ENCYCLOPEIA MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PART 21

MYTHICAL PLACES

  Medieval Islamic culture abounded with stories, legends, and beliefs about mythical and imaginary places. Almost all such places were described as the result of travel, whether real or imagined. This helps to explain why most were to be found at the edges of the (then) known world: in the direction of China and Japan to the far east (e.g., Roc Island); in the colder climes of the Nordic lands (e.g., the Sea of Karkar); and especially in the Indian Ocean (viewed by Ptolemy as an ‘‘encompassing sea’’), both to the south (e.g., Camphor Island) and in Southeast Asia (e.g., Zabaj). Desert and mountain locations include Hush, the land of the jinn, and Mount Qaf, respectively.

  The principal medieval Islamic sources for information about mythical places include travel accounts, such as Akhbar al-Sin wal-Hind (Accounts of China and India) by Sulayman the Merchant (ca. ninth century), written in 850; mariners’ tales and works about navigation, such as‘Aja’ib al-Hind (Book of the Wonders of India) by Buzurg ibn Shahriyar (d. 1009), written in 953; works of regional and world geography, such as Kitab al-Buldan (Book of Regions), written around 903 by Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani (ca. early tenth century), and the anonymous Persian Hudud al-‘Alam (The Regions of the World), written around 982; cosmographical works—more often than not in the marvels and wonders genre (‘aja’ib; Latin, mirabilia)—such as‘Aja’ib al-Makhluqat (Wonders of Regions) by al-Qazwini (d. 1283) and the Ottoman Turkish Du¨rr-i Meknun (The Well-Preserved Pearl) by Yazidi-oghlu Ahmed Bijan (d. ca. 1456); and, finally, popular and folk literature, such as Alf Layla wa-Layla (The Thousand and One Nights).

  The mythical places of the medieval Islamic imagination may be classified into three broad categories: (1) places that are liminal, typically at the ends of the earth or at the edge of the known world (e.g., the City of Brass); (2) places where things are topsy-turvy and normative rules are suspended (e.g., the Island of Connubial Sacrifice); and (3) places that are habitats for unusual creatures or inhabitants (e.g., the land of Gog and Magog). These categories are by no means mutually exclusive. The islands of Waqwaq  typify the mythical place and occur, moreover, in all types of  dangerous waters surround the islands. Descriptions of Waqwaq range from a land inhabited by ingenious and treacherous inhabitants to the home of the Waqwaq tree, whose fruit is women. Waqwaq is not, however, to be found in the North, unlike Artha (or Arthaniya), a city described in the Risala (Epistle),an account of a journey up the Volga by the diplomatic envoy Ibn Fadlan (c. early tenth century). In Artha, the sun never sets, and the inhabitants are said to eat strangers, a story that may have circulated to protect valuable trade routes.

  Artha and Waqwaq, like so many of the mythical locations described in medieval Islamic sources, probably had their origin in real places but were then transformed into mythical ones with a hold on the imagination that has been both enduring and, from the perspective of medieval literature and art, also richly rewarding.

Primary Sources

Anonymous.Hudud al-‘Alam (The Regions of the World): A Persian Geography, 372 A.H.–982 A.D., transl. V. Minorsky. Oxford: E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust; London: Luzac, 1937. Reprinted Karachi: Indus Publications, 1980.

———.Alf Layla wa-Layla (The Arabian Nights), transl. Husain Haddawy (based on the text of the fourteenthcentury Syrian manuscript edited by Muhsin Mahdi). New York: Norton, 1990.

———.Sirat Sayf ibn Dhi Yazan (The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan, an Arab Folk Epic), transl. Lena Jayyusi. Bloomington, Ind: Indiana University Press, 1996.

Bijan, Yazidi-oghlu Ahmed.Du¨rr-i Meknun (The Well-preserved Pearl), ed. Necdet Sakaoghlu. Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1999.

Ibn Fadlan. ‘‘al-Risala – ‘La Relation du Voyage d’Ibn Fadlaˆn chez les Bulgares de la Volga’,’’ transl. Marius Canard.Annales de l’Institut d’Etudes Orientales de l’Universite ´ d’Alger(1958): 41–116.

Ibn al-Faqih al-Hamadhani. Kitab al-Buldan (Book of Regions), ed. M. de Goeje. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1885.

Ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini, Zakariya. ‘Aja’ib al-Makhluqat (The Wonders of Creation). Cairo: Mustafa al-Babi al-Halabi and Sons, 1956.

Ibn Shahriyar, Buzurg.Kitab ‘Aja’ib al-Hind (The Book of the Wonders of India: Mainland, Sea, and Islands), ed. and transl. G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville. London: EastWest Publications, 1981.

‘‘Sulayman al-Tajir, Akhbar al-Sin wal-Hind.’’ In Arabic Classical Accounts of India and China, transl. S. Maqbul Ahmad. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced, 1989.

Further Reading

Allibert, Claude, ‘‘L’Ile des Femmes dans les Recits Arabes.’’Etudes Oce´an Indien15 (1997): 261–67.

Deluz, Christiane.Le Livre de Jehan de Mandeville. Une ‘‘Ge ´ographie’’ du XIVe` Sie`cle, 75–86. Louvain-laNeuve: Institut d’E´ tudes Me ´die´vales de l’Universite´ Catholique de Louvain, 1988.

Ferrand, Gabriel.Relation de Voyages et Textes Ge´ograhpiques Arabes, Persans et Turcs Relatifs a`l’Extre ˆme-Orient du VIIIe` au XVIIIe` Sie`cles, 2 vols. Paris: E. Leroux, 1913–1914.

Manguel, Albert, and Gianni Guadalupi.The Dictionary of Imaginary Places, 2nd ed. San Diego, Calif: Harcourt Brace, 1999.

Maqbul Ahmed, S., and Fr. Taeschner. ‘‘Djughrafiya, Geography.’’ InEncyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., eds. H.A.R. Gibb et al., vol. 2: 575–90. Leiden: Brill, 1957.

Miquel, Andre´. La Ge´ographie Humaine du Monde Musulman Jusqu’au Milieu du 11e` Sie`cle, 4 vols., vol. 2, 482–513. Paris, The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1973–1988.

Toorawa, Shawkat M. ‘‘Waˆq al-Waˆq: Fabulous, Fabular, Indian Ocean (?) Islands....’’ Emergences10 (2000): 387–402.

NAFS AL-ZAKIYYA

  Muhammad b. Abdallah b. al-Hasan b. al-Hasan b. ‘Ali b. Abi Kalib is believed to have been born in the year AH 92/710–711 CE. Shi‘i sources, however as well as many Sunni sources give the year as AH 100, which is dubious because of its messianic connotations.

  Abdallah b. al-Hasan, his father, was the head of the Hasanid family and a figure who was respected by the entire Hashimid family. His mother was Hind bnt. Abi ‘Ubayda b. Abdallah b. Zam’a b. al-Aswad b. alMuyyalib b. Asad b. ‘Abd al-’Uzza b. Qusayy. Her father, Abu ‘Ubayda, was one of the leading figures of Quraysh.

  Muhammad had nine brothers and five sisters from three different mothers. Abdallah b. al-Hasan’s family had a house in al-Madina, although evidently the family’s main place of residence was a large estate near al-Madina called Suwayqa or Farsh Suwayqa. Muhammad had two wives and three concubines, who bore him seven sons and two daughters. The best known among his children was ‘Abdallah, called al-Ashtar.

