited by Wensinck, Handbook, 15), Cairo ed. 
in progress, ii, 641, 670, 950, 951, 952, 961, 964, 
1310, etc.; al-Muttaki al-Hindl, Kanz al- l ummdl 
fi sunan al-akwdl wa 'l-af-al, Haydarabad 1 312-14, 
vi, 152 nos. 2522-3, 153 no. 2534, 154 nos. 2563, 
2567-9. 390 nos. 5967, 5969-70, 397 nos. 6054, 
6057, 398 no. 6067, 399 no. 6074, 403-4 nos. 6121-3, 
406 no. 4146, 407 no. 6149 (cf. C. van Arendonk, 
De Opkomst van het Zaidietische Imamaat in Yemen, 
Leiden 1919, 19 n. 2; Fr. tr., Leiden i960, 19 n. 2). 
According to Ibn Kathlr, Muhammad's discourse 
is reported also by al-Nasa'I in his Sunan and in 
his book on the khasdHs 'All, by Ibn Madia, Abu 
Dawud and al-Tirmidhi. On the Prophet's 
discourse, see also Ibn al-Kalbi, Djamhara, MS 
British Museum, fol. 256 v.; Ya'kubi, Historiae, ed. 
Houtsma, ii, 125; Mas'udI, Tanbih, BGA, viii, 234; 
Ibn <Abd al-Barr, al-Isti'db, 473 ; Ibn al-Athir, Usd, 
iv, 28 ; Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt, no. 699, Cairo 1950 
iv, 318 f., tr. de Slane, hi, 383 (Ibn Khallikan 
mentions the discourse in favour of e Ali, but with- 
out reporting the famous sentence. A partial variant 
is found in some hadiths: Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 
Cairo ed., i, nos. 950, 964 and 1310); Muhibb al- 
Din al-Tabari, al-Riydd al-nddira, Cairo 1327, 
ii, 169; Dhahabl, Ta'rikh, MS Paris, fols. 188-9; 
Ibn Kathlr, al-Biddya wa 'l-nihdya, 1348-55, v, 
208-14. — A discussion by a Mu c tazill: al-Diahiz. 
'Uthmdniyya, Cairo 1374/1955, index. — On the 
beliefs of the Shi'Is: Ibn Shahrashub, Mandkib Al 
Abi Tdlib, Nadjaf 1376/1956, ii, 224-56 (unsyste- 
matic in treatment, but interesting because it 
mentions the authors who have dealt with the 



subject and many verses by early poets, including 
some attributed to Hassan b. Thabit); MadjlisI, 
Haydt al-hulub, Tehran 1374, iii, 39-46; Muhsin al- 
Amln al-'Amili, A'-ydn al-shi c a, iii/i, 524-32 (a 
lucid modern treatment) ; I. Goldziher, Beitrage zur 
Liter aturgeschichte der Si c d und der sunnitischen 
Polemik, in Sitzungsb. der phil.-hist. Classe der 
K. Ak. der Wissenschaften, lxxviii (1874), 496 f.; 
idem, Muh. Studien, ii, 115 f.; idem, Vorlesungen 
iiber den Islam 1 , Heidelberg 1910, 239, cf. 274 
(Fr. tr., Dogmc, Paris 1920, 192, cf. 292). On the 
work of Tabari, idem, Die liter. Thatigkeit des 
Tabari nach Ibn <Asdkir, in WZKM, ix, 366; 
L. Caetani, Annali dell'Isldm, 40 A.H., § 293; 
D. M. Donaldson, The ShiHte Religion, London 
J933, I_ 3- On c AH's behaviour during the expedi- 
tion to the Yemen: Ibn Hisham, 947 f.; Wakidi- 
Wellhausen, 418; Tabari, i, 1752 f.; Ibn al-Athir, 
Usd, 27 f.; Caetani, Annali, 10 A.H., § 17 (p. 322). 
On the festival: Makrizi, KUtat, Bulak 1270, i, 
388 f.; R. Dussaud, Histoire et religion des Nosairis, 
Paris 1900, 137-41; Hughes, Diet, of Islam, 138. 
Certain practices of the 'Alawis of Syria inspired 
Jehan Cendrieux with a novel entitled Al-Ghdder 
(sic) ou le sexe-Dieu, Paris 1926 . 

(L. Veccia Vaglieri) 
al-OHADIRI. hero of a series of anecdotes 
collected, probably in the 3rd/gth century, under the 
title Kitdb al-Ghddiri {Fihrist, 435). He is said to have 
been a foundling, who became a humourist of 
Medina and rival of Ash'ab [?.«.]; the name of al- 
Hasan b. Zayd [q.v.], governor of Medina from 150 
to 155/767-72, which appears in one anecdote, would 
seem to give some grounds for thinking him a 
historical personality. However, as the Banu 
Ghadira have a reputation as wits, it is possible that 
the anonymous collection referred to by Ibn al- 
Nadim is made up of anecdotes attributed to various 
members of this group, among whom they had 
existed as a common heritage. 

Bibliography: Djahiz, Hayawdn, v, 241-3; 

idem, Bukhald'', ed. Hadjiri, 192, 365 ; Ibn Kutayba, 

'■Uyun, ii, 52; Kali, Amdli, ii, 242; Aghdni, v, 132, 

xvii, 101; Husri, Zahr, 160-1; idem, Djam'-, 69, 

152; Abi, Nathr al-durar, MS Dar al-Kutub, ii, 

208; Amidi, Mu'talif, 161; F. Rosenthal, Humour, 

7, n. 4. (Ch. Pellat) 

GHAFFARl. Ahmad b. Muhammad, Persian 

historian, descendant of a family originating from 

Sawa, later established at Kazwln, and descended 

from the Shafi'I imam Nadjm al-DIn c Abd al- 

Ghaffar (d. 665/1266), author of the work Hdwi al- 

saghir, whence the patronymic "Ghaffari". Five of 

his ancestors had held the office of kadi. His father 

(d. 932/1526), who composed poetry under the 

pseudonym of Wisali, as well as his brother, had held 

the same office at Rayy. Since he lived at Kazwln 

and bore the title of kadi, it would seem that he had 

held the same post in his native town. It is said that 

at the end of his life he had resigned the official 

functions he performed for the princes. He made a 

journey from Kazwln to Kashan in the company of 

the amir Taki al-DIn Muhammad, the grandson of 

the amir Djamal al-Din Muhammad Sadr, and of 

the poet Nitharl of Tabriz. During this journey he 

met the great poet Muhtasham of Kashan. At the 

end of his life he made the pilgrimage to Mecca and 

on his return he died at Daybiil (Sind) in 957/1567- 

Although a poet, he composed two considerable 

works of history: Negdrestdn, a collection of historical 

anecdotes collected from the best known works and 

arranged in chronological order, completed in 959/ 



GHAFFARl - 

1552 and dedicated to the Safawid Shah Tahmasb; 
Nusakh-i djahdn-drd, a history of the dynasties from 
the beginning up to 972/1564, dedicated to the same 
sovereign. 

Bibliography: Sam Mirza Safawl, Tuhfa-yi 
sdmi, Tehran 1314/1936, 72-4 (six members of the 
family, with printing errors in the names) ; The 
Muntakhab al-tawdrikh of Abd al-qddir bini-Maluh 
shdh al-Badaoni, iii, Calcutta i860, 185-6 ; Amln Ah- 
mad RazI, Haft iklim, Tehran, iii, 178; Lutf 'All 
Beyk Azar, Ateshkadeh, Bombay 1299, 228 ; Rahman 
'All, Tadhhira-yi c ulamd-yi Hind, Lucknow 1914, 
18; Sayyid Muhammad Siddik Khan, ShamH 
andjuman, Delhi 1293, 57; c Ali Shir K5ni c Tatawi, 
Mahdldt al-shu'ard', Karachi 1957, 17-18; Storey, 
section II, 114-6; Said Naficy, Ta'rikh-i nazm 
nathr dar Iran wa dar zabdn-i Fdrsi, Tehran 1342/ 
1963. 354, 508. (S. Naficy) 

al-GHAFIKI. Muhammad b. KassOm b. Aslam, 
Spanish-Arab scholar and oculist, probably of the 
6th/i2th century. The Arabic chroniclers are silent 
with regard to his biography and we know almost 
nothing of his life. It has been no more than supposed 
that he was born in Cordova and that he practised 
for a long time in this city. According to Wiistenfeld, 
he was the father of Abu Dja c far Ahmad b. Muham- 
nad al-Ghafiki [q.v. in Supplement], the famous 
doctor and pharmacologist, author of the Kitdb 
al-Adwiya al-mufrada. 

Of Muhammad al-Ghafiki, there remains only the 
Kitdb al-Murshid fi 'l-kuhl, "The Oculist's Guide", 
of which a single copy exists in the Escorial (N. 835). 
This book is regarded as a summary of all the 
knowledge of ophthalmology possessed by the Arabs 
of both the Islamic east and west, in its author's time. 
It is divided into six sections of which, in fact, only 
the fifth (partially) and the sixth (entirely) treat of 
the medicine and the hygiene of the eyes. 

Although the K. al-Murshid is considered to be 
the most remarkable ophthalmological text of the 
Islamic west, it has been said of it that it is no more 
than a vast compilation without original contribu- 
tions, that the part which concerns the oculist in 
reality only occupies a limited space in relation to 
that dedicated to general medicine, and that it lacks 
a sense of proportion (Hirschberg). But in judging 
it from the point of view of present-day knowledge, 
it is precisely in the plan of the work and the ar- 
rangement of its material that it is possible to catch 
a glimpse of a kind of anticipation of the modern 
conception of the pathology of the eye, necessarily 
linked to and following as a corollary on that of the 
entire organism. 

Bibliography: L. Leclerc, Histoire de la 

midecine arabe, Paris 1876, ii; F. Wiistenfeld, 

Geschichte der arabischen Arzte und Naturforscher, 

Gottingen 1840; J. Hirschberg, Die arabischen Lehr- 

biicher der Augenheilkunde, Berlin 1905; M. Meyer- 

hof, L'ophtalmologie de Mohammad al-Ghdfiqi, 

Barcelona 1923; P. Pansier, Breve conspecto de la 

oftalmologia drabe (tr., ed. and notes by J. M. Millas 

Vallicrosa), Barcelona 1956. (T. Sarnelli) 

GJJAFCRl, MEDJlD. one of the best-known 

national poets of the Bashkurts and Tatars. He was 

born in 1881 in the village of Djilim Karan, a village 

inhabited by both Tatars and Bashkurts belonging 

to the Isterlitamak administrative district of Bash- 

kurdistan. He died in 1934, a Soviet poet. His father, 

Nurgani, was the village teacher, and Medjid ( c Abd 

al-Madjid) received his primary education from him. 

For his intermediate schooling he went to the 

medrese in the neighbouring village of Otesh, and 



5 995 

from 1898 to 1904 he studied in the Resuliye 
Medresesi in the city of Troysk. Through teaching 
among the Kazaks he became attracted to their 
style of literature. He published his first poetry in 
Terdiumdn in 1902, and later, in 1904, in the form 
of a collection with the title Sibir Temiryolu yaki 
Ahwdl-i millet. He subsequently published small 
collections of poems with titles like Yash 'drnriim 
(1906), Millet Mahabbeti (1907), Zamdne shiHrleri 
and Medjid Ghafuri shiHrleri (1909), Te'eththiirdtim 
(1910), Mun-Zar (1911), Milli shiHrler we emthdl 
(1913), and Yangan Yilrek (1915). As he knew little 
Russian, he did not derive much inspiration from 
Russian literature, being influenced only by Krylov's 
Fables and some of the works of Gorky. His first 
poems, written under the influence of Kazak litera- 
ture and especially of the Kazak poet Akmolla, were 
beautiful, and bring a fresh style to Bashkurt and 
Tatar literature. After 1907 he wrote his poems 
wholly in Tatar, in the classical metres ( c arud). 
Because of lack of variety in his thoughts and 
carelessness in metre and style, however, he was 
considered to be in the second rank of poets, com- 
pared with men like Shams al-DIn Izek and Sheykhzade 
Babic among the Bashkurts, and c Abd Allah Tokay 
among the Tatars. In Zamdne shiHrleri, in which he 
imitated Sufi Allahyari, he made it clear that he 
had read Caghatay literature first by way of poetry. 
In his collected works, which appeared in 1904, he 
complained of the backwardness of the Bashkurts and 
Tatars, of the ignorance of the Mollas and so on. He 
manifested his belief that the Siberian railway, 
which was completed in 1902, "the longest railway 
in the world", would bring about some changes in the 
life of the eastern Turks. In his works generally, he 
reflected the early twentieth-century life of the 
Tatars and Bashkurts and also their complaints and 
desires. Before the 1917 Revolution, the works which 
he had written under the influence of the popular 
literature of the Kazaks and the Bashkurts, not 
attempting to rival the Tatar poets, had made him 
very popular in his own land. One of his finest works 
is the kaside Ak-Edil, published at Ufa in 1911. 
After 1923 he was drawn into propaganda work by 
the Soviets, and he was much used for this purpose. 
In the Soviet period his collected works were published 
in five volumes, which included the greater part of 
his early writings, as well as later works of an 
entirely different character and outlook. 

(Z. V. Togan) 

GHA'IB. absent, usually means in law the 
person who at a given moment is not present at the 
place where he should be. But, in certain special 
cases (see below), the term is applied also to the 
person who is at a distance from the court before 
which he was to bring an action or who does not 
appear at the court after being summoned. 

If to this first notion is added that of uncertainty 
concerning the person's existence, the term used is 
not ghdHb but mafkud, although sometimes the state 
of the mafkud is called also ghayba, to which is added 
the epithet munkati c a (absence not interrupted by 
information on the person's existence). This state of 
affairs may give rise to juridical consequences of 
greater or less importance according to circum- 
stances. If such an absence extends to a period when 
persons of the same generation as the missing person 
are dead, the judge declares him dead: his estate 
goes to his heirs, and his marriage or marriages are 
dissolved. Up to this time, the estate of the mafkud 
continues to be administered by his agent, if he had 
appointed one, or, failing such an appointment, by 



GHA'IB — GHALATA-SARAYI 



a trustee nominated by the judge; inheritances which 
are due to him remain in suspense; his marriage or 
marriages continue to subsist. 

Ghavba. in its normal and general sense, gives rise 
to various juridical consequences, particularly the 
following: 

As regards marriage, the absence of a husband 
which extends beyond a certain term— four years, 
four months and ten days, according to the majority 
opinion— permits the wife to apply for judicial 
divorce if she is not regularly receiving alimony. 

Ghavba is also a reason for suspending the pre- 
scription of an action at law. In this connexion, it 
lies in the plaintiff's being three days' journey (on 
foot) away from the place where he should have 
brought his action. But this absence must be 
continuous (in this case too called ghavba munkafi'a), 
so that if during the period when prescription is 
suspended the plaintiff once more comes to the 
place where he could bring his action, the period of 
his absence is no longer of any affect. 

The non-appearance of a litigant at a hearing does 
not permit the judge to decide the case by default, a 
procedure which, in principle, is not recognized, 
although various means may be employed to compel 
the litigant to appear, provided that he is not too 
far away. Nevertheless in the most recent stage of 
Muslim law, as it is represented by the Ottoman 
codification of the second half of the 19th century, 
judgement by default is admitted. 

In public law, in certain states (for example the 
Mamluk Empire) the Sultan, when himself absent 
from the capital, often appointed a locum tenens, who 
was called ndHb al-ghayba (literally, 'substitute of 
absence'). 

In public worship, saldt al-ghdHb ('prayer of the 
absent') is the name given to the prayer said for a 
dead person whose body cannot be produced. 

Bibliography: Madjalla (Ottoman Civil Code), 
arts. 1663 ff., 1833 ff.; E. Tyan, Histoire de ['or- 
ganisation judiciaire en pays d'Islam, Paris, i, 
41 ff.; idem, Institutions du droit public musulman, 
Paris, ii, 177; 2 Leiden, 369 ft.; idem, La proce- 
dure du "difaut" en droit musulman, in St. Isl., 
1957, 115 ff.; Dozy, Suppliment, 60; Ottoman 
Family Law of 1917; all the works of fikh, under 
the heading "mafkud". (E. Tyan) 

GHALAFIKA (or Ghulafik(a), Ghulayfika; pi. of 
ghalfak—tuhlub "sea-moss"), a coast town in the 
Tihama of Yaman, situated half-way between Hu- 
dayda and Zabid, at the southern end of a bay 
(Khor Ghalafika). Here was in earlier times the 
main port of Zabid, whose west gate is called "Bab 
Ghulafika". The geographer Mukaddasi, who visited 
this place, mentions its famous mosque, its date- 
and cocoapalms, and several wells — Ghalafika is said 
to be the only place in this part of the coast with a 
supply of fresh water — but says that the climate is 
pestilential and mortal to strangers. According to 
Ibn al-Mudjawir (7th/ 13 th century) Persians from 
Siraf, viz. fugitives from Djidda, restored the town 
after a period of decay. Towards the end of the Middle 
Ages the place lost its importance in favour of the 
"lower" port of Zabid, al-Ahwab, and Mokha, the 
great harbour for the export of coffee. In 1763, 
Niebuhr found Ghalafika a miserable village, difficult 
to reach even with small boats, owing to the coral 
reefs. In our days, according to the Red Sea and 
Gulf of Aden pilot, the harbour can still afford an- 
chorage for small craft, its depth being 3-4 fathoms, 
but it is gradually silting up. 

Bibliography: BGA, ii, 19; iii, 53, 69, 86, 95, 



101, 105; vi, 141, 148; vii, 319; yiii, 260; Hamdani, 
Sifa, ed. Miiller, 52, 119, tr. Forrer, 37, 50; Yakut, 
iii, 808; c Umara, Ta'rikh al-Yaman (Kay, Yaman), 
8, n, 194, 197, 221; Ibn al-Mudjawir, Ta'rikh al- 
mustabsir, ed. Lofgren, 46, 74, 147, 184, 238-43; 
Idrisi, Giographie, tr. Jaubert, i, 49, 146 (text cor- 
rupt); Abu 'l-Fida J , Giographie, tr. Reinaud, ii/i, 
121; A. Sprenger, Post- u. Reiserouten des Orients, 
157; idem, Die alte Geographie Arabiens, p. 64 
(§ 62); C. Niebuhr, Beschreibung von Arabien, 227; 
A. Grohmann, Sudarabien als Wirtschaftsgebiet, i, 
181, 230; ii, 77, 85 f., 124, 127 f., 130, 134; Red Sea 
and Gulf of Aden pilot, 8th ed., 1932, 323 f. ; L. O. 
Schuman, Political history of the Yemen at the 
beginning of the 16th century, i960, 75. 

(O. Lofgren) 
SHALATA [see Istanbul]. 

GHALATA-SARAYI, Palace School and 
later modern lycee at Pera (Beyoglu) across the 
Golden Horn from Istanbul. It was founded during 
the first years of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II 
(886-918/1481-1512), as one of the palace schools in 
Istanbul and Edirne for the education of the 'adfami 
oghldns [q.v.]. It covered a large area on which 
numerous buildings, dormitories, a hospital, a 
kitchen, baths, mosques and a kasr (small palace) 
for the sultan, were built. The administration of the 
school was entrusted to an agha (or bashagha) who 
had under him the teaching staff and a large body 
of servants. The students were divided into three 
odas (rooms) called kiiciik, orta and buyuk, each 
comprising at the beginning 200 boys. Their number 
varied with time. They were recruited at first 
mainly through the devshirme [q.v.], but from 
Siileyman the Magnificent's reign on, Muslim boys 
too were accepted. The students were educated in 
Islamic sciences and liberal arts, instructed in the 
palace ceremonial and trained in military exercises. 
After completing their education, which lasted from 
seven to fourteen years, the most able were chosen 
for the imperial palace, the Topkapl sarayl [q.v.] 
where they continued their studies at the Enderun. 
Other joined the permanent cavalry regiments 
(sipdhis). 

Ghalata-sarayi was changed many times into a 
medrese but from its restoration in 1127/1715 under 
Ahmed III it remained a palace school, up to its 
closing in 1251/1835-6. During this period Mahmiid I 
had added a library to the school in 1 167/1753. 
Burnt in the first years of Mahmud II's reign, the 
school was rebuilt in 1235/1819-20. Ghalata-sarayi 
became a medical school under the name of Tlbbiyye-i 
c adliyye-i shahane [q.v.] in 1254/1838. European and 
Turkish doctors taught there modern medicine for 
ten years: a fire in August 1848 obliged the Tibbiyye 
to move into Khaltdjtoghlu on the Golden Horn. 

Ghalata-sarayi was later reconstructed in stone 
and was opened as a preparatory school to the m ilitary 
academies in 1862. But this did not last for long. On 
1 September 1868 the Imperial lycee or Mekteb-i 
sultani was opened there. Thanks to the initiative of 
the Grand Vizier c Ali Pasha and the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs Fu'ad Pasha, the new institution was 
supported by the French government. It was modelled 
after the French lycees, had to be administered by a 
French director and the teaching was to be mainly 
in French. The school aimed at producing Western- 
educated officials for the Ottoman administration. 
341 boys from all nationalities of the empire were 
accepted at the opening. When the French director, 
M. de Salve, left in 1872, a Christian Ottoman was 
appointed to this post. Later only Turkish directors 



GHALATA-SARAYi — GHALIB b. <ABD al-RAHMAN 



were nominated to the administration of the school. 
Except for two short intervals, the Imperial lycee 
remained on the same site. In September 1873 it 
moved into Gulkhane, to provide accommodation 
for the Faculty of Medicine. But three years later, 
in 1876, it returned to its old premises. On 6 March 
1907 a fire burnt the school, and courses continued 
in a pavilion in the courtyard. The construction of 
the new building ended the next year, offering more 
space to the school. 

The programmes were revised after the proclama- 
tion of the Turkish republic in 1923. Meanwhile the 
main courses continued to be given in French, mostly 
by French teachers. Able directors and distinguished 
professors, many of them famous Turkish poets, 
scholars and scientists, served in the lycee of Ghalata- 
sarayi (now Galatasaray). Graduates of the school 
contributed much in all fields of activities in Turkey, 
the Balkans and the Arab countries. The share of 
the lycee of Ghalata-sarayl in the modernization of 
Turkey is important. It still continues to educate 
Western-minded young men. 

Bibliography: D'Ohsson, Tableau giniral de 
I'Empire othoman, Paris 1788-1824, vii, 47-9; 
<Ata, Ta'rikh, Istanbul 1293, 5 vol., passim; 
Osman Ergin, Turkiye maarif tarihi, Istanbul 
1939-43. i, 23-9, ii, 401-5; B. Miller, The Palace 
School of Muhammad the Conqueror, Cambridge 
Mass. 1941, passim; I. Hakki Uzuncarsih, Os- 
manh devletinin saray teskildti, Ankara 1945, 
1939-43, i, 23-9, ii, 401-5; I. Hakki Uzuncarsih, 
Osmanh devletinin saray teskildti, Ankara 1945, 
302-6; Fethi Isfendiyaroglu, Galatasaray tarihi, 
Istanbul 1952, i; Ed. Engelhardt, La Turquie et 
le Tanzimat, Paris 1884, ii, 12-6, 108-10; De La 
Jonquiere, Histoire de I'Empire ottoman 1 , Paris 
1914, ii, 563-7; Hasan-Ali Yucel, Turkiyede orta 
o&retim, Istanbul 1938, 522-4; Ihsan Sungu, 
Galatasaray lisesinin kurulusu, in Belleten, vii 
(1943), 315-47; idem, Galatasaray lisesi, in Ayhk 
Ansihlopedi, Istanbul 1945, i, 138-40; Bernard 
Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey 3 , London 
1965, index, s.vv. Galatasaray and Imperial 
Ottoman Lycee; R. Davison, Reform in the 
Ottoman Empire, 1856-1876, Princeton 1963, 
index, s.v. Galatasaray lycee. (E. Kuran) 

GHALATAT-I MESHHCRE, Ottoman term 
meaning literally 'well-known errors' and hence 
'solecisms sanctioned by usage'. Arabic and Persian 
loan-words in Ottoman Turkish generally retained 
the spelling current in the parent languages and 
were modified in pronunciation only so far as was 
essential to accommodate them to the Turkish 
repertory of consonants and vowels. Occasionally, 
however, phonetic changes characteristic of Turkish 
produced more drastic modifications in the loan- 
words; when the modified forms supplanted the 
original forms in the literary language they were 
branded by the purists as 'ghalatdt-i meshhure'. Some 
of these 'solecisms' consist only of the change of a 
single vowel: diendze for djindze, terdjume for 
terdieme, kandil for kindil, kumdsh for kimdsh, etc. 
But sometimes the modification was more drastic: 
merdiven < nerdubdn, mushamba < mushamma', 
sehpd < sepd, pabuc < pdpush, iamashir < d±dma- 
shuy, tarshaf < iddir-i sheb, beddwd < bdd-i hawd, 
etc.; many Arabic broken plurals are used in Turkish 
as singulars: talebe, elbise, khademe, 'article, eshkiyd, 
eshyd, a'dd (aza); some abstract nouns, unknown to 
Arabic and Persian, were invented by analogy with 
Arabic 'measures': nezdket ('refinement' < P. ndzik), 
feldket ('disaster'), tababet ('medicine'), saldhiyet 



('authority'), etc.; new words were formed by the 
addition of an Arabic or a Persian suffix to a Turkish 
word: variyet ('wealth' < T. var), gidishdt ('goings- 
on', pseudo-A. pi. of gidish), oyunbdz ('trickster'), 
emekddr ('veteran'), sandiafrddr ('standard-bearer'), 
ishguzdr ('officious'), etc. 

From the ioth/i6th century onwards Ottoman 
scholars and pedants compiled treatises of ghalatat-i 
meshhure, among them Kemal Pashazade (al-Tanbih 
'■aid ghalat al-d±ahil wa 'l-nabih, see Brockelmann, II 
452, S II 671 (no. 106); tr. and printed, Istanbul 
1289, as Terdjume-i Ghalatdt al-'awdmm), Abu 
'1-Su'ud and Khusrew-zade Mehmed; many such 
treatises were written in the period of the Tanzimat 
[q.v.] and after, when there was increased controversy 
over the. rules of correct usage. A number of these 
Ottoman 'well-known errors' have been accepted 
in modern Arabic usage. 

Bibliography: 'All Seydi, Defter-i ghalatdt, 
Istanbul 1324; Mustafa 'Izzet, Tashih al-ghalatdt 
wa 'l-muharrafdt fi 'l-lughdt, Istanbul 1303; C A1I 
Himmet, Fddilin ghalatdt defteri, Samsun 1338; 
Sirri, Ghalatdt. Istanbul 1301. For a discussion of 
the phonetic phenomena involved (dissimilation, 
assimilation, labialization, etc.) see J. Deny, 
Principes de grammaire turque, Paris 1955; T. 
Banguoglu, Tiirk grameri, i: sesbilgisi, Anka 



1959- 



(G. A 



PAY) 



GH ALCA. an imprecise designation of those 
mountain peoples of the Pamirs who speak Iranian 
lamguages. The term has been used in English 
scholarly literature for the Iranian Pamir languages. 
In New Persian the word means 'peasant' or 
'ruffian', while in TadjikI it means 'squat, stupid'. In 
old Yaghnabi ghaUa meant 'slave'. The origin of the 
word is uncertain, for one might compare Sogdian y8 
'to steal', (Pashtoy^ 'thief') or Sogdian yr 'mountain', 
hence 'mountaineer'. Usually the term Ghalda has 
been used in modern literature to cover the speakers 
of the following languages and dialects (from north 
to south): WandjI, Yazgulami, Orosorl, Bartangi, 
Sarikoli, Rosani, Shughni, Wakhl, Ishkashmi, 
Mundji, Sanglefii, Yidgha. A wider use of the term 
would include such tongues as Yaghnabi in the north 
and Paraci near Kabul. 

The earliest attested use of the word by an 
European is found in the travel account of Benedict 
de Goes circa 1603 (Lentz 12). The term Ghalca was 
brought into prominence by Shaw, who early 
investigated some of the languages. 

Little is known of the history of the Pamir region. 
Although much of the area paid tribute to Muslim 
rulers in Balkh in the first three centuries A. H., it is 
probable that the majority of the population of 
Islam remained non-Muslim until the Isma'UI 
missionary activity of the 5th/nth century. The 
most famous missionary in neighbouring Badkhshan 
was the author NSsir-i Khusraw. Various forms of 
the Shl c a creed remained among the populace down 
to the present. Today the area is divided between 
Afghanistan, the USSR and China. 

Bibliography: W. Lentz, Pamir-Dialekte, 
Gottingen 1933, 9-15; R. Shaw, On the Ghalchah 
Languages, in J A SB, 1876-7; W. Geiger, Die 
Pamir-Dialekte, in Gr. I Ph., i 8 , 288; A. M. 
Mandelstam, Materials k istoriko-geograficeskomu 
obzoru Pamira, Trudl Akad. Nauk Tadjikskoy 
SSR, 53, Stalinabad 1957. (R. N. Frye) 

GJjALIB [see wahhabiyya]. 
GHALIB b. 'ABD al-RAHMAN, al-SiklabI, 
freedman (mawld) of c Abd al-Rahman III, in whose 
time and those of his son al-Hakam and grandson 



998 



GHALIB b. c ABD al-RAHMAN — GHALIB b. SA'SA'A 



Hisham he was one of the great generals. He led 
expeditions against the Christians of the Peninsula 
and also against the Idrisids and Fatimids in Morocco 
and Ifrikiya. In 335/946 he was appointed chief of 
the Upper Frontier and rebuilt Medinaceli, which 
he made the base for operations against the Christian 
positions of the middle and upper Duero valley. His 
expeditions against Castile in 342/953 were very 
successful as concerns prisoners and booty but 
achieved no territorial gains. In 344/955 his fleet 
attacked the coast of Ifrikiya in order to avenge the 
sack of Almeria by the Sicilian fleet of al-Mu c izz the 
Fatimid. This first attack failed but in the following 
year, 345/956, he returned with another squadron of 
70 ships, took and set fire to Marsa al-Kharaz (La 
Calle) and laid waste the districts of Susa and 
Tabarka. I n 357/968 he attacked Calahorra and was 
sent in 361/972 to Morocco to subdue the Idrisids. 
After a long and victorious campaign he brought 
them back in subjection to Cordova. In 364/974 he 
undertook a carefully prepared expedition against 
the Castile-Navarre-Leon coalition in which he beat 
firstly the Christian allies under the walls of Gormaz, 
then count Garcia Fernandez at Langa, south of the 
Duero, on 25 Shawwal 364/8 July 975. At this time 
he took the title of Dhu '1-Sayfayn and established 
himself at Medinaceli where he had Ibn Abi 'Amir, 
the famous Almanzor, as his intendant general. When 
Hisham succeeded to the throne Ibn Abi 'Amir 
joined with Ghalib in his campaigns as commander 
of the forces of the capital and married his daughter 
in 367/978. But discord soon broke out between 
father-in-law and son-in-law when the old general, 
devoted to the Umayyads, saw the affront suffered 
by the dynasty at the hands of the parvenu Ibn Abi 
'Amir, who restricted the activities of the young 
caliph to pious exercises. The conflict now open, Ibn 
Abi 'Amir seized Medinaceli, Ghalib's fief, at the 
head of big Berber contingents. Ghalib, to spite him, 
allied himself with his old enemies the count of 
Castile and the king of Navarre. The first encounters 
went in his favour, but Almanzor decided to wager 
all and provoked a decisive engagement on 4 Muhar- 
ram 371/10 July 981. The battle took place near the 
castle of San Vicente, probably the modern Torre 
Vicente about half way between Atienza and 
Gormaz. In spite of his 80 years Ghalib gave, as 
always, proof of his courage and boldness, but in a 
furious attack his horse stumbled and, pierced in the 
breast by his saddle-bow, he fell dead. The field was 
thus left free to the unbridled ambition of his lucky 

Bibliography: Levi-Provencal, Histoire de 
I'Espagne musulmane, ii, 64, 68, 108, 116-234; iii, 
58, 80, 122, 318, 500; on Medinaceli, Makkari, 
Analectes, i, 252-6; on Calahorra, Ibn Khaldun, 
( Ibar, iv, 145; Makkari, i, 248; on Gormaz, Codera, 
in Bol. Acad. Hist., xiv (1889); Ibn Hayyan, Muk- 
tabis, iii, 49, 233, 239, 240, 242; idem, 91, 116-8; 
on Asma 5 daughter of Ghalib, Ibn Bassam, 
Dhakhira, iv, 47; Makkari, ii, 62; Ibn 'Idhari, 
al-Baydn al-mughrib, ii, text 285, tr. 443; Ibn 
al-Khatlb, A'-mdl al-a'-lam, 71-4; Ibn Hazm, 
Nakt al- c arus, 21 (ed. Seybold, 239); Ibn 'Abd 
al-Malik al-Marrakushi, al-Dhayl wa 'l-takmila, 
Rabat MS. f. 246. (A. Huici Miranda) 

GHALIB b. SA'SA'A b. Nadjiya b. 'Ikal b. 

Muhammad b. Sufyan b. Mudjashi' b. Darim, an 

eminent Tamlml, famous for his generosity, the 

father of the poet al-Farazdak. 
The tradition that Ghalib was a contemporary of 

the Prophet (lahu idrdk) seems to be valid; the 



tradition that he visited the Prophet and asked him 
about the reward of the deeds of his father in the 
time of the Djahiliyya {Aghdni, xix, 4) seems however 
to be spurious. Ghalib belonged to the generation 
after the Prophet; his name is connected with the 
names of Talba b. Kays b. 'Asim and 'Umayr b. al- 
Sulayl al-Shaybani, tribal leaders in the time of 
Mu'awiya, in the story of the men of Kalb who tried 
to find the most generous man (Aghdni, xix, 5; in 
Ibn Abi THadld's Shark, iii, 426, ed. 1329 A.H., 
Ghalib is mentioned with Aktham b. Sayfi and 
'Utayba b. al-Harith, which is an obvious anachro- 
nism). The most generous man among the three 
sayyids was indeed Ghalib. (Ghalib was a neighbour 
of Talba in al-Sidan, in the vicinity of Kazima). He 
is said to have visited 'Ali b. Abi Talib and introduced 
to him his son al-Farazdak; 'Ali recommended him 
to teach his son the Kur'an. (According to the 
tradition of Aghdni, xix, 6 he visited him in Basra 
after the battle of the Camel. According to the story 
quoted in Baghdadi's Khizdna, i, 108, Ghalib was 
then an old man; al-Farazdak was in his early youth). 
Ghalib earned his fame by his generosity. Muh. b. 
Habib counts him in his list of the generous men of 
the Djahiliyya (al-Muhabbar, 142) ; al-Djahiz stresses 
that he was one of the generous men of the Islamic 
period, not inferior to the generous men of the 
Djahiliyya, although public opinion prefers the 
latter {al-Hayawdn, ii, 108, ed. 'Abd al-Salam 
Harun). Ghalib is said to have granted bounteous 
gifts to people, not asking them even about their 
names. The story of his contest with Suhaym b. 
Wathil al-Riyahi in slaughtering camels in the time 
of 'Uthman is quoted in many versions. Al-Farazdak 
mentions this deed of his father boastfully in his 
poems; Djarlr refers to it disdainfully; the competi- 
tion was censured in Islam as a custom of the 
Djahiliyya (Goldziher, Muh.St., i, 60). A peculiar 
story in NakdHd 417 tells how he threw to the 
populace in Mecca (anhaba) 40,000 dirhams. 

Ghalib was assaulted by Dhakwan b. 'Amr al- 
Fukaymi in consequence of a quarrel between 
Fukaymi men and a servant of Ghalib, who tried to 
prevent them from drinking water from a reservoir 
belonging to Ghalib in al-Kubaybat. Mudjashi'I 
tradition denies the Fukaymi claim that Ghalib died 
in consequence of this assault. He died in the early 
years of the reign of Mu'awiya and was buried at 
Kazima. 

Al-Farazdak mourned his father in a number of 
elegies (cf. Diwdn al-Farazdak, 163, 210, 611, 676, ed. 
al-SawI). His tomb became a refuge for the needy 
and the oppressed who asked help, which had indeed 
always been granted to them by al-Farazdak (cf. 
Diwdn al-Farazdak, 94, 191, 757, 893 and NakdHd 
380). Al-Farazdak often mentions him in his poems 
as "Dhu U-Kabr" or "Sahib al-Djadath" (Goldziher, 
Muh. St., i, 237). 

Bibliography: In addition to the sources 
quoted in the article: Baladhuri, Ansdb, Ms. 
97ia-b, 972a, 974a, 978b, 992a, 1043b; al-Marzu- 
bani, Mu'djam, 486; al-Mubairad, al-Kdmil, 129, 
280; Ibn Kutayba, K. aW-Arab (RasdHl al- 
Bulaghd?, 350; idem, SfttV, ed. de Goeje, 
index; Ibn Durayd, Ishtikdk, ed. Harun, 239-40; 
Al-Djahiz, al-Baydn, ed. al-Sandubi, ii, 187, 225, 
iii, 139. 195; Aghdni 1 , index; NakdHd, ed. Bevan, 
index; al-Djumahl, Jabakdt, ed. Shakir, 261; 
al-Kali, Amdli, ii, 120; idem, Dhayl al-Amdli, 
52, 77; Yakut s.v. Saw'ar, Mikarr; Ibn Hadjar, 
al-Isdba, s.v. Ghalib (N. 6925), Suhaym (N. 3660), 
al-Farazdak (N. 7029), Hunayda (N. 1115-women) ; 



GHALIB b. SA'SA'A — GHALIB DEDE 



999 



al-B aghdadi, Khizdna, 1,462; al-'Ayni, al-Makdsid, 
i, 11 2 [on margin of Khizdna] ; al-Farazdak, Dlwdn, 
ed. al-S3wi; Tabari, ed. Cairo 1939, iv, 179. 

(M. J. Kister) 
GHALIB dede, Mehmed Es'ad, also Shaykh 
Ghalib (1171/1757-1213/1799), Turkish poet, the last 
of the five great representatives of the dlwdn litera- 
ture (the others being Baki, Fuduli, Nef'i and 
Nedim[^.u.]).Hewasbornin Istanbul at theYenikapi 
Mewlewikhane, in 1171/1757, as is recorded in two 
famous chronograms: ether-i Hshk and d±ezbet-ulldh. 
His father Mustafa Reshid, poet and scholar, 
belonged to a Mewlewi family, and exercised a 
decisive influence on Ghalib's life and his choice of 
career. Of his mother we only know, from a chrono- 
gram by Ghalib himself, that her name was Emine 
and that she died in 1209/1794. Ghalib does not seem 
to have had a regular madrasa training, but to have 
been thoroughly educated in Islamic classics in the 
family circle and in the Mewlewi convent. After his 
father, his main teacher and guide seems to have 
been Ashdji-bashl Hiisayn Dede who became the 
Shaykh of the Ghalata convent in 1194/1790. 
Ghalib began to write poetry at a very early age and 
was able to arrange a dlwdn at the age of twenty-four, 
while at the same time serving as an official at the 
Beylikdji OdasI of the Diwan-i Humayun. At the 
suggestion of the poet Nesh'et he adopted as pen- 
name (makhlas) Es'ad, which he later changed to 
Ghalib. Ghalib became increasingly interested in the 
works of Djelal al-Din Rumi and the Mewlewis. He 
suddenly decided in 1198/1783 to join the order and 
went to Konya accompanied by his young friend Ibra- 
him Khan-zade Yunus Bey to perform the necessary 
rites in the headquarters of the order, under the 
guidance of the head of the Mewlewis, Seyyid Ebu 
Bekir Celebi. On his return he completed his cille at 
the famous Ghalata convent of the order and then 
retired to his house in Siitludje on the Golden Horn 
where he wrote a commentary to Yusuf Sinecak's 
Diezire-i Methnewi. 

His appointment by the Celebi of Konya as the 
shaykh of the Ghalata convent is a turning point in 
Ghalib's life. He soon attracted the attention of the 
Sultan Selim III, himself a poet and musician, an 
admirer of Djelal al-Din Rumi and a member of the 
Mewlewi order. The Sultan became a great personal 
friend of Ghalib and used to pay him frequent visits 
in the convent, and the poet was always welcome in 
the Imperial Palace. With the Sultan's help Ghalib 
succeeded in restoring the convent and its annexes 
completely and then in making it the most important 
literary centre of the capital; he himself moved to 
the living quarters of the convent. Princess Beyhan, 
the sister of Selim III, a cultured and intelligent 
woman, had great sympathy for the poet, which 
seems later to have developed into an attachment. 
She helped and protected him in many ways until 
his death. Ghalib reveals his great respect and 
admiration for her in many of his poems. It is not 
impossible that he was in love with her, judging from 
the many passages where feeling and affection are 
couched in expressions of reverence. 

In the circle of the Mewlewis Ghalib's best friend 
was Esrar Dede, poet and biographer, on whose 
death he wrote his famous elegy. Ghalib himself died 
in 1209/1799, at the age of forty-two. The sources are 
not in agreement as to the causes of his early death. 
It seems likely that he fell victim to tuberculosis. He 
is buried at the Ghalata convent cemetery by the 
side of Isma'il Rusukhi Dede, the famous nth/i7th 
century Mathnawi 



Ghalib owes his great fame mainly to his mathnawi 
Hiisn « c Ashk. His dlwdn, which contains the richest 
variety of forms and metrical patterns of the classical 
school and contains many poems of high standard, 
has often been qualified by most critics as second 
rate, for his brilliant and unusual mathnawi eclipsed 
for them everything else he wrote. Hiisn u '■Ashk is 
an allegorical romance of mystic love. One night 
a boy Hiisn (Beauty) and a girl 'Ashk (Love) are 
born in the Beni Mahabbat (Sons of Love) tribe. 
They are at once betrothed by the elders of the tribe. 
They go to the same school where their teacher is 
Molla-yi Djiinun (The Master of Folly). The two 
are devoted to each other. In the garden Nuzhet- 
geh-i Ma'na (The Promenade of Meaning) where they 
go, they meet an old man Sukhan (Word), the owner 
of the garden who becomes their go-between. Hayret 
(Astonishment), the local judge, tries to prevent 
their meeting. But 'Ismet (Chastity), the guardian 
of Hiisn, and Ghayret (Zeal), the nurse of 'Ashk> try 
to console and help them in their difficulties. 'Ashk 
asks for Hiisn from the tribe, but they make fun of 
her. She must first go to the Kingdom of the Kalb 
(Heart) and on the way overcome many trials. But 
'Ashk is prepared to face all things and sets out with 
Ghayret. At the first step they fall into the bottom- 
less well of a giant who wishes to fatten and eat them. 
Sukhan rescues them by a rope he lets down. Then 
freezing Winter detains them on their way and they 
fall into the power of a wizard. Again Sukhan comes 
with a horse (Ashkar) and a sword (Tigh-i ah 'Sword 
of Sighs') from Hiisn, and they set out on their 
journey reaching the Derya-yi Atesh (the Sea of 
Fire) where there are ships of wax. They have no 
choice but to fly over, which Ghayret does by 
opening his wings. 'Ashk mounts on Ashkar who 
goes without hesitation into the fire. Thus they 
reach the borders of China. The Emperor's daughter 
Hush-Riiba (Reason-captivating) assumes the shape 
of Hiisn and deceives 'Ashk, shutting her up in the 
Dhat al-Suwer (painted) fortress. Again Sukhan 
comes in the shape of a nightingale and tells 'Ashk 
that there is a treasure in the castle and it is necessary 
to burn the castle to get the treasure. So the castle 
and all its paintings are burnt. 'Ashk becomes thin 
and ill and can no longer stand even the weight of 
her clothes made of cloth of moon silk. But a more 
auspicious day dawns. Sukhan comes as a healing 
doctor and orders 'Ashk to go the castle of the Kalb 
(Heart) where Hiisn is King. 'Ashk sees that the 
castle of the Kalb (Heart) is like the fortress Dhat 
al-Suwer, but it is truly real. There she sees all her 
old teachers and nurses. Sukhan tells her that there 
are no perils or dangers, that it had been he who slew 
the monsters, and had been the nightingale and the 
doctor, and now he invites her to come to union with 
her beloved. Love is Beauty and Beauty is Love and 
no evil tongue can separate them. 

Ghalib, as the last great exponent of diwdn poetry, 
occupies a unique place in the history of Ottoman 
Turkish literature. From the late 7th/i3th until the 
nth/i7th century, Ottoman Turkish diwdn poets 
were mainly inspired by the great Persian classics 
the last of whom was Djami [q.v.]. But in the Indian 
courts of Babur's descendants there developed a new 
style of Persian poetry (sabk-i Hindi [q.v.]) in the 
ioth/i6th and nth/i7th centuries, which, abandoning 
the tradition of the great classics, made fashionable 
the exaggerated use of conceits, allegory and ornate 
expressions, and laid emphasis on symbolic and 
obscure style and unusual words with over-elaborate 
and far-fetched colour-imagery. This 'Indian School' 



GHALIB DEDE — GHALIB, MIRZA 



of poetry began to influence nth/i7th century 
Ottoman poets like Nef'I and more particularly 
Na'ili and a host of other minor writers. 

The appearance of a poet of genius like Nedlm in 
the early I2th/i8th century seemed to announce a 
radical change in the Persian-inspired tradition of 
Ottoman poetry. Nedlm, although not daring to do 
away with traditional themes, forms and cliches, 
made great efforts to "depersianize" Ottoman 
poetry, introducing many themes and motives from 
his time and surroundings and using unconventional 
and often colloquial language. Ghalib, with his 
poetical genius, unusual power of imagination and 
mastery of form, might have achieved what Nedlm 
had started: to create a thoroughly Turkish diwdn 
poetry in the classical tradition, had he chosen to 
follow his example. Instead, although he admired 
Nedlm and owes much to him in some of his poems, 
he decided to turn the clock back and picked up 
again the "Indian School" tradition where Na'ili 
had left off. But as he was a greater poet with more 
vision and imagination, and imbued with mysticism, 
he created, at the close of the classical period, his 
original blend of both sources. 

Bibliography: Esrar Dede, Tedhkire-i shu- 
c ard-yi Mewlewiyye, Istanbul University Library 
MS, T.Y. 3894, s.v.; Thakib Dede, Sefine-i 
nefise-i Mewlewiyye, Cairo 1283, s.v.; Fatin, 
Tedhkire, Istanbul 1271, s.v.; Gibb, Ottoman 
Poetry, iv, 175 ff.; M. F. Kopriilu, Eski sairlerimiz, 
Divan edebiyati antolojisi, Istanbul 1931, s.v.; 
Sadettin Nuzhet Ergun, $eyh Galip, Istanbul 1932; 
Vasfi Mahir Kocaturk, Hilsn He Ask, Istanbul 1944 
(paraphrased in modern Turkish); Ibrahim 
Kutluk, §eyh Galip ve as-Sohbet-us-Safiyye, in 
Turk Dili ve Edebiyati Dergisi, iii (1948), 21 ff.; 
Abdiilbaki Gblpinarh, §eyh Galip, Hayah, Sanati, 
$iirleri, Istanbul 1953; A. Bombaci, Storia delta 
letteratura turca, Milan 1956, 388 ff.; Sedit Yuksel, 
§eyh Galip, eserlerinin dil ve sanat degeri, Ankara 
1963 (with detailed bibliography and information 
on MSS and editions of Ghalib's works). 



(Fa, 



Rlz) 



GHALIB. Isma'Il |see isma'Il ghalib]. 

GHALIB. MIrza As ad Allah Khan, one of 
the greatest Muslim poets of the Indo-Pakistani 
subcontinent. He was born in 1797 at Agra in an 
aristocratic Muslim family; his childhood and early 
boyhood were passed at Agra where he received 
the classical Mughal education (Persian being one 
of its chief subjects). He moved to Delhi when he 
was about 15 years of age and lived in the Mughal 
capital till his death on 15 February 1869, except for 
a brief sojourn in Lucknow and Benares on his way 
to Calcutta where he remained two years (1830-32) 
in connexion with an unsuccessful attempt to have 
his pension increased. Returning to Delhi, he lived 
on pensions granted him in recognition of his talents 
first by the nawab of Oudh, then by the court of 
Delhi. Thus Ghalib lived a major part of his life near 
the degenerate Mughal court of his times and 
witnessed the hard days of the famous "Mutiny" of 
1857. Only with great difficulty and after painful 
humiliations did he succeed in freeing himself of 
suspicion of having taken part in the Mutiny and 
get his pension restored to him by the British 
Government. Apart from domestic unhappiness (he 
lost his father at the age of five years, all his seven 
sons died in infancy, etc.) Ghalib's life was rather 
quiet and colourless. Hardly any hints at the grave 
political events of his time can be found in his 
poetry. He was not even passionately concerned with 



the Muslim religion, and his broad and tolerant 
attitude in this respect is shown in a letter to Munshi 
Hargopal Tafta, to whom he writes: "I hold all 
human beings, Muslim, Hindu or Christian, dear to 
me, and regard them as my brothers"; the mystical 
imagery present in his lyrics is due rather to his 
following the traditional style than to genuine Sufi 
feeling. The real protagonist of all his poetry is his 
own mind, which creates extremely refined intel- 
lectual images; his poetry, chiefly of a very melan- 
cholic trend, is therefore extremely fragmentary, but 
those "fragments" (he himself defines his Diwdn as 
a "selection") are amongst the most perfect specimens 
of Urdu literature. 

Ghalib's more important works are: (1) His Urdu 
Diwdn first published in 1841 and then, with ad- 
ditions, four times again during his life (last edition 
in Ghalib's life in 1863 with 1795 bayts), and numerous 
times after his death (Diwdn-i Ghalib, ed. Dhakir 
Husayn, Berlin 1925 is an attractive pocket edition 
without notes; the last good edition is: Diwdn-i 
Urdu, ed. and annotated by Imtiyaz 'All c ArshI, 
'Allgarh 1958) ; (2) His Persian Kulliyydt, consisting 
of kasidas, ghazals, short mathnawls, kifas etc., 
first published in 1845 and then repeatedly, especially 
by Nawalkishore in Lucknow (1862, 1924 etc.); 
(3) Various works in Persian prose included in his 
Kulliyydt-i nathr first published together by Nawal- 
kishore in Lucknow in 1868. They are: Pandi gandj-i 
dhang (a treatise on Persian grammar and stylistics), 
Mihr-i nim-roz (first part of a Partavistdn, which 
was a history of the Mughals and the Mughal Empire, 
the second part of which never came out), and 
Dastdnbu (an account of the Indian Mutiny as seen 
by Ghalib) ; (4) Kdti'-i Burhdn, a critical work on the 
famous Persian Dictionary Burhdn-i kdti', first 
published in Lucknow in 1861-62, and then, with 
additions, in 1865-66 as Dirafsh-i Kdviydni; (5) The 
two famous collections of letters in Urdu, the c Ud-i 
Hindi first published in 1868 (162 letters) in Meerut, 
and Urdu-e Mu t alld (472 letters) published only 19 
days after his death, in March 1869 in Delhi; further 
letters, fragments in Persian and Urdu etc. were 
repeatedly published afterwards. 

Ghalib expressly stated that he entrusted his 
fame and renown not to his Urdu, but to his Persian 
works, and his letters reveal his keen interest in 
Persian grammar, lexicography and stylistics. He 
declares that at first he was fascinated by Bidil [q.v.] 
and his difficult style, but afterwards he preferred 
a sounder and simpler, more classical Persian. 
Actually the most mature part of his Persian work 
is far superior to that of many Indo-Persian writers, 
but historically speaking its value is rather reduced 
by the fact that Persian had, already in Ghalib's time, 
been superseded in the Indian administration by 
Urdu and had practically no future in India. There- 
fore a more durable trace was left by Ghalib's 
Urdu productions. In spite of the difficulty, the 
wealth of conceits and the extreme over-persiani- 
zation of its style, his small Urdu Diwdn shows what 
has been called by some of his commentators a 
"passionate intensity of thought", partly at least 
derived from his former master Bidil. In some of his 
fragments he tries even the supremely refined 
experiment of simplicity. Simplicity — in contrast to 
his rather complicated Persian prose — is the chief 
and revolutionary aspect of his Urdu letters, an 
unsurpassed model of direct, unaffected expression. 
Ghalib can therefore be considered the father of 
modern Urdu prose; for what concerns poetry, he 
is the father of only one aspect of modern Urdu 



GHALIB, MlRZA — GHANA 



poetry, the intellectual and psychological deepening 
of the old imagery; his complete aloofness from 
outward reality (no more than 15-20 lines out of the 
nearly 1800 verses of his Urdu Diwdn have Nature 
as the main theme!) rejiders him a not very suitable 
source of inspiration for modern realistic writers of 
poetry, who may rather look to Urdu poets of the 
git type (e.g., Nazir Akbarabadi). Attempts at 
translations of Ghalib into European languages are 
therefore very scanty, though some of his poems well 
deserve a modern European re-interpretation. 

Bibliography: Books and articles on Ghalib 
are numerous, especially in India and Pakistan. 
We mention only: A. H. Hali, Yddgdr-i Ghalib, 
1897; c Abd al-Rahman Bijnauri, Mahdsin-i 
kaldm-i Ghalib, Agra 1928; S. M. Ikram, Hakim-i 
farzdna, Lahore 1957; Khalifa c Abd al-Hakim, 
Afkdr-i Ghalib, Lahore 1954; a useful commen- 
tary on the Urdu Diwdn is: Agha Muhammad 
Bakir, Baydn-i Ghalib, Lahore 1946 (includes 
also opinions of earlier commentators) ; an attempt 
at a free English translation of fragments of 
Ghalib's Urdu poetry is: J. L. Kaul, Interpretations 
of Ghalib, Delhi 1957. See also A. Bausani, The 
position of Ghalib (ijg6-i86g) in the history of 
Urdu and Indo-Persian poetry, in Isl., xxxiv 
(1959), 99-127. (A. Bausani) 

SHALIB, SharIf [see hashimids and makka]. 
GHALIB PASHA [see mehmed sa'id ghalib 

GHALZAY (GhaldjT, Ghilzay), a large western 
Afghan (Pashto speaking) tribe with many subdi- 
visions, mainly located between Kandahar and 
Ghazna. 

Much has been written about the origins of the 
Ghalzay and one may assume they are a mixture, 
including Hephthalite and Turkish elements. The 
name in Pashto would mean 'the son of Ghal,' 
which in turn means 'thief. This is the popular 
explanation of the name Ghalzay. According to 
legends in the Makhzan-i Afghani, the Ghalzays are 
descended from Mato, a daughter of Bitan (or Batni) 
who was a son of Kays, the eponymous ancestor of 
all Pathans. Mato had an affair with Shah Husayn, 
a refugee prince of Ghur, and Ghalzay was born of 
this union, the progenitor of the tribe. 

It is probable that the name Ghalzay is derived 
from Khaladj, a Turkic (or Hephthalite ?) tribe, 
which lived in the Ghazna area in the 4th/ioth 
century (cf. Minorsky). The Khaldji (Khildji) dynasty 
of India was founded by leaders of this tribe, and a 
mixture of 'Turks and Afghans' is indicated by the 
Diakdn-ndma, a geographical text of the early 7th/ 
13th century. Babur campaigned against the Ghaldii 
near Ghazna, and we may assume this is the earliest 
mention of the name of the Ghalzays. The Ghalzays 
came into prominence in the nth/i7th century when 
they moved into the region of Kandahar, occupying 
territory vacated by Abdali tribesmen who had been 
moved to Harat by Shah <Abbas I. In 1707 Mir Ways, 
leader of the Ghalzays of Kandahar, revolted against 
the Persians, slew the governor and declared his 
independence. Mir Ways died in 1715 and was 
succeeded, after some conflict, by his son Mahmud. 
The latter captured Kirman in 1720 and the Safawi 
capital Isfahan in 1722. The Ghalzays ruled Persia 
under Mahmud and Ashraf until 1730. With the 
victories of Nadir Shah the power of the Ghalzays 
melted away. In place of the Ghalzays, the Abdalis or 
Durranis became the principal tribe of Afghanistan, 
led by Ahmad Shah. 

The Ghalzays aided Shah Shudja c to take Kabul 



in 1218/1803, and ties of marriage joined the 
Ghalzay chiefs to the ruling Durrani tribe. In more 
recent times a Ghalzay force was defeated at Ahmad 
Khel in 1880 by a British detachment under Stewart 
marching from Kandahar to Kabul. The Ghalzays 
revolted against the ruler of Afghanistan, c Abd 
al-Rahman in 1886, and have participated in many 
local uprisings and raids since that time. 

At present the Ghalzays are mainly found east and 
south-east of Ghazna, although groups of them are 
settled in northern Afghanistan near Maymana and 
in Badakhshan. They are divided into two main 
groups, the Turan (Tokhl and Hotaki sub-tribes) 
and the Burhan (Sulayman-khel, c Ali-khel, Tarakkl 
and Ishakzay). There may be almost two million 
Ghalzays, of whom three-quarters live in Afghanistan, 
and the rest in Pakistan. 

Bibliography: V. Minorsky, The Turkish 
Dialect of the Khalaj, in BSOS, x (1940), 417; 
0. Caroe, The Pathans, London 1958, passim; 
D. Wilber, Afghanistan, New York 1963 ; Makhzan 
trans. B. Dorn, History of the Afghans, London 
1836; Djahdn-ndma, ed. Yu. E. Borshcevskiy, 
Moscow i960, 17b; Sovremenniy Afganistan, ed. 
N. A. Dvoryankov, Moscow i960. (R. N. Frve) 
GHAMID. tribe and district in western 
Saudi Arabia. The tribe is said to descend from 
Ghamid b. c Abd Allah of al-Azd of Kahtan, who 
moved northward from the Yaman and settled in 
the area now called Bilad Ghamid in the highlands 
of southern al-Hidjaz, centred around approxi- 
mately 20 N. and 41 45' E. 

The tribe is now subdivided into a large number of 
sections, most of which are sedentary. The few 
nomadic sections, called Al Sayyah, roam along the 
northern and eastern edges of the settled district 
and own a few gardens in al- c Akik and along 
WadI Ranya. 

The district of Ghamid is relatively thickly settled, 
fertile, and prosperous. Rainfall allows dry farming, 
and fruits, wheat, barley, beans, and tobacco are 
grown. The villages consist for the most part of 
stone houses, made from locally quarried granite 
blocks. The fertility of the area, the extreme frag- 
mentation of tribal splinter groups, and the raids by 
the Bedouin, formerly always at odds with the 
farming population, led to the construction of 
innumerable defensive towers, also made of granite 
blocks, which are characteristic of the area. Many of 
these towers have been allowed to decay. 

Before the First World War Ghamid owed alle- 
giance to either the Turks or the Sharif of Mecca, and 
its administrative centre was in the village of al- 
Zafir (from Al al-Zafir section of Ghamid). Since the 
establishment of the Saudi government, the district 
of Ghamid and that of Zahran [q.v.] to the north have 
been administered as a unit. The seat of local govern- 
ment is now some 15 miles south of al-Zafir at 
Baldjurshi (or Baldjurashi), a name designating 
twenty-four small settlements scattered over a wide 
plain (altitude 1,960 meters). Four of these settle- 
ments: al- c Awadha, al-Silmiyya, al-Rukba, and al- 
Ghazi, collectively referred to as Dar al-Suk, are 
close together and form the administrative and 
marketing centre. 

Bibliography: Fu'ad Hamza, Kalb Djazirat 
al-'-Arab, Mecca 1933; <Umar Rida Kahhala, 
Mu'Ham KabdHl al- c Arab, Damascus 1949; M. F. 
von Oppenheim, Die Beduinen, ii, Leipzig 1943; 
Admiralty, A Handbook of Arabia, London 
1916-7. (F. S. Vidal) 

GHANA, a town in the Nigerian Sudan in the 



Middle Ages, now vanished, the site of which should 
apparently be identified with Kumbi Salih (15 40' N., 
8° W.), some 330 km./200 miles north of Bamako, 
95 km./6o miles west-north-west of Nara and 70 km./ 
44 miles south-south-east of Timbedra. Kumbi Salih 
belongs to the administrative district of Ai'oun el 
Atrous ('Uyun al- c atrus) (subdivision of Timbedra) 
in the Islamic republic of Mauritania. 

The term ghdna signified sovereign in the Awkar. 
By extension, it denoted the capital city of the first 
negro kingdom of Nigerian Sudan. Al-Fazari (before 
184/800) is the first to speak of "Ghana, the land of 
gold", which is mentioned also by al-Ya c kubi (256/ 
870) and, in particular, by Ibn al-Fakih al-Hamadhani 
who died probably in 290/903 and who, in his Kitdb 
al-Bulddn (BGA, vi, 87), provides some amusing 
details (ed. and trans. M. Hadj-Sadok, Algiers 1949, 
51): "from Tarkala to Ghana it is three months 
journey on foot through the desert; in the country 
of Ghana, gold grows in the sand like carrots (djazar) ; 
it is dug up at sunrise; the natives live on millet 
(dhura) and beans (lubiyd); their name for millet is 
dukhn; they clothe themselves in panther skins 
since these animals are abundant in their country". 
The first eyewitness account by a traveller is that 
of Ibn Hawkal, who in 366/977 wrote the K. al- 
Masdlik wa 'l-mamdlik in which he says "The king 
of Ghana is the richest in the land on account of the 
gold mines he governs", but gives almost no other 
information about his visit to the Sudan. 

Al-Sa'di (d. ca. 1065/1655), inthe Ta'rikh al-Suddn 
(ed.-tr. O. Houdas, Paris 1900, 2nd ed. Paris 1964) 
mentions 44 princes of white stock of unknown 
origin, 22 of whom are said to have ruled before the 
hidjra and 22 afterwards, but Delafosse thinks (Haut 
Sinigal-Niger, iii, 1912, 23) that the tradition 
mentioned 44 sovereigns, a number of whom were 
before the hidjra, and that the writer of the Ta'rikh 
translated a number by half. In fact nothing is known 
about this period, except that the Soninke, a negro 
race, co-existed with these princes of white stock; 
R. Mauny, however, disputes that there was in this 
period a race of white princes, whom al-Idrisi (549/ 
1 154) is the first writer to mention. In about 174/790, 
Kaya Maghan Cisse, the first negro tounka (king) of 
Ghana, drove back the Whites towards Tagant, 
Gorgol and Futa. This kingdom included Awkar, 
Bagana, Diaga, Kaniaga, northern Beledugu, Kaarta, 
Kuigui, Diafunu and Wagadu. Almost nothing is 
known about this kingdom until the first Berber 
attacks in the 3rd/gth century which have been 
described for us by Ibn Abi Zar c (Rawd al-kirtds) and 
Ibn Khaldun. This Berber invasion led to the king- 
dom of Awdaghost [q.v.] which became a vassal of 
Ghana. In 380/990 the town of Awdaghost was taken 
by the king of Ghana, who appointed a negro 
governor to ensure that the dues on their caravans 
were paid by his Berber vassals. For half a century 
Ghana was the most powerful kingdom of the Sudan; 
thanks to al-Bakri (460/1067-8) we have a good deal 
of information about it. The capital consisted of two 
towns, one of which was inhabited by Muslims among 
whom were several jurists and other scholars; it had 
twelve mosques to which imams, mu'adhdhins and 
readers {rdtibun) are attached; the Friday prayer is 
observed in one of them. The other, situated six 
miles away, was the royal town. Here the sovereign 
had a palace comprising a castle and a number of 
huts with round roofs, the whole being surrounded 
by a wall. Not far from the king's court stood a 
mosque for the use of Muslims visiting the Prince on 
special missions. The houses were made of stone, a 



unique feature in the Sudan, or of wood of the gum- 
tree. Nearby were extensive woods, from which the 
royal town took its name of gkdba (forest). In huts in 
this forest lived the sorcerers and priests who 
guarded the idols; it was there also that the kings' 
tombs and the prisons were located. The people were 
fetish-worshippers, as was their sovereign, though in 
fact he treated the Muslims with great respect, and 
thus chose his interpreters, his treasurer and most 
of his ministers from among them; according to al- 
Bakri, they had also special privileges of dress. Since 
Delafosse, many descriptions have been given of the 
royal audiences. They began with the beating of 
drums (daba). The king's subjects prostrated them- 
selves and threw earth over their heads, but the 
Muslims showed respect by clapping their hands. 

The commercial r61e of Ghana was very important. 
The Maghribi traders arrived from Tafilalet with 
stocks of merchandise, in particular salt bought at 
Teghaza and aromatic wood which was used to 
sweeten the water-skins and to make the water kept 
in them for a long time fit to drink. The wares 
brought from the north included copper earrings and 
rings. From the Sahara came caravans laden with 
salt. But the principal commodity was gold from the 
mines of Wangara (Upper Senegal and Faleme basin) 
which the traders fetched from Gadiaro, 18 days' 
journey from Ghana and probably near Kayes, and 
which they exchanged by silent barter. The figures 
given by al-Bakri relating to the strength of the 
Ghana army (200,000 warriors, 40,000 of them 
archers) are obviously an exaggeration. 

Awdaghost was captured by the Almoravids of 
Yahya b. c Umar (446/1054). After checking the 
revolt of the Berber Massufa, Abu Bakr b. 'Umar 
decided to put their bellicose instincts to good use 
and sent them to attack Bassi, the king of Ghana 
(1061) who was renowned for his justice and for his 
friendship towards the Muslims; he was succeeded 
the next year by his nephew Tounka Menin. After 
15 years of warfare, Abu Bakr took possession of 
Ghana (1076). The inhabitants were massacred or 
compelled to accept conversion. The death of Abu 
Bakr ibn 'Umar (480/1087) must have allowed 
Ghana to regain its independence. But the various 
provinces had broken away, with the result that in 
the 6th/i2th century the authority of the ruler of 
Ghana hardly extended beyond Bassikunu and 
Awkar. In 1203 Sumanguru Kante, the ruler of the 
Sosso, took Ghana and established in it a pagan 
garrison from which the Muslim Sorinke had to flee 
to Walata (1224), which replaced Ghana as the 
centre of trading caravans and of Muslim education, 
and to Dienn<5 (1250). In 1240 Soundjata Keita 
captured Ghana, which was entirely destroyed. 

Nevertheless, al- c Umari, writing before 75o/i 349, 
stated: "In the length and breadth of the 
lands of the lord of this kingdom (of Mali), there is 
no-one who bears the title of king save the lord of 
Ghana, who is, however, his deputy, despite his title 
of king". Incidentally, Ibn Khaldun speaks of his 
meeting in 796/1393 with Shaykh 'Uthman, mufti of 
the inhabitants of Ghana. These two passages seem to 
indicate the persistence, after the expeditions of the 
7th/i3th century, of an important community perhaps 
residing at Walata and including a king and mufti. 

It was the extraordinary renown of this negro 
kingdom that induced Dr. Nkrumah, the political 
leader of the Gold Coast, to name his country Ghana 
when it attained independence in 1957. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hawkal, trans, de Slane, 
in JA, 1842, 240; Bakri, Desc. de I'Afrique, trans. 



GHANA — GHANA 






de Slane, 381 f f . ; Tarikh el-Fettach, trad. O. 
Houdas and M. Delafosse, Paris 1913, 2 Paris 1964; 
Idrlsl, trans, de Goeje, 9; Ibn Khaldun, Berberes, 
trans, de Slane, ii, no; Yakut, iii, 370; K. al- 
Istibsdr, ed. Sa'd Zaghbul <Abd al-Hamld, 
Alexandria 1958, index (trans. Fagnan, L'Afrique 
sept, au 12' siecle, 195, 199-204); H. Barth, Reisen, 
iv, app. IX, 600 ff.; Bonnel de Mezieres, Recherches 
de V emplacement de Ghana (Fouilles a Koumbi et a 
Settah), in Acad, des insc. et belles lettres. Mlmoires 
prlsentls par divers savants, xii/i, Paris 1920; idem, 
La question de Ghana et la mission Bonnel de 
Mlzieres, in Ann. et Mlmoires du Comitl Historique 
et Scientifique de I'AOF, 1916, 40-61; M. Delafosse, 
Le Ghana et le Mali et V emplacement de leurs 
capitales, inBCHSAOF, 1924, 479-509; R. Mauny, 
ttat actuel de la question de Ghana, in BIFAN, 
1951, 463-75; idem, The question of Ghana, in 
Africa, 1954; P. Thomassey and R. Mauny, 
Campagne de fouilles a Koumbi Saleh, in BIFAN, 
1956, 436-62; J. Vidal, Le mystere de Ghana, in 
BCHSAOF, 1923, 512-24; Ch. Monteil, in Hesplris, 
xxxviii, 441 ff.; J. D. Fage, Ancient Ghana . . ., in 
Trans, of the hist. Soc. of Ghana, 1957; Yusuf 
Kamal, Monumenta cartographica Africae et 
Aegypti, Cairo 1926-38, esp. iii; D. F. McCall, 
The traditions of the founding of Sijilmasa and 
Ghana, in Trans, of the Hist. Soc. of Ghana, v/i 
(1961); J. SpencerTrimingham, A Hist, of Islam in 
West Africa, Oxford 1962. (R. Cornevin) 
GHANA. Islam first spread into the area com- 
prised in the modern Republic of Ghana, the former 
British colony of the Gold Coast, probably in the 
late 8th/i4th or early 9th/i5th century, when the 
Muslim Dyula — specialized trading groups of 
Malinke and Soninke affiliations — extended their 
activities from the metropolitan districts of Mali 
outwards to various centres of primary economic 
production far beyond the imperial frontiers. 
Attracted into the Voltaic region to the south 
mainly by its abundant resources of gold, the Dyula 
established themselves in small colonies distributed 
along the trade-paths leading from the goldfields 
northwards to the greater markets on the Niger, 
termini of the trans-Saharan caravan trails. A Dyula 
centre of early importance, from which many later 
Muslim communities in both the Ivory Coast and 
Ghana stemmed, was at Begho, on the western 
border of Ghana near the modern Nsorkor; before 
its collapse probably in the early 18th century it had 
become one of the main focuses of Muslim activity 
within the Voltaic region. Another early centre was 
that of Wa, in northern Ghana, where the present 
amir al-mu'minin, the Dyula-mansa or Shehu 
Wangara, claims to be forty-second in office. 

A second course of Muslim influence was that from 
the north-east. Muslim merchants from the Hausa 
states, active in the kola trade, may, on the evidence 
of the Kano Chronicle, have extended their activities 
into Ghana as early as the mid-9th/i5th century. 
With the expansion of the trade in the 18th century, 
Hausa immigration into Ghana was greatly stimu- 
lated, and important settlements grew up in such 
northern market centres as Salaga and Yendi. 

On the available evidence, it was not until the 
later ioth/i6th century that Islam began to spread 
beyond the confines of the Dyula and Hausa trading 
communities. At that time the Begho shayhh 
Isma c il, and his son Muhammad al-Abyad, converted 
to the faith the Malinke-Bambara ruling aristocracy 
of Gonja, then the rising power in northern Ghana. 
This was the period when, according to the Ta'rikh 



Kunta, the disciples of 'Umar al-Shaykh (d. ca. 
949/1552-3) were planting the Kadiriyya order 
throughout the Western Sudan, and it may be that 
the Begho movement is to be seen against this 
background. 

Not until a century and a half after the Gonja 
conversions does Islam appear to have made further 
significant gains in Ghana. In the early years of 
the 18th century the Dagomba ruler Muhammad 
Zanjina became a convert to Islam, as did, at much 
the same time, Atabia (d. 1154/1741-2), king of the 
sister state of Mamprusi. Thus by the early 18th 
century the three major states of northern Ghana, 
Gonja, Dagomba, and Mamprusi, each had a Muslim 
ruler. None developed, however, into an Islamic 
state on the model of the 18th century imamates of 
Futa Toro and Futa Jalon: since their political and 
socio-legal systems had become rigid in earlier times, 
they preserved, beneath an Islamic super-structure, 
an essentially pre- Islamic sub-structure. 

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Muslim 
communities established themselves further to the 
south. In Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti empire, 
Muslims served on the king's council, staffed the 
chancery, and, with the concurrence of the king who 
was apprehensive of the growth of a revolutionary 
native Ashanti merchant class, established their 
control over important sectors of the Ashanti 
economy. 

The early 19th century Muslim reform movement 
initiated by 'Uthman dan Fodio, which led to the 
establishment of the Fulani amirates of northern 
Nigeria, made some impact upon north-eastern 
Ghana Muslim communities such as that of Yendi, 
the Dagomba capital, but by its doctrinal emphasis 
upon non-cooperation with pagan rulers perhaps 
tended in general to retard the spread of Islam 
further south. In the second half of the same century 
a wave of Islamization in the north-west, affecting 
in particular sections of the Sisala, appears to have 
resulted from the djihdd of al-Hadjdj Mahmud 
Karantao of Wahabu (Republic of Volta), whose 
forces included Dagari-Dyula contingents from Wa. 
Later in the century the Wa area, and western Gonja, 
were for a brief time brought under the dominion of 
the Mandinka empire of Samori Ture, while in the 
central districts of northern Ghana the Zabarima and 
locally-recruited forces of Alfa Kazare, Babatu and 
Hamaria were creating the nucleus of a Muslim state 
in the midst of the pagan 'Grunshi'. An alliance 
between the Muslim forces of Samori, Babatu and 
Mukhtar ibn al-Hadjdj Mahmud Karantao, and even 
the non-Muslim Ashanti, directed against the 
British and French, failed to consolidate in time and 
by the beginning of the present century the strength 
of each had been broken by the colonial powers. 

Muslim immigration increased in volume through- 
out the 19th and into the 20th century, Zabarima, 
Hausa and Yoruba constituting the bulk of the 
settlers. Today no town in Ghana is without its 
Muslim section. The recent spread of Islam has been 
largely a result of this process, though in the extreme 
south Islam gained new ground among the Fante as 
a result of the proselytizing activities from c. 1885 of 
Abu Bakr, a northern malatn, and his two Fante 
disciples Benjamin Sam and Madhi Appah. 

No census of the Muslim population of Ghana has 
been made. Over the country as a whole the propor- 
tion of Muslims is unlikely to be less than 10%, and 
may be significantly higher. The largest concen- 
trations are found in the capital, Accra, which 
probably has about 75,000 Muslims (total popu- 



GHANA — GHANI b. A'SUR 



lation: 388,000), and in Kumasi with probably about 
60,000 (total population: 221,000). Estimates of the 
extent of Islamization in northern Ghana vary 
widely from 15% to 50%; much depends upon the 
view taken of the many marginally Muslim groups 

No detailed study of Muslim organization in 
Ghana has yet been made. The Kadiri and Tidjanl 
orders are both established. The history of the 
former in Ghana, as already suggested, may date 
back to c. 960/1550, though its main growth took 
place in the early 19th century, largely through 
Hausa intermediaries. The Tidjaniyya spread widely, 
often at the expense of the Kadiriyya, in the second 
half of the 19th century and is still ascendent. The 
Tidjanl wird in Ghana is probably partly of 'Umari 
origin (al-Hadjdj 'Umar of Segu, d. 1864), but has 
certainly also been received immediately from the 
Senegambia, and, through pilgrims, from Meccan 
contacts. There are no reliable estimates of the 
numerical strength of either order. In addition, since 
1921 Ahmad! missionaries have been active especially 
in Saltpond in the extreme south, in Kumasi, and in 
Wa. In 1963 they claimed a following of between 
thirty and forty thousand. In the political life of 
Ghana Muslims are represented by the Moslem 
Council, a wing of the ruling Convention Peoples 
Party. The Moslem Association, founded in 1932 as 
an eductional and cultural organization, as the 
Moslem Association Party joined the opposition to 
the C.P.P. in 1956, but was disbanded in late 1957. 

The development of Islamic learning in Ghana was 
one result of the spread of the faith. A tradition of 
local authorship was certainly well established by the 
early 18th century; it is exemplified in the extant 
Kitdb Ghundid, an important historical work of 
Gonja authorship compiled in the middle of that 
century. The tradition is still a thriving one, and is 
excellently represented in the works of al-Hadjdj 
'Umar b. Abi Bakr of Salaga and Kete Krachi (b. 
Kano, c. 1850; d. Kete Krachi, 1934), of which over 
a hundred are known. They are characterized by 
their lively treatment of topical events, — the coming 
of the Christians; the Salaga civil war; the influenza 
epidemic; the claims of a 'alse Mahdi; etc. Al-Hadjdj 
'Umar's pupils are now widely dispersed throughout 
Ghana and the surrounding territories. The Institute 
of African Studies in the University of Ghana has a 
growing collection of works in Arabic script from 
Ghana; these are mainly in the Arabic language but 
also include items in Hausa, Dagbane, Mamprule 

The ancient Western Sudanese tradition of mosque 
architecture, best known from the Niger Bend, is 
represented in about thirty surviving buildings in 
northern Ghana, of which the Friday mosques at 
Larabanga and Bole (Gonja) are particularly worthy 
of note. In general, however, the old mosques are 
rapidly being replaced by undistinguished (though 
more commodious) structures of concrete and 
corrugated iron. Much of the domestic architecture 
of north-western Ghana is also heavily Sudano- 
Islamic in style. (I. Wilks) 

GHANAM [see badw (ii,a), yuriJk, zakat]. 

GHANi, takhallus of the Persian poet Mulla 
Muhammad Tahir Asha'i of Kashmir, who flourished 
during the reign of the Mughal emperors, Shah- 
djahan and Awrangzib [qq.v.]. Nothing is known 
with certainty either about the date of his birth or 
the origins of the clan — the Asha'is — to which he 
belonged. It is, however, certain that he was the son 
of an obscure poor shdlbdf (a weaver of woollen 



shawls). A pupil of Muhsin Fani, assumed by some 
scholars to be the author of Dabistdn-i madhdhib, 
Ghani began writing poetry at the early age of 
twenty. The numerical value of his pen-name Ghani 
{i.e., 1060/1650) supplies the date. True to the literal 
meaning of his poetical name, he hated and detested 
meeting and attending on princes, potentates or men 
of power and riches. When his fame as a great poet 
reached the emperor Awrangzib, he wanted to see 
him and ordered the governor of Kashmir, Sayf 
Khan, to send Ghani to Delhi. Learning of the 
governor's intention the poet refused to comply 
with his wishes and asked Sayf Khan to inform the 
emperor that Ghani had gone mad. Finding the 
governor adamant, the poet all of a sudden tore his 
collar and rolled in the dust. Three days later he died 
(1079/1688). Gifted with an extraordinarily fertile 
imagination and a high-soaring intellect he composed 
fine poetry rich in ihdm [q.v.]. 

His diwdn, comprising ghazals, rubd'is and kasidas, 
was arranged and edited posthumously by Muham- 
mad C A1I Mahir, a Hindu convert to Islam and an 
adopted son of Mir Dja'far Mu'amma'I. It contains 
over 2,000 select verses and was printed in Lucknow 
in 1261/1845. Given to composing verses which 
admitted of more than one interpretation, Ghani has 
few rivals in this field of san'at-i ihdm-guH. Piqued 
and offended, he gave up attending on 'Inayat 
Khan, son of Zafar Khan Ahsan, the Mughal governor 
of Kashmir and a great patron of art and culture, as 
the former had once remarked that a couplet which 
could not be properly understood on the first hearing 
or reading was absurd and meaningless. Ghani lies 
buried in the Gurgan Mahalla (formerly known as 
Kutb al-DInpur), Zayna Kadal, Srinagar where his 
grave is still extant. His cottage in Radjwer Kadal, 
a quarter of the same city, is also pointed out to 
visitors although the simple brick-built structure 
does not show any signs of age. 

Bibliography: Tahir Nasrabadi, Tadhkira-i 
Nasrdbddi, Teheran 1317S., 445-6; Muhammad 
Afdal Sarkh w ush, Kalimdt al-shu'ard', Madras 
1951, 138-41; Muhammad Salih Kanboh, 'Amal-i 
Sdlih (Bibl. Ind.), Calcutta 1939, iii, 426, 428; 
Shir Khan Lodhi, Mir'dt al-khaydl, Bombay 1324/ 
1906, 141-3; Ghulam 'All Azad Bilgraml, Sarw-i 
Azdd, Agra 1913, 103-5; idem, Yad-i Baydd' 
(MS. Asafiyya), fol. 170a; Walih DaghistanI, 
Riydd al-shu'ard* (Bankipore MS.), fol. 28; Siradj 
al-Din c Ali Khan ArzG, Madima' al-Nafd'is 
(Bankipore MS.), ii, fol. 344b; Bindraban Das 
Kh w ushgu, Safina-i Kh"ushgu, ed. Shah Muham- 
mad c Ata 3 al-Rahman c Ata> Kakawi), Patna 1378/ 
1959, 38, 348; Muhammad Husayn Azad, Nigdr- 
istdn-i Fdrs, Lahore 1922, 182-4; G. M. D. Sufi, 
Kashir, Lahore 1949, ii, 462-9; Rieu, ii, 692; Ethe, 
1127; Bankipore, Cat., iii, 136-9; A. Sprenger, The 
Oudh Catalogue, 113, 151, 410; Siddik Hasan 
Khan, Sham'-i Andjuman, Bhopal 1876, s.v. 
"Ghani", (simply reproduces the notice in Sarw-i 
Azdd, without acknowledgement) ; Hadjdji Mukh- 
tar Shah Asha'i, Risdla dar Fann-i Shdlbdfi, Lahore 
1887, 1; Sir Walter Lawrence, The Valley of Kash- 
mir, London 1895, 309. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
GHANl B. A C $UR B. Sa c d b. Kays (b.) 'Aylan, 
an Arab tribe. They were, according to the 
genealogists, the brothers of Bahila [q.v.]. Their 
grazing-grounds lay between Bisha [q.v.] and the 
later himd Dariyya [q.v.]. Being small in number 
they were never prominent. In pre-Islamic times one 
of them, Riyah b. Ashall, killed towards the middle 
of the 6th century A.D. Sha's, the son of Zuhayr b. 



Diadhima, the powerful 
(Aghdni 1 , x, 9 if., 16). Riyah's daughter Khabiyya 
was married to Dja'far b. Kilab b. Rabi'a (NakdHd 
Diarir wa 'LFarazdal?, 106, 10; Mufaddaliyydt, 353, 
1 and 710, 17; Mubarrad, Kdmil, 482, 16), the 
ancestor of the leading "house" of the Banu 'Amir 
b. Sa'sa'a. Since then the GhanI were in subordinate 
alliance with them, though not considered their 
equals (Nafrd'id, 533, 17; cf. also Mufaddaliyydt, 
no. 105, 19). The GhanI fought about 580 A.D. on 
the side of the Banu c Amir b. Sa'sa'a at Shi'b 
Djabala (Aghdni 1 , x, 37, 20; Nakd'id, 659, 18). Men 
of the GhanI took part in the fight on the Day of 
al-Rakam {Mufaddaliyydt, 31, 18) towards the end 
of the 6th century and on other occasions (NakdHd, 
227, 1; 1060, 12; 1061, 9; 1063, 6). Some time 
afterwards they suffered heavily on the Day of 
Muhadjdjar, when Zayd al-Khavl al-Tal (d. 10/632) 
fell upon the Banu Kilab and Banu Ka'b; but they 
soon took revenge on him (Aghdni 1 , xvi, 52 and vii, 
147; Tufayl b. <Awf, nos. I and III). 

It seems that the GhanI were indifferent towards 
the rising power of Muhammad; there was, to be 
sure, amongst his earlier companions Abu Marthad 
al-GhanawI, but he was a confederate (halif) of 
Hamza b. c Abd al-Muttalib (Ibn Hisham, 322, 3 etc.). 
After the battle of Hunayn (8/630) the GhanI accepted 
islam without resistance, nor did they take part in 
the revolt (rtdda) after Muhammad's death (11/632). 
During the conquests many of them went to Syria. 
In the wars that ensued after the battle of Mardj 
Rahit (64/684) between the Kays and the Yemenis 
and iater the Taghlib, the GhanI with the Banu 
'Amir, Bahila and Sulaym fought against the 
Taghlib (Ibn al-Athlr, iv, 256, 259 ff.). 

The best known poet among the GhanI is Tufayl 
b. c Awf, nicknamed Tufayl al-Khayl for his skill in 
describing horses (the GhanI were renowned horse- 
breeders, see Tufayl no. I, 22). Then there is one 
Ka'b b. Sa'd al-Ghanawi of the early Islamic period, 
whose BdHyya is considered to be one of the finest 
elegies {Kali, Amdli 1 , ii, 150 ff., etc.). The otherwise 
unknown Abu Khalid al-Ghanawi (Fihrist, 105, 10) 
wrote a Kitdb Akhbdr Ghani wa-ansdbihim which is 
lost. 

Bibliography : in the article. Consult also the 
indexes to HamdanI and Yakut. For their reli- 
gious customs in the djdhiliyya see Ibn al-Kalbl, 
Asndm, 27, 12; 42, 4 and c Amir b. al-Tufayl, no. 8. 
For Tufayl al-Ghanawi see F. Krenkow's in- 
troduction to his edition The poems of Tufail ibn 
"■Awf etc., GMS, xxv. (J. W. FOck) 

QHANlMA, or ghunm: booty. The term maghnam 
denotes either the mass of the booty or that part of 
it which goes to the central government (al-Baladhurl, 
145, it). In Bedouin tribal society, where the basic 
problem is the provision of the bare necessities of 
life, plunder has always been a salient feature. 
Notwithstanding the risk of initiating blood-feuds, 
the Arabs were proud to have the reputation of being 
indomitable raiders, even, when hard-pressed, upon 
related tribes (cf. al-Kutaml, ed. Barth, 58 ff.). Far 
from being considered criminal the ghazws [q.v.~\ were 
regarded as normal practice, and no doubt served to 
suppress other criminal activities, appealing as they 
did to collective responsibility and small-scale 
co-operation. Customary rules for the sharing of 
moveable booty existed in pre-Islamic times. The 
leader was entitled to one fourth or one fifth in 
addition to the safi, or items that especially attracted 
him. Furthermore he had the right to dispose of, 
firstly the nashita, or casual plunder obtained while 



journeying to meet the enemy — no doubt because 
such plunder was taken in less dangerous circum- 
stances and was therefore handed over to the one 
who controlled the whole group — , and secondly the 
fudul, or surplus items, the strict division of which 
would be wasteful, such as a horse or a camel 
{LA, s.v. nashita; Ifamdsa (Abu Tammam), 458). 
It is known that the deputy (ridf) of the king of al- 
Hlra obtained one fourth of the booty (Mafdtih, ed. 
v. Vloten, 128), probably not because he and the 
king together claimed half of it, but rather in his 
capacity as a leader in warfare. It would thus seem 
that the ghanima was not regarded as the concern 
of the State. 

Under Islam it was difficult to maintain the 
simple Bedouin method of division, for the amount 
of the booty was vast and complicated strategic 
is preceded its acquisition. Moreover there 
the need for an enhanced State authority and 
responsibility for upholding the existing ad- 
economic regime. All this opened 
the door to foreign influence. 

While the neglect of any rules for the division of 
immovables or landed property did not trouble the 
Bedouins, who dealt with them under the heading 
of communal reserves, himd, it would have posed a 
serious problem for the urban societies of the Arabian 
peninsula. But apart from this the Prophet's devia- 
tions from ancient custom as to the division of 
moveables were, in principle, few and insignificant. 
Nevertheless he was forced on several occasions as 
a matter of policy to make considerable adaptations, 
lest, in view of the vital interest taken in this 
question by his followers, discontent should become 

Most later theorists regard it as a settled rule that 
the spoils (salab), comprising the clothes, weapons 
and occasionally the mount of an adversary killed 
in battle, are the property of the victor and are not 
to be included in the rest of the booty. But after 
Badr the Prophet, according to one tradition, 
hesitated to comply with this custom in one case 
(al-Baydawi, Tafsir, on VIII, 1). 

Certain scholars hold that the anfdl, or bonus 
shares given to those warriors who have distinguished 
themselves, should be provided for out of the 
leader's portion of the khums (see fay'); but Sura 
VIII, 1, seems best interpreted as deciding a major 
problem, and the fact that the Prophet was free to 
dispose of his personal share of four per cent of the 
booty {khums al-khums) as he wished could scarcely 
have given rise to discontent. There is some authority 
for the view that najal should be promised before 
the battle as a fixed share of the expected booty 
(Ikhtildf, 118 ff.), but this view was not generally 
regarded as valid. Criticism was especially severe 
after Hunayn, when the political insight of the 
Prophet led him to reconcile former opponents with 
Islam (ta'alluf al-kulub '■ala 'l-isldm) by bestowing 
upon them large shares of the booty to the detriment 
of his old supporters (cf. Sura IX, 60). There is 
hardly any reason for posterity to attempt to 
exculpate the Prophet for this manoeuvre on the 
ground that the booty in fact went to persons who 
had already embraced Islam. Since the obvious 
political aim of Muhammad was to secure a stable 
centre among the wavering Bedouin tribes it was 
essential for him to establish his position in Mecca. 
The ridda after Muhammad's death demonstrated, 
in its extreme form, a situation which he had 
successfully kept in check during his lifetime — rival 
prophetic movements in certain tribes which detested 



GHANlMA — GHANlMAT 



a centralized government and aversion to the poor- 
tax. Subsequent opponents of the Umayyads, using 
in their invectives against the dynasty the term 
al-mu'allajatu kulubuhum (al-Dinawari, 175, 1), 
failed to appreciate that the Prophet had won over 
the ablest politicians of the day, who were destined 
to provide an effective government at a time of 
crisis. Once triumphant, however, Islam could afford 
to abandon this line of approach and was not loth 
to do so. But, of course, even in later Islam the way 
to political influence was occasionally paved by 
economic means, although other names were used. 
When al-Mawardi (239) calls transferred property 
(amwdl mankula, cf. Mafdtifi, 64, 11) by the term 
ghanaHm ma'lufa, it shows that he was not unaware 
of the fact that such property was taken from 
the shares of the militia [see further ta'lif ai.- 

KULUB]. 

A highly interesting example of the vast amount 
of booty and the unpreparedness of the government 
for sweeping successes in the field appears in the 
tradition of Djarir and his tribe Badjila. After the 
latter's exploits in 'Irak the laxity of the rules for 
division left them in possession of some of the 
richest areas known at that time. According to one 
tradition they had previously been promised a third 
of the booty as najal over and above the khums 
(al-Baladhuri, 253). The most widespread tradition, 
however, maintains that they formed one fourth of 
the conquering force, and that they got one fourth 
of the Sawad, the conquered territory. In fact the 
tradition seems to concern the leader's customary 
one fourth. One cannot doubt that there is a basis 
of historical fact to these traditions; nor can other 
traditions be doubted that relate how 'Umar I 
realized, on second thoughts, how dangerous this 
precedent would be. Having appealed to their 
honour they were faced with the alternative of 
accepting his proposals or acknowledging that their 
share of the booty was a payment of the category 
of ta'alluj (al-Baladhuri, 268). Perhaps there were 
more powerful arguments in reserve, but at any rate 
such a blot on his honour could not be borne lightly 
by any good Muslim. 

The traditions are undoubtedly right in main- 
taining that it was 'Umar I who first settled fixed 
annual pensions or incomes on the most influential 
and deserving of the inner circle of conquerors and 
on the Prophet's widows. The transfer of the militia 
to a diwdn of fixed stipends also took place under 
his leadership, a process which undoubtedly con- 
tinued to develop under 'Uthman. A Muslim could 
choose the state of hidjra, or military service, and so 
become entitled under the law governing the ddr 
al-hidjra to jay'' contributions (Abu Yusuf, 85; al- 
Dinawarl, 131, 141; al-Baladhuri, 275). 

In the systematized rules enunciated by the 
jurists for the division of the booty it is possible to 
trace the growth of Islam from its small beginnings 
and the development of skirmishes into large scale 
operations. The booty was divided on the basis of 
military potential. As with regular pay a distinction 
was drawn between foot soldiers and mounted 
troopers. The precedent may have been set by the 
Prophet but the aim behind it was well suited to the 
armament of the times. Every man was given one 
share, but the mounted soldier got one or two extra 
shares for his mount. Some jurists would go even 
further and give to the horseman one share for each 
of his mounts. This no doubt marks the trend of 
development. An illustration is provided by a case 
in the 4th/ioth century of an increase in pay in the 



ratio 10 : 1 (al-SulI, Akhbdr al-Rddi wa 'l-Muttaki, 
ed. J. Heyworth Dunne, 1935, 226). 

Where large armies were engaged it was naturally 
not only upon those in the front ranks or those who 
actually came to grips with the enemy that victory 
depended. Tradition in fact represents 'Umar I as 
faced with the situation of the appearance of certain 
troops after the battle had been won (al-Baladhuri, 
256). He is said to have decided that they were 
entitled to booty if they had arrived before the dead 
had been buried. Some jurists claim that even if the 
army is returning to the ddr al-isldm and is then met 
by other troops or auxiliaries, these latter can claim 
part of the booty. Furthermore the next of kin of 
fallen soldiers may inherit their shares. On the other 
hand, since only free Muslims are entitled to booty, 
bondmen, women and dhimmis who may in some way 
have contributed to victory may take only a bonus 
share, radkh, to be given at the discretion of the 
Imam. Such shares may even be given to those who 
are temporarily absent. It is not clear whether this 
also applies to those who are represented by a 
hired substitute (badil). Such shares are usually 
small, and ought not in any case to exceed the 
normal share of one person. 

As regards ransom money there was a precedent 
from Badr, where the captor received it for his own 
captive. With Kur'anic support this was later 
regularly added to the booty to be distributed by 
the Imam. In general the majority of jurists empha- 
size the free discretion of the latter, and in so doing 
undoubtedly reflect what was growing practice. Here 
also precedents from the Prophet might be adduced. 
Irregular warfare is curbed and the necessary con- 
dition that the troops have been officially dispatched 
is underlined. Of course such rules could never be 
invariably applied in practice, since situations 
varied and hired troops occasionally got out of 
control. Plundering and rioting soldiery mark the 
decline of the 'Abbasid power, although this naturally 
falls outside normal conditions. See also baranta, 

GHAZW, YAGHMA. 

Bibliography: s.v. fay 1 . In addition, Das 
Konstantinopler Fragment des Kitdb Ihtildj al- 
Fuqaha' des ... a(-Tabari, ed. J. Schacht, 1933, 
20 ff., 68-196; Yahya ibn Adam, ed. Juynboll, 
1896, 3-51 passim; A. J. Wensinck, Handbook, 
references s.v. booty; F. F. Schmidt, Die occupatio 
im islamischen Recht, in 1st., i, 303-5; W. Mont- 
gomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina, 1956, 
255 ff-, 348 ff.; Salih Ahmad al- c Ali, al-Tanzimdt 
al-idftimdHyya wa'l-iktisddiyya ji'l-Basra, Baghdad 
1953, 125 ff., and references above. 

(F. L0KKEGAARD) 

GHANlMAT, Muhammad Akram, Indian poet 
who wrote in Persian, a descendant of a family of 
muftis who originated from the village of Kandjah 
five miles from Gudjrat (Pandjab). Nothing is 
known about his life and it is not proved that he 
was governor of Lahore from 1106 to 1108/1695-7, as 
is asserted by Ethe (Gr.Ir.Ph., ii, 251). He was in the 
service of Mukarram Khan at Gudjrat and we do 
not even know the exact date of his death, which 
occurred, it is said, at the end of the 9th century A.H. 
(about 1690). He is best known for a mathnawi, 
highly esteemed in India, entitled Neyrang-i c Ishk, 
which tells of the love of the young prince 'Aziz (who 
seems to have been the son of his patron) for a gipsy 
dancer named Shahid; Ethe gives the date 1096/1685 
for the composition of this poem. He left also a small 
collection of ghazals which have recently been 
published (Lahore, 1337). 



GHANlMAT — GHANIYA 



ahli, I 
o- 2 ; [ 



luhammad Afdal Sarkhush, Kalimdt al-sht 
Madras 1951, 140-1 (Lahore ed. 1942, 82); Muham- 
mad Kudrat Allah Gupamawi Kudrat, Nat&Hdi 
al-afkdr, Madras 1259, 317-9 and recent Bombay 
edition; Sayyid Muhammad Siddik Khan, ShamH 
andjuman, Delhi 1293, 356-7; Muhammad Zafar 
Khan, Mathnawl-yi Neyrang-i Hshb, in HUM, iv/2 
(Karachi August 1956), 22-9; Neyrang-i Hshlf, 
several Lucknow editions between 1885 and 1925. 

(S. Naficy) 
GHANIYA, Banu, family of Sanhadja Berbers 
who, in the Almohad epoch (6th/i2th century), 
attempted to restore the Almoravids in North Africa. 
The feminine name Ghaniya which designates 
them is that of an Almoravid princess who was given 
in marriage by the Almoravid sultan Yusuf b. 
Tashfln to c Ali b. Yusuf, head of the family. He had 
two sons by her, Yahya and Muhammad. Yahya 
fought victoriously against Alfonso the Battler, 
king of Aragon (528/1133), and was governor of 
Murcia and Valencia. Thirteen years he successfully 
defended Cordova against Alfonso, but following 
fresh attacks by the Christian king was forced to 

Meanwhile, the Almohads had just landed in 
Spain (541/1146). Yahya b. Ghaniya was one of the 
last defenders of the peninsular part of the Almoravid 
domains. He died at Granada in 543/1148. 

Muhammad, Yahya's brother, had been nominated 
governor of the Balearic islands by C A1I b. Yusuf in 
520/1126. At the time of the Almoravid collapse 
many members of the fallen clan came to join him 
there. The governor was declared an independent 
sovereign and this was the beginning of a new 
dynasty. Following a palace revolution authority 
passed to Ishak b. Muhammad (560/1156). Under 
his rule the small Almoravid kingdom enriched itself 
by piracy at the expense of the Christians; the 
islands were peopled by refugees and prisoners. 
Ishak himself died in 579/1183 during a piratical 
expedition. The eldest of his many children, Muham- 
mad, succeeded him, but he was compelled to submit 
to the threats of the Almohad Abu Ya'kub, who 
forced him to recognize his sovereignty. Majorca 
was given a representative of Almohad authority. 
The Majorcans, having revolted, gave the power to 
'All, Muhammad's brother. 'All, pressed by the 
Almoravid refugees who surrounded him, decided 
to carry on the battle against the Almohads in 
Barbary. Thirty-two ships disembarked the Majorcan 
troops near Bougie. This town had once been the 
capital of the Sanhadja Banu Hammad, but had 
become the capital of an outlying province dependent 
on MarrSkush. It cannot easily have tolerated this 
loss of status and no doubt sheltered partisans of 
the overseas Sanhadja, so it was easily taken while 
the Almohad garrison was absent and the inhabitants 
were at the mosque (6 Sha'ban 580/12 November 
1184). 

c Ali Ibn Ghaniya, having conquered the Almohad 
troops who returned towards Bougie, gained the 
support of numerous nomad Arabs of the Hilall tribes 
of Riyah, Athbadj, and Djudham. Leaving the 
government of Bougie to his brother Yahya, he 
marched westwards, seized Algiers, Muzaya, and 
Miliana, then, returning eastwards and recruiting 
numerous allies on the way, occupied Kal'at Bani 
Hammad and laid siege to Constantine. However, 
the Almohad caliph Ya'kub al-Mansur, informed of 
the Almoravid success, had sent an army which 



retook the lost cities and expelled Yahya b. Ghaniya 
from Bougie. C AH was forced to raise the blockade of 
Constantine. Fleeing to the desert, he passed to the 
south of the Aures and reached the Djarid (S. 
Tunisia), which became his base of operations from 
then on. 

Helped by Arabs of the region, he took Tozeur and 
Gafsa. Setting himself up as sovereign, he paid 
homage to the £ Abbasid caliph, who promised him 
his support. From Gaisa he went to Tripoli, where he 
met the Armenian Karakush, the freedman of a 
nephew of the Ayyubid Saladin, who ruled the 
country with a troop of Turkomans (Ghuzz). An 
understanding between the two chiefs was effected. 
The Almoravid troops, reinforced by Ghuzz con- 
tingents who had been joined by Arabs from the 
Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym, entered the country, 
leaving a trail of ruin in Ifrlkiya. The taking of Mah- 
diyya and Tunis were the aims of the expedition. Not 
having been able to seize them, and learning of the 
arrival of the caliph al-Mansur with an Almohad 
army, 'All Ibn Ghaniya retired to the Djarid. Six 
thousand Almohad horsemen followed him there, 
and he inflicted a bloody defeat on them on the 
plain of al-'Umra (583/1187). Al-Mansur then went 
at the head of his troops and gained a victory at al- 
Hamma near Gabes, and reoccupied Tozeur and 
Gafsa, whose ramparts were razed. 'All Ibn Ghaniya 
and Karakush fled to the desert. Scarcely had al- 
Mansur retaken the road to the Maghrib than the 
two allies reformed, rallied their followers, and began 
their campaign afresh. In the midst of all this C AH 
Ibn Ghaniya died (584/1188). Power passed to his 
brother Yahya, who for nearly fifty years was to 
deal the heaviest blows against the Almohad might. 

His action began with two fruitless attempts 
against Constantine. He retired to the desert, the 
traditional refuge of the vanquished, and rejoined 
Karakush there. Not that his relations with the 
Armenian condottiere were unclouded. They had 
broken off their alliance many times. The dubious 
attitude of Karakush with respect to the Almohads 
and his severity towards the Arabs caused opposition, 
and conflict broke out in 591/1195. Yaljya Ibn 
Ghaniya, helped by the Sulaym Arabs, seized Tripoli 
and Gabes and then proceeded north, where he took 
Mahdiyya from Ibn c Abd al-Karim al-Ragragl, a 
curious character who had declared himself its 
independent sovereign. Two years' campaigning 
had made him master of Beja, Biskra, T6bessa, 
Kairouan, and B6ne; then, on 7 Rabi c II 600/14 
December 1203, the Almohad governor of Tunis, 
the Sid Abu Zayd, surrendered to him. Learning that 
the Kharidiis of Djabal Nafusa were profiting by his 
absence to stage an uprising, he mounted a rapid 
expedition against them, defeated them, and 
extorted a crushing indemnity from them. Yahya Ibn 
Ghaniya, master of eastern Barbary, was then at 
the height of his power. He was at Tunis when he 
learnt that the Almohad caliph al-Nasir was on the 
way to attack him. He did not wait for him but 
withdrew towards the Djarid. He was overtaken 
on the Tadjura plain, where he suffered a heavy 
defeat. Al-Nasir re-took possession of Mahdiyya and 
Tunis, where he appointed Abu Muhammad ibn Abi 
Hafs governor, with orders to continue the recon- 
quest of the country. Knowing the danger which 
hung over him in Ifrlkiya, the Almoravid chief 
transferred his efforts to the central Maghrib. With 
his Arab allies he wished to halt al-Nasir on his 
return but was overwhelmingly defeated on the 
Chelif plain. Passing along the edge of the desert 



GHANIYA — GHAR: 



he rallied fresh nomad allies, met Abu Muhammad i 
Abl Hafs on the river Shabru near Tebessa, and 
suffered a fresh defeat. He returned westwards ; 
far as Tafilalt and took Sidjilmasa, which he gav 
up to pillage. Loaded with booty, he encountered 
the Almohad governor of Tlemcen and beat hir 
and passed through Tiaret, which he devastated 
along with many small towns of the central Maghrib 
of which Ibn Khaldun, in the 8th/i4th century, was 
to say "there no more will you find a lighted hearth, 
nor hear any more the crowing of the cock". On his 
return from this campaign of destruction a meeting 
with Abu Muhammad proved disastrous for him; a 
second battle fought in the Djabal Nafusa was still 
more catastrophic (606/1209). 

Thus decisively driven out of Ifrikiya, Yahya Ibn 
Ghaniya sought refuge in Waddan in the south of 
Tripolitania. Karakush the Armenian was installed 
there but capitulated, unable to resist his old rival. 
Yahya had him executed and took his place. 

Abu Muhammad ibn Hafs had been replaced in the 
governorship by the Mu'minid prince Abu 'l-'Ala 11 , 
who resumed the struggle against the Almoravid. 
The latter, taking the field again, took possession of 
Biskra; he even conceived a bold plan of marching 
anew on Tunis. At Madjdul, not far from Tunis, a 
bloody battle decimated the Almoravid force and 
put Yahya to flight (620/1223). 

Having lost all hope of action in Ifrikiya the 
indefatigable rebel, having got himself new allie 
the south, again took the road to the central Maghrib 
and once more sowed ruin there. He went or 
Bougie, laid siege to Dellys, Mitldja, and Algiers, 
and stirred up a revolt at Tlemcen which c: 
almost to the point of recognizing Almoravid 
sovereignty. He fled before an army from Tunis 
which was marching on his heels and took refuge 
at Sidjilmasa (624/1226). The eleven years of life 
left to him saw a hopeless prolongation of his 
activity. He gave up hope of returning to a too 
defended Ifrikiya but he pursued to the end of his 
career the harrying and pillaging along the border 
of the central Maghrib and perished on the banks of 
the Chelif, not far from Miliana, in 633/1237. He 
left three daughters whom he entrusted to 
generosity of the Hafsid Abu Zakariyya 3 who was 
governor of Tunis. They were treated considerately 
and housed in a palace called Kasr al-Banat (Palace 
of the Daughters) which a Tunis boulevard (Bab 
Banat) still commemorates. 

As a conclusion to this account of a turbulent 
enterprise which lasted more than 50 years si 
observations may be made to fix its place in history 
and underline its importance. 

The attempt to restore the Almoravids failed 
completely and could scarcely have succeeded. But 
although apparently a mere episode in the past of 
Barbary it was one of the gravest crises which befell 
the country and its consequences were long-lasting. 
Four may be indicated. 

1. By stirring up the nomad Arabs and feeding 
their passion for loot, the exploits of the Banu 
Ghaniya appears as a prolongation of the inva 
begun by the Banu Hilal and continued by the 
Banu Sulaym. It was an aggravation — after some 
130 years — of the catastrophe from which east 
Barbary was never fully to recover. 

2. The Banu Ghaniya extended the Arab scou 
to the central Maghrib. In this region, which 1 
remained relatively flourishing, urban centres 
disappeared which we can hardly locate on the maps. 
Only Tlemcen, which resisted, profited by the sur- 



rounding devastation and began to assume its role 
as capital of a kingdom. 

3. If the Almoravid enterprise ended in failure at 
least it hastened the downfall of the Almohad state. 
Engaged elsewhere in resisting the Christian recon- 
quest, torn between Spain and eastern Barbary, the 
empire of <Abd al-Mu'min's successors could not 
fend off the double danger and began to decine. 

4. More evident than the rise of Tlemcen in 
central Barbary is that of Tunis in Ifrikiya, where a 
strong rule was established which delivered the 
province from the danger of the Almoravids. The 
handing over of the government by the Almohads 
to the Hafsids, who soon assumed autonomy, seems 
to be one of the only happy consequences of the 
epic of the Banu Ghaniya. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khaldun-de Slane, ii; Ibn 

al-Athir, trad. Fagnan; Ibn Abi Dinar, al-Mu'nis 

ft akhbar Ifrikiya wa-Tunis*, Tunis 1350/1931 ; 

tr. Pelissier and Remusat (Hisloire de I'Afrique), 

Paris 1845; Tidjanl, Rihla, partial tr. Rousseau, 

J A, series IV, xx (1852), series V, i (1853); Kitdb 

al-Istibsdr, ed. von Kremer, Vienna 1852; ed. Sa c d 

Zaghlul c Abd al-Hamid, Alexandria 1958; tr. 

Fagnan, Recueil de la Societi Archiologique de 

Constantine, xxx (1899-1900); GhubrinI, 'Unwdn 

al-dirdya, ed. Ben Cheneb, Algiers 1910; A. Bel, 

Les Benou Ghdnya (Publications de I'Ecole des 

Lettres d' Alger, XXVII), Paris 1903; G. Marcais, 

Les Arabes en Berbirie du XV au XIV siccle, 

Constantine- Paris 1913; R. Brunschvig, La 

Berbirie orientate sous les Ifafsides, 2 vols., Paris 

1940-7. (G. Marcais) 

£HARB, part of the Moroccan coast situated 

approximately between the WadI Lukkus, the WadI 

Subu and the mountains which border the coastal 

plain to the east. This territory has never been 

precisely defined, but its limits have varied according 

to the tribes which occupied it and were or were 

not considered as tribes of the Gharb. It is an 

alluvial plain, humid and marshy, along the coast 

and bordered to the east by rolling hills. 

The Gharb, thus roughly defined, was at first 
inhabited by Berbers and probably formed part of 
the territory of the Barghawata [q.v.]. These were 
exterminated by the Almoravids and the Almohads, 
leaving an uninhabited area so that the Almohad 
Ya'kub al-Mansur could establish there at the end 
of the 6th/i2th century levies of the Hilal Arabs 
which he intended to use in his battles against the 
Christians of Spain. The Marlnid rulers Abu Yusuf 
and Abu Thabit similarly used the Ma'kil Arabs in 
the 7th and 8th/i3th and 14th centuries. Hence the 
population of the Gharb is almost entirely of Arab 
origin (Banu Malik, Sufyan, Khlut and Tllk) and, 
until the 19th century, the tribes inhabiting this 
territory were fighting tribes and nomadic rather 
than settled, pastoral rather than agricultural, which 
have been of some importance, particularly during 
the period of Sa'did anarchy (first half of the 17th 
century). 

With the French colonization, heavy in this 
region, the Gharb became a prosperous agricultural 
district, where the growing of rice particularly has 
flourished. 

With the possible exception of al-Kasr al-Kabir 
and the large market of Sflk al-Arba c , no thriving 
urban centre has so far flourished in this area. 

Bibliography : Leo Africanus, Description de 
I'Afrique, tr. Epaulard, i, 250 ff. (in his time, the 
usual place-name was Azghar and not Gharb) : 
L. Massignon, Le Maroc dans les premieres annies 



GHARB — al-GHARBIYYA 



du XVI' stick, 237; E. Michaux-BeUaire, Le 
Gharb, in Arch. Mar., xx (1913); Mission Scientifi- 
que du Maroc, Rabat et sa region, iv, Le Gharb (les 
Djebala), Paris 1918; M. Nahon, Notes d'un colon 
du Gharb, Casablanca 1925; J- Berque) Sur un 
coin de terre marocaine. Seigneurs terriens et paysans, 
in Ann. d'Hist. ic. et soc., no. 45 (i937), 227-35; a 
geographical thesis on the Gharb by J. Le Coz 
will be published shortly. (R. le Tourneau) 
fiHARB al-ANDALUS, Algarve, the West of 
Andalusia. This name, now that of the southernmost 
province of Portugal, was applied by the Muslim 
historians and geographers to the territory lying to 
the south-east of Lisbon, reaching as far as both 
banks of the Guadiana estuary. Musa b. Nusayr [q.v.~\ 
took Merida in 94/713 and his son c Abd al-'AzIzmade 
himself master of Niebla, Beja, and Ocsonoba, but the 
Gharb soon began to show itself a focus of rebellion 
with the revolt of the Berbers, who were beaten in 
the Merida region by the governor Tha'laba in 124/ 
742. The Syrian djund of Hims settled in Niebla and 
a part of that of Egypt in Beja and Ocs6noba. Niebla 
was the scene of a revolt of Yemenites against <Abd 
al- Rahman I, whose son Sulayman also revolted 
against his nephew al-Hakam I. In 213/828, Merida 
was the centre of a prolonged Berber rebellion under 
Muhammad b. al-Diabbar. Hemmed in by the 
forces of c Abd al-Rahman II, he withdrew to a 
fortified position on Monte-Sacro, not far from the 
present-day town of Faro in the Ocs6noba district, 
but soon emigrated to Galicia, where he was killed by 
Alfonso II in 225/840. During the reign of the amir 
Muhammad I one c Abd al-Rahman b. Marwan b. 
Yunus, known as Ibn al-Djilliki (son of the Galician) 
as being a member of a muwallad family originally 
from the north of Portugal but long settled in 
Merida, proclaimed himself champion of indepen- 
dence in the west of Andalusia and in alliance with 
Alfonso III kept up a struggle in Badajoz, Espar- 
raguera (between the Guadiana and Almaden), and 
Antaniya (Idanha a Velha, about 140 km. from 
Merida and 30 km. north-west of Castelo-Branco). 
His dynasty, the B. Marwan, survived till 318/930, 
in which year 'Abd al-Rahman III recovered Badajoz. 
Soon afterwards he also recovered the little princi- 
palities of their vassals in Beja, Santa Maria del 
Algarve, and Silves. On the fall of the caliphate of 
Cordova, during the first period of 'party kings', 
the petty kingdom of the B. Muzayyin was formed 
at Silves and lasted from 420/1028 to 445/1053. In 
433/1041 Muhammad b. Sa'id b. Harun made him- 
self independent at Santa Maria del Algarve but 
had to submit to al-Mu c tadid the emir of Seville. 
At Huelva and Saltes there reigned c Abd al-'Aziz 
al-Bakri, the father of the famous geographer Abfi 
c Ubayd al-Bakri, from 403/1012 to 443/1051 when 
he surrendered to al-Mu c tadid. Niebla suffered the 
same fate. Tadj al-Dawla came to power there in 
414/1023 and was recognized by Huelva and 
Gibrale6n. On his death in 433/1041 he was succeeded 
by his brother Muhammad al-Yahsubl, who retired 
to Cordova in 443/1051 leaving the power to his 
nephew Nasir al-Dawla who handed it over to al- 
Mu'tanud and took refuge in Cordova in 450/1058. 
When the Almoravid power declined a party kingdom 
re-formed in Algarve under Ibn KasI at Mertola, 
who was acknowledged by Sidray b. Wazir at 
Evora and Beja, Muhammad al-Mundhir at Silves, 
and Yusuf al-Bitrudji at Niebla. However, finding 
himself soon betrayed and attacked, he summoned 
the Almohads, and c Abd al-Mu J min, after taking 
Marrakush, sent an army to the Peninsula under the 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



command of Barraz al-Massufi who subdued all the 
petty kings of Algarve. They gave in easily but 
equally easily rose again when they saw the speed 
and scope of Ibn Hud al-Massi's rebellion and his 
initial victory. Yusuf al-Bitrudji ejected the African 
garrison from Niebla as did Ibn KasI at Silves and 
Muhammad b. al-Hadjdjam at Badajoz. But when 
c Abd al-Mu'min was as victorious in Andalusia 
against Ibn Ghaniya and Alfonso VII as he had been 
in Morocco against the followers of al-MassI and the 
Baraghwata they asked for amdn. They were sum- 
moned to Sale and attached to the Caliph's court 
except for Ibn KasI who did not accede to the 
summons and allied himself with the king of 
Portugal. He was killed by his own followers in 
546/1151. In 560/1165 the Portuguese under Giraldo 
Sem Pavor seized Jurumefia, besieged Badajoz, and 
took Evora, Beja, and Serpa. In 564/1169 the 
Almohads took Tavira, which still preserved its 
independence under al-Wuhaybl; and though 
Sancho I of Portugal besieged and took Silves in 
585/1189 Ya'kub al-Mansur retook it in 587/1191, 
along with Alcacer do Sal. The great Almohad 
incursions into Portugal end with this campaign. 
Castile had still to endure the rout of Alarcos, be 
victorious at Las Navas de Tolosa, and put an end 
to the danger of the B. Marin at El Salado. Little by 
little the Portuguese retrieved their cities and 
fortresses, which had fallen again into Muslim hands 
from Alcacer do Sal to Silves, and met no more than 
the sporadic resistance put up by each locality as it 
found itself encircled. The lack of definite information 
makes the chronology uncertain. Herculano fixes it 
thus: 1232 Mora and Serpa taken; 1234 Aljustrel; 
1238 Mertola; 1239 Tavira and Cacella. But according 
to the Cronicas dos sete primeiros reis Mertola and 
Aljustrel were not conquered till 1243. The battle in 
the neighbourhood of Tavira took place in 1244. It 
may be deduced from the new edition of the Crdnica 
de Alfonso II that Maestro Payo Correa took Tavira, 
Silves, Estombar, and Alvor between 1243 and 1246 
and that in 1249-50 Alfonso III took Faro and in 
1250, finally, Louie and Aljazur. 

Bibliography: E. Levi-Provencal, Hist. Esp. 

Mus., i, 25, 30, 142-9, 297-9; Codera, Decadencia y 

desaparicidn de los Almoravides, 33-52; Ibn al- 

Abbar, al-Hulla al-siyara', 199, 202, 239, 242 ; Ibn 

c Abd al-Mun c im, al-Rawd al-mi'-tdr, s.vv. Beja, 

Silves, Santa Maria del Algarve, Niebla, Mertola, 

Badajoz, Saltes, Osc6noba; Ibn al-Khatlb, A'mdl 

al-aHam, 285 ff. ; A. Pietro y Vives, Los reyes de 

Taifas, 72-3; Ibn 'Idhari, Bayan, iii, 240 ff.; A. 

Huici, Historia politica del imperio almohade, i, 

145, 156, 266-71, 277, 347, 358, 478; Herculano, 

Historia de Portugal, iii, 211-2, iv, 239-87; da 

Silva Tarouca, Cronicas dos sete primeiros reis, i, 

171, 254, 262-7. (A. Huici Miranda) 

al-GHARBIYYA, a province of Lower Egypt, 

lying within the Nile Delta, now composed of nine 

districts. An administrative unit of this name has 

existed since the early Muslim period (cf. Becker 

art. egypt in E/ 1 ). In the time of Abu Salih (7th/i3th 

century) it comprised 165 villages; it was described 

by al-Kalkashandl (d. 821/1418) as fertile and 

prosperous. Cotton is now extensively grown, while 

al-Mahalla al-Kubra (until 1836 the provincial 

capital), which has an old tradition of spinning and 

weaving, is now the centre of the most modernized 

textile manufacture in Egypt. Tanta, now the capital 

of the province, has the tomb of Sayyid Ahmad al- 

Badawl [?.».], where the annual feasts attract thou- 

64 



L-GHARBIYYA — GHARDJISTAN 



sands of devotees. The population of the province i 
i960 was 1,815,000 persons. 

Bibliography: Maspero-Wiet, Matiriaux, ioi 

132, 164; Abu Salih, tr. and ed. B. T. A. Evetts 

and A. J. Butler, The churches and monasteries of 

Egypt, Oxford 1895, 17; al-Kalkashandi, 

Wiistenfeld, Die Geographic und Verwaltung ; 

Aegypten, 114; J. Lozach, Le Delta du Nil, itude 

de geographic humaine, Cairo 1935; Muhammad 

Ramzi, al-Kamus al-djughrdfi li 'l-bildd al- 

misriyya, Cairo 1958, 3-153. (R. Herzog) 

GHARDAYA (current spelling: Ghardaia), the 

chief town of the Mzab, situated 635 km. by i 

south of Algiers on the parallel 32 30'. Between 

500 and 560 metres in altitude, it is built over a 

rounded hillock on the right bank of the Wadi Mzab, 

which cuts a hundred metres into the completely 

desert-like and deeply channeled limestone plateau 

of the shebka ("net") of the Mzab. 

Ghardaia was founded in 445/1053, after al-Ateuf 
(al- c Atf, 407/1011), Bou Noura (Bii Nura), Beni 
Isguen (Isgen) and Melika, its lower neighbours, 
by the Ibadis who, little by little, abandoned Sedrata 
(south of the oasis of Ouargla), their first refuge i 
the Sahara, after the ruin of their capital, Tiaret 
(Tahart), in 296/909 by the Fatimids. It was families 
from Ghardaia who later founded Guerara (Grara) 
in 1631 and Berrian in 1679, J oo km. to the 
north-east and 50 km. to the north respectively. 
Ghardaia, like all the other towns of the Mzab, gives 
the impression that it has always lived by trading 
across the Sahara, and, above all since the ioth/i6th 
century, by its dealings with Algiers, far more than 
by an agriculture seriously limited by shortage of 

The Mzabis have remained fiercely Ibadi and 
attached to their Berber speech. Ghardaia has 
grown over the centuries owing to Ibadi immigra- 
tion. To the Awlad 'Ammi c Isa and Awlad Ba SUman, 
the groups which founded the city, have later been 
added Ibadi groups from Tafilalet, from the Wadi 
RIgh, Djerba and Djabal Nafusa. It has grown 
equally through the Mdabih, MalikI Arabs from the 
ksar of al-Maya, on the foot-hills of the Djabal 'Amur, 
and little by little, through some Beni Merziig fa- 
milies from the old ksar of the Sha'anba of Metlili; 
Mdabih and Beni Merzug are Arabic speaking and 
belong to the Malik! school. Ghardaia also shelters 
a community of Jews, of whom the earliest are sup- 
posed to have come from Djerba from the 14th cen- 
tury on, and others from Morocco, Tripolitania and 

Ghardaia surrendered to France with the rest of 
the Mzab in 1853 and was peacefully occupied in 
1882. To-day it has a population of 16,000 (1957), 
of whom about 1,000 are Arabs and about 1,500 
Jews, and there is a small number of Europeans. 
Both in its appearance and in the way it functions, 
even more than from the size of its population, 
Ghardaia is a true city and not a simple Sahara ksar. 

Originally, its shape was oval and its plan concen- 
tric and radiating. Its single mosque, focal point of 
the city, place of worship, refuge and storehouse 
in the troubled times of the past, dominates the 
whole town with its annexes (schools, takerbust for 
the ablutions of the scholars) and its great truncated 
cone of a minaret ( c assds), twenty metres high, 
which overlooks the whole surrounding country- 
side. The circular streets, with others radiating from 
them, narrow but rarely covered, and lined with 
houses side by side, are the main thoroughfares of 
the district which surrounds the mosque. To the 



south-west there is a way down to the edge of the 
town through a place where the ancient ramparts 
have been demolished to form a rectangular market 
place, 75 by 44 metres in extent, lined with porticos 
of irregular arches and shops — the souk. Eight 
streets coming from three directions of the compass, 
lead into this and here are to be found the shopkeepers 
and artisans. This is the economic centre of the town 
as well as the political and administrative one, 
where the hdHd has his office and the djamd'a meets. 
To the south-east, the little Jewish quarter leads into 
the new business district; the Mdabih live together 
to the north-west. Several vast cemeteries enclosed 
by walls cover the land immediately surrounding 
the town. 

Ghardaia is primarily a town of merchants and 
business men. Little by little, the trade across the 
Sahara has disappeared, but its population lives 
mainly on the profits of its approximately 2,000 shop- 
keepers, grocers 3nd textile merchants in the towns 
of the Tell. Ghardaia is also the principal market 
of the Mzab and a transit post for food supplies for 
the stations further south. Arabs and Jews share the 
transport business with the Ibadis. Since 1920, lorry 
traffic has little by little replaced the traditional 
caravan. Tourists visiting the Mzab usually stay in 
Ghardaia. It is also the chief town of the admini- 
strative district (cercle) of the Mzab. Some of the 
traditional artisans (the women make carpets and 
woollen textiles, the men are coppersmiths) are 
encouraged by the schools and workshops of the 
White Sisters and find some exterior outlets. Black- 
smiths, carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, work for the 
local population as do the Jewish jewellers; the 
building industry has always been active. 

Agriculture, on the contrary, shows a debit balance. 
The 60,000 palm trees and the gardens in the lower 
part of the valley, watered with difficulty by deep 
wells, which are worked by animal traction, or 
flooded by the rare spates of the Wadi Mzab, are 
used more as pleasure gardens where, for the last 
threequarters of a century, the people of Ghardaia 
have built houses of an urban type in which they 
live during the summer. The profits of trade pay for 
the upkeep of these gardens. 

In many features of its activities, in its type of 

housing, in its particular form of administration, and 

even more in its social and religious life, Ghardaia 

is inseparable from the other cities of the Mzab [j.w.]. 

Bibliography: see mzab. (J. Despois) 

GHARDJISTAN, Gharshistan, a territory in 
the mountains of Afghanistan east of Harat on the 
upper valley of the Murghab River and north of the 
upper Harl Rud. Al-Mukaddasi (309) was probably 
right in explaining the word as "mountain", hence 
"country of the mountaineers". 

Little is known of this land before the time of the 
Samanids [q.v.], but we may assume that it was ruled 
by petty Hephthalite princes. Ghardjistan was raided 
by Asad b. c Abd Allah al-Kasri, governor of Khura- 
san in 107/725-6. The local ruler Namrun ( ?) made 
peace and accepted Islam (al-Tabari, ii, 1488-9). 
The title of the ruler of Ghardjistan was shdr, derived 
from an Old Iranian word for "king" (Marquart). 
The Muslim geographers knew that shdr meant 
"king" (al-MukaddasI, 309; IJudud al-'dlam, 105), 
but Ibn Khurradadhbih (39) says that the king of 
Ghardjistan was called Baraz bandah, which is 
probably a confusion with the ruler of neighbouring 
Manshan. 

The geographers (al-MukaddasI, 50; Ibn Hawkal, 
443; Yakut, s.v. Gharshistan) speak briefly of two 



GHARDJISTAN — GHARIM 



principal towns in the country, Bashin and Shurmin, 
which cannot be located. 

Muhammad b. Karam (d. 255/869) converted many 
people in Ghardjistan to his heretical doctrines 
(al-Baghdadi, 202), and centres of this heresy 
remained in the mountains (al-MukaddasI 323). 
The rulers of Ghardjistan acknowledged the suze- 
rainty of the Samanids but Mahmud of Ghazna had 
to conquer the territory in 403/1012 after it had 
previously submitted. The Shar, Abu Nasr Muham- 
mad, a man of learning well versed in Arabic, was 
taken to Ghazna where he died in 406/1015 ( c Utbi, 
146). The kingdom of Ghardjistan was placed under 
the governor of Marw al-Rudh, but apparently local 
princes resumed control of the country for we hear 
of several Shars again in the time of the Ghurids 
(Djuzdjani, 49). The founder of the dynasty of 
Kh'arizmshahs, Nush Tegln, was a Turkish slave 
from Ghardjistan (Djuwaynl, ii, 1). 

The name of Ghardjistan appears in many annals 
of the Ghurid and Mongol periods, while the "kings" 
of Ghardjistan are mentioned as late as 715/1315 
(Ta'rikh-ndma-i Hardt, ed. M. Z. Siddiqi, 626). 
Thereafter the name does not appear in relevant 

Bibliography: Le Strange, 415; Hudud al- 

'■alam, 327; J. Marquart, ErdnSahr, 79; c Utbi, 

Ta'rikh al-Yamini, ed. A. ManinI, ii, Cairo 1386/ 

1869, 133-46; M. Nazim, Sultan Mahmud of 

Ghazna, Cambridge 1931, 60-2; Djuzdjani, Taba&dt-i 

Ndsiri, ed. Raverty, Calcutta 1864, passim; C. E. 

Bosworth, The Ghaznavids . . . , Edinburgh 1963, 

index. (R. N. Frye) 

CHARlB, literally: "strange", "uncommon", a 

technical term in philology and in the 

science of tradition. As a term in philology it 

means: "rare, unfamiliar (and consequently obscure) 

expressions" (in which sense the terms wahshi and 

hushi are also used), and frequently occurs in the 

titles of books, mostly such as deal with unfamiliar 

expressions in the Kur'an and in the Tradition (books 

carrying the titles Gharib al-Kur'-dn and Gharib al- 

Hadith seem to have existed as early as the second 

century). The term also occurs in works on literary 

theory (where it may also have the non-technical, 

laudatory sense of "uncommon", "original"). More 

or less anecdotal reports purport to show that some 

Umayyad and early c Abbasid critics rejected the 

use of unfamiliar language by certain contemporary 

poets such as Tirimmah, Kumayt, and Ibn Munadhir. 

because this unfamiliar language was not part of the 

native vocabulary of these poets, but resulted from 

an archaizing tendency. Most classical scholars of 

literary theory follow the same line with regard to 

the poet's vocabulary, allowing only expressions that 

are known in the poet's own time, and likewise 

condemn the use of the gharib in prose and oratory. 

Ibn al-Athlr, however, who deals with the subject at 

great length, holds that unfamiliar expressions may 

be used in poetry as long as they are not unpleasant 

For the technical meaning of the term gharib in 
the science of tradition see fiadIth. 

Bibliography: al-Djahiz, Baydn, Cairo 1948, 
i, 144, 378-80; Kudama b. Dja'far, Naltd al- 
Shi'r, Leiden 1956, 100-3; al-Amidi, Muwdzana, 
Istanbul 1287, 120-1, 190-1; al-Marzubanl, Mu- 
washshah, 191-2, 208-9, 295-6, 310-1, 369-70, 376; 
Abu Hilal al-'Askari, Sind'atayn, Cairo 1952, 
3, 61; Ibn Rashlk, c Umda, Cairo 1325, ii, 205-6; 
al-Khafadji, Sirr al-fasdha, Cairo 1953, 69-77; 
Ibn al-Athlr, al-Didm? al-kabir, Baghdad 1956, 



41-9; idem, Mathal, Cairo 1939, i, 155-78; J. Fuck, 
'■Arabiya, Berlin 1950 (Fr. tr., Paris 1955), index; 
von Grunebaum, Kritik und Dichtkunst, Wies- 
baden 1955, index; Amjad Trabulsi, La critique 
poetique des Arabes, Damascus 1956, 167-70. 

(S. A. BONEBAKKER) 

AL-GHARlD ('the fresh [voice]') was the nickname 
given to Abu Zayd ( ? Yazid) or Abu Marwan c Abd 
al-Malik, a renowned singer of the Umayyad 
era. He was a half-breed of a Berber slave and a 
mawld of the famous c Abal5t sisters of Mecca who 
were noted for their elegies. It was one of these — 
Thurayya, of whom c Umar b. Abi Rabl c a sang in 
praise — who placed al-Gharid under the tutelage 
of the famous singer Ibn Suraydj [q.v.], but the 
former soon outshone his teacher as an elegiast 
(nd'ih), so much so that the latter abandoned that 
career for that of an ordinary singer {mughanni), 
although as late as 105/724 he performed as an 
elegiast at the obsequies of Hababa [q.v.'] the beloved 
of Yazid II. Even as a mughanni al-Gharid challenged 
Ibn Suraydj. Having passed into the household of 
Sukayna bint al-Hasan [q.v.] greater fame was to 
come his way, and he sang at the court of al-Walid I. 
On one occasion when these two musicians appeared 
before Sukayna, both were singing to the verses of 
theMeccan poet'Abd Allah al- c Ardji [q.v.]. Sukayna 
confessed that she could not say which of these two 
musicians was the better, simply likening them to 
two exquisite necklaces, one of pearls and the other 
of rubies. When N5fi c b. 'Alkama became governor 
of Mecca he made an edict against wine and music, 
which compelled Al-Gharid to seek refuge in the 
Yaman, where he is said to have died about 98/716-17, 
although another account shows him at the court of 
Yazid II (101/720-105/724). According to the legend, 
he died at the hands of the djinns at a festive 
gathering in the bosom of his family. Like others of 
his profession — Ibrahim al-Mawsill and Ziryab — he is 
said to have been inspired by the djinns. It was the 
success of Al-Gharid in the ramal and hazadj, rhythms 
which led Ibn Suraydj to follow in that path. Perhaps 
it was the tenderness {gharid) in his voice — due to 
his training as a ndHh — that brought him fame, 
especially with the womenfolk of Mecca, and pilgrims 
to the Holy City clamoured for him. He participated 
in the concerts of Djamlla [q.v.] so elaborately 
described in the Kitdb al-Aghdni, and also excelled 
as a performer on the lute ( c «d), tambourine {duff) 
and rhythmic wand (kadib). Ishak al-Mawsill [q.v.] 
placed al-Gharid as the fourth in eminence among the 
great musicians of Islam, and even compiled a Kitdb 
Akhbdr al-Gharid, whilst Abu Ayyub al-Madlnl also 
wrote a Kitdb al-Gharid, both of which would seem 
to prove the high esteem in which this singer was held 
in the early days of Islam. 

Bibliography : Djahiz, Hayawdn, i, 302, vi, 
208; Mas'udI, Murudf, iii, 327; Aghdni', ii, 
359; Ibn c Abd Rabbihi, Al-HH al-Farid, Cairo 
1887-8, iii, 187; Fihrist, 141, 148; JA, Nov.-Dec. 
I 873,457; Kosegarten, Liber Cantilenarum, Griefs- 
wald 1840, 44; H. G. Farmer, History of Arabian 
music, London 1929, 80 (translated into Arabic by 
Husayn Nassar and c Abd al- c Aziz, Cairo 1956); 
Muhammad Kamil Hadjdjadj, al-Musika al-shar- 
kiyya, Alexandria 1924, 20; Julian Ribera, Music 
in ancient Arabia and Spain, Stanford University, 
U.S.A., 1929, 34-8, 40, 44; O. Rescher, Abriss, 
i, 231-3. (H. G. Farmer) 

GH ARIM (gharim, according to the lexicographers, 
is a synonym) : debtor or creditor. By analogy with 
other legal terms this semantic distinction was 



GHARIM — GHARNATA 



favoured by the jurists. In Islam the ghdrim was 
entitled to a share of the zakdt (Sura IX, 60) to pay 
his debt, provided he was destitute and the debt did 
not arise from any disreputable cause or, if it had 
so arisen, the debtor had duly repented. Other 
debtors had this claim although they were not 
destitute, if the debt had been incurred "for God's 
sake", i.e., for Islam or for an unselfish purpose. The 
zakdt of relatives might be employed to this end as 
an exception. This latter case reflects pre-Islamic 
standards, where it was praiseworthy for a man of 
standing to take upon himself the burden (hamdla) 
of blood money (diya) in order to prevent or stop a 
blood feud (Hatim al-Tal, ed. Schulthess, 1897, 
lii, 40 (ar.) ff.; Ijamdsa, Cairo 1335, i, 145; The 
Naka'id of Qiarir and al-Farazdak, ed. Bevan, i, 
345> 8; 382, 14; ii, 789, 17; 1046). The Prophet also 
paid diya on several occasions (al-Bukhari, 87, 22; 
93, 38). 

Bibliography: Abu Dawud, Sahih sunan, 
Cairo 1280, i, 165; al-Mawardi, Kitdb al-Ahkdm 
al-sultaniyya, ed. Enger 1853, 212; al-ShirazI, al- 
Tanbih, ed. Juynboll 1897, 62, 113, 288. 

CF. L0KKEGAARD) 

GHARNATA, Granada, the capital of the 
province and ancient kingdom of that name, does 
not come into prominence in Spanish history until 
the early 5th/nth century when a collateral branch 
of the Sanhadja Zirids (ruling in the Kal'a of the 
BanO Hammad, and later in Bougie) realized that 
its power was waning and offered its services to the 
first minister of Hisham II, c Abd al-Malik al- 
Muzaffar, son and successor of al-Mansur Ibn Abl 
'Amir. The reply was satisfactory, so they embarked 
with a considerable band of fellow-tribesmen and 
retainers, with Zawl b. Zirl at its head, soon to 
become one of the most important and turbulent 
sections of the Berber army recruited by the 
c Amirids. On the death of c Abd al-Rahman Sanchol 
they espoused the cause of the leader of the Berber 
party in Spain, Sulayman al-Musta c in, and con- 
tributed largely to his succession to the Caliphate. 
When Sulayman rewarded his chief followers by the 
grant of fiefs, to these he allotted the district of 
Elvira, i.e., the rich lands of the high valley of the 
Genii and the surrounding rocky heights, so called 
because its capital was the ancient city of Illiberis- 
Elvira; but before long it was to be supplanted by 
its neighbour Granada, a more recent foundation 
hitherto inhabited mainly by Jews. 

Historians and geographers of Muslim Spain are 
at one in stressing the beauty of Granada and the 
fertility of its plains. The admiration inspired in the 
Zirids by this fine prospect is best expressed by the 
last amir c Abd Allah, who says in his Memoirs that 
"they gazed astonished on that lovely plain, furrowed 
by streams and clothed in trees. They admired the 
mountain where the city of Granada now stands, 
entranced by its situation . . . and they were 
persuaded that if an enemy were to lay siege to it, 
he would be unable to prevent them from entering or 
leaving to provision it. So they decided to found a 
city there, and everyone, Andalusian or Berber, set 
about building a house, and soon Elvira fell in ruins". 

During the Roman period, certainly by the reign 
of Augustus, there was a township of Elvira, nestling 
on the slopes of the range of this name, in whose 
neighbourhood archaeological remains have been 
found, of Roman, Early Christian and Arab origin. 
We have no details of the Barbarian invasion of the 
5 th century, nor of the devastation caused in the 
Illiberis-Granada country when Leovigildo sub- 



sequently broke in by way of Baza with his army to 
pacify the whole of the south of the Peninsula. 
With the coming of the Muslims, Musa b. Nusayr 
left to his son c Abd al- c Aziz the task of subduing 
eastern Andalusia and Levante. On his way to 
overcome the princedom of Orihuela-Murcia, he 
occupied Malaga and Elvira-Granada. Abu '1-Khattar 
al-Husam b. al-pirar became governor in 125/743 
and allotted the district of Elvira-Granada to the 
men of the Syrian djund of Damascus, whose pro- 
Umayyad shaykhs supported the landing of c Abd 
al-Rahman I. Under the rule of amir c Abd Allah the 
kura of Elvira witnessed many a bloody struggle 
between the muwallads loyal to the central power, 
and the Arabs under Sawwar b. Hamdun. While 
besieged in the palace of the Alhambra, the latter 
made a bold sortie and put the Andalusians to flight 
in the Battle of the City (wak'-at al-madina), as it was 
to be called. The beaten troops entered the service 
of Ibn Hafsun who proceeded to Elvira to continue 
the struggle in the Genii plain, taking and losing 
Elvira by turns, until he lost it finally during the 
rule of c Abd al-Rahman III. 

There is now no disputing the once doubtful 
identification Illiberis-Granada-Elvira: the admi- 
nistrative and military territory of the kura of 
Elvira corresponded roughly during the Middle 
Ages to the present province of Granada. There was 
indeed a diocese of Illiberis before the time of the 
Muslims, where a council was held between 309 and 
312, and the first Muslim governors lived in Illiberis 
(which they Arabicized into Ilbira) until the provin- 
cial walls preferred, as they often did, to move to a 
new foundation near the ancient capital. Thus, not 
long before the Umayyad restoration, the new 
capital, Castilia or Castella, was built not far from 
Illiberis; nevertheless, the district continued to be 
called the kura of Elvira, and this name prevailed, 
displacing that of Castella, just as the name Illiberis 
was later replaced by Granada, which itself in the 
3rd/9th century was no more than a large walled 
village on the right bank of the Darro, near its con- 
rith the Genii. Few Muslims lived there; 



there 



: Christ 



i Jew 



that it was sometimes known as "Granada 
of the Jews". Opposite on a rocky escarpment 
dominating the left bank of the Darro arose an old 
citadel which got its name of "the Red" (al-llamra>) 
from its reddish colour. The Alhambra was to be the 
seat of the Nasrid kings, and famous in history. 

