Masmuda. We shall only state in a summary manner, that the Mahdi did not make any conquests, but that it was by means of the troops which he had raised, and of the system which he had organised, that his successor Abd al-Mumin effected the conquest of that country.—Ibn Tûmart was always predicting the noble qualities which his disciple was to display, and, every time he saw him, he recited these verses:

You possess in perfection all the qualities with which thou hast been favoured; and hence proceed joy and happiness for us all. Thine is the smiling mouth, the liberal hand, the noble soul, and the open countenance.

I have found these verses attributed to Abû 's-Shis al-Khuzài, the celebrated poet (5). The Mahdi Ibn Tûmart used also to say to his disciples: "Your "comrade will be the conqueror of kingdoms." It is not true that he nominated Abd al-Mûmin as his successor; but his disciples judged that the preference which their master showed him was a sufficient intimation of his intention, and they acknowledged him for their chief. It was thus that the authority of Abd al-Mumin was established. The first city which he took was Oran, then Tilimsen, then Fez, then Salé, and then Ceuta; after these conquests he proceeded to Morocco, which he besieged eleven months, and carried towards the beginning of A. H. 542 (6). Having thus grounded his power, he extended his domination over al-Maghrib al-Aksa, al-Maghrib al-Adna, the other provinces of North Africa, and the greater portion of Spain. He then received the title of Amir al-Mûminin, and the poets celebrated his glory in eulogistic poems of the greatest beauty. The kâtib Imâd ad-din mentions in his Kharida that Abu Abd Allah Muhammad Ibn Abi 'l-Abbàs, a jurisconsult of Tifàsh (7), addressed him in a kasîda beginning thus:

Never was a braver deportment seen among the hostile swords and spears than that of the khalif Abd al-Mûmin, the son of Ali.

On hearing this verse, the prince motioned to him that what he had said was quite sufficient, and he ordered him a reward of one thousand gold pieces. When Abd al-Mumin had established his authority on a solid basis, and had attained an advanced age, he left Morocco and entered Sale, where a violent attack of sickness carried him off. He expired on one of the last ten days (the

27th) of the month of the latter Jumâda, A. H. 558 (June, A. D. 1163), after a reign of thirty-three years and some months. It is said that his body was taken to Tinmalil (8), the place mentioned in the life of the Mahdi Muhammad Ibn Tùmart, and there interred. Towards the latter period of his life, he was an aged man with hair completely white. I copy the following passage from an historical work containing an account of his life with a description of his person; it is the author who speaks: "I saw an aged man of upright stature, with a large head, 452"dark-blue eyes, a bushy beard, callous hands, tall even when seated, with "teeth of the purest white, and a mole on his right check.". The year of his birth is uncertain; some say A. H. 500 (A. D. 1106-7), and others, A. H. 490. He nominated as successor to the throne his son Abû Abd Allah Muhammad, but the authority of this prince was soon shaken, and himself deposed in the month of Shaaban, in the first year of his reign (9). His brother Yûsuf (whose life shall be given in this life) was then proclaimed sovereign.-Kûmi means belonging to Kûmiya, a small tribe established on the sea-coast in the province of Tilimsen. Abd al-Mûmin was born at Tâjira, a village in that region.-As for the book called the Jufr, it is spoken of by Ibn Kutaiba towards the beginning of his work entitled Ikhtilaf al-Hadith, where he concludes a long dissertation with these words: "And something stranger than the foregoing mode of inter"preting is that followed by the Rafidites (10) in their interpretation of the “Koran and their pretended knowledge of its hidden meaning, conveyed to "them by the Jafr, a work mentioned in these verses by Saad Ibn Harûn al-Ijli, "the chief of the Zaidites (11):

Behold the Rafidites torn by dissensions, yet all holding shocking opinions respecting Jaafar (12). Some call him an imâm, and others the Immaculate Prophet; but what 'causes my inexpressible astonishment is their volume (jild) the Jafr!-I renounce 'before God to all the followers of the Jafr.'" (13).

