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  • Abū al-Maḥāsin Yūsuf ibn Rāfiʿ ibn Shaddād Bahāʾ al-Dīn (Arab author)
    Arab writer and statesman, author of the Sirat Salāḥ ad-Dīn (“Life of Saladin”). He was first a teacher at Baghdad and then professor at Mosul....
  • Abū al-Majd Majdūd ibn Ādam (Persian poet)
    Persian poet, author of the first great mystical poem in the Persian language, whose verse had great influence on Persian and Muslim literature....
  • Abū al-Mughīth al-Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj (Islamic mystic)
    controversial writer and teacher of Islāmic mysticism (Ṣūfism). Because he represented in his person and works the experiences, causes, and aspirations of many Muslims, arousing admiration in some and repression on the part of others, the drama of his life and death has been considered a reference point in Islāmic history....
  • Abū al-Mundhir (Arab scholar)
    scholar of the customs, lineage, and battles of the early Arabs....
  • Abū al-Muzaffar ibn Yūnus (ʿAbbāsid vizier)
    ...zeal antagonized many liberal theologians. His power within the Baghdad establishment owed a great deal to his excellent relations with successive caliphs and their advisers. The arrest in 1194 of Ibn Yūnus, his old friend and patron, marked the end of Ibn al-Jawzī’s career and his close links with governmental circles. In that year he was arrested and exiled to the city of...
  • Abū al-Qāsim (Muslim physician and author)
    Islām’s greatest medieval surgeon, whose comprehensive medical text, combining Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman classical teachings, shaped European surgical procedures until the Renaissance....
  • Abū al-Qāsim ibn Wāsūl (Berber ruler)
    ...after the 740s, when Miknāsah Berbers (a group affiliated with the Ṣufriyyah) migrated from northern Morocco to the oasis of Tafilalt in the south. The principality was named after Abū al-Qāsim ibn Wāsūl, nicknamed Midrār, the Miknāsah chief who founded the town of Sijilmāssah there in 757. Tafilalt had played a role in trans-Sahara...
  • Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʿAbbās az-Zahrāwī (Muslim physician and author)
    Islām’s greatest medieval surgeon, whose comprehensive medical text, combining Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman classical teachings, shaped European surgical procedures until the Renaissance....
  • Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbbād (ʿAbbādid ruler)
    In 1023 the qadi (religious judge) Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbbād declared Sevilla independent of Córdoba. His son Abu ʿAmr ʿAbbād, known as al-Muʿtaḍid (1042–69), greatly enlarged his territory by forcibly annexing the minor kingdoms of Mertola, Niebla, Huelva, Saltés, Silves, and Santa María de Al...
  • Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim (prophet of Islam)
    founder of the religion of Islam, accepted by Muslims throughout the world as the last of the prophets of God....
  • Abū al-Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (Persian scholar and scientist)
    Persian scholar and scientist, one of the most learned men of his age and an outstanding intellectual figure....
  • Abū al-Wafāʾ al-Būzajānī (Persian mathematician)
    a distinguished Muslim astronomer and mathematician, who made important contributions to the development of trigonometry....
  • Abū al-Wafāʾ ʿAlī ibn ʿAqīl ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAqīl ibn Aḥmad al-Baghdādī al-Ẓafarī (Muslim theologian)
    Islāmic theologian and scholar of the Ḥanbalī school, the most traditionalist of the schools of Islāmic law. His thoughts and teachings represent an attempt to give a somewhat more liberal direction to Ḥanbalism....
  • Abu al-Walīd Marwān ibn Jonah (Spanish-Jewish grammarian)
    perhaps the most important medieval Hebrew grammarian and lexicographer. Known as the founder of the study of Hebrew syntax, he established the rules of biblical exegesis and clarified many difficult passages....
  • Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad al-Rashīd (Jahwarid ruler)
    ...a republic. Jahwar was elected head and, as virtually an absolute sovereign ostensibly assisted by a council, restored peace and economic prosperity in his 12-year-reign (1031–43). His son Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad al-Rashīd (reigned 1043–58) managed through political chicanery to keep the ʿAbbādids of Sevilla (Seville) out of Córdoba b...
