A Dictionary of Islam Being a cyclopedia of the...

ʿABASA (عبس). “He frowned.” The title of the LXXXth chapter of the Qurʾān. It is said that a blind man, named ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn Umm Maktūm, once interrupted Muḥammad in conversation with certain chiefs of Quraish. The Prophet, however, took no notice of him, but frowned and turned away; and in the first verse of this Sūrah, he is represented as reproved by God for having done so:—“He frowned and turned his back, for that the blind man came unto him.”

ʿABBĀS (عباس). The son of ʿAbdu ʾl-Mut̤t̤alib, and consequently the paternal uncle of Muḥammad. The most celebrated of the “Companions,” and the founder of the Abbaside dynasty, which held the Khalifate for a period of 509 years, namely, from A.D. 749 to A.D. 1258. He died in A.H. 32. His son Ibn-ʿAbbās was also a celebrated authority on Islamic traditions and law. [IBN ʿABBAS, ABBASIDES.]

ABBASIDES. Arabic al-ʿAbbāsīyah (العباسية). The name of a dynasty of K͟halīfahs descended from al-ʿAbbās, the son of ʿAbdu ʾl-Mut̤t̤alib, and a paternal uncle of Muḥammad. On account of their descent from so near a relation of the Prophet, the Abbasides had, ever since the introduction of Islām, been very high in esteem amongst the Arabs, and had at an early period begun to excite the jealousy of the Umaiyade K͟halīfahs, who after the defeat of ʿAlī occupied the throne of the Arabian Empire. The Abbasides had for some time asserted their claims to the Khalifate, and in A.D. 746 they commenced open hostilities. In 749 the Abbaside K͟halīfah Abū ʾl-ʿAbbās, surnamed as-Saffāḥ, “the blood-shedder,” was recognized as K͟halīfah at al-Kūfah, and Marwān II., the last of the Umaiyade K͟halīfahs, was defeated and slain.

The names of the Abbaside K͟halīfahs are:—Abū ʾl-ʿAbbās as-Saffāḥ (A.D. 749), al-Manṣūr (A.D. 754), al-Mahdī (A.D. 775), al-Hādī (A.D. 785), Hārūn ar-Rashīd (A.D. 786), al-Amīn (A.D. 809), al-Maʾmūn (A.D. 813), al-Muʿtaṣim (A.D. 833), al-Wās̤iq (A.D. 842), al-Mutawakkil (A.D. 847), al-Muntaṣir (A.D. 861), al-Mustaʿīn (A.D. 862), al-Muʿtazz (A.D. 866), al-Muhtadī (A.D. 869), al-Muʿtamid (A.D. 870), al-Muʿtaẓid (A.D. 892), al-Muktafī (A.D. 902), al-Muqtadir (A.D. 908), al-Qāhir (A.D. 932), ar-Rāẓī (A.D. 934), al-Muttaqī (A.D. 940), al-Mustaqfī (A.D. 944), al-Mut̤īʿ (A.D. 945), at̤-T̤āiʿ (A.D. 974), al-Qādir (A.D. 994), al-Qāim (A.D. 1031), al-Muqtadī (A.D. 1075), al-Mustaz̤hir (A.D. 1094), al-Mustarshid (A.D. 1118), ar-Rāshid (A.D. 1135), al-Muqtafī (A.D. 1136), al-Mustanjid (A.D. 1160), al-Mustaẓī (A.D. 1170), an-Nāṣir (A.D. 1180), az̤-Z̤āhir (A.D. 1225), al-Mustanṣir (A.D. 1226), al-Mustaʿṣim (A.D. 1242 to A.D. 1258).

ABDĀL (ابدال). “Substitutes,” pl. of Badal. Certain persons by whom, it is said, God continues the world in existence. Their number is seventy, of whom forty reside in Syria, and thirty elsewhere. When one dies another takes his place, being so appointed by God. It is one of the signs of the last day that the Abdāl will come from Syria. (Mishkāt, xxiii. c. 3.) No one pretends to be able to identify these eminent persons in the world. God alone knows who they are, and where they are.

ʿABDU ʾLLĀH (عبدالله). The father of Muḥammad. He was the youngest son of ʿAbdu ʾl-Mut̤t̤alib. During the pregnancy of his wife Āminah, he set out on a mercantile expedition to Gaza in the south of Palestine, and on his way back he sickened and died at al-Madīnah, before the birth of his son Muḥammad. (Kātibu ʾl-Wāqidī, p. 18; Muir’s Life of Mahomet, vol. i. p. 11.)

