Encyclopaedia of Islam, First Edition (1913-1936)
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Subject: Middle East and Islamic Studies
Edited by: M. Th.Houtsma, T.W.Arnold, R.Basset and R.Hartmann
The Encyclopaedia of Islam First Edition Online (EI1) was originally published in print between 1913 and 1936. The demand for an encyclopaedic work on Islam was created by the increasing (colonial) interest in Muslims and Islamic cultures during the nineteenth century. The scope of the Encyclopedia of Islam First Edition Online is philology, history, theology and law until early 20th century. Such famous scholars as Houtsma, Wensinck, Gibb, Snouck Hurgronje, and Lévi-Provençal were involved in this scholarly endeavor. The Encyclopedia of Islam First Edition Online offers access to 9,000 articles.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
The Encyclopaedia of Islam First Edition Online (EI1) was originally published in print between 1913 and 1936. The demand for an encyclopaedic work on Islam was created by the increasing (colonial) interest in Muslims and Islamic cultures during the nineteenth century. The scope of the Encyclopedia of Islam First Edition Online is philology, history, theology and law until early 20th century. Such famous scholars as Houtsma, Wensinck, Gibb, Snouck Hurgronje, and Lévi-Provençal were involved in this scholarly endeavor. The Encyclopedia of Islam First Edition Online offers access to 9,000 articles.
Subscriptions: see brill.com
Wabār
(2,208 words)
, a district and tribe of the earliest period, in the southern half of Arabia. Al-Bakrī,
Muʿd̲j̲am, p. 835 and Yāḳūt,
Muʿd̲j̲am, iv. 896 give the vocalisation
Wabāri and compare the form with Ḥad̲h̲āmi and Ḳaṭāmi. The Wabār are mentioned by the historians along with the ʿĀd, T̲h̲amūd and other extinct tribes as one of the original peoples of Arabia, all of whom are included (as
al-ʿArab al-bāʾida) by some genealogists among the “true, original Arabs” (
al-ʿArab al-ʿarbāʾ or
al-ʿĀriba). Al-Suyūṭī, for example, with whose estimate of the ʿArbāʾ Ibn Duraid in the
Ḏj̲amhara and others agree …
Wadāʾi
(2,516 words)
Wadāʾi or Waddāʾi, also called Bergu or Borgu and Dār-Ṣāliḥ, lies to the west of Dār-Fūr from which it is separated by the provinces of Tama, Mara, Masalit and Sila, which have in the past been politically dependent sometimes on Dār-Fūr and sometimes on Wadāʾi according to the fortune of war. The boundaries of Wadāʾi in other directions are not very precise; the kingdom at its greatest extent at the height of its power did not stretch beyond Kuti on the south, Fitri on the west, Ennedi and the …
Wadīʿa
(1,499 words)
(a.), deposit, custody, is a contract (
ʿaḳd) by which the depositor(
mūdiʿ, mustawdiʿ) hands over to the depositary (
mūda ʿ mustawdaʿ) a thing to be kept and returned intact at a later date. Wadīʿa means not only the thing to be kept but also the agreement regarding the transaction. The custody is therefore based on a special agreement and is therefore dealt with in legal works as a branch of the law of contract, while in the case of
amāna “entrusted goods” there is no agreement but only a general obligation to keep faith, without a binding agreement; under