  • Abū al-Walīd Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Rushd (Muslim philosopher)
    influential Islamic religious philosopher who integrated Islamic traditions with ancient Greek thought. At the request of the Almohad caliph Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf, he produced a series of summaries and commentaries on most of Aristotle’s works (1169–95) and on Plato’s Republic, which exerted co...
  • Abū ʿAlī (Sīmjūrid ruler)
    ...son Abū ol-Ḥasan Sīmjūrī created a virtually independent principality centred in Qohestān in southern Khorāsān. Abū ol-Ḥasan’s son Abū ʿAlī added Herāt to the domains....
  • Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb Ibn Miskawayh (Islamic scholar)
    Persian scientist, philosopher, and historian whose scholarly works became models for later generations of Islamic thinkers....
  • Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham (Arab astronomer and mathematician)
    mathematician and astronomer who made significant contributions to the principles of optics and the use of scientific experiments....
  • Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā (Persian philosopher and scientist)
    Iranian physician, the most famous and influential of the philosopher-scientists of Islam. He was particularly noted for his contributions in the fields of Aristotelian philosophy and medicine. He composed the Kitāb al-shifāʾ (“Book of Healing”), a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and T...
  • Abū ʿAlī al-Manṣūr (Fāṭimid caliph)
    sixth ruler of the Egyptian Shīʿite Fāṭimid dynasty, noted for his eccentricities and cruelty, especially his persecutions of Christians and Jews. He is held by adherents of the Druze religion to be a divine incarnation....
  • Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī (Seljuq vizier)
    Persian vizier of the Turkish Seljuq sultans (1063–92), best remembered for his large treatise on kingship, Seyāsat-nāmeh (The Book of Government; or Rules for Kings)....
  • Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muqlah (Islamic calligrapher)
    one of the foremost calligraphers of the ʿAbbāsid Age (750–1258), reputed inventor of the first cursive style of Arabic lettering, the naskhī script, which replaced the angular Kūfic as the standard of Islāmic calligraphy. In the naskhī script Ibn Muqlah introduced the rounded forms and curved lines that in later sty...
  • Abū ʿAlī Muṣṭafā (Palestinian nationalist)
    Palestinian nationalist who was a cofounder (1967) and secretary-general (2000–01) of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a radical faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)....
  • Abu ʿAmr ʿAbbād (ʿAbbādid ruler [1042-69])
    In 1023 the qadi (religious judge) Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbbād declared Sevilla independent of Córdoba. His son Abu ʿAmr ʿAbbād, known as al-Muʿtaḍid (1042–69), greatly enlarged his territory by forcibly annexing the minor kingdoms of Mertola, Niebla, Huelva, Saltés, Silves, and Santa María de Al...
  • Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ (Arab philologist)
    A gifted student of Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, the founder of the Basra school, al-Aṣmaʿī joined the court of the ʿAbbāsid caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd in Baghdad. Renowned for his piety and plain living, he was a tutor to the caliph’s sons (the future caliphs al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn) and a f...
  • Abū aṭ-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn Ḥusayn al-Mutanabbī (Muslim poet)
    poet regarded by many as the greatest of the Arabic language. He primarily wrote panegyrics in a flowery, bombastic style marked by improbable metaphors. He influenced Arabic poetry until the 19th century and has been widely quoted....
  • Abū Ayyūb Sulaymān ibn Yaḥyā ibn Gabirūt (Jewish poet and philosopher)
    one of the outstanding figures of the Hebrew school of religious and secular poetry during the Jewish Golden Age in Moorish Spain. He was also an important Neoplatonic philosopher....
  • Abū Baḥr (plain, Saudi Arabia)
    ...region once was the delta of Wadi Al-Rimah–Al-Bāṭin, and Al-Budūʿ Plain was the delta of Wadi Al-Sahbāʾ. The gravel plains of Raydāʾ and Abū Baḥr, and adjacent areas covered by sand, formed the delta of the Dawāsir-Jawb system. Several of the deltas formed by these ancient rivers are as large in area as the delt...
  • Abu Bakar (sultan of Johore)
    sultan of the Malay state of Johore (now part of Malaysia) from 1885 to 1895. He maintained independence from Britain and stimulated economic development in Johore at a time when most Southeast Asian states were being incorporated into European colonial empires....
  • Abū Bakr (Muslim caliph)
    Muhammad’s closest companion and adviser, who succeeded to the Prophet’s political and administrative functions, thereby initiating the office of the caliphate....
