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ABŪ ḤANĪFA, NOʿMĀN B. ṮĀBET B. ZŪṬĀ (or AL-NOʿMĀN) B. AL-MARZOBĀN (or MĀH), 80-150/699-767, eponym of the Ḥanafī school of Islamic law—the largest of the four primary Sunni schools of law. As one of the most important figures in Islamic social and intellectual history, he was controversial in his own…

ABŪ HĀŠEM ʿABDALLĀH B. MOḤAMMAD B. ḤANAFĪYA, ʿAlid figure in Shiʿite tradition. About two decades after the Prophet died, leaving the Muslim community without any temporal and spiritual guidance authorized by God, the Shiʿite movement began to take shape. Its supporters held that ʿAlī, the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, and…

ABŪ ḤĀTEM RĀZĪ, AḤMAD B. ḤAMDĀN AL-VARSENĀNĪ AL-LAYṮĪ, Ismaʿili dāʿī (missionary) and author of the 4th/10th century. He was born in Pašāpūya, a district south of Ray, and became deputy to Ḡīāṯ, the Ismaʿili dāʿī active there. According to Neẓām-al-molk, Abū Ḥātem forced out the successor of Ḡīāṯ, Abū Jaʿfar…

ABŪ ḤAYYĀN TAWḤĪDĪ, ʿALĪ B. MOḤAMMAD B. AL-ʿABBĀS, an outstanding man of letters and essayist of the Buyid period. He was born between 310/922 and 320/932, probably in Shiraz, though his birthplace is also given as Nīšāpūr, Wāseṭ, or even Baghdad. He is said to have received the name Tawḥīdī…

ABŪ JAʿFAR B. AḤMAD B. ʿABDALLĀH B. ḤABAŠ, mid- to late 3rd/9th century astronomer, son of a famous astronomer from Marv. Ebn al-Nadīm, followed by Ebn al-Qefṭī, attributed to Abū Jaʿfar a Ketāb al-asṭorlāb al-mosaṭṭaḥ (“Book of the plane astrolabe”). A manuscript of the text survives in Paris.

ABŪ JAʿFAR MOḤAMMAD B. AL-ḤASAN AL-ḴĀZEN AL-ḴORĀSĀNĪ, astronomer (ca. 287/900-probably 360/970). According to Ebn al-Nadīm (Fehrest, pp. 138, 250) and Ebn al-Qefṭī (Taʾrīḵ al-ḥokamāʾ, ed. J. Lippert, Leipzig, 1903, p. 40), a commentary on the beginning of Aristotle’s De caelo was dedicated to him by Kendī’s pupil, Abū Zayd Balḵī…

ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR GARŠĀSP (I), ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA, second son of the Kakuyid amir of Jebāl, ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla Moḥammad b. Došmanzīār, ruled in Hamadān and parts of what are now Kurdistan and Luristan, 433-37/1041-42 to 1045, d. 443/1051-52. When ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla died in 433/1041-42, Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp’s elder brother, Abū Manṣūr Farāmarz, succeeded in the…

ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR GARŠĀSP (II), ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA ʿAŻOD-AL-DĪN B. ʿALĪ B. ABĪ MANṢŪR FARĀMARZ B. ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA MOḤAMMAD, member of the Dailamite dynasty of the Kakuyids (d. 536/1141?). Like his father ʿAlī and grandfather Abū Manṣūr Farāmarz, Abū Kālīǰār Garšāsp was head of the Kakuyid family in their fief of the town of…

ABŪ LOʾLOʾA, a Persian slave of Moḡīra b. Šoʿba, the governor of Baṣra, who assassinated the caliph ʿOmar b. al-Ḵaṭṭāb, on Wednesday, 26 Ḏu’l-ḥeǰǰa 23/2 November 644. The sources agree on his Persian origin, but disagree with respect of his religion; some claim that he was a Mazdean from Nehāvand,…

ABŪ MANṢŪR FARĀMARZ, ẒAHĪR-AL-DĪN ŠAMS-AL-MOLK, eldest son of the Kakuyid amir of Jebāl, ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla Moḥammad b. Došmanzīār. He reigned in Isfahan, 433-43/1041-51, and died at some unknown date after 455/1063. He may thus be considered as the second independent ruler of the Kakuyid dynasty, whose original fortunes had been made…

ABŪ MANṢŪR MOWAFFAQ B. ʿALĪ HERAVĪ, ḤAKĪM (fl. ca. 370-80/980-90), author of the oldest preserved Persian text on materia medica, Ketāb al-abnīa ʿan ḥaqāʾeq al-adwīa. He is known only from this source, which provides his name and title and attests to his Muslim faith (ed. Bahmanyār [see bibliog.], p. 1)….

ABŪ MANṢŪR MAʿMARĪ, minister (dastūr) of Abū Manṣūr b. ʿAbd-al-Razzāq (d. 350/961), a military commander of Khorasan under the Samanids. When the latter decided to have a Šāh-nāma composed in New Persian, he instructed his minister to gather in Ṭūs a number of Zoroastrian scholars and dehqāns; under Maʿmarī’s direction…

ABŪ MANṢŪR ṬŪSĪ, mathematician. Apparently sometime during the 9th/15th century Abū Manṣūr wrote two works preserved in a manuscript at Florence: 1. Resāla fī ʿelm al-ḥesāb (“Epistle concerning computation”); 2. Resāla fi’l-ǰabr wa’l-moqābala (“Epistle concerning algebra”).