There are many more verses in the same piece, but I confine my quotation to these, because they make mention of the Jafr, and that is all I require. After giving the whole piece, Ibn Kutaiba continues thus: "This is the jild (volume "or skin) of tne Jafr, in which they pretend that the Imâm wrote whatever was "requisite for them to know, and every thing which is to happen till the day "of judgment; but God knoweth best (if its contents be true)." I must add that by the Imam they mean Jaafar as-Sadik (14), him of whom we have already

spoken (vol. I. p. 300). Abù 'l-Alà al-Maarri alludes to the Jafr in the following lines, taken from one of his poems :

They wonder at the family of the Prophet, because they got their knowledge from the skin of a kid (jafr); yet the mirror of the astrologer, small though it be, shows him all the inhabited regions of the world and the deserts.

The word jafr signifies a four months' kid, at which age its sides swell out (jafara) and it quits the dam. The feminine of this word has a final h (a). In that time it was their custom to write on skins, (blade-)bones, potsherds, and all things of that sort.

(1) Abd al-Mumin bore the surname of al-Kaisi (descendant from Kais Ibn Ghailan, or Kais Ailân, Ibn Nizar Ibn Maad Ibn Adnân), because the Berber tribe to which he belonged claimed its descent from the great Arabic stem of Adnân.

(2) See Abû 'l-Fedâ, t. III. p. 399, and the Portuguese translation of Ibn Abd al-Halim's Kartás, published at Lisbon in 1828 under the title of Historia dos Soberanos Mohametanos que reinarào na Mauritania. My edition of Ibn Khaldûn's history of the Berbers will contain full information respecting the origin, organisation, and history of the Muwahhid dynasties. See also the Extraits du Kamel Altevarykh, published by the Académie des Inscriptions, p. 334.

(3) Of this book Ibn Khallikan will speak farther on.

(4) They were called al-Mulaththamûn, because they used to wear a lithâm, or bandage, across the lower part of their face, as is still the custom in the deserts from which they originally came. This is the same race which is called the Almoravites (al-Murâbitùn), or Almoraves by European writers.

(5) See vol. I. page 510.

(6) According to Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Abd al-Halim, the city of Morocco was taken in the month of Shawwal, A. H. 541 (March, A. D. 1147).

(7) The katib gives no further information respecting this poet, but the anecdote is mentioned by different historians. Tifàsh, the ancient Tipasa, lies about forty miles to the south of Bona, in North Africa.

(8) Ibn Khallikan writes this name Tin Mall. I follow the African historians. This stronghold was situated to the east of Morocco in the heart of Mount Atlas.

(9) Further particulars respecting Abù Abd Allah Muhammad's reign will be found in the life of his brother Yusuf Ibn Abd al-Mumin.

(10) The word Rafidi signifies literally, heretic; it is applied to designate the different Shiite sects. (11) The Zaidites acknowledged for Imâm Zaid, the son of Ali, the son of Husain, the son of Ali Ibn Abi Talib.

(12) Jaafar the son of Muhammad the son of Ali al-Bakir was considered by one of the Shite sects as the true Imâm.

(13) These verses would not lead the reader to suppose that the author himself was a partisan of Jaafar, as Ibn Khaldun, who calls him Harun Ibn Said al-Ijli has explicitly stated. See an extract from his Prolegomena VOL. II. 24

in M. de Sacy's Chrestomathie, tom. II. p. 300. I cannot discover any mention of Said Ibn Harûn in as-Shahrestâni, but feel convinced, from the examination of the verses quoted here as his, that Ibn Khaldun is mistaken. D'Herbelot has some observations on the jafr worthy of notice. See Bib. Orient. GEFR U GIAME. (14) Read ÿ♪ in the printed text.

ABU 'L-KASIM AL-ANMATI.

