Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Jazzār (601/1204–5 to 679/1280–81) Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm ibn Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, Egyptian poet (al-Jammāl, al-Adab al-ʿāmmī, 191–200); often bracketed with al-Miʿmār (q.v.) because of their common plebeian origin.
Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī Ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī (384–456/994–1064) Andalusian polymath and prolific author, commonly referred to as Ibn Ḥazm.
Abū Nuwās (ca. 130–98/747–813) Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hāniʾ al-Ḥakamī, one of the most famous poets of the Abbasid Golden Age, especially in the fields of wine poetry and the love lyric.
Abū Sufyān al-Humām (d. 30/651) Ṣakhr ibn Ḥarb, better known as Abū Sufyān and nicknamed al-Humām (“the Generous”); a prominent leader of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca who initially opposed the Prophet Muḥammad but later accepted Islam.
ʿĀd see Thamūd.
al-Aʿshā (d. ca. 7/629) Abū Baṣīr al-Aʿshā Maymūn ibn Qays, a celebrated pre-Islamic poet.
ʿĀtikah daughter of the caliph Yazīd and granddaughter of Muʿāwiyah, founder of the Umayyad dynasty.
al-ʿAzīz al-Malik al-ʿAzīz I ʿUthmān ibn al-Nāṣir I Ṣalāh al-Dīn (r. 589–95/1193–98), Ayyubid ruler of Egypt, son of Ṣalāh al-Dīn (Saladin).
Bāb al-Lūq an area beyond the western limits of Ottoman Cairo; see also n. 50.
badīʿ rhetorical figures.
Baysān a town in northern Palestine.
bīsār a popular dish consisting of mashed fava beans (fūl) and “Jew’s mallow” (mulūkhiyyā); for a detailed description, see al-Shirbīnī, Brains Confounded, Volume Two, §11.12.3.
al-Bistām Bisṭām ibn Qays (d. 10/631–32), a warrior famed for his chivalry and courage.
al-Damāmīnī (763–827/1362–1424) Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Damāmīnī, also known as al-Badr al-Damāmīnī and Ibn al-Damāmīnī, Egyptian author of commentaries on and abridgments of works by authors in a variety of fields.
favoring (taghlīb) literally, “awarding of precedence”: a stylistically elegant usage according to which the dual form of one noun is used to indicate both that noun and another with which it is closely associated, as for example, al-qamarān (literally, “the two moons”), meaning “the moon and the sun” and al-aṣfarān (literally, “the two yellow things”), meaning “gold and silver.”
Hamadān an ancient city in western Iran, also spelled Hamadhān.
al-Ḥaṭīm a low, thick, semicircular wall of white marble opposite the northwest corner of the Kaaba between which and the Kaaba are said to lie the graves of Ismāʿīl and Hājar.
hints (ishārāt) as used here, the term refers to lines of verse that, precisely because they are apparently irrelevant to the matter at hand, push the addressee to find another, relevant, line within the same poem (see §3.1).
Ibn ʿĀd, Shaddād legendary son of the eponym of the tribes of ʿĀd. In one legend, Shaddād ibn ʿĀd built a city, called Iram of the Pillars, as an imitation of Paradise, and was then, as a punishment for his pride, destroyed by a tornado and the city buried in sand (W. Montgomery Watt, “Iram” in EI2).
Ibn Hishām (708–61/1309–60) ʿAbdallāh ibn Yūsuf ibn Hishām, known as Ibn Hishām al-Naḥwī (Ibn Hishām the Grammarian), a prolific Egyptian author, largely of pedagogical works on grammar.
Ibn al-Jahm (188–249/803–63) ʿAlī ibn al-Jahm, a poet at the Baghdad court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil.
Ibn ʿUnayn (549–630/1154–1232) Muḥammad ibn Naṣr Allāh ibn Makārim ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn ʿUnayn, Syrian satirical poet and high government official under the Ayyubids.