  Little is known about Muhammad’s education. It seems that his father sought to give his sons Muhammad and Ibrahim a formal knowledge of hadith (tradition) and fiqh. However, Muhammad was not known for any kind of scholarship; in the books of rijal (transmitters) of Hadith he is mentioned as a minor transmitter.

  Muhammad is described as having a large body, great strength, and a very dark complexion On his face he had the scars of smallpox (al-judari). In the middle of his shoulders, he had a black mole that was the size of an egg, and he stuttered when he talked. Some of the physical traits attributed to Muhammad b. ‘Abdallah were similar to those of the Prophet Muhammad, and the resemblancento Moses is also apparent (e.g., stuttering). Traditions depicting his physical as well as spiritual religious traits were disseminated, circulated, and transmitted by pro-Shi‘i scholars, family members of the Hasanids (some of them belonging to the most inner and close circle of Muhammad b. Abdallah’s supporters), and other sections of the ‘Alid family.

  The accepted tradition is that Muhammad b. ‘Abdallah was already called al-Mahdi (‘‘The Messiah’’) and al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (‘‘The Pure Soul’’) during the Umayyad period. Clearly, at the time of his death, both names were in current use. There is little information about Muhammad from the Umayyad period. What there is deals for the most part with one subject: the political aspirations that Abdallah b. al-Hasan had for his son, Muhammad (or Muhammad and his brother Ibrahim), which included fostering a recognition of Muhammad among Banu Hashim as the most deserving candidate for the caliphate.

  It is highly plausible that these traditions were created and disseminated after the rebellion of Muhammad b. Abdallah against the ‘Abbasids in 145/762 and possibly already for a short period before the rebellion.

The ‘Abbasid Period

  In several traditions, it is said that Muhammad never ceased promoting himself as a candidate for the caliphate, even during the rule of Abu ‘l-’Abbas al-Saffah (r. 132/750–136/754). He and his brother Ibrahim remained in hiding and did not appear before the caliph, despite the caliph’s request for them to do so and despite his most generous attitude toward their father, Abdallah b. al-Hasan, the Hasanid family, and the ‘Alids in general.

  After the year 136/754, when allegiance was sworn to al-Mansour until the breaking of the revolt in Rajab in 145/762, Muhammad and his brother Ibrahim refrained from appearing before al-Mansour. They remained in hiding and did not swear allegiance to the caliph. At the end of the year 140/758, alMansour ordered that Muhammad’s father be put under house arrest in al-Madina, along with some of his family members. They remained under arrest in alMadina until the end of 144/762. Between the years 1140 and 144 and especially between 143/760–761 and 145/762, during the governorship of Riyah b. ‘Uthman—pursuit of the two brothers intensified. At the end of 144, Abdallah b. al-Hasan, his brothers, and their children were taken to al-Hashimiyya near al-Kufa and put in prison. This brought Muhammad out in open rebellion.

  Muhammad strove to give the rebellion as broad a character as possible and to extend it to other regions beyond the borders of the Arab Peninsula. Actual attempts were made in Egypt, Syria (to a small extent), and apparently also in al-Basra and al-Kufa. However, other than those of several individuals, no missions of aid are known to have been sent to Muhammad from these cities.

  Muhammad b. Abdallah entered al-Madina, openly proclaiming rebellion, on the twenty-eighth of Jumada II, 145 (23 September 762). His takeover of the city did not meet with any significant resistance. Immediately upon entering the city, he freed the prisoners from jail, arrested the ‘Abbasid governor and the mawali of the ‘Abbasid family, confiscated the properties of the ‘Abbasids in the city, and took over bayt al-mal. Another important source of finance for the rebellion was the money given to Muhammad by one of the dignitaries of al-Madina: the total sadaqa of the O ´ayyi’ and Asad tribes, which he had collected for the ‘Abbasids. Muhammad wanted to administer the city as the capital of the caliphate and, to that end, he established a series of administrative and judiciary posts. He sent his brother Ibrahim to al-Basra, where he raised the banner of rebellion on Ramadan 1, 145 (November 762). At the same time, Muhammad sent governors to all parts of the Arabian Peninsula.

  Al-Mansour’s letter to Muhammad b. Abdallah, suggesting that he accept an aman, evoked a strong reply from Muhammad. These letters may very well be authentic, but even if they are not, they are very early and of great importance in that they reflect the early arguments of the ‘Abbasids and the Hasanids with regard to who had the legitimate right to rule.

  Al-Mansour sent his nephew, ‘Isa b. Musa, to head a strong army that was composed mainly of Ahl Khurasan units against Muhammad. At the beginning of the rebellion, most of the inhabitants of al-Madina supported Muhammad. However, this support was not uniform; there were those who opposed the rebellion, even among his close family, among the rest of the ‘Alid families, and among the important families of Quraysh. In the Zubayrid and ‘Umari (the descendants of ‘Umar b. al-Khassab) families, however, there was general homogeneity with respect to supporting Muhammad, with just a small opposition. The Zubayrids constituted the main military and administrative backbone of the rebellion. Also noted among Muhammad’s supporters are families and individuals from Arab tribes: the Juhayna, Sulaym, Bakr, Aslam, Ghifar, Numayr (mawali), and Bahila (mawali).

  Several of the important religious scholars (‘ulama) of this period from al-Madina as well as from other cities supported and joined the rebellion. Some of them had Shi‘i tendencies, although a large number were not pro-Shi‘i. Noted among them are Malik b. Anas, Sufyan al-Thawri, Abu Hanifa, Hisham b. ‘Urwa b. al-Zubayr, and others. When this list of scholars is examined, it becomes clear that, for at least some of them, their leanings toward the rebellion and their support of Muhammad is not at all unequivocal. It is noteworthy that Ja’far al-Sadiq did not support Muhammad and his rebellion, although despite this there are a number of people belonging to Ja’far’s immediate family who took an active part in the uprising. First and foremost, his sons Musa and Abdallah and his brother’s son Hamza b. Abdallah should be mentioned, but there were also other Husaynids, all uncles and cousins of Ja’far al-Sadiq, who participated in the rebellion.

  After their rise to power, tense relations and hostility prevailed between the ‘Abbasids and Ja’far alSadiq. Their fear no doubt greatly increased seeing that the Husaynid family was neither united in their attitude toward the rebellion nor, evidently, in backing Ja’far al-Sadiq’s leadership. They were displeased with Ja’far’s quietism during the rebellion. His refraining to appear openly before ‘Isa b. Musa as a sign of loyalty to the ‘Abbasids led to the confiscation of  Ja’far’s estate, ‘Ayn Abi Ziyad, with the approval of al-Mansour, who also ordered his house in Medina to be burned down.

  Muhammad b. Abdallah was considered the sixth or seventh imam of the Zaydis. During this period, there was a body in al-Kufa that was noted in the sources as Zaydiyya, the nucleus of which was made up of supporters of Zayd b. ‘Ali b. al-Husayn b. ‘Ali b. Abi Talib. This group constituted the important nucleus of Ibrahim b. Abdallah’s army, although no mention is made of it in connection with Muhammad’s rebellion. Evaluating the rebellion as a Zaydi Hasani rebellion fully supported by the Mu’tazila is too general and inaccurate.

  With the arrival of ‘Isa b. Musa’s army at the approaches of al-Madina, most of Muhammad’s supporters abandoned him. At various stages of the battle, particularly at the end, several senior commanders and many soldiers ran away. The final battle took place at Ahjar al-Zayt, to the south of  Thaniyyat al-Wada’, on the fourteenth or fifteenth day of Ramadan 145 (sixth or seventh of December 762). Because of their numeric and qualitative inferiority, the battle quickly ended in the defeat of Muhammad’s men. His head was sent to Caliph al-Mansour; his dead warriors were crucified in two rows in the city and left there for three days. Throughout his entire rule, al-Mansour never stopped persecuting members of the Hasanid family and Muhammad b. Abdallah’s supporters. He ordered the confiscation of all of the estates of Banu Hasan and an estate of Ja’far al-Sadiq, who only had it returned to him by Caliph al-Mahdi.

