, the most famous sanctuary of Islam, called the temple or house of God ( Bayt Allāh ). It is situated almost in the centre of the great mosque in Mecca. Muslims throughout the whole world direct their prayers to this sanctuary, where every year hundreds of thousands of pilgrims make the greater ( ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ ) or lesser ( ʿumra ) pilgrimage. Around it they gather and make their ritual circuits; around the Kaʿba the young Muslim community spent the early years of Islam. For the Muslim community the Kaʿba holds a place analogous to that of the temple in Jerusalem for ancient Jewry. I. The Kaʿba and …

, a religious society founded by Indian Muslims in their period of great pan-Islamic fervour just before World War One. The And̲j̲uman was started by Mawlānā ʿAbd al-Bārī [ q.v. above] and Mus̲h̲īr Ḥusayn Ḳidwāī [ q.v.] of Lucknow who hoped to be able to defend Mecca and Medina by raising ten million rupees to build dreadnoughts and airships and to maintain armed forces. Such an ambitious programme proved impracticable, and the final constitution of the organisation published early in 1332/1914 declared that to defend the Holy Pla…

[see kaʿba ].

[see al-kaʿba ].

(a.), in early Arabia, the guardian of a shrine (abstract noun, sidāna ). The root s - d - n contains the sense of "veil, curtain", which puts sādin on a level with ḥād̲j̲ib , the first term denoting the guardian of a shrine, and the second, the "door-keeper" of a palace, hence "chamberlain". The ḥād̲j̲ib acts under the orders of someone else, whereas the sādin acts on his own initiative ( LʿA , xvii, 69, citing Ibn Barrī). However, the two terms may be found juxtaposed, e.g. in Ibn His̲h̲ām, who says, "The Arabs possessed, as well as the Kaʿba, tawāg̲h̲īṭ which were shrines ( buyūt : cf. Fahd, La divin…

(a.), the rising point of a celestial body, usually a star, on the local horizon. This concept was important in Islamic folk astronomy [see anwāʾ and manāzil on some aspects of this tradition], as distinct from mathematical astronomy [see ʿilm al-Hayʾa ], because it was by the risings and settings of the sun and stars that the ḳibla ¶ [ q.v.] or direction of Mecca was usually determined in popular practice. The terms used for the rising and setting points of the sun were usually mas̲h̲riḳ and mag̲h̲rib , maṭlaʿ being generally reserved for stars. The directions…

, Banū , the name of the keepers of the Kaʿba ( sadana , ḥad̲j̲aba [see sādin ; ḥād̲j̲ib ]), whose authority does not extend over the whole of the sanctuary ( masd̲j̲id al-ḥarām ), nor even as far as the well of Zamzam and its annexes. They are the Banū S̲h̲ayba or S̲h̲aybiyyūn and have as their head a zūʿīm or s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ . Modern works only give brief references to them. Snouck Hurgronje gave the days on which they opened the door of the Kaʿba. He noted that they only admitted the faithful on payment of a fee and quoted the witty Meccan saying: “The Banū S̲…

(a.) verbal noun of ṭāfa with bi of place, “encircling”; in the language of religious cults the running round or circumambulation of a sacred object, a stone, altar, etc. There are traces of the rite having existed among the Israelites, cf. especially Ps. xxvi. 6, and the ceremony of the feast of booths in the time of the Second Temple, where the altar is circumambulated once in the first six days and seven times on the seventh. The rite, however, was also found among Persians, Indians, Buddhists, Romans and others and is t…

(a.), from the root s-ʿ-y , used 30 times in the Ḳurʾān in such senses as “to work, apply oneself to, denounce, seek to earn one’s living, run after s. th.” etc., but in the sense concerning here denoting the pilgrim’s running between al-Ṣafā and al-Marwa. These are two hills to the south and north-west of the Kaʿba respectively, linked by a masʿā , course, which the pilgrim follows after having made the sevenfold circuit of the Kaʿba, at his or her arrival and his or her departure. This following of the course, the saʿy , is likewise sevenfold; it starts in al-Ṣafā, and goes to al-Marwa, ca. 300 m a…

, a sacred hill on the eastern edge of Mecca. Rising abruptly from the valley floor, it overlooks the Great Mosque a few hundred meters away. The Kaʿba corner containing the Black Stone points towards the hill, at the foot of which is al-Ṣafā, the southern end of al-Masʿā. Buildings now hem the hill in on nearly every side. Muslim tradition holds that this was the first mountain created by God. Adam and other ancients are sometimes said to be buried there. The hill’s older name was al-Amīn, give…

, an Arabian god whose worship was fostered in Mecca by the K̲h̲uzāʿī ʿAmr b. Luḥayy [ q.v.] in the first half of the 3rd century A.D. Represented at first by a baetyl, like most of the Arab deities, it was later personified, with human features, by a statue made of cornelian, with the right arm truncated (cf. Judges III, 15, XX, 16) and which the ¶ Ḳurays̲h̲īs are said to have replaced by a golden arm (al-Azraḳī, Ak̲h̲bār Makka , ed. Wüstenfeld, Leipzig 1858, 74). It was from a town with thermal springs ( ḥamma ) that it was apparently brought to the Ḥid̲j̲āz. Having…