  • Abū Bakr al-Khwarizmī (Muslim scholar)
    Al-Hamadhānī, often known as Badīʿ az-Zamān (“Wonder of the Age”), achieved an early success through a public debate with Abū Bakr al-Khwarizmī, a leading savant, in Nīshāpūr. He subsequently traveled throughout the area occupied today by Iran and Afghanistan before settling in Herāt and marrying.......
  • Abū Bakr al-Lamtūnī (Almoravid leader)
    In 1061 Abū Bakr, who was then the leader of the Almoravids, went south into the desert to put down a tribal rebellion. He gave the command of his troops in the Maghrib to Ibn Tāshufīn, his cousin. Ibn Tāshufīn proved so popular that when Abū Bakr returned he relinquished his power and even his wife to Tāshufīn. Ibn Tāshufīn wen...
  • Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq (Muslim caliph)
    Muhammad’s closest companion and adviser, who succeeded to the Prophet’s political and administrative functions, thereby initiating the office of the caliphate....
  • Abū Bakr ibn Saʿd ibn Zangī (Salghurid governor)
    ...the arts, as parvenu, competitive courts are wont to do. The poet Saʿdī (died 1292) was a contemporary in Shīrāz of the Salghurid atabeg Abū Bakr ibn Saʿd ibn Zangī (reigned 1231–60), whom he mentions by name in his Būstān (“The Orchard”), a book ...
  • Abū Bakr ibn ʿUmar (Almoravid leader)
    In 1061 Abū Bakr, who was then the leader of the Almoravids, went south into the desert to put down a tribal rebellion. He gave the command of his troops in the Maghrib to Ibn Tāshufīn, his cousin. Ibn Tāshufīn proved so popular that when Abū Bakr returned he relinquished his power and even his wife to Tāshufīn. Ibn Tāshufīn wen...
  • Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṭufayl al-Qaysī (Moorish philosopher and physician)
    Moorish philosopher and physician who is known for his Ḥayy ibn yaqẓan (c. 1175; Eng. trans. by L.E. Goodman, Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓan by Ibn Ṭufayl, 1972), a philosophical romance in which he describes the self-education and gradual philosophical development of a man who passes the first 50 years of his life in complete isolation o...
  • Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Azdī ibn Durayd (Arab philologist)
    Arab philologist who wrote a large Arabic dictionary, Jamharat al-lughah (“Collection of Language”)....
  • Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn al-Sāyigh al-Tujībī al-Andalusī al-Saraqustī (Spanish Muslim philosopher)
    earliest known representative in Spain of the Arabic Aristotelian–Neoplatonic philosophical tradition and forerunner of the polymath scholar Ibn Ṭufayl and of the philosopher Averroës....
  • Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī (Persian physician)
    celebrated alchemist and Muslim philosopher who is also considered to have been the greatest physician of the Islāmic world....
  • Abū Bishr ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān (Arab grammarian)
    celebrated grammarian of the Arabic language....
  • Abu Chʾafar ben Hud (ruler of Murcia)
    ...brought the quarreling states of Muslim Spain under his control, took possession of Murcia in 1092, incorporating it into his empire. General discontent under the Almoravids led to a rising under Abu Jaʿfar ibn Hud in 1144 and the reestablishment of Murcian independence. The kingdom was then united with Valencia....
  • Abū Dāʾūd (Muslim scholar)
    ...collections, known as al-kutub as-sittah (“the six books”), arranged by matn—those of al-Bukhārī (d. 870), Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj (d. 875), Abū Dāʾūd (d. 888), at-Tīrmidhī (d. 892), Ibn Mājāh (d. 886), and an-Nasāʾī (d. 915)—came to be recognized as ca...
  • Abu Dhabi (emirate, United Arab Emirates)
    constituent emirate of the United Arab Emirates (formerly Trucial States, or Trucial Oman). Though its international boundaries are disputed, it is unquestionably the largest of the country’s seven constituent emirates, with more than three-fourths of the area of the entire federation. Its rich oil fields, both onshore and in the Persian Gulf, make it, ...
  • Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates)
    city and capital of Abū Ẓaby emirate, one of the United Arab Emirates (formerly Trucial States, or Trucial Oman), and the national capital of that federation. The city occupies most of a small triangular island of the same name, just off the Persian Gulf coast and connected to the mainland by a short bridge. Abu Dhabi was forme...
  • Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (Emirian company)
    ...A Japanese consortium operates an offshore rig at Al-Mubarraz, and other offshore concessions are held by American companies. Onshore oil concessions are held by another ADNOC company, the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, which is likewise partially owned by American, French, Japanese, and British interests. Other concessions also are held by Japanese companies....
  • Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (Emirian company)
    ...Oil Company (ADNOC). Petroleum production contributes about one-third GDP but employs only a tiny fraction of the workforce. The largest petroleum concessions are held by an ADNOC subsidiary, Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company (ADMA-OPCO), which is partially owned by British, French, and Japanese interests. One of the main offshore fields is located in Umm al-Shāʾif.......
  • Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Emirian company)
    Oil was discovered in Abū Ẓaby in 1958, and the government of that emirate owns a controlling interest in all oil-producing companies in the federation through the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Petroleum production contributes about one-third GDP but employs only a tiny fraction of the workforce. The largest petroleum concessions are held by an ADNOC subsidiary, Abu......
  • Abū Dhahab (Mamlūk official)
    ...of the city”), which signified that he was recognized by the other beys as their chief. The Mamlūks’ rise to power was climaxed by the careers of two emirs—ʿAlī Bey and Abū Dhahab—both of whom secured from the Sublime Porte (Ottoman government) de facto recognition of their autonomy in Egypt (1769–75) and even undertook military cam...
  • Abu Ghraib prison (prison facility, Iraq)
    The leak of the report came just two months after the publication of photographs of abusive treatment of prisoners by American soldiers at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (see below Iraq War). In response to the Abu Ghraib revelations, Congress eventually passed the Detainee Treatment Act, which banned the “cruel, inhuman, or degrading” treatment of prisoners in U.S. military......
  • Abū Ghufayl (Barghawāṭah leader)
    ...and presented himself as a prophet, teaching a mixture of Islamic, pagan, and astrological beliefs. His successors propagated this doctrine throughout the confederation. In the reign of Abū Ghufayl (885–913) the confederation became firmly established in Barghawāṭah territory and aided in the creation of a highly defensive state that also proved to be......
  • Abu Ghurab (ancient site, Egypt)
    ancient Egyptian site, about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Abū Ṣīr, between Ṣaqqārah and Al-Jīzah; it is known as the location of two 5th-dynasty (c. 2465–c. 2325 bce) sun temples. The first part of the 5th dynasty is recognized as a...
  • Abu Gurab (ancient site, Egypt)
    ancient Egyptian site, about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Abū Ṣīr, between Ṣaqqārah and Al-Jīzah; it is known as the location of two 5th-dynasty (c. 2465–c. 2325 bce) sun temples. The first part of the 5th dynasty is recognized as a...
  • Abu Gurob (ancient site, Egypt)
    ancient Egyptian site, about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Abū Ṣīr, between Ṣaqqārah and Al-Jīzah; it is known as the location of two 5th-dynasty (c. 2465–c. 2325 bce) sun temples. The first part of the 5th dynasty is recognized as a...
  • Abū Ḥabbah (Iraq)
    ancient city of Babylonia, located southwest of present Baghdad, central Iraq. Sippar was subject to the 1st dynasty of Babylon, but little is known about the city before 1174 bc, when it was sacked by the Elamite king Kutir-Nahhunte. It recovered and was later captured by the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I. Under the 8th dynasty of Babylon, however, King Nabu-apla-iddina (c....
  • Abū Ḥafṣ (Ḥafṣid ruler)
    ...caliph and raised the prestige of the kingdom to its highest point. A period of internal dissension followed al-Mustanṣir’s rule, Ḥafṣid unity being temporarily restored by Abū Ḥafṣ (1284–95), then by Abū Yaḥyā Abū Bakr (1318–46). Plagued by periodic Marīnid invasions, the Ḥafṣid king...
  • Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar (Berber chief)
    ...appointed his son as heir apparent in 1154, thus making his family, which did not belong to the Maṣmūdah tribe, the ruling dynasty. Through this act ʿAbd al-Muʾmin bypassed Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar, the Maṣmūdah chief who gave protection to Ibn Tūmart in the High Atlas during his period of exile and whom the other......
  • Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad aṭ-Ṭūsī al-Ghazālī (Muslim jurist, theologian, and mystic)
    Muslim theologian and mystic whose great work, Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm ad-dīn (“The Revival of the Religious Sciences”), made Ṣūfism (Islāmic mysticism) an acceptable part of orthodox Islām....
  • Abū Ḥanīfah (Muslim jurist and theologian)
    Muslim jurist and theologian whose systematization of Islāmic legal doctrine was acknowledged as one of the four canonical schools of Islāmic law. The school of Abū Ḥanīfah acquired such prestige that its doctrines were applied by a majority of Muslim dynasties. Even today it is widely followed in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Central Asia, and Arab countries....
  • Abū Ḥanīfah Aḥmad ibn Dāʾūd al-Dīnawarī (Persian astronomer and botanist)
    Persian astronomer, botanist, and historian, whose interest in Hellenism and the Arabic humanities has been compared with that of the Iraqi scholar al-Jaḥiẓ....
  • Abū Ḥanīfah an-Nuʿmān ibn Thābit (Muslim jurist and theologian)
    Muslim jurist and theologian whose systematization of Islāmic legal doctrine was acknowledged as one of the four canonical schools of Islāmic law. The school of Abū Ḥanīfah acquired such prestige that its doctrines were applied by a majority of Muslim dynasties. Even today it is widely followed in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Central Asia, and Arab countries....
  • Abū Hāshim (Shīʿah imam)
    ...that succession to ʿAlī’s position of imam, or leader, of the Muslim community had devolved on Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥanafīyah (d. c. 700), one of his sons, and Abū Hāshim, a grandson. The Hāshimīyah thus did not recognize, for religious reasons, the legitimacy of Umayyad rule, and when Abū Hāshim died in 716, ...
  • Abū Ḥudhayfah (Muslim theologian)
    Muslim theologian considered the founder of the Muʿtazilah sect....
  • Abū Hureyra (archaeological site, Syria)
    The Abū Hureyra site in Syria is the largest known site from the era when plants and animals were initially being domesticated. Two periods of occupation bracketing the transition to agriculture have been unearthed there. The people of the earlier, Epipaleolithic occupation lived in much the same manner as those at Netiv Hagdud. However, the wide array of plant and animal remains found at.....
  • Abū Ibrāhim Aḥmad (Aghlabid ruler)
    ...km] south of Kairouan); Ziyādat Allāh I (817–838), who broke the rebellion of the Arab soldiery and sent it to conquer Sicily (which remained in Arab hands for two centuries); and Abū Ibrāhim Aḥmad (856–863), who commissioned many public works. During the 9th century the brilliant Kairouan civilization evolved under their rule. The Aghlabid emirs...
  • Abū ʿImran Mūsā ibn Maymūn ibn ʿUbayd Allāh (Jewish philosopher, scholar, and physician)
    Jewish philosopher, jurist, and physician, the foremost intellectual figure of medieval Judaism. His first major work, begun at age 23 and completed 10 years later, was a commentary on the Mishna, the collected Jewish oral laws. A monumental code of Jewish law followed in Hebrew, The Guide for the Perplexed in Arabic, and numerous other works, many of ma...
  • Abū ʿInān (Marīnid sultan)
    ...when the Arab tribes of Tunisia joined in the battle against them, the Marīnids were overwhelmed, and Abū al-Ḥasan himself had to flee by sea from Tunis. His son and successor, Abū ʿInān, also invaded the eastern Maghrib, in 1356–57, but he, too, had to withdraw from Tunisia when faced with Arab tribal resistance....
  • Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā ibn Sawrah ibn Shaddād at-Tirmidhī (Muslim scholar)
    Arab scholar and author of one of the six canonical collections of spoken traditions (hadith) attributed to the Prophet Muhammad....
  • Abū Isḥāq (Muslim mystic)
    Muslim Ṣūfī order in India and Pakistan, named for Chisht, the village in which the founder of the order, Abū Isḥāq of Syria, settled. ...
