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ʿABD-AL-MONʿEM ʿĀMELĪ, 10th/16th century astronomer. He apparently was commissioned to build an observatory at Isfahan by the Safavid Shah Ṭahmāsp I (1524-76). The king would have been pursuing the aborted design of his predecessor, Shah Esmāʿīl I (1502-24), to restore the observatory at Marāḡa. ʿAbd-al-Moṇʿem in any case planned an…

ʿABD-AL-MOʾMEN B. ʿABDALLĀH B. ESKANDAR B. JĀNĪ BEG B. ḴᵛĀJĀ MOḤAMMAD B. ABU’L-ḴAYR, ABU’L-FATḤ, generally reckoned as the eleventh khan of the Shaibanid (Abu’l-Ḵayrī) dynasty of Māvarāʾ al-Nahr and Balḵ. He was born on 16 Raǰab 975/16 January 1568. Little is known of his early life; he was circumcised at…

ʿABD-AL-NABĪ, SHAIKH, Mughal traditionist, for a time much esteemed by the emperor Akbar. He was a grandson of the noted Češtī saint, Shaikh ʿAbd-al-Qoddūs Gangōhī (d. 944/1537). He visited the Hejaz several times and pursued Hadith studies there. He spurned his family’s tradition of mysticism, adopting the ways of externalist…

ʿABD-AL-NABĪ B. QĀŻĪ ʿABD-AL-RASŪL ʿOṮMĀNĪ AḤMADNAGARĪ, 12th/18th century Gujerati scholar. Little is known about his life history, although he was allegedly affiliated with the discipline of the famous Šaṭṭārī saint and scholar, Shah Vaǰīh-al-dīn ʿAlavī. A number of books have been ascribed to him. Among those extant are: 1. Jāmeʿ…

ʿABD-AL-NABĪ QAZVĪNĪ, storyteller and poet (pen name FAḴR-AL-ZAMĀNĪ), b. about 998/1590 at Qazvīn. His father, Ḵalaf Beg, was a merchant who, after performing the pilgrimage, became a dervish and died in 1001/1593-94 from the plague. ʿAbd-al-Nabī’s maternal grandfather, Faḵr-al-zamān, of whom he was very fond, was qāżī (judge) of Qazvīn…

ʿABD-AL-QĀDER BALḴĪ (1839-1923), an Ottoman Sufi and poet who came originally from Balḵ. He was born at Ḵānqāh, one of the villages of the city of Qondoz. His father was Sayyed Solaymān Ḥosaynī, an important personage of the sādāt-e Ḥosaynīya (sayyeds descending from Ḥosayn). In 1272/1855-56 ʿAbd-al-Qāder went to Konya…

ʿABD-AL-QĀDER B. SAYYED MOḤAMMAD HĀŠEM B. SAYYED MOḤAMMAD ḤOSAYNĪ, Persian-language poet, biographer, and commentator of Sind (fl. late 10th to early 11th cent. A.H.). Of his poetry, the only extant specimens are verses in praise of Ḵosrow Khan, a noble at the court of the Arghunid ruler at Thatta, Mīrzā…

ʿABD-AL-QĀDER JĪLĀNĪ, MOḤYĪ-AL-DĪN ABŪ MOḤAMMAD B. ABŪ ṢĀLEḤ JANGĪDŌST, noted Hanbalite preacher, Sufi shaikh and the eponymous founder of the Qāderī order. He was born in 470/1077-78 in the Persian province of Gīlān (Jīlān), south of the Caspian Sea. Though his family lineage (selsela) has been traced by overzealous hagiographers…

ʿABD-AL-QĀDER KHAN, MĪRZĀ (better known as MĪRZĀ MOḤAMMAD ĀḠĀ JĀN), author of Avīmāq-e Moḡol. His ancestors had served Nāder Shah and Aḥmad Shah Dorrānī; his grandfather, Mīrzā Shah Moḥammad Khan Birlas, entered the service of the British after the fall of Shah Šoǰāʿ. Eventually, after the Indian Revolt of 1857,…

ʿABD-AL-QĀDER KHAN JĀʾESĪ, late Mughal biographer, commonly called ḠOLĀM QĀDER KHAN. He was the son of Mawlavī Vāṣel ʿAlī Khan, chief justice (qāżī al-qożāt) of Bengal. In is youth he enjoyed the company of two renowned historians ʿAlī Ebrāhīm Khan Ḵalīl and Sayyed Ḡolām Ḥosayn Khan Ṭabāṭabāʾī. Jonathan Duncan, who was…

ʿABD-AL-QĀDER ḤASAN RŪYĀNĪ, 10th/16th century astronomer. Apparently from Ṭabarestān, he seems to have served the rulers of Gīlān; he dedicated his Zīǰ-e molaḵḵaṣ-e Mīrzāʾī (“Compendious astronomical tables for Mīrzā,” composed in 891/1486) to Sultan Mīrzā ʿAlī (1478-1505) and his al-Toḥfat al-neẓāmīya (“The Neẓām’s gift”) to Sultan Yaḥyā Kīā. In the…

ʿABD-AL-QĀDER B. ʿABD-AL-ḴĀLEQ ŠĪRĀZĪ, metalworker of the late 7th/13th century and early 8th/14th century. His one attested signed work is a silver and gold-inlaid brass bowl (Galleria Estense, Modena, no. 8082). It is dated Moḥarram, 705/July-August, 1305 and is the first dated specimen of a series of similarly shaped west…

ʿABD-AL-QĀHER JORJĀNĪ, ABŪ BAKR B. ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN, celebrated grammarian, rhetorician, and literary theorist, born in Gorgān (date unknown), where he died in 471/1078. Despite his fame and the fact that one of his earliest biographers, Bāḵarzī, was a neighbor of his, little is known about his life and education. The richness…

ʿABD-AL-QAYS, an eastern Arabian tribe. In ancient times, it moved from what is today the province of al-ʿĀreż to the island of Baḥrayn and the nearby coastal areas. The ʿAbd-al-Qays and other tribes of the Persian Gulf littoral frequently raided southern Iran. When he became of age, Šāpūr II (r….