Abû 'l-Kasim Othman Ibn Said Ibn Bashshår al-Anmati, surnamed also alAhwal (the squinter), an eminent doctor of the Shâfite sect, studied jurisprudence under al-Muzani (vol. I. p. 200), and ar-Rabi Ibn Sulaiman al-Murâdi (vol. I. p. 549). Amongst his own disciples, he counted Abû 'l-Abbâs Ibn Suraij (vol. I. p. 46). It was through him that the people of Baghdad were inspired with such ardour as they then showed to procure and learn by heart the writings of as-Shâfi. He states that he heard al-Muzani (1) say: "For the "last fifty years I have read the treatise (on jurisprudence) transmitted down "from as-Shâfì, and I do not recollect having read it a single time without deriving from it a great quantity of information which I did not possess be"fore." Al-Anmâti died at Baghdad in the month of Shawwâl, A. H. 288 (Sept.-Oct. A. D. 904).-Abû Hafs Omar Ibn Ali al-Mutawwîi (2) mentions an Abû 'l-Kâsim Abd Allah Ibn Ahmad Ibn Bashshar al-Anmâti (a relation of the preceding) in his work entitled Kitâb al-Muzhab fi Zikri Ayimmat il-Mazhab (the book with the gilt case, containing an account of the great doctors of the (Shafite) 435 sect).-Anmati means a maker and seller of anmât, or bed furniture, such as rugs, mats, pillows, etc. It is the people of Egypt who call them by this name and who give to the seller of such wares the appellation of Anmâti.

(2) It appears from Hajji Khalifa that al-Mutawwîi lived before the time of Abû 't-Taiyib Sahl as-Solûki, for he states in his bibliography that the former was the first who composed a Tabakât of Shafite doctors, and as-Solûki the second. The life of as-Solûki is given in the first volume of this work,

p. 606.

DIA AD-DIN AL-HADBANI.

Abû Amr Othman Ibn Isa Ibn Dirbås Ibn Fir Ibn Jahm Ibn Abdûs al-Hadbàni (1) al-Màrâni, surnamed Dìà ad-din (splendour of religion), was one of the most learned doctors of the age in Shafite jurisprudence. He was a brother of the kâdi Sadr ad-din Abû 'l-Kasim Abd al-Malik, hâkim (2) of Egypt, and acted as his deputy at Cairo. When a boy, he studied in Arbela under the shaikh al-Khidr Ibn Akil, (vol. I. p. 488); after which he went to Damascus, where he put himself under the tuition of Abd Allah Ibn Abi Usrùn (vol.II. p. 32), and acquired a profound knowledge of the general principles of jurisprudence and of Shafite law. The first satisfactory commentary ever composed on Abù Ishak as-Shîrâzi's Muhaddab was written by him; it forms nearly twenty volumes, but remains incomplete, as the author only went as far as the chapter on evidence, which, with the remaining chapters, he left uncommented: this work he entitled al-Istiksa li Mazâhib il-Fokahâ (diligent examination of the different systems established by the jurisconsults). He composed also, amongst other works, a full commentary, in two volumes, on Abû Ishak as-Shirâzi's treatise on the general principles of jurisprudence, the Luma. (Some years) previously to the death of the kâdi Sadr ad-din, an event which occurred on the eve of Wednesday, the 5th of Rajab, A. H. 605 (January, A. D. 1209), he was removed from the place of deputy-hakim and appointed to fill the post of professor in a college founded for him in the Castle of Cairo by the emir Jamal ad-din Khushtorin (3) al-Hakkâri. He held this post during the remainder of his life, and expired at Cairo on the 12th of Zû 'l-Kaada, A. H. 602 (June, A. D. 1206), aged nearly ninety years. He was interred in the lesser Karàfa Cemetery. The kâdi Sadr ad-din was buried in the mausoleum bearing his name and situated in the same cemetery. When this kâdi was asked the date of his birth, he indicated the end of the year 546 (A. D. 1123), or the beginning of 547, being in doubt respecting the precise epoch (4).—Mârâni means belonging to the Banû Mârân, a tribe inhabiting the Muruj (meadows) below Mosul (5).

(1) The orthography of this name is fixed by al-Yafì, but its signification is not given there nor in any of the other works consulted by me. The author of the Tabakât al Fokahd says that he was a Kurd.