  • Abū Isḥāq as-Sāḥilī (Muslim architect)
    ...Mūsā built the Great Mosque (Djinguereber) and a royal residence, the Madugu (the former has since been rebuilt many times, and of the latter no trace remains). The Granada architect Abū Isḥāq as-Sāḥili was then commissioned to design the Sankore mosque, around which Sankore University was established. The mosque still stands today, probably......
  • Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Sayyār ibn Hanīʾ an-Naẓẓām (Muslim theologian)
    brilliant Muslim theologian, a man of letters, and a poet, historian, and jurist....
  • Abū Isḥāq Ismāʿīl ibn al-Qāsim ibn Suwayd ibn Kaysān (Arab poet)
    first Arab poet of note to break with the conventions established by the pre-Islamic poets of the desert and to adopt a simpler and freer language of the village....
  • Abū ʿIyāḍ (Palestinian political activist)
    Palestinian political activist who was a founding member of the Fatah faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and a close associate of PLO leader Yāsir ʿArafāt....
  • Abu Ja (king of Zazzau)
    ...137 miles [220 km] north-northeast) about 1804, Muhamman Makau, sarkin (“king of”) Zazzau, led many of the Hausa nobility to the Koro town of Zuba (6 miles [10 km] south). Abu Ja (Jatau), his brother and successor as sarkin Zazzau, founded Abuja town in 1828, began construction of its wall a year later, and proclaimed himself the first emir of Abuja.......
  • Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh al-Manṣūr ibn Muḥammad (ʿAbbāsid caliph)
    the second caliph of the ʿAbbāsid dynasty (754–775), generally regarded as the real founder of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. He established the capital city at Baghdad (762–763)....
  • Abu Jaʿfar ibn Hud (ruler of Murcia)
    ...brought the quarreling states of Muslim Spain under his control, took possession of Murcia in 1092, incorporating it into his empire. General discontent under the Almoravids led to a rising under Abu Jaʿfar ibn Hud in 1144 and the reestablishment of Murcian independence. The kingdom was then united with Valencia....
  • Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad al-Qulīnī (Muslim scholar)
    ...might play. The major Shīʿī compilations date from the 4th and 5th centuries and allow only traditions emanating from the house of ʿAlī. The first of them is that of Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad al-Qulīnī (died ah 328 [ad 939]), Kāfī fī ʿIlm ad-Dīn, which might be t...
  • Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ḥusayn ibn Mūsā al-Qummī (Muslim theologian)
    Islamic theologian, author of one of the “Four Books” that are the basic authorities for the doctrine of Twelver (Ithnā ʿAshāri) Shīʿah....
  • Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr aṭ-Ṭabarī (Muslim scholar)
    Muslim scholar, author of enormous compendiums of early Islāmic history and Qurʾānic exegesis, who made a distinct contribution to the consolidation of Sunnī thought during the 9th century. He condensed the vast wealth of exegetical and historical erudition of the preceding generations of Muslim scholars and laid the foundations for both Qurʾānic...
  • Abū Jahl (Meccan leader)
    As Muhammad’s message spread, opposition to him grew and was led by ʿAmr ibn Hishām, dubbed Abū Jahl (“Father of Ignorance”) by the early Muslims. Abū Jahl even had some early converts tortured, which resulted in the death of one of them named Summayyah. Muhammad himself, unharmed because of the protection of his family and especially his uncle Ab...
  • Abū Jihād (Palestinian leader)
    Palestinian leader who became the military strategist and second in command of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)....
  • Abū Jirāb (ancient site, Egypt)
    ancient Egyptian site, about 1 mile (1.6 km) north of Abū Ṣīr, between Ṣaqqārah and Al-Jīzah; it is known as the location of two 5th-dynasty (c. 2465–c. 2325 bce) sun temples. The first part of the 5th dynasty is recognized as a...
  • Abū Kālījār al-Marzubān ibn Sulṭān ad-Dawlah (Būyid ruler)
    ruler of the Būyid dynasty from 1024, who for a brief spell reunited the Būyid territories in Iraq and Iran....
  • Abu Khatar (cape, Africa)
    extension of the West African coast into the Atlantic Ocean, now part of the Western Sahara. Located on a dangerous reef-lined stretch of the coast, its Arabic name, Abū Khaṭar, means “the father of danger.” It was first successfully passed by the Portuguese navigator Captain Gil Eanes in 1434. Subsequently the Portuguese exploited the r...