amāna therefore come such things as…
Wādī Ḥalfa
(439 words)
or simply
Ḥalfa, a modern town in the Anglo-Egyptian Sūdān, 21° 55′ N. 31° 19′ E., on the right bank of the Nile, c. 770 miles south of Cairo and 5 miles north of the Second Cataract, is the chief town of the province or
mudīrīya of that name. It includes the village of Tawfīḳīya, a new suburb with fine bazaars, and its inhabitants, inclusive of the Nubian villagers of Dabarōsa, number almost 3,000. Besides the Muslim places of worship there are the churches of the Copts, Greeks and English. The Government offices and hospital, and the off…
Wādi ’l-Ḳurā
(724 words)
, the valley between el-ʿElāʾ and al-Medīna on the old trading route from South Arabia to Syria, usually called Wādī Deidibbān. It is the dry bed of two wādīs which join in the centre, the Wādī al-Ḏj̲izel from the north and the Wādī el-Ḥamḍ from the south which comes down from near Medīna above the village of Henakīya and runs between the Ḏj̲ebel Ḥamzī or Uḥud (Eḥad) and the city of the Prophet. Halfway between el-ʿElāʾ and al-Medīna it is joined on the right by the Wādī el-Tubd̲j̲ or Wādī el-Silsila, which connects it with Ḵh̲aibar. The most important place in the Wādi ’l-Ḳurāʾ is el-ʿElā…
Wādī Nūn
(1,899 words)
, older form Wādī Nūl. This is not the name of a river but of a great plain in S.W. Morocco between the western Anti-Atlas and its Saharan outliers twenty miles from the sea. The plain is formed by the silt from a number of water-courses, of which the chief are the Wādī Ṣaiyād and the Wādī Umm al-ʿAs̲h̲ar, which unite to form the Wādī Āsāka; the latter river joins the sea through a defile which has given it its name. We find in the Wādī Nūn a certain number of oases with large villages (Awgelmīm or Gleimīm, Ḳṣābī, Tīlīwīn, Fask, Dubiyān, Tig̲h̲mart, Asrīr, Waʿrūn, Abbūda etc…
Wafāʾ
(296 words)
, S̲h̲araf al-Dīn ʿAlī Ḥusainī, a Persian poet of the xviiith century, belonged to a family of saiyids of Ḳumm, who had charge of the mausoleum of Fāṭima, daughter of the Imām Mūsā Kāẓim [cf. ḳumm]. He went to India at the end of the reign of Nādir S̲h̲āh, stayed there nearly 30 years, returned home in 1180 (1766), made the pilgrimage to Mecca and died in Persia in 1194 (1780). The Asiatic Society of Bengal possesses a short
mat̲h̲nawī entitled
Luʾluʾ-i manẓūm “Pearls arranged in Order” by him; his
Dīwān is in the India Office Library. Other poets have had the same
tak̲h̲alluṣ: 1. Wafāʾ of Ferāhā…
Wāfir
(143 words)
, the name of the fourth metre in Arab prosody. It consists in theory of three ¶
mufāʿalatun to the hemistich, but in practice the third foot becomes
mufāʿal (=
faʿūlun). It has two
ʿarūḍ and three
ḍarb. The first
ʿarūḍ has one
ḍarb and the second has two: The alterations that may be undergone by the feet are as follows: 1. the fairly frequent disappearance of the vowel of the
lām in
mufāʿalatun (mufāʿaltun =
mafāʿīlun); 2. the rather rare disappearance of the
lām and its vowel (
mufāʿatun =
mafāʿilun); 3. the excessively rare disappearance of the vowel of the
lām and of the
nūn (mufāʿaltu =
mafāʿīlu).…
Wafḳ
(1,559 words)
, plur.