In the story of the ZIrid dynasty (treated at 
length in the article zIrI (ban©)) the principal 
events directly affecting the city of Granada are: 
the siege by the caliph al-Murtada, who incited and 
betrayed by the c Amirid fatds al-Mundhir and 
Khayran sought to drive out the Zirids, only to 
flee and perish in Guadix, after a shameful defeat. 
After this unexpected victory and the consolidation 
of the dynasty during the amlrates of Habus and of 
Badis, and with the effective support of the Jewish 
viziers Samuel and his son Yusuf b. Nagralla 
(Negrello), Granada was the scene of a notorious 
pogrom, whose victims included the vizier Yusuf as 
well as a large number of his co-religionists. Just 
after this the amir Badis, old and conscious of the 
threat to his rule, spent large sums on making the 
old akazaba of Granada strategically impregnable, 
judging that if the nearby states, or his enemies, 
or his own rebellious subjects should drive him to a 
last resort, he might shut himself up in it with the 
possibility of embarking at need for Ifrikiya, as his 
grandfather Zawl had done before him. Of the last 



Zirid amir, c Abd Allah, Badis's grandson, who 
began his reign when little more than a child, we 
have only to mention that after a chequered career 
of plots, risings and wars with his Muslim and 
Christian neigbours, he finally incurred the enmity 
of the Almoravids, and prepared for armed resistance 
against them by provisioning and fortifying his 
castles, and building walls adjoining the alcazaba. 
However, when Yusuf b. Tashfin appeared before 



Granada, his ii 



iwardice and the advice of his 
s mother decided him to go out to 
welcome the Almoravid amir, to open the gates of 
Granada to him, and give him all the treasures of 
his palace. 

After this, Granada was administered by Al- 
moravid governors from 483/1090 to 551/1166, 
when it passed into the hands of the Almohads. Its 
first Almoravid governor was Abu Muhammad c Abd 
al- c Aziz, himself followed by the amir Yahya b. 
Wasinu, related to Yusuf. The latter returned to the 
Peninsula for the last time in 496/1102 to safeguard 
the position of his son C A1I as heir apparent (he had 
been proclaimed the year before in Marrakush), 
proceeded via Granada, whose governor at the time 
was Abu '1-Hasan b. al-Hadjdj, and went first to 
Levante. Attacked by Alfonso VI at Medinaceli, he 
counter-attacked through Toledo and Talavera, but 
was defeated and died on the field of battle. The 
next governor was Abu '1-Hasan's brother Muham- 
mad b. al-Hadjdj; he, with the Granada forces, came 
to the help of the amir Sir, governor of Seville, whose 
territory was threatened by Alphonso VI, but at 
al-Mukati c , close to Seville, he was forced to retire 
with heavy losses. The following year (499/1105) we 
find as governor Abu Bakr b. Ibrahim al-Lamtunl 
who, on the death of Yusuf b. Tashfin (500/1106), 
attempted some opposition to the proclamation of 
C A1I b. Yusuf; the citizens of Granada, however, 
gave him no support, and he was captured and sent 
to Marrakush. C A1I, accompanied by his faithful but 
incompetent elder brother Abu '1-Tahir Tamlm, 
went straight to Andalusia to stifle this attempt at 
revolt and another which had broken out in Cordova, 
and appointed "Tamlm governor of Granada. The 
latter organized the expedition against Ucl6s, during 
which Alphonso VI's son the Infante Sancho met his 
death. However, he was dismissed in that same 
year, and after a brief period under the governor 
of Valencia, c Abd Allah b. Fatima, the governorship 
of Granada was taken over by c Ali b. Yusuf's cousin 
the amir Mazdall b. Sulankan. Though his attack at 
Guadalajara (506/1112-3) had no success, in the 
year following (507/1 113) he took Oreja, and in 
July 1 1 14 attacked the Sagra of Toledo, pillaged 
Peginas, Cabanas and Magan, and defeated the 
alcaide Rodrigo Aznarez. His success was short- 
lived, for during Shawwal 508/March 1115 this great 
ally of Yusuf b. Tashfin and his successor C A1I was 
defeated and killed. His son <Abd Allah b. Mazdall, 
who succeeded him as governor of Granada, went 
with his forces to the assistance of Abu Bakr b. 
Yahya b. Tashfin, amir of Cordova ; he was engaged 
by the Castilians around Baeza, and was defeated 
with heavy losses. In 519/1125, while Tamlm was 
once again in Granada, Alphonso I (the Battler) 
undertook his great expedition across Andalusia, 
in the course of which he twice camped before 
Granada but did not manage to lay siege to it; he 
defeated Tamlm at Aranzuel. Dismissed at last for 
his inefficiency, Tamlm was succeeded by Abu 
c Umar Inalu, grandson of Yusuf b. Tashfin and a 
former governor of Fez, who had engaged Alphonso 



during the retreat before Guadix. When Ibn Rushd 
told C A1I b. Yusuf what had been happening in 
Andalusia and advised him to complete the forti- 
fications of Marrakush, he felt bound to offer the 
same advice about Andalusia. Orders were therefore 
sent to the governors of Seville, Granada, Cordova 
and Almeria to mend and reinforce the walls and 
defences of their cities. In Granada the new governor 
Inalu made great efforts to get this done even 
though while the work was in progress the Genii rose 
and swept away his building materials around Bab 
al-Ramla and Bab Ilblra, and many lives were lost. 
C A1I dismissed Inalu on Djumada 522/May 1128 and 
ordered him to Marrakush to face serious charges 
preferred by the Mozarabs of Granada. These were 
proved at a court of inquiry, and he was imprisoned 
and sentenced to make good the wrongs he had 
committed. This unpublished episode from the 
Almoravid Bayan shows clearly that by no means 
all the Mozarabs were deported to Morocco, no more 
were they all accomplices and collaborators of 
Alphonso the Battler, for the majority of them 
suffered no punishment or reprisals, and even after 
the great damage caused by him, their rights were 
respected and justice was done to them. The new 
governor Abu Hafs 'Umar, a son of c Ali b. Yusuf, 
campaigned in Levante and seized an unnamed 
castle, only to be deposed after four months (May- 
September 1 1 28) and replaced by another of 'All's 
sons, the famous and unfortunate Tashfin, who for 
ten years struggled with vigour but without success 
against the Castilians. In 526/1132 he had to take 
on as well the governorship of Cordova, and therefore 
delegated that of Granada to Abu Muhammad al- 
Zubayr b. 'Umar, the Azuel of the Christian chroni- 
cles, whose valorous exploits came to a tragic end in 
538/1143, when he was beaten and slain by the 
heroic Toledan alcaide Mufio Alfonso. 

The last of the governors answerable to Marrakush 
was 'All b. Abl Bakr, son of C A1I b. Yusuf's sister 
Fannu; he died during the revolt of Ibn Adha who 
gave up Granada to Sayf al-Dawla (Zafadola) the 
last descendant of the Banu Hud of Saragossa, who 
had made his submission to Alphonso VII. The 
Almoravids, shut up in the old alcazaba, firmly 
resisted the assaults of Sayf al-Dawla and forced 
him to retire after killing his son c Imad al-Dawla 
during a sortie. After the Granadan populace had 
expelled C A1I b. Adha who retired to Almufiecar, 
they acknowledged the sovereignty of the Almoravids 
of the alcazaba. Commanded by Ibn Ghaniya's 
lieutenant Maymun b. Yiddar, they stood their 
ground until 551/1156, but the achievements of 
the Almohad governors of Cordova and Seville, 
added to their sense of isolation and dwindling 
numbers, moved them to write to Marrakush and 
sue for peace. Their offer to surrender the city was 
accepted, and orders went to 'Abd Allah b. Sulay- 
man, admiral of the Ceuta fleet, and to the new 
governor of the two coasts of the Straits, the. sayyid 
Abu Sa'Id 'Uthman, to set sail for Algeciras and take 
the road to Granada. Maymun b. Yiddar gave up 
the city, and he and all the Almoravids of Granada 
were removed to Marrakush, where they were 
suitably accommodated. 

The new governor of Granada made thorough 
preparations for a land attack on Almeria, in the 
hands of the Castilians, while the Ceuta fleet was 
blockading it by sea, and he succeeded in reconquer- 
ing it. Alphonso VII and his ally Ibn Mardanish 
hastened to its support, but could not hinder its 
encirclement. So they tried to surprise Granada, 



whose garrison was absent in Almeria, but the vizier 
Abu Dja c far Ahmad b. 'Atiyya and the sayyid 
Yusuf b. e Abd al-Mu'min, having expedited the 
surrender of Almeria, were able to outpace him, 
and assured the defence of Granada. Meanwhile 
Ubeda and Baeza were relieved, and Alphonso VII 
died at the foot of the Despefiaperros, in Fresneda, 
on 21 August 1157. Granada now enjoyed five 
years of peace, broken in 577/1162 by Ibn Hamushk 
who, enraged at the loss of Carmona, made an 
assaul 1 on Granada with the connivance of the Jewish 
and Mozarab population. The Almohad garrison 
entrenched itself in the old alcazaba, which Ibn 
Hamushk attacked with battering-rams from the 
Alhambra in the Sabika. He appealed for rein- 
forcements to Ibn Mardanish, who arrived with his 
soldiers and the Christian mercenaries commanded 
by Alvar Rodriguez the Bald, grandson of Alvar 
Fafiez. The governor of Granada, the sayyid Abu 
Sa c id HJthman, was absent in Marrakush, so he set 
off and crossed the Straits to bring help to the 
beleaguered city, and from Malaga he reached the 
plain of Granada, picking up reinforcements from 
Seville; but at a place called Mardj al-rukad ("sleepy 
meadow") some four miles from the city he suffered 
defeat and fled to Malaga. c Abd al-Mu 5 min, in Rabat 
at the time, sent picked forces over the Straits, 
commanded nominally by his son and heir Yusuf 
but in reality by the veteran Yusuf b. Sulayman, 
who scaled by night the rocky cliffs above the Genii, 
near to the Sabika and the Alhambra, surprised the 
enemy encampment at dawn, and achieved total 
victory. He freed the beleaguered garrison and 
received the submission of all the dwellers of the 
plain (who had already submitted to Ibn Hamushk), 
and provisioned and restored the liberated Alcazaba. 
In 563/1168, at the very moment when Granada had 
recognized Yusuf I as amir al-mu'minin, its governor 
defeated between Granada and Guadix a detachment 
of Christian mercenaries in the service of Ibn 
Mardanish which had got as far as Ronda. Returning 
from his abortive expedition against Huete (autumn 
568/1172) Yusuf I came by Granada where he left as 
governor his brother Abu Sa'id 'Uthman, who had 
been with him on this campaign. Nothing of im- 
portance occurred in Granada during the reign of 
the subsequent Almohad caliphs until al-Ma 3 mun, 
who, proclaimed in Seville, before he left for Morocco 
had to tackle Muhammad b. Yusuf b. Hud al- 
Djuclhami, the personification of general insurrection 
of the Spanish Muslims. During al-Ma'mun's absence, 
Ibn Hud quickly mastered the whole of ■ Andalusia. 
He had recognized the sovereignty of the c Abbasid 
caliph al-Mustansir, and in 630/1232 the caliph's 
ambassador was received with due solemnity when 
he came to invest Ibn Hud with the title of amir of all 
Andalusia. But Ibd Hud was assassinated in Almeria 
in 535/1237, and his enemy Ibn al-Ahmar rose in 
Arjona and took possession of Granada in 536/1238 
and founded the Nasrid dynasty. 

One of his first tasks was to make a thorough 
inspection of the Alhambra. He traced the foun- 
dations of the Alcazar, appointed the excavators, 
and before the year was out many defensive works 
had been built. He brought water from the river, 
set up an azild and dug a dike to feed it. When this 
work was just beginning he put to death in the 
Alhambra itself the tax-gatherer of Almeria, Abu 
Muhammad b. e Arus, and later other collectors of 
revenue, demanding from them the sums needed for 



allegiance to the Hafsid amir of Tunis, Abu Zakariy- 
ya 5 , from whom he received considerable sums 
intended to be used by the Spanish Muslims in the 
holy war; but Ibn al-Ahmar spent them on the 
works he had undertaken and on the extension of the 
mosques of the city, and made the kadi Muhammad 
b. c Ayy5sh swear that this money from the Tunisian 
sovereign was not intended for any definite purpose, 
but could be spent at will. For the rest of the long 
and eventful story of the Nasrid dynasty up to the 
capture of Granada by the Catholic Kings, see the 

Bibliography: E. Levi-Provencal, Hist. Esp. 
Mus., i, 342; ii, 330; R. Dozy, Hist, ties Musul- 
mans d'Espagne', iii, 70, 143; idem, Recherches', 
i, 228-31; E. Levi-Provencal, Les uMimoiresn 
de '■Abd Allah, dernier roi ziride de Grenade, 
in al-Andalus, iii, 223-344; iv, 29-145; vi, 1-62; 
L. Torres Balbas, La Alhambra antes del sigh 
XII, in al-Andalus, v, 155 ff.; Ibn c IdharI, 
ed. Levi-Provencal, iii, 113, 125, 129; c Abd al- 
Mun c im, al-Rawd al-miHar, ed. Levi-Provencal, 
29-30; Ibn al-Khatfb. A c mdl al-aHdm, 139, 260-70; 
idem, Ihdfa, Cairo edition, i, 334-7; Codera, 
Decadencia y desaparicidn de los Almordvides, 136; 
A. Huici, Las grandes batallas de la Reconquista, 
19-134; idem, Historia politica del Imperio almohade, 
i, 156, 202, 205; ii, 468; idem, ElBaydn almohade, 
in Coleccion de Crdnicas drabes de la Reconquista, ii, 
3°9> 355; iii, 103, 109-10, 125-6; idem, La salida 
de los Almordvides del desierto y el gobierno de 
Yusuf b. Tasfin, in Hespiris, 1959, 179; idem, 
'■Ali b. Yiisuf y sus empreses en el Andalus, in 
Tamuda, 1959, 17-114. (A. Huici Miranda) 

Monuments 
A. — The town 
The Roman and Visigothic town.— 
Granada originated in a small Roman town, Illiberis, 
built on the site where, in the 5th/nth century, the 
palace of the Zirids, al-Kasaba al-ftadima, arose, and 
on the hillside sloping down towards the Darro. 
Ancient tombs have been discovered on the other 
side of the river, at the foot of the Alhambra hill. 
The remains found in the ground at Granada are 
inadequate for a reconstruction of the topography 
of the town, or for assessing the value of its monu- 
ments. A Visigothic inscription preserved at Granada, 
but which may have come from somewhere else, 
mentions the founding of three churches in an 
unspecified place. Hence the history of the monu- 
ments of Granada can only be written from the 
Muslim period onwards. 

Granada in the 4th/ioth century. — Up 
till the 5th/nth century Granada was not the most 
important town in the region. The chief town in the 
district was Madina Elvira, at the foot of the ridge 
of mountains of that name, where excavations have 
unearthed remains of the period of the caliphs with 
painted or carved decorations. However, from the 
4th/ioth century onwards Granada had monuments 
of a certain importance, built according to the 
techniques current in Spain under the caliphate. 
The minaret which served as the base for the bell- 
tower of the church of San Jose is similar in its plan 
and arrangement of stretchers and bondstones to 
all the minarets of that date. As early as that period 
the town had a fortified wall, some remains of which 
are still in existence: the wall was of concrete: the 
towers and the remains of a gateway are chained 
with free-stone. Old drawings show that the facades 
of the gates of Elvira and of Hernan Roman had 



kept their 4th/ioth century work up to modern times. 
The bridge over the Genii, several times altered and 
replastered, seems to go back to this same century 
as far as its original construction is concerned. So 
Hispano-Moorish art, which had its source and 
principal home in Cordova, was flourishing already 
in 4th/ioth century Granada, which proves that the 
town had acquired importance and wealth. 

ZIrid Granada. — It was in the century of the 
Muluh al-TawdHf that Granada came into its own. 

The amirs Habus (409-29/1019-38) and Badis 
(429-65/1038-73) gave their capital a strong sur- 
rounding wall which still exists, inside the present 
town, from the gate of Elvira to the Puerta Nueva. 
It is a high concrete rampart with irregular qua- 
drilateral or semicircular towers. There are two gates 
in this part of the wall : the Puerta Monaita 
and the Puerta Nueva or Arco de los Pesos. They 
have arches made of stone or brick, surmounted by 
brick lintels and relieving arches. They are the oldest 
known examples in Spain of gateways with crooked 
entry made of vaulted halls, interrupted, at the 
Puerta Monaita, by an open bay. The gates of 
Bibarambla and of the Mauror, now vanished, 
belonged to this enclosing wall. 

This rampart was prolonged on the left bank of 
the Darro by a stone archway between two towers, 
allowing the curtain to cross the river without inter- 
rupting the route of the patrol. What remains of 
this beautiful work is commonly known as the 
Bridge of the Kadi. The wall reached right up to the 
summit of the Alhambra plateau, where it was 
supported by two small fortresses. It enclosed a 
fairly extensive suburb in the quarter of the Mauror, 
where wealthy houses were erected. What is left of 
this ZIrid enclosure remains one of the finest forti- 
fications of the Andalusian 5th/nth century. 

The palace of the Zirids occupied the upper part 
of al-Kasaba al-kadima. Nothing of it remains 
beyond a cistern with four cradle-vaulted bays, and 
several pieces of wall utilized in later buildings. 

Of the buildings of the town itself only a hammdm 
called the Baiiuelo remains. After a room for 
undressing and resting — with a basin in its centre 
and which doubtless comprised galleries on the first 
floor — come three parallel vaulted rooms: the 
tepidarium had columns along three sides; the 
jrigidarium and the caldarium were prolonged by 
little loggias reached through twin arches. The 
columns, with neither base nor astragal, are sur- 
mounted by re-used antique capitals. The walls are 
made of a very hard concrete; the arches and vaults 
of brick. The Bafiuelo with its row of three parallel 
rooms is the perfect example of a Hispano-Mcorish 
bath, which persisted in Spain during the following 
centuries and is often found in Morocco. 

Few remains of decoration have been found in 
Granada, apart from a few capitals. A curious piece 
of sculptured marble, divided into several sections 
and decorated with a Kufic inscription, preserved 
at Madrid in the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, 
seems to have been a spice tray. 

Almohads. — Under the African dynasties Granada 
apparently did not undergo great changes. It is 
possible that the fortification to the west of the 
Alhambra, now known as Torres Bermejas, goes 
back in the main to the 6th/nth century. 

Some carved woodwork and fragments of moulded 
plasterwork of the Mauror, all of which have been 
collected in the Archaeological Museum, seem to be 
of the Almoravid period. They are of excellent 



quality. This continuity of the Granada workshops 
played its part in assuring the rise of Nasrid art. 

Nasrid Granada. — With the dynasty of the 
Nasrids, the founder of which, Muhammad Ibn al- 
Ahmar, settled in Granada in 635/1238, Granada 
became, and remained till its conquest by the Catholic 
monarchs in 897/1492, the capital of the last Muslim 
state in Spain (see nasrids). 

Nasrid Granada, while maintaining profitable 
economic relations with Castile and Aragon, was 
closed to all spiritual and artistic influence from 
the Christian world. It shut itself up within its 
Muslim traditions, which it preserved, without 
renewing them, with pious faithfulness. Nasrid art 
was thus the final outcome and the supreme 
flowering of Muslim art in Spain. 

The end of the 7th/i3th century and the 8th/i4th 
century were the periods of active construction: 
architecture and decoration, within formulas now 
become classical, continued to evolve slowly. But 
in the gth/i5th century in this increasingly threatened 
kingdom, often shaken by internal strife, buildings of 
importance seem to have been very rare, while the 
decoration of monuments lost its spontaneity and 
fine quality. 

The surrounding wall. — From the moment 
that it became the capital of Muhammad ibn Ahmar, 
Granada was transformed, especially by the influx of 
refugees. The wall was extended to the north in order 
to take in the Albaycin quarter; a concrete rampart 
with oblong quadrilateral towers, a part of which 
still exists, enclosed this extension. The rest of the 
city wall was underpinned and reinforced. In 
engravings made shortly after the reconquest, the 
wall appears with albarranas towers in many places. 
But all this fine array of fortifications was demolished 
when the modern enlargement of the city took place. 

Religious buildings. — Granada has kept 
hardly any of its religious buildings. The church of 
the Salvador retains some remains of the sabn of the 
great mosque of the Albaycin, the site of which it 
occupies. From an old description we know that this 
Nasrid sanctuary was a beautiful building with nine 
naves, the arcade of which rested on eighty-six 
marble columns. A 7th/i3th century minaret serves 
as the belfry of the church of San Juan de los Reyes. 
It is a square tower, with a cradle-vaulted staircase 
rising round a square central newel. The outside walls 
are decorated with a pattern of interlaced links in 
brick. The top band of the tower's decoration is in 
the form of a frieze of star-shaped polygons. This 
minaret, which belonged to a small 7th/i3th century 
mosque, has neither the size nor the sumptuousness 
of the great Marlnid minarets of Fez which belong 
to the same architectural style: it lacks ceramic 
decoration. 

Of the madrasa which was built in 750/1349 only 
the hall of prayer remains, and now much restored. 
Some remains of the facade have been assembled 
in the Museum. Finally, outside the old city, the 
ermita of San Sebastian is a small Muslim sanctuary 
of the 9th/i5th century, probably a funerary building, 
of square form, covered by a sixteen-sided cupola 
with fine and numerous ribs. 

Secular buildings. — Nasrid Granada had 
many public baths: only one has been preserved, 
that of the Calle Real. It is of thoroughly classical 
type: its three vaulted rooms, on parallel axes, are 
preceded by a room for undressing and resting, with 
a gallery on the first floor. 

The hospital— the Maristdn — has been destroyed; 
but its plan has been preserved. Its central court 



was bordered by porches with pointed arches on 
the ground floor, and wooden lintels on the first 
floor. The rooms opened through twin bays onto 
galleries. Its facade was symmetrically disposed. 
Above the entrance archway, richly decorated, and 
above its lintel, an arcade contained the foundation 
inscription: on the first floor there were windows, 
single or geminated. 

Of the many fundufrs which Granada boasted, only 
one has been preserved : the Corral del Carb6n. The 
court, the arrangement of which is similar to that 
of the Mdristdn, is surrounded by a two-storied 
colonnade on lintels. Of purer lines and better 
proportions, it has the same plan that one finds in 
Marinid hostelries of the same period in Fez. This 
utilitarian building, the interior of which remains 
very sober, had a monumental doorway which was 
richly decorated. Its approach reveals a short 
vestibule with a horse-shoe arch, surmounted by a 
false lintel and a geminated window framed in two 
arcades. All this arrangement is decorated with 
moulded plaster. The ceiling of this type of portico 
is made of stalactites. One enters the court by a door 
with a lintel surmounted by a geminated arcade. 
The fundufss of Fez retained, up till the modern 
period, the tradition of monumental doors, decorated 
to a greater or lesser extent. 

Although the public buildings of Granada have 
nearly all disappeared, five beautiful dwelling- 
houses, more or less restored, still remain in part. 

The convent of Santa Isabel la Real retains the 
remains of the Daralhorra: a court whose shorter 
sides consist of three arches on the ground floor and 
first floor, and whose big halls have an alcove at 
each end. 

In the convent of Santa Catalina de Zafra can be 
seen the remains of a house with a court which had, 
in its original form, the same arrangement as that 
of Santa Isabel la Real, and the decoration of which 
was mainly painted. These two fairly simple houses, 
the disposition of which is often to be found in the 
Morisco houses of the 16th century, seem to date 
back to the middle of the 9th/i5th century. 

The Casa de los Girones has been much restored. 
It too had porticoes along the shorter sides of its 
court. Its beautiful staircase had groined vaulting. 
Its richly moulded plaster-work on a coloured back- 
ground dates it as late 7th/i3th century. 

Outside the city wall the Nasrid sovereigns and 
persons of high rank in the kingdom had, extra 
muros, beautiful country houses. 

At the Cuarto Real de Santo Domingo a tower 
which formed part of the city wall contains a beau- 
tiful square room, entered by a portico. The walls 
are decorated with moulded plaster and with very 
lovely faience mosaic panels, which, in the older 
parts, belong to the end of the 7th/i3th century. 

The buildings of the Alcazar Genii have been even 
more restored than those of the Cuarto Real de 
Santo Domingo. There remains a tower with a 
square room flanked by two alcoves with two 
interior basins. The moulded plaster-work belongs 
to the §th/i4th century. 

These only too rare remains show us the same 
intention, the same structure, the same decoration 
in the houses of Granada as in the palace of the 
Alhambra, and frequently of an equally good 
quality. Luxury and refinement in their dwellings 
was not the prerogative of the sovereigns. These 
private houses testify to the perfect architectural and 
decorative unity of the art of Granada. 



B. — The Alhambra 

The Alhambra before the 7th/i3th cen- 
tury. — The name of al-HamrS' appears at the end 
of the 3rd/9th century: it was applied to a small 
fortress where the Arabs who were being pursued by 
the rebel peasants took refuge during the revolts that 
took place under the Umayyad amir c Abd Allah. 
This fortress must have been built on the western- 
most point of the plateau of the Sabika. The Nasrid 
Alhambra was later to cover the whole of this 
plateau. This castle, built at the end of the 3rd/9th 
century, was doubtless abandoned during the latter 
years of the caliphate and during the first half of the 
5th/nth century. It was rebuilt and without doubt 
enlarged by the Jewish vizier Samuel Ibn Nagrello 
between 443/1052 and 447/1056. The ZIrid amir <Abd 
Allah improved it, inspired by the arrangement of 
the Christian castle of Belillos which he had just 
captured. 

This castle is mentioned several times in the 
struggle of the Spanish amirs against the Almoravids 
and the Almohads. It was of small dimensions, for 
the Christian contingents of Ibn Hamushk had to 
camp outside its walls. Some stretches of wall of very 
hard rubble and some remains of towers with corners 
chained with flat stones and bricks, in the neigh- 
bourhood of the present Alhambra wall, show that 
the fortress previous to that of the Nasrids was very 
plainly built. 

The Alhambra, seat of the Nasrid govern- 
ment. — When Muhammad Ibn al-Ahmar entered 
Granada in Ramadan 635/May 1238 he took up 
residence in the ZIrid Alcazaba, in the town itself. 
But he lost no time in ordering the construction of 
the present Alhambra, work on which began after 
a few months. The new foundation was something 
quite different in its intention and size from the 
original fortress. The Alhambra is more than a 
fortress and a palace: it is a royal city, a seat of 
government, as had been Madinat al-Zahra 3 , al- 
Madina al-Zahira and the Almohad Kasaba of 
Marrakush. 

Opposite the commercial part of the town there 
was a Ikasaba which had been enlarged for the govern- 
mental needs of the Nasrids. It contained, in addition 
to the royal palaces, the State administration : offices, 
mints, barracks for the guards, accommodation for 
the palace servants and some high dignitaries; in 
short, all the organs necessary to the administrative 
city's ordinary life: workshops, shops, a great 
mosque, baths. 

Never was the separation of town and palace more 
happily reflected in the landscape: above the Darro 
and its confluence with the Genii, the hill of the 
Sabika is the last platform of a spur that comes 
down from the Sierra Nevada. It is a narrow plateau, 
rising almost sheer above the Darro, easy to defend 
in all other respects, and separated by a ravine from 
the slopes which overlook it from the direction of 
_ " ' "enormous boat anchored 
and the plain", as L. Torres- 
Balbas has described it, has a maximum length of 
740 metres and width of 220. 

Work began with the construction of an aqueduct 
which brought in the water coming from the 
mountains: there was water flowing everywhere in 
the town and in the palaces of the Nasrids. The 
enclosure and the first palaces were probably not 
completed till the time of the second amir Muham- 
mad II (671-701/1273-1302). The Nasrids never gave 
up their residence there. 



The Alhambra is first of all a powerful fortress. 
The high rampart flanked by strong towers which 
surrounds it is not one of the least of its beauties. 
The interior of the enclosure, sloping at either end, 
was divided into three parts: to the west a compact 
block of fortifications: the Alcazaba; on the highest 
part, the main body of these palaces; on the gentle 
slopes which stretch to the east, the town itself. 

The fortress. — At the end of the hill, facing 
the Vega, the Alcazaba formed a sort of fortified 
keep, completely independent of the rest of the 
Alhambra. A large parade-ground, then occupied by 
small houses, is surrounded by a strong triangular 
wall made up of high curtains, flanked by towers, 
reinforced by three powerful vaulted bastions, and 
with an outer wall to the east. This fortress had its 
own gateway opening into the exterior. 

The wall which surrounded the whole of the 
Alhambra and which the Alcazaba completed to the 
west consisted of a single rampart made of concrete. 
This wall is exceptionally high and is strengthened 
by twenty-three high, wide towers, in the upper 
storeys of some of which there are halls or small 
houses belonging to the palaces. The whole of the 
surrounding wall was built by Muhammad I and 
Muhammad II. In the 8th/i4th century, during the 
reign of Yusuf I (733-55/i333"54), were built the 
towers of Comares, of Machuca, of the Candil, and 
the three great monumental gateways of la Justicia, 
of Siete Suelas, and of las Armas. The tower of the 
Peinador was completed under the following sultan, 
Muhammad V. So the surrounding wall acquired its 
present appearance as far back as the middle of the 
8th/i4th century. The last sultans, in the face of the 
Christian threat, contented themselves with building 
platforms for cannon at the foot of the three great 
gateways. 

Three of the Alhambra gates, those of la Justicia, 
of Siete Suelos and of los Picos, opened onto the 
exterior. Only the gate of las Armas which flanked 
the Alcazaba linked the Alhambra to the town. 

The Alhambra gates, of huge proportions, form 
deep masses of masonry enclosing vaulted passages 
with two or even three bends, often cut across by an 
open bay. They were made of concrete with facades 
and arches of brick, sometimes set off by ceramic 
decorations. Quite apart from their military value, 
they are beautiful examples of architecture. The 
gate of la Justicia, which is not flanked by towers, 
but which forms part of a raised bastion, is pierced 
by an arch with high piers and has a vigorous 
elegance all its own. The others do not differ from 
the great gates of the Almohads or Marlnids in 
Morocco, especially when they are flanked by two 

The curtains, which are very high, had a sentry- 
walk edged by a parapet crowned by merlons with 
pyramidions. The lay-out of the ramparts, closely 
following the contours of the terrain, often makes use 
of re-entrant angles. The spacing of the towers, 
which is fairly irregular, reaches and sometimes 
exceeds fifty metres. 

The high bastions of the surrounding wall are 
often big enough to contain, at the top, one of the 
halls of the palace, or a small house with a courtyard. 
The Hall of the Throne, or Hall of the Ambassadors, 
occupies the top floor of a huge square bastion. All 
these halls and dwelling-houses overlooked, through 
numerous windows, the beautiful view of the town 
and of the Vega. 

The magnificent group of fortifications built by 
the Nasrid Sultans was never attacked. The 



Christian incursions to reach Granada stopped 
before the walls of the town, which never underwent 
a formal siege, till the last campaign of the Catholic 
Monarchs, in 896-7/1491-2. The town capitulated and 
the surrender of the keep took place on 1 Rabi' I 
897/2 January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella made 
their entry into the Alhambra on 6 January. Thus 
the ramparts of the Alhambra and the palaces they 
enclosed suffered no damage during the progressive 
collapse of the kingdom and the fall of the dynasty. 

The palaces. — The palaces of the Alhambra, 
like all Hispano-Moorish palaces, are arranged in 
groups of buildings round courtyards. The main 
element is not the body of the building, but the court, 
more or less spacious, with or without porticoes 
surrounding it, onto which open the state and living 
rooms. These groups of buildings often have different 
axes: they are linked together by corridors or by 
connecting chambers. The palaces of the 7th/i3th 
century were demolished in the following century 
to make room for the present palaces. A first group 
of buildings to the west, long since ruined, and 
recently uncovered by excavations, comprised a 
square court onto which opened some small rooms 
and a small mosque. This fairly simple dwelling- 
house was followed by a huge court, the patio of 
Machuca, bordered to the north by a portico which 
gave access to a hall in the top of one of the towers 
of the enclosing wall. 

The present palaces form two groups built round 
two courts with perpendicular major axes. The first 
group, the Cuarto de Comares, preceded by a vesti- 
bule, by the Mechouar, and by a small patio, was 
built by Yusuf I (733-55/1333-54); the second, the 
Cuarto de los Leones, by Muhammad V (755"9/ 
1354-8 and 769-94/1368-92). Some older baths and 
a mosque link these two 8th/i4th century groups. 

To the south of the Cuarto de los Leones was the 
burial-ground of the dynasty, the Rawda, the plan 
of which has been rediscovered through excavations. 
The Partal, a pavilion bordering a pond, the rich 
houses which complete the towers of the Peinador de 
la Reina and of the Captive, form separate groups. 

The two big patios are surrounded by porticoes or 
buildings on all four sides. The reception halls are 
always on the ground floor: the living rooms, of 
much smaller proportions, occupied the first floor. 
Thus each of the quarters of this palace forms a 
small enclosed world round its patio. But, with happy 
inconsistency, the higher parts are pierced with bays 
and open galleries surmounted by belvederes. 

The architectural composition. — It is in 
the patio of Comares, known also as the patio of la 
Alberca or of the Myrtles, the work of Yusuf I, that 
we can grasp the methods of composition of the 
Granada architects. The centre of the court, a very 
elongated oblong, is occupied by a large pond, 
emphasized by two borders of myrtles. The buildings 
which surround this vast patio are disposed in three 
different styles. The long sides have walls pierced by 
doors on the ground floor, and by twin windows on 
the first floor. A mezzanine with single or double 
windows is inserted along the south front between 
two colonnades of slender pillars. To the north there 
is a portico of equally graceful elegance, dominated, 
above a tile roof, by the huge mass of the bastion 
that contains the Hall of the Ambassadors, the 
throne room of the Nasrid palace. This paradoxical 
composition which contrasts occupied spaces with 
empty ones, smooth walls with airy colonnades, 
which aims at picturesqueness and variety rather 
than unity, for all its apparent and intentional lack 



f balance, yet r 
skill. 



j work of the e 



Classical traditions govern the arrangement of the 
state rooms, which open onto the south of the court. 
The gallery gives access to a very long ante-room, 
the hall of la Barea. From this sumptuous ante- 
chamber one enters the Hall of the Ambassadors: 
of huge proportions and square in form, it has no 
middle support: its vast dome rests directly on its 
walls. It is lit only by nine bays, three to a side, at 
ground floor level. From these windows one can gaze 
at the Generalife and the mountain side, the town 
rising in tiers on its double hill beyond the gully of 
the Darro, the Vega edged by the distant sierras. 
The bright light in the lower part of the room shades 
off little by little on the moulded plaster-work. The 
decoration forms a faint grisaille network: the 
delicacy of this facing does not detract from the 
dimensions of the room. The architect who worked 
for YOsuf I had, to a rare extent, a taste for archi- 
tectural contrast and decorative paradoxes. 

It is round the famous Court of the Lions that are 
grouped the majority of the buildings which Sultan 
Muhammad V built in the second half of the 8th/i4th 
century. On a plan, the disposition of the four rooms 
which flank the patio, different in size and in shape, 
seems to lack severity. But seen from above, the 
masses of the roofs combine a happy equilibrium 
with a picturesque variety. The architect has volun- 
tarily deprived himself of the facile resources of 
symmetry of detail. When one goes through these 
halls, where perspectives of arches and bays have 
been skilfully contrived to form axes of light, one 
cannot help admiring the vital and yet subtle 
discipline of the architectural arrangement. In spite 
of the great variety of the decoration the rows of 
arches re-establish the unity of the composition 
through the spacing of their lacework of light and 

The Court of the Lions itself is of a very classical 
style: it is divided by two paths which intersect at 
right angles: their intersection is marked by a 
fountain whose basin rests on stone lions doubtless 
belonging originally to a 5th/nth century palace. 
Four projecting pavilions occupy the middle of the 
sides. The porticoes and pavilions are made of rich 
arcades of moulded plaster resting on high and 
slender marble columns. On the ground floor the 
portico makes use of one motif only — the ringed 
column with palm-leaf capitals : here the architecture 
seems to melt into music. However, the vigorous 
masses of the tile roofs and pavilions which dominate 
this ethereal portico save the composition from 
insipidity. The very placing of the columns shows a 
rare subtlety: sometimes isolated, sometimes paired, 
the little columns form symmetrical groupings which 
link up on successive axes and sometimes overlap. 
Thus, in the Court of the Lions, the architecture 
itself becomes a symphony of decoration, through 
the play of association and repetition of motifs. 

At the Partal there is a pool along whose edge 
runs a long pavilion with a five-arched portico 
surmounted by tile roofs. This colonnade faces the 
interior of the palace; but the great hall which 
opens onto this portico and its central pool have, 
like the Hall of the Ambassadors, windows at 
ground level which unite the whole of the landscape 
with this pleasure pavilion. The left hand side of the 
patio has a belvedere above it, also pierced by 
windows which allow one to enjoy the whole pano- 
rama of the palace, the mountain, and the town. 

Thus the arrangement and classical themes of the 



Muslim palace have been treated here with true 
originality. The Nasrid architects have not been 
seeking what is grand and massive, but have made 
use of contrast and nuance with incomparable 
virtuosity and variety. 

The interior decoration. — The Alhambra is 
famous all over the world for the beauty and 
opulence of the decorations which overspread its 
halls. Throughout the palace the tradition of 
covering everything with decoration dominates. 
Examples of walls left bare or covered by a fairly 
large and simply engraved geometrical net-work are 
rare. The decoration is distributed on three levels. 
On the floor and on the panels at the base of the 
walls are to be found ceramic facings. On the floors 
there are usually geometrical motifs with juxtaposed 
elements, sometimes star-shaped. But on the panels 
there are polygonal stars ceaselessly sending out a 
whole complex of lines, and, through a subtle inter- 
weaving, rejoining and forming themselves into 
frames. In the less important rooms the faience 
mosaics are sometimes replaced by glazed paintings, 
composed of geometrical networks in which are set 
epigraphic and floral motifs. The middle part of the 
walls is covered by moulded plasterwork. As a rule 
it is divided into panels, which, especially in the 
first half of the 8th/i4th century, are arranged with 
as much skill as variety, thanks to the subtle play 
of axes and levels. The frames, made up of inter- 
lacing bands of inscriptions of varying width and 
content, allow for both precision and nuance in the 
grouping of these panels. But in the second half of 
this century, long high friezes tend to cover, with 
their uniform distribution, a large proportion of 
these walls. 

In this moulded plasterwork one often finds 
geometrical networks which make up the general 
plan. But it is in the epigraphs and floral design that 
we seek the essentials of the decoration. Kufic script 
expresses eulogies and spreads out into complex 
arcatures, but it is the naskhi which dominates 
nearly everywhere: thanks to the balance of its 
movement it has acquired monumental dignity. 
Some of the Alhambra inscriptions are perhaps the 
finest examples of cursive epigraphy. The abundant 
floral design, usually disposed in foliated scrolls, 
unites the palm leaf, single or double, ribbed or 
smooth, to the pine cone and the palmette. Under 
Muhammad V an effort was made to renew the forms 
of the palm and the palmette. But it is not so much 
a case of innovation as of inspiration rooted in the 
past, sometimes even in the art of the Cordovan 
caliphate. But this attempt was short-lived, and 
apparently limited to the Alhambra. 

The quality of the detailed forms is still excellent 
in the work produced under Yusuf I. But at the end 
of the 8th/i4th century a certain stiffness appears 
in the moulding and even in the forms. This in- 
cipient decadence became more pronounced in the 
9th/i5th century, in the moulded plasterwork of the 
Tower of the Infantes, one of the few buildings of 
the last Nasrid rulers in the palace of this dynasty. 

This moulded plaster-work composes delicate 
symphonies in grey, each panel with a shade of its 
own, because of the distribution of light and shade. 
The movement of the lines also counts. The double 
play of light and line prevents any banality or 
monotony, and gives personality to each panel. 

Colour was often used to enhance the moulding, 
particularly in the background, but sometimes 
covered the floral or epigraphic forms themselves. 
The shades — mainly blues and reds — were usually 



fairly dark, but gold was not lacking. This poly- 
chromy, in spite of its sobriety, sometimes impaired 
the delicate play of light and shade. 

All this ornamentation, though no longer renewing 
either its methods of composition or the forms of its 
details, yet shows great artistry and real beauty. 
Its worth lies in its exquisite sense of nuance: but it 
has lost the vigour of the art of the 6th/i2th century. 

Above all, it no longer troubles to produce an 
original composition for each panel. Indefinitely 
repeated motifs — the background decoration — 
overrun the whole of the dicor. This decorative art 
of the 8th/i4th century, in its delicate classicism and 
its artistry, is already imprisoned in the past: it 
lacks the boldness of the architecture which it 
covers. The main motifs — apart from the qua- 
drangular panels — are the arched doorway, its 
palm-leaf spandrels, its bold rectangular setting, and 
its arcading, isolated or in tiers. 

The ceilings are always most luxurious. Roofs 
with an interlacing framework, or artesanados, are 
still used. They are nearly always painted. But the 
biggest and most beautiful halls are covered by 
domes with stalactites. The mukarnas are small in 
size, and some of their sides are moulded and painted. 
These small stalactites are created with great variety, 
and provide a play of line and shadow both rigorous 
and hallucinating. The cupolas of the halls of the 
Kings, of the Two Sisters, and of the Abencerrajes 
boast a richness and complexity which have never 
been surpassed. 

The human figure is found in some of the famous 
paintings which cover some of the vaults of the Hall 
of the Kings: but these have been painted by 
artists of Christian upbringing. However at the 
Partal small paintings have been found which in 
their subjects — scenes of hunting and war and 
domestic reunions — belong to the Muslim tradition. 
The costumes and arms are those of the Muslims 
of Granada. 

The Alhambra is the supreme example of monu- 
mental decoration in Muslim Spain in its final stage : 
an art which is still wonderful, but imprisoned in 
a tradition which it no longer attempts to renew, and 
already in its decline. 

The gardens. — The largest of the patios of the 
Alhambra must have been laid out as gardens. But 
the most beautiful were to be found beside the 
pleasure pavillions, such as the Partal, and above all 
in the country houses which the sovereigns and 
wealthy citizens owned in the Vega and on the lower 
slopes of the mountain. These gardens hardly ever 
include vast prospects and distant views: they are 
contained within walls, in a network of alleys 
intersecting at right angles. More often than not 
there were just four hollowed-out beds between two 
raised walks, with a basin at their intersection. 
Throughout the Alhambra beautiful gardens have 
been laid out following this tradition, bringing back 
the gardens of the 8th/i4th century, if not in their 
exact form, at least in their spirit. 

It was the Christians who supplied the abundant 
foliage which today provides so magnificent a screen 
of greenery to the Alhambra. Although there was 
running water in the town and palaces of the Nasrids, 
the walls and their towers overlooked bare slopes. 

The town. — Hardly anything remains, apart 
from the remains of two houses, of the town enclosed 
by the walls of the Alhambra, to the south and to 
the east of the palace. The great Mosque was on the 
site of the church of Santa Maria de la Alhambra. 
The madrasa, the baths, and the richest houses have 



disappeared. Excavations have revealed the foun- 
dations of houses similar to those still to be found in 
the business part of the town. To the east was the 
artisan quarter. The ordinary life of the Muslim city 
was reproduced at the foot of the palaces, which, in 
themselves, aimed rather at elegance than at majesty. 
And this moderation which is expressed by a concern 
for maintaining the human scale remains one of the 
great values and charms of the Alhambra. 

The Generalife. — On the spur which dominates 
the Alhambra the Nasrids had a series of country 
houses: only the nearest of the palaces, the Genera- 
life, remains. Its water comes from the same aqueduct 
as supplies the Alhambra. 

The gardens are much more extensive than the buil- 
dings. After two or three entrance patios one emerges 
into a long rectangular walled garden. Contrary to the 
general rule, this Patio de la Acequia is not entirely 
closed in : one of its sides is pierced by arches through 
which the landscape can be seen; a belvedere marks 
the centre of this line of arches. The main axis of 
the garden is formed by a canal with water gushing 
up along its sides, flanked by two long flower-beds. 
At both ends of the gardens there are pavilions, the 
one to the north having three floors. The most 
sumptuous of the halls, which overlooks both the 
garden and the vast landscape of Granada, is on the 
top storey. The halls are richly decorated. The whole 
of this pleasure pavilion, built for height, dates from 
the beginning of the 8th/i4th century. The style of 
its plaster mouldings is excellent. 

A slightly higher garden stretched out to the east : 
but it has been greatly altered. Nevertheless, the 
lay-out of its walks may date back to the Muslim 
era. With its constantly renewed trees and flowers 
and the flowing and bubbling of its water, the 
Generalife evokes, even better than the Alhambra, 
the private life of the Nasrid princes. And the 
architects of Granada have never surpassed this 
perfect alliance of gardens, water, landscape and 
architecture, which was their supreme aim, and sets 
the seal upon their art. 



The 



-The 



Alhambra is the only palace of the Muslim Middle 
Ages to come down to us whole and well preserved. 
We owe this unique good fortune to the Christian 
conquerors, who were able to love the Alhambra and 
defend it against the incurable fragility of its buil- 
dings. The Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, 
had the palaces they had conquered strengthened 
and restored. Their successors, the kings and emperors 
of the house of Habsburg, continued this pious work 
of preservation. The palace of Charles V was not 
built after the demolition of part of the Nasrid 
residences, but beside them. It was not till the 18th 
century, under the Bourbon dynasty, that the 
Alhambra ceased to be looked after: it was partly 
abandoned to the poor and to the gipsies, who set 
up their homes within its walls. 

In the 19th century the great task of restoration 
was begun: by clearing the ground, excavating and 
laying out new gardens, the total of Nasrid remains 
has been increased and assured an admirable pre- 



: Of 



! Alhai 



8th/i4th century that is 
revealed by the Alhambra. In the following century 
the sovereigns of Granada were too poor to rebuild 
the palaces of their predecessors. Otherwise work of 
less value — such as the few alterations to the Tower 
of the Infantes then made — would have replaced the 
masterpieces of Yusuf I and Muhammad V. And so 



GHARNATA — GHASSAN 



Nasrid art has left us the chef d'ceuvre of its classical 
age, the greatest testimony of its architecture and 
art of decoration. And the Alhambra has naturally 
become nothing less than a place of pilgrimage for 
all who wish to know, and for all who love, the arts 
of Spanish Islam in their final flowering. 

Bibliography: M. G6mez Moreno, El arte 
drabe espanol hasta los Almorivides, in Ars Hispa- 
niae, iii (1951), 173-9, 254-65; L. Torres Balbas, 
Arte Almohade, arte nazari, arte mudijar, ibid., iv 
(1949), 83-195; G. Marcais, V architecture musul- 
mane d'Occident, Paris 1948; H. Terrasse, Islam 
d'Espagne, Paris 1958, 202-32; detailed biblio- 
graphy on the Muslim monuments of Granada in 
K. A. C. Creswell, A bibliography of the architecture, 
arts and crafts of Islam, London 1961, 351-63; cf. 
particularly the many articles by L. Torres 
Balbas. (H. Terrasse) 

GH ASB. usurpation, i.e., "highhanded appro- 
priation", is neither robbery as it is often translated, 
nor larceny (sariha), both of which pertain to the 
field of criminal law, but the illegal appropriation of 
something belonging to another or the unlawful use 
of the rights of another. Ghasb is thus restricted to 
civil law, so that it is dealt with by the Islamic 
jurists in the Kitdb al-Buyu'-. While contractual, 
legal possession by the non-owner {e.g., tenants, 
depositaries) is regarded as trusteeship (amdna), 
illegal possession not based on a contract is regarded 
as ghasb. The Islamic jurists consider ghasb from the 
point of view of an obligation arising from a tort. 
Hence the question is primarily whether the ghdsib 
has to return the object obtained by unlawful inter- 
ference (maghsilb) to the deprived person (maghsub 
minhu) or to pay compensation. If the return of the 
object is no longer possible on account of loss (haldk) 
or as a result of specification, commixtion and con- 
fusion, he has to repay the value. As the ghdsib has 
illegally taken possession of another's property, a 
high degree of liability is incurred: in all cases of 
loss, even through force majeure, he is liable, e.g., if 
a usurped child dies from lightning or snake-bite. 
In the case of ghasb of res immobilis ('afydr) jurists 
disagree over the question of liability. 

As far as the consequences, under the law of 
property, of specification and confusion are concern- 
ed, two schools exist in Islam, just as in Roman and 
Jewish law: the Shafi c is, like the Sabinians or the 
school of Shammay, direct their attention to the 
substance of the resulting article, the Hanafis, like 
the Proculians or the school of Hillel, to the work 
performed. The Malikis represent a media sententia, 
which, however, diverges materially from the Code of 
Justinian, while the Jewish media sententia coincides 
with the Roman and certainly goes back to it. 

Bibliography: The relevant extracts in 
Islamic law-books, in particular al-Kasani, 
BaddH* and Sarakhsi, Mabsut; Bergstrasser- 
Schacht, Grundziige des islam. Rechts, 80-1; 
D. Santillana, Istituzoni, ii, 455-8; A. d'Emilia, 
II "Kitdb al-Gasb" nella Mudawwanah di Sahnun, 
in RSO, xxviii (1953), 79-98; idem, in Proceedings 
of the 22nd Congress of Orientalists, held in Istanbul 
1951, Leiden 1957, 137-46; R. Grasshof, Vber das 
Ghasb, in Mittl. d. Ges. f. vergl. Rechts- und Staats- 
wiss. zu Berlin, Jhg. I, 1895; O. Spies, Verarbeitung 
und Verbindung nach den Lehrmeinungen des islam. 
Rechts, in Zeitschr. f. vergl. Rechtswiss., xliv (1928), 
41-128. (O. Spies) 

GJJASHIYA, (a.), "the covering", particularly, 
a "covering for a saddle". Among the Saldjuks, 
Mamluks etc., the ghdshiya was one of the insignia 



of royal rank and carried before the ruler in public 
processions (see C. H. Becker, La Ghdshiya comme 
emblime de la royauti, in Centenario M. Amari, ii, 
148 ff.). Ghdshiya is also used metaphorically of a 
great misfortune that overwhelms someone; in this 
senseit is found in Sura LXXXVIII, 1, for the day of 
the last judgement or for the fires of hell, and from 
this the Sura has received the name al-Ghdshiya. 

GJJASlL al-MALA'IKA, nickname by which 
Hanzala b. AbI 'Amir (= £ Abd c Amr) b. Sayfl al- 
Awsl, a Companion of the Prophet, is known. 
Son of a Christian monk counted among the "People 
of the Interval" [see fatra], he embraced Islam and 
took part in the battle of Uhud; he was about to 
kill Abu Sufyan [q.v.], when he was mortally wounded 
by one of the enemy (some think that he fell at the 
hand of Abu Sufyan who, by killing a Hanzala, would 
thus have avenged his own son Hanzala who had 
fallen at Badr). On hearing of his death, the Prophet 
exclaimed: "The angels will prepare his body for 
burial", and this earned him posthumously the name 
of Ghasll al-Mala'ika. He was buried at Uhud with 
the many other Muslims killed in this battle. 

Bibliography: Sira, ed. Sakka, etc., ii, 75, 

123; Tabari, i, 1410, 1412; Ibn Kutayba, Ma'drif, 

343; Mus'ab al-Zubayri, Nasab Kuraysh, 123; 

Nawawi, Tahdhib, 221-2; Harawl, Ziydrdt, 95; 

AskalanI, Isdba, no. 1863; Ibn al-Attilr, Usd, s.v.; 

Caetani, Annali, s.a. 3; M. Hamidullah, Le 

Prophete de I'Islam, i, 121, 152, 510. 

(Ch. Pellat) 

GJJASSAN, a division of the great tribal group 
al-Azd who migrated from South Arabia, wandered 
in the Peninsula, and finally settled within the 
Roman limes ca. A.D. 490, having accepted Christi- 
anity and agreed to pay tribute. 

After a short period of co-existence with Sallh 
[q.v.] as tributaries, 6mS(popOL, they overpowered 
the latter group and superseded them as the new 
Arab allies, aiijj.jj.axoi, of Byzantium in A.D. 502-3. 
Their relations with the Empire were regulated by 
a treaty, foedus, according to which they received 
annual subsidies, annonae foederaticae, and in return 
they contributed mounted contingents to the Byzan- 
tine army. Their leaders in the various provinces 
were technically called phylarchs, <p6Aapx<H, and 
were generally endowed with the rank clarissimus, 
Xa(j.7tp6TaTO<;. The chief Ghassanid phylarch whose 
seat was Djabiya in the province of Arabia was 
accorded the highest honours and titles; he was 
patricius, bifrik [q.v.], and gloriosissimus, cv8o^6- 
Taxo<;, and was allowed to wear the crown of a client 
king. Although Romanized in many respects and 
passionately attached to Monophysitism, the Ghas- 
sanids remained Arabs at heart. Poets from the 
Peninsula, like Nabigha and Hassan b. Thabit [q.v.], 
visited their courts and composed on them panegyrics 
which give intimate glimpses into their inner life and 
document their history for three decades. 

As allies, au(j.(j.axot, politically and militarily, the 
Ghassanids performed for Byzantium their most 
important function: (a) they supplied the Army of 
the Orient with an efficient, mobile contingent in 
the war against the Persians. Their most notable 
political and military contribution was during the 
reign of al-Harith b. Djabala [q.v.], A.D. 529-69, 
and before disagreements with the Roman Emperors 
Justin II, Tiberius, and Maurice limited and 
frustrated their military efforts. Harith participated 
regularly in the two Persian Wars of Justinian's 
reign (A.D. 527-65) and fought with distinction at 
Callinicum (A.D. 531) and in Belisarius' Assyrian 




Granada: Zirid wall 




Granada: the Alhambra. General v 




— Granada: the Alhambra. Patio of Comares 



PLATE XXVII 




— Granada: the Alhambra. Hall of the Ambassadors 



PLATE XXVIII 




5 — Granada: the Alhambra. Hall of the Abencera, 




6 — Granada: the Alhambra. The Partal 



PLATE XXX 




— Granada : the Generalise 



Campaign (A.D. 541); {b) the war against the 
Lakhmids was successfully prosecuted. Harith 
triumphed signally over the Lakhmid Mundhir at 
Yawm Hallma [q.v.] in A.D. 554 near Kinnasrin, 
and his son Mundhir triumphed over Kabtis, possibly 
at c Ayn Ubagh [q.v.], in A.D. 570, captured HIra, and 
burnt it. Ghassanid military superiority over the 
Lakhmids solved for Byzantium its most serious 
Arab problem; (c) from their main base in Arabia 
and Palaestina Tertia, the Ghassanids kept the 
nomads in check and conducted military operations 
against the Jews of Hidjaz. The Arabian aspect of 
their function included, also, the protection of 
Byzantine commercial and political interests along 
the spice-route, and their importance in this sector is 
reflected by their participation in the diplomatic 
mission to Abraha [q.v.], the Abyssinian ruler of 
Arabia Felix. 

In the history of Syrian Monophysitism the 
Ghassanids were a determining factor. It was 
mainly through the efforts of their king Harith b. 
Djabata that the Monophysite Church in Syria was 
resuscitated after its disestablishment during the 
reign of the Chalcedonian Emperor Justin I, A.D. 
518-27. Around A.D. 540, and with the help of the 
Empress Theodora, Harith secured the ordination of 
two Monophysite bishops, Theodorus and the 
famous Jacob Baradaeus, after whom the Syrian 
Monophysite Church was called Jacobite. The 
indefatigable efforts of these two bishops put the 
Monophysite Church in Syria on its feet again. The 
Ghassanid kings, Harith and his son Mundhir. con- 
tinued to protect the Monophysite Church not only 
against the hostility of the Chalcedonians but also 
against divisive movements from within: e.g., the 
Tritheistic heresy of Eugenius and Conon; the 
discord which broke out between Jacob Baradaeus 
and Paul the Black; and the patriarchal strife 
between the sees of Antioch and Alexandria. But they 
did not neglect the Arabian Peninsula. Their 
missionary activities, particularly in Nadjran, were 
important contributions towards the propagation of 
Christianity in those southern parts. Although their 
staunch support of the Monophysite movement 
ruffled their relations with the Orthodox Emperors 
and brought about the downfall of their king 
Mundhir [q.v.], A.D. 569-82, and his son Nu'man 
[q.v.], it was through Monophysitism that the 
history of these war lords underwent that spiritual 
refinement which made of it the maturest expression 
of a Christian Arab culture. 

The Ghassanids made important contributions to 
the urbanization of Syria and to its architectural life 
in the sixth century: (a) they were credited with the 
building of a number of towns, e.g., Djillik, and of 
public works, e.g., the cisterns, sahdridi, of Sergio- 
polis (Rusafa); (b) genuinely pious, and living in an 
age which witnessed a great building activity, they 
erected churches and monasteries for the resurgent 
Monophysite Church, e.g., the Ecclesia extra muros 
(possibly a praetorium) at Sergiopolis ; (c) anticipating 
later Umayyad practice they built, in and near the 
desert, palatial residences which were sometimes also 
military establishments, masdni'-. [In addition to the 
dated monument in Sergiopolis there are at least 
three more, arranged here in chronological order: 
(i) the tower of the monastery in Kasr al-Hayr al- 
Gharbi, of 559 A.D., by Harith b. Djabala (D. 
Schlumberger, Les fouilles de Qasr el-Heir el-Gharbi, 
in Syria, xx (1939), 366-72); (ii) a house in al-Hayat 
(Hawran) built by Flavios Seos in 578 (H. C. Butler, 
Syria, Princeton Expedition, division II: Archtecture, 



section A: Southern Syria, Leiden 1919, 362-3); 
(iii) the castle in Dumayr, built by al-Mundhir (569- 
82) (described in Brunnow-Domaszeski, Die Provincia 
Arabia, Strassburg 1909, iii, 200; at that time the 
foundation inscription (Wetzstein, no. 173, Wad- 
dington, 2562c) was lost, bi ' ' " " ' 



5 able t 



1 the s 



1 the 



Syrian Service of Antiquities is going t< 
in the Damascus Museum). — note communicated by 
K. Brisch], The prosperity of the province of Arabia 
in the sixth century, archaeologically attested, can 
to a great extent be made explicable by the activities 
of this energetic dynasty whose main base was 
Arabia, and who, consequently, animated the region 
and relieved it of its technically insignificant and 
provincal status. 

Relations between Byzantium and the Ghassanids 
were not uniformly smooth. Their independent 
spirit, but more, their unflinching support of Mono- 
physitism crossed the will of Orthodox Byzantium. 
Around A.D. 580, the Emperor Tiberius had Mundhir 
arrested and brought to Constantinople, and in A.D. 
582-3 ?, Maurice gave the same treatment to his son 
Nu'man. This considerably weakened the Ghassanid 
Phylarchate. But it was the Persian invasion of A.D. 
613-14 that dealt the crushing blow to the Ghassanids 
who, however, re-emerge, serving in the army of 
Heraclius and represented by the Djabala b. al- 
Ayham [q.v.] at the decisive battle of Yarmuk, A.D. 
536- 

The Muslim Conquest of Syria swept away the 
Ghassanids beyond recall. Some of them went over 
to Byzantium and settled in Anatolia; others 
adopted Islam and were assimilated in the new Arab 
Muslim community; the rest remained Christian and 
stayed on in Syria. To these, some of the Arab 
Christian families of the contemporary Near East 
trace their descent. 

Bibliography: Greek Sources: Procopius, 
History, I, xvii, 45-8; xviii, 26, 35-7; II, i, i-n; 
xix, 12-8, 26-46; Anecdota, ii, 23, 28; Malalas, 
Chronographia (Bonn), 434-5; 441-2; 445-7; 461-5; 
Menander Protector, in Excerpta Historica, ed. 
C. de Boor, Pars i, 180; Evagrius, Ecclesiastical 
history, ed. Bidez and Parmentier, 216, 223; 
Syriac Sources: John of Ephesus, Historica 
Ecclesiastica, in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum 
Orientalium, no. 105 (versio), 90, 129-33; 135-6; 
163-70; 212-7; 237, 238; Michael the Syrian, 
Chronique, French trans, by J.-B. Chabot, ii, 
245-8, 285, 308-9, 323-5, 344> 345, 349-51, 364-71; 
Arabic sources: Nabigha, in The Divans of 
the Six Ancient Arabic Poets, ed. W. Ahlwardt, 
poems 1, 2, n, 13, 18, 20, 2i, 25, 27; Hassan 
b. Thabit, Diwdn, ed. H. Hirschfeld, GMS, 
poems 13, 79, 86, 92, 125, 138, 155, 160; 
Hamza al-Isfahani, Ta'rikh, ed. Gottwaldt, 
114-22. Cf. also Th. Noldeke, Die Ghassdnischen 
Fiirsten aus dent Hause Gafna's, in Abh. Pr. 
Ak. W., 1887; R. Aigrain, Arabie, in Diction- 
naire d'histoire et de geographic ecclisiastiques, iii, 
cols. 1200-19; J. Sauvaget, Les Ghassdnides et 
Sergiopolis, in Byzantion, xiv (1939), 115-30; 
Irtan Kawar, Procopius and Arethas, in BZ, 
1957; idem, The Patriciate of Arethas, in BZ, 
1959. For Ghassanid residences, those certain 
and those under discussion, see further K. A. C. 
Cresswell, EM A, i; A. Musil, Arabia Petraea, 
Vienna 1907, i; idem, Palmyrena, New York 1928 
(index); idem, Northern Negd, New York 1928 
(index). (Irfan ShahId) 

al-GHASSAnI. Abu c Abd Allah Muhammad 



al-GHASSANI — GHAT 



(Hammu) B. c Abd al-Wahhab, descendant of an 
Andalusian family which emigrated to Morocco 
towards the end of the Middle Ages, was secretary to 
Mawlay Isma'U (1082/1672-1139/1727), who entrusted 
him with various diplomatic missions: one to Spain 
(1101/1690-1102/1691) for the ransoming of Muslim 
captives and another to Algiers (1103/1692) as a 
member of the suite of Muhammad al-Xayyib al- 
Fasi. He wrote the story of his journey in Spain under 
the title Rihlat al-wazir fi iftikdk al-aslr (ed. and 
Spanish tr. by A. Bustani, Larache 1940; partial 
French tr. by H. Sauvaire, Paris 1884). In it he 
shows himself to be an acute observer and uses the 
chronicle entitled Fath al-Andalus as a source of his 
historical information. He gives only a few details 
of the way in which he accomplished the mission 
with which he was charged, namely to obtain 5,000 
books and 500 captives in exchange for the Spanish 
garrison of Larache imprisoned by Mawlay Isma'il; 
if he should not obtain all the books the number of 
captives was to be increased to 1,000. The Spanish 
archives complete the information which he gives: 
he arrived at Madrid on 4 Rabi* I 1 102/6 Dec. 1690 
and after he had presented himself to Charles II 
the king ordered Cardinal Portocarrero to conduct 
the negotiations which terminated to the satisfaction 
of all before 27 Sha'ban 1102/27 May 1691, the date 
on which al-Ghassani set out again for Morocco. The 
ransomed captives were assembled at Barcelona, 
Cartagena, and Alicante, whence they were sent 
to Cadiz and must have crossed to Morocco some 
time after March 1692. 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, S II, 172; Levi- 
Provencal, Historiens des Chorfa, 284-6; H. Peres, 
L'Espagne vue par Us voyageurs musulmans de 
1610 a 1930, Paris 1937, 5-17; E. Garcia G6mez, 
Novedades sobre la cronica anonima titulada "Fath 
al-Andalus", in AIEO Algers, xii (1954), 31-42; 
J. Vernet, La embajada de al-Gassdni (1690-1691), 
in Al-Andalus, xviii (1953), 109-31. 

(J. Vernet) 
SHASSANIYYA, name given by later Sunnis to 
the Murdji'i position associated with Abu 
Hanlfa. In Ash'arl (Maftdldt al-Isldmiyyin, ed. 
Ritter, i, 138 f.), Abu Hanlfa appears as head of a 
section of the Murdjpa asserting that iman is the 
affirmation of God and the Prophet, however poorly 
these are understood; some of his followers, including 
Ghassan, differ from him in including reverence 
within iman and allowing that it may increase. 
Al-Baghdadi {Al-fark bayn al-firak, ed. Muhammad 
Badr, 191) cites this latter difference as proof 
that Ghassan did not follow Abu Hanlfa at all, and 
then ascribes the whole position to Ghassan under 
the name of Ghassaniyya, omitting Abu Hanlfa from 
the Murdji'a. Going still further, Shahrastani (Kitab 
al-Milal wa 'l-nihal, ed. Cureton, 263-5) transfers 
Ash'ari's quotations of Abu Hanifa to Ghassan 
al-Kufi himself. (M. G. S. Hodgson) 

GHAT, a frsar of the Sahara among the Touareg 
Ajjer on the frontier between the Fezzan (Libya) and 
the Algerian Sahara, in the neighbourhood of the 
25th parallel and the 10th meridian. It stands at an 
altitude of 780 metres, 3 km. to the west of the Wadi 
Tanezzouft, whose valley lies in a north-south di- 
rection between the bank of primary sandstone on 
the side of the Tadrart in the east and the similar 
plateaus of the Tassili of the Ajjer in the west. It 
owes its existence to the richness and shallowness 
of the phreatic underground water-level and to its 
situation on the route of the ancient trans-Sahara 
track which, coming from Kano, Zinder and Agades, 



leads towards southern Tunisia by way of Ghadames, 
and to Tripoli either via Ghadames or via the 
Fezzan, thus avoiding the mountains of the Tassili 
and the ergs of the Fezzan. 

The region was inhabited in ancient times, as is 
proved by the numerous rock engravings and more 
than one necropolis such as those of al-Barkat and of 
Tin Alkoun, but it has never been proved that the 
oppidum of Rapsa mentioned by Pliny was situated 
there. Ghat itself does not go back for longer than 
700 years and is mentioned for the first time by Ibn 
Battuta in the 8th/i4th century. Its prosperity 
depended upon the vicissitudes of trade across the 
Sahara, about which our only exact information 
comes from some 19th century travellers, in particular 
Muhammad al-Otsman al-Hachaichi (al-Hasha'ishi) ; 
he remarks, at the end of the century, that if for the 
Touareg Ajjer "Ghat is their Paris", most of the 
traders of Ghat "which is the Marseilles of the 
Sahara" are people of Ghadames and people from 
Tripoli ; the Touareg hired their camels to the traders, 
but the essential part of the cross-Sahara traffic al- 
ready went via the Fezzan. This trade disappeared 
little by little in the early years of the twentieth 
century. 

For a long time Ghat remained independent, 
governed by an hereditary amghar [q.v.] and an 
elected municipality, but nevertheless under the 
somewhat heavy protection of the Touaregs. In 
1875, the Turks of Tripoli installed a garrison there 
and a fra'immaljidm, and remained its masters until 
1914. Ghat was occupied for the first time by the 
Italians, conquerors of Libya, from April to De- 
cember, 1914, and a second time from February 
1930 until January 1943. It was then taken by 
the French troops of southern Algeria at the same 
time as the expedition of General Leclerc made itself 
master of the Fezzan; it was annexed to the region 
of Djanet (Fort Charley). French forces left Ghat 
after the Franco-Libyan treaty of 10th August, 
1955, and Ghat was attached once more to the 
Fezzan, a province of the United Kingdom of Libya. 

Ghat is a picturesque frsar, fortified in an irregular 
rectangle 700 by 500 metres in area, surrounded by 
a crenellated wall with five gates; part of it also are 
the suburbs of Tadramt and Tounin. Al-Fewet, 
10 km. away to the west, and the fortified ksar of 
al-Barkat, 8 km. to the south, as well as some 
hamlets scattered within modest palm groves, are 
under its control. The whole area has more than 
2,000 inhabitants. The Kel Ghat fall into five 
groups: the Tel Talak and the Tel Makammazan 
who are the oldest, the Iadhenan, the Tel Inan 
Tamalgat and the Tel Khabsa; some Arabicized 
families, Ghadamesians, Touaregs who have become 
sedentary (especially at Fewet and al-Barkat) and 
many negro share-croppers of Sudanese origin, 
called here atdra, complete the population. All 
speak TamShakk but many understand Arabic and 
even Hausa which is spoken by the negroes. 

Ghat is the centre for about 1,000 Imanan and 
Oraghen nomads and tor some Imanghassaten fa- 
milies. Some springs and shallow wells (both the type 
worked by animal traction and those worked by 
balancing poles) make possible the irrigation of 
21,000 palm trees, some fruit trees, winter cereals 
(corn and barley) and summer cereals (sorghum and 
Indian millet). The nomads raise dromedaries, goats 
and a few sheep. The artisan class (skins and wood- 
work) is declining rapidly. Trade to-day is reduced 
to modest exchanges between the nomads and the 
sedentary population and the importation of some 



GHAT — GHATAFAN 



manufactured goods from the Fezzan. But if oil 
research to the north and the east comes to anything, 
it may perhaps change very rapidly the modest econo- 
my of Ghat. 

Bibliography : D. Denham, H. Clapperton and 
W. Oudrey, Narratives of travels and discoveries in 
northern and central Africa, London 1826; J. 
Richardson, Travels in the great desert of Sahara, 
London 1848; H. Barth, Reisen und Entdeckungen 
in nord- und central Afrika, Gotha 1858; J. Bou- 
derba, Voyage a Ghat, in Bull, de la Soc. de giogr., 
Paris i860; H. Duveyrier, Les Touareg du Nord, 
Paris 1864; M. el Otsman el-Hachaichi, Voyage au 
pays des Senoussia a travers la Tripolitaine et les 
pays Touareg, Paris, 2nd ed., 1912; E. de Agostini, 
La conca di Gat, in Boll, geogr. del Gov. della Tri- 
politania, Tripoli n° 5-6 (1933-34); Soc. geogr. 
italiana, Fezzan e I'oasi di Gat, Rome 1937; Nehlil, 
Etude sur le dialecte de Ghat, Paris 1909. 

(J. Despois) 
GHATAFAN, name of a group of Northern 
Arabian tribes, belonging to the Kays c Aylan [q.v.] 
and represented in the genealogical system as the 
descendants of Ghatafan b. Sa c d b. Kays b. c Aylan. 
Their lands lay between the Hidjaz and the Shammar 
mountains in that part of the Nadjd which is drained 
by the Wadi al-Rumma. Here lived from West to 
East their principal tribes: the Banu Ashdja c , the 
Dhubyan (with the sub-tribes Fazara, Murra, and 
Tha'laba), the c Abs, and — in the region al-Kasim — 
the Anmar. Of these tribes the Banu c Abs (b. 
Baghid b. Rayth b. Ghatafan) rose to prominence 
c. 550 A.D., when their chief, Zuhayr b. Diadhlma. 
gained power not only over all Ghatafan, but also 
over the Hawazin, the other important group of the 
Kays-'Aylan. After Zuhayr was slain by Khalid b. 
Dja'far of the Banu <Amir b. Sa'sa'a, the power of 
the 'Abs declined. A quarrel between Kays b. 
Zuhayr b. Djadhima und Hudhayfa b. Badr, chief 
of the Banu Fazara (b. Dhubyan b. Baghid b. Rayth 
b. Ghatafan), led to the so-called war of Dahis 
between the c Abs and Dhubyan; during it nearly 
all Ghatafan took up arms against the c Abs and 
forced them to leave their pasture grounds. After, 
many wanderings they found shelter with the 
Banu c Amir b. Sa c sa c a and c. 580 A.D. both 
groups defeated in the battle of Shi c b Djabala 
[q.v.] the coalition of Tamim, Dhubyan, Asad, and 
other tribes (see the poem of Khurasha b. 'Amr al- 
c AbsI in Mufaddaliyydt, no. 121). Later on peace was 
restored between the c Abs and Dhubyan through 
the good offices of two chiefs of the Banu Murra 
(b. c Awf b. Sa c d b. Dhubyan) named al-Harith b. 
c Awf and Harim b. Sinan, both of whom were praised 
by Zuhayi b. AM Sulma [q.v.] in his mu'allafia. 
After this reconciliation the <Abs and Dhubyan 
stood together against the Banu c Amir b. Sa'sa'a 
(see Bakri, Mu'diam s.v. al-Batha J a) and were often 
joined by the other Ghatafan tribes , e.g., in the 
battle of al-Rakam (see the poem of Salama b. 
Khurshub al-Anmari in Mufaddaliyydt, ed. Lyall, 
no. 5). About the same time the Ghatafan concluded 
an alliance with their neighbours the Tayyi' and 
Asad. There were also fights between the Ghatafan 
and the Hawazin and Sulaym till the rising power 
of Islam ended these clashes. The Ghatafan were, 
like almost all Bedouins, hostile towards Muhammad 
and his religion. At this time c Uyayna b. Hisn al- 
Fazari, of the famous "house" of Badr, was the 
leading chief amongst the Ghatafan, and the 
Meccans tried to win his support, whilst Muhammad 
was eager to forestall all hostile movements (e.g., in 



the expedition of al-Kudr against Sulaym and 
Ghatafan). After the expulsion of the Banu '1-Nadir 
from Medina to Khaybar, the Jews and Meccans 
made an alliance and gained the support of the 
Ghatafan and Sulaym. A contingent of the Banu 
Fazara and perhaps of the Banu Murra under 
c Uyayna took part in 5/627 in the siege of Medina 
(the so-called War of the Trench), but when this 
attempt had failed, the Banu Ashdja 1 , who of all 
Ghatafan lived nearest to Medina, concluded a treaty 
with Muhammad (Ibn Sa c d, i/2, 48), and HJyayna 
thought it best to refrain from open opposition. He 
was in Muhammad's camp during the conquest of 
Mecca in 8/630, accompanied him during the sub- 
sequent campaign of Hunayn, and the Prophet 
honoured him at Dji'rana, when the spoils were 
distributed, by a special gift of one hundred camels, 
to the chagrin of al- c Abbas b. Mirdas al-Sulami, 
who got only four, though the Sulaym had taken an 
active part in the fighting. It was only in 9/631 that 
a deputation of the Fazara and the Murra, led by 
Kharidja b. Hisn and al-Harith b. c Awf, went to 
Medina to announce their tribes' conversion. But 
in the revolt (ridda) that broke out immediately 
after Muhammad's death, the Ghatafan and the 
Banu Asad took up arms. A band of them, led by 
Kharidja b. Hisn, attacked Abu Bakr in his 
camp near Dhu '1-Kassa but was driven back. Then 
Khalid b. al-Walid defeated the Banu Asad under 
Tulayha and a corps of the Fazara under c Uyayna 
b. Hisn in the battle of Buzakha [q.v.] and broke the 
last resistance of Kharidja b. Hisn at Ghamr in 
Fazara territory. In consequence of this defeat the 
Fazara lost part of their grazing-ground. c Uyayna 
b. Hisn was brought as captive to Medina, but 
pardoned by Abu Bakr. His daughter Umm al- 
Banin became wife to c Uthman b. c Affan (Tabari, i, 
3056-7). 

In the wars of conquest the warriors of the 
Ghatafan joined the armies; some of them settled in 
the newly conquered countries. The Syrian army 
which was sent after Mu'awiya's death in 60/680 
against Medina was led by Muslim b. c Ukba of the 
Banu Murra. In Kufa we find members belonging 
to the leading families of the Banu Fazara, e.g., 
Manzur b. Zabban, father-in-law to Hasan b. c Ali, 
Muhammad b. Talha b. c Ubayd Allah, al-Hadjdjadj, 
c Abd Allah b. al-Zubayr, and Mundhir b. al-Zubayr 
(Ibn Durayd, Genealogisch-etymologisches Handbuch, 
173 etc.). Hind bint Asma' b. Kharidja b. Hisn was 
married to c Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad, then to Bishr b. 
Marwan, and later to al-Hadjdjadj. 

In the contest between the Northern (Mudar) and 
the Southern {Kalb) Arabs the Ghatafan naturally 
sympathized with the former. They fought at Mardj 
Rahit 65/684 under al-Dahhak b. Kays al-Fazarl 
against the Banu Kalb. It seems that later on the 
Fazara at Kufa supported Zufar b. al-Harith of the 
Banu Kilab b. c Amir and c Umayr'b. Hubab al- 
Sulaml in their fight against Humayd b. Hurayth al- 
Kalbi (see Ibn al-Athir, iv, 259, 19). When Humayd 
killed some of the Fazara in their homeland in Arabia 
the latter took revenge in the battle of Banat Kayn 
in the Samawa c. 74/693 (see Wellhausen, Das 
arabische Reich, 128 f.). It was to the advantage of 
the Fazara that Wallada bint al- c Abbas, one of the 
wives of c Abd al-Malik and mother of the caliphs al- 
Walld and Sulayman (Tabari, ii, 11 74) was a descend- 
ant of Zuhayr b. Rawaha al-Fazari (see the vers«s 
in Abu Tammam, (iamdsa, 672). When c Umar b. 
Hubayra al-Fazarl [q.v.] was viceroy of the East in 
102/721-105/725 all Kays were again in the ascen- 



and Tha c laba are mentioned in 
revolt of the Bedouin tribes in 230/844-5 which 
was put down by Bugha al-Kabir (Tabari, iii, 1342 ff.). 
But the majority of the Ghatafan had left Arabia, 
and their lands were occupied by the Tayyi 5 . There 
were apparently no Ghatafan groups among the 
Northern (Kays) Arabs settled by order of Hisham 
b. c Abd al-Malik in 107/725-6 in Egypt (see Haytham 
b. c Adi apud MakrizI, al-Baydn wa 'W-rdb, 39 f., 
Wiistenfeld). Later on we find clans and families 
claiming descent from Ghatafan tribes in Egypt, 
Libya, the Maghrib and in Spain. 

Amongst the poets of the Mu'-allakdt there are 
two belonging to the Ghatafan: c Antara b. Shaddad 
al- c Absi [q.v.] and al-Nabigha al-Dhubyani [q.v.]. 
Lesser poets of the Ghatafan are c Urwa b. al-Ward 
and al-Hutay'a from the 'Abs; al-Hadira and al- 
Shammakh from the Tha'laba b. Sa c d; Ibn Mayyada 
(see Aghdnp, iii, 261-340) from the Banfl Murra b. 
<Awf; and Ibn Dara (see Ijamdsa, ed. Freytag, 
191 ff.) of the Banfl c Abd al-'Uzzfl, commonly called 
Banu '1-Muljawwala because the Prophet changed 
their ancestor's name into <Abd Allah, and 'Uwayf 
al-Kawafi (see AghdnV-, xii, 105-118) from the 
Fazara. 

Very little is known of the pagan religion of the 
Ghatafan. They worshipped like other tribes an 
idol called al-Ukaysir [q.v.]. They also had a sanc- 
tuary of al-'Uzza at Buss — misrepresented by 
Muslim writers as a rival institution to the Ka c ba 
at Mecca — which was destroyed in the first half of 
the 6th century by Zuhayr b. Djanab al-Kalbl (see 
Aghdni 1 , xxi, 94; xii, 126). Then there is Khalid b. 
Sinan al- c Absi, who according to a saying attributed 
to Muhammad was "a prophet whom his people let 
perish" (Ibn Sa'd, xii, 42, 7; Ibn Hadjar, Isdba, 
Cairo 1328 A.H., i, 466 ff.). 

The etymology of the name Ghatafan is unknown. 
Besides the well-known Ghatafan of the Kays- 
c Ayl5n there are also clans of the same name amongst 
the Djuhayna, Djudham, and Iyad (Wiistenfeld, 
Gen. Tabellen, i, 19; 5, 18; A 12; see also Noldeke, in 
ZDMG, xl, 180). Ghatafan b. Unayf al-Kalbl was a 
poet of the ist/7th century (Tabari, ii, 456, 799). 
One of the secretaries of Marwan b. al-Hakam had 
the kunya Abu Ghatafan (Tabari, ii, 837; see also 
Ibn Hadjar, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, xii, 199). 

Bibliography: in the article; see also: The 
indices to Yakut, Geogr. Wtb.; Ibn Sa c d; Tabari; 
the NakdHd of Djarir and al-Farazdak; Mufadda- 
liyydt; and Aghdni. See further v. Oppenheim, Die 
Beduinen, ed. W. Caskel, iii, 7-14; Wellhausen, 
Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, vi, 7 ff. (J. W. FOck) 
al-GHAWAR. a tract of broken limestone hills, 
now (1963) an important oil field, in Eastern Arabia. 
Centred 30 kilometres southwest of the oasis town 
of al-Hufuf, al-Ghawar proper is an elevated area 
elongated along a north-south axis. Bounded on the 
north by the depression of Djaww Umm c Unayk, 
the tract extends 50 kilometres south to Wadi al- 
Kusur. It averages 20 kilometres in width. Al- 
Ghawar has only a few poor quality hand-dug wells, 
and Bedouins consider it a poor pasture area. The 
machine-drilled wells near the oil field camp of al- 
'Udayliyya now provide a reliable source of summer 
water for small groups of Al Murra and al-Dawasir 
tribesmen. Darb Mazalidj, formerly an important 
camel track between al-Hasa' and Central Nadjd, 
passes through al-Ghawar from northeast to south- 
west. The hill of al- c Uthmaniyya and the hill and 



rock shelter of Ghar al-Shuyflkh, both well-known 
landmarks of the area, lie near this trail. The deri- 
vation of the name al-Ghawar is popularly explained 
as an alternative plural of ghar (common plural 
ghirdn), "rock shelter, shallow cave", or as a plural 
of ghawr, "low ground, depression". 

The central portion of Ghawar (Ghawar) Oil Field 
coincides with al-Ghawar proper. Extending north 
to Fazran and south to Wadi al-Sahba', the oil field 
has a total length of 256 kilometres. This, with an 
average width of 20 kilometres, gives it a greater 
surface area than any other oil field in the world. 
Discovered by the Arabian American Oil Company 
in 1948, Ghawar Field yielded an average of 715,200 
barrels daily during 1962, nearly one-half of the 
Company's total production. 

Bibliography: J. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the 
Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central Arabia, Cal- 
cutta 1908-15, ii, 581-2; Map: U.S. Geological 
Survey, Geographic map of the Western Persian 
Gulf quadrangle, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Miscel- 
laneous geologic investigations, Map 1-208 B, 
1:500,000,1958. (J. Mandaville) 

GJHAWAZl [see ghaziya]. 

al-CHAWR, "depression", "plain encircled by 
higher ground", a geographical term denoting various 
regions in the Muslim countries. 

1. The best known is the Ghawr in Palestine, 
which corresponds with the deep hollow, called 
AulSn in the Septuagint, through which the Jordan 
flows, between Lake Tiberias and the Dead Sea, and 
which is merely a section of the central Syro- 
Palestinian rift-valley. At first, the Ghawr consists 
of a plain, overshadowed by the mountains of 
Samaria on the one side and Mount 'Adjlun on the 
other, 105 km./65 miles long, and sloping down 
gradually from -208 m. /-680 ft. on the shores of 
Lake Tiberias to -394 m. /-1300 ft. by the Dead Sea; 
the width of the plain, though variable, does not 
exceed 12 km./8 miles in the northern part but 
reaches 20 km./i2Va mues m tne Jericho region. It 
then embraces the basin of the Dead Sea, the deepest 
point of which goes down to -793 m. /-2600 ft., 
while the width reaches 12 km./8 miles [see bahr lOt]- 
Finally, it is continued by the Wadi al-'Araba, as far 
as the approaches to the gulf of c Akaba. 

From the earliest times of the Muslim occupation, 
the Ghawr belonged, for administrative purposes, 
to two different provinces, the djund of al-Urdunn 
and that of Filastin. The Arab geographers describe 
it as a very hot, unhealthy district with bad water, 
but possessing numerous streams and covered with 
pasturages and sub-tropical plantations (palm-trees, 
sugar-cane and indigo). Besides the capital Ariha 
(Jericho), they mention Tabariyya (Tiberias), 
Baysan, c Ammata and lastly Zughar to the south 
of the Dead Sea. As for the region called al-'Arabat 
and belonging to the Ghawr in Palestine where, 
according to Ibn Ishak (Tabari, i, 2125; cf. 2107), 
c Amr b. al- c As linked up with the forces from the 
east of the Jordan before the battle of al-Adjnadayn, 
this no doubt corresponds with the steppe zone 
lying to the South of the Dead Sea. 

In the Mamluk period, the Ghawr was divided 
into several administrative districts, all forming 
part of the second or southern march of the province 
of Damascus. It was followed by the trade and post 
route between Damascus and Ghazza. At the 
beginning of the Mamluk period, the couriers 
made the crossing of the Jordan near Baysan, 
at a place where the river could be forded in 
normal times or crossed by ferry-boat in times of 



al-GHAWR - 

flood; in the middle of the 8th/i4th century, the 
route was modified to spare couriers from having 
to climb too steep gradients; they made use of the 
bridge of al-Madjami c , further to the north, at the 
confluence of the Jordan and the Yarmuk. 

Bibliography: F.-M. Abel, Geographic de la 
Palestine, i, Paris 1933, particularly 10, 80-1, 93-4, 
423-9 ; Le Strange, Palestine, 30-2 ; A.-S. Marmardji, 
Textes giographiques arabes sur la Palestine, Paris 
1951, 158-9; Ya'kubi, Bulddn, 326; Ibn Hawkal, 
iii, 114; Yakut, iii, 822; Dimashkl, ed. Mehren, 
201 ; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie a Vipoque 
des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, particularly 64 ft.; 
J. Sauvaget, La poste aux chevaux dans I'empire des 
Mamelouks, Paris 1941, 73. 

2. Another Ghawr is Ghawr Tihamat al-Yaman or 
Ghawr Tihama (al-Farazdak, ed. Boucher, 20), called 
also, as a dual, Ghawra Tihama (al-Tabari, ii, 219). 
The statements by the geographers regarding it are 
very vague, for it is sometimes identified with 
Tihama and sometimes described as a separate 
district adjoining it. For example, according to 
Kudama b. Dja'far, it stretched from Nadjd to the 
extreme borders of Tihama; on the other hand, 
according to a passage in al-Bakri, it lay between 
Tihama (the district from Dhat 'Irk to two days' 
journey beyond Mecca) and the Sarat. 

Bibliography: Ibn Khurradadhbih. 248; 

HamdanI, 46, 48, 210, 233; Bakri, Geographisches 

Worterbuch, ed. Wiistenfeld, 7, n, 36, 818; Yakut, 

iii, 821. (F. Buhl-[D. Sourdel]) 

al-GHAYB (a.). The two connotations of the 

root are ghdba c an, to be absent, and ghdba fi, to be 

hidden. In current usage, ghayb (and especially 

ghayba) may signify "absence" (and ghayba, 

correlated with shuhud, "presence", may be a 

technical term of Sufism); but more frequently 

ghayb may indicate what is hidden, inaccessible to 

the senses and to reason — thus, at the same time 

absent from human knowledge and hidden in divine 

wisdom. It is to this second meaning that al-ghayb 

refers, as a technical term of the religious vocabulary. 

It may then be rendered by "the mystery". Such is 

its meaning, with rare exceptions, in the Kur'an. 

Its use there is frequent. 

"Al-ghayb belongs only to God" {Kur'dn, X, 20); 
"He has the keys of al-ghayb which are known only 
to Him" (VI, 59), etc. Reference is here made to the 
Divine mystery, of itself inaccessible to man. Hence 
the translation adopted (by R. Blachere) of 'Incon- 
naissable', "Unknowable". The idea which reappears 
most often is the inaccessibility of al-ghayb, which 
remains totally hidden. "God knows the Unknowable 
and enlightens no-one about it" (LXXII, 26), "He 
does not raise you up to the Unknowable" (III, 174). 
The ghayb nevertheless is an object of faith (II, 3), 
just as is the Word revealed to the Prophet (II, 4). 
Man ought therefore to cling to the unknowable 
mystery "from where God is" (laduni), and God, if 
He wishes, will reveal it in part to him. "This is part 
of the story (anbd>) of the Unknowable which We 
reveal to you" (III, 44; cf. II, 49^X11, 102). It is 
thus, as Gaudefroy-Demombynes emphasizes, that 
the ghayb of the Kur'an is "sometimes the Revelation, 
sometimes the Unknowable, sometimes both to- 
gether" (Les sens du substantif Ghayb dans le Coran, 
in Melanges Louis Massignon, ii, Damascus 1957, 
250). In fact, the common denominator is still the 
notion of (divine) Mystery, sometimes unrevealed, 
sometimes revealed in fragments — to the extent that 
this revelation is necessary to lead man along the 
straight path (hiddya). The Kur'Sn does not corn- 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 






ill the ghayb to man, but the whole 
Kur'an is a (partial) communication of the ghayb. It 
is in this sense that Fakhr al-Din al-Razi was to 
entitle his great commentary "The keys of the 
Mystery", Mafdtih al-ghayb. 

This partial revelation of the ghayb is explained by 
L. Massignon {Passion d'al-ffallddj, Paris 1922, 500) 
as a participation which God vouchsafes to the 
prophets in His "essential mystery" (al-sirr al-dhdtl, 
as al-Djurdjanl says in Ta'rifat, Leipzig 1845, 169). 
In the commentaries on the Kur'an and in religious 
literature, al-ghayb is in fact applied at times to the 
absolute mystery of God Himself, but more often it 
is the invisible world taken as a whole. The distinction 
frequently appears between 'dlam al-ghayb and t dlam 
al-shahdda, the world of the invisible mystery, 
created and uncreate, and the perceptible world, also 
called c dlam al-mulk. These refinements of meaning 
are found in the tafsir commentaries on Kurgan, II, 3. 
Al-Baydawi there explains the ghayb in which belief 
is required as "that which is not perceived by the 
senses or which is not immediately understood by the 
reason". But al-Tabari, on the other hand, there 
defines the ghayb which is an object of faith as being 
the Will of God— thus an "attribute of the Essence". 

However, this resort to the Divine Will seems to 
relate the idea of ghayb to the Decreee of God, 
rather more than to the notion of "essential My- 
stery". In his profession of faith, the Hanbali Ibn 
Batta lays down: "One must throw oneself (taslim) 
upon the Divine Omnipotence (kudra) and have 
faith in the Divine Mystery {ghayb), for the individual 
reason is unable to raise itself to the understanding 
{ma'-rifa) of this mystery" (cf. the translation of 
H. Laoust, La profession defoi d' Ibn Batta, Damascus 
1958, 105). This "Divine Mystery" is thus simultane- 
ously the "mystery of things" and the destiny of men 
(and of each man). It is reserved to God, who reveals 
it to his prophets to the extent that He wills. 

Other usages of the expression al-ghayb: 
— (a) in Shi'I theology, the imam has, of himself, 
knowledge of the ghayb; a view attacked by the 
Hanbali al-Barbahari and others. Mafdtih al-ghayb 
is the title of a work of the Shi'i Shirazi (Mulla 
Sadra). — (b) Ibn Batta compares astrology with 
"the pretension to know the ghayb" and condemns 
both severely (cf. H. Laoust, op. cit., 155). Under the 
same title of Mafdtih al-ghayb (Cairo 1327) the 
Egyptian Ahmad al-Zarkawi treats of magic and 
divination. — (c) Ibn c Arabi uses the same title 
again, but this time to designate Sufi ma'-rifa. In 
fact tasawwuf frequently interprets the ghayb as the 
threefold world of djabarut, malakut and Idhut [cf. 
c alam], but also as the hidden essence of all that is, 
whether visible or invisible. It is then the ghayb al- 
huwiyya ("mystery of selfhood") or absolute ghayb 
(mutlak) (cf. al-Djurdjani, Ta'rifdt, 169-70).— The 
hierarchy of the abddl, the "saints apotropeens" 
(Massignon), crowned by the Kutb ("Pole"), is called 
"the men of the Mystery" {ridjal al-ghayb, Lane, 
Arabian Nights, xxx, n. 17). — And according to C. 
Wells (Mehemet the Kurd . . ., 129), ibn al-ghayb 
describes a child begotten without a father and 
endowed with mysterious intellectual faculties. 

Al-ghayb, the Mystery, therefore, may be under- 
stood in three possible meanings. — 1) Normal 
religious sense: the mystery of the Divine Decree, 
unknowable in itself, partially revealed in the 
Kur'an. — 2) The invisible world which magic, 
occultism and astrology try to penetrate (but the 
man who persists in crossing its boundaries by his 
own powers is committing a sin). — 3) In Sufism, 



65 



L-GHAYB — GHAYN 



al-ghayb means, according to context, the reality of 
the world beyond the senses and beyond discursive 
reason which gnosis {ma'rifa) experiences, — the 
hierarchy of the invisible worlds,— the beings of 
these worlds, — and even the world of the Divine 
Essence. (The penetration of the ghayb through a 
pleasurable intellectual experience was to become 
extremely suspect to the adversaries of tasawwuf). — 
Finally, we should note that in Shi'ism, the ghayb 
known to the imam recalls the latter's actual con- 
dition when he has become ghd'ib and his state of 
ghayba, absence, or better, "occultation". 

Bibliography: Further to references given in 

the text: Diet, of tech. terms, 1033 f. (s.v. c dlam), 

1090, 1539 f. (s.v. huwiyya): Max Horten, Theologie 

des Islam, 219 f. 

(D. B. Macdonald-[L. Gardet]) 

QHAYBA [masdar of ghaba) means "absence", 
often "absence of mind". The latter sense was 
developed by the §ufis as the obverse of hadra [q.v.], 
absence from the creation and presence with God. 
The word is also used for the condition of anyone 
who has been withdrawn by God from the eyes of 
men and whose life during that period (called his 
ghayba) may have been miraculously prolonged. It 
is so used of al-Khadir [q.v.]. A number of Shi'i 
groups have recognized the ghayba, in the latter 
sense, of one or another imam, with the implication 
that no further imam was to succeed him and he 
was to return at a foreordained time as Mahdi [q.v.]. 
The first instance of this was that of Muhammad b. 
al-Hanafiyya. 

Among the Ithna'asharl Imamis, the Ghayba 
became a major historical period, lasting from the 
disappearance of the twelfth imam until his reap- 
pearance in eschatological times. It was divided into 
two parts. In the "lesser Ghayba", from 260/874 to 
about 329/941, the Hidden Imam was represented 
among his followers by safirs [q.v.], held to be in 
touch with him and exercising his authority. They 
maintained the organization, in its legal and financial 
functions, which had grown up around the later 
imams (cf. Javad Ali, Die beiden ersten Satire des 
zwblften Imams, in Isl., xxv (1939), 197-227). The 
fourth of these did not pass on his authority to a suc- 
cessor; on his death, therefore, began what is called 
the "greater Ghayba" when the Imamis represented 
only indirectly or through occasional miraculous 
interventions. Though kept generally invisible, the 
Imam still lives on earth, has from time to time been 
seen by some and been in written correspondence 
with others (for instance, he receives letters placed 
on holy tombs), and maintains a control over the 
fortunes of his people. At the time of pilgrimage he, 
is at Mecca, unrecognized, scrutinizing the hearts of 
the believers. The earlier organization of the sect 
has been replaced by the presence of independently 
learned mttdjtahids in the various Shi'i centres, 
recognized by the community as qualified to interpret 
the Imam's will. The Ghayba has legal effects on 
account of the absence of the imam, whose active 
presence in the community is regarded as necessary 
for validating certain community actions. Hence 
some have regarded djihdd as in abeyance during 
the Ghayba, as well as the full celebration of the 
saldt al-Hum'-a. It has not been excluded from the 
thought of many Imamis that another direct 
representative of the Imam should appear under 
the title Bab, an equivalent of safir; but none of 
the claimants to this office has been generally 
recognized. (On the Imami Ghayba see I. Goldziher, 
Vorlesungen, 232 ff., 269 f.; idem, Abhandlungen zur 



arabischen Philologie, ii, p. lxiiff.; Ibn Babuya al- 
IJumml, Kamdl al-din wa-tamdm al-ni l ma fi ithbdt 
al-ghayba, ed. Ernst Moller Beitrage zur Mahdilehre 
des Islam, I, Heidelberg 1901). 

The corresponding periods of absence of an imam 
among the Isma'IlI groups are differently inter- 
preted, and called satr [q.v.]. But among the Duruz 
[q.v.], the concept and term were revived to refer to 
the period of absence of al-Hakim and Hamza. 

(D. B. Macdonald-[M. G. S. Hodgson]) 
CHAYLAN b. MUSLIM, Abu Marwan al- 
Dimashki al-KibtI, is chiefly known as one of the 
first advocates of free will [see ^adariyya], at the 
same time as Ma c bad al-Djuhanl [q.v.]. The son of 
a freed slave of 'Uthman b. 'Affan, he appears, like 
Ma'bad, to have been the disciple of a Christian from 
'Irak, but he lived in Damascus where he held the 
position of secretary in the chancellery. Al-Djahiz 
(Baydn, iii, 29) mentions him on the same footing 
as Ibn al-Mukaffa', Sahl b. Harun and c Abd al- 
Hamld, and even one so strictly orthodox as al- 
'Askalanl acknowledged his professional ability 
(Lisdn al-Mizdn, iv, 424), while Ibn al-Nadlm 
(Fihrist, 171) estimated his rasd'il to amount to 
about 2,000 leaves; they were probably not all of 
an administrative and diplomatic character, to judge 
by al-Khayyat (Intisdr, ed. and trans. Nader, Ar. 
text 93, trans. 115) who when answering the accusa- 
tions of Ibn al-Rawandi [q.v.] appealed to their 
content and stated that they were very widely 
known; he added that Ghaylan believed in the five 
Mu'tazill principles, but the heresiographers rank 
him solely among the Radaris. According to al- 
Shahrastanl (margin of Ibn Hazm, i, 194), who names 
him as one of the Murdjil Kadaris, his principal 
doctrine concerned the primary, innate knowledge 
(ma'rifa) which allows it to be known that the world 
has an Artificer created by Himself; the imdn is only 
the secondary, acquired knowledge. 

The activities of Ghaylan, who apparently em- 
braced the cause of al-Harith b. Suraydj al-Kadhdhab 
[see pjahm b. safwan], earned him the imprecations 
of 'Umar b. 'Abd al- c Aziz, but it was only Hisham 
b. 'Abd al-Malik (105-25/724-43) who gave orders 
that his hands and feet should be cut off and who had 
him crucified, after al-Awza'I (born about 87/706, 
d. 157/774 [q.v.]) had subjected him to interrogation 
and given a verdict in favour of his execution. 

Bibliography: Djahiz, Baydn and IJayawdn, 
index; Ibn IJutayba, Ma c drif, 484, 625; idem, 
'Uyun, index; Ibn al-Nadlm, Fihrist, 171 ; Ash'arl, 
Makdldt*, ed. Ritter, Wiesbaden 1963, index; 
BaghdadI, Fark, ed. Badr, 190, 193, Eng. trans. 
A. S. Halkin, 1, 6-7; Dhahabl, Mizdn al-iHiddl; 
'Askalani, Lisdn al-Mizdn, iv, 424; Ibn Batta, 
ed. and trans. H. Laoust, 169; A. N. Nader, 
Mu'tazila, 6; A. S. Tritton, Muslim theology, 
London 1947, index; Montgomery Watt, Free 
will and predestination, London 1948. 

(Ch. Pellat) 
GHAYLAN B. 'U&BA [see dhu 'l-rumma]. 
GHAYN. 19th letter of the Arabic alphabet, here 
transcribed gh; numerical value: 1000. 

Definition: a voiced post velar fricative; 
according to the Arab grammatical tradition: 
rikhwa madihura mustaHiya. As regards the makh- 
radi: min adnd 'l-halk (from the part of the throat 
nearest to the mouth). The Arabs thus made ghayn 
(and khd') guttural. They contrasted them with 'ayn 
and hd>, min awsat al-halk; and with ha' and hamza, 
min aksd 'l-halk (al-Zamakhshari, Muf? § 732). The 
velaric articulation of ghayn is well described by 



GHAYN — GHAYTA 



R. Ruiiika as "between the soft palate (velum) and 
the back of the tongue" {Existence du gh, 182). 
The soft palate is divided into two areas: upper 
(prevelar) and lower (postvelar). The articulation 
of ghayn takes place in the latter area, hence the 
adjective employed in the definition. To the extent 
that a channel is formed on the back of the tongue 
permitting the uvula to vibrate, ghayn approximates 

In a few cases the passage from gh to kh is quoted 
(J. Cantineau, Cours, 94), see Ibn al-Sikkit {al-Kalb 
wa 'l-ibddl, 32). But particularly interesting is the 
passage from c ayn to ghayn, which has been 
illustrated with numerous examples by R. 
Ruiicka, notably in L'altemance de 9 — fen arabe 
{JA, ccxxi (1932), 67-115)- Since his article in ZA, 
xxi (1907), 293-340, he has sustained and defended 
the theory of the secondary origin of ghayn in 
Semitic, by the passage of c ayn into ghayn in 
Arabic and only in Arabic (references to these 
writings: At. Or., xix (1951), 100, n. 4). 

One of his last articles summarizes his ideas and 
his activity in this controversy: La question de 
V existence du git dans les langues simitiques en genital 
et dans la langue ougaritienne en particulier, in Ar. 
Or., xxii (1954), 176-237 (quoted as Existence du gh). 
K. Petracek, his pupil, who is loyal to his ideas 
{Ar. Or., xxi (1953), 240-62 and xxiii (1955), 475-8), 
acknowledges {ibid., xxi, 243, n. 16) that only H. 
Torczyner has accepted the theory. During the 
lifetime of its author, and to his great chagrin, it 
seems to have encountered only indifference or 
neutrality in the world of orientalists. S. Moscati, in 
his recent Lezioni di linguistica semitica (Rome i960), 
includes ghayn among the phonemes of common 
Semitic (41-3), as had W. Leslau in the Manual of 
phonetics (ed. L. Kaiser, Amsterdam 1957), 327. The 
existence of doublets is not sufficient to prove the 
secondary character of the Arabic ghayn (according 
to the judgment of J. Cantineau, Cours, 94). Further, 
R. Ruzicka appears to have underrated the data of 
South Arabian epigraphy and to have misinterpreted 
those of Ugaritic (cf. S. Moscati, he. cit. and Rend. 
Lin., series VIII, xv/3-4 (i960), 87; compare also the 
account of C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic manual, Rome 
1955, i, ch. 5, 8). We would ourselves also retain 
ghayn among the articulations of common Semitic. 
The most recent documents to be discovered (see 
GLECS , Comptes rendus, viii, 73; C. Virolleaud, Palais 
d'Ugarit, ii, 201, Mission Ras Shamra, vii, 1957), 
pending a fuller report, do not contradict this 

But the dispute has at least brought to light a 
certain instability in the Arabic 'ayn (which can 
pass into ghayn), at least among certain tribes; 
(we must also eliminate false doublets arising from 
simple graphic errors in the manuscript tradition). 
An analogous case seems to be reproduced in present 
day dialects, where ghayn is seen to have passed into 
kdf: dialects of North Arabian nomads: Rogga, the 
Mawali; the majority of the dialects of the Algerian 
Sahara, an immense region which seems to cover also 
the South Moroccan and Mauritanian Sahara (see 
J. Cantineau, Cours, 95). 

In Classical Arabic ghayn undergoes few condition- 
ed changes {ibid., 94). For the phonological opposi- 
tions of the phoneme gh see J. Cantineau, Esquisse, 
in BSL (no. 126), 105, 22 ; for its incompatibilities 
see ibid., 135. 

For a general discussion of the phonetics of Arabic 
as seen by the classical grammarians, see hurOf al- 



iiaiA'; i 



modern studies, see 






Bibliography: in the text and under huruf 

AL-HIDJA 5 . (H. FLEISCH) 

CHAYR MAHDl [see Muhammad al-djawnpurI]. 
fiHAYTA, Gha'ita or GhIta. A reed-pipe of 
cylindrical bore or an oboe of conical bore, popular 
in Muslim Spain and North Africa. The word is not 
Arabic, but originated in the low Latin wactare and 
the French guetter, whence the old English term 
wayte — the modern wait — who sounded the hours at 
night on an instrument thus named. Delphin and 
Guin say that the ghayta was introduced by the 
Turks, but it is mentioned by Ibn Battuta (d. 779/1377) 
who likens the instrument to the Mesopotamian 
surndy. It was blown by means of a single or double 
reed {kasba) placed in the inflation end of the in- 
strument. It is practically identical with the 
Eastern zamr or mizmdr. Like the mediaeval 
shawmer of Europe, the player takes the entire in- 
flation reed {kasba) into his mouth as far as a disc 
called '■arrad, which means that the player's lips 
have no more control over the tone of the instrument 
than have those of a bagpiper. The 'bell' of the 
instrument is widely conical as that term implies, 
and is perforated with tiny holes. The tube of the 
ghay(a is perforated with seven finger holes on its 
breast with one on its back for the thumb. Nowadays 
these holes on the breast — from the top to the 
bottom — bear Iranian names, vis., yaka sdHda, 
shashka, bandfka, diahdrka, sika, daka, and yaka, the 
thumb-hole at the back being haftakd. Persian 
musical terminology is current even in conservative 
Morocco, and the instrument is delineated in Host, 
Nachrichten von Marokos und Fes, 1787. The ghayta 
is chiefly an out-door instrument and is usually 
accompanied by a drum (tab!) played with two 
sticks, and a larger drum termed tanbar, i.e., the 
French tambour, which is struck with an animal bone. 
In southern Tunisia it retains the old Arabic name 
of zammdra, which in Egypt is reserved for a double 
reed-pipe because — perhaps — the term signifies 
'shackled'. Strangely enough Ibn Khaldun calls the 
instrument zalldma, which A. Cour considered to be 
a metathesis of zammdra. On the other hand there 
was a certain musician named Zunam mentioned in 
the 18th makdma of al-Hariri who is claimed to have 
been the inventor of a nay zundmi or nay zuldmi, and 
he was at the court of Hariin (d. 193/809) and onwards. 
Al-Shakundi (d. 628/1231) of Seville calls it zuldmi. In 
some places of North Africa, where Turkish influence 
once prevailed, the instrument is known as the 
zurna; the term zukra is also used in Tunisia. In 
modern Spain the gaita Gallega is still favoured in 
Galicia, and since that land was held by the Muslims 
for a mere five years, it is likely that the name of this 
instrument is not of Arabic origin; nevertheless the 
initial ghayn in the arabicized word has bred the 
crossed Spanish forms gaita, raita and raica. The 
Turkish form is ghaydd (modern Turkish gayda) and 
this term is used in a part of the Slavonic field for a 
kind of bagpipe. 

Bibliography: G. Host, Nachrichten von Marokos 
und Fes, Copenhagen 1787; T. Shaw, Voyages dans 
la Rigence d' Alger (trans, by MacCarthy, Algiers 
1830, 89 ff.); F. Salvador Daniel, La musique arabe, 
Paris 1863, Algiers 1879 (trans, by Farmer as 
Arab music and musical instruments, London 1915, 
117, 224, 243-4); Delphin and Guin, Notes sur la 
poisie et la musique arabes, Paris 1886, 47-9; 
W. Marcais, Textes arabes de Tanger, Paris 191 1, 
152 fn. 3, 407; A. Bel, La Djdzya, Paris 1903, 



GHAYTA — GHAZAL 



93 ff.; J. E. Budgett Meakin, The Moors, London 
1901, 202-3; Bu 'All, K. Kashf al-Kina 1 , Algiers 
1904, 98-104; Farmer, History of Arabian music, 
London 1929, 131; idem, Oriental studies: mainly 
musical, London 1953, 6; idem, EI 1 , s.v. mizmAr; 
M. Snoussi, in REI, xxix/i (1961), 143-57. 

(Henry G. Farmer) 
GH AZAL. "song, elegy of love", often also "the 
erotico-elegiac genre". The term is Arabic, but passed 
into Persian, Turkish and Urdu and acquired a 
special sense in these languages. 

The semantic development of the word from the 
root ghzl, "to spin", "spinning", is not in doubt, but 
presupposes intermediary meanings for which we 
have no evidence; the ghazal was not in fact a song 
of women spinning, like that of which Tibullus 
speaks (ed. Rat, Paris 1931, Book II, no. 1, line 60), 
but a man's song addressed to a girl; contamination 
by the noun ghazal "gazelle", from the images and 
comparisons associated with it, is not perhaps to be 
excluded (cf. "to make sheep's eyes"). Whatever the 
reason, the idea evoked by the term ghazal, like the 
English "gallantry" and particularly the noun 
"gallant", now fallen into disuse, became elaborated 
in a realm of ideas where there mingle the notions of 
flirtation, compliments made to a lady, complaints 
at her coldness or inaccessibility and the description 
of effeminate languishing attitudes on the part of the 
lover (cf. the noun-adjective ghazil, "affected, 
mincing, without vigour"; on the ambiguity of the 
idea, see Kudama, 42, to be compared with the 
definition in LA, xiv, 4, line 20, where the stress is 
on the idea of "amorous addresses"). The word 
ghazal, as early as in a line of al-Akhtal (ed. SalhanI, 
142), is associated with lahw "pleasure"; in a con- 
temporary poet, Suraka (ed. Husayn, in JRAS, 1936, 
no. 20, verse 9), the term appears in the phrase 
yalhu ild ghazal al-shabdb "he seeks his pleasure in 
the ghazal of youth". The meaning of love-song 
inspired by youthfulness is clear in a verse attributed 
to Waddah [q.v.~], where the composition of ghazals 
and the fear of death are contrasted. By the 3rd/gth 
century, ghazal had finally acquired the general 
sense given above (see al-Washsha', 54 bottom, Ibn 
Kutayba, Poesis, 525) ; the comparative aghzalu is as 
much applied to a verse as to a poet and thus 
represents the general idea of preeminence in this 
genre (see Aghdni 3 , i, 114, line 5, and Ibn Rashik, ii, 
115). The noun-adjective ghazil means the "elegiac 
poet" as early as the 3rd/gth century (thus Aghdni 3 , 
viii, 352 and Aghdni 3 , xx, 149 onwards). The 5th 
form of the verb, taghazzala, before it meant "to 
compose love-songs", would seem to have had the 
meaning "to express a sorrow of love" (see the 
passage in Ibn Rashik, ii, 118); for his period, 
Kudama established a distinction between ghazal 
and taghazzul (see Kudama, 42, where the basis of 
the ghazal is further distinguished from that of the 
nasib). 

To the same realm of ideas as ghazal there belong 
the verbal noun and the verb tashbib and shabbaba, 
whose etymology, curiously enough, was not 
discovered by certain Arab critics (see Kudama, in 
Ibn Rashik, ii, 121); the term is quite certainly 
derived from shabdb, "youthfulness, youth"; it is 
frequently used as a simple synonym for ghazal and 
nasib (LA, i, 463, line 21). According to Ibn Durayd 
(in Ibn Rashik, ii, 122 bottom), the term nasib would 
be more commonly used; the origin of this remains 
obscure; perhaps it originally described a type of 
dedicatory verse addressed to a lady; but the 
possibility must not be excluded of a relationship, 



by loss of emphasis, with the word nasb, "a kind of 
camelman's lament similar to the hidd"' (see al- 
Djahiz, Tarbi c , index; Aghdni 3 , ix, 133 and also vi, 
63, where it is a matter of a singer bearing the tribal 
name of al-Nasbi). The word nasib, in ancient times, 
designates the elegiac genre, in a list in which there 
also figure the poem of praise, the satire and the 
fakhr (thus in Ibn Rashik, i, 100 and especially Ibn 
Sallam in Aghdni 3 , viii, 6, line 4 ; cf. ibid., 97, line 12) ; 
sometimes this genre appears in a five-fold list (see 
Ibn Rashik, loc. cit., bottom of page). In certain 
passages, the verb nasaba constructed with bi- 
clearly means "to sing of the beauty of a lady and 
the agitation she inspires" (thus in Aghdni 3 , vi, 219, 
viii, 99, 123). It is well known that in its common 
meaning nasib designates the amatory elegiac 
prologue at the beginning of a kasida. Kudama, 42, 
attempted very artificially to establish a distinction 
between the thematic elements of the ghazal and 
those of the nasib. 

i. — The Ghazal in Arabic Poetry 
1. The amatory elegy in Arabic poetry can be 
made the subject of historical and critical study only 
from the last quarter of the 6th century A.D. onwards. 
Of course, we have no text originating in this era, but 
those which have come down to us under the names 
of poets belonging to this period, such as Imru J al- 
Kays, Tarafa and a number of others, are very 
t that time the ghazal was handled 
tradition which is clearly ancient and 
honoured. According to all the evidence, this genre 
was one of those most current in "spontaneous 
poetry", that is, in the camelman's chant (or hida}) ; 
at this level it must have been improvised and for 
this reason no example of it has come down to us. 
Under what influences, where, and when did there 
appear and become established the custom of 
prefacing the kasida with an amatory elegiac prelude, 
known from the ist/7th century onwards as the 
nasib ? We can only guess at the answers to 
these questions. Since the kasida was both originally 
and essentially not a framework but a lyrical move- 
ment consisting of a sequence in the key of fakhr or a 
Dionysiac expression of the ego, it is possible that 
the nasib owed its place to the very importance of 
the carnal and psychic impulses which it evoked; in 
fact there also occur in the ahal of the Tuaregs the 
same lyrical flights introducing identical explosions 
of boasting; the procedure is not therefore peculiar 
to the Arabs. Though at first episodic in the poetry 
of the nomads of Central and Eastern Arabia, the 
elegiac production known as nasib seems to have 
become incorporated in the kasida under the in- 
fluence of a fashion current among or created by 
poets belonging to groups on the Euphrates steppe; 
certain data accepted among 'Iraki scholars indeed 
assume that the nasib is the invention of a certain 
Ibn Hidham (see Ibn Sallam, ed. Hell, 13, line 9) or 
of the famous Muhalhil [q.v.~] (ibid, and also al- 
Djahiz, Baydn, ed. Hariin, ii, 297) or even in fact of 
Imru J al-Kays (Ibn Kutayba, 40, 52) ; as may be seen, 
these indications demonstrate the existence of a 
tradition which was still living in the 3rd/gth century 
and according to which the nasib was associated with 
an idea peculiar to the Bakri poets or others in the 
orbit of al-HIra (see Blachere, Litt., chap. V, § C). 
This feature is significant since, in so far as it may 
be historically acceptable, it permits us to infer that 
this centre, with its musicians and its circle of poets, 
probably exercised an influence on the ghazal 
cultivated in the desert. It would seem that this 



influence became apparent in the last quarter of 
the 6th century A.D. at the latest. From certain 
indications it may be possible to descry a similar 
phenomenon in other centres closely linked with the 
badawi way of life such as Tayma', Mecca and al- 
Ta'if. Most probably, though of still uncertain date, 
the verse texts attributed to ancient poets like 
Tarafa, Zuhayr, c Alkama, Imru' al-Kays, Hassan 
b. Thabit, al-A c sha Maymun, and al-Hutay'a, to 
mention only the most representative, evoke 
reasonably well the themes which were habitually 
developed in the amatory elegiac nasib of this period. 
The apostrophe to the deserted encampment, the 
description of the migrating group disappearing into 
the distance, the sorrow aroused by the separation, 
the memory left in the poet's heart by the promises 
of the beloved, the recital of the efforts made to 
rejoin her, all constitute a thematic sequence arising 
from the environment ; even the detail of the develop- 
ment, as much as the stock phrases, derives from the 
same origin; to a certain extent, the thematic 
elements belong to the real world but they are 
transposed into a kind of fiction by the use made of 
them. Already at this time convention may well 
have been very powerful; everything leads us to 
believe that the elegiac poet from now on makes use 
of a vocabulary, of formulas, of stock phrases, whose 
use reinforces the tyranny of convention. 

2. Among the generation of poets which arose 
about 50/670, the amatory elegiac genre received a 
particular twist which conditioned its subsequent 
development. This generation to varied degrees freed 
itself from the grip of the poetic tradition inherited 
from Central and Eastern Arabia. The three areas 
of the Muslim Arab East which were to struggle for 
leadership during the eighty years or so which 
followed differed in the extent of their contribution 
to this change. Syria and Palestine were of secondary 
importance and followed the lead of the Arabian 
peninsula and 'Irak. The latter, while occupying a 
prominent place in the poetic movement, carried on 
the previous tradition; the artists and versifiers were 
led by circumstances to specialize in the laudatory, 
satirical and descriptive styles; in the works of the 
representative 'Iraki poets, amatory elegiac themes 
occur only in the nasibs of the Ibafidas ; in some, like 
al-Farazdak, they are in fact noticeably neglected; 
in all, they are treated in a manner which suggests a 
mere prolongation of the tradition passed on from 
the desert and cultivated at al-HIra or under its 
influence. 

In the Hidjaz on the other hand, and more parti- 
cularly in Mecca, al-Ta 3 if and Madina, the situation 
was entirely different. The influx of wealth from the 
conquest, the disruption of the social structure 
resulting from the enrichment and political advance- 
ment of certain families such as the Umayyads, the 
Zubayrids, and several Makhzumi clans, the in- 
troduction into the population of Mecca and Madina 
of foreign elements, particularly captives brought 
from Palestine and 'Irak, as well as the choice of 
Madina as political capital, had all played their part 
in turning this province, with its urban centres, into 
a world very different from that which the generation 
of the Caliph c Umar I had known. The establishment 
of the Umayyad dynasty in Syria, the gradual 
political and religious rise of the cities of 'Irak and 
the ten years during which the revolt of the Zubayrids 
cut off the Hidjaz from the rest of the Empire, 
succeeded in giving society in Madina and Mecca a 
character of its own. Certain aristocratic elements 
renounced an active rdle and sought solace for their 



unsatisfied ambitions in the pursuit of pleasure and 
the taste for sentimental intrigues. The anecdotal 
literature collected by Abu '1-Faradj al-Isfahani from 
the writings of the 'Iraki "logographers", especially 
the liddi of Mecca, al-Zubayr b. Bakkar (d. 256/870), 
subject to the necessary critical adjustments, helps 
us to form an idea of what life in this circle was like. 
Women occupied an important place, together with 
dilettanti, aristocrats with violent passions, intriguers, 
characters of doubtful morality, singers and singing- 
girls. The setting was favourable to the development 
of lyric poetry; by a happy chance, the aristocracy 
produced several poets like al- c ArdjI, al-Ahwas and 
c Umar b. Abl Rabi'a, who devoted their talent to 
the celebration of their love affairs; others of more 
humble origin like Kuthayyir and Nusayb imitated 
them, without entirely being able to avoid becoming 
court poets. In this poetic movement a significant 
part is played by singers and singing-girls, as much 
by reason of the practices they introduced as because 
they took part in the composition of the works; 
often in fact they selected fragments of verse or 
commissioned them from poets, which implies an 
artistic production entirely governed by musical 
considerations. 

The study of the amatory elegiac verse which 
developed in the Hidjaz between about 50/670 and 
the end of the first quarter of the 2nd/8th century 
comes up against the difficulty posed by the state of 
the texts. On the one hand a considerable volume of 
verse has disappeared; on the other, what has 
survived has often been preserved only in anthologies 



r late c 



1 very r 



; for 



example the case with the poems of Kuthayyir (ed. 
Peres, Algiers 1928-30) and those of Nusayb (ed. 
Rizzitano in RSO, xxii, 1943); frequently, these 
recensions consist only of fragments which poorly 
represent the original outpouring; even in the case of 
the relatively important Diwdn attributed to c Umar 
b. Abi Rabi'a (ed. P. Schwarz, Leipzig 1901-2, 1909; 
reprinted by c Abd al-Hamld, Cairo 1952), many 
problems arise; it is in fact apparent that this 
collection includes pieces which give evidence of 
reconstruction, retouching, and indeed the hand of 
imitators. The very conditions in which the ghazal 
of the Hidjaz was born explain the disappearance of 
these works and the state of those which survive; 
many were simply extempore compositions, occasional 
pieces, ephemeral by nature; some seem to have been 
commissioned by musicians, singing girls or dilettanti 
from poets forced to compose in haste and to 
refurbish earlier works. The uncertainties of 
attribution are great; it was indeed enough for a 
piece to contain the name of c Azza for it to be 
attributed to Kuthayyir, who was accustomed to 
celebrate a lady of this name; often too, single lines 
or pieces attributed to a poet are nothing more than 
elaborations in verse drawn from fictional biographies 
or romances about the poet ; thus the small historical 
and literary value to be accorded to such compositions 
is easily seen. Taken together, nevertheless, the 
amatory elegiac texts which have been preserved 
allow us to evoke satisfactorily the general character- 
istics of the style in the period under consideration. 
In order to estimate the extent to which this is 
possible, however, we must constantly keep in mind 
the fact that our texts contain passages where the 
influence of the courtly style of 'Irak appears, as 
indicated below. 

The poetic instrument used by the poets of the 
Hidjaz was substantially different from that of their 
contemporaries in Central and Eastern Arabia. 



1030 GH, 

Under local influences the connexion between poetry 
and music remained very much alive; this is shown 
especially in the use of metres practically unknown 
to the poets in the desert tradition; thus, the khafif, 
the hasadi, the ramal are found to be extensively 
represented among the elegists, and the identity of 
these with the musical modes of the same names 
must be emphasized. Among the poets of this school 
enjambement is much less rare than among their 
desert rivals. The vocabulary is equally character- 
istic; free from rare words and hapax legomena, it 
aims at simplicity and naturalness; the dialogue form 
is frequent and corresponds to the description of 
real scenes; naturally, many expressions are proper 
to the evocation of feelings connected with the 
excitements of the heart and the flesh. 

The elegists of the Hidjaz were primarily poets of 
the desert school. Their surroundings simply brought 
about a development which set them aside from the 
main stream of the badawi tradition. This can easily 
be shown from the texts. Often, for example, the 
elegist of Madina and Mecca invokes the deserted 
encampment, describes the departure of a migrating 
group, bewails his sorrow at a separation; thus 
thematic elements proper to the nasib of the kasida 
continue to appear (cf. specimens in Kutiiayyir, ed. 
Peres, no. 44, and 'ArdjI, no. 2, lines 7 ff. and no. 5, 
lines 1-4). These remnants of the desert setting lead 
quickly to stylization, but they still do not preclude 
a certain realism of description. This derives from 
the abiding nature of things. The elegist is above all 
a lyric poet and self-expression cannot do without 
a minimum of sincerity in its references to life. The 
various themes which he develops are in effect the 
highlights of the more or less stylized narration of 
known circumstances or real events; even the poetical 
texts inserted in fictional or romantic narratives still 
represent elements of verisimilitude within the 
pattern of the whole. It is clear that the elegist of 
the Hidjaz loves to note those details which evoke 
reality. We can therefore say that this lyric poetry 
was above all marked by an effort to express senti- 
ments and emotions which were really felt, to 
represent scenes where the participants retained 
their attitudes and reactions; this is so unquestionable 
that in many cases the poet felt obliged to allude to 
the lady by a name other than her own. 

A rapid examination of several themes treated by 
the elegists of the Hidjaz demonstrates the trends 
just sketched and emphasizes the persisting badawi 
influences. The thematic sequence relating to the 
obstacles encountered by the poet in seeking to find 
his lady reproduces the essential features of what is 
found in the desert tradition. There are few novelties; 
at the most we may note a certain harping on the 
obstacles arising from the separation of the sexes and 
the rigour of the new ethic in the society of Madina 
and Mecca; we may also note the realism concealed 
beneath the fiction of conventional personages such 
as the rattib or "censor", the kdshih or "ill-wisher", 
the c ddhil or "blamer"; according to our biographical 
information, these personages correspond to known 
real persons. The poetical texts also refer very often 
to the difficulties which arise from human nature, to 
the quarrels and misunderstandings between lovers, 
to the rupture of relations never to be resumed (thus 
'Umar b. AM Rabi c a, ed. 'Abd al-Hamid, 61, and also 
al-'Ardji in Aghdni 3 , i, 392). One element, however, is 
original: in these elegists, an important r61e is played 
by the evocation of the meeting of the poet and a 
lady on the occasion of the Pilgrimage; clearly the 
theme in question does not refer to imaginary 



circumstances; a typical example is to be found in 
al-'Ardji (see Dlwdn, no. 13 and the account in 
Aghdnfi, i, 408). In these meetings, the lady acts the 
part of "the silent one" but the lyricism of the poet 
requires nothing more than her presence for its 
release. Similarly, the thematic sequence concerned 
with rediscovery is very suggestive, and appears 
frequently ; here again the poet refers to events he has 
experienced, to night rides to rejoin his lady, to the 
surprise caused by his unexpected arrival; hardly 
have they met when the two lovers enter upon a 
dialogue whose simple pattern evokes a conversation 
which has actually taken place ; the amorous quest is 
recorded as an exploit, which re-establishes the 
connexion between the elegiac theme and fakhr 
(thus in 'Umar b. Abl Rabi'a, ed. 'Abd al-Hamid, 
no. 1, line 25 ff.; no. 6, line 10 and no. 258); among 
the Hidjaz poets rediscoveries are given substance 
by the description of details designed to emphasize 
the reality of the experience ; thus, the lover, either 
alone or with companions, surprises the lady amusing 
herself with her women; sometimes the event is 
prearranged and organized by the lady; the two 
lovers meet in a secluded spot (thus in al-'Ardji 
no. 13, line 15, no. 23, line 2); the account very 
frequently ends with a description of the beloved and 
the evocation of sensual excitement between the two 
lovers (thus 'Umar b. Abi Rabi'a, no. 1, lines 35-41, 
no. 5, lines 10 ff., no. 258, lines 9 ff. ; al-'Ardji, no. 47, 
lines 6-26). 

There emerges from the whole pattern of these 
amatory elegiac themes a certain literary concept of 
love, which, for convenience, we shall call the Hidjaz 
manner. This concept is seen primarily in the images 
formed of the lover and his lady. The latter remains 
a somewhat unfocussed character, owing to the lack 
of any poetess able to express herself in verse with 
the authority of such men as 'Umar b. Abi Rabi'a, 
Nusayb or Kuthayyir; her physical appearance is 
described according to the canon already established 
in the traditional nasib, evoking a softness and 
luxury that correspond with an ideal of womanhood 
having little in common with the generality of real 
badawi women; socially, she belongs to a noble 
family, which does not at all imply any insistence on 
the part of the elegist on celebrating her intellectual 
merits; on the contrary, under the influence of a 
tradition which may have already been established 
for centuries, the lady is depicted as a creature 
formidable in charm, coquetry and beauty, which 
she wields with a kind of unself-consciousness and 
at times with manifest cruelty. Nevertheless, on this 
point, the feminine ideal differs from what seems to 
have been the ideal of the desert poets; in the texts 
we are considering, there is a certain contradiction 
in the fact that the Hidjaz elegist takes pleasure in 
saying that his lady is the embodiment of womanly 
love, humble in the face of Destiny, eagerly sub- 
missive to her seducer (as in 'Umar b. Abi Rabi'a, 
passim, and esp. no. 7, lines 1-4, nos. 181 and 187, 
lines 13-18, and no. 242); this attitude is what 
distinguishes the Hidjaz lady most completely from 
her 'Iraki sister, so imbued with courtly spirit. The 
poet-lover, in contrast to the lady, emerges from our 
texts with more defined features; two thematic 
sequences can be distinguished : in the first the lover 
represents himself according to the psychology and 
in the attitudes already familiar in the desert 
tradition; like his badawi brother, the elegist of 
Madina and Mecca appears to us as a victim of his 
love for his lady, a prey to the hostility of a world in 
which he is alone with his agony and despair; his 



tears flow easily and his complaints are shrill; a 
fairly large number of cliches strengthen the already 
apparent links with a completely traditional 
mentality; at many points, even in his plaintive 
attitudes, the poet-lover reveals his latent badawi 
traits, and, conspicuously, his fakkr ; one example of 
this lies in his boast of hitman, or "discretion", and 
of sabr or "constancy and courage in love" — two 
virtues to display which is to infringe them. A second 
thematic sequence comprises dominant ideas deriving 
from a certain realism; of particular importance in 
this field are those fragments of passages in which 
the poet portrays himself as a breaker of hearts, a 
kind of Don Juan whom no beautiful woman can 
resist (see details in Aghdni 3 , i, 119, 139, 144, 166 f.; 
'Umar b. Abi Rabl'a, no. 10, lines 10-18, and no. 45); 
the realities of life are also evident in the develop- 
ments which might be grouped under the title "love 
withers with age"; indeed, the poet often stresses the 
transience of the passions he has aroused or felt; 
this theme is further linked with the tendency of the 
desert poets to replace the elegiac nasib with a 
stereotyped sententious reflection on the flight of 
youth (thus al-Farazdak, ed. Sawi, 78 and 89). 
Whatever the reason, the Hidjaz manner stands in 
absolute contradiction here to one of the basic 
principles of the courtly spirit, which imposes on the 
lover the obligation of submission to the lady of his 
choice. There is also another point on which this 
contradiction is accentuated even more decisively; 
the Hidjaz manner excludes Hffa, that is, a refusal to 
yield to desire, both in the lover and the lady. These 
poets adhere to what is human and do not seek to 
transcend it; their sensuality is as much part of 
their love as is their constancy (cf. the strikingly 
sensual passages in al-'Ardji, no. 15, lines 19-21, 
no. 5, lines n f., no. 131, line 7, no. 28, lines 1, 9; 
and frequent also in 'Umar b. Abi Rabi'a, as no. 28, 
lines 2, 5). In view of this, these poets have been 
named ibdhiyyun, "licentious"; it is justifiable, 
provided one makes it clear that their licence does 
not descend to indecency or depravity; it is very 
noteworthy in this connexion that the Hidjaz 
manner never offends against nature and a certain 
respect for good manners. 

3. A new phase in the development of the amatory 
elegiac genre begins at the point where one can 
observe the characteristic features of c Udhri [q.v.] 
love or the courtly spirit. It is very difficult to fix 
the terminus a quo when this phase makes its 
appearance; in the texts ascribed to the Hidjaz 
elegists there are in fact widespread courtly traces 
to be noticed, which arise from the uncertainties of 
subsequent revision; this very delicate question has 
not so far been the subject of any very profound 
research, even though it affects the whole problem. 
The origins of 'Udhri love are nevertheless illuminated 
with a new clarity by a very elaborate examination 
of the poetic texts attributed to Djamil [q.v.] or 
Madjnun [q.v.]; this examination must of course be 
linked with an enquiry into these poets and their 
'Udhri rivals. Here and now it can be postulated that 
the amatory elegiac poetry of courtly inspiration 
acquired its character under influences coming from 
outside the primitive Arab homeland; certain 
factors are strictly 'Iraki and to be sought in the 
preoccupations and tastes of some elements of 
society in Basra, Kufa or Baghdad; others derive 
from contacts between centres in 'Irak and the 
Hidjaz; indeed, when in the first quarter of the 
2nd/8th century Madlna was purified of worldly 
occupations, singer-composers left to settle in 'Irak, 



carrying with them the spirit which had favoured 
the flourishing of the Hidjaz manner; without 
creating it, this current could not but whet the 
curiosity of a certain 'Iraki public regarding the 
stories which had spread about the elegists of 
Madlna or Mecca. From the end of the 2nd/8th 
century and in the following twenty-five years, 
there developed in Basra and Baghdad a semi- 
romantic, semi-historical literature, of which Ibn 
al-Nadim, Fihrist, 306, cites several authors, such as 
Ibn al-Kalbl, al-Mada'ini, or al-Haytham b. c Adi; 
these writings, widely utilized by Abu '1-Faradj al- 
Isfahani in his Kitdb al- Aghdni, demonstrate that the 
poet-lovers sometimes underwent a genuine trans- 
figuration, which in certain cases turned real persons 
like Djamil into veritable heroes of love. From then 
on the poetical works collected or mis-attributed 
under the names of these poet-lovers could not but 
reflect the psychology of the heroes who figured 
in the romances or romanticized biographies. Can 
certain tribal groups of Western Arabia have been 
familiar in their folklore from the ist/7th century or 
even earlier with love stories centred on a more or 
less legendary personality ? It is very possible. In 
particular it seems that the little tribe of the 'Udhra. 
which in the ist/7th century frequented an area 
extending from the oasis of Tayma 5 to the Wadi 
'1-Kura (see Aghdni 3 , viii, 123, 126, lines 4-5) prided 
itself on having produced one of these heroes, the 
famous Djamil. The 'Udhra were not, however, the 
only ones to claim such a title to fame; the Nahd of 
the same area were equally proud of having given 
birth to the sayyid Ibn 'Adjlan, who later became the 
hero of a love saga (cf. Ibn Kutayba, Poesis, 449; 
Aghdni 1 , xix, 102-4 and xx, 22; Blachere, Lift., ii, 
chap. IV, § B). Under the pressure of tribal parti- 
cularism, other groups seem later to have developed 
creations of a similar kind in the 'Iraki centres 
where they had installed themselves; such seems 
to have been the case with the c Amir b. Sa'sa'a and 
Madjnun, their "fool of love" who became a famous 
hero through his passion for Layla. 

Before it was finally established in a closely 
defined system, the courtly spirit seems to have 
spread through diffuse; influences as a kind of 
heightening of the Hidjaz spirit. There is no doubt 
that the poet Bashshar b. Burd (b. about 95/714, d. 
about 167/784) played a considerable part in popu- 
larizing certain themes at Basra; in his Diwdn, 
which is unfortunately incomplete, it is easy to note, 
among verses or fragments addressed to c Abda and 
other female personalities of the city, lyric pieces 
where in fact his love is from the first known to be 
hopeless and draws its lasting character from this 
certainty. The setting in which Bashshar was com- 
posing his ghazals was in any case favourable to such 
emotional exaltation; it was the time indeed when 
at Basra mystical experiences were particularly to 
be observed among women; it was also the time 
when, in this centre as at Kufa, a giddy society, free 
thinking and morally lax, was plunging into easy 
pleasures which, in occasional flashes, inspired a 
thirst for purer and serener joys. Bashshar himself 
seems to have experienced such disillusion, like his 
contemporary of Kufa, MutI' b. Iyas (d. 170/787); 
here and there in Bashshar's elegiac works he gives 
evidence of a fruitless desire to detach himself from 
carnal pursuits. The merit of having achieved such 
an escape must be ascribed to his younger compatriot, 
al-'Abbas b. al-Ahnaf (b. about 133/750, d. about 
193/808). The work of this poet is unique in the 
history of Arabic poetry; it is exclusively a song of 



courtly love. Inspired by real love for a lady desig- 
nated by various names, this elegist composed 
occasional pieces and more elaborate works all 
concerned with one ideal; for the poet, the lady is 
the unattainable, the distant incarnation of a desired 
being which one owes it to oneself to love while 
obeying a self-imposed rule never to try to go 
beyond dreaming. Renunciation is the law imposed 
from the moment when the heart ceases to heed the 
reason; nothing can permit one to dream of being 
healed from an affliction sent by fate. To express his 
experience, this courtly poet turns to the instrument 
developed by the elegists of the Hidjaz for their own 
purposes; he employs the same metres, hhaflf, ramal 
and kazadj; he shares their taste for a flexible 
vocabulary free of lexical pathos; for him even 
rhetoric has a certain spontaneity. A number of 
indications suggest that his poems were composed 
to be set to music; without doubt, many were 
composed at the request of certain aristocratic 
women of Baghdad; it is plausible that the chosen 
lady of al-'Abbas was the princess 'Alya, as 'Atika 
Khazradji seems to have established. All this tends 
to show that the courtly ghazal is a genre born among 
the aristocratic society of the 'Iraki cities; it cor- 
responds to a certain sophistication cultivated by 
the youth of both sexes who described themselves 
as zarlf[q.v.], "smart" (pi. zurafd?, fem. pi. zawdrif). 

The emergence of Abu Nuwas (b. between 130/747 
and 145/762, d. at Baghdad about 200/815) represents 
a new stage in the development of the amatory 
elegiac genre. The work attributed to this name 
offers many problems. In the two available recensions 
it might well in fact not be one individual's works at 
all, but a collection; whatever the case, if the greater 
part of it is from the pen of Abu Nuwas alone, this 
clearly implies a convergence of influences; the poet 
was actually the child of an Iranian mother and a 
half-Arab father, and seems to reflect a double trend 
in which the Arab tradition is no longer the only 
dominant. In many characteristics the elegiac poems 
brought together under his name certainly resemble 
those of other poets of Basra. Though they lack much 
of the courtly spirit of al-'Abbas b. al-Ahnaf, they 
are nevertheless written in the fluid style typical of 
that elegist and offer notable similarities to the 
poems of Bashshar; the setting of Baghdad where 
AbO Nuwas lived for many years certainly must be 
taken into account here. There remain nevertheless 
features which specifically distinguish Abu Nuwas or 
his school; the courtly spirit occupies a secondary 
place in these works and must be sought in some 
pieces addressed to the enigmatic Djanan. These 
poems prefer to develop, with significant exuberance 
and insistence, an Epicureanism which embraces 
every kind of satisfaction; to a certain extent the 
Bacchic pieces verge, in certain episodes, on the 
elegy of sentiment; but the poet's eyes are no longer 
turned towards a chosen lady but towards loose 
women, or towards young men who, in these works, 
inflame passions which are hardly Platonic. If, as 
one may be justified in accepting as a hypothesis, 
the collection attributed to Abu Nuwas is not the 
work of one individual, it follows that this lyricism, 
so definite in character, corresponds to the taste and 
manners of one sector of Baghdad society. The break 
with the courtly spirit and romantic love on the part 
of this sector is clear; in opposition to an idealism 
lacking relation to the human, there now arises an 
unashamed naturalism which refuses to blame itself. 