ʿABDU ʾLLĀH IBN SAʿD (عبدالله بن سعد). One of Muḥammad’s secretaries. It is related that, when Muḥammad instructed ʿAbdu ʾllāh to write down the words (Sūrah xxiii. 12–14), “We (God) have created man from an extract of clay … then we produced it another creation,” ʿAbdu ʾllāh exclaimed, “And blessed be God, the best of creators”; and Muḥammad told him to write that down also. Whereupon ʿAbdu ʾllāh boasted that he had been inspired with a sentence which the Prophet had acknowledged to be part of the Qurʾān. It is of him that it is written in the Qurʾān, Sūrah vi. 93, “Who is more unjust than he who devises against God a lie, or says, ‘I am inspired,’ when he is not inspired at all.”

ʿABDU ʾR-RAḤMĀN IBN ʿAUF (عبدالرحمن بن عوف). One of the Companions who embraced Islām at a very early period, and was one of those who fled to Ethiopia. He also accompanied Muḥammad in all his battles, and received twenty wounds at Uḥud. He died A.H. 32, aged 72 or 75, and was buried at Baqīʿu ʾl-Gharqad, the graveyard of al-Madīnah.

ABEL. Arabic Hābīl (هابيل), Heb. הֶבֶל Hebel. In the Qurʾān “the two sons of Adam” are called Hābīl wa Qābīl, and the following is the account given of them in that book (Sūrah v. 30–35), together with the remarks of the commentators in italics (as rendered in Mr. Lane’s Selections, 2nd ed., p. 53), “Recite unto them the history of the two sons of Adam, namely, Abel and Cain, with truth. When they offered [their] offering to God (Abel’s being a ram, and Cain’s being produce of the earth), and it was accepted from one of them (that is, from Abel; for fire descended from heaven, and devoured his offering), and it was not accepted from the other, Cain was enraged; but he concealed his envy until Adam performed a pilgrimage, when he said unto his brother, I will assuredly slay thee. Abel said, Wherefore? Cain answered, Because of the acceptance of thine offering to the exclusion of mine. Abel replied, God only accepteth from the pious. If thou stretch forth to me thy hand to slay me, I will not stretch forth to thee my hand to slay thee; for I fear God, the Lord of the worlds. I desire that thou shouldst bear the sin [which thou intendest to commit] against me, by slaying me, and thy sin which thou hast committed before, and thou wilt be of the companions of the fire.—And that is the recompense of the offenders.—But his soul suffered him to slay his brother: so he slew him; and he became of [the number of] those who suffer loss. And he knew not what to do with him; for he was the first dead person upon the face of the earth of the sons of Adam.

So he carried him upon his back. And God sent a raven, which scratched up the earth with its bill and its talons and raised it over a dead raven that was with it until it hid it, to show him how he should hide the corpse of his brother. He said, O my disgrace! Am I unable to be like this raven, and to hide the corpse of my brother?—And he became of [the number of] the repentant. And he digged [a grave] for him and hid him.—On account of this which Cain did We commanded the children of Israel that he who should slay a soul (not for the latter’s having slain a soul or committed wickedness in the earth, such as infidelity, or adultery, or intercepting the way, and the like) [should be regarded] as though he had slain all mankind; and he who saveth it alive, by abstaining from slaying it, as though he had saved alive all mankind.”

“The occasion of their making this offering is thus related, according to the common tradition in the East. Each of them being born with a twin-sister, when they were grown up, Adam, by God’s direction, ordered Cain to marry Abel’s twin-sister, and Abel to marry Cain’s; (for it being the common opinion that marriages ought not to be had in the nearest degrees of consanguinity, since they must necessarily marry their sisters, it seemed reasonable to suppose they ought to take those of the remoter degree;) but this Cain refusing to agree to, because his own sister was the handsomest, Adam ordered them to make their offerings to God, thereby referring the dispute to His determination. The commentators say Cain’s offering was a sheaf of the very worst of his corn, but Abel’s a fat lamb of the best of his flock.”—Sale’s Koran, I., p. 122.

ʿĀBID (عابد). “A worshipper [of God].” A term generally used for a devout person. The word frequently occurs in the Qurʾān; e.g. Sūrah ii. 132: “The baptism (ṣibg͟hah) of God! And who is better than God at baptizing? We are the worshippers (ʿābidūn) of God.” The word ṣibg͟hah is translated by Professor Palmer “dye” and “dyeing,” but Sale, following the Muslim commentators, al-Baiẓāwī, Jalālu ʾd-dīn, and Ḥusainī, who say it refers to the Christian rite, translates it “baptism.” Others say that it means fit̤rah or dīn, the religion of God, with an adaptation to which mankind are created. See Lane’s Lexicon. [BAPTISM.]

ABJAD (ابجد). The name of an arithmetical arrangement of the alphabet, the letters of which have different powers from one to one thousand. It is in the order of the alphabet as used by the Jews as far as 400, the six remaining letters being added by the Arabians. The letters spell the words—

The author of the Arabic Lexicon, al-Qāmūs, says that the first six words are the names of celebrated kings of Madyan (Midian), and that the last two words were added by the Arabians. Some say they are the names of the eight sons of the inventor of the Arabic character, Murāmir ibn Murra.