Awfāḳ, magic square, i.e. a square divided up like a chessboard, each square of which is inscribed with numerals, letters or words; it is worn as a talisman against illness and for all sorts of other purposes, or can be used for all kinds of magic. The simplest form of a magic square is the nine compartmented square with numbers as shown in fig. 1. Under the name
lǒ-shū, it is mentioned in Chinese literature: The legendary Emperor Yü (2200 b. c.) is said to have seen it on the back of a turtle which arose out of the Hoang-Ho. In Arabic literature, the square is first f…
al-Wafrānī
(509 words)
or al-Ifrānī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh, called al-Ṣag̲h̲īr, a Moroccan biographer and historian, born in Marrākus̲h̲ in 1080 (1669—1670); he belonged to the Berber ¶ tribe of the Ifrān or Ūfrān (Wafrān) which was settled in the south of Morocco in the valley of the Wādī Darʿa. We know very few details of his life. He studied in his native town, then at Fās and spent his life in one or other of the chief towns of Morocco or at the
zāwiya of the S̲h̲arḳāwa [q.v.] of Abu ’l-Ḏj̲aʿd (Bujad). Towards the end of his life he was
imām and preacher (
k̲h̲āṭib) at the Masd̲…
al-Wāḥ
(276 words)
(pl. al-Wāḥāt), the name of a group of oases to the west of Egypt. There are three of them: the first is opposite the Faiyūm and reaches to the level of Aswān; it is the largest of the oases and contains several villages; its palms give the best dates in Egypt. The second is smaller and less populous. The third is the smallest and contains a village named Santaria. This is the information given by Yāḳūt. Maḳrīzī makes four oases which he calls outer ¶ and inner; in his time Santaria was a little town of about 600 inhabitants of Berber stock called Sīwa who spoke a dialect resem…
Wahb b. Munabbih
(1,615 words)
, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, a South Arabian story-teller (
ḳāṣṣ ak̲h̲bārī: Ḏh̲ahabī, in
Z. D. M. G., xliv. 483) of Persian descent who was born in Ḏh̲imār, two days’ journey from Ṣanʿāʾ in 34 a. h. (no credence need be given to statements that he adopted Islām in 10 a. h.). Wahb is celebrated as an authority on the traditions of the
Ahl al-Kitāb and like his brothers Hammām, G̲h̲ailān and Maʿḳil is classed among the
tābiʿūn. The earliest sources know nothing of the story that before his conversion to Islām he belonged to the
Ahl al-Kitāb (Fihrist, p. 22) or more precisely was a Jew (Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn, ed.…
Wahbī
(713 words)
, a Turkish poet, usually called Saiyid Wahbī to distinguish him from Sünbülzāde Wahbī [q. v.]. He was a contemporary of Nedīm and like him a native of Stambul. His father Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Aḥmed, the
kiaya of Imāmzāde, Ḳāḍī of Yenis̲h̲ehir, claimed to be descended from the Prophet through a certain Ḥusām al-Dīn. After the latter, his son Ḥusain, our poet, was at first given the
nisba Ḥusāmī but then, on the suggestion of Aḥmed Nailī, the man of letters, given instead the
nisba Wahbī, since it was a gift of God (
wehb) that he combined in himself descent from the Prophet (
saiyidlik) with the gift of p…
Wahhābīya
(4,799 words)
, Islāmic community founded by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (1115-1201 = 1703-1787). This name was given to the community by its opponents in the founder’s lifetime, and is used by Europeans; it is not used by its members in Arabia, who call themselves
Muwaḥḥidūn “unitarians” and their system (
ṭarīḳa) “Muḥammadan”; they regard themselves as Sunnīs, following the school of Ibn Ḥanbal, as interpreted by Ibn Taimīya, who attacked the cult of saints in many of his writings, especially in a
Risāla condemning the visitation of tombs (in his
Rasāʾil, Cairo 1323). § 1. Life of the Founder. He w…
Wāḥidī
(630 words)
, the nameof a dynasty in South Arabia, which rules over three sultanates, those of Bīr ʿAlī ʿAmaḳīn, Bāl Ḥāf ʿIzzān and Ḥabbān. H. v. Maltzan (p. 222) after investigation divided the whole territory belonging to this ruling house into two groups: Lower Wāḥidī on the coast from 48° to 48° 30′ East Long. (Greenwich) in the 14° N. Lat. reaching barely two hours journey into the interior, and Upper Wāḥidī from 47° to 47° 40′ East Long. (Greenwich) and from 14° 20′ to 14° 58′ N. Lat. C. v. Landberg …
Waḥs̲h̲ī Bāfḳī
(130 words)
, a Persian poet, born at Bāfḳ, in Kirmān, died in 991 (1583) or 992 (1584) and spent most of his life in Yazd. He wrote panegyrics in honour of S̲h̲āh Ṭahmāsp I and his court, began a poem (
Ferhād u-S̲h̲īrīn) which he did not complete; it was finished long afterwards by Wiṣāl in 1265 (1848—1849). He wrote two other poems,
Ḵh̲uld-i Barīn and
Nāẓir ¶
u-Manẓūr, g̲h̲azal’s and
ḳiṭaʿ’s.