4. The 3rd/gth century saw the elaboration of a 
coherent doctrine of the courtly ideal under the 



growing influence of neo-Platonism. This ideal is 
represented by the kind of treatise on sophistication 
which the Kitab al-Muwashshd of al-Washsha 1 [?.«.] 
constitutes; it is also illustrated by that notable 
anthology of love which we owe to the ?ahiri theolo- 
gian Muhammad b. Dawud al-Isfahani (d. 297/909), 
called Kitab al-Zahra. It is unnecessary here to recall 
the characteristic traits of this spirit [see 'udhraI. 
But we must indicate the connexions which seem to 
have existed between this concept of love and its 
reflexions in the neo-classical poetry whose principal 
representatives in the East are Abu Tammam, al- 
Buhturi and al-Mutanabbi. Among the poets of this 
period the field of expression of the amatory elegiac 
genre became more restricted; the only develop- 
ments to be found are confined in fact to the nasibs. 
prefacing kasidas. In several respects this is a recol- 
lection of the badawi tradition, but the tone differs 
completely and the themes are treated more intel- 
lectually and are reduced to the notation of states of 
mind, and the expression of aphorisms on the vanity 
and fleeting nature of love, on the sorrow it inspires 
and the dissatisfaction to which it leads. This 
lyricism is sinking into conventionality and frigidity. 
Nevertheless, some urban poets of lesser fame, both 
in 'Irak and in the Muslim West, composed poems of 
a more personal lyricism in the ghazal manner. Their 
tone is given by certain pieces by the 'Abbasid prince 
Ibn al-Mu'tazz (b. 247/861, d. at Baghdad 296/908); 
the influence of the courtly spirit is perceptible in 
these works but it does not go so far as to exclude 
references to a lived experience, in which emotion 
seeks to express itself with a spontaneity which is 
frequently suppressed. During the 4th/ioth century, 
similar efforts are visible in other Baghdad poets, 
particularly those who flourished in great numbers 
under the Buyids; many names could be cited, but 
the most typical seem Ibn Sukkara (d. 385/995) and 
al-Salaml (d. 393/1003). In this group of poets the 
influence of Abu Nuwas is undeniable. Like their 
predecessor these artists sing as much of the joy of 
loving as of the emotional troubles which passion 
brings; in all of them we find a stylistic simplicity 
which in its directness of expression is decidedly a 
characteristic of the genre. Certain works of the 
Baghdad poet Ibn al-Hadjdjadj (d. 391/1001) raise 
the question already put regarding Abu Nuwas; 
should they be cited in connexion with this genre ? 
As far as Ibn al-Hadjdjadi is concerned, the reply is 
of even greater delicacy, since the amatory elegiac 
inspiration of this poet is usually nothing but 
cynical eroticism. A more elaborate analysis of the 
genre at this stage in its development may lead to 
the conclusion that two currents are forming: the 
one idealistic and courtly; the other realistic, either 
with the moderation of the Hidjaz manner or with 
the extremism of the obscene poems of Ibn al- 
Hadjdjadj. Whatever the case may be, the latter 
tendency shows itself only sporadically, since the 
conventionalism and the religious ethic of society do 
not offer it a favourable soil in which to develop. 
In the period we have now reached, poetry in 
Arabic was cultivated in all the intellectual centres 
of the Muslim world. The amatory elegiac genre 
naturally therefore had its representative figures in 
each of these centres. In 'Irak under the Saldjuks, 
they were numerous, competent in the manipulation 
of their instrument, but entirely without originality 
(see al-Tahir, ii, 97-102 and the examples given). In 
Egypt, the same comment is valid, though under the 
Ayyubids al-Baha' Zuhayr (b. 581/1187, d. at Cairo 
656/1258) frequently manages to achieve tones which 



recall Abu Nuwas in their sincerity. In Spain, the 
Cordovan Ibn Zaydun (b. 394/1003, d. at Seville 463/ 
1071) contrived also to give the genre a somewhat 
newer air by the employment of a more elaborate 
vocabulary and the substitution here and there in the 
traditional thematic material of more acute psycho- 
logical analyses. Similarly, Ibn Hamdis of Syracuse 
(b. 447/1055, d- at Bougie (?) 527/1132) achieved 
the combination of a generalized lyricism with 
amatory elegiac movements of real charm. It seems 
also that the cultivated society of the cities of 
Spain particularly relished this spirit, which induced 
a sort of "sad delight". 

5. Faced with their incapacity to revivify the 
thematic elements of the ghazal, the Arabic Muslim 
poets from the 5th/nth century onwards turned 
their efforts at originality in another direction. 
Both in the East and the West, there were groups 
who abandoned the exclusive cultivation of this 
genre by means of the resources of the classical 
vocabulary and prosody only. The signal was given 
in Spain by the composition of lyrical and elegiac 
pieces in the muwashshah [q.v.] or zad±al [q.v.] forms. 
From the West, this novelty passed to the East, 
where Ibn Sana" 3 al-Mulk (b. about 550/1155. d. 608/ 
1211) in Egypt (see Rikabi, 69 ff.) and Safi al-DIn 
al-Hilli (b. 677/1278, d. about 750/1359) in 'Irak 
compiled treatises with examples of these new poetic 
forms. These attempts signified an effort to return 
to the very foundations of all lyric poetry, but they 
did not aim at what was essential, namely a profound 
renewal of the themes dealt with in the ghazal. 

In modern times throughout the Middle East we 
are witnessing efforts aimed precisely at effecting 
such a revolution. Poets of this persuasion are sub- 
jected to the influence of the Symbolists and indeed 
of the Surrealists who have gained importance in 
some literary circles of Western Europe. These 
efforts deserve our interest, but it is too early as yet 
to say whether they will be sufficiently widely 
followed to give new life to elegiac lyricism in Arabic 

Bibliography : For the study of the poets up 
to the end of the 3rd/9th century, see the accounts 
in K. al-Aghdni 3 (Cairo 1923-, 16 vols, publ.) 
and in Ibn Kutayba, Shi'r. For the subsequent 
periods see Tha'alibi, Yatlmat al-dahr (Damascus 
1303, and ed. c Abd al-Hamid, Cairo 1366/1947); 
al- c Imad al-Isfahani, Kharidat al-Kasr (ed. Sh. 
Faysal, Damascus 1375/1955 and 1378/1959; 
Syrian section). The principal poetical texts to 
be used are: al-'Ardji, Diwdn (in the recension of 
Ibn Djinni, ed. Khidr al-Ta'i, Baghdad 1375/1956); 
Kuftayyir, Diwdn (ed. Peres, 2 vols., Algiers 
1928-30); <Umar b. Abl Rabl c a, Diwdn (ed. c Abd 
al-Hamid, Cairo 1371/1952); Djamil, Diwdn (ed. 
Nassar, Cairo no date; on its relation to the ed. 
of F. Gabrieli see Masnou, in Arabica, ix (1962), 
88-90); Bashshar b. Burd, Diwdn (ed. T. Ben 
'Ashur, 3 vols., Cairo 1950-57); al-'Abbas b. al- 
Ahnaf, Diwdn (ed. C A. Khazradii. Cairo 1373/1954) ; 
Muslim b. al-Walld, Diwdn (ed. S. Dahhan, Cairo 
1376/1957); Abu Nuwas, Diwdn (see E/ 2 , i, 144b); 
Ibn al-Hadidjadj, Diwdn (part established by 
Al Tahir according to the summary of al- AsturlabI ; 
unpublished thesis, Sorbonne 1955); Ibn Zaydun, 
Diwdn (ed. K. Kilani and C A. Khalifa, Cairo 1351/ 
1932) ; Ibn Hamdis, Diwdn (ed. Schiaparelli, Rome 
1897); also the abundant quotations in Tha'alibI 
and al- c Imad al-Isfahani. 

On the courtly spirit in poetry and the related 
romantic literature see Washsha 3 , K. al-Muwash- 



ZAL 1033 

shd, ed. R. Briinnow, Leyden 1886; Muhammad b. 
Dawud al-Isfahani, K. al-Zahra, ed. Nykl and 
Tukan, Chicago 1351/1932; Fihrist, 306; C A1I al- 
Daylaml, K. <Aff al-alif al-maHuf <ala 'l-ldm al- 
ma c (uf, ed. J. Vadet, Cairo 1962. 

On the aesthetics of the elegiac movement, see 
Kudama, Nakd al-shi'r, Istanbul 1302; Ibn 
Rashik, al-'Umda, ed. c Abd al-flamld, Cairo 1353/ 
1934, ii, 43. 98, "4, 116, 119. 

Studies: Blachere, Lift., ii, iii (printing); idem, 
Les principaux themes de la poisie Irotique au 
Steele des Umayyades de Damas, in AEIO Alger, v 
(1939-41), 82-128; idem, Probleme de la trans- 
figuration du poite tribal en hiros de roman 
"courtois" chez les "logographes" arabes du III/IX 
siecle, in Arabica, viii (1961), 131-6; T. Husayn, in 
ffadith al-arbi'-d', Cairo 1925, 2nd printing, i, 
183-298; F. Gabrieli, Gamil aW-Udri, studio critico 
e raccolta dei frammenti, in RSO, xvii (1937), 40- 
172; I. Yu. Krafkovskiy, Rannyaya istoriya 
povesti Madlnune i Leyle v arabskoy literature, 
reprinted in I. Yu. Krafkovskiy, Izbrannie Socine- 
niya, ii, Moscow-Leningrad 1956, 588-632, German 
translation by H. Ritter, Die Fruhgeschichte der 
Erzahlung von M. und L. in der arab. Literatur, in 
Oriens, viii (1955), 1-50 (cf. J. Vadel in Arabica, 
iv (1957), 81-2); Z. Mubarak, ffubb b. Rabi'a (sic) 
wa-shi'-ru-hu, Cairo 1928; Jabbur, 'Umar b. A.R., 
his age, life and works, 2 vols., Beirut 1935; H. 
Peres, La Poisie andalouse en arabe classique au 
XI siecle 2 , Paris 1953; Dj. Rikabi, La poisie 
profane sous les Ayyubides, Paris 1949; al-Tahir, 
al-Shi c r al- c arabi fi 'l- c Irdk wa-bildd al- c Adiam, 
Baghdad 1958 (trans, with publication of a 
thesis for a State Doctorate, Sorbonne 1955), i, 
124-7 and ii, 97-102; F. Ghazi, La UtUrature d'ima- 
gination en arabe du IlfVIII s. au V\X1 s., in 
Arabica, iv (1957), 164-78; Dj. Ah. 'Allush, Safi 
al-Din al-Ifilli, Baghdad 1 379/1959 (cf. Blachere 
in Arabica, x (1963), 104-5); A. T. Hatto (ed.), 
Eos, The Hague 1965, 244-73; J. Vadet, La 
UtUrature courtoise dans les cinq premiers siecles 
de I'Hlgire (in preparation). (R. Blachere) 

ii. — In Persian Literature 
The ghazal is one of the most common instruments 
of Neo-Persian lyrics. In its present form it consists 
of a few bayts (verses, or distichs), generally not less 
than five and no more than twelve, with a single 
rhyme (often accompanied by a radif); in the first 
bayt, called matla c , both hemistichs too rhyme 
together; the last bayt, called makta', contains the 
nom-de-plume (takhallus) of the author; the contents 
of the ghazal are descriptions of the emotions of the 
poet in front of love, spring, wine, God, etc., often 
inextricably connected. 

The problem of the origin of the neo-Persian 
ghazal coincides practically with the problem of the 
origin of neo-Persian poetry. Various hypotheses 
have been proposed, e.g. : (a) the neo-Persian ghazal 
originated from the tashbib or nasib of the Arabic 
kasida [q.v.], isolated from its context and later 
developed into an independent form (Shibli Nu'mani, 
etc.); (b) its origin lies in Persian folk-songs, ante- 
dating Arabic influence (Braginskiy and other Soviet 
authors); (c) a distinction between a "technical 
ghazal" and a more generic ghazal should be made: 
the first can be said to have found its final form only 
in Sa c di (7th/i3th century), the second owes its 
origin to folk poetry, later refined at the courts 
under Arabic influence (Mirzoev). All these hypotheses 
have their share of truth. Actually it should always 



1034 



be borne in mind that neo-Persian poetry in its 
specific sense has its origin in the literary experiment 
of adapting the Persian language to Arabic metres 
and forms, an experiment first begun at the courts 
of the first independent Persian dynasties of Khurasan 
by people with a perfect knowledge of Arabic. On the 
other hand "Arabic", in this case, does not imply an 
ethnic meaning, as many Arabic poets of the time 
were, ethnically, Persians, and, from the point of 
view of its content, Arabic poetry of that period was 
in its turn influenced by Persian ideas. A very useful 
distinction is that between ghazal in its technical 
sense and ghazal in its generic sense, proposed 
especially by Mirzoev. In its generic sense the ghazal 
may also have been influenced, in its origins, by 
elements from folk-poetry, though this can in no way 
be demonstrated by documents, as we know 
nothing about Persian folk-poetry of the 3rd/oth 
century, and the very little we know about pre- 
Islamic Persian poetry shows us something totally 
different, technically, even from the oldest and least 
specific and technical forms of the neo-Persian post- 
Islamic ghazal. 

The formal history of the neo-Persian ghazal can 
be divided roughly into five periods. The first is the 
period of the origins, rather obscure, as we have 
seen, for which we possess actually only fragments of 
poetical compositions not too different from frag- 
ments of nasibs of kasidas. Many elements of the 
"technical" ghazal still are lacking {e.g., takhallus, 
regular mafia 1 and makta') and the style is rather 
decorative/descriptive, with a certain unity and 
congruity of meanings in the same composition (as 
compared with the conceptual incongruity of the 
"technical" ghazal) accompanied by a lack, or 
rarity, of taghazzul (the name given to the hardly 
definable general Stimmung of the classical ghazal). 
RudagI and Daklkl may be regarded as the greatest 
poets of this period (3rd/oth and 4th/ioth centuries). 

The second period could be called the formative 
one (4th/ioth to 7th/i3th centuries). In it the proto- 
ghazal acquires a very important element: the 
mystical experience. At the end of this period the 
classical ghazal is perfectly formed, though the 
"atmosphere" of the ghazal is either mystic in 
tendency (e.g., 'Attar), or predominantly profane, 
as in Anwari, best known as a kasida writer but 
clearly distinguishing the ghazal as a special literary 
genus having as its object the ma'shuk "the Beloved" 
whereas the kasida has as its object the mamduh, 
"the Praised" (Prince or patron). 

The third period (7th/i3th to ioth/i6th centuries) 
could be called the classical period. The ghazal 
finds its perfectly defined present shape, both from 
the point of view of form (all the technical elements 
implied in the definition of ghazal given above are 
present) and from the point of view of content: the 
decorative style of the origins, after the mystical 
injection of the formative period, passes into a 
highly refined and complex symbolic style. Sa c di 
and Hafiz are the supreme ghazal writers of this 
period. Especially in Hafiz the chief object of the 
ghazal, the ma'shuk, the (earthly) Beloved, becomes 
inextricably connected not only with the mat-bud, 
the divine Beloved (God, or better His representative 
on earth, the mystical Initiator) but even with the 
mamduh, the traditional object of the kasida: it has 
been demonstrated, recently especially by Lescot, 
that the Beloved of the ghazah of Hafiz is often his 
Prince or patron. 

The fourth period, that of the so-called Indian 
style (ioth/i6th to I2th/i8th centuries) [see sabk-i 



hindi], sees an intellectual reflection on the accepted 
symbols of the classical ghazal, which becomes an 
arena for a quasi-philosophical exercise of the mind. 
The ghazal finds a renewed congruity of meaning, 
and its protagonist, instead of the ma l shuk\mamdiih\ 
ma'bUd seems to be the Mind of its Author, creating 
ever new purely intellectual combinations of the old 
worn-out symbols. (The greatest poet of this period is 
probably Sa'ib). 

The fifth and last period is not easily definable: in 
Iran a tendency to revive the classical and even pre- 
classical ghazal is followed by attempts to use the 
ghazal for more modern and profane purposes, for 
which this poetical form, with the refined neo- 
Platonic symbolism acquired in its classical period, 
seems rather inadequate. 

A description of classical ghazal at the time of its 
"perfection" can be given only by showing the 
features and symbolic motifs of a single concrete 
example. We have selected for this purpose the 
ghazal of Hafiz whose matla' is: 

rawnak-i c ahd-i shabdb-ast digar bustdn-rd 
mirasad mozhde-yi gul bulbul-i khush-alhdn-rd 
(for full text see edition by M. KazwinI and K. Ghani. 
Tehran n.d., 7-8). 

1. Once more the age of youth has returned to the 
garden— and the sweet-singing nightingale receives 
the good news of the Flower. 

2. Oh, gentle breeze! should you once more reach 
the budding plants in the meadow, give my greetings 
to the Basil, the Rose, the Cypress tree. 

3. The young Son of the Magi, the Vintner, appears 
before me in such charming motions that I am ready 
to sweep with my eyebrows the dust of the Tavern. 

4. Oh, thou who coverest with purest amber the 
face of the Moon, do not perturb yet more this man 
perplexed by love. 

5. I greatly fear that those who laugh at wine- 
bibbers may at last make a tavern of their Faith in 
God. 

6. But mayest thou remain a friend of the Holy 
Men, for in the Ship of Noah there is still a handful 
of Mud that knows how to defy the Deluge. 

7. Go out from this Dwelling, that has the Heavens 
for roof, and do not ask it for Food, for that Vile One 
at the end shamelessly kills her Guest. 

8. And say to those whose last resting-place will 
be a handful of Dust: "Friend, what avails it to raise 
high palaces to the Skies?" 

9. Oh, moon of Canaan! The throne of Egypt has 
been allotted thee; it is now high time that thou 
shouldst say farewell to the Prison! 

10. Oh Hafiz, drink wine, and be a libertine, and 
live joyfully, but take care not, as others do, to make 
a snare of the Book of God! 

We have here an excellent example — the poem has 
been chosen almost by chance — of many features 
characteristic of the style of Persian lyrical poetry of 
the golden age. Let us list, first of all, the several 
motifs : of the images indeed none, without exception, 
is original. 

(1) Nightingale-Rose. It may seem strange, but 
this motif, perhaps the one that occurs most fre- 
quently in Persian lyrics, has never been the object 
of historical research. 

It appears in the most ancient Persian lyrics of the 
4th/ioth century. In the maturer lyrical forms 
(Hafiz) it contains the following meanings: 

The rose is Beauty aware of itself, the supreme, 
inaccessible symbol of the divine istighnd; often the 
rose disdainfully derides the nightingale but as soon 
as it blossoms it dies. This is the cause of the twofold 



sadness of the nightingale, which mourns over the 
rapid death of the rose and its disdainful rejection of 
union. But between the two there is a kind of mysteri- 
ous connection: the Bird of Dawn (an epithet very 
frequently applied to the nightingale) alone under- 
stands the secret language of the rose. The nightingale 
sings in Arabic — the sacred language — invitations to 
partake of the mystic wine. Inebriated with the 
perfume of the rose it fears to end as did the magician- 
angel, Marut. As the prayer offered at dawn is of 
special value and has special power (cf. Kur'an, XVII, 
78), so the lament of the nightingale is the auroral 
prayer. But it is a doleful prayer, offered to something 
inaccessible, for, as MukaddasI says in his charming 
book translated in the middle of the last century by 
Garcin de Tassy, "my song is a song of grief and not 
of joy . . . Each time that I flutter over a garden I 
warble of the affliction that will soon replace the 
gaiety that reigns there". In an Indian Muslim alle- 
gory, the romance of the Rose of Bakdwali, the in- 
accessible Rose, so difficult to find, is the only 
remedy that can restore the sight of King Zayn al- 
Muluk, etc. The God-Rose identity in the famous 
preface of the Gulistdn of Sa c di can be clearly seen 
when the Mystic who travels in the transcendental 
world is unable to bring back any gift from his 
travels because: "I had in mind that when I reached 
the Rose-tree I would fill my lap with roses as gifts for 
my friends, but when I reached it I was so inebriated 
with the perfume of the Rose that the hem of my 
robe slipped from my hand". 

The enthusiastic pan-Iranist, Pizzi, has endea- 
voured, but without adequate evidence, to show 
influence of the Persian Rose motif in the mediaeval 
Roman de la Rose, whose symbolism is reminiscent 
of this. But in the absence of definite documentary 
evidence and of preparatory studies we cannot 
exclude the opposite hypothesis, namely that a 
Hellenistic motif may have penetrated into both 
cultures, derived from that civilization which in 
various ways and forms fertilised them both, i.e., 
the late Hellenistic symbolism. One should, however, 
bear in mind that what we refer to is a motif and not 
an emotional and original perception by Hafiz of the 
"romantic" and vivid reality of the Spring and the 
flowers. 

(2) And here we have another "personage", the 
said, "the zephyr", the springtime breeze, generally 
held to be— and not for the first time by Hafiz but 
by innumerable poets before and after him — the 
Messenger par excellence. The breeze also is personified 
in a bird, more especially the hoopoe. Why ? because 
with a very slight change in the transcription, the 
pronunciation of its name is identical to that of the 
famous region of Saba 11 whose Queen, we read in the 
Kur'an, sent a hoopoe as her messenger to King 
Solomon. Thus the "secondary images" aroused in 
the mind of the listener by the word sabd are quite 
other than those awakened in us by the word 
"zephyr", now ineradicably associated in our minds 
with Metastasio and Watteau. Sabd is a sound that 
reverberates with a rich symbolism which can be 
traced back historically and clearly to a "gnostic" 
world. Basil (rayhdn), mentioned soon after, which 
to us suggests little more than the idea of "perfume", 
is instead a word used in the Kur'an. The fragrance 
of basil is one of the chief components of the olfactory 
joys of the Islamic paradise (cf. Kur'an, LVI, 89), 
and singularly enough, of the Zoroastrian paradise 
also (cf. Menoke Xrat, ch. VII). On the other hand, 
the Cypress, familiar to all amateur collectors of 
Persian carpets and miniatures, in its charming con- 



ventionalized shapes, is the sacred tree of Zoroaster. 
It is identified with the Prophet himself who planted 
a specially memorable cypress (that of Kashmar) 
just at the time when the ecstatic-prophetic ex- 
perience first thrilled him. It is a motif that seems to 
have come straight from a Central Asian spiritual 
area: the Shaman, indeed, plants a tree when starting 
on his "prophetic" career. Thus, even if in the case in 
point the words are not always intentionally and 
knowingly symbolical, they are not merely descriptive 
but are related to verbal-psychological cycles with 
which they have no connexion in our languages. 

(3) In the springtime scenery summoned before us, 
the nightingale, the rose, the zephyr, the cypress, basil 
and the "young" (plants) of the meadow are playing 
a part in a scene which, even from our descriptive 
standpoint, might acquire a certain unity. But now 
there enters a character who to our eyes may seem 
truly extraneous. He is the young Magian (moghbal(e), 
the vintner, and the Tavern. The "Zoroastrian" 
character of the images connected with wine, with 
the Superior of the Magi, and with the Young Magian 
(the connexion between inebriety and forbidden 
practices with Zoroastrian belief dates back to 
Dakiki) are but words used to summon up the idea 
of that which is forbidden, of sacred impiety. Poets, 
ancient and modern, to evoke this idea use indi- 
scriminately the words Magian, Christian, temple of 
fire or church. Sa c di, although the differences were 
known to him, uses indiscriminately the words 
"priest", "bishop", "Brahmin" "Magian", "temple 
of fire", "church", "monastery" in the same poem. 
The ideas that these lyrical-symbolic images summon 
up are not something precisely and theologically 
Zoroastrian (wine indeed is only a secondary element 
in the Zoroastrian ritual); they serve as signs in- 
dicating an esoteric rite. As lyrical poetry was 
traditionally condemned both by Islam and by 
Zoroastrianism, the motif of self-abasement is added 
to this intricate image-motif. The poet, the Initiate, is 
willing even to wipe with his face the door of the 
tavern-temple where the Young Magian reigns. 
Here is summed up the material inherited from the 
frankly libertine poetry of the Arab muta'akhkhirin 
(wine-Christian Convent, already found in pre- 
Islamic Arab poetry) with the mystical gnostic motif 
of a Rite of the Wine which is of ancient syncretic- 
gnostic origin. 

(4) And now, as in a filiform succession of images, 
the Young Magian takes on the ambiguous appearance 
of a beautiful boy. The fourth verse should more 
accurately be translated as: "Oh thou, who drawest 
across the moon a polo-stick (lawgdn) of the purest 
amber, do not make me, whose head whirls (like a 
polo ball), yet more confused". And we must then 
add that the game of polo, which is of Persian origin, 
supplies a wealth of images to this lyric. The polo 
stick, with its characteristic hooked shape, is the 
zulf, the long wisp of hair, black as the night, and 
the moon is no other than the face (the roundness 
of the face is traditionally greatly admired in this 
lyric). The Child-Magian who is also the Beloved of 
the Poet (or his Initiator, or God) has the brilliant and 
round face of the moon. By mischievously half-veiling 
it with his black curl, shaped like a polo stick, he 
only makes the already confused head of the poet 
whirl like a polo-ball. 

(5) In this verse the poet introduces another motif: 
he upbraids the doctors of the law, the orthodox. But 
Hafiz must not for this be taken for an "anticlerical", 
a "progressive". There may be cases in the traditional 
poetry of Persia of mullds who, when indulging in 






GHAZAL — GHAZAL 



this literary style, are obeying its conventions in 
abusing . . . themselves as a class. This motif can only 
have arisen from the fact that this kind of poetry 
gave a gnostic-Neoplatonic interpretation to materials 
— derived from the Arabian 'Abbasid libertine poetry 
— quite alien to Islamic orthodoxy. The result was a 
strange combination of libertinism and mysticism, 
that confers on it a special kind of style of its own. 
(6) The verse that follows contains a transparent 
allusion to the superiority of the Saint (the man of 
God) over the Doctor of the Law, very skilfully 
expressed. Noah's ship is the human race, the 
handful of mud that it contains, possessing, however, 
the supreme faculty of overcoming any deluge, is 
the Perfect Man, the Saint, the mystic Master. He is 
"earth", mud indeed, but one which — as the original 
puts it — be-dbi nakharad tiifdnrd, that is to say 
"would not buy the deluge for a drop of water", 
i.e., gives no importance to external "deluges" (and 
here note the word-play water-deluge-earth). We 
should therefore be friends of those Masters and not 
of the doctors of the law. 

(7-8) The ethical-mystical warning continues. But, 
be it always remembered, without undue personal 
tension. The world is seen as a house, an "old 
dilapidated convent". But the world — in Arabic a 
word of feminine gender — is also often compared by 
the Persian poets to a malicious, faithless old woman. 
Here the word we have translated by "Vile One" is 
siyah-kdse, "of the black pot", also "miserly" 
"despicable"; hence the play of words "food"-"pot". 
(9) The following verse contains a metaphor which 
may be familiar to the Westerner also: Joseph the 
Israelite, the symbol of perfect beauty, or of the 
Soul, for whom the throne of Egypt is prepared, but 
who yet groans in prison (a typical Neoplatonic 
metaphor). The last verse reiterates the traditional 
accusation of hypocrisy addressed to the mullds. 

In classical ghazal each verse forms a closed unit, 
only slightly interconnected with the others. Some 
modern scholars, to explain this, have invoked the 
"psychology of depth" to show that there is unity, 
but an unconscious one, in the ghazal. However this 
may be, external incongruity would seem to be a real 
rule in classic Persian poetry. We are in the presence 
of a bunch of motifs only lightly tied together. 

Bibliography : articles Ghazal in Lughat-ndma 
by A. A. Dehkhoda, Tehran, i, 207-210 and Gazel 
by A. Ates in I A ; A. G. Mirzoev, Rudaki va 
inkishdf-i ghazal, Stalinabad 1957; A. G. Mirzoev, 
Rudaki i razvitie gazeli, Stalinabad 1958; I. S. 
Braginskiy, vozniknovenii gazeli v tadHkskoy i 
persidskoy literature, in SV, ii (1958), 94-100; 
A. Pagliaro and A. Bausani, Storia delta letter atur a 
Persiana, Milan i960, 239-526; J. Rypka, Iranische 
Literaturgeschichte, Leipzig 1959, 71-112. 

Further bibliography will be found in the above 
mentioned works. (A. Bausani) 

iii. — Ottoman Literature 
[Circumstances beyond our control have obliged 
' " e Supplement. Editors' 



3 refer the reader t< 



iv. — In Urdu Literature 
In spite of its difficulty the ghazal enjoyed a 
wide popularity in all literatures belonging to the 
Islamic cultural cycle. Urdu literature was born 
under the strong influence of Persian culture, more 
precisely, of the Persian literature of the period 
wrongly called of "decadence", the period of Indian 
style (ioth/i6th to I2th/i8th centuries). This fact 



some special features of the Urdu 
ghazal. Its history should be divided into some four 
periods. The first period is that of dahhni Urdu 
(gth/i5th to nth/i7th centuries). In it the ghazal is 
only one, and not the most successful, of the in- 
struments of Urdu lyrics, that prefer indigenous 
poetical forms. DakhnI ghazals are generally 
descriptive and more congruous than the classical 
Persian ones. With Wall (1668-1741) the experiment 
of adapting the contemporary Persian style to Urdu 
poetry is widened and deepened. Urdu ghazals, more 
or less imitating the contemporary Indian-style 
Persian ghazals, find acceptance also in the literary 
circles of North India; so begins the classical 
period of the Urdu ghazal, culminating perhaps in 
Mir Taki Mir (d. 1810). Ghalib (d. 1869 [q.v.]) initiates 
the modern period of Urdu ghazal, which finds still 
newer developments in the contemporary period, 
the greatest names of which are, besides Ikbal 
(d. 1938 [q.v.]), who uses the ghazal in his peculiar 
ideological way as a symbolic channel to introduce 
ideas, Asghar of Gondwana (1884-1936), Hasrat 
MohanI (1875-1951), Fan! of Badayun (1879-1941) 
and Djigar of Muradabad (b. 1890). 

The Urdu ghazal, born under the influence of the 
Indian-style Persian ghazal (e.g., BIdil of Patna, 
d. 1 72 1, who left almost no trace in the development 
of the Persian ghazal of Iran, had an enormous 
influence on Urdu ghazal), shows a more marked 
intellectualistic character than Persian ghazal, 
together with a comparatively greater congruence 
in meaning. In later times this led ghazal writers to 
use this form too as an ideological instrument, 
especially under the influence of Hali (d. 1914) and 
Ikbal (d. 1938). Hall advocated, in his stylistical 
treatise Mukaddima-i shi'r u shdHri, added as a 
preface to his own Diwan, a reform of the classical 
ghazal in a modern sense, based on a widening of the 
scope of ghazal so as to include real love, and other 
human emotions of our times; the rather limited 
Wortschatz of the classical ghazal should also be 
widened, according to Hali, while the maldmati and 
anacreontic aspects of the old ghazal should be 
abandoned. The renovation brought about in Urdu 
ghazal by the aforementioned personalities led to the 
result that now, in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent 
the ghazal has become a serious instrument of modern 
poetry and its old popularity has found an interesting 
development in a modern sense. 

Bibliography: M. Garcin de Tassy, Histoire 
de la littirature hindouie et hindoustanie', Paris 
1870 (3 vols.); R. B. Saksena, A history of Urdu 
literature, Allahabad 1927; A. Bausani, Storia delle 
letterature del Pakistan, Milan 1958 (esp. 99-237); 
Abu '1-Layth Siddlki, Ghazal aur mutaghazzilin, 
Lahore 1954; A. Bausani, Alfdf Ijusain Pali's 
ideas on ghazal, in Charisteria Orientalia, Prague 
1956, 38-55- ( A - Bausani) 

SHAZAX, (A., fem. ghazdla, pi. ghizldn, ghizla), is 
the source of our term 'gazelle' denoting, in the 
Bovidae family, the species, all wild, of the sub- 
family of the Antilopinae. It is a noun much more 
restricted in application than zaby, which covers 
indiscriminately antelopes and gazelles, that is the 
Tragelaphini, Alcelaphinae, Oryginae, Reduncini, 
Antilopinae and Cephalophini. Ghazal, in common 
with a number of names of animals, is at once a 
masculine singular denoting the male, and a collective 
noun denoting the species (see Ch. Pellat, Sur 
quelques noms d'animaux en Arabe classique, in 
GLECS, viii, 95-9), but its most frequent use is 
in the wider sense. Herbivores, small of stature, both 



sexes having tapering horns which are ringed for the 
lower two thirds and curve forward at the tip, 
gazelles are creatures of the semi-desert steppe and 
the savannah; thus they bulk large among the fauna 
of the Arabic-speaking countries in general, and 
among those of the Muslim world in particular. The 
desert-dwellers, nomads and camel-drivers, have 
from ancient times distinguished different species of 
gazelle, and the Arabs early gave them different 
names according to their coats ; the modern system- 
atic classification accords perfectly with these 
denominations, so that we have: — a. the Goitrous 
Gazelle, Gazella subgutturosa (ghazdl), in western 
Persia, Mesopotamia, and north-eastern Arabia; 
— b. the Rhim or Loder's Gazelle, or Slender-horned 
Gazelle, Gazella Uptoceros (rHmlrim, pi. dram), with 
the sub-species G. I. loderi on the fringe of the Sahara 
and G. 1. marica in Arabia, Palestine and Sinai ; — 
c. the Dorcas or Atlas Gazelle, Gazella dorcas (ddam, 
pi. udm, ddami, sin, sini), with the sub-species G. d. 
saudiya in northern Arabia, Palestine and Sinai, 
G. d. dorcas in Egypt, G. d. neglecta in the Sahara and 
G. d. massaesyla in Morocco; and the three sub- 
species G. d. littoralis, tilonura and Pelzelni occurring 
by turns along the Red Sea coast; — d. the Dama 
Gazelle or "Biche Robert", Gazella dama (aryal, 
adra c ), with geographical sub-species the Mhorr or 
Nanguer Gazelle, G. d. mhorr, in southern Morocco, 
G. d. dama (the sub-species bearing the specific name) 
in the central Sahara, the Red-necked Gazelle or 
Addra Gazelle, G. d. ruficollis, and the Korin or Red- 
fronted Gazelle, G. d. rufifrons (umm djfl'-ba, hamra), 
the two last-named being widely scattered throughout 
the scrub zones of Arabia and Africa; while the 
distribution of the Soemmering's Gazelle, G. d. 
Soemmeringi, extends from Somalia across into the 
coastal border of southern Arabia; — e. the Arabian 
Gazelle, Gazella gazella (a'far, ya'fur), with the sub- 
species G. g. arabica in the mountainous areas of 
Arabia, G. g. gazella in Syria and Palestine, and 
G. g. cuvieri (Maghribi: ddam) throughout the 
Maghrib. 

The excellence of its meat, a food permitted by the 
Kur'an, and the difficulty of capturing a beast so 
fleet-footed, made the gazelle, "daughter of the 
sand" (bint al-raml), from earliest times highly 
prized game alike for the nomad in search of suste- 
nance and the prince whose main pastime was 
hunting. Methods of capture varied with the hunter's 
rank. For the well-to-do, there was the noble chase 
{(arad, Sahara: taldiddf) with gazelle-hounds (sulu- 
kiyya), usually in the heat of the day (tahmis); this 
hunting down in strength, together with the light- 
ning attack of the trained cheetah [see fahd], were 
the forms which venery most often took in the 
Orient, the Arabs preferring them to the spectacular 
massacres in a closed battue (halka) in which the 
Sasanids took pride. The gazelle was also hunted by 
means of falconry, with eagles, gerfalcons, sakers and 
goshawks trained for this purpose [see bayzara]. 
Partaking less of sport, but more productive, were 
capture by net (hibdla, hibdha, hasisa), snare (nushka), 
or radial trap (mikld, hula) set at the approaches to 
watering-places; advantage was even taken of the 
animals' being dazzled by fires at night (ndr al-sayd), 
when driven in towards them for capture (see al-Djahiz, 
Hayawdn, iv, 349, 484). Moreover, wealthy Muslims 
often kept domesticated deer in their parks, Persian- 
fashion; Usama Ibn Munkidh, the famous Syrian 
gentleman huntsman of the 6th/i2th century, notes 
(K. al-IHibdr, ed. P. Hitti, Princeton 1930, 207-8) 
that his father's residence had a score of white 



;AL 1037 

gazelles and Atlas or Dorcas gazelles, male and 
female, grazing at liberty and breeding, each year, 
undisturbed, and reckoned among the domestic 
animals (al-dawddiin) of the household. 

From the first century of Islam, Arab philologists 
active in linguistic enquiry among the nomad tribes 
assembled a valuable lexicographic collection of 
terms differentiating the gazelle as to species, shape, 
age, coat, posture at rest, leap, gait at speed, 
quavering call and habits, which forms no negligible 
aid to the ecological study of the animal. The fawn, 
for example, was known successively as: (alwjtaW 
at birth, khishf at a day old, when already on its feet, 
shddin at the appearance of the protuberances later 
to be horns, rasha* when weaned, shasarjshafar at a 
month, diahsh or djady at six months, djidha'- at a 
year, and finally thani at two years and for the rest 
of its adult life; the gazelle differs from other ungulate 
ruminants in that the thani is not succeeded by the 
ribdH, or sadasi, sdli c , or lastly shabub, terms denoting 
the increasing ages of the young animals as deter- 
mined by teeth development. 

Without the gazelle, Arabic literature would have 
been without an important source of inspiration. 
The treatises on falconry and hunting [see bayzara 
and fahd], in the first place, would virtually have 
lacked a raison d'etre, the antilopinae being in Arab 
countries the noble game which the.cervidae are for 
the West. Then poetry, classical and popular, would 
have been without its hunting themes ((aradiyydt) 
in radiaz, with their vivid descriptions of the hunt 
in full cry and triumphant halloo, and erotic writing, 
in its search to idealize feminine grace and attrac- 
tions, without countless metaphors drawn from the 
Slender delicacy of the gazelle, its wild starting 
shyness and maternal tenderness, and the velvety 
glance owed to the contrast (hawar) of the ebony 
pupil set in ivory; such transports of earthly beatitude 
were induced by these eyes in the heart of the 
Oriental that the gazelle was to surrender them to the 
virgins of Paradise, the "houris" (al-hur al-Hn), 
promised to the Muslim elect in the after-life (Kur'an, 
XLIV, 54, LII, 20, LV, 72, LVI, 22). 

The aura of lyricism enveloping the gazelle must 
not obscure the saddening fact that in our day the 
number of these gracious animals has dwindled con- 
siderably in the Islamic countries as a result of 
firearms and the reckless destruction made possible 
by modern vehicles; if stringent measures are not 
taken for the gazelle's protection, the species will be 
speedily on the way to extinction, and the term 
ghazdl will become an archaism in the Arabic 
language. 

For the ghazdl al-misk, see misk. 

Bibliography : In addition to references given 
in the text: Kazwinl, 'Adjd'ib al-makhlukdt, s.v. 
zaby; Damiri, Haydt al-hayawdn, s.v. zaby and 
ghazdl; Djahiz, Hayawdn, s.v. zaby and ghazdl; 
Mas'fidi, Murudj, passim; Ibn Siduh, Mukhassas, 
viii, 21-42, s.v. zaby; tCalkashandi, Subh, ii, 45; 
Kushadjim, K. al-Masdyid wa 'l-matarid, Baghdad 
1954, 201 f. and passim, = al-Bayzara, Damascus 
!953> r 33 i-\ Mangli, K. Uns al-mald' bi-wahsh al- 
fald', Paris 1880, 37 f. ; G. Blaine, On the relationship 
of Gazella isabella to Gazella dorcas, in Ann. and Mag. 
of Nat. Hist., Ser. 8, xi (1913); L. Blancou, Gio- 
graphie cynigitique du monde, Paris 1959; W. T. 
Blanford, Zoology of Eastern Persia, London 1876; 
P. Bourgoin, Animaux de chasse d'Afrique, Paris 
J 955 ; F. Edmond- Blanc, Le grand livre de la faune 
africaine et de sa chasse, Monaco 1954; J. Ellerman 
and T. C. S. Morrison Scott, Checklist of Palaearctic 



1038 



GHAZAL - 



and Indian Mammals, British Museum, London 
1951; P. Grasse (ed.), Traiti de zoologie. Mammi- 
feres, Paris 1955; Th. Haltenorth and W. Trense, 
Das Grosswild der Erde, Bonn-Munich-Vienna 1956; 
L. Joleaud, itudes de Geographic zoologique sur la 
Berbirie, ii, les Bovidis, in R.Afr., no. 295 (1918); 
Kobelt, Die Saugethiere Nordafricas, in Der Zool. 
Gart., 1886; L. Lavauden, La chasse et la faune 
cynigitique en Tunisie*, Tunis 1924; idem, Les 
Vertibris du Sahara, Tunis 1926; idem, Les 
Gazelles du Sahara central, in Bull. Soc. d'Hist. 
Nat. de VAfrique du Nord, January 1926; idem, 
Les grands animaux de chasse de VAfrique franfaise, 
in Faune des colonies franfaises, v/7, Paris 1934; 
Lydekker, Catalogue of the Ungulate mammals in 
the British Museum, London 1913-7; H. Lhote, La 
chasse chez les Touaregs, Paris 1951, 90-102; I. T. 
Sanderson, Living mammals of the world, Fr. trans. : 
Les Mammiferes vivants du monde, Paris 1957; 
Survey of Iraq fauna, by members of the Mesopo- 
tamia Expeditionary Force, Bombay n.d.; R. 
Ward, Record of Big Game, London 1928. — Mention 
of gazelles is further to be found in the works of 
the Arab geographers, and in the many "accounts 
of journeys" of travellers, Arabic and European, 
in the regions where the animal is found. 

(F. ViRi) 
al-GHAZAL. Yahya b. Hakam al-Bakri, a 
native of Jaen, was called by this name ('the 
gazelle') in his youth because of his slenderness and 
good looks. He became prominent, along with 
c Abb5s b. Firnas, at the court of al-Hakam I, who, 
on returning from his continual campaigns, liked to 
take part in the poetical tournaments of the little 
literary group which he had allowed to spring up 
round him. Al-Ghazal was already 50 years old when 
his star shone even brighter at the court of c Abd al- 
Rahman II, who made him one of his favourite 
poets. In 225/840, after receiving with every honour 
the embassy of the Byzantine emperor Theophilus 
and being much flattered by this acknowledgement 
of his power, c Abd al-Rahman II caused the Con- 
stantinople ambassador, when he returned to his 
country, to be accompanied by two Muslim emis- 
saries: the poet Yahya al-Ghazal and another 
Yahya called sahib al-munaykila ('the man with the 
little clock'). These two were charged with bearing 
the amir of Cordova's reply to Theophilus's letter, in 
which he had proposed an alliance against the 
c Abb5sids of the East and their vassals the Aghlabids 
of Ifrikiya because of their naval activities in Sicily. 
After delivering c Abd al-Rahman II's reply and 
presents to Theophilus in Constantinople al-Ghazal 
caused a stir at the Byzantine court with his talent 
and sparks of sly wit which he demonstrated bril- 
liantly before the Emperor himself, his wife Theodora, 
and the crown prince Michael. By his charming 
manners and notorious cupidity he obtained jewels 
for his daughters from the Empress, just as he had 
contrived, before embarking on his mission, that the 
Cordovan amir assign them a pension in case he 
should not return. His witty and sometimes coarse 
repartee was as famous as his avarice. He was a poet 
of mordant wit and greatly dreaded for his merciless 
satires. They were composed in a clear style devoid 
of rhetorical figures, which placed them within reach 
of the common people. Besides the personal gifts 
made to him by the court he brought back from his 
stay in Constantinople stocks of a variety of fig 
tree, of which the figs, called donegal, are still known 
under the variant name boiiigar given s.v. higo in the 
Dictionary of the Spanish Academy. During his time 



Ziryab [q.v.] introduced the game of 
chess to Cordova, where it had a great success. But 
it was not approved by al-Ghazal, for in a poem 
addressed to a nephew of his who was a keen chess- 
player he declared it to be sinful and an invention of 
the devil. Al-Ghazal's unusual diplomatic mission 
and the memory of Viking incursions gave rise to 
the legend invented in the 12th or 13th century by 
the Valencian Ibn Dihya {Mufrib, Khartoum 1954, 
130 f.) according to which c Abd al-Rahman II, 
satisfied with the way in which al-Ghazai and his 
companion had carried out their mission, entrusted 
to them in later years another embassy to the 
North with the aim of dissuading the king of the 
Vikings from attempting a fresh landing in 
Andalusia. According to this story the poet and his 
companion fulfilled their task in northern Europe 
and returned to Cordova after a dangerous voyage 
of nine months in Atlantic waters. The falseness of 
this is obvious at a glance. The more or less mar- 
vellous elements of which it is formed are copied 
for the most part from episodes attributed in the 
10th century to al-Ghazal's journey to the Greek 
emperor. No doubt the unusual activity of the 
Byzantine emperor in Cordova and the daring 
landing of the Vikings on Spanish territory, enriched 
with romantic details, finally amalgamated in the 
popular beliefs of Andalusia and so gave rise to a 
combined legend which little by little distorted the 
historical reality. 

Bibliography: E. Levi-Provencal, Un ichange 
d'ambassades entre Cordoue et Byzance au IX' 
siecle, in Byzantion, xii (1937), 1-24 (republished 
in Islam d'Occident, i, 79-107) ; idem, Hist. Esp. 
Mus., i, 251-4; on al-Ghazal's alleged embassy to 
northern Europe, G. Jacob, Arabische Berichte von 
Gesandten an germanischen Furstenhdfe aus dem 
9. und 10. Jahrhundert, Berlin and Leipzig 1927, 
35 ; E. Dubler, La crdnica ardbigo-bizantina del 741, 
in Andalus, xi (1946), 342; Arne Melvinger, Les 
premieres incursions des Vikings en Occident . . ., 
Uppsala 1955, 58 ff. and index; D. M. Dunlop, 
The British Isles according to medieval Arabic 
authors, in IQ, iv (1957), 12-4; W. E. D. Allen, The 
poet and the spae-wtfe, Dublin i960. See also Dozy, 
Recherches', ii, 267-78; E. Garcia G6mez, Sobre 
agricultura ardbigo-andaluza, in Andalus, x (1945), 
134 ; F. M. Pareja, Libra del ajedrez, de sus problemas 
y sutilezas, de autor drabe desconocido, Madrid- 
Granada 1935; Pons Boigues, 281-3, no. 238. 

(A. Huici Miranda) 
al-GHAZAlI, Abu Hamid Muhammad b. Mu- 
hammad al-TusI (450/1058-505/im), outstanding 
theologian, jurist, original thinker, mystic and 
religious reformer. There has been much discussion 
since ancient times whether his nisba should be 
Ghazali or Ghazzali; cf. Brockelmann, SI, 744; the 
former is to be preferred in accordance with the 
principle of difficilior lectio potius. 

1. Life 

He was born at TQs in Khurasan, near the modern 
Meshhed, in 450/1058. He and his brother Ahmad 
were left orphans at an early age. Their education 
was begun in Tus. Then al-Ghazali went to Djurdjan 
and, after a further period in "Jus, to Naysabur, 
where he was a pupil of al-Djuwayni Imam al- 
Haramayn [q.v.] until the latter's death in 478/1085. 
Several other teachers are mentioned, mostly 
obscure, the best known being Abu c Ali al-Farmadhi. 
From Naysabur in 478/1085 al-Ghazali went to the 
"camp" of Nizam al-Mulk [q.v.] who had attracted 



many scholars, and there he was received with 
honour and respect. At a date which he does not 
specify but which cannot be much later than his 
move to Baghdad and which may have been earlier, 
al-Ghazall passed through a phase of scepticism, 
and emerged to begin an energetic search for a more 
satisfying intellectual position and practical way of 
life. In 484/1091 he was sent by Nizam al-Mulk to 
be professor at the madrasa he had founded in 
Baghdad, the Nizamiyya. Al-Ghazali was one of the 
most prominent men in Baghdad, and for four years 
lectured to an audience of over three hundred 
students. At the same time he vigorously pursued 
the study of philosophy by private reading, and 
wrote several books. In 488/1095, however, he 
suffered from a nervous illness which made it phy- 
sically impossible for him to lecture. After some 
months he left Baghdad on the pretext of making 
the pilgrimage, but in reality he was abandoning his 
professorship and his whole career as a jurist and 
theologian. The motives for this renunciation have 
been much discussed from the contemporary period 
until the present day. He himself says he was afraid 
that he was going to Hell, and he has many criticisms 
of the corruption of the c ulama > of his time (e.g., 
Ihyd', i); so it may well be that he felt that the 
whole organized legal profession in which he was 
involved was so corrupt that the only way of leading 
an upright life, as he conceived it, was to leave the 
profession completely. The recent suggestion (F. 
Jabre, in MIDEO, i (1954), 73-102) that he was 
chiefly afraid of the Isma'ilis (Assassins) who had 
murdered Nizam al-Mulk in 485/1092, and whom he 
had attacked in his writings, places too much 
emphasis on what can at most have been one factor. 
Another suggestion is that of D. B. Macdonald 
(in EI 1 ) that contemporary political events may have 
made al-Ghazall apprehensive; shortly before he 
left Baghdad the Saldjukid sultan Barkiyarfik [q.v.] 
executed his uncle Tutush, who had been supported 
by the caliph and presumably al-Ghazali; and it was 
soon after the death of Barkiyaruk in 498/1105 that 
al-Ghazali returned to teaching. 

From al-Ghazali's abandonment of his professor- 
ship in Baghdad to his return to teaching at Naysabur 
in 499/1106 is a period of eleven years, and it is 
sometimes said, even in early Muslim biographical 
notices, that al-Ghazali spent ten years of this in 
Syria. Careful reading of his own words in the 
Munkidh (see below), and attention to numerous 
small details in other sources, makes it certain that 
he was only "about two years" in Syria. On his 
departure from Baghdad in Dhu '1-Ka c da 488/ 
November 1095 he spent some time in Damascus, 
then went by Jerusalem and Hebron to Medina and 
Mecca to take part in the Pilgrimage of 489/ 
November-December 1096. He then went back for a 
short time to Damascus, but his own phrase of 
"nearly two years there" [Munkidh, 130) must be 
taken loosely. He is reported to have been seen in 
Baghdad in Djumada II 490/May-June 1097 (Jabre, 
op. cit., 87; cf. Bouyges, Chronologie, 3), but this can 
only have been a brief stay in the course of his 
journey to his home, Tus. It is sometimes said that 
al-Ghazali visited Alexandria, but scholars are now 
inclined to reject this report; if he did go to Egypt 
it can only have been for a short time. 

In this period of retirement at Damascus and Tus 
al-Ghazali lived as a poor sufi, often in solitude, 
spending his time in meditation and other spiritual 
exercises. It was at this period that he composed 
his greatest work, Ihya' '■ulum al-dln ("The Revival 



the period he had advanced far along the mystic 
path, and was convinced that it was the highest way 
of life for man. 

In the course of the year 499/1 105-6 Fakhr al- 
Mulk, son of Nizam al-Mulk and vizier of Sandjar, 
the Saldjukid ruler of Khurasan, pressed al-Ghazali 
to return to academic work. He yielded to the 
pressure, partly moved by the belief that he was 
destined to be the reviver of religion (mudjaddid) 
at the beginning of the new century, in accordance 
with a well-known Tradition. In Dhu '1-Ka'da 499/ 
July- August 1 106 he began to lecture at the Niza- 
miyya in Naysabur and not long afterwards wrote 
the autobiographical work al-Munkidh min al-daldl 
("Deliverance from Error"). Before his death, 
however, in Djumada II 505/December mi, he 
had once again abandoned teaching and retired to 
Tus. Here he had established, probably before he 
went to Naysabur, a kkdnfrdk or hermitage, where 
he trained young disciples in the theory and practice 
of the sufi life. Several names are known of men who 
were his pupils at Tus (cf. Bouyges, Chronologie, 4 n.). 

2. Works and doctrines 

(a) Questions of authenticity and esotericism. A great 
difficulty in the study of al-Ghazali's thought is that, 
while he undoubtedly wrote many books, some have 
been attributed to him which he did not write. 
Bouyges in his Essai de Chronologie (composed 
before 1924 but only published posthumously in 1959 
with additional notes on subsequent publications by 
M. Allard) lists 404 titles. Many of these are taken 
from lists of his works and no copies are known to 
exist. In other cases the same book appears under 
different titles, and a great deal of work has still to 
be done on manuscripts before scholars know exactly 
what is extant and what is not. Further, at least 
from the time of Muhyi '1-Din b. al- c Arabi (d. 638/ 
1240) allegations have been made that books have 
been falsely attributed to al-Ghazali (cf. Montgomery 
Watt, A forgery in al-Ghazali's Mishkat.?, in JRAS 
I949> 5-22; idem, The authenticity of the works 
attributed to al-Ghazali, in JRAS, 1952, 24-45). The 
works whose authenticity has been doubted are 
mostly works expressing advanced sufistic and 
philosophical views which are at variance with the 
teaching of al-Ghazali in the works generally ac- 
cepted as authentic. There are difficulties, owing to 
the richness of his thought, in establishing con- 
clusively the existence of contradictions. Ibn Tufayl 
(d. 581/1185), however, who called attention to 
contradictions, also suggested that al-Ghazali wrote 
differently for ordinary men and for the elite, or, in 
other words, that he had esoteric views which were 
not divulged to everyone (Uayy b. Yakzdn, Damas- 
cus, 1358/1939, 69-72). This complicates the problem 
of authenticity: but there is no reason for thinking 
that, even if al-Ghazali had different levels of 
teaching for different audiences, he ever in the 
"higher" levels directly contradicted what he 
maintained at the lower levels. An alternative 
supposition, that he adopted extreme philosophical 
forms of sufism in his last years, seems to be excluded 
by the discovery that Ildjam al-'-awamm, in which 
he holds a position similar to that of the Ihya', was 
completed only a few days before his death (Bouyges, 
Chronologie, 80 f . ; G. F. Hourani, The chronology of 
Ghazdli's writings, in JAOS, lxxix (i959>, 225"33>- 
In the present state of scholarship the soundest 
methodology is to concentrate on the main works 



of undoubted authenticity and to accept other works 
only in so far as the views expressed are not incom- 
patible with those in the former (cf. Montgomery 
Watt, The study of al-Ghazdli, in Oriens, xiii-xiv 

(b) Personal. A year or two before his death al- 
Ghazali wrote al-Munkidh min al-daldl, an account 
of the development of his religious opinions, but not 
exactly an autobiography, since it is arranged 
schematically not chronologically; e.g., he knew 
something of sufism before the stage of develop- 
ment at which he describes it in the book. Most of 
the details about his life given above are derived 
from the Mttnkidh. He is also concerned to defend 
himself against the accusations and criticism that 
had been brought against his conduct and the views 
he had expressed. A small work answering criticisms 
of the Ihyd' is the Imld'. 

(c) Legal. Al-Ghazall's early training was as a 
jurist, and it was probably only under al-Djuwayni 
that he devoted special attention to kaldm or 
dogmatic theology. Some of his earliest writings 
were in the sphere of fikh, notably the Basit and 
the Wasit, but he apparently continued to be in- 
terested in the subject and to write about it, for a 
work called the Wadjiz is dated 495/1 101, while the 
Mustasfd was written during his period of teaching 
at Naysabur in 503/1109 (Bouyges, Chronologic, 49, 
73). The latter deals with the sources of law (usul al- 
fikh) in a manner which shows the influence of his 
earlier philosophical studies but is entirely within 
the juristic tradition. It is reported in biographical 
notices that at the time of his death al-Ghazali was 
engaged in deepening his knowledge of Tradition. 

(d) Philosophy and logic. After the period of 
scepticism described in the Munkidh, al-Ghazali in 
his quest for certainty made a thorough study of 
philosophy , a subject to which he had been intro- 
duced by al-Djuwayni. This occupied all the earlier 
part of the Baghdad period. What he studied was 
chiefly the Arabic Neoplatonism of al-Farabi and 
Ibn SIna. Though his final aim was to show in what 
respects their doctrines were incompatible with 
Sunni Islam, he first wrote an exposition of their 
philosophy without any criticism, Makdsid al- 
faldsifa, which was much appreciated in Spain and 
the rest of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries. This he followed by a criticism of the 
doctrines entitled Tahdfut al-faldsifa, "The incohe- 
rence (or inconsistency) of the philosophers"; this 
was finished at the beginning of 488/1095 (Bouyges, 
Chronologic, 23). In it he noted twenty points on 
which the philosophers' views were objectionable to 
Sunnis or inconsistent with their own claims; in 
respect of three of these they were to be adjudged 
unbelievers. In the Tahdfut al-Ghazali concentrates 
on demonstrating the inconsistencies of the philo- 
sophers and does not argue for any positive views of 
his own. Because of this he has been accused of having 
remained something of a sceptic. This accusation 
fails to notice that the Tahdfut was written just 
before the crisis which caused him to leave Baghdad; 
it is therefore possible that at the time he was 
somewhat uncertain of his positive beliefs, but a 
few years later when he was writing the Ihya'' he 
was in no doubt about what he believed. What 
impressed al-Ghazali most of the various branches 
of philosophical studies was logic, and in particular 
the Aristotelian syllogism. For the sake of Sunni 
jurists and theologians to whom philosophical books 
were not easily accessible or, because of their 
technical language, not readily understandable, he 



wrote two books on Aristotelian logic, Mi'-ydr al-Hlm 
and Mihakk al-nazar. A justification of the use of 
this logic in religious matters is contained in al- 
Kis(ds al-mustakim, apparently written for some 
comparatively simple-minded believers who were 
attracted by Batini (Isma<ili) doctrines. While full 
of enthusiasm for philosophy al-Ghazali wrote a 
work on ethics, Mizdn al-'amal, though whether the 
whole of the extant text is authentic has been 
questioned (JRAS, 1952, 38-40, 45). Since al- 
Ghazali does not appear to refer to the Mizdn in 
his later works, and since he became very critical 
of philosophical ethics {Munkidh, 99 ff.), it is possible 
that, as his enthusiasm waned, he rejected much of 
what he had written in this work. 

(e) Dogmatic theology. His chief work of dogmatics 
is al-Iktisdd fi '1-iHikdd, probably composed shortly 
before or shortly after his departure from Baghdad 
(Bouyges, 34). This book deals with roughly the 
same topics as the Irshdd of al-Djuwayni, but it 
makes full use of Aristotelian logic, including the 
syllogism. In this respect Ibn Khaldun (iii, 41) is 
correct in making al-Ghazali the founder of a new 
tendency in theology, although there is no striking 
novelty in his dogmatic views. In Kitdb al-ArbaHn, 
(Cairo 1344, 24), written after the Ihya', al-Ghazali 
says that the Iktisdd is more likely to prepare for the 
gnosis (ma'rifa) of the sufi than the usual works of 
dogmatics; and this continuing approval strengthens 
the view that al-Ghazali never ceased to be an 
Ash'arl in dogmatics, even though he came to hold 
that intellectual discussions in religion should range 
far beyond the limited field of dogmatics, and that 
detailed discussions in dogmatics had no practical 
value. To dogmatic theology might also be assigned 
Faysal al-tafrika bayn al-Isldm wa-'l-zandaka. This 
is partly directed against the Batiniyya, but is 
mainly a defence of his own views on the extent to 
which ta'wil is justified, and on the relative places of 
tawdtur and idfma'- as sources of religious knowledge. 
Ildjdm al-'awdmm '■an Him al-kaldm, which appears 
to be his last work, warns of the dangers in the study 
of kaldm for those with little education. 

(f) Polemics. The Mustazhiri, edited in abridged 
form by Goldziher as Streitschrift des Gazdli gegen die 
Bdtinijja-Sekte (1916), is a searching theological 
critique of the Nizari Isma'ilis or Assassins. A Persian 
work, edited by O. Pretzl as Die Streitschrift des 
Gasdli gegen die Ibdhlja (1933), attacks the antino- 
mianism of certain mystics. The authenticity of a 
work of anti-Christian polemic, al-Radd al-dxamil 
'aid sarih al-indjil (ed. and tr. R. Chidiac, Paris 
1939), is doubted by Bouyges (126), but defended 
by Louis Massignon (in REI, 1932, 491-536). 

(g) Sufistic practice. Al-Ghazali's greatest work, 
both in size and in the importance of its contents is 
Ihya' c ulum al-din, "The revival of the religious 
sciences", in four volumes. This is divided into four 
"quarters", dealing with Hbdddt (cult practices), 
'dddt (social customs), muhlikdt (vices, or faults of 
character leading to perdition), mundjiydt (virtues, 
or qualities leading to salvation). Each "quarter" has 
ten books. The Ihya' is thus a complete guide for the 
devout Muslim to every aspect of the religious life — 
worship and devotional practices, conduct in daily 
life, the purification of the heart, and advance along 
the mystic way. The first two books deal with the 
necessary minimum of intellectual knowledge. This 
whole stupendous undertaking arises from al-Ghaza- 
H's feeling that in the hands of the c ulamd' of his day 
religious knowledge had become a means of worldly 

sreas it was his deep conviction 



that it was essentially for the 
in the world to come. He therefore, while describing 
the prescriptions of the Shari'a in some detail, tries 
to show how they contribute to a man's final salva- 
tion. Biddyat al-hiddya is a brief statement of a rule 
of daily life for the devout Muslim, together with 
counsel on the avoidance of sins. K. al-ArbaHn is a 
short summary of the Ihyd?, though its forty sections 
do not altogether correspond to the forty books. 
Al-Maksad al-asnd discusses in what sense men may 
imitate the names or attributes of God. Kimiyd? al- 
sa'dda is in the main an abridgement in Persian of 
the Ifiyd* (also translated in whole or in part into 
Urdu, Arabic, etc.), but there are some differences 
which have not been fully investigated. 

(h) Sufistic theory. It is in this field that most of 
the cases of false or dubious authenticity occur. 
Mishkdt al-anwar ("The niche for lights", tr. W. H. 
T. Gairdner, London 1924; cf. idem, in Isl., v (1914), 
121-53) is genuine, except possibly the last section 
[JRAS, 1949, 5-22). Al-Risdla al-laduniyya deals 
with the nature of knowledge of divine things, and 
its authenticity has been doubted because of its 
closeness to a work of Ibn al- c Arabi and because of 
its Neoplatonism (cf. Bouyges, 124 f.). There are 
numerous other works in the same category, of which 
the most important is Minhddi al-'dbidin. These 
works are of interest to students of mysticism, and 
their false attribution to al-Ghazali, if it can be 
proved, does not destroy their value as illustrations 
of some branches of sufistic thought during the 
lifetime of al-Ghazali and the subsequent half- 
century. 

3. His influence 

A balanced account of the influence of al-Ghazali 
will probably not be possible until there has been 
much more study of various religious movements 
during the subsequent centuries. The following 
assessments are therefore to some extent provisional. 

(a) His criticism of the Batiniyya may have 
helped to reduce the intellectual attractiveness of the 
movement, but its comparative failure, after its 
success in capturing Alamiit, is due to many other 
factors. 

(b) After his criticism of the philosophers there 
are no further great names in the philosophical 
movement in the Islamic east, but it is not clear 
how far the decline of philosophy is due to al- 
" ' ' is and how far to other causes. Its 

n the Islamic west, where the Tahdfut 
was also known, suggests that the other causes are 
also important. 

(c) Al-Ghazall's studies in philosophy led to the 
incorporation of certain aspects of philosophy, 
notably logic, into Islamic theology. In course of time 
theologians came to devote much more time and 
space to the philosophical preliminaries than to the 
theology proper. On the other hand, his speculations 
about the nature of man's knowledge of the divine 
realm and his conviction that the upright and devout 
man could attain to an intuition (or direct experience 
— dhawk) of divine things comparable to that of the 
worldliness of the 'ulamd' does not seem to have led 
to any radical changes. 

(d) He undoubtedly performed a great service for 
devout Muslims of every level of education by 
presenting obedience to the prescriptions of the 
Shari'a as a meaningful way of life. His khdnkdh at 
Tus, where he and his disciples lived together, was 
not unlike a Christian monastery ; and it may be that 
he gave an impetus to the movement out of which 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



IKLI 1041 

came the dervish orders (but this requires further 
investigation). 

(e) His example may have encouraged those forms 
of sufism which were close to Sunnism or entirely 
Sunni. Before him, however, there had been much 
more sufism among Sunni c ulamd> than is commonly 
realized. His influence on the sufi movement in 
general, however, requires further careful study. 
Bibliography: (a) Life, General. P. Bouyges, 
Essai de chronologic des ceuvres de al-Ghazali, ed. 
M. Allard, Beirut 1959 (pp. 1-6 contain very full 
references to the main biographical sources); 
D. B. Macdonald, The life of al-Ghazzdli, in JAOS, 
xx (1899), 71-132 (still useful but requires to be 
supplemented and corrected); Margaret Smith, 
Al-Ghazali the mystic, London 1944 (contains large 
biographical section, also chapter on his influence) ; 
W. Montgomery Watt, Muslim intellectual, Edin- 
burgh 1963; W. R.W. Gardner, An account of aU 
Ghazdli's life and works, Madras 1919; S. M. 
Zwemer, A Moslem seeker after God, London 1920. 

(b) Works. Brockelmann, I, 535-46; S I, 744-56; 
Bouyges, Chronologic (as above). In ZDMG, xciii, 
395-408, Fr. Meier gives information about the 
Persian Nasihat al-muluk and its Arabic translation 
al-Tibr al-masbuk; English tr. by F. R. C. Bagley, 
Ghazdli's book of counsel for Kings, London 1964. 
Translations and studies later than Brockelmann: 
W. Montgomery Watt, The faith and practice of 
al-Ghazali, London 1953 (Munkidh, Biddyat al- 
hiddya) ; G.-H. Bousquet, Ih'ya ou Vivification 
des sciences de la foi, analyse et index, Paris 1955 ; 
Ihyd', xi, Ger. tr. H. Kindermann, Leiden 1962; 
xii, Fr. tr. G.-H. Bousquet, Paris 1953; xxxi, 
Susanna Wilzer, Untersuchungen, in Isl., xxxii, 

Eng. tr. W. McKane, Leiden 1962; Tahdfut, Eng. 
tr. S. A. Kamali, Lahore 1958; Fr. trs. of Kisfds by 
V. Chelhot in BEt.Or., xv, 7-98; and of Munkidh 
by F. Jabre, Beirut. 

(c) Doctrines. M. Asin Palacios, La espiritualidad 
de Algazel y su sentido cristiano, Madrid 1935, etc.; 
J. Obermann, Der philosophische und religiose 
Subjektivismus Ghazalis, Vienna and Leipzig 1921 ; 
A. J. Wensinck, La pensie de Ghaz&li, Paris 1940; 
Farid Jabre, La notion de certitude selon Ghazali, 
Paris 1958; idem, La notion de la Ma'rifa chez 
Ghazali, Beirut 1958; M. Smith, al-Ghazdli the 
Mystic (as above); Roger Arnaldez, Controverses 
thiologiques chez Ibn Hazm de Cordoue et Ghazali, 
in Les Mardis de Dar el-Salam, Sommaire, 1953, 
Paris 1956, 207-48. (W. Montgomery Watt) 
al- GH AZAlI. Ahmad b. Muhammad, brother 

of the more renowned Muhammad Ghazali, the 
Sufi and popular preacher, made his way via Hama- 
dan to Baghdad, and took his brother's place when 
the latter retired from teaching at the Nizamiyya. 
He died in 520/1126 in Kazwin. He wrote an abridged 
version of the K. al-Ihyd* of his brother, which has 
not survived; an exposition in sermon form of his 
confession of faith, al-Tadxrid fi kalimat al-tawhid 
(Turkish translation by M. Fewzi, el-Tefridfi terdjemet 
el-Tedjrid, Istanbul 1285); a discussion of the 
admissibility of sarnd' (Sufi music and dancing), 
Bawdrik al-ilmd l fi 'l-radd '■aid man yuharrimu 
'l-samd 1 , ed. J. Robson in Tracts on listening to music 
(Or. Transl. Fund, NS v), London 1938; a subtle 
psychology of love, Sawdnih, ed. H. Ritter (Bibl. 
Islamica, xv) 1942; (probably) the Risalat al-Tayr, 
which was the inspiration for the Mantik al-fayr of 
Farid al-DIn 'Attar (see H. Ritter, Das Meer der Seele, 
8-10) ; and other minor writings which have not yet 



l-GHAZALI — GHAZALl 



been investigated. His sermons were very popular 
in Baghdad, and were collected in two volumes by 
Sa'id b. Faris al-Labbani; of these however, only 
extracts are preserved in Ibn al-Djawzi. In them he 
undertook the defence of Satan (al-ta'assub li-Iblis), 
popular in many Sufi circles since Halladj, which 
was soon afterwards further developed by c Attar 
(see Das Meer der Seek, 536-50), and which presum- 
ably gave the so-called Devil worshippers, the 
Yazldis, the justification for their worship of Satan 
(Ahmad Taymur Pasha, al-Y azidiyya, Cairo 1352, 
59-6i). 

Bibliography: Brockelmann, S I, 756, I s , 
546; 'Umar Rida Kahhala, Mu'-djam al-mu'allifin, 
Damascus 1957, iii, 147; L. Massignon, Recueil 
de textes inidits concernant I'histoire de la mystique 
en pays d' Islam, Paris 1929, 95-8; H. Ritter, Das 
Meet der Seele, Leiden 1955, index; Ibn al-Diawzi. 
al-Muntazam, s. a. 520; idem, Akhbdr al-kussds 
wa 'l-mudhakkirin, ms. Leiden 2156, fol. 77 a-b; 
Ibn Khallikan, no. 37; Subki, Tabakdt al-sufiyya, 
iv, 54. (H. Ritter) 

al-GHAZAlI. PjanbirdI, governor of 
Damascus under Selim I. Originally a mamluk of 
Ka'it Bay (873/1468-901/1495), he took his nisba 
from the Egyptian village of Minyat Ghazal (Shar- 
kiyya), where he was shddd (superintendent). He 
obtained promotion, ultimately becoming na'ib 
(governor) of Hama (917/1511). After the battle of 
Mardj Dabik (24 Radjab 922/23 August 1516), he was 
nominated governor of Damascus, first by fugitive 
amirs in that city, then in Cairo, whither he had fled, 
by Tuman Bay. He commanded an expedition 
against the Ottomans in Syria, but was defeated by 
Sinan Pasha near Baysan (Dhu 'l-Ka'da 922/ 
December 1516). On 18 Muharram 923/10 February 
15 17, after the Ottoman victory at al-Raydaniyya, 
he submitted to Selim I, with whom he had secretly 
been in communication. His atrocities against the 
Arabs of the Sharkiyya led to the intervention of the 
Grand Vizier, Yunus Pasha. On 5 Safar 924/16 
February 1518, Selim appointed him governor of 
Damascus with the tax-farm (tahadduth) of southern 
Syria. He suppressed tribal insubordination, and 
secured the safe passage of the Pilgrimage caravan. 
He built up a private army, chiefly of Arabs and 
Mamluk refugees from Egypt, which included a 
corps of musketeers. In Dhu '1-Ka c da 926/October- 
November 1520, on the accession of Suleyman, 
Djanbirdl displaced the Ottoman sub-governors in 
his province, captured the citadel of Damascus, and 
endeavoured to involve Kha'ir Bey, the viceroy of 
Egypt, in the revolt. Kha'ir Bey remained loyal, and 
Djanbirdl, who had assumed the sultanic title of al- 
Malik al-Ashraf Abu 'l-Futuhdt, marched on Aleppo. 
In spite of siege and bombardment, Aleppo held out, 
and, on 9 Muharram 927/21 December 1520, Djan- 
birdl began to retreat, followed by Ottoman forces. 
At Damascus, he prepared for resistance, but on 
26 Safar 927/5 February 1521, his supporters were 
routed. He was killed, and his head sent to Istanbul. 
Bibliography: Paul Kahle and Muhammad 
Mustafa (edd.), Die Chronik des Ibn Ijds, vols, 
iii-v: the most important references are vol. v, 
376-8, 418-9, for which cf. Gaston Wiet, Journal 
d'un bourgeois du Caire, ii,. [Paris] i960, 369-71, 
405-6; Henri Laoust, Les gouvemeurs de Damas 
sous les Mamlouks et les premiers Ottomans, 
Damascus 1952, 151-9, 171-4- 

(P. M. Holt) 
GHAZALl. Mehmed (P-942/I535), Ottoman 
poet, also known as "Deli Birader". His father's 



name was Durmush; his teacher, in his youth, 
Muhyi al-Din 'Adjami. Ghazali very soon abandoned 
an early interest in Sufism and took up teaching in 
the medreses. His first official appointment was as 
muderris at the Bayezld Pasha medrese in Bursa; 
shortly afterwards, however, he went off to the court 
of Prince Korkud, the son of Bayezld II, in Manisa. 
Korkud grew in a short time to like both Ghazali's 
company and his witticisms and made him his 
inseparable companion, even taking him with him 
to Egypt. Although Korkud became angry with him 
at one point there and ordered that he be executed, 
Ghazali was successful in winning over the kapidji- 
bashi and thus saving himself (for details, see the 
Tedhkere of 'Ashik Celebi). 

Ghazali wrote for Piyale Bey, who had introduced 
him to Korkud, a risdla entitled Ddfi' al-ghumum 
wa rdfi* al-humum (Istanbul Un. Lib., Turkish MSS 
nos. 1400, 9659), in imitation of the Alfiyya wa- 
shalfiyya of Hakim Azraki, and presented this risdla 
to Korkud. According to one account, Korkud was 
angered by this indecent risdla and sent Ghazali 
away; but a more reasonable tradition relates that 
they were not separated until Korkud was put to 
death by Selim I, and that only after Korkud's death 
did Ghazali become shaykh at the tekke of Geyikli 
Baba in Bursa. It was at this point that he adopted 
the makhlas "Ghazali". 

Quickly becoming bored with the life of a shaykh, 
he became muderris in Sivrihisar. Later he became 
successively muderris in Akshehir with a daily 
salary of 50 akle and then at the Huseyniyye 
medrese in Amasya. Through the good offices of 
Kadrl Efendi, he went from there to become mufti 
in Aghras. 

Not happy in any place to which he had been, he 
finally went to Istanbul with a pension of 1000 akle 
and built in Beshiktash a garden, a bath, a mosque 
and a zawiye. He began to operate the bath with 
Ateshizade Memi Shah, but after a very short time 
complaints were lodged with the Grand Vizier 
Ibrahim Pasha. Ibrahim Pasha sent 100 c adfemi 
oghlan and the bath was pulled down, so much to 
the joy of some that chronograms were written to 
commemorate the event. Ghazali wrote a poem of 
25 bayt, the Kapludjandme, in which he expressed his 
grief. Following the death of Memi Shah and the 
execution of Iskender Celebi, he made his way in 
938/1531 to Mecca where he built a garden, a mosque 
and a zawiye and where he remained until his death. 
Although there is disagreement about the date of 
his death, the date 942/1535, which is given in a 
chronogram, seems acceptable. 

His risdla Ddfi'- al-ghumum wa-rdfi 1 al-humum 
shows clearly Ghazali's outlook on life. Although 
Ghazali grew ashamed of this risdla in his old age 
and tried to collect the copies of it in order to destroy 
them, he was not successful in doing so. The work 
is divided into seven chapters and is filled from 
beginning to end with indecent stories. Along with 
this aspect of Ghazali's nature, however, it is worth 
noting the sincerity which he showed to those whom 
he loved. After the executions of Prince Korkud and 
Iskender Celebi, he wrote for each an elegy in which 
he manifests the grief he felt. 

He also wrote a risdla entitled Miftdh al-hiddya 
concerning precepts relative to the ritual ablution 
and the prayer. This risdla was extracted from the 
Biddya and the commentary upon it called the 
Hiddya (Istanbul Un. Lib., Turkish MS no. 3273. 
fol. 3a). His various anecdotes, short poems (kifa) 
and chronograms are very fine. Both Katib Celebi 



GHAZALl — GHAZI 



1043 



and Bursal! Tahir record that he wrote a history in 
Persian entitled Mir'dt-i kdHndt, but Bursal! Tahir 
adds that no copy has yet come to light. 

He received the nickname "Deli Birader" because 
of a bayt which he wrote. 

Bibliography: Tashkoprii-zade, al-ShakdHk 
al-nu c mdniyya, 527 (Gn. tr., Rescher, 299; Turkish 
tr., Medjdi, 471); Tedhkeres of Sehi and Latlfl, s.v.; 
Hasan Celebi, Tedhkere, Istanbul Un. Lib., 
Turkish MS no. 2579, 232b; Riyadi, Tedhkere, 
Istanbul Un. Lib., Turkish MS no. 761, 101b; 
Beyani, Tedhkere, Istanbul Un. Lib., Turkish MS 
no. 2568, 72a; 'Ashik Celebi, Tedhkere, Istanbul 
Un. Lib., Turkish MS no. 2406, 356b; Hafiz 
Huseyin al-Aywan-Serayi, ffadikat al-diawdmi', 
Istanbul 1281, ii, 115; Isma'il Bellgh, Guldeste, 
Bursa 1287, 496; C A1I, Kunh al-akhbdr, Istanbul 
Un. Lib., Turkish MS no. 2377, 204b; Fuat 
Koprulii, in I A, s.v.; Bursall Tahir, '■Othmdnli 
mii'ellifleri, ii, 348; Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, iii, 36; 
Hammer-Purgstall, Gesch. d. osm. Dichtkunst, ii, 
198. (G. Alpay) 

CHAZAN, Mahmud, Ilkhan [q.v.] from 694/ 
1295 until 713/1304, was born on 20 Rabi c I 670/5 
November 1271, being the eldest son of Arghun [q.v.], 
then only in his thirteenth year. Upon his father's ac- 
cession Ghazan was appointed governor of Khurasan. 
Mazandaran and Ray, which provinces he continued 
to administer during the reign of Gaykhatu [q.v.]. 
He had been brought up as a Buddhist and, whilst 
governor, had ordered the construction of Buddhist 
temples in Khabflshan (Kucan); but shortly before 
his accession, during the war with Baydu [q.v.], he 
had been persuaded by his general Nawruz to 
become a Muslim. In his reign Islam was recognized 
as the state religion, the regime was organized on a 
basis of Muslim culture, charitable endowments, 
mosques, theological schools etc., were erected in 
and around the new capital Tabriz, descendants of 
the Prophet were sometimes mentioned in the first 
place in the state record before princes and prin- 
cesses of the blood, and lastly the turban was 
introduced as the court headgear. But Ghazan was 
more a Mongol than a Muslim; as ruler and legislator 
his activities were entirely free from biassed pietism. 
Particular attention was devoted to the finances of 
the country, the currency etc.; Ghazan no longer 
appears on the coins (the inscriptions on which were 
in Arabic, Mongol and Tibetan), like his predecessors, 
as representative of the Great Khan in Pekin, but as 
ruler "by the grace of God" (in Mongol tngri-yin 
kulUndiir "in the power of heaven"). He carried out 
his plans with ruthless vigour; everyone whom he 
believed to be dangerous to the peace of the realm or 
to his autocratic rule was disposed of without 
compunction; among these was the Amir Nawruz 
himself, to whom he owed his throne. On the other 
hand Ghazan's measures increased the prosperity of 
the country and in particular protected the peasantry 
from oppression and extortion. The revenue of the 
state is said to have risen during his reign, from 1700 
to 2100 tumdns. Like other Mongol rulers Ghazan 
particularly esteemed those arts and sciences which 
might be useful to the State; he himself is said to 
have been conversant with natural history, medicine, 
astronomy, chemistry and even several handicrafts; 
attached to an observatory built by his orders in 
Tabriz was a special school for secular sciences 
(hikmiyydt). In addition to his native Mongol 
Ghazan is said to have had some knowledge of the 
Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Kashmiri, Tibetan, Chinese 
and Frankish (i.e., French or Latin) languages. 



Notwithstanding his conversion to Islam, he took a 
great interest in the history and traditions of his own 
people, on which indeed he was an authority. It was 
at his suggestion that his minister the famous 
historian Rashld al-DIn [q.v.] compiled his Qidmi" 
al-tawdrikh, in which his source for much of the 
information about the Mongols was none other than 
Ghazan himself. Continuing the anti-Mamlflk 
policy of his predecessors, Ghazan twice invaded 
Syria. In the first campaign (1299-1300) he oc- 
cupied Aleppo, defeated the Egyptian army 
before Hims and entered Damascus; but upon 
his return to Persia in Djumada I 699/February 
1300 the country was at once re-occupied by the 
Mamluks. For the second campaign he sought 
the alliance of Christian Europe. There has been 
preserved in the Vatican archives a letter from 
Ghazan to Pope Boniface VIII dated 12 April 
1302. "We for our part", says the Ilkhan, "are 
making our preparations. You too should prepare 
your troops, send word to the rulers of the various 
nations and not fail to keep the rendezvous. Heaven 
willing we [i.e., Ghazan] shall make the great work 
[i.e., the war against the Mamluks] our sole aim." 
The expedition to which Ghazan refers was under- 
taken in the spring of 702/1303: the Mongols were 
decisively defeated at Shahkab near Damascus 
(2 Ramadan 702/20 April 1303) and never again 
attempted the conquest of Syria. 

Bibliography: Rashld al-DIn, Geschichte 
Gdzdn-pan's, ed. K. Jahn, London 1940; idem, 
Djdmi' al-tawdrikh, iii, ed. A. A. Ali-zade, Russian 
transl. A. K. Arends, Baku 1957; B. Spuler, 
Mongolen'; A. Mostaert and F. W. Cleaves, Trois 
documents mongols des Archives secrites vaticanes, 
in HJAS, xv/3-4, 419-506 (467-478). 

(W. Barthold-[J. A. Boyle]) 
CHAZAT [see ghazw]. 

£HAZl, Arabic active participle (pi. ghuzdt) used 
to indicate those who took part in a razzia [see 
ghazw], later in a ghazwa [q.v.] "raid against the 
infidels". This name later grew to be a title of honour 
reserved for those who distinguished themselves in the 
ghazwa, and it became part of the title of certain 
Muslim princes, such as the amirs of Anatolia and 
more particularly the first Ottoman sultans. Corpo- 
rations of ghdzis are attested in Transoxiana and 
Khurasan from the Samanid period; these were 
wandering bands who obtained their living chiefly 
from booty won in the ghazwa, and who offered their 
services wherever war was to be waged against un- 
believers or heretics. Their leaders often achieved 
great fame and even an official status. But these 
soldiers of fortune, for whom war was an economic 
necessity and who were easily transformed by lack 
of occupation into brigands, became, in times of 
peace, a danger to the government which employed 
them; al-Tabari records, in 205/821 (iii, 1044), a 
revolt in Khurasan, stirred up by one of these mer- 
cenaries; Ibn al-Athlr (viii, 155) mentions that these 
seditious elements took part in the revolt of Bukhara 
against the Samanid Nasr, about 318/930. However, 
these groups, referred to by historians as ghuzdt, 
fitydn, 'ayydrun [q.v.], etc., formed a reserve of troops 
always available to whoever had need of them: 
Mahmud of Ghazna drew on them extensively, taking 
with him to India as many as 20,000 ghdzis ( c Utbi- 
Manlni, ii, 262 f.) ; he was always in need of money to 
pay his mercenaries, burdening his people with taxes 
for this before each campaign {ibid., ii, 168). These 
groups of soldiers of fortune mentioned by the his- 
torians in Transoxiana and Khurasan offered at the 



same time a refuge for political or religious dissidents 
and an occupation for adventurers of all races, 
attracted by the lure of plunder. However, for 
centuries in these eastern provinces the Turks es- 
pecially were the reservoir from which Persians and 
then Arabs recruited their mercenaries; hence, al- 
though these groups were originally without any 
national character, the Turkish element, as consti- 
tuting the military class par excellence, was soon to 
predominate. Such organizations were not peculiar 
to the eastern provinces; they existed everywhere 
where there was fighting to be done, expecially in the 
regions of the frontier zones. Thus they were also 
found in theArab-Byzantine frontier zones where, ever 
since the Umayyad period, a state of war had existed. 
In these regions, where, since the reign of the caliph 
al-Mu c tasim (218-27/833-42), the Turkish element 
formed the majority of the fighting men, the Arab- 
Byzantine frontier battles were- more and more to 
become Turco-Byzantine wars. In this zone where 
the ghdzis were fighting against the akritai, guardians 
of the Byzantine frontiers who were themselves often 
recruited from among Turkish mercenaries, there 
came into existence a population of the marches which 
to a considerable extent was ethnically the same on 
both sides of the frontier. We find proof of this state 
of affairs in the epic literature, both Byzantine and 
Arabo-Turkish, whether in the Byzantine epic of 
Digenis Akritas, the Arabic epic story of Delhemma 
[see dhu 'l-himma], or the Turkish story of Sayyid 
Baftal [see battal]. In this area where pilgrimages 
maintained a continual state of crusade, the defence 
of both sides of the frontier was organized in the 
same way: on both sides there was a spontaneous 
organization, growing up independently of the fron- 
tiers and outside the framework of the state, imbued 
with the same half-military half-religious spirit. In 
about 595/1200 the caliph al-Nasir, seeking to 
strengthen the caliphate against its enemies, reorga- 
nized the corporations which were already linked to 
the principles of the futuwwa [q.v.], the code of rules 
for a virtuous life, according with the tenets of Is- 
lamic mysticism and held in common by the artisan, 
military and religious corporations. In the first place 
he turned his attention to the military element, 
which he bound to his own person by new bonds of 
vassalage. The ghdzis, who had at first consisted of a 
popular movement in which were mingled adventurers 
and dissidents, were grouped into a corporation 
which possessed the attributes of a Muslim chivalry 
and was organized like a religious fraternity, with a 
ceremony of investiture conferring the title of 
ghazi, the granting of arms and of ritual emblems, 
and which was joined henceforth by princes and 
rulers. In the marches of Asia Minor, however, where 
in the 5th/nth century the ghazi element was re- 
inforced by the massive immigration of Oghuz 
tribes, the movement retained a popular and nomadic 
character, opposed to the settled and Persianized 
population of the Saldjuk towns. It was these tur- 
bulent elements of the marches, taking advantage of 
the slackening of Byzantine defences after the defeat 
of Mantzikert, impelled by the need to obtain their 
livelihood from plunder and at the same time in- 
spired by the ideal of the Holy War, who, without 
the acquiescence of the Saldjuk government, carried 
out the conquest of Anatolia. The first Turkish con- 
queror of Cappadocia was a ghazi leader, Emir 
Danishmend; with him ghazi makes its appearance 
among the titles of the emirs of Asia Minor; the term 
is even given as a personal name to the elder son 
of the emir ; the Greek legend on the coins of Danish- 



mend's successor reads: O MErAC AMHPAC 
AMHP TAZH (cf. I. Melikoff, Geste de Melik 
Dani$mend, i, Paris i960, 106). But this first ghazi 
principality of Asia Minor, lacking the elements 
necessary for the organization and colonization of the 
conquered countries, could not survive after it had 
exhausted such resources as were readily to hand, and 
was forced to fall back before the attacks of the 
Saldjuks. The ghdzis were forced back towards the 
frontiers (udi) and brought under the control of the 
central power, which bridled their turbulence by 
sending them to fight: to the north of Cappadocia, 
against the Greek empire of Trebizond, to the south, 
against the Armenians of Cilicia. These elements are 
known in Turkish sources under the name "Turks 
of the Udi" and their leaders are called "Udi begi". 
However, in the 7th/i3th century, the Mongol inva- 
sion brought to Anatolia a new migration of Turkish 
tribes; large numbers of dervishes, fleeing from the 
invaded Iranian provinces, came to join the fugitives 
who had taken refuge in the frontier regions. As a 
result of the disruption of the Saldjuk state and the 
weakness of Byzantine resistance, there arose a new 
ferment in the frontier regions, where the dervishes 
brought a new access of enthusiasm for the Holy War. 
This ferment was to result, at the beginning of the 
8th/i4th century, in the formation of the Turkish 
emirates in Anatolia. The 14th century sources and 
the first Ottoman chroniclers have left in their 
writings testimony to what the ghazi spirit was 
which animated these warlike principalities. "Put 
on the white cap for the ghazdi" exclaims the his- 
torian c Ashlkpashazade (ed. Giese, 40), while Eflaki 
(ed. T. Yazici, Ankara 1959-61, i, 485; tr. Huart, ii, 
10) tells us that the use of this white cap, the charac- 
teristic head-gear of the ghdzis, was introduced in the 
frontier regions in the 7th/i3th century by Mehmed 
Beg of the Udj. This same Eflaki describes the cere- 
mony of initiation of the "sultan of the ghdzis", 
Mehmed Aydinoghll, by the Mawlawi shaykh of 
Konya, Amir 'Arif: "Mehmed Beg, taking the club 
from the Celebi, placed it on his head and said: 
'I shall beat down my passions with this club, and 
with it I shall strike dead the enemies of the faith' " 
(cf. Eflaki, ii, 947-8; tr. Huart, ii, 391-2). The poet 
Ahmedi gives the following definition of the ghazi: 
"A ghazi is the instrument of the religion of God, a 
servant of God who cleans the earth from the defile- 
ment of polytheism ; a ghazi is the sword of God, he 
is the protector and the refuge of the Believers; if he 
becomes a martyr while following the paths of God, 
do not think him dead, he lives with God as one of the 
blessed, he has Eternal Life" (cf. P. Wittek, in 
Byzantion, xi, 304). But these ghazi principalities, 
whose aim was conquest and who supported them- 
selves by plunder, who were made up of warlike 
elements and lacked the social classes necessary to 
organize the conquered territories, were doomed to 
grow progressively weaker and to die out. Only one 
of these principalities was able to survive and develop : 
this was the Ottoman state. A ghazi principality 
like the others, it was the only one which was able to 
acquire the elements necessary for the organization 
of its conquests, thanks to its geographical position 
and to the proximity of the Byzantine capital, 
which obliged it to maintain a continual state of war. 
The first Ottoman sultans, just like the other Ana- 
tolian emirs, had included in their titles that of 
ghazi, which is given them by the historians of their 
dynasty, such as 'Ashlkpashazade, and which figures 
in their first inscriptions, as is shown in the inscrip- 
tion of 737/1337, concerning the building of the 



- GHAZI 'L-DIN HAYDAR 



1045 



Bursa mosque, where Orkhan is called "sultan ibn 
sultan al-ghuzdt, ghdzi ibn al-ghdzi, Shudja" 1 al-Dawla 
wa 'l-Dln, marzban al-dfdk, pehlevdn-i djihanfirkhdn 
ibn l Uthmdn". c Ashikpashazade also reveals that 
in the first centuries of the Ottoman empire there 
were four corporations, the first of which he calls the 
ghdziyan-i Rum, the others being the akhiydn-i Rum, 
abddldn-i Rum and badjiydn-i Rum. But when the 
Ottoman principality grew into an empire and the 
central power became firmly established, the ghdzis, 
who had taken an active part in the conquest of 
Anatolia, were subjected to the authority of the state 
and the corporations were gradually disbanded. The 
work of the conquerors was accomplished and they 
had now to give place to the organizers of the empire. 
Bibliography: Ahmedi, in Atsiz, Ostnanh 
Tarihleri, i, Istanbul 1949, 7-8; 'Ashikpashazade, 
ibid., 237-8; Eflaki, Mandkib al-'drifin, ed. T. 
Yazici, Ankara 1959-61, i, 485, 506, ii, 947-8 
( = Fr. tr. CI. Huart, Les saints des derviches tour- 
neurs, ii, Paris 1922, 10, 36, 391-2); Barthold, 
Turkestan, 214-5, 239, 242, 287, 291, 295, 312, 345; 
Fu'ad Koprulu, Turkiye Ta'rikhi, Istanbul 1923, 
81 f.; idem, Les origines de VEmpire Ottoman, 
Paris 1935, 88-133; Paul Wittek, Deux chapitres 
de Vhistoire des Turcs de Roum, in Byzantion, xi 
(1936), 285-319; idem, The rise of the Ottoman 
Empire, London 1938; idem, De la defaite d' Ankara 
a la prise de Constantinople, in REI, xiv (1938), 
1-34. (I. Melikoff) 

GHAZI, King of 'Irak, son of King Faysal I 
and his cousin Hazima, was born in the Hidjaz in 
1912, moved to Baghdad in 1921, and spent 
his childhood there until he was sent to Harrow 
School in England. He mounted the throne in the 
autumn of 1933, equipped with excellent social 
gifts; but he lacked seriousness or any taste 
for public affairs. He married c Aliyya, daughter of 
ex-King c Ali shortly after his accession, becoming 
the father of the future Faysal II in 1935. His 
short reign was marked by repeated military inter- 
ventions in the Government, including the short- 
lived coup of General Bakr Sidkl, 1936-7. He died in 
a motor accident in the spring of 1939. 

Bibliography : S. H. Longrigg, '■Iraq igoo to 

1950, Oxford 1953: Majid Khadduri, Independent 

'Iraq, Oxford 1951. (S. H. Longrigg) 

GHAZI, Sayf al-Din, Zangid prince of al- 

Mawsil from 541/1146 to 544/1149. See al-mawsil, 



nur 



.-din, zj 



djAzI, Sayf al-DIn, Zangid prince of al-Mawsi 
from 565/1170 to 576/1180. See al-mawsil, nur 
al-dIn, salaij al-dIn, zangids. 

GHAZl CELEBI, ruler of Sinope (700/1300?- 
circa 730/1330 ?) known especially for his piratical 
exploits against the Genoese, and sometimes 
alliance with and sometimes against the Greeks of 
Trebizond (it is known that there were actions in 
1313-14, 1319, 1324); there are attributed to him in 
these raids lack of scruples [e.g., taking guests 
captive), audacity (typified by an attack on Kaffa 
in the Crimea), and skill (he is said to have been able, 
by swimming under water, to pierce the hull of 
enemy ships), all of which testify to his reputation 
(see the episodes and the sources, Genoese, Byzantine 
(Panaretos) and Muslim (Abu 'l-Fida' and Ibn 
Battuta), in W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du 
Levant, i, 485 and especially 451, and ii, 98). It is 
probable that this maritime activity represents the 
most important feature of his policy — certainly 
nothing is known of him beyond this; indeed — and 
this is not without significance — even his identity is 



in doubt. According to 'All, Kunh al-akhbdr, v, 22 
(following Ruhi), he was the son of the Saldjukid 
sultan of Rum, Mas'Od II, and on the death of the 
last sultan, c Ala' al-Din (at the beginning of the 8th/ 
14th century), was granted by the Ilkhan Ghazan 
all the northern coastlands of Asia Minor; but this 
is a late version, perhaps entirely due to the fact that 
the tombstone of Ghazi Celebi (TOEM, ii, 422) calls 
him the son of Mas'ud Celebi, or to the fact that the 
career of Mas c ud II and of his father Kay-Ka'us in 
the Black Sea was well remembered; more nearly 
contemporary authors (Ibn Battuta, ii, 350-2, tr. 
Gibb, ii, 466-7, and, less clearly, Abu '1-Fida' 
Takwim, ed. Reinaud-de Slane, 393) make Ghazi 
Celebi a descendant of the famous Mu c In al-Din 
Sulayman the Pervane, whose sons Muhammad and, 
more especially, Mas'ud had retained Sinope, their 
father's fief, until 1300 (cf. Munedjdjim bashi, iii, 31), 
and this version, although dubious, is not impossible. 
Ghazi Celebi died, if the inscription on the tomb- 
stone has been read correctly, in 722/1322, a date 
which conflicts with reports of his being active in 
1324. In any case when Ibn Battuta passed through 
Sinope (in 1331 or 1333 ?) he was certainly dead — 
from an excess of hashish it was said — and the town 
had been occupied by the Isfandiyarid of Kastamuni, 
but it is possible that Ghazi Celebi had accepted the 
suzerainty of the latter before his death (it is possible 
thus to interpret al- c Umari, ed. Taeschner, 23). It is 
in any case impossible to deduce — as some authors 
have done — from the confused data on the Isfandi- 
yarids [q.v.] that Ghazi Celebi lived until 1356. 

Bibliography: apart from the sources men- 
tioned in the article, see Ahmed Tewhid, in TOEM, 
i, 199, 257, and 317, and xv (1925), 305; Zambaur, 
148 (inaccurate); Ibn Battuta, tr. H. A. R. Gibb, 
ii, 466, n. 195; EI 1 , art. Sinub. (Cl. Cahen) 

GHAZI 'L-DlN IJAYDAR (not Haydar al-Din 
Ghazi as given in the Cambridge History of India, v, 
575, 578), the eldest son of Nawwab Sa'adat 'All 
Khan, ruler of Awadh (1212-29/1798-1814), was 
born at Basawli in RohilkhancT in 11 88/1774. He 
succeeded his father as the Nawwab-Wazir of Awadh 
in accordance with the rule of primogeniture, in 
1229/1814. 

Right from the time of his accession he was under 
the influence of the British Resident, Col. John Bailey, 
who did not hesitate to interfere in the day-to-day 
administration of the state. Supported by the 
Governor-General of British India, Lord Hastings, 
who wanted to reduce the prestige of the Mughal 
emperor of Delhi, he declared his independence in 
1 234/18 19 and assumed the royal title of Abu 
'1-Muzaffar Mu c izz al-Din Shah-i Zaman Ghazi '1-DIn 
Haydar. A huge sum of two crores of rupees 
(20,000,000) was spent on the manufacture of a 
throne, made of pure gold and silver and studded 
with precious stones, and a canopy richly decorated 
with pearls and gold and silver thread. The same 
year he struck his own coinage bearing the legend: 
sikka zad bar sim-u zar az fadl-i rabb-i dhu 'l-minan, 
Ghdzi al-Din Haydar-i c dli nasab shah-i zaman. The 
obverse bore a coat of arms with two fishes (the 
insignia of the House of Burhan al-Mulk [q.v.]), 
supported by two tigers bearing banners. These 
coins, which replaced the pahivyah-ddr rupee of 
Shah 'Alarn II, were in circulation from 1235/1819 
until 1242/1827. 

A fine silver medal, commemorating the commence- 
ment of his rule, was also issued during the first 
year of his reign. This medal carried his full-faced 
portrait. An unsuccessful ruler, Ghazi '1-DIn Haydar 






GHAZI 'L-DlN HAYDAR — GHAZl GIRAY II 



was a debauchee. He was under the baneful influence 
of rapacious and unscrupulous ministers like Sayyid 
Muhammad Khan, commonly known as Agha Mir 
and entitled Mu'tamad al-Dawla, an upstart who 
had been one of the pages of Ghazi '1-Din Haydar 
before his accession. His maladministration, combined 
with his extravagance and dishonesty, hastened the 
decline of the Awadh dynasty. 

Ghazi '1-Din Haydar was benevolent towards the 
poor and the needy, and provided dowries for 
innumerable poor girls from the public treasury. 
Among the notable buildings constructed during his 
reign are: the Kadam RasQl, where a piece of stone, 
said to contain the footprint of the Prophet, was 
enshrined and the Imambafah Shah Nadjaf, an 
imposing building dedicated to mourning for 
Husayn b. 'All and the martyrs of Karbala 5 . Ghazi 
'1-DIn Haydar died in 1243/1827 and was buried in 
this building. 

The Persian dictionary Haft Kulzum, (publ. 
Lucknow 1882), a slightly re-arranged version of 
Burhdn-i kd(i c , which is ascribed to him, is in fact 
the compilation of Kabul Ahmad, who fathered it 
on the king apparently for some monetary considera- 
tion (cf. Ethe, in Gr.I.Ph., ii, 265, 348). 

Bibliography: Muhammad Nadjm al-Ghani 
Khan, Ta'rikh-i Awadh , Lucknow igig.iv, 1 08-211 ; 
Sayyid Kamal al-DIn Haydar, Ta'rikh-i Awadh 
(Kaysar al-tawdrikh), Lucknow 1296/1877, 205- 66; 
Muhammad Sadik Khan "Akhtar" Huglawi, 
Guldasta-i Mahabbat, Lucknow 1239/1823 (an 
account, in prose and verse, of the meeting of 
Lord Hastings and Ghazi '1-DIn Haydar); anon., 
Ta'rikh-i Shdhiyya-i Nishdpuriyya, MS. Rida 
(Raza) Library, Rampur; Muh. Muhtasham Khan, 
Ta'rikh-i Muhtasham or Muhtasham Khdni, MS. 
Bankipore, vii, 605; Durga Prasad, Ta'rikh-i 
Ajodhyd (MS.); Durga Parshad 'Mihr', Bustdn-i 
Awadh, Lucknow 1892; Amir 'All Khan, Wazir- 
ndma, Cawnpore 1293/1876; Lal-dji b. Sital 
Parshad, Sultan al-hikdydt, MS. India Office 3902; 
Puran Cand, I c dj[dz al-Siyar, MS. India Office 
3886; c Abd al-Ahad b. Muhammad Fa'ik, WakdV 
Dil-padhir, MS., Storey 708; J. Mill, History of 
India, London 1857, viii and ix; Irwin, The Garden 
of India, London 1880. (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
GHAZI 'L-DlN KHAN [see shihab al-din, mir; 

MUHAMMAD PANAH, MlR; c IMAD AL-MULK]. 

GHAZI EVRENOS BEG [see ewrenosI. 
GHAZI GIRAY I, Khan of the Crimea, 
reigned for about six months in 930/1523-4. He was 
proclaimed khan in Muharram 930/November 1523 
after conspiring with the Crimean begs to rebel 
against his father Mehmed Giray I [q.v.] and procuring 
his death. The Ottoman Sultan (Suleyman I) refused 
to recognize him and, in agreement with Memish 
Beg of the Shirin, the leader of the begs, appointed as 
khan Ghazi Giray's uncle Sa'adet Giray (Djumada II 
930/April 1524). Ghazi Giray, unable to resist, 
accepted Memish Beg's proposal that he should be 
kalghay ([q.v.] 'heir-apparent') to Sa'adet Giray, but 
was killed four months later (Shawwal 930/August 
1524). 

Bibliography: Sayyid Muhammad Rida, 
Al-Sab 1 al-sayydr fi akhbdr al-muliik al-Tdtdr, ed. 
Kazim Bek, Kazan 1832, 88 ff.; Halim Giray, 
Gulbun-i khdndn, Istanbul 1287, 13; 'Abd al- 
Ghaf f ar, « Umdat al-tawdrikh, supplement to TOEM, 
99; I A, s.v. Gazi Giray I (Halil Inalcik). 

(Halil Inalcik) 
GHAzI GIRAY II, known as Bora ('tempest'), 
twice Khan of the Crimea (996/1588-1005/1596 



and 1005/1596-1016/1607). Born in 961/1554, he 
first distinguished himself in 986/1578 as general of 
Crimean forces operating in support of the Ottomans 
against Persia, and won the regard of Ozdemir-oghlu 
'Othman Pasha [q.v.] (<Ali, Kunh al-akhbdr, MS; 
idem, Nusret-ndme, MS Istanbul, Esad Ef. [Suley- 
maniye] 2433; Asafi, Shedja'-at-ndme, MS Istanbul Un. 
Lib. 6043; Iskandar Munshi, Ta'rikh-i '■dlam-drd-yi 
c Abbdsi, Tehran 1314, 191, 197). Taken prisoner by 
the Persians in 988/1580 and refusing to co-operate 
with them against the Ottomans, he was imprisoned 
in the fortress of Alamut, but escaped in 993/1585 and 
managed to rejoin 'Othman Pasha's army. Upon the 
death of 'Othman" Pasha he went to Istanbul and 
settled at Yanbolu (Yamboli in Bulgaria). His 
bravery and loyalty prompted the Sultan (Murad III) 
to appoint him khan and send him with a fleet to the 
Crimea (Radjab 996/May 1588). The begs of the 
Crimea accepted him, but the Czar was supporting 
his own candidate, Murad Giray. Ghazi Giray set on 
foot negotiations for an alliance with Poland and 
Sweden, and in 999/1591 made an incursion against 
Moscow. The next year the Crimean begs raided 
Russia again. When summoned by the Ottoman 
Sultan to serve in Hungary in the war with Austria, 
he made peace with Russia (ratified by Ghazi Giray 
in Radjab 1002/April 1594), the Czar undertaking to 
pay an annual tribute of 10,000 roubles and to send 
each year various stipulated gifts (tiylsh and bblek) 
(two of his yarlighs to the King of Poland were 
published by V. Velyaminov-Zernov and H. Feyizhan, 
in Matiriaux pour servir d I'histoire du Khanat 
de Crimde ..... St. Petersburg 1864, 9-19; cf. 
I. Novoselskiy, Borba Moskovskogo gosudarstva s 
Tatarami v pervoy polovine XVII veka, Moscow 1948, 
118-9). 

In Hungary, he took part in the siege of Raab/ 
Yanik (summer of 1002/1594), and in the following 
year led a brisk campaign to reduce to obedience the 
rebellious princes of Moldavia and Wallachia. His 
proposal that Moldavia should be granted to one of 
the Crimean princes having been rejected by the 
Porte, he did not appear in person for the campaign 
of 1005/1596, but sent the kalghay Feth Giray. As a 
consequence he was deposed, but was restored after 
three months. As the Crimea was now being threaten- 
ed by the Kazaks, he began the building of the 
fortress of Ghazi-kirman. At the Sultan's insistence, 
he joined the Ottoman army in Hungary in 1006/1598, 
and stayed on in winter-quarters at Sonbor/Szombor. 
His request that the eydlet of Silistre be granted him 
as arpallk [q.v.] was brusquely rejected, and he 
refused to stay on in Hungary through the next 
winter (1008/1599-1600). The Austrians, in the hope 
of detaching him from the Ottomans, were promising 
him 10,000 gold pieces a year. Only in ion/1602, 
when he saw that his behaviour was endangering his 
throne again, did he consent to return to Hungary, 
spending the next winter at Pecuy/Pecs [q.v.] and 
amusing himself with hunting and the writing of 
poetry. Next spring he returned to the Crimea. His 
ambassadors met a delegation from the Emperor at 
Kolozsvar (Klausenburg) to discuss terms of peace, 
but inconclusively. Throughout the Ottoman- 
Hapsburg war of 1001/1593-1015/1606 Ghazi Giray 
played a prominent part, both politically and in the 
military operations. 

When peace was signed, he renewed his alliance 
with Poland against the Czar. The Sultan asked him 
to send 10,000 men for the operations against the 
Djelalls [q.v. in Supp.] in Anatolia, but he sent only 
a small force. Next year (1016/1607) he was ordered 



GHAZI GIRAY II — GHAZl MIYAN 



1047 



to advance through Shirwan to attack Persia 
(Feridun, Munsha'dt al-saldfin*, ii, 1 19), but died soon 
after of plague (Sha'ban 1016/November 1607). His 
son and halghay Toktamish Giray, whom he had 
nominated to succeed him, was proclaimed khan by 
the begs, of the Crimea, but the Porte refused to 
recognize him. 

Ghazi Giray, one of the greatest khans of the 
Crimea, managed to steer a course between the 
Porte, which wished to have the Crimean forces 
always at its disposal, and the Crimean aristocracy, 
which was seeking independence of the Porte. During 
his reign the Khanate co-operated more closely than 
ever with the Porte, and Ottoman influence, in 
culture and in administration, greatly increased : the 
kapu-aghasi (eshik-aghasi, bash-agha), appointed from 
among the Circassian slaves, came to occupy a 
predominant place in the government comparable 
with that of the Grand Vizier; and a corps of 
mounted musketeers (tiifenkCi), bound to the ruler's 
person, was formed. Ghazi Giray was at the same 
time a genuine literary artist, occupying a unique 
place in Crimean literature and in the Ottoman 
diwdn tradition. In a sincere and fluent style, he 
wrote prose and poetry in Persian, in Arabic, and in 
Crimean, Caghatay and Ottoman Turkish (he used 
as makhlas 'Ghazayl' and 'Khan Ghazi'), introducing 
into diwdn poetry the new theme — later much 
imitated — of the valiant sentiments of the soldier. 
His works include (1) a small diwdn (incomplete 
manuscript published in fascimile by I. H. Ertaylan 
[see Bibl.]) ; (2) a mathnawi entitled GUI u BUlbiil, in 
Caghatay Turkish (Ertaylan, 50-3, 62 n. 2, where the 
suggestion that it is a nazire to FudflH's Nik u bad is 
rejected); (3) a lost 'contention-poem' (mundzara) 
between Coffee and Wine (see Pecewl, Ta'rikh, ii, 251) ; 
and (4) several letters in prose and verse (to be found 
in various inshd > collections, e.g., British Museum 
MS Or. 6261 ; see also Abdullah-oglu Hasan, Kirim 
tarihine ait notlar ve vesikalar, in Azerbaycan Yurt 
Bilgisi, iii (1932), 118-22, iv-v, 159-66, vi-vii, 249-52). 
He figures prominently in a romantic novel by 
Namik Kemal [q.v.]. 

Bibliography: Hasan Ortekin, Bora Gazi 
Giray, hayah ve eserleri (unpublished mezuniyet 
thesis), Turkiyat Enstitusu, Istanbul; C. M. 
Kortepeter, The relations between the Crimean 
Tatars and the Ottoman Empire, 1 578-1608. . , (un- 
published University of London Ph. D. thesis, 
1962) ; I. H. Ertaylan, Gazi Giray Han, hayah ve 
eserleri, Istanbul 1958; I A, s.v. Gazi Giray II (by 
Halil Inalcik), with further references. 



(Hai 



cik) 



GHAZl GIRAY III, Khan oi 
from 1116/1704 until 1118/1707. In Radjab 1110/ 
January 1699 he was appointed Nuradin {Niir ai-Din 
[q.v.]) by his brother Dewlet Giray II, but rebelled, 
in collusion wtih the Noghay, and was dismissed. He 
came to Edirne and was exiled by the Porte to 
Rhodes. Upon the accession of his father Selim 
Giray [q.v.] in 11 14/1702, he was recalled and made 
kalghay [q.v.], and at his death succeeded him as 
Khan (3 Ramadan 1116/30 December 1704). In spite 
of the Porte's pacific attitude, he himself followed 
an anti- Russian policy during the Russo-Swedish 
wars, which provoked Russian protests at Istanbul. 
For this, and for his resistence to the Porte's efforts 
to bring the Noghay directly under Ottoman control, 
he was deposed (Dhu '1-Hidjdja 1118/March 1707) 
and ordered to reside at Karin-abad (Karnobat, in 
Bulgaria), where in Rabi c II 1120/June 1708, aged 36, 
he died of plague. 



Bibliography: Rashid, Ta'rikh, iii, 168, 172, 
201, 215; FindikHH Mehmed Agha (Silahdar), 
Nusret-ndme, MS; Sayyid Muhammad Rida, Al- 
Sab c al-sayydr fi akhbdr al-mulilk al-Tdtdr, Kazan 
1832, 270 ff.; IA, s.v. Gazi Giray III (by Halil 
Inalcik), with further references. 

(Halil Inalcik) 
GHAZl KHAN [see Supplement]. 
GHAZl MIYAN, popular title of Sipah Salar 
Mas'ud Ghazi, one of the earliest and most celebrated 
of Indo-Muslim saints, who lies buried at Bahraic, 
in Uttar Pradesh. According to Diya al-DIn BaranI, 
he was a soldier in the army of Sultan Mahmud of 
Ghazna. Abu '1 Fadl says that he was a kinsman 
(khweshdwand) of the Sultan. c Abd al-Kadir Bada'uni 
quotes a saint of Khayrabad who once remarked 
about the Salar: "He was an Afghan who met his 
death by martyrdom". No early record of his life 
exists. Later generations have introduced many 
mythical and romantic elements in his biography. 
The Mir'dt-i Mas'udi of c Abd al-Rahman, written 
during the reign of Djahangir (1014/1605-1037/1627), 
has consolidated all these later legends, though the 
author claims to have utilized an early Ghazna wid 
account of the saint in Ta'rikh-i Mulld Muhammad 
Ghaznawi, which is now lost. It is generally held that 
Salar Ghazi passed his youth in the field by the side 
of his father Salar Sahfl. At the age of sixteen he 
started on his invasion of Hindustan. With Satrik 
(in BSra Bank!) as his base of operations, he sent out 
his lieutenants in every direction to conquer and 
proselytize the country. Sayyid Sayf al-DIn and 
Miyan Radjab of his army were sent to Bahraic but 
they failed to achieve their objective. Salar Mas'fld 
then marched in person to Bahraic. He was successful 
in the beginning but was ultimately overthrown and 
slain with his followers on 18 Radjab 424/30 June 
1033. His servants buried him at a spot he had earlier 
chosen for his resting-place. The fact that his name 
and his grave survived through the long years 
between the Ghaznawid invasion and the Ghflrid 
occupation of northern India shows that there was 
some Muslim population to look after the grave and 
to preserve for posterity the tradition of Salar's 
martyrdom (Nizami, Some aspects of religion and 
politics in India during the 13th century, 'Aligarh 
1961, 76-7). Uetmish's son, Nasir al-Din Mahmud, 
was the first prince of the ruling house of Delhi to 
live in Bahraic and during his governorship Muslim 
colonization began in that region; but there is no 
reference to Salar Mas'ud in Minhadj's account of 
the prince. According to Fuhrer (Archaeological 
survey report, ii, 292), the first building over his grave 
was constructed by Nasir al-DIn Mahmud. Muham- 
mad b. Tughluk (725/1325-752/1351) was the first 
sultan of Delhi to visit his grave. Firuz Shah Tughluk 
also made a pilgrimage to Bahraic in 776/1374 and 
was so overwhelmed by its spiritual atmosphere that 
he had his head shaved (mdhluk shud) in the mystic 
fashion and adopted an other-worldly attitude 
( c Afif, Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, 372). Some buildings, 
wells, shades and verandas are said to have been 
constructed by him. 

The tomb of Salar Mas'fld is one of the most popular 
centres of pilgrimage in India. Hundreds of thousands 
of Hindus and Muslims visit it every year. The legend 
of Ghazi Miyan— also known as Balay Miyan, Bala 
PIr, Hatayla Pir etc. — occupies a unique place in 
the cultural life of the people of northern India, 
particularly in the villages of eastern Uttar Pradesh, 
Bihar and eastern Bengal. Many tales about him 
are current amongst the people, and many fairs, 



1048 



GHAZl MIYAN — GHAZNA 



festivals and feasts are held in different towns and 
villages of Uttar Pradesh (e.g. Meerut, Sambhal, 
Bada'un) to commemorate different events of his 
life. There are several towns in northern India where 
certain old graves are considered to be those of his 
martyr-companions (e.g., the grave of Miran Mulhim 
in Bada'un, see Radi al-Din, Kanz al-tawdrikh, 
Bada'un 1907, 51). The tradition of Ghaii Miyan 
has assumed the form of a popular superstition in the 
villages of eastern Bengal, where large number of 
symbolic graves of the saint have been put up and 
thousands of Hindu and Muslim villagers make of- 
ferings to them. As it is believed that he was slain 
while his nuptial ceremonies were being celebrated 
— which thus became in a double sense his 'urs — mar- 
riage processions in his memory are held at many 
places with '■alarm (banners) on the first Sunday of the 
month of Djayth (May-June). As this festival led 
to some immoral practices, Sikandar Lodi (894/1489- 
923/1517) banned it, but it was revived later. 
Once the Emperor Akbar (963/1556-1014/1605) 
witnessed this festival incognito in the vicinity 
of Agra. The death of the saint is commemorated 
on the 12th, 13th and 14th of Radjab every 

Bibliography : The earliest reference to the 
saint is found in Amir Khusraw's I'djdz-i Khusrawi 
(Nawal Kishore ed., ii, 155), wherein the author 
refers to his country-wide popularity. For other 
sources, see Diya al-Din Barani, Ta'rikh-i Firuz 
Shdhi, Bibl. Indica, 491; Ibn Baftuta, Rihla, 
Cairo 1346/1928, ii, 69-70; c Afif, Ta?rikh-i Firuz 
Shdhi, Bibl. Indica, 230; c Abd Allah, TaMkh-i 
DdHdi, 'Allgarh 1954, 38; Ni'mat Allah, Ta'rikh-i 
Khan Djahdni, Dacca i960, i, 217; Abu'l Fadl, 
Akbar Ndtna, Bibl. Indica, ii, 145; c Abd al-Kadir, 
Muntakhab al-tawdrikh, Bibl. Indica, iii, 27; 
Firishta, Ta'rikh-i Firishta, Nawal Kishore ed., 
i, 139; c Abd al-Rahman, Mir'dt-i Mas'udi (for 
MS see Storey 1006-7); Dara Shukoh, Safinat 
al-awliya? , Nawal Kishore, Kanpur 1900, 160-1; 
Ghulam Mu c In al-Din c Abd Allah, Ma'dridi al- 
waldyat, MS in personal collection, ii, 494-505; 
Ghulam Sarwar, Khazinat al-asfiyd>, Nawal 
Kishore 1873, "> 217-24; Muhammad 'Abbas 
Khan Sherwani, Haydt-i Mas'udi (Urdu), 
'Aligarh 1935; c In5yat Husayn, Ghazd Ndma-i 
Mas'ud (Urdu), Nami Press, Lucknow 1894; 
R. Greeven, The heroes five, Allahabad 1893; 
Garcin de Tassy, Mdmoire stir ... la religion 
musulmane dans I'Inde, Paris 1869, 72-9; Asiatic 
Annual Register, vi (1801); JASB, 1892, Extra 
number, p. 17; Statistical and descriptive account 
of north-west provinces of India, Allahabad 1874, 
118; District gazetteers of the United Provinces of 
Agra and Oudh, xlv, Bahraic ed. H. R. Nevill, 
Allahabad 1903; Elliot and Dowson, History of 
India, ii, 513-49; Voyages de Nikolaes van Graaf 
aux Indes Orientates, Amsterdam 1719- 

(K. A. Nizami) 
G_HAZl MUHAMMAD [see kadI muham- 

GHAZlPUR [see Supplement]. 

CHAZIYA (A.) plur. ghawdzi, the name for 
Egyptian public dancing-girls. In the 19th 
century, according to Lane, they came from a single 
tribe and married only within it. They gave lascivious 
performances in the streets and courtyards, and 
performed privately in the harims for certain 
celebrations or in special places for audiences of men. 
Lane regarded them as among the most beautiful 
women in Egypt and as common prostitutes; he 



distinguished the ghdziya from the 'dlima [q.v.] or 
female singer. 

Today this distinction is less sharp. In Egyptian 
cities both the dancing-girl and the singer are now 
called '■alma (colloquial), while in the villages the 
dancer is still often called ghdziya. The dancers do 
not come from a distinct tribe but from various sorts 
of low-income families, usually urban. They are 
taught the art, after showing some natural ability, 
by female teachers who are sometimes called 
'awdlim (plur.) too. Both the ghdziya and the 
'dlima must now be distinguished from the better- 
paid, better-trained "Oriental" dancer (rdhisa) who 
performs in the modern night clubs and films and 
at private celebrations. 

The ghawdzi, according to Lane, preferred to call 
themselves Bardmika. Ghdziya. the origin of which 
is uncertain, is still a derogatory term avoided by 
the dancer herself. In the villages it connotes a 
woman outside the pale of respectability. Ibn 
ghdziya is thus a serious insult. See further raks. 
Bibliography : Lane, Manners and Customs of 

the Modem Egyptians, ch. xix; Dozy, Suppl., s.v.; 

M. Berger, The Arab Danse du Ventre, in Dance 

Perspectives, x (1961). (M. Berger) 

GHAZNA. a town in eastern Afghanistan 
situated 90 miles/145 km. south-west of Kabul in 
lat. 68° 18' E. and long. 33 44' N. and lying at an 
altitude of 7,280 feet/2,220 m. 

The original form of the name must have been 
*Ganzak < gand±a "treasury", with a later meta- 
thesis in eastern Iranian of -nz-l-ndj- to -zn-, and this 
etymology indicates that Ghazna was already in 
pre-Islamic times the metropolis of the surrounding 
region of Zabulistan. The parallel forms Ghazni (in 
present-day use) and Ghaznin must go back to forms 
like Ghaznik and Ghaznin : the geographer Mukad- 
dasi and the anonymous author of the Hudud al- 
'dlam (end of 4th/ioth century) have Ghaznin, and 
Yakut says that this is the correct, learned form. 

The oldest mention of the town seems to be in the 
second century A.D., when Ptolemy gives Ga(n)zaka 
in the region of Paropamisadai, locating it 1,100 
stadia from Kabul, but to the north of that town. 
It must have been of some significance under the 
successive waves of military conquerors in this 
region, such as the Kushans and Ephthalites. The 
Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang (7th century 
A.D.) mentions it as Ho(k)-si(k)-na = Ghaznik, and 
describes it as the chief town of the independent 
kingdom of Tsau-kiu-ch'a = Zabulistan. Buddhism 
was known in the region, for recent excavations at 
Ghazna have uncovered a Buddhist site and many 
clay and terracotta buddhas have been found. (It 
should be noted that A. Bombaci, in East and West, 
vii (1957), 255-6, doubts the accepted identification 
of Ghazna with the places mentioned by Ptolemy 
and Hiuen-Tsang.) 

The history of Ghazna in the first three Islamic 
centuries is most obscure. The armies of the Arab 
governors of Khurasan and Sistan penetrated into 
Zabulistan in c Abd al-Malik's reign and fought the 
local ruler, the Zunbil, whose summer quarters were 
in Zabulistan (Baladhuri, Futuh, 397; Tabari, „ ; 4 88). 
The population of this area was doubtless basically 
Iranian, but with a considerable admixture of 
Turkish and other Central Asian peoples brought in 
by earlier waves of conquest; as the homeland of 
Rustum, Zabulistan plays a part in the Iranian 
national epic as the homeland of heroes. At the end 
of the 3rd/gth century, the Saffarids Ya'kub and 
c Amr b. Layth reached Ghazna and Kabul, defeating 



the Zunbil of that time, but it is only with the 4th/ 
10th century that the history of Ghazna, by then a 
theoretical dependency of the Samanids, becomes 
reasonably clear. 

In 351/962 a Samanid slave commander, Alptigin, 
came to Ghazna with an army and established him- 
self there, defeating the local ruler Abu 'All Lawlk 
or Anuk, described as a brother-in-law of the 
Hindushahl Kabul-Shah. In 366/977 another slave 
commander, Sebiiktigin, rose to power in Ghazna. 
and under the dynasty which he founded, that of the 
Ghaznavids, the town enters the two most glorious 
centuries of its existence. It now became the capital 
of a vast empire, stretching at Sultan Mahmud's 
death in 421/1030 from western Persia to the Ganges 
valley, and it shared with Kabul a dominating 
position on the borderland between the Islamic and 
Indian worlds; according to Ibn Hawkal 2 , 450, 
Ghazna's Indian trade did not suffer with the coming 
of Alptigin's army and the temporary severance of 
political links with India. It was still at this time, and 
for several decades to come, a frontier fortress town 
on the edge of the pagan Indian world; in the reign 
of Mas'Od I of Ghazna (421-32/1030-41) there was 
still a Salar or. commander of the ghdzis of Ghazna 
(Bayhaki, Ta'rikh-i Mas'udi, ed. GhanI and Fayyad, 
Tehran 1324/1945, 254; cf. the anecdote in the first 
discourse of NizamI 'Arudl's Cahdr makala describing 
the attacks in Mahmud's reign of the infidels on the 
nearby town of Lamghan). The geographers of the 
later 4th/ioth century stress that Ghazna was an 
entrepot (furda) for the trade between Ghazna and 
India, that it was a resort of merchants and that its 
inhabitants enjoyed prosperity and ease of life. They 
expatiate on its freedom from noxious insects and 
reptiles and its healthy climate. In winter, snow fell 
there extensively, and the historian Bayhaki 
describes graphically how in the summer of 422/1031 
torrential rain caused the stream flowing through the 
Ghazna suburb of Afghan-Shal to swell and burst its 
banks, carrying away the bridge and destroying 
many caravanserais, markets and houses. Ghazna 
itself was not in a fertile spot and had few or no 
gardens, but the surrounding country of Zabulistan 
was fertile and the town accordingly enjoyed an 
abundance of provisions. Tha'alibi lists among the 
specialities of the Ghazna region amiri apples and 
rhubarb, and Fakhr-i Mudabbir Mubarakshah 
mentions monster pears from there, pll-amrud 
"elephant-pears". 

Mukaddasi describes the layout of Ghazna as it 
was during Sebuktigin's time. It had a citadel, ftal'-a, 
in the centre of the town (the modern Bala-Hisar), 
with the ruler's palace; a town proper or madlna, in 
which many of the markets were situated, and which 
had a wall and four gates; and a suburb, rabad, 
containing the rest of the markets and houses. The 
citadel and madlna had been rebuilt by Ya'kub and 
c Amr b. Layth (Bayhaki, 261). Recent work by the 
Italian Archaeological Mission at Ghazna has shown 
that the houses of the great men lay on the hill 
slopes to the east of the modern town, on the way to 
the Rawda-yi Sultan, where lies Mahmud's tomb. In 
this vicinity are the two decorated brick towers built 
by Mas'Od III and Bahrain Shah, which may be the 
minarets of mosques, and not necessarily towers of 
victory as early western visitors to Ghazna imagined. 
The site of a fine palace has also been uncovered here. 
We learn from Bayhaki that Mahmud had a palace 
at Afghan-Shal, the Sad-Hazara garden and the 
Firuzi palace and garden where he was eventually 
buried. His son Mas'ud decided in 427/1035-6 to 



ZNA 1049 

build a splendid new palace to his own design 
(Bayhaki, 499, 539-41). For the erection and 
decoration of these and other buildings, the spoils 
of India were used; it seems that objects of precious 
metals and captured Hindu statues were directly 
incorporated into the palace fabrics as trophies of 
war. With the plunder brought back from the 
expedition of 409/1018 to Kanawdj and Muttra, 
Mahmud decided to build a great new mosque in 
Ghazna, to be known as the 'Arus al-Falak "Bride 
of the Heavens"; to this was attached a madrasa 
containing a library of books filched from Khurasan 
and the west ( c Utbi-ManIni, ii, 290-300). Other con- 
structional works by Mahmud included elephant 
stables (pil-khdna) to house 1,000 beasts, with 
quarters for their attendants, and various irrigation 
works in the district; one of his dams, the Band-i 
Sultan, a few miles to the north of the town, has 
survived to this day. For all these building works, 
it is probable that the early Ghaznavids imported 
skilled artisans from Persia and even from India, for 
Zabulistan had no artistic traditions of its own. 

After the Ghaznavids' loss of their western 
territories, Ghazna and Lahore became their two 
main centres, and the minting of coins was con- 
centrated on these two towns. In the first half of the 
6th/i2th century, Ghazna was twice occupied by 
Saldjuk armies (510/1117 and 529/1135), but a much 
greater disaster occurred in 545/1 150- 1 when 'Ala 5 
al-Din Husayn of Ghur sacked the town in vengeance 
for two of his brothers killed by the Ghazna vid 
Bahram Shah; this orgy of destruction earned for 
him his title of Djihan-suz "World-incendiary". 
However, Ghazna seems to have recovered to some 
extent. It was finally lost to the Ghaznavids in 558/ 
1 163, and after an occupation by a group of Ghuzz 
from Khurasan, passed into Ghurid hands, becoming 
the capital of the Sultan Mu'izz al-DIn Muhammad. 
After the latter's death in 599/1203, it was held 
briefly by one of the Ghurids' Turkish slave com- 
manders, TSdj al-DIn Ylldlz, but in 612/1215-16 
came into the possession of the Ghurids' supplanters, 
the Kh w arizm-Shahs. But Djalal al-Din Mingburnu's 
governorship there was short. He was driven into 
India by Cingiz Khan's Mongols in 618/1221 and the 
town was then sacked by the latter. 

This was really the end of Ghazna's period of 
glory; coins now cease to be minted there. In 11- 
Khanid times, it passed to the Kart ruler of Harat, 
Mu'izz al-DIn Husayn. Timur granted it in 804/1401 
to his grandson PIr Muhammad b. Djihanglr, who 
used it as a base for raids on India. In 910/1504 
Babur appeared at Ghazna and forced its then ruler 
Mukim b. Dhi '1-Nun Arghun to retire to Kandahar. 
Babur has left a description of the town as it was at 
this time, a small place where agriculture was diffi- 
cult, only a few grapes, melons and apples being 
produced; he marvelled that so insignificant a place 
should once have been the capital of a mighty 
empire. Under the Mughals and native Afghan 
dynasties, Ghazna played no very great r61e. It was 
besieged in 1059/1649 by a Persian army, but 
Awrangzib succeeded in holding on to it, despite his 
loss of Kandahar. Nadir Shah captured it in 1151/1738 
before occupying Kabul and marching on Delhi in 
the next year, and after his assassination in 1160/ 
1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani used Ghazna and Kabul 
as springboards for attacks on India. During the 
First Afghan-British War of 1839-42 Ghazna was 
twice taken by British forces, and on the second 
occasion the British commander sent back to India, 
at the Governor-General Lord Ellenborough's 






GHAZNA — GHAZNAWIDS 



request, the alleged Gates of Somnath captured by 
Mahmud of Ghazna eight centuries previously. 

Today, Ghazna is a town of some importance; it 
lies on the Kabul-Kandahar road and is the junction 
for the roads eastward to Gardiz and Matun, Urgun 
and Toil. It is the administrative centre of the 
province (wildyat) of Ghazna. The great majority of 
the people are Persian-speaking and are SunnI in 
religion. 

Bibliography: i. Historical. Primary sour- 
ces: c UtbI and Bayhaki (for the early Ghaznavid 
period), Ibn al-Athlr, NizamI c Arudi, Diuwavni 
and DjOzdjanl (for the later Ghaznavid, Ghurid 
and Mongol periods). Secondary sources: Pauly- 
Wissowa, vii, 887 s.v. Gazak (Kiessling); E. 
Benveniste, Le nom de la ville de Ghazna, in J A, 
ccxxi (1935), 141-3; Marquart, ErdnSahr, 37, 39-40, 
293-8; idem, Das Reich Zdbul, in Festschrift E. 
Sachau, Berlin 1915, 257-8, 261, 272; M. Nazim, 
The life and times of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, 
Cambridge 1931, 166-7; C. E. Bosworth, The 
Ghaznavids: their empire in Afghanistan and 
eastern Iran 994-1040, Edinburgh 1963, 35 ff., 
134-41; I. M. Shafi, Fresh light on the Ghaznavids, 
in IC, xii (1938), 189-234; A. Bombaci, Ghazni, in 
East and West, N.S. viii (1957), 247-59; Sir T. 
Holdich, The gates of India, London 1910; Sir P. 
Sykes, History of Afghanistan, London 1940. 

2. Geographical, travellers' narratives. 
Istakhri, 280; Ibn Hawkal", 450; Hudud al- c dlam, 
in, 345-7; MukaddasI, 296-7, 303-4; Tha'alibI, 
LataHf al-ma'drif, ed. de Jong, 122-3; Yakut, ii, 
904-5, iii, 798 ; Kazwlnl, Athdr al-bildd, Beirut 1380/ 
i960, 428-9; Ibn Battuta, iii, 88-9; Hamd Allah 
Mustawfi, Nuzha, 146-7; Bdbur-ndma, tr. Bever- 
idge, 217-9; Le Strange, 348-9; G. T. Vigne, A 
personal narrative of a visit to Ghuzni, Kabul and 
Afghanistan, London 1840; C. Masson, Narrative 
of various journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan 
and the Punjab, London 1842; J. Humlum et al., 
La giographie de V Afghanistan, itude d'un pays 
aride, Copenhagen 1959, 117-8, 139-40. 

3. Archaeological, architectural, epi- 
graphy, numismatics. E. Thomas, in JRAS, 
1848, i860; Lane-Poole, Cat., i; S. Flury, Das 
Schriftband an der Tiire des Mahmud von Ghazna 
998-1030, in Isl., viii (1918), 214-27; idem, Le 
dicor ipigraphique des monuments de Ghazna, in 
Syria, vi (1925), 61-90; A. Godard, Ghazni, in 
ibid., 58-60; D. Sourdel, Inventaire des monnaies 
musulmanes anciennes du Musie de Caboul, 
Damascus 1953; J. Sourdel-Thomine, Deux 
minarets d'ipoque seljoukide en Afghanistan, in 
Syria, xxx (1953), 108-21; A. Bombaci and U. 
Scerrato, Summary report on the Italian Archaeo- 
logical Mission in Afghanistan, in East and West, 
N.S. x (1959), 3-55; Bombaci, Ghaznavidi, in 
Enciclopedia Universale dell' Arte, Venice-Rome, 
vi, 6-15 (this author is also preparing a study of 
the c Arus al-Falak Mosque at Ghazna); Scerrato, 
Islamic glazed tiles with moulded decoration from 
Ghazni, in East and West, N.S. xiii (1962), 263-87. 

(C. E. Bosworth) 
GHAZNAWIDS is the name given to the d y 11 as t y 
of Turkish origin which was founded by 
Sebuktigin, a General and Governor of the 
Samanids [q.v.]. With Ghazna [q.v.] for long its 
capital, the dynasty lasted for more than 200 years, 
from 367/977-8 to 583/1187, in eastern Iran and 
what is now Afghanistan, and finally only in parts of 
the Pandjab (with Lahawur/Lahore as centre). For 
a long time its rulers held the official title of Amir, 



although historians call them Sultan from the start ; 
on coins, Ibrahim (no. XII below) was the first to bear 
this title. 

From the time when Alptigin established him- 
self in the region of Ghazna in 344/955-6 and made 
himself to a great extent independent of the Sama- 
nids, the area surrounding this town remained in the 
hands of Turkish rulers (for details see ghazna). In 
367/977-8 (I) Sebuktigin gained power, and con- 
tinued to rule until his death in 387/997. The new 
ruler, on the evidence of his coinage, acknowledged 
the overlordship of the Samanids, and gave them 
help against the SImdjurids [q.v.] in 992 and 995. 
He also turned his attention to the Hindu Empires 
in the Pandjab [q.v.] and in particular the Shahu 
dynasty, whose head, Djaypal, he defeated in 979 
and 988, thereby acquiring the fortresses on the 
Indian frontier. His empire furthermore included 
northern Baluiistan, Ghur, Zabulistan and Bactria 
(Tukharistan) (on the subject of these and all 
further geographical references in this article see the 
entries under individual words). In this way, 
Sebuktigin, an extraordinarily powerful and ambi- 
tious ruler, and a convinced Sunni, laid the founda- 
tions of one of the most lasting empires in the Indo- 
Afghan border regions. 

On this foundation, Sebiiktigin's son (III) 
Mahmud, who after quarrelling at one time with 
his father had become reconciled with him towards 
the end of the latter's life, was able to embark upon 
the conquest of the Pandjab. By so doing, he created 
for Islam an extensive territory in India, and laid the 
foundation for the religious division of this area, the 
latest effect of which has been the creation of the 
independent state of Pakistan. Mahmud swiftly 
superseded his brother (II) Isma'il, who had been 
designated by his father as his successor, and by 
389/999 had finally made himself secure. There is no 
doubt that he is the most important ruler of the 
dynasty. Culturally already strongly inclined towards 
Iran and receptive to the developing new Persian 
literature, he perseveringly encouraged Firdawsl [q.v.], 
although he did not fulfil the exaggerated demands 
made by the latter since he could not overlook 
the expenses for his task of spreading Islam in 
India. Politically Mahmud was in a fortunate 
position, since on his ascending the throne the 
Samanids had lost their influence and he was able 
to come to an agreement with the victorious 
Karakhanids [q.v.], which in essence laid down that 
the Oxus should be the frontier between the two 
kingdoms. A convinced SunnI like his father, Mahmud 
exchanged the ties which Sebuktigin had had with 
the Samanids for an allegiance to the 'Abbasid Caliph 
al-Kadir [q.v.], an allegiance which remained purely 
nominal, since at that time distant Baghdad could 
not exert any influence so far east, and the Caliphs 
were in any case dominated by the ShI'i Buyids 
[q.v.]. The latter had passed the zenith of their power 
and were several times the target of attacks by 
Mahmud, who thereby also rendered a service to the 
Caliph. At the same time as his 17 campaigns in the 
Pandjab, Mahmud was able to push the Buyids back 
a considerable distance and exert his influence in 
Kh"arizm [q.v.]. On his death (23 Rabl c II 421/30 
April 1030), his empire comprised the Pandjab and 
parts of Sind (plus a series of Hindu states in the 
valley of the Ganges which acknowledged his over- 
lordship), northern Baluiistan (around Kusd5r), 
Afghanistan including Ghazna, as well as Ghariistan 
and Ghur (where native potentates had submitted 
to his overlordship), Sistan, Khurasan, and Persia 



GHAZNAWIDS 



generally as far as Djibal (Media); and finally 
Tukharistan and some border areas on the Oxus 
(for all details see mahmud b. sebOktigin). 

After Mahmud's death his son (IV) Muhammad 
at first succeeded him, but was immediately opposed 
by his brother Mas c ud, who, having been his father's 
victorious general (governor of Isfahan and Rayy), 
was favoured by the army. An army despatched 
against him by Muhammad deserted to him, in 
Herat; Muhammad was blinded and taken captive. 

(V) Mas'ud I, a bold warrior, addicted, it is true, 
to drink, and lacking the diplomatic capabilities of 
his father, continued Mahmud's campaigns in India, 
and attempted to drive the Buyids further back; 
but he was able to gain possession of Kirman [q.v.] 
only for a short time (424/1035). From a military 
standpoint his position was considerably less 
favourable than that of his father, who had had no 



mad to the throne was foiled by the swift advance 
of Mas'iid's son (VI) Mawdud, who pressed forward 
to Kabul from Balkh (where his father had left him 
as commander against the Saldjuks). He defeated 
Muhammad in 434/1042 at the battle of Nagrahar, 
and killed him. In other ways too Mawdud took 
bloody revenge on the murderers of his father. His 
brother Madjdud, who also put forward claims, died 
even before a battle could be joined, probably 
of poison. Mawdud's attempts to halt the advances 
of the Saldjuks into Persia continued fruitlessly for 
years. In 436-7/1044-6 they advanced beyond Bust 
into the countryside around Zamindawar and 
threatened Ghazna. Here general Basi-tigin was able 
to repulse them and thereby save the home territory 
of the Ghaznavids; it was also possible to divide the 
rebellious Ghur and force them once more into sub- 
mission to Mawdud. In a similar way it was possible 



IV. Muhammad 

1030 and 1040-1 

(b. 997) 



XI. Farrukhzad 



XII. Ibrahim 



XIV. Sherzad XV. Malik Arslan 
1115-16 1116-8 

(b. 1081-2) (b. 1083-4?) 



mbers in this table correspond with those giver 



XIII. Mas'fld III 



opponent of his own calibre in Persia. Now, however, 
just at the time when Mas c ud came to the throne, 
the Saldjuks [q.v.] began to cross the Oxus and little 
by little to occupy Khurasan. Mas'ud's resistance 
had little success; considerable parts of his army 
were engaged in the Pandjab, and his forces were 
made up of very diverse elements: Iranians of 
various races, and also Indians; his own fellow 
Turks were only sparsely represented. On 8 Ramadan 
431/23 May 1040, on the steppes of Dandan(a)kan, 
Mas c ud was decisively defeated by the Saldjuks 
under Toghril [q.v.], a defeat which cost him his 
Persian possessions (cf. B. N. Zakhoder, Dendanekan 
(in Turkish), in Belleten, xviii/72 (1954), 581-7). On 
a march to India Mas c ud was overthrown by a 
conspiracy and murdered forthwith in prison (433/ 
1041). (For details see mas'ud b. maijmud). 

An attempt to restore the blinded (IV) Mu ham- 



on the whole to maintain the power of the dynasty 
in India, even though some areas were temporarily 
lost and even Lahawur was threatened for a time. 
Mawdud was about to set forth himself on a campaign 
against the Saldjuks to attempt the recovery of 
Sistan, when he died in Ghazna on 20 Radjab 440/ 
18 December 1048 after a short illness. 