  Throughout the Umayyad Caliphate and particularly during the reign of Hisham b. ‘Abd al-Malik (105/724–125/743), there was a slow decline in the economic and geopolitical status of Medina. With the ‘Abbasids’ rise to power, this process was accelerated by the deliberate policy of the first two ‘Abbasid caliphs.

  Despite the limited strategic importance of Medina for the ‘Abbasids, they took the rebellion very seriously, because, to a certain extent, Muhammad b. Abdallah succeeded in extending it past the borders of the Arabian Peninsula and thus constituted a real danger to the ‘Abbasid regime. Above all, the rebellion was a challenge to their right to rule. Participation of the Quraysh families in al-Madina (particularly the Zubayrids, who had a history of hostility towards the ‘Alids), the ‘Umaris, the Ansar, and some of the tribes in alMadina and its environs in the rebellion as well as the support of scholars who were not known to be pro-Shi‘i all speak against an exclusive Shi‘i tinge to the rebellion.

  Nevertheless, the fact that the rebellion was headed by Muhammad b. Abdallah was of great importance. His lineage and claim to the right to rule competed successfully with the arguments for the legitimacy of the ‘Abbasids, which at that time were in a stage of transition from the legitimacy of the ‘Alid-Hashimiyya to that of al-’Abbas, the Prophet’s uncle. Muhammad b. Abdallah’s rebellion accelerated the development of the ‘Abbasid ideology of legitimacy relating to al-’Abbas and was an important turning point in the relationship between the ‘Abbasids and the branches of the ‘Alid family, particularly the Zaydis and the Hasanids. It is also very likely that it hastened the development of the qu’ud doctrine of the Husaynids.

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Al-Baladhuri, Ahmad b. Yahya.Ansab al-Ashraf,vol. II, 507–38, ed. W. Madelung. Beirut and Berlin, 2003.

———.Ansab al-Ashraf,vol. III, ed. A.A. Duri. Beirut, 1978.

Idem, vol. III (ed. Muhammad Baqir al-Mahmudi, biographies of the descendants of al-Hasan and Husayn), Beirut, Dar al-Ta’aruf li-al-MaOˆbu’At, 1977, Index, esp. 75-141; idem, vol. III (ed. S. Zakkar and R. Zirikli), Beirut, Dar al-Fikr, 1417/1996, pp. 1239–1277.

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———. ‘‘Asmaa al-Mughtallin min al-Ashraf fi al-Jahiliyya wa-al-Islam wa-Asmaa man Kutila min al-Shu’ara.’’ In NawAdir al-MakhOˆuO ˆat2,ed. ‘Abd al-Salam Muhammad Harun, vol. VI, 189–90, 192, 207, 271–2. Cairo, 1973.

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Al-Mas’udi, Abu al-Hasan, ‘Ali b. al-Hasan b. ‘Ali alMas’udi.Muruj al-Dhahab wa-ma’Adin al-Jawhar,ed. C. Pellat, vol. IV, 2401–13. Beirut, 1973.

Al-Isfahani, ‘Ali b. Husayn Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani.Kitab al-Aghani,Index. Bulaq, 1284–1285 H.; Cairo, Dar alKutub al-Misriyya, 1345/1927.

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Further Reading

el-’Ali, N ˜aliI ˆ. ‘‘Mulkiyyat al-AraA ˜i fi al-Hijaz fi al-Qarn alAwwal al-Hijri.’’Majallat al-’ArabIII (1969): 961–1005.

Arazi, A. ‘‘Materiaux pour L’Etude du Conflit de Pre´se ´ance Entre la Mekke et Medine.’’Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and IslamV (1984): 177–235.

Crone, P. ‘‘On the Meaning of the Abbasid Call toalRiA˜a.’’ In The Islamic World from Classical to Modern Times, Essays in Honor of Bernard Lewis, eds. CE Bosworth et al., 95–111, 99–100, 108. Princeton, NJ, 1989.

Hasan, Sa’d Muhammad.al-Mahdi fi al-Islam...,112–28. Cairo, 1373/1953.

Jafri, Husain M. Origins and Early Development of Shi’a Islam,Index, 259–83. London and New York, 1979.

Kennedy, H.The Early Abbasid Caliphate,66–70. London, Croom Helm, 1981.

Lassner, J. ‘‘Provincial Administration Under the Early Abbasids: Abu Ja’far al-Mansour and the Governors of the Haramayn.’’Studia IslamicaXLIX (1979): 39–54.

———.The Shaping of Abbasid Rule,69–87. Princeton, NJ, 1980.

al-Laythi, Samira Mukhtar. Jihad al-Shi’a fi al-’Asr al-’Abbasi al-Awwal, Chapter II. Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1396/ 1976.

Madelung, W.Der Imam al-Qasim Ibn Ibrahim und die Glaubenslehre Zaiditen,Index. Berlin, 1965.

———. ‘‘al-Mahdi.’’ InEI 2 .Momen, M.An Introduction to Shi’i Islam: The History and Doctrine of Twelver Shi’ism,Index. New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1985.

Nagel, T. ‘‘Ein Fru¨her Bricht u¨ber den Aufstand von  Muhammad b. Abdallah im Jahre 145 h.’’Der Islam XLVI (1970): 227–62.

No¨ldeke, T. ‘‘Der Chalif Mansour.’’ In Orientalische Skizzen,126–34. Berlin, 1892. (English translation:Sketches from Eastern History,120–9. London, 1892.)

Omar, F.The Abbasid Caliphate 132/750–170/786,223–39, 240–8. Baghdad, 1969.

———. ‘‘al-Rasa’il al-Mutabadila Bayna al-Mansour waMuhammad Dhi al-Nafs al-Zakiyya.’’ InMajallat al-’Arab, vol. V, 17–36. 1970.

———. ‘‘al-Rasa’il al-Mutabadila Bayna al-Mansour waMuhammad Dhi al-Nafs al-Zakiyya.’’ InBuIˆ uth fi alTaqrIkh al-’Abbasi,92–110. Beirut and Baghdad, 1977.

Sharon, M.Black Banners from the East: The Establishment of the Abbasid State, Incubation of a Revolt,87, 90–3, 96–9. Jerusalem, The Magnes Press; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1983.

———.Revolt: The Social and Military Aspects of the Abbasid Revolution, 225–6, 238–9. Jerusalem, The Max Schloessinger Memorial Fund, The Hebrew University, 1990.

Tucker, W. ‘‘Rebels and Gnostics, al-Mughira Ibn Sa’id and the MughIriyya’’ArabicaXXII (1975): 33–47.

———. ‘‘Abu Mansour al-’Ijli and the Mansouriyya: A Study in Medieval Terrorism.’’Der IslamLIV (1977): 66–76.

Traini, R. ‘‘La Corrispondenza tra al-Mansour e Muhammad an-Nafs az-Zakiyya.’’ InAnnali del Instituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli,vol. XIV, 773–98. 1964.

Van Arendonk, C.Les Debut de l’Imamat Zaidite au Yemen, transl. J. Ryckmans, 45–57. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960.

van Vloten, G.Zur Abbasidengeschichte, ZDMG,vol. LII, 213–22. 1898..

