asserts that he died in prison after severe beating, because he refused to obey al-Manṣūr’s command to act as a judge (cadi, qādi). This was to avoid a responsibility for which he felt unfit—a frequent attitude of more pious Moslems. Others say that al-Mahdī, son of al-Manṣūr, actually constrained him to be a judge and that he died a few days after. It seems certain that he did suffer imprisonment and beating for this reason, at the hands of an earlier governor of Kūfa under the Omayyads (Ibn Qutaiba, Ma‛ārif, p. 248). Also that al-Manṣūr desired to make him judge, but compromised upon his inspectorship of buildings (so in Tabarī). A late story is that the judgeship was only a pretext with al-Manṣūr, who considered him a partisan of the ‛Alids and a helper with his wealth of Ibrāhīm ibn ‛Abd Allāh in his insurrection at Kufa in 145 (Weil, Geschichte, ii. 53 ff.).
For many personal anecdotes see de Slane’s transl. of Ibn Khallikan iii. 555 ff., iv. 272 ff. For his place as a speculative jurist in the history of canon law, see Mahommedan Law. He was buried in eastern Bagdad, where his tomb still exists, one of the few surviving sites from the time of al-Manṣūr, the founder. (Le Strange 191 ff.)
See C. Brockelmann, Geschichte, i. 169 ff.; Nawawi’s Biogr. Dict. pp. 698-770; Ibn Hajar al-Haitami’s Biography, publ. Cairo, A.H. 1304; legal bibliography under Mahommedan Law. (D. B. Ma.)
ABU KLEA, a halting-place for caravans in the Bayuda Desert, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. It is on the road from Merawi to Metemma and 20 m. N. of the Nile at the last-mentioned place. Near this spot, on the 17th of January 1885, a British force marching to the relief of General Gordon at Khartum was attacked by the Mahdists, who were repulsed. On the 19th, when the British force was nearer Metemma, the Mahdists renewed the attack, again unsuccessfully. Sir Herbert Stewart, the commander of the British force, was mortally wounded on the 19th, and among the killed on the 17th was Col. F. G. Burnaby (see Egypt, Military Operations).
ABŪ-L-‛ALĀ UL-MA‛ARRĪ [Abū-l-‛Alā Aḥmad ibn ‛Abdallāh ibn Sulaimān] (973–1057), Arabian poet and letter-writer, belonged to the South Arabian tribe Tanukh, a part of which had migrated to Syria before the time of Islam. He was born in 973 at Ma‛arrat un-Nu‛mān, a Syrian town nineteen hours’ journey south of Aleppo, to the governor of which it was subject at that time. He lost his father while he was still an infant, and at the age of four lost his eyesight owing to smallpox. This, however, did not prevent him from attending the lectures of the best teachers at Aleppo, Antioch and Tripoli. These teachers were men of the first rank, who had been attracted to the court of Saif-ud-Daula, and their teaching was well stored in the remarkable memory of the pupil. At the age of twenty-one Abū-l-‛Alā returned to Ma‛arra, where he received a pension of thirty dinars yearly. In 1007 he visited Bagdad, where he was admitted to the literary circles, recited in the salons, academies and mosques, and made the acquaintance of men to whom he addressed some of his letters later. In 1009 he returned to Ma‛arra, where he spent the rest of his life in teaching and writing. During this period of scholarly quiet he developed his characteristic advanced views on vegetarianism, cremation of the dead and the desire for extinction after death.
Of his works the chief are two collections of his poetry and two of his letters. The earlier poems up to 1029 are of the kind usual at the time. Under the title of Saqt uz-Zand they have been published in Bulaq (1869), Beirūt (1884) and Cairo (1886). The poems of the second collection, known as the Luzūm ma lam yalzam, or the Luzūmiyyāt, are written with the difficult rhyme in two consonants instead of one, and contain the more original, mature and somewhat pessimistic thoughts of the author on mutability, virtue, death, &c. They have been published in Bombay (1886) and Cairo (1889). The letters on various literary and social subjects were published with commentary by Shain Effendi in Beirut (1894), and with English translation, &c., by Prof. D. S. Margoliouth in Oxford (1898). A second collection of letters, known as the Risālat ul-Ghufrān, was summarized and partially translated by R. A. Nicholson in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1900, pp. 637 ff.; 1902, pp. 75 ff., 337 ff., 813 ff.).