Apart from Persia, now finally lost, Mawdud had 
been able to preserve the kernel of his dynasty's 
territory, but the bloody quarrels which broke out 
after his death between several claimants to the 
throne seriously weakened the Ghaznavid position. 
Through the machinations of generals and viziers 
who wished to consolidate their own power, the 
6-year-old (VII) Mas'ud II (really Muhammad), 
Mawdud's son, succeeded to the throne, followed on 
1 Sha'ban 440/9 Jan. 1049 by Mawdud's brother 
(VIII) 'All b. Mas'ud I and on his overthrow, in 



Io 5 2 



GHAZNAWIDS 



May 1049, by (IX) 'Abd al-Rashid b. Mahmud. 
Although this ruler lived in peace with his neigh- 
bours, he did not succeed in restoring internal 
stability. The dignitaries took exception to his 
relations with a certain slave, lumen, who was 
forcibly removed as soon as 'Abd al-Rashid himself 
was murdered on 10 Shawwal 443/14 February 1052. 
The murderer, a former slave of Mas'fld I and now 
Commandant of Zarandj, (X) Toghrll, disposed of 
other members of the royal house and himself 
attempted to seize supreme power, but was murdered 
by followers of the dynasty on 17 Dhu '1-Ka'da 443/ 
21 March 1052. 

With (XI) Farrukhzad b. Mas'ud I the here- 
ditary ruling family returned to the throne. With 
the help of General Nush-tigin, who had already 
served c Abd al-Rashid loyally, the new ruler was 
able to repel the Saldjuks, who in the meantime were 
making further advances on Baghdad and Anatolia, 
when they attacked his central territories; on the 
other hand, Makran was lost to them. Farrukhzad 
died at the early age of 34, in Safar 451/March 1059 
apparently of cholera. 

His brother and successor (XII) Ibrahim b. 
Mas'Od I, signed a treaty of friendship with the 
Saldjuks, being obliged to cede to them Khuttalan. 
Caghaniyan and Kubadiyan. Marriage alliances and 
later rich presents sealed the settlement thus reached 
with their long-standing main opponents in the West, 
who for their part promised to abandon their expan- 
sionist policy in the East. In other ways too, the 
new ruler proved himself an able diplomat and a cau- 
tious politician, avoiding dangerous undertakings, but 
essentially capable of preserving and defending his 
possessions. Ibrahim thus had his hands free for 
exploits in India (465-8/1072-6). He succeeded in 
capturing a number of fortresses and in re-establish- 
ing the influence of the Ghaznavids in the Pandjab. 
Thenceforward Ibrahim called himself 'Sultan' on 
his coinage. Finally he delegated the continuation of 
the campaigns to his son Sayf al-Dawla Mahmud, 
whom he made Governor of Lahawur, and who 
succeeded immediately in capturing Agra, and later 
other strongholds. When he attempted to seize 
power from his father, he was thrown into prison 
with his friends (481/1088). Ibrahim died on 5 
Shawwal 492/25 August 1099, after a reign of 40 
years, the longest recorded in this dynasty. 

His son and successor, (XIII) Mas'ud III, 
immediately embarked on an attack on Kanawdj, 
whose Hindu rulers were forced to submit and were 
brought to Ghazna in chains; a later attempted 
revolt in the town was suppressed. Otherwise, 
Mas'ud III kept up the ties of friendship and marriage 
with the Saldjuks and had a peaceful reign, until his 
death, at the age of 56, in Shawwal 508/February- 
March 1115. 

As had happened two generations earlier, the 
death of Mas'ud III meant the outbreak of fratricidal 
war. Three of his sons took their turn as head of 
state. (XIV) Sherzad was forced after one year 
(Shawwal 5og/Feb.-March 11 16) to flee to Tabaristan 
before his brother (XV) Malik Arslan, and early 
in 510/middle of 1116 he fell in an attempt to regain 
control of Ghazna. But Malik Arslan's days were 
also numbered. Another brother, who had escaped 
his sword, (XVI) Bahram Shah, won the help of 
Sandjar [q.v.], and was able to march into Ghazna in 
his train on 12 Shawwal 511/6 February 1118 after 
two successful battles; Malik Arslan had fled to 

Bahram Shah had to acknowledge the suzerainty 



of the Saldjuks and pay them high tribute; as a 
guarantee of this one of their tax controllers remained 
in Ghazna when Sandjar vacated the town after 40 
days, taking with him the State Treasure. Although 
these conditions were onerous, they also guaranteed 
Bahram Shah Sandjar's solid support. It was only 
with Saldjuk help that he could fend off an attack by 
Malik Arslan from India; his brother fell into his 
hands and was executed in Djumada II 512/Sep- 
tember-October 11 18. Bahram Shah then established 
his authority in the Pandjab in three campaigns 
(Ramadan 512/January 1119, Djumada II-ShawwaI 
514/end of 1120, and 523/1129). Otherwise the first 
decade and a half of his reign appear to have passed 
peacefully; at any rate no records of battles have 
survived. In 1 135-6 Bahram Shah tried in vain to 
rid himself of Sandjar's overlordship together with 
the crushing tribute, of 1000 dinars per day (so at 
least according to the sources!). Nevertheless, in 
spite of his defeat by Sandjar, Bahram Shah was 
confirmed in his hereditary territories just as was 
the Kh'arizm Shah Atsiz [q.v.] after his rebellions. 
Like the latter, Bahram Shah now remained loyal to 
the Saldjuk Sultan, although he fell out with the 
rulers of Ghur, and had one of them — his son-in-law — 
poisoned whilst visiting Ghazna. A brother of this 
man, after losing a battle (2 Muharram 544/12 March 
1149), was publicly hanged on Bahram Shah's 
orders, with many of his advisers. Both these acts 
were revenged in the most terrible way by a third 
brother, 'Ala' al-DIn Husayn, in an attack on 
Ghazna towards the end of 11 50. The complete 
destruction of the capital and the utterly ruthless 
murder, rape and deportation of the inhabitants — 
who were certainly not responsible for the conduct 
of their ruler — rightly gained for this monster the 
name of Djahansuz (Burner of the World), by which 
he is known to history. Bahram Shah had meanwhile 
fled to India; thence, when 'Ala 5 al-DIn had been 
taken captive by the Saldjuks, he apparently returned 
to Ghazna and died, it is thought, early in 552/ 
February-March 1157. There is no doubt that by 
his treacherous murders and the personal cowardice 
with which he deserted his subjects in a moment of 
crisis Bahram Shah contributed, in a completely 
personal way, to the disintegration of his ancestors' 
empire, which now could no longer be checked. 

The rule of Bahram Shah's second son (XVII) 
Khusraw Shah, was restricted to Ghazna, Zabu- 
listan and Kabul— apart from the Pandjab. Further 
parts of the empire, Zamlndawar and Bust, had in 
the meantime been taken over by the GhQrids [q.v.] ; 
Tiginabad also fell into their hands after a clash 
with Khusraw Shah in the middle of 552/summer of 
1 157. As Sandjar died just at this time, Khusraw 
Shah lost his only helper against his ever more 
powerful enemies in Ghur. By Radjab 555/ July 1160 
he was dead. 

His son and heir (XVIII) Khusraw Malik, saw 
his possessions dwindle bit by bit, until the empire 
of the Ghaznavids ceased to exist. Already at the 
beginning of 558/1163 he lost Ghazna and all his 
Afghan lands to the Oghuz ([q.v.] see also ghuzz) to 
whom Eastern Persia too was exposed after the death 
of Sandjar. It was not long before the Ghurids seized 
power here also; a member of their ruling house, 
Shihab al-DIn, was put in charge of these territories, 
and used them, as Mahmud had done before him, as 
a jumping-off ground for an advance on the Pandjab, 
where Khusraw Malik still retained Lahawur (his 
capital), Peshawar, Multan and Sind. On the pretext 
that he was obliged to take action against the 



GHAZNAWIDS 



native Karmatls, Shihab al-DIn took Multan in 571/ I 
1175-6; in 575/1179-80 Peshawar fell into his hands. ' 
Finally he forced Khusraw Malik in Lahawur to pay 
him tribute and give up his son, Malik Shah, as 
hostage. Even so it was no easy task for the Ghurid 
prince to dispose of Ghaznavid rule completely, for 
the Indian tribe of the Khokhars was collaborating 
with Khusraw Malik. Only after Lahawur had been 
besieged several times was Khusraw Malik forced by 
hunger to yield, in Djumada I and II 583/July- 
August 1 187. After some delay he was sent to 
Ghuristan, and imprisoned in a castle in Ghar&stan. 
There he was put to death with his sons, probably at 
the end of 585/beginning of 1190, when the Ghurids 
found themselves threatened by the Kh"arizm Shahs. 
"Thus Sebiiktigin's house came to an end, and 
nothing was left of these mighty rulers but the 
historical memory" (Mlrkhond, Bombay (litho- 
graph) 1849-50, 135), almost at the same time, 
incidentally, as the last Saldjuks also disappeared 
from history before the advance of another new 
dynasty, the Kh'arizm Shahs. 

In contrast to the Samanids and the Saldjuks, the 
cultural significance of the Ghaznavids after 
Mahmud's death was slight. As far as can be seen, 
the dynasty assimilated Persian influence in the 
realms of language and culture as quickly as did 
other Turkish ruling houses. But, leaving Firdawsi 
aside, they were not privileged to have a really 
important poet at their court. On the other hand, 
we are indebted to one of their leading officials, 
Bayhaki [g.v.], for a uniquely detailed picture of 
early Islamic-Iranian history; for the period of 
Sultan Mas c ud I, it is also a mine of information on 
cultural and diplomatic matters and the technique 
of government. 

The life of the court, with its receptions and 
parties, and the form of government were in accord- 
ance with the customs of other SunnI empires on 
Persian territory at this time. It is however worth 
noting that the principal ministers rarely changed, 
and therefore must on the whole have worked in 
harmony with their rulers. 

Accession to the throne took place with the 
customary ceremonial, especially when the succession 
was peacefully established. The rulers counted 
among their principal duties a reverent attitude to 
the Caliphs, and the protection and dissemination 
of the Sunna — in opposition to the Hindus as well 
as the Shi'Is and the Karmatis in Multan. The 



fact t 



t the s; 









were allowed in the repression of revolts or the 
"punishment" of defeated enemies was in accordance 
with the ideas of the time. The financial demands 
made on their subjects certainly varied according to 
what was required for waging war, paying tribute, 
and possibly also supporting an extravagant court, 
although it would appear that they did not exceed 
the usual average elsewhere, just as the rulers of the 
dynasty after Mas'ud I were average personalities. 
Of the longer-lived members of the dynasty, 
Bahrain Shah can be considered the least conscien- 
tious and indeed also the least capable. 

Bibliography: Sources: Besides Islamic 
world-histories (such as Mlrkhond, Firishta, etc.), 
and numismatic catalogues (including Thomas, 
in JRAS, 1848 and 1859), see especially c Utbi, 
Bayhaki, Djuzdjani; 'Awfl, Diawami 1 and Lubdb; 
GardizI, al-Rawandi, Ibn al-Atfiir, Hamd Allah 
Mustawfi Kazwini, TaMkh-i guzida (see these 
articles and also Storey, i, index). Studies: M. 



Nazim, The life and times of Sultan Mahmud of 
Ghazna, Cambridge 1931, with map; B. Spuler, 
Iran, 11 1-24; bibliographies to mahmud and 
mas'ud; Y. A. Hashmi, Political, cultural and 
administrative History under the later Ghaznavids, 
Hamburg 1956 (thesis), map, bibliography; idem, 
Society and religion under the Ghaznavids, in 
Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society, vi/4 
(Oct. 1958), 254-68 (both comparatively useful 
works, the first to give a comprehensive critical 
picture of the period after 1040); Gulam Mustafa 
Khan, A history of Bahrdm Shah of Ghaznin, in 
IC, xxiii (1949), 62-91, 199-235; Muhammad Abdul 
Ghafur, The Ghurids (thesis), Hamburg 1959; C. E. 
Bos worth, The Ghaznavids, their empire in Afgha- 
nistan and eastern Iran (gg4-io4o), Edinburgh 
1963; idem, The imperial policy of the early 
Ghaznavids, in Islamic Studies, i/3 (1962), 49-82; 
idem, Ghaznevid military organization, in 7s/., xxxvi/ 
1-2 (i960), 37-77; Browne, ii, 90-164, 305 ff.; D. 
Sourdel, Inventaire des monnaies musulmans 
anciennes du Musie de Caboul, Damascus 1963, 
xii-xvi, 26-81; C. E. Bosworth. The titulature 0/ 
the early Ghaznavids, in Oriens, xv (1962), 210-33; 
idem, Early sources for the history of the Jirst four 
Ghaznavid Sultans (977-1041), in IQ, vii/1-2 (1963), 
3-22. (B. Spuler) 



Corresponding with the pre-eminence of the 
Ghaznawid dynasty there was, for about a century, 
an efflorescence of architecture and craftsmanship 
promoted by the tastes and opulence of those 
powerful patrons, and with its geographical centres 
in the eastern provinces of Iran, which for so long 
were a meeting-point of Islamic and foreign artistic 
currents. Quite certainly, this flowering sprang 
directly from the earlier experiences of the Samanid 
centres in Khurasan or Transoxania and, in its last 
phase, it intermingles with the development of the 
art commonly denoted by the name Saldjukid, which 
was destined to achieve a renown that reached far 
beyond the limits of the empire of the Great Saldjuks. 
But the style developed within the Ghaznawid 
territories, from the reign of Mahmud b. Sebiiktigin 
and under his immediate successors, took an equally 
significant part in innovation, thus allowing us to 
emphasize its importance as well as the exemplary 
character, for the later evolution of Islamic art, of 
the works of art then executed in the residences, 
distant though they were, of Ghazna, Bust, Balkh. 
Harat or Nishapur. 

Too often, we have to deplore the ruin and 
disappearance in the centuries that followed, of 
these monumental works, as well as of their furnish- 
ings. The sites of the ancient Ghaznawid capitals are 
today deserted, and the chroniclers' accounts can 
restore nothing to us save the astonishment of 
contemporaries at the ornateness of their edifices, 
the brilliance of the official ceremonies that were 
performed in them and the collection of objects of 
value which the conquest of India had made it 
possible to bring together. This is the point that 
emerges for example from the unfruitful attempt 
made earlier by A. U. Pope to evoke Ghaznawid 
art by starting from the imprecise facts contained 
in the literary sources (cf. A survey of Persian 

On the other hand, the various archaeological 

our knowledge of which has been considerably 
increased within recent years, provide an insight, 



1054 



GHAZNAWIDS 



stimulating in itself, into the art that flourished 
under the aegis of the Ghaznawids. and it is to be 
deplored that they have not yet given rise to any 
general work, pending the coming of the new dis- 
coveries which will perhaps one day complete the 
instruction they have imparted. 

In these remains, traces of imposing edifices can 
be found, from the minarets at Ghazna to the 
castles in the "royal town" of Bust [q.v.], all situated 
within modern Afghanistan, to which no doubt 
should be added the half-ruined remains of the so- 
called mausoleum of Arslan Djadhib at Sangbast, 
of which we have only a description made some time 
ago (cf. E. Diez, Churasanische Baudenkmdler , 
Berlin 1918, 52-5). 

The minarets had long been known in the field of 
ruins at Ghazna, where their prism-shaped brick 
plinths still stand, entirely covered with decorations 
and inscriptions; but only recently have both been 
attributed to Ghaznawid sovereigns of the last 
period, Mas c ud III (d. 508/1114) and Bahram Shah 
(d. 547/1152), after having formerly been incorrectly 
described, on the strength of ancient travellers, as 
"victory towers" of the conqueror of India and his 
son Mas'ud I. Their archaeological significance has 
thereby been slightly modified, particularly in regard 
to the date of the appearance in Ghazna of these 
brick decorations, obtained by the simple use of 
variety in the bonding, which adorn the silhouette 
of the last minaret, so long regarded as being a 
century older. 

The ruins of Lashkari Bazar, on the other hand, on 
the site of Mahmud's "camp" in the suburbs of 
Bust, which also became a favourite residence of 
Mas c ud I, constitute an architectural ensemble, the 
great extent of which has only just been revealed by 
excavations conducted by the French Archaeological 
Mission in Afghanistan — and still incompletely, 
since as yet only a preliminary report has been 
published. Three palaces built in a line along the 
bank of the Hilmand, formerly surrounded with 
enclosures and gardens, as is shown by their high 
outer walls, testify to the vigour of an architectural 
tradition directly related to the customary methods 
of construction in use in palaces of the Caliphs in 
c Abb5sid c IrSk. But the details of their plans, in 
which traces of successive alterations do not fail to 
raise delicate problems of date and attribution, also 
deserve attention, starting with the cruciform lay-out 
of the iwans round the central courtyard of the 
South castle, where we can see the application of a 
typically Khurasanian formula and a clear statement 
of the welcome subsequently accorded in Iran to 
this kind of concentric composition. At the same time 
can be seen traces of a surface decoration worthy 
of comparison with the embellishment of walls in the 
buildings of Samarra, yet showing true originality 
in the details of panels of sculptured stucco, both 
inscribed and anepigraphic, as also in the frescoes 
with figures which ornamented the walls of the 
principal audience chamber and which still depict 
the rows of guards who once surrounded the sover- 
eign's throne. We should note also the existence of a 
large mosque, standing outside the South castle 
though opening onto its fore-court, and characterized 
by the classically Muslim form of its pillared hall of 
prayer. Moreover, the two rows of booths stretching 
for more than half a kilometre along the avenue which 
led to the royal residence and connected it with the 
neighbouring town of Bust reveal, in their general 
treatment, a feeling for town-planning that some- 
what transcends the narrow limits of palatine 



architecture and its exclusive concern with the 
sumptuous. 

A second category of archaeological remains is 
provided by the abundant series of fragments of 
architectural decoration and ornamental or funerary 
inscriptions, mainly on marble slabs, which come 
from the site of Ghazna; some were discovered forty 
years ago, others as the result of the excavations at 
present being carried out by an Italian expedition, 
concerning which our information is still very 
incomplete. These fragments are almost all remark- 
able for their fine decorative quality, combined with 
richness of materials, which together give the arab- 
esques traced on them a supple elegance of line and 
modelling for which no exact equivalent in Muslim 
Iran is known. Probably we should recognize here, 
to some extent, the results of Indian and Central 
Asian influences, which can also be seen in the choice 
of certain motifs containing figures (especially 
persons, or animals such as elephants). But the basic 
principles of an ornamentation that is both divided 
into sections and also characterized by a restricted 
variety of floral stylizations thus remain faithful to 
the spirit of 'Abbasid art, which can also be discerned 
in the prominence given here to the epigraphic bands 
with angular or cursive writing. Among the most 
significant of the fragments, besides sections from 
the frieze, are the remains of stone mihrdbs, where 
the niche reveals a lobed profile, and tombs 
attributed to Sebiiktigin and Mahmud. 

Finally, in the third category are the various 
products of luxury crafts, of which interesting 
specimens have been preserved, though without 
attracting any but the most spasmodic attention, 
except for ceramics. Here, in fact, the discoveries at 
Lashkari Bazar, enriched by the results of digging 
on the actual site of the town of Bust, have 
been subjected to a methodical analysis; there 
is a sufficient range of material for comparison 
to provide significant fixed points for the hitherto 
highly confused chronology of certain main cate- 
gories of Muslim ceramics. The significant features of 
Ghaznawid pottery, glazed and unglazed, are in any 
case now precisely defined in its two principal stages, 
firstly in the 5th/nth century in its relation with 
Samanid pottery, which provided it with its first 
models, and later at the end of that century and the 
beginning of the 6th/i2th century in relation to 
Persian Saldjukid ceramics, from which it then 
began to draw inspiration. 

One could wish that the Ghaznawid bronze 
objects, which for the most part are in the museum 
at Kabul, might be studied in the same way. As for 
the carved woodwork, of which the doors of Mahmud's 
tomb provide the most famous illustration, it 
occupied in the art of the period a place which some 
have already underlined, but which has not yet been 
defined with the requisite precision or based upon 
sufficiently detailed analyses. 

Bibliography: E. Diez, Persien. Islamische 
Baukunst in Churasan, Gotha 1923; O. von 
Niedermayer and E. Diez, Afghanistan, Leipzig 
1924; A. U. Pope, A Survey of Persian Art, 
Oxford 1939, 981 ff. (architecture), 1352-6 (carved 
stone), 2609-12 (wood); S. Flury, Das Schriftband 
an der TUre des Mahmud von Ghazna, in Isl., viii 
(1918), 214-27; idem, Le dicor ipigraphique des 
monuments de Ghazna, in Syria, vi (1925), 61-90; 
Y. A. Godard, L'inscription du minaret de Mas'ud 
III, in Athar-e Iran, i, 367-9 and ii, 351; J. 
Sourdel-Thomine, Deux minarets d'ipoque sel- 
joukide en Afghanistan, in Syria, xxx (1953), 



GHAZNAWIDS — GHAZW 



108-36; D. Schlumberger, Le palais ghaznevide de 
Lashkari Bazar, in Syria, xxix (1952), 251-70; 
J. Sourdel-Thomine, Les decors de stuc dans Vest 
iranien a Vipoque sal£uqide, in A Men des XXIV en 
Or. Kongr., Wiesbaden 1959, 342-4; D. Schlum- 
berger, etc., Lashkari Bazar I. Les Edifices (forth- 
coming); A. Bombaci, Summary report on the 
Italian Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan, 
i, in East and West, x (1959), 3-22; U. Scerrato, 
Summary report, ii, in East and West, x (1959), 
23-55; J- C. Gardin, Lashkari Bazar II, Les 
trouvailles, Paris 1963. (J. Sourdel-Thomine) 
GHAZW (a.), expedition, usually of limited 
scope, conducted with the aim of gaining plunder. 
The noun of unity ghazwa (pi. ghazawdt) is used 
particularly of the Prophet's expeditions against the 
infidels [see maghazi], but has also special meanings 
(for which see Dozy, Suppl., s.v.). 

In its most common sense, ghazw (and the dia- 
lectical variants) signifies a raid or incursion, a small 
expedition set on foot by Bedouins (both in the 
Sahara and in northern Arabia) with booty as its 
object, and also the force which carries it out. The 
term has passed into French in the form rezzou, 
which preserves the original meaning of ghazw, 
whilst it is the synonym ghdziya (pi. ghawazi) which 
has given the English word razzia, current also in 
French (where, however, with the verb razzier, it 
tends to have a pejorative implication). In the 
Berber dialect of the Touareg of the Ahaggar, 
tamagh layt means a ghazw of a few men (see Ch. de 
Foucauld, Diet, touareg-francais, Paris 1951-2, iv, 
1726) and igsn a group of more than 15-20 men 
{op. cit., i, 456), the verb adsg (op. cit., i, 263) 
corresponding exactly to the Arabic ghaza. 

The ghazw (colloquial ghazu, pi. ghizwdn) was 
one of the oldest institutions of the camel-breeding 
tribes of Northern Arabia and continued, un- 
moderated by Islam, well into the present century. 
Unlike the other warlike activities of the Bedouin, 
namely war for territory (mandkh) and punitive 
raids of retaliation ((Aa'r/coll. thdr), its primary 
concern was the acquisition of camels. In practice it 
operated as a fairly effective means of redistributing 
economic resources in a region where the balance 
could easily be upset by natural calamities (Sweet, 
Camel raiding). 

The ghazu, therefore, minimized the effect of 
localized drought or disaster on the breeding of 
properly balanced camel herds, the only form of 
wealth which could give economic security in this 
society. Since the acquisition of camels was the aim 
of a ghazu, very little blood was ordinarily shed 
during the course of it, mercy (man'-) being freely 
granted. Indeed the whole course of a ghazu was 
governed by elaborate protocol. 

A raid on a tribal section was usually initiated by 
a series of petty thefts of camels, disturbing the 
existing state of truce. These were often carried out 
by small parties on foot (hanshal, sing, hanshuli: 
Hess, Beduinen, 96). When these thefts had become 
of sufficient gravity, and presumably the tolerance 
with which they were viewed varied according to the 
condition of the herds of the tribal section concerned, 
the truce was formally severed and mutual raiding 
could then be expected to ensue (Musil, Rwala, 
505-6; Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 343). The 
person chosen to lead a raid ('akid, colloquial 'adzid, 
c agld) was usually the shaykh of the section, unless 
incapacited by weakness or age, or a member of his 
family. The 'adzid gathered his force (kawm, collo- 
quial gom), for a small raid mounted on perhaps 20-30 



camels (djayshldiesh), or on camels and horses if the 
section to be raided was not far distant. The objective 
was kept secret from all but a few until the moment 
of departure, which would be postponed if necessary 
till the omens were favourable. Scouts ('uyun) were 
then sent out to reconnoitre the ground over which 
the raiding party would pass. When these reported 
that the objective was nearby, an advance-party 
(sabr, pi. subur) made a final estimate of the position 
and brought back a report (Him, pi. 'ulum) and if 
possible a prisoner. The attack itself, provided the 
raiders were genealogically and socially close to the 
section to be raided, was made at sunrise (sabah) or 

not scattered (cf. Hess, Beduinen, 98). A night-attack 
(bay at), though it would succeed most easily, was 
considered dishonourable ('ayb, colloquial 'lb). 

The captured herds were driven back to the 'adzid, 
and the raiders divided into a rear-guard (kaminj 
tsamin), to ward off the inevitable counter-attack 
(faz'a), and a party which drove the captured camels 
to the raiders' last camp, and then as fast as possible 
to their home-camp. 

Although the community attacked was seldom 
taken by surprise and counter attacks were often 
effective (Musil, Arabia Deserta, 181), most raids 
would seem to have been successful. 

When the raiders came from further afield the 
raiding party was likely to be larger, and the concern 
with protocol and the desire to avoid bloodshed 
would then appear to have been less, since in these 
circumstances genealogical ties were more likely to 
be remote (Doughty, Travels, ii, 393). In general the 
more closely related were the parties involved, the 
more stringent were the rules governing the actual 
raid. 

In its heyday the institution of the raid permeated 
the whole of Bedouin society, its social and economic 
life, and its folk literature. It reinforced the fissi- 
parous and predatory nature of tribal society, and 
for long prevented the emergence of any political 
organization more complex than short-lived con- 
federations. However, the rise of a strong central 
power in Arabia under Ibn Sa'Od marked the end 
of the traditional mode of life based on the ghazu. 
More recently the rise of the oil industry has further 
hastened the decline of traditional society by accele- 
rating the trend towards the de-tribalization of 
the Bedouin and their re-grouping along modern 
industrial lines. 

Bibliography : A. Blunt, Bedouin tribes of the 
Euphrates, 2 vols., London 1879; J. L. Burck- 
hardt, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys, London 
1830; H. P. R. Dickson, The Arab of the Desert, 
London 1949; Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta; 
J. Euting, Tagbuch einer Reise in Inner-Arabien, 
2 vols., Leyden 1896 and 1914; C. Guarmani, 
Northern Najd, London 1938; J. J. Hess, Von den 
Beduinen des innern Arabiens. Zurich/Leipzig 
1938; R. Montagne, La civilisation du disert, 
Paris 1947; V. Miiller, En Syrie avec les Btdouins, 
Paris 1931; A. Musil, The Northern Hel&z, New 
York 1926; idem, The manners and customs of the 
Rwala Bedouins, New York 1928; idem, Arabia 
Deserta, New York 1927; W. G. Palgrave, Narrative 
of a year's journey through Central and Eastern 
Arabia (1862-63), 2 vols., 1865; L. E. Sweet, 
Camel Raiding of North Arabian Bedouin (mono- 
graph awaiting publication); J. R. Wellsted, 
Travels in Arabia, 2 vols., London 1838. See also 
R. Montagne, Le Ghazou de SayP Alemsah, in 
Melanges Maspero, iii, Cairo 1935-40, 411-416 and 






GHAZW — GHAZZA 



Contes poitiques bedouins, iaBEO, v (1935), 33-119. 

See further ghazI (as frontier- warriors). 

(T. M. Johnstone) 

GHAZZA, a town in southern Palestine 
which from ancient times had been an agricultural 
and caravan centre, situated 4 km. from the sea, on 
the route leading from Palestine to Syria and at the 
junction of the caravan-routes coming from Arabia. 
A frontier-town which often changed hands through 
the course of the centuries, the ancient '■Azza, which 
had been one of the capitals of the Philistines, later 
became, under the Greek name Gaza, a flourishing 
Hellenistic city, and afterwards a Roman town 
belonging to Judaea. In the Byzantine period it 
formed part of Palestina Prima and was christianized 
in the 5th century; the seat of a bishopric, it was also 
renowned for its school of rhetoric and, at the 
beginning of the 7th century, it was described as a 
rich city where foreigners were welcomed. Merchants 
from Mecca visited it regularly, and it was in the 
course of one of these journeys that the Prophet's 
great-grandfather Hashim is said to have died there, 
so conferring a particular dignity upon Ghazza, "the 
town of Hashim". According to tradition, it was 
also there that c Umar b. al-Khattab acquired his 
fortune. Finally, it was in the immediate vicinity of 
Ghazza, in a place sometimes called Dathin, some- 
times Tadun, that the Patricius of Ghazza was 
defeated by Arab troops sent by the first caliph Abu 
Bakr; but according to the most trustworthy ac- 
counts, the town itself was conquered by c Amr b. 
al- c As; although the inhabitants were well treated, 
the soldiers of the garrison were massacred and 
henceforth regarded in the Christian world as 
martyrs. 

Between the ist/7th and 3rd/9th centuries, the 
town of Ghazza is rarely mentioned in the texts. We 
know only that at the end of the 2nd/8th century the 
town had to endure the conflicts between the Arab 
tribes that had settled in Syria and Palestine, and 
that in 150/767 the great jurisconsult al-Shafi c i was 
born there. In the 4th/ioth century, the period 
when it came beneath the domination of the Fati- 
mids, the geographers described it as an important 
town possessing a beautiful Great Mosque; extending 
to the edge of the desert and to within a mile of the 
sea, it was surrounded by vast orchards and vine- 
yards; its port was Mimas, the ancient Maioumas 
mentioned as early as the 3rd century B.C., the site 
of which corresponds with the modern al-MIna. 

The town of Ghazza was afterwards occupied by 
the Crusaders, who found it in ruins. They started to 
rebuild it in 544/1149, and the new citadel was given 
to the Templars by king Baldwin III of Jerusalem, 
while around it there began to grow up an unprotected 
lower town inhabited by peasants and merchants. 
This stronghold helped the Crusaders in their capture 
of 'Askalan [q.v.], which took place in 548/1153- Some 
years later the town was assaulted by Salah al-Din 
who, in 565/1170, sacked the lower town, though he 
was unable to capture the citadel. It was finally 
surrendered to this sovereign by the Grand Master 
of the Templars after the fall of Jerusalem. Recaptur- 
ed by Richard Cceur de Lion, it became a stake in the 
negotiations which started between the Crusaders 
and the Muslims, and was then restored to the latter 
under the terms of the treaty of 626/1229. Soon 
afterwards, in 636/1239 and 642/1244, it was the 
scene of two serious defeats for the Crusaders, and 
immediately before the Mongol invasion it was a 
source of rivalry between the Syrian Ayyubids and 
the Egyptians, before being itself occupied by the 



armies of HQlagu, marking the furthest limit of then- 
advance. 

In the Mamluk period, Ghazza became the chief 
town of a district that for the most part belonged 
to the province of Damascus, though at times it was 
independent. The town was then very rich and very 
extensive, if one is to believe the accounts of con- 
temporary geographers and travellers, all of whom 
stress its economic prosperity, which derived partly 
from the richness of the surrounding district, 
abundantly irrigated by subterranean water, and 
partly from the energy of its merchants. Its most 
sought-after products were the grape and the fig, 
but the abundance of its s«£s was also a source of 
pride and, according to the Arab authors, it combined 
three types of social life represented by the 
merchants, farmers and stock-breeders. The popu- 
lation, belonging to various tribal groups, was very 
turbulent and always involved in strife. Ghazza 
eventually possessed numerous public buildings — 
mosques, madrasas, convents, a hospital and 
caravanserais, some of which still survive. The chief 
mosque, built on the foundations of the Crusader 
church of St. John through the efforts of the governor 
al-Djawli at the beginning of the 8th/i4th century, 
remained standing until the 1914-18 war. 

The arrival of the Ottomans in 922/1516 brought 
suffering to Ghazza. The inhabitants, misled by a 
false report of a Mamluk victory into thinking that 
they could massacre the new Turkish garrison, were 
the victims of severe reprisals and a certain number 
of them were executed. They seem, however, to have 
made a good recovery. The Ottoman iapu registers 
[see daftar-i khakanI] show an increase in popula- 
tion in the city from under 1000 households in 932/ 
1525-6 to well over 2000 in 955/1548-9; the survey 
of 963-4/1555-7 shows a slight decline. The population 
was predominantly Muslim, with Christian and 
Jewish minorities and a small group of Samaritans — 
18 households in 963-4. The registers also show a 
number of retired members of the former d±und al- 
halha as living in the city. Kurdish and Turcoman 
quarters are also shown. At the end of the nth/i7th 
century, in about 1070/1660, Ghazza enjoyed a 
period of particular prosperity, under the govern- 
ment of a family of pashas, the most celebrated of 
whom, Husayn Pasha, succeeded in putting a stop 
to the periodic raids of the Bedouins, while he 
maintained good relations with the Christians and 
Europeans. As the Chevalier d'Arvieux put it, the 
town at that time acted as the capital of Palestine, 
and Arabic, Turkish and Greek were all spoken there. 
Among its principal buildings were six mosques, 
besides the Great Mosque, numerous baths and 
markets and two churches, one Armenian and the 
other Greek. 

The 18th century, on the other hand, was char- 
acterized in Ghazza by various disturbances and by 
the turbulence of the Bedouins, whom the Ottoman 
authorities had some difficulty in subduing; it closed 
with Napoleon's victory in 1799 immediately outside 
the town. In the 19th century Ghazza shared the fate 
of Palestine, being for a time attached to Egypt and 
then made directly subject to Ottoman governors; 
at the end of the 1914-18 war, it formed part of 
Palestine under the British mandate. 

The period of peace experienced by Ghazza at the 
end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century 
brought about a marked increase in its population, 
which rose from 16,000 inhabitants in 1882 to 40,000 
in 1906 (of whom 750 were Christians and 160 Jews). 
By 1932, however, the population had declined to 



GHAZZA — GHIDHA' 



approximately 17,000, of whom a small minority were 
Orthodox Greeks, who maintained a church dating 
from the 12th century with the revered tomb of 
St. Porphyry, bishop of Ghazza in the 5th century. 
The Muslims who, since the 1914-18 war, had 
gathered for prayer in a place near the site of the 
now destroyed Great Mosque, also venerated a 
sanctuary dedicated to Nabi Hashim, which is found 
mentioned as early as the 6th/i2th century. Despite 
the progressive disappearance of caravans, the town 
was for a long time to possess a flourishing market 
with abundant supplies of various commodities, while 
the costume and mode of life there were close to 
those of Egypt. But its direct attachment to the 
latter country after the armistice of 1949 was to 
mark the decline of its commercial activity, though 
at the same time reaffirming its former strategic 
importance. 

Bibliography: Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.; M. A. 
Meyer, History of the city of Gaza, New York 1907; 
F.-M. Abel, Geographic de la Palestine, ii, Paris 
1938, 327-8, 374-5; Le Strange, Palestine, 441-3; 
A.-S. Marmardji, Textes giographiques arabes sur 
la Palestine, Paris 1951, 154-7; Baladhuri, Futiih, 
108; Tabari.i, 1083, 1091, 1561, 2396-8; Eutychius, 
Annates, ed. Cheikho, 1904, ii, 9; Ya'kubl, Bulddn, 
329-30; Ibn Hawkal, 113; Mukaddasi, 155, 177; 
Idrisi, in ZDPV, viii, 112; Harawi, K. al-Ziydrdt, 
Damascus 1952, 60; Ibn Battuta, i, 114 (trans. 
H. A. R. Gibb, i, Cambridge 1958, 73); E. N. Adler, 
Jewish travellers, London 1930, 179-85 (travels of 
Meshullam of Volterra, 1481 A.D.); M. Gaudefroy- 
Demombynes, La Syrie a Vipoque des Mamelouks, 
Paris 1923, 50-5; Quatremere, Sultans Mamlouks, 
i/b, 228-35; R. Grousset, Histoire des Croisades, 
Paris 1934-36, index; L. A. Mayer, Arabic in- 
scriptions of Gaza, in Journal of the Palestine 
Oriental Society, iii, 69-78, iv, 66-8, v, 64-8, ix, 
219-25, x, 59-63, xi, 144-51; idem, in Quarterly of 
the Department of the Antiquities of Palestine, xi, 
27-9; RCEA, nos. 940, 4659, 4898, 4942, 4979. 
5047, 5339, 5400, 5587, 5606, 5636, 5686; for the 
inscriptions and monuments, see also the Max van 
Berchem collection (Geneva), carnet VII, 54-136 
and envelope 24; B. Lewis, Studies in the Ottoman 
archives— I, in BSOAS, xvi (1954), 469 ff.; 
U. Heyd, Ottoman documents on Palestine 1 552-161 5, 
Oxford i960, index; Baedeker, Palestine et Syrie, 
Leipzig 1893, 157; Guide Bleu, Syrie Palestine, 
Paris 1932, 622. (D. Sourdel) 

al-GHAZZAlI [see al-ghazalI]. 
fifllBA [see pandjab]. 

GHIDHA'. (A.,plur. aghdhiya) indicates strictly in 
Arabic "that which ensures the growth and the good 
health of the body" {Kdmus, s.v.), in other words 
feeding and food. We shall deal here only with the 
factors which determined the diet of the principal 
Muslim peoples in the classical period (though some- 
times making modern comparisons), in particular 
with the laws of the Muslim religion concerning food. 
The descriptive section will be limited to the pre- 
Islamic period. The more particularly culinary 
aspects, i.e., those concerning the preparation of 
special dishes, will be dealt with in the article TABigt. 
We have omitted for lack of space several aspects of 
the subject: the variations of food in the contem- 
porary Muslim world, its place in social life (and in 
particular the question, often dealt with by Muslims, 
of the dddb al-akl — rules of table manners), the 
estimated nutritional value in quality and in 
quantity of the food in the various Islamic countries, 

Encyclopaedia of Islam II 






e-Islamic Arabs 



The food of the inhabitants of the Arabian 
peninsula (apart from the agricultural and civilized 
states of the south) was — and in large measure still 
is today — typical of the diet of a pastoral people in 
a desert region with scattered cultivated oases. We 
can get an idea of this food from ancient poetry, the 
classical texts and the Kur'an (the sources have been 
examined by G. Jacob, Altar abisches Beduinenleben, 
Berlin 1897, 88-109, 246; M. 'I. Darwaza, 'Asr al- 
Nabi, Damascus 1 365/1946, 80-6; M. Sh. AlusI, 
Buliigh al-arab fi ma'rifat ahwdl al-'Arab 2 , i, Cairo 
I 343/ I 924, 380-5; M. Kurd 'All, Ma'dkil al- c Arab, in 
al-Muhtabas, iii (1908), 569-79). We have examined 
in addition the hadiths, the data of which are 
acceptable on this matter, since even forgers took 
great pains to add to the credibility of their work by 
the archaism of the customs to which they referred. 

The essential product from the raising of domestic 
animals was milk [laban rather than hallb), one of 
the two basic foods of the Arabs. The Kur'an (XVI, 
68/66) pays an eloquent tribute to this liquid, calling 
it "sweet to drinkers", and numerous traditions 
witness how greatly the Bedouin longed for it 
('ayma) when they were deprived of it (H. Lammens, 
Etudes sur le siecle des Omayyades, Beirut 1930, 
325 = MFOB, iv (1910), 91 ff.). Mainly camel's 
milk was drunk, also that of goats and sheep. It 
could be drunk diluted with water, but sour milk 
(hdzir) was despised (G. Jacob, Altarab. Beduinen- 
leben, Berlin 1897, 95). Milk-products from it were: 
samn "clarified butter" which was used for cooking 
and which disgusted the Romans of Aelius Gallus 
when they found it used instead of oil in the Hidjaz 
(Strabo, xvi, 4, 24; it is probably his Pouxupov); 
akit "sour-milk cheese" (al-Bukharl, lxx, 8, 16; Abu 
Dawud, xxvi, 27; Imru' al-Kays, ed. Ahlwardt, The 
divans, London 1870, 162, no. 68, verse 5); djubn, 
cheese of an unknown sort (Abu Dawud, xxvi, 38). 
Camels were slaughtered only in cases of great 
necessity. In general it was rare for meat to be eaten, 
but this made it all the more appreciated (Ahmad 
b. Hanbal, iii, 303, etc.). They seem to have eaten 
chiefly mutton, sometimes from sheep kept near the 
house and specially fattened for the table (dddjin) 
(Ibn Hanbal, iii, 303, etc.; al-Tabarl, i, 1523; cf. Ibn 
Hisham, 735), of which the Prophet preferred the 
shoulder and the fore-leg (al-Bukhari, lxx, 26, 58; 
Ibn Hanbal, vi, 392; cf. Ibn Sa c d, 1/2, 108, 109; 
Abu Dawud, xxvi, 20; Ibn Hisham, 764). The 
Medinans were extremely fond of the fat from its fat 
tail (alya) and of that from the camel's hump, which 
they cut from the living animal, a practice which 
Muhammad forbade (al-Dariml, vii, 9; references in 
poetry apud G. Jacob, Altar. Beduinenleben, 94; the 
same practice in the eastern Sahara: W. Besnard, 
Que mangent-ils?, Paris 1947, 47 f.). Specially prized 
parts of the camel were the udder, the liver, the 
foetus, etc. but the stomach and the tail were the 
food of slaves (Jacob, ibid.). It seems that it was 
not only in time of famine that they ate blood drawn 
from the veins of a living camel and allowed to 
coagulate or put into pieces of gut and cooked (al- 
Maydani, ii, 119; Hamdsa, 645; Aghdni, xvi, 107: 
20; W. R. Smith, Lectures on the religion of the 
Semites', 234). They ate very little beef (ibid.; Lam- 
mens, Berceau de I'Islam, Rome 1914, 132) or goat 
meat. Pigs and fowls (Jacob, ibid., 84 f.) seem 
to have been scarcely known, although some hadiths 
relate that the Prophet ate the latter (al-Dariml, 



1058 gh: 

The agriculture of the oases provided mainly 
dates, another basic food of the Arabs (Lammens, 
Berceau de I'lslam, 82 f.; idem, Fdtima, 44, n. 2). In 
the oases they were almost the only food. "When the 
Prophet died, we were nourished only by the two 
black things: dates and water" (saying attributed to 
c A'isha: al-Bukhari, lxx, 6, 41; cf. Lammens, 
Berceau, 105, n. 3; for the inhabitants of the Fertile 
Crescent, on the other hand, the staple foods, even 
in the desert, were bread and water: Genesis, XXI, 
14; / Kings, XVIII, 14). A scarcity of dates is the 
equivalent of famine (al-Dariml, viii, 26; Abu 
Dawud, xxvi, 41; Muslim, xxxvi, 152, 153; cf. 
Aghdni, ii, 161). They liked to stress their therapeutic 
qualities and they formed the stock provisions when 
setting off on an expedition (Abu DSwiid, xxvi, 46). 
They were eaten also at festivals, such as the walima 
in honour of the marriage of Muhammad with 
Safiyya (al-Bukhari, lxx, 8, 16; Abu DSwud, xxvi, 2). 
They were eaten dried (tamr), fresh (rufab) — when 
they were especially relished (Muhammad was 
particularly fond of them eaten with cucumber, 
kuththd', cf. Wensinck, Index, s.v.) — or when they 
were beginning to ripen (busr). A special variety 
called 'adjwa was particularly sought after (especially 
those grown in the upper region of Medina) and con- 
sidered as a sovereign remedy against poisons and 
sorcery (al-Bukhari, lxx, 48; Muslim, xxxvi, 155-6, 
etc.). 

Bread may not have been such an aristocratic food 
as has been thought, for barley bread at least was 
not uncommon among the settled populations. All 
the same, the Prophet and his family never ate 
bread made from wheat flour three days running 
during the period between the Hidjra and his death 
(al-Bukhari, lxx, 23, 27; the hadith of Abu Hurayra 
according to which the Prophet never ate barley 
bread is contradicted by several others). The only 
one of his wedding feasts at which Muhammad 
offered his guests bread was that on the occasion of 
his marriage with Zaynab (Ahmad b. Hanbal, iii, 
172, cf. 99). The flour was not sifted — Muhammad 
had never seen a sieve — but simply blown to separate 
it from any coarse residue of husks (Ibn Sa c d, i/2, 
109; al-Bukhari. lxx, 22, 23). Among the nomads, 
however, bread was very rare (Ammianus, xiv, 4, 6; 
Lammens, Berceau, 141; Noldeke, Neue Beitrdge zur 
sem. Sprachwiss., Strasbourg 1910, 56 f.). Strabo, 
following Aelius Gallus, speaks of a region of the 
Hidjaz where the only cereal is £eia, perhaps a sort 
of soft wheat (xvi, 4, 24). 

Bread was eaten with a "condiment" (udm, iddm) 
which was moreover singularly meagre. Those who 
were able to season their bread with vinegar or oil 
were not considered as "living on dry bread" (root 
kfr) (Zayd b. c Ali, Corpus iuris, ed. Griffini, Milan 
1919, no. ion: read yaktafiru) and Muhammad 
pronounced vinegar the best of condiments (cf. 
Wensinck, Handbook, s.v. Food; also Abu Dawud, 
xxvi, 39). We also hear of his being content with a 
date as flavouring for a loaf of barley bread (Abu 
Dawud, xxvi, 41). According to a hadith attributed 
to c Ali, the best accompaniment was meat, the worst 
salt and the middle place was given to samn or oil 
(Zayd b. 'All, no. 450; cf. al-Bukhari, lxiv, 29). But 
it is possible that some at least of these hadiths were 
contaminated by later ascetic trends. 

The settled agricultural populations were able to 
enjoy also some vegetables. Among the bukul, 
"herbs", the Prophet preferred hindiba', "chicory". 
He was also fond of beets (silk; al-Bukhari, lxx, 17) 
and of some vegetables belonging to the gourd family 



which are difficult to identify exactly (dubbd* "a 
kind of marrow?", kuththd' "a kind of cucumber", 
kar' "marrow"). Leeks (kurrdth) were forbidden, 
though not hardm (Ibn Hanbal, i, 15, iii, 397), and 
so were raw garlic and onions. But according to 
other traditions, Muhammad merely expressed his 
personal dislike of them and forbade those who had 
recently eaten them to come to the place of prayer 
(references in Wensink, Handbook, s.vv. Garlic, 
Onion, and Concordance, s.v.; also al-Dariml, viii, 
21). Olives also were eaten (Kur'an, VI, 142/141) and 
the pith of the palm-tree (djummdr; al-Bukhari, lxx, 
42, etc.). Fruits mentioned are the citron (utrudjdia; 
al-Bukhari, lxx, 30), which is thought to be found 
also (according to the parallel Jewish text and 
certain Muslim commentaries) in Kur'an, XII, 31 
(under the name of mitk, matk, to be read in place of 
muttaka', or disguised by a corruption in the text), 
the pomegranate (Kur'an, VI, 99, 142/141; lv, 68), 
the grape (cf. Kur'an, VI, 142/141; cf. Lammens, 
Berceau, 90 f.; the dried raisins of Ta'if were famous). 
The apple and the fig are scarcely mentioned by the 
poets (Jacob, Altar. Bed., 230) or in hadiths 
(Wensinck, Concordance, s.vv.). 

The pastoral nomads were able to use also, in 
addition to the meat and the milk-products provided 
by their flocks, wild vegetables, game and small 
desert animals. Among the plants may be mentioned 
kabdth, the ripe fruit of the thorn tree ardk (Capparis 
sedata; cf. Lammens, Berceau, 69; al-Bukhari, lxx, 
50; Muslim, xxxvi, 163), desert truffles, which, 
according to a saying attributed to Muhammad, 
came from the manna sent to the Israelites (Muslim, 
xxxvi, 157-62; cf. Dawud al-Antaki, Tadhkira, 
Cairo, 1356/1937, i, 252; Lammens, Berceau, 49), 
etc. The game mentioned in the traditions are the 
hare (Abu Dawud, xxvi, 26; al-Dariml, vii, 7) and 
the bustard (fiubdrd; Abu Dawud, xxvi, 28); in 
addition they ate the flesh of the large desert lizards, 
food which is said to have disgusted Muhammad, 
as a member of a settled community (Ibn Sa'd, i/2, 
112); he is said to have regarded these lizards as the 
metamorphosis of an Israelite tribe (cf. Wensinck, 
Concordance, s.v. dubb; Robertson Smith, Kinship..., 
new ed., London 1903, 75, n. 2, 230 f.; CI. Huart, in 
J A, 10th series, xii (1908), 450, n. 1; Rev. biblique, 
xii (1903), 104; a food of Himyar according to a poet 
of Hudhayl: Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, i, 
Berlin 1884, no. 147*, tr. 114); the flesh of hedgehogs 
(Abu Dawud, xxvi, 29b), of grasshoppers (Abu 
Dawud, xxvi, 34; al-Darimi, vii, 5 ff.; cf. Robertson 
Smith, Kinship', 75, n. 2. 288; and art. djarad), 
and even that of mice, lice and vermin (Jacob, 
Altar. Bed., 95, 247 f.). 

The inhabitants of coastal regions could also add 
fish to their diet (Kur'an, V, 97/96). 

Besides milk and water (often muddy and seldom 
plentiful), the Arabs were familiar with a certain 
number of fermented drinks prepared from dates, 
honey, wheat, barley, raisins. But wine made from 
grapes, which (in spite of the fact that there were 
vineyards at Ta'if for example) was generally 
imported, was an expensive luxury. It was drunk in 
the taverns (hdnilt) which were run by the Jews or 
the Christians of HIra ( c Ibddi) and in which women 
singers (kayna) performed (Jacob, op. cit., 96-109, 
248-54; I. Goldziher, Muhammedanische Studien, i, 
1889, 21 ff.; I. Guidi, V Arabic anUislamique, Paris 
1921, 53 ff.; and art. khamr). 

These various resources, which combined foods 
of agricultural and pastoral origin but which included 
no, or very few, products from countries outside 



Arabia, were prepared in a very elementary fashion. 
The meats were roasted (roots sh.w.y, fr.n.dh, 
s.l.y.) or baked {(.b.kk). The meat was cut in slices 
or in thin strips which were left to dry in the sun 
(kadid) {e.g., Abu Dawud, xxvi, 36a; Abu '1-Hindi 
apud AlusI, Bulugh, i, 380; in general on the methods 
of cooking, see Jacob, Altar. Beduinenleben, 90 ff.). 
A hadith is cited according to which the Prophet 
announced "I am only the son of a woman of the 
Kuraysh who fed on ftadid" (cited in an epigraph by 
Bint al-Shati 5 , Ummal-Nabi, Cairo 1958, 5). The oven 
proper seems to have been little known. The only 
word for oven attested in early Arabic, tannur, is a 
borrowing from Aramaic (cf. Landberg, Glossaire 
datinois, i, 238 f.) and the purely Arabic word tdbun 
seems originally to have meant the cavity in which 
fire was made to shelter it from the wind (cf. Lane). 

The cooking was simple and made use of very few 
different combinations of food. Two of the dishes 
mentioned are tharid, associated with the tribal 
tradition of the Kuraysh, consisting of bread 
crumbled into a broth of meat and vegetables, and 
hays, a mixture of dates, butter and milk, both 
being among the favourite dishes of the Prophet, 
who said that c A J isha held among women the place 
which tharid held among food (Wensinck, Concor- 
dance, i, 290). They made many kinds of broth 
(marak, maraha), to which tradition prescribes that 
plenty of water should be added in order to be able 
to give some to neighbours (al-Darimi, viii, 37), 
especially a broth of marrows (dubbd') and of kadld. 
When on expeditions, soldiers took with them sawik, 
a kind of dried barley meal to which was added 
water, butter or fat from the tails of sheep. Several 
dishes belong to the broad category of gruels, the 
usual food of agricultural peoples (e.g., gruels made 
with milk and with samn; al-Bukhari, lxx, 48; Ibn 
Hanbal, iii, 147, etc.); these include frarira, made 
from flour cooked with milk (al-Bukhari, lxx, 15), 
talblna, a similar dish eaten at funeral meals, khazir 
(or khazira), a gruel generally made from bran and 
meat cut up into small pieces and cooked in water 
(al-Bukhari, lxx, 15, etc.). We notice that the general 
tendency is a search for fat, for greasy and heavy 
food, a tendency which still continues in Bedouin 
cooking and which is probably dictated by physiolo- 
gical needs. There is little tendency mentioned to 
spiced foods. The Arabs engaged in the transport of 
spices, but they were too precious a merchandise for 
them to use themselves at all frequently. We find 
mentioned, however, camphor and ginger (Kur'an, 
LXXVI, 5, 17), cloves, pepper, aloes and the sweet 
wood called lignum aloes (a few references in poetry 
apud Jacob, op. cit., 150, 258). 

There seem to have been few prohibitions con- 
cerning food, imposed rather by custom (as with us) 
than by a definite code of laws, and often restricted 
to one or to several tribes (cf. Wellhausen, Reste 1 , 
168 ff.). It is, at least in part, against pagan taboos 
of this sort that the Kur'an seems to inveigh (II, 
163/168 ff., VI, 118 ff.); there were often prohibitions 
concerning specific animals (and not a whole species), 
not as impure, but as consecrated to the Divinity 
(Kur'an, V, 102, VI, 139/138, where there is also 
mentioned a harvest — harth — which is taboo; the 
flesh of newly-born animals was forbidden to women, 
with the exception of still-born animals: Kur'an, VI, 
140/139). Even at Mecca itself, at the time of the 
ihrdm, the hums, i.e., the holy families serving the 
local sanctuaries (Lammens, V Arabic occidentale 
avanl Vhlgire, Beirut 1928, 130), abstained from meat, 
from clarified butter, from akit (and perhaps from 



all milk-products) as well as from oil [see hums]. 
There were various portions of meat which were not 
eaten: the heart among the Dju'fi tribe (Ibn Sa c d, 
i/2, 61 f.), the fat tail of the sheep among the Ball of 
Kuda'a who, not being assimilated with the rest of 
the Islamic population, still retained this taboo in 
Andalus (Ibn Hazm, Diamharat ansdb aW-Arab, 
ed. E. Levi-Provencal, Cairo 1948, 415; cf. H. Peres, 
in Mil. W. Marcais, Paris 1950, 293 f.), the testicles, 
at least on feast days (al-Tabari, Tafsir, Cairo 1321/ 
1903, xxx, 166); but there may have been here, as 
in present-day Arabia (in spite of the religious 
agitation which appears to have been provoked 
among the Dju'fi who were forced by Muhammad 
to break the taboo) "rational" motives: in north- 
western Arabia they do not eat the hearts of birds 
for fear of becoming as timorous as they are (A. 
Musil, The manners and customs of the Rwala 
Bedouins, New York 1928, 97; Arabia Petraea, iii, 
Vienna 1908, 150); Hudhali poets reproach the 
South-Arabian tribe of Marthad for eating grasshop- 
pers (Diwdn Hudhayl, 57, 147), but this was rather 
a special distaste for this food, or an affectation. 
A later saying claimed that the Bedouin ate "every- 
thing that crawls or walks except the chameleon" 
(umm hubayn; Ibn c Abd Rabbih, <-Ikd, ed. A. Amln, 
etc., iii, Cairo 1942, 485; Ibn al-Ukhuwwa. Ma'-alim 
al-kurbd, ed. R. Levy, London 1938, 101 f.; cf. 
Alusi, Bulugh, i, 380; Kurd 'All, Ma'dkil, 570). 
According to Sozomenus (5th century A.D.), the 
Saracens abstained from pork and observed a 
number of Jewish ceremonies (Ecclesiastical history, 
vi, 38 = PG, lxvii, 1412); it was probably a case of 
the Arab neighbours of Palestine coming under 
Jewish-Christian influences. But Pliny had already 
noted (Nat Hist., viii, 78 = 52, §. 212) the absence 
of pork in Arabia. In case of vital necessity, which 
often arose in the severe conditions of desert life, all 
the taboos were relaxed, even the general taboo on 
human flesh (Diwdn Hudhayl, 161 ff.; Procopius, 
Bell. Pers., I, 19, 4) though it should not therefore be 
thought that cannibalism was general (J. Henninger, 
Kannibalismus in Arabien), in Anthropos, xxxv- 
xxxvi (1940-1), 631 ff.), but during battles the heat 
of passionate hatred, or particular rites, often led 
men to drink or lick up the blood or the brains, to 
gnaw the liver of the dead, etc. (Ammianus, xxxi, 16; 
Ibn Hisham, 581, etc.; cf. Robertson Smith, 
Kinship', 75, n. 2, 295 f.; Nallino, Raccolta, iii, 86). 
Vows were made of temporary abstinence: from 
samn, milk, meat, wine, sometimes even to fast 
completely [see nadhr]. In some regions wine must 
have played a religious part. Some rather doubtful 
texts speak of libations of wine poured on tombs 
(Jacob, Altar. Beduinenleben, 143; Wellhausen, 
Reste 1 , 182 f.; Lammens, Arabie occid., 204). In 
Lihyan it is perhaps a case of a large offering of 
wine to Dhu Ghabat to expiate a murder (W. Caskel, 
Lihyan und Lihyanisch, Cologne-Opladen 1954, 
no. 82). At Palmyra, wine was ceremonially drunk 
at the funeral banquets of the thiasoi (J. G. Fevrier, 
La religion des Palmyrlniens, Paris 1931, 194 f.; 
R. Dussaud, in RHR, xiv (1927), 200 ff.). It is 
perhaps to this sacred importance that we are to 
attribute the frequent use in Saphaitic of names 
such as Shrb (Sharib ? "drinking companion") and 
Skrn (Sakran "drunk" "intoxicated"; G. Ryckmans, 
Noms propres sud-simitiques, Louvain 1934, i, 212, 
149, ii, 130, 99). At Mecca, at the moment of de- 
consecration which concluded the hadjdi, there was 
ritually drunk a fermented beverage with a basis of 
grapes (shardb, nabldh) or of barley and honey 



(sawfy) and this rite was continued under Islam 
until the 2nd/8th century; a similar rite at the 
beginning of the ceremonies could explain the name 
of yawm al-tarwiya which is given to the first day 
(Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le pelerinage a la Mekke, 
Paris 1923, 89-101). But, in other regions, in other 
circumstances or in other cults, there was abstinence. 
Wine was one of the things which people most often 
vowed to renounce; in particular those swearing 
vengeance abstained from it until their vengeance 
was accomplished (Lammens, L'Arabie occidentals 
avanl Vhigire, Beirut 1928, 185; art. nadhr; Alusi, 
Bulugh, iii, 24). The Nabataeans did not drink wine 
(Diodorus, xix, 94, 3) and the Arabs in general had 
the reputation of being water drinkers (Ammianus, 
xiv, 4, 6; Spartianus, Pescennius Niger, 7). A 
Nabataean set up at Palmyra in 132 A.D. two altars 
to his god Shay c al-kawm who, as he emphasizes, pro- 
bably with polemic intent, "does not drink (or 
perhaps: does not allow to drink) wine" [CIS, ii, 
3973 1 ). This is very probably the god known in Greek 
as AuxoOpyo? (inscr. Waddington 2286a), who was 
regarded as the opposite of A'ara Dh u '1-Shara, in 
Greek Aouadcpy].; and identified with Dionysos [see 
dh u 'l-shara], hence the mythical story of the 
fight between the god of wine and his enemy 
(Nonnos, Dionys., xx, xxi). 

Shortly before the time of the Prophet, those who 
were attracted to monotheism [see hanif] would 
seem to have adopted certain prohibitions in order 
to conform to the Noachic precepts enjoined upon 
Jewish proselytes and in general adopted by the 
Christians [Acts, xv, 29). An example is Zayd b. 
c Amr from the c Adi clan of the Kuraysh, who is said 
to have abstained from animals which had not been 
ritually slaughtered, from blood and from meat 
which had been sacrificed to idols (Ibn Hisham, 
144). Others, probably from asceticism, under the 
influence of the earlier practices mentioned above 
and of the abstinence which was enjoined by 
Manicheism, by the Christian ascetics and certain 
Christian sects, and which was practised by other 
Semitic peoples (if the fact is indeed true), are said 
to have abstained from drinking wine — e.g., another 
Kurashi, 'Uthman b. Maz'un, who was later to 
embrace Islam (Ibn Sa'd, iii/i, 286). Musaylima 
forbade wine as well as sexual relations to those who 
were already fathers (Sayf b. 'Umar, apud al- 
Tabarl, i, 1916; as against Ibn Hisham, 946). It has 
been possible to compile a list of those who abstained 
from wine in the Djahiliyya (critical list in Caetani, 
Annali, i, 586). 

The epigraphic sources add hardly anything to 
this picture for central and northern Arabia. They 
do, however, illustrate the importance attached there 
to game and hunting. This importance is also 
reflected in the rock engravings which accompany 
the graffiti or are contemporary with them (cf., e.g., 
E. Littmann, Thamud und Safd, Leipzig 1940, 34 f., 
100). They hunted gazelle, ostriches, ibex, perhaps 
also wild asses etc. A "Thamudean" text mentions 
the capture of a lizard (wrl), perhaps for food (ibid., 
60, no. 77 = Eut. 44, but A. van den Branden, 
Les inscriptions thamoudiennes , Louvain 1950, 69 
reads wH "chamois"). The domestic animals mention- 
ed: camels, cattle, sheep, horses, donkeys, were used 
partly for food (cf., e.g., van den Branden, op. cit., 8). 
The reference to an abundance of milk (drr, Corpus 
Inscriptionum Semiticarum, pars v, vol. i, Paris 1950, 
no. 362) and the reference to bees (van den Branden, 
inscr. HU 250) are dubious, as are the references to 
dates (A. van den Branden, Les textes thamoudiens 



de Philby, i, Louvain 1956, 5). Fish caught in the 
pools of stagnant water on the edges of the desert 
were preserved by drying (CIS, v, 4902, 4384). 
ii. — Pre-Islamic Southern Arabia 
Southern Arabia was much more agricultural and 
thus afforded a much greater variety of vegetable 
food. The dates (ttnr) supplied by the many palm 
groves (nhhl) which are often the subject of the 
inscriptions {e.g., CIS, pars iv [cited hereafter as 
CIH], 375, 403, 414, 615, 616, etc.; cf. Ammianus 
Marcellinus, XXIII, 6, 45-7, Eratosthenes apud 
Strabo, XVI, 4, 24) must have been one of the 
staple foods. The sweet pith from the centre of the 
trunk of the palm tree (in Arabic kulb, l?alb, lubb, etc., 
often confused with djummdr, palm-cabbage; cf. al- 
Asma'i, K. al-Nakhl wa 'l-karm, ed. A. Haffner, 
Beirut 1908, 5, and notes; Tuhfat al-ahbdb, ed. 
H. P. J. Renaud and G. S. Colin, Paris 1934, no. 107) 
seems to us to be the Ibb which was preserved in a 
temple (CIH, 548 13 ; Rodinson, Comptes Rendus du 
GLECS, ix (1960-3), 103 f.). Wheat was produced 
only in moderate quantities and had to be imported 
(Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, §§ 24, 28, 32). Taxes 
were paid in flour (thn Gl. 1571 3 , cf. N. Rhodokanakis, 
Altsab. Texte, i = SBAK. Wien, ccvi/2, 1927, 
104-7). Flour (thn, flour in general, dkb, the flour of 
cereals, perhaps hhrs ?) was made with wheat (br), 
barley (sh c r), dates (tmr), gdhdht, which was perhaps 
a kind of wheat (it seems difficult to translate it 
literally as its Arabic equivalent djadhidha "wheat 
husked and crushed"), and in addition semolina 
(sdl, cf. Ethiopic senddle; CIH, 540: 39-40, 83, 86-8; 
541 : 120). We may have in CIH, 408 a reference to a 
field (mHs(t); with the emphatic, s!) in which would 
be grown the variety of wheat called in Arabic 
c alas; this inscription seems to refer to it in two 
aspects yhr and/r c (cf. CIH, 352: 7, 11; cf. also dhr', 
in RES, 2774: 4). Vegetable gardens (tbW, in RES, 
4636: 6, 7), orchards (mhgrt, in CIH, 204: 3, 546: n; 
hshmt, in CIH, 308: 9), vineyards ( 5C »6, in CIH, 342: 
11-2, 604: 3, wyn, in CIH, 228: 2, 276: 3, etc.) were 
numerous. They produced vegetables (6£/, in SE, 48 s , 
translated "broad beans" by Conti-Rossini) and 
fruit (thmr). The country produced sesame oil 
(Pliny, Nat. Hist., VI, 28 (32), § 161), but not enough 
for its needs and had to import it via Moscha (Peri- 
plus, § 32). As a condiment they used capers which 
they soaked (hbr wlkh, in RES, 2845; cf. N. Rhodo- 
kanakis, Studien . . ., i = SBAK Wien, 178, 4, 10 f.), 
and they imported saffron (Periplus, § 24) for the 
same purpose. Cinnamon, also imported in transit, 
obtained too high prices on the Roman market to be 
used locally (Pliny, Nat. Hist., XII, 93). The dbs 
which was distributed in large quantities to the 
workers on the dam of Marib (CIH, 540: 96; cf. also 
548: 12 f.) must have been a treacle of grapes or of 
other fruits, different from the honey which according 
to Pliny was produced in abundance in the kingdom 
of Saba (Nat. Hist., VI, 32: 18, § 161). Eratosthenes 
mentions numerous apiaries ( ? |XEXixoupY£ia) in 
Southern Arabia (Strabo, XVI, 4: 2, § 768). 

The meat (bshr, in CIH, 563: 3) was in the main 
that of animals slaughtered (tbkh, in CIH, 541 : 122-3, 
cf. Hebrew tib h hdh) probably according to the usual 
Semitic rites. For the workers engaged on the repairs 
to the dam of Marib they slaughtered thousands of 
cattle (bkr) and probably also sheep (cf. Dionysios, 
Periegesis, 942 f.), one sort of which had the charac- 
teristic name of dhbyh (Ar. dhabdHh "victims") and 
the other the enigmatic name of £rs, and, on one 
occasion, 207,000 frtnt, which seems to represent 



portions rather than head of sheep and goats (cf. Gl. 
1 142: 9). They were given also 1100 '# ("lambs used 
for sacrifice" to judge from Ar. addfil, pi. of dafiiyya) 
and c dwd (perhaps "fat lambs" to judge from Ar. 
'■adid'i; CIH, 540: 41 ff., 88 ff.; 541: 122 ff.). The 
sheep were called elsewhere khrf, in RES, 2959: 2 
(Min.), Van Lessen i: 9 (Katab.), and in the Minean 
colony of the Hidjaz d'n (in contrast to the goats 
m c zy, in JSa, 19: n, called in Saba sfr, Gl. 1000 A 
3). According to Eratosthenes they ate also birds, 
except for geese and hens (Strabo, XVI, 4, 2 = 768). 
On the shores of the Indian Ocean, some communities 
ate mainly fish (Periplus, § 27) and the nomads lived 
on game (Pliny, Nat. Hist., VI, 32: 18 = §161). 
These people drank milk (ibid.) and the workers of 
Marib were supplied with butter (khmH, Hebrew 
fiem'dh, Akkadian khimetu, etc.; CIH, 540: 96 f.). 

The main drink (CIH, 563: 2 ?) seems to have been 
palm wine (Strabo, XVI, 4, 25, § 783; Pliny, Nat. 
Hist., VI, 28 (32), § 161), which was called mzr m 
dh-tmr m (CIH, 540: 50-1; cf. Ar. mazar, mizr, the 
word for various fermented drinks) or slfy m dh-tmr m , 
perhaps with a north Arabic gloss al-halab (CIH, 541 : 
129-30, but the hypothesis of J. M. Sola Sole, Las dos 
grandes inscripciones sudardbigas del dique de Marib, 
Barcelona-Tubingen 1960, 37, raises some difficul- 
ties). However, the numerous vineyards (cf. above, 
and the popularity of the Dionysiac themes making 
use of the vine in sculpture) provided grape wine 
(Periplus, § 24) and a certain amount was imported 
(ibid., §§ 24, 28). The workers on the Marib dam 
were provided with more of this than of palm wine. 
A distinction was made between the fermented 
beverage (slfy) made with the excellent grapes of 
Ghirblb (ghrbb, cf. the classical dictionaries) and 
that prepared from dried raisins (fsy, cf. fusa"; CIH, 
540; 46-8, 91-4; 541: 127-8). The shnn kept in a 
temple (CIH, 548 12 ) is probably the shanin "whey 
or milk diluted with water" known in various Arab 
countries (cf. the classical dictionaries and Dozy). 
We do not know whether the thermal springs of 
therapeutic value, which according to Ammianus 
(XXIII, 6, 46) were numerous, were used for drinking. 

Almost nothing is known about the ritual use of 
foods. Libations (msty, in CIH, 563: 2?) were made 
on special altars (mslm, in RES, 3512), but we do 
not know what was the liquid used. Nor is anything 
known about the prohibitions concerning food. 
Nevertheless Eratosthenes mentions the absence of 
pigs among the domestic animals of the region 
(Strabo, XVI, 4, 2 = 768). 

Muhammad's reforms were made under the in- 
fluence of a milieu in which each religious community 
was distinguished by its own regulations concerning 
food. We have seen how in the pagan milieu the 
situation was rather chaotic, and there was the in- 
fluence of the Noachic code, imposed on proselytes 
by the Jews and coinciding more or less with the 
original Christian code. The Revelation (texts con- 
veniently brought together by D. Masson, he Coran 
et la Rivilation judlo-chrttienne, Paris 1958, ii, 577-86) 
in this respect also was to put an end to ignorance and 
errors and the Prophet was to declare lawful (haldl) 
"good" foods (al-tayyibdt) and unlawful (haram) 
unclean foods (al-khabd'ith; Kur'an, VII, 156/157). 
But the Kur'an insists above all on the beneficial 
nature of food in general. Food is one of the greatest 
of Divine blessings (often in the Meccan suras: 
LXXX, 24; XVII, 72/70; XVI, 74; XIV, 37/32, etc.; 



cf. index of Blachere's tr., s.v. nourriture), which, 
however, must be used with moderation (VII, 29, 
Medinan) and which must not be rejected except in 
specific circumstances. The word "eat (kulu) . . ." 
occurs nearly thirty times. Muhammad is said to have 
obliged two newly converted Dju'fis to eat heart, 
taboo in their tribe, without which their conversion 
would have been incomplete (Ibn Sa'd, 1/2, 62, 1. 5 f.). 
The Kur'an inveighs against men who arbitrarily 
deprive those who listen to them of certain foods 
(II, 163 f./i68 f.; V, 89 f./87 f.; VI, 118 ff.; VII, 30/32; 
XVI, 117/116, texts which seem to belong to the 
beginning of the Prophet's stay at Medina). In some 
cases it is certain that the adversaries aimed at are 
pagans observing the prohibitions described above 
(II, 165; VI, 139-51/138-50; X, 60/59); but at Medina 
it became important to define Islam as against 
Judaism. 

The mass of Jewish prohibitions concerning food 
led to the emphasizing of the fact that Allah does not 
wish to impose too many burdens on His faithful 
people (II, 286). It seems that the Kur'an is some- 
times criticizing Judaizers or hanifs who imposed 
on themselves excessive restrictions (VI, 118 ff.) 
and who wanted to influence the Prophet to 
do the same (VI, 116). The Jewish prohibitions 
(rather inexactly defined in VI, 147/146) are explained 
as a Divine punishment of the sins of the Israelites 
(IV, 158; XVI, 119). This is proved by the fact that 
they were not imposed on them before the revelation 
of the Torah, except for a prohibition, not of divine 
origin, which Israel (Jacob) had imposed on himself 
(III, 87/93), a reference to the prohibition of the 
sciatic nerve after the struggle of Jacob and the 
angel (Gen., XXXII, 33). They were moreover 
partially lifted by Jesus (III, 44/50). "Today" (V, 7) 
these forbidden foods are therefore permitted. We 
have here ideas taken from the Christian polemic 
against the Jews, particularly as exemplified by the 
Syriac writer of Iran, Aphraates (4th century A.D.) ; 
cf. his fifteenth homily (ed. Wright, London 1869, 
309 ff.; cf. H. Speyer, Die biblischen Erzahlungen im 
Coran, Grafenheinischen 1931, reprinted Hildesheim 
1961, 318 ff.). Only a limited number of prohibitions 
were retained: blood (and consequently "strangled" 
meats), mayta, i.e., the flesh of a dead animal or one 
not killed specially for meat, pork, animals con- 
secrated to a pagan divinity (II, 168/173; V, 4/3; VI, 
146/145; XVI, 116/115; on the date of these passages, 
see J. Schacht, in EI 1 , s.v. maita). In addition, 
during the Pilgrimage it was forbidden to those in a 
state of ritual purity to kill or (a fortiori) to eat 
game (V, 1, 95/94 ff.), while fish was permitted 
(V, 97/96; cf. XVI, 14). It was necessary only to 
invoke (dhakara) the name of Allah on lawful foods 
(VI, 118 ff., 139/138; XXII, 35/34). Involuntary 
infringements of these rules, through force majeure 
or compulsion, are moreover regarded by Allah with 
indulgence (II, 168/173; V, 5/3; VI, 119, 146/145; 
XVI, 116/115). They defined the Muslim community, 
but only as a particular category within the wide 
family of the Possessors of the Scripture, since it is 
permitted to eat the food of the ahl al-kitdb and 
vice-versa (V, 7/5). In fact, these prohibitions go 
further in conformity to the Jewish regulations than 
the Noachic regulations, which the Jews theoretically 
admitted as sufficient for any strangers allowed to 
live with them (only not to eat unbled meat, 
according to Gen., IX, 4; cf. E. Schurer, Geschichte des 
jiidischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi', Leipzig 
1901-11, hi, 164 ff., 178, n. 77). There was, in short, 
a falling into line with the primitive Christian 



position (which remained very closely observed in the 
East) as it is defined by the decree of the Apostles 
(Acts, XV, 29; cf. especially K. Bockenhoff, Speise- 
satzungen mosaischer Art in mittelalterlichen Kirchen- 
rechtsquellen des M or gen- und Abendlandes, Munster 
i. W. 1907). They went further in demanding also 
abstention from pork. This abstention, one of the 
first to be practised by Judaizing pagans (Juvenal, 
XIV, 98 f.), was also the rule among certain Judaeo- 
Christians (Didascalia, 121, 27 ff. ; cf. H. J. Schoeps, 
Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums, 
Tubingen 1949, 341, n. 2) and it was presumably 
through this route that it became adopted in Arabia 
(see above, col. 1059 b) ; it was also adopted by the 
Christians of Ethiopia in imitation of the Old 
Testament (Confessio fidei Claudii regis Aethiopiae, 
ed. J. M. Wansleb, London 1661, 3 and n. n; 
E. Ullendorff, in JSS, i (1956), 240-3; J. Baeteman, 
Dictionnaire amarigna-francais, Dire Dawa 1929, 
col. 574; cf. M. Rodinson, in Bibliotheca Orientalis, 
xxi (1964), 241). The insistence on the law- 
fulness of fish arose perhaps from opposition to a 
Judaeo-Christian and Samaritan practice (Schoeps, 
op. cit., 189 f.). In addition, an entirely new restriction 
appears in the Divine revelation: at first it praises 
the virtues of wine (XVI, 69), which is one of the 
delights promised to the elect in Paradise (XXXVII, 
44/45 ff.; XLVII, 16/15), but later has reservations 
about it (II, 216/219), and then forbids it (V, 92/90). 
The commentators and the historians disagree on the 
causes and the date of this prohibition [see iojamr]. 
The association with the prohibition of maysir 
suggests a link between wine and pagan usages 
(W. Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina, 
Oxford 1956, 298 f.; M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 
Mahomet, Paris 1957, 570 f.; cf. above, col. 1059 b) 
and we have seen above that abstention from wine 
was a religious practice fairly common in Arabia in 
various milieus and on various occasions. It does not 
seem easy to agree with W. Montgomery Watt that 
it was also partly a case of discouraging the import 
of an expensive commodity which came from enemy 
countries. The initial indifference about it and the 
injunction contained in verse IV, 46/43 seem to 
indicate that this prohibition was essentially a 
reaction against the deplorable effects of drunkenness 
within the Medinan community, one of them perhaps 
being excessive extravagance. This does not exclude 
the possibility that the practices of abstention 
mentioned above contributed to the enactment of 
the prohibition. In addition to these general prohi- 
bitions on the eating of specific foods, Islam decreed 
a general temporary abstention from food at periodic 
intervals — the fast of Ramadan [see sawm]. 



iv. — Food i 



Muslim \ 



In the Arab empire, which after 132/750 became 
the Muslim empire, the food in the various occupied 
countries naturally continued to be the same as it 
had been before they were conquered. The Arab 
conquerors adopted it, after a certain period of 
adaptation, perhaps adding certain dishes or 
practices of their own. For the food of each country 
reference should be made therefore to works describ- 
ing the diet in the pre-Islamic civilizations. For 
Egypt, see A. Ruffer, Food in Egypt, Cairo 1919 
(= Mlmoires prlsentls a I'Institut d'Egypte, i); A. 
Erman and H. Ranke, Agypten and dgyptisches 
Leben im Altertum, Tubingen 1923, 219-29; A. 
Wiedemann, Das alte Agypten, Heidelberg 1920, 
287-309 and also 250 ff., 259 ff., 271 f., 275 ff. On 
Syria and Palestine see especially R. A. S. Macalister, 



art. Food in J. Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, ii, 
Edinburgh 1899, 27-43; A. Bertholet, Kultur- 
geschichte Israels, Gottingen 1919, 130-4; P. Thomsen, 
art. Nahrung in M. Ebert, Reallexikon der Vor- 
geschichte, Berlin 1924-32, viii, 429-31. On Mesopo- 
tamia, see B. Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, 
Heidelberg 1920-5, i, 413-20. The picture had been 
somewhat modified by the influence of Greek and 
Roman customs, on which see especially Orth, art. 
Kochkunst in Pauly's RealencyclopOdie d. class. 
Altertumswissenschaft, Neue Bearb., xi/i, Stuttgart 
1921, 944-82 and J. Andre, V alimentation et la 
cuisine a Rome, Paris 1961 (= Etudes et commen- 
tates, 38). For Sasanid Iran, see A. Christensen, 
VIran sous les Sassanides 2 , Copenhagen-Paris 1944, 
477-9- 

However, the Muslim conquest created a relatively 
coherent cultural area which survived the frag- 
mentation of the political unity which had brought 
it into being. Yet the differences between countries 
are important. To give a picture of the food and its 
variations throughout the whole of this area would 
be a vast and difficult enterprise for which the 
necessary detailed monographs do not exist. We shall 
limit ourselves here to indicating the main factors 
which influence all these diets. References to precise 
facts have in most cases only the value of examples 
taken at random. 

1. Products consumed. The formation of new 
cultural frontiers leads to the spread throughout the 
territory concerned of products which have formerly 
been known only in one section of it. In the case 
of products too heavy to transport, this spread can 
take place only by their being grown or made locally. 
The most striking phenomenon in the Muslim world 
was the spread of the growing of rice and of sugar 

Rice, originally from India, was already in pre- 
Islamic times being cultivated in Iran, in 'Irak and 
in Syria, but had hardly been used as food in the 
Roman world (only as a thickening for sauces); it 
spread as a crop and as food as far as Spain. It 
became a common item of food and especially of the 
poor (particularly in the form of bread made from 
rice flour) in the areas where it was intensively 
cultivated, but elsewhere it remained relatively a 
luxury food, used only in recherche dishes. In any 
case it did not take the place of wheat and did not 
acquire the importance which it had in India and 
in the Far East (cf. M. Canard, Le riz dans le Proche- 
Orient aux premiers siecles de V Islam, in Arabica, vi 
(1959), 113-31, and art. ruzz). 

Sugar, introduced to Iran from India perhaps 
shortly before the Muslim conquest, spread after this 
through the whole of the Mediterranean world (cf. 
N. Deer, The history of sugar, i, London 1949, 68 ff., 
74 ff.; and art. sukkar). It was used in the food of 
princes and wealthy people, but among the poor was 
found chiefly as a medicine (a significant text in the 
K. al-Ifarb al-ma'-shuk . . ., tr. J. Finkel, in Zeitschrift 
fur Semitistik, viii (1932), 5)- Honey was generally 
less expensive, and in particular dibs, a treacle of 
grapes, carob etc., was the sugar of poor people (cf. 
M. Rodinson, Recherches sur les documents arabes 
relatifs a la cuisine, in REI, 1949, 147). 

Large-scale transport was particularly necessary 
to bring to the towns from the surrounding country- 
side food products such as wheat which were consumed 
in large quantities. Wheat was everywhere a com- 
modity traded on a large scale (cf. for example R. Le 
Tourneau, Fis avant le protectorat, Casablanca 1949, 
377 ff., and art. kamh). 



Certain heavy products regularly consumed were 
however transported by caravans or by ships (river 
or sea transport) considerable distances from the 
specific region in which they were originally grown. 
Examples are Syrian olive oil coming down the 
Euphrates, the dates of Lower 'Irak or of Arabia, 
etc., and, later, coffee from Arabia [see kahwa, 
zaytun]. A list of Iranian food products exported 
in this way is found in B. Spuler, Iran, 406 f., 
a picture of the trade in foodstuffs between the 
various provinces of the Ottoman empire in Gibb- 
Bowen, i/i, 304. Thus there were great differences 
in price for the same commodity in the regions 
in which it was produced and those which were at 
varying distances from them {e.g., for rice, cf. W. 
Hinz, in Die Welt des Orients, ii (i954"9)> 57 ff-), a 
further factor being the difficulty or otherwise of 
the transport (the price of rice rose in Istanbul when 
unfavourable winds delayed the ships from Alexan- 
dria, W. Hinz, op. cit., 60). 

The products of all the regions of the Muslim world 
were thus available throughout every part of it to 
those who could afford the sometimes high prices; 
but in addition there were available products 
imported from outside. Thus, in the Middle Ages, 
the Near East imported from Russia and the Slav 
countries dried and salted fish, honey and hazel nuts. 
(G. Jacob, Welche Handelsartikel bezogen die Araber 
des Mittelalters aus den nordisch-baltischen Landern', 
Berlin 1891, 56 ff., 62 f.). In times of scarcity, Egypt 
in the 5th/nth century imported wheat from the 
Byzantine Empire (G. Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, Paris 
1937. 230). Imports from Europe became numerous 
from the 6th/i2th century onwards. Frederick II 
sold cereals to Tunisia and Andalusia (A. Schaube, 
Handelgeschichte der romanischen Vblker des Mittel- 
meergebiets, Munich-Berlin 1906, 304, 327), the 
Pisans exported Tuscan oil to Tunisia (ibid., 298), 
southern France in the 7th/i3th century sent to the 
Maghrib wine, chestnuts, broad beans, saffron etc. 
(ibid., 31 f.). Tuscan saffron was on sale in the 
Maghrib, in Egypt and in Frankish Syria (ibid., 187, 
206, 283, 398). Egypt imported cheese from Sicily 
and from Crete (S. D. Goitein, Artisans en MJditer- 
ranie orientate au haut Moyen-Age, in Annates, xv 
(1964), 863). In the Middle Ages, Iran imported from 
India peas, wheat, barley and millet (Spuler, Iran, 
403). In the I2th/i8th century Europe exported to 
the Levant spices, sugar, coffee etc. (Gibb-Bowen, 
i/i, 307). 

Spices were imported from still more distant 
places, their lightness for transport and the high 
prices they commanded justifying the long journeys. 
From China, the Sunda Isles, India and East Africa 
came pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, 
mace, betel, musk and nutmeg [see tawabil]. 

2. Storage and preservation. The preser- 
vation of food is an important problem in all 
societies. The Muslim civilization had inherited 
processes from the ancient East and from the 
classical civilizations. Cereals were stored either in 
granaries [see agadir] or in silos (matmura [q.v.]) and 
the agronomists recommended various processes to 
preserve them from decay, weevils, etc. (Ibn al- 
'Awwam, K. al-Fildfia, ed. J. A. Banqueri, Madrid 
1802, i, 678 ff.; tr. J.-J. Clement-Mullet, Paris 1864-7, 
i, 638 ff.). For fruit, especially grapes, there were 
handed down various recipes for preserving them 
from any deterioration and keeping them fresh (e.g., 
Ibn al- c Awwam, i, 660 ff., tr. Clement-Mullet, i, 
619 ff., to be compared with processes used by the 
Romans, J. Andre, V alimentation . . ., 89). Preser- 



vation by cold storage was known; melons from 
Transoxania were transported to Baghdad packed in 
ice inside lead boxes (al-Tha'alibl, LatdHf al-ma c drif, 
ed. P. De Jong, Leiden 1867, 129). Drying was a less 
expensive and more widely used process. We have 
seen that before Islam the Arabs were already 
familiar with the drying of meat (kadid) and of fish. 
Desert truffles were also dried (Wusla, ch. viii, § 44), 
also figs, pistachio nuts, etc. (Ibn al-'Awwam, i, 
675 ff., tr. Clement-Mullet, i, 634 ff.). Fruits were 
often preserved in a sealed air-tight container which 
was sometimes buried in the ground (Ibn al-'Awwam, 
i, 662 f., 664 f., tr. i, 622, 624, etc.). The curing or 
smoke-drying of meat seems to have been very little 
known among the Arabs; it is described in the 
Wusla (ch. viii, § 45, mss. A, B, D) as being a Greek 
process. It was, however, one of the processes applied 
to skardHk, slices of meat, in particular to those 
known as misriyya, "Egyptian" (Wusla, ch. v, § 2a), 
and known in some places as mudakhkhana "smoked" 
(ibid., § 2d). The crystallizing of fruits in honey or 
sugar, a process known to ancient Rome and a 
speciality of modern Damascus, was known there at 
this time according to A. von Kremer, Cultur- 
gesckichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, Vienna 
1875-7, ii, 333, who however quotes no evidence. 
Kadid, or dried meat, must have been coated with 
fat (cf. the modern Algerian recipe in J. Desparmet, 
Enseignement de Varabe dialectal moderne', Algiers 
1913, ii, 184, tr. H. Peres and G. H. Bousquet, 
Coutumes, institutions et croyances des indigenes 
de VAlgtrie, i, Algiers 1939, 260). But the chief 
method of preservation was by means of antiseptic 
agents, particularly salt and vinegar, often used 
together and with the addition of many con- 
diments; hence the names of these preserves: 
mukhallaldt, mulufidt. In addition to vinegar and 
salt (steeping in salted water, impregnating with 
salt), a great deal of honey, or its substitutes 
sugar and treacle (dibs), was used in these pre- 
parations, also lemon juice, oil, mustard, walnuts 
or hazel nuts roasted and crushed, all kinds of 
herbs and spices, etc. In this way were preserved, 
for long or short periods according to the preparation 
used, vegetables, fruits and also (using vinegar, oil, 
etc.) small fishes and birds ( c usfur). Special preserves 
were made (often to be kept for a shorter period) to 
be used, spread on bread or otherwise, as a kind of 
hors d'ceuvre : many condiments and salted herbs, or 
herbs mixed into salted goat's laban. In their pre- 
paration, laban and kanbaris (curds; Wusla, ch. viii, 
§§ 1-25) were sometimes used. Spices made possible 
also the preservation of sausages, of which those 
considered the best contained only mutton without 
beef, goat-meat etc., and not too much semolina; 
their name, lakdnik, nakdnik, betrays their Roman 
origin (lucanicae, sausages of Lucania; Ibn al- 
Ukhuwwa, ed. R. Levy, London 1938, 94 f., 107; 
H. Zayyat, al-Khizana al-sharkiyya, iv, Beirut 1948, 
21, 1. 3, 23, 1. 6). The principal method of preserving 
milk was in the form of cheese. The eastern Jews 
sometimes transported kosher (haldl) cheese very 
great distances (S. D. Goitein, Jews and Arabs, 
New York 1955, 112); the transport of food over 
medium or long distances enabled the inhabitants 
of the larger cities to enjoy a rich variety (e.g., for 
Mamluk Egypt, list in K. al-Harb al-ma'-shuk, apud 
J. Finkel, Zeitschrift fur Semitistik, ix (1933-4), " *•)• 
Generally speaking, the preservation of food was 
sometimes done by the producers for home con- 
sumption or for sale (e.g., cheeses), sometimes by the 
wives or the servants in private households or in 



io6 4 GH 

palaces (whence the chapters of recipes for preserves 
in books of cookery like the Wusla), and sometimes 
it was the work of specialist craftsmen and prepared 
to be sold at a later date, sometimes after transport. 
The manuals of bisba [q.v.] enjoin the muhtasib to 
make sure for example that any fish left unsold was 
salted (al-NabrawI apud W. Behrnauer, Mimoire sur 
les institutions de police chez les Arabes les Per sans 
et les Turcs, Paris 1861, 155; Muhammad b. Abi 
Muhammad al-Sakati, ed. G. S. Colin and E. Levi- 
Provencal, Un manuel hispanique de hisba, i, Paris 
1931, 35)- But there was very little which resembled 
the modern food-preserving industry, though one 
might so classify the sausage-sellers (nakdnikiyyun, 
see above), perhaps those who sold slices of meat 
(shardHhiyyun), and the sellers of confectionery 
(halwaniyyun), traders who themselves preserved 
food for sale. Among them should also be included 
the bawdridiyyun, makers and sellers of bawdrid, 
cooked green vegetables preserved in vinegar or 
other acid liquids (cf. M. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 
142 and the treatises of hisba). 

3. Preparation. Foods often went through 
varying degrees of preparation before reaching the 
consumer, thus reducing the work done domestically 
(cf. S. D. Goitein, in JESHO, iv (1961), 193-7). 
Flour-grinding, work done by the women in country 
districts, was often in towns done by mills which 
provided flour ready prepared (tahhdn "miller"). 
Kneading of dough was generally done at home, but 
sometimes by bakers (khabbdzun). The Maliki and 
Abadi schools sometimes stipulated that a wife could 
not be obliged to grind corn and that her husband, 
in this case, was to supply her with flour and not 
grain ( c Abd al- c Aziz al-Mus'abi, K. al-Nil, tr. E. 
Zeys, Droit mozabite, Le Nil, Du Mariage, i, Algiers 
1891, 71; Sahniin, apud M. Ben Cheneb, in Revue 
indigene, xxxiv (1909), 68). But in most cases dough 
was taken to the owner of a bakehouse (farrdn) to be 
cooked (see, e.g., R. Le Tourneau, Fes avant le 
protectorat, Casablanca 1949, 327 f.). Pastries and 
sweetmeats were also made by craftsmen, as were 
the various dishes which were sold ready cooked by 
the tabbdkhun "keepers of cook-shops", the harrdsun 
or hardHsiyyun, sellers of harisa in its popular form 
(minced meat and wheat cooked with fat), the 
bawdridiyyun "sellers of bawdrid" (see above), etc., 
to be taken away or eaten in the shop (lively descript- 
ion of a shawwa^, proprietor of a restaurant where 
all kinds of food could be eaten, in the Makdma 
baghdddiyya of al-Hamadhani. ed. M. c Abduh, 
Beirut 1889, 57 ff.). European visitors to Cairo in 
the Middle Ages speak of 10,000 to 12,000 cooks in 
the streets, the 'Saracens' seldom doing any cooking 
at home (G. Wiet in Revue du Caire, August 1944, 
351 f.). Meat was dealt with by specialists who 
carried out the slaughter (dhabbdh), the cutting 
up or the final marketing (kassdb, dfazzdr with 
variations in terminology). More specialized products 
were prepared by the maker and seller of sausages 
(nakdniki, see above), or of slices of meat (shardHhi, 
see above), the roaster (shawwa''), the seller of 
cooked livers (kubudi), of cooked sheeps' (or other 
animals') heads (rawwds), etc. The manufacture 
of oil gave rise to a real industry, using presses 
which were sometimes very costly (P. S. Girard, 
apud Description de 1'E.gypte, Etat moderns, ii/i, 
Paris 1812, 605 ff. = 2nd ed., xvii, Paris 1824, 
229 ff.). The industries of wine and other fermented 
drinks were widespread, for the use of Christians 
and Jews, although varying numbers of Muslims 
did not fail to take advantage of them; thus in 



the Mamluk period Syria was a wine-growing 
country while Egypt was not (al-Kalkashandi, 
Subh, tr. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie A 
Vipoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, 28). The prohi- 
bitions applied to this manufacture were only of 
fairly limited extent; e.g., under the Ottoman empire 
in the nth/i7th century it was forbidden to make 
wine or raki (raki) within Istanbul (A. Refik, Hicrt 
on birinci asirda Istanbul hayah, Istanbul 1931, 32, 
no. 63 ; cf . R. Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moitii 
du XVII' siecle, Paris 1962, 205 ff., 257, 448 f.). The 
extraction and refining of cane sugar formed an 
important industry; Ibn Dukmak mentions 58 
factories at Fustat (iv, Bulak 1309, 41-6); it is known 
that it was an important state monopoly under the 
Mamluks (M. Sobernheim, Das Zuckermonopol unter 
Sultan Barsbai, in ZA, xxvii (1912), 75-84; A. Darrag, 
L'£gypte sous le regne de Barsbay, Damascus 1961, 
146-51); later it was at Cairo that sugar was refined 
for the use of the palace of the Ottoman Sultan 
(Kdnunndme, in Digeon, Nouveaux contes turcs et 
arabes, Paris 1781, ii, 276 f.). Sugar was also refined 
in Syria (al-Kalkashandi, ibid.), in Sicily (M. Amari, 
Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, Florence 1854-68, 
ii, 445, iii, 785 f.), in Iran (Spuler, Iran, index), etc. 
The confectioners used sugar and honey in various 
ways (see, e.g., a good description of the work of the 
maker of kundfa, a kind of vermicelli with sugar or 
honey, etc., in G. Martin, Les bazars du Caire et les 
petits metiers arabes, Cairo-Paris 1910, 60). Fish was 
dried and salted so that it could be transported long 
distances (Spuler, Iran, 407; Gibb-Bowen, i/i, 299); 
in Egypt the production of botargo (batrakh, bafrikh) 
from mullet roes, an industry known from Pharaonic 
antiquity, still continued (L. Keimer, in Bit., xxi 
(1938-9), 215-43). In the Fayyflm, rose-water was 
distilled (P. S. Girard, op. cit., 609 = 2nd ed., 236 ff.). 
4. Distribution. We have given above some 
details of the distribution of food when it was done 
by those who had prepared or preserved it. It should 
be noted that the handbook on trade by Abu '1-Fadl 
Dja'far b. c Ali al-Dimishkl (5th-6th/nth-i2th 
classifies grocers as half traders and half 
see H. Ritter, in Isl., vii (1917), 6)- The 
peasant producers came to sell their produce either 
in the country, in temporarily set up regional markets 
(cf. R. Brunschvig, Coup d'ceil sur I'histoire des 
foires a travers I'Islam, in Recueils de la Sociiti Jean 
Bodin, v (1953), 43-75; F. Benet, Weekly suqs and 
city markets, in Research for development in the 
Mediterranean Basin, a proposal, ed. C. A. 0. van 
Niewenhuijze, The Hague 1961, 86-97), or in the 
towns, in markets which were more or less permanent. 
In the larger towns there were wholesale markets 
supplying the large markets which served the whole 
of a large town district and also the small local 
markets. Private householders bought their pro- 
visions from the two latter types (good description by 
R. Le Tourneau, Fes avant le protectorat, Casablanca 
1949, 368-97 and R. Mantran, Istanbul . . ., 185 ff.). 
These retail markets consisted of specialized little 
shops: fruit and vegetable sellers, butchers, dried 
fruit merchants, sellers of spices ('attar), grocers who 
sold various kinds of fats (bakkdl in Morocco, else- 
where usually zayydt, sammdn, etc. with many 
variants, cf. Djamal al-DIn al-Kasimi, Kamus al- 
sind c dt al-shdmiyya, Paris-The Hague i960, 48), etc. 
There are found in the works on the corporations 
extensive lists of these retailers (e.g., L. Massignon, 
Enqutte sur les corporations musulmanes d'artisans et 
de commercants au Maroc, an offprint from RMM, 
Paris 1925). As we have said, many v 



to be found in the demarcation and naming of 
specializations in the different regions. In certain 
countries at certain times the state played an im- 
portant part at several stages in the distribution of 
commodities. 

In the sociological study of food, special attention 
must be paid to how consumption varies with 
different groups and categories of individuals 
(R. Firth, The sociological study of native diet, in 
Africa, vii (1934), 410 f.). These variations are due 
either to natural, geographical and economic 
differences in the food resources available to each 
group, or to cultural traditions of varying origins. 
Muslim civilization provides many instances of this 
phenomenon, which is worthy of more detailed 
study; here we shall give only some examples. 

The geographical variations are obviously due to 
the variety of the resources available, and thus to 
natural conditions. But, at the sociological level, 
based on these conditions and extending beyond 
them, the establishment of cultural traditions 
regarding the choice and the preparation of dishes 
has created regional specialization. Thus, in the 
Middle Ages, Egyptian cuisine had a high reputation 
(cf. H. ZayySt, al- Khizdna al-sharkiyya, iv, Beirut 
1948, 14). In Turkey, the cooks of Bolu were and 
remain very famous (see bolu, and Nazim Hikmet, 
Les romantiques, Fr. tr., Paris 1964, 8, 156). Cooks 
from places which were renowned for their food 
were employed in far distant regions. Al-Tahir 
brought to Baghdad a KhurasanI cook (Tayffir, 
apud Spuler, Iran, 510), and Egyptian women- 
cooks were employed everywhere (even in the 
household of an orientalized Frankish knight of 
Antioch, cf. Usama b. Munkidh, K. al-IHibdr, ed. 
P. K. Hitti, Princeton 1930, 140; tr. P. K. Hitti, 
New York 1929, 169 f.). This specialization gave rise 
to the numerous adjectives of geographical origin 
which accompany or represent the names of many 
dishes: e.g., there are cakes called akhmimiyya, 
asyutiyya, a sweet called halwd makkiyya, etc. (cf. 
M. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 150). For the regional 
specialities of Andalus, see A. Huici Miranda, in 
Revista del Institute de Estudios Isldmicos en Madrid, 
v (!957)i 139; a recent ethnographic survey in 
Turkey traces the local variations of the same dish, 
see Z. Kosay and A. Olkiican^ Anadolu yemekleri ve 
Turk mutfagi, Ankara 1961; similarly, on local 
varieties of palov (Ottoman pilav, pilaf) in Uzbekistan, 
see Karim Mahmudov, Uzbekskie blyuda, Tashkent 
1963, 6, 77 ff., and cf. N. K. Alhazov, etc., Azer- 
baydSanskaya kulinariya, Baku 1963, 65 ff. Regional 
foods or dishes were made far from their place of 
origin, the recipes being transmitted orally or in 
writing. Thus as early as the 7th/i3th century we 
find in the East recipes for Maghribi couscous 
{ibid., 138; for the longing for couscous felt by 
Maghribi exiles in the East, see Makkari, Bulak, 
iii, 137; cf. H. Peres, in Bull, des Etudes Arabes, iii 
(1943), 140; R. Brunschvig, La Berberie orientate 
sous les Ijafsides, Paris 1940-7, 271). Food is today 
one of the channels for patriotic fervour. In literature 
and films, Egypt's national food (ta'-miyya, Egyptian 
beans — fill mudammas misri, Jew's mallow or mu- 
lukhiyya) is contrasted with the cosmopolitan dishes 
affected by snobs (see, e.g., Mahmud Taymur, La belle 
aux levres charnues, Fr. tr., Paris 1952, 87). A school 
textbook relates how an Egyptian student is delighted 
to find in Oxford an atmosphere of his native country 
in a restaurant kept by an Egyptian and serving ful 
mudammas (Sa'Id al-'Uryan, A. Duwaydar and 



M. Zahran, Mudammas Uksfurd, Cairo 1950). 
Egyptian emigrants returning home dream of a good 
hot ta'-miyya rissole (Ytisuf Idrls, Umm al-dunyd, in 
his collection Arkhas al-laydli, Cairo 1954, series al- 
Kitdb al-dhahabi, 94). 

When massive emigrations take place, the 
emigrants introduce their traditional dishes into their 
new habitat. Thus, the great emigrations of Muslims 
from Spain at the time of the Reconquista brought 
many Andalusian recipes to the Maghrib (see E. 
Gobert, in Cahiers de Tunisie, iii (1955), 529 ff.), for 
example the famous bsstlla (from Span, pastel) of 
Morocco (see L. Brunot, Textes arabes de Rabat, ii, 
Paris 1952, 52; detailed recipe in Z. Guinaudeau, 
Fis vu par sa cuisine, Rabat 1957, 33 ff.). 

Variations according to the different religious 
groups are of more importance ideologically. We 
shall deal later with the development of the principles 
laid down in the Kur'an, and it is necessary to 
mention here only that each group tended to mark 
itself off distinctly from the others by having its 
own series of rules concerning food. To eat just like 
others implied, generally speaking, that a group did 
not consider itself completely split off from them. In 
principle one should not eat with the kafir (Gold- 
ziher, Vorlesungen, 182, Fr. tr. Paris 1920, 152), 
which gave rise to the vast question of who exactly 
is to be regarded as kafir. The Kur'an allowed 
Muslims to eat the food of the AM al-kitdb and vice 
versa (V, 7/5, see above). But there is attributed to 
the Prophet a letter to the Mazdeans of Hadjar 
according to which Muslims were not to eat meat 
which they had killed as a sacrifice (Ibn Sa'd, i/2, 
Leiden 1917, 19, 1. 8; al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 80; cf. 
Spuler, Iran, 184, n. 5). Even in relation to the AM 
al-kitdb, the law was more restrictive than the 
Kur'an, at least concerning animals killed while 
hunting or by ritual slaughter. It was not forbidden 
but reprehensible (makruh), according to certain 
Malikis, to eat what a Kitdbi had slaughtered for 
himself; according to others, on the contrary, this 
applied to meat slaughtered by a Kitdbi for a 
Muslim. In all cases it was reprehensible to obtain 
meat from a non-Muslim butcher (Malikis). It was 
advisable to make sure that the name of Allah had 
been invoked and not the Cross, or Jesus, etc., 
though it was permissible to eat, according to all the 
schools except the Hanbalis, if no name at all had 
been invoked. However, a fatwd of Muhammad 
'Abduh supporting the same position, issued in about 
1903, seems to have provoked heated arguments 
(M. Rashld Rida, Ta'rikh al-ustddh al-imdm, iii, 
Cairo 1324, 84, 167; see also C. C. Adams, in Mac- 
donald presentation volume, Princeton I933> 13-29)- 
But it was reprehensible to eat anything destined 
for the synagogues, the churches or the feasts of 
the AM al-kitdb. In any case meat obtained from an 
idolater, a Mazdean, a pagan or an apostate was 
prohibited. To this list was sometimes added 
Christian Arabs (prohibited by Shafi'Is, and 
reprehensible according to certain Malikis) ( c Abd al- 
Rahman al-DjazIri, K. al-Fikh c ala 'l-madhdhib al- 
arba'a, ii/3, Cairo n.d., 21-6, etc.). The application 
of these principles has remained fairly strict until 
the present day. In China, many of the Muslim 
carriers take their own bread with them on journeys 
in order to avoid eating food prepared by infidels 
(M. Broomhall, Islam in China, London 1910, 230 f.). 
Usama chose his food carefully in the house of the 
orientalized Frankish knight mentioned above. 
However, it is well known that Jewish food conforms 
to the Muslim rites and thus may be eaten, unlike 



that of Christians, hence a well-known proverb giving 
the advice to sleep in Christian beds (which are clean), 
but to eat Jewish food (Freytag, Arabum proverbia, 
iii, 13, no. 73; W. Marcais and A. Guiga, Textes 
arabes de Takro&na, ii, Glossaire, vi, Paris 1959, 2932; 
E. Westermarck, Ritual and belie/ in Morocco, 
London 1926, ii, 4). However the eastern Christians 
often tended to conform with the Muslim regulations 
(Barhebraeus, Nomocanon [in Syriac], ed. P. Bedjan, 
Paris 1898, 463 ff., tr. J. A. Assemani apud A. Mai 
Scriptorum veterum nova collectio, x, Rome 1838, 
229 ff.; Ibn al- c Assal, Nomocanon, ch. 23, ms. Paris, 
ar. 245, fol. 94 ff., Ethiopic tr. Fatha NagaSt, ed. 
I. Guidi, RomeJi897, 147 ff., tr., Rome 1899, 209 ff.), 
At the same time Christians and Jews very often 
avoided Muslim food. The Christians of Ethiopia 
reproached Europeans with eating meat killed by 
Muslims, which they considered as amounting 
practically to apostasy (Abba Tekla-Haimanot, 
Abouna Yacob ou le vinirable De Jacobis, Paris 1914, 
14; Mansfield Parkyns, Life in Abyssinia, London 
1853, ii, 92 f.). The Christians of Nabulus before the 
1914-18 war limited themselves to avoiding the meat 
of animals sacrificed during the Feast of Sacrifices 
(J.-A. Jaussen, Naplouse, Paris 1927, 311), while the 
Copts in Egypt in the nth/i7th century bought no 
food of any sort from Muslims during this feast 
(J. M. Vansleb, Nouvelle relation . . . d'un voyage 
fait en Egypte, Paris 1698, 383). But the Jews of 
Bukhara in the I2th/i8th century had no scruples 
about eating animals killed by Muslims (J. Wolff, 
apud A. Ya'ari, Shiluhl 'ires yiiriUl, Jerusalem 
5711/1951, 665). The Afridls of Afghanistan, who 
claim to be of Jewish origin, eat, therefore, meat 
cooked by Jews, but, being also Sunnls, refuse meat 
prepared by Shi'Is (Y. Ben-Zvi, Niddihi YiirdW, 
Tel Aviv 5716/1956, 194, Eng. tr. The exiled and the 
redeemed, London 1958, 223). A similar separatism 
concerning food is to be found therefore among the 
various sects, but was rather exceptional. In the 
4th/ioth century a jurist of Kayrawan refused to 
eat sugar which came from Fatimid Sicily (Riydd 
al-nufus, apud M. Amari, Storia . . ., iii, 785 f.; 2nd 
ed. iii/3, 808 ff.). The question of eating meat which 
has been sacrificed arises more often. A saying 
attributed to Talha b. Musarrif (d. 112 or 113/730 or 
731) and used by the Hanballs extends to the 
Rafida the prohibition decreed by Muhammad con- 
cerning the Mazdeans: it was forbidden to marry 
their women or to eat the animals which they had 
slaughtered as sacrifices (Ibn Batta, apud H. Laoust, 
La profession de foi d'Ibn Ba{{a, Damascus 1958, 38, 
tr., 64). The Isma'ills forbade eating the meat of 
sacrifices offered by mushrikun or ahl al-khildf, 
unless one had witnessed that the name of God had 
been pronounced over it (Kadi Nu c man, K. al- 
Iktisdr, ed. M. W. Mirza, Damascus 1957, 105). 
They were thus assimilated to the Ahl al-kitdb. The 
Malikis discouraged the eating of meat which came 
from a bidH, while for the Shi'is that which came 
from the enemies of the ahl al-bayt was unlawful 
( c Abd al- Rahman al-Djazirl, op. cit., 22; Abu 
'1-Kasim Dja'far b. Muh. al-Hilli, ShardH' al-Isldm, 
Calcutta 1839, 396 top, tr. A. Querry, Droit musulman, 
Paris 1871-2, ii, 214, § 50). 

The variations according to way of life are prob- 
ably the most considerable. The Bedouins differ 
from the settled populations in their food as well 
as in other details (see, e.g., al-Djahiz, Bukhald', ed. 
Hadjirl, Cairo 1948, 164, Fr. tr. Ch. Pellat, Paris 1951, 
259). Bedouin women refused to marry town- 
dwellers because they hated the food of the towns, 



especially green vegetables (W. R. Smith, Kinship 
and marriage in early Arabia 2 , London 1903, 75, 
n. 2) and the same repugnance is found also among 
the nomadic Kazaks in Central Asia (J. D. Littlepage 
and D. Bess, In search of Soviet gold, New York 
[1937], no f.; cf. Narodl Sredney Azii i Kazakhstana, 
ii, Moscow 1963, 428). Milk products were a typical 
food of nomads everywhere in the ancient world 
(B. Laufer, Some fundamental ideas of Chinese 
culture, in The Journal of Race Development, v (1914), 
167-70; H. G. Creel, The birth of China, London 1936, 
80 f., Fr. tr. Paris 1937, 77 f.) and they suffered if 
they were deprived of them when in settled districts 
(cf. above, col. 1057 b). The difference between 
peasants and town-dwellers was also often empha- 
sized. It was the subject in Egypt of literary works 
such as, in the 9th/i5th century, the K. al-flarb aU 
ma c shuk . . ., and in the nth/i7th century the Hazz 
al-huhuf of al-Shirbinl (cf. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 
II3-5). 

There was hardly any difference between the food 
of men and women, except perhaps that the idle 
lives of rich women inclined them to greediness, the 
love of sweet things, etc. (see, e.g., E. de Amicis, 
Constantinopoli', Milan 1877, 333, Eng. tr. Constan- 
tinople, London 1878, 234 f-)- The excursions of 
groups of women of leisure for picnics etc. were 
accompanied also by purchases of cakes, fruit, ices, 
etc. (ibid., 306 f., Eng. tr., 214 f.; L. M. J. Garnett, 
Turkish life in town and country, London n,d*, 67). 
Hence a regulation of the ioth/i6th century for- 
bidding women to go into the shops of the kaymaklls 
of Eyyub and laying down that the Christians 
should avoid them (A. Refik, On alttnct astrda 
Istanbul hayati 2 , Istanbul 1935, 40, no. 5; cf. 
R. Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moitii du 
XVIIeme siicle, Paris 1962, 68). Similarly when in 
the baths women ate sweetmeats and special dishes 
(Kulsum Naneh, Le livre des dames de la Perse, tr. 
L. Thonnelier, Paris 1881, 28, 35 f.). In Iran, the 
offerings to Fatima are eaten only by men, at least 
in one of the first phases of the rite (H. Masse, 
Croyances et couiumes persanes, Paris 1938, ii, 302). 
Moreover, in some places, customs based on magic 
forbid certain foods to women (E. Westermarck, 
Ritual and belief in Morocco, London 1916, ii, 363). 

Differences in diet according to age depend on 
theoretical (and even scientific) opinions con- 
cerning food. We shall deal with them below. 
On the other hand a certain number of differences 
according to social classes can be traced to economic 
and social factors. Naturally considerations of price 
alone restricted the food of the poor both in quantity 
and quality and had the same effect on that of 
misers, who were voluntarily poor. In some of the 
literature about misers, particularly in the master- 
piece of al-Djahiz, the K. al-Bukhala?, much is said 
about their meagre diet. The food of the poor and of 
misers was apt to include in particular "filling" 
dishes which were, at least in appearance, rich in 
nutritional value while consisting of inexpensive 
ingredients, like Harpagon's haricot of mutton. 
Several such dishes are mentioned in the time of al- 
Djahiz: (ifshila, harisa, fudjliyya, kurunbiyya 
[BuKhald\ ed. Hadjirl, 60; tr. Pellat, 99)- At the 
beginning of the 7th/i3th century lentils also were 
mentioned as a dish of poor people (M. Rodinson, 
Recherches . . ., 153) and they were again despised 
as the food of the falldh by al-Shirbinl. The distinction 
between the dishes of the poor and those of the rich 
was clearly understood by the collective conscious- 
ness, as expressed in proverbs, popular literature, 



etc. Examples of this are found in current proverbs 
about burghul (Turkish bulgur) "crushed wheat", a 
dish of the poor and peasants in Syria-Palestine and 
Turkey in contrast to rice, the dish of the wealthy 
town-dwellers (M. Feghali, Proverbes et dictons syro- 
libanais, Paris 1938, 248, no. 1097; cf. X. de Planhol, 
De la plaine pamphylienne aux lacs pisidiens, Paris 
1958, 177). The K. al-Uarb al-ma c shuk has precisely 
as its main theme the contest between the food of the 
poor and that of the rich (J. Finkel, in Zeitschrift fur 
Semitistik, viii (1932), 122-48, ix (1933-4), 1-18; cf. 
M. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 113 ff.). The food of the 
rich was distinguished by the variety of the dishes, 
their complexity, their expensiveness, the length of 
time needed for their preparation, an ostentatious 
freedom of choice expressed by eating foods of little 
nutritional value. There was obviously an effort to 
improve the quantity and quality of the diet, but 
still there were applied the rules of "conspicuous 
consumption" in food (Thorstein Veblen, The 
theory of the leisure class, ch. iv, New York 1934, 
73 f.) intended to set apart the elite from the 
masses. The members of the elite were expected 
to be familiar with the most esoteric dishes, and 
they either wrote themselves such treatises on 
cookery as those produced by people of importance 
in the 'Abbasid period (M. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 
99 ff.) or had these books written for them (cf. 
introduction of the book of Ibn Sayyar al-Warrak in 
H. Zayyat, al-Khizdna al-sharkiyya, iv, Beirut 1948, 
20). Those who aspired to refinement in 4th/ioth 
century Baghdad, the zurafa', had strict rules in this 
matter (Al-Washsha 5 , K. al-Muwashsha, ed. R. E. 
Briinnow, Leiden 1886, 94 f., 130 ff., etc.; cf. M. F. 
Ghazi, in Studia Islamica, xi (1959), 61). The rulers 
had huge kitchens for themselves and their court, 
well stocked and equipped, staffed by numerous 
cooks and their assistants, under the direction of 
officers such as the djashnagir, the shddd al-shardb- 
khdna and the usldddr al-suhba at the court of the 
Mamluks (Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La Syrie a 
Vlpoque des Mamelouks, Paris 1923, LX f.), the 
kildrdji bashl, "master of the larder" and his sub- 
ordinates like the peshkir bashl, etc., all supplied with 
their provisions by the matbakh emini and his staff 
at the Ottoman Palace (Gibb-Bowen, i/i, 78, 85, 
332 f., 336 f.). 

The quest for the exotic, the partial adoption of 
the cuisine of foreigners, especially when their 
civilization enjoys a certain prestige, is another 
means by which the elite may demonstrate its 
distinction from ordinary folk. Hence, in the Arab 
world, the vogue for Iranian dishes, which seems to 
have begun in pre-Islamic times (cf. c Abd Allah b. 
Djud'an's introduction of fdludhadi at Mecca, AlusI, 
Bulugh*, i, 381) and was very pronounced in the 
c Abbasid period (Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 148 ff.), 
and later the fashion for things Turkish (ibid., 151). 
European influence began in the period of the 
Crusades (ibid., 150; Rodinson, in Comptes Rendus 
du GLECS, ix (1960-3), 106 f.), and has naturally 
been very powerful since the 19th century, as all 
modern cookery-books demonstrate (see, e.g., H. 
Stumme, in Islamica, ii (1926), 538-49). Deep though 
its influence has been (see, for example, on the in- 
fluence of Russian diet in Central Asia, K. Mah- 
mudov, Uzbekshie blyuda, Tashkent 1963, 6, with 
illustrations of how this trend has been resisted by 
the Muslim 'clergy', who call potatoes 'food of Satan' 
and tomatoes 'fruits made of human blood'), in all 
countries the traditional dishes retain their popularity. 
Conversely, Muslim diet exercised a pronounced 



in Scritti orientalistici in onore di G. Levi Delia Vida, 
Rome 1956, ii, 425-35, and in Etudes d'orientalisme 
.... Levi- Provencal, Paris 1962, 733-47). 

6. Factors of secular ideology in food. 
We can class as ideological the recommendations or 
prescriptions which are based either on a rational 
deduction from various principles and assumptions, 
or on the Divine will elucidated in greater or less 
degree by reasoning. Recommendations and pre- 
scriptions of this sort play an important part in food 
habits. We have seen above how certain of them are 
connected with differences in diet according to social 
groups and we shall now deal with some others, 
beginning with the non-religious ones. 

Certain general ideas which are prudent deductions 
from experience are handed on by popular tradition. 
Thus we have a list of nourishing foods, and of those 
which cause wind (cf. Ibn c Abd Rabbih, Al-Hhd al- 
farid, ed. A. Amin etc., vi, Cairo 1949, 320 ff.). But 
generalizations of a "magic" type are often found: 
they can grow up from a basis of real attributes 
which have been observed (birds are timorous, 
testicles are connected with sexual activity, honey 
is sweet, etc.), or be deduced from systems of symbolic 
connexions (yellow is beneficial, black is ill-omened, 
etc.; cf. the remarkable and unfortunately unique 
study by J. Jouin, Valeur symbolique des aliments et 
rites alimentaires a Rabat, in Hesperis, xliv (1957), 
299-327). But these wide and rash generalizations are 
based on the magic principles of contagion by 
propinquity, the law of similarity and of opposites, 
etc. Thus we have seen that in north-western Arabia 
it is believed that whoever eats birds' hearts becomes 
himself timorous (see above, col. 1059 b); similarly 
medical treatises explain that sheep's liver, heart or 
kidneys strengthen the liver, heart or kidneys of 
whoever eats them, while to eat sheep's brains causes 
loss of memory and stupidity because the sheep is 
senseless and stupid (Dawud al-Antaki, Tadhkira, 
Cairo 1356/1937, i, 207; cf. the conversation recorded 
by Na'ima (anno 1063, A.H.) and translated by 
B. Lewis, Istanbul and the civilization of the Ottoman 
Empire, Norman Okla. 1963, 171-2); in present-day 
Morocco young boys newly-circumcised are made to 
drink soup made from sheep's testicles to strengthen 
them, and it is also the recognized diet for people 
who are exhausted (J. Jouin, op. cit., 309). Halwa' 
made with saffron has been recommended because 
yellow is a source of gaiety (NizamI, Haft paykar, 
Tehran 1334, 197 s , tr. C. E. Wilson, London 1924, i, 
156). Honey with its sweetness assuages mental 
suffering (J. Jouin, op. cit., 315) as does talbina, a 
dish made with honey (see above, col. 1059 a), hence 
their consumption at funerals. It is possible that the 
dictum attributed to the fakih of Medina, Rabl'a b. 
Abi c Abd al-Rahman (d. 136/753-4), according to 
which the eating of khabis (jelly made with starch) 
fortifies the brain (Ibn c Abd Rabbih, al-Hkd al- 
farid, vi, Cairo 1949, 293), belongs to this class of 
popular opinions. 

But as well as these there was also the corpus of 
scholarly opinions, transmitted by books and 
stemming for the most part from the scientific 
medicine systematized by the Greeks. It consisted 
of generalizations based sometimes on systematic 
research on data which were certainly not self- 
evident (such as the presence in the human body, 
besides blood, of the pituitary glands, yellow and 
black bile), from which the Greeks had drawn up a 
carefully worked out system, avoiding symbolic 



data and open in principle to revision, consisting as 
it did of hypotheses which could be verified or in- 
validated. It was based on the theory of humours, 
from which had been deduced all kinds of conclusions 
on the nature of each food and its suitability to one 
or another human temperament. Thus all the books 
of medicine contain a long chapter enumerating, 
usually in alphabetical order, the attributes and 
faults of each food from the point of view of bodily 
and spiritual well-being. Special works are also 
devoted to this branch of medicine, dietetics. Some 
of them were translated into Latin and had a con- 
siderable influence on European dietetics (cf. M. 
Rodinson, Recherches . . ., nof.). The educated 
classes paid a great deal of attention to dietetic 
precepts, so that this science was of no small 
practical importance. To choose one example among 
scores, there was the book on dietetics written by 
Maimonides for al-Malik al-Afdal. Numerous exam- 
ples of rulers who could not do without dieticians at 
their table are given in H. Zayyat, al-Khizana al- 
sharfriyya, iv, Beirut 1948, 10 ff., cf. H. R. Idris, 
La Berbirie orientate sous les Zirides, Paris 1962, i, 
251. Moreover, these scholarly theories penetrated 
deeply among the masses, where they became 
inextricably mixed, sometimes in a debased form, 
with current ideas coming from other sources. At 
the same time the learned works came more and 
more to take account of popular ideas on diet. Thus 
the famous doctor-philosopher Abu Bakr al-Razi 
(d. 311/923 or 320/932) wrote that fresh dates caused 
ophthalmia, an idea which re-appears later in Ibn 
al-Baytar in the 7th/i3th century. It is probable 
that this theory, which was unknown to the Greeks 
and to Hunayn b. Ishak, came from popular ideas 
in the East (M. Meyerhof, apud P. Kraus, in Orien- 
talia, iv (1935), 326). 

Scholarly ideas on dietetics were influenced by 
popular ideas, particularly when it came to dealing 
with diets for special cases. For example the diet of 
women in child-birth is the subject of only a few 
general recommendations by the Greek physicians and 
the first Arab theorists who derived their ideas from 
them (cf., e.g., Ibn SIna, Kanun, iii, fann 21, makala 2, 
fasl 3). But later the subject was developed under 
the influence of popular recipes. Thus a 9th/i5th 
century writer recommends, in addition to foods and 
medicines intended as remedies for stomach pains 
etc., fresh ripe dates {rutab) and, if they are not 
available, ordinary dates also. This is justified by a 
ftadith and by the example of the Virgin Mary in 
Kur'an, XIX, 25 (Ibrahim b. c Abd al-Rahman al- 
Azrak, K. Tashil al-mandfi\ Cairo 1356, 140 f.). 

7. Post-Kur'anic religious regulations. 
The pious specialists on religious questions who, in 
the 2nd/8th century, began to advise on the way of 
life which best conformed to the Muslim ideal 
recommended or discouraged the eating of certain 
foods, in accordance with current practice (see 
J. Schacht, Esquisse d'une histoire du droit musulman, 
Paris 1953, 22 ff.). Gradually these recommendations 
became canonized, as they were attributed to 
earlier and earlier authorities ending with the 
Prophet himself, at the same time that attempts 
were made to deduce from them general rules, to 
systematize them and also to bring them into 
harmony with the few prescriptions, later more 
precisely defined and systematized, which are 
contained in the Kur'an. We cannot here follow the 
development of this process (on this see, e.g., 
J. Schacht, £/', art. maita) and we shall deal only 
with its final results. 



The prohibitions concerning food are part of the 
vast system of Muslim ethics. For this reason there 
are used for them the usual categories, which include 
all the degrees, from obligation to prohibition, by 
way of recommendation, indifferent permission and 
reprobation. Efforts are made to state the attitude 
to be taken in every possible case, and even in some 
very unlikely cases. Procedures are established to 
settle doubtful cases, all else failing, by ordeal: 
drawing lots to indicate which animal of a flock 
has been the object of an act of bestiality and is 
therefore impure (Abu '1-Kasim Dja'far b. Muh. 
al-Hilli, SharaH' al-Isldm, Calcutta 1839, 402, tr. 
Querry, Droit musulman, ii, 231, § 17); in cases of 
doubt as to the provenance of birds' eggs, which 
would decide whether they were lawful, to use those 
whose ends differ in width {ibid., 403 = Querry, ii, 
233 f., § 37 [Shl'is]). 

The categories of the permitted and the for- 
bidden in this field are (apart from some excep- 
tions) identical with those of the clean and the 
unclean. There follows from this the obligation to 
apply to these cases the general idea of contagion, 
of the contaminating power of uncleanliness, which 
gives rise to a number of delicate problems to 
determine the limits of this contagion. The milk and 
the eggs of unclean animals are obviously unclean; 
but does an animal who has drunk wine or sow's 
milk, both of them unclean, become by this act 
unclean itself? (al-Hilli, op. cit., 402; tr. Querry, ii, 
230 f.). A dog, being unclean, makes unclean any 
liquid which it has begun to lap or game which it has 
begun to eat (D. Santillana, Istituzioni di diritto 
musulmano malichita, i, Rome 1926, 321); but there 
may be another juridical reason for the prohibition 
in the latter case (cf. al-Ghazali, Ihyd', Cairo 1352/ 
1933. ". 91; H. Laoust, Le precis de droit d'Ibn 
Quddma, Beirut 1950, 230). The question was much 
discussed as to how far a mouse (or other unclean 
animal) which had fallen into a food which was clean 
caused it to be unclean (al-Darimi, viii, 41; Abu 
Dawud, xxvi, 47; cf. Santillana, Istituzioni, i, 321). 
In general it is admitted that the uncleanliness is 
transmitted to the whole of any liquid or fluid 
matter, but only to the parts of any solid matter 
which are near to the part touched (unless the 
mouse has remained there for a long time, according 
to the MalikI Sahnun: Ibn AM Zayd al-Kayrawani, 
Risdla, ed. and tr. L. Bercher*, Algiers 1948, 158). The 
crossing of a clean with an unclean animal makes 
their progeny unclean {e.g., the mule; see also, e.g., 
Ibrahim b. C A1I al-Shirazi, K. al-Tanbih, ed. and tr. 
Bousquet, i, Algiers 1949, 123 [Shafi'i]). 

It became necessary also to lay down the course 
to be followed when there arose a conflict between 
the system of regulations concerning food and other 
principles and exigencies of social life, and to make 
general rules also for borderline cases. Thus, suicide 
being forbidden, man has a duty to keep himself 
alive and in good health. From this is deduced the 
prohibition of injurious substances, notably intoxi- 
cants (cf. al-Ghazali, Ihyd\ ii, 83, 1. 16 f. concerning 
bandf [q.v.] "henbane" ; in the Mughal Empire, non- 
Muslims as well as Muslims were, from social and 
humanitarian motives, forbidden to use it, see Sri 
Ram Sharma, The religious policy of the Mughal 
Emperors', London 1962, 25 f., 93, 109 ft.; but 
nowadays this prohibition is stressed especially 
with regard to opium, hashish, cocaine, etc., cf. 
<Abd al-Rahman al-DiazIri, K. al-Fikh l ala 
'l-madhdhib al-arba'a, ii», Cairo n.d., 4)- But 
in cases of famine and of extreme necessity, the 



principle of keeping one's self alive conflicts with 
the prohibition of what is unclean, and it is acknow- 
ledged that the latter must be sacrificed, at least to 
the minimum degree necessary to maintain life. But 
limits are set, and also a graduated table of degrees of 
uncleanliness is established (cf. al-Idilli, 406-8, tr. 
Querry, Droit musulman, ii, 242-6, which is especially 
detailed). The question arose and still arises parti- 
cularly in relation to medicines prescribed by doctors. 
In the same way a compromise is established between 
the duty to keep alive and the rights of property: in 
certain conditions and within certain limits it is 
permissible to seize by force from a reluctant owner 
the means for sustaining one's life. In some cases 
the duty of acting humanely towards animals can 
also have an influence on what food is eaten {e.g., 
the recommendation not to slaughter a sheep which 
is suckling, Muslim, xxxvi, 140a). 

The fikh naturally upheld the food prohibitions 
laid down by the Kur'an, endeavouring only to 
define their scope. The prohibition of blood, linked 
with that of the meat of animals which are dead 
without having been ritually slaughtered, led to 
many developments. It was necessary to define very 
precisely the method and conditions of slaughter 
[see dhabihaI, etc. Although "carrion" (mayta), an 
animal simply found dead, remains completely 
forbidden except in case of absolute necessity [see 
mayta], attempts have been made to mitigate a 
little the more precise prohibition, given in Kur'an, 
V, 4/3, of the flesh of animals found strangled or 
gored, victims of a fall or killed by a blunt instrument. 
If even a breath of life remains in them they may 
still be ritually slaughtered and thus rendered lawful 
to eat. This is the "purification" mentioned in the 
Kur'an. It was necessary to define in the greatest 
detail the signs by which the presence of this flicker 
of life could be recognized or presumed to exist (a 
good summary of the position of the Sunni schools 
in al-Djaziri, K. al-Fikh, ii 3 , 4 and n. 3)- More serious 
difficulties are caused by hunting. In general it is 
necessary to perform the ritual slaughter of the 
animal before its death, if this is possible. But where 
this is impossible, it is conceded that the fact of 
having killed an animal while formulating the in- 
tention of slaughtering it ritually and pronouncing 
the tasmiya ("in the name of God") at the moment of 
sending off the missile may take the place of this 
ritual slaughter. Naturally the pilgrim who has 
entered the state of ritual purity (muhrim) may not 
take advantage of these privileges (in view of- the 
Kur'anic prohibition mentioned above). However 
some traditions authorize him to eat a wild ass which 
has been hunted down (al-Bukhari, lxx, 20) or, in 
return for compensation, a hyena (Abu Dawud, 
xxvi, 31; cf. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Le pelerinage 
a la Mekke, Paris 1923, 10, n. 2, n ff.). On the other 
hand, efforts were made to specify how far the 
unlawfulness of the mayta extends to its skin, its 
milk, its eggs or to any foetus which it might contain. 
An exception from the prohibition of blood is 
generally made for the liver and the spleen, which 
are considered as a solid form of blood (hadlth: two 
kinds of blood have been made lawful for us, Ibn 
Madia, xxix, 31; Ahmad b. Hanbal, ii, 97). Ritual 
slaughter is not necessary for fish (or any marine 
animals), nor for locusts (cf. art mayta and below). 
For hhamr, the same processes of interpretation are 
applied to the Kur'anic prohibition. We shall limit 
ourselves here to mentioning that, on the one hand, 
the idea of hhamr is defined by the intoxicating 
power of the liquor concerned (taking advantage of 



the meaning of khamara "to be mixed together"), 
and that on the other hand the prohibition makes it, 
in accordance with the logic of the system, a drink 
impure in itself, even in a quantity too small to 
produce drunkenness. The result is a logical contra- 
diction, which is illustrated when al-Ghazali contrasts 
the Muslim law with the supposed prohibition of 
wine by Jesus, based solely on its ability to intoxicate. 
Ghazall gets over the difficulty by asserting that the 
drinking of small quantities leads to that of large 
quantities and drunkenness (Ihya', iv, 81, 1. 3 f.), 
which is the line taken in the modern interpretation, 
which emphasizes the moral, hygienic and social 
justifications for this prohibition (cf. al-Djaziri, K. 
al-Fikh, ii, 6-9). 

Food can sometimes be affected by impurities 
which have nothing to do with the food itself. Thus 
the impurity of menstruation (Kur'an, II, 222, and 
much developed later) leads to the conclusion that 
the meat of menstruating female animals is impure 
(e.g., the hare: Abu Dawud, xxvi, 26b), just as the 
impurity of women in this state can be transmitted 
to the food which they prepare (al-Hilli, 406, tr. 
Querry, Droit musulman, ii, 242, § 97 f.; a regulation 
which was applied at Nabulus according to Jaussen, 
Naplouse, 311). The same applies to food prepared 
by infidels (including the ahl al-dhimma, according 
to certain authors), perhaps even to that eaten in 
their company' (ibid., 404, 405, tr. Querry, ii, 236, 
239, and col. 1065 b above) or, in practice, that 
prepared in utensils which they have used (a pathetic 
case cited by M. Broomhall, Islam in China, 226). 

The Malikl school endeavoured to limit the pro- 
hibitions to foods declared impure by Kur'anic 
prescription, with only those restrictions set out 
above : that the food eaten should be neither harmful 
nor the property of others. But in general the idea 
of uncleanliness was extended, as we have seen, to 
other foods. It concerns always animal food, except 
where it relates to edible earth, which was sometimes 
discouraged or forbidden, and, among the Shi'is, to 
water from hot springs, which was discouraged. 
Lists are given of the impure parts of animals, 
generally faecal matter and urine (the urine of the 
camel is, however, permitted as a medicament) ; to 
these are sometimes added the sexal organs and 
other parts. Similarly, acts of bestiality make 
unclean the meat of the animal concerned, also the 
eating of excrement. This leads to the case of the 
djalldla, "scatophagous animal", mentioned in 
hadlth (Abu Dawud, xxvi, 24, 33, etc.) and developed 
in great detail by the fikh, which specifies in particular 
the length of time which the animal must be kept in 
supervised isolation and fed with clean food in order 
to regain its cleanliness and be eaten lawfully. 

But, above all, a certain number of animals are 
added to the pig, which is the only one actually 
prohibited as such by the Kur'an. For some of these, 
such as humans and dogs, it is obvious that all that 
is being done is to make explicit prohibitions which 
are implicit in the sayings reported from the Prophet. 
In the case of certain others, a thorough study 
would be necessary to determine which are of pre- 
Islamic Arab origin and which arise from the 
customs already existing among peoples who have 
become Islamicized. In general, however, Islamic 
jurisprudence has developed extensively the chapter 
on the juridical classification of the various animals, 
with perceptible divergences among the schools: a 
summary of the attitudes adopted by the principal 
juridical schools will be found in the article hayawan 



Over and above the categories elaborated by the 
schools, on the basis of the Kur'an and Tradition, of 
foods whose consumption is forbidden or reprehen- 
sible, the zealous Muslim may wish to carry the 
imitation of the Prophet so far as to abstain from 
foods which, according to Tradition, displeased him 
personally, but which he did not forbid to others (at 
least according to most of the texts), although he 
forbade those smelling of them to enter the mosque: 
garlic, onion and often leeks (kurrdth; cf. references 
apud Wensinck, A handbook of early Muhammedan 
tradition, Leiden 1927, s.vv.; recommendations to 
is still paid today, cf. J. Jomier, Le 
vnique du Mandr, Paris 1954, 142), 
which is probably the reason why according to the 
commentaries {ad. loc.) leeks are excluded from the 
bukul laid out on the "spread table" sent from 
Heaven to Jesus and the apostles (Kur'an, V, in ff.). 
Perhaps the lizard should also be added to this list 
(see above, col. 1058 b). 

In the course of the centuries there have come to 
be added to this list of prohibited goods new edible 
products; the fact that they were bid'a reinforced 
their qualities of being harmful, intoxicating etc., 
to induce — but in vain — their prohibition. This has 
been the case with coffee [see kahwa], kdt [q.v.], 
tobacco [see tOtOn], etc. 

Each Muslim sect, formulating for itself a complete 
doctrine on all points of dogma and practice, has had 
to make its decisions on the problem of prohibitions 
concerning food. In general the Kur'anic prohibitions 
have been adhered to, but some have considered 
them to have only an allegorical significance or that 
an era was beginning in which there was no further 
justification for them. The extra-Kur'anic prohi- 
bitions have been deliberately criticized in some 
circles. The consumption of dogs, habitual in the 
Saharan Maghrib, was regarded with indulgence by 
some jurists (cf. M. Canard, in Hespiris, xxxix (1952), 
298, n. 1 ; H. R. Idris, La Berbirie orientate . . ., 592, 
631). The Karmatis of Bahrayn allowed the meat of 
cats, dogs, donkeys, etc. to be sold, dogs to be 
fattened for the table and, at one time at least, seem 
to have permitted wine (De Goeje, Mimeire sur les 
Carmathes du Bahrain 2 , Leiden 1886, 174 f.; cf., e.g., 
M. b. Malik al-Hamadi, Kashf asrdr al-bdtiniyya, ed. 
M. Zahid Kawtharl, Cairo 1939, 13). But Isma'ill 
dogma follows the classical pattern of regulations 
concerning food, forbidding the flesh of carnivorous 
animals and birds of prey, that of the hyena and the 
fox, the mule and the donkey, discouraging that of 
the lizard and the hedgehog, authorizing that of the 
hare and the horse (on condition that the latter 
should not be ritually slaughtered unless it is ex- 
hausted with fatigue) as well as that of locusts and 
fish with scales, both to be caught alive ; condemning 
the eating of marrow, spleen, kidneys or the genital 
organs of animals, etc.; forbidding all fermented 
drinks and discouraging the use of wine-vinegar 
(Kadi Nu c man, K. al-Iktisar, ed. M. Wahid Mirza, 
Damascus 1957, 95-7). Al-Hakim forbids in addition 
to this some plants: mulukhiyya ('Jew's-mallow'), 
rashdd (cress or rocket), mutawakkiliyya (a dish 
rather than a plant?), and lupins, because of their 
name or because they were liked by c A'isha, Abu 
Bakr, Mutawakkil, etc. (S. de Sacy, Exposi de la 
religion des Druzes, Paris 1838, i, CCCIX f.). As a 
further example we may mention the prohibition 
among the Yazidls of the chicken and the gazelle, 
of cauliflower and lettuce, accompanied by a 
tolerance towards the use of alcohol (R. Lescot, 
Enquite sur les Yezidis de Syrie el du Djebel Sindjfir, 



Beirut 1938, 76 f.). Among the Nusayrls are found in 
general at least those Muslim prohibitions which are 
very widespread (camel, eel, cat-fish), the prohibition 
of the hare, which is strictly Shl% and, among the 
Shamsiyya, equally widespread prohibitions such as 
those of crabs and shell-fish, that of the porcupine, 
which is also unlawful for the Shl'is, as well as the 
more surprising prohibition of the gazelle and of 
vegetables (pumpkins, gumbo, tomatoes). The 
prohibition laid by this same group upon female 
animals is reminiscent rather of the practice of the 
Christian monks of the East. But there were of 
course local variations (L. Massignon, in EI 1 , s.v. 
Nusairl; R. Strothmann, Die Nusairi im heutigen 
Syrien, Gottingen 1950 = Nachrichten der Ak.d. 
Wiss. in Odttingen, Phil.-hist. Kl., 1950, no. 4, 55). 

It would be useful to make a study of the strictness 
with which these theoretical regulations are applied 
in practice in the different Muslim countries. The 
laxity or strictness of observance varies greatly 
according to regions, social categories, families, etc. 
The attitude even of the same group or the same 
individual may vary, according to whether it is a 
case of one regulation or another. Broadly speaking, 
for example, it seems that the prohibition of pork 
has always been more strictly observed than that of 
alcoholic drinks. Nevertheless in China, where the 
Muslims live in an area where pork is very much 
liked, they not infrequently eat it, with or without 
the precaution of calling it "mutton" (M. Broomhall, 
Islam in China, London 1910, 225 f., 230 f.). The 
non-Kur'anic prohibitions are often less strictly 
observed, advantage sometimes being taken of the 
variations between the madhdhib. Thus, at Ma c an 
and often among the Bedouin of Arabia, there are 
eaten crows and eagles, which are forbidden by the 
majority of the schools (A. Jaussen, Coutumes des 
Arabes au pays de Moab, Paris 1908, 67, n. 1; C. 
Doughty, Travels in Arabia Deserta, Cambridge 1888, 
i, 604). Rich Ottomans had sent to them by Christians 
(to celebrate Bayraml) mussels, concealed under 
green cloth (Marie Sevadjian, L'amira, Fr. tr. F. 
Macler, Paris 1927, 38 f.), etc. 