Zaki N˜ afwat, A.Jamharat RasaÞil al-’Arab fi Þl-’Usur al-’ArAbiyya al-Zahira, vol. III, 84–96. 1356/1937

NAVIGATION

  The Arabic term that denotes navigation is milaha, which signifies in a broader sense seafaring or in a narrower connotation the sailor’s act of determining the vessel’s position, location, and course to the destination. The sunna of the Prophet (his sayings and doings) and the Qur’an do not prohibit Muslims from sailing the seas. The Qur’an urges Muslims to consider navigating as well as exploiting the rich resources of the sea. Likewise, the sunna comprises hundreds of  hadiths that exhort Muslims to organize maritime expeditions, to sail to Mecca on pilgrimage, to exploit marine resources, and to expand overseas trade. Regarding military operations at sea, Prophetic traditions give more credit to Muslim naval warriors and amphibious troops than to holy warriors who fight on land. One hadith says that ‘‘a maritime expedition is better than ten campaigns of conquest on land.’’ The Prophet also said that ‘‘a day at sea is equivalent to one month on land, and a martyr at sea is like two martyrs on land’’ and that ‘‘those who perish while fighting at sea will receive double the compensation of those fighting on land.’’ Al-Shaybani added that ‘‘any Muslim who takes part in a sea expedition would be doubly compensated (rewarded) and that once the soldier puts his foot on ship all his sins are forgiven as if he were born anew.’’ This emphasis on the double reward might reflect the legacy of a traditional fear of the sea and the necessity for encouraging recruitment for a religious war ( jihad) at sea. Maritime expeditions were regarded as very risky owing to unreliable weather and the naval power and maneuvers of the enemy, but these factors did not allow a soldier to flee the scene of the battle unless the Muslim admiral commanded his flotilla to withdraw collectively.

  Although the Arabs had long been acquainted with the sea and had sailed for centuries through the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean using different types of ships and nautical techniques, it seems that they emerged as a global sea power after the Islamic military advents on the eastern and western fronts. Within less than a century of the emergence of Islam in Arabia, the Prophet’s followers dominated more than half of the maritime possessions of their former neighbors. The eastern, western, and southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea were entirely under Islamic dominion, as were the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and parts of the coast of the Indian Ocean. The Islamic expansions in the east and west united the former Persian and Byzantine territories that had been split by the successors of Alexander the Great (356–323 BCE). Owing to this new political unity, commercial activity between the Far East and the Mediterranean greatly expanded. As evidence, al-Biruni reports the following:

‘‘... the power of the Muslim state and its extension from the al-Andalus in the west to the outermost reaches of China and Central India in the east, and from Abyssinia and Bilad al-Zinj (East Africa) in the south to the Slav and Turkish land in the north enabled many nations to live together in intimacy, without allowing outsiders to bother them or to interrupt traffic. Other peoples who were non-Muslims and still pagans came to regard the Muslim state and its people with respect.’’

(Nazmi, Commercial Relations, p. 54)

  Muslim caliphs, especially the Umayyads, maintained all dockyards and naval bases and the former administrative system of Rome and Byzantium in the southern shores of the Mediterranean as well as the marine system in the former Persian provinces; they also established new maritime installations. In AH 18/640 CE, when a severe famine spread in Arabia, Caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab ordered a cleaning of Trajan’s canal, which connected Babylon with Clysma (sixty-nine miles in length), for the transport of sixty thousand irdabbs of corn from Egypt to Jar, the port of Medina. The real age of Islamic navigation began from the reign of ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan. During the Umayyad and ‘Abbasid periods, many port cities on the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf, and the Arab, Red, and Mediterranean Seas flourished. Among these cities were Basra, Siraf, Aden, Suhar, Shihr, Qais, Bahrain, Hurmuz, Jedda, Jar, Qulzum, ‘Aydhab, Tarsus, Ladhiqiyya, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre (Sur), Acre, Alexandria, Rosetta, Damietta, Tinnis, Babylon, Barqa, and Tunis.

  Over the course of time, Islamic societies contributed to the art of navigation. Their contributions are reflected in manuals of seafaring, nautical instruments, and the introduction of the lateen sail (a triangular sail suspended from a long yardarm at an angle to the mast) to Mediterranean navigation. Among the oldest Islamic manuals of navigational science that have come down to us are Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘ilm al-Bahr wa-l-Qawa‘id, which was composed by Ahmad ibn Majid in 895/1490, and the works of Sulayman ibn Muhammad al-Mahri (d. 917/1511). This should not be interpreted to mean that Muslim navigators did not produce and use portolan charts (sing.,qunbas) before the days of Ibn Majid. By contrast, Ibn Majid names two Persian navigators, Ahmad ibn Tabruya and Khawsshir Ibn Yusuf al-Ariki, who sailed during the early years of the eleventh century and who wrote navigational works. Another major instrument that Muslim astronomers and mathematicians developed as early as the seventh century was the astrolabe, an instrument for observing or showing the positions of the stars. On the astrolabe, latitude was determined by the height of the sun or the pole star, which was measured by the qis figure system (science of taking latitude measurements). A third nautical instrument that Muslim sailors transferred from China was the compass. This magnetic instrument was known to Muslim seafarers

before the tenth century and probably was not considered very important in the East, because the skies over the Indian Ocean were usually very clear, especially during the times that Muslim mariners sailed with monsoons. The earliest documented Arab use of the compass in the Mediterranean dates to the 1240s. In brief, Muslim navigators mastered astrology; the science of latitude and longitude; the nature and directions of winds; the seasons; the knowledge and locations of coasts, ports, islands, dangerous shoals, and the narrow maritime lanes; the use of various terrestrial instruments; and the art of calculating solar months and days. Most of the Islamic literature about the science of navigation was translated into Latin. For instance, the population of the Balearic Islands especially the Mallorcan Jewish cartographers played a vital role in translating Arabic nautical charts, instruments, and books into Latin. By doing so, Western European commercial ships could sail toward the Canary Islands and other destinations along western African coasts.

  Islamic ships sailed to every part of the known world, including the major ports on the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Aegean, Marmara, Black, and Caspian Seas, in addition to the western African coasts on the Atlantic Ocean; their ships also sailed as far north as Denmark in 844. In the East, Muslim seafarers navigated the Red and Arab Seas, the Persian Gulf, and the Indian Ocean. Their merchant ships sailed from Near Eastern ports to India and Sri Lanka, Malay, the Philippines, Indonesia, and China in the Far East as well as Zanzibar, Mozambique, and even Madagascar in east and southeast Africa. Certainly the seasons and art of navigation differ for each one of the seas and oceans mentioned above. For instance, the sailing season in the Mediterranean had been observed from the Classical Hellenic period to the late medieval period. Ships habitually set out from the eastern basin of the Mediterranean during the early spring and returned from the west during the Feast of the Cross (‘id al-salib), which was celebrated on the 26th or 27th of September, whereas the return journey of ships heading eastward took place between the end of July and the beginning of September. However, sailing during inappropriate times was probably limited to military expeditions and instant transport of food supplies. As for the seasons of navigation in the Indian Ocean, navigators took advantage of the seasonal winds (monsoons) that blow in one direction for about six months and in the opposite direction for the rest of the year. With regard to the art of navigation on these waters, Muslim geographers (e.g., alMas‘udi [d. 346/956]; author of Muruj al-Dhahab) point out that navigating on each one of these seas required the previous personal knowledge and expertise of sailors.