  • Abu ʾl-Faḍl ʿAllāmī (Indian author and theologian)
    historian, military commander, secretary, and theologian to the Mughal emperor Akbar....
  • Abu ʾl-Ṭāhir Muḥammad ben Yaʿḳūb ben Muḥammad ben Ibrāhīm Majd al-Dīn al-Shāfiʿī al-Shīrāzī al-Fīrūzābādī (Iranian lexicographer)
    lexicographer who compiled an extensive dictionary of Arabic that, in its digest form, Al-Qāmūs (“The Ocean”), served as the basis of later European dictionaries of Arabic....
  • Abū Lahab (uncle of Muḥammad)
    ...families rejected his call, especially those prominent in trade. Even within his family there were skeptics. Although Muhammad gained the support of many of the Banū Hāshim, his uncle Abū Lahab, a major leader of the Quraysh, remained adamantly opposed to Islam and Muhammad’s mission. These naysayers feared that the new religion, based on the oneness of God and unequ...
  • Abu Madi, Iliya (Arab writer)
    Arab poet and journalist whose poetry achieved popularity through his expressive use of language, his mastery of the traditional patterns of Arabic poetry, and the relevance of his ideas to contemporary Arab readers....
  • Abū Manṣūr ibn Yūsuf (Islamic merchant)
    ...those theologians who had been passed over, coupled with his espousal of innovative and controversial doctrines, led to Ibn ʿAqīl’s persecution. After the death of his influential patron, Abū Manṣūr ibn Yūsuf, in 1067 or 1068, he was forced to retire from his teaching position. Until 1072 he lived in partial retirement under the protection of Ab...
  • Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Daqīqī (Persian poet)
    poet, one of the most important figures in early Persian poetry....
  • Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn Maḥmūd al-Ḥanafī al-Mutakallim al-Māturīdī as-Samarqandī (Muslim theologian)
    titular head of the Māturīdīyah school of theology, which came to be one of the most important foundations of Islāmic doctrine....
  • Abū Manṣūr Sebüktigin (Ghaznavid ruler)
    founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty, which ruled much of the area of present-day Afghanistan for more than 150 years. ...
  • Abū Marwān ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī al-ʿAlaʾ Zuhr (Spanish Muslim physician)
    one of medieval Islam’s foremost thinkers and the greatest medical clinician of the western caliphate....
  • Abū Maʿshar (Muslim astrologer)
    leading astrologer of the Muslim world, who is known primarily for his theory that the world, created when the seven planets were in conjunction in the first degree of Aries, will come to an end at a like conjunction in the last degree of Pisces....
  • Abu Mazen (Palestinian leader)
    Palestinian politician, who served briefly as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2003 and was elected its president in 2005 following the death of Yāsir ʿArafāt....
  • Ābu, Mount (mountain, India)
    city, southwestern Rājasthān state, northwestern India. It is situated on the slopes of Mount Ābu, an isolated feature of the Arāvali Range. The city is a noted hill resort, and the Jaina temples at nearby Dilwara, built of white marble, are famous. Tejpāl temple, built about ad 1200, is known for the delicacy and richness of its carving, especially...
  • Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutaybah al-Dīnawarī (Muslim author)
    writer of adab literature—that is, of literature exhibiting wide secular erudition—and also of theology, philology, and literary criticism. He introduced an Arabic prose style outstanding for its simplicity and ease, or “modern” flavour....
  • Abū Muḥammad al-Baghawī (Muslim scholar)
    ...Muslims, within the unique eminence of the master “pair,” and formed the sources of later popular editions, intended to conflate material for didactic purposes. One such was the work of Abū Muḥammad al-Baghawī (died ah 516 [ad 1122]) called Maṣābīḥ as-Sunnah (“The Lamps of the Sunnah”...
  • Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad al-Hamdānī (Arab author)
    Arab geographer, poet, grammarian, historian, and astronomer whose chief fame derives from his authoritative writings on South Arabian history and geography. From his literary production al-Hamdānī was known as the “tongue of South Arabia.”...
  • Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī al-Ḥarīrī (Islamic scholar)
    scholar of Arabic language and literature and government official who is primarily known for the refined style and wit of his collection of tales, the Maqāmāt, published in English as The Assemblies of al-Harîrî (1867, 1898)....
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