In the category of religious prohibitions should be 
included those which the ascetics imposed on them- 
selves, and which are nowhere prescribed by the Law. 
Among these is abstinence from meat, which is an 
ancient practice (Goldziher, Vorlesungen, 150, 152, 
Fr. tr. Le dogme et la loi de V Islam, Paris 1920, 122, 
124), probably adopted in order to rival the zeal of 
Christians, Manicheans, etc. (L. Massignon, Essai 
sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique 
musulmane*, Paris 1954, 6i), and which may have 
been reinforced by Hindu and Buddhist influence 
(for Abu '1-Ala al-Ma c arri, see H. Laoust, in BEO, x 
(1943-4), 152). The dervish-orders too propagated 
various prohibitions, thus provoking the protests of 
the reformers (J. Jomier, Le commentaire coranique 
de Mandr, Paris 1954, 209). 

It would be interesting to study the way in which 
the fukahd*, the theologians, the mystics and the 
philosophers have attempted to justify the prohibi- 
tions concerning food. We cannot do it here, but 
would merely mention that there has always existed 
a tendency to interpret them in a rational way. Thus 
al-Marghinani points out that the aim of the prohi- 
bition is to preserve the nobility of the human body 
by preventing its being sullied through absorbing 
the substance of base animals (Hiddya, ms. Paris ar. 
6763, fol. 247V., tr. C. Hamilton, London 1791, iv, 
74). This tendency has developed particularly in 
modern times, when the apologists lay especial 



stress on the social advantages and the benefits to 
health of the prohibition of wine (e.g., J. Jomier, Le 
commentaire coranique du Mandr, Paris 1954, 209 f., 
and above, col. 1069 b). The mystics favour rather 
a symbolic exegesis. But the predominant tendency 
has been to see in these regulations a sign of God's 
arbitrary will. The expressions of this doctrine often 
coincide with that of certain contemporary sociolo- 
gists, who insist on the arbitrary character of the 
regulations of social life. These regulations are seen 
as forming a system corresponding to a necessary 
pattern which is understood only by God: He sets 
himself against the ignorant anarchy of men, who 
are not directed by the Revelation but obey only 
their own psycho-physiological impulses. This is 
very well expressed in a hadith which is said to have 
been uttered by Ibn 'Abbas: "The people of the 
djdhiliyya used to eat certain things and abstain 
from others simply from distaste. But God sent His 
Prophet and revealed His Book; He allowed that 
which was lawful and forbade that which was un- 
lawful in His eyes. That which He has permitted is 
lawful, that which He has forbidden is unlawful and 
that on which He has kept silent is tolerated ('a/a'). 
Then Ibn Abbas recited the Kur'an, VI, 146/145" 
(Abu Dawud, xxvi, 30; cf. M. Rodinson, in Trudi 
dvadtsaf pyatogo meidunarodnogo kongressa vostok- 
ovedov, i, Moscow 1962, 362-6). 

8. Aesthetic factors. Certain ideas, attitudes 
and recommendations concerning food are based 
neither on the categories of useful or harmful (ideas 
and recommendations of secular ideology) nor on 
those of good or evil (religious ideas, recommendations 
and regulations), but on those of what is agreeable 
or disagreeable. Several of these ideas and attitudes 
are in a sense "natural", that is to say linked with a 
conditioning which is specific (pertaining to the 
human species in general), ethnic (with variations 
due in part to geographical conditions) or individual, 
based on the physiological peculiarities of the species, 
the group or the individual respectively. But the 
physiological facts influencing the species or the 
group leave at the same time a certain margin 
of choice. Within this margin, each society chooses 
and inculcates in its members from childhood 
a system of values in taste (in the widest sense, 
i.e., including not only the sense of taste but the 
sense of smell and others), comprising distinctions 
and preferences. It is moreover still often difficult 
(given the lack of sufficiently detailed studies) 
to distinguish within this system between the 
elements which are "natural" (based on physio- 
logy) although transmitted by tradition and 
those which belong to the arbitrary rules of social 
conduct. Furthermore, some small groups set up 
and propagate their own systems of values, generally 
within the margin left by the social system, but 
sometimes exceeding this. Finally, individuals are 
subject to their own physiological and psychological 
conditioning, also within the system inculcated by 
the society and the group, but sometimes going 
beyond it. 

We can mention here only some of the features 
which are connected with this aesthetic approach 
to food. Among the distinctions made are of course 
the four specifically gustative flavours: sweet, sour, 
salt, bitter (Arabic ftulw, hdmid, malty, murr) with 
the various degrees and varieties of insipidity (Ar. 
malikh, masikh, "completely insipid"; tafih "without 
either real sweetness, acidity or bitterness", cf. al- 
Tha'alibi, Fikh al-lugha, ed. Cheikho, Beirut 1885, 
272) ; the qualities, perhaps connected with a chemical 



sensitivity, such as highly-spiced (in Arabic, as in 
English, called "hot", fidrr, hence a group of seeds 
called "hot seeds", abzdr ftdrra; cf. in French the 
four "sentences chaudes": fennel, carraway, cumin, 
aniseed), piquant (kdris, not always interchangeable 
with sour, hdmid), astringent (frdbid), pungent ('a/t$), 
etc. or those which correspond more closely to the 
chemical composition of the foods (fat, Ar. samin, 
i.e., rich in fats, similarly "oily, greasy, Xutapii;", 
Ar. dasim) ; those connected with smell (cf . Ibn Sina, 
Psychology, ed. J. Bako§, Prague 1956, 76; tr., ibid., 
52 f. ; cf. Aristotle, De anima, II, 10, 422b, and, for 
the terminology, the Arabic tr. of A. F. El-Ehwany 
and G. Anawati, 2nd ed., Cairo i960, 80 with the 
appended glossaries; Ibn Sina addes to the qualities 
of savour listed by Aristotle, though it is possible to 
contest this, basha'a, an unpleasant taste, and tafah, 
insipidity), etc. To these should be added the sensa- 
tions due to heat and cold, to a brittle or soft con- 
sistency, etc. The various preferences are expressed 
with reference to these distinctions. The taste for fat 
is readily discernible among both the early and the 
present-day Bedouin (cf. above, col. 1059 a). Those 
Muslims of today who are anxious to bring their 
cooking partly into line with European taste condemn 
the excessive use of fat meat in their dishes (cf. M. 
Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 107). The taste for highly- 
spiced foods and for sweet things appeared at a more 
advanced stage of Muslim civilization; it was simply 
a continuation of the tastes of classical antiquity 
(against which Sophon and Damoxenos waged a 
vain campaign in the 4th century B.C.), as were 
some more specific tastes which have now become 
disagreeable to us, such as that of rue (sadhdb), or 
that of products which have a very strong smell 
(cf. J. Andre, L' alimentation et la cuisine a Rome, 
223 ff.). 

The art of cooking consists in preparing and 
combining the basic elements in such a way as to 
produce a pleasant flavour. The combinations take 
into account the distinction between the sensory 
qualities, mentioned above, which are attributed to 
the foods, and the compatability (with a hierarchy of 
degrees of compatibility) and incompatibility of 
ingredients, whether used together or eaten following 
each other. Europeans have often remarked on the 
use in Muslim cooking of combinations in one dish of 
foods not in accordance with their own taste, for 
example that of highly-spiced with sweet and bland 
ingredients, without a sauce of intermediate flavour 
to lessen the contrast; there have even been drawn 
from this deductions, not beyond dispute, on col- 
lective psychology (E. F. Gautier, apud L. Massignon, 
in RMM, lvii (1924), 151). In fact these combinations 
are not confined to Muslim cooking; they are found 
in European and American cooking, and were used 
in the past even more than today. Much use is made 
of sauces for combining ingredients, as was done in 
the Middle Ages. Present-day Turkish cooking seeks 
to avoid having in one dish the taste of meat 
(roasted or grilled) and that of cooked vegetables 
(I. Orga, Turkish cooking, London 1958, 14). 
Vegetables cooked in oil are often eaten cold in the 
Middle East. As among the Romans, meat in the 
mediaeval Muslim world was usually boiled before 
being baked or roasted, and for some meat this was 
a necessity, either because of tradition or in order to 
make it tender (cf. J. Andre, V alimentation et la 
cuisine a Rome, 223). 

At the more elegant levels of society there has 
developed, following the tradition of the Ancient 
World, a custom of serving at one me 



GHIDHA' — GHINA 3 



of dishes of varying flavours. It was introduced in 
Cordova in the 3rd/gth century by the Baghdad! 
Ziryab (E. Levi- Provencal, Hist. Esp. mus., i, 271). 
This arrangement seems to have been less generally 
adopted in the East than in the West. 

It is natural that some preferences and abstentions 
which have a national or religious origin or are the 
result of an arbitrary social tradition should sometimes 
be justified also by aesthetic arguments. The pre- 
ferring of mutton to beef is perhaps an example of 
this. 

Aesthetic considerations which have nothing to 
do with taste are also important. Among them is the 
visual appeal of dishes, to which there are many 
references in the mediaeval culinary treatises. 
Great care is always taken over how a dish is served, 
and saffron, for example, is often used more for its 
"rich" golden colour than for its flavour. Also with 
the aim of delighting or surprising the beholder there 
were evolved an increasing number of the "dis- 
guises" (to use a term from ancient cookery) which 
were so popular also in Europe in the Middle Ages. 
Hence dishes with such significant names as muzaw- 
war(a) "counterfeit", masnu 1 "artificial", etc., and 
recipes such as those for "mock brain" or omelette 
in a bottle (M. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 157 f.), or 
the dish composed of 5 animals each inside the other 
which was devised for Abu 'l- c Ula, the governor of 
Ceuta and brother of the Almohad caliph Yusuf I 
{A.. Huici Miranda, in Revista del Institute de 
Estudios Isldmicos en Madrid, v (1957), 140, 142, 
n. 3). Nowadays, on the contrary, names of this 
sort are given rather to economical dishes which are 
imitations of the more luxurious ones (e.g., Turkish 
yalanci dolma). But attention is always paid to the 
appearance of a dish, so that even one so common 
as puree of chick-peas (hummus be-thine), a speciality 
of Damascus, is always decorated with powdered 
red pepper, whole chick-peas, etc. 

The systematic discrimination of the foods with 
the pleasantest taste, the drawing up of the rules 
which govern this according to increasingly subtle 
criteria, and the search for the most delicious com- 
binations of food, formed the preoccupations not 
only of head cooks but of a whole distinguished 
society of gourmets and gastronomes. Gastronomy 
was especially esteemed in the c Abb5sid period, 
hence the gastronomical gatherings organized by 
several of the caliphs (cf. H. Zayyat, al-Khizana 
al-sharkiyya, iv, 4 ff.). Gourmets at the highest level 
of the social hierarchy took pleasure in preparing 
and in inventing dishes which were often called by 
their names (cf. M. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., passim 
and, for the Muslim West, A. Huici Miranda, op. cit., 
138 ff.). The abundance and the popularity of their 
writings on this subject were already arousing the an- 
ger of Salih b. c Abd al-Kuddus (d. 167/783 ; Goldziher, 
Transactions of the gth International Congress of 
Orientalists, London 1893, ii, 104 ft.); they wrote 
especially many treatises on cookery (Fihrist, 317, 
1. 6-10; cf. M. Rodinson, Recherches . . ., 100 ff.) 
which are now unfortunately lost; poems were 
composed to celebrate certain dishes [op. cit., 112). 
The interest in food of the c Abb5sid upper classes 
has left its trace in the names of dishes created by 
its most eminent members, for example the ibrahi- 
miyya, which is named after the prince (at one time 
anti-caliph) Ibrahim b. al-Mahdi. Within the Muslim 
world, gastronomy, although later less widespread 
and certainly less paraded because of the growth 
of puritanism, nevertheless always had its adherents 
and its poets (cf. Rodinson, op. cit., passim). 



Bibliography: In the article. For the manu- 
script works on cooking mentioned (especially the 
Wusla ila 'l-habib), see M. Rodinson, Recherches 
sur les documents arabes relatifs a la cuisine, in 
REI, 1949, 95-165. (M. Rodinson) 

Banu £HIFAR b. Mulayk b. Damra b. Bakr b. 
c Abd Manat b. Kinana, a small Arab tribe, 
being a subdivision of the Banu Damra b. Bakr, 
who in their turn formed a branch of the Kinana. 
The Ghifar lived in the Hidjaz between Mecca and 
Medina; some of their abodes are mentioned by the 
geographers. Very little is known of their history in 
pre-Islamic times: one of their members is mentioned 
(Aghdni 1 , xix, 74, 5) in the brawls preceding the 
Fidjar-war [q.v.]. A quarrel between the Ghifar and 
the Banu Tha'laba b. Sa'd b. Dhubyan is referred 
to in a poem quoted by Yakut, Mu'djam, ii, 202 f. 
A woman of the Ghifar was wife to the poet c Urwa 
b. al-Ward al- c AbsI (Ibn Hisham, 653 f.). A con- 
federacy (hilf) between them and the Banu Malik 
of Kinana is mentioned in Aghdni 1 , xi, 126 ff. 
Living as they did in the neighbourhood of Medina it 
was essential to the Prophet that they should not 
take sides with the Kuraysh; he therefore guaranteed 
them in one of his earliest letters the protection 
(dhimma) of Allah and His messenger for their lives 
and goods (Ibn Sa c d, i, 2, 26 f.). In this treaty 
Muhammad did not insist on their conversion; 
but by 8/630 they had embraced Islam and took part 
in the conquest of Mecca. Some of them had settled 
at Medina, e.g., Abu Dharr [q.v.] and his nephew 
c Abd Allah b. al-Samit; Siba c b. 'Urfuta as well as 
Abu Ruhm are even said to have been left by the 
Prophet as his representatives in Medina during 
some of his expeditions (Ibn Hisham 668, 810, 
896, 966). 

After the Prophet's death the Banu Ghifar did 
not join in the revolt (ridda), nor were their deeds 
outstanding in the time of the conquests (futuh). 
We hear of the quarter (khitta) they had in Fustat, 
when c Amr b. al- c As conquered Egypt in 20/641 
(Yakut, Mu'diam, ii, 746). 

In 45/665 Hakam b. 'Amr, a younger Companion 
of the Prophet (see Ibn Hadjar, Isdba, s.v.), was 
appointed to the governorship of Khurasan; he died 
at Marw in 51/671. He was called al-Ghifarl, though 
his ancestor was not Ghifar, but the latter's brother 
Nu'ayla, whose descendants being few in number had 
affiliated themselves to the Banu Ghifar (Tabarl, 
ii, 80 f., 84 f., 109-11). 

Bibliography: Indexes to Ibn Hisham; 
Wakidi (transl. by Wellhausen); Tabari; Yakut, 
Mu c djam; Aghdni, Tables; Wustenfeld, Genealo- 
gische Tabellen, N 13, index 172; W. M. Watt, 
Muhammad at Mecca; idem, Muhammad at 
Medina (indexes). For Ghifar in the tradition see 
Wensinck, Concordance, iv, 529, 42-6. 

(J. W. FCck) 
GHILZAY [see ghalzay]. 

CHINA 3 (a), song, singing. This is the specific 
meaning of the word, although it stands for music in 
its generic sense, an interpretation accepted by the 
Ikhwan al-Saf5 5 (4th/ioth century) who say (Bombay 
ed., i, 87): "musiki is ghina', and the musikdr is the 
mughanni" (see R. Payne-Smith, Thes. Syr., 977, 
s.v. hedhrula). The origin and development of the 
song must be traced through the folk. From a 
musical point of view there is no difference between 
the simple chant of the fakir and the artless song of 
the sakkd' (water-carrier), or between the elaborate 
cantillation of the mu'adhdhin (caller to prayer) and 
the highly festooned vocal work of the professional 



mughanni (singer). In some lands ghina' is classified 
according to the structure of the music whether 
classical or popular, whilst in other lands it is 
grouped according to the class of verse used. In 
Morocco the song is divided into folk song or popular 
song called kariha (natural talent), and the art song 
called dla (classical) or san'-a (art work). In Algeria it 
is grouped under kaldm al-hazl (profane song) and 
kaldm al-djidd (serious song). 

The Djahiliyya. Just as we see the double 
meaning of the Latin carmen (charm, song), so the 
Arabic lahana and sha'ara (from which we derive 
lahn (melody) and shi'r (poetry)) have, in their 
pristine significance, the meaning of 'he understood' 
in the cryptic sense. Perhaps the hudd* (camel driver's 
song) was, at first, a 'charm' against the ajinn 
(genii) of the desert. The hudd'lhidd* was not confined 
to the camel driver. The toil or industrial song was 
to be found on every hand. Indeed we read of the 
Arabs of old singing at toil for their Assyrian task- 
masters. That dominating factor of repetition not 
only relieved the monotony of work but it regulated 
and disciplined it. Ibn Djinni (d. 392/1002) has said 
that the drawer of water will go on working as long 
as the radjaz chant continues. The water carrier, the 
boatman, the weaver, the gleaner, and even the 
women of the tent or household sang at work just as 
they do today. Al-Mas'udi avers that the hudd> was 
developed out of the bikd' (lament) of the women. 
Out of this came the nawk (elegy) and the nasb 
(secular song) which found expression on all occasions 
of joy, and would include wedding songs, children's 
songs and lullabies. 

We know nothing of the verse or music of these 
early folk songs, any more than we know the character 
of those mentioned in Exodus, XV, 21 or Numbers, 
XXI, 17, although the names of some singers have 
been preserved. Al-Djawharl (d. 396/1006) and Ibn 
SIda (d. 458/1066) affirm that the nasb was peculiar 
to the Arabs but was no more than a refined hudd', 
and al-Ghazzali (d. 505/1111) says that its measure 
(wazn) was based on the prosody { c arud) of the verse. 
Probably much of pre-Islamic poetry was sung, 
as Brockelmann suggested. Only by this means 
could full justice be done to the poetic language. It 
was not a mere guess which prompted St. Guyard 
and Landberg to suggest that Arabic prosody was 
based on musical principles. That verse was originally 
in the colloquial may be accepted, hence the term 
lahn came to imply the colloquial. Certainly the folk 
song is partly responsible for perpetuating corrup- 
tions in speech, and both melody and measure are 
sovereign perpetuators, as we see in the malhun of 
Morocco. The melodic framework of folk song is 
quite simple, a solitary musical phrase being the 
general rule, and that is repeated with each bayt 
(verse) or even each misrd' (hemistich). The compass 
is generally tetrachordal or pentachordal, although 
even two notes might carry the limit of a toil song. 
Adornments (tahsin) of the melody by means of 
grace notes — always the mark of ability in the 
professional mughanni (singer) — is rarely indulged 
in by the folk. Three types of ghind' are practised, — 
the solo, chorus, and antiphon. Both the measured 
{mizdn al-shi'r) and unmeasured {ghayr mawzun) are 
in use. The former is called the naskid, inshdd, 
unshuda, and the latter the tartll. 

Needless to say the art song existed with the 
kayndt, dddfindt, mudfindt, or karindt (professional 
singing-girls) of the tribes, wine shops, and private 
families, the term musmi'at, found in al-A'sha 
Maymun, being probably post-Islamic. History — or 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



legend — mentions these singing-girls among the old 
Banu 'Amallk (see al-Tabari, i, 231; al-Mas c udi, 
Murudj, iii, 296) , and certainly the kinitu was known 
to ancient Assyria. That all played a prominent part 
in social life is evident from the story of the Prophet 
Muhammad himself. Lyall, in his Mufaddaliydt 
(XXVI, 87), opines that these kayndt were 'all 
foreigners' and that they sang 'probably to foreign 
airs', but he gives no evidence; whilst the statement 
of von Kremer that they did not even sing in Arabic 
is likewise unacceptable. That some of them came 
from Persia, or more likely al-Hira, and even 
Byzantium, and that some of their songs were sung 
in an alien tongue is quite admissible, but we know 
that some came from Mecca. Al-Nabigha the poet 
was corrected by a kayna for using faulty rhymes 
{ikwd^). That one — at least — was scarcely a foreigner 
(Aghdni, ix, 164; xvi, 15). Most of the great pagan 
poets were entranced by those singing-girls, and 
among them Bishr b. c Amr, al-A c sha Maymun b. 
Kays, and c Abd Yaghuth. Even Tarafa, Labid, and 
<Abd al-Masih were overjoyed to hearken to the 
dfank (harp) and tardji' (refrain) of the tavern 
kayna. Perron says that before Islam, 'music was 
little else than unpretentious psalming (tarannum), 
varied and embroidered by the singer'. Everyone 
sang in unison or octave, harmony — in our sense of 
the term — being unknown. What took its place was 
what the Arabs called ilia' (rhythm) supplied by a 
kadib (rhythmic wand), duff or mizhar (tambourines), 
or, failing the latter, a ghirbdl (a parchment-bottom 
sieve). Every singer decorated her melody with 
vocal ornaments (zawdHd). Tarafa reveals how the 
song began on a low note, whilst another describes a 
singer who 'prolonged the final vowels with a high 
trill {tudhriy and clearly enunciated the syllables in 
the tartil fashion. 

Under Islam. At the birth of Islam there was no 
opposition to singing, since even the Prophet 
Muhammad himself had joined in the toil-song at 
the digging of the trenches at Mecca, yet the four 
Orthodox Caliphs are reported to have been — more 
or less — in opposition to any indulgence in listening 
(al-samd c ) to singing or any music. As a result, the 
rigid school of religious law in 'Irak prohibited, and 
that, more accommodating, of Madina, allowed sing- 
ing, and a whole library of literature — both for and 

a legal fiction arose which argued that the cantil- 
lation (taghbir) of the Kur'an was not the same as 
singing, as we read in Ibn Khaldun. Yet, as Ibn 
Kutayba pointed out, the rule and practice of 
cantillation and singing were identical, and — as we 
read in the c Ikd of Ibn c Abd Rabbih— if the artistic 
song was illegal, so was the chanting of the Kur'an. 
Human nature, being what it is, could not accept the 
bigoted ruling of the pious, and so there arose, in 
addition to the privately owned kayna or singing- 
girl, the professional musician {mughanni), the first 
recorded being Tuways (10/632-92/711 [q.v.]). He, 
and a mughanniya named c Azzat al-Mayla 5 [?.».], are 
said to have introduced a new type of song called the 
ghind* al-mutkan (artistic song) or ghind' al-rakik 
(graceful song). According to Ibn al-Kalbi, 'the 
ghind' is of three kinds — (1) the nasb, which was the 
song of the riders (ghind > al-rukbdn) and the singing- 
girls {kayndt) : (2) the sindd, which had a slow 
refrain {taraji'), but was full of notes {naghamdt): 
and (3) the hazadj which was quick (khafif)' . Yet a 
new element had arisen called ikd c (rhythm), which 
was distinct from l arud (metre), and was external 
because it was supplied by tasfik (handclapping), o r 



a pulsatile instrument such as the kadib (wand), duff, 
mizhar, of ghirbdl (tambourine). All the aswdt (songs) 
contained in the Kitdb al-Aghdni are in the kasida 
(ode) or kifa (fragment) forms, and many collections 
of songs were made by Yflnus al-Katib (d. c. 148/765), 
Ibn Djami' (d. c. 187/803), Yabya al-Makki (d. c. 205/ 
820), Ishak al-Mawsili (d. 236/850), Hasan b. Mfisa 
al-Nasibi (d. c. 246/860), Ibn Bana [q.v.] or Banata 
(d. 278/891), and al-Wazir al-Maghribi (d. 417/1026). 
Later new popular forms of song appeared such as the 
muwashshah, zadjal, mawwdl, billik and kdnkdn. 
Indeed the first named was lifted into a premier 
place in Muslim Spain. Alas! not a note has been 
preserved. All that we know of the songs in the 
Kitdb al-Aghdni of al-Isfahani, is the name of the 
tonal mode (asba c ) and rhythmic mode (darb) in 
which they were sung. It is not until the time of Safi 
al-Din c Abd al-Mu'min (d. 693/1294) that we get a 
notation — or rather a tablature — of a song in 
Arabic books on music, whilst c Abd al-Kadir b. 
Ghaybi (d. 838/1435) is the earliest of the Persians 
to use a notation or tablature for a song. In the 
8th/i4th-9th/i5th centuries three definite types of 
vocal music were recognized, — the nashid, the basif, 
and what was contained in the nawba, the latter 
being a vocal and instrumental suite des pieces. The 
nashid comprised two parts, the first being an un- 
rhythmical setting of two verses called the nashr al- 
naghamdt, the second being a rhythmic setting 
called the nazm al-naghamdt. The basif was a kit'-a 
set in one of the thakil rhythms. 

All singing in the Islamic East is basically homo- 
phonic, »,«., purely melodic. Harmony, in our con- 
notation of the term, is unknown. The greater part of 
the Islamic East conceives music horizontally, 
whereas Europe views it vertically. All melody is 
modal. In the days of the Kitdb al-Aghdni there were 
but eight modes, but with the later impingement of 
Iranian culture there were eighteen or more. These 
were originally called asdbi' (fingers), but later were 
named naghamdt (notes), makdmdt (places), or (ibd c 
(natures), the latter term revealing the belief in the 
innate character of a particular mode. Then there are 
and were motives or patterns in the melody, some 
being hoary with antiquity. As every verse of a song 
is complete in itself, i.e., it contains a compact 
thought, it originally consisted of the same melodic 
phrase, but from the time of Ibn Muhriz (d. c. 96/ 
715) the second verse was set to a different melody. 
These factors do not imply monotony, because the 
singer varies her or his rendition of the melody 
differently by means of ornaments (zawdHd, tahdsin 
or zuwwak). For vocalizing these latter, special 
syllables are introduced such as ah, yd and la, when 
the more conventional yd layli or tiri tar do not 
suffice. These occur in various places, viz., in the 
bosom of a word, and the end of a phrase, or the close 
of a hemistich, verse, or song, and in the last position 
it is called shughl (work). Of course in the folk or toil 
songs none of the above artistries occur, although 
some chants of the pearl fishers off the Bahrain coast 
reveal something of the sort. It is highly probable 
that the metric melodies (naghamdt al-buhur), which 
are still used in North Africa to probe the scansion 
of verse, may be survivals of many of. the old types 
of songs, even as far back as the days of early Islam. 
Bibliography: General. J. Ribera, La 
musica de las cdntigas, Madrid 1922; translated 
into English as Music in ancient Arabia and Spain 
by E. Hague and M. Leffingwell, Stanford, 
California 1929; Ahmad al-Shubrawi, Rawdat ahl 
al-fakdha, Cairo 1317; Ahmad b. Muhammad b. 



'All al-HidjazI, Rawd al-adab, fasl 6, Cairo MS; 
'All b. Muhammad al-Haddad, Hadikat al-mund- 
dama, bab 29, Cairo MS; Muhammad b. Muham- 
mad Sa'd al-Misri, Tuhfat ahl al-fakdha, bab 9, 
Cairo 1307; R. Lachman, Musik des Orients, 
Breslau 1929; H. G. Farmer, History of Arabian 
music, London 1929. — Arabia and Mesopo- 
tamia. Landberg, Critica arabica, in Arabica, 
iiiff., Leiden 1895; Sachau, Arabische Volkslieder 
aus Mesopotamien, Berlin 1889; Meissner, Neu- 
arabische Gedichte aus dem Iraq, in MSOS, vii/2 
(1904); Idelsohn, Gesdnge der jemenischen Juden, 
Leipzig 1914; Djurdji Ibrahim al-Dimashki, 
Nuzhat al-talab, Cairo 1310; c Abd al-Razik al- 
Husayni, al-Aghdni al-shu c ubiyya, Baghdad 1348; 
'Abbas al- r Azzawi, al-Musiki al-Hrakiyya, Bagh- 
dad 1370; c Abd al-Karlm al-'AUaf, al-Tarab Hnd 
al-'-ardb, Baghdad 1364. 

The Maghrib. G. Host, Nachrichten von Marokos 
und Fes, Copenhagen 1787; A. Chris tianowitsch, 
Esquisse historique de la musique arabe, Cologne 
1863; F. Salvador Daniel, La musique arabe, ses 
rapports avec la musique grecque et le chant 
grlgorien, Algiers 1879; translated as The music 
and musical instruments of the Arab by H. G. 
Farmer, London 1915; G. Delphin and L. Guin, 
Notes sur la poisie et la musique arabes dans le 
Maghreb algirien, Paris 1886; Stumme, Tripoli- 
tanisch-tunisische Beduinenlieder, Leipzig 1893; 
idem, Tunisische Mdrchen und Gedichte, Leipzig 
1893 ; Fischer, Das Liederbuch eines marokkanischen 
Sdngers, Leipzig 1918; 0. Sonneck, Six chansons en 
dialecte Maghrebin, in J A, 1899; idem, Chants 
arabes du Maghreb, Paris 1902; E. Yafil and 
J. Rouanet, Ripertoire de musique arabe et maure, 
Algiers 1904 ff.; E. Yafil, Madpnu 1 al-aghdni wa 
'l-alhdn min kaldm al-Andalus, Algiers 1904; 
Laffage, La musique arabe, ses instruments, ses 
chants, Tunis 1905; R. Mitjana, L'Orientalisme 
musical et la musique arabe, in MO, i (1906), 184- 
221; J. Rouanet, La musique arabe, in Lavignac, 
Encyclopidie de la musique, v, Paris 1922; Lens, 
Ce que nous savons de la musique et des instruments 
de musique du Maroc, in Bull. Inst, des Hautes 
Etudes Marocaines, i (1920), 137-52; Al-Ha'ik 
[Collection of Songs, in many libraries in the 
Maghrib]; Chevrillon, Chants dans la nuit a Mar- 
rakech, in France-Maroc, 1918; A. Chottin, Airs 
populaires recueillis a Fes, in Hesplris, 1923-24; 
idem, La pratique du chant chez les musiciens 
marocains, in Zeitschr. f. vergleichende Musik- 
wissenschaft, Berlin 1933; idem, Corpus de musique 
marocaine, i, Paris 1931; Derwil and Essafi, 
Chansons marocaines, in Revue Mlditerranlenne, 
1932; R. Lachmann, Die Musik in den tunisischen 
Stddten, in Archiv f. Musikwissenschaft, 1923; 
E. von Hornbostel, Phonographeierte tunesische 
Melodien, in Samml. Intern. Musikgesellschaft, 
1906; Desparmet, La poisie arabe actuelle a Blida, 
in Actes du XIV im ' Congres Intern, des Orient. — 
Turkestan. Fitrat, Uzbik kildsik musikdsi, 
Tashkent 1927; Uspensky-Belayev, Turkmenskajja 
muzika, Moscow 1928; idem. Shash makdm, 1924; 
Mironov, Pesni Fergani Bukhari i Khivi, Tashkent 
1931; R. Lach, Die Musik der tiirkischen . . . und 
Kaukasusvolker , in Mitt. d. Anthrop. Gesellschaft in 
Wien, vol. 1; P. Aubry, Au Turkestan. Notes 
sur quelques habitudes musicales chez les Tadjiks et 
chez les Sartes, Paris 1905. — Turkey: E. Litt- 
mann, Turkische Volkslieder aus Kleinasien, in 
ZDMG, 1899; E. von Hornbostel and Abraham, 
Phonographeierte turkische Melodien, in Samml. f. 



GHINA' — GHIYAR 



vergleichende Musikwissenschaft, Munich 1904; 
E. Borrel, La musique turque, in Revue de Musico- 
logie, 1923; Ra'uf Yekta Bey, La musique turque, 
in Lavignac, Encycl. de la musique, v, Paris 1922 ; 
idem, Shark musiki ta'rikhi, Istanbul 1343; idem, 
Esdtid-i Ethan, Istanbul 1303; Mahmud Raghib, 
Anadolu turkuleri, Istanbul 1928; Sayf al-DIn and 
Seza 5 ! Bey, Yurdumuzuii naghmalari, Istanbul 1926; 
Dar al-elhdn kulliyyati, Istanbul ; Chansons popu- 
lates turques, Istanbul (these two latter published 
by the Dar al-elhan). See also the publications 
of Shamll Iskandar and Tewfik, notably the Aheng 
of Sami Bey, the Mad±mu'-a-i elhdn of Djewdet 
Bey, and the collections of the Dar al-ta c lim-i 
musiki, the publications of Shamll Selim. — Syria, 
Lebanon, Palestine. E. Littmann, Neuar- 
abische Volkspoesie, in Abh. G. W. Goti, 1902; H. G. 
Farmer, Grove's Dictionary of Music, viii, 251-8; G. 
Dalman, A rabische Gesange, in Paldstinajahrbuch, 
1924; idem, Nachlese arabischer Lieder aus Pald- 
stina, in Beitrdge zur alttestamentlichen Wissenschaft, 
1920; idem, Paldstinischer Diwan, Leipzig 1906; 
Outry, La musique arabe en Palestine, in Rev. musi- 
cale, 1905; M. Hartmann, Arabische Lieder aus 
Syrien, in ZDMG, 1897; H. M. Huxley, Syrian 
songs, proverbs', and stories, in JAOS, 1902; M. 
Mushaka, al-Risdla al-Shihdbiyya fi san'-at al-mu- 
siki, Beirut 1899 (English tr. in JAOS, i; French 
tr. in MFOB, vi) ; al-Safardjalani, al-Safina al-ada- 
biyya, Damascus 1308; Salhanl, Randt al-mathdlith, 
Beirut 1888; Butrus al-Bustani, Dd'irat al-ma'drif, 
Beirut 1304; Nasim al-Dalw al-Lubnanl, Izdlat al- 
shuajunfi aghdni, Beirut 19 10; R. A. Stewart Mac- 
alister, in Palestine Exploration FundQuarterly State- 
ment, 1900; J. Parisot, Rapport sur une missionscien- 
tifique en Turquied'Asie, Paris 1899; idem, Rapport 
sur une mission scientifique en Turquie etSyrie, Paris 
1903; A. Idelsohn, Die Maqamender arab. Musik, in 
Sammelbande der intern. Musik-Gesellschaft, xv, 
Leipzig 1913; idem, Gesange der orient. Sefardim, 
Berlin 1922. — Egypt. G. A. Villoteau, in La 
Description de I'Egypte, Paris 1809-26; E. Lane, 
Modern Egyptians' 1 , London i860; Bouriant, 
Chansons populaires arabes en dialecte du Caire, 
Paris 1893; Ibrahim al-Dandarawi, Muhhtdrat al- 
aghdni, Cairo; Ibrahim Ghanimat al-Kanundji, 
Sayd al-hamdm, Cairo; Loret, Quelques documents 
relatifs a la litterature el la musique populaires de 
la Haute-Egypte, in Mim. Mission archeol. fran- 
caise, i, Paris 1889; Ahmad Rami, Aghdni Rami, 
Cairo 1927; Habib Zaydan, Madjmu'at al-aghdni, 
Cairo 1928; Hasan al-Alati, Tarwih al-nufus, Cairo 
1889; Muhammad b. Isma'il, Safinat al-mulk, 
Cairo 1309; c Abd al-Rahman Mahmud, al- 
Mughanni al-misri al-hadith, Cairo; Kamil al- 
Khula% Kitdb al-Musiki al-sharki, Cairo 1332; 
idem, Nay I al-amdni, Cairo; idem, al- Aghdni al- 
'afriyya, Cairo 1341; Mustafa Sadik al-R5fi c i, 
al-Nashid al-Misri al-watani, Cairo 1339; Marsa 
Shakir al-Tantawi, Aghdni al-shabdb, Cairo 1341; 
c Ali Imam 'Atiyya, al-Musiki wa 'l-aghdni, Cairo 
1348; Darwlsh Muhammad, Safd' al-awkdt, Cairo 
1328; Muhammad A. al-Hifnl, Sayyid Darwish, 
Cairo 1955, Umm Kulthum, Ashhar al-aghdni, 
Cairo c. i960. — Berbers: F. Salvador Daniel, 
La musique arabe (with a Notice sur la musique 
Kdbyle), Algiers 1879; Hanoteau, Poteies popu- 
raires de la Kabylie, Paris 1867; Rouger, Chansons 
berberes, in France-Maroc, 1920; E. von Horn- 
bostel and R. Lachmann, Asiatische Parallelen zur 
Berbermusik, in Zeitschr. /. vergleichende Musik- 
wissenschaft, 1933; Coliac, Chansons berberes de la 



Rigion d'Azilal, in France-Maroc, 1920; Chottin, 

Musique et danses berbires du pays chleuh, in 

Corpus de musique marocaine, ii, Rabat 1933. 
(Henry G. Farmer) 

GHIRBlB B. C ABD ALLAH, minor poet of 
Toledan origin who played a political r61e in his 
native town soon after the succession of the amir al- 
Hakam I (180/796) by supporting the agitation 
stirred up by one 'Ubayd Allah b. Khamlr (variant 
names). Ghirblb. who exercised great influence at 
Toledo, had conceived a grudge against al-Hakam 
and, having fled from Cordova, set to work to foster 
an atmosphere of hostility to the Umayyad amir at 
Toledo by means of his mordant verses. The latter 
finally entrusted the task of restoring order to the 
muwallad c Amrus, who put down the revolt savagely 
and decimated the Toledan bourgeoisie on the "Day 
of the Ditch" (wak'at al-hufra). E. Levi-Provencal 
has established that this event took place in 181/797 
(and not in 191/807 as is generally accepted); and as, 
according to tradition, al-Hakam feared Ghirblb too 
much to embark on an expedition against Toledo as 
long as the poet was alive, there is reason to think 
that he died in 181/797. Nothing remains of his 
poetical output except a few lines of no great value. 
Bibliography: PabbI, Bughya, no. 1281; Ibn 

al-Kutiyya, in E. Fagnan, Extraits inidits relatifs 

au Maghreb, Algiers 1924, 196; Gonzalez Palencia, 

Literatura 2 , 47, 53; Dozy, Hist. Mus. Esp., ii, 62; 

E. Levi-Provencal, Hist. Esp. Mus., i, 159. 

(Ed.) 

GHIRSH [see sikka]. 

GH IYAR (Arabic: distinguishing, distinction, 
cognizance) is a term denoting the compulsory 
distinctive mark in the garb of dhimmi [q.v.] subjects 
under Muslim rule. It is considered probable that 
the ghiydr became the prototype of the Jewish badge 
in Christian Europe. 

In Islamic lands it was part and parcel of the 
dispositions concerning the status of the dhimmis 
which can be traced back to the time of Mutawakkil's 
enactments (233/849), but had been known even 
earlier; thus under Harun al-Rashid they were 
discussed in Abu Yusuf's K. al-Kharddi (72 f.) 
where they are ascribed to c Umar. From time to time 
when a recrudescence of znti-dhimmi restrictions 
occurred the re-introduction of the ghiydr figures in 
the reports. 

It is described as a piece of cloth, a patch of a 
stipulated colour (red, blue, yellow) placed over the 
shoulder. The Tdd£ mentions that some considered 
it the badge of the Jew. On the other hand, in various 
sources the word denotes any kind of garb distinction 
imposed upon dhimmis,, and indeed the garment 
which bears the mark. Both the wider connotation 
and the narrower seem well attested. Thus the 
zunndr (a special belt) of the Christians often comes 
under this heading. The colours changed in the 
course of time for each infidel community. The 
muhtasib [q.v.] was supposed to see to it that the 
statutes concerning the dhimmis in general were 
enforced, and the wearing of the ghiydr, in particular, 
observed. 

In the Maghrib the name shakla occurs for the 

Bibliography: Lane s.v.; R. Dozy, Diction- 
naire ... des vitements . . ., Amsterdam 1845, 
24 ft., esp. 28, 196 ff.; IA, iv, 781; A. Fattal, Le 
statut Ugal des non-musulmans . . ., Beirut 1958, 
96-110; A. S. Tritton, The caliphs and their non- 
Muslim subjects, London 1930, Ch. viii; D. Santil- 
lana, Istituzioni, vi, 101 ; Juynboll, Handbucb, 



GHIYAR — GHIYATH al-DIN TUGHLUK I 



352 f.; Ibn al-Ukhuwwa. Ma'dlim al-Qurba, ed. 
R. Levy, London 1938, 41/14 and 46/15; A. Mez, 
Renaissance, 45 f.; R. Brunschvig. La Berbirie . . ., 
i, Paris 1940, 403 ff.; E. Strauss, The history of the 
Jews in Egypt and Syria under Mamluk rule, ii 
(Hebrew) Jerusalem 1951, 210-8; S. W. Baron, 
A Social and religious history of the Jews, hi, 
Philadelphia 1957, 139 ff., 298; E. Strauss in 
Paul Hirschler Memorial Volume, Budapest 1950; 
E. Fagnan in RE J, xxviii (1894), 294-8; Use 
Lichtenstaedter, The distinctive dress of non- 
Muslims in Islamic countries, in Historia Judaica, 
xxx, 1943, 35-52; H. Zayyat in Machriq, 1949, 
161 ff., esp. 235 f. (M. Perlmann) 

CHIYAlH al-DIN [see dihlI sultanate, kay- 

KHUSRAW, MUHAMMAD]. 

GHIYAlH al-DIN NAKKAfiH, TImurid 
courtier. If he was an artist, as the name indicates 
(nahihiash = painter, etc.), his speciality is unknown. 
He was a protegi of Baysonghor [q.v.], the gifted son 
of Shah Rukh, and was attached by his patron to 
the TImurid embassy to China in 823/1420-825/1422, 
with the special duty of drawing up a day-to-day 
descriptive account of the embassy. This report of 
the journey from Harat to Khanbaligh (Pekin) and 
back, giving first-hand information about China 
which is not to be found elsewhere, at one time 
existed in writing, and has been incorporated into 
the Zubdat al-tawdrikh of Hafiz Abru, the Matla"- 
al-sa'-dayn of c Abd al-Razzak al-Samarkandi, etc. 
On the 18th century Turkish translation, called 
' "i'ib al-latd'if, by Kucuk Celebizade, see 



Babinj 



r 293-4 



Bibliography : E. Quatremere, Notices et 
Extraits, xiv, 1, 1843, 308 ff., 387 ff. (Persian text 
and Fr. tr. of the version of c Abd al-Razzak al- 
Samarkandi) ; M. Shafl c , Oriental College Magazine, 
vii, 1 (Lahore Nov. 1930), 1-66 (Persian text, with 
notes, of the version of Hafiz Abru) ; K. M. Maitra, 
A Persian Embassy to China ; being an extract from 
Zubdatu't Tawarikh of Hafiz Abru, Lahore 1934; 
D. M. Dunlop, Hdfiz-i Abru's Version of the 
Timurid Embassy to China in A.D. 14 20 , in 
Glasgow University Oriental Society Transactions, 
xi (1946), 15-19. (D. M. Dunlop) 

GHIYATH al-DIN TUGHLUK I (GhazI 
Malik), founder of the Tughluk dynasty and 
ruler of India from 720/1320 to 725/1325, was by 
origin a Karawna Turk and an immigrant from 
Khurasan, who took service under the Khaldjis. In 
705/1305 he was appointed governor of Dipalpur in 
the Pandjab, and as warden of the marches he held 
the Mongols at bay for fifteen years, conducting 
annual raids against them in the Kabul and Ghazna 

The prestige thus gained was his main asset when 
he rose against Khusraw Khan, a Khaldji general of 
low-caste Hindu Parwari origin, who had massacred 
the last Khaldji ruler, Kutb al-DIn Mubarak (716/ 
1316-720/1320) and all the Khaldji princes, seized the 
throne, apostatized from Islam and begun a reign 
of terror in Dihli. Most of the Muslim governors had 
accepted Khusraw Khan's rule passively, probably 
owing to the lack of reliable intelligence from Dihli. 
GhazI Malik addressed his da'wa of djihdd to only six 
governors of western India, of whom one joined him, 
two who refused to join were murdered by their own 
troops, while another who promised to help was 
restored to authority by his formerly rebellious 
troops. The Tughluk revolution was therefore the 
work of the rank and file of the Muslim army, rather 
than of the Muslim ruling elite. Three decisive 



ing in the capture and execution of 
Khusraw Khan left GhazI Malik the undisputed 
master of the Sultanate. Despite his refusal, he was 
raised to the throne by the idjmd' of the nobles, as 
the defender and restorer of Islamic power in India 
against the double challenge of Mongol threat and 
Hindu subversion. He assumed the title Ghiyath 
al-Din. 

Contemporary Muslim historiography eulogises 
him as the saviour of Islam in India, and Baranl 
presents him as the ideal sultan who combined a 
heroic r61e with personal virtues of continence, 
chastity and piety. The hagiographical tradition is 
much less complimentary owing to the Sultan's 
differences with the Cishti mystic Nizam al-Din 
Awliya on two points: acceptance by the latter of a 
large gift of money from Khusraw Khan, which he 
was unable to restore to the treasury when called 
upon; and the practice of the Cishtiyya [q.v.] to 
listen to music (samd 1 ). To settle the second point 
the Sultan convened a great congress of c ulamd } and 
Sufis, and finally imposed some restriction on the 
samd 1 of the heterodox Sufis, without interfering 
with the practices of the Cishti leader. Anecdotes of 
subsequent bitterness seem to be later apocryphal 
legends connected with the death of Ghiyath al-DIn 
which found their way from later hagiographical 
writings like those of Djamali into the serious 
historical works of Firishta and others; they are not 
traceable either in contemporary chronicles or near- 
contemporary hagiographies like Hamld Kalandar's 
Khayr al-madjdlis. 

Administratively Ghiyath al-DIn's first problem 
was to restore the economy of the state after its 
upheaval and thorough fiscal chaos under Khusraw 
Khan. He had to resort to a policy of confiscation of 
djdgirs granted by his reckless predecessors, and to 
the more unpopular measures of appropriating older 
land-grants and army pensions ( c IsamI, 389-91). His 
taxation policy, which affected mainly the Hindu 
agricultural and land-owning classes, was to strike 
a via media, denying them opportunities of accumu- 
lation of wealth which might lead to rebellion, but 
granting them security of subsistence to enable them 
to pursue their husbandry. Between 722/1322 and 
723/1323, consolidation and expansion of the Sul- 
tanate was effected by this son Djawna Khan (also 
known as Ulugh Khan, later Sultan Muhammad b. 
Tughluk [q.v.]), who re-subjugated the rebellious 
Kakatlya radja Prataparuraveda II of Warangal 
after an initial reverse; annexed the Pandya Hindu 
kingdom of Madura (Ma'bar); invaded Djadjnagar 
and made incursions into the independent Hindu 
principality of Orissa. Ghiyath al-DIn personally led 
an expedition intervening in the civil war in Bengal, 
which was partly annexed to the sultanate and 
partly placed under a vassal ruler Nasir al-Din. 
During his five years' rule Ghiyath al-DIn had thus 
consolidated the sultanate and extended its borders 
considerably beyond the Khaldji frontiers. 

On his way back from Bengal in 725/1325 Ghiyath 
al-DIn was crushed to death under the roof of a 
wooden pavilion constructed hastily upon the orders 
of his son Djawna Khan, which collapsed during an 
elephant parade after a banquet. Djawna has been 
accused of parricide by two near-contemporary 
chroniclers, Ibn Battuta and c IsamI, both with 
strong prejudices against him. Other historians of 
the age, Barani and Yahya b. Ahmad Sarhindi, 
make no such accusation. Sir Wolseley Haig's 
theory of the involvement of Nizam al-Din Awliya in 
this alleged intrigue seems to be far-fetched. 



GHIYATH al-DIN TUGHLUK I — GHUDJDUWANl 



Bibliography: Barani, Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, 
Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1862, 4"-43; c I?amI, Futuh 
al-saldtin, ed. A. S. Usha, Madras 1948, 375-421; 
Yahya b. Ahmad Sarhindi, Ta'rikh-i Mubarak 
Shdhi, Calcutta 1921, 87 f.; Amir Khusraw. 
Tughluk Ndtna, ed. Hashimi Faridabadi, Awran- 
gabad 1933; Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi, Lucknow 
1905, passim; c Abd al-Kadir Bada'uni, Muntakhab 
al-tawdrikh, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1868, i, 221-5 
(= Eng. tr. by Ranking, Calcutta 1898, 296-301); 
Abu '1-Fadl 'Allami, AHn-i Akbari (Eng. tr. 
Jarrett), Calcutta 1949, ii, 311; c Abd al-Baki 
Nihawandi, MaHthir-i Rahimi, Bibl. Ind., Cal- 
cutta 1924, i, 340-5; Nizam al-DIn Ahmad, 
Tabakdt-i Akbari (Eng. tr. B. De), Bibl. Ind., 
Calcutta, i, 208-15; Hamid b. Fadl-AMh Djamali, 
Siyar al-'drifin, I.O. Pers. Ms. 1313, ff. 164b- 
166b; Muhammad b. Tughluk (attributed to), 
Fragment of memoir in B.M. Add. Ms. 2578, 
ff. 3i6a-3i7b; Ibn Battuta, iii, passim (H. von 
Mzik, Die Reise . . ., Hamburg 1911, index); 
E. Thomas, Chronicles of the Pathan Kings of 
Dehli, London 1871, 186 f.; Mahdi Husain, Life 
and times of Muhammad bin Tughluq, London 1938, 
45 f., 66-74; Ishwari Prasad, History of the 
Qaraunah Turks, Allahabad 1936, 2-51; N. Ven- 
kataramanayya, Early Muslim expansion in south 
India, Madras 1942, 126 f.; Shavkh Muhammad 
Ikram, Ab-i Kawthar, Karachi/Lahore 1958, 270-5, 
447-57; R. C. Majumdar, in The Delhi Sultanate, 
(Vol. vi of The history and culture of the Indian 
people), Bombay i960, 52-9, and passim; T. 
Wolseley Haig, Five questions in the history of the 
Tughluq dynasty of Dihli, in JRAS (1922), 319-72; 
Aziz Ahmad, The Sufi and the sultan in pre- 
Mughal Muslim India, in Isl., xxxviii (1962), 
142-53; S. K. Banerji, Ghiyasuddin Tughluq Shah 
as seen in his monuments and coins, in 7- of U.P. 
Hist. Soc, xv (1942), 45-54; K. K. Basu, The 
House of Tughlaq, in JASB, n.s. xxvi (1930), 
247-69; K. A. Nizami, Some religious and cultural 
trends in the Tughluq period, in 7- Pak. Hist. Soc, 
i ( I 953)> 234-43; idem, Early Indo-Muslim mystics 
and their attitude towards the state, in IC, xxii 
(1948), 387-98; xxiii (1949), 13-21, 162-70, 312-21; 
xxiv (1950), 60-71 ; S. Moinul Haq, Barani's 
History of the Tughluqs. Ghiydth al-din Tughluq, 
in 7. Pak. Hist. Soc, vii (1959), 1-23, 127-64. 

(Aziz Ahmad) 
GHIYATH al-DIN TUGHLUK SHAH II 
ibn Fath Khan ibn Sultan FIruz Shah Tughluk 
[q.v.] (790/1388-791/1389) succeded to his grand- 
father's throne according to his will, superseding a 
number of relatives. This led to the internecine 
dynastic wars which led to the decline, and finally 
the overthrow of the Tughluk dynasty. The Sultan's 
inexperience, his love of pleasure and his tactlessness 
in imprisoning his own brother Salar Khan led to the 
revolt of his nephew Abu Bakr son of Zafar Khan, 
who defeated and killed him with the aid of the 
wazir Rukn al-Din Canda. The reign of Ghiyath al- 
DIn Tughluk II marks the acceleration of chaos and 
civil strife in which the Delhi Sultanate rapidly 
disintegrated: a process which also marks the 
provincialization of Muslim culture in India during 
the 9th/i5th century. 

Bibliography: Bada'uni, i, 257-8 (= Eng. tr. 
by Ranking, i, 341-2); Nizam al-Din Ahmad, 
Tabakdt-i Akbari, Bibl. Ind., Calcutta 1927, i, 
241-2 (= Eng. tr. by B. De, Bibl. Ind., i, 261-2); 
Firishta (Briggs), i, 466-86; <Abd al-Baki Niha- 
wandi, Ma>dthir-i Rahimi, i, 381-2; Sikandar ibn 



Muhammad 'Manjhu', Mir'at-i Sihandari, ed. 

S. C. Misra and M. L. Rahman, Baroda 1961, 12; 

C A1I Muhammad Khan, Mir'at-i Ahmadi, Calcutta 

1928, i, 40. (Aziz Ahmad) 

SHUBAR [see hisab, khatt]. 

GHUBRlNl, nisba of the B. Ghubrin, a branch 
of the Zawawa Berbers who formerly inhabited the 
eastern end of Great Kabylia in Algeria (Ibn Khaldun, 
Berbires, Index s.v. Ghobrin) and who are still 
represented in the same area by the Ait Ghobri 
(Brunschvig, Berbirie orientate, i, 286). Two Ghubrinls 
played a role in Hafsid history: 

(1) Abu 'l- c Abbas Ahmad b. <Abd Allah, b. 644/ 
1246 at Bidjaya (Bougie) where he spent all his life 
and attained the rank of kadi 'l-kuddt. In 704/1304 
he was sent by the Hafsid ruler of Bougie, Abu 
'1-Baka 3 Khalid, as an emissary to establish friendly 
relations with the rival Hafsid at Tunis, Abu c Abd 
Allah. On his return he was accused of treason and 
of having been implicated in the death of Abu 
Ishak Ibrahim (who had been captured in Ghubrini 
territory 22 years previously) and was put to death. 

He wrote a collection of biographies of Bougiotes 
entitled c Unwdn al-dirdya . . . which was edited by 
Muhammad b. Abi Shanab (Mohammed Ben 
Cheneb) and published at Algiers in 1910. 

Bibliography: Ibn Farhun, Dibddj, Cairo 

I 35 I /i932, 80 (correct the date to 704); Nubahi, 

Ta'rikh kuddt al-Andalus, 132; Ibn Khaldun. 

Berberes, ii, 394, 418; Ben Cheneb, Idjdza, no. 354. 

(2) Abu Mahdi c Isa, who became kadi 'l-djama'-a 
at Tunis in 787/1385 and died there about 813/ 

Bibliography : Ibn Nadji, Ma'-ilim al-imdn, 
Tunis 1320/1902, iii, 103; Ibn al-Kadi, Durrat al- 
hidjdl, ed. Allouche, Rabat 1934, no. 1158; Ahmad 
Baba, Nayl al-ibtihadj, Cairo 1351/1932, 193. 

(J. F. P. Hopkins) 
GHUPJDUWAN (today Gizduvan), a large village 
in the northeastern part of the oasis of Bukhara, on 
the tributary of the Zarafshan River at present 
called Pirmast, formerly the Kharkan Rud. 

The origin of the village and etymology of the 

name are unknown. It is mentioned as a village of the 

town of Ramitin by al-Mukaddasi (267c), but no 

notices are found in other geographies. Al-Sam c ani 

(406b) says the village was six farsakhs from Bukhara. 

and was an important commercial centre. It is 

mentioned several times in Islamic texts as the home 

of several learned men. A lieutenant of the heretic 

al-Mukanna c came from there according to Narshakhi 

(see below). Babur in 918/1512 was defeated here 

by the Ozbeks. Thereafter little is heard of the 

village although the citadel was the scene of fighting 

several times. At present the village is sixteen 

kilometres/ 10 miles from the railroad station of 

Kyzyl-Tepe and ca. 50 km/30 m. from Bukhara. 

Bibliography: Barthold, Turkestan, 119-20; 

Narshakhi, trans. R. Frye, Cambridge, Mass. 

1954, note 249; Fadl Allah Khundji, Mihmdn- 

ndme-yi Bukhara, ed. M. Sutudah, Tehran 1962, 

62, et passim; M. MunshI, Mukim-khanskaya 

.Tsfortya.trans.A.A. Semienov, Tashkent 1956, 125. 

(R. N. Frye) 
GHUDJDUWAnT. Kh w adta <Abd al-Khalik b. 
c Abd al-DjamIl, famous sufi shaykh, born in 
Ghudjdawan (according to al-Sam c ani) or Ghadidu- 
wan (according to Yakut). His father, whose name 
has sometimes been corrupted into c Abd al-Djalil, 
lived at Malatya (Melitene); he migrated from 
there to the vicinity of Bukhara, where his son 
received his education. Certain writers trace his 






GHUDJDUWANI — GHOL 



ancestry to a royal dynasty of Rum (Asia Minor); 
others consider him to be a descendant of the imam 
Malik b. Anas and another source traces him back 
through ten generations to Abu '1-Hasan KharakanI, 
a famous sufl shaykh who died in 424/1033; this 
seems inadmissible, since only 193 years separate 
the date of the death of KharakanI from that of the 
death of GhudiduwanI (which appears the more 
exact) and during that time ten generations cannot 
be admitted; moreover KharakanI lived in Khurasan 
and the ancestors of Ghudjduwanl seem always to 
have been in Asia Minor. The only information we 
possess on his life tells us that he studied at Bukhara 
where, at the age of 22, he met his shaykh Abu Ya'kub 
Yusuf HamadanI, who died on Thursday 8 Muharram 
535/24 August 1140 (in reality a Saturday). Thanks 
to the latter he entered the sect of Sufis then called 
Tarikat-i Kh w ddieedn. later known as the Nakshban- 
diyya from the time of Baha 5 al-DIn Nakshband. 
Most of his biographers place his death in 575/1179, 
while another version gives the date 617/1220, which 
seems more correct because he twice mentions the 
date 600/1204 in his Risdla-i Sdhibiyya; what is 
more, his successor in the \arika, Kh w Sdia Ahmad 
Siddik, died in 657/1259, so that if GhudiduwanI had 
died in 575 his successor would have disappeared 
80 or 82 years after him, which is hardly likely. 
He was buried in Ghudjduwan. 

He has left a work in Persian comprising: several 
quatrains, the Risdla-i (arikat, the Wasiyyat-ndma 
or Wdsdyd (which was the subject of a commentary 
composed by Fadl Allah b. Ruzbihan IsfahanI, 
known under the title of Kh w adja Mawlana, died 
after 921/1515), the Risdla-i Sdhibiyya, eulogies of 
his master Yusuf HamadanI, a Dhikr-i Kh"ddia 
<Abd al-Khdlik. mentioned by Storey (mss. of Leyden, 
of the British Museum and of the India Office). 
The Risdla-i Sdhibiyya has been published with a 
commentary by the author of this article. We possess 
another anonymous risdla in Persian eulogizing him 
and his successor Kh w 5dia c Arif-i Riv-Gari, also 
published by the author of this article. 

Bibliography : Risdla-i Sdhibiyya, inFarhang-i 

Iran Zamin, i/i (1332), 70-110; Makdmdt-i l Abd 

al-Khdlik-i Ghudjdawdni wa c Arif-i Riv-Gari, 

ibid., ii/i (1333), 1-18; Sam c 5ni, Ansdb, fol. 406b; 

Kh w adia Muhammad Parsa, Fasl al-Khitdb, 

Tashkent 1331, 518-20; The Nafahdt al-Ons min 

Hadhardt al-qods by Mawldnd Noor al-din Abd 

al-Rahmdn Jdmi, Calcutta 1859, 431-3! Fakhr 

al-DIn c Ali al-Safi, Rashahdt-i ( Ayn al-haydt, 

Tashkent 1329, 18-28, Cawnpore 1912, 18-27; 

Muhammad Murad b. c Abd Allah KazanI, Tar- 

djamat-i c Ayn al-haydt, Mecca 1307, 25-23; Dara 

Shukuh, Safinat al-awliyd, Lucknow 1872, 76; 

Amin Ahmad RazI, Haft iklim, Tehran, iii, 425-7; 

Rida Kull Khan, Hidayat, Madjma<- al-fusahd', 

i, Tehran 1295, 338; idem, Riydd al- c drifin, Tehran 

1305, 105, 2 Tehran 1316, 172; Muhammad 

Muzaffar Husayn Saba, Ruz-i rawshan, Bhopal 

I2 95> 433-4J Ghulam Sarwar Lahorl, Khazinat 

al-asfiyd, Cawnpore 1914, i, 532-4; C. A. Storey, 

i/2, 1055; Said Naficy, Ta'rikh-i nazm wa nathr 

dar Iran wa dar zabdn-i fdrsi, Tehran 1342/1963, 

iio-i, 220, 252. (S. Naficy) 

CHUFRAN, masdar of ghafara, to forgive; refers 

to the two Kur'anic Divine Names, al-ghafur and 

al-ghaffdr, the Forgiver and He who unceasingly 

forgives. Thus: act of man forgiving an offence, but 

essentially: act of God forgiving sins. The term 

ghufrdn belongs to the vocabulary of Him al-kaldm, 

e.g. treatise on the "Last Things" [al-wa'-d wa 



'1-waHd) and chapter on tawba; and to the vocabulary 
of tasawwuf, e.g. "dwelling-place" (makdm) of 
repentance (tawba). Frequent synonym: al- c afw, 
which places the emphasis on forgiveness conceived 
as (total) annulment of the sinful act. — The condi- 
tions and methods of Divine forgiveness are analysed 
in the article tawba. (L. Gardet) 

£HCL (A., pi. ghildn or aghwdl), fabulous 
being believed by the ancient Arabs to inhabit 
desert places and, assuming different forms, to lead 
travellers astray (sometimes, like the Bedouins, 
lighting fires on the hills the more easily to attract 
them), to fall upon them unawares and devour them; 
certain isolated sources (cf. al-Mas c udi, Murudj, iii, 
315) affirm however that it fled as soon as it was 
challenged; according to al-Djahiz {Hayawdn, i, 309), 
it rode on hares, dogs and ostriches; men could kill 
it, but only by giving it one single blow, for a second 
restored it to life, and this is why it always asked 
anyone courageous enough to resist it to strike it 
again. The root of the word ghul seems to contain 
two different ideas: on the one hand the ability to 
assume different forms and on the other the treacher- 
ous attack. Indeed the ghul is considered as apt to 
change its form continually and to appear to travel- 
lers under the most attractive guises, its ass's 
hooves alone remaining unchangeable. The word 
denotes also any misfortune which happens unex- 
pectedly to a human being (cf. al-Djurdjanl, Ta'rifdt, 
s.v. ; Horten, Theol. des Islams, 335) ; it is also used, 
notably by Ka'b b. Zuhayr in verse 8 of his Bur da 
(cf. R. Basset, Bdnat So'dd, 102) to indicate fickleness, 
the ability of the ghul to change its shape and colour 
having become proverbial; in the same sense it is 
given the name of khayta c ur (see 



LA,s 



Early sources, while observing that ghul denotes 
a male as well as a female being, make it clear that 
the Arabs tended to regard it as a female; later 
sources however make it into a diabolical djinn and 
certain of them prefer to apply the word ghul to the 
male, of whom the female is called siHdt (pi. sa'dli), 
while others consider the kutrub as the male of the 
latter (see al-Damirl, s.v. kutrub); indeed these 
authors are not far from thinking that ghul and 
siHdt are the same thing, while al-Djahiz (Hayawdn, 
vi, 159), followed by al-KazwInl {'AdjdHb, following 
the Haydt al-hayawdn of al-Damirl, Cairo 1956, 214), 
states that the siHdt was distinguished from the 
ghul by the fact that she did not change her form; 
she was considered among the djinns, as a kind of 
witch (sdhira). However, although grammatical 
agreement with the word ghul is in the feminine, 
those who regard siHdt as the feminine of ghul can 
point to the fact that popular usage has formed a 
feminine ghula, and that, in a certain number of 
traditions, we find men having fruitful sexual rela- 
tions with sa'dli but rarely with ghildn. Attached to 
this group is the c uddr, an equally fabulous animal, 
a male whose habit was to make men submit to 
assaults, which proved mortal if worms developed 
in the anus of the victim; there is moreover a proverb : 
alwat min c uddr; it survives in the Yemen, in the 
Tihama and even in Upper Egypt (al-Djahiz, 
Hayawdn, vii, 178; al-Mas c udI, Murudj, iii, 319)- 

The Kur'an contains none of the above terms, 
but the Prophet was aware of popular beliefs on the 
subject of the ghildn; according to one hadith he 
denied their existence, but some commentators 
consider that he denied only their ability to change 
shape, all the more because, according to another 
hadith, he advised the repetition of the call to prayer 



GHOL — GHULAM 



as a way of escaping their evil deeds (cf. LA, s.v.; 
al-Damlri, s.v.). Hence it is not surprising that this 
belief survived in Islam to the point that al-Kazwini, 
followed by al-Damlri, does not hesitate to state 
that these beings are not uncommon in the thickets 
and reedy marshes and that if they can seize a man 
they play with him "like a cat with a mouse". 

However, the Mu'tazila, in the first place al- 
Djahiz, but also for example al-Zamakhshari (com- 
menting on Kur'an, XXXVII, 46), set out to demon- 
strate that this fabulous being did not exist. Al- 
Djahiz considers that the poets, in their vanity, have 
bolstered up the legend, for the interpretations, in 
which the imagination of the ruwdt has had a free 
rein, are based to a great extent on verses such as 
those of Ta'abbata Sharr*" who boasts of his 
familiarity with the sa'-dli or the ghildn which he 
met in the desert (cf. Aghdnl, xviii, 209 ff.). Al- 
Mas c udl (MuruH, iii, 314-22) devotes to the ghildn 
a whole chapter in which he tries to bring the discus- 
sion on to a higher level; unable to deny their 
existence, for c Umar b. al-Khattab himself is said 
to have seen and killed one (and other Companions 
too, see al-Kazwini and al-Damlri, s.v.), he reports 
a philosophical opinion— taken up later by al- 
Kazwini — according to which the ghul is a freak 
animal, naturally defective, which has strayed from 
all other animals to take refuge in inaccessible 
deserts; he suggests also that these beings are the off- 
spring of the constellation Perseus (Hdmil rah al-ghul) 
which, on rising, begets shapes and objects which are 
to be seen in deserts and even in inhabited regions. 
In Berber lands, belief in ogres and other fabulous 
creatures is of great antiquity and manifests itself 
in a great many stories, where, however, they tend 
to be islamized (see Westermarck, Ritual and belief 
in Morocco, ii; E. Laoust, Des noms berberes de 
Vogre et de I'ogresse, in Hespiris, xxxiv (1947), 253- 
65; idem, Conies berberes du Maroc, Paris 1949, ii, 
125 ff.). For belief in the ghiilia Persia, see H. Masse, 
Croyances et coututnes persans, ii, 351 ff. ; for Egypt, 
see especially C. E. Padwick, Notes on the Jinn and 
the Ghoul in the peasant mind of Lower Egypt, in 
BSOAS, iii (1923-5), 421-46. 

In popular language ghul (ghula, kutrub, etc.) is 
frequently used to indicate a cannibal, man or demon, 
and this ogre is often invoked as a threat to naughty 
children; it also appears in many stories and has 
even passed into French and English, where goule 
(fern.) and ghoul respectively correspond to the old 
Arabic original and indicate in addition a kind of 
vampire which digs up bodies at night to devour 
them (cf. Lane, Modern Egyptians, ch. x). 

Bibliography : Apart from the works quoted: 
Wellhausen, Reste, 137ft.; G. van Vloten, in 
WZKM, vii (1893), 178; R. Basset, Bdnat So'dd, 
Algiers 1910, 102, n. 2 and bibl. there given; idem, 
jooj Conies, i, 80-4, 153; Ibn Abi '1-Hadid, Sharh 
Nahdi al-baldgha, iv, 444 ff. — Persian stories: J. 
Malcolm, Sketches of Persia, ch. xvi. — Egyptian 
stories: Spitta Bey, Contes arabes, s.v. ghul. — 
North African stories: J. Desparmet, Contes popu- 
lates sur les ogres recueillis a Blida et traduits (Coll. 
de contes et chansons pop., xxxv), Paris 1909-10, 
2 vols.; H. Basset, Essai sur la lilt, des Berberes, 
Algiers 1920, 129-35. — Turkish stories: Kiinos, 
Tilrkische Volksmarchen, index s.vv. dew and 
dschinn. On the ghul which induces hydrophobia, 
see R. Burton, Pilgrimage, ch. xviii; on Sayddna, 
borrowed from Ethiopic, see Noldeke, Neue 
Beitrdge, 50. See further diw, djinn, 'ifrIt, etc. 
(D. B. Macdonald-[Ch. Pellat]) 



CHULAM (A., pi. ghilmdn), word meaning in 
Arabic a young man or boy (the word is used for 
example of the 'Abbasid princes al-Mu'tazz and al- 
Mu'ayyad, sons of al-Mutawakkil, at the time when 
their brother, the caliph al-Muntasir, attempted to 
make them renounce their rights to the succession 
(al-Tabarl, iii, 1485), while the son of al-Wathik, 
whom they hesitated to proclaim caliph because of 
his youth, is described as ghuldm amrad "beardless" 
(al-Tabari, iii, 1368)); then, by extension, either a 
servant, sometimes elderly (cf. Ch. Pellat, Milieu, 
Paris 1953, 69) and very often, but not necessarily, 
a slave servant (on this use see 'abd) ; or a bodyguard, 
slave or freedman, bound to his master by personal 
ties; or finally sometimes an artisan working in the 
workshop of a master whose name he used along 
with his own in his signature (cf. D. S. Rice, in 
BSOAS, xv (1963), 67, and Mayer, Metalworkers, 14). 

Every person of a certain rank in Arab Muslim 
society of the first centuries had in his service, 
sometimes in addition to free ghilmdn, a number of 
ghilmdn of servile status whose exact origin is not 
usually indicated and who are usually distinguished 
from the eunuchs, khadam [see khAdim] (as for 
example in the description of the household of the 
vizier al-Kasim under al-Muktafi, preserved in the 
Nishwdr of al-Tanukhi, ii, 159). Rulers owned an 
often impressive number of slave ghilmdn who 
served as attendants or guards and could rise to 
fairly high office in the hierarchy of the palace 
service, as well as others who formed a component of 
varying importance in the armed forces. It is with 
these latter ghilmdn and the role which they played 
in the running of various eastern and western Muslim 
states that this article is chiefly concerned. 

i.— The Caliphate 

We find hardly any mention of ghilmdn at the 
court or in the palace of the Umayyad caliphs, but 
Slavs and Berbers who were or had been slaves are 
already found in the entourages of certain princes 
or in their armies (T. Lewicki, in Folia Orientalia, 
iv (1962), 319 ff.). Certainly from the time of the 
foundation of the "Round City" of Baghdad, there is 
mention of the presence of ghilmdn in quarters inside 
the wall of the main fortification. But it is only under 
al-Mu c tasim that the ghilmdn proper took their place 
in the history of the Muslim world, after the slave 
element, notably in the person of the famous eunuch 
Masrur, had begun to play a r61e in the processes 
of government under Hariin al-Rashld. 

At the end of the reign of al-Ma 3 mun, his brother, 
the future al-Mu c tasim, had caused to be bought at 
Samarkand about three thousand Turkish slaves who 
were to form the nucleus of the new guard of the 
caliph and of the new army. The constitution of this 
guard is said to have been the cause of the transfer 
of the capital to Samarra in 221/836, although there 
must also have been other causes, connected with 
the policy followed by the caliph at that time. To 
the Turks recruited in Transoxania were added 
various slaves, also Turkish, who were in the service 
of certain dignitaries of Baghdad and who, according 
to al-Ya'kubi, were bought by the caliph. The new 
militia thus grew rapidly and, at Samarra, the 
Turkish ghilmdn were housed in special quarters, 
away from the Arab or Arabicized population, and 
obliged to take for wives young slaves of the same 
origin as themselves from whom they were never 
allowed to separate. They were divided into several 
groups under the command of leaders such as 
Ashnas, Waslf and Afshin who were themselves 



freedmen, and whose duty it was to lead their 
troops when on campaign. 

What was the reason for the establishment of this 
force of armed slaves, which was to supplant not only 
the earlier Arab contingents but also the Khurasan! 
troops who had appeared with the 'Abbasid dynasty 
and who, not long before, had effectively supported 
al-Ma'mun ? It was almost certainly the anxiety of 
the new caliphs to avoid the repetition of a civil 
war such as had broken out between al-Ma'mfln 
and al-Amin, and to strengthen the central power 
by enabling it to rely on forces free from all local 
attachments. In fact, these ghilmdn, whose numbers 
grew rapidly to several tens of thousands (20,000 or 
70,000 according to the estimates of Arabic writers), 
did not remain aloof from partisan struggles ; their 
appearance, though it caused profound changes in the 
functioning of the political regime, did not make the 
caliphate any more stable. 

It was not long before their commanders, usually 
freedmen, who enjoyed the unconditional loyalty 
of their troops, began to occupy important positions, 
either as governors in the provinces, or at the court 
where they ended by interfering in affairs of govern- 
ment and in the problems of the succession to the 
caliphate. It was some of these officers who assassin- 
ated the caliph al-Mutawakkil in 247/861 and, during 
the following years, their disputes were the basic 
cause of the dynastic troubles which constantly re- 
curred until the regent al-Muwaffak and then his 
son al-Mu c tadid succeeded in imposing their authority 
on the soldiery. Meanwhile there were numerous 
quarrels between these Turkish officers and the re- 
presentatives of the secretarial class which they tried 
to dominate. 

Although the situation appears calmer during the 
reign of al-Mu c tadid (279-89/892-902), the military 
chiefs still belonged to the new aristocracy formed 
by the descendants of the first ghilmdn; thus Badr, 
who was the caliph's supreme general and was often 
given the title of ghuldm — in the broadest sense — of 
the Caliph, was the son of a freedman of al-Muta- 
wakkil. The regiments of ghilmdn, whose importance 
had grown during the war against the Zandj, were at 
this time very numerous. Each regiment bore the 
name of the leader who commanded it or who had 
formed it (thus the BughdHyya was no doubt called 
after the name of an officer of al-Mutawakkil, 
Bugha al-Sharabi [q.v.] and the Ndsiriyya after that 
of the regent al-Muwaffak al-Nasir li-dln Allah), 
though this name did not indicate with any certainty 
in whose service they actually were. Among these 
ghilmdn of the army of the caliph, those of which 
we know most, thanks to the list of the court ex- 
penses preserved by Hilal al-Sabi' (K. al-Wuzard*, 
n-18), are the ones who formed the various detach- 
ments of the guard. There was first of all a group of 
former slaves of varying origins, white such as 
Daylamis and Berbers, or black such as Nubians and 
former Zandj prisoners taken by al-Muwaffak 
during the preceding reign, who were employed to 
form a line of troops (masdff) in the reception rooms 
and who were probably the origin of the corps of the 
Masdffiyya mentioned below. There were also 
others bought especially by al-Mu c tadid to be on 
duty in the "halls" (hudfar) of the Palace, from which 
they took their name (al-Ijudjar iyya) , and placed 
under the command of eunuchs called ustddhs; to 
these were later added an 61ite of soldiers chosen 
from among the various detachments. In addition to 
these the personal guard of the caliph was made up of 
freedmen of al-Muwaffak, called al-ghilmdn al-khdssa. 



During the reign of al-Muktadir (295-320/908-32), 
these corps of ghilmdn, the respective size and im- 
portance of which it is difficult to assess (we know 
only that the Ma?dffiyya, who were under the 
command of the Chamberlain, numbered 10,000 men), 
commanded by leaders who were often rivals, once 
again influenced political events and the palace 
intrigues. Thus in the two abortive coups d'etat 
of 296/908 and 317/929 against the caliph, the guards 
played a decisive r61e and, in 317/929, it was the 
Masdffiyya who forced al-Kahir to flee. In addition, 
the demands of the ghilmdn, on whom in large 
measure the fate of the caliphate depended (in the 
capital as well as in the provinces where they were 
often sent as reinforcements), gave rise to financial 
difficulties and several times they procured the 
removal from the vizierate of figures such as 'All b. 
c Isa, who tried to restore financial order by making 
cuts in this expenditure. The interference of the 
ghilmdn in political affairs led to the elimination of 
one regiment after another. The Masdffiyya were 
massacred in 318/930, then the Sddjiyya (on the 
origin of the name, see M. Canard, tr. of al-SulI, 
Akhbdr ar-Rddt, i, 49 n. 3) were imprisoned in 324/ 
936 by the amir al-umard' Ibn Ra'ik, who shortly 
afterwards had the Hudiariyya exterminated in order 
to deprive the caliph of all power. 

By this time the caliph had lost practically all 
control over the regiments of ghilmdn. At Baghdad 
their commanders no longer respected his authority. 
Furthermore, persons such as the viziers were in a 
position to form in due course for themselves personal 
bodyguards capable eventually of repulsing the 
troops of the caliph. The provincial governors, who 
more and more often combined military and fiscal 
functions, for their part maintained troops who were 
completely loyal to them. Thus certain governors 
went so far, with the aid of their own regiments, as 
to seize effective power for themselves, and a number 
of them forced the caliph to recognize them as amir 
al-umard'; after several years they were replaced by 
the famous Buwayhid amirs, whose DaylamI guards 
were from then on installed in the palace of the amir 
side by side with the Turkish ghilmdn who were still 

In the western provinces the same development 
had already given rise to local attempts to attain 
autonomy from the second half of the 3rd/9th century 
onwards. Thus Ahmad b. Tuliin [q.v.], who in Egypt 
achieved a large measure of independence from the 
central government and managed to establish a 
short-lived dynasty there, was the son of a slave 
bought at Bukhara under al-Ma'mun. Similarly al- 
Ikhshld [q.v.], who was later to repeat this success 
in the same country, was the descendant of a Turk 
who came to Samarra under al-Mu c tasim. The 
ephemeral dynasties thus founded themselves formed 
slave armies. The army of Ibn Tulun is said to have 
included 24,000 Turkish and 42,000 black slaves in 
addition to the smaller number of free soldiers; 
al-Ikhshid also had a large slave army, and had as 
minister, as regent for his sons and ultimately as 
successor, the famous black slave Kafur [q.v.]. 

The tradition continued in Fatimid Egypt. There 
were at the Palace, as retainers holding more or less 
honorific offices and as guards, black or white 
slaves, some eunuchs and some not, most of the 
former originating from the Sudan and the latter 
from the Slav countries. The r61es of Djawhar [q.v.], 
who was a freedman of Slav origin, and of the eunuch 
freedman Djawdhar [q.v.], also a Slav, who was the 
right hand man of the caliph al-Mu'izz, are well 



known. Later Turkish and Daylami units were 
added. (On the rivalries between the different ethnic 
groups see fatimids, 858.) 

A little later, the Saldjukids, who were not of slave 
origin and who had installed themselves in the 
eastern provinces of the 'Abbasid empire with the 
aid of the Turcomans, were nevertheless soon forced 
also to have recourse to a professional army and to 
recruit Turkish ghilmdn (see below) as both soldiers 
and assistants. Thus the atdbaks [q.v.] were in general 
former slaves. The atdbaks of Syria themselves 
employed slaves of various origins for their personal 
bodyguard (such as those who assassinated Zangi 
iq.v.]), but their army does not seem to have been 
based on the recruitment of slaves. On the other 
hand, their successors the Ayyubids, who were the 
descendants of a Kurdish officer, recruited Turkish 
slaves along with the Kurdish contingents, and the 
last ruler of this dynasty, al-Malik al-Salih, tried to 
save his threatened throne by installing in Cairo an 
important troop of Turkish slaves. It was these 
slaves who were finally to found the first regime in 
which the power was officially wielded by the slave 
militia, that of the Mamluks [q.v.]. 

In Muslim Spain, the slave element of European 
origin had also played an important role both in the 
army and in the palace service. The freedmen, usually 
called fitydn [see fata], but also ghilmdn as in the 

and even to found, as the Umayyad state disappeared, 
small local dynasties [see al-andalus, 495]. 

In the Maghrib the name ghuldm does not seem to 
have been in current use for the slave mercenaries, 
and although the rulers of the Maghrib had almost 
all had, since the Aghlabid period, black bodyguards 
(the members of which are generally called 'abid) 
and employed, in proportions which varied and which 
are difficult to ascertain, slave mercenaries of diverse 
origins, often Europeans, the slave militias never 
had in this region the importance which they had 
in the East. See further djaysh, mamlOk. 

Bibliography: There is no thorough study of 
the subject. General information is given in R. 
Levy, The social structure of Islam, London 1958, 
416-51 passim. On the situation at Samarra and at 
Baghdad see: E. Herzfeld, Geschichte der Stadt 
Samarra, Hamburg 1948, 88-9; D. Ayalon, The 
military reforms of Caliph al-MuHasim (a paper 
read at the Congress of Orientalists at New Delhi, 
January 1964); Ya'kubl, Bulddn, 255-6; Tabarl, 
iii, 1017, 2265; Kindi, Wuldt Misr, ed. Guest, 188; 
Ibn Khurradadhbih. 37, 39; Mas'udi, Murudj, vii, 
121, 291; MakrizI, K. al-Nizd c wa 'l-takhdsum, 
Leiden 1888, 63 (a passage mentioned by D. 
Ayalon); D. Sourdel, Le vizirat c abbdside, Damascus 
1959-60, especially i, 325, 330, 370-5; ii, 403. 413, 
451-4, 587-8; W. Hoenerbach, Zur Heeresver- 
waltung der Abbasiden, in 1st., xxix (1950), 267; 
Mez, Renaissance, Engl, tr., 141, 165; Miskawayh, 
in Amedroz and Margoliouth, Eclipse, i, 38, 116, 
157, 195, 202, 333, 335, 351-2, 357-8; Hilal al- 
Sabi 5 , K. al-Wuzard\ ed. Amedroz, 11-18, 26, 49, 
51, 60, 88 (Cairo ed., 15-22, 31, 56, 59, 70, 100); 
idem, Rusum ddr al-Khildfa, ed. Mikhail c Awad, 
Baghdad 1964, 8, 12, 16, 25, 85, 91; SOU, Akhbdr 
ar-Rddi . . . , tr. M. Canard, Algiers 1946-50, i, 
71 n. 8, and index (s.v. H'ujarites, Masaffites, 
Mu'nisites, Sajites) ; Ibn al-Zubayr, K. al-DhakhdHr 
wa'l-tuhaf, Kuwayt 1959, index. On Egypt: 
G. Wiet, L'Egypte arabe, Paris 1937, passim; 
I. Hrbek, Die Slawen im Dienste der Fatimiden, 
in ArO, xxi (1953), 543"8i ; Vie de I'Ustadh Jaudhar, 



tr. M. Canard, Algiers 1958, 15-6; H. A. R. Gibb, 
The armies of Saladin, in Cahiers d'histoire tgyp- 
tienne, iii (1951) (reprinted in idem, Studies on the 
civilization of Islam, London 1962, 74-90). On the 
west: E. Levi-Provencal, L'Espagne musulmane 
au Xe siecle, 28-31, 105-7; idem, Hist. Esp. mus., 
iii, 97; M. Vonderheyden, La Berbirie orientate sous 
la dynastie des Benou' l'-Arlab, Paris 1927, 197-9; 
H. R. Idris, La Berbirie orientate sous les Zirides, 
Paris 1962, index; R. Brunschvig, La Berbirie 
orientate sous les Hafsides, ii, 47, 79-81; J. F. P. 
Hopkins, Medieval Muslim government in Barbary, 
London 1958, 71 ff. (D. Sourdel) 

The institution of military slavery in the Persian 
world is post-Islamic. Whilst slavery was known 
under the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Arsacids and 
Sasanids, it was essentially for temple service, for 
state purposes like building or for domestic duties. 
At no time in the pre-Islamic period does slavery 
seem to have been as widespread in the Persian world 
as in other parts of the Middle East (R. N. Frye, 
The heritage of Persia, London 1963, 152-3). Military 
organization under all the historic pre-Islamic 
dynasties of Persia was based on the classes of greater 
nobility and lesser nobility or gentry {vuzurgdn and 
dzddhdn in Sasanid terminology), and the free 
cavalryman was the backbone of the army. Within 
the army there was usually an elite body surrounding 
the Emperor, the Achaemenid "corps of immortals" 
or the Sasanid gydn-avspar "those who sacrifice 
their lives", but there is no indication that these 
were anything but freemen and probably they were 
sons of the nobility (cf. Christensen, L'Iran sous les 
Sassanides 1 , 206 ff., 368). Any slaves in these armies 
can only have been employed in the little-regarded 
infantry rump, which was basically a rabble of 
conscripted peasants. 

The carrying of Arab arms beyond the borders of 
Armenia and Persia opened up vast reservoirs of 
slave labour from the South Russian, Central Asian 
and northern Indian worlds. In particular, the Turks 
early acquired the reputation of being fierce fighters, 
skilled riders and archers, who because of their 
nomadic life in the harsh and extreme conditions 
of the Eurasian steppes were inured to danger and 
discomfort (cf. DJahiz, Risdla fi mandkib al-Turk, 
tr. C. T. Harley-Walker, JRAS, 1915, 631-97, 
analysed by F. Gabrieli, RSO, xxxii (1957). 477-83)- 
Turkish prisoners-of-war began to fall into the hands 
of the Arab governors of Armenia and Khurasan, 
and it is with the military use of these captives — 
a writer of the 5th/nth century, Ibn Hassul, em- 
phasizes that the Turks are too proud a race to make 
good domestic slaves — that the institution of the 
ghuldm in Persia begins. The Tahirid governors of 
Khurasan forwarded to the c Abb§sids in Baghdad 
Turkish slaves for use in the Caliphal palace guard. 
Whilst details of the Tahirids' own use of ghuldms 
are lacking, their example here must have been deci- 
sive for succeeding dynasties in Persia. 

The spread of military slavery in Persia also re- 
flects the growing economic and commercial prosper- 
ity of the land during the 3rd/gth and 4th/ioth 
centuries, for this enabled rulers to pay professional, 
slave armies rather than to rely on the Arab elements 
settled in the garrison towns or on local Persian 
troops. The advantage of slave troops lay in their 
lack of loyalties to anyone but their master and the 
fact that they had no material stake in the country 
of their adoption. Such ties were deliberately avoided 



by the most strictly professional of slave commanders : 
the Samanid ghuldm general Karatigin Isfldjabl 
(d. 317/929) laid down that "a soldier must be able 
to take with him everything which he possesses, 
wherever he may go, and nothing must hold him 
back" (Ibn al-Athlr, viii, 157). 

Juridically, the slave soldier belonged to his 
master and was heritable property like any other 
chattel. In practice, personal loyalties and attach- 
ments were usually taken into account. When in the 
middle of the 4th/ioth century the Saffarid Amir of 
SIstan, Abu Ahmad Husayn b. Tahir, died, his 
ghuldms should have passed to his successor Khalaf 
b. Ahmad, but the latter gave them the choice of 
entering his own service or of seeking independent 
careers; in fact, they elected to stay with Khalaf. 
and he assigned them houses, estates and concubines 
(Ta'rikh-i Sistdn, 341). One of Mas'ud I of Ghazna's 
old and trusted ghuldm commanders was manumitted 
before his death and the Sultan respected his last 
wishes concerning the disposal of his personal 
ghuldms (Bayhaki, cited by C. E. Bosworth, Ghaznevid 
military organisation, in Isl., xxxvi/1-2 (i960), 49-50). 
It was clearly in the interest of the master to treat 
his slaves well, for the particular concern of the 
ghuldms was normally to act as a dependable elite 
force within the wider body of the army and as a 
personal bodyguard. Under such dynasties as the 
Ghaznavids and Saldjuks, ghuldms filled such im- 
portant household and palace offices as Keeper of 
the Stables, Keeper of the Wardrobe, Keeper of the 
Sultan's Armour and Weapons, Bearer of the Cere- 
monial Parasol or iatr and Keeper of the Washing 
Vessels (cf. Bosworth, op. cit., 47-8; t. H. Uzuncarsili, 
Osmanh devleti teskildtma medhal, Istanbul 1941, 
35-41; t. Kafesoglu, Sultan Meliksah devrinde Biiyiik 
Selfuklu imparatorlugu, Istanbul 1953, 143-5). 
This last office of tasht-ddr was held during the reign 
of the Saldjuk Malik Shah by the ghuldm Anushtigin 
Ghartal; it was the stepping-stone to his appoint- 
ment as governor of Kh w arizm and the consol- 
idation there in the 6th/i2th century of his descend- 
ants as Khwarizm-Shahs. When a ruler or command- 
er lost the loyalty of his ghuldms, his position could 
become very insecure. The Ziyarid Mardawidj b. 
Ziyar was murdered in 323/935 because he had ill- 
treated his Turkish ghuldms, putting reins and 
saddles on them as if they were horses and leading 
them into stables (Mas'udi, Murudi, ix, 29-30; 
Miskawayh, Eclipse of the 'Abbdsid Caliphate, i, 162-3, 
312-15, tr. iv, 182-4, 353-6; Ibn al-Athir, viii, 222-3). 
The ghuldms of the Samanid Amir Ahmad b. Isma'il 
killed him in 301/914 allegedly because he had be- 
come alienated from them through his excessive 
frequenting of the '■ulama' (Barthold, Turkestan, 
240). 

In considering the personal relationship between 
master and slave, the sexual aspect should certainly 
not be neglected; the ethical climate of Persia in 
this period condoned homosexual liaisons (cf. Kay 
Ka'us, Kdbiis-ndma, ch. xv, and for more recent 
times, Olearius, Voyages and travels . . . to the Great 
Duke of Muscovy and the King of Persia, Eng. tr. 
London 1669, i, 238: "Sodomy not punish'd in 
Persia"), and the master of youthful slaves was well- 
placed for indulging unnatural and sadistic tastes. 
Resentments aroused by practices of this kind seem 
to have been behind the murder in 541/1146 of Zangi 
b. Ak Sonkur. Zangi's personal guard was drawn 
from the sons of the great men of the Turks, Greeks 
and Armenians, whose fathers he had killed or 
banished; he had then kept the sons after castrating 



_ sought an opportunity 

tor revenge, and eventually assassinated him (Bun- 
darl, 208-9). Eunuch ghuldms from the Byzantine, 
Armenian and Khazar regions may have been 
castrated within their homelands, but this operation 
was also done within the borders of Islam, especially 
in the case of Turks. Emasculation was often accepted 
voluntarily as a recognized way to preferment (cf. 
Murudi, viii, 148-9); thus one of the most highly- 
honoured of the Saldjuk ghuldm generals under Alp 
Arslan and Malik Shah, e Imad al-Dawla Sawtigin, 
had castrated himself (Husaynl, Akhbdr al-dawla 
al-Saldi&kiyya, 30-1). 

The Saffarids, successors to the Tahirid heritage 
in Khurasan, are the first Persian dynasty about 
whose employment of ghuldms we have detailed 
information. Ya'kub b. Layth's known skill as a 
military organizer makes it unlikely that he would 
pass over the adoption of an institution so useful for 
buttressing a despotic ruler's power. Both Mas'fldl, 
Murudi, viii, 49-54, and the Ta'rikh-i Sistdn, 222, 
say that he had a corps of 2000 ghuldms who on 
ceremonial occasions paraded on either side of his 
throne, richly clothed and armed with golden and 
silver shields, swords and maces, all captured from 
the treasury of Muhammad b. jahir at Nishapur. 
Mas'udI adds that there was within this general body 
the Amir's personal bodyguard, the ghuldms of the 
khawdss, who slept round his tent and executed his 
personal orders. The equipment and functions of these 
Saffarid ghuldms bear a remarkable resemblance to 
those of the Ghaznavid ghuldms of 150 years later as 
depicted on the walls of Lashkar-i Bazar (see below). 

Contemporaneously with the Saffarids, the Sama- 
nids in Transoxania and later in Khurasan were 
making a slave guard the nucleus of their army. 
Nasr b. Ahmad (d. 331/943) is said to have had as 
many as 10,000 ghuldms. The Amirs hoped that these 
Turkish troops, with their personal bond of fealty 
to the ruler, would counterbalance the military 
influence of the indigenous Iranian dihkdn class, 
which was hostile to the dynasty's centralizing 
policy, but the r61e of the ghuldms in various palace 
revolutions and assassinations shows that this hope 
was not always realised. However, the geographer 
Istakhri praises the Samanid slave army for its 
discipline and boldness in battle. It was, of course, 
from the slave guard of the Samanids that Alptigin, 
the conqueror of Ghazna, and Sebuktigin, founder of 
the Ghaznavid dynasty in Afghanistan and northern 

In the course of the 4 th/ioth century, the use of 
military slaves spread throughout the Persian world 
to such DaylamI dynasties as the Ziyarids and Buyids 
and to Arab ones like the Hamdanids. The Turkish 
cavalry of the Biiyid armies soon grew more numerous 
than the free Daylami infantrymen, and under Mu'izz 
al-Dawla (d. 356/967) were preferred above the 
Daylamis in pay and the granting of iktd c s (Miska- 
wayh, ii, 99-100, 163-4, 166. 173-4, 234, tr. v, 104-5, 
175-6, 178, 186-8, 248; Ibn al-Athir, viii, 343). 
Amongst the Persian dynasties of Adharbaydjan 
and the eastern Caucasus, as amongst the Christian 
principalities of Georgia and Armenia, slave troops 
were drawn from the Khazar and Russian lands to the 
north. The Yazidi Sharwan-Shahs had personal 
guards of ghuldms, and the Hashimi ruler of Darband, 
Maymun b. Ahmad, had Rus ghuldms who were still 
pagan, although these may have been adventurers 
of Slav-Scandinavian origin rather than slaves (cf. 
Minorsky, A history of Sharvdn and Darband in the 



ioth-nth c 



;, Cambridge 1958, I 
127). 



:8-9, 45-6 ; 



The Ghaznavids, themselves of servile origin, 
built their multi-racial army around a slave core, 
mainly of Turks but also including some Indians. 
In the reign of Mas c fld b. Mahmud (d. 432/1041), the 
ghulams numbered between 4,000 and 6,000. Headed 
by their own general, the Sdldr-i Ghuldmdn. they were 
used in battle as a crack force, and on ceremonial 
occasions they had rich uniforms and bejewelled 
weapons; the depiction of these ghulams in the re- 
cently-discovered murals of the palace of Lashkar-i 
Bazar at Bust accords well with the descriptions of 
them in the written sources. We also see at work at 
this time, as under the later Samanids, the process 
whereby provincial governors and commanders 
themselves collected extensive slave guards (cf. 
Bosworth, Ghaznevid military organisation, 40-50). 

The Turkish dynasties who in the 5th/ nth century 
irrupted into the Persian world from the Central Asian 
steppes soon adopted slave troops as a more reliable 
fighting instrument than the tribal bands who were 
their original following. As early as 398/1008 the Ka- 
rakhanid Ilig Khan Nasr had a body of Turkish 
ghuldm archers which he used against Mahmud of 
Ghazna ('Utbl-Manlni, Yamini, ii, 85), and in the 
next century, the Karakhanid ghulams numbered 
several thousands (Bundari, 264). In particular, 
the Great Saldjuks found that a paid, professional 
army was necessary to extend and protect their empire, 
since their original supporters, the Turkmens, were an 
anarchic and uncontrollable force. Within this pro- 
fessional army, the Saldjuk ghulams were prominent; 
their commanders were active on ghazw in the Cau- 
casus and Armenia and against the Arab dynas*ies 
of the west. They usually remained loyal to their 
masters the Sultans even when the fidelity of other 
Turkish and Turkmen troops wavered, e.g., in Malik 
Shah's battle of 465/1073 with his uncle Kawurd and 
in the battle of 526/1132 of Da'ud b. Mahmud and 
Ak Sonkur Ahmadili against Toghrll b. Muhammad 
(Bundari, 48, 160-1). As well as Turks, the ghulams 
of the Saldjuks included Greeks, Armenians and even 
negroes (al-khudddm al-hubush), whose amirs are 
described as being especially influential under 
Mas'ud b. Muhammad (ibid., 193, cf. Rawandl, 243). 
The great Vizier Nizam al-Mulk collected around 
himself a corps of ghulams of regal dimensions, and 
after his death this body, the Nizdmiyya, still acted 
as a cohesive body in politics. In the 6th/i2th century 
we see the seizure of power by ghuldm commanders of 
the increasingly ineffective Saldjuk Sultans, nomin- 
ally as Atabaks or tutors for young Saldjuk princes. 
Hereditary lines of slave Atabaks tended to form in 
such parts of Persia as Adharbaydjan, Fars, Khuzistan 
and Khurasan, and in this latter province the 
ghulams of Sandjar claimed to carry on the admin- 
istrative traditions of their old master before they 
were swept away by the rising tide of the Ghurids 
and Kh w arizm-Shahs. 

Both the Ghurids and the Kh w arizm-Shahs relied 
heavily on slave troops. Djalal al-DIn Mingburnu's 
ghulams were armed with the traditional weapon 
of such troops, the mace (Nasawl, 232, tr. 386: 
cumdkddriyya). The Turkish ghulams of the Ghurids 
did not always act harmoniously with the native 
Ghuri troops (cf. Djuwayni-Boyle, 461), but the 
troops of Mu'izz al-DIn or Shihab al-Din Muhammad, 
the MuHzziyya, continued to revere that Sultan's 
name and in the 7th/i3th century the principalities 
which they founded in northern India were ostensibly 
constituted in his name. 



AM 1083 

The invasions of the Mongols brought into Persia 
an entirely new set of military traditions. The 
Mongol commanders used the captured populations 
of towns as auxiliaries and as pioneers and sappers 
(cf. Spuler, MongoUn', 402, 416-19), but ghulams in 
the older sense of professional slave soldiers did not 
reappear until the Mongols and their successors had 
been assimilated to Persian ways. The institution 
may be discernible in the 9th/i5th century amongst 
the Turkmen Ak Koyunlu in western Persia and 
eastern Anatolia. In an 'Ard-ndma dating from the 
time of Uzun Hasan (d. 883/1478) are mentioned 
3,900 kullughiis "servants" in the total of some 
10,000 for the Right Wing of the army; it is unclear 
whether these were mounted or went on foot (W. 
Hinz, Irans Aufsteig zum Nationalstaat in fiinfzehnten 
Jahrhundert, Berlin- Leipzig 1936, 107-8; Minorsky, 
A civil and military review in Fars in 881/1476, in 
BSOS, x (1939-42), 155, 164). 

The military basis of the Safawid state was orig- 
inally the Klzll-bash tribal divisions, but Shah 
'Abbas I (995-1037/1587-1628) invited men of all 
tribes and nations to enroll in a new salaried body 
of troops, the Shah-sewans, who would be entirely 
devoted to the sovereign and free from tribal ties 
(cf. Minorsky, EI 1 , s.v.). Also notable in this reign 
was the increased role in the Safawid state of Geor- 
gians, Armenians and Circassians, many of whom 
were captured in the wars in the Caucasus and entered 
the Safawid service as slave converts to Islam. In 
994/1586 a Georgian was lata or tutor to the Safawid 
prince Tahmasp b. c Abbas, this office corresponding 
in many ways to the old one of Atabak (R. M. 
Savory in BSOAS, xxiv (1961), 84-5). With such 
soldiers and officials as these, the institution of the 
ghuldm takes on a new lease of life as an important 
component of the new troops. The Safawid "slaves" 
(kullar or ghuldmdn-i khdssa-yi sharifa) were mainly 
slaves or sons of slaves. The military ghulams were 
numbered by Chardin at 10,000 and by Tavernier 
at 18,000 (a substantial proportion of the whole body 
of ghulams was used for court and administrative 
service; in the Tadhkirat al-muluk, tr. Minorsky, 
56-7, 127-8, the term ghuldm is also used for the 
young eunuchs and pages of the Shah's private 
household). The ghuldm body in general was headed 
by the extremely influential Kullar Aghast, and 
there was for it a special Vizier and Mustawfi of the 
Department of the Ghulams (Tadhkirat al-muluk, 
tr. 46-7, 73). Tavernier noted that the ghulams very 
rarely rebelled, "For being all Slaves, and of different 
Nations, there are no ties of Affection or Kindred 
between them: And if the King has an occasion to 
punish any of them, the chief of their Body is to 
execute his orders" (Travels, Eng. tr. London 1684, i> 
224-5). 

In the reign of the Kadjar Fath <A1I Shah (1211-50/ 
1797-1834), the term ghuldm was still applied to 
the royal bodyguard, and Georgians were still 
prominent here (Sir Harford Jones Brydges, An 
account of the transactions of His Majesty's mission 
to the court of Persia in the years 1807-11, London 
1834, i, 325, 331, 382); but in the course of the 19th 
century, as western influences grew in Persia and 
personal slavery disappeared, ghuldm simply came 
to denote a runner or messenger employed by a 
foreign diplomatic or consular agency. 

The term is still in current use in Persian Balucis- 
tan, where until recently the ghulams were slave 
retainers of the local Baluc chiefs or sarddrs; although 
now legally free, they are still regarded as a socially 
inferior class (see B. J. Spooner, Kuch u Baluch and 



Ichthyophagi, in Iran, J. of the British Inst, of Persian 

Studies, ii (1964), 61-2). 

Bibliography: given in the article. There are 
no special studies, but surveys of the institution 
in the Persian world up to and including the 
Ghaznavids are given by C. E. Bosworth, Ghaznevid 
military organisation, in Isl., xxxvi/1-2 (i960), 
40-50, and idem, The Ghaznavids: their empire in 
Afghanistan and eastern Iran gg4-i04o, Edinburgh 
1963, 98-106. (C. E. Bosworth) 

The Muslim conquest and occupation of Hindustan 
at the end of the 7th/i3th century, although initiated 
and directed by the free chiefs of the Ghurid 
dynasty, was mainly the achievement of Turkish 
ghuldms (more frequently referred to as bandagdn in 
the Indo- Persian histories). In the frequent absences 
of Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Sam, his slave 
Kutb al-DIn Aybak, who began in India as military 
commander (sipak-sdldr) of Kuhram, led the Ghurid 
forces against Radjput strongholds. On the death 
of Mu'izz al-DIn in 602/1206, Kutb al-Din assumed 
power in Lahore, at that time probably without 
having been manumitted. The so-called Ta'rikh-i 
Fakhr al-Din Mubarak Shah, ed. E. Denison Ross, 
London, 1927, 35-6, intended for Kutb al-Din, has a 
remarkable eulogy of Turkish slaves for their fidelity 
and for their capacity to win advancement to the 
rank of amir and sipahsdldr, without regretting 
their former free life in Turkistan. 

Hindustan was not, however, conquered exclusively 
by slave agents of the Ghurids whether as commanders 
or as troopers. Lakhnawti was conquered by the 
free Khaldji Muhammad Bakhtiyar; Khaldjis also 
formed part of the Ghurid armies. 

Until the reign of Djalal al-Din Khaldji (689- 
95/1290-6) the sultans of Dihli were all either 
military slaves or their descendants. Iletmish was 
not manumitted until after appointment as amir of 
Gwaliyar, malik of Bada'un and after holding the 
iktd'- of the kasba of Baran (Minhadj al-Siradj, 
Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, Calcutta 1864, 169-70). Balban had 
presumably been freed before his marriage to the 
daughter of Sultan Nasir al-Din Mahmud. Under 
Iletmish (and there is no reason to conclude that his 
successors changed the practice) Turkish slaves rose 
to provincial military command through service in 
the royal household as Keeper of the Stables, 
Keeper of the Washing Vessels, Keeper of the 
Leopards or royal bodyguard (Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, 229- 
324, passim). Slaves did not, however, enjoy a mono- 
poly of office; Barani, Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, Calcutta 
1862, 26, speaks of the Turkish slaves ousting the 
free officers (muluk-i ahrdr) in the reigns of Iletmish's 
children. Some of these officers were fugitives from 
the Mongols. Antagonism appears to have been 
evinced by Turkish slaves towards certain non- 
Turkish slaves, the habshi Djamal al-Din Yakut and 
the Hindu eunuch Imad al-Din Rayhan. Minhadj 
(Tabakdt, 300) specifically states that Turkish and 
Tadjik slaves resented Rayhan because he was of the 
tribes of Hindustan {az kabdHl-i Hindustan). 

Under the Khaldji and Tughluk sultans, slaves 
continued to become high officers and to form an 
important component of the sultan's army. The 
Turkish element among the slaves appears to have 
been diluted somewhat and the rise to power of 
Hindu slaves is noteworthy in this period. How far 
the historian Baranl's hostility to their elevation was 
shared by his contemporaries is a moot point. The 
Hindu Khusraw Khan Barwarl, recipient of the homo- 



sexually-inspired favours of Sultan Mubarak Shah 
Khaldji, murdered his master (720/1320) and assumed 
the throne before being deposed by the free malik, 
Ghiyath al-DIn Tughluk. The Telingana Brahmin, 
Khan-i Djahan Makbul, became wazir to FIruz Shah 
Tughluk. Slaves were apt to resent a former member 
of their number usurping the position of the ruling 
family. Slave commanders of fifty and a hundred, 
raised by Sultan 'Ala 3 al-DIn Khaldji, successfully 
plotted the overthrow of the famous eunuch, Malik 
Kaffir, conqueror of the Deccan, when he began to 
kill off the sultan's family after 'Ala al-Din's death 
(Barani, Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, 376). 

Sources for the Khaldji and Tughluk periods give 
figures for the number of slaves in service. The 
army of Muhammad ibn Tughluk was reputed to 
have 20,000 Turki ghuldms, 10,000 eunuchs as well 
as large numbers of slave bodyguards always 
accompanying him (al-'Umari, Masdlik al-absdr fi 
mamdlik al-amsdr, edited text and Urdu translation 
by Khurshld Ahmad Faruki, Delhi 1962?, 25). 
'Afif, Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, Calcutta 1891, 267-73, 
gives the most elaborate account available of the 
slave establishment in the sultanate period. FIruz 
Shah is said to have encouraged the provincial 
muktaH to collect slaves to present them to the 
sultan, receiving in return an allowance from the 
revenue to be remitted to headquarters equal to the 
value of the slaves. Such slaves were stationed in the 
principal fortress towns {e.g., Multan, DIpalpur, 
Samana) and were paid both in cash and by the 
grant of revenue from villages. 'Afif says that Firuz 
Shah had 180,000 slaves in the capital and in the 
provinces. A diwdn separate from the diwdn-i 
wizdrat existed to manage the slaves. They were to 
be found not only in such familiar household offices 
as Keeper of the Washing Vessels, Keeper of the 
sultan's armour and weapons, Bearer of the Cere- 
monial Parasol, but also employed in the diwdn-i 
wizdrat and the diwdn-i ard, and as mukta c s, pargana- 
ddrs and shahnagdn (market overseers), becoming 
amirs and maliks. Under the Sayyid sultans too, 
slaves are found as mukta's and parganaddrs. Under 
the Lodis, the sources yield the impression that the 
majority of officers were free Afghans. 

The role of military slaves in the provincial 
Muslim kingdoms did not differ substantially from 
that in the Dihli sultanate. Indeed, Ahmad Nizam 
Shah, founder of the independent sultanate of 
Ahmadnagar, Yusuf 'Adil Shah of Bldjapur, Kull 
Kutb Shah of Golkonda and Malik Sarwar of 
Djawnpur had all been ghuldms. Habshi [q.v.] slaves 
were prominent in the politics of Gudjarat, Ahmad- 
nagar, Bldjapur and Bengal. In Bldjapur, habshis 
took over the regency (niydbat) in the last phase of 
the sultanate, while in Bengal the former habshi 
slaves Shahzada and SidI Badr seized the throne at 
the end of the 9th/i5th century. The latter had 
5,000 habshis in his service. Under the Farukids 
[q.v.] of Khandesh, habshi slaves were employed to 
guard the junior members of the ruling family in 
enforced seclusion (cf. C. F. Beckingham, Amba 
Geien and Asirgarh, in JSS, ii/2 (1957), 182-8). 

Under the Mughals, slaves played a very minor 
part in administration and in the army, though 
not in the household. Mughal rule was established by 
free Mughal, Turkish and Persian officers and the 
Mughal army was commanded by mansabddrs, the 
vast majority of whom were free in origin. A test- 
sample of 225 of the 730 biographies of Mughal 
dignitaries in Samsam al-Dawla Shah-nawaz Khan, 
Ma'-dthir al-umard', Calcutta 1888-91 (pdnsadis and 



upwards under Akbar, sih-hazdris and upwards 
thereafter to the middle of Aurangzib's reign and 
then pandi-hazdris or haft-hazdris) shows that only 
one, Bay Khan Cela Kalmak, a slave of Shah 
Djahan, had been a slave. One, Firuz Khan a eunuch, 
and two, Atish Khan and Habsh Khan, were 
habshis who had entered Mughal service from the 
Deccan sultanates. The Mahathir al-umard^'s list is, 
however, not exhaustive; a number of slaves, in- 
cluding three of Babur's and Humayun's, were given 
mansabs and didgirs under Akbar and one, l'tibar 
Khan, was appointed governor of Dihll (see A'in-i 
Akbari, tr. 2 , Calcutta 1927-39, 442, 444, 483, 485, 
488, 491). Such promotions, however, form a very 
small proportion of Akbar's appointments. 

Mughal mansabddrs did on occasion, however, 
employ slaves as their own subordinate commanders. 
Mirza Nathan, Bahdristdn-i Ghaybi, a history of 
Bengal in Djahangir's time (trans. M. I. Borah, two 
vols., Gauhati 1936) shows a slave, Islam Kuli 
Ghulam thus employed as Mir Bahr (Commander of 
the fleet of boats). Examples of s'aves holding minor 
military commands may be met with in the Bahd- 
ristdn-i ghaybi under the names (see index) Sa'adat 
Khan Kh w adja, Kh"adja Lai Beg, and Shir Maydan. 

Akbar employed a contingent of slave foot soldiers, 
described as ielas in the AHn-i Akbari, Calcutta 1872, 
190. An interesting account of the use of Mas by a 
provincial governor in the period of the decline of 
the Mughal empire under Farrukh-siyar and Muham- 
mad Shah is given in W. Irvine, The Bangash 
Nawdbs of Farrukhdbdd — a chronicle (1x73-1557), 
in JASB, 1878, 340-7. Muhammad Khan, the 
Bangash Nawwab of Farrukhabad, encouraged his 
local military and revenue officers to obtain Hindu 
boys, the sons of Brahmins and Radjputs, some by 
consent, some by payment and some in default of 
revenue. 500 were trained as matchlockmen and 
others found employment not only in the Nawwab's 
household, but also in his army and revenue service. 
By the end of Muhammad Khan's rule, he had 4,000 
such slaves. For the recruitment of slaves through 
the pressure of famine and inability to meet the 
revenue demands of the Mughal government, see the 
references given in Irfan Habib, The agrarian system 
of Mughal India {1 556-1707), London 1963, no, 
322-4, passim. 

The explanation of the continuing existence of 
military slavery in India and the acquiescence of the 
slaves themselves in the system must be hypothetical. 
Deracinated, the Turkish ghuldms of the period of 
the Ghurid conquest found membership of the con- 
quering elite the only satisfying r61e possible in a 
compartmented society from which they were 
divided by religion and the attitudes of caste. The 
rewards of loyal and efficient service were great and, 
as the fate of Iletmish's children suggests, it was in 
the sultan's interest to treat his slaves generously. 
The Hindu slave, converted to Islam and cut off 
from his former caste fellows with no hope of re- 
integration into his old environment had every 
incentive to make the best of his new, forced, 
situation. The economic position of a slave was often 
preferable to that of many free men and those in 
special favour could hope for manumission. The 
homosexual aspect of the relationship between 
master and slave, to which Dr. Bosworth draws 
attention above (col. 1082 a), was important 
also in India, as the careers of Malik Kaffir 
and Khusraw Khan Barwari bear witness. The 
continuing existence of a large free element in the 
military and bureaucratic service of the Dihll 



sultans probably prevented the slaves from acting 
successfully as a Pretorian guard or as Ottoman 
janissaries. An attempt by the Hindu payks im- 
mediately responsible for killing Malik Kafur in 
716/1316 to assume airs of grandeur was soon 
suppressed by the new sultan, Kutb al-DIn Mubarak 
Shah Khaldji (Barani, Ta'rikh-i Firuz Shdhi, 376-7). 
Bibliography: given in the article. For slaves 
and habshis in Gudjarat see c Abd Allah Muhammad 
b. 'Umar al-Makki, gafar al-wdlih, ed. E. Denison 
Ross as An Arabic History of Gujarat, iii, 1928, 
index s.v. habshi; also, Sikandar b. Mandjhu, 
Mir'dt-i Sikandari, ed. S. C. Misra and M. L. 
Rahman, Baroda 1961, 245, 323, 384 f., 427, 433, 
444; for Bengal see, History of Bengal, ii, ed. Jadu- 
nathSarkar, Dacca 1948; lbn Battuta, iii, passim; 
on the role of slaves in the politics of the Deccan 
sultanates, see Sayyid c Ali Tabataba, Burhdn-i 
Mahathir, Delhi 1355/1936, 76, 5'7, 5^3. 586, 
594-6 passim; Niccolao Manucci, Storia do Mogor, 
ii, London 1907, 351, iv, London 1908, index 
s.v. slaves; K. M. Ashraf, Life and conditions of 
the people of Hindustan 1200-1550, in JASB, 1935, 
187-191. Some references for this article were 
kindly supplied by Dr. J. S. Grewal. 

(P. Hardy) 

iv. — Ottoman Empire 

Besides ghuldm, the terms used in the Ottoman 
Empire for a young slave subjected to a special 
training to equip him to serve the Sultan, a member 
of the military class or an ordinary individual were 
(A.) ghilmdn (pi. of ghuldm used as sing.), (P.) 
djuwdn, or (T.) oghlan and (rarely) Celeb. A Palace 
page of the Enderun [q.v.], of slave origin or recruited 
through the devshirme [q.v.], who had not yet been 
promoted to any post, was known as oghlan or 
if-oghlant [q.v.]; these were known collectively as 
it-khalki or ghilmdndn-i Enderun. 

The Ottoman administration was based upon the 
ghuldm system. This principle of training young 
slaves for the Palace service and the service of the 
state had certainly been inherited by the Ottomans 
from the Seldjuk Sultanate of Rum (see I. H. Uzun- 
carsih, Osmanh devleti te$kil&tma medhal, Istanbul 
1941, 85-94, 108-22; M. F. Kbpriilu, Bizans miiesse- 
selerinin Osmanh muesseselerine tesiri . . . , in THITM, 
i (1931), 208-21, 242-6; idem, Osmanh Imparator- 
lugunun etnik men$e'i meseleleri, in Belleten, vii/28 
(1943), 275); the names of various prominent com- 
manders of ghuldm origin in the service of this 
Seldjuk Sultanate are known, e.g., Sharaf al- 
DIn Ghulam, Khass Balaban and the brothers 
Karatay (see Ta'rikh-i Al-i Seltuk, facsimile of 
Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS supp. pers. 1553, publ. F. Uzluk, 
Ankara 1952, 52, 57, 66, 71). These ghuldms were 
used only for military duties; when Kayka'us II 
granted important posts as amir to various of his 
ghuldms, the other amirs opposed him (ibid., 52-3). 

'Othman Ghazi appointed 'his kul Balabandjik 
Bahadir' to supervise the investment of Bursa 
(Neshri, Gihdnniimd, ed. Fr. Taeschner, i, Leipzig 
1951, 35). Barak Baba, who was flourishing at this 
time (ca. 725/1325), advises in his Kelimdt that on 
the ghazd the leaders of the Christians should be 
flung into the sea and their 'ushaks', i.e., the young 
men following them, should be taken into the army. 
In documents surviving from the reign of Or khan 
there are indications that the training of slaves as 
Palace and administrative officers existed under the 
first Ottoman rulers (e.g., the names Evrenkush 
Khadim and Shahin b. c Abd Allah, in Orkhan's 



wakfiyye of Sha c ban 761/June 1360, publ. I. H. 
Uzuncarsili in Belleten, xxvii/107 (1963), 442, pi. 16; 
the name (awdshi Mukbil, in a temUkndme of Orkhan. 
Belleten, v/19 (1941), 280). Under Murad I the corps 
of yeiii-Ceri [q.v.] was constituted from the prisoners 
of war who fell to the sultan as the fifth of the booty 
legally due to him (see 'Ashtk Pasha-zade, ed. Fr. 
Giese, Leipzig 1928, 50) ; this represents an extension 
of a ghuldm system already in existence. The devshirme, 
[q.v.] a most important innovation which the Ottomans 
introduced into the ghuldm system, may have de- 
veloped from the practice of taking into Palace 
service or into the army the young sons of members 
of the local military class in newly-conquered regions. 
It is natural that in the Ottoman Empire and in 
Ottoman society, an udi state always in contact 
with the ddr al-harb, slaves gained a more important 
place than in other Muslim societies. 

Under Bayezid I [q.v.], who endeavoured to found 
a centralized Empire, the ghuldm system came to 
full development. Notes in tahrlr-registers of the 
9th/i5th century which refer to conditions in his 
reign show that in all parts of the Empire, he granted 
to £«fe trained by the ghuldm system not only im- 
portant military and administrative posts but also 
timdrs. Reactions to this radical innovation are to 
be detected in the anonymous Tewdrikh-i Al-i 
'Othmdn (ed. Fr. Giese, Breslau 1922, 31), which 
reflect the sentiments of ghdzi circles; and these 
reactions made a weighty contribution to his fall. 
Ducas (ed. Grecu, 87; Turkish tr. by V. Mirmiroglu, 
Istanbul 1956, 34) speaks of the existence in Bayezid's 
palace of 'selected children' belonging to various 
nations; the Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denis, 
of 1396, says (i, 427): 'lis enlevent les enfants pour 
les instruire dans leurs impures croyances'; Bayezid 
built a slave-market beside his Hmdret at Edirne; 
in 836/1432 Bertrandon de la Broquiere {Voyage 
d'Outremer, ed. Ch. Schefer, Paris 1892, 128) found 
that Messire Barnabo, who, like John Schiltberger 
(see The bondage and travels ..., tr. J. B. Telfer, 
London 1879, 5-8), had been taken prisoner at the 
battle of Nicopolis (798/1396), was a highly-influential 
Ottoman officer. 

For the reign of Murad II we possess abundant 
information about the system, not only from con- 
temporary chronicles {e.g., Ducas, ed. Grecu, 179, 
187, 191, Turkish tr., 83, 88, 90; Chalcocondyles, 
book 5, Fr. tr. by Blaise de Vigenere, Histoire de 
la decadence . . . , Paris 1620, 108 f.), but also in official 
archive documents {e.g., Hicrt S35 tarihli Suret-i 
defter-i sancak-i Arvanid, ed. H. Inalcik, Ankara 
1954; an idimdl defteri for Sofia in the Sofia National 
Library belongs to the same year, 835/1431; a deed 
of manumission of Murad II, dated 848/1444, is also 
relevant to our subject, see H. Inalcik, Fatih devri 
. . . , i, Ankara 1954, 215 ff.). Musa Celebi's Ifapl 
oghlani numbered 7,000 (Neshri, 135, 140), Murad 
IPs 4-5,000 (B. de la Broquiere, 182-3). The defter 
for Arvanid shows that in 835/1431, at every level 
of the military organization, most of the timdr- 
holding sipdhis there were kuls of the Sultan or of a 
beg. Among them are bearers of the titles: shahindii- 
basht, emir-akhur, sildhddr, (dshnigir, kapidil, 
pashmak-oghlanl, solak, zaghardil, ashdil; these had 
passed out from the Palace. Most of the sandiak- 
begis of Albania between the years 835/1431 and 
859/1455 were of ghuldm origin; some of them— 
Kavala Shahin, Zaghanuz, Kasim— rose to be 
beglerbegi or vizier. The sons of the local nobility in 
regions occupied by the Ottomans during the 9th/ 
15th century were by preference taken into the 



Palace, where they received privileged treatment, 
and on 'passing-out' (Turkish tilima, see khardj, 
and below) were appointed, with the title of beg, to 
the most important posts. Thus at this period many 
members of the Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian and Al- 
banian aristocracies served the Ottoman state in 
high posts. Nevertheless, as it had been under the 
Seldjuks of Rum, only military posts were granted 
to these products of the ghuldm system; the post of 
Grand Vizier and the posts of head of the financial 
department and of the chancery were usually re- 
served to Muslim-born Turks of the Hlmiyye career. 
It is clear that the Muslim-born always felt jealousy 
and hostility for those of slave origin (cf. Ducas, 
143; tr., 63); according to the Venetian M. Zane 
(987/1579), the Turks fretted at the power enjoyed 
by slaves (A. H. Lybyer, The government of the 
Ottoman Empire ... , Cambridge Mass. 1913, 43). 
Although Huseyn Husam al-DIn (Amasya ta'rikhi, 
iii, Istanbul 1927, 191, 201-3, 210, 214) exaggerates 
the degree of rivalry between native-born Turkish 
statesmen and the converts, it is indisputable that 
such a rivalry was an important element in the early 
centuries (see H. Inalcik, Fatih devri . . . , 69-136). 
In pursuit of his policy of establishing an absolutist 
and centralized empire, Mehemmed II expanded the 
ghuldm system (in 880/1475 the Itapi-ltullari numbered 
12,800) and entrusted nearly all influential posts, 
the Grand Vizierate included, to £«fe (see H. Inalcik, 
art. Mehmed II, in I A, fasc. 75, 512): the '■ulama' 
of the period regarded the vizierate as a post reserved 
to those of slave origin (see Tashkopruzade, al- 
ShakdHlf al-nu c mdniyya, Arabic text, i, 144, Turkish 
version by Medjdl, Istanbul 1269, 104). According 
to Angiolello, most of the military commanders and 
other holders of important offices were, during the 
reign of Mehemmed II, persons trained by the 
ghuldm system. Literary sources and archive docu- 
ments enable us to visualize in detail the system as 
it prevailed in this period (for Western descriptions, 
see Donado da Lezze [G.-M. Angiolello], Historia 
Turchesca, ed. J. Ursu, Bucharest 1909; Fr. Babinger, 
Die Aufzeichnungen des Genuesen lacopo de Promon- 
torio-de Campis ... , SBBayer. Ak., Jg. 1956, Heft 8, 
Munich 1957, 30-48 ; for Ottoman descriptions, Idrls 
Bidlisi, Hasht bihisht, MS Nuruosmaniye 3209, fols. 
359. 362; of the available archive material only a 
little has been published: A. Reflk, Fatih dewrine 
c dHd wethihalar, in TOEM, ix-x/49, 1-58; an impor- 
tant source for the £an«»s of Mehemmed II is K d- 
nunndme-i Al-i c Othmdn, ed. M. 'Arif , TOEM, supp., 
Istanbul 1330; R. Anhegger and H. Inalcik, Kdnun- 
ndme-i Suttdni ber muceb-i c orf-i '■Osmdni, Ankara 
1956; cf. N. Beldiceanu, Les actes des premiers 
Sultans . . , Paris-The Hague i960). The generally 
accepted view (cautiously considered by B. Miller, 
The Palace School of Muhammed the Conqueror, 
Cambridge Mass. 1941, 10 ff) that the Palace 
training system and the organization of odas was 
established by Mehemmed II under the influence of 
Byzantine models after he had taken Constantinople 
is immediately disproved by the references given 
above for the reign of Murad II. Mehemmed II did, 
it is true, build a 'New Palace' (the present Topkapi 
Sarayi) in Istanbul, but its organization was modelled 
on that of the Palace at Edirne (see R. Osman, 
Edirne Sarayt, Ankara 1957). In his kdnun-ndme he 
merely brought together, with a few additions and 
changes, the rules and principles in force before his 

The explicit statements of contemporary Western 
and Ottoman writers show that this system was 



applied and expanded with a conscious appreciation 
of the advantages it offered. In the reign of Murad II 
Yazidji-oghlu c Ali wrote (Seliukndme, Istanbul Top- 
kapi Sarayi, MS Revan Koskii 1390, fol. 566) that 
it was through the possession of slaves that a sultan 
could exercise power (cf. Machiavelli, The Prince, 
chap, iv) ; according to Kemal Pasha-zade (Istanbul, 
Millet Lib., MS 25, fols. 11-12), because all the 
ghilman were equal at the Porte of the Sultan, none 
tried to rise above his fellows or dreamed of laying 
claim to the throne; in the nth/i7th century Paul 
Rycaut noted (The present state . . . , London 1686, 
chaps, iii-iv) that the system arose from the necessity 
that the Sultan should delegate his authority to 
persons inseparably bound to himself. It became a 
principle in the Ottoman state that the sultan's 
executive power, the '■brf-i sulidni [see c urf], should 
be delegated only to his own slaves. In the ioth/i6th 
century the term ehl-i 'drf means slaves with the 
authority to carry out the Sultan's orders. The 
kapl-kullarl were a powerful factor in establishing 
the Sultan's central authority against the powerful 
udf-begleri of the early period; in the nth/i7th cen- 
tury, Koci Beg stated {Risdle, ed. A. K. Aksut, 
Istanbul 1939, 51) that the liapl-kulu provided a 
counterpoise to the provincial troops. 

The ghuldm system reached its fullest development 
under Suleyman I and his first two successors. The 
close interest which the Ottoman administrative 
system aroused in Europe in this period led to the 
writing of numerous detailed descriptions (for a 
fairly complete bibliography see K. Gollner, Turcica, 
i, Bucharest and Berlin 1961 ; for the Venetian 
relazioni, see Lybyer, 305-22). These descriptions, 
especially the memoirs of persons who, like G. A. 
Menavino (Trattato de costumi et vita de Turchi, 
Florence 1548), had served as ic-oghlani in the 
Palace, are of great value for filling out the rich but 
bare data of the Ottoman archives (for the principal 
collections relating to the Palace see M. Sertoglu, 
Muhteva bakimmdan Basvekdlet Arsivi, Ankara 1955, 
3 1 . 7°. 73-4; these are still unexploited). 

In the early days the principal source for ghuldms 
was the pendjik [q.v.], supplemented by prisoners 
presented to or bought for the Palace. Hostages too 
were raised as ghuldms in the Enderun. In the chief 
cities, the Imperial superintendents (khdssa khardi 
eminleri) would buy the best slaves at the 
slave-market for the Sultan. As early se the 
reign of Bayezid I (see S. Vryonis, Isidore Glabas 
and the Turkish Devshirme, in Speculum, xxxi 
(1956), 433-43). these sources were supplemented by 
children recruited by the devshirme. B. Miller (op. 
cit., 79) calculates that in the ioth/i6th century the 
total of slaves collected annually from all sources 
was 7-8,000, some 3,000 of them, on an average, 
being from the devshirme. When the devshirme boys 
reached Istanbul, those whose physique and character 
were best were selected (the sultan sometimes assisting 
when the selection was made) and sent, as '■adiami 
oghlans [q.v.], to the palaces of Ghalata-sarayi [ ? .„.] 
and of Ibrahim Pasha in Istanbul and to the palaces 
at Edirne and Manisa (I. H. Uzuncarsih, Osmanh 
devletinin saray teskildti, Ankara 1945, 297-305). 
Most of the rest were sent, under the name Turk 
oghlanlari, to stay with Turkish farmers in Anatolia, 
to be called up later into the ranks of the yeiii leri; 
a few were made bostand[{ [q.v.] and worked in the 
palace gardens. The children of noble families in the 
conquered regions were also sent to the palace 
(Critoboulos, ed. Grecu, 287, Eng. tr. C. Riggs, j 



Princeton 1 



175). > 



: the beginning of the 10th/ 



.AM 1087 

1 6th century, there were 300 i6-oghlanlarl in Ghalata- 
sarayi and 300 in the palace at Edirne (T. C. Span- 
dugino, Petit traicti de Vorigine des Turcqz, (1510), 
ed. C. Schefer, Paris 1896, 63 ; according to Ramberti 
(1534), apud Lybyer, 254, there were 400 in Ghalata- 
sarayl and 300 at Edirne). After being educated, 
under strict discipline, in these palaces for from two 
to eight years, they were put through a second 
process of selection (known as llkma), and the best 
were taken into two departments of the palace in 
which the Sultan actually resided (Yefii-Saray, later 
Topkapi Sarayi) , the Biiyiik Oda (or Khdne-i kebir or 
Eski Oda) and the Kiiiiik Oda (or Khdne-i saghir or 
Yeni Oda) (Angiolello mentions only one oda as 
existing at the end of the reign of Mehemmed II; 
the first to mention a Kiiluk Oda, in addition to 
the Biiyiik Oda, is Navagero, in 960/1553 (apud B. 
Miller, 41); c At5 (Ta'rikh-i "-Atd, i, 153) is probably 
mistaken in speaking of the Kiiiiik Oda as existing 
in the time of Mehemmed II). The Biiyiik Oda was 
to the right, and the Kucuk Oda to the left of the 
Bdb al-Sa'dda (Babiissaade) (see Bobovi's plan of 
1086/1675, apud B. Miller, 52-3). Those not selected 
for the Yeni Saray were appointed to the bbliiks of 
the 'Ulufediis [q.v.] and the Gharibs see ghuraba'], 
four of the six cavalry regiments of the Porte. Ac- 
cording to I. de Promontorio (39-43) there were 400 
il-oghlanlari, aged between 15 and 22, in all the odas 
(80 of them were in the Khazine (Treasury), the 
Kildr (Pantry) and the Khdss-oda (Privy Chamber), 
for which see below). According to Angiolello, there 
were 340 in the Oda. According to Yunis Beg (apud 
Lybyer, 263), in 944/1537 there were 700 ic-oghlan- 
lari, aged between 8 and 20, in the Sultan's palace 
(but Ramberti speaks of only 500 in 940/1534). An 
official account of expenditure, dated 900/1494, 
mentions 3 aghas of the Enderun and only 178 
ghilmdn-i enderuni (O. L. Barkan, in Ihtisat Fakultesi 
Mecmuasi, xv (1953-4), 308), but the numbers grew 
to about 400 in the Biiyiik Oda and 250 in the Kiitiik 
Oda (Miller, 129-30; Uzuncarsih, 310-1); at the be- 
ginning of the nth/ 1 7th century, c Ayn-i c Ali notes 
709 persons, aghas and ghilman together (Kawanin-i 
Al-i '■Othmdn, Istanbul 1280, 97). 

The lads in these two Odas spent all their time at 
lessons and physical training. Their teachers were the 
Palace mu'allims (mu c allimdn-i Enderun) and 
'■ulamd? and ddnishmends who visited the Palace at 
set times to give lessons; 12 of the lads were appointed 
khalife, 'tutor'. All had to begin by learning reading 
and writing, the principles of the Muslim faith, and 
the Kur'an; after that each could 'specialize' ac- 
cording to his own capabilities and inclinations 
( c Ata, i, 155). As they advanced, they learned the 
Muslim sciences, and the sarf, nahw and literature of 
Arabic, Persian and Turkish. Bayezid II used to take 
a personal interest in the boys' education (Menavino, 
apud Miller, 83). Those who made great progress in 
the religious sciences were allowed to pursue the 
Hlmiyye career ( c At5, i, 75 ; Bobovi, apud Miller, 109). 
All kinds of skills were also taught in the Odas: 
calligraphy, inshd', arithmetic and siydkat, music; 
those who excelled at these would become kdtibs. 
One point stressed both by Ottoman and European 
writers is the emphasis given to physical training, and 
to horsemanship and the management of arms (the 
Hasht bihisht dwells on this). The chief sports were 
weight-lifting and putting the weight, wrestling, 
archery, riding, throwing the lance, and the games 
of tomak and dierid [q.v.] ( c Ata, i, 177-82 ; Miller, 119) ; 
on feast-days competitions would be held in the 
Dierid-Meydani in the Palace garden and at the 



Ok-Meydanl and the Sultan would award prizes. 
Literary works with such names as Sildhshor-ndme , 
B&z-n&me, Kaws-ndme were composed mainly for 
the use of these boys. Furthermore, each lad had to 
become skilled in one type of personal service or a 
craft; many masters of miniature-painting, drawing, 
book-binding and calligraphy were trained in the 
Enderun ( C A1I, Mendkib-i hiinerverdn, ed. Ibniilemin 
M. Kemal, Istanbul 1926). But over and above this 
practical education, the main aim of the Palace 
training was to inculcate absolute loyalty and obedi- 
ence in the service of the Sultan. The lads were sub- 
jected to a very strict discipline, having no contact 
with the outside world or with their families and, so 
long as they remained in the palace, leading a monas- 
tic life completely cut off from women. Eunuchs 
watched over all their actions by day and night and 
slept among them in the dormitories. Menavino 
(apud B. Miller, Beyond the Sublime Porte, New 
Haven 1931, 63) describes the aim of this training 
as being to produce 'gentlemen', thoronghly islamized, 
who knew how to speak and behave politely, were 
conversant with literature, and were chaste and self- 
controlled. The overall supervision of the odas was 
exercised by the Kapi-oghlani ketkhuddsi, who had 
under him eunuchs (between 16 and 30 in number). 
The White Eunuchs (Ak Aghalar) constituted the 
permanent staff of the palace ; these were slaves who 
had been castrated to make them eligible for this 
service. It was they who maintained discipline and 
were responsible for the lads' behaviour. Under 
Mehemmed II they were 20 in number (Angiolello), 
under Selim I, 40 ( c Ata, i, 164). Their chief, and the 
general overseer of the palace, was the Kapi-aghasi 
or Bab al-sa'dda aghast. Beneath him were three 
oda-bashi, in the order of precedence: Khdss-oda 
bashi, Khazineddr-bashl (or Ser-khdzinin), KilatdH- 
bashi. The Khdss-oda bashi might be an U-oghlanl. 
These eunuchs were responsible for the protection 
of the sultan's person and personal attendance on 
him; they accompanied him wherever he went, and 
guarded him as he slept. Some of them enjoyed the 
right to make a submission {'■ard) directly to the 
Sultan: according to the Kdnunndme of Mehemmed 
II (TOEM, supp., 13-4) those so privileged were the 
Kapi-aghasl, the Oda-bashi, the Khazineddr-bashl, 
the KildrdH-bashl and the Sardy-aghasi (this last 
being the superintendent of the cleaning and repair 
of the palace). The number of these "-ard-aghalarV 
was later increased ( c Ata, i, 162). The five next in 
rank after them were later known as koshe-bashl 
( c Ata, i, 164). The Kapi-aghasi exercised absolute 
authority in the palace, in the name of the Sultan 
(see I. de Promontorio, 41 ; Spandugino, 63 ; Ramberti, 
244; Uzuncarsih, 354-7; Sadrazam Kemankes Kara 
Mustafa Pasa Idyihast, in Tarih Vesikalart, i/6 
(1942), 473; according to Angiolello he was chief 
over everyone in the palace except the Sultan) ; the 
Sultan consulted him not only on palace matters but 
on state affairs (the kapi-aghasi Ghadanfer Agha 
wielded enormous influence under Selim II and 
Murad III). In 995/1587, however, Habeshl Mehmed 
Agha (a Black Eunuch) removed the harem from the 
control of the Kapi-aghasl (Uzuncarsih, 354-5). 
The Khazineddr-bashl was eligible for promotion to 
Kapi-aghasl. After Ahmed III appointed Silahdar 
'AH (later Grand Vizier) as general supervisor of the 
palace, the Kapi-aghasl sank to second place. The 
Kapi-aghasl was by tradition eligible to pass out 
from the palace as beglerbegi, and later (in the 10th/ 
16th century) as governor of Egypt with the rank 
of vizier. 



The Khdss-oda bashi, the Khazimddr-bashi and the 
Kildrdii-bashi were in charge of three higher odas 
(or koghush) which were responsible for the personal 
service of the Sultan. The it-oghlanlarl, after com- 
pleting the course of training (usually lasting four 
years) in the Biiytik Oda and the Kutuk Oda, were 
once more put through a process of selection. Those 
found most fitting at this Cikma were taken into the 
odas of the Khazine and the Kildr; the rest were 
placed in the boluks of the Sipdhi-oghlanlari and the 
Sildhddrlar, the other two of the six cavalry regiments 
of the Porte (Kemankes Idyihast, in Tarih Vesikalart, 
i/6, 474). From the clothes which they wore, the 
it-oghlanlarl in the Buyuk Oda and the K iictik Oda 
were called dolamali, those in the higher odas kaftanli. 
Of these higher odas, the first in rank was the Khdss- 
oda; from the time of Selim I onwards the chief duty 
of its members was to care for the Khlrka-i sherife 
room where the relics of the Prophet were kept 
( £ Ata, i, 189). According to the Kdnunndme of 
Mehemmed II (24), it comprised 32 oda-oghlani and 
one silahdar (who looked after the Sultan's weapons), 
one rikdbddr (in charge of his footwear), one cokaddr 
(in charge of his outer clothing) and one dulbend- 
oghlani (who looked after his turbans and under- 
clothes); to them was later added a miftdh- (or 
anakhtar-) ghuldml (or aghasi). These five aghas 
were also called the zuluflu aghalar. The numbers 
in the Khdss-oda were increased to 40 under Selim I. 
In 880/1475 these three higher odas together numbered 
80 pages (I.de Promontorio, 40). In 1090/1679 the 
Khdss-oda comprised, besides the Oda-bashi, 6 aghas, 
12 eski (i.e. senior) pages and 22 '■adjemis (juniors). 
Later still, there was more specialization in the duties 
carried out and new ranks were introduced (for 
details, see c Ata, i, 187-97). 

Early in the nth/i7th century, a fourth oda, 
known as Seferli odasi, was created from among the 
attendants with various duties in the Biiyuk Oda 
(according to £ Ata, i, 153, it was created under 
Ahmed I, cf. Kemankes Idyihast, 472; according to 
Uzuncarsih, 311, in 1045/1635). Its head was the 
Sardy aghasi. It comprised first those who washed 
the Sultan's clothes, and included later the bath 
attendants, the clowns, the mutes, the teachers, the 
musicians and the singers; the total numbers were 
in 1090/1679 134 and in 1186/1772 149. The bands- 
men (Enderun mehterkhdnesi) also belonged to this oda. 

All matters relating to the pages — promotions, 
transfers, etc. — were settled by a khaff-i humdyun 
of the Sultan in response to a proposal ( c ard) made 
by the Kapi-aghasl or the Khdss-oda bashi (Uzun- 
carsih, 304, 324). From time to time the Sultan would 
visit the odas, attend competitions, and encourage 
the pages by awarding prizes. Each oda had a fixed 
complement, known as gedik. Appointments and 
promotions went usually by seniority (known as 
odiak yoliyle) ; even the Sultan was obliged to respect 
this principle (Kemankes Idyihast, 473), but excep- 
tions were made in promotion to posts which required 
special aptitude, e.g. the position of imam, clerk 
(yazidii), bandmaster (mehterbashi). Each oda has its 
own bath, imam and mu'edhdhin. There were special 
libraries in the palace for the use of the pages (M. 
Refik, in TOEM, vii/40, 236; I. Baykal, in Tarih 
Vesikalart, ii/9, 188). Messages were carried by 
kolluklllar. Food for the pages and their clothes 
were provided by the Sultan. Each received, ac- 
cording to his rank, a stipend ('uliife), an issue of 
clothes, and the occasional bonus (Kemankes Idyihast, 
472-4). All promotions and awards were made ac- 
cording to efficiency and seniority. 



the Enderun khalkl were provided with horses 
and weapons and accompanied him, only the 
Sardy aghast remaining behind to guard the 
palace. 