  The duration of maritime voyages depended on the seaworthiness of the vessel, the professional behavior of the sailors, the distances between ports of origin and destinations, cargo’s volume and weight, weather conditions, and the human hostilities that the ship could encounter. After the embarkation and debarkation ports were specified, captains and shipmasters could fix the ship’s course, whether it had to cross the high sea, hug the coast, or sail on inland waters (e.g., rivers, artificial canals).

  This discussion cannot be concluded without saying a few words about navigation for military purposes. One of the few but most important sources about the subject that still survives is Al-Ahkam al-Mulukiyya fı Fann al-Qital fi l-Bahr wa-l-Dawabit al-Namusiyya, by Muhammad Ibn Mankali (d. 784/1382). His treatise, which contains explicit references to and fragments of an Arabic translation of  Leo VI’s Tactica, is a mine of information about the technology of Islamic warships and ‘‘Greek fire’’; rights and duties of sailors, marines, and commanders; navigation under various climatic conditions; and, most importantly, how to plan, manage, and coordinate the battle at sea.

Further Reading

‘Abd al-Dayim, al-‘Azız M. ‘‘Al-Ahkam al-Mulukiyya fi Fann al-Qital fi l-Bahr wa-l-Dawabit al-Namusiyya.’’ PhD dissertation. Cairo: Cairo University, 1974.

Abulafia, David.A Mediterranean Emperium: The Catalan Kingdom of Majorca. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Barakat, Wafiq. Fann al-Harb al-Bahriyya fı l-Ta’rikh al-‘Arabi al-Islami. Aleppo: Ma‘had al-Turath al-‘Ilmi al-‘Arabi, 1995.

Brice, William C. ‘‘Compasses, Compassi andKanabıs.’’ Journal of Semitic Studies29 (1984): 169–78. Castello, Francesc. ‘‘Arab Cartography.’’ In Aspects of Arab Seafaring: An Attempt to Fill in the Gaps of Maritime History,eds. Yacoub Yousef and Vassilios Christides. Athens, 2002.

Christides, Vassilios. ‘‘Milaha.’’ InThe Encyclopaedia of Islam,vol. 7, 40–6. 1993.

———. ‘‘Two Parallel Naval Guides of the Tenth Century—Qudama’s Document and Leo VI’sNaumachica:AStudy on Byzantine and Moslem Naval Preparedness.’’ Graeco-Arabica1 (1982): 51–103.

Clark, Alfred. ‘‘Medieval Arab Navigation on the Indian Ocean: Latitude Determinations.’’American Oriental Society113 (1993): 360–73.

Hassan, Ahmad Y., and Donald R. Hill.Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Hourani, George F.Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in  Ancient and Early Medieval Times.Princeton, UK: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Khalilieh, Hassan S. ‘‘TheRibatSystem and Its Role in Coastal Navigation.’’Journal of the Economic and SocialHistory of the Orient42 (1999): 212–25.

———.Islamic Maritime Law: An Introduction. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1998.

Khoury, Ibrahim.Al-‘Ulum al-Bahriyya ‘ind al-‘Arab.Damascus: Majma‘ al-Lugha al-‘Arabiyya, 1972.

Kreutz, Barbara M. ‘‘Mediterranean Contributions to the Medieval Mariner’s Compass.’’Technology and Culture 14 (1973): 367–83.

Lewis, Archibald. ‘‘Maritime Skills in the Indian Ocean.’’ Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orientn16 (1973): 238–64.

Lichtenstadter, Ilse. ‘‘Origin and Interpretation of some Qur’anic Symbols.’’ InStudi Orientaliststici in Onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida,vol. 2, 58–80. Roma: Instituto per l’Orient, 1956.

Lombard, Maurice. ‘‘Une Carte du Bois la Me´diterrane´e Musulmane (VIIe–Xie Sie`cle).’’Annales Economies Socie´te ´s Civilisations14 (1959): 234–54.

Nadavi, Sayyed Sulaiman. ‘‘Arab Navigation.’’Islamic Culture15 (1941): 435–48; 16 (1942): 72–86, 182–98, 404–22.

Nazmi, Ahmad.Commercial Relations between Arabs and Slavs. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Akademickie, 1998.

Picard, Christophe.La Mer et les Musulmans d’Occident au Moyen Age. Paris: Presses Iniversitaires de France, 1997

———.L’Oce´an Atlantique Musulman de la Conqueˆte Arabe a` l’E ´poque Almohaed: Navigation et Mise en Valeur de Coˆtes d’al-Andalus et du Maghreb Occidental. Paris, 1997.

Prinsep, James. ‘‘Note on the Nautical Instruments of the Arabs.’’Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal5 (1836): 784–94.

Pryor, John H.Geography, Technology, and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean 649–1571.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Renaud, H.P.J. ‘‘Sur une Tablette d’Astrolabe Apparlenanta` M.H. Terrasse.’’Hespe´ris26 (1939): 157–69. Salem, Elsayyed.Al-Bahr al-Ahmar fi l-Ta’rikh al-Islami. Alexandria, 1993.

Savage-Smith, Emilie. ‘‘Celestial Mapping.’’ InCartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies, eds. J.B. Harley and David Woodward. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

Tibbetts, Gerald R. ‘‘Milaha.’’ InThe Encyclopaedia of Islam,vol. 7, 50–3. 1993.

———. ‘‘The Beginning of a Cartographic Tradition.’’ In Cartography in the Traditional Islamic and South Asian Societies, eds. J.B. Harley and David Woodward. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1992.

———.Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean before the Coming of the Portuguese.London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1971.

———. ‘‘Arab Navigation in the Red Sea.’’Geographical Journal127/3 (1961): 322–34.

Tolmacheva, Marina. ‘‘On the Arab System of Nautical Orientation.’’Arabica27 (1980): 181–92.

Udovitch, Abraham L. ‘‘Time, the Sea and Society: Duration of Commercial Voyages on the Southern Shores of the Mediterranean during the High Middle Ages.’’ InLa Navigazione Mediterranea nell’Alto Medioevo,503–63. Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1978.

Yusuf, S.M. ‘‘Al-Ranaj: The Route of Arab Mariners across the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Siam in the 3rd and 4th Centuries AH—9th and 10th centuries AD’’ Islamic Culture39 (1955): 77–103.

NAVY

  It is commonly believed that Mu‘awiya Ibn Abi sufyan ra was the first planner and establisher of the Islamic navy. A careful examination of primary sources reveals that the first Islamic naval expedition in history took place in AH 17/638 CE during the caliphate of ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab ra and was led by al-‘Ala Ibn al-Hadrami, governor of Bahrain, against Persia; it ended with a trapped Islamic army nearby Istakhr. Three years later, in 20/641, with the permission of ‘Umar, ‘Alqama Ibn Mujazziz crossed the Red Sea toward Abyssinia. The expedition was disastrous, and only a few ships returned safely to their home port. In view of these facts, one may justifiably feel that the reluctance of ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab to permit his generals to embark on naval adventures did not result from religious considerations but from his unsuccessful and disastrous attempt against Abyssinia. However, the establishment of the Islamic navy in the Mediterranean Sea occurred during the reign of Uthman Ibn ‘Affan ra. It was through the joint efforts of ‘Abd Allah Ibn Abi Sarh, governor of Egypt, and Mu‘awiya of Syria that the first maritime expedition on Cyprus in 28/648–649 was launched.

