‘Antara ibn Shaddad al-‘Absi (6th cent.): a renowned pre-Islamic poet-cavalier whose many exploits and challenges posed by the father of his beloved, ‘Abla, provide the content for the multi-volume epic, Sirat ‘Antar.
Abu Yazid al-Bistami (d. c. 877): an early ecstatic Sufi of Iranian origins.
Al-Busiri (1212–c. 1294): an Egyptian poet, best known for his “Burda” (Mantle) poem in praise of the Prophet Muhammad.
Gnaoua: the name of a tribe and language from the regions to the south of Morocco, whose musical performances are especially popular.
Hajj: the pilgrimage to Mecca; with an elongated “a” vowel, the honorific title given to a Muslim who has undertaken the pilgrimage.
Hassan ibn Thabit (7th cent.): the most famous of the poets associated with the career of the prophet Muhammad.
Hatim al-Ta’i (d. 578): a pre-Islamic Christian poet proverbial for his generosity.
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (1292–1350): a scholar of Qur’anic studies, hadith, and rhetoric, and author of Rawdat al-muhibbin (Lovers’ Meadow).
Ibn Manzur (1233–1311), compiler of the Arabic dictionary, Lisan al-‘Arab.
Ibn Sa‘d (d. 845): a hadith scholar whose biographical dictionary, Kitab Tabaqat al-Kabir, details the lives of the Prophet Muhammad and of the earliest personalities in Islamic history.
Abu ‘Uthman Bahr al-Jahiz (776–868): Arabic’s most illustrious essayist, prose stylist, and critic.
Al-Jalalan: the title given to the two most important collections of Prophetic “hadith” termed “sahih” (authentic): those of al-Bukhari (810–70) and Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (c. 815–75).
Muhammad al-Juzuli (d. 1465): a Moroccan Sufi scholar and author of Dala’il al-Khayrat, a collection of prayers to the Prophet Muhammad.
Maquis: A French word, meaning literally “scrub, bush,” that was used during the Second World War to describe the French resistance forces.
Mu‘allaqa: the name given to the collection of seven (or ten) long odes composed in the pre-Islamic era and much prized as early monuments in the Arabic poetic tradition.
Munkir and Nakir: the names of the two angels who will question believers following their death.
Al-Mutanabbi (915–65): Arabic’s most famous premodern poet, renowned equally for his panegyrics and lampoons of rulers and patrons.
O Mu‘tasim: in Arabic, “y
mu‘ta
imh,” a proverbial cry of distress, allegedly first pronounced following the defeat of the Muslim armies in Anatolia.
Shaykh Muhammad al-Nafzawi (15th cent.): the author of Al-Rawdat al-‘Atir (known in English as The Perfumed Garden for the Heart’s Delight), a famous sex manual, originally prepared for a Tunisian vizier, Muhammad al-Zawawi.
Nahid: the secretary’s name in Arabic means “buxom.”
Fu’ad Nigm (1929–2013): a renowned Egyptian folk poet who often composed poems that were sung to music composed by Shaykh Imam.
Qays and Layla: Qays is the renowned “Majnun” of Arabic lore, the lover driven to insanity by his love for Layla and the fact that he is forever banned from seeing her.
salafi: literally, connected to one’s forebears, this term now implies an adherence to the tenets of Islam in its earliest phases.
Sura of the Poets: In Sura 26 of the Qur’an, poets are said to be lost and wandering around in valleys.
Jalal al-din al-Suyuti (1445–1505): a polymathic scholar and author of over 500 works of enormous variety.
Al-Takfir wa-al-Hijra (approx. Anathema and Emigration]: the name of a radical Islamist group, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, that emerged in Egypt during the 1960s.
Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (c. 927–1023): major Arabic prose writer and compiler of the anecdote collection, Kitab al-Imta‘ wa-al-Mu’anasah (Book of Enjoyment and Good Company).
Al-Tifashi 1184–1253): Arabic prose writer and author, among many other works, of Nuzhat al-albab fi-ma la yujad fi kitab (The Hearts’ Delight Concerning What Does Not Exist in Books).
Al-Tirimmah: the name of a seventh-century Arab poet who joined the group known as the Kharijites, those who “went away” from the armed forces of the fourth caliph, ‘Ali, after he had agreed to arbitration following the indecisive battle of Siffin (657).
Yaqzin: the torturess is punning on the meaning of the verbal root Y-Q-Z, which is connected with the idea of “being awake.”
Zarqa’ al-Yamama: a legendary, blue-eyed female figure from pre-Islamic Yemen, who was gifted with such sight that she could detect enemies a long way away.