Search

, a deep and irregular valley, with clusters of palmtrees, situated a day’s journey from Mecca on one of the roads to Ṭāʾif; the scene of the famous battle, the second mentioned by name in the Ḳurʾān (ix. 25—26) fought soon after the surrender ( fatḥ) of Mecca. The confederate tribes of the Hawāzin did not wish to await the result of this last trial of strength before mobilising all the forces at their disposal. They posted themselves in the defiles commanding the plain of Ḥunain. Their commander Mālik b. ʿAwf brought their families and fl…

In Syria, he is called Ḍāhir (local pronunciation of Ẓāhir) al-(āl-)ʿOmar, from the name of his father ʿOmar, s̲h̲aik̲h̲ of the Banū Zaidān, nomads who had settled in the district of Ṣafad [q. v.]. In 1750, Ẓāhir lord of Tiberias and the upper Jordan, came to an arrangement with the Metwalis of Galilee to drive out the Turkish officials by degrees; after which he seized the ruined port of ʿAkkā which was to serve him as an outlet for the export of cotton and silk. He repopulated the town and hu…

b. Badr, of the Tamīm family of the Banū G̲h̲udāna, a general and friend of Ziyād b. Abīhi. He must have been born about the time of the Hid̲j̲ra. He is said in his early days to have been a follower of the prophetess Sad̲j̲āḥ [q. v.]. At the battle of the Camel he was on the side of ʿAlī’s opponents but afterwards entered the latter’s service. He early became attached to Ziyād, afterwards viceroy of the ʿIrāḳ. He was an orator and poet, particularly learned in the ancient history of the Arabs, a…

, second Omaiyad Caliph and successor of Muʿāwiya, born about 642. As a prince he had commanded the Arab army at the siege of Constantinople. Immediately after his accession (April 680) there broke out in the Ḥid̲j̲āz the rising which the genius of Muʿawiya had so long prevented. At Medīna, Ḥusain b. ʿAlī and ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubair refused to recognise the new caliph and took refuge in the inviolable territory of Mecca. Very soon letters from old partisans of ʿAlī and from the chiefs of the ʿIr…

ʿAmr b. Sufyān al-Sulamī, of the powerful Sulaim tribe, whence the „relative" Sulamī. His mother was a Christian and his father fought at Oḥod for the Ḳorais̲h̲ites. The son, who does not seem to have frequented the Prophet, went to Syria, probably with the column commanded by Yazīd b. Abī Sufyān. He played a conspicuous part at al-Yarmūk as divisional commander, remained from that time bound to the lot of the Umaiyads, and in consequence drew upon himself the maledictions of ʿAlī, particularly aft…

(the original form found in poetry; locally it is also pronounced Bait al-Rās with the emphasis more or less on the article; this spelling is also found in the histories of the Crusades), probably the ancient Capitolias, a ruined site of the Byzantine period, an hour’s journey to the northwest of which lies an insignificant village, of the Ḳaimaḳāmat of Irbid (ʿAd̲j̲lūn), of the same name. Fortified under the Byzantine Emperors, it is mentioned among the towns conquered in the Ḏj̲und of Jordan, of which it afterwards formed part. Its wine was praised by the pre-Islāmic poets, such a…

, a town on the coast of Syria between Bairūt and Batrūn. The ancient holy city of Adonis had lost much of its importance, by the time it was conquered by Yazīd and Muʿāwiya, the sons of Abū Sufyān. It was incorporated in the d̲j̲und of Damascus and like the other coasttowns had a small garrison till the Fāṭimid period and was the home of a number of Muslim scholars. In 496 = 1103 it was taken by the Crusaders, and as the seat of a baron, vassal to the king of Jerusalem, Ḏj̲ubail regained a certain importance; its little harbour was restored and the strong ¶ fortress built, the remains of which stil…

These are the Ḏj̲arād̲j̲ima [q.v.] singular Ḏj̲urd̲j̲umānī, of the Arabs: they are sometimes confused with the Ḏj̲arāmiḳa, singular Ḏj̲armaḳānī, so called from the name of their town Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ūma. They occupied the rugged regions of the Amanus and of the Taurus, separating Syria from Cilicia, as well as the marshy districts of Antiochene [see būḳa], They enjoyed a semi-independence nominally under the Byzantines to whom they furnished recruits and irregular troops. When the Arabs seized Antioch the Mardaites agreed to serve them as auxiliaries and…

(also Daḥya) b. Ḵh̲alīfa, a Kalbite, who became a companion of Muḥammad after the battle of Uḥud according to Muslim tradition or according to reliable authorities not till after the siege of Medīna by the Ḳurais̲h̲ites. The rest of his nasab is variously given and is as uncertain as all else that we know regarding this mysterious personage. He was a rich merchant of pleasant and distinguished appearance, a friend and apparently also a commercial partner of Muḥammad’s. The latter compared him to the angel Gabriel and gave credence to …

a place on the road from Damascus to Palmyra and Himṣ, about midway between them. It is celebrated as a resort of Yazīd I. The district was inhabited in ʿAbd al-Malik’s time by Nabīṭ, i. e. natives who were Christians and spoke Aramaic. This remained the case down to the time of the Mamlūks of Egypt. Yazīd died at Ḥuwwārīn and was buried there; this is confirmed by contemporary poetry. The inhabitants still point out a ruin called Ḳaṣr Yazīd, ‘Yazid’s casde’. This name is probably only an echo of the literary tradition, according to which there were lasting links between Yazīd and Ḥuwwārīn. (H. La…