  The Islamic expansions in the East and the West were not destructive. Muslim authorities not only preserved all dockyards, naval bases, and systems in the former Byzantine and Persian provinces, but they also founded new maritime installations arsenals and naval centers along their maritime possessions. Along the Syro-Palestinian coast were Tarsus, Laodicea, Tripoli, Beirut, Tyre, ‘Asqalan, and, most importantly, ‘Akka (Acre), from which the first Islamic naval expedition was launched against Cyprus; Egypt had Alexandria, Rosetta, Damietta, Tinnis, Babylon, and Clysma on the Red Sea. As for North Africa and Spain, their most important naval centers were Barqa, al-Mahdiyya, Tunis, Bougie, Te´ne`s, Badis, Ceuta, Ca´diz, Algeciras, Seville, Ma´laga, Almun˜e´car, Pechina/Almeria, Cartagena, Alicante, Denia, Valancia, and Tortosa. Likewise, they maintained and developed several naval centers in strategic Mediterranean islands, such as the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Crete, and Pantelleria. As a protective measure and until Muslims had acquired supremacy over the sea, the headquarters of their fleets were located in inland waters; the Egyptian navy was in Babylon, whereas the Andalusian one was in Seville.

  Amir al-bahr (admiral) was the supreme commander of the maritime frontiers and naval forces. The duties of the construction of warships and the selection of appropriate materials timber for keels, planking, masts, yards, oars, oakum, metals, skins, cables, pitch and tar, and other fittings were laid upon him and a team of inspectors, who had to ensure that shipwrights observed technical standards and did not use inferior or inadequate raw materials. Every ship passed a comprehensive technical inspection while it was still in the yard and during the journey to avoid unpleasant consequences. Among the types of warships built in the arsenals for the fighting fleets in the eastern and western basins of the Islamic Mediterranean were dromon, fattash, ghurab, harraqa, jafn, jariya, qarib, qarqur, qishr, shalandi, shini, tarida,and zawraq.

  The responsibility of recruiting highly skilled sailors, patient artisans, brave warriors, alert spies, and physicians rested with the admiral and his chief commanders. Papyri from early Islamic Egypt show that the method of recruitment of sailors for the raiding fleets was compulsory; sailors were drawn from all provinces and included various classes of the population. In case of reluctance or fugitiveness, the local authorities had to pay the wages of men hired from another place. As for the fighting men, they were Arab emigrants and mawalis who settled in the Levantine, Egyptian, and North African frontiers. Only experienced crews and warriors with high morals who were faithful, professional, and fearless in the face of the enemy were taken onboard. Supplies for the ships’ human element included bread, butter, wine, oil, and salt.

  Only a few Arabic manuals dealing with Islamic naval warfare have survived. Ibn Mankali’s handbooks, Al-Ahkam al-Mulukiyya wal-Dawabit alNamusiyya fi Fann al-Qital fi al-Bahrand Al-Adilla al-Rasmiyya fi al-Ta‘abi al-Harbiyya,give great detail about naval preparedness and tactics. Because Islamic warships could be attacked with all kinds of weapons, their commanders were instructed to carry a large supply of spears, swords, crossbows and arrows, stones and catapults, venomous creatures sealed up in earthenware jars, and combustibles and Greek fire. Ibn Mankali describes how to be prepared against enemies, addressing such things as the following: exercises; prayers offered and speeches delivered before the actual combat; time, place, and disposition of enemy; strategic tactics and arrangement of warships; disposition of the flagship; and the flags to be used during the maritime battle for signaling purposes.

Further Reading

‘Abbady, Ahmad, and Elsayyed Salem. Tarikh al-Bahriyya al-Islamiyya fi Misr wal-Sham. Beirut: Dar al-Nahda al-‘Arabiyya, 1969.

Adawi, Ibrahim A.Quwwat al-Bariyya al-‘Arabiyya fi Miyah al-Bahr al-Mutawassit. Cairo: Maktabat alNahda, 1963.

Ahmad, Ramadan A.Tarikh Fann al-Qital al-Bahri fi al-Bahr al-Mutawassit 35–978/655–1571. Cairo: Wizarat al-Thaqafa, 1986.

Christides, Vassilios. ‘‘Byzantine Dromon and Arab Shini: The Development of the Average Byzantine and Arab Warships and the Problem of the Number and Function of the Oarsmen.’’Tropis3 (1995): 111–22.

———. ‘‘Naval History and Naval Technology in Medieval Times: The Need for Interdisciplinary Studies.’’Byzantion58 (1988): 309–32.

———.The Conquest of Crete by the Arabs CA. 824: A Turning Point in the Struggle Between Byzantium and Islam. Athens, 1984.

———. ‘‘Naval Warfare in the Eastern Mediterranean (6th–14th Centuries): An Arabic Translation of Leo VI’s Naumachica.’’Graeco-Arabica3 (1984): 137–48.

———. ‘‘Two Parallel Naval Guides of the Tenth Century—Qudama’s Document and Leo VI’s Naumachica: A Study on Byzantine and Moslem Naval Preparedness.’’ Graeco-Arabica1 (1982): 51–103.

Delgado, Jorge L.El Poder Naval de Al-Andalus en la E´poca del Califato Omeya. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1993.

Fahmy, Aly M.Muslim Sea-Power in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Seventh to the Tenth Century AD. Cairo: National Publication & Printing House, 1966.

———.Muslim Naval Organisation in the Eastern Mediterranean from the Seventh to the Tenth Century AD. Cairo: National Publication & Printing House, 1966.

Nukhayli, Darwish.Al-Sufun al-Islamiyya ‘ala Huruf alMu‘jam. Alexandria: Alexandria University Press, 1974.

Picard, Christophe.La Mer et les Musulmans d’Occident au Moyaen Age. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997.

Salem, Elsayyed, and Ahmad ‘Abbady.Tarikh al-Bahriyya al-Islamiyya fi al-Maghrib wal-Andalus.Beirut: Dar alNahda al-‘Arabiyya, 1969.

Ziade´, Nicole. ‘‘Al-Ustul al-‘Arabi fi Ayyam alAmawiyyin.’’ In Studies on the History of Bilad al-Sham during the Umayyad Period, eds. M. Bakhit and M. Abbadi, 37–86. Amman, 1990.

NAWRUZ

  Of Persian origin, Nawruz (No Roz; new day), the ancient Iranian festival of the New Year, survived the Arab conquest and continued to be celebrated in Islamic lands many centuries thereafter. Originally the first day of the Persian solar year, it corresponded with the spring vernal equinox, and the duration of its celebration was six days. Medieval Islamic sources give various (folkloric) explanations for the origins of Nawruz, which involve the mythical Persian Jamshid or the biblical patriarchs Abraham and King Solomon. No Roz was the day to wear new clothes and serve food of the new season. People used to rise early in the morning, go to wells and streams, draw water in vases, and pour it over themselves or sprinkle it on each other. Explanations for  these customs varied, from considering them a good omen and a means to ward off harm to the cleansing of the smoke off of those attending the rituals of the fire of the preceding winter nights. Shi‘i explanation of the significance of Nawruz, which is ascribed to the Imam Ja‘far al Sadiq, sees in it the day of God’s primal covenant with mankind, the day of the first rising of the sun, the day of the defeat of the Antichrist, and the day of a number of other important events.

  During ‘Abbasid time, and especially during the reign of al-Mutawakkil (847–861 CE), Nawruz was celebrated with great pomp and rejoicing. Performances of masked actors took place at the caliphal court in Baghdad, a variety of sweet dishes were cooked, and caliphs received gifts from their subjects and exchanged gifts with high officials. In addition, the common people exchanged gifts. They used to illuminate their homes with cotton pods and clay censers. Enthusiasm could reach such a degree that Caliph al-Mutadid’s attempt in 284/897 to prevent the unrestrained rejoicing in the streets failed. Other customs reported are the dyeing of eggs and the sprinkling of perfume on a man and treading seven times on him as a means of driving away the evil eye, laziness, and fever. A report from around 900 tells that the Baghdadi people even dared to sprinkle water on policemen. There is a report about Muslims drinking wine in public and eating lentils ‘‘like the non Muslims (dhimmis).’’