Besides the 'Inner Service', the Enderun, which 
we have considered above, there was a second com- 
plex of departments in the palace known as the 
Blrun, the 'Outer Service'. The Enderun was the 
milieu in which the Sultan spent his private life, 
and at the same time a school where the ghuldms 
were educated and trained. The Blrun was the section 
composed of the services concerned with the Sultan's 
relations with the outside world. According to the 
Kanunname of Mehemmed II, the heads of depart- 
ments of the Blrun were, in order of precedence: the 
Yeni-ieri aghasl, the Mlr-'alem, the Kapldjl-bashl, 
the Mlr-akhur, the Caklrdjl-bashl, the Kapldjllar- 
ketkhuddsl, the Qjebedji-bashl, and the Topll-bashl 
(in 933/1527 the order was: Yeni-ceri aghast, Mlr- 
'■alem, Kapldjl-bashl, Mlr-akhur, Cdshnlglr-bashl, 
Suwdri bblukleri aghalarl, Caklrdjl-bashl, Shahindji- 
bashl, Cawush-bashl, Cadir mehterleri bashl, Kapldjllar- 
ketkhuddsl, see 0. L. Barkan, in Ihtisat Fak. Mecm., 
xv (1953-4), 308). Since (with the exception of the 
Kapldjllar-ketkKuddsl and the Djebedji-bashl) these 
officers were entitled to ride beside the Sultan, they 
were known as bzengi-aghalarl or rikdb-aghalarl 
('Aghas of the Stirrup'). In addition to the bodies 
of men under these officers, the Blrun included also 
the muteferrikalar [see mutafarrika] under the 
Muteterrika-bashl, the Cawushes [see iA'usH] under 
the Cawush-bashl, the baltadjts [q.v.] under the 
Ddr al-sa c dda aghasl, and the bostandjts [q.v.] under 
the Bostandji-bashl [q.v.] (for details on these and 
other groups belonging to the Blrun see Uzuncarsih, 
388-464). All these bodies belonged to the ghuldm 
organization of the Ottoman Empire. 

An idea of the relative importance of the various 



numbers 



monthly stipend, 








iawushes, idshnl- 








glrs, poets, phy- 








sicians, etc.) 




4,381,458 




Janissaries 


7,886 


15,423,426 


37,627 


Sipdhls of the Porte 








(the AUt Boluk) 




30,957,300 


20,869 


Kapldjllar, Teber- 










319 


758,622 


2,451 


Diebedjiler 


524 


1,016,688 


5,730 


Topitlar 


695 


975,624 






301 


641,094 


319 


Cooks 




654,900 


1,129 


c /l lent mehterleri 


185 


466,570 




Cadir mehterleri and 








Dlwdn sdklleri 


277 


562,860 


871 


Craftsmen (jewellers, 








swordmakers, etc.) 


585 


1,422,726 




Top 'arabadjllarl 


943 


985,890 


684 


Falconers 


259 


509,760 


592 


Employed in the 








Imperial stables 


2,830 


5,133,000 




Adjeml oghlanlar 








and Bostdndjls in 








Istanbul 


3.553 


1,993,020 


9,406 



Totals 24,146 65,882,938 87,927 

Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



-AM 1089 

groups comprising the Blrun can be obtained by 
comparing the data of an official list of 933/1527 
(published by 0. L. Barkan, in Iktisat Fakultesi 
Mecmuast, xv (1953-4), 300) with the data for 1018/ 
1609 given by c Ayn-i c Ali (82-99): the table shows 
that in less than a century the number of the 
kapl-kullarl of ghuldm origin increased well over 



function together as a harmonious whole was the 
ilkma, that is, the promotions and transfers which 
were made at intervals (of from two to eight years) 
and at each accession (according to Ta'rlkh-i Ghllmdnl, 
TOEM, supp., 99, every 7 or 8 years; according to 
Miller, 128, every 2 or 3 years in the Biiyuk and 
Kucuk Odas; cf. Uzuncarsih, 336-9). At the Clkma, 
the most senior (eshi) of the pages in the Biiyuk and 
Kucuk Odas were promoted to higher odas, i.e. 
(in ascending order) the Sejerli, the Kildr and the 
Khazlne; the rest were transferred to the boliiks of 
the Sipdhi oghlanlarl and the Sildhddrlar, according 
to their pay. Satisfactory eskis in the three higher 
odas were promoted to the Khdss-oda (for the cere- 
monies of transfer in the later period see c Ata, i, 
187-8). The satisfactory 'juniors' {'adjeml) in the 
four higher odas became 'senior' (eski) ; the rest were 
transferred to the corps of mutejerrikalar or the 
cdshnlgirs, in the Blrun. In each of the four higher 
odas there were 12 eskis; as they were allowed to 
carry daggers, they were known as bilakll. The 12 
khalijes in the Biiyuk and Kucuk Odas used to teach 
the 'adjemls. The aghas of the three upper odas 
were selected from members of the Khdss-oda. but 
the actual head of each oda was a White Eunuch 
(Ak agha). The Khazlnedar-bashl, if promoted, be- 
came Kapi-aghasl (there is documentary evidence, 
however, that in the time of Murad II the Khazlnedar- 
bashl was not a eunuch and that he was promoted to 
the post of sandjak-begi, see Defter-i Arvanid, p. 1 
and n. 5). According to the Kanunname of Mehem- 
med II (23), the sildhddr and the rikdbddr were 
promoted from the Khdss-oda to be muteierrika at 
50 akces or agha of one of the cavalry boliiks or 
Cdshnlglr-bashl; as a special mark of favour he might 
be made kapldjl-bashl. The aghas of the odas were 
promoted to the post of sandxak-begi. As time went 
on, the aghas of the Enderun passed out to even more 
important posts: in the ioth/i6th century it became 
the practice that the Khdss-oda bashl should pass out 
as beglerbegi. In general an agha of the Enderun 
became sandxak-begi or an agha in the Blrun; an 
ordinary member joined one of the boliiks or djemd'ats 
of the Blrun. 

At the time of a clkma each group in the Enderun 
and in the Blrun was on the move. The Ozengi 
Aghalarl of the Blrun moved to the command of a 
sandjak or a beglerbegilik; ordinary members were 
granted ze'-dmets in the provinces. But after the 10th/ 
1 6th century they too, like the aghas of the Enderun, 
began to receive appointments as beglerbegi and 
vizier; in fact an Agha of the Janissaries might be 
appointed directly Grand Vizier. Cashnigirs and 
muteferrikas and sipdhls from the boliiks were given 
ze'-dmets; iawushes, kapldjls and senior Janissaries 
were generally given timdrs; thus they passed into the 
ranks of the 'feudal' sipdhls in the provinces. The 
best of the bostandjls and the ashils entered the 
cavalry boliiks or became kapldjls, the rest passed 
into the Janissaries. Thus the highest position which 
most of the kapl-kullarl in the Enderun and the 
Birun could reach was a timdr in the provinces. We 

69 



1090 GHl 

have seen that so early as the first half of the 9th/i5th 
century kuls of the Sultan and of begs were granted 
not only posts as sandiak-begi and beglerbegi, but also 
ze'dmets and timars ; the view that the timariots were 
composed only of Turkish-born Muslim gdniillit [q.v.] 
or akindiis [q.v.] is erroneous. 

In the classical period (up to the nth/i7th century), 
an important place in the ranks of the timariots — 
and thus in the basic military and administrative 
organization of the Empire — was occupied by the 
'beg kullarl' (or 'ghuldmlarl'). Each beglerbegi, 
sandiak-begi and su-bashi had to have his own force 
of kapi-kullarl, their numbers being regulated by 
kdniin. To own slaves was regarded as a necessary 
qualification for the exercise of executive power. 
Even the timariot had a small 'Porte', composed of 
diebeliis and ghuldms (oghlans), its strength determined 
by the value of his timdr (the proportions are given 
in the Kdnunndme of Siileyman I, but the text 
published by M. c Arif, TOEM, supp., -contains many 
errors; cf. Suret-i Defter-i sancak-i Arvanid); thus in 
835/1431 the ghuldm-i mir Ybrgiid held a timdr of 
6089 akdes, and hence had to put in the field one 
diebelii and one ghuldm (Arvanid, 34). Pashas and 
begs endeavoured to support more diebeliis and 
ghuldms than the kdniin obliged them to (when 
Riistem Pasha died he left 1700 slaves). Diebeliis, 
ghuldms and ndkers, in origin prisoners of war or 
purchased slaves, were, like their masters, subject 
to the regulations that applied to the 'askeri class 
(see H. Inalcik, 15. astr Tiirkiye iktisadi ve ictimai 
tarihi kaynaklan, in Iktisat Fak. Mecm., xv (1953-4), 
53), and thus their status in society differed from 
that of the ordinary < abd; all the same, the shari'a 
rules relating to the c abd, to Htk and to waW 
[qq.v.] applied to the relations between the ghuldm 
of the military class and his master. 

Some of the boys levied by the devshirme were 
placed in the mansions of prominent men. Begs and 
pashas, after training their ghuldms in various duties 
in their konaks, each a microcosm of the Sultan's 
palace, could procure that they passed directly into 
the military class; by presenting their meritorious 
ghuldms to the Sultan, they could obtain for them 
timars, especially in newly-conquered territories. The 
kdnunndmes provide for the allocation of timars 
not only to the sons of begs and pashas but also to 
their ghuldms, in amounts proportionate to the 
khdss or timdr of the holder [see tImar]. Diebeliis were 
slaves who rendered military service, while ghuldms 
(oghlans) were in the personal service of the sipdhi. 
It was possible for a ghuldm to become a diebelii, 
and a diebelii a timariot. In the first half of the 9th/ 
15 th century, the udi begleri were able to present 
timars in their sandiaks to their own ghuldms and 
ndkers (see H. Inalcik, Fatih devri . . . , i, 149-50) 
and thus maintain a quasi-independent status vis-a- 
vis the central authority. The ghuldms of executed 
pashas, like their other possessions, became the 
property of the Sultan, and were sometimes taken 
straight into the palace (Ewliya Celebi, Seyahatndme, 
ii, 472). Thus the ghuldm system was in force at 
every level of the military-administrative organiza- 

In the classical period of the Empire, this system 
was not merely the source for recruitment to the 
administrative class; it was also, from the very 
beginning, of great importance in the social and 
economic structure of society, especially in the great 
cities. Examination of the registers kept by the 
kadis of Ottoman cities in the 9th/i5th and ioth/i6th 
centuries (see H. Inalcik, 15. astr Tiirkiye iktisadi 



in Iktisat Fak. Mecm., xv (1953-4), 52-61) shows that 
one of the most profitable investments which a 
wealthy man could make was to buy slaves. Slave- 
merchants accompanied the armies, and at the end of 
a battle set up their markets (see for example C. D. 
Cobham, Excerpta Cypria, Cambridge 1908, 142). 
In the nth/i7th century the records of the Istanbul 
customs alone show an importation of 20,000 slaves 
(Miller, 81). In the second half of the 9th/i5 th century, 
the average price of a slave was 40-50 Venetian 
ducats. The use of slaves ensured various legal and 
economic advantages. The manufacturers of velvet 
and brocade at Bursa used slave-labour, usually on 
the mukdtaba [q.v.] system. It was profitable for 
merchants to use slaves and 'atiks (freedmen) as 
commercial agents (see H. inalcik, Bursa, in Belleten, 
xxiv/93 (i960), 91-3). One factor encouraging this 
was the legal principle of wala' [q.v.]. The shari l a was 
supplemented by detailed l urfi regulations relating 
to slaves (see 0. L. Barkan, Kanunlar, i, Istanbul 
1943, index s.vv. kul, esir). The Ottomans did, in 
practice, extend the benefits which the shari'-a 
ensured to the c abd. Slaves, whether in the service 
of the state or in private ownership, were not re- 
garded as composing a base class in society: indeed 
in certain circumstances the name of kul procured 
influence and esteem. The kddis' registers reveal 
that c atiks, who had grown up in an active world 
of business and enriched themselves, without en- 
countering any social obstacles, were surprisingly 
numerous in the upper classes of Ottoman society. 

Right from the time of Orkhan GhazI, prisoners of 
war had also been used by the state as slave-labour- 
ers, being settled on agricultural land and in villages 
with the name ortakii-kul [q.v.] (see 0. L. Barkan, 
Kulluklar ve Ortakci kullar, in Iktisat Fak. Mecm., 
i (1939), 29-74, 198-245, 397-447). There is no re- 
semblance at all between these and the ghuldms 
belonging to the military class. 

The classical Ottoman administrative system, 
based on the use of ghuldms, developed greatly in 
the second half of the ioth/i6th century, the number 
of the kapi-kullarl passing 80,000. With the decline 
in the authority of the Sultan at the end of this 
period, the kapi-kullarl acquired absolute control of 
the palace, the government and the provincial ad- 
ministration, and endeavoured to monopolize the 
military fiefs and the other sources of state-revenue. 
Their power became such that they could depose, 
appoint, and even murder ('Othman II) the Sultan. 
Although the ghuldms of the palace sometimes made 
common cause with them, in general it was to their 
advantage to support the authority of the Sultan. 
Thus the palace attempted to pit the cavalry regi- 
ments against the Janissaries. Ottoman historians 
and writers on government in dealing with this 
period (Katib Celebi, Hasan Beg-zade, Na'ima, 
Kocl Beg [qq.v.]) attribute the anarchy in the first 
place to the disruption of the ghuldm system. 

The revolt of Abaza Mehmed Pasha (see abaza — i, 
and H. Inalcik, art. Husrev Pasa, in IA, fasc. 49, 
606-9) is t0 be explained as a violent manifestation 
of the reaction which this domination of the kuls 
provoked in Anatolia. Later attempts on the part 
of the palace and the government to reduce the 
numbers of the kapl-kulu troops and bring them 
under discipline were fruitless; only when Koprtilii 
Mehmed Pasha [q.v.] assumed dictatorial powers was 
it possible to make some resistance to them. The 
lack of discipline among the kapi-kullarl was re- 
flected in the Enderiin: when the iikma due at the 
of Mehemmed IV was delayed, the i(- 



GHULAM — GHULAM HUSAYN KHAN TABATABA 5 ! 



oghlanlarl mutinied (Na'Ima, iv, 349-50); and 
finally in 1086/1675 the organizations of the Biiyiik 
and Kiittik Odas and of the palaces of Ghalata- 
sarSyl [q.v.] and of Ibrahim Pasha were abolished 
(Uzuncarsih, 304). After the wars which lasted from 
1094/1683 until mi/1699 the system of kapl-kullari 
and gkuldms lost its former significance and 
importance in the state and took on a new cha- 

As reasons for the collapse of the system, there 
come to mind, besides its losing its former function, 
such explanations as the reduction in the supply of 
slaves and the contraction of the financial resources 
of the state. But the basic reasons are to be sought 
among those which produced the decline of the Em- 
pire and compelled a change in its structure and 
institutions. In the provinces, individuals who had 
not passed through the system began to enter the 
service of the pashas and thus occupy an increasingly 
prominent place in the administration and in the 
army. The state was obliged to recognize these mili- 
tary groups who, under various names (sarudja 
sekbdn, gbniillu, levend), came into existence in the 
service of the various pashas. This meant the aban- 
donment of the principle that the Sultan's executive 
authority was exercised only by the kapi-kullarl. 
Again, from the nth/i7th century onwards the appli- 
cation of the devshirme among the Christian dhimmis 
became increasingly difficult, so that a devshirme in 
this century could produce only 2000 boys (Miller, 
Palace School, 75). Finally, former members of the 
Enderiin and men of influence were able to introduce 
their own children, instead of devshirme boys, into 
the schools of the palace and the odas of the Enderun 
( c A(a, i, 113). When in the I2th/i8th century persons 
trained in the Government offices began more and 
more to pass into executive positions and provincial 
posts (see H. tnalcik, art. Reis-ul-Kuttab, in I A, 
fasc. 98, 671) and the a'ydn [q.v.] rose to control the 
provincial administration, the ghuldm system no 
longer had any significance or importance. The purge 
of the Enderun under Ahmed III and the changes 
introduced by Corlulu 'All Pasha ( c Ata, i, 162-5) 
are, to some degree, the expression of new tendencies. 
In the odas at this period greater stress was laid 
upon education. The odjak yoli {i.e., the principle 
that promotion was possible only after passing through 
a series of duties) was abolished, and the principle 
that a qualified person could take a short cut into 
the Khdss-oda was accepted. Ghalata-sarayi was 
re-opened as a school training pages for introduction 
directly into the odas of the Khazine and the Hilar 
in the Topkapl Sarayl. The last great representative 
of the ghuldm system is Khusrew Pasha [q.v.]. In 
his own konak he had many slaves, whom he had 
bought, educated and trained by private teachers, 
and appointed them to important posts in the ser- 
vices of the state; many of them rose to the rank of 
pasha (M. Thureyya, Nukhbat al-wakdH l , Istanbul 
1290, 269). Mahmfld II, imitating the palace organi- 
zation of Western courts, made fundamental changes 
in the Ottoman palace organization; the Enderun 
Nazdreti was established in 1831, the Mdbeyn 
Miishiriyyeti in 1832 (M. Thureyya, Sidjill-i 'Oth- 
mdni, iv, 729), and in 1833 the odalar were com- 
pletely abolished (Lutfi, Ta'rikh, iv, 112). 

Bibliography: in the article. See also ijapi 

kulu, kul, and saray-i hOmayun. 

(Halil Inalcik) 

GHULAM AflMAD KADiYAlMt [see ahma- 

GHULAM 'ALl [see azad bilgramI]. 



Sayyid CHULAM tfUSAYN UlAN TABATA- 
BA'I al-HasanI b. Bakhshi al-Mulk Nasir al-Dawla 
S. Hidayat c AlI Khan "Pamir", Bakhshi to Shah 
c Alam (reigned 1173/1759-1221/1806), b. S. 'Alim 
Allah b. S. Fayd Allah Tabataba 5 !, was born at 
Delhi (Shahdjahanabad) in 1140/1727-8 in a poor 
family. When he was five years old the family 
migrated to Murshidabad [q.v.], where Allah Wirdi 
Khan Mahabat Djang, a kinsman of his mother, 
was then living in the service of Shudja' al-Dawla, 
the Ndzim of Bengal. Soon afterwards, when Allah 
Wirdi Khan was appointed the Ndzim of 'Azimabad 
(Patna), S. Hidayat «Ali Khan went with him and 
settled there. Gradually he acquired extensive 
property and eventually became the NdHb of the 
province of 'Azimabad under Zayn al-Din Ahmad 
Khan Haybat Djang. In 1156/1743 his father lost 
his post and returned to Delhi with his family. 
Early in 1158/1745 Ghulam Husayn Khan went to 
'Azimabad, married a daughter of his maternal 
uncle c Abd al- c AH Khan, who was employed in the 
army of Haybat Djang, and took part in the defence 
of the town against Mustafa Khan. In 1161/1748 
Ghulam Husayn entered the service of Sa'Id Ahmad 
Khan Sawlat Djang, son-in-law of Allah Wirdi 
Khan, who was then at Monghyr. Soon afterwards 
he went to Purniya where Sawlat Djang had been 
appointed fawdjddr [q.v.]. On the death of his patron 
in 1169/1754 Ghulam Husayn refused to serve under 
his son and successor Shawkat Djang, but was 
prevailed upon to change his mind. In 1 170/1756, 
when Shawkat Djang revolted against Siradj al- 
Dawla [q.v.], the independent ruler of Bengal, and 
was defeated and slain in battle, Ghulam Husayn, 
fearing reprisals at the hands of the victor, fled to 
Benares and took refuge with his relations living 
there, who had earlier been banished by Siradj al- 
Dawla. 

In 1170/1757, on Mir Djafar's assumption of 
power as the de facto governor of Bengal, Ghulam 
Husayn returned to 'Azimabad and through the 
intercession of Radja Ram Narayan, the local 
governor, recovered some of his family estates and 
was allowed to live in the town. He soon found 
favour with Ram Narayan, but when prince 'All 
Guhar (Shah 'Alam II) attacked Bengal in 1172/1759 
he threw in his lot with the invaders. The attack 
having failed, he again went to Benares but soon 
sought the pardon of Ram Narayan and returned 
to 'Azimabad. Thereafter he involved himself in 
Bengal politics, siding now with Mir Kasim [q.v.] 
and now with the British, gaining favours from both 
sides. In 1176/1762 Mir Kasim gave him a cash 
present of Rs. 5000 and also ordered the payment 
of the arrears of his salary with a view to retaining 
his allegiance, for he was intimate with the British 
and Mir Kasim entertained strong suspicions of his 
loyalty (cf. Siyar al-muta'akhkhirin, Eng. transl. 
1926, ii, 436). His subsequent role as an intermediary 
between the various contending groups is a very 
dubious one (cf. Siyar . . . , Eng. transl. 1926, ii 
458, 513, 517, 524-5, 532, 535-7, 553)- It was through 
his efforts that the kaV-a-ddr of Rohtas arranged 
to surrender the fortress to the British. In 1187/ 
1773-4 he was in Calcutta making preparations for 
a pilgrimage to Mecca but having been suddenly 
impoverished, gave up the intention. Some four years 
later he tried to ingratiate himself with Warren 
Hastings, the British Governor-General, but without 
success. In 1194/1780 he again approached the 
British but with the same negative results. The 
exact date of his death is not known, but according 



GHULAM HUSAYN KHAN TABATABA'I - GHULAM KADIR ROHILLA 



to the Bankipur MS. (No. 282) he was alive till 
1230/1815. According to Nuzhat al-khawdfir (vi, 
200) he died at Husaynabad, a village founded by 
his father near Monghyr. His descendants are still 
living in Patna. 

An Iranian by extraction, he was thoroughly 
conversant with the art of Persian letter-writing. 
He was a munshi by profession and his letters and 
writings drew praise from, among others, Warren 
Hastings (Misiar Hashting . . . muharrardt-i fakir-rd 
mi-sitdyad, Siyar . . . , ii, 674). Among all his acti- 
vities as a Mir Munshi, a political negotiator, a 
soldier and an intermediary, he found time for 
literary activities, undaunted by periods of penury 
and vicissitudes of fortune. His fame rests chiefly on 
the Siyar al-muta'akhkhirin, his magnum opus, a 
detailed history of India from Awrangzib's death 
in 1118/1707 to 1195/1781, begun in Safar 1194/ 
February 1780 and completed in Ramadan 1195/ 
August 1781. An autograph copy of this work is 
preserved in the Oriental Public Library, Bankipur 
(vii, 582). Editions: Calcutta 1248/1836; Lucknow 
1282-3/1866, 1314/1897; Eng. transl. by Hajjl 
Mustafa, originally Raymond, Calcutta 1789 (most 
of this edition was lost at sea); reprint Calcutta 
1902-3, another reprint with index, Calcutta 1926. 
Urdu translations: (i) Ikbdl-ndma by S. Bakhshish 
'All, Delhi n.d.; (ii) Mir'dt al-saldfin by Gokul 
Prasad, Lucknow 1874. There are also several partial 
translations into English and one Persian abridge- 
ment: Mulakhkhas al-tawdrikh (ed. Calcutta 1243/ 
1827, Agra 1247/1831). His other works include (i) 
Bishdrat al-imdma, a mathnawi on the lives of his 
ancestors, especially the miracles of his grandfather 
S. 'Allm Allah Tabatabal (d. 1 156/1743) and his 
great-grandfather S. Fayd Allah (MS. Bankipur 
Suppt., i, no. 1991); (ii) a theological work on the 
prerogatives of C A1I and his descendants, being a 
commentary of certain hadiths quoted in the Fawdtih 
of Mir Husayn al-Maybudhl (defective MS. of un- 
known title, Bankipur, xiv, no. 1319); (iii) a tafsir of 
the Kur'an in 'idiomatic' Arabic {tafsir dar tdzi-i 
bd-muhdwara); (iv) a commentary on the Mathnawi 
of Djalal al-DIn RumI; (v) a diwdn of poems; and 
(vi) other theological works. No MSS. of nos. (iii) to 
(vi) are known to exist. A historical work of'doubtful 
authenticity entitled Sharaf-ndma, written in 1221/ 
1806-7 (MS. Asafiyya, iii, no. 131 4), is also attributed 
to him. 

Bibliography: Siyar al-muta'akhkhirin, Luck- 
now 1866, ii (iii), 948-52; an abridged Eng. transl. 
of the above appeared in The Asiatic Annual 
Register ... for the year 1801, London 1802, 
Characters, 28-32; Dhu'l Fakar c Ali Khan "Mast", 
Riydd al-wifdk (MS.) ; Elliot and Dowson, History 
of India as told by its own historians, viii, 194-7; 
Buckland, Dictionary of Indian biography, 164; 
Storey, i/1, 625-640 (the most detailed account), 
1027; c Abd al-Hayy Lakhnawi, Nuzhat al-kha- 
wdtir, Haydarabad 1376/1957, vi, 199-200. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
GHULAM HUSAYN "SALlM" Zaydpuri, one 
of the earliest Muslim historians of Bengal, migrated 
from his home-town Zaydpur, near Bara Baiikl in 
Awadh, to English Bazar or New Malda (Bengal), 
also called Angrezabad, and became Dak Munshi, 
or Postmaster, there under George Udny (Udney), 
the Commercial Resident of the East India Company's 
factory at that place. Apparently a well-educated 
man, he undertook to write, at the request of Udny, 
a history of Bengal, which he named Riydd al-saldtin 
(chronogram of 1207/1787-8, the date of completion). 



This work is divided into a mukaddima and four 
rawdds (1) the viceroys of the Sultans of Delhi, 
(2) the independent kings, (3) the Ndzims (governors) 
under the TImurids and (4) the British. Edition: 
The Riydzu-s-Saldtin . . , edited by Maulavi Abdul 
Hak Abid, Calcutta 1890-1; Eng. transl., The Riyazu- 
s-Salatin . . . translated . . . with notes by Maulavi 
Abdus Salam, Calcutta 1902-4. 

A man of considerable learning, he devoted his 
spare time to teaching. One of the pupils of a pupil 
of his, S. Ilahi Bakhsh b. c Ali Bakhsh al-Husayni 
Arigrezabadi wrote Kh"urshid-i diahdn-numd, a 
general history of the world, which also contains a 
brief account of Ghulam Husayn, his teacher's 
teacher (cf. H. Beveridge, JASB, lxiv/i (1895), 196, 
198). Other references are to be found in Riydd 
al-saldtin, Engl, transl., 2-5; c Abd al-Hayy Lakhna- 
wi, Nuzhat al-khawdtir, Haydarabad, 1 378/1958, 
vii, 352. He died in 1233/1817. See also Storey, i, 178. 
(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

SHULAM KADIR ROHILLA B. Dabita 
Khan b. Amir al-Umara' Nadjib al-Dawla [q.v.], 
founder of the town of Nadjibabad, remembered 
chiefly for his cruel treatment of the Mughal emperor 
Shah 'Alam (reg. 1173-1221/1759-1806), and his 
family. While still young Ghulam Kadir Khan was 
left at the Imperial court as his father's representa- 
tive, most probably as a hostage. He escaped from 
custody, however, in 1 190/1776 on the defeat of the 
imperial forces by Dabita Khan, and joined his 
father at the fort of Ghawthgafh, the family head- 
quarters near Thana Bhawan, the birth place of 
Ashraf 'All Thanawl [q.v.]. The very next year 
Dabita Khan was defeated by the Marathas and 
Ghulam Kadir was taken prisoner and brought to 
Delhi. There he was lodged in the palace (Red Fort) 
and, to the amusement of the courtiers, was obliged 
to appear before the emperor clad in women's attire. 
All this seems to have been done to humiliate his 
father, the Rohilla chief Dabita Khan. A handsome 
lad, he attracted the attention of the ladies of the 
harem, but was punished by castration. On the death 
of his father in 1 199/1785 Ghulam Kadir succeeded 
to the family estates but did not pay the customary 
succession fee to the emperor. In 1202/1787, the 
Maratha leader, Sindhiya (Scindia), entered into a 
pact with Ghulam Kadir for controlling the Sikhs 
who were giving trouble in the Doab. Instead of 
observing the pact Ghulam Kadir began to drive 
out the Maratha collectors of revenue and seize 
imperial territory, enjoying all the time the patronage 
of the eunuch Hafiz Manzur c Ali Khan, who had a 
strong hold over the emperor and wanted to throw 
off Maratha control. In August of the same year 
Ghulam Kadir succeeded in defeating the Maratha 
forces at Shahdara, near Delhi. He laid claim to the 
post of Mir Bakhshi and the control of the imperial 
administration. The next month he occupied the 
capital and forced Shah 'Alam to appoint him Mir 
Bakhshi and Amir al-Umara?, offices once held by 
his father and grandfather. He then began his de- 
predations in the Doab and even usurped the crown- 
lands reserved for the privy purse of the emperor 
(sarf-i khdss mahdll). In Shawwal 1202/July 1788 
he again appeared before Delhi and through the 
treachery and intrigue of his friend, the eunuch 
Manzur C A1I, superintendent of the royal household, 
was able to have an audience with the unwilling but 
helpless emperor. This audience proved to be the 
beginning of a period of great troubles for the imperial 
family— the House of TImur. Shah 'Alam was taken 
prisoner and deposed on 26 Shawwal /30 July, and 



GHULAM kAdir ROHILLA — GHULAT 



ten days later he was blinded. In a moving Persian 
poem Shah c Alam laments the loss of his eyes (cf. 
$ab3h al-DIn c Abd al- Rahman, Bazm-i Timuriyya, 
A'zamgafh 1367/1948, 317-8). Children and women 
of the harem were starved to death, princes flogged 
and the begams dishonoured. For days together 
every conceivable cruelty was perpetrated on the 
royal family in vengeance for the act of castration 
to which the Rohilla chief had been subjected during 
his boyhood. Retribution, however, soon overtook 
him. In Djumada I 1203/February 1789 he was 
captured by the Maratha leader, MahaddjI Sindhiya, 
and after a short imprisonment was put to death; 
his body was dismembered and hung from a tree. 
Bibliography: Khavr al-DIn Muhammad Ila- 
habadl, '■Ibrat-ndma, I.O. MS. 3908-10 (gives the 
fullest account of Ghulam Kadir's career) ; extracts 
in Elliot and Dowson, History of India . . . , viii, 
237-54; Amln al-DIn Husayn Khan, Pdddsh-i 
Kirddr, I.O. MS. 3979; C A1I Bakht GurganI 
'Azfari', Wdki c dl-i Azfari, Urdu transl., Madras 
1937; Ferishta's History of Dekkan . . . , by Jo- 
nathan Scott, London 1794, ii, 285-306; W. Franck- 
lin, The history of the reign of Shah- A ulum, London 
1798 (mostly based on Ghulam 'All Khan's Shah 
'■Alam-ndma, fasc. i, Calcutta 191 2, fasc. ii, 
Calcutta 1914); Nddirdt-i Shdhi, ed. Imtiyaz 'All 
Khan 'Arshl, Rampur 1944; Jadunath Sarkar, Fall 
of the Mughal Empire, Calcutta 1952, iii, 278, 280, 
284, 287, 291 ff., 302-20 (where several other 
references are given); Durga Prashhad, WakdH 
'Alarn Shdhi, (ed.) Imtiyaz 'All Khan 'Arshi, 
Rampur 1949; Naslr al-DIn Barlas, Nadjib al- 
tawdrikh (MS.) ; A History of the Freedom Movement, 
Karachi 1957, i, 129-35. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
GHULAM al-KHALLAL, usual appellative ol 
Abu Bakr c Abd al- c AzIz b. Dja'far b. Ahmad, a 
highly-esteemed Hanbali traditionist and 
jurisconsult (d. 363/974). He owes his by-name 
to the fact that he was the principal disciple of Abu 
Bakr al-Khallal (d. 311/923 [q.v.]). He transmitted 
his master's Kitdb al-Didmi'-. the first great corpus 
juris of Hanbalism; he completed it on a number of 
points by the Zdd al-musdfir which, though of lesser 
importance than the first compilation, was also to 
become a much consulted work; the Zdd al-musdfir 
was considered as presenting fairly numerous 
divergences not only from the Kitdb al-Didmi 1 - but 
also from the Mukhtasar of al-KMraki. Other works 
of fikh are also attributed to him, in particular a 
treatise on the differences of opinion between al- 
Shafi'I and Ahmad b. Hanbal. Abu Bakr c Abd al- 
'Aziz also transmitted the Kitdb al-Amr of Ibn 
Hanbal; a manuscript of this work is preserved in 
the Zahiriyya at Damascus; to the purely doctiinal 
interest of this treatise is added an interest of a 
social and political nature, for it contains a criticism 
of the life of luxury and pleasure which was led by 
the caliphs and their entourage, and one can detect 
in it the beginnings of a veiled hostility to the 
Tuikish elements of the caliphate. 

Bibliography: Abu '1-Husayn b. al-Farra 5 , 
Tabakdt al-Handbila, Cairo ed., ii, 75-127 (gives the 
list of the divergences from the Mukhtasar of al- 
Khirakl); Ibn Kathir, Biddya, xi, 278; Ibn al- 
c Imad, Shadhardt, iii, 45-6; Djamil al-Shattl, 
Mukhtasar tabakdt al-Handbila, Damascus n.d., 26; 
Brockelmann, S I, 311. (H. Laoust) 

GHULAM IHA'LAB, nickname of an Arab 
philologist named Muhammad b. c Abd al-Wahidb. 
Abi Hisham (Hashim), Abu 'Umar al-ZShid al-Mutar- 



riz al-Barudl. A native of Ablward Khurasan, he was 
born in 261/875 and died at Baghdad on 13 Dhu 
'1-Ka c da 345/16 February 957. He owes his nickname 
to his relations with Tha'lab [q.v.] whose zealous 
disciple and successor he was; he himself had many 
pupils, and famous people did not scorn to attend 
his lectures. He made his living as an embroiderer 
(mutarriz), but certainly received also subsidies from 
several patrons, as appears from an anecdote quoted 
by almost all his biographers. 

Although he transmitted some hadiths and the 
traditionists regard him generally as reliable, his 
fame rests principally on his extraordinary erudition 
in matters of Arabic vocabulary; in this field he is 
considered as the most learned of all the philologists, 
and tradition has it that he dictated from memory 
60,000 pages; the very extent of his learning caused 
him often to be accused of forgery and dishonesty, 
but, to judge from some anecdotes, his detractors 
seem to have been wasting their time; this was 
notably the case with Ibn Durayd [q.v.], who was 
one day shown up in public by Ghulam Tha'lab and 
until his death never spoke to him again. He had 
an answer for everything and was even able to find 
a meaning, from the old Bedouin vocabulary, for 
words which mischievous pupils invented as a joke. 
Politically, it is particularly interesting to note 
that he belonged to the party which, so late as the 
4th/ioth century, still revered the memory of Mu'a- 
wiya (see Ch. Pellat, in St. Isl., vi (1956), 56) ; he even 
wrote a little work {djuz') on the merits of the 
Umayyad caliph, which he insisted on his pupils 
reading before he allowed them to attend his 
lectures; al-'Askalanl himself (Lisdn al-mizdn, v, 
268) passes a rather severe judgement on this work 
because it contained apocryphal data, but he places 
the responsibility for these on other transmitters. It 
is precisely because of his hostility towards 'All and 
the Shi'a that Ibn al-Nadlm is by no means favour- 
able towards him; all the same he devotes to him a 
long notice (Fihrist, Cairo ed., 113-4), which includes 
a page of exceptional interest on the way in which 
at that time a dictated text gradually acquired the 
form of a finished work, thanks to the care of the 
listeners and the final intervention of the master. 
Ibn al-Nadlm and the other biographers list a total 
of more than 25 works among which the Kitdb al- 
Ydkul (or al-Yawakit) fi 'l-lugha seems to be the 
most important. In this list he draws particular 
attention to a commentary (sharh) and a supplement 
(faHt) to the Fasih of Tha'lab, a "very good" Gharib 
al-kadith based on the Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal, 
a supplement to the Kitdb al- c Ayn of al-KhaM b. 
Ahmad, a critism of Abu c Ubayda (ma ankarahu 
'l-A'rdb '■aid Abi c Ubayda fimd rawdh) and a critical 
supplement to the Diamhara of Ibn Durayd. 

Bibliography: apart from the works quoted: 

Khatib BaghdadI, Ta'rlkh Baghdad, ii, 356-9; Ibn 

al-Anbari, Nuzha, 345; Yakut, Vdabd\ xviii, 226- 

34; Ibn Khallikan, s.v.; SuyutI, Bughya, s.v.; F. 

BustanI, DdHrat al-ma c drif, iv, 477-9; for further 

bibliography and extant MSS see Brockelmann, 

S I, 183. (Ch. Pellat) 

GHULAT (singular, GhalI), "extremists", a term 

of disapproval for individuals accused of exaggeration 

(ghulu) in religion. By heresiographers it was applied 

particularly to those Shi'Is [q.v.] whose doctrines 

Ithna c asharl ImamI orthodoxy has regarded as 

exaggerated in reverence for the imams or in other 

ways. In practice, the term has covered all early 

speculative Shi'is except those later accepted by 



Ithna 



traditioi 



; well ; 



all 1 



log* GHl 

groups except Zaydis, orthodox Ithna c asharis, and 
sometimes Ismallls. During the early period, what 
are called the Qhuldt offered a distinctive speculative 
tendency within the general ShI c I political orienta- 
tion ; their speculations continued to influence most 
later Shl c i (and even some SunnI) thought, and 
formed a reservoir of ideas from which many later 
ShI'I movements drew their main inspiration. Ac- 
cordingly, the term Ghulat, if understood as a proper 
name without parti pris, may be made to serve for 
a heterogeneous but interconnected group of Shi c i 
religious leaders and for the later tradition which 
went back to them. 

Traditionally, the first of the Qhuldt was £ Abd 
Allah b. Saba 5 [q.v.], whose ghulu may have con- 
sisted in denying that C A1I had died, and predicting 
his return {radi'a), as the later Imamls did that of 
the Twelfth Imam. In any case, the notion of the 
absence (ghayba) of an imam who is due to return 
and establish justice as mahdi [q.v.] or frdHm seems to 
have appeared first among the Ghulat. Other positions 
which seem to have been labelled ghulu by early 
writers were the (public) condemnation {sabb) of 
Abu Bakr and c Umar as usurpers of c Ali's right, 
and the notion that the true imams were divinely 
protected (ma'sum) against any sort of error. The 
Ghulat were especially concerned to define the nature 
of the imam's person and were ascribed varying 
positions on this: that the imam was the waft, 
executor, of the Prophet; that he possessed a 
prophetic authority (nubuwwa) himself, though one 
secondary to Muhammad's; that he (as well as 
Muhammad) possessed a spark of the divine light 
(nur ildhl) inherited from Adam through a line of 
prophets; or that he represented divinity itself, 
perhaps as a lesser god in the earth, or by infusion 
(hulill) of the divine spirit in him. 

They were almost equally concerned to define the 
nature of the true believer. Some seem to have 
expected all the truly faithful to receive some 
degree of prophetic inspiration. At least by the time 
of Dja £ far al-Sadik's friend Abu '1-Khattab [q.v.], a 
leading Ghall, many thought of the soul in purely 
spiritual terms, essentially independent of any body; 
thus some expected a purely spiritual resurrection, 
and many seem to have adopted the principle of 
reincarnation (tandsukh) and even that of trans- 
migration (maskh) into sub-human bodies. In con- 
formity with their depreciation of the body, many 
seem to have regarded the ritual law as not binding 
on those who had come to a deeper truth, that is, 
those who knew the imam. They were commonly 
accused of regarding all rules of conventional 
morality as inapplicable (ibdha); at the same time, 
some of them were blamed for introducing new rules, 
such as vegetarianism. Some of the Ghulat, notably 
al-Mughira b. Sa c id and Abu Mansur al- c ldjll, 
speculated on the nature of God himself, commonly 
in strongly anthropomorphic terms inspired by 
Kur'anic passages, often with symbolic cosmological 
implications. 

Much of this thought can be traced to the impulse 
of Islam itself and the experience of the Kur'an. The 
expectation of continuing prophecy and the hope 
for a human leader who, under divine guidance, 
would order the world justly, represented an inter- 
pretation of Islam alternative to that of the leader- 
ship at Mecca and Medina. Some details, however, 
reflected pre-Islamic Arabian conceptions, for many 
of the early Qhuldt leaders seem to have been tribal 
Arabs. A form of divination used in the circle of 
Mukhtar and some conceptions of the radfa of 



heroes may have had old-Arabian origins. Finally, 
many of the later Ghulat leaders were Mawali, of 
Christian, Jewish, Gnostic, and Zoroastrian back- 
ground, and they brought ancestral conceptions with 
them; probably the bulk of their speculations on 
the soul derive from such earlier Middle Eastern 
traditions (cf. I. Goldziher, Neuplatonische und 
gnostische Elemente im If adit, in ZA, xxii, 1909). 

In the first generations, the Qhuldt seem to have 
been just especially intensely religious elements in 
the various Shi c i movements. But by the second 
century, some of them probably initiated indepen- 
dent political activity against the regime (but in 
such "risings" as that of Bayan b. Sam c an [q.v.], it 
may have been the government which took the 
initiative in an attempt at suppression) ; while their 
ideas also helped justify the formation of certain 
inherited lines of imamate, in which it was believed 
that a given claimant was imam whether he attempt- 
ed to gain rule of the Islamic community or not. 
Both the lines of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya and 
that of Muhammad Bakir and Dja'far al-Sadik were 
more or less willingly surrounded by Qhuldt thinkers 
(cf. Fr. Buhl, Alidernes stilling til de ShiStiske 
Bevaegelser under Umajjaderne, in Kgl. Danske 
Viden. Selsk., Forhandling, 1910, no. 5). Imami 
tradition automatically places all supporters of any 
claimants from Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya as 
Ghulat, under the collective name of Kaysaniyya 
[q.v.]. Some of these Kaysanls continued to support 
the c Abbasids as imams with supernatural authority 
for some generations. It seems that some of the 
Qhuldt allowed the imamate to pass not only out of 
the c Alid but even out of the Hashimid family, when 
some other man appeared to have the divine leading. 
Qhuldt Shi c i ideas, finally, seem to have affected 
certain Zoroastrian sectarian movements, especially 
through reverence for Abu Muslim (cf. Gholam 
Hossein Sadighi, Les Mouvements religieux iraniens, 
Paris 1938). 

By the 3rd/gth century, at latest, there developed, 
among the Ghulat. bdtini [q.v.] systems of symbolical 
Kur'an interpretation. These seem to have been 
influenced by philosophy of the Greek tradition. 
Qhuldt differed according as they asserted the 
supremacy of one or another principle, among those 
agreed to be embodied in certain religious offices and 
persons. The Mimiyya exalted the mim, or Muham- 
mad, embodying as prophet the principle of declared 
truth and outer reality; the 'Ayniyya exalted the 
c ayn, or C A1I, embodying as imam the principle of 
inward meaning; a third principle was represented 
by the sin, or Salman FarisI, the Gate through whom 
men came to the truth. Several of these groups 
played something of a rdle in the declining years of 
the 'Abbasid caliphate, when an enthusiast like 
Shalmaghani held high political position. 

Much of the Ghulat heritage was absorbed into the 
Imami and Isma'fli movements and disciplined by 
the exclusion especially of notions implying any 
compromise of the unity of God; thus the term 
hulul seems to be rejected by surviving authors, 
along with the idea that the imam could be a god or 
a prophet. But even such ideas continued present 
within Imami and Isma c HI circles and in sects like 
the Nusayriyya [q.v.]; in later centuries, numerous 
apocalyptic movements developed in which various 
of the ideas of the Ghulat were used, and which often 
resulted in more or less long-lasting sects, those of 
the Nizaris and Druzes from the Isma'ill fold, and 
the c Ali-Ilahis or Ahl al-Hakk, who saw c Ali as God. 
The first Safawis likewise interpreted ShI'ism in a 



GHULAT — GHUMARA 



manner which orthodox Imamism must term 
ghulil. Transformed into complex symbolic lore, as 
at the hands of the Hurufis, much entered the broad 
stream of SOfism. 

Bibliography : Julius Wellhausen, Die religiOs- 
politiscke Oppositionsparteien, Abh. G. W. Gott., 
phil.-hist. Kl., n.f. V, no. 2, 1901; Gerlof van 
Vloten, Recherches sur la domination arabe, le 
chiitisme, et les croyances messianiques, Amsterdam 
1894; van Vloten, Worgers in Iraq, in Feestbundel 
Vetk, 57 ff.; Sabatino Moscati, Per una storia dell' 
antica H'a, in RSO, xxx, 1955; Marshall G. S. 
Hodgson, How did the early Shi'a become 
sectarian ?, in JAOS, lxxv, 1955 ; Louis Massignon, 
Les origines chiites des . . . Banu 'l-Furdt, Melanges 
Gaudefroye-Demombynes, Cairo 1935 ; idem, Re- 
cherches sur les chiites extrimistes a Baghdad a la 
tin du troisieme siecle.in ZDMG, xcii (1938), 378 ff. 
See also the articles on sects and men above 
mentioned. Our chief sources of information on the 
early Ghuldt are of four types: (a) Chroniclers, when 
rebellion or violent suppression occurred; these 
were inimical and superficial; (6) Traces in later 
Shi'I writings, both ImamI and especially texts 
from various sorts of Isma'ilis (e.g., the Umm al- 
Kitdb, ed. W.~ Ivanow, I si., xxiii, 1936), Druze, 
Nusayri, and also HurufI and Ahl al-Hakk; 
(c) Imami ShI c I ridjdl books such as Kashshi, 
Akhbdr al-ridjdl; (d) Heresiographers. These have 
been discussed by Helmuth Ritter, Philologika III, 
in Isl., xviii, 1929, and R. Strothmann, History of 
Islamic heresiography , in IC, 1938; lists of heresi- 
ographers and of sect names are to be found in 
<Abbas Ikbal, Khdnaddn-i Nawbakhti, Tehran, 
131 1 s. The heresiographers are hostile; later 
writers tend to derive their lists of sects from the 
earlier, adding little on their own times. They 
commonly force their names into a traditional 
number of seventy-three, and use the term firka 
indiscriminately for an independent sect, for a 
school of thought, and for a minor doctrinal 
position perhaps shared among otherwise unrelated 
thinkers. Too often they attribute to a system 
supposed consequences of a given position alien to 
the system itself; perhaps many charges of im- 
morality derive from this. Of the most prominent, 
al-Ash c ari (Makdldt al-Isldmiyyin, ed. H. Ritter, 
Istanbul 1929) takes up under Imdmiyya some of 
the same groups as he takes up under Ghuldt, but 
on different issues; MalatI (K . al-Tanbihwa 'l-radd, 
ed. Sven Dedering, Istanbul 1936) has some very 
old material but can be grossly misinformed; 
Nawbakhti (Firak al-Shi'-a, ed. H. Ritter, Istanbul 
1931) is relatively fair-minded, but sees all groups 
in ImamI terms; Ibn Hazm is very thin on the 
ShI'a. forcing the Ghuldt into a procrustean 
scheme, but the translation of him by Israel 
Friedlander (Heterodoxies of the Shiites, New 
Haven 1909, corrected from JAOS, xxviii and 
xxix) has useful notes; al-Baghdadl, al-Fark bayn 
al-firak, is virulently unfair, but sometimes well- 
read in Ghuldt writings; al-Shahrastanl is late, 
relatively well-balanced, and has some early 
material from original sources. 

(M. G. S. Hodgson) 
GHUMARA (Gumera of Leo Africanus), Berber 
tribe of the western Maghrib. Ibn Khaldun groups 
them among the Masmuda tribes and attributes to 
them as ancestor Ghumar son of Masmud or, 
according to another tradition, son of Mestaf, son of 
Melll, son of Masmud. The Ghumara were divided 
i nto a large number of clans — B. Humayd, Mattlwa, 



1095 

Ighsawa (= Ghzawa), Madjkasa, etc. — whose names 
are still borne by certain tribes of the RIf. It is rather 
difficult to determine precisely the territory occupied 
by the Ghumara. According to Ibn Khaldun it was 
five days long, from the region of the "plains of the 
Maghrib" to Tangier, by as many broad, from Kasr 
Kutama to the river Wargha. It was bounded by the 
Atlantic between Aslla and Anfa and was adjacent 
on this side to the territory of the Barghwata. Al- 
Bakrl excludes the regions of Tangier and Ceuta 
from it and gives as its limits Nakur on the east and 
Karushat on the west. 

The Ghumara had been long established in this 
part of the Maghrib when Islam was introduced. 
When conquered by MQsa b. Nusayr they became 
converted to the new religion but in the 2nd/8th 
century adopted KharidjI doctrines and took part 
in the revolt of Maysara. Even after the defeat of the 
Kharidils they showed an inclination towards 
heresy: "Their countrified customs and rustic 
habits", says Ibn Khaldun, "prevented them from 
recognizing the true principles of religion". Thus 
they gathered in multitudes around the false 
prophet Ha-MIm [q.v.]. Later another prophet 
appeared, by name c Asim b. Djamll al-Yazdadjuml; 
in 625/1228 a revolt broke out at the instigation of 
one Abu '1-Tawadjin, who claimed to be a prophet 
and magician. A taste for magic was also one of the 
characteristics of the Ghumara. Al-Bakri provides 
various items of information on this point and Ibn 
Khaldun remarks that it was especially the young 
women who practised the art. 

From the political point of view the Ghumara 
suffered various vicissitudes. From the 2nd/8th to 
the 4th/ioth century the eastern part of their clans 
was included in the kingdom of Nakur. Sogguen, 
one of their chiefs, tried, it is true, to put himself in 
the place of the Banu Salih, the descendants of the 
founder of this state, but his attempt failed (144/761). 
At the partition of the Idrlsid empire the eastern 
clans fell to c Umar b. Idrls and were governed by his 
descendants. They remained faithful to these princes 
even after the Idrlsids had been expelled from Fez 
by the Fatimids and supported them to the end in 
their struggles against, the Umayyads of Spain. 
After the downfall of the Idrlsids (264/877) the 
Ghumara recognized the authority of the Umayyads, 
then that of the Hammadids of Ceuta until the 
Almoravid invasion. On the approach of the Almo- 
hads the Ghumara hastened to adopt the new doc- 
trine and even helped c Abd al-Mu 5 min to take Ceuta 
(541/1146). But this faithfulness, which had won 
them the caliph's favour, did not last long. Abu 
Ya'kub was obliged to come in person to put down 
the revolt of a Ghumaran chief named Saba' b. 
Managhfad (562/1 166-7) and after the defeat of the 
rebel entrusted the government of Ceuta to his 
brother with the task of keeping a watch on the Rif. 

The Marinids also had great difficulty in checking 
the turbulence of the Ghumara and managed to 
subdue them only by taking advantage of the 
quarrels between saffs which divided them. Even so 
their subjection was rather precarious. "In our 
days", writes Ibn Khaldun, "the Ghumara have 
become powerful and numerous, but recognize 
nevertheless the authority of the Marlnid govern- 
ment and pay taxes to it so long as it has the means 
to compel their respect. But if ever it shows weakness 
... it is forced to send troops from the capital to 
make them submit again. Protected by their in- 
accessible mountains, they do not fear to offer 
asylum to princes of the royal family and other 



GHUMARA — GHURAB 



rebels who ask for their protection". From the 
9th/i5th century onwards we lack exact information 
about the Ghumara. Their name, still mentioned by 
Leo Africanus in the ioth/i6th century, is borne 
today by a powerful tribe of the Djabala. 

Bibliography : Bakri, Description de VAfrique 
septentrionale, ed. de Slane, tr. 288 ff . ; Ibn 
Khaldun, Berbires, tr. de Slane, ii, 133, 144, 
156 ff., 197 f.; Leo Africanus, tr. Epaulard, 12, 
250, 256, 264, 268, 278, 544, 564; E. Fagnan, 
VAfrique septentrionale au XIV siecle de notre ere 
(Kitdb al-Istibsdr), Constantine 1900, 45 ff., 144-7; 
Moulieras, Maroc inconnu, ii, 291-355. 

(G. Yver) 
dlUMDAN (epigr.GHNDN, CIH 429), the castle 
of San c a> (Azal) in the Yaman, famous for its anti- 
quity, its size, and its splendour. Arabian geographers 
give detailed descriptions of it (v. infra), esp. Ham- 
danl (in Iklil, viii), who attributes its building to the 
king Ilsharah Yahdib (about 25 B.C.), probably 
correctly (cf. CIH 429). The castle was situated 
between the twin mountains Nukum and c Ayban. 
It is said to have been destroyed by the Abyssinian 
conquerors in 525 A.D., but was rebuilt and served 
as the residence of Sayf b. Dh u Yazan after the 
Persian occupation in 570. It was finally demolished 
in connexion with the Muslim conquest of the Yaman, 
allegedly by Farwa b. Musayk or the Caliph c Uthman. 
Legend attributes the foundation of 'Ghumdan to 
Sam b. Nuh, more seldom to Solomon or al-Zabba 5 . 
The castle is said to have had twenty storeys, each of 
them 10 cubits high; its lower part was made of 
freestone, its upper part, including the splendid ter- 
race with four lions of bronze, was built of polished 
marble. Hamdani locates its ruins opposite to the 
first and second doors of the chief mosque, which 
probably contains much material from the old castle. 
South Arabian poets, such as Umayya b. Abu '1-Salt 
and 'Alkama b. Dhu Pjadan, celebrate Ghumdan 
as the residence of the Himyarite kings. The poems 
quoted may, as Hamdani remarks, partly refer to 
another castle, the homograph 'Umdan in Marib. 
Bibliography: G. Ryckmans, Les nomspropres 
sud-simitiques, Louvain 1934, i, 360; H. v. Wiss- 
mann and M. Hofner, Beitrage zur hist. Geographie 
des vorislam. Sudarabien, Wiesbaden 1952, 19 f., 
27, 32; D. H. Miiller, Die Burgen u. Schlosser Sud- 
arabiens nach dent Iklil des Hamddni, Wien 1879, 
8-19, 45-48 (=al-Iklil, viii, ed. Faris, 10-21; cf. 
Lofgren in Orientalia, N.S., xii, 141 f .) ; Hamdani, 
Si/a, ed. Miiller, 195, 202 f., 239 f. (trad. Forrer, 
11, 276) ; BOA , i, 24 ; ii, 31 ; v, 35 ; vi, 136; vii, no f. ; 
Bakri, Mu'diam, ed. Wustenfeld, 299, 464, 698; 
Yakut, Mu'diam al-bulddn, iii, 811 f.; Ibn al- 
Mudjawir, Ta'rlkh al-mustabsir, ed. Lofgren, 180 f.; 
Nashwan, Shams al- c ulum, ed. c AzImuddin Ahmad 
(Gibb Mem. Series XXIV), 81; Mas'udI, Murudi, 
iv, 49; Dimishki, Cosmographie, tr. Mehren, 31. 
(O. Lofgren) 
GHUN&lAR, a nickname given, allegedly be- 
cause of his ruddy cheeks, to an early Persian 
hadith scholar, Abu Ahmad c Isa b. Musa al-TaymI 
al-BukharI, who died at the end of the year 186/802. 
The Arabo-Persian word does mean "rouged", but 
it is, of course, highly doubtful whether this is the 
origin of the name. 

The nickname was transferred to a later scholar 
who spent much effort upon collecting 'Isa's tra- 
ditions and who is known as the author of a History 
of Bukhara. His name was Abu <Abd Allah Muham- 
mad b. Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Sulayman al- 
Bukhari, known as (al-)Ghundjar. He flourished in 



the second half of the 4th/ioth century and worked 
in the book trade. Of the dates given for his death 
(410, 412, 422), 412/1021-22 is the most likely one; 
422/1031 would seem too late, since he states himself 
that he said the funeral prayers for a scholar deceased 
in 350/961 {Ta'rikh Baghdad, i, 296). Only brief 
citations from the History 0/ Bukhara have so far 
come to light. An abridgment of the work was made 
by al-Silafi, and additions were contributed by a 
certain Ahmad al-Mamani (b. Mama?) (d. 436/1045). 
A certain Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Sulayman al- 
Bukhari, said to have died a hundred years earlier, 
in 312/924 (Hadjdji Khalifa, ii, 116 f.), and to have 
been the author of a History 0/ Bukhara, seems to 
be, in fact, identical with this Ghundiar. 

Bibliography: For <Isa b. Musa, cf., e.g., 
Bukhari, Ta'rlkh, iii/2, 394; Ibn Abi Hatim Razi, 
Diarh. iii/i, 285 f.; and, summing up the meagre 
data, Ibn Hadjar, Tahdhib, vii, 732-4. For the 
historian of Bukhara, cf. Sam'ani, Ansab, fol. 
411b; Yakut, Udabd', vi, 239; F. Rosenthal, A 
history 0/ Muslim historiography, Leiden 1952, 
386, 428; R. N. Frye, The history of Bukhara, 
Cambridge Mass. 1954, 103 f. For the alleged 
earlier historian of Bukhara, cf. Wustenfeld, 
Geschichtsschreiber, 98; Brockelmann (1st ed.), I, 
138 (also I, 167, corrected in SI, 310); Frye, 
op. cit., xvii. (F. Rosenthal) 

SHOR, the mountainous territory In Afghanistan 
about the headwaters of the Farah Rud, Hari Rud, 
and Murghab, from which is named the mediaeval 
dynasty of the Ghurids [?.».]. The establishment of 
Islam came late in Ghur, and raids by Arab generals 
continued until the 4th/ioth century. A tradition of 
the existence of Jewish settlements finds confir- 
mation in the discovery of a Judaeo-Persian in- 
scription of A.D. 752-3 at Tang-i Azao, near Cisht. 
In 372/982 the Hudud al-'dlam claims that most of 
the inhabitants had accepted Islam. Originally the 
chief place was Mandaysh, in a district called Sanga 
near the mountain Zar-i Margh. These localities were 
placed by Maricq near Ahangaran — the name, still 
extant, of the fortress where Muhammad b. SOri of 
Ghur was besieged by Mahmfld of Ghazna in 401/1010. 
The founding in the district of Warshada of a new 
capital, Firuzkuh [q.v.], was the work of Kutb al-DIn 
Muhammad (killed by Bahram Shah of Ghazna ca. 
544/1149). His successor, Baha 3 al-DIn Sam, established 
frontier fortresses at Kadjuran, to the south, Shersang 
towards Herat and Bindar and Fivar to the north- 
west. The rediscovery by Maricq in 1957 of the 
minaret and citadel of Firuzkuh was a triumph of 
modern exploration. Ghur was noted for its export 
of armour, weapons, guard-dogs and slaves. Its 
historical role came to an end with the sack of 
Firuzkuh by the armies of Cingiz Khan. 

Bibliography: A. Maricq and G. Wiet, Le 

minaret de Djdm, 1959; W. B. Henning, The 

inscriptions of Tang-i Azao, in BSOAS, xx (1957), 

335-42; C. E. Bosworth, The early Islamic history 

of Ghur, in Central Asiatic Journal, vi/2 (1961), 

116-33; Hudud al-'dlam, 342-4; Minhadj-i Siradj, 

Tabakdt-i Ndsiri. (A. D. H. Bivar) 

GHURAB. (a.) "crow". In view of the diversity 

of their meanings the Arabic words formed from the 

three consonants gh, r and b cannot be traced to a 

single root, and it is probable that in the course of 

the history of the language there came about a 

convergence of terms with different origins; thus, 

ghurdb is too reminiscent of the Latin corvus for us 

to consider it a mere coincidence; moreover, early 

Arab philologists considered ghurdb to be independ- 



GHURAB — GHURABA 3 



ent, since they made to derive from it such words 
as ghurba, ightirdb, etc. which imply an idea of 
estrangement, of separation; later authors go so far 
as to regard the root gh. r. b. as being made up from 
the consonants gh, r, b which appear initially in 
words meaning a misfortune or something unpleasant. 

Such theories are explained firstly by the place 
which the crow occupies in the literary tradition of 
the Arabs, secondly by its place in ornithomancy, 
where it is pre-eminently the bird of ill omen. 

In poetry, although its black colour may symbolize 
the night (ghurab al-layl) and be the object of 
favourable judgements, the crow is fundamentally 
synonymous with separation, with an unhappy 
event, and the poets make a sometimes immoderate 
use of the stereotyped expression ghurab al-bayn, 
which strictly means the carrion crow, but which 
owes its origin to the fact that crows are led by 
instinct to encampments which their occupants are 
preparing to leave, and announce by their croaking 
the imminent departure (bayn) of the tribe — more 
particularly of the beloved — before swooping down 
on the deserted places, where the poet, arriving too 
late, is struck with grief on seeing them. 

The mere sight of a crow is in itself unpleasant, 
and one can readily understand, without feeling the 
need to postulate a borrowing, that the early Arabs 
should have made it into a bird of ill omen and in 
addition applied themselves to observing and inter- 
preting its flight and its croaking, in the context of 
what is called (ira [q.v.]. Examples from literature of 
these predictions, which were deduced more or less 
spontaneously, cannot be quoted here; but it is 
worth mentioning that they are the sign of a fairly 
rudimentary ornithomancy which only at a relatively 
late date was perfected and systematized, although 
the Fihrist (Cairo ed., 436) already refers to Arabic 
treatises of ornithomancy, one of which is the work 
of al-Mada 5 inI. T. Fahd has studied a treatise 
attributed to al-Djahiz, comparing it in a very 
illuminating fashion with two Assyro-Babylonian 
texts; in spite of differences of detail, it does not 
seem that the Arabic text is the result of an enquiry 
carried out among the Bedouins: rather one has the 
impression that it is an attempt, made probably at 
a late date, to give some order to elements of diverse 
provenance. Nevertheless, it is strange that al- 
Djahiz, who is one of the few authors to have con- 
sidered that the belief in the malicious influence of 
the crow and in the possibility of drawing omens 
from its flight and its cry is only a superstition 
based on verbal similarities (ffayawdn, iii, 444), 
should have been later credited with two treatises of 
divination: the text studied by T. Fahd (found in 
al-Nuwayri, Nihdya, iii, 130-2) and the Bab al- 
c Irdfa wa 'l-zadjr wa 'l-firdsa 'aid madhhab al-Furs 
(published and translated into Russian by K. 
Inostrantsev, in Materials from Arabic sources for the 
history of the culture of Sassanid Persia, St. Peters- 
burg 1907, text, 3-27, tr. and comm., 28-120). 

In the context of Islam the word ghurab is used 
in the Kur'an (v, 34/31) with reference to the crow 
sent by God to show Cain how to bury his brother 
Abel whom he had just killed; although rationalists 
see in this a manifestation of divine favour towards 
the bird considered to be of ill omen, they do not 
succeed in stifling the prejudices made still stronger 
by the legend of the crow (ghurab Nuh) which Noah 
sent out to reconnoitre, but which, having found 

The malevolent character of this bird explains the 
considerable number of nicknames which it has in 



1097 

Arabic; but it is proverbial also for sharpness of 
vision, its suspicion, its pride and the blackness of its 
plumage, and the word ghurab appears in a number 
of expressions such as "that will only happen when 
the crow turns white" (fiattd yashib al-ghurdb). 

The Arabs knew several varieties of crow, including 
one which can learn to speak, and had observed then- 
hostile relations with cattle, donkeys and owls; 
their habit of perching on camels to plunge their 
beaks into the pustules which form on their backs 
tended to increase the Bedouins' dislike for this bird, 
about which in any case they knew little, since some 
maintained that it reproduced itself by pecking the 
female with its beak. 

The crow is among the animals that must be killed, 
and its flesh is forbidden; it possesses however certain 
medicinal properties, the dried blood in particular 
being a specific for haemorrhoids. A crow's beak 
carried on the person gives protection against the 
evil eye, but to see the bird in a dream is of course a 
sinister portent. 

Bibliography : Diahiz. Ifayawan, ii, 313 ft., 

iii, 409-64; Ibn Kutayba, c Uyun, passim; Damirl, 

s.v. ; Kazwini, s.v.; Bayhaki, Mahdsin, passim; 

H. Peres, Potsie andalouse, index; H. Masse, 

Croyances et coutumes persanes, Paris 1938, i, 195; 

T. Fahd, Les presages par le corbeau. Etude d'un 

texte attribui a Gdhiz, in Arabica, viii/i (1961), 30-58. 
(Ch. Pellat) 

fiHURAB, type of boat [see safIna]. 

al-GHURAB [see nubjum]. 

GHURABA 5 (in Turkish Ghurebd), pi. of A. 
gharib, Ottoman term for the two lowest of the 
six cavalry regiments (Alti Bbluk) of the Kapi-kullari. 
The regiment riding on the Sultan's right was known 
as Ghureba'-i yemin (Sagh gharibler, Sagh gharib- 
yigitler), that riding on his left as Ghureba'-i yesdr 
(Sol gharibler, Sol gharib-yigitler). The oldest terms 
used for them are gharlb-yigitler and gharib-oghlanlar 
(see F. Babinger, Die Aufzeichnungen des Genuesen 
Iacopo de Promontorio . . ., SBBayer. Ak., Jg. 1956, 
Heft 8, Munich 1957, 30; Ordo Portae, ed. S. Bastav, 
Budapest 1947, 7; Donado da Lezze [G.-M. Angio- 
lello], Historia Turchesca, ed. J. Ursu, Bucharest 1909, 
139); here gharib means 'away from his native land', 
and yigit 'bold, impetuous man'. From the earliest 
days there were in the Ottoman principality Muslim 
warriors who had come from other principalities of 
Anatolia or other Muslim lands to take part in the 
ghazd under the banner of the Ottomans. An official 
document of 835/1431 (see S&ret-i Defter-i sancak-i 
Arvanid, ed. H. Inalcik, Ankara 1954, p. 42, timdr no. 
94) mentions a gharib- yigit who had come from 
Karaman and received a tlmdr on the Albanian ud± 
(cf. also p. 81, tlmdr no. 227, and p. 115, tlmdr no. 320). 

Of the six cavalry regiments of the Kapt-kullari, 
the Sagh <Ulufedjiler, Sol '■Vlufediiler , Sagh Gharibler 
and Sol Gharibler were known collectively as the Dbrt 
Bbluk (or Bblukat-i Erba'a, the 'Four Divisions') ; they 
were regarded as AshagM Bblukler ('Inferior Divi- 
sions') in relation to the remaining two Yukart 
Bblukler ('Superior Divisions'), namely the Sipdhi 
Oghlanlarl and the Sildhddrlar. It has been suggested 
(Djewdet, Ta'rlkh, i, 35, 37; I. H. Uzuncarsili, Kap%- 
kulu ocaklan, ii, Ankara 1947, 137) that the 'Inferior 
Divisions' were established in the first half of the 
9th/i5th century (whereas the 'Superior Divisions' 
date from the reign of Murad I). The Sagh Gharibler 
were regarded as slightly superior to the Sol Gharibler. 

In the ioth/i6th century, the men of these two 
regiments were recruited from three sources: (1) 
from '■adjeml oghlanlar selected at a Bkma at Gha- 






GHURABA' — GHURABIYYA 



lata-sarayl, the Palace of Ibrahim Pasha, or the 
palace at Edirne [see ghulam]; (2) from suitable 
sons of members of the AM Bdluk; (3) from young 
Muslims from other Muslim lands who had come to 
fight the ghazd in the Ottoman army and disting- 
uished themselves (according to Idris Bidlisi, Hasht 
bihisht, MS Nuriosmaniye 3209, they were ''Arab, 
'Adjem and Kurd' ; according to Angiolello they came 
from Persia, the land of the Tatars, Cappadocia, the 
land of the Turcomans and Egypt). The name shows 
that the original source of recruits for these bsluks 
was the last (the only case where Muslims were taken 
into the ranks of the Kapl-kullari [see ghulAm]). 

In about 880/1475 (I. de Promontorio, 30) the two 
bSluks numbered 1000 men (but Ordo Portae, of about 
the same date, mentions only 400; Angiolello speaks 
of 500-1000). In the ioth/i6th century they numbered 
1000 each, 2000 together {Hasht bihisht; Ramberti, 
apud A. H. Lybyer, The government of the Ottoman 
Empire..., Cambridge 1913, 251: about 2000 to- 
gether; in a document of 976/1568, see Uzuncarsili, 
op. cit., 196, the Sagh Gharibler are recorded as 1000 
men, the Sol Gharibler as 1539); at the beginning of 
the nth/i7th century ( c Ayn-i 'All, Kawdnin, Istan- 
bul 1280, 9), the Diemd c at-i Ghurebd'-i yemin 
numbered 928, the Djema'at-i Ghurebd'-i yesdr 
numbered 975. 

Their organization was the same as that of the 
other boluks of kapl-kullari. In each bdluk there was 
an agha in command, a ketkhudd (kahya; according 
to Angiolello and Ramberti his pay was 30 akles a 
day), a kdtib or khalife to attend to the paper work 
(with 20 akles, according. to Angiolello; according to 
Ramberti, half a century later, he received 25), and 
a lawush or bash-lawush responsible for discipline 
(for the organization see Sadrazam Kemankes Kara 
Mustafa Pasa Idyihasi, ed. F. R. Unat, in Tarih 
Vesikalan, i/6 (1942), 457). In the ioth/i6th century 
the agha of the Sol Gharibler was appointed from 
among the Idshnigirs. At a llkma, the agha of the 
Sol Gharibler was promoted agha of the Sagh Gharibler, 
and the latter agha of the Sol 'Ulufedjiler. Sometimes 
by exception, and contrary to the kdnun, towards 
the end of this century the agha of the Sagh Gharibler 
was promoted directly agha of the Sildhddrlar, or 
sandjak-begi, and even beglerbegi (see documents 
apud Uzuncarsili, 172). Whereas each of the aghas 
had in the times of Mehemmed II and Suleyman I 
received an 'ulafe of 80 akles (see Angiolello 
Ramberti), at the end of the ioth/i6th century they 
received 100; in addition they held ze'dmets. 

The two divisions were sub-divided into 260 
bOluks, each with its boluk-bashl (Kemankes Idyi- 
has%, 457). 

Since their horses needed grazing land, the major- 
ity of them were scattered in the outskirts of Istan- 
bul, Edirne, Bursa, Kutahya and Konya; an officer 
appointed jointly by the aghas. of the six regiments, 
with the title ketkhudd-yeri, was in command of 
each of these scattered groups of members of the 
six regiments and maintained discipline. The l ulufe 
of the men varied between 6 and 20 akles (Ordo 
Portae, p. 9; Angiolello: 10-20 akles; I. de Promon- 
torio: 12 akles; Ramberti: 7-14 akles). At each pro- 
motion the l ulufe was increased by 3 akles. Their 
sons, if they showed themselves fit, could be ap- 
pointed to the Ghurebd regiments. Their weapons 
were bow and arrow, shield, scimitar (pala), dagger, 
lance and axe. Though some carried muskets, fire- 
arms were not popular with them. They had a 
tants known as oghlan (Ramberti, 251). Each of the 
two bbliiks had a flag (bayrak) and a tugh; the f 



of the Sagh Gharibler was white and that of the Sol 
Gharibler of two colours, white and red or white 
and green. 

Duties. Like all the kapl-kullari, at first they 
served in the field only when the Sultan himself 
went on campaign, but in the ioth/i6th century it 
became the practice for them to serve also under a 
serddr-i ekrem, i.e., a commander with the rank of 
vizier. The Gharib-yigitler had a reputation for valour, 
and so in the course of the fighting were sometimes 
entrusted with difficult tasks like penetrating the 
ranks of the enemy (Hasht bihisht). Their principal 
duty on campaign was to guard the Sultan's standards 
(Hasht bihisht) and later the sandfak-i sherif [q.v.] ; 
they took their station as the rearmost of the cavalry 
regiments guarding the Sultan's tent and protected 
the rear (Ordo Portae, 9). These two bSluks formed 
the rearguard of the kapl-kullari, stationed in the 
centre, and guarded the tents and baggage. From 
the end of the ioth/i6th century onwards, when, 
during a siege, a battle developed it was their dan- 
gerous duty to guard the entrenchments. 

With the general decay of the ghulam system, the 
order and discipline of these boluks too began to 
break up. Already in the ioth/i6th century, the 
places of kapl-kullari in their ranks were in time of 
war increasingly filled by 'outsiders' known as serden- 
geldi; at the same time the principle was abandoned 
of enregistering muldzim, candidates for future 
vacancies in the boluks. 

When in the nth/i7th century these boliiks began 
to take part in the mutinies and revolts, steps were 
taken to reduce the importance of the bSliikdt-i 
erba'a. In 1071/1660, under Koprulii Mehmed Pasha 
the numbers of the Sagh Gharibler were reduced to 
410, those of the Sol Gharibler to 312. Later still, 
the Sagh Gharibler Aghast was made subordinate to 
the Sipahi oghlanlarl Aghast, and the Sol Gharibler 
Aghast to the Sildhddrlar Aghast. In a list of 1123/ 
171 1, the Sagh Gharibler are shown as numbering only 
180 men and the Sol Gharibler 162. On campaigns, 
however, these two bSluks maintained their entity 
as guardians of the sandjak-i sherif. In Safar 1242/ 
September 1826, very shortly after the abolition of 
the Janissaries, all six of the Altl Bdluk were 
disbanded (for the text of the firman, see Uzuncarsili, 

The so-called ghurbet tdHfesi, groups of men who, 
from the ioth/i6th century onwards, left their homes 
and sometime roamed the country as brigands, are 
quite unconnected with the Ghurebd. 
Bibliography: in the article. 

(Halil Inaixik) 

GHURABIYYA. a branch of the Shi'I 
"exaggerators" (ghuldt [q.v.]). Its adherents 
believed that C A1I and Muhammad were so like in 
physical features as to be confused, as like "as 
one crow (ghurdb) is to another" (a proverbial 
expression for great similarity, cf. Zeitschr.f. Assyr., 
xvii, 53), so that the Angel Gabriel when commis- 
sioned by God to bring the revelation to c Ali gave 
it in mistake to Muhammad. 'All was, they say, 
appointed by God to be a Prophet and Muhammad 
only became one through a mistake. According to 
Ibn IJazm, some believed that Gabriel erred in good 
faith; others held he went astray deliberately, and 
cursed him as an apostate. According to al-Baghdadi, 
the sectaries greeted one another by cursing Gabriel. 
According to the Baydn al-adydn, the Ghurabiyya 
were so called because they believed that c Ali was 
in heaven in the form of a crow. Ibn Kutayba 
(Ma'-drif, ed. Wustenfeld, 300) remarks that this 



GHURABIYYA — GHORIDS 



1099 



is one of the few sects the origin of which is not 
attributed to an individual. 

It is related that in the 4th/ioth century the 
followers of this sect in Kumm raised a serious 
revolt against the decision of the judge Abu Sa c id 
al-Istakhri (died 328/940) when he divided an in- 
heritance equally between two claimants, one of 
whom was the daughter and the other the uncle 
of the deceased. The Ghurabivva demanded that 
the whole estate should go to the daughter and 
the uncle be quite excluded; as our source rightly 
observes, this was the result of their political creed, 
according to which the succession to Muhammad was 
legitimate only in the line of his only daughter 
Fatima and not in that of his uncle ( c Abbas) (Subkl, 
Tabaltdt al-ShdfiHyya, ii, 194). Cf. the regulations 
made by the Caliph al-Mu c izz regarding the inheri- 
tance of daughters in Ibn Hadjar, Raf al-Isr, ed. 
Guest (in the appendix to al-Kindi, Governors and 
Judges of Egypt, Gibb-Memorial, xix), 587, 1. 3 from 
end. Ibn Djubayr, who visited Damascus in 580/1184, 
mentions the Ghurabivva among the minor sects 
to be found in Syria. 

Bibliography: Ibn Hazm, Fisal, Cairo, iv, 
183-4 (Eng. tr. I. Friedlander, The Heterodoxies 
of the Shiites according to Ibn Hazm (New Haven 
1909), i, 56-8, ii, 77 (= J A OS, xxviii, xxix)); 
Al-Baghdadi, Al-Farl? bayn al-firal?, Cairo 1328, 
237-8 (Eng. tr. A. S. Halkin, Moslem schisms and 
sects, Tel Aviv 1935, 67-8); al-Kh w arizmI, Mafdtih 
al- c ulum, Cairo 1342, 22; Abu '1-Ma c ali, Bayan 
al-adydn, ed. C. Schefer in Chrestomathie persane, 
ii, Paris 1885, 158 (Fr. tr. H. Masse in RHR (1926)) ; 
al-Makrizi, Khita\, ii, 353; Ibn Rosteh in BGA, 
vii, 218 ff.; The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, ed. Wright- 
de Goeje, 280 (Italian transl. by C. Schiaparelli, 
Rome 1906, 272); 'Abbas Ikbal, Khdnaddn-i 
Nawbakhtl, Tehran 1311, 260; A. S. Tritton, 
Muslim theology, London 1947, 29. 

(I. Goldziher*) 
GH OrI [see dilawar khan and malwa]. 
GJiCRIDS, the name of an eastern Iranian 
dynasty which flourished as an independent power 
in the 6th/i2th century and the early years of the 
7th/i3th century and which was based on the region 
of Ghur [q.v.] in what is now central Afghanistan 
with its capital at Firuzkuh [q.v.]. 

1. Origins and early history. The family name 
of the Ghurid Sultans was Shanasb/Shansab ( < MP 
Gushnasp; cf. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, 282, 
and Marquart, Das Reich Zabul, in Festschrift E. 
Sachau, 289, n. 3), and in the time of their florescence, 
attempts were made to attach their genealogy to the 
ancient Iranian epic past. The 7th/i3th century 
historian of the Ghurids, Djuzdjani, quotes a metrical 
version of the genealogy of the family composed by 
Fakhr al-DIn Mubarakshah MarwarrudhI and com- 
pleted in the reign of Sultan Ghiyath al-DIn Muham- 
mad (scil. in the last third of the 6th/i2th century). 
In this, the family is traced back to the tyrant-of 
Iranian mythology, Azhd Dahak, whose descendants 
were supposed to have settled in Ghur after Faridun's 
overthrowing of Dahak's thousand-year dominion. 
Within this genealogy, Shansab himself is placed in 
the first century of Islam, and the family now brought 
within the ambit of the new faith. Shansab is said to 
have been converted by the Caliph c Ali, who formally 
invested him with the rulership of Ghur; his son 
Fulad later espoused the cause of Abu Muslim in 
Khurasan and in this way assisted the c Abb5sids. A 
further alleged episode can be directly connected 
with the political position in Ghur in later times. 



According to this, the Caliph Harun al-Rashld 
received at his court the Amir BandjI b. Naharan 
ShansabanI and a rival chieftain from Ghur. Shlth b. 
Bahrain. BandjI was awarded the insignia of political 
sovereignty (imdrat) over Ghur, together with the 
title Kasim Amir al-Mu'minin, whilst Shift was 
awarded the military command {pahlawdni) of the 
forces of Ghur. "an arrangement", says Djuzdjani, 
"which has continued thus till the present time" 
(see further, below). 

All these fabrications clearly aim at giving some 
lustre to a dynasty which had arisen from very 
obscure and localized origins, or as in the latter 
episode, they attempt to project into the past an 
explanation for the political situation of later times 
(cf. C. E. Bosworth, The early Islamic history of 
Ghur. in Central Asiatic Journal, vi (1961), 125-7). 
Ethnically, we can only assume that the Shansabanis 
were, like the rest of the Ghuris, of eastern Iranian 
Tadjik stock. We are equally in the dark about the 
language which they spoke, except that in the early 
5th/ nth century it differed considerably from the 
Persian of the Ghaznavid court. It is possible that 
the earliest Ghurids spoke some south-east Iranian 
language, one of the group which has been all but 
eliminated in modern times by the spread of Persian 
and Pashto (communication from G. Morgenstierne). 
There is nothing to confirm the recent surmise that 
the Ghurids were Pashto-speaking. 

We know nothing really definite about the Shan- 
sabanis until Ghaznavid times, i.e., the 5th/nth 
century; it was only in the early part of this century 
that Ghur, and presumably the Shansabanis, began 
to adopt Islam. The Hudud al-'-alam (372/982-3) 
mentions a Ghur-Shah who was tributary to the 
Farighunid Amirs of Guzgan to the north of Ghur 
[qq.v.1, but there is nothing to show that this ruler 
was necessarily a ShansabanI. Within the empire of 
Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (338-421/998-1030), 
Ghur remained an unabsorbed enclave ; hence during 
his reign, at least three expeditions were sent by 
him to Ghur. In 401/1011 a force attacked the Shan- 
sabanI chief Muhammad b. Surl, capturing him at 
his stronghold of Ahangaran. He was now deposed, 
his pro-Ghaznavid son Abu C A1I set up as the Sultan's 
vassal and teachers left to instruct the people in the 
precepts of Islam (cf. c UtbI and Djuzdjani in M. 
Nazim, The life and times of Sultan Mahmud of 
Ghazna, Cambridge 1931, 70-2, and Bosworth, op. cit., 
122-3, 127-8). From this, and from other information 
in Djuzdjani, we can firmly identify the Shansabanis 
as petty rulers of the region of Mandesh on the south 
bank of the upper Heri Rud, with its centre at 
Ahangaran, the place still known today by that 
name. According to Djuzdjani, the stronghold of the 
Shansabanis of Mandesh lay at the foot of the Zar-i 
Margh, one of the five great mountain massifs of 
Ghur, and believed by the Ghuris to be the mountain 
where the SImurgh nurtured Rustam's father Zal. At 
this time, the term "Ghur" seems to have had a 
restricted meaning and to have been synonymous 
with Mandesh, i.e., the north-eastern corner of the 
Ghur of the early Islamic geographers. 

The existence of several other chieftains of Ghur 
(in the larger sense of the term) is known in the 5 th/ 
nth century. Of at least equal importance with the 
Shansabanis were the lords of the region further down 
the Heri Rud, around the later Ghurid capital of 
Firuzkuh and the modern Kh w adja-£isht; this dis- 
trict seems to have been distinguished from Ghur 
(in the narrow sense) and called Bilad al-Qiibdl. Bay- 
hakl, ed. GhanI and Fayyad, 114-20, gives a detailed 



account of the Ghaznavid expedition of 411/1020 
under Mas'ud b. Mahmud, which marched up the 
Heri ROd from Herat, captured the fortress of 
Djurwas and made the local chieftain Warmesh-Pat 
submit. The occurrence at a later date of this name in 
the Shlthani family (see above) points to the fact that 
this district of Djurwas in the north-western corner of 
Ghur was the centre of the Shansabanis' rivals, the 
Shlthanis. BayhakI mentions the names of other 
chieftains in Ghur. and it is clear that, despite Djuz- 
djani's attempts to inflate the early Shansabanis' 
sphere of authority, these last were only one lot of 
petty chiefs amongst several in this inaccessible 
region. Moreover, it seems that the primacy of the 
Shansabanis at a later date was only achieved after 
much jostling for power and local warfare, although 
explicit information on this process is meagre. 

2. The period of vassalage to the Ghaz- 
navids and Saldjuks. Mahmud of Ghazna's nomi- 
nee Abu C A1I b. Muhammad is praised for his bene- 
ficent rule and his encouragement of the newly-in- 
troduced Islamic religion; he built mosques and 
madrasas and endowed them with awkdf. But during 
the reign of Mas c ud of Ghazna (421-32/1030-41) an 
internal revolution took place in Mandesh, and Abu 
c Ali was deposed by his nephew c Abbas b. Shith. 
c Abbas devoted his efforts to fortifying and rebuild- 
ing the castles and strongholds which were such a 
feature of the landscape of Ghur. but his tyranny 
provoked an appeal of dissident Ghuri chiefs to 
Sultan Ibrahim b. Mas'ud. Ibrahim therefore marched 
into Ghur, deposed c Abb5s and set up the latter's 
son Muhammad. Muhammad was succeeded by his 
own son Kutb al-DIn Hasan (the first ShansabanI 
known to have a lakab or honorific). Within this 
period, scil. the second half of the 5th/nth century, 
the Shansabanis were trying to extend their authority 
beyond Mandesh and over the lands of rival chieftains. 
Djuzdjanl speaks of the feuding and turbulence which 
went on within Ghur both at this time and until 
much later; and it was during the suppression of a 
rebellion in Wadjlristan, the district to the west of 
Ghazna, that Kutb al-DIn Hasan was killed. 

With the accession of his son, c Izz al-DIn Husayn 
(493-540/1100-46), our knowledge of the dynasty 
becomes fuller. Since four of his many sons eventually 
became rulers, Djuzdjanl calls him Abu 'l-Saldtin, 
"Father of Sultans". By now, Ghur had become a 
buffer region between the truncated Ghaznavid 
empire, reduced after the middle years of the 5th/ 
nth century to southern and eastern Afghanistan 
and northern India, and the powerful empire of the 
Saldjuks. In particular, Saldjuk Khurasan was 
after 490/1097 under the rule of the forceful Sandjar 
b. Malik Shah. With the relative decline of the 
Ghaznavids after Ibrahim's death in 492/1099, 
Ghur was drawn towards the Saldjuk sphere of in- 
fluence. c Izz al-DIn Husayn was initially confirmed 
in power by Mas'ud III b. Ibrahim of Ghazna, but 
in 501/1 107-8 Sandjar led a raid into Ghur and cap- 
tured c Izz al-DIn, and thereafter the Ghurid main- 
tained close relations with the Saldjuk, sending 
him as tribute the specialities of Ghur, including 
armour, coats of mail and the local breed of fierce 
dogs. 

On c Izz al-DIn's death, his son Sayf al-DIn Surl 
succeeded as chief in Ghur and overlord of the Shan- 
sabanI family. He now made a general division of 
territories amongst his brothers, an indication that 
political feeling amongst the Ghurids was still tribal 
and patrimonial in nature, and unaffected by the 
administrative sophistication of their Ghaznavid 



neighbours, with their unitary state under one Sultan. 
Sayf al-DIn retained the fortress of Istiya as his 
capital; Kutb al-DIn Muhammad was allotted War- 
shad or Warshar, where he now founded the town 
and fortress of Flruzkuh and assumed the title of 
Malik al-Qiibdl; Nasir al-DIn Muhammad took 
Madln; c Ala 3 al-DIn Husayn took Wadjlristan; 
Baha 3 al-DIn Sam took Sanga, the chief place of 
Mandesh; and Fakhr al-DIn Mas c Qd took KashI on 
the headwaters of the Heri Rud. It was soon apparent 
that the Shansabanis' sense of family solidarity was 
not developed enough to allow this division to work, 
and fratricidal strife broke out. Kutb al-DIn quar- 
relled with his brothers, fled to Bahram Shah's 
court at Ghazna, but was there poisoned. From this 
deed there arose, says Djuzdjanl, the deep hatred and 
enmity between the Ghurid and Ghaznavid families. 
In retaliation, Sayf al-DIn Surl marched on Ghazna 
and temporarily expelled the Sultan, but in the face 
of popular sympathy for the Ghaznavids was unable 
to hold the city; and in a battle which took place 
when Bahram Shah returned, Sayf al-DIn was cap- 
tured and ignominiously executed. 

Baha 3 al-DIn succeeded in Ghur in 544/1149, and 
after finishing the fortifying of Flruzkuh, set out 
with an army for Ghazna, but died en route in that 
same year. c Ala 3 al-DIn Husayn had been left behind 
by his brother to rule Ghur, and he now took over 
supreme power there. His pressing tasks were to 
avenge his dead brothers and, if possible, to reduce 
Ghaznavid power in Afghanistan, for the hold 
which they had on the routes through eastern Af- 
ghanistan from Kabul to Ghazna and Bust blocked 
any potential Ghurid expansion there. Bahram 
Shah massed his troops in the region of Tiginabad 
(i.e., the modern region of Kandahar). c Ala' al-DIn 
moved into Zamln-Dawar and a great battle took 
place, in which the tactics of the Ghuri infantry, 
with their walls of protective shields, overcame the 
Ghaznavids' elephants. Bahram Shah was pursued 
to Ghazna and again defeated, retiring now to India. 
C A15 3 al-DIn entered the city, and a frightful orgy 
of devastation and plundering followed, earning the 
Ghurid his title of Qiihdn-Suz "World Incendiary" 
(545/1150-1). The corpses of all but three of the 
Ghaznavid Sultans were exhumed and burnt, and on 
the way back to Ghur, the other great Ghaznavid 
centre of Bust was sacked in an equally savage 
manner. c Ala 3 al-DIn thus made no attempt at this 
moment permanently to annex the Ghaznavid terri- 
tories in eastern Afghanistan, but he does seem to 
have aspired to a more ambitious position than that 
of a mere chieftain of Ghur. According to Ibn al- 
Athir, he now copied Saldjuk and Ghaznavid prac- 
tice, calling himself al-Sultdn al-Mu c azzam and 
adopting the fatr or ceremonial parasol; previously, 
the Ghurids had been content to style themselves 
Malik or Amir. It was natural that his success at 
Ghazna should embolden c Ala 3 al-DIn to throw off 
Saldjuk control. In 547/1152 he stopped paying tri- 
bute to Sandjar and endeavoured to support an 
anti-Saldjuk rising in Herat. His army advanced 
from Flruzkuh down the Heri Rud, but was met at 
Nab by Sandjar's forces and crushingly defeated 
after the Turkish, Oghuz and Khaladj troops in the 
Ghurid army had gone over to their co-nationals in 
Sandjar's army. 'Ala 3 al-DIn was personally captured 
and spent some time as a prisoner in Khurasan. The 
last years of his life, until his death in 556/1161, were 
spent firstly in consolidating his throne in Ghur 
against rival members of his family, and secondly 
in making conquests in Ghariistan and the upper 



Murghab valley, in the Bamiyan and Tukharistan 
regions and in the Zamin-Dawar and Bust regions. 

3. The Ghurids as an imperial power. The 
expansionist policy of 'Ala 3 al-Din's last years meant 
that the Ghurids were now breaking out beyond their 
mountain fastnesses in Ghur and would soon become 
a major power in the eastern Islamic world. There 
was, indeed, something of a vacuum of power there 
at this time: the Ghaznavid empire was in decay, and 
Sandjar's capture by the Ghuzz and the consequent 
anarchy in Khurasan facilitated Ghurid expansion in 
the west. 'Ala 3 al-Din's annexations gave the impetus 
towards a tripartite division of the Ghurid empire, 
each under a separate branch of the Shansabanl 
family, and this division remained characteristic 
until the final fall of the Ghurids. 

The senior branch ruled over Ghur from FIruzkuh 
and was concerned with expansion westwards into 
Khurasan. When Ghazna was finally taken in 569/ 
1 173-4, another branch was established there and 
used Ghazna as a base for expansion into India. 
Finally, 'Ala 3 al-DIn installed in the newly-conquered 
town of Bamiyan his brother Fakhr al-DIn Mas'ud, 
and the latter ruled over Tukharistan, Badakhshan 
and Shughnan,- up to the Oxus bank. After Fakhr 
al-Din's death in 558/1163, he was followed by his 
son Shams al-DIn Muhammad. The latter is said to 
have extended his power over the Oxus into Cagha- 
niyan and Wakhsh; he also received from Ghiyath al- 
DIn Muhammad in FIruzkuh the title of "Sultan" 
and the privilege of having a catr. 

'Ala J al-DIn Husayn was succeeded at FIruzkuh by 
his son Sayf al-DIn Muhammad, who took repressive 
measures against the Isma'llls who had infiltrated 
into Ghur and had spread their propaganda there, 
but who only reigned for two years (556-8/1161-3). 
During his reign, there arose a feud between the 
Shansabanis and their rivals in Ghur, the Shlthanis. 
The Sultan treacherously murdered his Commander- 
in-Chief Warmesh b. Shith, and in revenge, War- 
mesh's brother, now succeeded to the office of 
Sipah-Sdldr, murdered Sayf al-DIn on the battle- 
field. It is to explain these tribal disputes that 
Djuzdjanl projects back the rivalry of the two 
families into 'Abbasid times (see above). 

Under Shams al-DIn (later Ghiyath al-DIn) Mu- 
hammad of Ghur (558-99/1 163-1203) and Shihab 
al-DIn (later Mu c izz al-DIn) Muhammad of Ghazna 
(569-602/1173-1206), the Ghurid empire reached 
its apogee. These two brothers maintained a 
partnership and amity rare for their age. Broadly 
speaking, the first was concerned with expansion 
westwards and the checking of the Kh"arizm- 
Shahs' ambitions in Khurasan, whilst the second 
carried on the gfoijt-tradition of the Ghaznavids in 
northern India. The Ghurids thus challenged the 
Kh w arizm-Shahs for supremacy in the eastern Is- 
lamic world, and initially seemed to have an advant- 
age in that they were completely free agents, whereas 
the Shahs were vassals of the Kara-Khitay. Moreover, 
the Ghurids skilfully utilized the fears roused in the 
west by the Shahs' imperialist ambitions. Ghiyath 
al-DIn kept up cordial relations with the 'Abbasid 
Caliphs, and embassies were frequently exchanged 
between FIruzkuh and Baghdad; Djuzdjanl's father 
took part in one of these. The Sultan was received 
into al-Nasir's Futuwwa order, and the Caliph more 
than once urged the Ghurids to stem the advance of 
the Kha w rizm-Shahs in Persia. 

Ghiyath al-DIn was joined at FIruzkuh by Mu'izz 
al-DIn, who had been at Bamiyan. The two of them 
then fought off a coalition of Fakhr al-DIn of Pimi- 



yan, himself covetous of the power in Ghur, and the 
Turkish governors of Herat, Tadj al-DIn Ylldlz, and 
of Balkh, 'Ala' al-Din Kamafi, defeating them at 
Ragh-i Zar in the Herl Rud valley. After this, 
Ghiyath al-Din campaigned in Zamin-Dawar, Badghls 
and GharJistan, securing these regions for his empire. 
The Saffarid amir of SIstan, Tadj al-DIn Harb, 
acknowledged him as suzerain, and even the Ghuzz 
in Kirman, who had taken over the province after 
the overthrowing of the Saldjuks of Kirman, sent 
envoys to FIruzkuh. After the last Ghaznavid, 
Khusraw Malik, had abandoned Ghazna for Lahore, 
his former capital was occupied for twelve years by 
Ghuzz adventurers, until in 569/1 173-4 Ghiyath al- 
DIn ejected them and installed Mu c izz al-Din in 
Ghazna with the title of "Sultan". Herat was cap- 
tured in 571/1175-6 from its Turkish governor Baha 3 
al-Din Toghrll and held for a time. 

Internal disputes within the dynasty of the 
Kh'arizm-Shahs now favoured the Ghurids. Ousted 
from Kh"arizm in 568/1172-3 by his brother 'Ala 3 
al-DIn Tekish, Sultan Shah had secured help 
from the Kara Khitay and had carved out for him- 
self a principality in Khurasan. He now clashed with 
the Ghurids over possession of Herat and Badghls, 
but Ghiyath al-DIn summoned troops from Bamiyan 
and SIstan and from Mu c izz al-DIn in Ghazna, and 
in 586/1190 he defeated Sultan Shah near Marw. 
Sultan Shah was captured, and most of his Khura- 
sanian territories fell to the Ghurids. In northern 
Afghanistan, the Bamiyan Ghurid Baha 3 al-DIn 
Sam occupied Balkh in 594/1198 after its Turkish 
governor, a vassal of the Kara Khitay, had died. 
In the same year, a general war broke out in Khura- 
san between the Ghurids on one side, urged on by 
the Baghdad Caliph, who was now threatened by 
the Kh w arizmian advance into western Persia, and 
on the other side the Kh'arizm-Shah and his Kara 
Khitay suzerains. The Kara Khitay invaded Guzgan 
and Tekish threatened Herat, but both were decisive- 
ly defeated by the Ghurids. When in 596/1200 Tekish 
died, Ghiyath al-DIn took over most of the towns of 
Khurasan, penetrating as far west as Bistam in 
Kumis and installing in Nlshapur as governor of 
Khurasan a Ghurid prince, Diya 3 al-Din Muljammad. 
Ghiyath al-DIn died at Herat in 599/1202-3; latterly 
he had been ill and incapacitated, and Mu'izz al-DIn 
had had to leave his Indian campaigns and attend 
to the west. 

After his brother's death, Mu'izz al-Din followed 
the usual practice within the Shansabanl family of 
allocating the various provinces of the empire as 
appanages for Ghurid Maliks; thus whilst retaining 
Ghazna as his own capital, he installed Diya 3 al-Din 
at FIruzkuh. Meanwhile, the new Kh w arizm-Shah 
c Ala' al-DIn Muhammad was preparing to recover 
Khurasan, where Ghurid rule was proving unpopular; 
according to Djuwaynl, Mu c izz al-Din confiscated 
for his army grain which had been committed for 
protection to the Imam al-Rida's shrine at Tus. In 
601/1204 Mu'izz al-DIn repulsed the Shah from Herat 
and pursued him back into Kh w arizm. However, the 
flooding of the Kh^arizmian countryside halted 
his troops, and the Kh w arizmians' allies, the Kara 
Khitay, routed Mu'izz al-DIn's army at Andkhuy 
on the Oxus. The Sultan himself escaped, but all 
Khurasan except Herat was lost and in the next 
year he was assassinated in the Indus valley, 
allegedly by an Isma'IlI emissary, whilst returning 
from a punitive expedition against the Khokars of 
the Pandjab. 

4. The end of the Ghurids. Within a decade of 



VI Kutb al-DIn 



VII c Izz al-Din 
Husayn 



[bamiyAn branch] 



IX Baha 5 al-DIn 



XVII c Ala> al-Din 
(Diya 1 al-DIn) 
Muhammad 



XII Shams al-Din 

(Ghiyath al-DIn) 

Muhammad 



XIII Shihab al-Din 
(Mu'izz al-DIn) 
Muhammad 



2. Shams al-Din 
Muhammad 

3. Baha' al-DIn 



Mu'izz al-DIn's death, the Ghurid empire fell apart, 
passing for a brief while into the hands of the Kh w a- 
rizm-Shahs before the coming of the Mongols en- 
veloped the eastern Islamic world in a common cata- 
strophe. The Ghurid armies comprised both native 
Ghuri and Afghan troops, primarily infantrymen, 
and also Turkish ghuldms, who supplied the cavalry 
element. Mu'izz al-DIn's skill had kept these groups 
together, but dissensions occurred after his death. 
The Ghuri troops supported for the succession to 
the Sultanate the Bamiyan line, first Baha 5 al-DIn 
Sam and then after his death in 602/1205, his two 
sons 'Ala 5 al-DIn and Djalal al-DIn. The Turks, 
however, favoured Mu'izz al-DIn's nephew Ghiyath 
al-DIn Mahmud, who in the end prevailed over the 
governor of Ghur, piya 5 al-Din, candidate of the 
local adherents of the Karramiyya sect [q.v.]. In the 
eastern parts of the empire, the Turkish commander 
Tadj al-DIn Yildlz seized Ghazna and held it against 
the Bamiyan Ghurids. Ghiyath al-DIn Mahmud did 
not dare to leave FIruzkuh and move against Ytldtz, 
and was in 603/1206-7 reduced to calling in the 
Kh w 5rizm-Shah to expel Yildlz and enforce his rights 
in Ghazna. The dynasty's end was now near, and the 
last Sultans at- FIruzkuh, first Ghiyath al-DIn Mah- 
mud and then after 609/1212 successively Baha 5 
al-DIn Sam, 'Ala 5 al-DIn Atsiz and 'Ala' al-DIn 
Muhammad (the former Diya 5 al-DIn), were puppets 
of the Shah. Finally, in 612/1215, the Shah deposed 
the last of the Sultans in FIruzkuh; the Bamiyan 
line was also extinguished and Yildlz driven from 
Ghazna. All the Ghurid possessions except for those in 
India were now placed under Kh w 5rizmian governors. 

In this way, there ended what may be termed the 
"Ghurid interlude" in eastern Islamic history, a 
remarkable if transient achievement for the chief- 
tains of a backward mountain region. With the aid 
of their local Ghuri troops combined with Turkish 
ghuldms, the Ghurids made Ghur for the first and 
last time in its history the centre of a great empire. 
That this was not more durable may perhaps be 
explained by the over-straining of Ghurid military 
resources on the two fronts of Khurasan and India, 
and also by the political and military skill of their 
rivals, the Khwarizm-Shahs, in taking advantage 
of conditions in Persia after the fall of the Saldjuks. 

There was, nevertheless, a durable Ghurid legacy 
in India through Mu'izz al-DIn's campaigns there, 
which formed a basis for later consolidation by such 
of his Turkish commanders as Kutb al-DIn Aybak, 
Ikhtiyar al-DIn Muhammad Khaldji and Nasir al- 
DIn Kabac (for the Ghurid campaigns in northern 
India see dihl! sultanate). Ghiyath al-DIn Mahmud 
sent Kutb al-DIn a Hair and the title of "Sultan", 
and Kutb al-DIn was accordingly installed in Lahore 
with this title. These ghuldm generals continued in 
India the Ghurid court and military traditions and 
added the word MuHzzi to their own titles, keeping 
Mu'izz al-DIn's name on their own coins for many 
years after his death. 

5. Ghurid culture. The ethos of the Ghurid em- 
pire was strongly Sunni. Sayf al-DIn Muhammad 
persecuted Isma'ill adherents in Ghur. Ghiyath al- 
DIn Muhammad cultivated the moral support of 
the 'Abbasid Caliphs, as did the Ghurids' epigoni in 
northern India. They thus secured an advantage over 
the Kh w arizm-Shahs. who suffered in the eyes of 
Sunni orthodoxy for their anti-Caliphal policy and, 
in the case of 'Ala 5 al-DIn Muhammad at least, for 
their pro-Shl'i sympathies. In the earlier Ghurid 
period, the doctrines of the literalist Karramiyya 
sect were dominant in Ghur, but Ghiyath al-DIn 



:IDS 1 103 

Muhammad and Mu c izz al-DIn Muhammad adhered 
latterly to the ShSfi'I law school (see Bosworth, 
The early Islamic history of Ghur, 129-33). 

The Ghurids followed the example of the Ghazna- 
vids in being generous patrons of art and literature. 
In his section of the Lubdb al-albdb on royal 
poets, 'Awfi cites 'Ala 5 al-Din Husayn, and 
states that after the Sultan's death, his diwdn cir- 
culated widely in northern India and Zabulistan; 
it is well-known that during the sack of Ghazna. 
'Ala 5 al-Din was careful to preserve for his own 
library the works of the great Ghaznavid poets. The 
tadhkiras of 'Awfl and Dawlat-Shah preserve the 
names of a large number of Ghurid poets, and NizamI 
'Arudi cites as immortalizers of the Sultans Abu 
•1-Kasim Rafl'I, Abu Bakr Djawhari, 'All Sufi and 
himself. In contrast to the Ghaznavid period, from 
which we have several fairly complete diwdns, the 
great bulk of Ghurid poetry has regrettably been 
lost. Fortunately, some of the work of Fakhr al- 
DIn Mubarakshah or Fakhr-i Mudabbir has survived, 
cf. Storey, i, 1164-7. All this literature was in Persian; 
the recently-discovered Pashto anthology, the Puta 
khazdna "Treasury of secrets", claims to include 
Pashto poetry from the Ghurid period, but the signi- 
ficance of this work has not yet been evaluated [see 
Afghan (iii) Pashto literature]. 

As in literature, the artistic and architectural tra- 
ditions of the Ghaznavid period were kept up by the 
Ghurids, so far as we can ascertain from the paucity 
of surviving material. Ghazna rose again after the 
Ghurid sacking and flourished under Mu'izz al-Din, 
benefiting from the influx of Indian plunder; it is 
to the period of his rule there that U. Scerrato as- 
cribes a unique type of glazed tile found at Ghazna 
(Islamic glazed tiles with moulded decoration from 
Ghazni, in East and West, N.S. xiii/4 (Rome 1962), 
263-87). Ghiyath al-DIn Muhammad was a great 
builder and patron of the arts, constructing mosques, 
madrasas and caravanserais in Khurasan. Above all, 
we now have the minaret of Djam/FIruzkuh as a 
monument of Ghurid architecture, to add to the other 
surviving examples at Herat, Cisht and Lashkar-i 
Bazar [see Plates xxxi, xxxii]; J. Sourdel-Thomine 
thinks it possible to speak of a distinctive Ghu- 
rid architecture (L'art guride d' Afghanistan a propos 
d'un livre ricent, in Arabica, vii (i960), 273-80). 

Bibliography. The chief primary source is 
Djuzdjanl's Tabakat-i Ndsiri (new edn. by 'Abd 
al-Hayy Habibi, 2 vols., Kabul 1342-3/1963-4), 
in form a world history but in fact a special history 
of the Ghurid dynasty. This can be supplemented by 
Ibn al-Athlr and Djuwayni. Of local histories, Mu'In 
al-DIn Isfizarl's Rawddt al-djanndtfi awsaf madinat 
Hardt (ed. Muh. Kazim Imam, 2 vols., Tehran 
1338-9/1959-60) contains material on Herat under 
Ghurid rule. Amongst adab works, there are histori- 
cal anecdotes and other material in NizamI 'Arudi 
Samarkandi's Cahdr makdla, 'Awfl's Diawdmi 1 
al-hikdydt and Fakhr-i Mudabbir's Addb al-muluk. 
Secondary works include Barthold, Turkestan', 
338 ff.; Sir Wolseley Haig, in Camb. Hist, of India, 
iii, Turks and Afghans, ch. 3; Kopruluzade M. 
Fuat, Fahreddin MUbareksah ve eseri, in Tiirk dili 
ve edebiyah hakkmda arastirmalar , Istanbul 1934, 
123-54; V. Minorsky, Some early documents in 
Persian (II), in JRAS (1943), 86-99; A. Maricq 
and G. Wiet, Le minaret de Djam, la dicouverte de 
la capitate des Sultans Ghorides (XII'-XIW 
siecles), Paris 1959, of which pp. 31-54 are a his- 
torical survey of the dynasty; Y. A. Hashmi, 
Political, cultural and administrative history under 



GHORIDS — GHOTA 



the later Ghaznavids (from 421/1030 to 583/1187), 
Hamburg thesis, 1956, 98 ft.; M. A. Ghafur, The 
Ghurids, Hamburg thesis 1959; C. E. Bosworth, 
The early Islamic history ofGhur, in Central Asiatic 
Journal, vi (1961), 116-33; idem, in the forth- 
coming Camb. Hist, of Iran, v; Ch. Kieffer, Les 
Ghorides, une grande dynastie nationale, in Afghani- 
stan (Kabul 1961-2, 3 parts). For chronology and 
numismatics, see Zambaur, Manuel, 280-1, 284; 
E. Thomas, in JRAS (i860), 190-208; Zambaur, 
in Wiener Numismatische Zeitschr., xxxvii (1905), 
185 ff.; D. Sourdel, Inventaire des monnaies musul- 
manes du Musee de Caboul, Damascus 1953, 114 ff. 

(C. E. Bosworth) 
GHURCSH [see sikka]. 

GHUSL. general ablution, uninterrupted 
washing, in ritually pure water, of the whole of the 
human body, including the hair, performed after 
declaring the intention (niyya) so to do. For the 
living it is a fairly simple process, though it applies 
also to the washing of the corpse of a Muslim (see 
below). For the living, the essential ghusl is that 
which is obligatory before performing the ritual 
daily prayers; this ghusl becomes necessary as a 
purification following acts of a sexual nature which 
produce djandba [q.v.] : intimate relations, normal or 
not, emission of sperm and of feminine mani (except 
in cases of illness when only the ordinary ablution, 
wudu' is required). Ghusl is also required after 
menstruation and lochia (other losses of blood do not 
demand the ghusl for purification). Whoever is thus 
in a state of major impurity is subject to the same 
taboos as those incurred by minor impurity (hadath 
[q.v.]) ; in addition, he may not recite the Kur'an nor 
attend the mosque ; women who are menstruating or 
who are in childbirth may recite the Kur'an, but 
their fast and their ritual prayers are not recognized, 
and it is forbidden to have sexual relations with them 
before they have performed the ghusl. The general 
rules of the ghusl are more or less the same in the 
various schools, orthodox or not (with the Hanafis, 
however, the intention is not an obligatory require- 
ment), if we disregard any trifling casuistical details 
(e.g., what if a person, after having sexual relations, 
proceeds with his ghusl, but does not ejaculate until 
afterwards?). Moreover, and this is much more 
important, the four orthodox schools agree in the 
fact that, if it is not possible to use water, the 
Believer may, for the ghusl as for the mudi?, have 
recourse to cleaning with dust (tayammum [q.v.]); 
however, there has been much discussion over this 
question. 

Besides this obligatory ghusl, fikh recognizes 
others which are only sunna and the list and the 
number of which vary according to the schools 
(e.g., 12 among the Shafi'is); among the most 
important and the most generally recognized are the 
ghusl recommended for the Friday prayer and that 
of the Two Feasts, as well as that on the occasion of 
the hadidj. Among the Shl'is, there are not less than 
28, several of which are connected with the history 
of ShI'ism (as a curiosity of folklore, it is interesting 
to note that, according to certain Shi'i doctors, the 
ghusl is obligatory if one has voluntarily looked at a 
hanged person or if one has touched a newly-born 
child). 

The rules for the washing of the dead are of course 
different from those of the ghusl mentioned above. 
We give here a brief account of them. There is some 
disagreement (particularly among the Malikis) over 
whether this ghusl is obligatory or sunna; although 
in fact this washing is most often done by specialists, 



fifth gives detailed regulations concerning the 
principles of the devolution of this duty on the 
spouse of the deceased, then on his or her relatives; 
in all cases the legal nakedness of the dead person 
( l awra) must be covered during the operation; if the 
corpse of a man is washed by a woman who, being 
his wife, is not forbidden to see him, the point is 
disputed as to whether the corpse need be completely 
covered (and vice versa for the body of a woman). 
In the absence of water, here also recourse may be 
had to tayammum, as in some other hypothetical 
situations. The corpse of a martyr (shahid [q.v.]) who 
has fallen in the Holy War is not washed. 

As well as these legal dispositions, it is necessary, 
with this as with all other institutions, to examine 
what happens in practice in the Muslim world. In 
our view, the ghusl of the dead is generally practised, 
and the ghush which are only sunna are practised 
rather seldom. Concerning the ghusl for dfandba, it 
has not until now been sufficiently noticed that the 
existence of the hammdm is connected with the 
purification from djandba. As in other matters, the 
effective practice is sometimes much more lax than 
the theory: where the ritual prayer is neglected (this 
is very often the case for example in North Africa, 
particularly among women), the ghusl will naturally 
also be neglected; but sometimes the demands of 
practice are more rigorous than those of fikh. Thus, 
it has been noted that, in certain regions of Morocco, 
whoever has relations with a Jewess must wash seven 
times with water coming from seven different 
streams. Throughout Islam, however, for every 
minority very much preoccupied with observing the 
prescriptions of the law, we find a majority who 
often neglect them, although, in particular cases, 
they have a curiously inadequate idea of what they 
are: detailed systematic studies would thus show a 
discrepancy between the regulations of the ghusl and 
the practice. 

Bibliography: For the sociological theory of 

the whole subject of purifications etc. in human 

societies, V. Pareto, Trattato di sociologia generate, 

i; Fr. tr., TraiU ..., i, 649 ff.; Eng. tr. The 

mind and society, 1935, ii, 736 ff. ; G.-H. Bousquet, 

La pureti rituelle en Islam, in RHR, cxxxviii (1950), 

33.71 (with detailed references for what has been 

said above). The books of fikh begin with a chapter 

on ritual purity, where ghusl is dealt with, e.g., 

Khalil, Mukhtasar, excellent Italian tr. by Guidi, 

i, 28 ff., 141 ff., and Fr. tr. by Bousquet, i, 32 ff-, 

95 ff.; similarly the books of ikhtildf (e.g., the 

modern work of Muljammad al-Djaziri, K. al- 

Fikh '■ala 'l-madhahib al-arba'-a, i, 78 ff., Cairo 1355 : 

much detail and very lucid). (G. H. Bousquet) 

GHOTA. name given in Syria to abundantly 

irrigated areas of intense cultivation surrounded 

by arid land. A ghuta is produced by the co-operative 

activity of a rural community settled near to one 

or several perennial springs, whose water is used in a 

system of canalization to irrigate several dozen or 

several hundred acres. Each ghuta has its own 

particular system of irrigation based on cycles of 

varying length. The soil in a ghuta is usually laid out 

in platforms which form terraces of watered zones, 

the level sections of which are supported by stone 

walls two to six feet high. In them is carried 

out a closed agricultural economy, which provides 

an assured subsistence for men and animals. Near 

the source of the water there is an area in which 

vegetables and fruit are intensively grown, then the 

extent to which the land is exploited decreases in 

proportion to the time it takes for the water to reach 



GHORIDS (Architecture) 



PLATE XXXI 




st of Djam or Firuzkuh (reign of Sultan Ghiyath al-Din 
Muhammad, 558-99/1163-1203). 



GHORIDS (Architecture) 



PLATE XXXII 





3. Surviving remains of the madrasa and mosque at Cisht in the Hari-Rud valley, 
also from the reign of Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad. 



it. While birch-trees and poplars grow in the damp 
of the central area, as the distance from the spring 
increases, trees become sparser, unsheltered fields 
spread out and areas planted with vines or cereals 
are reached; beyond this there will be the region 
which is flooded in winter, and further still some 
temporary fields. This is a schematic picture of the 
gkufas of Djarud, Nabak, Yabrud and Dimashk 
(see R. Thoumin, Geographie humaine de la Syrie 
Centrale, Tours 1936, 115-120; J. Weulersse, Paysans 
de Syrie et du Procke Orient, Paris 1946, 283-91). 

The Ghuta of Dimashk [q.v.] is the area of gardens 
and orchards which surrounds the former Umayyad 
capital below the gorges of Rabwa and which is made 
fertile by a close network of irrigation trenches fed 
by the Barada [q.v.]. The Ghuta extends from the 
eastern slopes of Mount Kasiyun [q.v.] as far as the 
streams and the water brought in from the Barada 
allow bushes to be grown. Beyond this, to the east, 
is the Mardi, a region of pasture and wide stretches 
of arable land. These grass-lands, which are green 
from December to June and dried up from July 
onwards, end at the lagoon of HJtayba [q.v.], or 
"Lake of Damascus". Still further to the east is the 
scorched land of the steppe, which man's strenuous 
labour has pushed back to about 20 km/12 miles 
from Mount Kasiyun. 

The charms of this place, which is considered by 
Muslim tradition to be one of the four earthly para- 
dises, have been celebrated by many Arab poets 
(see Kurd c Ali, Ghuta, 68-107) and described by 
more than one western traveller. 

Consisting of a half of a basaltic basin filled with 
fertile limestone alluvions and facing eastwards, 
the Ghuta is intersected by the Barada, which flows 
down a slight natural slope split up into artificially 
constructed levels from Rabwa (699 metres/2,300 ft) 
to the point where it leaves Dimashk (650 metres/ 
2,130 ft) and then to the Mardi (600 metres/1,970 ft). 
It is dominated by a screen of mountains 500 metres/ 
1,640 ft. above the plain and is subject to the violent 
contrasts which are typical of a semi-desert climate. 
It has a rainfall of only about 250 mm/10 inches, 
most of which falls in December, January and Fe- 
bruary, with some autumn and spring rain. This is 
supplemented by the Barada. 

The structure of the Ghuta is formed by six major 
diversions of the Barada which fan out into the plain 
at Rabwa. The most important diversions, the Nahr 
Thawra, which in fact forms the northern limit of 
the Ghuta. has allowed the formation of an irrigation 
basin which includes the northern outskirts from 
Rabwa to Djawbar and is about 15 km/10 miles 
in width. The Nahr Yazid, which runs alongside the 
district of al-SSlihiyya, swings round the basin of 
the Nahr Thawra and turns towards Kabfln and 
flarasta, driving mills and irrigating vegetable 
gardens and orchards. The Banas and the Kanawat 
supply the town of Dimashk with water, receive its 
drainage and sewage and go on to irrigate the southern 
section of the Ghufa. In the western region the pure 
waters of the Nahr Mizzawi and the Nahr Daranl 
allow flowers and early vegetables to be grown. 
On leaving Damascus, the Barada and the Nahr 
'Akrabanl flow to the south-east, and supply an 
extensive network of channels (including the Da'iyanI 
and the Mllhi) which have allowed a wooded region, 
the Zawr, to be established in the lowest part of the 
Ghuta. The absence of geographical features allows 
many channels to be drawn off and a series of basins 
without very precise limits to be formed, each one 
merging with the next. The Nahr Mnin, coming 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



down from Mount Kalamun, comes in below Birza 
to complete the irrigation of the olive groves. Beyond 
Duma and c Adhra, in the Mardi, use is made 
of the subterranean pools of water by installing hoists 
above the wells. In the south, a canal about 30 km/ 
20 miles in length brings water from the Nahr al- 
A c wadj to irrigate the sectors for which the Nahr 
Daranl cannot produce enough water. 

The improvement and the exploitation of the land 
of the Ghuta is dependent upon the harnessing and 
distribution of the water from the rivers. Skilful 
irrigation offsets the insufficient rainfall and permits 
regular agricultural work. This irrigation takes place 
at intervals, at fixed hours and days, and is effected 
without mechanical means of opening or closing. 
The distribution of the separate sections of water is 
carried out according to a conventional rotation 
which is called the 'adddn. On the maintenance and 
supervision of the canals, on the measures which 
regulate the flow, and on the method of distribution 
of the water, see R. Tresse in REI, 1929, 473-90. 

The crops grown in the Ghuta are determined by 
the conditions created by the irrigation and the 
nature of the soil and the climate. Those that can 
be grown most intensely and are most remunerative 
are preferred. The agriculture of the Ghuta can be 
divided into winter crops (shiti) : cereals, leguminous 
crops for food and for animal fodder, and summer 
crops (sayfi): market vegetables, mainly gourds, 
and industrial crops such as aniseed, hemp and se- 
same. Crops are grown in zones, some of which 
produce two crops, the most productive being the 
region between Mount Kasiyun and Dimashk with 
its great variety of fruit and vegetables, which 
already in the ioth/i6th century consisted mainly 
of cucumbers, onions, aubergines, cauliflowers, 
carrots, lubiyd', melons and water-melons. The trees 
grown are those of temperate countries. Long before 
the arrival of the Ottomans the apricot had been the 
most important tree of the Ghuta and from that time 
there are found also almond, cherry, fig, pomegranate, 
hazel-nut, walnut, peach, pear and plum trees. 
In the second zone, in the shade of the fruit trees, 
cereals (barley, wheat, maize) replace the vegetables. 
In the third zone, the cycle of irrigation becomes 
more widely spaced and olive trees take the place of 
the fruit trees. Finally there is a fourth zone of 
single cultivation, where vines replace the olive- 
trees, but where cereals still grow, though with a 
yield which decreases progressively until the steppe 
is reached. 

There are crops peculiar to certain villages: thus 
the 14th century traveller Frescobaldi mentioned the 
flowers of Mizza and its rose-water industry, to which 
could be added that of violet oil. From Daraya and 
Duma raisins were exported to the West in the 10th/ 
16th century. Olive trees are cultivated in two 
regions, one in the north including Birza, Kabun, 
Harasta and Duma, the other in the south including 
Mizza, Kafr Sus, Babila, and flush Rihaniyya. 
Finally hemp (kunnab) is harvested in the autumn 
in the humid zone of the Zawr. This wooded district, 
which has no well-defined limits, includes the 
regions of Djisrin, al-Aftaris, Kafr Batna, c Ayn 
Tarma, Zibdin and Djaramana, and in its many 
ghayda (pi. ghiyad) many beech trees and black 
and white poplars flourish. 

The Ghuta has always been thickly populated, its 
inhabitants living in settlements built along the 
edges of the irrigated zones where groups of small- 
holdings tend to develop. Throughout the centuries, 
the number of villages has varied greatly; each 



GHOTA — GHUZZ 



writer gives a different list of them, and that of Ibn 
Tulun al-$alihl (ioth/i6th century) has only a certain 
number of names and sites in common with that of 
the present-day writer Kurd C A1I (Ghuta, 218 if.). 
To the names already given can be added those of 
some villages which have become places of pilgrimage 
by reason of legends connected with them, such as 
Birza in the north-east where, according to a 
legend which stems from the Samaritans, the birth- 
place of Abraham (the Makdm Ibrahim) is to be 
found; Bayt Lahya in the north, also connected with 
the legend of Abraham; the hill of Rabwa in the 
west, a legendary stopping place of c Isa and his 
mother; and finally the village of al-Rawiya, in the 
south-south-east, where there is the tomb of one 
Zaynab Umm Kulthum (who has nothing in common 
with either the daughter of the Prophet or the 
daughter of 'All and Fatima). There are also villages 
where the tomb of a Companion of the Prophet is 
revered; among these are Hadjira, where Mudrik 
b. Ziyad is buried, al-Maniha, where Sa'd b. c Ubada 
is buried, and Mizza where Dihya al-Kalbi is 

The history of the Ghuta is bound up with that of 
Dimashk [q.v.]. The excavations of Tell al-SSlihiyya 
provide evidence that the first human settlements in 
this oasis go back to the fourth millennium B.C. 
Greek and Roman remains are found at various 
places. In the Byzantine period there existed a great 
number of churches and monasteries such as Dayr 
Murran, Dayr Bawanna and Dayr Butrus of which 
the combined effects of time and man have re- 
moved every trace; others are perpetuated in present 
day place-names, such as Dayr Sallba (now Dayr 
Khalid) and Dayr al- c AsafIr. It was in the Ghuta, 
at Mardj Rahit [q.v.], that Marwan, with his Yemenis, 
gave battle to the Kaysis in 64/683. Under the 
Umayyads, the Ghuta formed one of the districts 
of the province of Dimashk, and had an autonomous 
administration with a separate diwdn whose chief 
activity was the collecting of the kharddj.. Many of 
the attacks on Dimashk were made less effective 
by having to get past the orchards with their network 
of paths edged by low walls on either side, and Crus- 
aders and Zangids were able to appreciate their 
defensive value. At the end of the 6th/i2th century, 
and even more in the 7th/i3th century, under the 
Ayyiibid [q.v.] princes many monuments were built; 
madrasas and mausolea arose in peaceful sur- 
roundings among the orchards between the Nahr 
Thawra and the Nahr Yazld. From west to east 
could be seen the double cupola of the mausoleum 
of Kitbugha (8th/i4th century), the Maridaniyya 
madrasa (7th/i3th century) at Djisr al-Abyad, the 
Shibliyya madrasa which formed part of a complex 
of buildings including the mausoleum of Shibl al- 
Dawla Kafur, a khdnkdh and a public fountain; 
the ribbed cupola of the Turbat al-Badri, built in 
the time of Nur al-DIn [q.v.], rises not far from the 
madrasa of Sitti Hafiza (7th/i3th century). Finally, 
below al-Salihiyya, the Rukniyya madrasa (7th/i3th 
century) overlooked the gardens. Vegetable gardens 
and orchards survived to the north of Dimashk 
until about 1950, since when they have been gradually 
supplanted by new housing estates. 

Bibliography: The essential work is Kurd 
'All, Ghutat Dimashk, in MMIA (2nd ed. 1952, 
358 and map), which includes a good bibliography 
of the Arabic sources; Ruba'I, K. FaddHl al- 
Shdm wa-Dimashk, ed. S. al-Munadjdjid, in MMIA, 
1951, 60; Ibn 'Asakir, Ta'rikh madinat Dimashk, 
in MMIA, 1954, 116-17, 145 f-, 169; Ibn Shaddad, 



al-A'ldk al-khafira, ed. S. Dahan, Damascus 1956, 
13, 277 ff., 305 ff.; Harawl, K. al-Ziydrdt, Da- 
mascus 1953, 10-16 (tr. J. Sourdel-Thomine, 
Guide des Lieux de Pllerinage, Damascus 1957, 
24-40) ; Abu '1-Fida', Geographic (tr. Reinaud and 
Guyard), ii, 49, 135, ii 2 , 9, 15; Ibn Djubayr, 
Voyages, tr. Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Paris 1953-6, 
301 f.; Yakut, hi, 825 (Beirut ed., iv, 219); Ibn 
Tulun al-Salihi, Darb al-flufa 'aid dfamt* al-ghuta, 
ed. A. Talass, in MMIA, xxi (1946), 149-61, 236-47, 
338-51; Le Strange, Palestine, 33, 231, 237; 
H. Sauvaire, Description de Damns, in J A, 1894-96 
(see Index Giniral by E. Ouechek, Damascus 1954) ; 
R. Dussaud, Topographic historique de la Syrie, 
Paris 1927, 293-313; R. Mantran and J. Sauvaget, 
Reglements fiscaux ottomans, Damascus 1951, 
16-18; J. Sauvaget, in Monuments Ayyoubides de 
Damas, ii, 65 ff., iii, 119 ft., 131ft.; R. Tresse, 
L'irrigation dans la Ghouta de Damas, in REI, 
r 929. 459-570; R. Thoumin, Notes sur Vaminage- 
ment et la distribution des eaux a Damas et dans sa 
Ghouta, in B. Et. Or., iv (1934), 1-26; idem, Geogra- 
phic humaine de la Syrie Centrale, Tours 1936, 
60-75, 120-25, 228 ff.; A. Latron, La vie rurale en 
Syrie et au Liban, Damascus 1936, 18, 21, 148, 207; 
J. Weulersse, Paysans de Syrie, Paris 1946, 283-99; 
Birot and Dresch, La Miditerranie et le Moyen 
Orient, vol. ii, Paris 1956, 441-42. 

(N. Elisseeff) 
al-GHUZOlL. <Ala> al-DIn <AlI b. c Abd Allah 
al-Baha'I al-DimashijI, an Arabic writer of 
Berber origin (d. 815/1412) who composed, under the 
title Matdli' al-budur ft mandzil al-surur, an antho- 
logy on the model of the adab books but which, as 
the author justly boasts in the preface, is in its 
content favourably distinguished from the great 
mass of these writings. He deals with the house and 
its different sections, all the pleasures of life and 
sport and the accessories required for their realiza- 
tion ; he illustrates these subjects with anecdotes and 
verses taken from later poetry but, at the same time 
he presents a very great wealth of material — still far 
from being exhausted — relating to the history of the 
civilization of the Muslim peoples. The book was 
printed in Cairo, in two volumes, in 1299-1300. 
(C. Brockelmann) 
GHUZZ, form generally used by Arabic authors 
for the name of the Turkish Oghuz people. The 
origin of the Oghuz, which for long was obscure 
because of the diversity of the transcriptions of the 
names of peoples in the Chinese, Arabic, Byzantine 
and other sources, seems to have been clarified by 
J. Hamilton, Toguz Oghuz et On-Uyghur, in J A, 
ccl/i (1962), 23-64. At the beginning of the 7th 
century A.D. there was formed, among the eastern 
Turkish T'ie-lo tribes, a confederation of Nine 
Clans = Tokuz Oghuz (a form known to the Arabic 
authors), who revolted against the empire of the 
western Turks and helped to form the empire of the 
most important tribe among them, whose name is 
the earliest attested, namely the Uyghurs. During 
the period of the extension of this empire (3rd/gth 
century) some groups of these peoples spread towards 
the west, losing their links with the structure of the 
Nine Clans and acquiring, in new countries and in 
their contacts with new peoples, distinctive charac- 
teristics: these are the people called by the western 
writers of that time, with no more reference to the 
"Nine", Oghuz (Arabic: Ghuzz; Byzantine: Ouzoi). 
The different deductions often drawn from the later 
legend of Oghuz- Khan (see below), or from rash 
linguistic assimilations, are to be rejected. 



i.— Musl 






We shall not deal at length here with the period 
of the history of the Oghuz/Ghuzz before they came 
in contact with Islam. It should however be mention- 
ed briefly because, owing to their new habitat and the 
period during which they moved there, all that we 
know of them, admittedly very elementary and 
uncertain, is now based mainly on the Arabic (or 
Persian) authors. We shall ignore what these authors 
have said on the eastern Tokuz-Oghuz (see V. 
Minorsky in his commentary and his translation of 
the Ifudud aW-alam, 1937, 268 f.) in order to concern 
ourselves here only with the western Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz. 

The earliest reference to the presence of Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz (without the Tokuz) in Central Asia is found 
in al-Baladhurl (431), writing of events belonging to 
the end of the reign of al-Ma'mun, although Ibn al- 
Athir, writing much later, reports the opinions of 
authors who consider those Turks who, under the 
caliphate of al-Mahdi, had supported the movement 
of al-Mukanna c , as already then belonging to the 
Oghuz. In contrast to this, from the middle of the 
3rd/9th century, nearly all the Arab geographers 
mention them. In the 4th/ioth century they occupied 
a territory roughly bounded to the south by the 
Aral Sea and the lower course of the Sir-Darya, to 
the west by the River Ural or the lower Volga and 
the Caspian Sea, to the north-east by the upper 
course of the Irtysh. They then had other Turkish 
peoples as neighbours: to the north the Kimak, a 
branch of the Klpcak, to the east the Kharlukh 
(Karluk), to the west the Peceneg and above all the 
semi-Turkish state of the Khazar, and they were in 
constant communication with the Bulgars of the 
middle Volga who were also for the most part Turks; 
finally, to the south, and particularly along the Sir- 
Darya, they bordered on the Muslim world. For the 
most part they were nomads, herding camels (with 
one hump and resistant to cold though not to 
excessive heat), sheep, horses etc., and each tribe 
branded its animals with a special sign — a tughra, 
tamgha [qq.v.]. All the same.it should not be thought 
that they were exclusively nomadic, for both among 
the remains of the former populations and among the 
Oghuz themselves there were settled groups occupied 
with agriculture in the oases, and also, particularly 
on the boundaries of the Muslim world and along the 
routes leading to the Bulgars or the Khazars, markets 
which had often become small fortified towns where 
their chiefs and leading men came to barter, against 
the products of the civilized world to the south, 
animals, prisoners sold as slaves, and furs brought 
from the northern forests; and in the principal one of 
these little towns, Yanikant, probably the ancient 
Nau-Karda of the pre-Turkish Indo-European 
inhabitants, the chief of the Oghuz/Ghuzz chose to 
live in the winter, though he may have stayed 
further upstream, at Djand (near to the modern 
Perovsk) : the recent archaeological investigations 
which have located the sites and the ruins of these 
towns along the former course of the lower Sir- 
Darya confirm that they were certainly urban 
settlements and not the camps of nomads. It is 
difficult to state precisely what the Oghuz were 
ethnically, but, however important the Turkish 
element was (and the Russian chroniclers know the 
Oghuz only by the name of Turks/Torki), there is 
little doubt that there had been on the one hand 
inter-marriage with the remains of the earlier 
populations, and on the other hand an integration 



ZZ 1 107 

into the Oghuz/Ghuzz of non-Turkish groups, in- 
corporated just as they were and later Turkicized: 
it has even been suggested that the name of the 
Oghuz/Ghuzz tribe of the Doger [q.v.] preserves the 
ancient name of the Tokharians: the result being 
that the Oghuz/Ghuzz of the west were no longer 
ethnically the same as the other Turks and parti- 
cularly those of the east. 

So far, then, as we can speak at all of a geopolitical 
configuration of Central Asia, it would seem possible 
to postulate, in the 4th/ioth century, certain political 
and other interests in common between Kh w arizm, 
the semi-autonomous outpost of Muslim civilization 
to the south of the Caspian Sea, and the state of the 
Khazars, to the west of the Caspian Sea and the 
lower Volga, and that there was, in opposition to 
them, some form of alliance of the Oghuz/Ghuzz with 
the Bulgars (and at one time, with the "Russians" 
of Kiev). This is particularly the impression given 
by the account which has been preserved of the 
embassy to the Bulgars at the beginning of the 
century of the caliph's envoy, Ibn Fadlan, who 
passed through Kh"arizm. Moreover, although the 
Oghuz/Ghuzz formed only a very loosely-joined 
confederation of tribes, they nevertheless recognized, 
within the framework of a western Turkish world 
which maintained a certain feeling of uniformity, the 
supremacy of a Yabghu [q.v.] of the left, to whom 
corresponded the Karluk Yabghu of the right : a title 
and idea inherited from the ancient Turkish empire 
of the 6th century A.D. and from the early Central 
Asiatic states. The Yabghu of the Oghuz/Ghuzz 
normally lived at Yanikant; he had a lieutenant 
(KUdMrkin) and a head of the tribal army (subashi). 

Even if, as Ibn al-Athlr believes, the Turks 
(whoever they may have been) who' had helped al- 
Mukanna' had already embraced Islam, according to 
him Islam did not reach the western Turks, and in 
particular the Oghuz/Ghuzz, until the 4th/ioth 
century and it was not until the end of that century 
that it became general among them. Before this the 
Oghuz/Ghuzz, like all the inhabitants of Central 
Asia, must have been influenced to some extent by 
Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity and 
Khazar-Judaism, and the influence of the latter 
perhaps explains the later presence among the 
Saldjuks of characteristically Biblical names; but 
there are no grounds for believing that they abandon- 
ed completely their vague ancestral Shamanism. The 
Oghuz/Ghuzz came into contact with Islam in various 
ways : first through the raids and counter-raids which 
they exchanged on the southern frontiers of their 
territory with the Muslim ghdzis of the state of the 
Samanids [q.v.], and the prisoners which were taken 
by both sides ; then through some of the activities of 
the Sufis of the frontiers; and finally, and probably 
most of all, through the merchants whom they met 
in the markets, or "protected" as they travelled along 
the roads leading across Oghuz territory towards that 
of the Bulgars, the Khazars and the Chinese. Political 
or other reasons had caused Islam to spread among 
the Bulgars, and probably among the lower classes 
of the Khazar population, from the first half of the 
4th/ioth century. The Karluk and the Oghuz/Ghuzz 
were not converted until the second half of the 
century, the former shortly after the middle and the 
latter at the end of the century, though it has of 
course still to be ascertained what form of Islam had 
been taught to them and how much of it they did in 
fact absorb at first. Moreover Islam did not reach 
all the Oghuz/Ghuzz, and those in the extreme west 
escaped the Muslim propaganda: 



them were later, when incorporated in the Byzantine 
army, to receive Christian baptism. 

The conversion to Islam, whatever form it may 
have taken, and the drive towards the south of those 
of the Oghuz/Ghuzz who were not already too much 
engaged in the west are related phenomena. The drive 
towards the territories of the Muslim Ma wara 3 al- 
Nahr, although these lands themselves were an 
attraction, may have been due also to pressure 
behind the Oghuz/Ghuzz from their other Turkish 
neighbours, for it is known that later the KlpiSak 
were to occupy the territories left vacant by the 
migration of the Oghuz/Ghuzz. But another result of 
their conversion to Islam was that it prevented the 
ghdzls from fighting against them as pagans and 
allowed the Muslim princes to enlist them under their 
banners; it could even make them into ghdzls 
themselves to fight against the other Turks who were 
still pagan, and the part which the ghdzl formations 
were to play in the pattern of later Turkish history is 
indisputable even when, transferred to other fronts, 
they were directed against other adversaries. It is 
possible that there took place, between the supporters 
and the enemies of Islam, battles memories of which 
may be preserved in the (admittedly highly embell- 
ished) accounts concerning the origin of the Saldju- 
kids; but Shah-Malik, the Yabghu against whom the 
Saldjuks fought, was nevertheless himself a Muslim, 
and we should not exclude, merely for lack of evidence, 
the idea that the Oghuz/Ghuzz chiefs were attracted 
to Islam, as were those of the Karluk (the Karakha- 
nids) and as has so often happened with peoples in a 
tribal stage of development, by the principle of 
authority which Islam conferred on them over the 
organization of the tribes, apart from the fact that 
they would soon be able to intervene in the conflicts 
of the traditional Muslim world itself. 

As has just been said, the Oghuz/Ghuzz expansion 
towards the south took place mainly from the last 
years of the 4th/ioth century, then especially in the 
fourth decade of the 5th/nth century, under the 
leadership of a family, the Saldjukids, which was to 
found a vast empire. This is discussed in other 
articles, so that we are not concerned to relate here 
the history of this expansion — contemporary with 
that of the "Ouzoi" towards southern Russia, the 
lower Danube and Byzantium — , but only to show 
its place in the history of the Oghuz/Ghuzz. The 
first migrations of the groups which followed the 
Saldjukids occurred as they took advantage of the 
appeals for help addressed to them in turn, by the 
Samanids and various rival princes of the Karakhanid 
family who had succeeded the Samanids in Ma wara 3 
al-Nahr. In the official tradition of the dynasty, the 
ancestor Saldjuk is presented as having been the 
head of the army of a "Khazar" prince: presumably 
of a territory or a group recognizing Khazar suze- 
rainty between the Aral Sea and the Volga. On the 
other hand, however, in the various political struggles 
of the first half of the 5th/nth century, the descen- 
dants of this Saldjuk were fighting against the 
Yabghu of the Oghuz, Shah Malik, the ally of the 
Ghaznavids, and it is not impossible that they went 
so far as to lay claim to the position of Yabghu and 
that they were in fact recognized as such by a large 
section of their people. The details of the episodes of 
which little is known but which can lead to this 
conclusion have been the subject of a discussion 
between O. Pritsak and the present author which 
cannot be regarded as closed. (See O. Pritsak, Der 
Untergang des Reiches des Oghusischen Reiches, in 
Milanges K6priilujKSpriilii armaiam, 1953; discuss- 



ion by CI. Cahen, in J A, 1954, 271-5 and Pritsak's 
reply in his communication to the Congress of 
Orientalists at Munich in 1957). 