b. Numair of the Kindī tribe of Sakrīn, leader of the Sufyānids. He fought in the Omaiyad ranks at Ṣiffīn. On the accession of Yazid I he governed the important district ( d̲j̲und) of Ḥimṣ. While holding this office he intervened with the Caliph on behalf of Ibn Mufarrig̲h̲, the satirist, imprisoned by ʿUbaid Allāh b. Ziyād. When the expedition against the sacred towns of the Ḥid̲j̲āz was decided upon, Ḥusain was appointed lieutenant to the commander in chief, Muslim b. ʿUkba [q. v.]. In this capacity he distinguished himself …

b. al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, son of the Caliph Walīd I, and an Umm Walad. His knowledge earned him the title of ʿAlīm banī Marwān “the scholar of the Marwānid dynasty”, a title which a false reading sometimes gives to his brother Rawḥ b. al-Walīd. He was leader of the pilgrimage in 95 A. H. and took part in several invasions of Asia Minor. As admiral of the Egyptian fleet, he landed in Thrace and advanced ¶ as far as Adrianople. The date of his death is not known. He married Saʿdā, a divorced wife of Walīd II, took part in the rising against this Caliph and was still alive after his assassination. (H. Lam…

, a well in the mountains on the road from Medīna to Mecca, not far from the mine ( maʿdin) and the Ḥarra of the Banū Sulaim, between the lands of this tribe and those of the Banū ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa. We do not exactly know to which of these tribes the well belonged. Near it was the dam Sadd Maʿūna, sometimes corrupted to Sadd Muʿāwiya. This district was the scene of the defeat at Biʾr Maʿūna, a place only rarely mentioned by the geographers. The scanty topographical notes collected by them have apparently been obtained from oral tradition regarding that event. ʿĀmīr b. Malik Abū Barāʾ, called Mulā…

, son of ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, uncle of the Prophet, and his fosterbrother, as Tradition adds in the effort to glorify this hero of the earliest days of Islām, otherwise so little known. Ignorant panegyrists make him at the same time take part in the Fid̲j̲ār wars [q. v.], but this statement is a fiction, according to the author of the Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī. At first, like the other Hās̲h̲imīs, he adopted a hostile attitude to the new creed. But revolting against the extravagant attitude of Abū Ḏj̲ahl, he is said to have attached himself to the Prophet two (accor…

(Banū) along with the Omaiyads, the aristocratic clan of Mecca. This assertion is contrary to the theory popularised by the Sīra in virtue of which the ancestor of the aristocratic families was Ḳuṣaiy [q. v.]. About the middle of the vith century a. d. we find that among the clans of Ḳurais̲h̲ [q. v.] that held in most consideration was the Banū Mak̲h̲zūm, which traced its descent through Yaḳaẓa b. Murra to the legendary Fihr (Ḳurais̲h̲) without going through Ḳuṣaiy. At this period the Mak̲h̲zūm controlled everything at Mecca except the …

or Būḳa (both forms are found), a place first mentioned in connection with the inroads of the Ḏj̲arād̲j̲ima-Mardaites into Syria. The name is again found in the history of the conquests under the Umaiyad Caliph His̲h̲ām. After its first destruction it was rebuilt and Būḳā is mentioned in the xth century, after the Kūras of Antioch and Tizīn; it must have been still in existence in the time of the geographer Yāḳūt; we know that it lay not far from Antioch and from the Ḏj̲abal al-Lukkām (southern Amanus); its site therefore is to be sought in ʿA…

, cousin of Ḥusain b. ʿAlī. The latter, taking refuge in Mecca after the death of Muʿāwiya I, sent him to study the situation in Kūfa where the partisans of ʿAlī were inviting him to come and proclaim himself caliph. Muslim there received promise of support from thousands of S̲h̲īʿīs. He wrote to Ḥusain imploring him to hasten there and take command of the movement in person. In the meanwhile, the energetic ʿUbaid Allāh b. Ziyād had replaced the irresolute Nuʿmān b. Bas̲h̲īr [q. v.]. Realising t…

b. Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, third son of the Caliph Marwān and a Beduin woman of the Banū Kilāb, from whom her son inherited his partiality for the Ḳaisites. Marwān had placed him under the tutelage of his elder brother ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, but Bis̲h̲r left him to live with ʿAbd al-Malik, when the latter became Caliph. In his early youth he had borne a banner at the battle of Mard̲j̲ Rāhiṭ. On the death of Muṣʿab b. Zubair, ʿAbd al-Malik appointed him governor of Kūfa. He was fond of wine, musicians, and poet…

, a place the site of which cannot be identified with certainty; at the present day the name is unknown in Damascus. From the vth century a. h. onwards the Arab writers are ignorant of its exact site. Some of them have wrongly tried to locate it at Dummar, at the entrance to the Baradā valley. Dair Murrān belonged to the G̲h̲ūṭa in the district around Damascus; it was built not far from and in sight of ( ẓāhir) the capital, on an elevated piece of ground among vineyards and luxurious gardens near the foot of the Ḏj̲abal Ḳāsiyūn. At a short distance from it was the ʿAḳaba …

b. Yazīd, Umaiyad Caliph. He was about 35 (Feb. 743) when he succeeded his uncle, the Caliph His̲h̲ām b. ʿAbd al-Malik. “If only for his personal courage, liberality, love of letters and patronage and practice of poetry, Walīd was bound to shine in the first rank among the Umaiyads”. Such is the judgment of the Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī (vi. 101) the author of which could not be suspected of partiality for the Umaiyads. An artistic and remarkably cultivated young man, which none of his predecessors had been, the son of the hysterical caliph Yazīd II, he was …