  Nawruz was celebrated not only in previously Sasanian territories but also in Islamic Egypt. The circumstances of its arrival there are unknown, however; it could be an effect of the Persian rule of ancient Egypt or, alternatively, an adaptation of the Saturnalia of the Roman era. Be that as it may, in Egypt, unlike in the eastern provinces, although it did mark the beginning of the year, Nawruz was an autumn festival that was celebrated on the first day of the Coptic month of  Tut (September), when the Nile was expected to reach its highest level. Celebrations are first reported in Egypt in the year 912, and some of the reported customs remind one of those that have been related for ancient Iran: the exchange of gifts, the eating of special food, and the wearing of new clothes. Under the Fatimids, Nawruz was expressed in an official celebration in which gifts were bestowed on officials and their families. It appears, however, that a carnival increasingly became its main function. The people drank wine and beer; there were those who ambushed travelers and sprayed them with filthy water or wine, and others threw eggs on one another. Even emirs and dignitaries were exposed to this sort of ridicule, and, to rescue themselves, they had to pay ‘‘ransom.’’ Slapping one another with boots or leather mats in public places was possibly a remnant of a pagan ritual. Sexual overtones were expressed in the play of water games, causing men and women to become wet so that naked bodies could be seen through clothes. In 1188, the public gathering of transvestites and prostitutes is reported. Masquerades are reported during the celebration of  975. Puritan scholars of the Mamluk period lamented the adverse effect of the festival on both the common people and the learned. They reported that schools were shut down and turned into playgrounds and that teachers were insulted and sprayed with water. These writers found it detestable that the participants were able ‘‘to commit all kinds of evil,’’ that ‘‘there was no interdiction [to any sort of behavior] and no authority imposed.’’

  The high mark of Nawruz in medieval Cairo was the procession of the Emir of Nawruz, usually a wanton who was either naked or dressed in colorful clothes, his face besmeared with lime or flour and a beard of fur attached to his face, on his head a special cap made of palm leaves, riding a donkey in the streets. He held a sort of register in his hand, ‘‘visited’’ homes of dignitaries to collect ‘‘debts,’’ and punished those who refused to pay. Manifest in this procession is the carnivalesque element of status reversal and riotous revelry a ´ la medieval Christian festivals such as the King of Fools.

  Egyptian rulers occasionally outlawed certain elements of the Nawruz festival, such as the spraying of water. The Mamluk Sultan Barquq banned the celebrations in 1385 altogether, and those disobeying were severely punished. Although reports are contradictory regarding what the situation was afterward, it is most likely that the festival vanished from Cairo after approximately 1400. Still, there are indications that it survived in one form or another in Egyptian provinces until modern times.

Further Reading

Ahsan, Muhammad Manazir. Social Life under the abbasids. London: Longman, 1979.

Cuypers, Michel. ‘‘Le Nowruz en Egypte.’’Luqman10 (1993–1994): 9–36.

von Grunebaum, G.E. Muhammadan Festivals. London: Curzon Press, 1976.

Shoshan,Boaz.Popular Culture in MedievalCairo,Chapter 3, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

NEZAMI

  Nezami was born in Ganjeh (Kirovabad under the Soviets, now Gyandzhe) in Azerbaijan in 1141, and he died in the same town in 1209. He is reputed to have left the town only once in his life, at the behest of a local ruler who wished to meet him. The exordia and conclusions to his poems tell us that he was monogamous but married three times due to his wives’ deaths; that he was particularly enamored of his first wife, Afaq; that he had a son named Mohammad; and that he was never a court poet, although all of his poems  were written with aristocratic patrons in mind, and all of them were apparently well received by their dedicatees.

  His fame rests with his Khamseh (Quintet), also known as the Panj Ganj (Five Treasures), which consists of five long poems in the masnavi (couplet) form, using different meters. Three of the five are romances, and they are considered to be the greatest examples of the form in Persian. The first of the five—and the only one that does not consist of a single narrative—is the Makhzan al-Asrar (Treasury of Secrets), which is a compendium of mystical tales; the second poem, Khosrow o Shirin,tells the story of the love of the Sasanian King Khosrow for the Armenian Princess Shirin; the third ,Leili o Majnun, deals with two legendary lovers from different Arab tribes; the fourth, Haft Paykar (The Seven Portraits), is concerned with the loves of the Sasanian King Bahram Gur; and the fifth,Sekandarnameh,deals with Alexander the Great.

  The sources for three of the four narratives are to be found in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh (the exception, Leili o Majnun,is an Arab tale with no known Persian source before Nezami). The eleventh-century romance Vis o Ramin by Gorgani provided the basis for Nezami’s rhetoric, but, in the same way that Nezami considerably elaborates on Ferdowsi’s relatively brief anecdotes, he develops Gorgani’s rhetoric in complex and sophisticated ways. In particular, despite his evident delight in his skill at writing highly evocative sensuous descriptions, he turns the emphasis of the romance away from carnal love as an end in itself to a concern with spiritual identity and ethical growth. His last poem, which treats Alexander as a seeker of spiritual wisdom, returns to the mystical emphasis of his first work and makes explicit the theme of personal ethical development that is implicit in his love stories.

  Nezami is both a learned poet and a humanly endearing one. He is not afraid to deploy his thorough knowledge of the traditional learning of his time (e.g., his extensive use of arcane astrological lore), but his poems are never overwhelmed with such matter, and they have remained enormously popular for their human portraits (particularly of women), their suspenseful (if leisurely) plots, and their sumptuous descriptive passages. Nezami’s elegant and highly effective allegorical integration of sensuous and mundane elements on the one hand and mystical and ethical elements on the other is unequaled by any other Persian narrative poet.

Further Reading

Burgel, J.C. ‘‘The Romance.’’ InPersian Literature,ed. E. Yarshater. New York, 1988.

Meisami, Julie Scott.Medieval Persian Court Poetry.Princeton, NJ, 1987.

Safa, Zabihollah.Tarikh-e Adabiyat dar Iran (The History of Literature in Iran), 5 vols. Tehran, 1366/1987.

Zarrinkub, Abdolhosayn. Pir-e Ganjeh dar Jostoju-ye Nakojabad (The Sage of Ganjeh in Search of NeverNever Land). Tehran, 1372/1993

NILE

  Suffering an almost total lack of rain, Egypt, which has always been a primarily agricultural society, has been uniquely dependent on the flood of the Nile for its survival. This role of the river overshadowed its secondary importance as a means of transportation, especially of goods, as it was in Mamluk time, when boats with a usual capacity of seventy tons (and up to 350 tons) were used for carrying grain.

  Knowledge of the Nile among Medieval Muslim geographers was based mostly on legendary or pseudoscientific traditions adopted from Ptolemy’s ideas about the sources of the Nile in the legendary ‘‘Mountain of the Moon’’; they believed it was south of the equator, as reflected in al-Khwarizmi’s ninth-century Surat al-Ard. A map in an eleventh-century manuscript of this work indicates that the Nile’s sinuous course was by then known. Later geographers, gathering pieces of information from traders and travelers, assumed the existence of a few ‘‘Niles’’; alternatively, they believed there was one long one made out of a few.