Imruʾ al-Qays (6th century ad) Imruʾ al-Qays ibn Ḥujr, a pre-Islamic poet.
al-Malik al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn Yūsuf ibn Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb (r. 564–89/1169–93) Ayyubid ruler of Egypt and Syria, known in English as Saladin.
al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/754–75) second caliph of the Abbasid dynasty.
the Maqām (literally, “the Standing Place”): in the sanctuary at Mecca, a small open-sided building housing a stone on which the patriarch Ibrāhīm (Abraham) is said to have stood during the building of the Kaaba.
al-Miʿmār (fl. 7th/13th century) Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī al-Miʿmār, Egyptian satirical poet whose mawāliyās are often built on puns; classified by contemporary critics as ʿāmmī (“of the common people”) and maṭbūʿ (“natural,” i.e., self-taught) but well regarded, despite his frequent violations of the rules of literary Arabic (al-Jammāl, al-Adab al-ʿāmmī, 185–9); often bracketed with Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Jazzār because of their common plebeian origin.
al-Mutanabbī, Abū l-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn (303–54/915–65), a renowned poet of the Abbasid age.
al-Mutawakkil (r. 232–47/847–61) eleventh Abbasid caliph.
Night of Power (Laylat al-qadr) the night during the fasting month of Ramadan, usually taken to be that preceding the twenty-seventh day, on which the first of the revelations of the Qurʾan was given to the Prophet Muḥammad; on this night, the gates of heaven are said to be opened and prayers sure of success.
pastoral (mawāliyā) the five mawāliyās in this work are short poems in the basīṭ meter characterized by a mixture of colloquial and noncolloquial features and having as their theme love in a rural setting; as a genre, the mawāliyā has a long and varied history (see Pierre Cachia, “Mawāliyā,” in EAL).
al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil (529–96/1135–1200) ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿAlī, known as al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil (“the Virtuous Judge”): a statesman, model of epistolary style, poet, and head of chancery of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī (Saladin) from 566/1171.
Rashīd Rosetta, on the mouth of the western branch of the Nile, a major entrepôt for trade between Cairo and Alexandria; the city rose in importance during the seventeenth century following the decline of Fuwwah, which was ruined by the end of navigation on the Nile-Alexandria canal, ca. ad 1650 (Raymond, Artisans, 1:167).
riddles (alghāz) as used here, either the use of a name that brings to mind another name that has the intended meaning or of a question in the form of “What is the name of something that . . .” followed by clues to the name relying on metatheses or other variations on the consonantal skeleton of the word (see §3.1).
shaykh of the village (shaykh al-balad) headman or representative of the village vis-à-vis the state, responsible for the provision of certain services (such as that of an ox to turn waterwheels for raising water, see §2.8.5 below).
shīn thirteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet (ش).
Sībawayh (fl. second/eighth century) ʿAmr ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qanbar Sībawayh, regarded as “the creator of systematic Arabic grammar” (Scott and Meisami, Encyclopedia, 1:718); his only work became so influential that it was known simply as Kitāb Sībawayh (Sībawayh’s Book).
supercommentary (ḥāshiyah) literally, “something stuffed (as a cushion)”): a commentary on a commentary on an earlier work, usually “stuffed” into the margin of the commentary.
Thabīr a mountain near Mecca.
Thamūd and ʿĀd ancient tribes of Arabia, both mentioned in the Qurʾan as having been wiped out by disasters as punishment for misdeeds (in ʿĀd’s case, by a violent storm (Q Aʿrāf 7:65, Hūd 11:58, etc.) or a draught (11:52), in Thamūd’s by an earthquake (7:78) or a thunderbolt (Fuṣṣilat 41:13, 17)).
al-Tibrīzī Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Khaṭīb al-Tibrīzī (421–502/1030–1109), author of several commentaries on the dīwāns of leading poets, including al-Mūḍiḥ fī sharḥ al-Mutanabbī (The Clarifier concerning the Elucidation of al-Mutanabbī).
Tradition (ḥadīth, pl. aḥādīth) an account of the Prophet’s words or deeds to which he gave his tacit approval.
ʿŪj ibn ʿAnaq a giant, the Biblical “King Og” (B. Heller, “ʿŪdj b. ʿAnaḳ,” in EI2).
wrangles (mabāḥith) discussions of knotty grammatical or stylistic points (see §4.1)
Zamzam a well within the enclosure of the Kaaba that was opened by the angel Jibrāʾīl (Gabriel) to save Hājar and her son Ismāʿīl from thirst.