“lickers of blood”, the name given to a group of clans of Ḳurays̲h̲. According to tradition, Ḳuṣayy [ q.v.] had allocated to the different subdivisions of Ḳurays̲h̲ the quarters which they were to occupy in Mecca and had entrusted to the Banū ʿAbd al-Dār various local offices: administration of the dār al-nadwa and bearing the standard ( liwāʾ ), the furnishing of provisions ( rifāda ) and drink ( siḳāya ) to the pilgrims, and custodianship of the Kaʿba ( ḥid̲j̲āba [see kaʿba ]). However, the Banū ʿAbd Manāf thought themselves more worthy of these privile…

, a pair of gods worshipped at ¶ Mecca before Islam. Several orientalists of the last century, such as Rudolph Krehl and François Lenormant, saw in them, not unreasonably, replicas of Baʿl and Baʿla. Indeed Isāf and Nāʾila do display the essential characteristics distinguishing this pair of gods from the many avatars known in the various Semitic religions: physical représentation by two sacred stones erected close to each other, or by two parallel hills; symbolic représentation of…

b. Nufayl, a so-called ḥanīf [ q.v.] and “seeker after true religion”, who lived in Mecca before Muḥammad’s mission (though some pronounced him a Companion of the Prophet). In a major battle before Islam Zayd reportedly led the Ḳurays̲h̲ [ q.v.] clan to which he belonged, the ʿAdī b. Kaʿb. The cycle of reports about him in Islamic historiography all but presents him as Muḥammad’s precursor. Some scholars even went as far as declaring him a prophet who received revelations, and a ¶ messenger sent to mankind. Precisely like Muḥammad before his call, Zayd is said to have practiced taḥannut̲h̲ [ q.…

, aTurkicized Arabic expression meaning sacred trust or deposit, the name given to a collection of relics preserved in the treasury of the Topkapi palace in Istanbul. The most important are a group of objects said to have belonged to the Prophet; they included his cloak ( k̲h̲irḳa-i s̲h̲erīf [ q.v.]), a prayer-rug, a flag, a bow, a staff, a pair of horseshoes, as well as a tooth, some hairs (see liḥya ), and a stone bearing the Prophet’s footprint. In addition there are weapons, utensils and garments said to have belonged to the ancient prophets, to the early Caliph…

, "safe", "secure"; in this and the more frequent form āmīn (rarely āmmīn , rejected by grammarians) it is used like āmēn and (Syriac) amīn with Jews and Christians as a confirmation or corroboration of prayers, in the meaning "answer Thou" or "so be it", see examples in al-Mubarrad, al-Kāmil , 577 note 6; Ibn al-Ḏj̲azarī, al-Nas̲h̲r ii, Cairo 1345, 442 f., 447. Its efficacy is enhanced at especially pious prayers, e.g. those said at the Kaʿba or those said for the welfare of other Muslims, when also the angels are said to say amīn. Especially it is said after sūra i, without being part of the sūra. …

, the state of so-called major ritual impurity. It is caused by marital intercourse, to which the religious law assimilates any effusio seminis. One who is in This state is called d̲j̲unub , and can only become ritually clean again by the so-called major ritual ablution ( g̲h̲usl [ q.v.]) or by the tayammum [ q.v.]. On the other hand, the law prescribes for a Muslim in the state of so-called minor impurity the minor ritual ablution ( wuḍūʾ [ q.v.]). The distinction is based on the wording of Ḳurʾān, V, 6. The d̲j̲unub cannot perform a valid ṣalāt he may not make a ṭawāf round…

“the oilman”, a religious devotee of Muslim India, was born at an unknown date, some time in the 10th/16th century, at Makhiwal, on the bank of the Chenab, in the Pand̲j̲āb. A critical change in Ḥassū’s life came when he was twelve. He met one of the living “nine naths of Gorakhnath”. The latter recognised in him his sixty-first and premier disciple, who had spent 82 years in severe austerities before his birth. Ḥassū now embarked on his career as a saint. He went to Lahore where he worked as a porter, but subsequently became…

, an ancestor of Muḥammad in the fifth generation and restorer of the pre-Islamic cult of the Kaʿba in Mecca. His genealogy is unanimously given in all sources as Ḳusayy b. Kilāb b. Murra b. Kaʿb b. Luʾayy b. Fihr or Ḳurays̲h̲ b. G̲h̲ālib (Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Ǧamhara , Tab. 4), and his life and exploits are recorded by our sources in three recensions which only differ from each other in trifling details; these go back to Muḥammad al-Kalbī (d. 146/763-4), Ibn Iṣhāḳ (d. 150/767) and ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Ḏj̲u…

, the legendary founder of polytheism in Arabia and the ancestor of the Ḵh̲uzāʿa [ q.v.] at Mecca. The Kaʿba being, according to the Ḳurʾān (iii, 96/0), "the first sanctuary appointed for mankind", it was necessary to believe that polytheism was a later corruption. Neither the Ḏj̲urhum, Ismāʿīlʾs relatives, nor the Prophet’s tribe, the Ḳurays̲h̲, were likely to be responsible for it. So the blame was laid on ʿAmr b. Luḥayy, the leader of the Ḵh̲uzāʿa, who was said to have expelled the Ḏj̲urhum from Mecca. He w…