Bibliography.—C. Rieu, De Abu-l-‛Alae Poetae Arabici vita et carminibus (Bonn, 1843); A. von Kremer, Über die philosophischen Gedichte des Abu-l-‛Ala (Vienna, 1888); cf. also the same writer’s articles in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft (vols. xxix., xxx., xxxi. and xxxviii.). For his life see the introduction to D. S. Margoliouth’s edition of the letters, supplemented by the same writer’s articles “Abu-l-‛Ala al-Ma‛arri’s Correspondence on Vegetarianism” in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1902, pp. 289 ff.). (G. W. T.)
ABŪ-L-‛ATĀHIYA [Abū Isḥāq Ismā‛īl ibn Qāsim al-‛Anazī] (748–828), Arabian poet, was born at ‛Ain ut-Tamar in the Hijāz near Medina. His ancestors were of the tribe of ‛Anaza. His youth was spent in Kufa, where he was engaged for some time in selling pottery. Removing to Bagdad, he continued his business there, but became famous for his verses, especially for those addressed to ‛Utba, a slave of the caliph al-Mahdī. His affection was unrequited, although al-Mahdī, and after him Harūn al-Rashīd, interceded for him. Having offended the caliph, he was in prison for a short time. The latter part of his life was more ascetic. He died in 828 in the reign of al-Ma’mūn. The poetry of Abū-l-‛Atāhiya is notable for its avoidance of the artificiality almost universal in his days. The older poetry of the desert had been constantly imitated up to this time, although it was not natural to town life. Abū-l-‛Atāhiya was one of the first to drop the old qasīda (elegy) form. He was very fluent and used many metres. He is also regarded as one of the earliest philosophic poets of the Arabs. Much of his poetry is concerned with the observation of common life and morality, and at times is pessimistic. Naturally, under the circumstances, he was strongly suspected of heresy.
His poems (Diwān) with life from Arabian sources have been published at the Jesuit Press in Beirūt (1887, 2nd ed. 1888). On his position in Arabic literature see W. Ahlwardt, Diwān des Abu Nowas (Greifswald, 1861), pp. 21 ff.; A. von Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients (Wien, 1877), vol. ii. pp. 372 ff. (G. W. T.)
ABULFARAJ [Abū-l-Faraj ‛Alī ibn ul-Ḥuṣain ul-Isbahānī] (897–967), Arabian scholar, was a member of the tribe of the Quraish (Koreish) and a direct descendant of Marwān, the last of the Omayyad caliphs. He was thus connected with the Omayyad rulers in Spain, and seems to have kept up a correspondence with them and to have sent them some of his works. He was born in Ispahān, but spent his youth and made his early studies in Bagdad. He became famous for his knowledge of early Arabian antiquities. His later life was spent in various parts of the Moslem world, in Aleppo with Saif-ud-Daula (to whom he dedicated the Book of Songs), in Rai with the Buyid vizier Ibn ‛Abbād and elsewhere. In his last years he lost his reason. In religion he was a Shiite. Although he wrote poetry, also an anthology of verses on the monasteries of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and a genealogical work, his fame rests upon his Book of Songs (Kitāb ul-Aghāni), which gives an account of the chief Arabian songs, ancient and modern, with the stories of the composers and singers. It contains a mass of information as to the life and customs of the early Arabs, and is the most valuable authority we have for their pre-Islamic and early Moslem days. A part of it was published by J. G. L. Kosegarten with Latin translation (Greifswald, 1840). The text was published in 20 vols. at Bulaq in 1868. Vol. xxi. was edited by R. E. Brünnow (Leyden, 1888). A volume of elaborate indices was edited by I. Guidi (Leyden, 1900), and a missing fragment of the text was published by J. Wellhausen in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. 50, pp. 146 ff.
For his life see M‘G. de Slane’s translation of Ibn Khallikan’s Biographical Dictionary, vol. ii. pp. 249 ff. (G. W. T.)
ABUL FAZL, wazir and historiographer of the great Mogul emperor, Akbar, was born in the year A.D. 1551. His career as a minister of state, brilliant though it was, would probably have been by this time forgotten but for the record he himself has left of it in his celebrated history. The Akbar Nameh, or Book of Akbar, as Abul Fazl’s chief literary work, written in Persian, is called, consists of two parts—the first being a complete history of Akbar’s reign and the second, entitled Ain-i-Akbari, or Institutes of Akbar, being an account of the religious and political constitution and administration of the empire. The style is singularly elegant, and the contents of the second
