Encyclopedia of Islam

alchemists accepted that God was the first creator of the cosmos, but they believed humans could also become creators if they co ...

Africa sought to elucidate the identity of the Two-Horned One by collecting tales from diverse sources, including Arabic geograp ...

plex economies and within two centuries formed two major kingdoms. The region was then ruled by Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, and ...

ate an educational center that could produce a progressively educated Muslim population who could excel under the British regime ...

Shiis and many Sufis regard him as a saint for his renowned asceticism. Indeed, many Sufi orders trace the genealogy of their sp ...

ation. He also cannot be represented in a picture or statue, which is considered to be idolatry. However, he can be partially kn ...

the activism of Jinnah and other AIML leaders, the tide was turned. The AIML emerged victorious in the 1945 elections, winning 4 ...

began to lose control of the remote regions of their empire by the early 13th century. Later Almohad caliphs would publicly diso ...

Further reading: Richard Fletcher, Moorish Spain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992); Hugh Kennedy, Muslim Spain: A ...

from zakat committees. There are even zakat calcu- lators available on the Internet. People may donate to needy individuals or t ...

letters written separately, and some suras even take their names from these letters, like suras Ta Ha (Q 20) and Ya Sin (Q 36). ...

love affair, facilitate conception and childbirth, induce trees to bear fruit, combat the evil eye, cast out evil spirits, or br ...

Andalusia. The indigenous subject populations consisted of Christians (mostly Roman Catho- lic) and Jews known as the Sephardim ...

guard his throne, and visit the celestial kaaba, as Muslims visit the earthly one during the pilgrim- age to mecca. They will al ...

transformed into pigs and apes because of their wrongful deeds (Q 2:65; 5:60). Quran com- mentaries and literature about the liv ...

A. Masri, Islamic Concern for Animals (Petersfield, U.K.: Athene Trust, 1987). Ansar (Arabic: helpers) The Ansar were early conv ...

by the Abbasid caliphs. The middle position in this debate was defined by al-Ashari (873–935) and his followers, who argued that ...

of a European scholarly effort to rationally catego- rize the languages and races of the world. It was derived from the name of ...

apostasy Apostasy, which comes from the Greek word for “defection” or “revolt,” is the partial or complete abandonment or reject ...

the Old City in JerUsalem. It is part of a complex of buildings and monuments known as the Noble Sanctuary, which stands atop th ...