  The Nile habitually was at its lowest level in Lower Egypt around the beginning of June and would then rise and reach its maximum level in the Coptic month of  Tut (29 August to 27 September), coinciding with the ancient New Year. If the level was sixteen to eighteen cubits (dhira’) (about 9.3–10.4 meters), crop growth should have been sufficient. However, the whimsical nature of the Nile’s inundation impelled most political regimes to measure its rise, and, for this, the ancients invented the Nilometer. Al-Maqrizi, the renowned chronicler of Mamluk Egypt, quotes a popular saying to the effect that God should save from a level of twenty cubits, because it would result in flooding and the destruction of crops. It now appears, though, that, by the Mamluk period, this level no longer posed a threat of overflooding; over the course of time, the minimum and maximum increased at a steady rate as a result of the sediment on the bed of the river.

  Until the nineteenth century, a maintenanceintensive irrigation system remained almost unchanged. When the flood began, the water was harnessed by an extensive network of local irrigation canals of various sizes to draw it into basins along the Nile Valley and in the Delta. Dikes were used to trap the water and to allow moisture to sink into the basins. The alluvium washed down from Ethiopian topsoil settled on the fields and provided rich fertilization. Constant dredging of the canals and the shoring up of dikes were required. Some innovations, like the saqiya (an ox-driven water wheel), the Archimedes screw, and the shaduf (a simple water hoist), appeared already during the late Pharaonic and Ptolemaic eras, and they persisted into the Islamic period.

  A too-slow rise of the water between July and September or its sudden recession frequently aroused anxiety among the populace. This was the point when merchants and brokers would consider it in their interest to withhold supplies and push prices of grain up. There are numerous descriptions of crowds at the Nile docks or in front of mills and bakeries, struggling to obtain grain, dough, or bread. Small wonder, then, that medieval rulers attempted to conceal information about the river level; one sultan even contemplated destroying the Nilometer.

  The attainment of a level of at least sixteen cubits was the occasion for celebrating the ‘‘Plenitude of the Nile’’; this has been so since at least the Fatimid time. Announcing to the people the attainment of the desired level, the official in charge of the Nilometer went in procession from the palace along the road of Bayn al-Qasrayn, dressed in a special golden robe, to the sound of trumpets and drums. The preparations for the ceremonies required the relocation of the Fatimid caliph and court officials from the palace to the pleasure pavilions erected along the Canal from Cairo to Fustat. The ceremonies themselves consisted of two parts. The first was the perfuming with saffron of the Nilometer at Rawda Island, which was presided over by the Fatimid caliph and later by Ayyubid and Mamluk sultans, who were sailing in decorated boats. The second part was the ‘‘breaking of the dam,’’ which was annually constructed across the Canal (khalij) near its mouth to prevent too early a flooding. The ruler throwing a spear at the dam was a signal for the workmen to rush forward and destroy it. During that ceremony, the Qur’an was recited, and singers performed into the night; the ruler then presided over a banquet. In Fatimid times, there were public observatories near the dam, where seats were rented; at some point during the twelfth century CE, they were destroyed by either overcrowding or fire. Occasionally Mamluk troops performed lancing drills, and merrymaking, wine drinking, and sexual promiscuity were part of the Nile celebrations. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the traveler Leo Africanus reported in some detail about family trips in decorated boats. There were occasional attempts to ban popular celebrations, and scholars considered the people’s ‘‘abominations’’ the reason for the Nile’s low level.

  Islamic regimes tried to abolish Coptic festivals associated with the Nile. Already, ‘Umar ibn alKhattab ra, the second caliph, forbade the sacrificial rites and, instead of a virgin known as the ‘‘Nile Bride,’’ a piece of paper was thrown to the river. Later, the Fatimids and Mamluks in particular subjected Coptic festivals of the Nile to occasional censorship, especially during droughts, but this met only limited success. Among these festivals, one should mention the Feast of Submersion (‘Id al-Ghitas). This occurred on the eve of the Epiphany, which commemorated Christ’s baptism and coincided with a seasonal transition shortly after the winter solstice around the middle of January. During the ‘Abbasid period, thousands of torches were lit, and large crowds of Copts and Muslims thronged the river banks. Another Coptic Nile festival, the Festival of the Martyr (‘Id al-Shahid), was celebrated in May to mark the beginning of the spring. Its focal point was a sacrificial object—a finger of a martyr that was kept during the year in the Shubra church in Cairo being immersed in the river. The priests of the church orchestrated the ritual that was believed to bring about the Nile’s inundation. Large crowds are reported to have been spectators. A description from the height of the Mamluk period reports about the riding of horses, the pitching of tents, the performing of singers and entertainers, and the consuming of much wine (so much, in fact, that the local peasants could pay their land tax from the revenues procured from its sale). Even prostitutes, effeminate males, and reprobates of all types participated, to the point that ‘‘numerous sins are performed in excess.’’ This festival persisted to the mid-fourteenth century, a time when the Mamluk regime moved against a perceived threat of increasing Coptic influence.

Further Reading

Borsch, Stuart J. ‘‘Nile Floods and the Irrigation System in Fifteenth-Century Egypt.’’Mamluk Studies Review4 (2000): 131–45.

Halm, H. ‘‘Die Zeremonien der Salbung des Nilometers und der Knaloffnung in Fatimidischer Zeit.’’ InEgypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras, eds. U. Vermeulen and D. de Smet, 111–23. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1995.

Levtzion, Nehemia. ‘‘Arab Geographers, the Nile, and the History of Bilad al-Sudan.’’ InThe Nile: Histories, Cultures, Myths, eds. Haggai Erlich and Israel Gershoni, 71–6. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000.

Lutfi, Huda. ‘‘Coptic Festivals of the Nile: Aberrations of the Past?’’ In The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and Society,eds. Thomas Philipp and Ulrich Haarmann, 254–82. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Sanders, Paula.Ritual, Politics, and the City in Fatimid Cairo. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Shoshan, Boaz.Popular Culture in Medieval Cairo. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

NISHAPUR

  Nishapur is a city in northeastern Iran. During its heyday (ca. 950–1050) it was the largest city in the Muslim world (one to two hundred thousand people) that was not situated on navigable water. Although the semiautonomous Tahirid dynasty ruled from Nishapur in the ninth century, its prominence stemmed from trade, manufacturing, and religious learning rather than from being a military garrison or imperial capital. Growing largely through religious conversion, Nishapur supplanted nearby Tus (modern Mashhad), a Sasanid governing center, as the administrative hub of the province of Khurasan. Trade from eastern lands passing south of the Kopet Dagh mountains funneled through Nishapur, and the city became a major producer of cotton cloth and highquality ceramics. The Ash‘ari school of Islamic theology, which featured such noted scholars as Imam alHaramain al-Juvaini and al-Ghazali, came to be based in Nishapur during the eleventh century. It was simultaneously the home of such noted Sufis as Abu alQasim al-Qushairi. Nishapur’s great size required high productivity in the surrounding farmlands. The advent of the Seljuq dynasty with its pastoralist followers in 1037 unsettled the agricultural economy and triggered the city’s slow decline. A decade of fighting among religious factions (primarily the Hanafis and the Shafi‘is), nomadic raids, and earthquakes caused most of the shrunken city to be abandoned in 1162. A smaller walled city rebuilt on the western border of the metropolis was destroyed by the Mongols during the thirteenth century; Nishapur was then relocated two kilometers further west. With the growing pilgrimage city of Mashhad, the new regional metropolis, Nishapur never again attained more than local importance.

Further Reading

Bulliet, Richard W.The Patricians of Nishapur.Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1972.