Thus the Saldjukid expansion drew into the old 
territories of Islam a substantial portion of the 
Oghuz/Ghuzz people; it is difficult to specify them 
more precisely, for the few names of tribes which are 
attested at that time do not distinguish them for us 
from the others, and also the fact that some elements 
of these tribes accompanied the Saldjukids does not 
preclude that others may have remained behind in 
their former habitat. Those who left it we find divided 
into two groups: one following Arslan-IsrS 3 !! b. 
Saldjuk [q.v.] in the region of Bukhara, and then 
established by Mahmud of Ghazna in 416/1025 in 
Khurasan, the other, which was to take the place of 
the first group there in 426/1035, under the leader- 
ship of the nephews of Arslan, Toghril and Caghrl 
[qq.v.]. The members of the first group, left without a 
leader by the disappearance of Arslan, proved them- 
selves incapable of being assimilated to the admini- 
strative rules and the social structure of an old- 
established Iranian state : harried by the Ghaznavid 
troops, they succeeded, after detours across Iran, in 
reaching the frontiers of Armenia from which they 
returned when, on the death of Mahmud, the 
Ghaznavid family was split by quarrels, then, 
disturbed at the advance of the second Saldjukid 
group, escaped again towards the west, crossed the 
mountains of Kurdistan, and ended by being exter- 
minated in Upper Mesopotamia in about 437/1045 
by an alliance of Bedouins and Kurds. The Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz of Toghril and Caghri, after several years of 
war, defeated Mas'ud of Ghazna at Dandankan in 
431/1040, and conquered for their masters the 
greater part of Iran, and also 'Irak, etc. ; most of them 
were concentrated in Adharbaydjan, a country whose 
population is today still mainly Turkish ; from there a 
section of them was to spread, in the second half of 
the 5th/nth century, into Byzantine Asia Minor, 
which they soon converted into what from then on 

From the end of the 4th/ioth century, however, 
there appears a new name (first attested in al- 
MukaddasI in about 375/985), that of Turkmen/ 
Turcoman, applied to a large section of the Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz peoples and sometimes also to the Karluk, 
though it is impossible to state precisely in which 
contexts the term Oghuz/Ghuzz continued in use and 
in which Turkmen/Turcoman was preferred. Certainly 
it seems that at first the latter name was used ex- 
clusively of the Muslim Oghuz/Ghuzz in contrast to 
those who had not become Muslim and who continued 
to be called by their earlier name. But we find the 
name Oghuz/Ghuzz used later of those who had 
become Muslim. Broadly speaking it can be said that 
the name Turkmen/Turcoman is used by writers of 
the territories comprising the Saldjukid empire and 
its successor states to indicate those of the Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz who were the descendants of the groups which 
followed the Saldjukids (even although they later 
abandoned them to go, for example, into Byzantine 
Asia Minor); these writers applied the name Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz to all the others, even later, when some of 
them in their turn were to come and settle in the 
Saldjukid territory (but without really being in- 
corporated in the state). Foreign writers, on the 
other hand, or those who were hostile to the Saldjukids 
and their successors, used the name Ghuzz univer- 
sally, with pejorative intent, of all the Turks on 
whose military strength these regimes depended; 
this was the case with the writers of Fa timid Egypt, 



and even with those who, in the Yemen, wrote of 
the conquest (albeit half Kurdish) of the country 
by the AyyObids, or with those in the Maghrib 
writing of the Ayyubid drive towards Tripoli and 
Ifrikiya. We cannot pursue all these branches here 
and for details of the later history of the Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz who proceeded in the nth century to Iran 
and beyond, the reader is referred to the articles 
saldjukids and tOrkmen. 

There remained, however, in Central Asia a 
certain number of them who, from 538/1143, were 
driven back by the conquest of the Karakhanid 
territories (including Ma wara 5 al-Nahr) by the non- 
Muslim Kara-Khitay. The majority of them settled, 
with the more or less willing agreement of the 
Saldjukid authorities, in the eastern part of Khura- 
san, in the region of Balkh. But, as was the case 
earlier when the first Turcomans settled in Ghaznavid 
territory, this new group of Oghuz/Ghuzz (thus called 
in contemporary sources) proved impossible to 
assimilate into an organized state. Sultan Sandjar 
tried to subdue them by force and, like the Ghaznavid 
Mas'ud, a century earlier, was himself heavily 
defeated by them (548/1153). But whereas the 
Turcomans, led by the Saldjukids, had founded an 
empire, the Oghuz/Ghuzz of this period merely 
helped to spread anarchy throughout Khurasan. 
Finally they were decimated and subdued by the 
Kh w arizmshahs. although one of them, Malik Dinar 
[q.v.], ousting other Saldjukids, proceeded to make 
himself master for several years of their principality 
of Kirman. The difference arises in part certainly 
from the fact that the Saldjukids had been able to 
lead their Turcomans on to other conquests, while 
the absence of a great leader and the general political 
conditions of the 6th/i2th century allowed the Oghuz/ 
Ghuzz of Khurasan no prospect beyond that of 
converting Khurasan into a region of grazing lands 

The above episode is the last in which we find the 
Oghuz/Ghuzz in action under this name; beyond the 
frontiers of Islam their place had been taken by the 
KipJak, many of whom moreover in their turn 
began to swell the army of the ruler of Kh w arizm. 
The foundation of the Mongol empire, in the 
7th/i3th century, led of course to the in- 
corporation or to the expulsion of many Turcomans 
who were descended from the former Oghuz/Ghuzz, 
but henceforward the name is no longer found used 
of a group of people which still exists, whereas that 
of Turkmen has survived until the present day in 
Central Asia. 

It was at this time, however, that among these 
descendants of the Oghuz/Ghuzz, confronted with 
the Mongols, there developed, in an atmosphere of 
veneration of the past and of their ancestors, the 
legend known as that of Oghuz-Khan, the vast 
spread and possibly also the relative antiquity of 
which are attested by versions extending from 
Central Asia (in Uyghur) to Asia Minor (in particular 
the popular Turkish story of Dede Korkut [q.v.], 
composed under the Ak-Koyunlu in the gth/i5th 
century). It represents the descendants of Oghuz 
Khan as being divided into 24 tribes, and of these it 
is certain that 22 were already known, by name and 
by their tamghas, to Mahmud Kashghari, the Muslim 
Turk of the second half of the 5th/nth century 
whose dictionary provides such noteworthy in- 
formation about his fellow-Turks; a certain number 
of these tribes are attested in historical events, but 
only the Kinlk (and then solely as the tribe of the 
Saldjukids), the Ylva, Salghur, Avshar and the 



Doger appear before the Mongol period. The 
Saldjukid conquest had taken place over their heads 
and broken them up. It was Rashld al-DIn, the great 
historian of the Mongols, who gave to the Muslim 
world the first written account of the legend, and it 
is from him that it was borrowed by the later authors 
who related it for educated Turks, writers such 
as Yaztdjt-oghlu, the Qth/i5th century adapter of 
Ibn BibI in Asia Minor, or the famous prince Abu 
'1-GhazI in Central Asia in the following century. 
But although the legend reflects after its fashion the 
regions in which it grew up, there would seem to be 
no justification for using it as a basis for a recon- 
struction of the authentic history of the early 
Oghuz/Ghuzz, though a future scholar may find a 
way of making some use of it in this respect. 

Bibliography: The Oghuz/Ghuzz are known 
in varying degree to nearly all the geographers 
from Ibn Khurradadhbih. The main information, 
much of which is collected in Russian translation 
in V. I. Belayev, Arabskie isMniki po istorii 
Turkmen i Turhmenii, i, Moscow-Leningrad 
1939, is found in the following: Istakhri, 
9 and 217-22, completed by Ibn Hawkal, 
ed. Kramers, 389, 512 and Mukaddasi, 274; 
works based on Djayhani: Ifudud al-'-dlam, 100-1 
and 122, Marwazi 29 (both ed. Minorsky), and 
Gardlzi; Ibn al-Fakih al-Hamadhani in the 
Mashhad MS described by A. Zeki Velidi in 
Izv. Ak. Nauk. SSSR, 1924, 237-48; Mas'Odi, 
Murudj, i, 212-3 and ii, 18-9 (pagination repro- 
duced in Pellat's trans., in progress); Biruni, and 
even, later still, Idrisi and Yakut. Of particular 
interest, at the beginning of the 4th/ioth century, 
is the account of the journey of Ibn Fadlan, ed. 
Zeki Velidi, 1939, A. P. Kovalevsky, 1956, and 
Sami Dahan, 1959, Fr, tr. M. Canard in AIEO 
Alger, xvi (1958). The principal historians to be 
considered are those of the Ghaznavids and the 
Saldjukids, especially Bayhaki and Ibn al-Athir, 
but also the Akhbdr al-dawla al-Saldjukiyya, ed. 
Moh. Iqbal, the Saldiukndma of Zahir al-DIn 
Nlshapuri, ed. Gelaleh Khavar (better than the 
adaptation of him by Rawandi), the Mudjmal al- 



1. Bahar 






, the ai 



Ta'rikh-i Sistdn, Gardlzi already mentioned, ed. 
Moh. Iqbal, etc. See also Kh w arizmi, Mafdtih al- 
'ulum, 120. For the events of the 6th/i2th century 
see the historians of the Saldjukids (reign of 
Sandjar); Ibn al-Athir again; Djuwayni, TaMkh-i 
Djahdn-gushd, ii. A special place is occupied by the 
Diwdn lughdt al-Turk of Mahmud Kashghari, a 
work not only of lexicography, but of remarkable 
and unique general information, ed. Kilisli Rif'at 
(1917) and in facsimile with Turkish tr. by Besim 
Atalay (1939). For the legend of Oghuz Khan the 
principal texts have been cited in the article; the 
Kitdb-i Dede Korkut should be consulted in the ed. 
with a very full preface by E. Rossi. For the 
Chinese sources (on the Tokuz-Oghuz only), see 
J. Hamilton, art. cited; for the Byzantine sources, 
J. Moravcsik, Byzantino-Turcica 2 , i960, s.v. Ouzoi. 
It is impossible to enumerate here all the studies 
which in one way or another refer to the Oghuz 
(a fair number of them are listed in Pearson's Index 
Islamicus); a good brief restatement of many of 
the questions has appeared in ch. vii of C. E. 
Bosworth, The Ghaznevids . . ., Edinburgh 1963; 
and in spite of their date the contributions of 
Barthold to EI 1 [Ghuzz and Turks] remain 
generally useful, also his general survey in the 
Histoire des Turcs d'Asie Centrale (Fr. tr. of his 



Zwblf Vorlesungen iiber die Geschichte der Turken 
Mittelasiens, lectures delivered in 1926), and his 
developments in his Turkestan down to the Mongol 
Invasion, Engl. tr. 1928; see also the commen- 
taries of V. Minorsky in his editions of the Hudud 
al-'dlam and of MarwazI cited above, and the 
anonymous Istoriya Turkmenii, Tashkent 1940. 
Among the special works, for the origins we limit 
ourselves to referring to Hamilton cited above; 
for the history of the Oghuz/Ghuzz in Central Asia 
in the 4th/ioth and the 5th/iith centuries, 
Houtsma, Die Ghuzenst&mme, in WZKM, ii (1888); 
J. Marquart, Ueber das Volkstum der Komanen, 
Abh. d. K. Ges. d. Wiss. Gottingen, N.F. xiii (1914); 
M. F. Kopriilflfzade], Oghuz etnolozhisine daHr 
laMkM notlar, in Turkiydt MedJ.mu c asi, i (1925), 
185-21 1 ; A. J. Yakubovskiy, Seldjukskoe dviienie i 
Turkmeni v XI vekov, in Izv. Ak. Nauk SSSR, 
1936; S. P. Tolstov, Goroda Guzov, in Sovetskaya 
Etnografiya, 1947, and especially Po sledam 
drevnekhorezmiyskoy tsivilizatsii (German trans. 
Auf den Spuren der attchoresmischen Kultur), 1953, 
a basic synthesis of the results of the archaeological 
investigations carried out by the author and 
others up to that date, with significant historical 
implications; O. Pritsak, Der Untergang des 
Ogusischen Jabgu (see above in the art.) ; CI. Cahen, 
Les tribus turques d'Asie occidentals pendant la 
periode seldjukide, in WZKM, li (1948-52), and 
Le Malihnameh et Vhistoire des origines seldjuhides, 
in Oriens, ii (1949); Ibr. Kafesoglu, Turkmen ad\, 
manast ve mahiyeti, in Jean Deny Armaiant, 1958; 
Tahsin Banguoglu, Oguzlar ve Oguzeli uzerine, in 
Turk dili arashrmalar ytlhgt Belleten, 1959 (based 
on Mahmfld Kashgharl). For the events of the 
6th/i2th century, Barthold, Sultan Sindjar iGuzy, 
in Zap. VO, xx (1912); M. KSymen, Biiyuk 
SeUuklular Imparatorlu%unda Oguz isyam ve 
istilast, in Ankara Vniv. Dil. ve Tar-Coir. Fak. 
Dergisi, v/2 and 5 (1947), with German tr.; Ibr. 
Kafesoglu, Harezmsahlar devleti tarihi, 1956. For 
the legend of Oghuz Khan, see W. Bang and G. R. 
Rahmati, Die Legende von Oghuz Khan, 1932; 
E. Rossi, preface to his ed. of Dede Korkut mention- 
ed above; M. Kaplan, 0§uz Kagan Destam ile Dede 
Korkut kitabinda esya ve aletler, in Jean Deny 
Armaiant, 1958. This article was prepared before 
the publication of the art. Oguz in I A. 

(Cl. Cahen) 

ii. — Muslim West 
In the Middle Ages al-Ghuzz (or al-Aghzaz, or 
al-Ghuzziyyun) indicated the Turkish or Turcoman 
mercenaries who twice penetrated North Africa 
by way of Egypt. The first Aghzaz appeared, in 
the middle of the 6th/i2th century, in the army 
which the Almohad c Abd al-Mu'min sent to 
conquer Ifrlkiya (553/1158). A group of them was 
introduced into Ifrlkiya by Karakflsh al-Ghuzzi 
[q.v.], an adventurer of Armenian descent, the 
freedman of a brother of Saladin, and Ibrahim b. 
Karatakln, who were sent by the ruler of Egypt and 
Syria to conquer the eastern Maghrib. Karakflsh had 
appeared in 568/1 172-3 in Tripoli. After several 
adventures, including imprisonment in Cairo, he was 
again in Tripolitania in 573/1 177-8 to fight beside the 
Banfl Ghariya [?.».]. But Ibn Karatakln was killed and 
the family of Karakflsh, his sons, his possessions and 
some of his mercenaries fell into the power of the 
Almohad caliph Abfl Yflsuf Ya'kflb al-Mansur, after 
the fall of Gabes (10 Shaman 583/15 October 1 187) and 
of Gafsa, three months later. These Ghuzz, of proved 



courage, having given proofs also of their submission, 
were then transferred to Marrakush and formed into 
a corps d'elite, regularly paid, which the caliph put 
at the service of the regime. Armed with a bow which 
was named after them (al-ghuzzi), they fought in all 
the battles and were very much in favour, but 
without being absorbed into the population (they 
had their own cemetery). 

About 660/1261, there appeared in North Africa 
a new wave of Ghuzz. but the name this time refers 
to Kurds, fleeing before the conquests of Hfllagfl 
[q.v.]. When the Almohad dynasty fell, some took 
service with the c Abd al-Wadids of Tlemcen, others 
with the Hafsids of Tunis, others finally settled at 
Marrakush where they passed into the service of the 
Marinid dynasty who made much use of them in 
their expeditions of the Holy War in Spain where, 
with the archers of Ceuta, they formed the front line; 
they constituted also the personal bodyguard of the 
sultan. With time and with the appearance of portable 
fire-arms the Moroccan Ghuzz lost some of their 
importance. In the middle of the 16th century they 
are no longer referred to as Ghuzz but as Turks, 
whether they were mercenaries or not; in the 17th 
century their name, retained in Portuguese (algoz) 
with the meaning of hangman, is applied only to 

The Ghuzz used by the Almohads in their expedi- 
tions of the Holy War are mentioned by many of the 
mediaeval European historians. 

Bibliography: A. Bel, Les Benou Ghaniya, 
Paris 1903; c Abd al- Wahid al-Marrakushl, 
Mu'dfib, ed. Dozy, 210-1 (ed. M. Elfassi, Sale 1938, 
176-8; tr. Fagnan, Hist, des Almohades, 250-2; Sp. 
tr. Huici, 240-2) ; Ibn Khaldun, Hist, des Berbires, 
tr. de Slane*, ii, 91, iii, 43 and index, s.v. Caracoch 
and Ghuzz; Ibn al-Athlr, Annates du Maghreb et 
de I'Espagne, tr. Fagnan, in the index s.v. Turcs; 
Dozy, Suppl., ii, 210; Gaudefroy-Demombynes, 
Une lettre de Saladin au calife almohade, in 
Melanges Rene" Basset, ii, Paris 1923; Ibn Fadl 
Allah al- c Umari, Masdlik al-absdr, tr. G. Demom- 
bynes, Paris 1927; J. M. Solignac, Trav. hydr. 
Hafsides de Tunis, 2 6me congres de la Feder. des 
Soc. Sav. de PAfrique du Nord, Tlemcen 1936 (ii/i, 
562-4); R. Brunschvig, Hafsides, ii, 80; E. Levi- 
Provencal, Trente sept lettres almohades, ar. Rabat 
1941, tr. in Hespiris, 1941; A. Huici, Historia 
politica del Imperio almohade, 2 vols., Tetuan 
1956-7; Romania, ccxliv (1935), 488; J. F. P. 
Hopkins, Medieval Muslim government in Barbary, 
London 1958, 79-82. (G. Deverdun) 

In the Sudan the term Ghuzz was used of the 
hereditary kdshifs of Lower Nubia (between the 
First and Third Cataracts of the Nile) during the 
Ottoman period; more generally, the tribe formed 
by their kin. The name, as in Egyptian usage, 
was equivalent to Mamluks, and the Ghuzz should 
therefore be distinguished from the hereditary 
garrison-troops (kal l edjis) of Bosniak origin in 
Aswan, Ibrim and Say, who were called 'Othmdnlls. 
The founder of the tribe is called by Burckhardt, 
Hasan "Coosy" (probably Kuzzi for Qhuzzi), and 
his coming, as commander of the Bosniaks, is 
placed in the reign of Sultan Sellm I: this may 
be too early. The hereditary kdshiflik, which had 
its headquarters at al-Dirr, and was virtually 
autonomous, survived until the time of Muhammad 
C A1I Pasha. At the time of the Turco-Egyptian 
invasion of the Sudan (1820-1), Isma c U Kamil Pasha 



GHUZZ — GlLAN 



appointed a member of the tribe, Hasan, to administer 
the territory between Aswan and Wad! Haifa. The 
vestiges of the traditional authority of the Ghuzz 
tribal chiefs vanished some sixty years later, when 
the area was placed under military government at 
the time of the Mahdia. 

Bibliography: J. L. Burckhardt, Travels in 

Nubia, London 1819, 133-9; Na'um Shukayr, 

Td'rikh al-Suddn, Cairo [1903], ii, 108-10. 

(P. M. Holt) 

GIAOUR [see gabr and kafir]. 

GIBRALTAR [see djabal tariij]. 

GlLAN, a historic region around the delta of the 
river Safid-rud [q.v.], was the homeland of the Gel 
people (Gelae, T^Xai; = KaSoiiaiot) in antiquity. 
The present Persian inhabitants, who speak a 
special dialect (cf. G. Melgunoff, Essai sur les 
dialectes . . . du Ghtldn . . ., in ZDMG, xvii (1868), 
195-224, and the article iran: Languages) bear the 
name Gilak (at an earlier period also Gil). The 
derivation of the name from gil "clay", in allusion 
to the marshes of the region, is a piece of folk 
etymology. 

In the middle ages Gilan first extended as far as 
the Calus in the south east; later it ran parallel on 
its eastern side with the Pulu-rud and included 
Cabiiksar. In the north east Gilan verged on the 
region of Talish [q.v.] which was sometimes counted 
as part of it. After Talish was ceded to Russia by the 
Peace of Gulistan of 1813, this frontier was replaced 
by the river Astara. For some 225 km. Gilan is 
bounded by the Caspian Sea ; towards the interior the 
frontier is the mountain-chain forming the northern 
limit of the high plateau of Iran, and in this direction 
Gilan is between 25 and 105 km. wide. In the 10th- 
nth centuries the mountainous areas in the south 
of the region bore the name of Daylam [q.v.]; their 
inhabitants were often the enemies of the real 
natives of Gilan. As the inhabitants see it, the area 
is divided by the Safid-rud into two regions ; "beyond 
the river and before the river" — Biya Pish in the 
east (land of the early Amardoi) and Biya Pas in the 
west (land of the Gelae). In the 19th century the 
area was divided into first four and then five regions. 
In 1938 the population was estimated at 450,000, 
mostly ShI c I Persians (Gilak and Talish, particularly 
in the mountains) but also Jews, Armenians, and 
gypsies, who occupied an area of some 14,000 
square km. In the middle ages the first capital was 
Dulab (= Gaskar (?) according to Mukaddasi), then 
Fuman [q.v.] and Lahldjan [q.v.] according to Mustaw- 
fl Kazwini, and finally, after Gilan was incorporated 
in the Safawi empire, Rasht [q.v.], which remained 
the capital under Nadir [q.v.] and to the present day. 
Since 1938 Gilan has formed the administrative 
district of Rasht in the first canton (Ostan) of the 
empire of Iran, linking the country with areas 
further south (see iran, with statistics and map). 

Gilan has a warm, damp, often tiring climate. 
Even in the middle ages, accordingly, its people were 
often to be seen dressed in only short trousers 
or "almost naked" (Ibn al-Athir, Bulak ed., viii, 77). 
The luxuriant forest provided (and still provides) the 
materials for the wooden houses with verandas 
(Istakhri, 205, 211; Yakut, i, 183) characteristic of 
Gilan and Mazandaran [q.v.]. In the middle ages 
agriculture (which was a profitable pursuit) was 
left mainly to the women (Vudud, 136 f.) and con- 
sisted chiefly of rice-growing and silkworm-breeding, 
which had been introduced by the Genoese; its 
products were exported to the Mediterranean 
area via Tana on the northern shores of the Black 



Sea as early as the 14th century (W. Heyd in 
Zeitschrift fur Staatswissenschaften, xviii (1862), 
692). In modern times tobacco has come to be 
grown. Fishing made an important contribution 
to the inhabitants' food supplies; admittedly in 
the middle ages most journeys across the Caspian 
Sea began from Abaskun [q.v.] and not from 
Gilan as in modern times (cf. B. N. Zakhoder, 
PovolS'e i Yu. V. Kaspiya [The Volga Basin and the 
south-eastern part of the Caspian Sea], in Folia 
Orientalia, 1/2, Warsaw 1959, 231-50). As for mineral 
resources, Gilan possesses a certain amount of copper 
and lead. 

As with all the area along the southern shore of 
the Caspian Sea, the northern mountain-chain of the 
Iranian plateau and its climate have protected 
Gilan from inland invaders (Arabs as well as Turks 
and Mongols) throughout the whole of its history. 
However, in 301/913-4 the Vikings (Rus) made a suc- 
cessful attack from the sea (Mas'fidl, ii, 20-4; B. 
Dorn, Caspia, St. Petersburg 1875 (Mem. Imp. Ac. of 
Sciences, 7th Series, xxiii/i); idem, in Quellen, iv, p. 
IV f., 18) and in 1638 and 1667 the Cossacks 
followed their example in Rasht. The inhabitants of 
the country, particularly the Daylamis [see 
daylam], had a great influence (above all in the 
10th century) on the history of their neighbours and 
even on the Caliphate (cf. buwayhids/buyids). Since 
Gilan with her clans and her local rulers was nearly 
always independent, from the period of the Achae- 
menids and the Sasanians, the Zoroastrian faith and 
some Nestorian colonies could survive there for a long 
time (Thomas of Marga, Book of the governors, ed. 
E. A. W. Budge, London 1893, U, 480; Jean Dauvil- 
lier, in Milanges Cavallera, Toulouse 1948, 279, with 
bibliography). The doctrines of the ShI'I Zaydis 
penetrated into Gilan from the neighbouring coun- 
tries of Tabaristan [q.v.] and Mazandaran [q.v.] and 
brought the Nasirwand dynasty into the country 
(on the literary productions of the Zaydis there 
see R. Strothmann, in Isl., ii (1911).. 60-3). Little 
more is known as to the details of the history of 
Gilan in these centuries. The country came under 
the nominal rule of the states of the Ziyarids [q.v.], the 
Buyids and the Kakuids [q.v.] as well as the Great 
Saldjuks [q.v.]; on this see Ann K. S. Lambton, 
Landlord and peasant in Persia, London 1953, 60. 
Hence Gilan paid tribute, at least for a time (for 
details see Spuler, Iran, 469). In connexion with 
this development Sunni Islam found general favour 
and even occasional helpers in some of the many 
dynasties which shared the country until the end 
of the 16th century. Christianity and Zoroastrianism 
faded away. (L. Rabino di Borgomale, Les dynasties 
locales du Gtldn et du Daylam in J A, ccxxxvii (1949), 
301-50, gives a full account of these dynasties, 
which is too detailed to be reproduced here). In 
706/1307 the Ilkhan Oldjeytii [q.v.] succeeded in 
forcing the country to acknowledge his overlordship, 
but its native dynasty remained. In the western part 
of the country at that time the madhhabs of the 
Hanballs and the less numerous Shafi c is preponderat- 
ed as did the now extinct madhhab of the historian 
and riur'an commentator al-Tabari (who indeed 
came from this region). In the east the Zaydis had 
remained (cf. Kashani, Ta'rikh, Paris, Bibl. Nat., 
supp. persan, ms. 14 19, fol. 38r to 49V; this manu- 
script is to be published by Professor Horky of 
Prague). From 762/1361 the Kar-Kiya dynasty 
managed to seize the dominant position in Lahldjan 
and lost it only when Shah 'Abbas I incorporated 
Gilan in the Safawid state in 1000/1592. In 1060/1650 



GlLAN — GIRAY 



it was put under the direct rule of the central power 
(cf. Lambton, op. tit., 108). Since then Gflan has 
belonged to Persia, apart from the years between 
1136/1724 and 1146/1734 when it was annexed by 
the Russians who, however, finally left it on account 
of its climate. From 1917 to 1921 the Bolsheviks 
tried to impose their rule on it; in the end they 
succeeded with the help of intermediaries in founding 
a Soviet republic of Gflan (cf. Kurt Geyer, Die 
Sowjetunion und Iran, Tubingen 1955, 13-8, especially 
14, note, sources and bibliography). All these attempts 
were finally brought to an end when Rida Shah 
[q.v.'] took over the government and, later on, the 
throne. 

Bibliography: Apart from works named in 
the article: L. Rabino di Borgomale, Les 
provinces caspiennes de la Perse: Le Guildn, Paris 
19 1 7 (condensed version of a special number of 
RMM, ix-x (1915-6) ; a detailed historical 
and geographical account with a list of the older 
and specialized literature on the subject, including 
descriptions of travels and consular accounts, and 
special maps). Geography: Hudiid al- c dlam, 
136 f., 388-91; Le Strange, 172-5 and Map V; 
Rabino, Deux descriptions du Gildn du temps des 
Mongols, in J A, ccxxxviii, 325-34 (after KashanI 
and c Umari); Brockhaus-Efron, Entsiklopediya, 
viii A (16), 1893, 688 f.; BSE*, ii, 1952, 378 f. 
History : 'Abbas Kadivar, Ta>rikh-i Gildn, 
Tehran 1940 (inaccessible to me); Spuler, Iran, 
545 and index; idem, Mongolen 1 , 108 f., 165 f., 
index. Sources: Storey, i/2, 361-3 and 1298, 
no. 479, 481-3 (cf. with this no. c Abd al-Fattah 
Fumani in i, 60). Maps (apart from those already 
named): Rabino, Carte de la province du Gutldn, 
Lyon 1914; Ifudiid, 389. See also the Bibliogra- 
phies of the articles on towns mentioned above 

and Of DAYLAM, MAZANDARAN and TABARISTAN. 

(B. Spuler) 

al GILDAKl [see Supplement, s.v. al-biildakI]. 

GILGIT [see Supplement; for the languages of 
the region, see dardic and kafir languages, vi], 

GIMBRI [see konbur]. 

GINUKH [see dido]. 

GIPSIES [see cingane, lurI, nurI, zutt]. 

GIRAFFE [see zarafa]. 

GIRAY, cognomen borne by the members of the 
dynasty which ruled in the Crimea from the 
beginning of the 9th/i5th century until 1197/1783. 
The family was descended from Togha Temiir, a 
younger son of Cingiz Khan's son Djoci. Mongke 
Temiir, the Khan of the Golden Horde (665/1267- 
679/1280), had granted the Crimea and Kafa as 
nuntukh (appanage) to his son Urang Temiir (Oreng 
Timur) (Abu '1-GhazI Bahadur Khan, Shedjere-i TUrk, 
St. Petersburg 1871, 173). During the civil wars 
which from 760/1359 onwards convulsed the domains 
of the Golden Horde, the descendants of Togha 
Temiir joined in the struggle and laid claim to the 
Khanate; they finally succeeded in establishing a 
state in the Crimea, independent of the other khans 
ruling at Ulugh Yurt, the centre of the Golden Horde. 
There survives a coin of 796/1393-4 issued by Tash- 
Temiir in the Crimea in his own name, and another 
of 797/1394-5 with Tash-Temur's name on one face 
and the name of Tokhtamlsh Khan [q.v.'] on the 
other (A. K. Markov, Inventarnly Katalog musul- 
manskikh monef Imperatorskago Ermitala, St. 
Petersburg 1896, p. 491, nos. 1239-40; Lane-Poole, 
Cat., vi, p. 184, no. 558). In Tokhtamlsh's struggles 
against Timur and later against Edigii, the descend- 
ants of Togha Temiir were always on the side of 



Tokhtamlsh, and were from time to time forced to 
relinquish control of the Crimea to khans supported 
by Edigu (for coins struck in the Crimea by Temiir- 
Kutluk Khan between 802/1399 and 810/1407 and 
by Pfllad Khan in 811/1408 see Spuler, Horde, 140-1, 
notes 25, 32). Upon the death of Edigu in 822/1419, 
Tash-Temur's son Ghiyath al-DIn gained control of 
the Crimea, where we find his brother Dewlet-Birdi 
ruling in 830/1427 (when he sent an embassy to the 
Mamluk sultan Barsbay: c AynI, c Ikd al-djumdn, 
Bayazid Public Lib., Istanbul, MS Veliyiiddin 2369, 
s.a.). Henceforward the dynasty's efforts were con- 
centrated on maintaining their hold on the Crimean 
peninsula and, when opportunity offered, on seizing 
Saray and thus acquiring the khanate of the Golden 
Horde. 

According to local tradition in the Crimea (al-Sab c 
al-sayydr [see Bibl.], 72), Ghiyath al-DIn, in ac- 
cordance with the customs of the Golden Horde 
(see 'Umdat al-tawarlkh, 204), was brought up by 
his atalil} [q.v.], who belonged to the Kerey tribe, 
and later, out of respect for his atalifr, gave his first 
son the name Hadjdji Kerey; thereafter the members 
of this family bore the cognomen (laljtab) Kerey/ 
Giray. 

According to G. Nemeth (A Honfoglald Magyarsdg 
Kialakuldsa, Budapest 1930, 265-8), the name is 
composed of ker, 'giant', with the diminutive suffix 
-ey. As a name borne by various sections of the tribe, 
it is found among the Kazaks, the Turkmen, the 
Bashdjirt, the Buriats and the Mongols, with various 
pronunciations : Kerey, Kirey, Kiray, plural : Kereit. 
When Cingiz Khan defeated the powerful Kereit 
ruler Ong Khan, some of the Kereit fled to the 
West, the rest being scattered among the Mongol 
tribes (Secret history, § 186; Turkish tr. by Ahmet 
Temir, Ankara 1948, 109; German tr. by E. 
Haenisch, Leipzig 1948, 74). Thus the Kereit, 
either fleeing before the Mongols or coming with 
them, were spread over a very wide area, as far 
west as the Crimea. Until recent times the Tarakll 
branch of the Uvak-Kirey led a nomad existence 
among the Kazaks in the valleys of the Irtish, the 
Sari Su and the Chu (H. H. Howorth, Hist, of the 
Mongols, ii, London 1876, 6, 11). The tamgha of 
the Khans of the Crimea (for its shape see the coins 
of Mengli Giray in Miize-i Hiimdyun: meskukdt 
frataloghu, 3rd section, Istanbul 1318/1900, 211, 
and I A, iv, 784b) was called taralf tamgha. 

The Kerey were one of the four main tribes 
(keshik) upon which the Khanate of the Golden Horde 
depended. The Kerey, dwelling east of the Don and 
in the northern Caucasus, gave their support to 
Hadjdji Giray. Only one of his sons, Mengli, used 
the cognomen Giray, but it was borne by all Mengli's 
sons and descendants, and was assumed also by 
some of the begs of the Shirin who married into the 
ruling family ('Umdat al-tawarikh, 200). 

Hadjdji Giray made an alliance with the Ottoman 
Sultan Mehemmed II in 858/1454 [see HApjpjI giray], 
and this alliance was maintained by his successors. 
In 880/1475, called in by Eminek MIrza to assist him 
against the Genoese, who were stirring up internal 
troubles, the Ottomans responded immediately and 
occupied the Genoese fortresses in the southern 
Crimea; Mengli Giray [q.v.], released from prison, 
was placed on the throne as a client of the Ottoman 
Sultan (H. Inalcik, Yeni vesikalara gdre Ktrtm 
Hanhitnm Osmanh tdbiligine girmesi, in Belleten, 
viii/30 (1944). 185-229). 

At first, the Giray rulers were in alliance with the 
Grand Dukes of Moscow, against the Khans of the 



Golden Horde (ruling at Saray and hoping to recc 
control of the Crimea), and against the Jagiellos of 
Poland. But after 926/1520, the khans of the Crimea 
laid claim, as being the rightful heirs, to the patri- 
mony of the Golden Horde, and when the Russians 
began to threaten Kazan embarked on an unrelenting 
struggle against them, which bore the character of a 
religious enterprise (ghazd). In 927/1521 Sahib Giray 
[q.v.] became Khan of Kazan; three years later he 
went to Istanbul, being succeeded, until spring 938/ 
1532, by Safa Giray (Hadi AtlasI, Kazan Khanlighi, 
Kazan 1913, 125-35). When in Rabi c I 939/October 
1532 Sahib Giray returned as Khan of the Crimea, he 
attacked the Russians, and after a long struggle the 
Giray house were obliged to cede the Volga bas 
and the old capital of the Golden Horde, Takht-ili 
(Ulugh Yurt) ; Kazan was lost in 959/1552, Astrakhan 
in 961/1554. It is from this period onwards that the 
Giray house, who had heretofore claimed to follow 
an independent policy, adopted Ottoman protection 
against the Russian threat, acting in ever cl 
cooperation with the Ottomans in the wars in Central 
Europe and against Persia [see k!r!m]. The first 
joint military enterprise had been the Moldavian 
campaign of 881/1476, the second was Siileyman I's 
Moldavian campaign of 945/1538. 

The Ottomans recognized the Giray house as their 
intermediaries in their political relations with northern 
powers: ambassadors of Poland and Russia would 
first present themselves at the court of the Khan 
and then proceed to the Porte. 

Domains. The capital is referred to in HadjdjI 
Giray's yarllk of 857/1453 as "Orda-i mu'azzam 
Klrk-yirde Saray" (see A. N. Kurat, AUtnordu, Ktrtm 
ve Ttirkistan Hanlarma ait yarhk ve bitikler, Istanbul 
1940, 62-80, plate 173-84). His coin of 845/1441 w 
struck at "Beldet-i Kirim", that of 847/1443 
"Klrk-yir" (for these towns see V. D. Smirnov, 
Krimskoye khanstvo pod verkhovenstvom ottomanskoy 
Porti do naCala XVIII. veka, Odessa 1887, 102- ' 
Under Mengli Giray the palace was moved from the 
strong citadel at Klrk-yir into the valley, to 
site now called Baghcesaray (Simferopol). In the 
yarllk Hadjdji Giray claims sovereignty over Taman, 
the KIpcak and Kabartay. In their yarlihs the 
Giray rulers give themselves the title 'Ulugh orda 
we Ulugh yurtnin we Desht-i Klplaknln ve Tahht-i 
Kirimnin .... CerkesniA ve Tat bile Tavghainln 
Ulugh Pddishdhi we hem Ulugh KhdnV. In the 
attempt to establish their sovereignty over the 
Desht-i KIpcak (the steppeland to the north of the 
Black Sea) and Circassia the Khans had to engage ii 
long struggles, achieving partial success particularly 
under Sahib Giray I [q.v.]. Sultans of the Giray 
family, with the title Ser-'-asker Sulfdn, were sent to 
govern the Khanate's territories in Kuban, Budjak 
and Yedisan. Like the khans of the Golden Horde 
before them, the Khans exacted an annual tribute 
of money and furs (known as tiyish and bolek) from 
the rulers of Russia and Poland. Since the Khans 
always claimed sovereignty over the ports on the 
southern coast of the Crimea (Tat-ili), from 889/1484 
onwards the Ottomans made them a yearly grant 
(sdliydne) from the customs revenues of Kefe [q.v.] 
(a million and a half aktes annually). Mehemmed 
Giray I, and some later Khans, attempted to establish 
direct control over these ports. 

The dynasty first openly acknowledged the 
sovereignty of the Ottoman Sultan in Mengli Giray's 
letter of Rabi c I 880/July 1475 (see H. Inalcik, op. 
cit.). Although the new relationship resulting from 
the strengthening of this sovereignty was later 



presented as arising from a special agreement, the 
texts adduced are clearly fabrications. 

From Mengli Giray onwards, the Khans each had 
a kalghay [q.v.] (also kaghalghay) as wall l ahd, 'heir 
apparent', and from 992/1584 also a second wait 'ahd 
known as Nur al-Din (Nuradin). According to the 
Kdnun-i Dieneizi (tiire, yasa), the kalghay should be 
the Khan's brother; when the throne fell vacant, 
the kalghay became Khan and the NUr al-Din became 
kalghay. The attempts of some khans to appoint their 
sons to these posts caused disturbances and civil war. 
When the tribal aristocracy of the Crimea [see 
kIrIm], following the Hire and without reference to 
the Porte, appointed a kalghay as the new khan 
(as in the cases of Ghazi Giray I and Toktamlsh 
Giray), the Ottoman Sultan withheld his recognition 
and fierce conflicts resulted, but in general the Porte 
was influenced in its choice by the claims of the 
existing kalghay. Of the forty khans, 24 had been the 
kalghay, and five the Nur al-Din. 

From the time of Sa'adet Giray (930/1524-938/1532) 
onwards, it became customary that one of the Khan's 
brothers should be sent to Istanbul as a hostage 
(Feridun Beg, Munsha'dt al-saldtin 1 , ii, 167; Mii- 
nedjdjim-bashl, SahdHf al-akhbdr, ii, 699). Two of 
these hostages (Islam Giray II and Bahadlr Giray I) 
were sent to the Crimea as Khan. The Khan chosen 
received his diploma direct from the hand of the 
Ottoman Sultan and was presented with the khdnllk 
teshrifdti (a sword, a banner, a kalpak with a jewelled 
sorghut and a sable robe) (see Sildhddr ta'rikhi, ii, 
131, 683). When there was a campaign, the Sultan 
sent the Khan a gift of 40,000 gold pieces, known 
as (izme-bahd, which was distributed to the Khan's 
household troops and to the mirzds. The Sultan 
could depose, imprison or exile the Khan; occasionally 
the Khan was executed. When a Khan had to be 
appointed, the Porte usually came to an agreement 
with the Shirin Begi, the leader of the Crimean tribal 
aristocracy. When a Khan succeeded to the throne, 
the hostage, together with other members of the 
dynasty who found themselves in danger, entered 
the Ottoman domains and were installed in iiftliks 
in various parts of Rumeli (Islimye, Yanbolu, 
Tekirdaghl, Cataldja). When the succession to the 
Ottoman throne was threatened, the Giray family 
was regarded as having a claim to it (e.g., in the 
revolution of 1098/1687, see Sildhddr ta'rikhi, ii, 630). 

The branch of the family known as Coban Giraylar 
arose at the end of the ioth/i6th century. The 
kalghay Feth Giray, in return for ransom, sent back 
to her country the daughter of a Polish boyar who 
had been captured; on the way, the girl gave birth 
to a son, but Feth Giray refused to acknowledge the 
child as his and tried to have it killed. A certain 
Hadjdji Ahmed, who was travelling with the girl, 
hid the child in Moldavia and, when Feth Giray 
was killed in 1004/1596, brought him to the Crimea. 
He was appointed Nur al-Din, with the name 
Dewlet Giray; his descendants were called (pejora- 
tively) 'Coban Giraylar'. Although one of this line, 
c Adil Giray, was appointed Khan (1075/1665- 
1081/1670), the later Khans denied that this branch 
was of royal blood and gave no further offices to its 
members. 

By article 3 of the Ottoman-Russian treaty of 
Kiiciik Kaynardja (8 Djumada I 1188/17 July 1774). 
each signatory recognized the independence of the 
Giray house, but on 20 Sha'ban 1197/21 July 1783 
the Russians occupied and annexed the Crimea. 
In 1 199/1785 the Ottomans considered appointing 
a member of the house as Khan over the Tatar 



GIRAY — GiSU DARAZ 



tribes in Budjak (Djewdet, TaMkh, iii, 142); in 
1201/1787, when war was declared on Russia, this 
plan was put into effect and Shahbaz Giray, with 
the title of Khan, and later Bakht Giray fought in the 
Ottoman ranks at the head of the Tatars of Budjak. 
By article 6 of the treaty of Jassy (Yash), in 1206/ 
1792, the Ottomans recognized the Russian annexa- 
tion of the Crimea. 

Bibliography: Further to references in the 
text: V. Velyaminov-Zernov, MaUriaux pour 
servir a I'histoire du Khanat de Crimte, St. Peters- 
burg 1864; A. Z. Soysal, Jarlyki Krimskie z czasdv 
J ana Kazimierza, Warsaw 1939; K. V. Zettersteen, 
TUrkische, tatarische und persische Urkunden im 
Schwedischen Reichsarchiv, Uppsala 1945, 78-128; 
B. Lewis, Some Danish-Tatar exchanges in the 
jyth century, in Zeki Velidi Togan'a armagan, 
Istanbul 1950-55, 137-46; O. Retowski, Die 
Miinzen der Girei, Moscow 1905; Seyyid Mehmed 
Rida 5 , al-Sab* al-sayydr ft akhbdr al-muluk al- 
Tdtdr, ed. Kazim Bik, Kazan 1832 (summary by 
Kazimirski, in J A, xii (1833)); Halim Giray, 
Gulbun-i khdndn, Istanbul 1287/1870, 2nd ed. 
Istanbul 1327/1909; <Abd al-Ghaffar, 'Umdat al- 
tawdrikh, TOEM supplement, Istanbul 1324/1924; 
Mehmed Giray ta'rikhi, Vienna National Lib., 
MS 1080. General accounts will be found in the 
works of Howarth and of Smirnov, cited above; 
also in J. v. Hammer-Purgstall, Geschichte der 
Chane der Krim, Vienna 1856, and H. tnalcik, 
article Giray, in I A, with a complete genealogical 
tree. (Halil Inalcik) 

GIRESUN, a town on the Black Sea coast of 
Anatolia about no miles west of Trabzon, the prin- 
cipal town of a vilayet, with a population (i960) of 
19,902. It is the Kerasos of antiquity (for the classical 
names and their possible permutations see A. D. 
Mordtmann, Anatolien, Hanover 1923, 405); threat- 
ened by the Turks from the 8th/i4th century onwards, 
it came under Ottoman control with the Empire of 
Trebizond. The town has a favourable site on a 
peninsula of basaltic lava (tombolo) on which is 
built the acropolis, sheltering a small natural harbour, 
with an island nearby, the Ares of antiquity, now 
Giresun adasi. The fortress was however of no great 
strength, and the town which spread out below it 
was exposed in the 17th century to the raids of the 
Cossacks (Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, ii, 70). Kerasos 
is said to have given its name to the cherry, intro- 
duced to Rome by Lucullus after his victory over 
Mithridates, but the cherry trees, which were still 
numerous in the region until the 19th century (W. J. 
Hamilton, Researches in Asia Minor, London 1842, 
i, 265) have been replaced by hazel-nut trees whose 
fruit is more easily stored and transported and for 
which Giresun is today the most important centre of 
preparation, trade and export, a position confirmed 
in 1961 by the completion of an artificial harbour 
enabling ships to come alongside the quay (trade 
about 1 million tons). 

Bibliography : apart from the works cited, see 

lA, s.v. (B. Darkot); on the hazel-nut region of 

Giresun, X. de Planhol, A travers les chatnes pon- 

tiques, plantations cdtieres et vie montagnarde, in 

Bulletin de V Association de Geographes Francais, 

1963, 2-11. (X. de Planhol) 

GIRGA, (Pjirdja; an obsolete form Dadjirdja is 

also found), a town and province of Upper 

Egypt. The name is said to be derived from a 

monastery of St. George (V. Denon, tr. A. Aikin, 

Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, London 1803, ii, 

25). The town originated in the late 8th/i4th century 



as the tribal centre of Hawwara [q.v.], who dominated 
Upper Egypt for the following two centuries. About 
983/1576, the power of this tribe was broken, and 
Girga became the seat of the governor of Upper 
Egypt, who was also kdshif of the Girga district. The 
governors, who are variously referred to as hakim al- 
SaHd, amir al-SaHd, and bak Diirdja, belonged to 
the neo-Mamluk elite, and frequently intervened in 
the factional struggles in Cairo. The kdshiflik of 
Girga is represented today by the mudiriyya of the 
same name, although for some time after 1239/1823-4, 
in consequence of Muhammad 'All Pasha's admini- 
strative experiments, it was absorbed in a larger 
territorial unit. In 1859, Sohag (Sfihadj) took the 
place of Girga as the provincial capital. 

Bibliography : al-Makrizi, al-Baydn wa 'l-i c rdb 
c ammd bi-ard Misr min al-A'-rdb, ed. <Abd al- 
Madjid c Abidin, Cairo 1961, 58; P. Vansleb, 
Nouvelle relation . . . d'un voyage fait en Egypte, 
Paris 1677, 21-5 ; c Ali Mubarak, al-Khitat al-djadida, 
x, Cairo 1305, 53-5; H. A. B. Rivlin, The agricul- 
tural policy of Muhammad '■AH in Egypt, Cam- 
bridge, Mass. 1961, 87-8, 323-4. (P. M. Holt) 
GIRGENTI [see djirdjent]. 
GIRISHK, a town of ca. 10,000 inhabitants, 
altitude 865 metres/2830 ft, on the Helmand River 
in present Afghanistan. 

Girishk is not mentioned in sources before the time 
of Nadir Shah, when he captured the citadel in 1737, 
but a fort probably had guarded the passage of the 
river at this site for a long time before this date. 
In the 19th century Girishk was the centre of the 
Barakzai Afghans, and as such assumed a new 
importance. The site was of strategic importance and 
Girishk played a role several times during the 
troubles of the 19th century. 

At present the town is an important centre for the 
irrigation of the Helmand basin. 

Bibliography : Le Strange, 346; S. K. Rishtiya, 
Afganistan v XIX veke, trans, into Russian, 
Moscow 1958, index; D. Wilber, Afghanistan, 
New Haven, Conn. 1954, index. (R. N. Frye) 
GIRIT [see ikrItishI. 

GlSC DARAZ, Sayyid Muhammad GisO Daraz, 
a celebrated Cishtl saint of the Deccan, was born at 
Delhi on 4 Radjab 721/30 July 1321. His ancestors 
originally came from Harat, from where they migrated 
to India and settled at Delhi. His father, Sayyid 
Yusuf Husayni alias Sayyid Radja, was a disciple 
of Shaykh Nizam al-DIn Awliya' [q.v.]. GIsu Daraz 
was a small child when Sultan Muhammad b. 
Tughluk (725/1325-752/1351) embarked upon his 
Deccan experiment and forced the '■ulama? and 
mashdHkh of Delhi to migrate to Dawlatabad. 
Sayyid Radja left Delhi under duress and settled at 
Dawlatabad, where he died in 731/1330. In 735/1335-6 
GIsu Daraz left Dawlatabad with his widowed 
mother and returned to Delhi. He completed his 
study of the external sciences ( c ulum-i zdhir) under 
Sayyid Sharaf al-DIn Kaythali, Mawlana Tadj al-Din 
Bahadur and Kadi c Abd al-Muktadir. His search for 
a spiritual master brought him to Shaykh Nasir al- 
Din Ciragh [q.v.], whom he served for years with 
single-minded devotion, and from whom he received 
the khildfa and the title of GIsu Daraz ('one possessing 
long locks of hair'). 

When Timur turned towards India (800/1398), 
GIsu Daraz hastened to quit Delhi. He stayed for 
some time in Gwaliyar and then left for Gudjarat 
where he was the guest of Kh w adja Rukn al-Din 
Kan-i Shakar. Later he migrated to Gulbarga and 
finally settled there. Firuz Shah Bahmani (800/1397- 



825/1421) accorded him a warm welcome (no. 39 in 
the collection of his letters is addressed to the Sultan), 
but he could not enjoy the saint's confidence for long. 
According to Ghulam 'All Azad BilgramI, it was his 
association with philosophers and the philosophic 
bent of his mind which alienated the saint from him. 
His successor, Sultan Ahmad Shah Bahmani (825/ 
1421-838/1435), however, succeeded in winning the 
golden opinion of GIsu Daraz. According to the 
Burhdn-i ma'dthir, the saint exercised a profound 
influence on his life. GIsu Daraz died at Gulbarga on 
16 Dhu '1-Ka'da 825/1 November 1422. Ahmad Shah 
Bahmani built a magnificent tomb over his grave. 
Hundreds of thousands of people gather there on the 
occasion of his c urs celebrations. The dargdk manage- 
ment now runs a publishing house, a monthly 
journal, a library and several schools and madrasas, 
including one for girls. 

GIsu Daraz was a profound scholar and a prolific 
writer. He was well-versed in the studies of the 
Kur'an, hadith, fikh and tasawwuf, and knew several 
languages, including Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and 
Hindi. He was fully conversant with Hindu folklore 
and mythology and used to discuss religious problems 
with the Hindu yogis and scholars (Djawdmi 1 al- 
kalim, 1 18-9). He had correspondence and contact 
with eminent contemporary saints, such as Sayyid 
Muhammad Ashraf Djahanglr SamnanI and Mas'Od 
Bakk. He expounded the Cishtl mystic principles in 
the Deccan and produced a large number of works on 
different branches of the religious sciences. It is said 
that the number of his writings corresponds with the 
number of years he lived {i.e., 105). No Indo-Muslim 
Cishtl saint has so many literary works to his credit. 

Of the works produced by GIsu Daraz, the following 
are particularly noteworthy: (A) Exegesis: (i) a 
mystical commentary on the Kur'an (MS with 
Sayyid Muhammad Husaynl, sadjdidda nashin, 
Gulbarga); (ii) another incomplete commentary on 
the lines of the Kashshdf. (B) Hadith : (iii) a com- 
mentary on the Masharik al-anwdr; (iv) Persian 
translation of the Masharik. (C) Fikh : (v) Shark al- 
Fikh al-akbar, edited by c Ata Husayn, Haydarabad 
1367. (D) Tasawwuf: (vi) Ma'-drif, an Arabic 
commentary on the < A wdrif al-ma c drif of Shaykh 
Shihab al-Din SuhrawardI (MS in three volumes with 
the sadjdjdda nashin, Gulbarga) ; (vii) Commentary 
on 'A wdrif al-ma c drif in Persian (MS in two volumes 
with the sadjdidda nashin, Gulbarga) ; (viii) Shark 
Ta'arruf, commentary on the Ta'arruf of Shaykh 
Abu Bakr Muhammad b. Ibrahim Bukharl; (ix) 
Sharh Addb al-muridin, Arabic commentary on the 
Adah al-muridin of Shaykh Diya' al-DIn Abu '1- 
Nadjlb c Abd al-Kahir SuhrawardI; (x) Persian 
translation of Addb al-muridin; (xi) Commentary on 
the Fusus al-hikam (this work is not extant, but from 
references to Ibn al- c Arabi found in Maktubdt 
(p. 22), Khdtima (pp. 18-9) and Diawdmi' al-kalim 
(p. 99) it appears that he did not agree with his 
views) ; (xii) Shark Tamkiddt, a Persian commentary 
on the Tamkiddt of c Ayn al-Kudat HamadanI, edited 
by S. c At5 Husayn, Haydarabad 1364; (xiii) Shark 
Risdla-i Kushayriyya, Persian commentary on the 
Risdla of Kushayri, ed. S. 'Ata Husayn, Haydarabad 
1361; (xiv) Shark Risdla-i Kushayriyya, in Arabic; 
(xv) ffazdHr al-Kuds or 'Ishk-ndma, edited by S. 
c Ata Husayn, Haydarabad; (xvi) Asmdr al-Asrdr, 
edited by S. c Ata Husayn, Haydarabad 1350 (com- 
mentary on a section of this work by Shah Rafl c 
al-DIn son of Shah Wall Allah Dihlawi in Madjmtf 
Tis* RasdHl, Delhi 1314); (xvii) Khdtima, edited 
by S. c Ata Husayn, Haydarabad 1356; (xviii) 



Maktubdt, edited by c Ata Husayn, Haydarabad 1362 
(contains 66 letters; the As. Soc. of Bengal MS 1232 
contains 61 only); (xix) Madjmu'a-i Ydzda RasdHl, 
edited by S. c Ata Husayn, liaydarabad 1360 (risdla 5 
in this collection has been wrongly attributed 
to GIsu Daraz ; it was written by Imam 
Muzaffar Balkhl) ; (xx) Djawdhir-i c ushshdk, 
commentary on a risdla of Shaykh 'Abd al-Kadir 
GllanI, edited by S. 'Ata Husayn, Haydarabad 1362; 
(xxi) Anis al-'-ushshdk, collection of poems, ed. 
S. c Ata Husayn, Haydarabad 1360. 

Two early works — (I) Mi'rddj al-'-askikin, (editions 
prepared by (i) Dr. M. c Abd al-Hakk, Delhi, (ii) 
Dr. GopI Cand Narang, Delhi, (iii) Khallk Andjum, 
Delhi, (iv) Tahsin Sarwarl, (v) Dr. Nadhir Ahmad, 
c AlIgarh (typescript)) and (II) Shikar ndma (editions: 
(i) Mubariz al-Din Raf c at, Haydarabad, (ii) Thamlna 
Shawkat, Haydarabad)— are also attributed to GIsu 
Daraz but no convincing internal or external evidence 
has so far been put forward to establish the attri- 

Though these works are mostly in the nature of 
commentaries and summaries of earlier mystic 
classics, they are not wholly devoid of originality. 
GIsu Daraz did not always conform to the traditional 
approach; in fact he had, as Shaykh c Abd al-Hakk 
Muhaddith of Delhi has remarked, a peculiar mashrab 
of his own. He was critical of both Ibn al- c Arabi and 
c Ayn al-Kudat HamadanI. He did not agree with the 
author of the Ta'arruf that a mystic cannot have the 
vision of God (ru'yat) here in this world. He did not 
permit his disciples to adopt indiscriminately the 
practices of the yogis. He was particularly fond of 
the Addb al-muridin and the ' A wdrif al-ma'drif, 
since they were of great value for one who wanted to 
organize khdnkdh life in lands without any deep 
mystic tradition. There is a desire in his works to 
bridge the gulf between shari'-a and tarika, which he 
considered complementary rather than contradictory 
to each other. He explained some of the much- 
criticized practices of the Cishtls (e.g., prostration 
before the pir and audition parties) in such a way 
that orthodox opposition to them was toned down. 
Great as an organizer, erudite as a scholar, GIsu 
Daraz did not, however, succeed in maintaining the 
pan-Indian character of the Cishtl sadjdjdda which 
he occupied. The era of the great Cishtl Skaykhs of 
the first cycle ended with his master, Shaykh Nasir 
al-DIn Ciragh of Delhi. 

Bibliography: c Abd al- c AzIz b. Shir Malik 
Wa'izl, TaMkk tiabibi wa-tadhkirat Murskidi, a 
biography of GIsu Daraz, completed in 849/1445-6 
(MS As. Soc. of Bengal 246) ; Urdu translation of 
the above published from Rawdatayn, Gulbarga; 
Sayyid Muhammad Husaynl, Diawdmi'- al-kalim, 
Kanpur 1356; Muhammad C A1I SamanI, Siyar-i 
Muhammadi, Allahabad; Nizam YamanI, LatdHf-i 
Ashrafi, Delhi 1295; Shaykh c Abd al-Hakk, 
Akkbdr al-akhydr, Delhi 1309, 129-134; c Abd al- 
Rahman Cishtl, Mir'dt al-asrdr, MS in personal 
collection, 734-42; Sayyid 'All Tabataba, Burhdn-i 
ma'dthir, Haydarabad 1355/1936, 43-4; Firishta, 
Ta'rikh-i Firishta, Nawal Kishore, i, 316, ii, 399; 
Ghulam Mu'In al-DIn c Abd Allah, Ma l dridj al- 
waldyat, MS in personal collection, i, 366-438; 
Azad BilgramI, Rawdat al-awliyd', Awrangabad 
1892, 18-25; Muhammad GhawthI Shattarl, 
Gulzdr-i abrdr, MS As. Soc. of Bengal, f. 45v; Min 
Allah Husaynl, Khawarikdt, an account of the life 
and spiritual attainments of GIsu Daraz and his 
descendants, MSS: see Storey, 976; Gul Muham- 
mad Ahmadpurl, Takmilat Siyar al-awliyd 3 , Delhi 



GlSO darAz — gok tepe 



1312, 20-3; Ghulam Sarwar, Khazinat al-asfiyd', 
Lucknow 1873, i, 381-2; Farld al-DIn, Nawddir al- 
safar, MS As. Soc. of Bengal 273, Safar 22; Hakim 
Muhammad 'Umar, Hdldt-i dil-guddz ma l ruf ba 
Sawdnih Banda Nawaz (Urdu), Delhi 1320; Abu 
Salih Muhammad Cishtl, RasdHl-i Muhammad 
Cishti, MS As. Soc. of Bengal 1265 f. 246V; anony- 
mous, Madh Gisu Dardz, a mathnawi in DakhanI, 
MS As. Soc. of Bengal 1736; Bakhtawar Khan. 
Riydd al-awliya', MS Brit. Mus. Or. 1745, f- 162; 
Rahman 'All, Tadhkira c ulamd'-i Hind, Karachi 
1961, 277; MIrza Muhammad Akhtar, Tadhkira 
awliyd'-i Hind, Delhi 1928, i, 137-8; Sakhawat 
MIrza, Kk"ddia Gisu Dardz ke Cand Hindi git, 
in Kawtni Zubdn, Karachi, July 1963, 21-4; 
Nizami, Ta'rikh-i Mashdyikh-i Cisht, Delhi 1953, 
206-8. (K. A. Nizami) 

GIZA, GIZEH [see al-ijahira]. 
GLASS [see zupjApj]. 

GLAWA, Arabicized form of the Berber Igliwa 
(sing, gldwi). Berber tribe of Morocco, belonging to 
the linguistic group of the tashalhit. Population (1940) 
about 25,000 including 1600 Jews. Their territory, 
which straddles the centre of the High Atlas chain, 
is crossed by the ancient road which, at an altitude 
of 2260 metres/7400 feet, passes over the Tishka col, 
and which, from earliest antiquity, has provided 
communication between southern Morocco and the 
great palm-groves of the Wadi Dar c a. Although the 
tribe considers itself to be of MasmudI origin, its 
native chiefs trace their origin to the marabout Abu 
Muhammad Salih, the patron saint of the Moroccan 
town of Safi. With heads uncovered but with a black 
band round their foreheads, the Glawa formerly wore 
the akhnif, a short burnous of black wool, woven in 
one piece, with a large red or orange medallion on the 
back. The Glawa do not weave carpets; it is thus in 
error that their name has been given to the greatly 
prized products of the large neighbouring confede- 
ration of the Ayt-Wawzgit (Djabal Sirwa). The tribe 
achieved notoriety in the 19th century through the 
association of its chiefs with the penetration of the 
Sharifl makhzan in the Atlas. Two personalities 
should be mentioned; the second of them became 
internationally known. 

(1) Glawl Madam, born about 1863, was the son 
of the amghar [q.v.] Muhammad Ibibat, whom he 
succeeded in 1886. The skilful way in which, in 
November 1893, he welcomed in his kasaba of Telwet 
(Tlwat) the old ruler Mawlay al-Hasan, whose army 
was in difficulties in the Atlas because of cold, was 
the beginning of his success; he received as reward 
the title of Khalifa for the Tafilalet and was given 
rifles and a cannon. He was to put these arms to 
good use for his policy of conquering the. neigh- 
bouring tribes, and to become one of the great 
kd'ids of the Atlas. In 1902 he was nominated leader 
of the djish of Taza and was wounded and defeated 
by the agitator Bu Hmara [q.v.]; he had to seek 
refuge in Algeria, whence the French procured his 
repatriation and that of his followers to Tangiers. His 
success was confirmed when, after having supported 
the claims of Mawlay al-Hafiz against his brother 
Mawlay c Abd al- c AzIz, he succeeded, after his 
protege had become sultan, in getting himself 
appointed as grand vizier of the Sharifl government 
(14 June 1908). He used his power to impose his 
authority over vast territories, situated between 
Wadi Tensift and Wadi Dar'a. He fell from favour 
on 26 May 1911, played an active part during the 
temporary occupation of Marrakush by the "Blue 
Sultan" al-Hiba in 1912, and managed with difficulty 



to join the French. In 1913, with the a 
Mawlay Yusuf , he was restored to his high office and 
built an imposing palace at Marrakush where he died 
suddenly on 13 August 1918. 

(2) Glawl TihamI, the younger brother of Glawl 
MadanI, who appointed him pasha of the town of 
Marrakush by a zahir of 8 July 1909. He shared in 
his brother's disgrace in 191 1 but was restored to 
office at the time of the French occupation of 
Marrakush, in September 1912. When his brother 
died he succeeded him in his high office and, with the 
help of his son, held the double appointment until 
his death. A courageous and experienced warrior and 
a devout Muslim (he twice performed the Pilgrimage), 
this harsh ruler kept the tribes and the town which 
he governed in fear and in poverty, but also in peace. 
Settled at Marrakush, in the triple palace which he 
had built for himself, he loved to offer extravagant 
hospitality to illustrious guests from all parts of the 
world, who would then proclaim afar his power, his 
generosity and his political acumen, thus contributing 
to the rise of tourism in Morocco. During the war of 
1939-45 he was unshakeably faithful to the Allied 
cause and one of his sons, an officer in the French 
army, was killed in Italy. In 1953 he led a conspiracy 
of Berbers and Marabouts which resulted in the 
expulsion of the sultan Sayyidi Muhammad. When 
the latter returned, in November 1956, he obtained 
amdn, and died in his palace on Monday 23 January 
1957- 

Bibliography: See Berbers and references 
given in R. Montagne, Les Berberes et le Makhzen 
dans le Sud du Maroc, Paris 1930 and in J. Berque, 
Structures sociales du Haut-Atlas, Paris 1955; also 
E. Vaffier, Une grande famille marocaine, Us Glawa, 
in France-Maroc, 1917, no. 12 and 1918, no. 1; 
J. Celerier and A. Charton, La position de Telouet 
et la politique glaoua, in B. Soc. de Giog. Maroc, iv 
(1924); L. Voinot, A travers I' Atlas, dans le com- 
mandement glaoua, (with genealogical tree), in 
Rev. giog. maroc, 1932, no. 1; M. Le Glay, Chroni- 
que marocaine, Annie 1911, Paris 1933; P. Ricard, 
Corpus des tapis marocains, iii (Haut-Atlas et 
Haouz de Marrakech), Paris 1927; Les Tapis 
Ouaouzguite, special number of Nord-Sud, no. 20, 
Marrakech (1934); P. Chauveau, Notes sur I'Ouar- 
zazate, pays d'obidience du pacha, in Rev. Alg. Tun. 
et Mar. de Ugis. et de juris., Aug./Sept. 1937; 
A. Deverdun, Inscriptions arabes de Marrakech, 
Rabat 1956 (epitaph of MadanI, no. 251); Col. 
Justinard, Le caid Goundafi, Casablanca 1951; 
Marquis de Segonzac, Au coeur du Maroc, Paris 
1910; Ibn-Zaydan, Ithaf a'ldm al-nds bi-diamal 
akhbdr hddirat Miknds, 5 vols, published, 1923-1933, 
indexes; c Abbas b. Ibrahim, al-lHam bi-man halla 
Marrakush . . ., 5 vols, so far (biographies not yet 
published) ; G. Babin, Le Maroc sans masque, "Son 
Excellence", Paris 1932; "Son Excellence", En 
riponse A une campagne infdme, quelques dt 
Marrakech (n.d.); there is also a 
journalistic and polemical literature. 

(G. Deverdun) 
GOA [see HiND-iv and sinoabur]. 
GOD [see allah]. 
GODOBERI [see andi]. 

GOG AND MAGOG [see Yipjupj wa-mAdjudj]. 
GOGO [see gao]. 

GOK TEPE (Turkish "blue hill"), tianscribed in 
Russian "Geok Tepe", a fort in the oasis of the 
Akhal-Teke [q.v.] Turkmen, on the Saslk su (Saslk 
Ab), situated about 45 km. west of c Ashkabad, today 
in the Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. It consists 



GOK TEPE — GOKALP, ziya 



01 a series of isolated places, one of which, Dengil 
Tepe (4V 8 km. in circumference), was defended from I 
until 24 Jan. 1881 (new style) by about 12,000 
Akhal-Teke Turkmen [see teke] against the Russians 
under General Mikhafl Dmitrievid Skobelev (about 
8,000 Caucasians and Turkestanis). Both sides 
suffered heavy losses, and after the capture of the 
fort, the majority of the Turkmen defenders were 
slain during four days of looting, or as they fled. 
Later, the Russians set up a new fort in a similar 
oasis, near Dengil Tepe; since 1883 the Trans-Caspian 
Railway has also reached this place in which a 
museum commemorates the battle. 

Bibliography: M. Terent'ev, Istoriya zavoeva- 
niya sredney Azii (History of the discovery of 
Central Asia), St. Petersburg 1906, iii, 157 ff.; 
Biockhaus-Efron, Entsiklopediceskiy Slovak, viii/i 
(15; 1892), 403 ff-; BSE\ x (1952), 499- 

(B. Spuler) 
GOKALP, ZIYA, Turkish thinker, born Mehmed 
Diya 3 (Ziya) at Diyarbakr in 1875 or 1876 and known 
by his pen name after 1911. Ziya became acquainted 
with the Young Ottoman ideas of patriotism and 
constitutionalism through his father, who died 
having entered him in the modern high school to 
learn modern sciences and French. From his uncle 
he learned Arabic, Persian, and the traditional 
Muslim sciences and became acquainted with the 
works of the Muslim theologians, philosophers, and 
mystics. The clash of orthodoxy, mysticism and 
modern science in his mind, heightened by the uncle's 
opposition to his aspirations for a higher education 
in Istanbul, led Ziya to attempt suicide from which 
he was saved by his elder fellow-townsman Dr. c Abd 
Allah Djewdet [q.v.]. His subsequent career was an 
intellectual sublimation of his struggles between the 
three influences, and may be separated into three 

His liberal and revolutionary phase began with 
his coming to Istanbul to attend the school of 
veterinary medicine, and entrance into the secret 
Society of Union and Progress. He was arrested in 
1897, sentenced to one year of imprisonment, and 
exiled back to Diyarbakr. 

Following the Revolution of 1908, Ziya became the 
leading Ottomanist liberal writer and lecturer in 
Diyarbakr. His change into an idealist populist and 
nationalist, marking the second phase of his career, 
occurred in Salonika where he went in 1909 as a 
delegate to the convention of the Union and Progress 
and remained, having been elected to its central 
committee. He became associated with a group of 
young writers connected with the periodicals Genl 
Kalemler (Young Pens) and Yeni Felsefe Medimu'asl 
(New Philosophical Review) who were interested 
in the democratization of the language and literature, 
and in the development of a new ideology to serve 
as a guide in the social transformation believed to 
have been begun by the Revolution of 1908. The group 
crystallized two tendencies, one materialistic and 
socialistic and the other idealistic and nationalistic. 
Gokalp became the leader of the second while the 
first soon disappeared. 

From 1912 to 1919, Gokalp lived in Istanbul, this 
being the most influential phase of his career. His 
acquaintance with emigre intellectiuals from Kazan, 
the Crimea, and Azerbaijan gave a more pan-Turkist 
colouring to his nationalism, though he did not 
subscribe to their racist tendencies. He remained 
primarily the nationalist ideologist of the Turks 
of the Ottoman Empire, who he believed had to 
cultivate national consciousness in face of the chal- 



lenges of the non-Turkish nationalities of the dis- 
solving empire. His key concept was that of 
"culture" as distinct from "civilization", and 
defined as the values and institutions distinguishing 
one nation from others comprised in a common 
civilization. The Turkish nation would emerge by a 
transference from the orbit of Eastern to that of 
Western civilization. In that transformation those 
elements of Islam that had become part and parcel 
of the Turkish culture would remain as a living 
spiritual force. The Turkish nation would be Wes- 
ternized in so far as it succeeded in harmonizing 
modern civilization with its own culture and faith. 
In a series of articles and through his lectures as 
professor of sociology at the University of Istanbul 
he elaborated his approach, to demonstrate its ap- 
plication to the reforms needed in education, language, 
family, law, economy, and religion. 

Following the end of World War I, Gokalp was 
exiled by the British to Malta together with several 
Turkish statesmen and intellectuals. Upon his 
release in 1921 he joined the national movement led 
by Mustafa Kemal. Though he fully supported the 
Kemalist reforms, he did not attain the position of 
foremost ideologist of the more radical Kemalist 
regime. He died in 1924, while a member of the 
Grand National Assembly. 

Gokalp wrote poetry, but was primarily an es- 
sayist. His only book, Tiirk medeniyeti ta'rikhi 
(The History of Turkish Civilization) which he began 
shortly before his death, remained unfinished; one 
volume, covering the pre-Islamic period, was pub- 
lished posthumously (Istanbul 1341). He attained 
nationwide fame as a thinker, but some of his ideas 
were overshadowed by the Kemalist reforms, some 
were distorted by the anti- Kemalist Pan-Turkists, 
while others were rejected after his death. The 
establishment of modern Turkey as a secular nation- 
state is greatly indebted to the orientation prepared 
by Gokalp's ideas. One of his inadvertent influences 
has been outside Turkey: Sati c al-Husri, who was 
one of his liberal opponents until he left Turkey in 
1919 to join the Arab national movement, seems to 
have appropriated Gokalp's theory of nationalism, 
his social philosophy, his secularism, and his con- 
cept of national education. 

Bibliography: Gokalp's published lite- 
rary writings : Kizil Elma, Istanbul 1330, 1941; 
Yeni Baydt, Istanbul 1918, 1941; Altln Ishik, 
Istanbul 1339, 1942; Ziya Gokalp kulliyah, i: 
§iirler ve halh masallari, ed. F. A. Tansel, Ankara 
1952. Collections of his essays: Tiirkleshmek, 
Isldmlashmak, mu'dsirlashmak, Istanbul 1918; 
TurkSulugun esdslarl, Ankara 1339, Istanbul 1940; 
Tiirk tiiresi, Istanbul 1339; Dogru yol, Ankara 
1939; Malta mektuplari, ed. Ali Ntizhet GSksel, 
Istanbul 1931; Ziya G'dkalp ve Cinaralh, ed. Ali 
Niizhet Goksel, Istanbul 1939; Ftrka nedir?, ed. 
E. B. Sapolyo, Zonguldak 1947; Ziya Gokalp: 
hayati, sanah, eseri, ed. Ali Niizhet Goksel, 
Istanbul 1952; Yeni Turkiyenin hedefleri, Ankara 
1956; Ziya Gokalpm ilk yazi hayati, 1894-1909, 
ed. Sevket Beysanoglu, Istanbul 1956; Turkish 
nationalism and Western civilization : selected essays 
of Ziya Gokalp, trans, and ed. Niyazi Berkes, 
London and New York 1959. 

Writings on his life and works: Niyazi 
Berkes, Ziya Gokalp: his contribution to Turkish 
nationalism, in MEJ, viii (1954), 375-390; J. Deny, 
Ziya Goek Alp, in RMM, lxi (1925), 1-41; Kazim 
Nami Duru, Ziya Gokalp, Istanbul 1949; Emin 
Erisirgil, Bir fikir adamimn romani, Istanbul 



GOKALP, ZIYA — GOLKONDA 



1941; Ziyaeddin Fahri, Ziya Gdkalp, sa vie et sa 
sociologie, Paris 1935 ; A. Fischer, Aus der religidsen 
Reformbewegung in der Tiirkei, Leipzig 1922; 
Richard Hartmann, Ziya GSkalp's Grundlagen des 
turkischen Nationalisms, in OLZ, xxviii (1925), 
cols. 578-610; Uriel Heyd, Foundations of Turkish 
nationalism : the life and teachings of Ziya Gdkalp, 
London 1950 (see p. 173 for a list of Gokalp's 
lithographed university lectures and unpublished 
works) ; Ahmed Muhiddin, Die Kulturbewegung im 
modernen Turkentum, Leipzig 1921; Ali Niizhet 
Goksel, Ziya Gdkalp: hayatt ve eserleri, Istanbul 
1949; Saffet Orfi, Ziya Gdkalp ve mefkure, Istanbul 
1923; Ettore Rossi, Uno scrittore turco contempo- 
raneo; Ziya GSk Alp, in OM, iv (1924), 574"95; 
Enver B. Sapolyo, Ziya Gdkalp, Ittihat ve Terakki 
ve Mesrutiyet, Istanbul 1943; Osman Tolga, Ziya 
Gdkalp ve ihtisadi fikirleri, Istanbul 1949; Cavit 
O. Tiitengil, Ziya Gdkalp hakkmda bir bibliografya 
denemesi, Istanbul 1949; Cavit O. Tutengil, Ziya 
Gdkalp'tn Diyarbehir gazetelerinde cthan yanlari, 
Istanbul 1954; Turk Yurdu, Ankara 1340, year 14, 
no. 3; H. Z. Ulken, Ziya Gdkalp, Istanbul n.d. 

(Niyazi Berkes) 
GOKCAY [see gokce]. 

GOKCE-TENGIZ, Gokce-gol or Gokce-deniz; 
otherwise Sevan, from Armenian Sew-vank, 'Black 
monastery'; a great lake in the Armenian Soviet 
Socialist Republic, approx. 40 20 N and 45' 30' 
E. Triangular in shape, Lake Gokce lies 6,000 
feet/1830 metres above sea level and is sur- 
rounded by barren mountains; its area was formerly 
reckoned at 540 sq. miles and maximum depth 67 
fathoms, but the level of the lake is being systemati- 
cally lowered in connexion with the important 
system of hydro-electric stations on the river Zanga, 
which flows from the lake into the river Aras, and 
supplies a large part of the energy requirements of 
Soviet Armenia. A lava island (now peninsula) at the 
north-west corner is surmounted by two ancient 
Armenian monasteries, the monks of which were 
much persecuted following the Arab conquest in the 
ist/7th century (cf. J. Muyldermans, La domination 
arabe en Arminie, Louvain 1927, 95). Lake Gokce is 
scarcely mentioned in Islamic sources prior to Hamd 
Allah Mustawfi Kazwlni [q.v.], but subsequently 
features in the accounts of Ottoman-Persian conflicts 
in this area, as well as during the Russian conquest 
of Transcaucasia early in the 19th century. The lake 
is famous for its succulent fish, particularly a trout 
called ishkhan, which form the basis of an important 
industry. Lake Gokce is not to be confused with 
several rivers called Gokcay ('Blue stream'), e.g., one 
in Shlrwan, another in Anatolia between Sivas and 

Bibliography: H. F. B. Lynch, Armenia. 

Travels and studies, 2 vols., London 1901; Le 

Strange, 183; BSE, 2nd ed., torn 38, 294-95, art. 

'Sevan'. (W. Barthold-[D. M. Lang]) 

GOKLA\N, a Turkmen tribe mainly inhabiting 

the country round Bojnurd in northern Persia, but 

with some elements in the Turkmen SSR and the 

Kara-Kalpak ASSR of the Soviet Union. The 

number in Persia is difficult to determine but is 

probably about 60,000. Soviet sources now tend to 

avoid tribal distinctions, but according to the 1926 

census there were 17,000 Goklan in the Kara-Kala 

district of the Turkmen SSR (South of Kizyl-Arvat) 

and some 38,000 in the area lying between Il'yaly 

(S. of Khodzheyli) and Turtkul' in the Kara-Kalpak 

SSR. The tribe was formerly divided into a number 

of clans (Cakur, Kirik, Bayandir, Kayi, Yangak, 



Saghrl, Kara-Balkan, Ay-Derwish, Erkekli, Sheykh 
Khodja) only traces of which now remain. The 
Goklan appear never to have been nomads, being 
occupied mainly with silk and more recently with 
cotton growing. Those in the Kara-Kala district are 
mostly market gardeners. They were in the past 
traditional enemies of the large Yomud and Teke 
tribes and were wont to side with the Russians 
during the latter's campaigns in the Turkmen 
country in the last quarter of the 19th century. They 
are nominally Muslim by religion. 

Bibliography: R. Rahmeti Arat, article 
'Goklen' in I A. For earlier details: E. Schuyler, 
Turkistan, ii, 382; Yate, Khurasan and Sistan, 
212 f. For later information: Tokarev, Ethnography 
of the peoples of the USSR (in Russian), 356, and 
Soviet Encyclopaedia 2 , ii, 587. (G. E. Wheeler) 
GOKSU, literally 'blue water', name given by 
the Turks to numerous rivers or streams, notably 
(1) one of the two small rivers flowing into the 
Bosphorus, by the confluence of which were the 
pleasure gardens between Kandilli and Anadolu 
hisan called 'The Sweet Waters of Asia', a place 
particularly frequented in the 19th century by 
Ottoman and Levantine society; (2) the great river 
(168 miles/270 km long, drainage basin of 4000 square 
miles/10,350 sq. km) of Cilicia Trachea, the ancient 
Kalykadnos, the course of which occupies the axis 
of a large sedimentary marine miocene basin, 
corresponding to a saddle in the arc of the central 
Taurus. The regime, pluvio-nival, is that of Mediter- 
ranean regions, slightly modified by the retention of 
water in the Karst. In antiquity it was used for 
navigation (Ammianus Marcellinus, XIV, 2,15; 8, 1); 
it has always been used for floating timber, and 
recently for the irrigation of the delta plain of Silifke 
(Saysulak barrage) and for hydro-electric power (two 
barrages on the upper left branch producing 18 
million KW per hour). 

Bibliography: in general see IA, s.v. (B. 
Darkot); for (1), IA, s.v. Bogazici, col. 690a; for 
(2) description of the course in H. Saracoglu, 
Tiirkiye cografyast uzerine etiidler II : Bitki drtusii, 
aharsular ve gdller, Istanbul 1962, 178-83; regime 
in I. H. Akyol, Rigime des cours d'eau medi- 
terraniens de I'Asie Mineure, Congres Inter- 
national de Giographie, Lisbon 1949, ii, 330. 

(X. de Planhol) 
GOKSUN, also goksOn, a small town in south- 
eastern Turkey, the ancient Kokussos, W. Armenian 
Goglson, now the chef-lieu of an ilce of the vilayet of 
Maras, pop. (i960) 3697. It is the 'Cocson', 'Coxon', 
where the army of the First Crusade rested for three 
days in the autumn of 1097 (see A History of the 
Crusades, ed. K. M. Setton, i, Philadelphia 1955, 
297-8). 

Bibliography: IA, s.v. Goksun (by Besim 
Darkot), with full bibliography. (Ed.) 

GOLD [see dhahabI. 
GOLD COAST [see Ghana]. 
GOLDEN HORDE [see batu'ids, kipcak, 

al-GOLEA [see al-kulay c a]. 

GOLETTA [see halk al-wAdi]. 

GOLIATH [see djalut]. 

GOLKONDA, renamed Muljammadnagar by 
Sultan Kuli Kutb al-Mulk, the founder of the Kutb 
Shahl [q.v.] dynasty, a hill fort about five miles 
west of Haydarabad (Deccan) [q.v.], is situated in 
17 23' N., 78 24' E. The hill rises majestically in a 
vast boulderstrewn plain. The site is a natural one 
for the C( 



GOLKONDA — GONDESHAPOR 



called Bala Hisar or acropolis, is about four 
hundred feet above ground level and commands the 
whole countryside. The name, Golkonda, is derived 
from two Telugu words, golla (shepherd) and kon'da 
(hill). There is no doubt that part of the fortifica- 
tions go back to pre-Muslim times, for certain con- 
structions, such as a wall by the side of the Fath 
Darwaza, are built of huge granite blocks piled one 
upon the other, which is characteristic of pre- 
Muslim citadels of Andhra Pradesh such as parts of 
the historic fort of Kondapalli. Golkonda was ceded 
to Muhammad Shah BahmanI by the Radja of 
Warangal in 764/1363, but did not become the 
capital of the taraf or province (later, kingdom) of 
Tilang-Andhra till the governorship of Sultan Kuli 
Kutb al-Mulk in 900/1494-5. Golkonda's glories 
were rivalled by the foundation of Haydarabad 
[q.v.] in 1000/1591-2. In the heyday of its history 
Golkonda was the centre of trade and commerce 
where travellers, architects, calligraphers, learned 
men and men of the world thronged, and this inevi- 
tably resulted in a vast increase in the population of 
the walled city which led to the foundation of the 
new "City of Haydar". Golkonda, however, remained 
the emporium and centre of the diamond trade of the 
Orient. 

The fortifications of the city and the Bala Hisar 
are threefold. The outermost circumvallation, which 
protects the whole city, is about 8,000 yards in 

oval in shape, with the rectangular nayd-kil'a, "new 
fort", constructed in 1624, jutting out rather 
abruptly to the north-east. This wall, which is 
crenellated throughout, rises to an average of 55 feet, 
with 8 strong gates and 87 bastions, each with its 
own name. Four gates are still open: the Fath 
Darwaza or "Victory gate" (through which the 
conquering army of Awrangzib entered the city), 
the Makki Darwaza, "Mecca gate", completed 
967/1590, the Bandjara Darwaza leading to the 
Kutb Shahi tombs (which form a majestic sky-line 
in the neighbourhood), and the MotI Darwaza, 
"pearl gate". A very interesting bastion is the Naw 
Burdji, "nine-lobed", which juts out of the defensive 
wall of the nayd kiV-a in a corrugated form, perhaps 
intended to provide a greater field for defence in 
all directions (but see Burton-Page in BSOAS, 
xxiii/3 (i960), 520). For other bastions see burdj, iii. 
About 900 yds. above the Fath Darwaza is the 
Bala Hisar Darwaza, "acropolis gate", the 
entrance to the second line of defending walls. A short 
distance to the north of this gate is the Djami c 
Masdjid, erected by Sultan Kuli Kutb al-Mulk in 
924/1518, in which he was assassinated some 25 
years later. From this gate the road upwards is very 
steep, with hundreds of steps with recesses for 
resting. Half-way up the hill run the double walls 
which constitute the third line of defence. On the 
left are palaces, women's apartments, mosques, 
arsenals, offices, granaries, magazines, and on the 
right, open ground, parks and groves, wherever a 
space could be found for them. Before the Bala 
Hisar proper is a well-preserved mosque reputedly 
erected by Ibrahim Kutb Shah, and within a few 
yards of the Throne Room and the acropolis proper 
is an ancient Hindu temple which was renovated by 
the Brahmin ministers of the last Kutb Shahi king. 
There is another very steep path, also served by a 
number of irregular steps, connecting the lower 
palaces with the Bala Hisar, and by the side of this 
can be seen the system of raising water from the 
ground level to the topmost citadel. There is a 



series of tanks, at different levels; the water was 
raised by teams of oxen at each level pulling huge 
leather buckets by rope and pulley and pouring it 
into the higher cistern. The waste water was brought 
down through earthen pipes which still exist. 

The Bala Hisar Darwaza is remarkable not merely 
for its mantlet but also for the figures and emblems of 
Hindu mythology which are worked in stucco 
between the arch and the lintel. Perhaps an even 
more remarkable -structure is a small gateway 
piercing the penultimate fortification. It is a pillar 
and lintel gate surmounted by a fairly flat' arch. In 
the centre of the broad stone lintel is a beautiful 
circular medallion with the lotus motif flanked by 
mythical figures of Yali, half dog and half lion, and 
swans with snake-like worms in their beaks. Above 
the lintel is a simple pointed alcove surrounded by 
representations of lion-cubs, peacocks and parrots. 
The whole composition symbolizes the synthesized 
Indo-Muslim culture of the Kutb Shahi period. 

The Golkonda tombs, standing outside the fort 
to the north-west, are a group of some twenty 
buildings seven of which are tombs of the kings. 
Their appearance is uniform: typically a square 
building with an arcaded lower storey, supported on 
a massive plinth which may itself be arcaded; the 
lower storey bears a crenellated parapet with a 
small mindr at each corner, and centrally a tall 
drum, which may be arcaded and balustraded, 
supporting a single dome arising from a band of 
petal-like foliations as in the Bidjapur [q.v.] domes. 
The grey granite is usually covered with stucco and 
with encaustic tiles. The projecting cornices are 
elaborately worked with plaster designs; this, and 
the addition of miniature decorative arcaded 
galleries encircling the mindrs, are characteristic of 
the Kutb Shahi buildings here and at Haydarabad. 
An important early building in the group is the 
mortuary where the bodies were washed, the 
arches of which continue the Bahmani [q.v.] style. 
For illustrations of these buildings see hind, 
Architecture. 

The city of Golkonda was the most important 
mart for diamonds in Asia, as described by, e.g., 
Marco Polo in 1292, Nicolo Conti in 1420, Tavernier 
in 1651, and it was here that diamonds were cut, 
polished and shaped and then exported to all parts 
of the world. 

Bibliography: S. Toy, The strongholds of 
India, London 1957, detailed review and comment 
by J. Burton-Page in BSOAS, xxiii/3 (1960), 
508-22; S. H. Bilgrami and Willmott, Historical 
and descriptive sketches of His Highness the Nizam's 
dominions ; Ali Asgher Bilgrami, Landmarks of the 
Deccan, Hyderabad 1927; G. Yazdani, Inscriptions 
in Golconda Fort, in EIM, 1913-4, 47-59; idem, 
Inscriptions in the Golconda tombs, in EIM, 1915-6, 
19-40; Sen, The Indian travels of Thevenot and 
Carreri; Travels in India by J. B. Tavernier, 
translated by V. Ball, Oxford 1925; Jadunath 
Sarkar, History of Aurangzib, 5 vols., 1912-25; 
H. K. Sherwani, articles on the Kutb Shahi 
dynasty in JIH, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, i960, 
1962; idem, in IC, 1957; idem, in J.Pak.Hist.S., 
1957, 1958, 1962. (H. K. Sherwani) 

GOMBROON, GOMBRUN [see bandar 

GONDAR [see habash]. 

GONDESHAPCR, (Arabic form Djundaysabur) 
a town in Khuzistan founded by the Sasanid 
Shapur I (whence the name wandew Shapur "ac- 
quired by Shapur", cf. Noldeke, Geschichte der 



GONDESHAPtjR — gOnOllO 



Perser, 41, n. 2), who settled it with Greek prisoners. 
It is the town known as Beth-Lapat in Syriac, 
corrupted to Bel-Abadh, now almost unrecognizable 
in the form nildb and nlldf; the site is marked at the 
present day by the ruins of Shahabad (cf. Rawlinson 
in the J own. of the Royal Geogr. Soc, ix, 72; de Bode, 
Travels in Luristan, ii, 167). The town was taken by the 
Muslims in the caliphate of c Umar by Abu Musa al- 
Ash'ari in 17/738, after the occupation of Tustar; it 
was surrendered on terms (Baladhurl, 328). Sayf b. 
'Umar's story in Tabari, i, 2567, and Ibn al-Athir, ii, 
432, according to which the fall of the town was the 
result of a forgery made by the slave Mukthif, 
seems to be a romantic fiction. The skin of Mani 
[q.v.] was hung on a gate of the city. Gondeshapur 
was the capital of Ya<kub b. Layth al-Saffar (262-3/ 
875-7), who died there in 265/878. In Yakut's time 
only a few ruins marked the site of the town (ii, 130). 
Bibliography: Al-BIruni, Chronology, 191; 

Barbier de Meynard, Diction, giogr. de la Perse, 

Paris 1861, 169 f.; Noldeke, Gesch. d. Perser u. 

Araber, 40-2; Brockelmann, I, 201; Tabari, i, 

2567; Ibn al-Athir, vii, 201, 213, 231; Wiistenfeld, 

Jacut's Reise, in ZDMG, xviii, 425. 

(Cl. Huart) 

GondeshapOr's main title to fame lies in its 
importance as a cultural centre which influenced the 
rise of scientific and intellectual activity in Islam. 
Its importance was enhanced by its having been 
closely associated with a secular field of learning, 
namely medicine, and by its having been the fore- 
most representative of Greek medicine. 

There was a hospital at Gondeshapur where, 
unlike the Greek asclepieia and the Byzantine 
■nosocomia, treatment seems to have been based 
solely on scientific medicine. At any rate, this was a 
characteristic of the hospitals of Islam, for which the 
hospital at Gondeshapur may have served as model. 
The fourth Islamic hospital founded in Islam (by 
Harun al-Rashid) was in fact built and run by 
Gondeshapur physicians. 

There was a medical school at Gondeshapur which 
was probably in close association with the hospital 
there. There is also evidence of its ties with 
the Gondeshapur school for religious instruction. 
Systematic Gondeshapur influence on Islamic 
medicine seems to have started during the reign of 
Harun al-Rashid, when Gondeshapur physicians 
began to take up their residence in Baghdad. Harith 
b. Kalada, the Arab doctor contemporary with the 
Prophet, is said to have studied medicine at Gonde- 
shapur. This story presents certain chronological 
difficulties in its details, however, and is, very likely, 
of a legendary character. 

Arabic sources contain stories which trace back 
the medical interest of the district of Gondeshapur 
to a physician who had come from India. These 
stories imply that this initial Indian influence found 
a fertile ground for development in the Byzantine 
settlers of Gondeshapur which included a group of 
doctors and that this medical knowledge was further 
enriched in time through cumulative experience in 
treatment and through contact with local medical 
traditions. It is difficult to determine the factual 
value of such reports. The transformation of 
Gondeshapur into an important medical centre was 
undoubtedly the work of the Nestorians. But this 
may not have effectively taken place before the reign 
of Khusraw I Anushirawan (531-579 A.D.). 

It is likely that the Gondeshapur medical teaching 
was modelled upon that of Alexandria and Antioch 
but that it became more specialized and efficient in 



its new Persian home. Apart from its influence as a 
medical centre, Gondeshapur may, more generally, 
be looked upon as a place through which the Nestor- 
ian heritage of Greek learning of Edessa and Nisibis 
passed to Baghdad. 

Bibliography: Fihrist, i, 296; Ibn Abi 
Usaybi'a, T*bakdt al-atibba', i, 109-26, 171-5, ii, 
135; Ibn al-Kifti, 158-62, 383-4, 431; L. Leclerc, 
Histoire de la midecine arabe, i, 95-117, 557-9; 
B. Eberman, Meditsinskaya shkola v Diundisapure, 
in Zapiski Kollegiy Vostokovedov pri Aziatskom 
Muzee Rossiiskoy Akademiy Nauk, i (1925), 
47-72 (resume in W. Ebermann, Bericht iiber die 
arabischen Studien in Russland wahrend der Jahre 
IQ2I-IQ2T, Islamica, iv (1930), 147-9; E. G. 
Browne, Arabian medicine, 19-22; G. Sarton, In- 
troduction to the history 0/ science, i, 435 f, ; M. 
Meyerhof, Von Alexandrien nach Bagdad, in 
SBPr. Ah. W., Phil.-hist., 1930, xxiii, 401 f.; A. 
A. Siassi, V Universiti de Gond-i Shdpur et I'etendue 
de son rayonnement, in Melanges H. Masse, 
Teheran 1963, 366-74. (Aydin Sayili) 

GONt)LLt), Turkish word meaning 'volunteer', 
in the Ottoman Empire used as a term (sometimes 
with the pseudo- Persian plural gbnulliiydn, in Arabic 
sources usually rendered djamulydn or kamulyan) 
for three related institutions: 

1. From the earliest times of the Ottoman state, 
volunteers coming to take part in the fighting were 
known as goniillii ; their connexion with the mutatawwi- 
c a, ghdzis [qq.v.~\, of earlier Muslim states is evident 
(see M. F. Koprulii, Les origines de I'Empire Ottoman, 
Paris 1936, 102-3; 1. H. Uzuncarsili, Osmanh devleti 
teskildhna medhal, Istanbul 1942, 59). A high propor- 
tion of the ghdzis and akindjis [q.v.] on the udj (the 
march-lands) of the Ottoman state were such gbnul- 
liis. With the promise of the grant of timdrs and 
'ulufe [qq.v.] the State encouraged men to join the 
army, especially when a major campaign was in pros- 
pect; the text of a firman, issued before the Molda- 
vian campaign of 889/1484, by which the Sultan 
ordered such a proclamation to be cried in public, 
survives (in the registers of the kadis of Bursa, A. 4/4), 
and it is recorded that a group of goniillii came from 
Antalya to join the Ottoman army attacking Cyprus 
(978/1570). Such volunteers are found throughout 
Ottoman history, and this was the principal means by 
which native Muslims could become timariots or enter 
the ranks of the Kapl-kullari [see ohulam], for volun- 
teers who distinguished themselves were granted 
timdrs or ze c dmets [qq.v.] or admitted to the Ghuraba' 
[q.v.] regiments ; the rest were appointed to the bodies 
of gonUUUydn who performed garrison duties in the 
fortresses of the Empire, being supported by c ulufe. 
In the nth/i7th and I2th/i8th centuries, with the 
ever-increasing need for men, the goniillii bayraghi 
was unfurled and goniillii troops, serving for pay, 
were recruited; this must have been a continuation 
of the old tradition. 

2. In the ioth/i6th century we find an organized 
body known as gdniilliiydn in most of the fortresses 
of the Empire, in Europe, Asia and Egypt. It resem- 
bled the bodies of mustahfizlar and beshliiydn; its 
characteristics were that its members performed 
garrison duties, served for pay ('ulufe), and had for 
the most part begun as volunteers. It was organized, 
like the Kapi-kullari, into djemd'als and bdliiks. 
Reference is found to two main groups, the Sagh 
Gdniilliiler (or Gdniilliiydn-i yemin, 'of the right') and 
the Sol Gonulltiler (or Gbniilliiyan-i yesdr, 'of the left'). 
In the main fortresses they formed two diemd'ats, 
siiwdri (cavalry) and piydde (infantry). Each djemd'at 



GONULLU — GUDALA 



was commanded by an agha, and each was divided 
into boltiks of 10-30 men each. The first bSliik of the 
cavalry was called Agha bblugil, and the second 
Ketkhudd {Kahya) beluga; the first boluk of the in- 
fantry was the Ketkhudd bbliigu. Every bOUik had a 
Bbluk-bashl (or Ser-boliik). In 1025/1616 the daily 
pay of the Agha was 50 aktes, of the Clerk (Kdtib) 
20-25. and of the Ketkhudd 20-25; each Ser-bdluk 
received 10-20 (for details see Defter-i esdmi-i gtiniU- 
liiydn-i siiwdri we piyddegdn we miistahfizdn-i kaV-a-i 
Haleb, Istanbul, Basvekalet Arsivi, maliye 2/6467). 
In 963/1556 the gonullus of Cairo received between 
10 and 16 aktes, in 11 30/1718 those of the fortress of 
Nish received 14 aktes a day. The establishment 
(known as gedtik or gedik) of each diemd'at was 
fixed. In the ioth/i6th century, when there were 
vacancies, in response to a tedhkire [q.v.] from the beg 
or the defterddr of the eydlet, a berdt [q.v.] of the Sultan 
would be issued granting these vacancies to volun- 
teers who had distinguished themselves on the 
frontiers, so-called yarar yigitler and yoldashlar, the 
sons of gOnuUiis, and Janissaries. There were in 
the fortresses separate djemd'ats of pensioners 
(miitekd'id) and kul-oghullarl [see yeniceri] con- 
nected with the gdnulluydn. 

The gonUUUs in the fortresses might be called out 
to serve on a campaign or take part in frontier- 
fighting. Those that distinguished themselves might 
be granted timdrs; in the nth/i7th century it could 
happen that distinguished aghas of the gdniilliis 
were appointed sandjak-begi. 

3. In the nth/i7th century a body known as 
gdnulluydn is mentioned also among the paid auxil- 
iaries who, under various names, were recruited, in 
the provinces to serve on a campaign. In 1131/1718 
a formation of auxiliaries called sekbdn was abol- 
ished, and it was ordered that their place should be 
taken by the raising of diwdnegdn (deliler), fdrisdn, 
'■azebdn and gdnulluydn; but the dismissed sekbdns 
re-enlisted in the new formations and continued their 
misdeeds. These groups, the gdnulluydn included, 
frequently cast off all obedience and discipline and 
plagued the provinces with their depredations. 
Bibliography: in the article. 

(Halil Inalcik) 

GORAN [see cur an]. 

GORDES, a small town in eastern Anatolia 
(38 55' N., 28 17' E.) at an altitude of about 1,500 ft 
on the banks of the Kum Cay. The town, with a small 
local market, has now lost all importance but it was 
famous until the beginning of the 19th century as an 
important centre for the making of prayer rugs. 
The population in i960 was 5,071. 

Bibliography: Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, 

ix, 55; I A, s.v. (B. Darkot); for the carpets of 

Gordes, see I A, s.v. Hah (M. A. Mehmedoglu) and 

pi. 2 and 3. (X. de Planhol) 

GORIDJE [see man astir], 

GORIDJELI KOCi BEG [see ko« becI. 

GOSPEL(S) [see indjIl]. 

GOUM [see gum]. 

GOVERNMENT [see dawla, hukOma, siyasa, 
sultan, etc.]. 

GOVERNOR [see amir, walI]. 

GRAMMAR [see fi c l, nahw, tasrIf]. 

GRAN [see ahmad gran]. 

GRANADA [see gharnata]. 

GREECE, GREEKS [see, for ancient Greece, 
yunan; for the ByzantiDe Empire, rum; for 
Greece under Ottoman rule, mora]. 

GREEK FIRE, GREGORIAN FIRE [see bArud, 
naft]. 



GROCER [see bakkal]. 
GUADALAJARA [see wadi 'l-ijidjara]. 
GUADALQUIVIR [see al-wadi 'l-kabIr]. 
GUADARRAMA [see al-sharrat]. 
GUADIANA [see wadI yana]. 
GUADIX [see wadI ash]. 
GUARANTEE [see aman, paman, kafala], 
GUARDAFUI, the cape at the north-east tip of the 
Horn of Africa, in Somalia, known also as Ra's 
'Asir, and, according to 'All Celebi, as Ra 5 s al-aljmar. 
It was the 'ApcofJUXTCov dbtpOTrjpiov of the Periplus 
and Ptolemy and the vcotov x£poci; of Strabo. The 
origin of the name is uncertain; the present form is 
one of several variants occurring in the Portuguese 
writers. It may be connected with Mas'udi's Diafuna 
and it appears as Dj.rd.fun in the rutters of Ibn 
Madjid and in c Ali Celebi. Many absurd etymologies 
have been proposed. It may include the name Hafun, 
given to a prominent cape further to the south. 
Guillain states that the local inhabitants gave the 
name Djardafun not to Guardafui but to a small 
promontory a few miles away. It belongs to the area 
in which the Somali are first found and was once 
populated by Dir, later expelled by Darod (Madjgr- 
t6n). There is a small group of Mahri descent who 
have intermarried and speak Somali. 

Bibliography: Yule & Burnell, Hobson- 
Jobson, s.v.; M. L. Dames, The Book of Duarte 
Barbosa, i, 32; M. Guillain, Documents sur 
I'histoire, la giographie, et le commerce de I'Afrique 
Orientate, Ii, 402 ; G. Ferrand, Relations de voyages, 
Paris 1913-4; T. A. Shumovski, Tri neizvestnie 
lotsii Ahmada ibn Madiida, Moscow-Leningrad 
J 957; E. Cerulli, Somalia, i, Rome 1964, 109, no. 

(C. F. Beckingham) 
GUDALA, small Berber tribe belonging to 
the great ethnic group of the desert Sanhadja (the 
Berber phoneme g is usually rendered in Arabic 
script by a djim but Ibn Khaldun. in his system of 
transcription, writes it as a kdf which, in the original 
manuscript, presumably had a diacritical point 
placed above or below). They lived in the southern 
part of what is now Mauritania, to the north of the 
Senegal and in contact with the ocean. To the south 
their territory bordered the land of the Negroes; to 
the north, in the present Adrar of Mauritania, lived 
their Sanhadja "brothers", the Lamtuna and the 
Massufa. 

Like the other desert Sanhadja, the Gudala were 
essentially nomadic camel-drivers, and possessed 
fast dromedaries (nadjib, pi. nudjub). Nevertheless 
they possessed a town, Naghlra (reading uncertain), 
at a distance of about six stages from the river 
Senegal, and so probably in what is now Tagant. 
Along the shores of the Atlantic they collected 
quantities of ambergris and caught enormous sea 
turtles the flesh of which they ate. There too they 
possessed, on the island of Awlil, not far from the 
mainland, a famous salt-pan. As al-Idrisi places this 
island at about one madjrd (at most 150 kilometres/ 
100 miles) from the mouth of the Senegal, it cannot 
have been, as was suggested, either Arguin or Tidra. 
With greater probability, it has been suggested that 
Awlil was the present In-Wolalan, between Nwak- 
shot and Saint-Louis. 

At the beginning of the 5th/nth century the 
supremacy over the Sanhadja of the desert was held 
by the chiefs of the Lamtuna. Towards 425/1034 it 
was the Gudala chief Yahya b. Ibrahim who held it. 
On returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca he brought 
back with him from Sfls, to convert the Sanhadja to 
Islam, the famous c Abd Allah b. Ya-SIn' al-Djazuli, 



Encyclopaedia of h 



1, II 



GUDALA — GODJAR 



who was to launch the Almoravid movement. After 
the death of Yahya b. Ibrahim the supremacy 
returned to the Lamtuna, in the person of Yahya b. 
£ Umar, and then of his brother Abu Bakr. From then 
on the Gudala no longer made common cause with 
the Almoravid movement, in which mainly the 
Lamtuna and the Massufa took part. After the 
expedition against Sidjilmasa they retired to their 
territory in the Sahara, where they fought sometimes 
with the Negroes, sometimes with those of the 
Lamtuna who had remained on the spot. 

They undoubtedly ended by wiping out the latter. 
In the second half of the 8th/i4th century Ibn 
Khaldun places them immediately to the south of 
al-Sakiya al-Hamra 5 , in contact with the Dhawu- 
Hassan, nomadic Arabs of the Ma c kil group. Later 
on the latter were to advance towards the south and 
occupy present-day Mauritania. At this point the 
Gudala disappear from history. Their name is now 
attested only by two very small fractions of Gdala, 
one in the north, in Tins, the other in the south, 
among the Brakna. 

Bibliography: Besides the classical historians 
and geographers, see: A. Huici Miranda, Un 
fragmento inidito de Ibn c Idari sobre los Almo- 
r&vides, in Hesptris-Tamuda, ii/i (1961), 43; 
P. Marty, L'tmirat des Trarzas. (G. S. Colin) 
GCEJAR (Gudjdjar, Gurdjdjar), name of an 
ancient tribe, wide-spread in many parts of the Indo- 
Pakistan subcontinent, akin to the Radjputs, the 
Djats [q.v.], and the Ahirs, who are claimed by 
Gudidjar historians as off-shoots of the main stock. 
Both Western and native writers agree that the tribe 
migrated to the plains of Hindustan from Central 
Asia sometime in the middle of the 5th century A.D. 
Tall, handsome, wirily-built, and of a fair complexion, 
they are believed to be descendants of either the 
Scythians or the White Huns. The view of a minority 
of Gudidjar historians, that they are of indigenous 
origin, finds little support. Largely agriculturalists, 
they also herd cattle and sell milk and other dairy 
products, but with the spread of education and a 
desire for bettering their economic condition they 
have taken to other occupations, mainly in the un- 
divided Pandjab and the Uttar Pradesh (India), and 
adopted a settled way of life. 

The word Gurdjdjara first occurs in Bana's Harialri- 
tra where Harsha Vardhana's father Prabhakara- 
vardhana is described as "the one who kept 
Gurdjdjara awake" (cf. K. M. Munshi, Glory that was 
Gurjara-Deia, Bombay 1955, i, 3). Here Gurdjdiara 
stands for the "king of Gudjars", the malik al- 
djuzar of the Arab historians (cf. al-Sirafi, Silsilat 
al-tawdrikh, Paris 1881, 126-7; al-Baladhuri, Futuh, 
446; Ibn Rusta, al-A c ldk al-naflsa, Leiden 1892, 
vii, 137; Ibn Khurradadhbih. 16, 66; al-Mas c udi, 
Murudj, i, 383-4), who ruled over Gudiaratra, whose 
boundaries it is difficult to fix precisely but which 
extended not only to the Narmda but also included 
parts of modern Saurashthra and Radjasthan, with 
its capital at Bhilamala or Bhinamala (Bilaman of 
the Arab historians, perhaps representing the col- 
loquial pronunciation) near the present Mount Abu. 
This was a famous centre of swordmaking. Swords 
made here were highly prized, and there are several 
references in Arabic literature to the sword of Bilaman 
(cf., e.g., al-Kindl, al-Suyuf wa adindsuha, ed. c Abd 
al-Rahman Zaki, Cairo 1952, 9-10, where it has been 
corrupted into Sulaymdniyya). In all probability 
this was the sword described by Arabic lexicographers 
as al-muhannad (cf. Lisdn, s.v., TA under HND). 
In course of time four ruling families of the 



Gurdidiars emerged as empire-builders. These were: 
(1) The Paramaras or Pariwaras, (2) the Pratiharas or 
Pariharas, (3) the Cahamanas or Cawhanas and 
(4) the Solankis or Cawlukiyas known to the Arabs 
as the $alukiyya (cf. Ibn Rusta, 135; al-Djahiz, 
Uayawdn, Cairo 1945, i, 184, ii, 198, where $alukiyya 
dogs are mentioned). Of these Mihir Bhodia the 
Great (836-890 A.D.), a Pratihara king, with his 
capital at Kannawdi, has been described as a mighty 
ruler. He had a well-equipped and strong army 
(Gurdidjar-Bala), and his military exploits made him 
a popular hero. Among the Cawhanas Prithviradja 
of Delhi was the last notable ruler; he suffered defeat 
at the hands of Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad b. Sam 
in 588/1192 at Tara'ofi (Tara'in, near Karnal). This 
victory paved the way for the foundation of a 
Muslim empire in India. 

It has also been established that the Sultans of 
Gudiarat, of whom Mahmud Begara (863/1458- 
917/15") and Bahadur Shah (932/1526-943/1536) 
(see gudjarat) deserve mention, were of Gudjdjar 
origin, belonging to the Tank branch of the Pramaras 
(cf. c Abd al-Malik, Shdhdn-i Gudjar, A c zamgafh, 
1353/1934, 333 ff-); Ibn Khurradadhbih (16) also 
refers to the malik al-Jdnik, along with the malik al- 
djuzar. Jdnik, is obviously the Arabicized form of 
Tank (variants Tak, Tak, Taksh) ; this identification 
eluded both the historians of India and Arabists. 

The Gudidjars seem to have spread all over the 
country and founded many towns and places, some 
of them still bearing their name, as Gudj(a)ranwala, 
Gudjarkhan, Gudjrat, Godiara, and Gudjargadh. 

They were quite numerous in the Saharanpur 
district of India and the neighbouring territory, 
which was known until 1857 as Gudjaratta or Gudjara- 
desa. A headstrong and prosperous tribe they were 
a source of great trouble to Babur [q.v.] and Sher 
Shah Siir [q.v.]. Notorious for their habit of plunder- 
ing, they harried the British and the local people 
during the military uprising of 1857. Consequently 
they suffered heavily, losing their leaders and many 
of the didgirs that they had held during the Moghul 
period. The Gudiars of Delhi and the neighbourhood 
harried and plundered refugees who fled from the 
city when it fell to the British in 1857. Even the 
members of the ex-royal family were not spared. 
(Cf. Ta'rikh-i Gurdjdjar, ii, 415-6; Percival Spear, 
Twilight of the Moghuls, Cambridge 1951, 202, 207, 
211; Hasan Nizami, Ghadr-i Dihli ke Afsdney: 
Dihli ki Biptd (in Urdu), Delhi n.d., 34, 52, 59). 

In Hazara (Pakistan), Djammu, Kangfa (India) 
and some parts of Kashmir there exist small pockets 
of Gudjars who still lead a nomadic life. They move 
from place to place, in siugle families or in small 
groups, and pitch their tents or erect their ram- 
shackle huts where they find grass and fodder for 
their animals. They speak a dialect known as Gudjari 
or Godjari, which Grierson characterizes as a corrupt 
form of the Mewati dialect of eastern Radjpiitana. 

It was the emperor Akbar [q.v.] who forced the 
Gudjars to adopt a settled life. Thus many 
towns in the Pandjab with the prefix Gudjar, 
peopled mainly by this tribe, came into existence 
(Gudjrat [q.v.], however, was founded by Alkhan, 
a Panwara Gudjar and commander-in-chief of the 
army of Mihir Bhodia). When they adopted Islam 
is not known; even to this day both Muslim and 
Hindu Gudiars are found living as close neighbours. 
Many of the ceremonies and customs prevailing 
among them are of purely Hindu origin, for many of 
the Muslim Gudjars take pride in being converts 
from Hinduism. They regard as their national 



GUDJAR — GUDJARAT 






heroes Diaypala. the Hindu-ShShiyya ruler of 
Lahore, whom Mahmud Ghaznawl defeated, Mihir 
Bhodja Pratlhara, whose grandfather Naga Bhatt 
II (792-825 A.D.) has been described as the inveterate 
enemy of the Arabs, Radja Dahir of Alor, defeated 
and killed by Muhammad b. Kasim, Rana Sariga 
and Rana Pratap of MewSf, and look upon their 
Muslim conquerors as despoilers and enemies of the 
Gurdjdjaras, because they destroyed their kingdoms, 
raided and looted their territories and subjected them 
to all sorts of indignities (cf. 'AH Hasan Cawhan 
Gurdjdjar, Ta'rikh-i Gurdjdjar, Karachi i960, iii, 
especially ch. iii and iv, which are full of the bitterest 
invective against the Muslim conquerors and in- 

Bibliography: H. <Abd al-Hakk, Tawarihh-i 
Gudjaran ma'-a ansdb-i Gudjarat, Lahore 1931, 
wherein he refers to two Persian MSS on the 
history of the Gudjars — (1) Mir'dt-i Gudjaran 
by Shaykh Djamal Gudjar and (2) Muralflfa'-i 
Gudjaran by Cawdhari Fayd Muhammad, but 
no copies of these works seem to be extant; 
Abu '1-Barak5t Muhammad c Abd al-Malik, 
Shdhdn-i Gudjar, A c zamgafh 1353/1934; Rana 
Muhammad Akbar Khan, Gudjdjar-Gundj, 
Lahore 1955 ; "K. M. Munshi, Glory that was Gurjara- 
Deia, 2 vols., Bombay 1955; Rana C A1I Hasan 
Cawhan Gurdjdjar, Ta'rikh-i Gurdjdjar, 5 vols., 
Karachi i960, a most uncritical account of the 
Gudjars [full of historical untruths, halftruths and 
legends], to be used with care; JASB, iv/i (1886), 
181 ff . ; D. Ibbetson, Outlines ofPanjab ethnography, 
Calcutta 1883, 182-8, 481; A. H. Bangley, Gujar, 
J at, Ahir; D. R. Bhandarkar, Epigraphic notes 
and questions, iii, Urdu transl. in Shdhdn-i Gudjar, 
op. cit., 473-86; A. M. T. Jackson, Bombay Gazetteer, 
i/i (1896), 526 ff.; Imperial Gazetteer of India, 
Oxford 1908, vol. 1 (Bombay Presidency); W. 
Crooke, Tribes and castes of N.W. Provinces and 
Oudh, Calcutta 1896, ii, 439 ff.; V. A. Smith, 
Early history of India, London 1913, 22, 303; 
idem, The Gujaras of Rajputana and Kanauj, 
in JRAS, 1909; Gazetteer of Gujrat District, Lahore 
1892-3; Mirza Muhammad A c zam Beg, Ta'rikh-i 
Gudjrdt (in Urdu), Lahore 1867; D. C. Ganguly, 
History of the Paramar dynasty; C. V. Vaidya, 
History of medieval India, 222-3, 236, 356; Census 
Report of India (1901), 498; M. R. Neville, Gazetteer 
of the Saharanpur District, ii, 198-205; see also 
the Gazetteers of Agra and Mathura districts; 
M. L. Nigam, Some literary references to the history 
of the Gujara-Pratiharas Mahendrapdla and 
Mahipala, in JRAS, 1964, 14-7. 

(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 
GUDJARAT. a province of India on the north- 
west of its coastline, lying east of the Ran of KaMh 
[q.v.] and broadly divided into Mainland Gudjarat 
and Peninsular Gudjarat (Kafhiawaf, the ancient 
Sawrashtra, modern Sorath). Mainland Gudjarat is 
approximately the area of the plains in the lower 
reaches of the rivers Sabarmati, Mahi, Narbada and 
Tapti, bounded north by the Marwaf desert, east by 
the line of hills running south-east from Abu to the 
Vindhyas. It takes its name (Sanskrit Gurjaratra) 
from the widespread Gudjar (Skt. Gurjara) tribe, who, 
it has been suggested, entered India with the White 
Huns at the end of the 5th century A.D., and who 
in many ways closely resemble the Djats [q.v.]; the 
name was even applied to the country north of 
Adjmer in the 9th century A.D., but by the 11th- 
13th centuries, just before the coming of Islam, 
Gudjarat referred particularly to the domains of the 



Solanki kings of Anahilwada whose boundaries were 
much as described above. 

(a) The ancient history of Gudjarat covers a 
period of some 15 centuries before the advent of 
Islam at the end of the 7th/ 13th century: the Mawrya 
dominions extended to Sawrashtra in the 4th 
century B.C. (inscription of Asoka at Djunagafh 
[q.v.]) ; the region was under the Saka satraps until the 
4th century A.D. when it passed to the Guptas; 
after their overthrow by the Huns there followed the 
Valabhis (perhaps overthrown by the Arabs from 
Mansura [q.v.] in Sindh, cf. the numismatic evidence 
adduced by G. P. Taylor in Gujarat College Magazine, 
January 1919), CawadSs, and the Solankls or 
Cawlukyas. The last-named dynasty were wor- 
shippers of the Hindu divinity Shiva, whose splendid 
temple at Somnath in Sawrashtra was plundered by 
Mahmud of Ghazni in Dhu M-Ka'da 416/January 
1026, in the reign of Bhlma I the fourth Cawlukya 
dynast (Ibn al-Athlr, ix, 242; so also al-BIruni, ed. 
Sachau, ii, 9; GardizI, ed. Nazim, 86-7; Haig in 
Cambridge history of India, iii, 23 ff., gives an 
incorrect date, presumably following Firishta); gold 
and jewels worth two million dinars, the sandalwood 
&ates of the temple, and the stone phallic emblem of 
the god were transported to Ghazni. The rebuilding 
soon commenced, this time in the fine stone for 
which the reign of Bhlma I was distinguished — a 
genre which was to become very significant for the 
derivative architecture of the Gudjarat sultanate. 
The sixth dynast, the great Siddharadja, who ruled 
for over 50 years in the 12th and 13th centuries A.D., 
extended the dominions and built the famous 
temple at Siddhpur later converted into a mosque by 
Ahmad I; under his patronage the Djayn [q.v.] 
religion was firmly established in Gudjarat. The ninth 
ruler, Mularadja II, sent a large army which in 574/ 
1 1 78 vanquished the army of Mu c izz al-DIn Muham- 
mad b. Sam which was exhausted by its long march 
through Viih, Multan and the Marwaf desert 
(Muslim historians show Bhima II as the victorious 
ruler; but the Sanskrit Kirtikaumudi and Sukrtasan- 
kirtana, and contemporary grants, leave no doubt 
that the invasion occurred in Mularadja's short 
reign). The defeat was avenged in 593/1197 when 
Mu c izz al-Din's general Kutb al-Dln Aybak [q.v.] 
plundered Anahilwada, the capital, forcing Bhima II 
to take refuge in a remote part of Gudjarat, and 
returned to Dihli laden with booty. Mularadja and 
his brother Bhima both came to the throne as 
minors; the central authority thereby became weak, 
and the kingdom was virtually divided among the 
nobles and provincial chiefs. The most powenul of 
these, the Vaghelas ruling at Dholka, gradually 
usurped the royal power and tiansferred their 
capital to Anahilwada; this was the regnant dynasty 
at the time of the Muslim conquest, and it continued 
to hold pockets of territory in north Gudjarat for 
some time thereafter. 

Pre-Muslim Gudjarat seems to have been well 
known to the Muslim, particularly the Aiab, world, 
for it is frequently referred to by travellers and 
geographers from the merchant Sulayman onwards. 
Al-Baladhurl, 3rd/9th century, notices the pirates 
of the Sawrashtra coast, and mentions the great 
ports of Bharoc and Sindan [qq.v.]; al-Mas'udi 
describes the strength of the kingdom and the power 
of its ruler, and mentions the gold and silver mines; 
Istakhrl, 4th/ioth century, and Ibn Hawkal, 4th/ 
10th century, give itineraries and describe the topo- 
graphy; al-BIruni, 5th/nth century, gives fuller 
details with greater exactness, as does Idrlsl at the 



end of that century; these two are the only geo- 
graphers to describe the rivers of Gudjarat. Most 
of these authors are especially interested in the ports 
of Gudjarat, Bharoc, Khambayat and Sindan, in the 
capital Anahilwada (Annual, Nahlwara, Nahrwala, 
etc.), and in its trade and natural resources (gold, 
silver, pearls; horses and camels; teak, bamboos, 
aloewood, betelnut); they describe local Hindu and 
Djayn practices in some detail, and are impressed by 
the religious toleration shown in the region. 

A most significant event in this period was the 
arrival of the Zoroastrian fugitives from Iran. The 
'traditional' date for their first landing, now 
challenged by many scholars, is 716 A.D.; but the 
exodus was spread over many generations, and 
refugees were still arriving at the Gudjarat ports in 
the two succeeding centuries. They later became 
generally known in India as the Parsis, and while 
they are now to be found all over the Indian sub- 
continent their concentration has always been 
highest in Gudjarat and the Maratha country to its 
south, specially Bombay. For a general account of 
the Zoroastrians. see maqjus; for this Indian branch 
see parsI, in addition to later references in this 

(b) Gudjarat under the Dihll sultanate. 
Gudjarat fell to the Muslims in one decisive battle 
when Karna, the last Vaghela ruler, was defeated in 
697/1298 (some textual confusion; cf. Hodivala, 
Studies in Indo-Muslim history, i, Bombay 1939, 
248-9) by the aimies of the Dihll sultan 'Ala' al-DIn 
KhaldjI under the generals Ulugh Khan and Nusrat 
Khan; Anahilwada was sacked, the rebuilt Somnath 
temple was despoiled, and local garrisons were 
established. Nusrat Khan moved on to the sack of 
Khambayat, where in addition to enormous booty 
he secured the slave Kafur, nicknamed Hazardinari 
"bought for a thousand dinars" [see kafur; dihlI 
sultanate]. Asawal, Dholka, Rander, Mahuwa, Diw 
and Djunagafh were also overrun, and the invaders 
extended even to Kacch. Kama's queen KawladevI 
was sent to 'Ala' al-Din, but Karna escaped with his 
daughter the celebrated Devaldevi to Devagiri [see 

ELURA, KHIDR KHAN]. 

In 700/1300 'Ala' al-Din appointed his brother-in- 
law Malik Sandjar, entitled Alp Khan, as ndzim of 
Gudjarat ; the old Hindu capital Anahilwada became 
the seat of the provincial governor, but was now more 
commonly known as Patan. Alp Khan administered 
the province capably for sixteen years until he was 
recalled to Dihli and murdered at the instigation of 
the now powerful Kafur. On his departure distur- 
bances broke out in Gudjarat; Kamal al-DIn Gurg, 
the victor of Djalor [q.v.], sent to restore order, was 
taken prisoner and put to death, and sedition spread. 
The lawlessness increased on the death of 'Ala' al- 
DIn. His successor Mubarak Shah appointed the 
general 'Ayn al-Mulk to suppress the revolt, and 
sent his father-in-law Malik Dinar, entitled Zafar 
Khan, as ndzim. The latter, a competent admini- 
strator, restored order throughout the province, but 
was recalled and executed in 719/1319 when Husam 
al-DIn, the half-brother of the royal favourite 
Khusraw Khan, was appointed in his place. Husam 
rebelled against the Dihll authority and was replaced 
by Wahid al-DIn KurayshI, under whom Gudjarat 
remained quiet. 

Some twenty years later bands of Afghan and New 
Muslim adventurers, under disaffected amirdn-i 
soda, constituted a menace to the country; the 
massacre of amirdn-i soda at Dhar [q.v.] led to a 
general rising of the amirdn-i gada of Gudjarat in 



745/1344, who seized the state revenues as they were 
being taken to Dihli. Accordingly, in Ramadan of 
that year/February 1345, the sultan Muhammad b. 
Tughluk [q.v.] set out in person to bring the province 
to order. This he did with characteristic savagery, 
executing disaffected and loyal amirs indiscrimin - 
ately. He made his headquarters in Bharoc, and, 
discovering that its revenues and those of Kham- 
bayat and other towns were several years in arrears, 
appointed agents who exacted an extortionate rate 
from the people. Many rebel amirdn-i soda fled to 
Dawlatabad [q.v.]; on being summoned back to 
Bharoc they suspected Muhammad's treacherous 
intentions, killed the Dawlatabad officials, pro- 
claimed Isma'il Mukh as their king, and took control 
of much of the Maratha country. The sultan therefore 
left Bharoc to quell the rebellion, and during his 
absence another revolt broke out in Gudjarat under 
the leadership of a former slave named Taghi, who 
was supported by many amirs, some Hindu chief- 
tains, and a large proportion of the population. 
Muhammad b. Tughluk returned to suppress the 
main revolt, and spent much time and effort in 
pursuit of the brilliant Taghi; during Muhammad's 
preoccupation with Gudjarat affairs the rebel king 
Ismail Mukh abdicated in favour of another amir-i 
sada, Hasan entitled ?afar Khan, who was shortly 
afterwards (748/1347) proclaimed as 'Ala' al-Din 
Hasan Bahman Shah [see bahmanis]. Taghi with- 
drew to Sorath and thence to Thaffha, but through 
Muhammad b. Tughluk's energetic pursuit of him 
the whole of Gudjarat was subdued as never before. 
The sultan pursued Taghi to f hattM where he had 
taken refuge with the Djam, but died in camp there 
in 752/1351, his nephew Firiiz Shah Tughluk 
travelling to the camp for his enthronement. Flruz 
made a difficult retreat to Dihli, and local events in 
Gudjarat did not concern the historians until some 
fifteen years later when he marched against the Diam 
in 767/1366 (for the date see Hodivala, op. cit., 322); 
the campaign was disastrous and he lost most of his 
army in the Ran of Kaddh. On finally gaining 
Gudjarat he dismissed the governor for failing to 
send him supplies and guides, and spent much time 
there in recruiting a new army, appointing as 
governor Zafar Khan the son-in-law of Fakhr al-DIn 
Mubarak [q.v.]. This efficient ndzim was supplanted 
in 778/1376 by one Shams al-DIn DamghanI, who 
had promised a greatly increased revenue from the 
province; in spite of severe extortion DamghanI was 
unable to fulfil his promise, and the oppiessed popu- 
lation rose against him. The sultan then appointed 
Malik Mufarrah Sultan! entitled Farhat al-Mulk, 
who remained governor for fifteen years. 

The imperial control of the provinces slackened 
during the struggles for the Tughluk succession, and 
by early 793/1391 Farhat al-Mulk was known to be 
supporting Hindu practices to gain the confidence 
of the Radjputs before attempting to establish his 
independence; the 'ulamd' protested to Dihli, and 
Muhammad II Tughluk sent Zafar Khan the son of 
Wadjlh al-Mulk as governor, with the title of 
Muzaffar Khan. Farhat al-Mulk defied the new 
governor, and the armies of both met in the decisive 
battle of Kamboi, 30 km. west of Patan, on 7 Safar 
794/4 January 1392, when Farhat al-Mulk was 
killed. Muzaffar Khan proceeded to Patan and 
diligently began restoring order and prosperity in the 
province, and quashed all tendencies to the 
toleration of Hindu idolatry. He several times 
besieged the fortress of the Radja of Idar [q.v.] for 
withholding tribute, and destroyed the temple of 



Somnath in 797/1395 and 804/1402; on the latter 
occasion he followed the Somnath Hindus to DIw 
where he established Islam. 

When Muzaffar Khan was appointed governor his 
son Tatar Khan had been retained in Dihli by 
Muhammad II Tughluk as his wazlr. On the death of 
the sultan, Tatar Khan was prominent in the in- 
trigues for power, and in 800/1398 he came to Gudja- 
rat to raise an army in order to march on Dihli. The 
invasion of Timvir prevented this immediately, and 
indeed Mahmud Shah, the last Tughluk, took refuge 
for a time at Patan with Muzaffar Khan. In 805/1403 
Tatar Khan endeavoured to persuade his father to 
march on Dihli, but the latter, now aged over 60, 
refused and attempted to dissuade his son. Tatar 
Khan then imprisoned his father, proclaimed himself 
sultan of Gudjarat in Rabi c II 806/November 1403 
with the title of Muhammad Shah, and marched on 
Dihli; but Muzaffar Khan's brother Shams Khan 
caused Tatar Khan to be poisoned and released his 
brother from prison. Muzaffar returned to Patan 
and carried on the administration for several years 
before finally assuming the royal title. 

(c) The sultanate of Gudjarat. Muzaffar 
Khan was persuaded by the nobles to assume the 
insignia of royalty in 810/1407, as the Tughluk 
dynasty was virtually extinguished, and no coin had 
been struck by the Dihli sultan for six years; he thus 
acceded as Muzaffar Shah. Shortly after his accession 
he invaded Malwa [q.v.] and imprisoned sultan 
Hushang at Dhar on suspicion of his having murdered 
his father Dilawar Khan [q.v.] ; however, he restored 
him soon afterwards. Muzaffar died in 813/1410 
and was succeeded by his grandson Ahmad the son 
of Tatar Khan — not without the suspicion of having 
been poisoned by him. 

The reign of Ahmad I, which did much to con- 
solidate the new sultanate, lasted 33 years, much of 
which was occupied in warfare against neighbouring 
RadjpGt princes and the contiguous Muslim rulers of 
Malwa, Khandesh [q.v.] and the Deccan: in 817/1414-5 
against Djunagafh, compelling the payment of 
tribute ; and from this time the power of the sultanate 
was extended into the central regions of Sorath 
beyond the coastal towns already in its control; in 
819/1416 a confederacy of Radjputs in the north- 
west, with the partial support of Hushang of Malwa, 
was defeated, and two years later Ahmad marched 
against Campaner and levied tribute; in 820/1417 
the army of Naslr Khan of Khandesh, supported by 
the Malwa army, invaded the eastern border of 
Gudjarat and invested the fort of Sultanpur, but was 
repulsed by Ahmad Shah who followed up and 
besieged Nasir Khan in his fort of Asirgafh; Naslr 
swore fealty to Ahmad Shah and his claim to 
Khandesh was in turn recognized by Ahmad. The 
instigator of the Khandesh attack having been found 
to be Hushang of Malwa, Ahmad next attacked that 
kingdom in 822/1419 and 823/1420, effecting little 
but the plunder of outlying districts; in 825/1422, 
during Hushang's absence from Malwa on his 
notorious expedition to Ufisa [q.v.], Ahmad again 
attacked, besieging the capital Mandu [q.v.] for some 
months without effect; the Gudjarat and Malwa 
armies confronted each other later that year in 
Sarangpur without a major engagement, and Ahmad 
returned to Ahmadabad and undertook no further 
military action for two years. 

From 829-31/1425-8 there were continued hostili- 
ties against Pundja the ruler of Idar. Ahmad built 
the walled city of Ahmadnagar (renamed Himat- 
nagar in the 20th century) some 30 km. from Idar 



iRAT 1125 

as a base of operations. In 831/1428 Pundja was 
killed by a fall and his son sought peace and promised 
tribute ; nevertheless he and his successors maintained 
intermittent warfare with the Gudjarat sultanate for 
generations thereafter. In 832/1429 a Hindu prince 
of the house of Djalawar (some doubt; his name 
does not occur in the dynastic lists), objecting to 
Ahmad's discriminatory measures against the 
Hindus, attacked Nandurbar with the help of a 
Bahmani army, later reinforced by one from 
Khandesh also; the attackers were utterly defeated by 
Ahmad's superior skill. Two years later the Bahmani 
ruler Ahmad Shah Wall sent an army to capture the 
island of Mahim (now a part of Bombay), which was 
held under general Gudjarat suzerainty by a semi- 
independent Muslim prince; but the generals of 
the Gudjarat force first invested Thana, the most 
important town of the northern Konkan coast and 
in Bahmani territory, by land and sea, and after its 
capitulation drove the invader from Mahim. 

In 836/1432-3 Ahmad in his last major campaign 
against his Hindu neighbours overcame the ruler of 
Pawagafh, sacked Nandod, and forced tribute from 
the rulers of the distant Dungarpur, Koiah and 
Bundi; although Ahmad had apparently been 
defeated on a previous occasion (see Epigraphia 
Indica, ii, 417; ibid., xxiii, 239. The defeat is not 
recorded by the Muslim historians). 

Ahmad died in Rabi c II 846/August 1442 after a 
reign devoted to consolidating Islam in his dominions 
by relentless iconoclasm and oppression of the 
Hindus. His justice was strict but impartial, and 
he was known for his piety and as a disciple of the 
great religious teachers Shaykh Ahmad Khattu of 
Sarkhedj and Burhan al-Din Kutb al- c Alam of 
Batwa. In 813/1411 he had founded his capital city 
of Ahmadabad on the left bank of the SabarmatI, 
with a citadel and spacious streets (Ahmad Radi, 
Haft ikttm, Bibl. Ind., 86-7), and struck coin there 
and at Ahmadnagar. His soldiers were paid half in 
coin from the imperial treasury and half by grants of 
land (djdgir) ; for the wanta system of land revenue 
applicable to Hindus, originating in his reign, see 

Ahmad's eldest son succeeded him with the title 
Muhammad Shah, a mild and generous ruler. He 
followed his father's policy in a further attack on 
Idar in 850/1446, the ruler buying peace by giving 
Muhammad his daughter in marriage, and in 853/ 
1449 against Campaner, from which, however, he 
withdrew after the rddja had invoked the aid of 
Mahmud I of Malwa; on the return journey he fell 
ill and died at the capital in Muharram 855/February 
145 1. His eldest son jDjalal Khan succeeded him with 
the title Kutb al-Din Ahmad Shah II and reigned for 
less than nine years. He won an early victory in the 
battle of Kapadwandj against a Malwa invading 
force; and in 861/1457 formed a Muslim alliance with 
Mahmud I of Malwa against the Hindu rand of 
Citawr, who had earlier defeated his forces (Sanskrit 
inscription on kirtistambha of Citawr; the defeat is 
not recorded by the Muslim historians). Otherwise 
his reign was occupied in building, and in attempts 
to secure the person of his young half-brother Fath 
Khan who was under the protection of the Batwa 
shaykh Shah 'Alam. Kutb al-Din Ahmad died 
suddenly in Radjab 862/May 1458, and is said to 
have been poisoned by his wife in order that her 
father, Shams Khan of Nagawr, might succeed to 
the Gudjarat throne. The nobles first raised to the 
throne Dawud Khan, a younger son of Ahmad I, but 
he was deposed after a reign of seven days of moronic 



incompetence, and Fath Khan, then thirteen years 
old, succeeded as Mahmud Shah. Within months he 
showed the courage and judgement that were to 
characterize the 54 years of his reign when he 
thwarted a conspiracy to remove him; and he was 
early involved in clashes with Malwa when he 
intervened to prevent a Malwa attempt on the 
dominions of the infant BahmanI king Nizam 
Shah. 

In 865/1461 Mahmud supported c Uthman Khan 
of Djalor in his struggle for the succession there, 
secured the extension of his domains — important for 
Gudjarat as Islam was thereby securely established 
in south Radjputana — and conferred on him the 
title of Zubdat al-Mulk. The extension of Islam in 
the south of the Gudjarat dominion was furthered in 
869/1465 when an army was sent to take the hill 
forts of Bahrot and Parnera and the port of Daman 
from the hands of their Hindu rddids; and at this 
time the old Pars! settlement of Sandjan was 
destroyed. The years 871-4/1467-70 saw Mahmud 
gradually overcoming the strong Radjput power at 
Djunagafh and its citadel-fort of Girnar. The 
defeated radio, embraced Islam, and Mahmud 
remained some time at Djunagafh, improving its 
beauty and its" defences to make it a centre from 
which Islam could be propagated throughout the 
Sorath peninsula. He accordingly renamed it Musta- 
fabad and settled sayyids and other divines there, 
and set it up as a mint town and as the headquarters 
of the thdndddr or local administrator. To combat 
the laxity of the administration reported from 
Ahmadabad while the sultan was on his Sorath 
campaign he appointed one Djamal al-Din as 
fawdjddr, with the title of Muhafiz Khan. From his 
new headquarters of Mustafabad Mahmud made 
expeditions in 875/1472 into Sindh and Kacfih, 
subduing the predatory tribes and sending their 
leaders to Mustafabad for instruction in Islam; on 
his return he marched against the sacred Hindu 
town and temple of Dwarka [q.v.~\ where pirates had 
been harassing Muslim pilgrims, and sacked the 
town and the neighbouring island of Bet (see J. 
Burton- Page, '"-Aziz" and the sack of Dwarka . . ., 
in BSOAS, xx (1957), 145-57). He returned to 
Ahmadabad in 878/1473 and undertook no major 
military operations for the next nine years; in this 
time he built the new city of Mahmudabad 30 km. 
south-east of Ahmadabad. 

In Ramadan 885/November 1480, when Mahmud 
was making his yearly visit to Mustafabad, an 
attempt to dethrone him and place his eldest son 
Ahmad on the throne was frustrated by the wazir 
and Muhafiz Khan; Ahmad seems to have been 
involved in the conspiracy, as he was passed over for 
the succession and Mahmud's youngest son Khalil 
became heir-apparent. In Shawwal 887/December 
1482 Mahmud started his second great war against 
the Hindu princes, this time against the powerful 
radii of Campaner and his stronghold of Pawagafh, 
which fell after an investment of twenty months; for 
further details of this interesting siege see 51SAR. The 
rddjd publicly rejected Islam and was executed, but 
a son was brought up in the family of an Ahmadabad 
noble and later attained distinction. Mahmud was 
captivated by the beauty and climate of Campaner, 
which he fortified and laid out as a new capital with 
the name Muhammadabad ; a mint was established 
(Shahr-i mukarram). Campaner remained the poli- 
tical capital, and the favourite residence of Mahmud, 
until the end of his reign. 

In the years 896-9/1491-4 the activities of Bahadur 



Gilani, a renegade from the BahmanI court who 
committed repeated acts of piracy from Dabhol in 
the south Konkan coast and had even ravaged 
KhambSyat and Mahlm, caused Mahmud to attack 
him by sea and call for BahmanI cooperation by 
land ; eventually Gilani was killed and full reparation 
was made to Gudjarat. 

In the early ioth/i6th century Gudjarat was one 
of the powers to intervene in the dynastic rivalries 
which arose in Khandesh on the death of c Adil 
Khan II, finally resolved in 914/1509 with the 
acceptance of the Gudjarat candidate, a kinsman 
of Mahmud's, as <Adil Khan III (for a detailed 
account see farukids). 

Since the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut in 
1498 the Portuguese had extended their maritime 
influence over much of the Indian ocean and the 
Red Sea, to the great detriment of the lucrative 
trade which passed through the Gudjarat ports, 
especially Khambayat, and depriving Egypt of the 
revenues of much of her Eastern trade. Their first 
opposition in these regions came from the joint 
force of the fleet despatched by the Egyptian 
Mamlfik sultan Kansawh al-Ghawri, under the 
command of Amir Husayn, and that of Gudjarat 
commanded by Malik Ayaz the governor of Djuna- 
gafh, who won the first victory in Ramadan 913/ 
January 1508 when Dom Lorenzo, son of Francisco 
d'Almeida the Portuguese viceroy, was killed in a 
battle off Cawl; but the combined Muslim fleets were 
defeated by d'Almeida in a battle outside DIw 
harbour in Shawwal 914/February 1509 (E. Denison 
Ross, The Portuguese in India and Arabia between 
1507-1517, in JRAS, 1921, 545-62). Mahmud then 
attempted to establish diplomatic relations with the 
Portuguese (see W. de G. Birch (ed.), The commen- 
taries of the great Afonso Dalboquerque, Hakluyt 
Socy., especially ii, 210 ff.); but after Albuquerque's 
capture and orgiastic sack and massacre of Sindabur 
(Goa), the port of the c Adil Shahi sultanate of 
Bidjapur, Mahmud realized the impracticability of 
maintaining any alliance with such an intransigent 
enemy of Islam and, to avoid provocation, broke the 
Egyptian alliance and liberated his Portuguese 
prisoners. 

Mahmud died at Ahmadabad on 2 Ramadan 917/ 
23 November 15 n and was buried at Sarkhedj. In 
his reign the prosperity of the Gudjarat reached 
perhaps its greatest height; certainly it knew its 
greatest internal security in the towns and in the 
ports. The army was efficient and well equipped, and 
Mahmud was solicitous for the welfare of his troops, 
including the families of those killed in battle, who 
were provided for by continuance to them of the 
assets of the late soldier's dj_dgir, and consoled the 
next-of-kin of the dead in person after his battles. 
He was a great builder, and also laid out many 
gardens and orchards, and is credited with the in- 
troduction of many kinds of fruit trees into Gudjarat. 
He was a tall man with a prodigious appetite and a 
moustache which he could tie behind his head, and 
was said to have been inoculated against poison by 
consuming it in gradually increasing doses "so that 
if a fly settled on his hand it fell dead". His sobriquet 
of "Begfa" has given rise to some speculation as to 
its true meaning: one etymology seeks to derive it 
from the "two forts (gar*)" of Campaner and 
Djunagafh which he captured; but the word is not 
written in Gudjaratl with fh; another derives it from 
Gudjarati vegafo, a bullock with sweeping horns, in 
allusion to his moustaches; Dr. P. B. Pandit (personal 
communication) has suggested that it is the word 



Beg with the Gudjaratl diminutive suffix fa, -id, 
"the little Beg"; the form Baykara, used in the 
article parOkids, seems to be a false Mughalization. 
Valuable accounts of Mahmud and Gudjarat in his 
reign are given in the works of the Portuguese 
traveller Duarte Barbosa and the Italian Varthema. 