Ferhād u-S̲h̲īrīn has been lithographed in Persia and several times in India. (Cl. Huart) Bibliography Luṭf ʿAlī Beg,
Ātes̲h̲ Kede, Bombay 1277, p. 111—120 Riḍā Ḳuli Ḵh̲ān,
Mad̲j̲ma ʿ al-Fuṣaḥāʾ, ii. 51—54 Rieu,
Pers.…
Waḥy
(2,979 words)
(a.), revelation [cf. also ḳorʾān, muḥammad]. As to the etymology of the word, cf. Jewish-Aramaic “to hasten”, Aethiopic “to go round, to recognise”, and the nonreligious meaning
ilhām bi-surʿa, given by the
Dictionary of Technical Terms; on the use of the verb by the poets, cf.
Lisān, s. v. As a religious technical term it is distinguished from inspiration (
ilhām, q. v.) of saints, artists and others, from
tanzīl, which chiefly denotes the object of revelation and from
inzāl which denotes the sending down of revelation from heaven and from its heavenly archetype [see umm al-kitāb], in so…
Waisī
(627 words)
, properly Uwhis b. Meḥmed, known under his
mak̲h̲laṣ of Waisī, a famous Ottoman scholar and poet. Born in 969 (1561—62) in Mas̲h̲ehir, the son of a ḳāḍī named Meḥmed Efendi, he also adopted a legal career. After completing his training in Constantinople with the
ʿulemāʾ Ṣāliḥ Efendi and Aḥmad Efendi, he filled a series of important posts in all parts of the Ottoman empire (in Rosetta, Cairo, Aḳ Ḥiṣār, Tire, Alas̲h̲ehir, Seres, Rodosto, Üsküb, Gümüld̲j̲ina) and died in 1037 (1628) in Üsküb, where he filled the office of ḳāḍī seven times, a…
Wakāla
(1,462 words)
(also Wikāla), mandate, authorisation, is a contract (
ʿaḳd) by which one contracting party, the
muwakkil, commissions the other, the mandatary (
wakīl), to perform some service for him. I. In the Ḳurʾān we find forms derived from
wakala in the meaning of “to rely upon, to trust in Allāh” (fifth form) or associated with the idea that Allāh, is the
wakīl, one of the 99 names of Allāh, which according to the commentators ¶ has the meaning of
ḥafīẓ (Sūra xii. 66; ix. 52; lxxiii. 9; xxviii. 28). The word is therefore not found as a technical term. Nevertheless at the basis of …
Waḳʿa Nuwīs, Waḳāʾiʿ Nuwīs
(246 words)
Waḳāʾi ʿ nuwīs is the officially appointed Ottoman historian while
waḳʿa nuwīs means keeper of records; the distinction between the two terms was already pointed out by von Hammer,
G. O. R., vii. 465. The first official historian of the Ottomans is usually said to have been ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbdī Pas̲h̲a (cf. F. Babinger,
G. O. W., p. 227
sq.). The list of official Ottoman historians is not yet complete and accurate. There are gaps and errors in the list given by J. v. Hammer,
G. O. R., viii. 591
sq. (cf. thereon P. Wittek in
M. O. G., i. 152 and 243
sq. and also F. Babinger,
G. O W., p. 227, note 3 and p…