Khalll Khan succeeded his father as Muzaffar 
Shah II, a mild and cultured ruler whose clemency 
bordered on weakness. Eaily in his reign he was 
involved in the affairs of the neighbouring state of 
Malwa: in 916/1510 Mahmud II Khaldji had usurped 
the Malwa throne from his elder brother Sahib Khan, 
who had been proclaimed as Muhammad II by the 
rebel wazir and asked for Mu?affar's assistance in 
coming to his throne. His claim was favourably 
reported on by the Gudjarat agents in Malwa, and 
Muzaffar had agreed to attack Malwa in his support 
after the rains. Muzaffar was at the time entertaining 
an ambassador from Shah Isma'Il I of Persia, whose 
mission was apparently to induce Gudjarat to accept 
the Shi'a faith, and who had become acquainted with 
Sahib Khan; one evening after a dinner party the 
ambassador in a moment of pederastic enthusiasm 
assaulted Sahib Khan, who fled in shame first to 
Khandesh and then to Berar; the ambassador was 
sent back to Persia after a scarcely cordial reception. 
Sahib Khan's claim was quietly forgotten, and 
shortly afterwards Muzaffar was called on to inter- 
vene on behalf of Mahmud II who found himself 
no more than a puppet in the hands of his minister 
MedinI Ral and his Radjput army. Muzaffar accord- 
ingly marched on the capital Mandu with a strong 
Gudjarat force which was joined by the Khandesh 
army, hearing of which MedinI RSI sought help from 
the powerful Maharana Sangram of Citawr; the fort 
was taken by escalade in Safar 924/February 1518, 
the Radjput garrison massacred, and Mahmud 
restored to his throne. The text of a letter from 
Muzaffar to the Ottoman Sultan Sellm I, congratu- 
lating the latter on his victory ovet Persia and 
announcing the capture 01 Mandu, is given by 
Feridun {Munsha'dt 1 , i, 395-7). 

Mu? affar had been delayed in his actions in Malwa 
by several skirmishes in and around Idar, where a 
usurper had been established on the throne of this 
feudatory Hindu state by Sangram of Citawr; this 
interference was ill received in Gudjarat, and armies 
were sent to restore the rightful heir; the usurper 
continued, however, to harass the northern districts 
of Gudjarat until Muzaffar's return from Malwa. 
Sangram, incensed by insults to his name offered by 
the Gudjarat commander at Idar, raided Idar, 
Ahmadnagar and other towns in 925/1519; Muzaffar 
retaliated with a large force early in 927/1521, 
and compelled the Rana to pay tribute and 
send a son to the Gudjarat court as a hostage. 

In Muzaffar IPs reign there was considerable 
diplomatic intercourse with the Portuguese at Goa, 
friendly at first. A mission sent to Gudjarat in 918/ 
1512-3 sought permission to build a fort at Diw, 
which the sultan, on the advice of Malik Ayaz [q.v.], 
governor of Djunagarh and Diw, did not grant. The 
Portuguese cause was pressed by one Malik GopI at 
the Gudjarat court, but Malik Ayaz's wiser counsels 
prevailed and the defences of Diw were strengthened. 
Two attempts by the Portuguese to take Diw by 
force, in 926/1520 and 927/1521, were thwarted, and 
an attempt to take Muzaffarabad, 30 km. east of Diw, 
and establish a fort there, was foiled when some 
Muslim captives blew up a munitions ship in which 
they were travelling. 

Muzaffar II died in Djumada II 932/April 1526. 



His eldest son Sikandar succeeded him but was 
murdered after six weeks and an infant son of Muzaf- 
far II was placed on the throne as Mahmud II; but 
the loyal nobles sent for Bahadur, the second son of 
Mufaffar II, who was formally installed as sultan in 
the Ramadan/July following, the infant Mahmud II 
and other princes of the royal blood being quietly 
disposed of, except for his younger brother Cand 
Khan who had taken ;efuge with Mahmud II of 
Malwa. 

The principal events of Bahadur's reign — the 
attack on the Nizam Shahls of Ahmadnagar in 935/ 
1528 to settle a territorial dispute with Khandesh. 
his conquest of Malwa in 937/1531, the capture of the 
Radjput strongholds Udjdjayn, Bhllsa and Raisin in 
938/1532-3 and Citawr in 941/1535. the defeat of the 
Poituguese at Diw in 937/1531 but the loss to them 
of Bassein in 941/1534 and the grant of permission 
to build a fort at Diw in 942/1535, the long war with 
the Mughal Humayun from 941/1534 in which 
Bahadur lost Malwa and was dispossessed of most of 
his dominions until Humayun returned to face the 
threat of Sher Khan in 942/1536, and his death 
through Portuguese treachery — have been discussed 
above in the article bahadur shah gudjarat!: see 
also humayun, malwa, mughals; and add to the 
Bibliography of bahadur shah gudjaratI: Philip 
Baldaeus, Description of the East India coasts ... in 
Churchill's Collection of voyages and travels, London 
1732, "i, 530 ff. 

Bahadur's murder by the Portuguese took place 
at sea outside Diw in Ramadan 943/February 1537, 
and with his death the greatness of the Gudjarat 
sultanate ended. The Portuguese seized Diw with 
the palace and treasury, and it thenceforth passed 
out of Muslim hands. Bahadur left no heir, and in 
the first confusion after his death Muhammad Zaman 
Mirza, Humayun's brother-in-law whose refuge with 
Bahadur had provoked the war with the Mughals, 
aspired to the throne, entered into a treaty with the 
Portuguese whereby he granted them MangroJ and 
Daman and a strip of coastal land in exchange for 
their support, and the khutba was read in his name in 
the mosque at Diw; but the nobles of Bahadur's 
court sent an army against him, and he was defeated 
and fled to Dihll. Bahadur had in his lifetime indi- 
cated that his sister's son Miran Muhammad Shah, 
who since 926/1520 had been the ruler ot Khandesh, 
should succeed him, and the nobles sent for him; but 
within weeks he died of grief for the uncle to whom 
he had been a constant and loyal companion for the 
previous ten years, and the eleven years old Mahmud 
Khan, son of Bahadur's renegade brother Latif 
Khan, was then enthroned as Mahmud Shah III. 

Mahmud and his two successors were all minors, 
and the history of the sultanate after 943/^537 is 
mostly one of puppet monarchies and factious and 
suspicious nobles plotting for power against each 
other and against the best interests of the state. In 
944/1538 the Ottoman sultan Suleyman I, appreh- 
ensive at the growing Portuguese threat because of 
Bahadur's death, sent a fleet from Suez to attack 
them at Diw; the Gudjarat land forces, fearing that 
the presence of the Turks at Diw would be no more 
comfortable than that of the Portuguese, failed to 
give full cooperation, and on receipt of a fabricated 
letter announcing that the Portuguese main fleet 
was arriving from Goa, the Ottoman fleet raised the 
siege and sailed away; the Gudjarat generals nego- 
tiated a peace treaty with the Portuguese, and built 
a wall separating the fort from the town of Diw (see 
further raiDiM suleyman pasha). 



In 950/1543 Mahmud III escaped from his custody 
at the hands of the powerful regent Darya Khan and 
fled to the protection of c Alam Khan Lodi the fief- 
holder of Dhanduka 100 km. south-west of Ahmad- 
abad; in the following battle Darya Khan was 
defeated and fled to Mandii, but Mahmud found 
that he had exchanged one master for another, for 
c Alam Khan placed him under guard in the citadel 
of Ahmadabad and assumed direction of the kingdom. 
Two years later Mahmud persuaded a disaffected 
noble to attack c Alam Khan, and assumed personal 
rule. He turned his attention first to the Portuguese, 
established a fort at Surat [q.v.], and in 953/1546 
attacked DIw with a large force; after a siege of 
eight months, in which the brilliant Gudjaratl com- 
mander Kh w adja Safar was killed, the Portuguese 
received reinforcements from Goa, and on 17 
Ramadan/11 November the governor Joao de 
Castro "conquered like a Christian and triumphed 
like a heathen": all Muslim prisoners and the in- 
habitants of the city were mercilessly butchered. A 
year later the Portuguese sacked and burnt Bharoc 
and massacred the inhabitants. 

In 953/1546 Mahmud removed his residence to 
Mahmudabad where he laid out his famous deer- 
park. In 955/1548 he sent for Asaf Khan from Mecca 
where he had gone with the late sultan Bahadur's 
treasures and fiaram; he was made absolute regent, 
and raised for the sultan a personal bodyguard of 
12,000 foreign mercenaries. In Rabl c I 962/February 
1554 Mahmud was murdered in his palace by a 
resentful attendant, and with him ten of the chief 
nobles including Asaf Khan. His assassin attempted 
to accede to the throne but was defeated in the first 
attack of the remaining nobles. Mahmud III lett no 
heir, and the nobles sought out a boy called RadI 
al-Mulk, a great-great-grandson of Ahmad I, whom 
they installed as Ahmad Shah III; the kingdom was 
virtually divided among the nobles, and the reign is 
a dreary chronicle of civil war, one I'timad Khan, a 
converted Hindu, being prominent as regent. 
Almost the only event of external interest is the 
cession of the port of Daman to the Portuguese on 
condition that they drove out the HabshI governor 
who neither paid taxes nor acknowledged the central 
government; the Portuguese prepared to attack 
Daman in Rabl< II 966/February 1559, but the 
HabshI garrison abandoned the fort without a battle. 
Several members of the HabshI community rose to 
prominence at about this time and further weakened 
the power of the government. In 968/1561 Ahmad 
III, who was beginning to resent his confinement, 
was murdered on I'timad Khan's orders. 

Again the problem of finding an heir presented 
itself. I'timad Khan produced a child of unknown 
parentage as the child of Mahmud III by a con- 
cubine, who was duly proclaimed sultan as Muzaffar 
III. The kingdom continued to be split up amongst the 
various nobles, who were now joined in their 
depredations by adventurers from the north of 
India. Prominent among these a little later were the 
so-called MIrzas, descendants of Timur and hence 
kinsmen of the Mughal emperor Akbar. Eventually 
in desperation IHimad Khan invited Akbar to 
invade Gudjarat. 

Akbar left Fathpur Sikri in Safar 980/July 1572 
and arrived at Paian early in Radjab/November of 
the same year, receiving the submission of the 
Gudjarat nobles in what was more of a triumphal 
procession than a campaign at Patan and Ahmad- 
abad; he proceeded to Khambayat, when there was 
some attempt at rebellion in Ahmadabad on the 



part of some nobles who were having second thoughts 
but who were soon brought to submission. As he 
proceeded further south, however, he encountered 
some resistance: his kinsmen the MIrzas [q.v.] had 
made themselves masters of Surat, Bafoda, Bharod 
and Campaner, and together with the rebellious 
Habshls formed a considerable opposition; they 
were defeated by the imperial forces at the battle of 
Sarnal on 17 Sha'ban 980/23 December 1572, and 
after the long siege of Siirat which ended on 23 
Shawwal 980/26 February 1573. Akbar returned to 
Fathpur Sikri in Dhu '1-Hidjdja 980/April 1573, and 
Gudjarat became a suba of the Mughal empire of 
sixteen sarkdrs — there having been twenty-five 
sarkdrs in the dominions of the Gudjarat sultanate 
at its greatest extent. Within three months of 
Akbar's departure the MIrzas again revolted and 
with the rebel Habshls besieged the Mughal governor 
in Ahmadabad; Akbar returned to Gudjarat in nine 
days by forced marches and finally suppressed the 
MIrzas' revolt in the battle of Ahmadabad in 
Djumada I 981/September 1573. A minor outbreak 
of disturbances under one of the MIrzas in 985/1577 
was put down by the Mughal expeditionary force 
from Khandesh. 

The last Gudjarat sultan, Muzaffar III, had been 
taken prisoner by Akbar's forces on his first invasion. 
In 986/1578 he escaped and made his way to Gudjarat 
and rose in rebellion in 991/1583, actually assuming 
the sultanate for a period of about six months; he 
evaded capture by the Mughal forces, and continued 
to offer resistance as a fugitive for the next ten 
years until his suicide after capture in 1001/1593 (for 
the final pursuit and capture of Muzaffar see Burton- 
Page, op. cit., 151 ff.). 

For the largely peaceful history of Gudjarat under 
the Mughals see mughal. The importance of the 
province to the Mughals was laigely commercial. 
The region was famous for its silk weaving and, 
especially at Ahmadabad and Surat, the production 
of velvets (although sericulture never seems to have 
been practised in the region; the silk was imported 
from Bengal and from China); fine cotton cloth 
(bafta) was produced at the coastal towns, Bharoc in 
particular producing fine bleached calico; Sarkhedj 
was the principal centre for indigo production in the 
Mughal empire; saltpetre was refined at Ahmadabad 
and Siirat; and salt was prepared by evaporation 
trom many districts bordering on the Ran of Kac6h. 
The conquest of Gudjarat also gave ports to the 
Mughal empire, where apart from the commercial 
traffic there was a busy pilgrim traffic to the Holy 
Cities. The trade suffered a great loss in the Satyasio 
Kal, the "famine of eighty-seven" (the Vikram year 
1687, 1040-1/1630-1), and took at least ten years to 
recover; an interesting account of Mughal famine 
relief is given by c Abd al-Hamld, Bddsiaft-ndwfl (text, 
Engl, trans., and comment in P. Saran, Provincial 
government of the Mughals, Allahabad 1941, 432-3). 

The peace and prosperity of Gudjarat under 
Mughal rule gave way to disorder after the death of 
Awrangzib at the beginning of the I2th/i8th century. 
Previously there had been sporadic raids on Gudjarat 
territory, especially Surat in 1074/1664 and 1081/1670, 
by the Maratha chieftain ShivadjI; now the Gaikwaf 
family rose to prominence in Gudjarat affairs and 
wielded more power than the Mughal siibaddr; by 
1 137/1725 they had started a reign of teiror. Villages 
and towns were plundered, and in the next ten years 
the Marathas had overrun almost all the province; 
eventually, with the fall of Ahmadabad in 1171/1758, 
Mughal rule was extinguished. For the history of the 






GUDJARAT — GUDJRANWALA 



Maraiha wars and their rule of Gudjarat see 
marAthAs. Some tracts of the province were not, 
however, under the Maraiha rule of the Gaikwaf or 
the Peshwa, but remained under the authority of 
independent Muslim nobles, the NawwSbs of 
Bharoc, Khambayat, Radhanpur, and Surat [qq.v.] 
among others, in addition to the large district of 
Djunagafh [q.v.]. After the defeat of the Maraihas in 
the third battle of Panipatfg.u.] an imperial farmdn was 
sent to Mu'min Khan the Nawwab of Khambayat in 
1174/1761 for the recovery of Gudjarat. Mu'min 
Khan prepared for battle but in the absence of 
imperial support was unable to take effective action, 
and Maraiha rule continued until Gudjarat was ceded 
to the British by the Gaikwaf in 18 17. 

For the ethnology of Gudjarat see hind, Ethnology. 
For religious developments see djayn, parsI; for 
Islamic sects see bohoras, khodjas, imAm shah, 
isma'Iliyya, mu'min, sAtpanthi. 

For the coinage of Gudjarat see sikka. For the 
monuments, see hind, also ahmadAbAd, bharSc, 
cAmpAner, djunagarh, khambAyat, mahmudAbAd, 

Bibliography: Sources for Gudjarat history 
under the Dihll sultanate have been given in the 
bibliography to dihl! sultanate; especially 
important for Gudjarat are Diya 3 al-DIn Barani, 
Ta'rikh-i Firilz Shdhi; c IsamI, Futuh al-saldfin; 
Amir Khusraw, Khazcfin al-fuluh; c Abd al- 
Karim Hamdani, TaMkh-i Mahmud Shdhi; 'All b. 
Mahmud al-Mirmani, Ma'dthir-i Mahmud Shdhi, 
Bodl. Elliot 237- 

For the Gudjarat sultanate: there is no purely 
local early work, but many lost histories are 
quoted in Shavkh Sikandar b. Muljammad 
Mandjhu, Mir>dt-i Sikandari, a history from the 
Muslim conquest to 1020/1611, ed. S. C. Misra and 
M. L. Rahman, Baroda i960, Eng. trans., in- 
complete and inaccurate, E. C. Bayley, as Local 
Muhammadan dynasties: History of Gujarat, 
London 1886; c Abd Allah Muhammad b. 'Umar 
al-Makki, known as HadjdjI al-Dabir, Zafar al- 
wdlih bi Muzaffar wa-dlih, ed. E. Denison Ross as 
An Arabic history of Gujarat, 3 vols, London 
1921-8; Abu Turab Wall, Ta'rikh-i Gudjarat, ed. 
E. Denison Ross, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1909; 
Muhammad Kasim Firishta, Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi; 
'All b. 'Aziz Allah Tabataba, Buthdn-i md>dthir; 
Nizam al-DIn Ahmad, Jabakdt-i Akbari, ed. Bibl. 
Ind. Calcutta 1927-35, Eng. tr. Bibl. Ind. 1913-40; 
especially for the Mughal conquest and subsequent 
Mughal administration: Abu '1-Fadl 'AllamI, 
Akbar-ndma, Bibl. Ind. Calcutta 1873-87; idem, 
AHn-i Akbari, Bibl. Ind. 1867-77, Eng. tr. Bibl. 
Ind. 1894-1949. The foremost authority for the 
Mughal period is C A1I Muhammad Khan, Mir'dt-i 
Ahmadl, 2 vols., with a very valuable khdtima 
which is virtually a statistical gazetteer of Gudjarat 
in the ioth/i6th and uth/i7th centuries, ed. 
S. Nawab Ali, Baroda 1926-30; Eng. tr. as The 
political and statistical history of Gujarat, by 
J. Bird, London 1835; Eng. tr. of khdtima only, 
by Nawab AH and C. N. Seddon, Baroda 1928. 

European travellers: especially M. L. Dames 
(ed. and tr.), The book of Duarte Barbosa, Hakluyt 
Society 191 8; The travels of Pietro delta Valle in 
India 1623-6, Hakluyt Society 1891; J. Albert de 
Mandelslo, Voyages . . . into the East Indies, Eng. 
tr. J. Davies, London 1662; The travels of Peter 
Mundy . . ., ed. Temple, Hakluyt Society 1907-36; 
J. Ovington, A voyage to Suratt in the year 1689, 
ed. Rawlinson, Oxford 1929; The embassy of Sir 



Thomas Roe . . ., ed. Foster, Hakluyt Society 1899; 
Travels of Ludovico de Varthema, Hakluyt Society 
1863; Albuquerque, Commentaries, Eng. tr. W. de 
G. Birch, Hakluyt Society 1875-84; Gaspar 
Correa, Lendas da India, Lisbon 1858-64; Vida da 
Dom Jodo de Castro, Eng. tr. Wyche, London 1664. 
Modern works: M.S. Commissariat, History of 
Gujarat, i, London 1938; ii, Bombay 1957; well 
documented with much cultural information. A 
research project of the history of Gudjarat under 
the Muslims is currently being undertaken at the 
M.S. University of Baroda, from which there has 
appeared S. C. Misra, The rise of Muslim power 
in Gujarat, London 1963, which covers the years 
697/1298 to 845/1442; idem, Muslim Communities 
in Gujarat : preliminary studies in their history and 
social organization, New York 1964; both these 
with extensive bibliography. Pearson, 20164-80. 
Much general information in Bombay Gazetteer, 
i-ix, xiii, xiv; Baroda state gazetteer, 2 vols., Bombay 
1923. On the coins of the Gudjarat sultanate, 
especially G. P. Taylor, The coins of the Gujarat 
salfanat, in JBBRAS, xxi (1903) 278-338; and 
Pearson, 10482-97. (J. Burton-Page) 

GUPjIARATI, language spoken in the state of 
Gudjarat (population 20,623,474) and in the com- 
munities of Gudjaratls which have settled in various 
parts of India; it has always been the first language 
of the many Gudjaratl Muslims, in preference to 
Urdu, and shows some Muslim influence in its 
literary forms, notably in the introduction of the 
ghazal. Outside India, large communities of Gudjaratl 
speakers are settled in Asia and Africa. 

Gudjaratl belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of 
the Indo-Iranian subgroup of the Indo-European 
language family. The earliest inscriptional evidence 
of Aryan speech in Gudjarat goes back to the 
Ashokan edicts at Girnar (Sawrashtra) of 250 B.C. 
Gudjarat had a strong tradition of Sanskritic and 
Prakritic learning. A literary standard prevalent in 
the region bounded by Djaysalmer to the north, 
Malwa to the east and Sawrashtra and Gudjarat to the 
west and south became a direct predecessor of modern 
Gudjaratl. Some of the dated documents of the 12th 
century and secondary copies of compositions of the 
10th century mark the beginning of old Gudjaratl 
literature. Modern Gudjaratl literature is rich in 
belles-lettres as well as in serious prose. The Gudjaratl 
script is a cursive form of Devanagarl; the syllabary 
is Sanskritic. The Perso-Arabic script has never been 
in regular use for Gudjaratl. 

Southern, Central and Northern Gudjarat and 
peninsular Sawrashtra form the major dialect regions 
of Gudjaratl. The dialects of Sawrashtra are archaic 
and have preserved some older features. Notable 
among the occupational jargons are the speech of 
fishermen in Sawrashtra and along the southern 
Gudjarat coast, the bardic and pastoral communities 
of Sawrashtra, the Isma'ill Khodias of Sawrashtra 
and the Parsls of South Gudjarat. On the whole, 
central and northern Gudjarat are innovating 
dialects, and modern standard Gudjaratl is based 
on the speech of the educated upper caste population. 
Bibliography: G. A. Grierson, Linguistic 
survey of India, ix/2, Calcutta 1908, 323-477. 

(P. B. Pandit) 
GtJEJRAlQwALA, an industrial town of 
West Pakistan and headquarters of the district 
of the same name, situated in 32° 9' N. and 74 1 1' E., 
on the main railway line between Lahore and 
Peshawar [qq.v.]; population (1961) 196,154. The 
town, a mere village till the middle of the 19th 



GODJRANWALA — GUINEA 



century, owes its origin to a tribe of the Gudjars 
[q.v.] who were expelled by Sarisi Dials from Amritsar 
[q.v.]. On changing hands the village was renamed 
Khanpur, after the head-man of the Sarisis. But 
this name never gained popularity. 

It was of little importance during Mughal days 
and consequently finds no mention in the A'in-i 
Ahbarl. Early in the 19th century it was captured 
by Carat Singh Djat, grandfather of the Sikh ruler 
Randjit Singh, who made it his headquarters. 
Randjit Singh himself was born here and it con- 
tinued to be the capital of the rising Sikh power 
until 1799, when the seat of government was shifted 
to Lahore. The Sikh general Hari Singh Nalwa, who 
led many punitive expeditions against the Afghans 
of the Khyber, was also a native of this place. His 
house, in a narrow street of the town, is still preserved. 
The father and grandfather or Randjit Singh both 
have their Samddhs, last resting places, in this 
town. The former was cremated in a corner of the 
gardens named after him, but now called Jinnah 
Bagh, while the latter has his mausoleum in a 
quarter of the old city. A lofty cupola covering a 
portion of the ashes of Randjit Singh, who has his 
tomb in Lahore and a bdradari, a fine example of 
Sikh architecture, form a part of the complex. 
An old mosque, said to date from the times of Sher 
Shah Sur [q.v.], with the typical onion-shaped dome, 
is also preserved. 

The town remained quiet during the military 
uprising of 1857 but was badly disturbed during the 
Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movements of 1921-22, 
when rioters uprooted the railroad track, burnt 
down the railway station and indulged in widespread 
arson and looting. By way of punishment the new 
railroad station was built at a considerable distance 
from the town. It is now used as a halting station 
for good trains while the passengers alight at the site 
of the destroyed station, which was rebuilt by the 
British Government. Politically unimportant, the 
town is a flourishing centre of iron, steel, copper and 
hand-loom industries and is rapidly expanding. 
Bibliography: Imperial Gazetteer of India, 

Oxford 1908, xii, 355-6, 363; District Census 

Report, Gujranwala, Karachi 1961, 1.15, 4.1 -4.12; 

Wahid Kurayshl (Waheed Qureshi), Gujranwala: 

Past and Present, in OCM, Lahore, February 1958. 
(A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

GU&IRAT, a town, tahsil and district in 
the northern plains of the Pakistan Pandjab lying 
between the rivers Djehlam and Canab. The district 
is thought to have once formed part of the ancient 
Gurdjara kingdom; but it is not specifically referred 
to in Islamic historical writing until the time of 
Bahlol Lodi (855-94/1451-89) when the town of 
Bahlolpur, 36 km. north-east of Gudjrat town, was 
founded; the settlement of the district was con- 
tinued by Shir Shah in the middle of the ioth/i6th 
century, and completed by Akbar with the refounding 
of Gudjrat town. 

There seem to have been at least two succesive 
cities on the site of what is now Gudjrat. One tradition 
gives the early name of the town as Udanagari and a 
foundation by Radjput kings in the 5th century B.C.; 
a king Alakhana is cited by the Sanskrit Rdjatarangini 
as the defender of the town against Sankaravarman 
of Kashmir between 883 and 902 A.D., and is perhaps 
the origir of the ' C A1I Khan' reported as a re-founder 
in a popular local Muslim tradition; one city seems 
to have been destroyed c. 703/1303 by the Mongols. 
The modern foundation dates from Akbar, who in 
995 or 997/1587 or 1589 persuaded some of the local 



Gudjars to restore Gudjrat and made it the head- 
quarters of a large district; the local population is 
predominantly Djat [q.v.], but the fort (Gudjrat- 
Akbarabad) was garrisoned by Gudjars. 

The town and district remained under efficient 
Mughal control until the death of Awrangzeb, 
records of the period having been preserved by the 
hereditary frdnungos of the region. In 1151/1738 it 
was ravaged by Nadir Shah [q.v.]; the Gakkhars 
of Rawalpindi, under Sultan Mukarrab Khan, 
established themselves there in 1154/1741, but the 
country was an open prey from 1161/1748 to 1175/ 
1761 to the marauding armies of Ahmad Shah 
Durrani [q.v.] on whose route it lay. Mukarrab Khan 
was confirmed in his possessions by the Durrani 
ruler, and nominally administered them on his 
behalf; but "nothing was left to the people but the 
food and drink in their mouths; the rest was Ahmad 
Shah's". This nominal rule lasted until 1179/1765, 
when Gudjrat fell to the Sikhs. The district came 
under British rule in 1846. 

The district is largely agricultural, and produces 
some timber. Gudjrat town has some reputation as a 
centre for fine furniture making, and had previously 
some renown as a centre of iron damascening. The 
shrine still exists of the pir Shah Dawla [b. 975/1567, 
d. 1125/1713 according to the local tradition], a saint 
whose intercessions were said to remove the curse of 
barrenness if the first-born were dedicated to his 
service. These children attached to the shrine are 
invariably freaks, of low intelligence and with 
absurdly pointed heads — deliberate distortion of the 
heads in infancy has been suspected ; they are known 
as Cuha-i Shah Dawla, "Shah Dawla's rats". 

The name Gudjrat used here reflects the con- 
ventional spelling Gujrat, adopted to distinguish 
this district and town from Gujarat (Gudjarat [q.v.]) ; 
the two names are really identical. For the etymology 

Bibliography: Imperial Gazetteer of India; 

Punjab District Gazetteers, XXV- A, Gujrat District, 

Lahore 1921. For Shah Dawla's Rats see J. 

Wilson Johnston in Indian Medical Gazette, May 

1866; abstract from settlement reports in Indian 

Antiquary, 1879, 176; letter in JRAS, 1896, 574-5. 

793; M. Longworth Dames, Shah Daulah's Rats, 

in Man, xv (1915), 88-9. (J. Burton-Page) 

GUERSIF [see garsIf]. 

GUILD(S) [see futuwwa, sinf]. 

GUINEA, an independent republic on the 

West coast of Africa (246,000 sq. km), bounded 

on the north by Portuguese Guinea, Senegal and 

Mali, on the east by the Ivory Coast, and on the 

south by Liberia and Sierra Leone. Within these 

limits, between 7° and 13 N., and between 7° and 

17° E., every type of terrain and climate is to be 

found, starting with Lower Guinea which has a width 

of from 40 to 90 km, and where extensive deltas have 

been formed by the neighbouring rivers, often lined 

with mud-flats or strewn with islands; Central 

Guinea corresponds with the Ffita Djallon, dominated 

by residual high ground from 1200 to 1500 m. and 

distinguished by the bowal, a cap of laterite isolated 

by erosion, and where the introduction of cultivation 

has increased the sterility. Upper Guinea corresponds 

with the upper basin of the Niger, where the climate 

becomes continental; further south, in the Guinea 

forests, lies the mountain barrier containing Mount 

Nimba. 

Guinea probably derives its name from the Berber 
ignawdn, pi. of agnaw, which means "mute" and 
does not imply any notion of colour (see G. S. 



277). 

The population of Guinea numbers about 3 million. 
There are still some centres of population that are 
either indigenous or were established in very early 
times, Coniagui and Bassari in the north, Kissi and 
Guerze in the south. 

The Baga, Landuman, Mani or Mendenyi, and 
Nalu have been driven back from the Futa towards 
the coast by Mande, Sarakole, Malinke and Sussu 
elements, and by the conquering Fulani. The history 
of these settlements corresponds in general outline 
with the history of Islamization. 

This process was accomplished only slowly, under 
the pressure of political and military events in the 
Nigerian Sudan, first with Malinke elements, and 
then through the Fulani who, as soon as they be- 
lieved themselves to be sufficiently strong, were to 
proclaim a holy war and to maintain their ascendancy 
over the Futa until the French conquest. 

It was in 422/1050 that Baramendana Keita, the so- 
vereign of Mali, was converted to Islam. From the end 
of the 5th/nth century the first Diola to be Islamized 
by the Sarakole penetrated into Guinea and began to 
spread Islam into the Futa and along the kola-nut 
routes leading to the coast. In the 6th/i2th century, 
the Soninke Morikubala Dore introduced Islam into 
the Konian, Awrodugu and Kossadugu. In 658/1260 
Amari Sonko, one of the commanders of Mansa Ule, 
king of Mali, conquered and converted the Kangaran. 
In the first half of the ioth/i6th century came the 
Pouli from Macina and Tichitt, commanded by 
Bambi Diade. These first Fulani invaders were 
Kadiriyya Bakkaya (of the Kunta of Timbuctu). 
They set about converting or expelling the refractory 
elements. Koli Tenguela or Koli Pouli, great-grandson 
of Bambi Diade, created the first kingdom of Futa. 

Attracted by the mountain pasturages, the Fulani 
came in ever increasing numbers from Macina at 
the end of the nth/i7th century, and Islamization 
became more marked. However, the Muslim Man- 
dingos, coming from Diafonu in particular, founded 
Kankan and the villages of Bate, Kuafodie and 
Tintiule. In 1105/1694 a powerful force of Fulani 
arrived from Macina, led by a certain Seri or Sidi. In 
about mi/1700 leadership passed to Muhammadu 
Saidi and then to Kikala, a man renowned for his 
piety. On the death of his son Sambigu, his grand- 
sons Nuhu and Malik Si disputed the succession 
(1132-8/1720-6). 

The Muslim penetration was, at that date, on so 
extensive a scale that it was tempting to make use 
of the religious pretext to evict the proprietors of the 
land. It was Ibrahima Mussu, sti'l known as Kara- 
moko Alfa, a man of immense piety, who was called 
on to fight against the pagans. He inaugurated the 
permanent state of holy war which was one of the 
constant and fundamental policies of Futa. The 
first victories fell to the aggressive Fulani, but the 
pagans recovered and their chief, Pouli Garme, 
occupied Timbo when Karamoko became insane 
and died. In his place was chosen Ibrahima Sori 
("the Wakeful"), known as mawdo (= the Great), 
who in practice was to be the great war leader of 
Futa, defeating the Wassulonke and the Sulima in 
succession. He compelled the Fulani chief of Labe 
to recognize his authority over the Mandingo pro- 
vince of Niokolo in Upper Gambia, and forced Maka, 
king of Bundu, to become Muslim and take the title 
of almami. In face of these triumphs, the council 
of elders became perturbed and their head, the Modi 



Maka, with the support of the Alfaya had Abdullahi 
Ba Demba, a descendant of Karamoko Alfa, nomin- 
ated as almami. But under the threat of perils from 
without, they recalled Ibrahima Sori who, in about 
1194/1780, moved the capital of Fukumba to Timbo. 
On the death of Ibrahima Sori (in about 1784), the 
kingdom of Futa, divided into two rival branches, the 
Alfaya and the Soria, was apportioned to each of the 
branches alternately every two years. During the 
reigns of Karamoko Alfa and Ibrahima Sori Mawdo, 
the Islamization of central Guinea (Kindia region) 
was continued. Some Kankan families broke away 
and founded Beyla (corruption of billah). 

These alternating reigns did not pass without 
serious difficulties. The Islamization of the Dialonke 
proceeded with increased momentum as a result of 
the founding in 1821 of the madrasa of Tuba, an 
important Kadiri centre, by al-Hadjdj Salimu, 
better known under the name Karamba. In 1830, 
Alfa Mamadu introduced Islam into the Rio Nunez. 
The 19th century was dominated by the reign of the 
Almami 'Umar (1837-72), who overcame his rival 
Ibrahima at Timbo (1851) and succeeded in con- 
quering the fanatical Muslims who had revolted in 
the Fitaba at the instigation of a marabout, Mamadu 
Pjue. These rebels were called Hubbu from the 
phrase hubbu rasill Allah (= the love of God's 
Messenger). Mamadu Djue having died, his son Abal 
("the Wild") continued the struggle and contrived 
to kill the Almami Sori Dara at Boketto, the capital 
of the Fitaba, in 1872. 

Treaties of friendship were signed in the reign of 
Ibrahima Sori Donhol Fella (1872-89) and Amadu 
Dara (1873-96) with representatives of England and 
France. In 1887-8, Aime Olivier, Comte ( ?) de 
Sander val, caused himself to be proclaimed a citizen 
of Futa Djallon by the Alamai, and to be given the 
highlands of Kahel and the right of coinage. Sanderval 
thereafter played a decisive part in the vassals' 
struggle against the Almami Bokar Biro, who was 
defeated at Bentiguel-Tokosere by the chief of Labe. 
Restored to the throne by the French administration, 
he agreed to sign a protectorate treaty, but in place 
of his name he wrote Bissimilai {bi-'smi 'lldh). 
Captain Miiller then marched on Timbo. Bokar Biro 
and his 1500 warriors were defeated at Poredaka. 
It was the end of the independence of the Futa 
Djallon. 

The progress of Islamization was thus advanced 
notably; in 1850 al-Hadjdj 'Umar had established 
the Dinguiraye (cattle-park) before carrying out his 
conquests in the north, and his adherents had pene- 
trated the frontier zone of the present northern 
Guinea. From 1870 a former Mandingo pedlar, 
Samory Toure, set up the empire of Onassubu, the 
capital of which, Bissandugu, was his place of refuge 
after expeditions to what later became Ghana and 
the Ivory Coast. 

Samory's invasions produced a renewed Islamic 
infiltration. By the treaties of Kenieba-Koura 
(March 1886) and Bissandugu (1887), Samory made 
himself secure from the direction of the French 
Sudan and, to protect himself from the British, he 
requested a French protectorate. Operations started 
again from 1891. In 1898 Samory, captured by the 
Gourand force, was deported to Gabon where he died 
two years later. 

French Guinea was established by a decree of 
17 December 1891, and its boundaries were fixed 
in 1899 with the neighbouring states, French Sudan 
(now Mali) and the Ivory Coast. Being included in 
1904 in the Federation of West Africa, it became a 



'Territoire d'Outre-Mer' and gained its independence 
on 28 September 1958 by voting non in the referendum 
under the guidance of the present President Sekou 

The Islamization of Guinea was continued through- 
out the whole French period with the frequent help 
of the administration. On the other hand, since 
independence a strict neutrality has been imposed 
by the President, although himself a Muslim. 

In conclusion, we may say that in Guinea as a 
whole, according to the judgement of the geographer 
J. R. Molard, "the Fulani are Muslim born, the Man- 
dingos are adopting Islam, while the forest peoples 
(Kissi, Toma, Guerze) have remained hostile." 
Bibliography: Arcin, Histoire de la Guinie 
Frattfaise, Paris 191 1; Demougeot, Note sur V or- 
ganisation politique et administrative du Labi, 
Mlmoire IF AN, Larose 1944; idem, Histoire du 
Rio Nunez, in BCHSAOF, xxi (1938); Feral, 
L'Islam en Guinie Francaise, Doc. CHEAM Nr. 
1022; Houis, Guinie Franfaise, Paris, S.E.M.C; 
Marty, L'Islam en Guinie, Paris 1921 ; R. Molard, 
Essai sur la vie paysanne au Fouta-Djalon, in 
Revue de giographie alpine, Grenoble 1944, re- 
published in Hommage a Jacques Richard Molard, 
Prisence Africaine, 155-251; Tauxier, Moeurs et 
histoire des Peuls, Paris 1937; Vieillard, Notes sur 
les Peuls du Fouta Djalon, in FIB AN, 1940, 
85-210; see also the Etudes Guiniennes published 
by the Centrifan de Conakry before independence 
and the Recherches Africaines which have since 
replaced them. (R. Cornevin) 

GUL (Pers., 'rose, flower'). In eastern Islamic lite- 
ratures the (red) rose plays a very important part. The 
image of the rose (or the bud: ghunta) recurs in all 
manner of similes, metaphors and other figures of 
speech, in set phrases, idioms and puns. Gul-db 
(rose-water) is considered one of the finest ingredients 
for sweets and drinks. With the nightingale (bulbul 
[q.v.jl the rose constitutes an old established pair of 
lovers, naturally not restricted to its actual meaning. 
The mention of either term of the binomial gul - bulbul 
evokes in the language of poetry the image of the 
other. Gul and its compounds are used as personal 
names (for example, Gul-anddm and Gul-shdh) as well 
as place names (Gulkhanddn, Gulistdn and Gulgasht). 
As rival claimant (rakib [q.v.]) for the rose, and occa- 
sionally its protector, the thorn is used. As symbol of 
the challenge to a match or contest the rose appears 
(similar to the glove in the West) in the expressions 
gul-i djang, gul-i hangdma and gul-i kushti, the last- 
named being also the title of a mathnawi by c Abd 
al-'Ali Nadjat (d. ca. 1126/1714; see J. Rypka, 
Iranische Liter aturgeschichte, Leipzig 1959, 286). The 
word, with separate derivations and numerous 
combinations, appears alone (even as a personal 
name) and combined (gul-dasta, gulistdn, gulshan 
and gulzdr) with other personifications of things or 
with persons frequently in the titles of Persian, 
Turkish and Indian books. Gul u bulbul is the title 
of both Persian and Indian mathnawis (see H. Ethe, 
Neupers. Lit., in Gr. I. Ph., ii, 250 ff.). Well known is 
Fadli's Turkish mathnawi Gul ve bulbul (GUI u Bulbul, 
Rose und Nachtigall von Fasli, ein romantisches Ge- 
dicht, Turkish edition and German translation by 
Joseph von Hammer, Pest and Leipzig 1834; see 
Gibb, Ottoman Poetry, Hi, iioff.), which is, next to that 
composed in Caghatay by Lutfi in 814/1411 (see A. 
Bombaci, Storia delta letteratura turca, Milan 1956, 
129), the best of all the epics of the same name (such 
as those of Bakal, Ghazi Giray II and others) in the 
Turkish languages. But the rose was combined with 



GULBABA 1133 

yet other partners. See for example the indexes in 
Gr. I. Ph.; Gibb, op. cit.; Browne, ii, iv. Further 
material might be provided by catalogues of oriental 
and western manuscripts, further Edwards, Cat. of 
the Printed Books in the British Museum, London 
1922; A. J. Arberry, Persian Books (Cat. of the 
Library of the India Office, ii/6), London 1937, and 
similar works. From Persian poetry might be 
mentioned Gul u Khusraw or Khusraw u Gul (usually 
Khusraw-ndma) by Farid al-DIn Muhammad c Attar 
(d. 627/1230?) (see EI', i, 753; H. Ethe, op. cit., 286; 
in more detail H. Ritter, Phihlogika, x, 7s/., xxv 
(1938), 160-72); Gul u mul ("Rose and Wine"; see 
I A, ii, 734); Gul u Naw-ruz by Djalal al-Din Ahmad 
Tabib in 734/1334, and the same title by Kh'adjfl 
Kirmani in 742/1341-2 (see H. Ethe, op. cit., 249); 
Gul u Sanawbar "Rose and Spruce", in prose and 
several times translated into Urdu (see H. Ethe, 
op. cit., 321 and 323) ; Garcin de Tassy, Histoire de la 
Littirature Hindouie et Hindoustanie*, Paris 1870, 
i, 157 ff.; and translated by him in Revue orient, et 
amir., vii, 69-130). From Ottoman poetry, Gul ii 
Khusrev by Ahi (d. 923/1517; Gibb, op. cit., ii, 
291); Gul u Saba, "Rose and Zephyr", by Nedjati 
(d. 914/1509; see Gibb, op. cit., ii, 101); Mundzara-i 
GUI U Khusrev, "Contest between (the) Rose and 
Khusrev", also by Nedjati (see Gibb, op. cit., ii, 100), 
and GUI U Nev-ruz by Mu'idl (16th century; see Gibb, 






160). 



Bibliography : In addition to that mentioned 

above, Charles Joret, La Rose dans I'Antiquiti et 

au Moyen-Age, Paris 1892; Shibli Nu'manl, 

Shi'r al-'Adjam* (Pers. tr.), iv, Tehran 1336 s., 

165-9; Annemarie Schimmel, Rose und Nachtigall, 

in Nutnen, v/2 (1958), 85-109. (J. Rypka) 

GULBABA, a Turkish title, with the sense of 

head of a Muslim cloister (tekke) of the Bektashi 

Order; the name of a tekke at Buda and of another 

tekke in the neighbourhood of Edirne; the name of a 

legendary personality. 

The name Gulbaba, in connexion with the tekke 
and the tUrbe so designated at Buda, appears in 
Turkish documents of 974/1566 with the form 
ll Jf (Vienna, Fliigel 1294); on a manuscript 
sketch-map of 1684 (E. Veres, Marsigli jelentise is 
tirkipei Budavdr 1684., 1686. ivi ostromairdl [Report 
and maps of Marsigli on the sieges of the fortress of 
Buda in the years 1684 and 1686], in Budapest 
rigisigei [Antiquities of Budapest], ix, 142) it occurs 
four times in the same form, though in each case 
without vocalization. Written in the same manner, 
it is found in several Turkish authors, e.g., in Pecewi 
(ii, 141), Ewliya Celebi (vi, 244) and Na'ima (i, 289); 
and in Silahdar it occurs a number of times in the 
form L> L> JjS'tii, 401, 799, 801). In the writings of 
European authors the name is encountered as 
Julpapa in G. Wernher and E. Brown, as Gyulpapa 
in the superscription — from a European hand— on 
the above-mentioned manuscript sketch-map, and as 
Ghiul Baba in the text of L. Marsigli; about 1830, 
after the rendering of a dervish from India, it was 
written down as Tiulbaba. The forms given in the 
Latin script leave no doubt that the name, in its 
first syllable, has to be pronounced Gulbaba, with 
the vowel ii. A man with the name Gulbaba is 
known from the time of Mehemmed II (Babinger, 
GOW, 213) and a locality near Edirne is also called 
Gulbaba. The word gUl, as a component of personal 
names, is known, too, in other instances, e.g., Gul 
Tokmak Khan, Gul Rustem Khan. 

The expression gUl, in names of this kind, has not 



GULBABA — GULBADAN BEGAM 



the meaning of rose {i.e., the flower), but a mystical 
sense, in that it alludes symbolically to fiery zeal on 
behalf of the (Muslim) faith. This meaning underlies, 
moreover, the compounds giil-tesbih, giil-benk. In 
the life of the dervish, giil has the sense of "glowing 
iron rose", "particular ornament on the top of a 
dervish cap, especially in the case of the Kadiri 
order"; it is the mark which distinguishes the head 
of a house of the order and which is to be worn on the 
cap (tddi). M. d'Ohsson writes (Tableau giniral de 
I'Empire Ottoman, ii, 534) that the red-hot iron is 
called gill, which the Rifa'I dervishes grasp, kiss 
and bite in the ecstasy of their religious dances. 
Th. Menzel observes {Beitrdge zur Kenntnis des 
Dervisch-tdg, in Festschrift G. Jacob, Leipzig 1932, 
179 n.) that one of the objects in use amongst the 
dervishes is named "zengirli Sis' — giil, charb (Nadel- 
spitze mit Kugel und Kettchen)", that part of the 
dervish cap is called gill, and this is regarded as the 
damgha of the erens (ibid., 191); and that, further- 
more, giil in various contexts is the badge of 
different dervish orders and of distinct grades within 
the orders. 

In elucidating the name Gulbaba we have therefore 
to set out from this mystical sense of the word giil, 
with the result that giilbaba means "a zealous 
dervish, a rose on the branch of his order", i.e., a man 
who, at the ceremonies held in common, leads and 
intones the prayers, one who knows how to take 
hold of the red-hot iron as of a rose breaking into 
bloom — the iron whose touch is as pleasing as the 
fragrance of roses, one who keeps and handles this 
iron, a man who bears the mark of a religious head 
(giil) on his cap fashioned from wedge-shaped pieces 
of cloth, etc. Ewliya Celebi (vi, 244) alludes to this 
sense of the word, when he addresses Giilbaba, in 
verses composed in his honour, as giillii baba, i.e., as 
little father of the roses, as the baba recognizable by 
the rose. This meaning is also to be found in E. 
Brown, who notes that the head of the Buda tekke 
was "called Julpapa, or Father of the Rose" (Edward 
Brown, A brief account . . ., London 1673, 34, quoted 
in Budapest rtgisigei [Antiquities of Budapest], ix, 
115), and in L. Marsigli, who remarks that the Turks, 
by Giilbaba, understand a "Padre Rosa", in much 
the same manner as the Christians use an expression 
like "Padre Giazinto". 

Other explanations of the word are: that it comes 
from Kel baba, "bald father" (I. Kunos, in Pallas 
Lexikon, Budapest 1894, viii, 365); also that it 
derives from the verbal stem giil- (after the analogy 
of Gal-bari, see Gy. Nemeth, in KCsA, ii, 379). 

Giilbaba is therefore a Turkish title. It is only on 
the evidence of Ewliya Celebi that Gulbaba would 
seem to be a personal name, referring to a historical 
personage. Ewliya Celebi remarks (vi, 225) that 
Gulbaba died at the Ottoman conquest of Buda and 
that Sultan Siileyman had his corpse laid to rest and 
commended the fortress of Buda to his protection. 
Of such an important event no trace is to be found 
in other sources. It is mentioned neither by Pecewi 
(the reference to Pecewi given by CI. Huart in EI 1 , 
s.v. Gul-Baba, is the result of an error), nor by 
Djalal-zade, the official historian of the campaign. 
We have therefore to accept that there was never a 
person with the name Gulbaba in the time of the 
Turks, and in particular no historical personage of 
this name, but that on the other hand there existed 
at all times one or more giilbaba in charge of a 
Ukhe. 

The tekke and tiirbe called Gulbaba at Buda were 
built by Mehemmed Pasha before 958/1551. The 



tiirbe is still standing today. The hill on which these 
two buildings stood (it is now called R6zsadomb, 
i.e., Hill of Roses) has been given the name Mihnet 
tepesi in the historical literature as the result of an 
erroneous statement by von Hammer (GOR*, iii, 
706); it used in fact to be called Gulbaba bayrl, 
Tekke bayrl ("Gulbaba Hill, Tekke Hill"). 

Bibliography (further to works mentioned in 
the text): G. Wernher, Moscouiter wunderbare 
Historien . . . Warhafftige Beschreibung . . . Der 
wunderbaren Wasseren in Ungaren Verzeichnuss, 
Basel 1563; E. Brown, A brief account of some 
travels in Hungaria, Servia, etc., London 1673, 
revised second ed. 1685, Fr. tr. Paris 1674; 
J. F. Miller, Epitome vicissitudinum et rerum 
memorabilium de urbe Budensi, Buda 1760; 
J. Podhradczky, Eredeti kit magyar krdnika (Two 
Original Hungarian Chronicles), Pest 1833; A. K. 
Fischer, Gul-Baba, Budapest 1898; Vasdrnapi 
Ujs&g (Sunday Newspaper), 1855, 1862 and 1873; 
Rum-beg-oghlu Fakhr al-Din, GUI baba, in TOEM, 
iii/15 (1328), 962-5; (In, Isparta 1935; L. Fekete, 
Gul-Baba et le bektdSi derk'dh de Buda, in Acta 
Orient. Hung., Budapest 1954 (the most recent 
review of the subject). (L. Fekete) 

GULBADAN BfiGAM, the talented and ac- 
complished daughter of the emperor Babur 
[q.v.] by one of his wives, Dildar Begam, who was a 
lineal descendant of the Central Asian sufi Ahmadi- 
Djam Zinda-Pil, was born c. 929/1523 in Khurasan 
(Kabul?), two years before her father set out from 
Kabul on his last but historic expedition across the 
Indus in 932/1525, which won him the empire of 
India. That very year she was adopted by Maham 
Begam, mother of Humayun [q.v.] and the senior 
wife of Babur, to rear and educate. In 936/1529 she 
left for Agra [q.v.], the seat of Babur's government, 
under the care of her foster-mother to join her 
father there. She remained in India till 947/1540 
when Humayun suffered a crushing defeat at the 
hands of Sher Shah Sur [q.v.]. She along with other 
royal ladies was sent back to Kabul where the 
fugitive emperor Humayun joined her in 952/1545. 
In about 946/1539 she married Khidr Kh w adia 
Caghatay, second son of Babur's full sister Khanzada 
Begam. An otherwise undistinguished man, he rose 
to the rank of Amir al-Umard' under Humayun 
(cf. AHn-i Akbari, Eng. transl. by Blochmann, 
365 n.). She bore him many children but none 
attained greatness. In 982/1574 she left on a pilgrimage 
to Mecca, stayed in the Hidjaz for three and a half 
years and performed the h&4ML four times. She 
returned to India in 990/1582 after a perilous voyage 
involving a shipwreck off Aden, where she had to 
stay for a whole year. It was after her return home 
that she was asked by Akbar [q.v.] to write her 
personal memoirs, the Humayun-nama or Ahwal-i 
Humayun Padshah, as material for Abu '1 Fadl's 
Akbar-nama. Only one incomplete copy, recording 
the events up to 960/1553, of this work survives; 
it is in the British Museum. It was published with a 
lengthy introduction and English translation by 
Annette S. Beveridge (London 1902). Another, but 
inferior edition containing only the Persian text, 
was published at Lucknow in 1925 under the title 
Humdyun-nama-i Gulbadan Begam. She died at 
Agra on 6 Dhu '1-Hidjdja, ion/7 May, 1603 at the age 
of 82 lunar years. Akbar himself accompanied and 
shouldered her bier a little distance. 

She was well-versed in both Turki and Persian 
and was good at calligraphy and the art of inshd*. 
She used to compose in Persian and two lines of hers 



GULBADAN BEGAM — GULPAYAGAN 



"35 



have been quoted by Mahdi Shlrazi in the Tadhkirat 
al-Khawdtin (not seen by me). 

Bibliography : Nizam al-DIn Ahmad, Taba(tdt-i 
Akbari, Bibl. Ind., ii, 312 ; Abu '1 Fadl, Akbar-ndma, 
Bibl. Ind., iii, 568, 815, 817; Muhammad b. Mu c ta- 
mad Khan Badakhshi, TaMkh-i Muhammadi 
{US.), sub anno 1011 A.H.; Rieu, i, 147a, iii, 1083a; 
Annette S. Beveridge, The History of Humayun 
(Humdyun-ndma) , London 1902, introduction 
1-79; Storey, i/i, 538-9; Mu'tamad Khan. 
I^bdl-ndma-i Qiahdngiri (MS.); c Abd al-Hayy 
Lakhnawi, Nuzhat al-khawdfir, Haydarabad 1357/ 
1955, v, 318-9 (the only notice in Arabic known 
to me). (A. S. Bazmee Ansari) 

GULBANG, a Persian word meaning the song of 
the nightingale, and hence by extension fame, repute, 
and loud cries of various kinds. In Turkish usage it 
is applied more particularly to the call of the muezzin 
[see adhan] and to the Muslim war-cry (Alldhu Akbar 
and Allah Allah). In the Ottoman Empire it was used 
of certain ceremonial and public prayers and accla- 
mations, more specifically those of the corps of 
Janissaries [see yeKi ceri]. Such prayers were 
recited at pay parades and similar occasions, at the 
beginning of a campaign, when they were accom- 
panied by three volleys of musketry fired in the 
air, and at the accession of a Sultan. They were led 
by an officer standing with crossed arms on the 
'gulbdng stone' which was to be found in Janissary 
barracks. The term giilbdng was also used in the 
rituals of the Bektashi and Mewlewi orders. 

Bibliography: Pakahn, i, 683-5; Ismail Hakki 
Uzuncarsih, Osmanh devleti teskiUhndan hapihulu 
ocaklari, i, Ankara 1943, 249, 375, 421-2, 533-4- 
See further mehterkhane and nawba. 

(Ed.) 
GULBARGA, a town and district in the 
north of Mysore state in India on the western borders 
of what is known as "the Deccan" (Dakkhan [q.v.]) ; 
the town is situated at 17 21' N., 76 51' E. Of some 
antiquity in the Hindu period, it formed part of the 
domains of the Kakatlyas of Warangal before the 
Islamic conquest. It was annexed for the Dihll 
sultanate by Ulugh Khan, the future Muhammad b. 
Tughluk, early in the 8th/i4th century, to pass first 
to the Bahmani dynasty on its establishment in 
848/1347, whose first capital it became under the 
name Ahsanabad. It fell to the c Adil Shahis of 
Bidjapur in 909/1504, and although it was recovered 
by Amir Band ten years later it was soon retaken by 
the c Adil Shahis; they held it until 1067/1657, when 
Mir Djumla besieged it and captured it for the 
Mughals. 

The majority of the monuments of Gulbarga 
belong to the period when it was the Bahmani 
capital, and have already been described in the 
article bahmanids. Of the monuments not mentioned 
there the following are of some importance: Kalan- 
dhar Khan's mosque (see Report of Archaeological 
Department, Hyderabad, 1335F-.l10.25-6, 7 ff., Plates 
Ila, Xb), built by a Bahmani governor after the 
transfer of the capital to Bidar; the mosque of Afdal 
Khan, an c Adil Shahl general of the late ioth/i6th 
century (MIrza Ibrahim, Basdtin-i Sald(in, 130 ff.), 
which stands in the court of the dargdh of Gesfl 
Daraz, in the later stone Bidjapur style [see 
bidjapur, Monuments] similar to the mosque of 
Malika Djahan, with hanging stone chains below the 
cornice (Report . . . 1335F.I1925-6, 8, Plates lib, 
XIa) ; the Langar mosque, early Bahmani or possibly 
pre-Bahmanl, with a vaulted arch-shaped ceiling 
with wooden ribs recalling the style of the Buddhist 



cave-temples (Report . . . 1346F.I1036-7, 7 ff., Plate 
Via); a group of 5 mausolea at Holkonda, once a 
suburb of Gulbarga on the Homnabad road, similar 
to those of the Haft Gunbadh (Report . . . 1344F.I 
1934-5, 1); the mosque and dargdh of Hadrat Kamal 
Mudjarrad (ibid. 5-6 and Plates Ilia and b); the 
tomb of Cand Bibl, of Nizam Shahl style (ibid., 6, 
Plates IVa and b). 

Bibliography: in the article; and see Biblio- 
graphy to the article bahmanids. 

(J. Burton-Page) 
GULEK BOGHAZ. Turkish name for the Cili- 
cian Gates, for which see cilicia, col. 35 a. 
GULISTAN [see sa'dI]. 

GULISTAN, the name of a place in the Caucasus 
where, on 12 October 1813, a peace treaty was signed 
between Russia and Persia. In 1800 the Russians 
had annexed Georgia, and the Persians, in an effort 
to check their further advance southward, had 
suffered two defeats in 1812, at Aslanduz and 
Lankuran, and had been forced to sue for peace. 

The terms of the Treaty of Gulistan, which was 
negotiated through the mediation of the British 
ambassador Sir Gore Ouseley, were disastrous for 
Persia. The regions of Georgia, Karabagh, Shakki. 
Shirwan, Darband, Baku, Daghistan, Gandja, 
Mukan, and part of Talish, were ceded to Russia, 
and Article 5 stipulated that only Russian naval 
vessels had the right to navigate on the Caspian Sea. 
The ambiguous nature of the Article relating to the 
territorial settlement led to disputes and to the 
renewed outbreak of war in 1826. 

Bibliography: A. Wahid Mazandarani, Rdh- 
namd-yi c uhiid, Tehran 1341S./1962, 294, 306. 
For an English translation of the Treaty, and 
additional bibliography, see J. C. Hurewitz, Diplo- 
macy in the Near and Middle East, i, 1956, 84 ff. 

(R. M. Savory) 
Gt)LKHANE, (modern Turkish Giilhane) the 
"House of roses", or Giilkhane Meydant, is the name 
of a part of the gardens which lie along the Sea of 
Marmora on the east side of the Topkapl Sarayl in 
Istanbul [q.v.]; the name is derived from the fact 
that in olden days the building, in which the rose 
sweetmeats for the use of the court were prepared, 
stood there. The place is famous in history because 
the celebrated firman of Sultan c Abd al-MadjId, the 
so-called Khatt-i sherif promulgating the reforms, 
was publicly proclaimed there on Sunday 26 Sha'ban 
1255/3 November 1839; cf. the description in G. 
Rosen, Geschichte der Turhei, ii, 14 ff.; Lutfi, Ta'riKh, 
vi, 59 ff.; B. Lewis, The emergence of modern Turkey*, 
London 1965, 104 ff., and article tanzimat; on 
the place itself cf. White, Three years in Constan- 
tinople, i, no, and TOEM, i, 291 ff. ; it is now a park. 

(J. H. MoRDTMANN*) 

GULPAYAGAN, district and town in the fifth 
Ustdn (Luristan). The central chain of the Zagros 
range traverses the district; the highest peak is 
HadjdjI Kara (3650 m.). The district lies partly in 
the cold region and partly in the temperate one. The 
chief town, Gulpayagan, which is situated in Long. 
50 18' W. and Lat. 33° 26' N., is 1924 m. above sea 
level and therefore has a cold climate in winter. It 
is an ancient town containing some buildings dating 
from the Saldjiik era. In 1951 the population of the 
town and the surrounding villages amounted to 
22,000. The Arab geographers gave the name of the 
town as Djarbadhakan, i.e., Gurbadhakan. It is 
only in comparatively recent times that frequent 
mention of the town occurs. The Arab geographers 
referred to it merely as a stage or station on the 



II 3 6 



GULPAYAGAN — GULSHANI 



route uniting Isfahan with Hamadan. The chief 
industry of the town and its surroundings is agri- 
culture. 

Bibliography : Yakut, ii, 40; Le Strange, 210; 
Ritter, Erdkunde, ix, 63; E. Stack, Six months in 
Persia, London 1882, ii, 114; Razmara and 
Nawtash, Farhang-i Diugkrdfivd-vi Iran, v, 316; 
for a discussion of the etymology of the name, see 
Ahmad Kasravi, Ndmhd-yi shahrhd u dihhd-yi 
Iran, Tehran i335/i956, 68. (L. Lockhart) 
GULSHANI (Turkish: Giilshenl), IbrahIm b. 
Muhammad b. IbrahIm b. ShihAb al-DIn (?-94o/ 
1534), Turkish mystic, a successor of Djalal al-DIn 
RumI and a prolific poet. He came of a family 
settled in Diyarbakr, where his father Muhammad 
a)-AmidI's tiirbe and a prayer-hall said to have been 
built by him still stand some 500 yards outside the 
Mardin gate (see c Ali Emirl, Diydrbekirli ba'd-i 
dhewdtin terdieme-i hdlleri, 16; for the report 
that he came from Barda in Adharbaydjan, see 
M. 'All Tarbiyat, Ddnishmanddn-i Adharbaydjan, 
318). Muhyi-i Gulsheni, whose Mendkib-i Ibrahim 
GulshenI [see Bibl.] is the richest source on Ibrahim 
Gulshanl's life and circle, continues the genealogy 
given above with four more names: b. Aydoghmush 
b. Gundoghmush b. Kutludoghmush b. Oghuz, thus 
making him a descendant of Oghuz Ata, but gives 
no information on his ancestors beyond his father 
and his grandfathers. His father Muhammad al- 
Amidl was the author of works on fikh, kaldm and 
man(ik; his paternal grandfather Ibrahim wrote a 
sharh on the FardHd, completed the Fakk al-mughlak 
(on the solution of various problems in fikh), com- 
posed much-esteemed works on tasawwuf, and was 
for a time kadi of Diyarbakr (Muhyl, Mendkib, 
fol. 6r); his maternal grandfather Sharaf al-DIn was 
descended from a certain Kadi c Isa and was a 
mudarris at 'Aynjab (Mendkib, fol. 6v). 

The date of Gulshanl's birth is not exactly known. 
Muhyi's statement {Mendkib, 159V.) that when he 
died in 940/1534 he was 114 years old implies that he 
was born in 826/1422-3; but elsewhere he states that 
he was two years old when his father died and that 
his father had survived into the reign of the Ak- 
Koyunlu sultan Hamza (838-48/1434-44), so that the 
date 826 must be advanced by at least ten years; 
another statement (see below) that he joined Uzun 
Hasan at Tabriz at the age of 15 implies that he was 
born in 859 or 860/1455 or 1456, but for reasons 
which will appear this statement on his age is un- 
acceptable. Most probably he was born between 838 
and 840/1434-7. His father dying when he was two, 
he was brought up by his paternal uncle SayyidI 
'All, who, according to the Mendkib (7r.), had more 
than 200 murids. While still a child, Gulshanl began 
to learn the Kur'an and to read Turkish books of 
tafsir and hadith. Concerning his later education the 
Mendkib gives only vague and confused information: 
it relates that he set out alone to study in Ma wara 5 
al-nahr, but when he reached Tabriz he was adopted 
by Uzun Hasan's kddi'askar, who told him that all 
the 'ulama' of Uzun Hasan's realm would obey his 
guidance, and appointed him tawkiH. The stipend he 
received enabled him to help his uncle at Diyarbakr 
and, probably at this time, to bring his sister to 
Tabriz (Mendkib, 9V., 73r.). (That he was given the 
post of tawkiH and still more important posts and 
was recognized already as a famous shaykh shows 
that the statement, also in the Mendkib, that he was 
only 15 when he went to Tabriz must be rejected). 
Elsewhere (i3r.-v.) it is stated that he travelled to 
Harat to resolve a dispute between Uzun Hasan and 



Husayn Baykara, and, on a similar mission, visited 
Shlraz, where he met Djalal al-DIn DawanI [see al- 
dawAnI], He gives the impression to have been at this 
period a government official with an inclination to 
tasawwuf, who enjoyed special inward experiences and 
was searching for a suitable murshid; soon afterwards 
at Karabagh, by the good offices of Uzun Hasan's 
brother Uways, he was introduced to and became the 
murid of Dede 'Umar Rushanl ([q.v.], d. 892/1486) of 
Aydin, who was the khalifa of Sayyid Yahya-i 
Shlrwanl, the pir-i thdni ('second pir, i.e., founder') 
of the KhalwatI order [see khalwatiyya]. 

Thenceforth Gulshanl devoted himself to dhikr 
and to ascetic practices: he would walk in the streets 
with a wine-cup in his hand to demonstrate his 
attachment to maldmi doctrine and wore a sheep- 
skin tddi (Mendkib, 28r.). After Uzun Hasan's death 
(882/1478), his successor Khalil had little esteem for 
Gulshanl, but the respect and fame which he enjoyed 
during the reign of Ya c kub (883-96/1478-90) are 
demonstrated by a poem of Idris BidlisI [see bidlisI], 
quoted in the Mendkib (30v.-3ir.) ; this respect was 
increased by the reverence in which Ya'kub's 
kddi'askar 'Isa held him. Gulshanl assiduously 
attended the sermons of c Umar Rushanl, who had 
come from Karabagh to settle at Tabriz (Mendkib, 
26v.); he was present when Sultan Ya'kub besieged 
Akhiska, settled various disputes within the royal 
family, and witnessed the rise of Shaykh Haydar. 
When c Umar Rushanl died (892/1486), he succeeded 
him (not without opposition) as post-nishin [q.v.] and 
began to teach his disciples in the Muzaffariyya 
mosque at Tabriz. This period of dhikr and samd 1 
did not last long: Ya c kub's successors had little 
respect for him and even persecuted him. In 900/1495 
he performed the Pilgrimage together with a numer- 
ous company of disciples and adherents. At Mecca he 
met some '■ulama' of Egypt and wished to visit 
Egypt on his homeward journey, but gave up the 
plan out of consideration for his family waiting for 
him at Tabriz (Mendkib, 78v.-7gr., 83r.). The Safawi 
occupation of Tabriz, consequent persecutions, and 
Alwand Beg's defeat by Shah Isma'il (907/1502) 
obliged him to hasten from Tabriz with his family. 
He came to Diyarbakr, then governed by Kasim Beg; 
but when, after Alwand's death (910/1504-5), Diyar- 
bakr too fell to the Safawls (912/1507), he was obliged 
to flee again, first to Jerusalem (where he carried out 
a forty day retreat [see khalwa]) and then to Egypt, 
where he settled at Birkat al-hadjdj near Cairo. 
Timurtash, a KhalwatI shaykh who had earlier come 
from Shirwan to settle there, procured for him the 
possession of Kubbat al-Mustafa; while living there 
he met Sultan Kansawh al-Ghawri while he was out 
hunting, and the Sultan granted him living-quarters 
at the Mu'ayyadiyya mosque by Bab Zuwayla. 
Though deprived by the Ottoman invasion under 
Selim I of the patronage first of Kansawh al-Ghawri 
and then of his successor Tuman Beg, Gulshanl was 
held in great honour by the Ottoman troops 
(Sha'ranI, Tabakat, ii, 163), many of whom, encourag- 
ed perhaps by Gulshanl's old acquaintance Idris 
BidlisI, became his murids; indeed his quarters at 
the Mu'ayyadiyya mosque could no longer accom- 
modate his followers, which gave rise to complaints 
from Arab shaykhs also lodged there. This enormous 
popularity was the cause of anxiety to the successive 
Ottoman governors, who feared a rising; and indeed 
when Ibrahim Pasha came to Egypt to investigate 
the situation after the rebellion of Ahmed Pasha 
(Kha'in [q.v.]) his adverse report to Sultan Suleyman 
prompted the Sultan to summon Gulshanl in 934/ 



1527-8 to Istanbul (see 'All, Kunh al-akhbar, Istanbul 
Un. Lib. MS T 2359, ii, fol. 24V.). The Sultan inter- 
viewed him, and his work Ma'nawi was sent to 
Kemal Pasha-zade [q.v.] for a fatwa on whether it 
contained ideas contrary to the shari l a. The Sultan 
was impressed by Gulshani and the fatwa (text in 
Mendkib, 120V.) was favourable; so after staying six 
months (through the winter) in Istanbul, Gulshani 
returned to Egypt. (This incident forms the subject 
of the first play in Turkish literature, see 1. H. 
Danismend, Turk tiyatrosunun ilk piyesi, in TUrkluk, 
ii (1939), 73-9I-) Five or six years after his return to 
Egypt, Gulshani died during an epidemic of plague 
on 9 Shawwal 940/24 April 1534; he was buried in 
a tiirbe at his convent, which still stands. Of his 
two sons Ahmed Khayali and Mehmed, the former, 
a poet whose Turkish Dlwdn contains many 
pleasing poems, succeeded him. 

Works. Ibrahim Gulshani was a poet so prolific 
that he is said to have dictated poems in three 
languages (Persian, Turkish and Arabic) to three 
scribes at once. A. His works in Persian are (i) 
Ma'nawi: written in imitation of the Mathnawi of 
Djalal al-DIn RumI, this work of 40,000 couplets was 
begun at Diyarbakr and finished in 10 months; like 
the Mathnawi, it contains many stories, and many 
couplets from the Mathnawi are quoted in it verbatim. 
There are many fine manuscripts with gold-inlaid 
bindings in the libraries of Istanbul (Ayasofya 2080 
[copied in 927], Umumi 3588 [copied 928], Suley- 
maniye-Halet Ef. 272 [copied 927), Siileymaniye- 
Esad Ef. 2908 [copied 936]). A sharh of the first 500 
couplets (which are written in a very complex style) 
was composed by La c li Mehmed Fenal and has been 
TXintedifSharh-i Ma'nawi, Istanbul 1289). (ii) Diwdn: 
in this collection of 17,000 couplets (almost as long 
as Djalal al-DIn's Diwdn-i kabir) the influence of 
Djalal al-DIn, Hafiz, and sometimes Yunus Emre is 
to be detected; it has not been printed or thoroughly 
studied. MSS in Turkey: Istanbul, Fatih 3866 (copied 
931); Millet, farsca manzum 418 (? ioth/i6th 
century); Ankara, Dil ve Tarih-Cografya Fakultesi 
library (unnumbered, ? 19th century), (iii) Kanz al- 
dfawdhir, a work of about 7,500 quatrains, some in 
rub&H, some in tuyugh form, written in fairly simple 
language, on the themes of Divine Love, fund' and 
bakd', and the author's devotion to his murshid, 
'Umar ROshanl. Only one MS is known: Istanbul 
Un. Lib. F 1233 (according to the Mendkib, 167, 
Gulshanl's rubdHs in Turkish, Persian and Arabic, 
amounted to 12,000 couplets), (iv) Simurg-ndma, a 
work of 30,000 couplets, known only from references 
in the Mendkib (83V., i67r.). B. His works in Turkish 
comprise only a Diwdn of about the same length 
(17,000 couplets) as his Persian Diwdn. In some of 
his Turkish poems, Gulshani is clearly under the 
influence of YOnus Emre and Neslml [qq.v.]. The 
work deserves study, both for its literary and for its 
linguistic interest. The best and fullest MS known is 
in the Library of the Dil ve Tarih-Cog. Fak. (Uni- 
versite kiitiiphanesi kitaplan 982). Selected poems 
from the Diwdn are found in various libraries, e.g.: 
Dil ve Tarih-Cog. Fak. (Mustafa Con 289) ; Istanbul 
Millet (Carullah 1661 and manzum 379) ; Istanbul Un. 
Lib. (T 890). Some of his ghazals were translated into 
Persian with a commentary by Idrls Bidlisi {Mendkib, 
3or.). C. The Arab '■ulama? and poets of his day 
regarded Gulshani as 'ummi', and perhaps he did 
not speak Arabic well (Sha'ranl, Tabakdt, ii, 163). 
His Arabic poems formed only a small Diwdn of 
5,000 couplets {Mendkib, i67r.). In form and content 
they are influenced by his Persian poems. The only 
Encyclopaedia of Islam, II 



[ANI 1137 

known MS (of selections) is in the Library of the Dil 
ve Tarih-Cog. Fak. (Universite kiitiiphanesi col- 
lection). 

In his poetical works, especially in the final 
couplets of his ghazals, Gulshani mentions, together 
with his own makhlas or nisba, that of his murshid 
c Umar RushanI, whose thought so strongly influ- 
enced him. Gulshani did not escape criticism, any more 
than his murshid, who, under the influence of the 
works of Muhyl al-Din al- c ArabI, adopted an extreme 
doctrine of wahdat-i wuajud and, for his efforts to 
spread in Karabagh and its neighbourhood the ideas 
of the Fusiis al-hikam, was condemned and perse- 
cuted as a 'Fususi'. Condemnatory fatwds were issued 
concerning Gulshani and his murids and successors, 
who preached the same extreme wahdat-i wudjud (see 
Fatdwd-yi Abu Su'ud, Istanbul, Millet Lib., MS 
ser'iye 80, fol. 267r.-v.). 

Gulshanl's tarika. The Gulshaniyya tarika, 
which took its name from his nisba, was a branch of 
the Khalwatiyya. It assumed its characteristic form 
only after Gulshani had settled in Egypt and built 
his famous convent there. It diverges from the 
Khalwatiyya, based on the principles of khalwa 
and dhikr, especially in its rules of behaviour (dddb). 
The Gulshaniyya tarika, which at first adopted 
sama c and other practices of the Mawlawiyya (Salih, 
Mandkib-i awliyd-yi Misr, Bulak 1262, 143), later 
absorbed practices from the Baktashiyya and other 
orders, and was thus regarded as having placed 
itself outside the shari'-a (Karakash-zade c Omer, 
Nur al-hudd li-man ihtadd, Istanbul 1286, 7). The 
rules of daily life in Gulshanl's convent in Cairo, 
the weekly ceremonies held there and the practices 
of the tarika as a whole present peculiarities which 
deserve study (see Shemleli-zade, Shiwe-i tarikat-i 
Gulshaniyye, Millet Lib., MS ser'iye 888; for the 
convent and its buildings, see C A1I Basha Mubarak, 
al-Khitat al-djadida, djuz' vi, 54). 

Bibliography: Muhyi-i Giilsheni (d. 1026/ 
1 61 7), Mendkib-i Ibrdhim-i Giilsheni (references 
in the text are to the foliation of my own MS; for 
other MSS see Istanbul Kitaphklart Tarih-Cog: 
yazmalari kataloglari, i/6, Istanbul 1946, no. 310); 
Salih, Mandkib-i awliyd-yi Misr, Bulak 1262 
(details from Muhyi's work, much abridged); 
Hulwl, Lamazdt, Istanbul Un. Lib. MS 1894; c Ali 
Emirl, Diydrbekirli baH-i dhewdtln terdjeme-i 
hdlleri, Millet Lib.; idem, Tedhkire-i shu'ard'-i 
Amid, Istanbul 1328; Latifi, Tedhkire, Istanbul 
1 3 14, 52-4; 'Ata'i, HaddHk al-ShakdHk, i, 66; 
Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, i, 320, 335, 389, x, 
243-6; Sadik Widjdanl, Silsile-ndme-i Khalwatiyye 
{Tomar-i turuk-i Hliye); M. Tahir, c Othmdnli 
mWellifleri, i, 19; M. C A1I Tarbiyat, Danish- 
manddn-i Adharbaydjdn, Tehran 13 14; Sha c ranl, 
Tabakdt, Cairo 1299, ii, 163; 'All Basha Mubarak, 
al-Khitat al-diadida, Bulak 1306, iv, 54; Mrs. R. L. 
Devonshire, Rambles in Cairo, 332. 

(Tahsin Yazici) 
GULSHANI (GulshenI) Sarukhani, Ottoman 
poet who flourished in the reign of Mehemmed II, 
was born in Sarukhan, and lived a life of religious 
seclusion and devotion. His Makdldt (variously 
entitled in the MSS Rdz-ndme, Pend-ndme, Esrdr- 
name) is written in seven chapters in the mathnawi 
form, containing 950 couplets; completed in 864/ 
1459, it consists of homilies, stories and parables. 
After each homily or admonition, GulshenI includes 
stories to illustrate his point. 

He is the author of a Persian diwdn: the text of 
the kdsides addressed to Mehemmed II and Bayezld 



GULSHANI — GOM 



II is reproduced from the unique MS (Istanbul, 
Bayezid Um. Kut. 5280) by Tahsin Yazici (see Bibl.). 
He wrote also a poem celebrating the Prophet's 
birthday (mawlud). 

Bibliography: Latifi, Tedhkere, s.v.; Bursal! 

Tahir, <Othmdnll MU'eUifUri, ii, 388; Gibb, 

Ottoman Poetry, ii, 378 ; Hammer- Purgstall, Gesch. 

d. osm. Dichtkunst, ii, 286; T. Yazici, Gulsenl, 

eserleri ve Fdtih ve II. Bayezid hakktndaki kaside- 

leri, in Fdtih ve Istanbul, ii/7-12 (1954), 82-137. 

(GOnay Alpay) 

GULSHEHRI, a Turkish poet of the beginning 

of the 8th/i4th century. Hitherto, his personal name 

was taken to be Ahmed, on the evidence of a 

single entry in a manuscript of his poem Mantik 

al-fayr. Recently, on the strength of several points 

in the same work, he has been identified with a 

certain Sheykh Suleyman, whose turbe is in Kir- 

shehir. It can be easily supposed that this town from 

which as a poet he took his name Gulshehri was his 

home. The date of the poet's death is unknown, but 

it must have been after 717/1317, the year when his 

work Mantik al-tayr was completed. 

Gulshehri wrote two great didactic sufi poems, 
methnewis in remel metre, one in Persian entitled 
Falak-ndma (completed 701/1301-2), of about 4,000 
distichs (bayts), of which the so far unique manu- 
script is now in the Public Library (Genel Kitaplik), 
Ankara, as no. 817. The other work is written in 
Turkish and is entitled Mantik al-tayr; this likewise 
consists of about 4,000 distichs, and now exists in 
a facsimile edition with introduction by Agah Sirn 
Levend (Ankara 1957). A dissertation on this work, 
by Miijgan Cunbur, has not yet appeared in print. 
Gulshehri's Mantik al-tayr ("Speech of the birds") 
is a free adaptation in verse of the poem of the same 
name also in the remel metre, by the Persian poet 
Farld al-Din c Attar [q.v.], and not really a translation. 
The ideas and construction of the work are the same 
as with c Attar; it is an allegory of sufi monism 
(wahdei-i wudjud), in the form of a story of a journey 
by the birds under their leader, the hoopoe (hudhiid), 
to their queen, the Simurgh [9. v.], whose eyrie was 
far off on Mount Kaf, and their arrival there, after 
the hardships of the journey only thirty of them 
attaining their goal, where they were finally com- 
pelled to recognize themselves to be the "SI murgh" 
— "thirty birds". In matters of detail, however, 
Gulshehri often goes his own way. 

In one place in his work Mantik al-(ayr (text, ed. 
A. S. Levend, 297, 1. 14), the poet names the Gul- 
shanndme, as a work written by himself ; it is, however, 
probable that the Mantik al-tayr itself is meant. 
Another small methnewi is also in existence, probably 
by Gulshehri, consisting of 167 distichs and also in 
remel metre, on Akhi Ewran/Evren {Kerdmdt-i Akhi 
Ewrdn tdba thardhu), which is very closely linked 
with the Mantik al-tayr since they have whole 
verses in common. There is some difference of 
opinion as to whether this short methnewi on Akhi 
Evren derives from Gulshehri himself, or whether 
it was composed by another poet who may have 
been a follower of Akhi Evren and who made 
use of lines from the Mantik al-tayr and misappro- 
priated the then famous name of Gulshehri. It is a 
striking fact both that in the methnewi on Akhi 
Evren the Falak-ndma is in fact named (verse 159b), 
but not the Mantik al-fayr, and also that the name 
of Akhi Evren does not figure in the latter 
work [see akhi ewran]. — In another place 
in the Mantik al-tayr (text, A. S. Levend, 
296 1. 12) Gulshehri also speaks of a verse 



translation of a work by the poet Kuduri in Turkish 
as his own work. A manuscript of a further work of 
Gulshehri, c Arud risdlesi, is in Istanbul (Millet 
Kitaphgi, Ali Emiri, Farsca yazmalar, no. 517). — 
Finally, from various manuscripts now dispersed 
there still survive some ghazals by Gulshehri. These 
have been collected together by Fr. Taeschner in 
his article Zwei Gazels von Giilsehri, in Fuad Koprulu 
Armagam (Melanges Fuad Koprulu), Istanbul 1953, 
479-85. 

Bibliography: in the text; see also Fr. 
Taeschner, Das Futuvvetkapitel in GulSehris altos- 
manischer Bearbeitung von '■Attars Man(iq uf-fayr, 
Berlin 1932; idem, Gulschehris Mesnevi auf Achi 
Evran, den Heiligen von Kirschehir und Patron der 
tiirkischen Ziinfte, Wiesbaden 1955; idem, Des 
altrumtiirkischen Dichters Giilsehri Werk Mantik 
uf-fayr und seine Vorlage, das gleichnamige Werk 
des persischen Dichters Fariduddin ' Attar, in 
Nimeth Armagam, Ankara 1962, 359-371. 

(Fr. Taeschner) 
GUM, GUM ARABIC [see samgh]. 
GCM (Arabic kawm; French goum), the usual 
form and pronunciation, in the Arab countries of 
North Africa, of the name given to a group of 
armed horsemen or fighting men from a tribe. 
The derivative guma signifies "a levy of gums, 
troops, a plundering foray", "sedition", "revolt". 
It was the Turks who, in the former Regencies of 
Algiers and Tunis, gave the gums an official existence 
by making them the basis of their system of occupa- 
tion of the country. All the tribes had been divided 
by them into makhzen or auxiliaries, who were exempt 
from most taxes, and raHyya, who were liable to all 
taxes. The latter were the more numerous. When 
one or more of the latter tribes refused to pay a tax 
or revolted for some reason, the Turkish army 
rapidly advanced to the insurgents' territory. Though 
small in size, this army was reinforced by the ex- 
ceedingly mobile cavalry groups of the gums. 

Soon after their occupation of the Algiers Regency, 
the French learnt how to make best use of the gums. 
But once the country had been pacified, the makhzen 
tribes disappeared. The system of gums was then 
extended to all tribes, without exception. Under the 
command of the chiefs, kd'ids or aghas, appointed by 
the French authorities, the gums had to co-operate 
with the military police in the maintenance of peace 
in the country, and in protecting the migrations of the 
nomadic tribes and the safety of caravans. 

In territory under military administration, the 
number of "goumiers", i.e., members of the gum of a 
tribe, varied according to regional needs. The 
goumiers received a monthly wage and encamped on 
certain State lands whose revenues went to them, 
but they were obliged to equip and mount themselves 
at their own expense. On active service they were 
also entitled to the mu'na, a special allowance for food. 
In civil territory, the goumiers equipped and 
mounted themselves at their own expense. They did 
not draw any pay but, when called up, they received 
the special allowance for food. In civil territory gums 
were called up only in the event of insurrection or 
European war. They were, in- fact, a territorial 
militia under the command of the tribal chiefs and 
subject to the orders of the administratuon. The gum 
from each mixed commune consisted of 120 horsemen. 
The goumiers had the right to carry arms. Their 
distinctive badge was a green and red cord fixed 
round the turban. The goumiers' horses were not 
subject to any tax charges, and the goumier himself 
was exempt from the tax on livestock. 



After the inauguration of the French Protectorate 
in Morocco, a similar organization was created, and 
the Moroccan goumiers particularly distinguished 
themselves during the second world war, in Italy and 
the south of France [see also makbzen]. 

Bibliography : W. Esterhazy, De la domination 
turque dans Vancienne Rigence d' 'Alger, Paris 1840, 
261 ff.; Soualah, Cours moyen d'arabe parli, 
Algiers 1909, 100; Larcher, Legislation algirienne, 
Paris 1903, i, no. 298, 147; Menerville, Diet, de 
Legislation algirienne, 20 ; Circulaire du Gouverneur 
giniral de VAlgirie des 21-25 mars i86y; Hugues 
and Lapra, Code Algirien, Paris 1878; ArrUt du 
Gouvern. Giniral de VAlgirie du 11 Dec. 1872, art. 4 ; 
Circulaire du Gouvern. Giniral de VAlgirie of 
29 April 1910. (A. Cour) 

GUMRUK [see maks]. 
GUMULQJINA [see Supplement]. 
GUMUSH-KHANE (modern spelling Gumusha- 
ne), literally "the house of silver, the town of silver", 
mining centre and town of Asia Minor, principal 
town of a vildyet, on the road from Trabzon to 
Erzurum. The evolution of the town went through 
two distinct phases. (1) As a mining centre. 
It is probably Gumush-khane to which Marco Polo 
refers when he ^writes (xxii) of silver mines in the 
region of Bayburt. In any case the town was known 
by this name (Kumish) in the time of Ibn Battuta 
(tr. Gibb, Cambridge 1962, ii, 436). Situated at an 
altitude of about 5,000 ft., built in an amphitheatre 
on the steep slopes of the Musalla deresi (a left 
tributary of the Harsit cay), the ancient town, 
which during the whole of the Ottoman period was 
a busy centi for the mining of argentiferous lead, 
under a system of state encouragement and supervi- 
sion (see N. Cagatay, in AVDTCD, ii (1943), 124), 
was "important and lively" in the 17th century 
(HadjdjI Khalifa, Djikdnnumd, 622, 623). But by 
the beginning of the 19th century the mines were in 
complete decline; in 1836, they employed no more 
than 50 or 60 workers and it was no longer profitable 
to work them. They were therefore closed, particu- 
larly because of the lack of fuel due to the de- 
afforestation of the area, in the middle of the 19th 
century; then, after a last attempt to work them in 
1883, closed finally a few years later. (2) As a town 
on a main route. The main centre of the town 
then gradually moved towards the Harsit valley 
2V2 miles away, along which at first were scattered 
country houses surrounded by gardens and orchards, 
which provided at the end of the 19th century an 
important export of dried and preserved fruit 
(pears, plums, apricots, etc.). Gradually a commercial, 
and then an administrative, centre arose there along 
the main route from Trabzon to Erzurum. The 
decline of the old town was completed by the Russian 
occupation in 1916-18, which left it half in ruins, 
and by the exodus of the important Greek and 
Armenian minority (even so late as the beginning of 
the 20th century, the Greeks formed half of the 
3,000 inhabitants). Today all the commerce and 
administration is concentrated in the new town. 
Pop., i960, 5,312. 

Bibliography: apart from the works cited and 
the articles of J. H. Mordtmann in EI 1 and of 
B. Darkot in tA, see Ewliya Celebi, Seydhatndme, 
ii, 343. Gumiish-khane, situated on the main route 
from Trabzon to Iran, was visited and described 
in the 19th century by many European travellers; 
see especially W. J. Hamilton, Researches in Asia 
Minor, London 1842, i, 168-9, ». 234-8 (detailed 
analysis of the position of the mines before they 



GOM — GORAN 1139 

were closed) ; Th. Deyrolle, Voyage dans le Lazistan 
et VArminie, in Le tour du monde, Paris 1875 
(xxix), 22-4 for the period of the growth of the new 
town and the trade in fruit in 1869. 

(X. de Planhol) 
GUMUSHTEGIN. name of various Turkish 
chiefs, particularly the Danishmendid prince known 
also as Amir GhazI [see danishmendids] and the 
atabeg of Aleppo [see zangids]. (Ed.) 

GUNBADH [see subba]. 

GUNBAEH-I SABCS, the second town of 
Gurgan province, Iran, no km by road north-east 
of the provincial headquarters at Gurgan [}.».], with 
an estimated population of 10,000 in 1956. Five km 
west of Gunbad (as it is popularly called) lie the 
ruins of the mediaeval city of Diurdjan, near the 
shrine said to be that of the 'Alid Yahya b. Zayd. The 
modern town is named from the mausoleum of the 
Ziyarid Kabus b. Washmglr, still standing at the 
northern end of the main street. It is a cylindrical 
brick tower 167 feet high, placed on an artificial 
mound 32 feet above the plain. Angular buttresses 
divide the sides into ten panels, the exterior diameter 
being 48 feet. Above the door a band of Arabic 
inscriptions in simple Kufic philosophically name 
the structure as the kasr ('palace') of Kabus, ordered 
during his lifetime in 397/1006-7, or 375 by solar 
reckoning (i.e., the Era of Yazdagird III commencing 
A.D. 632). The monument is nowadays much admired 
for its structural strength and simplicity. 

Bibliography: A. Godard in A.U. Pope (ed.), 
A survey of Persian art, ii, 970-4; RCEA, vi, 62 
(No. 2 1 18); E. Diez, Churasanische Baudenkmaler, 
i. 39-43, 100-6; B. Dorn, Caspia, 91. 

(A. D. H. Bivar) 
GUNS, GUNNERY [see barud]. 
GUNTEKIN, RESAT NURI [see reshad nuri 
gCntekin]. 

GURAN, an Iranian people, now reduced to 
between 4,000 and 5,000 houses, inhabiting an area 
north of the main road from Kirmanshah to the 
Persian frontier near Kasr-i Shirin and comprising 
the slopes of the Kuh-i Shahan — Dalahu mountain. 
The Guran 'capital' is Gahwara, lying 60 km. due 
west of Kirmanshah in the valley of the Zimkan, a 
southern tributary of the SIrwan. An isolated com- 
munity occupies the village of Kandula, 40 km. 
north-east of Kirmanshah, near the site of Dinawar. 
Other, more numerous branches are formed by the 
Badjalan and the tribes of the Hawraman [qq.v.]. 
An older form of the name was certainly Goran 
(< *Gawran-), as it is so preserved in Kurdish 
dialects, while GuranI itself has undergone the 
sound-change 6, u > u, & respectively (v. infra). It 
is thus difficult to reconcile the name with that of 
the Toupavioi, mentioned by Strabo, xi, 14, 14, as 
neighbours of the Medes. The origin of the name is 
more probably to be sought in a form * gaw-bara-kdn 
'ox-riders' (v. Minorsky, op. cit. infra). This name is 
connected with the Caspian provinces, as also is the 
place-name Gilan, which is of frequent occurrence 
among the Guran. The inference that their original 
home lay near the Caspian is further supported by 
the evidence of their language. Just as the closely 
related Zaza [q.v.], or Dimll, people moved west into 
classical Armenia, so the proto-Guran appear to have 
migrated south and peopled the whole southern 
Zagros area. Later they were largely submerged by 
an expansion of the Kurds, also from the north, but 
their language has left its mark on the ('Central') 
Kurdish of their conquerors. 

Ibn Khurradadhbih, 14, preserves the older form 



GORAN — GORANI 



of the name as Djabar'ka, and similar forms are 
used by Ibn Fakih and al-Mas c udI, always in close 
connexion with Kurds. Ibn al-Athlr, ix, describing the 
rise of the Hasanoyid principality (ca. 350-420/ 
960-1030), which stretched from northern Luristan 
to Sharaziir, frequently mentions the exploits of 
the *pjawrakan, while for this name the author of 
the Mudjmal al-tawarikh regularly substitutes 
Guranan. Shihab al-DIn al- c Umari, Masdlik al- 
absdr (ca. 744/1343), mentions 'Kurds called al- 
KOraniya' in the mountains of Hamadan and 
Sharaziir, and Sharaf Khan, in the Sharaf-ndma 
(1005/1596), still uses the term Guran as if referring 
to the populace of Ardalan and Kirmanshah as a 
whole, although he distinguishes their various 
rulers. The absorption of all but the surviving 
Guran population by Kurdish tribes thus appears 
to have proceeded slowly, the present equilibrium 
having been achieved little more than a century ago. 

The Guran are mainly sedentary cultivators, yet 
they have long been renowned for their military 
qualities. In the last century they provided a standing 
regiment of between 1,000 and 2,000 men for the 
Persian army. Those subjected to Kurdish tribal 
overlordship, however, have completely surrendered 
their identity. The name Goran, synonymous with 
miskgn, is now used among the Kurds of Sharaziir 
as an appellation for the serf-like, Kurdish-speaking 
peasantry. 

It is noteworthy that the name Goran is also 
borne by a small group of Kurds inhabiting the 
area north of the Great Zab river above the con- 
fluence of the Khazir. These 'Seven tribes', as they 
are also called, speak Kurdish dialects of the 
Southern group, unlike their neighbours, and have 
evidently been transported from the Kirmanshah — 
Khanakin region. 

Language. 

The Gurani dialects belong to the North-West 
Iranian group. Of those recorded Hawrami is con- 
sistently the most archaic. Characteristic of the 
phonology are (a) the preservation of initial y- and 
w-: H(awraml) ydwa, B(adjalanl) yaw, K(andulai) 
yaya 'barley', H, B wd, K vd 'wind', H, K wini 
'blood', (b) initial w- < hw-\ all ward- 'eat', H, K 
war 'sun', warm 'sleep', (c) initial h- <x-: H, K har 
'donkey', hdna 'spring', (d) -rd- > -1-, in words 
unmistakably NWIr.: H will 'flower', K zil 'heart'. 
In general H and B have preserved the madjhiil 
vowels e, 6, lost in the other Gurani dialects: 
H hela, K hila 'egg', H, B gosh, K gush 'ear', where 
u generally becomes ti: K dilr 'far', zi! 'quick'. 

In the nominal system masculine and feminine 
gender, and direct and oblique case, are normally 
distinguished. Most dialects have a defining suffix 
■akd, F. -aki (-aki). The indefinite suffix, generally 
-i, is -ew, F. -ewa, in Hawrami. H also preserves a 
genitive Idafa form li: das-u went 'my own hand', 
beside the epithetic i: ydnlw-i kon 'an old house'. 

The copula is characterized by the presence of 
an -n-, thus Sg. 1 -and{n), 2 -ani, 3 -an, etc. With 
the present tense the durative prefix is generally 
m(a)-: B makaro, K makaru, but H kard 'he does', B, 
K mdldn, H mild 'they say (wdl-)'. H has, in addi- 
tion, a proper imperfect tense formed from the present 
stem: karlnl 'I was doing', wall 'he was saying'. 
The majority of dialects have preserved the inverse 
formation of the past tenses of transitive verbs: 
H, B Cesh-it wdt 'what did you say?', K dwirdan-ish 
'he has brought it'. Passive stems are formed in 
-ya- : H waCyo 'it is said', K kiryan 'it has been made'. 



Gurani has attained literary status in the form 
of a xoivt) which, besides being the vehicle of a 
number of Ahl-i Hakk writings, was cultivated at 
the court of the Walls of Ardalan. A sketch of the 
grammar of this literary language has been given 
by Rieu, Cat. Pers. MSS., ii, 728 ff. Poets of name 
range from Yusuf Yaska (fl. 1010/1600) to Mawlawi 
(d. 1300/1882). All Gurani verse, epic, lyric and 
religious alike, is in a simple decasyllabic metre. Its 
former popularity is reflected in the fact that gordni 
is the common word for 'song' in the neighbouring 
Kurdish. 

Bibliography: V. Minorsky, The Gurdn, in 
BSOAS.xi (1943), 75-103; Benedictsen/Christensen, 
Les dialectes d'Awromdn et de Pdwd, Copenhagen 
192 1 ; K. Hadank, Mundarten der Guran, (Oskar 
Mann) bearbeitet von . . ., Berlin 1930; M. Mokri, 
Cinquante-deux versets . . . en dialecte Gurani, in 
J A, 1956, 391-422. (D. N. Mackenzie) 

GORDNI, Sharaf (or Shihab or Shams) al-DIn 
Ahmad b. Isma c Il b. c Othman, known as Molla 
GuranI, 9th/i5th century Ottoman scholar and 
shaykh al-isldm. [Sakhawl sometimes found his name 
given as Ahmad b. Yusuf b. Isma c U etc.; and in one 
place (ii, i486) HadjdjI Khalifa mentions him with 
the kunya Abu 'l- c Abbas.] While noting that MakrizI 
gives another date and place (the latter obviously a 
copyist's distortion), Sakhawl has him born in 813/ 
1410-11 in the Guran district of the Shahrizor pro- 
vince of upper c Irak, and it is probably only by in- 
ference from the ethnic character of this region that 
F. Babinger makes him a Kurd (Mehmed der Eroberer 
und seine Zeit, Munich 1953, 518). After having 
studied under local teachers, he pursued his further 
education in Hisn Kayfa, Baghdad, Damascus 
(where he arrived in 830/1426-27), Jerusalem and, 
finally, Cairo (835/1431-2). Here he studied under 
such famous scholars as Ibn Hadjar and Kalkashandl, 
and he gained a reputation for learning which led 
to the patronage of important men and a teaching 
appointment at Barkukiyya madrasa. Because of an 
unseemly quarrel with another scholar, he was dis- 
missed his post and exiled to Syria in 844/1440-41 
whence, in despair of his future in Mamluk terri- 
tories, he went over to the Ottomans and changed 
his madhhab from Shafi'I to Hanafi. His first appoint- 
ment was to the Kaplidja madrasa in Bursa, and in 
854/1450-51 he succeeded Karadja Ahmad Efendi 
as professor at the Ylldlrim in the same city (Bellgh, 
283). Later he was made tutor to Prince Mehemmed 
in Maghnlsa, and when the latter ascended the throne 
in 855/1451 he received the post of kddi 'l-'askar. He 
was present at the conquest of Constantinople 
( c Ali, Kunh al-akhbar, v, Istanbul 1277, 257) and 
composed in elegant Arabic a letter to the Sultan of 
Egypt announcing this great victory (Feridun Beg, 
Munsha'dt al-saldtin, Istanbul 1274, 235). His in- 
tractable independence of attitude proving an 
annoyance to the new Sultan and his statesmen, he 
was removed from the centre of affairs by appoint- 
ment to the kddi-shvp of Bursa, but here, too, he 
acted in defiance of the royal will and was finally 
dismissed from office. He left Ottoman territory for a 
while, but returned in 861/1457 after having per- 
formed the Pilgrimage and was once again appointed 
kddi of Bursa with lavish monthly supplements to 
his salary from the Sultan. In 867/1462-63 he suc- 
ceeded Molla Khusraw as kddi of Istanbul (Bellgh, 
260; but cf. Tashkopruzade-MedidI, 149 margin, 
where it is said that Kh w adja-zade succeeded Molla 
Khusraw in this office in 872/1467-68). In 885/1480-81 
he was elevated to shaykh al-isldm, and he remained 



GORANl — GURGANDJ 



in this office until his death in the latter part of 
Radjab 983/1488. He is buried in the mosque he 
built in the quarter of Istanbul which still bears his 

The independence of mind which he exhibited in 
his public life is also to be found in his works. Thus, 
in his commentary on the Kur'an entitled Ghdvat 
al-amdni, etc. (completed in 867/1463) he often takes 
issue with Zamakhsharl and Baydawl (Brockelmann, 
II, 228, S II, 319; HadjdjI Khalifa, ii, 1190), and in his 
commentary on the Sahih of Bukhari entitled al- 
Kawthar al-didri, etc. (completed in Edirne in 874/ 
1469) he even refutes his former master Ibn Hadjar 
(Brockelmann, I, 159, S I, 262, S II, 319; HadjdjI 
Khalifa, i, 553). Several of his works are on Kur'anic 
readings (kira'a) : under the title of al- c Abkari he com- 
piled his notes on the Kanz al-ma'dni of al-Dja'barl, 
the famous commentary on al-Shatibl's (lirz al- 
amdni (Brockelmann, S I, 725; Hadidji Khalifa, i, 
646) ; his Kashf al-asrdr, etc. (not completed in 890/ 
1485 as Hadidji Khalifa, ii, 1487, says, for a ms. of it 
in the Suleymaniye, No. 47/2, is dated 874/1469-70) 
is a commentary on al-Djazarl's al-Durra al-mudVa, 
etc. (Brockelmann, II, 202); the same Suleymaniye 
ms. also contains another work by him on this sub- 
ject, the Lawdmi'- al-ghurar fi shark fawdHd al-Durar 
which, from its title, may be a commentary on the 
Durar al-afkdr, a work by al-Dja'bari not recorded 
in Brockelmann (Hadidji Khalifa, ii, 1319). On 
fikh he wrote a commentary to al-Subki's Djam 1 
al-djawdmi' entitled al-Durar (or al-Budur) al- 
lawdmi c which Hadidji Khalifa (i, 596) implies is 
a spiteful attack on the al-Badr al-fdli', also a com- 
mentary on the Djam' by al-Mahalll, his successor 
at the Barkukiyya (Brockelmann, S II, 106, 319). A 
few other minor works are also attributed to 

Bibliography. The two basic sources for his 
biography are al-Sakhawi, al-Daw' al-ldmi', 
Cairo 1353,1,241-3 and Tashkopriizade, al-Shaka'- 
ik al-nu'mdniyya, Arabic text in the margins of Ibn 
Kha'likan, Wafaydt al-a'ydn, Bulak 1299, i, 
143-51; Turkish version by Medjdl, Istanbul 1269, 
102-11; German translation from the Arabic by 
O. Rescher, Istanbul 1927, 48-53 (see also 
114). Despite his fame and importance, he 
is scarcely mentioned in the historical works 
of the period: see the bibliography to the 
article by Ahmed Ates in I A, viii, 406-8, 
and add: Bellgh Efendi, Guldeste-i riydd-i Hrfdn, 
Bursa 1302. For his buildings in Istanbul and 
elsewhere, see Husayn Aywansarayl, ffadikat al- 
djawdmi'; Istanbul 1281, i, 187, 207, and Ekrem 
Hakkt Ayverdi, Fdiih devri mimarlsi, Istanbul 
1953, Nos. 73, 85, 90, 171, 199, 244, 384 and 486. 
He figures in a miniature among the illustrations 
to Samiha Ayverdi, Edebi ve Manevi Dunyasi 
ifinde Fatih, Istanbul 1953, 10. 

(J. R. Walsh) 
GURCANl [see Supplement] 
GURfiJISTAN [see kurd,t]. 
GURGAN, Old Persian vrkana, Arabic sturpjan, 
the ancient Hyrcania, at the South-east corner of 
the Caspian Sea. 

The province, which was practically equivalent to 
the modern Persian province of Astarabadh [q.v.] 
(now part of Ustdn II) forms both in physical features 
and climate a connecting link between sub-tropical 
Mazandaran with its damp heat and the steppes of 
Dihistan in the north. The rivers Atrak [q.v.] and 
Gurgan, to which the country owes its fertility and 
prosperity, are not an unmixed blessing on account 






s and the danger of fever which 



Gurgan played an important part in the Sasanid 
period, being the frontier province against the nomads 
pressing in from the north. The fortresses of Shah- 
ristan-i Yazdgird and Shahr-i Peroz (see Marquart, 
Erdniahr, 51, 56) were built as a defence against 
the nomads of the Dihistan steppes ; a long wall was 
built along the northern frontier to defend the lands. 

Sa c Id b. al- c As is said to have levied tribute from 
the "Malik" of Gurgan as early as the year 30/650-1; 
but the real conquest of the country was the work of 
Yazld b. al-Muhallab (98/716-7). At that time the 
ruler of Gurgan was a Marzban but the real power 
seems to have been in the hands of the Turkish 
chief SOI. 

After punishing the unruly population of the valley 
of the navigable Andarhaz, the modern Gurgan river, 
Yazld founded the town of Gurgan, which henceforth 
was the capital of the province. It must have been a 
very prosperous place in the 3rd/9th and 4th/ioth 
centuries. The gardens around it, irrigated by the 
waters of the river, were famous; its chief product 
was silk. Gurgan was also a station on the caravan 
route to Russia. The town was divided in two by 
the river, which was crossed by a bridge of boats; 
on the eastern side was the town proper or Shahristan. 
whose nine gates are detailed by MukaddasI, and on 
the western, the suburb of Bakrabadh (called after 
a settlement of the Arab tribe?). The prosperity of 
the town seems to have been early threatened by 
internal dissensions. c Alid propaganda had found a 
congenial soil in the lands along the Caspian, and 
the c Alid dynasty of Tabaristan included Gurgan in 
its sphere of influence. In Gurgan itself the tomb of 
Muhammad b. Dja'far al-Sadik, commonly known 
as Gur-i Surkh (the Red Tomb) was an object of 
great reverence. The constant unrest in these lands 
enabled Mardavldj b. Ziyar in 316/928 to found a 
kingdom of his own in Gurgan with the help of the 
Daylamites: it survived for over a hundred years, 
although nominally dependent on the Samanids and 
later the Ghaznawids [see ziyarids]. The dome- 
shaped tomb (Gunbadh-i Kabus [q.v.]) of the ruler 
Kabus b. Washmgir (366/976-7 - 403/1012-3) still 
exists as a memorial of this period. 

The population was massacred at the time of the 
Mongol invasion and Mustawfl (transl. Le Strange, 
156) writing in the 8th/i4th century describes the 
town as a heap of ruins. TImur is said to have built 
a palace in 795/1392-3 on the bank of the river, 
but Gurgan never again attained its former prosperity. 
Hadjdjl Khalifa (Djihdn-numd, Istanbul 1145/1732, 
339), however, mentions Gurgan, which had been 
rebuilt since the Mongol period, as inhabited by 
fanatical Shi'Is. 

The position of Gurgan in the angle formed by the 
confluence of the Gurgan River and the Khurma-rud 
is marked only by extensive mounds, which have not 
yet. been investigated. The very name of the town 
has recently been transferred to Astarabadh. Only 
the Gunbadh-i Kabus, about 2 miles to the north- 
east and about a mile away irom the river, has with- 
stood the ravages of time. 

Bibliography: As in the article astarabadh. 
(R. Hartmann [- J. A. Boyle]) 

GURGANDJ, called by the Arabs Djurdjaniyya, 
and also in the period about 600/1200 described as 
Kh"arizm (like the country round), the economic 
centre of the Kh"arizm [q.v.] area and for a long 
period also the political capital of the territory, lay 
to the west of the lowest reaches of the Oxus (Amu 



GURGANDJ — GURGANl 



Darya). The town, whose age is unknown, was 
captured by the Arabs in 93/712. They attempted to 
deprive Gurgandj of its importance by founding a 
city, Fll (Fir), on the further bank of the Oxus; but 
the new settlement was gradually inundated by the 
river (for details see kath). In order to maintain 
their domination over Kh w arizm, which was an area 
at that time on the outer fringe of the world of Islam, 
the Arabs divided the territory; the native dynasty, 
the Afrighids, who bore the title of Kh w arizm-Shah, 
were allowed to retain the northern part, with Kath 
as their capital; Gurgandj became the residence of an 
Arab amir, who had power over the south-west 
(Ifudiid al-'dlam, 122, § 25, and 371; GardizI, ed. 
M. Nazim, 1930, p. 57). This state of affairs lasted for 
over 250 years, until 385/995 (for details see 
kh w arizm). Then the Arab amir of the time, Ma'mun 
b. Muhammad, was able to expel the old dynasty 
and unite the whole of Kh w arizm under his own rule. 
From that time he took over the ancient title of the 
rulers of that country, Kh w arizm-Shah. Thereafter 
Gurgandj ranked after Kath as the second principal 
city, but after the overthrow of Ma>mun's successors 
by the SaldjOks in 434/1043, it exceeded Kath in 
importance and became once more the real centre of 
the territory as well as the intermediary for commerce 
with the Oghuz and other northern Turkish tribes 
(Gardlzl,95; Istakhri, 2991., 341; Ibn Hawkal, 35of., 
477 f.). At this time the town had four gates and a 
large palace near the Bab al-Hudjdjadj, on the edge 
of a huge market place, and consisted of an outer 
and an inner city (Ifudiid, 122). According to 
Mukaddasi, 288, in the 4th/ioth century the town 
grew rapidly; in 600/1204 it was besieged by the 
Ghurids [q.v.] (Djuwayni, ii, 55; Barthold, Turke- 
stan 1 , 349 f.) and at the beginning of the 7th/i3th 
century it was included among the most prosperous 
cities of the Islamic Empire (an account dating from 
the period 61 3-6/12 16-9 is given in Yakut, ii, 54, 486; 
iii, 933; iv, 260 f.). Immediately thereafter, in 618/ 
1221, Gurgandj was attacked by the Mongols and 
after a siege of many months was razed to the ground 
(there is a lengthy account in Djuwayni, i, 98 f . ; 
thorough discussion of details in Fritz Meier, Die 
Fawd'ih . . . des . . . Rubra, Wiesbaden 1957, 53-60, 
with presentation of all source material; cf. also 
Barthold, Turkestan 1 , 433-7). The Mongols also 
flooded the town by diverting the Oxus; never- 
theless a few remains of pre-Mongol buildings have 
been found (for instance an inscription of 401/1010-1 : 
Zapiski Vost. Otd. Imp. Russk. Arkheol. ObshCestva, 
xiv, 015 f. ; cf. also DjOzdjanl, Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, ed. 
Raverty, 281, 1100). The question of how far the 
diversion of the Oxus at that time led to a displace- 
ment of the river bed is discussed in the article 
Amu daryA. Gurgandj lay waste from that time 
forth. The new capital of the province, Urgent, 
founded in 628/1231, was on a different site and 
presumably corresponds to the earlier so-called 
"Little Gurgandj", three parasangs from Gurgandj. 
For the history of this town see urgen6. 

Bibliography: Le Strange, 447-9; Barthold, 
Turkestan 1 , index; idem, 12 Vorlesungen, Berlin 
1935, 65; Josef Markwart, Wehrot und Arang, 
Leiden 1938, 96, 102; Spuler, Iran, 31, 108, 115; 
idem, Mongolen 1 , 28 (sources in note 7); idem, 
Der Amu Darya, in Jean Deny Armagam, Ankara 
1958, 231-48; A. Yu. Yakubovskiy, Razvalinl 
Urgenia (The Ruins of Urgent), in Izvestiya Akad. 
MaUriaPnoy kuVturl, vi/2 (1930); S. P. Tolstov, 
Drevniy Khorezm (Old KVdrizm). Moscow 1948, 
index; idem, Auf den Spur en der altchoresmischen 



Kultur, German tr. by O. Mehlitz, Berlin 1953, 
241-5 (with very ambiguous use of sources), 253 f., 
263 f., 286-91, 313; idem, in Vestnik Drevney 
Istorii, 195 3/1, 160-74 (with plans and illustrations) ; 
H. Desmond Martin in JRAS, 1943. 63 (plan of 
the campaign in Kh'arizm in 1220-1) ; Bol'sha^a 
Sovetskaya Iintsiklopediya*, xliv (1956), 313 f. 
(illustrations). (B. Spuler) 

GURGANl, Fakhr al-DIn As<ad, author of the 
first known courtly romance in Persian: Wis 
and Rdmin. In the opinion of Z. Safa (ii, 361) his 
achievement is to have introduced a literary genre 
which is now represented by a series of works, several 
of which are worthy of note. What is known of his 
life is limited to the little that he reveals in his poem. 
The accounts given by his biographers are negligible 
but agree in attributing to him the authorship of the 
poem (with the exception of Dawlat Shah, who 
erroneously attributes it to one of the Nizamls). 
'Awfl has preserved three of his lyrical poems (texts: 
Mahdjub, introd., 14), the others being lost. Shams-i 
Kays (Mu'Ham, ed. MIrza Muhammad and E. G. 
Browne, 80) writes: "The poetic metre bahr-i 
hazadj-i musaddas-i mahdhuf is that of Nizaml's 
Khusraw andShirin and of Fakhri Gurgani's Wis and 
Rdmin" ; later (140) he refers to him simply as Fakhri, 
which was perhaps his takhallus. In the last verse of 
his poem, Gurgani refers to himself as young; in 
addition he inserts (ed. Minovi, 468, v. 72; ed. 
Mahdjub, 350, v. 72; tr. Mass6, 431 bottom) this 
confidence (which partly explains his skill in depict- 
ing the passions of love): "How many days did I 
sample love! But it did not make me happy for one 
single day". He had certainly studied the Arab and 
Iranian philosophers (see the introd. to the poem, on 
the subject of a non-material God and His creation) 
and astronomy (description of the night: ed. Minovi, 
80; ed. Mahdjub, 60; tr., 72). In this same intro- 
duction he sings the praises of Toghrll Beg, of his 
vizier and of 'Amid Abu '1-Fath Muzaffar, who was 
appointed governor of Isfahan after the capture of 
this town by the sultan (441/1050); this governor 
was the patron of the poet and appointed him to 
various offices. In the course of conversation with 
him, as Gurgani relates in detail (Minovi, 25-7; 
Mahdjub, 18-21; tr., 6-7), the subject arose of the 
love story of Wis and Ramln, preserved in a Pahlavi 
manuscript: "a continuous narrative, but containing 
all manner of strange words", lacking in ideas and 
maxims — that is to say a prose narrative without 
any poetic ornament (perhaps like the Georgian 
translation of the poem). The governor having 
invited him to translate this story into Persian, "to 
embellish it as one adorns a flower-bed in April", 
Gurgani set to work, and finished, in 447/1055 or 
shortly after, this verse romance which consists of 
8905 bayt in hazadj, the metre most often adopted 
later by those who composed romances in the same 
genre. 

The question arises whether Gurgani knew Pahlavi. 
It is impossible summarily to deny this after having 
read his account, imprecise though it is, of the con- 
versation with the governor, and it is possible to 
conclude from one of the verses of the poem that he 
had some, though not a complete, knowledge of the 
language ("For one who knows Pahlavi, Khurasan 
signifies the place from which we receive light", ed. 
Minovi and Mahdjub, ch. 48, v. 4) ; in the course of 
this conversation, however, he refers to the prolixity 
and the strange (i.e., archaic) words of the Pahlavi 
text. For the question whether he worked directly 
from it or through a Persian translation, see Mahdjub, 



GURGANI — GWALIYAR 



introd., 20. The important thing is that he gave new 
life to an original which otherwise would no doubt 
have disappeared like so many other Pahlavi texts. 
In his poem the influence of ancient Iran appears 
particularly in the frequent allusions to the divine or 
the evil powers, to the sacred fires (mentioned by 
their names) and to their maintenance, to the ancient 
months and feast days, and to legendary features; 
there is in it a case of trial by ordeal, and one of 
those consanguineous marriages which were charac- 
teristic of the royal families of ancient Iran. The 
subject of the poem is fatal love: from the time of the 
appearance of the first edition of the Persian text 
the similarities between the poem and the story of 
Tristan and Iseult were recognized — there is thus no 
need to give an analysis of it here (cf. Masse, 9 ff.). 
The romance may be based on a historical fact: 
V. Minorsky has sought to demonstrate that it 
probably relates the adventures of a descendant of 
the Arsacid family and of a princess of one of the 
seven noble families of the Parthian period. 

In Gurgani's poetry there are realistic features 
contributing to knowledge of customs and folklore. 
At times his style is affected and precious (tr., 20-1), 
especially when, like other Persian poets, he is 
describing feminine beauty in conventional terms 
{e.g., ch. 37; tr., 90). Mahdjub has noted a series of 
images and of ancient proverbs (introd., 55-8), 
archaism sometimes used with a special meaning 
(ibid., 34) and some words which are close to the 
Pahlavi forms (ibid., 43). The poem had a lasting 
influence. Mahdjub points out similarities between 
some verses of Gurgani and those of later poets, and 
even some borrowings (introd., 98 ff.). The ten 
passionate letters written by Wis to Ramin (Minovi, 
347-83; Mahdjub, 259-86; tr. 318-51) were imitated 
by the poets Awhadi, Ibn c Imad, 'Arifl, 'Imad 
Faklh (ten letters), Amir Husayni, Katibi and 
Salman-i SawidjI (thirty letters). Of more signifi- 
cance is the similarity evident in the plan of Nizami's 
verse romance Khusraw u Shirin. which was probably 
inspired by Gurgani, though as regards style it may 
be suggested that Nizami intended that his learned 
and highly artificial style should form a contrast to 
the generally simple and sober style of Gurgani. 

Bibliography: Editions: Nassau Lees and 
Munshi Ahmad Ali (Bibl. Ind.), Calcutta 1864, 
based on a manuscript in India; Minovi, Tehran 
1314/1935, based on three manuscripts including 
that of the Bibl. Nat., Paris, which is the best; 
Muhammad Djafar Mahdjub, Tehran 1337/1959, 
which makes use of the two preceding editions. 
French translation with introduction, by H. Masse, 
Paris 1959; Georgian adaptation: Visramiani, tr. 
O. Wardrop (Oriental Translation Fund, new 
series, xxiii, London 1914). Studies: Z. Safa, 
Ta'rihh-i adabiydt dar Iran, Tehran 1336/1958, 
ii, index; Gr.I.Ph., index; K. H. Graf, analysis and 
extracts translated into German verse, in ZDMG, 
xxiii (1869), 375-433; Fr. Gabrieli, Note sulWts u 
Rdmtn, in R. Acad. Naz. dei Lincei, rendiconti, 
March-April 1939; V. Minorsky, Wis u Rdmtn, a 
Parthian romance, in BSOAS, xi/4 (1946); Sadik 
Hidayat, in Paydm-i now, Tehran 1324/1946, 
nos. 1 and 2 ; M. Minovi, in Sukhan, Tehran 1333-4/ 
1956, nos. 1 and 2; A. Bausani, Storia delta 
letteratura persiana, Milan i960, 621-6; J. Rypka, 
Iranische Literaturgeschichte, Leipzig 1959, 176-8. 

(H. Mass£) 
GURGANI [see DjuRraANi]. 
GtjRKHAN, the title borne by the (non-Muslim) 
rulers of Karakhitay [q.v.] (Chinese Hsi Liao = 



Western Liao) who governed central Asia between 
522-5/1128-31 and 608/1212 (or, with Giicliik, till 615/ 
1218). The first ruler was Yeh-lii Ta-shih (d. 537/ 
1143), a prince from the north Chinese dynasty of 
Liao, of the K c i-tan (Khitay) people. He overthrew 
the regime of the Karakhanids [q.v.] or Ilig-khans 
and in 535/1141 defeated the Saldjflljid sultan Sandjar 
[q.v.'] decisively in the Katwan plain, north of Samar- 
kand: the victory of a non-Muslim ruler from the 
East over one of the most powerful rulers of Islam 
probably provided the foundation for the legend 
of Prester John [q.v.] (Gurkhan > Johannes). 

The title Gurkhan is probably taken from the 

Turkish words kiirlgiir (Mongol kttr) ("broad", 

"wide", "general": cf. Mahmud al-Kashgharl, 

Diwdn, ed. C. Brockelmann, Budapest 1928, 117; 

Radloff, Versuch eines Wdrterbuches . . .," i960, ii, 

1447, 1637; Manghol un Niuca Tobca'an (Geheime 

Geschichte der Mongolen), ed. E. Haenisch, Leipzig 

1937, 65 and ed. Kozin, Moscow/Leningrad 1941, 

278); P. Doerfer in OLZ, i960, col. 635 f. The 

Muslims also refer to Gurkhan as "Khan-i Khanan". 

Bibliography: K. A. Wittfogel and Feng 

Chia-Shgng, History of the Chinese Society Liao, 

Philadelphia 1949, 431, 619-55 (History of the 

Gurkhans based on Eastern and Western sources, 

written in collaboration with K. H. Menges); 

K. Menges in Bymntion, xxi/i (1951), 104-6; 

idem, in RO, xvii (1953), 71; Spuler, Iran, 360 

n. 8. For the history of the Gurkhans see also the 

Bibl. to kara khitay and kirman (13th century). 

(B. Spuler) 
GUWAKHARZ [see bakharz]. 
GUZEL HISAR [see aydIn]. 
GCZGAN [see DjuzeiAN]. 
GWALIYAR, formerly capital of the Sindhia 
state of Gwaliyar, now a town in Madhya Pradesh. 
"Tradition assigns the foundation of the city to one 
Suradj Sen who was cured of leprosy by an ascetic 
named Gwalipa. The latter inhabited the hill on 
which the fort now stands, and this was called 
Gwaliyar after him". The early history of Gwaliyar 
is, however, shrouded in myth and romance. The 
Huna adventurers, Toramana and his son Mihirkula, 
who partially overthrew the Gupta power in the 
6th century A.D., are considered to be the first 
historical holders of this place. Later Radja Bhodj of 
Kanawdj, the Kaihwaha Radjputs and the Parihars 
respectively held sway over it. 

In 413/1022 when Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna 
marched against Ganda, the ruler of Kalindjar, he 
passed the fort of Gwaliyar. Since the Radja of 
Gwaliyar was a feudatory of Ganda, the Sultan 
stormed the fort. The Radja, despite his successful 
resistance, was so alarmed that he sued for peace 
(Zayn al-akhbdr, 79). In 592/1196 Kutb al-DIn 
Aybak took the fort from the Parihars (Tabakdt-i 
Ndsiri, 145; Eng. tr., Raverty, i, 545-6, with note on 
other versions). Iletmish's first territorial appoint- 
ment was as the amir of Gwaliyar (Tabakdt-i Ndsiri, 
169; Eng. tr. i, 604). It appears to have been lost to 
the Turks because in 629/1231 Iletmish is reported to 
have reconquered it and made appointments of the 
amir-i dad, the koiwdl and the kadi. But the history 
of the Muslim occupation of Gwaliyar is a chequered 
one. Early in her reign Radiyya (634-7/1236-40) had 
to send an expedition towards Gwaliyar under Tamur 
Mian, but the position became untenable and the 
fort had to be abandoned to Cahardeva. In 649/1251 
Balban led a full-scale expedition against Gwaliyar, 
but does not seem to have achieved any permanent 
success, for the numismatic evidence shows that 



"44 



GWALIYAR — GWANDU 



Gwaliyar was independent up to at least 657/1259. 

In the disturbances caused by Timur's invasion 
(800/1398) it was seized by the Tonwar Radjputs. In 
894/1488 Sultan BahlQl LodI marched against 
Gwaliyar and forced the Radja, Man Singh, to submit. 
When Sikandar LodI (894-923/1489-15 17) shifted his 
capital to Agra he considered the annexation of 
Gwaliyar necessary for the consolidation of his 
power, but he could not achieve his objective. Though 
subjected to frequent attacks by the rulers of 
Malwa, Djawnpur and Delhi, the Tonwars managed 
to retain it till 924/1518, when the fort was surrender- 
ed to Ibrahim LodI. When Babur turned his attention 
to the Afghan principalities after his victory at 
Panlpat, he found Tatar Khan Sarang Khani oc- 
cupying the fort along with all its dependencies. It 
was through the help of Sayyid Muhammad Ghawth. 
a celebrated Shattari saint, that he succeeded in 
establishing his hold over it. In 934/1528 Babur 
visited Gwaliyar and spent some time examining the 
palaces of Man Singh and Vikramaditya. He was 
impressed by their sire and splendour although he 
grumbles a little at their want of taste and elegance. 
In 949/1542 Gwaliyar fell to Shir Shah Surl (945-52/ 
1538-45) who forced Afghan tribes to settle there in 
large numbers (Rukn al-DIn, LatdHf-i Kuddusi, 
Delhi 1311, 85). This attempt at Afghan colonization 
in Gwaliyar was closely linked up with his policy of 
consolidation in Radjputana. Besides, Gwaliyar was 
also important as one of the principal stages on the 
great route from the Deccan which passed by Sirondj, 
Narwar, Gwaliyar and Dholpur to Agra. His descen- 
dants practically made it the capital of their 
dominions. 

In 965/1558 Gwaliyar passed to Akbar. Abu 
'1-Fadl mentions it as a sarkdr in the province of 
Agra and refers to its 'exquisite singers', 'lovely 
women' and 'iron mine'. Gwaliyar was one of the 
28 mint towns of Akbar for copper coins. Dewriza 
rice for Akbar's kitchen was brought from here. 
There was a quarry of red clay (gil-i surkh) in the 
hills of Gwaliyar. 

It was due to Mubariz Khan, the future Sultan 
'Adil Shah, that music received great encouragement 
in Gwaliyar, and musicians from Malwa, the Deccan 
and other parts of the country gathered there. Out 
of 36 singers and players enumerated in the AHn-i 
Akbari, 15 had learned in the Gwaliyar school, 
including the famous Tansen. The Mughals used it 
also as a state prison (cf. Tavernier, Travels, Eng. tr. 
Crooke, London 1925, i, 51 ff.; F. Bernier, Voyages, 
Amsterdam 1724, 147 ff.; Eng. tr. Constable, London 
1891, 106 ff.). Apart from the large number of 
political prisoners, princes and nobles, the great 
Nakshbandi saint, Shaykh Ahmad of Sirhind, was 
interned here by Djahangir. It remained in Mughal 
possession until the I2th/i8th century. In the 
confusion that followed on the battle of Panlpat in 
1174/1761, Lokendra Singh, the Djat chief of Gohad, 
obtained possession of the fort but was driven out 
by Sindhia soon after. There were many vicissitudes, 
and full Sindhia control could not be established 
before 1886. Gwaliyar lost its importance as the seat 
of Sindhia Government when a new town, Lashkar, 
developed near it. 

"The old city of Gwaliyar is now a desolate- 
looking collection of half-empty, dilapidated, flat- 
roofed stone houses, deserted mosques and ruined 
tombs. As it stands, the town is entirely Muham- 
madan in character, no old Hindu remains being 
traceable" (Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1908 ed.). 
Of the monuments, besides the fort which is situated 



on a great table rock of Vindhyan sandstone and is 
considered to be one of the most impregnable forts 
of India, there are several mosques — particularly the 
Djami c Masdjid, commenced by Djahangir, and the 
mosque of Mu'tamid Khan — several tombs, wells, 
tanks (on the "never-failing" tanks see Tavernier, 
op. cit., 51) and ia'd/is etc. The tombs are noticeable 
for the excellent carved stone and splendid pierced 
screen work. The tomb of Sayyid Muhammad 
Ghawth Shattari (d. 970/1563), built in Mughal times, 
perpetuates the structural traditions of the LodI 
period, but derives its decorative elements from 
Gudjarat. The shrine of Baba Kapur (d. 979/i57i), 
another popular saint of Gwaliyar, is situated in a 
cave, cut in the north-eastern face of the rock on 
which the Gwaliyar fort stands. 

Bibliography: Bar Hebraeus, alias Gregory 
Abu '1-Faradj b. Harun, The Syriac Chronicle, P aris 
1890, 21 1-2; GardizI, Zayn al-akhbdr, ed. M. 
Nazim, 79; al-BIruni, Kitdb al-Hind, tr. E. Sachau, 
London 1914, i, 202; Minhadj al-Siradj, fabakdt-i 
Ndsiri, Bibl. Ind., 145, 169, 174-5, 247; Eng. tr. 
Raverty, London 1881, i, 546, 604, 619 ff., 743; 
Ibn BattQta, iii, index, Eng. tr. Gibb, London 
1929, 224; Babur Ndma, tr. Beveridge, ii, 
539-40; Abu "1-Fadl, AHn-i Akbari, i, tr. 
Blochmann, Calcutta 1927, 32, 60, 235, 680-2; 
ii, Jarrett and Sarkar, Calcutta 1949, 192, 198; 
Sh. Djalal Hisarl, Gwdliydr-ndma, Brit. Mus. MS 
Add. 16,859; Hiraman MunshI, Gwdliydr-ndma, 
Brit. Mus. MS Add. 16,709; Shrimant Balwant 
Row Bhayasahib Scindia, History of the fortress of 
Gwaliyar, Bombay 1892; Moti Ram and Khwush 
Hal, Ahwdl-i kild c -i Gwaliyar, Br. Mus. (Rieu, i, 
304b), Ind. Office (Ethe 499); Khavr al-DIn, 
Gwdliydr-ndma or Kdrndma-i Gwaliyar, Brit. Mus. 
(Rieu, iii, 1028a); J. de Laet, De imperio magni 
Mogolis . . ., Leiden 1631, 40 ff.; J. B. Tavernier, 
Voyages, Eng. tr. Crooke, London 1925, i, 51-2; 
F. Bernier, Voyages, Amsterdam 1724, 147 ff., 
Eng. tr. A. Constable, London 1891, 106 ff.; 
Tieffenthaler, Description historique et giographique 
de I'Inde, Berlin 1786, 184, 217 ft., 246; Ray, 
The dynastic history of Northern India, Calcutta 
1936, ii, 822-9; Gwalior State Gazetteer, Calcutta 
1908; Imperial Gazetteer of India, New edition, 
1908, xii, 438-43; A. Cunningham, Archaeological 
Survey of India, ii, 330; Epigraphia Indica, i, 
154-62; P. Brown, Indian Architecture (Islamic 
period), Bombay n.d., 30, 126 ff.; Nazim, Sulfdn 
Mahmud of Ghazna. Cambridge 1931, 113, 207-8; 
Shamsuddin Ahmad, Inscriptions from Gwalior 
State, in EIM, 1939-40, 43-7; Ram Singh Saksena, 
Moslem epigraphy in the Gwalior State, in EIM, 
1925-6, 14-19; ibid., 1929-30, 7-9; ibid., 1935-6, 
52-7; idem, Persian inscriptions in the Gwalior 
State, in IHQ, i (1925), 653-6; iii (1927), 715-8; vii 
(i93i), 55-6; xvi (1940), 592-5. (K. A. Nizami) 
GWANDU. First mentioned in the al-Infdk al- 
maysur of Muhammadu Bello (d. 1837) Gwandu was, 
at the beginning of the 19th century, a village in the 
prosperous little state of Kebbi (capital: Birnin 
Kebbi) in the western Sudan. In 1805, in the course 
of the Fulani djihdd, Shehu Usumanu dan Fodio 
(d. 1817) established a temporary headquarters at 
Kambaza, near Gwandu, but was attacked by a 
coalition of the Kebbawa, Gobirawa and Tawarik. 
The Fulani army was defeated and the survivors fell 
back on Gwandu where they stood siege under daily 
attacks. Finally the Kebbawa and their allies with- 
drew but were courageously pursued and ambushed 
by the Fulani garrison. The Kebbawa force was 



Dan Fodio 
(1817-1828) 



llam Halilu Haliru Aliu Abdulkadiri 

(1833-58) (1858-60) (1860-64) (1864-66) 

1 . , : 



(1868-75) (1876-8! 



Bayero (1875-76) 



(1898-1901) (1901-06) 



MUHAMMADU USUMANU YaHAYA 

Basheru (1918-38) (1938-54) 

(1915-18) 



routed and put to flight at Gumbai and this was the 
turning point of the diihdd. Shehu Usumanu was 
never again in serious danger and the Fulani forces, 
despite occasional reverses, proceeded to subdue 
most of an area in size approximate to (but not 
co-terminous with) that of the present state of 
Nigeria. Shehu Usumanu, the leader and inspiration 
of the diihdd, fell sick in 1806 and remained in 
Gwandu, leaving the conduct of his campaigns to 
his Fulani commanders. His son, Muhammadu Bello, 
built a wall around the village to strengthen it and 
for the next two years it served as the capital of 
the incipient Fulani empire. 

In 1808 Alkalawa, the capital of Gobir, was taken 
and Shehu Usumanu left Gwandu in favour of 
Sifawa. He then divided the administration of 
the conquered territories between his brother, 
Abdullahi dan Fodio, and his son, Muhammadu 
Bello. Abdullahi became responsible for the western 
dominions and Muhammadu Bello for the eastern. 
Gwandu was under Abdullahi's authority but he 
preferred to build the town of Bodinga, close to 
Sifawa, for his headquarters so that he might remain 
near his brother. From Bodinga, however, he led a 
series of victorious campaigns until, in 1810, he 
administered most of Kebbi (but which the Fulani 
were able to subdue entirely) and had exacted 
allegiance from Nupe, Ilorin, Yauri, Gurma, Arewa 
and Zabarma. 

In 1809 Muhammadu Bello created a township of 
the hamlet Sokoto, and built a wall around it so that 
it might serve as the administrative headquarters of 
the eastern dominions, and it was there that Shehu 
Usumanu died in 1817. Abdullahi, on hearing of his 
brother's death, hastened the fourteen miles from 
Bodinga to Sokoto, but found that Bello had been 
proclaimed Sarkin Musulmi (Commander of the 
Faithful) and the gates of the town were closed 
against him. By Fulani custom succession passed to 
a brother rather than to a son and Abdullahi with- 
drew to Gwandu aggrieved. On his arrival he found 
that the nearby town of Kalembena was in revolt, 



hoping to profit from his weakness after his rejection 
by Sokoto. His position was desperate but Bello went 
to his aid. In a celebrated scene, the two met outside 
the walls of Kalembena; Bello, the warrior and 
chief architect of the Fulani empire, mounted on a 
charger, Abdullahi astride the mare which as a 
mallam (Arabic: mu'allim) he always rode. In 
accordance with Fulani custom, Bello, as the 
younger man, went to dismount but his uncle waved 
him back into his saddle, and himself bent forward 
to salute his nephew as Commander of the Faithful. 
Together they put down the revolt. Thereafter 
Abdullahi retained the administration of the western 
dominions subject to the recognised authority of 
the Sarkin Musulmi, Bello, of Sokoto. This situation 
established in effect a dual empire which they be- 
queathed to their heirs, and led to a close friendship 
between the amirs of Gwandu and the Sultans of 
Sokoto which lasted unbroken until the British 
occupation of Nigeria and which still endures. 

Abdullahi, who was born in 1766, was twelve years 
younger than his illustrious brother Shehu Usumanu 
and was instructed in the Kur'an and the MalikI 
rite by Mallam al-Hadjdji Djibrilla, as was his 
brother. He was some thirty-eight years of age when, 
in 1804, he was the first to pay homage to Shehu 
Usumanu as Sarkin Musulmi. Deeply religious, he 
nevertheless played a prominent part in the Fulani 
wars of conquest; in the early campaigns he often 
served, as did Bello, in a subordinate capacity to 
other Fulani commanders but distinguished himself 
by bravery in hand-to-hand fighting. Always of a 
literary bent, he would celebrate his victories with 
an Arabic ode and may be said to have been the poet 
laureate of the diihdd. After the submission of 
Kalembena in 18 19 he left administrative matters in 
the hands of his son Mohamman (who was to succeed 
him) and his nephew Bohari and devoted his last 
years to study and writing. He did not himself adopt 
the title of amir but preferred the simple style 
"mallam" (which he retained until his death in 1828). 

All these principal figures of the Fulani djihad, 



Shehu Usumanu, Abdullahi and Muhammadu Bello, 
were prolific writers in Arabic but Abdullahi had the 
most felicitous command of the language. For lists 
of his works, both those which have survived and 
those whose titles are known but which may be 
no longer extant, see the writer's Field notes on the 
Arabic literature of the western Sudan (Abdullahi dan 
Fodio), in JRAS, 1956, and A catalogue of the Arabic 
manuscripts preserved in the University library, 
Ibadan, Nigeria, Ibadan 1955-58. 

The mosques of Abdullahi in Birnin Kebbi and 
Gwandu, and his tomb and the tomb of a Shavkh 
Haliru in Gwandu, are important monuments of 
Fulani religious architecture (cf. J. Schacht, in 
Travaux de I' Institut de Recherches Sahariennes, 1954, 
13 and pi. v, and in Studia Islamica, viii (1957), 136). 

After the initial conquests of the Fulanis the 
various dominions of the dual empire were placed 
under the direct authority of Fulani amirs; those of 
the western empire paid tribute to Gwandu, and those 
of the eastern empire to Sokoto. However, neither 
empire was for long at peace and revolts were con- 
stant, especially among the Kebbawa and Gobiwara, 
whose total submission was never obtained. By the 
end of the 19th century the direct authority of both 
Gwandu and Sokoto extended little beyond the 
boundaries of their own amlrates and when the 
British forces occupied the country in 1902 they 
found the Sarkin Kebbi sturdily maintaining the 
independence of Argungu, and the Gobirawa from 
Sabon Birni and Chibiri attacking the eastern and 
north-eastern districts of Sokoto itself. Argungu, the 
Kebbawa stronghold, was never occupied by the 
Fulani despite the fact that it lay between the twin 
capitals of Sokoto and Gwandu, being fifty miles 
from the former and less than thirty miles from the 
latter. The outlying dominions of both empires, 
however, still recognized the spiritual leadership of 
the descendents of Shehu Usumanu and a degree of 
temporal suzerainty pertaining to Sokoto and 
Gwandu. 

The walled town of Gwandu remained the capital 
of the amirate, until in i860, the amir Aliu, the 
fourth of Abdullahi's sons to succeed to the throne, 
transferred his headquarters to Ambursa in order to 
protect the towns along the south bank of the 
Gulbi against the attacks of the Kebbawa of Argungu. 
The other princes of the royal house continued to 
reside in Gwandu. 

In 1864 Aliu died and was succeeded by his 
brother Abdulkadiri, the last of Abdullahi's sons to 
reign over Gwandu. By this time the power of the 
Kebbawa had so increased that Gwandu was obliged 
to seek an end to the constant hostilities and Sarkin 
Musulmi Ahmadu Rufai, in 1866, negotiated a peace 
treaty, known as the Lafiyar Toga, between 



Abdulkadiri and Sarkin Kebbi Toga. The principal 
terms of the treaty were (a) that Argungu should be 
recognized as an independent state, (b) that all 
towns then held by Argungu should be retained by 
Argungu, and (c) that all slaves hitherto captured 
in battle should remain the property of their captors. 

The peace obtained by the Lafiyar Toga lasted for 
eight years, when hostilities were resumed which 
were to continue until Argungu was occupied by 
British troops in 1902. 

In 1876 Maliki, son of Mohamman and grandson 
of Abdullahi, acceded to the throne and reigned for 
twelve years, during which he was visited by Mr. 
Joseph Thomson on behalf of the Royal Niger 
Company, and was presented with cloth to the value 
of forty million cowries. The Company's present to 
the Sarkin Musulmi was cloth to the value of sixty 
million cowries. After the death of Maliki in 1888, 
Umaru Bakatara, son of Mallam Halilu (1833-58) 
and grandson of Abdullahi, came to the throne and 
was visited by Sir G. Goldie and Mr. Wallace (after- 
wards Sir W. Wallace) who brought more gifts from 
the Royal Niger Company. In 1898 Bayero, son of 
Aliu (1860-64) and also a grandson of Abdullahi, 
came to the throne. He offered no resistance to the 
British occupation and died, two months later, in 
1903. 

To-day, Sokoto Province of the Northern Region 
of Nigeria is divided into three administrative 
divisions, Sokoto, Gwandu and Argungu. The head- 
quarters of Gwandu Division is Birnin Kebbi (pop. 
10,000) and the Division comprises the emirates of 
Gwandu itself (area 6,207 sq. miles, pop. 350,000) 
and Yauri (area 1,306 sq. miles, pop. 57,000). The 
present Emir of Gwandu, al-Hadjdji Haruna, is 
President of the House of Chiefs of the Northern 

Bibliography: E. J. Arnett, The rise of the 
Sokoto Fulani, being a paraphrase and in some 
parts a translation of the Infaku 'l-Maisuri of 
Sultan Mohammed Bello, Kano 1922 ; Muhammadu 
Bello, al-Infak al-maysur, ed. C. E. J. Whitting, etc., 
London 195 1; E. J. Arnett, Gazetteer of Sokoto 
province, London 1920; 0. Temple, Notes on the 
tribes, provinces, emirates, and states of the Northern 
Province of Nigeria, compiled from official reports 
by 0. Temple, ed. C. L. Temple, Capetown 1919; 
S. J. Hogben, The Muhammadan emirates of 
Nigeria, London 1930; Sir B. E. Sharwood Smith, 
Sokoto Survey, 1048, Zaria 1948; E. W. Bovill, 
The Golden Trade 0) the Moors, London 1958; 
Adamu Abdullahi al-Iluri, al-Islam /» Nidiiryd 
wa-'Ulhmdn b. Fudi, Cairo 1370. 

(W. E. N. Kensdale) 
GYPSIES [see Cingane, lurI, nurI, zutt], 
GYPSUM [see njiss].